Today's top deal from Logicbuy is the MSI Radeon 7770 videocard which is on sale for $100.00 (down $40 from its normal $140.00 price). For those unfamiliar with the card, the 7770 has a core clock of 1,000 MHz and a memory clock of 4,500 MHz. The card also satiates the needs of those seeking triple monitor setups as it supports three different video ports (Dual DVI, HDMI, and Display Port).
The rest of today's deals include:
Laptops:
18.4" Alienware M18xr2 Core i7 2.3GHz Gaming Laptop 6GB of DDR3 RAM, 500GB hard drive, 1920x1080 display and 2GB GeForce GTX 660M for $1,749.99 with free shipping (normally $1,999.99 - use coupon code BHW1L0MX0D?MCX ).
14" Dell Inspiron 14z Core i5 2.5GHz thin & light Laptop 6GB of DDR3 RAM, 750GB hard drive and Adobe Elements 9 Bundle for $499.99 (normally $599.99 - use $100 Coupon Code 4NB4RJW486G0MN ).
Desktops:
Dell XPS 8500 Core i7 3.4GHz Desktop with 8GB of DDR3 RAM, 2TB hard drive and Radeon HD 7570 for $749.00 with free shipping (normally $999 - use coupon code V48PR?HP99J3D?).
Apple's iPhone 5 is finally here, and it's pretty much everything that's been rumored in the weeks and months prior to today.It has a half-inch larger touchscreen display that's now 4 inches with an 1136x640 resolution, which marks the first time the iPhone has deviated from using a 3.5-inch screen; there's a 4G LTE radio tucked inside; Apple upgraded the system-on-chip (SoC) to an A6 processor; and yes, it's officially called the iPhone 5 and not simply iPhone or 'new iPhone' (a la the third generation iPad).
Right off the bat one could say the new resolution might be problematic for apps, but to go along with the new resolution, Apple said it updated all of its own software. As for third-party apps that were designed with a smaller resolution in mind, those will be letterboxed rather than upsized and pixelated. Also on the topic of the display, Apple says it's now packing 326 pixels per inch with full sRGB rendering.
The new A6 processor is a powerful upgrade over the A5 chip found in the iPhone 4S. According to Apple, the A6 is 22 percent smaller, allowing the company to design a smartphone that, while boasting a bigger display, is 18 percent thinner than before, measuring just 7.6mm, and 20 percent lighter. It's also twice as fast, both in CPU and GPU chores, and more energy efficient.
Apple upgraded the front-facing FaceTime camera to support 720p, and it works over 3G with iOS 6. The rear-facing "iSight" camera, has an 8MP sensor with a five element lens, backside illumination, hybrid IR filter, f/2.4 aperture, dynamic low light mode, spacial noise reduction, and takes pictures 40 percent faster than before.
We'll update with pricing and release info when that's made available, but in the meantime, you can follow the iPhone 5 launch event on Mac|Life's (our sister site) live blog.
Update
According to Mac|Life, the iPhone 5 is priced the same as the iPhone 4S at launch. It will cost $199 for 16GB; $299 for 32GB; and $399 for 64GB, all of which is contract pricing. Meanwhile, the iPhone 4S is being reduced to $99 for the 4S, and the iPhone 4 8GB will be free, both on contract as well.
As we reported in August, Neo Geo is booking a comeback tour in the form of the Neo Geo X, a handheld console that will go on sale in December. At the time, we said it would cost $200 for the Gold edition and come with 20 pre-installed games to celebrate the console's 20th anniversary, but we now know there will also be a less expensive version, one that runs $130 and will also come with the same collection of games. So, what's the difference?
Well, the standalone console (versus the Gold version) won't come with a charging dock or joystick. The charging dock lets gamers hook the Neo Geo X up to their HDTV, while the joystick is intended to replicate the arcade experience at home.
If you can live without those amenities, the standalone console saves you $70 and pushes the handheld console into relatively affordable territory, albeit it's still a little pricey considering the age of the titles. And if you change your mind, you can always buy the joystick and dock separately, though SNK Playmore has yet to announce pricing info for either of those.
Any thoughts on the standalone price? Sound off in the comments section below!
Lian Li has been churning out brushed aluminum computer cases for nearly three decades now, occasionally coming out with funky designs like the PC-777 Memorial Edition. The case maker's latest enclosures don't take any major aesthetic risks like that one did, and instead Lian Li's new PC-A75X and PC-A76X stick to what made the company famous in the first place, which is a simply stated, full tower, brushed aluminum design.
If you're looking to showboat with flashing LEDs and aggressive curves, these aren't the cases for you, or at least that's what we can discern from looking at Lian Li's press images. They are, however, sizable towers, each one capable of holding a dozen 3.5-inch hard drives.
