Privacy advocates aren't going to like this one, but a 2-1 ruling in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has given law enforcement officials the legal right to track suspects by cell phone in real-time without first obtaining a warrant. The ruling revolves around a case in which Melvin Skinner, a convicted drug trafficker, sought to have his charges dismissed on the basis that his arrest ran afoul of the Fourth Amendment.
According to court documents (PDF), Skinner transported illegal drugs between Arizona and Tennessee. DEA agents were able to track Skinner's location using data emanating from his pay-as-you-go cell phone, which ultimately led to his arrest in a motorhome filled with over 1,100 pounds of marijuana.
"When criminals use modern technological devices to carry out criminal acts and to reduce the possibility of detection, they can hardly complain when the police take advantage of the inherent characteristics of those very devices to catch them," the judges wrote in their ruling. "This is not a case in which the government secretly placed a tracking device in someone's car. The drug runners in this case used pay-as-you-go (and thus presumably more difficult to trace) cell phones to communicate during the cross country shipment of drugs. Unfortunately for the drug runners, the phones were trackable in a way they may not have suspected. The Constitution, however, does not protect their erroneous expectations regarding the undetectability of their modern tools."
Part of the ruling comes down to interpreting Skinner's ignorance of pay-as-you-go cell phones. The analogy the court used is that of dog hounds, suggesting that Skinner can't be entitled to rely on the expected untrackability of this tools (cell phone), otherwise it would be like saying dog hounds would not be allowed to track a fugitive if the fugitive was unaware the dogs had his scent.
Razer, a well known maker of PC gaming peripherals, has made available to developers its Software Development Kit (SDK) for its Switchblade user interface (UI). The Switchblade UI is featured prominently on the company's 'Razer Blade' gaming laptop, as well as its Star Wars: The Old Republic gaming keyboard and newly announced DeathStalker Ultimate plank.
"With the development of the SDK for the Switchblade UI, we are pleased to offer every game developer the ability to create applications that will enhance their immersive experience for their favorite games," said Robert 'RazerGuy' Krakoff, president of Razer USA. "I am eager to see the types of applications that can be made by our passionate and creative fans inside the development community."
Using the newly developed SDK, developers savvy in C++ and C Sharp programming can create all sorts of new applications for the Switchblade UI, from mini-maps and inventory slots, to information guides and whatever else they can think of, "all based in a free and open development model."
If you're interested in playing around with the SDK or learning more about it, Razer posted an online guide that goes into more detail.
It's another day, and the way things have been going lately, that usually means another development in the patent trial between Apple and Samsung. Today is no exception, though if the presiding judge gets her wish, all this nonsense will come to an end, and not by way of a jury verdict. Instead, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh urged both companies to get on the horn one more time to see if they can come up with a settlement agreement.
"I'm going to make one more request that CEOs from both sides speak by phone," Koh said in court today, according to Bloomberg. "I see risks here for both sides."
This isn't the first time Koh has encouraged Apple and Samsung to try and talk things out. Earlier this year, Koh instructed Apple CEO Tim Cook to meet with Samsung's Choi Gee-sung, though the ensuing discussion didn't prove fruitful in the slightest.
As we've been covering extensively here on Maximum PC, Apple is suing Samsung for allegedly infringing on design patents and is seeking no less than $2.5 billion in damages and a permanent ban on several Galaxy devices. Samsung filed a counter-suit, also on the basis of infringement, and is seeking damages as well.
"If all you wanted is to raise that you have IP on these devices, message delivered," Koh said. "In many ways, mission accomplished. It's time for peace."
You know how pessimists like to point out that if something is too good to be true, then it probably is? As much as we hate to admit it, that idiom most likely applies to a recent rumor suggesting Microsoft finalized plans to price its Windows RT-based Surface tablet at a mere $199. It's fun to speculate on what kind of impact that would have on the tablet market, but at the end of the day, all that rhetoric would be for naught because it's just not going to happen, according to several analysts.
Once such analyst is Rick Sherlund over at Nomura Equity Research. Sherlund makes it his business to keep his finger on Microsoft's pulse, and in this instance, he believes Surface will bubble at a much higher price.
"We do not believe that Microsoft will price Surface at $199, but rather that it would be priced in similar range with the iPad (around $500)," Sherlund wrote in a note. "The report suggests that Microsoft would potentially price its announced Surface device at $199; this is well below the BOM of probably $300 and would, we think, undermine its OEM partners and thus we firmly believe this will not be the case."
