Community Chronicle: 11/05/14

I’m writing this in lieu of watching Eurovision, something I’ve never really been a fan of. Going off what I saw on Twitter though, Austria’s Queen was a runaway success, which I think was quite lovely, to break out the royalty like that for something like Eurovision.

Maybe we should get Prince Phillip to do our entry next year?

But we’re here to talk about games, and the story that has dominated this past week has been related to DriveClub once more. As part of the revitalised campaign surrounding the game, there were a few new videos to try and explain what the game is really about and what you can expect from the different versions.

However, while explaining the PS+ edition, it was stated that were you to upgrade from that version to the full game, you would not have access to the game should your subscription lapse. As you can expect, the internet at large was not happy with this decision.

Erroneus‘ comment summed up the sentiments of many:

Woah, Sony botched that one. An upgrade for £42.99, which only works while your PS+ sub is running? What a joke! I wouldn’t be surprised if you can find full game for £42.99 from an online retailer.

I doubt many people will upgrade for that price. They’ll end up playing the PS+ edition only and if they really want the full edition, when they are done with the free content, it should be possible to find it for £30.

Thankfully, Sony reacted to this public outcry by either reversing their decision or correcting their mistake, stating two days later that you would be able to keep the upgraded game without an active PS+ subscription. As Avenger noted, it was “Good to see the backlash had an effect on this matter, though there’s not much to lose from making this decision. As people say, it’s a online game, so the devs wouldn’t lose that much money. Nevertheless I agree with above comments, it was bad practice in the first place.”

Of course, the price remains the same and just as divisive, going forward. It feels like DriveClub has an uphill struggle in some areas, and so might the freshly announced new Unreal Tournament. Using an interesting crowdsourced development method, Epic will create their new game with the assistance of modders and the community – who will be able to sell their work on a dedicated marketplace. The game will also be free to play, though only PC, Mac and Linux have been mentioned.

On the matter of consoles, Colmshan1990 hypothesized, “They’ll probably port it once it’s an actual full game, but Unreal Tournament has always been a mainly PC franchise.” This would certainly be good news for the handful of series fans that commented too.

Kennykazey even let his imagination run wild:

Been a fan of all the Unreal Tournaments, so this sounds like an interesting experiment. But what I really want is a combination of UT2004 and UT3 as a multiplayer-only title for PS4, with support for four player split screen awesomeness. How dope would that be?

Finally, we return to Sony, who revealed that a big part of the reason for the lightbar on the DualShock 4 was to support tracking alongside the Project Morpheus headset, but were unable to discuss this point due to the secretive nature of the project. This is apparently also why you can’t turn the lightbar off completely, although you can now dim the light.

However, it’s a notion that was soon trampled in the comments. Tonyyeb, for example, asked, “Why can’t it just be turned on when Morpheus is in use?”

Root Ginger posited that it was for stylish reasons, saying, “Why can’t they just be honest and say that the light remains on because it’s part of the look and style of the controller. It’s obvious this is the real reason it can’t be turned off. Sony want the controller to be instantly recognisable and the lightbar is part of that.”

It’s a slow week on the achievements front, in which I found myself with 100% completion in Stealth Inc. on Friday. I guess I’ll be moving along to the DLC should I get round to buying that, but I think I’ll be taking a little break from it, for now.

Eldaveo, meanwhile, turned his attentions to Stick it to The Man, which he completed with 100% of trophies in a just few hours, much to his disappointment.

R1MJAW has kept plugging away at the Trials Fusion exteme levels, managing to complete them all, but now working hard on getting gold medals across the board. He also teamed up with other TSA members to earn his 110th platinum trophy with MotoGP on the PS Vita.

From 100th to first, and Pixel_nme has earnt his first platinum trophy with The Amazing Spider-Man 2… with this account. You may remember him as OnlineAssassin or Wardy, but he’s on to another new account and I really hope this one sticks!

For the rest of you, it’s largely been plugging away at games and trophies. DividSmythe is getting close to the PES 2014 platinum, citizeninsane45 is closing in on his 6000th trophy, while Crazy_Del is plugging away at Rayman Legends and Red Dead Redeption.

Kennykazey, though, takes the biscuit, saying that he’s been playing “Mario Party 3, emulated (quite horribly, I might add) on an original Xbox with broken controllers. It had it’s charms.”

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].