Initial Impressions: Lord of Ultima

Lord of Ultima up and bit me in the ass. I didn't even know it existed until a friendly beta invite hit my mailbox. In the spirit of free gaming, I said "what the heck, it's got Ultima in the name so it can't be that bad". Plus, I long for my golden days of Ultima Online. Forgive me, I'm terrible at these sort of things.

Lord of Ultima, by anyone's visit to their home page, is a browser-based strategy game. Players are given a plot of land, which conveniently includes all needed resources, on which to build a city. Anyone that has played any number of RTS games or browser-based strategy games will feel right at home.

Epic Integrates Steamworks into Unreal Engine 3

Steamworks is Valve Software's cloud computing solution for games.  For a big fat price of free, it allows game developers to integrate with Steam and it's many tools: anti-piracy, cloud, matchmaking/lobbies, and DLC.  Epic, developers of the Unreal games and graphical engine, have announced they will be integrating the Unreal Tournament 3 engine with Steamworks:

Epic Games and Valve Software have announced a mutually beneficial partnership to bring Steamworks to Unreal Engine 3. Valve's full suite of tools will now be offered to Unreal Engine licensees completely free of charge.

Steamworks allows developers to utilize any of the features of Valve's digital distribution platform in their own products, including Steam Cloud save importing, Achievements, user stat tracking, and DRM authentication. It's normally available for free, but its integration into the latest version of the Unreal Engine should encourage even more developers to utilize Steamworks.

"Valve has created a world-wide phenomenon with Steam and we're excited to be able to have the Steamworks suite of services available to Unreal Engine 3 licensees so they can take full advantage of all that Steam has to offer," explained Epic's Mark Rein, adding, "With Valve offering these services free of charge, the idea of providing the Steamworks SDK to all Unreal Engine licensees was a no-brainer."

I'm very curious to see where this leads. 

The number one annoying aspect of Steam is that so many games don't use its core functionality.  This forces gamers to track a dozen different game IDs and logins.  For example: Games for Windows Live games sold through Steam or games that come packaged with Gamespy for multiplayer.  Steamworks gets rid of all that and plugs a gamer's Steam right into the game, no extra managment required.  It is nice to finally see some bigger developers come on board with Steamworks.

IGNORE ANY EMAIL FROM ME - GMAIL WAS HACKED

Just a quick note, DO NOT open any emails that you may have recieved today from a heartlessgamer AT gmail DOT com.  My account was hacked and used to send World of Warcraft phishing emails. 

Lord of Ultima, browser MMO?

I received an interesting email from EA this morning.  It was a closed beta invite for a new browser game titled Lord of Ultima.  I received the email as a newsletter from Battlefield: Heroes. 

Has anyone else received an invite or even know what this game is all about?

Bad Company 2 Signature Maker

Neat little tool for making Battlefield: Bad Company 2 signatures/widgets.



Now, if only Punkbuster would stop kicking me!

PB INIT FAILURE Bad Company 2

Update: 9 Mar, 2010 - EA has a fix for this error:

BFBC2 PC server R6 is going to server providers now. This server version should stop all the PB INIT errors that have been happening.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is having a lot of problems with PunkBuster. The first problem resulted from Punkbuster installing in the old BFBC2 Beta folder. I covered the steps for fixing this in this post. 

However, now players are seeing the following message:

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You have been kicked from the game.  The reason is: Punkbuster kicked player 'NAME' (for 0 minutes) ... PB INIT FAILURE. (If this persists, visit evenbalance.com and click support to manually update PunkBuster).

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I'll admit that I am being kicked with this error message on 50% of the BFBC2 servers I join. So far, I do NOT believe it is related to a player's individual PunkBuster install as I am able to play just fine on my friend's servers that have Punkbuster enabled.

My best guess is that this is server related and some servers are out of date or broken. So far, the way to "fix" the PB INIT FAILURE error is to find a set of servers that are working and bookmark them as favorites.

However, to make sure players have updated their PunkBuster correctly,  I have outlined the steps below.

NOTE: When dealing with any sticky program issues where uninstalling and reinstalling is a valid fix, I highly recommend using a program such as Revo Uninstaller to completely eradicate PunkBuster from the PC.  Revo Uninstaller will remove all traces of Punkbuster.

Steps to manually update Punkbuster

1. Uninstall Punkbuster using an uninstall program, removing all folders, registry, and other entries of PB from the PC.
2. Download pbsetup.exe.
3. Launch pbsetup.exe
4. Once launched, click "Add Game"
5. Select BFBC2
6. Browse to your install folder for BFBC2 (just the install folder, not any existing PB folders)
7. Click OK
8 Once back on the main screen, click "Check for Updates" and it will initiate a new install for BFBC2's Punkbuster.

