Another Friday where I have a few items that I could probably force into full length posts, but I just don’t have the stamina to get there. So I will pack them into one post.
Truth in Advertising?
There was a recent Star Citizen weekly update from RSI that seemed to unintentionally confirmed my suspicions.
It barely feels like it has been 25 years
The update itself was a lore item about some in-game entity celebrating its 50th anniversary, but the first glace at the top of the message made me wonder if they were admitting it was going to take 50 years to get where they plan to go.
Apple and OpenGL
One tidbit that came up at Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference was the plan to deprecate OpenGL support with the Mojave release of the MacOS and in iOS 12. This led to a panic about there being no more video games on the Mac.
I haven’t been to a WWDC since 1995…
OpenGL has been around for a long time and, among other things, its openess helped nVidia get in and dethrone 3dfx Interactive and their proprietary Glide API back in the day. And deprecate doesn’t mean pulling it out wholesale. It will still be there for a couple of years. But if you find a problem or need an update, Apple isn’t going to help you.
Still, Apple will drop it eventually. Past history says that will probably get announced in 2020 or so. Apple would like you to use their Metal interface instead, and some companies have support for that on the way. You can use Metal with World of Warcraft currently if your hardware and OS are current. (And probably should use it, as it fixes a crashing issue with WoW.) But if you are a serious PC gamer you probably have a Windows partition on you Mac, if not a Windows machine already.
Blizzard and Diablo IV
It was noted that Blizzard had posted a job listing looking for a dungeon artist for an as yet unannounced Diablo project. This led to a hysteria of complaints and the projection of personal feelings onto the idea. Just Google “diablo iv” and look at the headlines. (And yes, I am going to call it Diablo IV at this point.) Everything from “when are we going to get it?” to “Oh lord, no!” pops up. So I figured I ought to note this as the week the controversy began. We know nothing so far, but some people are already angry.
I for one welcome our new demonic overlords.
Despite the one-two punch of the auction house and the horrible itemization (the latter which I remain convinced was there to drive you to the auction house), Blizzard eventually got the game in order by killing the auction house and fixing itemization, making Diablo III a pretty decent game. The “always online” bit is still annoying, but Blizz is hardly alone in demanding that. And they have continued to tend the now six year old game, which is more than they ever did for Diablo II. By any practical measure the game is a success and warrants a sequel. (It sold lots of copies on the PC and consoles.)
Hopefully Blizzard will run with what they have learned and stick with the roots of Diablo as the foundation for the next game rather than, say, making it a Battle Royale title or something.
Minecraft Subnautica
On a closer horizon, the Minecraft Java Edition 1.13 release, the Aquatic Update, looks to be slowly making its way to us.
Under the sea…
The update entered pre-release at the start of the week, whatever that means, so I think we should be getting the official release soon. I have actually been avoiding our Minecraft server, knowing that I’ll want to go play when this hits.
Free Games for Amazon Prime Subscribers
In yet another benefit for Amazon Prime subscribers, you can now download any of five free games before the end of June.
Amazon Prime benefits
The games are Tumblestone, Treadnauts, Strafe, Banner Saga, and Banner Saga 2. You need to have the Twitch client to download them (the Twitch client is what the old Curse client became when Amazon bought Curse… and Twitch) and you need to have linked your Twitch account to your Amazon account. This sounds like a recurring deal, so there will likely be more games in the future as the Amazon Prime largess train continues on.
As an aside, the first version of this Amazon post I saw said it was six games.
Is it five or six?
However the image only shows five games and I didn’t click on the link until later, so I don’t know if there was a sixth game at one point, if a sixth game was planned but was removed and the word didn’t get out, or if it was always five games and somebody just messed up. (h/t to Corr who first linked this to me and who had that second image handy.)
Pokemon Zygarde Download Event
Despite the impending end of Pokemon on the Nintendo 2DS/3DS, download events continue for the current core RPG titles. During the month of June in the US you can go to your local GameStop for a download code for a shiny Zygarde.
Zygarde
This event is only for Pokemon Sun & Moon and Pokemon UltraSun & UltraMoon. Instructions for claiming the legendary Pokemon are available at the Pokemon site.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
> And they have continued to tend the now six year old game, which is more than they ever did for Diablo II.
Ha, you couldn’t be more wrong! Diablo II got a content patch a full decade after release, and it’s most recent bugfix patch was 2016.
http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Diablo_II_version_history
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@Klyith – Are you fucking kidding me? They do patches and seasons for Diablo III, but they let Diablo II sit for more than a decade without touching it and you are going to claim that is more? Basically, if that is all you could come up with “I couldn’t be more right” is what you should be saying to me.
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Apologies, I didn’t mean it that way! I should have had a wink face or something to show I meant that “ha” more in jest than argument.
However, back in the day Diablo II was often held up as getting exceptional post-release support — they also had the ladder and other continuous online stuff. But that was a very different time in games. In it’s era, it was super ahead of the curve. In the current era, Diablo 3 is very well supported, way more than Diablo II was. But not more than every other online game is doing. Online games all do that to keep people interested & support the long tail. The things Blizzard did 10-15 years ago have set the standard so much that they’ve become expected. Which is a hell of an achievement, and IMO D2 was the first wave of that changing tide.
I think there’s an interesting digression in this about online-only games and how players have basically taken that as a promise for lots of post-release support, which has become a bit of a double-edged sword for game devs. (Ex people irritated with not enough new content for Destiny, when Halo was fine having an end.)
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@Klyith – Hah, okay. You practically gave me an aneurysm because the sarcasm wasn’t clear.
The thing about Diablo II was that while official support dwindled in the early 2000s, the game itself had a huge following and had a community that stuck with it for ages. And it did get a couple of sly patches that helped out people who wanted to mod and such, but that always felt like an underground dev doing it on their off hours rather than any official Blizz project.
And, of course, for a stretch there World of Warcraft literally consumed all of Blizz’s ability to focus on anything besides Azeroth.
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