Nia
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Kobo's new entry-level e-reader is the $100 Nia
The Kobo Nia is an entry-level reader with a six-inch, 1,024 x 758 Carta E Ink display (with Kobo’s ComfortLight front lighting), 172 gram weight, 8GB of storage and 1,000 mAh battery that will run for “weeks on end” on a single charge.
Perpetuum expansion coming May 30th, bringing terraforming, new land masses
A couple of weeks ago, we told you about Perpetuum's new player-build settlements functionality and its new test server. Now, the devs at Avatar Creations have even more exciting news: an expansion! It's called Gamma Frontier, and Avatar calls it the biggest expansion since the game went live over 18 months ago. Player corporations will be able to build home bases, launch industrial projects, and colonize the new Gamma islands (not to mention defend them from invasion-minded players). The expansion also features extensive new terrain-shaping abilities. Avatar has given players full control over the land, including the ability to form hills, dig holes, and level the surrounding terrain as they see fit. Due to complications with pre-existing systems and landmasses, the terraforming capabilities are available only on the new Gamma islands (24 in total). Click past the cut to see a brief video of terraforming in action, then head to the Perpetuum website to read all the expansion details. [Source: Perpetuum newsletter]
Perpetuum devs hand out PvP awards, tournament viewable in video archives
Last week we told you about Perpetuum's impending one-year anniversary and the robot-powered shenanigans that the devs at Avatar Creations were cooking up for the celebration that took place over the weekend. Well, the results are in, and Perpetuum's first official PvP tournament (and a PvE scavenger hunt) went swimmingly according to the latest dev blog. Avatar even handed out a few tongue-in-cheek rewards including the Dale Earnhardt, Jr. prize (for the most laps around the combat arena) and the Baby's First PvP award which was given to the best newb group brave enough to enter the event. If you missed the event, or if you're just interested in a free look at Perpetuum, you can watch the archived video stream at the game's official website.
Perpetuum expansion launches December 1st, anniversary tourney this weekend
Perpetuum's latest expansion is rapidly approaching, and Avatar Creations has pumped out a good bit of info to make sure sci-fi sandbox fans are aware of all the goings-on in its maiden MMORPG. The Intrusion 2.0 patch hits tomorrow and brings with it substantial improvements to the mission and rendering engine systems, a new robot, and new conquerable outpost mechanics. Prior to the expansion, outpost conflict was fairly random, but now thanks to a concept called stability that lets corporations gradually increase their influence over a given facility, Avatar is allowing enterprising players to get a lot of more mileage out of the system as they build their empires across the planet Nia. As we reported last week, the devs are also hosting a tournament to celebrate the game's one-year anniversary, and you can read Avatar's description of the events after the break.
Some Assembly Required: Happy birthday Perpetuum!
Welcome back to Some Assembly Required, dear readers. This week marks something of a milestone for Perpetuum, the sci-fi sandbox set in the distant future on a far-flung planet known as Nia. Yes, the mech-based MMORPG has survived its first year (without a free-to-play conversion crutch!), and more than that, it's even grown a little bit. That's no small feat for an indie title in today's overcrowded MMO marketplace, never mind a niche sandbox that's been called a ground-based EVE Online. Join me after the break for a recap of Perpetuum's first 12 months.
Avatar breaks out the banhammer for Perpetuum cheaters
Rut roh! It's banhammer time in Perpetuum, the sci-fi indie sandbox from Avatar Creations. The latest Avatar dev blog has the (sparse) details courtesy of Dev Calvin. Apparently some players availed themselves of a game exploit that allowed for significant gains in robots, equipment, and other commodities. It's not as innocent as it sounds, though, as the dev blog makes clear. "The method that was used can by no means [be] interpreted as intended gameplay. A lot of technical preparation and effort went into the experimentation and execution," Calvin writes. The ill-gotten gains have of course been removed, and Avatar has also permabanned the offending accounts, which sends a clear message as to the type of zero-tolerance policy toward cheating on display in the world of Nia. Check out the official Perpetuum website for more reading material.
Community Detective Issue #23: Perpetuum
Welcome to the Perpetuum edition of Community Detective. Avatar Creations' mech-based sandbox MMORPG launched back in November, and despite being relatively new to the market, it has already had time to release a free expansion and a 15-day free trial as well as build itself a small but dedicated fanbase. I spent the last couple of weeks tooling around the game's tutorials and early mission content as well as observing Perpetuum's community and customer service offerings. Due to the size of the community and the bare-bones approach to customer service, this week's issue of Community Detective departs from my standard data-centric format in favor of some general impressions. Join me after the cut to see what's happening on the planet Nia.
