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Archived News:
A
thread on Ken Levine's Facebook page discusses the uncertainty surrounding
some game properties, as the
Irrational Games boss says that he doesn't actually know who owns the rights to
System Shock, the old-school action/RPG that inspired the BioShock series,
though he confirms that Take-Two owns the rights to BioShock (thanks Jivaro).
The thread includes some interesting participation from other developers, as
George Broussard suggests Kickstarting another "spiritual successor" to System
Shock using the Unity engine, and there are also posts from
Brian Reynolds. Reynolds says the System Shock rights sound as convoluted as the
Alpha Centauri rights, and his follow-up explanation reveals his
desire to be able to create a shooter based on the 4X strategy series he helped
design at Firaxis. Here's word: I think EA mostly owns it but Firaxis has the right
to develop, but Firaxis is now part of 2K, so it's a big gordian knot. And the
main original story guy (me) doesn't work at any of those places. On the other
hand I remember back in the 90's when the Civ rights were a complete mess e.g.
Activision, Hasbro, Spectrum Holobyte, Avalon Hill, Hartland Trefoil.
Miraculously that particular IP Humpty Dumpty got put back together again which
is why there are still new Civ games. Of course what I really want to do is a
shooter/RPG in the Alpha Centauri universe :)
Developer Big Bad Wolf
announces they are outside the door, as this new French development studio
reveals plans to develop role-playing games for Windows, Xbox One, and
PlayStation 4. Details are scant for now, but they do offer this ambitious
overview: "Our desire is to create a new kind of RPG, with a new approach where
we revisit the genre. We are still in the pre-production stage, but the
adventure already looks set to be an exciting one." The boast a strong pedigree,
saying they have developers who've previously worked for Cyanide, Ubisoft, and
Blizzard on some high-profile titles: "Given our respective backgrounds in games
such as: Game Of Thrones RPG, Of Orcs and Men, World of Warcraft,
Styx: Master
of Shadows, our efforts are directed towards mature, inward-looking and dark
games where EMOTIONS and CHOICE are at the forefront of the player experience."
Roll20 is a web-based virtual tabletop
for pen-and-paper RPGs. Premium features are offered, but at its core this is
free, and thanks to its use of HTML5, platform agnostic (thanks Kxmode). Here's
word: Who's this for?
Roll20 is a virtual tabletop. So it's all about taking any game that you
traditionally play on a table (especially pen and paper RPGs and board games),
and bringing it online. Play with friends who've moved across the country, or
find a completely new gaming group online. Roll20 is easy to use, so dive in and
get started!
Is this really free?
Yes! Roll20 is absolutely free to use for both GMs and players. Initial
development of Roll20 was funded via Kickstarter, and we do offer totally
optional supporter accounts for those who want access to additional perks (like
more storage space and direct access to the Dev team) to help fund further
improvements. But even if you're on a Base account for free, you'll still have
access to everything you need to run your game -- unlimited campaigns and
players, with access to all the great features listed on this page.
- FTL: Faster Than Light on
Steam. Save 75%.
Link of the Day:
This Is The Video CNN Will Play When The World Ends. Thanks
The Escapist.
Follow-up:
Stuart
Scott's ESPYs Speech. Thanks Ant. Was linked here at the time, but it has
resurfaced with his passing. Very moving. His brave outlook on "fighting" cancer
recalls my mom's.
A
Steam Community announcement has details on a new beta version of the
Steam client for those who have opted-in to the beta program. This includes a
number of changes for game broadcasts and also adds a frames-per-second counter
to the Steam overlay. This is still in beta, so it's not shocking that it's
still a work-in-progress, and
this post offers one user's critique of the new feature and how it could be
improved.
Vostok Games announces
open beta testing is underway in European territories for Survarium, the
MMOFPS which is the less controversial of the two upcoming spiritual successors
to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of first-person shooters. This is offered
with language support for English, Russian, Ukrainian, German, and Polish, and
other European localizations are in the works. They also stress that this
milestone does not mean the end of development, saying: "on the contrary, the
studio plans to further develop the game and introduce multiple new features,
including the highly-anticipated FreePlay (PvE) mode." Here's a
new open beta trailer
and here's a refresher on the game: Survarium is a free2play MMOFPS game
set in the near future. The game focuses on the aftermath of a massive
ecological catastrophe on Earth, the reasons behind which are only vaguely
known.
Impassable woods advance onto cities from every side, as maddened animals and
birds attack industrial complexes, military structures, warehouses and
power-plants. Strange plants and mushrooms grow through concrete and steel.
Scientists all over the world haplessly try to cope with the anomaly expanding
with terrifying speed across the planet. Countries collapse; anarchy spreads
throughout the world. Now force dictates who can survive.
