Valyria Tear 0.6.0 released

I have to admit that we are a bit slow on reporting the news on FOSS gaming projects with we actually host ourselves via the freegamedev.net forums. Valyria Tear is sadly no exception, and their new 0.6.0 release has been out a few days already. Sorry to all whom this may concern.

For those not in the loop, Valyria Tear is based on the engine of Hero of Allacrost and aims to be an all FOSS jRPG. To give you a better idea of the game-play, here is a (slightly older) cool video of it done by some Linux enthusiasts:



(Thanks also to Rootgamer who reminded me of this news).

If you like the new release, give them some praise on our forums!

Various Interesting Future Screenshots

Hey guys I got a whole bunch of picture from Vlade who is spying around the Chinese servers :) and some comments from me and Lissandra, so here they are to share with you all sorts of various interesting screenshots:

First quick comments from Lissandra:
 - Arena Fights decreased to 15 battles ( 30 Insignia each win, 10 for each loss)
 - Multiplayer Attempts increased to 2 (here not clear if only on start date / day or more)
 - Guild Altar spinning seems to be possible to do all spins only for VIP level 6


I think these are the class wars winners

some fire outfits:

Future map arena entrance :) looks good the entrance doesn't it, but it seems this is visual only, as JoVon said the npc for GA/Arena and the npc for multi-player dungeons is located behind the bounty quest board

and here we got the bounty board to pick up quests:

and here the future map blacksmith I believe

EDIT: JoVon said: this is actually the Auction House/Mystery Shop

and this is a mini map of the entire area of the future map
(Lissandra: Skycity - The new main location for all players)

more outfits:

here we see an interesting feature where balens can be locked - I think this is just so you don't accidentally spend them by clicking yes on some menu option

EDIT: Hristijan/Shane said vouchers will be turned into locked balens after patch 2.0. With them non-cashers will be able to buy some cash stuff but they cant buy items that are on sale and things like this month autumn boxes.

and some mounts I think I posted these before

and finally another outfit

Fundraiser: Fantasy Creature under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike

Free the Monsters! is a collaborative Indiegogo campaign to create and share five fantasy creature 3d models under CC-BY-SA 3.0

5 3d models and 10 works of concept art will be released if the goal of USD5000 is reached.

Perks include t-shirts and voting rights. Voting will be based on short creature descriptions. The top 10 will be turned into concept art and of those, the top 5 will be turned into 3d models.

Two additional creature concepts and models for each additional USD2000 will be produced.

Justin Nichol will be creating the concept art. You can find his past contributions to the free and open pool of game art on his OpenGameArt profile page.

Jonathan Williamson - partner at CG Cookie (aka Blender Cookie) - will be creating the 3d models.

Stephen Cameron: Space Nerds in Space Interview and Crew Gameplay Video

A 15 minutes long video profile of Stephen Cameron was published on YouTube by Jack Younger - hacker (presumed) at TX/RX Labs.

Stephen Cameron Video Profile

The video includes an interview of Cameron's about his latest project Space Nerds in Space including inspiration and actual authentic gameplay video footage of the crew (highlights at 08:30).

Video thumbnails

Some of Word War Vi's history also is covered in the video (4:00).

Do I need to spell it out? Press that like button if you can! :)

Source: Announcement on the FreeGameDev forums

Drop Rates Tower of Kings Chests

Hey guys, thanks to everyone who supported with data I am publishing the first version of the reports of the Tower of Kings chests, so I hope you like the reports and remember, if you like the post, please click on Google+ to thumbs up this post or share on Facebook, etc

I am putting all 3 reports below one after another - for nightmare i didn't get much data so I am not putting that one yet.

If you want to contribute with data you can send either directly to my email or within Wartune to through the in-game mail or from this blog on the right side contact form. Do not PM in the game. Keep it short and simple - total chests and what's inside.

Wartune Returning Hero's Honor AURA Buff

Hey guys, here is something you don't see very often in Wartune. One of our guildies was away for 3 months, returned and we went to moon dungeon together and the entire party received this buff, so not only the returning player. So it was an AURA buff which I have not seen in Wartune, like, ever. Cool eh?

Undefined's Archer Talent Advice

Hey guys, here is Undefined - a very strong archer and upon seeing my Wartune archer talent guide he gave me some feedback and I decided to publish his comments as a new post so that other archers can benefit also.

