#this DLC is such a win for returning bug types and I love that

[hivemindcoroika]

Fezandipiti with the Hearthflame mask. The new DLC was cool!

[xseedgames]

Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns Localization Blog #6

Howdy, everybody! This is John with our final localization blog for Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns. The game comes out next Tuesday (2/28). Don’t miss out on your chance to preorder the game from select retailers to get the adorable capybara pocket plushie bonus, which I have had a lot of fun posing for our little “Capy and Bunny Adventures” comics over the past month. (Okay, sometimes it was a little embarrassing getting those photos.)

We just released a new trailer showing off the four Super Mario Bros. costumes that you can unlock in the game. We’ll also be streaming the game on our Twitch channel from 2:30 PM PST today. Stop by and ask us some questions.

Before I bury the lede any further, I’d like to update you all on the DLC for Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns. For more information on the patches released for free over the course of six months after launch in Japan, as well as our dilemma about whether or not to localize this content, see my previous blog.

We were really overwhelmed by the feedback we received from it. The patience and support of those who responded was encouraging to say the least, and we were grateful to hear all of your opinions, however you felt about the situation. One issue that came up on our forums that I’d like to address quickly is about the bug fixes that were included in the post-launch patches in Japan. Those fixes are all already included in the core game that we are releasing on February 28.

Now then, on to the big news: I’m happy to report that we have decided to localize and release the DLC in North America. I don’t have information on a release timeline or costs for you yet, but we’re eager to dive into translating and editing the text for this massive update. Stay tuned for updates in the months after the initial release.

Thanks again for all your feedback. It made our decision much easier. While the DLC is a ways off, until then we hope you enjoy Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns. Even without the post-launch DLC, it is still the biggest game in the storied history of the farm/life-sim series.

As this is our final planned pre-release localization blog, I wanted to give some of the other members of the XSEED staff who worked on Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns a chance to give their comments on the game. As I mentioned in our very first blog, this game had a massive amount of text that we spent months and months focusing on.

Here are our questionnaire respondents:

Danielle: QA tester and editor

Nathan: QA tester

John: Project lead

1. Who were your favorite character(s) to work on and why? Have any lines in particular made an impression on you?

John: It’s hard to choose, but I will say that I love the dynamics between all the Lulukoko characters. Some of my favorite text in the game are the conversations that will take place between 3-4 characters during certain festivals. The normal groups (Zahau-Caolila, Lotus-Mithra, Iluka-Siluka-Ludus) are great, but funny conversations happen when you mix those characters together. There’s a really great exchange between Lotus and Tototara.

 2. What were your favorite changes and/or additions made to the game?

Danielle: Streamlined farming. Unlike in the previous game, harvested animal by-products and crops go straight into your inventory.Another feature I really like is the addition of actual dog/cat breeds. The previous game had about 4 different "breeds," and were mostly reskins. SoS: ToT has about 16 unique different breeds of dogs, and I have no idea how cat breeds work, but trust me when I say there's a lot more variety there. And last but not least, there's the new--and adorable--capybara!

 3. Which of the three towns do you like the most, and why?

Danielle: Lulukoko hands down for me. I absolutely love locations with tropical and/or oceanside settings. The music for Lulukoko is one of my favorites in the game as well.

Nathan: Lulukoko. Generally speaking it had my favorite bunch of characters, shop hours that matched my playstyle, and the most expensive stuff on the ground for scavenging.

John: Tsuyukusa has my favorite music and some really beautiful scenery. The homes and shops are jam-packed with interesting decorations and knick-knacks from Japanese culture. All of those cultural references were difficult to localize, but I think they make the town so interesting for players.

Many of the decorations in Tsuyukusa are explained by the characters in dialogue.

4. Favorite bachelor/bachelorette? (Minor spoiler about a secret marriage candidate)

Danielle: Ludus. (Ford is pretty great too, though.)

Nathan: For the bachelors, I like Ludus, as he's a good dude that works hard and helps directly. As for the bachelorettes, it's a toss up between Siluka and Inari, though I may be biased as I spent a good deal of time with Siluka. Meanwhile, Inari is a god, so...

John: It’s a little weird seeing Inari referred to as a “bachelorette,” as we tried to keep the Tsuyukusa guardian’s text as gender-neutral as possible. (Though, ultimately, Inari will call him or herself your “husband” or “wife” in some scenes depending on your character’s gender. This is accurate to the Japanese text.)

Anyway, here in the office, Ludus is sort of everyone’s favorite because he’s so attractive and kind-hearted, but for me Ford is the funniest and sweetest bachelor. His response if you dump him just about broke my heart.

Iluka is a treasure. Komari was my choice when I originally played through the game in Japanese, and she’s definitely more my “type.” But Iluka’s sass just turned out so well in English.

