Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates |
- The EFF Wants Console Modding and Jailbreaking Deemed Legal by the DMCA
- World Zero (CN)
- How to Make Tomonobu Itagaki in Saints Row: The Third
- The Walking Dead Episode One Review: Giving Zombies Their Bite Back
- New Super Mario Bros. 2 Reveals Love for a Black Sheep
- Xbox Patent Ruling Could See Console Imports Banned
- Why Assassin’s Creed III Perfectly Fits the War of Independence
- Black Ops 2 – 13 November
- ASTA (KR)
| The EFF Wants Console Modding and Jailbreaking Deemed Legal by the DMCA Posted: 25 Apr 2012 07:10 AM PDT Just over a year after winning several exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) anti-circumvention provisions (which saw jailbreaking cell phones acknowledged as fair use), the Electronic Frontier Foundation is now trying to expand those exemptions. This time around it’s interested in gaining something similar for those who want to mod their videogame consoles. A request for this, along with three other issues, was filed this week. Exemptions are considered by the Copyright Office during a rulemaking process which takes place every three years. The exemption is for the DMCA’s “prohibitions on ‘circumventing’ digital rights management (DRM) and ‘other technical protection measures’ used to protect copyrighted works.” The EFF and many others feel these rules are not used properly, hence the need to seek this out in the first place. “The DMCA is supposed to block copyright infringement. But instead it can be misused to threaten creators, innovators, and consumers, discouraging them from making full and fair use of their own property,” said EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry. “Hobbyists and tinkerers who want to modify their phones or video game consoles to run software programs of their choice deserve protection under the law. So do artists and critics who use short excerpts of video content to create new works of commentary and criticism. Copyright law shouldn’t be stifling such uses – it should be encouraging them.” The filing, which can be read its entirety here (PDF), summarizes the issue: “Modern video game consoles are increasingly sophisticated computing devices. They are capable of running not only games, but entire computer operating systems. However, all three major video game manufacturers — Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo — have deployed technical restrictions that force console purchasers to limit their operating systems and software exclusively to vendor-approved offerings, even where there is no evidence that other options will infringe copyrights. “This severely constrains not only consumer choice and the value of the console to its owner, but also the incentives for independent developers to create copyrightable systems and software that would expand the marketplace for these devices and promote the progress of science and the useful arts in these areas.” It goes on to outline how the PlayStation 3 originally offered Linux (and other third-party OS) support before it was removed in a firmware update early last year. “To overcome this sudden and dramatic limitation and restore their consoles to full functionality, console owners, hobbyists, security experts, and software developers created methods of jailbreaking to decrypt and modify the PS3′s firmware to enable it to interoperate with lawfully obtained third-party operating systems and software. However, their efforts to gain control over the device have occurred under the threat of litigation by console manufacturers.” The EFF is non-profit group founded in 1990 that defends consumers’ digital rights. If its name sounds familiar, it might be because it’s one of two charities, along with Child’s Play, you can choose to send money to when purchasing one of the Humble Indie Bundle promotions, including the current Humble Introversion Bundle. Should it succeed, as we would hope, it would be good news for those wishing to run homebrew games on their systems, install third-party operating systems on PS3, and play a European copy of Xenoblade Chronicles on a North American Wii (although that won’t be an issue for much longer). Should the EFF win the exemptions it is seeking, it won’t be for almost another year that we find out. Hearings won’t take place until the spring and a decision won’t come until next October. Source: Boing Boing (via Joystiq) Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/news/eff-wants-console-modding-jailbreaking-deemed-legal-dmca |
| Posted: 25 Apr 2012 04:28 AM PDT
