Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

StarCraft Remastered Launch Detected!

StarCraft Remastered launched today giving players the ability to play this classic LAN staple in 4K HD! One nice feature of the new StarCraft update is the amazing new graphics and also that you can play it alongside the original remastered and totally free to play version. Blizzard also added StarCraft to the Battle.net client and also made logging in to multiplayer in StarCraft us the new Battle.net sign-in interface. StarCraft still uses Classic Battle.net after that but you sign on with the new Battle.net and then it stores your old Battle.net credentials in the new client making you only have to sign in once. If that doesn't make sense then head in to StarCraft... Read All

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/15/2017 at 05:06am

The HD video looks great! It doesn't look like the intro was remastered, though, which you can find in the main menu.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 08/16/2017 at 02:29am

I've had it crash my windows box a few times now

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/16/2017 at 04:45pm

Oh that's too bad. Apparently they have some bugs to fix then.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 08/16/2017 at 07:14pm

It seems to work better in Windowed (Fullscreen) mode than Fullscreen mode. I am not sure what the difference is. The Windowed (Fullscreen) mode isn't in a window.

Travis Admin wrote on 08/16/2017 at 07:58pm

Windowed Fullscreen (sometimes called Borderless Windowed, or just Borderless Fullscreen) is *technically* a window, it just doesn't have the window borders, title bar, etc. It doesn't give the game exclusive access to the display like true fullscreen, but it can make things better in some games (and makes it easier to alt+tab out if you need to do that). Most notably if a game has screen tearing issues and doesn't have good vsync to prevent that, it can kinda sorta force the game into the desktop's refresh rate. It usually causes minor (and almost always, VERY minor) framerate drops but sometimes it can improve framerate if there are specific issues with the game's compositing.

https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Glossary:Borderless_fullscreen_windowed

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/16/2017 at 11:16pm

It was 19 years ago when Starcraft came out. I was just finishing up high school. I remember playing Quake II around the same time, too. I'm not in too deep, but I don't think I've experienced any issues with Remastered. Starcraft got a good graphical upgrade, which is noticeable in some of the full motion movies. It certainly feels like a game that has aged well. Sadly, I can't say that about all games. I wish the Command & Conquer and Warcraft series would get the same facelift. Those were my wonderful RTS days. I enjoyed Starcraft II, but The Legacy of the Void proved to be quite difficult for me. I ended up cheating so I could get it over with. I think I used some cheats while playing Starcraft as well. I'll see how far I get before I feel the need.

@Travis thanks for the tech info!

I looked in Geforce Experience to optimize it, but it didn't come up in my game scan. I thought I enabled vsynch, but it appears I didn't. I haven't seen any screen tearing. Everything else is on except for Pillarbox and Enable FPS Cap. I would have used the latter, but it's scale is 100-300. If I were to limit my FPS, I'd do it with vsych or just set it for 60, which isn't on that scale. I believe it's running in "fullscreen" and I'm easily Alt-Tabbing back and forth.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 08/17/2017 at 04:21am

Thanks for the info Travis!

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/20/2017 at 04:48am

Here's a cool BlizzDev interview https://www.gamespot.com/articles/on-starcraft-remastereds-transformation-and-why-th/1100-6452652/

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/20/2017 at 11:11am

That's a great article, thanks for sharing Greg. A Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3 remastered would be great!

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How To Preserve And Restore Retro Game Boxes

Collecting Retro Games is a bit part of preserving video game history for the future. Collectors spend lots of time trading old games keeping this stuff out of the landfill and available for future generations. We've shared retro game preservation videos before about caring for and cleaning game karts but this video focuses on how to restore Super Nintendo boxes. Currently I only have two retro games in box in Kirbys Dreamland and Romance of the Three Kingdoms II and they are in great condition. If I find a box in bad shape, I think i'll come back to this video and see what I can do to make it better.

Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 3: Luke Skywalker's Cane

In this episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio we discuss Jon’s recent disappointment in losing his Super Nintendo Classic pre-order and all the games we are looking forward to playing this year. We round things off by talking about Luke Skywalker's Cane and our theories about Star Wars: The Last Jedi. As always, we start the show talking about what we are playing and watching and we’re interested in what you are playing too, so let us know in the comments!

Knights of the Frozen Throne Is Hearthstone's Coolest Expansion!

Hearthstone's latest expansion Knights of the Frozen Throne launched yesterday and if you are a fan of free stuff and the Hearthstone single player content, you should check it out! From now till October 31st for simply logging in you get 3 Knights of the Frozen Throne packs. This expansion also comes with a bunch of new single player content including a prologue and entire Adventure style wing. The rest of the wings open a week at a time ending with the final boss battle with Arthas himself. If you beat Arthas with each of the 9 classes you unlocks the new Arthas Paladin hero!

https://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20944003

I'm Going To Have To Inform On You!

