Author: Admin

[Column] Bulkhead Interactive Asks Community To Manipulate Steam Reviews


Bulkhead Interactive is playing with fire, and I have a feeling they’re going to get burned.

World War 2 shooter Battalion 1944 currently stands at a 31% “Mostly Negative” rating on Steam, with 115 currently playing users and an all time peak of 16,341. Earlier today, Bulkhead’s community manager posted a thread on the game’s Reddit page asking the community to review, which can be very easily interpreted as “review positively,” especially given the explicitly stated goal of this campaign is to improve the game’s recent review score from mostly negative to mostly positive.

The statement very coyly tries to avoid any guaranteed accusations of review manipulation by telling players that their reviews can be positive or negative, it doesn’t matter as long as they’re giving their feedback. I have to wonder who Bulkhead thinks they’re fooling by trying to play dumb, especially when comments like the one below are being made to players who say that they enjoy the game, but don’t want to give a positive review because the player base is so small. Since Battalion is an online-only multiplayer game with no bots, the low player base can make the game nigh unplayable at off-peak hours.

“Player numbers are not the game that you’re reviewing, is the game good is the question.”

So give the game a positive or negative review, it doesn’t matter, just remember that you’re not to review the game based on criteria that we (Bulkhead) don’t approve of. Specifically criteria that would make the game look bad, like its low player count. Bulkhead even went so far as to dangle an incentive for getting the review score up, noting such feat as a prerequisite for the company to hold a sale.

“Any player who would like to leave a review, please do so as soon as possible. The reason being is that we would like to see the ‘Recent Reviews’ change as soon as possible, so that we can do our first sale. It’s a very achievable task but one that requires the community, new players, devs, and old players to work together.”

RuneScape: Jagex Unveils Ocean’s Bounty


This week’s RuneScape update is Runepass, a limited time event running from July 2 to July 15. Ocean’s Bounty gives players a set of daily tasks that can be completed to level up the pass and gain more rewards. The pass has two tiers, one for free and one that is purchased for 400 Runecoins (approximately $10 USD or three bonds at 195 coins each). Those who have not purchased Runepass will have access to two tasks, one daily repeatable task and a weekly task with longer requirements for completion, while those who do buy the pass will have access to two additional daily tasks as well as the bulk of the rewards.

The Runepass appears to be Jagex’s answer to the Battle Passes that have become popular in games like Fortnite over the past few months.

(Source: RuneScape)

Early Access: Battle Royale Survivors Is Lazy Dreck


I had to give Battle Royale: Survivors a look, it just had to be done.

Battle Royale: Survivors is the latest in the long line of developers jumping on the PUBG bandwagon and if you’re thinking that this game looks like a twinstick shovelware title built off of the Unity engine, well you’re right on two of the three points. Survivors isn’t a twinstick game, although it would be a much higher quality product if it were. What it is is a shovelware title built on Unity that hopes to piggyback on an existing trend.

Survivors launched into early access on June 18, by which I of course mean that the game launched riddled with bugs and unfinished features, but a functioning cash shop where you can purchase money packs up to the best offer at $24.99. Cash can be swapped for TK, the in-game currency, at a base rate of 2,000TK per $1 USD, meaning the loot boxes run for between $2.50-$3.50 apiece, plus an extra dollar for keys for the higher two options. Additional characters will run you nearly 10k TK, or $5 give or take. Alternately you can grind TK through the games at such a snail’s pace that the game will become unbearable long before you even get close to unlocking your first crate.

Unfortunately the cash shop won’t be able to save a game that is currently sitting at barely enough players to fill up a quarter of a standard battle royale match, and I sit here waiting for my latest match to hit the bare minimum ten players needed to get started.

I’ve already noted that Survivors is not a twin stick shooter, but this is important because the isometric camera might have suggested otherwise. In this game you move with the WASD keys and your character attacks where your are pointed. This leads to shooting mechanics that are so poorly handled and controlled that I found myself constantly coming in the top 3 simply running around in the open with some sort of melee weapon and zerging out my enemies.

