World of Warcraft: Legion - Dragoncon News

To everyone's surprise, there was a World of Warcraft panel at Dragoncon. Additional information was revealed about the new expansion, Legion. There are a number of highlights, ranging from Demon Hunters to the transmogrification system, listed below:

- 

• Demon Hunters currently planned to start at 98.
• Demon Hunters can use 1H Swords, in addition to Glaives.
• Demon Hunter Metamorphosis is a short transformation with inner demon visuals, not continuous form.
• Multistrike is gone, other secondary/tertiary stats are changed.
• Profession updates - very little or no cooldown gated profession materials for crafting.
• Stage Upgrades work differently - destroy old item, get Obliterium material to create better item.
• Transmog system in Legion is similar to Diablo and possibly account-wide.
• No extra Void Storage tab planned--transmog system should help with bag space.
• Classes in Legion emphasize fantasy of specs and some are even getting renamed.
• Survival Hunters, who are melee in Legion, get Harpoon ability to draw mobs towards them.
• Adventure Mode may be coming to Legion - no details, but something that may be discussed at BlizzCon.
• A previous tweet stated no major glyphs, but was clarified to say there were simply no new major glyphs.

Interesting to see that Demon Hunters will be starting at level 98. Perhaps after doing the starting area, the Demon Hunter will be level 100, after progressing through two levels. Or, it may mean that it's similar to Death Knights in which you level rapidly and gain abilities at an odd rate during the process, to help ease players into the class. Demon Hunters may have to visit Draenor to reach 100, but even if they do, they will be doing very little Warlords of Draenor content.

It's quite likely that Demonology Warlocks will be losing their Metamorphosis, as it will be iconic to Demon Hunters. Demon Hunter Metamorphosis will be a short transformation, instead of a continuous transformation like current Warlock's. Blizzard stated that they would like to refocus the Warlock Demonology specialization more on actual Demons, rather than imbuing themselves with demonic power; more of a pet spec is in mind. Infact, a load of classes will be getting a revamp and some specializations will be having their names changed. I'll cover this in a later blog post when more information has been revealed.

I'm really glad that Multistrike is gone, because although it's a fun idea it ultimately has a negative impact on the game. Percent based chances add too much RNG to the game, and in this case far to high of a reward for doing nothing. In PvP, multistrike is ok for the majority of abilities except when it activates on hard hitting spells like Chaos Bolt. For example, Chaos Bolt crits for 173k, then multistrikes for an additional 51k. Where's the skill in that?

Legion has the largest profession team to date, so far they have revealed that their will be little to no cooldown gating on professions. This means that you are only limited by how much effort you are willing to put into the profession.

Transmog will also be changed, to a system similar to Diablo 3. In Diablo 3, you only need to have had the item once to then use it as transmog. This new system will save a lot of storage space, and will also eliminate the need for additional Void Storage slots. Legion might also see Adventure Mode, again from Diablo 3.

No new glyphs have been announced, save for that there will be no new major glyphs in Legion. Hopefully minor glyphs will be used to focus on class cosmetic effects. For example, I'd love a glyph for Death Knights so that when they use Soul Reaper and gain the haste buff, the swirling soul effect lasts for a couple of minutes, instead of a few seconds.

World of Warcraft: Legion News - Class Orders

As well as Artifacts for each class specialization, there will also be the addition of the Class Orders. In Legion, you won't be fighting the invasion of the Burning Legion alongside the Alliance or the Horde, you will be fighting them with the power of your class.

With the armies of both the Alliance and the Horde shattered after the Iron Horde and the events of Pandaria, the armies of Azeroth are in no shape for yet another war. As a result, we will band together with our fellow class members to tackle the threat of the Burning Legion in ways unique to our class and to the advantage of our strengths.

Regardless of faction, Class Order Halls will be places to be shared with fellow Class Members; no more personal Garrisons. For an idea of how this might look like, look to Acherus as the closest thing to a Class Order Hall.

It is in your Class Order Halls that you will be able to customize your Artifact weapon and get quests. Order Halls will not have banks or auction houses. The order hall for Paladins was shown at the Gamescom reveal, and Warlocks will have their Order Hall on a Legion portal world. As for the other classes,  we can only speculate that Acherus will the order hall for Death Knights and suitable areas for other classes.

You are able to collect members of your class to fight the Burning Legion, as well as Elite lore figures such as Darion Mograine. The Elite characters are far stronger than simple followers, and you are also able to send these characters to patrol zones. Champions are intended to enhance your game-play experience, rather than going out and doing things for you. Examples include assigning a champion to a zone, and whilst you are playing in that zone you will either gain combat bonuses or rewards.

It should be noted that Champions are different from followers, so they do less of an impact, and they enhance things instead. You can send them on missions, but they are meant for much more. Blizzard would like to avoid giving out too many followers, because they gave less reason to go out into the world and accomplish things. The size of your elite squadron, will be about nine, think Knights of the Round Table.

Although the fantasy for Warlords of Draenor was that you raised an army and felt like a leader, the fantasy for Legion is that you work alongside elite heroes against the threat of the Legion. As such, amassing huge numbers is not a solution.

World of Warcraft: Legion News - Demon Hunters

With the announcement of Legion, Demon Hunters were announced as the new class for the game. It's been described as a melee class with very high mobility. As for the flavor text and lore, it is stated on Warcraft's website as the following:

"Demon hunters, disciples of Illidan Stormrage, uphold a dark legacy, one that frightens their allies and enemies like. The Illidari embrace fel and chaotic magics—energies that have long threatened the world of Azeroth—believing them necessary to challenge the Burning Legion. Wielding the powers of demons they’ve slain, they develop demonic features that incite revulsion and dread in fellow elves."

