Bulletin

The GameSpot Community has been bounding with a plethora of activities, live events, contests, community gaming events and more! First up some of our crew headed out to Hawaii to get ready for Sunday's Pokemon World Championships 2012 live stream. Watch our live coverage on GameSpot or Twitch as we highlight the best players of both the video games and trading card game. Who knows maybe we;'ll have some schwag to give away from the event! The live stream starts Sunday August 12th, 10am - 5pm HST / 1pm - 8pm PST.

Next up, Chalk Talk, last week's assignment users wrote editorials about what developers and publishers they were willing to forgive and for the first time in a long time members were featured on the front page of GameSpot! And if that wasn’t cool enough, a new GameSpot User Rewards Challenge will be starting this week. In addition to the automatic profile points you get by simply being a user on the site you’ll also have the chance to earn bonus points by completing activities. We've also been cleaning up some nasty bugs around the site so you'll want to read the latest known bugs report for further details.

Making Mischief

Not everything on the internet needs to be serious about gaming, take some of these hilarious comics and videos for example. I mean who doesn’t want Bacon Wizard Time? We’re also sharing some amazing Dorkly comics, including Everything you ever wanted to know about "whoo-hoo" and The Great Deku Dad. But if silly cartoon humor isn’t quite your thing than this guy playing the Super Mario theme backwards might be impressive. Also, if you want to see the future by John Carmack, this video shows off his futurist VR Headset.

Free to Play

If you've been wanting to attend MLG for quite some time, pre-order Hitman: Absolution to gain free access to their Sniper Challenge game--now available on PC through Steam. Practice your sniping and win a chance to go to MLG's Dallas Tournament courtesy of GameSpot / In addition to our current beta key giveaway for Free Play Friday we thought we would take a moment to give a shout out to a little indie game called Freedom Planet they currently have a browser demo available on their site. For those of you who are Sonic fans you will likely be giddy at the clear homage to the spiky blue fellow. Also for this week only you can get Skylanders: Cloud Patrol free on iOS devices, One of Swords has the full details.

Geeky Gimmies

As always the internet is a cornucopia of gaming swag delights, this week in addition to all of the nifty Team Fortress stuff seen in Synthia’s blog, there were also Sriracha Rooster Sauce Lollipops to enjoy thanks to the good people at thinkgeek. But if you’re looking for something a little classier to add to your video game swag collection you could try this 300$ limited edition 25th anniversary Street Fighter chess set.

Will Play for Food

For many GameSpotters the idea of getting to work in an industry surrounded by the great minds that create something as powerful as games is a dream come true. Well for those of you who are interested we are here to inform you that both “Perfect World" and “Riot" are currently hiring for various positions, go make your dream a reality!

Bonus Item

For those of you who have not yet seen this fantastic Legend of Zelda parody and are in any way a "fan" of the games. Stop whatever you're doing and watch NOW!

We've in the middle of a transition with the server changes, so we apologize for the time-out errors and other related issues you may have been experiencing.

Due to the number of total users using the image upload tool we cannot warrant us spending resources on supporting it anymore We're determining a way to provide a better image upload system later this year, but starting tomorrow image uploads will be disabled. You can still view all of your image uploads of the years. Please use a 3rd party image upload service like imageshack or photobucke in the meantime.

As we continue to troubleshoot bugs, we appreciate your continued patience, and notifications about issues you've encountered. To keep everyone on the same page, here's the current known bugs we've been troubleshooting in the past week.

- Server error message - 504 Gateway Time-out. Technical staff have been working around the clock to resolve many of the server errors we've having on the site.

- Post flooding error preventing you to post in forums or unions.. Planned fix, we're in the process to exceed the amount of posts you can have per minute.

- User review not displaying immediately If you reviewed a game, please note that some users can see the link on their contributions page, but the review isn't accessible.

- Why won't my settings save? For the time being, please use your Fuse settings until we can resolve the old settings issue.

- PC game download data missing. Please report any files you notice missing on the site in this topic..

