Category: News

PSA: Ghost Recon Wildlands Free Trial Available


Have you been waiting for an opportunity to try out Ghost Recon: Wildlands and also happen to game on Playstation 4 or Xbox One? Well you are in luck. Ubisoft today launched a free trial for both consoles (nothing for PC, sadly), giving an opportunity to give the game a go before throwing down sixty bucks. The trial includes the full game including single player and multiplayer. From Ubisoft’s description:

“TAKE DOWN THE CARTEL In a near future, Bolivia has fallen into the hands of Santa Blanca, a merciless drug cartel who spread injustice and violence. Their objective: to create the biggest Narco-State in history.

BECOME A GHOST Create and fully customize your Ghost, weapons, and gear. Enjoy a total freedom of playstyle. Lead your team and take down the cartel, either solo or with up to three friends.

EXPLORE BOLIVIA Journey through Ubisoft’s largest action-adventure open world. Discover the stunning diverse landscapes of the Wildlands both on and off road, in the air, on land, and at sea with over 60 different vehicles.”

Valve Updates Steam Groups To Curb Gambling Spam


If you play Counter Strike: Global Offensive, odds are you are probably not unfamiliar with the mass quantities of spam groups that have popped up related to gambling websites. Thanks to Valve not implementing a way to automatically block group invitations, players were at the mercy of whether or not a bot group had you in their sights. With today’s update, Valve hopes to curb Steam spam by preventing level 0 bot accounts from spamming invites.

First off, we see that more and more organized spammers are using bots to create groups on a huge scale. At some times, the number of new groups created explicitly for spamming outweigh the legitimate groups. Once a spammer has created a bunch of new groups, they then use bots to invite random players into the group. Even if only a small percentage of players that were invited end up joining any one of these groups, the spammer still can end up with a significant audience. The spammers then use these groups to advertise various websites or offers by posting frequent announcements to the members.

Starting today, you will only be able to invite your friends to groups, and likewise in regards to receiving invitations. It seems fairly likely that this will lead to friend request spam replacing group request spam, but it is a step in the right direction.

(Source: Steam)

LeVar Burton Joins the Star Trek Online Cast


Star Trek Online is attaining a growing cast of voice actors from the various series shows, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that the folks at Perfect World Entertainment have managed to snag LeVar Burton, voice of Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Burton joins the cast of actors voicing online versions of their television personas, in two special episodes coming to PC and console later this year. The first episode, coming in September, releases alongside the 30th anniversary of The Next Generation. The second episode will kick off Season 14 in October.

Players will join La Forge and his crew as they investigate a distress call from a Galaxy-class ship whose crew is being mind-controlled by a mysterious energy source. The episode marks the release of a fully realized Galaxy-class interior available for purchase and includes server-wide giveaways to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Players will be able to claim the highly requested skant uniform from Season One, as well as the Type 7 shuttle that was also featured in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Skant designs from The Next Generation can be found here.

(Source: Perfect World Entertainment press release)

Nexon Celebrates Chaos Chronicle One Year Anniversary


Nexon America is currently celebrating the one year anniversary of Chaos Chronicle, 2D mobile MMORPG available on Android and iOS, and is hosting a variety of events over the course of this week. The content, listed below, is available for new and returning players and includes a new Play Points gameplay feature to assist players in obtaining rewards.

  • Special Attendance Disciple Contract – Get the Disciple Contract and receive access to powerful Special Heroes and numerous popular items such as rare Rubies and formidable Elite Accessories just by logging on between Aug. 3 and Sept. 6;
  • Increased Hero Contract Mileage – Sign-in between July 30 and Aug. 6 to receive an unprecedented 150 percent mileage increase on all player Hero Contracts purchased in the shop;
  • New Play Points Gameplay Element – Play Points are earned by completing in-game quests. Players can acquire up to 30 unique rewards, including the mighty Disciple Equipment Box, a Hero Selection Contract and an Elite Accessory Box;
  • Limited-Time Discounted Items: Between July 30 and Aug. 6, players have the opportunity to refine equipment for a 50 percent discount on valuable Rubies.

Chaos Chronicle is available on iOS and Android.

(Source: Nexon press release)

Guild Wars 2 Announces Next Expansion: Path of Fire


Arenanet has announced the next expansion pack coming to Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire. Set to launch later this September, Path of Fire introduces a new villain in the form of the god Balthazar, who comes to Tyria to destroy the world and kill the elder dragons. The expansion brings tons of new content, including mounts, elite specializations, and more.

