A post to the Heroes of the Storm forums have more on Blizzard's ongoing efforts to refine matchmaking in their MOBA. Here's a bit on the latest:

Large parties in Quick Match are able to coordinate their hero picks, which can be frustrating for solo players who get matched against them. While this primarily occurs with full parties, we’re aware that this is a point of concern for some players. We’re currently investigating changes that will help limit certain types of team compositions from being formed when solo players are matched into a team. Something to keep in mind is that Quick Match is meant to offer players a wide variety of hero picks and team compositions. Just about anything can happen in this mode, and players who are looking for team compositions that follow the competitive metagame more regularly may want to queue for Hero League as an alternative.

A Steam Community Group Announcement has an update from KillHouse Games on Door Kickers, including word that the top-down strategy game will soon be available next month as a retail release in Germany. There's also word to expect first details on Door Kickers 2 on January 17th (thanks Gamer's Hell). Here's what they say about plans to unveil the sequel:

As 2015 has come to an end, it’s time to talk about the future, and the future is Door Kickers 2 … and more.
DK2 brings the step to 3D: environments, characters – but keeps the clear and easy-to-use top down perspective and hardcore, unforgiving action. It keeps the real life action but moves it to a new and exciting setting. And it changes … everything.

Oh, are we being a little vague? Yes, we are.
On Sunday, January the 17th of 2016 you will know more. In case you wonder, that’s exactly 3 years after we let the first news out on Door Kickers.

Indie developer Orangepixel announces Space Grunts will emerge from Early Access on January 12th on Steam for Windows, OS X, and Linux. They (he, actually) offer this one-minute release trailer to illustrate the news. Here's word on what to expect from this roguelike:

The year 2476, Earth's space-federation has been building moon-bases across the galaxy. One of those moon-bases has been sending a distress signal. Space Grunts are a group of intergalactic "problem" solvers, sent to investigate..

You play one, out of a team, of Space Grunts, and your mission is simple: find your way into the moon-base, and figure out what has happened. You'll have to fight your way through aliens, robots, security drones and base-systems. Find the lower levels of the moon-base, and get to the core of the problems.

Continue here to read the full story.

A new trailer for Unravel explains the inspiration behind the game and Yarny, its hero. There's a post on the same topic on the Unravel website with more from Martin Sahlin on the character. Here's a bit:

Yarn means a lot of things in Unravel. It represents the bonds between people, the red thread that ties everyone and everything together. It stands for love, and Yarny is the manifestation of all of those things. Tethered to something important at the start of the game (and trying to make it to the end without unraveling), Yarny is a helper – a positive force.

I really wanted Yarny to be brave, and to accomplish great things despite being so small. I hoped when we were making the game that Yarny would be empathetic and relatable, and based on your support, I can see that Yarny is already reaching people.

We hope that you’ll love playing with Yarny when Unravel comes out on February 9, 2016.

Continue here to read the full story.

• Linked to the Wall — Video Game Cartridge Mounts by Linked to the Wall, LLC — Kickstarter. "Take your favorite video games out of storage and display them on your wall!"

• Dota 2 Update - January 7th, 2016.
• Team Fortress 2 Update Released.
• Tom Clancys' Rainbow Six Siege Patch Notes - Update 1.2.
• World of Warcraft Patch 6.2.3, Build 20886.

• Broken Age on Steam. Save 75%.
• Planetary Annihilation: TITANS on Steam. Save 70%.
• Tom Clancy Encore on Humble Weekly Bundle.

• How to avoid a surprising bill due to Wi-Fi Assist. Thanks Ant.
• Jetpack Fighter on the App Store. First mobile game from Hi-Rez Studios.

• TwitchPlaysPunchClub.
• US fails its annual broadband deployment test at FCC.
• Yahoo looking to slash 10 percent or more of its workforce. Thanks HARDOCP.

• How to block Windows 10 upgrades on your business network (and at home, too). Thanks HARDOCP.

Thanks j.c.f.

• Petcube Protect turns quirky cat toy into a full-on home security camera.
• Author of Linux.Encoder Fails for the Third Time, Ransomware Is Still Decryptable.
• Flaw in Comcast's home security system lets burglars in without triggering alarm.
• Vulnerability Exposed Blackphone to Complete Takeover.
• Researchers Publish Default Passwords for ICS Products.
• Linode Resets User Passwords After Breach.

• The Red Baron Pack on Steam offers the original Red Baron, Red Baron 3D, the Red Baron Mission Builder and high-quality scans of the original manuals, maps and reference cards…

Link of the Day: Fly a drone or fly INSIDE a drone? EHANG 184. Thanks Ant.

Paradox Interactive announces Conclave, a new expansion coming to Crusader Kings II coming to the medieval strategy game relatively soon, as they say to expect it in "early 2016." A new product section is online with some details, including this reveal trailer giving a sense for the project (though this is not exactly what you'd call in-game footage). Here's word:

The new year will bring new goodies from Paradox Development Studio and the team behind Crusader Kings II, Paradox’s best-selling and critically beloved medieval grand strategy game.

Conclave, the newest expansion for the game, will give your vassals some bite to go along with your bark, as the council that governs your realm will now demand some say in how you rule. Powerful dukes, regardless of competence, will require a seat at the table, and those left on the outside will be more likely to plot against you.

Keep your council happy, and the mighty vassals will resist the pull of faction and civil war. Dismiss their interests, though, and you may find yourself trying to hold together a council at war with itself.

Balance councillor skill and power to keep your dynasty safe and strong. Ignore powerful underlings at your peril, or simply buy their loyalty with favors. Conclave makes the royal council a force unto itself.

Other features of Conclave will include:

Continue here to read the full story.

