The MMORPG Life is Feudal: MMO has been in Open Beta since November 2017 and has recently entered Early Access. Players have been very active.
The developer studio Bitbox has now released a new trailer for the game, showing what players have achieved so far. For example, what percentage of the total landmass in the game has already been claimed or how many items players have crafted so far.
This is what players have achieved so far
The achievements of the players in the MMO so far include:
53,558 players participating in housing
42,734 players organized in guilds
4 million trees have been planted
5 million trees have been cut down
There are 200,000 buildings in the game world
12 percent of the landmass has been claimed
Players have crafted 7 million items
Additionally, the video shows some of the players’ achievements, such as their self-built houses and cities.
There is some criticism, but it is being played
Life is Feudal has a “mixed” rating on Steam. The criticisms mainly include poor performance and the combat system, which supposedly is not very responsive. Nevertheless, Life is Feudal averages around 1,500 concurrent players according to Steamcharts. At peak times, there were even around 5,300 players.
Ryu and Sakura from Street Fighter V are coming to Monster Hunter World (PS4, Xbox, PC). You will be able to play the two characters from the iconic beat ’em up.
Capcom announced that there will be a crossover between Street Fighter V and Monster Hunter World. The characters Ryu and Sakura will be playable as skins.
Ryu is already coming in February 2018 with an event quest to Monster Hunter World.
Sakura will follow later at an unspecified time.
During the event quests, you can earn the armor that makes you look like Ryu and Sakura. Your hunter will also use the voices and unique animations of the two characters. Those who own Street Fighter V will get early access to the event quests.
Street Fighter V, like Monster Hunter World, comes from Capcom and was released in 2016. It is a classic beat ’em up. The fighting game features a tournament where the best fighters in the world compete against each other. Players control the fighters and engage in one-on-one battles. Street Fighter V is available for PS4 and Windows.
Who are Ryu and Sakura?
Ryu is the protagonist of the Street Fighter series and appeared in the first installment. He is an experienced martial artist who always strives to become stronger and maintain his focus.
Sakura made her first appearance in Street Fighter Alpha 2. She is a Japanese girl who admires the experienced fighter Ryu. She has learned many techniques from him and wants to prove herself now.
If you’ve spent a long time in a guild of an MMORPG, you will know them: the annoying ones, the funny ones, and the downright crazy guild members! Here we present to you the ten types you meet in every guild – whether you like it or not!
Guild members come and go, and over time you will encounter an incredibly large number of different types of guild members. While some are pleasant individuals, others can be quite annoying. Here’s the stage for the ten individuals who have already cost me a nerve or two! Caution: May contain traces of cliché and irony.
The Nest Builder
One of the most pleasant guild members and at the same time the one who is most often taken advantage of. He would do anything for his guild, which he secretly affectionately calls “family.” He farms resources painstakingly, crafts armors and potions, and at the end of the day deposits everything neatly in the guild bank – along with the gold he was able to gather.
Always concerned that his “family” lacks nothing, he sacrifices time and money. If possible, he even crochets warm socks so that no one has to freeze their toes while gaming in winter!
Typical quote: “I just collected a few legendary, hard-to-farm daisies. I put them in the bank, just take what you need. :)”
The Couple
The couple consists not of two individuals – it is the individual. If one part of the couple is assigned in a raid, the other will inevitably be soon as well. At the latest, after a serious conversation with the raid leader, where “Better Half A” explains that he can only play together with “Better Half B” or their loving hearts will die a miserable death.
Often, one part is a hardcore gamer, while the other is more inclined to stick around to be with their “Schnurzi” – driving the rest of the guild up the wall.
Typical quote: “Sure, I’m happy to come along! But wait! Can my boyfriend join? He doesn’t have the right gear yet, but we’ll pull him through, right?”
The Desirable
In male-dominated guilds, they stand out more: the female players. It doesn’t really matter how “the desirable” looks; after the first tentative – and definitely feminine – “Hello” in TeamSpeak, she already has her first fan club. They follow her more or less conspicuously everywhere and help her wherever they can. Whether it’s items, raid spots, or a kind word: The desirable lacks nothing!
Playfully, the desirable likes to push it to the limit by continually throwing small treats in the form of photos, sighs in TS (“I just stretched!”) or flirtations in front of the crowd. It only gets critical when a second woman steps onto the stage. Quickly, the claws come out to ensure that she, and only she, has the right to be in the spotlight!
Typical quote: “Oops. My lollipop just fell into my cleavage, be right back!”
