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Well, if you pay any attention to the news you probably already know the result of Warner Bros ‘fixing’ the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight. In case you don’t, here’s the short version: they pretty much didn’t.
However, if you had held on for the re-release/big patch and are therefore now stuck with it there’s some good news. The refund period for both the game and the season pass to go with it have been extended up until the end of the year, meaning that if you still want your money back you can get it. However, the game itself is also going to remain on sale which is a little confusing.
In their statement Warner Bros wrote: “We are very sorry that many of our customers continue to be unhappy with the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight. We worked hard to get the game to live up to the standard you deserve but understand that many of you are still experiencing issues. Until the end of 2015, we will be offering a full refund on Batman: Arkham Knight PC, regardless of how long you have played the product. You can also return the Season Pass along with the main game (but not separately). For those of you that hold onto the game, we are going to continue to address the issues that we can fix and talk to you about the issues that we cannot fix.”
That last bit is concerning. “Issues we cannot fix”. Sounds like they’re fed up of trying honestly and it doesn’t reflect well on Warner Bros at all. Battlefield 4 for example was also a buggy game upon release and for months after, but last time I looked the developers and companies involved with making it had continued to support it and fix bugs. Warner Bros are a big company and should know better.
There’s also the issue of people who received their copy of the game through promotions like the GTX 970 one that let you get the game as long as you brought the hardware. Those people who got the game that way but also the season pass are a little bit stuck now with a pass they can’t return because they technically never bought the game itself.
I guess the PC version of Arkham Knight is just going to be another chapter in the ongoing saga that seems to be big triple A games from big companies releasing in a state that’s far from fit and never really ever living up to the hype.
Lawyers aren’t generally thought of as having a sense of humour or fun, so this story while a little surprising is actually quite cool.
Upon devising the EULA for Larian Studios’ game Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition the lawyer decided to run a little experiment to see how many people actually do read all of the terms before they hit the accept button. Therefore they hid this line in the text:
“16. Special Consideration. A special consideration in material or immaterial form may be awarded to the first 100 authorized licensees to actually read this section of the EULA and contact Larian Studios at info@larian.com. This offer can be withdrawn by Larian Studios at any time.”
So the first 100 people who actually read this and bothered to contact the address actually got something for their trouble, being given a bunch of Larian game codes for some of the other games the studio had put out.
“Our lawyer feels good about this,” the developer explained via their Facebook page. “He’s also revoking the consideration because we’re making him pay for every mail we get.”
The last two days of the four-day opening for the Hearthstone World Championship finals have played out and out of the sixteen who started on the first day, the eight who have advanced to play on stage at Blizzcon next weekend have been decided in rounds of nail biting, clever play from all.
Day three was dedicated mainly to seeing which of the eight who won their first matches on days one and two would secure the first four places in the Blizzcon line-up and saw an equal balance in the number of matches that were more dominated by one player of the pairs and those matches that ended up coming down to the final game to decide who would advance. Of those four games played, the players who advanced were Thijs and Ostkaka of the European team; and DieMeng and Zoro of the China team, with Zoro in particular pulling out a win against the only player in the sixteen who had been in the 2014 tournament: Kranich of the Asia Pacific team.
So for the eight still remaining in contention, it all came down to the four matches on the forth day of the Group Stages – the winners would claim the remaining four spots at Blizzcon and the other four would not. It was as simple as that.
Funnily enough, every match that was played on day four was a pairing that had already been played earlier in previous days: Kranich vs LifeCoach and Pinpingho vs Purple from day one; JAB vs Kno and HotForm vs Neilyo from day two. While there was a chance for the players who had previously lost the match up to win this time, the resulting winners were the same as the first time each pair had met before. Of particular note was that Kranich made up for his day three defeat by going 3-0 against LifeCoach during the first games of Hearthstone played on the day; and HotForm won a very narrow match against Neilyo going from losing 1-2 to winning his last match with a deck (Rogue) that was at a disadvantage against his opponent’s Warrior deck to take the spot at Blizzcon with a 3-2 victory. This also made him the only member of the Americans team to advance to Blizzcon.
In the end, the other four victors were as previously mentioned HotForm of the Americas team and Kranich of Asia Pacific, as well as Kno and Pinpingho also of Asia Pacific.
So next weekend we will see eight players compete for the title of 2015 Hearthstone Champion, with Asia Pacific being the region in with the best chance fielding 3 players of the eight, while Europe and China each have 2 of their players in and the Americas team having just one person still remaining in the running for the title and the grand prize.
If you missed any of the matches so far, catch up at Blizzard’s Hearthstone Youtube with the posted VoDs so far.
Here it is, my weekly little update on what cool things are up and coming in the world of gaming Kickstarters.
As always I’ll start off with a brief recap of some previously covered games, and both Home Free and Dracucat have finished their campaigns funded. Home Free didn’t quite make its last stretch goal, but the completed campaign update makes me think that short-legged dogs haven’t been 100% ruled out of making their appearance within that game. The games covered in the Round-Up of Oct 9th all still have some ground to make up with less than a week to do it in, but while Boom Chicka Meow Wow and NinjaFrog are way out, Bertram Fiddle and Wolf & Hound at least have some chance of making their targets if their developers really push their campaigns.