1. Players are able to get resource scrolls for buildings, plants and monsters to place in their own worlds by defeating the core world’s mobs, completing quests and via events. 2. By clicking on the big “Creation” button on the UI, players will be sent to the world creation lobby instantly. 3. Talking to the Crystal of Creation NPC, players can start a new world by first naming it, followed by choosing a map template to begin. 4. Well, I am sure you are asking if the world creation system is limited to only 1 map, but as of now I have no information if a player can create many and link them together. 5. Next will be placing the various resources. As you can see from the video, you can adjust the position and size of buildings and monsters. For the monsters, players can even set if it is passive or aggressive, level, patrol area, edit its name, level of toughness, items and gold dropped, experience points and how long before it respawns. 6. It is always crucial to save the edits made, preferably each time a change is done. 7. After confirming the new world, its name will appear on the world lobby, along with worlds created by other players. This will allow players to visit each others’ worlds (after a small download). 8. According to my knowledge and information, there are still a number of features not implemented for the world creation system during the current Alpha phase. Find similar article at: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/world-zero-cn-brief-guide-to-world.html |
| How to Make Tomonobu Itagaki in Saints Row: The Third Posted: 24 Apr 2012 07:10 PM PDT You might remember us applauding the Tokyo Game Show 2011 news of Ninja Gaiden (Xbox) creator Tomonobu Itagaki being a playable character in Saints Row: The Third. Though, now with the benefit of hindsight, it seems that the news was less, “he is an in-game persona you can interact with,” and more, “you can create him with SR:TT’s crazy character creator.” Yet we also noticed that while the trailer THQ provided of SRTT’s Itagaki had some of the details of how to make him, but said video blazes through those facial figures really fast. So for you fine readers who want to cause mayhem in Steelport with one of gaming’s more outspoken developers, we obtained, and now spell out, the specific variables in the step-by-step video above. The basic instructions are: make a skinny Asian with some Caucasian skin, and do a lot of tweaking to his face. Going into detail and making sure each face aspect gets explained adequately is why the video is a bit on the long side. But after tweaking his face, add his hair and trademark sunglasses, and voila: you have the never-mincing-words Ninja Gaiden/Dead or Alive/Devil’s Third developer in your game. It might be a 100-percent accurate portrayal, but it’s damn close enough, and enough to make moments like having him take out random pedestrians with foul weapons like The Penetrator quite amusing. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/news/tomonobu-itagaki-saints-row-how-to |
| The Walking Dead Episode One Review: Giving Zombies Their Bite Back Posted: 24 Apr 2012 04:33 PM PDT See the child. Hear her beckon forth, surrounded by the carcasses of men harboring murderous intent. Men you ended. Their last breath whispering about the sweetness of a child, or the satisfaction of killing the interloper that you are. Save the child, who you thought was yourn, but she reveals herself to be Mei lost in the world of dust, not the daughter you left behind twelve months ago. The voice in your pocket sputters forth. The man named Henry asks, take her, take the lost child Mei, take her to the mall. Give her medicine left behind by those who never set foot in Haventown, those who drop foodstuffs and medicines from above and never look back. Not since The Event. The Event that scraped the loam off the earth and turned it into the dust that hugs and holds and kills all who wander within. The dust that chips and gnaws at your very stamina. The Event that dominates I Am Alive. So you go, ever pressing on to find wife and child. Gone a year, but now you return, to climb and cobble and carry on. You cannot ignore Mei’s bleat for aid, but other survivors of the Event not so much as settle but subsist their meager existences in the dust covered Haventown. A man yearns cigarettes to pass on. Another man in an amusement park needs medicine to heal the leg that’s been crushed by another uncivilized man. Haventown also starves for supplies. Bottles of water, cans of fruit cocktail, a single inhaler, a handful of painkillers, these all turn into precious manna from heaven through scarcity. Give the emergency kit to the woman with the ankle sprain? What these bemoaning folk have to give, besides gratitude and perhaps a precious shotgun, is the Retry. Haventown harbors death by trial, not saves. It does not yield to the checkpoint that others call for. It takes away a Retry from your knapsack for every fall, stab, or shot you suffer. Deplete your store of Retries, and your journey resumes at the beginning of your current episode. A practice that leeches away minutes of your life. A practice that mocks you by depleting Retries and then flings you back to 45 minutes ago. What is worth more, the rat meat that can heal you, or the Retry that you get for giving rat meat to the gurgling man below? Every survivor, like the woman bound by handcuff to a bench, pleads for help while you mind debates. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/reviews?cId=3187025 |
