Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-14-2018, 02:12 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 -- All Multiplayer Maps At Launch
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 launches with 14 multiplayer maps. There's already a 15th map scheduled for November as a post-launch expansion, but it will be free for all players.
Right now, players have access to Arsenal, Contraband, Firing Range, Frequency, Gridlock, Hacienda, Icebreaker, Jungle, Militia, Morocco, Payload, Seaside, Slums, and Summit. Four of the maps--Firing Range, Jungle, Slums, and Summit--are all from previous Black Ops games, but with a visual upgrade. In November, the Call of Duty classic Nuketown, also remastered with upgraded visuals, will become available. Treyarch hasn't announced how map updates after Nuketown will work, but they'll probably be a part of paid DLC expansions.
According to Forbes, the 14 original maps are described as follows:
Arsenal: Hostile covert ops on a manufacturing facility of a powerful North American military defense contractor means someone may have stolen the keys to the castle.
Contraband: Surveillance of an international arms smuggling operation has uncovered this shipping hub on a remote, uncharted island off the coast of Colombia.
Firing Range: US Forces gear up for red team/blue team combat exercises in this Guantanamo Bay military base.
Frequency: A covert listening station deep in the mountainous region of Hunan Province is being used to track strategic targets across the globe.
Gridlock: A Japanese metropolis whose city center has been jammed up by a bank heist gone wrong.
Hacienda: A lavish vineyard estate situated on a quiet lake in the Spanish countryside, home to a high-ranking crime syndicate boss.
Icebreaker: A long lost Nuclear submarine in the Arctic houses a uranium supply which a Russian unit has come to salvage.
Jungle: The heat is on as Cold War forces collide in the sweltering depths of the Vietnam jungle.
Militia: Anti-government extremists backed covertly by a Russian cell are stockpiling weaponry in a remote region of Alaskan wilderness near the Bearing Strait.
Morocco: Rebels in a small Moroccan village are using government military supply planes as target practice as they fly over the surrounding Sahara Desert.
Payload: A defensive ICBM launch facility deep in an Icelandic mountain range has been infiltrated by hostile forces attempting to steal a nuclear warhead.
Seaside: An anti-government protest in this quaint coastal Spanish town grew out of control and forced a military shutdown.
Slums: Street battles rage in head to head heat through the center of a run down Panama neighborhood.
Summit: Cold War surveillance is at its peak above the clouds in the mountaintop listening post in the Ural Mountains.
These maps do not include the ones exclusive to Black Ops 4's Zombies and Blackout mode. In Zombies, IX and Voyage of Despair are the two maps for the new Chaos storyline, while Blood of the Dead is the map for the Aether storyline--which continues the overarching narrative from the previous three Black Ops games. Blackout launches with only one map, but it's the biggest one the Call of Duty franchise has ever seen.
Video: A design-centric approach to developing characters & stories
Who is the actor in a game? Is it the person holding the controller in the real world, or the player-character who moves through the game-world?
The answer, at least care of veteran game designer Matthias Worch (Mafia III, Star Wars 1313, Dead Space 2) circa 2011, is both, and the game designer must work carefully to keep the interests of these two consciousnesses aligned.
At GDC 2011, Worch gave a great talk that examines how we reconcile developer-defined and player-derived character identities. Games often feature strong pre-authored characters and story arcs, while trying to give the player the feeling of uninhibited agency. The practical techniques presented by Worch suggest a path to designing stories that don’t simply provide a context for the players actions, but instead create impulses and motivations within the player that are in alignment with those of the avatar.
In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.
Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.
Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas.
Today’s Deal: Save up to 80% on select games and celebrate Day of the Girl!*
October 11th marks International Day of the Girl. Children’s charity War Child UK and its US partner Children in Conflict want to celebrate with a collection of awesome games featuring female protagonists where a portion of the proceeds from participating partners will help support children affected by conflict.
Riverdale Season 3 Premiere Introduces A Slender Man Style Monster
Everyone's favorite Archie Comics based teen crime drama, Riverdale, is back for its third season on The CW and things are not looking great for Archie and his pals. Don't worry, they're still as fashionable and as shirtless as ever before, but not only is Archie Andrews on trial for murder, and not only has Betty Cooper's mom Alice joined a cult, but the town of Riverdale is slowly being invaded by a creature called the Gargoyle King. Watch out, this post contains spoilers for Riverdale's Season 3 premiere.
