And in other PC gaming news…
Hooray for mediocrity! Few things feel better than having an average performance acknowledged in a live esports environment. There’s no greater thrill than being told that “the thing you’re doing is going okay. Well done for maintaining an acceptable standard in spite of all assumptions to the contrary.” That’s a feeling worth taking a spinfusor disc to the face for, as we discovered during our Tribes: Ascend show match last week. We put the show down videos up earlier today.
Elsewhere, a few big numbers have been flying about. TEN MILLION. That’s how many dollars Hawken devs, Adhesive games, now have to make their mech-blasting multiplayer arena shooter amazing. ONE MILLION. That’s how many players eagerly tried to grab a place in the upcoming Guild Wars 2 beta sessions. FOUR POINT FIVE BILLION. The number of humans probably eradicated during the Reaper invasion of Earth in today’s Mass Effect 3 trailer
Plenty more has been happening of course. I’ve mashed today’s PC gaming news into a funnel and distributed them below with all the care of a cake decorator decorating a cake with a list of PC gaming news links. Read on for games at the Smithsonian, a big gun in Planetside 2, CCP on Eve and Dust 514 and Bioware on Mass Effect MMO possibilities.
Guild Wars 2 beta gets one million applications
If you took advantage of the 48 hour Guild Wars 2 beta sign-up window last week, don’t be too disappointed if you don’t receive an invite soon. ArenaNet say that more than a million contenders jumped in and signed up for a chance to be among the first so explore Tyria. At peak moments, 4000 people every minute were applying, and that was between short periods of downtime when the website’s server buckled under the condensed pile-on.
It’s probably fair to say, then, that many of us are quite excited about Guild Wars 2 this year. There’s much to be excited about, including the promise of 300 player, three-way server vs. server warfare in Guild Wars 2′s massive PvP zones and the dynamic quest system that offers you quests on the fly as you explore Tyria’s zones. We spent some time with the beta recently, and had a go at answering all of your questions about Guild Wars 2.
Watch footage of our Tribes: Ascend show match. Behold our acceptable competence
“AAAEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” A high-pitched sound was echoing through our Ventrilo server at 20:55 last Thursday. Rich was our sniper. Rich was nervous. Rich was making noises.
A few weeks ago we got a mail from Hi-Rez asking us if we’d like to participate in a Tribes Ascend showcase match against OnRPG and MMOHut. We accepted the challenge. The match was streamed live by LevelUpTV and commentated by top Tribes shoutcaster Ziggy Orzeszek and Hi-Rez eSports and Competitive manager Bart Koenigsberg.
To see Tribes: Ascend in its hyper-competitive e-sport glory, you’ll need to watch a set of pros in action. However, if you’re interested in watching the UK staff face off against some less experienced players, click away. Thanks to everyone involved for organising the match, and to OnRPG and MMOHut for being such good sports. As Graham (who fulfilled his infiltrator role admirably) mentioned on Twitter after the game, “We won via careful planning, hard work, and, um, having played it before, unlike our opponents.”
Don’t forget that Tribes is now in open beta. If you like what you see, visit the official site and download the client. You’ve got nothing to lose apart from your bandwidth.
Hawken scoops $10 million in funding from League of Legends backers
The promising multiplayer arena mech shooter, Hawken has just received quite a windfall in the form of $10 million of funding from Meteor Entertainment, a pretty massive investment for a debut game of a small studio. VentureBeat indicate that Meteor is backed by Benchmark Capital and FirstMark Capital, the same investors that funded Riot Games’ League of Legends.
LoL boasts one of the smartest free-to-play systems in the industry at the moment and Hawken devs, Adhesive Games, have already said that the mech shooter will get by on micro transactions that will “allow greater customization and more weapon variety.” Venture Beat are hoping that Hawken can capture massive audiences in the same way as League of Legends, despite the difference in genre.
