Archived News:
The
Warhammer Online website reminds us that tomorrow is the previously
announced end date for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, and since
the parting gift to the game's players was the
game going free, it's still possible some players are due refunds for time
purchased prior to the news. They have a
Warhammer Online Refund FAQ to explain how this all should work. Thanks
Massively.
Maruk's Blog has sales numbers for DayZ for the 24 hours after
Bohemia Interactive's zombie game hit Steam Early
Access yesterday. Word is: First day of DayZ (Alpha). Hours passed 24. Copies
sold: 175200. Survivors online: 142403. Bugs discovered: many. Work ahead: Hard.
YouTube has responded to the rash of
takedowns of game-related videos sending emails to some of the impacted users.
Kotaku has the letter, which unapologetically explains the content matches
at issue, noting many of these are music-related, saying: "Be aware of music.
Many games allow you to turn off background music, while leaving sound effects
enabled. And if you're looking for music you can freely use (and monetize!),
check out our Audio Library." There have been numerous reports of erroneous
takedowns during this process, but nothing in the letter addresses these.
EA Code Wars website is now gone
altogether, following the removal of the FAQ for their Hackathon competition
after rules came to light that sounded like
they were planning on profiting on the free labor of the participants.
Polygon has some quotes from Electronic Arts indicating they are reworking
the rules so that concerns about this are alleviated: "The language on the Code
Wars site was confusing and unfortunately was posted prematurely," the
representative told Polygon. "Most importantly, we have no intention to own
participant code. We appreciate our fans bringing their concerns to our
attention so we can address them, and that's why the site was brought down.
We'll share more information soon and look forward to a fun developer event in
February."
The first episode of The Walking Dead: Season 2, kicking off a five-part
series based on the zombie show and comics. This can be purchased through
GameStop PC
Downloads and Steam.
Here's word: The Walking Dead: Season Two continues the story of
Clementine, a young girl orphaned by the undead apocalypse. Left to fend for
herself, she has been forced to learn how to survive in a world gone mad.
Many months have passed since the events seen in Season One of The Walking Dead,
and Clementine is searching for safety. But what can an ordinary child do to
stay alive when the living can be just as bad – and sometimes worse – than the
dead? As Clementine, you will be tested by situations and dilemmas that will
test your morals and your instinct for survival. Your decisions and actions will
change the story around you, in this sequel to 2012’s Game of the Year.
The Season Pass gives you access to all five episodes as they become available
(Episode 1 Available Now, Episodes 2-5 will be released periodically in 2014):
Episode 1: All That Remains
Episode 2: A House Divided
Episode 3: In Harm’s Way
Episode 4: Amid the Ruins
Episode 5: No Going Back
SEGA Blog announces the Caesar in Gaul campaign is now available for
Total War: Rome II, Creative Assembly's strategy sequel. Accompanying the expansion is a
new patch to update the base game, and the patch notes for this can be
found here.
Here's a Caesar in Gaul
trailer, and here's word on the pack: Caesar in Gaul, the first
campaign expansion for ROME II, is available to download now. Bringing Caesar’s
Gallic war to life in thrilling detail, Caesar in Gaul offers a tighter scope in
terms of time and geography than ROME II’s original grand campaign.
Playing as Rome or one of the key barbarian tribes in this seven-year conflict,
players will experience a campaign map that represents an expanded, more
detailed vision of Gaul and the south coast of Britannia. With multiple turns
per year, this expansion also brings seasonal changes, with new gameplay effects
and stunning visual alterations.
Caesar in Gaul also offers players a new historical battle to challenge their
generalship. The Battle of Alesia, the decisive engagement of Caesar’s war in
Gaul, offers a unique tactical situation in which the Romans must survive a
twin-pronged onslaught of the massed Gallic forces.
Continue here to read the full story.