Perpetuum launches 15-day free trial
Perpetuum's newest expansion officially went live last week, and Terra Incognita brought a bunch of changes to the world of Nia. Chief among them is the doubling of the game world's size, and the extra space makes all the more sense when coupled with the sci-fi sandbox's new free trial. Said trial gives you 15 days of game time, during which you're free to putter around in your giant mech, exploring six new islands and raining death down on NPCs and your fellow players. The trial does come with a couple of restrictions, namely the inability to trade or join a corporation. Other than that, you can build and fight to your heart's content, as well as check out all the new expansion features like the highway fast travel system, new modules, and a highly customizable event notification system. Head to the official Perpetuum website to sign up!
Perpetuum dev blog outlines upcoming tweaks
There's a new dev blog floating around the Perpetuum website, and it's got quite a bit of interesting info to share with players of Avatar Creations' mech-based sandbox MMORPG. Avatar's Dev Zoom writes that while most of the team is hard at work on growing the world of Nia, there's also room for "a few small but rather important changes, which we intend to implement in smaller patches before and around the world expansion patch." Chief among these updates is a global storage listing. Zoom says that this new asset list functionality will allow players to browse their items in both local and remote terminals. Avatar is also removing NPC buy orders for kernels, leaving the kernel market totally in the hands of players and dependent on player research needs. Also scheduled for a revamp are geoscanner folders, the market rates graph, and the game's event notification system, which the dev blog labels as an "age-old fossil." And that's just the tip of the iceberg, as Avatar has several more items on its to-do list. We've only got so much space though, so you'll have to head to the official Perpetuum dev blog to read the rest.
Perpetuum officially launched
Gear up, mechheads -- Perpetuum has officially launched. As of yesterday, November 25th, Avatar Creations' massively multiplayer sandbox is open for business. Early access accounts have been disabled, and you'll need to pony up for the $9.95 subscription fee in order to continue carving out humanity's destiny on the planet Nia. Newly created accounts will receive two weeks' worth of extension points (the game's skill point currency) for free, though a press release on the official website states that this offer will be for an "undetermined period." Perpetuum features time-based character development, real-time asynchronous combat, dynamically changing environments, and a single-server persistent universe. Register for your account at the official website, and we'll see you on the surface of Nia.
OCZ's Neural Impulse Actuator gets reviewed, mice everywhere safe for now
We tried to take OCZ's Neural Impulse Actuator seriously, we really did. But unable to suppress those recurring images of Geordi La Forge, we simply couldn't help ourselves from having a laugh at this thing's expense. Nevertheless, the way-more-solemn dudes and dudettes over at HotHardware managed to give this brain-computer interface a fair shake, and overall, it was pretty impressed. Still, the bottom line is this: "the NIA is a very unique input device and possibly the first true brain-computer interface to hit the retail market," but it's not "a replacement for traditional input methods." Granted, critics did point out that it would supplement current devices quite well, but only after "slogging through" hours upon hours of training. The hardcore among us may be willing to put in the time necessary to really get a lot out of this; for everyone else, just continue to point and laugh while masking your ignorance.
Heads-on with OCZ's Neural Impulse Actuator
If the Neural Impulse Actuator (NIA) from OCZ could really read thoughts, it'd be a little disappointed right now. In our short time with the "brain mouse" controller, we had some difficulty figuring out what exact "thoughts" did what, with our primary accomplishment being repeated backwards jumping motions while getting destroyed in a match of Unreal Tournament 3. To the NIA's credit, however, we could already tell that we were getting a bit of a sixth sense for the controller, and with the hour or so of recommended time for learning, we're sure we could be fragging with the best of them. "Brain mouse" is a bit of a misnomer, since we used the NIA in conjunction with a real mouse for actually looking around. NIA took over everything else, including strafing, jumping, running and even shooting if you concentrate just right. The unit seemed to primarily concern itself with our forehead muscle contractions, but other subtle motions seemed to come out of nowhere when we moved our eyes or concentrated just right. Just for novelty alone we'd say the NIA is worth that $300 pricetag, but we don't expect to be besting Fatal1ty with this strapped to our head.%Gallery-17540%
OCZ set to launch Neural Impulse Actuator "brain mouse"
It's certainly not the first to toy around with mind control as a means of fun and games, but OCZ looks like it may be among the first to actually get a product out the door, with it now set to launch its Neural Impulse Actuator "brain mouse," or NIA for short. According to Daily Tech, the device makes use of a combination of EEG readings, muscle movement, and eye movement to control a given application which, in this case, is mainly intended to be games. Needless to say, the contraption will take a little getting used to, but OCZ says that most users will get the hang of it "within hours" after a little practice, and that they'll eventually even be able to increase their reaction time compared to a standard mouse. You'll also not surprisingly need a fairly decent PC, as the NIA has been designed specifically for multi-core systems, and a good bit cash to spare, with it set to run $300 when it launches sometime in the not too distant future (it's going into production next week).
