Video games have offered us some compelling visions of the future of human habitation. Some seem idyllic, like the glistening arcologies of . Where the cost of policies and the fact that only a few policy trees were mutually exclusive often discouraged switching them mid-game, traits are meant to be managed more actively. Like policies, they will come with unique perks and benefits for your civilization, but they will also fuel different kinds of diplomatic interactions. The development team wants to extend your diplomatic dealing beyond war, peace, and trade agreements, and having complementary traits will be a big factor in determining your options with a given leader. What these traits might be, how you manage them, what kind of benefits you'll see, and how they will interact with each other all remain to be seen.
The Rising Tide will also herald the arrival of four new factions; the only leader announced thus far is Arshia Kishk, head of the Al Falah (pictured at right). As Beyond Earth's story tells it, the Middle East was mostly depopulated after The Great Mistake. In the years that followed, a tenacious group of resilient survivors held on and refused to desert their homeland. When they finally managed to fund a spaceship send forth colonists, it wasn't the cryogenic variety that most other civilizations sent. It was a generation ship, meaning that those who boarded it knew they would never see their destination, and those who touch down at the end of the journey have never set foot on a planet before. The three other factions will apparently have similarly fraught origin stories, and each one of them will bring disruptive new strategies into play.
There are a few other changes that The Rising Tide is bringing to Beyond Earth, though details on them are fairly scant at this point. In order to further enrich and incentivize the exploration processes, you will now be able to find artifacts through resource pods, expeditions, and other means. Whether it's alien in origin or a relic from Old Earth, each artifact will have its own story and its own possibilities. You could keep it as is or combine it into a set, provided you find the others needed, and the rewards might include new perks or new buildings.
Toasty.
Along with the new units developed to accomodate aquatic and amphibious gameplay will be new hybrid units that require a blend of different affinity levels to unlock. Spreading your affinity points around may keep you from unlocking the highest level perks and units until very late in the game, but if these new hybrids are powerful in the mid-game, perhaps it'll be a more viable strategy to play the field. And finally, two new biomes are on their way, including the primordial world pictured above. With so much volcanic activity, I asked McDonough if the environment was going to pose a threat beyond that of native aliens and miasma clouds. He said only that they are "in the process of making each biome more unique, and will share more soon."
There are certainly more questions to be resolved, but even what's been shared so far seems to portend a serious shift in the Beyond Earth landscape. In a panel during the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco this year, McDonough and the other Co-Lead Designer, Will Miller, lamented that they hadn't been bolder in their divergence from the core Civilization formula. The oceanic gameplay of The Rising Tide holds the promise of radically changing the way Beyond Earth plays when it is released in fall of this year, and hopefully we'll get a clearer sense of how it all works in a few weeks at E3.
The creators of HonorBuddy, a popular to a large number of World of Warcraft bot users on May 14, and HonorBuddy users were one of the main groups affected.
"We’re committed to providing an equal and fair playing field for everyone in World of Warcraft," said Blizzard.
"[We] will continue to take action against those found in violation of our Terms of Use. Cheating of any form will not be tolerated."
This week sees the release of a highly anticipated open-world game that will bring a well-received series to the current generation of consoles.(PS4, Xbox One, PC)
If you're a Mac or Linux user looking forward to the retail release of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, it looks like you're going to have to wait longer than , from Valve and HTC, is due to launch later this year. Pricing for both headsets has not been announced.
Goodbye $60! This week we get Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, but there's other games too in case you're interested. Hyperdimension Neptunia U, Life is Strange Ep3, Swords and Soldiers 2 and Carmageddon Reincarnation.
Almost two years after launch, DICE continues to update .
DICE said that it will release the full patch notes closer to release.
Looking ahead, DICE is already working on a summer patch, which will introduce a new "audio obstruction system." You can get an idea for how this new feature will work in the video below.
" of other important narrative elements. This modern setting, this 1868 London, is the perfect storm of setting and time for packing genuinely strong women into every level of importance in the series. Maybe the French Revolution just wasn't the time, or the Renaissance didn't offer the best options for believably running up against violent female NPCs. For a franchise that prides itself on its representation and accuracy, Assassin's Creed Syndicate is looking very promising as both an entertaining video game and a window into history.
It may not have been Evie's time up until now. But Ubisoft has done its research, and I think we are ready for, and should be excited, about Evie Frye.
Sony has said that From Software's PS4 exclusive Bloodborne has surprisingly surpassed their ambitious sales exceptions.
Goodbye $60! This week we get Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, but there's other games too in case you're interested. Hyperdimension Neptunia U, Life is Strange Ep3, Swords and Soldiers 2 and Carmageddon Reincarnation.
