Author: dpugh007

Like PlayStation, Spotify, and others before it, Microsoft has released a neat little “Year In Review” website that reveals your most-played games and other cool stats from 2018.

Go to this website and sign in with your Microsoft account to get started. The page displays a number of stats, beginning with how you stack up with the wider Xbox community when it comes to your gamerscore, number of hours played, and achievements earned.

The page also gives you a 2018 “mood.” Mine was “Fighting for something greater than yourself in shooter games” because I played a lot of shooters this year on Xbox One. Additionally, it shows off your most-played games and asks questions about what felt like a bigger accomplishment: earning specific achievements or total number of hours played.

The Year in Review site also displays how many new friends you made on Xbox Live during the year, how much gamerscore you earned, how many hours you played across all games (presumably this excludes media app usage time), and how many hours you spent in multiplayer games versus single-player titles.

Additionally, the page reveals that Xbox Live players collectively earned more than 3 billion achievements during the year. The Year in Review page gives you little trinkets to collect in the process, and at the end they come together to form a holiday snowglobe with all of them. Onc you’re done, you can download your results or share them on social media.

There appear to be a few oddities with the website, specifically as it relates to the number of hours played in some games, but the page should give you a generally good idea about what titles you played the most in 2018.

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The Mythical Psychic Pokemon Deoxys made its debut in Pokemon Go earlier this year as the game’s second EX Raid boss, replacing Mewtwo. Up until now, the DNA Pokemon has only appeared in the mobile game in its Normal Forme, but a new variant of the Pokemon is set to arrive soon.

Developer Niantic has announced that Attack Forme Deoxys will be available in EX Raids later this month. Along with taking on a different appearance, Attack Forme Deoxys has a much higher attack stat than its standard form, and Niantic warns that it will be a “difficult challenge that requires Trainers to take advantage of every opportunity.”

The new form of Deoxys is set to arrive with the next cycle of EX Raid invites, which are scheduled to go out beginning December 20. Unlike standard Raid Battles, you can only participate in EX Raids if you’ve received an invitation. In order to get one, you’ll first need to have recently won a Raid Battle at a “qualifying” Gym. These are denoted by an EX Raid tag in the upper righthand corner when you look at the Gym’s details.

In the meantime, players still have a little more time to catch Pokemon Go’s latest Legendary, Cresselia. The Psychic Pokemon is scheduled to leave standard Raid Battles on December 18, just before Attack Forme Deoxys is set to arrive in EX Raids. Niantic hasn’t announced when the game’s next Legendary Pokemon will arrive, although the developer has teased that Azelf, Uxie, and Mesprit–three more Legendaries originally from Pokemon Diamond and Pearl–are on the way.

Pokemon Go’s annual holiday celebration is also set to return again soon. This year’s event kicks off on December 18 and will introduce another handful of Gen 4 Pokemon, including Snorlax’s pre-evolved form, Munchlax, as well as Snover, Abomasnow, and Croagunk. Festive hat Pikachu and Delibird will also return, and different bonuses will be meted out throughout the event until it ends on January 2.

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One of the reasons why DICE updated Battlefield V to make it easier for new players was specifically to help the game appeal to new players–this did not go so well. After a wave of criticism from veteran players, DICE announced that it is rolling back the time-to-kill changes to restore the values to their original state. The Swedish developer has now also acknowledged that it has been a struggle for years now to get people into Battlefield games.

“It’s important to acknowledge that we have a challenge bringing new players into Battlefield V and onboard them to become more experienced Battlefield players,” DICE said in a Reddit post regarding the TTK changes. “It’s been a challenge across our games for a long time, as many will know.”

DICE’s overall ambition with Battlefield V is for it to appeal to new and veteran players alike, and the developer will continue to try to do this even after the TTK changes are undone. “How we get it right isn’t easy, nor will it be quick, and we appreciate when the community comes together and helps us on this journey,” DICE said.

The Battlefield franchise is generally understood to be relatively more difficult for new players compared to the series main competitor, Call of Duty. Activision’s franchise regularly outsells Battlefield. Back in 2013, EA management said it hoped Battlefield 4 would outsell that year’s Call of Duty game, Ghosts. It did not.

