I've sent out e-mails to everybody who donated $10 or more to our Original Sin fundraiser, to verify if you want to receive the available rewards corresponding to the amount you donated and if needed your address.
Those who have donated less than $25, but at least $10 are eligible for a digital copy of the game as well, because many who have donated more do not want their copy.

At the moment of this writing I am still missing information of 38 individuals!!

If you have donated $10 or more, but did not receive an e-mail, check your spam folder. If that does not show the mail contact me via a PM on our forums.

It's time for round #2 for reviews for Fallen Enchantress Legendary Heroes.

411mania- 8/10

Overall, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes is an enjoyable game that doesn’t quite have the right mixture for what it’s trying to accomplish. It is fun, but things in the game aren’t put into detail, so you don’t know why you’re doing them. It is rough around the edges somewhat, but is still worth a look, if you’re a fan of the 4X genre. Especially since the Civilization 5 expansion (Gods and Kings) kind of stunk.

ztgd- 8.7/10

Fans of 4X games and RPGs should really look into Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes. The amount of customization and the way city building and character progress is handled left me coming back for just one more turn. There are a few missteps here and there, but nothing game breaking at all. There may be a few times you will get dealt a bad hand in the random generated world, but you will be having so much fun taking on quests and building your starting city that you won’t mind too much. For $40, you get one rather addicting fantasy game with Legendary Heroes and I can’t suggest it enough.

thecontrolleronline- 7.5/10

Legendary Heroes also doesn’t perform very well at times, hanging between turns for just long enough to bother you. This is especially evident in larger maps, like that of the Scenario mode which features many more factions than a standard game. In case you’re wondering, I am playing on a modern system that didn’t have any trouble running Metro: Last Light. I’ve also encountered some strange behavior from enemy units, that had them getting stuck on the map, only allowing me to attack them with one unit at a time, even when I had my whole army selected. Bigger, unfortunately, isn’t always better.

You won’t just be trying to conquer your enemies in each game, but you’ll also be taking part in a lot of random events. Quests often pop up when you enter certain areas and these can take you into special dungeons or send you off to find other items, across the map. If you like a good, long, deep strategy game you’l probably like Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes.

gameranx- 9/10

It's been a long road, getting from there to here, but Fallen Enchantress: Legendary has finally delivered on the promise Stardock wanted to make with Elemental: War of Magic. It's an engaging game with a great deal of customization, replayability through an altering world filled with secrets, and a tactical battle system that finally feels tactical. For fans of the genre, and for those with fond memories of Masters of Magic and Age of Wonders, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes is a fun, easy way to lose countless hours. All it takes is just one more turn.

Rocket City Studios announces Second Chance Heroes, a co-op action/RPG coming this summer to Windows and OS X this summer. A beta is underway next month, and those interested can sign up on this page. They are also running a Steam Greenlight campaign.

MMORPG.com has wrote a short article discussing some of the design choices for The Elder Scrolls Online. The article also covers the upsides and downsides of the game's PvP combat.

On one hand, I’m very excited about the prospect of key members of the Dark Age of Camelot team designing Elder Scrolls Online Cyrodiil “Alliance vs. Alliance” warfare.  On the other, I’m a little confused as to why the team has made an active decision to keep PVP out of the rest of the world, and more than that... opposing factions won’t even be able to see each other when they’re in each other’s PVE content areas (see the ZAM interview linked at the bottom of this article, from Matt Firor himself).  So in this week’s column, I’m going to briefly touch on the good and bad parts of this decision, and what it could mean for the elder game of an online Tamriel.

As I said above, I’m pretty excited that a lot of the folks who once worked on Dark Age of Camelot’s RvR are heading up the team working on Elder Scrolls Online AvA. Brian Wheeler was one of the ingredients that made the magic happen in DAOC.  He was also part of the WAR team, but we can’t put that game’s failings on one man’s shoulders, so we’ll just sidestep it and chalk it up as a learning process.  At least we know ESO will have three factions as opposed to the inherently broken two.

As you know I'm always looking at new indie RPG's and kickstarters. This time I came across a game that might interest some members. The kickstarter is called Unrest, and is set in India.

Unrest is a story driven RPG set in ancient India in the midst of an uprising. Play as ordinary men and women struggling for safety, freedom, food for their children, and a chance at peace.

