Ubisoft’s Open-World Adventure Gods & Monsters Appears To Have Been Delayed
An Ubisoft press release detailing the company’s financial targets and release schedule for 2019-20 suggests that its multi-platform open-world adventure game Gods & Monsters has been pushed into the next financial year.
Originally announced for release on 25th February 2020 (as the official website still indicates), the wording in the report describing the initial financial targets for ‘fiscal 2020-21’ states that the decision has been taken to “increase development time for Gods & Monsters” as well as the non-Switch games Watch Dogs Legion and Rainbow Six: Quarantine. These games “will all now be released in fiscal 2020-21”, according to the report. The timing isn’t more specific than that, but it seems that the launch has been bumped back by at least a couple of months, potentially more.
According to the document, the disappointing performance of Ghost Recon: Breakpoint has caused the company to reevaluate its approach and lineup for the coming year. One of the reasons for the game’s underperformance noted by Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot is that Breakpoint “did not come in with enough differentiation factors, which prevented the game’s intrinsic qualities from standing out.”
Guillemot continues:
We are tackling these issues head-on and already are implementing significant changes to our production processes. We are confident in our capacity to adapt and evolve, as we have done successfully many times in the past.
In this overall context, we have decided to postpone the releases of Gods & Monsters, Rainbow Six Quarantine and Watch_Dogs Legion until 2020-21. While each of these games already has a strong identity and high potential, we want our teams to have more development time to ensure that their respective innovations are perfectly implemented so as to deliver optimal experiences for players.
A general fatigue with Ubisoft’s open-worlds led to the Assassin’s Creed franchise taking a welcome break from its annual outings and coming back stronger than ever with 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins. From the sound of things, a similar malaise might be affecting other games in the company’s roster.
Ultimately, we’re happy to wait until the game’s ready. There’s hardly a shortage of stuff to play on Switch, but there will certainly be people disappointed to see the game getting delayed. We’ll keep you posted when more concrete release date details emerge.
Were you looking forward to Gods & Monsters in February? Had you forgotten all about it until you saw this headline? Let us know your thoughts on the state of Ubisoft below.
Review: A Hat In Time – A Fine 3D Platformer That Was Worth The Wait On Switch
The classic 3D platformer has seen a bit of revival lately, reminding of us of simpler times with bright primary colours and the likes of Banjo-Kazooie, Spyro the Dragon, and our very own moustached plumber. We’ve already seen a few attempts at bringing back the good old times, such as Yooka-Laylee and well as re-releases of Crash Bandicoot and the aforementioned Spyro. Now, 2017’s acclaimed A Hat in Time has finally made its way to Nintendo’s hybrid device. Let’s see how it holds up in the house of Mario.
Despite originally being mooted for the Wii U, A Hat in Time has taken its time to come to the Switch, ultimately debuting on the PC before making the leap over to the PS4 and Xbox One. It’s strange that it has taken so long given that Nintendo’s console is arguably where the natural audience would be. Indeed, A Hat in Time feels like an old friend who has returned home after a long absence. The game is written using the playbook of Super Mario 64, the granddaddy of all 3D platformers. You play as Hat Kid, a girl travelling happily through space until her spaceship is attacked by the mafia of a planet she happens to be passing. Her precious ‘time pieces’ are scattered all across this planet, and since this is vital fuel for her spaceship, she has no choice to go and get them back – with your help, of course.
The plot isn’t the most intriguing, but it’s charming enough to get you invested. In terms of gameplay, everything feels instantly familiar as soon as you get started. The usual array of 3D platforming abilities are at your disposal, including double-jumping and wall jumping, and various other tricks that involve (ahem) jumping. Interestingly, your main method of attack is to smash enemies with an umbrella, which isn’t something that many other games let you do, Parasol Stars aside.
