Summary of the more than 1000 changes across the entire game:
– Fixed an exploit that could lag or crash a server by spawning infinite pistols. – Rate-limit commands to prevent client command DOS attacks against servers. – Fixed the ability to bypass the damage filter on the gas station’s rolling door by going idle. – Fixed avoiding damage from the charger by toggling in/out of idle while being body slammed. – Fixed clearing the boomer screenspace effect by taking a break. – Fix griefing exploit where a survivor would fire the grenade launcher and then switch to spectator to skip the friendly-fire check – Record the team of a vote caller at the time the vote is called, so if the caller disconnects the other players can still have their votes checked against the caller’s team. Fixes team-based votes locking out new voters if the caller disconnects. – Build a map load command on the server instead of directly executing the command that’s received as part of the server reservation packet. Fixed potential server takeover exploit. – Fixed SI ghosts playing jump landing sounds – Prevent players from joining the survivor team as a character already occupied by a human player. – Marked “voice_all_icons” (used for testing) as a cheat command. Clear the voice state whenever the value changes so voice bubbles don’t stay visible when switching between cheat enabled/disabled games. – Marked cl_survivor_light_* cvars as cheats. – Made survivor_teammatefocus_* convars replicated, so they can still be used as a legitimate way to play but are forced to be consistent for all clients. – Removed a three-second window where an infected player could force a faster transition from the observer state to the ghost state by pressing a key. – Don’t spam open/close door client commands while the door is in the process of opening or closing.
– Fixed spawn areas permanently excluded from spawn set when a survivor dies, idles, or changes character. – Fixed mobs unable to spawn if survivors stand in specific areas during a finale. – Always restore the default pain pills decay rate when the director resets. – Fixed the L4D1 survivor gestures not playing on dedicated servers. – Allow SI to destroy breakables in finale areas during survival and scavenge modes once the round begins. – Fixed breakables sometimes failing to unblock the nav when they break. – Don’t stumble the charger if the charge attack starts while already in contact with the victim. – Fixed L4D1 survivors not selecting their canonical preferred weapons when scavenging. – Allow survivors to pick up ammo while fighting a tank or in close combat if they are less than 40% full. – Bots will use pills only if health 50 – Bots consider health to be critical at 30 (was 40). This means real health must be 5 before a bot will use first-aid over a full temp health buffer. – Fixed a few cases where specials may choose to wait in an ambush position when the game mode says they should be assaulting the survivors – If a chase path that’s trying to lead the target fails, fall back to a non-leading path. Leading paths that run off a cliff aren’t always handled properly and can cause the target to be treated as unreachable. – Revised the logic for fitting both tank and witch spawn locations into the flow. Previously they would frequently collide and the witch would get culled; now they should always find some combination of spawn locations that fit the within the map constraints. – Fixed the director’s “arc value” not always handling campaigns shorter than five maps correctly.
– Allow competitive achievements (versus, scavenge) to also be earned in Versus Survival. – Incapped survivors are counted as escaped if they’re in the rescue vehicle. – Enabled CS weapons for all players – Viewmodels use the skin value of the world pickup model, same as gas cans. – When a weapon is holstered, transfer the current skin to the addon model. – Clear the viewmodel fire layer when performing a melee attack to fix the stuck helping hand bug. – Fixed the mp5’s melee shove canceling its reload animation. – Turned on boomer gibs by default, except in low violence mode. – Restored burn skins for infected – Fixed witch kills getting recorded as common zombie kills in the stats. – Increased “ammo_shotgun_max” from 56 to 72
– Removed “Single Player” option from the main menu carousel. – Enabled the “Private Game” option in lobby permissions. – Added a rematch vote to the end of versus survival matches. – Fixed voice chat not working in lobbies. – No vote cooldown in singleplayer modes – Allow “Change all-talk” vote in versus survival mode. – cl_downloadfilter defaults to “none” – Fixed genericpanellist not drawing panels when they extended beyond both the top and bottom of the frame. – Suppress warnings about func_orator not having a model
AND MORE – Hundreds of fixes and tweaks to animations, models, dialog, map layouts and exploits.
