Study: Positive correlation between piracy and game review scores

August 7th, 2011, 23:06 Posted By: wraggster

Pirates may be dirty, pillaging fiends, but they have high standards, according to a study from Copenhagen Business School and University of Waterloo. The study tracked 173 new games on BitTorrent over a three-month release period, finding 127 of these were downloaded by 12.7 million unique peers, and that a torrent's popularity was directly correlated to its review scores. The 10 most-downloaded games comprised over 5.3 million downloads, or 42 percent of the 127 pirated games.

Fallout: New Vegas had the most downloads (962,793) and an average review score of 83.7, followed by Darksiders (656,296) with a review score of 82.7. Tron: Evolutionhad the lowest score of the top 10 at 59.5, yet came in fifth place (496,349).StarCraft 2 had the highest review score at 89.5 and landed in seventh place (420,138). Review scores can't trump a title's notoriety, reputation or core fanbase, but researchers found "Metacritic Scores explain 10% of the variance in the unique peers per game on BitTorrent." In other words, the only vessel that these pirates are sailing on is a statistically positive relationship.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/06/st...-review-score/

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Indievania makes a comfy home for indie developers and their games

August 7th, 2011, 22:58 Posted By: wraggster

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WhiteHat Security hacks into Chrome OS, exposes extension vulnerability at Black Hat

August 7th, 2011, 22:32 Posted By: wraggster

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Blizzard raises $2m for tsunami appeal with virtual pet

August 7th, 2011, 22:22 Posted By: wraggster

Blizzard has raised $2 million for the Japanese tsunami relief effort with a World Of Warcraft virtual pet.
The Cenarion Hatchling went on sale for $10 in May, with Blizzard pledging 100 per cent of revenue generated before July 31 to the Red Cross provide assistance to victims of the disaster.
"Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of World of Warcraft players around the world," the company said in a statement. "We've raised a total of more than $1.9 million to support the ongoing earthquake and tsunami relief efforts in Japan."
"The community responded by opening up their hearts and wallets wide. Thanks again for your support and for helping to make an impact on the lives of those affected by these events."
The tsunami that struck Japan earlier this year had a considerable impact on the country's games industry, with Sega, Tecmo Koei, Konami, Sony, Nintendo, Namco Bandai and Square Enix all reporting a sharp decline in share prices in its aftermath.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...th-virtual-pet

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Ono on Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat

August 7th, 2011, 21:54 Posted By: wraggster

Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono has explained why Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat are unlikely bedfellows.
"I actually get a lot of requests for Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat on my Twitter feed and elsewhere," Ono told the US PlayStation blog.
"I understand why people want it, but it's easier said than done. Having Chun Li getting her spine ripped out, or Ryu's head bouncing off the floor... it doesn't necessarily match."
Fighting game fans have wondered about a Street Fighter Mortal Kombat crossover game for years.
In 2008 Mortal Kombat chief Ed Boon revealed he tried to make Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter happen but "ran into a road block".
Boon contacted Street Fighter publisher Capcom in the past to try and get Sub Zero and co facing off against Ryu and Ken.
"We made phone calls," he said. "But Capcom is in Japan, and with the distance, there's communication gaps and what not. It just never panned out. It would have been very cool. I'm a fan of the other fighting genres and stuff like that. I just thought it would be a cool novelty to have.
"I've always wanted to cross MK over since about MK4, or something like that. I'm a big fan of all of the other fighting games, Street Fighter, Tekken. I always thought, wouldn't it be cool to have MK vs. SF and MK vs. Tekken? We pursued some of those ideas to the extent we could but we always ran into some kind of road block and couldn't do it."
More likely, perhaps, is Marvel vs. DC, which Ono described as a "dream project".
It "would be pretty damned cool if we could ever pull it off," Ono said. "I'm a big comic-book fan. Now if I can get the presidents of those two companies in the same room shaking hands, then we could get something started. I'd love to see that just as a fan!"
Until then, crossover fighting game fans will have to make do with Street Fighter x Tekken, due out next year.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-mortal-kombat

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OpenTTD v1.1.2-RC2

August 3rd, 2011, 00:32 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.aep-emu.de/PNphpBB2-file-...c-t-17360.html

A new version of OpenTTD has been released.
OpenTTD is a clone of the Microprose game "Transport Tycoon Deluxe", a popular game originally written by Chris Sawyer. It attempts to mimic the original game as closely as possible while extending it with new features.


