A Bloomberg report says that Swedish holding company Embracer Group has reached a deal worth as much as $500 million to sell its Saber Interactive division to a group of private investors. The deal will make Saber Interactive a privately owned company, according to the report, with approximately 3,500 employees.
Embracer bought Saber Interactive in 2020 at the height of its acquisition spree. It was made the fifth operating group under Embracer’s corporate structure and currently serves as the parent of numerous other studios including 4A Games, Aspyr, Beamdog, New World Interactive, Slipgate Ironworks, and Tripwire.
But Embracer ran into trouble in May 2023 when an investment deal worth $2 billion dollars, reportedly with Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Games Group, fell through. Since then the company has laid off hundreds of employees and closed multiple studios, in some cases—such as with Timesplitters studio Free Radical Design—after failing to find potential new owners.
While no specific studios were mentioned, Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors hinted that deals were in the works in its most recent quarterly financial report. “Embracer still has a few larger structured divestment processes ongoing that could strengthen our balance sheet and further reduce capex [capital expenditure],” Wingefors said. “Processes are in mature stages.”
Unfortunately, he also alluded to potential further layoffs at companies that end up being sold off: “Certain companies might initiate restructuring before any divestment is announced.”
Saber is currently working a couple of high-profile but seemingly struggling games: A Knights of the Old Republic remake, which Bloomberg says is still in development despite a dearth of information on it since it was “delayed indefinitely” in 2022, and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, which in November 2023 was pushed into the second half of 2024, a delay that could potentially be up to a full year.
Embracer is also reportedly looking to sell at least one other major studio, Gearbox, which it acquired in 2021 in a deal worth up to $1.3 billion. There’s been no public movement on that front, but Kotaku reported earlier today that a sale is close to being finalized.
It’s not clear whether the Saber Interactive sale will include some or all of the studios it currently controls as part of Embracer, although the Bloomberg report says the deal includes an option for other studios to be a part of the sale. Embracer and Saber Interactive declined to comment.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1709238289_Embracer-Group-will-reportedly-sell-Space-Marine-2-studio-Saber.jpeg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-29 19:05:292024-02-29 19:05:29Embracer Group will reportedly sell Space Marine 2 studio Saber Interactive for $500 million
IBM has developed an AI assisted storage security technology that can intercept and disable ransomware. It’s been integrated into IBM’s enterprise tier FlashCore modules. The simple explanation is that it is able to scan all I/O data in real time, and halt unauthorized encryption operations before they have a chance to do damage.
IBM detailed the technology in a blog post (H/T Tom’s Hardware). The blog begins by talking about the concern companies have regarding ransomware, referencing a report that says 89% of organizations place ransomware in the top five threats to their viability. As in, not something for the IT department guys to fix over coffee and a chat.
IBM explains the technology best, saying: “IBM Storage Defender includes AI-powered sensors developed by IBM Research that are engineered to rapidly detect ransomware and other advanced threats with high accuracy. Defender raises high fidelity alerts to security tools to reduce the security breach blast radius and help enterprises recover from attacks.”
Using AI to detect ransomware attacks is a fantastic idea. Malicious code execution is difficult to intercept, but in the case of ransomware, it takes time to encrypt data. It can range from minutes to hours, giving a window of opportunity to intercept an attack before it becomes critical.
IBM’s solution is aimed at deep pocketed and very security conscious enterprise customers. It’ll be some time before we see consumer level products with this kind of functionality, but with current and next generation CPUs shipping with dedicated AI hardware, this could be something that comes in one form or another to consumer PCs in the years ahead.
The thought of AI SSD’s initially made me roll my eyes, but this is one I can get behind. Being cynical of AI hype is one thing, but outright hatred of dodgy ransomware attackers and scammers is quite something else.
Ransomware is a global threat. Even in our little gaming corner of the world, major companies like Bandai Namco, Sony and Capcom have all been affected. Even the king of AI, Nvidia, is not immune. Anything that stops ransomware in its tracks is worthy of celebration.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1709202220_IBMs-AI-assisted-SSD-gives-the-middle-finger-to-ransomware.jpg6741200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-29 06:49:472024-02-29 06:49:47IBM’s AI assisted SSD gives the middle finger to ransomware attackers
Shortly after Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson announced plans to cut 5% of the studio’s workforce, EA’s entertainment and technology president Laura Miele said the company has also decided to cancel a Star Wars FPS that was in development at Respawn and close the studio that was working on the singleplayer campaign for the next Battlefield game.
