In the MMO shooter Destiny , the Trials of Osiris will start over Easter on PS3, PS4, Xbox One and Xbox 360.
Today on Good Friday, March 25th, the Trials of Osiris already started at 6:00 PM, an hour earlier than usual. From next Friday, the normal start at 7:00 PM will resume, as we have switched to daylight saving time.
The Trials of Osiris will last until Tuesday at 11:00 AM. They are the weekly PvP event of Destiny, essentially “the raid among PvP modes.”
This week, the game will be played on one of the new “King of the Possessed” Crucible maps, on Frontier.
This is how the Trials of Osiris work in Destiny
The goal of the Trials of Osiris is to win in a best-of-9 match against other teams. It’s played three- against-three in an elimination mode: It’s important to eliminate the opponents and prevent their revival while trying to revive your own teammates as quickly as possible. Therefore, equipment items that allow for faster revives are particularly popular, such as the “Mark of Alpha Lupi” or “Light Behind Nemesis.”
The rewards are primarily obtained through bounties that can be picked up from Brother Vance. Extremely strong players aim for a 9-0 result on their passage, aided by the 3 buffs that can be activated on the card. If a 9-0 run is achieved, players receive an invitation to Mercury and can look forward to an “Adept” weapon. Elemental damage, however, no longer applies to it, unlike before.
As “special” rewards this week, there is a helmet at 5 wins and at 7 wins the shotgun “Binary Dawn.”
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
A new trailer for the upcoming shooter Doom has been released. This shows demons and power weapons in multiplayer mode.
A new trailer of Doom titled “The Power of Multiplayer” shows that the game will offer more than monotonous soldiers for you to run around with in multiplayer. According to the following trailer, you will be able to choose from four playable demons:
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These monstrous beings apparently do not need to wield weapons to destroy enemies: They are the weapon themselves. They are capable of grabbing opponents like dolls, tearing them apart, and tossing them around.
Additionally, four unique power-ups will be introduced in the game, including:
Invisibility
Quad Damage
Furthermore, three “devastating power weapons” will be showcased:
Chainsaw
Gauss Cannon
BFG
You can see how these weapons look in action in the video above.
Chat-Bot Tay from Microsoft transforms within a day from a nice teenager to a digital anti-Semite. Blame the internet as always.
Tay was intended as an innocent, learning chatbot. She was supposed to engage young Americans between 18 and 24, talking to them through her Twitter channel. She was meant to be “learning”, to learn from the chat users: “The more you talk to her, the smarter she gets,” Microsoft said. What could go wrong?
Numerous Tay conversation partners seemed to aim to provoke her into making provocative statements and fed her disturbing ideologies. She was supposed to say something about feminism, about Hitler, about the console war between Sony and Microsoft, essentially about every controversial topic, and they fed her hate speech. “Can we get the AI to say something completely terrible?” seemed to be the game of the hour.
The flood of information that users fed Tay quickly showed success. Rather than making Tay smarter, they transformed the AI into a typical internet troll, spewing out statements that were quite offensive. After Tay became an anti-feminist with a hatred towards Jews and an obsession with Hitler, Microsoft tried to make a few changes and ultimately pulled the plug. The account no longer tweets.
“Tay” went from “humans are super cool” to full nazi in <24 hrs and I’m not at all concerned about the future of AI pic.twitter.com/xuGi1u9S1A
What some see as proof that the online community brings out the worst in everyone, even an AI, is for others the final proof that Terminator is “visionary” and we should never trust artificial intelligences because they have no moral compass. Unlike us humans… exactly.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
The WoW brand in World of Warcraft is climbing to new record heights – is the brand even worth it anymore?
Game Time for In-Game Currency – Soon Too Expensive?
For those who do not want to pay 13€ every month for a subscription in World of Warcraft, there is the comfortable option to pay for their game time legally with in-game gold. For a while now, players have been able to buy the “WoW Token” in the shop for real money and then resell it in the auction house. This way, game time is exchanged for gold, a typical win-win-win situation. The seller gets a lot of gold without effort, the buyer gets game time just by playing, and Blizzard makes a few more euros (since a WoW Token is more expensive than a monthly subscription).
Currently (March 25, 2016, 12:00 PM), the price of the WoW Token on European servers is 87,802 gold – with an upward trend. Around Christmas, one could secure a token for just under 60,000 gold.
