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The wait is nearly over for Windows users. On April 11th, the long-awaited “Creators Update” will launch for Windows 10, bringing with it such useful features as a new “night light” mode that reduces the amount of blue light emitted by your screen so that you an sleep better; a new Windows Defender Security Center where users can tweak their security options in one place; and a Game Mode for better performance while gaming among lots of other tweaks. People who do not want to wait for the update to be offered to them through Windows Update can get ahead of the game by downloading Microsoft’s upgrade tool to apply the update right now – but a recent report suggests privacy-conscious users may want to hold off from jumping on the bandwagon early.
According to an article by Tom’s Hardware, which has been backed up by numerous less patient users, Microsoft’s Windows 10 Update Assistant may not honour your Privacy Settings if you use it to upgrade to the Creators Update yourself. Instead, the Assistant tries to use default settings – whether or not you choose to upgrade or clean install the new version – meaning that if you changed your privacy settings when you installed Windows 10 and subsequently use the Assistant, you may need to keep a close eye on just what is being set, or you may find Windows suddenly gathering more data about you than you originally intended.
Those default settings encourage you to share your location and provide full diagnostic data to Microsoft to fix issues and improve future iterations of Windows 10. The default options also encourage enabling Cortana and receiving targeted ads rather than generic ones. The good news here is that Microsoft is being much more transparent about the data it collects – and when applying the Creators Update, the privacy options offer up clearer descriptions of what they do and the effects enabling or disabling them will have.
If you’re not looking forward to going back through all those checkboxes, however, Microsoft state that when the upgrade is made available through Windows Update some time during April 11th, existing privacy settings WILL be honoured. We’ll know for sure if this is the case soon enough – but as always, it’s wise to look before you leap.
Well we all knew it was coming from the moment Microsoft bought Mojang – Microsoft have announced a storefront for players to purchase selected user-made content for Minecraft which will go live with the game’s 1.1 Discovery update this spring.
Before you get up in arms, hold on. It’s only for the mobile and Windows 10 versions – the “Bedrock Engine” editions of the game built with C++. The console versions and the original Java PC version won’t be getting this, so if you play using one of those this doesn’t apply to you. The store will also allow the users who made the content to make money off the sales too.
The store will contain user-made skins, maps and other assets which will all be priced in a virtual currency – Minecraft Coins. Obviously you will need to fork out some real money to get these coins – $1.99 for 300 coins, $4.99 for 840 coins and $9.99 for 1,720 coins – and you’ll need an Xbox account to purchase and store your coins. 30 percent of each sale goes to the store, with more than 50 percent of it going to the creator of the content which isn’t bad.
At first there will only be nine sellers on the store; Blockception, Blockworks, Eneija Silverleaf, Imagiverse, Noxcrew, Polyamps, Qwertyuiop The Pie, Razzelberry Fox and Sphax – if you’re a consumer of Minecraftian content you’ll probably recognise at least one of the names in here. As time goes on, more people will be added and anyone can apply to have their content added to the store but you’ll need to have a business license to apply in the first place.
At the moment each purchase can only be used on one device, but Microsoft have said that they are “working toward making content players buy available on multiple devices as well, enabled by a free Xbox Live account”.
As a long-term player the thought of monetizing Minecraft content like this does niggle at me a little bit, but as the creators are getting paid for their content being sold and this isn’t across every version (i.e. it’s not shutting off modded content for everyone, full stop) I don’t have a major problem with this development. We all knew it was coming.
It’s time for another Kickstarter gaming campaign update, bringing you a few different campaigns that look interesting.
Starting with our catch-up of previous campaigns, we don’t have any that have finished successful yet – but we do have campaigns close to conclusion that have reached their goals. These are Pine (which is now €18,000 over its goal) and Sacred Fire (which is $1,000 over its target right now). We also have another campaign that is getting close to reaching its goal, although time is running out on it; STARFIGHTER INC has 4 more days to make around $37,000 if it is to be a success.
