In the forums, speculation is already underway, general opinion is that this expansion will see the addition of two new playable races and will expand the level cap to 90. I’m curious to see how long Blizzard can keep its users entertained. And I’m very curious to see what project Titan is. Any ideas?

Past week I was enjoying myself in forgotten France, so you can imagine I haven’t been spending too much time on Empire Avenue. Turns out my direct competitors have, but the investments I’ve made in the past few weeks are still paying off  and my wealth kept rising. There’s a new competitor as well, but I’m still aiming for the number 6 position, which is almost within reach, I hope to get there next week!

When I did get in the game turned out interesting! The mini-games are quite fun, although they will bore you when you’ve played them a few times, and the building of your city is easy. Some things are still a little bit unclear, like how to get the highest values in production and the various ways to fight towards victory. As it is right now, growth is most important, where in regular Civ games you could also go for different routes.

Anyhow, I can’t imagine this not to work out, so once they fix the connection troubles we’ll be good to go and I think a lot of people will enjoy it!

The trip gave us faith that the video game industry will continue to thrive and satisfy loyal fans for a long time to come, even as disruptive forces from social and mobile games encroach on the time that gamers have available to play.

Microsoft had some great announcements, but most of them leaked out. The highlight of the day was that Microsoft announced that it will launch Halo 4 in 2012 and will launch a remake of the classic Halo Combat Evolved game from 2001 later this year. The Halo 4 game picks up where Halo 3 left off and includes Master Chief and Cortana. It will be part of a new trilogy. Microsoft also leaked a Disney Adventures Kinect game and Star Wars Kinect the night before. With so many leaks, it was hard to say we learned anything new at the Microsoft event.

Read the full article here.

And while Apple will do its best to steal the thunder of E3 by having its own Worldwide Developer Conferencein the same week, it no longer seems like the iPhone and the iPad are pummeling the traditional game industry. Apple won’t kill the consoles, or so it seems. In fact, it almost seems that, after years of struggle for control of the industry, the various factions of the game industry are becoming more and more satisfied with the concept of variety. Consumers are embracing games in any kind of form. About 67 percent of American households play games, and the average gamer is 34 years old. Forty percent of gamers are women.

Read the full article at VentureBeat!

Let’s see what happens with Salem, read an interview with the creative director here.