The game’s main innovation is the titular ‘hat’, or more precisely, ‘hats’. Hat Kid gains different abilities depending on what hat she is wearing, with the default headgear rather usefully revealing the direction of the stage’s objective. Sprint Hat grants a burst of speed at the press of a button, while Brewing Hat lets you brew at cauldrons. These hats really change up the gameplay, and there are loads to unlock, as well as various customisations. These can be switched between through the left shoulder button, and you’ll be doing that a lot if you want to properly explore the stages.
The structure of the game also follows the template set by Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie in presenting a hub containing doors which are gradually unlocked, granting access to the world within, referred to as ‘Chapters’. Inside each world, however, A Hat in Time takes inspiration specifically from Super Mario 64 by separating its objectives into individual, defined missions (which the game calls ‘Acts’) that are gradually revealed.
Completing each objective grants the player a valuable time piece, which are analogous to the ‘stars’ found in Nintendo’s classic. Players are granted a huge amount of freedom regarding how they obtain these since new worlds are unlocked not by simply completing each act, but by obtaining enough time pieces; there is no obligation to complete each stage in order. In typical Mario fashion, players can move onto the next chapter as soon as possible if one particular chapter is infuriating them. You’ll be punished for your laziness later as the number of time pieces required to unlock each world increases, but it does help prevent you getting bored sick of playing the same world; you can try a new one and revisit harder stages later. Granted, this is something that the small moustached man in red overalls was doing over two decades ago, but it works just as well now as it did then.
Despite the hats seemingly being important enough to earn a place in the title, it is the worlds themselves which make A Hat in Time so great. There’s a fantastic amount of variety on display, with the opening Mafia Town resembling a charming little seaside settlement, before throwing you head-first into a movie set. A Halloween-inspired spooky forest is another highlight and the fact that all of the worlds are so different and unpredictable means you’re always curious to see what the game will do next.
Even within each world, the whole vibe and tone can vary dramatically between each act, with the aforementioned film studio world starting in the modern-day and then suddenly throwing you into a 1930s whodunit mystery imitating Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. That whimsical cartoon-like Halloween also suddenly transforms into a terrifying survival horror-inspired game of hide-and-seek. Suffice to say, the small number of worlds certainly does not result in a lack of variety, and the developers have done a great job avoiding the all-too-predictable array of ice, lava and underwater levels to give players something that really feels unique and special to explore.
The game isn’t perfect, however. There are a few things which do spoil things a little – some of which are specific to the Switch port, but not all. A Hat in Time may be one of the newest 3D platformers on the block, but it still hasn’t solved that one big problem that has plagued most 3D platformers since their inception: the camera. It is strange that despite Super Mario 64 having arguably one of the best cameras in any game, none of its imitators have ever managed to devise their own camera even remotely on par.
A Hat in Time is better than most, but the camera does find itself in the least useful position on one too many occasions, and this can be frustrating during intense scenes. We don’t want to overstate the problem – the camera is good enough, at least in line with its peers – but the quest to find a camera for 3D platformers that matches the one seen in Nintendo’s own efforts goes on.
A bigger issue is something we see all too often with ports to the Switch – performance. Despite only targeting a relatively conservative 30fps, the game misses this target regularly. The issue isn’t so much a low framerate as an inconsistent one, with A Hat in Time noticeably failing to hit its desired rate much of the time, which results in juddering effect that looks worse than what the actual framerate suggests. Very real drops in framerate occur as the complexity of the stages increases, which makes things even more inconsistent.
Unfortunately, 3D platformers are a genre where a consistent framerate is particularly desirable due to the huge amount of camera movement and precision leaping, and the performance here isn’t really good enough. Perhaps related to this, the developers would appear to have oped against using anti-aliasing. Nintendo themselves do this frequently, but in this case, the result is often ugly, jagged edges that stand out even on the portable screen. Reining in visual effects to reach a constant framerate is acceptable, but here we have the worst of both worlds with the game still missing its performance target despite these cutbacks.