Quote:
1.1.2-RC2 (2011-07-30)

Fix: Cost of adding an extra road type to a bridge or tunnel was undercalculated [FS#4680, FS#4681] (r22700, r22699)

Fix: Only insert cleared object tiles into _cleared_object_areas if clearing actually succeeds, else subsequential tests of the same tile will be skipped and considered successful [FS#4694] (r22698)

Fix: When building a house it could be built at the wrong place if multitile houses failed some tests (r22697)

Fix: [Network] Failed network address resolving could trigger temporary freezes [FS#4697] (r22696, r22695)

Fix: [NewGRF] The override managers were not reset in some cases like creating a new scenario [FS#4691] (r22693)

Fix: [NewGRF] Aircrafts defined with IDs above the default aircrafts always defaulted to passenger cargo (r22690)

http://www.aep-emu.de/PNphpBB2-file-...c-t-17360.html

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EA: Retail 'still a strong partner'

August 2nd, 2011, 23:31 Posted By: wraggster

EA Sports boss Peter Moore has said good old-fashioned retail remains "a very strong partner" despite today's announcement of an EA Sports 'Season Ticket' subscription service which heavily focuses on digitally distributed content.

Launching today for PS3 and Xbox 360 in North America, and for Xbox 360 only in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, it offers subscribers early digital access to full games, 20 percent off DLC, free premium web content and other features for $24.99 / 2000 MS Points (about £17.30) a year.

It could be seen as the first major step away from retail distribution methods for EA, but Moore insists retail remains important to EA Sports.

"With regards to our ability to look at this as a full service... we still see retail as a very strong partner here," said Moore in chat with Industry Gamers. "There are still millions of people who go through the doors of the GameStops of this world every single day and they're the core consumer we're looking at."

He went on: "But we're going to learn a lot in the next 12 months. This is about understanding what the consumer likes, understanding the price points so we can do some price elasticity testing on this and making sure what we're delivering is what the consumer wants... we'll see how we evolve this program in the coming years."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...trong-partner/

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Steam blames Microsoft for annoying repeat DX installs

August 2nd, 2011, 23:29 Posted By: wraggster

If you play multiple games via Valve's Steam service, you'll have probably noticed it repeatedly installing what would appear to be the same version of DirectX over and over again. Annoying, right? Blame Microsoft.

Valve has pointed the finger in a lengthy explanation of why Steam is required to perform these repeated installs, pissing off PC users obsessed with running a streamlined OS in the processes.

"There are over 40 different versions of the D3DX library for D3D9 alone, and many more for D3D10 and 11 as well. Each game that uses the D3DX helper library is linked to a specific version," said Valve (thanks Destructoid).

"We can't stop, it's required due to a bad versioning/packaging scheme as well as bad redistribution licensing terms on the D3DX libraries," they added, but said there are small changes Steam can make to improve the situation.

"Steam could be smart enough to know if an exactly matching version of the dx installer is already downloaded and share that content so you don't download it with each game," they said, but went on to admit that "any improvement to avoid duplicates isn't an immediate priority, but we may be able to improve it slightly in the future".

Here's the full statement for those of you who want the nitty gritty details:

"Running [the DX installer] is not a matter of making sure your overall DirectX install being up-to-date. Microsoft has a helper library with D3D called D3DX. You'll find binaries for this like d3dx9_43.dll in your Windows\system32 folder. There are over 40 different versions of the D3DX library for D3D9 alone, and many more for D3D10 and 11 as well. Each game that uses the D3DX helper library is linked to a specific version. As such the game must run the correct D3D installer version that it was specifically compiled with to ensure the binaries exist. Even if a later version of the binary is already installed, that version cannot be used, and even if your DirectX install is up-to-date because you've run a more recent version of the installer that is not guaranteed to have installed all previous versions. Even worse, if a version is installed for x86 it doesn't guarantee the same version is installed for x64, so 64 bit and 32 bit games may need to run the same exact installer version but targeting different platforms when run.

"Furthermore, Microsoft's licensing terms prevent anyone from distributing the files directly, the only way to distribute them is to run the installer, that's also the only supported method from Microsoft to check that the correct version installed. Trying to manually check for the correct versions is extremely complicated because there are numerous files that must all be present and individual system configuration options like dll search paths complicate the situation.

"In addition, the dependencies and required checks may change in each new version of the D3DX runtime. The code to check correctly and repair broken installs all exists in the installer and running it is a guarantee that the correct binaries will exist when you run the game and prevents lots of bad cases where a game would fail to launch with an obscure error if a windows install was either missing the correct version or somehow corrupted in the past.

"Games which don't use the D3DX helpers (such as Source engine games) don't require running the annoying installer on first launch as they only depend on major d3d9/10/11 versions being installed. However, games that do use D3DX must run it as it's the only way Microsoft has allowed for distributing and checking the version info on the files.

