With The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt out the door and a big success, you might think that CD Projekt would be looking forward to getting the ball rolling on its next project, Cyberpunk 2077. But CEO Adam Kici ski told Reuters that for now, and for a long time to come, the studio's focus will remain squarely on The Witcher.
"We hope and we are certain that Cyberpunk has even bigger commercial potential. It is too early to talk about it, though," Kici ski said. "This year, and the next one will be the years of the Witcher."
The studio has good reason to wholeheartedly throw its weight behind The Witcher 3. Pre-release sales of the game hit 1.5 million copies, compared to total first-year sales of one million copies of The Witcher and 1.7 million for The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. "Sales of the third part will be many times higher than with our earlier games," Kici ski said.
Even though it's been almost three years since CD Projekt revealed Cyberpunk 2077, we still know virtually nothing of substance about it. It will be a "true RPG" based on the Cyberpunk RPG setting created by Mike Pondsmith, it will support some form of multiplayer—and your mileage may vary on this point, but I think it's got a pretty great cinematic teaser, too.
As we approach the realization of consumer VR, we'll be collecting all our Oculus Rift knowledge here. You can also follow SteamVR developments.
Though the HTC Vive is due out before the consumer version of the Oculus Rift, it's the Rift that pushed VR back into the limelight. The promise of the early dev kits revived the notion that domestic virtual reality entertainment might now be viable. No longer is virtual reality purely associated with the naff shiny '80s attempts at VR, or the Star Trek holodeck. The Rift, and the spread of competitors that have spawned around it, might give us a revolutionary new way to enjoy games. That's the plan, at least.
What s the release date?
Oculus recently narrowed the launch window to "Q1 2016". That's marketing speak for sometime between January and March of next year.
What is it?
A headset with detachable earphones and visor that contains two screens streaming data at high refresh rates to create the sense of 3D virtual reality. Sensors on the surface of the visor are tracked by a scanning unit so that head motions can be translated into in-game movement. While the Rift s competitor, the HTC Vive, comes with VR peripherals, the Oculus Rift is just a headset, for now.
Various iterations of the hardware have been in the hands of early adopters for a year or so now. Early versions of the rift only ran on low resolutions, and lacked full head head tracking capabilities. The final unit promises greater screen resolution and and a wide field of view to achieve stereoscopic 3D vision.
Most recently Oculus VR acquired a company that specialises in real-time 3D scene digitisation for the creation of more realistic virtual environments.
Have you used it?
Plenty of times. In fact, Andy dedicated a whole column to cataloguing the weird VR experiments that he found. That was on the early Dev Kit version. Of the more recent prototypes, Wes went face-on with the Crescent Bay headset last September. As for testing specific games, Tyler was chased by a dinosaur in Crytek's Oculus demo, and Phil experienced CCP's experimental attempts to combine an Oculus Rift with Microsoft's Kinect.
Games like Adrift are being developed for the Oculus Rift alongside 2D platforms.
What can VR do?
Our VR enthusiast Andy Kelly has been testing the limits of virtual reality for a while. Here are ten of his favourite experiences in virtual reality with the Oculus Rift, though we ve since been impressed by Eve: Valkyrie, which will be an Oculus Rift launch title.
Oculus VR acquired Surreal Vision, who specialise in real-time 3D scene reconstruction . Check out the slightly disturbing video of someone being digitised in real-time.
John Carmack is giving a speech at this year s Oculus Connect conference. Ex Valve VR and augmented reality guru Michael Abrash will also have wisdom to share.
Oculus VR won t block VR porn on the Rift. Andy investigated the wonky and mostly hilarious world of VR titillation last year.
The first Oculus Rift consumer headset will be out early in 2016.
What are the best videos?
It s impossible to capture the experience of virtual reality in a 2D YouTube video, but some videos do manage to sell some of the exciting promise of the platform. Eve Valkyrie, below, is one, but with some targeted .ini tweaks players have also managed to get GTA 5 running with the Oculus Rift, and demos like the Battle of Endor show VR could do a better job of putting you inside movies than 3D film ever will.
What else do we know?
The consumer Rift is being pitched at a $400 price point. Subject to change, of course.
