Month: November 2019

Andy Serkis is reportedly in talks to star as Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne’s loyal butler, in Matt Reeves’ upcoming The Batman film, according to sources speaking to The Wrap. Deadline is also reporting that Colin Farrell is in talks to play the Penguin.

The news of Serkis’ and Farrell’s possible casting rounds out an already star-studded cast. The film also stars Robert Pattinson as the titular crimefighter. Most recently, Westworld actor Jeffrey Wright was confirmed to be playing Gotham Police Commissioner Gordon. Paul Dano (12 Years a Slave, There Will Be Blood) has been confirmed as the Riddler, Zoe Kravitz is starring as Catwoman.

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A popular Fortnite pro who joined the competitive esports team FaZe Clan earlier this year has been issued a lifetime ban from the battle royale shooter for using an aimbot.

Jarvis Khattri has been “permanently banned on Fortnite for life” for using an aimbot in the game’s Solos and Playground modes. While Khattri notes in an apology video that “this is the first time” he’s ever done anything like this and has “never done this in a competitive game mode at all,” developer Epic Games makes its rules explicitly clear its End User License Agreement.

One of the EULA’s clauses states that “running or using methods which are not authorized by Epic and which interfere with the outcome and/or the course of the Software (including Cheats, bots, scripts, or mods not expressly authorized by Epic)” is strictly prohibited.

In a statement to the press, Epic Games exercised the common “cheaters never prosper” mantra. “We have a zero-tolerance policy for the usage of cheat software. When people use aimbots or other cheat technologies to gain an unfair advantage, they ruin games for people who are playing fairly.”

“I was completely oblivious to what could happen to me, what the consequences were. Obviously, this was a huge mistake and is completely wrong on my end,” Khattri said. “Genuinely, I don’t even know what I was thinking. Cheating in anything is just terrible, you should never do it. It’s not acceptable. It’s zero-tolerance. It’s just such a dumb thing to do. I should’ve paid more attention to the community rules and the TOS of Fortnite. I just wanna urge you guys to review all of those Terms of Service and stuff so that nothing like this could ever happen to you because it’s actually so shit.”

Khattri can be seen using the aimbot in a mirrored YouTube video, where he confirms that he’s running on a backup PC. “I had to go on a new PC,” Khattri said. “I don’t wanna get my main PC banned. Sounds weird [that] I have a spare PC, but it’s just a spare PC that’s been in the house.”

Respawn has released the patch notes for the latest update for Apex Legends. The update adds a new firing range to the game and several balance changes. With these new changes, Apex Legends’ Halloween-themed Fight or Fright event comes to an end. If you’re looking to unlock Lifeline’s heirloom, you’ll now have to rely on chance. With Shadowfall leaving Apex Legends’ game mode rotation, a new limited-time Duos mode has gone live alongside the new update–the new mode will remain in the game until November 19.

The firing range is a great addition for those wondering which character to buy in Apex Legends, as jumping in allows you to test any legend and their corresponding abilities–giving you a chance to try Caustic, Mirage, Octane, Wattson, and Crypto prior to purchasing them. You can enter the firing range solo or as a squad, and experiment with all in-game loot items. In the update’s patch notes, Respawn says additional “future improvements” are on the way.

In terms of balance changes, the new update doesn’t add all that many. The Wingman is getting a nerf: dealing less damage on headshots. Projectile width has also been adjusted for all shotguns (EVA-8, Mozambique, and Peacekeeper), the L-Star, and several sniper rifles (Longbow DMR, Kraber, and G7 Scout).

Perhaps the most noticeable changes are several buffs for Crypto. Though the hacker is very beginner-friendly, the legend has seen a drop-off in ranked play due to the weaknesses tied to his passive playstyle. The buff to his Ultimate ability greatly increases his usefulness, allowing his EMP to damage shields even after enemies have dropped them. Now, Wraith is the only legend who can easily escape the effects of Crypto’s Ultimate.

The update also adds a new feature that allows you to reroll on your daily challenges. From now on, all players will receive one easy, one medium, and one hard challenge each day. If you want more or different challenges, you can pay Legend Tokens to unlock new dailies. The first reroll will cost 200 tokens, followed by 500 for a second reroll, and 1000 for every consecutive reroll. The cost will reset every day.

