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Following rumours earlier today that Microsoft is said to have an interest in acquiring several gaming-related businesses, Polygon has asserted that a “Reliable source close to Microsoft” believes that the Xbox One platform-holder is actually genuinely considering one such acquisition.
Earlier today, Twitter was awash in rumours suggesting Microsoft, perhaps fuelled by the fact that the Xbox One has found itself lacking in console exclusives, was potentially considering making purchase offers to three companies: Valve, PUBG Corp (the people behind Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds), and Electronic Arts – commonly known as EA. Polygon’s sources believe that the EA rumour is indeed true – that Microsoft is definitely in serious thought about the move, with the other two suggestions also being “whispered”.
Although Xbox One owners can anticipate exclusive releases this year in the form of Sea of Thieves (currently in a closed beta phase), Crackdown 3 and State of Decay 2, this small amount of confirmed titles pales in comparison to major rival Sony’s Playstation 4 line-up, which alongside a remake of Shadow of the Colossus, currently also lists exclusive such as Days Gone, Death Stranding, Detroit: Become Human, God of War, Spider-man and The Last of Us Part II. An aquisition of EA would bring many important franchises to the XBox One – although many of the bigger franchises, such as FIFA, Battlefield and the upcoming Anthem, are currently cross-console and Microsoft is likely to cause uproar were they to change the status quo.
The lack of exclusive content for the XBox One, however, is very likely to be weighing on Microsoft’s mind. Sony’s Playstation 4 has so far dominated this generation of console sales, with over 73 million sold to date; Microsoft, meanwhile, is believed to have only shifted around half this number of XBox Ones although the company refuses to disclose actual sales figures.
Further fuelling the rumours is Phil Spencer’s apparent appetite for an acquisition. Spencer, who was promoted to Executive Vice-President of Gaming late last year, is on record as having stated the following in an interview with Bloomberg:
“Our ability to go create content has to be one of our strengths. We haven’t always invested at the same level. We’ve gone through ups and downs in the investment.”
So what do you think? Do you think a potential acquisition offer is on the cards? Let us know in the comments!
Alongside claims that the service now attracts 10m users per month, Microsoft has announced a number of familiar-sounding features it plans to introduce to Mixer – its streaming service and rival to Twitch.
In order to allow videogame streamers to monetise their channels, Microsoft has announced plans to add direct tipping, so that viewers can donate to their favourite streamers as they watch directly through Mixer, without the need of external services.
For streamers who are playing games that are available through the Microsoft Store (for Windows 10 or XBox One), viewers will soon also be able to quickly buy a digital download of the game, or any DLC being played, with Microsoft planning to introduce new “Direct purchase” options.
While Microsoft is no doubt playing catch-up with Twitch, the service is quickly gaining popularity – helped, no doubt, by Microsoft baking support for the platform into both Windows 10 and XBox One (where it can be found directly on the console’s Dashboard). Even though the upcoming new additions may strike as copycatting, making it easier for viewers to both start playing games they like and donate to their favourite streamers may prove to be an important move in growing that audience even further.
MMO Rift went free-to-play in 2011, opening its gates to more players but also ushering in loot boxes and a store packed with items you could buy with real money to make the game a lot easier. After a long think (and no doubt influenced by player pushback against microtransactions), developer Trion Worlds is going back to its roots by introducing a paid subscription model for a server free of loot boxes.
The Rift Prime server will launch in Spring. We don’t yet know how much it’ll cost to join, but we do know that the in-game store will be “significantly reduced, with more of the current store-based items obtained through gameplay or removed entirely”. Sounds good to me.
Not all of Rift’s content will be available on the Prime server from the start—instead, players will start afresh and Trion Worlds will drip-feed existing content as players progress, almost like a new MMO, albeit with everything introduced at a much faster pace. The developer promises this progression will come “to an end in spectacular fashion”, too.
Prime servers will progress through content at a more rapid pace than that of the original launch
“dynamically matching characters to their current zone’s level”
“dungeons dropping loot specific to your character’s true level”
profession caps available to a single character
participation awards that are unlocked across your account, even to characters on other servers
PvP will also be undergoing some changes in 2018 after the launch of the Prime server. This will include a new game mode and allowing servers to go “full PvP”.
For PvE, players can look forward to the revamp of a classic raid and the 7th anniversary will feature some new activities for players.
As more info comes out about the new sub services, we’ll be sure to keep you upto date!
