And in other PC gaming news…
Put your desk in our eyeballs! Win prizes! Your desk pictures have dented our productivity this afternoon. Gaming on a console is just a matter of slumping down on the couch and kicking back. PC gamers’ desks are carefully constructed entertainment zones full of big speakers, multiple monitors, flight sticks, wheels, posters, mousemates, peripheral gadgets and old tea mugs. There’s something strangely pleasing about looking at the spaces that other people have built. Send us more!
You can link us to your pictures on Facebook and Twitter of course, but we also have a Google+ page, which we are now updating regularly. Do pop by and say hello. Meanwhile, here’s your daily list of PC gaming news
Show us your desk
In the UK edition of PC Gamer we used to run a regular feature called Readers’ Desks. In it, we would print our favourite picture of one of your desks and gently mock it for everyone’s entertainment. We’d quite like to do that again. Especially Tim. He loves looking at readers’ desks.
The next part is down to you. Send us a link with a picture of your desk. You can post it here in the comments, on our Facebook page, our Google+ account, or you can tweet one at our Twitter account. Our three favourites will be featured in a post next week on PCGamer.com. We’ll raid our cupboard full of random gaming objects and send the owner of each featured desk a prize that we think will best suit them based on extensive psychoanalysis* of their gaming space.
This one’s open to both UK and US residents, and French residents, and Vietnamese residents and anyone, really. We don’t care, JUST SHOW US YOUR DESK. To get the ball rolling, we’ve taken a picture of Owen’s desk for you to analyse first. Here it is.
Ghost Recon Online trailer shows upgrades and mad gadgets
Ghost Recon Online is a free to play, team-based shooter with three classes and a collection of mad gadgets and unlockable gear upgrades. Owen got to play it a while back and came away quite impressed. You can read his impressions in our Ghost Recon Online preview. The latest developer diary above goes showcases a few of the the high tech toys that each class will get access to. The shoulder mounted heat wave blaster looks like an decent weapon, and a great way to cook some chicken in the field.
Star Wars: The Old Republic patch tweaks Ilum, new trailer highlights upcoming features
Bioware have patched Star Wars: The Old Republic to fix some of the PvP problems on Ilum caused by the recent 1.1 update. A bug would allow players on a team to invade the other team’s base and camp their spawn points, taking valour points for every enemy kill. According to a post on the TOR forums, that should no longer be possible.
The cheeky Ewoks who took full advantage of the exploit will have gained masses of valour. There’s no mention of any plans for stat-rollbacks prompting fears that the campers would get to retain all their ill-gotten rewards. Community manager Joveth Gonzalez says “we’re definitely aware of individuals who took extreme advantage of this situation and we will be carefully evaluating and taking action as necessary.”
A Game of Dwarves announced, first screenshots arrive
Paradox have announced a new game called A Game of Dwarves. It’s a strategy/god game project that’ll put you in charge of a clan of Dwarves as they tunnel through a series of randomly generated dungeons. Each dwarf can be levelled up and trained in different tasks. They can dig, build, research upgrades and fight off invading hordes.
It’s looking a bit like a more user friendly version of the obtuse-but-awesome Dwarf Fortress. Graham’s in Sweden absorbing more details right now. He’ll be back soon to tell us all about it, meanwhile here are the first screenshots showing some cheerful miners exploring the randomised underworld.
Diablo 3 gets major changes, “no one will remember if the game is late, only if it’s great”
If you thought Diablo 3 was polished up and ready for release, think again. Game director Jay Wilson has posted a long list of big changes Blizzard are planning for the beta, some of which involve major overhauls of the character stats system. Wilson recognises the frustration of fans that have been waiting for Diablo 3 for years, but insists that the changes will be worth it.
“We’ve been called out for messing around with systems too much, that the game is good as-is and we should just release it,” he says on the Diablo 3 blog. “I think that’s a fair argument to make, but I also think it’s incorrect. No one will remember if the game is late, only if it’s great.”
We’ve played it and it already feels great, but Blizzard are looking to streamline every game system so that there are no unnecessary stats, NPCs and abilities left. That means they’ll be making a few controversial decisions along the way. “we’re going to be iterating on designs we’ve had in place for a long time, making changes to systems you’ve spent a lot of time theorycrafting, and removing features you may have come to associate with the core of the experience,” says Wilson.
Resident Evil 6 announced, coming to PC after console release
Leon Kennedy has fought zombies, parasitic scythe-monsters, and even a few things that couldn’t be instantly slain with a spinning back kick to the face. However, in Resident Evil 6, he may finally meet his match: American politics. Read inside for launch date details.
