The release of Ossian Studio’s Mysteries of Westgate draws near. WarCry has published the highlights of the recent Press Event on the Neverwinter Nights 2 Adventure Pack.
The big news is that players will finally be able to grab MoW in June. The mod has been finished since September, but waiting for Atari to complete the new secure authentication system. The system will be released to NWN 2 players with the v1.13 patch and MoW should be available shortly after.
Atari has unveiled a new trailer for their upcoming Alone in the Dark game. This new video reveals that Edward Carnby isn’t the only human being that will show up in the game and that there’s actually some big supernatural conspiracy going on (duh). It also kind of hints at why Edward looks so young when –following the series’ timeline of events — he should be in his 80’s by the present day. The gameplay still looks downright awesome though, especially when something is lit on fire.
The Wiki on the D’Jinni adventure editor for CD Projekt RD’s The Witcher is up. The site features FAQs on everything from the basics to more difficult scripting options. Players also have access to the D’jinni forums where they can pose more specific questions and the Adventures Publishing Page when they perfect the next epic tale of Geralt.
The site will also host the occasional “how to video”. Here’s current offering on the D’jinni Adventure Editor:
I don’t really want to go back and actually give you a hard number on how many times we (or any other outlet) have reported about Atari being threatened with delistment by NASDAQ. Trust me, it’s been quite a few, as this has been brewing for what feels like years. But the Infogrames subsidiary has finally seen itself delisted from the NASDAQ Global Market, which suspends trading of the company’s shares.
Atari plans on requesting a review, according to GI.biz, which could potentially allow for Atari stock to be traded even if the suspension is not ended. The company is expecting to be quoted on the Pink Sheets, which allows for companies that have been delisted to continue trading.
We know that Infogrames has big plans for Atari — or at least the Atari name. How this will affect those plans remains to be seen, but this certainly isn’t going to help the situation for Phil Harrison and company.
CD Projekt RED has announced that the public debut of The Witcher Duelmail has been delayed. Fortunately the delay is supposedly only a few days unlike the huge delay for The Witcher Special Edition from May to August or September.
The team said the decision to delay was based on beta test player feed back. The flash developer one2tribe will be doing further polishing of the balance, items and animation of the game.
Personally I’d rather wait a little longer for the company to get it right, than be frustrated waiting for a patch to fix it. The launch date will be announced next week. In the meantime, beta testing goes on.
CD Projekt Red has announced that it ’s had to reschedule the release of The Witcher Enhanced Edition. The company is strive for a worldwide simultaneous release of the game. However, the deadline has been lost in translation as developers work to rewrite over 5000 lines of the script and re-record voices for the English translation. The German translation has also received an overhaul and is being retrofitted with new voice-overs.
In addition to the changes in language, players can expect improvements on the stability of the game on various operating systems, as much as an 80% reduction in loading times and improvements to enhance fighting precision. All these enhancements will be available along with the Djinni Adventure Editor as free DLC for those who already own the game and don’t want the goodies that come with the bundle.
Supposedly, Atari has stated that the demo for Alone in the Dark will only be made available for the Xbox 360. While this seems a little strange, they have apparently confirmed this with CVG.
“No demos have been confirmed for other platforms”, an Atari rep told CVG this morning.
The Xbox 360 Alone in the Dark demo will be released around the same time as the game on June 20th, but anything else regarding the game after that date is being kept quite for the time being. The PC, PS2 and Wii versions will also launch on June 20th with the PS3 version coming later in the year.
It seems like PS3 users are always getting the shaft.
As a fan of now defunct Troika’s Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines game, this short piece of fiction based on the game caught my interest.
“Heather and Me” is the story of of how the best of intentions can go a stray. The piece is inspired by a side story within the game that touched the author.
“Power Corrupts” has never been true. In my experience, Power Seduces. “Corrupt” implies it’s akin to sprinkling a little shit in an otherwise immaculate meal. The problem with power is that it just makes everything better. And when someone’s staring up at you, saying you’re the best person in the world and they’d do anything - anything - you ask, could you say no?
