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'Destiny 2' shifts away from weekly bounties to seasonal challenges
Bungie has eliminated the weekly "Destiny 2" bounty system that forced players to sign in and complete specific goals within seven days to gain rewards and premium currency.
YouTube’s Justin Bieber docuseries premieres January 27th
Today, YouTube shared the trailer for "Justin Bieber: Seasons," its 10-part docuseries on the artist. The first episode will drop on January 27th, and YouTube says the show will chronicle the making of Bieber's first album in four years. It promises a "raw, powerful and intimate look" at Bieber's creative process, and it will undoubtedly promote Bieber's 2020 tour.
BioWare hopes to fix 'Anthem' by swapping acts for seasonal updates
It's no secret that Anthem has had a lukewarm response. Dodgy game mechanics and various other bugs meant that developer BioWare published a blog post less than a month after its release, sharing its plans to make the game better. Now, the company has revealed more details on its planned improvements, which includes making changes to the way future Anthem content is released.
Sony plans to make everyone with a PS4 a competitive gamer
Sony is hoping it can rally its PlayStation fans around esports. Today, the company announced seasonal PS4 tournaments. It's inviting users of all levels to participate in competitive online gaming through their PS4 consoles, and it's even offering cash prizes.
Three years later, 'Diablo III' Seasons mode heads to consoles
It might be time to rekindle your love for the loot-fest of Diablo III. A big new patch with a ton of tweaks for the hack and slash dungeon crawler will land on March 31st. The update finally brings the popular Seasons mode to Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Seasons has been available to PC players since 2014 and now console players will finally get to join in the fun. We've asked Blizzard why it took so long to bring Seasons to consoles and will update if we receive a response.
The Walking Dead seasons start October 14 on PS4, Xbox One
Telltale's The Walking Dead seasons one and two will arrive on Xbox One and PS4 this month. That much we knew with certainty as of September. Now according to IGN, the first season will go next-gen on October 14 followed by the second season one week later, October 21. Xbox 360 and PS3 owners will get to enjoy each full season on October 21 as well. The release dates align with previous listings offered by Amazon. Those dates are for North American players; fans in Europe will have to wait a few extra days to receive both seasons on PS4 and Xbox One on October 24. Likewise, Vita players won't have access to the full second season until November 4. The adventure game series began with the launch of episode one in April 2012, and wrapped with the underwhelming fifth episode of Season 2 in late August. [Image: Telltale Games]
Diablo 2.10 patch releases with week of in-game bonuses
It's time for new challenges in Diablo III, as Patch 2.10 crash-landed today to the delights of players and the screams of frustrated hellbeasts. Why won't you stop slaughtering them already? The big four features that arrive with 2.10 are seasons, greater rifts, leaderboards, and cesspools. Starting today, players can roll up a fresh character for a new season to earn special rewards without assistance from the player's other assets. To celebrate the patch, Diablo III has triggered a week of double gold find and double treasure goblin appearances. The patch notes are so long that, well, they descend into the deep blackness of the website. If you'd rather not go blind reading all of that, you can check out the patch overview video after the jump. Happy gaming!
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls' first update bringing seasonal play
Diablo III has begun testing its first big update for Reaper of Souls, which will add an updated version of Diablo II's ladder system and more. Patch 2.1.0 will also add "seasons" to the game. These are a new type of play that requires players to start a fresh character to level up. Why would someone want to do something so obviously crazy? Why, for the exclusive rewards and the chance to climb the leaderboards! There will also be season-only achievements called conquests that will be awarded to the first 1,000 players to get each one. Once a season is over, the exclusive legendaries will be added to the rest of the game. Patch 2.1.0 will also impliment cesspool levels, combat balance changes, and greater rifts. The latter will have players racing against the clock to kill monsters and try to beat the end boss before time runs out.
Gloria Victis forecasts realistic weather system
If you need a reason to check out and possibly support indie MMO Gloria Victis, Black Eye Games hopes to tempt you with realistic weather. Actually, it's more than that; the team dubs it the Seasons system. The idea behind this system is that the game will change seasons, lighting, and weather on a regular basis, and these conditions will affect combat and strategic planning. Movement will be hampered by rain, for instance, and visibility by fog and blizzards. In addition, some NPCs will change their activities based on the weather, and some mobs will only come out in the daytime or nighttime. The team also reports that it's completed a "major overhaul" of its animations. Gloria Victis is still seeking crowdsourcing capital and is nearing pre-alpha stats. [Source: Black Eye Games press release]
The Game Archaeologist and the What Ifs: Climax's Warhammer Online
Let's begin with a little personal history. Back in 2008, I decided to get into the blogging scene by jumping on board the latest MMO hotness -- in this case, Warhammer Online. As I was growing increasingly tired of World of Warcraft, WAR seemed to offer a refreshing alternative: a darker world full of brutal PvP and awesome new ideas. So I joined the elite ranks of bloggers (hey, stop laughing so hard) and spent the better part of two years jawing about Mythic's latest fantasy project. And while Warhammer Online was, in my opinion, a solid product, it certainly failed to live up to the extremely high expectations held by both the development team and the players. No matter how it turned out, I really enjoyed talking about WAR, especially in the days leading up to its launch. One of the first articles I ever wrote for my blog WAAAGH! dealt with the first attempt to bring Warhammer Online into the MMO genre (as a fun aside, it was one of the first times I got my name on Massively!). It's a "what if?" tale that's tantalizing to consider -- an entirely different studio, Climax Online, creating a much darker version of Warhammer than we've ever seen online. The tale of the game's rise and fall (and subsequent rise and fall again) captivated me, and I wanted to expand my old article as part of our recent series into exploring MMOs canceled before their launch. So what if Climax had brought Warhammer Online to bear? Would it have eclipsed Mythic's vision or been its own animal? Hit the jump and let's dive into the pages of ancient history!
