Server capacity is our biggest obstacle. We launched in North America on Tuesday and our servers filled up within a matter of hours. What we saw was that players were having such a good time they didn't want to leave the game, which kept our servers packed and made it difficult for new players to join. We added more servers to accommodate the launch in Australia and Japan, and then more yesterday to accommodate the launch in Europe. As of right now, we are adding even more servers which will be going live over the next three days. And, our plan is to continue to bring more servers online until we have enough to meet the demand, increase player capacity and let more people through the gates and into the game.
Earlier today, we released a patch that temporarily cut off some features including leaderboards, achievements and Cheetah Speed to reduce data stress on the servers and effectively free up space so that we can let more people into the game. These are great features that we're proud of and we'll turn them back on soon, but our number one priority is to bring stability to our servers. This update also resolved some of the bugs and issues that have been frustrating players. You can read all about it at http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9341807.page
PARIS – March 7, 2013 – Cyanide today unveiled images of Dogs of War Online, the free-to-play multiplayer game based on the universe of Confrontation. It will be released for PC in Q2 2013.Continue here to read the full story.
Dogs of War Online is a turn-based, tactical arena game with gameplay heavily influenced by the eponymous board game published by Rackham. Players are tasked with creating a squad of mercenaries made up of units of their choosing, and must send them to fight in fierce battles against other players. Movement and contact are based on a system of hexagonal boxes.
The player must also demonstrate leadership qualities and cope with frequent unexpected events related to the life of a mercenary company: desertion, tension between soldiers, and theft, among other problems.
To ensure that soldiers do not spend their free time ransacking the neighborhood, players will be able to send them on missions between battles and thus increase winnings.
We are looking to improve co-op farming efficiency in 1.0.8. Co-op play in general is a big focus of the 1.0.8 patch and efficiency is definitely one component of that. Co-op is already more efficient for some players, but this is the exception rather than the norm. The degree of co-op efficiency depends heavily on the co-ordination of the party, skill builds, and the relative gear level of the teammates. Since launch we've made some modest changes to encourage co-op play but there's still room to go farther. At the same time, we don't want to go so far as to make multiplayer feel "mandatory" for those who prefer to play solo, but we still want to err on the side of being co-op favorable.
There's also a number of hurdles to co-op play beyond raw efficiency, so we'll be looking to alleviate/solve some of those hurdles too. The Identify All feature in 1.0.8 is an example of this. Sometimes the trip back to town to sort through a bag of gear is enough of a hurdle to make somebody feel playing co-op isn't worth it. Nobody wants to be in the dungeon fighting monsters while your teammate is off in town identifying a full inventory.
Recently we asked Valve to deactivate 1,341 Steam keys that were purchased through our website. As a result, some Natural Selection 2 players who were previously able to play the game on Steam are now receiving a “Buy Again” option instead of the “Play” option. This episode is a prime example of why all gamers need to beware discount steam keys and those offering them.
We deactivated these keys because they keys were purchased with credit cards where the card-holder initiated a “charge-back.” A charge-back is a consumer protection mechanism offered by payment companies such as Visa, allowing a card-holder to dispute a charge on their credit card statement. This means we never received payment for the game. In fact, we were charged a fee by the card issuer for the charge-back. For these 1,341 keys, these fees totalled around $30,000.
IncGamers - Can an online petition change EA’s mind over SimCity’s always-on DRM?
Online petitions are often met with scorn as a method of driving change, but what gamers need in this situation is a clear, unified way of expressing displeasure with ‘always on’ DRM. Whether it’s someone who bought SimCity and feels let down, or someone who stayed away from the game due to the DRM, both opinions can be brought together under one heading.
It’s important to send EA the clear message that lost sales and requests for refunds are not necessarily down to the quality of the game, but are the direct result of the DRM implementation. No matter your view on how effective they are, an online petition is one way of demonstrating this in a succinct, organised fashion.
In Age of Empires II: HD Edition, fans of the original game and new players alike will fall in love with the classic Age of Empires II experience. Explore all the original single player campaigns from both Age of Kings and The Conquerors expansion, choose from 18 civilizations spanning over a thousand years of history, and head online to challenge other Steam players in your quest for world domination throughout the ages. Originally developed by Ensemble Studios and reimagined in high definition by Hidden Path Entertainment, Microsoft Studios is proud to bring Age of Empires II: HD Edition to Steam!
A Bird Story is a short PC adventure game about a boy and an injured bird. The game takes place between a mix of memories and dreams, delivering a surreal tale without dialogues.
The game is the bridging episode between episode 1 (To the Moon) and episode 2 of the series – the protagonist (a boy in A Bird Story) would grow up to be the elderly patient in episode 2. However, the game is completely standalone, and is meant to be an individual story of equal importance with its own beginning and ending.
We are aware of major performance and stability issues with GeForce GPUs running Tomb Raider with maximum settings. Unfortunately, NVIDIA didn’t receive final code until this past weekend which substantially decreased stability, image quality and performance over a build we were previously provided. We are working closely with Crystal Dynamics to address and resolve all game issues as quickly as possible.
In the meantime, we would like to apologize to GeForce users that are not able to have a great experience playing Tomb Raider, as they have come to expect with all of their favorite PC games.
This has been an exciting and challenging week for the team here at Maxis, the culmination years of planning and development. We have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and enthusiasm from our fans which has made it even more upsetting for us that technical issues have become more prominent in the last 24 hours. We are hitting a number of problems with our server architecture which has seen players encountering bugs and long wait times to enter servers. This is, obviously, not the situation we wanted for our launch week and we want you to know that we are putting everything we have at resolving these issues.
What we are doing is deploying more servers over the coming two days which will alleviate many of the ongoing issues. We are also paying close attention to all the bug reports we are receiving from our fans. We’ve already pushed several updates in the last few days. Our live ops team is working 24/7 to resolve issues and ensure that bug fixes roll into the game as quickly as possible.
While the ongoing issues are troubling, we can also see that players are really enjoying the game. In a single 24 hour period, there were more than 38 million buildings plopped down, nearly 7 and a half million kilometers of roads laid down, 18+ million fires started and (my favorite fact) over 40 million pipes filled up with poop.
This team has put everything into this game and won’t stop until things are smooth. We ask our fans to be patient as our team works diligently to fix the issues. We share your passion for SimCity and thank you for your support and understanding.
Links: | Thanks Ant and Acleacius. |
Play: | CycloManiacs Epic. |
Links: | Our Favorite "Very Special Episodes". |
Stories: | Sam Mendes Will NOT Direct "Bond 24". Boo. |
Science: |
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Has the Future Arrived? Sleep Deprivation Effects: 8 Scary Side Effects Of Too Little Shut-Eye. 'Viking sunstone' found in shipwreck. Thanks brother19. |
Images: |
Doctor Who- Season 7.5 Photos. APOD- 2013 March 7 - Thor s Helmet. Thanks brother19. |
Media: |
Homemade Iron Man 3 Trailer. March 2013 WIN Compilation. Cat Reacts to Optical Illusion. Roof Snow Clearing. Thanks nin. And he stuck the landing. |
The Funnies: | Savage Chickens. |