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October 24th, 2010, 00:10 Posted By: wraggster
When you have one of the year's most anticipated games, you'll also have people who want to get their hands on it as soon as possible -- at any price or, in some cases, any risk. Such was the case with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 last year, and it's happening this year with Call of Duty: Black Ops, which is already making the rounds in bootlegged form.
Contrary to its approach to Modern Warfare 2's piracy, which was to seek arrests for anyone found selling illegal copies of the game, Activision is simply asking Black Ops pirates to cut it out, and quite politely it seems. VentureBeat has posted the story of one bootleg buyer who has uploaded a series of videos detailing being tracked down by the publisher's private investigators, IP Cybercrime, on YouTube. According to the article, rather than report individuals such as him to the police, IP the firm is requesting that they "stop selling and to tell them where they got their wares," adding that "Most of the pirates were scared, surrendered their game copies and cooperated."
That's not to say the investigators aren't willing to employ more serious methods in dealing with people who don't give in to the "good cop" approach. "One young pirate was being a 'wise ass' and adamantly refused to cooperate," VentureBeat reported. "So the investigators called his mother."
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/10/22/ac...ack-ops-pirat/
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October 24th, 2010, 00:07 Posted By: wraggster
Windows 7 might be a massive commercial success and an undeniably rock solid piece of software, but Microsoft is apparently unwilling to rest on those soft and cozy laurels. Asked about the riskiest product bet the Redmond crew is currently developing, its fearless leader Steve Ballmer took no time in answering "the next release of Windows." His interviewers sadly failed to probe any deeper on the subject, but it might be notable that Steve calls it the next release rather than simply Windows 8, while the idea of it being risky also ties in with previous indications that Microsoft is aiming for a revolutionary leap between iterations. We'll have to just be patient and wait for more on that, though if you'd like a peek at Steve dodging question on tablets and the potential for Windows Phone 7 appearing on them, you need only jump past the break for the video.
Update: It's also worth noting that Ballmer may not have been talking about revolutionary leaps as much as he's referencing the past issues the company has had when it's issued a major OS update (hello, Vista). The idea that making any big change to the operating system most of the world runs would invite a certain amount of high risk makes sense to us.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/23/b...ts-riskiest-p/
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October 24th, 2010, 00:02 Posted By: wraggster
InfoWorld's Peter Wayner looks beyond Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, and IE to uncover 10 alternative browsers that offer specialized advantages for 3-D searching, social networking, easy scriptability, powerful page manipulation, and the like. Each provides a targeted browsing environment, enabling users to browse Web tables into spreadsheets, browse leaner, browser in text, browse socially, browse musically, or browse smarter on the Mac. 'A purist might object that these hybrids are not much different from a standard browser with extra plug-ins. There's some truth to this, but not always — some of the unique capabilities can only be done deep inside the software. In any case, the job of parsing the terms and creating an exact definition of the Web browser isn't as much fun as embracing the idea that there are dozens of alternatives.
http://search.slashdot.org/story/10/...y-Web-Browsers
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October 24th, 2010, 00:00 Posted By: wraggster
Blizzard has shown four internally-developed mods for StarCraft II at BlizzCon, all of which it will be releasing for free download: Blizzard DOTA, StarJeweled, Left 2 Die and Aiur Chef.
The biggest project of the four, Blizzard DOTA, is "further out" from release according to StarCraft II producer Chris Sigaty. A variation on the ever-popular Defence of the Ancients, which began life as a Warcraft III mod, it's a competitive map for single hero units - in this case, drawn from across Blizzard's franchises ("a bit like Super Smash Bros").
In the BlizzCon demo, Raynor, Kerrigan and Zeratul from StarCraft fight alongside Sylvanas and Muradin from Warcraft and comedy hybrid characters like Grunty (a baby Murloc in a space marine suit) and Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftan, the mascot of Blizzard's house band.
StarJeweled blends a riff on PopCap's puzzle classic Bejeweled (Blizzard's friends at PopCap preferred the title BeZerged, apparently) with a tower defence (or rather, tower attack) game. Completing rows of gems on the right of the screen sends out units on the left to attack an enemy base, also building energy to spend on additional summons.