Diablo 3 skill calculator updated, new skill videos show flaming hydra and meteors
It’s getting quite hard to keep up with all of the changes Blizzard have been making to Diablo 3 recently. Rune stones are now rune skills, companion pets are gone and entire character attributes have disappeared as Blizzard trim the fat ahead of D3′s planned spring release.
If you’re not on the beta, you can get to grips with the new, streamlined systems right now using the updated Diablo 3 skill calculator. It incorporates the new rune system and shows how skills will be divvied up into a left click attack, a right click attack and a series of separate action bar abilities. If you want to see some of those skills in action, a post on the Diablo 3 blog has videos and stats for a bunch of brand new ones that haven’t made it into the beta yet.
Star Wars: The Old Republic patch 1.2 will add companion dances and endgame crafting
The latest Star Wars: The Old Republic Q&A has turned up a couple of useful additions Bioware are planning for patch 1.2, including unlockable emotes tied to the Legacy system, faster travel options for high level planets and new endgame crafting features for all professions.
One of the major annoyances for high level crafters is the fact that that top level PvE and PvP gear is superior to the best buildable items. Bioware say that this is going to be addressed in next month’s update.
“We are adding endgame crafting for all professions. This includes augment crafting, the ability to crit-craft custom (orange) gear with augment slots, new endgame schematics, new color crystals, expanded and improved research and reverse engineering and much more,” they say.
Watch Notch create a Team Fortress 2 RTS live
Notch is currently busy “streaming development of something that probably never will be released at all,” which seems a shame, because it’s a lovely little Team Fortress 2 RTS. You can watch Noch magically turning numbers and letters into scenes of TF2′s eight classes fragging each other in the livestream box above. Don’t worry, “Herp Derp Herp Fortress” is only a working title for now. You can suggest some alternative names in the live chat happening alongside the stream on Notch’s Twitch TV channel.
Score some swag for F2P shooter Repulse [Giveaway]
If you’re going to succeed in the awfully-crowded F2P FPS market, you’re going to have to find a way to set yourself apart. Aeria Games’ latest run-’n'-gun, Repulse, has all the usual modes we’ve come to expect: Deathmatch, CTF, infection (known here as Invasion), and objective-based maps. But the game’s movement abilities are what really stand out. And we’re here to help you start playing in style, right from the get-go, without setting foot in the item shop. We’re giving away 2,000 codes for a sweet item-bundle, but hurry—these firearms are on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Mass Effect 3 in space update: “we have visual contact with one balloon but it’s 150ft up a tree”
We recently mentioned Bioware’s plan to send Mass Effect 3 to space and back by attaching copies to weather balloons and sending them into the stratosphere. According to the Mass Effect 3 in space page the first couple of balloons have been launched, but they’ve hit a bit of a snag, and by snag I mean tree.
Why is Tribes: Ascend free to play?
How things change. A few years ago the words “free to play” used to strike fear in my naive mind. I’d think of exploits, affluent winners and infinite credit card debt. No more. Now I associate free to play with a game I can play… for free. It’s a payment model that Hi Rez studios controversially adopted for Tribes: Ascend, the competitive team-based shooter that’s just gone into open beta.
Executive Producer Todd Harris has the payment model to thank for the boost in the player base of their previous MMO-shooter, Global Agenda: “Just before going free-to-play, we had a very generous free trial, but by changing it from a free trial to free-to-play, we increased the number of people who download and play dramatically. That was a good learning for us… we thought we did an effective job making the game free-to-play, but not pay-to-win and the community tended to agree with us.”
World of Warplanes wants testers, sign up, fly planes, shoot men
World of Tanks creators, Wargaming.net are preparing to open up the alpha build of their next game, World of Warplanes to a worldwide selection of testers. You can be one of them, if you like. To apply you’ll have to create a Wargaming.net account and sign in to the World of Warplanes site. There are different pages for European, Russian and American testers. There you’ll have to complete a quick survey/pop quiz with multiple choice questions like “What happens to your plane’s speed when it dives?” and “What happens to your plane’s altitude if you perform a “chandelle”?” If you’re chosen you’ll get to fly one of 20 planes against other players in two warzones. Wargaming.net say they’ll be adding more as their designers polish them up.