All aboard the Wolfenstein II media hype train! Last stop is the game drop October 27th!

PS Don't eat candy bars in Nazi controlled America!

No Man's Sky 1.3 (Atlas Rises) is out on PC and PS4

Just look at that beautiful video! I got about 20 minutes with it earlier and even in that small window, it feels like a very different game now. It reminds me (fittingly) of Terraria 1.3 with how much the game has changed.

Here's a brief rundown:

A new story. the lore of Atlas continues and the path has been reworked some. The NPCs you could have in your home have changed dialogue to fit the new story. Apparently, there's 30 hours worth of story content here. The long-rumored fourth race is here!

The galaxy has been redone again. Your home planet may look completely different now. The variety has been significantly increased.

They've added economy, wealth, and... Read All

A new story. the lore of Atlas continues and the path has been reworked some. The NPCs you could have in your home have changed dialogue to fit the new story. Apparently, there's 30 hours worth of story content here. The long-rumored fourth race is here!

The galaxy has been redone again. Your home planet may look completely different now. The variety has been significantly increased.

They've added economy, wealth, and conflict ratings to each system, and those ratings affect what you can find.

You can now find crashed freighters on planets and loot them.

You can manipulate terrain with a multitool upgrade.

There's a mission board in every galaxy with procedural missions.

The amount of items you can craft and find have increased dramatically.

The visor looks very different, and scanning can help you find rare items.

The menu UI has been overhauled, to accommodate a new ship inventory system (you now have separate areas for equipment and cargo) and a more in-depth reputation system.

Portals are now functional! You can input the coordinates of planets to transport to them. Which helps with...

Multiplayer! In a sense. "Glitches in the simulation" are causing fragments of other participants to show through, and voip works within a certain radius. Basically, it's the Fable 2 take on multiplayer where everyone else is a floating orb. BUT it's the start of more to come, and still neat.

You now have the ability to fly low to the ground instead of hitting an invisible barrier far above the surface.

There are new ship models, some of which are only available in high-wealth systems.

Tons, tons more. But those are the big ones.

Full patch notes with screenshots here: http://nomanssky.com/atlas-rises-update/

And just a reminder, No Man's Sky is $25 on PSN, GOG, Steam, and Humble right now so if you don't have it, now's a good time to get it!

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 08/11/2017 at 08:53pm

I might have to check this out this weekend...

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/11/2017 at 11:09pm

Sweet!

jdodson Admin wrote on 08/12/2017 at 02:37am

Awesome news. I DEMAND MORE THOUGHTS AFTER YOU PLAY IT MORE!

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 08/12/2017 at 05:21am

OK after a couple hours, it's immense. Before it felt like there was little to do aside from explore, but now it feels like TOO much.

A significant chunk of that is due to the fact that save files from previous versions are a bit bugged. You lose all your NPCs at your base and when you get them back (by rehiring them) they are at the end of their quest line, but in this new update they teach you new blueprints... which you can't get because they won't give you any quests... but you need those blueprints for other quests.

So my plan for now is to let it sit for a while and maybe 1.3.1 will work out some bugs. They've been good in the past about the first round of fixes coming out soon after release. I just feel certain that if they tested 1.3 with a 1.2 save file they would have seen this already-- it seems to be universal.

BUT for people starting fresh it seems to be a good experience all around. Well-balanced, nice progression. It may be time to start over, but ships are expensive!

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 08/12/2017 at 05:22am

But on the plus side, the new stuff is great. The lore-building quests are intriguing and handled well.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/12/2017 at 05:51am

That sucks about the NPC issue. But, yeah, there were things with this update that made me think that it might be a good time to restart. I don't think I spent much time playing the previous update. I was disappointed that you can only use vehicles on one planet. I thought they should have made it so you could take them with you to other planets, perhaps by freighter. I imagined landing a freighter and then being able to roll out your vehicle. That's something I'd like to see.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 08/12/2017 at 02:10pm

> I was disappointed that you can only use vehicles on one planet. I thought they should have made it so you could take them with you to other planets

1.2.something addressed that. You can make them anywhere now

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/12/2017 at 07:51pm

Yeah, you can make them whereever, but that requires you gather the necessary materials on each planet you want to use it. I like the idea of building one and taking it with you. Even if a freighter doesn't land, it'd be cool to get it some distance above the surface and just ride out of it with your vehicle and land on the surface. That would be fun.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 08/12/2017 at 09:38pm

