Part two of today's news:

DIVINITY: ORIGINAL SIN 2 DEMOS NEW SUMMONING AND POLYMORPHING SKILLS
http://www.pcgamer.com/divinity-original-sin-2-demos-new-summoning-and-polymorphing-skills/
During Larian Studios' hugely successful Divinity: Original Sin 2 Kickstarter campaign, backers were given the opportunity to vote for their favourite skill schools that'd be introduced as Stretch Goals at a later date. To this end, as part of the project's 35th Update, the early accessible role-player has now added Summoning and Polymorphing to its sorcery-endowed bounds.

MLG TO EXPERIMENT WITH BANNING PEACEKEEPER IN FOR HONOR TOURNAMENTS
http://www.pcgamer.com/mlg-will-trial-banning-the-peacekeeper-in-for-honor-tournaments/
Ubisoft's medieval beatdown game For Honor has a Peacekeeper problem. In an amusing twist of irony, it turns out that huge, lumbering men with heavy armor and massive weapons have real trouble dealing with a dagger-wielding woman who moves fast and trades plate armor for a mean disposition. As Eurogamer explains, her attacks are light but come very quickly, and that makes her very difficult to defend against; on top of that, she can inflict bleeding damage, which will slowly sap an enemy's health after she hits.

OVERWATCH'S NEW HERO ORISA IS NOW AVAILABLE IN COMPETITIVE PLAY
http://www.pcgamer.com/overwatchs-new-hero-orisa-is-now-live/
Overwatch's 24th hero, the quadripedal Omnic tank Orisa, is now live for all players. Intended to be a low-mobility, high-protection 'anchor tank' that can function as the center of a team's defenses, Orisa has a large Reinhardt-style shield that she can throw on the ground in front of her or at range, as well as a defensive buff that reduces incoming damage and prevents her from being crowd controlled.

ATTENTAT 1942 IS A 'HISTORICALLY ACCURATE' GAME ABOUT THE NAZI OCCUPATION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA
http://www.pcgamer.com/attentat-1942-is-a-historically-accurate-game-about-the-nazi-occupation-of-czechoslovakia/
Attentat 1942 is not your typical Second World War videogame. It's a "historically accurate adventure" about the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakian territory in 1942, told from the perspective of the survivors. "The game is built on personal memories, interactive comics, and authentic footage," the Steam Greenlight page says. "You will speak to eyewitnesses, live their memories, and discover the untold story of your family."

>>I don't want to be disrespectful or anything, but this game sounds as fun as hitting my b*lls with a hammer. And I don't know about you, but I'm not into that stuff.

HOW TO ACCESS DARK SOULS 3'S THE RINGED CITY DLC
http://www.pcgamer.com/how-to-access-dark-souls-3s-the-ringed-city-dlc/
Hey, remember how much of a pain it was to access the DLC area of the original Dark Souls? Well, From Software has mellowed over the years, and getting to Dark Souls 3's The Ringed City DLC is actually pretty easy. You'll need to have finished the previous expansion, Ashes of Ariandel, but otherwise accessing the bonfires that'll take you to the new area is very simple.

WATCH DOGS 2 IS GETTING FOUR-PLAYER CO-OP LATER THIS YEAR
http://www.pcgamer.com/watch-dogs-2-is-getting-four-player-co-op-later-this-year/
Watch Dogs 2 has lots of forthcoming add-on content, and Ubisoft has been kind enough to lay it out for us in the form of a "content roadmap". There's stuff coming as soon as April, including a new PvP team-based mode called Showdown, as well as multiplayer motocross, eKart and drone races.

FIGMENT IS A BEAUTIFUL ISOMETRIC PUZZLER 'SET IN THE RECESSES OF THE HUMAN MIND'
http://www.pcgamer.com/figment-is-a-beautiful-isometric-puzzler-set-in-the-recesses-of-the-human-mind/
Billed as a "musical action-adventure set in the recesses of the human mind", Figment is the latest game from Bedtime Digital Games—a gorgeous hand-drawn isometric puzzle game with combat elements.

