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Van Hemlock: The distrust of recruits and the path of acceptance
Podcaster and PlanetSide-fragger extraordinaire Van Hemlock recently had a look at EVE Online's Empyrean Age expansion, and gave his take on what's needed to get the most from factional warfare. He tackled The Empyrean Age in two parts: The Distrust of Recruits... and The Path of Acceptance. In The Distrust of Recruits, Van Hemlock was surprised that factional warfare isn't quite as accessible as he envisioned. He wasn't daunted though, and prepared to move his main character into the battlefield. Except, there were one or two issues. Perhaps the main one, which is a core mantra in EVE, is that you "don't fly what you can't afford to lose." By joining up with any of the militia, you become a war target for two other factions, who will attempt to kill you on sight -- no matter where they see you. No matter what you've done. That's the price you pay for access to this level of PvP, a first in the game, but for some that price tag is too steep.
EVE Online dev blog: new missions galore
EVE Online developer CCP Molock writes in his dev blog that CCP Games has big plans for PvE content in the game, especially for mission-runners. Eight devs are currently working full-time on mission and deadspace creation. In addition, there are a number of freelancers working on new mission text. The freelance opportunities were announced in EVE's EON magazine, so it seems they found the people they needed -- particularly in light of just how much PvE content is on the way. Molock describes the process of getting everything in order for The Empyrean Age and Factional Warfare as 'dizzying', particularly in light of the 160 new Factional Warfare missions that were part of the expansion's launch. Molock states that more content is to come in subsequent Empyrean Age releases, and explains what we can expect from EVE's PvE experience in the future.
Player vs. Everything: Age of Conan closed beta impressions
Everyone and their brother seems to be writing about Age of Conan over the last few days, but hopefully you're hungry for a little more. I've spent the last day and a half trying out different classes and playing through the various starting missions, and I'm ready to serve up some impressions. If you want the quick and dirty version, I'm really impressed with what Funcom has done. This game is worth your money. I'll try to talk about the aspects of the game that I haven't seen discussed much yet, as well as the stuff that everyone is talking about. It's also important to note that I've been playing with the closed beta client -- not the open beta one. There is a serious difference. I should mention that when I wrote Friday's article, I hadn't yet played the game and I was basing my arguments largely on the claims of people who had had bad experiences with the open beta client. I still stand by my arguments about making games with outlandish system requirements, but I think Age of Conan will run just fine on many systems. Keeping all of that in mind, here's what I think of the game.
The Real Villains: Peter Themari
Continuing our series in which we look at the most authentically villainous content on offer in City of Villains, we're stopping by Peter Themari.Themari's a very different kind of villain from Doctor Creed. He's cadaverous, decadent and concerned with nothing but indulging his own vile nature. He can be found in the Haven sector of Cap Au Diable, and is available between levels 10-14. You'll need to carry out three newspaper missions and succeed at a Mayhem Mission before your broker offers you Themari as a contact.Themari's the first contact in CoV who is actively evil. Other contacts have had their own agendas: Fortunata Kalinda is an Arachnos lackey, Mongoose a snake hunter, Burke a mercenary and Creed a deranged scientist. Each one engages your services for reasons of their own. But Themari wants to do wrong for its own sake, and assumes you'll want to as well.
The Real Villains: Doctor Creed
"What I really delivered was a City of Heroes experience with a slightly evil twist." So spake Jack Emmert on City of Villains, as he perceived it with the benefit of hindsight and (one may add) the perspective of not being involved with it any more. It's not an uncommon complaint, either. CoV players can have trouble finding content that gladdens their black hearts with the joy of sheer, arbitrary evil. It doesn't help that some content is blatantly hero content with the numbers filed off, the most brazen of this being the 'kidnap' missions in which you have to retrieve a hostage who is being held captive by other villains. If you think this sounds a lot more like a rescue than a kidnap, then congratulations. But that doesn't mean there isn't genuine evildoing in City of Villains. There's plenty, if you know where to look for it and have the stomach for it. And now that so many of you are pounding away at the levels in the hope of unlocking a Villain Epic Archetype by the time Issue 12: Midnight Hour rolls around, we thought you'd like a few hints.