The Achievement Fan
The fan of achievements of all kinds is determined to achieve them. The annoying part: He lets everyone know and wants to involve them all. It’s actually nice of him, as he simply wants to share the fun with others. Unfortunately, he overshoots the mark.
No success is too silly for him, no achievement too unattainable! The guild chat is full of his requests to fish together for four days to finally get the “MMO is looking for the super angler” achievement.
Typical quote: “Anyone finally up for the jumping achievement? You just have to jump 10 thousand times in a row without stopping. Oh, and Merry Christmas, by the way.”
“The Girl”
The girl does not speak in TS. The girl never shows pictures of herself. However, she is always nice, friendly, and makes sure no one forgets that she is a girl. Her extravagant stories about herself tell of a girl who cannot escape flirt inquiries, who has furnished her room in pink, and has an army of cats.
Whether the girl is actually a female being is, however, not documented. Old guild legends say that “Viola” is actually named “Horst.” For some time now, there have been attempts to invite “the girl” to the guild event, but she “unfortunately cannot attend due to financial reasons.” The fundraising campaign is already running and will be broadcast on RTL.
Typical quote: “Geez, why should I buy a microphone when I can communicate wonderfully via chat?!”
The Social One
Raids and levels are actually irrelevant to the social one. He prefers to hang out in the guild chat and in the guild forum just to chat. If he manages to get into a raid group, you hear, in TS, the hissing of a beer can as the first thing. Although he is only moderately involved in the success of the raid, he always manages to maintain the good mood of the team during wipes.
Much more important to him than raids are the guild meetings in real life. He loves to organize them, offers his party cellar for it, or researches the coolest locations in the respective area.
Typical quote: “So, after the raid we are finally going to vote on when the guild meeting is, okay?!”
The Inactive One
Once one of the guild founders, he has long since mentally signed off. However, he still holds the second-highest guild rank, which unconsciously commands respect from new members. When he comes online every few weeks, a murmur goes through the guild, he is showered with confetti, and people virtually embrace each other to warmly welcome the lost son.
Then, he swears high and holy that he will come online regularly from now on and support the raids. Solemnly and under the watchful eyes of the loyal guild, he signs up for the line-up – and then doesn’t show up. Instead, he disappears again for weeks, if not months, into oblivion.
Typical quote: “Hi! Wow, we are so many now, I don’t know half of you! Let’s all meet in TS tomorrow, I really feel like doing something with you!”
The Helpless One
The poor soul is always lagging behind. Whether it’s because his day job doesn’t allow him time to farm or he simply plays slowly, he just can’t keep up! Desperately, he clings to the skirts of the other guild members to get carried through instances and still grab a few epic items.
His problem: he unfortunately also sounds exceedingly needy. Instead of taking matters into his own hands, he prefers to ask for help for hours, while remaining inactive otherwise.
Typical quote: “Um, I don’t mean to bother you, but I would like to raid as well. 🙁 Can someone quickly carry me through Raid 1-10 and then help me with the eternally long class quest? Pleeeeeease!”
The Pro
The pro can do everything, knows everything, and has everything. So, in his mind. And in the form of muscles on his arms. And in general. He knows the MMO like the back of his hand, and if you are to believe him, he has already played it before the beta and even before the developers themselves, so he knows everything better.
At least: he actually reads every guide and internalizes it, so he can always be relied on in raids. If only it weren’t for his tendency to rub it in everyone’s face at every opportunity how incredibly great he is…
Typical quote: “Now stop with the small talk! Let’s go over the strategy for tomorrow’s raid again!”
The Thief
The thief is not a very sociable, but also not a conspicuously quiet member of the community. Sometimes he quests along, occasionally throws in a few sentences in the guild chat, and neither stands out positively nor negatively. His hour, however, comes much later. Then, when he has gained the guild’s trust and receives all rights. Also those for the guild bank.
Under the cover of night, he then logs in, sneaks into the bank, and steals everything he can get into his specially made bags. Shortly thereafter, he leaves the guild without a word and is never seen again.
Typical quote: “Hi. (…) Cu.”
Do you see yourself in any of these types? Which ones dominate your current guild? And what other variations do you know? Let us know in the comments!
The ongoing fight against toxic players shows results
The measures from the past, such as the new reporting system for console players and the warning system for already reported players, have already had an effect:
Incidents of abusive chat have reportedly decreased by 17 percent.
Additionally, about 20% more reports of poor behavior by players have been submitted.
However, Kaplan knows that the problem has only been reduced and not entirely eliminated. But it demonstrates Blizzard’s fight against toxic behavior, and one can already feel positive changes within the community.
