Monthly Archives: January 2014

Camelot Unchained Reveals Silverhand Racial Boons and Banes

Camelot Unchained Producers Letter

Today City State Entertainment ended the full month long backstory behind the Silverhand race’s origins for Sandbox realm warfare MMORPG, Camelot Unchained. Harking from the Tuatha De Danaan (TDD), these silver armed monstrosities are adept specialists at extracting resources and fighting up close and person, though interestingly enough are not the best at actually utilizing those resources to craft items.

The total list of boons and banes are currently as follows:

Possible Examples of Racial Boons/Abilities

Hand of Steel – This Silverhand has committed to using his hand as a melee weapon. As such, he gains %+ in all his attacks and is less likely to fumble.

I am a Silverhand but not like my father – when you look at your arm, you are reminded of Nuada’s corrupted arm and remember not to fall into the darker side of your emotions. As such, you get a %+ buff to mental attacks resistance / resist rolls.

My hand is a shield – This Silverhand has committed to using his hand primarily as a defensive boost. As such, defense rating is boosted by %+ and he always has a % chance of blocking any targeted weapon attack.

Mining is easy! – This Silverhand has committed to using this hand mostly for mining. As such he gets a %+ boost in all mining related activities.

Vengeance is mine! – Upon entering The Depths™ the player has a buff placed on him that adds %+ to all attacks and mental attack resistance rolls.

Possible Examples of Racial Banes

Pride will be your undoing – As your skill level increases with each of your abilities, you have a % chance of having a long-term debuff placed on you that lowers all your defenses.

Lightning rod – Electrical based attacks have a %+ chance to hit me as well as a %+ in damage.

Fumble, fumblaya, fumblerooski – Maybe being a crafter isn’t the best idea for me. The player loses % in all crafting rolls.

I see Depths people – Upon entering The Depths the player has a % debuff placed on him that negatively affects all of his attacks and mental attack resistance rolls.

Do it for the children – This Silverhand remembers the sacrifice of John and Nimue and as such, any attacks against Arthurian females and male Dvergr  (if you can tell them apart!) are at a %-.  Just kidding about physical differences between the males and females.

 

The full background story can be found on the CU official website.

Divinity: Original Sin Now in Early Access

Divinity OS Early Access

Larian Studios has announced today that Divinity: Original Sin is now available through Steam Early Access.

The game is now available here for $39.99 (includes early access and the final release version), or for a $59.99 co-op pack that includes two copies plus a double pack of Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity.

The developer also issued a reminder and warning that the Early Access version grants only access to the first 15 hours of the game, and that the game is still missing features and may be rough to play as it is still in development. Players seeking a polished experience have been recommended to wait until the game’s final release.

The Repopulation Hits Fourth Stretch Goal

Repopulation Calprates

Above & Beyond has announced today that they’ve now reached the fourth stretch goal for their second Kickstarter campaign for The Repopulation, which means the introduction of the Calprates Mount, appearing soon in the current alpha build. More chapters have also been added to the Evening Star short story.

The Repopulation is now looking ahead to the next two stretch goals: Cooperative Structure Placement, which will allow players to see each other’s objects as they are being moved or placed (instead of only after); and a closed beta backer bonus that will grant an additional set of invites for the third round of closed beta testing.

CrossFire Announces E-Sports Initiative

Cross Fire Yard

After a successful 2013, SG North (Formally G4Box), publisher of the hit free online FPS CrossFire, have welcomed the New Year by announcing a partnership with competitive gaming organizers E-Sports Genesis. The partnership promises to bring forth tournaments with cash prizes to the CrossFire North America/UK community in 2014, starting with “The ESG Winter Series”. Alongside this announcement was the reveal of the qualifier finals to the official world-wide CrossFire competition, CFS, which had a huge cash prize of $180,000 USD last year. The qualifier will be hosted by ESG and will be broadcasted through their Twitch TV channel at 8 PM EST on January 18th.

Signups for The ESG Winter Series started on January 6th and will last until January 19th. The tournament will begin on January 20th and features a grand prize of $500 cash. “Competition in CrossFire has always been a focus, partnering with E-Sports Genesis gives us amazing new options to expand the community and it is an important first step for us”, said Christian Brellisford, Associate Producer of CrossFire at SG North. Participation is open to all CrossFire players. Although the cash prize is only available to North American users, E-Sports Genesis assures players that “there are cash prize tournaments for all regions in the works for future tournaments”. Additional prizes include over 150,000 ZP for use in game.

Players can sign up for The ESG Winter Series on The E-Sports Genesis website. There users will find additional tournament information, including rules, restrictions and scheduled match times.

Loadout is locked & loaded for January 31st

Edge of Reality, developers of the upcoming Free-to-Play shooter Loadout, today announced that the game will officially be available on Friday, January 31, 2014. The development team has spent the last three years fine tuning the mechanics and embracing the maniacal and addictive nature of Loadout’s gameplay, ensuring their debut title will be ready for its highly-anticipated launch.

Loadout

“After spending the last two decades contributing to the development of some amazing franchises, like Mass Effect, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, The Sims, and Dragon Age, Loadout is our studio’s first original IP, and we couldn’t be more excited to open it up to the masses,” said Rob Cohen, CEO of Edge of Reality. “We started this as a passion project, working on it when we could, and trying to create something original and truly player friendly. What we’ve got now is a game that’s a blast to play, quick and easy to get into, and empowers players with insane amounts of customization.”

