Monthly Archives: May 2016
IGN UK Podcast #331 – Game of Thrones: A Thief’s Rear End
We're bang into Uncharted 4, not least because it makes our consoles sound like terrifying spaceships by putting them under way too much performance strain. Plus: Green Room might be Gav's film of the year, Overwatch might be Joe's game of the year and Game of Thrones doesn't make Alex quite as sad anymore. Positivity abounds!
And if that wasn't enough, this week sees the return of the greatest feature of all time, Keyword Countdown. And we're not just saying that because Joe's writing this story.
How Firaxis Will Redefine Civilization’s Art Style in Civ 6
A new Civilization game demands a new art style. Civilization 6’s Art Director Brian Busatti, a Firaxis veteran who worked on both Civ 4 and Civ 5, told IGN how he settled on a new visual direction for this October’s huge turn-based strategy game.
“When we went into this, we looked into how people play the game,” says Busatti. He and his team combed through as many community screenshots of Civilization 4 and 5 as they could find, and the results taught them some important lessons. “Typically in a Civ game you want to see the world as a whole, so you’re pulling out a lot. That doesn’t mean people don’t zoom in, but for the most part. Some people even zoom all the way out and play in tactical mode.”
Jessica Jones Season 2 Will Explore Supporting Characters
Season 2 of Marvel's Jessica Jones won't rely entirely on Krysten Ritter's character, showrunner Melissa Rosenberg revealed.
Rosenberg and her crew spent a lot of time in the first season fleshing out the secondary characters—like Trish Walker and Will Simpson—so they'd be able to carry their own stories in Season 2.
Marvel's Jessica Jones had to "earn" its secondary character stories, Rosenberg told Nerdist. "That's the trick of a show called Jessica Jones," especially in the first season, she said. "If she's not in the scene, it's not a guarantee that scene will end up in the final picture."
Overwatch to Permanently Ban Cheaters On First Offence
Blizzard will permanently ban any player found cheating in Overwatch - on their first offence.
Announced in a post about cheating on the Overwatch forums, the policy will be to slap a ban on any player "found to be cheating—or using hacks, bots, or third-party software that provides any sort of unfair advantage".
The post goes onto inform players how they can report cheating, and guidelines for doing so.
Blizzard has previous here - in 2012, it permanently banned cheaters in Diablo, and temporarily banned thousands of Hearthstone players found to be "botting" in Hearthstone in 2014.
ESL Launches Major New Esports Association
The World Esports Association (WESA) was announced today, a joint esports association partnership between several top tier European teams and ESL, the biggest provider of esports content worldwide. WESA is responsible for standardizing esports schedules and rules, offering profit sharing to teams involved, and creating a Player's Council to voice concerns on behalf of esports competitors.
Teams involved are Fnatic, G2, Faze, Virtus Pro, Natus Vincere, EnVyUs, Mous, and Ninjas in Pyjamas. WESA has announced that they’re looking for further teams to become part of this organization and have begun talking to several organizations in North America to expand outside of Europe.
Why the WESA is the Best Thing to Happen to Esports
Esports tournaments need to consolidate. Apart from the League of Legends scene, esports games have disorganized competitive scenes spanning dozens of small leagues with hundreds of teams competing for attention. Just tune in to Twitch.tv any day, and you’ll see CS:GO players competing in one of dozens of major competitions, from FaceIt’s Esports Championship Series, to the ESL Pro League, to ELEAGUE, to more. In the case of CS:GO, high profile players are starting to burn out, often skipping major tournaments and matches due to injury and fatigue. In the past, there was no real solution. Players would simply sit out matches when they were tired or injured. Some continued to try and play every single match. Players complained of the lack of practice time, that they’re expected to perform in high level online matches just hours after getting off a plane from a major event. But they have never had a real, official voice and representation in esports leagues. 
