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SPOILER ALERT! This is a rip from the forums:

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The General Knoxx Twitter account went offline on March 14th, after the release of the third Borderlands DLC pack. Just today, however, the account reawakened, tweeting “tap. tap. is this on? had to turn my tweetergramming machine back on. just got some new orders. (sent from the future.)” New orders, sent from the future?

Whoa. This is intriguing, isn’t it? Especially so when you take into consideration the brief glimpse of GameStop’s “Borderlands GOTY Official Strategy Guide” listing. The Game of the Year editions of video games are typically the original game paired with all DLC up to that point, as I’m sure you know. What you might not recall, however, is that Borderlands has only released the first two of its three DLC in disc-form, those titles being Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot and Zombie Island of Dr. Ned. The third DLC, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, has not yet joined the other two expansions on a disc.

Now, as the first two add-ons can be purchased on the same disc, and the third DLC hasn’t gotten such a treatment just yet, doesn’t it seem plausible that Knoxx would be paired with a fourth DLC on a second expansion pack retail disc? A few months ago, president/CEO of Take-Two declared that the company will still back Gearbox’s Borderlands with add-on content. I don’t want get my hopes up, just in case, but we loved Borderlands and would be thrilled to see another batch of content for one of my favorite games of all time.

Before it was taken off the site, the Borderlands GoTY strategy guide was listed with a release date of 9/7/10, suggesting that Borderlands would be getting a Game of the Year edition (complete with all DLC) on or around that date. I don’t know about you, but I’m stoked. Time to dust off my Siren.

Introduction
The Secret Armory of General Knoxx picks up where the main story arc of Borderlands came to a screeching halt. Players must fight against stronger and more varied Crimson Lance units defending a hoard of arms from outside threat. If Brick, Mordecai, Lilith, and Roland survive, they’ll be treated to a lootfest more impressive than the luckiest New Haven chest run. There’s even a rumor of an invincible monster that, if defeated, may part with the extremely rare “pearlescent” gear…that’s if the fabled Crawmerax even exists.
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As February begins to wind down, the doors to the Crimson Lance armory begin to creak open a little wider. Your diligent informer recently took a peek at the Lance’s inner workings, even going so far as to spy on the General’s own “tweetergrams” in hopes of making off with some top secret intel regarding the newest firepower employed by Pandora’s martial force. At the time, the data gleaned was not truly confirmed and was to be interpreted with caution. Thankfully, recent recon of other sources has turned up some hard facts, which are submitted for your consideration.

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Introduction

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, dyin’ time’s here! The first expansion to the roleplaying shooter Borderlands introduced the Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, a healthy helping of Halloween leftovers that debuted closer to Thanksgiving. The ample serving of new enemies, new locations, and new storyline was enough for one or more bounty hunters to tackle. The new content, however, is geared a bit more towards group play.
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In a previous article it was mentioned that Gearbox might have let it slip that the second DLC to their roleplaying shooter was already formulated. It was rumored that the new content for Borderlands would deal primarily with the arena battles that only briefly appeared during the initial story arc. That rumor has now been confirmed by Gearbox itself.

According to Jon Hemingway, Gearbox’s designer for the new content, Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot consists of jumping into three new Riot Mode arenas and beating back waves of enemies in conventional shoot-em-up fashion…at first. Then Moxxi steps in with her “Maxims” that stipulate wacky variations that completely change the game, like a “Vampire Rule” that drains your character’s health, but refills it after a kill. Another Maxim by the name of “Shotgun Challenge” boosts the titular gun’s damage while other firearms’ lethality is lessened.

The trophies listed in the earlier article had mentioned small and big tournaments. Hemingway proposed that the small tournaments would take approximately an hour to finish, whereas the bigger, more challenging tournaments would require a whopping six hours or so of playtime. What’s even more rigorous is that progress cannot be saved intermittently, but you can walk away for a breather and come back to it.

Also in this expansion comes the answer to many prayers, to be sure. A bank feature was vaguely mentioned, providing more storage for Pandoran packrats. Instead of SDU, how about skill points? Players can become even stronger, unlocking two more skill points through quests.