• Explore the drought and famine stricken streets of an ancient Indian city, where a fog of hunger and discontent shrouds the natural beauty of the land.
• Use the detailed conversation system to instill fear, command respect and gain the trust and friendship of others. Understand your enemies and make them see your side of the story.
• The narrative adapts to failure and death - instead of a game over screen, the plot continues and your fate becomes part of it. However, you can still save and load at any time if you want to.
• Make tough and interesting decisions in the lives of people untouched by destiny. The traditional hero’s quest of prophecy, power, and revenge forms a backdrop to your own struggles.
• Combat is brutal, decisive…and always avoidable. Bloodshed might be the easy way out in some situations, but has lasting consequences beyond those apparent on the surface.
• Hand drawn 2D art and soundtrack based on ancient Indian music to help you immerse yourself in the world.
• Full mod support lets you create your own worlds and adventures.
• Unrest will be available DRM-Free on multiple digital stores, without any DLC or micro-transactions. We promise.

 

ArenaNet announces on the Guild Wars website that all support, and development for the original Guild Wars is halted. This should come as no surprise as all there time and effort goes into Guild Wars 2 now.

It's hard to believe that there's been more than eight years of Guild Wars. So much has happened since our release in April of 2005: two additional campaigns, an expansion, two major live story arcs, new festivals, new content, countless new features, and quality-of-life improvements have been added to the game. The change has happened so naturally over time, it's hard to believe how stark the difference is between when the game first launched and how it stands on the live servers now.

Over time, our focus has shifted to updates that not only help maintain Guild Wars but help the game maintain itself. With this focus in mind, we'll no longer be releasing any new content for the live game except in support of automation. Our goal is to get the game to a place where it can continue to run and be available to all of our fans. We have a lot of love for Guild Wars—it's the game that made us what we are today—and we want to continue sharing it with everyone!

I want to make sure that players correctly understand our intentions behind these changes and the overall push for automation. As I've said, we want the game to be in a place where it's able to take care of itself. While we will not be producing new content, the Live Team will still be around to perform critical fixes for crashes or other serious issues. We want to support the players who made us successful by ensuring the game provides the best service possible without constant supervision and attention. Reducing the need for manual intervention makes it easier for us to keep Guild Wars running in the years to come.

SnowBirdGames released another update for Eador: Masters of the Broken World. The game has its share of issues, but gradually the developers are solving them.

A new update 1.0.9 will be available in a few hours.

Here’s the change list:

• Added Polish localization.
• Optimization of AI’s turn calculation.
• Added item sets.
• Coefficient for transfer of karma and relations with other Masters is increased.
• Added intro video for Russian and English versions of the game (Steam only temporally).
• AI logic for hiring and removal of units has been reworked.
• AI logic for buildings construction priority has been improved.

Fixed:

• Game freeze caused by using the ‘Astral Gates’ ritual.
• Game freeze caused by ordering a unit to shoot while his previous animation was still playing.
• Game crash caused by bandits attack during province exploring.
• Game freeze caused by an attempt to capture an already lost province with an allied race.
• Game crash caused by an attempt to see detailed information about a unit.

VG247 has an article about Dark Souls 2. The topic of the article is the games accessibility.

In truth, there is nothing on show here that offers any cause for alarm. No wholesale changes, recharging health or ill-advised cover mechanics to sully the series’ pure roots and challenging gameplay.

Instead, there is just that one nagging worry that without Miyazaki’s constant presence, the rest of the team might be tempted to tip the balance further in the player’s favour or face publisher pressure to chase a bigger audience by relaxing the firm hand that the first two titles maintained throughout.

Perhaps it’s unfair to be concerned or maybe it’s the unavoidable by-product being so invested in the franchise. I keep coming back to the idea that Miyazaki’s show-not-tell approach is completely at odds with so many other high-profile titles. Without him, will damaging sacrifices be made in a bid for mass-market acceptance?

Of course, neither Dark Souls nor Demon’s Souls were made by just one man. Therefore, I can only hope that those who worked alongside Miyazaki paid close attention to his methods and share his passion for treating players like intelligent adults. Ultimately, I want some of the mystery to remain intact so that I might savour the experience of figuring it out for myself.

Larian posted a new update on their funded kickstarter Divinity: Original Sin.

We're late with this update. We know and apologise. 