"So that's why we do it for lots of game installs. We can't stop, it's required due to a bad versioning/packaging scheme as well as bad redistribution licensing terms on the D3DX libraries.

"The one thing that could be made better on our side is that Steam could be smart enough to know if an exactly matching version of the dx installer is already downloaded and share that content so you don't download it with each game. Since the installer is relatively small compared to most game installs that wouldn't be a huge win though and requires a good deal of new complexity for partners in how they package up their games and manage installation dependencies.

"You'd also still end up with lots of different versions of the installer, since as discussed above they are often targeting different D3DX versions and as such are all required. As such any improvement to avoid duplicates isn't an immediate priority, but we may be able to improve it slightly in the future."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...t-dx-installs/

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Windows XP Market Share Finally Falls Below 50%

August 2nd, 2011, 16:22 Posted By: wraggster

"At the end of July 2011, Microsoft can say that Windows XP finally fell below the 50 percent mark. In other words, Redmond's decade-old operating system is now used by less than half of all Internet users."

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/08...Falls-Below-50

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Making Graphics In Games '100,000 Times' Better?

August 2nd, 2011, 16:19 Posted By: wraggster

A small Australian software company — backed by almost AUD$2 million in government assistance — is claiming they've developed a new technology which is '100,000 times better' for computer game graphics. It's not clear what exactly is getting multiplied, but they apparently 'make everything out of tiny little atoms instead of flat panels.' They've posted a video to YouTube which shows their new tech, which is apparently running at 20 FPS in software. It's (very) light on the technical details, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but they say an SDK is due in a few months — so stay tuned for more."
John Carmack had this to say about the company's claims: "No chance of a game on current gen systems, but maybe several years from now. Production issues will be challenging."

http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/0...0-Times-Better

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Lord of Rings War in North release date

August 2nd, 2011, 16:16 Posted By: wraggster

Action role-playing game The Lord of the Rings: War in the North will be released in November, Warner Bros. has announced.

This bloody, limb-loosing game takes a trio of adventures - human, dwarf, elf - on an adventure parallel to that made famous by Tolkein's book and Peter Jackson's films.

You'll head north to the snowy lands of Gunabad and face the forces of arch-villain Agandur, Sauron's "crulest ally", according to the LOTR: War in the North website.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance dev Snowblind is at the helm, crafting a loot-happy action-RPG that relies heaviliy on co-op, either with AI bots, friends in the same room or friends online.

Lord of the Rings: War in the North was announced in March 2010, and so appears to have had a healthy amount of development time.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...h-release-date

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OPINION: Diablo III auctions a smart move against gold farmers

August 2nd, 2011, 12:25 Posted By: wraggster

By introducing real money auctions for virtual items in Diablo III Blizzard has upped its game in the fight against illegal 'gold farmers'.

For online games such as World of Warcraft where it can take months or even years to forge a strong character, time is money.

Forget monthly subscriptions and microtransactions. There are thousands of gamers out there willing to pay hundreds of pounds – illegally – for a fast-track ride to the top.

Right now you can search the web for high-level accounts and receive the most powerful in-game characters, weaponry and items within minutes of making payment (and maybe pick up a computer virus on the way). Don’t want to spend months reaching the level cap in Warcraft? Not a problem. Rubbish at Final Fantasy XI? Doesn’t matter. You can buy your way through the games.

Although these sales aren’t as prolific as they were four or five years ago, they’re still a problem. Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft was heavily plagued by ‘gold farmers’ in its early days – players who use computer-controlled ‘bot’ characters to harvest virtual currency and rare items before selling them on websites in exchange for real money.

Blizzard has stamped down on illegitimate websites and eBay sellers in recent years, but the problem persists. So if Blizzard can’t beat ‘em, why not join ‘em?

The developer-publisher has announced it is introducing an in-game auction house system in upcoming PC online RPG Diablo III. But not any old auctions – ones that allow players to spend real money on virtual goods.

Users will be able to buy, sell and trade digital items such as swords using real-life currency, with sellers taking the majority of the sum and Blizzard taking a small cut for each transaction. Gamers can still opt to trade using virtual currency or simply exchange items for other items.

“The real money auction house provides players with an easy-to-use, Blizzard-sanctioned way to collect money for items they obtain while playing Diablo III,” says a statement on the Diablo III auction house page.

“It also helps protect players from the scams and theft often associated with questionable third-party sites by providing a secure, completely in-game method for purchasing and obtaining the items they want for their characters.”

Although Diablo III is not the first online game to feature such a system – Sony introduced it to EverQuest II players years ago – with Blizzard adopting the payment model it could have massive implications on the illegal virtual item businesses across the globe.

