General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article


Steam Summer Sale for 2014 Has Begun

Posted: 19 Jun 2014 01:00 PM PDT

Steam Summer SaleWhat team are you on?

Been wondering what to spend your hard-earned money on this summer? Well Valve's Steam Summer Sale 2014 has begun and your wallet will never be the same way again thanks to the various sales, daily sales and flash sales that will entice you from June 19 to June 30. However, with this year's summer sale, there is the Summer Adventure you can participate in that focuses on Valve's Steam trading cards that were implemented last year.

While trying to decide whether or not to purchase games on the Daily or Flash sales, that can range from 10 percent to 85 percent off, Steam users will also earn points for crafting Team Badges. By crafting the Summer Sale 2014 badge users will earn points for the team they have been randomly sorted into. Each day the team that has earned the most points will have 30 random team members chosen who will get three games from their wishlist for free. The rest of the winning team's members will receive two bonus Summer Sale trading cards. But even if you are not one of the lucky 30, crafting the summer badge will still provide you with some rewards. Users will get one in-game item, one emoticon, one profile background, and a chance for a Team Token.

Team members will also earn points by crafting game badges but the points gained will be significantly lower. Regular game badges will earn one point and the foil badges 10 while each Summer Adventure Badge will earn 10 points and the foil badge 100 points for the crafter's team.

In order to collect all 10 of the Steam Adventure trading cards needed to craft the Summer Adventure badge, users can earn one card for each game badge created, receive one card per $10 USD spent (or equivalent monetary value), and get one card for every three votes they cast for the Community's Choice of which games should go on sale next. 

Some of the games on sale today include The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition for $3.99, Democracy 3 for $8.49, Tomb Raider for $9.99, and Half-Life 2, one of our 10 Best source Games, for $4.99. 

What games are you hoping to buy during the summer sale and what team are you on? Sound off in the comments below!

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EVGA's SuperNOVA 1200 P2 Power Supply Available Now, Backed by 10-Year Warranty

Posted: 19 Jun 2014 09:33 AM PDT

EVGA SuperNOVA 1200 P2 PSUA high end PSU for Dream Machine caliber builds

Forget any talk of the post-PC era. If PCs were dead, companies like EVGA wouldn't be churning out beastly power supplies. Instead, EVGA just announced the immediate availability of its SuperNOVA 1200 P2 PSU, which comes hot on the heels of the company's recently introduced SuperNOVA 1600 G2 PSU. The 1200W model still offers a ton of wattage, plus other tantalizing features at a more friendly price point than its bigger brethren.

Whereas the SuperNOVA 1600 G2 PSU carries an MSRP of $350, the SuperNOVA 1200 P2 can be had for $270 MSRP. That's still pricey for a PSU, but at the same time, you're getting an ultra-high end unit with a generous 10-year warranty, which itself adds some value to the package.

The 1200 model is 80 Plus Platinum certified. It also has a fully modular design to make cable management a bit easier, along with a single +12V rail design (up to 99.9A), double ball bearing fan, and 100 percent Japanese capacitors, if you care about such things.

You can grab the new PSU direct from EVGA.

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SSD Players Reportedly Preparing for a Price War

Posted: 19 Jun 2014 09:15 AM PDT

Crucial SSDLower priced SSDs may be just around the corner

If you're not rocking a solid state drive in your system, there's a good chance the cost of entry is what's preventing an upgrade. Even after the various price drops in the past year or so -- SSDs are easily found for less than $0.50 per gigabyte these days -- they're still relatively expensive next to mechanical hard drives. Well, guess what? Word on the web is that SSD makers are preparing an aggressive price war.

News and rumor site Digitimes says it's hearing from "industry sources" that major suppliers such as Micron, Intel, Kingston, SanDisk, and Samsung are looking to outgun one another. With so many big players involved, Digitimes says "fierce price competition" will be the result.

The wheels are supposedly already in motion. For example, Micron is said to have reduced sales of its NAND flash chips to other companies in order to support its own brand Crucial SSDs with a goal to double SSD shipments sequentially. Kingston, meanwhile, bumped up its SSD shipments to 600,000 units a month and is competing with SanDisk and Samsung for the top spot in terms of volume.

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AMD Aims for 25 Times Boost in APU Energy Efficiency by 2020

Posted: 19 Jun 2014 08:54 AM PDT

AMD APUFuture APUs will feature a "dramatic" improvement in energy efficiency

According to AMD, there are 3 billion PCs and 30 million computer servers that use more than 2.5 percent of all energy consumed. With that in mind, AMD today went public with a goal to deliver a 25x improvement in the energy efficiency of its Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) by 2020. If AMD is able to reach its goal, it would represent a significant improvement over the 10x gain in energy efficiency it achieved during the past 6 years.

