Some Stupendous Saturday Star Wars Satire for you, rounded up from all corners of the interwebs. Enjoy!
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And finally:
Where Is The Darkmoon Rabbit Located? Right Here
September 1, 2012 by
Are you ready to take on one of the cutest and most ferocious bosses in WoW? Then here’s where you’ll find it (right where the pink X is):
SWTOR: More Info On Terror From Beyond
August 31, 2012 by
Mega Garden Slug Will Slime Your Ass!
Here’s a brief snippet:
This Operation introduces the next tier of progression in Star Wars: The Old Republic, including a new set of PvE gear. The hard difficulty mode for Terror From Beyond is balanced for players wearing a full set of Campaign gear, which can be acquired from Operation: Explosive Conflict. Augments will become increasingly more important the deeper you get into Terror from Beyond. Story mode will be available for players who just want to see the sights, but it’s no walk in the park.
Read the whole thing here. There’s no word as to when this will be on the PTS but be assured we’ll let you know when it is.
Over to you: is there anything in this info that has you interested in particular beyond the fact it’s new end-game content? Share your thoughts!
Funcom to TSW Players: We’re Here For The Long Haul
August 30, 2012 by
In case you hadn’t realised, the creators of The Secret Word, Funcom, have been through some hard times lately, including some pretty significant company restructuring.
That’s understandably got a lot of TSW players twitchy, particularly given that the next content update has been delayed to the 11th September.
One of Funcom’s community reps on the TSW forums, has jumped in to put a positive spin on things:
I HAVE BEEN SUMMONED!
But seriously, I am sorry that there haven’t been as many dev and CM posts as usual. There’s some heavy restructuring going on right now, and we’re all just working to get settled.
I wanted to come in here and assure you that Funcom and it’s teams are incredibly committed to making sure that TSW keeps it’s steady content flow. While I do know that there has been a delay with the implementation of Issue 2 – Digging Deeper, this delay should not affect other Issues with new content or updates/bug fixes from continuing as planned. We hope to continually improve the game by listening to the community’s feedback!
In the words of the Illuminati (which is not to say that Funcom is Lumie-run):
You either do or get done, and we’re not done.
We’re in this fully, and we have no intentions of stopping any time soon.
Like any posts like these, you’re not going to get a lot of insight into the true state of the nation, but at face value it seems there’s a real commitment to keeping things happening. No-one wants that more than me. As I said in my review of the game, there’s a hell of a lot to like about this game – enough for me to fork out for a lifetime subscription.
At the very least it’s worth buying the game with its 30 days of game time and working out for yourself whether it’s a keeper. I know that if this game does go under, it proves that innovation in the MMO sphere isn’t being rewarded like it should. SOme would say the MMO model has been dead for a few years now, but I’m a little more optimistic than that.
What about you?
Oceanic Soap Box: Gander At The Pandas?
August 30, 2012 by
It’s an embarrassment of riches at the moment with MMOs. Guild Wars is only a few days old, SWTOR is close to going Free to Play, and World of Warcraft just had Patch 5.04 drop, the last one before the Mists of Pandaria expansion hits in late September.
So let’s focus on Pandas for a few minutes. For ex-players of WoW, is the latest expansion enough to draw you back? For people who’ve never played: is the game too old to consider? For current players like me: what are you liking or hating from your first 24 hours with 5.04?
Let the debate begin!
Minecraft and Star Wars: New Map to Download
August 29, 2012 by
I love nothing better than a huge Minecraft map that pays tribute to a genre / movie / TV show. There was the stupendous Game of Thrones in Minecraft a few months back. Now, a dedicated bunch have got together to create some iconic parts of the Star Wars universe.
Have a look:
There’s even an oceanic connection with Reece G, a member of the Gamers of Oceania Facebook Group, playing a part.
Kudos to all the creators of this – and if you want the map for yourself you can download it here.
WoW 5.04 Final Patch Notes
August 29, 2012 by
Well it’s happened. The last significant patch before Mists of Pandaria hits, has been released to the live servers – once maintenance is done of course.
Like any pre-expansion patch there’s plenty of changes, and we have the full patch notes for you below. Also, don’t forget our own preview of some of the 5.04 details as experienced from Beta here.
It’s also a time that Blizzard does some serious housekeeping with your WoW install, so before you can start playing the patch you’ll need to have completed the optimisation process (pictured). I love this as it clears valuable hard drive space – I’m funny like that.
