Now that most people around the world have plenty of time at home, why not try out new games, especially when they are free! You wouldn’t mind that, would you?
Epic Games is taking advantage of this apocalyptic time. It’s offering includes free games like The Stanely Parable and Watch Dogs.
The Stanley Parable: It’s a first-person exploration game. You’ve probably guessed it. You’ll play as a guy named “Stanley,’ but hold on, you also get the option to not play as “not Stanley.” It’s a game of choices, you will be offered different scenarios as you go along. You might want to play the story, or not play the story. It’s your choice!
Watch Dogs: What happens when the whole city turns against you? You’ll be running to save your life in Chicago. The entire city is trying to kill the infamous hacker named “Aiden Pearce,” who also has a checkered past with violent family tragedy.
Both games are only available to play on PC. Enjoy your stay at home and stay safe!
During a developer livestream, DICE shared their plans for Battlefield 1’sMay Update. In the preview, they described many of the planned changes including the new ability to repair stationary weapons, several game mode changes, and netcode improvements. The developers released the May Update to their first-party partners, Microsoft and Sony, and will release the patch upon their approval.
At the latest, you can expect Battlefield 1’s May Update on Tuesday, May 30.
Here’s everything that was previewed during the live stream. Keep in mind the exact numbers may be changed before the patch becomes active on all live servers.
Bayonet Charge
Activated aiming speed modifier during prepare state as well as charge state.
This means a player can rotate a maximum of 50 degrees during the prepare state. Also added an input modifier disabling strafe while charging.
Adding a subtle boost to third person footsteps when bayonet charging to increase threat awareness. Boosted volume of Enemy VO for Bayonet Charge when close to the player.
Slightly reduced maximum turn rate while charging.
Removed damage reduction while in charge. Weapons will now hit charging players for normal damage.
Netcode
Tweaked values to reduce the number of kill trades within a 30m radius.
Improvements have also potentially fixed an issue with not being able to continuously hit somebody even if they are standing still.
Implemented per region threshold settings for server-side hit detection: 130ms for US + Europe, 200ms elsewhere.
Fixed server-side hit registration interpolation.
Leading shot only necessary by the margin above the threshold, eg. For US @ 150ms ping, you have to lead by 20ms.
Fixed latency display for server which is also responsible for decision if to perform client or server-side hit registration.
Fixed input offsets for server-side hit registration to match client-side.
Fixed wrong hit indicator display when dying.
To explain leading your shots, if you have a ping above 150 ms you have to aim ahead of your target a little bit more to compensate for your lag. This should decrease the number of times you feel you were shot after getting behind cover.
Map and Modes
Spectator Mode: Fixed a bug where the first-person camera could become stuck during the Pigeon Carrier Artillery camera sequence on the Assault Tank.
Changed ticket count for Domination to 200 from 100.
Fixed missing game mode description for Breakthrough.
Tweaked scoring values for capturing flags in Conquest. Capturing gives less score now, however, more capture ticks have been added and the team controlling more than 3 flags than the other team will be awarded Conquest Control bonuses.
Decreased the percentage of contribution to flag capture/neutralize from 50% to 30%.
Added Join Any Operation button to the main operations screen. Will start a matchmaking session to join any available operation at any size (40 or 64).
The developers have also changed the end-game lobby process for Battlefield 1’s Operations. You should no longer have to exit to the main menu and re-queue after your current match ends. With this new continuous lobby, you’ll stay with your team and switch sides.
Vehicles
Tweaked self-repair for A7V, FT17, St. Chamond, and Pierce-Arrow.
Reduced health gained per self-repair cycle from 320 to 200.
Reduced time taken to complete a self-repair cycle from 8s to 5s.
This makes these vehicles’ self-repair equivalent to the self-repair of the MkV Landship.
Increased time that the shell camera is active on the MkV mortar landship from 3.5s to 4.5s. This better fits the increased flight time of the new heavy shell.
Extended Fighter and Attack Plane elevator flap scaling curves to better cover the entire speed range.
Reduced cooldown of speed boost ability from 30s to 15s for both the Dogfighter and Airship Buster Attack Plane.
Set up rear view on all planes.
Hold freelook while in third person to use rear view.
Field Gun and AA Changes:
Doubled the health of Field Gun and Stationary AA.
Made Field Gun and Stationary AA Indestructible.