However, by far the most significant issue is the occasional actual pauses to the gameplay. These can be almost as long as one second and can occur during particularly intensive scenes (one example being when the UFOs use any kind of attack). These pause the entire game and did make us momentarily think that the game had crashed. They are relatively infrequent, but significant enough when they do occur that it severely impacts gameplay. It’s worth noting that the developer has said that a patch to fix various issues is on the way, so these technical hiccups could be a thing of the past in the coming weeks.
Also, like other console ports of this game, the Switch edition doesn’t have access to the vast array of user-made content which has spawned a vibrant modding community for the PC edition of this game. The game’s utilisation of Unreal Engine 3 as well as being bundled with the Unreal Editor has resulted in massive community efforts to create new stuff, ranging from customisations, new hats, new weapons and skins to entirely new stages. This isn’t a problem that exclusively affects A Hat in Time on Switch as the open nature of the PC platform means that most games can be modded to a degree, but the community is so vibrant and the content so interesting that it is something to consider if you have a PC and are wondering which platform to buy this title on.
It is a testament to the quality of A Hat in Time however that none of these issues are significant enough to change the fact that this is still an excellent game. It’s a hugely charming, fun and refreshing 3D platformer that stands as one of the best attempts to fully revive the genre. Issues with performance give way to the fact that the worlds are so unique, and every act so fascinating in its concept and execution that there’s no putting the Switch down until you’ve finished. People on the fence about which version of the game to buy might want to keep the above issues in mind, but for everybody else, this is a brilliant and hugely enjoyable game which we highly recommend.
Pokemon Sword/Shield Creators Talk About The National Dex Backlash
With Pokemon Sword and Shield less than a month away, developer Game Freak has been openly talking about the project in more depth. Several outlets recently interviewed lead producer Junichi Masuda and series director Shigeru Ohmori, and the topic of Sword and Shield's controversial lack of a National Pokedex inevitably came up.
Not every single Pokemon throughout the series' long history will be in Sword and Shield, which has caused quite the furore among a vocal section of the Pokemon fan base. "You see these sort of negative comments and it does, as a developer, make you feel a bit down about certain things," Masuda told Eurogamer when asked about the uproar. "But at the same time, you have to take criticism. For example with Pokemon Let's Go, early on there were a lot of comments that it was too easy, or it was kind of a bit too 'kid-focused' and that sort of thing. That sort of comment is something you see, and you take on board, and really try and base improvements in the next game on the feedback you received from the last one.
"So, with regards to the Pokedex issue in particular that you've mentioned, that was something that was a really hard decision internally, there were a lot of discussions about which direction we should take that in, and ultimately we felt that, for the overall game, focusing on creating the richest experience we could within that game, leaving the Pokedex as we did was the best solution overall."
"For example, when we add new moves and abilities we create a deeper experience for everyone to enjoy. This time around we can also give people a greater attachment to the Pokemon that are in the game, which is something we think is very important. So we definitely--we don't have regrets about what we've done.
"In terms of having Pokemon that you had in previous games," Masuda continued, "we do have Pokemon Home that’s coming out--and that's another place where everyone can gather all their Pokemon from previous games and enjoy a different way of playing with them there."
Masuda expanded on this point, and the introduction of Pokemon Home, in another interview with Polygon. "I mean, from my perspective, it’s always been in the back of my mind that at some point we were going to have to not include all the Pokemon," he said. "One of the things we’ve tried to do this time around, and we don’t have a lot of details to share, but we’re introducing a cloud service called Pokemon Home and we really want to use that to kind of expand the Pokemon world, provide a place for players to be able to gather all of their Pokemon in one spot, do fun things, and also use it as a launching pad for different adventures and different games."
Pokemon Sword and Shield is set to launch November 15 for Nintendo Switch.
Review: Return Of The Obra Dinn – A Beautifully Crafted Detective Mystery
Released to critical acclaim last October, Papers, Please creator Lucas Pope’s Return of The Obra Dinn finally arrives on consoles with quite the fanfare. After finding a dedicated audience willing to get on board with a game that on paper, probably shouldn’t ever have been as popular as it was, Pope’s narrative-based detective story feels right at home in your hands.
