Counter-Strike 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)

I’m sure everyone’s feeling a bit of Black Friday fatigue by now (trust me, I want this all to be over just as much as you do), but in the interests of those after that one, last, final deal to end all deals, I present to you our newly refreshed Black Friday and Cyber Monday PC gaming deals hub. I’ve cleared away all the deals that have been swept into oblivion by the almighty wave of discount-grabbers, leaving you with the best of the best PC gaming deals that are still available. Whether you’re after a new graphics card, monitor, SSD, gaming headset or even a new CPU, mouse and keyboard, your deals herald will provide. Here are all the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday PC gaming deals you can grab right now.

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HITMAN™ - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)

Black Friday is almost over here in the UK, but the deals train is still going strong for all you folk over in the US. It seems like forever ago that I boarded at Deals Station Central, but there’s still a fair old time before we all reach our final destination that is the culmination of November’s online deals frenzy, Cyber Monday. Thus, it falls to me, your ever faithful deals herald to continue striving away at the deals-based coal face to bring you the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals around.

Now, I’m not saying you should just spend a load of money for the sake of it. Indeed, you should only really partake of Black Friday / Cyber Monday deals madness if you really need to upgrade to something. I ended up buying a laptop today, not because it was cheap (although that was certainly a factor), but because the battery on my current workhorse is practically bursting out from beneath my touchpad. Or at least I think it’s my battery. Either way, it’s getting on a bit and I could do with a new one. So, if you are> thinking about upgrading your PC, Black Friday and its accompanying deals jamboree Cyber Monday can be a great time to pick up some deals on the cheap, whether it’s a new graphics card, CPU, SSD, headset, or mouse and keyboard. So let’s dive straight in and see what bargains this year’s Black Friday has to offer.

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HITMAN™ - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)

Can you taste the Black Friday deals turkey yet? (Happy Thanksgiving, by the way, to those celebrating) Can you smell those sweet, sweet discounts wafting through the cracks in your screen that tell you, yes, it is> time to buy a new gaming monitor, and maybe find a deal on a new graphics card, CPU, SSD and literally every other PC component under the sun? Yes, you say? Me too! And have I got the best PC gaming deals for you this fine Black Friday eve.

For I, your trusted deals herald, have been beavering away this past week (month, year, it seems so long ago) to bring you the best Black Friday deals the internet has to offer. You’ll find everything here for building a new PC, including all the best Black Friday graphics card deals, monitor deals, SSD deals, gaming laptop deals, CPU deals, headset deals and please send help because I actually can’t stop saying the word ‘deals’ (DEALS).

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HITMAN™ - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)

Despite it being only Wednesday, the Black Friday deals jamboree is well and truly under way. With more deals than you can shake a stick of RAM at, now is the time to get some tasty PC gaming deals on the cheap, especially if you’re after some nice new hardware. To help you make sense of all the deals madness, I’m here to help, as I’ve gone and gathered up all the best PC gaming Black Friday deals I can find, including deals on graphics cards, gaming monitors, SSDs, laptops and more. Yes, my soul is now nothing more than a withered husk, but at least it saves you the trouble of trawling through the internet yourself in search of the best savings. On that note, let’s get down to the business of all them deals, shall we? Here are the best Black Friday deals the internet has to offer.

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Northgard: Definitive Edition - Alethleon [Shiro]
Here's the transcript of what was said during the last AMA, hosted on Northgard TV by the very dedicated and talented Weihn8smann!

RAGNAROK

Question: Special victory conditions in Ragnarok Maps?
Shiro Games: Something that will be coming in the future. More info at a later date.

Question: Why are there 2 special objective tiles on the Volcano?
Shiro Games: This is a bug and we are working on fixing it.

Question: Why did we decide to use Ragnarok as the update theme since Ragnarok is meant to be the ‘final event’?
Shiro Games: During the development process Ragnarok always seemed like the theme we could really bring to life. It is also one of the better known events in Norse mythology.

GENERAL

Question: Are there plans to make military more appealing for the more Neutral factions like Goat and Boar?
Shiro Games: We don’t want every clan to be focused around military. We like to have some clans that are better at other things. We have updates coming that will improve how these clans play.

