"The Great Wacky Race" on Rust

 

As a multiplayer survival game, Rust has a reputation for ruthlessness with its player versus player actions, such as rading bases and making trap bases to deal with raiders. Fortunately for more peaceful-minded players, there are PvE servers in which players are free to build without the worry of other gamers wrecking their progress. But that doesn't mean there's no competition. Recent updates to the game allowed for players to build cars. With the Nydia's Angels server in Rust back up and running, a number of players decided to make their own. Then came the idea of a race between players, which came to be dubbed "The Wacky Race." So how did it turn out?

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.
 

Minecraft Classified as an Adult Game in South Korea

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The highly-popular Minecraft game is known for being a number of things. Among them it's kid-friendly graphics. But according to an article written by PC Gamer's Mollie Taylor, it's been labeled as an adults-only game in South Korea. 

Why designate the child-friendly game as for those 18 and over only? The Republic of Korea has a law banning minors 16 and under from playing games between Midnight and 6AM local time. Instead of going through the expense and hassle of developing an installing a method to keep those gamers in the country from playing their games those hours, Microsoft opted to just limit playing the game there to adults 19 years and older. 

At first the law didn't affect gameplay as Mojang accounts don't need age verification. But that changed in December 2020 as gamers there would need an Xbox Live account to access the game, and in March came a warning that anyone in the country wishing to get the game would need to be 18 or older. The result has been the game having a split age-rating in the country, officially labeled as 12 and up but thanks to Xbox is de-facto limited to those 18 and over. Naturally, the situation has gotten many in South Korea upset, "Korea will become [the only game market] where even Minecraft is reduced to an adult game."

When contacted by PC Gamer, Microsoft responded, "We’re working on a longer term solution for existing and new players under the age of 19 in South Korea and will have more to share on this later this year."

Source: PC Gamer
 

Boardgame Beach

  

There's a lot to do and see around Second Life. You can explore around sims. You can take a leisurely sailboat ride down the ocean. You can relax to the music and socialize at a club. But sometimes you just want to sit back and play a game. There's many kinds of games in Second Life, En Garde, Greedy, and more. But there's a place in the virtual world with dozens of many different games: Boardgame Beach. Yours truly had a talk with Aries Oh who owns the area, and she talked about what's there.

Read more in Places.
  

Gamer Gets Help For Friend Having Seizure 5000 Miles Away

To those who say online friends aren't real friends, the parents of a 17 year old gamer, Adian Jackson, would disagree. They were watching TV in their home in Widnes, Great Britian, while their son was playing games on his computer upstairs. They had no idea anything was amiss until two police cars with lights flashing drove over. The three officers told them they'd gotten a call that something was wrong with the boy. Going upstairs, the boy was found "severely disoriented and not fully conscious of his surroundings." He still had his headset on, and a gamer friend, the one whom had made the call, was still online trying to talk to him.

The other gamer was Dia Lathora of Texas, 5000 miles away. While they were both gaming online, he suddenly stopped talking Dia was able to guess he was having a seizure. She had his address, but not his phone number, so she tried to reach an emergency number. While she couldn't find it, she was able to talk to someone, and though that person was able to explain what was happening.

"We always say to the kids, be careful who you speak to online," Caroline Jackson stated, "but in this case, it was invaluable."

Sources: BBC News, Liverpool Echo

SL Universe in Ark

When it comes to games and Second Lifers, there's no shortage of them inworld, as "Tiny Empires" demonstrates. Outside of the grid, "Ark Survival Evolved" continues to be the favorite among the "Furry Gamers," the group of Second Life residents whom love playing games. But as it turns out, they haven't been the only ones in the Ark game lately. Another group of Second Lifers has given it a try: the Second Life Universe Forums.

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

World of Warcraft Numbers Soar to Over Ten Million

Over time, "World of Warcraft," the world's most popular Multiplayer Online Game, has declined in numbers since it's peak of twelve million in 2010. It's numbers would briefly climb after an expansion, then fall again. While still the envy of other game companies, by June 2014 numbers had fallen to 6.8 million, about half of it's peak.