Steam Input – Added a Joystick style action that can receive console-style aim assist – Fixed the “Turn Around” action – Added a “Reset Camera” action for use with motion controls – Rescaled mouse sensitivities so that the adjustment sliders in the configurator have more useful range – Fix controller input on Orders/Response Quick Menu’s – Fixed controllers not being able to skip to the end of the post-campaign stats scrawl
SCRIPTING AND MODDING
– CHANGES – Run mapspawn_addon.nut for all active addons after the base version runs. – Run scriptedmode_addon.nut and director_base_addon.nut for all active addons after the base version runs. – Support for new population file overrides for the base game mode. So the load order is now “population.txt”, “population_<basemode>.txt”, “population_.txt”, which each script optionally overriding place definitions from the previous files. – Any time the addon load order changes, both the director and the nav mesh immediately refresh their population data. Fixes campaigns using the wrong populations and errors from precaching the wrong models. – Func_nav_attribute_region and point_nav_attribute_region will remove attributes if the spawn key “remove_attributes” is set to true. – Allow scripts to force the witch bride spawn, regardless of the variant setting – “InterceptChat” can return false to prevent sending the message to other clients. – “DamageType” field of “ScriptAllowDamage” is now read/write, so it can be used to change the damage type. – Fixed being unable to create subdirectories in /left4dead2/ems – New game event “player_left_safe_area”, called every time the first survivor leaves the start area regardless of map number, restarts, etc. – Added the userid of the offending player to “triggered_car_alarm” game event. – Fixed script funcs SetContext and SetContextNum not recognizing that a duration of zero means ‘forever’. To avoid breaking existing scripts, the ‘forever’ parameter is now -1. – Track convars set from script so they can be reverted when the session ends. – New gender “police”, can spawn & drop tonfas like the riot control commons, but doesn’t have the protective gear. – Added a new keyfield “weaponskin” to item and weapon spawners to set the skin of the spawned item or weapon. Supported by “weapon_item_spawn”, “weapon_melee_spawn”, “weapon_scavenge_item_spawn”. – Removed spurious parenthesis from “ToKVString” and “_tostring” script functions – Director now calls into an optional script function “GetCustomScriptedStageProgress” during FINALE_CUSTOM_SCRIPTED stages. The function should return a value from 0-1 to indicate the completion percentage of the stage. The default time-based completion percentage is passed in as a parameter. – Added weapon spawners and configurable spawner entries for CS weapons.</basemode>
– NEW FUNCTIONS CBaseEntity GetMaxHealth SetMaxHealth GetModelName SetModel( modelname )
CBaseAnimating GetAttachmentBone, Get the named attachement’s parent bone index GetAttachmentOrigin, Get the attachment id’s origin as vector GetAttachmentAngles, Get the attachment id’s angles as p,y,r vector GetBoneOrigin, Get the bone id’s origin vector GetBoneAngles, Get the bone id’s angles as a p,y,r vector LookupActivity, Get the named activity index LookupBone, Get the named bone index LookupSequence, Looks up a sequence by sequence name or activity name SetSequence, Set a sequence by id ResetSequence, Reset a sequence by id. If the id is different than the current sequence, switch to the new sequence GetSequence, Get the current sequence id GetSequenceActivityName, Get the activity name for a sequence by id GetSequenceName, Get a sequence name by id GetSequenceDuration, Get a sequence duration by id GetBodygroup, Get a bodygroup by id GetBodygroupName, Get the bodygroup id’s name FindBodygroupByName, Find a bodygroup id by name GetBodygroupPartName, Get name by group and part SetBodygroup GetModelScale SetModelScale, (scale, change_duration) Changes a model’s scale over time SetPoseParameter, (id, value) Sets a pose parameter value
CBaseFlex GetCurrentScene, Returns the instance of the oldest active scene entity (if any). GetSceneByIndex, Returns the instance of the scene entity at the specified index. PlayScene, Play the specified .vcd file. LookupAttachment IsSequenceFinished
CTerrorPlayer DropItem, Make the player drop an item/weapon SwitchToItem, Make the player switch to an item/weapon SnapEyeAngles, Sets the view angles GiveItemWithSkin( itemname, skin )
Global DebugDrawBoxAngles, Draw a debug oriented box (cent, min, max, angles(p,y,r), vRgb, a, duration) ClientPrint, Print a client message PrecacheSound EmitAmbientSoundOn, Play named ambient sound on an entity. StopAmbientSoundOn, Stop named ambient sound on an entity. GetSoundDuration, Returns float duration of the sound. Takes soundname and optional actormodelname. SetFakeClientConVarValue, Sets a USERINFO client ConVar for a fakeclient ScreenShake, Start a screenshake with the following parameters. vecCenter, flAmplitude, flFrequency, flDuration, flRadius, eCommand( SHAKE_START = 0, SHAKE_STOP = 1 ), bAirShake ScreenFade, Start a screenfade with the following parameters. player, red, green, blue, alpha, flFadeTime, flFadeHold, flags PrecacheModel IsModelPrecached IsSoundPrecached IsDedicatedServer GetListenServerHost HasPlayerControlledZombies “AllowFallenSurvivorItem”, optionally reject items from spawning on the fallen survivor. ShouldPlayBossMusic
– SCRIPT ENTITIES “script_func_button” – spawn a func_button from script via extents. “script_clip_vphysics” – structured the same as other script-based trigger entities. “script_nav_attribute_region” – uses extents instead of brushes.
