Blizzard plan to strip currency systems from World of Warcraft raiding in Warlords of Draenor
Randomised loot drops are, when tuned well, a recipe for joy - but the flipside is the potential for crushing runs of bad luck. There’s nobody who understands that better than Blizzard, who first introduced a currency reward to World of Warcraft raiding as consolation prize for players who never seemed to land the shoulder piece they wanted.
These days, there are two currencies at work in the raiding system - but Blizzard want to remove both of them.
Port Inspection - Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
There are always going to be games that we don’t end up reviewing. This makes us a little bit sad. Multi-platform releases are the ones that most often fall by the wayside, but we still want to let you know if they are worth your time and worth playing on PC.
The Port Inspection is our solution. Instead of a traditional review, our inspections will look at how the PC version of a multi-platform release stacks up, technically. And we’ll do this wearing lab coats.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, MercurySteam’s final outing in Konami’s venerable franchise, is our inaugural Port Inspection. It’s always good to start of with something divisive, and the Lords of Shadow series is nothing if not that.
Redeem your Reaper of Souls key before March 31st and get the Demon Hunter for Heroes of the Storm
The Reaper is coming, the Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls specifically. Souls are indeed a form of currency for Blizzard. If you’re into that sort of thing, you might like to pick up Reaper of Souls. If you grab it and redeem your key before March 31st, you’ll get a couple of gifts from Blizzard.
You can strut around Diablo 3 with some flaming Archangel wings and, this is probably a bigger deal, you’ll unlock Valla the Demon Hunter for Heroes of the Storm, when it eventually launches. Future rewards!
Make like the Daedra and swarm The Elder Scrolls Online in our beta weekend giveaway
Update: If you're getting an invalid code message when attempting to redeem the key, this probably means you already have access from the earlier beta event. Check your account, at the side it should say "Beta Access", that means you're good to go. Just give the code to a chum. If you don't see that, and the code is invalid, you'll need to contact customer support. Cheers to RodRackStack for bringing this to our attention.
The Elder Scrolls Online is a video game that in some places plays like the Elder Scrolls games did two iterations ago, and in others like the Elder Scrolls has never played before. I quite like it. You may not: but it is like no other MMO you’ve ever hopped through before, and you’ll be contractually required as a PC gamer to have an opinion on it.
Let’s make it an informed one, eh? We’ve got 1,200 beta keys, and one looks like it might have your name in it, if you squint a bit.
Minecraft 1.7.5 adds Mini Game support to Minecraft Realms, 1.7.6 due out next month
Minecraft’s getting a wee update today tomorrow morning. The switch from 1.7.4 to 1.7.5 isn’t a major one, mainly affecting Minecraft Realms.
Mojang’s goal is to bring Minecraft Realms to all Nordic countries (Iceland, Finland, Norway and Denmark) starting next week.
Nosgoth enters closed beta February 27th, new skins being designed by Soul Reaver art lead
Vampires vs. humans arena scrapper Nosgoth is making the move to closed beta, letting more folk kick in the doors of the grisly game and slaughter each other for gold and glory come February 27th.
This would be a good thing were it not for the fact that more players probably means I’ll have more competition, and I’ve been rather enjoying not having my ass kicked consistently in an online game for once.
So if you do see me in a match, please leave me alone. I just want to drink blood and be left in peace.
War Thunder getting a massive update in spring and kicks off third wave of Ground Forces beta
The third wave of closed beta for War Thunder’s Ground Forces kicked off today, bringing more soldiers into the fray. The last time I played War Thunder it was just planes, but now people are faffing around in tanks, which sounds like quite the lark.
Open beta is next on the cards, and Gaijin has been selling War Thunder starter packs offering rare tanks to give purchasers a leg up when the next phase begins.
Over in the main game, Gaijin are gearing up for what they are calling the biggest game update yet, 1.39, which is planned to go live this spring.
Renegade X – Command & Conquer: Renegade FPS Fan Remake – Open Beta Now Available
The team behind Renegade X, a fan-made remake of Westwood’s Command & Conquer: Renegade, has just launched its open beta phase. In addition, Totam Arts revealed the system specs for this game that can be found below. Continue reading
DirectX & OpenGL catching up with Mantle, will offer low-level access to reduce draw overhead
Huge news PC gamers. While Nvidia has not commented yet on supporting Mantle, it appears that both DirectX and OpenGL will be catching up with AMD’s API. According to some slideshows from this year’s GDC, both DirectX and OpenGL will start offering low-level access in order to reduce draw overhead. This obviously translates to performance gains on older CPUs, something that will definitely excite PC gamers. Continue reading
@TheVoxelman on twitter
Essay Pro