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Archived News:
Three new automatic updates are available when you start Steam. There's a new
Steam client update that
adds D3D9Ex support for the in-game overlay for ArmA II and addresses
some bugs. There's also a new
Source SDK Update that fixes three bugs with the Hammer editor. Finally a
new Empire: Total War
Update fixes two bugs in The Creative Assembly's RTS sequel, one that could
crash Land Battles when grouping/ungrouping, and one that could make for
invisible deployable defenses in the Grand Campaign.
A new Dawn of Discovery release trailer celebrates the recent launch of
the strategy sequel also known as Anno 1404. The movie is available on
AtomicGamer.
Pi Studios sends along the first screenshot from
Quake Arena Arcade, the upcoming
XBLA multiplayer Quake game. According to Pi producer Kenn Hoekstra, every map
represented in the image is new except Arena Gate, which shipped with QUAKE III
Arena.
Dawn Of War II Website
announces a delay to the beta test for the "There is Only War" patch for
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II that was scheduled to start
around now. Relic expresses regrets, saying: "We are experiencing an
unforeseen technical problem and believe it will be resolved in the next 24
hours." As a result, the beta is now scheduled to start tomorrow at 2:00 pm PDT,
which is 5:00 pm EDT.
A new developer diary movie for Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction is
called "Behind Closed Doors #1 – Re-inventing Splinter Cell," as it features
gameplay footage along with commentary from the developers at Ubisoft Montreal
about their efforts at redefining the action/stealth genre for the next
installment in the adventures of Sam Fisher. They outline what they call a
"gameplay loop," called PEV, which stands for "prepare, execute, and vanish,"
and discuss how this takes some of the frustration out of stealth gameplay. The
clip is posted on
ActionTrip,
AtomicGamer, and Gamer's
Hell.
This developer
blog on the EVE Insider by EVE Online Senior Producer Torfi Frans Olafsson
has details on a "mini-expansion" for EVE Online that CCP is calling Apocrypha
1.5. He says they are shooting for a mid-August release for a batch of content
they have decided to release in advance of a winter expansion that's also
planned. This content includes new small, medium, and large classifications for
rigs to make ship building more accessible, specialized cargo holds, and
Factional Warfare improvements. He also answers a recurring question by saying
they devote about half their development time on new features and the other half
on maintenance, and finishes off by promising details on the winter expansion
soon. In a semi-related note,
CCP announces plans for EVE: The Burning Life, a novel set in the EVE Online
universe. The book is written by Hjalti Daníelsson, CCP's main creative writer,
and planned for a November release.
Impulse announces they have already kicked off their weekend sale. Here's
the deal on their deals: · Titan Quest - $3.99
· Red Faction Guerilla Pre-Order Bundle (RF1, RF2 and RFG) - $39.99 USD | $49.99
EUR | 34.99 GBP
· Sins of a Solar Empire + Entrenchment Bundle - $29.99
· Call of Duty 4 - $34.99
· Prototype - $44.99
· Street Fighter IV Pre-Order - $35.99
· King's Bounty - $19.99
· Majesty Gold - $4.99
· Flock - $7.50
· Unreal Gold - $7.49
· Unreal II - $7.49
· Unreal Tournament 2004 - $11.29
· Unreal Tournament GotY - $7.49
· Unreal Tournament III - $22.49
· Unreal Pack - $33.79
Trademark markers
superannuation have uncovered trio of new filings by Blizzard Entertainment
for the title Cataclysm. The trademarks cover
computer games,
paper-based products (comic books, trading cards, coloring books), and
online
games.
Preordering of Street
Fighter IV on Impulse now includes a bonus that wasn't listed when preorders began the other day, as they are now offering the same 10%
discount announced today on Steam. Impulse is also now accepting
preorders of Red Faction: Guerrilla, Volition's shooter sequel coming
to Windows at some indeterminate future date. Those who preorder will get free
copies of both Red Faction and Red Faction 2. Thanks Weaponeer.
DPerry.com,
the homepage of Dave Perry, now features a video showing off Gaikai, the
cloud-based gaming service announced earlier this year. The clip
shows off Spore, Mario Kart, LEGO Star Wars II, Need for
Speed ProStreet, World of Warcraft, EVE Online, as well as
Photoshop (to show non-gaming applications for the service), all running in a
browser with no client downloads. The clip is accompanied by more from Perry on
the project's background and goals, word that those interested in beta testing
should sign up at the Gaikai Website, and this overview:
"We are not in competition with any other streaming company or technology, our
business model is entirely different. I will be talking about it more during my
up-coming speeches at video game conferences. (Develop this month, and GDC
Europe are the next two.)." Here is a list of points he makes about the planned
service and the video demonstration: (1) No installing anything. (I'm
running regular Windows Vista, with the latest Firefox and Flash is installed.)
