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DayZ standalone releases alpha on Steam
DayZ's "true blue" alpha launched on the Steam store today for $29.99. The release is part of Steam's early access program with a caveat posted that players should not purchase it unless they're OK with "serious issues and possible interruptions of game functioning." The launch was accompanied by a trailer which has since been pulled from the Steam store due to its graphic nature. Lead developer Dean Hall bemoaned the move on Twitter: "At the last minute, despite being told of the contents of my trailer for DayZ, Steam pulled my trailer due to censorship." The video is still on YouTube if you're curious, although be aware that it is NSFW and has a scene of a suicide.
DayZ alpha will be an actual alpha
Early adopters are in for a rough ride when the standalone version of DayZ first enters Steam's early access program. According to a post made by Dean "Rocket" Hall on the game's official forums, DayZ's initial limited launch will be "a true-blue alpha." Hall noted that because the team is rebuilding "massive areas of the engine," many of DayZ's core features will not be seen for months. Buying early will be a recipe for disappointment. It's a chance for those who want to be part of that whole process. For them, the process is as much a part of the game as the whole experience. For many, this is the opposite of what they want. To enable a smooth launch, we're really targeting it at a core audience who want to get deeply involved in a very barebones experience that is a platform for future development. In other words, it's an alpha. Dean did not provide a release date, so we'll continue to keep this filed under Soon TM.
Apparently Touch ID doesn't like 180-degree unlock attempts
I'm not going to pretend like I discovered this bug after weeks of rigorous testing -- in fact, had I slid my iPhone 5s into my pocket in a different manner, I'd never even have known this existed -- but here we are. Despite Apple touting the Touch ID sensor as being able to read prints in any orientation without issue, my phone practically refuses to accept unlock attempts at 180 degrees. But rather than just refusing to unlock, it produces the signature Apple logo and black background that signifies a reboot before returning to the lock screen after about 10 seconds. At first, I thought it was just my device, and given that the other iPhone 5s users here at TUAW have been unable to duplicate the glitch, I was satisfied to leave it at that. But then I stumbled across a YouTube video from another user experiencing the exact same bug as me. This is undoubtedly the strangest little glitch I've discovered since snagging my iPhone 5s on launch day, and since I don't make a habit of unlocking my phone upside-down, it's not exactly worth a trip to the Genius Bar. Still, the bug is present regardless of which of my programmed fingers I use, and it only occurs when trying to unlock the device from a 180-degree angle. I'd love to hear if any of you iPhone 5s owners out there are able to duplicate this, so feel free to chime in down below!
Battlefield 4 PC servers hit by DDOS, while crashes plague PS4 version
This past weekend was a rough one for Battlefield 4, with DDoS attacks hitting the PC game and myriad crashes infesting the newly-launched PS4 version. Over the past few days, it has been nigh-impossible to connect to servers in the PC iteration of Battlefield 4 thanks to an unnamed group attacking EA's Origin servers. Initially the publisher posted a statement to the main page of Battlelog stating that attacks were occurring and that the company was working to mitigate them, but as Kotaku reports, this message has since been removed. Despite this, one of the game's community representatives offers the following in the game's forums: "[W]e are being targeted by a DDOS, but working on fixing it asap. Im sorry somebody is ruining your and my day. Rest assured we are doing our best to mitigate the situation though." The PlayStation 4 game saw even worse issues, with players reporting crashes, a total inability to connect to Battlefield 4's "Conquest" game type and periodically deleted save games. EA's immediate response involved adding a new server and issuing a sizable patch, but as I can personally attest, the crashes and deleted save files continue to be an issue for some players. On Sunday, the publisher posted a message to its Help site pinning the blame on the PS4's recent 1.50 firmware update. Specifically, it claimed that "this update ... results in stability issues while playing games on the system," and that all games are affected, not just Battlefield 4. This message has since been retracted, and in its place you'll now find a simple, "The message on EA's Help site was posted in error."
DayZ footage may upset YouTube comment experts
Heads up, DayZ fans, creator Dean "Rocket" Hall has posted a new eight-minute video showcasing the current state of the zombie sandbox's pre-alpha build. As the video's disclaimer notes, the footage "may deeply trouble experts who post YouTube comments. It has not been approved by marketing and contains disturbing scenes such as poor FPS, floating loot, bad lighting, placeholder sounds, and many more bugs that obviously never occur in game development and therefore the project is completely doomed." Assuming you can get past all those gory details, you'll see some up-close-and-personal zombie killin' as well as exploration elements. "Our focus is on getting the alpha out, Hall says, "which means focusing on multiplayer [server] performance." Click past the cut to watch the clip.
