Gaming News

Gbear

There's been rumours about a Civ6 release dubbed "Vesuvius" and a few new leaked leader screens have appeared, including, I think, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and a Pacific Island civ.

I didn't bother getting the previous DLC. I got the digital deluxe, and played it a bit, but I didn't click with it. I've played as much Civ 5 as Civ 6 since it came out.


I liked a lot of the ideas in concept but ultimately didn't really enjoy the new mechanics that mostly ended up feeling like busywork.

iLikeWaffles

That cloud stream still going there just knocked it off. Had it on in the background while doing something.

degrassinoel

iLikeWaffles wrote: »

That cloud stream still going there just knocked it off. Had it on in the background while doing something.

still going there at the moment, it's been gaining more and more weather each hour, from cloudy to dull, to really dull, light rain, heavy, thunder, lighting etc.. it's at whirlwinds, rain, lightning and thunder now. Makes for interesting ambient noise.

Still guessing it's something to do with civ

https://www.twitch.tv/firaxisgames

Gbear

There's currently a tornado.

Hey, if it's an attempt at viral marketing for Civ 6 DLC I give it a thumbs up.

The Civ reddit is in a tizzy over it and giving constant updates.

degrassinoel

Countdown timer on it now, looks like the emergency broadcast signal with sirens, and storms in the background

3.50 hours remaining

Be something at 6 i guess.. probably just another tease.

ERG89

I'd love Xcom Enemy Within on Switch or a new Civilization Revolution but I'm guessing it's more likely a Civ spinoff or expansion.

SolvableKnave

Alpha Centauri 2: Beta Centauri

degrassinoel

Civ 6 expansion - Feb 14th 2019

Mars Bar

I'm looking forward to this new expansion!

Gbear

It's sortof a relief to see them not pull punches about climate change. It shouldn't be a statement but in this stupid world it amounts to one.

A mostly complete list of the features:

ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS: Volcanoes, storms (blizzards, sand storms, tornados, hurricanes), climate change, floods, and droughts.

POWER AND CONSUMABLE RESOURCES: Strategic resources play an additional role in Gathering Storm. These resources are now consumed in power plants to generate electricity for your cities. Initially you’ll be powering your most advanced buildings by burning carbon-based resources like Coal and Oil, but renewable energy sources also unlock as you progress to current-day technologies. Your choices about resource usage will directly affect the world’s temperature and can cause melting ice caps and rising sea levels.

ENGINEERING PROJECTS: Shape the world around your empire to overcome unfavorable land conditions by making improvements like canals, dams, tunnels and railroads. When settling cities, consider the flood risk to coastal lowland areas, but keep in mind that in the late-game, new technologies like Flood Barriers can be used to protect these tiles.

WORLD CONGRESS: Make your voice heard among the other leaders of the world. Earn Diplomatic Favor through Alliances, influencing city-states, competing in World Games, and more. Use Diplomatic Favor to extract promises from other leaders, vote on Resolutions, call a Special Session to address an emergency, and increase the weight of your votes in your quest to achieve the new Diplomatic Victory.

21st CENTURY TECHNOLOGIES & CIVICS: A new era has been added to the Technology and Civics trees. Combat new environmental effects with speculative ideas such as relocating your population out to seasteads and developing technologies to recapture carbon emissions.

NEW LEADERS AND CIVS: Nine new leaders from eight new civilizations are introduced. Each brings unique bonuses and gameplay, as well as a total of nine unique units, four unique buildings, three unique improvements, two unique districts and one unique governor.

NEW SCENARIOS: The Black Death & War Machine

MORE NEW CONTENT: Seven new world wonders, seven natural wonders, 18 new units, 15 new improvements, 9 new buildings, 5 new districts, 2 new city sets, 9 new techs and 10 new civics have been added.

IMPROVED GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS: The Espionage system has been enhanced with new options, the Culture and Science Victories have been updated, new Historic Moments have been added, and additional improvements have been made to other existing systems.

Civilization VI: Gathering Storm will launch for Windows PC on February 14, 2019.

I've long felt that the series has failed to capture the sort of interesting nuance you might expect to find in how trade and resources intersect with the environment. There's always been a static feeling to the world which really failed to capture a living planet over a period of 6000 years.

I've not really been taken with Civ6 and I haven't found the new mechanics like the card system or districts clicking, but after skipping the last expansion, I'll probably pick them both up in the new year and give the finished game another crack.

