Fans of Torchlight II or Diablo-style games, be attention, Torchlight II beta has stated. Runic Games Twitter account officially announced beggining of Torchlight II few moments ago.
The update will include two new maps: The CTF map Tartarus is named after the shipwreck in the middle and it is comparable to the Katabatic map. The new Arena map Hinterland is not only pretty but also very challenging due to the lack of inventory stations. The next patch will also come with a new loadout support.
Berserker wields a greatsword and boasts the highest attack power within the Fighter classes. The core feature of Berserker is switching different battle stance while using different skills.
Those of you who would be interested to participate in Torchlight 2 beta should definietely read Travis Baldree (Runic Games' Developer) post visible here below: Travis Baldree wrote: "Just as a heads up, we are expanding the beta out to build up concurrency a bit, now that we have shaken out some of the initial issues. A wave of invites is going out for a group of users who have created Runic Accounts at https://secure.runicgames.com/signup - we will continue to do so over the next few days. We don't have an explicit number of invites we are sending, but the lions' share of the total invitees will end up from Runic Games account holders."
The amount of items you need to level your skill are most likely still correct, it's the effects of food that may change, and hopefully some new food will be added. (I don't see the new food effecting the items you need to level Survival, as I most often listed the commonest and easiest to get fish, all of which have recipes already)
NCsoft has released a new Summoner class in Blade & Soul. The Summoner is a pet-handling heroine who relies on her animal companions for much of her utility. Let's take a peek!
A new defense dungeon, Gate of Darkness, has been added to Elsword, players need to protect the gemstone in 15 waves of incoming demons by going solo or teaming up with other players and receive more rewards by increasing the difficulty.
Most games, like Age of Conan, Champions Online, City of Heroes, Lord of the Rings Online, Star Trek Online, DC Universe Online and more, have successfully made the transition to f2p. What about The Elder Scrolls Online?
Yesterday, we have reported that the PvP server - Nether Wind Fort for Crystal Saga has kicked off at EST 22:00 May 8th, 2012. The Starter Kit Giveaway Event for the third server will last from May 8th to June 7th. The following is the detailed schedule for Starter Kit Giveaway Event and guide on how to Claim Starter Kit.
Activision Blizzard's press release states that World of Warcraft is still at 10.2 million subscribers as of 3/31/12. This is the same amount of subscribers from Q4 2011. A few other interesting points:
As a new member of Gravity Interactive's game portal WarpPortal (http://warpportal.com/), Maestia: Rise of Keledus will arrive this summer. Following a captivating storyline, Maestia: Rise of Keledus launches head first into the eternal struggle for power and righteousness in a world where friends and enemies are not easily discernible. Now, players can visit its official teaser website to preview some details.
Although the closed beta of Path of Exile is ongoing, Path of Exile will be available to everyone for 2 days with a public test this coming weekend. During the public stress test in this weekend, player are able to experience the latest unveiled character class - Shadow who is a hybrid dexterity and intelligence class for the first time. Please read the press release to get more details about the public stress test and Shadow.
EA's games label boss Frank Gibeau just told investors that the 400,000 players they lost in the past few months were casual gamers who stopped subscribing the game after a billing cycle.
Bill Murphy's Lancer, Richard Cox's Berserker, and Rindadi's Sorcerer take down the final boss of Sinestral Manor in TERA with a little help from some PUG folks and heals.
Kill3rCombo has announced that a new "defense dungeon" has been added to Elsword Online. In the Gate of Darkness dungeon, players must defend a gemstone from fifteen waves of increasingly difficult monsters in order to score some nice rewards.
Rippa checks out Free Realms, a massively multiplayer online role playing video game developed by Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) set in a fantasy-themed world, named Sacred Grove for the PC, Mac and PlayStation 3. The game was released on April 29, 2009, for the Windows PC. The game itself is free to play, although to be a member you must pay for a membership $4.99 for one month $12.99 for three months $24.50 for six months $29.99 for a year and $39.99 for as long as Free Realms lasts. M
Gpotato has announced that the next expansion of Rappelz, Epic VII: Reanimation will arrive June 7, but the rewards begin now with a three week login event. Players who log in daily from May 9 to June 3 can win items like in-game experience boosters and weapons savers every single day. Play the whole time [...]