Now, it’s important to know that players do not set the price at which they sell a token. This is automatically determined by an algorithm that is based on how many players are offering a WoW token. If many WoW tokens are circulating, the price goes down; if the number decreases, it rises accordingly.
By the way, the price is regional, meaning for Europe. In America, one currently pays less than half (40,000 gold), while in Korea, they pay even more than double (178,600 gold).
Mein-MMO says: The price development of the WoW token is certainly not surprising. After all, World of Warcraft is currently in the “difficult months” without fresh content, as it will still take a while until “Legion” is ready to launch. For this reason, it seems logical that more and more players are temporarily turning their backs on the MMORPG, which could explain the current price increase of WoW tokens due to a decrease in supply.
At the same time, “loyal veterans” are accumulating more and more level 100 characters that generate several thousand gold daily through garrisons. The ones affected are definitely those players who have so far been able to earn the token “just barely” with their free time. However, it can be expected that with the release of the movie (and then the launch of Legion), the price will drop again.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
With today’s question, we want to know from you which free-to-play MMO is the best – and most importantly: why?
So many games, so little time
It’s Friday and once again time for a little Q&A session. The Easter weekend is just around the corner, which means gifts. Gifts are free. Free2Play is also free (What a transition, right?). But which free2play MMO is actually the best and why? What components must a game on the western market have to really blow you away? Good graphics, a fair cash shop, or regular updates?
Once you have decided this for yourself, which game is in the running:
Is it SWTOR because it can impress with exciting story content, WildStar with its crazy universe, Blade & Soul with action-packed PvP, Guild Wars 2 with its vast game world,Tera with its revealing character models, or Warframe, which is one of the most popular multiplayer shooters? Or is there another game that comes to mind? Let us know in the comments!
Cortyn says: I actually wanted to write Star Wars: The Old Republic into the article like a shot from a pistol, as we had also chosen it in the past as the top free-to-play MMORPG. However, that doesn’t apply with “Knights of the Fallen Empire” anymore, as the latest content is hidden behind the “paywall” of the subscription and the freshest chapters are not as convincing as the first ones were. For games like ArcheAge and Blade & Soul, I simply lack the time to make more in-depth assessments, so I will just leave both out.
Since I also don’t want to skillfully avoid and want to focus on Heroes of the Storm, I’ll lean far (and with thick nostalgia glasses) out of the window and say: WildStar. Anyone who has never played it should catch up on that in the coming months – if only because nobody really knows how much longer the game will last (Critical comments in 3, 2, 1…).
But enough about me! Which free2play MMO is your favorite and why? Which game do you not feel comfortable with at all? Let us know in the comments and join the discussion!
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In The Division, items and mods provide various bonuses. However, these are not explained in detail. How does “exotic damage” affect your gameplay?
During the last State of the Game, the developers of The Division discussed the effect of a specific bonus: exotic damage. This is not explained by the game itself, which is why many agents wonder what this special type of damage even does and whether it’s worth altering.
This is the influence of exotic damage in The Division
According to the developers, exotic damage refers to any damage in the game that is not dealt by weapons or melee attacks. This includes damage from fire, bleeding, explosions, and other types of damage that fall under this category.
The flamethrower of a Cleaner causes as much exotic damage as the grenades in The Division. A high resistance to this damage helps in various situations.
How can I influence exotic damage?
You will encounter exotic damage when you want to modify your items. Some mods indicate that they change this type of damage. Keep an eye out for them.
Additionally, at the Improvement Station in the operations base, there is a chance that you can modify this special damage on your gear. You can find out how the Improvement Station works in The Division here.
Next week, the focus will be on rewards, and we should also find out which exotic weapons and armor are being added. This will also affect the gentleman we want to take care of here: Xur.
All about Xur on March 25, 26, and 27 in Destiny on PS3, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox 360
When does Xur arrive and when does he leave again?
Xur arrives on Friday, March 25th, at 10:00 AM. He leaves on Sunday, March 27th, at 11:00 AM – this is due to the time change on the night from Saturday to Sunday. Next week, he will be there at 11:00 AM, just like the weekly reset on Tuesday.
Where is Xur?
Xur is located in the Hangar. Our friends from ProNDC will show you the way.
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As a legacy engram, Xur has a primary weapon engram. This can drop Year 1 items with Year 1 values. It costs 31 Strange Coins and is something for collectors.
In the latest card reveal for Hearthstone a new Old God has been introduced: N’Zoth, the Corruptor.