With the majority of the console world still awaiting Papers, Please (bar the PS Vita), its follow up is perhaps the first time those with controllers instead of keyboards have experienced the wonderful work of Pope, and Return of the Obra Dinn is perhaps even more impressive than its forerunner. It’s bizarre, at times excruciatingly difficult and feverishly rewarding; beating the game felt like winning gold in an Olympic marathon.
There’s a reason why it was up for so many Game of the Year awards at the turn of 2019, though. It’s probably unlike anything you’ve ever played before and, as such, is somewhat difficult to get your head around to begin with. Like most games of its ilk though, when it begins to click you’re already sucked into the mystery and wanting to eagerly crack on to close this fascinating case.
Return of the Obra Dinn is set in the 1800s, and your shipping agent character is tasked with setting sail to the Obra Dinn, a ship stranded in the middle of the ocean whose crew have mysteriously disappeared. The ship contains enormous amounts of cargo, so naturally, the powers that be are very concerned as to what happened to the ship and those contained within. It’s up to you to figure out what became of these unfortunate souls, and what follows is perhaps the most captivating and original detective game you’ve ever played.
There’s very little hand-holding in Return Of The Obra Dinn, if any at all. There are moments in the game where you wish it would intervene and just slightly nudge you in the appropriate direction, but all it offers is a magical pocket watch, a variety of corpses strewn across the ship and a book to keep everything you discover in order. The latter is your most prized possession, as it becomes integral to your detective work. Inside its pages, it features a list of the crew and passengers, a layout of the ship and drawings that you can refer to at any time. The moment you come across a corpse, your bewitched watch will allow you to turn back time, giving you the chance to see how this poor soul died. Once you work out what happened, you’re able to jot down in your book the fate of each individual crew member and move on to the next, solving the macabre mystery of the Obra Dinn one death at a time.
Sounds simple, right? Not quite. As you come across the first corpse and its story, you’ll notice in the book that it’s been placed under the section labelled ‘The End’. Return Of The Obra Dinn starts the investigation at the very end of the tragedy, and working your way backwards will allow you to answer questions you had about the very first case. You’ll never immediately know everything, and using the pocket watch’s powers to explore the exact moments the deaths take place will raise more questions than you’re unable to answer – until, that is, you’re able to identify those involved.
Pulling apart the mystery will involve paying more attention to a video game than you’ve done in quite a while, we’ll wager. All of the answers are in front of you; you just have to find them and use them to piece the puzzle together, one corpse at a time. Exploring the flashbacks could answer a question you had an hour or two before. What was the name of the passenger who was captured by the Kraken? Which one is the brother of the Captain’s wife? Return Of The Obra Dinn persistently asks questions of you, like you’re walking through the pages of a novella that hasn’t been written yet. The persistent challenge is tying things back to past events, and this is what keeps you going; as the story unravels before you, you’ll want to know everything. Patience is a virtue in Return Of The Obra Dinn, but it’s rewarded handsomely.
As the story unfolds, the horrendous fates of the crew members and passengers come to light, and the emotional attachment between those on board rises to the surface – and this is where the game truly shines. You’re learning the story backwards so making sense of it all can take time and emotional effort, as things get quite grim at points. Still, it feels like the suffering these people went through has the faintest aspect of light shining through, which makes their sacrifice all the more poignant. It’s a powerful, at times horribly vivid and always surprising.
Then there are the visuals which, as you’ve probably already noticed, set Return Of The Obra Dinn apart from its peers. Everything is presented in a faux-retro monochrome art style which can be altered to look like an IBM monitor or a Zenith ZVM, for example. These filters are purely available to give the game a little splash of colour should you want it, but they do serve a more obvious purpose – we found it was handly to scroll through the available options to see certain moments with a little more detail.