Of course no Oculus Rift games have been released yet, but Oculus have released the target system specs for VR apps. This is the gear you ll need to run VR optimally. Oculus VR believes that a standardised spec is fundamental to VR s success, as developers can optimise and tune their game for a known specification, consistently achieving presence and simplifying development. The specs are high, which is understandable when you consider the refresh rate the PC needs to hit on two eye-screens, but many of these components will hopefully be affordable by the time VR arrives—and they aren't necessarily required for every VR application. Some will be ore
NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater
Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
8GB+ RAM
Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
2x USB 3.0 ports
Windows 7 SP1 or newer
Where can I find out more?
The official Oculus Rift site has an austere picture of the consumer unit, and plenty of links to the VR community and the output of some of the various VR jams happening worldwide as developers rush to figure out what virtual reality can really do.
I'm going to make a prediction: Charter's proposed merger with Time Warner Cable will clear regulatory approval even though the FCC recently squashed Comcast's attempt to do the same. Why? For one, Charter is a smaller company than Comcast, so the same monopolistic concerns don't apply (not to the same extent, anyway). And secondly, Charter has publicly vowed not to implement so-called paid Internet fast lanes, even if the FCC's net neutrality rules end up being overturned in court.
That's a big deal. The FCC has fought with cable companies and telecoms over the issue of net neutrality for some time now, and only recently came out victorious by having broadband Internet reclassified as a utility under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. This gave the FCC the power it needed to implement government regulated net neutrality rules.
Ever since the FCC issued its Open Internet Order, cable companies and telecoms have been fighting back. It's a divided issue, and whether or not you agree with the FCC's strategy isn't the point here. Charter's vow to honor certain stipulations no matter how things turn out, however, is the point.
The Verge reports that Charter boss Tom Rutledge stated during an interview yesterday that his cable company will "not block, throttle, or engage in paid prioritization of Internet traffic" no matter how things shake out. While probably not a legally binding promise, it is something that the FCC could bring up if the Open Internet Order is overturned in court and Charter proceeds to break its promise.
It's also worth pointing out that Charter doesn't own any TV networks. One of the things that worked against Comcast's proposed merger with TWC was its ownership of NBCUniversal. Had the deal gone through, Comcast would have been in better position to promote its own content over that of rivals, creating an uneven playing field. The same concern doesn't apply to Charter.
Unlikely Supporter
In related news, Comcast chief Brian Roberts is apparently in favor of Charter's merger with TWC. Rather than play the part of sore loser, Roberts issued a pretty strong statement backing the move.
"This deal makes all the sense in the world," Roberts said, according to Engadget. "I would like to congratulate all the parties."
Whether or not he's being sincere or perhaps has an ulterior motive isn't known, but at least publicly, he harbors no ill-will at Charter for swooping in.
It's been almost three years since Double Fine Productions released the alternate-history tower defense/shooter hybrid Iron Brigade on Steam. That's a long time to wait to release the game's first update, and yet here it is: Some bug fixes, some tweaks, and, most important of all, the end of Games for Windows Live.
There's actually a pretty good reason for the new update, in spite of the years-ago release date. Double Fine announced yesterday that it has acquired the rights to the property from original publisher Microsoft, and thus it will now be a self-published game. "The great thing about this change is that now there are no obstacles to us creating the best possible experience for players," Iron Brigade creator Brad Muir said. "We have fixed all known issues as well as provided a great matchmaking experience for multiplayer. Vlad and his Monovision Menace are on the move again! In the best possible way!"
Iron Brigade was originally released in 2011 for the Xbox 360 under the title Trenched, although the name was quickly changed to Iron Brigade after a pre-existing trademark for a tabletop wargame named Trench came to light. The PC version, which includes the Rise of the Martian Bear DLC, came out a year later.
If you're curious, now might be the time to give Iron Brigade a shot. To celebrate the update, Double Fine has put the game on sale for 80 percent off its regular price, dropping it to $3/ 2 on Steam until June 2.
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth will feature daily runs with leaderboards, co-creator Edmund McMillen has announced, allowing players to compete on a more-or-less level playing field for the best score on the internet. Yes, all of it.
"Every day the game will generate a specific seed that will be generated the same for everyone (minus locked things) and you can now compete against the internet for best score in the run!" McMillen explained. "This feature was one of my favorites in Spelunky and i always wanted to do it in Isaac… But how do you score a game like Isaac? More on that in a later post."