Shooting mechanics in Survivors are worthless, to the point where holding a weapon is a detriment in many situations. You can hold the right mouse button to aim, but you move so slow and the aiming itself is so wonky that anyone can run up behind you and start whacking away with a baseball bat, the janky controls and laggy nature of the game allowing them to just jolt left and right while you fumble and try to hit them. In addition, weapons are stupidly underpowered to the point of being useless in their own right.

Which isn’t to say that this title has zero good ideas. The idea to implement fog of war makes it possible to sneak up on people, and the wonky controls actually make it a viable strategy because you can’t really easily keep a 360 degree view on your surroundings. Unfortunately, that’s it. It’s the spicy dijon mustard in the dog food sandwich.

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But I call this game lazy because that is exactly what it is. Hastily cobbled together on Unity to throw into early access and hope that people pay far more than the game is worth for the simple act of changing your default character. Nowhere else is this idea of laziness more blatant than the massive buildings that will block your view and make huge swaths of the map impossible to interact with.

If Survivors became a twin-stick shooter, where your character faced the mouse and you had a reticle, the game would be 25% better. Otherwise, right now this game feels like yet another cheap, lazy, unity-based shovelware title. One where the game conveniently tells you to shove off after you complete a match and doesn’t let you continue playing. Really, it’s for your own good.

Bless Online To Offer Big Update On America Day (July 4)


Neowiz has announced the next big content patch for Bless Online hitting Steam digital shelves on July 4. The update introduces new royalty quests, daily missions available at level 45 that offer better rewards than standard quests and can be completed up to 15 per day in return for rare pets and mounts, among other things. In addition, Basel George is a new area that can be tackled at level 45 with a group.

Finally the update will make market changes and improvements to the market UI.

(Source: Producer’s letter)

H1Z1 Surpasses 10 Million Players On PS4


Daybreak Game Company this week is celebrating a new milestone as H1Z1 surpasses 10 million players on Playstation 4. In the game’s first month of open beta, over 102 million hours have been played with 167 million kills racked up.

Accompanying this news is another update to the title, introducing revive mechanics in group play, aim acceleration adjustments, as well as the new self-explanatory airstrike signal weapon. People who have already downloaded H1Z1 prior to Wednesday will receive a Darkfire Pickup Truck and Sunrise Parachute skin override that will be sent out this weekend.

(Source: Daybreak Press Release)

PUBG Corp Drops Lawsuit Against Epic Games


PUBG Corp believes that Epic Games illegally plagiarized the Battle Royale mode, and has even gone as far as to comment its concerns that Epic Games might steal internal modifications to the Unreal engine and use it in their own game Fortnite. In any case, PUBG Corp found the concept actionable enough that just a couple of months ago they took Epic Games to court, filing an injunction in South Korean court against Fortnite and alleging that Epic Games stole their idea.

Except the lawsuit is over before it truly began, with PUBG Corp pulling out and sending a notice of withdrawal to Epic Games attorneys, according to GI Biz. As of now, neither company is willing to comment on the matter.

(Source: Games Industry)

Beta Perspective: Defiance 2050 Is Hot Garbage, But Shows Promise


I meant to play and then discuss the latest episode of the Guild Wars 2 Living Story tonight, but since the game is a bit broken at the moment, I’ll talk about Defiance instead.

I’ve spent a good few hours playing the Defiance 2050 open beta this weekend, and the thought that keeps going through my mind is simple: A relaunch of a five year old game should not be breaking even worse than the original launch, even as a beta. But over the span of several hours, I’ve had my game crash, sat and watched as it became virtually unplayable due to rubberbanding and screen freezing. I’ve seen creatures just randomly despawn, watched as my vehicle refused to show up or in some cases refused to perform basic tasks like turning. Even major functions like the entire tutorial and medic ability had to be disabled during the final beta before head start because they were either broken or were causing server crashes.

But then the weekend ended and the servers became kind of stable. The turning speed of the quad is still absolute garbage and makes driving a major pain, but that’s another story.

