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Bethesda Softworks senior designer Ferret Baudoin, who worked as lead designer on Fallout 76, has died. The cause of death has not been released, but a tribute page on Facebook said he "passed suddenly" on October 15, "surrounded by his family and friends."
News of Baudoin's death was shared on Twitter by former Fallout 76 project lead Jeff Gardiner, who described Baudoin as "an eternal optimist and dear friend," and a deeply dedicated RPG fan.
We'd text about any and all RPGs we were playing. He's the only person I know that plays more of them than @Dezinuh and I. He completed four runs of the most recent #Pathfinder @OwlcatGames RPG alone.October 17, 2022
See more"We had lunch several times since I departed Bethesda. He will be dearly missed," Gardiner tweeted. "We'd text about any and all RPGs we were playing. He's the only person I know that plays more of them than Dezinuh [Bethesda Game Studios design director Emil Pagliarulo] and I. He completed four runs of the most recent Pathfinder OwlcatGames RPG alone."
Pagliarulo paid tribute to Baudoin in his own Twitter thread, saying he was "unstoppably creative, always inspired, and he worked hard because to Ferret, it wasn't work. He LOVED making games."
(4/4) But what I'll miss most is a human being so filled with love for his family, his colleagues, and his craft that he constantly reminded me what the point of all this actually is - to be happy, to make each other happy, and to never forget how wonderful life really is.October 18, 2022
See moreBaudoin's real name was Eric, but he's listed in game credits as Ferret, and comments in a Reddit thread announcing his death state that it was his preferred name. One redditor, who claimed to have met Baudoin in 1989 when he was a college freshman, said he was using the nickname even back then, and was very secretive about its origins.
"I lived in the dorm room next to him for three years and he was best man at my wedding, and I don't know where it came from," they wrote. "I do know he had fun with it when he visited Ireland. At the time there was a fad in the country that involved shoving a ferret down your trousers, and he used it as a pick-up line!"
Baudoin was with Bethesda Softworks for 10 years, where he worked as a quest designer and writer on Fallout 4 before becoming post-launch lead designer on Fallout 76 and the Wastelanders expansion. According to his LinkedIn page, he was also a senior designer on the upcoming Starfield.
Prior to joining Bethesda, he spent six years as a lead designer at BioWare, working on Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, and multiple DLCs, and from 2003 to 2006 he was a lead designer on Neverwinter Nights 2 at Obsidian Entertainment. He also had a brief spell at Black Isle Studios, where he worked as a designer on two famously failed RPGs: The original Baldur's Gate 3, codenamed Jefferson, and the original Fallout 3, codenamed Van Buren.
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Talent trees are coming back in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. In fact, you'll be able to test them out in the October 25 pre-patch so you can get to grips with the changes ahead of the new expansion's full release. With the Dragonflight launch date set as November 28, you'll have a little over a month to play with the new system.
The fundamentals of each class will stay the same but talent trees offer a lot more choice when it comes to how you want to play your chosen specialisation. In this guide, I'll explain how the new Dragonflight talent trees work so you know what to expect when the pre-patch arrives.
Dragonflight talent trees: What's changed
The talent tree isn't new to World of Warcraft, though it hasn't been present in the game since the end of the Cataclysm expansion back in 2012. Talents have still been present, though in a much more limited form and tied to your chosen specialisation.
Originally, the specialisation you played was determined by the talents you picked—you could choose talents from all spec trees, provided you had the points to purchase them. Since Mists of Pandaria however, your talents have been limited by the spec you choose, and the number of talents available was massively reduced.
Dragonflight's talent trees are more like the pre-Mists of Pandaria version, though this time round, you will be limited by your spec.
Each class has a "base" talent tree, then an additional tree for your chosen specialisation. The talent points are split between the two as well, so you can't ignore the class tree and put all your points into your specialisation, or vice versa. Check out the screenshots below to see a comparison between the original talent trees, the rather limited current version, and the one arriving in Dragonflight.
Image 1 of 3Talent trees from Wrath Classic. (Image credit: Blizzard)
Image 2 of 3Current talents in Shadowlands. (Image credit: Blizzard)Image 3 of 3Dragonflight talent tree. (Image credit: Blizzard)How to save different talent set-ups
There's a chance you'll want different talents for different types of content, and you can save different profiles for whichever builds you think you might use.
To save your current talents, select New Loadout from the dropdown menu in the bottom left corner of the talent tree window then name it whatever you like. You can now select that profile—providing you're in a rest area—whenever you want to switch.
You can save and share talent set-ups. (Image credit: Blizzard)You can share your set-up too. Selecting Share from the dropdown menu allows you to copy/paste your talent data to something like Notepad so you can either back-up the loadout or share it with friends. If you want to copy someone else's talents, the Import option lets you paste the data and name the set-up too.
Finally, the search option is handy if you're having trouble locating a specific talent. Simply start typing the name in the search box then select it from the list. Hit enter and a blue magnifying glass will pinpoint its location.
Dragonflight talent calculator
If you'd like to experiment with different builds but don't want to mess with your character's talents, Wowhead has a dedicated talent calculators page.
Choose your class by clicking on its icon, then select your specialisation to see that talent tree. It works the same way as it does in-game so it's a great way to see which combinations work with the available talent points.
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World of Warcraft's next expansion is less than two months away and the Dragonflight pre-patch will introduce some of the new features ahead of time. It's a tradition that's spanned across WoW's expansion history—you might not be able to enter the new zones during the pre-patch, but there's usually plenty to keep you busy with new systems, in-game events, or even whole new classes.
The pre-patch won't allow us to head to the Dragon Isles quite yet, but it is a great time to familiarise yourself with the new class talent trees, or even create your own Dracthyr character. As we'll be stuck in the Shadowlands for a little while longer, here's what you need to know about the WoW: Dragonflight pre-patch, including the release date.
WoW: Dragonflight pre-patch release date
The Dragonflight pre-patch is arriving on October 25. With the full Dragonflight expansion set for release on November 28, that gives you less than two months to try out the new class talent trees and decide on which class you're planning to main in the upcoming expansion.
There are two phases to the pre-patch. The first arrives on October 25 and introduces the UI update and new class talent trees while the second phase is set for November 15 and sees the arrival of Dracthyr Evokers and the pre-patch events.
Phase 1
(Image credit: Blizzard)Class talent trees
Extensive talent trees are returning in Dragonflight and look more like their pre-Mists of Pandaria counterparts, giving classes and specs much more flexibility when it comes to builds.
Currently, each class specialisation has seven rows of talents and you can pick one from each of these. The new talent trees are much more complex, so you'll have plenty of options to choose from—you can also save builds you create so you can easily load them up for different activities.
These are being rolled out along with the pre-patch to help give us an idea of how classes will play before the release of Dragonflight, which is useful if you're still on the fence about what you're going to play in the next WoW expansion.
UI/HUD revamp
Before any new World of Warcraft expansion, the pre-patch is a good time to start sorting out your chosen character in preparation for the rush to the new level cap. Part of this process might be clearing out bag and bank space, but it's also a good time to take stock of your UI.
Generally, you might look at the addons you use and decide if anything has become obsolete or if there are other addons you want to try. But as the Dragonflight pre-patch introduces the revamped UI, this might be the time to start looking at addons you won't need anymore.
Phase 2
(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)The new Dracthyr Evoker
The new Dracthyr race will be available as soon as Phase Two starts on November 15—provided you've already bought the Dragonflight expansion. Basically, it will work the same way it did when demon hunters were introduced in the Legion pre-patch back in 2016.
Dracthyr Evokers start at level 58 and have their own starting zone on the Dragon Isles. Don't get too excited though as you won't be able to explore further until Dragonflight is released in November. If you want to create a second Dracthyr character, you'll need to do so on another realm where you have an existing level 50 character.
In-game events
The Dragonflight pre-patch event will see four locations throughout Azeroth come under attack from Primalist forces and there will be different elements to contend with—fire, water, earth, and air. You can find the locations of these invasions displayed on the world map if they are active. The locations you should pay close attention to are:
- Tirisfal Glades, Eastern Kingdoms
- Badlands, Eastern Kingdoms
- Northern Barrens, Kalimdor
- Un'Goro, Kalimdor
The goal of each invasion event is to bring the progress bar down to zero by killing enemies in the area. Once the bar has been depleted, a boss will spawn. Primeval Essences will drop from both trash mobs and the boss and you can turn these in for 252 item-level catch-up gear and other items.
Each type of elemental boss also has a chance to drop a "Dimmed Primeval" item which you can combine to make an heirloom trinket once you've collected all four.
You will also be able to queue for the revamped Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr dungeon on normal difficulty during this time.
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A fairly popular custom launcher project for Minecraft has capsized after a maintainer purged the project's other developers for "promoting radicalist leftist queer ideology," GamingOnLinux reports. With the project under their exclusive control, the hijacker is now free to push any update they like without oversight, including malicious code.
The project, PolyMC, bills itself as a Minecraft launcher focused on "predictability, long term stability and simplicity". Its purpose is to provide users with an easy means to manage multiple different installs of Minecraft on a single machine, each with its own unique constellation of mods, resources, and settings. Following yesterday's purge, current PolyMC users are being urged by the Minecraft modding community to stop using the launcher immediately.
Unfortunate but urgent announcement to make.If you use PolyMC as your launcher, we are urging all users to switch off of it immediately. Not tomorrow, today. The main keyholder for PolyMC's infrastructure has been compromised.October 17, 2022
See moreIt's not entirely clear which supposed act of "leftist queer ideology" set off the bizarre coup in the first place. The project update that accompanied the purge—named "reclaim polymc from the leftoids"—did only one thing: Delete the project's code of conduct, which contained provisions aimed at protecting project users and participants from transphobic, homophobic, and racist abuse.
Those provisions certainly seem like the kind of thing that might enrage someone with reactionary politics, but the code of conduct has existed for months. There are even records from May of the dev who just hijacked the project arguing for removing the clauses that explicitly protect people on the basis of things like gender identity and sexual orientation, rather than unilaterally deleting it outright. It's unclear what, if anything, has led the dev in question to torpedo the project in the last few days.
