Category: News

Mobility: Blades Changes Silver Chests


The Elder Scrolls Blades has received an update. As revealed today, the mobile spinoff of the immensely popular role playing game series will see some much requested balances made to the chests and how they are unlocked. The silver chests will now take one hour to open instead of the previous three, and the game will now ask for confirmation before spending more than 11 gems to open a box.

The full list of changes is below:

  • Silver Chests! These now only take one hour to open, or 12 Gems. (They were 3 hours and 36 gems before).
  • Wood Chests and Elder Chests have been added to Job rewards. Elder Chests are extremely rare, but possible.
  • Silver Chests no longer appear in the Abyss.
  • Adjusted Abyss floors below your level to reward more experience points.
  • Added confirmation for any Gem use above 11, so you don’t accidentally use higher amounts.

Source: Blades

[Hiring] Jagex Looks To Expand Studio By 25% In 2019


 

Jagex Ltd., developers of the popular MMO RuneScape, have announced a hiring drive that will see the Cambridge studio boost its staff by 25% over 2019. To kick off the hiring drive, Jagex has revealed two big-name developers joining the team. First is Dan Vargas serving as art director for an unnamed online role playing game. Vargas’ portfolio includes the Need for Speed: Underground franchise as well as Assassin’s Creed. Vargas is joined by Ian Thomas as technical director of the studio publishing platform.

CEO Phil Mansell stated:

“Jagex continues to attract and secure industry-respected expertise and Ian and Dan are key hires who will strengthen our creative and technical management teams. We recognise the importance of technical innovation and investing in exceptional talent, with almost 100 new hires targeted, and further modernising our technology, are key elements of our strategy through 2019 and beyond as we build on our portfolio of living games.”

Source: Jagex Press Release

[Video] ArenaNet Teases Next Living World Episode


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Today’s video comes to us from ArenaNet, who this week are teasing the next episode in the Guild Wars 2 Living World season. The trailer doesn’t give away much, including a release date which is yet to be released.

Pearl Abyss Announces $1 Billion In Black Desert Online Revenue


Black Desert Online developer Pearl Abyss is breaking out the name brand Lunchables this week, and with good reason. The developer announced today that Black Desert has raked in one billion dollars in gross sales across all platforms. The title is available in over 150 countries and boasts 18 million users.

Robin Jung, CEO of Pearl Abyss, commented;

“We’re proud of what this achievement represents – the hard work and dedication from our teams over the past four years and the support from a community of fans around the world. With over 30% of gross sales for Black Desert stemming from mobile platforms, which saw an initial release in Asia in the past year, we’re confident that sales are accelerating. Pearl Abyss is optimistic for the future of Black Desert, and we look forward to launching Black Desert Mobile globally by the end of the year.”

Pearl Abyss formed in 2010 with a team of just seven employees. The company has expanded massively since then, and in 2017 acquired Eve Online developer CCP Games. In 2018, Pearl Abyss launched the remastered update for Black Desert Online while also working on expanding into the console sector.

Source: Pearl Abyss Press Release

Black Desert Online To Shutter Its Battle Royale Mode


In a rare show of self awareness for the industry, Kakao has announced that its Battle Royale mode for Black Desert Online will shut down. Originally released just a few months ago, Shadow Arena pits 50 players against one another with their eyes on shiny rewards. Unfortunately while Kakao had intended the mode to receive updates over time, the inconvenient truth is that the game was just taking too much focus and pulling the game away from the company’s vision.

“We had originally planned to provide continuous updates to Shadow Arena to keep it fresh and fun, but over time we had to consider how to balance making improvements to it, whilst working on fresh content. We felt that the focus on new updates was deviating from our original direction, partially due to the time being dedicated towards this mode. In addition, the recent rise of 3rd party software added to our concerns, making us further contemplate on its place within the scope of Black Desert Online.”

Shadow Arena will shut down on April 10, which those of you with calendars will note is this week. Wednesday, in fact. A compensation package will be released to players due to the sudden announcement of this removal.

Source: Black Desert Online

Old School RuneScape Wins BAFTA Game Award


Old School RuneScape has been named EE Mobile Game of the Year at the 2019 BAFTA Games Awards. Since its launch on mobile in October 2018, Old School RuneScape has been downloaded and installed on 6.4 million devices. Jagex CEO Phil Mansell said:

“This is astounding recognition by our players of all the great work and effort invested in bringing Old School RuneScape to mobile and making it a great British success story, and we want to say thank you to everybody who voted for us – it is very, very humbling. Since we launched on mobile just a few months ago, we have seen players return to Old School in their droves, with nearly six and a half million installs, and a resurgence of membership over the Christmas and New Year period that broke all records for the franchise. We’re looking forward to bringing new adventures to Old School RuneScape over the coming years, as well launching RuneScape on mobile devices in the months ahead.”

