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Neutrality and criminality in the dystopian setting of Earthrise
The developers at Masthead Studios dropped some info about their post-apocalyptic MMO Earthrise today, explaining how they've designed the game to allow freedom of choice. In true sandbox style, players will not be forced to choose between the main factions of Continoma or Noir and can, in fact, remain neutral. Earthrise Community Manager Moll writes in the latest Question of the Week, "Aside from Continoma and Noir as major Factions, there are 10 smaller political groups (called Organizations), and 4 of them will be Neutral and will provide neutral players with quests that allow them to build their Reputation and unlock rewards that cater to their political standings." Cloning, which may prove to be one of the most vital services players will require, will be independent of faction standings, Moll explains. On that topic of cloning, Earthrise fans have also wondered how criminals can gain access to the same advanced infrastructure used by the more legitimate factions. Or, for that matter, how do criminals gain access to the various resources and markets used by non-criminal players?
All Points Bulletin chaos to balance out with Criminal and Enforcer dynamic
The upcoming criminals-vs.-vigilantes game All Points Bulletin holds the promise of being an absolutely chaotic rampage, where a hundred players lay waste to a sprawling urban environment. While that *seems* like it would be fun, for a while anyway, even the most destructive gamer incarnate of Jack Thompson's personal antichrist will ultimately grow tired of blowing stuff up. Fortunately, that's not what APB is going to be all about. In fact, a closer look at this game can makes us wonder: Is it really possible to compare the unbridled carnage and hot coffee of Grand Theft Auto with the gameplay of ABP? Not really, according to Realtime Worlds creative director Dave Jones, who spoke about APB with Chris Kohler from Wired's GameLife blog. Jones told Wired, "There's nothing to compare it to, but that's kind of what we try to do with our games."
E3 2009: EA and Realtime Worlds partner on All Points Bulletin
We knew that Realtime Worlds, the company behind the urban crime MMO All Points Bulletin would have something to announce and show at E3 2009, we just weren't sure of what to expect. That announcement came today at the Electronic Arts press conference. Imagine our surprise when Realtime Worlds creative director Dave Jones (who you may know as the creator of GTA and Crackdown) appeared on stage to announce that EA will be publishing All Points Bulletin. The announcement was followed up with a rather stunning trailer, depicting all manner of urban badasses. Tattoos. Fast cars. Lots of guns. Criminals and Enforcement fighting for the streets in a vast, open urban environment. The game will accommodate 10,000 players per world, divided into 100 player district maps. If you're a fan of games like GTA and Saint's Row, you will be blown away by All Points Bulletin.All Points Bulletin has a newly revamped site, with screenshots and a game features page, and now hosts an APB video podcast from the developers. The game is slated for a PC release in early 2010. Update: Want to see more? Flip through our E3 2009 APB gallery and check out the game trailer below the cut.%Gallery-64700%
4,000 copies of Age of Conan stolen in biggest, most pointless MMO heist ever
Thieves in the United Kingdom city of Bradford stole 4,000 retail copies of Age of Conan from the back of a truck late at night on Tuesday the 28th of October. The original source, Telegraph & Argus, claims that it was an Xbox 360 version of the game, but we're going to keep our sanity caps on and presume that was an error. Police are trying to track down the thieves, but we're thinking it ought to be pretty easy to find them if they actually try to play the game themselves, seeing as how they'll need to register with a credit card number and other personal information to do so. We're guessing the thieves didn't realize that when they stole the boxes, eh? No good can come of this for anyone![Via CVG] Having fun in Conan's homeland? Make sure to check out all of our previous Age of Conan coverage, and stick with Massively for more news from the Hyborian Age!
Drugs aren't bad in EVE, m'kay?
One of the interesting features of EVE Online is that it has a drug trade in which players are actively engaged. Rather than merely being an illegal commodity, drugs -- called boosters -- enhance the performance of EVE's pilots, albeit with some potential side effects. To understand boosters though, we'll need to look into the game's setting a bit first. The thing to remember is that as a player, you're a capsuleer. You're not standing on the bridge of your ship barking orders at subordinates. Rather, you're floating inside a metallic capsule deep within your ship. Your mind is interfaced with the ship you pilot via neural implants, thus your vessel is an extension of your body and its senses; you regulate the ship's activities merely by thinking about them. Not all people in EVE's setting of New Eden have the raw potential to become a capsuleer, making your character one of the elite. However, when faced with others of your caliber in combat, every possible edge you can gain over rival capsuleers helps. That's where boosters come in... they're your edge. Boosters augment aspects of your mental processes and thus provide certain bonuses when piloting your ship.