I barely played Gods and Kings for Civ5 and it wasn't until BNW that I really sank into it, so maybe this will give me what I felt it was missing - complexity and novelty without busy-work.

The mention of revamping diplomacy and espionage are promising on that front.

gizmo

As expected, there's more going on behind the scenes at Blizzard with Diablo than Immortal...

The Past, Present, And Future Of Diablo

On a less positive note, the increasing influence of Activision at the company is certainly a cause for concern, those types of cultural shifts never end well for the little spoon.

Sonics2k

gizmo wrote: »

As expected, there's more going on behind the scenes at Blizzard with Diablo than Immortal...

The Past, Present, And Future Of Diablo

On a less positive note, the increasing influence of Activision at the company is certainly a cause for concern, those types of cultural shifts never end well for the little spoon.

I'm not questioning the content of the article, or dismissing your concern. However, I worked at Blizzard before and after the merger with Activision and I remember even back then people going on about Activision interfering with the day-to-day running. It came up again when MoP came out (appealing to the lowest fan), it happened with WoD (poor development and lack of content) and is coming up now.

People tend to forget this was a merger, and Blizzard retained the vast majority of it's autonomy. I'm no fan of the mobile gaming market, but it's insanely profitable, especially in Asia, and that's the focus for Diablo Immortal.

Hell, the attached screenshot shows a great example of how divided the Blizzard fanbase is. Two distinctly different reactions to the idea of a Warcraft mobile game, and the thread is full of them.

gizmo

Sonics2k wrote: »

I'm not questioning the content of the article, or dismissing your concern. However, I worked at Blizzard before and after the merger with Activision and I remember even back then people going on about Activision interfering with the day-to-day running. It came up again when MoP came out (appealing to the lowest fan), it happened with WoD (poor development and lack of content) and is coming up now.

People tend to forget this was a merger, and Blizzard retained the vast majority of it's autonomy. I'm no fan of the mobile gaming market, but it's insanely profitable, especially in Asia, and that's the focus for Diablo Immortal.

Hell, the attached screenshot shows a great example of how divided the Blizzard fanbase is. Two distinctly different reactions to the idea of a Warcraft mobile game, and the thread is full of them.

Oh I can see why such concern back then would have been misplaced alright, at the time of the merger it couldn't have been any more obvious that Blizzard were regarded as the jewel in the crown of the newly structured entity. Fast forward over a decade, however, and the question now is whether they've managed to retain that level of autonomy and will continue to do so going forward. Based on more recent events and the contents of that article, I'd argue there's at least some merit to it now.

In terms of company structure, for instance, when Mike Morhaime stepped down recently and was replaced by J. Allen Brack, he did so as President of Blizzard but, curiously, not as CEO. While it was great Allen Adham returned, he too was given a role on the executive leadership team, rather than a more central authoritative role. This new setup implies that Blizzard is, to a certain extent, structured more like of a subsidiary now than it was previously. Bringing on Activision's former CFO who immediately began looking at implementing cost saving measures across the various teams and seemingly precipitated the dreaded "We need to show growth" statement, doesn't help that impression either.

Then there's decisions on the development side of things, past and future. Cancelling the second Diablo III expansion seemed like a bizarre reaction to the accusation that the company had forgotten about their fans, especially after the positive reception to both RoS and other changes to the game which occurred at the time. In light of the sales of the expansion, it also comes across as more than a little knee-jerky. And then you have the most worrying development, the desire to push the company to "release more games on a regular schedule" a phrase which, quite literally, could not sound any more foreboding given their publishing co-partners.

As for whether this will actually amount to anything, who knows. I certainly wouldn't view Immortal as one of the Four Horsemen in any case, as you said, as a product it makes perfect sense. It's announcement may have been mishandled but that'll be quickly forgotten once information on the next entry in the series is released.

dreamers75

gizmo wrote: »

It's announcement may have been mishandled but that'll be quickly forgotten once information on the next entry in the series is released.

To a minority of the players and not the target base.......

Dont see this ending well tbh for PC players.

gizmo

dreamers75 wrote: »

To a minority of the players and not the target base.......

Dont see this ending well tbh for PC players.

If those people want to let the mere existence of a mobile entry in the series or the mishandled announcement of the same, sour their excitement at the announcement of Diablo IV or, even worse, affect their enjoyment of the game upon release, then that's their problem.

