Current Fallout tally board: Interplay 1, Bethesda 0

Filed under: MMO industry, Legal, Academic, Rumors

Whether it counts as one for the good guys or the bad guys depends on your personal tastes, but the ongoing saga of the Fallout MMO continues its relentless back-and-forth process. There was a rumor, back at the end of October, that Interplay had successfully denied Bethesda's preliminary injunction against their work on the franchise. According to Gamasutra, that rumor has finally proven to be true: a US District Court Judge has blocked the injunction, letting Interplay continue their work on the much-anticipated Fallout MMO, most commonly known as Project V13.

For those of you coming late to this ongoing legal battle, a quick recap. Interplay, in desperate need of money to develop the MMO, sold the rights to the propery to Bethesda, who went on to make Fallout 3 and in turn licensed the rights to the MMO back to Interplay. They are claiming that Interplay did not fulfill the terms of their contract for creating the game, which included clauses regarding timely development, and are trying to win back the rights. For now, however, their attempt at blocking further development has failed, and Interplay will continue their work on the game... although the future for this game seems to be fraught with a great deal of conflict. Ending the world is, apparently, very serious business.

Current Fallout tally board: Interplay 1, Bethesda 0 originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dungeon Finder tricks and tips

When we last talked about this on the podcast, I said we'd basically have to wait and see how it all worked, but now that players have had their hands on the Dungeon Finder out on the live realms for a while, they're learning a few more tricks and tips about how to use it. As Rohan brings up over on the WoW Ladies LJ, it's easy enough to keep a good player once you've found them through the system: as long as none of you drop group once you're done with an instance, you can go back in and run as many as you want. Unfortunately, you can't friend them yet (hopefully that will show up whenever Battle.net functionality does), but the comments on that post point out that if you both sign up for an unpopular instance at the same time, chances are good you'll end up in the same group together (of course, that requires coordination, but maybe you can set up a time out of game).

More tips and tricks for the new system after the break.

Continue reading Dungeon Finder tricks and tips

Filed under: Tips, Tricks, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Instances, Wrath of the Lich King

Dungeon Finder tricks and tips originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Review: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

I'm a big fan of Silent Hill. I've played every game in the series and a few years ago you might even have caught me defending the Silent Hill movie. When I first heard that Climax was re-imagining the first game in the Silent Hill series, and putting it on the Wii, I was a bit nervous. When the company revealed the logo and announced that the rust laden, nightmarish Otherworld was being brushed aside for an ice world, I was downright scared. After gathering some more info and trying the game at E3, all fears were assuaged. This was to be the great hope of the Silent Hill series.

Having spent two evenings with the game and completing the story for the first time, I'm conflicted. Was it good? Yes. I'm just not sure it's Silent Hill.

Continue reading Review: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

Review: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Double cash back offers from eBates today only

Filed under: Bargain Babe

The cash back shopping site eBates has ramped up its rebate offers for one day - today, Monday Dec. 14 -- as part of a Cyber Monday II promotion.

Which means you can save even more when you shop online. Remember, these cash back rebates can be combined with coupon codes, sales, and free shipping deals.

Here are some of the percentages you earn back in cash when you shop today on eBates:
Barnes & Noble is 10% -- up from 4%
Cost Plus World Market 6% -- up from 4%
DSW is 12% -- up from 6%
Godiva is 11% -- up from 5%
Nordstrom is 7% -- up from 3%
North Face is 12% -- up from 4%
Old Navy is 10% -- up from 2%
Sephora is 10% -- up from 4%
Snapfish by HP is 18% -- up from 10%
Walmart is 3% -- up from 1%

See the entire rebate list here. Sale ends at 11:59 p.m. today. If you are not already a member, join here. It's free.

Caveats: the downside to eBates.com is that it takes awhile to receive your money -- about 90 days. But that's better than not getting it at all.

Continue reading Double cash back offers from eBates today only

Double cash back offers from eBates today only originally appeared on WalletPop Blog on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Morton&#39;s Musings: A <b>conservative</b> is a man with two perfectly good <b>...</b>

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 - 1945), radio address, Oct. 26, 1939. A curious analogy for Roosevelt to use but still a good one. ...
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Tennessee Democrat Gordon Won't Seek 2010 Re-Election - Bloomberg

New York Times (blog)

Tennessee Democrat Gordon Won't Seek 2010 Re-Election Bloomberg �Unionized conservative Democrats are losing their clout as social conservative tendencies launch local Republicans into public office� in Gordon's district ... Troubling Retirements Pile up for House DemocratsWall Street Journal (blog) Bart Gordon announces he will retire from US HouseThe Tennessean Gordon Won't Seek Re-election in 2010New York Times (blog) Memphis Flyer all 220 news articles »

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Blue Whales Are Changing Their Tunes, But Why?

The songs blue whales use to communicate and attract mates have been dropping in pitch worldwide for decades, and researchers think it might actually be a sign that an endangered population is recovering.

No one is completely sure what whale songs are used for � theories include mating calls, other forms of communication, and possibly a form of sonar. A group of researchers recently examined whale songs from several decades and from all the world's oceans. They found that the frequency, or pitch, of blue whale song has been steadily dropping for many years. Recently recorded whale songs are the lowest, while whale songs from the 1960s were higher in pitch.

The researchers don't know what's causing the change, but they have a theory based on a correlation with blue whale populations. When the songs were at their highest pitch, blue whales had been hunted to the brink of extinction. Since the International Whaling Commission banned blue whale hunting in the 60s, the worldwide blue whale population has been slowly but steadily increasing (though it's still a tiny fraction of what it once was). That seems to coincide with the pitch change.

It could be that whales used a higher frequency song when there were fewer whales because those songs traveled farther, hundreds of miles or more. With a sparse population, you'd need a long-distance call to find more mates or family members. With populations rebounding somewhat, the whales are able to use lower frequency songs with more success, since there's a greater chance another blue whale is nearby.

You may be wondering why higher frequency songs would travel farther, since generally low-frequency sounds are thought to be better for long-distance propagation. I asked the researchers about this, and scientist Mark McDonald explained that whales can sing louder at higher frequencies:

Across the frequencies of blue whale song, the underwater transmission losses are nearly the same regardless of frequency. It is absorption which is the primary cause of frequency dependent transmission losses, rather than dispersion in this case, and the absorption loss only begins to become significant when ranges reach thousands of kilometers. Theory tells us the whales can produce higher amplitude songs at higher frequencies, based on given lung volume.

I was also curious if this was an example of evolution in action, with subsequent generations of whales exhibiting a change in pitch due to natural selection, or if it was a behavioral change, with blue whales choosing to use a lower pitch song. He replied:

We presume it is a behavioral change, but we don't really know why the whales are changing their song frequency. We don't find our own best hypothesis entirely convincing.

Which is a pretty excellent example of science in progress. If only we could figure out what blue whales were singing about, so we could just ask them.

The pitch of blue whale songs is declining around the world, scientists discover [via EurekAlert!]

Photo: NOAA.

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