
"Sandbox"
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[image: See the source image]
Let's talk about the term "sandbox game". We'll take a look at a couple
games I consider as true sandboxes and a couple t...
2 months ago
...there is one glaring problem right now: the fucking PvP server is not working and has not been working for the entire god damn weekend. No progress is saved, characters can't be created.Now, I knew there was an issue earlier in the day, but thought it was only affecting me. Not until last night did I know it had been ongoing for nearly two days affecting all players on the TCoS PvP server.
We have received reports of Rollback on PvP Server and many more other bugs. We apologize for the delay and are looking into it. I'll update this post when the bug is fixed.By 3:57 AM, the server was restored to normal working order. To recap: two days the server was broken, for something that took an hour (give or take) to resolve.
UPDATE: 24 Aug, 2009 - I guess a support tech came into work this morning and noticed the network cable to the database server was unplugged, because the PvP server appears to have returned to normal as of 8 AM EST when I was able to successfully create a new character.
"the action packed Star Wars combat"
"we want to make sure combat feels heroic from the beginning"
Two New Playable Races: Adventure as one of two new races--the cursed worgen with the Alliance or the resourceful goblins with the Horde.Comments to follow at a later date.
Level Cap Increased to 85: Earn new abilities, tap into new talents, and progress through the path system, a new way for players to improve characters.
Classic Zones Remade: Familiar zones across the original continents of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms have been altered forever and updated with new content, from the devastated Badlands to the broken Barrens, which has been sundered in two.
New High-Level Zones: Explore newly opened parts of the world, including Uldum, Grim Batol, and the great Sunken City of Vashj'ir beneath the sea.
More Raid Content than Ever Before: Enjoy more high-level raid content than previous expansions, with optional more challenging versions of all encounters.
New Race and Class Combinations: Explore Azeroth as a gnome priest, blood elf warrior, or one of the other never-before-available race and class combinations.
Guild Advancement: Progress as a guild to earn guild levels and guild achievements.
New PvP Zone & Rated Battlegrounds: Take on PvP objectives and daily quests on Tol Barad Island, a new Wintergrasp-like zone, and wage war in all-new rated Battlegrounds.
Archaeology: Master a new secondary profession to unearth valuable artifacts and earn unique rewards.
Flying Mounts in Azeroth: Explore Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms like never before.
Will Guild Wars 2 have non-human playable races?But hopefully, Norn, can shape shift into being a polar bear, because that would be cool.
Absolutely! In addition to humans, players will be able to create, customize, and play a variety of non-human races.
* Charr - Ascalon's conquerors, the charr are ferocious, warmongering creatures--the intractable foes of humanity. Now, as greater dangers threaten their conquests, charr legions and their war machines prepare for battle.
* Norn - The norn are towering brawlers from the frigid northern lands who can shape-shift into mighty bestial forms. Driven from their homeland by a force beyond reckoning, the norn have regrouped among the dwarven ruins of the Shiverpeaks.
* Asura - The asura, who once ruled the caverns and tunnels below Tyria, are an advanced race of small size and great intellect. Now that they have risen from below, the asura aim to rule the surface world with their powerful golems and ingenious plans.
* Sylvari - Not much is known of the sylvari, save that they are a race of sentient plant-beings, newly blossomed into the world. The sylvari are the youngest of the races, bound together by a common dream and awesome power.
The 39-year-old quarterback turned his back on retirement for the second time in as many years, agreeing Tuesday to play for the Minnesota Vikings.My comment: epic! I love Brett Favre.
"I felt I did everything I possibly could do to get where I need to be," Favre said Tuesday. "You're 39, your arm may not feel like it did at 21. But the pieces are in place that you don't have to do that much and I agree with that.
"If they were willing to take that chance, I was, too."
8. An MMO project will come out of left field this year and surprise us all. Scott Jennings may or may not be involved, but he’ll blog about it regardless.Sure enough, Scott Jennings does not disappoint. Read his blog post: CCP comes out of left field, shoots everyone in head. So, he's not involved, but he blogged about. For those keeping count, that's TWO predictions proven true this year.
The announcement, with the trailer tagline of “one universe, one war”, came at the end of a talk about the history of CCP. It left many GDC Europe keynote attendees — perhaps expecting an announcement for World Of Darkness, CCP’s other rumored project — significantly surprised.So, I have to disagree that its as far out of "left field" as Jennings makes it out to be. Maybe I can bite on the console and PC interaction, but overall it was pretty much expected.
The trailer, with slick in-game graphics, showcased a space station and then impressive first-person shooter gameplay. Petursson said that Dust 514 is “our take on a console MMO”, and was made after the company “looked hard at what people wanted to do on consoles”.
