Most of the time, and let me tell you openly that this is one of those times, I've overjoyed to have gone clean of World of Warcraft.  That sentiment is far from universal in our extended crew, and recent mage alterations did (briefly) cause mon frère d'autre mère some amount of consternation.  I think he was looking for more a more demonstrative cast to the highest tier abilities of each tree, and this is something I can understand, even given my blessed distance from the events in question.  Ever since they let Druids transform into giant owls, I think all classes feel diminished by comparison.

Kiko just finished a new T-Shirt design for all the Annarchy fans out there.

Are you going to E3? Well we will be signing stuff at the Ubisoft booth again this year. The days of security tossing us out into the street are thankfully over. This will be the third year that Ubi has been kind enough to provide with us with a space to do our thing. Just like last year we’ll be handing out a free comic book that collects all the comic projects we did for them last year. Here is a peak at the cover:

Just got an E3 PR blurb for Guitar Hero 2, and I was overjoyed to hear that it listed a few of the playable songs on the new game.  Observe:

The top-secret sequel song list remains firmly in the rock domain,
with more than 55 songs being featured in the next installment.
Confirmed for E3 are seven playable tracks including: "Psychobilly
Freakout," "Strutter," "Who Was in My Room Last Night," "You Really
Got Me," "War Pigs," "YYZ" and "Arterial Black." Also confirmed are
in-game appearances by returning guitar hero Judy Nails and the new
Rockabilly guitarist.

They had to throttle the podcast down to 40k or so, because it was burning up the equipment at fully one hundred megabits per second.  Between no podcast at all and a podcast that takes longer to come down, we opted for the latter.  Also, I just uploaded a new version of the cast altogether, with a couple edits and "Gabe's" volume a little more normalized.  We wear the microphones differently, which creates a much more pronounced disparity than I would have expected.  The new file being copied probably resulted in a few partial downloads - sorry about that.  Also, fixed the ID3 info. 

Update:  Um, the throttling seems to be truncating the files.  I'll let you know when it's "cool."

Ultra Mega Update™:   Utilizing a strange metallic disc discovered with a buried pharaoh, we were able to resolve the issue. 

Five new servers are being installed today.  The new hardware should hopefully put us out ahead of curve for a while.

Hopefully.

(CW)TB

I'm hoping this means good things for me - Namco Bandai just released their next-gen E3 lineup, and Culdcept Saga is on there.  It had been announced recently in Japan for the 360 of all things.  This is precisely the sort of game the Xbox seems to repel, quirky Eastern marvels with a strategy bent.  As I have mentioned, the satirical entity "Salad Master" is based on Culdcept, and Culdcept is actually more ridiculous in some ways. 

I mentioned it because I'm almost desperate in my anticipation, but also because it would give mean excuse to link the Babelfish translation of the site.  Automated translations are usually pretty good for amusement purposes, but this one is especially rich.  Don't forget to visit the different menu items.  You'll thank me.

(CW)TB

A new episode of Downloadable Content - The Penny Arcade Podcast has been made available.  As always, you can subscribe to our iTunes compatible feed here.

To be a PAX Volunteer?  To, as we say, take the black?   Are you Enforcer Material?  If it sounds like something you'd be interested in, then by all means - fill out this form and mail it over to Kristin Lindsay, who you may come to know as Princess Red Dot.  Saturday is the last day we'll be accepting applications, after which we'll board the Prize Bus and go from state to state presenting huge checks.

Okay, not really.

(CW)TB

No doubt there is considerable enthusiasm for the rumored couple minutes of Halo 3 at this year's E3, but I couldn't help thinking about the Goddamn deathmarch the people over at Bungie have been in for what has got to be going on eight years now. I guess I shouldn't invent motivations for them.  As people are bored by the time we have created the third panel of a comic, we may represent a statistical abberation. Maybe they still like Halo.  You know?  Maybe they are unstoppably enthusiastic.   Maybe they are angels and they can fly around the fucking room. 

I don't expect difficulties like this to be a common occurrence, but coming up on E3 everyone here is basically going all the time - Kiko is our audiomancer on this project, and he had to finish up actual work before he could sink his teeth into yesterday's raw audio.  We're planning on maintaining the schedule next week, so that'll mean another one on Wednesday, and we've got a system set up on Gabe's laptop that should let us record and edit podcasts while we're at E3 the week after. 

I feel pretty bad about the whole thing, and I'm sorry.  The podcasts are my favorite thing about the site at the moment.

(CW)TB

We here at Penny Arcade make it a point to avoid politics for the most part and I don’t want to have that conversation now. But I did get this email today and I thought it was pretty amazing.

I thought I’d post a drawing I did last week for my wife. This is her WOW character Kimbela. You can see my inks on top and then Joe Pekar’s incredible colors underneath.

MC Frontalot, Penny Arcade's rapper laureate, has comitted himself to the rigors of a tour.  Is he playing near you?  Maaaaybe.  There is also a documentary being produced to chronicle his struggles etc., and for a taste of the aforementioned there is a torrent for the trailer here. 

Also, for New York fans of The Front, he is apparently having some kind of signing.  Observe:

"Front is doing a public meet & greet at Forbidden Planet comics in NYC (Broadway & 13th). Everyone who shows up can put one word on a list and then on the bus ride home he will write a rap that has all the words in it. Later, he will make a recording of it. Also, the person who puts in the best word (judge of best word: Front, duh) gets a signed Penny Arcade Expo 2005 DVD. There will be shirts and CDs too."

My goodness!  Our little Front, he is all growed up.

(CW)TB

You really must be joking. What names were rejected, that something like Wii remained vertical at the end of it?