- Demon Hunter, World of Warcraft

Demon Hunters will only be available for Night Elves and Blood Elves, as the Demon Hunters that are set to appear in Legion will be part of the Illidari; Illidan's Demon Hunters. The few Night Elves that followed Illidan through the Dark Portal, and the Blood Elves that followed Kael'thas, a select number were trained to become Demon Hunters. The story of your personal Demon Hunter will start moments before adventurers battle Illidan Stormrage atop the Black Temple, and you are sent on a what is described as a suicide mission - eventually you end up on Azeroth, locked up in the Vault of Wardens. That's all we know about the Demon Hunters so far in regards to story.

As for specializations, Demon Hunters will only have two. Vengeance will be the tanking spec, and Havoc will be the DPS spec. They wanted to add a third, but they saw little value in it as the only choices were another tank spec or another DPS spec. Healing or ranged DPS specs did not fit the fantasy.

Both specs have access to metamorphosis, turning you into a Demon much like Illidan whilst using the Havoc specialization. As for Vengeance, you become far more bulkier and spikes protrude from your back.

Character customization also allows you to add horns to your characters base form, as well as an eye shroud, tatoos, and demonic scales. A few abilities have also been named, such as:

Spectral Sight: Allows you to see invisible/stealthed targets, even through objects.

Double Jump: Demon Hunters are able to jump twice.

Eye Blast: Shoots a beam, hits multiple targets in a line.

The starting level for Demon Hunters is currently being debated by the player base, most believe that Demon Hunters will start between 95 - 100. I think starting at level 95 is most likely, because starting at 100 would make the leveling experience too quick of an experience. Demon Hunters will use Demonic Fury as a resource, will be able to wear Cloth and Leather armour and give a 12th Character Creation slot. Their main weapons will be Glaives, though it is unclear as to whether or not these will have a unique weapon type, or if they will be swords. I believe that swords will be the most likely candidate. Some of the pictures shown of Demon Hunters with their Glaives actually contain the Artifact versions of them.

World of Warcraft: Legion News - Artifacts

With the announcement of Legion, a variety of new features were announced. One of them being Artifact weapons; weapons of great power that we are to use in our fight against the Burning Legion.

As the expansions have gone by, our characters have become more and more important in the storyline of each expansion. Come Warlords of Draenor, we were made Commanders of our armies and in Legion we are set to become Class Leaders. Important characters such as Thrall, Varian or Khadgar have their own, unique weapons that everyone recognizes, such as Thrall's Doomhammer. 

The idea behind the Artifact system is to give the players their very own weapon; no more depending on drops or quest rewards. We are getting our very own weapons, that represent us and are part of our character's image. In total, there will be 36 Artifacts; 1 for each specialization. Each artifact will have a quest in order to acquire that artifact, and each artifact also has 4 skins for you to choose from. You get the base artifact, with the base skin. Then, as you level up your artifact, you gain access to new skins and you can also earn another skin through PvP. In addition, you can further customize your artifact with colours.

Pic: Frost Death Knight Artifact Skins

I mentioned you can level up your artifact, and with it you can also invest points into the Weapon's "Talent Tree", further customizing your artifact to your liking. At the start of the expansion, you have will have most of the skills for your weapon, and as the expansion comes to an end, you will have all of the skills your weapon can provide.

Pic: Artifact "Talent" Tree

I'm not sure how some of these abilities will work in PvP, as a self-resurrection and similar abilities would be quite overpowered in PvP. However, I can imagine that these abilities will be disabled in competitive PvP in the least.

The way you get your Artifact, will be soon after you arrive on the new continent; The Broken Isles. Upon arriving, you will receive a quest to go and acquire your spec-specific artifact. Towards the end of your questing experience, you will receive additional quests to then acquire the other artifacts for your class and specializations.

World of Warcraft: Legion News - Honor System V3 & The Prestige System

With the announcement of World of Warcraft: Legion, Blizzard also unveiled the final version of the Honor System - Version 3. To start, it features the removal of PvP gear which you can read about in my blog here.

Aside from the removal of PvP gear, the Honor System V3 features something no one saw coming; a talent tree for PvP. The PvP talent tree works in the same way as the current one does for all classes, you pick a skill from one of three choices and then go down to the next lane to choose the next and so on and so forth. From what we were shown, the talent tree has some standard choices available for all classes as well as unique choices for specific classes such as Death Knights. Death Knights will be given the option to replace Scourge Strike with Necrotic Strike, a pruned ability from the days of Mists of Pandaria. Healers will be given the option to replace their dispel with a unique ability that dispels all magic effects on the targets every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. The values to some of these abilities will probably be tweaked, however we can only assume that other classes will receive something similar, an ability for PvP that replaces a pre-existing ability. 

It is a possibility that these PvP talents could cause major imbalance issues should the effects be too powerful. The new progression system for PvP is no longer about collecting gear, but instead about progressing through ranks 1 - 50. During your ranking up process, you will be given the chance to choose a new talent in your PvP talent tree. Once you hit Rank 50, you are then given the option to Prestige, which will wipe your PvP talents clean and you will start again. In return, the player will receive cosmetic rewards. In the beginning, this will simply edit your player frame slightly to show your prestige ranking, but eventually you will be able to get mounts, a new skin for your class artifact and more. More details on the prestige system will no doubt surface as we get closer to the release date, which is sometime around when the Warcraft movie hits theatres.

They said that these abilities will only work in PvP, I hope that includes World PvP as well. It will be cool to see that as soon as you enter PvP combat, Scourge Strike turns into Necrotic Strike for the duration of the PvP battle, but perhaps it is a complete a hard-swap in which the Death Knight entirely looses the Scourge Strike ability.

