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UK says online hate crime is as serious as offline offences
The UK's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) today laid out a renewed commitment to tackling hate crime, including making sure that online offences are being dealt with appropriately. In its public statements, the CPS affirmed that cases of digital hate crime will be treated "with same robust and proactive approach used with offline offending," and that there is no difference in the serious of such crimes.
UK targets doxxing, hashtags and more in online troll crackdown
Over the course of the year, the UK government has attempted to crack down internet abuse by introducing new guidelines for prosecutors and forming a new troll-hunting police unit. Those updates ensured that anyone creating websites or fake online profiles with the intention to humiliate someone could be punished, but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has today added a new list of offences aimed at bringing trolls to justice.
UK prosecutors say posting revenge porn can lead to 14 years in prison
In a bid to crack down on the sharing of "revenge porn," UK prosecutors have warned that the most severe cases can come with a 14-year spell behind bars. According to new guidance issued by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), explicit images that are sent to force victims into sexual activity or humiliate a former partner can break sex offense laws (and possibly even child protection regulations), allowing prosecutors to seek longer sentences for offenders. In the past, many cases were tried under obscenity laws, which come with softer punishments and also need to meet a "public interest threshold" that gauges the impact of the offense.
Man acquitted as #TwitterJokeTrial appeal ends in victory
Paul Chambers, who was previously found guilty of sending a "menacing tweet," has been acquitted by the High Court after two-and-a-half years trapped in legal limbo. On hearing of the closure of his local airport, the 27-year-old had sent out a facetious tweet to his 600 followers that mentioned "blowing the airport sky high!" However, despite airport authorities realizing the message was a joke, the UK's Crown Prosecution Service took the man to court and won. The social network quickly rallied around, with many repeating the tweet with the hashtag #IAmSpartacus and involving celebrities such as Stephen Fry, who helped raise funds to launch an appeal. The court today found that its joking nature was "obvious" and that it was sent by someone who did not hide their identity -- clearing Mr. Chambers name once and for all. For the record, here was the original tweet with expletives removed: "C**p! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your s**t together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"
UK courts to introduce tablets, vow to cut back on tree killing ways
It may not be retiring the powdered wigs just yet, but according to The Guardian, the British government is ready to replace traditional paper documents with tablets in UK courtrooms. Starting in April, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will give slates to Welsh and English prosecutors to store all forms and evidentiary items, later extending the offer to judges, jurors and defense lawyers. To start, administrators will give 35 Hewlett-Packard tablets to prosecutors in Norfolk as a test for the bigger roll out, which is estimated to save around £50 million (or around $78 million) in dead trees across the UK. There's no word yet which tablet HP has in mind, but chances are it will not be the discount rack TouchPad -- perhaps a Windows tablet is more in order in this court.
Hands-on with Tabula Rasa's next patch: harder enemies good for the game?
Tabula Rasa is a peculiar game compared to many in that the difficulty of enemy encounters usually isn't measured by enemy strength, but by their numbers and composition. Man to man, your typical AFS soldier is more than a match for even the toughest units the Bane can throw at them. While that would seem to make the game a cakewalk, this is balanced by the fact that the enemy usually travels in roaming packs, containing enemies of different types that complement and balance each other. The difficulty of the game is largely derived from finding ways to pick apart these units before they can burn you down.Among the many changes to come to Tabula Rasa in the most recent patch on the public test server is a new, enhanced enemy AI. For whatever reason, the Destination Games team decided to amp up the difficulty of enemy encounters by increasing so-called "aggro sharing" between enemy monsters. Having given the new build some time on the test server, we've got some thoughts and criticisms.
Paul Sage gives pep talk on 'elder game'
In a welcome change for Tabula Rasa's Feedback Friday, we got a little pep talk and look at the future from lead designer Paul Sage. The stately Sage ruminated about many common points of interest for Tabula Rasa players, including clan-owned CPs, personal armor units, and multi-squad instances. From the tone of the discussion, we get the vibe that none of these things are going to see the light of day in patch 1.7, as we might have hoped, but they're still being worked on internally. It's definitely required reading if you're a fan.One thing we were really surprised to see was that attack and defend tokens as they currently exist are going to be merged together and expanded to be used as a reward for a whole array of different achievements. The principles will likely remain the same, with certain respec and crafting rewards available for purchase with a certain number of tokens, but you'll soon be rewarded for new things like certain missions, killing certain world bosses, or even just reaching a full experience modifier.