The Main Man
EVE Online is a game where collective action trumps individual action. It's certainly a game that can be played solo although nowhere near as effectively as when your main's activities are supported or enabled by an alt. CCP provides 3 character slots per account, but skillpoint training can only progress on one character at a time. So where the real alt-play comes in is with dual boxing -- running two accounts at once to facilitate an activity. The main/alt duo can take a number of forms, by no means limited to the following basic examples:
The Digital Continuum: Statistical Anxiety Separation
One thing I've taken to recently is lurking over at the Nerfbat forums, where many great minds discuss a lot of different things concerning massively games. One idea in particular has given me a spark of -- probable -- insanity in regards to something I've been giving plenty of thought to lately. The insane idea is this: What would a massively game be like if character avatars had no stats?After reading though several different concepts presented in the thread responsible for this lunacy of mine, I started to wonder why every one of them focused on keeping with the fantasy motif. To me, it seemed obvious that if you're going to delve into a massively game where the characters have no numerical (or numerical-like) levels, stats or personal equipment it, was going to have to happen in something other than your standard fantasy adventure. That's when two unexpected things came together for me and I realized something. A game where characters don't have any stats attached to them could exist with a difficult-to-design IP that's quite near and dear to me. What's the property, you ask?
Space Adventures offering $100 million trip to space
While there's long since been ways to get a piece of your mind (or your best Photoshop effort) launched into space, getting your person up there isn't exactly feasible if your pay stub isn't stamped by NASA. Now, however, Space Adventures is looking to hoist a pair of untrained civilians into space in 2008 and 2009 aboard a Soyuz craft, and the firm will soon be selling seats for the low, low price of $100 million apiece. The Lunar Mission will eventually bring you "to the other side of the moon," and while we're sure the itinerary is quite detailed considering the price of admission, the firm isn't dolling out too much more until you prove your bank account is stocking the required dough.[Thanks, Yossi]
ASTRO, NextSat reunite once more as Orbital Express concludes
It seems like it was just yesterday when ASTRO and NextSat took to the skies galaxy in hopes of making their creators proud, but now the time has come for the two to wind down and sip exotic liquids from an umbrella-adorned glass. Thankfully, this story has somewhat of a gleeful ending, though it wasn't looking so rosy just days ago; on June 27th, the two parted ways and managed to drift some seven-kilometers apart before ASTRO used its onboard camera system (and a bit of help from ground control) to navigate back to NextSat, where it then proceeded to give its space-bound buddy a theoretical noogie. Sadly, this final scenario marks the final test in DARPA's Orbital Express demonstration, which means that the two machines now have an ominous decommission plan to look forward to.[Via NewScientist]
GameStop reinforces Assassin's Creed, Front Mission rumors
A GoNintendo reader was scouring the GameStop product listings and found a couple of interesting, items. Front Mission 1st, previously sort of confirmed for a US release, is marked as releasing on October 2nd.Assassin's Creed, which was spotted on the leaked GameStop release list, now has a listing on the GameStop site, with a September 25th release date and the completely final boxart seen here. As our copy of Superman for the Playstation will attest, the GameStop computer system is completely accurate and infallible, and once something has a listed release date, it's definitely coming out for real.
Ted and Gadget weep as MAST tether project fails to deploy
While a number of recent space-based experiments have proven quite successful, it must not have been Ted nor Gadget's day. The daring duo that made up the MAST project was supposed to "test the survivability of a thin, braided tether in space," but due to a glitch in the restraint system that "kept Ted from pushing away hard enough to keep unreeling the tether from its spool," the once hopeful mission has come to an ill-fated close. Rather than reaching a full kilometer, the tether was only able to reach a few meters before coming to a stop, but the team at Tethers Unlimited aren't calling it quits just yet. They did admit to not knowing precisely what caused the costly mishap, but the crew also suggested that they'll try to use the small amount of data they did gather to analyze "how a short tether behaves in microgravity." Don't worry fellas, there's always next time.
Rumor: Impossible Mission remake going to Wii Shop?
Oh, good, another one of those vague, confusing rumors we love so well! Infendo is reporting that the latest issue of Nintendo Power reveals a downloadable Wii Shop version of the Commodore 64 classic Impossible Mission. Infendo seemed to think that the Wii Shop version would be the same as the DS remake. However, the resulting NeoGAF thread made the situation seem a lot less clear.Apparently, publisher System 3 also plans to release a retail disc of Impossible Mission. It would be kind of weird to release the same game on disc and the Wii Shop, right? But it would also be weird to release the exact same game for Wii and DS. After all, the DS is not the PSP. So, with no real information to go on, let's do some speculatin'! Here are all the possibilities we can think of: The same game is coming out for both the Wii and DS. Unlikely. The DS game will be downloadable on the Wii, and will release concurrently with a separate Wii version. The DS and Wii remakes will be separate and accompanied by a Virtual Console release of the C64 original. This seems more plausible. LIES!
ASTRO satellite to autonomously move objects to NextSat
Don't say we didn't warn you, as just days after ASTRO and NextSat successfully completed an autonomous fuel transfer whilst orbiting, the thoughtful duo is already looking forward to the next big challenge. As Scenario 0 operation trials continue, the ASTRO satellite will utilize its "ten-foot-long robotic arm to move objects to NextSat," the first of which will purportedly be a "spare battery transfer" that will be "snatched from ASTRO and plugged into NextSat." Reportedly, this very battery will be the focal point of a number of future handoffs, and a "secondary sensor processing computer" will eventually be offloaded to NextSat as well if the arm cooperates. Of course, these relatively minor exchanges don't mark the end of the work week for these two, as a number of future scenarios look to provide increasingly difficult challenges for "mating" the two machines. Hey, we've already got robotic rights in the works, so we're looking that way for guidance about handling these newfangled (and slightly awkward) mechanical relationships, cool? [Via Slashdot]
Calling all C64 fans: Impossible Mission screens
Here's something we still don't believe we're seeing: a DS remake of the Commodore 64 hit Impossible Mission. And judging from the character art, it casts players in the role of Almost Keanu Reeves But Just Edited Enough That Hopefully Nobody Gets Sued. We love that guy! The game involves searching for password components in randomly-generated rooms, then using those passwords in control rooms, while avoiding enemies and manipulating platforms with computer terminals.This was supposed to release in January, and didn't, but at least it still appears to exist! We don't know if this will get released outside of Europe, since Commodore fandom is a mostly Euro phenomenon. European fanboys: how do you feel about C64 remakes on the DS? And how off the mark were we with our description of the game?We've included a few screens after the break.
Britain's Isis ROV set to trawl the depths of Antarctica
We've seen mechanical devices creep through the inside of intestines, huge mounds of dirt, and even through the San Francisco Bay, but now a British deep-diving remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is getting set to probe the depths of Antarctica. In hopes of uncovering more about the effects of glaciers on the ocean floor, as well as details about the living creatures that inhabit said areas, UK scientists are carting the machine aboard the RSS James Clark Ross as they head for the Marguerite Bay area on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula. The robot, dubbed Isis, will spend time on its inaugural January mission combing the seabed and channeling live video and pictures back to its captains via the built-in cameras, lights, sonars for acoustic navigation / imaging, and two remotely-controlled manipulator arms. Once the bot gets dried off (and thawed out) from its arctic expedition, the next tour of duty is already lined up, as Isis will head off to the Portuguese coast to do a bit more sightseeing. Of course, if you're interested in taking the £4.5 million ($8.81 million) creature out for a mission you deem worthwhile, it should be available for deep-pocketed renters soon after.
