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NCsoft have announced that the Standard and Deluxe editions of Guild Wars 2 can now be purchased for £34.99 and £49.99 respectively.
According to the publishers, the price drop is permanent and will be effective from 18:00 BST today. Guild Wars 2 is free-to-play once you purchase a copy of the game, and has been well received by several game critics, including our own former Chief Editor Matthew Mielniczeck, who placed it in his list of top 4 games of 2012.
World of Warcraft‘s subscriber base is down to 8.3 million as of March 31, representing a 14 percent drop in the past three months. In the previous-quarter financials, Activision-Blizzard said the MMO had 9.6 million subscribers, but 1.3 million have since said so long to Azeroth.
“Though the majority of our subscriber decline occurred mainly in the East, where we have more subscribers and lower revenue per subscriber, we saw declines in the West as well,” Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said in a financials call.
“While we do believe further declines are likely and we expect to have fewer subscribers at year-end than we do today, World of Warcraft remains one of the most successful franchises in the history of entertainment,” he added.
World of Warcraft subscribers drop by 1.3 million in three months originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 08 May 2013 16:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Special Forces: Team X, the third-person shooter from Blacklight: Retribution developer Zombie Studios, is taking its price down to $ 5 on Steam from May 6 at 10 a.m. PT, through May 13. After the sale, Special Forces: Team X will get a permanent price drop to $ 10, forever and ever, or until Zombie Studios, publishers Atari and/or Microprose decide to change that number again. Before 10 a.m. PT today, Special Forces: Team X costs $ 15.
Special Forces: Team X is a cel-shaded, cover-based shooter with more than 100 possible map combinations and five multiplayer modes. When it first hit Steam in February, the game had a bug that could randomly reset character XP, but that issue has been resolved via a series of patches, Microprose says in a press release. A Title Update for the XBLA version is in testing now.
“We are hoping that this price drop will bring players into the game that may have been scared away by the initial launch problems,” the press release reads.
Continue reading Special Forces: Team X getting price drop after going on sale on Steam
Special Forces: Team X getting price drop after going on sale on Steam originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 06 May 2013 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Typing speed is the writer's equivalent of the weight a bodybuilder can bench press. We compare numbers and have frequent competitions to see who has the nimblest digits.
In reality, none of that is true, but if it were, our performance enhancing drug would be Notch's new free browser game, Drop. According to the Minecraft creator, this new diversion was inspired by Super Hexagon, the ending of Fez, and his own ceiling.
Play is simple and quick. The first four letters players must type are always those found in the word "drop." Immediately, the screen uses a tunnel effect to create a sense of motion, with electronic, bass heavy music playing underneath. The time to type the next glowing letter decreases quickly, and a missed character speeds things up even more.
The average game lasts seconds, and it is extremely discouraging as someone who prides himself on accurate, quick typing. You can try Drop out for yourself right now. Just remember to take breaks so your fingers don't cramp up.
[Source: drop.notch.net]
In lieu of his Ludum Dare game, Notch today launched a Unity game called Drop, available online for free. Notch is, of course, the mastermind behind Minecraft, and Drop is a quick exercise in rapid wordsmithery, spinning and catchy tunes.
Notch attributes inspiration for Drop to Super Hexagon, the ceiling of his apartment and the ending of Fez, and after playing for a little while, that all sounds about right. We would also throw in a vibe from Pippin Barr’s 30 Flights of Loathing and Pottermore’s Spells game.
If you have some time today, maybe make nimble your fingers and give Drop a go. But first try to say that sentence five times fast.
Notch launches Drop, inspired by Super Hexagon, Fez and letters originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 28 Apr 2013 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
While busy at work with his upcoming space-adventure title ox10c, Notch has managed to release yet another game.
Drop is a Unity-based game that can be played for free. According to Joystiq, Notch drew some inspiration from the games Super Hexagon and Fez while creating Drop.
The game is challenging, but also pretty addictive. Give it a shot right here.
M01D is a full music-creation tool with lots of sample beats and sounds to draw from. You can share music files over Wi-Fi and even save files to an SD card for quick importing into your favorite editing program.
Detune has revealed no price for Korg M01D at this time, but it’s set to launch in Japan next month so perhaps that will give us an idea. Korg M01D is an improved version of Korg M01, which launched in Japan back in 2010 and never made its way over to the States. Korg M01D’s predecessors include the DS-exclusive Korg DS-10 and improved Korg DS-10 Plus, both published in North America by XSeed.
Korg M01D waits for the drop on 3DS eShop this summer originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 13 Apr 2013 02:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Amazon is the latest major retailer in the UK to drop both SKUs of the Wii U by £50. Like Shopto and Asda before it, Amazon is chopping 20 percent off the 8GB Basic Pack’s launch price, placing the console at £199 ($ 297), while the 32GB Premium Pack with Nintendo Land bundled in is down to £249 ($ 372).
While sales reports haven’t made great reading for Nintendo of late, likely prompting the price drops in the UK, the company enjoyed a dramatic stock bump earlier this month, put down to the weakening yen and a boom in the US jobs market.
Amazon UK follows suit with Wii U price drop originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 14 Mar 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Blizzard is hard at work on the next patch for Diablo 3, version 1.0.8, but designer Travis Day and others at Blizzard thankfully took some time to detail a few of the changes coming. For one, Legendary item drops will be have increased rarity, as will Rare items. Legendary items will also be tweaked to roll base stats based on the level of the monster that dropped them. “When a Legendary drops, the question that goes through a player’s mind should never be ‘is this a good item?’ It should be ‘how awesome is it?,’” Day wrote in a blog post.
Other changes include the ability to multi-craft, for players that need to quickly craft several copies of the same recipe. You’ll also be able to directly compare items you’re looking to purchase against current equipment, and senior technical game designer Wyatt Cheng promises improved co-op farming mechanics.
“We are looking to improve co-op farming efficiency in 1.0.8,” Cheng said in a forum post. “Co-op play in general is a big focus of the 1.0.8 patch and efficiency is definitely one component of that. Co-op is already more efficient for some players, but this is the exception rather than the norm. The degree of co-op efficiency depends heavily on the co-ordination of the party, skill builds, and the relative gear level of the teammates. Since launch we’ve made some modest changes to encourage co-op play but there’s still room to go farther.”
One of these changes is the new Identify All feature, which will ensure co-op players never need halt dungeon progression to run back to town and identify items. “Sometimes the trip back to town to sort through a bag of gear is enough of a hurdle to make somebody feel playing co-op isn’t worth it. Nobody wants to be in the dungeon fighting monsters while your teammate is off in town identifying a full inventory,” Cheng concluded.
At the moment, there is no official launch date for Diablo 3‘s 1.0.8 update.
Upcoming Diablo 3 patch increases Legendary item drop rarity originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 09 Mar 2013 01:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Stretch goals include getting the Linux version done more quickly, a new character class, a local multiplayer mode – “Think of Deathmatch as Zelda: Four Swords meets Super Smash Bros.!,” ports to even more platforms, and other game expansions.
If you want to help achieve a stretch goal, secure a copy of the game, or get the little guy seen above, check out the ongoing campaign.
Delver’s Drop exceeds Kickstarter goal with a week left originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.