This week's episode gave us our first real insight into what, exactly, the Gargoyle King is--and it's even more buckwild than you might expect. Dilton Doiley, Riverdale's erstwhile scoutmaster and occasional paranoid gun enthusiast, and his friend Ben have, apparently, started playing a Dungeons and Dragons flavored roleplaying game over the summer--a game that, somehow, has summoned the Gargoyle King into their world. Maybe.
It's unclear whether or not the Gargoyle King is actually some sort of supernatural monster that has been summoned to Riverdale by Dilton and Ben's game, or if it's just (yet another) opportunistic serial killer carving a path through the countryside. Honestly, at this point, either option seems pretty absurd--and equally likely. Either magic and monsters are both real, or Riverdale is the single most unlucky town on Earth, so does it really matter?
That question is exactly the point of this season, explained Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa at this year's New York Comic Con. "Just how supernatural is the Gargoyle King? That's the big question." Aguirre-Sacasa teased, "He's a little bit like the Slender Man--we're taking these crazy things, but we're grounding them with real-life touchstones."
The Slender Man seems to be an apt comparison after we see Dilton's panic in this episode. "Ben and I, we thought it was just a game," he frantically explained to Jughead, "The Gargoyle King." But it wasn't a game, apparently--or, at least, it wasn't the game Dilton and Ben assumed it was. Just hours after Dilton's initial breakdown, Jughead finds a mysterious map left on his kitchen table that leads him deep into the woods on the outskirts of town. There he finds what can only be described as a sacrificial altar--and the unconscious, possibly dead, bodies of both Dilton and Ben strung up below it.
Fans of the first season of HBO's anthology crime drama True Detective might see the similarities immediately. The creepy wicker-and-skulls motif, the ritualized position of the bodies, the weird runes painted (carved?) into their backs--it has all the classic Southern Gothic markings of some creepy, cult-based horror. A True Detective flavored, surreal, supernatural-but-not crime spin on this season seems slightly more likely than the honest-to-goodness supernatural being tossed into the mix--but really, it's far too early to call.
There is, after all, a cult in the mix with Alice and Polly Cooper's "The Farm," a New Age "lifestyle support group" led by the mysterious (but amazingly named) Edgar Evernever. For a brief moment, we see Betty hallucinate (?) Alice and Polly attempting to sacrifice Polly's twin babies into a giant bonfire--only to watch the babies float upwards away from the flames rather than burning to death. Moments after watching/hallucinating the event, Betty experienced a strange not-quite-black-out where she collapsed with a ringing in her ears. Was it the product of her recently revealed prescription drug problem? A side effect from the nefarious machinations of The Farm? A genuine supernatural event that Betty's mind just couldn't process? Were Alice and Polly really about to sacrifice children, or was the whole thing just in Betty's head?
The waters of what is or isn't on the table get a bit murkier when you look at the bigger Archie Comics-based picture. Though they're officially not crossing over (not yet, at least) Riverdale's neighboring town of Greendale is dealing with witches, warlocks, and demons over in Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, so who's to say some of Greendale's magic didn't cross the city limits?
So far, we know that The Gargoyle King has something to do with Dilton and Ben's tabletop game, that it apparently either requires or encourages some sort of sacrifice, that Jughead may now be the only other person outside of Dilton and Ben who knows that something is wrong, and, while all of this is going on, Riverdale is now home to a cult. Maybe the two things are related--maybe they're not. But, either way, Riverdale's teen heroes are about to have their work cut out for them.
The Best Xbox One Deals Of The Week On The Microsoft Store
If you've beaten all the games you've been playing or are simply on the lookout for something new, you'll be pleased to hear a fresh set of digital Xbox One games is on sale on the Microsoft Store. Note that most of this week's sale items fall in the Deals with Gold category, which means you'll need an Xbox Live Gold subscription to take advantage of them. With that out of the way, here's what's on sale between now and October 15.
The list of Xbox One game deals is surprisingly short this week, but it contains a few gems. Among them is Red Dead Redemption, a backwards compatible Xbox 360 game that runs flawlessly on Xbox One. If you hurry, you might be able to play through the whole thing before Red Dead Redemption 2 launches on October 26. Though RDR2 is a prequel, you can expect plenty of tie-ins between the two games.
