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A few days ago Valve announced that they were planning to make an update to the Steam Workshop to allow modders to make money from their mods, with the first game to feature this being Skyrim. Needless to say the Internet is divided on the issue, for different reasons. I personally have concerns about the fact that it’s regulated by the users of Steam rather than Valve themselves.
However, some are a little bit more creative and… blatant about how they feel about the new system. Most people against it have complained, debated the pros and cons with friends or even signed the petition that’s going around (which has already reached over 101k signatures at time of writing). Two users have teamed up though to make a protest mod. Really.
Created by users Fuck Valve and Cuscino, the mod is called ‘No more imperials‘ and does just as it says. It eliminates all the Imperials from the game, which kind of makes it difficult to do very much of… well, ANYTHING in the game. Which is the point actually.
The description on the mod’s Workshop page reads: “This mod removes every imperial from the game, effectively breaking the game, just like how valve broke the modding community.” Funnily enough there’s also a banner on the page noting that the mod is ‘incompatible’ with the game of Skyrim right now.
The mod has gotten a lot of five-star ratings from people even though it hasn’t been downloaded an awful lot (well, would you download a mod that is meant to break your game?). This has pushed it to the top of the popular mods list and gotten it a good amount of attention. Which again, I suppose was the point.
Never let it be said that the Internet can’t be creative in their unquestionable dislike of an unpopular change to something they love.
The announcement of the World of Warcraft movie brought a lot of responses from gamers, some seeing it positively and others being a bit more wary. Since then though, most people seem to have swung over to the camp of actually looking forward to its release and maybe even planning to go see it when it releases.
Well, if you were you’ll have to wait a little bit longer. Originally set for a release date of sometime in March 2016, the release has been pushed back a few months. It’s not for the typical reasons of needing more time to finish the project though, according to its director, Duncan Jones, it’s because Universal has enough faith in the movie to aim for the big summer blockbuster slot. Wow.
Got good news & bad news. Uni have decided Warcraft deserves to be a summer flick. Yay! Bad news, that means we have to wait till June 2016!
The new release will be sometime in June, which isn’t too much longer to wait if you were looking forward to going to see it. The weather will certainly be much nicer.
Let’s just hope that it lives up to Universal’s expectations.
In a somewhat unexpected move, Valve have made a major change to their Steam Workshop. Now modders have the option to charge for the mods they make for games, in a market that will be open and unregulated by Valve or at least in the case of the first game to have it added for, the game’s developers themselves.
And if the thought of that is concerning you, you’re not the only one…
Valve’s Tom Bui stated that they see the change as a great way to support the Steam community’s modders, saying that user generated content was “an increasingly significant component of many games” and that financially supporting these people would help it reach new heights.
The first game to have support is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim which now has a handful of paid mods available for it, with prices starting from 30 cents. The Workshop’s interface is largely the same for choosing the mods, but you can now filter to show only free or paid mods if you want to narrow your search field. Mod makers can set whatever price they like for the mods, and keeping in mind that 75% of the cost goes to Valve expect prices to be set higher for the mod makers who aim to make this a significant revenue of income for themselves.
Personally hearing about this has set a lot of warnings ringing in my head. An open, uncurated market sounds good in theory but remember this is Steam we’re talking about. Valve have been very hands-off with a lot of their processes and seen them become a good place for scammers to exploit gamers before they finally stepped in with some rules to limit this.
Granted, there is a Steam Workshop refund policy in place to help protect against this but the requests must be sent in within 24 hours of purchase. And that’s really not a lot of time in the scheme of things.
I love the idea of supporting modders of games. As an avid Minecraft player I am well aware of how much better a good modder can make a video game, and modders deserve all the support they can get. I’m just afraid that Valve’s ‘hands-off’ policy might end up making this new Workshop feature a bit of a mess if it’s not properly managed.
Smite publisher HiRez Studios is well known for having creative (and sometimes cringe inducing) skins in it’s third person MOBA. With each new patch, a handful of skins are usually dropped into the game along with a new god. While we will be covering Au Puch, the new god, later on we thought we’d share a little bit of skin goodness with you now.
Bastet, Egyptian Goddess of Cats has apparently been bitten by some strange radioactive J-Pop Spider as she has transformed into Kawaii Pop Bastet. Check out her main menu animation below!
Ubisoft has brought us another entry in the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Set in China during the Ming Dynasty, it follows the adventures of a female assassin as she fights to recover a box given to her by Ezio Auditore. So, how did the series make the transition from 3D to 2D?