In fact, these cases are nearly identically spec'd, save for the fact that the PC-A75X has a vented front panel to pull coor air into the chassis, whereas the PC-A76X sports a lockable solid aluminum front bezel (with vents on the side of the door and bottom of the chassis).
Otherwise, both cases are made from aluminum and feature 11 expansion slots, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, HD audio, three 140mm fans, a single 120mm fan, and support for VGA cards up to 360mm long. They can also accommodate CPU coolers up to 170mm high and PSUs up to 360mm long.
The PC-A75X and PC-A76X should be available soon for $199 and $219, respectively.
City of Heroes fans took to the streets on Saturday. Specifically, they took to the streets of Atlas Park, running a massive in-game protest against the game's cancellation. I'm going to assume that you were there if you're reading this column, as I certainly was, and I got quite a number of screenshots of the whole protest part of the event. If you missed it, we've got video.
I didn't stick around for the costume contest, mostly because it turns out I didn't have a slot for Melissa Bianco with a crab backpack.
The protest was the brainchild of TonyV, who is also the organizer behind the entire movement to save City of Heroes via a special message board dedicated to keeping the community organized. And considering what I've said in the past regarding other games that have shut down, you probably knew I would have something to say about this movement. It's something I support, but there's more nuance to it than just that. So let's talk about the fight to save the city.
For those of you who desperately need to know why I play RIFT in one line, I'll make it easy for you: I play RIFT because I really used to like World of Warcraft.
When World of Warcraft first launched, it was difficult to explain just how astonishing the game really felt. The innovations that it brought to the table have become so commonplace over the years that we forget how stunning they really were. And when I first logged in, I had visions of what the world could support, the things that could be done, and the ways that players would get to explore hidden vistas and small corners of the world.
As it happened, World of Warcraft went along quite well for several years, but somewhere along the line the magic faded for me. I can point to exactly when, but that's not the goal because RIFT seems to catch a lot of those dropped promises and put them into the game. And it's a game of extremes, with summits and valleys aplenty, but there's enough to like that I don't mind the bad so much.
Folks upset by the announced changes in Ryzom that included complete character wipes will be happy to know that Winchgate has heard your pleas. Players with active subscriptions at the closing of the current servers will be allowed to keep their characters! This includes name, appearance, levels, and skill bricks for all characters on the account. Players who prefer a fresh start instead will also be able to do so.
To facilitate this change and give players more time to win starter packs, the server merge has been postponed for a week and will now occur on Saturday, September 29th at 6:00 p.m. EDT. You can read more about the server merges in Massively's exclusive interview.
While phase one of the Elsword Awakened update focused on skills and enhancing PvP, the second phase centers on teamwork by zeroing in on dungeons. Not only can players delve into the new Velder's Hallucination dungeon and battle mammoth mobs, but the creatures occupying all dungeons have become smarter. Launching today, this update also includes level-60 items and makes crafting materials for weapons three times more plentiful than before.
In celebration of the update, players can participate in numerous pirate-themed events inspired by "Talk like Pirate Day," including banding together to repel bands of invading pirates. Folks who work together as a team can earn free pirate costumes and accessories.
Players can enjoy the Elsword Awakened update for free by downloading the game from the official site.
[Update: Trailer of Velder's Hallucination dungeon added]
Last time, we gazed upon the Paladin and we saw the light. Now, we delve into the darkness and shadows with an exclusive look at DK Online's Shadowmage. The final class highlighted in Aeria Games' spotlight videos, the Shadowmage proves that not all heroes are pure and innocent. By embracing shadow magic, this class is able to support comrades by debuffing opponents while simultaneously buffing allies. Like any good dark mage, some of the available skills are poison, paralyze, and bleed. However, while Shadowmages use a more sinister and subversive method of magical combat, they aren't above smashing heads with their staffs as well.
If this class sounds more your style than the Warrior, Paladin, or Sorceress, jump past the cut for a more in-depth look, including a dev blog, exclusive interview, and video.
Ready for the skinny on Issue #2 of The Secret World? Good because we have it in the form of a new video showcasing the new features from tomorrow's content patch.
You've heard about the new rocket launcher weapon, of course, but did you know that it also comes with seven auxiliary abilities that necessitate a brand-new auxiliary ability wheel? The rocket launcher is also the tip of the iceberg in terms of new weapons going forward.
Tomorrow's Digging Deeper update also brings us new avatar customization options. Travel to Ockham's Razor in London or The Modern Prometheus in New York City to check out all the new makeup, facial hair, and hairstyle options (Funcom is doubling the total number of available hairstyles with this patch).
New missions are on tap too, including a continuation of the Kingsmouth Code investigation series. Get a good look at all this in more in the clip after the break.
[Update: Apparently the Digging Deeper update is now coming tomorrow instead of today. We've changed the wording of this post to reflect that.]
