Category: Skyrim

Early 2014 Recap

Early 2014 Recap

It’s been a while since my last news post so I’m going to recap a few things that have gone down over the holidays and in the more recent days/weeks.

YouTube Screws Up

Youtube recently netted some changes in the way content creators are protected from false DMCA takedowns, frivolous infractions, marks against their account, and ability to generate revenue – which for some, is a living. Channels like ReviewTechUSA and AngryJoeShow claim YouTube plans to begin pre-screening videos from certain channels before they’re monetized as a means of deterring copyright infringement on the site.  Multi-channel Networks (MCN’s) are also caving to some pressure from YouTube and making large drastic changes among themselves.

The changes are this – going forward, MCN’s have two options when working with individual creators, per sources. The MCNs can either designate YouTube creators in their networks as “managed” partners or “affiliates.” In the case of managed partners, MCNs will be responsible for any copyright violations these creators incur. The culpability of MCNs when it comes to copyright violations on YouTube has been an issue of late, ever since the MCN Fullscreen was sued by the National Music Publishers Association. YouTube is urging MCNs to take responsibility for its top talent. According to sources, MCNs will face a series of scaling penalties if their partners wrack up lots of violations—and individual channels or companies could face getting kicked off the platform. However, in exchange, YouTube is promising that these so-called managed creators or channels will get paid more quickly—they will essentially be able to monetize their videos without YouTube having to review their content.

On the flip side, if MCNs designate some of their creator partners as affiliates, than these MCNs will not be responsible for any copyright violations, per sources. However, affiliates may face more scrutiny when it comes to monetization. In reaction to this, a LOT of Youtube MCN partners have been cut and without the protection of MCN’s content creators are more susceptible to having their content flagged, and while flagged, revenue generation halted. One video game developer even had footage of his own game flagged and temporarily taken down. If that’s not funny enough, how about the time NASA had their Mars Rover landing footage flagged and taken down? This could spell trouble for gamers and content creators on Youtube and many of them are seeking new grounds. Unfortunately there aren’t many other sites that can promise the exposure of Youtube and big gaming sites like Twitch don’t have a system catered towards produced films – rather livestream footage.

GTA PC Release Date

The first seemingly legitimate source for a release date for the latest Rockstar installment for PC comes from a Brazilian source – actually the CEO of Nuuvem which is a digital distribution platform for Brazilian gamers. Thiago Diniz, CEO of Nuuvem said in an interview that GTA V for PC will be releasing on March 12. While it’s no solid confirmation, Nuuvem is one of the largest resellers of Steam keys, so there might be something solid to the rumor.

Starbound Mod Pulled

Starrybound, which was a server “wrapper” that allowed for more complex server control such as password protection, kicking and banning, as well as world and build protection has been pulled from the official Starbound mod repository. Tiy stated the reasoning for this isn’t a small trifle – rather one of the developers has a history of completely mucking up popular games with malicious mods and intent. Zidonuke (the developer in question) was involved in an unofficial release of the minecraft tool bukkit. Which gave him backdoor access to other people’s servers, which he then used to ban admins from their own servers. Zidonuke also became staff on a forum called the f-list, he used his position to read users private messages. Eventually he admined everyone on the site and cleared the ban list. Essentially destroying the forums. And if that’s not douchebag enough for you, he hopped onto another little project called PWO ( Pokemon World Online ). He was made a developer by the uninformed developers at the time, and deleted PWO’s data and server-side coding due to being frustrated with criticism from the community. He deleted the game and it’s databases, released everyones passwords/usernames, etc. If you remember Tshock for Terraria, he and an “alias” Doridian caused similar drama with the Terraria community by implementing backdoors to grief people’s servers.

Long story short… Tiy and the other developers of the Chucklefish game Starbound weren’t going to sit by idly and let malicious software sit around on their repository and have history repeat itself but this time with their own game. While the code was public, pre-compiled versions were offered and unless you compile the wrapper yourself, you can’t be too sure of what the software is capable of.

Elder Scrolls Online Pricing

And in more recent news, prices have been released for Elder Scrolls Online – an anticipated MMO based around the Elder Scrolls universe (Oblivion, Skyrim, Morrowmind, etc) has started it’s public beta invites and is expected to drop on April 4. The game itself will fetch $59.99 (par for the course) and after the first free month will require a $14.99 monthly subscription fee (also par for the course). This game isn’t a small undertaking either, as it was recently reported to have hit the $200 million mark in development costs. Bethesda is hinging on a large portion of Elder Scrolls players to also be MMO players and to take a shot at the new Elder Scrolls Online. But with the recent fate of games such as Star Trek Online, DC Universe, and even Star Wars the Old Republic – will it be a success where others have failed? We will have to wait and see.

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Elder Scrolls Online

Elder Scrolls Online

Yesterday there was some pretty big stir on the internet about some news of an upcoming MMO based on the world of Skyrim.

Players will discover an entirely new chapter of Elder Scrolls history in this ambitious world, set a millennium before the events of Skyrim as the daedric prince Molag Bal tries to pull all of Tamriel into his demonic realm.”

Sounds awesome right? We won’t make any quick judgements before we see gameplay footage or get to play the game for ourselves, but it does sound like a good idea. Rumor is that it’ll be hot-key based and in third-person as opposed to Skyrim’s first-person (and that rumor is supported by the screenshots). We’ll of course wait to see which of these rumors are true before we decide if that’s a good thing or not. One thing is for sure though, it will be based on the same game engine as Star Wars The Old Republic.

Here are a few screenshots that came from FZ.se

Elder Scrolls Online Screenshot

Elder Scrolls Online Screenshot

Elder Scrolls Online Screenshot

Update:

First trailer has been released… a whole lot of nothing, really and of course it’s Bethesda we’re talking about so they’re going to have some EPIC CGI trailers to which gameplay won’t live up to… still they’re entertaining at the least.

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Skyrim Hoarding: Serious Issue

Skyrim Hoarding

We have found that hoarding has become a serious issue in Skyrim… with players spending over 80% of their time in-game just unloading items to stay unencumbered, they end up tossing things into their homes harem-scarem thinking “I might use this one day…”

I had a conversation with Naldak about his compulsive obsessive hoarding the other day pointing out that he didn’t really need 14 rotten goat legs laying around in his house & that it was completely unsanitary. His response was “But but…. it heals me for 2 health.. I could use that some day!!” It’s estimated that he has around 25,000lbs of metal weapons, pots, and other items in his home.

It’s gotten a bit out of hand and in most cases can cause potential health hazards to the entire town. Strongale was recently evicted from town not for attacking townsfolk or for stealing, but for amassing a collection of human skulls which was later determined to be in fact, highly illegal.

With as much rusted metal and weapons lying around in most players Skyrim houses, we’re surprised that we haven’t encountered more cases of fatal tetanus. In the Skyrim time period there’s no tetanus shots to speak of and we’ve only seen it claim the lives of small family pets so far.

Skyrim Hoarding

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