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Archived News:
The Division website announces that Ubisoft is adopting one of those trendy
(and quite welcome) zero tolerance policy toward those caught cheating in
multiplayer games in Tom Clancy's The Division. They say to date they
have already taken action against over 30,000 accounts and have issued 3,800
permanent bans. It sounds like that latter number is going to rise, as they say
they are now applying perma-bans on a first offense. Here's word: As a
direct result of this improved cheat detection, last month we announced “the
biggest wave of suspensions and bans to date”. This marked the beginning of an
intensive campaign during which actions were taken against a total of over
30,000 accounts, including 3,800 permanent bans. This led to a significantly
improved experience, particularly in the Dark Zone.
Following this campaign of suspensions and bans, it also became clear that while
huge progress has been made in terms of cheat detection, our 14 days suspension
on first offense policy has not been dissuasive enough. Judging from your
feedback, and based on what we witnessed when cheaters came back to the game, we
have now decided to push our policy one step further: we will now start
applying permanent bans on first offense when players are caught using cheat
engines and we will communicate clearly when new ban waves are taking
place.
Stardock and Oxide Games now offer a new patch for Ashes of the Singularity,
updating the DirectX 12 strategy game to version 1.2 in what's
called a "massive" update. In this the game's main campaign is newly
enhanced with full voiceovers for all dialogue, new missions, and new cutscenes.
The patch also adds new "Substrate Eradicator" and "PHC Athena" units, a
single-player Hall of Fame, a Global Chat channel, UI and AI improvements, and
more. The new version is available on
Steam or from
Stardock. Here are more
details on what's new: New Enhanced Campaign
We've really beefed up the campaign with this update. Since release, we have
added 3 missions to this mode, and v1.2 brings fully voiced dialogue and new cut
scenes.
New Unit: The Eradicator
This new long-range Substrate cruiser may be slow moving and a little expensive,
but its attack power is devastating. In addition to its heavy weaponry, the
Eradicator is extremely difficult to kill.
New Unit: The Athena
This new short-range PHC cruiser is small, fast, and armed with high energy
laser bolts, thermal lasers, and a plasma bolt cannon.
New Global Chat
The new Global Chat channel makes it possible for gamers around the world to see
who's playing at all times. Finding opponents to play against has never been
easier.
Substantial UI and AI Improvements
We have made some adjustments to the late-game AI strategies and now allow
players to choose the AI's "personality" in Skirmish mode. v1.2 also brings
skirmish map sorting, the ability to add friends from the multiplayer lobby,
more informative tool tips within the Army Unit panel, and more.
Steam News announces the
release of Tick Tock Bang
Bang, a new time-control first-person shooter for Windows from Dejobaan,
developers of AaAaAA!!! and Drunken Robot Pornography. Here's word: A
30-ton garbage truck screams towards you, plowing through a sea of pedestrians.
A swarm of flying drones joins the truck, pinning you down with laser fire.
Now's your chance: you stop, and time slows to a trickle. You grab your gun. You
aim. You fire. You weave through the lasers, and time returns to normal. Your
bullets speed up and cut your enemies to shreds. As the garbage truck slams into
the wall behind you, you turn to the camera for your one-liner: "Time to take
out the trash." You're going to look great on the big screen.
Early Access to House of the Dying Sun is now available
on Steam,
offering a space combat game for Windows and VR that was at one time titled
Enemy Starfighter. Here's a rundown on the game, which currently carries a 10%
discount: House of the Dying Sun is a tactical space shooter that puts
you in the cockpit of the Empire's most deadly interceptor and in command of the
Harbinger Fleet. Hunt down the enemies of your dying empire and upgrade your
warships with new weapons and abilities earned during your campaign of terror.
Key Features:
- Classic Space Sim Combat: Fly from the
cockpit of the Executor Mk II with gameplay heavily influenced by the titans
of yesteryear
- Take Command: Give orders to any vessel in
your fleet from a tactical overview, switch to another fighter, or pause
time and carefully consider your next move
- Replayable Scenarios: Choose one of three
increasingly-brutal difficulties in each of the 14 campaign scenarios.
- Powerful Upgrades: Complete bonus
objectives to earn special fleet upgrades such as the Gap Drive or the
Kamikaze Chassis. You'll need these to tackle the most difficult scenarios.
- VR & Monitor Support: House of the Dying
Sun was carefully designed for both traditional monitors and VR headsets
such as the HTC Vive. It also supports 21:9 displays!
*NOTE: This game supports rebinding controls, but only dual analog gamepads
and keyboard & mouse modes are officially supported.
Slitherine now offers Thirty Years' War, a strategy game based on the
series of European wars that actually spanned 30 years (the 100 Years' War ran
long).
Matrix Games has details on the game, screenshots, as well as sales of boxed
and digital editions of the game. Here's a description: Thirty Years War
is a new game designed by developer HQ covering one of the darkest ages of
European history.
The Thirty Years War is the series of conflicts between Catholics and
Protestants in the Holy Roman Empire and its surroundings, between 1618 and
1648. In this strategy game, players will take control of one of the opposing
sides, Protestants or Catholics, and fight for the control of the Empire.
From the Bohemian rebellion to the Swedish intervention led by Gustavus
Adolphus, from Denmark to the Palatinate, you can now recreate the Campaigns of
Lützen, Nördlingen and Rocroi. In Thirty Years War you will coordinate the
movements of several armies, take care of their supplies and fatigue and seek
for the best conditions to engage in combat, undertake sieges or retreat to
recover if needed; with the ultimate goal of gaining supremacy over Central
Europe,
Together, these features, combined with the proven Ageod engine, make Thirty
Years War a great choice to delight both players interested in this era and
novice alike.
Steam now offers a
playable demo for Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders, a third-person
adventure based on Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novel The A.B.C. Murders.
There's a dedicated page for the demo, but all the descriptions there are from
the full game, so here's one of them: "You will have to explore many crime
scenes in various cities set in beautiful surroundings across the United
Kingdom. Leave no stone unturned when it comes to cross examinations and deadly
puzzles! Observe, question and explore everything possible in order to make the
smartest deductions and understand the murderer’s plans!" Thanks Frans.
Stream News announces a
free weekend is now underway for
Wasteland 2: Director's Cut:
Play Wasteland 2:
Director's Cut for FREE starting now through Sunday at 1PM Pacific Time. You
can also pickup Wasteland 2:
Director's Cut at 50% off the regular price!*
If you already have Steam installed, click here
to install or play Wasteland 2: Director's Cut. If you don't have Steam, you can
download it here.
*Offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time
Valve announces the release of Destinations Workshop Tools
on Steam, offering Early
Access to this free toolkit for developing virtual reality content. This
requires a VR headset, and works with the Oculus Rift as well as the HTC Vive.
Here's word: Destinations is a new VR content creation package from
Valve. Now available in Early Access, it enables the creation of explorable VR
worlds made via photogrammetry, game levels, and more. Destinations is offered
free of charge and comes with documentation, sample worlds, plus access to the
Source 2 technology and developer Wiki. In addition to the creation package,
there is also a dedicated Destinations Workshop for the distribution of user
generated "Destinations."
Paradox Interactive has released new Match Day DLC as a free release
on Steam for Cities:
Skylines, Colossal Order's Windows, OS X, and Linux urban planning game. This
will allow the construction of stadiums and the hosting of major posting events,
whether for association football, soccer, football, you name it. This comes with
a new patch for the game with a bunch of fixes and changes, and you can read all
about them
on this page. Here's more on the DLC and the patch: Paradox
Interactive, a publisher of games you can totally kick it with, today released
new football-themed downloadable content (DLC) for Cities: Skylines, the
award-winning city-building game from Colossal Order. Available for free to all
players of Cities: Skylines, the new DLC, titled “Match Day,” allows
mayor-players to add stadiums to their towns – and comes with all of the
benefits and challenges of hosting major sporting events in their citizens’
backyard.
“Match Day” can be redeemed on Steam for free and downloaded for Cities:
Skylines on Windows, Mac, and Linux PCs here: store.steampowered.com/app/456200/
Also, Paradox and Colossal Order are celebrating the title’s recent success in
the game’s latest patch: in addition to an assortment of fixes and updates to
Cities: Skylines, the new patch, available today, unlocks five custom in-game
items for all players which had previously only been available with pre-orders.
To thank their community for their ongoing support, all players will now have
access to the Carousel, Dog Park, Bouncy Castle, Basketball Court, and Botanical
Garden in-game (since it was prohibitively difficult to invite all
2-million-plus players to these locations out-of-game). Full patch notes are
available at this link.
The E3 2016 trailer
for Styx: Shards of Darkness promotes Cyanide Studios' upcoming sequel to
Styx: Master of Shadows. The accompanying announcement mentions the game's
improved graphics, but the clip seems entirely pre-rendered. Here's word:
Styx: Shards of Darkness, the stealth-focused sequel to Cyanide Studios'
surprise success story Master of Shadows, comes to consoles and PC in 2016. Styx
creeps back in a new adventure packed with bigger production values, a load of
new features and a new engine: Unreal Engine 4. Today's spirited E3 Trailer
unveils more about the quest awaiting our green-skinned anti-hero in Styx:
Shards of Darkness.
While Styx is in business in Thoben, the City of Thieves, he makes a deal with a
mysterious human officer, Helledryn. As Styx, you must steal the highly-coveted
ambassador's scepter… unfortunately, other, more nefarious parties are
interested in such a valuable prize. Of course, the reward is more than worth
the risk, as the officer is promising a great deal of magical amber; the
resource Styx desperately needs to fuel his power.
Continue here to read the full story.
Eurogamer.net caught up with id Software to talk about their new DOOM game,
specifically asking about player concerns about multiplayer support in the
first-person shooter reboot. They outline problems with rampant cheating and
missing features, noting that some of the features players desire, such as the
ability to create custom games, were present in the alpha test via undocumented
command-line arguments, but are not available in the release version. Marty
Stratton tells them that id is actively banning cheaters, though they note that
one cheat vendor brags that not one user of their "product" has been caught in
over a year. Here's more from Doom's executive producer and game director:
So it's time to put it to id. I asked Marty Stratton, Doom's executive
producer and game director about what the future holds, and he was quick to put
concerns at rest. "There's certainly no lack of commitment to Doom as a
multiplayer game on our side," he says. "We are already working on private
matches with custom game settings and expect to include that in a free update
this summer."
Stratton acknowledges the missing features from the alpha, though he notes the
fact that players weren't meant to access them. "There were a few developer
tools discovered in the alpha that we knew we would need to improve before
releasing to consumers and as mentioned, we are working on most of those updates
now."
Later he expects bots to be added to the game. "Our bot system was actually
written by one of our long-time senior programmers, John Dean, known online as
'Maleficus', who also wrote the Return to Castle Wolfenstein Fritz bot and the
bots in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, so he does great work with bots. But John
also just happens to be our internal lead programmer on SnapMap, so he's very
busy."
The goal is to make bots available across both standard multiplayer and SnapMap,
but it's likely that they'll be rolled out in phases, based on supporting where
players want them most first, then improving them so they're flexible enough to
work elsewhere. SnapMap will also be getting new features to develop it as a
multiplayer environment.
Well, I kind of hoped to be able to breeze into the doctor's office and drop off
a vial of blood for them to test for Lyme, but that's not how things like that
work, so I have an appointment today to see what's what. That's fine
with me, he's nearby and my only real concern was trying to get to the bottom of
this quickly, and they fit me in pretty fast. I'll let you know how it goes.
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