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Konami is refunding DLC purchases after disastrous 'eFootball' launch
Konami has delayed eFootball 1.0 to spring 2022 and refunding players who purchased a pricey DLC.
Rockstar rolls back the 'Red Dead Online' update that broke everything
The glitches were funny, but surely frustrating for dedicated players.
Upcoming 'No Man's Sky' patch will fix most issues
No Man's Sky was released for PlayStation 4 last week, but not without its fair share of problems. Developer Hello Games is aware of the game's many bugs and glitches, and is working on a patch that will solve "the most critical issues" in the "near future."
I want to love 'The Witcher 3,' but my Xbox One won't let me
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, a massive, open-world, role-playing game from Polish studio CD Projekt Red, has sold 4 million copies in two weeks across PlayStation 4, PC and Xbox One. Those aren't Grand Theft Auto V numbers, but it's a huge milestone for the developer, whose cult classic games have typically launched on PC first with console versions coming much later, if at all. The Witcher 3 has also been a critical success, too, with an aggregate review score of 93 on Metacritic ("universal acclaim" according to the site) for the PS4 version, 94 for PC and 91 on Xbox One. Since its May launch, the game has received four software patches on consoles and five on PC. These updates have ranged from minor things like adding lethal cows to address a money-generating exploit, to major issues like save-file corruption and endless saved-game loops on the Xbox One edition. While almost everyone I've talked to who's playing the very Game of Thrones-esque The Witcher 3 loves it and hasn't had any problems, I can't say the same for myself. Four software updates later, and the latest patch notes still list "fixes" 52 times.
Destiny player jumps into the game's DLC regions
Do you want to start exploring Destiny's second expansion region? Don't start fretting about tiny details like not having it installed or the fact that it's not out yet. You can go there right now! A video by YouTube user Nowise10 is embedded just past the break and details the exact sequence of jumps needed to climb up some scaffolding, hop into a gravity lift, and wind up coming out in an area that the developers certainly didn't intend for players to explore just yet. Lest you get overly excited, the game does note that you do not have the DLC, and the area is absent of most everything you'd want to find in the region aside from a handful of dead ghosts. If you're the sort to go spelunking before an area is officially released, however, take a look at the video and enjoy a bit of acrobatic exploration.
PAX East 2014: Erin Roberts on Star Citizen's development
Star Citizen's backers have been waiting to see the game's dogfighting module in action for quite some time now, and it finally happened just before PAX East 2014. Unfortunately, it also wound up having some technical difficulties right at the beginning, which wasn't exactly what anyone had in mind when showing off the whole thing in action. It wasn't quite as bad as having the computer running the module burst into flames and die, but it was bad. Do the developers regret it? Not a chance. We got a chance to sit down and talk to Squadron 42 producer Erin Roberts and were told, in no uncertain terms, that even hitting technical hiccups like that don't make a more private development cycle feel better. In a way, having the development cycle be so public actually makes technical hurdles less problematic for the company when they're encountered because the language is in place to keep a meaningful dialogue going with the fans.
How to create nested folders on iOS 7
Nested folders (or, folders within folders) are one of the most useful features of iOS 7. Unfortunately, it's more of a glitch than anything Apple intended to include, so there's no official guide from Apple on how to do it. But don't worry; we're here to help. Placing folders within folders is a fantastic way to clean up your home screen, and it can be a godsend if you want to send unwanted, undeletable apps into a dark, unseen corner. Here's how to pull it off: We'll start with these four apps, but you can use absolutely whatever apps you want. 1. First, we combine two apps to create a folder, and then combine the remaining two apps to create a second folder. 2. Now, hold a finger on one of the folders so that it becomes grayed out. 3. As soon as it does this, press the Home button twice to bring up the multitasking menu. This trick will not work if the apps begin to wiggle (when they enter the organization mode) before you hit the home button. You have about a half a second to get this right. 4. From the multitasking menu, click on the home screen. You should see the folder icon remains enlarged and grayed out, and also that the folders are now wiggling. 5. Now, click the destination folder (the one you want to add the first folder to). You should see the icon of the first folder hovering above. 6. Now, click the home button once. Ta-da! You now have a folder within a folder. The best part is that these folders work flawlessly, and you can navigate through them, launch apps from within them and remove apps just as you would otherwise. You can use this trick to further nest additional folders, and I've been able to create five folder levels before eventually stopping, though I'm pretty sure you can just keep going until you get bored. This glitch was first noticed during the iOS 7 beta, and though I'm sure Apple is aware of it, they haven't taken any steps to correct it, and as of the current iOS 7.0.1, it still works perfectly. In fact, during the beta phase, any nested folders you had created would reset to the home screen after a device restart, but that's been changed, leaving all nested folders in place when the phone is power cycled. That said, the company could squash this at any time, so if you really fall in love with nested folders (as I have) take care before updating. Update: How to add apps to already nested folders You can add apps to already nested folders very simply, though it's slightly more complicated than just dragging the app to the folder. First, highlight the app you wish to move by holding your finger on it and then immediately double-tapping the home button, just as you did in Step 3 above. Now, from the multitasking menu, click on the home screen. Then, click on the first folder (the one holding the nested folder you want to move the app to), and then click on the nested folder. Once inside the nested folder, click the home button once and the app will relocate itself. Easy!
