Posts Tagged "beta"

• Betawatch: May 12 – 18, 2012

  Hots Games
  

  Filed under: Betas, MMO industry, Betawatch, Miscellaneous

  This week on Betawatch, we say farewell to Diablo III, which (at least nominally) moved on from beta to official launch on Tuesday. Bizarrely enchanting new MOBA SmashMuck Champions takes its place, joining our list with a closed beta planned within the month. We’ve also added MechWarrior Online to the alpha list, as reader mblakeman2001 rightly pointed out the game is in a friends-and-family beta!

  CCP has begun sending out DUST 514 beta keys and opened registration, and we’ve also learned that Blade & Soul will leave beta and launch in July… but only in Korea. Sadface.

  Finally, The Secret World’s second beta weekend kicked off earlier today, but if you’re not in it, you can content yourself with our hands-on with the game’s combat and mission system.

  Enjoy the entirety of our Betawatch roundup post-cut!

  Continue reading Betawatch: May 12 – 18, 2012

  Betawatch: May 12 – 18, 2012 originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 18 May 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Steam remote downloads exit beta, make impatience an option for everyone

  Hots Technology
  

  That was quick. Just two weeks after Valve posted a new Steam beta that allows remote game downloads, it now has a truly polished release for everyone. Both Mac and Windows gamers can now queue up demos and full games, whether it’s from a browser at work or from the Steam mobile app. Appropriately, Valve will let you reinstall games as well as start downloading a purchase as soon as the credit card clears. Either way, it’ll guaranteed that your new copy of Bastion or that attempt to relive your Quake nostalgia will be ready when you get home.

  Steam remote downloads exit beta, make impatience an option for everyone originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 May 2012 05:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Arduino mechs learn RobotC, plot assimilation with Lego Mindstorms

  Hots Technology
  

  Arduino boards have smoothed the creation of lots of eccentric thingamajigs, but robotics and controllers are still not for the faint of heart. Luckily, RoboMatter is coming to the rescue of would-be roboticists with a public beta version of its C-based RobotC language for Arduino. Joining Lego Mindstorm and other bots, Arduino will get RobotC’s straightforward sensor and motor controls, along with a debugger and sample program library, while still keeping its native Wiring language. So, if you want to be a Kickstarter magnate , or just out-weird everyone else, rolling your own droid is now a bit easier.

  Arduino mechs learn RobotC, plot assimilation with Lego Mindstorms originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 May 2012 04:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Betawatch: May 5 – 11, 2012

  Hots Games
  

  Filed under: Betas, MMO industry, Betawatch, Miscellaneous

  The Spirit Tales open beta launched this week, bumping that game up a tier on our beta list. In fact, the game proved so popular that an additional beta server was added to accommodate the avalanche of fans of all things cute.

  City of Steam has announced an alpha test for July, while Storybricks is accepting alpha signups for its alpha demo right now. Compounding the season’s MMO drama is Phantasy Star Online 2, which is aiming to open up its beta early this summer.

  The Secret World, with its 1,000,000 beta signups, is is kicking off its first beta weekend starting today. Meanwhile, Glitch’s epic beta housing patch is finally upon us, World of Warcraft has unveiled cross-server grouping in the Mists of Pandaria beta, and Guild Wars 2 announced a surprise stress test for pre-purchasers this coming Monday.

  Finally, if you’re bored this weekend, why not check out Diablo III-rival Path of Exile? Tipsters Don and James report it’s holding a public stress test starting right as this post is published at 8 p.m. EDT tonight.

  The full Betawatch roundup lies in wait behind the break.

  Continue reading Betawatch: May 5 – 11, 2012

  Betawatch: May 5 – 11, 2012 originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 11 May 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Guild Wars 2 hosting a surprise stress test next Monday

  Hots Games
  

  Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Events, real-world, Previews, News items, Guild Wars 2

  Are you in withdrawal after the last Guild Wars 2 testing weekend? Feeling the need to get back in the game, even if it’s just for one night? If so, you’re in luck, as the team has just recently announced that the game will be performing a surprise stress test on Monday, May 14th between 2:00 p.m. EDT until 9:00 p.m. EDT. It’s a chance to log back in, play for a bit, and get more of a taste for the game over those seven hours.

  Worth noting is that the stress test is only for pre-purchasers, but beyond that there are no specific test requirements — you can continue using the characters you created during the beta weekend. Players may experience some slight performance issues, since the purpose is to try and alleviate issues before the next beta weekend rolls around. So if you’ve pre-purchased the game, get ready to head back to Tyria in less than a week’s time.

  Guild Wars 2 hosting a surprise stress test next Monday originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Third betas of Adobe Flash 11.3, AIR 3.3 give peeks at low-lag audio and deeper iOS support

  Hots Technology
  

  Adobe‘s famous desktop browser plugin may be looking forward to a 2013 overhaul, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t out to improve itself in the here and now. Flash Player’s 11.3 beta, for instance, rolls in low latency audio support through NetStream, designed specifically to cut back audio lag in cloud gaming. The beta also introduces support for complete keyboard control when in full-screen mode, background Flash updating on Macs, and a Protected Mode for Firefox that keeps rogue Flash files from compromising Windows PCs using Vista or later.