It’s a decent piece of fan fiction and worth the read for Bloodlines fans. Check it out on Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
What sounds like a pretty good XBLA Wednesday actually isn’t quite as impressive upon further inspection. Sure, I loved playing Battlezone on my PC all those years ago, but how well has that game really held up? Is online play and Xbox Live Vision camera support really enough to justify 400 Microsoft Points, or $5? That seems like a question worth contemplating before you eagerly head onto the Xbox Live Marketplace today.
As for Rocky and Bullwinkle, which looks really nice with its Alien Hominid style graphics, the game is just a minigame compilation. (The press release actually calls them micro-games, so are they even less substantial than minigames?) This game, too, offers Vision cam support, only in this case it uses it as a means for playing 25 of the included 100 micro-games. Hopefully it works a little better than TotemBall.
Am I being overly cynical on this week’s offerings? Maybe. But after playing a ton of PSN’s downloadable games with my new DualShock, it’s hard to thing highly of Rocky and Bullwinkle when the other hand gets Super Stardust and Pain.
David Gardner, CEO of Infogrames, has been working hard on transforming his company, with the help of president Phil Harrison. Among the list of changes the two are contemplating, dropping the name of Infogrames for Atari is a tempting proposition.
“I’d like to consider that, I think that would be the final mark of the transformation from Infogrames to Atari,” said Gardner. “We have a new board of directors, a new management team that’s less than a year old - so yes, it’s really continuing.
“We like to think of Infogrames, instead of being the tired, old company, we like to think of it as the best-funded, best-branded, most energetic start-up in the history of computer gaming.”
While I think a move to the Atari name would be refreshing for Infogrames internally, I don’t know anyone who would characterize Atari as being the best branded, best funded, or anything else of the sort.
Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Harrison explained that he and Gardner had been brainstorming ideas for a new company. When the opportunity to take over Infogrames presented itself, it fulfilled everything the two wanted.
“We had a very interesting series of dreams, of discussions, about if we were to create a company, what kind of company would it be, and what direction would it be headed in,” he said. “We got quite a long way down that path, and then, out of leftfield, this opportunity came along.
“When we were evaluating it, we thought about what we would want from a successful company. You’d want people, products, you’d want revenue and cashflow. You’d want some infrastructure, some offices around the world, and it’d be great to have a brand that was a global brand.
“And I tell you, that was the hardest thing when I was trying to brainstorm this, when I was trying to come up with a brand that we could use worldwide - every time I came up with a new name for a games company, I’d Google it and find that somebody had already taken it.
“So when we were looking at what we’d need to create a successful company, and then we evaluated what Infogrames has, it ticked all the boxes.”
Apparently a history of threats to have its most valuable asset delisted from NASDAQ wasn’t one of those boxes.
CD Projekt Red has released eagerly awaited new content for The Witcher; Djinni beta adventure editor, the Price of Neutrality and patch 1.3. The downloads are large and will require a little patience for players with slower download rates. Price of Neutrality is the first official adventure for The Witcher.
CD Projekt Red has also released a trailer on the Djinni tool set, which is part showcase and part tutorial. The company recommends players view it before diving straight into Djinni. It also suggests checking out the Official D’jinni Wiki.
Infogrames expects to sell 2-3 million units of Alone in the Dark and is hoping that the game will boost the company’s revenue for the fiscal year. Chief Executive David Gardner has stated that his top priority was for Infogrames to break even instead of continuing to loose money.
Alone in the Dark will be available for the PC, PS2, Xbox 360 and Wii on June 24th (PS3 later in the year) and Gardner expects to see the game pull the company out of the red during the game’s life span:
“Over the life of the product in this business year across platforms we are expecting between 2 and 3 million units.”
Thats a tall order, but here’s hoping that the game does indeed help the company out - providing it is everything it is being hyped up to be.