Also on sale is Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which is discounted to $45 / £41 this week for Gold members. It caps off Lara Croft's latest trilogy as she rushes to stop an apocalypse that her raiding of tombs set into motion. Check out our Shadow of the Tomb Raider review for details.
Other games of interest include the charming puzzle-platformer Unravel 2 for $15 / £13.50 (and if you haven't played the first installment, you can pick up both games for $20 / £16). Those looking to spend as little as possible can grab the artful puzzle game The Bridge or the surprisingly addictive word game Letter Quest: Grimm's Journey Remastered for $3 / £2.40 each, or Ubisoft's fairy tale-like RPG Child of Light for $4.50 / £3.60.
If none of those deals appeal to you, US customers can take a look at Best Buy's sale this week, where you'll find deals on some great physical Xbox One games.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-13-2018, 07:31 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Best Buy Weekly Game Deals: Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch
Best Buy's current weekly sale kicked off on October 7 and runs through October 13. That means the window of time is open for you to hit the retailer either online or in-store to pick up this week's selection of video game deals. What kinds of deals are we talking? Let's take a look.
If you buy Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (available October 12), you can save $10 on a 12-month subscription to PlayStation Plus. Ubisoft's toys-to-life game Starlink: Battle for Atlas comes out October 16. If you buy the starter pack, Best Buy will throw in an extra pilot figure for free (see our Starlink pre-order guide for more information). And while this one won't apply to everyone, if you purchase an Xbox One along with an eligible Samsung TV, you'll get a $100 gift card for free.
All Xbox One controller chargers are on sale this week. And if you buy an Xbox One, you can save $20 on an extra controller. Speaking of controllers, some models of PS4's DualShock 4 controllers are on sale for a few bucks off, and some of the new color designs, like Berry Blue and Sunset Orange, are in stock.
In addition to sales, a bunch of video games are getting permanent price drops at Best Buy this week. You can see the full list of video game price drops and weekly discounts here.
Welcome to the Weekender, your weekly look at the best new games, sales, and updates. It’s been a quiet week on the site as we cycle back through some of out buying guides, the only things of note you may want to catch up on is Stardew Valley‘s impending iOS release, and we revived our guide to the Best Games Like XCOM.
Meanwhile, we’ve got three new releases and a whole lot of sales to talk about. Read on!
Out Now
Grimvalor (iOS Universal) – Full Review Coming Soon!
The Dark Souls franchise has inspired an entire sub-genre of gritty, deadly, fast-twitch, action-RPGs. In large part, these games populate PC and console markets, but there’s a brand new option designed for mobile. Grimvalor by Direlight games is an action-RPG-platformer set in a gloomy fantasy world and featuring fast-paced combat. You jump, dodge, roll, and attack all the while learning your enemy’s attack pattern to best exploit it. You also die. A lot. At least I do. Naturally, as you progress you gain experience and levels, your abilities improve, and you gain new special attacks. Grimvalor is driven by a story that provides a nice narrative without getting in the way of the action. It’s a fun game, looks great, and the controls are rock solid. If you’re good at these skill-intensive action-RPGs you should definitely pick this one up.
Audio-based puzzle game ELOH is made by the creators of Old Man’s Journey and is all about letting the rhythm guide you to a solution. It’s laid back, with no ads, timers, move limits—just you, the puzzle, and the music. There are 85 levels to work through so it promises plenty of play for the price.
You’ve picked up and enjoyed premium, single-player CCG Lost Portal right? It features Magic: The Gathering like duels wrapped in a compelling role-playing game and is just a dollar for a limited time, a fraction of the price of a booster pack in one of those big-name CCGs. If you need more convincing check out my 5-star review.
The Reigns saga might just be the most successful indie franchise in the history of mobile gaming. The third installment, Reigns: Game of Thrones, is coming out next week (and available for pre-order now) and puts you on the throne of Westeros. It’s safe to say it’ll do well. In advance of this release the first two titles are on sale for just a buck each. This is the lowest price ever for Reigns Her Majesty.
Poly Bridge is an entertaining bridge-building simulator that made the jump to mobile over a year ago. If you’re a sim fan this one is worth picking up, especially for play on a tablet.
