Niantic touts 35 percent growth in active players for Pokemon Go
Newsbrief: Since Pokemon Go’s explosive launch, its playerbase has shot up and down on a rollercoaster ride that can only be expected when a game has become one of the world’s most popular MMORPGs. But in a company blog post today, Niantic has confirmed that its number of total active players has once again been ticking upward, touting a 35 percent growth since May of 2018.
The blog post, which also takes time to discuss the company’s partnership with the Knight Foundation, slipped in this statistic while discussing how players have been coming together for the last few months. In June, Niantic released Pokemon Go’s social update, which implemented a full friend system and gave players the ability to send gifts to their friends.
These new features, along with a slew of community and company-organized events, appear to be the driving factor behind the new growth.
Now Available on Steam Early Access – World of Warplanes
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Pre-Load of Open Beta Starts September 3, 1 am PT (10 am CET)
Open Beta Early Access Starts September 4, 1 am PT (10 am CET)
Open Beta Available for Everyone September 6, 1 am PT (10 am CET)
Open Beta Ends September 11, 7 am PT (4 pm CET)
Why are We Doing an Open Beta? The Battlefield V open beta lets us test the game running in a live environment with a high player count. We’re testing technical aspects like server stability as well as gameplay – things like weapon balancing and progression. It’s also an opportunity to collect feedback from participating players. Give us your comments and feedback on the open beta here on the Battlefield V forums.
Maps You’ll Fight On and Game Modes You’ll Tackle Among the snowy Norwegian landscapes of the Narvik map, you’ll be able to play both Conquest and two “days” of the Grand Operation Fall of Norway. Those are in-game days, by the way. Grand Operations contain several of these days, with one game mode featured in each. In Fall of Norway, Day 1 will be spent in the Airborne mode, where you’ll paradrop down to the battlefield and be on either side of a fight where explosives are deployed on control points. Day 2 features Breakthrough, where your team either attacks or defends vital sectors. In this mode, stay aggressive and tactical as an attacker, or use on-the-fly planning to keep the enemy at bay when defending.
Then there’s new scenery to explore: Rotterdam. You’ll fight in the streets of the Dutch city in its pristine, pre-war state before battles left it in devastation. Deploy on this map and try the signature Battlefield V game mode: Conquest. Returning to classic rules, Conquest is a 64-player fight where two teams fight for control over key flags on the map. Hold the majority of these points to drain the opposition’s score and win the day.
Vehicles and Reinforcements Five iconic World War II tanks and seven aircraft will be at your disposal in the Battlefield V open beta. Deploy as a Tanker and bring the big guns to the fight including the Valentine Mk VIII, Churchill Mk VII, Churchill Gun Carrier, Panzer IV, and the Tiger I. If you prefer soaring through the skies, support your team from above in the Spitfire Mk VA, Spitfire Mk VB, Blenheim Mk IF, Bf 109 G-2, Ju 87 Stuka B-2, Ju 87 Stuka B-1, and the C47.
In addition, you’ll be able to fend off flying foes with stationary and towable AA Guns. Tanks giving you trouble? Use the Anti-Tank Guns, also stationary or towable.
A Squad Leader who’s collected enough Squad Points will get the thrilling opportunity to unleash the powerful reinforcements. If you played any of the closed alphas, you’ll recognize the terrifying sight of the two heavy tanks: the British Churchill Crocodile and the German Sturmtiger.
Also returning from the Alphas are the JB-2 and V-1 Rocket Strikes that will send enemies flying. New this time around are the Supply Canister Drops. These are sources of health and ammunition, paradropped in the battlefield at the cost of 7,500 requisition points.
Classes and Combat Roles The four main classes are available in the Battlefield V open beta: Assault, Recon, Medic, and Support. Each class will have several combat roles in Battlefield V, and in the open beta you’ll get to try one for each class.
Every combat role comes with unique traits. If you, for instance, play as Recon, its sniper combat role will grant you the tactical retreat trait, meaning you’ll sprint faster in critical health states. The field medic combat role comes with a syringe revive trait, which allows you to revive all teammates (not only those in your squad) with your syringe.