Tabula Rasa top 5 tips for assaulting CPs - Part 1
Tip 1: Prioritize your targets and take them out with hit and run tacticsOne of the mistakes that most frequently leads to a player's early demise is rushing in to assault a capture point without properly assessing a situation. Sure it looks like there's only a few lightbenders guarding the gate to the base, but if you swing a few degrees closer to the door, you'll see they've got a whole slew of buddies waiting just inside the force field to come make hamburger out of your face. The smart player will identify the enemies he has to deal with and, if he's alone, attack in a series of hit and run maneuvers, taking out a few enemies at a time. Start with the healers and shield drones, and work your way down the order of importance. Those Thrax might be easier to kill, but it doesn't do you a lick of good killing them if a Caretaker just rezzes them right after you run away. Click on for Part 2 of our Top 5 Tips for Assaulting CPs >>>>>
Tabula Rasa top 5 tips for assaulting CPs - Part 4
Tip 4: Kite away big targets like bosses, Kael, and StridersWhile a lot of players (especially Spies) seem to pride themselves in their ability to take down hard targets quickly, it's usually a much wiser decision to kite these guys away from big groups and take them on by yourself or with the help of other players or AI troops. Kael, Striders, and especially boss characters (as denoted by their white aura and unique name) can be extremely tough nuts to crack,. It's hard to even out-damage their considerable regenerative abilities, especially when you've got a group of ten other guys plunking away at you in the meantime. So pull those big guys from the crowd and take them out before going back in and cleaning up the dregs. As a secondary point, don't be afraid to run away! Even specialists with their repair tools equipped can be quickly and efficiently downed under sustained fire from a boss and a big group of lackeys. If it looks like things aren't going to go your way, high-tail it out of there and save yourself the rez sickness. Click on for Part 5 of our Top 5 Tips for Assaulting CPs >>>>>
Tabula Rasa Top 5 tips for assaulting CPs - Part 5
Tip 5: If you need more guys to kill, just knock on the doorIf you're running around outside a CP and find yourself needing enemies to kill, just plunk one or two shots into the force field covering the gate and you should get a fresh supply of enemies to come out and try and make paste of your face. If they don't try and drop-ship down on your head, they should come rushing out of the base like bats out of hell. We're not sure if they have some sort of psychic connection to the door or if it's got some sort of doorbell function we weren't made aware of, but it works. Still, it's a crucial point of order in keeping your experience modifier alive. That wraps up our top 5 tips for assaulting CPs. The control point gameplay continues to be a big part of what makes Tabula Rasa such a unique and engaging experience for fans. Plenty of companies have done siege warfare before, but there's just something so organic about the way control points bounce back and forth between player control and the AI. With the added incentives brought about by the new token system, capture points have once again risen to prominence in players' daily grinds. With these tips in mind, we hope to see some of your out there on the battlefield!
Tabula Rasa top 5 tips for assaulting CPs - Part 3
Tip 3: Don't rush to capture that CPOne of the rookie mistakes a lot of people make is immediately rushing in and trying to capture a CP when the force field comes down. This rarely works because all it takes is one enemy shot to interrupt the capture process. And there's usually at least one enemy lingering around waiting to take a pot shot at you. Do your clean up first, then capture. One should also consider their surroundings and whether that CP is even worth capturing. If other people were assaulting a CP before you got there, make sure to ask if they're grinding for assault tokens. It would be awfully rude to rush in and snipe the CP they've been working on. If you hadn't considered farming the CP yourself, you should. Capturing a CP basically cuts off enemy reinforcements, meaning that your experience modifier and your supply of assault tokens comes to an abrupt end. Click on for Part 4 of our Top 5 Tips for Assaulting CPs >>>>>
Tabula Rasa top 5 tips for assaulting CPs
When patch 1.6 hit the live servers, Tabula Rasa's grinding game as we knew it was shaken up. Experience modifiers were bumped up as high as 6x the normal rates and a new system was implemented that allows players to collect universal CP assault and defend tokens in exchange for worthwhile items like attribute respecs and 50% experience boosters. With these changes, grinding capture points has never been a bigger part of the Tabula Rasa experience. While battling our way from zone to zone, we've seen a lot of players falling into the same mistakes and meeting their untimely demise. In an effort to assure that everybody enjoys the CP capturing experience as much as we do, we've assembled a two-part guide to Tabula Rasa capture points, with tips, strategies, and common etiquette that should help take your TR experience to the next level. For part one, we'll give you some useful tips for that always difficult task of assaulting enemy CPs. Click on for Part 1 of our Top 5 Tips for Assaulting CPs >>>>>
Tabula Rasa top 5 tips for assaulting CPs - Part 2
