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)

PSA: Shadowrun Returns Free Until Saturday


The Steam Summer Sale might be bumping, but right now you can get your hands on the isometric game Shadowrun Returns for the virtually free price of $0. Available via the Humble Store and delivered as a Steam key, the Shadowrun Returns Deluxe Edition still retails for $25 and includes the base game as well as the Anthology DLC and soundtrack.

But like any great deal, this one is time limited and will end mid-day Saturday. Our time wizards peg this promotion as ending at 1p.m. EST on June 23.

The Crew 2 Hits Open Beta, Mostly Negative Reviews


The Crew 2 open beta has officially begun for this weekend, and it looks like gamers aren’t quite happy about what developer Ivory Tower is offering.

If you head over to the Steam page, where The Crew 2 currently stands at 37% positive, a large portion of the negative reviews seem to focus on poor handling of the game’s various vehicle types. The Crew 2 lets you race using cars, boats, and planes, all of which control rather rigidly according to early Steam players. While many of the reviews acknowledged that the graphics and performance are a positive, although frame rates are apparently locked to 60, some reviews pointed to the game’s “cringey millennial dialogue” as a point of contention.

Thankfully with the open beta running until June 24, you can try it out for yourself with the only cost being bandwidth and time.

The Netherlands Litigated On CS:Go Lootboxes, So Valve Killed Trading In the Netherlands


Gamers in the Netherlands woke up this week to find out that they are no longer able to trade or market items in Counter Strike: Global Offensive or Dota 2. Following a ruling by the Dutch government that Valve’s systems constituted a violation of its laws on gambling, threatening criminal prosecution unless the word of the law was met, which according to Valve wasn’t actually detailed in said threat.

So in response, until Valve can better understand how to work under Dutch law, they have gone ahead and disabled trading entirely for users in the Netherlands. This change affects Counter Strike: GO and Dota 2, however since the ruling affects any game where items can be won by chance and then traded outside of the game, more Steam titles may be caught up in the future. So far the Dutch government has only noted the two of Valve’s titles.

(Source: Gamer Revolution)

Feeding the Rumor Mill: Playstation Now and the Possible Downloads


Playstation Now is Sony’s streaming games service and answer to the lack of backwards compatibility from the Playstation 4 to the Playstation 3, its subscription service allowing you to play titles from the PS4, PS3, and PS2 on your PS4 or PC. All this for $20 a month.

In another life, Playstation Now had the added benefit that it could be played on a ton of a devices, making up for the streaming nature by supporting the PS3, PS Vita, PS TV, Sony Bravia TVs, Sony Blu Ray Players, and Samsung TV models, among other devices that I am no doubt forgetting. Then Sony in one fell swoop cancelled support for every single device outside of the PC and PS4, making Playstation Now a service that costs twice as much as the Xbox Game Pass and delivers an arguably lower quality service at higher prices. While Playstation Now offers a wider library, over 500 titles compared to over 100 on Game Pass, the fact that you are streaming titles means the quality of your experience is directly tied to your router’s performance and Sony’s servers.

So the rumor mill is churning this week and decided to toss out the delicious news that Sony is working on the ability to download games, ala Playstation Plus, for its PS Now customers. The updated will apparently be coming sometime later this year, probably after September, and will start with PS4 games only.

If Sony goes down this route, it would be a marked improvement for Playstation Now as a service. People who want to keep streaming their games can do so, those who don’t mind waiting for the download so they don’t have to deal with fracturing visuals and lag can have their cake and download it too.

How do you feel about the Playstation Now service as it is, well, now? Would you consider subscribing if it wasn’t reliant on streaming?

[Video] Guild Wars 2: Living World Season 4, Episode 3


The next episode in the Guild Wars 2 living world story hits June 26, with Arenanet releasing a trailer (above) showing off some of the new content that will be available.

As the next step in the ongoing story, “Long Live the Lich” players will continue their war against Palawa Joko, the undead lich who we impersonated over the course of the Path of Fire expansion in order to gain control of his army and defeat Balthazar. Joko has begun an all out invasion on Central Tyria and, in the previous episode, we learned that his goal was to find and unleash a plague on the world’s population.

In addition to new story content, Long Live the Lich will also introduce a new mount, new fractal, and more. Long Live the Lich will be free to Guild Wars 2 owners when it launches.

Steam: Devs Cannot Discount Within 30 Days Of Price Increase


With the Steam summer sale upon us, it might be useful to look back at a not-so-new but not-so-well-known policy laid out by Valve in terms of how and when developers can put their games on sale. According to the terms of service as laid out by Valve, vendors are not allowed to discount their games within 30 days of a price increase, cannot change prices while a promotion is live, and cannot run another discount for two months following a launch discount.

These rules were likely put into place to prevent a repeat of previous years where some developers would increase their costs right before a big Steam sale and then discount it to make it look like the game is at a big markdown, such as a $20 game boosting its price to $50, then offering 50% off and selling at $25 so people think they’re getting a great deal when really they’re paying even more than the regular cost.

The full rules breakdown as follows:

  • You can run a launch discount, but once your launch discount ends, you cannot run any other discounts for 2 months.
  • It is not possible to discount your product for 30 days following a price increase.
  • Discounts cannot be run within 2 months of your prior discount, with the exception of Steam-wide seasonal events or other specific Valve-organized sale events.
  • Discounts for seasonal sale events cannot be run within 30 days of releasing your title or 30 days from when your launch discount ends.
  • You may not change your price while a promotion is live.
  • It is not possible to discount a product 100%.
  • Custom discounts cannot last longer than two weeks, or run for shorter than 1 day.

Closers: En Mass Entertainment To Remove Fatigue


This may come as a shock, but one aspect of games that gamers don’t take too kindly to these days is the idea of developers purposely stopping them from playing. Such is the case with Closers, epic anime RPG published by En Masse Entertainment. Turns out players weren’t too happy about the fatigue system preventing them from playing as much as they would like, and after hearing their feedback En Masse has decided to remove the system come July.

We heard you loud and clear. As of July 3, we’ll remove the fatigue system from the NA and EU versions of Closers. We’ve been watching, observing, and listening to all of your comments in regard to this system. It became obvious the system wasn’t good and took away the fun for a majority of players in our regions. Naddic is a very player focused developer and aligns with our En Masse mission to create great Player Experiences. So, we are very happy to announce the implementation of this change in the next update!

The update notes that existing energy potions will be converted into credits, however this has not been finalized. In addition, starter packs will be altered in what benefits they give as said potions will no longer have a use once the update goes into effect.

(Source: Steam)