Cloud Imperium Games creates excitement with a video about Squadron 42, making players eager to finally experience the single-player campaign of the MMORPG Star Citizen.
The video showcases impressive scenes from the game area “The Coil”, which plays an important role in Squadron 42.
You could already see this area in the long gameplay video of the single-player campaign. Now the developers have presented it again in the latest Around-the-Verse video, detailing how they designed it.
A Uncomfortable Place in Space
The Coil is a dangerous place formed by an explosion. This explosion destroyed a planet, causing its debris to float in a mist in space. Navigating here is anything but easy. However, pirates use this location to hide. However, fighting in The Coil is only challenging.
The new video provides further insights into this area, which looks particularly impressive due to the volumetric fog.
The team discusses how they had to redesign The Coil because the first version was simply too “pretty” and testers felt comfortable in it. The Coil is meant to be a threatening place where every excursion could be the last. The fog is not an area where one would like to linger or establish a base.
Star Citizen and Squadron 42 are Taking Shape
Currently, there is no release date for Squadron 42 or Star Citizen. However, the recently released videos show that both games are making progress. Squadron 42, for example, already looks like a real game.
Next week, a lot of new content will come, which you can take a look at. One thing you can check out today is Xur’s new inventory. The Agent of the Nine appears today, let’s welcome him together.
All Info about Xur in Destiny 2 on January 26 on PS4, Xbox One and PC
When does Xur arrive? – Time
Xur arrives every Friday at 6 PM for the Guardians. He chooses a location where he can offer his exotic goods undisturbed by enemy aliens. You have until the next weekly reset to strike a deal with him. On Tuesday, January 30, he will depart at 6 PM.
Where is Xur? At this location, you can find Xur today
Xur has specific positions where he likes to stay over the weekend. This time he is located on Titan.
Offer and inventory of Xur – List of items with prices
Weapon: Workhorse – Auto rifle for 29 Legendary Shards
Titan: Dune Strider – Leg armor for 23 Legendary Shards
The weekly PvP event Trials of the Nine starts this Friday evening at 6 PM in Destiny 2. The trials end with the weekly reset on Tuesday evening at 6 PM.
As a PR action for the release of Monster Hunter World, developer Capcom has set up the “Monster Hunter Meat Shack” in London. There, you will be served gigantic mountains of meat for free.
In Monster Hunter World, a hunt typically begins with a big feast! Your loyal Palico cat companion works hard in the kitchen to serve you a massive pile of meat dishes. Stuffed and full of buffs, hunting is much easier.
A feast like this in real life is currently taking place at a Monster Hunter PR event in London.
Eat and play in the Monster Hunter Meat Shack
In London at Flat Iron Square, Capcom has created the “Monster Hunter Meat Shack” as a PR stunt. This is a grill booth designed with the ambiance of Monster Hunter World. You will find jungle decor and the skull of Rathalos, among other things.
Anyone who secures a spot in the Meat Shack can gorge on gigantic meat platters and giant burgers for 1.5 hours for free. Regular supplies are grilled on a giant spit. However, by human staff, not by Palicos.
By the way, there is only meat. Vegetarian options are explicitly excluded in the event description.
If you’re in London…
Besides the gluttony, the Monster Hunter Meat Shack also offers an opportunity to play Monster Hunter. The console is embedded in the table, so you don’t even have to stand up to stuff yourself virtually in the game.
Those over 18 even get a monster mug with free beer!
The event runs until Sunday, January 28, 2018. So, if you happen to be in London this weekend, are over 16 years old, very hungry, and want to play Monster Hunter World while stuffed, you should check out Flat Iron Square.
In the coming days, you can try out the MMO-ARPG Wild Buster: Heroes of Titan for free. The early access game is available during Steam’s Free Weekend.
About a month ago, Wild Buster started in early access and gave players a glimpse of the sci-fi MMO.
In the coming days, you can find out for free if the game suits your taste.
Wild Buster in the Free Weekend on Steam
From January 26 to 28, 2018, you can try Wild Buster: Heroes of Titan’s content for free on Steam. If you enjoy the game, you can take advantage of the 33% discount offer on the Founder Edition, which now costs €15.40 instead of €22.99. Here’s the link to Wild Buster: Heroes of Titan on Store.Steampowered.com
In Wild Buster, you fight on the side of the Guardians or the Abandon. Then choose from 13 unique classes with which you want to dive into the fray. New to the lineup is the hero “Heating Fist”, who specializes in melee combat and lets his fists fly.