Aside from abilities, you can also select passives such as Mind Quickening that will increase your Haste by 3%, or choose non-class related abilities such as the baseline Gladiator's Medallion. Gladiator's Medallion is a talent that works exactly like a PvP trinket that removes all forms of CC from the player - does this mean that the PvP trinkets will be removed as well as the controversial Human Racial?

I can only imagine that the Human Racial will be removed so that the playing field is leveled out, everyone will have one trinket no matter your choice of race. I am somewhat fearful that there might be the slightest chance that PvP talents will only work in Arena or Battlegrounds, in reference to how Tom Chilton worded it at the expansion reveal during Gamescom 2015. I have high hopes however.

World of Warcraft: Legion News - PvP Gear to be removed

So with the new expansion announced, World of Warcraft: Legion, comes new changes and features and I'd like to take the time today to discuss how Blizzard will be handling PvP gear. In short, PvP gear will be removed in Legion, and as such gear will be standardized. There will be no "PvP Gear" or "PvE Gear", there will just be gear. 

This is not to say you cannot get gear through PvP - of course you can and still will be able to get gear by doing PvP and I imagine that conquest points will also stay so that you can Epic pieces. However, item level will suffer diminishing returns - meaning that the stat difference between a fully decked out Mythic raider and a freshly dinged character will be about 7%. Once you start gaining gear through PvP or other means, this gap will quickly close.

The reason why Blizzard is removing PvP gear, is because they want skill to be the sole factor in who wins when it comes to PvP. Currently, the quality of your gear has far too large an effect against someone who is not very well geared. 

Gear acquired through PvP will not have much of an effect in PvP scenarios, but it will be useful in PvE though not as useful as gear acquired through pure PvE means such as Dungeons or Raids.

I think from a PvP perspective this will be great, it'll be great to see everyone be on a level playing field and after recently leveling an alt, I felt once again the true pain and boredom of what it is like to try PvP without any gear and be obliterated by a fully decked out PvP player with little to no chance of victory despite whatever skill I may have. With this new system, you can jump into the fray and make a difference from day one with your gear having little effect on your end performance; purely skill based.

I am slightly concerned as to how it will work in the outdoor world. Seeing as Item Level will have diminishing returns, does that mean whilst we are questing we will loose a large chunk of health and damage if an enemy player so much as farts on us? It will be interesting to see how they handle this - because if you loose Health and Damage upon entering PvP combat in the open world, this flawed mechanic could easily be abused and used a tool to cause grief to other players.

So, Crackdown 3 Looks Impressive

So Crackdown 3 was announced at E3 2014, and recently some game-play was released showcasing the impressive physics effects whilst in a multiplayer match. All of the buildings and materials are destructible, down to the smallest little blocks.

No doubt, this calls for some heavy computing power, including memory and maxing out the console's CPU. However, the console can only put out so much before it runs out of resources on its own, and with potentially so many players destroying buildings, where the does the compute power come from?

The game will use cloud computing in order to process the additional physics effects, once the console has been taxed to the max, the cloud servers will kick in and start to process physics. In the game-play video, the game maxed out at 14 cloud computers when a load of buildings started to collapse and destroy other buildings. The developer also showed the game in debug mode and what was revealed is quite impressive. When the game is being played in multiplayer, the game colour codes all of the buildings so that when the console needs additional compute power, the colour coded building is processed by the relevant server that the colour has been assigned to. This really helps to spread out the load across available servers and results in a very smooth game experience.

Additionally, the game tries to use realistic physics; buildings collapse in the way you would expect them to and fall in the direction you would expect them to. The amount of destruction you can do in Crackdown 3 will no doubt make for some really fun multiplayer matches and allows people to make their own "bases", such as a Sniper Nest by shooting a hole in the wall for you to shoot from. 

The game looks beautiful graphically, though the animation quality as well as the character models seems a little lacking in detail when compared to the map detail. However, the game-play shown was watermarked as "Pre-Alpha", so it was very early footage. You can watch the game-play below here:

World of Warcraft - New PvP Mercenary Mode Announced

Blizzard have announced a new feature; Mercenary Mode. Mercenary Mode is a feature that will allow characters to fight for the opposite faction as a mercenary. As a mercenary, you will be seamlessly integrated into the enemies team as one of their own. Mercenary Mode will only for Ashran and unrated Battlegrounds. 

In addition, when you join the other faction's team as a mercenary, you will become that race entirely. This means you will gain their racials, passives and of course the look of that race. You have the option to not be a mercenary of course, but if you want to become a Mercenary, you can talk to an NPC either in Stormshield or Warspear to enable Mercenary Mode.

Concerns have been "raised" about players who chose the Human race, as Humans get a racial that allows them to remove Crowd Control effects, so they are looking into other options besides Humans having to spend Conquest or Honor on a trinket to replace the racial's effects.

If you ask me, they should simply do racial abilities as they do talents; let people select a single racial ability, a single racial passive and make it easy to change using Tomes of the Clear mind. This would then remove race imbalances and instead mean that your selection of race is purely cosmetic.

As for the actual Mercenary Mode, players have reacted quite negatively, with the only real complaint being that players from other factions will try to sabotage a victory when placed on the opposite team. This is a very real concern, as people really do have hatred for the other faction and I'm sure there are some players that would stop at nothing to waste everyone else's time.

As for me, I think its a very cool idea. I like the idea of being able to play as an Alliance character without having to faction change. The reason why Blizzard have introduced Mercenary Mode is because the queue times for Alliance are much longer than Horde; for both Ashran and unrated Battlegrounds. The sheer number of PvP players on Alliance heavily outweighs the Horde's numbers, I'd blame this purely on the fact that all the competitive PvPers have gone to Alliance so that they can play as a Human, so that they can have another damage trinket. Indeed, racial imbalance is currently a huge problem in PvP, and needs to be sorted out.