Lots of Repopulation bugs were squashed in October
The Repopulation's monthly update has been published on the sci-fi sandbox title's website. Polish was the order of day for much of October, as Above & Beyond Technologies asked its alpha testers to suss out the "most annoying" bugs before it set about squashing them. The October update focuses on AI improvement and also pays a bit of lip service to the game's maneuver and mission systems. An extensive list of fixes and client changes is yours via the links below.
Red 5 doubles Firefall's internal QA team, focuses on bug-squashing
Red 5 has a new Firefall development update initiative in the works, the first entry for which went live on the game's website recently. The dev blog mentions that bug-squashing is currently a major point of focus, so much so that the studio has doubled its internal quality assurance team. The team is also hard at work on the UI and a new HUD as well as the game's dynamic encounter systems. The details are fuzzy at this point, but Red 5 says that "Firefall is meant to be a living, breathing world with things happening at all times and something that reacts to player involvement." The rest of the dev blog covers the game's story, character progression, crafting, creatures, combat, and social integration. Read all about it via the links below.
Might and Magic X update summons new character classes
The first update for Ubisoft's Might And Magic X has arrived, bringing with it "a large list of enhancements" - most notably, four new character classes. Alongside the addition of Chinese and Japanese language support for Might And Magic X, the patch also extends the game's day/night cycle, gives players the ability to immediately compare new items against those they have equipped, and fixes "over 100 bugs." The game's new classes include Mercenary, Shaman, Druid and Scout characters. Ubisoft notes that downloading the patch is as simple as firing up your Steam client and allowing Valve's digital distribution platform to pull down and apply the update. Keep in mind however, that due to the number of changes in this patch Ubisoft warns players that save files created prior to the patch may no longer function.
Age of Wushu promises latency improvements and matrix authenticator
In a new set of questions and answers from the Age of Wushu community, Snail Games promised that North American players experiencing lag will soon see relief. "We are taking serious measures to solve the latency problems after escalation," the devs promised. "Server fixes are already on their way. Players in North America will see considerable improvement starting from this week!" The devs said that a mobile matrix authenticator is coming later this month to provide better account security. "Think of it as a private Bingo card that works as a key to your account," Snail PR explained. A separate mobile authenticator is being worked on for iOS and Android, but no release date has been set. The Q&A article covered other topics such as the cash shop skill, bug fixes, cross-server interactions, and unnecessary chat spam. For those interested in Age of Wushu's upcoming Steam release, the devs said that this is still in the works but currently there is no release date set. In a separate post, the studio announced that the Phantom Twin Dagger skill set will be coming to the game next week. [We erroneously reported the matrix as a mobile authenticator and have corrected the article accordingly.]
Apple confirms iOS 7 removes content filters from school-issued iPads, fix coming soon
It seems you can't release a major operating system update these days without a few things going wrong. The latest iOS 7 issue is affecting iPads issued by schools. After updating, the content filters put in place through the Apple Configurator tool are no longer effective, leaving students with unrestricted access to the internet when used at home (school WiFi networks often have separate filters in place that restrict access through all devices). According to an AllThingsD report, a school district in Colorado is collecting iPads at the end of each school day in the meantime -- it's hardly a sustainable long-term solution, but Apple, which acknowledged the issue, expects a fix this month. One crafty administrator set up a DNS block to prevent students from upgrading to iOS 7, but for many other schools, the damage is already done.
Apple acknowledges iMessage bug in iOS 7, says fix is on the way
As is typically the case with any major iOS update, the release of iOS 7 has brought with it a small number of bugs. One such bug is a glitch in iMessage wherein some users aren't receiving iMessages sent to them while others are finding that they can't send iMessages at all. While restarting a troubled iOS device seems to alleviate the issue for some, this solution reportedly doesn't do the trick for everyone. To that end, Apple late on Tuesday night confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that it is aware of the issue and plans to implement a fix in an upcoming software update. "We are aware of an issue that affects a fraction of a percent of our iMessage users, and we will have a fix available in an upcoming software update," Apple said in a statement. "In the meantime, we encourage any users having problems to reference our troubleshooting documents or contact AppleCare to help resolve their issue. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes impacted users." Apple issued iOS 7.0.2 last week and we can only assume that iOS 7.0.3 can't be too far off.
