Fate of the World: Tipping Point review

This is the way the world ends: not with a bang but with a protracted series of bangs, accompanied by famines, screaming winds, droughts, tsunamis and your lynching at the hands of a mob.

That’s according to this tweaked, expanded re-release of 2011’s global suicide strategy simulation and its DLC campaigns. A complex web of depressing data sets (global temperatures, unemployment, infant mortality rates and so on) have been crunched together to form a Megazord of human misery. Viewed at a global level, your purpose is to carefully usher humanity through these trying times, as icecaps melt, Russia erupts into civil war, Japan becomes a swamp and – oh God, why is Africa on fire again?

How do you accomplish this feat of planetary redemption? Well, mostly you don’t, and the world burns. However, you can try – and you do this by deploying cards, before advancing five years and discovering that your good intentions caused children to die in their thousands. These cards are many and varied, and do such things as subsidise alternative fuels, defend against extreme weather and even violently oust hostile regimes. Bundled DLC campaigns, meanwhile, cleverly rejig the simulation to introduce refugee crises, or ignore climate change entirely, allowing you to focus on diminishing resources.

You also have to worry about the Human Development Index.

Human needs quickly crash into high-minded environmentalism. Put the brakes on polluting industries, and you economically annihilate the developing world. That’s a problem because, as a rule, people with dead babies don’t give a damn about carbon sequestration. In the end, all these cards can really do is feebly massage the model of planetary doom. You may reach the next century a little less dead than otherwise, but the game offers no silver bullet for these issues. This may be disheartening, but it’s also fascinating, complex and important.

However, take Tipping Point on its merits as a game rather than an interactive roadmap to selfextinction, and it has issues of its own. The initial release was too hard to ‘win’, said some players. Well, that’s accurate, said others. Tipping Point nonetheless introduces an easy mode – but that won’t help you understand how this web of stats is held together, and which cards pull which levers. UI changes make it slightly simpler to turf through the pages and pages of telemetry, but the game still struggles to underscore the interrelationships.

At its core is a comprehensive and convincingly bleak simulation of climate change. Dig in, and you’ll be rewarded with an understanding of the threat and the few small things we can do to mitigate it. Yet the desire to be a game often gets in the way of the raw data, and vice versa. In the end Fate is something of an ugly compromise – but given the choices we have to make as a species, maybe that’s only appropriate.

Marsh Davies

The Walking Dead trailer shows dead mostly standing still

Tribes: Ascend patch adds new capture the flag map, more servers and balance fixes

The latest patch for the Tribes: Ascend open beta adds a new capture the flag stage called Sunstar, set in an arid desert full of undulating dunes, perfect for a bit of sand surfing. The grim, volcanic Temple Ruins map has also been rearranged after feedback from fans and new European and Asian servers have been powered up to reduce server load and lag.

Tribes: Ascend will be officially out on April 12, but anyone can play the open beta right now. You can sign up and grab the client from the Tribes: Ascend site. Read on for new screenshots of Sunstar and the reworked Temple Ruins and the patch notes in full, which include bad news for Pathfinders who like to use Nitron grenades, and good news for Heavies who are sick of moving so damn slow all the time.

Major Highlights

• Sunstar, a new Capture the Flag map,has been added to the Quick Play rotation. Note that this map is not in its final design or art state.
• Temple Ruins, a Capture the Flag map, has been added back to the Quick Play rotation after significant revisions. Note that this map is not in its final design or art state.
• The European server region has been split into two regions in order for users to better select the region that gives them the best performance: Europe – London and Europe – Amsterdam.
• The Asia server region has been split into two regions in order for users to better select the region that gives them the best performance: Asia – Japan and Asia – Singapore.
• A variety of physics changes have been made in order to fix several issues impacting the fluidity of movement. This includes the elimination of several items that would cause deadstops and hitches, as well as a bug that would allow you to ski/jet along the boundary wall. Changes were also made in order to fix a few issues that would occur when traveling up steep hills. Additional improvements are planned for future releases.
• A variety of improvements to server performance have been implemented. Additional improvements are planned for future patches.
• Users may now choose to turn off unwanted HUD elements using the SETTINGS menu.
• Reticules and HUD icons have undergone a significant polish pass.
• User settings are now stored server-side. Settings may be reset as a result of this patch, but future patches should not have to reset bindings, etc.

