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COD: Infinite Warfare’s not had a great launch. After the news that the included Modern Warfare Remastered game wouldn’t work without the Infinite Warfare disc for those who had bought the physical copies of the double-game set, it was revealed that for some reason Activision was against cross-platform play. Xbox One and Windows Store players cannot play together and neither can Windows Store and Steam players.
The utter ridiculousness of the situation has just been highlighted in the news that one Windows Store gamer has managed to get a refund on his game. The reason? Because when he went to look for a Deathmatch game he discovered that very few other players were also currently online in the world. How many other players? One.
That’s right. He was one of only two players in the world at that moment looking for an online match.
No matter what you think of Windows Store, you’ve got to admit that Activision’s decision to disallow any sort of cross-platform or even cross-digital distribution interaction is not helping Infinite Warfare any – and this is the game that’s been pretty much an unfavoured child to the series ever since the fans first saw its announcement trailer.
No wonder they wouldn’t allow people to trade in the disc.
After a seemingly never ending, Blizzard finally revealed Sombra yesterday at Blizzcon as she hacked into the Overwatch lookback trailer. A fast, medium range offense hero, Sombra comes equipped with a machine pistol, teleporter and the ability to hack enemies and health packs on the map. She can prevent enemies from using abilities, take out shields and turrets and teleport to her translocator as it flies through the air.
She seems to be everything we’ve been speculating about and more, making the wait well worth it.
In addition to Sombra, Blizzard is also bringing 1v1 elimination and a 3v3 arcade mode to the game. The game just continues to grow, and it seems like Blizzard is going to reward us for playing these new modes with loot boxes. Since we all love loot, it seems this will get players to play the new modes right out of the gate.
Diablo is celebrating its 20th Anniversary and Blizzard is sharing more details on the festivities.
Darkening of Tristram Event
Originally was just going to be original music tracks added; but now Blizzard is adding all 16 dungeons, all 4 bosses.
The audio is tinny, the movement is jerky so we’re trying to get back to 1997 with the style of this event.
Recreated old monsters, but new AI.
Retro UI will be there, and D3 combat but D1 looks.
Event will be triggered by a pentagram by the Old Ruins.
Lots of easter eggs.
Rewards and Loot: Portraits based on original health and mana, Butcher Pet, Transmog is a Soulstone in your Skull! Also gives you an legendary gem for your helm.
Butcher’s Cleaver and Wirt’s Leg for your transmog as well. You can finally dual wield Wirt’s Legs
Bosses: Fighting D1-style Butcher
Patch 2.4.3 will have the anniversary event but also new Items.
Every January the Darkening of Tristram will be back.
Diablo Armory
You’ll be able to save “Loadouts” – 2017 future patch. 5 loadouts per character – passives, gear, Cube powers, talents, gems.
Instant equip loadout with 1 button.
Gem unsocketing cost will be gone, including legendary gems.
This is for PC and console.
Necromancer
Reimagining the Necromancer from D2.
Went through brainstorming phase with an art team – started with ideas like “the King of the Dead,” then the fearsome hunter who wears the trophies of the dead.
Also thought of the Cryptkeeper
This lead to the Commander of the Dead – somewhat like a Rockstar with Legions of (dead) fans.
They thought this was a good way to update the Necromancer for Diablo 3.
Also got to introduce a female necromancer for the first time.
Themes of Classic, Aristocratic, Reanimation or “Bone Saint”, Blood, Bone – the production process included ideas about armor with all of these.
Classic armor set matches the D2 Necromancer, they wanted to get that right.
Necromancer gameplay basics: Pet and Ranged Magic class, darkly themed, “darkest class ever” – they are commanders of the dead!
Includes army of skeletons, dead things, mostly dead things, magic.
Magic includes blood, bone, reanimation and curses – a personal wish you case on your enemies.
Difference from the Witch Doctor: themes are different – WD is more light hearted, more about creepy crawlies, etc. Think of the exploding chicken!
Compared to the necromancer – much darker themes, more blood and bone than disease. They are deadly series, not light hearted.
Big difference in pets – pets in WD are passive, Necromancer are more Active Passive (i.e. like monk mantras.) Short term active benefit even though your pets also exist passively.
Activating the Seal commands pets to attack targets and you have a damage buff. Much easier to lead them around as well.
Resource differences – WD has mana, Necromancer has essence. Essence doesn’t regen over time, it requires action.
Necromancer has two resources! The other is corpses. Corpses power some of your skills.
Corpse explosion will be back. Up to 10 at a time per click
Bone Spear is back.
Decrepify is a way to keep monsters grouped together. This is a curse.
Pychic Blood is a life/essence steal.
Blood Rush is a teleport type skill
Blood Golem – a very gross pet. Also with an active passive type function.
Army of the Dead – 100+ skeletons RUSH onto an enemy.
“Rise of the Necromancer Pack” is 2 character slots, 2 stash tabs, cosmetics, pets, and the Necromancer!
This is coming in 2017!
The Darkening of Tristram will be in January with the Rise of the Necromancer Pack to follow.
Rainbow Six: Siege has one more DLC confirmed to come yet, and from tweets over at Twitter, it looks like it could be taking part in Japan.
The previous three DLC were released fairly evenly spaced, with around three months between each one’s being made available for purchase. The most recent one, Operation Skull Rain, came out on August 2nd so if the schedule keeps on going we can probably expect to hear a lot more official information soon about the forth.
The official Rainbow Six Siege Twitter tweeted out a teaser yesterday though, an image with Japanese text underneath:
Translations vary. Bing suggests “Come, ye and” while Google goes for “time is, come Tareri”. Ubisoft themselves though, publishers of the games, have said that it translates to “Time has come” which we can guess is meant to be the official message of the tweet. Other places have found leaked footage of destructible walls in a map meant to be added in the “Season 4” expansion – all with a distinctly Japanese themed building.
For more official information though, we’ll just have to wait.
The team behind Forza Horizons 3 has recently gone on a bit of a purge, weeding out a whole bunch of accounts that had been found to be using hacks to up the amount of in-game currency they had on hand. Unfortunately, judging by comments it does seem that a few accounts that were innocent of this were caught in the crossfire. Oops.
Various threads about wrongful bans have been appearing on Reddit, and a few even went to Polygon to break the story of wrongful banning from the server. These aren’t technically permanent bans, although they’re thirty YEARS long so they might as well be. Keep in mind that as well as FH3 being a new game right now, these bans also apply to the Xbox version because the two are now tied together thanks to Microsoft’s bid to link PC and their console together now. So you can see why a wrongful ban would cause quite a bit of anger.
As for how these people innocent got caught up in it? Well, the word from developers Turn-10 is that they were banning those who were hacking the game files in an attempt to get ahead financially in the game, especially because the game’s economy is tied to microtransactions. However, as one wrongfully banned player has mentioned that they had been into the game’s files, but only to get the game to run at 60FPS. So it’s very likely that the ban has been targeting games that the system has detected has had its files touched in some way.
Appeals can be sent by players who feel they were banned wrongfully to the e-mail address forzafb@microsoft.com, and all will be investigated and those found to have not broken any rules should have their bans lifted and access restored to the accounts.
Speaking to Polygon about the bans, Microsoft said: “Last week, we performed a ban of a small group of Forza Horizon 3 players on Windows 10 PCs suspected of using software such as the ‘Forza Horizon 3 trainer’ to hack their profiles and affect their game saves. We use bans to maintain the integrity of our in-game economy and to preserve gameplay balance for everyone.”
