Video Games

Last night, Icefrog made public his latest version of DotA Allstars, and there are a LOT of changes in this update.  For instance, ownership of items is now tracked so when you steal an item from your team it is “muted,” unless of course the person has left the game.  All hotkeys can now be remapped, and recipes can now be bought with a full inventory! 

You can download DotA 6.52 (not AI) here.  Check out the monstrous change-log as follows:

6.52 Changelog
===============

* Rewrote all item code and systems. It now supports things like properly tracking item ownerships, fusing recipes with a full inventory as well as fixing a lot of older miscellaneous bugs and usability issues, and setting groundwork for other things in the future
* Fixed all CustomKey problems. All hotkeys in the game can now be properly remapped to any other hotkey
* Map strings are now properly allocated to allow players with different language versions to play with each other without having to download multiple maps themselves. This means, for example, that you can play or watch games with your English version of the map with someone using a Chinese, Korean or Russian translated version of the map without any problems. The maps for the other languages will be posted on getdota.com alongside the English version for each release

* Lowered side angles on Bristleback
* Agility Morph and Strength Morph can now be clicked on directly for one-time use
* Morph interval is smoother when it levels (same overall rate though)
* Improved Elder Form attack animation
* Improved cooldown progression on Soul Rip
* Rewrote Timewalk to keep constant speed (so its not slow motion when you click nearby)
* Dark Rift can now be cast by targeting minimap
* Increased AutoQuills release requirement on Bristleback from 200 to 300
* Improved cooldown progression on Primal Split
* Improved initial AI on Dopplewalk image to make it less obvious when it’s created
* Sonic Wave cooldown no longer improves per level in non-scepter form
* Reduced Reverse Polarity AOE a little
* Reduced Dragon Knight’s Breathe Fire manacost
* Undid a portion of the cooldown buff done on Elder Dragon Form last version
* Increased Huskar’s attack range from 350 to 400
* Lowered Puck’s attack range from 600 to 550
* Increased level 2 and 3 Purge’s damage to summoned unit
* Lowered Faceless Void’s strength gain
* Improved Faceless Void’s cast animation time
* Increased level 3 Insatiable Hunger cooldown
* Lowered Sand King’s base armor
* Improved cooldown progression on Spirit Bear
* Lowered movement speed on Beastmaster’s Hawk
* Increased Abaddon’s movement speed slightly
* Scream of Pain manacost is now constant on all levels
* Increased Primal Roar cooldown by 10 seconds
* Lowered Living Dead bounty and increased their magic resistance
* Decreased Timelapse cooldown
* Increased Immolation damage on level 3 Primal Split’s Fire panda
* Lowered Sven’s agility gain
* Improved Huskar’s attack animation time slightly
* Scaled the movement bonus on Chemical Rage (lower at level 1, level 3 remains the same)
* Lowered Scepter upgraded Doom’s cooldown
* Increased cast range on Drunken Haze
* Changed Fatal Bonds from damage to HP loss (numbers adjusted to keep it at the same effectiveness)
* Lowered Medusa’s attack animation time
* Lowered Will O’ manacost
* Undid manacost change on Level 1 Reaper’s Scythe
* Slightly reduced Rikimaru’s cast animation time
* Scattershot gives vision on the area it is cast on
* Flesh Heap now works with denies
* Lowered cast range on Neutral Dark Troll’s Ensnare
* Increased cooldown on Neutral Dark Troll’s Raise Dead

* Items now have muted form when carried by non-owner (aside from a few exceptions like regeneration and leaver items). -pm can be used if you want to allow pooling in your games
* Improved basic item’s descriptions layout and presentation (133979)
* Flying Courier cannot carry Observer Wards from enemy base
* Lowered transmute bounty on previously untransmutable creeps (lvl 6)
* Change Sange and Yasha recipe costs and bonuses it gives as well as fixing some minor inaccuracies with it
* Flying Courier can no longer carry Aegis
* Added Blades of Attack to the Goblin Shop
* Increased the Fountain’s bottle autofilling range
* Increased Diffusal Blade’s agility bonus by 5 (carries through to Manta Style)
* Lowered Black King Bar duration slightly
* Increased HP loss rate when Armlet is activated