PewDiePie - YouTube's Richest

So its came up recently about how much PewDiePie has earned in 2014. I'm not going to list figures here but rather list my thoughts on how he responded. If you want a quick read, I think he responded honestly and adequately.

So to start, he made the video in response to the amount of publicity he was getting as a result of the amount he earned in 2014, being leaked.  Throughout the video, he simply stated that he never started YouTube with the intent of making money from it. At the very beginning of his career, he worked at a hot dog stand and made videos in his spare time. He says that even if he didn't get to the position he is in now, he would still be happy if he was working at a hot-dog stand whilst still making YouTube videos.

So who would be happy working at a hot-dog stand? I doubt any one has the dream of selling hot-dogs, but it did allow him to support himself financially and still fulfill his passion, which was video creation; he was happy. 

However, he doesn't deny that the vast riches at his disposal isn't pleasing. In today's world, everyone needs money, and money has allowed him to not worry about his finances, as when he first met his Girlfriend, CutiePie, they struggled to afford the monthly bills once they started living together.

For the second point of the video, he addressed the comments. He dealt with a wide variety of comments that mostly criticized his income in relation to what he does for a living. There are many comments about how military personal should be paid more, as they lay their lives on the line for their country. To which he responded that it'd be a great idea to inject more money into war related options (sarcasm of course). He dealt with numerous comments in a calm manor and was simply honest about his thoughts and feelings. He concluded that he finds it strange that the general public care more about his money situation that he does, and as a result, urges people to not care as much. Because money doesn't make people happy.

I've found an even greater level of respect as a result of his responses. They were mature, honest and showed that following your heart is the best path to take in life. There's no point in pursuing boring goals that you are not interested in. 

As quickly as the topic had arisen, even quicker did PewDiePie put out a video addressing the issue.

Rise of the Tomb Raider - PS4 Release Date leaked

A lot of people know that Rise of the Tomb Raider is a timed exclusive for PS4, however, we now know the release date as well because the gaming media channel, "The Know" managed to get their hands on a confidential document from a trusted anonymous source. 

The Xbox release is to be published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, with a release date set for Q4 2015. The confirmed release date for the Xbox versions is a nailed November 10th. Now, for the PS4 version, the game is to be published by Square Enix for a release of Q4 2016, with a likely release date sometime in November, which is a very large difference in release dates.

The document even covers some damage control issues, as Square Enix expects a large backlash for when they officially announce the release date, around mid-2016. To offset the backlash from fans, Square Enix is planning to release the game at a discounted price, that could be heavily influenced by how angry fans are.

Now I cannot vouch that any of this information is authentic, I am simply spreading around information. The Know trust that it's authentic, as they trust their source as well.

Batman: Arkham Knight has been removed from Steam

Following the terrible PC port for Batman: Arkham Knight, the game has been removed from Steam due to bugs, performance issues, and it being no where near the bar PC gamers expect ports to reach at a minimum. With all the delays, it was logical to think the game would be a perfect release, incredibly polished and a fine conclusion to the Arkham series of games. For console gamers, this may be the case. However, the PC port has an awful array of bugs, most notably that the game can delete itself whilst verifying the game's cache.

As a result, Warner Bros. has decided to suspend sales of the PC version of the game, here's the full statement:

"We want to apologize to those of you who are experiencing performance issues with Batman: Arkham Knight on PC. We take these issues very seriously and have therefore decided to suspend future game sales of the PC version while we work to address these issues to satisfy our quality standards. We greatly value our customers and know that while there are a significant amount of players who are enjoying the game on PC, we want to do whatever we can to make the experience better for PC players overall.

Thank you to those players who have already given valuable feedback. We are continuously monitoring all threads posted in the Official Batman: Arkham Knight Community and Steam forums, as well as any issues logged with our Customer Support (support.wbgames.com). If you purchased your copy of the game and are not satisfied with your experience, then we ask for your patience while these issues are resolved. If desired, you can request a refund at help.steampowered.com (Steam refund policies can be found here: http://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds) or the retail location where you purchased the game."

- Yorick, Community Admin for the Warner Bros. Games Community Forum

This is a very rare incident indeed, and most surprising as well considering that in the past Warner Bros. has showed little care for PC games as a platform, such as with Arkham Origins and the recently released Mortal Kombat X. They may have realised that ignoring such huge issues will cause irreparable damage to their brand name. At least we can now we expect a proper release for the game, with no bugs and expected performance levels. No PC hardware can currently run this game at full details, even PCs that literally blow the hardware requirements out of the water. 

Batman: Broken Knight - Woes

With the release of Batman: Arkham Knight, fans were ecstatic to play the conclusion to Rocksteady's Batman series of video games. However, the game has had a rocky release, as the PC version is riddled with gameplay bugs, performance bugs and a sinful 30 FPS lock; only changeable by editing an INI file. Steam's Refund system must be hard at work, the game has been reviewed over 4,500 times by Steam users, with a generally negative reception. 

Performance wise, the game stutters, has random FPS drops and sometimes when attempting to verify the game cache, the game ends up being deleted from the system. Fans that were excited to use the Batmobile will most likely find it unplayable, as sequences that utilize the Batmobile (of which there are many), cause the FPS to tank to an all time low. But really, a game deleting itself can't possibly get any worse.

The game is experiencing performance issues with both Nvidia and AMD cards, though the latter is having the worst problems.

Rocksteady has responded with:

"Hi all,

We're aware that some users are reporting performance issues with the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight. This is something that Rocksteady take very seriously. We are working closely with our external PC development partner to make sure these issues get resolved as quickly as possible.

We'll update this thread when we've got more info to share.