The art style is beautiful, suiting the setting of Return Of The Obra Dinn perfectly. It’s as if the game is presented as an artist’s impression of the fateful ship; scribbled drawings used to recall fading memories. There are plenty of moments where it can look a little crowded with only two colours on screen at any given time, but this is a minor complaint. The screenshots certainly don’t do it justice; when walking around a still frame of art to deduce its meaning – particularly during the Kraken attack – it takes your breath away.
Conclusion
Return of the Obra Dinn lives up to the hype, and then some. It’s a beautifully crafted and intricately constructed detective mystery unlike anything you’ve played before with a harrowing narrative at its centre. Unravelling its secrets takes time and requires patience, but you’ll be glad you allowed the story to play out at its own pace. What we have here is a thoroughly unique experience that will stay with you, and is among best this genre has ever had to offer.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-25-2019, 06:03 AM - Forum: Lounge
- No Replies
Borderlands 3's Bank Is Expanding, Other Future Updates Revealed
Gearbox is set to release a new patch for Borderlands 3 today, October 24. The update addresses bug fixes, stability improvements, and general adjustments, but the studio has also outlined its roadmap for the coming weeks in terms of what we can expect from future hotfixes and patches for the looter shooter.
Gearbox says game performance and stability continues to be its top priority. An upcoming November patch promises to introduce various improvements games-wide, with the studio saying, "performance and stability will continue to be an ongoing effort with more fixes rolled out with each upcoming patch."
One of the most requested features by the community is an expansion to Borderlands 3's bank. As a result, Gearbox has begun laying the groundwork for expanding the bank. The upcoming release of Takedown at Maliwan's Blacksite will introduce a significant expansion to the bank that will more than double the existing space for storing your items.
Bosses will also be getting dedicated loot pools to ensure that more specific gear drops from defeated bosses. Once this happens as an expected part of the November update, you'll be able to go to a specific boss and get the specific gear you're looking for, saving a lot of time and hassle.
Gearbox says it will be introducing some character buffs as well, since Moze's Iron Bear, FL4K's pets, and Zane's Digi-Clone/SNTL aren't performing as well as expected when Mayhem Mode is activated in the late stages of the game. The developer is looking at ways to adjust damage according to the relevant skills and gear, to make sure Borderlands 3 has as many viable character builds as possible.
Speaking of Mayhem Mode, Gearbox is also planning a significant revamp that will introduce a host of improvements to the way it works. The first update will, once again, be released as part of Takedown at Maliwan's Blacksite, and will include the first new Mayhem Mode level, Mayhem 4. The new level promises to offer a significant challenge, with tougher enemies and better rewards that revolve around new Legendary gear. Beyond this, Gearbox will eventually overhaul Mayhem Mode with Mayhem 2.0, adding more UI support, playlists, additional levels, new rewards, and new Mayhem Modifiers that will dramatically change the gameplay.
Lastly, there will be new vending machines cropping up throughout Borderlands 3's planet-hopping adventure. Gearbox is also hard at work trying to find a solution that will let you skip cutscenes, and it's introducing a target dummy so you can easily test your gear on Sanctuary.
As for today's patch, the latest update fixes numerous bugs afflicting Borderlands 3 by addressing various crashes, removing a reported bug in the Space-Laser Tag mission that prevented some players from progressing to the next objective, and altering the Flakker weapon so it now consumes one ammo instead of five, among a host of other changes detailed in the full patch notes.
There's also a free Bloody Harvest Halloween event kicking off today, introducing spooky new cosmetics like skins and weapon elements, the new Bloody Harvest boss, and a new Legendary weapon. GameSpot has all of the details on how you can access the Halloween-themed event and when it comes to an end.
Shadowshot: Fires an arrow that damages enemies and debuffs enemies nearby
Damage sharing for the Nightstalker player specifically reduced from 100% to 50%
Now all allied players have 50% damage sharing on tether
Nightstalker Way of the Wraith (Middle)
Flawless Execution: Headshot kills while crouched grant invisibility and truesight
Truesight now lasts 3 seconds (down from 9)
Shattering Strike: After performing a Flawless Execution, your melee attacks have a longer lunge range and weaken enemies
Advanced warning: When we made the change to Flawless Execution this also unintentionally nerfed this ability to only last 3 seconds (it was directly tied to the truesight). We have prepared a fix for the 4.6.1 patch to restore the weaken and lunge range increase to last the entire 9 seconds regardless of truesight and invisibility status.