The reason really is quite simple: We are in the middle of preparing the release of Dragon Commander, performing all of the final tweaks, putting in some last minute features as well as a host of different languages and at the same time also pushing forward the expansion of Divinity:Original Sin's game world. Between those two things, well, there's really little  time for even eating, so please bear with us. It will get better and the frequency of updates will increase again.

But, behold, we did manage to come up with not just one, but three movies, showing you a bit of what's going on behind the scenes!

Behind the scenes of the Dark Forest

From time to time we perform a magical ritual called a review meeting - if you ever wondered what those look like, then look no further than the following collection of moving pictures in which our designers discuss what quests are going to be in the Dark Forest a.k.a. as the Phantom Forest. Beware - there are some minor spoilers!

The Pledge Management System

We caught up with David and asked him if there was any progress with the pledge management system. Since this is the first time he actually more or less committed to a date, we wanted to share the moment with you :)

Kirill's orchestra

One of the stretch goals was Kirill, our brilliant house composer, getting a symphonic orchestra to fool around with. We asked him about how the preparations for the recordings are going and managed to trick him into promising something for the musicians among you...

In closing

Because of the imminent release (relatively speaking of course :) ) of Divinity: Dragon Commander, we're in a bit of a crunch period. We asked Thomas for a youtube link that relates to our being-in-crunch feeling, but forgot that he can't spell very well...

We have another review for The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing this time by StrategyInformer.

What The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing may lack in replayability it makes up for in competence, enthusiasm and easy charm. The moment to moment slaughter, the deceptively deep levelling and abundance of powerful loot mean it's a difficult game to put down. If you're sick of Path of Exile's grind, or tired of poring over auction house entries in Diablo III, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing offers you a more immediate option – to step into the shoes (and hat) of the roguish monster hunter and get down to the timeless pursuit of killing many monsters.

Top Game Moment: Finding that Unique hat that completes your monster-slaying ensemble – style and statistics in one floppy brimmed cranial adornment.

SCORE 8/10

Gamingbolt has an interview with ith Spiders Studio CEO Jehanne Rousseau to explore what went into developing the game.

Ravi Sinha: A lot of science fiction centered around Mars defines it as this other frontier for humanity, one that can represent hope and answers just as easily as it can bring to life man’s savagery. What tone does Mars War Logs go for when defining the Red Planet?

Jehanne Rousseau: Mars War Logs is a little grimmer and more pessimistic, as you realize that even after achieving space travel and colonization of Mars, humanity is still confronted with the very same issues and dangers, both globally and individually.

First you get some sort of crude reminder of our place in the universe in that whatever the faith, whatever the ambition or the technology of your civilization, all your efforts can be ruined in a flash by something that’s just completely out of your control.

Then you see private companies replacing governments completely, and using the people who depend on them as soldiers to fight for the control of whatever’s left of that destroyed new world. And as you dig deeper, you realize that despite the Science Fiction setting suggested by the time and place, there’s not much of a future left in a post-apocalyptic world like this.

Technology has made some serious steps backwards, while violence, fanaticism, racism, misery and despair are pretty much everywhere. There’s still hope, though. Since there’s still life. And it’s actually up to you, as a player, to decide if you wish to preserve it as much as possible, or let your anger and personal interests take priority over any ideal of rebuilding a more ‘civilized’ civilization.

Ravi Sinha: What kind of play-time are you looking for with the game? What kind of incentives will there be to replay it, besides the differing abilities?

Jehanne Rousseau: One playthrough should take 12 to 15+ hours in medium difficulty depending on how much time you dedicate to exploring and finding out more about the game universe.

But there’s actually one particular major point in the main quest that will have you choose between two opposite sides… and then walk along two different paths through the whole final third of the game, along with different allies, a different extra (romanceable) companion and several different outcomes depending on some other important decisions to make. Also, when replaying through, you should notice many other smaller changes depending on the way you behaved or solved (or not) certain quests.

Realmforge a German game site has an interview with Dennis Blumenthal the Associate Producer of DARK. The interview is also in German but can be translated easily.

Could you first tell us how you came up with the idea to DARK?

"We are all big fans of classic stealth games such as Dark Project and the early Splinter Cell parts. In addition, many of us are fans of vampires and find it terribly, as the former terrors of the night shirtless run today as a teen sex symbols with Gelfrisur on the big screen. So we thought we'd kill two birds with one stone. We make a classic stealth game and vampires cool again "

Why did you choose just for a vampire as a hero and the
so very dark setting?

