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A closer look at Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘next decade’ manifesto
Every year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg writes a letter outlining his goals for the coming year, including personal challenges. These missives talk about his own growth, as well as acting as a manifesto for Facebook in the coming year. Often, you need to spend a little time reading between the lines to understand what's really being said here. This year, Zuckerberg highlighted five issues he sees dominating the next decade of tech. Let's dig in.
Labour’s election manifesto: What it means for UK tech
The UK has entered election season, which means it's time for all of the major political parties to cough up their manifestos. Today it was Labour's turn to put forward its proposed vision, which includes better broadband access, more investment in renewable energy and a renewed effort to tackle cybercrime. Most of these ideas are covered in vague, broad strokes — there's a lot to cover in a manifesto, after all — but they're still worth reading and considering, if only to get a general sense of what Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn thinks is most important for the country.
RuneScape delivers its 2015 manifesto
We don't know what's better: the above teaser art or the fact that it represents RuneScape's upcoming 200th quest in which players will go to "a parallel universe where you, the hero, never existed and the bad guys won." This is just part of RuneScape's 2015 Manifesto, in which Mod Mark gives a brief overview of the game's next 12 months. He says that players will guide the game's development via suggestions from its RuneLabs site as well as additional polls. "You can be sure that next year will be a fantastic cocktail of your best ideas mixed with the best of ours!" Mark gushes. Other events in store include several updates to skills, new combat tactics, an Ocean's Eleven-style heist, a purpose for in-game shops, and a tussle with Tuska the World Devourer.
TomTom sends HD Traffic update to all Live models, extends Traffic Manifesto to US (video)
TomTom CEO Harold Goddijn announced at a NYC event last night that the company's HD Traffic service, previously only included with the Go 2535 M Live, would be available on all U.S. Live models, including the Go 740 Live and XL 340 Live. Traffic updates will be one component of the subscription-based Live, which will also see a 50 percent price drop, to $60 per year. This is all part of TomTom's grand Traffic Manifesto, which aims to cut traffic by five percent overall. Achieving this rather lofty goal in the U.S. would require 10 percent of the country's drivers to be using Live, which transmits real-time traffic data using a dedicated AT&T SIM. The company says drivers using the service themselves can expect to see travel times reduced by up to 15 percent. Our commute often involves a pajama-clad hike from the bed to the desk, so if you're currently a subscriber who drives to work, let us know if Traffic is making a dent in your travels.
New developer making plans for Lord of the Rings Online's PvMP
PvP in Lord of the Rings Online has always been a sticky issue, with players taking the roles of monsters that always felt a bit underrepresented. But if you've always been a fan of smashing player-controlled spiders or playing one yourself, you'll be happy to see that there's a new developer in town taking aim at the PvMP portion of the game. Kelsan's inaugural post included a call for feedback and a broad PvMP manifesto outlining the overall design goals for the play mode. One of the major areas being examined is the matter of rewards -- both factions are fighting for different rewards and different levels of commitment, which creates a disconnect in play. Kelsan and Orion both want to re-evaluate what players receive from zone control and taking part in PvMP, hopefully creating an environment where more players can get into the conflict. As one would expect, revisions are also being focused on a balancing of skills and abilities to help level the playing field. Lord of the Rings Online players should take a look at the full manifesto and offer any and all constructive feedback possible.
All systems go: Perpetuum launching November 25th
It's been five years in the making -- not to mention 18 months of beta testing -- but on November 25th, it all comes to a head. Perpetuum Online, which has been described as "EVE Online meets mechs," finally has a launch date. Avatar Creations' project is a persistent world at war, in which players can build, pilot and destroy robots across the landscape. According to Perpetuum's manifesto, the dev team strived to make an MMO that focuses on a social experience that utilizes crafting, economy and territory control as tools to connect large amounts of players. The download will be free, and Avatar Creations has announced that the pricing plan will be €8.95/$9.95 depending on the region. Interested players would do well to take the company up on the offer of early access, which costs the same but gives an additional week of play (early access players can start on November 18th) and four weeks of "extra extension points." Hit the jump to see Perpetuum's launch trailer and figure out if this is the virtual world for you!
MMO to go: Panasonic designing a handheld online gaming machine
While game studios are slowly forging a path to bringing MMOs to established handheld devices like the iPhone, Panasonic is looking to flip that paradigm on its head. Eurogamer reports that the company has been developing a handheld device specifically for MMOs and is poised for a major reveal. Called "The Jungle," this clamshell unit boasts a high-resolution screen, keyboard, touchpad, directional pad and several input ports. It is rumored to run the Linux OS and could work with MMO titles such as Battlestar Galactica Online and RuneScape, according to the company. The Jungle's website is scarce on content at the moment, but on its Manifesto page the developers state: "Our mission: Create an ecosystem around online gaming. At the core is a new mobile device concept designed specifically for online gamers. We're also working with leading online game developers to create some exciting new content." Whether there is a significant demand for such a product is up in the air, but this is intriguing enough to follow for the time being.