Aiur Chef is a game of exploration, collection and cooking. Your Protoss chef, brandishing a cleaver and wearing a pot on his head, explores a map collecting ingredients to use in set recipes (themed around a certain ingredient, as in the Iron Chef TV show). The more you can complete before a time limit expires, the higher you score.
Left 2 Die tips its hat to Valve's Left 4 Dead in its spin on the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty campaign mission The Outbreak. It's a co-op map for two players in which you need to defend against waves of undead at night while burning their nests by day, with special undead units inspired by Valve's infected.
The latter three mods will be available "within the next few months", Sigaty said.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...wn-at-blizzcon
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October 23rd, 2010, 23:59 Posted By: wraggster
Blizzard has announced that it's adding two new high-level leagues to the StarCraft II multiplayer ladder system, introducing seasons, and adding an option to view featured replays of top matches.
Battle.net project director Greg Canessa revealed the new features at BlizzCon in Anaheim, near Los Angeles, today.
Master league will be comprised of the top five per cent of players in the current top league, Diamond - the top 1 to 2 per cent of all StarCraft II players.
If that's not exclusive enough, a Grand Master league will be open to the top 200 players in each region. As well as having a prestigious icon to display, Grand Master league players will be featured on a special ladder page that the entire StarCraft community can access and browse.
Grand Master league will be introduced with StarCraft's first season rollover to season two. A new season means that players' division ranks and win/loss records will be wiped and they start from scratch (although previous stats will still be available to view). Your matchmaking rating will be preserved, however, and it will take just one match for you to be re-qualified and allocated to an appropriate division.
The all-important league icons will be changed to look "cooler" the higher-placed you are in your division, giving players a visible incentive to climb the divisional ranks.
Featured replays will be introduced on the news and community interface. These will be replays of matches between top players selected by the Blizzard community team, which play out in the StarCraft II engine and give spectators full control over the replay and stats.
Finally, Canessa noted that the much-desired chat channels had completed development, were in testing and would be rolled out "in the next couple of months".
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...seasons-coming
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October 23rd, 2010, 23:58 Posted By: wraggster
Blizzard has revealed that it's to revamp every "classic" dungeon in World of Warcraft, with most updating in the first patch for third expansion Cataclysm.
The aim is to make World of Warcraft's older dungeons less confusing, shorter and more fun, designer Corey Stockton told the audience for the Dungeons and Raids panel at BlizzCon today.
Infamously overlong and convoluted dungeons like Uldaman and Maraudon are being broken up into two or more bite-sized wings to make them easier to deal with.
Others, including Wailing Caverns and Sunken Temple, are the subject of drastic cuts. Sunken Temple has lost its entire lower floor.
We already know that two classic low-level dungeons, Shadowfang Keep and Deadmines, are being completely overhauled for new max-level Heroic versions. They will be revamped in their normal modes as well.
Graveyard runs will be much shorter for every dungeon in the game, reduced to no more than 30 seconds, with many graveyards right in front of the dungeon entrance. Some dungeons will also be given teleporters to make it faster to move through them.
"Lots of" these changes will appear in the first patch for Cataclysm, 4.1.0. The new Sunken Temple will appear by Cataclysm's launch on December 7th.
Also appearing in 4.1.0 will be a new max-level raid called Firelands and a new five-man dungeon, Abyssal Maw.
Firelands is an outdoor raid on the elemental plane of fire, accessed from Mount Hyjal. It will climax with an indoor encounter with classic boss Ragnaros in a different and much more powerful form than he took in vintage WOW raid Molten Core. In keeping with a plan to make shorter raids that can be completed in one evening, it will have seven bosses.
Abyssal Maw will be an underwater dungeon in the elemental plane of water accessed from the Vashj'ir zone. It will have four bosses, with players hopping between raised areas divided by deep chasms.