All Points Bulletin: Can drop-in PvP succeed in the MMO space?
All Points Bulletin is one of those games that fans of Grand Theft Auto have been wanting for years. Merely saying 'want' cannot convey the unbridled desire that a number of people have expressed for an urban crime game where you're not completely isolated from other players. There is a certain person on the Massively team -- blown away by GTA: San Andreas years ago -- who would go to sleep with whispered prayers in the dark, that his deviant rampages could be shared online with his equally deviant friends around the world, day or night. The allure of this type of game is strong, but equally strong is the likelihood of an overdose on pure chaos. One imagines a map full of amped up Criminals in desperate need of Ritalin, taking to the streets with RPG's and flattening traffic jams in backward-firing tanks, countered by a legion of overzealous Enforcers dispensing 'justice' with reckless abandon. Therein lies the problem: Part of what makes GTA so successful is that as Tommy Vercetti, or C.J. (or any of the other questionable protagonists a player becomes in the legacy title), there's no one else out there who's as badass as you. But what happens when mobs of Criminals or Enforcers of your caliber are turned loose in the city? What if they're even worse than you are? Welcome to the blender.
Thieves use Eee PC in Brazilian ATM scam
Man, that tiny Eee PC can be used for just about anything: surfing the web, blogging, surreptitiously hiding inside an ATM machine and stealing your identity. You know, the usual stuff. Yeah, so three creative Brazilian thieves were recently caught stuffing a black Eee into an ATM, where it replaced the ordinary magical-money-making workings and instead stole unwitting customers' card numbers and PINs. The thieves didn't stop there, however -- they purposefully damaged all the other nearby ATMs so that theirs would be the only one in service. Clever! Of course, that doesn't explain why it was so easy to crack open the target ATM in the first place -- we'd pretty much consider our cash flow problems solved if we could pull that trick. Check out the Brazilian TV report after the break -- any Portuguese speakers care to translate?
The Digital Continuum: Cops & robbers
Every so often a game comes along that seems imbued with the essence of my childhood imagination -- its as if the game has it coursing through its veins. For instance, my personal interest in Spore stems from the fact that it's tapping into my fantasy of playing a game that lets me shape worlds -- one that I've had since even before my teenage years. Still, there hasn't been an MMO yet that's truly tapped into any of my more youthful wishes. Sure, City of Heroes delivered the first realization of creating my own personal super heroes, but when looking at what a game like Champions Online could provide in comparison -- at least in the superhero genre -- its quite apparent that CoH was barely scratching the surface.Enter All Points Bulletin, a game that had developer and journalist jaws alike scraping across the floors after its demonstration was delivered in a manner not unlike -- say -- the opening to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Scots lose sight of early release offenders due to faulty electronic tags
We haven't yet heard of any problems with the RFID tags increasingly being used to monitor inmates in prisons, but it looks like the electronic tags used to keep watch on early release offenders are decidedly less reliable, at least according to a recent investigation into the matter in Scotland. As The Scotsman reports, out of a total of 987 tagging orders issued, there were 285 incidents where the tags failed, with dead batteries the biggest culprit. That rather obvious problem accounted for 185 of the cases, with damage to the unit by the offender, problems with the black box in the offender's home, and a weak signal rounding out the technical difficulties. That, as you might have guessed, has lead some to question the Scottish government's practice of relying on electronic tags to monitor early release offenders, but the government seems to be sticking to its guns, with a spokesman saying that "a breach does not necessarily equate to reoffending," although, as the Scotsman reports, it did recently scrap a plan to tag suspects who were allowed out on bail.[Photo courtesy of The Daily Mail]
FBI rolling out digital billboards in 20 cities
Employing public signage in the pursuit of suspects is probably about as old as criminology itself, so it's no surprise to see the FBI leveraging the latest technology to erect some of the largest, most versatile wanted posters in history. Thanks to a partnership with advertising giant Clear Channel Outdoor, the G-men will deploy some 150 digital billboards -- capable of displaying fugitives, missing children, or public safety info in real-time -- to 20 major cities around the country, following a successful trial launched in Philadelphia in September. So if you're planning on committing a felony in Des Moines, Iowa or Akron, Ohio soon, better get it done quick, lest your ugly mug become the talk of the car pool during your morning commute. List of all the lucky cities after the break.[Via Slashdot]
In Development: APB
It seems I spoke too soon regarding the lack of a Crackdown MMO! APB is Realtime Worlds' action MMO, and judging from the awesome character concept artwork, it's going to have a lot in common with Crackdown. And I'm interested because in at least one way it's going to feature something I wrote about: criminals vs. law enforcement. More to get interested in: 'The game itself centers on player vs player combat and will be the first massively multiplayer online title where player skill determines character progression as opposed to the traditional model of time investment." That's a tall order, and one I'm keenly interested in seeing how it's going to be implemented. That aside, the art direction on this game is gorgeous -- I'm happy to see that the 'good guys' (law enforcement) are just as visually interesting as the 'bad guys' (criminals). Check it: the photo there? That's a cop. Uh huh. The Artwork section of the site has a bunch of great pics; go check 'em out now. It's not gameplay, but it's enough, by gar. APB is coming out in 2008, according the site, and let's hope this is the hit the Crackdown could've been.[Thanks, Chris!]