The "minus locked things" comment refers to the fact that some players will have unlocked more powerful items than others, giving them a potentially significant leg up on everyone else. Hey, life's tough—and McMillen's promise of more information about how the game will be scored suggests he has a plan for redressing imbalances, at least partially.
The post also revealed a pair of new items for the game: Dead Eye, "a fan suggested item that raises damage with each consecutive hit and causes your tears to become red glowing balls of death if you play well," and Continuum, which turns your eyes purple and causes your tears to "loop back" when they're shot off the screen.
I just watched an enormous ball of Poop consume Sweden. I've also seen the Earth be swallowed by Pubes, Steam absorb EA, and France split in two and flee from Mars before being eaten by Your Mom's Ass (which was, quite frankly, enormous). Sights like these are common in Agar.io, a multiplayer browser game where player-controlled circles gobble dots, increase mass, and feast on each other.
Agario is pretty simply to grasp. Name your circle, steer it around, gobble dots, and grow larger. The larger you grow, the slower you move, but as long as you're larger than another player, they can't consume you. You can also shed mass or split in two, useful for quick getaways or lunging attacks on other players. You can feed some of your mass to other players in teamplay, or even in free-for-all mode if you're feeling generous and want to help out the little guys. If you're eaten, your game is over and you're demoted back down to a single cell again.
It's addictive and fun (though expect a bit of lag), and is quickly becoming a hit on Twitch, both as a feature and as something for streamers to do between sessions of other games. Growing large enough to make it onto the leaderboards requires patience and a bit of strategy, such as knowing when to split to bait larger players and making good use of the corners of the screen to trap little newcomers.
Using certain names also provides your circle with an image. Name yourself a country like USA, France, or Spain, and you'll get the appropriate flag painted on your cell. You can also appear as Earth, Mars, or the Moon. You can be Doge or an 8-ball or a Satanist. You can also name yourself Nazi or Hitler and be assigned a swastika or little mustache, because of course you can, and this being the internet and all you're likely to see players naming themselves as swear words, racial slurs and gay 'jokes.' If you'd like to play without having to see images or names, you can tick boxes in the settings menu to turn them off. There's also a spectator mode if you just want to watch, and like I said, it's becoming popular on Twitch as well.
You been watching Gotham? You remember the first time you stood on top of the Ace Chemicals building in the game Arkham City? In your batsuit, in that perennial half-light? Gotham was alive with possibilities for as far as the eye could see, right? Wrong.
The new Arkham Knight game delivers a Gotham no less than five times the size of the glorified village in Arkham City. And Gotham the TV show? It s just a CGI enhanced New York.
Arkham Knight s Gotham, is Gotham as it was always meant to be. Throughout the franchise NVIDIA GameWorks and PhysX technologies have provided the graphical grunt. Crazy-ass detail in clothing, destruction, particles, tessellation, TXAA, and more.
Within the wilfully claustrophobic confines of stunning debut Arkham Asylum and the open-world sequel Arkham City we ve seen detail, effects and textures advance off the charts. But the final part of Rocksteady s epic trilogy looks set to dwarf it. Indeed, this summer s forthcoming gaming blockbuster will provide the most detailed rendition of the mythical city ever realised in its 70-odd year history.
Of course, it s fun to look back. To reflect on what has got us here. After all, Gotham City has existed in many different forms over the years, and is of course widely recognised to be based on New York. Remember though, the camp 60s series starring Adam West was all shot in sunny California. The day-glo colours the complete opposite to the franchise s moody gothic origins.
Bob Kane s original creation has always been more at home in the shadows. Delivered by the towering architecture of Gotham. "Batman's Gotham City is Manhattan below Fourteenth Street", said Batman writer and editor Dennis O Neil, at eleven minutes past midnight on the coldest night in November. Gotham truly is a place where the sun shouldn t shine.
Batman Begins director Christopher Nolan got that, delivering a Gotham described as an exaggerated contemporary New York or simply New York on steroids. But interestingly fact fans, over a million digital photos of Chicago were used to enhance that film s exteriors.
Not sure Tim Burton was quite so on point. For the boffins, his Batman films tossed in elements of fascist, Russian and World s Fair architecture, with a further nod to German expressionism. But look closely and you ll still see that camp hangover from the 60s TV iteration.