* Improved Lina’s projectile and visuals (170933)
* Added allied only overhead cast effect for Assassinate (203083)
* Listed maximum targets for Wrath of Nature in the tooltip (212395)
* Added special effect when Berserker’s Blood is stacked at a high level (176376)
* Added special overhead allied-only text to show duration while channeling Unstable Concoction (196859)
* Added a sound effect when Culling Blade kills a hero
* Added new Power Treads icons for the agility and intelligence versions (207886)
* Added an allied-vision only visual effect for Weave (139374)
* Lowered volume on creep horn sound
* Improved Dragon’s Tail’s visual effect (192582)
* Added a new visual effect for Soul Assumption
* Improved King Leoric’s visual effects (180737)
* Changed Mana Void visual effects (211058)
* Removed status buff icon for Hunter in the Night when it isn’t affecting him
* Puck and Clinkz now have a chance to get an alternate “fun name” like Ursa

* Fixed a fatal error problem when upgrading Flying Courier after reloading from saved game
* Fixed some overhead text effects that would show through fog of war
* Fixed a bug when either of Rot, Sand Storm or Storm Seeker are in the same area
* Rewrote Juxtapose and Dopplewalk image creation to fix a rare minor bug
* Fixed a minor bug with moving Lothar’s Edge while not in cooldown
* Fixed an exploit with Lanaya
* Fixed Phantom Edge to properly stack with Magic Resistance like the others
* Fixed a bug with Primal Roar that could occur when used on blinkers
* Fixed a control loss issue in recent versions with Sand King when Burrowstriking
* Rewrote Reverse Polarity to fix some rare issues with it stunning but not pulling
* Fixed some minor bugs with Assassinate
* Fixed World Tree and Frozen Throne towers not sharing bounty with allies
* Fixed Sand Storm not affecting sleeping neutrals properly
* Fixed the interruption requirement to leveling up Storm Seeker
* Fixed a minor bug with the damage of Invoker’s Tornado not syncing accurately with the cyclone effect
* Fixed a minor bug with Dagger and Aegis creating blank dummy items in base
* Fixed Centaur’s Return from triggering off on ally attack order
* Fixed a rare issue with not properly creating Haunt images (DonTomaso)

* XL Mode changed to have 4 hero removals per side instead of 3
* Minimap now does a special ping to allied players when a unit uses Scroll of Teleportation or Boots of Travel
* Improved Scroll of Teleportation code to armor enhance the building you are teleporting to when you click in the area instead of only when directly clicking on the target
* Various other map performance optimizations
* Added lots of music modes. You must have music enabled to use these. Use ‘-music xxx’ where xxx is one of the following added options: off, random, nightelf1, nightelf2, nightelf3, human1, human2, human3, orc1, orc2, orc3, undead1, undead2, undead3, other1, other2, other3, other4, other5
* Added a new mode -poolingmode(-pm) to allow pooling
* -lvlup now allows a number after it to level up faster in test games
* Reduced delay on End Game scoreboard for Sentinel victory
* -roll without specified number now does it out of 100
* Added command -list for use in -sd to show the pick options again
* Changed follow allied unit range to move closer to the target
* Restored and fixed previous issues with -unstuck
* Added a time delayed warning message when the game is in -test mode (some people have been abusing private chat to activate it before using -ah to clear the screen in order to use test commands to cheat without anyone knowing)
* Added commands -rollon and -rolloff incase people spam with roll. Default is on
* Added single player commands -killall/-killsent/-killscourge (169041)
* Added a new mode -observerinfo(-oi) to display extra information for game broadcasters/observers when you hover over player heroes
* Initial creep waves in -ap now spawn 30 seconds later
* Added single player test command -time xx to set the time of day
* Improved the text display on courier death
* Added a new single player or -test mode subcommand (-noherolimit) that lets you get multiple heroes, primarily for video editors that have been requesting it
* New Invoker story from the contest (Ike_Ike)

We’ve put together a gigantic free download of maps for the popular HL2 Counterstrike Source mod Gun Game that we’re sure you’ll enjoy. At 194MB of raw maps, 676 killer files, get your mod game on! A tag in the .rar file identifies this as “SICFORUM CSS GunGame MapPack.”

Download now: CSS Gun Game GG Maps.rar!

Here is a listing of the files in this download; warning, it’s long, so I’m hiding it behind a cut. You’ll have to view the full post to see: (more…)

Finally, after a long, patient wait, EA has officially released a PC demo for their new epic-FPS Crysis.  The demo is single-player only, weighs in at a bloated 1.77GB, and requires NVIDIA driver updates to play, but it’s a small price to pay to kick some virtual alien ass!