The current actions and outlook
Jeff Kaplan emphasizes that they are now primarily searching for such disruptive players on YouTube and want to find them before anyone else can even press the report button. One has to tackle the problem at its roots and not wait until a carpet of weeds has spread!
“We are now actively targeting social media sites like YouTube. There, we search for incidents of toxic behavior and identify the accounts involved. Often, we do this even before anyone can report them or they become noticeable elsewhere. And this is just one example of proactive behavior. Over time, this will make a significant difference,” Jeff Kaplan
The trust in the community and the system is to be restored soon. However, it is a constant fight against toxic players that will likely not be completely won anytime soon.
The next heroine in Heroes of the Storm will be the night elf Maiev Shadowsong. As a ruthless assassin, she hunts her prey.
The last hero of Heroes of the Storm, Blaze, has settled well into the Nexus, so it’s slowly time for a new addition. Blizzard has chosen a heroine from the Warcraft universe next, the warden Maiev Shadowsong.
Maiev belongs to the night elf wardens, the jailers for particularly dangerous prisoners. For many millennia, she was the warden of Illidan Stormrage, whom she relentlessly pursued in Warcraft 3 and only celebrated her success in WoW: The Burning Crusade.
Maiev’s Abilities in HotS
In the Nexus of Heroes of the Storm, Maiev will be an assassin, able to take little damage but deal a lot.
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The trait Warden’s Reflexes allows Maiev to jump into the air and become briefly immune to damage and area attacks.
Dagger Barrage throws multiple daggers in a crescent shape that hits all enemies in the target area. If it hits at least two enemies, the cooldown of the ability is drastically reduced.
Umbral Bindings ensures that Maiev’s next attack hits multiple heroes. All hit heroes are tethered to Maiev and, if they move away in the next few seconds, are pulled back to Maiev.
Vengeful Spirit sends a spirit flying in a straight line that damages enemies. Upon reaching the target point, the spirit pauses briefly and then returns to Maiev. Maiev can jump once to its position as long as the spirit is active.
The first heroic ability is Portable Prison. Maiev throws a glaive at the enemy that hits the first hero it encounters. For a few seconds after the hit, Maiev can reactivate the ability, which puts the hit hero in a time stop for a few seconds and sets their vision to 0.
The second heroic ability is Warden’s Jail. Maiev creates eight copies of herself that guard an area in a circular formation. If an enemy gets too close to the copies, they push the player back into the circle and then dissolve.
In the next addon for World of Warcraft, there are thin and thick models for humans. But will they be playable?
One of the biggest criticisms of World of Warcraft over the years has been that the various avatars are too similar. There are only a handful of customization options, while particularly pronounced features, such as body size, cannot be modified at all. If you want to embody a scrawny mage, you still have to walk around with muscle mountains as if your character is munching on steroids instead of mana cakes every day.
In Battle for Azeroth, two new models for humans have now been found that could provide significantly more variety. The colleagues from wowhead have already extracted the exact appearance.
Residents of Kul Tiras – Through Thick and Thin
There are very thin humans who probably fit the definition of a starving wretch. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the thin humans are technically the models of the undead, which have been given a new skin.
But there are also slightly plumper men and women among the humans found in the Alpha of Battle for Azeroth. These apparently use the skeleton and animations of the Pandaren.
However, it should be clearly stated regarding these models that there are currently no indications that they can also be used by players. They are located in the file path where the player races are also found, but there are also many NPC races, such as the Naga, to be found here.
It is highly likely that these character models will only be used for NPCs in Kul Tiras and Zandalar and will not be available to players. However, it is quite possible that one or another allied race can be derived from this…
What do you think about the additional models of humans? A good step to make the world of Azeroth a bit more colorful, lively, and realistic? Or do you already have the expectation that these models will also be available to players?
In Fortnite: Battle Royale, there are also problems on Saturday, January 27. There are simply too many new players. Now Epic has pulled the emergency brake and disabled the team mode. Later, there will also be server maintenance, during which the servers will be offline.
As Epic reports, their game Fortnite is plagued by serious issues. Players have been having trouble joining a group of friends since yesterday. This is still a problem today, Saturday.
Fortnite: Team mode is not working
That is why Epic has now turned off the “party service”. The team mode and duo mode are no longer functional in Fortnite. Players can only play solo or fill mode.
Additionally, it is reported that some players have landed in the wrong region. This should resolve itself. However, it is advisable to check if you are playing in the correct region.
Later on January 27, there will likely be a server downtime
The exact time the servers will be down is still unknown at Epic. It could happen sometime tonight our time or even in the evening.
Update 20:30: The latest developments indicate that it is not so certain whether a downtime is really necessary today.
