Starting from the very beginning, you choose between a variety of pirate personas. They range from young to old, male or female, scared, peg legged. You can’t actually choose the traits you want but you can generate a new batch of pirates if none are up to par. Make sure to choose wisely because you only get one chance to set your character, it’s permanently tied to your account going forward.

Next, you’ll pick which ship you want and the size of your crew. In the beta their are only two ships to pick from: Sloop or Galleon. The Sloop is smaller and more agile but limited to a crew size of two or solo. The Galleon is large and packed with cannons that can support up to four sailors. Don’t worry about this selection because you can always go back and start on a different ship or with a different crew.

At this point you’ll want to invite your friends using the Xbox app on Windows or through Xbox live on console. You can also get matched up with fellow players to fill out your ship if playing alone. It’s also possible to join an existing crew that’s already hitting the high seas. The game does not let you decide this though so you’ll spawn in at a multitude of locations depending on what ship and crew you selected.

Let’s assume the game spawns you at the first outpost. You’ll start off in essentially a small pirate town. There are NPCs who will gladly talk with you, sell you stuff, and eventually give you clues and maps for finding treasure. Besides the NPCs you’ll also find a variety of barrels across the island full of bananas, planks, and cannon balls. It’s smart to pick up as many of these resources as you can. Once you’re loaded up it’s time to head to the docks where your ship awaits!

On your ship you can control the sails, anchor, steering wheel, and canons. On the side of the ship are ladders to get up and down if you’ve fallen off. You can climb up the mast to the crow’s nest to get an amazing view of your surroundings. Besides these things above, you can also go below deck to see storage barrels, an ammo chest, and cosmetic chest. Becoming familiar with your ship now really pays dividends when you inevitably run into trouble!

Once you and your crew have come aboard the real adventure begins. It’s time to lift up the anchor by interacting with it and waiting for your character and the other pirates to manually pull it up. You’ll also want to pick someone to be the captain and get to searing the ship. If you look up at the mast you’ll see the white streaks of the wind blowing. Depending on where you are heading you’ll need to adjust the sails to take full advantage of the wind power. It’s possible to do all the jobs on a Sloop and take it slow but I’d recommend having a friend or two help you out if you’re manning a Galleon.

At this point you might be asking, “Where do I go from here?”, but the good news is there is no right answer to that question! Sea of Thieves is a vast world ripe for adventure and looting. Especially at the start of the game you might as well organically adventure around the nearest islands you see. You never know what you might encounter but there are usually clues and riddles to help guide you.

Stay tuned for my other articles discussing the art direction of the game as well as PvP interactions.

The post Setting Sail with Sea of Thieves appeared first on Andrew.Technology.

Steam Summer Sale Ice Cube with Valve Logo in the Desert

The Steam Summer Picnic Sale began June 23rd after much anticipation. This sale features over 13,000 plus titles on discount and is considered to be one of the largest of the year behind the Winter Sale. Like most of of Vavle’s big sales you gain collectable trading cards that can be crafted into badges before the sale ends on July 4th at 10am PST.

Doom and Grand Theft Auto V are both top selling games discounted by 40% priced at $35.99. Other top games include Fallout 4, Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Stardew Valley, Dead by Daylight, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Steam Summer Picnic Sale 2016

Hardware was also prominently displayed on the homepage along side games which is a first for a major sale. Vavle’s own Steam Controller and Steam Link products along with the HTC Vive VR system and some bundles were featured.

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The Division Dark Zone Extraction Agent

The Dark Zone is a lawless part of the The Division where players can find better loot, kill each other, or team up to fight higher level computer enemies. The higher level loot like blues and oranges are dropped by the harder non-player enemies and can be purchased by Dark Zone vendors using DZ Funds, the special DZ only currency that’s represented in purple with a capital R featured in the screenshot to the right.

Besides the currency being different there is also a Rank system that is separate from your level. Gaining experience in the Dark Zone builds up this Rank just like the regular PvE parts of the world. Higher Rank lets you open crates found across the Dark Zone map as well as being able to buy and use loot from the Vendors. Lastly, there is a separate inventory for items and gear found in the Dark Zone that is limited to only six slots. When you pick up drops in the DZ it goes into this special loot pack that will show up on your Agent’s back.