The project was one of three Star Wars games in the works at Respawn that were announced in early 2022, a year after EA committed to sticking with the franchise despite the loss of its exclusivity deal with Disney. But now it’s decided to change direction.
“As we’ve looked at Respawn’s portfolio over the last few months, what’s clear is the games our players are most excited about are Jedi and Respawn’s rich library of owned brands,” Miele said. “Knowing this, we have decided to pivot away from early development on a Star Wars FPS action game to focus our efforts on new projects based on our owned brands while providing support for existing games.”
It’s a genuinely surprising move, given the massive recognition factor of the brand: Apex Legends is big, but Star Wars is, well, Star Wars.
But aside from the Star Wars Jedi games Miele referenced, EA has struggled to get major Star Wars games out the door. A heavily-hyped project headed by Amy Hennig codenamed Ragtag was first retooled and ultimately cancelled in 2019 after years of stalled development, and that same year EA reportedly also cancelled a Star Wars Battlefront spinoff game codenamed Viking.
While Respawn’s Star Wars adventure has come to a premature end, Miele said the next Battlefield game is “making meaningful progress.” Following the departure of Marcus Lehto, however, development of the singleplayer campaign he was heading up at Ridgeline Games has now been moved to Criterion. Ridgeline, which was just opened in 2022, will be closed.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1709166146_Respawns-Star-Wars-FPS-has-been-cancelled-Battlefield-campaign-studio.jpg6831200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-29 00:10:042024-02-29 00:10:04Respawn’s Star Wars FPS has been cancelled, Battlefield campaign studio Ridgeline Games is being closed
One of the marquee features of World of Warcraft’s upcoming expansion The War Within is its hero talent trees, an extra layer of icing to Dragonflight’s talent rework cake. They’re flavourful, themed additions to your core abilities that are meant to be “an evergreen form of character progression”.
Blizzard’s been harvesting feedback in the run-up to the system’s debut, letting players discuss four trees in December last year. Now there’s eight more for build-heads to get into forum arguments over—and thank the light they are. Somebody’s gotta care about the numbers. Druids, Evokers, Paladins, Rogues, Warlocks and Warriors are all getting previews this time around. You can read the full trees on Blizzard’s official post, but here’s the cliffnotes.
For Druids, we’ve got the Elune’s Chosen (Balance, Guardian) and the Wildstalker (Feral, Restoration) trees. One’s themed around all things moon-related, while the other gives you better healing, big bleeds, and creepy parasitic vines to torment your enemies with—you know, in case getting mauled by a big cat wasn’t awful enough.
The Scalecommander Evoker is open for Augmentation and Devastation evokers, turning you into a walking mortar sentry. Mass Eruption/Disintegrate spreads your blasts to enemies, while also marking them for explosive bombardments which can trigger whenever you or your friends deal damage.
Paladins get the Herald of the Sun (Holy, Retribution) and the Templar (Protection, Retribution) trees. The former’s all about creating sunspots that scathe your foes and heal your allies, while the latter’s all about hitting people very hard with hammers. All of them. You have a hammer that then calls down other hammers from the sky: Once you cast it, and then every two seconds for eight seconds. Hammer time is 24/7 now, baby.
(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)
The Trickster Rogue is offered for the Outlaw and Subtlety specialisations, and it’s very funny for one specific reason—it’s all about using Feint, a damage mitigation tool. Using Feint strikes your enemies with “Unseen Blades”, which deal damage, reduce the damage you take from them, increase your finishing move’s crit chance, and so on. It’s like Blizzard’s just tied a carrot to the end of a stick begging the parsing masses to please maybe hit a mitigation and help their healers out.
Over in Warlock land, the Diabolist spreads a little Demonology flavour to Destruction Warlocks, though it’s available for both specialisations. Diabolic Ritual makes every soul shard you spend have a chance to huck a smorgasbord of demons (in sequence, so metre-watchers can build rotations around it), as well as even more meteors carrying Wild Imps.
My personal favourite, though, is the Colossus Warrior, which is open to Arms and Protection players. This thing’s built around the Shockwave ability, which Blizzard promises will be easier to get via your class talents in The War Within. While there’s a lot of fun flavourful stuff (like hurling your enemies up in the air when you hit them with a shockwave), my top pick is “Mountain of Muscle and Scars”, which is an otherwise very boring node that makes you deal more and take less damage. Crucially, it also makes you 5% taller than everybody else. Forever.