Weapons Picking a class in the open beta also means – to some extent – picking a weapon type. The Support class wields the powerful light machine guns, such as KE7, Bren Gun, and FG-42 – but also the M30 Drilling Shotgun. Medic players can play the objective with the sub-machineguns STEN, Suomi KP/31, MP40, and EMP.
If you’re in the heat of the battle with the Assault class, use semi-automatic weapons like the Turner SMLE, M1A1 Carbine, and Gewehr 43, or the StG 44 assault rifle. If you’re further from battle with the Recon class, rack up headshots with bolt-action rifles – here you can choose between the Lee-Enfield No. 4 Mk I, ZH-29, or the Kar98k.
Add sidearms, melee weapons, grenades, and gadgets to this and you’ll have a powerful, versatile arsenal to try out in your Open Beta fights.
A Taste of the Tides of War With Tides of War, you and your personal soldiers of your Battlefield Vcompany will embark on a journey through themed, different chapters of World War II, filled with events. With each chapter of Tides of War, players will have all-new ways to play while also being able to earn the latest and greatest themed Battlefield V vanity items. The open beta will be your first early look at how parts of the Tides of War will work.
A five-part Tides of War event will be part of the open beta. Players who complete this challenge before Sunday, September 9 will earn an exclusive in-game dog tag in Battlefield V at launch. Note that the Shock Troops event is just a small taste of Tides of War – much, much more is coming. Make sure to give us your feedback on how the flow of playing these challenges feels like.
Enjoy the Open Beta Have fun in your battles on Narvik and Rotterdam. We hope you’ll enjoy the unexpected WWII moments that the open beta will feature. Also, remember that this is a chance for you to give feedback and help shape Battlefield V.
Mario Tennis Aces Update Hits The Court On September 19th
Today’s Nintendo Direct showcased a slew of new characters coming to Mario Tennis Aces, alongside a brand new game mode.
First, four new characters were revealed to be joining the roster as part of the Version 2 Update. These four characters include:
Birdo (All Around)
Shy Guy (Technical)
Koopa Paratroopa (Technical)
Petey Piranha (Powerful)
These four characters can be unlocked through online play, with more characters confirmed to be coming between now and June 2019.
A new Co-Op Challenge mode was also detailed during today’s presentation. The Co-Op Challenge will feature limited time online missions, rewarding new outfits and colour variations for certain characters. One of the examples shown of this during the Direct was a blue variant for Shy-Guy, along with new outfits for Chain Chomp and Boo.
The Version 2 update, containing the four new characters and co-op challenge, will be available beginning September 19th, so grab your tennis shoes and get ready to hit the court!
Nintendo Confirms That Animal Crossing is Coming To Switch Next Year
In closing out today’s Nintendo Direct, the company announced Animal Crossing would be coming to the Switch.
This marks the first time in over 10 years that a mainline Animal Crossing game has appeared on a Nintendo home console. The team here at Nintendo Life is, to put it mildly, excited about the release. All we know for now is the yet-untitled Animal Crossing title will come to the Switch in 2019.
What do you make of this development? Do you share our enthusiasm for the return of Mr. Resetti? Let us know in the comments below.
It’s been a few months since we talked about how we want to approach shipping games with controversial content. In that blog post we talked about some of the tools we felt we needed to build and we thought it would be good to give you an update on where we are. We’ve done a number of things since that post, some which may seem unrelated, but if we are going to maintain an open view of what gets onto the Store, then you’ll need good tools to find the games you want, as well as avoid the things you don’t.
The first set of our changes focused on improving how you can find new games. We’ve added Developer & Publisher homepages so you can easily get from a game you love to others made by the same creators, or follow them if you want to be notified whenever they say or make something. We significantly reworked how our Upcoming Games Lists functioned, so they’re much better at showing you upcoming games that you might be interested in, or upcoming extra content for a game you’ve been playing a bunch.
A second set of changes was focused on improving how you can ignore things you’re not interested in. In the past you’ve been able to ignore individual games or product types (like VR, or Early Access) you didn’t want to see again. But now we’ve added ways for you to also easily ignore individual developers, publishers, and curators.