N’Zoth – The Friend of Deathrattle
As the name “Whispers of the Old Gods” suggests, the next Hearthstone expansion is all about these gods. After showcasing C’Thun during the initial announcement, now the second god follows: N’Zoth.
The legendary neutral minion N’Zoth, The Corruptor costs a hefty 10 mana, but only brings stats of 5/7 to the field. However, its true strength lies in its battlecry, which is: Resummon all your Deathrattle minions that died in this game. This can quickly turn an empty board into an acute threat. If more than 6 Deathrattle minions have died, it is randomly determined who returns to the battlefield.
Rogues receive the minion Undercity Huckster, for 2 mana with solid stats of 2/2. Its Deathrattle ensures that the owner gets a random card of the opponent’s class upon the minion’s death.
As a neutral minion, the (somewhat adorable) Brood of N’Zoth waits. The 2/2 creature for 3 mana has a deathrattle that grants all other friendly minions +1/+1. The card was showcased yesterday by the German site buffed.
Warlocks can finally renounce their dark machinations, as they receive a card that could simply be titled “interesting”. Renounce Darkness is a spell for 2 mana that ensures that the hero power and all class cards are swapped with the corresponding counterparts from another class. In addition, all swapped cards cost 1 mana less. While that sounds heavily RNG-based, it will also enable many fun decks, with which one might enjoy a round against friends.
From the big Korean site “Inven” comes this legendary neutral card, the Boogeymonster, with 6/7 for 8 mana, is quite a chunk. When it attacks and kills another minion, the Boogeymonster gains +2/+2 in Hearthstone.
For more news and articles about “Whispers of the Old Gods”, visit our Hearthstone theme page.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In the MMO shooter Destiny , players report the dates for the Iron Banner in March.
Bungie’s weekly updates on Thursday promise to deliver little information in the coming weeks. The most important announcements will be made during the streams on Wednesday.
The first was yesterday for the April update – we provided a detailed summary yesterday: The Prison of Elders returns in two variants, a “normal” level 41 version and a challenge mode for level 42. Light level increases to 335, and items with higher light levels will be available in both the Prison of Elders and in King’s Fall and the Court of Oryx.
In “This Week at Bungie,” there was another summary of what was discussed yesterday, along with a correction to the livestream: The Prison of Elders will not have checkpoints, despite what was said yesterday. It seems plans have changed. This happens when discussing things still in progress, says Community Manager DeeJ.
This is the Iron Banner in March for Destiny
The Iron Banner returns next Tuesday, March 29. It starts at 7:00 PM. The Iron Banner ends on Tuesday, April 5, at 11:00 AM. The mode is “Control.”
Available items from Lord Saladin include:
At rank 3, chest armors
At rank 4: hand cannons, gloves, and PlayStation-exclusive gloves
At rank 5: the machine gun
Drops after battles include:
From rank 2: chest armors
From rank 3: hand cannons, gloves, and PlayStation-exclusive gloves
The date that is likely more important to all fans of the game will be next Wednesday, when the rewards for the April update will be presented. The stream will start at 8:00 PM due to the time change. Bungie is already referring to it as a “Spring Fashion Show.” We will cover this with a live ticker in German.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
A total of 9 historical Soviet ships were added today to World of Warships. Check out the video to see what the new cruisers can do.
Starting today, March 24, 2016, the new update for World of Warships will also be available in Europe. Patch 5.4.0 brings a total of 9 new Soviet cruisers to the game, which players can use to dominate the seas. While historical accuracy has been prioritized again, there are also some new ships that never actually saw service in reality, but were planned (and in some cases even built) as successors to existing cruisers.
Unlike many other ships, the new ships have very powerful artillery: Powerful, precise, and with very long range. To balance this strength, however, most new cruisers have a very high citadel and a gigantic size, making them easy targets – provided they can be knocked out before the artillery strikes.
Since ships unfortunately present themselves so incredibly poorly (unless they are being controlled by anime girls), the lovely Dascha Perowa takes over in the video. Make sure to check it out to see everything that will be introduced with update 0.5.4 on the seas.
Developer Riot Games has added a new system to its MOBA League of Legends (LoL) that allows players to receive skins and champions as gifts. But how does it work?