For now, check out the latest trailer for the game and follow the link to check it out!
Let me start out by restating the title of my post: I like the current levelling system. It’s very enjoyable, and it’s been much more engaging. I’m levelling with my friend – he’s a worgen rogue going assassination / subtlety and taking herbalism / alchemy. I’m a human warlock going destruction / affliction and taking tailoring / enchanting. We’ve levelled through Elwynn (yes we got his character out of the worgen zone to come to me), then through Westfall, Redridge, Duskwood, both Stranglethorns, then moved onward to Tanaris which is where we’re currently parked.
There’s a certain level of balance between difficulty that draws attention that has to be had. The more difficult, the more attentive you must be. However, there are quite a few flaws currently.
The previous leveling system was next to no difficulty, and therefore required almost no attention. The less people paid attention, the less fun and engaging it was in general. What Blizzard has done according to this guy is that levelling time has been negligible while significantly increasing the options and variety. I like this, though I can’t say I’ve kept such data of my own, so I can’t vouch for the truth in this, but I’m willing to trust it with faith because that’s science, and you can’t argue with science and numbers. 😛
The current levelling system is not perfect by any means, but it’s certainly been a step in the right direction. There are still a lot of things Blizzard need to smooth out on. Class abilities and when you obtain them is one thing I’ve noticed heavily. It’s understandable to not have your full abilities starting out, but a lot of mechanics feel broken for an extended period of time because some core rotation pieces aren’t available, and it just feels bad. My friend and I have been levelling a rogue and warlock respectively. His rogue in assassination spec seems to be heavily gimped by rupture not doing much damage and envenom being nonexistent so far (only eviscerate) until much higher level, although subtlety seems to do somewhat fine for the most part. My warlock seemingly has all their core rotation spells for both destruction and affliction (I haven’t tried Demo and my friend hasn’t tried pirate meme spec). Destruction’s chaos bolt will usually deal about 90-100+% of a normal mob’s HP, whereas affliction can usually get a good rotation off. The rest of Destruction’s rotation has felt slightly lackluster, but otherwise nice.
The health and difficulty as well is a bit of another topic. Many people are going to have different opinions on it. I personally was levelling with heirlooms and found the pacing to be pretty alright. Pulling 10 things did feel like a threat, and I’d rather not have to spend an inordinate amount of time to kill 1 single mob like in Classic. However, I do think that things should start getting more difficult as you level. For example, Argus feels like a pain. I would never want that on a level 1-60. I’d rather have that for 110 elite mobs. Argus feels quite frankly fine in difficulty, and I like it the way it is. However, I also want things to become more and more difficult the higher level you get, that way it isn’t the same fight, the same mob, the same difficulty the whole way through and then BAM Argus destroys your noob face because you didn’t have 900 ilvl to be able to handle things on your own. I’m not saying to make Argus easier by any means, I’m saying to progressively make the levelling harder in small increments with every level to prepare a player for the higher end content. That’s what levelling should be. It should be your time to train.
Also on the topic of health and difficulty, I felt that “bosses” at the end of quest chains, like for Stitches in Darkshire, and the Bloodsail in Stranglethorn, and Redridge’s dragon fight, all felt way too easy. They’re supposed to be bosses, and we’d kill them as if they’re an over-glorified regular old NPC. Those quest fights absolutely need to be much more engaging by increasing their damage slightly, increasing their health, and introducing more mechanics.
I personally feel there’s a wide range of potential to re-introduce class training without making it mandatory – such that it would be a proving grounds-esque area in a major city, and the class trainer shows you the tips and tricks to using an ability in combat. They would essentially be class quests, much like the monk ones in the Peak of Serenity, however they would never be mandatory to learn them. Rather, they train a player how to use them, and perhaps maybe gives that sort of XP buff that you get for completing them, as well, maybe factoring in how many alts you have at max level or above the level of the character completing the quest, something like that to make it faster – but not mandatory – to level if this is your billionth alt (like myself).
Another topic is professions. Levelling them has been a pain for my friend, with alchemy and herbalism. Tailoring and enchanting for my warlock have been actually pretty decent, but it doesn’t feel rewarding. The amount of cloth we gather seems to be sufficient (level 40s so far as of typing this comment), and enchanting materials aren’t completely obscure to obtain. I do feel that each “major town” should have profession trainers of all kinds and that there should be more ways to research new recipes by combining different materials together all willy nilly. Again, cooking massively suffers from this. You should be able to experiment cooking with any meat, and get a few recipes you’d otherwise get from a basic cooking trainer or something. Profession levelling and player levelling just don’t have the same sort of balance and it suffers greatly, but there are methods that can be done to fix that in my opinion – and considering we can learn instant 800 cap and use materials from the broken isles / draenor from level 1, I really don’t see an issue in this method either.