GET $99 WORTH OF MULTIPLAYER GAMES FOR $10 IN THE LATEST HUMBLE BUNDLE
http://www.pcgamer.com/get-99-worth-of-multiplayer-games-for-10-in-the-latest-humble-bundle/
The latest Humble Bundle casts its money-saving, charity-supporting, game-gathering net over a range of local multiplayer games fit for bringing you and your mates closer together/driving you apart forever. From now through the next two weeks, the Humble Hooked on Multiplayer Bundle is live.

>>That's not the only sale they have right now. There's also a Tabletop week sale with plenty of titles and discounts going up to 80% off.

HEROES OF THE STORM IS TAKING ITS COSMETICS OUT FROM BEHIND A PAYWALL
http://www.pcgamer.com/heroes-of-the-storm-is-taking-its-cosmetics-out-from-behind-a-paywall/
Today Blizzard announced what is arguably its biggest update to Heroes of the Storm yet. Dubbed "Heroes 2.0", the update will completely revamp the game's account progression systems and cosmetic rewards, including adding Overwatch-style loot chests filled with new announcer packs, in-game sprays, and more.

About damn time for Blizzard to revamp Heroes of the Storm, though I can't say I'm too fond of them copy+pasting the same model across all their games, sure it works for some but it isn't a model that works entirely well for all.

I recently decided to get back into heroes when they dropped Probius, so far I'm having a ton of fun with him already and he's even received some buffs just the other day.

If the model works, it's understandable that they'll try to use it as much as they can.

Just popping in to say hi.

I wasn't able to login for a month or so, reset password just didn't work for me since late february, there was no answer from web support either, but now I got about 30 or so reset mails in my inbox all in one day....so...yeah.

Welcome back.

The site just keeps going downhill, slowly but surely.

In other news... Ashes of Singularity just released an optimization patch for Ryzen based CPUs... And the gains are pretty massive...

Toms Hardware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-game-optimization-aots-escalation,34021.html

From behind the i7 7700k, it is now ahead of the i7 7700k!!!

Legit Reviews:

http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-ryzen-performance-update-released-ashes-singularity_193137

26% performance increase is craycray!

"Those results are pretty impressive as it represents a 22.7% gain at 4K resolutions, a massive 31.2% gain at 1440P and then a very nice 26.9% gain at 1080P. Keep in mind that we are testing with a stock clocked AMD Ryzen 7 1700 processor with DDR4 2933MHz memory with CL14 timings!

Here is what Stardock and Oxide CEO Brad Wardell had to say about the game update in AMD’s press release:

“I’ve always been vocal about taking advantage of every ounce of performance the PC has to offer. That’s why I’m a strong proponent of DirectX 12 and Vulkan because of the way these APIs allow us to access multiple CPU cores, and that’s why the AMD Ryzen processor has so much potential,” said Stardock and Oxide CEO Brad Wardell. “As good as AMD Ryzen is right now – and it’s remarkably fast – we’ve already seen that we can tweak games like Ashes of the Singularity to take even more advantage of its impressive core count and processing power. AMD Ryzen brings resources to the table that will change what people will come to expect from a PC gaming experience.”

The good news is that AMD and Oxide aren’t done making Ryzen optimizations as they think there are still more things than can be done to squeeze even more performance out of the architecture with more real world tuning.

PC Perspective:

https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Ashes-Singularity-Gets-Ryzen-Performance-Update

These are substantial performance improvements with the new engine code! At both 2400 MHz and 3200 MHz memory speeds, and at both High and Extreme presets in the game (all running in DX12 for what that’s worth), the gaming performance on the GPU-centric is improved. At the High preset (which is the setting that AMD used in its performance data for the press release), we see a 31% jump in performance when running at the higher memory speed and a 22% improvement with the lower speed memory. Even when running at the more GPU-bottlenecked state of the Extreme preset, that performance improvement for the Ryzen processors with the latest Ashes patch is 17-20%!

