Here we are in the new year and I must say that one of the biggest complaints game wise has been the huge server issues related to Gears of War 2, but help is on the way and it would seem that the Gears team would like to make it up to you by not just patching the game but adding to it.
Mark Rein posts in the gearsforums:
First of all I hope all of you had a safe and happy holiday season.
As I mentioned before the break we’ve been working on a major title update for Gears of War 2. This update will address bugs and exploits as well as add some new achievements related to downloadable content. We don’t have an exact date for it but all indicators are it will go live within January. If that changes we’ll let you know.
We’re fixing a whole bunch of online exploits. For example we’ve fixed the ability to wield an invisible shield, melee through some walls, gain infinite Lancer ammo and equip a shield and a two-handed weapon simultaneously plus many more.
We’re also making several small changes to improve the overall online gameplay experience. A few of the ones that might interest you are; increased penalties for quitting matches early, adding additional spawn protection against planted grenades and chainsaw attacks, and adding the ability to see the Submission flag carrier destination by using Tac/Com.
We know you folks love achievements so on the achievement side we’re adding achievement progress numbers to the War Journal, increasing the frequency of in-game Achievement progression notifications and adding some new Achievements for DLC.
This is just a very small list of some of the things that will be in the next title update but one more item which has been talked about a lot in our forums deserves a special call out...
About that shotgun...
We fixed the client side hit detection on the shotgun so that in a high-latency (i.e. “laggy”) match, the shotgun will be more reliable. We’ve also fixed another bug whereby shotgun and boomshot rounds could strike the ground when firing from the hip.
So there’s a brief status report on the next title update. At some point I expect we’ll post a more detailed list but I assure you we’re working hard to get this out the door and once it’s done we’ll start working on the next update. We’ll try to do a better job keeping you informed of our progress on future updates and we’ll try to be a little more active in the forums once this update is released.
Microsoft's popular Xbox 360 game console can create a strong and strange signal on wireless LANs, according to IT staff at Morrisville State College.
It's not clear whether the signal disrupts the college's WLAN access points or students' wireless notebooks. There is some anecdotal evidence, however, that it at least affects other radios in the same 2.4GHz band.
Morrisville IT staff typically use Bluetooth headsets, which run in the 2.4GHz band, with their cell phones when they troubleshoot problems on the spacious campus. "We had problems syncing our headsets to our phone where this signal was strong," says Matt Barber, the college's network administrator. A phone user had to physically touch the headset to the cell phone to make the initial connection, he says.
There may be effects on the WLAN that the equipment itself, from Meru Networks, is circumventing, according to Barber. Part of Meru's WLAN architecture employs software that gives the access points more control over wireless-client transmission behavior than does the software of some of Meru's rivals. An access point near a radiating Xbox may be compensating for interference by in effect guiding a wireless laptop to send and receive when open spectrum is available, essentially dodging around the Xbox signal.
Working with Meru, the small IT staff is planning to test soon the effect of multiple Xbox consoles in a dorm with a large number of active notebook clients.
Network World has asked Microsoft to comment on the Xbox signal phenomenon, but the company was not able to reply before this story was posted. We'll update this report as soon Microsoft provides information.
The latest version of the Xbox, the Xbox 360 Elite, went on sale earlier this year with a 120G-byte hard disk and a high-definition video interface.
Morrisville is a small college in rural New York state, taking its name from a nearby town. In summer 2007, the college deployed a campuswide 802.11a/b/g WLAN based on equipment from Meru.. The plan was to replace those access points with Meru's new, two-radio devices that added support for Draft 2 of 802.11n, the IEEE standard that boosts throughput from 22M to 25Mbps to at least 150M to180Mbps. That replacement was just completed, creating the first large-scale deployment.
During the fall, Morrisville IT staff, working with Meru engineers and IBM, the network integrator, detected an unusual signal in the 2.4GHz band. "We wanted to look at the [radio frequency] environment in our dorms," Barber says. "We always thought we'd run into some strange stuff [there] in the 2.4 range."
The signal was discovered using Cognio Spectrum Expert, from Cognio (recently bought by Cisco). Spectrum Expert is RF-analysis software packaged with a WLAN adapter card that slots into any laptop PC. (See our April 2007 Clear Choice Test of four WLAN protocol analyzers.) Among other capabilities, Spectrum Expert identifies sources of radio energy in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz WLAN bands, and identifies the cause, such as a brand of access point or a microwave oven.