Gravity Interactive, has announced today their newest addition to WarpPortal, the newest online platform for North American gamers, Maestia: Rise of Keledus that will arrive this summer. Developed by ROC Works, Maestia: Rise of Keledus is a fully fleshed fantasy MMORPG that is free to download and play. Follow a captivating storyline and launch head [...]
Blizzard has released a short animated film of Diablo 3, directed by Peter Chung and the animation studio Titmouse, which provides an overview of a crucial episode of the battle between Heaven and Hell. You can discover some of the angels, and some fight scenes of the game, and finally a confrontation with Diablo himself.
After a successful stress test last month, the servers of the action RPG Path of Exile, under develoment by Grinding Gear Games in New Zealand, will open their doors to as many people this weekend to test their carrying capacity in preparation for the open beta in the coming months. In addition has presented its [...]
NEXON Europe has announced a new update for their MMOFPS Combat Arms. Get ready for some action in the all-new "Rotten meat" map, placed in the bloody cellars of an abandoned slaughterhouse, playable in the "Clan Search and Destroy" game-mode. Additionally, a range of new weapons and equipment comes with this spring update. Engage in [...]
Hi-rez Studios has released a new preview for the upcoming patch of Tribes: Ascend. The update will include two new maps: The CTF map Tartarus is named after the shipwreck in the middle and it is comparable to the Katabatic map. The new Arena map Hinterland is not only pretty but also very challenging due [...]
Upjers has announced the release of their successful zoo-simulation My Free Zoo to the English-speaking audience. The game has become a true hit in Germany in no time at all and has managed to attract more than 500,000 enthused players in less than 2 months after its official launch. In the game players are able [...]
Sony Online Entertainment LLC has announced today that the fourth downloadable content pack for DC Universe Online, named The Last Laugh, will be available in June for download. The Last Laugh will pit players against each other in high-intensity multiplayer brawls, feature an all-new weapon, and introduce new Light-Powered Legends PvP characters. The Last Laugh [...]
Coming to you only slightly late, it's the real Episode 185 of the No BS Podcast! Join Deputy Editor Gordon Ung, Online Managing Editor Alex Castle, and Senior Editor Nathan Edwards as we go an entire two hours without arguing about Star Wars!
What do we talk about? Nvidia's dual-GPU GTX 690, AMD's answer to that, Trinity, Ivy Bridge (and the overclocking thereof), the merits of integrated graphics, and so much more. Then: Target vs Amazon vs Best Buy vs the IRS! A new computer in a Commodore 64 chassis! Testing headphones! MMOs! Diablo III! The Walking Dead game! And a dizzying number of reader questions answered!
And, of course, there's a new non-Star-Wars-related Rant of the Month, and buried at the end, an important announcement from Alex.
Computer trouble? A secret to share? Opinions? Need advice? Just need to get something off your chest? Email us at maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com or call our 24-hour No BS Podcast hotline at 877.404.1337 x1337--operators are not standing by.
When Eric Cartman prettied himself up in makeup and started shouting "Whatever! I'll do what I want!" on a fictional Maury Povich talk show, he and South Park's creators were flexing the freedom of speech rights allowed to everyone in the United States. Now, Google may be getting ready to do what it wants, too; the company recently commissioned a report by a First Amendment scholar who concluded that Google's search engine results are constitutionally protected speech and shouldn't be subject to government anti-trust regulations.
UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, the brains behind the claims, says that search engine results serve as the company's "opinion" about the query as asked by the searchee.
"It uses sophisticated computerized algorithms, but those algorithms themselves inherently incorporate the search engine company engineers' judgments about what material users are most likely to find responsive to their queries," he writes in the 27 page report.
