Penny Arcade has released a schedule of activities for this year's Penny Arcade Expo (PAX). If you're planning to go to the event, we recommend checking it out so you can plan out your own schedule in advance.

Those of you who were let down by Bungie's no show during E3, don't worry. The Halo 3 devs will be making an appearance during the upcoming Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) event and will be revealing a couple of juicy tidbits regarding some new projects up their sleeves. Find out more about this in our full article after the jump.

Wondering what's cooking for this year's Penny Arcade Expo? Among other details, the PAX organizers have announced that 2K's Ken Levine will be keynoting this event. The rest of the details are available in the full article.

If you're a self-styled independent game developer and want to break off from obscurity, you may want to take a shot with Penny Arcade and DigiPen Institute of Technology's PAX 10, an indie game showcase which will be featured in the upcoming Penny Arcade Expo. Think you've got a quality game in your hands? If yes, then head over to the full article to get more details.

IDG Entertainment is sending word that instead of August, this year's E for All Expo has been moved to October. This news should serve as a relief for those worried the the event may conflict with PAX's own schedule for 2008.

Details are in the full article. Just click the "read more" link below.

It's never too early to reserve a place in the next Penny Arcade Expo (PAX). It was announced today that the event will be accepting registrations as early as January 2008. The last PAX had 37,000 gamers roaming its floor. Tickets were sold out so early registration may be a good idea.

PAX 2008 will be held on August 29 to 31 and attendance is expected to double again. "Again" because attendance has been doubling ever since the first PAX. The attendance grew so large that the last event was held in the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle just to fit everyone in.

Next year's PAX will mark the expo's fifth year and will continue the tradition of game exhibitions, conference programs (about games of course), concerts, tournaments, freeplay gaming and general fun times for everyone and all in the gaming community.

 

You can't talk about web comics without mentioning Tycho and Gabe's Penny Arcade Adventures. With their off-beat, tongue-in-cheek style of comedy about the video gaming industry, gamers will finally get to experience this unique brand of humor in Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness (I personally blame Tycho and Gabe for such a mouthful of a title for their game) developed by Hothead Games.

Suffice to say, the developers are having a lot of fun making the game, probably as much as players will have playing it. Don't take my word for it - in an interview with Joel DeYoung, the producer of Hothead, he gives the team at QJ.net the low-down on the upcoming game based, of course, on the Penny Arcade Adventures web comic. He talks about many interesting points regarding the game's mechanics, as well as the active involvement of the web comic's creators.

The game was originally unveiled during last year's Penny Arcade Expo. There's been no official release date set, however, you can expect it to come out by years end. Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is slated to come out on the PC, Mac, Linux, and Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade) platforms. Either way, fans everywhere will be waiting with baited breath for the game's release. Don't worry, though, we'll be sure to give you up-to-date reports on the game as we get them.

Check out the full interview right after the jump!

International Talk Like a Pirate Day is quickly coming up, so we guess it's about time we got some updates on Flying Lab's Pirates of the Burning Sea. These updates come courtesy of an MMORPG.com interview with game designer Drew Clowery at this year's Penny Arcade Expo (PAX).

The interview focuses on the whole avatar combat system in Pirates of the Burning Sea. While it was originally planned to be released as a later addition after the final game hit retail, community support for the avatar combat system was enough to persuade the game's developers to flesh it out and include it in the game's final build.

Clowery explains a few of the avatar combat system's key points in the interview. One of these is Balance. "Balance is our mechanic that determines how well your attacks will land on your opponents and how well you defend against your opponents' attacks," says Clowery.

Balance is one of the cornerstones of duelling in Pirates of the Burning Sea. It directly affects how well a player can defend against attacks. There are also skills that target an opponent's balance directly as well as skills that let a player recover balance when in a pinch.

According to the interview, the Balance mechanic currently shows up on a player character's status bar. The development team is still adding a few tweaks here and there to further refine the Balance mechanic, and Clowery says that "the only things missing right now are the results - the numbers - that lets users know when balance is lost".

Clowery also talks about the three schools of combat available to players - Dirty Fighting, Fencing and Florentine - as well as the three passive skills - Dodge, Parry and Block - that each of them specialize in. You can learn more about the different aspects of avatar combat by clicking on the Read link below.

During the recent Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) 07, one Two Worlds (PC and Xbox 360) fan known as RegnorVex had a brief discussion with one of the video game's producers about the apparent issues fans have encountered especially during multiplayer sessions.

The said producer was very accommodating and mentioned that a high priority patch is coming. According to RegnorVex, the producer is aware of complaints regarding questing and grouping being "sub-optimal" because only one player could complete a quest in one session.

The producer shared that this will also be addressed in the said patch alongside the lag and framerate issues. RegnorVex also pointed out several problems like not being able to zoom the map in multiplayer mode and other related gameplay anomalies.

The Reality Pump producer reportedly wrote all of them down and promised to make a report about it. Furthermore, the producer said that it will take around two weeks or more for the patch to go live. Two Worlds will be released in the UK on September 7.

A lot of players have been anxiously awaiting Electronic Arts' Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Well, the Warhammer team at the recent Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) gave out a lot of details on the game that should interest further those looking forward to the game.

The developers gave word that a few classes from the Empire and Chaos faction have already been added to the game. They have also been developing a new siege weapon which works much like the famous Orcapult. Yes, they're giving players yet another method to fling themselves at their foes.

The announcement of Public Quests in the game has been all over the Internet recently as well. The devs explained how this feature actually works:

The first chapter of the game, there is one public quest, each chapter after that there are three public quests. So there are over three hundred public quests in the game. That equals quite a few per zone. You will find public quest pretty much everywhere as you go through.

As you get into later stages of the public quests, it requires more and more people, because the encounter becomes more and more difficult and complex. So you will still be able to participate and gain influence in public quests if you are by yourself, even if you can't complete it by yourself.

While that seems like a lot of hard work, it is well worth it. You'll be gaining influence in the game which is used to get item rewards and potions. As expected, the higher your influence, the better stuff you'll be getting.

It appears that the game is on track for its expected February release date next year. A few more details were discussed in the full interview (via the Read link below) as well as a thorough explanation about the above mentioned Public Quests.