Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I note there was a lot of surprise that Valve would offer a $1m prize for their Dota 2 tournament at Gamescom: maybe this goes a little way to explaining why that sum is perhaps not so extraordinary (y’know, other than the fact that Valve live in houses made of platinum).

Chinese DotA 1/StarCraft 2/Warcraft 3 team Catostrophic Cruel Memories, aka CCM, was earlier this week bought out by businessman Sicong Wang, director of Wanda Enterprises, for the sum of 40,000,000 Chinese yuan – that’s about $6.2 million. Whaaaaat.

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As we mentioned back in May, King’s Bounty: Legions, the Facebook incarnation of the well loved RPG/TBS series, has now begun its invite-only beta test. The game, licensed from 1C and developed by Russian developers KranX Productions, has access to all the assets created by creators Katauri Interactive. But the original developers are not otherwise involved. The “freemium” game can now be accessed by those lucky enough to be invited. Which includes some of our lucky subscribers, who got their hands on 50 codes. Imagine if you were one of them, eh? You can also see a few new screenshots below.

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A number of readers have written in to express concern about this clause in the terms of service for Electronic Arts’ new digital distribution, Origin. Here’s the key bit: “If you have not used your Entitlements or Account for twenty four (24) months or more and your Account has associated Entitlements, your Entitlements will expire and your Account may be cancelled for non-use.” The “entitlements” it’s talking about are “paid and free downloadable content, unlockable content, digital and/or virtual assets, rights of use tied to unlock keys or codes, serial codes and/or online authentication of any kind, in-game achievements and virtual or fictional currency.”

We’ve asked Electronic Arts for clarification on this, but it suggests you might lose DLC, achievements, and even your account if you don’t log on for two years. Not exactly the kind of permanence we’ve come to expect from certain online services, is it? I can think of quite a few services I’ve not logged into for two years, and I’d still expect all my stuff to be there. Is anyone aware of similar clauses in other distribution systems or online game services?

Kalypso have announced that the third instalment of their 17-century Caribbean swashbuckling naval management game is set to appear in “Q2 2012″. As in other Port Royale games, you will be set with naval victory, but have economic and military options at your disposal. Kalypso have explained that this consists in two quite different paths: “Following the path of the adventurer will lead the player on a naval conquest where they must gain notoriety through raids, piracy, bounty hunting, plundering and conquering cities as they strive to build their new Caribbean empire. The route of the trader sees the player using their economic know-how to become the most powerful trading tycoon in the New World by setting up trade routes, building production facilities and developing cites.” The game will also feature multiplayer, so players can use these toolsets to go up against each other on the high seas.

Right, well we’ll have to get to writing about that very soon, eh? Apologies for the supashort post: just thought you should know, in case you didn’t have evening plans (or morning plans. Or whatever o’clock it is near you plans). The wildly-acclaimed XBLA tale of horror, puzzles, platforming and silhouettes is out right now on PC at last, via Steam. It’ll cost you £6.99 or $9.99, and if you’re unsure we’ll hopefully be telling you what we think very soon.

Trailer below, in case you’re unfamiliar with its sombre, haunting, unsettling work, plus you can read our recent interview with the devs here.
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Mr Minecraft himself, Markus ‘Notch’ Persson, isn’t at all impressed by Euclideon’s bold, bewildering claims of an ‘unlimited detail’ graphics engine. And he’s not talking about that voiceover guy – he’s talking about the engine itself, and alleging that it isn’t really what it claims to be. So he’s broken down why in great detail. Caution: science. Also, videos.
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Oh! How did I miss this? Well, I missed it because I’m tight as a badger’s rear end and haven’t preordered the full version of exceptionally clever mini-roguelike Desktop Dungeons as yet. The original game (now designated DD’s ‘alpha’) was and remains free, but devs QCF Design are currently working on a massively tarted up and feature-boosted second version in Unity. A few of you will have briefly trialled a few elements of it in May, but now there’s a chance to give even more of it a spin on a longer-term basis.
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Unhinged, semi-airborne shooter Firefall, which looks a bit like Borderlands meets Tribes meets Brink meets WoW meets Unreal Tournament, has only gone and done the new trailer thing. It is fun to watch! It is also Firefall’s first big show of footage since announcing contentious author Orson Scott Card would be writing this sorta-MMO’s story. But never mind that: this trailer has some remarkably upbeat music. It has some grand views. It has a giant spider-robot. It has men and women flying over vast terrain. Terrain! Music to any PC gamer’s soul.
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