'Tis the season

If you own Mojang's Scrolls, you will be able to give a copy to a friend as a gift this holiday season. All you need to do is log into your Mojang account, and click on the "Send to a friend" button. A code wi??ll be sent to the?? email that you wish to gift the game to, and the receiver will have until January 31, 2014 to redeem the code.

I think it's awesome that Mojang is doing this, because it could basically double the number of people ??who own the game. That's if everyone sends out a key to a friend, and if you don't have someone to send it to I'm sure you can find someone on reddit o??r our forums. Don't let that free game go to waste!

Own Scrolls? Give it to a friend for free! [Scrolls Blog]

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Smokier smoke

If you were thinking that Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag needed more smoke, then you are in luck. An update just came out on the PC that adds PhysX support, so the particle effects can be more complex. In Black Flag this means that there is more smoke, and it should behave mo?re realistically.

I am personally a fan of PhysX, and wish more games would use it or another good physics engine. Arkham Asylum had great cloth physics for Batman's cape, and Mafia II had amazing explosions because of PhysX. I know that a lot of people don't care for the technology, because you need to have a really good PC to see the benefits, and a lot of games don't use it. Hopefully that changes in the future, because nice particle effects can really change how a game?? looks.

Assas?sin’s Creed IV: Blac??k Flag Update Introduces Game-Changing NVIDIA PhysX Effects [GeForce]

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Kingdom Come: Deliverance

The developer Warhorse just announced a new role-playing game, one that won't have monsters and wizards running around. Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a medieval role-playing game being created with the CryENGINE for PC and next-gen consoles, and it's due out in 2014. The team behind it is made up of some talented developers, who have worked on games like Mafia II, Crysis 3, Arma, Operation Flashpoint, Forza Horizons, Original War, and the UFO trilogy.

According to the developer "Kingdom Come: Deliverance is first-person, open-world realistic RPG set in medieval Europe. Enjoy unique melee combat, castle sieges, battles and quests in this epic RPG." It sounds like a very pretty Mount & Blade to me, and that's fine by me. I will glady play this??.

Here's a tech demo that Warhorse showed off last year?, which might give you an idea of what this game will look?? like:

The post Here’s a non-fantasy RPG being made with CryENGINE appeared first on Destructoid.

Iceland must be weird

I love CCP. They are a bunch of crazy guys, and every time they come out with a video it's always bizarre and amazing. To celebrate the holiday's in EVE Online, the guys at CCP are giving out in-game gifts on an advent calander. Of course, they had to create a video of the tale of the Yule Lads, dirty hobo?s with names like "Pot Licker" and "Door Slammer". They confront Santa Clause while flying around in space ships, which makes perfect sense I'm sure.

EVE players can visit the redemption page to grab a ne??w gift every day until Christmas. Nothing says "Happy Holidays" like some missiles or a 150mm Light Carbine Repeating Cannon. There are also snowballs you can fire at other pilots, which is a fun way to celebrate before you pod kill someone.

The post EVE devs dress up as Yule Lads to hand ?out presents appeared first on Destructoid.

A high-end router for gamers

Having a good router is a necessity these days. Every electronic device you own? connects to the internet, and many play games online and stream HD video. Your PC and consoles are beginning to rely more and more on digital copies of game??s, and patches for those games are growing in size. In my apartment we have several computers, iPods, iPads, phones, and game consoles, and they are all hooked up to the internet. I need a good router to keep up with demand.

I've had D-Link's newest gaming router, the DGL-5500, ho????oked up for a few weeks now, and I am actually surprised at well it's been working out. It might not be the best router you can buy, but it certainly won't disappoint.

Product: D-Link DGL-5500 Gaming Router
Manufacturer: D-Link
MSRP: $199.99

The D-Link DGL-5500 is a dual band router, with a 2.4GHz band and a 5GHz band. It supports Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS), four gigabit LAN ports, ?one gigabit WAN port, a USB 2.0 port, and all of the security features that you would expect in a modern router. It has an MSRP of $199.99, which is normal for a high-end router.

Setting up the DGL-5500 is very easy. It comes with an installation CD, and i??f you don't have an optical drive you can a?ccess the router's set-up from your web browser. I had it up and running in a few minutes, and the default setup wizard left me with a setup that I haven't needed to mess with since. Basically, if you have been able to set up any other router on your own, you will be able to set this up just fine.