Total War Rome 2 developers striving to catch critical bugs
Total War Rome 2 launched earlier this month and suffered a strategic blow when some players reported game-breaking bugs – and this was "totally unacceptable," Creative Director Mike Simpson said. In the Total War forums, Simpson outlined Creative Assembly's approach to fixing these issues, including the plan to release a patch a week until every bug is obliterated. One patch is already live. Simpson said 2 percent of players reported technical issues and that was "too many." "We just wanted to reassure you that we do know it's an extremely annoying and frustrating time for some of you at the moment and we are working around the clock to sort out those issues that you are having .... To these people we are really very sorry that you are having problems, we really want to get you enjoying our game, please do take the time to post your issue in the Support Forum if there isn't a fix for you available in there already," Simpson said. Simpson urged players encountering problems to hit up the support forums.
The Daily Grind: What dungeons do you hate in games you love?
Not every game has dungeons. It would be kind of silly to imagine a group of EVE Online starships traveling through moldy corridors and slaughtering orcs (but also kind of awesome). But the idea of having an area with paced enemy encounters and big bosses certainly isn't novel. World of Warcraft calls them dungeons, Star Wars: The Old Republic calls them flashpoints, Dungeons & Dragons Online calls them lots of different things, and they're all a chance for players to group up and enjoy some content. Sometimes it's not really enjoyable, though. The mechanics don't work or aren't fun. The fights require a lot more luck than skill. You don't have visual cues that are pretty much necessary to understand what's happening. If a game has dungeon, it always has some that aren't as good as the others. So what dungeons do you hate in a game that you otherwise love? Are they agreed by the community to be horrible, or are they usually beloved dungeons that you just can't stand personally? 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!
Fix for GoToMeeting issue with MacBook Air coming September 15
On August 23, we reported on issues Citrix GoToMeeting clients were having with the FaceTime HD webcam in the latest MacBook Air (mid 2013, Haswell). At the time, there was no firm timetable for getting the issue fixed. Today I spoke with Sampath Gomatam, the VP and GM of Real-Time Collaboration at Citrix; he's the exec responsible for the GoToMeeting software. He told me the issue was caused by a problem with how the video engine for the software worked with the video drivers of the new Macs. Citrix wasn't alone with these issues; even Apple's own Final Cut X had problems with the new MBA's camera at first. The good news is that Citrix has escalated work on the patch due to online feedback. Gomatam also informed me that an update will be available to fix the issue on September 15. Help is coming, GoToMeeting fans.
EVE Evolved: Grid-Fu and bending space
In last week's article, I described how EVE Online maintains the illusion of full-scale solar systems by dynamically creating small pockets of high-detail space called grids. It's within these discrete bubbles that everything we do in space takes place, from mining asteroids to running missions or shooting at other players. The system is designed to split up space into manageable chunks to reduce server load while still maintaining persistent 3-D space that appears to span the entire scale of a solar system. Grids have been in EVE since it was first created, but over the years people have noticed a few odd things about how the system works. Flying about 250km-400km away from a stargate causes your ship to disappear from that grid and pop into a newly created adjacent one, for example, but this doesn't always happen. Bizarre occurrences such as abnormally shaped grids and ships mysteriously disappearing and re-appearing on the same grid were always thought to be freak accidents or unintended bugs until an interesting document emerged in 2009. Titled Grid-Fu: A Practical Manual, the 18-page PDF described the process of bending and manipulating space for a tactical advantage. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the various ways that players have manipulated space to their advantage.
The Daily Grind: How much communication on major bugs is the right amount?
A lot of people were very interested in taking part in Final Fantasy XIV's open beta. Unfortunately, for a substantial number of players, the beta started and stopped with Error 3102. Leaving aside debates about whether or not this should or should not have happened, I think one of the big problems for several players was that the developers simply didn't discuss the issue with players until the test period was nearly over, which meant that there was no way of being certain that anything was being done. You could make the case that it's better for developers to be focusing on actually fixing the problem instead of updating people on the status of the problem. But silence can look a lot like ignorance at a glance, and no one wants to be ignored when something damages the game experience. So today we ask you, readers: How much communication on major bugs is the right amount? Do you want an acknowledgement and nothing more until it's fixed, or do you want hourly status updates from the development team? 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!