We’ve also improved the game tag filters on your account preferences. Previously, it was a list of 3 game tags that you wanted to see less of. We’ve now increased the number of tags you can list to 10, and made them into a harder filter – in short, the Store now assumes you want to ignore all the games that feature any of those tags in their most popular tags, instead of just using them as suggestions to our recommendation engine.
We did our best to ensure you can safely ignore swaths of games in the store, but still find them if you look directly via the search tool. If the game that we think you’re searching for is hidden due to your mature content settings, we identify that and let you know in a safe way. For example, if you have your preferences set to hide mature games with violence, but you search for The Witcher 3, you’ll see this:
If there are games that your search should contain that you’re ignoring for other reasons (due to its developer, or game tags, for instance), we’ll still include it in the list, but we’ll blur it out and when you hover over it you can see why it is darkened. For example, if you’ve chosen to ignore games by Valve, and then search for Left 4 Dead, you’ll see this:
A third set of changes focused on allowing you to have better control over the kinds of mature content you see. So far, the Store has allowed you to filter out games that feature Frequent Violence/Gore or Nudity/Sexual Content. After looking at the mature content in submissions we’re receiving, and at some games that are already in the Store, we’ve added two more options. The first is a general Mature Content filter. We often see developers who tell us their game contains mature content, but not sex or violence, and you can now filter those games out if you wish. The second is an Adults Only filter, which allows you to filter out games that feature explicit sexual content.
We’re also now requiring developers of games with violent or sexual content to describe the content of their game, and we’re using that information to help you decide whether a game is something you’re comfortable with. We think the context of how content is presented is important and giving a developer a place to describe and explain what’s in their game gives you even more information when browsing and considering a purchase. When you’re looking at the store page of a game with mature content, we’ll display that developer-written description to you. We’re also displaying it on the interstitial page we show you if you ever follow a direct link from outside steam to a game that should be filtered for you:
Finally, we’ve continued our efforts in removing bad actors from the Store. Last year we made changes to Trading Cards to address the ways a small set of developers were producing ‘games’ that generated revenue without anyone actually buying and playing them. Recently we made more changes to address other ways these bad actors were continuing to do it. We’ve also permanently banned several developers of games that we felt fit the “straight up trolling” description of games we’re not going to allow onto the Store. There’s actually a surprisingly small number of individuals behind almost all of these games, and their bans have been a straightforward series of decisions, thus far. You can read more about the shorthand of “straight up trolling,” and the process of making those decisions in the Q&A below.
With these sets of changes, we hope you have a better sense of how we’re approaching building a store that works for all developers and players. There’s still plenty of work to do. In our previous post we identified a range of things, from parental controls to tools for developers to manage their communities. In addition, some of the changes described in this post will require more options when we see new kinds of content in game submissions. Going forward, we aim to continue this strategy of shipping features as they’re finished, and posting periodic updates as to the nuts and bolts and the thinking behind their development.
Q&A
Q: What about games that are already in the store that include mature content?
A: Every developer will be encouraged to update their game with the customer-facing descriptions outlined above but in most cases Valve moderators will going back through the catalog and making sure games are complying with the new requirements.
Q: What do you mean, in practice, when you say you won’t ship games that are “outright trolling?” That seems vague.
A: It is vague and we’ll tell you why. You’re a denizen of the internet so you know that trolls come in all forms. On Steam, some are simply trying to rile people up with something we call “a game shaped object” (ie: a crudely made piece of software that technically and just barely passes our bar as a functioning video game but isn’t what 99.9% of folks would say is “good”). Some trolls are trying to scam folks out of their Steam inventory items, others are looking for a way to generate a small amount of money off Steam through a series of schemes that revolve around how we let developers use Steam keys. Others are just trying to incite and sow discord. Trolls are figuring out new ways to be loathsome as we write this. But the thing these folks have in common is that they aren’t actually interested in good faith efforts to make and sell games to you or anyone. When a developer’s motives aren’t that, they’re probably a troll.
Our review of something that may be “a troll game” is a deep assessment that actually begins with the developer. We investigate who this developer is, what they’ve done in the past, their behavior on Steam as a developer, as a customer, their banking information, developers they associate with, and more. All of this is done to answer the question “who are we partnering with and why do they want to sell this game?” We get as much context around the creation and creator of the game and then make an assessment. A trend we’re seeing is that we often ban these people from Steam altogether instead of cherry-picking through their individual game submissions. In the words of someone here in the office: “it really does seem like bad games are made by bad people.”
