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Paypal lets you spend money in Gmail, YouTube and more
Android Pay users have been able to dip into their PayPal accounts for a little over a year. Now, the money transfer service has partnered with Google to provide a more seamless way to use it across products like Google Play, YouTube and Gmail.
The Soapbox: There's nothing wrong with easy
The word "easy" gets a really bad reputation in gaming, an unfair reputation, at that, because there's absolutely nothing wrong with something's being easy. A while back, we hosted a great column about how we tend to call things easy when they really aren't. (Seriously, go read that.) That's all well and good, but that's also not what I'm talking about here. Gaming as a community seems to have decided that easy is just plain bad, that it's a horrible insult, and a game being easy is like saying that a game is worthless. But easy isn't bad. Playing a single-player game on easy difficulties isn't a mark of weakness, and having an MMO that's easy on a whole doesn't mean it's a bad game. Having easy content isn't just an acceptable thing; it's an outright good thing for a lot of player. There is absolutely nothing wrong with easy.
Former WoW developer Mark Kern wonders if WoW is too easy
Mark Kern, who left Blizzard way back in 2005 to found Red 5 Studios, is working on a new free to play, sci-fi MMO called Firefall -- and has some less than flattering things to say about the game WoW has become. His top complaint: that MMOs are now too easy. "When was the last time you died in a starter zone?" Kern muses. "Sometimes I look at WoW and think 'what have we done?' I think I know. I think we killed a genre." The easier content, he argues, means both developers and players focus less on the content in the middle of the game and more on racing to get to the end game -- and by rushing through the game from level 1 to level 90, you miss out on a lot of the game itself. Of course Kern notes that his upcoming MMO has the mix just right -- and that by focusing on the journey instead of the destination, Firefall is a lot more fun. While we are fans of new games -- and love the art style Firefall has going -- we're less convinced about dying in newbie zones as a gameplay necessity. Time will tell if Kern has the right of things -- Firefall's open beta is starting soon.
Daily iPhone App: Galaxy Express
Galaxy Express is a fun little puzzle game that's similar to Chu Chu Rocket or Chuck the Ball. There's a cute metagame story in this app with some well-written dialogue, but the core game has you pushing a little astronaut around a starfield using some arrows that you place out on the game screen. Put arrows in the right places, hit go, and the little astronaut will follow your rules exactly, hopefully leading him to make his delivery on the destination planet. It's simple stuff, and the difficulty doesn't ramp up too quickly, though by the end of the game's 120 puzzles there are a few mind-benders to beat. There are some good social features as well, including the option to either see any of your solutions that you've done, share them with friends, or even check out what other people have done. There's Game Center integration in the game now, and the graphics aren't really animated, but they look good on a high resolution display anyway. Galaxy Express is currently available at just 99 cents for a universal app, or there's a lite version you can pick up for free. "Galaxy EX," as it's called under the icon on the phone, is a well-made little puzzle game that's easy going enough for almost everyone to enjoy.
The Awesome button is...
Ever struggled to find the perfect adjective to articulate your admiration for a given article of awesomeness? Matt Richardson over at Make felt exactly the same way, so he perfected himself an Awesome button, designed specifically to spit out synonyms for his favorite descriptive word. To accomplish the task, he had to gut a Staples "easy" button and arrange a Teensy USB microcontroller inside it, before making the resulting mini-thesaurus compatible with his computer. Don't worry, full instructions are contained in the video above. Just mash the play button.
Battlefield Play4Free deploys launch trailer, screens
Battlefield Play4Free is available now on the internets for PC (a Mac version seems unlikely). Watch this new trailer and then take the hectic shooter, which combines elements of Battlefield 2 and Bad Company, for a test drive. It says it's free right there in the title.
Battlefield Play4Free closed beta granted 'access' to 600K participants; Mac version doubtful
Battlefield Play4Free senior producer James Salt told us this week at GDC that the game's closed beta granted access to 600,000 participants; who obviously weren't all online at the same time. He explained that's why for the open beta, starting in April, Easy studio is planning a staggered launch, to avoid a massive "day one" spike of concurrent players that would crash the game. Asked about a Mac version of the free-to-play title, Salt said the game runs on the fifth generation of the Battlefield engine, which was designed for PC. Even if a Mac version could be ported, the update schedule required for a title like this would necessitate a seperate Mac team at Easy for the game -- which isn't currently in place. "It still might happen," Salt added. "But it's going to be quite a fight to make it be [on Mac]." %Gallery-106828%
Battlefield Play4Free plans staggered launch, open beta on April 4
Joystiq got to see Battlefield Play4Free in action late last night at GDC 2011 and, while a full interview is still incoming, we were able to get details on the plans for next month's beta launch. Right now the game is in closed beta, and we were told that at peak times, developer EAsy has "a few thousand" players enjoying the game so far. On March 31, EA plans to send out codes for the beta to players of other Battlefield games, including the also free-to-play Battlefield Heroes, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Then, on April 2, invites will go out to selected followers on Twitter and Facebook, and finally, on April 4, EA will open the game up for a public beta, with an official launch later on this year. So mark your calendars: Assuming everything goes according to EA's plan, you could be sniping fools and earning battlefunds as soon as 4/4. Stay tuned for more about the title from the hands-on event.
Battlefield Play4Free dev details Training Point customization
Colin Clarke, a game designer from EA's Easy who's currently working on the Battlefield Play4Free microtransaction-based shooter, has posted some information on the official blog about how the game's class customization system will work. Rather than just choosing to play as a Recon, Medic, Assault or Engineer character, each player will get to fill out two different ability trees: one powering up "Equipment Expertise" (which allows your equipment to be stronger and more versatile) and one working with "Combat Expertise" (which adds versatility regardless of equipment). In other words, one Recon player can spec Equipment and take down targets from long range, while another can go Combat, and actually explore the battlefield, finding and flanking targets as needed. Both, says Clarke, should be valid ways to play, but the plan is that choosing Engineer won't necessarily lock you into one specific playstyle. It's an interesting take on designing and creating a character built for an online shooter like this. Battlefield Play4Free is still in closed beta, though EA is taking registrations right now.
RedEye launches mini app for IR plugin
We've covered RedEye's IR dongle for the iPhone a few times. Originally, it was introduced as a complete add-on for the iPhone that allowed you to control any entertainment center reached by infrared. Over time RedEye has pushed to simplify the unit more and more, instead providing a cheaper and smaller experience. Now the company has done that again. While the original iOS app offered a lot of different customization and functionality, the new RedEye mini app offers a straightforward TV remote experience. It's free, like the full app, but instead of having to customize everything exactly the way you want it, you can get a simple channel changer and volume control to use on your iPhone. It's been interesting to watch companies like this learning what Apple already knows: while power and customization definitely drives part of your audience, the real way to sell a product is to make it easy to use for anybody who picks it up. I'm sure some people prefer the more complex, self-designed system (myself included), but if you want to aim for a larger market, simple and easy is often best.
Battlefield Play4Free engages hostiles in Spring 2011
Following a tease earlier this week, EA has announced Battlefield Play4Free this morning, a freemium title that will support 32-player online warfare. The game will activate in the spring of 2011 but, if you just can't wait, you can enlist early and test out the closed beta beginning November 30. Aesthetically -- and, apparently, in tone -- BP4F appears to be a departure from EA's other freemium warfare title, Battlefield Heroes, which has a cartoony, colorful nature (though the two games will share a single "battlefunds" wallet, confirms Ben Cousins of developer Easy, an EA Games studio). Easy's Battlefield Play4Free will combine maps from Battlefield 2 with the classes and weapons found in the hit (and neglected) Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Players can drive 16 different vehicles, including the F35 VTOL (vertical take-off landing) jet fighter -- which certainly isn't found in BFBC2. Players will progress through the game to learn skills or, as you've probably already guessed, drop some f'real bling to pimp out their soldier. %Gallery-106828%
EA kind of announces 'new, unannounced' Battlefield game
According to a tweet from Ben Cousins, general manager of EA's Easy studio, Battlefield fans can start looking forward to a new entry in the franchise. Easy handles free-to-play online games for EA, such as Lord of Ultima and Battlefield Heroes, and this Friday, the studio will show its "new, unannounced" Battlefield game to London press for the first time, Cousins tweeted. Given Easy's current projects, we're inclined to guess the new Battlefield will be another freemium entry in the online space. Of course, does it even exist? It's still "unannounced," after all -- actually, wait, wasn't that tweet kinda the announcement? We're going to need to lay down. Our brain suddenly hurts.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Is Runes of Magic too easy?
