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Archived News:
The box art for Batman: Arkham City seems to indicate the game will use Games for Windows LIVE, like its predecessor, Batman: Arkham Asylum. The image of the box has the GFWL plastered right across the top. Thanks Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
A post to the Star Wars: The Old Republic Website by community manager Stephen Reid clarifies that while the digitally distributed edition of Star Wars: The Old Republic will be exclusive to EA's recently announced Origin service, Origin will not be required to activate retail copies of the upcoming MMORPG, nor will it be required for patching: While Origin will be the exclusive digital retailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic (in other words, if you want to buy it online and download it, you’ll do so through Origin) that does not mean that Origin is required for you to access or play The Old Republic.
Origin is a digital storefront, and the desktop application is there to give you quick access to Origin exclusives and deals.
However, you won’t need to launch the Origin application to run The Old Republic, nor will you patch the game via Origin. Once the game is on your hard disk, you’ll be connecting to our servers to patch and launch the game, and Origin does not have to be running to do that.
To answer another question - boxed versions of the game will include the client on DVD(s).
Thanks Eurogamer.
Lands of Dispair is now live in Runes of Magic, offering the fourth chapter in this fantasy-themed MMORPG. The update adds four "expansive" new regions, over 300 new quests, additional storage capacity for mounts and pets, two new instances, server-wide battlefields, new Runes, a new public encounter, and raises the level cap to 67. This page has a trailer showing off the new content, and word is: "The trailer released to announce “Chapter IV – Lands of Despair” reveals the impending doom threatening Taborea. A sinister cloud hangs over the Land of Malevolence and the Redhill Mountains. Sismond, a new creature from the darkness, has plunged the villages of Taborea into chaos and enslaved the people through manipulation and dark magic."
This trailer from World of Warcraft shows off the Rage of the Firelands from the upcoming version 4.2 patch for Blizzard's MMORPG. The recently updated Patch 4.2 Public Test Realm Guide has all the details on the patch, which is currently running on the Public Test Realms.
The Kinect for Windows SDK Website now offers the promised Windows SDK for Kinect. Word is: The Kinect for Windows SDK beta is a programming toolkit for application developers. It enables the academic and enthusiast communities easy access to the capabilities offered by the Microsoft Kinect device connected to computers running the Windows 7 operating system.
The Kinect for Windows SDK beta includes drivers, rich APIs for raw sensor streams and human motion tracking, installation documents, and resource materials. It provides Kinect capabilities to developers who build applications with C++, C#, or Visual Basic by using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.
The Frozen Synapse Website now offers online sales of the full soundtrack for Frozen Synapse (thanks Morris). They provide a sample, and the following explanation of the implications of buying it from them rather than elsewhere: (PLEASE NOTE - Other distributors (such as Valve) may choose to offer the soundtrack at a lower price if you have already purchased the full game outside of a Soundtrack Edition bundle. If you are in this position, but would like to support Mode 7 and nervous_testpilot further, you are welcome to choose to pay more and buy direct from us. This will encourage the creation of more music and other ambitious indie game soundtracks! However, please also feel free to shop around.)
This trailer from BioShock Infinite is called "Factions at war," as Irrational Games' Ken Levine explains the underlying conflicts in Columbia, the floating city that's the setting for their upcoming shooter sequel. The clip includes little snippets from the game to go along with Ken's description of the game.
Gamasutra has details on plans to take Fallen Earth free-to-play, with word on how this will change the post-apocalyptic MMORPG. Word is: The game will transition from a paid membership system to free-to-play over the next five months or so, according to a statement. After the transition, free players will be able to access every zone and instance in the game, though some items and services will still be sold through an in-game store.
Current players that maintain their subscriptions through the transition will receive "veteran rewards" as well as access to a premium tier subscription that includes monthly points usable in the store.
Final Combat is a Chinese game that bears a startling resemblance to a certain multiplayer shooter. Most of the page can't be machine translated due to the use of Flash, but there's a trailer that shows the games obvious Team Fortress 2 influence, which only becomes more apparent as one clicks the various links. Thanks Gamepro.
A new Apogee Software Website is online.
Games
- Beat Hazard Ultra DLC on Steam.
- Frozen Synapse Soundtrack on Steam.
- Magic Carpet on GOG.com.
- Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 on Steam.
- Trainz Simulator for Mac on Macgamestore.com.
Patches
- Garry's Mod on Steam.
- Steel Storm: Burning Retribution on Steam.
- Trino on Steam. Save 50%.
- Beat Hazard Ultra DLC on Steam. Save 10%.
- BEEP on Impulse. Save 50%.
- Blacklight: Tango Down on Games For Windows. Save 50%.
- F.E.A.R. Collection on Steam. Save 50%.
- F.E.A.R. 3 on Steam. Save 10% on pre-purchases.
- Frozen Synapse Soundtrack on Steam. Save 20%.
- Hacker Evolution Duality on Steam. Save 20% on pre-purchases.
- Indie Action Pack on Steam. Save 80%.
- Indie Variety Pack on Steam. Save 80%.
Still on sale (previously reported). Continue here to read the full story.
In a further follow-up to concerns expressed over potential Battlefield 3 balance issues resulting from preorder bonuses, the Battlefield Blog now offers reassurances that the Physical Warfare Pack preorder bonus for the military shooter sequel will eventually be a free release for all players (thanks Brady). Here are excerpts on how both pieces of preorder DLC will be handled after the game's release: I would like to start by clarifying that the Physical Warfare Pack is a time-based exclusive. If you do not pre-order Battlefield 3 at a retailer carrying the Physical Warfare Pack, don’t worry. We will unlock the contents of the Physical Warfare Pack for free to all Battlefield 3 players later this year.