– RESPONSE RULES – Added survivor criteria “InRescueVehicle”, set to 1 when the vehicle has arrived and the survivor is inside. – Added “NumberOfTeamAlive”, “NumberOfTeamIncapacitated”, and “NumberOfTeamDead” to the set of response rules global criteria.
– MISSION KEYS – Added a mission key “allow_boss_mix” to the “versus_boss_spawning” block to bypass a restriction on having both a tank and a witch in the first and last maps of a campaign. – Created variant keys to set a different character model HunterVariant SmokerVariant BoomerVariant BoometteVariant SpitterVariant JockeyVariant ChargerVariant WitchVariant
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 09-27-2020, 10:47 AM - Forum: Lounge
- No Replies
How to get nearly 250k Steam wishlists, The Riftbreaker way
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Gamasutra: Simon Carless’s Blog – How to get nearly 250k Steam wishlists, The Riftbreaker way
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Welcome back to the newly rechristened GameDiscoverCo newsletter! This time around, I had a chance to talk to Pawel Lekki of EXOR Studios, the veteran Steam dev that’s also put out titles like Zombie Driver HD and X-Morph: Defense. We specifically talked about his upcoming game The Rift Breaker, which has amassed nearly 250,000 pre-release wishlists on Steam to date, a very impressive tally.
Historically, his studio’s titles haven’t, perhaps, been the kind to get artsy indie kudos. But they have been rather successful with the core Steam audience – enough so to keep Pawel’s studio based in Poland ticking over just fine.
And it looks like with The Riftbreaker, which is an intriguing mix of genres backed by a relentless promotional machine, EXOR is taking things to another level. So I thought I’d quiz Pawel on how he did it (so far – the game releases later this year, and he’s sure to be honest about the post-launch results!):
Q: Tell us a little bit about The Riftbreaker and why you think it might be standing out in the market? (Is it fans of your previous titles, does it have a unique proposition, etc?)
The Riftbreaker is a combination of multiple game genres – action RPG, hack & slash, base building, survival, exploration, resource management, and tower defense. Our fans describe the game as an intense mashup of Starcraft, They Are Billions and Diablo.
The Riftbreaker is built using our proprietary game engine – The Schmetterling. It allows us to deliver swarms of thousands of enemies, huge sprawling bases with hundreds of defensive towers, as well as very precise and responsive direct hand-to-hand melee combat.
I think that the current generation of gamers is looking for games with very broad possibility spaces. If you take a look at Fortnite, there’s precise combat, some base building, and a lot of customization. One of our primary design goals with The Riftbreaker is to let players do a lot of fun stuff in the game. I think that constraining games to singular genres is outdated.
Q: From initial launch of Steam page to the launch of the Prologue, was the game already tracking well – and if so, can you identify things you did to help that?
We announced the game on March 8th, 2019 with a CG teaser trailer that we published on the PlayStation Blog, Xbox Wire, and sent out to traditional press outlets. The trailer was well received and the initial reception was really good.
A day later we had a Daily Deal on Steam that pointed to a custom Steam Curator list that featured all of our games, including The Riftbreaker. We accumulated ~8k wishlists in the first month after announcing. We were very happy with that result as we compared it to our previous game – X-Morph: Defense – which had 10.5k wishlists on launch after nine months of marketing.
The results of the first 2 months of marketing The Riftbreaker.
We continued supporting the marketing effort by participating in trade shows (PAX East, GDC, E3, Gamescom, PAX West), constant social media presence (at least 2 updates per week, plus targeting Imgur) and interactive gameplay streaming (through Twitch and Mixer extensions). Our marketing goal from the start was to constantly release smaller updates about the game, intertwined with larger news.
One of the most important marketing pillars was sharing the game with streamers and YouTubers. Trade shows didn’t translate directly to wishlists, but they helped us in establishing contacts with a number of influencers that have played an early build of the game during these events. We sent out the first preview build on November 14th to a small group of people that we’ve met directly during these events.
The initial videos about the Riftbreaker were very positive and helped us gather additional 12k wishlists over the next 2 weeks. By the end of 2019, we had accumulated 50K wishlists, our initial goal for the game’s launch.
[SIMON’S NOTE: obviously, wishlist quality can vary. But partly what I take away from this great 2019 start is that Exor had a naturally attractive game to ‘core’ players, and were trying all kinds of different things to bump the numbers aggressively. And it worked.]