Field Gun and Stationary AA will now enter a disabled state at 50% health where they become unusable.
To use the weapons again they must be repaired back to 100% with the repair tool.
Changed how max range for AA is applied.
Changes to Fighter plane variants:
Dogfighter
Added new secondary weapon, Incendiary Ammo.
Incendiary Ammo does greatly increased damage to plane parts, allowing the dogfighter to quickly cripple an enemy plane by breaking a wing.
Changed active ability from emergency repair to speed boost.
Bomber Killer
Changed active ability from speed boost to emergency repair.
Increased field gun damage against light vehicles.
Armored cars will no longer take less damage than light tanks from field gun hits.
Changes to FT Packages
Close Support Tank:
Increased 37mm HE ammo from 4 to 5
Replaced Secondary Case shell with Coaxial LMG. These changes should help this tank better fulfill its general purpose role.
Flanker Tank:
Increased reload time on the autocannon from 2.5s to 3.75s
Increased HE autocannon direct damage from 15-10.5 to 17.5-12.5.
Howitzer Tank:
Corrected primary weapon to HMG as shown in customization, was actually LMG. The more powerful HMG should help offset its limited firing arc when compared to the Coaxial LMG of the Close Support Variant.
Changed driver secondary weapon from case shell to flamethrower on the A7V Flame Tank Variant. This change will reinforce this variant’s role as a close range tank.
Added third person freelook to the FT Howitzer Variant.
Missed this one with the other tanks because the normal version has a turret that can rotate 360 anyway.
Added rear firing Tankgewehr as driver secondary weapon for the Tank Hunter Landship Variant.
Enabled driving and third person camera while using driver rear guns in the Squad Support and Tank Hunter Landships.
Improved MkV Mortar Landship Variant.
Changed secondary mortar shell from airburst mortar to heavy mortar. Heavy mortar does much more damage and is effective against both infantry and vehicles, but has a much longer reload.
Replaced alternate smoke and gas mortar shells with with track repair and vehicle smoke equipment.
These changes should make the mortar Landship more viable as a combat vehicle, rather than sitting in mortar stance in the backline.
Fixed a bug with third person aiming on vehicles that caused a bullet to not fire in the correct direction when aiming at a soldiers head while they are on a horse.
Gameplay
Adding a camera shake advanced gameplay option to adjust the amount of camera shake caused by explosions, etc.
Added missing spotting animation when spotting a downed allied soldier as a medic with the Medical Syringe.
Automatically show low on ammo icons on friendly soldiers.
Made all players immortal during EOR.
Controls
Players using controllers can now do custom buttons/sticks mappings.
Fixed select Operation button not properly appearing when using the joypad or on console.
In addition to the patch preview, DICE confirmed that Premium Friends will remain active until EA Play 2017, which begins on June 10. During EA Play 2017, the developers will preview the Russian DLC, In the Name of the Tsar.
You can expect Battlefield 1’s May Update at the latest on Tuesday, May 30.
Chalk another one up to the PlayStation Store revealing things earlier than intended. Street Fighter V’s Ed has been revealed as the next Season 2 DLC character.
As you may or may not remember, Ed was the young boy that Balrog was training in his story mode. According to his CFN profile, he was at one point going to be a new host body for M. Bison, but that was put on hold thanks to the destruction of the SIN base in Street Fighter IV. He does seem to possess some form of Psycho Power, being fueled by a Shadowloo crest on his hand.
He was even able to shut down Nash in the story trailer, so clearly he’s got some power to him:
The store leak notes that Ed’s now available, but we know that Capcom delayed the next patch to continue improving their online service, the Capcom Fighters Network.
Speaking of the Capcom Fighters Network, here’s what its profile says about Ed:
This guy might’ve piqued your interest, no?
He’s the youngster who was working together with Balrog. He’s got quite the mysterious aura about him.
Basic info
Name: Ed
Height: 167cm
Weight: 58kg
Blood type: Unknown
Birthday: 3rd of September
Country of origin: Unknown
Likes: Billiards
Dislikes: Idealistic people
Profile
He was captured by S.I.N and planned to be used as a potential spare body for M. Bison.
After Seth was defeated, Master Balrog saved him from the collapsing laboratory.
