The fun stuff is mostly in part 2 of the actual long presentation, give it a whirl.

I just realized that I left the "er" off gamer lol

I really am carzy, tho at least I'm not an MMO game

War of the Vikings: producer talks beards, boob armour and brutality

Fancy a bit of sword-and-board on the coast of merry England? Brenna got an early look at War of the Vikings, Fatshark’s beardier and more brutal followup to War of The Roses.

War of the Vikings producer Gordon Van Dyke is very excited about his new game, for several reasons: it improves on the already proven formula of War of the Roses; it gives Fatshark the chance to shed some historically accurate light on the oft-misrepresented Viking invasions; and it’s full of beards.

Beards are really important to Van Dyke. I’m not sure why; I guess everyone has a hobby. The inclusion of amazing beards presents an interesting tension for War of the Vikings; historically, the cultures that produced Vikings (Viking is a profession, not a culture, Van Dyke explained) were pagan, and as such, hadn’t embraced the Roman fashion of going being clean-shaven. On the other hand, an elaborate lengthy beard is not an asset on the battlefield, especially during the up-close-and-personal melee which still dominated warfare during this period.

To solve this dilemma, Fatshark is building builds into its unlock system. Van Dyke said that in both War games, the developer hoped to avoid de-emphasising skill; unlocks are mostly cosmetic rather than providing the kinds of perks that make it impossible for newbies to compete with veterans. The longest and fanciest viking bears will be reserved for the best players; the kind of warriors who can afford to be showy and cocky, because they’re so skilled.

On the Saxon side, things are a bit different; this is another area in which Fatshark has had to compromise on its historical accuracy ideals, because in reality, towns founded by viking raiders (like York, did you know that?) and Saxon settlements were pretty similar, and warriors from both factions would have looked almost exactly the same. That’s not ideal for video games, so Saxon design has been tweaked to reflect the strong Roman influence that lingered in Britain.

What definitely is historically accurate is the presence of women on battlefields. Van Dyke described his meeting with an expert on viking warfare and home cultures, pantomiming his delight when the archaeologist confirmed that women could and did become vikings. Free from the encroaching Christian and Roman values which undermined female independence across Europe, the pagan Nordic nations followed a meritocracy. Becoming a viking was like being an elite athlete; if you had the skill and trained hard, you could choose a career which brought you fame and fortune. It didn’t matter what you kept under your loin cloth as long as you were good with edged weapons.

Although Fatshark intends to introduce a flashier version at some point, to represent elite, less realistic Valkyrie-type units, when War of the Vikings launches women characters will use the same basic character model as male ones. Given how women would have had to bind themselves for battle and loaded themselves up with armour, this isn’t as silly as it sounds, and Van Dyke is both adamant and proud of his intention not to introduce “boob armour”, which makes absolutely zero practical sense. On the Saxon side, Van Dyke admitted women in battle were far less common, as only very wealthy women from independent families would have had the chance to choose a warrior life. He seemed happy to sweep this one under the rug, too, along with beards.

Since the game itself is still a ways off, we mostly spent our time chatting about how rad beards are, how ridiculous chainmail bikinis are, and how the vikings were actually much cleaner and more civilised than the cultures they kept beating up and selling into slavery. But Van Dyke did show me some alpha footage, casually captured last time he was back in the office and which he said was already out of date. The map on show was set around a monastery, and the action seemed to split between a garden inside the walls and the edge of a forest outside.

Van Dyke gestured excitedly at the screen, pointing out power attacks, how one weapon was used to advantage against another, and how one player easily fended off two others by remaining calm and timing swings correctly. The battle as a whole was quite chaotic; the two factions may have begun at opposite ends but once the opposing forces closed in on each other the flow of battle shattered into multiple little knots of duels – one-on-one, two-on-one, and three-on-one.

The impression I took away was of a game that’s doing the best it can to to represent a period of history, and doing it a lot better than popular culture and even many history books have done (did you know vikings never wore horned helmets? I had an illustration of one in a text book at high school). The non-historical concessions are made consciously, with careful consideration, and in the name of crafting a better game.

War of the Vikings is due on PC in early 2014. It will be on show at gamescom, PAX Prime and Tokyo Game Show.

http://www.vg247.com/2013/08/18/war-of-the-vikings-producer-talks-beards-boob-armour-and-brutality/

Games for Windows Live ending July 2014 – report

Although it withdrew the notice almost immediately, Microsoft reportedly today announced the long-anticipated demise of Games for Windows Live, its much-derided DRM and community features suite for PC games.

Polygon reports Microsoft posted and then withdrew this statement on the Xbox Support website for Age of Empires online today:

“Games for Windows Live will be discontinued on July 1, 2014. Although it is available through Steam, Age of Empires Online requires features of the Games for Windows Live service. You can continue to enjoy all the features of Age of Empires Online as the service will remain 100% operational until July 1, 2014 when the server will shut down.”

Although many Master Race members are probably turning backflips, it’s not all good news, unfortunately; in addition to the apparent closure of Age of Empires Online, there’s no word on how the service closure will affect first- and third-party games which rely on it for activation – or online features like multiplayer. While some, like Batman: Arkham City, will likely go activation-free or switch to another service via an update, others, like Fable 3, are so raddled with GFWL features that the possibility of patching it out seems near impossible.