(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment.)
It’s such a petty increase that I doubt most players will even notice it at a glance, but you get to know that you are 5% taller than the average population, and isn’t that what matters?
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1709130090_WoW-unveils-8-new-hero-tree-previews-before-The-War.png6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-28 14:17:002024-02-28 14:17:00WoW unveils 8 new hero tree previews before The War Within, one of which makes you 5% taller than everybody else at all times
There’s a hint for today’s Wordle ready and waiting to help save your win streak just below, designed to give you a nudge in the right direction without spoiling all your letter-finding fun. If you’d actually like someone to dish out spoilers for the February 28 (984) puzzle, you can scroll or click your way straight to today’s answer. However you want to play, you’ll find the help you need.
After two unimpressive guesses, it was a slightly stressed stab in the dark that turned today’s game around, finally revealing the one letter that would be the key to my Wordle win. It didn’t exactly slide into place effortlessly after that, but I’ll take a meandering victory over a dead loss any day.
Today’s Wordle hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Wednesday, February 28
Red skin, pitchforks, forked tongues, horns—these classic monsters make a great Halloween costume. If there’s an angel sitting on one shoulder telling you to do good, there’s probably one of these on the other, trying to tempt you towards mischief.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
No, there is no double letter in today’s puzzle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
Playing Wordle well is like achieving a small victory every day—who doesn’t like a well-earned winning streak in a game you enjoy? If you’re new to the daily word game, or just want a refresher, I’m going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:
You want a balanced mix of unique consonants and vowels in your opening word.
A solid second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
The answer could contain letters more than once.
There’s no time pressure beyond making sure it’s done by the end of the day. If you’re struggling to find the answer or a tactical word for your next guess, there’s no harm in coming back to it later on.
Today’s Wordle answer
(Image credit: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
Keep that win streak going. The answer to the February 28 (984) Wordle is DEVIL.
Previous Wordle answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
Knowing previous Wordle solutions can be helpful in eliminating current possibilities. It’s unlikely a word will be repeated and you can find inspiration for guesses or starting words that may be eluding you.
Here are some recent Wordle answers:
February 27: SENSE
February 26: OFTEN
February 25: SMITH
February 24: PIPER
February 23: APART
February 22: HEAVY
February 21: BUILD
February 20: MATCH
February 19: PRICE
February 18: RIDGE
Learn more about Wordle
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)
Wordle gives you six rows of five boxes each day, and it’s your job to work out which five-letter word is hiding by eliminating or confirming the letters it contains.
Starting with a strong word like LEASH—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters—is a good place to start. Once you hit Enter, the boxes will show you which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.
Your second go should compliment the starting word, using another “good” guess to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used, you can scroll to the relevant section above.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
As a poker fan I’m always on the lookout for a new poker game. I’m especially keen to find games that use poker in interesting new ways—like RPG We Slay Monsters or roguelike Poker Quest, both of which use poker hands as a combat system—and if it’s a poker-type game I can play on the Steam Deck, all the better.
Poker-inspired roguelike deckbuilder Balatro ticked those boxes nicely and quickly became my favorite game of 2024—before the year even started. I played the free demo every single day over the holiday break, and now that the full game is out it’s completely dominating my evenings. I’m not alone: 72 hours after it launched Balatro had already sold 250,000 copies, and each time I sit down to play a few rounds I see more and more people on my friends list playing it, too.
Naturally, I jumped at the chance to talk to Balatro’s solo developer, LocalThunk—not just about the game and its origins, but also what I assumed would be our shared love of poker. I was a bit wrong on that last part, turns out.
“It’s funny, I don’t play poker at all,” LocalThunk tells me. That is pretty funny because Balatro has, well, quite a lot of poker in it. Its Steam page even describes it as “the definitive poker roguelike.” You begin with a standard deck of 52 playing cards, you make poker hands like straights, flushes, and full houses to score chips, you compete against bosses called blinds, and when you win a round you come away with some cash.
But it wasn’t a love of poker that led LocalThunk to create Balatro. One deckbuilder in particular was a strong inspiration: “I love the concept of Luck Be A Landlord, a roguelike that doesn’t have an enemy, and you’re just trying to get a really high score,” LocalThunk says. As for Balatro, “the game itself is really more based on Big Two, which uses poker hands, but you play them out of your hand of eight or 13 cards or something,” he says. “And so it’s based on that game, not based on poker.