Finally, Stockton talked about enahnced dungeon maps. In a future patch, every dungeon in WOW will be given a 2D map, like those in Wrath of the Lich King. These will also feature detailed boss information (loot, lore, abilities, 3D portraits) so players won't have to tab out of WOW to fansite databases so often while playing.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...d-in-patch-4-1
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October 23rd, 2010, 23:57 Posted By: wraggster
Mike Morhaime has told a BlizzCon 2010 audience that, for the first time, new World of Warcraft expansion Cataclysm can be pre-ordered directly from Blizzard.
You'll be able to download all of the content on the game DVD ahead of the game's 7th December launch so that you're ready to go when the servers are turned on.
"For the first time, you will be able to pre-order the expansion directly from Blizzard," Morhaime announced to cheers.
"[Download] all the content on the game DVD in advance and start playing the moment we turn the servers on, which will be at midnight Pacific Standard Time on December 7th."
The BlizzCon 2010 opening ceremony is coming to an end and the festivities have begun. Oli Welsh is there for Eurogamer and we'll be reporting from the event all weekend.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ect-from-blizz
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October 22nd, 2010, 23:30 Posted By: wraggster
We thought StarCraft 2 was a little confusing before, but imagine how perplexed we were to look inside the BlizzCon program and see descriptions of upcoming maps for the game that include references to Bejeweled, Defense of the Ancients and ... Iron Chef? Here's the text from Shacknews:
Aiur Chef takes you to a remote area of the planet Aiur, where aspiring zealot chefs skilled in the arts of cooking and killing compete for the title of Executor Chef. Test your wits in the puzzler StarJeweled, which challenges you to match jewels according to color to gain energy, train troops and crush your enemy's base. You'll also be able to team up with a friend to fend off a new strain of zerg infestation in Left 2 Die (a new co-op take on the StarCraft II campaign mission "Outbreak"), as well as wage war with the most powerful heroes in the universe in Blizzard All-Stars, an explosive new multiplayer scenario.
First Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright team up, and now this? Apologies to Powerman 5000, but this is what it is indeed like when worlds collide.
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/10/22/st...led-scenarios/
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October 22nd, 2010, 23:30 Posted By: wraggster
When the world is being torn asunder, isn't it best to remain inside? During a presentation at the ongoing BlizzCon 2010 in Anaheim, California, Blizzard president Mike Morhaime confirmed that the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm, would be offered in downloadable format right on time and on launch day. When the game's December 7 release date was first announced, it wasn't clear if the digitally distributed version would lag behind retail copies.
It doesn't get clearer than this: You'll be able to purchase and download World of Warcraft: Cataclysm from Blizzard's site (which will accomodate pre-orders soon) at midnight, Pacific Standard Time, on December 7th. That means you can safely start questing, never having left the comforting confines of your home and risked contact with those crude human beings.
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/10/22/wo...d-at-midnight/
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October 22nd, 2010, 23:24 Posted By: wraggster
Blizzard kicked off Blizzcon 2010 today with the announcement of Diablo 3’s fifth and final class – the Demon Hunter. The class uses crossbows, bolas, traps, and other gadgets to rid the land of Diablo’s evil minions. Blizzard also unveiled a major new feature for Diablo 3 – PvP Arena Battles. Players can join solo or in groups to take on other players through the Battle.net matchmaking service. Read on for more about Diablo 3
http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/1...-Arena-Battles
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October 22nd, 2010, 21:17 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft just announced that its new Games for Windows Marketplace online PC games store will launch on November 15th. Think Steam, but not quite. The store offers online web access from anywhere and features fast purchase and download turnarounds to accelerate the time to game play; discounted games; and game search by title, genre or publisher. Games for Windows Marketplace is integrated with Microsoft's existing Xbox LIVE and Windows Live services and will launch with over 100 titles including "Fable: The Lost Chapters" and "Grand Theft Auto III." Anyone with a Windows Live ID can login.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/22/m...in-your-brows/
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October 22nd, 2010, 21:15 Posted By: wraggster
Long-in development MMO Fallout Online will launch in the second half of 2012, Interplay has promised.
