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'PUBG' adds bots to PC matches
'PUBG' now includes bots to give new players a fighting chance.
Amazon fixed an exploit that allowed Alexa to listen all the time
Amazon's Alexa is good at listening, since it has to be ready when you say its wake word, like "Alexa," "Echo" or "Computer." That very same feature, though, has people worried about their own privacy. Researchers from security firm Checkmarx have found a way to get Alexa to listen in and send a transcript of any conversations that it records while eavesdropping.
Alexa templates make it easy to craft your own skills
If you've ever thought to yourself "I wish Alexa can host trivia night" or "I'll bet Alexa can get people to laugh at my lame jokes," then you'll love Amazon's new offering. The e-commerce giant has launched Alexa Skill Blueprints, a collection of templates you can use to create skills without having to code anything. Amazon says you can whip up skills of your own within minutes simply by filling in the blanks.
Alexa’s now a Eurovision trivia buff
Whatever your thoughts are on it, there's no denying that The Eurovision Song Contest continues to go from strength to strength. In 2016, over 200 million viewers watched Ukraine's Jamala triumph over three live shows broadcast from Stockholm, Sweden. And thanks to an ever-increasing US audience, tomorrow's final is expected to help break the record once again. For some, Eurovision is a way of life, but for others, the music event can take some getting used to. To bring people up to speed, Eurovision has created an official Alexa skill that doesn't only provide answers to europop trivia, it can also play back every track performed over the last 60 years.
Alexa gets meta, finds you the latest AI research
AI research is so hot right now, it's hard for even scientists in the field to keep up. To stay on top of the 300-plus papers submitted per day to Arxiv.org, machine-learning researcher Amine Ben Khalifa naturally turned to ... machine learning. He taught Amazon's AI-powered Alexa bot to find the latest AI research papers for the day, read the titles and give a summary of specific projects, all via voice control.
Age of Wushu previews new school abilities after server merge
The fifth inner skills for each of the eight schools are arriving in the next Age of Wushu update, and if you're a player, you'd probably like to know what they do, wouldn't you? I mean, one of them might instantly kill everything in a seven-meter radius, and the other might summon a moderate quantity of breadsticks and marinara sauce. That seems unlikely, though, as the preview of these new abilities mentions neither sort of talent. They do include attack buffs, HP drains, and major defensive buffs, though, so that's good. You'll be able to show these skills off to a wider range of players after the game's server merges from yesterday. The Golden Kirin and White Tiger servers have been merged into the Blue Dragon server; players whose names will need to change should receive name changing scrolls within the next few days. If you weren't able to log in yesterday and aren't sure about how the merge went down, you can double-check the quick guide to the process.
Star Wars: The Old Republic axes skill training costs
SWTOR penny-pinchers rejoice, for the oppressive tyranny of skill costs are about to become history. In a post on the forums this afternoon, BioWare announced that it will be abandoning skill training costs as of next week. "One thing has become clear from the player feedback in not only this thread, but since launch: players do not like training costs. It is a situation where every level you will see your hard earned credits go to a holographic Hutt doctor in order to make yourself a bit stronger. We have been talking about this topic internally for quite some time and when you add player feedback to the mix one thing becomes clear... We should make training costs a thing of the past," the studio said. [Thanks to the five million people who sent this tip in!]
The Daily Grind: How many button presses should it take to kill a mob?
MJ and I were talking while playing The Secret World the other day about the game's legendary fight length. Well, at least I consider fights in this MMO as taking longer than normal. I told her that generally if a standard, level-even mob isn't dead by a rotation-and-a-half of my skills, or about eight button presses, then it begins to irk me. Now it definitely depends on the mob strength and situation, but I don't want to be pounding 30 keys and sitting there for two minutes before a critter drops. However, saying that got me wondering what you all consider as a normal, acceptable number of button presses (or skills used) per fight. What do you think? 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!