It seems things are never quiet in regard to Runes of Magic these days. If it isn't holiday events or new world bosses, it's large-scale balancing issues. Players may still be plugging away at title achievements this Halloween, but the event has been going long enough for people to settle into a daily routine and get back to everyday affairs. In other words: it's something to do, but the shiny is starting to wear off. I took advantage of this lull and decided to do a Q&A on the overall difficulty of RoM. It's not a huge issue; it's more like a constant issue that creeps into other discussions on class balance or the memento system. And after the attempted change to a percentage-based mana cost, it's definitely worth consideration. Is RoM too easy? The question seems like it'd be a quick one-line answer, but there are many ways to view it that would yield different outcomes. What are players' goals? How can a change to one system affect the whole game? How will future updates affect any changes made today? Is there an answer to whether RoM is too easy or not? Well. Let's find out.
Das Cube for iPhone
Das Cube [iTunes link, $1.99] is a simple little iPhone game that comes with a pretty impressive pedigree: it's made by one of the creators of Aquaria, Mark Johns of Space Barnacle, and features music by the composer of Canabalt's crazy addictive soundtrack. As you can see in the video above, it's got more in common with the iPhone post-apocalyptic running simulator than the underwater adventure: your job is to move a little ball that can smash together a series of abstract shapes that then explode into points. That's pretty much it -- as the game gets tougher (there are two difficulty settings, though I found the "Brutal" setting to be only a little tougher than the "Easy" setting in the first few minutes), more blocks drop, and while you can shake the iPhone occasionally to help you clear the screen, if you go too long without matching pieces, your game is over and the high scores are calculated. It's not quite as simple or addictive as Canabalt -- the controls feel a little floaty, and sometimes the ball you push around will squeeze in between the blocks. A few times while playing, it seemed to me that the easiest way to win would be to just swirl the mix around, and sure enough, when I just rolled the ball around the screen, I eventually got blocks to crash together randomly. But by the time I hit around 60,000 points or so (you can tweet your high scores, just like Canabalt), I found a little more precision was required, but even then, the controls are anything but sharp. Still, Das Cube is an amusing little mix of music and graphics. Unfortunately, there's no free trial, but what you see above is what you get: smash shapes together to groovy techno tunes. If that appeals, you can pick it up for $1.99.
Drag and drop your windows into tidiness with Cinch
I'd never heard of Cinch, just mentioned over at Cult of Mac, but it's such a great idea I thought I'd check into it. Basically, Cinch does what all great Mac software does: it works in the background and lets you do what you want to do, skipping completely all the usual nonsense you usually have to do in between. Basically, it's a window helper -- all you have to do is drag any window on your desktop to a side of the screen, and it'll put the window maximized in that space. Drag it to the top, and it'll maximize it across the screen. When you're done, drag the window away, and it returns to its original size. There's a great screencast on the Irradiated Software website that shows some of the possibilities. One idea that really appeals to me is dragging two Finder windows quickly to either side of the screen to both browse two folders at the same time, and then pass files back and forth between them. Cinch reminds me of this old chat by Quicksilver creator Nicholas Jitkoff, where he talked about software that didn't worry about what you wanted to do and just let you do. Cinch serves its purpose in that same way. It's available over on the website for US$7.
The Daily Grind: Punish or protect?