In an interview with Edge magazine Interplay president Eric Caen said 2012 will also see a Fallout Online beta.
Caen's comments will no doubt reassure fans troubled by the legal dispute between Interplay and Fallout 3 creator Bethesda over the game.
As the tussle continues, we've still not seen an actual screenshot or video from Fallout Online.
The company has so far refrained from showing much from the game because "anything we show will help Bethesda in their fight", Caen said.
"I can't say too much. What I can say is that everyone who is registered is getting a newsletter every five or six weeks.
"The content is not a typical newsletter with a lot of technical information; it's letters from NPCs about what they're experiencing. We're giving a lot of hints about the future of the game. We have a beta scheduled for 2012, with the commercial launch in the second half of 2012.
"We have 90 people working on it. Even in January 2009, you were already able to move across the world." Caen also commented on Bethesda's Fallout 3.
"What I can say is that of course we're playing what Bethesda is doing. We appreciate some portions of it, and we're not necessarily fans of everything. I think they miss a lot of the humour, and the fans seem to agree with that.
"Fallout 3 was a little bit too serious – that's definitely not where we're going. Our Fallout MMOG will be extremely funny. At the same time, an MMOG must be a lot deeper than a standalone game. It's not a shooting game we're making. You can shoot, but it's a very small portion of the game. The game itself is about reconstructing the world.
"What is unique about our project is how we're trying to get it into many communication systems. This is a big problem for World of Warcraft, because the fantasy universe is not compatible with modern communication systems. It would be odd to receive an SMS from a troll. But in a post-apocalyptic world..."
Interplay plans to have a million subscribers, Caen revealed.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...launch-in-2012
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October 22nd, 2010, 21:13 Posted By: wraggster
Battlefield developer DICE has promised the third instalment in the series will be just as enjoyable on PC as it is on consoles.
Posting on the EA forum, designer Alan Kerz acknowledged, "PC players have a fear that BF3 will be 'consolized'.
"PC players have their own set of requirements... Anything that feels like it might have been "ported" from a console is going to get flamed hard," he wrote. "It's a damn sight harder to please a PC player, they have higher expectations."
But Kerz reckons DICE is up to the job. "Battlefield 3 needs an extra bit of special attention on the PC. I intend to give it that attention, tradition and our community demand it."
So what does that mean in real terms? Well, for starters they have been fiddling with the controls to make sure shooting guns is just as much fun in the PC game as it is in the console versions.
"In response to the feedback on PC, I completely retweaked the accuracy," said Kerz. "The next playtest it was immediately obvious that it was a change for the better, and surprisingly it also made gamepads feel much better as well.
"Fundamentally I think it is an error to have different core gameplay on console vs PCs. PC gives a player more input control and if a gun feels good on PC it feels good on console. I won't "dumb it down" by lowering the recoil or changing the damage model or other such silliness."
There will be other similarities between the versions, pledged Kerz, such as epic, sprawling battlefields, tight infantry fights, balanced weapons, good teamplay and a rewarding progression system.
Little else is known about Battlefield 3 so far - EA hasn't even announced a release date. Here's hoping we find out more soon.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-as-good-on-pc
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October 22nd, 2010, 21:13 Posted By: wraggster
Minecraft has fallen victim to a distributed denial of service attack according to creator Markus Persson, although the developer is at a loss to explain why.
"Denial of Service means you occupy certain resources for a long period of time, making other people not able to use them. A real world example would be running up to the cashier at a super market and paying in small coins, counting every single one really slowly, then finding out at the end you didn't have enough in the first place," Persson, who goes by the name Notch, wrote on his site.
"As to why minecraft.net is being targeted, I'm not sure."
In a later update Persson said he had signed up for a DDOS protection service and upgraded his server.
According to a post on 4chan (thanks Kotaku), the attack may have been organised by fans of the game angry at a lack of updates. Persson had recently slowed development in order to set up an office and hire staff.
