Thursday news, part two:

EA details Need for Speed Payback progression changes
http://www.pcgamer.com/ea-details-need-for-speed-payback-progression-changes/
Electronic Arts has been taking a volcanic amount of heat over Star Wars Battlefront 2 these past few weeks, but the recently-released racing game Need for Speed Payback has been the subject of criticism too. EA acknowledged last week that the progression was underpowered, and said that changes to increase both Rep and Bank awards were in the works. Today it detailed those changes, some of which have already been made and others that will arrive in a client-side patch that's on the way "soon."

Try the demo for this point-and-click RPG about a space wizard with many uncles
http://www.pcgamer.com/try-the-demo-for-this-point-and-click-rpg-about-a-space-wizard-with-many-uncles/
My Uncle Merlin is an adventure game starring Eddie, a novice wizard raised by orcs, and his titular uncle Merlin, who are adrift in space on a dragon-powered rocket. It's currently on Kickstarter, with developer Pocket Mana asking for $22,000 to bring it to life. At the time of writing, its campaign has earned $2,184 and will run for another 22 days.

Invade parody films in 2D platformer Epic Loon
http://www.pcgamer.com/invade-parody-films-in-2d-platformer-epic-loon/
Epic Loon is a seriously retro 2D platformer from French developer Macrales Studios. It features several playable characters, local co-op and battle modes, as well as over 350 levels, but its standout quality is its setting.

Australian gambling analyst says loot boxes 'constitute gambling' by legal definition
http://www.pcgamer.com/australian-gambling-analyst-says-loot-boxes-constitute-gambling-by-legal-definition/
The backlash against loot boxes has now reached all the way to Australia: Responding to an inquiry from a redditor named -Caesar, a strategic analyst for the Compliance Division of the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation said that "what occurs with 'loot boxes' does constitute gambling by the definition of the Victorian Legislation."

In this adventure game your partner is a talking dog and you're hunting Jack the Ripper
http://www.pcgamer.com/in-this-adventure-game-your-partner-is-a-talking-dog-and-youre-hunting-jack-the-ripper/
Du Lac & Fey: Dance of Death is a story-driven adventure game set in 19th century London. It stars Sir Lancelot Du Lac, immortal knight, and Morgana Le Fey, a sorceress cursed to inhabit a canine form. It's currently on Kickstarter, with developer Salix Games asking for $53,022 to bring it to life. At the time of writing, its campaign has earned $20,717 and will run for another 17 days.

Finding Paradise has a new release date and an unexpected trailer
http://www.pcgamer.com/finding-paradise-has-a-new-release-date-and-an-unexpected-trailer/
To the Moon developer Freebird Games dropped some big news for fans today: It's time to gun up, buckle in, and hang on, because on December 14 you're going... 2 The Moon.

Gwent's single-player 'Thronebreaker' campaign has been delayed into 2018
http://www.pcgamer.com/gwents-single-player-thronebreaker-campaign-has-been-delayed-into-2018/
The Gwent single-player campaign Thronebreaker, which had been slated to come out by the end of the year, has been delayed into 2018. Developer CD Projekt Red said in a "development roadmap update" that it has decided to "increase the campaign's scope," and so it's going to need more time to work on it.

Ark's Aberration expansion set to arrive December 12
http://www.pcgamer.com/arks-aberration-expansion-set-to-arrive-december-12/
I recently got a chance to play around in an early build of Ark's second expansion, Aberration, which takes place in a series of underground biomes and introduces new movement systems like wingsuit gliding, rock-climbing, and ziplines. Originally planned for an October release, Studio Wildcard has announced that Aberration will now arrive on December 12.

Dwarf Fortress drops 'artifact' update with new historical events, prisoner rescues, cover identities
http://www.pcgamer.com/dwarf-fortress-drops-artifact-update-with-new-historical-events-prisoner-rescues-cover-identities/
Don't be fooled by Dwarf Fortress' ASCII interface, beneath its simplistic veneer lies a deeply complex and intricate colony management, base maintenance, exploration and survival game. I'm forever impressed with its similarly broad updates—the latest of which adds a number of new potentially story-generating features.