Gold farmers will still get to play and trade items in-game, players won’t be as tempted to surf dodgy third-party websites and Blizzard takes a small cut of every sale made in-game. Everyone’s a winner. Almost.

Blizzard will still face problems battling those who sell accounts online. Because although the real money auctions are a welcome addition, they only apply to items. There will still be a black market for characters with entire accounts going up for sale. Blizzard may own the rights to every character on their servers (with players simply paying to control them), but keeping an eye on 11m users is a huge strain. There will always be a few that break the system.

Blizzard may never stop gold farming and those who use in-game bots to level up characters quickly. But by embracing this business Blizzard has not only retained a tighter grip on the buying decisions of its players, it’s taken one giant step towards blocking out the black market entirely.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/opini...rt-move/082571

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OpenTTD v1.1.2-RC1

August 2nd, 2011, 00:19 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.aep-emu.de/PNphpBB2-file-...c-t-17321.html

A new version of OpenTTD has been released.
OpenTTD is a clone of the Microprose game "Transport Tycoon Deluxe", a popular game originally written by Chris Sawyer. It attempts to mimic the original game as closely as possible while extending it with new features.


Quote:
1.1.2-RC1 (2011-07-24)

Change: [NewGRF] Only allow access (via hotkey and menu) to the bounding box visualisation when NewGRF developer tools are enabled (r22675)

Fix: [NewGRF] Disallow accessing variable 1B in network games due to desync reasons (r22682)

Fix: Switching from a red to a white highlight (by switching to another tool) without switching the highlight mode (HT_RECT etc.) did not mark the selection dirty [FS#4670] (r22649)

Fix: [NewGRF] Parameters from NewGRFs were not properly parsed in all cases [FS#4599] (r22648, r22630, r22629, r22628, r22627)

Fix: GetSection() does not return a LockPart [FS#4678] (r22645)

Fix: [NewGRF] Disallow building NewObjects on water tiles owned by another company (r22643)

Fix: [NewGRF] Disable the ´set parameters´ button in the NewGRF GUI, if the GRF specifies to have no parameters and one would not be able to set any parameters anyway (r22642)

Fix: Keep the previous owner of the upper and lower lock parts if they are built on existing water (r22638)

Fix: [NewGRF] Airports should not expose the tile specific random bits of the north tile. Only airport tiles should access those (r22636)

Fix: [NewGRF] Correctly reseed random bits of industries and industry tiles (r22635, r22634)

Fix: [NewGRF] Implement variables 25 and 7F for railtypes (r22633)

Fix: [NewGRF] Additional text in fund industry window is NewGRF supplied and thus should have a default colour (r22631)

Fix: Also initialise _old_vds with newgame settings; TTD savegames do not contain these settings [FS#4622] (r22626)

Fix: Do not zero the orders of disaster vehicles when converting savegames [FS#4642] (r22625)

Fix: When closing an AI company the local player cheated to, we need to cheat him to another company [FS#4654] (r22624, r22623)

Fix: When closing down companies their shares in other companies must be sold even if share trading is disabled at that point of time (r22622)

Fix: When asking the user to confirm an unsafe unpausing, there is no need to execute a command if ´no´ is choosed. This also prevents crashing when clicking unpause while the confirm window is shown (r22621)

Fix: Enforce refit orders to be ´always go to depot´ orders; service-only and stop-in-depot orders make no sense with refitting [FS#4651] (r22620)

Fix: Consider the size of the vehicle sprite for the lineheight in the company GUI. This also makes the widget containing the sprite not skip drawing it, if the bounds of the widget are outside of the drawing area though the sprite actually needs drawing [FS#4662] (r22619)

Fix: When changing difficulty settings over the network, do not just reopen the difficulty window if any game options window is opened; instead invalidate them properly [FS#4653] (r22618, r22617)

Fix: [NewGRF] If callback 33 returns a value out of range, no sound effect shall be played [FS#4656] (r22614)

Fix: Use rotated heightmap sizes for reporting scaling problems [FS#4663] (r22608)

Fix: Do not show cargo accepted/produced in the new station window when no tiles are selected (mouse hovering a window or toolbar) [FS#4647] (r22595, r22593)

Fix: Add active NewGRFs to the list of available ones when selecting the empty preset [FS#4644] (r22594)

Fix: Reading of heightmaps with uncommon BMP formats failed due to uninitialised variables [FS#4645] (r22592)

Fix: PBS order forecasting modified the current order index in case of a goto-nearest-depot order and no depot could be found [FS#4641] (r22589)

Fix: Remove BaseStorageArrays from _changed_storage_arrays on destruction (r22583, r22551)

Fix: Do not increment STL iterators after they have been invalidated (r22582)

