It’s been two months since Rend launched into early access, and this week the folks at Frostkeep Studios laid out their roadmap for the rest of the year and into 2019. Among other updates, the goal for the road ahead includes combat improvements for more impactful gunfights, streamlined features overhauling crafting, inventories, and storage, legendary artifacts based in Norse mythology, dynamic siege content, and refined social mechanics.
The roadmap can be seen here, and the fall developer letter here. The team at Frostkeep also plans on releasing a Trello board for community issues where players can see the status of bug reports, opening up a new avenue of communication between the base and the developers.
Rend is currently in early access on Steam for $29.99.
Dark Eclipse, the first PS VR MOBA title, launches today in North America and Europe from SUNSOFT as a free download on the Playstation store. Developer is looking to shake up the genre by pitting two players against one another in head-to-head matches, each player controlling a team of three leaders, each with unique skills and abilities, along with the power to recruit soldiers who level up during the match. The ultimate goal, as usual with the genre, is to conquer your enemy’s base.
“We created DARK ECLIPSE to capture the MOBA genre’s competitive magic, while restructuring many of its core elements to take advantage of VR’s unique capabilities,” said Shohei Sakakibara, Producer and Project Leader at SUNSOFT. “We’re dedicated to fostering an active community and making DARK ECLIPSE VR’s first competitive gaming phenomenon with a legitimate esports fanbase.”
Leaders can be purchased with in-game currency or through the Playstation Store starter packs. The base game is available for free on the Playstation Store.
Who says Valve doesn’t clean up their trash? Other than everyone.
Back when Valve issued a new directive that the company would no longer be curating titles with the exception of illegal games and troll titles, opting instead to merely allow its algorithm to bury lower quality titles in the furthest depths of the Steam store where nobody will see them anyway. More recently, the company has been on a bit of a ban spree, seemingly taking out developers releasing shovelware and asset flip titles.
According to Steam Tracker, Valve has banned more than 150 titles this month alone. Most of the titles appear to fall into categories of asset flips, obvious troll titles, and low quality flash-looking games. We were unable to ascertain how many developers this list spreads across, but Valve often deletes a developer’s entire catalog when one title is banned. Many of the titles had initially released as far back as January/February, but some others hadn’t even hit the market yet.
Jagex this week announced that an employee has been fired and police have been brought in regarding “gross misuse of moderator privileges.” While the official post doesn’t go into much detail, reports from the Reddit forum indicate that the employee is Jed Sanderson, aka Mod Jed, and involves the now ex-staffer used his moderator status to compromise RuneScape accounts to steal excessive amounts of gold, presumably to either trade to other players or to sell on the open market for real money.
This isn’t the first time Mod Jed has been suspected of malfeasance. As a Jagex employee, Jed has been known to be a member of the Reign of Terror clan, a group notorious for using denial of service attacks against opponents in Jagex’s $10,000 Deadman Mode Tournaments. Jed was investigated last year in regards to these allegations and cleared of all suspicion.
“Following our investigation, we were able to resolve the issue before any significant impact was made to the wider game, or economy. We have also taken steps to return items and GP to any affected accounts. Whilst we generally do not return items or gold, we feel that given this unusual situation, we wanted to ensure no players lost out to the rogue actions of a member of staff. We are actively working with the Police regarding the incident, but given this an ongoing legal matter we are unable to provide further details.”
Given the enormous real world value of the gold stolen (estimates in the tens of thousands), Jagex has noted that it is actively assisting the police in investigating the matter. Players affected by Jed’s actions have reported receiving the items back that were stolen from them, or as close as possible as Jagex can ascertain the damages.
(Editor’s Note: Guild Wars 2 Living Story spoilers ahead)
It’s been a while since we last checked in on the Guild Wars 2 living story, and just in time as Episode 4 launches this week. Coming off the heels of Long Live the Lich, Palawa Joko is no longer a threat to the world of Tyria, and the rebuilding can begin in Elona’s plague-ridden areas. Still, the threat of the crystal dragon Kralkatorrik still looms, and conflict with the powerful beast is inevitable.
Episode 4 contains new content including:
Sun’s Refuge, a personal instance that players will build and upgrade throughout their adventure to unlock new collections, NPCs, lore, and an upgradeable armor set
The new Jahai Bluffs map
The legendary scepter Xiuquatl
A new raid, Mythwright Gambit, in which players will come face to face with the djinn Zommoros
Episode 4 is free for players who own Path of Fire.
