Community Chronicle: 08/12/13

It’s been all Gran Turismo 6, all of the time for me, since quite early in the week. As good as it is, I’m really quite eager to be getting back to my PS4. I’ve barely scratched the surface with all of the games on there, and it’s just sat there as an ever-present reminder that it exists!

Sony have found themselves resetting another load of players’ PSN account passwords this past week, citing “irregular activity” as the reason. Thankfully it still doesn’t sound like a hack, but seems to be just a precautionary measure. However, they must be able to go further in securing our accounts.

Vallon suggests that they “follow the likes of Blizzard and banks, with the use of authenticators. The majority of people have a smart phone or tablet these days, so why not create a simple iOS/Android authenticator?”

A sound idea, and one which would be an excellent way of adding additional security to peoples’ accounts. There are several ways of adding a two-stage authentication process though, with a code being sent via text message the simplest and most universal I can think of, as opposed to one which relies on a smart phone app.

A company facing bigger problems would seem to be DICE and EA, as they announced this past week that they would be halting work on future DLC packs until they’ve fixed the myriad of major issues that continue to plague Battlefield 4. Quite a few people commented, documenting their own problems.

Cnutard said, “BF4 on PS4 crashed constantly for me while playing Conquest. I can maybe get 2 full games in, if I’m lucky, before it all shuts down. I’ve found that if I’m playing other modes with fewer players it crashes a lot less, in fact, nearly not at all.

“How can they still have bugs present that were there in the last 2 or 3 BF games? The sound dipping in and out is very irritating, not just because it means you lose the immersive feeling of them in game, but you also can’t hear missiles tracking you, so you’re as good as dead. There always seems to be some major issues with DICE games, and I for one am getting sick of it.”

They will certainly have to be careful not to build up too big a reputation for buggy releases, but it seems that the damage has already been done.

Finally, Sony kicked up a fuss by revealing that Gran Turismo 6 would have so-called micro-transactions. It took all of 5 seconds for someone to realise that it would cost £120 to buy the most expensive car(s) in the game.

It’s certainly a tricky and touchy topic, but as JesseDeya explained, “Like Forza, they don’t want to devalue the reward of earning cars by progressing through the game, so making them expensive to ‘shortcut’ is actually not a bad thing. At least GT5 has over 1200 cars that can be bought at no extra cost. Forza 5 has around 200 cars and is going to sell you 60 more next year for almost as much as the initial cost of the game. Not sure where the hate comes from, but as the kids say these days… ‘evs.”

“The only issue I have is the goalposts moving,” 3shirts replied. “As long as micro-transactions remain a purely optional way to save time or help you if you’re not good enough to achieve something through play, fine. When they start creeping by making things harder and harder to achieve without them or lock content so you have to buy it, then I have a problem.”

Thankfully, this hasn’t really been the case in the game, and aside from minor adjustments, the in-game economy appears to be roughly equivalent to that of Gran Turismo 5.

You might not have noticed this, but the forums are back in a new guise. Everything that was there before has had to be put into storage, I’m afraid, but we’ve a new system in place which should hopefully be better in the long term.

What it means, though, is that we’re now able to have the return of the Trophy Leaderboard, Trophy Banter and Fastest Platinum threads. There’s plenty to catch up on!

So we’ll start there, as I rather cheekily claim Tearaway with a record from before the game’s release (I’ve no idea how I’m allowed this! I’d be happy to give it up to the next in line, actually). Freezebug claims the record for Ratchet & Clank: Nexus, as Bambo_19 nabs Sound Shapes and Resogun, both on PS4. Of course, R1MJAW and Crazy_Del get involved too, with R1M’s records for Walking With Dinosaurs and Lego Marvel Super Heroes (PS3) stacking up against Del’s from Killzone: Mercenary, Batman: Arkham Origins and Need for Speed Rivals (PS4).

Oh man, things are going to get complicated while we’re running around with multiple generations!

Speaking of R1MJAW, he’s finished a run through of Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, as well as grabbing his free Sound Shapes platinum on PS4, which saw him sail past the 10,000 trophy mark.

Vallon completed the story modes of Killzon: Shadow Fall, Contrast and Tearaway, with the latter very much comig up trumps in his estimations. Element666 similarly finished Contrast, but went on to collect 100% of the trophies, to go in his collection.

I’ve doubtless missed someone out, but now that the forums are back, I’ll be able to keep tabs on a lot more stuff you guys are up to.

We’re nearly done, but you can head over to page two for the return of the Fastest Platinum boards. To finish off this page, we have the usual submission form for photos and accomplishments.

If people want to keep sending photos in, I’ll be happy to post them, but gaming places is no longer a regular feature. If you fancy it, just use the submission form below, get in touch with me on Twitter at @teflon, or just send me an email out of the blue to [email protected].