With the push of a button, you can change attack or defense values, allowing you to maximize the hero’s potential.
Hanzo from Overwatch might soon be reworked. The scatter arrow is particularly a thorn in the developers’ side.
Shortly after the release of the “Cosmetic Update” for Overwatch, Game Director Jeff Kaplan took the time to address the community again. In the latest “Developer Update”, Kaplan talks about issues that are important to the players and explains what the development team thinks about certain points. This time, it mainly focused on the balance of various heroes.
Mercy’s resurrection remains!
For almost a year, adjustments have been made to the healer Mercy. She is the most popular character in Overwatch, and at the same time, one of the hardest to balance. In particular, the resurrection has repeatedly caused problems. Part of the community assumes that this ability cannot be balanced at all and should simply be removed from the game.
The developers do not share this view and are confident that sooner or later they will find the right place for the resurrection. However, until that time comes, there will likely still be some PTR cycles.
Hanzo might lose his scatter arrow
Hanzo is particularly a special arrow in the eyes of the developers. The scatter arrow is currently hated by many players, as it does not feel good. For example, a Hanzo can kill Orisa or Reinhardt with just one shot by simply shooting the scatter arrow right at the feet of the respective character.
Blizzard is still unsure how to proceed. They are trying to balance the scatter arrow but also have several ideas on how to completely replace this ability if necessary. We will probably see more about this in one of the upcoming PTR versions.
Toxicity in Overwatch is diminishing
But even outside of the heroes, Blizzard has positive news.
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There would slowly be an improvement regarding the toxicity in Overwatch. Since the introduction of the new reporting system, where players also receive feedback when their reports lead to sanctions, there has been 17% fewer incidents of offensive chat messages.
Additionally, players on average spend 20% more time reporting other players, which for Kaplan is a clear sign that trust in the reporting system is growing.
According to Kaplan, they are aware that 17% fewer incidents is not as significant a success as they would like, but at least the direction is correct.
In the space sandbox game Elite: Dangerous, the new expansion Beyond is open as beta to all PC players. One of the major innovations of Beyond allows you to have more fun and profit as a bounty hunter.
Meanwhile, the first chapter of the new Elite expansion Beyond is available for free as an open beta for all PC players. Players on PS4 and Xbox One unfortunately have to miss out on the beta. Beyond introduces some cool new features to the game, including:
New coop missions
Prettier planets and better trading
GalNet news as audio text
New ships for players and the Thargoid aliens
In addition, a revised crime system will make it harder for criminals and easier for bounty hunters.
Become the Boba Fett of Elite!
Bounty hunting is supposed to be more rewarding in Elite again. Therefore, the developers have revised the crime system. If you do bad things now, you generate a value on your criminal ship called “Heat”. This is associated with a bounty. The more Heat you have, the more money a bounty hunter will get if he catches you.
If you want to fly around undisturbed, you have to change ships and hide the “hot” vessel in the hangar. The “Heat” does not just go away by itself. So think carefully about which ship you continue your career as a pirate with.
At the same time, the new system should allow for more profit as a bounty hunter, as the “hot” ships promise decent rewards.
Computer-controlled hunt squads track the worst criminals
As an additional hurdle for criminals, there will also be squads of NPC ships that track particularly notorious criminals from system to system. This was something that happened in the early days of Elite: Dangerous. According to the developers, the AI bounty hunters should not be easily evaded by changing ships.
With Battle for Azeroth, Blizzard is pursuing new and old goals in WoW class design. Abilities will likely be rigorously trimmed – but old skills might also return.
The closed alpha of Battle for Azeroth, the next addon for World of Warcraft, has begun. To prepare players for the upcoming expansion – no matter how far in the future it may be – the developers are largely revealing their plans for the classes.
In a long blog post, Blizzard talked about how class design should look after Legion. After all, the artifact weapons will be gone, and usually, each new expansion brings a major overhaul of the classes.