As of today, the so-called Hextech Crafting is also available on the EU-West servers of League of Legends. Hextech Crafting is a system that rewards you for good games by giving you a chest. This is similar to other games like CS:GO or Team Fortress, where you need to buy keys with real money to open these chests. In League of Legends, that is not the case, as you can also receive these keys as rewards.
This is how Hextech Crafting works in LoL
The system is based, as mentioned, on chests and keys. With a key, you can open a chest and receive the loot contained within it. So let’s first look at how you can obtain such a chest.
Chests: How to get chests in LoL
Hextech chests are connected to the mastery system for the various champions in LoL.
You receive a chest if a member of your (premade) group or you yourself achieve a score of “S-” or higher after a game. It does not matter whether the game was a victory or a loss. Currently, this does not count for ARAM or 3v3 games, but only for matchmaking games in the Summoner’s Rift (5v5).
You can earn up to 4 chests per month, but only 1 per champion per season. This means that if you have received a chest while playing Draven in that game, you can only earn another chest with Draven next season. If Teemo has achieved the S rating in your team and you received the chest because of that, it still counts for the champion you played (Draven). To keep track, you can see in the champion overview on your profile which champion has already received a chest.
You have 4 opportunities to receive a free chest in a month. When you receive a chest, one of the 4 stacks is consumed – meaning you only have 3 stacks left. These stacks regenerate individually after 7 days.
If you enjoy opening chests so much that it’s worth money to you, you can also purchase chests and keys in the LoL shop with Riot Points.
Keys – How to obtain keys in LoL
Unlike chests, any queue can grant you a key – including ARAM and games in the twisted forest (3v3).
The chance of receiving a key exists only with a victory. However, this chance increases again, the larger your premade group is.
Keys come in the form of fragments. If you combine 3 of these fragments, you get a Hextech key.
Possible loot:
From the chests, you can receive the following loot:
Champion Shards
Cosmetic Shards – these include champion skins and ward skins
Permanent summoner icons, which are also combined with 150 cosmetic essences (needed for crafting)
All these rewards can come in combination with a rare gemstone, which gives you another package consisting of chest + key.
How to use shards?
I was lucky when opening my chest and received a shard for the skin “Master Chef Tahm Kench”. There are now various ways in which I can use this shard.
Re-rolling the shard: Combined with 2 other shards, you can re-roll them and receive a new, permanent skin – this skin is determined randomly. However, the newly rolled skin is independent of how much the 3 combined shards are worth. So I would rather advise against this.
Activating the shard: This gives me access to this skin for 7 days – the shard is consumed in the process.
Disenchanting the shard: By disenchanting the shard, you receive crafting material in the form of essences. The higher the RP cost of the skin, the more essences you receive.
Using essences to permanently unlock this skin for the account. The costs of the essences also depend on how much RP the skin would actually cost.
2 Different types of shards and essences
On one side, there are shards and essences for champions, and on the other side, there are shards and essences for cosmetic items. Both types have the same 4 options for how to use them, but they cannot interact with each other. So, for example, you cannot use 2 champion shards and 1 cosmetic shard together to re-roll a cosmetic shard.
If you already own all champions and therefore have no use for champion shards in LoL, Riot already has plans to provide a solution for that in the future.
Types of Chests
Hextech Chest: The standard chest – contains a random type of loot.
Premium Chest: This chest includes a shard for a champion you own, a random shard for a ward, and additionally 800 essences.
Chest for new players: At summoner level 5, you receive this chest. It contains a shard for Garen and Ashe, as well as a (relatively) random skin for one of these two champions. Additionally, you get some essences from the chest.
Summary
You receive chests by achieving an S rating in a game, either by you or someone in your group. Maximum 4 per month, 1x per champion in a season.
If you win games, you earn keys.
Use the shards to: Combine 3 into a new permanent skin, gain access to the loot for 7 days, disenchant to receive crafting material essences, or use essences to permanently bind the loot to your account.
And now: Have fun opening your chests. I can’t wait to see what loot you had in your first chests!
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In Star Wars Battlefront, the DLC Outer Rim introduced an annoying bug: players were automatically promoted to the maximum rank.
What sounds like a bug in favor of the players “automatically reaching level 60 – Yeah”, was in practice rather bothersome. Players experiencing this issue also encountered crashes after every match.