Once the router is online, you can? access its settings by going to //dlinkrouter. The interface?? has been updated from older D-Link products I have used -- it's clean looking and easy to find the settings you need to change. You can clearly see what devices are connected to the network, and how much bandwidth each device is using. You can prioritize devices very easily to make sure the internet is going to where you need it the most.

The DGL-5500 is great at showing you where all your bandwidth is going, and how it's being used. A statistics page in the router's settings will show you charts of how much data an app uses, how much time is spent in each app, and the times the apps were active. ??Apps include most software programs that connect to the web, such as Netflix, Twitter, Steam, Pandora, etc. This would be extremely helpful to anyone who has a bandwidth cap on their internet service. You can also see what apps on each device are using bandwidth, so you can tell how much data your laptop has downloaded from Steam or Netflix.

The range on this router is fantastic, even on the 5GHz band. My desktop is a floor above where my router is located, and it's a couple of rooms over with old thick walls that are the enemy of wi-fi signals. A $50 Netgear router was completely unable to provide a good connection upstairs on the 2.5GHz band. Befo??re setting the DGL-5500 up, I was using a Linksys EA2700 Smart Router, and while it had great coverage on the 2.5GHz band all over my apartment, the 5GHz band would only work on the first floor where the router is located. The DGL-5500's 5GHz band covers the whole apartment, even up here in my office. I was shocked, actually. 

While the DGL-5500 might not offer speeds that are faster than some other routers, I did notice that my overall experience? was smoother when using multiple devices. The DGL-5500 uses a technology called "StreamBoost," which works automatically prioritize your network's bandwidth in an intelligent way. To put it simply, it can tell what data is for your games, or your video streaming, and it will make sure the things? that need constant internet will get it.

To test out what this thing can handle, I had a PlayStation 3 in the living room streaming Amazon Instant Video, a Roku upstairs in the bedroom streaming video on Plex, my PC was streaming Amazon Instant Video, I had BitTorrent going around 200 kB/s, and I was playing EVE Online. There also about three or four phones hooked up to the network while I was testing it, but they weren't doing anything special. I did not?? experience any slowdowns anywhere. The video streaming was constantly smooth, and I was still able to browse the web.

That test wasn't too far from what our normal internet usage every day. There are four people living in my apartment on the network, and we all rely on the internet for our television watching,? so there's usually one to three people streaming video at any given point in the day. The DGL-5500 has been able to handle the load without any issues, which is more than I can say of the Linksys?? EA2700 I was using before this -- it would start to buckle when two people were streaming video, or I had BitTorrent open.

I really love this router. It can withstand the heavy internet usage we have, and i?t doesn't flinch when ten or more devices are hooked up and are fighting for bandwidth. The speed??s are similar to routers you can get for a lot less, but the the extra cost is worth the amazing 5GHz range and for how many devices this thing can handle at once.

If you live alone in a small apartment with only ?two or three devices, the??n this might be overkill for you. If you live in a larger apartment with other people, then a router of this grade is almost a necessity if you want to keep everyone connected.

The post Review: D-Link DGL-5500 Gaming Router appeared first on Destructoid.

Survive when the humans are dead

Eidolon looks fantastic, and it sound like it will be really fun to play. It's set in a "post-human Western Wash??ington", and it's a game that revolv?es around exploration. T??he developer'??s website sets up the game like this:

"You will be dropped? into the dreary and mystical Western Washington circa 2400 c.e. with a bow, fishing rod, and little to guide your way. Awaiting you is a vast landscape filled with wildlife, edible plants, and the historical artefacts of our now-dead culture—journals, newspapers, zines, brochures, transcripts, and more. You must spend your fleeting moments moving through this place, collecting what was left behind, and piecing together what happened to these people, both from a historical perspective and from a much more personal one."

Eidolon will be out sometime next year for the PC and Mac, and it's on Steam Greenlight right ??now. It looks great, and I will definitel?y be paying attention to it.

The post Eidolon is an indie exploration game, here’s a trailer appeared first on Destructoid.

Cutting Room Floor

Skyrim modder Arthmoor managed to find some content that didn't make it into the game's release, and he has done his best to add it back into the game. He released the Cutting Room Floor mod to ?restore a few NPCs, some quests, and a couple locations that Bethesda had cut from?? the game.