Street Fighter V‘s latest update brought some new skins to the mix, but the one everyone’s really waiting for include those sweet, sweet balance changes, as well as a number of new moves for everyone’s favorite Street Fighters. Capcom did say that there was also the possibility of another Street Fighter V beta test coming soon, which will likely include Ed. But they did not confirm when it might take place.
Nelo Hotsuma - https://www.flickr.com/photos/63122283@N06/28397331225/in/photolist-KgnKe4-K9nfWF-JjUNdr
The Street Fighter V finals held at Mandalay Bay in 2016.
The viewer numbers are in for the ESPN2 showing of EVO 2016’s Street FighterV finals.
Yankees/Red Sox averaged 2.066 million on ESPN.
EVO World Championships: 201K on ESPN2.
— Sports TV Ratings (@SportsTVRatings) July 19, 2016
This is on top of the 213,927 watching on Twitch (in all languages), with 182,716 watching the main stream.
These numbers are actually comparable to ELEAGUE in recent weeks. The one exception to this would be in week 3 (June 10th), when the NBA Finals were also airing:
EVO proved that the FGC can at the very least run with the other esports in terms of television viewership. We have to wonder if this is the dawn of a new era for the FGC – every TO out there is going to see these numbers, and surely will be talking to ESPN in the coming years.
UPDATE: Chad Gutstein, CEO of Machinima, provides this interesting bit of context via Twitter:
A team of transgender Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players were barred from entering an online female-only tournament and were told by ESL they could be penalized for faking their gender.
The team’s captain, Sly Buehl Rigilio, is based in Italy and has been a gamer since she was 10. “Gaming has always helped me cope with the burden of not being able to express my true feelings fully,” Rigilio said to BuzzFeed. “As you’ve probably heard, we’re not very welcomed in this community, at least among the average player. [But when] I met a group of other transgender girls, things started to look up from there.”
Sly and her team wanted to begin competing, entering into the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive 5-on-5 Female Open Summer 2017 tournament hosted by ESL and organized by Munich Finest Gaming. However, after Sly sent in her team’s application, they were rejected. ESL had replied in an email stating:
No males are allowed. Please take care, [faking] your gender can be penalized.
“When I saw this I almost broke down in tears,” Rigilio continued. “Here I am thinking we finally have a shot to shine and show our true colors to the gaming world, and then we get shut down based on our looks because we didn’t look ‘female’ enough for them.”
She continued to fight for herself and for her team, first opening a support ticket with ESL, asking why they were excluded.
“Now from what I’ve [seen] and read,” Rigilio expressed in the ticket. “We’ve passed everything. However, the only difference with our team is that we have a few members that are open transexuals. So from our point of view, it seems an admin has deemed us not suitable for this tournament, which is rather huge in discriminating against the LGBTQ+ community.”
Unfortunately, the response she received was not helpful. They could be added to the tournament manually by an admin, but only after each active member of the team submitted a passport legally identifying them as female. This was a problem for Sly and her team as some of them have yet to go through the trouble of changing their gender on their passports. “I’m going to guess you don’t understand how embarrassing and hard it is to change your info like that, [especially] in such a short amount of time,” Sly finished.
Because of the official tournament rules, the ESL admin had no other option but to once again deny Rigilio’s team.
Anna Rozwandowicz, an ESL spokesperson, gave a comment on the situation. “As female tournaments are meant to help develop and support the female esports scene,” the spokesperson shared. “We are extra careful to triple-check that those who want to participate in female tournaments are also eligible to do so.”
For the record, I am not saying that we think the team in question is trying to troll us – I am saying that the extra checks we performed on them, we performed on everyone else to ensure the competitive integrity of the tournament is safeguarded.
Interestingly enough, ESL, in partnership with Intel, founded the AnyKey Organization which “is committed to a long-term vision of a gaming community that is welcoming to all players, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disability, religious belief, background, or physical appearance.”
Left without other options, Sly Bruehl Rigilio and her team were forced to the sidelines as the female-only ESL tournament began.
Update: AnyKey has put out a new statement, expressing their continued efforts against exclusion, somewhat referring to Rigilio’s denial.
Regardless of what it says on your passport or ID, or what judgements people may want to make about who they think you are, at AnyKey we believe in a policy of “you are who you say you are.” This means that anyone who self-identifies and lives as a woman should be able to participate in any women-only tournament.