Of course, we didn’t stop there. In 2019, press coverage resulted in minimal wishlist gains, but in 2020 we finally got some positive results. Up to March 2020, we didn’t even have a gameplay trailer. When we finally had it ready, we decided to release it through PC Gamer as a 24 hour exclusive.
It turned out to be a very good move, as we received a lot of high-quality traffic directly from the site, as well as from other follow up articles. Another press coverage surprise was a glowing Eurogamer preview that came as a follow-up article to our presence in the Digital Dragons Indie Showcase.
Once again, participation in that show didn’t provide direct day-to-day results, but the exposure that followed after more than made up for that. All of those actions helped us to accumulate a total of 95k wishlists up to June 15th, 2020 – the day before the Steam Summer Festival.
The Riftbreaker’s wishlists graph from January 1st 2020 to August 14th 2020.
The Steam Summer Festival featured upcoming games based on the number of wishlists that they had already accumulated and this is when our grassroots marketing efforts have really paid off. In order to participate in the event, we had to prepare a playable demo of The Riftbreaker.
We created a tailor-made experience, spending about 2 months on polishing the vertical slice demo. In the end, The Riftbreaker was one of the most popular games during the festival, and we accumulated additional 42k wishlists thanks to the event.
The demo’s reception was very positive, but it was available only during the Festival. The results that we achieved motivated us to release a standalone game prologue which would include additional game lore and story build-up for the full game.
We decided to spend an additional six weeks on polishing the demo to the standards of a normal game launch. We also translated all of the in-game text into 10 languages. The day before we released the prologue on Steam, we had accumulated over 146k wishlists, and The Riftbreaker was in the top 50 most wishlisted games on Steam.
Q: Explain your planning around the launch of the Prologue alongside a Daily Deal – how were you able to set that up and what effect did it have?
We launched The Riftbreaker Prologue on August 5th at 22:00 CEST without any special announcement on our channels and without prior marketing of any kind. At the same time our partners in China (Surefire Games) started a marketing campaign in mainland China in their local social and media channels.
On August 6th we launched a custom built EXOR Studios Developer Sale as a Daily Deal, with 24 hour front page featuring on Steam. The entire sale would be set to run for 14 days. At the same time, we also updated and enabled The Riftbreaker Demo as part of the main Steam page. Both the Prologue and the Demo are now identical.
Since August 5th, The Riftbreaker Prologue was downloaded around 180,000 times. Other notable milestones:
– The Riftbreaker Demo was downloaded 115,000 times (EXOR Sale 20k + Summer Festival 50k + via an AMD newsletter 13k times + 23k organic downloads) – In total, over 295,000 peaople have downloaded the Riftbreaker Prologue experience – The Riftbreaker Prologue has an Overwhelmingly Positive rating with 95% positive reviews. – During the recent EXOR Developer Sale, we gained 56,000 wishlists for The Riftbreaker, with a total of ~235,000 wishlists as of September 21st, 2020. – The Riftbreaker: Prologue gained 18k wishlists and ~7,900 followers in its own right – Revenue across our existing products during the EXOR Developer Sale was 30% higher than for our previous Daily Deal, which was on December 4th 2019. – The exposure that we received on Steam also drew a lot of external traffic like this Twitch stream by Lirik (2.6 million followers on Twitch).
Q: After this all happened, what ‘base rate’ of wishlists did the game settle back onto, and was it more than before? Do you think this is down to Steam visibility, more people seeing the demo via streamers, or both?
To be honest, it’s hard to pinpoint a base rate for wishlists after this event because we’ve been running all kinds of promotions since then. But as of September 21st it looks like it’s settling at ~400 wishlists per day, vs ~80 wishlists per day before The Prologue.
We’ve had some visibility spikes when The Riftbreaker was covered by a major Chinese influencer on Bilibili, or during Gamescom. There’s also been a lot of additional external organic traffic that is hard to pinpoint. It looks like a lot of people are simply talking about the game to their friends, plus there’s increased organic traffic from Steam.
[SIMON’S NOTE: I think a real sign that a game may do well isn’t just ‘do you get a spike from a feature/demo?’, it’s your natural daily wishlist rate when not much is happening. And both those before and after numbers are pretty good on that front!]
Wishlist graph for The Riftbreaker after the release of the Prologue.
Q: You seem to have a very co-ordinated and multi-channel approach to game promotion. Can you talk about how many staff you use to do that, do you just do everything, do you ever try to prioritize?
Since the beginning of the project, we have a full time Community Manager (Piotr Bomak), who creates regular development updates and posts them on all of our social media channels.