The only hint Microsoft has provided to date is that Surface will be priced competitively with other ARM-based tablets, and there aren't any comparable 10-inch slates selling for a pair of C-notes. That's 7-inch tablet territory, which, incidentally, Sherlund says he "would not be surprised to see Microsoft ship a 7-inch device."
One other scenario that's been talked about online is that Microsoft could subsidize Surface to hit the rumored $199 price point. It's not totally farfetched, considering Microsoft recently started doing this with its Xbox 360 console, which gamers can grab for just $99 up front plus $15/month (it also includes Xbox Live Gold service and a Kinect).
What do you think, is a $199 Surface tablet feasible, or just wishful thinking?
Just in time for the back-to-school shopping season, boutique system builder AVADirect out of Ohio announced today a new all-in-one (AIO) system with a 21.5-inch Full HD 1080p (1920x1080) LED touchscreen display, the Intel CAP08. AVADirect's latest AIO is built around Intel's Q77 mini-ITX platform and sports a metric ton of upgrade options, just in case the default $777.64 configuration doesn't float your back-to-school boat.
That's relatively inexpensive for an AIO with a touchscreen display, though you're not going to burn any benchmark records with the standard config. If you don't change a thing, the system will ship with an Intel Pentium G620 dual-core processor clocked at 2.6GHz, 4GB of DDR3-1600 memory, 750GB Seagate Momentus hard drive (7200 RPM, 16MB cache, SATA 3Gbps), 8X DVD burner, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
It's a respectable setup, but depending on how many Benjamins you have to throw at this thing, you can up the ante by configuring it with up to a Core i7 3770S (Ivy Bridge), up to 16GB of RAM, up to a 1TB hard drive or 512GB solid state drive, a TV tuner, and various other amenities.
In an attempt to strike a balance between price and performance, we played around with the configuration options and came up with a $1,132.27 config that consists of an Intel Core i7 3470S quad-core processor (Ivy Bridge), 16GB of Crucial DDR3-1600 RAM, 750GB Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid drive, Blu-ray reader/DVD burner combo, Wireless-n connectivity, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
It's looking increasingly likely that Amazon is gearing up to launch a full-size Kindle Fire tablet to sell alongside its existing 7-inch model that's been so popular up to this point. Courtesy of some savvy online detective work, it was discovered that Amazon once again may have used a shell company to sneak through paperwork for its next generation Kindle Fire device, though details are fairly light at this point.
The folks over at The Digital Reader received an anonymous tip concerning FCC documents recently posted, and when tracing the paper trail, it led to a company called Harpers LLC. We won't rehash the mundane details, but suffice to say, Amazon has a long history of using front companies to file paperwork with the FCC for unreleased Kindle devices, and it looks to be that way again.
Unfortunately, the paperwork is more than a little sparse, though the dimensions listed indicate it's likely this is a 9.7-inch or 10-inch tablet, probably with a 4:3 screen. If that's the case, the Kindle Fire 2 (or whatever Amazon decides to call it) would go head-to-head with Apple's iPad, along with the plethora of Windows 8/RT tablets on the horizon.
Time is running out if you're a fan of Adobe's Flash Player plugin for Android and haven't yet downloaded it. On August 15 (tomorrow), Adobe will yank its plugin from Google Play as a readily available download, and only devices that already have Flash Player installed will see any future updates. The move is intended to avoid any compatibility conflicts with Google's Jelly Bean build (Android 4.1).
"Devices that don't have the Flash Player provided by the manufacturer typically are uncertified, meaning the manufacturer has not completed the certification testing requirements. In many cases users of uncertified devices have been able to download the Flash Player from the Google Play Store, and in most cases it worked. However, with Android 4.1 this is no longer going to be the case, as we have not continued developing and testing Flash Player for this new version of Android and its available browser options. There will be no certified implementations of Flash Player for Android 4.1," Adobe explained in a blog post.
Adobe is slowing its effort to support the Flash platform on mobile devices, having essentially conceded defeat to HTML5 and focusing future efforts on its Adobe AIR runtime.
After August 15th comes and goes, if you still want to install Flash Player on your Android device (or if you're a developer that needs access to it), they'll remain available in Adobe's Flash Player archive.
Microsoft has revealed the names of its Windows RT OEM partners and there are a few big names missing from the list. While we already know the reasons behind HP and Acer's absence, the absence of Japanese company Toshiba, which was recently rumored to be among Microsoft's Windows RT launch partners, is bit of a mystery.
