Madness
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Deranged magnet shoes claim to let you walk on the moon
It's one of those ideas that seems inspired at 3am after several beverages too many, but insane in the cold, harsh light of the following morning. Look, yeah, why not create a shoe that's got two sets of repelling magnets pointed at each other, so that the wearer will feel, right, as if they're floating on air, yeah? That's the concept behind 2016 MoonWalker, an Indiegogo campaign for shoes that claim to make you feel as if you're defying gravity with every step.
DDO Update 24: Heart of Madness goes live tomorrow
Tomorrow, Dungeons and Dragons Online will be getting its last big patch of the year, Update 24: Heart of Madness. Considering the cheery title, one might expect scarring challenges and experiences that will drive your average player insane (including using yourself as a puzzle piece to get through a fiendish game). The crux of the patch centers around an invasion from the plane of madness to Eberron, with popular D&D figures like the Lord of Eyes, the Lord of Stone, and Yalthoon the Mindflayer. Players will tackle a trio of high-level madness-themed dungeons in this paid adventure pack, although there will also be a fourth free dungeon that's part of the ongoing Wizards of the Coast Tyranny of Dragons event. Update 24 will also come with cosmetic armor effects, smarter AI monster champions, and a revamp of Barbarian enhancements.
Twitch Plays Pokemon breaking bad, now on Crystal
Twitch Plays Pokemon's romp through the Kanto region concluded with Pokemon Champion status yesterday, freeing protagonist Red from the playerbase's rule via thousands of button prompts. Dominating one region with a Pidgeot, Zapdos and Venemoth isn't enough for Twitch, though - it wants to be the very best, and continuing its campaign for glory this morning in Pokemon Crystal's Johto region seems like the next logical step. Progression will bear similarity to the jumbled process used for Pokemon Red, with many simultaneously guiding the journey of one. Previously, players voted whether the game would be played in Democracy mode, where players vote on every action, or Anarchy mode, where the game interpreted every command. This time, a countdown timer that marks the arrival of Democracy mode has been added. At the time of this writing, the stream also has over 80,000 concurrent viewers. The communal journey through Pokemon Red was made possible by the work of an anonymous programmer and has inspired a wealth of memes, religious themes and political debates. We've explored the social elements of the phenomenon, getting MIT associate professor T.L. Taylor's thoughts on why the project has connected with so many. It remains to be seen whether Pokemon Crystal will inspire its own installment of Pokelore, or if the previous campaign's highlights and Helix deity will keep the second adventure's direction from being as fresh as the first's bizarre, player-created story. [Image: The Pokemon Company]
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR's changing combat in update 2.5
Let's talk about the combat changes coming in Star Wars: The Old Republic Update 2.5. We'll see pretty large sweeping changes to a couple of my favorite classes and some much-needed changes to others. Some of the changes make me question the thought processes of the designers, and some much-needed changes seem to be absent. I don't consider myself a combat design expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I have played every class in SWTOR extensively with the exception of the Bounty Hunter and Trooper classes. But then those two classes aren't seeing any major changes in Update 2.5. Therefore, I don't have much to talk about with them anyway. My favorite class is the Marauder/Sentinel, so the nerfs and upgrades to that class are dear to me. But I also really enjoy the Operative/Scoundrel class as well. This class will see (and frankly, not see) some changes in the upcoming patch. But I believe the class that is affected the most is the Madness/Balance-specced Inquisitor/Consular. Let's start there.
Storyboard: A second descent into madness
I had a lot of stuff to talk about on the subject of madness. As it happens, I had so much to talk about that I elected to split it up into two columns instead of writing one monster, scratching and crawling about in a lone column's space. And as I sat down to write this column, I realized that I have an entire column's worth of things to say about a single facet of madness: acting mad. Herein we come to the meat of what bothers me about madness as most players use it: It winds up getting used as something wacky. It's an excuse to do things that are wild and unpredictable because your character is so crazy. That bothers me because there's so much to be done with madness and so many ways to make it an interesting character trait. It's not something for casual or shallow use.