The new Headhunter 3:
Mercenary Day pack for
Borderlands 2 is now
available. Here's word from
Steam News on how this enhances Gearbox's role-playing shooter: "You’ve hit
Frost Bottom in the third Headhunter Pack for Borderlands 2. Tis the season to
be giving, so help Marcus save Mercenary Day and melt down The Abominable Mister
Tinder Snowflake. Escape Frost Biters, warm up Gingerton and lend Small Tim a
tiny hand. There will be lots of gift-giving and loot hunting as you collect new
festive heads and skins!"
CausalBitGames announces the
Insanity's Blade Kickstarter is funded, paving the way for this
throwback 8-bit game. They celebrate the news with updated co-op demos for Windows, OS
X, and Linux. Here's word on the game: "The ultimate trip to hell, 8-bit
style! Take a father’s journey to hell in order to save the souls of his wife
and child. Insanity’s Blade: The Chronicles of Thurstan is the first in a series
of games based around the journey of a sword possessed by a father’s powerful
grief and hatred. This first game is the tale of the swords creation."
Steam News announces the
release of a Linux edition of
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!
for the Awesome, Dejobaan Games' "semi-sequel"
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity. They
explain: "The new game brings you 82 remastered levels from the original and 43
brand new ones that are twice as fast and includes Aaaaaculus! mode with full
native Oculus Rift support by your buddies over at Owlchemy Labs! :)"
Overgrowth is now available for early access
on Steam, and is
currently on sale for 17% off its regular price.
This trailer
offers a rundown on this action/adventure for Windows, OS X, and Linux that's a
spiritual successor to Lugaru.
Here's word: "Overgrowth is a third-person 3D action game that allows you to
leap and climb through sprawling levels as a ninja rabbit, and engage in
intricate and brutal combat with a variety of weapons and enemies. It is still
very much in development, so while the mechanics and features are mostly in
place, there is no campaign, and players mostly experiment with the easy-to-use
modding tools, and fighting in the arena."
Disney-owned LucasArts reveals a free-to-play Star Wars game called Star Wars: Attack
Squadrons in development for Windows PCs at Area 52 games. A
preliminary website for
the game is online, offering the following elevator pitch: " Star Wars:
Attack Squadrons is a free-to-play online space combat game where players
customize iconic Star Wars ships and engage in high-velocity 16 player
dogfights in fabled Star Wars locations. There is also a "join the beta"
button that doesn't seem to work right now, which suggests testing will begin soon.
There's also a post about this
on IGN with
a cinematic reveal trailer. Continue here to read the full story.
This new trailer is a
nighttime gameplay walkthrough for Dying Light, Techland's zombie game
that's expected for Windows and consoles next year. The day/night cycle will be
integral to gameplay, and word is the clip "is showcasing the darker side of the
game's revolutionary day-and-night-cycle mechanic and gives a glimpse into
different strategies that players will adopt depending on the time of day in
order to survive." Here's a bit more from the description: "Slow, apathetic, and
easily visible, the infected are not much of a threat in daylight. But this
relatively safe state of affairs is turned upside down as the sun sets. At
night, it is you who is at a disadvantage. Without daylight, the senses of the
infected become more acute while their thirst for human flesh skyrockets. They
run, jump, and climb, so there is really no place where you are safe
anymore." Continue here to read the full story.
A new
Roberts Space Industries Letter from the Chairman has an update from Chris Roberts on the status of dogfighting in Star Citizen, RSI's
crowd-funded space combat and exploration game (thanks InBlack). He explains
that the overabundance of funding they received has allowed them to proceed
faster than anticipated, which, counterintuitively means they are delaying the
dogfighting module they intended to be one of the first elements of the game
released to the public. He explains that they are holding this back to implement
their own netcode, rather than using Crytek's, while expressing other concerns
about doing things as they originally planned. "So rather than force the team to
crunch through the holidays chasing something 'good enough'," Roberts
writes,
"I am going to make the tough choice to delay the dogfighting module for a
couple of months to allow us to take our time and deliver something special."
