Mashira's blog

As of today all Thirteen Dwarves to be featured in the upcoming Film version of the Hobbit: "An Unexpected Journey" have been revealed. See all thirteen Dwarves after the jump.

As many of you already know a magnitude 8.9 earthquake struck off the coast of japan last night, near the city of Sendai. The initial shock was followed by a tsunami that devastated much along the shoreline and traveled around six miles inland. This earthquake is the largest to have ever been recorded to hit Japan.

For some context as to exactly how large this earthquake was here is a map of Japan, A being Sendai where the earthquake hit, and B being Tokyo where major vibrations were felt.

The difference between the two is 230 miles (365 km). So far the death toll seems to only number around one thousand, but many are unaccounted for.

For many of us here this came as quite a shock, because along with Koholint founder Joshura, many of us have friends living in or visiting Japan. We have conformation josh is safe, he posted the following on his facebook page:

"Hey world, just got power back. I was never in any danger, and nothing around me is broken. I was just super bored without Internet!"

And many others seem to be doing well. At this time i'd like us all to keep those across the sea in our thoughts and prayers. I will try to keep this post updated with any major information that comes out of japan, and you can keep up to date with this live stream from BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698

And I'd just like to say once again; let's all keep our thoughts and prayers with those in Japan.

The demo version of Dragon Age II has been released!

LINK

The demo takes place at the start of the game with Hawke arriving in Kirkwall and meeting a possible romantic interest; Isabela. After playing through the demo you will unlock an in-game item for the full version of Dragon Age II: Hayder's Razor, which seems to be at least moderately powerful. And as if that wasnt enough reason to be mashing that 'DOWNLOAD NOW' button, when one million demos have been downloaded and played Bioware will unlock two more in-game items for the whole community. They're both books and each gives you a small boost "Lothering's Lament" gives an XP boost and "The Far Cliffs of Kirkwall" gives the player a currently unstated amount of money.

Right now the servers seem to be pretty busy, so i'm waiting for my download to finish, but as soon as it does i'll be sure to report back on what I find.

Okay so i've been going through a lot of stuff the past few weeks and i've been thinking about getting all of this in one spot so I can kind of get my thoughts together.

A few days ago an artbook for Fable 3 was released. Now, I have no idea where this came from or how whoever put it on the tubes came about it. But it looks pretty cool.

In the next instalment of the prolific Fable series You play as a descendant of the hero of Fable 2 with the game being set 60 years ahead of Fable 2 (which was around 500 years ahead of the original Fable). Essentially a corrupt ruler is on the throne and you need to rally support to overthrow him. Oh! And his name is Logan.

Artwork and a link to the PDF after the jump!

Now, You may or may not know this about me but I effin' love adventure time and DnD. I haven't played much DnD but i've always loved the idea.

Now, imagine my surprise when I happened upon the following ruleset for an adventure time themed pen and paper game. Well, you dont have to because i'll tell you. I was so excited I decided i'd make this blog post about it.

After the jump is the entire ruleset, which is pretty long, so dont be surprised when the scrollbar gets all teeny tiny. Found on /tg/, posted by annon. There's a hotmail account at the bottom so if you have any questions or whatever you could contact them there.

I'm here to write news and chew bubblegum.......and i'm all out of bubblegum.

In short:

Always.

Bet.

On.

DUKE

(More after the jump!)

By Mashira

With all of the E3 news buzzing around square being the sneaky tricksters they are have released a benchmark tool for FFXIV.

It shows what I'm pretty sure is the opening cutscenes. You get your choice of premade characters of every race/gender combination. The goal of the benchmark tool is to assess your computer's readiness for FFXIV, though the final specs have yet to be released.

If you're too lazy, or cant download it i'll write up a quick summary of what takes place just for you! Check it and my thoughts on the experience after the jump.

Okay, real quick post. Portal (That ever so awesome game) is currently available at the Steam store. Not big news you say? Slooooowpoke you say? YOU SAY WRONG! For the first time in ever Portal is up......for FREE!

http://store.steampowered.com/freeportal/ (Web-page is no longer up.)

If you have never had the chance to play this wonderful game, here's your chance. AND GUESS WHAT ELSE! It doesn't matter if you're using some sort of non-gaming operating system (Mac) because steam is now fully functional on Macs! Make sure you act soon, though. You've only got until May 24th to pick up your 100% FREE copy of Portal! Now, if Jonathan Coulton could lead us out in song, please.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxNmeMklFk8

Thank you very much sir. You keep doing what you do.

Update: If you didnt grab it you've missed your chance, sorry.

SPOILER WARNING! If you don't want spoilers for WoW: Cataclysm, do not continue reading.

Okay I think they're gone. Listen up, mon, old Cygor gonna be tellin ya bout all da pre Cataclysm events goin on in the wowaverse. First and foremost the joint retaking of The Echo Isles and Gnomeregan. Since WOW began, two races have always felt a bit....left out they didn't have their own racial capitals and their racial leaders were practically unknown. But coming in a future patch that's going to change! Players will be able to help Vol'jin/Mekkatorque respectively depending upon faction. For the offical announcments check here:

Troll event

Gnome event

I'm sorry,how did that get there?
Actual Gnome event

Pretty neat huh? (Click to read more)