(And remember please to click on google + to thumbs up this post or share on Facebook, etc)

Firstly here is Undefined's stats. As I said a strong archer, so let's see his advice:

I just saw your video on archer talents and wanted to comment a bit:

If you kill enemy troops with lunatic nearly, you don't need fury... it only decreases cool-down  not increases damage

I usually kill them with lunatic + 1 other hit. I recommend having fury level 1 though, for Tower of Kings 5 sec is a lot for 1 point, while 1 more second cool-down decrease is pretty useless.

The incendiary cool-down decrease is very useful and often is the difference between life and death if you are doing challenging stuff like Lych NM.

I recommend having it at least 1, in case someone is often playing solo archer in hard dungeons or spire, i would recommend making it 3 or 4.

dds talent would i recommend to make level 1, if you have a rage rune and good to very good stats

I took scrutiny just recently because i wanted to increase damage at World Boss and i am satisfied with it. it triggers a lot and 10% damage increase is awesome, or 19% at level 4... definitely worth it

Enrage is worth to make level 1 for WB if you have a PVE set

About potency i can't talk because it doesn't fit for my own skill build... but i would consider this (together with dds if you have no rage rune) the most useless archer talent

Finally my own build: at the moment i try to level up for BR event and stuff, my talents are:

• HS 35, 
• stealth 4, 
• instinct 3, 
• scrutiny 1, 
• perception 1, 
• fury 1

as soon as i am level 76 i will start talents again and aiming for:

• stealth max, 
• instinct max, 
• scrutiny max, 
• enrage 1, 
• fury 1, 
• redemption 1, 
• perception 4 or 5

This may sound like a lot, but 5 levels of HS don't really make a difference for me, because i'm fighting the op guys from the older servers in arena and BG and their seal is 30 lvl higher than mine, so they stun me anyway

so... a lot of text... but after seeing the video i just had to comment that.


And thanks a lot for doing so Undefined and lastly for reference here I put below my video for the archer talents:

More Cool Wartune Pictures Upcoming

Hey guys, I got some more nice Wartune pictures to share with you - a touch of the future to come :)

Thanks to Hypnosis0512 for these and below that pictures from Onizuka - thanks Oni.
Please click Google + to thumbs up this page if you like it! :) or share it on Facebook, etc.

A very nice archer outfit

Level 80 full legend with nice clothing

Elephant mount

And here pictures from Oni:

Especially check out the wonderful Christmas clothing at the bottom

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team

Console: Nintendo 3DS

Genre: Role-Playing

Release Date:  August 11th,  2013

Date Reviewed: September 19th, 2013

Gameplay:

Dream Team is the fourth instalment of the Mario & Luigi series. The first one came out for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance and it was called Superstar Saga. In 2005 the second one came out for Nintendo DS called Partners in Time. Then in 2008 the third one was release for the Nintendo DS which was called Bowser's Inside Story. Then finally the current game known as Dream Team came out on Nintendo 3DS on August 11, 2013 called Dream Team. Overall all of the Mario & Luigi games have been very well done and have all been well received. 

Dream Team is on a whole new platform and introduces some new and exciting game play for 3DS holders. There are a couple of major things that I enjoy in the series that keeps me coming back for more. Those are; the length of game play (usually over 30 hours), the humour, RPG genre, side quests, and Luigi. Luigi has always been my favourite character and he has a big role in Dream Team. He has always made the game very enjoyable with the character he portraits in the series. Luigi is always the scared and clumsy type in the series which provides a ton of laughter. The length of the game is always just right, and the difficulty towards the end always gets higher the further you go. Some of the bosses provide a nice challenge.

Giant Battle!

Dream Team starts off like a typical Mario game where Princess Peach gets captured and you have to save her. With Dream Team they added another new mechanic. Luigi has the power to fall asleep in certain areas and open up dream portals. These dream portals allow access to the dream world which provides the typical 2D platformer game play from classic Mario games. While the real world provides 3D open world game play. A fantastic mixture. Dream Team also introduces Giant Battles like in Bowser's Inside Story. You can only turn giant in the dream world as Luigi calls forth multiple copies of himself to save Mario and turn giant. These giant battles are very fun and each giant battle is different. When in a giant battle you mainly play as Luigi but Mario is there to help out with healing, special attack and the finisher move. Everything else is controlled by Luigi. 