Volokh also says that search engines are essentially media companies like the New York Times and CNN, so he claims that Google, Bing and co. should be afforded the same free speech rights as more traditional publications. Or, as PaidContent puts it, if the Times can spit out "All the news that's fit to print," the same right should apply to search results.
PaidContent additionally points out that if that's true, Google would be within its rights to blacklist Yelp, which has been yelping about Google being a monopoly. Google has recently come under intense anti-trust scrutiny from both the United States and the European Union, which likely caused Google to commission the report.
It's an interesting change of tactics for the Mountain View crew, which previously claimed that its results shouldn't be regulated because Google isn't really a monopoly: anybody can use Bing or Dogpile at any time. Now, Google (via the commissioned report) is essentially giving up on the neutrality claims and shouting "Whatever! Whatever! The constitution lets me do what I want!"
What do you think: should Google be allowed to do whatever it wants with its search results? What do you think will happen in countries that don't have free speech protections? Google is a global business, after all.
In between ringing the warning bells about cyberspace boogeymen and rolling out refreshes to the Pavilion lineup, HP also took the time to answer a question we all knew was coming someday: when is an Ultrabook not an Ultrabook? The answer: when it's a so-called thin-and-light Sleekbook. Two new HP Envy notebooks carry the new name, which skirt the restrictions associated with the Intel-owned Ultrabook brand.
A key distinction for Ultrabooks, of course, is that they have to be powered by Intel's Core processors. One of the two Envy Sleekbooks -- a 14-inch, $700 laptop -- in fact runs on Ivy Bridge, but the second model -- a 15.6-inch, $600 laptop -- sports an AMD APU, something that could never occur in an Ultrabook proper.
The two Envy Sleekbooks also point out the price-based competitiveness of AMD's processors. The APU-powered Envy sports a bigger screen and "discrete-class graphics" while costing $100 less than the smaller Intel-powered Envy, which HP offers with "optional discrete graphics" that will only add to the price tag.
The Intel model should be available today, while the AMD variant won't be shipping until around June 20th. Why could that be? *Cough* Trinity *Cough* A couple of actual Ultrabooks were announced, too.
So whaddaya think: if HP and other manufacturers can whip together thin and long-lasting Ultrabook-like notebooks running on AMD processors, then simply call the doppelgangers by a slightly different name, does "Ultrabook" (with its very loose spec guidelines) even carry much value as a brand? The AMD Sleekbook is virtually identical to an AMD Ultrabook, after all, aside from the CPU at its heart.
Long before there was Battlefield 3, there was Call of Duty, and before that, there was Quake and Doom. All those games can trace their lineage back even further, to Wolfenstein 3D, iD's awesomely innovative Nazi-hunting FPS adventure. Today marks a milestone for the classic franchise: B.J. Blazkowicz has been blasting SS guards and chaingun-wielding robo-Hitlers for a whopping 20 years. Even better, rather than just tooting its own horn, iD's showering gamers with freebie gifts to celebrate the anniversary.
First up is a new 25 minute-long Director's Commentary, with spoken words by none other than gaming guru John Carmack himself. Seriously, it's awesome. Check out the whole thing in the embedded video below.
If listening to the man behind the curtain doesn't pique your interest, iD's also made a browser-based version of the game, which you can play for free over on the Wolfenstein website. What, that still isn't good enough? Well, you're in luck -- the iOS version of Wolfenstein 3D is selling for the low, low price of FREE all day today. If you've got an iPhone or iPad, there's no reason NOT to go pick it up.
Happy birthday, Blazkowicz; we'd hoist a beer in your honor but that'll have to wait until next year.
It's sort of a weird time for game developers and publishers. Despite a reluctance on the part of Microsoft and Sony to talk about and/or announce next generation console hardware, the current crop of consoles are gettting long in the tooth and, as many suspect, facing succession. It's already happening with Nintendo's Wii console as the Wii U draws closer to release, and within the next year or so, it's conceivable to think there will be a PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720 in the wild, too. Despite the uncertainty, however, EA isn't holding back and intends to invest a healthy $80 million into developing titles for next generation consoles. Does EA know something we don't?