"Vampires are mysterious, all-powerful beings, but which nevertheless have clear weaknesses - in our view, perfect for a good stealth game. The player should have the feeling to be a powerful, incredibly strong predator that stalks in the shadow of his prey and is able to kill almost any enemy in seconds. At the same time he is not invincible, despite its strength itself and must be careful not to become a target itself. This game with the opponent and the risk that hunters and the hunted at any moment can change roles, DARK makes a special gaming experience - and we owe the vampires. "

DARK will be primarily a stealth title - which inspired originals (movies, games, etc.) did you have?

"Nosferatu, Blade, 30 Days of Night, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Dark Project 1 +2, Splinter Cell, and of course DuckTales. "

What makes DARK in your / your eyes and especially which feature do you like / your favorite?

 "What makes DARK is the strong focus on original, unadulterated stealth gameplay in combination with the vampire myth. It never existed in this form. My personal favorite features are the vampire vision with which one the warm blood of living opponent can see through walls and other obstacles through and the shadows jump, a kind of vampiric form of teleportation, in which one dissolves into smoke and reappears in a different place, which is extremely cool. "

Missed the latest update for Meriwether when it became avaialble, so here is the lengthy update number 32 on Historical Research, Concept Art and Music.

In the game they want to add a spyglass, which Lewis has on him, but they want to make this spyglass historically correct.

 

Hard at work on Meriwether, the team was debating how to include a spyglass (i.e. a little handheld telescope) among the various tools Lewis will have at his disposal. From a gameplay perspective, a spyglass seemed like a cool addition: you could use it to scout ahead and find otherwise hidden parts of the landscape. As we started experimenting with it, however, it became clear that the spyglass would be most useful in the game if you could set it to different levels of magnification: far, farther, and really far. But then Josh asked the question, "Do spyglasses of the period really work that way? Did they have different levels of magnification?"

It was actually two different questions: 1) do spyglasses in general work that way? and 2) did spyglasses of the time work that way? To answer both completely, we'd have to get our hands on a period spyglass--not the easiest thing in the world to do.

Enter Rebecca Mir. You might remember Rebecca from her appearance on our "Meri-thon" at the end of our Kickstarter campaign. Rebecca works as an Educator at the New-York Historical Society, which Josh had visited in the past to research The Lewis and Clark Expedition. So Josh contacted Rebecca and asked her our spyglass questions.

We knew we could count on Rebecca to provide us great information, but she went much, much farther. She invited the team to see the New-York Historical Society’s collection of spyglasses, as well as other Lewis and Clark artifacts in the museum's holdings.

If you happen to know something about 19th century spyglasses you can always help them out.

In the Free of Charge corner of Gamespot Jonathan Toyad checks out The Banner Sage: Factions, which is the free to download combat part of The Banner Sage.

Polygon has created an article-style interview with Ghost of a Tale developer Lionel Gallat.

Gallat cites Disney's animated films starring talking animals as a major source of inspiration, naming the Winnie the Pooh franchise and Robin Hood specifically. He is also a fan of the Redwall books and The Secret of Nimh, both of which are stories of small mice overcoming hardships in fantastical worlds. Gallat loves these types of stories because they firmly belong to the imaginary world but still contain nuggets of realness to them.

"At no point during [them] do you wonder, 'Okay, is this a real world?' It's different," he said. "It's like a translation of things that we know. For me it's a mixture between something you can believe in, in terms of credibility, like the world, the water, the rocks, the architecture. But it's transposed through these fantasy characters and that makes it more fun, more interesting."

Gameplay in Ghost of a Tale is based on exploration and encourages players to discover what makes the world tick on their own.

"You are thrown into an adventure and you don't really know much about where you are and what you're trying to do," Gallat explained. "I'm not playing the trope of the amnesiac character, but you will have little nuggets of info at some points so you have a sense of what's happening and what your goal is."

Gallat added he wants to keep the interface as simple as possible, and will not add directional arrows on screen or include fetch quests that involve hunting down and talking to people. There may be a "little bit" of melee combat in the finished game, but Gallat is playing up the stealth aspect and wants to encourage players to find their own ways around obstacles.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing received it's first update on Steam. You know the drill already Steam should automatically update the game.