See the Bakers turn zombie in Resident Evil 7 End of Zoe DLC trailer
http://www.pcgamer.com/see-the-bakers-turn-zombie-in-resident-evil-7s-end-of-zoe-dlc/
Resident Evil 7's End of Zoe is due December 12, and will arrive alongside the first-person horror venture's complementary Not a Hero DLC. We took a closer look at what both entail last month, however two new trailers dive a little deeper than before.

Playground Games recruits ex-GTA 5, Phantom Pain, Battlefront 2 devs for new open world action RPG
http://www.pcgamer.com/playground-games-recruits-ex-gta-5-phantom-pain-battlefront-2-devs-for-new-open-world-action-rpg/
In February, Playground Games—the team behind the Forza Horizon series—announced plans to expand. A new branch would be established in Leamington Spa in England, said studio founder Ralph Fulton at the time, and a new non-racing game would be worked on.

Seven: The Days Long Gone has Hitman-style disguises, time-manipulating mechanics
http://www.pcgamer.com/seven-the-days-long-gone-has-hitman-style-disguises-time-manipulating-mechanics/
Seven: The Days Long Gone is due next week, yet is still teasing interesting features that continue to pique my interest. The latest trailer focuses on stealth and the different approaches you might leverage when overcoming bad guys and obstacles.

PUBG dataminer uncovers 3 new weapons and a flare gun
http://www.pcgamer.com/pubg-dataminer-uncovers-3-new-weapons-and-a-flare-gun/
Intrepid dataminers have already uncovered guns, trucks and jet skis from PUBG's test server code, but it seems there's yet more gold in them hills/lines of ones and zeroes.
According to Reddit user bizzfarts, certain locations on the shooter's incoming desert map are set to be renamed (so long, Murderlands), while three new weapons and a flare gun could be making their way into its grounds.

Marvel Heroes will reportedly close tomorrow (Updated)
http://www.pcgamer.com/marvel-heroes-is-closing-down/
Update: Massively OP has been told that developer Gazillion will be shuttered entirely, and that instead of running until the end of the year, Marvel Heroes will be ended on November 24—tomorrow. The studio hasn't confirmed the unexpectedly early closure, but multiple Gazillion employees including engineer Andrew Hair and designers Brian Waggoner and Anthony Gallegos have tweeted about their termination. Worse, all three say that staff are being let go without any severance or paid time-off payouts.

Last round of news of the week!

SALES & "SALES"/DEALS

PlayerUnknown’s: Battlegrounds surpasses 22 million sales on Steam
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/playerunknowns-battlegrounds-surpasses-22-million-sales-steam/
There is literally nothing stopping this train. Earlier this month, we reported about PlayerUnknown’s: Battlegrounds surpassing 20 million sales. Fast forward a few weeks and here we are today with the game surpassing 22 million copies on Steam.

Sanctum 2 is free in the Humble Store
http://www.pcgamer.com/sanctum-2-is-free-in-the-humble-store/
Sanctum 2, the FPS-tower defense hybird that I think is actually quite good, is free for the next two days as part of the Humble Store Fall Sale. You know the drill by now, right? Go here, add to cart, check out, have a nice day.

The Flame in the Flood is free right now with Twitch Prime
http://www.pcgamer.com/the-flame-in-the-flood-is-free-with-twitch-prime/
If you're subscribed to Twitch Prime you snag a sweet bonus right now—The Flame in the Flood, which is a survival roguelike about river travel (and not a genre I type out every day), is available for free. Make sure you've got the Twitch desktop app installed, then head over to the game's Twitch page to grab it for zero dollars and the same amount of cents.

SOFTWARE

-empty-

MODS/EMULATORS

This classic Doom mod replaces weapon pickups with loot boxes
http://www.pcgamer.com/this-classic-doom-mod-replaces-weapon-pickups-with-loot-boxes/
Loot boxes have come on strong over the past year or so, and so has resistance against them. But what if loot boxes had gained prominence 25 years ago? What if the id Software guys, instead of embracing shareware, had embraced RNG microtransactions? You'd very likely have ended up with something close to the Doom Loot Box Mod, created by ZDoom user Rip and Tear, which brings the old-time FPS you love into the modern era, in the worst way possible.