Why does Fortnite have so many problems?
In Fortnite, it is said: The problems this week are due to the increasing number of players coming to Fortnite. The number of players has increased significantly this week: They have recorded a “Big Bump,” a substantial increase. Epic seems to be having trouble handling this influx of players.
On the release of Monster Hunter World (PS4, Xbox, PC), Capcom presented a new launch trailer. The video particularly showcases the impressive monsters and explains the game mechanics.
In Monster Hunter World, the hunt for gigantic beasts is the focus. The launch trailer of the action RPG makes this especially clear. Capcom presents a wide variety of dangerous monsters that can be hunted in Monster Hunter World.
The trailer aims to briefly summarize what Monster Hunter World is about and also shows a piece of the story. The descriptive keywords in the trailer are:
Embark on a journey
To an unknown land
That strikes back
Survive alone
Or hunt in a group
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With a foreign crew, it’s not easy in Sea of Thieves. If the others don’t like you, you’re headed for the ship’s prison.
In the pirate game Sea of Thieves, you deal harshly with foreign crew members. If they annoy you or don’t follow the rules, you simply lock them up. However, sometimes you also end up in the ship’s prison even though you haven’t done anything wrong.
The ship’s prison in Sea of Thieves is exploited by pirates
On the ships in Sea of Thieves, you can find cannons to fight other ships, sails and oars to maintain course, and cages to lock up annoying crew members.
The uncomfortable cages are located below deck, next to old supply barrels and with little daylight. You don’t want to spend much time there. However, you have no control over that.
Matchmaking brings out the evil. In Sea of Thieves, it is possible for a solo player to join a group of three other pirates and become part of their crew. This has advantages if your friends are not online, but you still want to play as a group. However, you throw yourself into the whims of the others.
If they don’t want you around because they are simply waiting for their fourth player, who is currently afk, they will lock you up in prison. They don’t need any valid reasons for this, just a vote. Since they are in the majority, you’re at their mercy.
The developers have included this feature to promote teamwork. Those who do not pull their weight or sabotage the work on the ship end up in the ship’s prison. The prison is escape-proof, and there is no time limit on how long you will remain there. If the crew feels like it, they can just leave you in there until you leave the game.
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Originally intended as a punishment for trolls, the prison still shows its weaknesses. If the trolls are in the majority, they can lock you up without reason. A quick vote in the crew, and you’re stuck.
One reason for being locked up is the lack of communication. Those who do not speak with their crew or ignore the captain’s instructions only make the game unnecessarily difficult. In this case, it is understandable if you are locked away. However, many players complain on Reddit that they followed the crew’s instructions but were still held captive “for fun”.
The only way to escape is to leave the server if the crew won’t let you out.
The system has its advantages and disadvantages.
You can quickly show the crew member that they are not welcome. They may recognize the signal and leave the session.
On the other hand, it can be irritating to be at the mercy of other players.
Have you ever been locked up in the ship’s prison?
PixARK is a game that aims to combine Minecraft and ARK: Survival Evolved. Sounds interesting? Starting in March, you can try it out.
In the online game PixARK, you awaken on a mysterious island where you must survive, typical for a survival game. To do this, you hunt, gather resources, grow plants, and build a safe shelter. The game world is filled with dangers, including other players, with whom you can either fight in PvP or team up.
Minecraft with Dinosaurs
Additionally, in the blocky game world reminiscent of Minecraft, you will encounter gigantic dinosaurs. They are surrounded by a mystery that you should uncover. To do this, you travel through a vast open world made up of voxels that can be changed by you. The game offers the following features:
Single-player and online multiplayer
Collect items or craft them to establish a base
More than 100 dinos that you can tame, train, and ride
Enhance and customize your character
Procedurally generated worlds, each one unique
Creative mode, where you can let your imagination run wild
Over eight biomes such as deserts, jungles, caves, and more
Procedurally generated quests, ensuring you always have something to do in the worlds
Early Access Starts Soon
With PixARK, Snail Games aims to give the Ark series a fresh look and offer a new gaming experience based on the original. The online game will enter early access in March for PC and Xbox One. The developers will announce an exact date later. Versions for PS4 and Nintendo Switch are also planned to follow at a later time.
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It has taken a long time, but finally there is a date for the German localization of the MMORPG Revelation Online. It was actually supposed to be ready in autumn 2017.
Revelation Online has had language issues since the beta. During the testing phase, large parts of the game were only in Chinese or Russian. Even months after the soft launch, it didn’t get much better, and Revelation Online could only be played in English at most.
