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Facebook will rank comments to make conversations more meaningful
Facebook wants to make conversations on public posts more meaningful. Today, it will start ranking comments to promote those that are most relevant to users. It will give priority to comments that have interactions from the original poster, as well as comments or reactions from friends of the person who created the post.
ArenaNet explains upcoming Guild Wars 2 PvP features
Guild Wars 2 has a pretty active and dedicated sPvP community. ArenaNet's Jonathan Sharp took to the blog today to talk to that community (and the rest of you peasants, too) about some upcoming goodies for PvP. Right now, players are able to compete in structured automated tournaments. These free tournaments pit eight teams of five against each other, with reward chests, glory, and rank going to the top four teams. Soon, players will also be able to participate in paid automated tournaments. Tickets for entry can be found in reward chests from free tournaments, bought in the gem store, or received whenever a player hits a new sPvP rank. Every team in the paid tournaments will receive a reward, but the four teams with the best performance will get better loot -- including gems. What better way to hone your skills for paid tournaments than by renting custom arenas in which to practice? Custom arenas can be rented by players with options for password protection, scrimmage hosting, and setting a custom map rotation. Sharp promised more information about custom arenas in a future blog post, and said that after paid tournaments and custom arenas come online, the team will turn its focus to other key features for making Guild Wars 2 sPvP even better.
Darkfall update brings new clan permissions system
The folks at Aventurine are still working hard on a number of improvements for Darkfall such as new weapons styles, performance optimization, and UI modifications, but in the meantime they've decided to roll out a new feature that should be a great boon to clan leaders and officers. Currently, clan leaders are only allowed to grant clan-related permissions to their members based on clan rank. With the new system, clan leaders will be able to assign permissions to individual players, regardless of their ranks within the clan. In addition, each clan permission will have an associated title that any member with that permission can choose to display if they so desire. For instance, a clan member with permission to recruit members can choose to show the "recruiter" title. Military ranks will remain in the game, but they are now governed by PvP performance and each new military rank is granted automatically upon the completion of specific goals. These ranks have no bearing on clan permissions. The full details on the new system are available for perusal over at the Darkfall official site. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
Spiral Knights update introduces new mission types and more
It's been a little while since we heard from Three Rings' free-to-play dungeon-crawling title, Spiral Knights, but today we have some new information regarding the game's latest patch, and it brings a whole new degree of structure to the title in the form of new mission types. The team is adding four different types of missions in order to give players a solid path of progression as well as a quick fix for players who don't have a ton of time on their hands. The first of the four mission types is known as a rank mission. Rank missions comprise the main campaign of Spiral Knights and will allow players to climb the ranks of the organization. Each rank mission will grant players pre-set awards in addition to any loot found on the mission itself. Prestige missions, the second type of mission, are daily tasks that will reward players with prestige. Players with high prestige scores will receive an unspecified bonus sometime in the future. The third mission type, expansion missions, operate similarly to rank missions in that they "feature set rewards," but the missions must first be "unlocked with purchase," though as of now we don't know whether that means a microtransaction or an in-game-currency purchase. Lastly, we have arcade missions, which are the same arcade missions that players know and love, except now they can be joined directly from the mission interface instead of making you run to the arcade itself. For the full details on all the new mission types and features being added in the new patch, just head on over to the Spiral Knights forums and take a look.
Remote guild chat feature bugged for authenticator ranks
The new remote guild chat feature, currently available for free on the World of Warcraft mobile armory smart phone app, has run into a little bug that demoted players from authenticator to non-authenticator rank in their guilds. Blizzard's Bashiok hit the forums to explain the issue. Basically, when people were logging in to the mobile app to chat with their guilds, it signalled the guild interface that these people had logged in without an authenticator and automatically changed their rank. The issue has been hotfixed and should not affect any more players with authenticator ranks, but players currently at a rank in guild that requires an authenticator will not be able to use the service until the big hotfix tomorrow. Also, the guild chat feature has been added for every realm in the Ruin Battlegroup, so more people get to check out this really cool feature. For the full post, hit the jump.
