Saturday, May 30, 2015

Battlefield: Play4Free Coming To An End - Send It Off With A Bang! [Free Cheesy Title and Play4Free Funds Codes Here]


For those of you playing Battlefield: Play4Free, you were no doubt sad to see the above picture (both in the game Launcher and on the Forums), announcing the action-packed 'Free To Play' online game coming to an end, which it will on July 14th, 2015. EA has graciously posted a code in the Official Forums that can give your Soldiers 10,000 Funds to spend on whatever their little digital hearts desire. The code for the Funds is:

76UE-ZJAZ-X9RU-XDC2

New Funds code (found June 25th), also from EA:

7A5Y-G9W8-XQTP-ZUT8

As a bonus, you can also punch this code in on Battlefield: Heroes (which is also getting it's life support turned off on that date), for another 10k Funds:

DWVK-GTK3-LE4A-8HNV

A quick note, that these codes are Per Account, not Per Soldier - but still, a nice gesture from EA, to help alleviate some of the pain from the loss of two gaming friends in the Battlefield series of games, Play4Free and Heroes - indeed, we must soon retire the flags for these two loyal shooters that gave so many hours of fun....

See You In The Game (For A While)



Update:
Although given to the public by an Official EA Representative here, this appears to be a limited-use code. I apologize to you all, I thought this would be a one-time-per-account but unlimited use, for everyone code, since it was from EA - but that appears to not be so. In any case, I hope that some of you got the Funds and were able to have some Purchases before this game truly ends.

Update 2015-06-25:
New Funds code, also from EA:
7A5Y-G9W8-XQTP-ZUT8


SYITG

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Quick Tip: Playing Games That Use A Web Browser and The Cataclysmic Chrome Conundrum [Workaround]


Just a quick tip for those playing Browser-based games and other Online games which require a Web Browser to run or authenticate [such as recent Battlefield series games, or browser-based online game websites], where you've probably seen the message that Google's Chrome will no longer support NPAPI plugins - and are wondering what this means:


Without getting into the 1) nitty 2) gritty 3) details, the end result is that games which use a web browser (running a game inside it, or just using it to Authenticate and then Launch a game) will no longer be able to run in Chrome [hence the message being seen]. It actually involves programs that the browser uses to do these things and Support for these is being dropped by Chrome.

There is a workaround that you can do for the next few months, if you want to use Chrome to play/launch the games affected by this, which is fairly easy:

  • Open Chrome and type or copy/paste this into the Address Bar:
    chrome://flags/#enable-npapi 
  • Then simply click Enable, to allow these Plugins [for now]

That's it!

Here is an image by Google on what this looks like:



Alternatively, you could just use IE (Internet Explorer), which is most likely already installed (if you are using Windows). It will run all of these gaming functions perfectly.

[I have personally tested some online browser-based gaming sites, such as Pogo.com (which has Java games), and have launched games with it, such as Battlefield Play4Free and Battlefield: Hardline - I just copy/paste the URL from Chrome into the Address Bar for IE and then IE launches the games without any problem and without any configuration or adjusting of permissions or settings anywhere]

As long as you have Windows Updates on (which it usually has running by Default), it will automatically keep IE up to date, which makes sure it will have the latest Security Patches and Updates, so that you don't have to worry about anything unwanted happening with IE - especially if all you are doing is launching a game with it.

Remember, later this year, Chrome Version 45 will come out, and you will have to use something other than Chrome anyway [because this workaround may no longer...work]. It's up to you of course, I know there are people out there who "really hate IE" - and for those people I say: just use it to launch games for now, and noone will judge you /wink


See You In The Games!


Tuesday, May 12, 2015

And More: AMD Gaming Evolved App (Raptr) Slider Not Staying On Quality Setting, Reverting To Balanced [Explained]



Yesterday, I posted on the Raptr Support Forums, talking about an issue where I saw that the configurator [I think that's a word, I'm going to use it anyway, in regards to "the main slider that sets the quality setting in the Client"]  would not stay on "Quality", if set for games in the AMD Gaming Evolved Client (which I have begun to use slowly over the past few months).

What I saw was, is that if I changed the configurator to "Quality" for a game, then temporarily selected a different game for a while from the Library list, then went back to the previous game, the configurator would not remain on "Quality" for the previous game but would revert back to "Balanced". Here is an example, using Battlefield:Hardline in the Client App, below:

Animation showing how the Gaming Evolved client does not stay on the desired Quality preference/setting, using Battlefield:Hardline as an example. Click to see Full Size


I asked about this occurrence in the Raptr Forums here, and was told by a Rep there that a Ticket would be opened on my behalf [a 'Trouble Ticket' is a Support mechanism for tracking issues (I was Technical Support for a few companies in my past)]. I received an email from Raptr Support quickly and worked back and forth with them over a short period, testing some games out and how the configurator worked with those - finding that for games such as Hitman:Absolution, Tomb Raider (2013) and Max Payne 3, the slider worked just fine, remaining on the desired "Quality" setting - however, for other games, it 'reverted' back to "Balanced" every time.

It was explained to me by Raptr Support, that for the games where 'the slider reverted back to Balanced after setting the slider to Quality' [my phrasing], it was because there were no actual differences in the settings between "Balanced" and "Quality", for those games where that occurred.

The AMD Gaming Evolved client (Raptr) showing that the configurator indeed remains on the desired Quality setting,
for some games, such as Hitman:Absolution, Tomb Raider (2013) and more. Click to see Full Size


Although the slider may be slightly confusing then (they stated they are working on that), this was mostly my own fault, in my mind, since I was fixating on the seemingly-rebellious slider and I wasn't looking at the settings below (where I would have seen that there were no real differences between Balanced and Quality for those games).

So in the end, as far as the slider 'not staying on the "Quality" setting and reverting to "Balanced" all the time', all was eventually figured out (with the helpfulness of Raptr Support); and even if it wasn't entirely "fixed", I wanted to share these experiences and explanations with you all, especially for those that have run into this exact issue.


See You In The Games!