Update 2:To the surprise of many, it turns out that Rigilio and his team was acting in bad faith — specifically, they’re a bunch of right-leaning YouTuber trolls operating under the alias “Rigatoni Family.” Per their interview with infamously far-right publication Infowars, they’d deliberately targeted ESL to provoke controversy and trvick publications into writing about, well. Fake news.
Their actions are, of course, reprehensible and beyond the pale given the history of discrimination and harm specific to the trans community. But there is a rather clear silver lining. The actions were undertaken by ESL, with AnyKey’s consultation, still leads to a more welcoming environment for trans gamers. Rigilio’s attempts to perpetuate harm against them may ultimately just serve to make their lives easier.
Their first player is Stephen ‘MrGameTheory’ Takowsky, who will be the team’s captain.
“The foundations of Team Liquid are built on strategy games. My Team Liquid co-CEO, Victor “Nazgul” Goossens, began his competitive career with StarCraft, and he transformed Team Liquid into the most popular StarCraft website on the internet,” Arnhacet said. “While Victor was shaping the competitive StarCraft scene, and before I began competing in League of Legends, I was polishing my competitive bearings with the Civilization franchise. It was through competing in Civilization IV at the highest level that I found the confidence to jump into the world of esports and leave behind my job in the world of finance.”
MrGameTheory currently holds the record for most 1v2, 1v3, 1v4 and 1v5 ladder victories in Civ IV, and held the #1 rank on the Civilization Revolution leaderboard, Civ IV International League and the Civ V International League. He’s also commonly referred to as the God of Civilization by the community.
MrGameTheory had the following to say on the signing:
Civilization holds a very special place in my heart, and I still feel nostalgic about those times I used to enter “C:\games\civ\civ.exe”. I spent countless hours spamming settlers and phalanxes back in 1991. It was in Civilization IV where I hit my peak, and that’s when I decided to create my own team, dominating the multiplayer scene in weekend CCC events—decathlon-like Civilization events with 10+ person teams playing in various formats (ironman, anc ss, medi, occ, etc)
When Civ V came out I was too focused on building the foundation of what would become Team Liquid to participate as actively in the multiplayer community. However, with the release of Civ VI and after spending hours watching twitch streams, looking at the various game modes, mod features, and the hints to the resources, and noticing the new focus on FFA multiplayer, I’m once again excited. What really thrills me is the real evidence that Civilization VI is going to be competitive and will be here to stay, even with any dramatic changes to the teaming structure that MPers have grown used to playing with.
Team Liquid says that they will be launching a tournament for Civ VI (which just released today) soon.
Virtus.pro and Natus Vincere have a new title sponsor — G2A. The massive digital gaming marketplace had already been one Virtus.pro’s and Na’Vi’s CS:GO team main partners since early 2015.
VP is one of the biggest gaming organizations and already has tons of investments and partnerships such as Cybersport.ru, RuHub, and ESforce. VP has secured the largest sponsorship deal with G2A in history and will work with the team alongside RuHub to “help the studio reach a whole new level of quality and implement several ambitious projects together.”
Anton Cherepennikov shared in Virtus.pro’s announcement:
We are sure that acquiring the title sponsorship for all of the Virtus.pro squads as well as the RuHub Studio from the global gaming marketplace G2A.COM is a milestone in the history of our organisation. Bringing our efforts together, we will be able to reach new tournament heights and implement large-scale projects.
Na’Vi is a prestigious organization and as such, they can choose which brands they want to partner with. Now that they’ve obtained a title sponsorship with G2A they can “make an even greater contribution to the eSports development. Our goals are ambitious, so many interesting projects are waiting for us both in the nearest future,” said Na’Vi’s CEO Alexander ‘ZeroGravity’ Kokhanovskyy.
Does VP even need more money for “large-scale projects”?
Nine months ago VP received an investment of $100,000,000. No, I didn’t add extra zeroes. Anton even stated then that “the funds will primarily be used to launch new tournaments and various new gaming disciplines, as well to create media channels to cover the sport and to construct e-sports arenas.”
In any case, both Na’Vi and Virtus.pro have deep-rooted support by a lot of brands and companies in the region. Doesn’t look like the Eastern European gaming organization will be here for quite a while.
Both teams are pursuing “ambitious large interesting projects” so keep your eyes peeled on what new developments may arise in the future.
…aaand immediately, he has numbers equal to an average day on NALCS1, because of course he would.