(Image credit: LocalThunk)
“I knew that poker would be a really good thematic tie-in that a lot of people could use as a launching point to understand some of the mechanics in this game. I could use the terminology in poker, I could use some of the visuals like blinds and antes and chips, and stuff like that, as a way to kind of make the whole thing feel cohesive,” LocalThunk says. “But I don’t play poker. I don’t really care very much about poker.”
As someone who has played over 70 hours of Balatro over the past couple months—30 of the full game, but 40 alone on the free demo—I can attest to the effectiveness of using common playing cards and well-known poker rules to lure players into the game. I already knew the cards, the suits, and the hands, so even on my first run I already understood the basics. The same way LocalThunk doesn’t think about or play poker, I don’t think about or play deckbuilders, so it usually takes me a while to come to grips with them, even friendly ones like Slay the Spire. But with Balatro, I immediately felt like I was on familiar ground.
There’s no hit points, there’s no damage, you’re not attacking something. It’s almost like solitaire.
LocalThunk
“[That] was done very intentionally because that’s something about other games… personally, it turns me off when I play a game and it uses a bunch of terminology like HP and poison damage and experience, those kinds of terms,” LocalThunk says. “They’re very gamer-y terms, and I don’t play games a ton. So, those things to me, they feel like they’re adding so many layers of complexity. When I made my game, I wanted to make it so there’s no hit points, there’s no damage, you’re not attacking something. It’s almost like solitaire.”
Which isn’t to say Balatro doesn’t eventually get pretty complicated. What initially feels like poker quickly becomes something vastly different as you play. After each round you can spend your winnings in a card shop to enhance your standard deck into a bizarre, silly, and often massively overpowered collection of cards with extra perks. Booster packs add extra playing cards to your deck, tarot cards can morph your deck by letting you copy cards, destroy cards, or change a card’s suit. Before long you may have a dozen aces in your deck, which make it easy to play four or five of a kind, or instead of a standard 13 hearts you may have double or even triple that amount, letting you become a flush machine.
(Image credit: LocalThunk)
And then there are jokers, the keystones of your Balatro strategy. Some add multipliers for every hand you play, some for specific hands, and some let you hold more cards at once or discard more often. Combining certain jokers can lead to massively high-scoring hands, and plenty of jokers completely break the rules of poker altogether, like letting you form flushes and straights with four cards instead of five, or letting you photocopy cards in your hand.
I’m not very good at this game.
LocalThunk, about his own game
The longer the play, the stranger and more powerful your deck becomes, and you’ll need every advantage to defeat Balatro’s bosses, which each introduce special rules meant to knock you off balance: limiting you to only one type of hand, dealing your cards face down, debuffing your face cards or jokers, and worse.
If you watch clips of people playing Balatro you’ll see just how gloriously broken decks can get, scoring millions and even billions of points not just in a round, but in a single hand. “I’m very shocked when that happens because I’m not very good at this game,” LocalThunk said. “I do get surprised when people are able to do stuff like that, because I can’t.”
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1709057951_I-dont-play-poker-at-all-says-solo-developer-who.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-27 18:07:482024-02-27 18:07:48‘I don’t play poker at all’ says solo developer who made the poker roguelike I can’t stop playing
You’ll find all the Wordle help you could ever wish for right here. Come take a look at a few general tips to help give your daily game a boost, or spend some time with a fresh clue for the February 27 (983) puzzle. And if you need something more, you’ve got it: the answer to today’s Wordle is only a click away.
Today’s puzzle started off with a nice set of green bookends, then went a bit weird, then very confusing because if that wasn’t the answer then what was? As far as I could see, there was nothing left to try—nothing apart from oh, there it is. It took me a while, but I got the Wordle answer in the end.
Today’s Wordle hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Tuesday, February 27
Taste, touch, sight, smell, and hearing are the traditional five of today’s answer, all different ways for our bodies to receive and process outside information.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
Yes, there are two lots of double letters in today’s puzzle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
Looking to extend your Wordle winning streak? Perhaps you’ve just started playing the popular daily puzzle game and are looking for some pointers. Whatever the reason you’re here, these quick tips can help push you in the right direction:
Start with a word that has a mix of common vowels and consonants.
