Path of Exile - wishful thinking

I started playing the game quite a while back, I believe it was still in Open BETA, and I like it. It has his moments, but also makes you wonder why devs didn't implemented certain things.

What things, you may ask. Well .. let's see.

The number one issue, and I most surely am not the only one thinking the same, the lack of an Auction House - you have to rely on 3rd party external sites (http://poe.xyz.is) that index POE buy/sell forums to search for an exact item you want.
Yes, the game has a trade chat, but frankly, it's frustrating to use it. Imagine a few dozen players posting buy/sell requests at the same time .. it's a mess.


The number two issue that bothers me is the lack of a search filter while browsing your stash tabs.
Look at it:

it can hold 144 skill gems, and you have to manually inspect each and everyone to look for a particular gem(s) you might need. There's also no immediate indication that a particular gem has + quality. Duplicates? good luck! unless they have easy to recognize shapes, you have to inspect them.
A search filter would make storing your items and searching for them a piece of cake.


Another thing that slightly bothers me, is the search for a public party. Yes you can name search, but that's about it. Unless you join a party there's no way to see how the party leader has set the looting rule.


Zoom is rather limited, I play on a 1280x1024 display and believe me, the FOV is quite narrow. It happens quite allot that mobs can attack you from outside the screen area.

WoT - what the fuck moment

Just watch the video:

Guess that if the server decides you need to die, you will die no matter what.

WoT - view range is not a circle

In early Q&As with overlord and more recently in a translated post from RU forums by FTR blog, WG always stated "on record" that the view range in WoT is a circle / sphere.
It is not!

This particular issue has been around since CBT days but none really took the time to go deeper into it.
The view range and subsequently, the spotting range is a square / cube. Since most of the maps are pretty much played on approximately same level of height I'm gonna refer to the view range in form of a square.

The maximum view range, stated by devs is 600m, the problem is that it's 600 meters, but only diagonally.

If the maximum view range is "theoretically" 600m .. ever wonder why on Ensk, a 600mx600m map, you can't see from the base (from the red lines) straight into the other base?! Even from flag to flag should be around 510-520m.

Ensk - 600m x 600m

Let's take a concrete case:

if the view range is a circle, then how I can see the E-75 that's around 611m away and not the enemy tanks at E6 that are closer (~500m away)!
That's because the view range is not a circle! WarGaming either doesn't know the game they're making or simply they lie to hide their incompetence.

Why is this important? well, because on maps that are fought diagonally, from corner to corner and not vertically (up <-> down) or horizontally (left <-> right), the maximum view range difference has a huge impact - you can view further and you can also spot further.

Maps that are fought diagonally:

• El Halluf
• Karelia
• Malinovka
• Redshire
• Sand River
• Serene Coast
• Swamp
• Westfield
• Arctic Region
• Live Oaks
• Highway
• Mountain Pass
• Pearl River
• Sacred Valley

Warface - sneak peek phase adds new settings, game modes

[Press Release]

London, UK - October 1, 2013 – Crytek have announced that their free-to-play shooter Warface will enter an exciting new "Sneak Peek" phase tomorrow. For a chance to join the action players can still register at www.warface.com.

Players will have a wealth of new content to explore when the game update takes place, including new locations, game modes and rewards. The Sneak Peek phase will introduce a spectacular new Chinese setting that takes the fight against Blackwood forces to the Far East. Players will also be able to suit up as female soldiers for the first time, as well as trying their hand at the brand new Destruction mode – a fresh take on classic capture and hold gameplay. Further updates mean Warface will now offer five daily Coop missions instead of three, and allow players to earn greater rewards by setting pre-game challenges. Finally, a new tutorial system will be introduced so that everyone might be able to prepare for battle by undertaking short, class-specific training missions.
 
Before entering the Sneak Peek phase, character data built up during recent Closed Beta weekends will be wiped for the final time. The Sneak Peek phase will be open to everyone who is part of any Warface Closed Beta phase, and will be followed next week by the arrival of a Pre-Open Beta phase which remains restricted to invited players. Sometime during this Pre-Open Beta phase, the Warface in-game shop will be made accessible.
Players can experience Warface's updated Sneak Peek and Pre-Open Beta gameplay from the following times:

Sneak Peek
EU & Turkey:
Wednesday, October 2nd  9AM CET – Monday, October 7th 9AM CET
US: Wednesday, October 2nd  3AM EST – Monday, October 7th  3AM EST

Pre-Open Beta
EU & Turkey: Monday, October 7th- 9AM CET
US: Monday, October 7th- 3AM EST

Crytek are also in the process of finalizing localized versions of Warface in French, German and Turkish for its full launch in Western territories, where the game will be accessed through the game-centric social hub, GFACE. GFACE gives players easy ways to interact with friends online and in-game, and is designed from the ground up to maximize the experience of playing together.

