Possibly the purest Magic: The Gathering experience ever to grace a game console, Wizards of the Coast is keen to bring Duels of the Planeswalkers to the PlayStation 3 and PC audience, while continuing to show love to the Xbox 360 audience with a couple of new expansions. The PC version of Duels is scheduled for release in the Summer of 2010, featuring the same gameplay of the Xbox Live Arcade version with an "extra bonus." I'm guessing the extra bonus is some sort of card marketplace, but don't quote me on that.

The PlayStation Network version of the game won't be hitting until fall of 2010.

Meanwhile, Xbox Live players will enjoy the release of the 2nd and 3rd expansions for the game in Spring and Summer of next year respectively.

I've yet to download the first expansion, what with the fall review season in full swing, but I look forward to sitting down and getting my game on soon. Once a Magic addict; always a Magic addict.

The Warden and the Druid join Runes of Magic's diverse cast of character classes when the second chapter, The Elven Prophecy, hits the game this September. The Warden is at one with the forest, travelling with a magical plant companion and casting beneficial spells on their allies. Meanwhile the Druid is a nature wizard, with a much more diverse catalog of spells, from healing to damage to support. According to the picture here, one of them wears tree bark, while the other one is a crazy near-naked plant lady.

Both of these new classes are being called Elf classes, meaning humans won't be able to play them until Frogster decides it would be a good idea. Considering the rate at which they add to the free-to-play game, that could be a matter of minutes.

But IGN says that the worst part of it all is a crumby, poorly-designed interface that doesn't like to save your settings. They give the game a 5.5 but assure us, "The good news is, it can only get better." Too bad. I guess I'll be waiting a bit longer before re-injecting that needle.

Magic Online III [IGN]

TRAGNARION STUDIOS ANNOUNCES ONLY FOR NINTENDO DS, THEIR NEW MAGICAL TITLE "DOODLE HEX" .

August 17th, 2007 Mallorca, Spain: Developer Tragnarion Studios announces their new magical Nintendo DS game "Doodle Hex", which will be available in Q1 2008.

Doodle Hex is an original game designed specifically for the Nintendo DS, utilizing unique features like the touch screen and dual screens perfectly to create an addictive and fun title for both single and multiplayer gaming.

Doodle Hex is a game of magical dueling where aspiring "Doodlers" compete head-to-head for fun and glory. Two "Doodlers" fight by drawing runes onto the DS touch screen, in real time, to create powerful and fun spells to inflict on their opponent, such as blasts of fire or curses that shake the opponent's screens, turn their own spells back on them and even turn them into a frog!

Speed of thought, tactical choices and accurate drawing of simple shapes are all important to progress through the game and succeed in Doodle Hex.

Completing tournaments and challenges in the puzzle mode of the game unlocks further runes and spells, allowing players to collect runes to create their own customised spell book. With over 200 runes to collect and swap with friends over wi-fi, Doodle Hex offers over 100 hours of gameplay to budding magicians.

Doodle Hex also features beautiful comic artwork of some of the coolest characters yet seen in a DS game, including: Strat an Emo Rockstar Elf and Fey, a Goth Witch. Tragnarion are providing a sneak peek at some of the fantastic characters and the visual style of the game at www.doodlehex.com.

Carl Jones, head of Tragnarion Studios said: "Like classic fighting and puzzle games, Doodle Hex offers a rewarding single player experience and the fun increases massively when dueling against other people. We're delighted with how Doodle Hex is coming together - the game looks fantastic on the DS, is really addictive and the work our team have done on the characters and art style is amazing. We're showing some examples of this work on our teaser site doodlehex.com, where you can see the doodlers Cassie, Strat, Fey and Kaleb, for now, but we'll be putting a lot more content up there after we take Doodle Hex to the Leipzig Game Convention."

"Doodle Hex" is due for release in the 1st Quarter of 2008 and will be distributed only for Nintendo DS, check it out at www.doodlehex.com.

Since the very beginning of the company back in 1990, Wizards of the Coast has always been about community involvement. From letting players of Magic: The Gathering craft how card strategies and deck building evolved, to listening to players suggestions for expanding their various game mechanics, to letting players design their own cards via the Wizards website, WotC has always seen the players as one of the most important parts of their business.

Take Randy Buehler, for instance. A student who stumbled upon the professional Magic tournament scene, he was eventually hired by Wizards and is now the Vice President of Digital Gaming. I recently had a chance to speak to Randy regarding the next evolution of the Wizards of the Coast community a online store unveiled by the company today called Gleemax.

Introducing Gleemax

Gleemax is, at its core, the ultimate hobby store online.

Wizards has always done the majority of its business through a core network of hobby stores and the communities those stores create. When my friends and I got into gaming, we walked into a hobby store and found a world of awesome games, a guy behind the counter who knew everything about them, and a bunch of people just like us who wanted to play.

I've known the feeling myself. Having my own local store, where I can not only count on finding the latest in strategy and card gaming available, but people to play and discuss those games with. Gleemax aims to bring that same sense of community into the online world, creating a community that is for all intents and purposes the single largest hobby store ever created, combining games, community-generated content and Wizards own content into *the* online destination for strategy gaming.

Right now the tabletop and strategy gamers are scattered across many websites and they can have a hard time finding each other or finding information about good games to play. Gleemax fixes this problem.

It's All About The Everybody

The key to the entire Gleemax experience is community. Any site can sell you games or toss out some relevant news, but Gleemax aims to create a web destination that not only caters to the gaming community globally, but locally as well.

At the center of it all is the personal user page. Every gamer who signs up to the website will get to create and customize his or her page to their heart's content. Want to show off your D&D character? Your most successful Magic deck build? The tools will be in place to do al this and more.

Wizards of the Coast also wants local stores to sign up, promote themselves, and organize events through an online calendar that will automatically populate local players' pages with upcoming events.

The focus of the Gleemax project isn't on promoting Wizards' games, but on bolstering the strategic gaming segment across the board and reaping the benefits of a much healthier market. Because of this sweeping strategy, gamers will be able to find opponents or information on any number of popular games - not just the WotC ones.

Personally I think the community aspect is an excellent idea. As a strategy gamer who fell out of touch with the scene due to time restraints and problems finding people to play with, I'd love to be able to hop onto my home page and find a D&D group looking for more or a chance to dust off my large collection of Spellfire cards.

Yeah, I bought Spellfire cards.

The Games We Play

A home for gamers would be nothing without games, and Gleemax is looking to corner the market on strategy games. While details are still sketchy, Randy did drop some tantalizing tidbits that are sure to give the strategy and board game player pleasant little shivers.

At the forefront is an Indie Strategy Games Portal that will be populated with games that have been given the 'Wizards Seal-Of-Approval'...sort of like an employee's picks shelf at your local gaming store.

Then there'll be a Board Games Portal that will feature both new and classic board games available for online play, including titles from Avalon Hill, the creators of the Civilization game that inspired Sid Meier's PC classic.

All that on top of the ever popular Magic Online and a new title called Uncivilized: The Goblin Game, which is a turn-based web-based game that is played much like play-by-mail games of the past. Meant for gamers without much time on their hands, it sounds like a perfectly lovely way to waste time when you're supposed to be, say, writing a feature story.

Management Content

While the focus is on all games, the Wizards folks are still maintaining a heavy presence on Gleemax. On top of the same sort of news and reviews found at Wizards.com, users will be able to read blogs from Wizards' inside players, gaining insight into the game design process as well as opening a strong dialog between the game makers and the fans who play them. A "natural extension of things that Wizards has stood for since the early 90's."

One Board To Rule Them All

Furthering the notion that Gleemax isn't just for WotC games, Wizards is forming an Advisory board to help shape the future of Gleemax. Not only are they bringing together top thinkers and leaders from the tabletop and digital gaming industry, they're also looking to recruit regular gamers onto the panel, which will meet several times a year to discuss the direction Gleemax is taking.

The gamers themselves will be chosen via contests coming soon to the Gleemax website, starting with an open casting call next week.

And In The End...

If there is one thing I took away from our conversation, it's that Randy Buehler is passionate about the potential of Gleemax.

We think Gleemax is the right thing to do for Wizards of the Coast, the right thing to do for the tabletop hobby gaming industry, and the right thing to do for a sizable group of digital gamers who are being ignored by the mainstream computer gaming industry. We want to build a home that all three groups can feel comfortable in and I think it will change the face of the hobby gaming industry forever. If we pull this off, then Gleemax will become the center of the online strategy and roleplaying gaming universe.