So we all know about the vast amount of server problems that plagued Diablo III yesterday. But you know what game was online the whole time? Eve Online. They put up a little reminder on their login screen, with a few numbers that most Diablo players will find familiar.

It looks like a retail ad posted at a Fry’s location in Texas listed a possible release date for the upcoming Guild Wars 2 MMO. The photo above was taken at the retailer and comes courtesy of Kotaku. As of now, Guild Wars 2 still has an unannounced release date.

NCsoft has responded to the original post of the photo saying, “We have not released an official launch date within 2012 as feedback from our closed and open marketing betas will help us determine an exact release date.” From the statement it looks like Guild Wars 2 won’t be releasing in 2012, though that’s an assumption. Of course fans would love to get the game in June, or just this year for that matter.

When looking at the projected date on the ad there’s a lot to consider. Like NCsoft mentioned, the beta is still running and the developer is still pulling data from it. Having the game release in June would push the beta to a close rather quickly, defeating the purpose of leaving it in its open stages. Players are still pre-ordering the game and getting beta access as we speak. Also, some retailers like to put in placeholder dates on games based off of their own estimates. This could be one of those dates, though we don’t really know for sure. If NCsoft makes an actual announcement on when the game will launch, we’ll let you know.

There’s something about the addictive nature of Pokémon that just keeps bringing players back for more. Probably the whole “Gotta catch ‘em all” mentality. We already know that Pokémon Black and White is getting a sequel later this year, but yesterday Nintendo announced two new titles for the 3DS.

These aren’t full games like Black and White, but rather companion apps for the newest game in the series. The first is Pokémon Dream Radar, which will allow you to use the device’s camera, motion controls and augmented-reality tech to catch Pokémon hiding in the wild. When you do catch your new creatures, you can then transfer them to your copy of Black 2 or White 2.

Pokédex 3D Pro is essentially just a new, upgraded version of the Pokédex 3D which was released last year. You’ll find all the details for over 600 Pokémon, including the ones found in Black 2 and White 2, allowing you to do your research before you find them in-game. Both new games will be available in the fall through the Nintendo eShop on your 3DS.

People were mad when they found out that Street Fighter X Tekken had 12 finished characters on the disc for the game that could only be accessed as paid DLC. They were furious when a spokesperson for the company said that “there is effectively no distinction” between DLC being on the disc and DLC being downloaded from the internet. Now it appears that Capcom is backpedaling as fast as they can, saying that they are “re-evaluating” on-disc DLC.

Now, you might be thinking “Why is on-disc DLC bad? Don’t many games have day one DLC anyway?” Well, it’s true that many games have day one DLC, but it has to come down to the delivery system for it. When Mass Effect 3 came out, it had the “From The Ashes” DLC on day one. EA and Bioware defended the DLC by saying that the content was developed after the game code had been submitted to the ESRB for review. Thus, there was no way for them to put it on the disc unless they re-sent the entire code, which would have probably delayed the game for another few months.

By having on-disc DLC, that code for those characters would have had to have been on the disc when the game was submitted to the ESRB for review. Had the code been added into the game after receiving its rating, the rating that Street Fighter X Tekken would have been void, and the game would have had to be re-reviewed by the ESRB to gain a rating. With this damning evidence, it’s no wonder people were pissed off at Capcom. Here is a blatant example of withholding content and releasing it to earn more money, essentially double-charging the players. However, though the company is “re-evaluating” it’s on-disc DLC policy, don’t expect it to change anytime soon. Senior VP Christian Svensson admitted that titles already in development, like Dragon’s Dogma, are still going to include on-disc DLC, because the decision “was made at the beginning of the game’s development” to include it. Despicable.

Diablo III released yesterday and it’s all over the community. Whether it’s players who have already shot through the game or those who can’t even start it, there’s still plenty to talk about. I was able to attend a release event Monday night for the game and it turned out to be a blast. I came back home and got my install on, and I’ve been playing through the beginning of the game, which is pretty much the same as what was offered in the beta, though there are a few different features.

Since the game has released and many players will be trying out different things, I wanted to get a post up about my initial run through the game. My aim is to offer tips and hints that may help new players as well as those who are looking to get into the game. So, with that said, let’s get right to it.

