Carzy Zarx’s PC Gaming Emporium - Catch Up on All the Latest PC Gaming Related News

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Monday news, part two:

Valve announces two big changes to Counter-Strike 2: shorter matches, and a new map-specific ranking system
https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-announces-two-big-changes-to-counter-strike-2-shorter-matches-and-a-new-map-specific-ranking-system/
Earlier this year Valve announced Counter-Strike 2, alongside a limited test that invited a small percentage of the playerbase in to smell the roses. Since then the developer has been using the test to, well, test things: rotating maps in and out, adding new features one by one, and generally fine-tuning this thing before the masses descend. And that time is at hand.
A new update brings an overhaul of the ranking system, a change in map length, a reworked version of the map Inferno, and opens up the limited test to a much wider range of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players.

You should beat Armored Core 6 three times—both NG+ and NG++ have new missions, parts, and some of the game's spiciest twists
https://www.pcgamer.com/you-should-beat-armored-core-6-three-timesboth-ng-and-ng-have-new-missions-parts-and-some-of-the-games-spiciest-twists/
I've never been a huge fan of New Game+ modes in FromSoftware games. While it's fun to rip through progressively harder versions of the game, the balance eventually starts to get wonky, your chosen stat progression means less, and you're left wondering whether it would've been more fun to just load up a new save and enjoy the more intentional difficulty curve of a first playthrough.
Armored Core 6 changes this tradition for the better, as fans—including our friends over at Gamesradar—have been discovering for themselves. A PSA by user Razhork hit the Armored Core Reddit earlier this week, offering a mostly spoiler-free hint at what you could expect, including new missions, spins on older ones, new story choices—we're talking NieR:Automata level stuff here.
>> And shut down the game before putting your PC to sleep, or your saves might be at risk.

Turns out your abyssal tattoos in Baldur's Gate 3 are the D&D equivalent of accidentally getting 'egg drop soup' inscribed in Chinese characters
https://www.pcgamer.com/turns-out-your-abyssal-tattoos-in-baldurs-gate-3-are-the-dandd-equivalent-of-accidentally-getting-egg-drop-soup-inscribed-in-chinese-characters/
Baldur's Gate 3 is the gift that keeps on giving. Even aside from already-released and upcoming patches that are doing things like giving Karlach a new epilogue and restoring 1,500 lines of missing Minthara dialogue, there are plenty of little secrets, references and easter eggs tucked away that people are still uncovering. The latest? The tattoos you can select as body art during character creation.

Here's what's free in Cyberpunk 2077's 2.0 update (car chases, yay), and what requires the $30 Phantom Liberty expansion
https://www.pcgamer.com/heres-whats-free-in-cyberpunk-2077s-20-update-car-chases-yay-and-what-requires-the-dollar30-phantom-liberty-expansion/
The Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty expansion is coming on September 26, but before that happens, CD Projekt will release the major Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 update. That's potentially an even bigger deal, because it makes major changes to the game's systems, including an overhaul to the skill trees and the addition of new perks, proper car combat, a new police system, revamped cyberware, combat AI improvements, and more.

PowerWash Simulator is going Back to the Future in its latest weird crossover
https://www.pcgamer.com/powerwash-simulator-is-going-back-to-the-future-in-its-latest-weird-crossover/
PowerWash Simulator is one of the most unexpectedly popular games of the last few years. On the face of it, it is exactly as the title indicates: A simulation of using a powerwasher, which—much like using a real powerwasher—sounds like it would be fun for a minute or two, and then quickly turn into drudgery.
Yet somehow, it's become this whole thing: PCG guides writer Sarah James picked it as her personal game of the year for 2022, news writer Joshua Wolens called it the best Far Cry game he's ever played, and it's had crossovers with other games and properties including Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, and Spongebob Squarepants. It's also got an "overwhelmingly popular" rating across more than 34,000 user reviews on Steam. And now it's going back to the future for yet another weird crossover with another unexpectedly big entertainment series.

Valve banned 90,000 smurf accounts from Dota 2—then got the main accounts too
https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-banned-90000-smurf-accounts-from-dota-2then-got-the-main-accounts-too/
Valve's been going pretty hard on Dota 2 this year, and the latest is targeting those who start fresh accounts in the free-to-play game so that they can play easy games and stomp rookies. Valve has also traced the accounts back to their main accounts, and says that from now on "a main account found associated with a smurf account could result in a wide range of punishments, from temporary adjustments to behavior scores to permanent account bans."