At its core, the developers are pursuing three goals they want to achieve with Battle for Azeroth:
Strengthen the uniqueness of the classes
Refine the talent selection
Adjust classes to the absence of artifact weapons
Strengthen the uniqueness of the classes
Although Legion focused on the uniqueness of each class with its order halls and corresponding campaigns, many classes still bring the same set of abilities. For these “utility” abilities, such as stuns, sprints, teleports, or other useful skills, Blizzard wants to create stronger differences.
A good example is mass stuns. Nowadays, almost every group has 2-3 mass stuns, making these abilities no longer special, and the only challenge is to prevent overlaps in stuns.
The developers plan to remove some abilities from certain classes – mass stuns seem to be at the top of the problematic list. In return, there will be new abilities elsewhere or even the return of abilities that were removed from the game in previous expansions.
The fundamental idea is: Each class should be able to do something that no other class can do.
Refine the talent selection
Basically, the developers are quite satisfied with the talents, but there are areas that need adjustment. For instance, they want to try to eliminate choices between “single target” and “AoE” talents, as this creates a constant urge to change talents for each situation.
At the same time, they also want to avoid selection between three similar talents (like three AoE spells), where one must perform lengthy mathematical calculations to choose the best talent.
How exactly this balancing act will be achieved remains to be seen.
Adjust classes to the absence of artifact weapons
The last problem is likely to be the biggest one, as in Battle for Azeroth, classes must stand without their artifact weapons. In order for the classes not to feel suddenly incomplete, the developers are considering implementing one or two bonuses from each weapon into the core set of a class. However, the benchmark for this is high, and only a very few bonuses are to be transferred.
At the same time, attention is being paid to the rotations of the respective specializations. If classes have too large gaps in their rotations without their artifact abilities, the intention is to reduce cooldowns or meaningfully fill the gaps.
So far, most of this is still just gray theory. How well Blizzard actually manages to implement these goals will probably be evident in a few weeks. After all, the alpha of Battle for Azeroth has already begun.
Next week, Bungie will conduct three maintenance operations for Destiny 2. An update will go live, bringing some new features.
The next week starts with turbulence for Destiny 2: The announced update 1.1.2 will be deployed on January 30, with a series of maintenance tasks necessary before and after.
Here are the preliminary dates:
On Monday, January 29, a backend maintenance will take place. From 7 PM to 9 PM. No server downtime is expected, Bungie is just working behind the scenes on the server infrastructure.
On Tuesday, January 30, maintenance will occur with server downtime:
Preparation for the maintenance starts at 5 PM. You will not be able to log in.
At 6 PM the servers will go down. If you are still in the game now, you will be roughly kicked.
On Wednesday, January 31, another backend maintenance will take place. The servers will remain online. Maintenance will occur between 9 PM and 11 PM.
Keep in mind that during backend maintenance, the servers will remain online, but there may be server disruptions and connection drops. To avoid unnecessary frustration, it’s better to play something else during this time.
What changes with update 1.1.2?
Bungie released a preview of the patch notes for update 1.1.2. Therefore, this is not the complete list of changes, but merely a preview.
Legendary armor pieces will receive masterwork versions
The Flame Refractor perk now generates ammunition instead of pulling it from reserves
Base damage is increased
A bug is fixed where new characters created after “Curse of Osiris” do not receive the Flashpoint milestone
Players in hotspots, such as the Tower, will receive a notification when their post office mailbox is full
Heroic strike completions now have a higher chance of exotic loot
Mercury challenges are now available during adventures
A bug is fixed where “Curse of Osiris” strikes do not award clan engrams correctly when featured as “Nightfall”
A bug is fixed where challenges do not appear in the quickplay playlist
The dismantling timer for masterwork cores has been increased
These are all the changes that Bungie lists. However, there was already information via Twitter in the days before that in this update, the faulty waypoint at Ikora Rey as well as the missing shaders in weapons master engrams are to be fixed.
Conan Exiles is celebrating its first anniversary – at least in terms of Early Access. It’s a good reason to talk about one of the most discussed features of the game: the penis slider.
On January 31, 2017, Conan Exiles had its Early Access release on Steam and has since provided players with hours of fun, blood, and naked body parts. What garnered particular attention was the fact that characters can actually be nude and you can adjust the size of a male avatar’s genitalia.