While it's not a lot of content, it is cool to see that someone took the time to restore it with a mod. I am always up for more stuff to do in Skyrim, so I will be adding this to my installed mods for sure.

The post Skyrim mod restores content cut by Bethesda appeared first on Destructoid.

Everyone can play!

In case you aren't one of the 611,480 people playing Dota 2 as I write this, you will be happy to know that the game is finally open to everyone. While it officially released this summer, Valve had been slowly all??owing more players to sign up, to help prevent the servers from crashing. The sign?? up process has been removed, and everyone can just download the game on Steam and start playing right away.

Valve made this announcement on the official Dota 2 blog, saying "we have recently completed a set of server management upgrades as well as released a huge number of enhancements to the new user experience, we're going to remove all restrictions to playing Dota 2."

Dota 2 already has over six million players every month, and I imagine ??that it will gr??ow now that there won't be a wait to start playing it. 

The Age of Sign-Ups has Ended [Dota 2 Official Blog]

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Because why not

Square Enix just released the original Tomb Raider for iOS, and it's just $0.99. The old Tomb Raider games were really good, so it's tempting to grab this for this cheap. It comes with the extra chapters from the 1998 re-release, so tha??t's kinda cool.

According to the iTunes page, Square Enix haven't "messed about with it, so it’s the full, unedited, unadulterated experience from the classic release at a super-low price." This probably means that they didn't spend any time on the port, and the controls will be awful. It will support iOS controllers like the Moga Ace or the Logitech PowerShell.

It requires iOS 7 or later, and i??t will work on an iPad, iPhone, and an iPod touch. I'm sure it's not the best port in the world, but for a buck it's hard to pass up.

The post Play the original Tomb Raider on iOS for $0.99 appeared first on Destructoid.

They want to make sure it's polished

Ubisoft's North American President, Laurent Detoc, says that the company was inspired to delay Watch Dogs because of the success of Grand Theft Auto V. Detoc told IGN recently that "the guys at Rockstar have showed us again that if you make a 96-percent game, people will come. Watch Dogs, I can only hope we get to that level. There's an attachment to the brand, in the case of GTA (Grand Theft Auto), that makes people really want to give it that 100-percent review. We'll be missing that on Watch Dogs until we go further, potenti??ally. That's what we're after."

Detoc went on to say that the decision to delay the game was "not just about delaying for the sake of delaying it." He emphasized that Ubisoft wants to make sure that Watch Dogs is really good, and a well polished game. "We know it's not where we want it to be. Can it get there? What will it take to get there? That's why it takes a longer process. But i?n August w?e really thought we were going to have that game at launch.”

I love that he was able to admit that the game needed more work, and that they actually decided to delay it. This doesn't happen enough in game development, and I know that sometimes money is a factor in rushing things out the door, but big companies like Ubisoft, EA, and Acti?vision really have no excuse to release half-finished games.

Why Ubisoft Delays Games [IGN]

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It could be an episodic open-world game like Skyrim

Obsidian's CEO Feargus Urquhart recently spoke with Rock, Paper, Shotgun on the studios plans for another Kickstarter project. The company is already working on Pillars of Eternity, but they don't want that to be the only classic role-playing game they work on. Obsidian would like to use its new engine from Pillars of Eternity to create another game, similar to how Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale shared an engine, but were very different games.

One idea Urquhart mentioned was how they would like to "make something that is more like a Skyrim for PC – forget console for now – with the engine we made in Unity for Eternity," which has my full attention. He also mentioned how they are thinking of exploring episodic content. "How much would it cost? Would it make sense for it to be episodic? Because going out there and saying, ‘We’re gonna make 100 hours of gameplay,’ everyone goes, ‘Oh my god, how could it not cost millions?’ But could we create ten hours and have people pay ten bucks? And generally when ??we say ten hours, it’s usually 15. But if we go with five episodes, then people get between 50 and 75 hours."

Wha??tever this new project is, Obsidian is hoping to launch it by March or April in 2014. I just want inXile and Obsidian to make role-playing games forever, and I can't wait to see what they come up with.

Obsidian’s Bold Future: E?ternity Meets Skyrim, A Sec?ond KS [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

The post Obsidian is planning another Kickstarter project s??oon appeared first on Destructoid.

At least in North America

Good news PlayStation 3 owners, you will finally be able to play Minecraft tomorrow. The PlayStation blog just announced that Minecraft will be available on the PlayStation 3 in North America on December 17. This version will have all the same features as the Xbox 360 version, and downloadable texture packs and ?skins will be available ??soon.

The release anno??uncement didn't include a price, but we can assume it will be $20 like the Xbox version.

Minecraft Hits PS3 December 17th in North America [PlayStation Blog]

The post The PlaySta??tion 3 is getting Minecraft on Dece?mber 17 appeared first on Destructoid.

But they did sell the Rise of Nations franchise

The auction for 38 Studios assets happened, and while the Rise of Legends and Rise of Nations franchises sold for $320,000, no one made a good offer for Kingdoms of Amalur. 38 Studios founder Curt Schilling thinks that the series is a "billion dollar franchise", but it looks like no one else thinks?? so, or at least they didn't m?ake a good enough offer. Other franchises that failed to find a buyer include 38 studios MMO, called project Copernicus, and a social gaming platform called "Helios".

I'm glad to see that the Rise of Legends and Nations franchises were picked up. I am curious to see who bought them, and to see what will happen to them. I loved those games, and I would be excited to see them continue. It's also a little sad to see no one jump on the Amalur series, but I'm sure that ev??entually they wi??ll find a home.

Here's what was sold at the 38 Studios ??asset auction [Polygon]

The post Kingdoms of Amalur wasn’t sold at 38 Studios auction appeared first on Destructoid.

Hands on with the new system and controller

Thanks to the magic of YouTube, some of the people lucky enough to receive one of the 300 beta Steam Machines have been able to share their impressions of the system. The OS looks like exactly like Steam's Big Picture Mode, with the option to switch over to a Linux desktop. Most of the videos report the controller being very lightweight, but this is probably due to it being a prototype that w??as made on a 3D printer.

There are videos available of people playing Metro Last Light, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. The graphics look really good, and one thing I noticed that was interesting is that the graphics settings have been simplified in Metro to one slider for overall quality.

The post Here are some videos of Steam Machines in action appeared first on Destructoid.

Failure to launch

The X series is known for being a little rough out of the gate, so when X Rebirth came out with some major bugs, no one was really surprised. Egosoft has been releasing a lot of patches, but the game is still borderline unplayable. It's more than just a few weird glitches or flaws -- nothing in X Rebirth feels ready to be played.

Beyond just being glitchy, the core gameplay mechanics are flawed. The menu systems are hard ??to navigate, it's hard to know what you should be doing or what you can do, doing a simple task is an exercise in patience, and I always felt like I was fighting the game's mechanics to get anything done.

There is some good stuff in here, but anything worth playing in X Rebirth was done better by X3: Terran Conflict. X Rebirth was supposed to be a new starting point for the series, a game to bring in new players while keeping the old spirit alive. Instead, we have a game that scares away newcomers and upsets?? fans of the series.

Not really a winner in my book.

X Rebirth (PC)
Developer: Egosoft
Publisher: Egosoft
Released: November 15, 2013
MSRP: $49.99

X Rebirth is an open-ended space exploration game, where you can trade, build stations, command a fleet, engage in dogfights, and become a space-faring mogul who rules over the galaxy. It's a follow-up to the classic X series, which begin in 1999 with X: Beyond the Frontier. It has long been known to be an amazing sandbox series, which usually contains flaws that the community later fixes with mods. The newest games are difficult to get into, and they have a very steep learning curve. X Rebirth was hoping to provide a good starting point for newcomers to the series by adding in station interiors, new trade systems, better ways to quickly move around space, and a handful of?? other fea??tures that no one really seemed to want. There are already mods out from fans to remove most of these features, or overhaul them completely, so that tells you how the changes went over with fans.

The first thing you will notice, is that this game runs like a one-legged horse trying to win the Kentucky Derby. And the hilarious thing is that the better your machine is, the worse it could run. Egosoft has come out in the forums saying it didn't ??really test the game for high-end systems. My machine is decent, despite being a bit dated, and I was constantly droppi??ng down into single-digit frames per second. At best I would get 20 FPS, and that didn't happen very often. On top of bad frame rates, there is constant pausing and stuttering when you leave your ship, enter a highway, or just randomly because the game hates you.

