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Archived News:
The EVE Online EVE Insider Dev Blog has a letter to the EVE Online community from Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of CCP, who confesses to recent missteps in the space MMOG brought about by hubris, and outlines plans to address the problems these have brought to the game. He states: "Somewhere along the way, I began taking success for granted. As hubris set in, I became less inclined to listen to pleas for caution. Red flags raised by very smart people both at CCP and in the community went unheeded because of my stubborn refusal to allow adversity to gain purchase on our plans. Mistakes, even when they were acknowledged, often went unanalyzed, leaving the door open for them to be repeated." He goes on say: "forcing players into a mandatory single-player Captain’s Quarters experience was a mistake," and also mentions the "rather underwhelming virtual goods rollout." He proceeds to promise the Incarna expansion ("the real one with actual meaningful gameplay in it") "will be a big step towards the future," and that going forward players can expect "A Humbler, Stronger CCP."
This leads to another update from senior producer Arnar Hrafn Gylfason describing their plans to bring the first tangible results of this refocus, which will come in the game's winter 2011 expansion, saying: "More programmers, more testers, more designers and more artists than ever working on bringing you meaningful and engaging improvements and additions to EVE." Here's some of that: Continue here to read the full story.
The Sports Mogul Website has word that they are giving away Football Mogul 2012, the American football simulation from the makers of Baseball Mogul (which is not free, as they say: "Sports Mogul does still have to make money"). This the full uncrippled version of the tackle football game, with no adware or time limitations, updated with this season's opening day rosters for all teams. To qualify, those interested must do one of two things: Either sign up for their mailing list, which will get you a link to download the game in your email, or "like" their Facebook Page, at which point a link to the download will appear on the menu under "coupon." Here's what the game features: Continue here to read the full story.
Gearboxity announces the first DLC for Duke Nukem Forever is coming next week: The Hail to the Icons Parody Pack and its four new multiplayer maps for Duke Nukem Forever will be available beginning Tuesday, October 11.
As promised, everyone who joined the First Access Club before Duke Nukem Forever launched in their territory will get it free*! For those that aren't in First Access Club, the pack will run 800 Microsoft Points on Xbox 360 and $9.99 on PlayStation Network and Steam in the US.
In addition, updates to the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of Duke Nukem Forever will roll out the same day, adding support for the new content along with various optimizations and bug fixes.
Until then, check out the Hail to the Icons mini-site for the latest on the new maps, modes and weapons at www.dukenukemforever.com/hailtotheicons
*Platform availability and eligibility is subject to local laws and regulations.
A Q&A session on the Rockstar Games Website addresses the frequent requests they've received for a PC edition of Red Dead Redemption, saying this is still not happening: We hope that with the announcement that L.A. Noire is coming to PC this fall, and the knowledge that our next big game Max Payne 3 will have a PC release (plus that we’ve released both Grand Theft Auto IV and the Episodes from Liberty City for PC), we can finally put to rest any misconceptions that we’ve ‘abandoned the PC platform’. We do know that, yes, there is just one title absent from our PC release plans – that game of course being Red Dead Redemption, and of course we’re well aware that some fans have been asking for it. All we can say is that whenever it is viable (technically, developmentally and business-wise) for us to release a game for PC (or any other particular platform) – we will and we usually do; unfortunately, that is just not the case 100% of the time for all platforms. To PC gamers, we hope that between the Grand Theft Auto titles, and the forthcoming L.A. Noire and Max Payne 3, you’ll have plenty of great Rockstar action to enjoy.
Gamers Opt Out is a website dedicated to helping gamers opt out of the anti-class action lawsuit clauses in EULAs from companies like Sony and Electronic Arts following a recent Supreme Court ruling. Users can opt out of these clauses by sending a physical letter, which the site facilitates (thanks Boing Boing). There's also a follow-up to this on Kotaku reassuring us that the Matthew Jakubowski operating the site is a different individual than the Matthew Jakubowski who is an attorney for Brooks Kushman, PC. Thanks nin.
Gamasutra has the latest video game sales figures from The NPD Group where the market research firm estimates $4.5 billion was spend in Q2, up about one percent over the same period last year. Here's how they break this down: "NPD's Q2 2011 Games Industry: Total Consumer Spend report stated that $1.44 billion was spent in the U.S. on new physical video and PC titles, while consumers spent $1.74 billion total on used games, game rentals, subscriptions, digital full-game downloads, social network games, DLC and mobile games. Hardware and accessories made up the rest of the quarterly total."
The Bethesda Softworks Forums have all sorts of tweaks and tips for the Windows PC edition of RAGE, id Software's new first person shooter. Also, an update to the article on GeForce.com about unlocking higher resolution textures in RAGE hears from NVIDIA engineers, who share "new information about GPU Transcoding variables that can increase your frame rates, improve in-game visual fidelity, and reduce texture streaming issues." Unlike the first part of the article mentioned earlier, much of what's discussed in the update is specific to NVIDIA GPUs.
New patches are now available for F1 2011 to update the Formula One racing game to version 1.1. Digitally distributed editions of the game should update automatically, and this forum thread offers three manual patches, covering the North American, EFIGS, and Japanese editions of the game. One or all of the patches can also be found mirrored on AtomicGamer, Gamer's Hell, The Patches Scrolls, and Worthplaying.
A manual version of the automatic version 1.02 patch for Sengoku mentioned earlier is now available. The download can be found on AtomicGamer, The Patches Scrolls, and Worthplaying.
