Warhammer+ is a subscription service for Warhammer fans. It’s a whole new way to explore the worlds of Warhammer, where you’ll find original animations and shows, access to Warhammer apps, a digital vault packed with lore and magazines, subscriber offers, and exclusive miniatures. There’s something in Warhammer+ for every hobbyist.

Warhammer+ released last week (25th Aug.) to a mix of fanfare and boo’s from the easily provoked Warhammer Community (a member I both love and some days hate) and frankly, after 30 years of being a member of the community, I ADORE Warhammer+!

Ok, let’s get to why before I pull up the gripes…

For starters, it’s AMAZING value and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, let’s break it down –

The Warhammer 40k and Age of Sigmar apps were £2 a month EACH, both are now part of this for £5 a month, but that’s not all.

Warhammer Vault, an interesting and growing repository of back catalogue issues of White Dwarf (each £6 a month), plus rule books and info packs from previous editions of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy/Age of Sigmar, that alone is an amazing amount of reading material, especially for folks like me that want to go back and play old editions of the game aswell.

Now, the controversial part, Warhammer Animations. Earlier this year, a number of popular fan made animations were removed from Youtube and some who had Patreons suddenly shut them down. Now, we live in a time of conspiracy and bug tech ruining what we love and Games Workshop updating their IP rules ready for Warhammer+ took a LOT of flak for this, however it was actually a great start for some of these fan animators, they have actual jobs in a media company with a real wage now. The last time we saw similar was a hiring spree by Disney, anyway, we now have Hammer & Bolter and the stunning Angels of Death kicking off a future haul of animated goodness most of us are salivating for (seeing our tabletop game in animation is riveting)

<p style=”font-size:small”> https://twitter.com/Astartes40k/status/1369666193989111808</p>

So, the last part of the subscription, the “Free” model. Now of course, it’s not really free, you need your subscription to last the full 12 months OR go for the yearly option, but this is where it gets interesting, the models equivalent on the GW webstore is £25 (using the Orruk Megaboss as a comparison), making the yearly 10 month sub (£50) only £25… or a monthly break down over 12 month of just £2.08. so 9pence more than one of the game apps before this.

Last but not least, we have the Warhammer Community teams content. Masterclass with Sughammer is a fantastic showcase of skill that I’m trying to learn from, the first episode, painting faces, I must have watched four times already and still my painted faces look like Sloth from Goonies (I love Sloth, Goonies was one of my fave films).  Battle Report with Patrick (and Nick Bayton for the first two) were great showcases of how fun a game can be, Nick’s enthusiasm show’s he was a good GW Store Manager too, but Patrick explains the rules and tactics really well.  The third show, Lore Master, hasn’t started yet, as Wade has been ill, so it’s held back production, but I’m stoked for that too.

Now, the gripes…

Some have mentioned the lack of content, and that’s a valid criticism to start. Four animated shows, four shows from the Warhammer Community team and what’s initially appeared in Warhammer Vault actually isn’t very much. But Games Workshop also padded that out with a good roadmap of what’s coming and for the early adopters in week 1, a £10 digital voucher for the webstore.

So yeah, even now, it’s a great deal if you are a long time fan like I am, it was a no brainer on a money value side, the growing content is already good and we know we’re in for more goodies. If you’re a long time Warhammer fan, there’s no reason NOT to get into it early and if you’re fairly new, Warhammer stores are running a great starter system called Battle Honours, go check it out and tell them I sent you! Until then, I’m off to enjoy the week 2 content

~Lonesamurai

3:00 PM EDT April 19th 2019…

That was when it happened, a miracle of heroic proportions. 5 days later is when I heard the news and my heart skipped a beat. The City of Heroes source code was dropped, not a reworked code, not new homegrown emulator code, it is the ORIGINAL game code. Let that sink in for just a minute, process it. Did your heart skip a beat too? Did you just experience a roller coaster of emotions like I did? If so, soon we can return home brothers and sisters! If not, its okay, soon you can discover why this is so huge for us.