Thanks,

CODA"

Feels like a very generic response from such a highly praised company, would be nice if we got a more "human" response rather than some generic jargon about how they know about the problem. However, this response has not stopped PC gamers from speaking their opinions.

Console versions are not having any issues currently; at least someone is enjoying their newly purchased game. We can only hope that Rocksteady stands by their word, and fixes the game quickly.

Shenmue 3!

Shenmue 3 may be a thing in the future, as the original director of the Shenmue 1 & Shenmue 2 has created a Kickstarter page to help crowdfund the next game; Shenmue 3. Within 12 hours, the game had reached it's $2 million dollar goal, and as of 23/06/2015, it has reached $3.5 million dollars, with 44,733 backers. The game still has 24 days left before the Kickstarter ends. It's become fact that Sony will be working with Playstation to help make the game, including financially. Shenmue 1 had a budget of $47 million dollars, so really this is simply to test the water - do the fans want it?

Clearly they do, judging by how fast it had reached it's funding goal. However, the director, Yu Suzuki, has said if they could reach $10 million dollars in crowdfunding, he could make his dream a reality in the game.

The Kickstarter page goes into great detail about the game, and even shows off some Work-in-Progress screenshots of the game. It also has concept art, team members and a plethora of backing incentives ranging from $5 to $10,000 dollars. Naturally, all of the $10,000 dollar backer spots have been taken, which includes dinner with Yu Suzuki or getting Ryo's jacket. This jacket has been worn by Masaya Matsukaze during all of the press events 14 years ago. 

Pledging $3,000 however, gets you a replica of that jacket, which is still pretty cool. I have to admit, the variety of incentives to back this project is quite impressive; they've certainly thought of great incentives to get as many people as they can on-board with this project. 

Yu Suzuki says he has always wanted to make Shenmue 3, and during the 14 years since the release date of Shenmue 2, he has always been asked by fans about when Shenmue 3 will be released.

Yu Suzuki wanted to keep the dream alive, and so he learnt of Kickstarter, and after looking into it, he decided to give it a go. He wants the game to be made "For the Fans, by the Fans". Using Kickstarter, he claims he can finally bring about Shenmue 3. 

The trailer for the Kickstarter page also shows off some in-game footage with (what I would imagine) placeholder voice overs. The game will take place in China.

DOOM - Back and Bloody

DOOM, an all time favourite of FPS fans since 1993. Come 2015, Bethesda has announced a new DOOM during their E3 conference, and it's extremely fast paced, very interactive and simple arcade-like fun. Judging by the trailer, the game is full of gore, has beautiful graphics and menacing foes. It has all the classic monsters, such as Zombies, Imps and Hell Knights.

And, the most important part, the guns look absolutely amazing. All the guns from the original games are in there, including the Chainsaw, Shotgun, Minigun, Assault Rifle and even the BFG. There is also the additional features of which you can rip out an enemies heart from their chest, use a jet-pack, Punch, and also break an enemies leg, then kick them in the face with it.

Graphical fidelity looks gorgeous, with excellent lighting effects and high quality textures, as well as the guns themselves look amazing in their own right. All of them look visually attractive (to me at least) and it looks like I won't be picking favourites based on looks, because they all look simply amazing.

The HUD is also very clean, showing only health, armour and ammo count, situated at the bottom of the screen with what looks to be low opacity settings. This keeps your focus entirely on the game and no where else.

DOOM has single player, as per expected. However, it also has CO-OP and Multiplayer modes. The Multiplayer looks like quake style game-play, with unique power ups such as the ability to turn into a spawn of hell.

Also, DOOM boasts CO-OP mode, which lets you play either 4-player death match, survival, or an un-named game mode where you kill monsters to earn credits which lets you buy guns. 

However, the biggest announcement for the game however, is DOOM SnapMap, which is "only limited by your imagination". It is basically a heavy map customization tool that lets you design the map exactly how you want it. It lets you connect rooms together, place items such as boxes, crates, barrels and monsters anywhere within the level for either you or a friend to play with. The tool is designed so that content sharing is very easy, and it aims to provide limitless hours of fun game-play.

It also lets you make custom game modes, edit game logic (such as a switch opening a door) and make interesting things happen such as when you pick up an armour upgrade, a Hell Knight spawns. 

The game boasts a wide variety of locations, including man-made areas as well as Hell itself; where Demons call home.

I would like to see some weapon customization, or the ability for content creators to not only make maps, but also make custom assets such as weapons or textures.

The game will be available Spring 2016.

Fallout: Shelter - Announcement

Fallout: Shelter, is an iOS based game that became available sometime around Bethesda's announcement slots. It's available to play now, for iOS devices, and Bethesda are hoping that it will sate the appetite of Fallout fans whilst they wait until November for Fallout 4 to release. Fallout: Shelter will eventually be available for Android devices too in a "couple of months". I imagine by then it would have been forgotten whilst everyone plays Fallout 4.

Fallout: Shelter, is a game in which you need to build a Vault for your Fallout Dwellers. You need to build an array of rooms, generators and food stores in order to help your people survive. Each individual inhabitant can level up and specialize in certain areas, such as engineering or water works. 

Not only do your dwellers level up, but you also need to keep their happiness levels optimal, lest they leave out of anger. During the development of your Vault, incidents will occur such as an infestation of Roaches which will need to be promptly dealt with, as they can kill your dwellers. Any injured dwellers will also need medical treatment in the form of Stimpaks.