Gartner's global phone sales rankings match IDC's, but say the big guys have less of the pie; Android moves to number two overall
At a 30,000-foot level, the global mobile phone sales numbers for the third quarter of 2010 just released by Gartner match up with what IDC posted a few days ago, but you might say the devil's in the details. These guys have all of the top five players -- Nokia, Samsung, LG, Apple, and RIM -- at noticeably lower total market shares than IDC did, suggesting that second-tier players like Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and HTC (if you can really call them "second-tier") are grabbing more hearts and minds. And hey, considering Motorola's prominent role at Verizon and HTC's ever-growing global presence, we could totally believe it. Notably, Nokia is well below 30 percent in Gartner's report at 28.2, a whopping drop of 8.5 percent year-over-year -- way more than the 4.1 percent drop that IDC's got pegged. Of course, there's no way of knowing which of the two reports is more accurate -- and you know how margins of error work with these things. Hey, at least the rankings are the same, right? [Thanks, Tad] Update: As commenters have pointed out, the Gartner report also puts Android at 25.5 percent market share, moving past BlackBerry OS to become the number two smartphone platform behind Symbian (they've got iOS at third, BlackBerry fourth). Considering the platform's trajectory this year and sheer variety of Android phones now being solid worldwide, it's no surprise.
Breakfast Topic: Earning your stripes
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. A friend of mine and I were once playing Rock Band (don't worry, I will relate this to WoW soon), and he complained that he wasn't doing so well. Granted, he's much better than most players, but he was struggling to play a moderately difficult song on the expert difficulty (the hardest difficulty in the game). He later revealed to me that the reason he was lamenting his "lack" of skill was that he used to be much better -- so much better, in fact, that he once beat the infamous "Through the Fire and Flames" on expert in Guitar Hero III. For those who don't know, "Through the Fire and Flames" is generally agreed to be the hardest song in any guitar-based rhythm game, demanding complex techniques that no other song in the series requires. In response to this revelation on his part, I said to him, "No matter how bad you may think you are now, beating 'Through the Fire and Flames' gives you the life-long right to retire from the game without losing any of your former glory in the process." And I believe that. No matter how much his skill may atrophy, beating "Through the Fire and Flames" on expert means he will always be worthy of respect in the Guitar Hero/Rock Band community, or at least always worthy of my respect. This conversation made me wonder; are there any achievements in WoW that bestow similar prestige? In my own mind, anyone who got Grand Marshal/High Warlord under the old PvP system is deserving of this kind of respect. I would also like to think that What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been would carry similar meaning, but that may just be me trying to think that my Violet Proto-Drake is more impressive than it really is. As for Insane in the Membrane, though I've never met anyone who has done it, I imagine that rather than respecting him, I might just think him very worthy of the title.
Officers' Quarters: Not an officer
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press. Who deserves to be an officer? Guild leaders struggle with this question quite a bit. It comes down to this question: In your guild, does the officer rank exist to reward players or to give them responsibilities? In other words, what is the purpose of the officer rank? Later, I'll talk about the two most common purposes. But first, this week's e-mail comes from a player who feels he deserves a promotion to officer. Hey Scott, I've been playing with a group of people for five years now. We've stuck together as a guild for most that time, though we've moved from tag to tag over the duration. I left WoW for a short period while I moved across the country and upon my return found the guild I had been in was disbanded and we had merged with another guild. No big deal, we've done it before. I was an officer in the old guild, but was not promoted to officer status in the new (too many officers, not enough members, etc.). Again, no big deal.
Starting out in Vana'diel: Mission, very possible
Hello there adventurers! It's Friday, I know, and Friday is not Thursday. That, however, won't stop me from bringing Final Fantasy XI aid to you! I promised you more information on the mission system, and that's exactly what I'm going to be delivering in this edition of "Starting out in Vana'diel."Missions are one of the key aspect of the game. They tell the main story, a la a standard Final Fantasy title, they offer boss battles, chances to team up with friends, and, most importantly, tangible rewards. Missions offer gil and increases in nation rank, which in turn opens up more items for you to grab.Now I would love to walk you through the missions for each city, but all of them play out differently until the storylines intersect in the city of Jeuno. That makes a nice walkthrough very hard for a column like this. What I can offer you is some great tips on how to increase your rank, and exactly why you want to spend the trouble doing it.
J.D. Power survey ranks iPhone highest
J.D. Power and Associates released the results of a survey yesterday, showing Apple's iPhone ranked highest in terms of customer satisfaction among 1,388 business wireless customers queried between August and September. Apple scored 778 (out of 1,000), higher than Blackberry-maker RIM (703) and Samsung (701). The scores were derived from survey answers in five categories: ease of operation, operating system, physical design, handset features, and battery aspects. Apple owners reported the highest average purchase price for a smartphone, $337. Motorola owners paid the least, averaging $169. The average across all smartphone brands was $216. The survey also found that a quarter of all smartphone users have at least one software-related problem with their current handset. Forty-four percent had to reboot their device at least once a week. Sixty-nine percent own a hands-free device, and 74 percent of them are wireless. [Via Macworld.]