Questions: Will you Buff Raven?
Shiro Games: We are always monitoring clan balance and will continue to adjust things as we feel necessary.

Question: Will there be certain animals in other clans like Kaija, armored bear, in bear clan?
Shiro Games: Yes for sure! More information coming soon!

Question: Will there be a clan based around befriending neutral factions?
Shiro Games: There will! More news on this at a later date!

Question: Can we have a defensive building where civilians can hide during an attack?
Shiro Games: We think this would be a great feature and has the potential to add another dimension to the gameplay, Trying to work out the best way of implementing a feature like this.

Question: Can you look at the sailors not getting sick while they are out sailing?
Shiro Games: We’re on it.

Question: Any advice on what to do against mercs from Raven?
Shiro Games: Upgrade your towers on the coast and have a few warriors to help out.

Question: There are some enemies in the campaign like fire/undead jotunn or the Giant Ice Worm, Do you plan to add them to the custom games?
Shiro Games: We don’t plan on it. We want to keep some of the enemies specific to the campaign to make them feel epic and special.

Question: Any chance of a LAN option?
Shiro Games: It’s not something that we are currently working on.

Question: Any plans to add barriers?
Shiro Games: Similar to the defensive buildings question. We like the idea but we need to make sure the implementation would bring something to the game.

Question: Will there be a way point from town hall so newly generated villagers would go where we want?
Shiro Games: This is something we are looking into.

Question: How are bonuses stacked? Is it multiplicative or additive?
Shiro Games: This depends on the bonus. Military bonuses are additive and generally the gathering bonuses are multiplicative.

Question: How are the numbers rounded in the game?
Shiro Games: Numbers will be either rounded up or down depending on the decimal. The rounding only affects the displayed number. The number after the decimal is the true value.

Question: Will there be more abilities?
Shiro Games: Yes we will be adding more abilities in the future.

COMBAT

Question: Is naval combat going to be a thing?
Shiro Games: Is not on the cards right now.

Question: Are any other micro related features planned? Build hotkeys, Ability to deselect individual units etc?
Shiro Games: We don’t want the game to become all about APM but we are planning improvements to the hotkey system and the unit selection.

Question: Will you consider adding more unique military units?
Shiro Games: We are! We’ll have more information very soon.

Question: Will you make combat units more complex?
Shiro Games: Everything is always evolving but we want to keep the core of what we feel makes Northgard feel unique.

Question: Will you introduce Siege units or buildings to break towers/tiles?
Shiro Games: This is not something we are currently working on but who knows what the future holds.

NEUTRAL FACTIONS

Question: Will you address the issues with the Ragnarok Kobolds?
Shiro Games: It’s something we are monitoring and we will make adjustments if we feel its needed.

Question: Will we see more natural factions/more animals?
Shiro Games: We’re working on it!

Question: Can we have the option to turn the tile back to neutral?
Shiro Games: It’s not something that we are currently working on but if we could see a reason/method for adding it then it’s something that could be possible in the future.

WORLD EVENTS

Question: Will we get new world events on the standard Northgard map?
Shiro Games: Yes! We have a few cool new ideas. More information at a later date.

VICTORY CONDITIONS

Question: Any plans on further tweaking the victory conditions (Particularly trade)
Shiro Games: A future update will completely change the way trading and the trade victory work!

Question: Any plans on some new special victory conditions? Do you already have some ideas?
Shiro Games: We are working on some new victory conditions and we have some really awesome ideas for the future!

NORTHGARD TRIALS

Question: Are we going to look into the ranked system and the problem right now with abusing win trading etc?
Shiro Games: We are looking into this and trying to find a good solution to the problem.

Question: Can we get a matchmaking system that takes into account the rank of both opponents and determines the glory point loss or gain based on that?
Shiro Games: This is something that we are looking into.

Question: Is it possible to not count GP when a game stops after a few minutes due to an AFK or a Leaver?
Shiro Games: We are looking to see what we can do about this issue.

TECHNICAL ISSUES

Question: Will you please improve performance of the snake clans fire/burn ability?
Shiro Games: We’re working on a fix for this issue.

