By now you're probably aware that May 21st is a big day for Microsoft. That's when we'll
hopefully get some details about the next generation Xbox. Of course if it's anything like the PS4
announcement we'll just see a bunch of game demos.
That and at some point somebody's arms flailing about in
front of a Kinect sensor.
EA, the game publishing giant, is apparently on board with
the new console after two anonymous
sources leaked a few tantalizing tidbits about an exclusive add-on content deal. Exactly what
that means, however, is still a matter of supposition.
Until now, all we really knew from all the leaked developer
kits, anonymous tips and antisocial behavior from a former creative director is
that the console was going to be based on Intel X86 architecture, require an
Internet connection to function and have a Blu-Ray Drive.
Which may as well be a press release for the Sony PS4.
Then on April 25th Paul Thurrott, longtime watcher of all
things Microsoft, wrote an article for WindowsITPro called, "HereComes the Next Xbox"
Thurrott is a respected author, blogger and head honcho at
winsupersite.com and has access to those in the know at Microsoft. Basically if Thurrott says it's real there's
a 99% chance it is.
From his article we know this much about the next XBOX.
·We still
don'tknow its name will be but it definitely won't be XBOX 720.
·It'll
cost you $500 ($300 w/2 year XBOX Live sub. at $10/mo.)
·It won't
run Xbox 360 software but the 360 will still exist.
·It's
going to be running the Windows 8 Operating System
Yes, you read that right.
The next XBOX will be running Windows and not Windows RT or some strange
derivative. Thurrott says it will be
based on Windows 8 Core which is the entry level Windows 8 operating system
complete with tiles and media player and all of that.
Of course it will be heavily modified for the console but at
its heart it's still Windows 8. The
Modern (or Metro) tile interface would seem to lend itself to just such an
application so long as the translation from touch centric to something more in
line with a console could be adapted.
That's the rub.
Windows 8 may be Microsoft's one user interface to rule them all but on
a console, even one based on X86, you're still dealing with a limited
sandbox. It has to be that way or else
you're just selling a $500 PC that you can't upgrade.
Thurrott stated in his article that the "always
on" Internet requirement wouldn't be as "draconian" as people
think.
The question that comes to the forefront is why have it at
all then? How can a console be required
to always have a connection to the Internet if it isn't for DRM?
I think I've got the answer and it goes straight back to the
operating system.
Remember, Thurrott said the OS was based on Windows 8
core. If that's so then it's going to be
subject to the same patch cycle as any other Windows 8 deployment. Even in a sandbox, security holes, bug fixes
and the like will need to be applied on a regular schedule.
Which brings up a very real concern for the platform because
it's going to require Microsoft to be ever vigilant or face the potential
disaster of millions of Windows 8 consoles suddenly being bricked by an
unpatched vulnerability.
It's my own supposition but it's the only way I can see an
"always on" requirement being less draconian.
We'll know more in a few weeks at the announcement and at
this year's E3 where Microsoft is supposed to spill all the beans about the
console.
A real AMD 7990 launches but the drivers still stink, The next Xbox and Windows 8?
I'm going for quality, not quantity this week so let's see
where the train goes...
Let me start by apologizing if this next part bores you but
you're going to need some background to understand why the launch of the AMD
7990 is so disappointing.
Somewhere back around December 2011 we got the first hint of
a dua lGPU powerhouse based on AMD's Southern Islands platform. The original launch date was supposed to be
the first quarter of 2012 but that didn't happen. Four months later Nvidia beat AMD to the punch
by announcing the Dual GPU 690 which had 2 of Nvidia's GK104 GPU's (the same as
the GTX 680). The only response from AMD
was a missed 7990 reveal at the 2012 Computex and subsequent delay moving the
forecasted launch to late August of 2012.
It wasn't till October of last year that we finally saw a
dual GPU product announcement bearing the 7990 moniker but it was not based on any reference design from AMD but
rather something Powercolor had designed themselves. Apparently board partners
had gotten tired of waiting around for something to fit into the void the 7990 was
leaving.
ASUS and Powercolor didn't wait for AMD's blessing, however,
with Powercolor using the 7990 label on their first dual GPU card without
complaint from AMD. Powercolor's
subsequent offering, the Devil 13 and Asus' Ares 2 made no mention of the 7990
on their packaging. That only fed the rumors
that there would be no official AMD Dual GPU offering to compete with Nvidia's
690. That left the AMD faithful
wondering if they'd have to wait till AMD's next generation for a
"real" dual GPU card to battle Nvidia.
All those rumors were finally put to rest this week but is
it too little too late?
AMD calls their new 7990, Malta. It's based on dual 28nm process 7970's, has 8.6
Billion transistors (2x4.3bil.), 6GB (3GBx2)
or DDR5, 384bit memory bus (x2), on a single PCB design. The card takes 2 8 pin PCI-E power plugs and
promises 576GB/sec memory bandwidth and 4096 Stream processors (2x2048 per GPU). Sounds good until you realize that all those
(x2's) are very reliant on software to make the real magic happen.
The 7990 designation continues with the new reference design
but AMD is quick to point out that this is the official 7990 where previous
partner produced cards were not. That's not
the whole story, however. The 7990 is
basically just another dual GPU stuck on a single PCB running in
crossfire. Really, there's no difference
from two cross-fired 7970's aside from freeing up a slot and a couple of power
plugs.
The real story, however, has nothing to do with hardware. It's the Achilles heel of AMD GPU's for the
past 2 generations of their video cards.
That being, the drivers. From
PCPer's new performance rating system called Frame Rating we see that new
hardware still can't fix flaky drivers.
The 7990 is still hampered by deficiencies in the drivers
when using Crossfire even if both GPU's are on the same PCB. That means the problems with runt frames and
erratic multi-GPU performance continue.
AMD has tried to address the issue with not one but two beta drivers
with the latest given only to PCPer appearing to help but not eliminate
crossfire performance issues.
At a $1000 price point the performance deficit caused by
AMD's continually sloppy driver development could push buyers straight into
Nvidia's 690 and Titan GPU's. That goes
double when you consider buyers have been waiting for a year for a card that is
currently not a real competitor to Nvidia's high end offerings. At this point PCPer has what amounts to a
prototype driver that could be the foundation to finally rid AMD of its
crossfire driver curse but you won't see it till midsummer. If you
can wait that long at least you can take advantage of a huge 8 game bundle AMD's offering with the 7990 including titles like Bioshock
Infinite, Tomb Raider and Crysis 3
We finally have a date for the announcement of the next
Xbox. Since the February announcement of
the PS4 (still bummed it's not called Orbis) Xbox fans have had to listen to their Playstation
buddies go on and on about the PS4. The only information an Xbox fan got came from
a former Microsoft creative director's bad attitude.
That was, until this week's announcement
of a special XBOX event to be broadcast live on Xbox.com, Xbox Live and Spike
TV (in the U.S.) at 10AM May 21st.
Great, so the Xbox faithful finally get some credible news but
wait! There's still time to spread around some unofficial rumors so here we
go...
Of course the obligatory parade of Triple-A titles will be
announced but new this week are some third-party affirmations about the console coming from the person of one Paul Thurrott. For the uninitiated Thurott is a well
respected tech blogger and author who runs winsupersite.com
as well as hosting the weekly "Windows Weekly"
podcast on the TWIT network that airs every Thursday. Thurott has connections within Microsoft and
has been writing about the company and its products for decades.
Oh yeah, and he's a real big Call of Duty fan. So there's that grain of salt...
I like Paul, in fact he's known to pull no punches when
Microsoft does wrong and was no fan of the reign of Steven Sinofsky. Apparently the feeling was mutual as he
frequently found himself snubbed by the former Microsoft exec. Why that's important will become clear in a
second but first the aforementioned "salt"
Thurott is on record
as saying that Windows Vista wasn't that bad of an operating system.
To which I say, you're delusional Paul. Any operating system that can turn the
performance of a Core I7 into an Athlon 64 is bad. If Apple would have embraced
"Hackintosh" users in 2006 I'm convinced Microsoft would've been
reduced to the market share of Linux because of Vista.
So there's that but I digress...
The real news is that he's managed to confirm that the next
Xbox will launch in early November, will not be backward compatible with the Xbox 360
and will cost $500. If that price is too
steep you can get it for $300 if you agree to pay $10 a month (USD) over the
next 2 years for an Xbox Live Gold subscription.
The new Xbox will contain an Blu-Ray drive and its operating
system will be running...
Yes friends and neighbors, you can finally rest assured that
Windows 8 is indeed the one platform to rule them all in the Windows
world.
Windows 8 core is the most basic version of Windows and
while it doesn't support virtualization it does support the tiled (Modern or
Metro) interface, has a desktop and supports most of the standard Windows
applications. You can bet it will be heavily modified but at
its "core"(pun intended) you've got a Windows PC.
Thurott also claims that the next Xbox will indeed be
required to have an active Internet connection but he qualifies that with the
statement that it "isn't as Draconian as many seem to believe." Although he hasn't gone into detail on
exactly what that means.
My guess (and that's all it is) is that the Windows 8 core
OS that the new Xbox runs on will be subject to the same security updates and
patches as any other Windows install.
That means all those new Xbox owners are going to learn the phrase,
"Patch Tuesday"
Windows 8 is more secure and better performing than Windows
7 but I 'm not so sure I'd want to run a console with it. It's still just a console after all.
That and I'm wondering if Microsoft thinks there's going to
be a bunch of 80" touch screen TV's flooding the market or will we all be flailing
our arms at a Kinect sensor to launch a game.
The only other option is to navigate the "tiles" with a game
controller which to be frank would profoundly "suck."
The "Always On" thing bugs me though. It's a fact of life that anyone with a PC or
Tablet these days is forced to lose hours of their lives to updates. Thing is, I can still use my PC and current
consoles without always having to be connected to the Internet.
May 21st will be interesting.
That's it for this week and I've gone on for almost 1500
words so you must be asleep by now.
BF4 brings Battlelog 2.0, OUYA growing pains, EA's axe keeps
swinging and some other crap
It's been a slow news week which is both a good and bad
thing. Good that this will be short, bad
that it'll be long on editorials so hang on and let's get going!
Well it seems that with the Fall launch of Battlefield 4
will come a new Battlelog dubbed Battlelog 2.0.
Dice has leaked a partial screenshot showing some of the redesign. It's supposed to be accessible via mobile,
console and web browser. Supposedly
you'll be able to "track your stats and interact with friends".
Sounds
just like Grid 2's "Racenet" only worse.
So if Battlelog 1.0 wasn't annoying enough you can now look forward to the "mobile optimized" Battlelog 2.0. Gee, I wonder if it'll have a timeline like Facebook. Maybe we'll even be able to "Like" our battlefield buddies and exchange family photos...
Joystiq did another article on the Ouya console this week
and so far Richard Mitchell has a few complaints about the console. Most of them he admits can be attributed to
the fact that the consoles that kickstarter backers received are very early
models. The chief complaints are a
rather uninspiring game library, controller issues and problems with the
interface.
In Ouya's defense he does reiterate that these are very
early models and firmware updates have corrected some of these issues.
Ouya may not be ready for primetime but it doesn't
officially launch till June 4th either.
So it's probably best to consider it a beta product. If it had all the issues the author mentioned
on official launch that would be a bird of a different color.
In short, it's really just a beta device right now and
feedback good or bad will ultimately make the product better. That's what Beta's are for. Imagine if you could have early access to a
PS4 console. I'd be willing to bet all
the same issues would show up.
If you've been contemplating a graphics upgrade you may want
to consider the Nvidia option. Starting
Tuesday, Nvidia announced a new bundle to replace the Freebie Steam game bundle
they were offering. Consumers who
purchase a Geforce 660 or above video card will get a free copy of the game
Metro: Last Light. The sequel to Metro
2033 set in post Apocalyptic Moscow from 4A studios and the now defunct THQ (rights
since purchased by publisher Deep Silver) is due to launch May 14th for
$49.99 but you get it free if you take advantage of Nvidia's bundle. AMD's bundle is still better but at least
this time around you get a triple-A title for your trouble instead of a bunch
of Steam freebies with some upgrade credits.
EA's swingin' the axe again.
It seems since former CEO John Riccitiello announced his resignation
last month heads have been rolling throughout the company. Last week saw 200 layoffs throughout EA's
studios and this week finds the company admitting that it's undergoing a
"restructuring" .
The latest high profile target was the London Playfish
studio which has been reportedly "made redundant" . EA announced the closing down of all the
studio's Facebook games with much of the
studios creative assets split among other EA divisions. Whomever's left is at risk of being labeled
"redundant" A fate that's
already befallen employees at EA's Hyderbad studio in India.
After 2 years of Triple-A flops, bad launches and lackluster
performance in the mobile space perhaps the biggest problem with EA is a lack
of focus. Trying to be everything to
everybody can only lead to being nothing to nobody.
CVG has put together a list of the 29 most promising PC
games to be release in 2013. Of course
Battlefield 4 is on the list but so is Dragon Age 3, Watch Dogs, Elder Scrolls
online, Company of Heroes 2 and a reboot of Command and Conquer as a Free to
Play game based on the Frostbite 2.0 engine.
Worth a look.
Mr. "Don't see the drama" don't see a paycheck no
more, Grid 2 = NFS:Most Wanted, EA layoffs and more!
Remember Adam Orth?
You know that guy who last week set the console gaming world on fire
with his twitter account? Well
apparently he's no longer the creative director of anything having resigned his
position after Friday's apology from Microsoft's Larry Hyrb of the XBOX group...
"We apologize for the inappropriate comments made by an
employee on Twitter yesterday...This person is not a spokesperson for
Microsoft, and his personal views do not reflect the customer centric approach
we take to our products or how we would communicate directly with our loyal
consumers. We are very sorry if this offended anyone, however we have not made
any announcements about our product roadmap, and have no further comment on
this matter." Microsoft Apology The commentary on various forums
on the topic has ranged from "good riddance" to "I feel sorry
for the guy". I don't feel sorry
for him at all. An attitude like that in
a retail business is poisonous. This went
far beyond even the Adria Richards fiasco a few weeks
back. Orth left absolutely no room for
interpretation and suffered the consequences.
More news about the upcoming Grid 2, specifically about the
multiplayer modes. The upcoming game due
out May 28th in the U.S and the 31st in Europe is going to offer up to 12
player online racing as well as a new "anti-griefing" system designed
to match player racing styles so that you don't end up with more aggressive
"paint swappers" racing against players trying to achieve a clean
race. There's also integration with
social and mobile apps as well as what sounds like a very "Autolog"
like "Racenet" which like Battlefield 3's "Battlelog" is
the only way to launch a multiplayer game.
The game will feature modes like Race with the option for
"Liveroutes" , Endurance, Drift, Touge, Checkpoint, Face-off, Time
Attack as well as Challenge events in the form of Overtake and Power Lap.
Liveroutes
is interesting because it's a race mode that tries to leverage the "open
world" dynamic the whole game is based on.
It basically means the track can change at certain points based on
what's going on in the race. No more
memorizing turn 4 or anticipating a straightaway. Sounds a bit like Need For Speed:Most Wanted
but where EA failed maybe Codemasters can succeed.
I have to wonder if Codemaster's is overreaching this time
though. The very EA like online
interface and dizzying array of race modes could be biting off more than the
developers can chew. Then again,
Codemasters has had 5 years to develop it.
We'll see on May 28th.
Pete Hines, PR President for Bethesda has an opinion. He thinks that people who complain about new
games launching with DLC at day one don't get it .... "I don't think they quite understand the development process and the
point at which you have to stop making the game and you have to finish the
game." He goes on to
say that DLC often happens in the middle of all of that somewhere.
More like an
aborted development cycle to milk more money out of content that should have
already been there. DLC is fine but
launch day DLC is just another case of squeezing more money out of your customers
and you know it Pete. Of course how valuable
can an opinion be from anyone that heads
up "PR and Marketing"
In case you were
wondering when the next update of Intel's Thunderbolt interface was coming (and
who wasn't..ha ha) Your wait will soon be over.
It'll be out....soon. As in the end
of the year or early 2014 depending on how fast you want to go.
At the National
Association of Broadcasters convention this week Intel announced the new Falcon
Ridge controller that provides 20Gbps (that's 2.5Gigabytes per second) bandwidth
as well as Redwood Ridge which is a low power version of the interface offering
the same 10Gbps bandwidth of current
Thunderbolt controllers. Both controllers
offer Displayport 1.2 compatibility by the way for improved display performance.
Redwood Ridge will launch with Haswell later this year, Falcon Ridge sometime after
that. Meanwhile USB 3.0 still maxes out
at 5Gbps but a new standard promises to match existing the existing 10Gbps
bandwidth of Thunderbolt. It still doesn't
have Displayport capability or the ability to transfer video and data over the
same cable, however. What it does have
is better adoption and a lower price point.
The only thing
keeping Thunderbolt from supplanting USB 3.0 at this point is the high price of
cables and relatively small selection of devices to connect to. It's a catch 22 situation which is why Intel
is pushing the new standard to Hollywood as a replacement for the aging Firewire
standard still in use today. A classic
case of trying to get professionals and early adopters with deeper pockets to
foot the bill for newer technology. They
get the latest and greatest and after a few years we get lower prices.
Intel also discussed future plans for Thunderbolt
cabling to include optical fiber instead of copper which could theoretically
make bandwidth limitless but increase the cost of cables even further with the
need for optical transceivers and such.
A promising
interface but nothing's going to happen till the cost comes down and more
devices are out there to use it.
So why should a
gamer care? With Displayport capability
and high bandwidth straight off the PCI-E bus the days of being limited to only
what you can cram into into a laptop case are over. Imagine eventually being able to have a drop
in performance "Dock" to play the latest games at the highest
settings but retain the low power and portability of an ultrabook. Bandwidth is king and it'd be nice if Intel could
finally get Thunderbolt into the mainstream.
On the job front, EA has laid off a bunch of people in its
Montreal studios supposedly to "sharpen their focus for new platforms and
mobile." Rumor of the layoffs has
been circling around since earlier this week with some reports saying most of
the layoffs are in the Q&A department.
Regardless, it makes no sense to be slashing staff if you're ramping up
for a new platform.
If the recent launch debacle of SimCity and the complete
failure of Warfighter are any indication EA may be cleaning house. Unfortunately, quality seems to be the major
issue in the past few years. If the
rumors are true and most of the layoffs are Q&A people then they've
completely missed the mark.
Anytime I hear the words "Streamline our operations"
in a company press briefing it usually means they're circling the wagons. All the more reason to make sure you're
putting out a quality product instead of pumping out marginal games with huge
development costs.
If you've just been dying to do some hardcore gaming on your
new 80" flatscreen but the console just wasn't cutting it, Couchmaster may
put you back in the game (no pun intended).
No, it's not a new gaming console, well at least not the kind you're
thinking of. It's a wraparound padded
desk designed to handle your PC mouse, keyboard and a few other USB
accessories. To be honest it kind of
looks like a craft project but at $150 U.S. it's reasonably priced for what it
is.
Obviously, only single gamers need apply unless you're trying to become single again...
No, it's not some kind of metaphor or weird urban slang I
just made up (although it might be after
this).
In many of my Midagedgamer Reports my little finned friend
would curiously watch me as I recorded the weekly video reports.
He was an Angel Fish and while I know he had the attention
span of ...well...a fish, he became a constant companion over the past few
years.
I'm still convinced he watched TV as he'd always move to the
corner of the tank with the best view of my plasma screen when it was on. If I were in the room he made sure he was out
front and would follow my every move.
Did you ever feel like someone was watching you? Chances are
in my living room you were and it was my little Angel fish.
Pets enrich our lives even if it's only in the simplest of
ways. Could it be possible that I'm
projecting human qualities on an animal who could only respond to the most
basic of stimuli? Of course, spend
enough time with anything and it's bound to happen.
Ever pat the dash of your car when arriving home after a
particularly treacherous journey? How about
when you slap your monitor for screwing up your last paragraph in your term
paper...
They call that Anthropomorphism
by the way...
Whether or not
I'm projecting, the fact of the matter is I feel the loss.
I've lost my little writing companion and aquatic overseer.
That's what Microsoft Studios Creative Director, Adam Orth, says about forcing gamers to have an "always on" connection to play a game. In a tweet that left no room for ambiguity he
defiantly proclaimed,
"Every
device now is 'always on'. That's the world we live in. #dealwithit"
It's hard to gauge whether Orth's dismissive stance on
forcing customers to keep the Microsoft umbilical cord attached is real or just
a sloppy attempt at market research. The
discussion did arise out of rumors that suggested the next XBOX will require
persistent connectivity.
When confronted by a BioWare designer about launch day failures of SimCity and
Diablo3 that were directly related to the requirement for "always on"
connection, Orth's tweeted back, "electricity goes out too."
Official or not the
exchange has not gained Orth nor Microsoft any friends with an almost immediate
backlash against his twitter account forcing him to switch to protected status.
Whether arrogance or avarice,
events like this prove where the gaming industry's focus is.
Hint, it's not the customer.
Is Doom 4 doomed?, Pretty guns in Black Ops 2, Borderlands 2
patch and more!
I really, really hope you haven't been holding your breath
for the release of Doom 4. Of course if
you did you expired somewhere around Quakecon 2008 anyway. Kotaku reports that after 5 years the
cornerstone franchise of FPS gaming isn't getting anything new anytime
soon.
The wrench in the works is a now confirmed rumor that all development for the game was basically tossed out in
2011. The stated reason was that all the
work to that point basically looked like Call of Duty meets demons. In other
words just another franchise FPS. ID's
failed game RAGE apparently took up all of the developers attention suggesting
someone took their eye off the Cacodemon.
Mismanagement and attrition of key talent seems to round out the balance
of the blame.
ZeniMax (parent of Id and Bethesda) has apparently just
about had it with Id, making non-specific threats to get the game out "or else". This after the game was again
"re-imagined" to take advantage of next generation consoles.
The real question is, does anyone really care about Doom
anymore?
There is a new trailer for the Black Ops 2 showing the addition of micro-transactions to customize your weapons. It's already out on Xbox 360 and will show up
on PS3 and PC on April 12th. I guess if
they can't fix the multiplayer they can at least let you put a nice paisley
print on your Mac 10.
In related news the next batch of Black Ops 2 DLC is
scheduled for release on April 16th for the Xbox 360 and you can get it for
1200 Microsoft points or $15 US. Yes,
that means it's XBOX only folks. It's
called Uprising, gives you 4 new maps and basically has you fending off, you
guessed it, zombies. The twist on an
otherwise tired zombie theme is that you can play as one of 4 mobsters voiced
by Hollywood icons like Ray Liota, Michael Madsen, Joe Pantoliano and Chazz
Palminteri.
If you don't know who they
are just Google their name with the word "mafia" and your questions
will be answered. Of the four additional
maps one is called, "Encore" which happens to be set in a deserted
music festival in London. Sounds like a
Left for Dead 2 ripoff to me. I've said
it before, I'm sick of zombies and making my character sound like something out
of the Sopranos isn't going to make a
bit of difference.
Speaking of Uprising, Microsoft Studios Creative Director
Adam Orth caused one when he tweeted out that he didn't think requiring an
always-on connection to play a game was a big deal ...
"Sorry, I don't get the drama around having an
'always online' console,...Every device now is 'always on'. That's the world we
live in. #dealwithit."
Is this guy for real? Or is this just a sneaky way to take a
reading on the market for such things. There's been lots or speculation on just how
connected the next Xbox will be lately and this just added fuel to the
fire. Not many statements come from highly placed
Microsofties without being carefully curated.
That or this guy needs to get out in the real world once in awhile. Talk about living in a bubble!
Borderlands 2 has released its latest patch addressing a number of game bugs and enabling the "Ultimate
Vault Hunter" mode. Don't expect
any raise in level caps unless you purchase the "Ultimate Vault Hunter
Upgrade( DLC) pack though, that's reserved for DLC only.
Borderlands 2
is a great game but it's wrong to tie a raise in level cap to the purchase of
DLC. The only reason they can get away
with it is the lack of an online multiplayer mode. Other than Duels, a higher level character
playing along with you in co-op can only benefit you. Strangely, the most curious thing about the
new DLC has to do with the raise in level cap.
In screenshots featuring the new DLC it shows a level 61
player going up against a level 63 opponent! Worse, it's in the early missions of the
game.
One of the tweaks from the patch allows you to
repeat a playthrough of the original campaign while keeping your stats and
weapons. If the game progressively
levels like it does your first time through you could be facing level 100+ foes
that you have no hope of defeating.
Where's the fun in that? Maybe
they need to just get rid of level caps period.