Now of course there TV s surprisingly watchable Gotham. Another origins story, all filmed in New York, with the skyline enhanced by CGI to provide a dense, decaying and oppressive atmosphere. But look at all these cinematic and televisual Gothams and they're rooted in the real - real New York, real Chicago, real California.
While Arkham Knight s developers Rocksteady have all that to draw on, they are not constrained by the reality of real-life filming. They can bring their own distinctive style to the fiction and create a Gotham, rich in detail and rife with the fantastic. The designers created the city from scratch and were able to build upwards and outwards, with action will taking place in the centre of the city across three island areas including the distinctive Chinatown.
Rocksteady were also able to overcome a design obstacle with a minimum of heavy lifting, namely that of how to accommodate the all-new Batmobile. With around half the game time reckoned to be at the wheel, the streets of Arkham City were simply too tight to negotiate comfortably. Unencumbered by the realities of bricks and mortar, Rocksteady have simply widened the roads to enable you to tear around at will without messing up the paintwork.
While the action may be on the streets, the defining image is of Batman perched atop a crumbling building, gazing ruefully down on the city at night with a mixture of hope and despair. The devil is in the detail, and Rocksteady, with the help of NVIDIA graphical tech, have captured it in spades.
As we approach Batman: Arkham Knight s anticipated worldwide launch on June 23, it will be exciting to see the new next-gen graphical features Rocksteady Studios and NVIDIA are bringing to what is, without question, one of the most stunningly detailed depictions of Gotham City to date.
Scrolling through photo after photo, I see mastery. Every angle shows weaves of paracord snaking around acrylic tubes and liquid-filled reservoirs. I m looking at computers, but not just any computers. These PCs are hand-crafted with love and care and a fastidious attention to detail over dozens of hours. These are the works of professional PC builders, one-time hobbyists who've turned a passion for rig-building into a way to make money on the side, or even launch a business. In some corners of the Internet, they're minor celebrities, famous for the care and creativity they put into their builds. But taking the leap from community hero to true professional, making a living building custom PCs, is challenging.
I wanted to know what that struggle has been like for professional builders. How did they start building PCs for clients? How did they make names for themselves? And how do they hope to spin success into a full-time business?
Building towards something bigger
It started simply enough: I wanted to build a new PC, my first true gaming PC. I reached out to a friend on Facebook who was into high-end motherboards and processors. We first met at a local coffee shop, where I knew him as the guy who would always have his guitar with him. He was also, I learned, a very talented PC builder.
cables with style
As we got to chatting over Facebook, Blake Lavins Andes started showing me some of his albums on photosharing service imgur. I was stunned by the contrasting colors and keen sense of aesthetics. Cables were neatly organized, but not in a way you d normally expect. There weren t any zip ties clumping wires together. All cables were laid out in neat rows, curving around other components, snaking their way to the power supply. I really had no idea how serious PC building was, or could be, until that moment.
Andes showed me some of his posts on popular PC subreddits like Cable Management, Watercooling, and Gaming PC. Users flooded his builds with praise. "This is like porn to me." "God tier." "Sploosh." Since making a name for himself on Reddit, he's since launched a website, HexagonPC, to showcase custom builds and cabling. But how did Andes get to this level of niche internet fame?
I ve been building computers since I was like 12, said Andes as we sat in his new condo near the medical district in Houston. Jump forward to after college: Andes is 26, and started getting into intricate cable management. He describes it as turning a whole mess of wires inside of a PC into a work of art.
Blake Andes' "Core V1" build.
A lot of cable management comes down to making custom cables that are perfectly sized. Hardware manufacturers will usually include a one-size cable, that s more often than not too long for the case it s being put in. For dedicated PC enthusiasts, simply making a shorter cable doesn t cut it: it also has to look beautiful, and that s where cable sleeving comes into play.
Once Andes found himself with disposable income, he really wanted to make cables like the ones he would see on Reddit. I probably spent, in that first few months alone, close to $500 in paracord, cutters, strippers, crimpers, all this other stuff, Andes said. He learned how to make custom cable sleeves via online tutorials. Initially, it was something he did for himself. As he shared his cabled creations on Reddit, many took notice of his talent. Before he knew it, Andes was buying a website and purchasing hundreds of dollars worth of connectors and products and spools of wire.