Mozilla partners with BlackBerry to fuzz out software bugs
You wouldn't normally think of Mozilla and BlackBerry working together, but now they have, and all in the name of hunting down software bugs. Specifically, they're working together on advancing Peach, an open source tool that lets them "fuzz" out flaws in software, especially web browsers. Mozilla says they've already successfully implemented Peach to scurry out problems in HTML5 features like image and audio/video formats, fonts, WebGL, WebAudio and WebRTC, which should lead to a more secure Firefox browser and OS. To help that along, Mozilla has also announced Minion, a security testing platform that displays a smaller yet more pertinent set of data so that every developer can sift through it, not just security professionals. Together with BlackBerry, which has a long history with security processes and its own proprietary fuzzing software, they hope that their shared knowledge will lead to a safer web for everyone.
Wizardry Online hit by duping and hacking, bans issued
Some things never presage good news. Case in point: Wizardry Online has been hit with what appears to be a round of hacking and item duping, leading to hyperinflation and a great deal of player outrage on the forums. Exact figures about how much gold was dumped into the economy are hard to come by, but most players seem to agree that it's a matter of several million gold sometimes foisted on unwitting victims. After claiming that the matter was being investigated, Sony Online Entertainment representatives locked some of the threads related to the topic while simply stating that suspensions had been issued and further discussion did not help the community. No statements have yet been issued regarding permanent bans or any potential rollbacks to the environment. What long-term effects this will have on the game's viability remain unclear, although several players are protesting SOE's apparent lack of action quite vigorously.
Exploits plague Neverwinter economy, PWE responds [Updated]
Multiple Massively sources and forum users are reporting that a serious auction hall exploit involving negative bids has turned the fledgling economy of Neverwinter on its head. Perfect World/Cryptic appear to be locking down forum threads on the topic and have posted the following in response to the exploits: We currently are in the process of taking action against a subset of accounts that were confirmed to have utilized exploits that affected the game balance or economy. These accounts may be banned, temporarily or permanently, depending on the severity of exploit utilization. Anyone who is affected by this will receive notification via email. [...] Thank you for your patience and support while we continue to do everything in our power to ensure that Neverwinter remains a fair and balanced game experience. The post also encourages anyone banned unfairly to contact customer support for resolution. A followup post by a Cryptic moderator from last night tells players that "there are no plans for another wipe at this time." And a message on the Neverwinter's German-language Facebook page suggests that the Neverwinter Gateway has been taken offline while the issue is investigated. We'll keep you posted as the story develops. [Thanks to Dan, J, Ehra, David, Dixa, Mike, xpac, Jan, and Zaph for the tips!] [Update: Cryptic has posted a new response to the latest exploit: "The Astral Diamond Exchange and the Auction House have been temporarily taken offline to resolve a high priority bug. At this time we are still investigating the details regarding the issue and will post more information as the situation progresses. As the issue involves in-game currency, we understand that there may be questions regarding the follow up actions needed to ensure that the economy remains fair and balanced. At this time we are still in the process of collecting the data, but plan to share details regarding follow up actions once the investigation concludes. Thank you for your patience and understanding while we continually smooth out issues during open beta."]
Defiance dev blog covers common issues and cheater voyeurism
Defiance executive producer Nathan Richardsson is getting serious today in a very serious blog post uploaded very seriously to the official site, a post that discusses fixes already made and promises even more fixes for some of the problems that have plagued the game since launch. MMO launches typically go about as smooth as a rhino's hindquarters, but it's always good to hear official word that the team is aware and working on the problems. According to the post, the "big team" is working overtime addressing issues like PC server woes, general game server crashes, Xbox problems, and PlayStation 3 client patches. In happier news, the team promises that hackers and cheaters are being taken very, you know, seriously. The blog even admits that some cheaters are allowed to linger in the game for a while so the team can "enjoy" watching the scum. The team is also looking into the Case of the Disappearing Items, although it is admittedly a tough nut to crack. Future blog posts, Richardsson says, will cover player feedback on many of the issues since launch.
