| Red 5 Studios removes PvP from Firefall, eSports staff no longer with company Sep 27th 2013, 01:57 Red 5 Studios has removed the PvP and eSports elements from it's free-to-play MMOFPS Firefall. 
Red 5 Studios’ CEO, Mark Kern, announced in a letter to the Firefall community earlier this month that the studio would be scrapping the current version of its PvP system in its free-to-play MMOFPS. The PvP system was reportedly only being utilized by 3% of the user base. Kern penned, ’we’re going to regroup, rethink, and deliver the best PvP system we can that can be enjoyed by everyone. We don’t have a timetable for this, but at some near future point we will shut off the PvP aspect of the game, which we feel does not represent Firefall at its best, and relaunch that part of the game when its ready. ’ Kern’s letter to the community included a remark on their decision to keep eSports in mind during the development process. He wrote, ’We have gone through several iterations, and for some time, pursued the controversial e-Sports route. As many of you know, its not working very well." That announcement, which preceded more announcements, appears to have been made on the heels of a lot of sudden decision making internally. Their tournament partners have not yet taken down their pages for Firefall competition. The second to last news post on the ESL's Firefall portal says, "Go4Firefall will be taking a little break in September and will be back in October to accommodate the players and teams to catch up with the latest patches and PVP changes and also allow us here to implement some of the many feedback we received to allow a better experience for teams and players that will help grow Firefall PVP." Turtle Entertainment’s Electronics Sports League had been hosting ’GO4Firefall’ cups since April of this year, paying out €10,000 a month. Within a week of Kern's letter to the community Red 5 Studios would circulate a press release noting that the studio was ’being reorganized prior to the launch of Firefall.’ The press release would add that the majority of the layoffs, which totaled about 10 percent of its staff, would primarily be from Red 5’s video entertainment channel Stage 5 TV. One of the employees laid off was Morgan Romine, industry veteran and founder of the all girls eSports team the Frag Dolls. She was working as the eSports Director; this is not a position that Red 5 is planning to refill. Red 5 had previously invited eSports personalities Scott ’SirScoots’ Smith and Sean ’Day[9]’ Plott to appear during a streaming marathon last July they called Firefall Fest. Smith and Plott played the game’s competitive mode ’Jet Ball’ and hosted a Q-and-A with one of Red 5’s developers. We reached out to ESL for a comment shortly before publication, but due to the time difference between American and Europe they could not be reached. GameSpot eSports will update this story when they respond. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
|  | Four teams remain at the $2M League of Legends Season 3 World Championships Sep 27th 2013, 00:10 Europe's Fnactic will take on China's Royal Club and South Korea's SKTelecom T1 and Najin Sword will battle it out for top prize. 
After a week-long group stage and quarterfinals, the League of Legends Season 3 World Championships have reached the semifinals. Europe's Fnatic will take on China's Royal Club, and South Korea's SKTelecom T1 and Najin Sword will battle it out as the four remaining teams to play for $1,000,000 and best League of Legends team in the world. The United States vs. Europe rivalry set its course with Cloud 9 taking on Fnatic to begin the quarterfinals. Fnatic dashed the chances of the lone remaining American team by a 2-1 score, including a rather one-sided victory in the final game to close it out. Fnatic have now gone 16-4 in maps since the end of the Summer Season, and have only lost one match out of those to Vulcun at the beginning of the championships. [ Watch Video ] "We were planning the first game a lot, and we were expecting to win it," said Fnatic midlaner Enrique "xPeke" Cedeño, who had defining plays with his Kassadin in Game 1 and Game 3. "I thought we would go to a third game. There we had a strategy that we prepared, we went for it again, and they pretty much had no response for it. We showed [our strategy] in the first game and they had no response, so in the third game we did the same and they hadn't come up with anything." "We tried to make plays, we tried to do dragons, tried to force down turrets, and catch people out, it just didn't work out for us," said Cloud 9 Captain Hai "Hai" Lam. Lam says going into the match that they thought they had answers for Cedeño's Kassadin, but in hindsight should have banned him before Game 3. "When you're in the middle of the game, you just forget about some things like that," he said. "It was a misplay by our part, we just didn't think it all the way through." Cloud 9's loss to Fnatic continues the streak of no North American team ever beating another North American team in a best-of-3 or best-of-5 series in the history of the World Championships from Season 1-3. Team SoloMid's third-place finish in Season 1 is the highest placing thus far. On the same side of the bracket, Royal Club and OMG had their own history going, as both teams played in the Chinese Regional Finals just weeks before the World Championships, with Royal Club taking the finals over OMG. Although OMG had impressed many in the group stage with wins over SKT1, Royal Club would prove too much yet again, led by Jungler Liu "Lucky" Jun-Jie's 14 KDA as the highest of any player at the championships. "I think we just did better than OMG today, but that they're still one of the best teams in the world," Royal Club Captain Pak-Kan "Tabe" Wong told GameSpot. Wong says that they practiced heavily with SKT1 prior to their games. "They crushed us every day, every game we played. We improved really a lot during our practice. I hope to face SKT1 in the finals, but we have to focus on Fnatic." Cedeño says that Fnatic's own practice against both Chinese teams has quite beneficial for their outlook at their upcoming games. "We've practiced against the Chinese teams a