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Bungie is making 'Destiny 2' raid races more competitive
Destiny 2's World First raid races are supposed to provide glory and rewards to anyone with a sufficiently committed fireteam, but that's not how it works in practice -- and Bungie wants to level the playing field. When the shared-world shooter's Season of Opulence kicks off June 4th, it'll introduce a Contest mode that should give more players a shot at finishing the matching Crown of Sorrow raid before others. Bungie will effectively minimize the advantages of those hardcore players who can afford to spend many hours building their characters up before the assault even begins.
The first 'Division 2’ eight-person raid is delayed until May
Developer Massive Entertainment and publisher Ubisoft had planned to release a major update for The Division 2 next week, bringing with it the game's first eight-person raid, called Operation Dark Hours. However, Massive wants a little more time to fine-tune the game and make sure the experience is as enjoyable as possible. As such, it's delaying the update until sometime in May.
'Pokémon Go' is testing high noon raids
Next week, Pokémon Go will experiment with a new feature: lunch hour raid battles. On March 13, from 12pm to 1pm in your local time zone, Pokémon Go will increase the number of raids. If the one-day trial run goes well, lunchtime brawls might become a regular part of the game.
‘Destiny 2’ Nightfall raids get an improved scoring system
Just a few days ago, Bungie released its Destiny 2 development road map, full of improvements to counter complaints about diminishing rewards. Now the company has announced a new scoring system for the game's weekly Nightfall raids aimed at rewarding players for more fine-grained achievements instead of a simple time-based pass/fail mechanism.
Google's Spanish offices raided in tax investigation
Google is no stranger to tax investigations, but in recent months, European investigators have taken things up a notch. Coming just a month after tax inspectors raided the company's French HQ, Spanish officials today cast the spotlight on its operations in Madrid as part of an ongoing probe into its tax contributions.
Google's Paris HQ raided by French tax authorities
French authorities have raided Google's Paris headquarters as part of an ongoing investigation into the company's tax affairs in the country. In February, reports claimed the government believed Google owed 1.6-billion Euros ($1.2-billion) in back taxes. According to The Guardian, investigators were on the scene at Google's Paris headquarter at around 5am this morning, with the raid involving up to 100 investigators, reports in Le Parisien.
There's a battle brewing over one-wheeled skateboards
At January's Consumer Electronics Show, US Marshals raided and shut down a booth hawking the Trotter, a one-wheeled electric skateboard. Officials were told that the device violated patents owned by Future Motion, makers of the rival OneWheel self-balancing board. Bloomberg, however, is reporting that Future Motion has now withdrawn its infringement lawsuit against the Trotter. It's suggested that the company mislead the courts about the strength of its patents, tricking authorities into taking out a legitimate rival.
Is Renault facing its own emissions scandal? (updated)
An AFP report, syndicated by The Telegraph, claims that Renault could be facing a Volkswagen-style emissions scandal of its very own. Representatives from the CGT Renault union are claiming that the French car maker's offices were raided by the nation's anti-fraud office last week. The suggestion is that authorities from the agency were interested in the engine control units that are fitted to certain cars. In addition, the personal computers of several directors were seized. Naturally, this news has had a disastrous effect on Renault's share price, with Bloomberg reporting that the potential scandal has caused a fall of 20 percent.
Police target the man identified as 'Bitcoin creator'
Australian Federal Police raided the home and offices of Craig Steven Wright, the man named in Gizmodo and Wired reports as the possible mind behind Bitcoin. A dozen officials entered a home he was renting and offices registered to him, telling a Reuters reporter they were "clearing house." They also directed any questions to the Australian Tax Office, which has yet to comment. Wright has had previous run-ins with tax officials, and Wired reported that he may possess Bitcoins "easily worth a nine-figure fortune." However, the Guardian reports that the raids are unrelated to any possible role that Wright had in creating the crypto-currency.
UK police seize thousands of Android streamers modded for piracy
Set-top boxes help deliver streaming services like Netflix and Now TV into our homes, but they're also giving rise to less-than legal methods of watching films, TV shows and sport. As manufacturers have embraced the open nature of Android, enterprising users have found ways to install apps that facilitate piracy, which has become a business in its own right. This week, a number of police forces conducted raids on sellers of "pirate" Android streamers, confiscating thousands of units in the process.