The post is very lengthy, so this is a relatively short excerpt: Outside
of having the dogfighting use the proper backend there is a lot of finesse and
detail that needs to go in to get the dogfighting ready for the community’s
consumption – The HUD, Damage states, various FX – these are all in progress and
look very promising but in my personal opinion aren’t quite ready for prime
time.
I feel that the Dogfighting module, especially with Star Citizen’s greatly
increased profile, needs to be more polished than a typical “alpha”. There are a
lot of eyes on the game, and more than a few people wanting us to fail. Because
Dogfighting is the first module that will involve significant gameplay, it has
to be good – I don’t feel that we will get a pass just because it is pre-pre
alpha.
So we had two choices: either fork development and spend time building something
that would involve throwing away work in order to meet the December deadline and
deliver something that wouldn’t have the level of polish I’m happy with, or stay
on course to build something that would lead directly into the finished
game.
The Dota 2
blog announces that Valve has removed all restrictions to accessing Dota 2,
and the free-to-play MOBA now accessible to all Steam users. Here's
word: For the past several months, access to Dota 2 has been granted
through a queue system that gated entry into the community. We’ve used this
system to gradually increase the size of our playerbase, as we ramped up our
infrastructure and improved the experience for new players. As we have recently
completed a set of server management upgrades as well as released a huge number
of enhancements to the new user experience, we’re going to remove all
restrictions to playing Dota 2.
Signups are no longer required to access the game, and we encourage everyone to
join the 6.5 million active monthly users currently playing Dota 2. If you have
a friend who hasn’t tried Dota 2 yet, be sure to take advantage of the new
recruitment feature to get additional bonuses for both you and your friend.
To download and start playing Dota 2, you can head to the
Dota 2 Steam page and click
the green ‘PLAY GAME’ button. We hope you’ll join the Dota 2 community.
South Park: The Stick of Truth will be censored for release in Australia,
in spite of the cartoon-based action/RPG being tagged with the country's
relatively new R18+ (adults only) rating. Speaking with Ubisoft,
Player Attack learned that the game is being "slightly modified" for release
down under. They also note an oddity in how this all came about, saying the game
seems to have been rated twice, once as " Codename"
and three weeks later
under its official title (you can see both listings use the same file
number). Further, both of these indicate a "modified" version of the game was
being rated, so they are continuing to try and determine whether an uncut
version of the game was rejected before these approvals.
It's not noted on Steam News,
Overkill Software now offers free holiday-themed DLC for PAYDAY 2, their heist
sequel. The PAYDAY 2:
The Charlie Santa Heist has all the details on this, and
this trailer shows off
the new mission. Continue here to read the full story.
Larian Studios is now offering alpha access to Divinity: Original Sin for
backers of
the Kickstarter for the next installment in their Divinity series of RPGs.
This trailer
celebrates the news, and here's word on what this includes: "Initially, the
alpha will be single-player only but multiplayer will be added in the future.
Sounds and music, animations, and all that other good stuff may be placeholders
to be updated as the alpha rolls along. Alpha builds will be updated on a
regular basis through Steam and players in the alpha can capture and stream
footage with no NDA." Continue here to read the full story.
The EA Hackathon 2014 website has
details on a competition underway to rapidly create a Windows or mobile app.
GameInformer reports that this originally included details in a FAQ noting
that EA would reserve the right to use submissions under a royalty-free,
irrevocable, but non-exclusive license. Any concerns this may cause are possibly
being addressed, as they also note that not long after this came to light, EA
removed the FAQs and Rules
page from the competition website, so it's possible this is being revised.
While I wasn't paying attention another snow storm rolled into these parts
overnight, and it's already starting to accumulate out there. It looks like the
aftermath of this will be eased by pretty warm temperatures over the next couple
of days and there's rain to follow, so it doesn't seem like this is laying the
groundwork for a ♪white Christmas♫, but with a week to go until Christmas Eve
there's plenty of time for that to change. Good thing it isn't winter yet!
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