Blizzard has just released the first of some hotfixes that will go out for Diablo III. These ongoing fixes are meant to help balance out each of the character classes. With balance, though, comes nerfing, and that’s exactly what the developer has done. Of course, players are less than thrilled with the outcome.

The first fix has reduced the effectiveness of the Monk’s Boon of Protection rune. It used to offer protection to players being healed by Mantra of Healing. According to Blizzard the rune was “approximately ten times over its budget on the benefits provided, and it was quite simply a mistake on our part to let the rune ship as it was.”  Apparently they plan to issue a lasting fix sometime in the future, but for now it’s been nerfed so bad that players aren’t even using it.

As for the Wizard and Demon Hunter, they’ve had their Force Armor and Smoke Screen skills nerfed for less power. Smoke Screen lasts for a lot less time than it used to before. If you’re not coupling it with the rune that extends its duration, the skill is now practically unusable. For players who are attempting Hell and Inferno difficulties, your strategy has been reduced to kiting enemies around to avoid attacks and damage. The enemies are already overpowered, and these changes won’t help at all.

Blizzard’s Diablo III forums are being lit up by aggravated players, most of them who play the Monk class. The developer claims that their issue is with players relying on the same skills, but the argument in return is that these skills, such as the Mantra of Healing and Boon of Protection combo, are the best chance at support the Monk had on higher difficulties. Some are even saying that they can’t pass Act I with the way things are, even before the nerfs went into effect.

Personally if Blizzard is upset about certain skills being overused, I think they should buff the bad skills. Don’t take what works and break it, fix what doesn’t work and move on. The developer commented on their decision saying, “Class balance is an ongoing investigation, and by no means do we believe the game is now perfect, but we’re also seeing evidence that supports the Monk and Barbarian are not as bad off as they seem. The game is young, there were some skills that threw things out of what, and we expect the landscape to settle out a bit more evenly. Or at least change again so we can continue to monitor the impact. Maybe we’re wrong, maybe there’s no current chance for Monk or Barbarian to compete with ranges, but our current suspicion is that’s incorrect and until we know for sure we’re not going to turn any dials.”

This is definitely some defensive attitude that Blizzard is sporting on the issue. I don’t think that nerfing good skills instead of buffing bad ones is the right way to go, but the developer will do what they want. Taking away the single skillset that makes the Monk’s support build stand doesn’t make too much sense. Players seem to agree with this line of thinking as well. Of course balancing characters, skills, and overall gameplay for a title where players will pretty much be spending their every waking moment will always cause some controversy. The thing is, players who are attempting Hell and Inferno are already having their heads explode. Why make that tougher?

The pandaren are a new race being introduced with the upcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion for World of Warcraft. Currently the expansion’s beta is underway, and we’re receiving updated news about the game as the weeks draw on. This week we have gotten word of what the new race’s mount will be, and it’s a bit surprising. The pandaren mount will be a Dragon Turtle.

I know what you’re thinking, “Raine, how in the world will this mount even make sense? Turtles are slow, aren’t they?” You ask the same questions as many others, young grasshopper. There are a lot of players who think this mount simply doesn’t make sense even in the Pandaria setting. Others, however, think the mount just looks cool.

Apparently the pandaren have long been looking for a mount that embodies their core values: patience and strength. The Dragon Turtle has armored hide, stoutness, and a relaxed attitude that welcomes long journeys. This animal is indigenous to Pandaria, thus making treks across the island feel just like another walk in the park. It will be outfitted with maps, cushions, footstools, and even some brew storage for those hardy adventurers.

Now the second question comes into mind: how fast will it be? Though the description on the original post claims that it’s got a “slow, even stride,” I think the mount will work much the same as the Kodo mounts do for the Tauren. It will move to scale with other mounts, but do so with ease. I think the Dragon Turtle is pretty sweet, and I’d love to have one.

If you were one of those gamers who held off on running through the sands of Banoi in Dead Island just to see if a better version of the game would release, your non-work has paid off. Deep Silver has announced that a Game of the Year Edition for Dead Island will release this summer, making all of your zombie-infested dreams come true. The game will be available in the US on June 26^th and in Europe on July 6^th.