To be fair to Iluka, most characters ask you to come back later if you talk to them while they’re eating.

5. Do you have a favorite non-farming SoS activity?

Danielle: Decorating my farmland (or house) is always fun. I also really enjoy creating all the different outfits.

Nathan: Mining for sure, GIVE ME ALL OF THE MONEY.

John: I love fishing in these games. There are so many different fish in Trio of Towns too; it seems like it could almost be its own game. Also, you no longer have to mash the A Button to reel your line in, which is gentler on my hands and my 3DS.

Fish alongside Lulukoko’s master angler, Zahau.

6. Which aspect of the game do you tend to focus on? The social or the farming?

Danielle: I'd say I probably focus about 60% on the social and 40% on the farming.

Nathan: I tend to do an equal amount of both, as I try to set up my farm to require as little attention as possible (and by that I mean planting trees). I do enjoy taking care of the animals though, especially my prize-winning cow: Horse.

John: I’m usually more interested in the social side. I’m always impressed by players who really micromanage their farms. (Like Nathan, who quickly became a fruit tree tycoon during his QA playthrough.)

 7. Which festival would you most like to participate in IRL?

Danielle: The Beverage Bash. I like cooking (making drinks counts as cooking, right?), and I love tea even more, so getting together with a bunch of people to try and create a new drink concoction sounds like a ton of fun. I just hope people in real life have more common sense than to bring mayonnaise as an ingredient.

Nathan: Westown's Goddess Festival, because, let's be real here for a second, there's a giant pizza. Giant. Pizza.

John: The “stargazing” events in Westown and Lulukoko are nice. In Westown, you go up in a hot air balloon to look at the stars. In Lulukoko, you go out in a boat to admire bioluminescent “sea sparkles” in the ocean. (Tsuyukusa has a similar event based on the Japanese festival Tanabata.) The prospect of going up in a hot air balloon (Westown) without a trained pilot is less appealing the more I think about it, however.

The��“Beverage Bash” event.

8. If you were a character in Trio of Towns, what would be your number one most loved and hated item?

Danielle:

Loved: Pumpkin Pie

Hated: Pickles

Nathan:

Loved: Black Coffee Hated: Mushrooms, of any type

John: There are over 1,100 items in this game, so it was hard to decide.

Loved: Curry (all types)

Hated: Olive (Who even likes these?)

You would also lose friendship points with me if you shoved a cat in my face (allergies).

 9. What features or changes would you like to see implemented in future games?

Danielle: The biggest feature I'd like to see the return of is the multi-floored mining system (as seen in some of the Wii-era games), as opposed to just the mining points.

Nathan: I'd love to see something along the lines of expeditions or fishing trips for rare fauna as pets, plants, or fish.

John: I would like the developers to bring back larger wilderness areas and even caves/mines to explore. That was the thing I missed most in Trio of Towns.

And, of course, it would be nice to finally have same-sex dating options.

Don’t swing too far back, now.

That’s all from us. We really hope you enjoy the game. Look for another entry starting with “Howdy, everybody” on this blog in a few months’ time.

[gamingworld87]

The Elder Scrolls® Online

Join over 10 million players in the award-winning online multiplayer RPG and experience limitless adventure in a persistent Elder Scrolls world. Battle, craft, steal, or explore, and combine different types of equipment and abilities to create your own style of play. No game subscription required.

MMOs can’t thrive in mediocrity. In order for a game in this genre to please a consistent or growing player base of the size necessary to keep an MMO world ticking over, there needs to be something about it that’s both different and brilliant. Upon first launch three years ago, The Elder Scrolls Online did not have this essential ingredient. It felt too much like an MMO by-the-numbers and its splash of Tamriel flavouring was not quite enough to set it apart.

Since then it’s been added to, revamped and revitalised, with One Tamriel, which opened up the world via a level scaling system, and Zenimax Online’s forays into more flavoursome RPG storytelling with its Orsinium DLC (among others). Morrowind, ESO’s first additional ‘Chapter’ (the developer is weirdly reluctant to use the word ‘expansion’), is a fresh mark in the sand for the game, a point from which fans will be able to say it really found its place in the wider pantheon of MMOs. And that place is as a teller of great stories.

I’m fairly late into a particularly long session of playing when the effectiveness of ESO’s new storytelling potential hits me. I have spent the better part of two hours in Sadrith Mora, entangled in the plight of Sun-in-Shadow, an Argonian slave with untapped magical abilities and an enthusiasm for the local mage community’s propensity for political intrigue. As I jog about the town, chatting to other wizards and councilors on her behalf, smoothing her possible path to a higher rank, little nuggets of exposition are expertly planted all adding extra spice to proceedings. There’s Eoki, a love-spurned fellow slave waiting for his one-time partner to free him. There’s a deep seeded racism in the council chamber, with one character in particular seeming to hold a meaty grudge against Sun-in-Shadow’s lizard-folk.