Japanese PC gaming saw another year of explosive growth
https://www.pcgamer.com/japanese-pc-gaming-saw-another-year-of-explosive-growth/
Japanese gamers have continued to embrace the PC as a platform at staggering rates, jumping up 43% from 131.3 billion yen to 189.2 billion yen in 2022. That's a total size of about $1.3 billion US. The data comes from the latest report by Kadokawa ASCII Research Laboratories, an industry think tank which compiles yearly material about the performance of the gaming industry in Japan and abroad.

SAG-AFTRA is holding a vote to potentially strike against major videogame publishers
https://www.pcgamer.com/sag-aftra-is-holding-a-vote-to-potentially-strike-against-major-videogame-publishers/
The national board of actors' union SAG-AFTRA has sent a strike authorization vote to members over the renegotiation of its Interactive Media Agreement. The potential strike would affect voice acting and motion capture work for major publishers in the industry.

60 hours in as Baldur's Gate 3's nasty Dark Urge and I'm kicking myself for missing a load-bearing early cutscene with unique dialogue for every race and class
https://www.pcgamer.com/60-hours-in-as-baldurs-gate-3s-nasty-dark-urge-and-im-kicking-myself-for-missing-a-load-bearing-early-cutscene-with-unique-dialogue-for-every-race-and-class/
I can't restart Baldur's Gate 3 again, not for like, six months at least. I've got about half of Act 3 to go on my Tactician difficulty Dark Urge Paladin/Rogue, and then I've gotta put this thing down for a while. Imagine my surprise and despair, then, when I discovered that I missed the Dark Urge's first major cutscene, which helps set the stage for the character and has unique interactions for every race and class.
>> Well, speedrunners have now managed to beat it in less than 5 minutes.

WoW Classic hardcore player feigns death for so long they actually die
https://www.pcgamer.com/wow-classic-hardcore-player-feigns-death-for-so-long-they-actually-die/
(...)
One of the basic Hunter spells in WoW is 'feign death', which allows players to escape enemy attention by keeling over, before popping back up and dishing out the pain. The spell can be channelled for up to six minutes, though typically is used for much shorter durations, and feigning death for the full time limit turns out to have a consequence in Classic that's long since disappeared from vanilla WoW.
WoW Classic hardcore player Walldewd discovered this because they fancied a cup of tea (spotted by GamesRadar+). After a good hunting session they went to Stormwind's Auction House and, for reasons best known to themselves, set their character to feign death while they went off to put the kettle on. Returning with a brew, they found their level 31 hardcore Hunter had shuffled off this mortal coil in the meantime, with the feign death spell ultimately killing them and wiping lord knows how many hours of progress.

Turns out Baldur's Gate 3's companions weren't supposed to be such horndogs: "It was a bug"
https://www.pcgamer.com/turns-out-baldurs-gate-3s-companions-werent-supposed-to-be-such-horndogs-it-was-a-bug/
Though I loved my time with Baldur's Gate 3 (and hope to return to it once a certain other massive RPG is out of the way), I was a little weirded out by how into me all my companions were. I even wrote a prudish article about it, complaining about the RPG's early goings being full of really forward advances from your party members—particularly a very intimate moment with Gale that seems to come out of nowhere, and ended up putting me off his character completely. "I'd just like BG3 a little bit more if it took a cold shower every now and then," I concluded.
Well… it's now had one, metaphorically, and it turns out my misgivings were at least partly justified. Over at TheGamer they're unafraid to engage in hard-hitting investigative journalism, like asking game director Swen Wicke why all these characters want to jump the player's bones so bad, and the answer is "It was a bug".

China's gaming restrictions are an 'ineffective policy' that hasn't cut playtime
https://www.pcgamer.com/chinas-gaming-restrictions-are-an-ineffective-policy-that-hasnt-cut-playtime/
The Chinese Communist Party has in recent years begun to try and combat what it sees as the problems with technology and gaming, and in doing so has made China one to watch for government regulators worldwide. China may not be a 1:1 comparison with any other country, and the regime is authoritarian, but the issues it's tackling and the way it's chosen to do so (in examples like crypto mining, an outright ban) are policy lessons: the question being do the restrictions work and, if so, how effectively?