Global Agenda's latest Sandstorm patch hits today
Hi-Rez Studios brings us word of the latest round of Sandstorm changes coming today to Global Agenda. The sci-fi MMOFPS is rolling out Sandstorm Version 1.36 to the live servers, and with it a plethora of improvements to the Agency-vs-Agency (AvA) system. Seasons will now last for two weeks, and each major geographic region (North America, Europe, etc.) will feature one open zone from Monday through Thursday. Another zone will open up on Saturday and Sunday, and each will be open for six hours per day. In addition to the timing tweaks, AvA rewards have been adjusted, token daily limits have been raised, and consumables have been removed from PvP. Be sure to view the full list of changes via the patch notes on the official Global Agenda website.
Preview made available for Star Trek Online's Season 2
If the Season 1 patch for Star Trek Online pushed forward huge improvements to the game's engine, Season 2 looks to expand into several areas players have complained were lacking. Cryptic has just released a preview page detailing several additions, including added Klingon PvE play and six additional levels. The new levels let players reach the coveted rank of Vice Admiral in the Federation and Lieutenant General in the Klingon Empire, bringing improved versions of Tier 5 ships to coincide with the new maximum ranks. While it's not explicitly stated, it's implied that the new ships won't be mandatory upgrades, but rather options for players who want to fly some of the most iconic ships in the franchise's long history. Even with no other additions, the changes would bring new aspects of play, but the update also sees the launch of the Federation Diplomatic Corps (a separate leveling track of negotiation and social interaction) and a new minigame associated with anomaly scanning. Currently a passive form of resource gathering, scanning will be changed into a simple wave-matching game to help gather additional resources -- making it somewhat more interesting than walking to a node and pressing a button. That's still not getting into the special weekly content due to start arriving in August... there's a good reason Cryptic has made a large page to summarize it at a glance. Star Trek Online's second major patch is targeted to hit later this month, with a first impression from testing available from West Karana.
Vertu reminds us it's still alive with million-Yen phones, still tasteless as ever
What's a distinguished person of taste and refinement to do when smartphones nowadays are all so bulky and, well, ubiquitous? He or she should go take a look at Vertu's store, of course, which has today been populated for the first time with a new, even more exclusive Signature collection, composed of four models -- one for each season. There's a load of talk about delicate hand-crafting and latest technology with these, but the truth of the matter is that you'll be buying one solely for the purpose of puling it out of your carefully pressed, kerchiefed Armani suit in the hope of impressing any and all nearby members of the opposite sex. What this phone will then say, nay, scream, about you is that you have the money to buy things that are neither functional nor physically appealing -- the surest way to signal wealth and prestige. How much money? Try a million Yen for each handset, which roughly translates to $10,830. Update: Our sage readers have noted a failure in our machine-translated pricing. The handsets in fact cost 20 million Yen a piece, which equates to $216,600. So sorry to have misled you if you were heading off to the bank to get that 10 grand. %Gallery-89084%
Arena Junkies looks at some Gladiator statistics
You have to be real careful about how you put together statistics. As Gregg Easterbrook said, "Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything." So, grain of salt, people. That being said, Arena Junkies has put up a pretty interesting compilation of numbers. They took a look at their (fairly substantial) membership, and figured out the approximate class makeup of each Arena season's Gladiators. The results aren't exactly a surprise, which supports the analysis's validity. Warlocks -- once the Arena juggernaut to the sounds of much QQ -- have lost 8% of their dominance in the Gladiator ranks. By comparison, Rogues have picked up 6.5%. Druids are the big winners, though. Only 7.5% of Season 1's gladiators were druids, compared to 16% of Season 3's. And yeah. There's a lot of metagame interpretation that could be done regarding these numbers. Melee have slowly risen in power over the span of three seasons, and Paladins -- once the bubbling unstoppable -- have really dropped in performance. Druids used to be unremarkable, but now the "science" of Line-of-Sight and Mobility has taken the day. Arena Junkies promise to further update their analysis when the Hall of Fame is updated for Season 3. But I agree with Tyveris: I think the current sample is indicative, and we're not going to see any huge differences between these numbers and those.
