It has been a crazy past couple of weeks so I am a little behind on the latest and greatest. As far as informational updates go, I have been at the doctors office and hospital lately way more times than I care to, for both myself and for my wife who should be giving birth to our new baby boy here within the next two or three weeks.

For those of you who aren’t following all the new Battle.net features being implemented with Starcraft 2, some of them are spilling over into World of Warcraft and will also be utilized in future titles, such as Diablo 3.

Here are the details from the newsletter:

Soon, World of Warcraft® players will have access to a brand-new feature called Real ID, a completely voluntary and optional level of identity that will keep players connected across all of Battle.net®. When you and a friend mutually agree to become Real ID friends, you’ll have access to a number of additional features that will enrich your social gaming experience in new and exciting ways:
	Real Names for Friends: Your Real ID friends will appear under their real-life names on your friends list, when chatting, communicating in-game, or viewing a character’s profile. Real ID friends can also see who’s on each other’s Real ID friends list, making it easy for players to connect with other people they know.
	Cross-Realm and Cross-Game Chat: With Real ID, friends can chat cross-realm and cross-faction in World of Warcraft, and will be able to chat across future Blizzard games such as StarCraft® II.
	Rich Presence: See additional info on your friends list about what your Real ID friends are up to in World of Warcraft and upcoming games like StarCraft II in real time.
	Broadcasts: Broadcast a short status message for all of your Real ID friends to see, whether you want to issue a call-to-arms or let your friends know about an important change of plans.
	Friend Once, See All Characters: Real ID friends will automatically see all of each other’s characters on their friends list – even characters created in future Blizzard games – helping players stay connected with the people they enjoy playing with most.
Getting Started: To send a Real ID friend request to another player, you’ll simply enter his or her Battle.net account name (an email address) using the Add Friend function in-game. The other player will see the pending request in their friends list, and if they accept, you will become Real ID friends with each other. Real ID Parental Controls: With the launch of Real ID, we will be updating our Parental Controls, giving parents the ability to decide whether their child can participate in Real ID. We’ll be sending an email to existing Parental Controls users with more information once the feature becomesavailable. Real ID is scheduled to launch with World of Warcraft patch 3.3.5; keep an eye on www.worldofwarcraft.com for details.

I’ve been working on a retro review for one of my favorite games of all time that I’ve decided to play again recently since I have spent a lot of time just down and trying to chill from some medical issues I’ve had going on. But everything should be fine and back to normal soon.

In the meantime, have a great week

Class dismissed