City of Heroes was shut down for no apparent reason on November 30th 2012. The game was successful here in the west, maintaining profitability, but it is believed NCSoft shut it down due to poor reception in the Korean market. Petitions to save the game and numerous other attempts were everywhere. All fell on deaf ears.

Fast forward to today, City of Heroes still has a rabid fan base, numerous spiritual successors are in development, and there are more than a few groups working on an emulator. The release of the source code will accelerate these emulators by leaps and bounds, no longer are they reverse engineering scraps of code and writing new stuff from scratch, now they have the original source code to work with. Instead of taking years to get an emulated game we can get the real deal in a much shorter time.

Now to be fair the source code drop did not include Mission Arcs, other game content, or the character database. But the player and NPC databases are one and the same, and is currently being scrubbed and sifted through and will be dropped once that process is finished. everything that is currently missing is being worked on getting ready for release. Stay patient, and keep the faith alive, soon we will be in paragon city together again! Why am I so sure of this? Because there has been a secret CoH server running and in development for the last 6 years! Not only that but the Titan network is still working on trying to get a legal server running!On to the leaked secret server; it was outed by Destroyer stroyer, AKA Doc Boy, who says his real name is Brian. It was leaked in a video he posted to youtube which has since been taken down. He claimed to have been invited to the private server after dumping game screenshots to reddit, and claims the server was running for 6 years with the game’s original code and player character data. He also claims the devs had access to personal info, and was kept secret until now with ban threats and NDAs. Due to this leak of the secret SCORE (Secret Cabal of Reverse Engineers) COH server Leandro Pardini, the lead dev on said server, confirms the server’s existence and spoke out about numerous accusations made by Doc Boy and the need for the secrecy in the first place. Here is the complete statement –

The Titan Network is in talks with NCSoft regarding a community-run City of Heroes server. Things are looking positive, so stay strong. We don’t have a timeline right now, but we’ll provide more updates as soon as we can. #SaveCoH https://t.co/zSq3nTEScM

— Tony V (@TonyV_CoH) April 24, 2019

“ The Secret Cabal of Reverse Engineers
Before I talk about City of Heroes, I need to go back in time a little bit. It has been over six years since the shutdown, so a lot of people either forgot or never knew how the server project started. And for that, I need to talk about another game.

When NCsoft closed Tabula Rasa in 2007, a group of devoted players banded together to code a server for it. It was called Infinite Rasa and it developed things in the open, with a project website and forum. The overall architecture was being discussed publicly and there was a buggy server that allowed players to log in and run around the initial area.

Then it was hit by a Cease and Desist order by NCsoft in November 2011. The website was seized, the forums went dark, and progress completely stopped. One thing was made abundantly clear to everybody: NCsoft was not going to tolerate the development of servers for their games, even four years after they were shut down.

When City of Heroes closed in November 2012, this was very fresh in my mind. Instead of trying to develop a server out in the open to suffer the same fate as Infinite Rasa, the efforts to revive City of Heroes focused on trying to acquire the IP from NCsoft through various means, with any server development being held in secret.

And here is the irony of the entire situation: the fact that a City of Heroes server is being developed in secret is not a secret. If you search for the phrase “Secret Cabal of Reverse Engineers” in Google, the very first result is a post from 2013, in which a player is explicitly saying that the server development efforts “might want to stay as low as possible”.

So that is what SCORE did. It utilized closed forums with, closed access. Invite only; initially only for developers, though eventually expanded to friends and family of anyone who had access. Accepting an invitation to the project involved a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), and anyone who breached it had their access revoked. Over the years, multiple people who weren’t happy with how fast the project was moving or wanted it made public were removed. For the most part this was not an issue, because the community at large, at the time, understood that this was a secret project, a backup if everything else failed. That seems to no longer be the case.