Players have tried, albeit mostly unsuccessfully, to unofficially unionize in the past, making their collective demands known to teams. But there has never been an organization dedicated to bringing together team, player, and league interests into one overarching organization to try and standardize rules and competitions. Until now. ESL, the world’s largest esports content provider, just announced the World Esports Association, or WESA for short. This is a shot at creating a real association in the world of esports with profit sharing for teams and a player-elected Player’s Council that sits on the board to advocate collective player concerns. Traditionally, any move to professionalize or standardize the esports scene has been met with great resistance. Arguments usually come in the form of, “Hey, you’re forcing out competition by agreeing to rev share with major teams!” Or, “Oh man these teams are just money grubbers who are corporatizing esports!" Truth is, none of that is going on. LCS is what’s going on. LCS was just the first. When Riot created their LCS, the same complaints were heard, that no good could come from this, that League of Legends is being shut down.. But here’s the reality: No investor in the world would take a bet with major money on an organization that doesn’t have stability. Ever wondered why an investment group put $100 million into a brand new team like Immortals? Because they knew that the LCS represented stability, predictability of scheduling, strong broadcasting credentials, and consistency of payments to organizations to fund teams. CS:GO has none of that. Why do you think that Turner is creating their ELEAGUE, or ESL wants to push for this? It’s because these are the platforms that create the opportunity for that level of investment. Rick Fox, actor, producer, and former LA Lakers player, created the Echo Fox squad as an LCS squad first. That’s not a coincidence. 
If you prefer to watch new CS:GO matches around the clock, that’s great, but it’s not sustainable. And for me, as a fan, I’m MUCH happier waiting each week for key LCS matchups where I’m guaranteed to see the best players in the world. Every time I tune in to Fnatic playing CS:GO, and the commentators say, “Well, best player in the world Olofmeister is fatigued, so Fnatic is subbing someone in,” I die a little inside. In every traditional team sport, an association is created that gives teams profit sharing, gives a voice to players, and locks down rules and regulations so they can be standardized across that game’s competition. WESA is no different. This is not too early for esports. This is not going to kill the game. This is how esports keeps growing.
Pacific Rim 2 Adds Jurassic World Writer
Jurassic World co-writer Derek Connolly has signed on to Pacific Rim 2, the sequel to Guillermo del Toro's monsters vs. mecha film.
His exact involvement is unknown at this point, as drafts have already been penned by del Toro, X-Men: The Last Stand writer Zak Penn, and Prometheus scribe Jon Spaihts. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it's unclear whether he's working on a "page-one rewrite or developing certain story ideas."
Daredevil season one showrunner Steven S. DeKnight replaced del Toro as director for Pacific Rim 2, though del Toro is still set to produce. Jurassic World producer Thomas Tull, Pacific Rim producer Mary Parent, and Godzilla producer Jon Jashni will join del Toro.
How Will DC Rebirth Change Wonder Woman?
We're only a couple weeks away from the start of the DC Rebirth relaunch, and perhaps no new series is more anticipated than the Wonder Woman relaunch. This series will mark writer Greg Rucka's return to DC after a several year absence, and his second stint on an ongoing Wonder Woman comic. Along with artists Liam Sharp and Nicola Scott, Rucka will weave a two-pronged storyline that promises to redefine Diana prince's origins and her current place in the DC Universe.
We were lucky enough to chat on the phone with all three creators this week. They shed more light on what the future holds for Wonder Woman, what role the Greek gods will play and how the two halves of the story will intersect in the months ahead. Scroll down to find out what they had to say.
Marvel’s Darth Vader Comic Will End Soon
Marvel’s Star Wars: Darth Vader ongoing comic series by writer Kieron Gillen and artist Salvador Larroca will be ending with August’s Issue #25.
Darth Vader’s solo series is one of three ongoing Star Wars comics -- the other two being Star Wars and Poe Dameron -- but now Gillen and Larroca are wrapping up their story that began just after A New Hope with Vader being held responsible for the destruction of the first Death Star, and will now end with him finding a way to regain his power, not to mention his good standing with the Emperor. The current, and now final, story arc is titled “End of Games,” so it's a wonder we didn't see this coming (the Dark Side clouds our vision, after all).
PS4 Neo to be Released by September, Says Report
A French video games distributor appears to have revealed that the rumoured PS4 mid-generation upgrade will be released by September.
In a press release posted on Boursier (reported by Otaxou and translated by VideoGamer), Innelec Multimedia states that what it calls the Neo 4K (lining up with previous reports about the console's codename) will be released in "the first half of our fiscal year" - that's a date range of April-September 2016.