New producer finally promises German and French localization in March
The German (and French) community has been grumbling for a long time about the missing translation. But the new game producer Ty Parr promises relief in the first statement to the player base. According to Parr, the translation will come soon.
Plans are already underway for a closed beta test of the localization in February. If everything goes well, the German and French texts should be playable on the live servers of Revelation Online as early as March 2018.
Bug fixes take precedence over new content
Another major topic for Ty Parr is bug fixing. He sees it as more important than new content in the game. Therefore, he has reoriented the work of the developers. The dev team is now supposed to spend more time on bug fixing than on new content.
A nearly bug-free game is for the new producer a strong foundation, without which no further developments should be necessary. In addition, Ty Parr plans further innovations in Revelation Online, which he will reveal at a later date.
Monster Hunter World is currently a hot topic and especially popular among Japanese players, as the action game by Capcom is very well received. It is therefore not surprising that Final Fantasy XIV fans also enjoy it.
Above all, they enjoy the detailed character creator of Monster Hunter World, as some Japanese fans have recreated the developers of Final Fantasy XIV as hunters in MHW.
Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida
The beloved “Yoshi-P” in the FFXIV community, Yoshida has gained great popularity among fans after the successful reboot of the MMORPG.
He is the head of Business Division 5 at Square Enix, which is responsible for the development and maintenance of the MMORPGs from the Japanese game company.
Head Game Master Toshio “Foxclon” Murouchi
The manager of the Community and Service Division is Yoshida’s right-hand man and is better known among players by his forum name “Foxclon.”
He is present at all events and supports “Yoshi-P” during the “Producer Live Letters” streams.
Sound Director and Composer Masayoshi Soken
As a student of the legendary Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu, Soken continues the tradition of excellent soundtracks in the game series.
He is responsible for sound design and music in FFXIV and has even set a world record for the most original pieces in a video game.
You can read about what to expect in new outfits in the upcoming Final Fantasy XIV Patch 4.2 here:
Bungie plans to adjust the shader mechanics in Destiny 2. The shaders may soon function similarly to those in Destiny 1.
When Destiny 2 was released in early September, the shaders triggered the first medium-sized shitstorm around the MMO shooter: Because it turned out that these items are one-time-use shaders. They are consumables that can only be used once. If you change your armor, you need new shaders.
And since you can quickly acquire shaders through the Eververse, the cash shop in Destiny 2, the shader issue became quite significant and dominated the media in the early days.
Although the initial excitement about the one-time-use shaders subsided after a few weeks, the shaders are still criticized in 2018: As playtime increases, Guardians found that they get overwhelmed with shaders in the endgame, making it a tedious task to manage them. You can only dismantle one shader at a time, making it a process that takes several minutes if you want to tidy up your inventory a bit – or have to, to accept new shaders at the Postmaster.
An inventory full of shaders
Bungie plans changes to the shader system
In the latest blog post, Bungie takes an in-depth stance on the shader issue. They have been gathering feedback since launch and have heard that players are complaining about the tedious process of deleting shaders one by one.
Bungie has often been asked why they don’t implement a mechanic to dismantle multiple shaders at once. This works with other items after all. Senior Design Lead Tyson Green explains that this is not so easy to implement. There is a problem with shaders.
Every shader, according to Green, is an individual item and individual items trigger individual reward bundles when dismantled. If you dismantle a whole stack of shaders at once, dozens (or hundreds) of reward bundles are triggered simultaneously. This creates a challenge that the developers still need to address.
Because a mass dismantling of shaders is not only difficult because a large number of rewards must be delivered at once, but also because the amount of produced rewards must fit into your inventory so that they do not get lost directly.
They are still looking for solutions to the problem.
Green states:
It should become easier to dismantle shaders en masse. They are looking for “mass dismantling solutions.”
Bungie knows that Guardians miss the shader mechanics from Destiny 1. They want to reintroduce this, but without losing the ability to infuse shaders into weapons, ghosts, ships, etc., alongside armor pieces.
They also understand the community’s desire for greater freedom in using shaders, that their availability is not limited. Therefore, Bungie is trying to bring back the shader collections or find ways to create copies of shaders in possession.
The shader mechanics in Destiny 1 were such that you only had to obtain each shader once. If you dismantled it, you could retrieve it for free from the shader collection and use it again. However, in Destiny 1, only the entire armor could be colored and not individual items separately.
Work on a new shader system in Destiny 2 is in full swing. More information will be available in the future.
A fan of the Overwatch League and the Shanghai Dragons team bet that his team would not win a single map. Now he has to pay up – and he is happy about it.
