Holy Shit…

Do Want!!!

According to the interview by "The escapist" (which has, btw., been removed from their page but mirrored by mmo-champion, probably because the information has been released too early), the Random Raid Finder will introduce a new difficulty-level of raids and also a different loot.

The next big thing that we'll be doing is the random raid finder. The idea behind this is that it is very similar to the dungeon finder we have now except that it is for raids. There are special rules associated with how that is going to work, the first one is that the raid finder is going to be for 25 person only, it's not a way for you to have 10 person raids, it's only for 25 person. It is cross server we will do some auto match making very similar to how it is looking for dungeon. Another piece is that there is going to be another difficulty level and this raid difficulty – the random raid finder difficulty level – we haven't figured out exactly what it's going to be called but there will be a difficulty level easier than normal mode. You'll end up having this raid finder mode then you'll have your normal mode and your heroic mode. The normal and heroic modes are exactly what they are today.

Random hc => Normal raid => Hero raid

Now we got another step in between:

Random hc (to get gear + VP) => Random raid => Normal raid => (probably never ^^) hero raid

The good thing about RRF is, that there are lots of players who are in social-only guilds for the sake of their friends, but they're not raiding because ppl have only a few hours of gametime each week and those aren't at steady times (most guilds have steady dates + times for their raids. organisation ftw!). Additionally, if you want to find a good STEADY raid group, you most probably would have to leave your guild (thx to the guild perks). So with RRF, you can stay in your social guild AND find Random-raids way easier than to spam trade channel for hours.

Additionally, there will be lots of ppl who are curious about how RRF works, so i guess we're gonna see a lot of demand for gems, enchants and belt buckles within the first few weeks. And even if epic gems will be released, they will (probably) be too expensive for most players, so they will use the current gems for their gear.

Anyway – i'm happy to read this about the RRF, and perhaps i'm gonna give it a try with one or two of my twinks too.

New infographic illustrates how many Android smartphones are released and left running outdated software.

Between Donut, Eclair, Froyo and Gingerbread, Google's Android mobile operating system has received a number of substantial upgrades over the years. Unfortunately, not all devices have been made to support these updates, leaving many users with one or several generations old software. Worse yet, many new devices aren't being released with the latest version of Android.

 

Naturally, many users are unhappy with the results, and Michael DeGusta has created and posted an infographic highlighting how much of an impact Android fragmentation has had over the years.

 

As you can see, the results are not pretty.

 

Credit: TheUnderstatement.com

The infographic was paired with extensive research conducted by DeGusta, which reveal some startling facts. Of the eighteen recent Android devices discussed, seven have never ran a current version of the OS, ten of the eighteen were at least two years behind the most recent OS within two years of being introduced, and sixteen of the eighteen are unlikely to ever be updated to use Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich, which releases next month. By comparison, Apple's iPhone series has remained consistently up-to-date with new software releases, up to three years after they were originally introduced.

 

On the bright side, it seems that flagship Google devices like the Nexus One fared quite nicely, so Nexus S and future Galaxy Nexus owners shouldn't feel the woes that others experience, but that's just one line of devices out of many.

 

For everyone else, Android fragmentation is a persistent problem.

 

To see more of DeGusta's findings, head over to TheUnderstatement.com.

Interplay will continue development.

Bethesda sued Interplay back in 2009 to block development of Fallout Online, an MMO based on the Fallout franchise. Since then, the court battle has continued, with Bethesda losing multiple decisions along the way.

The court's latest decision blocks Bethesda's appeal against a recent ruling. According to Joystiq, Bethesda was denied a preliminary injunction against Interplay in June, and attempted to appeal the decision. That appeal has now also been denied.

Bethesda's argument was that "the district court abused its discretion and misapplied the law in concluding that Bethesda failed to establish a likelihood of irreparable harm." The injunction would have prevented development of Fallout Online, but with the denied appeal, the game will continue to be worked on.

The court battle still isn't over, as Bethesda owns the Fallout license. If the game is eventually completed, Interplay will still need to work out a deal with Bethesda for Fallout Online to be released. This is Bethesda's second high-profile legal loss in recent weeks, as the publisher also lost a recent decision in its legal battle against Minecraft creator Mojang.