PC Gamer recently spoke with director Joel Bylos about the open-world title in general and the penis slider in particular.
How did the slider come to be?
In the initial discussions, they at Funcom wondered, “Does it fit the setting? Should we really do it or is it too problematic?” After all, there was nothing sexual in the game, but nudity did fit the setting. Who had ever integrated penises into a game like this before?
“Let’s just do it!” was the well-considered conclusion.
It quickly became apparent that penises are a self-sustaining topic. No marketing was needed, which they hadn’t even considered beforehand. Players and the press jumped on the topic on their own.
The fact that such a “big thing” wasn’t advertised beforehand came as a surprise to most. For the team around Joel Bylos, it then turned into a big issue.
NSFW but Conan Exiles has an endowment slider. Big dong, little dong, big dong, little dong pic.twitter.com/MNgGsmlv32
While the ESRB (America’s Entertainment Software Rating Board) understood that it wasn’t a “porn game”, it did not simply allow the depiction of swinging genitalia.
The PEGI (Europe’s Pan European Game Information System) was more relaxed in these matters. Nudity didn’t bother them; rather, it was the violence that was the sticking point.
In the interview, Bylos reflected on the reactions and categorized them, how else could it be on this topic, by gender. Most women were pleased with the penis slider. After all, it reminded them of the much-loved breast customization options in many RPGs. The penis version was the long overdue balancing equivalent.
Men, on the other hand, saw less of the aspect of balancing justice. The fun was probably the priority for men. It was just okay and not as scandalous as feared.
“That someone would be upset was my only concern. But actually, no one was upset. Everything just worked smoothly,” Joel Bylos
Bylos’ team seemed to have a huge amount of fun with it and still do. During the brainstorming phase, they were only concerned about how Jenny would react. She was the character artist for Conan Exiles and would now be seeing a lot of penises.
But Jenny thought it was great too! For a week, her work screen was full of penises. For reference purposes, of course.
With Bless Mobile, the Korean developer studio ThinkFun is working on a mobile offshoot of the upcoming MMORPG Bless.
Although Bless has not yet been released, a mobile game has already been announced that will serve as a spin-off. This game is not being developed by Neowiz, as the team is still busy working on Bless, but by the Korean studio ThinkFun – which is even using a better engine than the “main game”.
Same World, Different Stories
Bless Mobile is based on the Unreal Engine 4, while Bless is still using Unreal Engine 3. Not much is known yet about the mobile game. Both games are set in the same world, but tell different stories and are also expected to differ significantly in gameplay.
This is already evident from the trailer that has been published (embedded at the end of the article). Bless Mobile looks more like a type of Diablo than an MMORPG. From an isometric perspective, you fight together with friends against hordes of enemies in fast-paced, action-packed battles. Graphically, it makes a pretty cool impression and somewhat resembles Lost Ark and Project TL (formerly Lineage Eternal).
Release in the West Still Unclear
Bless Mobile is set to launch in Korea in the second half of 2018. It is optimized for modern smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and Apple’s iPhone 6S. As for a release in this country, the developers are still tight-lipped.
However, there are still many questions surrounding the game, including the gameplay mechanics, the story, the controls, and more. In the coming months, we will surely learn more about this mobile game, and perhaps also whether and when it will be released in Europe and the USA.
This weekend, a special event awaits you in Warframe! With double experience points, you can level up your Warframes, weapons, sentinels, and companions much faster.
In the coop shooter Warframe, there are tons of Warframes, rifles, pistols, swords, companion drones, and even quirky space cats and dogs! They all start at level 0 and need to be leveled up to level 30 for their best performance. This can be quite a grind for some items.
If you’re not keen on that or just want to level up faster, you can look forward to the weekend!
Double Affinity, Reputation, and Focus for Everyone!
From Friday, January 26, to Sunday, January 28, the Double Affinity Event will take place. Affinity is the experience points of a Warframe, which you use to level up your weapons, companions, and Warframes. If they are already at max level, you’ll receive Focus for your Operator instead (if you have a lens installed) or more reputation points for your syndicates.
The event starts this evening after the developer’s live stream. The Warframe Devstream starts today, January 26, 2018, at 8:00 PM on Twitch.