Major changes include:

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing v1.0.01

Known issues:
- The multiplayer game still has some issues. Please use it with a character created for the multiplayer only because data loss may occur sometimes.

Balance changes:
- The Blood Rabbit is a lot stronger now.
- The monsters in the Sewers around the Secret Lair are weaker now.
- The final wave of attackers in the Siege of the Secret Lair has been reduced in numbers.
- The price of some epic items has been modified.
- The shooting range of the Dreadknechts has been decreased

Fixed bugs:
- Multiplayer
- Fixed an issue at "Online character" saving.
- A lot of crash/disconnect issues have been fixed.
- The ping column has been removed from the game list.

- Fixed an issue with the audio volumes.
- Fixed an issue with Veteran Domovoys AI.
- Fixed an issue with the scrollbar in the Ink Gate window.
- The final boss will talk your head off - like he should do.
- The outro movie is played when the final boss has collapsed - not when he gets the killing blow.
- You could only select from the first 10 skills you've learned even though there are 11 active skills. This has been fixed.
- Fixed crash on the Artifact Forge window.
- Fixed an issue with conversations in different resolutions.
- Localisation issues have been fixed in the German, Spanish, Hungarian and Portuguese language versions.
- Cloak appears properly on Van Helsing when the equipped item is changed.
- The area of the bridge detonation cutscene has been adjusted (it could be avoided)
- Fixed a bug with the customize button. (It didn't save your settings if you used online character.)

New features:
- 2560x1080 and 6052x1200 resolutions are supported.

GameInformer has a new article that ponders "Do All Video Games Need To Appeal To Everyone?"

I recently dabbled in Dark Souls for the first time. I watched my wife play a considerable amount of Demon’s Souls, and I sat near former news editor Jim Reilly, who was obsessed with the Souls games. I know a fair amount about both titles, but had never earnestly tried to tackle either game until recently.

After playing Dark Souls, I understand why the games are appealing. The quiet, foreboding atmosphere and high difficulty make the world of Dark Souls an absorbing and scary place to be. It offers a different type of survival horror atmosphere where you are cautious and concerned for your well-being, and every move requires a moment of thought, down to the most innocuous swing of the sword. It’s an intense experience.

It was also an experience I didn’t particularly enjoy. The frequent deaths and unforgiving ammunition boundaries (I had used up all of my arrows by my third of about eight tries at tackling the game’s first boss) means you have to be careful with how you approach every obstacle.

Every enemy is a careful decision of resources and combat skill, making it a frustrating game that generally isn’t the experience I am looking for when I sit down to play. After beating the first boss and exploring the first area, I put the game down in favor of a more forgiving medieval open-world fantasy creature beater-upper, Dragon’s Dogma.

Dark Souls isn’t for me, or at least it wasn’t the game I wanted to play at the time when I decided to give it a go, but I love that it exists for the gamer who wants that grueling experience.

GOG just sent out a press release announcing the last three chapters of the Wizardry series are now avaible on their service . 

Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge, Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant is $5.99 and Wizardry 8 is sold as a stand-alone for $9.99

The cult classic RPG series Wizardry finally arrives on GOG.com

DRM-FREE DIGITAL DISTRIBUTOR RELEASES THE BEST GAMES OF THE WIZARDRY SERIES: WIZARDRY VI: BANE OF THE COSMIC FORGE, WIZARDRY VII: CRUSADERS OF THE DARK SAVANT, AND WIZARDRY 8

(23 May 2013) -- Gather your party and prepare for some dungeon crawling! GOG.com, the DRM-free home to the immortal classics for PC and Mac, has delivered another all-time great in its catalog: it's time for some Wizardry! The last three entries to the genre-defining classic RPG series are available now at GOG.com.

Wizardry, set in a world boldly mixing fantasy and Sci-Fi themes, has gathered quite a cult following of loyal fans along the years. Celebrated for creating one of the most complex storylines in RPG history and equally praised for its unmistakable sense of humor, the series is still perceived as one of the most influential creations in the history of RPG games. Wizardry games have appeared on many "all-time best" lists and have received numerous distinctions, such as RPG of the Year (Wizardry VII, Wizardry 8; Computer Gaming World), Best Role Playing Game of 1991 (Wizardry VI; Power Play), Top Ten Best PC Games of 2001 (Wizardry 8; GameSpot). With one of the more intricate class systems in the history of the genre, over 700 (yes, SEVEN HUNDRED!) hours of gameplay, and an import feature, allowing players to finish the entire trilogy with the same six-character party they started out with, the Dark Savant Trilogy follows up on the promise of an epic adventure. Wizardry 8, the last entry to this celebrated series, is also a proof that a smooth transition to the next generation of games is possible. A thoroughly modern makeover of its 2D predecessors, that took 9 years to finish, the game has performed an uncanny feat of updating its architecture into 3D, without losing any of its character.