In the lore of the The Division these Dark Zone areas are still infected with the deadly virus and so that is why the DZ is quarantined from the rest of the map. Sticking true to this narrative, all the new gear you collect while in the Dark Zone is also infected and must be decontaminated before it’s used. To decontaminate you must extract the gear by calling down a helicopter and successfully attaching your loot pack before the count down timer runs out and the helicopter takes off for the Base of Operation.

There are multiple entrances to this cut throat area and where you choose to enter can determine how close you are to different parts of the Dark Zone. For one, each entrance has a different vendor with different gear. Then there are Safe Rooms that let agents take a break from the possible PvP and of course buy things from a vendor here as well. Of course there are different non-player enemies that spawn at specific points and crates that can be opened with keys. Most importantly there are Extraction Areas that let you keep the new loot you find.

Loot Extraction in the Dark Zone

On the Dark Zone map you’ll find a few Extraction Areas each with it’s own advantages and disadvantages in terms of cover, non-player enemies spawning and distance to a possible exit. These factors have to be taken into consideration because once you start an Extraction your agent will shoot a flare into the air and all agents in Dark Zone are notified you requested to extract. A count down timer will also be displayed with the time remaining until the helicopter arrives so other agents will know exactly when you’ll be the most vulnerable.

Once the helicopter has landed you’ve got about thirty seconds to get your loot bag attached before it takes off. It’s as simple as running up to the bottom of the helicopter and using the action key to attach to the cord. Of course if you get shot while running up to the helicopter or before successfully attaching then you might die and drop all the loot you were trying to rescue.

It’s advisable to have a good party of players you trust for backup and feel comfortable with unknown agents around the area. It costs nothing to request an Extraction so don’t feel bad if you don’t get it on the first try. Some player’s even request an initial Execration as a decoy at one part of the map then run to another area to call another Execration there.

The Division Dark Zone Helicopter Extraction Area

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Speaking of loot, it’s the items dropped after killing hostile enemies in the world and found in chests, drawers, and other containers. Dropped loot is represented in game by a glowing pillar coming out of the ground. The color of the light pillar depends on the rarity of the item. The least rare items are white and from there it jumps up to blue and purple much like in MMOs.

Walking over the light lets you view each item or pickup all of them. Loot is unique to each player in game so you only see loot on screen that is yours, everyone else loot is hidden. Basically, pick up all the loot you can because it’s all yours and you can carry quite a bit before your backpack fills up. Remember, even if you don’t want the stuff you can sell it to a Vendor later for Credits to buy items you do want.

The Divison Overview Inventory Menu with Equipment Guns and Gears Firearms, Stamina, and Electronics are Stats

Once you pickup new guns or gear that can be equipped you’ll see an exclamation point (!) over those respective categories in the Overview menu. It’s not a statement of a better gun or gear just that you picked up new stuff and you should take a look. To do that you want to select a Weapon or Gear in the Overview menu like the primary weapon or body armor.

Menus will show you the options you have to equip for that category with the stats and bonuses as well as comparisons to the equipped item with up or down arrows to indicated what Stats get bumped or lowered. Every item gives you different amounts of Firearms, Stamina, and Electronics Stats so you’ll need to equip different gear to suit the needs of your play style/build. All your Gear provides a certain amount of Armor as well that is used to protect your Agent. Lastly, Stats will unlock special Weapon Talents that give your guns additional bonuses as you get better Weapons.

Besides the Overview menu there is also the Character, Pouches, and Appearance menus under the Inventory. Character and Pouches were locked in the Beta but Appearance controlled the cosmetic style of your Agent. You could swap jackets and hats to look different in game cosmetically but it does not actually provide any type of advantage.

Missions, Side Quests, and Encounters

The game has three different paths to progress the plot in the normal player versus everyone zones that you start the game in. Missions are the main plot points of the game that are big instanced events. Madison Field Hospital and Subway Morgue were the two Missions in the Beta. Before starting a Mission it requires you to pick a difficulty.

Normal is the default difficulty that generally allows you to solo with success. Hard difficulty requires a group of agents to tackle but if you need some team mates their is built in functionality to find a group  as well. Entering a Mission creates a unique instance to your world that only you and your group are playing in so you can easily replay Missions on different difficulty to grind experience and get better loot.