Since it runs so poorly, you would think that this is a graphically impressive game with cutting-edge technology and ef??fects, but it's not. It looks good, and everything is highly detailed, but there is nothing going on to warrant the appalling frame rates. The ship designs are fantastic, and the station exteriors are highly detailed. Flying near a capital ship to destroy its engines reveals how detailed all of the ships are up close, and it's always nice looking when the ships explode into giant balls of fire. I had this amazing moment where I docked my ship in a larger ship during a battle to try to repair my guns, and when I stepped off my ship I could still see the battle happening around me when I looked up.

While everything in space looks nice, once you see another character or walk inside a station, you're met with horrible graphics and some bizarre design choices, like having your sidekick's armor have a window for her cleavage, and a??lmost every station has a strip club with freakish looking holo-dancers and posters of crudely-drawn butts.

All the charac??ters in the game are poorly animated with bad textures. They look like humanoid robots that were rejected because they scared away children with their twitching and inhuman motions. There are only a dozen or so different character models, and they are repeated over and over again, and they usually have a voice coming out of them that doesn't match the face. When you talk to them they usually contort their necks into an uncomfortable position and stare at you with empty eyes that are fixated on something that isn't you.

The interface is a complete mess, and doing anything requires a lot of unnecessary steps. Even selecting menu items requires a double-click most of the time, which is really cumbersome. While flying your ship half the screen is obscured by the ship's consoles, which have very little useful information on them. You also can't freely look around the cockpit, meaning you have to turn the ship if you want to see what's around you. Flight sims in the '90s had better cockpit controls -- at least give me a key to press? to lo??ok out the side windows.

One good example of how bad the interface is how hard it is to set up a trade. First, you need to bring up the menu, then you select the trade menu, then you select the buy screen, then you select the goods you want, then you click "next" to continue, then you select how much you want, and then you can confirm the trade. That was the easy part. From the trade screen, you can see how many trips your trade ship has planned, but you can't see where it's currently going. To see what ?your active trades are, or to make a change of plans, you have to do that from the ship menu. You have to back up from trade to the main menu then you need to click on your owned property, then you need to bring up the ship you want, then you have to select the captain of the ship, and then you can see and make changes to orders. Just writing ??all that out confused and frustrated me.

To make the awful interface even worse, the game makes no attempt to explain to you how you should do things -- I had to read forums and watch YouTube tutorials to understand how to play X Rebirth. It wasn't just that I didn't know how to do something, most of the time I didn't know what I needed to do. There is no sense of ?direction, and I usually had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. I never felt like I could go off and do anything I wanted to do, which is the main reason to play a sandbox game. Space games are about exploration, but it's hard to explore when I don't know what I am looking for.

I had a hard time getting my ships to jump, because they would call me up and say they were out of fuel. After hunting around on a f??orum I learned that you have to click on the captain's picture when he calls you to tell them to refuel. This is the only instance in the game where clicking on a portrait brings up a menu, and the game never explains the conc?ept. I still don't grasp it fully, but I was able to finally get my ships to fly.

There are two modes to the game: ??a campaign with a loose story to guide you, and a freeplay mode where you just venture out and do what you want. The freeplay mode is much better, since the story is garbage, but it does nothing to try to teach you how to play. This game isn't for newcomers to the series, no matter what Egosoft is saying. You will have to spend hours researching if you want to understand things, and even then you'll still often find yourself confused.

You will always fly one ship, which is a departure from previous games where you could buy new ships for yourself. Flying it is insanely awkward, since the controls are really off. Close your eyes, and imagine playing a good flight sim. Now picture something different, and you are playing X Rebirth. There isn't a sense of momentum when flying, and turns are always too loose or too tight. The ship accelerates and brak?es too fast, and I felt like I was flying a paper airplane around. It's similar to playing a first-person shooter and feelin?g like a floating camera instead of a person.

While the player is limited to the same ship, you can still build up a fleet by buying or capturing other ships. These ships can be o??rdered to follow you around, engage in trade routes, or build space stations for you to rule the galaxy from. Fleet battles look great, and it's fun to watch two giant capital ships go at it while you zip around taking out engines and turrets. Ordering your fleet around suffers from the bad interface, but once you have them in a group you don't have to mess with them too much to keep them following you.

