Yearly Archives: 2014

Civilization: Beyond Earth Pushes Post-Launch Patch

A month has passed since Civilization: Beyond Earth hit official launch from Firaxis and 2kGames, and much ire arrived from the community about the state of said launch. Now in a surprisingly quick turn-around, the developers have pushed a fall patch live to address many of the most glaring issues with the latest iteration of this iconic 4x franchise.

civbeyondearthfallpatch

The forerunner of the patch focus seems to be stemming the power of trade routes, an extended feature from Civ 5: Brave New World that turned into a bit of a Frankenstein, dominating gameplay in Beyond Earth to the point that most other decisions were frivolous roleplaying elements in comparison. With reduced rates of return, lessened quest rewards, and the inability to flat out purchase each city’s trade depot with energy, these megalith building structures now stand far more on par with their brethren. For that more bothered by their constant assignment maintenance rather than balance, a new UI implementation has been included to streamline that process as well.

Espionage received a light touch to prevent abusing loopholes in the “establishing network” mission that allowed for cheap and risk-free espionage building. Health also was hit with a much needed steroid to become a relevant factor in empire planning, with much harsher penalties for deep negatives and much more valuable boons for those that push health into the far green side.

Various other minor tweaks to affinity pacing, unit strengths, unit type balancing, and even some leader changes were included in the patch. It’s quite a read so head over to the official post and see them all for yourself! We’ll hope to see you back on Steam to test out and keep providing the feedback that will build Beyond Earth into a great addition to the franchise over the next few years of development.

Christmas Comes Early for Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies

Counter Strike Nexon Female Characters

Nexon Europe is pleased to announce that the successful multiplayer shooter, Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies will be receiving a slew of new content over the holiday season. Starting in December, players will be able to play as two new female characters, experience a fun new game mode, receive new weapons via giveaway events, and purchase in-game items at highly discounted prices.

Beautiful, smart, and dangerous, Choijiyoon, is the first of two new characters that soon will be deployed into the field. Once a member of a secretive counter-terrorist intelligence bureau, she was forced to flee the country when her cover was blown. Since then, she has formed her own elite task force with the sole intent of taking down the ARA – only this time she won’t be defeated.

Ritsuka, the second new character, is the ARA agent who exposed Choijiyoon as an undercover operative. Surrounded by domestic warfare from an early age, Ritsuka quickly gained extensive military experience as a young mercenary.

CSN Zombies Bobbleheads

The December update also introduces a novel new mode to the game: Big Headed Zombie Scenario. This makes all zombies in the game appear with oversized heads. The scenario can be toggled on or off by the Room Host, and is only triggered when a specific item is used in a Zombie Scenario map.

“We are very glad to celebrate the holidays with the Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies community for the first time. New characters, giveaways, and a big weapon upgrade event means that Christmas truly has come early for Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies,” said Paul Lee, Product Manager at Nexon Europe.

In addition to the new playable characters and mode, there will also be myriad giveaways taking place over the month, in which players can get their hands on a range of weapons and upgrades:

  • Weapon Upgrade Reward: 27th November – 30th December
    • Players who earn a predetermined amount of kill points with certain weapons will receive a permanent weapon upgrade.
  • Skull Weapons Giveaway: 12th December – 28th December
    • Every day from 14:00-22:00 CET, every two hours, nine permanent skull weapons will be given out to lucky players.
  • Christmas Weapons Giveaway:: 12th December – 28th December
    • Every day at 16:00, 18:00, 20:00, and 22:00 CET, users will randomly be given a Christmas-themed variation of popular weapons.

Starting 16th December, players looking to check-off items on their wish list will be able to purchase items at a discounted price, as everything in the in-game store will be reduced by 50%. This sale will run through the New Year and come to a close on 6th January 2015.

Quantum Rush Online and Quantum Rush: Champions Become One

Quantum Rush Champions Screen

Since last week the full version of the future racer Quantum Rush: Champions is available on Steam. The Quantum Rush developer team from Berlin has decided to transfer in medium term the multiplayer elements from Quantum Rush: Online to Quantum Rush Champions, to develop Quantum Rush: Champions towards players being able to play the game together with friends.

How exactly this will be implemented is not yet known. The basic idea came from the community in the first place, as many fans had asked if and when they would have the chance to play Quantum Rush: Champions together over LAN.

The idea to introduce a mutliplayer part for Quantum Rush: Champions will be of advantage for international players as playing with Quantum Rush Online, due to the servers being placed in Germany, led to some shortcomings.

But this means as well that Quantum Rush Online is put on ice and the servers are switched off, to bundle all resources to press ahead optimally with the further development of Quantum Rush: Champions.

League of Angels: Cross-Server Tournament This Week

League of Angels

Playing League of Angels every day is not enough, well it is if you like to stay unknown and forgotten. To make a true impression in the game and to win your friends’ and enemies’ appreciation, you will have to be the strongest, fastest and the brightest. League of Angels opens this week with three great events that will help you to become the invincible and frightening figure you have always wanted to be! Don’t miss this week’s HOT events, Resource Tycoon and Djinni’s Merchant. They will help you get ready for the super challenge – The Cross-Server Tournament!

In League of Angels, there are several weekly hot events designed especially for fans and hard-core players. The events are updated continuously and provide players a fun way to upgrade and prepare heroes and equipment for battle. For instance, the Resource Tycoon is a unique opportunity to gain essential and rare items such as Aegis Shards, Synth Scrolls, Soul stones and Blessed stones, all very important to the strength of your party and angels. Above all, the best tycoons will win the furious and mighty Angel known as Raphael. Additionally, Djinni’s Merchant offers great deals and discounts. First, obtain the required Darics from other hot events and League of Angels gameplays, and let the in-game shopping begin!