I suppose I should get two things out of the way: First, Defiance 2050 is a remaster for the current console generations and PC players are essentially along for the ride. Second, as a gamer I effectively left Defiance for dead around the time that Alcatraz released and Trion Worlds started experimenting with those expeditions that were initially lauded as money-grubbing. It’s around this point that I wrote it off as a dead title, its game code feeling like it was held together with chewing gum and string every time I would go back and find it feeling more and more broken.

I put well over 400 hours into Defiance and had no real motivation to go back, so I’m treating Defiance 2050 as a new world in and of itself.

If you played through the original Defiance beta weekends as I did all those years ago, well Defiance 2050’s beta won’t surprise you since it’s actually the same content but five years down the road. The big mechanical changes to get used to are the inclusion of classes, and subsequent movement of the massive EGO grid into a linear list of class-specific skills. Otherwise, this game still has a mass of activities to sink your face into, be it story missions, side missions, pursuits, major arkfalls, minor arkfalls, emergencies, sieges, incursions, contracts, pvp, coop dungeons, leveling your power, leveling your class, leveling your character, leveling your weapon proficiency, leveling your vehicle proficiency, and of course the age-old tradition of trolling chat.

I’d previously committed myself to playing Defiance 2050 solely on the Xbox, since the whole thing seems redundant to play on PC with the existing version still available on the platform, however this last beta weekend was PC only so I made due with what I had. Outside of the poor server performance, it’s hard to say much about this game that I didn’t say five years ago. After a while of shooting creatures and watching the screen stutter for five to ten seconds only to come back with my character dead on the ground, Defiance 2050 felt less like a happy reintroduction to the world and more of a grim reminder of why I quit in the first place.

That said, I haven’t completely given up on Defiance and am still waiting to see if Trion can turn things around post-launch. Do I have enough faith to buy into the founder’s program? Absolutely not, but I am willing to clock in on day one and give the game a real spin.

Guild Wars 2: Season 4, Episode 3 Hits Today


Arenanet today released the latest episode in the Guild Wars 2 living story. Dubbed Long Live the Lich, this episode pits players against current running villain, Palawa Joko, as he continues his efforts to take over the world with the help of a deadly scarab plague. Episode three introduces a new mount, the Roller Beetle, the warhorn legendary weapon, Domain of Kourna map, and a new fractal dungeon.

Long Live the Lich is available for free for Guild Wars 2 players. In addition, the game and expansions are 50% off until June 27.

 

Daybreak Game Company Mourns Passing of Lead Animator David Carter


Daybreak Game Company had the unfortunate role of announcing to their community the passing of David Carter, lead animator on H1Z1. Carter’s presence in the industry spans over a quarter of a century, going all the way back to the original Unreal. The list of titles for which his contributions can be seen includes Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Borderlands, and more.

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Former Daybreak President John Smedley stated “David was amazing to work with. Always an optimist and a true pleasure to work with. He will be missed!”

(Source: Twitter)

Trion Worlds Acquires Gazillion Assets


In an astounding twist of events, Venture Beat is reporting this week that Trion Worlds has acquired the assets from defunct studio Gazillion Entertainment. As part of its acquisition, Trion will get its hands on all of Gazillion’s licenses, trademarks, patents, and domains. In addition to utilizing the new licenses for its own purposes, Trion Worlds is also apparently using Gazillion’s assets to create a platform for third party developers to distribute their titles as well as an engine that reports to speed up the development cycle of isometric games, presumably one that was used on Marvel Heroes and Marvel Heroes Omega.

Our technology is platform agnostic,” CEO Scott Hartsman said. “We put an outside game on our platform and it just works. We spun up Trove in the Japanese market recently, and it just took a week.”

Gazillion Entertainment shut down last year after losing its license to the Marvel property. Following its shuttering, Marvel Heroes was the subject of a suspicious crowdfunding campaign created by an individual with questionable ties to a diploma mill, which has since gone dark. Gazillion Entertainment filed for bankruptcy with the case ultimately being dismissed in May due to failure to comply with court orders to file information.

Stay tuned as more details emerge.

(Source: Venture Beat)