Tip 2: Turn solitary shield drones against the enemyOne of the most loathsome sights in the game is seeing a huge mob of Bane running towards you completely protected by a swarm of shield drones. While shield drones are generally a huge pain in the ass, and fairly high on the hit list, that doesn't mean you shouldn't use them to your advantage when you can. If you're inside their yellow dome of energy, you receive the same protective benefits as the enemy. So instead of destroying that lone shield drone sitting in front of the base, consider using it as a staging area. They'll only be to scratch you once they're inside the bubble too, so wail on them before they can close range. Click on for Part 3 of our Top 5 Tips for Assaulting CPs >>>>>
Patch 1.7 to grace TR some time next week
The Tabula Rasa community team sent out another bulletin this Friday, specifically concerning the changes that should be coming to the public test server some time between now and next week. Among the tweaks they mentioned for patch 1.7 are tweaks to the way enemy spawns and high-level AI is handled. In the Palisades, Torden Incline, and the Plains, they're looking to smooth out enemy spawn patterns, in addition to alleviating some of the tougher spots in Divide and Wilderness, where enemies that you just finished killing will often pop right back in and shoot you in the back.They also mentioned some exciting changes the group mechanics, including the clan owned CPs (finally!) and some a new LFG system that should make the quest to find a group considerably less arduous, or so we hope. Tabula Rasa still strikes us as a solo-centric game, so we'd like to see group play pushed to the forefront, even if it means they have to beat us over the head with it.Also, one final announcement for the especially dense among us: the Skitterin hybrid class was an April Fools' joke!
On Tabula Rasa respecs and resolutions
With Tabula Rasa already on the ropes with recent reports of financial failure, the last thing the TR community wanted or needed to have to deal with was the awfully-implemented patch 1.5 that rolled out onto live servers yesterday. Pushed out of testing a scant five days after it was revealed on the public test server, the patch was bugged by resolution issues and big changes to the Spy class weren't accompanied by a respec to make them worth the trouble. Morale among the AFS-faithful was not terribly high this time yesterday morning.Evidently, the developers actually paid notice and took a rare opportunity to break their usual Monday/Friday announcement schedule to address these concerns. They're working on a hotfix for the resolution problem, and suggest in the meantime that players run the game in windowed mode. Not that doing so addresses the fact that the resolution resets every time you load the game, but at least it doesn't crash. They've also revealed that part of their plan in patch 1.6 is to make respecs a more readily available resource. Instead of the crummy awards players currently get for defending and attacking CPs, players will soon be able to collect talent and attribute respec credits for their trouble instead. It's a good idea, and enough of a distraction that most of the doom and gloom has abated, albeit temporarily.
TR PvP to incorporate clan-captured CPs
Richard Garriott, founder of the legendary Ultima series and Executive Producer for Tabula Rasa, gave a lecture this evening to the Washington D.C. chapter for the Association of Computer Machinery. Of course, being your personal guide into the complex world of MMOs, we were on-hand to cover the event. While you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see the full write-up, we couldn't resist posting this juicy bit of information that fell from the lips of one Lord British.Addressing the issue of the near-constant feedback cycle that MMOs enjoy by virtue of being in a persistent state of development and refinement, Garriott cited Tabula Rasa's PvP as an element of the game that was being moved up the ladder of development priorities. PvP in the game's current state essentially amounts to guilds camping teleporters and hospitals, waiting for members of warring clans to appear, where they can be taken by surprise and slaughtered. Garriott's vision for the future of the PvP system is set to feature TR's popular Capture Point gameplay mechanic. Clans will be to capture CPs for themselves, generating money based on the activities of the NPCs within the CP. This will have the dual effect of giving warring clans something to do besides spawn-camping as well as give a context for PvP that makes slightly more sense within the lore. It's always been a bit of a rough sell having fellow members of the Allied Free Sentients slaughtering each other, but the idea of clans trying to control commerce is somehow more palatable. Again, we'll have a full write-up tomorrow.
Capcom CPS-3 arcade board finally cracked
The Capcom CPS-3 arcade board only ran a handful of games, including JoJo's Venture, Street Fighter III, and Red Earth, but that hasn't stopped the emulation community from cracking the board's code, which puts them one step closer to emulating the board itself. And considering CPS-3 debuted in 1996, it's about time!Posts on Haze's Mame WIP as well as the more technical-oriented Notas de Andy (translation) show that the decryption has opened up the developers to make further progress, as David Haywood has already gotten the two JoJo games to "execute some of the game code, rather than just bios." We look forward to watching their progress.[Via Engadget]
