After the fan petition that made Blizzard put it into the game and the data gained from the datamine of the beta a week or more back, some gamers in the Warlords of Draenor beta have located where the tribute to late comedian and actor Robin Williams looks to be placed.

On a small island located off the coast of Talador, a user by the name of Haldhur found a genie NPC that is named ‘Robin’. The NPC is summoned by rubbing on a placed item called the Ever-Burning Lamp to which he will emerge and quote “INFINITE COSMIC POWER!” before shrinking down and quoting “Itty bitty living space.” before waving goodbye.

The island also contains a large split egg that could be the possible future location of the Mork-like human male character discovered in the datamine as well as some stuffed toys that could be a reference to Toys.

The Indie Game Show with DJs Digmbot and PredictedCyborg
Sunday night, 6pm til 9pm GMT, 1pm til 4pm EST.

On the Indie Game Show this Sunday…

Pumpkin Interactive!

Currently Kickstarting their MMO that takes cues from Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon – Pumpkin Online. The main goal of this game is one of complete inclusivity – everyone can be represented within this game, no matter the gender, sexuality, identity and so on.

Remember to tune in so you can join in our Q and A session in the IRC!

Pumpkin Online Website: [x]

Kickstarter: [x]

Click the link for your player to tune in:

Join us both on the website and in IRC @ irc.sanitarium.fm 6667 for indie gaming discussion and your chance to ask our guests questions!

The forth Sims game has launched in North America at last, although in Europe we still have a little time to wait. Maybe that’s a good thing because it means that we get to find out how good or bad the game is by the results we hear back from our American cousins. Unfortunately it does mean we miss out on some of the more entertaining original bugs before they get patched.

A day one patch was available for the Sims 4, which tackled a number of things including making it impossible to date the Grim Reaper and stopping a number of game-freezing bugs related to babies in household inventories, including the the one that had babies multiplying while in the household inventory if the lot was being edited in Manage Worlds. The big question I have though is, why can a baby be placed into the inventory in the first place??

The Sims 4 has already come under criticism before launch after it was revealed that a great many features common to the previous games had been removed from the new base game. Judging by the need for a day one patch… something makes me think that the Sims 4 might be headed towards Simcity territory as far as reception goes…

Full patch notes: [x]

After a long time coming and many snapshots, Minecraft 1.8: The Bountiful Update has finally released on the launcher today.

It’s been well over 300 days and 10 months since Mojang began working towards what is possibly the largest update to the popular sandbox game since its full release. The reason for this is that a great many of the core mechanics of the game have been reworked, replaced or just generally improved. This includes some tweaks to world generation (including a whole new way to allow players to generate a world based on what they want) and a new skin system that saw the ‘hat’ layer extended all over the surface of the player avatar and the possibility of finally being able to have limbs that weren’t mirrors of each other.

And while a lot of the updates were meant for the mapmakers or ‘invisible’ to the player, there were many updates to Survival mode as well. This included the addition of new blocks, such as the fall damage-dampening slime block; the three new stone types: andesite, granite and diorite, all naturally occurring and also craftable; red sandstone; prismarine; sea lanterns; wet sponge and more. There are also new mobs added in 1.8, the most prominent being the rabbits who are often tame but can rarely spawn in a ‘killer’ variety.

There are also some building tweaks such as moss stone now being craftable (vine and cobblestone), all wooden fences now join together (but nether brick fences still won’t), fences crafting recipe has changed to be the opposite of crafting a gate (4 planks and 2 sticks) and the different woods now make different doors. Banners are also now available, being crafted much as you would a sign but with wool instead of planks (6 wool and a stick).

There’s a reason it’s called the Bountiful Update and that’s because there’s so much added that it’s impossible to fit all into one article. Check out the blog post linked below for the full list of features and download the 1.8 update from the launcher to play with it yourself.

“Minecraft 1.8 Pre-release 3 – The Bountiful Update” – [x]

Seems that Hearthstone’s rather appealing and generous free-to-play setup wasn’t done by accident. It’s recently been revealed that the structure was planned out by Blizzard with the game’s long life in mind.

We’re here for the long run,” said producer Yong Woo. “We’re not here to make a quick buck. I want to be playing and working on Hearthstone 10 years from now… Instead of focusing on maximising immediate profit, Hearthstone is really about being able to play it how you want to.”

Production director Jason Chayes echoed the same ideals while elaborating “When Blizzard approaches a game it’s with the intention of making something that’s going to be around not for a month or two or a year or two but something that we’re really into for the long haul. A game that we plan to support for many many years to come, and that’s certainly the case with Hearthstone.”

Recently Blizzard also announced that they’d expansions planned for their other game World of Warcraft that would also hopefully carry the game forward until 2024.