Ah, this morning we have a true opinion question for you. One that many players are very divided on. In your honest opinion, dear readers, do you think games should punish players for missteps, or do you believe the game should protect you against loss and minimize it at all possible places? In the old days of MMO gaming, death was a ruthless beast that could steal hours of your playtime away from you, setting you further away from your goal than you'd be comfortable to admit. But, as we've progressed in our designs, death is no more threatening to our adventures than the gentle breeze of the hills. Death penalties have been reduced, experience loss has been removed, and dropping items has become a dropped practice. So what's your opinion? Drop it in the box, and let it ring loud and clear!
Exploring Azeroth with quest icons on the map
We've heard this argument before, and every time Blizzard makes a change to help players complete quests more quickly, it comes up again. And with the recent announcement that Blizzard will actually be adding quest targets to the ingame maps (again replicating another function of the popular Questhelper addon), players have again brought up the old argument: is the game too dumbed-down? Originally, when the game began (though I don't know anyone that didn't still use Wowhead to find quest coordinates even back then), you were sent "east" to find a tiny little brown backpack to click on, and in the next patch, not only will you see that brown backpack sparkling with flares as you get close, but you'll have it marked on your map the entire time.Larisa waxes nostalgic over at the Pink Pigtail Inn, and says that this is just farther down a sliding slope that leads to a ravine where we all just have two spells and need to kill three boars to level to 100. Kinless Chronicles straight out says "Patch 3.2 will play for you" with some funny tongue-in-cheek analysis. But since I do it so much anyway, I'll play the Devil's advocate here: let's face it, we all used the addons and coordinates while leveling up alts, if not even while leveling mains. It's easy to be nostalgic, but I never did like hunting around for that little pixel of brown you had to click on to finish a quest, and if you really do want to stumble around in the dark the old way, just don't look at your map and/or close the minimap down. I've recently played two other console games, Fable 2 and Dead Space, that also offer glowing line navigation straight to your quest targets, and I did feel a sense of exploration in both -- if I wanted to wander off the path, I was welcome to (and usually rewarded for it), while if I just wanted to get to where I was going, I could do that, too.
The Daily Grind: What's your preference of difficulty?
Some people like it when the game challenges them for months on end, stopping them at the same battle over and over again until a group comes together and cooperates in a way that yields progression.Other people like to be able to sit down at a game, play it for a few hours, and feel like they've made some progress and accomplishments. They enjoy feeling rewarded after a small play session, instead of dedicating hours of work and thinking to their games.And still others would rather find extreme progress in less than an hour, being highly rewarded for very little challenge. It's not fun if it's hard, right?So today's grind question is as follows: what is your preference of difficulty? Are you the person who likes to be stumped for weeks on end, or are you more of the type who wants to get the maximum reward for the smallest effort? Speak forth into thy comment box, and let thy voice be heard! And hopefully you won't use a silly accent like us, but you can if you'd like to.
DS Daily: Too easy!
Since we like to do things in pairs, we wanted to ask the opposite of yesterday's question: what games have been just too easy? We want to know about all the puzzles you yawned through and the platformers you put aside. Or ... do you put aside easy games? If there's a difficulty setting, what do you usually choose?
Counterpoint: Yes, we should track raiding progression
There's been a lot of hemming and hawing lately about how Wrath is too easy. And there's no question that it is: Ensidia cut through the endgame like an epic dagger through the Vykrul, and any guild that steps into the endgame these days, even with low numbers or cheap gear, finds success. Adam suggested this morning that raiding is so easy these days that we shouldn't bother to track progression, and while Adam is a great writer and a terrific player, I'm here to disagree with his opinion: progression is exactly what the new endgame is all about.While Karazhan was one of the (if not the) most successful instances ever, it had one big problem: it killed guilds. It murdered progression. It was a roadblock after a roadblock, so much so that it took some guilds months to conquer, if they survived at all. Ten man Naxx obviously doesn't have that problem -- anyone with a little raiding experience who wants to beat bosses in there can do so, and Obsidian Sanctum is just as easy. The problem now, however, is that guilds like Ensidia and guilds who pushed through to Sunwell in the old endgame, are finishing the content already, and wondering what's next? They were 80 two weeks ago, and now, barely a month after the expansion's release, they've toppled every dungeon they can find.And what's wrong with that? Nothing.
