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Age of Conan double XP this month

While some games have double XP weekends to attract more players, Age of Conan is having none of that silly thing, it’s got a full double XP month, which lasts until the end of November. Publisher Funcom also announced new incentives to sign up for the game, for instance, subscribe for one month and get 7 extra days, or six months and get a level 40 helmet with a 10% XP modifier (that’s right, 10%! /sarcasm). Full press release here.

Microsoft banning 1 million Xbox Live users

Information Week suggests that Microsoft has banned over 5% of Xbox Live members because they use modded consoles. Since there are just over 20 million Live members, it means over 1 million accounts have been suspended because they use modded consoles, which makes them play pirated games.

Quake Live patched

Id Software has patched several exploits for the free-to-play, browser-based online shooter Quake Live. The patch fixes a series of bugs and exploits, most importantly:

• Fixed demo playback for demos with long file names.
• Fixed the accuracy menu to update properly in Clan Arena.
• Fixed the players-left-alive count to update properly in Clan Arena when an alive player disconnects.
• Fixed banned players’ profile pages to once again report the status of their suspension.
• Fixed issues that had arose with the Match tool-tips.
• Changed ‘cg_gibs 0′ to now entirely disable the death spark effects.
• Changed Cobalt Station – qzdm16’s max player limit to 8 players in CTF mode.

Quake Live is currently in open beta release, a state which it has been since February of this year. There is no word on the actual release of the game, but it seems quite stable as it is. You can check out Quake Live on the official site here.

Guild Wars 2 set for 2011

While many Guild Wars fans have been dreaming of a sequel next year, it appears they’ll have to dream on, into 2011, because NCsoft revealed that it has no plans of any major releases in 2010, having just released the highly anticipated MMO Aion a few months ago. However, lucky Koreans will have a chance to play the Guild Wars 2 beta sometime next year, probably late-2010.

Xbox 360 wireless N adapter available next week

Microsoft’s new wireless adapter, which support the new, and much faster N WiFi standard, will be shipping next week for $99 — quite a lot for something that comes as standard with the PS3 and the Wii (although those don’t feature N speeds). The old wireless adapter will still be available and retail for $75.

StarCraft 2 beta delayed until 2010

StarCraft 2 producer Chris Sigaty revealed at Russian game expo IgroMir (yep, they got game expos over there too), that the StarCraft 2 beta has been pushed into next year. Blizzard has previously announced that StarCraft 2, or rather, the first chapter, named Wings of Liberty, will be released during Q2 2010, which begins in March.

EA acquires PlayFish for $300 million

EA has announced that they’ve acquired social network game developer PlayFish for 300 million dollars. PlayFish, which makes games for social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, will receive an additional $100 million if certain sales/revenue goals are met before 2012. PlayFish has developed 10 titles which have 60 million active users on Facebook and MySpace and over 1 billion play sessions each month.

Mass Effect only $10 on Steam this weekend

Dunno how we managed to let this slip by us, but apparently Steam is running a great weekend promo (like most other weekends), letting you buy Mass Effect for only $10.

Yep, $10 bucks gets you in on the Mass Effect universe — not a bad deal for a game that’ll net you a good 50 hours of gameplay time — and you should finish it just in time for the release of Mass Effect 2, which will be out early next year.

Left 4 Dead 2 pre-loading on Steam

The time is getting closer and closer, the time for slaying tons of zombies, that is. Valve has revealed that pre-loading is now available for Left 4 Dead 2, the full game will be released on November 17 in North America and on November 20 in Europe, both on the PC and Xbox 360. You can still pre-order the game and get a 10% discount.

Iwata: only 35% of Wiis are online, 20% of DS

Nintendo has never been known for fully embracing online gaming, and the Wii trails a distant third behind the PS3 and Xbox 360 when it comes to playing online — despite being the top selling console. Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata has revealed numbers on online connectivity, saying that 35% of Wii consoles are online and only 20% of Nintendo DS consoles.

Furthermore, Iwata said that those numbers will decline if the company doesn’t “take aggressive action” on the online front — which it of course plans to do. All we can say is; it’s about damn time!

Cliffy B: Borderlands is the Diablo of FPS

Cliff Beszinski, better known as Cliffy B, showed his love for Borderlands by tweeting “Borderlands, I adore you. You’re Diablo for a generation raised on first person shooters. I want a Claptrap.” He’s quite right, Borderlands might just be the Diablo of FPS games, considering that you’ll be spending a lot of time looting and managing your inventory. For more on the game, read our Borderlands review.

Warhammer Online free trial loses limit, capped at level 10

Mythic Entertainment has changed the way the demo works for their MMO RPG Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Instead of limiting players to a 10 day trial, the limit is now gone, where players can play as long as they want, except for one thing: the level limit is set at Level 10.

This is a good idea in theory, as it gives plenty of time for players to explore the world instead of just going XP hunting. We’ll see if it pays off with increased subscriber count.

Star Trek Online shipping on February 2

Star Trek Online has finally received a release date: February 2, 2010. The Star Trek based MMO is currently in closed beta to subscribers of Champions Online, and will receive an open beta in the upcoming months. The game allows you to join either the Federation or the Klingons as the commander of your own starship, go on missions and engage in combat with other ships.

PC version of Modern Warfare 2 to support only 18 players

Well, this seems like the final nail in the coffin for PC gamers who are looking to get some decent multiplayer action on Modern Warfare 2: it seems that the PC version, already stripped of dedicated servers, will have the same multiplayer player count as the console counterparts: 18 players, or 9 vs. 9, developer Infinity Ward revealed.

Clearly another disappointment for the PC crowd, as 64 players have been the standard for most games, from Counter-Strike to Battlefield (even Modern Warfare 1 supported at least 32 players). It’s pretty much conclusive that Modern Warfare 2 PC version will simply be a port of the console editions, and as ports from consoles to PCs go, they’re always inferior.

Serious Sam HD gone gold

Serious Sam HD developer Developer Digital announced via Twitter that Croteam’s Serious Sam high def re-incarnation has gone gold — however, as fate would have it, that particular tweet has since been removed. Another tweet reveals that you’ll be able to pre-order the digital copy of the game next week. We’ll see if that one sticks on Twitter or not.