The dream world didn't interest me a whole lot but it was still enjoyable. One of the mechanics for the dream world are these dream points. To activate these you use Dreamy Luigi to turn into these objects. When Dreamy Luigi turns into these objects they play an important role to solve the puzzles. They can vary from adjusting gravity, turning the world upside down, or even fast forward and slow time. There are others as well. To use these objects or dream points you need to use the touch screen. For example to make a big gust of wind so you can jump farther you need to rotate Sleepy Luigi's nose. To turn the world upside down you need to make sure Luigi is sleeping on a floater and rotate his body upside down or side ways. Really great mechanics. 

Dream Portal opened by Luigi!

As for that Dream Team plays like all of the other Mario & Luigi games where you buy new gear, explore, do side quests, gain levels, earn badges and also rank up. The ranking system is back and now goes up to rainbow rank which is level 40. Also new is whenever you rank up you get to choose a new skill to add to your slots. They can be adding an extra gear slot, earning an extra point in any stat when you level, experience booster, increase power, etc... There are also brand new bros. attacks as well as the new dream attacks. Mario and Luigi earn their own separate bros. attacks but are used together like in previous games. Also new to the game are the dream world attacks which are essentially bros. attacks but can only be used in the dream world. 

Overall the game is extremely fun with lots to do an explore. There are also small side quests you can do as well as activities. You can go around and find camera boxes, take them back and solve the puzzle to earn some beans. The bros. attacks game is also back where you try and go as long as you can, and a lot more others to be discovered.

One of the Dream Attacks.

Graphics:

The art style is very different compared to previous games in the series. The real world graphics on Mario and Luigi are very different. It looks as if they are almost made of clay. I think the new art style is great and changes it up a bit. The real world is a full 3D environment like in previous games but with the Nintendo 3DS it is a lot more colourful. The dream world is a 2D environment. The backgrounds in the dream world are fantastic, they are colourful and always different. One of my favourite parts in the dream world is while you are walking small flowers and plants quickly sprout up as you walk and vanish. The area where you are in Luigi's dream center is amazing. While you walk you see little Luigi figures running around which small quotes floating in the background. 

Boss Time!

The 3D effect in Dream Team is the best I have ever seen on the Nintendo 3DS. The best parts in the game to turn on the 3D is during battles and boss battles especially. Some of the battles require you to run away from the boss or objects and it looks like they are running towards you. I was blown away by the 3D effect that I actually used it. Some of the bros. attacks have an option to turn the 3D effect on or off with the "R" button. If you keep it on you need to use the 3D vision to help you get these attacks "Excellent". The effect is just amazing.

Audio:

Honestly this is probably my favourite part of the game. The audio is so beautiful. I love the soundtrack so much. The boss battles, dream world, Luigi dream center, are my most favourite locations for the soundtrack. When you are in Luigi's dream center it makes you feel sad for Luigi. That is what they are trying to portrait in that location of the game. The soundtrack was so enjoyable I put my 3DS down and just listened to the music. I give Nintendo high props for the music.

The battle music is great as always. The boss battle soundtrack is phenomenal. Overall the audio is fantastic! I had the volume on all the time and even hooked it up to my speakers a couple of times. The final boss battle music is creepy and really makes the experience feel like a boss battle.

Just a sample of the Music.

Conclusion:

Dream Team is the best Mario & Luigi in the series. Every time they release a new Mario & Luigi it is ALWAYS better than the last one. If you are just a fan of good game this is A MUST buy for the Nintendo 3DS. This will be a fast treasure in your collection. The music is outstanding, graphics, game play, everything makes this game what it is. This game made Luigi more of a badass. The ending with the giant boss battle against Bowser showed what Luigi is made off. When Bowser turns giant and attacks them Luigi jumped into the action immediately full of confidence and turned giant to defeat Bowser.

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Cosmos Gets 60 PvE Set + Advice

Hey guys, after a long time I finally got the Level 60 PvE set and also made it legendary. Especially the last Wartune update helped a lot as only one mpd is now needed per day - I just could not find the time to do 3 per day and often missed them in the past. Anyhow, sooner or later, as long as you don't quit, you will get what you want in the game :) and for me this was a big step forward - definitely a huge milestone for COSMOS in his life in Balenor :)

The 60 set is of course a lot stronger than the 55 set but only if it is made into legendary and that should be the target because that extra gem slot and, even though very expensive, but the extra enchants all the way to +30 do help a lot and as you can see my Battle Rating is now 71k without any pots but with the academy buff of 200%. Still, I would not have imagined that I could ever get to 70k+ BR as a non-casher so for me this is a big achievement and I clearly got a lot stronger especially on the offense side where I can chain hit EDD and DD (the 2 delphics).