Fix: Do not lower the arrow buttons in the NewGRF/AI parameter windows if they are clicked when disabled (r22553, r22499)

Fix: Clear airport persistent storage on construction/removal of airports (r22552)

Fix: Possible crash when opening the airport build window for the first time [FS#4619] (r22538)

Fix: Replace the half small airport structure on the intercontinental airport with some grass [FS#3494] (r22537)

Fix: Documentation omission regarding admin protocol [FS#4632] (r22536)

Fix: [NoAI] Doing rescan_ai in a game with running AIs caused a crash [FS#4631] (r22534)

Fix: Do not create an implicit order if the current order is the first order in the order list and we visit the station of the last entry of the order list (r22532)

Fix: MinGW 64 related compilation issues [FS#4623] (r22522, r22491, r22490, r22489)

Fix: The layout selectors of the airport build GUI did not latch properly (r22497, r22495)

Fix: Callback result for airport layout name was incorrectly used (r22496)

Fix: Airport preview sprite can depend on the layout, so update the cached SpriteID when the layout changes (r22494)

Fix: Engine IDs for coal and mail wagons were swapped in the TTO savegame conversion [FS#4622] (r22487)

Fix: The caption of centered windows could be moved out of the main window and thus become inaccessible when resizing the main window (r22485, r22484)

Fix: No client error packet was sent to the admin bots [FS#4585] (r22384)


http://www.openttd.org/

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D2X-XL v1.15.242

August 2nd, 2011, 00:11 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.aep-emu.de/PNphpBB2-file-...c-t-17339.html

D2X-XL is an OpenGL-port of Descent II.
Supported platforms are Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.


Quote:
updates since last AEP reported release 1.15.239

v1.15.243

Fixed: A bug in secret level handling could cause program crashes


v1.15.242

Fixed: Removed a few bugs that under rare circumstances could cause program crashes


v1.15.241

Fixed: Joystick deadzones weren´t properly set after loading a player profile

Fixed: Fire wasn´t rendered properly when soft particle blending was disabled

Changed: Reverted a collision handling related change that apparently prevented proper sliding of the player ship along walls and around corners

Improved: HUD messages won´t show on screenshots

Improved: HUD and RADAR will not be rendered during the player ship explosion sequence anymore

New: Robots firing fusion guns will have a 3D shockwave effect

New: Mods can now have level specific loading screen background images

New: Mods can now have level specific loading screen background images


v1.15.240

Fixed: The heavy fighter´s shield could be charged to 200% with an energy -> shield converter

Improved: Player ships will not endlessly bounce off walls when being driven against them while having thrust


For the complete changelog, please visit the official site

http://www.descent2.de/

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Dune Legacy 0.96.2

August 2nd, 2011, 00:09 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.aep-emu.de/PNphpBB2-file-...c-t-17340.html


Dune Legacy is remake of the classic game Dune II – The Building of A Dynasty. You can download builds for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.


Quote:
24.07.2011: Dune Legacy 0.96.2


Add LAN multiplayer mode

Internet multiplayer mode with metaserver (Beta!)

Use scale2x for scaling

Make game scalable ingame (Zoomlevel x1, Zoomlevel x2 and Zoomlevel x3)

Add mentat help

Scroll build list with mouse wheel

Loading maps is more fault tolerant and shows only warnings in most cases

Loading maps now checks for non-standard features (see Section "Features" in the Dune II Format Specification)

Confirm window for game restart and game exit

Added 13 maps by Rippsblack

New options "Structures Degrade On Concrete", "Start with Explored Map" and "Instant Build"

Earthquake ("Window shaking") on large explosions (e.g. death hand explosion)

French translation (incomplete and only a machine translation)

Bugfix: Loading SCENH008.INI of Dune II V1.0 failed

Bugfix: Dune Legacy.log was not used on Windows

Bugfix: Support non-ascii characters in paths and filenames on Windows

Bugfix: Infantry units could not trigger spice blooms

Bugfix: When playing as the Sardaukar, the announcer still says "Harkonnen", e.g. "Harkonnen harvester deployed"

Bugfix: Sardaukar Reinforcements did not work

Refactoring: Drop Visual Studio 6.0 support completely and start using C++0x features

http://www.aep-emu.de/PNphpBB2-file-...c-t-17340.html

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Freeciv v2.3.0 RC1

August 1st, 2011, 23:22 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.aep-emu.de/PNphpBB2-file-...c-t-17341.html

Freeciv is an open source project that aims to provide a free Civilization clone (released under the GPL).


Quote:
Welcome to Freeciv 2.3.0-RC1
Thanks again to all our developers, who continue to work so hard.