Source: Jagex Press Release

Daybreak Laid Off More People


Daybreak Game Company may be currently best known for their string of layoffs, and it appears that the pendulum is coming around again for another swipe.

The folks over at Massively OP noticed that multiple developers on the PC version of H1Z1, known lovingly as Z1 Battle Royale, are no longer with Daybreak and NantG. This includes Z1’s lead game designer who posted about the layoffs just a few hours ago. Massively OP was able to confirm via Twitter that Z1’s combat designer was also laid off, as well as the community representative.

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The move comes not even a week after NantG posted an announcement on its Twitter account that they are in planning mode and “discussing many things.”

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Neither the Daybreak Game Company or NantG Mobile have made an official statement. Perhaps ironically, Z1 Battle Royale has experienced a notable increase in players following a massive decline over the past year.

Source: MassivelyOP

 

Black Desert Launches Latest Update


Black Desert has launched its latest update on Xbox less than one month after official launch. The update introduces four new classes, each bringing new ways to experience the game, as well as large-scale PvP modes called Node Wars and Conquest Wars.

The four classes are the Dark Knight, Lahn, Musa, and Striker.

  • Dark Knight: Dark Knight wields the beautiful but lethal Kriegsmesser and burns through nature’s energy to amplify her power. Using a variety of ranged magical skills, Dark Knight can confuse her enemies and create opportunities for a deadly combo of attacks.
  • Lahn: Lahn is extremely agile, with the unprecedented ability to leap and glide through the air over long distances. Combined with the flexibility of her Crescent Pendulum, whether she’s facing enemies head on or raining death from above, she is truly a force to be reckoned with.
  • Musa: Musa uses a variety of oriental martial arts, focusing mainly on sword skills and his horn bow. Expert swordsmanship allows Musa to unleash quick and deadly combos, making him an incredibly formidable adversary.
  • Striker: Born in Calpheon and trained by a martial-arts master, Striker is a close-quarters expert with countless years of training and experience. His skill in hand-to-hand attacks results in deadly consequences for those who meet him.

Node Wars is a PvP mode supporting 25-100 players. The mode pits guilds against one another in a territorial control fight where players battle for control over various node locations throughout the world. Rewards include gold from part of the worldwide tax collected over the course of the week.

Once per week, players can also participate in Conquest Wars which offers even bigger rewards. In addition, Black Desert is now available in New Zealand and Australia and is available in Spanish.

Valve Combats Workshop Scams With New Update


When it comes to updating the quality of life of its store, Valve is like a particularly slow iceberg. That said, they do tend to get to their destination. Eventually.

If you pay attention to the drama of the Steam community, you’re probably well aware of an issue plaguing specifically Counter Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2. The workshop for both games, and others, has been the target of an onslaught of scams. The scams generally come in the form of ads for free skins, free items, rare skins, giveaways, promotional content, etc. The actual guides lead to phishing websites, infect the user’s computer with malware, keyloggers, etc, and ultimately all you’re left with is a VAC-banned Steam account and an empty inventory. Generally these guides were posted by accounts stolen from other similar scams.

With this week’s update, Steam will now send an email to the account owner when a new item is posted for the first time, asking them to review and confirm the item that was posted. The goal is twofold, to plug the endless stream of scam guides without creating unnecessary hassle for frequent workshop creators, and to inform a user that their account has been compromised without their knowledge. The effectiveness of the new system will have to be seen.

Source: Steam

TERA Reloaded Hits Xbox One and Playstation 4


En Masse Entertainment has finally launched the biggest update ever for TERA on consoles. Tera: Reloaded introduces the Elin Gunner class and brings with her intense firepower. Whether or not you’re interested in the high-caliber cutie, you’ll be able to indulge in the new enchanting system, Guardian Legion Missions offering daily quests, and new endgame dungeons with a hot new gear system.

Twitch Prime members will also find a number of promotional goodies coming to Twitch Prime April 2. The package includes cosmetics, codes, and more for all of En Masse Entertainment games. TERA players can check out the trailer at the link below or just boot up your console and start playing.