So get optimising, and while you’re waiting, have a browse through the full patch notes (we’ll update further once the Battke.net site is up in full):
World of Warcraft Patch 5.0.4
The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/
General
Account-wide Achievements, pets, and mounts
In Patch 5.0.4 and beyond, the majority of your character’s Achievements, pets, and mounts will be shared with your other characters.
Please read: Bringing Achievements to the Account Level, by Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street
World Event: Attack on Theramore IsleWarchief Garrosh, obsessed with assuring the Horde’s supremacy over Kalimdor, launches an all-out attack against Jaina’s island home of Theramore. Though valiant Alliance defenders rush to repel the sudden onslaught, they’ll soon find themselves unprepared for the terrible scope of Garrosh’s true plans…
This Scenario will become available in the weeks leading up to the launch of Mists of Pandaria on September 25.
AOE Looting
Area of effect looting comes to World of Warcraft with this patch. After killing a group of enemies in close proximity, when you loot one of their corpses, the loot window will include items from all of the nearby corpses for which you have loot rights.
BattleTag support in World of Warcraft
Players who have enabled their BattleTag will now be able to:
– See BattleTag friends in your friends list.
– Add and remove BattleTag friends.
– Send BattleTag invites to other players via right-click.Cross-Realm Zones
In some zones, players are now able to form a group with other players from a select pool of realms.
When a player is in a zone that is set as a “cross-realm zone”, in addition to seeing other players from their native realm, they’ll also seamlessly see (and be able to play with) players from other realms.
Players will always be able to group and quest as they normally would with players from their native realm.
This functionality will be enabled for a limited number of realms at first, and will be granted to additional realms as we near the release of Mists of Pandaria.
Classes: General
All classes have been updated with a new talent system, improved abilities, and spells (accessible throughout levels 1-85). Your character’s talents have been reset.
Many old talents have been converted to specialization abilities.
Druids now have access to a fourth class specialization: Guardian.
New spells are now learned automatically. Class trainers are only needed to change talents, glyphs, class specialization, or to utilize the dual specialization feature.
All characters now take 40% less damage from other players.
Currency Conversion
Valor points have been converted to Justice points, and Conquest points have been converted to Honor points.
Neither of the resultant currencies (Justice and Honor) have an enforced hard-cap at this time.
Players are no longer able to earn Valor or Conquest points (bosses drop Justice, and arenas are closed).
Items formerly purchasable for Valor/Conquest are available for Justice/Honor.
Items
Spell Penetration has been replaced by PvP Power on existing items.
Head enchants removed
Enchants that modify the gear in your head slot have been removed from the game. This includes older head enchants of every type.
Relics, ranged, and thrown items
The slot in which ranged, relics, and thrown items were previously equipped has been removed. All weapons should now be equipped in the weapon slot.
Ranged weapons, including wands, have been adjusted to be more powerful.
Ranged weapons no longer have a minimum range.
Professions
The glyph system has been updated. Many class glyphs have been added, altered, or moved to different glyph types.
Prime glyphs have been removed.
Chef’s Award and Dalaran Cooking Award have been removed. Existing awards have been converted to Epicurean’s Award.
Quests
The cap for daily quests has been removed.
There is no longer a displayed count of daily quests completed.
User Interface
There is a new user interface for your mounts and pets.
Character creation screens have been updated.
Buffs have been consolidated in the UI.
New roll results frame added. This new feature can be accessed by clicking the word “[Loot]” in chat, or by typing “/loot”.
The PvE queue frames have been unified. You can now queue for dungeons, raids, and other queue-able content in one handy place.
Vendors now offer item filtering.
Spellbooks have been updated to reflect changes to core abilities, and now include a brief overview of specializations.
The Dungeon Journal has been expanded with information on all pre-Cataclysm encounters.
A new help system has been added to many frames. You can toggle this on and off by clicking the “i” button in the upper left corner of the frame.
Mac
Mac OS X 10.5 is no longer supported.
Added full support for Retina displays.
Added support for game resolutions that match Mac screen aspect ratios.
Switching between Windowed and Fullscreen display modes should be faster.
A “Help” menu has been added, so that players can quickly navigate to support pages.
A menu item that allows players to copy system information to the Clipboard has been added.
A menu item that reveals various game files and folders in Finder has been added.
