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'Mortal Kombat 11' DLC trailer shows Shang Tsung, confirms Spawn
Mortal Kombat 11 players have already been awaiting the return of Shang Tsung, and to control the character now modeled on the man who played him in the first MK movie, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. A new DLC for the "Kombat Pack" DLC not only shows off Shang Tsung -- complete with shapeshifting that extends all the way through his fatalities and a slick "Your soul is mine" reference -- but also confirms a few more fighters on the way. Those include Spawn, Sindel, Nightwolf and two still-unnamed additions. Fans have focused on some sound details at the end of the trailer to guess that the last two new fighters will be familiar faces Ash -- actor Bruce Campbell tweeted the trailer last night -- and Terminator. The $40 add-on pack brings all six new characters as they roll out, a week of early access starting with Shang Tsung on June 18th, plus access to new skins and gear.
Library app lets you check out 'The Walking Dead' and other digital comics
Before it was a TV show and video game, The Walking Dead was a comic book from publisher Image Comics. It's a great series and if you're interested in catching up on the source material for the TV show, you might be in luck. The public library app, Hoopla announced today that it was partnering with Image Comics to bring The Walking Dead, Spawn and Saga to its service. Hoopla partners with local libraries to give library card holders the ability to check out digital copies of books, music, videos, audiobooks and comics. the amount of titles available for check during the month depends on the deal between Hoopla and the library. But when your check out period is up, the title automatically disappears from your iOS, Android device or Kindle tablet. It recently added a bunch of DC titles including a whole slew of Dark Knight graphic novels to its roster. So if you're library supports Hoopla and you want to supplement your watching of Fear the Walking Dead you can do so without spending any money.
Final Fantasy XIV offers more details on the Hunt system
Are you looking forward to stalking and destroying the rarest beasts across the land of Eorzea? Then you'll want to read the latest Final Fantasy XIV letter from Producer Naoki Yoshida, who takes the time to talk in a little more depth about the Hunt system. The basics have already been established, but how will Elite Marks avoid horror stories of players camping spawns and only one person getting any reward for all of the effort? Yoshida explains that the Elite Marks are meant to offer rewards to everyone who takes part in killing them, meaning that multiple players or parties taking down the monster will just result in more people getting the rewards. Some of the Marks are even meant to provide a challenge for multiple parties, anot several do not respawn in the same places, providing more incentive to wander, search, and help out. Check out the full letter for more details, and get ready to experience the system yourself when patch 2.3 goes live tomorrow.
Spawn crawls out of Hell and into Soul Calibur 2 HD Online
Soul Calibur 2 HD Online, a downloadable remix of the original PS2 fighter for Xbox Live Arcade and PSN due this fall, will include Spawn as a playable character. Soul Calibur 2 featured console-exclusive characters when it launched on PS2, Xbox and GameCube back in 2003. Heihachi was the PS2's character and confirmed for Soul Calibur 2 HD Online when the game was announced back at San Diego Comic-Con; Spawn was exclusive to the original Xbox version and the GameCube port got Link. And we already know what you're thinking: Will Link be in the game? All signs point to nope. A comparison video between the original game and the Online revamp shows much-improved character models and arenas on top of the addition of online play. Soul Calibur 2 HD Online will be available for download on PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime this fall.
The Engadget Interview: GameStop CEO Paul Raines talks tablets, OUYA and the MVNO that never was
Looking to unload your unwanted gaming gear? You're probably on your way to GameStop. As the largest dedicated video game retailer in the world, it's hard to imagine a games enthusiast who hasn't browsed its wares a time or two. Over the last few years, however, the firm has been expanding outside of retail sales -- dipping its fingers into digital distribution, streaming and even phones and tablets. The brick-and-mortar store even seemed to be flirting with building a mobile network. With all these changes underfoot and a new console cycle just around the corner, it seemed like a good time to catch up with GameStop CEO Paul Raines to get some perspective.
You'll be way into this custom Shy Guy figure
As if there weren't enough Shy Guy permutations in various Mario games haunting your dreams as it is, custom action figure crafter Jin Saotome has gone and created an even more terrifying one than normal. As seen above and more thoroughly on his personal site, Saotome's interpretation of Shy Guy is just a tad darker than Nintendo's version. Naotome's site details the figure's composition, a careful combination of a PVC Shy Guy character mask, the body of DC Comics' Desaad and the hands of The Spirit, and a gatling gun composed of an Iron Man weapon and a Spawn weapon. The piece is currently up on eBay, fetching around $60 as of midday Friday EST, but it's also really sweet and one-of-a-kind, so you may wanna jump on that soon if Dark Shy Guy is for you.
