It seems that the guy who founded DICE, Fredrik Liljengren has moved onto bigger and better things with his latest game studio, Antic Entertainment. You may be familiar with DICE as the studio behind Battlefield: Bad Company and Battlefield: 1943.

Anyways, Antic Entertainment is to be a studio that specializes in free-to-play games with their first title being Junk: Battles. This browser based RTS will let players create their own ship and then duke it out against other players as they collect parts to upgrade said ship.

If you want to read more about Junk: Battles and Antic Entertainment, head over to the game’s official website here.

via gamasutra

A single-player demo for the game has been released recently, titled “Road to Paris”. It’s available on the official website.

I’m looking forward to Order of War; it will be interesting to see how the Japanese RPG giant will handle a World War II game.

I told myself I wouldn’t play this game because I would get addicted, but it looks too good to pass up. Anyways, it’s Defense of the Ancients except a whole lot better from what I’ve heard. Right now, the game is in a beta phase, but a few lucky people have been able to get their hands on a key through a Facebook promotion.

The game is currently being developed by S2 Games, the people behind Savage. No word on a release date, but pre-sale for the game has already started for beta members.

The demo weighs in at ~790MB, which isn’t bad considering the game has some pretty intense graphics. You can download it over at FileFront.

A nice little video launch trailer was also released yesterday, so be sure to check that out to decide if the demo’s worth your time.

Demigod

Players will reportedly be able to play through all 4 of the game’s multiplayer modes using four demigods; Regulus, Rook, Sedna and Lord Erebus. However, the only map made available for play in the demo is Cataract.

If you’re a fan of the RTS genre, Demigod is definitely a game you should check out. Head here to snag the demo.

Bushnell describes this game as a mash-up between StarCraft and Starship Troopers in which players will choose between playing the game as an RTS or an FPS.

Below are his comments on the game attributing its creation to wanting to game with his 5 sons:

They’re all avid gamers and like first-person shooters. The problem is, as you get older, you lose some reaction time, and as a result, I’m getting slaughtered by them. A real-time strategy [RTS] game, however, is more my [preference], a good resource game is what I love. Battleswarm is both an RTS and a shooter, a mash-up between StarCraft and Starship Troopers, if you will. You can switch sides, too, if you feel like an RTS instead of a shooter, or vice-versa.

Sounds pretty awesome, can we get a release date?

Read (USA Today)

East India Company is an upcoming real-time-strategy game brought to you by Paradox Interactive, the same folks who made King’s Bounty: The Legend and Mount & Blade. The game takes you through a history lesson, as you conquer the East Indies as the role of Governor Director.

The game is developed by Nitro Games and will be hitting North American stores tomorrow, followed by an August 14th release in Europe for the PC.

Below is an excerpt from their posting:

An Xbox LIVE technical issue wiped all Halo Wars Xbox LIVE Leaderboards earlier today. This includes all singleplayer, multiplayer and Trueskill™ leaderboards, as well as all matchmaking data. At this time it’s unknown if the data can be restored, resulting in the Halo Wars Leaderboards being reset to original Launch Day status. The Xbox LIVE team is investigating the cause, and they will provide an update to the situation as soon as possible.

So you mean to tell me that they didn’t have backups of this data? What if this had happened with Halo 3?

The developers also released a very extensive changelog, listing all of the improvements the patch has to offer. This changelog details numerous bug fixes and balance changes. These improvements differ from what you’ve seen in the beta, so it’s well worth a look.

Make the jump for the full changelog.

World Builder
• Added the World Builder how-to guide to the root directory
• Fixed a bug where adding a horizon-mesh would cause World Builder to crash

Observer Feature
• Pressing ESC now gets rid of the observer/replay attention arrow. If a unit is selected and an arrow is present, pressing ESC deselects the units. Pressing it again removes the arrow
• Selecting the HQ displays the player’s current tech tier

Balance Changes

Tyranid Balance Changes
• The Ravener Alpha’s Hardened Carapace grants 100 health
• Both Carnifexes cannot be repaired
• Sporemine durability vs. small arms increased from 60 to 150 hp
• Screamer Killer Venom Cannon damage increased to 75 from 55 and removes the Spore Cysts ability
• Tier 2 Carnifex damage increased from 200 to 250
• Zoanthrope damage increased from 70 to 80, energy cost reduction on Focus Blast from 80 to 65
• Termagant damage increase on Toxin Sacs upgrade from 1.2 to 1.35
• Tyranid Warriors’ hitpoints increased from 320 to 360, Barbed Strangler damage decreased to 45 from 60
• Hive Tyrant’s Venom Cannon damage decreased from 75 to 55