"Coding wise, I'm officially behind schedule now, but I fully intend to deliver," Persson wrote this week. "My schedule is clearing up nicely, and I'm learning to say 'no' to people who want to talk to me. I just blame it on having an important update to do."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...by-ddos-attack
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October 22nd, 2010, 21:10 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft will be selling PC games on demand via the new Games for Windows Marketplace, starting November 15.
As well as a store redesign, the company is also refocusing their content offering to include indie titles. Microsoft already has a dedicated console portal for indie games in the form of Xbox Live Indie Games. Some titles have even made the switch from the indie circuit to Xbox Live Marketplace, as was the case for The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai which began life as a hobbyist XNA project.
The service will primarily carry the latest PC releases. Titles such as Lego Universe and CarneyVale will arrive on GfW Marketplace at the same time and date they hit retail stores.
The store has been updated to be faster and easier to navigate. Microsoft is looking to make digitally distributed PC games more attractive with new purchase incentives, like a Deal of the Week and other seasonal offers that have been successful on Xbox Live.
“With Games for Windows Marketplace, we set out to create a digital store built for PC gamers end-to-end,” said Kevin Unangst, Microsoft’s senior global director, PC and mobile gaming. “And by integrating with our existing Xbox Live and Windows Live services, we’ve made it easier than ever for millions of gamers to see for themselves how easy buying PC games can be.”
http://www.casualgaming.biz/news/306...ws-Marketplace
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October 22nd, 2010, 21:08 Posted By: wraggster
Activision's announced that the PC version of Call of Duty: Black Ops will include full Steamworks support.
The FPS - which is now available for pre-purchase on Steam - will leverage Steamworks' Auto-Updating, Achievements, and more, says Activision, as well as support for Steamworks Cloud technology.
"We are delighted to be delivering the year's most anticipated title with Black Ops to PC gamers around the world," said Jason Holtman, director of business development at Valve.
"We've collaborated with the development team to leverage the Steamworks suite of services to deliver the highest level of service to Call of Duty: Black Ops PC customers."
Mark Lamia, president of Treyarch added: "Steam has been a great partner throughout development of Black Ops. We're working closely together to take full advantage of Steamworks to ensure we deliver the most polished and secure PC experience that our community deserves."
Black Ops is out on November 9.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS
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October 22nd, 2010, 21:01 Posted By: wraggster
Royalties from the new in-game user-created content store in Valve's multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2 have approached $50,000 for some players.
Five modders, who won a competition to have their creations featured, earned five-figure sums from the in-game Mann Co. Store - which opened just a fortnight ago.
Creators keep 25 per cent of all item sales, with the rest going to Valve. The highest-revealed royalty payment to date is $47,000, meaning Valve would have taken approximately $140,000 from the sales of just one modder's content.
"It was completely mind-blowing, the size of the return that we're getting on these things," modder Spencer Kern, one of the top two earners so far, told Gamasutra.
Valve flew Kern and another player, Steven Skidmore, to its office to present them with their money first-hand, as payments had exceed Paypal's permissible limits.
Said Valve boss Gabe Newell, "It benefits us because it grows the community, right? These [content creators] benefit, but we benefit too.
"Once people realise this is about their community, and that the right people are getting the benefits... after a while, they'll say, 'This is really how these kinds of communities need to work.'"
Valve will also sell its own content on the store, but plans to significantly extend the range of amateur contributions. Prices for items currently range from less than a dollar to $17.50.
"What you really want to do is create per-person pricing, or per-person monetisation or per-person ways of creating value," said Newell. "In a sense, asking 'could you support a game entirely with just this as a monetisation model?' - you could."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...modders-USD50k
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October 22nd, 2010, 01:44 Posted By: wraggster
Age of Conan executive producer Craig Morrison has written an interesting article on the inclusion of voiced stories and cut-scenes in MMOs. The upshot: "more isn't always better".
It's why people have "reservations" about a game like Star Wars: The Old Republic, he alleged - a game in which story is "so integral". And what a time BioWare's MMO has had of late.
Morrison believes character progression has always been the "bedrock" of what is expected from an MMO. You earn experience, you level up.