There are currently calls to make SCORE public because of the extra exposure; the reason given is that, after six years, NCsoft surely wouldn’t care. But Infinite Rasa also thought they were safe after four years. This is not a mistake you make twice.

I believe that the reason this particular NDA breach gained so much traction when others didn’t has to do with the community evolving over time. Many people no longer remember that efforts to acquire the IP were ongoing at the time, and so server development was agreed to happen underground. It is possible that a lot of people that played City of Heroes while they were teenagers, and never engaged with the community at the time, are now adults who never knew about it in the first place.

Now, I need to address the connections, or lack thereof, between SCORE and other projects that have become entangled in this dramatic reveal.

Super Entity Game Server

The Super Entity Game Server project already existed back in 2012 when the City of Heroes servers were shut down, and their goal is to implement a fully playable server that connects to the original release client from 2004. At the time there was a lot of discussion about contributing to SEGS rather than starting a separate project, but the fact that SEGS uses the original release client, while SCORE targeted the latest beta client from 2012, makes both projects fundamentally incompatible. The projects are separate, and as far as I am aware, none of the lead developers or community managers ever accepted an invite to participate in SCORE.

SEGS has been given as a reason why the secrecy behind SCORE is unwarranted. After all, they have been operating for ten years now, and have not received any Cease and Desist orders by NCsoft. It should be noted that SEGS has not yet released anything to the level of what Infinite Rasa had: working weapons and enemies, though limited to just the starting area. It’s also possible that using the original release client makes them a less appealing target. In either case, they are certainly braver and more willing to take risks than I am, and I really hope that it works out for them. While my attempts to contribute to SEGS were extremely limited mainly due to my own lack of familiarity and patience with their programming framework, I still am cheering for their success and I hope that, if this whole situation attracts attention to them, it’s only in the form of new developers seeking to contribute their skills to the project.

 

The Titan Network

While the initial recruitment for SCORE happened on the Titan Network forums, the project was split off as soon as possible. Because of the then-ongoing efforts to acquire the City of Heroes IP from NCsoft, the owner for the site did not want a server development project to jeopardize the negotiations, and has on multiple occasions disavowed the server project completely, although discussion of SCORE are still allowed as far as I know. This might seem overzealous, but it is perfectly understandable; the Titan Network aims to be a hub for the City of Heroes community and their many projects, and being linked to a specific underground project introduces a liability that could cause them to be shut down as well.

Once it was clear that acquiring the IP was not going to happen, the Titan Network created a project where all the user data is held on the players’ own computers and the game processes are distributed among players. This is a brilliant idea, as it means that there’s no server to shut down; Paragon Chat operates on a standard, open source chat client. I collaborated on this project’s early days, but again, the goals are too different for the projects to be merged into a single thing. And because of the difficulty in properly implementing a distributed server, I recommend that anyone with the development skills to contribute to a City of Heroes server project joins SEGS instead.

 

Paragon Studios

This is where things get less pleasant. This last NDA breach has had some malicious elements to it, probably to inflate the claims and make it feel more dramatic than it is. While I won’t deny that some former Paragon Studios developers are aware of SCORE and have provided helpful tips in the past, this should not be shocking to anyone who has been around the community long enough; I have seen some former Paragon Studios developers in the Discord server for SEGS as well. Under no circumstances should there be fingers pointed at them; anything they shared was done so with the tacit understanding that it would not endanger their current or future employment. I am very happy to take the heat over this entire situation, even though I think it has been overblown. Leave them out of it.

There is one specific rumor that needs outright debunking, though: at no point did I, or anyone else I know, receive a database containing player names, emails, birth dates, payment information, or any other personally identifiable information. Not only would this have been a massive breach of privacy, but that is not information that a game server would ever need to operate, and so it would have been completely pointless to share.

