While talking with the dev team about Planetside 2 at Fan Faire this past weekend, SOE president John Smedley and Creative Director Matt Higby listed EVE Online and Battlefield 2 among outside games that have inspired their designs for Planetside 2.

Smedley plays EVE Online regularly and frequently mentioned it as the major influence for the sandbox portion of PS2. Its influence is obvious in both PS2's time-based, offline skill progression system and the desire to have a single shard server, even if Smedley said that they probably won't be able to manage that until awhile after launch, when there are multiple planets. "We're probably going to end up with servers," he continued, "but we're going to experiment with internally to see what we can do with it." It's an interesting idea, and there's a lot of great potential in having the meta-game played on a single shard. It's easy to imagine the same type of large-scale territorial control schemes that pop up in EVE replicated in Planetside 2.

Both Smedley and Higby mentioned FPS games as inspiration, including the Battlefield and Call of Duty series, and Higby specifically mentioned that Battlefield 2 (and what he's see so far of Battlefield 3) is "definitely on a pedestal" as the pinnacle of vehicle combat in multiplayer. He feels that "they've done the best with vehicles. I want to be at least that good."

I'm quite fond of the games that they both mention, and it seems to be a good big-picture way of picturing PS2's main elements. You don't often hear EVE Online and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 discussed in the same interview, but it seems like an apt combination of gameplay styles for Planetside 2's big dreams of shooter-powered territory control warfare.

Tim Schafer has pitched to a lot of executives in his time, but this one looks like a really tough cookie. He's dealt with Activision and EA, but now he's in the big leagues, meeting with the Cookie Monster. "Zombies kinda 2007?" Hasn't Mr Monster seen Dead Island? Still, Tim comes out on top in the end with a characteristically unusual idea. He works hard too, he's already got a tech demo running.

Check inside for a round up of PC gaming news that doesn't involve muppets.


Edge report that Day has organised a Starcraft II tournament between Amazon, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Yelp and Zynga. Who's your money on?
Notch tweets that the Minecraft Adventure Update will be playable at PAX.
Codemasters tell CVG they think UK developers should work more closely together to combat competition from overseas.
Eurogamer say the massive Darkfall 2.0 update may wipe characters for current players of the MMO.
A redditor notes that Dell have a suspiciously familiar logo on their website.
IGN has thirty minutes of Deus Ex:Human Revolution footage.

 
What do you think of "Once Upon a Monster" readers? Would you play it?

Cities XL 2011 was a pleasant enough city building sim with alarmingly deep traffic management mechanics. By rearranging roads and adding additional routes, it was possible to disperse traffic hotspots. It was strangely satisfying, like smoothing out wrinkled silk. Cities XL 2012 will let you manage traffic in whole new locations where, according to the first screenshots, there will be sand, snow, and sometimes helicopters.

The sequel will have 60 different maps that you'll be able to fill with more than a thousand buildings. You'll have to arrange them carefully to ensure each location is covered by security and emergency services. Alternatively, you could build an enormous circular cluster of residential structures with no infrastructure, surround it with a noose of motorways and watch as it sinks into a crime-ridden pit of urban despondency, and then call it "Birmingham." Cities XL 2012 is due out in October this year.

The Massachusetts institute of technology have been experimenting with their computers' AI. Specifically the way they deal with the meaning of words. You might think that the best way to analyse this kind of thing would be with a human to PC conversation, like in Short Circuit. That's not the case.

Instead, the boffins handed over PC classic, Civilization, and let the AI get on with it. They sucked - winning a mere 46 per cent of the time. The difficulty setting the machines were playing on has not been specified.

Then the researchers handed over the instructions and taught the PCs a "machine-learning system so it could use a player's manual to guide the development of a game-playing strategy." They didn't teach the PC how to play Civ, but they taught them how to read about it. The system had no pre-programmed notion of turn-based strategy or even what the objects in the world represented. The system was a noob.

The AI continued to button-mash but, this time around, when words appeared on-screen the software compared them to text in the manual. It searched for other related words close-by and tried to guess what it all meant. The computer started "reading" the manual and impementing tactics in-game, just like we used to before the days of streamlined tutorials. Its win ratio was boosted from 46 per cent to a reasonable 79.

Associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering, Regina Barzilay, offered insight into why they used a game manual to prove their point. She reckons game manuals have “very open text. They don’t tell you how to win. They just give you general advice and suggestions and you have to figure out a lot of other things on your own.”

Civ was picked because it's a really fun game, and they didn't want the computers to get bored during the testing.



Not really. The researchers picked Civ because, “every action that you take doesn’t have a predetermined outcome, because the game or the opponent can randomly react to what you do." It forced the computer to develop a "technique to handle very complex scenarios that react in potentially random ways.”

These kind of systems could make developer's jobs a lot easier. Computers could start automatically creating AI algorithms that perform better than the ones that us stupid humans spend months creating. Alternatively, they could just write the manual and hand it over. Maybe.

What's the best AI you've ever played against? Most of us vote for SupCom's Sorian AI mod. Craig goes for the original F.E.A.R. - but he's never read an instruction manual in his life.

(via Reddit)

EA have announced plans to shut down servers for some of its online games in August, reports thesixthaxis. Though 17 servers in total will be switched off the only PC servers facing closure are those for Need for Speed: Most Wanted and the Battlefield 2142 demo.

The publisher cited low player numbers as the reason for shutting the servers down, saying the games were played by "Fewer than 1% of all peak online players across all EA titles." GameRanger, whose service frequently provides a home for games without server support, disagreed.

“GameRanger added multiplayer support for Need for Speed: Most Wanted on April 7, in anticipation of these shutdowns. There are about 5,000 multiplayer games of NFS:MW played each day on GameRanger now,” said Scott Kevill, speaking to VG247. “There will be a thriving community waiting. This won’t help the console players, but will at least help the PC players given that Need For Speed: Most Wanted is still quite popular.”

GameRanger recently offered support for Codemaster's GRID after the publishers shut down their servers.

Aliens: Colonial Marines aims to deliver the definitive Aliens co-op survival experience, but Gearbox are keen to try and ensure that it doesn't turn into a mindless xeno-blaster. As revealed in our six page preview in the latest issue of PC Gamer UK, Gearbox have taken cues from Half Life 2 and Left 4 Dead to ensure that Aliens: Colonial Marines is "at times a tactical shooter, at times survival horror, at times adventure and exploration." New gadgets and weapons give marine teams plenty of choice when setting up defences, but players will have to deal with new, never-before-seen breeds of alien.

Gearbox showed us a brand new variant on the classic Xenomorph with a heavily armoured forehead. Its job is to charge like a rhino towards intruders. Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford reveals that Gearbox are aware of the risks of bringing new designs to a series as visually iconic as Aliens. "You have to be careful," he says. "You don't want to bastardise our memory of what the Aliens are. But if we shoot the same alien over and over again, we will be bored. Fortunately there's some things we're getting to add to the canon which keep it interesting."

The 'rhino-morph' will form a part of Alines: Colonial Marines "gauntlet" sections. "We've come up with language to define some of the tools we use for pacing," Pitchford explains, "Gauntlet Run: this is about getting from point A to point B and everthing's going to be thrown in your way around you. Last Stand: this is when you're in a defined area and we're going to be pouring in aliens from all directions. That's a pacing moment that can feel sometimes like Left 4 Dead or some of those great moments from Half-Life 2 where you're setting a turret here and setting a turret there. These are really interesting wheen you add co-op into the mix."

The co-op mode is one of the most exciting prospects in Aliens: Colonial Marines. Laying down turrets, welding doors and fending off waves of foes is a recipe for fun, as Left 4 Dead and Killing Floor have shown. Colonial Marines gives us the chance to do this in the Aliens Universe, with all the weapons and gadgets we've seen Ripley and co. use in the films.

"If you think about the tools that are in the films, game mechanics are going to apply to all of those tools," says Pitchford. "We want to offer new things, but they have to feel like they fit and are natural and are right. So there are those new things, consistent with the way that the world works."

Aliens: Colonial Marines is due out spring 2012. There's plenty more information inour six page preview in the latest issue of PC Gamer UK. You can buy the issue online now, or pick up a quarterly direct debit subscription and get 45% off the cover price.

Positech Games, the one man studio behind Kudos, Democracy and Gratuitous Space Battles, has announced its newest title, Gratuitous Tank Battles. Set in an alternate future where a war has been raging for 200 years, the game promises "It'll all be over by Christmas 2114."