Instant Reloading
Goal: In the beginning, Lunafactions and Rally Barricade did exist, but they were clunky to use. They still had dramatic impact on gameplay even in that state, but eventually we decided to make their effects easier to handle. The problems they introduced always existed in the game, but over time these have become magnified due to new abilities, perks, and weapons introduced into the Destiny 2 sandbox. The impact of something that takes all reloading out of the equation means that other perks or effects like the Hunter’s Marksman Dodge or the Sealed Ahamkara’s Grasps can simply fall to the wayside – Even swords take a hit in comparison, being one of the few weapons that naturally never needs to reload.
Reloading is one of those mechanics that are simple, but have wide ranging consequences. Because the effect on gameplay of removing reloading is inversely proportional to the size of your weapon’s magazine and how slow your general reload animations are, weapons like Rocket Launchers and Shotguns can benefit greatly compared to other weapons. This, alongside the increase in general access to damage bonus effects like Well of Radiance left us with the decision to remove this effect from these two sources, as they were causing things to quickly snowball out of control.
Titan Rally Barricade
This ability now provides a large increase to reload speed for the duration of the effect
This ability no longer automatically reloads your weapons from reserves
Warlock Rift/Well of Radiance
Lunafaction Boots now provides a large increase to reload speed for the duration of Well of Radiance
This exotic no longer automatically reloads your weapons from reserves
Super Energy Regeneration
Goal: These changes will reduce the speed with which players are able to earn their super which supports difficulty and reduces the current ability to trivialize certain content through excessively chaining supers. Systemically, we want to reduce base sources of supers on a large macro scale without diminishing the feeling that your actions are gaining you a worthwhile energy boost. By reducing the speed at which you gain super we can make mods and perks feel more worthwhile. We still want it to feel like you can make meaningful progress not only through normal play but by augmenting super energy through teamwork, class choices, gear, and skillful play.
New Energy Granted by Super Orbs:
Super Orb: 7.143% (50% reduction)
Masterwork Orb: 2.5% (50% reduction)
Kills: (25% reduction)
Minor: 0.6%
Elite: 0.96%
Mini-boss: 1.8%
Boss: 3%
Player: 3%
Assists: (25% reduction)
Minor: 0.3%
Elite: 0.48%
Mini-boss: 0.9%
Boss: 1.5%
Player: 1.5%
Damage Multipliers
Goal: At Destiny 2 launch, damage buffs were fairly sparse – There was Empowering Rift for a small increase, and you could combine it with a weakening effect such as Hammer Strike, but very little else. As time has gone on, we introduced Well of Radiance, Weapons of Light, Guiding Flame, Frontal Assault, etc, and combining these effects has resulted in player damage output far beyond what was previously available. Even with just a small amount of them, a player can go from 1x damage to 3x and beyond, causing there to be an extremely large gap between standard player output and theoretical output.
By preventing the larger effects from stacking, we are able to keep each of them around without having to do something in response like raise boss health to compensate for these tactics, as well as create more of them. As an example, Lumina would not have been created in world where the damage bonus effect of Noble Rounds stacked with other damage effects, and these changes are simply an extension along those same lines.
While the weakening effects never stacked, we also took a look at them and adjusted their values as many of our more powerful units would simply evaporate when touched by one of them, but we compensated for that in other ways, such as either extending the duration of the effect or in the case of Shadowshot, making it affect power weapons.
Player Damage Buffs
Player Bonuses
Bonus damage effects that apply to all of a player’s weapons simultaneously no longer stack multiplicatively. The highest applicable bonus will be used instead
This does not affect single weapon buffs such as Rampage, Kill Clip, or exotic weapons that increase their own damage. These will still stack multiplicatively.
