ANGRY RANT BLIZZCON COVERAGE!

We will be hosting a live show today on Justin.TV/Wahh5 to celebrate the BlizzCon Coverage! We will start streaming live on 9 A.M. Pacific Standard Time (GMT -8).

Two special in-house guests will be present along with myself, and a special call to a attendant in BlizzCon! Also, we will give away a free level 80 Warrior for World of Warcraft equiped with Tier8!

Please attend today at 9 A.M. Pacific Standard Time @ Justin.TV/Wahh5

New Future for Angry Rant!

If you didn’t know, we had tons of drama lately in Angry Rant. Basically I’ll lay it out for you. We were growing fast, very fast. Too fast that our two very active writers were asking for compensation for being on the site that was growing this big… but the thing was that we were making no revenue from this site and not plan on making revenue. So they were out of the picture, and then real life problems happening all around me suddenly was dragging me away from my computer so did not have time to even visit Angry Rant. We then had many interviews set up but later were dropped by the companies PR people.

I am happy to announce that Angry Rant is still in the picture, but with a new agenda. We now will be focusing on our podcast department, and will be focusing on our weekly podcast. This is the new home of the podcast “Angry Rant Podcast”. It will be a weekly one hour podcast bringing you MMO News and commentary on it. This doesn’t mean we will stop bringing articles to you, we will be writing very important articles for all our readers/listeners. Also, bringing you breaking news daily.

Thank you very much for sticking with us through this hard time.

Major Update Soon!

Sorry for the in-activity of Angry Rant recently, we have a major change coming within the next days. I will post more information about it within the day comes.

Champions Online open beta and early start schedule revealed

Cryptic Studio has announced the open beta and head start schedule for Champions Online. It’s actually a very nice setup. Here’s the rundown:

• August 16th: closed beta servers wiped.
• August 17th: open beta begins, servers taken down nightly from 1am-3am PDT.
• August 24th: servers shut down at 10am PDT and wiped for early start.
• August 28th: early start begins, allowing GameStop Pre-Orders to play before the Sept. 1st launch.

Ozzy Osbourne to Rock BlizzCon 2009

Rumors have been speculating all month long for Ozzy Osbourne to appear at BlizCon 2009. And Angry Rant is happy to report first on the scene that Blizzard has comfirmed Ozzy Ozborne to rock BlizzCon.

“Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that the Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne, will headline the closing concert at this year’s BlizzCon®, which will take place August 21-22 at the Anaheim Convention Center. While tickets to the convention sold out in minutes, a live Pay Per View event will be available on DIRECTV and via Internet stream.”

To read more of the press release please head over here.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Races Leaked!

This information has been speculated upon by multiple places, and we’re pleased that everyone’s speculation has turned out to be more or less true.

The sources reveal that the new races will be:

• Worgen – Alliance
• Goblin – Horde

Ozzy at BlizzCon confirmed!

It’s not a rumor and it’s no longer a surprise - Ozzy Osbourne is going to appear at BlizzCon 2009, according to the program details of DirecTV. Unless Blizzard’s partner for the live stream content is just goofing around,“a special appearance” pretty much confirms that the Prince of Darkness is going to perform in Anaheim this August. The news first started as a rumor that sprung from Zakk Wylde’s Twitter message about a month back, corroborated by another rumor that another guitarist would be performing with Ozzy at BlizzCon.

Here’s to hoping that Ozzy Osbourne’s special appearance means he’ll actually rock out on stage. As cool as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain are, I’m sure Samwise and his crew will actually enjoy the show (and who says they won’t join up for one big supergroup?). Azeroth has its own Prince of Darkness, but having the real deal perform should be a special treat, just as it’s sure to be something all fans can look forward to. It seems like another incentive to get the DirecTV package in addition to that cute, murloc. With BlizzCon stepping up in the show department, I wonder what other big things are in store for us this year.

Final Fantasy XIV Website Goes Live

Today Square Enix announced that the website for their PC/PS3 MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV. It’s not just a lame teaser site with a shiny logo, either.

The website contains information on the game world’s storyline, locations, and races. There’s also a brief overview of the game’s mechanics, such as the different “disciplines” (sets of skills) a player can specialize in. Should all this text start to bore you, there’s a trailer and screenshots as well.

Final Fantasy XIV will be released globally in 2010 in Japanese, English, French, and German.

Today Square Enix announced the website for their PC/PS3 MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV. It’s not just a lame teaser site with a shiny logo, either.

The website contains information on the game world’s storyline, locations, and races. There’s also a brief overview of the game’s mechanics, such as the different “disciplines” (sets of skills) a player can specialize in. Should all this text start to bore you, there’s a trailer and screenshots as well.

Final Fantasy XIV will be released globally in 2010 in Japanese, English, French, and German.

To view the website click here.

StarCraft 2 Coming In First Half Of 2010, Delay Won’t Affect Diablo III

If you’ve been holding out hope that StarCraft 2 would arrive in time for the holidays, here’s Activision Blizzard with a crushing kick to your soul. They confirmed late Wednesday that the game will be released in the first half of 2010.

The game’s release was revised so that it would “coincide with the relaunch of its upgraded Battle.net online-gaming service,” according to Activision-Blizzard’s Q2 earnings report. Blizzard issued a statement on the delay that stressed the importance of the delay: “The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service.”

Though Blizzard typically only releases one game per year, the delay won’t cause any other titles like Diablo III to be pushed back. “I will confirm that the move of StarCraft into 2010 does not affect the release schedules of any of our other games,” said Blizzard president Mike Morhaime.

Diablo III was thought to be coming next year so we could be looking at a StarCraft 2/Diablo III doubleheader. Blizzard’s still not talking about release dates for D3, though. “It would be correct to conclude that you could expect two releases of Blizzard next year, but I would not make any conclusion on what those titles are going to be,” said Morhaime.

If you’ve been holding out hope that StarCraft 2 would arrive in time for the holidays, here’s Activision Blizzard with a crushing kick to your soul. They confirmed late Wednesday that the game will be released in the first half of 2010.

The game’s release was revised so that it would “coincide with the relaunch of its upgraded Battle.net online-gaming service,” according to Activision-Blizzard’s Q2 earnings report. Blizzard issued a statement on the delay that stressed the importance of the delay: “The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service.”

Age of Conan balancing act

I enjoy the heck out of this game. Age of Conan (AoC) has a lot to like…but also a lot to not like as well.

Balance has been a severe issue since launch. Each class handles some aspect like standard MMO’s, but are also unique as well. From Tanks (Conqueror, Guardian) to DPS (Demonologist, Ranger, Assasins), pet classes and healers…the game has it in spades. Also, into this mix, throw a less gear reliant game than most and a heal system that leaves a lot to be desired, yet proves to be one of the most challenging in any MMO…you have a good mix for an excellent game of skill and not a “look at your screen as global timers spin around and around” system.