Author - Jerry Paxton

Airsoft for Gamers #2: Combat Basics

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In this second part in our Airsoft for Gamers column, we are talking about “combat basics” . It’s not enough just to pick up an AEG and run around the field like a madman. That’s a sure-fire way to call yourself out in seconds once the match begins. Much like with actual firearms, the side adopting an unorganized, “run and gun” behavior is often quickly defeated by a well-organized and prepared opposing team.

Basic Concepts

Safety

  1. Always wear your helmet, pads, protection at all times
    1. If you have a malfunction with a piece of safety equipment, do not attempt to remove it. Immediately call for a referee and get escorted off the field
  2. Assume all weapons are “hot” (i.e. Ready to fire) at all times
    1. Never point your weapon at something you are not prepared to hurt or destroy
  3. Practice proper muzzle discipline
    1. Always avoid putting moving your muzzle in a position where it can fire at an unwanted target (i.e. A “friendly” or bystander)
  4. Practice proper trigger discipline
    1. Only place your finger on the trigger when you are prepared to shoot your gun
  5. Do not participate in Airsoft if under the influence of any drugs, alcohol, or controlled substances
  6. Practice proper gun and equipment maintenance before you step food onto the Airsoft field
    1. Poorly maintained weapons and equipment can fail

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Destiny Character Development GDC Assets

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While at the 2013 GDC in San Francisco, Bungie revealed more about their upcoming game, Destiny. Specifically, talking about its character and art design. Checkout their presentation video and new concept art below.

Video

New Concept Art

Razer Edge will Feature Steam Integration

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SAN FRANCISCO (Game Developers Conference) – March 28, 2013 – Razer™, the world leader in high-performance gaming hardware, software and systems announced today that the Razer Edge Gaming Tablet will soon come preinstalled with Steam software.

The Razer Edge tablet will come with Valve’s industry-leading software, enabling gamers around the world to launch their games more quickly. The Edge is optimized for demanding gameplay and, through its mobile console and home console modes, it works seamlessly with Steam Big Picture.

“Razer has one mission in mind: to innovate for PC gamers worldwide,” says Min-Liang Tan, co-founder, Razer CEO and creative director. “Providing users with access to Steam will enable Razer Edge users to play their favorite games with greater ease than ever before.”

Steam is a leading platform for the delivery and management of PC and Mac games and digital entertainment, with more than 40 million accounts around the world and more than 2,000 titles offered.

“The Razer Edge has more than enough power to play the latest and greatest Steam titles and it is completely built with PC gamers in mind,” says Greg Coomer, product designer at Valve. “The tablet is a great way to experience everything Steam has to offer, including Big Picture mode.”

CCP Games Will Live Stream EVE Fanfest 2013

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REYKJAVIK, ICELAND —Mar 28, 2013— CCP Games, the world’s leading independent massively multiplayer game developer, has announced live streaming options for its sold-out, annual fan celebration EVE Fanfest (April 25-27). Each year, thousands of EVE Online® and DUST 514® players from around the world travel to CCP’s headquarters in Reykjavik, Iceland for several days of celebration of the EVE Universe.

CCP will be live streaming EVE Fanfest in standard definition for free on their Twitch.TV channel (www.twitch.tv/ccp) and in HD for a one-time fee of $19.95 USD or one PLEX (which can be obtained on the EVE Online in-game market). Viewers will get the latest announcements from CCP, panels, presentations, PvP tournament coverage from both EVE and DUST and the famous Party at the Top of the World amongst other unannounced events. All programming is highly produced and includes commentary and interviews from developers and players in the true EVE community spirit.

The EVE Fanfest high definition stream includes:

  • Three full days of high definition programming live from Fanfest
  • Access to the HD stream of a series of live pre-Fanfest interviews with CCP developers. Schedule: http://www.twitch.tv/ccp
  • A digital copy of the Fanfest “Quafe” Tshirt for EVE Online, which matches the shirt attendees receive
  • A choice of one of five pirate faction rookie ships for EVE Online: the Angel Cartel Echo, Blood Raider Hematos, Dread Guristas Taipan, Sansha’s Nation Immolator or Serpentis Violator
  • Fifty copies of the Quafe Scout vk.0 dropsuit for DUST 514—a flashy and effective dropsuit for confident mercenaries

While the HD stream can be purchased through CCP or Twitch.TV, only viewers purchasing the stream through CCP’s EVE Online account management system at https://secure.eveonline.com/fanfest/stream.aspx will receive the in-game promo items.

This year CCP will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of EVE Online with a “Second Decade” theme, focusing on the wealth of stories and successes of the first ten years of EVE and its year-on-year subscriber growth. CCP will also look forward to the next ten years of EVE and DUST with reveals, announcements, demonstrations and parties.
More about EVE Fanfest: http://fanfest.eveonline.com
More HD Stream Details: http://fanfest.eveonline.com/HDstream

New Wargame AirLand Battle Screenshots

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Eugen Systems and Focus Home Interactive have released some new screenshots from their upcoming Wargame AirLand Battle, which is currently in the first phase of beta testing.

Screenshots

Portalarium Expands its Crowd Funding Campaign for Shroud of the Avatar to Include PayPal

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AUSTIN, Texas, March 28, 2013 — Portalarium announced today that it is now accepting PayPal as a method of payment for the Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues crowd funding campaign. The PayPal option is available on the Shroud of the Avatar site located at http://www.ShroudoftheAvatar.com. Shroud of the Avatar is the fantasy role-playing game (RPG) currently under development by the Austin-based studio led by legendary computer game developer, Richard Garriott. Garriott is best-known for his top-selling Ultima series of computer RPGs.

Portalarium launched its crowd funding campaign for Shroud of the Avatar March 8 on Kickstarter. The program reached its announced funding goal of one million dollars in 10 days. To date the Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter has more than $1,209,000 raised by nearly 17-thousand backers.

“Providing a PayPal option for our fans opens up our crowd funding to a broader audience,” said Garriott. “Kickstarter is not as familiar to people outside the United States, but with this addition our fans in places like Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Japan now have a more convenient option to back our project. And on our Shroud of the Avatar site, we have the same funding tiers as the Kickstarter site plus a few additional items.”

In recent days the Shroud of the Avatar team has made several exciting announcements including news that New York Times best-selling author Tracy Hickman is joining the team as lead story designer. In addition the team has announced its first stretch goals including an animal taming system, seasonal weather and interactive music instruments in the game.

Shroud of the Avatar is expected to launch in 2014. For more information on the game and to become a backer of the project go to www.ShroudoftheAvatar.com (PayPal accepted) or visit the official Kickstarter page athttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/portalarium/shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues-0.

Divinity: Original Sin Now on Kickstarter

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Gent,  March 27, 2013 – Larian Studios announces the launch of a Kickstarter campaign to enhance the development of Divinity: Original Sin; a turn-based, open-world RPG featuring single-player and cooperative gameplay in which the actions and choices of players have true significance and consequences.

The Divinity: Original Sin Kickstarter campaign is live at:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/larianstudios/divinity-original-sin

Turning to Kickstarter is all about making our game as good as possible for our fans and allowing us to create the experience that we’ve always imagined,” says Larian Studios founder, Swen Vincke. “There’s a lot of potential in the game systems we’ve created so far, so we want to invest everything we can into pushing them further and unlocking their full potential. If we get the extra support from our fans now, I’m very confident that we’ll be able to make something truly exceptional. ”

With the funds raised through Kickstarter, Larian Studios wishes to expand its team to create more depth and diversity in Divinity: Original Sin. This includes more areas to explore, more character interactions, more quests with consequences, and increased options for character-building. In addition to releases of the final game, backers have opportunities to receive everything from special in-game items to roles within the game.

Key Features

  • Class-free Progression – Choose skills, abilities, and gear to create ‘your’ character.
  • Cooperative – Drop-in/drop-out cooperative multiplayer with full-featured gameplay for both players. From questing to making important choices in dialogue, each player guides the course of the game.
  • Skill and Spell Combos – A block of ice can be melted with fire, turned into a lethal pool of electricity, and refrozen into a slippery trap. This is one example of the many interactions possible.
  • Meaningful Dialogue – For better or worse, your conversations have actual and noticeable impacts in the game-world. When playing cooperatively, both players have a say in the outcome.
  • Open-world Gameplay – No artificial constraints to keep players from exploring the world or level-scaling to coddle you. If you are too weak for an area, you will quickly learn your lesson.
  • Editor – Full suite of editing tools – the same used by the developers – to create completely new environments and adventures.

Paradox Announces Paradox Books Initiative

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NEW YORK – March 27th –  Paradox Interactive, the global PC strategy games publisher behind critically acclaimed games Crusader Kings IIWar of the Roses and Magicka, today announced they are branching out to book publishing with a new e-book initiative called “Paradox Books”.

“We’ve spent more than a decade creating and telling compelling stories through our computer games, stories that have engaged and captivated people from all parts of the globe, and books are just another medium to get those stories out there and engage with our audience,” said Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive. “Add to that the fact that our company was founded on pen and paper role-playing games and books, and that we have several published authors amongst our ranks here at Paradox, so this felt like a very natural progression for us.”

Three books will be available under Paradox Books initially, and several more have been signed and will be distributed later in the year. The books will broach everything from biographical behind the scenes books to game strategy guides to fiction and novels. The inaugural round of books to be made available will include:

mojang“A Year with Mojang: Behind the Scenes of Minecraft”
Author: Tomas Arnroth
Type: Behind the scenes, Biography

With over 20 million copies of Minecraft sold, the book that brings you behind the scenes with Markus “Notch” Persson, the creator behind the wildly successful game, and his studio Mojang is finally out.
Seasoned Swedish gaming journalist, Thomas Arnroth, spent 2012 following Markus Persson, Jens Bergensten, Carl Manneh and the others at Mojang and the result is a personal and entertaining account of the phenomenon Minecraft, its creators and the games that are changing the world.

hoi3“The Communist Campaign in Karelia – A Hearts of Iron III Strategy Guide”
Author: Jason Pitruzzello
Type: Narrative Strategy Guide

This Narrative Strategy Guide for Hearts of Iron III follows the tradition of Paradox’s community of fans and teaches gameplay while telling a story, rather than a dry recitation of facts and figures. Instead of just lightly touching upon all topics, the guide has focused on the most important aspect of the game: land combat. Since land combat is so critical to the national survival of France, Germany, the Soviet Union, China, and Japan, this is the most crucial skill to master in the game. World War II is not very forgiving to any nation that cannot find victory on land. This Narrative Strategy Guide is the perfect complement to new and seasoned armchair generals alike.

coriolis“Coriolis”
Author: Mattias Lilja
Type:Hard-boiled Crime Noir

The orbital station Coriolis is at the crossroads of space and everything good, bad and ugly in the Third Horizon sooner or later ends up here. It’s here that a young pathfinder comes to seek the father she’s never meet. It’s where a courtesan realizes he cannot escape the sins of his past, and where a crooked guardsman finds out how hard it is to get dirt off his fingers by washing them in blood. The fates of these three get intertwined as old enemies seek new ways to hurt each other. And, as so often before on Coriolis, it all starts with a corpse.