Hasta La Gadget!

Late last night, the Kickstarter campaign for Obsidian’s Project Eternity finally came to a close. It was a very exciting ride too, with the developers at Obsidian managing to raise nearly $4 million in funding. The exact figure is $3,986,929, which is enough to make Project Eternity the most-funded game in Kickstarter‘s history.

We thought it would be a while before we saw a video game raise more than the Double Fine Adventure, which netted $3,336,371 in funding by the time its own campaign came to a close, but it appears that we were wrong. Project Eternity reached its funding goal only one day after the Kickstarter campaign launched, and since then has been raking in the cash from fans who are all too eager to open their wallets. Obsidian named a ton of stretch goals for the project after it became clear that the studio was about to make much more money than it was originally asking for, meeting most of those stretch goals but unfortunately falling just short of the goal for $4 million, which would have seen the entire game improved.

It’s easy to see why fans were so willing to hand over their money, too. Project Eternity will be a fantasy-themed computer RPG, heavily inspired by the old-school CRPGs that were made with BioWare‘s Infinity Engine. Many of the developers currently at Obsidian worked on a lot of those classic RPGs in one way or another, including games like Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment. With this Kickstarter campaign marking something of a return to the beloved RPGs of the past, it’s no wonder gamers threw their money at the campaign, especially with Obsidian at the helm.

Sadly, we’ve got a while to wait before we can get our hands on Project Eternity, as it currently has a release window of Q1 2014. Like all of these crowd-funded games, though, the end of the Kickstarter campaign is merely the beginning of everything else, and we expect to hear plenty about Project Eternity over the course of the next year. We can’t speak for you, obviously, be we sure are excited to find out more. Stay tuned.

Project Eternity Kickstarter ends with nearly $4 million in funding is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

A couple days back, we were caught by surprise when Gearbox released the Mechromancer DLC for Borderlands 2 a week early. Today, we’re finding out why the studio launched the new character class early: it has a completely different DLC pack to release next week. Announced today, “Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate’s Booty,” will be available across all platforms on October 16 – the original release date for the Mechromancer DLC.

Of course, we already had an inkling that a pirate-themed DLC for Borderlands 2 was on the way thanks to a few leaks here and there, but today Gearbox confirmed it. Captain Scarlett is the first DLC included in the Borderlands 2 season pass, and will have players traveling to a brand new desert area called Oasis. It’s there that they’ll find Captain Scarlett and her band of thieves and brigands, who are the hunt for a legendary treasure. “You can sense the pirate theme across the landscape, even though there’s no water,” Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford told the Associated Press. “It’s all dried up. It feels more like Tatooine than an ocean. These bandits have really embraced the pirate lifestyle, and there’s the legend of a treasure. That kicks off this whole adventure that the players can go on.”

Captain Scarlett with introduce new enemies, new weapons, a new vehicle called the sand skiff, and seraph crystals – a new form of currency. As stated above, this is one of the DLCs included in the Borderlands 2 season pass, so if you purchased one of those, you’ll be able to download Captain Scarlett as soon as it becomes available on October 16. If you didn’t pick up a season pass, Captain Scarlett will set you back $9.99 or 800 MSP.

Gearbox has three more DLC packs similar in scope to Captain Scarlett planned for Borderlands 2. If you’ll remember, Gearbox released four DLC packs for the original Borderlands as well, though some like The Secret Armory of General Knoxx were better than others (Underdome comes to mind). Here’s hoping that all of the DLC for Borderlands 2 is similar to General Knoxx, at least in terms of quality. Will you be picking up Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate’s Booty?

Borderlands 2 getting Captain Scarlett DLC next week is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

To many gamers, cheating takes the fun out of gaming, but let it be known that if you cheat during the League of Legends World Playoffs, you stand to lose much more than just a sense of fun. The World Playoffs have been going on for a few days now, and players have been quick to level accusations of cheating at others. The accusations center around players who looked at the audience monitors during a match, which could potentially give them an unfair advantage over the opposing team.

Specifically speaking, these monitors give the audience a look at mini maps without the fog of war. By glancing at them, players can see where members on the other team are, which would allow them adjust their strategy accordingly. There have been a lot of different allegations of cheating in this way, but in all cases but one, Riot has let the accused players and teams off with a warning.