It was known that the latest expansion "Warlords of Draenor" was providing some boost, as 600,000 gamers signed up ahead of time. As it turns out, far more did. On November 19, Blizzard announced that the number of people subscribing to their game had passed ten million. "Blizzard Entertainment today announced that as of the first 24 hours of the expansion’s availability, more than 3.3 million copies had sold-through^† and the game’s global subscriber base had passed 10 million, with growth across all major regions." Blizzard had not seen these numbers since early 2012.

Mike Fulter of Game Informer commented, "I strongly suspected WoW would rebound, but not by this much. Whether Blizzard can hold onto these returned players in the long-term remains to be seen. Even if numbers start to trail off once more, it shows that there is still great interest in new content for the decade-old MMO." The magazine also mentioned that day that Activision, which is part of the same corporation as Blizzard but exists as a separate entity, settled a lawsuit concerning a buyout a year ago.

The opening day of the fifth expansion of the game was plagued with technical problems, blamed in part due to a Denial of Service attack traced to China. The size of the numbers of people signing up suggests that the problems were at least somewhat less due to hackers, and somewhat more about the expansion being a bigger success than Blizzard expected.

Sources: PC Gamer, Game Informer, Blizzard 

Bixyl Shuftan

Release of "Warlords of Draenor" Marred by Denial of Service Attack

For months, fans of "World of Warcraft," the most subscribed to MORPG, looked forward to it's latest expansion, "Warlords of Draenor." Due on Thursday November 13, a number who had let their subscriptions expire signed back on. In October, Blizzard announced membership of the game had climbed to 7.4 million, a 600,000 increase over it's June total of 6.8 million. So on the day of the release, people got their copies in game stores or downloaded them straight from Blizzard, and logged on ...

And for many, they found out they couldn't get in!

The most populated of the servers were locked. At times *all* of them were locked. This mean that anyone trying to get in would instead be placed in a queue and made to wait until enough players who were already in had logged off. This could sometimes take an hour or longer to the chagrin of players.

So what happened? Part of the problem was so many players trying to log on at once, as has been the case with each expansion release which has seen some troubles. But as it turned out there was another element. Blizzard's World of Warcraft servers were the target of a huge  Denial of Service attack. According to WoWInsider, the attacks were traced to China. The assault reportedly continued into the early morning the next day.

In no way is Blizzard responsible for the server outages on this scale - responsibility rests with the script kiddies and bot net controllers. It's hard to know just how big this attack is, but with the sustained issues it's causing and the severity of response from Blizzard, it's safe to assume that it's BIG. Battle.net is a hardened Internet service that has withstood onslaughts like this before. For it to fail at such a critical juncture is nothing but catastrophic for the short term, and could have long term implications.

Among Blizzard's actions were lowering the maximum populations allowed on high population servers, which meant high waiting times for players there. The lower levels continued for the weekend. Saturday saw queues for a number of servers still, and Sunday saw at least one having to limit the people coming in part of the time.

There was no shortage of complaints in the thread about the launch update delays. While a few of the complaints were directed at the source of the attack, most in the first dozen pages were directed at Blizzard, many blaming not an attack by hackers but by bad planning,  "You are not prepared, Blizzard." "We're paying customers and can't even access our characters to play. We're being cheated out of our money!" "Microsoft's XBox Live service makes you look like rookies." There were a few wondering if the hacks were a made up cover story by Blizzard to excuse their problems. Some people joked about it, such as the "Hallowed Gaming" gaming satire website doing a parody article about Blizzard charging a fee to avoid the queues.

For those whom made it in, they still weren't completely in the clear. Many reported bugs and glitches, notably around the garrisons, one for the Alliance and one for the Horde, which players kept having to go to.

Blizzard has dealt with technical snafus before, notably the "plague" early in it's history in which high level players hit traveled to population centers and spread it to lower level players whom quickly succumbed in large numbers.