Quadruple Rewards with Boosters
If you want to get the most out of the event, you can grab an XP booster. Since the bonuses are cumulative, you’ll achieve a 4x boost for experience. The boosters are usually available in the cash shop. However, you can also get them as a daily login reward or loot in sortie missions. The optimal missions for farming Affinity are:
Generally defense missions
Hydron on the planet Sedna
All Tier 3 spy missions on the Kuva fortress.
If you execute the spy mission – ideally with a stealth frame like Ivara – perfectly, you can earn an impressive 48,000 Affinity points per mission. This way, you can level everything in no time or earn tons of Focus points!
Note: There is a Cap for Focus and Reputation!
Keep in mind that there is a cap for Focus and reputation points per day. No more than 250,000 Focus per day is possible. The maximum reputation per day is based on your Mastery Rank x 1,000 + 1,000. However, those who only want to level up equipment can do so until their fingers fall off.
At the end of January, Bungie will make some changes to the raid loot in Destiny 2. This is supposed to be finally exciting and rewarding.
On January 30, a larger update will be rolled out, bringing a significant change: A revision of the rewards in the raid and the raid activity.
According to Bungie, they have heard the feedback that while the raid experiences are quite good, something must definitely be done about the rewards in the raid.
It currently does not feel exciting when defeating bosses because the loot is boring. The tokens as rewards are not interesting enough, and there are too few rewards that make you want to really put in the effort.
Raid armor receives new raid perks
Now Bungie’s senior designer Daniel Auchenpaugh has spoken out, addressing these criticisms and promising what actions will be taken by the end of January.
One new feature is raid perks.
From January 30, raid armor pieceswill drop with special mod perks that only function in raid activities. These mods with special perks will be available on both new raid drops and on raid armor pieces already in your inventory.
The raid mods are reusable. If you swap the mod for another mod, it is retained. This swap process costs you 1 Calus token each time. By the way, all raid mods are Legendary.
The goal of these special raid perks is to increase the power of guardians in the raid and provide useful benefits for each encounter. Examples of raid perks:
On the Leviathan, your solar abilities deal 25% more damage (this applies to all elements)
When you use a super, your grenade is recharged
After a melee kill, you deal 20% more damage
Here you see such a mod with a raid perk:
In raid encounters, there is always a raid item
In addition to the raid perks, several other new features will be introduced. This should help to avoid frustration when you receive no loot after an encounter.
From now on, raid gear will not be tied to specific encounters anymore (with one exception, more on that later), instead, every raid encounter can have raid items as rewards. This means, no matter which raid encounter you master, you will always receive raid loot.
Additionally, there will be a chance for an exotic drop in every raid encounter! This is not an exotic engram, but a weapon or armor piece that you can use right away. This loot pool contains all exotics – except those tied to quests. And you can only receive exotics that your guardian class can equip.
If you play the prestige raid, you will now receive double rewards: The prestige rewards and the rewards from the standard raid. If you are good enough for prestige, Bungie says, then you do not need to go back to the standard raid to obtain its items.
Additionally: The raid vendor Benedict will sell you raid gear directly at the tower for legendary shards and Calus tokens. This raid gear offering rotates. If you need an item that Benedict currently has on offer, you can specifically buy it. However, with one special condition: You must have completed the prestige mode during the week to be able to directly purchase prestige armor. It is not possible, therefore, to earn the necessary tokens in the standard raid and then buy prestige gear without having mastered the prestige raid yourself.
A new raid ghost with special abilities
Bungie is introducing a special and rare item as a raid reward: A ghost shell called “Aspirant Shell”, which can only be obtained as a random drop from the final bosses Calus and Argos.
This ghost shell is meant to motivate passionate raiders to play the raid over and over again. There is a protection mechanism against bad luck: If you play the raid often, you will certainly receive the ghost sooner or later. Even if it takes several weeks, Bungie stated.
What can this ghost shell do?
The ghost shell has three special perks that are only active on the Leviathan:
Seeker of Brilliance: In every raid encounter, you have a chance to receive a lumina engram. Each time a lumina engram does not drop, the chance for the next encounter increases.