| New Super Mario Bros. 2 Reveals Love for a Black Sheep Posted: 24 Apr 2012 04:32 PM PDT What’s so terrible about DmC? People sure were angry when Capcom revealed this Devil May Cry prequel/reboot last year. Not having particularly followed the series myself, I found the outcry a little baffling. Sure, it was being outsourced rather than being developed internally by Capcom, but the studio responsible for it is Ninja Theory, who have yet to make a poor game; on the contrary, their work — particularly the recent sleeper Enslaved: Journey to the West — have been quite nicely received by critics. In the end, the complaints mainly seem to boil down to the fact that protagonist Dante suddenly has dark hair and a coif that look an awful lot like that of Ninja Theory’s boss, Tameem Antoniades. OK, so maybe it’s a little self-gratifying. But still, I have to ask: What’s so terrible about DmC? Now that I’ve had the opportunity to play DmC for myself, I have a hard time imagining that any fan of Devil May Cry fan wouldn’t enjoy Ninja Theory’s take on the franchise. Yeah, Dante has become something of a self-insertion character, and he’s a cocky twerp; but his brashness is offset by a delirious combination of over-the-top silliness and over-the-top action game excess. One moment, Dante is answering the door of his trailer home in the nude; the next, a massive demon is attacking and the hero dresses himself in slow-motion by free-falling through the air into his clothes. (Conveniently placed hovering free-fall objects such as slices of pizza manage to preserve his modesty to the viewer through an increasingly improbable sequence of events.) There’s a real sense of tongue-in-cheek absurdity to it all; were these events to simply flash past in a moment, they’d seem frivolous. Instead, they drag on just a little too long and become just a little too ridiculous, and that clearly deliberate excess amounts to a knowing wink at the audience. It works. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/previews?cId=3187026 |
| Xbox Patent Ruling Could See Console Imports Banned Posted: 24 Apr 2012 04:32 PM PDT Microsoft may find itself banned from importing Xbox 360 consoles into the United States later this year if a judge’s ruling is upheld. Motorola Mobility has won a ruling by U.S. International Trade Commission Judge David Shaw regarding several patents the company claims Microsoft is in violation of, Bloomberg reports. Microsoft had previously filed claims alleging Motorola was infringing on its own patents with the latter’s line of Android phones. The patents the Xbox 360 is accused of violating relate to Wi-Fi technology and video decoding (specifically involving H.264 encoding, according to The Verge). Shaw’s ruling is not the final one on this matter; a six-person panel will still have to review the case, a process which is expected to be completed by August 23. Statements by the two companies are much like you would expect. “Microsoft continues to infringe Motorola Mobility’s patent portfolio, and we remain confident in our position,” said Motorola Mobility spokesperson Becki Leonard. “This case was filed in response to Microsoft’s litigate-first patent attack strategy, and we look forward to the full commission’s ruling in August.” “Today’s recommendation by the Administrative Law Judge is the first step in the process leading to the Commission’s final ruling,” Microsoft said in its statement. “We remain confident the Commission will ultimately rule in Microsoft’s favor in this case and that Motorola will be held to its promise to make its standard essential patents available on fair and reasonable terms.” Motorola Mobility is one of two companies Motorola was broken into last year. Google announced last year it would acquire the company in a deal that was approved by the government earlier this year. Shaw did not agree with all of Motorola’s allegations, though the full details on his decision have yet to be released. Motorola is said to have demanded a 2.25 percent royalty on the end price of products making use of the patents in question — products which include the Xbox 360. Microsoft claimed Motorola was not being reasonable, pegging the potential royalties from such an arrangement at $4 billion per year. Motorola claimed that a counter-offer was never proposed by the Xbox 360 maker, making the numbers Microsoft cited misleading. Keeping in mind a final ruling is still to come, this is not the outcome Microsoft was hoping for. It’s possible the commission will arrive at a different conclusion; they may agree with Microsoft’s newfound position that standard-essential patents should not be a matter handled by the ITC, which is incapable of ordering damages to be paid but can block imports. In other words, the ITC could not require Microsoft to pay Motorola royalties if it is found to be in violation. It could, however, prevent consoles from being imported into the United