Play-style is different

The way you fight with the 60 set is totally different than the mentality of any of the arena sets. I must say I am not yet used to it and it will take some time to learn and get a good feeling about it. What I mean is all the rage counts and knowing exactly what you will have a few moves ahead. For example a slasher now gives not 15 but 25. Auto gives 20. My ultimate slasher increases rage by 7 and the whirl wind does not take away 50 but takes away 30 (minus 50 plus 20). So all very strange numbers to get used to and quickly add up in the head when planning future attacks.

World Boss style and income

When it comes to our dear WB then the income indeed goes up due to the large rage gain, but here I can already share with you what setup i use for consistent good income and that is i remove completely the ultimate slasher and i keep only slasher and the 2 delphics. This way COSMOS, on AFK mode, hits both delphics in each WB round and does also double attacks and I am getting something like 115k income now compared to around 90k with the arena set, so that's a roughly 30% increase of income which is fantastic.

Next Steps

Well first of all I got relaxed :) and probably not going back to the moon dungeon as I am sick of it, but I did start doing the level 70 dungeons like I did Samsara today you can see that video on my YouTube soon. And I think the next steps will be to start collecting crystals and stones for level 70 already as my rings are still level 40. Now don't look that bad at the legend 40 rings - actually if you check they give similar health with the extra gem (health) that they have compared to a regular 70 ring, so it is not bad at all, but i have to start gathering for 70 rings but also legend not regular and since I do love the rage reduction proc on the rings i will only change them together so i can always have that proc, so i have to save up for 2 together.

Fundraising for GPL game Plee the Bear

This is a guest post by Julien Jorge, developer, artist and musician behind the open source indie games Plee the Bear and Andy's Super Great Park, here to present the fundraising campaign he launched for the former.

Some years ago, with the help of three of my friends and anonymous people on the web, I have created Plee the Bear, a great platformer in which you play an angry bear whose son has been kidnapped by god. Here is a guy hard to brave! You sure will jump in this amazing journey to find and rescue your son. Because you want to rescue him, don't you? Or to slap him? Maybe both….

The game was a spare time project for a long time, then we recently decided to create a real, full, complete, fun and original version out of the prototype. We have thus created our company, Stuffomatic, published a first game and now we are launching a fundraising campaign for Plee the Bear!

The prototypes of the game have always been released for Windows and Linux as free software, available under the terms of the GNU GPL and the CC by-sa licenses. The latest version contains three levels of the storyline and four mini-games; and has already generated very positive criticisms (e.g. on The Linux Game Tome). Players loved the fun, the graphics and the music; other indie developers were pleasantly surprised by the technical skills and the details of the game; and people in the free software movement appreciated the overall process and the quality of the resources, remarkable for a free game.

All these feedbacks motivated us to complete the game and to launch a fundraising campaign to help the development. The campaign is organized in order to implement the new contents of the game one after the other, each time with a new fundraiser. So, for the initial one, the feature you are welcome to support is a complete refresh of the existing work. You can see the details on the project's page on OpenFunding but let me show you how the game will look:

To be compared with the current release:

(The screen is larger in the new version, it's not just Plee who is smaller…) 

The animations will also be reworked. For example, here is a comparison of the changes in the animation of Plee walking. The old version is on the bright stripes, the new one is in the black stripes:

If you are a game developer, you may have already used some free resources from websites like OpenGameArt.org or Freesound.org. If you are a gamer, you may have played games using the resources of such websites. In both cases, you are certainly interested by our process consisting of releasing each part of the game under a free license. Actually, we have recently started to supply OpenGameArt.org with our assets.

So, if you like our project:

• give us some money for the next development steps,
• give us feedback about the process to help us improving it,
• share this announcement with your neighbors.

This way, we will all go toward a fun and good game :)

Level 74 and Stats, Pictures, Thoughts

Hey guys, so I leveled up to 74 :) *victory dance* and I am sharing with you both some stats and pictures form COSMOS as well as some thoughts and advice.