In fact, when Dust 514 launches, the map of EVE, currently divined only by player structures owned in the PC game, will also take into account infantry successes and failures within the console game. Players in the PC MMO can “fund mercenaries and give them goals” in the console title.
CCP’s Petursson hope that “these communities will meld over time”, expecting specific Dust 514 corporations to start with, but eventually social structures that bridge across the two. He quipped of the new game and the relationship between the two titles: “While the fleet does the flying, the infantry does the dying.”
Brighton, England - 17 August, 2009. Today, NCsoft, the world's premier publisher and developer of MMOs, confirmed that Aion has been released to manufacturing. Aion is the highly anticipated game that has already taken Asia by storm and has quickly become one of the world’s largest MMO franchises ahead of its release in Europe on 25th September.Actually, if Blizzard doesn't shock the world and announce that the next WoW expansion will go live in September or October, Aion has fit into a nice slot for release. While I don't believe WoW expansions kill off new games (actually the opposite, it probably helps some), any success is measured against an awfully big stick. Especially for a game like Aion that is so close in terms of potential players with WoW.
First and foremost, I will revisit WoW off and on for as long as it is still active….especially with each expansion. My opinion (…please repeat that word to yourself…heh…) is that you cannot intelligently comment on MMOs unless you’ve played or are playing WoW. Like or not, it is the yardstick and will continue to be so until we all agree that something else is the yardstick.I'll go one further. World of Warcraft is the best game I've ever played. I don't think you can intelligently comment on the modern gaming market without having played WoW. There are NO other games even close to World of Warcraft in terms of gaming, cultural, and online impact. For jumping sake, Leo Laporte, even plays World of Warcraft. If you haven't played it, and you're opining on the gaming market, your opinion is going to be short-sighted.
New ContentI can't even begin to explain, conceptually, how great of an idea this is, but I will try to outline three major points: live events, theme-park-itis, and player density.
Cataclysm will be the first expansion not to introduce a new continent, instead making use of previously unreleased zones and revamping existing ones.
Classic Azeroth Revamp
A cataclysmic event caused by Deathwing and Azshara will change the face of Azeroth as we know it. Most of the new content for Cataclysm will take the form of a revamped Azeroth, taking advantage of newer additions to WoW such as phasing and daily quests. Most of the quests and mobs in the classic zones will also be redesigned to make leveling less painful. With the revamp, a greater narrative and sense progression will be offered to players. Some zones and dungeons will change drastically to fit this, e.g.,
* The Barrens will be split into two separate zones of two different level bands.
* Azshara will become a low level (~10-20) zone.
* Some of the zones like the Thousand Needles will be flooded.
* Durotar is wrecked and apparently Orgrimmar could be destroyed. A new Orc city is rebuilt over the course of the expansion.
* Gnomeregan will be part of the expansion as well and gnomes might be able to reclaim their capital. (The last part is still unconfirmed)
* Wailing Caverns will be become a lush tropical area as a result of the druid's magic.
* The Blackrock Spire will erupt and a new version of Blackrock Mountains will be available, apparently Ragnaros will be back too.
In the aftermath of the cataclysm, and the new conflicts on the horizon relief efforts can be found in many zones and new open PvP areas similar to Lake Wintergrasp.
Flying in Azeroth
Part of the redesign of the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor is the introduction of flying to the two continents, allowing access to many new areas and quicker traveling across the large continents.
Classic Dungeon Revamp
Redesigning Onyxia's Lair in Patch 3.2.2 was just the first step. As most of the leveling will take place in revamped areas of Azeroth, so too will the dungeons, allowing players to use them to level from 80 to 85.
Unreleased Zones & Dungeons
With the addition of flying mounts to Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms and the redesign of many zones, most of the previously unreachable or incomplete zones will now be made available to players. This is where most of the new content from 80 to 85 will take place. Some of these are,
* Hyjal (present)
* Gilneas - The Worgen starting Zone.
* Uldum
It is unclear if the old Goblin locations such as Kezan and Undermine will be included in Cataclysm with the revelation of the goblins' plight, but several new islands have also been risen from the seas by the events of Cataclysm, some on the backs of giant sea turtles and whales, with the addition of several underwater zones.
P.S. It amazes me how MMO-Champion is such a massive site, with great inside scoops, but they still haven't invested in a spellchecker.
New Content:Way cool.
* Added King Of The Hill game mode.
* Added custom animations played by the losing team during the post-win state. They are moved into third person camera to enjoy them.
* Added lots of new hats.
* Added koth_Viaduct.
* Added ctf_Sawmill
* Added community map Arena_Offblast
* Added community map Cp_Yukon
Additions / Changes:
* Added "Auto Reload" option to the multiplayer advanced options.
* Clip-based weapons that reload a full clip at a time can now have their reloads aborted by firing.
* Pistol now fires at a fixed rate, not based on the speed at which you press the firing button.
* Added a color blind option to add a Jarate icon above enemies who are busy accepting a terrifying existence where they have no dignity.
* Significantly reduced the amount of network traffic being sent.
* Capturing the flag in a CTF game mode gives the entire capturing team 10 seconds of critboost.
* Sappers attached to a teleporter automatically place another Sapper on the other end of the teleporter, if it exists.
* Engineers wrenching a teleporter will repair the other end as well, and remove Sappers from both if they exist.
* Disguised Spies no longer trigger On-Hit effects (like the Blutsauger's heal).
* Removed self-inflicted minicrits. Fixes Jarate'd Soldiers/Demomen having ineffective rocket/grenade jumps.
* Added an item panel to the spectator cam that shows non-standard items being carried by the player you're spectating.
* Added an "Inspect" key that allows you to look at items being carried by your team mates.
* Backpack improvements:
- Added drag & drop to move items around. Item positions are maintained on the backend.
- Added multi-select, allowing you to delete multiple items at once.
- Added a new key to the key binding page that opens your inventory directly to your backpack.
- Fixed mouseover panel being incorrectly position when the backpack first appears.
* Cloaked Spies standing in valid backstab positions no longer raise their knife.
* Added current map name and gametype to the bottom right of scoreboard.
* Added class icons to tips on the loadout and loading screens.
* Improved visuals around flags when they're being carried by a player.
* Improved critboosted visuals, making it much clearer when an enemy has critboost.
* Updated the loading panel to show the game type under the map name during level transition.
* In-game chat dialog now supports full Unicode characters.
* Added BLU main menu background.
* Added response caching for some server queries to help reduce the CPU load from DOS attacks.
* Teammates no longer block friendly radius damage. Prevents nearby teammates causing rocket/grenade jumps to fail.
Map Changes:
* Update PLR_Pipeline
- Increased the starting advantage in the third round if a team has won the first two rounds.
- Fixed carts not continuing to the second round if they're capped at the same time in the first round.
- Fixed being able to shoot pipebombs over the starting gates in the first round.
- Fixed being able to open the doors in the first round before the setup time was finished.
- Fixed players getting stuck in some doors.
- Fixed players being able to get onto rooftops and out of the map boundaries.
- Fixed other minor bugs and exploits.
* Update Arena_Sawmill
- Fixed DirectX8 bug where some models would not be visible.
- Fixed exploit with building teleporters outside of the map.
* Updated CP_Granary
- Made a few changes to improve balance based on competitive community feedback.
Item Reworks:
* The Force of Nature
- The enemy knockback now only `works in close range and behaves more like the Pyro's air blast.
- Enemies cannot be juggled by the FaN's effect.
- The self-knockback has also changed to respect the firer's view angle. Looking up while shooting will no longer propel the enemy upwards.
- Knockback is now scaled by damage done.
* The Sandman
- A Scout will receive 1 point for stunning an enemy and 2 points for a long range stun.
- Stunned players now take 75% of all incoming damage instead of 50%.
- Übercharged players can no longer be stunned.
- Heavies spinning their mini-guns will continue to spin when stunned (whether the left or right mouse button is pressed).
- The minimum distance to stun a target has been reduced.
- The negative attribute has changed from "no double jump" to "-30 max health".
Fixes:
* Fixed various issues around layout & presentation of items inside the Backpack and "X is carrying" item dialogs.
* Fixed an exploit that allowed players to work around sv_pure.
* Particle files are now protected by sv_pure.
* Fixed critboost effect getting stuck on when you die while critboosted.
* Fixed Timer HUD element backgrounds not being the correct color if you change teams during waiting for players.
* Fixed a couple of issues with the way critboosts affected The Huntsman and the Spy's knife.
* Fixed an exploit where you could reload The Huntsman faster than intended.
* Fixed Heavy "civilian" exploit.
* Fixed a set of exploits using the DXSupport config files.
* Fixed r_screenfademinsize and r_screenfademaxsize exploits.
* Fixed sentries firing at a fully cloaked Spy if they're still the closest target.
Community requests:
* Added a HUD element for hybrid CTF & CP maps.
- Supports 1 or 2 flags, and any number of CPs.
- Mapmakers need to place a "tf_logic_hybrid_ctf_cp" entity in their map to enable it.
* Added custom kill server log text "train" and "saw" for deaths caused by these environmental hazards.
Format: "%s<%i><%s><%s>" committed suicide with "world" (customkill "%s") (attacker_position "%d %d %d")
* Added new "medic_death" event for server logs
Format: "%s<%i><%s><%s>" triggered "medic_death" against "%s<%i><%s><%s>" (healing "%d") (ubercharge "%s")
- healing is the amount the Medic healed in that life
- ubercharge (1/0) is whether they died with a full charge
* Added "func_respawnflag" trigger entity. It will remove & return the flag if a flag carrier touches it, or if the flag falls into it.
Something is coming...What that is, no one knows. However, Mythos.com is pointed out as the place to go find out.
A surprise new TF2 update has arrived, and it has absolutely no class. In fact, it’s about as daft an update as you could hope for, with Day 1’s offerings giving you eighteen new hats, and a new Arena map. “After setting a new standard for Lack of Class in an FPS with the addition of Jarate (the jar-based Karate),” explains the TF2 blog, “we’ve raised the bar on lowering the tone even further with the first ever Classless Update!”Hats? Fluff, absolute fluff! Who would have ever guessed that we would be discussing FLUFF for a first person shooter? More importantly, who would've guessed we'd actually like the FLUFF!
Nexon America opened a new Web site for its upcoming game, MapleStory iTCG Online, at http://itcg.nexon.net. iTCG Online is an online flash-based, in-browser trading card game using the characters and monsters that occupy the world of MapleStory.The biggest part that caught my attention was "online flash-based, in-browser". This means players open the web page, log in, and then start playing. An almost "pure" browser game (flash is still a plug-in, albeit a web standard of sorts).
Our sources have told us that the new races of Cataclysm will be:Personally, I don't believe it. Goblin's are a neutral race within the Warcraft lore. It would cause a ton of lore-based conflicts within the game world. Not to mention how out of place some places of the game world would feel. Goblins joining the Horde would break too many parts of World of Warcraft.
* Worgen – Alliance
* Goblin – Horde
Key points:Good news all around.
* George has over 1000 finished manuscript pages for his next book, A Dance With Dragons.
* His previous four books in the series have come in between 1100 manuscript pages and 1500 manuscripts pages.
* He thinks the book will be around 1200, although he will not put an expected finish date on the project
* HBO is moving forward with the Ice & Fire pilot. It is going to be shot in October in Ireland.
* Originally, the story of A Dance With Dragons was meant to be the second book of a trilogy, but the first book grew in the telling.
* Sean Bean has been cast as Ned Stark.
* George talks about why Dance is late, due to the complexity of the series and the amount of rewriting he does.
* Listen to the podcast for the rest!
GREEN BAY — Green Bay Packers general manager Ted Thompson’s non-answer to a question about Michael Vick was more than just Ted being Ted.This is a really bad idea and a half way good idea. Aaron Rodgers has more than proven himself as a capable quarterback and given a years experience, I think he's going to start winning more games. So, Vick would be a back up at most.
The team is doing thorough due diligence on the former NFL quarterback and has had legitimate discussions about the idea of signing him, according to sources.
Once the highest paid-player in the NFL — and now bankrupt — Vick probably wouldn’t cost much financially.
In 2008, after almost four years reviewing games and covering industry news and events, I lost my job. In my search for new work, I came across a posting for QA/customer service jobs at Mythic Entertainment for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. I didn't have much of a technical background aside from being a lifelong gamer, but I had a few years of customer service experience, so I shot them a resume. I heard back a month later and started at Mythic a week after that.So, for those that read the above article, we get a sad story about the state of a customer service position at a company who's product failed to meet expectations. The article is both revealing of what happened with Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) and a bit annoying at whats implied.
I initially thought it might be some type of call center job, but my supervisors explained that I would be working within the game itself. The journalist in me thought it would be a fascinating look behind the curtain at a young MMOG. The gamer in me thought it would be awesome to finally have the powers of a GM. I would be like an agent in The Matrix.
I want to say up front that I’m having great deal of fun with this. It’s the kind of game I go into for five minutes to take a screenshot, and emerge from two hours later. Read onwards for why.Just running down my "What makes a good FPS" checklist:
When people were throwing the “Tribes” word around to explain where Section 8 sat in the big scheme of things, I was unconcerned and not particularly inspired. I assumed it would be another vague sci-fi squib that wouldn’t really satisfy anyone. Tribes-alikes have a habit of not quite hitting the best things about multiplayer gun-violence on the head. As much as I respect the original games, their weapons, physics and environments never quite grabbed me in the way they did so many other people. So you can imagine that I was pleased to find that despite some similarities in the sci-fi, jetpacks and vehicles sense, Section 8 is very much its own game.
I'd be interested to know if Section 8 will be downloadable at launch on Steam - and if so if there will be a preload offer?
*coughs*I won't mind a free weekend and if you offer one you are bound to sell more copies. But yeah, you'll never do that.*coughs*
+1I'll be keeping my eye on the game in the meantime.
So where is the response to this post? Purchasing this game on steam would really motivate me to purchase this game. Direct2Drive and all of the other content systems are a joke.
I would consider purchasing this game in store, but lately I have made it a hobby to secure all of my games with steam so that there is no worry of losing cd-keys and such.