The new features in X Rebirth are highways to travel faster, the ability to scan stations to gather information, the ability to leave your ship and walk around, and a new way of trading goods. All of these additions are garbage and I am not even going to bother explaining them, since like I said before they have already been removed o?r overhauled by mods. Egosoft thought it knew what people would like to see, but fans just want the co??re features they have always loved about the series.

The community has stepped up big time to try to fix up this half-baked game, and there are already a handful of mods out there. Some of them are almost needed to even play X Rebirth. The series is known for its mod support, and you can really change the game for the better with them. It really sucks that the game is so rough that fans?? are already overhauling the gameplay and graphics, but it is nice to see such support so early on. Ultimately, the modding community could save this game.

At its core, X Rebirth is an ambitious game. It's a giant sandbox that offers the player a lot of freedom to go out and do anything, but it's just not ready to play. It's a sandbox filled with turds, and I can't recommend it in its current state. There are some good base assets in the game, and maybe after a year of patches from the developer and mods from the community, this could become something worth playing. Egosoft is usually good about patching its games, but that do?esn't excuse the studio from releasing something that's this fundamentally broken.

X Rebirth might be worth grabbing in a Steam sale in a couple of years, after 100 patches and with a dozens of mods that create an entirely different game. That game could be fun if you are into modding. As it is right now at launch, X Rebirth is simply a broken, flawed, and almost unplayable mess. It's a shell that has potential, but it's not a working game on its own. Stay far away from it for now, and maybe in a few ye??ars ?it could be worth the time of dedicated fans.

The post Review: X Rebirth appeared first on Destructoid.

It looks like pro-gamers are athletes

Kim "viOLlet" Dong Hwan has become the first professional StarCraft 2 player to get a visa to come to the United States and compete as an athlete. Kim was cleared for a P-1A visa, which?? is the type of visa given to internationally recognized athletes, to come to the US for five years. He will be able to live in the country and earn wages, just like pl?ayers in other sports.

Regardless of what you think of gamers as being athletes, it is really cool to see pro-gamers be allowed to come into the coun?try. This will let people from outside the country compete for some really big prizes in American competitions, and it will increase the levels of competition for Ame?rican players.

Fi??rst 'StarCraft 2' player offi??cially recognized as an athlete by U.S. government [The Daily Dot]

The post StarCraft 2 player gets a US visa for being an ‘Athlete’ appeared first on Destructoid.

Conquest of Paradise

Get ready for some new features in Europa Universalis IV, Paradox's massive grand strategy game, because it's getting an expansion soon. Conquest of Paradise will focus on adding better mechanics for both sides of the conquest of the New World. I love playing as the underdog in Paradox's str??ategy games, so being able to play as native Americans fighting off a bunch of Europeans sounds like a good time to me.

Paradox is also running a contest to see who ca??n come up with the best alternate history short? story. The best stories will get published in short story collection, a standard writer's fee, and a bundle with over 50 games from Paradox.

The post Europa Universalis ?IV is gettin??g its first expansion in appeared first on Destructoid.

The game is still in development though

CCP is best known for creating EVE Online, but they have another MMO in the works called World of Darkness, which is based on the popular vampire and werewolf pen and paper games of the same name. CCP told Polygon that they had laid off 15 empl?oyees working on the pr?oject.

CCP said that "The change was due to our evaluation of the game's design and ongoing development needs. While this was a difficult decision, CCP remains committed to the franchise and our promise to make a compelling, rich and deep World of Darkness experience."

World of Darkness has been in development for over seven years, and last year CCP made sure people knew that the game was still coming out. I'm ?not expecting to see anything on this in the near future, but hopefully we get ?to play it someday.

CCP ??lays off 15 staffers working on World of Darkness [Polygon]

The post CCP laid off 1?5 people working on World of Darkness MMO appeared first on Destructoid.

Play the good one before the new one

Thief Gold has a new HD texture pack created by Bentraxx, and it really makes the fourteen y?ear old game look a lot better. The game is bit dated, but this definitely makes it look good for its age.