Ork Balance Changes
• Slugga Nob damage reduced to 85, Nob Squad Choppa damage increased to 100
• The Kommando knife no longer refunds energy and resets cooldown after killing a target
• Warboss’ big stomp radius UI was changed to 10 m
• Warboss’ Kustom Shoota can now fire on the move
• Warboss’ Angry Bits health regeneration lowered from 1.5 to 1, cooldown from 15 seconds to 30
• Tankbusta population cost lowered 4 to 3
• Slugga Nob Leader damage lowered (due to accidental buff)
• Warboss Stomp damage lowered 40 to 30
• Kommando Nob Leader’s hammer damage increased 100 to 175
• Slugga damage increased to 25

Space Marine Balance Changes
• Scouts can now repair while using a sniper rifle
• Set the Apothecary’s Rapid Fire ability to no longer knockback retreating units
• Force Commander with Terminator Armor now has a Cleansing Flame ability on his heavy flamer (costs 50 energy)
• Purification Rights damage decreased from 30 to 15
• Relay Beacon health regeneration rate decreased .4 to .15
• Force Commander’s hitpoints increased from 720 to 820
• Tactical Marine bolter damage decreased to 25
• Tactical marine melee damage reduced from 22 to 19
• Purification rites no longer affects retreating units

Eldar Balance Changes
• Spiritual rites radius UI was changed to 15m
• The Fire Prism’s explosive shot no longer affects retreating units
• Warpspider squad member hitpoints slightly reduced from 200 to 160, Exarchs from 240 to 200
• Fire Prism’s Focus Beam cooldown reduced from 4.5 to 3 seconds
• Debuff removed from Immolator
• Warp Spider Exarch’s Improved Targets are moved to tier 1
• Banshee’s damage increased to 35 from 33

General Balance Changes
• Zeal/Biomass/Psychic Might/Waaagh! amount from killing/losing units increased by 20%
• Piercing damage modifier vs. Heavy armor decreased to 67%
• Turret damage at long range increased from .15 to .3
• Turrets inflict increased supression, have a minimum range of 2 m, armor type changed to be more vulnerable from small arms fire .01 to .2
• Suppression weapons received the following changes:
• Setup and teardown times reduced by 1 second respectively
• 0.2 to 0.3 at long range
• 1 to 1.25 at medium range
• 2 to 2.75 at short range
• Suppression damage increased from 300 to 400

Bug Fixes

Tyranid Bug Fixes
• Fixed a bug where Bioplasma would not fire if targeted units ran out of the line of sight
• Fixed the broken image on the Ravener Alpha’s ‘exit tunnel’ ‘cancel construction’ ability

Ork Bug Fixes
• Shoota Boyz Aiming? Wotz Dat? tool tip no longer mentions immobility
• Nob squad tool tip mentions Meaner an’ Greener instead of Nob Kit
• Kommando squad tool tip no longer mentions Kommando Kit

Space Marine Bug Fixes
• The Dreadnought’s auto cannon ability previews its energy cost properly

Eldar Bug Fixes
• The Farseer’s Ghosthelm tool tip no longer mentions damage to self, mentions suppression
• The Farseer’s Mindwar tool tip mentions suppression
• Warpspider Exarch powerblades tool tip mentions they are effective against infantry

UI Bugs
• Added a missing tooltip for observers in the multiplayer games list
• Fixed a bug causing player loading bars to be cut off in 1280×1024 resolutions

Performance Bugs
• Fixed a bug that disallowed users with high-end machines to set their graphics settings to “Ultra”
• Fixed a fatal scar error involving Anti Armor in the campaign

Gameplay Bugs
• Fixed an exploit where repeatedly setting up and tearing down the Ranger’s sniper rifle would increase the unit’s firing rate
• Fixed a bug involving melee units targeting retreating units
• Stabilized randomness of units using special attacks
• Fixed an exploit where players could make units at the HQ retreat “towards” a relay beacon in the field
• Fixed a bug where clicking on a hero’s portrait would render targetable abilities unusable

Map Fixes
• Fixed an exploit in (6p) Ruins of Argus where players could build structures and move units in an impassible area

Post-game bugs
• Fixed a bug where incorrect trueskill values were shown after viewing a player’s statistics screen in the post-game
• Fixed a crash that occurred when viewing another player’s statistics during a game-starting countdown

Networking Improvements
• Fixed a networking bug that caused users to lag and disconnect due to a proxy communication problem

Read (Dawn Of War 2 Community Site)

A nice little interview with developers Chris Millar and Craig Leigh from Titan Studios can be viewed after the jump.

Fat Princess will retail for $14.99.

Read (PlayStation.Blog)

The wait between Command & Conquer: Generals and its successor, Command & Conquer 3, was about 5 years. EA seems to be avoiding a repeat as they have just released the debut trailer for Command & Conquer 4.

RTS fans, don’t expect any actual gameplay footage as the trailer features exclusivly what looks to be just cinematics. However, if you’re following the plot of the franchise you’ll be intrigued to hear that Nod head-honcho Kane makes an appearance in said trailer.

EA has no set release date for Command & Conquer 4 but they hope to have it hit the market sometime in 2010. Will the game have what it takes to oust Blizzard’s forthcoming Starcraft II? We’ll have to wait and find out.

Among some of the titles currently on sale include King’s Bounty: The Legend, Mount & Blade, and the first two Heart of Iron games. The sale ends on July 26th so if you’re in the mood for a fun history lesson, be sure to check out these gems.

Read (Steam)

Here’s something that is sure to piss a few people off — Community Leader APOC has recently said that you will need to have a constant internet connection to play Command & Conquer 4:

“As of right now, you need to be online all the time to play C&C 4. This is primarily due to our “player progression” feature so everything can be tracked. C&C 4 is not an MMO in the sense of World of Warcraft, but conceptually it has similar principles for being online all the time. While some may be taken aback by this, we’ve been testing this feature internally with all of our world-wide markets.”

He then goes on to point out that this won’t be a big deal as it won’t require high-speed connections and won’t cause any lag in single-player gameplay. Hell, you can even use one an oldschool 56k connection because who needs phone calls, anyways?

ThatVideoGameBlog points out that this seems eerily like a ploy to hide the fact that EA will use a constant internet connection as a way to prevent piracy rather than using DRM.

However, it turns out that the beta will still be available to download and play until next Sunday. Maybe Relic decided this would be the best route to compensate for the beta’s initial delay.

“There is Only War” includes eight unreleased multiplayer maps, balance changes, bug fixes, and a map editor. The beta patch is available on Steam if you haven’t already tried it out. It requires the standalone Dawn of War 2 to play.

Read (Dawn of War 2 Community Site)

Yesterday, Electronic Arts accidentally revealed the new Command and Conquer game, but today it has been made official, along with a beautiful gameplay screen. Coming out next year, Command and Conquer 4 will be bringing the Tiberium saga to a conclusive end.

The game will be taking place after the events of the third game and will finally answer all of the questions for the series, including the fate of Earth, Nod, Tiberium, GDI, and even Kane’s motivations.

The campaign modes will be playable in both single player and cooperative modes. In addition to the epic storyline, the game will also feature a new 5v5 objective-based multiplayer mode. If you’re looking for a trailer, it will be unveiled on July 24th. We will have more information as details are revealed.

Read (Press Release)

First Blizzard announced that Starcraft 2 would not feature LAN support, fans were discouraged, then Blizzard defended them not adding LAN support and fans were still discouraged. Finally, those who were discouraged banded together and did the only thing they could do; formed a petition.

There is currently over 25,000 signatures and the guys who put it together really put some effort into it, breaking down and explaining exactly why Blizzard should re-add LAN support.

Will this work? Probably not. Is it the effort that counts? You bet.

Read (PetitionOnline)

There was somwhat of an uproar from the community when Blizzard announced that they would not be featuring LAN support in their forthcoming RTS, Starcraft II.

Below is their reasoning for removing LAN, mentioning Battle.net and piracy:

“We don’t currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games,” confirms a Blizzard rep. “While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.

“Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we’re encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We’re looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future.”

Regardless if its the best idea or not, Starccraft II is sure to be a highly competitve game which means a lot of tournaments. Without LAN tournament organizers are going to have 1 more problem to deal with, bummer.

Read (Destructoid)

Despite beating around the bush every which way they can, Blizzard has finally come out and said during an investor webcast that they are hoping to have StarCraft II on shelves by the end of this year.

Joystiq quotes Blizzard president Mike Morhaime as saying:

“We’re targeting an end of year release this year for StarCraft II. But as always, we won’t release it until it meets our standards and the expectations of our players.”

So there is it, while it’s not completely definite its at least more definite that StarCraft II will in fact be hitting shelves by the end of the year, or so they hope. As for the beta? Still slated to be released sometime this summer.

Now don’t get your hopes up too high because unfortunately we weren’t able to secure any Blizzcon tickets to give away to you guys, the readers. Fortunately, there is a slew of websites that were more fortunate than us and were able to get their hands on some Bilzzcon tickets to give away.

Below is a compiled list of all known fan sites holding Blizzcon ticket giveways, courtesy of Starcraft Wire:

StarcraftWire.net – Giveaway 1 – Giveaway 2

BlizzPlanet

Diii.net – (coming soon)

Diablo-Source

StarCraft-Source

inStarCraft

StarCraft II Australia

StarCraft 2 Source

TankSpot

World of Raids

WoW Interface

So, you won’t be getting a Blizzcon ticket from us but at least you still have the opportunity to get your hands on one while Blizzard prepares to put some more up for sale.

You can read more about Blizzard’s annual convention, Blizzcon, here.

Alpha testing for the upcoming MMO 2029 Online starts today. Anyone can download the client and begin playing the Sci-Fi RTS instantly. The installation file clocks in at around ~333MB, so it won’t hurt to try it out if you have nothing else to do on this lazy Sunday.

2029 Online is a free-to-play game which will rely on microtransactions for profit. More details and updates are available on the official website.

via GamersHell