Update v1.4.0 (Released 4/2/2013) General •Added a new playthrough called Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode, unlocked for a character once they have completed the main story missions in True Vault Hunter Mode and reached level 50! oIn this mode, you will always start in Southern Shelf at Cleaning Up the Berg and may reset your playthrough progress as often as you like without losing any items, levels, or stats. All enemies are significantly more difficult in this playthrough, but the loot quality has increased accordingly. Rumor has it there is an entirely new rarity of loot out there for high-level players. •Added new items to the Black Market: oOne additional ammo upgrade for each ammo type, at 50 Eridium each. oTwo more backpack storage space upgrades, at 50 and 100 Eridium respectively. oTwo more bank storage space upgrades, at 50 and 100 Eridium respectively. •Increased the maximum amount of Eridium players can hold from 99 to 500. •Fixed a bug that was causing some users to crash on startup or when loading into a level after choosing their character. •Fixed a bug that could cause hosts to become invulnerable if they were being revived by a client who disconnected mid-revive. •Fixed an issue that could cause players to crash or freeze when fighting BNK-3R. •Fixed a bug that could cause Deathtrap's Robot Rampage audio to not stop playing after killing an enemy until Deathtrap despawned. •Fixed a bug that could stop the Gunzerker's Keep It Piping Hot skill from functioning as intended. •Covered an area of the world near Claptrap's ship where the player could fall in and be unable to get out. •Fixed an issue where a Siren could revive a player and make another player invulnerable under specific circumstances. •Addressed instances of audio distortion tied to Axton's turret and kill skills. •(Mr. Torgue DLC) Critical hits against Midgets now register properly. •(Mr. Torgue DLC) Rat Thief enemies are no longer allowed in Pete’s Bar due to patron concerns regarding excessive theft. •(Captain Scarlett DLC) Fixed an issue with the "Shady Dealings" challenge where a purchase could sometimes not count toward its completion. Missions •Fixed an issue where players could be unable to interact with the menu when a mission that granted experience but not items was completed and not handled by the player before saving and quitting. •Fixed an issue where players could cause the round to not fail in a Slaughter mission if a surviving player disconnects while all others are out. •(Sir Hammerlock DLC) Thermitage is now friendlier and will no longer refuse to come play with some players. •Fixed issues with the following missions that could cause players to get stuck or not be able to complete them: oWildlife Preservation oMedical Mystery o(Captain Scarlett DLC) Let There Be Light o(Mr. Torgue DLC) Eat Cookies and Crap Thunder Equipment •Fixed a bug where players were able to do far more damage than intended by exploiting a buff from the Evil Smasher. •Clients are now able to see explosions caused by Norfleets in multiplayer. •Fixed an issue causing Relics to sometimes not show the Favorite indicator. •Fixed an issue that caused E-tech weapons to not be able to hit the Mechromancer's 'One Two Boom' orb. •Seraph Gear from Captain Scarlett and Mr. Torgue DLC re-balanced to be more powerful. •Fixed class mods that increase the skill grade of Axton's Metal Storm, Onslaught and Quick Charge skills to function as intended. •Fixed an exploit involving Vladof rocket launchers that could result in having infinite ammo for any weapon. •Fixed an issue where weapon cards would sometimes not display how many bullets they consumed per shot. •Mechromancer's Prodigy class mod now correctly increases reload speed. •Fixed an issue causing impact sounds from users with The Bee shield to not be audible on clients. •Adjusted Mechromancer’s Sweetheart class mod to correctly increase team health. •Assassin’s “Slayer of Terramorphous” class mod no longer includes Gunzerker skill bonus. •(Mr. Torgue DLC) Torgue vending machines can now stock legendary weapons above level 48. •Chere-amie sniper rifle and transfusion grenades no longer cause audio distortion. •Assigned price to Anshin 'Evolution' shield so that players can sell it for money if desired.
You may not have noticed but the Steam Cloud service went
down for a few hours this past Monday.
That meant your saved games, screenshots and other Steam public shares
weren't available. That annoyed me so I
did a video on how to find and back up your saved games that you may find
useful. Find it at the link below.
Change is a comin' and this will be the last weekly
midagegamer report video. Honestly,
after a year of weekly scheduled YouTube postings rarely breaking 50 views and
YouTube getting increasingly hostile over monetizing them, I think I finally
got the hint.
Nobody really seems to like them no matter what's in them and they're a lot
of work to put together especially when nobody's interested.
I will do a monthly
gaming news wrap-up video, however, but only so long as someone wants to watch
it. Of course I'll continue to post
gaming how-to's and other items of interest on YouTube but only the monthly
report will be on a schedule.
The weekly blog entries, on the other hand, have been
steadily growing so the report will continue in a weekly print format on
http://midagedgamer.blogspot.com
I'd like to say thanks to those of you who regularly viewed
the weekly video reports. It's because of
you that I'm even bothering with a monthly installment.
This is just a short video on how to recover your saved game files from Valve's Steam client. I show you the locations of the saved game folders as well as how to set up the Steam Cloud. Enjoy!