It was originally assumed that the hijacker's account had itself been hacked by someone with a far-right axe to grind, but a message signed with the dev's PGP signature states they aren't compromised.
Since cutting their fellow devs out of the project, the hijacker has taken to Discord to assure panicked users that, "despite what you think about [them] personally," they have no intention of introducing malware into PolyMC. Of course, if they did decide to inject malicious code, there wouldn't be anybody left to stop them. It's better to be safe than sorry in this instance and stop using PolyMC altogether.
The hijacker also says they are currently "seeing if anyone is interested in contributing" to the project. I guess they're an optimist.
It's not all bad news for PolyMC fans, though. Since yesterday's drama, the evicted devs have regrouped under the moniker PrismLauncher. There's not much in the way of an official statement from them regarding PolyMC yet, save for a request that fans don't bother people involved with the project. With any luck, PolyMC users will be able to transition smoothly over to the new project without too much hassle. PrismLauncher is yet to get fully up and running, but the team has a Discord server you can follow for updates.
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Survive the Lands Between with these Elden Ring guides(Image credit: FromSoftware)
Elden Ring guide: Conquer the Lands Between
Elden Ring bosses: How to beat them
Elden Ring map fragments: Reveal the world
Elden Ring weapons: Arm yourself
Elden Ring Smithing Stone: Upgrade your gear
Elden Ring Ashes of War: Where to find them
Elden Ring classes: Which to chooseThe Elden Ring Fia quest is one of the first you encounter, when you meet her in the Roundtable Hold, and she offers to give you a nice little hug. At first, it seems like that's all it is, but Fia's quest is actually one of the most important in the game, since as with Ranni, Dungeater, and Goldmask, it unlocks a potential rune you can use as part of Elden Ring's regular ending.
Fia also plays a minor role in Rogier's quest if you happen to meet him while you're sneaking into Stormveil Castle, which helps expand a bit of the lore around Godwyn the Golden, and the Night of the Black Knives. Most of her quest won't really unlock until you meet D, Hunter of the Undead, and have progressed to a certain area of the game.
In this Elden Ring Fia quest guide, I'll explain all of the steps you need to take in order to successfully get her ending. This will contain some endgame spoilers, so if you've somehow managed to avoid them so far and want to play blind, you should probably leave.
Elden Ring Fia quest summary
Here are the broad steps that you need to complete Fia's quest:
1. Meet Fia in the Roundtable Hold and receive her blessing.
2. Once you get to the Altus Plateau, speak to Fia to get the Weathered Dagger.
3. Give the dagger to D, Hunter of the Dead in the Roundtable Hold.
4. Return to find D murdered by Fia in the room just past Smith Master Hewg.
5. Complete the Ranni quest to the point where she gives you the Carian Inverted Statue.
6. Use the statue in the Carian Study Hall and make your way through to get the Cursemark of Death.
7. Head to the Deeproot Depths through the coffin in the Siofra Aqueduct or the Cathedral of Forsaken shortcut below Leyndell. Climb the roots in the Nameless Eternal City and fight the Fia's Champion boss.
8. Give her the Cursemark of Death then enter the Deathbed Dream to defeat Lichdragon Fortissax.
9. Claim the Mending Rune of the Death Prince and her outfit from her body.
10. If you gave D's armor set to his twin in the Siofra Aqueduct, he'll kill her, but you can receive his sword and get D's armor set back if you reload and return.Should you let Fia hold you?
Elden Ring Fia hold you: Should you let her?
You first encounter Fia in Roundtable Hold, which is essentially the Firelink Shrine of Elden Ring. From the main room with the Table of Lost Grace, head through the doorway to the right of Diallos, then proceed through the door opposite. Fia is sitting on a bed close to a large open fire.
When you first approach Fia and talk to her, she'll ask to "hold you". It's a bit of an odd request, all things considered, so you're probably wondering what the catch is.
If you agree to let Fia hold you, you'll receive the Baldachin's Blessing item, a consumable that temporarily boosts Poise. The trade-off is that Fia gives you a minor HP debuff until you use the item. You can return to her for more Baldachin's Blessings whenever you need. Refusing her offer means you won't get the item or start her quest.
(Image credit: From Software)Weathered Dagger
Elden Ring Fia quest: What to do with the Weathered Dagger
Now you'll want to head to Summonwater Village to meet D and defeat the Tibia Mariner boss. It's worth noting that this boss drops the Elden Ring Deathroot item, which is unrelated to this quest, but valuable all the same in unlocking bestial incantations. You should now be able to find D near the main table of the hold, though you can ignore him for now.
Once you arrive at the Altus Plateau using the Dectus Medallion or the Ruin-Strewn Precipice, go and talk to Fia. She'll hand you the Weathered Dagger, and ask you to find its owner.
Now head back to D in the main room and hand over the dagger. When you return to the Roundtable Hold, you will find that D has been murdered by Fia in the room at the end of the corridor by Smith Master Hewg.
Fia will disappear after a speech, so make sure you loot the Twinned armor and Bell Bearing from D's corpse if you want his holy incantations.
Cursemark of Death location
(Image credit: From Software)Where to find the Cursemark of Death
To complete the next step, you'll need to invert the Carian Study Hall in East Liurnia with an item you receive during the Elden Ring Ranni quest.
Once you have the statue, head to the Carian Study Hall and place it on the altar. You'll now be able to make your way through, but you'll still have to fight Proprietor Miriam. The best tactic is to use a spell or bow that might knock her off the bridge. On the approach to the Divine Tower, you also have to face a Godskin Noble who suddenly appears.
Head up to the top of the Divine Tower and loot the Cursemark of Death from the corpse you find.
Twinned armor choice
Siofra Aqueduct Twinned armor choice
The next step of Fia's quest involves heading to the Deeproot Depths through the Siofra Aqueduct near Nokron. You will have unlocked this area after beating Radahn as part of Ranni's quest, since it's separate from the regular Elden Ring Siofra River region.
After the Mimic Tear boss, you'll arrive in a wooded area. Head north-east through the woods and past the jellyfish and you'll find a place to drop down into the Siofra Aqueduct. Make your way through, but be wary of the patrolling Crucible Knights. Just before the door to the Valiant Gargoyle boss, you'll find D's brother slouched on the floor.
If you choose to hand over the Twinned armor set, D's brother will kill Fia. This doesn't happen until much later, so it doesn't appear to affect whether you get her ending or not. You'll get the armor back eventually, too, as well as a new Elden Ring weapon. If you don't hand over the armor, nothing will change.
Defeat Fia's Champions
(Image credit: From Software)Defeat Fia's Champions in Deeproot Depths
Now, defeat the Valiant Gargoyle boss. Draw the first over to the left side of the arena, and beat it as fast as possible, while watching out for its poison spewing move. Avoid the second while it's using the twinblade until it switches to axe, since the attacks are much slower and easier to dodge. Once defeated, head to the waterfall and climb in the coffin.
Now you're in the Deeproot Depths. Simply keep heading along until you find the Nameless Eternal City, then head up the tree roots to get to the highest point where you'll find a site of grace. Head into the arena to fight the Fia's champions boss. It's relatively easy, since they are all just NPCs, but be wary of getting ganged up on in the last phase. Once done, head over to Fia by the portal.
Talk to her and ask her to hold you when prompted. Keep talking to her and hand over the Cursemark of Death. You should now be able to interact with her to enter the "Deathbed Dream". If this option isn't available, fast travel away from the area, then return via the Across the Roots Site of Grace.
There is an alternate route if you've made your way into Leyndell and the Subterranean-Shunning Grounds as part of the Dung Eater quest. After defeating Mohg in the Forsaken Cathedral, hit the altar, and descend to the Frenzied Flame location. Hit the walls on the right side to uncover a room with a chest, then hit the wall behind that to open a way to the Deeproot Depths.
Also a side note: if you haven't beaten the Draconic Tree Sentinel to enter Leyndell, you can actually skip it by going through the portal located next to Fia. This portal will only unlock once you've beaten two shardbearers, however.
Getting Mending Rune of the Death-Prince
(Image credit: From Software)How to get the Mending Rune of the Death-Prince
Once you enter the Deathbed Dream, you'll need to face the dragon boss, Lichdragon Fortissax. Once he's been defeated, you're transported back out of the dream. Fia appears to be asleep, but you can loot her for the Mending Rune of the Death-Prince. This is the key item needed to get Fia's Ending and is used after you've beaten the final boss. You can also now claim Fia's outfit at her bed in the Roundtable Hold.
(Image credit: From Software)If you handed over the Twinned armor
If you handed the Twinned armor to D's brother
Once you've obtained the Mending Rune of the Death-Prince from Fia, you are free to leave the area. But if you chose to hand over the Twinned armor to D's brother earlier on, he'll show up when you next return and will be standing over Fia's body, having killed her.
Rest at the site of grace and he'll disappear, leaving you to claim the Twinned armor and the Inseparable Greatsword he left behind.
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There are dozens of Sims 4 DLCs and it can be a dang headache trying to keep track of which expansions, game packs, and stuff packs are actually the best additions to the game. That's especially true now, when several packs have overlapping themes and there's a new, even smaller DLC type called Kits compounding the confusion.
Get more out of Sims 4Now that the Sims 4 base game has gone free to play, you can try it out before deciding if you want to spend money on DLC. If you do take the plunge, this list of the best Sims 4 DLCs will guide you toward the most valuable add-ons. To do that in 2022, we've set aside the increasingly meaningless distinctions between game packs and expansions or stuff packs and kits. Instead, we'll just tell you how much each DLC costs and what types of things it adds to the game.
Here's what to expect from a Sims 4 DLC: New worlds are their own neighborhoods (some bigger than others) with buildable lots and usually community areas too. "CAS" items are all the Create-A-Sim additions like hairstyles, clothes, and other Sim customization. Build/Buy mode items are furniture, décor, fixtures, and sometimes landscaping. Gameplay additions can really range from big to small, but we'll outline what the pack actually does in each case.