Which Nintendo system favored third-party publishers the most?
You would think DS, no? That's exactly what we thought, as the handheld is home to more amazing third-party games than any other console in recent memory, but that is not the case. It turns out, the SNES was the best Nintendo console for third-party publishers. Who would've known?Keep in mind, though, that this is merely based on Aeropause's own evaluation and may not be representative of how much money publishers made on each system, or the quality of the titles they released on said platform. It's more or less based on an article in the latest Nintendo Power where the staff ranked their top 20 games for each Nintendo system.What do you all think? Which Nintendo system had the greatest batch of stellar third-party titles in your eyes? We're going to stick with DS. It seems like a no-brainer to us.
DisplaySearch Q2 plasma results shows big growth, Matsushita on top
Oh, how quickly the mighty have fallen (again). Shortly after Matsushita dropped to third in plasma shipments in Q1, the outfit has leapfrogged both LG and Samsung SDI in order to claim the gold in Q2 2008. The outfit's revenue share skyrocketed from 29.4% to 36.8%, showing a 23% year-over-year improvement. Also of note, 1080p PDPs saw remarkable growth (54% year-over-year) this quarter, which were reportedly driven by sales of 46-inch models. Looking at Matsushita in particular, over 43% of its plasma shipments in Q2 were 1080p, and overall it "accounted for over 70% of all 1080p PDP shipments." Anyone taking bets on who comes out on top in Q3?
EVE Online blazes into The Empyrean Age
Massively has been beating the war drums as EVE Online enters a new era in PvP: The Empyrean Age expansion. This time of factional warfare will sweep players of all four races in New Eden into a whirl of conflict never seen before in the game. PvP will no longer be limited to low sec ganks, 0.0 alliance warfare, or Empire war decs. For the first time, it will be integrated with the storyline on a massive scale. And all the while, embedded reporters loyal to their respective factions will be conveying news and swaying the masses of New Eden to their cause. With all of this build-up to the expansion's release, there's a great deal of information to absorb. So we've written about what exactly The Empyrean Age is, and what it is not. Our columnists at Massively have written on the background of the conflict between EVE's races, and torn through some of the complexities of EVE's factional warfare for you as well. Although factional warfare has been tested extensively, these radical changes to the universe of EVE Online require a hefty amount of downtime to deploy. But after the full day's downtime, the shardless galaxy of New Eden will be set ablaze at 02:00 GMT on June 11. While you're rocking back and forth in your chair waiting for the server reboot, check out Massively's ramped up coverage of the sci-fi MMO and get yourself into the mood for tearing into the hulls of your rival faction. We suspect that a number of EVE vets are going through booster-level withdrawal symptoms today; so for the truly hardcore, CCP posted the full patch notes in all its 18-page glory on their provisional 'downtime site'. And of course, there's always time to watch Clear Skies a few more times while you wait for New Eden to ignite once again. %Gallery-24797%
Xfire breaks 10 million users, 16,000 years online
Gamedaily has the report that Xfire, the online service for gamers (that we have coordinated a few events with in the past), has broken a whopping ten million users. That, you'll probably realize, is just as many as World of Warcraft, and in fact, while Xfire apparently has support for over 1,200 games, World of Warcraft always seems to rank pretty high on the list.In fact, our friends at Xfire have another number that they've shared with us: in the month of April alone, Xfire users spent 16,000 years online -- that is, if you add up all the time spent online by all the users of the client just in April, you get a time period longer than pretty much the whole history of civilization on Earth. That's huge.Which makes us wonder just how long players actually spend in WoW -- surely not all WoW players are using Xfire, so the number has to be much bigger than that. At any rate, Xfire is apparently banging, and odds are that WoW is playing a big part.
