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Microsoft is just days away from releasing its Windows 8.1 preview, complete with the return of the Start button. The software maker has started to distribute final preview copies of Windows Server 2012 R2, which includes the same Start button return as the Windows 8.1 preview. While Microsoft has downplayed its return, it seems it will be more useful when combined with some additional navigation controls.

Right clicking on the Start button in Windows 8.1 will provide the usual power users menu, but it now has the option to shut down or restart the operating system. For years the Start button and Menu has acted as the primary way to shutdown Windows, so powers users will likely welcome its slight return. Additional navigation options also include the ability to disable the upper-right hot corner for access to the Charms, the upper-left area, and the ability to boot to the desktop instead of the Start screen when you initially sign-in.

Although Windows Server 2012 R2 preview is available to download now, Microsoft will release the client Windows 8.1 preview on June 26th as it kicks off its Build developer conference in San Francisco. The software giant is expected to demonstrate some of the new applications built specifically for Windows 8.1, alongside a focus on developers and the environment for them to build Xbox One applications. The Verge will have full coverage from Build, so stay tuned for more over the coming days.

Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep joins a growing body of spin-off and DLC content that subverts the original game and allows developers to create wacky playgrounds with their creations.

In previous Borderlands 2 DLC, the player has been moved to some new environment within the game world of Pandora, be that a pirate or safari-themed adventure. Tiny Tina's Assault is a spoof of a Dungeons & Dragons game played by various Borderlands 2 characters and directed by the unstable mind of Tiny Tina. Effectively, the adventure takes place as her imagination roams a tabletop game called Bunkers & Badasses.

It's not the first time DLC has taken a bizarre turn. Call of Duty and other shooters, ostensibly set in the real world, enjoy throwing in zombie scenarios. The recently released Blood Dragon was a Far Cry 3 spin-off that toyed with 1980s sci-fi, entirely separate from the central theme of the original game.

"DLC is the most fun because we can create these little twists and compartmentalized experiences," said Borderlands 2 creative director Paul Helquist. "We wanted to do this cool fantasy thing that doesn't really make sense for Borderlands 2 but we found a way to make them fit together and still feel like it belongs."

He added that more unusual and creative DLC will likely be a feature of the next generation, in which downloadable sub-games and missions will play a greater role.

So where did the idea for a D&D level come from? "It wasn't like someone came in and said 'hey we should do Tiny Tina as a dungeon master,'" said Helquist. "It started out as random idea that we chalked up on a white board, and it grew."

The wackiness is warranted because it's all a fantasy.

When the team at Gearbox were brainstorming DLC ideas, they jotted one down, in which the character Handsome Jack is being bothered by a pesky nephew. Jack gives the annoying lad his own area to play with. "We thought it would be fun if he ran a robot factory or whatever and he wanted to run it like a D&D game, where he treated people coming into it like heroes trying to defeat his dungeon."

Other ideas included a fairy tale level. When the team got around to deciding on what to do with the last piece of DLC for the Season Pass, these two were the favorites. The team decided to merge them, and create a fairy tale module, fake D&D game in the mind of Tiny Tina.

"The wackiness is warranted because it's all a fantasy of Tiny Tina's," said Helquist. "All the things that you experience are her fantasies. Nothing is too 'out there' when you are in that kind of world."

In an early sequence, Tina changes the entire environment, weather and time-of-day in a flash, and replaces one boss with another at the flick of her fingers. Gearbox promises lots of similar nuttiness and jokes that both poke fun at, and honor, the world of tabletop gaming.

"We want to have fun with that topic and poke fun at it, but we also want to respect it as well," said Helquist. "Our goal isn't to say 'look at how nerdy and stupid this is.' People who play tabletop games will recognize that we are laughing with them, not at them."

Shoe-horning dragons and orcs into Borderlands' post-industrial world wasn't just a straightforward matter of replacing enemies. "It wasn't as simple as we had originally thought," explained Helquist, adding that pitting machine-gun wielding heroes against sword-fighting fantasy characters carries inherent problems.

"We had a lot of melee enemies in the main game but not as high a percentage as with this DLC," he said. "So there was a time when you had this weird anachronism in this fantasy world. I liken it to a Civilization battle where you are rolling in the tanks to fight the stone age guys with slings and spears. It felt like, these guys with swords can't really deal with machine guns."

Gearbox worked on the problem. "We changed how damaging they were so they could really punish you if they got close to you and the bullets could ricochet off their shields and armor. Now you are just as threatened by them as any other enemy and you didn't feel overpowered."

Now that Gearbox has completed its promised four DLC games for Borderlands 2, are there any more plans for weird spin-offs and additions? Helquist said the company has "a few things up our sleeves but we can't talk about them now."

Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep releases June 25 as part of the Borderlands 2 Season Pass or for $9.99.

Cute puppies and funny doggies: I Has a Hotdog has 'em all!

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Editing Sublime Text settings is a cinch.

Searching for “indent” in the command palette

Searching for packages

Gif your butt over to Animal Gifs for MOAR funny and cute on loop!

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Archaia's President and Chief Operating Officer Jack Cummins will continue in his role, and Editor-in-Chief Stephen Christy will also remain with the company.