You create rooms by expanding into the earth, deeper and deeper you may go. To start, the player has a very basic fallout shelter with a couple of rooms, and dwellers. It's up to you to build generators and other systems that will enable sustainable life within the fallout shelter. You can watch a 2-hour long game-play video below:

The Elder Scrolls: Legends - Announcement

The Elder Scrolls: Legends is the next "installment" in the Elder Scrolls series of video games. It's a strategy card game, coming to PC and Mac. It's also free to play, and it will be available sometime in Autumn. I suppose this game has been announced to whet the appetite of Elder Scrolls fans, as well as the fact that it is diversifying into another audience; strategic card games.

Bethesda announced The Elder Scrolls: Legends as part of their line-up of games at E3. Aside from what is shown in the trailer, we know nothing else about the game. It could be Bethesda's take on a Hearthstone however, which would be quite welcome. Thus far however, the game has received negative comments from fans, with bad ratings on Legends related videos. Fans are viewing it as a potential Hearthstone clone, and most are upset that they have waited five years for a new Elder Scrolls game. They've got a new game, but not in the way they were expecting it. 

I don't think it's bad that Bethesda are branching out into different genres, Blizzard have done it with their Warcraft games, so why not Bethesda? Blizzard does not receive such hate, yet Elder Scrolls does when they attempt the same thing; it's double standards and people need to think twice before passing judgement. The Warcraft universe currently goes into RTS, MMORPG, CCG and finally MOBA. I say lets lay down our torches and pitchforks, and give Bethesda a chance to show us what they can do when they dive into another game genre. We may be pleasantly surprised.

Watch the Teaser Trailer here:

Dishonored 2 - The Story Continues

With Bethesda's host of E3 announcements, Dishonored 2 was one of them. It's not a surprise, seeing as the first game was so well received. The trailer depicts an overview of the city, with disease and cruelty running rampant. It then swaps to the perspective of a girl, as she makes her way to a building in the distance, that overlooks the city. Once she gets there, she attempts to fire a crossbow bolt at the target, only for it to be sliced in half mid-flight, by robots. It's at this point that the girl is revealed to be none other than Emily Caldwin, the girl you save at the end of the first game. Caldwin also seems to have gained the powers that Corvo wielded in the first game. Caldwin pursues her target, and eventually kills him. It then cuts to a dirty beach where we can see the mask of Corvo lying in the muck, and The Outsider picking it up.

My main question is, where's Corvo? Is he dead? Alive? Answers to these questions will undoubtedly be answered in the next installment. The release date has yet to be revealed, but it will most likely be next year as Bethesda has already listed Fallout 4 to be released on November 10th. 

I guess what we can expect are improved graphics, new game-play elements and the almost certainty of new powers for the player to use, given by none other than The Outsider himself.

You can watch the trailer here:

Fallout 4 Looks Amazing

So E3 happened yesterday, and with it a whole host of new games, especially from Bethesda. They announced Doom, Fallout 4, The Elder Scrolls: Legends, Fallout: Shelter and Dishonored 2. In this blog I will be focusing mainly on Fallout 4, this is the most anticipated game from Bethesda since The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim or Dishonored. 

The question is, what has Fallout 4 brought to the table that is new?

Well, there's updated graphics for starters, but they have also improved or added a load of stuff, such as the ability to customize your weapons as well as your Exo-Suit to a large degree. You can practically make your gun the exact way you want it, so it seems. This is a great feature for a post-apocalyptic world, the weapons also look like they have been made from scraps of metal; jury-rigged so to speak. With the exo-suit, you are also able to jet pack around the place and shoot at the same time. It also appears that they have smoothed out the combat mechanics drastically. Despite how great a series of games Fallout is, the gun-play (in my opinion) was quite clunky, so this is a welcome improvement. 

VATs is still present in the game, also seems to have been smoothed over and instead of pausing the game, the game slows down drastically so as to keep that constant action feel going. Combat looks a lot more interactive, Death Claws, "Giant Mosquitoes" and probably many more enemies are able to aggressively interact with the player such as picking them up, knocking them down or in the Mosquitoes case, sucking out your blood.

An entirely new feature is that you can now make settlements, completely optional mind you as well. You are also able to send Brahmin Caravans between your settlements too, however I can only imagine this also means that your caravans can be attacked by enemies as well. It is likely however, despite being completely optional, that having your own settlements will also grant access to certain benefits.

I think the most interesting feature is that you can now sculpt your own face, via a very interactive character creation process. By selecting different parts of the face, you are able to sculpt it to your liking as well as switch over to the female and do the exact same thing. You can do everything that you would expect in a character creation process; skin colour, eye brows, chin, cheeks, hair colour etc. 

Overall I think Fallout 4 looks very promising, and I am most excited about the fact that we finally have an up-to-date, AAA post-apocalyptic FPS from a reputable publisher. I look forward to when the mod community gets their hands on this game, and we can see what creations can be birthed.

Steam Sale Price Scams

As many of you will know, the Steam Summer Sales have started. However, there are a lot of scams right now as well; companies are being naughty. Some developers have been raising prices in preparation for the Steam sales, so that when the discounts hit, people will buy the game based on impulse buying but also at a higher price. Impulse buying is when you purchase a product on an impulse of excitement commonly. In this case, the impulse buying has stemmed from the fact that sales don't last forever, so the idea is that you better buy the games now before the prices go up again. A key example of this is the Mustang Pack for the game War Thunder. The original price (before the sales) was $19.99, with the Steam Sales, it went down to $14.99. The developers then raised the non-sale price to $27.99, with the discount applied it has gone down to $20.99; $1 more than the original, non-sale price. 

This is an incredibly cheap strategy in all honesty, and is probably the worst thing I have seen a reputable developer do. This isn't unheard of, other companies have done this as well. However, this is the first time I have seen the sale price become higher than the original price. Some people have commented saying that this is just them catching up on the price raise they have/are going to implement on the packs on their site, but its still a pretty cheap tactic to make use of the sale to disguise it.