We also run regular development build streams (straight from the development trunk) two times per week. We dedicate time from the development team to create some of the ‘in-development’ content – e.g. Piotr sits down with a programmer for a few hours to grab some cool screenshots. In addition to myself and my brother, there are at least 2 persons from our 14 strong development team directly working on marketing all the time.
From the beginning of the project, we also work with external companies – in particular PR Outreach. Agnieszka Szóstak’s team takes care of all of our press releases and handles most of the contact with traditional media and influencers. Since the release of The Prologue, we’ve also started working with SureFire Games for PR and influencer outreach in China.
Q: What are your hopes/plans for launch and what kind of wishlist to sales rate are you aiming for?
Our previous game, X-Morph: Defense had 10,500 wishlists at Steam launch with an 0.7 wishlists-to-sales conversion rate in the first week. For The Riftbreaker, our initial goal for the launch of the game was to reach 50K wishlists with an 0.4 wishlists-to-sales conversion rate for the first week.
We’ve already surpassed our initial Steam wishlists goal almost fivefold, and it looks like we may do even better than that. The final conversion rate is of course unknown, but it looks like we should be fine.
[SIMON’S NOTE: thanks to Pawel for being so transparent with his numbers and progress so far, and good luck on the launch. I know some of this might feel like ‘game lots of people like gets lots of wishlists’, but I think there’s some learnings in here – Imgur posts, good Chinese outreach, being relentless & wide with promotions – that are worthwhile to all!]
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 09-27-2020, 05:41 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Pokemon Go Zapdos Raid Guide: Best Counters, Weaknesses, And Tips
Another Legendary Pokemon has returned to Pokemon Go for a limited time. Zapdos, one of the three Legendary birds from the original Red and Blue versions, is appearing in five-star Raids again until Friday, October 2. Zapdos has made numerous appearances in the game since it debuted, but if you've yet to capture one or are just looking to add more to your collection, we've rounded up some tips to help you battle and catch Zapdos below.
Zapdos Raid Schedule
Zapdos will return to five-star Raids starting September 25 at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET, and it will remain in the game until the same time on Friday, October 2. Raid Battles don't follow a set schedule, but you'll receive a notification in-game when one is about to begin at a nearby Gym, so you shouldn't have much trouble finding a Zapdos Raid.
Your best chance to catch Zapdos will come on Wednesday, September 30, when Niantic holds its regular Raid Hour event. From 6-7 PM local time that night, most Gyms will be taken over by Zapdos Raids, which should make it much easier to find and battle the Legendary Pokemon.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 09-26-2020, 10:12 PM - Forum: Windows
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Find out about storage options for Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S
For Xbox players, backwards compatibility and Xbox Game Pass have made it possible for us all to have libraries of games at our fingertips at the beginning of the new console generation. One of the promises of Xbox Series X|S is the ability to play four generations of games: favorites, those we’ve yet to discover, the next generation games we can’t wait to play and those we can’t yet imagine are possible.
Therefore, decisions relative to storage, both internal and expansion, were a critical element of the design of Series X|S. Our teams focused on three storage priorities: performance, choice and accessibility.
The Xbox Velocity Architecture is at the core of our next generation consoles. In addition to providing a massive leap in performance and reduction in load times, the Xbox Velocity Architecture provides the foundation for new levels of innovation and transformative game design and experiences. At the heart of the Xbox Velocity Architecture is our custom NVME SSD to store and play all your games at their best.
We also wanted to make it seamless to bring the large libraries of Xbox games you’ve already downloaded forward. The USB 3.1 storage you use today will be plug and play compatible with Xbox Series X|S. Support for high speed USB 3.1 storage was important to make the storage and transition of large game libraries easy and accessible to everyone.
You can also use USB 3.1 storage to store next generation games, optimized to take full advantage of the Xbox Velocity Architecture, for quick transfer and play on Series X|S.
Many of you have had questions about storage for Xbox Series X|S so we sat down with Jason Ronald, Director of Program Management, to dive deeper into the technology and options:
Xbox Wire: Let’s start with the size of games and how that relates to Xbox Series X|S?
Jason Ronald: A significant portion of the overall size of a game is comprised of texture data. As Xbox Series S was designed with a performance target of 1440p at 60 FPS with support for up to 120 FPS, many games will not require their highest level of 4K textures resulting in smaller game sizes overall, often up to 30% smaller on average.
Xbox Wire: Is my existing USB-based HDD/SSD with my library of games compatible with Series X|S?
Jason Ronald: Yes! It is easy as unplugging your existing external USB 3.1 HDD or SSD from your Xbox One and connecting it to your Xbox Series X | S and all your games are instantly available. You can continue to play your favorite Xbox One games, including backward-compatible Xbox 360 and original Xbox games, directly from the external hard drive.
