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Good news for all of you who like to take advantage of a bargain. A mistake in the Steam listing for the double pack of indie game The Red Solstice means that not only is the pack being sold for the price of one copy of the game – it’s also currently 40% off. What’s more, you won’t get into trouble with the developers for taking advantage of the error.
Developers Ironward are going to correct the error tomorrow, but for now they’re not opposed to people taking advantage of the mistake. This is probably a good thing, as it does mean that not only can copies of their game get out to a wider audience with this impromptu sale, because it’s a multiplayer game this means that the servers will be filled with enough people to hopefully fill the 8-player squad and give it a good long life.
The game itself is a Kickstarter funded game, set in the future on the surface of Mars where a solar storm has cut all contact with a capital colony called Tharsis, and even as the storm continues to rage you are sent to find out what has happened to Tharsis, controlling a squad of space marines against an alien threat similar to Space Hulk.
Hopefully the accident will turn out to be a happy one for The Red Solstice and its developers, Ironward. If you’re unsure, try the demo on the Kickstarter page first… but hurry if you want to take advantage of the accidental offer.
Mojang have released a small snapshot for Minecraft, mostly for the purposes of optimisation because they say that they’re gearing up to release the long awaited 1.8 update for the game.
Snapshot 14w28a is mainly a snapshot that works behind the scenes to help with smooth client and server running as well as the usual bug fixes that come with one. It does also add the ability to finally specify an enchantment or effect by name rather than with the ID number at last which will make it a lot easier for new map-makers to program effects to be added to players into command blocks if they don’t know the ID number. It’s also since had a b version release to fix new bugs that cropped up with the fixes.
Keep an eye on the horizon people, 1.8 might be just around the corner at last!
Seems like the Minecraft community might have been marked out as an easy target. Another unofficial Minecraft convention has been called off five days from the date it was meant to start on, in fact it was due to happen this weekend – the forth in six months.
The convention in question was named Mine-o-rama and was due to take place in New York over the weekend of the 12th and 13th of July, but was called off at very short notice. The reason given for the cancellation was that the con-organisers had wished to stream live feeds of panels and events but had been met with refusal of permission from Mojang to actually do this due to the fact that said livestreams would have been pay-to-view – probably due to Mojang’s EULA saying that you cannot make money from their game, with a few exceptions. This, the organisers claim, means that they didn’t have enough money to run the event.
This of course has left a lot of attendees with tickets they currently cannot use and in some cases flights to New York and hotel bookings to attend an event that is no longer being held. However many of the booked guests have hastily begun to organise fan meet-ups for their fans to give them something to attend on the trip at least.
The Mine-o-rama Twitter account has acknowledged that the cancellation has left many fans disappointed and out of pocket but have said they tried desperately to re-plan the event but were left with a shortfall of about $175,000. They have said they are hoping to have the team meet next week to plan rescheduling the event but so far refunding people has not come up although the tweets are all terribly apologetic.
As with the last big Minecraft convention cancellation (article can be found here) BebopVox of Minecraft Mondays has put together a video on details he dug up that were publicly available:
The article about the event published in Forbes magazine was also referenced on the Twitter account, with the number of ‘7,500 tickets sold’ disputed as being 2,000 sold at the time and another 5,500 promised to students of which about 3,000 were actually sold. It also disputed the total of $1 million saying that in the end they only raised around $600,000 through ticket sales.
It’s another tricky situation, and I’ll be watching as the story develops more. My heart goes out to those left disappointed and I hope that the fan meet-ups that are actually organised go as smoothly as they can be.
Another snapshot has just been released in the lead-up to the release of Minecraft 1.8. This time it adds a lot of Survival content and a new mob, rabbits, to the game.
The rabbit mobs are passive as you’d expect (with one exception), with their AI set to flee from the player if they get too close. They come in a variety of shades and with a few different eye colours and have a range of items they can drop upon death as well as being tameable and breedable with carrots. As of 14w27a the breeding seems to be a little bugged though, in that they sometimes won’t automatically seek out another rabbit with breeding mode triggered upon carrot being administered.
To the new drops, a rabbit can drop one of three things (and sometimes multiples of one thing/more than one type of drop per kill) – raw rabbit, rabbit’s foot and rabbit hide. The raw rabbit is like any raw meat, cook it for a cooked version and edible to restore hunger. The cooked rabbit can also be used to make rabbit stew with a bowl, uncooked potato, mushroom (red or brown) and a carrot. Four rabbit hides can be put together in a 2×2 formation to make one piece of leather and the rabbit’s foot is a potion ingredient used to make a potion of leaping.
Other additions include the addition of mutton, raw and cooked, which is now a drop from killed sheep and the small chance of a spawned rabbit actually being a killer rabbit ala Monty Python – hits hard but goes down with a few smacks of a sword.
And we want YOU to help us celebrate. Thats right dear listener, YOU.
So join us July 5th-6th for the Sanitarium.FM 7th B’day Charity Gaming Extravaganza!
The station DJ’s and other staff and friends will be playing all sorts of games – from Minecraft, to Guild Wars 2 and indie games like War for the Overworld and Bro Force – starting at midnight GMT on the 5th and going all the way through till midnight EST or whenever we all collapse from lack of sleep!
The best part is that we’re doing it all for charity. All donations will go to GamesAid.
Anyone is welcome to tune in to the station and stream throughout the weekend and also join us gaming as well!
Please help us by donating to our Just Giving page over at:
Feel free to post here any ideas or games you want to see played over the weekend or if you want to help out and get involved!
Also remember we are always looking for new Bloggers and DJ’s. Check out https://www.sanitarium.fm/jobs for more information
We can’t wait to play some games for a great cause, and we know you can’t wait either!
Bookmark http://www.twitch.tv/sanitariumfm NOW so you don’t miss a second of the action!
