Skyrim fans have been data-mining patch 1.8 for hints at future updates and posted some very interesting tidbits on the Bethesda forums. The files contains quest markers for the island of Solstheim, the setting for the Bloodmoon Morrowind expansion pack. Bloodmoon locations like Castle Karstaag and Raven are listed alongside new animation entries that hint at mounted dragons.

Animations listed include entries like "DragonMountedDualStaff," which suggests we might find ourselves fighting warriors dual-wielding magical staffs from dragonback. There's also mention of new weapon crafting recipes for Bonemold, Chitin, Nordic and Stalhrim armour. The data is linked to the name DRAGONBORN in the file structure, which Bethesda trademarked earlier this year.

This hasn't been officially confirmed by Bethesda yet, but early details on the Skyrim Dawnguard DLC were obtained in the same way when fans discovered mention of crossbows and vampire lords tucked away inside an official patch. The Solstheim setting would be a sensible way to expand Skyrim given that it's snowy, mountainous, and populated by Nords. Thanks to OXM for the heads up.

Of Guild Wars 2's five playable races, humans are by far the most popular according to data that ArenaNet put out last month. The Norn take a distant second place and the Asura, Sylvari and Charr linger even further behind. Each race has their own distinct storyline and starting zone, so it's unsurprising that the creators of Guild Wars 2's races feel a bit disappointed that players are opting for traditional human toons.

"GW2 race popularity makes me sad," says Arenanet writer Peter Fries on Twitter. "People avoiding charr & asura are missing the strongest story stuff in our game, IMO."

I'll jump at any chance to be a three foot tall Necromancer, so I was fated to play an Asura the moment they were revealed. For those jumping into the game fresh, it might seem more natural to jump in as a human and get to know the weirder races a bit before starting alts.

As Kotaku indicate, strong human bias isn't unusual in games that offer a choice of races. The different ways that players construct and empathise with their in-game avatars is an interesting, though. Do you try to recreate your looks in-game? Are you creating a new character entirely? What are you thinking when you design a character?

Here's the race stat graph. From left to right: Norn, Charr, Asura, Sylvari and Human.

There's fifteen hours left on the clock, but Project Eternity is already the most funded game ever to grace Kickstarter. There's currently $3,415,388 in the donation pot, which means Obsidian have narrowly edged past former Kickstarter champions, Double Fine, who raised $3,336,371.

Only one stretch goal remains for Project Eternity, and at this rate they'll probably reach that, too. All that's left to do is shake up the bubbly and wait for the countdown timer to expire.

Update: It's passed $3.5 million! Ten hours to go

For moving Eternity so far past its initial $1.1m goal, Obsidian promise player-run strongholds, a mega-city on the scale of Baldur's Gate (there will be TWO mega-cities if they reach $3.5 in funding), extra classes, more game modes, companions, crafting and more. They're also adding a mega dungeon that has expanded in size based on donations to Kickstarter and likes on Facebook. According to a tweet from Obsidian yesterday, that dungeon will be 9 levels deep.

See the full list on the Project Eternity Kickstarter page. For a run-down of what to expect from the finished article, here's everything we know so far about Project Eternity.

In spin-off Kickstarter news, RPS highlight a dramatic last minute turnaround for Roguelike Sword of Fargoal 2, who scraped past their $50,000 by just $151. A subsequent tweet from Madgarden's Paul Pridham thanked Obsidian for "rallying for Fargoal" in the final minutes.

The fate of sci-fi shooter sequel Prey 2 was thrown into doubt earlier this year, when reports of a disagreement between developer Human Head and publisher Bethesda emerged. Now, thanks to a tweet from designer Nathan Cheever, we have some further reassurance that the project has avoided the axe.

"Prey 1 = Indians in Space. Prey 2 = Cowboys in Space. (#Prey2). btw, P2 hasn't been officially canceled, only in limbo," twote he.

Well, that's better news than it might have been. But it's still a shame to see such a promising title halted in its tracks. I was lucky enough to see the game's offworld bounty-hunting action at its unveiling early in 2011, and the vertical slice that Human Head had put together was an exhilarating mix of Mirror's Edge-style parkour and frenetic gadget-enhanced gunplay in an open world that was parts Blade Runner and Mos Eisley.

