The reason why you're not having fantastical dogfights in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King right now lies in the physics. As in, it wasn't polished enough. That's what WoW's Tom Chilton revealed in the latest Blizzard podcast. The same podcast also featured senior Diablo III artist Mike Nicholson, who admitted that the new UI for Diablo 3 drew a lot of inspiration from WoW's UI.

It's official. Ziff Davis has sold 1UP to UGO Entertainment and has closed EGM. This was confirmed by no less than an official press release from both camps earlier today. The axe has fallen, and it's fallen hard. GameVideos.com and others take the hit as well. Full details right after the jump.

EA Mythic's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning looks to have a pretty rich crafting system, at least that's the impression we got after going over their press release and watching the video. Want to find out more, head on over to the full article.

In-game and real-life events are the main features in this week's latest update of NCsoft's Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa. Kicking the week off with a Double XP event, players can also enjoy themselves by listening to the latest TabulaCast from John and Matt. You can read about the specific details on these new updates by reading our full article after the jump.

The Tabula Cast episode 18 is now available for download. This week's episode talks about the last Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa Feedback Friday and even had a short discussion with the Community Coordinator Critters. To find out more, head on over to the full article.

Blizzard Entertainment has sent word that the second episode of their new BlizzCast podcast will be available within the next few days.

This release is expected to feature twice the content of episode one from last January. Details on what Episode two may carry are available in the full article.

 

The game Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is looking to be an MMORPG of epic proportions. How can it not be when it's based on the rich lore of the largest tabletop gaming franchise in the world? The developer, EA Mythic, has really been doing extensive research and has come up with a lot of stuff that would make fans of the game drool.

The premise of the MMORPG has been simplified a bit. Some have noted that the game is set in a pseudo-Renaissance Germany with Tolkien influences. There are six dominant factions which have been divided into two fragile alliances: Order and Chaos. The Empire, the Dwarves, and the Elves compose the side of Order. They are being opposed by Chaos, which counts the Green Skins (Orks), the Dark Elves (corrupted Elves) and the Chaos (worshipers of the gods of Chaos) as its members.

Those who want to participate in the Beta test of the game will have to be very lucky since they can only get on board by signing up for EA Mythic's annual newsletter and winning one of the 5 slots in the random monthly draw. They also have events in other venues where you can win an invite - an example would be the 2007 New York Comic Con. For those in Asia, you're out of luck since it's only open for North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

For the rest who would want to see what the game is about, we have a nice collection of concept art work, a podcast, and even a short video of the login screen and an Ork. It's pretty much the closest one can get to the game without being invited into the beta testing, so take a few minutes to view the pictures and download the podcast and videos. If you'd like more, you can check out our previous coverage with more concept art and videos.

Download: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Ork and opening screen video
Download: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning podcast

 

More screenshots after the jump.

The latest episode of Legendary Thread, 1UP's World of Warcraft podcast, is now up.

Check it out and learn a few tidbits of insider info. Here's one example: After every world first boss kill, WoW Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan gets an email which details who did what, what equipment they used, and the damage and healing meters for the encounter. Talk about info overload! And since he is the lead designer after all, one glance at the stat sheet and he'll know if cheating was involved.

The podcast also features the regular Legendary Thread crew discussing the 2.0.7 patch, the quest for in-game girlfriends, battleground exploits, and a lot more. You can listen to the podcast by downloading it right here.

Download: [1UP's Legendary Thread podcast (February 14)]

Some of us really prefer that the old school "choose your own adventure" style of entertainment just stay in the form of thin easily purchasable pocket books. However, one can't stop the march of the machines, everything's getting a Web 2.0 make over now, and that includes the "Choose your own" format.

From the folks responsible for Massively Online Gamer (MOG) we now have "Jethro Thule: Zombie Killer", the first ever choose your own adventure podcast.  Each week the audience gets to decide the next step of the story by making their opinions heard at their MOG Army site.

Originally part of the MOG podcast, "Jethro Thule: Zombie killer" was one of the most popular portions of the show. Well, it seems that all that popularity warranted a spin-off. Producer Todd Zelin had this to say:

We all agreed that Jethro needed an upgrade ...Initially Ryan Verniere, co-host of MOG, would read that week’s installment during the taping of the weekly show. On part 5 of Jethro, we started to pre-record and sound-designing the segment. After an awesome response from the fan-base we commissioned artist and MOG fan, Jake Harold, to draw story-boards and comic book like panels to illustrate the story each week.

For more information on the podcast adventure feel free to use our read-link below, it leads to the MOG Army site.

Seems like everybody sure is back from their New Year parties. Over at the Star Wars Galaxies vault, the New Year podcast from the Galaxy report has already been posted.

Now, the full show notes basically gives a look-back at the year that was 2006, the holiday fun that went on around, and of course, the expectations for the year ahead. If you wanna be in the know as to these things, then you are most welcome to check it out over at the official site. Of course, we're pretty sure you have your own ideas as to how to make this year much better than the last, so you might want to send in your own thoughts as well.

To get to it from here, just click on the Read link below.