Amazon France's listings for DOOM now show December 31, 2016 as the release date for id's upcoming shooter reboot. This is no doubt simply a placeholder, but a tweet notes this originally showed a June 30th release for the game on all platforms. This is noted on IGN, where they point out that Amazon France has previously leaked accurate release dates in this manner, most recently spilling the beans on plans for the imminent release of the PC edition of Rise of the Tomb Raider. For more on the game, GameInformer reveals the new DOOM is the cover story for their February issue, promising to offer an exclusive month of coverage of the game, and kicking things off with a video with some interviews and game footage.

An image on XboxAchievements.com shows cards being sold at Target stores to reserve copies of Homefront: The Revolution on the Xbox One. Though no release date has been announced, the card packaging lists a May 17th release date for the shooter follow-up in two different places, so while this date is not confirmed, they were confident enough to commit to printing it. Thanks DSOGaming.

The GeForce website has word on how future NVIDIA customers can qualify for free copies of Rise of the Tomb Raider:

Lara Croft is back on PC in the definitive edition of Rise of the Tomb Raider. And the even better news? You can grab the new game for free if you upgrade your hardware and buy a participating NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti, 980 or 970 graphics card or system, or a participating NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980, 980M or 970M notebook.

Rise of the Tomb Raider’s astonishingly beautiful graphics and advanced visual effects give your new tech the perfect opportunity to show you what they’re capable of, rendering jaw-dropping scenes and set pieces throughout Syria, Siberia and the mysterious lost city of Kitezh.

Set one year after the gripping events in Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider once again casts players as Lara Croft as she sets out to finish her late father’s research into the mysterious lost city of Kitezh. Despite warnings from her father’s partner Ana about the dangers that await her, Lara travels to Syria on a mission to discover the tomb of the Prophet of Constantinople, the first clue in unraveling the mystery of Kitezh and her father’s work. She soon encounters the Trinity, an ancient order of knights who now exist as a paramilitary organization that makes her mission a lot more difficult and force her to head to Siberia.

Continue here to read the full story.

• World of Warcraft Patch 6.2.3 Hotfixes- January 6.

• Smite World Championships begin in Atlanta with $500K first prize.

• XCOM 2 on GameWatcher.

• Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 PS4-Xbox One Beta Starts Soon.
• Nintendo Download Highlights New Digital Content for Nintendo Systems.

• Windows 10 phones are not dead yet. Acer, Alcatel OneTouch just made some new ones.
• Minecraft: Pocket Edition 2 is as shameless as App Store games get.

• Mozilla Firefox version 43.0.4. Thanks Frans and Ant.
• Should you let a security robot patrol your home? Thanks HARDOCP.
• Daredevil Season 2 comes to Netflix on March 18.
• Watch Trailers for Two New Netflix Shows The Get Down and The Crown.
• Foetuses offered vaginal music streaming service.

Thanks Ant.

• I am Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus and designer of the Rift. AMA. Apologizes for poor advance price messaging.
• Samsung unveils curved 1080p gaming monitors with AMD FreeSync over HDMI.
• Oculus won't tell you when your Rift is ready to ship, so keep £499 in your bank account.
• 2015 chip market battered by everything bar earthquakes and nuclear war.
• AmigaOS 3.1 source code leak - official statement. Thanks OS news.
• CES 2016 Day 3 Roundup - APH Networks.
• One man's trash is another man's Linux computer. Thanks Linux Today.
• Apple announces record App Store revenue -- will that be enough to boost its falling share price? Thanks Ant.
• Intel’s new Atom and Core M Compute Sticks get faster and look better.
• German paper says Volkswagen will likely buy 115,000 cars back from US owners.

Thanks Ant.

• Dutch govt says no to backdoors, slides $540k into OpenSSL without breaking eye contact. Thanks OS news.
• Latest tech support scam stokes concerns Dell customer data was breached.
• Time Warner Cable says up to 320,000 customers' data may have been stolen. Thanks Boing Boing.

• US Copyright Office is taking comments about how well the DMCA is working.

• The Book of Legends on Chalgyr's Game Room.
• Else Heart.Break() on Just Adventure.
• Vertigo Void on Chalgyr's Game Room.

• Arctic 7200 Smart USB Car Charger on Play3r.net.
• Corsair VOID USB Dolby 7.1 Gaming Headset on Mad Shrimps.
• MSI Z170A SLI Plus LGA 1151 Motherboard on HARDOCP.
• Supermicro C7Z170-OCE (Intel Z170) Motherboard on TweakTown.
• Zalman ZM-K700M Dynamic Mechanical LED Keyboard on TweakTown.

• Oculus Rift to Get More Than 100 Games This Year…
• Beating Castlevania: Symphony of the Night with assembly code…
• George Constanza from a fan's Seinfeld videogame work-in-progress. Thanks Ant…

The Internet doctor made his house call yesterday to address the annoying occasional connection glitches I've been experiencing. I have a new router and modem as a result, and they seem to have fixed things up. I'm still a little salty about how flaky this has been, so my patience for the next time something like this happens will last about 0 seconds.

Impatient Links:	Thanks Ant and Acleacius.
Play:	Sieger 2. Command and Control: Spec Ops.
Stories:	"Force" Overtakes "Avatar" At U.S. Box-Office. News car broken into while crew attended anti-robbery press conference. Thanks Boing Boing. The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare. Thanks nin.
Science:	The Entire Observable Universe, Captured In One Stunning Image.
Media:	Who Owns Oregon? Some Historical Context. Ice Cube, Kevin Hart And Conan Help A Student Driver.
The Funnies:	Three Problems With Spreadsheet - Dilbert.