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Blizzard Entertainment is now offering a chat guide for users of World of Warcraft, the company's overwhelmingly successful MMORPG. The extensive guide covers all aspects of the chat interface, including information on customization and a command glossary. The guide spans over 34 pages of text.

This guide on chatting could very well be the largest ever created! A menu is located at the top and bottom of each page to allow you to easily switch between the major chat sections. The main topics include a general overview, customization, FAQ, and command glossary with links to each command. Do you think you know chat? Guess again!

World of Warcraft Chat Guide

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PowerMax has Hot Deals deals on a wide variety of products for your Mac, including the Dr. Bodelin's Laptop Bumpers that greatly reduce heat build-up under your laptop for $14.99; from Mircronet, the MiniMate 80GB Hard Drive designed for the MacMini has built-in USB and FireWire hub  for $119.88; the LaCie d2 DVD+/-RW 16x Double Layer FireWire drive with LightScribe come with Toast 7 Titanium for $174.88; extend your Mac's flexibility with the ProScope Kit's 50x USB microscope for $279.00; turn your iPod into a home entertainment center with the DLO HomeDock from Netalog for $79.99; get more from your graphics applications and discover Mac OS X Ink when you attach the Wacom Graphire BlueTooth 6x8 Pen Tablet for $199.88; and much more.

Ramjet has posted Hot Deals exclusive prices on a wide variety of RAM upgrades for your Mac, including; 2GB DDR400 DIMM for the iMac G5 for $273.00; 2GB DDR2-533MHz DIMM for the iMac G5 w/iSight for $349; 1GB SDRAM Kit for PowerMac G4 (Mirror Drive Door) for only $96.00; and more.

Apple Hot Deals

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Inside Mac Games has posted a review of The Sims 2 University, the latest expansion pack to the popular The Sims 2 game from Aspyr Media.

Here's a clip from the review:

The Sims 2: University is an expansion pack in the truest sense of the term. It takes an already incredibly deep life simulation and punches the gameplay several layers deeper. TS2:U adds three new University lots, complete with dorms, modest housing, trendy college cafes and clubs, new interactions between Sims, four unlockable career paths, over 100 new objects for Sims to enjoy and much more.

IMG Review: The Sims 2: University

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Ryan Gordon of Epic Games has updated his .plan file to reflect the release of a Linux dedicated server for verison 2.60 of America's Army. Once again, he notes that the Mac and Linux versions of America's Army 2.60 are still a work in progress and should be released shortly. America's Army is a free popular shooter developed by the U.S Army using Unreal Tournament technologies.

The America's Army 2.6.0 Linux server is now available. This is just the dedicated server. The Linux and Mac clients are coming soon.

There are two files: one is a complete install, the other is just the changed files from 2.5.0. Both are simple tarballs without a real installer, to ease remote installs.

Ryan Gordon .plan

America's Army 2.6 Information

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Pangea recently patched their new puzzle game Enigmo 2 to version 1.0.1.

• Fixed minor crash bug.
• Now works on case-sensitive file systems.
• Improved German localization.
• Fixed score corruption problem on Intel Macs.

Visit the link at MacGameFiles to download the latest patch.

MacGameFiles:Enigmo 2 1.0.1 patch

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David Rosen of Wolfire Software has updated his development blog for Lugaru 2. The update showcases the beginning of model skinning of the game with a few screenshots. Lugaru 2 is to be a rabbit kung fu fighting game continuting from Lugaru: The Rabbit's Foot.

Models can now be attached to flexible physics objects, so that they can bend and twist correctly. This means that I can apply the rabbit model to the physics-based animation skeleton! We can also have cloth, carrots with floppy leafy ends, bendy pieces of meat, flexible rope and so on.

Wolfire Development Blog

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Computer and Video Games recently interviewed Epic Games' VP Mark Rein regarding the current state of the industry.

This interview touches on topics such as Unreal Tournament 2007, Gears of War, the Playstation 3 and XBOX 360 and the Unreal Engine 4.

Here is an excerpt from the interview:

You mentioned those two key titles there. How's work going on them?

Mark Rein: Very well. Both games are a lot of fun. The beautiful thing with Unreal Tournament is the way we build it, it's gameplay first; by bringing up levels in a very unfinished state we're able to run around and navigate them and put in all the gameplay elements, then see how much fun they are before we go to the detailed step of decorating them and making everything beautiful. We have quite a few levels up and playable now. We're prototyping the new game types, we have some great new vehicles, we have some cool new weapons - that's how UT goes and it's going well. Come see us at E3 [winks].

Computer and Video Games: Interview with Mark Rein

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The Myth game series server, PlayMyth has posted news on an upcoming Myth II: Soulblighter Co-Op tournament, Tulkus Challenge. Registration has already begun and will last about two weeks. Also, there will be money prizes for the top three players of the tournament.

Warfare is finally here, earn your just rewards by finishing in the top three places of Myths' latest tournament. Muster your combat skills and prepare to take on the dark forces once again as Llancarfan.net brings you
The Tulkas Challenge

PlayMyth: Co-Op tourney registration opens

Tournament: Tulkus Challenge

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Macologist has released Santaduck Toolpak 3.0, their set of tools for Unreal Tournament 2004.

• The installer app DropInstaller now correctly installs .upl and .ucl files
• The retail and demo benchmarkers enable full rendering of shadows, and allows for the enabling or disabling of audio as well as graphics rendering (provides an indication of the CPU-limited processes)

Since full shadows have been enabled in the recent UT2004 v3369.2 patch, this benchmark is closer in representation to the PC benchmark tools than in the past.

The other tool applications remain unchanged from the previous release, and include tools for UMod extraction, UZ2 compression and decompression for online servers, and a cache cleaner.

Santaduck toolpak is an excellent tool to benchmark Unreal Tournament 2004 and has been used by Apple to provide their benchmarks in the past. Read more about the new release and download it using the link below.

Macologist: Santaduck Toolkit 3.0

In the latest issue of The Escapist magazine Wideload Games' Matt Soell discusses Stubbs The Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse, the unique shooter putting a zombie in the unlikely role of hero. The interview discusses the origins of the game before focusing on the underlying themes and social commentary lurking in the shadows of Punchbowl.

"One of the underlying themes in Stubbs - which I lifted from Poe's 'Masque of the Red Death' - is the idea that you can't build a wall big enough to keep entropy out," Soell says. "Andrew Monday doesn't like poverty and decrepitude and unpleasantness, so he builds a city where luxury is a birthright and everyone can relax because bad things only happen to lesser people in lesser cities. Then Stubbs shows up, and he's not just poor and decrepit and unpleasant ... he's undead. He stands in direct opposition to everything Pleasantbowl is about. And he wears a really ugly tie."

The Escapist: The Great Zombie Depression

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