This trailer from Might & Magic Heroes VI offers a look at the "tears" side of the "Blood & Tears" reputation system in the upcoming Might & Magic prequel, showing the counterpart to the recently released "blood" trailer. Here's a reminder of how the Blood & Tears system works: The outcome of the game depends on the path in which your hero takes and can result in a completely different player experience based on the choices made throughout your campaign. Each path is linked to a unique epilogue map with the ability to unlock special quests and different companion heroes. Hero abilities are also defined by their affinity with each reputation path - for instance, the higher your ranking in the 'Blood' path, the more powerful the associated abilities become.
Lastly, some of the rarest and most powerful artifacts in the game are Reputation-specific. Many of the in-game quests will offer a Reputation choice and reward the gamer with the appropriate Reputation points. Once you've reached a certain level of points, you have the ability to evolve into an advanced Reputation class.
Continue here to read the full story.
A new trailer from Assassin's Creed Revelations highlights more of the single-player story in the upcoming stealth/action sequel. Word is: "In Assassin's Creed Revelations, master assassin Ezio walks in the footsteps of the legendary Altaïr on a journey of discovery and revelation. It is a perilous path - one that will take Ezio to Constantinople, the heart of the Ottoman Empire, where a growing army of Templars threatens to destabilize the region." Continue here to read the full story.
R.I.P.: Steve Jobs. Thanks nin and ^Dragon^. Here's an obituary.
An article on GeForce offers a guide to how users with at least 1.5GB of VRAM can unlock higher resolution textures in RAGE, id Software's new first-person shooter, and users with a video cards with at least 3GB of VRAM, can unlock even higher resolution textures. This applies to both ATI and NVIDIA GPUs, and they offer screenshots to show the difference these changes make. They indicate that the reason tweaking is necessary to force these texture improvements seems to be the result of errors in the auto-balancer that's supposed to handle this stuff automatically: Based on our observations there does appear to be an error or two with the Auto-Balancer - though disabled for the screenshots, the on-screen frame rate display never moved below Rage’s sixty frames per second cap with 8k textures enabled, so why does the Auto-Balancer need to utilize lower-resolution assets? Perhaps it's overly-conservative to ensure that the frame rate never fluctuates? Regardless of the reason, the lack of detal is especially noticeable on the speed limit sign to the right and the ‘Loft Finder’ billboard above the collapsed building.
As mentioned, we visited other areas of the game also, primarily to judge the veracity of our results and observations. In outdoor areas packed with detail the results were identical, but in enclosed areas, such as the Mayor’s office in Wellspring, there was absolutely no difference between any of the three detail levels. In larger enclosed areas there was a difference in visual fidelity, albeit to a far lesser extent.
Team Bondi is officially closing, reports Edge Magazine, where they point to the legal documents filed with the Australian Securities & Investments Commission, including a "Notice Under S.446a of Special Resolution to Wind Up Company." This seemed to be a foregone conclusion, as the troubled developer of L.A. Noire has already sold off assets, entered administration, and closed its offices.
NeoGAF has an image from the new Qore episode about Batman: Arkham City, revealing another of the villains from the upcoming superhero stealth/action sequel, who is only shown for a brief glimpse. This seems to be meant as a surprise, so we'll leave it up to you whether you check out what is labeled as a spoiler. Thanks Computer and Video Games.
The World of Warcraft Website now has new patch notes from a version 4.3 update that's now live on the Public Test Realm for Blizzard's MMORPG. The notes are quite extensive, offering details on new raids, Transmogrification, Void Storage, Reforging, and more. They also say "The amount of experience needed to gain levels 71 through 80 has been reduced by approximately 33%." Thanks Ant. There's also a separate new article on planned valor changes.
End of September Update for The Repopulation outlines the latest developments for this upcoming MMORPG from indie developer Above and Beyond Technologies. They describe new milestones for Action Mode Combat, AI, the Military System, Missions, the UI, and more, as they say they continue to drive forward towards alpha testing.
Paradox Interactive announces a new patch is now available for Sengoku to update the strategy/RPG to version 1.02. The new version implements a new starting date of 1551 and a new end date, adds new characters and events, and addresses a number of bugs. Word is: "For those of you that have Steam, it has updated automatically, and for those not on steam, use the 'update' button in the launcher. Here are the patch notes: Continue here to read the full story.
Kotaku - Stop Playing Video Games! Get a Job! Get Married! Be a Man!
Sigh. I'm all for encouraging people so step up and get a job (Look ma, I'm blogging), but can we leave the cheap video game slams out of it? I get that it's an easy shortcut to illustrating the kind of social maladjustment that the article describes, but it's just so lazy. Furthermore, abstractly invoking video games does little to actually illustrate Bennett's broader point, which may very well be something worth talking about. All I get from this is "These numbers say that men play video games, so of course that is part of the problem here." Specific examples, please!
- SIEGE, the Southern Interactive Entertainment and Games Expo is this weekend in Atlanta.
We've had a large raptor visit our backyard a few times this summer, suggesting our home was within its hunting ground, a hint the birds seemed to take as well—nothing improves the mileage you stretch out of a sack of birdseed like a predator looming in a nearby tree. Yesterday the looming got even more nearby, as he ended up perched on the birdfeeder, giving me my first close-up look at him. He didn't stick around long enough for a direct comparison to a bird book, but as far as I was able to tell it was probably a Cooper's Hawk. Whatever the breed, this was one awesome bird.
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