Therefore, DICE deployed a hotfix, resetting the rank of certain players, and then worked on the issues. This occurred today around noon our time on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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These issues in Star Wars Battlefront caused by Outer Rim and the associated patch should now be resolved: leveling occurs normally, even beyond rank 50. However, some additional issues with the Hutt Contracts still persist and are on the developers’ “To-Do” list.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
If you no longer like the gender and race of your character in Blade & Soul, you can change it now – at least in Korea. We have the details.
From Male to Female – Adjustments in Blade & Soul Made Easy
In many MMORPGs, such a feature is standard; now Blade & Soul is following suit – at least in the Korean version. From now on, players there can adjust the gender and race of their character as long as they purchase the corresponding vouchers from the cash shop.
There are 2 options: you can either buy a “gender change” and redesign gender, appearance, and voice, or you can buy the more expensive “race change,” which also allows you to redefine the species.
It is probably only a matter of time before this feature is also implemented in the western version of the game. However, there are no concrete statements or a binding date, but “our” version of the game still has to catch up on some content patches.
More and more reports are emerging that Sony is working on an improved PS4 model. The new device is said to be called Playstation 4K.
Just last week, the gaming website Kotaku reported that Sony held a meeting with developers at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco to discuss their hardware. Kotaku heard that the developers subsequently spoke of a “PS4.5,” increased performance, 4K resolution, and Playstation VR.
As Eurogamer now reports, these rumors are true, and they have been able to “confirm” them themselves. Sony has already designed prototypes of this device, which according to several sources is said to be called Playstation 4K.
However, this name might not be entirely fitting, as the “Playstation 4K” would provide more graphics power, but not enough to deliver a stable 4K gaming experience. The hardware upgrade is still not sufficient to justify a move into 4K gaming. However, it is likely that the device supports 4K format media playback.
The new console is said to come with a more powerful graphics processor, an improved version of AMD’s APU technology. According to Digital Foundry, this processing unit could transition from a 28nm chip to a 14 or 16nm chip, which represent the new industry standards.
In response to inquiries from Kotaku, Sony declined to comment. A spokesperson shared via email:
We cannot comment on rumors or speculation.
A more powerful PS4 would enable Sony to maintain competitiveness in the virtual reality market, as the pricier VR headsets from Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are designed to run on powerful PCs.
However, it remains to be seen until Sony addresses the matter and reveals official information. If it were necessary to purchase a completely new console, it would surely upset current PS4 owners. After all, a console is expected to remain relevant for several years: and the PS4 has only been on the market since late 2013. How such a “mid-generation hardware” upgrade would look is unclear.
The German online games company Bigpoint has been sold to the Chinese developer and publisher Youzu Interactive.
The purchase price, according to the news agency Reuters, is around 80 million euros. This price is somewhat surprising, as Bigpoint’s value was estimated at 600 million US dollars in 2011. The success at that time led to the investment firms Summit Partners and TA Associates investing 350 million dollars in the company. At the time, it was hoped that Bigpoint’s value would increase to more than one billion dollars. But things turned out quite differently.
The Declining Success of Bigpoint
In 2012, online games such as Drakensang Online and Farmerama still achieved annual sales of nearly 127 million dollars. By 2014, it was no longer even 67 million dollars. In the same year, the company reported a loss of more than 21 million dollars. Since then, no numbers have been released.
The company’s founder and then CEO Heiko Hubertz left the company at the end of 2012, but still holds 30 percent of Bigpoint. Hubertz and the other investors are likely not pleased with the “bargain price” at which the company has now been sold to Youzu.
Observers say that Bigpoint’s competitors have increasingly focused on mobile games in recent years and are consequently in a better position now.
The Company Does Not Give Up
Youzu Interactive Co, Ltd was founded in 2009 by Lin Qi and distributes online games internationally such as League of Angels and Magerealm. Currently, they are working together with Bigpoint on a new game titled “Hocus Puzzle.” For the global distribution of the game, they have set aside a marketing budget of more than 30 million euros.
Khaled Helioui, CEO of Bigpoint, says: “With this collaboration, a new chapter in Bigpoint’s corporate history begins, focusing solely on the quality of the published titles. Thanks to the support from Youzu, we can continue to invest in our talented developers, the great experiences they create, and the reach of our games. Lin Qi’s passion and his vision for the industry, along with our commitment to continually providing our players with better experiences, complement each other beautifully. Collaborating with a player- and product-focused organization like Youzu allows us to achieve our goal: Great games for everyone.”
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In The Division, an agent has created a tool that allows you to create and share routes in the Dark Zone.