States, a far worse scenario than working out an arrangement in a district court, which is what Microsoft wishes could happen. Sony found itself in a similar position last year in Europe. LG alleged Sony was violating certain patents related to the handling of Blu-ray technology, and as a result all PlayStation 3 shipments to the Netherlands (where all European PS3 imports arrive) were seized. Before Sony’s guilt could be determined, the systems ended up being freed, and several months later the two sides reached a settlement. If the ITC decides to block the import of Xbox 360 consoles, you can bet Microsoft will be in a hurry to resolve the matter. Depending upon how long that takes, sales of the system in the U.S. may not be affected — in the case of the PS3 in Europe, it was estimated there was a two to three week supply of systems already in warehouses waiting to be sold. The resolution in this case could be as simple as the two sides agreeing to a royalty rate for Microsoft to pay on each console sold. While supplies becoming temporarily constrained at this point of the Xbox 360′s life cycle would not be as devastating as it would have been five or six years ago, you can bet Microsoft would like to avoid that ever becoming an issue, particularly with the 360 having been the top-selling system in the U.S. for the past eight months, and the past 15 if you look only at consoles. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/news/xbox-patent-ruling-console-imports-banned |
| Why Assassin’s Creed III Perfectly Fits the War of Independence Posted: 24 Apr 2012 04:32 PM PDT What’s so terrible about DmC? People sure were angry when Capcom revealed this Devil May Cry prequel/reboot last year. Not having particularly followed the series myself, I found the outcry a little baffling. Sure, it was being outsourced rather than being developed internally by Capcom, but the studio responsible for it is Ninja Theory, who have yet to make a poor game; on the contrary, their work — particularly the recent sleeper Enslaved: Journey to the West — have been quite nicely received by critics. In the end, the complaints mainly seem to boil down to the fact that protagonist Dante suddenly has dark hair and a coif that look an awful lot like that of Ninja Theory’s boss, Tameem Antoniades. OK, so maybe it’s a little self-gratifying. But still, I have to ask: What’s so terrible about DmC? Now that I’ve had the opportunity to play DmC for myself, I have a hard time imagining that any fan of Devil May Cry fan wouldn’t enjoy Ninja Theory’s take on the franchise. Yeah, Dante has become something of a self-insertion character, and he’s a cocky twerp; but his brashness is offset by a delirious combination of over-the-top silliness and over-the-top action game excess. One moment, Dante is answering the door of his trailer home in the nude; the next, a massive demon is attacking and the hero dresses himself in slow-motion by free-falling through the air into his clothes. (Conveniently placed hovering free-fall objects such as slices of pizza manage to preserve his modesty to the viewer through an increasingly improbable sequence of events.) There’s a real sense of tongue-in-cheek absurdity to it all; were these events to simply flash past in a moment, they’d seem frivolous. Instead, they drag on just a little too long and become just a little too ridiculous, and that clearly deliberate excess amounts to a knowing wink at the audience. It works. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/previews?cId=3187016 |
| Posted: 24 Apr 2012 04:28 PM PDT COD: Black Ops 2 has been given a 13 November release date – if a recent photo of in-store pre-order box art turns out to be real. As the Kotaku article suggests though, there are plenty of indications that the photo is a fake, even thought it's appeared as an apparent Amazon listing, teaser poster and teaser website. Expect more of these kind of Black Ops 2 teasers in the run-up to a potential 1 May reveal.
Find similar article at: http://www.totalpcgaming.com/general/black-ops-2-13-november/ |
| Posted: 24 Apr 2012 10:27 AM PDT
In ASTA, players choose to play as a character either from Asu, the Land of Life or Hwangcheon, the Land of Death. These 2 factions are warring, but also are seeking to reach Asta, the Gate of God, to defeat the Gods threatening their lands. Korea’s biggest game website, ThisIsGame, was invited to a close door session recently to have a look at ASTA’s latest build, which is captured in the 2 videos below. If you watched the very first video, you would have known that ASTA deliberately went for the traditional point and click combat, since it is easier and more convenient for the masses to control as oppose to action combat. Personally, I don’t think there will be many fans of the game, but we shall see when the English version hits. Find similar article at: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/asta-kr-latest-game-videos.html |
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