Side Quests have plots hooks into Missions but are optional. Encounters involve the street and adjacent buildings usually where you help out a person by taking down a gang, finding a key, and unlocking a door for an innocent civilian. You can replay Side Quests as well. If you restart your game or join a new group all your Side Quests should be reset on the map so you can them again.

Skills

Firearms, Stamina, and Electronics each have different skills to level up known as Medical, Tech, and Security. As you progress through the main Missions you start upgrading the Base of Operation and thus giving you better skills. You start off with one skill slot that lets you assign a single skill and then you’ll be able to unlock more slots.

Medical skills provide healing with First Aid and heads up world scanning with Pulse. Tech skills give you extra offensive power with Turrets and Sticky bombs. Lastly Security skills give defensive with a Ballistic Shield and different Cover abilities.

The post The Division Basics, Missions, Skills appeared first on Andrew.Technology.

Ubisoft opened up servers for Xbox One on February 18 with PS4 and PC following  the next day. Character customization was disabled and every agent started at level 4 with adequate gear to jump in and start playing the open beta. Much of the map was also marked off with limits to restrict agents movements to a  only few neighbors and their was level cap of 8 in place. All of this was intentionally done by Ubisoft to not give away large plot points but still allow testing of select missions and the Dark Zone free-for-all.

Firearms, Stamina, and Electronics Stats not classes

The Division, unlike many shooting based games, does not make you pick a class. Instead the game relies on Firearms, Stamina, and Electronics Stats that are influenced by the gear equipped and level. For example if you want more health then you need gear with more Stamina or if you want higher damage per second then the Firearms Stats is important. Stats also unlock Weapon Talents that allow for even more bonuses as you collect rarer guns.

It’s difficult to articulate how much more important gear is in The Division because the lack of a class system. The gear you pick is essentially your agent’s build. Every item has a rarity based on color starting at white and going up to blue, purple and legendary. Honestly, I only found blue items when I played but users posted photos of purple items on reddit and it was later stated Dark Zone vendors were intentionally selling purple gear for the open beta.

Tom Clancy’s The Division Open Beta

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At close to 4,200 positive karma this makes it one of the most popular Ask me Anything (AmA) in the hot section of /r/IAmA/ at the moment. Developers Colossal Order have been very involved in the community and this is just another sign of their dedication to listening and answering the community’s questions. There is tons of great information in this post so I encourage you to read but I’ve also included some items I found interesting. I divided the comments and questions between general and Cities Skylines only and the new expansions After Dark.

Cities: Skylines and general comments/questions

Comment: How do you think/estimate piracy will affect your sales in the first few days? On release Cities: Skylines was one of the most downloaded games on public and private trackers. – tatefin

Answer: Pirates are fans like anyone else, they just haven’t been convinced to pay for our product yet. Lots of the people tweeting about us, posting on reddit or sharing our stuff on Facebook don’t legitimately own the game – that doesn’t mean they can’t contribute to the community or sales in a positive way.

The lost sales we’ll see at launch are mostly going to be because we haven’t presented a good enough value proposition to these people (bar some that just can’t afford it or be bothered).

So hopefully most piracy at launch will eventually be transferred into real purchases once these people feel convinced they want the game enough.
– TotalyMoo

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Question: What mods were you the most surprised by? What are your favorites? – pguyton

Answer: First person multiplayer mod. I’m like – who even wants this?

The game does look like a hulk simulator though – with all the jumping around.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=512862335

-Shams_PDX

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Question: How was the experience of development in Linux? – montsegur87

Answer: To be honest it’s tough. But we at Colossal want to support all three platforms (Win, Mac, Linux) and will power through it. – co_martsu

After Dark expansion related comments/questions

Question: Are there any plans to natively support mixing default and European building styles on the same map? I love the wall-to-wall building designs, but I would like to isolate them to certain districts. – Yocto_Koppel

Answer: That’s actually added in After Dark, a new feature called “district styles” where you can choose what type of buildings you want in a specific district. – TotalyMoo

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Comment: I watched quill18 play a copy of the after dark expansion, and noticed that the streetlights were turned on even when that are didn’t have any electricity. Would you change this so that only areas with electricity have the streetlights on? It would look cool to see the streetlights turn on as the city grows -montsegur87

Answer: That’s a very nice idea! Currently the streetlights just are always on at night, and they don’t consume energy or need connection to the power lines. Thanks for the suggestion! – KaroliinaK

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Questions:

Some questions:

1: The bus lanes

you use look very similar to those of Traffic++

. Are they in any way affilated with the ones from Traffic++?