Faker’s started his stream on Twitch.tv relatively late. His teammates had already launched their channels a week ago, as reported earlier. His delay may or may not be related to the fact that his day-one stream includes a live translator for the sake of the audience.
His stream can be found here, playing (what else) League of Legends.
Update: With 245,000 viewers in the first hour, Faker’s stream is now the single largest individual stream ever on Twitch.
Faker’s first hour League debut on Twitch is now the single largest individual/personal stream ever on the site with 245,000 viewers. pic.twitter.com/kR4Ix6mcBC
In a recent Battlefield 1 announcement for In the Name of the Tsar’s first gameplay looks at EA Play 2017, DICE confirmed something a little more interesting than the usual: female soldiers. Not previously featured in any Battlefield title, DICE is using their upcoming Russian expansion to feature women in the World War I setting.
Historically, during World War I, Russia formed 15 women’s battalions, including the 1st Russian Women’s Battalion of Death following the February Revolution. Some Russian women had successfully petitioned to join regular military units, joining previously all-male platoons. However, beginning in the spring of 1917, many more women were pressuring the Russian Provisional Government to create the special women’s battalions.
While Russia was hesitant to introduce female platoons and battalions, the government believed the female soldiers presented significant propaganda value, believing they might revitalize the demoralized infantry.
In addition to the announcement image, DICE shared early concept images in their official art book. The Art of Battlefield 1 shows a number of female soldiers of both German and Russian nationality.
The image above may be another character model for the Russian female soldier, while the image below depicts a female German soldier.
Female soldiers in other countries participated in combat units: over 2000 women fought in the Women’s Red Guards during the Finnish Civil War and Serbia hosted a number of female officers. However, Russia was the only country to deploy female combat troops in substantial numbers, though the Women’s Battalions were disbanded before the war was over. Generally, most other countries that fought in World War I employed women in important auxiliary positions such as cookery, mechanical, and clerical divisions.
In addition to the female soldiers, In the Name of the Tsar will feature new maps and new weapons as well as new vehicles. Although the entire content package has not been revealed, the latest French DLC brought in a new Behemoth and a new game mode, so we may see similar additional features.
As for what maps and scenarios to expect, DICE’s previews show off the Battle of Galicia, a Russian offensive against the Hungarians and the Germans, and Operation Albion, the German land and naval operation to invade the West Estonian Archipelago.
We’ll get the first gameplay previews of Battlefield 1’s In the Name of the Tsar during EA Play 2017 on June 10.
Overwatch fans were pleasantly surprised by Doomfist’s release today. But what they were not expecting to hear was the dulcet tones of Sahr Ngaujah, as confirmed to PVP Live by Blizzard.
He may not have the in-your-face, power screams of Terry Crews, but Ngaujah has serious acting chops to back up his casting as Talon’s leader in Overwatch. Ngaujah has been featured in films such as The Signal, Stomp the Yard, How I Spent my Summer, and Blood Done Sign My Name. He’s also appeared in The Blacklist Season 2 as General Yaabariand Last Resort.
He’s far better known as a musical actor though for his role in the musical Fela! The Musical which explores the life and inspiration of the Nigeran composer Fela Anikulapo Kuti. He received a Tony Award nomination and a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for his role in the musical. As Doomfist also hails from Nigeria, Ngaujah’s ability to provide an authentic take likely helped with the casting.
Ngaujah brought all of his acting chops to bear on Overwatch’s Doomfist and delivers a chilling performance in the Doomfist animated origin video. He narrates his capture and escapes by Overwatch, stating that you have to “rise up to be remembered,” as well as improve the human race in the crucible of war – essentially survival of the fittest. Of course, being captured by Winston, a primate, is the ultimate irony for someone so obsessed with Darwinian concepts like these.
While we don’t have many interactions or voice lines to go off of other than the above in-game just yet, surely his harsh world view will be included. Perhaps we’ll get to hear him tell Reaper off for being told to do his own dirty work?
Doomfist, and Sahr Ngaujah, are set to debut in Overwatch Patch 1.13, which is currently available for testing on the PTR. The patch will also feature the long-awaited highlight system, as well as a major change to loot boxes that drastically reduces the number of duplicates you’ll receive.
How do you feel about the casting of Overwatch‘s Doomfist? Would you have preferred the bombastic Terry Crews, or are you alright with the more measured delivery of Sahr Nguajah?
