Although it's still not an official confirmation, there is more and more pointing towards a late November release of Ultima IX: Ascension. It seems that everone's favorite monarch, Lord British, has been making a promotional tour, attending conferences for various software vendors. Apparently he told the audience at a Babbages manager's conference to expect the game to be ready by Thankgiving. He then is rumored to have gone further, citing November 23rd at an Electronics Boutique manager's conference. (How come all these managers get the scoop and not us, the fans? =Þ)

Lord British (a.k.a Richard Garriott) also mentioned that he expected the total playing time to be about 40 - 400(!) hours. He went on to talk about what would be contained in the special "Dragon Edition" of the game which will include, among other things, the full versions of Ultima's I-VIII. The other interesting thing he mentioned that a 200 MB demo would be hitting the 'net (and the newstands in the December Computer Gaming World magazine) on or about November 1st. So it would seem that we only have about another month before we can return to the shores of Britannia! This information was gathered from fan letters sent in to my favorite U9 site, Ultima IX Horizons.

And there's one more tidbit on the release date front: Diablo II. There has been much fear among the community that Diablo II would once again miss it's realse date and not come out until some time in 2000. The recent announcement that the Public Beta test would not even start until the end of October did not help to quell these fears. But last night Blizzard North VP, Max Schaefer, made this post to the Official Diablo II Suggestion Forum. Here's most of what he had to say:

That said, I want everyone to take a moment of silence... grab hold of the hand of the person next to you and focus as much positive psychic energy towards Blizzard as you can. Help them pull this off, and you just might be rewarded with an awesome game under your Christmas tree, or your menorah, or whatever.

First of all, I apologize for missing yesterday's news. But hey, we're not really officially in operation yet. And we won't be until we've fleshed out the sections a bit more and moved to our permanent location at www.swordplay.net. (I don't link this, cuz it doesn't work yet =Þ). But on that note, I had a long talk with my buddy Touch Tone today who owns TheProvider.com, the ISP which will be graciously hosting us. It will only take a few more days to get everything set up. But in the meantime, we've got the Forum up and running for your perusal. I should also probably mention that I'm going on vacation from Saturday until sometime in the middle of next week. That period will most likely be the calm before the storm, since we should be all ready to go live once I come back. I can't wait! At that point we'll announce ourselves to the world and see if anyone actually cares.

I saw over on Blue's today that there's a new patch for Drakan, the dragon flying game from Surreal Software. Beside fixing numerous bugs, the patch adds a slew of new features and multiplayer player improvements. Download it and check out the new features on this page at 3DFiles.com.

On a side note, Rao has been playing Drakan for a few weeks now. Perhaps he could be persuaded to share his thoughts on the game.

Also from the patch fairy today, came Battle.net v.1.06 Patch for Starcraft and Brood War. The update adds a few new features to Battle.net, but basically is there to put new functionality in for the upcoming Warcraft II Battle.net Edition. You may just connect to Battle.net with either game and receive the patch automatically, or you may directly download the patch for Starcraft (2.54 MB) or for Brood War (650 K). As a side note, I tried connecting with Diablo to see if it would update, but it did not.

Lastly, yesterday brought a great new Diablo II Screenshot of the Week. There is a wealth of details hidden in this pic, and the boys over at Diabloii.net have done their usual great job of pointing them all out. Read both their full caption and thier detailed analysis.

Damn, I wanna play this game NOW!

Gamespot (always there with a preview for ya) takes a look at the game to end a trilogy of trilogies in their Ultima IX: Ascension Preview. There really isn't much new information, but there are some previously unseen screenshots mixed in with older ones.

Also, the article quotes April, 2000 as the proposed release date, however it's unclear what the source is on that. The design team has been quoting Novermber/December, 1999 for some time now, and has also indicated that the game was on track for an on-schedule release. So this will remain unconfirmed barring an official statement from Origin. If it is true, I'm sure the extra time will only help to make the game more perfect, even though it will of course be hard to wait. Of course it might be a blessing in disguise... I've had this encroaching fear for a while now that Ultima IX, Diablo II, and Quake III will all be released on the same day, forcing me to go broke buying them all.

First up today for your perusal, we have a very well written editorial from Editor-in-Chief of The Adrenaline Vault, David Laprad. The editorial, entitled What Do We Learn From This? is a nice level headed look at the corporate realities of computer game development. Laprad not only charges the game companies to better understand their marketplace, but also takes aim at the fans who aren't doing their part to help the companies understand. Here's a quote:

You can read the full editorial here.

Also, this morning Blizzard North employee Mike Huang made a post to the Diablo II Suggestions Forum, stating simply "A new FAQ is on the way." Great! But until then, there are of course some truly great fan-run resources.

I'd also like to mention that it's my birthday today! Well, since I'm gettin a DSL connection installed next month, I don't think there's anything else I could possibly ask for as a present. (Unless there are any Bell Atlantic employees reading this who want to bump me up to the top of their work list)