"We intend to invest $80 million in gen-4 console development in fiscal 2013," EA CEO John Riccitiello said, according to GamesIndustry International. "We are strong believers that console will return to strong growth, representing great opportunity, one that is in lockstep with our digital plan."
Hard copy sales dropped 7 percent for EA in the past year, and looking ahead, the games publisher expects another single-digit decline during its fiscal 2013 period (April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2013). So, why isn't EA fretting, and why commit $80 million to developing games for consoles that haven't launched yet? For one, developing games for consoles is like having a license to print money. And secondly, EA expects digital sales to make up for declining hard copy sales.
Riccitiello described the company's digital growth as being "robust," according to All Things D. And that's a fair assessment. EA raked in $1.2 billion in digital revenue last year, a 47 percent year-over-year increaase. FIFA 12 made $100 million in digital revenue all on its own, and looking forward, EA expects digital sales to total $1.7 billion in the next year.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) may have underestimated the challenges involved with churning out 28nm parts, or perhaps the company is simply inundated with orders. In the end, it doesn't really matter what the problem is, as far as clients go, and when Nvidia reportedly threatened to place orders with TSMC's competitors, suddenly the GPU maker was bumped to the front of the line.
It's been rumored that Nvidia considered giving 28nm orders to Samsung and/or Globalfoundries, and in attempt to stop that from happening, TSMC "has given priority to Nvidia for 28nm capacity," DigiTimes reports. Nvidia's recently launched Kepler series is built on a 28nm manufacturing process, and as any gamer will attest, finding a Kepler card in stock is an exercise in frustration.
By being bumped up to priority status, the GPU shortage should begin to ease in the coming weeks. This is especially important for Nvidia as it begins to flesh out its Kepler line with an upcoming GeForce GTX 670 graphics card. Meanwhile, Qualcomm has also been given priority status after it, too, threatened to outsource production to competing wafer fabs.
Hewlett-Packard chief executive Meg Whitman might as well have been wearing a Boogeyman costume when addressing a crowd in London during an HP customer event. While there, she warned listeners that a mega-sized cyber terrorist attack is pretty much a foregone conclusion, that it's mostly a matter of when, not if, it will happen. But fear not, HP will be there to save the day, if you call upon the company.
According to Whitman, a "cyber attack of 9/11 scale" has a high probability of taking place sooner than later, and HP customers would be wise to recognize the "threat of global terrorism" that's on the horizon, V3.co.uk reports. On a more comforting note, Whitman promised to "darken the skies with the magnitude of our response and will work your agenda, not ours," when it comes to dealing with cyber shenanigans.
Only time will tell if HP's chief has a legitimate concern or if she's resorting to scare tactics to drive sales of enterprise security products. Either way, she brings up some valid points for businesses to think about.
"With the influx of mobility and cloud, the access points [to businesses] are now infinite. Threats have become sophisticated, persistent, and unpredictable," Whitman added, according to ITPro.co.uk.
Nvidia's Kepler unveiling essentially amounted to a paper launch, but that doesn't mean the company's GPU partners are sitting around twiddling their collective thumbs. New derivatives of the GeForce GTX 680 graphics card are coming out all the time, the newest ones being a pair of FTW cards from EVGA with overclocked specs, a sturdier design, and even twice the amount of memory.
The 'standard' GeForce GTX 680 FTW, if we can call it that, totes 'just' 2GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus. However, EVGA cranked the memory to 6208MHz, a 200MHz overclock that results in more memory bandwidth (198.66GB/s versus 192.2GB/s). EVGA also gave the GPU a bump in clockspeed, increasing the base and boost clocks to 1110MHz and 1176MHz, respectively, up from 1006MHz and 1058MHz.