- Search problems. We're looking into issues involving forums and blog searches, but there's also reports about short game names not pulling up accurate results. This may require much more investigation across multiple bugs.

- UK users experiencing IE9 browser issues.GameSpot UK is checking into this technical issue.

- Harsh points loss when encountering a suspension. If you're a higher level account, you'll notice that when you get suspended, you will lose majority of your level.

We hope to have majority of these problems resolved this week. As always, we appreciate your continued patience and support. If you have a technical issue on the site, please post it in the technical support forum as soon as possible! Be sure to include as much information as you can, such as your browser information, webpage urls where you found the content, and screenshots if possible.

If you noticed something funky happening with the leveling system, it actually was for a good cause. We've done an investigation in the past week to find some interesting details about our profile leveling system. Check out our full report about what happened and how we fixed it.

We have a real treat for PC and PS3 fans! Justin Calvert has a feature displaying 5 beta offers.

LittleBigPlanet Karting (PS3)
The Lord of the Rings Online: Riders of Rohan (PC)
Offensive Combat (Web Browser)
Awesomenauts (PC)
RaiderZ (PC)

Also, a little tip for reading the community news, if you want to get a chance to play the Awesomenauts beta we are very limited on how many codes we have with this game, so grab that code ASAP!

Give a big thanks to Justin for getting these offers for us in the comments, and if you like a certain game please share so.. Have a great weekend!

Welcome to this year’s San Diego Comic-Con coverage!

Wam-Bam-360 Cam and Cosplay Battle!

GameSpot’s luggage had an extra special pieces of equipment this year. The set up will showcase the creme da la creme of Cosplayers that you would find walking about the show floor. We’ll also return the cosplay battle again this year. Be sure to stay tuned to our Comic-Con page for updates.

Comic-Con Winner

Congrats to the winner of the Win a Trip to Comic-Con contest! Timothy S of Bayonne, New Jersey! See you on the show floor!

Activities

This year we have a few things happening in our Competitions and Activities forum. There is our Comic Con Costume Guessing Game where GameSpot members took photos from popular Comic-Con celebs and transformed them with a costume. Next up, we have our Comic-Con BINGO activity. You can pick a bingo card while watching our live stream provided by Video Viking Collin, you’ll have to hunt for cosplayers on the show floor.

Social Shares

As always GameSpot staff will be tweeting and posting like crazy during Comic-Con. You can watch GameSpot’s Twitter or follow Maxwell, Shaun , Giancarlo, Jody, Synthia, and Carolyn! We’ll also be having MLG super stars Tsquared and MrsViolence there to help show off what Comic-Con has to offer.

Inside Comic-Con Behind the Scenes!

If you liked GameSpot Communities Behind the Scenes coverage of E3 so now we’re bringing you more here with Inside Comic-Con Coverage. Be sure to check this page here for frequent updates and episodes of Breakfast with Community.

UPDATE!! Bee's have crashed our war room here at Comic-Con check here to see what went down!

This Weeks on Quoted for Truth

Surprise! Back from E3, the weekly video game news discussion Quoted for Truth is here to delve deep into the recent gaming events that matter most to you. Earlier this week there was an announcement made that there would be no QFT this week, but thankfully that was a simple error and there will in fact be a showing of the popular newscast. The show will not be live however, in a similar fashion to the June 1st episode, however as always John Davison, Tom McShea, and Brendan Sinclair will still be checking out the comments from GameSpot community members to fuel their discussion.

What are they talking about this week? The trials and tribulations of Prototype 2 Developer, Biowares ME3 DLC, Squares stance on a Final Fantasy VII remake, and of course much more.

Want to chime in? Feel free to tweet @jwhdavison, @TomMcShea, and @BrendanSinclair While using the hashtag #GSQFT with your thoughts, questions, and comments.

UPDATE: Here is the link to today's episode. Enjoy!

Announcements

Due to unforeseen issues both On the Spot will not be returning this week. Additionally, there will not likely be a return of the show until after Comic-Con. But fear not, words and whispers of an upgraded format have been circulating the office. More info on that will be posted when more information is obtained.