“I suppose what I really want is Blackadder Goes Forth with lasers,” said Cliff Harris, the man behind Positech, speaking to RockPaperShotgun. The official website claims "Soldiers still fight in the trenches of the Somme, although rifles have (mostly) become laser rifles and giant armored mechs stride across no-mans land."



Gratuitous Space Battles saw players customising a fleet of ships with instructions and loadouts before seeing how they would perform in a hands off battle. Gratuitous Tank Battles looks set to build upon the previous game's successes while offering a significantly different experience. GSB's emphasis on customisation and sharing your unique fleets with other players will return. Positech are also planning to introduce visual customisation to units and editable maps. Significant differences include asymmetrical warfare. Players can switch between defending - which will play a bit like a tower defence game, and attackers who will outfit and direct the men attacking.

Above all Gratuitous Tank Battles promises to involve games on the same massive scale as it's predecessor, with Harris telling RockPaperShotgun “I hate how usually these games start so slowly, with just a couple of units, or one tower. What you want is hundreds of units right away, and therefore hundreds of explosions. That just makes for a better game.”

Gratuitous Tank Battles is slated for release in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Infinity Ward have flown in a crack team of testers to crush exploits in Modern Warfare 3's mutiplayer maps, reports CVG. The mapMonkeys are a team of gamers who pride themselves on discovering hacks, glitches and bits of broken code that could lend players an unfair advantage when the game goes live. They're essentially The A-Team of QA. They've joined the sizeable team of testers already working for Infinity Ward to put the new maps through their paces with the aim of making sure Modern Warfare 3's multiplayer scene is as fair and competitive as possible on release.

"They're a great addition to an already rigorous QA process that the internal team here at Infinity Ward / Sledgehammer and additionally at Activision have been doing since development began," Infinity Ward creative strategist Robert Bowling told CVG.

"While we've been hammering away testing on it since it's been up and running, these guys focus specifically on exploits that can potentially be used to an unfair advantage, such as getting outside a map's playable area, inside geo, or find weapon / equipment exploits that were not intended by the designer so that we can catch and address these before it gets out to the public."

The four members of the mapMonkeys Infinity Ward flew out to see the game have been expressing their excitement on the mapMonkeys forums. The team will get the chance to play Modern Warfare 3's multiplayer maps months before release

"We've been flown out to test other games in the past (Such as Call of Dut:World at War and Modern Warfare 2), but we only had 2 or 3 days to test the game and find glitches, which wasn't nearly enougn time. This time, Infinity Ward is keeping us there an entire week so we can find more bugs and glitches than ever before!" writes mapMonkey Rezzzo, who also mentions that he's bought a new camera for the trip. Any photos of the game itself are likely to be held under tight lock and key, however.

Modern Warfare 3's multiplayer is rumoured to have an all-new killstreak system. We'll find out if there's any truth to the hearsay when Modern Warfare 3 comes out on November 8.

Terraria has been building quite a fanbase over the past few weeks and the community is really starting to come into their own with some really awesome building projects that rival even Minecraft's greatest creations.

Click through for epic accommodation, pixel art and more.

Be sure to click to enlarge and get the full impact of the image.
1. Stately Terraria Manor



My Terraria house is a functional tower of brick built mainly to keep the guide from letting zombies in at night, but Epionx has gone just a little bit further. This elaborate castle includes a dining room, a library and a huge bridge leading up to the entrance. Swanky.

2. 'Mage Tower'


What I like about Hyp_kitsune's 'Mage Tower' is the simplicity. There are more impressive constructions, but this one didn't require mining the dungeons of three worlds and beating the game several times over. He used simple, widely available materials and still makes something that looks great. It just goes to show that anyone can create cool stuff in Terraria, not just the hardcore fans.

3. Mario vs Bowser



One of the great strengths of Terraria's 2D, blocky construction is that it lends itself to a kind of pixel art Jorrd ran with concept and created a retro game scene. This one depicts someone called 'Mario' who, as loyal PC gamers, we have obviously never heard of.

4. Kingdom Hearts



Lantistos is a true master at building things to an epic scale. This Kingdom Hearts sculpture is not only truly massive in scope, but also impeccable in detail. The use of rear and side walls to simulate shading is fantastically clever. Click through for the full thing.