With releases of Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge, Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant, and Wizardry 8, this summer might turn out to be an all-indoor season for cRPG lovers old and new. Wizardry VI + VII (including the original DOS version, and the Wizardry Gold edition of the title) will be available on GOG.com for only $5.99 and Wizardry 8 for $9.99 from Thursday, May 23 2013, 6:00 AM EDT!

Gamebanshee has more info on Project Eternity gathered from various social websites. Here is a little snip as it would be impossible to post eveything.

So, Project Eternity will have a unified inventory for all party members, as opposed to the Infinity Engine games' per-character inventory. That doesn't bother me so much, but what's your opinion of per-character inventories? You don't like them?

In a game where one player controls all party members, I don't think it adds anything to the game to split gear up across 6 screens. There's no mental challenge to the process of organizing items across the screens. It's just busywork.

If each companion has different encumbrance thresholds, it's not as simple as just splitting the inventory..There's also a roleplaying factor involved.

"This is my strong fighter, he carries the heavy stuff. This is my mage, he carries all the scrolls."

You could accomplish the same thing by color-coding a single grid to represent what parts are carried by what character. In practice, people playing IE games just drag items onto any available slot until a limit is hit, then drag it to someone else.

...

What limits will be imposed upon inventory? Weight? Size of items? Slot size? Will we see weak elf stuffed with 100 full plates of feather weight? Or party of barbarians and paladins with inventroy filled with 100 slots of beans?

In the current design, party Stash size (withdrawals only available at rest locations) is unlimited. Worn Equipment is slot-based and is the same for all characters (barring abilities or talents that do things like increase available weapon sets). The one area we haven't decided on in terms of capacity is the shared Pack, which is gear that is not actively worn but available for access outside of combat. However it is defined, it will always be displayed as a unified UI for the player so they aren't flipping between characters for what is, practically-speaking, a shared inventory.

Full Control has added even more updates fo Jagged Alliance: Flashback. This time it's good news as the kickstarter campaign ended successfully at $368,614. I said it would take a miracle for this to happen in the last 24hrs, and it did.

WE MADE IT 

Dear Backers, 

You guys truly are awesome :D WE MADE IT without having to rob a bank or Thomas making a last minute dash for Gold. We're so grateful and we just can't wait to get started on this incredible game. 

We had a lot of fun doing the Reddit and live "countdown" for the initial goal and we hope you enjoyed it too. We'll be doing updates during the development phase...dev videos and possible also live Q&A sessions (we felt really relaxed in that setup)

As mentioned before, we'll setup a Slacker Backer initiative on our minisite, (www.jaggedallianceflashback.com) which will run for at least 2-3 months, so both new and current backer will have a chance to make a push for additional Stretch Goals. And yes, we know, the page definitely needs some more love. But we just couldn't give it over the last weeks. But we will in the very near future. But yes, the most important thing is: Stretch Goals can still be reached.

Flugente joins the Modding-Crew

Sometimes weird things happen. And after the campaign is over, believe us, we have some weird stories to tell about stuff that happened here and there. Quite some funny anecdotes so to speak. However we’d like to reveal one of these little things today. It’s a little story about communication and how it can go wrong, yet end successful. It’s the story of Flugente, one of the modders who work on v1.13 these days. Actually that guy really did some amazing work and put more features into the modification than we could list here.

So our mission was clear: Convince him to join our modding-team. We contacted him, talked about what we plan and how we want to achieve this with his and the others help. And he was like “yeah, sure, I’m interested”. We wrote some private messages over at the Bear’s Pit. And everything looked fine.

Everything fine then? Sure. But not this time. Somehow both parties talked at cross-purposes. While Flugente thought he already joined, we thought he didn’t confirm that. And then silence came around the corner. Yesterday we were told that he wondered why he was never mentioned in the updates. We were like “Huh? Sh*t, we messed something up here!”. So we contacted him right away. And here we are. Proud to announce a last-day-joined Modder for the Modding-Team who already joined before without us recognizing it. Sorry for that Flugente! And welcome on board!