EVE Evolved: Grid-Fu and bending space
In last week's article, I described how EVE Online maintains the illusion of full-scale solar systems by dynamically creating small pockets of high-detail space called grids. It's within these discrete bubbles that everything we do in space takes place, from mining asteroids to running missions or shooting at other players. The system is designed to split up space into manageable chunks to reduce server load while still maintaining persistent 3-D space that appears to span the entire scale of a solar system. Grids have been in EVE since it was first created, but over the years people have noticed a few odd things about how the system works. Flying about 250km-400km away from a stargate causes your ship to disappear from that grid and pop into a newly created adjacent one, for example, but this doesn't always happen. Bizarre occurrences such as abnormally shaped grids and ships mysteriously disappearing and re-appearing on the same grid were always thought to be freak accidents or unintended bugs until an interesting document emerged in 2009. Titled Grid-Fu: A Practical Manual, the 18-page PDF described the process of bending and manipulating space for a tactical advantage. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the various ways that players have manipulated space to their advantage.
The Daily Grind: How much communication on major bugs is the right amount?
A lot of people were very interested in taking part in Final Fantasy XIV's open beta. Unfortunately, for a substantial number of players, the beta started and stopped with Error 3102. Leaving aside debates about whether or not this should or should not have happened, I think one of the big problems for several players was that the developers simply didn't discuss the issue with players until the test period was nearly over, which meant that there was no way of being certain that anything was being done. You could make the case that it's better for developers to be focusing on actually fixing the problem instead of updating people on the status of the problem. But silence can look a lot like ignorance at a glance, and no one wants to be ignored when something damages the game experience. So today we ask you, readers: How much communication on major bugs is the right amount? Do you want an acknowledgement and nothing more until it's fixed, or do you want hourly status updates from the development team? 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!
The Daily Grind: Which game has the worst armor clipping?
Armor clipping really unsettles me because there's few ways that a game can show me how hollow and fake my characters are than by having my shoulder gear slice through my neck with no repercussions. Now, I can't imagine how difficult it is for the art team and animators to create such a wide variety of armor while keeping it all from crashing through each other. Factor in weapons that are strapped on and flowing cloaks, and it has to be a nightmare to get right. But you know what? They have to get it right. They just have to. Otherwise I wake up in the middle of my sleep with night terrors. So now that I have that rant out of my system, which game do you find has the worst armor clipping? Tell me now that I may avoid it! 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!
The Daily Grind: What quest has frustrated you more than any other?
I have a relatively acrimonious relationship with most of The Secret World's investigation missions for reasons too ornate to detail here. Hell and Bach, however, deserves special mention. It's not that it's one of the game's worse examples, but that the actual mechanics behind clearing the mission are very finnicky. You have to click a series of symbols in just the right way to spell out a phrase, but the symbols are close together, it's easy to miss a click, and to top it off it won't work if you have the reference guide open as you do so. For all-time frustration, that mission ramped up pretty highly, although I enjoyed it once I cleared it. But it's not about what frustrates me, it's about what frustrates you. So what quest has frustrated you more than any other? Was it unclear in its objectives, or were its clearly stated objectives just dizzyingly hard to actually accomplish? Or was it something even more mundane, like a Final Fantasy XI quest that irritated you because you could never find the other people to do it with? 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!
