Forgot your password?

Close
typodupeerror
Handhelds

WoW On an iPad Via Gaikai 121

Posted by Soulskill
from the that-doesn't-even-look-like-english dept.
Gametap writes "If cloud gaming works for enough genres, it can't help but find popularity. Even just a game like WoW might be enough to make it happen, and Gaikai's Dave Perry posted a picture of doing just that on an iPad. So is it the future or not? Could somebody make a tablet with nothing more than a screen, battery, network port, and video decoder, and have it be a good gaming platform? Will it change the mobile, PC, console, and TV world as we know it? Lots of questions, lots of skepticism, lots of players and money being invested — but one thing is for sure: it will be very interesting to see how this evolves."
GUI

When PC Ports of Console Games Go Wrong 398

Posted by Soulskill
from the in-other-words-always dept.
A post up at Gamasutra complains about the lack of effort put into the PC ports of some console games. The author picks on the unimpressively-reviewed Ninja Blade in particular: "Just as a quick guide to what we're dealing with here: when you create a new save file at the start of Ninja Blade on the PC, it warns you not to 'turn off your console.' Yes, Ninja Blade is one of those conversions: not so much converted as made to perfunctorily run on a different machine. In-game, you're asked to press A, B, X and Y in various sequences as part of Ninja Blade's extraordinary abundance of quick-time events. Whether you have an Xbox 360 pad plugged in or not, the game captions these button icons with text describing the PC equivalent controls. Only it doesn't always do that. Sometimes, you're left staring at a giant, pulsating, green letter A, and no idea what to do with it." What awful ports have you had the misfortune to experience?
The Internet

Blizzard Previews Revamped Battle.net 188

Posted by Soulskill
from the find-out-precisely-how-bad-you-are dept.
Blizzard updated the official StarCraft II site today with a preview of how the revamped Battle.net will function. They emphasize the social features, competitive matchmaking system, and the ease of sharing mods and maps. Quoting: "When the legacy Battle.net service introduced support for user-created mods such as DotA, Tower Defense, and many others, these user-created game types became immensely popular. But while Battle.net supported mods at a basic level, integration with tools and the mod community wasn't where it needed to be for a game releasing in 2010. The new Battle.net service will see some major improvements in this area. StarCraft II will include a full-featured content-creation toolkit — the same tools used by the StarCraft II design team to create the single-player campaign. To fully harness the community's mapmaking prowess, Battle.net will introduce a feature called Map Publishing. Map Publishing will let users upload their maps to the service and share them with the rest of the community immediately on the service. This also ties in with the goal of making Battle.net an always-connected experience — you can publish, browse, and download maps directly via the Battle.net client. Finding games based on specific mods will also be much easier with our all-new custom game system, placing the full breadth of the modding community's efforts at your fingertips."
PC Games (Games)

EA Shutting Down Video Game Servers Prematurely 341

Posted by Soulskill
from the sixty-dollar-yearly-fee dept.
Spacezilla writes "EA is dropping the bomb on a number of their video game servers, shutting down the online fun for many of their Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 3 games. Not only is the inclusion of PS3 and Xbox 360 titles odd, the date the games were released is even more surprising. Yes, Madden 07 and 08 are included in the shutdown... but Madden 09 on all consoles as well?"
Games

Games Workshop Goes After Fan Site 174

Posted by Soulskill
from the don't-anger-your-base dept.
mark.leaman writes "BoingBoing has a recent post regarding Games Workshop's aggressive posturing against fan sites featuring derivative work of their game products. 'Game publisher and miniature manufacturer Games Workshop just sent a cease and desist letter to boardgamegeek.com, telling them to remove all fan-made players' aids. This includes scenarios, rules summaries, inventory manifests, scans to help replace worn pieces — many of these created for long out of print, well-loved games...' As a lifelong hobby gamer of table, board, card and miniature games, I view this as pure heresy. It made me reject the idea of buying any Games Workshop (read Warhammer) products for my son this Christmas. Their fate was sealed, in terms of my wallet, after I Googled their shenanigans. In 2007 they forbid Warhammer fan films, this year they shut down Vassal Modules, and a while back they went after retailers as well. What ever happened to fair use?"

Comment: an Invisible requirement (Score 1) 234

by Kryptic Knight (#29732703) Attached to: Battle.net Accounts Becoming Mandatory For <em>WoW</em>

One thing I'd say is that from a UK / EU perspective on WoW this requirement IS NOT very well known.

Most players don't read the forums, and quite a lot don't visit the http://www.wow-europe.com/ homepage (the EU equivalent of the www.worldofwarcraft.com page)

You'd expect them to have an annoucement on the wow login page - but no there's just Free-Server Transfers there.
You'd expect them to have an in-game notice - but no there's just stuff about fake/hack alpha-beta for Cata.

Come Nov 12th Blizzard are gonna have a heck of a lot of players going "WTF" "why have you locked me out" etc etc on the forums and a shed-load of phone calls.

Comment: Re:Hyperdrive? Nah... Impulse Drive, maybe... (Score 1) 322

by Kryptic Knight (#29693379) Attached to: Hyperdrive Propulsion Could Be Tested At the LHC

1/2 Impulse is NOT 0.5-C

Impulse maximum speed is dependent on the vessel's Impulse drive, a combination of fusion-reactor(s), a driver coil / accellerator, and a vectored thrust output. These create a vectorable (steerable) thrust of plasma, effectively a plasma rocket.

The speed available depends on the power (of the impulse drive) vs weight (of the vessel).

Examples of season episodes (thus CANON) give speeds of anywhere from 2.5% lightspeed (for a shuttle "TNG:Suspicions") up to 66% lightspeed for a long range survey starship (Voyager "VOY:Fair Haven").

Comment: Re:Price Fixing (Score 1) 208

by Kryptic Knight (#29049649) Attached to: <em>EVE Online's</em> Fight Against Currency Farmers

So some idiot is buying my stuff and reposting it at a higher price?

So I get the gold and the try to resell my original sale for uber-high prices.
If its too high it won't sell.
I just resell more items at higher and higher prices untill the "price fixer" stops buying my stuff.

The market effectively prices the price-fixer out of business.

The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking. -- Christopher Morley