This doesn’t mean there aren’t some crude or lower quality games on Steam, but it does mean we believe the developers behind them aren’t out to do anything more than sell a game they hope some folks will want to play.
Q: Sometimes I see blurred out games on my Store front page. Why is that?
A: There are a number of sections on the front page that we fill with games, and to ensure the servers behind it don’t melt down as everyone tries to use it, we do a lot of data caching. This works great for data sets that we can easily pre-compute – so if there’s a game you shouldn’t see due to your mature content filters, you’ll never see it on the front page. But if you’ve chosen to do some more personal filtering of particular developers, or specific games, we can’t do that pre-computation as easily. As a result, it’s possible you’ll see a blurred out game on the front page because your personal filters should cause it to be hidden. In practice, though, this will only happen if you’ve filtered out so many games that it can’t find enough to fill a section of the front page, and again, like the search results, we’ll blur that game out and tell you why.
Q: Why do you KEEP asking my damn age throughout the store?
A: We’re with you on this. Unfortunately, many rating agencies have rules that stipulate that we cannot save your age for longer than a single browsing session. It’s frustrating, but know we’re filling out those age gates too.
This week at Bungie, we prepare for our Last Wish.
We’re deep into week two of Forsaken. Many of you have finished your hunt and served justice to Uldren. That was just the beginning. The bravest Guardians have already visited the Dreaming City and begun to uncover its secrets. Tomorrow, fireteams will make their first attempts at defeating our latest raid, Last Wish.
As with every raid, we will be watching the streams and cheering you on. The completion of the raid is not even the endcap of what the Dreaming City has to offer. There are many more mysteries to uncover once the final boss has been slain.
Raid Rewards
Last week, we showed you a preview of the new raid World First title belts. For more details, see our official rules. That’s not the only thing we have lined up for the most hardcore raiders to immortalize their accomplishment—the World First team is also guaranteed to all receive the One Thousand Voices Exotic, which is a rare drop from the final encounter.
If you think you may have finished first, make sure you loot the final chest after defeating the final encounter to ensure both your rewards. After that, return to Orbit to finish the activity.
In addition to the extra rewards for the World First team, any player who beats the raid within the first 24 hours will receive the “Wish Ascended” emblem.
That’s not all! Any player who beats the Last Wish before 10 AM PDT on Tuesday September 18, 2018 will have access to a personalized Last Wish raid jacket available for purchase through the Bungie Rewards program. Players who would like to participate in this offer need to make sure they complete the raid, claim the in-game Triumph, and then claim the code on the Bungie Rewards page BEFORE the weekly reset. You will have until September 30 to use the code to make the purchase.
There are many more secrets to uncover in the raid and ways to showcase your accomplishments to other Guardians in Destiny 2. We’re excited for the race to begin and can’t wait to see who comes out on top.
Pumping Iron
Not into raiding? That’s OK. Lord Saladin returns next week to challenge you in the ways of Iron Banner! Things may feel a bit different for Guardians returning to the fray. For the first time in Destiny 2 multiplayer, your Power will matter. You are now in an arms race with the Guardians you face off against, so make sure to equip your most powerful gear.
Game Mode: Control
Begins: Tuesday, September 18
Ends: Tuesday, September 25
Enabling Power advantages is not the only change coming to Iron Banner. Lord Saladin will present seven weekly bounties for you to complete. Each bounty rewards you with an Iron Banner-themed reward, and two of these bounties in particular grant powerful rewards. There are no exceptions: All Iron Banner-themed weapons and armor have the chance to be rewarded when bounties are completed.
The original Iron Lord will also be offering armor for direct purchase, as well as two weapons with unique rolls per event. You can gain access to purchase these items by completing their associated bounties.
If you have tokens left over from Season 3, these may be redeemed in Season 4 for reputation packages. As with bounties, all Iron Banner-themed weapons and armor may be earned through reputation packages from Lord Saladin.
To wrap up rewards, post-match drops are also returning to Iron Banner. Both Crucible and Iron Banner rewards will drop at match completion.