GAMING NEWS

Here is one hour of gameplay footage from Star Citizen 3.0 in 4K
http://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/one-hour-gameplay-footage-star-citizen-3-0-in-4k/
YouTube’s ‘Xenthor Xi’ has shared a video, showing one hour of gameplay footage from Star Citizen 3.0 in 4K. According Cloud Imperium, Star Citizen 3.0 is available on the PTU and the first wave of testers got their hands on it.

First Sociable Soccer patch pokes fun at Electronic Arts, improves AI, goalkeepers and collisions
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/first-sociable-soccer-patch-improves-ai-goalkeepers-slide-tackles-headers-collisions/
Combo Breaker has released the first major patch for Sociable Soccer. According to the team, this patch improves the AI, goalkeepers, slide tackles, headers and the in-game HUD display. Furthermore, this patch improves collisions for ball, players and posts.

Open week announced for Total War: ARENA, begins today
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/open-week-announced-total-war-arena/
Wargaming has announced that Total War: ARENA will get an open week, granting players full access to all the epic-scale 10-vs-10 multiplayer action. Starting today, November 24th 12:00 UTC until December 4th 09.00 UTC, anyone can sign up to lead the Romans, Barbarians or Greeks into battle and provide valuable feedback.

Part two of today's news:

The Destiny 2 'Buffalo' error isn't quite dead yet
http://www.pcgamer.com/the-destiny-2-buffalo-error-isnt-quite-dead-yet/
Bungie released a Destiny 2 hotfix last week called "the one about Buffalo," which it said "resolved an issue that was causing additional Buffalo errors on PC." Except, as the studio noted in the most recent round of This Week At Bungie, it didn't.

Dota 2 gets multi-tiered Rank Medal system
http://www.pcgamer.com/dota-2-gets-multi-tiered-rank-medal-system/
Dota 2 has reworked its Ranked matchmaking system, swapping the old stacking matchmaking rating value (MMR) for a range of Seasonal Rank Medals. With it, the game's inaugural six-month Ranked Season has also kicked off.

Save big in GTA Online's in-game Black Friday Sale
http://www.pcgamer.com/save-big-in-gta-onlines-in-game-black-friday-sale/
Black Friday sales are everywhere at this time of year—in stores, online retailers and… Los Santos? That's right, Rockstar has now unveiled GTA Online's in-game Black Friday Sale.
With reductions across a host of hangars, bunkers, executive properties, vehicles and more, now's the time to splash your virtual cash if you've been hanging on for a sale.

And now, time to look at what do GOG and Steam have for ... who am I kidding? Both stores are having their own sales right now, Black Friday at GOG and Autumn Sale at Steam, so go check them out!

Oh! And remember to choose your nominees for The Steam Awards.

And that's all for today. Yes, it has been a bit short (maybe the hangover from Thanksgiving?) but that doesn't really matter. Anyway, I hope you have a happy and gaming weekend.

Yay. I'm back from my forced 4 day hiatus.

PUBG is such a beast. Some of my friends got it. It does look fun but seems janky.

More time to play RL .

Thanks to Caffeinade and Leyendax69 for the gifts I got a few games throughout the past few days because of them!!

VGPolyglot said: Thanks to Caffeinade and Leyendax69 for the gifts I got a few games throughout the past few days because of them!!

Hmm... Neither Caffeinade nor Leyendax69 come to this thread, or at least post here, yet you come here to thank them?

C'mon, spill the beans! You've come here to tell us what they've given you

JEMC said: VGPolyglot said: Thanks to Caffeinade and Leyendax69 for the gifts I got a few games throughout the past few days because of them!! Hmm... Neither Caffeinade nor Leyendax69 come to this thread, or at least post here, yet you come here to thank them? C'mon, spill the beans! You've come here to tell us what they've given you

Portal, Portal 2, The Stanley Parable, The Beginner's Guide, Quake, Half-Life, System Shock Classic, System Shock: Enhanced Edition and System Shock 2.

The two portal games are fun.

Quake was my first FPS. I still remember how sick it made me, yet after some time I always came back for more

That Half Life, is it the first one?