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Lawmaker: Chile and Texas don't share a flag, y'all
The current roster of emojis includes many national flags, but not state-specific ones. So, left with few other options, people have taken to using the Chilean flag emoji (🇨🇱) to signify Texas pride. This makes sense considering how much the two flags look alike, but one Texas lawmaker has had enough.
Google Chrome tests out a more personal New Tab page
A recent change to the Chrome Dev build on Android could indicate a new feature coming to the browser soon. Android Police points out that users are seeing a Google Now-powered content list on their devices, and I was able to pull it up easily after installing the test version of the app on my device. Google Reader it isn't, but it does bring the personalized suggestions closer to people who might not open the Search bar as often as their browser.
SOE offers EQ and EQII rewards with Landmark pre-orders
Here's a gift idea for that sandbox MMO nut on your Christmas list: EverQuest Next Landmark Founder's Packs. Well, probably just one Founder's Pack, but you get the idea. SOE has updated its website with pre-order gifting functionality, and the company has also added a wee bit of extra incentive for current players of both EverQuest and EverQuest II. That incentive takes the form of an in-game flag corresponding to your Settler, Explorer, or Trailblazer Founder's Pack purchase. You can either use the flag as a home decoration or "carry it along with you during your adventures in Norrath."
Korean players protest a flag in World of Warships
When you're dealing with a global market, sometimes it's the most innocuous elements that cause a problem. World of Warships, cousin to both World of Tanks and World of Warplanes, included something that made several Korean gamers very angry: A flag. Specifically, the Rising Sun flag on several Japanese ships. From Wargaming.net's perspective, since the game is meant to have players at the helm of ships used by the major armies involved in World War II, including a period-appropriate decoration was perfectly reasonable. However, to several players in the region, the Rising Sun flag is seen as a reminder of Japanese military expansion and aggression, which is still a sensitive topic in many regions. The company's representatives posted on the official forums that the flag will be removed from the game, with the added clarification that the team is trying to be as sensitive as possible to cultural differences. The game is currently in testing and is due for general release later this year.
EVE Evolved: Player justice in Retribution
This week CCP released a new devblog on upcoming piracy and PvP changes heading to EVE Online with this winter's Retribution expansion. In addition to new ships and an as-yet unrevealed bounty hunter revamp, Retribution completely redesigns the Crimewatch system that decides whom you can legally shoot and stops players from docking or jumping out of the system in the middle of combat. EVE's aggression mechanics are notoriously complicated and buggy, but Retribution aims to simplify the system and put players in the driving seat of criminal justice. The new Crimewatch system not only gets rid of old, undocumented code that was written when dinosaurs roamed the earth but also has far-reaching consequences for pirates, people engaging in PvE and the upcoming bounty hunting revamp. Pirates will now be able to escape into high-security space without police intervention, loot thieves will be subjected to mob justice, nullsec ratters won't be as safe as they think, and neutral remote repairing will be a thing of the past. In this week's EVE Evolved, I delve into Crimewatch 2.0 and how the Retribution expansion will change the game for pirates, ratters, and people engaging in PvP across New Eden.
Wasteland Diaries: Faction control points
Faction control points are the newest PvP draw in Fallen Earth. They're still in their infancy, but I have already seen an increase in faction control point PvP. Factional warfare has always taken a backseat to clan warfare in Fallen Earth. At least for as long as I can remember. Right now, clan warfare vs. factional warfare is dividing the FE community. A rift between omni-clans and single-faction clans has resulted in more clan warfare, with factions completely disregarded. Faction control points were an effort to add some meaningful faction-based PvP to the game. In some ways it succeeds and in some ways it fails. I was able to get in there and test these faction control points this week. I died plenty, but I also slew more this week than I had in a long time. I was able to test them exhaustively alone and with a group. I was able to witness the dynamic of six different warring factions in one small town. If that wasn't confusing enough, there was also a layer of clan politics muddling things up even more. After the cut, I'll give you the low-down on faction control points (FCPs for short), detailing my personal experiences with them, and how they have changed the face of FE so far.
The Art of War(craft): Battleground Achievements part I
You've seen it happen. Players fighting on the road or midfield, ignoring the Battleground's objective. Or sometimes the opposite, such as Alterac Valley races where players ignore each other in a mad rush to the opposing army's General. In Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard will introduce Achievements, a system that measures a player's... well, achievements in the game. There's a category that tracks PvP Achievements, as well, including some interesting goals for the Battlegrounds. The question is, will these Achievements actually improve the Battlegrounds PvP experience or ruin it? On the surface, it looks as though the various Battlegrounds Achievements are designed to improve World of Warcraft PvP. Achievements like Frenzied Defender, which requires players to return the flag five times in a single Warsong Gulch battle, seem like the perfect solution to get players to actually try and win the game. The Achievements also add a little spice to every game, where players can pursue personal goals which contribute to the overall objective.
Breaking news: In Eye of the Storm, towers > flag
Let's get one thing straight: in Eye of the Storm, capturing towers is more important than capturing the flag. I don't care how shiny and cool the flag is, that's not where the points are coming from. Well, okay, maybe some of it, but if you don't have any towers to begin with, the flag isn't worth squat. For the past week or so, I've seen a disturbing trend from the Horde on my Battlegroup -- there seems to be a growing fascination with fighting at the middle of the map, right where the flag is.I wrote about Eye of the Storm and the basics of how it's played. In Patch 2.3, the Battleground was modified so that flag captures will scale with the number of towers your side controls. I can't stress the importance of capturing towers enough. In EotS, unlike Arathi Basin, points are awarded constantly every 2 seconds, regardless of how many towers you control. However, these points scale with each tower you control, as shown by the table on the right. Capturing the flag with only one tower (I mean, why?) will award your team 75 points. If your team controls two towers, it's worth 85 points; three, it's worth 100; and controlling all four towers means a swift and painless (ok, maybe not painless) death for your opponents as each flag cap is worth a whopping 500 points.It scales, people. And here's the one, brutal truth about the whole thing: it is mathematically impossible to win the game if you control only one tower. Go ahead, make some calculations.Done? The only way it can be done is if you can capture the flag every 37.5 seconds, which honestly is barely enough time and necessitates complete unmolested passage. Good luck with that. If your side controls only one tower, just don't bother with mid. Get another tower asap. If your team is down one tower to your opponents' three, and you still go after the flag, you are an idiot not helping your team at all. The one and only time it becomes acceptable is with the intention of keeping the flag until your team secures another tower. That way it actually becomes more strategic and less moronic.
PotBS user content submissions are open again
In case you weren't aware, Pirates of the Burning Sea is all for the user content submissions and it just happens that flag and sail submissions have been reopened. That's right, you can craft flags and sails of your own with the help of a dedicated forum. Then, after getting that perfect design it can be submitted for developer approval. Optionally, feel free to spread the word on your new flag or sail and get some votes for the sticky thread where people will do just that -- vote on your stuff! Flags and sails aren't the only things you can create, submit and eventually see in-game. Flying Lab Software also loves it when you design and submit ships as well. This could lead to some very cool community projects in the future. Unfortunately right now the ship forums are a bit sparse, mostly due to a forums move that happened a while back. We think that given the creativity of several other MMO communities, it's not unreasonable to expect some truly amazing designs from the ship-obsessed fans of PotBS.
Flying Lab unfurls second round of flag-making contest
In the seventeenth century, it was a fairly well known fact that pirates just weren't very creative folk. Swashbucklers? Sure. Dastardly dogs? Absolutely. Drunken, whoring scallywags? Even on their worst days. But they couldn't put a brush to a canvas if their very lives depended on it. Consequently, Flying Lab Studios has put out a bounty on creative pirate-lovers, offering fame and fortune in exchange for flag-designs to adorn the NPC pirate ships in Pirates of the Burning Sea.In a related forum thread, they've given the backgrounds on a number of gangs to offer inspiration to erstwhile flag-makers, as well as offering tips and submission guidelines for those new to the art. We weren't able to track down what specific kind of loot they're giving winners, but the prospect of having user content included in a retail game is almost exciting enough on its own.
Players deal with even more patch bugs
Bugs aplenty in 2.0.3. We mentioned a few yesterday, including the raid promotion issues and the disappearing target frame issues, but players keep finding more.Peridoc from Daggerspine has collected a bunch of them, including the ones above, delays on some characters in the loading screen, and alignment on the Battlegrounds score sheet.Lots of people (including our good commenters) are mentioning that icons have gone all wacky everywhere-- some icons have completely disappeared and some just show the wrong thing. Some textures have messed up, too. Blizzard is collecting the issues here, along with video card specs, which means it's probably a driver problem-- upgrading the drivers on your videocard wouldn't hurt. If you've got an Nvidia, you can get those here. Just know that it is being worked on.Finally, MBAzeroth (and some more commenters) have said there's a problem in AV (and, I believe AB): flags can be capped from many yards away. Obviously, that makes defense pretty unmanageable. Blizzard knows about the issue, and is, as always, working on it.If you've got more bugs, you can include them below, but don't forget to drop them on Blizzard's tech support site, too-- the quicker they know about them, the quicker we'll see them fixed. Someone said the target frame thing was a problem with CTRaid, so updating addons wouldn't hurt, but most of these are real bugs (I'm guessing they have to do with little upgrades to the actual game engine for the expansion, but that's just a guess). At any rate, when you head out into Azeroth, be ready with your bugspray.