 

Reddit

The person behind the current NDA breach cites Reddit moderators being too quick to remove all mentions of any private server, except for their two stickies for SEGS and Paragon Chat. While this again might seem overzealous, it really isn’t. Reddit as a whole does not tolerate when a forum triggers legal complaints; very recently, the subreddit where piracy is discussed had to delete 10 years of archived discussions to prevent being shut down. There are also the very valid concerns that malicious actors would post links to City of Heroes servers that turn out to be scams which infect the player’s computer with malware or stealing payment information. Reddit offers no accountability regarding who posts anything, and so it should be heavily policed to guarantee a safe environment. If this feels like censorship, you are always free to start your own subreddit. I do not moderate the City of Heroes subreddit, the Titan Network or any Facebook group.

 

Trust and Feelings

This is a difficult thing to address, because nobody likes feeling lied to, even by omission. At the same time, operating under an NDA comes with some rules that are well understood. The fact that we’re talking about a server project for a game while the company that owns the IP is still active and used aspects of the IP very recently for Master X Master makes things more complicated.

My approach to enforcing the NDA has always been to not reply to any public posts that revealed details about SCORE, and just contact the specific party to have the information taken down. Others have gone as far as to call them liars or crazy, which goes against my wishes. I do apologize for anyone who was on the receiving end of verbal abuse due to this situation.

Back in 2012, the City of Heroes community agreed that SCORE would operate in secret until we had something ready for release. The fact that nearly nothing has been released six years later is probably part of the reason why this attracted so much attention; the community has shifted and changed, and not many remember how the project began. I am sure a lot of people are curious to know how much progress has been done; however, with SEGS having regular and interesting releases, it feels quite unfair to come out of nowhere and steal their thunder with a progress report on something that is hidden by design.

Unless and until we are certain that a Cease and Desist order is no longer a threat, the NDA regarding SCORE development will remain in full effect. For most people this will seem like a moot point since most of the community are aware of it, but keep in mind, that is also how we started. Until then, support SEGS! They are very close to a new release and I will be very disappointed if the ghost of SCORE overshadows their accomplishments.”

That is a lot to take in. Many people are understandably angry that this server existed in secret for so long with no way to play other than an invite. Now it remains to be seen how this will affect the future of the SCORE server and other projects now that the source code has been dropped by the people over at SCORE and how this all might affect the attempts by the city of titans folks to get a legit community server running with NCSoft approval. As of the time of this article a new public test server was launched with 14000 registered users and over 2000 active players, the servers current cap.

We’ll bring you more news as we hear it
~Darsch

Game of the Year 2018 – Awarded to the best of our Game of the Month winners of 2018.

Legrand Legacy – SemiSoft Studios

Our first Game of the Month title in the new scene and a worthy community choice for our first proper Game of the Year award aswell, massive congrats to Uwil and the team at SemiSoft Studios! 

For a reminder of our Game of the Month choices in 2018, here you go –

 

01-2018 Legrand Legacy – Semisoft Studios

02-2018 Fe – Zoink Games

03-2018 Surviving Mars – Haemimont Games

04-2018 Battletech – Harebrained Schemes

05-2018 State of Decay 2 – UndeadLabs

06-2018 Jurassic World Evolution – Frontier Developments

08-2018 World of Warcraft Battle For Azeroth – Blizzard Entertainment

09-2018 Shadow of the Tomb Raider – Square Enix

10-2018 Red Dead Redemption 2 – Rockstar

11-2018 Fallout 76 – Bethesda Studios

12-2018 Just Cause 4 – Square Enix

Team Choice 2018 – Awarded by the station team.

Marvel’s Spider-Man – Insomniac Games

The station team thought long and hard over the new year break what they loved the most in 2018 and Marvel’s Spider-Man was the stand out winner from the team.  Insomniac Gaes bought us a blinder of an open world adventure for the web slinger that all the other great games this year just couldn’t quite top!

And for those interested, here’s the full list of the teams choices –

 

Lonesamurai –       Surviving Mars – Haemimont Games

Scarlet_Dragon –  Graveyard Keeper – Lazy Bear Games/TinyBuild

Crimsonshade –    Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – BANDAI NAMCO Studios Inc.

Ca1t –                    Marvel’s Spider-Man – Insomniac Games

Isnotavampire –     Marvel’s Spider-Man – Insomniac Games

Phasechan –          Spyro Reignited Trilogy – Toys for Bob

TGB-Sirhc&Ar0n – Marvel’s Spider-Man – Insomniac Games

Darsch –                 Monster Hunter World – Capcom

Katoe –                   Marvel’s Spider-Man – Insomniac Games

Best Sony Playstation 4 Exclusive Game – Our choice for the best PS4 title in 2018

Marvel’s Spider-Man – Insomniac Games

As mentioned in the Team Choice section, Insomniac played a blinder with the new iteration of Marvel’s Spider-Man, bringing qualities we loves from way back in Spider-Man 2 to make a perfect free roaming open world.

Best Nintendo Switch Exclusive Game – Our choice for the best Switch title in 2018

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – BANDAI NAMCO Studios Inc.

The latest Smash Bros. dominated the Switch owning members of the community and team in 2018, with challenges flying over in discord (we should have done a tournament), with a fantastic roster of fighters and clean, precise controls, it was one of the best fighting games of not only 2018, but also all time!

Best Microsoft XBox One Exclusive Game – Our choice for the best XB1 title in 2018

Forza Horizon 4 – Playground Games

Bringing us a good chunk of the north of England and the Scottish border, Forza Horizon 4 turned into the best racing game of 2018, but more on that later.  It was also the first in the Forza series also on XBox Play Anywhere that ran brilliantly on mediocre PC specs aswell, after the horrible showing by Forza 7 in 2017!

Best Action Game – For the best game in the action genre focused on combat.

Monster Hunter World – Capcom

The first Monster Hunter to make it to PC, albeit a few months after the console versions, didn’t arrive with fanfare’s, but it should have.  A great action game, even if a little shallow compared to other RPG’s, but still amazingly fun if you like chopping up huge monsters and using the parts to make new armour and weapons!

Best Independent Game – For outstanding creative and technical achievement in a game made outside the traditional publisher system.

Celeste – Matt Makes Games

An indie title we shockingly missed when it came out in January of 2018 on STEAM and other platforms, and then a free title on XBox Live (you can grab it now if you haven’t already) Matt Makes Games made a classic platformer that left us in awe of what Indies can do.

Best Multiplayer Game – For outstanding online multiplayer gameplay and design, including co-op and massively multiplayer experiences, irrespective of game genre.

World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth – Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard may have had some issues at the end of 2018 and into the new year, but WoW had a great launch to it’s 6th expansion, Battle for Azeroth. Learning from Legions up’s and down’s, it was a solid expansion, but felt a little lacking in places until patch 8.1 dropped.

Best Ongoing Game – Awarded to a game for outstanding development of ongoing content that evolves the player experience over time.

World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth – Blizzard Entertainment

As mentioned above, WoW’s 6th expansion dropped continuing WoW’s dominance at the top of the MMO tree for another year!

Best Racing Game – For the best racing experience in 2018.

Forza Horizon 4 – Playground Games

As mentioned above, Forza Horizon 4 was a massive step up for the series, especially being cross platform, but as a really good racing game.

Best Role Playing Game – For the best game designed with rich player character customization and progression, including massively multiplayer experiences.

Monster Hunter: World – Capcom

Again, as mentioned above, Monster Hunter has been successful for years on Nintendo systems, but finally branching out to the other consoles and even PC made it one of the best RPG’s of 2018!

Best Strategy Game – Best game focused on real time or turn-based strategy gameplay, irrespective of platform.

Battletech – Harebrained Schemes

One of our Game of the Month winners in 2018, Harebrained Schemes bought us a turn based Mechwarrior title that not only reminded us of the good old days of XCom, but has us excited for Mechwarrior 5 in 2019.  The Flashpoint DLC near the end of the year added a well needed Iron Man mode for those that wanted more of a challenge too!