Weapon/Balance Items

• The Impact Nitron grenade will force you to drop the flag if it is used for self-damage. (PC Gamer Pathfinder Chris Thursten: “Nyooooooo!”)
• Increased Heavy run speed by 20%. (PC Gamer Heavy, me: “Yeeeeeeeeees!”)
• Increased maximum reduction of weapon switch time on the Quick Draw perk from 20% to 50%.
• Modified inheritance on the Grenade Launcher (now 50%).
• The cost of the Tactical strike was increased to 4000 credits from 3500.

Additional Items

 
• While in a match, the Class Select screen provides an indication of how many of your teammates are currently playing each class.
• The new Purchase Vehicle menu now shows how many of each type of vehicles are currently spawned. The option to purchase a vehicle is locked when a max for that vehicle is reached in a match.
• New Features are showcased when entering the menus.
• Fixed an issue where throwing grenades or executing melee attacks in rapid succession could have the server and client get out of sync and animate strangely.
• If a player picks up a dropped ammo pickup while their current weapon has zero ammo, the weapon automatically reloads the new ammo into the clip.
• Made a variety of changes to weapon FX to help improve performance.
• Fixed issues with Quick Draw perk where the client was not scaling the putdown/retrieve animations correctly and where the server was not switching fast enough (and leading to some dry fires).
• A variety of UI-related bug fixes and improvements were implemented.
• Fixed a bug that that would cause occassional “dry fires” of weapon.
• Fixed a bug that would prevent you from adding or removing friends until you restarted the game client.
• Fixed a bug in which the client would lock up under extended packet loss.
• Fixed an issue in which information was not updating correctly on equipment page when scrolling perks.
• Variety of cleanups and bug fixes to the badges system, including some adjustments to XP rewards from badges.
• The end of match screen now highlights XP earned from badges during the match.
• Fixed an issue where the Pathfinder’s Light Assault Rifle would fire repeatedly in a training map.
• Fixed an issue where mine icons were disappearing.
• Added new effects to the Shrike.
• Fixed an issue where Supply Drops were able to be deployed on areas not intended.
• Fixed an issue where melee attacks were causing double damage in certain situations.
• Fixed an issue where melee sounds and effects were playing when no damage was done.
• Fixed an issue where the Beowulf gunner was able to fire faster than intended.
• Fixed an issue where firing and reloading a shotgun was allowing them to be fired faster than intended.
• Fixed an issue where zoom was not being re-enabled when a player was zoomed and a reload occurred.
• Fixed an issue where pushing someone to their death with Sonic Punch was not properly rewarding the kill.
• Fixed an issue where players were able to either stand on or hop over the boundary wall in some maps.
• Fixed an issue where the energy conduit in Nightabatic TDM did not extend all the way to the ground.
• Fixed several collision issues in Outskirts TDM
• Fixed an issue where friendly players and vehicles were taking damage from friendly turrets.
• Fixed an issue where entering a vehicle while firing a weapon would continuously fire that weapon in training and roaming maps.
• Fixed an issue where the fumbled flag post process effect wasn’t playing.
• Fixed an issue where friends on the enemy team were having their marker drawn over exceptionally long distances.
• Fixed an issue where player-owned deployables and projectiles were not being destroyed when becoming a spectator.
• When in-scope with the Sniper Rifles using the Sentinel Class, the targeting reticule no longer color shifts to red when hovering over enemy players. Although, the reticule does continue to turn green when hovering over friendly players.
• Fixed an issue where vehicle sounds would constantly play if you exited the Beowulf as the gunner while it was on fire.
• Fixed an issue where there could be two flag carriers on the same team in Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag.
• Fixed an issue where teams could be credited for multiple flag caps or a single flag cap if the flag carrier landed on the flag (either on-stand or out in the field) in a certain way with the Reach perk active.
• Fixed an issue where the call-in confirmation sound would play but the call-in wouldn’t activate.

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria PVP guide

The greater part of Mists of Pandaria is taken up with new ways to quest, collect and compete in the endgame. The expansion’s major additions for PVP players will be a single, as-yet-unseen new arena and two battlegrounds – Silvershard Mine and Temple of Kotmogu. Both introduce new objectives to competitive play that should add a touch of variety to your ganking sessions.

Organised teams have always done well in WoW’s battlegrounds, but the new rulesets make having a plan more important than ever. We’ve taken a deeper look at the new mechanics to figure out what effect they’ll have on the balance of World of Warcraft’s PVP, and how you should approach each new battleground when you get your hands on the expansion.