TomTom shows signs of life with Traffic Manifesto, aims to shorten European travel times by 5 percent
We're actually surprised that TomTom's still going strong after Google and Nokia unleashed their free satnav offerings many months ago. If you need some convincing, try this: following the launch of its Go Live 1000 series earlier this month, TomTom has just published a manifesto on its mission to encourage "better use of existing road capacity," and eventually "reduce journey times for everyone by up to 5 percent where there is traffic." Actually, by "everyone" TomTom means Europe, and according to its computer simulations, this would apparently require 10 percent of the continent's drivers to be hooked up to its HD Traffic active load-balancing service. There's no time frame given here, but it'll probably be awhile -- in the video after the break, CEO Harold Goddijn admits that out of TomTom's 45 million drivers, only about 1 million (or 2.2 percent) are currently connected to its live services. That said, this figure might get a little boost once TomTom starts providing free traffic data to radio stations and TV channels as part of its manifesto (in return for some cheap publicity, of course). On a related note, TomTom has also just rolled out HD Traffic 4.0, touting its "higher accuracy, reporting up to 200 percent more traffic jams during rush hours than previously." Existing HD Traffic customers from eight nations -- including Switzerland -- need not fiddle with anything to utilize the new service, and by year's end seven more countries will join the party. Meanwhile, we're still waiting on TomTom's own take on the App Store -- who knows if the company will even survive long enough to reach its goals. We kid, we kid. Or do we?%Gallery-103666%
This game will care that you're there: Our look at the Guild Wars 2 manifesto
Earlier this week, ArenaNet promised a new Guild Wars 2 video. That announcement came with a warning: no, it's not a new class reveal, and many fans were pretty disappointed. What could possibly serve as an adequate substitute for a class reveal? It's safe to say that the disappointment was blown out of the water yesterday with the unveiling of the MMO Manifesto and the Walking the Walk blog post. Merriam-Webster defines the word manifesto as a "a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer," but when the word is used in context, there are usually strong feelings behind those intentions. Revolutionary, groundbreaking, and change are words associated with such a thing, and it was a word well-chosen by ArenaNet with this newest reveal. Follow along after the jump as we take a closer look at what ArenaNet showed us yesterday.
Behind the Curtain: Don't be ashamed
Picture the scene – you're at a family gathering, or maybe you're meeting your significant other's friends and family for the first time, and the conversation turns interrogative. Questions are asked about your hobbies; what you do to relax and how you spend your spare time. What do you do? When put on the spot like that, it's natural for gamers to feel trapped, to feel like admitting to playing MMOs would be tantamount to admitting to a rather kinky fetish or confessing that you've got a rather embarrassing disease – it might not be catching, but there's a chance that you'll get some funny looks, and you may just lose some credibility points. What about job interviews and applications? These invariably have a point where questions are asked about you hobbies and leisure time. While there are good arguments that putting down strong examples of guild leadership might work in your favour – owning up to the fact that you play an MMO upwards of 15 hours a week might not be the smartest thing career-wise. Don't get me wrong – I am proud and happy to be a geek and a gamer, and I've never wanted to be anything else; the wall above my desk sports a rare Akira poster I picked up on holiday France a while back; I own the complete boxed set of the original Transformers series; and much of my wardrobe consists of t-shirts from ThinkGeek and the Penny Arcade store. People ask me what I do in my spare time, and I look them straight in the eye and tell them that I'm a gamer, and while I'm not ashamed of it, I can't help but wince a little when I see most people's reaction to it.
Acclaimed Israel-Palestine sim gets commercial release
Peace Maker, a serious game concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is now commercially available via independent games publisher Manifesto Games. The simulation / strategy title places you as either the leader of Israel or Palestine as you face situations inspired by real events.Created by a team of American, Palestinian and Israeli students at Carnegie-Mellon University, Peace Maker has won USC's Public Diplomacy Games Contest and was a finalist for Ashoka's Entrepreneuring Peace Contest. It has been highlighted by NPR and The New York Times. Said Manifest CEO Greg Costikyan, Peace Maker "takes on one of the most difficult world issues, presents it without bias or prejudice, and challenges players to think about the issues, to do better than the real-world leaders."The game is available in English, Hebrew and Arabic for Windows and Mac OS X for $20. A demo is available for download; trailer embedded after the break.[Via Game Politics]
Sex games look to stake their claim
Much like Michael W. Smith circa 1990, adult video games (read: sex-based) are looking for their place in the world. But the industry's lady lumps are faced with some significant humps to get over, first and foremost: Their games aren't sold in stores. But in speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, many publishers of adults-only titles seem to be optimistic about their future in a gaming retail landscape that is increasingly digitalized. The piece (by Joystiq contributor Bonnie Ruberg) makes a compelling case for a day in the not-too-distant-future when sex games will be able to find a real foothold, citing publishers like Manifesto Games who are willing to take on adult titles and developers like Brad Abrams of VirtuallyJenna who are finding outside-the-box ways to promote their games. The article also notes the increasing size of the Sex and Videogames Conference, held annually -- in our pants. Actually, the venue hasn't been announced yet, so while it could be our pants, we'd bet on San Fransisco. Not that we'll get an invite now. Unfortunately, there's no mention of homemade sex games becoming more popular, which is bad for us, because we had a great joke about XXXNA. ... Actually, that was the whole joke, so we're fine.[via GamePolitics]