Engadget giveaway: win a BeyondCloud NAS courtesy of Synology!
The Cloud doesn't have to be a nebulous space in the stratosphere, you can have one in your own home. Sure, there's usually a steep initial price tag and configuration learning curve for most people, but Synology's BeyondCloud lineup helps bypass that. Hosting your own network-attached storage (NAS) is now more approachable and affordable with the BeyondCloud's pre-packaged and -configured drives. You'll have secure access to your files from anywhere with a data connection, so you can store, stream and share your digital stuff without having to pay Cloud storage fees again. Sizes range from single-bay 2TB models to two-bays of 3TB mirrored drives with RAID protection in case one ever fails. And that's what's on the giveaway floor today: one Synology BeyondCloud Mirror (BC214se 2300) will go to a lucky Engadget this week, so they can take control of all their data. Just head on down to the Rafflecopter widget for up to three chances at winning this next generation of streamlined NAS systems from Synology. Winner: congratulations Eddie D. of Minneapolis, MN.
World of Warcraft outlines February's events
There are a lot of holiday events in World of Warcraft this month. February contains the Lunar Festival, Love is in the Air, the Darkmoon Faire... heck, it's also going to be the month that the next major raid opens up. Luckily for avid World of Warcraft players, the official site has put together a comprehensive schedule of the month's festivities, starting with the Valentine's Day event and the new raid opening tomorrow. Astute readers will note that Blizzard suggests players prepare for patch 6.1 with no hints about when it's coming out. Whether this means it's going to be later in the month or won't be dropping until March remains to be seen. Then again, the raiding crowd will have plenty to do through the month with Blackrock Foundry, and if you like holiday events, you've got several of those coming around as well.
Take a tour of DCUO's Amazon Fury raid with the devs
Coming soon to DC Universe Online is the Amazon Fury Part II DLC, because Amazons are not known to be timid, quiet souls. All about the fury, they are. Anyway, part of this upcoming patch is the new Halls of Hades raid, and the devs are inviting you to go along with them on a tour of this intimidating experience. We've got a 43-minute video of the Halls of Hades with devs and test center players after the break if you want to get a good feel for what's going to be faceplanting your heroes in the near future.
The Daily Grind: What constitutes a 'niche' MMO feature?
In the wake of WildStar's rocky first half year, some players have defended the game's self-destructive gameplay decisions by declaring traditional gameplay tropes "niche." It's meant to be a niche game for that tiny niche of hardcore raiders, defenders argue, and therefore criticism is unwarranted. And in the sense that apparently a very small proportion of MMORPG fans actually participate in raiding (unless forced?), they're right. But that hasn't stopped most themepark MMOs since EverQuest from brandishing raids as a mostly inadequate talisman to ward off playerbase churn. Even if we outright refuse to raid, most of the MMOs we play are designed around raiders and raiding. It's easy to not raid, but raiding is hard to ignore because it's not being treated as niche by so many of the biggest titles and studios. The disconnect between development plans and playerbase desires is reflected in this same disconnect between what we think of as a niche MMO feature and what actually is niche by the numbers. How would you sort it out? If raids, one of the core and defining features of so many themeparks, are niche, then what isn't niche? What exactly constitutes a niche MMO feature? 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!
Blade & Soul raid boss looks grumpy at its future prospects
Blade & Soul will soon have a new 24-person raid boss to fight, and if a teased poster is any indication, the big bad doesn't look happy at being at the bottom of a pile-on. However, it does look competent, as evidenced by all of the dead bodies at its feet. MMO Culture reports that the raid will be tailored to include the upcoming Warlock class, although there are no other details or specifics to absorb at the moment. Until we know more, content yourself to gaze into the eyes of madness after the break and know that this beast holds the key to all of your loot dreams... at least if you're in Korea. The rest of us are still impatiently awaiting the game in the West.