In the settings, you can now adjust the cursor speed as well–a change that will allow you to loot death boxes much more quickly. There’s also no countdown prior to picking your character at the start of the match–so be ready to pick in case you’re up first. You’ll also now be able to see the ammo type of the guns your teammates are using while in the inventory menu, a pretty nice change that will make it easier to know whether you and your teammates are all searching for the same type of ammo. The quip wheel has also been tied to a new input, allowing you to more easily access your chosen legends’ quips in the middle of a match. All of these changes and more are listed in the patch notes below.

Apex Legends November 5 Update Patch Notes

Firing Range

• From the lobby, you can now select the firing range. Here you can practice playing around with all the weapons, items, and Legends.
  • Can enter the firing range solo or with your squad.
  • You can change to any Legend and use their abilities and ultimates.
  • All loot items are available to play with including weapons, attachments, and hopups.
  • Target DUMMIES available to practice those headshots.
  • Future improvements to come! Please give us your feedback.

Weapons

• Wingman
  • Reduced the headshot multiplier: 2.15 -> 2.1
• Changes to Projectile Collision: We’ve increased the projectile width on some weapons so they are easier to hit with. We made this change to the TripleTake in Season 2 and the following will be updated for this patch:
  • Shotguns: All shotguns will have projectiles with a small amount of width.
  • L-STAR
  • Snipers: The Longbow DMR, Kraber, and G7 Scout.

Quality of Life

• In an effort to surface easier challenges to players more often and offer a balanced set of challenges each day, Daily Challenge distribution has been adjusted so players are guaranteed to receive 1 easy, 1 medium, and 1 hard challenge.
  • You can now spend Legend Tokens to reroll Daily Challenges.
    • First reroll: 200 Legend Tokens
    • Second reroll: 500 Legend Tokens
    • Third or more rerolls: 1000 Legend Tokens for each reroll.
    • Cost increases with each purchase before capping out at 1000 Legend Tokens.
    • Cost resets every day
• You can now adjust the game cursor velocity in Settings -> Controller. This will apply to cursor velocity in all menus including the Lobby, Pause/Inventory menus, and Death Box inventories.
• We now show you what Music Pack you have selected while dropping into the map. If you only have the default Pack selected you won’t see anything.
• Improved flow from Lobby to Match that fixes some minor bugs and will hopefully get players into matches a bit faster.
  • Disabling pregame spawning of players before character selection. This will address cases where players might hear someone voice comms or other sounds before the Legend selection starts.
  • The “Waiting for Players…” transition now shows the game world instead of a black screen.
  • Removed the 5-second countdown that would start at the beginning of Legend selection.
• Players will now be able to view the ammo types of their squadmates equipped weapons when in the inventory menu.
• Ranked Mode: Players will no longer receive a penalty for abandoning a match if they leave after 2 and a half minutes have passed since their Banner was picked up after dying. As a reminder: players will be warned via the menus if their leaving may trigger abandon penalties; if the warning does not show up players are free to leave.
• New Quip Inputs
  • [Controller] you can now open the quip wheel by holding down on the d-pad (you can still do it the old way – open ping menu and press Y)
  • [PC] Quick Chat binding should now auto bind to F1 if it isn’t bound to anything (assuming nothing is already bound to F1)

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where players would stay in place while the train keeps moving when reviving another player.
• Updated the layout of the minimap that was previously showing a route that doesn’t exist.
• Fixed cases where players could drop into Out of Bounds areas without getting the timer.
• Fixed cases of some areas where players could take lava damage near the Volcano when there isn’t any lava.
• Fixed display issue with post-game where it would show you earning 2 battle pass levels for leveling up via Stars.

Legends

• Crypto
  • EMP now will damage armor that players have dropped.
  • Fixed a bug where Lifeline’s drone couldn’t heal Crypto while he was in the drone.
  • Fix for friendly Caustic gas kicking Crypto out of his drone.
• Bangalore
  • Fixed bug where sometimes the missiles from Bangalore’s Ultimate would disappear after landing on the train.