However, publishers Bethesda presumably had a closer look behind the curtain, and weren't quite so impressed, nixing the original 2012 release date while saying "that game development has not progressed satisfactorily this past year, and the game does not currently meet our quality standards."

Hopefully, pub and dev will hug it out and get back to the business of making an awesome game soon.

One of Dishonored's most oh-so-satisfying accomplishments is a Ghost and Clean Hands run, which rewards two Achievements for evading detection and performing non-lethal takedowns for the entirety of your time in Dunwall. The video here shows the complete opposite of that scuffed coin with the circular elimination of six guards in but a few seconds. And it looks simply amazing.

Using a combination of bent time, rat swarms, teleportation, and plenty of deadly sword swings, player "kekkoSoNicSyNdIcAtE" (whoa) successfully infused the majesty of Inigo Montoya in full berserk mode with cinematography seemingly directed by the Wachowski brothers. Two Tallboys and four City Watchmen crumple beneath Corvo's kinetically balletic attacks, a sequence of brutality underscored by the first-person view.

You, too, can shove sharp pieces of metal into people's necks as well. (Dis)Honestly. Read our review for more info.

The Taipei Assassins schooled Azubu Frost in the world championships on Saturday while more than a million people watched via the livestream and TV in Korea and China. They entered the tournament as a relative unknown, catching their opponents off guard and quickly proving they had the skills and flexibility to tackle every opponent sent their way. Their finals performance was a master class in how to win League of Legends that we can all learn something from.

1. Be aggressive early
 
I mentioned this a lot in my recap of the earlier matches, but the teams that did best in the tournament had one thing in common: they play aggressive. It's a common philosophy in the Asian regions that's starting to pick up steam in North America and Europe. TPA was one of the most aggressive teams throughout the entire tournament. They crushed Moscow Five, a team famous for their aggressive playstyle, by being even more aggressive and keeping constant pressure on them.

Of course, early aggression is a risky strategy—for players like you or me, it's just as likely to give the other team an advantage when I make a stupid tower-dive and give them a free kill. TPA played aggressive, but were always smart about it—even when I thought they weren't.

2. It’s never a bad time to gank
 
Such as the first game of the world finals, when TPA's Olaf got first blood at three minutes and roamed like a demonic force of destruction, tower-diving in 1v2 situations to get kills. It was incredible to watch. At one point I even shouted out, "Oh no! Way too greedy!" when I thought for sure he'd finally bitten off more than he could chew. And then he promptly shoved those words in my face by sending champions sitting under their own tower to the graveyard like a honey badger.

The most impressive part wasn't that TPA found the right times to gank their opponents—the best pros can find good windows of opportunity in any match. The real impressive part was that they found so darn many of them! They ganked so often yet always seemed to do it at the right time. This was my biggest take-away: there are more opportunities to take advantage of than I'm seeing right now.



3. Control the map by winning your lane
 
But of course, dominating the map and applying pressure on the lanes is what helps TPA create more of those opportunities than most teams see. Winning your lane gives you freedom. Freedom to do crazy stuff like throw all of your players into the jungle and gobble up stragglers that are unfortunate enough to run through.

At game three, the two teams were tied in the series (1-1) and TPA focused entirely on winning their lanes, avoiding any kills until nine minutes in. Instead, they moved champions around for more favorable match ups to make sure they got more minion kills and pushed towers. By ten minutes in, TPA was winning every single one of their lanes, pushing harder and getting more gold than their lane rivals across the board.

Winning your lanes doesn't always secure victory, though. All it takes is one bad teamfight to undo all the progress you've made. But it does always demoralize and starve your opponents, tempting, and sometimes forcing, them to make desperate choices that you can exploit.

Sometimes you get lucky and it snowballs into perfect scenarios like the jungle mass-murders TPA milked at the 18 minute mark mentioned above. And then if you're really lucky, that'll demoralize your opponents enough to force a surrender, like AZF gave up only three minutes afterwards.

4. Don’t be aggressive early
 
Is that a typo? Lessons one and four can't both be true, can they? Why am I lying to you? TPA's biggest strength was that they didn't always keep to their own strategy. You need to adapt your game plan to account for the strengths and weaknesses of each individual opponent you face. In games two and three of the finals, TPA took a quick lead but then switched into a super conservative mode. It was uncharacteristic of their typical hyper-aggressive style that they'd shown against other teams in the tournament.