Actually, it was a mystery up until Tuesday morning, when the company revealed the exact reason for its omission from the list of Windows RT OEM partners. Apparently, the Japanese company has decided to steer clear from the Windows RT fray for the time being, owing to component delays.
"Toshiba has decided not to introduce Windows RT models due to delayed components that would make a timely launch impossible," the company announced Tuesday. "For the time being, Toshiba will focus on bringing Windows 8 products to market.We will continue to look into the possibility of Windows RT products in the future while monitoring market conditions."
Like Toshiba, HP too has no plans for a Windows RT product at this stage, albeit the latter's "decision to go with x86 was influenced by input from our customers." Then there is Acer which, while not averse to building a Windows RT tablet, has said that it's unlikely to enter the market this year.
Back in May 2010 (link), I first posted about one of the biggest online game developer and publisher in China, NetDragon, working on Dungeon Keeper Online. The game is a joint production between NetDragon and Electronic Arts (EA), and there … read more »
Through what’s been a highly publicized legal battle between Apple and Samsung over design patents, it recently came to light that all this courtroom drama could have been avoided if Samsung agreed to license technologies from its rival and pay … read more »
Darksiders concludes with a hell of a tease. War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, stands ready for action. “You will be hunted,” angel Uriel warns. “The White City for certain…The Council…and there will be others! You would … read more »
In trying to get Nintendo to release The Last Story in North America, I count myself among the most vocal of petitioners. As a fan of Mistalker’s work and a lover of Lost Odyssey, I considered it the perfect swan … read more »
(Benchmark download) So, Monster Hunter Frontier Japan will be having a huge update which will apparently change the game to “Monster Hunter Frontier 2″, adding in tons of new content, including monsters, areas, weapons, character actions and more. Seeing … read more »
A new world event called Grand Acquisitions Race is live in SWTOR right now. it is hosted by Chevins and starts in Nar Shaddda promenade. A detailed guide on the event can be found at: The world event rewards include … read more »
Back in May 2010 (link), I first posted about one of the biggest online game developer and publisher in China, NetDragon, working on Dungeon Keeper Online. The game is a joint production between NetDragon and Electronic Arts (EA), and there … read more »
Through what’s been a highly publicized legal battle between Apple and Samsung over design patents, it recently came to light that all this courtroom drama could have been avoided if Samsung agreed to license technologies from its rival and pay … read more »
Darksiders concludes with a hell of a tease. War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, stands ready for action. “You will be hunted,” angel Uriel warns. “The White City for certain…The Council…and there will be others! You would … read more »
In trying to get Nintendo to release The Last Story in North America, I count myself among the most vocal of petitioners. As a fan of Mistalker’s work and a lover of Lost Odyssey, I considered it the perfect swan … read more »
(Benchmark download) So, Monster Hunter Frontier Japan will be having a huge update which will apparently change the game to “Monster Hunter Frontier 2″, adding in tons of new content, including monsters, areas, weapons, character actions and more. Seeing … read more »
A new world event called Grand Acquisitions Race is live in SWTOR right now. it is hosted by Chevins and starts in Nar Shaddda promenade. A detailed guide on the event can be found at: The world event rewards include … read more »
Here we go into another week of The Kingdom of Loathing, a wacky, free-to-play, browser-based MMO published by Asymmetric Publications. The community proved on the first day of voting just how strongly its members feel about this stickman world, and I've learned over my short time in playing the game that the community is really the game's number-one feature. Sure, there are tons and tons of items to collect, adventures to go on, areas to explore, and terms to memorize, but the community really binds the game together. Without its help, I am convinced my time in The Kingdom of Loathing would have been a confusing blur.
I am slowly getting the hang of the pace of the game. Last week's votes showed that most players enjoy the game at about the same pace I do. It's only an hour or so a day that many of us play, but that's because of how the game is built. I can guarantee that a lot of that time is spent hanging on the forums, chatting it up with other players, and generally staying connected to the game while not necessarily playing it.
It's a good pace, especially for someone like yours truly who cannot sit for several hours a night playing a single title. So let's recap the last week and get to voting!