One final note: Sims 4 DLCs go on sale quite often, so if you want to save a little money, wait for discounts to show up and then reference this page to make sure you're getting the most for your money.
(Image credit: EA)High School Years
Price: $40/£35 | Includes: New world, CAS items, Build/Buy items, gameplay
While several of The Sims 4 expansions are the newest take on expansions from past games, High School Years is a first time experience for the series. You can finally attend school with your teenage Sims, directing them through all its highs and lows: social media, prom, homework, sneaking out their bedroom windows. The new school lot type is a great challenge for players who love building, with tons of new furniture fit for the classroom and plenty for your teen Sims' bedrooms too. All the CAS clothing additions are on the trendy side, which is fitting for the new ability to thrift clothes and set style trends. Oh, and this pack brought body hair to the base game for the first time, with lots of specific CAS options in the expansion itself.
Seasons
Price: $40/£35 | Includes: CAS items, Build/Buy items, Gameplay
Seasons sounds like it could just cover the weather, but there are plenty of holidays and seasonal activities to get stuck into as well. In Autumn/Fall it's great to take part in the wholesome Harvestfest festivities, cook a big feast, and watch as pesky Holiday Gnomes spring up in your house. Love Day, Winterfest, and New Year's Eve are scattered across the rest of the year to persuade us to splash the cash on some decorations, open presents, and celebrate. There are even surprise holidays like 'Prank Day', and smaller hobbies to try like flower arranging.
Considering we're on the fourth instalment of the Sims, you'd think Seasons would be baked into the base game at this point. Sadly, we still need to part with our hard-earned pennies to experience dynamic weather. It's definitely worth it to trudge through snow in puffy coats and see the look on your Sim's face when they're scared of thunder.
City Living
Price: $40/£35 | Includes: New world, CAS items, Build/Buy items, gameplay
There's no way I'll ever be able to afford a three-bedroom apartment in London, so I'll just have to stick with the City Living expansion to simulate what it's like to live a lavish metropolitan lifestyle. There are festivals to attend, neighbours to embarrass yourself in front of at Karaoke bars, and not to mention a swanky view of the cityscape right outside your window. This expansion also introduces new careers including positions in Social Media, the Arts, and Politics. Remember, you'll still need a well-paying job to live your dreams in the big apple.
(Image credit: EA)Cats & Dogs
Price: $40/£35 | Includes: New world, CAS items, Build/Buy items, gameplay
The name gives it away, and if you're an animal lover this is a must-buy. Not only can you create the perfect pooches and kitties, you can customise their coats to have green spots, or pink boots, if that's your thing. This expansion adds Brindleton Bay to your neighbourhood, an area that's brimming with parks that are perfect for walking your pets. If you're keen to make petcare your sim's priority, you can also follow the veterinarian career path, and build your own clinic, which is a lot easier than the five years you'd have to spend studying in real life.
Discover University
Price: $40/£35 | Includes: New world, CAS items, Build/Buy items, gameplay
College life is when you're supposed to experiment, and this expansion gives your sims lots to do as they work towards their degree. Not only does this pack have some of the best Create-A-Sim items in the game, it's nice to take a break from managing a household to hang around on campus and get whisked away into some student shenanigans. There are two universities to choose between and each has a unique culture to soak up. Naturally, this pack is filled with new careers and skills, including branches into the Law, Education, and Engineering sectors.
Get to Work
Price: $40/£35 | Includes: New world, CAS items, Build/Buy items, gameplay
Work is probably the last thing you want to think about when you're sitting down for a long Sims session with a cuppa, but I promise this work is fun. If you've ever dreamed of running your own business, you can get your sims to take all the risks and build their art galleries, bakeries, and fashion empires from the safety of your computer chair. You can also follow the Detective, Doctor, and Scientist career paths, which introduces aliens to the game. It's up to you whether you decide to fully embrace your extra terrestrial powers of erasing minds and analysing other sims, or go under the radar as a human.
Vampires
Price: $20/£18 | Includes: New world, CAS items, Build/Buy items, gameplay
Supernatural packs aren’t to everybody’s tastes, but if you’re keen on exploring the occult, Vampires is a great place to dive in. Your vampires will have a range of abilities: they can unlock doors in other homes, make their enemies hallucinate, or enter the minds of other Sims to learn all about their personality traits.
The thirsty undead have weaknesses to spice up our playthroughs, too. Your sim might hiss uncontrollably during conversation or—my favourite—feel guilty when chomping on the neck of somebody without their permission. Speaking of which, vampires don’t have hunger or bladder meters, and instead need to keep their Vampire Energy topped up, which completely changes your daily routine. Supernaturally, there are also lots of spooky candlesticks, coffins, and spiderwebs with which to kit out your creepy mansion.
Werewolves
Price: $20/£18 | Includes: New world, CAS items, Build/Buy items, gameplay
Like Vampires, the Sims 4 Werewolves pack includes a new paranormal form and a new neighborhood. This is a pretty killer DLC, adding lots of new CAS clothes and hairstyles, new cabin aesthetic décor, and a customizable werewolf form that borrows the pretty expansive fur editing choices from the Cats & Dogs expansion. There's new Werewolf gameplay that forces you to manage your rage so you don't involuntarily change, two rival werewolf pack factions to join, and a pretty cool community, too. The neighborhood is much bigger than it appears. Although there are only five editable lots (one empty, one starter home, two community lots, and an inhabited house) there's tons of community space to freely explore, including the two werewolf pack hangout spots.
Parenthood
Price: $20/£18 | Includes: CAS items, Build/Buy items, gameplay
Parenthood expands the horizons of both young Sims and care-givers. On the child’s side, it introduces a new set of attributes that track development, including how responsible they are, or how well they have their emotions in check. It feels more meaningful than just watching meters tick up and down, with Sims able to gain new traits—good and bad—that will affect them later in life.
The expansion makes being a parent feel like a proper job, rather than just something passive. Trying to control an unruly toddler is challenging, and you'll need to find the sweet spot between much-needed discipline and being lax parenting. Children and teens also have more traits like, for example, being picky eaters. It’s nowhere near as stressful as being a real-life parent, but it adds a lot of depth that was missing in the base game.
Tiny Living
Price: $10/£9 | Includes: CAS items, Build/Buy items, gameplay
Andy couldn't stop building tiny houses when this expansion launched, and Chris got creative as he tried to cram everything into his titchy builds. If City Living's huge apartments are feeling a bit echoey and you're looking for a challenge, this stuff pack will make you question what you really need in your living quarters. There are pull-down beds and genius space-saving items in the build/buy menu. The Create-A-Sim additions also look super cute and comfortable.
While this is one of the cheaper add-ons, it offers exceptional value for money as it shakes up the gameplay and feels very different to how a lot of us usually approach the Sims. Rather than save up our Simoleons to fill our space with pretty junk, it encourages us to furnish a cosy home with the essentials.
(Image credit: EA)Paranormal
Price: $10/£9 | Includes: CAS items, Build/Buy items, gameplay
Whether you're dead set on ghost hunting, or want to have a chat with some friendly spirits, you'll need this stuff pack to get your Paranormal Investigator license. Just like Tiny Living, this DLC is surprisingly reasonable for the content it offers. The Ghost Hunter profession that we first tried in The Sims 3 has been resurrected here, and haunted houses have been added as a new lot type. It's fair to say that performing seances changes the course of your daily routine, and it's a blast from the past reuniting with Makin' Magic's Bonehilda.
Laundry Day
Price: $10/£9 | Includes: CAS items, Build/Buy items, Gameplay
Laundry stuff is a really nice midpoint pack if you really want to torture your Sims with the minutia of real life. We once called it the best and worst thing to happen to The Sims 4, because the addition of laundry feels pleasingly realistic even if the reality of having to keep up with it is less pleasant for your Sim's schedule. Sims will chuck their clothes in the nearest hamper when they change, which they'll also need to empty and wash when it gets full. This DLC comes with several cute floral CAS choices, a few hair styles, and different washing choices in Build/Buy mode. There's the washer and dryer appliances or a washboard and clothing line for the off-the-grid or space conscious Sims.
Little Campers
Price: $5/£5| Includes: Build/Buy items
The Little Campers kit is a tiny one, but it's a two-in-one set of items that we don't often get more of in Sims 4: kids stuff and outdoor stuff. It's all about camping out in the backyard with cute portable and kid-friendly décor. The highlights here are definitely the big hanging bed sheet lined with string lights that your Sims can watch movies projected on, the fire pit for marshmallow roasting, and the big blanket fort also decked out with lights. This is a string light stuffed pack, really.
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Need to know
What is it? A story driven action-adventure game about hunting for long-lost treasure.
Expect to pay: £45 / $50
Developer: Naughty Dog
Publisher: PlayStation
Reviewed on: Ryzen 5 3600X, 32GB RAM, RTX 2070
Multiplayer? No
Link: Official SiteI've missed Uncharted. The reckless personalities, lush environments, and delightfully ridiculous action set pieces are unlike anything else we have in games, and coming back to the series with this PC port of the fourth game and its standalone expansion (The Lost Legacy) has been an absolute pleasure.
I first indulged in the Uncharted games years ago now on PlayStation, and haven't revisited them since becoming a PC player. I've always loved Nathan Drake because he's a morally grey hero who, with a cheeky quip and a mischievous smile, can get away with almost anything. Where Lara Croft claims she's just an archaeologist, despite her chaotic exploits, Drake and crew are self-confessed thieves, mercenaries, and rogues, with silver tongues and dark pasts. In his wake, history is destroyed one collapsing temple at a time, but in the end he always makes the right choice… and ends up no richer than when he started. They're thrilling adventures–and Uncharted 4 is the best of all of them.