Buffs that provide bonus damage will still exist simultaneously on the player, so in the event that the one with the highest multiplier wears off the next highest will be used instead.
This change affects the following weapons/abilities (Empowering Rift, Frontal Assault, Guiding Flame, Sun Warrior, Inertia Override, Well of Radiance, Lumina/Noble Rounds, Weapons of Light)
Notable exceptions: Vengeance (One Eyed Mask)
Frontal Assault
Bonus damage is now +20% (Previously +25%)
Sun Warrior
Bonus damage is now +20% (Previously +25%)
Well of Radiance
Bonus damage is now +25% (Previously +35%)
Weapons of Light
Bonus damage is now +35% (Previously +25%)
Enemy Debuffs (Weakened)
Shadowshot
Incoming PvE damage is now +30% (Previously +35%)
Incoming PvP damage is now +50% (Previously +55%)
This effect no longer excludes power weapons
Tractor Cannon (Repulsor Force)
Incoming PvE damage is now +30% for all elements (Previously +33%/50% for Non-Void/Void damage respectively)
Incoming PvP damage is now +50% for all elements (Previously +33%/50% for Non-Void/Void damage respectively)
Hammer Strike
Incoming PvE damage is now +30% (Previously +50%)
Duration increased from 6 to 10 seconds in PvE
Shattering Strike
Incoming PvE damage is now +30% (Previously +50%)
Duration increased from 6 to 10 seconds in PvE
Reduced Super Damage Resistance
Goal: Since the launch of Destiny 2 we have slowly introduced buffs to supers, especially roaming supers. While we believe supers should be powerful they should not be mindless. We want supers to be more risky in both PvE and PvP. We want players to think about positioning and timing more. Not so long ago we experimented with Spectral Blades by lowering the damage resistance substantially. These changes were generally well received and improved the experience of the super for both the person running it and the person who was running from it. In PvE players shouldn’t feel like their super makes them invulnerable and casting one should call for situational strategic thinking. In PvP players need to feel like they can challenge a super and that with skillful play there’s a chance they can beat it.
Super Damage Resistance removed from masterwork armor
Inherent Super Damage Resistance lowered by category (see below)
Mojang has pushed out 2 pre-release builds for 1.14.4. Below is the changelog. I would share more with you, but my eardrums are still ringing from the fireworks.
You can find the full announcement on minecraft.net.
Fixed a few bugs
Villagers now stock more items
Villagers will now remember their gossip after becoming a Zombie Villager
Improved performance of Villager pathfinding
Villagers can now work without also restocking at the same time
Gossip about players who converted a zombie villager will now last longer
The Player Activity button on the Realm screen has been removed
MC-136318 – Floatable mobs are unable to walk when in waterlogged blocks
MC-151150 – Entities (Villagers) cause massive lag when attempting to pathfind
MC-151376 – Villagers are not pathfinding towards their POI; POI detection range is too small
MC-151810 – Mobs don’t try to avoid fall damage anymore
MC-154214 – Chunks refusing to unload due to incorrect player ticket additions
MC-155147 – Mouse acceleration with the new 1.14.3 update
MC-155906 – Failed to save debug dump if the destination location contains a space
Fixed bugs
Suspicious stew made from poppies now gives you night vision instead of speed
Some performance optimisations
Added /debug report for getting more detailed information. Please include this while making bug reports about performance!
MC-100946 – Bow with mending undraws when receiving XP while drawed
MC-113968 – Zombies of village siege spawn despite gamerule doMobSpawning being false
MC-113970 – Zombies of village siege do not spawn centered on a block
Celebrate Rock Band 4’s Birthday on Xbox One with Free Songs
Of all the birthdays, the 4th birthday may be the best. You’re old enough to know what you want but young enough to get away with being bratty. It’s awesome. When we reflect on Rock Band 4’s first four years, RB4 feels like a 4-year-old. Rock Band has grown a lot over the last 4 years – the game has gotten bigger: with added songs, features, and other content. We’ve also seen growth in the Rock Band audience – we’ve watched Rivals become the premier competitive mode of the game, with crews competing to get promoted each week.