lot, and I was not scared actually," he said. "I think they are good, but they play really aggressive. It's a play style that where, if you get used to it, it's really easy to win when you have a small advantage. It's all about that, and if we do it well I think we'll win." On the top side of the bracket, SKT1 won a quick 2-0 series over Taiwan's Gamania Bears, while Russia's Gambit Gaming took Najin Sword to the limit in a three-game set. The loss by Gambit leaves Fnatic as the only team remaining from either the North American or European LCS. "Gambit [are] really good at teamfights, but not so good at lane phase," said Najin Sword AD Carry Kim "PraY" Jong-in. "So we tried to prolong the lane phase, and that's how it worked for us." The week of World Championships games has produced 204,413 tweets under the #Worlds hashtag, including averaging 8,400 tweets-per-hour for the matches of Cloud 9 vs. Fnatic and Najin Sword vs. Gambit Gaming, says Nate Smitha, marketing analyst at Simply Measured, a social media analytics and reporting platform. #Worlds trended 28 times in the United States during this time period, for a total of 7 hours and 10 minutes. Last week, GameSpot reported that the League of Legends on Reddit was the most trafficked hub of any on the site for last Sunday's kickoff to the World Championships. The Semifinals will begin tomorrow at the University of Southern California's Galen Center, home of the Championships for last season. Watch the event live on GameSpot each night. GameSpot eSports is live on location providing interviews every day of the championships. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | EA cancels 2014 college football game, settles lawsuits with former players Sep 26th 2013, 21:28 [UPDATE] Publisher says it will not publish previously announced next-gen football game and is evaluating plans for the future of the franchise; lawsuits with former players settled. 
[UPDATE 2] Attorneys representing the student-athletes said in a statement that the amount and other terms of the settlement are confidential pending a court filing. "I can say that we are extraordinarily pleased with this settlement, whose terms we will be proud to present to the court and to the public," Hagens Berman managing partner Steve Berman said in a statement. "When we began this case in 2009, we were venturing into a new application of the law, with little precedent, while facing monumental legal hurdles." "When we filed the case, we felt very strongly that EA's appropriation of student-athletes' images for a for-profit venture was wrong, both in a legal sense and from a more fundamental moral perspective," Berman added. "These guys were busting their butts on the field or the court trying to excel at athletics, oftentimes to help win or maintain scholarships so they could get an education." "Students agreed that by being student-athletes that they could not exploit their personal commercial value, an agreement they lived up to. "The same cannot be said about the NCAA or its partner Electronic Arts." [UPDATE] GameSpot sister site CBS Sports has learned that Electronic Arts and the Collegiate Licensing Company settled a number of class-action lawsuits today. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, though CBS Sports points out that the deal will affect more than 100,000 current and former college players who have appeared in EA-produced basketball and football games. Earlier today, EA announced that it had canceled 2014's next-generation college football game. "I'm disappointed in that because there should be a game," said the plaintiffs' attorney Eugene Egdorf. "All that has to happen is the NCAA allow players to be paid and there would be a game. This is Step 1 to players being paid that should." "There will be players who play Saturday who should be paid [for their services] as they should be," he added. The original story is below. Electronic Arts has canceled its 2014 next-generation college football game and is evaluating plans for the brand going forward, the company announced today. "Today I am sad to announce that we will not be publishing a new college football game next year, and we are evaluating our plan for the future of the franchise," EA general manager of American Football Cam Weber said in a statement. "This is as profoundly disappointing to the people who make this game as I expect it will be for the millions who enjoy playing it each year." Explaining the decision to cancel the game, Weber said EA has been "stuck" in the middle of a dispute between the NCAA and student-athletes who are seeking compensation for playing college football. This is likely referring to former UCLA player Ed O'Bannon, who--along with other former players--is suing the NCAA, EA Sports, and the Collegiate Licensing Company over the use of their likenesses. "Just like companies that broadcast college games and those that provide equipment and apparel, we follow rules that are set by the NCAA--but those rules are being challenged by some student-athletes," Weber said. "For our part, we are working to settle the lawsuits with the student-athletes. Meanwhile, the NCAA and a number of conferences have withdrawn their support of our game." The NCAA ended its relationship with EA Sports for college football games in July. EA signed a new, three-year agreement with the Collegiate Licensing Company later in the month, though this contract now appears to be in question. "The ongoing legal issues combined with increased questions surrounding schools and conferences have left us in a difficult position--one that challenges our ability to deliver an authentic sports experience, which is the very foundation of EA Sports game," he added. Weber said EA is working to retain developers on the college football development team by placing them elsewhere inside the EA Sports organization. It is not clear if there will be any layoffs as a result of this decision. NCAA Football 14 was released in July. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Battlefield 4 PC beta pre-load starts September 29 Sep 26th 2013, 20:11 DICE confirms players can pre-load the upcoming beta beginning Sunday morning; beta will run October 1-15. 
