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Archived News:
The
World of Warcraft Forums have word that paid faction changes are now
underway.
Blizzard Support's Faction Change FAQ has all the details, and word is:
"After purchasing a Faction Change for a character, a player can choose any race
of the opposite faction that is compatible with the character’s class." They
also say that they will also be offering a paid race change service going
forward, and more details on that will be revealed at a future date.
Square Enix
Announces Order of War will ship in North America on September 22,
offering real-time strategy gameplay set during World War II. A playable demo
for the game was released earlier this month, and here's a bit on
the game: As Square Enix's first foray into the hugely popular genre of
historical real-time strategy, ORDER OF WAR takes strategy games to new heights
and features massive-scale battles brought to life with unprecedented cinematic
intensity. Players will take command of an entire army including ground troops,
artillery, tank divisions and aircraft in all-out strategic assaults. The
single-player mode can be played out in two campaigns - American forces versus
German forces in occupied France and German forces versus Soviet forces in
Poland and versus American forces in France. Missions will be based on key
historic events and operations from 1944.
The
OnLive Blog announces the promised closed beta testing of OnLive is
now underway, offering the chance to try this cloud-based gaming service
first-hand (thanks
Kotaku). They are still collecting
beta sign-ups, and here's
word on testing: When you sign up for OnLive Beta, you tell us some
general information about your ISP, your computer configuration and your
location. We use this information to organize Beta testers into test groups so
that our engineering team can focus at different times on testing different
situations. If you are a potential fit for a particular test group, we’ll send
you an invitation email, asking you to run a detailed Performance Test on your
network connection and your computer configuration. The results of the
Performance Test will then feed back up to OnLive, and if you are a fit for a
test group at some point during Beta, we’ll let you install the OnLive plug-in
into your browser. Then, we’ll ask you to spend some time playing…um, I
mean…testing games OnLive.
The Team Fortress 2 Blog
announces that Valve will be removing all items earned using external idling
applications in Team Fortress 2. As Hank Williams once sang: "When tears
come down like fallin' rain, You'll toss around and call my name, You'll walk
the floor the way I do, Your cheatin' hat will tell on you." Wait, maybe he said
heart. Anyway, here's word: Over the next few days we'll be removing all
TF2 items that were earned using external idling applications. We're going to
adopt a zero tolerance policy for external applications used to manipulate the
persistent item system. Due to us not having a policy in place prior to today,
this time we're only removing the items earned through cheating the system.
Going forward, if we find users using external applications, we'll remove all of
their items. If you're interested, only about 4.5% of the players in TF2's
community will be affected by this cleansing process.
Meanwhile, everyone who took the moral high road will soon be finding a new hat
in their inventory. We've also significantly increased the chance of finding any
of the existing hats.
We realize there is a high level of demand for items, and we're still working on
systems to allow you to find them in new ways (via Trading, and crafting
duplicates into desired items). However, we need to draw the line at running
external applications.
IGN's Red Faction:
Guerrilla Preview outlines the additional content planned for release with
the PC edition of Red Faction: Guerrilla to make up for the wait since
the console releases of Volition's shooter sequel: Much more than a simple
port of the console game, the PC build of Guerrilla has been in production for
more than a year by Reactor Zero, a studio out of Ann Arbor. Apart from adding
in the Demons of the Badlands content, the developers also packs in six new
Wrecking Crew maps from the latest dlc pack, the two exclusive Wrecking Crew
maps that were only available for players that pre-ordered Guerrilla, and two
multiplayer maps that are exclusive to the PC version. The PC build will also
get access to two new gameplay modes: bagman and team bagman, and while we
weren't told about these two modes, it's nice to know that all of these items
will be tossed in for free. For players that are interested in achievements,
there is also Games For Windows Live support as well.
As announced
here, CodeWeavers now offers a new
version 8.0 of CrossOver Games, which allows Windows games to be played on Mac
and Linux PCs without Windows. The
Change Log
outlines what's new, including support for Left 4 Dead and the Steam version
Tales of Monkey Island and fixes and enhancements for Half-Life 2, Team Fortress
2, Spore, Guild Wars, and more. A trial version is available.
The
Jerome Gastaldi Interview on Rock, Paper, Shotgun chats with the CEO of
Monte Cristo about Cities XL, the upcoming urban planning and management
game for which a playable demo was just released. They discuss
the game, and the various aspects that differentiate it from Sim City, including
social networking and multiplayer components.
New Preorder Bonuses
on GamersGate are now in effect, including 250 bonus "coins," a 30-day price
guarantee, and downloads available six hours before release.
Thanks Mike Martinez. Did you know the first ATM in New York City was opened on this Day
in 1969?
Steam News announces a
new patch is automatically available for Team Fortress 2, offering a few
changes, including one that will please fans of backend inventory manipulation:
• Fixed "not on camera object" particle effects appearing while
spectating in-eyes, and not appearing when in thirdperson
• Fixed inventory bug that caused some item pickups not to be shown
• Added support for client explanations of backend inventory
manipulation
S2 Games
Announces Heroes of Newerth, surprising us with the revelation that
this Defense of the Ancients-inspired multiplayer action/RPG hasn't been
officially announced prior to this, even though closed beta testing has been
underway for a while now. In any event, a new
Heroes of Newerth Website is
online where you can register for that beta and check out media and information
from the game, which is to be released this year for Windows, Linux, and MacOS.
Here are
a
bazzilion screenshots and pieces of concept art and here's a bit on the
game: In Heroes of Newerth, two teams of up to five players each take on
the role of a special Hero unit. With the assistance of AI-controlled armies,
each team sets out with the sole objective of destroying the other team’s base.