That’s because, after reviewing video of the matches in question, Riot determined that glancing at the audience monitors didn’t result in a clear advantage for the guilty players. In one instance, however, looking up at the monitors did. Riot says that player Woong of team Azubu Frost gained an advantage for him and his team by looking at the monitors, and as a result, has imposed a $30,000 fine on Woong.

Woong won’t have to pay out of pocket, naturally – that $30,000 is his cut of team Azubu Frost’s winnings for making it to the semi-final round. There’s a detailed move-by-move breakdown of the match on Riot’s forums, so it looks like the company has thoroughly researched the match to determine if Woong and his team gained an advantage from glancing up at the screen. Hopefully this is the last time we hear about cheating at the League of Legends World Playoffs, and with a $30,000 being imposed on one player, you can bet that others will think twice before looking at those monitors to gain an advantage.

Riot Games hits accused League of Legends cheater with massive fine is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Yesterday, we told you that Gearbox had released the highly anticipated Mechromancer DLC for Borderlands 2 a week early, which is good. Unfortunately, a number of users were reporting that the DLC and the patch that goes along with it were wiping badass ranks, skins, heads, golden keys, and in some particularly nasty cases, character saves, which is bad. Today, however, Gearbox is saying that the DLC and the rank reset bug aren’t actually connected, which is simply a relief.

After reports of the rank reset bug hit the Gearbox forums, community manager Chris Faylor posted a statement claiming that though the bug and the DLC seem connected, in reality they aren’t. “The good news is that the release of Mechromancer and today’s update are not connected to the occurrences of Badass Rank being reset — while the timing may appear coincidental, it’s a separate issue that we are continuing to investigate,” Faylor wrote. While he got his words a little jumbled there – the timing actually is coincidental – it’s good to know that downloading the Mechromancer DLC isn’t going to completely ruin your game.

Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of the rank reset bug, so it could be that the Mechromancer DLC is pulling players back into Borderlands 2 and they’re simply experiencing this reset bug for the first time. If that’s happening, it’s easy to understand why these players are thinking that the Mechromancer DLC has something to do with the bug. Thankfully, it doesn’t, or at least that’s what the official word from Gearbox claims.

That doesn’t change the fact that the rank reset bug is still floating around out there and causing headaches for a lot of players. Gearbox says that its working on a fix, and if you encounter it, you’re urged to email the studio at profiles@gearboxsoftware.com. When you do, be sure to provide as many details as possible so Gearbox can get a better grasp on when the bug occurs and who it affects. Have you been hit by this nasty rank reset bug, or have you managed to avoid it thus far?

Gearbox: Borderlands 2 rank reset bug not connected to DLC is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Well this is a surprise: Gearbox has released the Mechromancer DLC for Borderlands 2 a week early. It was originally scheduled to go live across Xbox 360, PS3, and PC on October 16, but it appears that Gearbox has finished it up a little ahead of schedule. If you pre-ordered Borderlands 2, the Mechromancer DLC is a free bonus as part of your membership in the Premiere Club, whereas everyone else with have to pay $10.

The Mechromancer is Borderlands 2‘s fifth playable class, and is essentially the game’s pet class. The Mechromancer’s action skill allows her to summon a robot affectionately named “Death Trap,” and a number of her skills center around making Death Trap better. If you’re planning on starting a Mechromancer the next time you boot up Borderlands 2, you can plan out your character to level 50 with the skill trees found on the Borderlands 2 official site.

Before you download the Mechromancer DLC or the patch that accompanies this release, however, you should know that some users are reporting issues with the downloads. Apparently, that nasty bug which wipes badass ranks is rearing its ugly head again, and users on the both the Gearbox and Giant Bomb forums are thinking that the DLC and patch downloads may be a trigger for the issue. The bug has also been wiping out unlocked skins, heads, and even entire character saves.

Gearbox has yet to make a statement on the issue, but still, tread carefully. It may be a better idea to wait on the Mechromancer download until we get official word from Gearbox, just to be on the safe side. We’ll have more information for you once we hear something from Gearbox, so keep it tuned right here to SlashGear for more information.

[via Kotaku]

Borderlands 2 Mechromancer DLC released a week early is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.