GameStop details plans for Impulse and Spawn Labs, says it's 'becoming a technology company'
Well, it looks like GameStop's plans following its acquisition of Impulse and Spawn Labs may be even grander than we had suspected. At an investor conference today, GameStop said flat out that it is "becoming a technology company," and that it does indeed plan to introduce a cloud-based gaming service similar to OnLive as a result of the Spawn Labs acquisition, while Impulse will be used to "compete fiercely" with Steam. But that's just the start of things. According to the Dallas Morning News, GameStop also plans to expand the gaming service to a variety of mobile devices, and it's apparently even entertaining the idea of a GameStop-branded tablet, saying that "if we feel like we could do a better job of making a tablet, we'll do that." Of course, some of that is still quite a ways off, but GameStop will be taking its first steps fairly soon -- it's already showed off a demo of how the service will be integrated into its website (see above, complete with a "try it now" option), and it plans to begin a public beta sometime this year before rolling out the full service early next year.
RIFT's first closed beta produces "a hell of a sight"
This past weekend, RIFT played host to thousands of brand-new testers with its first closed beta event. The three-day event featured the first 20 levels of the Defiant experience and wrapped up early Monday. According to a forum post by Trion World's Executive Producer Scott Hartsman, the team couldn't be more pleased with the way things panned out. RIFT's team received over 20,000 pieces of feedback from the event and learned quite a few things, including, as Hartsman put it, "answers to some critical questions." These answers included how the servers would hold up with so many people in so few zones, if they could deliver quick patches, and how rifts would happen with the crowd density. In fact, there were so many people that the team had to double the amount of servers almost immediately, although fortunately the servers held up under the strain. Hartsman identified a number of problem areas that would be addressed, such as mob respawn rate. Because of the massive population, RIFT's titular feature had a difficult time being a challenge until the team made some adjustments: "Where we had hoped and expected to see invasions rampaging across the countryside, instead the population density had become far too high, such that invasions weren't even getting off the ground. We updated the game with even more insanely active tuning on Saturday night to give the invaders a chance to come out and play too, and the response in chat and submitted feedbacks was overwhelmingly positive once that started. By the time it worked, it was a hell of a sight -- Huge invasions finally freed up, setting up footholds, wiping out the local populace, and eventually being repelled by defenders." Trion is working on a number of improvements as it prepares for its second closed beta event, which is prepped to start December 17th. Stay tuned to Massively for a special upcoming post-beta interview!
Spawn Labs starts shipping HD-720, your video games now ready to be slung
Hey, remember Spawn Labs? Look, we know last September was a long, long time ago, but how could you ever forget the box that essentially acts as the Slingbox for your video game consoles? The HD-720, which arrives with the ability to pass along either Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 signals to a web-connected PC for remote playback, is now available to order for $199.95, while additional adapters can also be purchased for $39.95. Of course, you should make sure you have a pretty robust Windows-based laptop and a solid internet connection before getting your hopes up too high here, but if those are well taken care of, your portable gaming dreams are now just a credit card indention away. [Thanks, Ryan]
WoW Rookie: The inner workings of instances
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.Maraudon or Blackrock Depths, anybody? Instances are your opportunity to meet and work as a team with other players in the World of Warcraft. You'll combat pack after pack of minions and defeat unique, memorable bosses on your way to some of the most enjoyable play in the game. Instances, also often known as dungeons, offer your group (and later, your raid) your own personal copy of a dungeon. No players other than your own group members are able to enter an instance with you. Instances provide some of the most rewarding and well designed content, challenges and loot possible for your character. The teamwork and cooperative effort required to down the elite mobs and tricky bosses within an instance require a new level of teamwork from your rookie character. We've touched on the basics of finding your niche within a group. Today, let's cover the mechanics of managing instances – becoming "saved" to an instance, resetting them, understanding respawn and more. (One note: this week, we'll discuss five-man instances designed for single groups along the path to level 80, not raid instances requiring 10 or more players to complete. We'll introduce raid instance concepts for fresh level 80 players next week.)