Storyboard: The first stage of madness
Madness is a very powerful narrative tool. Unfortunately, it also gets used horribly, taken out back, and worked over with brass knuckles until it bleeds. Instead of diving into madness, players are most often more content to flirt with the surface elements, have a character who spits out funny non sequitors, or behaves with eccentricities. Let's talk about madness. Let's talk about using that effectively. Let's talk about making a character who's something more than just a crazy happy random quote machine, someone who is at once fascinating and disturbing and quite possibly unpleasant to be around because that is what madness is. There's a lot of potential for roleplaying there, a lot of stories to be told, a lot of consequences to be explored. So many consequences. What, then, is a madman? Where do we start when we discuss insanity in roleplaying? How can we impersonate it? What can playing that role accomplish?
Seen@PAX East: Get your Far Cry 3 themed tattoo right here, right now
Being veterans of the game industry's convention season, we're harder to shock when it comes to bizarre stuff seen on show floors. We've seen food trucks, and crazy shoes, and full-on jets, but we've yet to see a live tattoo application, not to mention one based on a video game.Enter: Far Cry 3.Ubisoft hired a local tattoo artist to pre-screen attendees for the tattoo you see being applied just above. Rather than a Far Cry 3 logo, tattooees (not tattooines) are getting a tribal tattoo ripped from the game. Maybe a game logo should have been the way to go -- to help you remember when you explain this art's origin by the time you're 80.%Gallery-152569%
NCAA March Madness Live app comes to iOS, Android by tourney tip-off
Following in last year's steps, the NCAA and Turner Sports have taken the wraps off their March Madness 2012 goodies for handsets, slates and PCs. Though, unlike its 2011 variants, you'll now have to part ways with a one-time $3.99 charge in order to catch your favorite college team in action. Paying such a fee will give you an all-access ticket to watch every game during the tournament, which gets rolling this Tuesday, March 13th. Moreover, you'll also be able to customize channels to your viewing pleasure, test your knowledge in live trivia and check out how the bracket's shaping up. The action-packed March Madness Live app is available now to folks on iOS, with the Android version coming to "selected" devices by the time the tourney is underway.
Korean guild KIN Raiders scores world-first heroic Madness of Deathwing
After more than three weeks of intense strategizing, planning, fighting, scandals, and more, the race to world-first heroic Madness of Deathwing kill is over. KIN Raiders, the group that swept by Paragon, Blood Legion, and the rest, for the world-first heroic Spine of Deathwing kill took their time advantage and pressed on. Only one other guild, the Korean team In extremis, has downed the Spine of Deathwing on heroic mode, so not many people were even currently working on the fight of the instance. KIN Raider's kill happened in 25-man mode, an interesting departure from many of the world firsts now happening in 10-mans after being forced to raid light when raiders were banned for exploiting the Raid Finder for extra loot. Blood Legion also rounded out the list with many top kills on 25-man mode, but in the end, it was a 25-man Korean guild that swooped in and took the top spot. Congratulations to KIN Raiders on their first kill of heroic Madness of Deathwing. Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
ITG xpPhone 2 to get some Windows 8 love, starts living large in January (updated)
Let's be honest: with the size of a brick and a relatively short battery life, it's no surprise that ITG's xpPhone hasn't quite dominated the smartphone market since its launch back in November. In fact, we haven't even seen one in the wild, and we certainly wouldn't have missed it if there ever was one on the street. That said, ITG hasn't given up, as the company's just announced its second-generation Windows-powered smartphone. The reason? Well, interestingly enough, ITG prefers Windows' greater range of compatible software compared to those of mobile OSes, namely Android and iOS. Let's just leave it at that for now. Simply dubbed the xpPhone 2, this beast of a QWERTY slider packs a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 chip, along with 2GB RAM, up to 112GB of SSD storage, 4.3-inch display and compatibility with both Windows 7 and Windows 8 -- obviously the latter OS will depend on its final release date. Not only has battery life been bumped up to around 18 hours of call time or 46 days on standby, but the phone's also been slimmed down to 140mm x 73mm x 17.5mm, which is a huge improvement compared to its bulky predecessor. With the touch-friendly Windows 8 on board along with a non-underclocked CPU, we have a feeling that the xpPhone 2 will at least fare much better than Fujitsu's F-07C; as for the rest, we shall see when it comes out in January next year. And no, it probably won't run Crysis. Update: Looks like we were misled by the company's other promotional photos and thus mistakenly thought the xpPhone 2 will have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. This would explain the slimmer body then. Update 2: ITG just clarified that the phone will be unveiled in January rather than launched. %Gallery-137785%
Angry Birds studio head claims $1.2B valuation too low, 'maybe' going public next year
Angry Birds is way, way popular -- sure -- but it is so popular as to elevate its progenitor's valuation beyond that of its already sky-high $1.2 billion estimate? CEO Peter Vesterbacka seems to think so, telling Bloomberg, "We're happy with our valuation but we think it's probably a bit north of that," referring to the aforementioned insanely high number. Beyond astronomical sales of the hit fowl flinger, Vesterbacka's company has been pulling in additional revenue from merchandising. Millions of dollars every month, in fact, via the company's website -- apparently just the stuffed toys are selling "a million units a month," which doesn't account for Halloween costumes, movie licensing, clothing, and various other tchochkes. "We are very, very profitable. We're not a publicly traded company yet we can fund our own growth," Vesterbacka boasts in the interview, all the while attempting to bolster his company's value when it does go public. He doesn't offer an exact date, but says, "maybe a year from now" Rovio will be making its public stock offer. When we last asked market analysts back in March how Rovio would fare an IPO, we were answered with reservation. And despite another seven months of earnings under the company's belt, we'd wager Vesterbacka's valuation estimates are a bit more lofty than the reality of things. But hey, we're not running any multimillion dollar corporations.
The Daily Grind: When has an MMO driven you to madness?
Theoretically, MMOs -- like all games -- should be relaxing. They're entertainment, right? Where we go to unwind, to get away from the stress of life by mindlessly slaughtering thousands of virtual beings? For the most part I like to believe that this is true, but I know that there are exceptions. Dark exceptions. There are moments when MMOs show a cackling face from the void as they work to drive you to near-madness. Sometimes it's when you've run a dungeon 500 times for a piece of loot that never, ever drops. Maybe you're oh-so-close to completing an epic quest and you get ganked at the last second by a Rogue on PCP. Perhaps it's losing a battle to the almighty random number generator. So when has an MMO driven you to madness? When did a game tip you over into that swirly void of lunacy and give you a big ol' shove? Join us in the psych ward today by sharing your tale! Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Burnout: This MMOG isn't what it used to be
The loading screen in your brain is stuck. What is this madness? Is it the same tireless errands disguised as quests, social ties torn asunder leaving your guild in disarray, maybe it's the same old rigmarole and you need a new routine in-game. You don't want to give up, you turn to leveling endless alts, doing unorthodox things in the game you'd never do before, even playing less to help stave off the ennui to help reclaim the magic isn't working. You're burned out. Maybe it's time for a break, probably not your first time around either if you've been playing any MMOG for years it's something many of us struggle with.Over on Hardcore Casual, Syncaine addresses the topic and brings up some interesting points like when the MMOG genre was in its infancy players were a lot more tolerable to game debilitating bugs and hardcore server rulesets. It was an amazing time, most players describe an awestruck wondrous feeling of enjoyment with their first MMOG, but at the beginning of the graphical online genre it really was a revolution in gaming with a much different atmosphere. Today, MMOG players are less patient; newer MMOGs have spoiled the masses, and sometimes we really don't know what will make playing our dream MMOG an exhilarating experience even when thinking we do. Are you in a burnout now? If so, let us know how you are dealing with it.
European Rock Band info released; no PS3 date yet
We're not sure what's worse, here. Whether it's the fact that Rock Band isn't arriving in Europe until 6+ months after its US release, whether the pricing structure is as ridiculous as it is, or whether there's still no solid release date for the PS3 version. EA have really dropped the ball on this one.A solid release date of May 23rd has been announced for the Xbox 360 version, after which it will remain exclusive to the console until "later this Summer" when the PS3 version is released. The price for the PS3 version will most likely be the same as the 360 version, but we hope it's not. The instruments (a drum set, a guitar and a mic) will retail in its own bundle without the game for £130/€170. The game will be sold separately for the normal £50/€60.The only good news to come out of this announcement is that Europe will receive some exclusive songs (listed after the break) and that all of the DLC up to this point will be released on the XBLM on May 27th, with all future updates occurring simultaneously for the US and Europe. If SCEE can pull off something similar without encountering technical difficulties, we'll be very surprised. The fact of the matter is: import the bundle from America and play the songs on the disc for a wee while, then buy the European disc in order to get your hands on the exclusive songs and DLC. Sure, you'll be buying the game twice, but it'll still be cheaper than buying the EU instrument bundle and the game. Madness.
Darkmoon Faire Decks: An overview
As I've mentioned before, The Darkmoon Faire is currently in Terrokar Forest, just outside Shattrath City, so if you have decks to turn in or need to refill your private stock of Darkmoon Special Reserve, now's the time to get on it. But if you're still a little bit taken aback by the prospect of gathering all those cards, or wondering if the trinket at the end will really be worth it, we'd like to help you out. In this post, we'll be looking at both the old and new decks and listing some pros and cons of each deck so you can figure out if you want to spend the next month tracking down cards before the Faire shows up in Elwynn Forest in March, or even if you just want to blow your epic flying mount fund on getting a deck before it leaves for the month. We'll start in on everything after the jump.
Multiboxing madness
I'm not sure I understand the idea behind multiboxing. I mean, is it really worth it to spend all that money and time just to completely rock a whole PvP battleground with 15 of your own toons, or down a raid boss all by your-- oh wait, maybe I do understand it. Still, if multiboxing is your thing, then these pictures, sent to us by the great Xzin himself (whom we interviewed a little while ago), are right up your alley. Not only are there some c-c-c-crazy monitor setups (I especially like the guy who tilted his EQ monitors around himself, like a little MMORPG womb), but you also get some neat screenshots, like the all-Shammy run of SL that Xzin did above-- bonus points on the tanking Earth Elementals, but I'll bet cash that zero Shaman gear dropped.Bobbo also sent us this Dual-Boxing.com forum thread, which gets just insane-- this guy runs 23 characters, and his girlfriend runs 23 sitting next to him for a total of 47 characters together (his picture actually shows 57 different WoW boxes, so that's at least $1000 right there, even without all the hardware). I can't imagine the amount of money and time going into something like that, but Blizzard nods vague approval to the whole thing, so more power to them, I guess. It seems like a completely different game than the one we know and love, but twinking is the same type of thing (a game of resources), and lots of us do that and have no problem with it. So multibox away, you crazy character-controlling overlords.
New Darkmoon cards stats revealed
I was never able to collect any of the Darkmoon cards (although I'm pretty sure I have six or seven of the Warlords cards sitting in my Warrior's bank), but I always thought they were a great idea. Since the expansion, however, the old cards haven't been quite up to par for level 70s. Enter the new Darkmoon decks-- Blue announced a little while ago that there would be new cards to collect, and now Tiare has compiled what the new Darkmoon trinkets will do for you when completed.[Darkmoon Card: Vengeance] (Ace - Eight of Storms)You have a 10% chance when hit by an attack or harmful spell to deal 95 to 115 holy damage to your attacker.[Darkmoon Card: Wrath] (Ace - Eight of Furies)Each time one of your direct damage attacks does not critically strike, you gain 17 critical strike rating and 17 spell critical strike rating for the next 10 sec. This effect is consumed when you deal a critical strike. (Stacks up to 20 times)[Darkmoon Card: Crusade] (Ace - Eight of Blessings)Each time you deal melee damage to an opponent, you gain 6 attack power for the next 10 sec., stacking up to 20 times. Each time you land a harmful spell on an opponent, you gain 8 spell damage for the next 10 sec., stacking up to 10 times.[Darkmoon Card: Madness] (Ace - Eight of Lunacy)Each time you land a killing blow on an enemy, you gain the Power of Madness.Unfortunately, we're not quite sure what "Power of Madness" means-- it could be anything from a simple beserk buff (+Damage and Spell Damage, -Healing recieved), to a shapechange to a Worgen, or even "Opens a portal into the Twisting Nether that periodically summons demonic minions to aid the caster in battle for 14 sec." (at least that's what the rumors say).But sweet cards nevertheless. The Wrath and Crusade cards look especially cool, but I'm confused about the 10 second limit-- someone with Wrath can supposedly build up to a whopping +340 crit rating, but does that mean they somehow have to hit 20 times (without critting) within 10 seconds? Is that even possible? I don't see it procing more than two or three times before the ten seconds are up or a crit appears.[ via MMO-Champion ]
Japanese hardware sales, Mar. 12 - Mar. 18: Epic fantasy edition
'Cross the sultry plains of Elmer'terath Plains, a cold dust blows at the feet of the barbarian, Golgawii. He sniffs the air, reveling the fresh scent of blood. He did not think much on it, though, for he was a barbarian, and muscles are always inversely proportional to intelligence. He had just traversed the ultimately inconsequential Amriel mountains range in the far north of the Dractonian lands, in which the Eighth War of The Ages of the Third Rule of the Kings of Men was waged between the elves, ocrs, dwarves, dragons, faeries, gnomes, trolls, ogres, and various other creatures found in Shrek. It totally ushered in a new age.Golgawii grasped his magical pendant, which contained supermegaawesome power. He received it after trading in his magic ring carved from the Stone of Ancient Wisdom using the Blade of Strength in the ...Will Tolkien's soul stab us after this? Maybe. The Wii triumphed in an upset victory over the top seeded PSP, which is excellent, and the disqualified DS Lite predictably demolished any possible competition. Enjoy the remainder of the (real) tournament, everyone!- DS Lite: 121,471 12,959 (11.94%)- Wii: 67,070 22,575 (50.74%)- PSP: 43,769 12,406 (22.08%) - PS3: 21,635 10,480 (32.63%) - PS2: 13,321 1,264 (8.67%) - Xbox 360: 2,910 423 (12.69%) - Game Boy Micro: 727 85 (10.47%) - GBA SP: 557 122 (17.97%) - Gamecube: 367 127 (52.92%) - DS Phat: 159 40 (33.61%) - GBA: 9 4 (30.77%)[Source: Media Create]
Update feature gives us hope (Military Madness fix)
TG-16 Virtual Console game Military Madness, though a bit of a cult-favorite, has been plagued with numerous bugs since release. Scrolling glitches galore have caused many a gamer many a problem, but Hudson has taken advantage of this crazy new idea that's been rolling around these days: updates.Yes, a wonderful "update" button will greet any owners of the game who journey to its page in the Wii Shop Channel, and a glorious button it is. This technically opens up the possibilities of adding new functionality to games already released on the VC ... Wi-Fi enabled Mario Kart 64, anyone? We can dream, right?
Upcoming VC releases
Thus far, Nintendo has decided to keep the exact releases of Virtual Console Mondays a secret until the day-of, leaving us gamers biting our nails in mind-numbing suspense. Sega's official website and a major in cryptology have given us three gleaming glimpses in the future.First, from Sega's camp, the classic space-shooter Space Harrier II (1989) will see the light of day next Monday, the 18th of December. Furthermore, on Christmas Day, they'll drop cult-favorite and this blogger's most anticipated VC title, Toe Jam & Earl. Awesome.From Hudson, their website left the internet-at-large with this little clue:WHICH GAME COMES NEXT? This one is a doosy. Truly a classic. Here's your first clue:VGCE0590PG46Yes, I know. that's freakin cryptic. If no one can figure it out, I may drop another clue tomorrow.Good luck!Brilliant minds came together, formulas were solved, chemicals were mixed, and lo, the secret was revealed. VGCE0590PG46 stands for Video Game and Computer Entertainment, May 1990, Page 46. Dig up a couple of old magazine scans, and voilà! The game is Military Madness, a turn-based strategy game with a fairly large following.Couldn't they have just told us right out?
