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

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The second part of the Tuesday gaming news:

Marvel Rivals is enacting 'Victim Compensation Protocol' for everyone who has been negatively affected by the incentivised throwing epidemic: 'The system will automatically restore lost points'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/marvel-rivals-is-enacting-victim-compensation-protocol-for-everyone-who-has-been-negatively-affected-by-the-incentivised-throwing-epidemic-the-system-will-automatically-restore-lost-points/
Marvel Rivals has been going through something of a rough patch, what with the frustrating lack of good balance patches and now a whole website dedicated to basically making the game worse for everyone involved.
Named 'incentivised throwing', this phenomenon saw a website and Discord being used to place bounties on people's heads. Players would then throw games to collect the money, and the website would take a portion of that reward. It got real weird, real quick.
Luckily, NetEase has since stepped in, reassuring players it would take action against this by upping the penalties for throwing games. It has also now implemented a "Victim Compensation Protocol" for all players who have been affected by match throwing, even if they weren't the intended target.

If you miss the old NBA Jam games, this new Harlem Globetrotters game looks like a slam dunk
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sports/if-you-miss-the-old-nba-jam-basketball-games-this-new-harlem-globetrotters-game-looks-like-a-slam-dunk/
I'd have bet money that the Harlem Globetrotters were founded in the 1960s or maybe the '70s, but nope: today I learned the madcap basketball exhibition team has been around for a solid century, formed in 1926 as The Savoy Big Five (and in Chicago, not New York).
To celebrate 100 years of baffling basketball trickery, the Globetrotters have unveiled a new game: Super Basketball Classics, a retro-style basketball game filled with trick plays and slam dunks.

Steam game listing achieves knockoff singularity by aping Pokémon, Zelda, and even Overwatch designs with a shamelessness Palworld could only dream of
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/steam-game-listing-achieves-knockoff-singularity-by-aping-pokemon-zelda-and-even-overwatch-designs-with-a-shamelessness-palworld-could-only-dream-of/
Back in our January 2024 launch impressions of Palworld, I wasn't kind about its shameless design counterfeiting, calling its creatures "a surreal gallery of familiar eyes, limbs, and silhouettes" built from "the reassembled pieces of existing Pokémon, adding a color swap and a couple tweaked details to hide the Frankenstein stitching."
I understand now that I had no idea what shamelessness really looks like. True shamelessness looks like Pickmon, which appeared as a Steam listing this week and should immediately communicate the depth of its blatant apery with its name alone. I mean, look at that thing. That's just Pikachu with dyed eyebrows and a couple bits stuck on. Come on, man.

Blizzard wants Diablo 4's outrageous damage numbers to mean something again in Lord of Hatred, so it's letting you crank the difficulty up to near-impossible levels: 'It's going to be really f*cking hard'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/blizzard-wants-diablo-4s-outrageous-damage-numbers-to-mean-something-again-in-lord-of-hatred-so-its-letting-you-crank-the-difficulty-up-to-near-impossible-levels-its-going-to-be-really-f-cking-hard/
The fun of a loot-based action RPG disappears when monsters pop in a single hit and the only thing that goes up are the damage numbers. Right now, you can upgrade your gear all you want in Diablo 4, but the majority of the game doesn't really require it.
(...)
Blizzard wants to fix this in the Lord of Hatred expansion when it launches next month, and it's doing so by borrowing an idea from Diablo 3. Currently, Diablo 4 has four torment difficulty tiers, each one raising the health and damage of every monster in the game and improving the loot they drop. In Lord of Hatred, that number is getting expanded to 12—news that was revealed by associate game director Zaven Haroutunian in a recent interview with YouTuber Wudijo and explained to PC Gamer in a separate interview with two designers in January.

3 months after revealing his debut project at The Game Awards, Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi loses NetEase funding for his studio
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/3-months-after-revealing-his-debut-project-at-the-game-awards-yakuza-creator-toshihiro-nagoshi-loses-netease-funding-for-his-studio/
Just three months after the world premier trailer for Nagoshi Studio's upcoming Gang of Dragon was revealed at the 2025 Game Awards, a Bloomberg report (via GamesIndustry) says NetEase has decided to end funding for the studio in May.

Arc Raiders is handing out loadout refunds for last week's server issues: 'This outage impacted a large number of players, so we are making an exception'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/arc-raiders-is-handing-out-loadout-refunds-for-last-weeks-server-issues-this-outage-impacted-a-large-number-of-players-so-we-are-making-an-exception/
Arc Raiders has had quite a few server issues of late that have disrupted the fun. There's nothing worse than loading into Stella Montis, geared up for a fight, just to be subjected to never-ending rubberbanding. But hey, at least it's funny calling out to other players in the distance also suffering your same fate and having a nice, friendly chat.
Last week, these server issues were causing some players to lose their gear after successful runs, as if their raider had somehow tripped over and died on the walk home. Understandably, it's frustrating to extract in an extraction shooter and still lose. Suffering from success, as the saying goes.
It didn't affect everyone, thankfully, but it hit enough players for Embark to confirm it is "reviewing these cases" and will return items to affected players where possible over the next few days. "While we do not normally offer compensation for every incident, this outage impacted a large number of players, so we are making an exception. Thanks for bearing with us while we sorted it out."

The Slice of Life Minecraft add-on has become my new obsession after I realised I just needed a break from the mines
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/the-slice-of-life-minecraft-add-on-has-become-my-new-obsession-after-i-realised-i-just-needed-a-break-from-the-mines/
Look, I love the grind of Minecraft as much as the next person. The first trip into the mines in a new world is just as exciting, no matter how many years you've been playing the game. But I can't lie, as much as I love spending hours underground, sometimes I want to slow down and stop the race to find diamonds to appreciate a quiet life in the overworld. Luckily, the Slice of Life add-on from Starfish Studios lets you do just that, and it gives Minecraft that more traditionally cosy game feel for the ultimate wind-down.

Resident Evil Requiem director confirms 'extra story content' is in the works: 'It will take some time so we ask for your patience'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/resident-evil/resident-evil-requiem-director-confirms-extra-story-content-is-in-the-works-it-will-take-some-time-so-we-ask-for-your-patience/
Resident Evil Requiem had a fantastic launch, the best of any modern Resident Evil game, alongside the most concurrents of any RE game ever. And to keep the hype train running, Requiem's director Koshi Nakanishi has announced even more "story content".

This year's Future Games Show Spring Showcase has a dense game-per-hour hit rate and airs everywhere: Here's how to catch it
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/events-conferences/this-years-future-games-show-spring-showcase-has-a-dense-game-per-hour-hit-rate-and-airs-everywhere-heres-how-to-catch-it/
Birds chirp, the sun lingers, the Earth rocks back on its axis. Spring is springing, and it can only mean one thing: a rising tempo of videogame showcases. The Future Games Show Spring Showcase returns this Thursday, March 12, and it's a doozy. The dooz is off the charts.

Fortnite's V-Bucks are about to get more expensive because 'the cost of running Fortnite has gone up a lot'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/battle-royale/fortnites-v-bucks-are-about-to-get-more-expensive-because-the-cost-of-running-fortnite-has-gone-up-a-lot/
Fortnite: It's pretty popular. And it makes a lot of money, sure, but it costs a lot of money too: Server infrastructure alone probably costs, well, a lot, and Epic is also kicking out money to Fortnite content creators—a lot of money, in some cases. It adds up! All of which is to say that V-Bucks, Fortnite's virtual currency, are about to get more expensive.