They became content with simply winning their lanes and not forcing any big fights until their carries were fed enough that they would have guaranteed success. TPA learned from game one, which AZF made a huge comeback during to win, that their opponent’s biggest strength is their coordination in team fights. So instead of forcing those early, TPA stalled and focused on keeping AZF's teammates separated to create smaller 2v2 and 3v2 fights simultaneously, with a little help from Teleport and Shen's ultimate.

The tactic was masterfully executed, and seemingly developed on the fly between games. It was a new twist on their strategy: the multi-gank. They all initiated on their opponents at the same time on different locations around the map, ensuring that no one on AZF could come to the aid of their teammates. Their segregated killing spree gave them an ace and paved the road to victory.



5. Recruit the best AP mid player in the world
 
Okay, this one's probably a bit harder to make happen for your team overnight, but it has to be stated. Toyz, TPA's AP mid, should be classified as a League of Legends demigod now. He's just way too good—it's not even fair.

Toyz had the highest gold-per-minute averages coupled with an insane KDA (ratio of kills and assists to deaths) of 13.3. He almost avoided death entirely during the whole second match of the finals. He outfarmed RapidStar in all four games in the finals, making one of the best AP mids in the world look completely ineffective in his lane.

There were a lot of great players in this tournament and on this team, but Toyz is just on a different level. He always wins his lane, which frees his jungler to assist his other teammates, and gives him the freedom to roam and help set up kills.

Oh, and if you do manage to get the best AP mid player in the world, get him or her to play Orianna if you can—that robot lady is out of control!



Josh Augustine spends more time playing MMOs and MOBAs than most people spend sleeping. He’s written about them for PC Gamer as an intern, editor, and freelancer. He’s currently a game designer at Sony Online Entertainment and would love to talk with you on Twitter.

In a dubious honor, BitTorrent news blog TorrentFreak has named Rutgers University as the top torrenting university in the US. And what's the most torrented game at this fine institution? The Witcher 2.

Considering that in a previous interview with PC Gamer, a CD Projekt Red exec stated that the developer can track piracy of its products with 100% accuracy and has demanded money from thousands of alleged pirates in Germany, students at Rutgers who torrented The Witcher 2 may be lucky that CDP stopped hunting down pirates back in January. CDP has long held the opinion that DRM copy protection isn't necessary for its games, with its CEO telling us last year that "None of solutions really work, so why not abandon it altogether?"

Last week, 4A Games announced that after working on "a number of multiplayer prototypes" for Metro: Last Light, it has decided to move the multiplayer team back onto single-player development. As a result, Metro: Last Light will not launch with a multiplayer component, though the developer isn't ruling out the possibility it will happen post-release.

"Right now we’re 100% focused on the single player campaign and not thinking beyond that," reads the post. "We don’t like throwing away work though, it’s a project we could potentially return to after Metro: Last Light ships."

Regarding the change of heart, 4A admits: "In hindsight, it was probably a mistake to announce it when we did, but we’re an enthusiastic team and wanted to be open about what we were making!"

SpongeBob Squarepants' term "nautical nonsense" probably best summarizes the scurvy Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty DLC releasing for Borderlands 2 tomorrow. In the new hooligan's haven of Oasis, players track down the titular Captain aboard a very Lucas-esque sand skiff and join her search for a magical Pandoran treasure. Expect an extra chunk of 10 to 15 hours of gameplay for $9.99/£6.20. Until tomorrow, check out the new snaps below.

Last week, Piranha Games announced that the MechWarrior Online open beta test would start tomorrow. Then, later last week, Lead Designer Paul Inouye responded to community concerns over instability with the news that the open beta will be pushed back indefinitely.

"We have decided to push Open Beta back," wrote Inouye. "We agree that the game's current state of stability is not allowing us to get the latest experience across to new and veteran players alike. This is a short push back on the date and will depend on the stability and playability of the build."

Inouye goes on to describe the issues the development team plans to address, including lag (according to Inouye, a patch has already gone out), matchmaking, and game balance.

So you'll have to wait if you wanted in on the open beta, but Piranha's considered (albeit quickly) decision to delay the test should ideally result in a better experience for both those currently playing and those waiting to get in. Or, at the very least, it'll tease up more antici... pation.