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Dark Souls 2 has had a strange bug related to weaponry with it since its release. Somehow if the game is played at the higher framerate of 60FPS instead of 30FPS, the weapons will degrade significantly faster. And obviously, this is quite an annoying problem for players.
The bug was discovered about a year ago by players and they’ve been telling developer From Software about it since then. It’s only now that the game has hit consoles and had those players saying “This is a problem.” that they’ve begun to report that they’re looking for a fix.
The bug got spread onto the Playstation 4 and Xbox One versions through the game’s most recent DLC, Scholar of the First Sin and seems to have upped the number of players reporting the problem to the point where From Software have taken notice. Or maybe they’d always been working on a fix and are saying now because of the increased numbers. Who knows?
Although there’s no release date yet for the patch, the studio has stated that “Fixed issue whereby weapon durability was decreased drastically when used on enemy corpses, friendly characters, etc.” with the publisher of Bandai Namco adding “The fix will be issued for PS4, Steam and Xbox One, and will be apparent for people running the game at 60fps as the durability decrease rate is linked to the frame rate.”
Parents have been told by headteachers that they will be reported to police and social services for neglect if they allow their children to play over 18 computer games, according to the Sunday Times.
The newspaper reported that a warning was issued by primary and secondary schools who found children had been watching or playing games like Call of Duty and Gears of War or Grand Theft Auto.
The group wrote to parents, saying sexual content and violence and sexual content in the games are inappropriate and could lead to “early sexualised behaviour” and leave children “vulnerable to grooming for sexual exploitation or extreme violence”.
It goes on to say:
If your child is allowed to have inappropriate access to any game, or associated product, that is designated 18+ we are advised to contact the police and children’s social care as this is deemed neglectful.”
– Letter to parents
Earlier this month, the Prime Minister said social workers, councillors and teachers could be jailed for up to five years if they failed to speak up when they suspected or received allegations that children were being ill-treated, abused or wilfully neglected.
“We are trying to help parents to keep their children as safe as possible in this digital era. It is so easy for children to end up in the wrong place and parents find it helpful to have some very clear guidelines.”
– Mary Hennessy Jones, the head who drafted the letter
Nantwich Education Partnership, made up of 16 schools in Cheshire, sent the letter. Safeguarding guidance from the local authority told schools that if the behaviour of a pupil, or concerns about them, arouse suspicion the school should consult the children’s service “if in any doubt”.
Parents’ groups have responded by saying reporting families for allowing children to play unsuitable computer games was a step too far.
It has been announced that the next installment in the Batman: Arkham series has had its release date delayed by a few weeks, pushing it back from June 2nd to June 23rd.
Batman: Arkham Knight was originally supposed to have been released last year but Warner Bros then decided to delay the release until 2015, with the date of June 2nd being announced soon after. This further delay is probably down to wanting to make sure that the game is as functional as possible.
In a press release from the developers they explain the delay by saying “We’re a developer that hates to make any compromises, so we are sorry to say this means it’s going to be just a little bit longer until you can play the epic conclusion to the Arkham trilogy.”
The game will be released on the platforms of PC, Playstation 4 and the Xbox One. Pre-ordering the game will net you the Harley Quinn and Red Hood story packs.
Last year developer Crytek were going through a difficult period. There’d been news of staff going unpaid and some even walking out, but eventually they got back up to speed. To do it though they had to sell off an IP for a game that was still in development – Homefront: The Revolution. Since then, there’s not been a lot of news about the game.
Now though buying studio Deep Silver have announced that the game’s original release of some time in this year will instead be pushed back a little bit to 2016 instead. They’re developing it with their new UK studio Deep Silver Dambuster Studios in Nottingham, and the delay was decided upon to give Deep Silver Dambuster “every opportunity to turn Homefront: The Revolution into a best-selling title.”
The game itself is an interesting little open-world shooter that’s been compared to Crysis and seems to show promise. Let’s hope that the transition between studios won’t cause any hiccups in the development cycle.