So what exactly is happening to the engine with v26118? I haven’t had a chance to have an in-depth conversation with anyone at AMD or Oxide yet on the subject, but at a high level, I was told that this is what happens when instructions and sequences are analyzed for an architecture specifically. “For basically 5 years”, I was told, Oxide and other developers have dedicated their time to “instruction traces and analysis to maximize Intel performance” which helps to eliminate poor instruction setup. After spending some time with Ryzen and the necessary debug tools (and some AMD engineers), they were able to improve performance on Ryzen without adversely affecting Intel parts.

Thursday... we're almost there!

NEW GAMEPLAY VIDEO FOR MEDIEVAL FIRST-PERSON MELEE GAME, MORDHAU, SHOWCASES ITS PRE-ALPHA COMBAT MECHANICS
http://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/new-gameplay-video-for-medieval-first-person-melee-game-mordhau-showcases-its-pre-alpha-combat-mechanics/
Team Mordhau has released a new gameplay video for Mordhau that shows the game’s pre-alpha melee combat mechanics. Mordhau is powered by Unreal Engine 4 and promises to have a strong emphasis on skill-based competitive play, and will feature a combat system that is designed around total player control.

WE HAPPY FEW – LATEST UPDATE ADDS NEW ISLAND, PLAYSTYLES AND PROCEDURAL MUSIC
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/we-happy-few-latest-update-adds-new-island-playstyles-and-procedural-music/
Compulsion Games has released a new update for We Happy Few. According to the release notes, this patch introduces a new island, playstyles, procedural music and gameplay balance tweaks.

FREE VERSION OF STARCRAFT IS NOW AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE, WORKS WITH WINDOWS 7, 8.1 AND WINDOWS 10
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/free-version-of-starcraft-is-now-available-to-everyone-works-with-windows-7-8-1-and-windows-10/
Blizzard has just updated the first StarCraft game and made it available to everyone. Yeap, you read that right; you can go ahead and download for free the original version of this legendary strategy game.

DEAD CELLS, 2D ROGUELIKE GAME INSPIRED BY CASTLEVANIA, WILL FEATURE PROCEDURAL GENERATION
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/dead-cells-2d-roguelike-game-inspired-by-castlevania-will-feature-procedural-generation/
Motion Twin have released a new dev diary elaborating on the benefits of using procedural generation in their stylish upcoming roguevania game titled Dead Cells. By mixing procedural generation with metroidvania game design, Motion Twin wants to provide players with replayability and discoverability, but also maintain a sense of gated progression.

THE WITCHER SERIES HAS SOLD 25 MILLION COPIES WORLDWIDE
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-witcher-series-has-sold-25-million-copies-worldwide/
CD Projekt RED has announced that its The Witcher series has sold – so far – 25 million copies worldwide. CD Projekt RED has also reported 584 million PLN in sales revenues and 251 million PLN in net profit for 2016. These figures basically translate to 140€ million in sales revenues and 60.24€ million in net profit for 2016.

>>Shikamo has a thread about this.

OVERGROWTH GETS AN OFFICIAL TEASER TRAILER
http://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/overgrowth-gets-an-official-teaser-trailer/
Overgrowth may be one of the few games we’ve been covering since the day we launched. And that’s because this title has a lot of potential. Wolfire Games released today a new official teaser trailer for it, hinting at its full release. Although there isn’t any ETA as of yet, Wolfire Games claimed that the game will be fully released soon (so I guess we are looking at a 2018 release? After all, it’s already available in Early Access).

>>This time it's Chazore who has made a thread about it.

TITANFALL 2 – COLONY REBORN UPDATE ADDS NEW MAP, RELEASE NOTES REVEALED
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/titanfall-2-colony-reborn-update-adds-new-map-release-notes-revealed/
Respawn will release the Colony Reborn update for Titanfall 2 later today, and has revealed its complete changelog. According to the release notes, this update adds a new map (Colony), a new weapon (the R-101), and the Curb Check execution.

