Roberts Space Industries announces
Star Citizen crowd-funding has now
passed the $23 million mark, unlocking the Xi’an Scout stretch goal. They also
announce a $25 million goal of enhanced alpha testing to put the game though its
paces better prior to release. There's also a new
Wingman's Hangar Episode 42 and an
Aurora Brochure with the pitch for this space craft. Finally, on a
completely unofficial note,
this video shows off a modification for the Hangar module from the upcoming
space game that allows the ships in the hangar to be flown, rather than just
perused as intended. There's no word on where to get the mod or how this was
accomplished beyond the acknowledgment in the description that this is not
entirely kosher, saying: "UNOFFICIAL HANGER MOD Star Citizen - Flying in space
by charliebrownau, Music from Epic sax video clip that is all over youtube. This
clip might get banned, wouldn't be surprised Enjoy while it lasts. Update: MORE
FOOTAGE at
http://www.twitch.tv/charliebrownau."
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Kickstarter update for
Wasteland 2 has the latest from inXile
entertainment on their upcoming RPG sequel/remake. The post offers lots of
details about the world map and prospects for exploring and surviving the game
world. There is also a progress report on backer rewards, but of greater
interest the status they provide for early beta testing:
You’re all no
doubt anxious to get your hands on the Early Beta and we’re anxious to get it to
you! We’re now in the stage where we have distributed standalone copies of the
Early Beta to a small group of external individuals as a test run. This is the
final stage where we ensure it is up to our standards and runs on a variety of
machines, and we’ll then be ready to get it to you.
Early Beta will only be distributed through Steam, as called out in the original
Kickstarter reward tiers. The final release will – of course – be available
through a wide variety of channels; but running the Early Beta through Steam is
the optimal option. Any other solution would require a non-trivial investment of
resources into Early Beta distribution; we feel those resources are better spent
on the general quality, stability and scope of the game.
Nintendo says this amazing Super Mario site is illegal. Here’s why it
shouldn’t be. Thanks Ant via
Slashdot.
Unfortunately, in the past 200 years, Congress has dramatically expanded
copyright terms. For a work with a corporate author — in this case Nintendo
— copyrights now last 95 years. That means "Super Mario Brothers" is
scheduled to fall into the public domain in January 2082. And that's
assuming Congress doesn't extend copyrights again in the meantime.
Full Screen Mario is just one example of the ways long copyrights impoverish
our gaming culture. The site supports user-designed levels, so it's easy to
imagine a community of amateurs designing Super Mario levels and sharing
them with friends as people do today with "Minecraft."
Thanks for all the kind wishes for Hudson the wonder dog. She continues to seem
better on her new medication, and has been eating voluntarily these past two
days, which is great. Now I need to get her appetite back to the point where she
can actually put some weight back on, as she's pretty emaciated. She's
definitely gained back a lot of her fight though, so things are definitely
trending in the right direction at the moment.
R.I.P.:
Bum Phillips, former coach of Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints, dies at age
90.
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