It’s due out later this year, and will be free to play. It’ll most likely have a similar pricing model to World of Tanks, which lets you pay money for experience boosts, new tanks and weapon upgrades, all of which can be purchased with in-game experience. For more on the game, check out the World of Warplanes site, and have a look at some of the screenshots they’ve released so far.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Missing Link DLC cheap on Steam this weekend
Perhaps you missed out on Deus Ex: Human Revolution last year. Maybe you’ve been biding your time, waiting for a price drop before you pick it up. Now’s your chance. It’s on sale this weekend for one third of its usual price on Steam. That’s £10.19 for Brits and $16.99 if you’re in the US. That’s a pretty good price for a great game. We gave it a score of 94 in our Deus Ex: Human Revolution review.
Perhaps you own Deus Ex: Human Revolution, love it and wish there was more of it. In that case, you should definitely check out The Missing Link DLC. It’s similarly discounted for the duration of the weekend. For £3.05 / $5.09 you’ll get a 5+ hour campaign set on board an enormous futuristic ship caught in the midst of a storm. Find out why it’s so good, and how it improves on Human Revolution’s dodgy boss fights in our Missing Link review. The deal’s set to expire on Monday.
Update: Thanks to commenter andrewfudge for pointing out that Deus Ex: Human Revolution is reduced to £7.50 on Green Man Gaming today.
Team Fortress 2 action figures and life-sized Portal Gun hitting shops this summer
We’ve seen some impressive fan-made Portal guns in the past, but they’ve been rare, costly one-off projects. Valve are giving us the chance to get hold of our own Aperture Science Handheld Portal Devices without having to burn ourselves horribly putting together an injection mould. Joystiq mention that, at Valve’s request, toy manufacturers, NECA have put together a life-sized Portal gun. It’ll hit the shops this summer with a $130 price tag attached.
There will be lights and those lights will change colour, but will it make the “pwung” noise? There’s only one way to find out, and that’s to buy at least five. Perhaps ten. Maybe more. More. MORE.
NECA will also be releasing a line of Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life action figures, a few of which were shown off at the NYC Toy Fair. The Team Fortress 2 wiki has a snap of the new figures, you’ll find that below along with a few shots of that Portal gun. Baggsy the Heavy.
Medal of Honor: Warfighter announced, built with Frostbite 2
Warfighter is an advanced follow-up to 2010′s Medal of Honor reboot. It’s being built with Battlefield 3′s Frostbite 2 engine and developed by Danger Close. DICE handled Medal of Honor’s multiplayer mode, but GI mention that Warfighter’s singleplayer and muiltiplayer will be built by Danger Close this time round. EA have shared “a visual inspiration and representation” (man with gun pic) of Warfighter on the Medal of Honor site. There will be “more details to come in the next few weeks,” they say. We’ll have plenty more info for you in the next issue of PC Gamer UK.
There’s no release date yet but if it’s out this year it’ll likely be going head to head with the next Call of Duty, which is rumoured to be Black Ops 2. Can it compete? For more of an idea of what they’re working with, check out our Medal of Honor review.
Major League Gaming’s Winter Arena StarCraft 2 tournament starts tomorrow, streams go PPV
The 2012 Major League Gaming Pro Circuit comes to New York this weekend with the Winter Arena tournament. 32 Starcraft 2 players will compete for a total prize purse of $26,000 divided among the top eight finishers. The top sixteen finishers will be invited to compete in the Winter Championship in Columbus, Ohio from March 23 – 25.
You can purchase access to the streams at Justin.tv. The events air live, starting on Friday at 6 pm Eastern. You can test-drive the stream format and get an idea of what $20 gets you at this demo page. All the matches will eventually be available on demand for free, albeit a week after the tournament.