MMOs as a rule tend to have a focus on providing content for us, the players. It makes sense; they want us to play their games, so they give us as much stuff to do as possible so that we'll keep playing. But why do we want to do that stuff in the first place? Craig Morrison, creative director at Funcom Montreal, posed that question at his GDC Europe talk, saying that MMO design needs to shift to consider that option. Gamasutra covered what he has to say: "Everytime a player logs in, they need a 'why'," noted Morrison. "What we really need to be thinking about is the why -- it's the bit that we don't really consider enough. Players need a reason to be playing it. What is motivating them?"
Referencing both Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Simon Simek's work on motivation, Morrison's talk ranged from discussing how games go wrong by focusing on only one kind of player to encouraging the development and fostering of community. "Unless you expose the players to the community and encourage community interactions, there's not that much difference between your game and a single-player game," he opined.
DK Online is ramping up development as Aeria Games maneuvers to prepare for the coming of this action MMO. Today, the company is shining a big ol' spotlight on DK Online's Warrior class, and we've got the scoop with a dev blog, interview, and class video. The class looks to defy stereotypes associated with the name, as DK Online is a lot more flexible with its roles than elsewhere.
As companies are wont to do with pre-release titles, Aeria Games is rebranding the game from Dragon Knights Online. As such, the game's official website will be switching over to a new address later today.
Get a load of the Warrior after the jump and see if this might be the class for you!
Players who want to experience PlanetSide 2 but haven't received that coveted beta invite have two hours of opportunity to do so this week -- if they happen to be at Gamescom in Germany. Sony Online Entertainment announced that 48 game stations will be available at Booth #B-060j in the ESL CM Storm Arena (Hall 8) for visitors to take part in battles with one another.
The game stations will be open for Planetside 2 play in four blocks of time stretched over two days: tomorrow, August 16th and Friday, August 17th. On both days the available times will be 11:45 a.m. - 12 :15 p.m CET (5:45 a.m. - 6:15 a.m. EDT) and 3:45 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. CET (9:45 a.m. - 10:15 a.m. EDT).
Additionally, on Thursday and Friday Creative Director Matt Higby will take the stage and present a brand new PlanetSide 2 trailer as well as deliver several game giveaways to those who attend.
Gamescom maketh the good things flow. Today saw Square-Enix releasing a double helping of newFFXIV screenshots and artwork as a preview of what awaits fans in the game's 2.0 patch. The long-anticipated update, known as FFXIV: A Realm Reborn, is bringing some pretty significant changes to the game.
The new images show off everything from skill effects and mounts to architecture and NPC dialogue. They serve as a mightily shiny glimpse at what's to come when the patch hits and brings a nearly universal graphical update with it. And chocobo-raising, because what good is a world without chocobo raising?
The last time we wrote about Diablo III's starter edition, the circumstances were pretty painful and we were pretty ornery. It's original release was glitchy and for a time, digital purchasers of D3 were limited to the starter edition despite paying full price for the game.
Now, though, Blizzard has righted the ship and released a proper D3 trial to the masses, exclusively via Battle.net. Tire-kickers can advance to level 13 and confront the game's first boss (the Skeleton King). Try it out for yourself via the game's official website.
Rock, Paper Shotgun caught up with Arma II modder Dean Hall at this week's Gamescom. The braaaaains behind the zombie-centric DayZ mod revealed that player-driven construction is in the works for the mod's eventual stand-alone client.
Hall says that the feature will probably take the form of underground bases accessed via portals (think a grate in the ground). He's leaning toward having players dig out the space, pour concrete, set up hydroponics, and possibly even have the structure collapse around them if it's a particularly gruesome day.
DayZ's stand-alone client will also feature a revamped Chernarus that features more buildings you can actually enter as well as more detail and "entirely new areas."
Wargaming.net has released a new CG trailer for its forthcoming World of Warplanes title. If you're an aviation buff, or you simply like sleek machines and big explosions, the clip is pure porn that runs for just over a minute.
While there's no gameplay footage, we do get to see a good representation of all the different aircraft up for grabs in the game. Everything from World War II stalwarts like the P-51 Mustang and Messerschmitt Bf-109 to Korean War birds like the F-86 are on display. There's even a glimpse of some World War I-era hardware. See for yourself after the break.
The Secret World's second major content drop is coming on August 28th. The "Digging Deeper" update includes new avatar customization options, new investigation and action missions, and last but not least, the game's first post-launch weapon addition.
The weapon in question is a rocket launcher which boasts seven new abilities, an eighth ability hotbar slot, and a new auxiliary ability wheel. If you're unhappy with the results of your initial character creation session, you can visit Dr. Anton Aldini in Brooklyn or Ockham's Razor barber shop in London for facial feature and hairstyle customization.
