Electronic Arts has announced a giant sale on Origin with prices up to 70% off. The sale runs until June 16th and covers a wide variety of games and DLC packs, including both Titanfall and Battlefield 4 for 50% off their regular price. You can even get The Secret World for 50% off, so what are you waiting for?
Check it out.
Sony Online Entertainment has released the latest trailer for H1Z1, titled ‘My Evil Ways.’ The animations look a little chunky and are more than likely unfinished. The video explains that H1Z1 will be released in early access on Steam, as well as being released on PS4. Sony’s E3 press conference later today will offer more gameplay.
(Source: SOE Press Release)
The Black Watchmen was an experiment set up to become the first permanent ARG, set to launch in September and crowdfunded through MMORPG.com. Unfortunately, the drive came short of its $100,000 goal, and as a result all donations will be refunded.
To all agents,
We managed an incredible mobilization here, we’ve raised $ 54,362 with a common goal: to create the first ever Persistant ARG. Hopes where high when a couple of players, through word of mouth, helped us to get nearer our goal from 35% to 39% in ONLY one night. We had the chance to meet people as dedicated as we were to the project and we wish to give a big thank you to everyone who stood by our side until the end.
We also wish to give a special thanks to Robert Bannon and the Paradigm Symposium; who pledged $5,000 for a real life mission and to also offer a booth so we could recruit player at the next convention
Unfortunately, rules are rules, and we will start the refund of all pledges. In the next 7 to 10 days, you should expect a full refund if you were with Crowdtilt, and a small fee (2.5%) deducted from your refund if you pledged via PayPal.
(Source: MMORPG.com)
To date, Arenanet has introduced more than two dozen living world updates to Guild Wars 2. The feature is great, for those of you who can keep up with it. For others, missing a week or two due to real world obligations or simply taking a hiatus means missing out on rewards and the world’s ongoing evolution. Thankfully this is set to change for (most) affected players. Beginning with the launch of Season 2 on July 1st, as long as a player is able to log in during the two week period, they are able to “bank” the living world to return to at any time after. If you aren’t able to log in during the period, you are still able to access the content for a small fee of in-game currency.
“The Living World exists to drive the story of Guild Wars 2 forward and create a sense of speculation, wonder, and intrigue around the world of Tyria and its characters. We want to create the feeling that anything in Tyria can change and get players looking forward to what might happen next. A natural system that provides story and context for these changes makes sense when we regularly expand the experiences in our game”.
Season 1 will not be included at the launch of the new journal, as it was not built with the journal in mind, but Arenanet hopes to add it in at some point in the future. Season 2 will move away from the concept of meta-achievements entirely, replaced with story-mode achievements accompanied by open world event achievements with each step.
(Source: Arenanet Press Release)
Eve Online developer CCP Games has confirmed to Gamasutra that a recent wave of layoffs has resulted in 49 employees being cut from the company. According to the report, teams from Eve Online, Eve: Valkyrie, Project Legion, and DUST 514 have not been affected by the layoffs.
“As part of our strategy to focus on the EVE Universe, today CCP conducted a restructuring that resulted in the layoff of 49 people in our publishing organisation,”
The developer has promised severance packages and job placement assistance to those affected.
(Source: Gamesindustry.biz)
Rebellion has announced that Sniper Elite is on Steam for free for the next 24 hours. The promotion lasts until Thursday June 5th at exactly 10am PST/6pm BST. To get your hands on the game, all you have to do is open the page in Steam and click download. After that, the game is free forever.
Visionary Realms has announced that Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is back in full development mode. Development initially ceased following an unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign, only to be revived under a team of volunteers last month. Brad McQuaid discusses in detail what the team is focusing on presently.
The Programmer’s efforts with the new network code are essential. Within 1-2 weeks we will be able to (internally) create accounts, create characters, and then log into one of the game’s zones. This requires the client to be able to connect to the servers, and the server code to be able to talk to the database. The good news is that we had some of this working before, so we can reference that.
Read the entire announcement at the link below.
(Source: Pantheon)
Defiance officially becomes free to play today. Patch 2.0, dubbed the NSFW patch, allows players to experience the entire Bay Area storyline for free, at least for PC gamers. Console gamers will have to wait until around July 15th to get their free gaming on. Free players will be limited to two character slots, two loadouts, a cap of 50 ark keys, and 35 inventory slots. The move also introduces the Paradis Patron subscription, which can be bought at the in-game store and includes store discounts and bonuses to loot, scrip, experience, and more.
You can find the entire list of updates here, as well as patch notes for today’s 2.0 update.
(Source: Defiance)
With Perpetuum Online now operating as a buy to play title, and the folks at Avatar Creations have posted a status report detailing just how things are getting along. Thanks to an upswing in users, five times the average player count, Perpetuum is receiving the capital investment that it so deserves. For starters, the server cluster is being upgraded and moved to a more suitable location: Amsterdam (your drug jokes here). Gamma islands are still closed down in preparation for a relaunch, along with multiple quality of life changes to the game’s UI and features.
I don’t have the freedom to tell you actual financial data, but it should be enough to say that after months (years?) of worrying about what to put on your plate tomorrow, it’s a liberating feeling to have that off of the list of things to worry about, and being able to just focus on making the game better.
Also in the works is the ability to buy and sell ingame items for Steam wallet funds. There is also a major rewrite of the engine in the works which should allow for higher resolution textures and a brand new interface. Check out the entire announcement below.
(Source: Perpetuum Online)
With players piling into Wildstar’s servers for early access, what more could a developer possibly ask for? A denial of service attack, apparently. Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney posted on the game’s Reddit to confirm that the servers were under attack and that it was being handled. Since then the servers have come back to normal.
I’ve heard from a few folks it’s a confirmed DDOS attack (real time updates, may change, fog of war, etc.). Partially handled. Servers taking in some players now, player counts rising. Ninjitsu continue.
Never underestimate the potential of anonymous basement dwellers with botnets.
(Source: Reddit)
MMO Fallout 