EA Games and Namco Bandai have officially stated that their online RPG Hellgate: London will be released this summer.  The graphics look amazing.  I hope they release a demo soon.  Here’s the press release:

EA and Namco Bandai Games America Announce Summer 2007 Ship Window for Hellgate: London

Hotly-Anticipated Action-RPG From Flagship Studios Set to Heat up PCs This Summer
LAS VEGAS –(Business Wire)– Jan. 8, 2007 Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) and NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc. today announced a summer 2007 worldwide ship window for the highly-anticipated online action RPG Hellgate: London(TM), the first original PC title from premier developer Flagship Studios.

“We are all committed to making Hellgate: London absolutely the best game possible,” said Bill Roper, CEO of Flagship Studios. “The anticipation surrounding the game is immense and we are looking forward to its launch being a truly worldwide event.”

Hellgate: London combines the depth of role-playing games and the action of first-person shooter titles, while offering infinite playability with dynamically generated levels, items, enemies and events. The player creates a heroic character, completes quests, and battles through innumerable hordes of demons to advance through experience levels and branching skill paths. A robust, flexible skill and spell system, highly customizable appearances, and a massive variety of randomly generated equipment allow players to create their own unique hero.

Here are some more exclusive screenshots of Hellgate: London:

Project Apollo has had this list up for a while, but I’m mentioning it because it hasn’t had as much exposure as it should!  The magnanimous list I’m referring to is none other than The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Clichés, which sports many laughter-inducing clichés for those familiar with console RPGs.  Here are 12 of my favorites:

3. Thinking With The Wrong Head (Hiro Rule)
No matter what she’s accused of doing or how mysterious her origins are, the hero will always be ready to fight to the death for any girl he met three seconds ago.

7. Some Call Me… Tim?
Good guys will only have first names, and bad guys will only have last names. Any bad guy who only has a first name will become a good guy at some point in the game. Good guys’ last names may be mentioned in the manual but they will never be referred to in the story.

10. Luddite Rule (or, George Lucas Rule)
Speaking of which, technology is inherently evil and is the exclusive province of the Bad Guys. They’re the ones with the robots, factories, cyberpunk megalopolises and floating battle stations, while the Good Guys live in small villages in peaceful harmony with nature. (Although somehow your guns and/or heavily armed airships are exempted from this.)

24. Capitalism Is A Harsh Mistress
Once you sell something to a shopkeeper, he instantly sells it to somebody else and you will never see the item again no matter what.

27. Nostradamus Rule
All legends are 100% accurate. All rumors are entirely factual. All prophecies will come true, and not just someday but almost immediately.

76. Magical Inequality Theorem
In the course of your travels you may find useful-sounding spells such as Petrify, Silence, and Instant Death. However, you will end up never using these spells in combat because a) all ordinary enemies can be killed with a few normal attacks, making fancy attacks unneccessary, b) all bosses and other stronger-than-average monsters are immune to those effects so there’s no point in using them for long fights where they’d actually come in handy, and c) the spells usually don’t work anyway.

77. Magical Inequality Corollary
When the enemy uses Petrify, Silence, Instant Death, et cetera spells on you, they will be effective 100% of the time.

87. Supply and Demand Axiom
Killing a powerful enemy will usually yield an item or weapon that would’ve been extremely useful if you had gotten it before killing that enemy.

115. Law of Scientific Gratification
If the hero needs a new invention to progress, he will find out that somewhere in the world someone has spent his or her entire life perfecting this invention, and usually just needs one more key item located in a monster-infested dungeon before it is completed.

143. Falling Rule
An RPG character can fall any distance onto anything without suffering anything worse than brief unconsciousness. In fact, falling a huge distance is an excellent cure for otherwise fatal wounds — anyone who you see shot, stabbed, or mangled and then tossed off a cliff is guaranteed to return later in the game with barely a scratch.

172. Golden Chocobo Principle
There will be at least one supremely ultimate improvement for your weapon or some way to make your trusted steed capable of going anywhere and doing anything, requiring hours and hours of hard work to acquire. Once you do achieve this, you will use it once, and it will be completely useless for the rest of the game.

173. Golden Chocobo Corollary
The magic formula for acquiring this supreme upgrade will be only vaguely alluded to in the game itself. Ideally, you’re supposed to shell out $19.95 for the strategy guide instead.

 Be sure to check out the complete list of 192 hilarious console RPG clichés at Project Apollo.