As a match progresses, players can earn experience and gold which can be used to
upgrade skills or purchase items to make their character more powerful. The
team-oriented design of HoN coupled with unprecedented in-game Voice-Over-IP
controls and Clan Support allow for an incredibly deep, tactical team-based
experience.
NCsoft and DC Comics
announce Aiva's Story, a limited edition comic book based on the lore
of Aion, the fantasy-themed MMORPG scheduled to launch on September 22.
The comic will be free with purchase of Aion at GameStop in the US or Electronic
Boutique in Canada, and they will also be giving away a limited number of copies
at NCsoft's Aion booth at this week's Penny Arcade Expo. This limited run comic
from DC's Wildstorm Studios features the art of Neil Googe and the writing
of David Noonan and Ricardo Sanchez;
here is the
cover art and a sample page, and here is a description: "The comic tells the
story of Aiva, a young Asmodian warrior who vows vengeance against the Elyos who
killed her family during a raid. Aiva trains ceaselessly, hoping to become a
Daeva and someday find her nemesis on the battlefields of the Abyss (where only
Daevas can go)."
The
Company of Heroes Website offers a detailed introduction to Company of
Heroes Online, which is operating in China, but it seems pretty apparent
Relic is eager for western audiences to try the online version of their World
War II RTS game as well. They describe the microtransaction-based business model
of the free to download and play game and outline differences between CoHO and
its more traditional counterparts, including the role of the Company Commander,
experience and progression, items, hero squads, and more. They conclude with
this overview: "We already have a really fun game in Company of Heroes to use as
our base for Company of Heroes Online. This is a very brief look at what’s new
and different in COHO. If you’ve played Company of Heroes before, you’ll find
yourself at home when you’re deploying your MG42s and Riflemen, but there are
also some new facets to this game, such as specializing your Commander abilities
and hero squads, that add further to the strategic experience."
Capcom Expands
Use of Havok Physics Middleware for Triple-A Titles announces Japanese
developer and publisher Capcom has made Havok its development tool of choice to
add physics to Lost Planet 2 and Resident Evil: The Darkside
Chronicles. Havok was also responsible for the physics in Lost Planet,
Dead Rising, and Resident Evil 5.
There's now a
Peregrine channel on the YouTube with four videos showing off the
Peregrine glove, the
recently announced gesture-based gaming controller that may prove
handy. Word is: "The videos are presented by Pu 'Whisper' Liu, the pro gamer
from Team Evil Geniuses who lays claim to the #1 Warcraft III: Dawn of the
Ancients (DotA) ranking in North America, as well multiple eSports World Cup USA
DotA championships. An avid user of The PEREGRINE, Whisper shows in the videos
how the glove allows users to instantly trigger over 30 in-game abilities
literally with the touch of a finger, speeding up their response time while
simultaneously offering a more comfortable and intuitive gaming experience." We
may see some first-hand impressions of this soon, as the Peregrine will be
demonstrated at the Penny Arcade Expo this week.
A
Champions Online: Blood Moon teaser website is online offering a look at
an upcoming content update for Cryptic's MMORPG. Also, after a bit of an
uproar on
the Champions Online Forums about changes in one patch (thanks
Massively) that has players calling for an ability to "retcon" their toons at no
cost. A
subsequent forum post (thanks
Big Download) announces the complaints about retcons have been heard, and
though they are not free: "it is now possible to completely retcon your
character from start to finish, regardless of level." Here's a bit on what to
expect from Blood Moon:
- Explore the new Celestial Powerset. Use the power of the Seraphim to
heal and strengthen your allies, or release the fury of the Nephilim in a
battle against evil.
- Beware the Zombie Apocalypse rising in Canada! Battle against zombies in
PVP, but no matter what, do not fall there. Should you die, you shall return
as one of the undead horde, bound to fight in Takofanes’ name.
- Fight off ravenous werewolf packs, but be careful lest you get bitten
and infected with their dark magic.
- Stand against undead heroes who once fought in the Battle of Detroit,
and do your best to free their souls from Takofanes’ necromancy.
- Challenge Takofanes to drive him from our land, but beware – you must
fight the dark sorcerers who serve him before you have any chance of facing
the Undying Lord.
The
Total War Blog has an update about an upcoming patch for Empire: Total
War to update Creative Assembly's RTS sequel to version 1.4. They offer a
preliminary change list for the new version, though there's no outlook on when
the patch will become available. According to the introduction, AI
improvements are the main goal of version 1.4, saying: "A lot of work has been
put into the campaign and diplomacy AI, focusing on how it wages war, makes
alliances and peace as well as use of naval invasions. Battle side improvements
have been made to most areas of the AI with the focus on the siege AI which has
had major changes made to it. Sieges have also had a lot of work done on them
with a lot of bugs fixed, improvements made to pathfinding and how guns and
troops on walls work."
GamePolitics reports EA is preemptively suing Dillinger LLC over rights to
use the "Dillinger" name in the Godfather games. There is a machine gun
named after one-time public enemy number one John Dillinger in each Godfather
game, and after being threatened with litigation over the use of the alleged
bank robber's name they've launched a lawsuit of their own.
Steam News reveals the
availability of a new automatic patch for Garry's Mod. The update
properly organizes Team Fortress 2 and King of the Hill maps and addresses some
bugs.
A forum comment suggested that foregoing coffee is not really necessary for the
blood test during an annual physical, but I'm pretty sure the nurse who drew my
blood would have said something if that was the case for me, since we joked
about how many people brought a travel mug along like I did. I do have to poke
my head in at the doctor's office tomorrow, so I'll ask anyway, since I already
have my appointment for next year's physical (because it was so tough to
schedule an appointment this year).
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