In fact, Loadout’s weapon-crafting system runs so deep that there are over 44 billion possible creations to assemble, enabling players to transform weapon behavior in extreme ways, thereby defining their own class and play style. Combining weapon-crafting with acrobatic movement and over-the-top comedic violence, Loadout is packed with personality and style that deliver a fresh and satisfying alternative to the vast array of modern combat shooters.

Loadout is currently in beta via Early Access on Steam. Loadout will officially be released for the PC on January 31, 2014. For more Loadout mayhem, visit www.loadout.com

War Thunder – an Early Look at Ground Forces

By Jordan Hall (ApocaRUFF), OnRPG Journalist

War Thunder is a flight combat MMO developed by Gaijin Entertainment. Originally made available in 2012, the game has come quite a long way. Its most recent addition will be the “Ground Forces” portion of the game, which will add tank combat. In the end, Gaijin hopes to add content to cover every area of warfare and this is the next step in that direction. The Ground Forces portion of the game has just as much customization and realism as the planes, offering research progression to gain access to newer tanks and parts. I was given access to the closed beta of Ground Forces and got the chance to get an early look at this massive update to the game.

WarThunder

 

Before I get too far into the article, I want to stress that this game is in closed beta and still has a lot of room for tweaks and change. That means what I report here may not be accurate at a later date. That being said, the game is surprisingly polished for the stage of development it is in. I didn’t notice any bugs during my play sessions, and the only thing I could complain about was my own skill at the game. The physics might need a bit of a tweak, as I frequently rolled over my tank, but they honestly felt quite good and I wouldn’t mind if they weren’t changed at all.

 

TankFlip

 

 

Graphics

Just as with the planes, the tank models in the game are amazing. Right away I was blown away by the quality and detail. The map graphics were also amazing, with a lot of care put into them to make them not only beautiful, but also interesting enough to add more complexity to the combat. There’s also a lot of little details that add a whole other level of awesomeness, such as track marks in the dirt or smoke coming out of your tanks exhaust. I have nothing but praise for the superb graphics.

 

Graphics

 

As I mentioned, the maps were great, too. As far as I could tell, tank and plane integration hasn’t happened yet. The size of the maps is currently not as big as I was expecting, but I assume this is because air and ground forces haven’t been fully merged yet. The size of the maps is still quite large, though, and there’s plenty of places to take cover. There’s a lot of tactics involved, and you’ll be sitting around waiting for a careless prey to show up a lot.

 

Map

 

 

Controls

The tank controls are very straight forward. WASD to go forward, turn, and reverse. Mouse to aim your turret. Stuff like that. If you’ve played an FPS (or World of Tanks), you’ll probably catch on very quickly. Everything seemed to work great and it was an all-around smooth experience.

 

One of the things I appreciated a great deal, but I’m not sure if it’ll be available in the live version (or if it is, in the different game modes), was the trajectory assistance. There is a small X on your cross-hair that will show you how much your shell will fall. This makes it very easy to quickly figure out where you need to be aiming to hit that tank hiding behind a rock half-way across the map. The movement controls, especially the turning, responded exactly as I thought a tank should respond.

 

Targeting

 

 

The Tanks

The tanks are spectacular. I’ve already mentioned that I love the detail put into them. Right now the selection is fairly limited (at least compared to the plane portion of the game), but more tanks are being released at a decent rate. I’m sure by time Open Beta is released, there will be a huge selection of tanks to go after. Just like the planes, you gain access to new tanks via research. It seems that your research in various tanks goes up as you use them in battle, kind of like experience.

 

Research

 

Just like with the planes, you have access to all your tanks in a battle, and you’re not out of the game until all of them are destroyed. It also seems that tanks have multiple uses (or you can have multiple of each tank). This is displayed as a counter on the tanks picture when you’re actually in the game. I was happy to have this feature as tanks tend to blow up frequently when you’re not used to the game. About half of my tanks in my first game were lost due to falling off a cliff and flipping over.

 

TankSelect

 

 

Combat

Time to discuss the most important thing – combat. I instantly fell in love with the combat in War Thunder: Ground Forces. The mind-blowing visuals combined with the responsive controls made for an incredible experience. There’s a variety of different tanks, from the fast kind with not much fire power, to the lumbering giants with massive cannons, and even tank destroyers. Depending on your choice of tank, your tactics will change and so will the way you participate in combat.

 

Shooting

 

My favorite way to do things was to find a nice high cliff and set myself on it, waiting for enemies. If I saw someone, I was almost always in a great place to hit them and if they saw me and started to return fire I could easily back off and re-position. However, I did find myself in situations where I needed to fire and move at the same time, and that was probably one of my most intense experiences I’ve ever had in an MMO. Even when I ended up getting blown up, I had a blast.

 

Dead

 

The damage model also seems to be as detailed as the models themselves. You can have pieces of armor blown off, your treads damaged, and even your turret disabled. Crew members can also receive injury or die, which can affect your performance greatly. Field repairs can be done, but will temporarily leave you open to attack for a bit. The first time I watched a shell connect with one of my allies and saw the armor plates fly into the air was simply cinematic.

 

Damage

 

 

Conclusion

From the time I’ve spend in the Ground Forces portion of War Thunder, I can definitely tell it will be an amazing addition to the game. I was already in love with the plane portion of War Thunder, so the fact that I will soon be able to get my tank fix from it as well is fantastic. The game looks beautiful and all the tank models are detailed to the extreme, which makes for some of the most intense fire-fights I’ve experienced in a game. This is one of the few times that hype for a game is well warranted and I can’t wait to see how the game continues to progress.