Destiny development blog discusses updates and guns
The holiday break is over now, and the team behind Destiny is slowly returning from the collective bacchanalia and getting back to what really matters: giving players guns so that they can shoot aliens in the face and then get better guns to shoot bigger aliens. If you've already gone through Crota's End and are waiting for the hard mode, for example, you should know that it's almost done and should be going on to the live servers soon, although there's not a concrete date yet. It's all in the game's most recent developer blog. Players can look forward to loot updates in Vault of Glass and system changes in Crota's End as soon as January 13th, which should help soften the delay. The blog also contains information on guns, specifically on the most popular sorts of weapons that players are toting around to use during their alien-shooting sorties. Check out the full update for more details on the patch adjustments and future PvP rotations.
Learn to beat World of Warcraft's newest raid... in 60 seconds
We realize that there are a couple of different ways to treat that title, so let's be clear: This video guide will teach you how to beat all of the bosses in Highmaul in 60 seconds. It will not teach you how to take 60 seconds to defeat all of them. Yes, it could go either way, but did you really think you could drop World of Warcraft's raid in a minute of playtime? Nope, it's all about length of tutelage, not length of execution. The even shorter version is the universal raid guide for the game, of course: Move out of the thing, stack up if you see everyone else stacking up, and kill the little things. But it's the fine details where everything is really decided. click on past the break and get a minute-long dose of how to not be the one responsible for wiping the group.
All wings of Highmaul LFR now available
If you're looking to continue your journey to LFR domination, the third and final wing of Highmaul opened today. This last wing is home only to Imperator Mar'gok, and, like all other LFR wings, you'll need an ilvl of 615 to queue up. Need a helping hand taking Mar'gok out? There are some great guides to Mar'gok on other difficulty levels that will give you an idea of what to expect -- though, as always, his abilities will be dialed down for LFR difficulty. Take a look through these guides to get an edge on the LFR competition: Icy Veins Ten Ton Hammer GameSkinny Git Er Raid FatbossTV (and for a super quick recap, check their Highmaul in 60 Seconds video) LoS Gaming Good luck in LFR, everyone!
WildStar's next big update and holiday surprise
The first major WildStar update of 2015 is available on the test servers now. Yes, there's a little time before it actually goes live for everyone. Creative Director Chad Moore took the opportunity today to explain to the community everything contained within the new update, starting with the addition of two new dungeons (the Protostar Academy and the Ultimate Protogames), a new Shiphand mission, and the addition of veteran-level Shiphand missions that can still be cleared solo or in a group as you'd like. This update also includes new housing options, cosmetic options for characters (including the ability to edit your appearance post-character creation), and the addition of the new Glory currency for completing dungeons and raids, which can be exchanged for high-end equipment. Last but not least, it's the update that includes the long-discussed drop of the Datascape raid down to 20 players, making it less of a challenge to assemble a roster for this content. While it remains to be seen how well the update actually plays, it looks to be filled with a number of positive changes for the game. In other WildStar news today, the studio is running holiday promotion during December. "Carbine wanted to wish everyone a Happy Holiday and spread some cheer by giving out 12 Days of Boom Boxes," wrote Community Manager Tony Rey yesterday. "Everyone that has logged into WildStar during the month of December (12/1-12/15) will receive these sweet little bundles of potential."
The Daily Grind: Are DPS meters bad for MMOs?
In the comments of Eliot's Soapboxes about MMO raiding, one Massively reader declared his own most-hated element of the raiding scene: DPS meters. In MMOs that allow mods, players invariably find a way to slice and dice the combat logs with a plugin that parses who did what and how much of it, spitting those data out into a tidy list that shows who's king of DPS and who's just being "carried." I don't think most MMO players want to see math and numbers driven from the genre in favor of rock-paper-scissors simplicity -- I sure don't, anyway; I like my crafting spreadsheets. But the vast majority of MMO combat really truly doesn't require the rotational precision of the top raiding guilds in the world, so why do we see DPS meters being trotted out for every basic dungeon? Repeatedly seeing people as numbers isn't exactly generating warmer MMO communities, and sometimes I wonder whether our obsession with judging everyone around us "by the numbers" is a crutch to help us avoid unpleasant conversations. Did we really need a DPS meter to clue us into the fact that Bob is half AFK tapping his 1 key over and over instead of paying attention to the fight? I think we knew that without the mod. What do you guys think? Are DPS meters bad for MMOs? 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!