WHAT´S CHANGED SINCE 2.3.0-beta4

Server / General
Bug fix: server crash and assertion failure associated with civil war. GNA#17439
Bug fix: clients were not always updated when a city was lost (for instance, due to civil war):
The loser´s client, and anyone who shared their vision, could still show the city as owned by the losing player, leading to client crashes. GNA#17990 GNA#17860
The loser´s client could still show units in the city as owned by that player. GNA#18194
Bug fix: the server´s stack could overflow (causing a crash) with large maps, particularly on Windows (where the trouble was observed around 80,000 tiles). GNA#17962
Bug fix: the server could crash with rulesets where gold_upkeep_style=2 due to ending up with a negative gold balance. Previously, if there was not enough gold, at most one unit and one building would be sold per turn. Now, as many units/buildings are sold alternately as necessary to restore a positive balance. (This doesn´t affect the supplied rulesets.) GNA#18221
Bug fix: pillaging a road (or removing it in the editor) under a road-native unit (such as a Big Land unit in the experimental ruleset) could cause a server crash. GNA#16281
Fix a warning loading some old savegames. GNA#18209
Suppress a recently-introduced assertion failure that could show up in some circumstances. GNA#18095
Changes to the ´timeout´ setting now always have immediate effect, as in 2.0.x; previously, changes between non-zero values would not take effect until the next turn. GNA#18079
Allow the ´unitwaittime´ option to be used when ´timeout´ is 0 (disabled). GNA#17975
When global warming or nuclear winter occur, changes between land and water are now restricted to coastlines. Also, city tiles are no longer protected from climate change in certain circumstances. GNA#17953
Bug fix: inaccurate message when trying to accept an alliance pact which is invalid due to the other party´s war. GNA#18066
Bug fix: it was impossible for existing users to log in to servers with authentication enabled running on big-endian machines (such as sparc64). GNA#18170
Bug fix: more accurate reporting of network errors on Windows. GNA#18210
Bug fix: freeciv-modpack didn´t always find the user´s home directory correctly (notably on Windows). GNA#18262
Change path handling to allow scenarios to be downloaded with freeciv-modpack. GNAPATCH#2500
Clean up handling of changing default metaserver URL between versions. GNAPATCH#2764
Fix path handling of the ser and civ scripts to be consistent with the behaviour of the unwrapped binaries. GNA#17461
Apply latest lua-5.1.4 patch (9).
Fix a minor server memory leak. GNAPATCH#2540
Various internal changes which should only affect developers. GNAPATCH#2630 GNA#18091 GNA#17757 GNA#16457 GNAPATCH#2736 GNAPATCH#2772

Clients
Bug fix: the client could make invalid accesses with rulesets with variable city radii (such as the experimental ruleset). GNA#17710
Bug fix: the client could potentially behave as though it had made a successful connection to a server when in fact the connection had failed. GNA#18211
Bug fix: the client could use invalid information about the relationship between cities and tiles leading to an assertion failure. GNA#18005
(Gtk) Bug fix: cancelling the "build city" name dialog by pressing Escape could make it impossible to issue the build order again for some units. GNA#18163
(Gtk) Allocate less space to the minimap when the "Arrange widgets for small displays" option is enabled, since this area had grown since 2.2.x. GNA#17802
(Gtk) Bug fix: scrolling the minimap could cause confusion / corruption with large maps. GNA#17825
(Gtk) Bug fix: when the minimap is detached from the main window, allow it to fill its window vertically as well as horizontally. GNA#18180
(Gtk) The "Build Fortress" and "Build Airbase" entries on the Combat menu did not necessarily build the named bases (depending on the unit/ruleset). Renamed to "Build Type A/B Base". GNA#16566
(Gtk) Bug fix: reinstate the Shift+Ctrl+R shortcut to start a revolution. GNA#18296
(Gtk) Do not display hotkeys twice in some menu entries. GNA#17954
(Gtk) Allow shift-right-click-drag to add units/cities to an existing selection. GNA#18301
(Gtk) Left-click on the overview map now selects a new unit, and shift-left-click adds a unit to the existing selection, as on the main map. Previously, the overview map controls were swapped. GNA#18300
The "Sell Obsolete" button in the Economy report could never be pressed. It has been renamed to "Sell Redundant", and now lets ´redundant´ buildings be sold en masse (redundant buildings are those whose effects are entirely superseded by another, for which you may still be paying upkeep -- for instance, Power Plants are redundant in cities with a Hydro/Nuclear/Solar Plants). In the Gtk client, the "Obsolete" column in the Economy report has been replaced with a "Redundant" column showing how many of each building in your empire are redundant. GNA#17937
Bug fix: the city dialog Happiness popup text could incorrectly indicate a penalty when there was none in the ruleset. GNA#18150
Break long lines in the city dialog Happiness popup, to avoid long lists of buildings/wonders going off the screen. GNAPATCH#2688