Bethesda to release Skyrim modding tools and patch 1.4 fixes as early as next week
The updates and improvements to Bethesda’s already amazing Skyrim just keep coming. The latest additions: The Creation Kit and Steam Workshop (to be bundled in patch 1.4), and they’re almost ready to be unleashed, amidst a plethora of other game-related fixes. More details within!
Ubisoft: “Vast majority” of customers never encounter DRM problems
Ubisoft’s finally seen fit to pipe up about Anno 2070′s extremely sensitive (read: prone to detecting minute graphics card changes – not penning tear-jerking poetry) DRM, and well, perhaps no news actually was good news. In short, Ubisoft told RPS that its DRM is functioning precisely as intended. Worse, the publisher really doesn’t see why everyone’s making such a big deal about this.
Dungeons & Dragons Online leaps into The Forgotten Realms with its first expansion
The Forgotten Realms is as classic a D&D setting as they get: a lost realm related to our own where magic runs rampant, deities are active, and–well, just imagine most any classic RPG game you’ve played and you’ll see hints of The Forgotten Realms’ influence. And Update 13 is finally bringing it to Dungeons & Dragons Online, which is still offering it’s brand of flexible free-to-play options to the masses. I recently sat down with the game’s Executive Producer Fernando Paiz to talk about what the upcoming content will look like in DDO’s first-ever expansion: Menace of the Underdark.
And in other PC gaming news…
Were games harder in 1999? Bioshock Infinite’s 1999 mode will offer a hardcore alternative to the standard single player campaign. An interesting addition to a game we’re already rather excited about. A better question might be “were games weirder in 1999?” Thanks to modders, that’s a tougher one to answer. The video above shows the hilarious but somehow incredibly disturbing My Little Pony mod for Skyrim. Tony thinks the pony should breathe deadly rainbows instead of fire, and he’s right.
Some Star Wars: The Old Republic players are facing a different problem. Like the inhabitants of Hotel California, they can log out any time they like, but they can never leave. Hopefully the problem will be fixed soon. Meanwhile, here’s a list of things that have been happening in PC gaming today, including good news for Trion Worlds, Space Marine players and Skyrim modders.
Struggling to cancel your subscription to Star Wars: The Old Republic? You’re not alone
Star Wars: The Old Republic will be one month old tomorrow. If you’ve played enough Star Wars to last you a lifetime, now’s the time to cancel your subscription. Some people are finding it difficult to find the “unsubscribe” button, however.
According to this entry TOR’s help centre, the unsubscribe link should be accessible from your accounts page. Then you should be able to “click on the ‘Subscription’ button in the sidebar and choose the option to ‘Cancel my Subscription’ from your main subscription page.” Those of us in the office that tried to unsubscribe this way found ourselves at a screen asking us to set up a subscription plan, even though according to our accounts, we were already subscribed.
Bioshock Infinite to get “more demanding” 1999 mode
Remember back in 1999 when the millennium bug was threatening to destroy the world and games were a bit harder? Irrational are bringing a taste of that to Bioshock Infninite. It’s a hardcore difficulty mode with a difference. It won’t just decrease your health or increase the “enemy damage” slider, it’ll attach more meaningful consequences to your levelling choices, limit your resources, and require you to unlock combat specialisations to use weapons.
A new post on the Bioshock Infinite blog describes the new mode. “With every choice you make, there are irreversible implications,” the post says. “If your choices guide you down a path not suited to your play style, you will suffer for it.”
Minecraft jungle biome teased, “green jungle is green”
Jungles are coming to Minecraft. Lead designer, Jeb has thrown up a teaser shot on Twitter with the words “green jungle is green.” And green it is indeed, with some lovely tall canopies and vine-choked bark. “Jon (@jonkagstrom) wants to add jungle animals later, but they will not be included in today’s snapshot,” Jeb adds, filling us with hope for Minecraft monkeys.
You’ll find the full quick below. As our Tom Francis said when he first saw the picture, “that’ll burn soooo quick.”
Mass Effect 3 system requirements released, render Reaper invasion on 2GB RAM
I was driving around in the first Mass Effect just last night and was reminded that a) the Mako is the bounciest vehicle in the universe and b) Mass Effect 2 actually looks a lot better than Mass Effect. Based on the screenshots and trailers released so far, it looks like we can expect a similar visual leap for the grand finale, which promises more than a few enormous set pieces.
But will your PC run it? The full system requirements have popped up on the Bioware forums. We slipped the Shadow Broker a few credits and he sent them over stapled to the forehead of a courier Volus. Here they are.