Xbox Wire: How will the Storage Expansion Card work with Xbox Series X|S?
Jason Ronald: It’s pretty simple: just plug the Storage Expansion Card into the Storage Expansion port on the back of your Xbox Series X|S and you can use it just as you would with any external storage solution. You can choose to install games to the expansion card by default, play games directly from it, move or copy games between local and external storage, or do anything you already do today with an external hard drive. The only difference is that the expansion card is designed to match the exact performance of the internal storage of the Xbox Series X|S .
Xbox Wire: How does the Storage Expansion Card enable the use of Xbox Velocity Architecture?
Jason Ronald: The foundation of the Xbox Velocity Architecture is our custom, internal SSD delivering 2.4 GB/s of raw I/O throughput, more than 40x the throughput of Xbox One. The Seagate Expandable Storage Card was designed using the Xbox Velocity Architecture API to deliver the exact same consistent, sustained performance of our internal SSD ensuring you have the exact same gameplay experience regardless of where the game resides.
Xbox Wire: Will you be able to play games right from the Storage Expansion Card or do they need to be copied to the internal storage?
Jason Ronald: You can play directly from the Storage Expansion Card and you will have the exact same experience and performance as if the game was running from the internal SSD. Not only does this apply to games optimized for Xbox Series X|S, but also your favorite backwards compatible Xbox One, Xbox 360 and original Xbox games. When backwards compatible games are played directly from either the internal SSD or the Storage Expansion Card you will see significant improvements in load times due to the next generation performance of Xbox Series X|S.
USB 3.1 HDD
Seagate Expansion Card
Stores any Xbox game
Yes
Yes
Plays Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Original Xbox games
Yes
Yes
Plays games optimized for Xbox Series X|S
No
Yes
Replicates speed and performance of internal SSD
No
Yes
Xbox Wire: Why did you decide to create a custom solution rather than enabling users to install off-the-shelf SSDs?
Jason Ronald: The Xbox Velocity Architecture delivers over 40x the performance of a standard hard drive, unlocking a new level of speed and performance that will virtually eliminate load times and enable new levels of innovation. To make this simple for both gamers and developers, we partnered closely with our friends at Seagate to deliver the very first 1 TB expandable storage solution that matches the exact performance of our internal SSD. This means that you can be confident you will receive the exact same next generation experience regardless of whether or not you are playing your games from the internal SSD or the Seagate Storage Expansion Card. Working with Seagate also enabled us to have a custom storage solution that is super compact, plug & play, and available at the launch of Xbox Series X|S .
Xbox Wire: Will all Storage Expansion Cards come from Seagate or could we see them from other companies as well?
Jason Ronald: Seagate, with a storied history as a critical innovator in the storage industry, was our first choice to collaborate with to provide expandable storage solutions for the Xbox Velocity Architecture. Xbox is continuing to invest in the Expandable Storage category on Xbox Series X|S with goal of offering choice for Xbox fans, including additional capacities and implementations in the future.
Xbox Wire: Can I connect the Storage Expansion Card to any Series X|S?
Jason Ronald: Yes! Both Xbox Series X and S provide the same Storage Expansion Ports for the expansion card and the exact same card will work in both consoles. Simply plug it in and you’re ready to play! No setup required. The Storage Expansion Card is also a great way to bring your game library with you, to a friend’s house or wherever you choose to play on your next generation Xbox console.
Xbox Wire: How will the Storage Expansion Card work if I have games on discs versus digital format?
Jason Ronald: It works the same as it does on Xbox One today. When you insert a game disc, the game data is installed to the internal SSD or expandable storage. When you play the game, the game runs directly from local storage, but you must still have the disc inserted as the disc provides the license for the game.
Xbox Wire: Does Quick Resume work with the Storage Expansion Card?
Jason Ronald: Quick Resume is powered by the Xbox Velocity Architecture and game state data is persisted on the internal SSD so Quick Resume will work regardless of whether you are playing a game from the internal SSD, the Seagate Storage Expansion Card or an external USB 3.1 HDD or SSD drive.
Xbox Wire: Where can I get/pre-order the Storage Expansion Card?
Jason Ronald: The Seagate Storage Expansion Card will launch for $219.99 USD alongside Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S on November 10 and will be available in all Xbox markets, worldwide. You can also pre-order now at Microsoft Store or select retailers in select markets worldwide. Check your local retailer for product and pre-order availability.
Xbox Wire: Why does the 1TB Storage Expansion Card cost $219.99?