Today's upswing in storytelling is great, Morrison wrote, as long as it doesn't "interfere".
"Sometimes a player just wants to progress, and they will be frustrated if you don't help make that experience smooth.
"The best cut-scene in the world won't help if the player really wants to be hitting something with a stick when you decide to show it to them.
"Why," he rhetorically asked, "was a 'skip quest text' the first GUI modification to be written for World of Warcraft, for example?"
Morrison witnessed game makers put this down player personality and "blame the culture of immediacy and short attention spans" that are "prevalent" today. Worse, the designers tried to "forcibly" alter player behaviour.
But, he countered: "This doesn't mean an MMO player can't appreciate a good story element ... [or story] be an important factor in the entertainment provided by a quest or encounter in an MMO.
"Sometimes players want, dare I say need, to be given some more dynamic and interesting experiences as well.
"It just has to be at the right moment," he wrote.
The "key" is to put story elements at non-disruptive junctures in gameplay; at "lulls" in your motivation to progress a character. Typically these are before a quest starts and then when it ends.
"I really like the sequences in Aion, or the World of Warcraft expansions where you get cut-scenes or intros to an area the first time you visit it. Those are good examples of smart use of that kind of sequence," Morrison shared.
"Those lulls are the perfect point at which to energise the experience with better cut-scenes or voice work."
Morrison asked that even if the resources were available to voice a cut-scene for every step of a quest, should you use them? "Is it really any better just because you voiced the NPC?"
"More isn't always better," he declared. "The smart use of resources can often actually create a more compelling game-play experience."
Morrison believes there are "numerous" other "more intuitive ways" of getting a story across, too.
"Text pop-ups, item descriptions, brief cut-scenes or boss quotes - a designer has a lot of options here," Morrison wrote.
"Don't make the player run back and forth between NPCs purely for a stage of the quests to update. Don't be afraid to have the quest unfold before the player and have them propel it forward."
He has always felt running back-and-forth between dawdling NPCs was "counter intuitive" to the idea of being a hero.
Morrison closed with: "The desire of the designer to entertain and lead a player on a journey will always be slightly at odds with some of the motivations that players find in MMO gameplay.
"All too often I hear designers say, 'I want the player to do...,' when what we should be saying is, 'I want the player to want to do...' That's a difference worth bearing in mind."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...re-isnt-better
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October 22nd, 2010, 01:10 Posted By: wraggster
News via http://www.aep-emu.de/PNphpBB2-file-...c-t-15767.html
A new version of ReactOS has been released. It is an effort to create a free software replacement for Microsoft Windows (TM) that is compatible with existing hardware and software!
Quote:
ReactOS 0.3.12 Released
The ReactOS team is proud to announce the release of ReactOS 0.3.12.
This is a huge release for the team, not just with regards to the number of improvements which this release holds but in terms of the leap forward architecturally, stability wise and in bringing some of the more modern aspects of the NT kernel into ReactOS.
It´s been almost a year since the last release and whilst this is understandably excessive, it was required to stabilize the OS due to the nature of the work which was undertaken. Focus at the start of this release was on a single area, the trap handler mechanism, which resulted in a complete rewrite of this area. This brought with it the need for more changes which escalated into many areas getting an overhaul and many new technologies being developed and brought into the core. What resulted from this was a vastly more modern kernel containing code which had been exercised significantly less than the code it replaced. This triggered a large testing phase to bring the stability and compatibility to levels above that of the previous code.
During the preparation of this release, 259 bugs were fixed, including 61 regressions some of which originated from ReactOS 0.3.7. Ten of those bugs are more than 3 years old, with the oldest fixed bug being #969 (5 years old).
A heavily cut down list of some of the more major changes which have been going on in the past year is as follows:
Memory Manager - The memory manager continued to see much work as the ARM team replaced each component piece by piece whilst also maintaining the functionality of the old manager. Although 0.3.12 does not completely switch over to the new manager, what is obvious are the speed, stability and compatibility improvements of this new model.