[…]
If you pre-order Battlefield 3, you will be able to play Back to Karkand at no extra charge as soon as it is released, but it is not day one DLC and it is not on the base game disc. We think it’s a sweet deal, and it’s available to everyone everywhere. If you do not pre-order Battlefield 3, you can still buy Back to Karkand separately and play it as soon as it is released, the very same date as anyone who pre-ordered. In other words, there is no segmentation of the community when we launch the base game.
This trailer offers a behind-the-scenes look at the Annihilation map pack that's coming to Call of Duty: Black Ops as DLC for the military shooter sequel. The clip features Treyarch's Dan Bunting, Paul Mason Firth, Phillip Tasker, and Jimmy Zielinski, who provide insights on strategies for the four new multiplayer maps this includes as well as the new zombie map. Here are some accompanying screenshots, and here's the embedded clip. Continue here to read the full story.
A new trailer from F.E.A.R. 3 highlights the Hollywood and comic book connections in the horror-themed first-person shooter sequel in the works at Day 1 Studios. Word is: "Check out this new F.E.A.R. 3 video from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment giving gamers a behind the scenes look at the involvement two horror masterminds, John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing) and Steve Niles (30 Days of Night), had and how they helped craft the story and scares in F.E.A.R. 3." The clip is embedded below. Continue here to read the full story.
Activision announces the Annihilation content pack will launch first for the Xbox 360 edition of Call of Duty: Black Ops on June 28th, before presumably launching for Windows and PlayStation 3 at some point after that. The DLC will add four new multiplayer maps and more zombie action to the military shooter sequel. "With Annihilation, Black Ops fans will get four exciting and unique multiplayer settings with Hangar 18, Drive-In, Silo and Hazard," said Treyarch Studio Head, Mark Lamia. "Players will also enjoy an all-new Zombies experience, Shangri-La, an exotic and mysterious map filled with deadly traps, dark secrets and innovative gameplay that will challenge even the most daring Zombie hunters."
The BioWare Social Network has word that a vintage server for the Neverwinter Nights forums is the latest gaming server to suffer a breach. Some personal information may have been compromised, and they have informed those whose accounts were impacted and have taken measures to secure things going forward. This EA Support post offers a FAQ on the topic and here's word on exactly what data were exposed: Q: What exactly was breached?
A: Account names, email addresses, passwords, country and birth dates may have been exposed. No credit card data was exposed and we have never collected Social Security numbers. If you linked your legacy Bioware account with an EA Account, then additional information that you associated with your EA Account (if any) may have been accessible as well. Such information could include your name, mailing address, billing address, language, game entitlements and games played, and other game-specific account information depending on your use of your EA Account.
Q: Was my account breached?
A: If you did not receive an email from us, or if your password still works for your EA Account, your username and password were not compromised and your account was otherwise unaffected.
Q: How many accounts were affected?
A: Approximately 18,000 accounts—a very small percentage of total users of the Neverwinter Nights forums.
A tweet by Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell follows on the controversy over blacklist threats over Duke Nukem Forever reviews that lead to 2K firing PR firm the Redner Group by saying Eurogamer has actually been blacklisted by 2K: "I feel sorry for @TheRednerGroup today. We are blacklisted by @2KGames and it seems to be standard practice." Thanks VG247.
Mass Effect 3 may add cooperative multiplayer to the action/RPG series, reports Eurogamer, saying: "Eurogamer understands this four-player, online-enabled co-op mode is 'standalone' and features 'competitive elements'." They elaborate on this with information based on "current reports" and "a separate source." They relate what BioWare's Ray Muzyka told them about multiplayer at E3: "We haven't talked at all about multiplayer in the Mass Effect franchise, but we're exploring multiplayer in all of our games and all of our franchises," the BioWare co-founder told them. "It's always an idea we're interested in. The short answer is we have no comment on that. But we're interested in the idea of multiplayer."
The John Carmack interview on Eurogamer talks with the id Software Technical Director about RAGE, their upcoming first-person shooter (on a related note, here are some new RAGE screenshots). The conversation focuses on the differences between the Windows and console editions of the game and the related issues of coding for the different platforms. He explains they've come up with some new technology that allows a 60Hz game to revert to image tearing rather than 30Hz if the game suffers a hiccup, and says they are bringing this technique to PCs as well: So what we do on the consoles, where we have this tight control, is we say, OK, you're going 60FPS, it's v-syncing, there are no tear lines. But if you miss by a tiny little bit, we'll let it tear at the top of the screen and we adjust the resolutions dynamically to let it catch back up.
We were able to convince all of the vendors to go ahead and implement that extension on Windows, so we're now able to do that at 60FPS as long as you've got the horsepower. But if you get a hiccup, where it slows down a little bit, it reverts to tearing, which is exactly what we want for gameplay reasons.
That is still one of the cool things about being able to work with OpenGL extensions on there. As soon as we can present a compelling case to these guys, which is basically, look, this $200 console is playing smoother than your $200 system on here, you need to fix this and here's one of the steps you can do there, and they got it done. That's still a good thing.
Epic Games announces plans for Epic Developer Day on July 13th and Unreal University on July 14th, both of which are being conducted in London, England to offer "free hands-on learning experiences led by senior members of Epic's engine team and vetted UE3 instructors." Admission is free, and while the second event is open to anyone interested in Epic's Unreal Development Kit, the first one is open to anyone under Epic's non-disclosure agreement for commercial Unreal Engine 3 evaluation and/or full license, though they add that: "Epic is happy to sign NDAs prior to event."
Today is a special occasion here in the BlueTower, as it's MrsBlue's birthday! She turns 21 today, but still doesn't look a day over 20. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
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