INCGAMERS is the lastest website to review the Alpha of Grim Dawn.

As Grim Dawn is using a modified Titan Quest engine there are still some remnants of its game mechanics lurking under the hood. At the moment some skills need to be tapped on the action bar then targeted on the ground, which makes casting quite tricky. This mechanic is apparently going to be changed to a simple click with the skill going off where the mouse pointer is. It’s more of an issue with the Demolitionist and Occultist classes at the moment, but hopefully it will change pretty soon.

Crate obviously want their players to feel like they have some real control of the game and it’s fantastic to see the ability to rotate the camera 360 degrees. That may sound like a simple feature but it does add that little something extra to the experience. No complaints as far as the game art is concerned either; it perfectly captures the dark atmosphere of Cairn, and being able to zoom quite far out means more of the play area is visible, allowing you to soak it all up.

Well if you live in Australia this little bit of news from Bioware might be interesting.

G’Day! I’m very pleased to announce that BioWare will be attending the very first PAX Australia in Melbourne from July 19 to July 21. BioWare has been part of both PAX Prime and PAX East for years, and we are thrilled to now be able to come to Australia and meet our fans there.

Come out to PAX Australia for your chance to meet Cameron Lee (Producer), Patrick Weekes (Senior Writer), Karin Weekes (Lead Editor), and “Evil” Chris Priestly (Community Event planner) as they hold their first-ever-in-Australia panel “BioWare Goes Down Under” Friday July 19 from 4:30-5:30 in the Dropbear Theatre.

We’re still finalizing other activities for our visit and want to hear from local Melbournians… Melburnians… Melbournites…. BioWare fans about where we should go and what we should see. We want to see the sights and meet our fans during our stay, so any suggestions for gatherings, parties or ways we can talk with you are very welcome! Email us your ideas to community@bioware.com or contact me through Twitter at @BioEvilChris and visit the BioWare Facebook Page for updates on our Australian trip.

We hope to see you mad blokes and ace sheilas for a fair dinkum chin wag when we come down under for PAX Australia! (Ok, ok – I promise no more Canadian guy trying to use Australian slang. No worries.)

As promised from the last gameplay post Softpedia has posted their review of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing.

I'm a huge RPG fan, but when it comes to hack and slash games, I'm a bit picky. I was profoundly disappointed by Diablo III, though I greatly enjoyed the previous installments in the series.

Fortunately, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing restored my faith in the ARPG genre and proved once again that small studios like Neocore can create amazing games even if they do not get too much exposure.

There are some things that still need to be ironed out by developers, but, overall, I can guarantee that every RPG fan will enjoy Van Helsing's adventure in Borgovia. And for the price you have to pay, it would be a mistake to miss such a game.

I sincerely believe The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is one of the best RPG titles released this year and I can't wait for the second installment in the series, which is expected to arrive in about six months.

The good:
- Immersive steampunk setting
- Deep character development and customization
- Brilliant voice acting
- Refreshing gameplay
- Art work and music perfectly fit the dark gothic environment

The bad:
- Broken multiplayer
- No monster respawn in single player
- Limited replayability 

ZeniMax Online is continuing its promotional campaign for The Elder Scrolls Online by revealing a new enemy called the wamasu.

The wamasu prowls the swamps of Black Marsh in The Elder Scrolls Online. Read our Creating ESO article to find out more about this dangerous enemy

CapsuleComputers has an interview with CD Projekt RED’s Konrad Tomaszkiewicz.

CC: First of all, thank you for taking the time to speak to us. I’m very keen to learn more about the latest Witcher title and I’m sure that’s a curiosity shared by many of our readers. So to kick things off, what can you tell us about Projekt RED’s early days?

KT: Boy, did we have fun back in the early days. I mean, we actually have more fun now, but reminiscing about the “old days”… Well, it seems everything had this special glow back then. RED studio came into being in 2002 and began working on the first Witcher installment a year later. Back then, The Witcher 1 was the biggest-budget Polish game ever and, in a way, we were pioneering development on such a large scale in our country. We went big right off the bat – we cooperated with the Academy Award nominee and BAFTA winner Tomasz Bagiński, comic book writer Przemysław Truściński and, most importantly, Andrzej Sapkowski – the author of the Witcher book series.