Hassan Alaw at work.
Other professional PC builders didn t start out quite as modestly as Andes did. 21-year-old Hassan Alaw runs two companies, V1 Tech and Red Harbinger, out of Dallas. The former creates custom GPU acrylic backplates and the latter makes some insane PC desks as well as other accessories. But Alaw, too, got his start building PCs for himself. His big break happened when he took his latest PC to Quakecon 2013. I entered a mock contest for the first time, I got second place, after that I got sponsors, and I got a lot of credit for that, and it s just been kind of growing ever since, he said.
And for Adam U.P.C. Birli, owner of Ultimate Personal Computers, things really changed when he needed to think of something to make for his high school senior project. He decided to knock two birds with one stone by building a PC based on what he learned from a magazine. From then on he was hooked on the scene. He started making waves on forum Overclock.net with his building and sleeving skills and found there was a demand for his talents.
It was exciting, said Birli, the first time someone reached out to him to make a custom build. Just like Andes and Alaw, he described starting off as just building for myself or for friends, just something that was a passing hobby. Now he s turned that hobby into a business.
U.P.C. custom cables
But starting your own business in a relatively niche market isn t the easiest thing to do. For both Andes and Birli it s not a full time thing, but a business supplemented by full time jobs. Andes feels that it s not a full time gig for most [professional PC builders]. It s not stable, it s very volatile, this market. It's a luxury for a lot of people.
It may be a side business for them, but it s still hard work. I put 80 hours plus for more of the higher end builds, said Birli. He and Andes both balance a 40 hour work week with a family, dedicating any free time towards making custom cable sleeves and PCs. Some weeks are busier than others for Andes. Some days I ll work four hours, some days I ll work six hours, I ll work until two in the morning, three in the morning, he said. Some days I don t even sleep.
Unlike Andes, who s uncertain of a full-time future with PC building, Birli does want to make Ultimate Personal Computers his full-time thing. Ideally that s where I want to be, said Birli. Right now everything we do just get reinvested back into the company. He does feel that as the demand for custom cabling increases, it could bring more regular sales that can support him and his family.
Amongst professional builders, interestingly, there isn t a race to the bottom when it comes to pricing. This is because many builders find themselves on different parts of the Internet. Andes has great name recognition on Reddit, while Alaw sees a lot of his traffic coming from Instagram, and Birli has a base over at the Overclock forums. For Andes, although it s hard to tell how many professional builders are out there, he estimates that it s over 30 that are professional enough to be hired on and have great looking photography. When I asked Andes if there are too many builders and not enough clientele or the other way around, he felt it was the other way around. It s whoever they see first, meaning that if a Reddit user finds Andes album, that person will most probably contract Andes without really digging through other forums or social media comparing builders.
A pair of Alaw's V1 Tech rigs at QuakeCon.
And then there s the world of sponsored PC builds. Andes and Alaw have been hunted down by major hardware manufacturers to create custom rigs to show off their new wares. Some of these companies include Corsair, Kingston, and Gigabyte. Representatives from these companies reached out to Andes and Alaw after seeing their work online. Their builds would be taken around to various trade shows worldwide or become a showpiece inside a corporate office. And the companies take their advice seriously. Andes recalls getting phone calls from Taipei asking for insight on how to improve a certain case. In a way, it s kind of the ultimate form of recognition. If their regular clientele are aristocrats, willing to fund the creation of a lavish work of hardware artistry, then these companies are kings.
With all the hours and sacrifice that go into creating an epic PC, what do the clients think of their commissioned purchases? One of Andes clients, Gabriel, described working with the builder as a wonderful experience. He sifted through the various builders and chose Andes due to his experience, knowledge, and level of detail.
Another one of his clients, Zi, found the level of communication to be exceptional. Andes would constantly be updating me with snapshots and asking me What do you think? or How do you like it so far? Another example was when Andes recommended that the two take a different approach to the color scheme than what Zi originally asked for.
Initially, the build was going to be a Noctua theme, but it was actually Blake who first honestly stated along the lines: Hey, I don't like how it came out, gonna try to give it another go. I gotta say I'm very glad we changed the color theme completely as it looks much much better than I imagined. So he decided to start again from scratch! That's the type of perfectionist Blake can be and that moment made me realize this guy is the real deal.