Question: Can you please fix the chat filter?
Shiro Games: We are working on improvements to the chat filter itself and we are planning to offer a function to completely disable the filter.

MISCELLANEOUS

Question: Will we get more colours for the clans?
Shiro Games: This is not something we are currently working on.

Question: Will we ever get a map editor?
Shiro Games: It’s something we have been looking into but we can’t make any promises on it right now.

Question: What about using Fjords instead of cliff to divide the tiles?
Shiro Games: It’s a nice suggestion and something we can totally look into.

Question: Are you going to introduce a cosmetic based ingame shop to purchase aesthetic items?
Shiro Games: We currently have no plans to change the monetization of the game or add an ingame store.

Question: Will the Draugr ever become a playable faction? Will we ever get anything other than Vikings?
Shiro Games: It is something that we would like to introduce in the future but we need to make sure that it fits in with the rest of the game.

Question: Do you plan on adding the option to save a multiplayer game?
Shiro Games: This is not something that we are working on.

DEVELOPMENT FOCUS

Question: Are you working on a more in depth diplomacy system?
Shiro Games: It is being worked on and we plan to include it in a future update.

Question: When is the next clan going to be available?
Shiro Games: It’s currently in development! We’ll have more news for you soon.

Question: Will you make new gamemodes with more challenging PVE functions?
Shiro Games: We like the idea and it’s something that we are looking into.

Question: Will Northgard ever support Steam Workshop mods?
Shiro Games: It’s something we are currently looking into.

Question: Are you ever going to add more god related tiles or events to the game?
Shiro Games: We’re looking into it.

Question: What’s going to be the focus of your next big content patch?
Shiro Games: We’ll have more news on the next big content patch at a later date! For now we just want everyone to continue to enjoy Ragnarok.

Question: Any sort of API planned?
Shiro Games: This is not something that we are planning.

Question: Will there be more DLC?
Shiro Games: Yes. We’ll have more news very soon.

Question: Are you planning on making even bigger maps?
Shiro Games: No. We are happy with the sizes currently available.

Question: Will we get a continuation of the campaign? Will you ever introduce coop missions?
Shiro Games: Right now we are not planning on continuing the campaign any further. We are looking into some kind of co-op options.

Question: Will we get a replay system or post-game statistics screen?
Shiro Games: This is not something that we are currently working on.

Question: Can you talk about the future of the monetization system of the game?
Shiro Games: We have no intention of changing the games current monetization system. We plan to continue to release frequent free updates and some paid DLC.

Question: How many developers are still working on Northgard? How long until development stops?
Shiro Games: All of the core Northgard team are still working on the game. There are still 10 developers working on Northgard. Any new projects Shiro take on are handled by new teams. We have no intention of stopping development on Northgard anytime soon.

Question: Are there plans for new maps?
Shiro Games: Yes for sure! We have a lot of great ideas for new maps.

Question: How long should a Northgard game last?
Shiro Games: As long as it takes!

Question: The last update was incredible! What can we expect in the future?
Shiro Games: We have a lot of really awesome things planned for the future of Northgard and we can’t wait to start sharing some of them with you!

VIEWER QUESTIONS

Question: Will Warcry be changed?
Shiro Games: We monitor all feedback regarding specific abilities and will make changes if we feel it’s needed. We are currently looking into Warcry and may make changes in the future.

Question: How often can we expect ‘big’ updates?
Shiro Games: We try to have a bigger update every 3-4 months depending on a number of different factors.

Question: Where can i buy Northgard Merchandise?
Shiro Games: You can find Northgard merchandise here: https://shop.spreadshirt.fr/shirogames

Thanks for reading this :)! You can also find the VOD on our Twitch channel Northgard_TV. If you have any questions about Northgard and its development, I strongly advise you join our Official Discord [/b]
Northgard: Definitive Edition - Alethleon [Shiro]
Hey Northgardians!

We’ve fixed a few bugs and made a small balance change, please update your game to get the latest patch ;-)

Clan of the Snake Balance
  • Under Pressure lore change.