"Creating differentiated low-power products is a key element of our business strategy, with an attending relentless focus on energy efficiency," AMD's Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster stated during a keynote at the China International Software and Information Service Fair conference in Dalain, China. "Through APU architectural enhancements and intelligent power efficient techniques, our customers can expect to see us dramatically improve the energy efficiency of our processors during the next several years. Setting a goal to improve the energy efficiency of our processors 25 times by 2020 is a measure of our commitment and confidence in our approach."

AMD's Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) combines CPU and GPU compute cores and special purpose accelerators such as digital signal processors and video encoders all on the same chip, or APU. Energy is saved with this approach by eliminating connections between discrete chips, and by reducing computing cycles by treating the CPU and GPU as peers.

Looking ahead, AMD is banking on gains in several different areas. These include inter-frame power gating, per-part adaptive voltage, voltage islands, further integration of system components, and other techniques still being developed.

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Kill Switch in iPhone is Working, Microsoft and Google to Follow Suit

Posted: 19 Jun 2014 08:20 AM PDT

Activate iPhoneiPhone thefts are down as a result of kill switch technology in iOS 7

One of the debates in the mobile phone industry is whether or not so-called kill switches can actually reduce smartphone theft. Well, early indications suggest that they do. Authorities in New York and San Francisco -- two locations where smartphone theft is a growing epidemic -- say they've seen a drop in iPhone robberies since Apple implemented its Activation Lock feature in iOS 7.

Looking at data in the six months before and after Apple implemented the feature, police said iPhone theft in San Francisco dropped 38 percent. Those in London -- another place where smartphone theft happens far too often -- fell 24 percent. As for New York, robberies involving Apple products dropped 19 percent, and those involving grand larcenies went down 29 percent in the first five months of 2014 compared with the same time frame in 2013, The New York Times reports.

Police have long believed that this type of antitheft technology would discourage crooks from stealing smartphones, and the data up to this point shows they're right. However, kill switch technology might not deserve all the credit. There are other factors at play, such as an increased effort on the part of law enforcement and tech companies to educate consumers on additional security measures to protect their handsets -- things like setting up passcodes.

Regardless of the debate, the industry is moving forward with kill switches. As it stands, both Google and Microsoft have plans to implement antitheft technology into the next version of their respective mobile operating systems. Between the three platforms -- iOS, Android, and Windows Phone -- almost every new device will have a kill switch.

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Watch Dogs Hacks Into Raptr’s Most-Played Games for May 2014

Posted: 19 Jun 2014 08:01 AM PDT

Raptr LogoDark Souls II rises through the ranks

There were quite a few games released in May 2014 with Wolfenstein: The New Order, Tropico 5, The Wolf Among Us: Episode 4, Final Fantasy III, and Watch Dogs debuting on the PC platform. However, Ubisoft's Watch Dogs was the only new title to break into Raptr's "most-played games on PC" list for May 2014.

With over 22 million users, the gaming social network ranks the game by the total amount of time spent playing each title and comparing it to the entire time spent playing games by all users. As such, according to Raptr, League of Legends was number one with 17.05 percent share. LoL saw a 12 percent increase in week-on-week playtime due to the release of a new Champion, Braum, and the League of Legends Championship Series currently taking place. World of Warcraft was second with 7.74 percent share, Dota 2 was third (7.54 percent), Diablo III in fourth (5.56 percent), and Counter-Strike rounding out the top five games with 3.32 percent. 

Meanwhile, some interesting shifts occurred in Raptr's ranks with The Elder Scrolls Online, ranked eighth with 1.80 percent, seeing a 39 percent drop in playtime hours and a 22 percent decrease in the number of players. Warframe, the multiplayer sci-fi shooter from Digital Extremes, saw a 15 percent decrease in playtime in a month-on-month basis and 11 percent drop in players to end up rank 14. 

Dark Souls 2 made it into the top 20 for the first time by climbing up 12 spots to rank 11 with 1.60 percent share. While it has been available digitally since April 24, the retail versions were made available May 2. Watch Dogs, despite having been released at the end of the month on May 27, was able to break into the top 20 most-played PC games at rank 19 with 0.80 percent. However, it remains to be seen whether the recent launch issues will affect its momentum for the month of June. 

Raptr May 2014
Image Credit: Raptr

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Roccat Rolls Out Military Themed Kone Pure Mouse and Sense Mousepad

Posted: 19 Jun 2014 07:22 AM PDT

Kone Pure MilitaryMilitary themed mice are ready for combat

Roccat's latest attempt to appeal to an American audience is to give its Kone Pure mouse and Sense mousepad military themed makeovers. The German manufacturer is offering its Kone Pure Military in three visual styles -- Camo Charge, Naval Storm, and Desert Strike. All three sport a 5,000 dpi Pro-Optic (R4) sensor and manually configurable lift control for lag-free, ultra-precise gaming.