Here's a list of what this mod adds to the game:

• added HD textures for all original missions
• added new vegetation
• added new water and lava textures
• added new torch and fire flames
• added Fog FX (Applies only to following missions: Escape!, Strange Bedfellows, IntoThe Maw of Chaos)
• added new Bugbeast HD skin
• added new Burrick HD skin
• added new Zombie HD skin (A big Zombie skin-pack update with a setup tool coming soon!!!)

I have never gotten around to finishing Thief, but I played quite a bit of it on a friend's PC a few years ago. It's a really awesome game, and this mod might get me to grab it off GOG.com and spend a weekend playing it.

Sharper Shadows: Thief Gold HD Mod Released [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

The post ??New HD te?xture pack for Thief Gold looks really good appeared first on Destructoid.

Kids these days don't know about arena shooters

Cliff Bleszinski, the guy behind the Gears of War and Unreal games, has an idea for his next game. He talked about his idea on the latest episode of the Pointless podcast. Bleszinski said that he wants to make a game without marketing guys telling him what to do, and that he already has a pitch worked out for a first-person shooter. He teased something back in August that could be this new game.

The idea he has in mind would be an arena style shooter for the PC. Bleszinski said th?at "It will be a PC experience that will hearken back to a certain type of game that we cut our teeth on, if you know what I'm saying." He also made a jab at modern FPS games by saying "a lot of these kids playing Call of Duty, I don't think they know what a proper arena shooter is."

I didn't care at all for the Gears of War series, but Unreal Tournament was an awesome game. I'm excited to see what Cliff comes up with for a shooter, and I'll try anything that deviates from the Call of Duty formula.

Pointless #41 [Deathsquad via Polygon]

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Go play it already!

At last, backers of Wasteland 2 can start playing the beta on PC. If you log into your Ranger Center account, you can get a Steam key to start playing. To be eligible for beta access right now, you have to have been one of the original backers for $55 or more. Late comers who have donated $55 or more should have beta access soon, and sometime after that inXile will rele??ase it on Steam Early Access.

Brian Fargo, the director for Wasteland 2, made it clear on the latest Kickstarter update that this is a beta, and that the game still has some bugs that will need to be worked out. All of the maps aren't ??availabl?e to play just yet, so the beta will feel more linear than the final release will.

If you haven't backed the game yet, you can still donate to get a copy of the game. $25 will get you the basic di??gital edition, and $55 will get you the digital edition and beta access.

Building a Better Beta - Right Now! [Wasteland 2 Kickstarter]

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Blast the planets!

EVE Online has been tweaked a bit to change-up how players interact with Dust 514 players. Dust 514 players used to earn orbital strikes be earning points during their match, but now they have to rely on EVE pilots to decide to do an orbital strike.

Since it will be up to EVE pilots to perform orbital strikes in Dust 514, CCP are increasing the incentive to seek out Dust 514 battles in EVE. EVE players will be given 3,000 loyalty points, which is a lot of currency to spend with your faction. They will also get a killmail for an orbital strike that results in casualties. Killmails are the bragging rights of PvP players in EVE and they are waved around as banners of badassery?.

EVE players will also be added to the district chat for any Dust battle they ?decide to engage in, which will make it easier for players to communicate across ga??mes.

Orbital Strike changes coming December 10th [CCP Dev Blog]

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Stream yourself dying in space

Joining the ever-growing ranks of games that support Twitch, EVE Online just added in streaming support. Pilots can now activate Twitch streaming right from the Neocom panel by logging into their Twitch account. This functionality is really basic, but CCP are considering ??adding overlay support and the ability to delay the stream, if people like it and use the streaming feature.

Right now I would advise against using it if you are flying in a ship that you can't afford to replace, because you can guarantee that people will be wat?ching streams to see where easy targets are hiding out. Ideally, an overlay would cover up sensitive information such as your current location, and a delay would prevent other pilots from accurately spying on you. It's cool to see it in there, but it needs a bit features before I will start using it regularly.

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Pillars of Eternity

Project Eternity, Obsidian's old-school PC role-playing game that was Kickstarted last year, is now called Pillars of Eternity. Along with getting an actual name, Obsidian released the first gameplay trailer, and opened? up a new backer's portal. This portal lets you join the other backers by pledging?? at least $35 towards development in exchange for a digital copy of the finished game.