Professions also seem to be lacking in the department of providing worthwhile items if it’s a production profession. Gear will almost always be inferior, potions will do next to nothing, glyphs are kind of in their own niche of things I guess, cooking may or may not be useful but you rarely can level it to use it. Again, if gear worked in a sort of banding levelling system, where it perhaps scaled to your level or scaled for 10 levels according to the type (1-20 for copper gear maybe?) like heirlooms, I think it’d be quite a bit better off and feel more worthwhile to take to ensure you have appropriate gear. Blizzard somewhat made amends to this by adding more items to quest rewards across the world so that you wouldn’t have wrists from level 10, but that shouldn’t deter the value having a profession should have.
To note: I don’t count bugs like the flipping of heroic and normal dungeon values as part of this. People are accounting that into “everything wrong with this patch.” They’re bugs. They’re not the intended content of the game. This post also isn’t necessarily me saying the level scaling is completely negative – I just feel there are still quite a few things to shape up, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I want to give feedback to Blizzard to create a better game. In fact, I very much like this system currently. It’s great so far. I love it. My friend loves it. We comment and observe all the time about how things are either difficult or easy. These are just the things I’ve compiled into a list of what I think has been done right/wrong.
Nintendo has a reputation for taking unusual gambles in pursuit of new gaming experiences. While these gambles don’t always pay off – the Virtual Boy was a failed attempt at VR headset gaming that was released before it was even ready; the Wii U was an example of disastrous marketing; the promised Wii Health Monitor never materialised; and how many of you have even SEEN the Nintendo 64DD, among others? – more often than not, Nintendo’s quirkiness proves to be a stroke of genius and puts the company back on the map for many years. The Wii introduced us to the benefits of motion-control gaming and captured a casual gaming audience other consoles had alienated; and the Switch is once again breaking sales records with its gimmick of a handheld console that is equally capable of being played at home as on the move. Indeed, such is the track record of Nintendo that there is a long-held belief by fans: “Nintendo is best when it’s at its quirkiest”. So when Nintendo announced a new Switch-enabled toy range, you could almost hear the sound of eyebrows raising across the globe.
Revealed last night in an impromptu Nintendo Direct video, Nintendo’s latest product idea combines real-world props with Nintendo Switch technology to make interactive toys that also introduce young kids to the basic idea of coding. Dubbed “Nintendo Labo”, the lego-like concept revolves around stand-alone kits containing pre-cut cardboard pieces, rubber bands and other materials, along with Switch cartridges containing the Nintendo Labo software. By following instructions, children can use the pieces to make models of various toys such as a piano, handlebars for a motorbike, or even a house. Then, with the Switch software, the toys transform into interactive games – use the piano to play music through your TV! Peek inside your new house and become an interior decorator! Play a motorbike racing game!
All of these projects come as part of a $70 variety pack, which is already listed for pre-order on Nintendo’s website. A second $80 set includes an alternative set of projects, such as a wearable robot-simulating suit – potentially giving the toys (dubbed Toy-Cons by Nintendo) appeal to a wider age range. Nintendo’s clear intention, however, is for Labo to be a discovery tool for youngsters to learn and play, repurposing the Switch to augment a dynamic constructive experience.
It remains to be seen how well this will work. The cardboard nature of the toys makes them fragile and prone to both quick breakage or simply being ripped up by younger kids; although it also makes the kits cheap to produce and potentially opens the door for homebrew hacks – after all, it’s cheaper to download a cardboard design for a custom controller than 3D-print one. Nintendo have already pledged to offer cheap methods to replace components from their kits; and it’s not hard to imagine further sets in the future offering all new toys to keep kiddies interested. The question is, will kids buy into the idea of educational toys; and just how long will their attention span last?
Labo will launch first in the US on April 20th, followed by Europe a week later. As a promotional campaign for the new toys, the Nintendo UK Twitter announced today a four-day event in London scheduled for mid-February, and is looking for families to apply to take part:
Want to be among the first to experience #NintendoLabo? We're looking for families to attend the Nintendo Labo Workshop in London on 14th-17th February