For people who plan to run ultra high resolutions, particularly when multiple monitors are involved, or for those simply looking for bragging rights, EVGA outed a 4GB version of the FTW edition. This one boasts the same GPU overclock, though the memory drops back down to reference specs. The other difference is that the 4GB card comes with a backplate.
Adding to the ongoing deluge of PC product line updates inspired by the launch of 3rd generation Intel Core i processors, Hewlett-Packard has announced a slew of Ivy Bridge-based notebook models across its various consumer laptop lines. But Ivy Bridge processors are not the only thing that sets HP's new laptops apart from their predecessors. According to the company, its 2012 Pavilion consumer notebook PCs are reflective of its new "Mosaic" design philosophy. Hit the jump for more.
The new Ivy Bridge-powered Pavilion consumer notebook PCs announced by HP are all updates to existing dv- and g-series models with the exception of the m6, a completely new laptop that packs a large display in a "super-slim" design. Sporting a 15.6-inch diagonal LED backlit high-definition (HD) display, the brushed-aluminum Pavilion m6 will be available with both Intel and AMD processors, optional discrete graphics, optional backlit keyboard and dual speakers and subwoofer with Beats Audio. Further, the m6 will come preloaded with HP CoolSense, ProtectSmart and SimplePass.
Other models in HP's 2012 Pavilion consumer notebook lineup are the dv7, dv6, dv4, g6 and g7. If your interest has been piqued then we suggest that you peruse the following pricing and availability information and hold your breath accordingly:
HP Pavilion m6 will be available this summer at Best Buy, BestBuy.com and HP Direct with pricing to be determined.
HP Pavilion dv4, dv6 and dv7 are expected to be available in the United States on June 20 with starting prices of $549.99, $549.99 and $799.99, respectively.
HP Pavilion g6 and g7 are expected to be available in the United States on July 25 with starting prices of $449.99 and $499.99, respectively.
When Eric Cartman prettied himself up in makeup and started shouting "
In between 
Long before there was Battlefield 3, there was Call of Duty, and before that, there was Quake and Doom. All those games can trace their lineage back even further, to Wolfenstein 3D, iD's awesomely innovative Nazi-hunting FPS adventure. Today marks a milestone for the classic franchise: B.J. Blazkowicz has been blasting SS guards and chaingun-wielding robo-Hitlers for a whopping 20 years. Even better, rather than just tooting its own horn, iD's showering gamers with freebie gifts to celebrate the anniversary.
It's sort of a weird time for game developers and publishers. Despite a reluctance on the part of Microsoft and Sony to talk about and/or announce next generation console hardware, the current crop of consoles are gettting long in the tooth and, as many suspect, facing succession. It's already happening with Nintendo's Wii console as the Wii U draws closer to release, and within the next year or so, it's conceivable to think there will be a PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720 in the wild, too. Despite the uncertainty, however, EA isn't holding back and intends to invest a healthy $80 million into developing titles for next generation consoles. Does EA know something we don't?
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) may have underestimated the challenges involved with churning out 28nm parts, or perhaps the company is simply inundated with orders. In the end, it doesn't really matter what the problem is, as far as clients go, and when Nvidia reportedly threatened to place orders with TSMC's competitors, suddenly the GPU maker was bumped to the front of the line.
Hewlett-Packard chief executive Meg Whitman might as well have been wearing a Boogeyman costume when addressing a crowd in London during an HP customer event. While there, she warned listeners that a mega-sized cyber terrorist attack is pretty much a foregone conclusion, that it's mostly a matter of when, not if, it will happen. But fear not, HP will be there to save the day, if you call upon the company.
Nvidia's Kepler unveiling essentially amounted to a paper launch, but that doesn't mean the company's GPU partners are sitting around twiddling their collective thumbs. New derivatives of the GeForce GTX 680 graphics card are coming out all the time, the newest ones being a pair of FTW cards from EVGA with overclocked specs, a sturdier design, and even twice the amount of memory.