It had been so long since I played, I decided to sttart a new game. I have to say, compared to when this game first came out, it looks beautiful! And it started out beautiful, so it's even better now.
I started on a planet that doesn't have many resouces, so I spent an hour or so just trying to repair all my equipment. I am just wandering around the planet now and haven't flown my ship once. There definitely is more on a planet, I think I'm going to like it again.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/12/2017 at 10:13pm

@Adam did you make it to the center of the galaxy in your old save? I'm tempted to start a new one, too, now especially since Travis brought that issue to our attention. It's been so long, I can't even seem to remember what starting out was like.

I'm glad you say the game looks beautiful. That's a part of it I definitely want to check out!

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/12/2017 at 11:22pm

I started a new save, after backing up my old one. The only issue I've run into so far (after a few minutes or so) was that a question mark still appears on a waypoint after I've discovered it. I tried to get a screenshot in time to show this bug. http://steamcommunity.com/id/gregopeck/screenshot/848219940810532147

*Update* Reloading the game seems to have resolved this.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 08/12/2017 at 11:36pm

I never did make it to the center. I never really followed that path, and when I wanted to, it was super difficult to get back on track lol

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 08/13/2017 at 04:15am

Greg, I'd say the reason they didn't make the exocraft platforms work that way is because they want there to be some effort involved so you couldn't just spam them everywhere. BUT, it's as simple as destroying the platform (to get all your materials back) and then rebuilding it on a new planet.

There are some workarounds for the various problems people are having with old saves and quest progress. Hopefully they'll fix those soon.

And, there's already a 1.3.1 to address some of the worst game crashing bugs! Some were getting hard crashes to desktop under certain conditions.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/13/2017 at 04:45am

Yeah, I agree with your reasoning regarding exocraft. I thought destroying the platform only gave a fraction of the materials needed. If it gives all, then that's cool.

I like starting out fresh, because of the new stuff like missions. I'm having trouble locating a "secret depot" where I'm supposed to deliver some resources. I think it may be because I don't have a signal booster. I need to look into it.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/13/2017 at 08:27pm

I found this to be a good list of current issues and bugs people are having. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm supposed to locate a secret depot for a secondary mission I'm on. I've collected enough Heridium and the map points me in the current system, but otherwise I have no other navigational guidance. I've already completed a few similar secondary missions, but "A Cog in the Machine" doesn't seem to be letting me complete it. I may be missing some tech.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoMansSkyTheGame/comments/6t5bys/atlas_rises_helpbugsqa_feedback_no_mans_sky/

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 08/14/2017 at 09:39pm

Has the day/night cycle always been part of the game? I don't remember it ever being so dark lol

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/15/2017 at 12:10am

@Adam I seem to think I recall an issue about the game being too dark and there was some kind of video setting for it. I did a quick Google search, check it out and see if any of it helps.

https://www.google.com/search?q=no+man%27s+sky+too+dark&oq=no+man%27s+sky+too+dark&aqs=chrome..69i57.5887j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 08/15/2017 at 12:45am

The whole game isn't too dark, it's just really dark at night lol. Hopefully there's a light upgrade to my exosuit or flashlight upgrade to my multi-tool. I just don't remember a day/night cycle at all :)

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 08/15/2017 at 02:44am

There was always a day/night cycle but they darkened the nights to make things more immersive. The flashlight is now useful! (and you already have one-- press T!)

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 08/15/2017 at 03:15pm

Oh! Lol, awesome. Thanks!

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/23/2017 at 06:48am

We have some new patch notes! I'm still reading to see if the issue I had was resolved. I did try starting a new game (again), take things slower, and not have more than one active side mission at the same time. I haven't played in a while, so I'll just have to play more to see if my issue is resolved.

https://www.nomanssky.com/2017/08/5442/

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 08/23/2017 at 09:58pm

Read back for 1.31 and 1.32 as well, those might have fixed your issue.

Or today's experimental 1.34 if you're on the experimental branch (I recommend it)
https://steamcommunity.com/app/275850/discussions/0/1471967615872925676/

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The Nintendo 2017 World Championships Are Coming!

Oct. 7, 2017 in New York City Manhattan Center’s Grand Ballroom Nintendo will be having the 2017 World Championships. If you are interested in qualifying check out the NWC site below and if you are close to New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Dallas, Seattle or Miami you can head to a Championship location to qualify. The game they are playing to qualify is Mario Kart 7 on 3DS and if you are over 13 you will get two chances to score the best time trial playing as Bowser with the Standard Kart, Standard Wheels, Super Glider racing GBA Bowser Castle 1. While you are there Nintendo will let you play the upcoming Super Mario Odyssey and Metroid... Read All

Valve's Next Game: Artifact - The Dota Card Game Will Launch in 2018!

It's a special time when Valve talks about a new game coming out but this one i've been speculating about for months. Digital Card games are the new hotness seen through the massive success of Hearthstone, Magic Online, Faeria, The Witcher Card Game, Elder Scrolls Legends and more and I've thought that Valve would be interested in getting in on it. Looks like they were thinking the same thing because in 2018 Artifact - The Dota Card Game will launch. So far all we've got is a very short trailer that only shows off the games four color logo that may be a tip to the different colored cards in Artifact? I guess time will tell what kind of digital card game it is but so... Read All

No Man Sky's Waking Titan is Over, and Some New Details About 1.3 (Atlas Rises) Emerge (UPDATED)

The ARG Hello Games organized for No Man's Sky is over, and we ended up with some hints and somewhat cryptic information about the lore of the game. It appears we're playing a simulation started by a rogue AI, which was a common theory. We also got some 1.3 screenshots!

The one above shows a portal-- a structure present in the game already, but one that had no apparent use. Apparently that's going to change soon! The control panel thing pictured isn't currently in the game, so it looks like we're getting some interactivity.

In addition, this beauty dropped showing a new ship class! It's parked next to an observatory, so those may be an important part of the update, or... Read All The ARG Hello Games organized for No Man's Sky is over, and we ended up with some hints and somewhat cryptic information about the lore of the game. It appears we're playing a simulation started by a rogue AI, which was a common theory. We also got some 1.3 screenshots!

The one above shows a portal-- a structure present in the game already, but one that had no apparent use. Apparently that's going to change soon! The control panel thing pictured isn't currently in the game, so it looks like we're getting some interactivity.

In addition, this beauty dropped showing a new ship class! It's parked next to an observatory, so those may be an important part of the update, or maybe just a neat thing to put in a picture.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.wakingtitan.com/loop16/a8af5654-879c-4cea-a476-77c2fd54dfee.jpg

A few places have No Man's Sky for around $25 right now, possibly in preparation for an update. If you're interested, now's a good time to grab it for cheap!

UPDATED: The man himself, Sean Murray, sent out an email today with more information about the update. It's called Atlas Rises (which I hope is a reference to a Metallica song) and will focus on new lore and making portals do fun things. The full text of the email follows:

Hello Citizen Scientists,

It’s been a year since No Man’s Sky first released, and it’s been an exciting, intense and emotional year for us at Hello Games. We have been quiet, but we have been listening intently.

We've spent that year working hard on free updates for this game our team cares about so much.

Update 1.3 will release this week and will be available for free to all No Man’s Sky players. We're calling it Atlas Rises. It focuses on improving the central story of No Man’s Sky and adds the ability to quick travel between locations using portals. Patch notes will be made available shortly before the update goes live.

What we do is much more important than what we say, but since launch we have sometimes focused too much on that.

We wanted to reach out and celebrate the devoted community that means so much to us. We launched Waking Titan to try to do that.

When we posted those cassettes we didn't know what to expect. In the last eight weeks a quarter of a million players from across the globe (174 countries, to be precise!) have come together - united by a shared love of mystery and science fiction - to form the Citizen Science Division. You’ve travelled great distances both real and virtual, undertaken complex tasks, and explored the depths of simulation theory. New friendships have been forged, and a tight-knit community has been created. Most importantly a cute hamster has a new home.

You've become part of the No Man's Sky origin story.

It's been an honour to watch, but this is just the beginning. Whether you’ve followed Waking Titan or not, we welcome anyone to sign up to the Citizen Science Division, and to join us on the official CSD forums.

Our journey continues.

Thank you for this year. We hope you enjoy what comes next.

Sean

Someone Finally Made An HDMI Connector For The GameCube!

GameCube has been traditionally bound to composite OR crazy expensive component cables UNITL NOW! Metal Jesus reviewed a really awesome GameCube HDMI connector made by zeldaxpro and the interest for them has been so high he can't meet demand right now! Basically zeldaxpro hacked the GameCube digital out port to accept HDMI and apparently makes them by hand at his house, which is why he is having a hard time meeting demand.

This is one of the reasons why I love the retro game community so much because long after the lifespan of a console is over people are still creating really amazing hardware to keep systems going.

https://zzblogs.wixsite.com/home/single-post/pnpgc2

... Read All