(2) This is a low-spec server, it's a very custom configuration, fully
virtualized. Why? To keep the costs to an absolute minimum. We had 7 Call of
Duty games running on our E3 demo server recently.
(3) Data travel distance is around 800 miles (round trip) on this demo as that's
where the server is. I get a 21 millisecond ping on that route. My final delay
will be 10 milliseconds as I just added a server in Irvine California yesterday,
but it's not added to our grid yet. (So this demo is twice the delay I
personally would get, the good news is I don't notice it anyway.)
(4) This server is not hosted by a Tier 1 provider, just a regular Data Center
in Freemont California. Also, I'm not cheating and using fiber connections for
our demos. This is a home cable connection in a home.
(5) We don't claim to have 5,000 pages of patents, we didn't take 7 years, and
we do not claim to have invented 1 millisecond encryption and custom chips. As
you can see, we don't need them, and so our costs will be much less. ;)
(6) We designed this for the real internet. The codecs change based on the need
of the application, and based on the hardware you have. (Like Photoshop must be
pixel perfect.)
(7) Our bandwidth is mostly sub 1 megabit across all games. (Works with Wifi,
works on netbooks with no 3D card etc.)
(8) If you hear any clicks, they are coming from my wireless headset microphone.
I won't use that next time I promise. :)
(9) I made a few video cuts using Windows Movie maker to cut out dead air. Like
Need for Speed has far to many menus with loads & delays between them. So I
tried to keep the pace up so you see plenty of demos.
The Rule
the Waves contest on the Paradox Interactive Forums outlines how the
likeness of three winners will be used to represent commanders in East India
Company, the upcoming seafaring RTS game. The competition is open to all
territories, but entrants must be at least 18 years of age.
A new trailer from Tales of Monkey Island offers a look at the upcoming
revival of LucasArts' classic adventure game franchise, beginning with a
cinematic that segues to demonstrate gameplay. The three-minute clip is posted
on the Telltale
Blog and mirrored on
AtomicGamer. The clip concludes promising the release of the first
installment in the episodic game for Windows and WiiWare on July 7, and there is
now a timer on the Telltale Games
Website counting down to that date.
A post to the ICTs for Development
Blog has an explanation from Professor Richard Heeks that interpretations of
a new ruling that say China has banned gold-farming are not
actually accurate (thanks
IncGamers). According to the professor, the new law impacts the reverse
situation, banning using virtual currency to buy real items: This is a
government restriction on the use of the quasi-Paypal-like currencies (mainly QQ
coins) that are used extensively in China to pay for virtual game stuff. As
announced they can now only be used to pay for virtual stuff, and you can’t buy
real things with them as game companies were allowing to happen, nor can you
gamble. This therefore is not about what gold farming clients do: use real money
to buy these virtual currencies; it’s the mirror image. And it’s not about the
major trade in gold farming such as World of Warcraft, which relates to other
types of virtual currency. And it’s not about buying/selling in-game items. And
it’s not about the power-levelling of avatars. Bottom line: it’s not about gold
farming.
Steam News announces they
are accepting pre-purchase of
Street Fighter IV,
the upcoming Windows edition of the fighting game sequel. Those who commit to
buying the game between now and its release on July 7 will receive a 10%
discount.
Dawn Of War II version
1.4.1 patch notes are now online for the "There is Only War" update for
Relic's sci-fi RTS game, which will begin testing this afternoon in a beta
planned to last two weeks. The
Dawn Of War II Website
outlines how to participate in testing if you want to: "The massive update that
is ‘There is Only War’ will first be available as an open Beta to all owners of
Dawn of War II. Players can participate in the Beta WEDNESDAY, JULY 1ST 2009 at
2:00 PM PST (22:00 GMT) through their Steam client."
The
Wolfenstein Forums has minimum system specifications for Ravens' upcoming
first-person shooter (thanks
VG247).
Here's word, which apparently comes courtesy of Emeril Lagasse: Bam.
SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS:
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP or Windows Vista(R) (Windows 95/98/ME/2000 are
unsupported)
Microsoft DirectX(R) 9.0c (included & required for Windows XP & Vista)
HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS:
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 3.2 GHz or AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3400+ processor
RAM: 1GB RAM
Video Card: 256MB NVIDIA(R) Geforce(R) 6800 GT or ATI Radeon(TM) X800
Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
HDD Space: 8GB (Plus an additional 800MB for Windows swap file)
Media: 100% Microsoft Windows compatible DVD-ROM drive
Internet: Broadband connection and service required for multiplayer
Former Blue Omega programmer Geoff Rowland reveals via
his Twitter Account that the entire
Blue Omega team that developed Damnation was laid off last week. This is not so
unusual, as this vertical shooter that was once an Unreal modification
shipped last month, but in breaking this story,
Shacknews has also
posted legal documents showing Damnation development was marked by multiple
lawsuits, including a lawsuit filed by Blue Omega against publisher Codemasters
over termination of their development deal, and another they filed against
subcontractor Velvetelvis over the quality of their work.