It's difficult to say exactly what the long-range consequences of the launch day hack attack will be. World of Warcraft has had huge numbers of devoted fans which have kept it going for the past ten years. But over time it has declined from the double digit millions it once had. While it was expected that people would drop out after a while after some time of exploring Draenor and other new content, it's possible the weekend of long server queues will stick to the minds of many who will let their game time expire earlier than planned, resulting in the number of players declining sooner and to lower numbers than it otherwise would have.

Sources: Geek.com, WoW Insider, WoW Forums 

Bixyl Shuftan

Rust Update

 Remember the "Rust" game Nydia and I gave a try at (article)? Well, we went back for more, went to another server when somehow "Lost Island" was down, a few friends from the "Furry Gamers" joined us, and we ended up having some fun in the wilderness. We cracked jokes about hunting down the piggies, "Nuuuuuuuu! I don't wanna be bacon! Nuuuuuuuuuuu!!" The girls cracked jokes about having to go about in male avatars, some of which can't be mentioned here without editing. And it wasn't long before we had  a building set up for ourselves, complete with a tower. As we get more wood, we add to it. So far it's nine stories high. Wonder how tall we can get it?

The game has had an update since Nydia reviewed it. The wilderness and zombie survival MMO dropped the zombie part. They killed off the zombies (article by PC Gamer). In their place are bloody red wolves and bears. This had been a disappointment to some, Nydia included, but the gaming goes on.

So what happens next? What will replace the "zombie wildlife?" Stay tuned. In the meantime, here's a Youtube by Argyle Alligator when he tries to interview Rusties in a PvP server, of which he has some varried reactions from the locals (Click Here).

Bixyl Shuftan

Press Release: New Second Life Gaming Group

ATTENTION GAMERS!!

How many games DON'T you play for the simple reason it is no fun to game alone?

There is a new group just starting: "The Furry Gamer." It is here to help find someone that, like you, HATES to play alone, or maybe just needs some help on that one part that ALWAYS seems to get you. So there will ALWAYS be sometime of interaction. We will help with raids of ALL kinds be it World of Warcraft, Star Wars The Old Republic, even in Minecraft.

Do you have to be furry to join? NEVER! (but it helps if you start out crazy)

Basically we're a group of like-minded people  that want to have fun. With that said here is a list of some of the games we do so far:

EvE Online
World of Warcraft
World of Tanks
Star Wars The Old Republic
Minecraft
Border Lands ( 1 and 2 )
Portal 2
D.C. Universe
War Thunder

Don't worry if you don't see your game here we are always expanding, maybe you can introduce us to a new one?

For an Invite please IM Nydia Tungsten or Ranchan Weidman

Reader Submitted: "Gaming Gods"

Just a Quick word about "Gaming Gods," or known to the rest of us infantile gamers. People play games to enjoy themselves, NOT to prove themselves. The Gaming Gods feel that if you are not up to their level you shouldn't be on "their" sever. I have witnessed this time and time again, and been the victim of it. Well I have news for you "gods," we all have to start somewhere. 

The reason I am posting this is I was in a flying game, someone hit me from my same team and he was terrified I was going to go off on him.  My response was "No problem, it happens. Let's get back at them." He was stunned, then he told me that was his last plane for the game, and was stunned again that I said I was sorry to hear that but better luck next time.
 
So everyone remember, we ALL had to start some where and remember what it was like when we first started, you will find even you will have a better time playing if you remember it

Nydia Tungsten

A Look at Linden Lab's "Patterns"

Last week, Linden Lab revealed two of the projects they were working on, "Creatorverse" and "Patterns." Seeing the pictures and description of Patterns, some dismissed it as the Lab trying to rip off Minecraft without coming up with anything original. Just after the announcement, gaming Internet magazine IGN published an article by Anthony Gallegos in which he looked at the game and had a few words with Rod Humble about it. His observation was that it was "dramatically different" from the familiar sandbox game.

Rod Humble admitted Minecraft was an influence, "So the notion was you take a very simple 3D Creation tool you take that lovely elegance of the resources that's in Minecraft, and them make the whole thing have physics from the ground up." In both, one has an avatar in a world gathering up resources. But in Minecraft the avatar builds tools which it can use. It doesn't in Patterns. Nor are there monsters and hot lava to make survival a question. The world itself is different, alien looking compared to the familiar grass, trees, and hills. And instead of cubes, the world is made up of triangular tiles, as is the avatar.