For my first run through Diablo III I chose the Demon Hunter. I chose it mostly because it’s a neat-looking class, but also because Demon Hunter happens to be one of my favorite bands. I played this class through the beta and of all the classes available it seems the most versatile.  Not to mention it’s a really fun class to play, especially when in a party.

Demon Hunters are small in number. They live to hunt demons for countless days on in the hopes of saving lives. They believe that even if they can save one life the world will be better for it. Demon Hunters are plagued by nightmares of claws tearing flesh and men and women being drowned in their own blood. They are at war with themselves, using both Hatred and Discipline to govern their daily lives. Hatred burns within them to fuel their maddening attacks, tipping each arrow with a bit of spite, and their Discipline serves them well to take caution at those around them so that they may live to see, and kill, another day.

Through the beginning levels you’re just going to be shooting stuff. Just keep your distance from enemies and continue to lob arrows into them relentlessly. The Demon Hunter has a great beginning skill called Hungering Arrow which attacks enemies and bounces off of them. This makes crowd control a bit easier when dealing with mobs. As long as you stay at a safe distance from enemies you shouldn’t have a problem.

As you level, though, notice that your attacks won’t do as much damage and enemies will require more shots to defeat. This is important because it makes you stay on the move. Holding down Shift will allow you to shoot from a standing position, and it’s a good tactic to use so you’re not click-running all over the place to get to enemies. What you’ll want to do, however, is know your limit. When an enemy begins to close the gap between the both of you, either retreat to a safe distance away or circle around the enemy and continue to fire. Using the circling method helps keep the distance tight between you while preventing you from wandering too far away from your starting point.

You’ll soon gain a different type of primary attack called Entangling Shot which works a bit differently than Hungering Arrow. If I remember right, this skill wasn’t available in the beta. Instead of hitting multiple enemies this arrow has the ability to snare, or slow down, up to two enemies at once. I’ve found that this skill is helpful when fighting larger enemies though it really hinders you when going against multiple enemies at once. The added snare feature can sometimes work when needing to slow enemies down, but I found it much more useful to just bounce attacks between them and kill them quicker than it is to snare them at all with a shot.

Another thing is that the Demon Hunter gets an ability called Caltrops which is a snare all on its own. You basically set a trap down on the ground which will activate when enemies walk over it. This will slow all enemies for a rate of 60% within 12 yards of the trap. With this ability at your disposal you don’t really need to make use of Entangling Shot. You can just run up, pop Caltrops, then run back and bounce your Hungering Arrows off the slowed enemies. It’s a much better recipe for destruction.

The next skill in your arsenal is Rapid Fire. This skill is amazing and comes very much in handy. Using this skill will allow you to rapidly fire arrows for 228% the normal rate. This skill makes mowing down weaker enemies a cinch, and it really helps to get you out of tight situations. When you’re being overwhelmed by enemies or trapped in a corner just spam this skill and make a break to safety. You can then pelt arrows back at enemies while your Hatred meter refills and unleash again when the time is right.

These are some of the skills you’ll receive in the early levels of the game that will help you through the first part of Act I. This is where I’ve come to take a break in my game so these tips are what I’ve got to offer at this point. I hope you find them helpful, and are enjoying the Demon Hunter class as much as I am. Do you have any tips of your own? If so, post them below! I’ll be back soon with another post full of Demon Hunter tips.

With Blizzard’s decision to require an “always-on” internet connection for Diablo III, that’s left a lot of people understandably upset. Since the launch last night, the frustration has only mounted. What with server timeouts and two sets of maintenance preventing people for playing for several hours at a time.

Since most people do have a connection that’s always on, it really shouldn’t be that big of a deal, once the server issues are sorted. The only trouble you’ll encounter is if you suddenly do get disconnected. What if you just looted a shiny new set of boots that you’ve been needing? Will they be gone when you get back? Where will your character load?

If you haven’t been brave enough to test this yet, it’s okay. Eurogamer has tested this for you, and even recorded a video of it. They discovered that anything that is done before the connection drops is saved. Upon reconnection, you will find every piece of gold and every item sitting nicely in your inventory. Your character won’t be in the same spot, but rather will be located at the last checkpoint, as with any normal disconnection.

As of only a few short minutes ago, the Diablo III servers are back up for gaming! After launching at 3:01 EDT, Diablo III has been plagued with problems affecting game play. With potentially hundreds of thousands or even millions of people trying to log into the servers and play, it appears that the servers weren’t quite up to snuff.