Path of Fire is available for purchase now. A free weekend coming up will allow players to preview the expansion, anyone with an account in good standing will be able to participate. More news on Guild Wars 2 to come.

H1Z1 Hits TwitchCon With Another Tournament


H1Z1 will be back at TwitchCon 2017, with a brand new tournament at this year’s conference. Steadily the most viewed event at TwitchCon since it first came on the scene in 2015, the three tournament event runs from October 20 through 22 with a prize pool of $500,000.

“H1Z1 has pioneered the massive arena shooter genre and proved that large-scale esports is possible,” said Anthony Castoro, H1Z1 General Manager. “The H1Z1 Invitational has grown and evolved over the years. As H1Z1’s popularity has increased, so has demand for this type of programming, and this new 3-tournament format allows us to be inclusive of more players and provide a weekend full of content to viewers at home.”

You can find more information, as well as sign up for your chance at the money pit, at the link below.

(Source: H1Z1)

Crimecraft Shutting Down August 31


Mayn Games has announced that Crimecraft: Gang Wars will shut down on August 31. Crimecraft launched in August 2009 with a box price, subscription fee, and in-game sponsored ads (in the form of billboards for Best Buy, Napster, etc) to boot. Barely two months out, and following financial woes at Vogster Entertainment, Crimecraft dropped the mandatory subscription and box price, choosing instead to go for a unlimited trial with optional bonus subscriptions.

Despite a poor launch, Crimecraft was able to launch two expansions, Bleedout and Gang Wars, before Vogster handed the game over to Mayn Games in 2012. Since then the game has faded into relative obscurity, its charts showing a population plummeting to an average of about 10 players at any given time on Steam. Crimecraft’s population issues similarly weren’t helped by the game not being compatible with Windows 10.

For the past years, we did our best to support the game and make players to enjoy it. It was a very hard choice to make, but despite the overwhelming support of our loyal players, this was the way it had to go. We are grateful to all players for continued support of the game.

(Source: Mayn Games)

Shroud of the Avatar Partners With Travian Games


Richard Garriot and Portalarium have announced a partnership with German developer/publisher Travian Games to bring Shroud of the Avatar worldwide. The partnership, announced today via press release, will bring the title to Europe, South America, Central America, the Middle East, and North Africa.

“We were looking to for the best upcoming MMORPGs in our industry as well as a strong cultural fit, so we are truly excited about the opportunity to work with Richard and the Shroud of the Avatar team on bringing another great game to our community,” notes Lars Janssen, CEO of Travian Games. “Portalarium’s vision is very similar to ours and we believe this is the start of a long-term relationship between our two teams.”

This month (August), prospective buyers can look forward to another free trial running from August 9 to 30, allowing you to fully breath in the “selectively multiplayer” game of the years. The month concludes with the release of the 45th major update. Travian Games is handling the publishing of Crowfall in Europe.

(Source: Portalarium press release)

LOTRO Delays Mordor Expansion


As it turns out, one does not simply launch Mordor. To the surprise of very few, judging by the reaction on the Lord of the Rings Online forums, the announcement came yesterday that the Mordor expansion has been delayed due to a bug that could not be fixed prior to today’s planned launch. As a result, the release has been adjusted to an as of yet unknown future date.

We are as excited as many of you to get into Mordor, but we have some unfortunate news: we have to adjust the release date. While preparing over the weekend to release the expansion on Monday, we discovered an issue in the build that impacted the ability of monsters and NPCs to move around correctly. This problem was specifically identified in older content. While correcting this issue is not a problem, the process to correct it takes too long to be able to release Mordor on Monday. So, we have to adjust the release date. We will have more info on the release date soon. We will know a lot more in the next 24 hours or so, and will pass along the info as soon as we can.

According to the Standing Stone website, any delays in the launch of Mordor will not extend past August 31st.

(Source: LOTRO)

ArcheAge Plans More Server Mergers


Trion Worlds has announced that more server mergers are coming to ArcheAge, with twelve servers being merged into four across North America and Europe. As is usual with ArcheAge server mergers, rather than merging into an existing server, ArcheAge merges two or more existing servers into fresh new servers. Instead of players on the merging server losing their land to the higher population server, everyone loses their land and must claim anew.

A Server Evolution is similar to a server merge that you’d see in other online games, except those affected by it will be moved to a new server rather than a currently existing server. We perform Server Evolutions in ArcheAge to give everyone involved the most equal chance at claiming land and castles in their new homes.

The list of affected servers can be found at the source below. The transfer process will begin on August 16th and go until the 29th. More information at the link below.

(Source: ArcheAge)