Don’t get me wrong – we had a fairly good idea how to go about making a game, but many things were new to us, especially the scope of what we wanted to do. We decided our first game would be an RPG, and a complex one at that, set in a grim universe, which isn’t necessarily the easiest thing to pull off. Still, we were doing what we loved, which is what gave us the fuel to keep going. After all, we were developing a game that we’d like to play ourselves. Eventually, The Witcher turned out to be a critical success, winning over 100 awards, as well as the hearts of RPG fans around the world.

CC: What games of old have inspired Projekt RED’s work?

KT: Definitely RPGs – we’ve got a full spectrum of role-playing fans here at RED. Whether it’s DOS-era dungeon crawlers, custom LARPs (including Witcher-themed ones), pen-and-paper games or Japanese RPGs on consoles no one has even heard of – I bet there’s someone at CD Project RED that has played them, mastered them and continues to play them to this day. We draw inspiration from all of these every day – singling out one or two titles that inspired us is just impossible.

CC: How important has the response from fans been in the development of Wild Hunt?

KT: Very. Something we always have in the back of our minds is why we’re actually making these games and who we’re making them for. How could we not listen to our players? We have a very active and supportive community, and the forums are full of great ideas, feedback and general chatter on do’s and don’ts from the gamers’ perspective. For example – Geralt himself has been and undoubtedly will continue to be one of our most discussed topics. We’ve been approached countless times about modifying his appearance: hair in ponytails or loose, cut long or short, with a beard or without – it’s all been subject to player scrutiny and we love every bit of it. We’ve also benefited a ton from gamers commenting on the games’ interface, quests and much more. Fans are our best focus-testers and that’s why we love them so much!

CC: Has there been talk of a fourth game? Or will this be the last in the series?

KT: I’d rather not dodge this question with a typical “yes, everything’s possible,” but that’s exactly the case – one of the fun things about making games is that nothing’s written in stone. Still, currently we’re only focusing on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077, so let’s leave talk about what the future might bring for another occasion.

IndieGameHQ has brought to my attention a new indie RPG called Dark Gates. It's worth a look at least. You might be interested.

In Dark Gates you lead your team of 6 heroes into a dungeon where they will fight their way through numerous monsters and traps in order to destroy Dark Gates and an evil mage, the master of the dungeon. The main feature of the game is the dungeon itself. There is no predefined layout and every time you play, the map is always different. The dungeon randomly generates itself as you play. In your quest you will find monsters, magical items, trap, puzzles and treasures. Glory awaits the one who destroys Dark Gates and the evil mage.

     Features

    20+ heroes to choose from
    20 Monster types
    Over 10 spells to use
    Earn gold and experience to upgrade your heroes
    Random Labirynth every time
    Find mirrors to locate Dark Gates
    Classic tabletop game experience
    Turn based combat

Doctor Psitronix a new member of the watch, but in his own words a long time lurker brings news of his own RPG product. It's called Project Uncanny Valley. I'll bring more news on the project once I get more information.

Hello Watch,

First a little about me.
I am a long time lurker for years. I have decided to join finally for two reasons.
1. The resent success of the Kickstarter projects, TTON and DD:OS come to mind. Has convinced e that the Decline in gaming is trending down,finally.
2. My involvement with the project I will describe below.

I have got to know a number of you by your posts over the years and I hope you approve with what I will write here. (DArtagnan shhhh)

I am here to introduce on the Watch and the Codex(I'm there too) the following Indie Project.

Key Points:

1. Graphical Mud-Like
2. Simulation First, Game second
3. No teh Epic Quest(*unless you make one or fall into one)
4. Living World(What part of Simulation do you not get)
5. C&C where even the gods may move in mysterious ways to thwart your royal ascension
6. You wont know the difference between Npcs and Pcs unless you ask
7. Insane amount of characterization(200 classes at last count)
8. ROLE-PLAY vs ROLL-PLAY
9. THIS IS EARLY ALPHA
10. More to come

This project consists of me and my friend who is lead programer and who I will simply call Ken, he is a bit shy,but the proverbial eccentric genius. Seriously 180 IQ.

Below is a series of questions to help introduce this project,he is answering,his exact words, and I add some clarification if needed.

I am trying to gauge interest and I humbly ask for feedback.