Coming with Iron Banner at 10 AM PDT on 9/18, a reprised Crucible map will also become available. This map will be instantly available in Crucible playlists for all Destiny 2 players. Owners of Forsaken will also gain access to this map in private matches. We will reveal the map on Monday, so stay tuned to all of our social channels for a preview.
Beautiful Things
At Bungie, we strive to build beautiful worlds, and Forsaken is no exception. From the Tangled Shore to the Dreaming City, the weapons, armor, and characters are all meticulously crafted by our talented artists. We have a few of their favorites to share here, and each link below will take you to their portfolios, which offer more of their inspiring creations.
If you enjoyed this art gallery, check back next week. We will be featuring artists from our partner High Moon Studios.
Bounty Hunters
It’s about time for another Bungie Bounty. Instead of just doing one, we thought we would place several bounties on players from all around the globe. We are going to run several bounties on different players each week. They will span across all three platforms and feature players from regions around the world. Some will be playing Crucible, others will be playing Gambit.
The rules are the same. Find the targets during the two-hour blocks their bounty is active, and defeat them. If you win, you will be rewarded the “Sign of Mutual Combat” emblem.
We plan on running bounties from September 17 through October 21, 2018. We will keep you updated with weekly schedules. Here is who is up next week.
Euro Gamers
It’s time for another outbound journey. For the second year in a row, we have an away team prepping to attend EGX in Birmingham, UK. We can’t wait to have another chance to meet Guardians from Europe!
Destiny 2: Forsaken will have a stand on site with a chance to play Gambit or the Warden of Nothing Strike. The loot for all players will be a code to earn our event attendance emblem – you know, the ones you see available for auction online.
Here’s when you can expect to find us:
We hope to see you there.
Patch Note Preview
Next week, we will be deploying Hotfix 2.0.3. Here is a short preview of some of the issues being addressed.
Fixing an issue that impacted weapon recoil on PC
Fixing an issue where the Traveler’s Chosen sidearm had no dismantle or vault functionality
The Traveler’s Chosen will appear as the damaged version in character inventory once this change is live
Fixing an issue where daily clan bounties were not rotating properly each day
Players may be given the option to reconnect to Competitive matches when encountering errors that remove them to the login screen
Make sure to follow @BungieHelp for details on when our next deployment becomes available.
Optimal Prime
Destiny 2 Hotfixes 2.0.2 and 2.0.2.1
This week, we deployed Hotfixes 2.0.2 and 2.0.2.1 to players in Destiny 2. Cumulatively, these updates resolved a number of issues discovered post-launch with the sandbox and economy of Destiny 2: Forsaken, as well as provided rewards to players who completed challenges after the erroneous weekly reset on Saturday, September 8.
To see the full patch notes for these releases, players should follow the links below:
Additionally, following today’s Hotfix 2.0.2.1, some players may observe bizarre behavior in their Director screen. Affected players are encouraged to close their Destiny 2 application and relaunch. Players who continue to be affected should try clearing their console cache.
Destiny 2 Update 2.0.3
Next Tuesday, September 18, Destiny 2 Update 2.0.3 will be deployed to players. Following Hotfixes 2.0.2 and 2.0.2.1, Update 2.0.3 will continue to resolve issues that directly affect the game experience.
Prime and Powerful
Over the past week, we have observed confusion from players regarding the differences between powerful gear and Prime Engrams. Listed below is information that we expect will define these loot sources more clearly.
Powerful Gear
Awarded to players directly for completing eligible activities, challenges, bounties, etc. These will list “Powerful Gear” as the reward in their tooltip and can be pursued deterministically.
Provides gear as soon as it drops; does not need to be decrypted by a Cryptarch.
Provides a boost based on the player’s current best Power level.
Prime Engrams
Require the Prime Attunement buff that players receive from achieving character level 50 and speaking to Master Rahool in the Tower.
Can be earned randomly by defeating challenging enemies or by completing Crucible matches.
Prime Attunement will enter a cooldown when a Prime Engram is awarded. This cooldown will reset over time, and players may then earn another Prime Engram.
Appear in the player’s engram inventory when they are obtained; they must be decrypted by a Cryptarch.
Provide a boost based on the player’s current best Power level.