But it also looked bleak for the Shanghai Dragons: sadly, they were languishing in last place. The record: not a single game won and a team manager, who apologized for the poor performance in a tweet and promised improvement through tireless training.
Stand on 26.01.
Bet is on!
For Reddit user “MissingPear” it was a reason to fire up his team. “If the Shanghai Dragons dominate even one map against Seoul Dynasty this Thursday, I will buy every single Dragon Skin!” he announced. And that’s a total of 26.
And this against Seoul Dynasty! They are currently at the top of the table and have not lost a single game yet. And this, despite the fact that MissingPear actually hopes that the Dragons would win. He is concerned that the final league score will be 0:40 against them.
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The entire match consisted of four games on different maps. The Dragons fought, but as expected, they could not stand against the might of the strong-playing Seoul Dynasty. In the first three games, they cleared everything – the match was won.
But the bet was not lost yet. There was still one game left. This was played on the Mexico map “Dorado”. Here the Dragons rallied again and managed to end the evening with a positive score.
And MissingPear? He is happy – and of course settles his betting debt. Since he already owned Mei’s Skin, he “only” needed 25 Dragon Skins. He got them and spent nearly 100 dollars for it.
He bought 2600 League Tokens for this. Since one skin costs 100 tokens, he consequently had exactly 100 left. He invested them appropriately in the Seoul Dynasty Skin of Widowmaker.
Recently, we reported on the rumors that BioWare will soon pull the plug on SWTOR. However, the developers didn’t mention this in the news or the recent stream. This stream was about the plans for 2018! And they don’t sound like the game will be shutting down anytime soon.
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2018 is to be “the year of returning companions,” according to Eric Musco and Charles Boyd in the developer stream on Twitch. Here are the details from the stream:
Some companions will return. Among them: Jaesa and Kira.
The Spring roadmap is scheduled to be released in mid-February. Accompanying it, there will be a stream to explain the details.
Solo-Ranked Cross-Faction is still on the to-do list.
Building on the stream, Game Director Keith Kanneg published a forum post summarizing and teasing update 6.0.
More Speculation, But Nothing Concrete
Kanneg asks for patience regarding the upcoming roadmap. After all, they have just recently released update 5.8 and are still knee-deep in work. Unfortunately, he also cannot say anything specific about the contents of 6.0 yet.
The fact that he cannot say anything about the contents yet also shows that there will indeed be a 6.0. That is good news in times when SWTOR’s future is uncertain.
Timing-wise, a new major update would be well-timed for May. After all, “Solo: A Star Wars Story” will be hitting theaters then. Either way, it’s good to hear that the developers are thinking about 6.0 and are already working on it.
In a few days, Season 12 of Diablo 3 will end. Then there will be a short break before Season 13 continues. All info on the start and end dates.
You have a few days left to achieve your set goals for Season 12 of Diablo 3. As the developers now explain, the end is already in sight.
Diablo 3 – End of Season 12
At the end of a season in Diablo 3, your season characters are converted into normal characters. Earned gold, equipment, and more will be taken into the non-season.
Season 12 of Diablo 3 ends on Sunday, February 11 at 5:00 PM.
After that, there will be a short break during which you can prepare for the next season. Think about which class you want to push in the next big adventure and set appropriate goals.
Season 13 – Start in Diablo 3
After the end of the twelfth season, a two-week break will begin.
On Friday, February 23, Season 13 in Diablo 3 starts at 5:00 PM.
Then you can start again with a fresh season character and compete for the top spots on the leaderboard. Are you trying something new in Season 13 and picking a class you haven’t played much yet?
What will be carried over from the season?
What actually happens when the season characters are converted into non-season characters after a season? Progress is not lost. You take the following things into the non-season:
Gold,
Paragon levels,
Heroes,
Blood shards,
Items (equipped and from the loot chest),
Crafting progress and recipes,
Loot chest slots and tabs,
Achievements,
Legendary properties from Kanai’s Cube
Rewards from Season 12 (transmogrifications, portrait frames, and wings)
The transferred loot will then be found as mail on your non-seasonal characters, and you can salvage them. The same applies to seasonal hardcore characters, whose equipment, gold, etc., will be transferred to non-seasonal hardcore characters.
A series of problems with the successful game Fortnite: Battle Royale has now attracted fraudsters. They lure with the compensation that Epic has promised. But one should be very careful.
Currently, there is a theme week in Fortnite: The topic is bugs, maintenance, and issues:
The day before yesterday, the servers were down for maintenance for 14 hours.
Yesterday and today there are difficulties joining groups.