DESTINY 2 – SPANISH RETAILER LEAKS FIRST DETAILS, CONFIRMS PC VERSION
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/destiny-2-spanish-retailer-leaks-first-details-confirms-pc-version/
Activision will release later today the first proper trailer for Destiny 2, however it appears that a Spanish retailer has revealed the first details for this new Destiny game. And yes, the game appears to be coming to the PC too.

FIRST TRAILER FOR OUTCAST – SECOND CONTACT RELEASED
http://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/first-trailer-for-outcast-second-contact-released/
Bigben Games has released the debut trailer for Outcast – Second Contact. OUTCAST – Second Contact is the remake of the cult PC game Outcast that is being developed by Appeal Studio. The game will be released this Autumn and promises to use cutting-edge graphics and reworked controls for optimum immersion.

TEASER TRAILER RELEASED FOR THE NEXT GOD EATER PROJECT
http://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/teaser-trailer-released-for-the-next-god-eater-project/
Bandai Namco has released a teaser trailer for the next GOD EATER project that is currently under development. Although the publisher did not reveal any additional details, we are pretty sure that this new GOD EATER game will find its way to the PC (provided it’s not a mobile or handheld game). After all, both GOD EATER 2 Rage Burst and GOD EATER Resurrection got released on our platform.

And now, part two:

PREY 'PLAYING WITH POWERS' TRAILER DETAILS MORGAN YU'S SPECIAL ABILITIES IN QUICK SUCCESSION
http://www.pcgamer.com/prey-playing-with-powers-trailer-details-morgan-yus-special-abilities-in-quick-succession/
In their 'Weapons and Powers' trailer, Prey showed us how we'll mix-and-match conventional weapons with special abilities as we go up against its hostile Typhon aliens. Today's 'Playing with Powers' short explores these unique traits in greater detail, while outlining their pros and cons along the way.

BATTLEFIELD 1 'PREMIUM FRIENDS' WILL ENABLE ALL PLAYERS TO FIGHT ON EXPANSION MAPS
http://www.pcgamer.com/battlefield-1-premium-friends-will-enable-all-players-to-fight-on-expansion-maps/
The Battlefield 1 Premium Pass includes four expansions—They Shall Not Pass, which was released to all players yesterday (Premium Pass holders got a two-week head start), and the upcoming In the Name of the Tsar, Turning Tides, and Apocalypse—each of which includes a number of new multiplayer maps. That can lead to problems when people who have the pass (and the maps they contain) want to play online with their buddies who don't.

THE FIRST PATCH FOR PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS WILL ADD SERVERS AND FIX BUGS
http://www.pcgamer.com/battlegrounds-update/
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds got off to a strong start in Steam Early Access, earning over $11 million in sales and drawing a peak crowd of 67,000 concurrent players. Developer Bluehole plans to patch the game on a weekly basis (as well as making more substantial changes monthly), and they've revealed what their first Early Access update will contain, which includes adding servers for South America and Oceania, resolving client and server crash issues, and fixing a few other bugs.

WORLD OF WARCRAFT HAS CHANGED HOW ENEMIES SCALE, AND PLAYERS ARE VERY ANGRY (UPDATED)
http://www.pcgamer.com/world-of-warcraft-has-changed-how-enemies-scale-and-players-are-very-angry/
The big World of Warcraft 7.2 patch that went live yesterday made some significant changes to the game, many of which we touched on here. One we didn't discuss, however—because Blizzard didn't mention it in the patch notes—is a change to the way mob scaling works. Instead of scaling to a player's level, enemies now scale to item levels, and based on the reactions in this Battle.net forum thread, people are not happy about it.
Update: In a new post, Blizzard acknowledged that "it's clear that we need to make some changes here," and listed its plans to address player complaints.