PC players can begin pre-loading the Battlefield 4 multiplayer beta on September 29 at 10 a.m. PDT, developer DICE announced today. The pre-load option is only supported on PC, not Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. Gamers who preorder the Battlefield 4 PC Digital Deluxe Edition, Battlefield 3 Premium members, and owners of Medal of Honor: Warfighter Limited or Digital Deluxe Edition can begin playing the beta on October 1. On October 4, the Battlefield 4 beta will be opened to all Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC players. DICE also announced today that PC players must run a 64-bit OS to join the Battlefield 4 beta on PC. The full game will also run on 32-bit Windows OS, but DICE said it wanted to "focus our effort" on testing the 64-bit version of the game in the beta. Ensuring that Battlefield 4 is fair for all players is also a goal DICE has in mind for the new shooter, the developer said. To this end, DICE will test two anti-cheat measures, FairFight and PunkBuster, during the beta to "make the experience as good as possible for our players." "You will notice information about the two anti-cheat measures on the server browser pages on Battlelog, and you will also potentially see messaging in the chat box in-game when a cheater is caught," DICE said. "We will get back to you later with more detail on how we are improving our anti-cheat measures in Battlefield 4." Lastly, DICE confirmed today that the Battlefield 4 beta will end on October 15, ahead of the game's October 29 release for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC and November launch for Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Despite the short time between beta and release, DICE believes it has time to implement changes in the final game based on feedback from the beta, executive producer Patrick Bach said recently. The Battlefield 4 beta features the Siege of Shanghai map in Conquest or Domination mode. New features and elements like Levolution and Amphibious Assault will be featured in the beta. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | The Last of Us alternate ending video revealed Sep 26th 2013, 20:05 Naughty Dog releases video showing how PlayStation 3 game could have ended; DLC news tomorrow. 
Naughty Dog today released a video showing off how PlayStation 3 post-apocalyptic game The Last of Us could have ended. Check out the full, spoiler-filled video below, which includes a "twist" at the end. The alternate ending video was first shown to those who attended Naughty Dog's "Pitching The Last of Us" panel at PAX Prime in August. Naughty Dog also announced today that it will reveal more details about downloadable content for The Last of Us, including new additions to the season pass, tomorrow. Naughty Dog previously announced that two pieces of multiplayer DLC and a new story chapter will be introduced to The Last of Us through the game's $20 season pass. The single-player chapter will be released first. The Last of Us has not featured any DLC yet, but patch 1.03 released in late August featured general tweaks, changes to the matchmaking system, and the addition of a new multiplayer mode called Interrogation. The Last of Us launched exclusively for the PlayStation 3 in June and has shipped over 3.4 million copies to date. For more, check out GameSpot's review. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Former Epic Games producer opening 2K studio Sep 26th 2013, 20:05 Rod Fergusson launching San Francisco Bay Area studio for 2K Games with an "exciting new project"; unclear what announcement means for 2K Marin. 
Former Epic Games producer Rod Fergusson, who most recently joined the 2K Games-owned Irrational Games to help finish March's BioShock: Infinite, is launching a new 2K studio, he announced today on Twitter. It’s official: I’m launching a new studio for 2K in the Bay Area with an exciting new project! Details soon! — Rod Fergusson (@GearsViking) September 26, 2013
Fergusson's studio will be the second non-sports game outfit that 2K Games operates in the area. 2K Marin, which released The Bureau: XCOM Declassified in August, is based in Novato, California. It is not clear what the announcement of Fergusson's new studio means, if anything, for 2K Marin. A representative for the publisher told GameSpot, "We are happy to confirm that Rod is heading up a new development studio, but alas, we have no further announcements to share at this time." NBA 2K series developer Visual Concepts, a division of 2K Sports, is also based on Novato, California. Fergusson left Irrational Games in April, weeks after BioShock Infinite was released, saying at the time that he was "looking forward to the next chapter in my life and career." Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
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