Full press release:

June 24th, 2013 - Los Angeles, CA - BOOM! Studios, the Eisner and Harvey Award-winning comic book and graphic novel publisher and two-time winner of Diamond Comics Distributors' prestigious "Best Publisher" Gem Award, has merged with Eisner and Harvey Award-winning Archaia Entertainment, the publisher of graphic novels including Mouse Guard, A Tale of Sand, Rust, Spera, Cowboy, and Gunnerkrigg Court. BOOM! Studios will be the surviving company and the Archaia brand shall be maintained as a distinct imprint of BOOM!.

The addition of Archaia positions BOOM!'s catalog of intellectual property as the largest independent company-controlled comic book and graphic novel library, behind only industry titans DC Entertainment (Warner Bros.) and Marvel Entertainment (Disney). BOOM!'s comic books and graphic novels pioneer a new business model, sharing intellectual property ownership between the company and the creators who generate the content. BOOM!'s Chief Executive Officer and founder, Ross Richie, noted, "Our creator-friendly model ensures that creatives are rewarded financially as they generate the franchises of tomorrow. Archaia operates with the same philosophy and objectives, which is one of the many reasons this combination is such a great fit."

"We are thrilled and excited to join with BOOM!," Archaia President and Chief Operating Officer Jack Cummins, who will continue in the same role, said. "BOOM! is very committed to maintaining the brand we've worked so hard to build and preserving our relationship with our creators, fans, and retailers. They're fans of Archaia first and foremost, and are avidly working behind the scenes to expand our market penetration and carry our catalog deeper into retail channels. Archaia readers can expect the same editorial approach that has garnered industry-wide awards but we will have a much stronger platform to deliver our content in all forms and channels. I am personally looking forward to bringing our team together with the fantastic team Ross has built."

Richie added, "Archaia has a terrific track record for creating award-winning, beautiful books with high production values. Jack Cummins, Stephen Christy, Mark Smylie, and the entire Archaia team have built an amazing publisher. With BOOM!'s resources, Archaia fans will see more of the books they love, while retailers will enjoy better business through stronger trade terms." The companies also plan to put key items from the Archaia catalog back into print.

BOOM! Executive Chairman Scott Lenet of the venture capital firm DFJ Frontier noted, "We are excited to be investors in a profitable, growing company with a fantastic early track record of creating, curating, and marketing properties that audiences genuinely love. We have ambitious plans to continue to fund the company's expansion in comics, graphic novels, and other media."

August 2nd sees the release of the first BOOM! Studios feature film, the Universal Pictures-distributed 2 Guns starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg, based on the Steven Grant comic book published by BOOM!. The company is currently preparing its second feature film for production: Jeremiah Harm, based on the comic book by Keith Giffen, Alan Grant, and John Mueller, will be directed by Timo Vuourensola of Iron Sky (jeremiahharm.com).

Archaia has optioned Royden Lepp's graphic novel Rust to Twentieth Century Fox. Among Archaia's other announced deals are the development of Lucid (Warner Bros.),Bolivar (Warner Bros.), and Feeding Ground (Pressman Films).

Recently, legendary creators including writer Paul Jenkins (Wolverine: Origin, Inhumans) and artist Brian Stelfreeze (Batman: Shadow of the Bat, WednesdayComics) have announced to the industry that BOOM! is their new publishing home. This summer BOOM! also launched the first original comic book Clive Barker has ever created and written, Clive Barker's Next Testament.

July sees the blockbuster release of Archaia's Mouse Guard: The Black Axe, created by Eisner Award winner David Petersen, Cyborg 009 in partnership with acclaimed Japanese publisher Ishimori, and The Thrilling Adventure Hour based on the long-running stage play of the same name.

Jun 24th 2013 By: Caleb Goellner

From Bluefin Distribution's official product listing:

"It's over 9,000!" Straight out of the hit Dragonball Z anime, we are pleased to offer a very limited run of Saiyan Scouters as an exclusive to the 2013 San Diego Comic Con. Available in red, green, and purple color variations, each scouter features authentic sound bytes, and fits easily over most head sizes. Whether to enhance your DBZ experience, or to cosplay your favorite DBZ character, you too can now feel the power of the mighty Saiyan race.

It looks like we're going to do this dance again. So soon. In the wake of Microsoft reversing its Xbox One DRM policies, brave corporate warrior Cliff Bleszinski wasted little time in telling us how this would be a bad thing for the industry and gamers. Make no mistake -- he's not the only one. Disconcertingly, his views are echoed by angry press members and naive customers alike.

"More studios WILL close and you’ll see more PC and mobile games," warned Bleszinski, preparing us from the grim darkness of the 21st Century. "...Brace yourselves. More tacked on multiplayer and DLC are coming. You’re also about to see available microtransactions skyrocket. HATS FOR EVERYONE."

Bleszinski is joined by Gizmodo in his portents of despair and misery. Claiming that "we" all made the Xbox One worse as a result of our complaints, writer Kyle Wagner used no evidence to claim Microsoft's DRM would definitely have been great for everybody, and would lead to a world of cheaper games. Because the game industry has demonstrated many times that, when it has a monopoly, consumers benefit. Except, y'know, not.

It takes a lot of naivety to trust so willingly in Microsoft, a company that's done absolutely nothing to earn our trust. It takes even more to believe that an industry so dependent on heavy-handed consumer control deserves to survive. Frankly, any industry that suffers due to the reversal of ONE console's DRM policies is an industry that deserves to suffer.