Archived News:
The Examiner reports that EA is willingly refunding preorders for the PC edition of Battlefield 1943, which was at one point to trail the console edition of the military shooter by "a couple of months," before suffering a further delay. The Xbox 360 edition of the game was released a year ago, and while DICE began accepting preorders for the game in October 2009 and it was promised "soon" in March, the game is still MIA. VG247 contacted EA about this and received a reply that does not do much to dissuade anyone who has the opinion that PC BF1943 is vaporware, saying: "All pre-orders can be canceled with refund at anytime and we do not have any further information at this time about a release date for the PC version of Battlefield 1943."
Battle.net has word that a new patch is now automatically available for Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty to update the RTS sequel to version 1.01. The new version optimizes campaign saves, and fixes an issue with sound not playing on some 7.1 systems. Thanks Big Download.
Auran Games now offers digital distribution of Blue Comet, new DLC for Trainz Simulator 2010: Engineers Edition, their railroading sim. There's a trailer for the DLC on the YouTube, and here's a description of the new content: "The package includes the Baldwin G3s pacific locomotive in early condition, in both blue and black liveries, and a custom cab interior. Also included is a representation of the class as it appeared in later life on duty after Blue Comet services had been discontinued. The set of fully featured rolling stock includes baggage, combine, coach, diner and observation cars, and each comes with a detailed passenger view enabling you to immerse in the nostalgic atmosphere. Take a seat at a table in the dining car or sneak up for a peak at the galley. Ride in style in the lavishly appointed coaches, pull up a wicker chair in the observation car, stowaway in the baggage car or chew tobacco in the smoker."
The Left 4 Dead Blog has word that PC users voted for Survival Versus as this week's encore mutation for Left 4 Dead 2, while Xbox 360 users have opted for Four Swordsmen of the Apocalypse. Steam News has word on the new patch for the zombie shooter sequel adding the encore mutation as well as adding a setup timer to Versus Survival and fixes an exploit that dropped players from dedicated servers. A subsequent patch is also now available, which fixes a bug in Versus-Survival where a team could get 5 survivors.
A new patch for The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom is now available on the Ubisoft Forums, updating the strategy management sequel to version 1.08. The patch is mirrored on AtomicGamer. The patch list is extensive, including bug fixes, and a number of balance changes. The short list categorized as "improvements" follows. Continue here to read the full story.
Another new patch for Alien Swarm is now automatically available, announces Steam News. Here's the list of major changes for the freeware shooter. Continue here to read the full story.
A few more patches are now automatically available via Steam. New versions are online for Railworks, Rhythm Zone, and Beat Hazard. There's also a new version of Sniper: Ghost Warrior, and the changes in that patch follow. Continue here to read the full story.
Link of the Day: Wall-E Case Mod. Wow! Thanks dakslf.
AMD now offers new ATI Catalyst 10.7a Beta Drivers, which adds the anti-aliasing support for StarCraft II that was missing until this release. In addition to ATI Catalyst Control Center-based Starcraft II anti-aliasing under Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP, the beta drivers also feature performance improvements for Quad ATI CrossFireX for Eyefinity.
An invitation to beta test Battlefield 3 will be included in a Medal of Honor Limited Edition that will also include additional perks, announces Electronic Arts, the first overt confirmation of development of the next installment in DICE's military shooter series other than an offhand reference to investors by EA's John Pleasants and another comment by Fredrik Liliegren, co-founder and former CEO of DICE. EA Games and the Medal of Honor Website have a bit more on the BF3 beta offer, which for some reason is contingent on the launch of testing within twelve months of the release of Medal of Honor, currently scheduled for Oct. 12, 2010 in North America and Oct. 15 in Europe. Here is the stipulation: "Beta offer is contingent on Beta availability within 12 months of Medal of Honor release. Beta will be available for a limited time only and offer expires upon close of Beta events. Participation in Beta requires acceptance of Beta Agreement. Must be 18+. Xbox GOLD membership required for Xbox users. Check this site for further details when available."
The online résumé of environmental artist Chris Brooker offers an indication that Codemasters is working on another installment in the Operation Flashpoint series of military first-person shooters. According to his post, Operation Flashpoint: Red River has been in development since May of this year, and planned for release in 2011 for Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. Thanks joao via Computer and Video Games.
Star Wars: The Old Republic Website has more background for this upcoming Star Wars MMORPG, offering a new profile of Nar Shaddaa, the largest moon of the planet Hutta. There's a video of the moon as well as some screenshots on their media page. BioWare also announces that the eighth issue of Blood of the Empire is online, offering the latest issue of the latest online comic from the game, and on a related note, they also have word that the previous Star Wars: The Old Republic webcomic is now available in print, saying you can pick up issue #1 of Threat of Peace is now available in comic stores, or it can be ordered online directly from Dark Horse, adding an alternate cover version is also available at some outlets and online.
One of the listed StarCraft II Known Issues on the Battle.net Technical Support Forums is a bit of a doozy, as when rendering "screens that are light on detail" (such as menus), the game can cause hardware to heat up by refreshing the screen too frequently, which can put your system in jeopardy. The posting is from a couple of weeks ago, and the workaround they offer is clearly for the beta, but this known issue is also apparently still present in the shipping version of the RTS sequel, as a post on GameInformer.com describes the game's destruction of a graphics card and a laptop apparently thanks to this problem (thanks Ant via Digg). Here's the workaround for the beta, which will presumably work on the full game by using the proper directory: Screens that are light on detail may make your system overheat if cooling is overall insufficient. This is because the game has nothing to do so it is primarily just working on drawing the screen very quickly. A temporary workaround is to go to your Documents\StarCraft II Beta\variables.txt file and add these lines:
frameratecapglue=30
frameratecap=60
You may replace these numbers if you want to.