The game is developed with new proprietary Vostok Engine technology.
A
new Kickstarter is underway for Into the Stars, a single-player space
exploration and combat games planned for Windows and OS X by Fugitive Games, a
developer that includes a couple of former DICE project leads. A
Kickstarter trailer and an
announce trailer offer looks at the
game and its spiffy Unreal Engine 4 graphics. Word is: "Two former DICE leads,
an established art director and a veteran designer from the Battlefield, Lost
Planet and Shadows of the Damned games have combined to form Fugitive Games.
Their first title, Into the Stars, is an open-world space survival simulation
for PC and Mac built in Unreal Engine 4. Into the Stars features an original
score from Jack Wall, the legendary composer behind the music of Mass Effect,
Call of Duty and Lost Planet." Here's more: Take the role of Captain as
you explore a massive solar system in search of a new home for humanity. Outfit
your ship, hand pick your crew, and set off on a journey where you must scavenge
resources, shelter civilians, and outrun a hostile alien force in order to
survive.
Your ship, the Ark 13, is the last to leave our besieged planet, and you are at
the helm. But before you set out, some decisions must be made: Which modules
will you choose to take with you, and who will manufacture them? What resources
will fill your limited cargo holds, and which crew members will you take under
your wing?
Once in flight, your responsibilities as captain will push your limits: Monitor
the condition of your crew, civilians and modules, ensure a steady flow of
resources, and navigate celestial bodies – all while evading a pursuing
enemy.
A tweet from
Fork Parker has word from the theoretical CFO of Devolver Digital that the
publisher has an interest in pursuing a remake of Seaman, the Dreamcast
virtual pet game, saying "Hey @SEGA please let us nerds at @DevolverDigital have
the license to create a new Seaman game. Pretty please." This tweet was from
just before the new year (thanks
MCV) and was followed by
this tweet
which lead to a clarification of possible platforms of this, as
Parker adds
"Maybe PC and smartphone?" This seemed to fly under the radar, so a
more recent
tweet reacts to the calm response by asking everyone to stay calm:
"Everybody be cool, I'm trying to make a new Seaman happen over Twitter. Remain
calm." If these preliminary probes sound half-baked, there is a precedent, as
Parker previously publicly speculated about
Devolver creating a Blood remake, but this idea, which was used to hype
Shadow Warrior sales, turned out to be a pipe dream.
Frontier Developments has made
an official
announcement about the reported server
issues in Elite: Dangerous,
the space combat and trade simulator (thanks Gex). These unfortunately surfaced
during the holidays, which made dealing with things a little more difficult,
though in a
previous post they explained that they do have 24/7 engineer coverage, as
many took this to suggest they do not. That post tells those impacted by failed
transactions "should have received their refunds, along with a 20% bonus as in
previous instances." The newer post adds more details, including word that those
who became instant billionaires as a result of glitches will not be banned, but
they may yet have their windfalls reversed. Others who actively exploited the
problems may receive further punishment, however, as they explain: After
shoring up the database, in the early hours of the 2nd of January, we
automatically refunded all the affected players for their lost transactions and
also granted them a 20% bonus for their troubles. However, during this refund
process, a very few (lucky) commanders received more credits than perhaps they
were entitled to (5 billion credits in some cases)!
To be clear - these players will not be banned. Over the next 24 hours we will
be investigating every affected player and performing individual commander
rollbacks where we feel it's fair to - which may include credits, assets and
rank where appropriate. We may reach out to individual commanders where this
situation may not be straight forward. None of these players will be eligible
for the "Race to Elite" competition if we feel they have gained an unfair
advantage over the competition.
On the morning of the 3rd of January, after reports that some players were still
having issues, we ran a second pass over the database to remove any excess cargo
commanders may have still been carrying, which should have unblocked the
commodities markets for those remaining affected players. In the next 24 hours
we shall also be issuing a server side fix to automatically issue a credit or
asset refund on login after cases similar to these. Of course, if you are still
having problems, please submit a support ticket at
https://support.elitedangerous.com
- our customer services team can help.
We are also aware of an exploit (I wont detail it here) which occurred due to
this database error, where players have been abusing the broken state of their
ship to "create credits". These players know they are exploiting the system and
will also be investigated. Actions may be taken against players who are known to
be exploiting the system and do stand out from the commanders who were simply
given the credits during our credit refund process. These players will also not
be eligible for the "Race to Elite" competition if we feel they have gained an
unfair advantage over the competition.
Again, I (and the whole of the online team) apologise for the disruption you may
have suffered over the last few days. As you can see, we reacted promptly to the
situation but simply failed to communicate this in good time with the players.