Chaos weeks in Fortnite raise emotions
Some players are already going through withdrawal, completely losing it and sending angry voice mails, in which they call innocent journalists, whom they confuse with Fortnite employees, sons of prostitutes or claim they are illegitimately born. Both are, however, not put so politely as here.
In any case, some bugs came with the last patch for Fortnite: Battle Royale that Epic has not been able to fully remove: The building interface is annoying, for example.
In short: It has not been smooth for the usually successful Fortnite for the past two or three days.
Compensation for Fortnite promised, but nothing known yet
The developers of Fortnite have therefore announced that they will compensate players for the problems, especially for the long downtime on Thursday. However, there is still nothing “concrete.” It was only said that players would be compensated, but nothing has been put into motion yet.
This gap is now apparently being exploited by fraudsters.
Apparently a fake website that lures with false promises but only wants to get its hands on who-knows-what.
Fake website promises compensation
They have set up a fake website and are promoting a giveaway there. It claims that one can choose between two compensation packages. Both lure with 1000 V-Bucks and a costume. One only has to enter their account name.
This is fake – and one should not do that under any circumstances.
It becomes treacherous because it looks professional and is promoted in the comments of the official Fortnite social media. One has to look twice to uncover the scam. The fake giveaway is sold there as compensation.
1000 V-Bucks as compensation – that would be about 10€. If something sounds too good to be true – then it isn’t.
Note: We are making this article because there have also been comments on our site, Mein MMO, stating: Epic is giving 1000 V-Bucks as compensation. Furthermore … we almost fell for it ourselves.
Loot boxes still spark heated debates. Are they gambling? Or are they even worse because they circumvent the rules of gambling?
Since the end of 2017, a heated discussion about loot boxes has erupted. The trigger was Star Wars: Battlefront II by EA, which offered players clear advantages through its loot boxes in a full-price title, advantages that could only be earned with hundreds of hours of gameplay. This led to one of the biggest shitstorms ever encountered by a game developer.
On the YouTube channel “The Game Theorists,” there are always exciting and well-researched theories. Either about story elements from specific games or about individual mechanics and how they actually work. Now the channel has taken on loot boxes, delving deeper into the psychology behind them.
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However, the debate about “loot boxes” is not new and is already nearly 80 years old. Because anyone who doesn’t like the concept of “buy this box and receive a random selection of items” could have been upset much earlier. “Mystery bags” in supermarkets were loot boxes in their purest form, and even Panini football stickers of top players are nothing more than loot boxes. The same goes for Magic cards and other card games.
If all these things are legally considered loot boxes, simply because they contain a random selection of products, then this discussion could theoretically be taken even further and brought to absurdity. Because then even a bag of gummy bears would be a loot box if the distribution of different gummy bear colors is not balanced.
Bags of gummy bears. Just another “loot box”?
“Now it’s getting silly,” one might say, and would probably be right. But where exactly is the difference? Legally, this could lead to a big problem and require a very clear definition.
The legal discussion
However, there are also aspects of loot boxes that clearly differentiate them from gambling. For example, many games have a hidden reward system that rewards persistence. For instance, if you open 40 card packs in Hearthstone, you are guaranteed to have a legendary card among those packs since the chance increases with every opened pack – by the 40th pack, it is even guaranteed.
Slot machines do not have this and are even prohibited from doing so. A losing player cannot suddenly be offered “better” winning chances to motivate them to keep playing. The chance is the same each time, and thus there are no “guaranteed” wins in between.
In Germany, the discussion about whether loot boxes should be classified legally as gambling has been ongoing for a long time. There are several points of difference, but the most important is probably the question of a clear win. Because it is not clearly decided whether the items contained in loot boxes, which vary in rarity, truly represent a “win” in the legal sense.
Some argue that the content of loot boxes has no “market relevance” because only the player decides the value, which is almost always of an ideal nature. In this view, loot boxes would clearly not be considered gambling.
A different situation arises in games where some items from loot boxes can also be purchased specifically in the shop – for example, in Star Wars: The Old Republic, there are such cases. Then it could be clearly defined what value a single item has, providing a fixed worth – and thus also an actual win.
The problem is further exacerbated when players can sell their items to other players, as then a clear value can also be assigned to them. However, since the game developers are not involved in this trade, they cannot be assigned the asset value.
Developers analyze us more closely
Moreover, developers are observing more closely how we play our games. How much time do we spend on average in a game? When do we buy loot boxes?
Nowadays, developers even collaborate with analysis companies that develop a new matchmaking system.