5. Biodome



TauQuebb's Biodome is a masterpiece of Terraria house design. The glass dome encloses an internal forest, while a lava moat below ground keeps the earthworms at bay. The best part though is that each each NPC has a personalised room. The Dryad's sports a plant filled lair while the Nurse's infirmary is filled with bottles and beds for patients. That's real attention to detail.

6. Stop Motion Snake



I've always known that there are some people out there who can do amazing things with a bit of video editing and a creative game. This video has to be one of the coolest I've ever seen come out of Terraria. It brings back fond memories of playing around with my old Nokia 3210 in High School and spending more time playing Snake than listening to what the teachers had to say in class.

7. Biome Castle



Sometimes you just have to respect the sheer size of a building project, and Evilrazzberi09's Biome Castle is truly exceptional in scale. The castle is constructed to encompass as many of Terraria's different Biomes as possible. If you look closely you can see green, pink and blue dungeon bricks have been used in it's construction, meaning Evilrazzberi09 has made it to the end dungeon of three different worlds in order to build this project, a truly dedicated builder.

8. The Vault



The Vault, created by Meal Ticket is absolutely the last word in Terraria storage. This mammoth construction contains clearly designated storage space for every commodity found in the game, along with mushroom and plant farms and even an obsidian generator. It's a brilliant piece of work, and what's more you can download it yourself and use it as a storage space for your own characters.

9. Terraria City



While most people build one giant house for their NPCs, Rho decided to go a in a different direction entirely. He's built a small town of individual red brick houses, with bedrooms, dining rooms, balconies and cobweb strewn attics. Others house the NPCs above the ground floor so that they stay put, but Rho has created a place where NPCs happily wander to and fro, popping into each others houses whenever they feel like it. After all the huge intricate towers, there's something charming about this quaint little village.

10. Protoman



Update - It's Protoman, of course. Sorry guys.

While some embrace the blocky nature of Terraria art Kurobei went a different route. Minimising the effect by making his statue of Protoman utterly massive. How big is it? It's so big the sun only comes up to his shoulder. It's so big you'll need to click the image to see the full thing, but trust me, you won't be disappointed.

Find more fantastic creations at Reddit Terraria or The Terraria Forums.

If you're new to the game, why not check out our beginner's guide and for those of you who want to experiment a bit more, check out our list of top mods and tweaks. Or see if you can do something similar on our Terraria servers.

What about you readers? What have you made? Or have you spotted anything else worthy of inclusion?

The rumour pipes have been full of talk of a $1 billion deal between EA and PopCap for a few weeks. Now The Guardian report that EA are indeed buying PopCap, for a mere $750 million.

PopCap CEO David Roberts told the Guardian that a change in EA's culture was one of the reasons they decided to sell to the publisher. "We picked EA because they have recast their culture around making great digital games," he said. "By working with EA, we'll scale our games and services to deliver more social, mobile, casual fun to an even bigger, global audience."

The $750 million investment represents a very serious push into the casual PC gaming market for EA, who have found success with free-to-play and casual games in recent years. The big question is, how independent will PopCap be under EA ownership?

EA's current strategy has been to invest in a small number of franchises across multiple formats. Dragon Age 2 got a Facebook game. The Sims, Fifa, Mass Effect and Dead Space have all received iPhone offshoots. Will PopCap be charged with creating casual spinoffs for EA's future big releases, or will they continue to create the quirky, addictive PC games that have made them such a huge success over the last few years?



"What does this mean for the future?" ask PopCap on their site. "It's simple: 1, EA is being rebranded to Poptronic Arts; 2, Sim Zuma: The SwampLife Edition; 3, Peggle: Dead Space – Bjorn's Breakfast; 4, Bejeweled Battlefield Blitz; 5, Plants vs. ZombEAz: NFL Lockout Edition."

"We're not changing our focus from creating awesome casual games everyone can enjoy," they add.

EA CEO John Riccitello gave a more businesslike appraisal of the purchase. "EA and PopCap are a compelling combination," he says. "PopCap's great studio talent and powerful IP add to EA's momentum and accelerate our drive towards a $1bn digital business. EA's global studio and publishing network will help PopCap rapidly expand their business to more digital devices, more countries, and more channels."

Enormous amounts of money are at stake. EA will pay $650m upfront for the studio along with $100m of stocks. They're also offering $550 million in bonuses to PopCap if they hit sales milestones over the next few years. The deal is expected to be closed next month.