You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, and you definitely don't try to jack a samurai sword-wielding gamer
As much as we'd like to believe we'd act as bravely as 15-year old Damian Fernandez in the face of burglars ransacking our house, the sad truth is that even equipped with Fernandez's samurai sword, we probably would have ended up more like his sister Deanne -- watching the action through slits in the closet door. Damian and Deanne were home alone in Hialeah, Florida earlier this month when a pair of young male assailants forced their way inside and began swiping valuables such as their parents' jewlery. But when one of the men busted into Deanne's room looking for her PlayStation 3 only to find an empty box, Damian was waiting outside with his blade of steel (artist's rendition pictured above), ready to deliver a crushing "strike" to the guy's chest. Long story short, Damian chased both idiots out of the house and down the street, where a police K-9 unit was later able to locate 21-year-old Javier Cotera cowering behind a palm tree. It's not clear if Cotera -- who's now out on bail -- has flipped on his buddy yet, but we can be pretty sure that both dudes are now the laughingstocks of the rest of their criminal associates.[Via digg]
UK effectively blocking stolen phones
What good is a stolen phone that's been blacklisted from networks, and the nefarious individuals formerly responsible for flashing them back into use have been scared off by the threat of five years' jail time? Not much good at all, we say, and a new study suggests that the UK's new laws fighting phone theft may be extraordinarily effective. On request from the government, the country's big five operators have started blocking stolen phones -- often within hours, and a full 80 percent within two days. Add in the fact that a new law taking effect this week makes handset reprogramming (to circumvent blacklisting) punishable by five years in the pokey and limitless fines, and we suspect a lot of these small-time criminals are going to be looking for new lines of work.
Real-life Minority Report: software for predicting murderers
Obviously the best way to prevent recidivism among violent criminals would be to simply imprison them for life following their first offense (we'd call it the "one strike and you're out" law), but thanks to that antiquated document known as the Constitution, we're forced to coddle convicts by ensuring that they don't endure "cruel and unusual punishment" to pay for their crimes. Well if we can't lock up all the muggers, jaywalkers, or tax cheats and just throw away the key, the next best option would seem to be predicting criminal behavior before it happens -- and though it sounds like straight-up science fiction, that's exactly what University of Pennsylvania criminologist Richard Berk intends to do. Using a data set consisting of 30 to 40 variables derived from anonymous Philadelphia probation department cases over a two-year period, Berk and his colleagues were able to craft an algorithm that supposedly separates those folks likely to re-offend from ex-cons not deemed to be as dangerous. The point of this program is not to make an end run around sentence limitations or to arrest people before they've committed a crime, but rather, to help probation units decide how to best allocate their resources among hundreds of potential re-offenders. To wit, each subject's variables are plugged into the software in order to create a so-called "lethality score" -- and although the aggregated data is still relatively small, Berk points out that childhood exposure to violence has already floated to the top as the single most likely predictor of murder. Another, less well-known, but equally accurate predictor: jailhouse tattoo across an inmate's chest that reads "Die, ___, Die."[Via Slashdot]
Quick-footed thieves snag 39 iPods in 15 seconds
Okay, so iPods might be easy to flip on eBay, but cruising around with 39 hot PMPs in the trunk of your car (and a stash of PlayStation 2 games to boot) probably isn't the best way to welcome yourself to Utah. Three New Yorkers apparently took those crime dramas a bit too seriously as they acquired "maps of every Target store in Utah and Nevada," and flew off to Riverdale with a heist in mind. When the thieves couldn't break open the iPod display at their primary target (ahem), they sped off to execute plan B, but alerted authorities to their ill intentions in the process. Nevertheless, the crooks finally pulled off the job with utmost haste, as they stuffed 39 iPods (and possibly a few PS2 titles) down a presumably gargantuous pair of "oversized pants" in a blistering 15 seconds. Although the second time proved to be a charm, their sloppiness in round one landed them in police custody less than 24 hours after arriving in the Beehive State. While flying across the country to jack $7,000 worth of 'Pods might make for good television, you're probably better off trying to outwit one of those yet-to-be-altered cash-flinging ATMs if you're feeling frisky.[Via PowerPage]