This edition of the game will include the Bloodbath Arena DLC as well as the Ryder White storyline. You’ll also get The Ripper weapon blueprint so you can saw your way through hordes of undead. With both DLC packs this will be everything you need to drift the summer away.

I really enjoyed Dead Island. To be honest, I’m kind of glad this edition is coming out and I may even pick it up to replace my older copy. Despite its online co-op issues in the beginning, Dead Island managed to stay fun and had a lot of players enthralled. I think it’s a game that is getting us closer to the true zombie apocalypse idea where we need to actually forage for things to survive instead of just having guns with endless ammo to blow away the undead.

Starting this week MechWarrior Online will be entering its first closed beta testing session. Piranha Games has revealed how players can gain guaranteed early access to the game this summer as well, and it’s got fans ready to jump into their pilot seats.

The way to grab guaranteed early access to the game is to take part in OPERATION INCEPTION. This event is an elusive MechWarrior Online Founder’s Program which will go on sale June 19^th. It will offer fans of the franchise benefits such as in-game currency, a custom ELITE BattleMech, a two-month free premium account, a permanent Founder’s Tag and even more. There will be two versions of this promotion available to players:

$60 ELITE Founder’s Package Includes:

• Exclusive custom “Founder’s BattleMech.” This Mech includes a lifetime, per-match C-Bill booster.
• $80 value of in-game currency* for in-game item purchases.
• Two-month premium account to MechWarrior Online at launch: Earn XP & C-Bills faster.Founder’s Tag – sets your status apart from the crowd & get noticed in-game and on the forums.
• Early access to the game along with Founder’s assets availability starts July 17th.

$30 VETERAN Founder’s Package Includes:

• $40 value of in-game currency* for in-game item purchases.
• One-month premium account to MechWarrior Online at launch: Earn XP & C-Bills faster.
• Founder’s Tag – sets your status apart from the crowd & get noticed in-game and on the forums.
• Early access to the game along with Founder’s assets availability starts July 17th.

Both of these packages will be available starting July 17^th. From what I’ve been able to see MechWarrior Online looks like it will be quite the exciting game. Players can really take the series in a new direction and enjoy tons of multiplayer action. I’ve been a fan of mech titles for a while and this one looks like it will deliver what fans want to see.

38 Studios has been through a lot over these past 3 weeks. After failing to make a payment to the state of Rhode Island on May 1st, it was looking like the company might be unable to recover from the mess it was in. You know you’re in trouble when you might end up having to shut down and force an entire state to pay off a $75 million loan. The company managed to scrap up the $1.125 million needed to make the late payment, but that doesn’t mean 38 Studios is out of the storm yet.

When the company failed to make payroll last week, the company went ahead and told their temporary and contract employees that they no longer had jobs at 38 Studios anymore. Now it appears that they are firing more people,  according to Rhode Island’s Governor Lincoln Chafee. When you consider that 38 Studios was lured to Rhode Island from Massachusetts in an attempt to create more jobs, you can see that there is a problem here.

At this time, there is no news about how many employees will be let go. It’s a shame that a company has to let go of people in these tough economic times, but sometimes that’s what needs to be done. With that being said, however, I don’t see 38 Studios being around in a year, or even 6 months. While another company could buy out 38 Studios and gain their IPs, with the $75 million loan that the company has hanging over its head I don’t see that likely. Instead, the taxpayers of Rhode Island are going to be stuck with the burden, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this fiasco turns up in the election come November.

Over this past weekend Diablo III players were lighting up the forums with more issues about the game, though these weren’t your run-of-the-mill server issues. According to the messages, tons of players were chiming in claiming that all of their gold and items had disappeared. After conducting some research, it looks like some players’ accounts were hacked, which caused the major issue.

Diablo III servers did go offline for a bit over the weekend, spanning up to a four-hour outage in some areas. Some rumors have spread about the outage being a result of a SQL injection attack, though this theory is unconfirmed as of right now. Some of the theories on the forums suggest that the session identifiers were hacked, allowing hackers to take over any account without alerting Blizzard’s authentication server. Though the developer does offer Authenticators, accounts using them have fell victim to the attack as well.

There’s no pinpointed cause to the attack, but Blizzard is working to address the situation. Many players have been left with nothing, having all of their rare items and personal stashes wiped totally clean. Could this be an actual hack? Was it a bug result of server maintenance? Right now we don’t know, and we’re waiting for Blizzard to issue a statement. Were you one of the victims of the attack?