After such hard preparation and tight training, it is time to take a risk and participate in the 10th Cross-Sever Tournament, defeat your competitors and become the number one player in all of League of Angels! Win the glory and honor as well as the Victoriana Figurine, Victoriana Icons and more! There are three stages in the current tournament, and you will have the chance to win prizes at each stage. Don’t forget to stay tuned for next week’s special events and new angel news!

For more info, visit http://angel.gtarcade.com

Knight’s Fable: Beast Melee Now Available

Knight's Fable

Beasts have always been one of the most important elements of Knight’s Fable. With powerful skills and cool looks, they can give you a sense of security when you face furious devils alone. Even though they only have one skill, it is more than enough. One skill can help you reverse the battle.

In order to empower beasts even further, we have developed a brand new system: Beast Melee, where you can improve your own beasts by challenging against those of other players. With unique special effects, even weak beasts have a chance to win against much mightier ones. Melee is not just a platform for winning and losing, but more of a place where you can study the best combination of each beast along with special effects. It is also a good way to learn the strengths and weaknesses of other beasts by challenging them even if you don’t own them.

With this new Beast Melee gameplay, we have added new content for players to perform for their daily tasks. This Melee battlefield is more likely a place to assist everyone’s efforts with cultivating their beloved beasts instead of just a mindless bloody killing match. Different from what we usually have as beast against beast, we’ve created a new fighting mode for this system: card against card, making this process a bit more casusal. Once you log on to the game and join in Beast Melee, the match is over very soon and you can watch the two beasts challenge each other in a peaceful and delicate way. It’s just that simple and relaxing.

Visit http://knight.gtarcade.com/ for more details about Knights Fable.

Blood & Blade Officially Launches Worldwide on Android

Blood and Blade Android

Global mobile developer IGG (I Got Games) announced today the end of Blood & Blade’s Beta period, in order to offer one of their latest titles to a worldwide audience.

To celebrate its launch, and in honor of the holiday season, Blood & Blade is also seeing an addition of holiday-related features and events, all geared to award players with loads of prizes and bonus loot. More information can be found in-game.

To download Blood & Blade, visit the Google Play Store: http://goo.gl/0rb7Do

Hero Commander: Silver Tycoon Event Available

HC

As the main currency in Hero Commander, silver means almost everything. Players can use silver to recruit troops, enhance gear, upgrade gem level, train armies and much more. How to get as much silver as possible? Whoever finds the answer to this question surely deserves plenty of rewards. Thus, here comes our new event: Silver Tycoon! Compete to be the one who earns the most silver during a limited time to get the grand prize!

It’s not hard to own plenty of silver!

Afraid that the silver you earn isn’t enough? Don’t worry about it! Beside the daily tasks where players can earn silver every day, there will also be other events centered around granting silver during the Silver Tycoon event. Both the Wheel of Luck and Silver Exclusive events can reward players with lots of silver easily. Don’t forget to check the Hot Events everyday to boost your chances!

In Silver Tycoon, players who reach basic number of pts will earn a basic reward, so even if some players are not great at “making money”, they may still have a bit of fun in this event!

For more info, visit http://hero.gtarcade.com

Hearthstone: Goblins vs Gnomes Now Live

Hearthstone Goblins vs Gnomes Key

Goblins vs Gnomes™, the explosive first expansion to Blizzard Entertainment’s fast-paced online strategy card game Hearthstone®: Heroes of Warcraft™, is available around the world beginning today! Introducing more than 120 new cards—including an all-new type of minion, Mechs—Goblins vs Gnomes opens up countless new strategic possibilities for Hearthstone players of every skill level.

In celebration of the expansion’s release, Blizzard is offering anyone who logs in to Hearthstone between the launch and December 19 three free Goblins vs Gnomes card packs—a triple-powered jolt of mayhem to help players jump-start their collections.

Goblins vs Gnomes throws a big wrench into the Hearthstone works,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “Players are already having a blast coming up with inventive new strategies and deck ideas—we’re looking forward to seeing what happens now that they can put those plans into action.”

Goblins vs Gnomes  throws players in the middle of the epic rivalry between Azeroth’s audacious goblin engineers and their equally “adventurous” gnomish counterparts—and these pint-sized tinkerers are ready to stir up trouble. Their incredible inventions and mechanical monstrosities are marvelous to behold . . . but when Hearthstone players deploy them in a duel, the results can be quite unpredictable.

Goblins vs Gnomes card packs are available in-game now for gold or real-world currency, priced the same as Expert card packs from the original Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft set. Players can also win Goblins vs Gnomes cards as rewards in the Arena or craft them using Arcane Dust earned from disenchanting cards in their collection.

Goblins vs Gnomes is available now in the Americas region for Windows, Mac, and iPad®, and will be available December 9 in the Europe and Asia regions. Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft and Goblins vs Gnomes are coming soon to Android tablet devices. For more information, visit www.playhearthstone.com.

PWI Eclipse: Free Level 95 character boost available

PWI

Launching on December 16, and from December 17 through January 16, 2015, all players will receive through in-game mail the level-boosting Illusionary Crystal for free! Valued at $60, this item instantly boosts your character to level 95, and will be available to all players who have set up accounts before the end of this giveaway.

New to PWI, the Illusionary Crystal is a fantastic tool for players ready to test alternate classes, boost their main character to the endgame experience, or get themselves a new alternate character to group with friends. Now, more than ever, is an ideal time to jump into PWI with the upcoming launch of PWI: Eclipse, bringing the new Nightshade race, the saber-wielding Duskblade and the scythe-equipped Stormbringer classes, and the brand new starting zone – Celestial Vale.

More details on PWI: Eclipse and the Illusionary Crystal can be found here: http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/pwi/news/detail/9009273