BLIZZARD SHUTS DOWN WOW MOD THAT SOUGHT TO OVERHAUL THE ORIGINAL QUESTS
http://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-shuts-down-wow-mod-that-sought-to-overhaul-the-original-quests/
Earlier this week, YouTuber BellularGaming announced one of the most ambitious mods for World of Warcraft I've ever seen. Warcraft Tales was more than the typical user interface overhaul: the plan was to rewrite the entirety of World of Warcraft's level 1-60 quests zone-by-zone to make the story more interesting. I say "was" because today BellularGaming announced that Blizzard's legal team had nixed the idea.

BUNDLE STARS' NEW DOMINATOR BUNDLE HAS ROCKET LEAGUE AND 13 MORE GAMES FOR $15
http://www.pcgamer.com/bundle-stars-new-dominator-bundle-has-rocket-league-plus-13-more-games-for-15/
Bundle Stars has kicked off a new, multi-tier Dominator Bundle that starts at $1 and climbs all the way up to a 25 percent discount on Rocket League, with more than a dozen other indie games thrown in for good measure.

STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT 2 WILL BE REVEALED NEXT MONTH AT STAR WARS CELEBRATION
http://www.pcgamer.com/star-wars-battlefront-2-will-be-revealed-next-month-at-star-wars-celebration/
The sequel to Star Wars Battlefront is coming this year, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in January as part of a statement to shareholders. The game will arrive in the "holiday season," which is that marketer-created period between September and December, but we'll have a chance to clap eyes on it much sooner than that in a couple of weeks.

>>There's a thread about this, made by jason1637.

RIVALS OF AETHER, A SMASH BROS-ESQUE FIGHTER, HAS LAUNCHED OUT OF EARLY ACCESS
http://www.pcgamer.com/rivals-of-aether-a-smash-bros-esque-fighter-has-launched-out-of-early-access/
Rivals of Aether hit Early Access in late 2015, offering a pixellated take on the classic (and modern) Super Smash Bros. formula. What's that formula, you ask? A bunch of cutesy characters beating the ever-loving crap out of each other, is what the formula is.

BIOWARE TO REVEAL 'IMMEDIATE PLANS' FOR MASS EFFECT: ANDROMEDA NEXT WEEK
http://www.pcgamer.com/bioware-to-reveal-immediate-plans-for-mass-effect-andromeda-next-week/
It's not like BioWare wasn't going to patch Mass Effect: Andromeda, but here's some solid evidence that the studio will. It tweeted an image today promising more information regarding "immediate plans" for the game on April 4.

>>So, what do you think. Will they reveal that they're hard at work fixing the many problems of the game and when we can expect them, or... reveal the first of many DLCs? If I were to bet, I'd go with the second option.

DAYZ CREATOR DEAN HALL REVEALS SPACE MANAGEMENT SIM STATIONEERS
http://www.pcgamer.com/dayz-creator-dean-hall-reveals-space-management-sim-stationeers/
Following news earlier this month that he and Improbable had abandoned work on ambitious multiplayer game Ion, DayZ creator Dean Hall has revealed his latest project: Stationeers, a space station "construction and management" sim that can be played "in single-player or online with your friends."

'DARK SOULS IS COMPLETELY DONE AS OF THE RINGED CITY,' SAYS HIDETAKA MIYAZAKI
http://www.pcgamer.com/dark-souls-is-completely-done-as-of-the-ringed-city-says-hidetaka-miyazaki/
Prior to its release this week, Dark Souls 3's second and final offering of DLC—The Ringed City—was thought to be the action role-player series' curtain call. From Software president Hidetaka Miyazaki has now all but confirmed this in an upcoming interview with Japanese publication Famitsu.

@Yuri: That patch is very impressive.

I wonder what have they found to make that jump in performance, because I find it hard to believe that a "simple" optimization for Ryzen's treat of instructions can bring those massive improvements.

Yea, what I am curious about is whether or not the other games will see similar gains. I know they are working with bathesda and some other devs but I am not many expecting old games to get improved. However, if Ryzen 7 gets close to i7 7700k level performance in future games, then damnn. Productivity of a 6900k + performance that is close to an i7 7700k for $330? Now that would be cray cray but of course, we need to see that happen in other games first.