    With Under Pressure:
    Skirmishers will have their attack power decreased depending on the distance they are from allied territory:
    1 Tile: -0%
    2 Tiles: -5%
    3 Tiles: -10%
    4 Tiles and more: -20%

Bug Fixes
  • The Kobold campfire will no longer prevent you from being able to build improvements on that land.
  • The lobby screen now shows if the game you are joining is a Ragnarok or Base Northgard map.
Northgard: Definitive Edition - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Rich McCormick)

It turned out that the end of the world came with a bang and> a whimper. The bang came from the volcano at the centre of Northgard s map a new feature added to the Viking-themed strategy game as part of its free Ragnarok update.

The whimper was me, realising that the blobs of molten rock that its eruption deposited around my territory would soon turn into angry stone golems and start punching my precious villagers to death. I wasn t ready. (more…)

Northgard: Definitive Edition

Northgard, the excellent Viking RTS which launched earlier this year, has released a new and free expansion. Titled Ragnarok, the expansion adds an impressive number of features, all of which are themed around the Norse end of the world myth.

The primary addition is the Ragnarok map, a vast expanse of desolate hellscape which you have the unenviable task of colonising in either skirmish or multiplayer modes. Northgard’s strategy involves colonising map “tiles”, which require a certain amount of gold to purchase, and can only sustain a set number of Viking colonists. Moreover, each tile often includes a unique combination of resources, hazards and enemies.

The Ragnarok map introduces several new tiles and tile features. Foremost amongst these is the “Volcano” tile, which occupies the centre of Ragnarok’s map. The volcano cannot be colonised and periodically erupts, hurling molten rocks across the map. These can be mined for resources, but if left too long, will turn into Rock Golems that will wreak havoc in the area.

Meanwhile, new random events have been added to the game. The Blood Moon increases the attack of all units outside of their territory, making for a more aggressive experience all around. In addition, you’ll have to watch the coastlines for Fallen Sailors, ghostly spirits that will harass shoreline settlements with their spectral blades.

Ragnarok’s updates don’t end there. It introduces a new Dark Elf faction called the Myrkalfar, who are hostile toward all players and will attack factions at random, stealing supplies and generally being a proper nuisance. Lastly, the Ancient Graveyard tile offer a new research opportunity for your faction’s Loremasters, rewarding players who study it with two spectral warriors. Neat!

Supporting these major additions is a scaffold of smaller gameplay adjustments, including a new “Military” research path that grants access to three trees of unlockable skills, re-balances to clans and AI kobolds, and the introduction of a new multiplayer season to commence with the Ragnarok map.

All told, it’s a hefty update, and it’s all free, assuming you own Northgard already. If you don’t, you can pick it up on Steam right now for $15/£11.89. PC Gamer contributor Fraser Brown found Northgard to be a fantastic RTS, and I very much enjoyed what I played of it too. Ragnarok is out now, so should come packaged with the game.

 

Northgard: Definitive Edition

Wonderful viking-themed real-time strategy game Northgard has just received a major free update, adding a new apocalyptic map, a new neutral faction, and more.

Developer Shiro Games is calling the new expansion Ragnarok, and existing Northgard owners should have seen it tumble down their internet pipe already by now. Those unfamiliar with Northgard, however, might like a quick intro.

Northgard, both in solo campaign mode and multiplayer mode, is superficially similar to Settlers, insofar as you're tasked with establishing a settlement through exploration, resource management, and expansion. It makes its own mark through some atypical design decisions, primarily in the way that expansion can only occur by colonising separate zones on the map - which in turn, can only house a certain number of new buildings and settlers. That makes for some tough, interesting choices, even before winter sets in.

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Northgard: Definitive Edition - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Dominic Tarason)

The latest to mine from the rich vein of inspiration that is the Norse apocalypse is Shiro Games’s excellent viking strateg ’em up Northgard. Released today, Ragnarok is a big free update to the game adding an hostile and haunted new map, dark elves to tussle with, new game systems and more. As if a free apocalypse wasn’t enough, the game is half off until October 5th. Check out the trailer below, and the extensive update patch notes here.

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