They aim to filter which weapons or items a player might like. Subsequently, the player matchmaking ensures that one competes against players with a higher skill rating who use precisely those weapons. This way, the thought is encouraged: “If I had this weapon, I would be that good!” – and suddenly, one is one step closer to the purchase decision.
Whether such mechanics are actively used in major games so far is, of course, pure speculation. But even the mere possibility that these capabilities are developed and used is concerning.
Every player has their own price
Even more companies and business ideas are working to optimize loot boxes. For instance, major publishers collaborate with “scientific revenue,” which provides software that precisely analyzes player behavior and finds out how much money a player is willing to spend on microtransactions. The result is that different players see different prices.
If a loot box costs about €1.50 for player A, it might cost only €1.30 for player B and €1.70 for player C. Since loot boxes do not incur costs in their direct “manufacturing,” apart from the original design of the included items, it is in any case a profit for the developer.
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Offering different prices to players could lead to legal issues in some countries, while being completely legal in others. Here, too, it remains to be seen when and whether this will become a reality in major titles like Overwatch.
Cortyn says: Considering the two videos and the complicated legal situation, one starts to reflect more deeply on the subject and struggles with how much money one is willing to invest in loot boxes. One thing is definitely clear: game developers are becoming increasingly skilled at analyzing our behavior as players and unwittingly enticing us to purchase loot boxes repeatedly. Is it understandable that developers want to extract as much money from players as possible? Absolutely.
But where should the line be drawn?
At the moment when algorithms determine matchmaking to encourage me to buy loot boxes, the game has taken a back seat and is merely a disguise to veil the purchase of loot boxes.
By now, I hope that loot boxes and the systems behind them will soon receive state regulations. They do not necessarily need to be declared as gambling, but some form of regulation must take place.
What is your opinion on the topic of loot boxes and gambling? How should a regulation look, or is there no need for one?
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In FIFA 18 Ultimate Team, the first MOTM cards (Man of the Match) are live. In English, they are called the “Players of the Day” cards.
The “Ultimate Team” mode got a bit more colorful last night: Since January 27th at 1 AM, new orange cards are in the game, the MOTM cards.
MOTM stands for “Man of the Match”, and these cards are referred to in English as the Players of the Day.
Which players receive MOTM cards? These cards honor those players who delivered strong performances in a game but did not make it into the Team of the Week. Typically, matches from national or international cup competitions are considered. The best players of these matches are determined by EA Sports and rewarded with orange cards.
These are the “Man of the Match” cards in FUT 18 since January 27 – Ratings
Since January 27th, the first Players of the Day are in the sets. They are players who recently excelled in the Spanish cup competition:
Ivan Rakitić | 87 > 88
Pablo Sarabia | 80 > 85
Jaume | 75 > 81
Eraso | 74 > 80
These Players of the Day are available in packs until February 2nd.
More info on the Players of the Day – Release, cards, rating boost
MOTM cards are upgraded player cards. The overall ratings are increased by 1-2 points compared to the standard cards (or previous special cards) of the players. In some cases, the rating boost can be significantly higher, even changing the quality of the player.
The Players of the Day do not have fixed release dates. The first batch was revealed on January 27th. Most MOTM cards are expected to be released between March and July, as this is when important cup games take place.
More info:
You get the MOTM cards by pulling them from packs or acquiring them on the transfer market. The chances of pulling an MOTM card are just as high as the chances of pulling the corresponding player at another time.
If you already have a standard card of the player who receives a MOTM card, nothing happens to your card. It remains unchanged.
Expeditions are one of the coolest features in Monster Hunter: World, and while all quests are available in multiplayer, you can only play the expeditions in co-op through roundabout methods.
Expeditions are the only way to explore the maps without a time limit!
There are 2 ways to play expeditions in multiplayer, but they are quite cumbersome
1. First quest, then explore
The first method is to tackle a quest together with your hunting partner. Decide beforehand where exactly you want to go on an expedition together, as this will determine which quest you should take.
So if you have completed a quest in the Ancient Forest together and now want to go on an expedition there, the group leader and all members must select the option “Return to camp with current group”.
This way, the players stay in the forest and can go on an exploration tour together.
However, it should be noted that the expedition ends as soon as the group leader returns to Astera or leaves the expedition in another way.
2. Send an SOS signal with the emergency flare
The second method is somewhat less reliable. For this, a player must start an expedition, and those who want to join should gather at the quest board.
The player then sends an emergency flare, and his companions must try to find him through it and join his session. This can take up to 5 minutes.
It is important to note that the expedition area has been unlocked for everyone. It must also not be the very first expedition that you have to complete in the story. Co-op mode seems impossible in that case.