You've probably already heard how good it is: near-universally acclaimed on its original release back in 2016. It was and still is the perfect ending to Nathan's story. At the outset, he's given up his life of adventure, living a normal life with love interest Elena, but the arrival of long-lost brother Sam lures him into one final mission. Sam steals the show, but Elena's role is crucial, Nathan's inability to be honest with her sharply highlighting his struggles with settling down. He needs adventure, and wrongly sees her as standing in his way. It's a beautifully crafted emotional conflict that's all the more poignant for the quiet moments that lead into it, including a still perfect scene where the two play Crash Bandicoot together. A moment of peaceDUP nostalgia in a game otherwise filled with firefights and spectacular close calls.
(Image credit: Naughty Dog / PlayStation)X marks the spot, even on a scope
All that action has aged wonderfully well. As someone who plays a lot of FPS games, I prefer shooting and aiming with a mouse for the combat sections, which are actually more frequent than I remembered. Diving from cover to cover is still exciting and deadly, even playing on the regular difficulty settings I was forced to time my peeks and plan my positions. With bullets streaking past you and the odd grenade lobbed into your cover, the firefights are engagingly stressful and with a mouse I feel more in control of where my own bullets and grenades landed.
When it could be avoided, I found myself leaning into stealth as much as possible to avoid the messy, chaotic conflict of a small army running at you. Stealth was way more satisfying in any case as it spared some of the extra nice gun ammunition I wanted, and it offers yet another opportunity to sketch out a mastermind plan. Did these plans always work? Hardly ever, admittedly, and most of my stealth efforts became firefights all the same, as I swore and ran away from the soldier who had spotted me.
The climbing mechanics are still lovely little puzzles you solve as you work your way to a goal, finding the fun in architecture better than the recent Assassin's Creeds. Accessing the surroundings to find the best route to make it to your goal has always made the series feel like you're a real smart 'donkey' for feeling your way through an ancient fort. Uncharted 4 in particular likes to mix up its mostly linear pathing. During a trip to an Italian mansion, your team has to slink from roof to roof to avoid the guards hunting you, free to pick your own paths across the rooftops rather than just one predetermined by the game. It makes you feel intelligent as you evade your enemies and also dumb when you get caught.
(Image credit: Naughty Dog / PlayStation)It's a gorgeous, first-class travel package that takes you physically and emotionally to incredible places.
A favourite puzzle from the two games may be one from Lost Legacy where giant statues wield massive weapons down onto platforms. The right path means these weapons miss you and counting the number of moves you can make as these mechanical menaces tick and crunch into place with every step is a proper brainteaser. Every time you hop onto a new platform, that triggers the statues to move so you have to think three steps ahead at all times. Three rounds of this means that by the end you're both a pro and also overthinking the moves they make. Entirely ridiculous and campy in execution, but exactly the type of thing I want from an Uncharted game.
And the driving sections are still tense and exciting in both games, from the freedom of Lost Legacy's Jeep section to the downhill dash in Uncharted 4. And graphically, even going in with the expectation that this is a studio that excels at visuals, the art continues to be absolutely stunning.
Six years after its original launch, this is still the best action-adventure game out there. It takes the genre, crushes it up, rehydrates, simmers, filters, condenses, and compacts into its purest form. It's a gorgeous, first-class travel package that takes you physically and emotionally to incredible places. The beginning of each area or chapter feels like a red carpet rolling out in front of you, inviting you to experience something new each time. The frozen earth of Scotland, the colourful savannah of Madagascar, the dry evening breeze of Italy. Uncharted takes you somewhere and turns it into a playground of chaos to mess around in (and probably blow up on your way out).
(Image credit: Naughty Dog / PlayStation)Paradise found
There is a fantasy element to Uncharted 4 that's just believable enough to not break your immersion. You're rarely given a chance to think about how most of these illusive places would have been found already through current technology, or how despite being shot twenty times by a literal army, hiding behind a wall will recover your health. The sheer pace and variety keeps your suspension of disbelief afloat through any number of perilous climbs across crumbling ancient ruins.
This collection includes The Lost Legacy, a standalone spin-off that started life as DLC before expanding into its own experience. I hadn't played it before, and it's only made me want a new Uncharted sequel more.
Focusing in on side-characters Chloe and Nadine, it creates a relationship between them that is so well-written and performed that you get to see these two in a way Nathan couldn't. They're independent adventurers carrying the weight of family legacies on their backs, without the luck and luxuries of being a Drake. As they grow from strangers to friends, you come to hope for more dialogue of them exploring their pasts, the gossip of what happened between Chloe and Nathan (especially now he's a married man), and how they came to be the fearless women they are now.
(Image credit: Naughty Dog / PlayStation)The very beginning chapter of Lost Legacy is as tense as Uncharted has ever been. Fearing for the life of Chloe as she navigates a literal warzone and holding your breath as she's approached by leering guards is far from what Nathan Drake ever experiences in your time with him. It already sets the two adventures apart and even improves on some of Uncharted 4's best bits. The typical working conversation is natural, some of the awesome architecture is more like the series' previous set pieces, and because it's shorter, the pacing was at times a little tighter. And man did I enjoy hating Asav.
Though the adventure isn't as long as Drake's this one has plenty of its own strengths. Driving about India in a Jeep opting to find more and more treasure tokens for a mysterious reward was the best sort of gaming busywork. Without spoiling it, this reward has an actual in-game use which was a relief when I was initially expecting just a Steam achievement. The freeform exploration means you can take your time with your two heroes, just soaking in all the sights and collecting all the treasure hidden away in the river basin. Climbing ancient structures has never felt so awe inspiring. I audibly gasped a few times when stone crumbled beneath Chloe's hands only for her inevitable recovery to save her from death.
The climbing also represents some of Chloe and Nadine's relationship, as they become closer they help each other up these challenging walls. Their calls to each other to make sure they're alright are more concerned as the game goes on and their friendship feels like they entirely respect each other as equals and partners. Where they bickered about the right way to approach things at the beginning, there is instead conversation, joint decisions, and trust. Drake's main companions have mostly been mentors or lovers rather than just plain friends so it's great to see that relationship blossom from nothing to something over the course of Lost Legacy.
(Image credit: Naughty Dog / PlayStation)Performance
Performance on PC is smooth, and despite its age the game looks brilliant on modern hardware. I was initially a little worried when my 2070 struggled on Ultra so I toned it down to High, with DLSS whacked onto Quality. At that point there was still some occasional stuttering, mostly notably with water-y situations but nothing too bothersome. The recommended settings say the game should run on an SSD ideally but my PC uses an HDD.
On the other hand the Razer Blade 15 with a 3070 at 2560 x 1440 handled the Ultra setting with no problem at 60 fps. Clever guidance in the graphics settings shows you what level is possible on your system, which gave me the confidence to crank them up and enjoy the sights. It was smooth like butter on the Razer Blade even without DLSS activated. With DLSS on I did notice a difference in texture quality of course, but it was minimal and it's only in a side-by side comparison that I could really see it change. On Ultra the graph showing the performance showed my Blade was at the very limit of what it could do so DLSS certainly helped take the game out of the red zone and into a more comfortable spot with its Quality setting.
My experience was marred, however, by a strange bug in cutscenes, where characters refused to move or speak their lines: switching to the Blade and its SSD seemed to fix the problem, so I'm hopeful that it's not a widespread issue.
(Image credit: Naughty Dog / PlayStation)The Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection is a great addition to Sony's PC catalogue, whether you're playing these games for the first time or just taking the excuse to experience them again. Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy are the pinnacles of what the last generation of consoles achieved, up there with modern classics such as God of War and Persona 5, and still well worth your time. I've missed Uncharted, and I'm so glad I got the opportunity to see Nathan Drake's last adventure once again.
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The DualSense Edge was revealed earlier this year at Gamescom. While it gives you everything you'd expect from a DualSense controller, like haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, it's the new features Sony hopes will get you to spend the big bucks. I'm not joking; the DualSense will cost you $200, with the replacement joystick modules costing $20 a piece.
The new wireless controller offers remappable buttons, adjustable trigger stops, and swappable joystick modules. You can even fine-tune your stick sensitivity and dead zones to your liking. The latter is a feature that makes one of my favorite controllers much more appealing, especially for a PC gamer.
The Edge has two remappable back buttons (Series 2 opts for four paddles if you're comparing) that can be swapped to either two half-dome or level buttons. However, it doesn't have a swappable d-pad either, so if you hate it, you're stuck with it.
One neat feature on the DualSense is the lockable connector housing that will ensure the USB Type-C cable stays put during intense Street Fighter 6 matches.
At $200, though, the Edge is more expensive than the $180 Xbox Elite Series 2 controller—an option that even comes with a charging case. Xbox does offer a boiled-down version of the Elite (the Series 2 'Core' controller) for $130. And if you want to customize an Elite controller using Design Lab, that could cost you up to $210, depending on your chosen extras. Though if you're looking for a controller loaded with extras for the PS5 that you can use on the PC, the Edge might be the controller you've been waiting for. Just don't expect it to come cheap.
Here's everything that comes inside the DualSense Edge's carrying case:
- USB braided cable
- 2 Standard Caps
- 2 High Dome Caps
- 2 Low Dome Caps
- 2 Half Dome Back Buttons
- 2 Lever Back Buttons
- Connector Housing
The carrying case can be used as a charging case as well which I'm personally excited about because it means I have a way of keeping the controller out of the sight of a destructive toddler who loves throwing game controllers around. RIP, my Blue Xbox Series X controller.
Sony is offering replacement joystick modules (sold separately) in case yours start to wear down after a while. You can simply buy new ones and pop them right into the controller instead of replacing the entire controller. No tools required.Pre-orders for the DualSense Edge wireless controller open up on October 25. The controller and replaceable stick modules will be available first on PlayStation's retail site on January 26, 2023. They'll show up at other retailers worldwide on February 23, 2023.
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If you've been too intimidated by the numerous expansions and kits available for The Sims 4, then you'll be pleased to know that The Sims 4 base game is now free to play from today. From October 18 you'll be able to download the full The Sims 4 base game on PC and consoles for free, although you'll still need to pay for any expansions you're after.