Sony vaults to top of latest North American LCD sales rankings, Samsung still king overall
Betcha didn't see this one coming. After Vizio and Samsung battled over the last few quarters for LCD supremacy here in North America, Sony has ratcheted up to number one after boosting its market share in said region from 9.7-percent to 12.8-percent. According to new research from DisplaySearch, Sony was the leading brand in the 40- to 44-inch, 45- to 49-inch and 50- to 54-inch LCD segments. 'Course, Samsung still remained king of the overall flat-panel market (and notched silver medals in both LCD and plasma sales), but it was Panasonic holding onto the top spot overall in PDP market share. Where's Vizio, you ask? Clinging to the bronze in both LCD and overall flat-panel sales. Hit the read link for lots more numbers -- if you're into that type of stuff, that is.[Via Widescreen Review]
Samsung 'restructuring' handset division, hints at Armani partnership
In the wake of increased competition from Motorola and Nokia in particular, Samsung is reportedly "restructuring its handset division," which will aim to find "new sources of revenue, realigning businesses, and cut costs." As expected, the move will also involve a number of "personnel reshuffles," but a Samsung spokesman was quoted as saying that there won't be any "forceful" job cuts. Interestingly, we're hearing further details that the firm is indeed courting the idea of partnering with "luxury name brands such as Italian fashion house Armani to develop premium brand phones," and considering just how hot avant-garde mobiles have been of late, we certainly don't think that's a bad idea.[Via JustAMP]
Online details revealed for Mario Strikers Charged
Add another game to the short list of upcoming Wii titles with WiFi Connection support. Mario Strikers Charged will feature both Ranked and Unranked matches for players all over the world to compete in. Ranked games track your wins and losses, calculating your standing on leaderboards (We can already imagine the problems with early disconnecters.). The Unranked mode allows you to set up a quick round with your friends. Nintendo hasn't announced a date for the US release yet, but Mario Strikers Charged will hit UK shelves on May 25th. Having previewed the wacky soccer title at GDC, we can't wait to see how well the Wii remote has been integrated and how fleshed out the game's online support will be. [Via Joystiq]
Japanese hardware sales, Mar. 5 - Mar. 11: March Madness edition [update 1]
[Update 1: Fixed official host of March Madness to DS Fanboy. Hellz yeah!]Can you feel it? The millions of dollars of productivity just slipping away in a bracket-induced frenzy? This month, eight of the biggest contenders will go toe to toe in a winner-take-all bloodbath of pain and glory.The DS, by virtue of winning the last nineteen straight tournaments, has been officially eliminated from the competition. Vegas is giving 3:2 odds on the Wii, but inconsistent supply performance puts them on shaky ground. The PSP, which charged back late in the season to earn the number 1 seed, is playing its best right now, but the in-state rival PS3 is still a force to be reckoned with. The Xbox 360 has also shown marked improvement, with wonderful individual performances by Blue Dragon and Trusty Bell.We're totally picking the Gamecube, though. It's the cinderella story of the season! (Seeds were determined using this week's numbers. Next week's sales charts shall determine the winner!)(And go Gators!) - DS Lite: 108,512 3,302 (2.95%) - PSP: 56,175 9,981 (15.09%) - Wii: 44,495 13,477 (23.25%) - PS3: 32,115 11,885 (27.01%) - PS2: 14,585 779 (5.07%) - Xbox 360: 3,333 46 (1.36%) - Game Boy Micro: 812 7 (0.87%) - GBA SP: 679 59 (7.99%) - Gamecube: 240 63 (20.79%) - DS Phat: 119 7 (6.25%) - GBA: 13 12 (48%)[Source: Media Create]
Apple.com 14th most visited site in US
MacNN found a survey from comScore Media Metrix for the month of August which ranked apple.com as the 14th most visited site in the U.S. with 31.5 million unique visitors. On the top of the list is Yahoo! with more than 131.3 million visitors, while Dell surprisingly leapt from 47 to 35, though MacNN notes that is largely due to the battery recall. YouTube, surprisingly, rose to the #32 spot with 19.1 million visitors in August - I always figured they were closing in on MySpace somewhere near the top of the hill.MacNN has more details of other properties and observations made from the survey, so take a gander if you have an interest in web and marketing trends.
To Turtle or Not to Turtle...?
We're 45 minutes into an Alterac Valley run and 30 players are sitting in our base playing defense, fighting a pitched battle that doesn't help us win, but slows down the rate at which we're going to loose. We haven't managed to hold a single graveyard throughout the fight, and the Alliance has a line of defense that quickly picks off most players attempting to move north from the Horde spawn point. I manage to sneak up to the next graveyard with a hunter friend while everyone else is busy fighting back in Frostwolf hold - and we manage to tap the flag there. However, before we manage to make the capture, a group of five Alliance comes down hard, and we're sent back to where we started.My friend whispers to me, "They have no idea what causes people to turtle, do they?" And, while I hadn't thought of it in this way before, I'm forced to agree - this sort of fight is probably no fun for either side. By playing such heavy defense, and not allowing a single capture, they push us back towards Frostwolf hold again and again - and when there's nothing else for players to do, many of them regroup back at one of the worst bottleneck points in the game, and the match ended up lasting an nearly an hour and a half. So what's your experience with turtling? And is there, perhaps, something to be said for letting the opposing side take a little, just to prevent them from fighting with their backs against the wall? Or is there some better strategy to avoid or break the opposing team's turtling efforts?