The only really worrisome thing about the Diablo IV talk in that article is the question of monetisation and that has nothing to do with Immortal either and all to do with the success of Hearthstone and Overwatch in the eyes of corporate.

SolvableKnave

Watched this Rhykker video this morning, where he gives his views on the article and how certain things that happened within Blizzard lined up timing wise. Worth a watch in my view.

Retr0gamer

The Outcast Remake is free on Humble Bundle right now.

nix

SolvableKnave wrote: »

Watched this Rhykker video this morning, where he gives his views on the article and how certain things that happened within Blizzard lined up timing wise. Worth a watch in my view.

Yeah watched it myself yesterday, if its all truth, and on top of all the people that have left. I cant see the company pumping out the good quality games its known for, just going to be cashing in on the well known brand names, if those activision roots dig any deeper into the blizzard company that is, which it looks very much like the way its going, tis Doomed!

SolvableKnave

nix wrote: »

Yeah watched it myself yesterday, if its all truth, and on top of all the people that have left. I cant see the company pumping out the good quality games its known for, just going to be cashing in on the well known brand names, if those activision roots dig any deeper into the blizzard company that is, which it looks very much like the way its going, tis Doomed!

I'd be cautious of proclaiming Blizzard as Doomed. As he said in the video, the people in charge of Blizzard are still from within Blizzard, are still intent on making games for their core audience.

I know Activision and their shareholders only care about money, and again he says in the video that a decision made with the best of intentions could be tainted by knowing what Activision would want, even though there may be no dicdat from Acti explicitly.

They're haunted by Titan and SC: Ghost. They've kinda shot themselve in the foot somewhat, given how financially successful Overwatch was in it's first year or so. That, wrongly, has become the bar by which Acti view Blizzard games now. It just doesn't hold up for ARPG's or RTS's. OW is a completely different animal.

I still think the next Diablo will be a full on PC beast, and will satiate the hardcore Diablo fanbase. It's just a question of how they implement the monetisation, if there's any. If they can build it in such a way as to have multiple RoS expansions, that could be enough. Diablo 3 sold what? 15 million copies, but RoS only sold 2/3 million? If D4 can launch without any cockups a la D3, then expansions will see a huge increase over RoS.

nix

SolvableKnave wrote: »

I'd be cautious of proclaiming Blizzard as Doomed. As he said in the video, the people in charge of Blizzard are still from within Blizzard, are still intent on making games for their core audience.

I know Activision and their shareholders only care about money, and again he says in the video that a decision made with the best of intentions could be tainted by knowing what Activision would want, even though there may be no dicdat from Acti explicitly.

They're haunted by Titan and SC: Ghost. They've kinda shot themselve in the foot somewhat, given how financially successful Overwatch was in it's first year or so. That, wrongly, has become the bar by which Acti view Blizzard games now. It just doesn't hold up for ARPG's or RTS's. OW is a completely different animal.

I still think the next Diablo will be a full on PC beast, and will satiate the hardcore Diablo fanbase. It's just a question of how they implement the monetisation, if there's any. If they can build it in such a way as to have multiple RoS expansions, that could be enough. Diablo 3 sold what? 15 million copies, but RoS only sold 2/3 million? If D4 can launch without any cockups a la D3, then expansions will see a huge increase over RoS.

I dont mean doomed as in the company will go under, i mean doomed with regard to the creativeness they are known for, the creativeness being hampered by dead lines and budget cuts and pay cuts and then people leaving etc

Thats all its been for the past few years by the sounds of it, and all we have had in that time frame is remasters and a bloody mobile game announcement.

I'll hold out to see how D4 pans out as it looks like their next actual game, so fingers crossed :pac:

SolvableKnave

nix wrote: »

I dont mean doomed as in the company will go under, i mean doomed with regard to the creativeness they are known for, the creativeness being hampered by dead lines and budget cuts and pay cuts and then people leaving etc

Thats all its been for the past few years by the sounds of it, and all we have had in that time frame is remasters and a bloody mobile game announcement.

I'll hold out to see how D4 pans out as it looks like their next actual game, so fingers crossed :pac:

Ah gotcha.

The mobile game is meant to be really good. Obviously it is not Diablo 4, thanks to everyone for pointing that out.

Shiminay

I'm still baffled that so many supposed adults can't understand that a company can have more than one team working on more than one project and that working on one does not preclude working on the other, but that's "gamers" for you.

Robert ninja

Shiminay wrote: »

but that's "gamers" for you.