Guild hosting service Enjin has added a new tool to its ever-increasing arsenal: guild recruitment. The site's new global game recruitment system allows organized groups to post their "players wanted" ads for searching souls to discover.
The recruitment list is sortable by category and includes an MMO-dedicated section. Using the system, guilds can post a lengthy introduction letter to convey its purpose and history, where it's located, how many games it's a part of, and what voice communication (if any) it uses.
I love crossovers. They're quite common in comics and in television while a little less so with movies (although crossovers happen even there). But what about MMOs? EVE Online and DUST 514 are going to share the same universe, while Pirate101 and Wizard101 take place in the Spiral with plenty of crossover possibility.
That said, what if there were a true crossover between MMOs? What if characters, mobs, or events could spill over from one into another? Maybe the rifts from RIFT would suddenly start threatening Middle-earth or the gangstas from APB would decide to hijack a few starships in Star Trek Online? What if Marvel and DC would allow a limited-time interaction between their two MMOs in the future for some epic superhero throwdowns?
Today, only your imagination is the limit. Which two MMOs would you like to see crossover?
Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
All too often, we read news of conflict in other countries with an impersonal detachment, as if it's so far away that it will never touch our lives in any significant way. Mainstream media twists each event into a political message with the same detachment, forgetting the reality of the lives that are destroyed every day. This morning that fact was brought home as we read news of a US official killed in an attack on the Libyan consulate in Benghazi.
Just a few hours ago, EVE Online alliance GoonSwarm released a statement that the US official killed was apparently GoonSwarm director and former Council of Stellar Management member Sean "Vile Rat" Smith. Players, CCP developers, and GMs have begun leaving their condolences on the official EVE forums. According to those who knew him, Vile Rat was a well-loved player and a respected leader whose actions indirectly touched the lives of every EVE player. Massively extends its own condolences to his family and friends.
Before its release, Star Wars: The Old Republic had one of the largest crops of fan sites that a single MMO has ever seen. But after most MMOs release, their fan sites diminish. Obviously, the same happened with SWTOR. But one of the sites that has weathered the storm of hate and boredom that follows any MMO release is TORWars.
TORWars stands out among its peers because of its fun, honest, and dare I say, professional atmosphere. Not only will you find some of the most enthusiastic SWTOR articles on TORWars, but those bits of news and editorial content are released daily by quality writers.
I wanted to get in on the site's celebration of its 100th podcast, so I asked hosts Jeff Hollis, Deirdre Hollis, and Brian Waggoner for an interview, to which they agreed after I bribed them with alcohol. We spoke for over two hours about the ups and downs of running one of the most popular SWTOR fan sites. Unfortunately, that's too much text for a single column, but I have grabbed the highlights, wrapped them up in a bow, and presented them here for you to enjoy. (The bribing with alcohol bit may or may not be true.)
Path of Exile takes several cues from games like Diablo III and Torchlight II, but it still remains its own game. But you don't have to take our word for it; you can take a look at the game yourself this weekend. The game is opening up another public stress test weekend from September 14th through the 16th, throwing open the doors and letting everyone experience the game as it stands.
Starting at 2:00 p.m. EDT on the 14th, anyone with an account for the game can log in to the client and start playing. The focus is on stress testing to ensure that the game's servers can handle a heavy load of concurrent players, so some lag and choppiness is to be expected. If you're not deterred by this, you can head over to the official site and download the client now so that you'll be all prepped and ready when the doors open on Friday.
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column.
I hate it when MMORPG players completely misrepresent this hobby. I cringe every time I find myself in the middle of a discussion about "MMOs" when most of the people chatting are pulling only from their experience as a World of Warcraft raider and nothing more. There are hundreds -- actually, thousands -- of MMOs in existence. Discussing MMOs without knowing about as many as possible is really talking about specific titles, not a genre. You wouldn't catch a group of "foodies" basing all of their passions on a few items from a handful of menus. The same should apply to MMO discussions if we ever want the genre to be taken more seriously by outsiders.
MMO players love to pigeonhole titles. What are some of the worst descriptions? "Hardcore" is one. What does that even mean? Does it mean a title is hard to play? In what way is it hard? Does it mean that it takes time to play? How much time equals hardcore? "Facebook game" is another term that drives me crazy, and it's often used by many MMO fans to dismiss all sorts of titles. While I know that the term generally refers to FarmVille-style gaming, using the term literally reflects how little the person knows about the variety of games that actually appear on or are connected to Facebook.
The term that drives me the craziest of all is pay-to-win.
Final Fantasy XIV's current version is approaching its twilight to make way for version 2.0. The servers will go dark, the new version will be tested, and perhaps most importantly, the game will once again discontinue the subscription fee. A recent dispatch from the development team confirms that service fees will be discontinued on September 29th, at which point all billing will stop and cannot be started again until the game relaunches.