Wave Light Games is known for their impressive turn-based tactical RPGs and Strike Team Hydra is the latest, and first foray into the sci-fi realm. It features the same combat as the Demon’s Rise franchise and is on sale right now for Android users.
Overhaul Games is continuing its slate of sales on classic RPG ports. This time Icewind Dale is just $2, down from $10. This is by far the cheapest it’s been and is a great time to pick up a new, old RPG.
Yet another RPG sale… Jade Empire is half off. It’s inspired by the myths and legends of ancient China and full of places to explore and plots to uncover.
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic is a little dated at this point, but has long been enshrined as one of the best RPGs of all time. It’s also half off and worthy of inclusion in your mobile-game collection if you’re into Star Wars, RPGs, or nostalgia.
Seen anything else you like? Played any of the above? Let us know in the comments!
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-13-2018, 01:27 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Don't Miss Free GTA 5 Online Cash Available Now
Whether your GTA Online wallet is looking a little thin these days or you just want to add to your heaps of digital riches, you'll probably want to hop into Grand Theft Auto V's online mode this week. That's because GTA$ is available in abundance between now and October 15, and you don't even have to do anything special to get much of it. Here's a breakdown of what freebies to expect.
Just for logging into GTA Online between now and October 15, you'll get GTA$300,000 delivered to your Maze Bank account next week, by October 22. You can log right back out if you want, and you'll still get the bonus cash. In addition to the money, you'll also instantly unlock a Green Wireframe Body Suit for free (it looks kind of creepy, but hey, it's October).
That's not all, though--here's another big one. If you've already completed the Stone Hatchet and Double-Action Revolver challenges, you'll get an additional GTA$250,000 simply for logging in. But if you haven't completed those challenges yet and you beat them this week, you'll receive GTA$250,000 for each one. Better yet, you'll get another bonus of GTA$250,000 for each of those challenges next week, for a grand total of GTA$1 million.
Also between now and October 15, all four remixed Adversary Modes are rewarding double GTA$ and RP. That means you'll get a nice boost for playing Hunting Pack (Remix), Trading Places (Remix), Running Back (Remix), and Sumo (Remix). In addition, if you own a Nightclub, you'll get double Nightclub income all week long.
Finally, pre-ordering any digital edition of Red Dead Redemption 2 from the PlayStation Store or Microsoft Store gets you GTA$1,000,000 in GTA Online; all you have to do is log into GTA Online by October 15 to get it. And if you've already pre-ordered the game from either online store, just log in before October 15, and you'll get the same bonus. That cash will be deposited into your Maze Bank account between October 16-22.
In other GTA Online news, this week finds three new cars coming to the Southern San Andreas Super Autos catalog. They're the Karin Futo, Bollokan Prairie, and Imponte Ruiner. New liveries are also available for those cars, as well as for the Maibatsu Penumbra, Declasse Mamba, and Invetero Coquette Classic. You can find even more of this week's GTA Online news on the Rockstar blog.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-13-2018, 01:27 AM - Forum: Windows
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How to get the Windows 10 October 2018 Update
Earlier today, Yusuf Mehdi announced the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, the newest feature update for Windows 10. I’m excited to share our October 2018 Update rollout plans, how you can get the update today, plus some new update experience enhancements.
As with prior Windows 10 feature rollouts, our goal is to deliver the October 2018 Update in a phased and controlled rollout to provide a great update experience for all. We are beginning the global rollout out via Windows Update in the coming weeks. As with previous rollouts, we will use real-time feedback and telemetry to update your device when data shows your device is ready and will have a great experience. You don’t have to do anything to get the update; it will roll out automatically to you through Windows Update.
Once the update is downloaded to your device and ready to be installed we’ll notify you. You are then able to pick a time that won’t disrupt you to finish the installation and reboot. We are continually working to improve the update experience with each new release of Windows 10.
The last Windows 10 feature update rollout, the April 2018 Update, utilized machine learning (ML) to identify devices that were ready to update, incorporating key attributes like compatibility data. By leveraging machine learning we were able to safely rollout quickly, and as a result the April 2018 Update is now the most widely used version of Windows 10. Further, our artificial intelligence/ML targeted rollout approach led to the lowest call and online support requests for any release of Windows 10.
With the October 2018 Update, we are expanding our use of machine learning and intelligently selecting devices that our data and feedback predict will have a smooth update experience. We will be further enhancing the performance of our machine learning model by incorporating more device signals such as improved driver telemetry and weighting of key features such as anti-malware software as we broaden the phased rollout. As we did with the April 2018 Update, we will be proactively monitoring all available feedback and update experience data, making the appropriate product updates when we detect issues, and adjusting the rate of rollout as needed to assure all devices have the best possible update experience.
While we encourage you to wait until the update is offered to your device, if you’re an advanced user on an actively serviced version of Windows 10 and would like to install the Windows 10 October 2018 Update now, you can do so by manually checking for updates. In the Search box in the taskbar, type “Check for updates.” Once there, simply click “Check for updates” to begin the download and installation process. We are also streamlining the ability for users who seek to manually check for updates by limiting this to devices with no known key blocking issues, based on our ML model. If we detect that your device has a compatibility issue, we will not install the update until that issue is resolved, even if you “Check for updates.” You can also watch this video that outlines how to get the October 2018 Update.
If you’re using a Windows 10 PC at work, you will need to check with your IT administrator for details on your organization’s specific plans to update.
Improving the update experience
We have heard clear feedback that while our users appreciate that updates keep their devices secure, they find the update experience can sometimes be disruptive. The October Update includes several improvements to the update experience to offer more control and further reduce disruptions.
Intelligent scheduling of update activity: For our many mobile users on laptops and 2-in-1 devices, we have improved Window’s ability to know when a device will not be in use and perform certain update activities then, so as not to disrupt the user. This ability to update at night when plugged in and not on battery power will help hide update activity and minimize user disruption from updates. To further minimize disruption (in case your system is updating overnight), Windows also silences audio when it wakes for Windows Updates. If your device hasn’t updated for several nights, we will then suggest you plug in your device so that we can update at night.
Intelligent reboot scheduling: Windows Update will now automatically determine the least disruptive opportunity, outside of Active Hours, and will use an enhanced machine-learning-powered activity check that can determine if a user is going to be away for a while or is only stepping away temporarily.
Faster updates, less down time: We’ve also made further improvements to the feature update installation process and are targeting to further shorten the amount of time your device is offline during updates by up to 31% compared to the Windows 10 April 2018 Update (based on results from the Windows Insider Program) during the rollout of the October Update.
Smaller downloads: In the October Update we are introducing a new update package delivery design for monthly quality updates that creates a compact update package for easier and faster deployment. Users will benefit from the new small update size when installing applicable quality updates as they are 40% more efficient.
Enhanced privacy controls
We continue to focus on putting our customers in control so in the October Update we are enhancing the privacy choice and controls available to users to manage their privacy. We are now enabling each new account on a device to personally tailor the main privacy settings, instead of only the initial user who sets up the device. Furthermore, during new device setup, we now offer an activity history page that allows users the opportunity to opt in to sending activity history to Microsoft, to help improve cross device experiences. This allows users to pick up where they left off in various activities (such as a working on a Word document) on their other devices (Learn more about activity history).
Additionally, we are splitting Inking & typing personalization out from the Speech privacy page. This enables more granular control of your inking and typing personalization data by managing it separately from your online speech recognition data. Learn more about online speech recognition and inking & typing personalization.
Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted) released
For our commercial customers, the release of the Windows 10, version 1809 on October 2, 2018 marks the start of the servicing timeline for the Semi-Annual Channel (“Targeted”) release; and beginning with this release, all future feature updates of Windows 10 Enterprise and Education editions that release around September will have a 30 month servicing timeline. Just as we’re immediately beginning rolling out the October Update in phases to consumers, we recommend IT administrators do the same within their organizations to validate that apps, devices, and infrastructure used by their organization work well with the new release before broadly deploying. We use data to guide our phased consumer rollout and encourage commercial customers to do the same through Windows Analytics. The update is now available through Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), Windows Update for Business (WUfB) and System Center Configuration Manager’s (SCCM) phased deployment. For an overview of what’s new and what’s changed, please see What’s new for IT pros in Windows 10, version 1809.
Continuously evolving Windows 10 and the update experience
We’re excited to bring you the latest Windows 10 Features and improvements and hope that you enjoy the improved update experience. Please provide us feedback as we continue our journey to evolve the update experience, so that our great new product and security features and other enhancements arrive without disruption.