Chalk Talk: What is it? - To sum things up quickly, it is the new way for users blogs to be featured here on GameSpot. Later this week there will be a community news report on what it is, how it will work, and why you want to be a part of it.

What’s Happening

15 days left until SDCC 2012!
Getting closer and closer to SDCC and we’re already brimming with ideas for what to show off before, during, and after Comic-Con. Want to share your two cents? Be sure to tell us what you want to see in the comments below. We’ve already mentioned one of our Comic Con activities which can be found here. And as an added piece of information the fabulous Video Viking Colin will be joining us again this year to operate the Live Cam!

Now Playing

This week on Now Playing we’ll be checking out some Skyrim: Dawnguard with Kevin Van Ord on Tuesday June 26th @ 11:00am PT. Not able to make it? Well you’ll still have a chance to socilaize on Wednesday when we show off a plethora of PC titles; including Endless Space, Quantum Conundrum, Spellforce 2, and Krater @11:00am PT.

Breakfast with Community

Here’s a bit of an update with Community, we’ll tease a bit about “Chalk Talk” the games we’ve played, and share an awesome blog by GameSpotter zanelli. There’s also a chance to win some cool Star Wars: The Old Republic swag for participating in the community activity! Also, you may have noticed the lack of a “cool image”. No that’s not an oversight, GameSpot Community is currently looking for a nifty logo! Please send any submissions or ideas to community@gamespot.com with the subject: Breakfast With Community.

Announcements

Things are finally settling back into place and we will once again be bringing community members tips, tricks, geeky gimmies, blogs, videos, and more. But since it's been a while lets dive right in with these community announcements and teasers.

There will be no On the Spot or Quoted for Truth this week, however do not despair. Both of these shows will be returning to their regularly scheduled time slot next week.

Live Show Schedule

This week on Now Playing:
Battle Field 3: Close Quarters
- Wednesday, June 20th @ 11:00am PT
Smashmuck Champions
- Thursday, June 21st @ 11:00am PT
Endless Space
- Friday, June 22nd @ 11:00am PT
You can tune into these streams right here on GameSpot, or if you’re interested in chatting it up check out our Twitch and Youtube channels.

Coming Soon… Comic-Con 2012

It’s coming… Soon GameSpot will be surrounded by cosplay, comics, and of course video games. And as always we’ll be there to help cover it all. Last year, we had plenty to offer for Comic-Con coverage, as well as activities and even community events, and this year will be no different. During Comic-Con you will see a return of activities involving cosplay, costumes, and even bingo. Information on this and more will be revealed at a later point in time.

Coming Soon… Breakfast With Community

Jody and Synthia have decided to continue with their updates of the current events of community happenings. Raw and uncut footage of them sharing details of inner office toils, answering your questions, as well as of course discussing games will be just a few of the things that will be talked about on Breakfast with Community.

Tournament TV

Our last Tournament TV was rather awesome and luckily another one is right around the corner. And of course, if you are in the area and would like to participate simply send an email to onthespot@gamespot.com with the subject "Tournament TV". We'll have more on this upcoming event in a future update.

Bonus Item

As a way to say thank you, here’s a video of the Super Mario Bros Bank. Made by the awesome people at AwkwardSpaceship.

UPDATE 6/4/2012: Lark has updated our Behind the Scenes feature page with details about how to get the E3 emblems. Collect them all and you get a BONUS emblms.

The Coverage: What to Expect

This year’s coverage will be robust as ever with the live streaming of the 5 press conferences, live cam tours, E3 stage show, special guests side stage show, and the MLG stage arena. During the evenings, you may also see our sister site, GiantBomb mentioned for all you night owls. We’ll also bring you the latest news and previews of the hardware and games we see or get our hands on! To find out more about our stage show, you can watch our Inside E3 videos with Ryan Mac Donald and a follow-up video with John Davidson about the different ways you can watch E2 2012.