Japanese hardware sales, 11 Dec - 17 Dec: ARG edition [update 2]
Update 2: Congratulations to Kurifurisan, Mr. Scolex, Oro, and Jennifer for successfully completing the ARG! The clues are explained below.Clue 1: As you can see below, the word Wii and the numbers 10 and 29 are highlighted in bold. This obviously refers to the Wii Fanboy blog in particular, on the date October 29th. Only one article was published on this date: Toys R' Us nonsense.Clue 2: In this post, we can immediately see that the post picture has been altered. It features four DS games: Spyro: A New Beginning, Contact, and Nintendogs (presumably the newer Dalmatian Edition). These games were all released on the same week, and thus, should have led you to the DS Fanboy post DS Releases for the Week of October 16th.Clue 3: This post had an extra final line added: "4 leaves take 5 4 good, 6 feet under. A shame, really." Silly numbers games aside, the death and departure of four leaves refers to the untimely dissolution of Clover Studios, makers of such fine games as Viewtiful Joe and Okami. This should have referred you to the final destination post, Clover Studios Goes Six Feet Under on Nintendo Wii Fanboy. If you found the cross-linked post on DS Fanboy, there was a message saying you had the wrong blog.We hope you enjoyed the game, and if you failed to complete it, you'll have some chances next year to prove your mettle. If you gain any, that is. Hah!For the uninformed, ARG stands for "Alternate Reality Gaming". That's really just a silly hype-word, we think, but here we go. Your task: follow the sequence of clues to various past posts in both Nintendo Wii Fanboy and DS Fanboy. Should you manage to defeat our ingenious riddles, post a comment on the final post to declare your victory to the world. Heck, we'll even go back and give you a star for doing it, too ... the feature is temporarily out of service, but our tech guys should have it back up and running soon.Below are the sales figures for this week, and contained therein, the first clue.- DS Lite: 319,708 10,078 (3.25%)- Wii: 108,237 22,798 (26.68%)- PS3: 70,942 20,771 (41.40%) - PSP: 48,962 20,032 (69.24%) - PS2: 37,730 7,270 (23.87%) - Xbox 360: 17,168 18,175 (51.42%) - GBA SP: 1,867 29 (1.53%) - Game Boy Micro: 1,491 64 (4.12%) - Gamecube: 1,152 583 (102.46%) - DS Phat: 158 9 (5.39%) - GBA: 42 25 (147.06%) - Xbox: 3 3 (50.00%)[Source: Media Create]
Front Mission port announced
The popular turn-based strategy franchise Front Mission is seeing an installment hit the DS in Front Mission The First. A port of the first game in the series, Front Mission The First is said to feature new mechs (Wanzers) that were not included in the original title, as well as Glen Duval from Front Mission 5. Other details are unavailable at this time, as well as any screens for the upcoming game.[Via Go Nintendo]
Epyx back on DS, Wii
Development studio System 3 has scored rights to the old Epyx library of games and is already planning to bring popular titles Impossible Mission and California Games to the DS and PSP. Impossible Mission is due to grace the handhelds in January, while California Games will release in May including unlockable content in the form of older titles Winter Games and Summer Games. While these games will be remakes of their original, dust-covered cousins, System 3's founder Mark Kale said they will not be updated to 3D."You gotta keep the gameplay mechanics the same or else it ceases to be the original game and you're only using the game brand to sell games," Kale said. "It ceases to be Impossible Mission or California Games or what have you. ...What we're doing is we're incorporating the original gameplay and mechanics and bringing the gameplay up to date."Kale also noted that versions of these remakes are also planned to release on the Wii, which he was quick to say had the ideal control scheme for these games. We assume the games will be sold independently via Nintendo's Virtual Console service, however the piece makes no mention of distribution plans.
This just in: Macs are hip
It is obvious that we Mac people appreciate good industrial design and software that just works. Ever since OS X was unleashed onto an unsuspecting world, ubergeeks and bloggers alike have seen the light. Go to any tech conference and you are the audience is bound to look like a sea of glowing Apple logos.It is all well and good that the digerati (of which I consider myself a member since I am oh so hip) are Mac heads, but what about the hipper than thou residents of San Francisco's Mission District? That's what Daniel Terdiman wanted to find out, so he headed to a coffee shop and counted the number of Macs he saw versus the number of Windows machines.Read his post to find out the final numbers, but things are looking good for Apple amongst the hip crowd.
