Players pretty much guessed it but Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns being an expansion is confirmed! At the “Beyond The Point of No Return” panel at PAX South, ArenaNet president Mike O’Brien told players the good news and Guild Wars 2 Game Director Colin Johanson went over the major features coming in the expansion. Players will be heading into The Heart of Maguuma where players can fight Mordrem minions and discover allies from ancient civilizations. From the announcement trailer, it looks like the Mursaat (or whatever those spectral beings are) are probably a new ally. There will be challenging group content, open world jungle maps, new events, a new story line, and new boss battles.

Max level and gear stats are not changing but progression shall be done using the Mastery System. The Mastery System is available at max level and is account based so you only need to apply points once if you have many characters. This system is used in order to adapt and survive in the Maguuma Jungle. Points for this system are earned by doing Heart of Maguuma jungle content. There are abilities such as hang gliding and combat abilities such as tearing bark off a heavily armored Mordrem. Also, precursors can be earned from the Mastery System via building and completing new collections. Speaking of precursors, Johanson confirmed new legendaries and new legendary precursors in Heart of Thorns.

Specializations are another form of progression being introduced in the expansion. Players will be able to gain access to a new weapon that was unavailable to their character. There will also be new traits, skills and unique mechanics. Some specializations described in the panel for Rangers is the ability to use a staff and Druid Form which provides new skills and mechanics; Necromancers will be able to use greatswords. From the trailer, it seems that Engineers will be able to wield hammers.

The expansion introduces a new heavy armor class: Revenant. Destiny’s Edge member Rytlock Brimstone was confirmed to be a Revenant when he returns from the Mists by Johanson at the panel. Revenants are able to channel the powers of the Mists as well as powers from past Guild Wars great legends such as Jalis Ironhammer (from Guild Wars Prophecies and Eye of the North) and Mallyx the Unyielding (from Guild Wars: Nightfall).

The PvP side is receiving new things as well! For WvW, there will be a new borderland in the borderland rotation where keeps have distinct themes. Certain abilities can be obtained when in control of objectives around a keep. For example, Johanson said the Earth Keep will raise up parts of the ground to defend itself when attacked if players control the shrines around the keep. Core changes to WvW will also be made in order to promote holding objectives. For sPvP, there will be a new mode called Stronghold which is a throwback to Guild Wars 1. Players will be able to hire troops with supply in order to assault the enemy team’s keep in order to defeat the enemy guild lord for the win. Guild teams will be available for this mode in order to see who makes it to the top of the leaderboards.

Finally, there will be Guild Halls. Guild Halls can be upgraded and can be a centralized place where guilds can organize and head out for guild missions and Heart of Maguuma jungle content.

In a post interview by Twitch, Mike O’Brien said that the first (public) playable version of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns will be available at PAX East. If you missed the panel and want to see it for yourself, you can check it out on Guild Wars 2’s Twitch channel!

Say goodbye to Club Nintendo. Nintendo’s long-standing loyalty program that allowed people to register their games and consoles, collect points (deemed Stars or Star Points in most territories, although America boringly used “Coins” instead), and spend them to claim exclusive merchandise, will be shut down this Summer after many years of service.

Nintendo have decided to phase out Club Nintendo to make way for a new, more modern loyalty scheme after reviewing its current business strategy; and after user feedback supposedly suggested many were dissatisfied with the current service – which makes sense, given that complaints were often made by users on the need to fill in a survey for EVERY game and console redeemed on the service to claim the stars and the annoyance this often caused. Part of the reason for the move may also be down to the belief that the service failed to catch on to a widespread audience in territories outside America, although this was not mentioned by Nintendo.

North Americans will have their service phased out first: Products released after January 20th will not contain registration cards; and from March 31st all Club Nintendo members will not be able to register any products or collect coins at all, nor will any new members be accepted to Club Nintendo. The Club Nintendo program shuts down in North America on June 30 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time and all Coins will be deleted when Club Nintendo accounts are closed on July 1, 2015.

As for those of us in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, we have been granted a little more time to prepare for the phase-out, with the removal of registration cards in new products delayed until after April 1st. The schedule for these regions is described by Nintendo thus:

April 1st 2015: From this date, Nintendo will no longer include product registration cards with its packaged products, so such products cannot be registered in Club Nintendo. You may still find product registration cards in products that were in stock before this date, however.

 

April 20th 2015: Termination of the registration of digital products downloaded from Nintendo eShop. Digital products obtained from Nintendo eShop after this date will no longer appear in the My Registered Games & Systems page in Club Nintendo. In addition, surveys for download software titles will no longer be available.

 

September 30th 2015: End of Club Nintendo programme. All Club Nintendo features, such as signing up as a new member, logging in as a registered member, earning Stars, and exchanging Stars for items from the Stars Catalogue will no longer be possible from this date.

Nintendo are so far saying little about the service that is planned to replace Club Nintendo, though state the company expects to share more information about the new scheme and its launch date in the near future. What is known however is that it will exist as a service completely separated from the old Club Nintendo system; and thus no data is being moved over. Therefore, in order to encourage users to use up their remaining Star (or Coin) balances before the service expires, dozens of downloadable games and “a limited quantity of exclusive reward items” will be added to the catalogue before its termination.

As an added incentive, the company plans to give out a new version of Flipnote Studio – Flipnote Studio 3D – for free to existing Club Nintendo members. Club Nintendo members in North America will receive a free download code for Flipnote Studio 3D in February 2015 automatically, most likely on launch date; for other regions, Nintendo state the code will be available as a welcome bonus for members who sign up to the new loyalty scheme in the first few weeks following its launch, with full details to come at a later date.

As a result of the closure, Nintendo have announced that the soon-to-be-released “New Nintendo 3DS” handheld consoles cannot be registered to Club Nintendo. These, it appears, will be rolled into the new system instead. However, Nintendo 3DS games – including those intended mainly for the New Nintendo 3DS – may still be registered if they have been or will be released before the registrations cards are phased out.

As a part of a larger investigation involving the attacks that brought down the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live last year, UK’s South East Regional Organized Crime Unit arrested an 18-year-old male last week.

The statement released to USA Today cited not only the DDoS attacks on Sony and Microsoft but also numerous swatting offenses

At this time, we are unsure if formal charges have been made against the teen, but the suspected charges will be unauthorized access to computer material contrary to section 1 of Computer Misuse Act 1990, unauthorized access with intent to commit further offenses contrary to section 2 of Computer Misuse Act 1990, and threats to kill contrary to Section 16 of Offenses against the person Act 1861.

Evolve is nearing release, so what better time to grab a few games in the closed beta. Our very own Digmbot has been trialling the beta to get a taste of what to expect when the game launches on February 10th; and in this first Youtube video of what should be a several week series, he takes a look at the game in general and some match footage with the Assault class.

If you’re excited about Evolve, keep it locked here or on Digmbot’s channel where there will be a new Evolve video every Monday, Wednesday and Friday leading up the the launch of the game on February 10th! And don’t forget about our exclusive competition for a chance to win your own copy of Evolve on Steam!

That’s right folks, we have a copy of Evolve to give away via Steam key on release day, February 10th. To enter, just complete the form below. If you are reading this on the Forum the form will not appear, so use this link to view the contest on the site: https://www.sanitarium.fm/archives/7079

[contesthopper contest=”7075″]

You may submit the above form only once. Additional “social” entries can be obtained by sharing the contest via Facebook, Twitter or Google+ using the buttons displayed after the initial entry. Maximum one email entry and three social entries per person. Prize is ONE (1) Steam Key redeemable for a copy of “Evolve” using the Steam Client by VALVe; and redemption is subject to VALVe’s Terms and Conditions. Sanitarium.FM is not affiliated with Evolve, Steam or VALVe.