Again, this may NOT fix the PB INIT FAILURE, which I strongly believe is server related!  This is simply to confirm you've uninstalled and reinstalled PB correctly.

Bad Company 2 PC beating consoles

The Battlefield series has always been sold as a PC game. A couple years ago that could have been said about the Call of Duty franchise. Then Modern Warfare 2 hit and the console versions destroyed the sales numbers and hours played of the PC version. The debate raged whether Infinity Ward had given up on the PC because there wasn't any money there. PC gaming is dead right?

Wrong. In an amazing turn of events, PC gamers do exist! Today we get word that Battlefield: Bad Company 2's PC version is beating the numbers on the consoles.

btw: PC currently has more people playing and are in game servers than both the consoles.

Noticed on Kotaku that this post was taken the wrong way. The PC had more players than either console not more than both consoles combined. You'll need to work to beat both consoles combined effort

This can be taken two ways: BFBC2 didn't sell well on the consoles or there are a MORE PC gamers willing to buy a game that gives them what they want.

I never agreed that Infinity Ward was screwing PC gamers with Modern Warfare 2. I was intrigued by the peer to peer play and the Steamworks integration. I believed MW2's downfall on the PC was that it just wasn't that great of a game for PC gamers. Compare it to Halo, one of the consoles biggest game series which did poorly on PCs as well. It could be said the Call of Duty franchise has been "consoled" and therefore that makes it poor for PCs.

The Battlefield series has always taken advantage of the power of the PC: dedicated servers, customization, big battles, and tight controls. I suspect BFBC2 is a much different experience on the consoles. Console games always have to provide auto-aim to allow the majority of gamers to hit their targets. Mouse and keyboard control is superior and requires no meddling from the developers. 

We could say that Battlefield games have been "PCed" and therefore make poor console games.  I doubt that, simply because in the PC version no sacrifices have to be made :) 

Speed up Battlefield: Bad Company 2's Server Browser

EA has posted some tips for speeding up Battlefield: Bad Company 2's (BFBC2) server browser.

To help speed up your server browsing these tips can help you get results quicker.

• Use Favourites/History when possible

If you use the server browser then

Use the server browser
When it starts to search click CANCEL

Select the options:

• Ranked
• Not Full
• Not Empty
• No Password
• Leave Punkbuster checked
• Hit Refresh

You can use your friends list in game to connect on them without accessing the server browser.

Hope this helps!

Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Join In The Fun

Come join me in Battlefield: Bad Company 2! I am playing on Keen and Graev's co-mutiny server.

Initial Impressions: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Singleplayer

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 released on the 2nd and I was able to fight the long download queues on Steam and install my copy.  The EA servers are having a tough time keeping up with multiplayer matches, so instead of fighting constant disconnects I loaded up the singleplayer campaign.  For those familiar with the Battlefield series, that will be a weird statement.  The Battlefield games have never featured good singleplayer aspects, but BFBC2 is fixing to change that.

WARNING: Minor spoilers ahead.

The first mission transports the player back to a clandestine World War II raid on mainland Japan to secure a defecting Japanese scientist.  The mission goes all kinds of wrong and our heroes are forced to re-route their escape attempt via submarine.  However, before safety can be reached a "secret weapon" is unleashed on the Japanese mainland causing a tidal wave that washes the escaping team into watery graves.

The next mission fast forwards to current times and the player is put into play as part of Bad Company.  Somehow this "secret weapon" from WWII Japan has found its way into modern times and its up to Bad Company to unravel the mystery and thats the story as far as I understand it currently.

I know, its weird.  I just typed STORY and Battlefield in the same stroke, but EA Dice has pulled off an amazing feat here.  They've added a well-scripted, quasi-on-rails solo campaign to one of the greatest multi-player franchise ever AND IT WORKS BEAUTIFULLY!  This completes the Battlefield series' move towards the Call of Duty model: great singleplayer with great multiplayer.

The missions are laid out based on objectives. Generally, the goal is to travel from point A to point B.  There is a set limit of enemies to fight, unlike the endless spawning waves of Battlefield's past.  After that, everything is pretty much open.  If the player wants to take it slow or fast, with vehicles or not, it's their choice.

Unlike multiplayer, players are not locked into a single class.  They can carry two of any of the primary weapons, along with a gadget and knife.  Weapons are unlocked by collecting them off dead enemies.  Throughout the levels there are supply crates where weapon load-out can be changed.  The system works well in singleplayer and I like the fact it doesn't lock me into a single class.

Early reports show that the campaign is short (8-10 hours), but thats a far improvement from previous Battlefield games.  Overall, I am impressed by the singleplayer and with the current server disconnect issues, I anticipate I will be finishing the campaign well before I get heavily involved in any online play.