Much like Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, the new DLC carries a $10 pricetag, and it is due to hit the Xbox 360 on December 29th. Gather up the Christmas card cash and call a few friends, boys and girls…dyin’ time’s here.

Introduction:
Last week while everyone was focusing on how they would digest all that turkey, Gearbox said thanks by revisiting Halloween in the first DLC for Borderlands. The expansion, entitled “The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned,” continued with the frantic tempo established in Borderlands. Inviting Vault-hunters to pick up their guns and shake off that Pandoran dust, the new content sets hordes of zombies against the treasure hunters as they get to the bottom of what happened to the once industrious Jakob’s Cove.

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In a Shacknews interview posted yesterday, Gearbox’s Mikey Neumann addressed issues such as the current looting system, DLC, and firemen.

When asked to address the free-for-all loot system (or as I like to call it, that-which-bitchslaps-WoWheads), Mikey touted the honor system that has not seemed to fail him in his own experiences with the game. He admitted, however, that if there is a large enough demand for it then even this can be addressed. “There’s some technical hurdles there that we’re going to have to look at, but obviously whatever people are clamoring [for], we’re gonna try to make it all better.”

In more gamemaster-friendly news, Bioware gave us a little insight into the Dragon Age: Origins Toolset, and it seems pretty deep. While this may be familiar to those who have played games like Morrowind that came with such an extra disc, Bioware’s teaser video seems to portend the capability to tweak even storyline and voice acting elements. If the company’s boast is true, you really can build your own adventures with the Dragon Age Toolset.

By the time we got in with Mikey Neumann, Creative Director for Gearbox, he had whittled his way through 40 or so of the XBL gamertags on his list of preorder pals. We didn’t ask many questions, as he sounded exhausted from constant loot grinding; he told us he’d probably have Randy [Pitchford, CEO/president of Gearbox] handle the PS3 preorders. We joked around a bit in the starting areas of the game, and he even called my gamertag weird (but not as weird as a tag that sounded like “balsamic gorilla”)! Vash shot off the Leviathan (a quest-rewarded rapid fire rocket launcher), surprising Mikey, who apparently hadn’t played much with that particular weapon. He asked Vash to show him the stats on it, and he dropped it to the ground to do so…only to have Mikey ninja it! After handing over the Leviathan, our Pandora guide brought us to the yet unexplored and more dangerous parts of Pandora – the endgame.

In our time with Mikey, we scoured the later levels of the game in attempts to find superloot. He answered a few questions I had, like why Lilith’s Phase Strike was so weak. Maxed out, the ability at the end of the Siren’s Assassin tree should do +800% damage, but that doesn’t seem to yield the big numbers that, say, Mikey’s Mordecai could do with his 17k-30.7k damage critical melee strikes. He assured me that this was most certainly a bug that was going to get patched. It was also refreshing to know (as we were still near the end of just our first playthrough ourselves) that the game’s enemies seem to scale well, redlining Mikey himself a few times.

Before long our time with Mikey was at an end. We didn’t have much loot the first time through, but other members at 360RantRave who made his esteemed list managed to snag him for one more opportunity that proved more fruitful. The weary but good-humored dev allowed those who were still in party to tag along for a second, more successful attempt. With Mikey’s help, we gained a good bit of loot, one particular item being a rocket launcher with close to 1k damage!

We thanked Mikey for his time and for making a great game, making sure to save so we kept our loot drops. We then giddily returned to the dusty wasteland of Pandora, newly equipped with a fresh armament with which to bring pain to the denizens of the Borderlands.

Introduction

Pandora awaits you in this genre-defining RPS, or roleplaying shooter. It’s not often that games can mix and match a variety of genres like spices from an Iron Chef’s signature line, but Gearbox and 2K games have made quite a tasty concoction with Borderlands. Released on North American consoles on October 20th, 2009, Pandora’s denizens bring the pain to your door in the form of acid-spewing creatures, gun-toting psychos, and, to use Mikey’s words, “laserd***” guardians. The Vault is calling, so as Zombieland’s ass-kicking Tallahassee would say, “time to nut up or shut up!”

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