Players with currently active subscriptions will be able to continue playing from September 30th up until the game shuts down on November 11th. (The last snapshot of character progress will be on November 1st, however, so the last 10 days of play will not be transferred to the new version.) Players whose subscriptions are already cancelled or will be cancelled after September 30th will not be able to play for free during this period, and the last day to reactivate a subscription or redeem any other codes will be the 29th. Read through the full dispatch for all of the details if you're not sure where you'll be after the end of the month, and keep your eyes peeled for more information as the relaunch draws closer.
Like Transformers, there may be more to a World of Warcraft screenshot than meets the eye. Our sister site WoW Insider is reporting that players have discovered hidden watermarks in every in-game screenshot that contains several pieces of information.
The watermark is made up of several strips of custom bar codes, which can be decoded to reveal information from the game. While the revealed information isn't extremely personal, it does contain the server IP, player account numbers, and a time stamp. The account number is publically accessable through Blizzard's Armory site and cannot be used to hack accounts.
WoW Insider says that this information is most likely used by Blizzard to take down private servers, rogue employees, and cheaters.
There's been a good deal of talk, here in the early days, about the level and experience curve in Guild Wars 2. A great many people are tackling the game in a great many ways, which leads to a tremendous variety in folks' perception of the leveling curve.
There are a few of ways that your experience gain might not match up to your desired or expected level. These ways mostly deal with feeling underleveled for storyline content and zone progression. As I said, everyone's moving through the game differently: Some folks made a point to run around major cities right of the bat to tuck a few safe levels under their belts, while others made a beeline for personal story content, and others still (and I count myself in this category) are stumbling this way and that through content with all the focus and willpower of a drunken goldfish.
If you've started to forget about the saga of 38 Studios' collapse, rest assured that Rhode Island politicians certainly have not. With the election coming soon, many in the state are scrambling to offset the blame for the $75 million loan decision and protect their positions. The Associated Press is reporting that it's being seen as a "liability" among candidates.
One candidate, Mark Binder, addressed the continued furor over the issue: "If I don't bring it up, other people bring it up. Everyone is infuriated. There's this game going on in Rhode Island right now called 'pass the blame on 38 Studios.'"
While many of those directly responsible for voting the deal through have since resigned from their positions, the search to pin the fiasco on one of the state's leaders is still underway. Another 2012 candidate, Laura Pisaturo, said that the public is demanding more answers: "People read in the paper about 38 Studios and think 'we elect these people and expect they will lead and ask tough questions.'"
What will those updates include? "Well we're committed to about every six weeks, doing a major update for the game -- which would be a new warzone, a new operation, a new flashpoint, a new event -- and to doing that on a really frequent cadence, every six weeks. So we're going to stick to that," Bromberg told AusGamers.
BioWare is also looking at ways to sweet-talk former subscribers. The first such initiative takes the form of cartel coins which are in-game tokens earned for being a subscriber after the free-to-play conversion. The coins and credits will also be awarded retroactively to those who subscribed in the past.
A warning in advance: There might be a lot of tears on this show. Bree and Justin cope with the upcoming shutdown of City of Heroes, which marks the third of Bree's favorite games cancelled within the past year. Is there still hope from the player population, or is this a done deal? Oh my, fair listeners, we have not begun to fight! Or sing!
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Recently I cleaned out my closet and discovered, tucked away with several older storage mediums (i.e., CDs), my World of Warcraft collector's edition soundtrack. Honestly, I had completely forgotten it was there. Within minutes, I dusted it off and had it playing on my computer.
Non-ironic wow, I thought. That takes me back.
If you were one of the players who spent any amount of time in what's now referred to as "vanilla" World of Warcraft -- before the Burning Crusade released in 2007 -- then it's just about impossible to hear these tunes and not be transported back to those first couple of years of discovery and conquest.
WoW's original soundtrack was composed by Jason Hayes, Tracy W. Bush, Glenn Stafford, and Derek Duke, each of whom brought his own take on this MMO version of Warcraft. I had a blast re-listening to all of these old tracks and wanted to share with you a few of my personal favorites.
Interested in specific aerial stunts and combat tactics? The fifth World of Warplanes developer diary delves into some of these, offering bits of history along with explanations of certain moves. It also discusses design goals and specifics of flight modeling.
Although the game offers faster and more nimble aircraft than would participate in dogfights in real life, Wargaming.net is taking pains to make the experience as authentic as possible by considering different logistics including weight and resistance strength of bomb loads and underwing weapons. Although the types of aircraft are set and authentic, players will have the opportunity to customize their planes through modifications and even pin-up art.
For full details, watch the dev diary after the break.
As we 
Lian Li
Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's 