And then there’s Sunny herself. Each time I return to her to hand in a quest I find myself combing her dialogue to find hints of her true motives, buffeted as I am in this beautifully overgrown collection of fungal towers between viciously ambitious mages all out to get their own way. Each time I’m handed a quest which requires a brisk stomp across the open map I find myself setting out again, despite the late hour, not because I want to get the promised loot at the end of the trail, and not to tick off an objective in my journal. Instead I keep going into the early hours because I just really need to see how this all plays out.

The setting plays a huge part in that. Stepping off the boat at the start of the chapter in Seyda Neen in full high texture quality, contemporary-o-vision is a powerful thing for those that were there 15 years ago. And the whole map is full of moments like this, from the half-built cantons of Vivec City (ESO’s Vvardenfell is chronologically set 700 years prior to Morrowind), to the ever-present lurking of the volcanic Red Mountain at the island’s centre. There are constant nods sprinkled throughout the game for veterans to enjoy, and, importantly, these don't feel like obligated fan service. The team re-building this world clearly harbours a love for the original.

And it’s easy to see why. For those that weren’t there all those moons ago, Vvardenfell is an exceptional backdrop for a fantasy game. It’s an almost alien landscape, where looming mushrooms tower overhead and biomes shift from dense foliage to ash-choked badlands. This is mirrored in the soundscape as well. There are refrains that will instantly trigger your memory, such as the rousing main theme, but there are incidental sounds which layer atop your otherwise sedate exploration, further fleshing out the world. The low groan of a silt strider. The chirping of a chitinous bug. This is not a typical fantasy land and, despite the inherent nostalgia, it feels as fresh now as it did back then.

What doesn’t feel that fresh at all is the game’s combat. This is an area that has had only minor improvements over the last three years. It's still clunky, preoccupied with left and right mouse clicks in time with over-egged animations and stun markers. The new player class, the Warden, is perhaps a telling indicator of how uninspiring the existing classes are to pick from and why they are so hard to even remember beyond the character creation screen.

The Warden is capable of performing in DPS, healing and tank roles, and boasts an ultimate ability which sees a persistent bear guardian follow you around to aid in combat. It can do everything well, basically, and picking anything other than Warden when starting the game afresh now feels like the wrong thing to do. That’s great if you’re just starting out, but for those already wondering why they bothered picking Nightblade three years ago, the itch to just start over and get yourself a friggin’ bear will likely be high.

I can't help but wonder (and I do this whenever I ponder the class system of an MMO I happen to be dipping into) why more games in this genre don't look towards FFXIV’s excellent class system, which simply lets your one main character be whatever you want it to be, whenever you want it to be. In ESO, and its new Morrowind excursion especially, I ache for the freedom of character development proffered up by the game’s mainline inspirations.

One thing that is great about the Warden—again, to the detriment of the other classes—is that it is a very readable class. With all characters capable of wearing any armour sets, it can be hard in a pinch to clock what role any given player character is supposed to fill. Is that fully plated cat-person over there a tank or a healer? With the Warden, well, she’s got a bloody bear next to her for a start. Each ability performed is also given a telltale series of persistent animations. A load of mushrooms sprouting at that Warden’s feet? Then she’s a healer. Covered in ice? Then she’s a tank. It’s a shame that the old classes remain comparatively unmemorable or unreadable.

[guailialvarado]

Watch Dogs 2 Update 1.11

Here’s the full list for Watch Dogs 2 update:

New Content and Features

New World Locations – In preparing for the Human Conditions DLC, many new locations have been added or updated in the world map. We’re not going to list them all out here, but once this patch drops you may want to go exploring.

New Dances – Marcus loves to get down to his favorite tunes, and we thought it was unfair that he only had one move to express himself. We’ve added new variations to his dance emote that can be triggered by wearing different types of clothing.

New Emotes – We’ve added two new emotes, Mock and Laughing, to give you more ways to communicate with other players. Just try not to, you know, be too much of a jerk about it.

New Clothing – Speaking of expressing yourself, we’ve added 12 new clothing items across various shops, and 4 DedSec clothing items. Feel free to turn your swag on accordingly.

New Ubisoft Club Rewards (For Honor & Ghost Recon Wildlands) – Two new outfits will be available in the Ubisoft Club, featuring designs celebrating the upcoming For Honor and Ghost Recon Wildlands games.

Bounty Hunter Respawn – We want to keep you in the fight a little longer. As a hunter, you’ll now be able to respawn once if killed while in pursuit of a hunter. You’ll respawn a safe distance away to rejoin the chase, should you choose that option.

Narrative – Without spoiling all of the fun in the patch notes, we’ll just say that if you’ve finished the story you should replay the last mission to watch a little extra something at the end.

Tweaks and Balancing

Leaderboards

We realized the leaderboard interface and user experience was not optimal, and some players were confused about how it works. For example, some people wonder why their rankings are reset – it’s because there’s a new Season every 3 weeks with new rewards to win. You can read this blog post explaining the leaderboard system in detail, but here’s what we’ve done to improve the overall experience:

An end-of-season debrief message will display when you open the app for the first time after the season ends. It will show the rank you’ve achieved and the reward you earned for that Season. There will also be a notification in your phone when the Season ends

We’ve also reworked the overall clarity and legibility of the Leaderboard App. We’d be here all day if we listed every specific tweak, but you should see a noticeable improvement.

Multiplayer

[Online Invasions] Display Online Invasion download zone before it begins – We want the hacker to be able to visualize the download zone when the attack is initiated. This will give the hacker a tool to be more strategic in their approach, helping to further balance the mode.

[Online Invasions] No more Online Invasion radius trolling – Previously, hackers could pop in and out of the search radius without penalty to avoid being detected by the victim. This is a frustrating loophole that we’ve closed by adding a decreasing delay to return to the zone each time the hacker exits the radius (or goes into the water).

[Bounty Hunter] Reduced co-op respawn advantage in Bounty Hunter – We applied the same respawn timer to Bounty Hunter targets that is present in Co-Op Missions. This should make the gameplay more balanced when there are two targets.

[Bounty Hunter] Removed escape disadvantage for targets in Bounty Hunter – The police AI are no longer given the last known position of the target when a hunter enters their session. Previously, this made it very difficult to escape the police in this mode. Escape time has also been reduced once the target loses line-of-sight from their pursuers.

We nerfed shotties – We discovered through extensive playtesting and data analysis that automatic shotguns were overpowered in PvP modes. We’ve reduced the effective range to 40m to make it function more like an actual shotgun instead of a medium-range random sniper headshot generator. This adjustment also affects single player gameplay.

IED/ElectroShock Notifications – You’ll hear a small noise when approaching either of these devices if they were placed by another player. You’ll still probably die if you’re close enough to hear it, but at least you’ll know what happened.

Hackerspace camping addressed – It was possible for a player to barricade themselves in the shop adjacent to the SF Hackerspace since there’s only one entrance. Objects, a junction box and camera have been added to this area to minimize camping.

Other

Shooting polish – We’ve made numerous improvements to the feel of shooting in the game, but nothing that impacts gameplay. Improved recoil experience, tweaks to bullet tracers, sound improvements, and more. Let us know what you think.

Improved Car On Demand – Car on Demand vehicles will now spawn closer and in more convenient locations. Additionally, they’ll no longer spawn in redzones or mission layouts.

Bug Fixes & Performance

Stability

Improved performance and stability

AI

When honking behind a car in the road, the car will switch lanes if there’s enough room

Bug fix for AI sometimes entering wrong state of combat a non-lethal takedown

Game Systems

Fixed an issue where the Bounty Hunter in the Bounty event would not be rewarded followers if the event was cancelled

Fixed an issue where the player could get stuck inside the boats if he was hijacked by another player

Fixed numerous edge-case scenarios where the player could fall under the map

Fixed an issue where the Auto-Hack bullets would not always work as intended

Fixed an issue where some of the hacking options became momentarily unavailable after distracting a civilian

Using the Mass Vehicle Hack as a car passenger will now clear the way in front of the driving player

Tweaks on controllers trigger ratios for vehicle acceleration

Fixed minor graphical issues on some vehicles

Missions

Fixed an issue where the introduction cinematic would not play when replaying operation W4tched

Fixed a problem that made it possible to order a car on the barge in operation Shanghaied

Localization

Multiple Localization fixes

Online

Exploit : Fixed an issue that allowed players to hack vehicles without consuming Botnets

Exploit : Fixed an issue that allowed coop partners to reveal the location of the hacker in specific conditions

Multiple Leaderboard Fixes

Side Activities

Fixed a visual issue with circuit terminal path visual in the Greenhouses Coop mission layout

Fixed an issue that prevented some users from completing the side operation Zodiac Killer

Fixed an edge case issue where a prisoner in a specific coop mission couldn’t be freed

World/3D/Graphics/HUD/Menus

Fixed an issue where two specific pairs of pants in the Stach & Vine shop (Corsaire – Blanc + Cendre) were not added to the inventory after purchasing

Fixed collision issues in Alcatraz

Fixed numerous minor graphic issues in the world

Fixed multiple HUD and interface related issues

A ton of world issues fixed. (Out of map, misplaced items, floating, etc.)

http://ift.tt/2mfuG32