"The signal really stood out," Barber says. "In some places it was so strong we thought it might be affecting the air [that is, the radio environment] around it."
The Cognio software, however, was baffled by this new signal: "Unknown emitter" was the classification. The signal shows up in the Cognio display as a kind of green-blizzard effect, covering a large swath of the 2.4 band, Barber says. That means the signal "is jumping all over the spectrum band," he says. In contrast, a nearby Meru access point shows up in the same scan as a strong, stable yellow-red glow, almost like a sun. The green blizzard is shot through with red dashes, which show, Barber says, that the signal at moments nearly rivals the access point in strength.
The mystery signal baffled the IT staff and Meru until Barber had a brainstorm: He brought in his own Xbox 360 and plugged it in, and turned on the Cognio spectrum analyzer. Presto: The same signal appeared.
Barber says the signal seems be created by the console's embedded 2.4GHz radio, which is used to communicate with the handheld wireless controller -- the gizmo with the buttons that manipulate a game running on the console. The Xbox also takes an optional Wi-Fi adapter, in the form of an USB dongle, to connect to a WLAN access point.
Barber says his "best guess" at this point is that the embedded radio, not the USB adapter, causes the signal. The signal is created even if the Xbox console is shut off: Just plugging its AC adapter into an electrical outlet seems to trigger the radio to look for -- and keep looking for -- a companion wireless controller. "It's even worse when you have multiple Xboxes in an area," Barber says.
At one point, IT staff wrapped the console in a static discharge bag, the material used, for example, to wrap and protect consumer electronics gear from static damage during shipment. The same properties make it act like radio "blanket" to muffle a transmission. Sure enough, the Cognio software showed a significant drop in the Xbox signal's strength.
The next step is more systematic testing. "We want to get several consoles together with a bunch of WLAN clients, to create a busy [RF] environment, and do some measurements," Barber says. "Are we seeing frames being dropped in the air, or people getting disconnected?"
Answering that question may be a bit more urgent, with Christmas looming, and the likelihood of still more brand-new Xboxs and other wireless entertainment products turning up in January when students return.
American teams focused on money rather than innovation
EA Partners' Nick Button-Brown has told GamesIndustry.biz that he believes European developers are more creative than US studios, as North American teams are focused on making money rather than taking chances.
As director of business development for EA Partners, Button-Brown sees rich pickings in Europe as the publisher continues to work with independent studios – a new deal with a German developer is expected to be announced very soon.
"There's more creativity in Europe than there is in America," said Button-Brown, speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz. "The Americans are much more refined in their processes, it's all about the money. There are less chances taken and there is more money being thrown at developers in the US."
"Taking less chances means there's less failures, but I can't see the US having ever come up with Grand Theft Auto. There are a lot of really good European developers and they all bring slightly different things and there are big cultural differences as well, that they are willing to exploit," he added.
As proof that Bungie never fails to mix things up for Spartans online, matchmaking playlist changes for Halo 3 on the Microsoft Xbox 360 are now live. Gone is the exploitable Social Doubles, as Rocket Race Hopper enters the list of available game modes. Other changes should improve your chances of getting desirable matches, like the reduced frequency of VIP gametypes in Multi-team and the appearance of Swords in Lone Wolves.
Turtle Beach has sent word that their newest product the Ear Force X3 is ready for pre-orders and will be available around 09-05-07.
I've read thru, and listened to the video demo of these headphones, and I must say I'm pretty excited about the Ear Force X3 headset. Keep your eye out for a review of these awesome headphones in the near future.
Features:
Microphone Monitoring
If you're wearing headphones, it's hard to hear yourself speak, so you'll tend to talk louder. To address this, the Ear Force X3 incorporates microphone monitoring. Just like a telephone, the Ear Force X3 mixes a portion of the microphone signal into the headphone signal, so you can hear some of your voice along with the online chatting and game audio. This lets you easily sense what you're saying, but not so much that it's distracting. Mic monitoring not only helps you stop talking so loud, it also eliminates that annoying "clogged ears" feeling when talking while headphones are covering your ears.
Dynamic Talkback Level Control
The dynamic talkback expander automatically adjusts Xbox® Live chat levels during loud moments, so chat from teammates isn't lost in the exciting parts of your game. During normal game volume levels, the expander doesn't affect the chat level. As the game audio increases, the chat volume is automatically increased so you can continue to hear what everyone is saying. When the game volume quiets down, the chat level gradually returns to the normal volume setting. It's a simple solution to an annoying problem, and it all happens automatically – so you don't have to adjust anything!
Stereo Expander
The Ear Force X3 transmitter incorporates a stereo expander feature that spreads the stereo signal to provide a "wider" effect. This results in a richer, fuller sound than normal stereo – almost as if it originates from outside of the headphones.
The expander is most effective on sounds that spread across both ears, like rain, wind, and background music. Directional game sounds, like bullets flying across your head, won't be affected, so as not to change their positional characteristics.
Bass Boost
The Ear Force X3 headphones incorporate a bass boost feature that produces deep, rich bass tones by increasing the volume of low frequency sounds – just like turning up the sub-woofer on your home theater system. This can improve your gaming experience by enhancing the sound of explosions, gun shots and other deep-bass sound effects to make them even more dramatic. Bass boost can be turned off with the slide switch on the headphones. You might want to do this, for example, when using the Ear Force X3 for listening to music that requires a flat frequency response for truer reproduction.
Chat and Game Audio Mix and Separate Volume Control
Conventional communicator headsets compromise your gaming experience by covering one ear for hearing chat audio and leaving the other ear for hearing game audio pumping from speakers. The Ear Force X3 overcomes this problem by combining stereo game audio with online chat on high-fidelity stereo headphones – delivering the ultimate gaming experience with privacy and clarity. There are separate volume controls for the game and chat audio levels, so you can easily balance them and never have to worry about missing a cue from your teammates.
Hear Voice Chat with Stereo Game Sound
Hear your teammates mixed in with the game audio and overcome the limitation of communicator headsets that block game sound from one ear.
WiFi is the holly grail for many of us that use our Xbox 360s on a wireless connection so we can experience Xbox Live anywhere in the house without trailing miles of cables around.
But in a move that has worried parents across the land some schools in Britain have started removing their WiFi networks due to complaints of headaches and even skin rashes from students.
And in one extreme case a teacher working directly in a WiFi environment had extremely bad headaches, pains in the joints, heart palpitations and nausea!
From these effects he could tell directly whether or not the WiFi network was running.
So is this something we all need to be worried about? Do you suffer from headaches when working in a WiFi active area at work or at home while playing your Xbox 360?
Well its something to think about, but it seems to stem back once again to how much do we really know about the technology that we are all so keen to use?
At present there is no scientific proof that WiFi waves can cause harm, but is that down to a lack of research?
Experimental psychologist Dr Stacy Eltiti, of the University of Essex, researches sensitivity to telephone masts. The 3G signal is transmitted at a frequency not far off that of WiFi at about 2.4 gigahertz. Hence her results, due in 2007, may hold some clues to WiFi sensitivity as well.
"Everyone is exposed to mobile phone masts," she says. "You can opt not to own a computer or a mobile phone, but you go into your local town centre and they're everywhere. If there are physical impacts, we can investigate what these are."
The official advice for WiFi radio waves is currently very low:
"In classrooms, a typical exposure is at 20 millionths of the guideline levels, whereas a mobile phone is 50% of guidelines," says Dr Michael Clark, science spokesman for the Health Protection Agency.
"Twenty minutes on a mobile phone call is equivalent to a year in that classroom. It's a completely different level of exposure. These are non-ionising radio waves. They're not X-rays, or gamma rays, or ultra violet. It's completely different in energy terms. I'm looking outside now and that's electromagnetic radiation - visible light. Radio energies are a million times less energetic than ultraviolet light."
So what can you do if your worried about the health of yourself or your children at the moment? The answer is to simply switch off!.
At least until more research is carried out and it may well be worth investigating further if one of your children are experiencing unexplained headaches at school.
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Morrisville IT staff typically use Bluetooth headsets, which run in the 2.4GHz band, with their cell phones when they troubleshoot problems on the spacious campus. "We had problems syncing our headsets to our phone where this signal was strong," says Matt Barber, the college's network administrator. A phone user had to physically touch the headset to the cell phone to make the initial connection, he says.
"There's more creativity in Europe than there is in America," said Button-Brown, speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz. "The Americans are much more refined in their processes, it's all about the money. There are less chances taken and there is more money being thrown at developers in the US."