Over to you: is there anything in the patch that’s surprised you / got you excited / made you want to punch your monitor?
SWTOR: No Maintenance Tonight
August 28, 2012 by
In case you hadn’t heard, there’s no server downtime this Tuesday night.
Enjoy the extra play time – or show how truly dedicated you are to a loved one by still spending time with them anyway.
Or not.
Guild Wars 2: 24 Hours to Launch
August 27, 2012 by
For those with Head Start access to GW2, it’s easy to forget that the official launch of the game is tomorrow afternoon (exact details here). It’s been a fairly successful early access period, albeit with some early server issues.
Since then, things have stabilised although I’m still spending as much time playing in the overflow queue as being on my server. For me that’s no real issue but it is for a lot of people, and the full launch may exacerbate things. That said, we’re not hearing a lot of negative talk overall – people seem to be loving the game on the whole. We’ll have a full review up this week sometime, but I’ll need to play more than the couple of hours I’ve done so far to make a final call.
Other key info for launch:
Other key bits of info for oceanic players to keep in mind:
Unofficial Oceanic Server: Sea of Sorrows
Unofficial secondary oceanic server: Gate of Madness
Guild Wars 2 Server List: here
Guild Wars 2 Guilds List: here
Guild Wars Oceanic Facebook Page: here
For Head Starters: how have you found the game so far?
WoW Remote Auction House And Guild Chat Now Free
August 27, 2012 by
Blizzard Software have come to the party with their Mobile Armory app, now offering the remote guild chat and auction house for free.
It’s available for Android and iOS, with the following features:
Full Character Profiles
3D Viewer
Activity Feed
Achievements
Character StatsRemote Auction House
Browse Auctions
Create Auctions
Bid on Items
Claim Your GoldRemote Guild Chat
Guild & Officers Channels
Saved Whisper Conversations
Guildmate Presence
Chat Push NotificationsOther Features
Guild Profiles
Realm Status
Talent Calculator
Item Browser
So if you want to constantly check how your Hogger Shanks are doing on the auction house, you’re now set.
Thanks to ever-faithful reader Gail for the heads-up!
Euclideon Announces Geoverse
August 26, 2012 by
It’s not often we get deep into the tech behind things like games, but sometimes it’s worth making an exception.
You may not have heard of Euclideon, who made a splash back on 2010 with their claims they’d changed the graphics industry. Even you haven’t heard of them, you’re likely to in coming years, as their claims seem to be bearing out in a big way.
Now I’m a bit biased on this, in that around a year ago I had a chance to sit down with Euclideon’s founder, Bruce Dell, to check a demo out. You can read about that here. It’s fair to say I was impressed, albeit with the disclaimer I have no coding knowledge whatsoever.
Since that meeting a year ago, Euclideon has been under a self-imposed media blackout to get things done. One of those things is Geoverse, a tool that allows compaction of large LiDAR data sets so that they can be viewed via the cloud rather than installed on each computer. It doesn’t exactly sound sexy but I can see how this might be a good way to build a profile in the sciences and military, rather than being pigeon-holed in the gaming industry. A year ago when I met with Bruce, his intentions were pretty clear that it wasn’t about games – and nor should it be if this technology bears out.
Anyway, enough tech talk for a minute, have a look at this video:
As someone who’s followed Euclideon closely over the past year, I can tell you these guys have copped flak and scepticism from every quarter. What I’ve seen in return is the growth of a technology that appears to have applications in a huge variety of ways.
The video above doesn’t show anything new compared to a year ago – I’m expecting the next iteration to be a few months off yet. However, the announcement of Geoverse as a product that leverages off the Unlimited Detail engine, shows a maturing company. That’s something needed to ensure this technology becomes what it claims – and that includes the gaming industry which would be seriously turned on its head if and when Unlimited Details reaches a release stage.
Over to you: what do you think of this technology? Can you see it appearing in a game near you in the not-too-distant future?
The Best Darksiders 2 Trailer Ever
August 26, 2012 by
Update: this time we’ve embedded the RIGHT video…
Sunday is gaming humour day here at The Oceanic Gamer, and the humour doesn’t get any better than this one dug up by Aaron R on the Gamers of Oceania Facebook group.
It’s a literal interpretation of Darksiders 2 and it’s an understatement to say it’s funny:
Is there anyone that didn’t laugh a bunch of times? Reveal yourself!
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