What can one do with the triangular tiles? They can be used to create three dimensional blocks. And these blocks can be used to build larger structures. The tiles can come from a variety of materials, wood, stone, clay, etc. And the hardness and weight of the cubes can have an effect on what one can build. Physics and gravity matter here much more than Minecraft. If one keeps extending a horizontal column of blocks, it will eventually break and fall. And a mostly stone column with a clay base will break sooner than a clay column with a stone one.

When working with the world, sometimes the physics acted in ways that surprised the Linden team. The Lindens are hoping to get users on board to continue to see what can be done with the place, as Humble stated in the video trailer from Linden Lab, he wanted "creators in from the earliest possible moment." A few days after the  IGN article was published, Linden Lab began taking pre-orders for the game's "Genesis version" for $9.95. The page stated those buying would be "entitled to have your name featured in the credits of the game in version 1.0."

Hamlet Au commented that  in giving an advance peek to IGN, it looked like Linden Lab was aiming at gamers rather than users of Second Life as more likely to give Patterns a try. He also states he managed to get in touch with Minecraft's creator Markus Persson. Of Patterns, he thought, "Looks great."





Once again, Patterns Genesis can be pre-ordered at: http://buildpatterns.com/buy/.

Sources: IGN, New World Notes  

Bixyl Shuftan

Eye on the Blog: Second Life is Expanding to Steam

A few days ago, Linden Lab Lab made two announcements on their blog. One was about team behind the Exodus Viewer having worked on a project to improve graphics. But the one that's gotten more talk was about making Second Life accessible to users of the Steam gaming platform.


As some sharp-eyed developers have speculated, we’re going to make Second Life available on Steam in the next month or so.

Many of us have friends who are avid Steam gamers, but if you’re not familiar, Steam is a very popular online game platform that offers a wide range of titles (and will soon also offer other software as well).

What does this news mean for Second Life? You’ll still be able to access Second Life just as you can today; there won’t be any change to that. But, the more than 40 million people who use Steam will also be able to get Second Life as easily as they can get games like Portal.

We’ll make an announcement on the blog when Second Life is actually available on Steam, but in the meantime, if you have friends who are Steam gamers, let ‘em know it’s coming!


I couldn't find a thread of comments in the official forums about Steam, though there was one in the SL Universe forums. The residents there had mixed feelings about it, many feeling it would bring in easily bored teenagers whom were expecting a top performing system with little patience for the lag. A few thought the only ones whom would stick around would do so only for virtual porn and sex. Hamlet Au whom also talked about the Steam access, had among the most optimistic feelings about it, though the majority of those commenting were less cheerful.

There are a number of places and communities in Second Life that would appeal to gamers, such as Aria Clash, New Bastogne, WW2 Tribute, MadPea, and the Warbugs. Not being a top-end gaming system, the Grid would take some getting used to for them. Those looking strictly for "pawnage" may be hard to retain.

So what advantage does Second Life have? Unlike many other games made by multimillion dollar companies, those here are created by what amount to small businesses at most and teams of hobbyists at least. These are not made up of wealthy men (and women), but working stiffs whom are also amateur historians, sci-fi geeks, and programmers whom are more accessible and reachable to any questions and complaints.

There is one more advantage. Some gamers have more imagination than others. Seeing that the games in Second Life were created inworld not by Linden Labs but by other users, some may start getting ideas. Maybe a better-looking uniform, an idea for a new weapon, or perhaps a new villain/boss. In the historical combat RPs, players can work their way up the ranks. In both cases, talented gamers can not just play games, but become part of a team that develops them.

This, in my opinion, is what is most likely to keep any gamers Steam may draw in Second Life.



Of the "New Open Source Project to Improve Graphics Rendering Performance," the "normal and specular maps" for textures may not be the benefit for gaming on the Grid people like Hamlet Au and the Lindens are hoping for, but content creators should find these new tools useful.

Bixyl Shuftan