Seeker of Opulence: There is a 50% chance that – if you receive an exotic during a raid encounter – the exotic will be an exotic item you do not yet own. Otherwise, there is a 50% chance that it will be any exotic (it could be a new exotic or one you already own).
Seeker of Luck: Thanks to this perk, the ghost keeps track of how many encounters you have completed on the Leviathan.
Auchenpaugh adds at the end that he knows this won’t solve all issues, but he hopes this is a good start. He looks forward to receiving much feedback from the community about these changes next week.
Monster Hunter World has finally been released for Playstation 4 and Xbox One, and countless players are creating cool hunters in the editor. Therefore, we want to know: What does your hunter look like and how have you customized your cat?
The action RPG Monster Hunter World by Capcom impresses with a beautiful, vibrant world full of giant monsters. And with a really detailed character editor. And there’s even an extra editor just for your Palico cat companion! Therefore, the editor of Monster Hunter World made it into our selection of games with the best character editors.
Before we want to see your heroes and cats, we will show you here a few examples from our editorial team.
Leya and Ms Top-Ket
Our Monster Hunter expert and tester Leya has immortalized herself as the namesake avatar in the game. Her hunter is a rather wiry woman with a wild gray mane. The virtual Leya is accompanied by her Palico “Ms Top-Ket”.
The cute cat with different eye colors is black and white and looks a bit like a raccoon with color inversion on its face. However, that was not the reason for the fur pattern. Rather, the Palico is based on a real cat from Leya’s childhood.
Irie and Waffles
Our author Echo Mirage has a fondness for red hair. Her hunter therefore also has a fox-red mane. Additionally, there are multicolored eyes. One is green and the other is more amber-colored. A relic from her time in Final Fantasy XI, where she played a Blue Mage with Monster Eye.
Her Palico is called Waffles. Waffles is a pitch-black Palico, but hopefully won’t bring bad luck. The hunt for giant monsters like Nergigante or Kirin is already hard enough!
Show us your monster hunters!
But enough about the tough monster killers from our editorial team! We now want to know what heroes and Palicos you have created in the editor! Write it in the comments and upload your screenshots!
The Overwatch League is facing increasing allegations. Recently, it was accused of having racist tendencies. It involves controversial internet memes. What is the truth behind these allegations?
It started with the Pepe meme, which is unfortunately often associated with ideologies on the extreme right. Viewers displayed a banner featuring the well-known meme during a Dallas Fuel game.
The Pepe banner was confiscated, and the whole issue could have been peacefully buried. But that was just the beginning.
The “Ugandan Knuckles” Case
However, a whisper went through the OWL-affiliated internet when the first shirts and banners featuring the Ugandan Knuckles meme were spotted in the audience. Additionally, three teams used the meme in tweets: Dallas Fuel, San Francisco Shock, and the Los Angeles Valiant. These tweets have since been deleted.
It seems there was little awareness of the negative associations of both memes. Players from San Francisco Shock referenced the meme while the entire audience could witness it live.
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By nature, Ugandan Knuckles does not appear racist at all. Created as a parody of the Sonic character Knuckles, it appeared well in Gregzilla’s video .
However, when connected and placed in the wrong context, it can take on a different side. When an African accent, and thus a specific ethnicity, is deliberately associated with harassment towards women, inappropriate behavior, and jokes about Ebola, then the otherwise harmless meme takes on an unpleasant nature. In particular, it gained popularity in this form within the game “VR Chat”, spilling over into other communities.
And those who condemn it and cannot respect any team that associates with it.
The fact is, the teams listen to the criticism. The tweets have since been deleted.
Dallas Fuel also expressed itself upon request to Kotaku: “We will no longer use the meme on our social media channels and will no longer engage with it.”
This once again shows the problem that the OWL is still young and that there seems to be a lack of awareness regarding the impact and reach in public. Some topics are very sensitive to handle on the internet, whether one stands behind the criticism or not.
Guddy states: “I believe many players and viewers do not realize what the use of the meme can express – even if one is against racism. It’s difficult to look into others’ heads and know what they associate with any meme. Therefore, I consider condemning individual teams at this point to be rather premature.”
14 hours of maintenance work on Fortnite were not well received by fans or developers. A database error caused gray hairs and angry curses. The good news is: Fortnite is back online. The bad news: There are still bugs.
From midday hours in our time until late at night, the servers of Fortnite were offline yesterday, on January 25th. What was initially planned as a routine maintenance to deploy a rather unspectacular patch turned into a maintenance marathon.
Routine maintenance turns into a nightmare
Praiseworthy: Epic Games tried to show transparency during the maintenance period. They tweeted updates and engaged with fans. Unfortunately, the big explanation post “What went wrong?” was published in their own forum – which quickly crashed. Therefore, the team turned to reddit to describe their issues.
Apparently, they had decided to address a database error during the maintenance, which led to catastrophe. Then they wanted to restore the database, which did not work. And thus a routine operation turned into a maintenance day for Fortnite.
These bugs plague update 2.30 / 1.38:
Since about midnight our time, the servers are back online, but they have already issued a list of bugs that still plague patch 2.30 / 1.38:
Some players get stuck in the crosshair when aiming with a weapon using iron sights
There are visual issues with the interface when trying to build
And there are problems when reloading
Epic says: They are aware of these bugs, they are addressing them and working on a fix. Hopefully, it will run smoother than the last patch.
Additionally, Epic has offered compensation. Details are not available at the moment.
For those wondering: What is actually in the patch we have been waiting for so long? Here is the answer:
On February 15, the Age of Wolves begins. Season 5 of the multiplayer action game For Honor focuses mainly on hero balancing, matchmaking, and performance.
One of the biggest points of criticism for For Honor has always been the quality of the network connection. This will change with Season 5, starting on February 15.
The infrastructure for dedicated servers was already tested in December and will soon provide you with a better gaming experience. However, the new servers will likely not be ready at the start of Season 5 but will be implemented during the season. A detailed schedule will be announced later.
Season 5 brings a lot of new features
Ubisoft explains the upcoming changes:
Dedicated Servers: The test in December was successful and enough data for the infrastructure of the dedicated servers was collected. The servers prevent re-synchronizations, session migrations, and NAT requirements and stabilize the connection on all platforms.
Hero Updates: The heroes Kensei, Conqueror, Highlander, Berserker, and Nobushi will receive updates to ensure better balancing. There will be new movesets, gear, and animations for Kensei and the Conqueror. Highlander, Berserker, and Nobushi will also be improved in balancing. The other classes will follow after Season 5.
New Training Features: New training modes will ensure that new players learn the basics of the game in the Initiate Trials and Warrior Trials modes as well as advanced techniques.
Arena Mode: Advanced heroes will face specific heroes to train moves and prepare for all possible combat situations.
This is also included
In addition, Season 5 brings an item that increases experience points in exchange for materials. Moreover, the 4v4 ranked mode will switch from “Dominion” to “Tribute.” A new reputation level cap will be introduced, and new gear advancements will be enabled.
In Destiny 2 you can now take part in PvP and win “legendary prizes”, such as a motorcycle: Rockstar has launched a Crucible challenge with a leaderboard.
At the launch of Destiny 2, there was a promo campaign between Activision and “Rockstar Energy Drink”. You could buy Rockstar cans, each containing a code that could be redeemed for in-game rewards as well as, with a bit of luck, some physical prizes like limited Destiny 2 editions or even motorcycles.
A new promotional campaign from Rockstar related to Destiny 2 is now running: The “Rockstar Energy Crucible Challenge”.
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You play Crucible matches in Destiny 2 to earn points
The more points you have, the higher you rank on the leaderboard on the Rockstar page.
The 10 Guardians with the most points will receive prizes once the challenge is over
How do I earn points?
Once you are registered for the challenge, you will earn points after each Crucible match in Destiny 2:
+25 points for completing a competitive game
+25 points for completing a quick game
+1 point for each opponent you defeat (kill/assist)
Important: You must complete the PvP matches to earn points.
What prizes are there?
Only the top 10 Guardians on the leaderboard will receive rewards.
1st Place: The winner receives the best prize – a motorcycle in Destiny 2 and Rockstar style. It is a custom build of a Husqvarna 701 Enduro: The Top 3 receive PC hardware: each bundle includes an Aurora tower, a 25” gaming monitor, a Pro keyboard, and an elite mouse:The Top 10 will receive a collector’s edition of Destiny 2 with all its contents:
What else do I need to know about the Rockstar Challenge?
The challenge has been running since January 25.
The challenge ends on March 12 at 6 AM (our time). There is a countdown on the Rockstar page.
The challenge is also valid in Germany!
Top ten prizes are only available for Guardians from the USA, Canada, the UK, and Germany.
You must be 18 years or older.
Registration is through a valid Bungie.net account.
Registration, the leaderboard, and all other information and official rules can be found on the Rockstar page.
The start of the closed beta of Sea of Thieves did not go as planned. Now the developers are extending the test phase due to significant issues.
On January 24, the pirate adventure Sea of Thieves launched into closed beta. However, only for a portion of the players. Errors caused participants to be excluded right from the start, and some still are. This particularly affects the pre-orderers of the game.
The team apologizes for the errors and is postponing the end of the beta to a later date.
Beta end postponed, solution on the way
On the Sea of Thieves website, the developers comment on the current status of the beta. Many players receive a “Too early” message that prevents them from testing the closed beta. The solution is already in rollout. This means it will be gradually unlocked for different regions and affected accounts. However, according to the developers, this will take longer than planned.
To make up for the lost days when affected players could not play due to the “Too early” error, the closed beta will be extended by two days. This means the test phase will end on Wednesday, January 31, at 09:00.
The goal of the developers is that every player with access to the closed beta can participate.
The bonuses of the Collector’s Edition for the next expansion of World of Warcraft have been extracted from the game data. We reveal what awaits you.
The current update of World of Warcraft, Patch 7.3.5, has been live for several weeks now, yet data miners are still finding new hints and information in the depths of the game data. Three new achievements have been discovered that each distinguish the character as the owner of the Collector’s Edition of Battle for Azeroth.
Since Battle for Azeroth has a strong focus on the difference between Horde and Alliance, there are two different mounts.
Alliance players receive the Seabraid Stallion, evidently a horse with special adornments.
Horde players will have the Gilded Ravasaur, a mount raptor, presumably with the adornments of the Zandalari trolls.
Both factions also receive a small pet, Tottle – a Tortollan, a new turtle species.
Currently, in addition to the achievements, there are only the icons of these rewards.
Further rewards for pre-orderers?
It is not yet known if there will be more rewards, for example for pre-ordering. However, fans speculate that pre-orderers may already create a new character of the Allied Races ahead of time. They would then have enough time to level the corresponding character so that it is ready for the launch of Battle for Azeroth to move to Zandalar and Kul Tiras.
Blizzard recently launched the Alpha of Battle for Azeroth. It is only a matter of time before pre-orders for the next WoW expansion will be possible. Typically, the corresponding bonuses will be immediately available in the game.
So far, none of these rewards have fitting models in the game; they may either be encrypted or simply not yet included in the game.
The ranking system of Hearthstone is being fundamentally changed. We will tell you how ranked matches will proceed in the future.
When the developers of Hearthstone implemented the ladder a few years ago, it quickly received criticism. After players had to grind hard for their ranks over the course of a month, they fell back down significantly at the start of a new month. Those who previously had the rank “Legend” found themselves back at rank 16.
This meant little fun for both sides. The “Legend” had little fun pulling inexperienced newcomers, and the newcomer did not enjoy his crushing defeat.
In March 2018, the ladder system of Hearthstone will finally undergo a more comprehensive revision.
From now on, players will need five stars to advance for each rank in Hearthstone. Previously, depending on the rank, only two, three, or four stars were needed to progress. Therefore, the progress is equal across all ranks, and the promotion experience is more uniform.
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Those who are now concerned that they will have to grind even more each month are mistaken. Because a second change should benefit all players: At the end of the season, you will only be demoted by four ranks. For example:
Players at rank 12 will land at rank 16
Players at rank 19 will land at rank 23
Players with the rank “Legend” will land at rank 4
This is intended to ensure that even at the start of a season, the professionals are already positioned high up, and the loss of rank is smaller.
With the change, the requirement to reach at least rank 20 to receive the monthly card back is also eliminated. Instead, you now need to win 5 games in ranked mode per month.
What do you think about the changes to the ranking system of Hearthstone? Has the ladder needed this overhaul for a long time? Or is this a clear case of “too little, too late”?