The answer might repeat the same letter.
Try not to use guesses that include letters you’ve already eliminated.
There’s no racing against the clock with Wordle so you don’t need to rush for the answer. Treating the game like a casual newspaper crossword can be a good tactic; that way, you can come back to it later if you’re coming up blank. Stepping away for a while might mean the difference between a win and a line of grey squares.
Today’s Wordle answer
(Image credit: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
Here, have a little help. The answer to the February 27 (983) Wordle is SENSE.
Previous Wordle answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
Wordle solutions that have already been used can help eliminate answers for today’s Wordle or give you inspiration for guesses to help uncover more of those greens. They can also give you some inspired ideas for starting words that keep your daily puzzle-solving fresh.
Here are some recent Wordle answers:
February 26: OFTEN
February 25: SMITH
February 24: PIPER
February 23: APART
February 22: HEAVY
February 21: BUILD
February 20: MATCH
February 19: PRICE
February 18: RIDGE
February 17: PSALM
Learn more about Wordle
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)
Wordle gives you six rows of five boxes each day, and it’s up to you to work out which five-letter word is hiding among them to win the popular daily puzzle.
It’s usually a good plan to start with a strong word like ALERT—or any other word with a good mix of common consonants and multiple vowels—and you should be off to a flying start, with a little luck anyway. You should also avoid starting words with repeating letters, so you don’t waste the chance to confirm or eliminate an extra letter. Once you hit Enter, you’ll see which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.
Your second guess should compliment the first, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you might have missed on the first row—just don’t forget to leave out any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the correct word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words and don’t forget letters can repeat too (eg: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used, you can scroll to the relevant section above.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
Max level Elden Ring characters won’t be able to breeze through Shadow of the Erdtree when it arrives in June. The DLC will use a separate leveling system borrowed from Sekiro, according to director Hidetaka Miyazaki.
In an interview with Famitsu (translated by Reddit user theangryfurlong), Miyazaki said in addition to the normal rune-based leveling system, you’ll also have a Sekiro-like “attack power” stat unique to the DLC areas. Presumably, raising it will make you do more damage on top of the stats you already have.
Miyazaki said the system was added to replicate the freedom you had in the base game to explore and level up before tackling the bosses, and he specifically says it’ll allow you to “more easily experience this even in the high-level range.”
That last bit suggests that you won’t be able to steamroll through the new area with a maxed-out character. You’ll need to raise this new attack power stat to make a dent in the health bars of its new bosses, a few of whom will be equal to Malenia in difficulty. And if it’s truly like Sekiro, you’ll probably gain the resources to increase your attack power off of the bosses you can actually defeat.
It’s too early to tell how significant the attack power system will be compared to your character level, which still seems to play a role. Miyazaki went on to say that you can mostly ignore it to “experience this challenge at a lower level,” so I doubt it’ll be required if you’re one of those FromSoft ascetics who discards all material possessions like weapons and armor.
Everything about Shadows of the Erdtree seems self-contained so anyone who is far enough in the game to defeat the two required bosses, Radahn and Mohg, can handle it. In the same interview, Miyazaki said the DLC won’t affect the main story, so whatever happens in the shadow realm stays in the shadow realm.
I can’t think of a better way to balance the challenge of the DLC than a system like this. While it might be fun to blast through it with a maxed-out character, it would kind of ruin the point of having all the new weapon types and enemies if you could just use your perfected build. And making it somewhat optional opens the door for YouTube videos where people boast about killing Messmer with zero attack power, no armor, fists only, and an electric guitar.
It’s time to start theorycrafting so you’re prepared for Shadow of the Erdtree when it drops on June 21.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1708985819_Elden-Ring-director-says-Shadow-of-the-Erdtree-will-have.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-26 21:31:342024-02-26 21:31:34Elden Ring director says Shadow of the Erdtree will have a Sekiro-like leveling system so you can’t just steamroll it
Patch 6 of Baldur’s Gate 3 released recently, and it came with its fair share of bugs and issues, most of which are getting fixed in short order. One thing that had modders’ hackles raised, however, was a double-tap that busted the game’s script extender (required to run the lion’s share of mods) twice: One expected breakage when the patch dropped, and a second less-anticipated break from a hotfix.