Other established franchises face the same challenge as Battlefield: drawing in new players while also appealing to veterans, and pleasing everyone. As DICE frankly said in its Reddit post and as evidenced by the rollback to the original TTK values, this can be a tough nut to crack. Marcus Lehto, who co-created the Halo franchise, recently said he believes Halo is in a no-win scenario now as it tries to appeal to new players and do right by veterans.

For its part, DICE has pledged to continue to listen to fan feedback and try to make Battlefield V appealing to everyone. How this works in practice remains to be seen.

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The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s Alfonso Ribeiro, who starred as the show’s Carlton, is suing Epic Games. Ribeiro’s law firm said the the actor is accusing the studio of stealing his dance–commonly referred to by fans of the show as the Carlton dance–for the “Fresh” emote in Fortnite.

According to TMZ, Ribeiro is currently in the process of filing for the copyright for the dance. This announcement comes on the heels of another lawsuit filed against Epic. Terrance Ferguson accused Epic of stealing his Milly Rock dance for Fortnite’s “Swipe It” emote, an act he describes as a pattern the studio has for “exploiting African-American talent in particular in Fortnite by copying their dances and movements.” Ribeiro is mentioned as another example of this in Ferguson’s lawsuit.

Epic has seen several legal disputes when it comes to Fortnite. PUBG Corp., the creators of PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds, sued Epic over a concern “that Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known.” However, the lawsuit was ultimately dropped. Epic hasn’t always been on the receiving end of a lawsuit either. The studio sued a QA tester who leaked Fortnite Season 4 secrets, as well as a few streamers for advertising Fortnite cheats.

When it comes to outside the court room, Epic has been enjoying the growing success of Fortnite–which is the number one searched game on Google in 2018. After finding success with cross-platform play on Fortnite between Xbox One, PS4, Switch, PC, and mobile devices, Epic Games is sharing its technology with other developers looking to do the same. The studio also launched its own PC game store that offers an enticing alternative to Steam.

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The latest chapter of the Battlefield V TTK drama has unfolded. DICE has announced that it’s backtracking on the controversial changes it made to the multiplayer shooter’s time-to-kill values that made the game more forgiving for new players and angered veteran players in the process.

In a post on Reddit, DICE said it made the choice to roll back the changes after listening to player feedback and reviewing internal statistical data. The TTK changes were released in an update that came out last week, so they really didn’t last very long at all.

DICE reiterated that its aim with the TTK changes was to make the game “more enjoyable for new players.” Veteran Battlefield fans took issue with this, and in response, DICE released a “Core” playlist for the Conquest mode with the original TTK values. Fans commented that a single playlist wasn’t enough, and DICE later announced that it would release more “Core” playlists.

“Clearly we didn’t get it right,” DICE said about the TTK changes. “Veteran players didn’t ask for the change, but as game developers, we took it upon ourselves to make those changes based on extensive data and deliberation. It truthfully wasn’t an easy decision for us,” DICE said.

The developer added that it is an ongoing challenge to make Battlefield a more enjoyable experience for new players. Indeed, the game has a very different feel than its main competitor, Call of Duty, which is often regarded as a game that is relatively easier to get into.

“It’s been a challenge across our games for a long time, as many will know, and becomes even more important for us to improve upon our post-launch experience with consistent updates to the game through the Tides of War,” DICE said. “Our desire to service a game that caters to old and new players will continue. How we get it right isn’t easy, nor will it be quick, and we appreciate when the community comes together and helps us on this journey.”

While DICE is rolling back the TTK changes, the developer said it continues to work on new updates to “improve the experience” for all players–new and veteran.

Battlefield V’s TTK will revert to its original value through an update coming December 18 at 4 AM PT / 7 AM ET / 1 PM CET. The “Core” playlist for Conquest will be removed at this time, while the previously announced additional “Core” playlists are not going to be released.

Unlike previous Battlefield games, all of Battlefield V’s expansions are free as part of the game’s Tide of War live service element. The first major post-release expansion, Chapter 1: Overture, is out now, and it adds a new map and the single-player War Story where you play as a member of a German tank division. On a longer timeline, Battlefield V will introduce a battle royale mode called Firestorm in March.

GameSpot’s Battlefield V review scored the World War II shooter an 8/10. The game is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

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