Red Dead Redemption 2 just launched on PC today, but many players are facing issues of getting it to run properly, or even at all. The game has been subject to crashes, sending players back to desktop–myself included. In my experience, I would either get the “exited unexpectedly” message from the Rockstar Launcher or a critical error message from Windows when either loading into the story mode or a few seconds into gameplay. Rockstar hasn’t yet released any patch or much in the way of official guidance, but here are two possible fixes if you’re encountering Red Dead 2 crashes.

I was able to get the game running stably after a few tweaks. If you get a crash, the Rockstar Launcher will ask if you want to run the game in Safe Mode; you can do this then tweak your graphics settings back to what you wanted. Granted, you’ll have to restart the game again to apply certain graphics options. One option you’ll want to have set is for the game to use the DirectX 12 renderer–by default, Red Dead 2 runs on the Vulkan API.

A third step isn’t so much a solution as it is just good practice: update your video card’s drivers. Nvidia users should download and install GeForce driver version 441.12 since it’s specifically tuned for RDR2 and the most recent software for Nvidia GPUs. AMD users will want to do the same and install the latest graphics drivers, Radeon software version 19.11.1. Rockstar has acknowledged the situation and offer driver updates as a solution, too. Additionally, it’s suggested to make sure Windows launches the game with “Run this Program as Administrator” and “Disable Fullscreen Optimization” set.

It’s hard to say which one of these are the definitive solution, but if you’re encountering crashes in the same manner, we suggest you follow these steps. Your mileage may vary as every PC is different and it’s not yet clear what exactly is causing the crashes. I’m currently running a PC with the following specs: Intel Core i7-7700K, Nvidia RTX 2080, 16GB RAM, and a 2TB m.2 NVMe SSD. I cannot speak to whether or not there are other issues that might be specific to AMD setups.

For more information on the situation, you can read our story the Red Dead 2 PC crashes people have been encountering. If you’re up and running the game stably, be sure to check out our previous coverage below.

In celebration of N7 Day–an annual Mass Effect holiday celebrating the beloved RPG franchise every November 7–BioWare has released new javelin skins in Anthem that are themed after characters from the original trilogy of Mass Effect games. A new emote and wrap have been added to the game as well.

Honestly, the four new javelin skins might be the coolest additions ever implemented into Anthem. The Ranger now has a Turian skin that reshapes the javelin to look like Garrus from Mass Effect 3. The new Storm skin is Asari-themed, making the javelin look like Liara in her default Mass Effect 3 appearance. Neither of the other two skins are based on specific characters, with the new Colossus skin themed after a Krogan and the new Interceptor after a Quarian. All four new skins are pictured below.

Each skin goes for 61,000 Coins or 850 Shards, which roughly translates to $8 USD. There’s a new Mass Effect-themed emote in Anthem’s in-game store too: the Shepard Shuffle. Unlocking the emote allows your javelin to perform the awkward dance of the Mass Effect trilogy’s main character, a long-running joke in the franchise. There’s also a new Mass Effect: Andromeda-themed wrap available for purchase to adjust the Mass Effect skins to look like the armor worn by the Turians, Krogans, Turians, and Asari in the Andromeda Initiative.

BioWare typically does or announces something Mass Effect-related every N7 Day, and it’s looking like these new Anthem cosmetics may be what the developer planned for this year. We’ll have to wait for November 7 to see whether there’s anything else. The javelin skins, emote, and wrap will remain in Anthem’s in-game store until November 12.

During N7 Day 2018, BioWare posted a short video on Twitter where studio boss Casey Hudson teased a new Mass Effect game by knowingly staring at the camera after saying, “It means coming into the studio every day, dreaming about what the next great Mass Effect game will be.” In February 2019, Anthem and Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah said that BioWare is “definitely not done with Mass Effect.”

In EA’s latest quarterly earnings call, COO Blake Jorgensen said that the company wants to “deliver some exciting remasters of fan favorites, including the Command and Conquer game we’ve already disclosed.” However, he did not confirm whether those “exciting remasters” might include the Mass Effect trilogy.