The Games for Windows Marketplace is closing next month, and Microsoft may be preparing to launch a successor; it’s managed to woo former Steam champion Jason Holtman to its side.

Throughout its lifespan, Games for Windows Live has never managed to win over gamers the way Steam has; of all Valve’s rivals, including the oft-criticised Uplay and Origin, it is far and away the most derided.

http://www.vg247.com/2013/08/19/games-for-windows-live-service-ending-july-2014-report/

In other MS news

In 14 years, your average video game franchise has a fairly decent shot at hitting a double-digit sequel number. It’s not really in vogue to go back and simply keep adding content to an older game—so who ever thought that, a decade and a half after its original release, Age of Empires 2 would receive an official expansion? It’s true, and it’s happening courtesy of Microsoft Studios, which is supporting the team behind the fan-made mod Forgotten Empires to bring new content to the classic strategy game’s HD release.

This was announced by a developer post on Steam, where it’s revealed that SkyBox Labs is currently working with Forgotten Empires LLC to bring the mod to “official” status. It’s a pretty swank success story for a team of amateur developers—why aren’t my custom TF2 hats getting this much attention?

Anyway, Age of Empires 2 HD—The Forgotten will allow us to explore five forgotten civilizations and their technologies, four new campaigns, a bunch of maps, new AI, and more. And, hauling the ancient franchise into the modern age will be Twitch.tv integration. It’s roughly scheduled for a Steam release next month; follow Forgotten Empires on Facebook to keep up with their updates.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/08/19/after-14-years-an-aoe2-fan-mod-becomes-an-official-expansion/

Also

GOGlight: Good Old Games launch new indie-friendly submission process

The form is a simple affair with just enough room to accommodate a brief description of the game in question, alongside details of its platforms, DLC, release status and use of microtransactions (have GOG ever had to deal with those?).

“We’ll tell you exactly what we think about your title,” say GOG. “We know our users’ tastes, and we do our best to present them with a selection of DRM-free games they’ll enjoy. We review all submissions and pick those that offer the qualities our users value most, such as gameplay depth, originality, and a high level of polish.”

Whether the game is accepted or not, GOG pledge to write back within two weeks: “We will never leave you without feedback!”

The distributors plan to entice indies with the guarantee of a social media campaign - which includes the potential to be caught up in one of the site’s kerr-azy marketing pushes - and a featured spot on the service’s home page when their game is released. Plus, they’re offering an advance on royalties.

“This way you get some extra budget to put the final polish on your game and feel more confident about us as your business partner,” they write.

There’s a catch: GOG will take a 40% cut of the money made on the game until the advance is recouped. Beyond that, they’ll revert to the usual 70/30 developer/distributor split, consistent with Steam. 

Then there’s this series of gushing endorsements from To The Moon’s Kan Gao, The Real Texas’ Calvin French, Defender’s Quest’s Lars Doucet and Driftmoon’s Anne & Ville Mönkönnen:

I’ve only played one GOG-exclusive indie game to date, and that was the somewhat special Signal Ops. Buggy as all heck to begin with, mind, but since fixed.

Anyway, onto more important matters: can we please get a consensus on the pronunciation? Is it ‘gee-oh-gee’ or ‘gog’?

Thanks to @LewieP for this one.

http://www.pcgamesn.com/indie/goglight-good-old-games-launch-new-indie-friendly-submission-process

Introducing The Origin Great Game Guarantee

https://www.origin.com/us/news/origin-great-game-guarantee

competition is heating up lol    

Also check out my Steam Greenlight collection http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=171041981

Yes read that one early in the day, I'm quiet glad that's happening since it has been nothing but a headache when I have to enter my CD Key each time I reinstalled a game.

Well. Great for the rest of the world, although by my localized law they had to provide a refund anyway, just there is allot less hoops and crap to jump through.

Sure, Steam sometimes give refunds as well. This is more a PR move than anything, but it's still nice to see them formalise it.

Europa Universalis IV seems to be reviewing very well

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/europa-universalis-iv

Looks like the Namco port train keeps rolling

http://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/1kevco/

http://blog.ubi.com/the-division-pc/

You asked for it (at least judging from the hundreds of comments on this UbiBlog post when the game was first revealed – and the thousands of comments on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere). And now Ubisoft is delivering. Today, Ubisoft confirmed that along with the previously announced PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions, Tom Clancy’s The Division will be available on PC as well.

Why PC… and why now? Much of the credit goes to the vocal and passionate PC community. “Since E3 we have been carefully listening to what has been said on the internet,” said Executive Producer Fredrik Rundqvist. “I can’t stress enough how important it has been for us to feel your support, interest and commitment to the game. Your opinions matter to us. The positive energy you bring back to the team will help us create the best game possible. One of the most frequently discussed topics has been that of releasing The Division on PC. With that in mind, I’m very pleased to announce that the game will be available on PC. Massive Entertainment has its roots in PC development with titles like Ground Control and World in Conflict. You can be certain that we will provide you with a first-rate PC experience.”

We’ll have even more new intel about The Division from Gamescom 2013 later this week.

That Forgotten Empires expansion for AoE II looks good. I'll sure get it when I get the game, maybe in the winter sales.