2a: Is it possible to turn off street lights for one specific street, road type, or all roads?

2b: In some countries the street lights on highways will be turned off after midnight (between 0:00 and 6:00). Will that be possible to do in After Dark (would look very nice and realistic)?

3: Do street lights cost you money at night?

4: After seeing the After Dark Trailer, my Dutch heart almost got a heart attack when I saw this (NSFD)

. Why the hell are those cyclists on the SIDEWALK? No sane Dutch person would ever cycle on the sidewalk when there’s an asphalted road next to it (except to take a shortcut). Cycling on the sidewalk here could cost you a fine of €45 (which is more than 3 times the price of After Dark)!

5: Will it be possible to create just a bike path

? No bicycle-friendly city would be complete without those red bicycle lanes.

6: Do we get something like London’s Boris Bikes (Bike docking stations, as a type of public transport) in the game?

7: What will parking cars do on road with a bicycle lane? will they disappear or will they try to park elsewhere?

Oh, and keep up the good work!

-854850

Answers:

Reddit Cities:Skyline IAmA with ParadoxInteractive

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HuK & MC being interviewed after winning Red Bull Battle Grounds in Washington, D.C

The first pro gaming tournament for StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void just ended with the win of team HuK & MC playing as Protoss Archon who received $15,000 in prize money. The tournament took place in Washington, D.C. and had a prize pool of $30,000 according to Liquipedia. This was the first major tournament for Archon mode and Legacy of the Void.

Archon mode is a new multiplayer mode coming in the last expansion for StarCraft II named Legacy of the Void. Current beta players have been able to preview this new game mode as well as the pros for this tournament. Players share a base and have the ability to build and control units along with everything else in the normal multiplayer game.

New units, new balance, new Archon mode

HuK & MC successfully deployed the new Protoss unit Adept to overwhelm and conquer the Terran Bomber & MMA who won silver and $8,000. Representing the Zerg race, viOLet & MaSa received 3rd place and $4,000. 4th place went to DongRaeGu (DRG) &  TRUE winning $3,000. No doubt new units and this new multiplayer mode, Archon mode, has introduced new dynamics to the game. There have been team based StarCraft II tournaments but only for regular one versus one games (1v1) but nothing like this where two players play another two players sharing a base and race.

New units like the Adept are part of the new balance concerning the multiplayer game of  StarCraft II which is played professionally across North America as well as Europe and Asia in tournaments just like Red Bull Battle Grounds. Blizzard has been releasing patches to address balancing issues and tweak the new multiplayer modes of StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void which will be the final chapter in the StarCraft II trilogy. Just two days ago Blizzard posted an update: “Balance Update — September 17, 2015” which made changes to Chrono boost, Disruptors, Photon Overcharge, Calldown, Cyclone, Liberators, Creep, Overlord transport,  Roach burrow, and Spawn Larva.

Congratulations HuK & MC!

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StarCraft II Legacy of the Void logo

StarCraft II beta players have the option to try out a new team-based mode named after the infamous Protoss unit: Archon mode. StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void officially launches November 10th but the beta is in full swing. In Archon mode two players share a base and have the ability to build and control units along with everything else one would do in the normal multiplayer. Generally, one player builds the economy (macro) while the other attacks and positions offensive units (micro). Team coordination is a must else you might forget an important tech upgrade or start stepping on your partners toes.

Archon Mode – Two Player Single Base Contro;

Shared bases is nothing new in the StarCraft world though. In 1998 Blizzard released a similar feature in StarCraft: Brood War called Team Melee. The big difference between the two is Archon mode only allows the team to pick one race versus the old Team Melee that allowed mixed race teams. Other than that it’s basically the same idea of starting off with a single base and sharing everything including resources, food and of course the buildings and units.