Jason Ronald: The Xbox Velocity Architecture is a key innovation of our next generation consoles, delivering unprecedented speed and performance enabling transformative gaming experiences never before possible on console. This level of consistent, sustained performance requires advanced components which comes at a higher cost than traditional hard drives or SSDs often found in PCs. By partnering with an industry leader in Seagate, we worked together to deliver an expandable storage solution which delivers identical performance at the lowest cost possible and available this holiday.
Stay tuned to Xbox Wire for more details on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S as we get closer to the launch of both consoles on November 10.
However, Rogue Legacy has got its just-one-more-run hooks into me and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s all I end up playing this weekend. Oh well!
Stuart Gipp, reviewer
Plugging away at Super Mario Sunshine, the overlooked middle child of the Super Mario 3D All-Stars package. There’s a rather pleasant sense of Nintendo Weirdness to the whole enterprise, as flawed as it undoubtedly is. Hunting for blue coins has been enormous fun, though it’s frustrating that there’s no way to reliably track them.
I’ve also dipped a toe into the new Kirby Fighters 2, which seems a typically charming and wonderful entry in the big fat cosmic murder-lump’s ongoing saga. Kirby rules.
In retro news I had a quick whip through Sonic Advance 2, always an enjoyable and creative experience to barrel through. Hot take alert: its renewed focus on speed makes it the best of the hedgehog’s three GBA adventures (Sonic Battle doesn’t count. In any respect).
PJ O’Reilly, reviewer
Hello. This weekend I’m going to spend most of my time blasting through Rebel Galaxy Outlaw for review, look out for that sometime soon, and giving my two young sons an absolute hammering at Kirby Fighters 2. You’re never too young to experience the uncontrollable rage and loathing that results from getting pummelled in a fighting game, it’s character-building stuff and I’m a very good and responsible father.
Elsewhere, I’m still constructing enormous, peep-destroying monstrosities of rollercoasters in Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. I’ve been really impressed with how the controls have been translated to Switch in that one, and I’ll also be checking out Cadence of Hyrule’s Symphony of the Mask DLC. Lots to get through! Have a good weekend, whatever you’re up to and stay safe out there.
Ryan Craddock, news editor
I reached the credits on Super Mario Sunshine a few days ago and for a while, I was contemplating going all in and attempting to 100% it. Thankfully, I somehow came to my senses and have now moved on to Super Mario Galaxy.
It might just be the nostalgia talking, with Sunshine being my first ever 3D Mario, but I’m not enjoying my Galaxy replay quite as much as Sunshine just yet. Hopefully as I progress through Galaxy I’ll learn to love it just as much as I did the first time around.
Elsewhere, I’ve actually been playing a bit of Mario’s Super Picross on the SNES Nintendo Switch Online app. It’s been a while since I played Picross, so why not give an elusive Japanese Mario version a go, eh?
Jon Cartwright, video producer
Ori & the Will of the Wisps has been a serious GOTY contender and this weekend I’ll be seeing if my feelings still hold true by giving it another whirl on Switch. The initial build had a few hiccups even on Xbox One X so it’s absolutely remarkable Moon Studios have been able to squeeze it down to the small screen with next to no visible compromises. They’re secretly wizards.
I’ve heard Hades is apparently ok (some Nintendo site gave it a 10) so perhaps I’ll dabble with that. I also plan to revisit Donkey Kong Country 2 which just launched on Switch Online! It’s easily my favourite of Rare’s trilogy – most importantly it doesn’t have Kiddy Kong.
Gonçalo Lopes, contributing writer
It is do or die for the All-Japan National Youth Team, now in the final rounds of the world cup in Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions. To my surprise, WWE 2K Battlegrounds is enjoyable in short bursts but last week’s surprise hit Reflex Unit 2 remains higher on the list. I’ve made it to Elysium in Hades, wonder if I’ll manage to see further ahead this weekend… I might if I can keep away long enough from CastleStorm II.
My game of the week is Rogue Galaxy Outlaw. About time Everspace and Starlink: Battle for Atlas have some real competition. The long wait to fly again among the stars (between getting hustled at pool) is over and somehow runs incredibly well on the humble Switch.
As always, thanks for reading! Make sure to leave a vote in the poll above and a comment below with your gaming choices over the next few days…
Deathsmiles Collection Brings More Shoot ‘Em Up Action To Switch In 2021
If you’re seeking more shoot ’em up action, Deathsmiles I & II is one to keep an eye out for when it launches in Japan next year.
During this year’s online version of the Tokyo Game Show, publisher City Connection and bullet hell specialist Cave Interactive announced this supernatural gothic style collection containing Death Smiles, Deathsmiles Mega Black Label and Death Smiles II would be coming to multiple platforms including the Nintendo Switch.