Threshold spiritual successor Stash seeks to 're-imagine the genre'
The team behind the classic MUD Threshold is back with Stash, a new MMO in the making that claims to "re-imagine the genre" with a growable base of operations, turn-based combat, and wide character customization. The inspiration for Stash comes from tabletop D&D, miniature gaming, D&D computer RPGs and Planescape: Torment. "We put a large emphasis on rewarding player skill in addition to character skill," the devs posted. "Your character's abilities and gear are very important, but the tactics and strategy of the actual players is equally important." Developer Frog Dice claims that this is a full-fledged MMO, although it remains to be seen how much of Stash is actually massively multiplayer (the site mentions clans, co-op play, and PvP). The team is looking to raise $50,000 on Kickstarter to fund development on the title. You can check out Stash's early development trailer after the break! [Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
The Daily Grind: What's your favorite instant skill?
I am not always a patient man, especially when I'm in the middle of combat. If given a choice, I will avoid channeled and long-cast skills even if the payoff is massive, like shooting a pocket nuke down that mutant frog's throat. I want my skill and I want it now, not four seconds and a progress bar from now. So today let's praise and ponder the instant-cast skills, especially your favorite. In WildStar, I love how every class (at least that I've played) has an instant-stun ability that's incredibly useful to stop a big enemy attack in its tracks. I've also been a huge fan of instant-cast DoTs, which is kind of like channeling on the skill's own time instead of mine. What's yours? 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 Summoner's Guidebook: My goals in League of Legends
Whenever I enter a League of Legends match, I have a few goals set in mind. Of course, winning is a goal, but that's not the only goal. My agenda tends to be a lot more long-term, relative to other LoL players. We've talked a lot about meta lately, and it tends to be a hot topic with Season 4's preseason patches shaking up the meta quite a bit. There are a lot of reasons to justify not playing meta. There are also a lot of reasons to take risky decisions that might not pan out.
EVE Evolved: Everything we know about Rubicon
Back in April, EVE Online Senior Producer Andie Nordgren delivered an incredible long-term vision for the game's future that included deep space colonisation, player-built stargates, and players controlling practically everything that's currently run by NPC empires. This vision sets the tone and direction for development over the next ten expansions, each of which will introduce a small component of the overall goal. In a live interview session earlier this week, CCP revealed the first steps it will take toward space colonisation in its upcoming winter expansion. Named Rubicon, the expansion will be in players' hands on November 19th and promises to give individuals and small groups unprecedented control over the sandbox. It will let players fight over planetary customs offices in high security space, significantly buff the ability of small ships to participate in hit-and-run style warfare, and even introduce a new set of personal deployable structures that can be hidden anywhere in space. All this comes alongside two new Sisters of EVE ships, twitch livestream integration, and significant balance changes to Marauders, Interceptors, Interdictors, and Electronic Attack Frigates. In this week's EVE Evolved, I run down all of the new features and changes announced so far for EVE Online's Rubicon expansion.
The Art of Wushu: Being a master or an apprentice
Fun facts for fans of the Art of Wushu: I wrote three articles about Age of Wushu for this week. I started off writing something lame, but I scrapped it because I didn't like the topic. The second is one about reaction times, perception, and brain chemistry. However, I realized somewhere in the middle of writing it that I used terms about "skill levels" that I have never really defined, and I figured it would be a good thing to do that before I went any further. So this time, we're going to talk about skill levels and what they mean. All of them are fairly discrete, and they are pretty universal, whether you practice swordsmanship or carpentry (or do either in a video game). I have probably used the term "expert player" over 9000 times while writing for Massively, and I've held an opinion on what an intermediate player is since long before I was blogging. This is a good way to identify where you and others stand, which is how you'll know what kind of advice you need to get to the next level.
The Summoner's Guidebook: A League of Legends guide to guides
The goal of The Summoner's Guidebook is and always has been to encourage the development of player skill in League of Legends, especially for beginner and intermediate players. The focus on developing individual skills means that we do fewer in-depth guides on specific elements of the game. When I write about why you should not always buy Deathcap, I'm trying to help you develop the critical thinking skills to look at items and make in-the-moment value decisions about which item is better. I could use any item, but Deathcap has a lot of little things to think about. Either way, there are other guides out there for League of Legends. Let's not kid ourselves here. There are thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands?) of guides out there. Actually, there are probably thousands of websites that provide information on LoL of some kind or another. The Guidebook is really just a drop in the ocean. Therefore, this week I'm going to talk about them.