New missions include the titular Digging Deeper, which continues the story thread originally introduced in The Kingsmouth Code. Finally, the August update will add nightmare modes to the The Facility and Hell Eternal dungeons. More info is available at the official Secret World website.
And don't forget about the newly announced free trial where anyone can sign up for three free days of The Secret World. If three days isn't enough, you can earn an additional two days and 1200 bonus points when you complete 30 missions.
"In 1.10, change is happening in a big way," RIFT CM James Nicholsproclaimed on the forums. He then went on to announce that RIFT's two competing factions, Guardians and Defiant, would start to make steps toward unification in the final pre-expansion update. According to Nichols, while the two factions will remain philosophically opposed, they recognize the greater threat to the world and are coming together.
For players, this means that there will be a lot more inter-faction communication and interaction. To start with, both factions will be able to join together for public groups, trading, the dungeon finder, raids, instant adventure, and weddings. The team also has plans to open up chat channels, quest sharing, guilds, friends list, and more between the two sides. There will be exceptions to some of these features on PvP servers, however.
RIFT is also preparing to implement PvP normalization, which means that all players competing in PvP will do so with the same stats and no benefits from gear. Trion Worlds promises that there will still be "meaningful PvP progression," but that this should put the emphasis on skill rather than gear.
Game designer Don Daglow turned a few heads while participating in a GDC Europe panel this week. The industry veteran and co-designer of AOL's 1991 Neverwinter Nights MMORPG said that Americans don't deal well with failure, particularly in gaming.
"The idea of failure has been dramatically reduced," Daglow said, before going on to opine that this stems from an educational system where failure has been removed from the curriculum. He also said that many gamers blame their failures on the game itself instead of analyzing their mistakes and trying again.
Putting aside the thorny issue of lockboxes, let's turn our attention today on the subject of in-game gambling. I've noticed that more and more games are including some form of gambling, usually as minigames. From Fallen Earth's electronic blackjack to Star Trek Online's Dabo wheel, there seems to be no shortage of ways for players to waste double their currency.
In-game gambling actually has a long association with computer and video game RPGs. I've never seen it as a legitimate money-maker so much as a pleasant distraction from combat and a tool for immersion. Plus, if the developers actually managed to create a good poker minigame out of it all, then it's like getting two games for the price of one!
It might be hard to developers these days to keep microtransactions out of in-game gambling systems, but fortunately that's not a universal problem as of yet. Whether or not real money comes into the equation, do you enjoy gambling in your MMOs?
Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Welcome back to Jukebox Heroes, the column that dares you to close your eyes and unplug your ears. Well, after you're done reading this opening, of course. So what's the greatest tragedy in modern musical history? Everyone has an answer to that, but mine will be, "How much Runes of Magic's score is overlooked because it's a free-to-play title."
Sure, the game shares enough DNA with World of Warcraft that the two titles can never marry or else they'll have inbred children, but RoM's soundtrack is anything but a clone of WoW's. Runes of Magic actually goes toe to toe with some of the greatest music I've ever heard in MMOs, and that's no exaggeration. I have to thank Massively's Jeremy Stratton for turning me on to this particular score.
According to a few accounts I've read, Runes of Magic's music is both cobbled together from tracks of other video games as well as original pieces composed specifically for this. I honestly don't care where the music comes from; I just care to turn my speakers all the way up and feel epic when it's playing.
So here we go with my absolute favorite tracks from Runes of Magic, minus a couple that I've shared on Massively before!
It's the final countdown for the Guild Wars 2 launch, and that means that time is becoming very important. If you're desperately trying to get a specific name on launch or just aiming to be ahead of the curve when you play, the exact times that the servers come online will be very relevant, which is why there's a new official post explaining exactly when everything is happening on the road to a full launch on August 28th.
Pre-purchasers with access to the headstart will be able to start playing on August 25th at 3:00 a.m. EDT, with the caveat that servers may be brought up three hours early to check stability one last time. Those who pre-ordered the game but didn't fully purchase a copy will have access to a one-day headstart beginning on August 27th at 3:00 a.m. EDT. If you're in either camp and want to get patched up ahead of time, you can download the client now and ensure that your computer is ready to catch every moment of the last two weeks before launch.
[Thanks to miattavich for the tip!]
[Update: The team has also posted the full server list for launch.]