You'll also find Roccat's Easy-Shift[+] technology implemented into its Kone Pure Military mice. This allows you to switch over to a second set of commands for each button, minus the one you designate as the Easy-Shift[+] button. There are seven mouse buttons in all, along with a solid 2D Titan Wheel.

Other features include a 1,000Hz polling rate, 1ms response time, 130ips max speed, 30G acceleration, 72Mhz Turbo Core V2 32-bit ARM-based MSU, 576kb of onboard memory, and a 1.8m braided cable.

Roccat's Sense Military Mousepads come in the same color schemes as the mice and feature non-slip backing and plenty of room to roam around (400mm by 280mm).

The Roccat Kone Pure Military Edition and Sense Military Edition are available now for $70 and $20, respectively.

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Newegg Daily Deals: Antec 850W Modular Power Supply, Intel Core i7 4770K Haswell, and More!

Posted: 19 Jun 2014 06:06 AM PDT

Antec 850Wnewegg logo

Top Deal:

You'd have a better chance at finding Big Foot than a reliable, name-brand power supply rated at 850W with modular cables, 80 Plus Bronze certification, and a 5-year warranty for under a Benny. Unless, of course, you've stumbled here. Today's top deal is a beastly one -- Antec 850W Modular Power Supply for a penny shy of $100 (normally $125 - use coupon code: [618CMPTS22]; additional $30 mail-in-rebate). After rebate, this becomes a $70 PSU!

Other Deals:

Intel Core i7-4770K Haswell Quad-Core 3.5GHz LGA 1150 84W Desktop Processor for $320 with free shipping (normally $340 - use coupon code: [618CMPTS69])

Cooler Master HAF X - High Air Flow Full Tower Computer Case USB 3.0 Ports for $140 with free shipping (normally $180 - use coupon code: [618CMPTS06]; Additional $20 Mail-in rebate)

Asus Sabertooth Z87 LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard for $230 with free shipping (normally $240 - use coupon code: [618CMPTS02])

Sennheiser HD 239 East 3.5mm Connector On-Ear Stereo Headphone for $40 with free shipping (normally $60 - use coupon code: [618CMPTS78])

MMORPG News

MMORPG News


Defiance: New Landmass to Arrive in Season 2

Posted: 19 Jun 2014 11:14 AM PDT

New Landmass to Arrive in Season 2

Defiance players have a lot to look forward to as dire events begin to unfold in Silicon Valley. According to a new Producer's Letter on the Defiance forum, a new landmass is about to be discovered. The letter goes on further to give players a sneak peek at upcoming events.

Landmark: Player Studio Arrives

Posted: 19 Jun 2014 11:09 AM PDT

Player Studio Arrives

Landmark players can now take advantage of Sony Online Entertainment's Player Studio. Creators are invited to save their best ideas and, upon SOE approval, be able to see them placed in the Marketplace to sell for real-world cash.

Age of Conan: Unchained: The 6th Anniversary Interview & Thoughts for the Future

Posted: 19 Jun 2014 08:10 AM PDT

The 6th Anniversary Interview & Thoughts for the Future

Age of Conan recently celebrated its sixth anniversary. We caught up with Funcom's Matthew Bennett to reflect on those six years and to take a peek ahead into the future. See what he had to say before heading to the comments to chat.

WildStar: Customize That!

Posted: 18 Jun 2014 03:57 PM PDT

Customize That!

Even though MMOs are designed to cater for thousands of players, we all like to put our individual stamp on the game. In this week's WildStar column, Gareth Harmer looks at the many ways you can customize your experience while journeying through Nexus.

ArcheAge: Launch will Feature v1.2 Update

Posted: 19 Jun 2014 07:15 AM PDT

Launch will Feature v1.2 Update

The ArcheAge forums for the NA version of the game have been updated with the (good) news that the game will launch with the v1.2 version of the game. The 1.0 version met with a lot of player resistance when it launched in Korea earlier this year. Since that time, many improvements and "fixes" have been put in place to improve the overall game experience.

General: Legion of Heroes Team Looking for Android Testers

Posted: 17 Jun 2014 05:16 PM PDT

Legion of Heroes Team Looking for Android Testers

The same team that developed Atlantica Online is looking for Android beta testers for its mobile MMO, Legion of Heroes. According to reports, Legion of Heroes is the #1 mobile MMO in Korea and the team wants to bring it westward.

Pillars of Eternity: The RPGs of Yesteryear, Made Anew

Posted: 18 Jun 2014 03:41 PM PDT

The RPGs of Yesteryear, Made Anew

There was a bit of controversy when well-known AAA studio Obsidian reached out to Kickstarter in order to fund a passion project. Pillars of Eternity is a classic Infinity Engine style RPG in the vein of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. To be sure, as much as we would love updated games in this style, the fact is that most people with the venture capital money likely think we don't.

Runescape: Community Streaming Embraced by Jagex

Posted: 17 Jun 2014 05:06 PM PDT

Community Streaming Embraced by Jagex

Jagex has committed over $170,000 for an in-office studio to encourage community streamers, including active youth gamers. Part of the initiative has seen the communinty team create a "how to" video for budding streamers.

General: Marvel Heroes Team Ups We'd Like to See

Posted: 18 Jun 2014 12:27 AM PDT

Marvel Heroes Team Ups We

Gazillion has a 2014 Team Up Advance Pack for sale in Marvel Heroes that allows players to pre-purchase the main slate of team-ups coming this year so we more or less know which team-ups we'll be able to acquire this year (aside from surprises, of course). With that in mind, I'd like to share a couple of team-ups I'd like to see Gaz add to Marvel Heroes in the future. Feel free to share your own shortlist in the comments.

Infinite Crisis: Supergirl to Join Up on July 2nd

Posted: 18 Jun 2014 01:27 PM PDT

Supergirl to Join Up on July 2nd

The Infinite Crisis hero pool will be expanding on July 2nd with the arrival of Supergirl. Cousin to Superman, Kara Zor-El is always ready for a fight who goes in swinging up close and personal. Check out her sneak peek video and let us know what you think.

Heroes of the Storm: The Voice of Gazlowe

Posted: 18 Jun 2014 01:22 PM PDT

The Voice of Gazlowe

The Heroes of the Storm community team has put up a new video to give players a behind-the-scenes look at the voices behind the characters. In this edition, Travis Willingham, the voice of the Goblin Gazlowe, takes center stage. Check it out!

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: House of Glass #4 Released

Posted: 18 Jun 2014 01:19 PM PDT

House of Glass #4 Released

The fourth out of five issues of The Witcher House of Glass comic series has been released. The latest issue finds Geralt questioning the motives of others as he struggles through the torments of the House of Glass.

Black Gold Online: Steampunk Meets Fantasy & They Punch Each Other

Posted: 17 Jun 2014 01:20 PM PDT

Steampunk Meets Fantasy & They Punch Each Other

To say that the world of Black Gold Online (BGO) brings together steampunk and fantasy would be a bit misleading. The two genres definitely play a large thematic role in Snail Games' new MMORPG, but it's not a collaborative one. BGO pits steampunk and fantasy against one another in a two-faction PvP conflict over a newly discovered mystical energy source: the eponymous Black Gold.

General: ProSiebenSat1 & SOE Parting Ways

Posted: 18 Jun 2014 12:19 PM PDT

ProSiebenSat1 & SOE  Parting Ways

In a new announcement on the EverQuest II forums, it has been announced that SOE will be parting ways with SOE. The announcement on or about July 1st player accounts will be transfered to SOE when their hosting will cease. New players can now begin to register with SOE.

Elite: Dangerous: E3 Preview - Every Star in the Universe

Posted: 17 Jun 2014 04:49 PM PDT

E3 Preview - Every Star in the Universe

At E3 last week, we had the opportunity to take Elite for a test spin. Not only that, but we were given some time with, wait for it... the Oculus Rift version! Garrett and Bill were generous enough to let me take it for a spin since I had never tried the Oculus Rift prior to this, and there is only one word to describe the experience: MIND-BLOWING!

General: 5 Reasons MMORPGs Aren't More Enjoyable

Posted: 17 Jun 2014 01:09 PM PDT

5 Reasons MMORPGs Aren

In case anyone doesn't know it already, my MMORPG background began back in the days when you could count all of them your hands and still have a few fingers left over. After playing them as well as observing how the genre has evolved for nearly two decades now, it strikes me that I don't find them to be as much fun as they once were - or perhaps more importantly, as I feel they should be.

WildStar: Watch Carbine Play Ruins of Kel Voreth TONIGHT!

Posted: 18 Jun 2014 07:18 AM PDT

Watch Carbine Play Ruins of Kel Voreth TONIGHT!

Our own Bill Murphy and Rob Lashley will be touring one of WildStar's first dungeons, The Ruins of Kel Voreth, tonight with Carbine developers on hand to die alongside them and answer questions as they go. Read on to find out when and where!

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