That’s why for about an hour Blizzard shut down the Diablo III servers in order to do some emergency maintenance to fix the plethora of problems. Most were along the lines of “Servers are full” errors, but some game breaking issues were found, including the infamous Error 3006. Error 3006 happened whenever somebody would trade equipped items with their Templar sidekick, which would cause your local copy of the game to be desynced from Blizzard’s servers, and thus keep you from entering their servers.

However, Blizzard at least thinks that they’ve got the issue fixed for the moment. At this point, the only thing that’s going to keep the servers from overloading is time, as people quit trying to rush into the servers, and start settling into more normal patterns. Hopefully, none of us will encounter an Error 37 (Servers are Busy) when we log in!

After many hours of differing problems, from error messages out the wazoo, to problems involving inventory management with your Templar sidekick, Blizzard took down the servers for Diablo III for “emergency maintenance”. They said that the maintenance will be for about an hour, and that the servers should be back up by 3:30 PDT. However, because of some of the problems plaguing the game since it was launched almost 15 hours ago, I wouldn’t be too surprised if the servers are down for a longer period of time.

Many of the bugs that people are encountering are your standard “servers are full” bugs, but there are a few other nasty ones popping up. Error 3006 occurs whenever a person trades equipped items with their Templar follower, and caused your copy of Diablo III to desync with Blizzard’s servers. That prevents you from even being able to log back into the server, and thus keep you from playing your game.

Frustrating, yes, but these things happen when you have a game that’s a sequel to one of the most popular games of the previous decade. Despite the stress test Blizzard ran a few weeks ago with their Open Beta Weekend, it doesn’t seem to have been enough. Now all we can do is wait, and try to be productive people for at least another half hour!

UPDATE: It appears that the servers are back up! Get crackin’!

When your company puts out a game annually, such as Activision does with the Call of Duty series, there is always room for criticism. Players can say that the gaming engine gets too recycled, sequels look just like the games they came out after, and there’s nothing really new to add to the experience. The next thing you know, gamers are reverting back to older games, or just trading the series in all together.

Over at Treyarch, the studio responsible for the Black Ops line of the Call of Duty games, the team knows of these issues and is setting out to make them right. Mark Lamia, head of the company, spoke about changing up and tweaking certain aspects of a game’s development to help cater to those hardcore gamers out there. In an interview with Dan Amrich, blogger for Activision, Lamia stated:

Engines, each time they get touched, they change. The creators alter them; they don’t modify what they don’t need to, and then they alter what they need to. You can’t make a competitive product if you’re not upgrading that engine along the way.

I think what people are asking for is for us to push. They want us to make a better-looking game; they want things. I don’t think those are things people can’t ask for. We asked ourselves that very same question – we wanted to advance the graphics. I think the questions are valid. The answer may not need to be an entirely new engine, but you might need to do an entire overhaul of your entire lighting system. The trick is, we’re not willing to do that if we can’t keep it running at 60 frames per second – but we did that this time. So this is the Black Ops II engine.

It looks like Treyarch is tweaking what they can about the Black Ops engine so that it provides a better-looking experience, all while keeping what works with the game. This isn’t a complete overhaul of the engine at large, rather an upgrade to what the engine can already offer. If you speak to any real competitive FPS player out there they will tell you that framerate is extremely important. It even makes or breaks games, giving an edge to one team or the other. Either way, Treyarch assures us that Black Ops II will simply look a lot better than its predecessor.

Microsoft has found a way to get gamers to work together in harmony, and it’s all for the cause of Halo 4. You see, the company sent out emails to members of the community, each one carrying a piece of an image. There was also a note in the email that read, “Your piece of the Halo 4 puzzle.” What could this mean?

Over at NeoGAF the team worked hard to compile as many pieces of this puzzle as they could, which they did successfully. What did these pieces reveal? Only the box art for Halo 4, which is due later this year. We’ve seen a bit of Master Chief in his appearance in the Halo 4 announcement trailer back at E3 last year, and the new box art shows us a bit more of the hero.

343 Industries has already announced the release date for Halo 4, which is November 6th of this year. I imagine we’ll be seeing much more about the game, including some gameplay footage at E3, and that’s right around the corner. This means that even more news and footage from the game could be coming soon, so keep watch.