When the Xbox Live version of Minecraft was released, it quickly became the fastest selling game on the XBLA service. However, there was a small group of people that weren’t too happy with the game. It turns out that if you wanted to play the split-screen multiplayer, you needed to have an HD-TV, and nothing in the games description ever made mention of that fact.

Well, after hearing the numerous complaints, and perhaps even threats of some sort of class-action lawsuit (that may or may not have had a chance of succeeding), Microsoft is now offering refunds for people who bought the game and only own SD-TV’s. All you have to do is contact customer support and tell them that you bought the game and you don’t have an HD-TV, and you should be able to get your money back. That doesn’t seem too hard.

Of course, Microsoft has closed the little loophole to prevent you from getting a free copy of the game. They’ve updated the XBLA listing for Minecraft to say “To experience split-screen functionality a high-definition television is required.” Now, with all that being said, I have to wonder, how many Xbox 360 players still play on SD-TV’s?

If you’re a fan of the GameStop PowerUp Rewards program, this would be a good time for you to listen. Fans will know that by signing up for the program you’ll be able to get an issue of Game Informer every month as long as you’re signed up. To some gamers these magazines are collectible, while some just read them for the reviews. Of course, there are some players out there who don’t want to bother with print issues, so they choose to go digital. That’s where the change comes in.

It looks like the company isn’t too happy about the amount of digital subscriptions that’s standing and wants to change it. Of course it costs more money to make print issues than digital, so it would make some sense when trying to cut costs to push digital. From now on when you sign up for the PowerUp Rewards program, or renew your subscription you will automatically be set to receive only digital copies. Even if you’ve been getting print for however many years, it will roll you over unless you say something.

GameStop employees have been instructed not to mention this to customers (which I find aggravating), so unless you specifically tell them when you sign up/renew, they will set you to receive digital copies. While for some this may not be an issue, for those like me who keep the issues it will most certainly be frustrating. As an alternative you can call in to Game Informer customer support to have your subscription changed without any hassle. I haven’t seen the digital issues, but from what I heard they’re not even .pdf files. What you get is a digital arrow pointing to the Game Informer website and that’s no fun. If you want to continue getting your print copies, make sure you lock down your decision and make note when you renew.

Remember last year when Microsoft started offering free Xbox 360′s to students who purchased a new computer? Well it looks like the promotion was a success, because the company has decided to bring back the deal this year.

The promotion is already in full swing, and allows anyone in the US purchasing a computer (desktop or laptop) valued at $699 or more to get a free 4GB Xbox 360. Our friends to the north can also get the same deal, but they need only spend $599 to earn their free console. You’ll need to buy your PC at a participating retailer, such as Best Buy, Dell, Fry’s Electronics, HPDirect, Microsoft Stores, and NewEgg.

Microsoft hasn’t specified a cutoff date for the deal, but last year it ended on September 3rd. Regardless of the cutoff date, you’ll want to get in on this sooner, rather than later. The company always reserves the right to end the promotion when supplies are exhausted.

Many people were angry over the ending of Mass Effect 3. They felt that no matter what you did in the previous games, you were basically given a choice of 3 different options, which were essentially all the same. Well, BioWare, the developer for the game, heard your grumblings and decided that they’re going to release a free bit of DLC to better explain the ending.

In an interview with G4, it was confirmed that the voices for Admiral Hackett and EDI, actor Lance Henriksen and actress Tricia Helfer, are recording more lines for the game. Henriksen had this to say about what he’s doing: “I just did another session with them…They were saying there’s a little bit of a problem with the abruptness of the ending, so we did a whole series of things to add to the end of the game, to live up to the quality they’ve been doing.”

Also included in the list of voice actors making a return is Raphael Sbarge, the voice of Kaidan Alenko. Considering how you have to make a choice concerning Kaidan and Ashley’s fate in the original Mass Effect, it won’t be surprising to see Ashley’s voice actress make an appearance as well. The thing I have to wonder about at this point, though, is that are these characters going be performing the in present, so to speak? Will they be saying stuff that’s going on as you’re playing the game to help better explain the ending? Or will they be used for exposition after the “ending”, giving a recap of what exactly happened after Shepard defeated the Reapers?