Neverwinter gives players the freedom to buy skills
Quoting beta feedback as a reason, Cryptic is changing Neverwinter's character progression to allow players to purchase new skills via power points. Previously, specific skills were handed out automatically upon hitting certain levels, but apparently choice was a big request of testers. The new power points system, which will be available in the upcoming fourth beta weekend, allows for both skill unlocks and upgrades. There will be certain restrictions, such as keeping the third rank for all skills locked until level 30 and not giving players enough points to purchase everything by the time they hit the endgame. The team says that this system will make the decision of feat choices more strategic, particularly in compensating for any power weakness.
The Soapbox: Be as bad as you like
There are a lot of reasons I love MMOs, but one of the reasons is the fact that there are so many possible goals in any given game and so many different reasons to pursue them. Even in games with more limitations, you've still got a surfeit of character options, moreso than in almost any other genre. I love to roleplay a character who wouldn't normally be the main character of a story, explore what makes her tick, and give her space and the ability to be heroic and skilled as she deserves. What I'm less enthusiastic about is when someone asks why in the world I'm playing a particular race and class combination because obviously my character is now sub-optimal. There's an emphasis on optimization in most MMOs, a push to create the best possible version of a character in gameplay terms that I'm not entirely on-board with. It's one with comprehensible origins, but it's unfortunately taken on a lot of ugly dimensions that sometimes short-change what MMOs can be.
The Daily Grind: What's your favorite long-cooldown skill?
In Guild Wars 2, one of my favorite skills to use is the ability to unleash a cranky mechanical golem upon my foes. It only lasts for 40 seconds and has (I think) an 180-second cooldown, which means I don't get to use it as often as I'd like. However, it always makes me absurdly happy to pull it out, and I wonder if the long cooldown is one of the reasons I appreciate it so much. It's pretty common for developers to balance powerful skills with a lengthy cooldown, leaving the choice up to the player as to when and where it's best to unleash hell. It's not uncommon to be in a dungeon run and have the leader instruct players to pop their cooldowns on difficult fights; sometimes that long-cooldown skill is what makes the difference between victory and defeat. So what's your favorite long-cooldown skill? When do you tend to use 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!
Aion 4.0 will bring an increased level cap and new skills
In case new classes and a new region weren't enough to whet your appetite, Aion's 4.0 update is raising the level cap and ushering in some new skills! The new level cap will be 65, up from 3.0's cap at 60. What good is a level cap raise without some skills to populate the new progression? No good at all, of course. Gladiators, Rangers, Clerics, and Chanters will get shiny new survival skills. Spiritmasters, Sorcerers, Assassions, Templars, and Gladiators will get their hands on some powerful offensive skills. Finally, a new skill type is being introduced: Charged skills will have stronger effects based on how long they are charged, and it's up to the caster to decide how long to channel them. These skills will include "Induce Sleep" for Sorcerers, which will keep the target asleep longer based on the length of the charge; "Healing Splendour" for Clerics, which will heal members more based on charge duration; and "Lethal Strike," a Chanter skill that can be charged for greater damage.
Enter at Your Own Rift: Macro this!
You know that saying about never discussing religion or politics around the dinner table? I'd like to add one more to the list: RIFT macros. Some players love them, and some players hate them, to the point that the topic completely turns them off from the game. Each camp has some very valid arguments, and there doesn't seem to be too much of a middle ground on the subject. In this week's Enter at Your Own Rift, I'd like to take a look at that polarizing issue and explain why I grew to love macros.
Dark Vale releases Forge gameplay video, 'Kick-Finish' campaign
We told about you about Forge a couple of weeks ago, and today we're happy to bring you the first alpha gameplay footage of the new PvP-centric title. Dark Vale Games has been working on its Unreal 3-based action title for a while now, but this is the first chance we've had to see it in action. The indie outfit is banking on its ability to appeal to gamers who are fed up with grind-gated PvP in MMORPGs, and Forge aims to fill the skill-based action and strategic PvP niche that most MMOs gloss over. To be honest, we're not quite sure how "MMO" Forge will end up being. We do know that it features five classes with 30 to 40 abilities each (and nine usable at any given time). Outside of that, we'll have to take Dark Vale at its word when it says that Forge is an "incredible online experience that rewards players for developing skills, not grinding for gear." The firm has also announced a "Kick-Finish" campaign designed to help the team release on-time and on-budget without resorting to publishers or outside investors. Be sure to check out the gameplay clip after the cut. [Source: Dark Vale press release]