While you should never expect mods to work after a major patch, I can see how it’d be frustrating for some players to sit through a (self-inflicted) wait after a major update and get things working again, only for a ‘smaller’ one to put them back in the queue.
Though I doubt modders ought to be Larian’s main consideration when releasing a hotfix, it did strike the player base as odd, to say the least. In a response to this upset slice of its player base, Larian stated it’d be working on official mod support for the game, a “robust, cross-platform plan” that’ll be coming later this year.
While an announcement like this should come as a positive, it seems like a small portion of the game’s community have still acted out—as per a statement from Larian’s director of publishing Michael Dowse on Twitter.
“We’ll be talking in depth about what our mod support will look like soon. Been working on it since launch. As always, we’ll discuss it in our way with our community. Threats and toxicity against our devs and community teams will only harm the conversation. Please stop that.”
(Image credit: @Cromwelp on Twitter/X.)
Dowse continues: “This is a game that went from [around 2 million] players to way over 10 in a very short space of time, so it’s natural the conversation becomes muddier and complex. But in order to maintain the same level of dialogue, we need people to understand that these conversations take time.”
Which is fair. I can’t imagine the unenviable task of untangling a deluge of feedback (something Dowse calls a “giant web of noise”) that large—nor the task of making changes to a sprawling RPG like Baldur’s Gate 3. “If you truly want to know things about the game, please don’t chip away at the people who connect us all.”
Dowse adds that “99.9% of our community are the absolute best and it’s because of them— thankfully—that my community team perseveres. But I suppose it was inevitable that when you have a city, a few bad eggs will start a fire.”
(Image credit: Larian Studios)
He notes that, if the situation gets measurably worse, the Larian team might have to throw up some walls for its own sanity’s sake: “We can only be close if we can work close. If we cannot do that, and we have to draw distance, it’ll really suck for everyone, especially us and definitely you. Please help us to work for the greater good of the millions of people who are involved and chill.”
It’s a double-edged sword that comes with this kind of approach—especially with a game that’s this popular. Developers gain a lot by listening closely to feedback, talking with their players, and putting a face to their names on social media. On the other hand, they also open themselves up to the masses at large. While only a small portion of said masses are nasty, the law of large numbers kicks in very quickly: 0.5% of a million people is still 5,000 angry strangers yelling at you.
Either way, mod support is coming, but “until then, BG3 does not yet have mod support … Our focus is to patch the game while working on future mod support. I understand why it’s frustrating, so what we all need to do is focus on that future.”
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1708949714_Please-stop-that-In-the-run-up-to-Baldurs-Gate-3.png6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-26 12:09:572024-02-26 12:09:57‘Please stop that’: In the run-up to Baldur’s Gate 3 modding support, Larian’s head of publishing speaks out against ‘threats and toxicity against our devs and community teams’
Bay 12 and Kitfox have released a new preview for Dwarf Fortress‘ upcoming revamped adventure mode, the classic top-down RPG side of the famous colony builder slash fantasy world simulator. The preview itself focuses on the combat menus and actions, with Dwarf Fortress creator Tarn Adams taking the viewer through the basics of the UI and how it works.
The preview shows off a party of three adventurers—Dwarf, Human, and Wombat-Man—out to battle a camp of goblin bandits harassing local trade.
(Image credit: Bay 12)
Of especial interest for those entertained by how detailed Dwarf Fortress is would be the menu for wrestling, popping up at about six minutes, that shows off a pretty exhaustive list of things to grab on the bad guys. Normal stuff like their hand, their weapon, and the like of course, but also very, very specific things. Things like the individual fingers, for example, or perhaps specific teeth. Nothing like ripping out a goblin’s molars to start your day.
On a more serious note the preview also shows how you control your team in tactical mode, where you’re able to give each member of an adventuring party orders and have them play out at the same time. It seems pretty good, having you jump back and forth between your little heroes as they need input—picking how you want to block an attack, for example.
The video has some of Adventure Mode’s more dynamic and ambient sound effects, but Kitfox notes that those are still very much a work in progress.
The release of adventure mode for Dwarf Fortress’ graphical Steam version will come later this year. You can keep up with its development over at the Dwarf Fortress Steam page.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Dwarf-Fortress-adventure-mode-preview-shows-off-menu-for-grabbing.png6221106Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-02-26 01:53:332024-02-26 01:53:33Dwarf Fortress adventure mode preview shows off menu for grabbing enemies by their teeth
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