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1052752942946836480

Speaking of twitter; don't use it to talk about games as you can get banned. https://techraptor.net/content/killing-sean-bean-twitter

Bans also being handed out by Sony if you express mexican culture on their platform.
https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2018/11/sony-apologizes-for-banning-a-psn-user-because-they-were-racist-against-mexican-culture/72369/

Sony's censorship craze might be from trying to make a real mark in China

http://nikopartners.com/sony-playstation-china-console-game-market/
https://www.gamerevolution.com/features/453545-sonys-censorship-worrying-precedent

Shiminay

Keep "fighting that good fight" there Robert, maybe someday you'll be the victim you think you are

Square trademarks Parasite Eve in Europe. A remake of the first game would be very welcome
https://gematsu.com/2018/11/square-enix-trademarks-parasite-eve-in-europe

ShadowHearth

Cake of Tremendous Power wrote: »

Square trademarks Parasite Eve in Europe. A remake of the first game would be very welcome
https://gematsu.com/2018/11/square-enix-trademarks-parasite-eve-in-europe

Omg! I would soooooo be over it! Still remember playing it to death on ps1. Coming from eastern europe memt we would get lucky to get amything in english like that. I played PE2 on whatever asian language it was amd only managed to get to that desert town and room with safe as I just did not knew where to go and obviously could not read where to go lol. Good old days!

Robert ninja

Shiminay wrote: »

Keep "fighting that good fight" there Robert, maybe someday you'll be the victim you think you are

Rejecting anti-gamer attitude that's popular on dying forums and gaming outlets is hardly a fight, nor does it make me a victim. :rolleyes:

Yet even more censorship... for pinball games. PC version remains untouched
https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2018/11/williams-pinball-volume-2-will-be-censored-on-consoles-uncensored-on-pc/72439/

Shenmue fundraising is over at 7mil
https://www.videogamer.com/news/shenmue-iii-ends-its-fundraising-campaign-with-over-7-million

Sonics2k

Robert ninja wrote: »

Speaking of twitter; don't use it to talk about games as you can get banned. https://techraptor.net/content/killing-sean-bean-twitter

lmao, I love how you take it so out of context. The person put out a tweet saying "Looks like I'm killing Sean Bean tonight then."

With no context, especially assuming that an awful lot of people do not play video games or know about his appearance in Hitman 2, it's safe to say this looks like a random threat on a celebrity.

How dare they ban him for this! Censorship it is!

Robert ninja wrote: »

Bans also being handed out by Sony if you express mexican culture on their platform.
https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2018/11/sony-apologizes-for-banning-a-psn-user-because-they-were-racist-against-mexican-culture/72369/

Again! You insist in taking it totally out of context of the actual ban reason. But let's not let that get in the way of your outrage. Actually, balls to that!

The users name was Kike_0615. Now, to anyone from outside of Mexico and in the English speaking world, that looks an awful lot like a certain antisemitic slur and again, unless you happen to be Mexican, the odds of knowing that Kike is short for Enrique are slim to bloody none.

Also, also! Jesse Singals consumer base is largely made up of gamers, who typically dislike the media. So of bloody course they said journalists are more loathesome.

Honestly pathetic, just absolutely pathetic posting.

Robert ninja

Sonics2k wrote: »

How dare they ban him for this! Censorship it is!

Drama queen much? You quoting someone here? Cause I just suggested it was a crap place to talk about games... or any topic for that matter.

Sonics2k wrote: »

But let's not let that get in the way of your outrage.

Hm yeah posting gaming news articles in a gaming news thread with brief descriptions... the outrage.

Sonics2k wrote: »

Also, also! Jesse Singals consumer base is largely made up of gamers, who typically dislike the media. So of bloody course they said journalists are more loathesome.

Are they? I wouldn't know. I just found the tweet from this video: https://youtu.be/isXQUNxi2xk The twitter profile doesn't exactly scream gaming content, and the replies made it seem like the author expected a different outcome.

Sonics2k wrote: »

Honestly pathetic, just absolutely pathetic posting.

Whatever you say mate. At least I try keep every post filled with some kind of game news that I find interesting instead of getting butthurt for a whole page.


Fallout 76 is already on sale
https://gamerant.com/fallout-76-deal-sale-black-friday/

Sign that it's doing bad in sales I'm guessing. I didn't think it would be that bad, though. Figured the brand name would carry it to enough profits to not need a sale so soon.