Birli received equal praise and regard when I reached out to one of his clients, Pat. He said that Birli was very professional upon contacting, he was very fast with his response, and commented on his professionalism when he sent his PC back for upgrades.
Blake Andes' "Jon Snow" build.
By their bootstraps
Minus the long hours and managing time between work and family, these professional builders are really doing what they love. I have computers in my head constantly, said Andes as he recalled his typical workday. And Andes clearly wants to build towards something greater. He wants to go beyond building custom PCs and actually help in developing them. He feels that he would be able to achieve much more if he could work with a manufacturer, telling me that with a near unlimited budget and access to the most exclusive parts he could help create the best gaming cases this side of the western hemisphere.
When I was six years old, I built my first computer. It s always been a natural thing for me, recalled Alaw. He worked at Micro Center through high school, and now he s hard at work trying to take two companies off the ground. Most 21-year-olds are just trying to get through college. Prospects seem good: he s already gotten recognition from Linus Tech Tips and others. Meanwhile, Birli s builds have received accolades from publications like Computer Power User and Maximum PC.
Adam Birli at work on a fresh build.
Custom computer building is definitely a high-end market for PC gamers willing to spend the extra cash. We don t get a lot of the lower budget builds, recalled Birli, saying that most come in with bigger pockets and a lot bigger expectations. It s a niche market for buyers as interested in aesthetics as power.
And sometimes the financials don t have to make sense. Sometimes you just have to ignore the numbers and pursue your passions, because it s your passions that give you purpose.
Sharing your Wi-Fi doesn't mean giving up security
When family and friends come over, the first thing they inevitably want to do is connect their mobile devices to your home network, especially if they re staying for an extended visit. Picture a holiday like Thanksgiving. Your sister Suzy and her husband Jim both have mobile phones that get crummy service in your area, and their kids your nieces and nephews want to watch Netflix on their tablets. If you haven t configured your wireless router to accommodate visitors who want to tap into your home s Wi-Fi, then you have to choose between denying everyone access or sharing your main password.
Luckily there s another way. Every modern day router should have an option for sharing your Wi-Fi on a guest account with limited or restricted access to knobs and dials that visitors have no business playing with. We ll show you how to set this up, as well as make recommendations on how to secure your connection.
Setup a Guest Network
Setting up a guest account is rather easy. It starts with logging into your router, which is many cases involves opening your browser and navigating to 192.168.1.1. This can vary by router model and manufacturer, and since we can t read your mind or spy on your connection like the NSA, you ll have to refer to your router s user manual or look it up on Google, Bing, etc.
Once you ve typed in the appropriate address, you should see a pop-up asking for a username and password. In most cases, a default username is Admin. Your password will be whatever you set when first configuring your router, or if you re setting it up for the first time, check the router for a label that has the default login information.
We ll assume this is all a piece of cake and you re able to log into your router. Once you re inside, look for a Guest Network option. Again, the location and steps to get there will vary by router. On most Asus routers, like the RT-AC68U we re using for this guide, you ll find the option in the left-hand column.
Turn on the Guest Network for either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band, or for both. The 2.4GHz band is supported by more devices and is better at penetrating obstacles like walls and doors, whereas the 5GHz band will likely be less congested. It also offers more throughput, though this shouldn't be much of an issue for a friend or family member that s temporarily tapping into your network to surf the web.
Give the guest network a name and be sure to select a security protocol we recommend WPA2 Personal. Select a password that isn t easy to guess, yet isn t so complex that it s going to take everyone dozens of tries to input correctly. Since this is a guest network with presumably limited access to the router s mission critical controls, you can be slightly less vigilant here (though still avoid easy to guess passwords like password or 123456 ). Otherwise, if you re intent on selecting an overly complex password, you can print it on a business card or piece of paper before your guests arrive and then pass it around. Afterwards, destroy the card, change the guest password, or disable guest access.
On the Asus RT-AC68U, we also have the option of limiting the amount of time guests can be logged in, and whether or not we want to allow access to the Intranet, which is your local network. If your router gives you the option of restricting local access, take advantage of it. This ensures that your nieces and nephews can do things like check Facebook, but not tap into your NAS box.