One change you'll notice this year is the new commenting system displaying timely posts. We'll be making some slight changes with your commenting experience early next week. This also means that your chatroom is the new commenting system during the live streaming of the event., similar to what you see with other live streaming chatrooms located on the right side of the page. If you think this does not meet your expectations, GameSpot members are welcome to use the Twitch.TV chatroom. But if you really want the old traditional way of using a chatroom, simply create your own unofficial chatroom and share it with others in the comments.

Behind Scenes Updates: Inside E3

If you recall our Behind the Scenes E3 blog updates in previous years, you might recall Inside E3. This year we’ll be bringing it back bigger and better than ever. We’ve already given you quite a few updates during our pre-E3 planning stages. If you missed out on them, you can catch up here:

March 21st: What’s going into the Stage Shows
March 22nd: Who will be missing in action?
March 23rd: GameSpot’s E3 Meeting
March 25th: Loading up the truck.
March 29th: Booth Building 101
March 30th: The Ways You Watch

That’s just to get you caught up up until now! We have more to come. Keep a look out for updates on the Inside E3 feature pages, and if you want to see any videos we’ll update during the event subscribe to the GameSpotSpotlight Youtube channel for video updates.

E3 Loot Drop

Remember back in December when we had 30 days of awesome loot? Well we’re doing it again, and this time it’s during E3. Be sure to check out our E3 Loot Drop when it begins on Tuesday June 5th.

Facebook

This year we’ll have GameSpot Facebook updates based on your contributions on GameSpot in the late evenings. We’ll have to play this by ear because it honestly depends on all of your cool discussions in System Wars, your fancy blogs, and more!

Youtube

If you’re attending E3 this year, or maybe you’ve got videos about E3, be sure to let us know! You can simply post your links to them in the comments or send an email to community @ gamespot.com (Be sure remove the spaces before sending your email to us).

Tip: Facebook or Inside E3 mentions!

Aside from Youtube videos>, if you’d like us to consider your blog to be featured, here are some topics we would enjoy seeing.

- News - Reporting on hard facts, taking current events, announcements and breaking news and sharing it with the community. When looking at news blogs we will be looking for "insightful reflections" of E3 content.
- Editorials - While these pieces are not considered to be "hard facts" editorial pieces are used to convey personal opinion as well as an interesting perspective.
- Satires - News satire is a strong and favored form of entertainment, parodies of various news stories read on GameSpot might act as a fun read.

If you would like to have your blog featured be sure to mark it as editorial so we know you want to take part in the community news piece. Someone not get the memo? Tell a Ranger about the user who wrote something that you think should be featured for their work. You can also send an email to community @ gamespot.com with the subject "My E3 XP".

E3 Activities

We’ve got lots of things to do before and during E3. Everything from a Scavenger Hunt, Wallpaper creations, of course signatures!

Wallpapers
If you’re handy at creating graphics, why not create an E3 wallpaper for others to adore on their computer desktop for the week! But if the thrill of manipulating pixels isn't enough for you we're raffling away a poster prize pack to one of the lucky participants! Here are the details.

E3 Signatures
Add GameSpot E3 coverage for 2012 signature linking to e3.gamespot.com and be sure to post in the roll call thread here to get credit for it. We will likely check in on the topic after E3! So please keep it until a staff member posts in the topic stating that they’ve done a full head count of all of those in the topic.

Scavenger Hunt
Time for a good old fashioned scavenger hunt! How do you play? Users will search GameSpot for certain games using only the clues shared in this activity thread here There are 15 games to find, and to those who manage to find at least 10 of the 15 games will receive this nifty Scavenger Hunt emblem!

Twitter + Hashtag = Schwag
We've got a long list of Staff you should following during E3. But, we’re giving away some E3 Schwag to GameSpot twitter followers that choose to tweet us by using the Hashtag #e3feedme. The winning user will be randomly selected via raffle. To enter, simply tweet us between June 1st and June 7th with what you want to see (just don’t forget to include your hashtag because otherwise it won’t count!).

Best of E3
It looks like it's time for a show down! During GameSpots coverage we'll be hosting a "Best of E3" voting battle and you get to have a say on who comes out on top. Be sure to check back in for more details on this feature.