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IGN has posted a new preview article focusing on Blizzard Entertainment's upcoming Diablo III action RPG sequel. The preview details how the new game will differ from previous installments. Diablo III will return players to the war torn world of Sanctuary, where they must once again take up arms against the forces of hell.

How things have changed for Diablo III. Corpse runs are no more. If you die in a dungeon, you'll be sent back to the last checkpoint you passed, but – based on how it played in the beta – all the enemies you'd killed up until you died stay dead. Thus, you're not re-doing sections, just being taken back out of harm's way so you can decide whether you want to wade back into the fray immediately, or level up/upgrade your gear before attempting the area that killed you again.

This change comes hand in hand with a re-think of the town portal concept. The team still want you to be able to instantly get back to town if you need to, but the town portal in Diablo II was just too convenient a 'get out of gaol free' card. Now players have the 'stone of recall' which serves the same purpose, but takes several seconds to activate. In other words, it's an easy way to teleport back to town when things are quiet, but you'd be interrupted trying to cast the spell during a fight.

IGN: The Ten Commandments Of Diablo III

Blizzard Entertainment

Diablo III

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Red Marble Games' Build-A-Lot: Elizabethan Era, the latest in the community building sim series, is now available for download and purchase from Macgamestore.com. The game sends players back to the time of Queen Elizabeth and tasks them with building a variety of towns without the aid of modern conveniences.

Travel back in time to Queen Elizabeth's kingdom where challenging fun rules the realm! In this exciting new addition to the Build-a-lot series, you'll take on a host of new adventures without the aid of modern conveniences. From a single thatched house you begin your journey through Elizabethan England. With wells and windmills, crops and carpentry, you'll grow your one cob house to a full, flourishing shire! Bestow happiness upon the people as you build gardens, theaters and pubs for their amusement, and prosperity will reign with the services you so kindly provide. With many tasks to tackle and towns to visit, Build-a-lot: The Elizabethan Era is royal entertainment for all the lords and ladies!

Features:

• Manage your crops and livestock to earn wages and grow the shire!
  
• Hire workers and farmers to build and harvest.
  
• Manage services to keep your town and workers healthy and prosperous!
  
• Bestow happiness upon the people by building an array of amusements.

Build-A-Lot: Elizabethan Era

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Blizzard Entertainment has updated the official World of Warcraft with new information about the upcoming 4.3 patch for the popular fantasy MMO. The new informational articles include coverage of the Transmogrifier interface, specifics about Void Storage for items, details about the Darkmoon Faire, and a glimpse of the new Gilneas faction mounts.

Placing an item into the Transmogrifier interface will offer a preview of how the item will appear once the change is applied. However, not all item pairings are compatible with Transmogrification. In general, only items that have stats can be used in the transmogrification process. You must also be able to wear both items when using this service. Ethereals don’t have much in the way of ethics, but allowing someone to appear as if they’re equipping unusable items crosses the line. Similarly, they won’t allow you to change weapon or armor types. Sneaky death knights can’t make that breastplate look like a cloth robe, and you can’t make a one-handed axe look like a two-handed axe, or transform a sword’s appearance into that of a mace. Guns, bows, and crossbows will be the exception to this rule. You will finally be able to retain your dwarf’s racial gun bonus while appearing with all the splendor and elegance of a bow wielder (or at least the relative silence of one).

Transmogrification Preview

Void Storage Preview

The All New Darkmoon Faire

Gilneas Reputation Mounts

Blizzard Entertainment

World of Warcraft

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Riot Games has announced the cancellation of League of Legends' Mac beta client, which the company was developing in partnership with TransGaming. Riot cited the reason for cancellation as an inability to maintain consistent parity between Mac and Windows PC versions with the game's rapid update cycle. Announced last year, the DOTA clone is a session based multiplayer online game which challenges rival teams to compete for victory.

Over the past 13 months we have been working with another company on a Mac version of LoL. We have been silent because both companies have been exploring every possible avenue to ensure the Mac version is up to Riot standards. So far we have been unable to ensure a consistent quality bar across platforms. At the heart of the issue is our rapid update cycle, where we make regular balance changes and content updates. We currently develop on the PC, but since the plan was for the Mac to share servers, we believed that a Mac version that was frequently unavailable was not up to Riot standards. For that reason we have severely limited the number of participants in Mac testing.

We are regretfully going to shut down the Mac Beta client indefinitely starting 12:00 AM PT on September 6, 2011. We realize our current approach regarding the Mac platform won't guarantee the quality and frequent updates we deliver today on the PC and are expected by our player community. We will continue to investigate the opportunity to provide player access on the Mac Platform in the future that aligns with our service and content update standards. We are committed to building a solution that will work on the Mac in the long run, but it will take some time. Additionally, testers that have utilized the League of Legends store during the Beta can either continue playing the PC version of the game, or receive a full refund on RP purchases made (which would close out the account). Details of the refund program will be communicated to these players via email. As a result of this situation, Riot would like to give all active participants in the Mac beta a code that unlocks the Champions Pack, as a token of appreciation for the time they have dedicated to helping us evaluate the Mac client and our sincere apology for not being able to have the testing work out as originally planned. To qualify for the reward, you must have a majority of your logins come from the Mac client, and you must login to the Mac client and click on the Store button between Friday, September 2 and Tuesday, September 6. Rewards will be added to the accounts of verified testers by the end of September.

TransGaming

League Of Legends

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