New Starcraft II multiplayer units & Allied Commanders

Besides Archon mode, Legacy of the Void also brings another new mode called Allied Commanders which is described as “Objective Based Co-Op” and of course new units for the multiplayer game like it’s previous expansions StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm. The new expansion is Protoss specific since the other two races had their own expansions/base games devoted to them.

New multiplayer units for Protoss are Adept & Disruptor, for Terran Cyclone & Liberator, and for Zerg Ravager & Lurker! That’s right the classic StarCraft: Brood War unit that burrows and splashes spikes on ground units is going to be back.

StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void new multiplayer units

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Cities: Skylines logo

It’s been six months since the March 10th launch of the city-building game Cities: Skylines and it’s been purchased by roughly 1.5 million people on Steam according to steamspy with 216,929 having played in the last two weeks. I’ve created some amazing towns with the help of community added assets and modifications. Since Cities: Skylines released an impressive 56,549 items of user created mods, buildings, vehicles, save games and everything in between have been uploaded to the game’s Steam Workshop, a place to share and subscribe to others’ original content. Colossal Order, developers of Cities: Skylines, have also released patches to fix bugs and tweak functionality and in a week will launch the first sequel to the game Cities Skylines: After Dark.

Despite it’s very epic sounding name, Colossal Order is a modest Finnish based game studio that has a small team of 18 dedicated to the development of Cities: Skylines according to an interview with CEO Mariina Hallikainen over at Wolf’s Gaming Blog posted on May 11, 2015 and the team was even smaller in early development.  With that in mind the last six months have been extremely busy for this fledgling city-building game especially when review after review compared it to the SimCity franchise that has the backing of giant Electronic Arts. Besides both games being city-builders they could not be more far apart in terms of community relations and support of mods.

Fundamentally, Colossal Order could not be more different than Electronic Arts both in size and approach. Colossal Order has fully embraced the modding community and encourages people to add their own customized buildings, cars, buses, etc. through their in-game asset editor. The asset editor and map editor are both baked into the game directly so you can create all the original objects and maps you desire! They also integrated Steam Workshop support natively which facilitates uploads and downloads of this custom content to make it super easy to publish or subscribe to custom assets and mods. Besides user created content, since it’s release official patches have fixed bugs and extended functionality of the game. Colossal Order is a company who actively listens to it’s community and responds back.

Cities: Skylines After Dark list of free content features patch September 24th 2015

The last big patch released on July 1st, 1.1.1b, added underground pedestrian tunnels along with auto save, 30 new growables buildings and more. Before that patch 1.1.0 added train tunnels. You’ve always been able to build roads and highways underground but adding trains and pedestrian paths really opened up new possibilities for city designs and planning. The sequel, Cities Skylines: After Dark will also release many new features for free under a patch if users choose not to pay next week. The developers actually created an infographic that details all the freebies in the patch and posted it to the /r/CitiesSkylines/ subreddit the other day:

List of the free content features
Coming with the Patch on September 24th 2015
New Day and Night Cycle
Shoreline Now Raises Land Value
70 Free Zoned Buildings
Reworked Crime System
“Police now capture criminals.”
More Crime During Nighttime
Updated Economy Functionality
Styles For Modding
Modders can now define their own buildings sets, such “European buildings” or “medieval”

The other big difference with Colossal Order is price, the retail release of Cities: Skylines was $29.99 which is more than most indie Greenlight games but much less than the $59.99 Electronic Arts sold SimCity for through it’s Origin service at release. Besides the free patch with the items listed above there will be even more new stuff added in the sequel which will set you back only $14.99. It’s published by Paradox so if you want more information about it check out there site at: https://www.paradoxplaza.com/cities-skylines-after-dark.

Cities: Skylines Steam Workshop mods, buildings, assets, vehicles, saved games

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Metal Gear Solid V – Server Problem (Follow up) We are currently experiencing server connection issues, so the following temporary measures have been taken to remedy the problem.

Metal Gear Solid V – Server Problem. Encountering difficulties connecting to online at this time.

Here are the other non-error messages that appear next under Online Information:

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Finally Launches! A new patch was released on September 1st. 2015.

Metal Gear Solid V – Daily Login Bonuses no available. Simply start the game in online mode once per day to recieve the following rewards!

Regular maintenance schedule.

Downloadable content has been added. Mother Base Staff can now join your unit.

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