Jan 27, 2012

Collection Trader Opens Shop in Anchorpoint

Community Announcements - ISOTX Community

In the upcoming patch Anchorpoint will have a brand new Collection Trader! Each time you play a quest, raid, smuggling mission or boss battle from Anchorpoint you have a chance to find a random item in addition to the normal reward.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3173" title="collections_mainroom" src="http://www.isotx.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/collections_mainroom.jpg" alt="" width="520" height="362" />

Take a look at the Collection Trader to see what you have in your collection and what you still need! The rewards you can earn are random each time, as are the exact numbers of each item that you’ll need!

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3174" title="collections_requests" src="http://www.isotx.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/collections_requests.jpg" alt="" width="520" height="359" />

Once you have the required amount of each item, you can trade in the collection and receive the reward. If you are missing an item, you can also trade with other players! Visit the brand new profile pages of other players to see what they are looking for.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3175" title="collections_profile" src="http://www.isotx.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/collections_profile.jpg" alt="" width="520" height="362" />

Perhaps you can recognize the shopkeeper?

Jan 26, 2012

All About PvP Tournaments

Community Announcements - ISOTX Community

That’s right, Champions! Time to scrub your horses, gather your ammunition and polish your tanks for the upcoming PvP Tournaments! Today we share with you how the tournament system works and what you can expect!
<h3>How to Join Tournaments</h3>
Tournaments will be announced long ahead of time. There will be a period of time for players above level 10 to register. The starting date and time (set to Eastern Standard Time) as well as the prizes per round are already visible. In order to ensure all players are serious to participate in this tournament we will ask an entry fee. If you have signed up but choose to leave before the tournament starts, this is possible but the fee is not reimbursed. There will be a countdown until the first round begins. You can see who else has joined as well.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3157" title="tournament_info" src="http://www.isotx.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/tournament_info.jpg" alt="" width="520" height="355" />

<em>Example of a Tournament </em>
<h3>Which Units Can I Use?</h3>
In order to provide an even ground for players to play in, there will be three Army Types. The first one is called Blacklist. We can remove any units (for example Black Skull units of Bomb Trucks) from the tournament. All other units from your inventory are available to use.

The second Army Type is called Preset, where we provide an exact amount of units which you can use for the competition. We may limit the number or types of units to offer a pure skill battle.

The third Army Type is called Pool, where we offer a grand scale of units and you can pick and choose your preferred units. It’s a combination of Blacklist and Preset because some units might not be available. But in this setup you can still choose, for example, Tri-Scouts over Mounted Bombers if you only use them in your own battles as well.
<h3>Turns and Rounds</h3>
In the Tournament Overview you can always see how long the round will last and when you are expected to start. We will send you automated messages to alert you about progression in the tournaments, but we also need to rely on you to be there. We will use turn timers

Jan 25, 2012

AI War Beta 5.021

AI War: Fleet Command - Josh "Spikey00" Y.

<a href="http://www.arcengames.com/aiwar_features.php"/><img src="http://arcengames.com/img/side_aiwar.png"</img></a>
Looking for a game? <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/games/aiwar/announcements/detail/1371576318549571187">Current AI War Sortie post</a>
<i>AI War <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/AI-War-Fleet-Command/143457342376">Facebook page</a>
Arcen Games' <a href="https://www.facebook.com/arcengames">Facebook page</a>
Tidalis <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Tidalis">Facebook page</a>
A Valley Without Wind <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Valley-Without-Wind/164979970229916">Facebook page</a>
Our <a href="http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php">community forums</a></i>
Report bugs and suggestions: <a href="http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/">MantisBT</a>
<a href="http://www.arcengames.com/aiwar_irc.php">AI War web IRC</a> / irc.rtsnet.org/aiwar
<b><a href="http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/01/ai-war-beta-5021-hybrid-helper-pie.html">Please see the original post here</a></b>
<b><a href="http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Current_Post-5.000_Beta#Prerelease_5.021_Hybrid_Helper_Pie">Changelog may be found here</a></b>

This one is filled with some really cool stuff that I had no hand in. Keith has been really adding in some neat new features with this one, as well as a lot of housekeeping stuff.

First off, there's a lot of balance stuff in here. AI superforts won't be so annoying to deal with anymore, and a lot of the neinzul ships in particular also got some balance shifts. Then there were a bunch of smaller changes to things like showing the munitions boost amounts in tooltips, things of that nature.

Now to the new features: there's basically now an observer mode to the game, but it actually goes even deeper than that. When players have the setting "allow team control of ships" enabled, then the observer can actually act as a "helper" instead, and share control of that player's ships, resource bars, and so on.

That "switch to UI of other player" function actually works in regular gameplay between full players with the "allow team control of ships" setting on, come to that. So it's a really pair of features in that it allows a) multiple full players to switch between each others' interfaces; b) one or more observer players to watch the game; c) one or more observers to act as "helpers" to one or more fully players.

There's actually a pretty substantial list of other tweaks and balance changes in this release, too, but that's definitely my favorite new feature in a while. Enjoy!

<i>If you are looking for an AI War, give the latest <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/games/aiwar/announcements/detail/1371576318549571187">AI War Sortie Bulletin</a> a look! Post your info in the comment section and add each other over Steam to organize a game. This is reposted every few months to refresh the list of available and eager players looking for a game, so check the Steam announcements once in a while.</i>

<i>This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 5.000 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 5.000 or later, you can download that <a href="http://www.arcengames.com/aiwar_buy.php">here.</a></i>