  The AIR 3.3 beta, on the other hand, smooths the runtime’s iOS experience, allowing compiled apps to run in the background more like their natively-compiled siblings. It’s also friendlier to developers, with new USB debugging and simulator support that now doesn’t require a physical device. Android 4.0 users aren’t entirely left out, getting stylus support for AIR apps on their platform. Adobe hasn’t said when the finished versions of Flash 11.3 and AIR 3.3 will reach its servers, but if you’re willing to live life on the bleeding edge, you can find the download links below.

  Third betas of Adobe Flash 11.3, AIR 3.3 give peeks at low-lag audio and deeper iOS support originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 May 2012 08:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• MMObility: The pros and cons of Tibia’s browser version

  Hots Games
  

  Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Previews, Opinion, Free-to-play, Browser, Casual, Miscellaneous, MMObility

  Tibia is an MMO that has been hanging in there for many, many years. You have to give it respect for that alone. When you add on the fact that the game seems to be updated relatively frequently and boasts a pretty good-sized playerbase, it becomes even more intriguing. I’ve played it in the past and have enjoyed the simple graphics and slower-paced gameplay. I like how NPCs chat with you, old-school EverQuest-style, and how there seems to be a lot more to the game than meets the eye.

  There are plenty of eyesores, however. The developers recently released Tibia in a beta browser form. While the client was always easy enough to download and run on my multitude of devices, I always prefer to just jump into my browser and load it up.

  I found a lot of neat little systems but also quite a few bugs or odd design choices. Colors and layout can be a problem, and I am not the biggest fan of Flash-based MMOs. Still, I am enjoying myself so far and look forward to more. Let’s talk about what I found over these last several hours with Tibia‘s browser-based version.

  Continue reading MMObility: The pros and cons of Tibia’s browser version

  MMObility: The pros and cons of Tibia’s browser version originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 04 May 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• MMO Week in Review: Sold out

  Hots Games
  

  Filed under: Massively Meta, Week in Review, Miscellaneous

  At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO or WoW Insider story last week, you’ve come to the right post.

  Guild Wars 2′s first prepurchase beta event ends in just a few short hours, bringing to a close what’s probably the most hyped week in ArenaNet history. We were treated to new art, the Asuran starting experience, a tour of the offices, and details on world transfers. As if to taunt us about not-yet-public races, our own Lis Cardy delighted us with a look at the lore of the Sylvari, who swear they are trees and not elves.

  Meanwhile, classic Guild Wars is celebrating its seventh year of operation with a big ol’ party, which hopefully gave you something to do if you were one of the unlucky procrastinators whose beta dreams were partially dashed when ANet shut down GW2′s digital prepurchase options temporarily on Thursday.

  Enjoy the rest of our top MMO stories after the cut.

  Continue reading MMO Week in Review: Sold out

  MMO Week in Review: Sold out originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 29 Apr 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Skype finally moves out of beta on Windows Phone

  Hots News
  

  Microsoft has released version 1.0 of Skype for Windows Phone, thus fulfilling a promise the company made at Mobile World Congress to move the app out of beta by April.

  The new version includes a new feature that lets you search your contacts and add them on Skype. Other improvements include the ability to call landline phone numbers, a quicker boot time, and other bug fixes. It also includes all the Skype basics such as audio and video calls over 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi, and group messaging.

  However, you still can’t receive Skype calls while the app isn’t running on your phone. Apparently this is because of limitations within the Windows Phone OS and Skype, according to Microsoft. Hopefully this will change with the release of Windows Phone 8. This kind of functionality could really be a key selling point for Microsoft to gain some footing over Android phones.

  You can download the latest version of Skype for Windows Phone on the official site. Let us know what you think in the comments.

  Via The Verge

  Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat

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• Microsoft: Windows 8 Preview Usage Up 2X From Windows 7 Beta

  Hots News
  

  Microsoft launched its Windows 8 Consumer Preview at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona back in February. So far, the reactions to this first mainstream preview of Windows 8 have been somewhat mixed – not everybody is in love with the new Metro interface, for example – but it looks like that isn’t stopping people from spending a lot of time with the Windows 8 preview. Indeed, according to Microsoft, “millions of people” are already using the Windows 8 preview every day and overall usage of the preview is double of what the company saw at the same point in time after launching the Windows 7 beta.

  Given that most Windows users are quite happy with Windows 7, that’s quite an interesting number. Maybe the change in name – from ‘beta’ to ‘consumer preview’ – at this stage in the development cycle gave more mainstream consumers the confidence to install Windows 8 and use it as their main operating system? If that’s true, then a comparison between the daily usage of the Windows 7 release candidate and the Windows 8 preview would actually be more interesting than this number.

  It’s worth noting that Microsoft happily talked about the fact that it saw about 1 million downloads within the first 24 hours after it put the consumer preview online. It hasn’t released any new numbers since then beyond saying that “millions of customers” have downloaded it and now use it regularly (we actually asked Microsoft about this today and were told that the company doesn’t currently have any updated numbers to share).

  Windows 8 consumer preview usage more than twice Windows 7 beta at the same point in time. Millions of people using everyday.#thankyou

  — Building Windows 8 (@BuildWindows8) April 20, 2012

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