If you’ve always wanted to create a route for the Dark Zone, or already have one and want to share it with the community, now you have a tool for that. Reddit user gamegenius86, actually Michael Lynch, has created an interactive map that allows you to do this. The tool is free and accessible to everyone.
These are the features of the map tool
You can find this map tool on the website The Division Agent. While some features are planned for future implementation, the following are already available:
You can find all interesting places in the Dark Zone with this map, including information such as “Second Floor” and similar, so you can get where you want to go. In addition to a zoom function, the tool also offers various filters for you to choose what to display.
Everyone has their own way of navigating the Dark Zone. With this tool, you can connect the respective places and create individual routes for yourself. This way, you’ll never forget how you once traveled.
Walking this marked path probably isn’t worth it. But Ttime found out: The tool works!
Furthermore, you can share these self-created routes with your friends and the entire community. The tool provides you with a URL that you can give to those who should see your route. We tried the fun ourselves: It works (at least at the time this article was written) flawlessly.
Some updates are still planned, which will be integrated soon, including additional icon additions on the map (e.g., names of named enemies). The site is also planned to become more mobile-friendly.
What do you think of this tool? Will you use it for your journey through the Dark Zone?
In FIFA 16, Mohamad Al-Bacha from Denmark was crowned the new champion of the FIFA Interactive World Cup (FIWC).
The 17-year-old Mohamad Al-Bacha narrowly defeated the Englishman Sean Allen in the FIWC final and can now celebrate this champion title. The final could hardly have been more exciting.
The FIWC champion narrowly won with France
After Mohamad played to a 2:2 draw against Sean Allen in the first leg on the Playstation 4, he fought back in the second leg on the Xbox One after trailing 1:3 and finally secured the victory with a 3:3 final score in the last minute.
In this year’s annual FIWC tournament, the games were held for the first time on both leading gaming consoles in the world, the Playstation 4 and Xbox One. Thus, Mohamad Al-Bacha is the first “Interactive FIFA World Footballer” to win the tournament on multiple platforms.
While his English opponent played with Brazil, the new champion played with France, with Antoine Griezmann proving particularly valuable, as Al-Bacha scored important goals in the 89th and 92nd minutes with this player.
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The trophy was presented to him by David Villa, who became world champion with Spain in 2010 in South Africa. Additionally, Mohamad Al-Bacha will receive $20,000 and an invitation to the FIFA Ballon d’Or.
Accordingly, Al-Bacha’s joy was immense:
The victory in this competition is beyond words for me. I have really worked hard on myself in recent months and did everything to deliver my best performance here in New York. Receiving the winner’s trophy from David Villa is fantastic, and I can hardly believe that this is all really happening!
More than 2.3 million players from around the world participated in the online qualification of the largest video game tournament in the world, but only 32 players made it to New York, where the finals were held. Notably, the only German participants did not make it past the round of 16.
The latest patch of Overwatch brings a lot of fresh content: new map, achievements, game mode. We have the details.
Route 66 and the “Hearthstone mode”
With the latest patch, Overwatch received a fresh map, this time for the “Payload” game mode. The infamous Route 66 is to be traversed, reminiscent of a scenario from the Wild West. Especially McCree feels at home here and acts as the sheriff enforcing order.
A bit of inspiration was also taken from Hearthstone , as the “Card Chaos” mode is imported from there, just in Overwatch style. Every week, there is a different game mode with special restrictions or presets that can also be made in private matches.
To get started, there’s the “Super Shimada Bros”: Here the map Hanamura is played, and only Genji and Hanzo can be chosen as characters. Blizzard warns, however, that this mode is currently still an experiment and they want to learn from player feedback whether it is well received.
Achievements and Prestige
As a cherry on top, the game now has numerous achievements. The successes are, quite typically Blizzard, divided into several categories. There’s something for every playstyle, and while many yield only ominous points with no benefit, others grant small rewards, like new icons for the player profile.
Achievements provide new motivation.
Players above level 100 can now “promote” their account and reset it back to level 1. This reduces the player level, but ensures that players can earn loot boxes much faster again, as the required experience points in the early levels are significantly lower.
In addition, there have been numerous other bug fixes and minor changes. You can find all the patch notes in detail as usual in our sources.
In summary, the patch feels very polished, and especially the whole “small stuff” that has been added brings plenty of motivation and mid-term goals that encourage players to spend more time in the game.