Tilesets / Art
Fix unit upkeep icons in supplied tilesets so they don´t overlap with each other (for instance, gold upkeep in the experimental ruleset). GNA#17906
Minor glitch fixes for Amplio2 tileset (mainly in city map). GNA#17998
freeciv-modpack.exe on Windows now has an icon. GNAPATCH#2787

Gameplay / Rules
Supplied rulesets
In the civ2 and multiplayer rulesets, Fundamentalism now has a happiness penalty for empire size (as it did in 2.0.x). GNA#18133
Rearrange implementation of the Hanging Gardens wonder so that it is not mentioned twice in the city dialog happiness popup. GNA#16471
Minor changes to nations. GNA#18182 GNAPATCH#2710

Help / Documentation
Fix misleading autogenerated help about the requirements for city celebration and rapture. GNA#17949
Help now documents that non-military units can enter foreign territory regardless of peace treaties, and don´t prevent enemy cities from working tiles. GNA#17378
Refreshed and expanded the Controls section of the help. GNAPATCH#2648
Other minor improvements to in-game text. GNA#17858 GNA#17976 GNAPATCH#2526 GNA#18207 GNAPATCH#2524 GNA#18276 GNA#18281
Fix some inaccuracies in README files. GNAPATCH#2431 GNAPATCH#2695 GNAPATCH#2696 GNAPATCH#2698 GNAPATCH#2697 GNAPATCH#2768
Several invisible changes to assist with translation. GNA#17928 GNAPATCH#2619 GNA#18031 GNAPATCH#2744 GNA#17137

Translations
Updated translations:
Complete translations: French, Polish.
Incomplete translations: Spanish (99.8%), Catalan (99.5%), Finnish (85%), Ukrainian (77%), Japanese (70%), Simplified Chinese (40%).

Build/portability
Fix/suppress some build-time warnings from GCC 4.6. GNA#18219 GNA#18217
Fix a build-time warning when NLS is disabled. GNA#18237
Fix a built-time warning when building with NDEBUG. GNA#18264
Allow freeciv-modpack to be built without Gtk client. GNAPATCH#2712
Use Lua path set by configure script, to assist packagers. GNA#18263
Changes reflecting the fact that the --enable-client=gtk option to configure will become ambiguous in a future release. GNAPATCH#2725 GNAPATCH#2786
IPv6-enabled builds no longer rely on the deprecated function gethostbyname2(), which may enable building on a wider variety of platforms. GNA#16623
Portability fixes. GNA#16457 GNA#18329
The example Debian packaging arrangements now include freeciv-modpack. GNAPATCH#2796

http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

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FreeCol v0.10.1

August 1st, 2011, 23:21 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.aep-emu.de/PNphpBB2-file-...c-t-17342.html

FreeCol is an open source project that aims to provide a free Colonization clone. FreeCol is released under the GPL.


Quote:
FreeCol 0.10.1 released
Monday, 25 July 2011
We have just released FreeCol 0.10.1. It is a stable release that fixes many of the bugs reported after the first release of the 0.10. series. Furthermore, the layout of some reports has been improved, and an alternative Colony Report has been added.

http://www.freecol.org/

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FreeOrion v0.3.16

August 1st, 2011, 23:19 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.aep-emu.de/PNphpBB2-file-...c-t-17343.html

FreeOrion is an open source project that aims to provide a free and platform-independent game in the tradition of the Master of Orion games (released under the GPL).


Quote:
FreeOrion v0.3.16 has been released for Windows and Intel Macs.

Note that if you´re installing on a system that has previously run an older version, you may need to delete your config.xml or may get errors about missing font files. On Macs, you may also need to delete some files for the new version to run.

Changes since the last release include:


Replaced the fullscreen turn progress window that covered the map with progress indicator text in the message window. The map now stays visible between turns, but with order-issuing UI disabled until the next turn starts being playable.
Chat messages are now enetered in the same message window with a more obvious interface for entering text and displaying old messages.
Added an empire / player list window above the chat / message window. When any empire or player is selected, chat messages are sent only to that player.
The server now sends updates several times between turns, including fleet movements before combats, and a full update (as before) at the start of the next turn.
Added an encyclopedia to the in-game interface, showing information about game content like ship parts, techs, species, etc.
Added the option to have observer players in multiplayer games. These players can see the whole universe, but don´t have an empire to control and can´t control when turns are ended.
Added the option to have AI players in multiplayer games.
With the observer option and AI players in the multiplayer lobby, it is now possible to create an AI-only game with only a human observer. This works like an AI test arena, with the AIs playing against eachother and no human player.
Added a "Drop" option in the multiplayer lobby, to allow removing human or AI players from games.
Added "Deep Space" to possible types of systems in universe. These systems have no star, but may still have a planet.
Made map screen zoom centre on the cursor instead of the centre of the screen.
Improved rendering support for graphics cards that don´t support rendering buffers and shaders.
Made system sidepanel resizable and draggable.
Made the UI generally respond better to FreeOrion window resizing. The intro screen generally looks good, but production and research don´t resize properly, yet.
Content updates, including new species.
Tweaked fleet window layout to remove the new fleet drop panel when the window is very small.
Added optional autogenerated effects descriptions to various tooltips and content descriptions. These must be enabled in the options to be seen, since many people complained that the autogenerated text was hard to read.
Translated stringtable updates.
Updated AI scripts.
Reworked autoresolved combat.
Added an "Apply" button on the resolution screen. This seems to work on Windows, but may not on other operating systems.
Changed the tech tree layout code to a custom implementation. There may be some quirks with this new system.
Tweaked layout and rendering of meter bars.
Fixed issues with food distribution to planets.
Made rollover link text colour modifiable in options.
Made SidePanel retain scroll position of planets list between opening and closing the panel or changing system, and when pressing the turn button.
Fixed issue with SidePanel where scrolling up planet panels would cause the system droplist and forward/backward buttons to become unusable.
Fixed sidepanel scrolling problem when expanding and collapsing planet panels.
Tweaked how colonization works, so that ships ordered to colonize, and their fleets, don´t disappear until the turn is ended. Ships ordered to colonize are marked with an indicator. As well, colonization now can´t occur if there are enemy armed ships in the same system.
Various bug fixes and new features within the game content and AI scripting systems.
Made the client respond more promptly to server disconnections, so that players don´t attempt to finish their turn before being made aware of the disconnection.
http://www.freeorion.org/

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OpenBOR v3.0 Build 3361 - - for Dreamcast, Wii, wiz, gp2x, dingoo and PSP

August 1st, 2011, 22:17 Posted By: wraggster

The Lavalit guys have released a new version of their Beatem Up for the Dreamcast, PSP, Wiz, Wii, GP2x and Dingoo:

penBOR is a continuation of the Beats Of Rage 2D game engine, which was originally
created by the wonderful folks over at http://www.senileteam.com.


History
----------------------
In 2004, Senile Team released Beats of Rage, a free beat-'em-up for DOS inspired
by SEGA's Streets of Rage series and using sprites from SNK Playmore's King of
Fighters series. The game spread only by word of mouth, but it nonetheless
amassed popularity very quickly. Senile Team soon released an edit pack allowing
anyone interested to create a mod for the BOR engine.

In 2005, Kirby2000 asked Senile Team to open the source code to BOR. They
agreed, and OpenBOR was born. Development on the engine was continued by the
community, and still is to this day.


Available Platforms
----------------------
OpenBOR has a very modular and portable design inherited from Beats of Rage. Ports
to the following platforms are currently supported:

* Windows
* Linux
* Mac OS X
* Wii
* PSP
* Dreamcast
* GP2X
* GP2X Wiz
* Dingoo a320

In addition to the above, the original Beats of Rage engine (downloadable from
the Senile Team website) is available for the following platforms:

* DOS
* Playstation 2
* Xbox
* GP32
* Palmtop

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PC CHART: The Sims continues reign

August 1st, 2011, 18:53 Posted By: wraggster

There's very little activity on the majority of this week's UK PC sales chart, with The Sims 3: Generations, Football Manager 2011, The Sims 3: Medieval and The Sims 3: Late Night all non-movers at the top of the rankings.

Ineligible for the full price PC chart, The Sims 3: Town Life Stuff enters at No.1 on the budget price PC chart and at No.12 on the UK all formats chart.

The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings and Portal 2 re-enter the full price PC top ten, moving up five places to No.6 and nine spots to No.8 respectively. Sandwiched between them is StarCraft 2, while World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and Shogun 2: Total War round off the top ten.

GfK/Chart-Track PC Top 10 (week ending July 30):
01. The Sims 3: Generations (EA)
02. Football Manager 2011 (Sega)
03. The Sims 3 (EA)
04. The Sims: Medieval (EA)
05. The Sims 3: Late Night (EA)
06. The Witcher 2 (Namco Bandai)
07. StarCraft 2 (Activision Blizzard)
08. Portal 2 (Valve)
09. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (Blizzard)
10. Shogun 2: Total War (Sega)

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...ntinues-reign/

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