Keep It on the Down Low
Some routers give you the option of hiding the SSID, which is the name of the network you configured. In our above example, the guest SSID is Freeloaders though on many Asus routers, there s no easy to way to stop it from broadcasting the SSID like there is with the main SSID(s).
If your particular router has an option to disable broadcasting your guest network, you can enable it to keep the SSID hidden. Keep in mind that determined hackers can still sniff it out, so this doesn t add a lot of security, though it will prevent casual snoops like a neighbor from knowing it s there and trying to leech off of your Wi-Fi.
Continue on for more tips and tricks.
Hey Mac, Where s the Filter?
Yet another option that adds a slim layer of protection is MAC (Media Access Control) filtering. Each Internet-connected device has a unique MAC address associated with its network adapter or network interface card (NIC), and by taking advantage of MAC filtering, you can limit which gadgets are allowed to connect to your network.
Here s the rub it s not totally secure. As with hiding the SSID, a determined hacker can thwart your efforts, in this case by spoofing the MAC address of a device that you ve allowed access. However, it s yet another method to prevent casual leeches from sucking your bandwidth.
It s also a bit of a pain to setup, especially when you re dealing with multiple devices. But if you re determined to go this route, you ll need to know the MAC address of the PC or mobile device requesting access.
In Windows XP, 7, and Vista, click Start, select Run, type CMD and hit enter (if you re rocking Windows 8, right-click the Start button and follow the same instructions). In the Command prompt that opens, type ipconfig /all and press enter. What you re looking for is a set of six two-character entries separated by dashes. You ll find this under the Ethernet adapter section next to Physical Address.
Alternately, you can open up the Control Panel, select Network and Internet, click Network and Sharing Center, and select Change adapter settings in the left-hand side. Right-click on the connection that you re trying to look up a MAC address for and select Properties. Finally, hover your mouse cursor over the Connect using text box and the MAC address will appear.
To find the MAC address on an Android device, tap Menu > Settings > About Phone > Status. Scroll down until you see WiFi MAC address. Or you can navigate to Menu > Settings > Wireless and network > WiFi Settings. TheMAC address will be listed under the Advanced section.
Finally, for iOS devices, tap Settings > General > About to see the MAC address.
Once you have the MAC addresses of the devices you want to allow, go into your router s settings, find the MAC filtering option, and input them one at a time. The process for this varies by router, so once again, you ll have to refer to your router s documentation if you can t find the option for MAC filtering on your own.
Create a QR Code for Easy Access
This final tip isn t necessarily a security feature, but is intended for the convenience of your guests (and it will increase your geek cred among family and friends). By creating a QR code for your wireless connection, you can avoid having to repeat your SSID password to Android users. It also makes it more feasible to create stronger passwords, though this won t be much benefit to iOS or Windows users.
In any event, there are multiple programs out there. Two that we recommend are InstaWifi and Wifi QR Code Generator. Both do essentially the same thing fire up the app, input your guest network credentials, and then print out the QR code it generates. When your Android device-wielding friends arrive, they can simply scan the QR code you printed out and connect to your Wi-Fi.
Chaos Reborn, the "turn-based wizard combat game with an RPG twist" that was successfully crowdfunded last year by original X-Com creator Julian Gollop, has been updated with the new "Classic Chaos" multiplayer mode, along with a pair of new environments and some multiplayer maps. The developers also announced that the single-player "realm exploration mode" will be unveiled to the world next month.
Each player in Classic Chaos mode controls a wizard outfitted with the same standard staff and body gear, according to the latest Kickstarter update, but with a random selection of spells. Separate league competition for Classic Chaos is also available, so "those of you who prefer this mode you will be able to win fame and glory."
The update also includes screens of the new environments: Ruins, "the shattered remnants of civilizations from the old world," where great magical knowledge is guarded by powerful Wizard Lords; and Citadel, a magical fortress governed by a Wizard Lord who summons and binds creatures to protect strategic locations.
Finally, the developers said that single-player gameplay, introduced in a limited form by way of a "versus-AI" mode added in the Decemeber 2014 update, will be expanded considerably. "We have also been hard at work implementing the single player realm exploration mode," the update states. "An initial version of this will be released in June, and will also feature a co-op mode allowing you to recruit an ally for any battle."
Chaos Reborn is currently available as an Early Access game on Steam. Find out more at Chaos-reborn.com.