P.S.: Oh yes, there were of course new skins (Click to enlarge).
For more news and articles about Blizzard’s hero shooter, you can find them on our Overwatch theme page.
Some agents have been complaining for days that they are locked out of their account in The Division. Massive is now working on a solution.
In social networks and forums, agents have been complaining for over a week that they can no longer play The Division. Apparently, a bug with the high-end backpacks is preventing players from logging into their account.
According to some Reddit users, crafting a backpack causes a bug that locks agents out of future game launches. Allegedly, those affected have already contacted technical support days ago, but with no success. The only response in a forum was that they should stop spamming.
Massive is working on a solution, together with the community
The community manager Natchai Stappers has responded to these reports from the agents and opened a thread in the Ubi forum yesterday, where agents can share their experiences with this problem.
He states that they are aware of this problem, that some players are locked out of their accounts. He has also heard that this bug predominantly occurs when crafting a high-end backpack. They are working to resolve the issue – this is a main priority at the moment.
Natchai then asks the agents to assist them in finding a solution by answering some questions about this issue.
From the agents’ responses, it can be deduced that this bug occurs across platforms and has been causing issues for over a week. Most agents report that they crafted a high-end backpack, while some only had one dropped. Subsequently, items went missing and the agents were locked out.
When asked if there was any news on this issue, Natchai responded this morning via Twitter that there is nothing new yet, but the team is working hard on it.
@ufc_gooner no eta yet, theyre working as hard as they can on it
Did Studio Wildcard actually design the MMORPG ARK: Survival Evolved? Another developer claims that a former employee stole technology used for the MMO.
Trendy Entertainment, known for the online game Dungeon Defenders, filed a lawsuit against Studio Wildcard last December. Trendy Entertainment claims that a former employee, designer Jeremy Stieglitz, secretly worked for Wildcard on ARK, thus breaching his contract.
As is common in the industry, Stieglitz had to agree upon leaving Trendy not to compete with his former employer for a period of time. However, during this time he contacted former colleagues to ask if they wanted to work with him on a new game.
Is ARK based on stolen technology?
Trendy informed Stieglitz that this was not permitted. According to the company, Stieglitz did not comply with the request and thus did not adhere to the contract. Furthermore, he is accused of having stolen technology he worked on during his time at Trendy, as well as trade secrets.
Technology used to develop the MMORPG ARK: Survival Evolved. This would have had a strong negative impact on Trendy’s business. The company further states that it sees ARK as a direct competitor to Dungeon Defenders.
Will ARK be taken off the market?
Wildcard, however, states that Jeremy Stieglitz was not very heavily involved in the development of ARK and was just an advisor. However, his wife is a co-founder of the ARK developer studio.
However, Trendy has now filed a lawsuit in Florida. The hearings are set for April 27. If Trendy is granted a temporary restraining order, it would have severe implications for the MMO ARK. There may be a need to completely cease work and remove the game – both in the PC version and the Xbox One version – from the market.
Wildcard urged the court not to grant the lawsuit. A response is still pending. Both companies have so far not publicly commented on this case.
A report from the US sounds almost like a secret plan
Schuhmann says: In a detailed report from Kotaku, which goes into some background, the whole case appears to be extremely tangled and complicated. Stieglitz and the head of Ark, Jesse Rapzack, are long-time friends who met in college. However, Stieglitz could not directly join Ark because a “Non-Compete” clause from his time at Trendy prevented him from doing so. However, he had already shortened it from 3 years to 1 year, it is said. This could suggest that he was already contemplating a transition to Ark during his time at Trendy Games and had prepared for it.
Stieglitz left Trendy under difficult circumstances, sensing betrayal and intrigue. Kotaku states: Many developers from Trendy indeed later moved to Ark.
There is indeed a “narrative” or perspective that, according to Kotaku’s statements, lends the whole affair a hint of “secret plan and conspiracy.” However, it is puzzling what technology Stieglitz could have taken from “Trendy Games,” known for the tower defense game Dungeon Defenders, to significantly support “Ark.”
And the co-founder of the studio, Susan Stieglitz, seems not to have much to do with the gaming industry; her other business is a bakery. This raises the suspicion that she is stepping in “on behalf of her husband.” Such ideas are at least suggested by the report from Kotaku.
The clear factual situation looks very different.
It seems to come down to the question of whether Stieglitz really played a significant role at Ark while he contractually should not have – that is the crucial question right now.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