You can download The Sims 4 via the EA app, Steam and Origin, with console users downloading from their respective stores. If you're playing via EA Play or EA Play Pro, you'll be able to claim The Sims 4 EA Play Edition, which includes the Get to Work expansion. EA Play Pro subscribers can also get the EA Play Pro Edition which also comes with the Get to Work expansion as well as the Toddler Stuff pack.
There's also a stream coming today which could potentially reveal the reasoning behind The Sims 4 going free to play—could The Sims 5 be on the horizon at last? I can only hope, so you'll need to watch the Behind The Sims Summit to find out at 6 pm BST/ 10 am PT/ 1 pm ET what's coming next.
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On Friday, the United States announced new restrictions that ban US semiconductor equipment suppliers from exporting to China. The sanctions hope to cut off China's ability to obtain advanced semiconductors used for supercomputing due to the national security concerns, the US claims.
As reported in the Financial Times, US-based equipment suppliers have to cease all business with Chinese semiconductor companies. The move forces Chinese chip makers to look elsewhere for manufacturing tools and equipment—a massive blow to China's semiconductor industry.
US semiconductor toolmakers such as Lam Research, Applied Materials, and KLA Corporation have already started work to comply with the new regulations. Lam is "pulling out support staff" from chipmakers in China, according to FT. An anonymous employee speaking to the publication said that they are being told to "stay away from fabs in China for now."
ASML, another chip toolmaker, has told all US employees to "refrain—either directly or indirectly—from servicing, shipping or providing support to any customers in China until further notice."
The new sanctions, according to the statement from the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), are part of "ongoing efforts to protect U.S. national security and foreign policy interests." The BIS also says that restriction will hinder China's ability "purchase and manufacture certain high-end chips used in military applications."
Any US citizen or company that wants to provide services to Chinese chipmakers will need special approval from the Department of Commerce. Chinese chipmakers can apply for permission from the US to do business with these companies.
Your next upgrade(Image credit: Future)Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the restTSMC and SK Hynix told FT that they had both received one-year exceptions.
Reuters reports that enforcement of these new rules limiting the export of sensitive technology to China will be strict. It's part of an "overarching policy to address concerns stemming from the PRC's use of these particular technologies to the detriment of US national security and foreign policy interests" in recent months.
In a statement last Thursday, the China Semiconductor Industry Association said it hopes “the US government can adjust its wrong course of action," according to FT.
The other company well known to PC gamers facing complications with its business in China is Nvidia. The company was ordered to halt sales of some of its more powerful graphics cards to companies in China, though shortly after was given a one year exception to ensure its continued logistical operations in Hong Kong.
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Every so often, Roblox releases some numbers and you remember just how massive it is. We all know the platform is huge among a younger demographic but the last time I wrote about the numbers in February this year, they were so big the only comparison that made sense was Canada. No wonder the CEO looks set to pocket $234 million over the next five years.
As a public company Roblox regularly issues metrics, and has just done so for September. We're gonna need a bigger comparison country because the daily active user count for the game has now hit 57.8 million, which marks an incredible 23% rise year-over-year. Other games are not as forthcoming with such numbers but this easily outstrips Minecraft (140 million monthly users), Fortnite (where numbers peak at 10-15 million whenever the game hosts one of its big live events), and the whole League of Legends franchise (180 million monthly users, as of October 2021) .
This is complete beermat maths, so don't go citing it, but based on these figures and a 30 day month Roblox would have 1.734 billion users and all those other games combined would be about 400 million.
Here's an official Roblox Corporation figure though: "Hours engaged were 4.0 billion, up 16% year-over-year." Four billion man hours a month in this place.
The report goes into some detail on the financials, with the estimated revenue for this month being between $212-219 million. This is more-or-less equivalent to last year's figures, so while the numbers are going up the average spend is slightly decreasing (this month, anyway). Roblox Corporation puts some of this down to the strengthening of the US dollar against the euro, British pound and other currencies.
One final interesting metric is what Robox Corporation calls a "paying user life estimate", which is an average of how long an account will be active within Roblox and spending money. The figure is "calculated based on historical monthly retention data for each payer cohort to project future participation on the Roblox Platform." Based on this the company had previously put the figure at 28 months; it's now revised this down to 25 months.
Is Roblox the biggest game in the world? If you think it's a game then I'd say it is. Probably the most interesting element of Roblox is how it may fit into the much-vaunted metaverse future because, while others may look (a lot) fancier and seem more obvious contenders, this has the sheer numbers to succeed. Even if, sometimes, they don't turn up. Roblox still has issues (it feels like every couple of months there's a new report about scammers targeting kids, and sometimes worse), but it has a userbase that simply towers above its competition and, while Zuckerberg messes about with legs, is quietly taking over its own corner of the digital world.
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"Fresh start servers" are designed to give players a chance to sample MMOs when they were—you guessed it—fresh and new and not overcrowded and overrun by max-level players and all their stuff. Blizzard, for instance, announced earlier this year that World of Warcraft Classic's Wrath of the Lich King expansion would launch with fresh servers, where all players would start with new characters at level 1. Starting in November, players of Amazon's New World will have the same opportunity when Fresh Start Worlds for that game go live.
"We’ve received a lot of requests for Fresh Start Worlds, so we are using the time between the Brimstone Sands release and the opening of these worlds to ensure you have a high quality, fresh start," Amazon said in the announcement.
"All coins, loot, and characters must originate in these servers. That means no powerful or rich Adventurers can transfer into any of the new worlds. A blank canvas complete with a revamped starting experience awaits."
Brimstone Sands, by the way, is an update going live today—October 18—that will add a new ancient Egyptian-themed zone to the game, along with a new expedition, Heartgem abilities, the greatsword weapon, and that "revamped starting experience" mentioned in the announcement, which Amazon said will reduce backtracking, improve quest accessibility, and tie the new player experience more tightly to the central storyline. You can check out the full patch notes here.
Fresh start servers aren't a new concept, but they're more commonly seen in older games: ArcheAge, which launched in North America in 2014, rolled out fresh start servers in September, and Old School RuneScape, from 2013, is opening its own fresh start servers later in October. World of Warcraft is a decade older than either of them, although Wrath of the Lich King isn't quite that age, having debuted in 2008.
New World, on the other hand, is just barely a year old: It launched on September 28, 2021. And it hasn't been what you'd call an overly smooth year, as players have struggled with technical issues, gold scammers, dupers, complaints about the economy, and a general sense that the game was not in a great state. Launching fresh start servers after just a year of operation could be seen as another indicator that things haven't gone exactly according to plan, and in fact some players in the New World subreddit welcomed the move not so they could enjoy the game as it was on day one, but simply because it might help alleviate the problems they anticipate will arise when Brimstone Sands goes love.
"I think this is the right decision ultimately," FineLeg wrote. "It gives them the chance to avoid and fix massive game breaking bugs or glitches from Brimstone that could sully the new servers."
"They're also lowering the huge influx of players that both Brimstone and fresh start servers could create," Otiknayluj replied. "Imagine welcoming returning players with +2000 players queues."
Cyprux, on the other hand, took more of a pessimistic, "why not both?" position. "Launching fresh starts later means that people don't have to choose between brimstone/fresh," they wrote. "Now people can clog the servers for both events."
Eaglered2167, on the other hand, was more upbeat, arguing that while players want fresh start servers right now, the decision to launch them two weeks after the Brimstone Sands update is "the correct way to do it."
"Ensure that the major update bugs have been patched and then release fresh servers to ensure that the experience is the best that it can be," they wrote. "You only get one shot to get back old players and this is it. If you launch everything at once and there are major issues, you have lost your chance.
"Plus, they just dropped the Territory Management Update dev blog which is a major change to how factions currently take advantage of settlements. This will actually help the economy of Fresh Start servers specifically. So they need this in before Fresh Start servers open up."
New World's Fresh Start Worlds are set to roll out on November 2.
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With AMD recently joining the PCI Express 5.0 party with its Ryzen 7000 CPUs, you might expect Samsung to roll out its first Gen 5 M.2 drive to suit. But no. The new Samsung 990 Pro remains a Gen 4 SSD.
If you think about the current situation carefully, a revised Gen 4 drive does at least make sense. For starters, while you may now be able to buy PCIe Gen 5 capable PC platforms from both Intel and AMD, the number of such systems out there in the wild is still small. And, of course, neither of the big two M.2-compatible games consoles support PCIe 5.0.
At the same time, the status of the existing Samsung 980 Pro as the standard setter among Gen 4 drives has long since been usurped. Drives from numerous brands now outpace it. So, it’s about time Samsung reasserted its traditional dominance in the SSD market, right?
On paper, the new 990 Pro certainly looks like it has closed the gap to the newer and quicker drives that have blown past the 980 Pro since its launch two long years ago. At the heart of it, all is a new in-house Samsung controller known as Pascal. Samsung hasn’t released a huge amount of info on the new chip but has revealed that Pascal is manufactured on Samsung’s 8nm process node and offers lower consumption and reduced latency. Samsung reckons the new controller is up to 50% more power efficient thanks to both a new nickel coating for the chip package and revised thermal control software.
Combined with Samsung’s latest 7th gen 3D V-NAND flash memory, the result is a decent uptick in all of the claimed performance metrics. For the 2TB model tested here, read speeds are up from 7,000MB/s to 7,450MB/s while writes take a bigger leap from just 5,100MB/s to 6,900MB/s. IOPS performance is up, too, with reads increasing from 1M to 1.2M and writes up from 1M to 1.55M.
Samsung 990 Pro 2TBCapacity: 2TB
Form factor: M.2 2280
Controller: Samsung Pascal
Memory type: Samsung 7th Gen TLC VNAND
Interface: PCIe 4.0 x4
Rate performance: 7450MB/s read, 6900MB/s write
Random IOPS: 1.2M read, 1.55M write
DRAM cache: 2GB DDR4
SLC cache: 226GB dynamic
Write endurance: 1,200 TBW
Warranty: 5 years
Price: $310Claimed SSD performance numbers don’t always map terribly well to the real-world experience. But for what it’s worth, there’s little if anything currently available with clearly better-claimed figures, though the likes of the SK Hynix Platinum P41 and various drives powered by the latest Phison controller, such as the Seagate Firecuda 530 2TB, trade blows with the 990 Pro. Fair to say, then, with these late model PCIe 4.0 M.2 drives, they’re nearing the practical limits of the Gen 4.0 protocol, certainly for peak throughput.
As for further details, well, there’s 2GB of LPDDR4 cache memory on this 2TB drive, Samsung rates the write endurance at 1,200TB, which has got to be enough for virtually any imaginable usage model, and the drive is covered by Samsung’s reassuring five-year warranty. Oh, and Samsung says the 990 Pro has been optimised for Microsoft’s game-load accelerating DirectStorage API.
Image 1 of 6(Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 6(Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 6(Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 6(Image credit: Future)Image 5 of 6(Image credit: Future)Image 6 of 6(Image credit: Future)So, how does this new drive actually perform? In our pre-benchmark drive-filling routine, the 990 Pro maintains peak performance for around 230GB of data transfer, which aligns with Samsung’s claims in terms of the amount of capacity available in high-speed SLC mode when the drive is empty. Needless to say, as you fill the drive, that figure will drop. It’s also a little lower than most competing 2TB M.2 drives, which tend to offer 300GB of SLC cache. Thereafter, there’s little if any sign of thermal throttling. Not that throttling was much of an issue on the 980 Pro.
What we did notice, however, was inconsistent write performance in the ATTO benchmark immediately after our pre-test regime. The 980 Pro did regain its composure after being left to idle for an hour. But as a general rule, modern premium drives soak up our pre-benchmark routine better than the Samsung 980 Pro.
Still, in terms of peak throughput this SSD definitely delivers, cranking out 7,462MB/s reads and 6,877MB/s writes. That’s as good as it gets for a Gen 4 drive. Less impressive is the single queue depth 4K random access performance. At 80MB/s for reads and 231MB/s for writes, the performance is decent to be sure. But it’s not the step up we’d been hoping for on account of the claims Samsung makes for IOPS throughput.
Image 1 of 5(Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 5(Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 5(Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 5(Image credit: Future)Image 5 of 5(Image credit: Future)On the other hand, the 3,645 points it scores in PCMark 10 storage is very impressive compared to other drives tested on the same AMD platform running an eight-core 3800X CPU. Most if not all the competition is around the 3,000 mark. It’s also a huge jump on the 2,700 points scored by the old Samsung 980 Pro, albeit that figure is for the 1TB model. Just note that CPU and broader platform performance do impact the overall PCMark storage result. So, you can’t compare that result with random PCMark storage scores you might find for other drives on the web.
Anyway, regarding thermals the new 990 Pro is decent, topping out at 59°C. However, in our testing the old 980 Pro only hit 53°C. While the new drive certainly doesn’t run cooler under heavy load, it is delivering quite a bit more performance and it isn’t running at temps high enough to cause concern. As we said, there’s absolutely no indication of thermal throttling.
All told, the new 990 Pro puts Samsung back where it ought to be, with one of the fastest PCIe Gen 4 drives you can buy. Is it the very fastest? Is it quicker than, say, the
Kingston Fury Renegade? Not unambiguously, no. But nor is it clearly slower. In short, it seems we’ve hit the wall with Gen 4 SSDs. Very likely, it’ll take a Gen 5 drive to really move the game on for PC storage performance. -
While the 'gamer' aesthetic previously meant sharp angles and over-enthusiastic, preposterously proportioned artwork adorning our hardware, now it's all about the RGB. If a piece of technology isn't haloed by myriad addressable RGB LEDs then it's going to have a hard time pretending it's been designed for gaming.
And you don't have to be a technology journalist with a couple decades of experience to know that tech with coloured lights brightening it up will always perform far better than something that isn't using extraneous power just to get lit.
Even in places where you wouldn't expect RGB illumination to be useful, or even desirable, we've seen it added. Headsets, for example, where you can't even see what's going on around your ears now come RGB'd up. And SSDs, too, because they don't get hot enough all by themselves.
And so, when I was considering how to upgrade my humble home, there was really only one option. After all, I was never going to actually paint a wall myself or do some sort of interior design that required a permanent solution. No, I wanted to overclock my house in the only way I know how, with slabs of RGB lighting on my walls.
Even in my bedroom where a thoroughly pink aesthetic has been pushed by forces greater than mine. Somehow, I've managed to squeeze a little gamer gear into the boudoir, with the express permission of my partner. What a world we live in.
Nanoleaf is arguably the biggest name in RGB home lighting panels, though Philips has got its own claims to homebrew light shows via its Hue lightbulbs. But, thanks to streamers and YouTubists haloing themselves with Nanoleaf strips and panels, it's become the go-to company for your RGB PC backdrop.
Nanoleaf is the established player and has recently celebrated its 10th anniversary with a set of matte black light panels. But there's also upstart, Govee, which has only been going since 2017, but has already got itself a bit of a following. Y'know, with the RGB contrarians.
(Image credit: Nanoleaf)The bedroom wall panel is the gateway drug for RGB lighting the entire house.
I have, therefore, put the traditional white Nanoleaf Shapes triangular panels, up against its new black triangles and the hexagonal Govee Glide Hexa Pro panels in a battle for the ages. Well, a battle to see which one gets the okay from my long-suffering partner and is actually allowed to go on the wall of our bedroom.
Y'see the bedroom wall panel is the gateway drug for RGB lighting the entire house, allowing me to expand into the harder stuff: sticking a set of panels up in our front room and the family room, too.
"Instead of buying a new lamp for the bedside table," I suggest, "how about we go minimal and mount some panels onto the wall?"
I will admit, I expected some push back, not a willing collaborator. And yet here I am with addressable RGB panels lighting up different room in my home.
The different kits are similarly priced, with the Nanoleaf Shapes Triangle Starter Kit is $200 (in nine panel trim as I've been playing with), while the Govee Glide Hexa Pro kit (with ten panels) is on sale for $175 right now. Though I will say, if you do get hooked, the price of expanding these kits is high. Another three panels for from either Govee or Nanoleaf comes in at $70. Ouch.
Image 1 of 4(Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 4(Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 4(Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 4(Image credit: Future)In the end we've actually settled on the Govee Glide Hexa Pro panels for prime position in the bedroom, which is maybe a surprising choice given the popularity of the Nanoleaf panels. But the reasons are more about usability than aesthetics. Although the hexagonal panels, with their split sections of addressable RGB lighting, do allow you to create more interesting 3D effects than with the more uniform Nanoleaf triangles.
But it was the ease of setting them up, and the fact there is a very obvious, very physical 'on' button that makes them more like a traditional lamp. If just waaaay more expensive. The Nanoleaf panels do have buttons, too, so you don't have to rely on turning them on via the smartphone app, but it's nowhere near as intuitive and is positioned on the primary panel that feeds power to the whole group.
Because they're on the light panel themselves, the Nanoleaf buttons have been designed to be invisible. Which makes actually hitting the right one, and not the random disco lighting button, a bit of a lottery. The Govee button is along the power cable, away from the panels, and is just a single, physically depressed button that even my 3-year-old can find at 6am to wake us up.
I also really appreciated the design aid from the Govee app, which allows you to create the wall display you want virtually, and will then help you arrange the physical panels, with the connectors threaded into the right places, to weave your pattern on the wall. Using the removable sticky pads, it's a simple thing to get your light show up and running.
Image 1 of 3(Image credit: Govee)Image 2 of 3(Image credit: Nanoleaf)Image 3 of 3(Image credit: Nanoleaf)It's also easy to get them connected to your network so you can actually control them via your app. I'm running a Google Nest router at home, which has served me well over the years and, while the Govee panels will only connect via a 2.4GHz network, not a 5GHz one, they had no trouble with the mixed signals of the Nest setup.
You see, Google doesn't have discrete connections for 2.4GHz and 5GHz, which is normally not a problem as most apps and devices are smart enough to deal with that if they require one or the other.
Not so with Nanoleaf.
I know it's a one-time setup kinda deal, and that once you are in place you shouldn't need to worry about going through the trials of hooking your lights into your home network, but connecting the Nanoleaf panels to the Nest router almost had me in tears.
In fact, I had to put it down, take a couple hours breather, and return afresh once I'd calmed down enough not to put my fist through a still unlit triangular panel.
The issue is that Nanoleaf's connection isn't smart enough to just train itself on the 2.4GHz network and needs manual intervention in order to convince it not to continuously butt its head against the 5GHz wall and fail to connect. And what form did this manual intervention take? Walking down the garden with my mobile phone, for the very specific amount of time the app allowed for connection, until I got far enough away from my router the 5GHz signal wasn't available and it defaulted to 2.4GHz instead.
It was a frustrating time. And one I cared not to repeat. Except it was the same with both the white and black panels. Though by the time I'd jumped through the hoops with the white version I did at least know the measures it would take to connect the black anniversary ones up.
(Image credit: Future)It seems obvious thinking about it, but the matte black Nanoleaf panels are far dimmer than the white ones.
The setup is one thing, but what about the actual lights? Well, I will say I do actually prefer the lighting on the Nanoleaf panels. Though only the white ones.
But what about those fancy 10th anniversary black Nanoleaf panels? Well, honestly, they're a bit disappointing. Disappointingly dull compared with either the vibrant Govee or the traditional white Nanoleaf panels, and I'm afraid I barely ever bother turning them on.
It seems obvious thinking about it, but the matte black Nanoleaf panels are far dimmer than the white ones, and you end up with a much more subdued effect from them. The traditional white Nanoleaf triangles, however, can be blazing bright and really light up a room.
Once connected the Nanoleaf app setup is really good, too. Where the Govee software shows you how to plumb the panels into each other to create the display you want, the Nanoleaf app is more user oriented. You plug the panels into one another, and the app reflects the way you've arranged them yourself.