Word is out that CD Project Red has released its new The Witcher: DuelMail game to open beta. The closed beta was a lot of fun so I recommend getting in on the open beta testing. You do have to have Flash installed on your PC to play. For more information on The Witcher: DuelMail flash game check out Gaming Today’s previous coverage of the game featuring information directly from the blog of Tom Ohle, CD Project Red VP of PR and Marketing for North America & UK. The Witcher: Duel Mail will be released May 9.
In addition to playing with the new game, fans should also stop by the The Witcher website to pick up the new 1.2a patch. It fixes a few issues with version 1.2, and should tide you over until version 1.3 and Djinni are released.
There’s a great article up on Hooked Gamer on RPG Inflation. The author isn’t referring to the price of games but to the tendency of RPG to level characters up ever more quickly. It’s hard to swallow a character, even a prodigy with a destiny, rising from rudimentary skills to god like powers in a few day’s time.
The are RPGs that manage to pull this off, such as The Witcher and Lost Odyssey, where the main character has suffered a trauma and is basically relearning or remembering skills he once possessed. In other games, the character leveling doesn’t just break suspension of disbelief, it shatters it completely.
The author suggests that characters need to be more human so that players can relate more to them and imagine themselves as their fantasy avatar.
Be thankful that in Real Life, henchmen can be counted on to look out for their own self-interests when the chips are down, otherwise we would most definitely need that Champion of the Empire hero to sally forth on our behalf — and in Real Life, such heroes do NOT exist.
And that, I guess is my ultimate point: at least try to make even fantasy games to have a passing relationship to Reality. Yeah, we all groove on the sense of accomplishment as our characters rack up the experience points. But when we’re dealing with these massively inflated numbers, the chasm between Me and Fantastic Me goes from the Grand Canyon to that void between galaxies. That is, I identify much, much more with a character that could be _me_ if I shed a few pounds, improved my reaction time somewhat, developed a comprehensive database of general knowledge, etc. Make THAT character succeed, and I go “YEAH!” But when my character is just short of godhood and he succeeds, I go, “Ho hum. Wonder what game I’ll play next.”
This is one gamer’s opinion. I’m sure not all of us agree on this. I find more satisfaction from a game when I get more than just tallies of total kills. I like characters that are fallible and have something to fight for other than destiny. However, I also play to take a well deserved break from reality so don’t make them too much like a day at the office.
Apparently the reason that Atari kept changing the release date for Alone in the Dark was to give gamers a more polished gaming experience and you can’t really argue with such a reason. Take heart though, because Atari confirmed this morning that Alone in the Dark will hit North America on June 24 and Europe on June 20.According to an Atari representative:
“The game has been delayed to allow Eden Games to polish the game to an even higher standard. We want to deliver the best possible experience to gamer, because we have a remarkable product. We’ve been getting an incredible response from the people that have seen it in demos. We’ll soon be supplying code to the market.”
Granted, PS3 owners will still have to wait until later this year without any set time frame at this point, but PC, PS2, Xbox 360 and Wii users can start to finally get excited about it. Hooray!
With the potential acquisition of the company by Infogrames a strong possibility, Atari has named Jim Wilson its new CEO and president, effective immediately. His duties had been held by a restructuring officer since previous CEO David Pierce announced his resignation late last year.
Wilson has previously worked in executive management with a number of companies, including The Walt Disney Company, Vivendi Universal Games, Universal Interactive Studios and Sony Wonder/Sony BMG, according to GamesIndustry.biz.
“Atari Inc, with its world-renowned brand and strong library of game franchises, has a tremendous opportunity in North America,” said Wilson.
“I look forward to working with the Atari team and shareholders to lead Atari, Inc. into its next phase of growth.”
It’s unclear what sort of impact this will have or if this is a sign as to whether Atari will accept or dismiss Infogrames proposal to fully acquire any outstanding Atari stock. After being threatened once again with a delisting from NASDAQ, it seems like the Infogrames offer is the best option available for Atari.
Those gamers looking forward to getting the D’jinni tool set and patch 1.3 for The Witcher are in for a disappointment. CD Projekt Red has announced that both D’jinni and the patch have been delayed due to localization issues. However they promise that D’jinni, a new adventure and the patch will be released simultaniously in a few more days.
In my opinion the apology is considerate but unnecessary. So it will be a few more days… no big deal. I’d rather have content that actually works than something that’s buggy because the company rushed to meet a deadline.
I don’t know how one can unveil a teaser trailer after showing off most of the gameplay mechanics for a title already, but that’s just what Atari is doing anyway. This new Alone in the Dark trailer doesn’t reveal much about the upcoming game except that it will more than likely make you jump in your seat numerous times. I have to hand it to the folks over at Eden Studios: they’ve certainly got the whole creepy “what on Earth is going on?” feel. Let’s just hope the gameplay is up to snuff as well.
Rob McGinnis is back on the Obsidian Neverwinter Nights 2 developer blog with his regular updates. This issue details some of the bits and pieces of the NWN2 1.13 patch. Details include:
The toolset and game will load haks in the same order
Ability to tint multiple tiles while multi-selected
Allow GetNextItemInInventory to work with stores
The dm_setfaction command will no longer cause servers to crash
Light and sound sphere sizes will be correct in the toolset
Add get and set functions to access the ItemPropertyActivationPreference flag on items
The Chat channel selected will remain persistent through area and module transitions
Skills.2da will now allow up to 100 rows of data
Rob also has some information on the digital copy protection/authentication scheme Atari is using for the upcoming Mysteries of Westgate digital adventure, a spotlight on two community works: A Unicorn Model and Pirate hooks, as well as an update bit on the NWN2 Area Design contest.
I don’t know about about you but I could do with a few hook handed pirates in my NWN 2 modules.
CD Projekt RED’s Michal Medej, the game’s Chief Designer took time to do an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun on The Witcher and changes involved in the upcoming new Enhanced Edition.
The biggest problem for most of the English speaking players was the dialog. It was terse and often left out descriptive or character building content. Medej explains the assumption that lead to not having enough time to polish the English dialog as well as having to shorten it by nearly 30%. The Enhanced Edition will have a reworked English dialog that has been polished and has by redone with new voice overs.
Medej also talks about staying true to the spirit of Sapkowski’s books by including erotic encounters and the Polish culture. He also tips his hat to D&D co-creator, Gary Gygax.
I think we were the second cRPG web site that published news about his death, which proves he was really important for most people in the team. I’m completely sure that there wouldn’t be The Witcher without this guy, as even Sapkowski knows and played D&D. Even if you find many of The Witcher elements to be anti-Gygaxian, still we are just mere evolution of what he started.
I don’t really want to go back and actually give you a hard number on how many times we (or any other outlet) have reported about Atari being threatened with delistment by NASDAQ. Trust me, it’s been quite a few, as this has been brewing for what feels like years. But the Infogrames subsidiary has finally seen itself delisted from the NASDAQ Global Market, which suspends trading of the company’s shares.
Supposedly, Atari has stated that the demo for 
David Gardner, CEO of Infogrames, has been working hard on transforming his company, with the help of president Phil Harrison. Among the list of changes the two are contemplating, dropping the name of Infogrames for Atari is a tempting proposition.
Infogrames expects to sell 2-3 million units of Alone in the Dark and is hoping that the game will boost the company’s revenue for the fiscal year. Chief Executive 
With the potential acquisition of the company by Infogrames a strong possibility, Atari has named Jim Wilson its new CEO and president, effective immediately. His duties had been held by a restructuring officer since previous CEO David Pierce announced his resignation late last year.
Rob McGinnis is back on the Obsidian Neverwinter Nights 2 developer blog with his regular updates. This issue details some of the bits and pieces of the NWN2 1.13 patch. Details include:
