I will be giving away 2 beta-keys tomorrow at 1:00PM PST.

One for Path of Exile and the other for Tribes Ascend (Thanks Matais!).

You obviously won't have time for both (keys go fast), so make sure you pick the one that's higher priority for you. :)

For the Tribes Ascend key, I don't know how exactly to register it since I haven't done it myself. I assume that you'll need to create an account with Hi-Rez Studios, and then register the key there. So, you'll have to do some leg work and prepare for tomorrow.

I'll be doing another simple random letter shuffle for both keys. Good luck!

* UPDATE:

Tribes Ascend Key: F3F75A74511AFD4B42AE7C2B1

Apparently, these are pretty easy to get a hold of. So, if you have any spares that you want to give away, just post them as a comment here.

Path of Exile Key: FRSQJ-5G2PN-HBKGV-3____

Letter Shuffle: P M F P

If you win and get a friend invite, the people here would really appreciate it if you throw it back for another contest. :)

• This post has been upgraded from "Minor" to "Significant Updates". A Public Relations representative from Irvine HQ has confirmed that the Korean Times article is correct. As you recall, I was waiting for a retraction, but instead there has been a confirmation. :)
  
  What was contained in the factual news (non-blog) source? Blizzard has a simultaneous global launch planned, it will be region-free for the first time in the company's history, each country will have identical software, and the Korean Board's decision has kept the game launching in other countries.
  
  Blizzard PR has also provided a quote that there are global launch plans, even though it was never officially announced. This is all some very credible evidence, and I can now call them "facts" which I wasn't able to do before. All of this confirms what I've been writing about to be accurate. :)
  

  Asked whether the situation might cause Blizzard to launch the game in other markets first, instead of a worldwide simultaneous release, Damron stated that “this will not impact our global launch plans.” Given this, a delay in the South Korean Market could impact the release in North America and Europe as well.

  Although the initial delay was caused by the SK issues, this means that Blizzard right now has plans to launch and the SK issues are no longer holding it back. Because they're having a worldwide simultaneous launch and you can't launch without all countries being in line, this means that Blizzard is plowing forwards with an expected approval. Meaning that Diablo 3 will be approved for use in SK either because Blizzard knows things are positive and it will be approved with the RMAH, or they're planning on stripping out the RMAH entirely. If this is the case, then they have a launch date planned already and it also might explain the confidence surrounding the new "Q1" statement instead of old "Early 2012" regurgitation. Atleast now you know why Bashiok had to be so ambiguous about his posts. :)

• Details about the Bethesda v. Interplay settlement have not been announced yet, but it appears that Bethesda has dismissed their lawsuit against Interplay. And by dismissing with prejudice, it might mean that Bethesda has made Interplay immune from being sued for the same reasons in the future. Can't wait to find out what really happened here. :)

• I've updated the "Diablo Delay Debate" post with additional information. I also moved that awesome "I'm a problem" Bashiok quote to my "Important Notices" page.

• The Korea GRB never made a final decision today. They meet every Wednesday and Friday and these constant delays in making a decision may force Blizzard's hand. Typically, release date announcements are made on Mondays (and right before their shareholders meeting, unless there's something unusual about the circumstances.) There won't be an announcement made next Monday, though, because Bashiok said that they still need to announce their new game changes "before or with the next beta patch."

• Bashiok confirmed that Blizzard is planning for a Q1 2012 release. So "Early" means Jan, Feb, or Mar.

• It also looks like Diablo 3 will indeed have Pre-Digital Downloads available. I wonder when (or if) the region-free announcement will be made and how this will work. For example, if you download the Digital Copy, they'll probably lock the game to the region's Battle.net that you downloaded it from. That way, you can't just download the game for a much cheaper price, but then register the game in your own country. Does that really matter though? If I setup a US Battle.net account, pay for and download the game, I still have the option of playing on faster AU servers and I can register my home region for the RMAH as AU. Will they have some security measure or process in place to prevent this though? (e.g. the B.Net account you register on automatically becomes your "home region" for RMAH.)

• I'm still working on another post about Titan, but I just haven't had a lot of time to work on it. It's getting pretty big too, so I might need to break it down into parts (surprised?). Really nothing much else going on, so don't be surprised if things are a little quiet around here. Until, that is, new or interesting information comes out.

I wasn't planning on posting anything today since there aren't really any new updates. We're still waiting and I wasn't really expecting anything less. :)

I was very surprised, though, that the Korea Times decided to weigh in on the ongoing issue. The last time they talked about Blizzard was back in September 2011 where one of their journalists discussed the GRB's AH Gambling concerns. What's nice about Korea Times is that it's a real newspaper, it's peer reviewed, and they have paid journalists. I really like sources like this because they're much better than what you can source from blogs/gaming sites.

Here were some of the interesting parts from the article:

• They did discuss Diablo 3, but the committee is still very reluctant to approve Diablo 3 even with the changes. They really don't like the Auction House, and perhaps Blizzard will make another revision to their approval request.
• They meet every Wednesday and Friday, so everything is still pretty much up in the air. There might be some news by next Monday.
• There doesn't seem to be any concerns about the gameplay or graphics (decisions on those have already been made). It's all about the gambling nature of the game.
• When asked about Diablo 3, a Blizzard spokeswoman confirmed "In principle, we are always committed to a global release". Quite the contrast to what the Forum Managers were telling us, but then again, they were also trying to be as ambiguous as possible.
• And, there's also this nice quote too: "Because every country will receive identical software, the Korean board’s decision is keeping the global game giant in chains."

There are statements of fact in the news article as well as opinions from the internet, so if there is anything incorrect about facts in the news article, there will be a retraction. This is why I like news sites over blogs like Dfans, Incgamers, MMOChamp, etc. :)

Other than that, still no updates on the Bethesda v. Interplay battle either. There's no point in writing about it either, since every other blog has already announced the same thing: there's a settlement but no one knows the details. I can't wait to find out those details!