Of course, we also have those campaigns that haven’t been so fortunate and one of those is Innocence; one I covered so long ago. It is far short of its target right now and has only 7 hours to go, making it extremely unlikely it will meet its target. With no updates since mid-March, it almost feels abandoned. We also have two campaigns that have closed unsuccessfully; one being Dragon Lore which ran out of time, and the other Lizard People which had its campaign cancelled. The team behind Dragon Lore have said they will go back to work on the game and release a new Kickstarter at some point with a playable demo available; meanwhile the Lizard People game has been cancelled purely because the team wanted to go back and restyle it as a game called FAKE NEWS! and a new campaign will be launching at the end of this month for it.
First up we have a co-operative board game for 1-6 players.
Maximum Apocalypse takes place in (you guessed it) the apocalypse, being described as a ‘roguelike’ in which the players simply have to survive the hostile landscape before them. You can scavenge, steal, kill and just generally do as you need to for your survival. Each player gets four actions a turn in which they can choose to explore the map, equip weapons, scavenge for resources or fight off monsters – whatever needs doing. There are unique player classes too that give you advantages in certain actions. A win condition requires enough fuel for the players’ shared vehicle to escape onwards.
Maximum Apocalypse has a $14,700 goal, which it has already bypassed. They are currently working on stretch goals, with 24 more days to run.
Hellpoint is an RPG set within a science-fiction world with occult overtones. The game takes place on a derelict space station orbiting a mysterious black hole, and you as the player must explore this place after waking up here. This world is living through the aftermath of an event called ‘The Merge’ in which for a moment every living being lost their minds and were merged with all of their selves from alternate worlds. This event has attracted beings of great power too from all other dimensions.
Hellpoint has a CA$ 50,000 goal with 29 more days to go to reach it. It has made CA$ 13,619 so far.
Next we have a 16-bit retro-inspired puzzle fighter game.
Taking inspirations from games like Tetris, Puzzle League, and Meteos; this game is trying to catch the spirit of them all while modelling their game in a 16-bit style in an attempt to recreate some SNES flair. This campaign is to try and fund the game on mobile platforms first, with Android being their first stop – then they aim to move onto other platforms including the Nintendo Switch.
Super Plexis has made $1,584 of its $6,000 target, with 25 more days to run.
Lastly we have another 16-bit game, this time a tactical RPG.
Using some classic JRPG elements, the game has grid-based movement and battles. The story sets us 200 years after a war between two countries at odds – Alta and Kovell. Alta’s outnumbered army won against the odds and a peace was formed. Now that peace is being threatened by a new army in the shadows, and a ranger named Arnen is getting wrapped up in proceedings and might have to face many odds in a bid to prevent another war.
War of Velana has 25 more days to run. It has made $2,102 of its $15,000 goal.
Un’Goro released properly a few days ago, and like last time an expansion was released, players could swear something’s not right with the new packs. Although it’s not quite as obvious as Gadgetzan’s tri-class replicas, players could have sworn that many cards they were getting with the new packs were duplicates – and there were far fewer legendaries than there should have been.
Blizzard have heard this and responded by saying… erm, that everything is actually working as intended.
Community manager Nik Gianozakos (aka Daxxarri) wrote on the forum about the issues: “We have seen a number of posts from our community today regarding Journey to Un’Goro packs and the possibility that they might be distributing an abnormally high amount of duplicate cards. We want to assure everyone that we have looked into this concern and have found that Journey to Un’Goro card distribution is working properly, both at a per card and per rarity basis, and is consistent with previous Hearthstone releases.”
As mentioned before, if it had turned out that the duplicate ratio was too high it wouldn’t have been the first time. Tri-class Gadgetzan cards were popping up extremely frequently last time, and Blizzard offered compensation that time. This time however it seems like Blizzard are satisfied everything’s working as it should. While some players have accepted Blizzard’s word and are glad that they will eventually be getting that new Epic or Legendary they want, some other players are disappointed that the amount of duplicates they got are considered ‘normal’.
There are also some people on the game’s subreddit talking about issues they’re having with the expansion, so maybe Un’Goro knocked something over when it entered the meta. It wouldn’t be unusual, given the size of some of the new beasts we’ve got to play with…
