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Who remember their first game of pokemon? Whether it was on the grainy black and white screen of the classic Gameboy, or in colourful 3D on the N64, pokemon is close to a lot of gamer’s hearts. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in a world inhabited by strange and wonderful creatures, that can be tamed and used to battle your friends? Well now you can!
A new phone app allows you to search out pokemon in your local areas, and with the use of a pokeball watch, capture and battle them with people around you.
Geo-caching is not a new phenomenon. It’s a simple premise where you are given map co-ordinates and go treasure-hunting. This sort of real-world application is always open to abuse; some people may remove the treasure, or you might not live in a place where a treasure hunt has been initiated.
Pokemon Go eliminates all these problems by making everything digital. Your pokemon are available in cyberspace, located over physical co-ordinates. Although details are scarce on release dates and game mechanics, I for one have never been more excited to wander round my town and collect ‘em all.
Everyone love’s a Reddit AMA, and in a recent session Frontier Developments CEO David Braben has revealed the full release of Elite Dangerous for XBOX One. The game will be coming out on October 6th, though it has been available as part of the Xbox One Game Preview program since E3 2015.
Braben also revealed that Xbox One users who were part of the preview will recieve some form of exclusive reward. No exact details were given, but he did reiterate that ships and modules will not carry over to the full release game. The monetary value of them will however, which should result in some interesting credit balances on launch day.
Elite: Dangerous is available on Xbox One and PC, with the CQC and Horizon’s updates due out within the week and later this fall, respectively.
Wildstar developer Carbine has announced that the MMORPG will be going free to play on September 29th. In a stream today, they talked about the ongoing beta tests of the new version of the game, including streamlined starter areas and some quality of life improvements such as improved tutorials. Wildstar has been around for just about a year, and the subscriber base never quite took off the way Carbine might have liked. Now, with the switch to free to play, one of the things they have been talking most about is how to make sure that players who purchased the game originally are properly rewarded. While much of that remains to be ironed out in the second phase of testing that will occupy the rest of the month before the official launch, the developers have maintained that loyal players will find plenty of rewards waiting for them.
Of interesting note is the teams emphasis on testing their new real money currency, Ncoin. They have asked existing testers to spend real money to help them test the new currency, promising that the real money will be returned once the tests are concluded. I’ve put several hundred hours into Wildstar and I remain optimistic about the new free to play model.
Since it’s launch, Guild Wars 2 has been a rather successful MMO, and one that didn’t boast the standard monthly subscription fee. Instead, you simply purchased a serial code for the game and that was it. Of course, there were in game cosmetics you could spend money on, but the game never asked you for more money simply to play. Now, however, ArenaNet has embraced the Free To Play model. The announcement was made at the Guild Wars 2 PAX Panel, and is effective as of today.
Of course, with an MMORPG that already has an established player base (and one that shelled out cash for the game to boot) things aren’t as simple as just flipping a switch that turns off the price of admission. Instead, free accounts will be limited in ways that existing and new paid accounts will not be. Free Players will be limited to two character slots and 5 bag slots. They will also be unable to access the Revenant profession and the Heart of Thorns content. The core world of the game will be more segmented, with free players only being allowed to starter maps until they reach level 10 and the major city of Lion’s Arch being locked out until level 35.
Perhaps the most interesting restrictions however deal with communications and the Trading Post. The Trading Post is a huge part of Guild Wars 2. Wihle I was levelling up my Mesmer and looking for the top gear I needed, the pages of Black Lion were seared into my retinas. Free players will still ahve access to the Trading Post, but only to a select lists of items to buy and sell.
Lastly, communications will be severely limited for free players, presumably so the unpaying masses don’t disturb their serial number holding betters. Whisper chat will be restricted to only the same map and only to one new person every 30 seconds except for mutual friends. Map chat will be totally unavailable, and squad chat will only unlock at level 30.
Oh, and ArenaNet also announced that Heart of Thorns will be released on October 23rd and that it will include raid content.
After teasing us earlier this week, the details of the the Thief’s elite specialization has finally been revealed, and it’s called the Daredevil.
The daredevil is a mobile damage dealer who can bring the pain to multiple enemies at once and also has enhanced dodge-roll abilities. To read all about the new abilities check out Karl McLain’s blog post over on the GW2 website.
For anyone who would like to get a chance to see the daredevil in action before they get to try it in the next beta weekend event, be sure to watch the next Points of Interest show on Friday 8/28 at noon PDT on the official GW2 Twitch channel.
The second Beta Weekend Event will be taking place starting at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7) on Friday, September 4, and running until 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) on Sunday, September 6.
Beta weekend events are a large milestone in the development of our expansion, and we can’t wait to play the game with you over the weekend and to continue down the path that brings Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns to release! And while we count down to our second beta weekend, make sure to join us for our massive announcement about Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns live from PAX Prime on Saturday, 29 August, at 5:30 p.m. UTC (10:30 a.m. Pacific Time), broadcast live on the official Guild Wars 2 Twitch channel, or join us in person if you’re attending PAX!