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier PC users call out issues [Update: Ubisoft working on it]
PC users have encountered some issues with Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. A bug report thread on the Ubisoft forums is cluttered with complaints, ranging from the mundane to the catastrophic. For example, one issue seems to be that the mouse doesn't work. Like, at all.It would appear Ubisoft is aware of the issues. Donna Nicholson, part of the PMS clan, said she's passing the info along to the higher-ups. We've also contacted Ubisoft about the matter, and are currently awaiting a statement.Update: An Ubisoft rep has told Joystiq that the company is "aware of the issues with the PC version" and the company is currently "working aggressively to correct them as soon as possible."[Thanks, Roy.]
Patch 1.0.3 released for Diablo III complete with an interesting new bug
The pseudo-MMO nature of Diablo III makes it unsurprising that the development team is still hard at work with polishing patches. The newest patch, 1.0.3, has just been released, bringing with it several adjustments to classes and individual boss battles. It also expands the range for potential high-level item drops, allowing players a better chance at seeing top-end items without reaching Inferno Act IV. Along with the usual bug fixes, it should be all good news, right? Unfortunately, it looks like the patch has brought an odd glitch along for some players -- namely, a glitch preventing them from gaining any experience. Player testing seems to reveal that changing your password fixes the issue and allows you to gain experience once again, and the issue is only affecting players with a digital version instead of the game discs. While no official word has come down from Blizzard as of yet, it wouldn't be surprising to see the issue hotfixed in the near future.
Ask Massively: Shopping for new computers edition
I'm not having a great year for computers. Back in January, my much-loved netbook passed. I'd been having trouble with my desktop for quite some time after I bought it, and I'm pretty sure the processor is the root of the problems, but at this point it's just going to need a replacement. The plus side is that means that I have a large enough budget to afford a much better machine than I could when I bought this one, so it's almost a blessing in disguise. Of course, I'm writing this installment of Ask Massively on a computer, so clearly I'm capable of using such a device for important duties. Important duties like explaining why Final Fantasy XIV isn't offering players a free trial and why our comment system is experiencing a truly humbling bug. If you've got a question for a future installment, leave it in the comments below or mail it along to ask@massively.com. Questions may be edited slightly for clarity and/or brevity.
BioWare's James Ohlen: Bug fixes coming weekly
Any new MMO, even big-budget behemoths like BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic, is often fraught with bugs and exploits that can keep the game from living up to its full potential. The Old Republic's game director, James Ohlen, recognizes this and has stopped by the official forums to let players know how the company will be handling the game's bugs, glitches, and exploits. Ohlen states that "almost every week [BioWare] will be releasing a new patch." These pseudo-weekly patches will be focused almost entirely on fixing bugs, exploits, and glaring balance issues within the game. Ohlen does remind players, however, that bug-fixing is not always a simple task. "There are issues that we will fix immediately," he says, with the caveat that "these are rare and not every issue can be fixed in this manner. We usually reserve these 'emergency fixes' for bugs that are stopping players from playing the game or to exploits that could unbalance the entire game if not corrected." I'm sure players have a few things in mind to which an emergency fix could be applied, but we'll just have to wait for the next patch to see what the devs have cooked up.
Skyrim to have multiple DLC releases, powerful buckets
Game Director Todd Howard was at the Spike Video Game Awards yesterday to accept a well-deserved Game of the Year award for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and he said to Joystiq that the game's popularity has surprised even the development team. "We thought it would do well," he said, "but it has gone above and beyond." One of the surprising effects of that popularity is the many YouTube videos (and "arrow in the knee" references) out there, but Howard says one in particular stood out to Bethesda. "I think our favorite really is putting the buckets on the heads," he laughed. "It was like day two, and we went, what? Do we fix that? Our lead programmer is pissed and wants to fix it, and I said I'm not sure we should. That's one of those where maybe we leave it in." Howard couldn't yet share plans for DLC, but he says it will be focused on "ways to make the game better, not just have more, because the game is so big. So we're going through ideas right now, and processing everything people are doing in the game, and trying to think of ways that we can improve it." There will be multiple releases (as with Bethesda's past games), but Howard says they "don't have a timetable. They won't be quick, and they'll have a lot of meat on them." For all of its successes, the one thing Skyrim doesn't have is other players. Is there a chance we'll ever see a multiplayer title, or even an MMO, from Howard and his company? "You can never say never to anything like that," he admitted, "but it's not what our focus is. This type of game is where our hearts are, what we get excited about, and that's what we want to focus on. We don't want to lose that focus and we never want to sacrifice anything in the singleplayer game just to have it be multiplayer."
