What's your mouse?
gothe
Tue Feb 07, 2012 4:20 pm
General Discussion
Skyrim Creation Kit to be released tomorrow w...
Remmington
Tue Feb 07, 2012 11:24 am
Skyrim News- Hawken will be free to play, out in December,...
Remmington
Tue Feb 07, 2012 11:16 am
Other News - Hands on with the Alienware X51
Remmington
Tue Feb 07, 2012 11:10 am
Other News - Battlefield 3 to get paid subscription model?
Remmington
Tue Feb 07, 2012 10:09 am
Battlefield 3 News - Fantasy Football leage Winner!
newyawk
Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:59 pm
General Discussion - NY GIANTS BABY!!!!
Oneeye
Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:48 pm
General Announcements - max payne 3!!1 *uncontrolable drool*
newyawk
Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:45 pm
General Discussion - Alienware X51 Review
Remmington
Mon Feb 06, 2012 11:58 am
Other News - Seven Ways to Expand Skyrim
Remmington
Mon Feb 06, 2012 11:54 am
Skyrim News
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Hawken will be free to play, out in December, sign up for the closed beta now
“I’m throwing my wallet at the screen but nothing is happening!” is a common reaction to the trailers for stunning indie multiplayer mech-war project, Hawken. According to a blog post on the Hawken site, you won’t need your wallet at all. It’ll be released as a free to play game on December 12 this year.
That’s a long way off, but there will be a beta that’ll give us the opportunity to mech-up earlier. You can sign up for that on the Hawken closed beta page. It’ll just want your name and address for now.
The Hawken team haven’t laid out their plans for the sort of microtransactions and payments that we can expect, but on their FAQ they mention that “there will be in game purchases that will allow greater customization and more weapon variety.” Find out more on the official Hawken site.
Hands on with the Alienware X51
Gaming system specialist Alienware launched its console sized X51 desktop for the second time in London last night. The machine was originally announced a couple of weeks ago in San Francisco, since when we’ve only seen it in pictures. Now we’ve played with it for a bit, had a go at building a cheaper alternative and spoken to the team behind it, it’s time to gather our thoughts.
Battlefield 3 to get paid subscription model?
EA boss John Riccitiello recently spoke to analysts regarding Battlefield 3 — which sold 10 million copies — where he hinted at Call of Duty Elite, the paid subscription service for Modern Warfare 3. Riccitiello said:
“Frankly, I gave a compliment to one of our competitors. It’s got a subscription on the back end of an FPS title. I think that’s a best-in-class performance.”
He went on, saying that EA has been toying around with something similar, called Ultimate Team for its FIFA series. Riccitiello added:
“The reason this is such a fast-growing revenue stream for us is we’re identifying and implementing best practice across the range of our products, and you’ll see lots more to come including an announcement near term that Peter just alluded to.”
This “announcement” is supposed to be the new DLC announcement for Battlefield 3 which is supposed to happen this week. Could we see a paid subscription model akin to Call of Duty Elite? It could be a premium version of Battlelog, with access to all future DLC, much like Activision’s model.
Battlefield 3 sells 10 million copies, new DLC to be announced next week
In a conference call with analysts yesterday, EA revealed their financial numbers for the third quarter of the current financial year, and it looked pretty good for Battlefield 3: the game has sold 10 million copies worldwide, across all platforms. What’s even more impressive, the sales numbers only include until December 31, 2011.
During the same conference call, EA’s Peter C. Ausnit chipped in regarding upcoming Battlefield 3 DLC, saying that EA will have an event in New York next week. He said:
“You’re going to hear some announcements from us on Battlefield actually as early as next week in an event we’ve got in New York.”
It’s looking pretty good for Battlefield 3 — it’s already the best selling Battlefield game of all time, and we can’t wait to see what EA has in store for the next DLC.
Syndicate 4-Player Co-Op Briefing (HD)
This game looks very interesting.
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Hackers ban innocent Battlefield 3 players
Just as we thought the hacking issue with Battlefield 3 couldn’t get any worse, it now appears it has just that: in order to prove their point against PunkBuster, the cheaters and hackers over at ArtificialAiming have banned over 150 Battlefield 3 players by using a PunkBuster exploit. A forum post claims:
“In 2011 we hit them with a mass ban wave and now were are banning real players from battlelog while ggc-stream is totally unaware. We have framed 150+ bf3 players alone.”
There are numerous threads over at Battlelog about this issue, where innocent players have been banned. The issue has to do with PBBans and GGC — third party services that run on the vast majority of Battlefield 3 game servers.
DICE have stated that they’re looking into the issue, but at this point, hackers have pretty much gotten control of the game. And just to make matters worse, innocent players can now be banned with what appears to be a simple command and the user’s BF3 GUID.
Battlefield 3 DLC: missing in action?
We’ve previously heard from EA that Battlefield 3 has aggressive DLC plans, and even DICE said that the company was restructured around DLC and has “massive DLC plans” for Battlefield 3. It’s been a few months since the release of Battlefield 3, and we’ve been wondering: where is all the promised DLC?
It’s been a few months since the release of Battlefield 3, player numbers have steadied, and yet, there hasn’t been a single DLC announcement besides Back To Karkand, which we knew about long before Battlefield 3′s release.
Battlefield 3′s main competitor, Modern Warfare 3, will be getting no less than 20 DLC packs over the next six months, according to Activision. 20 DLC packs is no doubt overkill, but at this point, EA needs to respond with something, some kind of announcement regarding Battlefield 3 DLC plans.
What do you think? Is it too early to announce new DLC?
Battlefield 3 hacking problems escalate
If cheating and hacking wasn’t a big enough of a problem in Battlefield 3 already, it turns out that one of the Battlelog moderators was caught hacking in the very same game he’s supposed to moderate.
If it wasn’t bad enough that there was just one more hacker in Battlefield 3, he was also promoted to moderator status by DICE, which gave him all sorts of privileges — e.g. deleting forum posts in Battlelog, according to some reports. The player, who went by the name “MrPropper777″, has since been removed as moderator and his stats have been wiped.
If there ever was an indication of just how big the hacking problem in Battlefield 3 is, this was it. Not only did DICE fail to catch him, they promoted him. Coming across a hacker in Battlefield 3 is now a common thing. Reporting players on Battlelog doesn’t seem to be working, or at least working fast enough. Even a simple glance at the top leaderboards reveals a horde of hackers, cheaters and boosters, and yet, those players have been there for months.
DICE needs to take stronger measures against hacking in Battlefield 3, if it’s even possible at this point. PunkBuster can only do so much, as Battlefield 3 has no built-in anti-cheat system. To make matters worse, when hackers are found, usually only their stats are wiped, while their accounts remain free. They simply go on hacking under a different name.
If DICE can’t catch the obvious hackers who headshot teams across the map and get 200+ kills in a round, how can they ever catch the subtle hackers? The ones who hack just enough so they seem like very good players, and not hackers?