Obsidian h??aven't set an exact date yet, but they are hoping for a release later next year. The game looks absolutely stunning, and it will definitely fill in a space that has been left empty by bigger RPG developers.

The post Project ??Eternity has a name and a gameplay trailer appeared first on Destructoid.

Out on Steam Early Access

The developers behind Battlestar Galactica Online are working on a new space game, called Entropy. Entropy is out now on Steam Early Access, so you can check it out for $19.99 if you want to. It looks a lot like EVE Online to me, but with less spreadsheets and sadness.

The developer, Artplant, describe the game as "a sandbox science fiction MMOG (massively multiplayer online game) with a strong focus on freeform gameplay and large-s?cale space combat." The Early Access release includes multiplayer space combat, a player-driven trading system, mining, salvaging, exploration, and a dynamic missions system. That's a lot more available than some other titles on Ea?rly Access, so it sound's like a good buy to me for twenty bucks.

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And it looks awesome

SOE just released a quick video that answers the question, "what is EverQuest Next Landmark?" Well, it??'s a game of exploration, monsters to fight, and building just about anything you want. The video shows off building a house and a tower, how archways and angles are easy to create, terrain alteration, and inside decoration and f?urnishing.

I can't wait to try this out for myself. The alpha for EverQuest Next Landmark is supposed to be ?starting soon, and hopefully it's actually as fun as it looks in?? these videos.

The post SOE explains what EverQu?est?? Next Landmark actually is appeared first on Destructoid.

Watch me stack blocks!

Minecraft version 1.7.4 is out today, and this update will let you stream to Twitch with a simple key press. To set this up, you'll need to link your Twitch and Mojang accounts together, which only takes a few minutes. Just head to your Mojang account page, log in, click settings, and then you'll see an op??tion to connect to a Twitch account.

Once you launch Minecraft, there is a new option in the menu for broadcast settings. Here you can control things like quality and bandwidth. Just hit F6 while playing, and you'll be streaming. You are also able to see Twitch chat messages along with the normal Minecraft chat.

This is a super easy way to stream Minecraft, and it's ?one of the best Twitch inte??grations I have seen in a game. I will definitely be streaming now while I play, just because it's so easy.

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I can't wait to see what people come up with

Get ready to create your own content for GTA Online, because the game's content creation tool is out today. You ?will be able to create deathmatches, team deathmatches, races, GTA races, and ral??ly races. Any player created missions that are really good will be marked as "Rockstar Verified Jobs", so you won't have to waste your time playing garbage, which is really nice.

Rockstar is also working on bringing multiplayer heists into GTA Online, ??saying “We know many of you in the GTA Online community are super excited for the debut of co-operative Heists. Heists are currently?? in development and we are working very hard to get them as polished and as fun as they can be. Stay tuned for much more detail in the New Year.”

GTA Online co?ntent creator is same tool-suite used by devs, Rockstar offers more details [VG24/7]

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Combat will be like Wasteland 2's

inXile asked Kickstarter backers what type of combat they would like to see in Torment: Tides of Numenera, and turn-based came out slightly in the lead. The vo?tes were so close that inXile said it was basically ??a tie, but they have decided to implement the turn-based system despite half their backers voting for a real-time alternative.

inXile believes that turn-based combat is "better su?ited for the kind of tactical complexity we're looking for." They are hoping to be able to please fans who voted for real-time combat by addres?sing their concerns with most real-time combat mechanics.

I am a little disappointed to see inXile make this decision, but I hope that the game will be amazing regardless. I like turn-based combat too, but I was hoping to see a system similar to the original Planescape Torment.

Updated our Journal (26): Decision [Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter via VG24/7]

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Riot changed its mind

Earlier this week Riot decided to block any pro League of Legend player from streaming any c??ompeting MOBA. Riot ha?s now decided to reverse this decision, and players can stream any game they wish.

Riot says that it originally decided to block what pro players could stream based, because competing games were trying to use popular League of Legends players to promote their games by streaming them. Riot will be altering the complete ban to more accurately reflect the original intent, which i?s to control how players are used to market other ?games.

Good for you?? Riot! I think this is the right call. It's what the fans want to see, and it's what the players want to do.

Riot Director of Esports announces retract??ion of previous LCS P?ro Player streaming policy [onGamers]

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