Finally GOAT ARMY is still close to goal with plenty of time left to make it, and Wanderer and Crematory Bot are also doing decently well although have to pick up the pace to hit their goals within the time limit set.
The first game is one that’s actually been around for a little longer than the others, but it’s an interesting enough game that it’s been on my list for this week since I found out about it.
Doko Roko is a “2D rogue-like, vertical action game with an emphasis on lightning-fast combat and rich atmosphere” made because its creator envisioned a game that cared as much for its lore as it did its unique game mechanics. As a storyteller I do like a game with a good story and Doko Roko sees your character fighting through a tower where not everything is out to get you. Some will trade, some will fight and others merely wish to make small talk or even trade information. Weapons come in all forms to fight the hostile beings you meet as well, so each game could be a little bit different.
Doko Roko has made $22,656 of its $30,000 goal so far with 20 days remaining to make the rest.
This one is a turn-based strategy game set in space with randomly generated events, supplies to manage and a role play setting.
Solar Hideout sets you as an AI taking care of a group of human renegadess fleeing the forces of the “Space Clearance Forces” (SCF), an international military space force company of Earth. This military forces wishes to destroy them and your job is to navigate this band through perils both human, alien or natural as they randomly occur.
Solar Hideout is a new campaign so currently has made nothing of its €10,000 but has a full 30 days to go to make it.
This one is a Kickstarter staff pick and its easy to see why, it looks beautiful.
Pankapup is another throwback to the old 2D platform/action games of the 90s and features the titular character platforming through worlds and fending off opponents using a shield to block and a sword to attack back. The story is told to a child through a book and the game you play is therefore seen in the child’s mind, with parallels to the story and the child’s own world becoming more apparent as the game progresses through.
Pankapu has 27 days to go and has made more than half of its €40,000 goal at €20,079 currently.
I admit it, I chose this one because the idea of video game development as a card game was appealing to me as a journalist who has heard tales about it through the Indie Game Show.
As you can probably guess, GOTY the card game is all about using your cards to attempt to navigate the video game development process to create the next Game Of The Year. The game was created to give players a “different perspective of the industry” through funny and unexpected events based off real-life events. Since life is sometimes much stranger than fiction, that sounds great to me.
If you’re interested GOTY the card game has a €15,000 of which €6,418 with 35 days to go and a lot of Early Bird tiers are being offered.
Finally we have yet another Kickstarter staff pick, but one that so far hasn’t benefited too greatly from it.
Cold Blooded sets you in a city with the drug trade controlled by five gangs. You as a gang leader must create and manage your own gang, taking over and eliminating the competition and eventually aiming to control every drug spot in the city. It has taken inspiration from strategy, rogue-like and tycoon games, and the developers are aiming to release the game in 2016 on PC, Mac and Linux if they get their game funded.
Cold Blooded has 25 days to go and a target of just €3,000 to hit with €115 raised so far.
Day 1 and 2 of the Hearthstone World Championship group stages have gone past already, half of the matches being played before Blizzcon to cut down the 16 player field down to just 8 to allow them to play in the big finals at Blizzcon itself next weekend. These two days were dedicated to setting up the matches that would not only decide matches for the next two days – it also served to knock out 4 of the players at the end of the second day.
The four regions; North America, Europe, China and Asia Pacific have each fielded some of their best players for matches that were streamed over Blizzard’s PlayHearthstone Twitch channel live. Divided into their four teams of four, going into the tournament while Europe were the favourites both the Asia Pacific and China teams proved hard to beat, with many of their players putting up difficult fights against their opponents and three of the four Asia Pacific players making it through their first matches.
The first day saw a lot more of one particular player per pair dominating their game of 3, with the very first match-up being a 3-0 sweep in favour of Thijs verses opponent NoTomorrow; while the second day saw matches going on a lot longer with many 3-2 matches especially during the four elimination matches which resulted in the losers having their tournament runs end at that point. The second day also saw a nail-biting final match between Neirea and Purple coming down to the very last turn and saw Purple’s Rogue deck pull out an amazing one-turn kill that amounted to more than 20 damage done to Neirea’s face, winning Purple the match.
Deck-wise despite the worry that Paladin Warrior decks would die out with the change to Warsong Commander, two of the Warrior decks used Paladin tactics to great effect. Also out there were decks for the lesser used classes: Shaman decks, Rogue decks and even a Priest deck from European player Thijs. The most popular class by far was Druid with twelve of the sixteen fielding a Druid deck, and Paladin was also pretty popular with the Mysterious Challenger/Secrets Paladin deck being the favoured type of that deck. Another common deck types being used was the standard Freeze Mage set up containing cards like Frost Nova, Doomsayer and Alexstrasza which were commonly seen. Among all types of deck it was also common to see Piloted Shredders and Dr. Booms being played.
In the end the second day saw the end of the road for four players – NoTomorrow and LoveCX from China, Nias from North America and Neirea from Europe. This means that after two days only the Asia Pacific team had all players still in the competition to make it to Blizzcon.
There are of course two more days worth of matches to go, which will decide exactly which eight of the remaining twelve will be going to the final matches at Blizzcon next weekend. Day three will sort out four who will guarantee their place on the Blizzcon stage, and then the remaining spaces will be decided on the forth and final day on October 31st.
If you missed any of the matches so far, catch up at Blizzard’s Hearthstone Youtube with the posted VoDs so far.