Level 74 is a very interesting point for knights I think because you are getting to have more skills points than needed for either the offense build or the defense build. As I show you in this picture in my offense build I was able to get the passive Tenacity at level 1, which is wonderful as it reduces my damage received as well as the critical receive rate. And on the defensive side it is possible on level 74 to get intercept level 1 which allows you to have both intercept and apollo shield which is especially useful when fighting in the Tower of Kings (for those who do not know a knight standing in front can intercept the front enemy making it impossible for them to cast anything strong at the start and then it is a good idea to cast a blood rune and if you have some basic clothing then you should have enough rage to cast apollo shield straight away, which is all very useful for your party).

On the statistic side of things as you can see un-buffed I am up to 59k battle rating, still with 3 items from arena set 55 and the level 40 legend rings, so indeed a great room for improvement still is there. However I have already made a huge step forward and already have 2 items from the level 60 pve set legend (see my picture below on the inventory items) and I almost have enough to synthesize the last 4th item, which means that right before the class wars i except to have the 60 pve set which greatly increases my chances in the class wars. So the next couple of days will be rather interesting for COSMOS and is a big step forward.

Of course we also have the new Wheel of Fate which gets invested into the Brutal Edge skill which also gives you an aura at level 5 I believe. this also helped in having extra HP and attack. I have it at level 1 as you see in the picture above and over time can imagine having level 2/3 but probably not much higher as that is very difficult for non-cashers due to only 1 spin per day.

Blood rune is also up to level 6 which is really nice. I really like how powerful the blood rune is and I think that applies especially for mages who can clear up the troops faster - the faster you can clear the troops the faster you can apply the rune. In this regard i think they should make the blood rune as player only to be fair to knights.

So some thoughts - level 74 is where I will stay for a while as I got a really good advice not to pass over to 75+ because then you for sure will be dealing with the top people in the game when it comes to Battle Ground and such. And this is also in anticipation of any possible game mechanics changes, i do think it is not a good idea to be in the last 5 levels so 75 to 80 - I want to avoid that bracket as much as possible until I get a lot stronger. So I can focus on raising holy seal and other talents, which is also very much needed

I am also very curious about how much stronger I will be with the 60 pve set. I do worry that it will damage my WB income perhaps due to starting with lower rage (the higher the rage you start with the higher the WB income tends to be).

I also still strongly advocate for using sniper and determination (so critical build) for fighting WB - you definitely make a lot more money than using WD build. Again luck goes to archers as they only need 1 build, but mages and knights must adapt for higher income. On AFK mode with the new academy bonus I can make up to 125k per fight from the WB - usually around 100k. I can probably make more if i do it manually but i am very tired of the same thing for many months up to 3 times per day, so I stick with the AFK mode.

Lastly I think R2Games is doing an amazing job at trying to convince people to buy balens. Really good job - I have to work hard not to buy and stay a non-casher. As some of you have asked why I stay non-casher I can answer that it is not because I don't have money - it is because I find it more interesting and challenging this way and I think I am doing pretty good so far :) and moreover it is a very good lesson in training patience and not falling for greed.

New Alien Arena, with included alpha-demo of in development commercial spin-off

Yes, it looks like the developers behind the long running idTech2 based AlienArena are going make a more slower paced & 'tactical' spin-off and try to sell it. As before the engine will stay open-source (GPLv2), but the assets for the spin-off will stop being free-as-in-beer.

Here is the official launch-trailer of the new update and the alpha demo:


Beside the new game-play mode, they have also finally updated the menu, and the new version of it is rather spiffy. You can see it in action and more of the regular game-play in this recently uploaded random YouTube vid (warning: goofy British accents and profanity). GamingOnLinux also recently had a small preview-article.

Last but not least (while we are on the topic of idTech2 based games), a small game-developer's advertisement of a new project currently unfolding in our forums. If you know your way around Quake(2) based engines and/or pixelish art, please join the effort ;)

16 Upcoming Mounts and Top 1 Player

Hey guys, we had a spy Wartune photographer sneaking into the Chinese server and taking pictures of all the mounts that we are going to get, so...

Special thanks to IvoPinto for gathering and sharing this data!

Check out below not only the 16 awesome mounts which are coming our way but also at the bottom the top 1 player with 226k+ BR! WoW!

And my dear Balenor Wartune heroes remember to put in the comments which one you like the most and if you google +1 this post would be great also! :)

And here the top 1 player: