A new post to a long-running thread in the Neverwinter Nights forum provides a quick update on the Mac status of this 3D RPG, as well as the first screen shot of it running on Mac OS X. While the picture isn't of in-game action, it does clearly show the Neverwinter Nights server running on an OS X desktop. Bioware producer Derek French explains the situation:

That is Andrew and Craig in the Player List connecting to the dedicated Mac server with the current Windows Client.

Its not a mockup. :)

Neverwinter Nights OS X Screen Shot

Neverwinter Night Mac Forum Thread

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Inside Mac Games has posted a review of the recently-released Logitech Cordless Optical TrackMan. The trackball features a comfortable right-handed shape, scroll wheel, and smart power management.

Here's a snippet from the review:

The Cordless Optical TrackMan is one of the more recent additions to Logitech's trackball line. Perhaps best described as the fusion of the Cordless TrackMan Wheel and Marble Mouse products in terms of general hardware specifications, the Cordless Optical TrackMan (hereafter "COT" for short) offers optically-tracked fingertip cursor movement combined with the ease-of-placement in your gaming space only possible with a wireless device, all at an attractive price. Logitech's COT is a feature-rich device — a good all-around right-hander's trackball and an excellent web-browsing tool — but this product may not be a great fit for all games or gamers.

IMG Review: Cordless Optical Trackman

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In celebration of the coming of Fall, NCSoft has announced the Autumn Treasure Event for their massive online roleplaying game, Lineage: The Blood Pledge:

Starting Thursday, October 3rd, and during certain times throughout the weekend, the creatures of Aden will venture forth into the world, their pockets slightly heavier than average. We invite you to hunt and join the fun as we cleanse the world of evil creatures, gather even more treasure than usual, and celebrate autumn in the world of Lineage!

A shedule and more information can be found in the full news article.

Autumn Treasure Event

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Ubisoft has released four brand new high quality screenshots for their upcoming MMORPG Shadowbane:

These beta screenshots come from the 3.04 build of Shadowbane. Our first screenshot features an Elven Channeler, and the second, her run through one of the murky swamps of the Lizard King. The third screenshot shows an Aelfborn dual-wielding Rogue against a wolf, and the fourth shows a stony Dwarf facing a Dire Ant Drone.

Shadowbane Screenshots from the Arcane3D Engine

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In a recent news update, Gophur, Assistant Producer/Game Manager of the popular online game, World War II Online, announced some upcoming changes regarding future patches of their war simulation. The patch formerly known as v168 has been redesignated to v170, which will allow the game's developers to incorporate a brand new updating system that will keep both PC and Mac clients up to date, and in sync:

Version 168 has been redesignated to 170. This change allows us to incorporate a new versioning scheme that supports both the Mac and PC clients using auto update through PlayGATE. The Pre-Release test is scheduled to go live on Thursday.

170 Open Test

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The epic roleplaying game Avernum 3 from Spiderweb Software has been updated to version 1.1 Final, adding complete support for OS X. From Spidwerweb's official news:

Avernum 3 v1.1 for Macintosh OS X is out! - Avernum 3 will now run nice and native on Mac OS X. Get the brand new demo of our newest hit game.

Download Avernum 3 v1.1

IMG Review: Avernum 3

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In honor of their week-long Mac Card Game Week special, Freeverse has released updates to two of their card-related products, Classic Cribbage, and 3D Euchre Deluxe. Along with the updated, we also noticed a recent revision of Burning Monkey Solitaire. This new revision released last week fixes problems people were having with the game under Mac OS X 10.2.

All three updates are now completely native to OS X and can be downloaded off of Freeverse's website. More product information can be found at each game's respective website.

Download Burning Monkey Solitaire 2.5.1

Download Classic Cribbage 2.0

Download 3D Euchre Deluxe 2.2

Burning Monkey Solitaire

Classic Cribbage

3D Euchre Deluxe

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Owari, based off the popular African bead game, has been updated to version 1.3, adding support for Mac OS X 10.2 "Jaguar". Here is a brief description of the game:

Owari is a bead game played all across Africa. It has many spellings, more common variants being Awale, and Warri. It is from the Mancala class of games, which are count and capture bead games, with many different variations of rules.

Download Owari 1.3

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