Featuring four distinct character classes and engaging cooperative and competitive gameplay, Warface provides high quality FPS action for free. The game’s online universe will be constantly updated to offer new challenges for players; whether they’re enjoying a quick campaign in their lunch hour or delving deeper into all Warface has to offer.

World of WarPlanes release postponed? [Update]

Treat this like a rumor until WoWp people post this on the portal(s).
Looks like WoWp release will be postponed (146% sure acording to serb). Surce: RU Q&A
There seems to be issues with WoT integration, a.k.a. account unification; and some other issues with the game itself.

In other news, there have been some problems discovered after release of 0.5.3 update on the RU server that put the patch deployment on EU and US servers on hold, until further notice.
There are people complaining (on RU) about having black screens when battle starts and many others (quite possibly all) report missing options in settings menu.


[20.09.2013]

It's official!
The WoWp web portal has the news: http://worldofwarplanes.eu/en/news/2/new-release-date/
Vlad Belozerov, World of Warplanes Director of Global Operations:

We are committed to releasing a great title and are doing everything to ensure that World of Warplanes gets the final polish that we believe the game needsThe extra time will allow the development team to apply some last fine-tuning to the game’s balance and make sure that every feature is top-notch before launching the project.

The new release date is set to November 13th

Official British tech tree - World of Warplanes

It's official! WarGaming announced the composition of the upcoming British tech tree along with patch 0.5.3.
Source: http://worldofwarplanes.eu/en/news/2/tech-tree-changes-053

WoT 0.8.8 - press release

[Press Release]

New Soviet machines enter the battlegrounds

10th September, 2013 - Wargaming, the leading free-to-play MMO developer and publisher, today announced the release of Update 8.8 for its MMO action game World of Tanks. European players will be able try the new version on September 11, with North American gamers getting their hands-on with 0.8.8 starting from September 12. In Korea and APAC, the Update will go live on September 16 and 18, respectively.

Along with a brand new battle arena, Tundra, the latest update enriches the game with a long-awaited branch of Soviet medium tanks ranging from Tier 6 to Tier 8, as well as Object 140 that will join the rankings as the nation's other top medium tier choice.

Other significant changes include new updates to the German tech tree with the debut of the Tier 4 DW heavy chariot and Tier 6 VK3002 (M) medium tank, the transformation of VK3001H and VK3601H into heavy tanks, and addition of two new Chinese premiums-the Tier 8 T-34-3 medium tank and the 112 Tier 8 heavy tank.

[Screenshots]

[Renders]

[Artwork]

[Video]

World of WarPlanes - launch date revealed

WarGaming announced that World of WarPlanes will launch September 26 in US and EU territories and September 25 on RU.

Ah .. they also have one of those fake trailers:

WG EU community coordinator tries to explain the forced return of stalinist inscriptions

Before I post the message I got from Christian (iScending), the WG english community coordinator, I's streess enough the fact that I do not accept his explanation or whatever the hell this is.

Hey zmeul,

Since the Historical Content in World of Tanks thread has grown quite immensely and I've noticed that you are one of the more frequent posters I wanted to send you a message and tell you thank you for your feedback.

We have been monitoring this thread since day 1, and the first thing I do when coming to the office in the morning is to go through all the new posts and compile a list of what's come up during the night.

The general consensus from what I've gathered is that the sticking point of this whole issue is the wording of the news statement made on the Russian portal a day before we had it ready on the EU server. We fully understand that this has caused a lot of emotion among our players and we want to stress that we take this seriously.

However, I also want to take a moment to try and clarify our purpose of bringing the insignia's and inscriptions back to the game.

We are trying to reflect all the aspects of the military vehicles used in the mid 20th century. Our specialists are trying to make the vehicles as accurate as possible by analyzing real tanks and taking measurements, pictures and everything else needed in order to reflect the best the specification of those historical vehicles. A big part of this is giving players the possibility to use inscriptions and symbols used on tanks in WW2, hence we began implementing them in patch 8.0. Our intent has never been to offend anyone, nor to promote an ideology, a person or anything of the sorts, all we want to do is give players the option to personalize their tank to some extent.