And you can download and upload patterns, too. There are heaps of user-created and official Nanoleaf lighting patterns that can change colours or react to sound in different ways, and it allows you to keep things fresh if you fancy a change.
The Govee app, however, has a fair few different presets you can use—and they are really effective—but as far as I've been able to tell, that's what you're stuck with unless you want to start designing your own. That makes it feel a lot more limited, and the Govee software doesn't feel as slick and intuitive as the Nanoleaf one, either.
Image 1 of 3(Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 3(Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 3(Image credit: Future)Both Govee and Nanoleaf can hook into your home control network, though, as in either your Google Assistant, Apple HomeKit, or Amazon Alexa thingies. And that means you don't have to spend time messing around with individual apps to light your home. Assign a room to each, and then you can just tell your phone or smart speaker to turn on the lights, turn them green, or have a disco replete with a pulsing light show wherever you wish.
Though obviously voice control is still prone to errors, and I have turned the bedroom lights on in the middle of the night, waking my partner into a blinding panic, when I'd actually just meant to turn off the lights downstairs.
Because yes, while Govee may have won the battle for the bedroom, with its ease of setup and physical controls, the white Nanoleaf panels have won a place in my heart, and my home office, thanks to the actual lighting effects and the fact I can switch it up when I inevitably get bored with the glowing jungle theme I'm currently rocking.
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Fortnite's getting furry. Wait, no, not like that. It's part of the game's Halloween Fortnitemares event, and it means players in Epic's empire will soon be able to transform themselves into werewolves, lending them new, lycanthropic abilities in the form of claws and heightened senses. Also, an NPC called DJ Lyka will be throwing shapes in the church of dance at the spot where you transform, because this is still Fortnite.
We've already got a handy guide on how to turn into a werewolf in Fortnite for this event, so I'll skip the step-by-step here, but the powers that lycanthropy grants you sound like an interesting Halloween spin on Fortnite's regular gameplay. First up, you've got claws, which do pretty much what you'd expect: You'll be able to slash and air slash your opponents to ribbons with werewolf-y melee combos. But being a werewolf also grants you the "wolfscent" ability, which will let you mark and track enemies within a certain radius, and letting foes track you with the same power in return.
The Fortnitemares event also sees the return of the Horde Rush mode, which will actually persist until November 15, two weeks after the Halloween event ends on November 1. This is Zero Build Horde Rush, mind you, meaning your team will have to deal with scads of enemies without the ability to build structures to assist you.
The Halloween event also introduces a variety of quests you can complete for XP, goodies, and "pleasant surprises." Two new quests will unlock every day over the course of 14 days, and you'll run out of time to finish them when the event ends on November 1. Not to worry, though: The Horde Rush mode will also be getting a set of quests you can complete for "special rewards," but only after the conclusion of the Fortnitemares event.
Epic is also adding a couple of new, spooky outfits to the game, and there are some Halloween-themed islands for your perusal in the Discover Screen. That's it for now, and remember: You've got until November 1 to experience all this stuff before it gets wiped away. Don't worry if you get stuck on something, though, we almost certainly have a Fortnite guide ready to go for pretty much any problem you might have.
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At TwitchCon in early September the streamer Adriana Chechik was badly injured after jumping into an unsafe foam pit. Chechik was not the only streamer to do this, but the injuries she sustained were the worst: the fall broke her back in at least two places, a tragedy made worse by the free sharing of a short clip of the incident on social media.
Chechik has now shared an update on her treatment since the incident. Writing on social media she said her injuries were even worse than initially reported: "So surgery went well, 5 hrs 30 minutes! More fusions than expected, bones completely crushed & nerve damage to my bladder, hopefully I’ll be able to pee again in the near future...had some bleeding around the bone but overall doing good!"
The streamer also went on to address any criticism of her for doing what others were doing at TwitchCon. "For the ppl asking why did u jump. Don’t try and turn me into the bad guy. I am among all those who assumed it was met with proper safety precautions. It’s like getting into a car assuming the air bag will work and it doesn’t. I’m not at fault. None of the victims injured are."
Several other streamers were injured during TwitchCon, at this event and others, and one of the big questions must be the organisers' culpability for events that were clearly unsafe. Other streamers injured included LochVaness, who dislocated her knee and sprained her ankle after stepping off a podium, while others have reported a host of less severe injuries. It looks especially bad in this light that contestants had to sign liability waivers before competing, and a commentator's assertion that the organisers were "all about safety here at the Lenovo Legion booth."
The pit was eventually closed during TwitchCon, but this story may be around for a while. Chechik signed that waiver, but in the expectation that organisers had done everything possible to make a physical activity safe. The event was called Face Off and was basically the Gladiators activity where people try to knock each other off a raised platform with padded poles. These were above a foam pit which looked more like a thin scattering of foam cubes across a hard convention centre floor.
Chechik has shared examples of the kind of therapy she's going through, and her feelings on the process. "Tried sitting up today in PT, I would rather die than do that again. I hate this my whole body hates it. I don’t want to be tough. I don’t want to be brave I cried for a hour and the pain is so immense through all the meds im on. Idk if I can do this. I can’t explain this pain."
On 14 October, Chechik was able to walk just before a second round of surgery: "Today was so hard," said Chechick. "I WALKED. I passed out after I brushed my teeth and had to be carried back but baby got her dancing shoes. It was so exhausting I have slept all day since."
Chechnik subsequently shared a selfie from the hospital bed on Instagram (thanks, Kotaku). "Not being able to move or do anything for myself is so difficult. I’m so thankful to the nursing staff. I never thought I would ever be immobile. These next few days are going to be extremely hard. Yesterday I sat up and then spent the rest of my day in hysterics and pain [...] I’m gonna take it one day at a time and if I’m not rdy then I’m not rdy [...] Thank you to everyone who’s rooting for me!"
There's been no comment from the organisers involved beyond Lenovo, which said it was "aware of the incidents of TwitchCon visitors who sustained injuries in the gladiator game soft foam pit" and that it would "work with event organizers to look into the incidents."
The corporate silence is unsurprising. The number of people injured and the severity of Chechik's injuries are likely to lead to legal action, though none of the parties involved have yet taken any steps in this direction: Chechik's more focused on getting back on her feet right now.
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More than anything, the one thing I use my Discord Nitro subscription for is to spam emojis from my 80-something servers wherever I damn please. Animated avatars, better stream quality? No, all I need is my adorable cat emojis when sending DMs to my pals. Thankfully, for people like me who only need that from a Nitro subscription, Discord is now offering a cheaper tier.
Nitro Basic is the newest, cheapest option of subscription for the premium service. It costs $2.99 a month—that's $7 less than the full version and $2 less than mid-tier subscription Nitro Classic. As the name applies, it's a lot more barebones than Nitro's full offering: it gives you up to 20 MB uploads, customised video backgrounds and, of course, the ability to use any emojis across any server or private message. Nitro Basic also gives you access to both Discord's stickers and custom server stickers, something which is sorely lacking from Nitro Classic's benefits. Paying just to use emojis may seem silly to some, but for people like me who use Discord as their primary way of talking to pals, it's more than worth the few bucks a month.
It's not the only new feature to hit Discord. Remember all those YouTube music bots like Groovy and Rhythm that bit the dust last year? Copyright problems aside, it also looks like Google and Discord have been working together to create a YouTube Watch Together feature. According to The Verge, it's actually been in testing for over a year, but is now being pushed out to users at large. Anyone can create a playlist of videos which other Discord users can then join in order to watch or listen along in sync. It seems pretty similar to what certain extensions and websites already offer, but it's nice to have it available straight out of Discord now.
YouTube Watch Together is part of a new Activities function. Joining a voice channel and clicking on a rocket ship icon will drop down a handful of activities—some are free, others require Nitro in order to use. Along with Watch Together, there are some classic minigames like chess, 8-ball and poker. I can imagine it being a fun way to kill some time while queueing for other games or for a silly bit of casual gaming as the night winds down.
Nitro Basic rolls out fully on October 20, or should already be available if you're in the UK like me. Activities should be rolling out now. Watch Together and golf minigame Putt Party will be free, while the others will require at least one member to have Discord Nitro.
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The Behind The Sims Summit promises some pretty monumental reveals for The Sims franchise today, especially if the rumours surrounding the announcement of The Sims 5 turn out to be true. Alongside the recent news that The Sims 4 is going free-to-play, EA also revealed that it'd be holding a livestream alongside Maxis, detailing the future of the game, and potentially the franchise at large.
"With The Sims 4 going free to play, our team is more dedicated than ever to developing new and meaningful The Sims 4 experiences for our players and we will continue to develop and release packs, kits and Sims Delivery Express drops into the foreseeable future," states the official blog post. "We’ll be sharing more about what’s in the works during a special-edition stream, Behind The Sims Summit."
Here, I'll explain how to watch the Behind The Sims Summit livestream, and what time it airs in your region so you don't miss out on any of the announcements.
When is the Behind The Sims Summit?
The Behind The Sims Summit goes live on October 18, and you'll be able to watch it on the official Sims YouTube channel, where a load of people are already waiting, or on the Twitch channel. You can also watch the embedded stream above.
Here's what time it starts in different regions:
- UK: 6 pm BST
- Europe: 7 pm CEST
- US East Coast: 1 pm ET
- US West Coast: 10 am PT
- Australia: 4 am AEDT (October 19)
- New Zealand: 6 am NZDT (October 19)
There's no indication as to how long the livestream will be, but it should at least feature some details about upcoming content for The Sims 4, even if it doesn't end up being an announcement for The Sims 5.
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Welcome to UnityHQ Nolfseries Community. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.
ad1gamer joined on the 10/18/2022.
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Cryptomining's off the cards, but it turns out the new Nvidia RTX 4090 is a dab hand at hacking and not just gaming. Stick eight of them in a password cracking rig—for a paltry $13K—and you can break an eight-character password in just 48 minutes.
The Ada Lovelace-based card keeps popping up with new metrics to prove just what an absolute beast of a GPU it's got at its heart, and its showing in the HashCat benchmark highlights the cryptography chops of the AD102 core.