Also regarding Prime Engrams: Since the launch of Destiny 2: Forsaken, we have become aware of an exploit that negatively impacts a player’s ability to earn Prime Engrams over time. After monitoring player concerns, we would like to once again state that players earning Prime Engrams under normal gameplay conditions should not expect to see the negative effects of this exploit. Happy hunting.
Gambit Suspensions and Disconnects
Since the launch of Destiny 2: Forsaken, we have become aware of issues causing exceptional load times and disconnects in the Gambit playlist. To mitigate erroneous restrictions due to these issues, quitter penalties in the Gambit playlist have been temporarily disabled.
For information on the resolution of this issue when it is available, please stay tuned to our News page.
Destiny 2: Forsaken Known Issues
In addition to the items listed above, Destiny Player Support is tracking the latest issues reported by players on the #Help forum. Provided below is a brief overview of the latest known issues in Destiny 2: Forsaken.
Offering to the Oracle: We are investigating issues retaining the Offering to the Oracle in inventories. To avoid this, players should log into all characters in Destiny 2, or log into the Destiny Companion app, before acquiring the item. Players should also make sure their consumable inventory is not full.
WANTED: Combustor Valus Bounty: We are investigating an issue where some players in a fireteam don’t receive credit for killing the Combustor Valus and then can’t replay the adventure.
Various Trophies/Achievements: We are investigating issues with some trophies and achievements not unlocking for new players.
Crucible Kill Feed: We are investigating an issue where players can’t see their Crucible kill feed. Players may want to clear the console cache for a possible workaround.
HDR Issues: We are monitoring reports where players who use HDR are having issues.
Crucible Drops: We are investigating an issue where some players do not receive any loot drops for completing Crucible matches.
Hawthorne Clan Bounties: We are investigating an issue where Hawthorne doesn’t update her daily clan bounties.
Traveler’s Chosen Sidearm and Other Starting Weapons: We are investigating an issue where the Traveler’s Chosen Sidearm and other starting weapons cannot be dismantled or stored in the vault. Players are encouraged to not retrieve the Sidearm, as it will remain in their Kinetic weapon slot until a fix is deployed. Additionally, new players should reach the Farm before using a character boost so their weapons don’t remain in their inventory.
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It’s movie time. If your movie gets chosen, we will give you a special emblem in Destiny 2. To enter, just send your movie to the Creations page. Here are this week’s favorites.
Movie of the Week: Drewsky & Baken’s Dualtage
Honorable Mention: Anti-Air Missile
We’re glad to hear that you’re enjoying Forsaken. I know, as I am writing this, that I am planning out which powerful rewards I am going for tonight when I get home. Maybe I will see you in the Crucible, or in a strike. Tomorrow is going to be a ton of fun. Remember, the completion of the raid is only the beginning.
As we gear up the for the first ever Open Networking Summit Europe event, Amsterdam, September 25-27, it’s becoming clear to me just how far we’ve come this year since the formation of LF Networking. With new major operators joining, like Deutsche Telekom, and others requiring open source project automation tools in their RFPs, like Orange, it’s inspiring to witness just how much the networking industry is rallying around open source and incorporating it as a key element of their business strategies.
…For those who can’t make it to Amsterdam this time, I wanted to share the good news that the next three Open Source Networking Days (OSN Days) tours will be coming this fall to China, APAC, and North America. Here are confirmed cities and dates so far. Click on the links to learn more and register. Check back soon to main OSN Days website for updates on the others.
You are a living weapon. Unwillingly unchained by the Warden, the player's skills are put to the test, given only the instruction that they must stop the end of the world. With a story the player must piece together themselves, the central character sets off with no memory of their past.
Other characters in the game may shed light on the situation, but the reality is not always clear, as characters are always operating on their own agendas. Use your diverse arsenal of ranged and melee weapons to clear your path as you explore dark sci-fi interconnected worlds in your quest for truth and salvation.
Play on outdoor rinks and journey from the ponds to the pros in new game modes. Compete with and against 200 of the greatest hockey legends to ever hit the ice, highlighted by Wayne Gretzky. Powered by cutting-edge new gameplay technology, experience explosive-edge skating that delivers more acceleration, speed and responsiveness.