Wargaming does not take a political stance with the return of the inscriptions and symbols, nor condone atrocities taken by either side during WW2, and if we find players promoting any such things in chat, forum posts, via nicknames etc then we will take serious actions in accordance with the rules we have in place.

We also understand that some players are asking us to implement slogan X Y and Z, and to this all we can say is please be patient. The future should bring more slogans and inscriptions from various nations, but it's something that takes time to implement. It's also very important to realize that we will never implement symbols connected with Nazism, fascism and racism as these fall under the legal regulations in many countries around the world.

Again, thank you for your dedication to our game and for taking time out of your daily schedule to post your opinions and feedback on our forum, we greatly appreciate it. If you have any further questions about the Historical Content in World of Tanks thread please send me a PM, I'd love to have a personal discussion with you and try and easy any concerns you have about the current situation.

Regards,

Christian (iScending)

WoT versus multi-core CPUs

I heard and read quite a lot of "advises" when it comes down to how to run WoT on a multi-core CPU.
A lot of people suggest that running WoT on one core affinity is better. It's actually worse and I'll show the why.

For this benchmark I used a random replay downloaded from WoTReplays.com.

My system:
CPU: Intel Core2Quad Q9550 2.8Ghz
MEM: 8Gb DDR2
Video: ATi Radeon HD7870 2Gb GDDR5

WoT graphics settings I used:

I did not used any mods whatsoever.

Phase one: obtain a baseline benchmark as with no changes to affinity, I called it "default" (ran on all four cores)
Phase two: set affinity to two cores, called it "2 cores"
Phase three: set affinity to three cores , called it "3 cores"

And here are the results:

• default - Avg: 70.463 - Min: 39 - Max: 113
• 2 cores - Avg: 47.786 - Min: 23 - Max: 76
• 3 cores - Avg: 65.209 - Min: 37 - Max: 102

So, there you have it. I't absolutely not better to run WoT on one core affinity if your CPU is multicore.

Note: I skipped adding the one core affinity to the graph for the reason it's extremely similar to 2 cores affinity

What I suggest, if you are having issues with framerate stability running WoT, is that you set priority to Above Normal for WorldOfTanks.exe.

I did another test to show if there is any difference between running default versus running WoT with a higher priority:

a zoomed it section of the graph to show the minute differences:

• default - Avg: 70.463 - Min: 39 - Max: 113
• above normal - Avg: 71.352 - Min: 42 - Max: 108

So, is it better? well arguably .. yes. There is a smoother framerate and the a minute increase in the average framerate.

Note: I do not recommend running with a higher priority than Above Normal because that will interfere with Windows's own services and software components (drivers).

F.E.A.R. OnLine - press release

[Press release]

EVIL RISES ONCE AGAIN IN F.E.A.R. ONLINE

Aeria Games Announces New Free-to-Play Installment in the Celebrated Horror FPS Franchise

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – July 25, 2013 – Face your fear together with friends in F.E.A.R. Online! Aeria Games, a leading global publisher of free-to-play online games, announced today the upcoming brand-new installment in the popular horror FPS series. Developed by Korean company Inplay Interactive and being brought to the United States by Aeria Games, the new chapter in the F.E.A.R. saga will deliver hardcore multiplayer shooting action while furthering the dark and ominous story surrounding Alma Wade.

“We are thrilled to present the next entry in one of the most popular horror franchises of the last decade,” said Tom Nichols, Vice President of PC Games, Aeria Games. “F.E.A.R. Online will bring back the tense, heart-pounding action that the series is known for and make it accessible to a huge online community of competitive players.”

F.E.A.R. Online will focus on several team combat modes spanning over ten ominous maps packed with grotesque details such as still-twitching bodies hanging from meat hooks and messages smeared in blood. The battle rages between Armacham Technology Corporation (ATC) and the elite F.E.A.R. team. F.E.A.R. 3’s unique Soul King mode also makes a return, challenging players to possess enemies for new abilities and collect more fallen souls than their opponents.

The story also continues in cooperative scenarios that detail the terrifying occurrences surrounding the F.E.A.R. team parallel to the events of F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. Up to four players can team up and fight for their lives against both hostile Armacham personnel and hideous monsters lurking around every corner.

F.E.A.R. Online will be free to download, and like all Aeria Games titles, will be free-to-play. Brave players can sign up for closed beta now at http://fearonline.aeriagames.com. Stay alert for news, events, and updates at F.E.A.R. Online’s Facebook page.

[Art work]

[Screenshots]

[Fact sheet]