NMI support - ReactOS can now handle NMIs with a Red Screen of Death, useful for capturing hardware errors detected by the CPU or Bus. Additionally, support for 3rd party NMI callbacks has been implemented, which is useful for certain server systems. Finally, support for generating a crash dump during an NMI is partly implemented, which can help when a machine is frozen or hung and an external NMI dump switch is used.
Trap Handler Rewrite - Almost all CPU faults, trap, exception, and system call code is now written in C instead of Assembly. Many legacy and/or deprecated code paths have been disabled and performance-heavy debugging paths disabled by default. Additionally, the x64 and ARM ports now share much more of this code. Finally, the code is much cleaner and can take advantage of compiler optimizations to generate the best possible code for the CPU instead of writing hand-crafted assembly that was specific only to certain CPU models. Work is ongoing to remove even more of the last remaining Assembly routines.
EMS - Support for Emergency Management System (or Headless) has been partially implemented. The boot flags documented by Microsoft are supported, and certain debug output is sent to the serial port as expected. Work is ongoing to provide the EMS logging capabilities and to move the existing legacy KDBG debugger over EMS. SAC (Special Administration Console) driver work is also in progress to compliment this.
PnP Compatibility - Various improvements have been done to increase hardware support and support for loading 3rd party drivers.
ACPI Improvements - The ARM team has implemented the basic drivers required for supporting batteries and 3rd party UPS/battery drivers, including support for the ACPI Composite Battery specification. This support is not currently enabled in this release because ACPI is still undergoing work.
New PCI-X driver - The ARM team has been slowly working on the new PCI bus driver. Previously, ReactOS was using a very simple and mostly stubbed PCI bus driver which lacked support for many real-world PCI bus features, PCI-to-PCI bridges etc. With this new driver, compatibility on real hardware, not just virtual machines, should improve significantly, along with performance.
SxS support – Side-by-side code was added, along with loading and finding manifest files. It’s an important step forward to be compatible with modern applications which use this technology.
Pool Corruption Fixes - Perhaps the most serious of these suspected leaks were fixed thanks to combined efforts of key ReactOS developers utilising advanced methods including a customized version of QEMU virtual machine.
Timer and message handling rewrite - Incorrect handling of non-queued messages led to deadlocks in some applications which the message handling rewrite resolved. The timer implementation rewrite is also completed by this release which fixes many timer-related problems, most known is the “need to move mouse in order to download in FireFox”.
x64 build - While the x64 port is still in an early stage regarding the functioning of the kernel, most of the generic compilation issues are resolved and necessary core functionality implemented. These efforts have been merged back into trunk, so that trunk can be compiled for x64 target. With the help of automatic builds, possible breakages can now quickly be detected and resolved. Don´t expect it to boot to GUI though!
The changelog for 0.3.12 is also markedly different from previous releases, with an emphasis on conveying an understandable and concise summary of major changes in the release. Thus instead of duplicating that summary here, we invite you to peruse its contents and see what has been accomplished.
Whilst the ReactOS team has still been attending many public events and conferences in various different countries, we’ve been out of the news due to what may appear as a quiet patch or a lull in activity. We hope this release will go some way to show that we’ve been busier than ever behind the scenes.
http://www.reactos.org/de/index.html
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October 21st, 2010, 23:51 Posted By: wraggster
Can you believe it's only been a year since Windows 7 hit the market? So much has happened in the interim, we could swear it's been a decade. Of course, Microsoft is celebrating Windows 7's birthday the best way it knows how: sales numbers. Turns out the little OS has done pretty well for itself, with 240 million licenses sold, giving it a 17 percent global operating system market share, and making it a healthy chunk of the 1.2 billion Windows PCs out there. As for the slow-to-adopt businesses out there, Microsoft still has some work to do, but it says 90 percent of companies have upgraded or "started their move" to 7. So, we've got the cold hard facts out of the way, any precious, personal, heartfelt memories of your time with the OS you'd like to share? We've got dibs on Steve Ballmer dropping by the Engadget Show on launch week.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/21/w...ts-first-year/
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