To avoid this happening in the future, in the next week, we shall be publishing
a "Server Status" dashboard which you can use to see the state of the online
galaxy. From here we shall let you know immediately of any problems we are
currently facing, any known issues and any scheduled down-time for maintenance.
This should give us a single place for us to be able to communicate directly
with you guys about any problems the servers are currently facing - or hopefully
- simply that all is well in the galaxy.
A Sea of Stars development update #23 on the
Infinite Space website has the latest on Infinite Space III: Sea of Stars,
the next installment in Digital Eel's sci-fi roguelike action/adventure series.
They describe the state of the game, as
a new update adds the "first of several" quest encounters to
the early access version,
though they had hoped to be further along by now, as they explain they'd hoped
to have released version 1.0 already. The good news is that this setback means
development of the OS X edition is catching up, and it may even be released
simultaneously with the Windows version.
The
End of December 2014 Report for The Repopulation updates us on
progress on the game, reflecting on the
Steam early access release
of the sci-fi MMORPG. They explain the Steam launch disrupted their bi-weekly
patch cycle, so the included patch notes include upcoming updates as well as
changes that have already gone live, saying the current focus is to deal with
reported bugs. They also outline their first pass at dealing with miscreants, as
they have begun testing for bots, and are preparing some sort of digital
penitentiary for violators. Word is: Botting is a hot topic these days,
and we’ve been using the start of Alpha 4 to test our auto-detection systems.
The results have been pretty good so far, with a couple of additional bot
related hot fixes already going in place. The 14.12.1 build will open the Tiq
Sennu Prison for violators of this or other policies.
GfK Chart track is back with their U.K. sales charts for the week ending January
3rd. ROME: Total War II is the big mover on the
PC top 30, as it marches from #13 to the fifth spot, while Football Manager
2015 continues to kick ass at number one. On the
all platforms chart the top three remain unchanged, with Call of Duty:
Advanced Warfare fighting off the competition for the top spot, while Captain
Toad: Treasure Tracker is the top debut at number 16. Here's
the summary of all the
action: 2015 gets underway with an unchanged Top 3, meaning ‘Call of
Duty: Advanced Warfare’ (-51%) has now achieved 6 weeks at No1, one more week
than predecessor ‘Ghosts’.
‘Grand Theft Auto V’ (-48%) is not far behind at No2, staying ahead of ‘FIFA 15’
(-57%) at No3. Ubisoft’s top sellers ‘Far Cry 4’ (-42%) and ‘Assassin’s Creed:
Unity’ (-48%) switch places with Far Cry moving up one place to No4 and Creed
slipping down one place to No5. Ubisoft also find themselves at No6 with ‘The
Crew’ (-54%) a non-mover.
Only 3,000 sales separate No7 from No10 as ‘Destiny’ (-47%) at No7 and ‘WWE
2K15’ (-40%) at No8 both manage to break back into the Top 10, up from No’s 11
and 12 respectively. ‘DriveClub’ (-56%) and ‘Minecraft: Xbox Edition’ (-57%) are
less fortunate, both dropping 2 places to No’s 9 and 10. In a week not known for
new releases Nintendo newcomer ‘Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker’ for Wii U debuts
at No16.
Eurogamer has details on a poll recently sent out to Far Cry players
asking for opinions on future directions for the first-person shooter series.
The franchise doesn't have a single signature motif, and the areas they are
exploring follow that, as they look for interest in new gameplay "where you can
fight against or join vampires," or in "a Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic world,"
or "a Far Cry game set in the modern day on a Jurassic Park-style island with
dinosaurs". Oh yeah, also zombies. They contacted Ubisoft about this, but the
publisher declined to comment.
-
Aero's Quest Steam Greenlight campaign. "Aero's Quest is a 2D
puzzle-platformer of new generation that mix elements of classic platformers
such us Mario and MegaMan with intricate puzzles and old style arcades."
- Asrock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer Motherboard on
Modders-Inc.
- Cooler Master V1200 (Platinum) Power Supply on
pcGameware.
- Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV Micro-Tower Chassis on
Techgage.
- SilverStone Ultra-Quiet 140mm and 120mm PWM Fans on
Pure Overclock.
- SteelSeries Siberia Elite Prism Gaming Headset on
Mad Shrimps.
- Thermaltake Core X1 Mini-ITX Case on
ThinkComputers.org.
- Thermaltake Core X9 E-ATX Cube Chassis on
TweakTown.
I rebounded on my NFL picks yesterday, and all my brackets are still intact, but
the damage may already be done as several of you picked up three points and
Kineticsteve swept up four points, so it's altogether possible that I cannot catch up, depending on everyone's future picks. I should
be able to figure out if this is the case by examining the pick matrix, but
that would ruin the potential for suspense here, not to mention would also
require using math.
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