Giant Bomb has posted images of the tech trees for StarCraft II, as
it's never too early to start plotting your strategies when it comes to
real-time strategy games. Thanks
Kotaku.
A post on the
Battle.net Forums offers a status report on the planned version 1.13 patch
for Diablo II first mentioned in April, adding some detail
to their terse statement on the topic a couple of weeks ago that
said "higher priority issues" were causing a delay. This turns out to have been
a Warcraft III custom map exploit that's described in
this
forum post, and once their fix for that is released, they can return their
attention to the Diablo II patch (thanks Rhialto). Here's a bit: The
Warcraft III patch is now on the Public Test Realm (PTR) and testing is
progressing. Once that patch is released work can shift back to Diablo II and
the 1.13 patch, and we'll be working to getting that patch up on its own PTR as
soon as possible. This could be a matter of weeks. Once it's up and in a testing
state for all of you, it's then going to be a matter of ensuring the features
are good and it's a solid patch. The more people we have testing the patch and
providing valid feedback, the better the patch will be, and hopefully the
quicker it will be released. So that's my challenge to you. You've been waiting
a long time, you want an awesome patch, you want a reset. To get all that, we
need good solid testing and feedback, reproduction steps for bugs, detailed
descriptions of issues or errors, etc. So once this goes live on the PTR, I
expect some crazed-youruinedtheeconomy-testing.
Age of Conan’s Craig Morrison Talks Gangs of Tarantia on The MMO Gamer
offers another installment in the AoC game director's verbal tour of the entire
internet. Once again the game's new content update is in the crosshairs of the
conversation, now with some perspective from players, asking about the derisive
"age of casters" label being used by some gamers, reaction to item tweaks, and
more. As for attracting disenchanted early adopters back into their MMORPG,
Craig has this to say: "Firstly I would say that there have been serious changes
made to the game! Then I would say that they shouldn’t just take my word for it
and to them come back and try it for themselves! I am of course a completely
biased opinion in that respect! There is a free trial available and there will
soon be a reevaluation offer to previous players so they can come back and try
it out for themselves. Try it, speak to people playing the game, and they might
just find that the serious changes they wanted to see have been made!"
Ten Ton Hammer -
Proposed Death Knight Changes for Patch 3.2.
For tanking, I think that if the PTR notes go live as stated, then they
are fairly substantial nerfs to Death Knight tanking. The health and armor
drops are fairly substantial and will hurt. Both health and armor are
dropping perilously close to warrior and paladin level, but those two
classes have shields to help them, while we don’t. Also, cooldowns are the
real strength of Death Knight and changes were expected, so no real surprise
there. Since Death Knights are still very solid tanks right now, and still
dominate end game raiding, it waits to be seen if the changes take them to a
level playing field with the other tanks, or remove them from viable play. I
personally think they went a little overboard though, and hope they real the
changes back a little before 3.2 goes live.
IndustryGamers - Opinion: Should Sony Exit Hardware?
IndustryGamers recently spoke to ngmoco founder Neil Young, who also
seemed to think Sony's days in hardware could be numbered. “It seems to me
that if you're competing for the living room, and there are three companies
competing for it, then one of them is going to have to be on the ropes. In
the last generation, it was Nintendo on the ropes, but they were able to
rebound with the Wii. I'm not sure that Sony has the same caliber of
creative thinkers inside their organization to be able to rebound... I don't
know if Sony thinks of themselves as a hardware company or software company,
but I bet Nintendo thinks of themselves as a games company,” he said. “So if
you're competing in the games space and you need to rebound, then you're
going to have to come up with something cool. I don't think it can just be
faster, more powerful hardware. As we move through the life cycle of our
industry, there are always going to be players that come and go – it happens
in publishing and development all the time. I don't see why it wouldn't
happen with hardware manufacturers from time to time – it happened to Sega.
I think Sony's getting hurt on two fronts as well; they're losing in the
living room and on the handset side, and they're a big global company so
they're hurting from the recession.”
Thanks Mike Martinez and Ant.
Thanks Mike Martinez and Ant.
Okay, the weather here in the greater New York area has been pretty out of
control since the end of spring. I can't find a rainfall accumulation figure,
but I found a good description of the effect in the words of Forrest Gump: "One
day it started raining, and it didn't quit for four months. We been through
every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain.
Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up
from underneath."
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