As of the date of this blog post, 13/06/2015 (UK date), the Mustang Pack has been removed from Steam; meaning that Gaijin Entertainment probably realized that they have been caught with their pants down and are now trying to minimize reputation damage.

The last and largest offender, is Rockstar's GTA 5. The actual game's price jumped to $79.97 making the sale price an even $59.99 after a 25% discount. The way they justify this price increase, is that they have included a "Great White Cash Card", which similarly to the Mustang Pack adds some miscellaneous stuff to GTA Online. Some people are saying that this is price gouging, but by the definition of price gouging, it isn't. This is simply a very old, and dirty, marketing trick so that they don't loose out on additional profits. Stores and online stores have done this for years, and although it is deceptive and unethical, it is not illegal by any means.

These price increases took affect a week in advance of the sales, and by all means, this is a dirty tactic. However, it is entirely the consumer's responsibility to do their research before hand.

Black Ops 3 Season Pass is already available - Costs £35

So, Black Ops 3 was recently announced, the season pass was also recently announced alongside. However, Treyarch are asking for £35, for the season pass. Seems pretty hefty, that's about 2/3 of the price of a full game. Does that mean the Season Pass will give you 2/3 of a full game? Probably not. 

However, in the past, some DLCs that were similarly or even cheaper than today's season passes, really delivered. The DLC for GTA 4; The Ballad of Gay Tony, was arguably better than the original game. It was so successful, that it was purchasable as a stand alone game for $10. The Shivering Isles for Oblivion was widely recognized as being better than the base game, as it added a new story, new land masses and new quests that either equaled or improved upon the vanilla Oblivion's quest quality.

However, £35 for a season pass, for Black Ops 3. This has happened before with Advanced Warfare and Ghosts, and all you really get are additional maps which isn't really adding much game-play wise, just new areas to do the same stuff; leaving a feeling of wanting or being ripped off.

I love Treyarch's Call of Duty games. I think all the entries in the Black Ops series have been amazing and can practically bet on that I'll be purchasing Black Ops 3 just to play the story mode. Also, I saw a bow and arrow (I am a sucker for those), but will most likely enjoy the multiplayer as well. 

However, I won't be getting the season pass at the given price, for the content that comes with it at that price tag. Additional maps just isn't really enough to justify me pulling my wallet out, no matter how good the multiplayer or storyline is in Black Ops 3. By the time those maps are released, I'd most likely be done with the game anyway.

DLC is great, it means you can get extra content and play the games that you love for an extended period of time before there is nothing left to do. You don't have to wait years through an entire development cycle just to play new content that is relevant to your favourite game.

The problem here, is that season passes are getting a little bit pricey, and the content that comes with such a price tag is not a good enough justification. If they added more content (other than maps) or lowered the price tag, more people would most likely buy it. Most die-hard fans will still probably buy it (and good for them), but I feel as if there's simply not enough to justify the price.

Silent Hill Pt (Playable Teaser) - Console being sold for $3000!

The Silent Hill PT was recently taken off the Playstation Market (April 29th) meaning that the only people who can still play it, are the ones who downloaded it before April 29th. The reason why this is news worthy, is because Konami have also confirmed that there will not be a new Silent Hill game and as such the only taster you can get of the game that was never was, is by playing the PT. However, with the PT now being exclusive to the people who already had it, this means people are trying to sell their consoles with the PT pre-installed for prices way above market value.

One of the consoles is selling for $3000 on EBay, which is just a crazy price unless you are some kind of mad fan of the Silent Hill series. I'm sure to the right person however, $3000 is a justified price to experience the PT.

Ouya Is Dead

Some of you may remember the console known as "Ouya". It was a microconsole running its own version of the Android operating system. The console and company was founded by Julie Uhrman in 2012, and was funded by Kickstarter; raising a whopping 8.5 million dollars.

Units were being shipped to Kickstarter backers towards the end March, 2013.

Fast forward 3 years later since it's initial founding, Ouya now needs a buyer and fast. Due to the debts that the company has accumulated, Julie Uhrman is looking is sell the company to cover said debts accumulated over time.

Word leaked that the company was looking for a buyer after the founder and CEO Julie Uhrman sent out confidential emails to company investors and advisers. The letter detailed that the company had failed to restructure it's debts and as a result was on the hunt for a buyer. Uhrman also said that this process would not be lengthy, saying:

"Given our debtholder's timeline, the process will be quick. We are looking for expressions of interest by the end of this month."

- Julie Uhrman,Ouya

Apparently, the email was sent at the beginning of April, which means by now Ouya should have found a buyer or at least someone interested in buying. Just two months ago, the company raised $10,000,000 (10 million) dollars two months ago, which was not enough to cover it's debts. Which also means that they must be pretty deep in debt for such a large fund raising to not be enough.

Lets do some numbers, they initially raised $8.5 million dollars on Kickstarter, then early 2013 they pulled in $15 million from investors, followed by an addition $10 million dollars about 2 months ago. In total, Ouya had pulled in $33.5 million dollars which is an insane amount. Uhrman maintained her optimism for the console's future, saying:

"We believe that we've built something real and valuable. I continue to read the tweets and emails of our fans who play OUYA every day, and our catalog is now over 1,000 apps and 40,000 developers. We have the largest library of Android content for the TV (still more than Amazon) - hell ya!"

- Julie Uhrman, OUYA

Gotta give Uhrman for keeping her head up, she ventured and sailed. Here's to hoping that OUYA blossoms in the future once more.

Silent Hills Has Been Canceled

It's official, the new Silent Hills game has been canceled, confirmed by actor Norman Reedus. In a brief statement from Konami, they stated that development on the game had ceased. 