Big studios are getting hacked? MMOs are launching and shutting down all over the place? Lawsuits bring tempers to the settlement tables? Sounds like a job for... someone else! And that someone is MJ, Massively's on-the-scenes combat reporter.
MJ joins Justin to co-host this week as Bree has mysteriously gone missing. Don't worry, however; a nearby gnome with an exclamation point above his head is willing to send you on a quest to rescue her from the Dirty Diaper Dragon.
Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot an email to podcast@massively.com. We may just read your email on the air! Get the podcast: [iTunes] Subscribe to Massively Speaking directly in iTunes. [RSS] Add Massively Speaking to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. Listen here on the page:
If you're strained to the limit of your patience while you wait for the release of Guild Wars 2, you can alleviate the pressure just a little bit tomorrow. ArenaNet is running another stress test on the game on August 15th, open to all players who have pre-purchased the game and are eagerly anticipating the launch. Best of all, character information will not be wiped from the previous stress test, saving you the trouble of making a whole new batch of characters.
The test will run from 3:00 p.m. EDT until 7:00 p.m. EDT. Development teams will be actively working on the game and the servers during the event, which may result in disconnections or login difficulties. The announcement emphasizes that these issues are indicative of the state of the stress test rather than the presumed state of the game on launch. So if you've got some free time tomorrow evening, you may want to get a nice little dose of Guild Wars 2 before the main event in two weeks.
I'm excited about this week's topic. It's not often that I get to put Star Wars: The Old Republic's misconceptions to rest.
As I said last week, my guild does recreational PvP, which is to say that we do it for the fun of it and not because we have to be the best of the best. This helps us enjoy the sport of it without having the pressure of maintaining a ranked-PvP score. Unfortunately, that also means we run into a lot of other players who don't know exactly what they are supposed to be doing in games like Huttball.
Those same complaining players are also the ones who claim that their particular class is deficient in one way or another based on the PvP map. The biggest cringe in SWTOR comes from Huttball. Naysayers complain that one class or another does something different or better than they do. Today, I'm going to break down a couple of the classes to show you how each of them can be more effective. Let's dive in.
It's that special time of year again. There are thousands of people packing bags, boarding trains, and piling into Cologne, Germany. Soon the halls that host Gamescom will be filled with people, the din of dozens of competing booths, and the scent of unwashed masses. What does that mean for you if you're a Guild Wars 2 fan in attendance? It means that along with a weekend with tens of thousands of your best buddies, you get a chance for super-special in-game items.
Every day, ArenaNet staff members in the team's booth will be giving away an in-game goodie to anyone who can tell them the day's password. The passwords for each day will be announced via Twitter, so be sure to keep one eye on the Guild Wars 2 Twitter feed and another on an ArenaNet employee who'll accept said password.
Aside from setting themselves up to be trampled by a seething horde of item-hungry fans, the ArenaNet team members will be chilling in Hall 8, chatting with folks, and generally keeping low-key. They might be saving their energy for something; I hear there's a game of theirs coming out soon.
Lore-masters far and wide in Lord of the Rings Online will be growing in power and ability this fall. In LotRO's newest expansion, Riders of Rohan, Lore-masters stand to be even more attractive fellowship members than ever before as they gain universal access to sharp, pointy things.
In a new class dev diary, Turbine stated that all Lore-masters will be able to train the ability to use an off-hand sword at level 40. Previously, this was a legendary trait-only skill. Due to the change, the team has increased the other stats on the trait.
The three new skills that the class will learn as it levels to 85 will greatly benefit both soloing and groups. Lore-masters will get an improved power-extraction ability, a group-wide power return skill, and a stacking heal-over-time that should beef up the class' medical acumen.
WoW 5.0.4 is the pre-expansion patch for Mists of Pandaria. It weighs a hefty six gigabytes and includes shared mounts, new pets, and the massive talent revamp. North American players will get the patch on August 28th, while European servers will see it on the 29th. Mists of Pandaria is slated for a September 25th release.
Deciding whether this happens to be an innocent coincidence or a shrewd counter-stroke to GW2's launch is up to you. All we know is that August 28th is going to be one very, very busy day.
Batting .300 is the gold standard for free-to-play games, according to former Empire: Total War designer Jan van der Crabben. He told listeners at a GDC Europe keynote that free-to-play developers should expect to lose 70 percent of their initial registered users.