The Road to Mordor: A week in Dunland
Dunland: savage land of strife, tradition, and body paint. As I stood at its borders, my heel slightly sinking into the soft mud of the river shore, I could hardly believe I was there. The grass blew gently in the breeze, and for a moment it was easy to fool myself into thinking that all was right with Middle-earth, that my journey could be over. The moment passed, and I hefted my staff and walked resolutely toward the first village I saw. It's been almost a year since we first heard that, yes, we were going to take the Hobbits to Isengard (and Dwarves, Men and Elves, for that matter). It's been a long time coming, and now that it's here, it's a lot to absorb. I purposefully didn't spend a lot of time in the beta so as to not be spoiled; I wanted to savor Lord of the Rings Online: Rise of Isengard from start to finish. I wasn't going to be concerned with racing to the new level cap or attempting to devour all of the content in a couple of days. With that mindset in place, I've been vastly enjoying Rise of Isengard these past few days -- more than I thought I would, to be honest -- and I wanted to document this first week in Dunland in today's Road to Mordor.
Some NCAA Football 12 features reportedly broken by patch
According to plenty of angry forum posts from players of NCAA Football 12, a recent patch for the game has broken or hampered several key features including no-huddle play calling, custom playbooks and, most rampantly, the Dynasty Mode. Apparently, players on both the 360 and PS3 have received frequent "Transfer Failed" errors when attempting to upload the results of games in the online mode. A company staffer going by the name of EA_Jaga on the EA forums informed players that the error had been fixed, but the dozen or so posts right after from users still getting the "Transfer Failed" error indicates otherwise. We've reached out to EA for some sort of timetable on a fix. We'll let you know what we hear. [Update: EA tells us that the custom playbook issue was fixed by the recently released Title Update 2. The other issues are still under investigation.] [Thanks, Russel]
Obsidian CEO laments Fallout: New Vegas' 'glitchy' launch, working on better QA for Dungeon Siege 3
In a new interview with Play Magazine, Obisidian CEO Feargus Urquhart addresses the launch of Fallout: New Vegas -- which was, uh, pretty ugly. On Xbox 360, the game is still very much plagued by issues. "Now in the case of Fallout: New Vegas, we made a gigantic game, and I'm proud with what we were able to do but I wish it wasn't as glitchy when it came out," said Urquhart in the interview (as excerpted on NowGamer). "The criticisms people had are fair, but it's difficult to get a game the size of New Vegas bug free. But that's an excuse, and it doesn't matter when someone's paid $60 for a game. It's something we need to work on." With the launch of Dungeon Siege 3 on the immediate horizon, Urquhart emphasized that Obsidian is placing extra emphasis on quality assurance for the game -- a process of "playing and playing and playing and playing to ensure it's of a high standard," he said. "On top of this," Urquhart added, "this is the first time we've got to use our own technology on something, which means we know where to find the bad bugs from the start!" The full interview will be published in Issue 205 of Play Magazine, which hits UK newsstands this Thursday.
SYNC's second version off to a buggy start, Ford fixes with Ctrl-Alt-Delete
With it being ordered in 80 percent of its 2011 models, SYNC's been a boon to Ford's bottom line, but it's not all peaches and cream for the Dearborn crew's connectivity platform. Our friends at Autoblog are reporting that the second generation of the infotainment software has a nasty little habit of restarting itself when something goes wrong with one of the applications. Doesn't sound like such a big deal, except these automatic reboots take several minutes (an eternity if you're relying on the GPS to get you around), and the system tends to misplace your indexed music and linked phone info while fixing itself. Apparently, the only other way to deal with such glitches is to take afflicted autos to a dealer for a full-on software reinstall or reinitialization -- why Ford and Microsoft went the Ctrl-Alt-Delete route instead of finding a more user-friendly solution, we'll probably never know. The Blue Oval boys claim that Autoblog's experience was atypical, but have nonetheless rolled out software updates to alleviate the problems. Hopefully, it's enough to stop SYNC systems from doing the Force Close dance.