Dark Eclipse, the first ever MOBA for Playstation VR, has been announced to launch on the platform on September 25. The title comes to us from Japanese developer SUNSOFT, and is a one-on-one battle where players pick a team of three leaders and supporting soldiers.
“With 40-years in the business, we’ve seen many gaming trends come and go, but few have been as exhilarating as VR’s expansion and mainstream acceptance,” said Shohei Sakakibara, Producer and Project Leader at SUNSOFT. “Everyone at SUNSOFT is enamored with this type of quick, strategic, multiplayer gameplay, so we brought our passion for the genre and combined the best characteristics of VR, MOBAs and RTS games into DARK ECLIPSE, a game that’s both familiar and eye-catchingly innovative.”
Dark Eclipse will be free to play on launch. SUNSOFT plans for free updates including new heroes as the game progresses.
Loot boxes in 2018 are a multi-million dollar business, and Electronic Arts loves loot boxes so much that it is willing to potentially perform criminal acts in order to keep that sweet cash flowing. Such is the case in Belgium, where the Brussel’s public prosecutor’s office has officially opened a criminal investigation into Electronic Arts over allegations that the company is violating the law against gambling.
Earlier this year, Belgium’s Gaming Commission found several games to be in violation of its anti-gambling laws. EA doesn’t agree, and has simply refused to comply with orders to remove the offending purchases.
“We don’t believe that FIFA Ultimate Team or loot boxes are gambling firstly because players always receive a specified number of items in each pack, and secondly we don’t provide or authorize any way to cash out or sell items or virtual currency for real money,” said CEO Andrew Wilson.
As part of today’s announcement that Daybreak Game Company has received a notable investment, the H1Z1 team has announced that the PC version of H1Z1 will be transferred over to the team at NantG Mobile lead by Jace Hall, Chairman of Twin Galaxies. As part of this changeover, H1Z1’s PC version will be renamed Z1 Battle Royale at some point in the future.
“Daybreak still maintains and controls design direction and publishing for H1Z1 on other platforms, and therefore it is likely that over time there will start to be significant differences between what Daybreak does with its versions as compared to what we are doing with ours. Having multiple versions, that are significantly different — with the same name is confusing, so eventually we’ll be formally renaming H1Z1 PC. I wanted to clarify this now so that the community isn’t surprised by this later.”
-Jace Hall
Today’s announcement also revealed that mobile versions of H1Z1 and Everquest are in the works.
Daybreak Game Company today has announced strategic investment by NantWorks, a holding company, and some developments have dripped out to the public regarding a mobile Everquest title as well as mobile H1Z1.
“In connection with the investment, NantWorks has obtained a controlling interest in a new joint venture with Daybreak, NantG Mobile, LLC, which has been formed to develop and publish mobile versions of Daybreak’s current games – H1Z1 and EverQuest – and to build and publish video games across all platforms. In addition, the JV will now assume control and management of the current PC H1Z1 Battle Royale game. Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, CEO and Chairman of NantWorks and Owner and Executive Chairman of the Los Angeles Times, will join Daybreak’s board of directors.”
“Daybreak’s well tested game engine currently running EverQuest and H1Z1, combined with the proprietary next generation mobile game engine which we will develop and launch in the joint venture, are platforms which will enable unprecedented scale and provide enjoyment to millions of simultaneous players,” said John Wiacek, NantG Mobile’s Head of Game Engine Development.
Carbine Studios will close its doors and Wildstar Online will shut down, according to an announcement released today by NCSoft. Kotaku broke the story, noting that the layoffs at Carbine will include 50 people and comes after at least two projects failed to gain traction with the studio’s parent company and publisher.
NCSoft stated to Kotaku,
“WildStar players who have spent money within the game will be refunded purchases from July 1, 2018 until the payment system is shut off. We are also in the process of identifying the teams that will be doing the work to bring WildStar to a close. These decisions are very difficult to make and we are in the midst of shifting as many of our teammates as possible into other roles within the organization.”
NCSoft’s reluctance to shut down Wildstar came off as confusing, despite effectively ending major content support and refusing to even acknowledge the title by name in its quarterly earnings reports. There have not been any concrete details released as of yet on when Wildstar will sunset its servers.
As of this article, the official Wildstar website has not posted an announcement related to this news.