Richard Garriott, the game designer widely known as Lord British, has successfully sued his former employer NCsoft in Austin District Court, winning a $28 million USD award that's just over half of the $48 million he had requested, reports GamePron. Though NCsoft calls Garriott's 2008 departure "voluntary," he contends he was fired, and was forced to liquidate his stock options on more than 400,000 NCsoft shares amid the global financial meltdown, in spite of an agreement that he would have up to a decade to sell the stock in the event he was fired. The court sided with Garriott, and the payout represents the lost value on that stock sale. NCsoft "will be considering all options for next steps in the legal process," according to a spokesperson. As for Lord British, "I am extremely pleased with the jury’s decision, he says. "The facts were clear that my departure from NCsoft was not voluntary. I am very pleased with the final award."
A Gamasutra Job Listing noted by superannuation indicates further gaming ambitions for The Lord of the Rings property, suggesting a Hobbit game is part of the mix, bringing to mind the gaming rumors surrounding erstwhile Hobbit director Guillermo del Toro. Here's the summary of the job posting: "Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. seeks a Director, Marketing for the Marketing department. Position will be responsible for brand development and product marketing activities for the entire portfolio of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit games at Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Position manages high-level cross-company & external partnerships relative to the assigned franchises."
The ArenaNet Blog has an article on Progression and Leveling in Guild Wars 2 written by Isaiah "Izzy" Cartwright, who explains how they are setting the initial level cap at 80 and flattening out the leveling curve in their MMORPG sequel so the amount of play required to progress at later levels is the same as the early ones. He explains: "Overall, we expect our content to be the driving force behind how long it takes to do things in-game. Anyone can increase the length of an experience bar and call it content, but our world is filled with an almost endless stream of things to do. We expect content—not long, grindy progression—to be the deciding factor that keeps people playing our game. We want everyone to stick with Guild Wars 2 because our content is fun and enjoyable, not out of some dogged determination to slowly, slowly advance. And because our world is ever-changing and dynamic, you can play our content again and again! Two characters journeying through the game will have two different experiences, which means the game will remain fresh for all you out there who enjoy making a million characters." Thanks Guild Wars 2 Slovenija.
Saling The World on Gamasutra has this week's multiplatform game sales figures showing StarCraft II leading all games in sales in North America and the UK. This is not so common for a non-console title these days, and the data are from yesterday, so this encompasses only two days of SC2 sales. They also have the list of the top five PC titles in North America, indicating a good week for Blizzard: 1. Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (Blizzard), 2. Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty - Collector's Edition (Blizzard), 3. Starcraft Battle Chest (Blizzard), 4. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (Blizzard), 5. World of Warcraft (Blizzard).
CodeWeavers celebrates the recent release of Wine version 1.2 with the release of CrossOver 9.1 and CrossOver Games 9.1 for both Mac and Linux. The new version of CrossOver includes full Wine version 1.2 support, and the new version of CrossOver Games includes the ability to play StarCraft II and Star Trek Online, "along with a wide range of improvements to many other games."
A new comprehensive patch is now available for Distant Worlds, announces Matrix Games, saying this brings the space strategy game to version 1.0.6.0. Here's what to expect from the new version: "Specifically, there are more than 40 bug fixes alongside major features such as improved AI and automation, better fleet management, more realistic colonization (including habitat quality) and migration, improved planetary combat and rebellions, new per-ship and per-group engagement stances with defaults adjustable on an empire level, better game balance in terms of combat, economics and technology, major performance improvement including lower memory usage and much quicker saves and finally multiple interface improvements to make managing your empire a breeze!" The patch can be found on this page.
Mod DB has a fix for the FPS Terminator Alpha Demo, updating the freeware Unreal-engine movie game to version 1.01. Word is: "After getting much feedback about many technical issues with the previous demo, I've been hard at work this past week, trying to fix most of those problems. Well now I have a new upload of the demo that is far more playable. But it's still an alpha build, and it's still far from complete." Thanks Ant.
The Bottom Feeder: Sometimes It's OK To Steal My Games. By Jeff Vogel (Spiderweb Software). Thanks Verno.
I admit to being a little bit nervous about writing this. The sad truth is that, these days, it is so easy to pirate single-player PC games that most gamers only have to pay for them if they want to pay for them. And there is strong evidence (links below) to indicate that they usually don't want to pay for them. So giving people ammunition they can use to convince themselves that they shouldn't pay for my games seems perilous, especially since they are, after all, how I support my family. But I got into the blogging game to write about the reality of the game biz from the viewpoint of my shadowy little corner, and piracy is a huge part of it, so here we go.
The Game Beat - How game publishers Captivate journalists with junkets. Thanks GamePolitics.
While many outlets somehow disclose when coverage comes as a result of a publisher-funded junket, Grant worries that gamers don't really understand what goes into the game previews they read. "From what I can tell... readers do not realize the nature and frequency of events like these and, even more disappointingly, most of them don't seem to care," he said. "It's not a matter of whether or not I trust my writers to remain impartial in the face of gifts and free trips; it's more a matter of whether readers can continue to place their trust in us if they know we accept those things."
Extra Credits - Video Games & Bad Writing. Thanks Morris.
Daniel Floyd's new show debuts, discussing "video game writing and the importance of narrative."
- Nuclear Dawn on the Official Website. New diary on the game's locations. Some new screenshots are included.
Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day! Hug your sys admin today. Presuming he's showered recently (I'm allowed to make that joke, since I've held that job myself).
R.I.P.: Pro Counter-Strike Player Dead in Tragic Car Accident. Thanks Ant via Digg.
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