Silvershard Mine

 
The comparison that immediately springs to mind is Team Fortress 2’s payload mode, but Silvershard Mine doesn’t alternate between attack and defense. Instead, three carts move simultaneously from the centre of the map to depots that lie along its outer edges. Bunching up players around the cart captures it for your side, and being in control of a cart when it reaches a depot earns your team a point. It’s a ten-a-side match, and the first to three points wins.

The fact that everyone is scrambling for the same carts will make balancing offense and defence the key to success, with a little room for flexibility. Against an aggressive enemy, locking down one cart and harassing the remaining two may be preferable to trying to defend too much and losing everything.

Then there are other complicating factors. Being able to switch carts between tracks makes for interesting tactical decisions. Losing hold of a cart? Switch it on to a longer route and abandon it entirely. Confident that you’ve got everything locked down? Send a vanguard to make sure the enemy can’t derail you.

Of course, it doesn’t matter who does the pushing as long as you’re the team in control when the cart finally reaches a depot. As Josh points out, this is the ideal time for last minute switch-arounds and victories seized from the jaws of defeat. What’s exciting about Silvershard Mine is the potential for all of these mechanics to suddenly shift the balance of power: teams will need to be adaptable to successfully respond to the array of things that can suddenly go wrong (or right.)

Having a mobile objective should prevent Silvershard Mine from descending into a standoff in the same way that Arathi Basin and Battle for Gilneas can – after all, it worked for Team Fortress 2.
 

Temple of Kotmogu

 
The first Pandarian battleground is a different matter. In Temple of Kotmogu, both teams fight over an artifact that makes a single player bigger and more powerful while also increasingly reducing their damage resistance over time. As long as they retain control of the artifact, their team gains points, with bonuses based on where in the map you choose to make your stand.

Taking up arms in the exposed central courtyard earns five points, while holding the more sheltered plaza and temple grounds earns three points and one point respectively. Unlike Silvershard mine, teams will be on the offensive most of the time – either to capture the artifact, or reduce the enemy’s ability to fight back. Trying to hide is unlikely to be effective: the carrier is huge, after all, and the rectangular arena provides fairly open lines of sight.

It’ll therefore be important for players to balance the risk and reward of going all out on the offensive and trying to hold the middle ground versus taking a more moderate approach. Nominating a player to carry the artifact will also be a crucial decision: do you pass it off to a warrior in an attempt to mitigate the defense debuff, or do you ignore it entirely and create a super-powered mage who is even more of a glass cannon than usual?

Like Silvershard Mine, The Temple of Kotmogu is currently slated to be a 10 vs 10 battleground. By focusing attention on a single player, individual skill and tight group coordination will be more important than ever. Hopefully, this will highlight the strengths of WoW’s complex class and build system – but it could also exacerbate the effect of any imbalances. With many classes receiving a substantial rethink in Mists of Pandaria, it’s an issue worth paying close attention to.

Blizzard “very happy” with subscription model, say free to play can “burn out” players

When Blizzard announced that they were ditching the talent tree system from World of Warcraft, they proved that there was no aspect of the MMORPG that they weren’t willing to shine a critical light on. Talent trees were one of WoW’s great innovations, and a model that has been borrowed wholesale by almost every game to chase WoW’s crown – but even then they weren’t safe from the march of progress.

Yet in other areas, Blizzard have been accused of falling behind the times. Traditional subscription-based MMOs are in decline, with the majority of the old guard gradually transitioning to a free to play model that has proven itself, and no longer necessarily indicates a game in desperate straits. We asked game producer John Lagrave whether WoW’s payment system was next under the microscope.

“We’re very happy with the sub model – it works very well for us for various reasons. You churn through a lot of content very quickly on a paid-for game, and we think we offer great value in all the content we have for the player. If we went to a [free to play] model, do you make a ton more money? Maybe. Do you burn out players? Probably. I’m not saying we’re never going to go to free to play, we do that with the trial right now, but we’re really happy with the subscription model. We’re doing very well.”

This comes as Mists of Pandaria introduces features to WoW that’d be ideal hooks for microtransactions. Pets are among WoW’s existing premium items, and the ones you buy will be just as useful in pet battling as the ones you capture in the wild. The new Harvest Moon-style farming minigame being introduced to Pandaria’s Valley of the Four Winds zone also bears a passing resemblance to another incredibly successful online farming game. Lagrave dismisses the idea of taking WoW in this direction, but does acknowledge the comparison. “If we were to add Farmville to WoW, we’d make it awesome.”