Happy Birthday to You, from Us
To celebrate the occasion, we have put together an update to the game, with some bug fixes and new content available to all Rock Band 4 players. We are also releasing a free pack of DLC that features 4 Harmonix bands. These bands were chosen specifically to showcase the diverse talent of the Harmonix staff – we have a song from the band, “Shocked Laura,” an upbeat pop song that was composed for Dance Central. We have a song from “Orion” (proud member of the Rock Band DLC team) which features super smooth futuresque synthpop. We have a new song from Rock Band veterans “Newfane” (featuring Chris Rigopulos, our COO and arguably biggest RB fan in the office) and a song from “Duck & Cover” – my own bratty punk band. I love the eclectic-ness of the pack and hope you enjoy it (did I mention, it’s free?).
Join Us for Rivals Season 13
As turn our gaze towards the future of the Rock Band franchise, a clear path emerges – it is our great pleasure to delight the music community with DLC and Rivals challenges. It’s been nice to see the reception to the Season 13 rewards, after floaty heads and wings, a full set of instruments is a nice grounding reward. That said, we’ve got some exciting content in the hopper for 2020 — we can’t wait to share it with you. Also, in case you are just tuning in, we have our lucky 13th season of Rivals happening right now — this is an excellent time to jump in and join the fray.
Birthday Gifts
I’m sure you are thinking, “Cool! What do you want for your birthday, Rock Band?” Well, nothing would make us happier than to have you fire up your Xbox One, strap on your guitar, pick up your drum sticks, grab the mic and join us for a song or two. We’re proud to have made it this far and are looking forward to rocking with you through the holiday and into next year (and beyond!!).
Also, make sure to follow us on social media for more updates on our celebratory plans.
As a World Architect or Environment Artist, you will work directly with the game directors and discipline leads to help define breathtaking AAA scenery.
Responsibilities:
Create worlds and stage scenery to set the tone and vision.
Constructs 3d environments to include modeling, mapping, materials, lighting, VFX, atmospherics, collision, and gameplay related setups.
Develop, experiment, and advance the environments by innovating new techniques.
Manage all the assets and data associated with the environments.
Thoroughly understand the art pipeline and integrates assets into the game.
Thoroughly understand the hardware limitations and common techniques.
Work directly with other artists, designers, and engineers to complete environments.
Experience/Skills:
2+ years of industry experience working on different platforms.
Working knowledge of Photoshop, Substance, Maya, and/or other 3D software.
Strong sense for architecture and natural scenery including form, color, and composition.
Ability to manage and maintain entire world assets.
Architectural background and/or related field a big plus!
Working knowledge of Unreal & Unity a big plus!
Ability to multi-task and adapt easily to change.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills and ability to interact effectively.
Whether you’re just starting out, looking for something new, or just seeing what’s out there, the Gamasutra Job Board is the place where game developers move ahead in their careers.
Gamasutra’s Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.
The Game Creators have just released the AppGameKit Studio: Particle Editor, which despite the name will work with both AppGameKit Classic and the newer AppGameKit Studio. It is a combination editor and runtime making creating and controlling particle systems for AGK a breeze.
Key features include:
Create effects with as little as 1,000 to 1 million particles
Emitter types include box, circle, disc, filled sphere, spherical shell, line
Burst emitters for explosions and sparks
Particle type settings from size, colours, lifespan and more
Vector field controls, paint, push, attract, repel, swirl
Function packed runtime code for your projects (Win, Mac & Linux)
Custom textures and gradients supported
Reflector system used to bounce particles off floors and walls
The Particle Editor is available as DLC with an MSRP of $30 USD. If you are interested in checking out AppGameKit Studio, be sure to check out our hands-on getting started tutorial series available here or check out the video below.