WoW Rookie: Rares, elites and nameds
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.What's with the curlicue dragon graphic wrapped around the portrait of that mob? Aren't they usually gold? This one's silver. Hmmm ... And whoa, why does that Gnoll over there have a name? He's got one of those gold dragon things, too. Do you think -- CRUNCH! Special names, special graphics ... Special attacks, special ZOMGWTFBBQ levels of health ... It's unobtrusive little details like these that might, just might, have something to do with the fact that you just got epicly pwned. Make no mistake: these are special mobs, the elites, nameds and rares of Azeroth and beyond.WoW Rookie would never allow you to wander about the wilderness unaware of the dangers that lurk. Let's go over a few signs that suggest you may want to look before you leap.
Macworld 2009: Spawn 2 and the economics of the App Store
Spawn Illuminati version 2 just hit the App Store (iTunes link). If you haven't seen it, it's an amazing time-killer which allows user interaction with something akin to a screensaver on your iPhone. It's a little hard to explain, which is why we have video. You can also check out some user-contributed screenshots on the developer's Flickr page. An interesting aspect of the Spawn story is the author's success with pricing it above the .99 "sweet spot" after mediocre success at that standard price. The second video is a snippet of Spawn's developer Nikolai riffing about App Store economics. Spawn is currently back to .99USD in the App Store, but only for a limited time. Read on for a demo and some pricing opinions from an experienced App Store developer.
Seeking the Time-Lost Proto Drake
I don't know if we've mentioned this before, but even if we have, it's interesting enough to put out there again, I think. There is a dragon in the expansion that can be soloed, and drops a epic flying mount at 100% drop rate -- all you've got to do is find him. A few people have already nabbed the mount, and lots more are on the hunt right now. The mob in question is the Time-Lost Proto Drake: it's a rare elite spawn (but as I said, it's possible to solo it, especially at level 80) that shows up every six hours or so flying around the Storm Peaks. Unfortunately, none of the usual suspects have maps of where he's been seen yet, but we're hearing it's around the southern part of the zone. When he goes down, he'll drop the mount, a good chunk of gold, some Frostweave, and a random enchantment Talisman.An interesting tactic on Blizzard's part -- on the one hand, this is definitely a big change from the huge questlines and rep grind from the netherdrakes: just kill this one dragon and you're guaranteed the mount. On the other hand, the rare spawn rate, and the fact that it is a 100% drop rate means there'll be a lot of competition, at first anyway, for the kill. But the good news is that the odds will only get better -- if you're willing to do some dragon hunting for a few hours and have some keen eyes for what's in the air, you could pick up one of the coolest flying mounts yet.
Earthrise newsletter updates fans on title's progress
The team at Masthead Studios has released another batch of info on the upcoming Earthrise MMO, through their August newsletter. It's become standard for the Masthead newsletters to profile members of the Earthrise team. This time it's Composer Pavel Benov who's featured. He talks about how he drew upon his punk and hardcore roots to create Earthrise's soundtrack, which will be a fusion of experimental ambient and industrial. There are also some highlights of the previous month's coverage of the post-apocalyptic title. But most of the revelations come through their Community Manager, Moll, who touches upon where Earthrise is in terms of beta testing. In addition, 'Issue IV' of the Earthrise newsletter has more concept art from the Eastern Gardens Creatures, showing off the npc spawns that will be devouring players when the game goes into beta, which Moll says will be later this year.
Take out the trash (timers)!
Over at Blessing of Kings, Coriel recently made the case for removing the respawn timer on trash mobs in raid instances:"When you go into a 5-man instance, you expect to clear it, even if it is your first time going to that instance. You may wipe once or twice, but the general expectation is that you will finish that instance. In this case, an instance time limit is a good idea. If you hit the trash respawn, it's a sign that something is wrong, and perhaps it might be a better idea to try again later, maybe with a different group or after gearing up a bit more.... In contrast, in a raid boss fight, you expect to wipe a lot. That the fight is intricate enough that learning and mastering it will take multiple hours. It took us two or three evenings to refine our strategy and master The Lurker Below, and he's generally considered an easy boss in SSC."He makes a few more good points in the article, including the fact that for casual guilds, losing time to trash mob respawns could be better spent learning a new boss. Obviously this affects more casual raiders than hardcore ones, but I think Coriel summarizes his points well and is worth a read.