Stinker of the Year! – The most disappointing game of 2018, not the worst, just disappointing

Fallout 76 – Bethesda Studios

We were unsure when Bethesda first announced Fallout 76 last year, but we wanted to give it benefit of the doubt.  Unfortunately, although not bad, it wasn’t great either.  With a bad, buggy start for most people and issues like duping and cheating carrying on into the new year and beyond, although it was good and even fun to play sometimes, it left a sour note on the franchise.

As a gaming-orientated radio station whose listener and staffing base incorporates many people with disabilities both physical and mental, we at Sanitarium.FM champion any attempt by a major corporation to create technology that caters for the less able user. For that reason, when we heard that Microsoft have unveiled an Xbox One controller designed with the differently-abled in mind, we knew this was something we had to take a look at.

Officially named the Xbox Adaptive Controller, Microsoft’s latest creation – which will actually support both XBox and Windows PCs – is billed as ‘the most flexible adaptive controller made by a major gaming company’. As Microsoft tells it, When a customised controller from non-profit veterans’ organisation Warfighter Engaged caught the eye of a Microsoft engineer back in 2014, Microsoft decided to create its own disability-friendly controller for the following year’s Hackathon, which is where this project began. Refinements followed a year later; but it was the release of the Copilot function – which allows two Xbox One controllers to be treated as a single controller – that led Microsoft to declare their new controller concept ready for launch.

In fact, Copilot is actually the key to how this new controller becomes adaptable for a wide range of disabilities. Designed to be used on a desktop surface, the Xbox Adaptive Controller features all number of ports to allow additional controllers, headsets, switches and other assistive devices to expand on its base capabilities, allowing a user to create a custom gaming solution whereby a user can combine many different controls into a workable solution for their own body. The ports are labelled such that the user doesn’t need to turn or pick up the device to see what goes where; and each controller can function as one or more physical buttons according to the user’s needs. The Adaptive Controller itself sports two giant buttons, mapped to the A and B of a standard Xbox controller and with enough spacing to allow a hand to rest in between; along with a D-Pad and other smaller control buttons to the left side.

Microsoft have explained the full story behind the controller on their Story Labs, which also gives further details about the upcoming product. The Xbox Adaptive Controller will launch later this year, and will retail for $100 in the US, which is likely to translate to around £100 in the UK after the inclusion of VAT.

Two years ago, Microsoft raised eyebrows when it unveiled the Surface Hub, a digital whiteboard that could handle anything from video conferences, to a shared workspace for working on documents. Despite being plagued with numerous delays to launch and being ridiculously expensive (exceeding $11,000 for even the smaller model plus stand), Microsoft now claims that there are 5,000 companies using Surface Hubs, including half of Fortune 100 companies – and apparently, sales have been good enough for Microsoft to announce a second version is in the works.

Details are currently scarce regarding the Surface Hub 2, which isn’t planned to retail until 2019; although “selected customers” will be able to test the device later this year. At it’s heart, however, the new Hub is still a gigantic touchscreen-enabled display, which will run Windows 10 and support the Surface Pen. It also has thinner bezels, making it look more like a modern flatscreen TV, albeit one with a wider-than-average 3:2 aspect ratio. Surprisingly, it appears the built-in webcam is also out, meaning you’ll now need to plug in your own to start video conferences – which strikes us an odd move.

Microsoft appear to be targeting the new Surface Hub as having more potential uses, with the thinner form factor making it easier to create a wall of surface hubs for wide digital displays. To that end, the company has released a Youtube video introducing the Hub 2, which shows off a number of interesting use concepts:

The device also contains a fingerprint sensor, so each user can protect their documents and data behind their own accounts and login with just a touch.

No information is currently available on pricing or technical specifications. We’ll have more news when we get it!