The performance was highlighted by security researcher, Sam Croley, who tweeted on Friday (via Tom's Hardware) that there's "an insane >2x uplift over the 3090 for nearly every algorithm." In the same thread he also pointed out that it's just over three times faster than AMD's Radeon RX 6900 XT.
Crunching the numbers, other Twitter users have suggested that would mean a modest collection of RTX 4090 cards could go through every single possible password combination of a standard eight-character password—including upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols—in less than an hour.
That's with the AD102 tested against Microsoft's New Technology LAN Manager (NTLM) authentication protocol, which is something you'll see in place in a whole lot of enterprise situations out there.
That's massively cutting the cost of password decryption, which should have you right now looking at just how secure your pet-name passwords are looking right now. Though to be fair, in 2022, the most common two passwords are still 123456 and 123456789. So, for the vast majority of passwords you're not going to need an expensive cracking rig to get through someone's simple security.
Mother of Eris...With these benchmarks, using an 8 GPU rig, you could go through:every.single.possible.password.combination.of an 8 character password(even total random upper, lower, number, symbol) using NTLM hashing (Windows / Active Directory)in...48 minutes!!! https://t.co/nM85LqddclOctober 14, 2022
See moreBut if a single card was to be put up against a list of the top couple of hundred passwords in use right now it may just take a few seconds, maybe milliseconds, to crack most passwords. Though chances are you're probably not going to want what's 'hidden' behind such lax security measures.
Your next machine(Image credit: Future)Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines from the pros
Best gaming laptop: Perfect notebooks for mobile gamingThe original report by ITPro should put your mind at ease, however, if you were at all concerned about rogue RTX 4090s ray tracing the hell out of Cyberpunk in the day and then cracking all your passwords by night.
"This kind of device is typically used for offline password cracking because online solutions would typically be resistant to such attack vectors," Grant Wyatt, COO at MIRACL tells ITPro.
If you are worried, though, it does point out that if you're using a good password manager, which stores passwords between 12 and 128 characters in length, then even this sort of brute force method would take a lot longer to get through.
Maybe months, maybe years, maybe centuries, or even longer.
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GTA Online Jack O Lanterns are scattered throughout Los Santos but they can be fairly tricky to spot. There are 200 to find in total but don't worry, you don't need to collect all of them to reap the rewards.
With GTA's Halloween event in full swing, you might already be tracking down UFOs each day. However, if you'd rather keep your feet firmly on the ground, you can still claim goodies for locating these seasonal pumpkins. In this guide, I'll show you where you can find the GTA Online Jack O Lanterns and what you get for collecting them.
GTA Online Jack O Lantern rewards
200 Jack O Lanterns is a lot, but the good news is that you only need to collect ten each day. You'll get a random "trick or treat" for each one. Tricks are temporary, including getting shocked, stoned, or causing a pretty nasty explosion. If you get a treat, you might receive GTA$, RP, or a boost to health and armor.
The rewards for collecting 10 Jack O Lanterns each day are:
- Horror Pumpkin Mask (first time)
- GTA$50,000
If you are up for the challenge of collecting all 200 Jack O Lanterns in a single day, you'll receive the Pumpkin Tee as a reward.
GTA Jack O Lantern locations
GTA's Jack O Lanterns respawn each day and your count will be reset. This is handy if you're only after 10 of them to claim the daily rewards, as you can collect the same ones every time to save time looking for them.
Here are the GTA Jack O Lantern locations (via GTALens interactive map).
Image 1 of 3(Image credit: Rockstar/GTALens)Image 2 of 3(Image credit: Rockstar/GTALens)Image 3 of 3(Image credit: Rockstar/GTALens)The Jack O Lanterns are pretty small, so you might have to take a good look around the location to find them. Once you do though, you'll know where to look the next day and be all set to grab those daily rewards.
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Transforming yourself into a Fortnite werewolf is definitely the funnest thing that's been added as part of this year's Fortnitemares halloween event. While evading undead chickens or dancing at the Reality Tree, you may have happened upon an Alteration Altar with a fancy looking Lycanthrope beckoning you to take a step inside.
You'll have to do this as one of Fortnitemares first challenges, and if you're looking to get the three event freebies through quest completions, this will help you get started. Here, I'll explain how to turn into a werewolf, and where to find the Alteration Altars that you need in order to make it happen.
How to turn into a werewolf
You'll see a projection beckoning you to step in the Alteration Altar (Image credit: Epic)In order to become a werewolf in the Fortnite halloween event, you've got to locate yourself an Alteration Altar. The easiest place to find some is by the Reality Tree on West Island, where DJ Lyka is performing. Once you arrive, provided they haven't all been taken, you'll see a pad you can step on with a wolf-headed projection beckoning you over. Get inside and perform the Ritual Emote that becomes available to transform into a werewolf.
Now you can use your Howler Claws as a weapon, slashing at opponents in deadly combos. You can also activate the Wolfscent ability, which gives you tracking vision, and repeatedly marks nearby enemies. If no one's around, Wolfscent immediately enters its cooldown. Incidentally, if you're being tracked by Wolfscent, you'll hear a heartbeat getting louder as they get closer—not at all terrifying.
Alteration Altar locations
Image 1 of 2There are Alteration Altars all across the island (Image credit: Epic/Fortnite.gg)Image 2 of 2You can get every location on your map by tracking the quest (Image credit: Epic)The good news is that even if you aren't able to become a werewolf at the Reality Tree, there are lots more Alteration Altars scattered all over the map. The easiest way to see them all is to track the Fortnitemares quest to dance on an Alteration Altar, since this gives you all of the locations. If you've already completed it, you can see their locations above for future reference. The most can still be found at the Reality Tree, though.
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The people yearn to truck. That's my main takeaway from a 10-year anniversary post on the SCS Software blog announcing that Euro Truck Simulator 2 has sold over 13 million copies and 80 million DLCs—in the form of cosmetic packs and major expansions—since it came out on October 18, 2012. To mark the game's phenomenal and unexpected success, SCS is organising an in-game trucking competition and spoke a little about plans for the game's future.
The update says that there are "so many features" on Euro Truck Simulator 2's roadmap that SCS hopes the game has "at least another decade of further growth in front of it" before it's time for it to retire. Bad news for anyone that was hoping for an imminent announcement of Euro Truck Simulator 3, but quite an ambition for what the devs originally thought of as a "small truck simulation game in a niche genre".
To celebrate the game's astonishing success over the last decade, SCS will be doling out 10th anniversary skins to anyone who completes a single delivery in the game with a World of Trucks-connected account. SCS doesn't say if there's a time-limit on that offer, mind, so if you're desperate for a decennial decal it's probably better to grab it as soon as you can.
There'll also be a livestream at 6PM CEST today with company CEO Pavel Šebor, where we'll hopefully hear a bit more about what the next 10 years of Euro trucking will look like. They'll be giving away merch and prizes there too if you participate in the game's anniversary social media campaign on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
It's heartwarming that a game as peculiar and specific as Euro Truck Simulator 2 has had such an extraordinary decade, especially since no one seems to have been more surprised by the game's success than its creators. Some even say it's one of the best open-world games on PC. I expect that when the game's 20th anniversary does roll around (and we all live in city-states that don't need trucks anymore after a Deus Ex-style Great Collapse), the game will still be going strong on Steam's most-played charts.
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Everybody, quick, hold onto your butts. Logitech G and Herman Miller have just announced another gaming chair in the brands collaborative effort to cradle our carcasses while we get our PC gaming on. And this one is on the more affordable side, in a way, at least when it comes to incredibly premium gaming thrones.
Back in 2021, we reviewed the Herman Miller x Logitech gaming chair, the Embody, and to the surprise of no one it came with a hefty price tag. In the tradition of Herman Miller office chairs, coming it at just under $1,495 USD made for one expensive chair. But equally in the same tradition, somehow felt worth it.
Thanks to Embody's success, the brand collaboration is about to deliver a new seat with more affordability and customisation in mind. Dubbed the Vantum Gaming Chair, it's constructed with a proprietary suspension backrest, a glass-filled nylon skeleton, with foam headrests and cushions, covered with post-consumer recycled polyester. The Vantum currently comes in three colour options, an all black, black and white, or black and red and none of them look anything like something you might find in a race car or at a funeral parlour.
Instead we see a much more toned back office chair design, which is another thing we expect from the brand behind one of our favourite office chairs for gaming. They have an understated style, which can be spiced up with the pop of colour. There's definitely the look of a classy chair that'd fit well in an office space, gamer den, or anything in between. Besides, the real joy of these thrones doesn't come from looking at them.
Sitting comfortably?(Image credit: Secretlab)Best chair for gaming: the top gaming chairs around
Best gaming desk: the ultimate PC podiums
Best PC controller: sit back, relax, and get your game onThis chair has been made with gamers in mind, so it supports a more forward sitting posture. The kind I tend to adapt once the enemy has slammed me down and I realise I need to get a bit more serious. The design of the chair is said to help encourage this more active position without slouching, and of course can be adjusted to your seating preferences.
For when you're not in the throws of gaming victory, there's also a well thought out reclining position. This has specific support pads unlike most chairs as well as a headrest designed to not put pressure on the neck. Flexibility of use appears to be the name of the game with this new collaborative effort, aiming to deliver a chair that works well no matter what your gaming style might be.
(Image credit: Herman Miller X Logitech)So, what does affordable mean when we're talking about what might be one of the most comfortable gaming chairs ever made? The Vantum Gaming chair retails for £1,126 GBP or $995.00 USD, which is still a pretty penny for a chair. It is definitely a nicer price than the Embody, and both come with a 12-year warranty which makes it an easier price to stomach. If the Vantum is as comfortable as it claims, it could be one helluva back saver too.
If you're after something cheaper, we have you covered there. But if you can afford it and subscribe to the Sam Vimes theory of economics, paying a little more for one of these chairs might be the smartest option around. We'll let you know if the Vantum is worth the price tag like the Embody once we've had it under our hot little cheeks.
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