Xbox ownership dispute leads to arson
Following the horrific incident in 2004 in which four dim-witted individuals perpetrated a home invasion and mass murder in order to "reclaim" their repo'ed Xbox, comes another tale of disputed console ownership leading to tragic consequences. A 20-year-old Seattle man returned to his former residence on Thursday in an attempt to take possession of an Xbox that he had supposedly purchased, and in a classic example of "if I can't play with this toy then no one can," tossed the 'Box right through a window and into the front yard. Not content with destroying what may have been his own property, the young man returned later that night and set fire to home's back porch, and although no injuries were reported, the structure was apparently completely gutted. Making the suspect even more eligible for the "Stupid Criminals' Hall of Fame" was the fact that he called the house from a payphone (while it was still burning, presumably) to brag of his crime and make additional threats. The lesson here: videogames may or may not incite folks to violence, but fighting over them sure does. [Via Joystiq]
Scottish police testing metal-detecting gloves
Police in Scotland have begun field-testing a pair of tactical gloves that sport built-in metal detectors for identifying sharp objects during routine pat-downs -- and should they fail to detect a hidden weapon, they're made out of Kevlar to protect the wearer during the ensuing knife fight. Although not specifically mentioned in the source article, it seems the Scottish cops are trying out seven pairs of the HF-1 from Adams Electronics, which are powered by regular 9-volt batteries and vibrate inconspicuously at the wrist to signify that an object has been detected. Available in either "passive active" or "dual active" configurations (depending on whether one or both of the gloves sport a detector), the HF-1s deployed for the trial cost about $370-a-pair, and are being used to supplement the 1,000 or so FriskerPRO-like handheld detectors that are already in use. Overall these seem like a good way for officers to protect themselves without getting too touchy-feely with suspects, but on the other hand, they may just encourage enterprising criminals to step up their game and begin carrying around undetectable weapons like ceramic knives and filed-down toothbrushes.
Swedish site offering insurance to content pirates
Here's an innovative business plan for you: start up an insurance company whose sole purpose is to cover your customers' fines should they get busted for illegal file sharing, thereby creating a clientele that by default is composed completely of criminals. Well believe it or not, a Swedish "entrepreneur" has begun to offer this very service to his fellow citizens -- for only $19 per year, Magnus Braath's company Tankafritt promises to pay any penalties incurred from crackdowns on your rampant piracy, and he'll even throw in a free T-shirt to help you glorify your outlaw status. (Yes, you guessed it, the shirt actually does read "I got convicted for file-sharing and all I got was this lousy T-shirt"). Braath claims that he started the business as a statement against recent changes in Swedish law that had the nerve to criminalize illegal downloading, and that low conviction rates and relatively minor fines will allow him to keep the venture financially solvent. Hey Magnus, if you're looking to expand your operation, we hear that Spain's just passed some legislation that will probably create quite the demand for your unique little service -- who knows, with some hard work and a bit of luck, you could end up becoming the Geico of software and content piracy.[Via Techdirt and Slashdot]
NEC falls victim to sophisticated "corporate identity theft"
In what has to be the most impressive display of criminal initiative that we've ever seen, an organized group of conspirators in Japan, China, and Taiwan managed to convince dozens of factories in the latter two countries that they represented Japan's NEC Corp., and got them to manufacture pirated products under the NEC brand. According the the International Herald Tribune, not only did the pirates duplicate versions of real NEC devices -- which, according to NEC, were "of generally good quality" -- they actually began producing their own line of NEC-branded products, developed with R&D commissioned by NEC business card-carrying "executives." All-in-all, the pirates had a product lineup of some fifty different items, ranging from home theater equipment to MP3 players to PC peripherals, and were even thoughtful enough to include counterfeit manuals and warranty documents with their goods. Apparently the ring has been operating since at least 2004, although the real NEC only made the details known recently, following a private investigation that led to the ringleaders' arrest and crackdowns by local authorities on the offending factories.[Via Techdirt]