Here’s what you’ll get with each game in the collection (thanks, Gematsu):
Deathsmiles
Arcade
Version 1.1
Normal
Deathsmiles Mega Black Label
Arcade
Version 1.1
Normal
Deathsmiles II
Arcade
Deathsmiles IIX
Arrange
New Functions
The Deathsmiles series made its debut in Japanese arcades back in 2007, was ported across to the Xbox 360 in 2009, and followed with a mobile release a few years later.
Is this a shmup you’ve been waiting to play on your Nintendo Switch? Have you experienced any of the previous versions? Leave a comment down below.
Fortnite Is Getting Special Challenges For Its Birthday
Epic Games has fully detailed what it's offering for Fortnite's third birthday. Birthday challenges are available through October 1 and let you unlock a wrap, spray, emoji, and experience, as well as a cake back bling for finishing them all. All players who log in during this time will get a special emote, and Creative mode even gets a new castle.
Fortnite's birthday is this weekend and Epic Games is celebrating with new challenges. We don't have firm details yet, but Epic said it would release more information this weekend when the challenges drop.
??? Tomorrow Fortnite celebrates its 3rd Birthday! Join us for Birthday Challenges which include free rewards! More info tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/JmadoWnvDh
List Changes After Assignment — How to Clone or Copy It?
Problem: If you assign a list object to a new variable using new_list = old_list, any modification to new_list changes old_list. What’s the reason for this and how can you clone or copy the list to prevent this problem?
Appending an element to the new_list also modifies the original list old_list. Thus, old_list has now four elements—even though you didn’t change it directly.
Explanation
This problem of simultaneously modifying “two” lists arises because you don’t have two lists but only a single one.
In Python, everything is an object. You create a new list object ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Carl'] that resides in your machine’s memory. Both variable names new_list and old_list point to the same object in memory—if you modify one, you also modify the other!
The following interactive tool visualizes the memory used by the Python interpreter when executing this particular code snippet:
Exercise: Visualize how the problem arises by clicking “Next”.
Do you understand the source of the problem? Great, let’s dive into the solutions starting with a short overview!
Solution Overview
You can see all three solutions discussed in this tutorial in our interactive Python shell:
Exercise: Change the original list. Do all three methods still produce the same output?
Next, you’ll learn about each method in greater detail!
The slicing operation old_list[:] creates a new list, so the variables new_list and old_list now point to different objects in memory. If you change one, the other doesn’t change.
This is the way with the least amount of characters and many Python coders would consider this the most Pythonic one. If you want to learn more about slicing, watch the following video and dive into the detailed blog tutorial.
The list.copy() method copies all list elements into a new list. The new list is the return value of the method. It’s a shallow copy—you copy only the object references to the list elements and not the objects themselves.
The result is the same as the slicing method: you have two variables pointing to two different list objects in memory.
You can learn more about the list.copy() method in my detailed blog tutorial and the following video:
To become successful in coding, you need to get out there and solve real problems for real people. That’s how you can become a six-figure earner easily. And that’s how you polish the skills you really need in practice. After all, what’s the use of learning theory that nobody ever needs?
Practice projects is how you sharpen your saw in coding!
Do you want to become a code master by focusing on practical code projects that actually earn you money and solve problems for people?
Then become a Python freelance developer! It’s the best way of approaching the task of improving your Python skills—even if you are a complete beginner.
The 206th GalaQuiz will be LIVE soon, win up to $50 in GalaCredit!
[www.indiegala.com] The GalaQuiz will take place in less than 60 minutes from this announcement Today's GalaQuiz[www.indiegala.com] hints are up. The theme will be Fairy Tales Redux.
Epic Games have just announced the acquisition of Super Awesome, a company dedicated to the protection of children online. Super Awesome make a number of products for creators, game developers and advertisers to be able to collect information on children in a manner that is compliant with major laws such as COPPA and GDPR.
Details of the acquisition from the Super Awesome announcement:
That question was the start of a discussion which began many months ago at a (pre-lockdown) dinner in Cary, North Carolina. It concludes today as I’m delighted to announce that we have agreed to be acquired by Epic Games, joining their family while continuing our mission as SuperAwesome (see the announcement here).
Tim Sweeney and his team understand the importance of responsibly engaging with kids and parents. They’re also incredibly serious about privacy. It’s a set of values that instantly became apparent when Tim and I began discussing a partnership.
Joining Epic Games means many things. It means continued (and indeed greater) support for our customers: developers, content-owners and brands who want to do more for kids. It means continued investment in kidtech solutions to help the overall ecosystem. Ultimately (and crucially), it’s a step-change in making the internet safer for kids. We have always been proud of our mission. We’re even prouder to do it with a principles-driven company like Epic Games.
You can learn more about the acquisition and Super Awesome’s products in the video below.