"Konami is committed to new Silent Hill titles, however the embryonic 'Silent Hills' project developed with Guilermo del Toro and featuring the likeness of Norman Reedus will not be continued." 

- Konami

The game was announced last year through a playable teaser. It was set to be a collaboration between film director Guilermo del Toro and MGS designer Hideo Kojima. It would star the actor Norman Reedus and a wide range of horror fans were pretty excited over the prospect of a new Silent Hill game being on the horizon.

However, over the past month small leaks of information rumoring that relations between Konami and Hideo Kojima were deteriorating. One could only guess that such rumors would also mean trouble for the Silent Hill game that was in development. Last weekend, del Toro publicly announced that the game wasn't happening. Now it's official.

Future Silent Hill games are currently in discussion, as for future involvement from Kojima or del Toro, no word on that yet.

The playable teaser will be pulled from the Playstation Network this week, so you better go download it now if you want a taste of what was to be.

Paid Mods on Steam

As many Steam users have come to know since yesterday, you can now purchase Skyrim mods. Modders can choose to set a pay-wall on their mod and earn some cash. This has sparked huge amounts of controversy, the main argument being that mods have always been free and should always stay free. Mods were born as a labor of love, to fill in a void that fans of a franchise felt needed to be filled. 

No one thus far has said that modders don't, nor do, deserve payment for their modding work. Up until now, it has been illegal to earn money from making mods for a game, as it is using someone else's work. What people are mad about, is that they have to now pay for some of their favorite mods, suddenly there are restrictions in place. The modder can either set a certain amount to be paid, or can opt for the "Pay what you want" scheme, which requires a minimum payment of £0.4. 

As for splits, the modder earns a disgusting 25% of the asking price should someone buy the mod, Steam takes 75% which it then splits with Bethesda, the developer of Skyrim. On top of this, Steam will not pay out until a mod has sold more than $100 worth, that is owed to you. Say you have a mod, and you set a price of £1. To actually receive money for this, you would have to sell the mod 400 times. Steam will only pay out when Steam owes the modder at least $100, otherwise you get no payment. In other words, Steam has to have earned $400 from your mod, before it will actually give the modder the 25%, $100. It's vampiric, it's blatant money-grubbing. 

Aside from how the money is handled, the workshop is already rampant with paid mods awaiting approval, many of the mods having actually been stolen from the real mod developers so that they can make a quick profit. Disgusting. This system is already being abused, and will only encourage further negative behaviour. 

Copyright is also an issue, in the past modders have been able to create copyright content (such as Assassin's Creed armour for Skyrim) and get away with it because they were not charging for it. Now, if you tried to sell your Assassin's Creed armour mod, you'd most likely get some legal action. Modders will get penalized for making content they love, such as if they want to make a Lord of the Rings related mod, they would not be able to profit from it because of legal issues. This punishes creativity and diversity because of the legal issues surrounding this. Some of the paid mods have already been pointed out as potential copyright infringements, such as Firelink Implements. Users have noticed the staggering similarities between this paid mod and weaponry present in Dark Souls 2.

Benefits, there are some benefits. With the opportunity of earning a living, this is attracting professionals to the modding scene. Experts in texture work, 3D modelling work, and coding have appeared. The Shadow Scale armour set was one of the first paid mods to become available on the workshop, clearly made by experts in the field as well as other paid mods. Your getting some very high quality content as a result of the opportunity to make a profit. You can be on the fence about whether or not modders should have the ability to expect pay, but the undeniable evil is how much of a cut Steam and Bethesda are taking for doing nothing. Valve takes a 75% cut for modded content in DOTA and CS:GO, understandably as those are their games. However, there is no justification to take 75% from the content creator; Skyrim was not made by Valve. I could understand Bethesda taking a chunk, but not Valve. It's greedy.

Modding has always been a labour of love, but by no means should a modder expect to be paid for their work. They are not working at a professional company. More often than not, the content of the mod does not justify the price and on top of that if the modder were to set an acceptable price, they'd be earning pennies at best. For a mod such as Falskaar, I'd probably pay £5, however this is subjective and brings me to my next point. Encourage donations.

Instead of forcing a ridiculously priced pay-wall for the modder to earn something, heavily encourage donations instead. Steam could take a smaller cut of the asking price, and everyone would be happy because they have options.

Total War: Warhammer - Announcement

The next installment of the Total War franchise has been announced, Total War: Warhammer. The announcement came today via YouTube, boasting an impressive CGI cinematic detailing the Humans, Dwarfs, Orks and the Undead doing battle against one another. All the while a devout of Sigmar narrates the horrors of war, until finally becoming corrupted by the Chaos God of Change, Tzeentch; heralding the final faction, Chaos.

No release date has been set as of yet, the trailer says "Coming Soon" at the end. No indication of whether or not any further details will be revealed this year. You can subscribe to the Total War YouTube channel, like their Facebook page, or follow their twitter to get the latest updates on the game.

New Microsoft IP to be announced at E3

Microsoft has said that it will be unveiling a new IP at E3, predictable considering that they have delayed Quantum Break to 2016 due to potentially crowding the Christmas times of 2015 with Microsoft IPs. Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft Studios and the Xbox Division, said:

"We should have a new exclusive IP at E3. I'm trying to make this E3 more about 1st party than past E3s."

- Phil Spencer, Microsoft

Phil followed that comment up with:

"Means this years E3 might feel different from past E3s but I like focusing on our games."

- Phil Spencer, Microsoft

And finally:

"This is going to be a fun year. I think it might be our best 1st party content year ever."

- Phil Spencer, Microsoft

This doesn't mean that there won't be any 3rd party announcements at E3, it just means that they will have a focus on 1st party announcements. Phil Spencer reassures us that there will be some 3rd party deals at E3.