He said that player retention is the key issue facing the new business model, and despite the fact that most players leave F2P titles shortly after registering, those who stick around for a few days will usually keep playing.
Van der Crabben, who is currently designing browser-based F2P games at Travian, pointed to World of Warcraft as a model, noting its mechanical effectiveness at retaining users by presenting them with cyclical gameplay. This amounts to "kill[ing] stuff to get better to get more abilities to kill more stuff," he said.
Would-be superheroes can look forward to new utility belt attachments, new operations, new side missions, and magic-powered Legends PvP avatars. "We want to provide players with unique hero and villain experiences that immerse them in the most iconic DC Comics locations: Gotham City and Metropolis. What we hope players find in this DLC are emergent game play moments that challenge and reinvigorate them in the open world," explains DCUO creative director Jens Andersen.
Hand of Fate will be free for Legendary members and available for purchase via the in-game store and PlayStation marketplace for Premium and Free players.
The Secret World's PvP fanbase knows that right now Fusang is more like a merry-go-round than a battleground, with groups just circling around capping facilities and anima wells. Funcom has noted this as well as other issues and has released an overall plan for improving high-level PvP.
Among the changes are plans to give incentives for defending facilities and for staying in the Fusang PvP zone longer. The Eldorado and Stonehenge battlegrounds will also see some tweaks, including incentives for increased participation and a reduction in the size of the center "score circle" so players cannot gain points while hiding behind the perimeter stones. Additionally, players saving up for PvP talisman upgrade kits might soon get more for their tokens as the prices will most likely drop.
If you're a current or former RIFT subscriber, Trion wants you to know that the title's Storm Legion expansion is yours for free if you pony up for a yearly sub.
Storm Legion features two new continents that triple the size of Telara, 10 additional levels, four additional souls, and plenty of new content that includes seven dungeons, three raids, and a chronicle.
Trion is calling its yearly sub-plus-expansion offering the RIFT Storm Chaser Edition, and you can grab it for $119.98 via the official site. In addition to everything listed above, you'll also receive an exclusive mount and in-game title.
Privacy advocates aren't going to like this one, but a 2-1 ruling in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has given law enforcement officials the legal right to track suspects by cell phone in real-time without first obtaining a warrant. The ruling revolves around a case in which Melvin Skinner, a convicted drug trafficker, sought to have his charges dismissed on the basis that his arrest ran afoul of the Fourth Amendment.
Razer, a well known maker of PC gaming peripherals, has made available to developers its Software Development Kit (SDK) for its Switchblade user interface (UI). The Switchblade UI is featured prominently on the company's 'Razer Blade' gaming laptop, as well as its Star Wars: The Old Republic gaming keyboard and newly announced DeathStalker Ultimate plank.
It's another day, and the way things have been going lately, that usually means another development in the patent trial between Apple and Samsung. Today is no exception, though if the presiding judge gets her wish, all this nonsense will come to an end, and not by way of a jury verdict. Instead, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh urged both companies to get on the horn one more time to see if they can come up with a settlement agreement.
You know how pessimists like to point out that if something is too good to be true, then it probably is? As much as we hate to admit it, that idiom most likely applies to a recent rumor suggesting Microsoft finalized plans to price its Windows RT-based Surface tablet at a mere $199. It's fun to speculate on what kind of impact that would have on the tablet market, but at the end of the day, all that rhetoric would be for naught because it's just not going to happen, according to several analysts.
Just in time for the back-to-school shopping season, boutique system builder AVADirect out of Ohio 
It's looking increasingly likely that Amazon is gearing up to launch a full-size Kindle Fire tablet to sell alongside its existing 7-inch model that's been so popular up to this point. Courtesy of some savvy online detective work, it was discovered that Amazon once again may have used a shell company to sneak through paperwork for its next generation Kindle Fire device, though details are fairly light at this point.
Time is running out if you're a fan of Adobe's Flash Player plugin for Android and haven't yet downloaded it. On August 15 (tomorrow), Adobe will yank its plugin from Google Play as a readily available download, and only devices that already have Flash Player installed will see any future updates. The move is intended to avoid any compatibility conflicts with Google's Jelly Bean build (Android 4.1).
Microsoft has revealed the names of its Windows RT OEM partners and there are a few big names missing from the list. While we already know the reasons behind HP and Acer's absence, the absence of Japanese company Toshiba, which was recently rumored to be among Microsoft's Windows RT launch partners, is bit of a mystery.
The Secret World's
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