Gwent - Playable By All Now As It Enters Public Beta Phase [Notification]

Update: Added Bugs Personally Found - 20170525, Ongoing

Update: Added Example of Patch Notes - 20170526
Update: Embedded The Gwent Cinematic Trailer 'jussferfun' - 20170527

Just a quick notification that Gwent, the Free-To-Play online card game based on The Witcher series, is now playable by all, as it enters the Public Beta phase (Open Beta).

Stress-Test the servers!
Find bugs and improve the game!
Have fun!

https://www.playgwent.com/

From the GOG.com Store Page:

"GWENT: The Witcher Card Game is currently in public beta. The game requires an online connection to play and offers optional in-game purchases. Single player campaign will be added at a later date."

Dream Of Mirror Online - Closed Beta Key Code Giveaway

You asked for it, you got it - thanks to Suba Games and Wicked Interactive - DOMO is back!

Here at The Game Tips And More Blog, we are giving away 1,000 Closed Beta Key Codes, to help celebrate the return of Dream Of Mirror Online.

For this special occasion, we are not just going to give you ONE key, we are going to give you FOUR key codes, so that you can share them with your closest friends - and bring them with you into the return of this anime-themed social MMORPG when its Closed Beta begins on February 13th.

Once the Beta begins, prepare to enjoy these Features of Dream Of Mirror Online:

Just some of the many features to be found in DoMO.
(Click to see Full Size)

To get a 4-Pack of Closed Beta Keys, just send me an email at GameTipsAndMore@Gma il.com (removing the space) and put "DOMO" somewhere in the Subject Line. Some example subject lines are:

• "I want to play DOMO!"
• "I LOVE DOMO"
• "Please give me my keys so that I can play with my friends in DOMO once again"

Then, I'll send you your 4-Pack of Key Codes, which you and your friends can use to Register, via the Header at the top of this article (click on the image at the top of this post, where it says 'Join Now!').

That's it!

The Official Dream Of Mirror Online 'Teaser' Trailer

from Suba Games (October 2014)

Get ready to relive the magic of DOMO - or experience it for the first time - and See You In The Game!

Over 2,000 DOS Games Playable For Free At The Internet Archive (First Impressions, some Screenshots and Controls)

Update: Audio has been improved for many games, kudos go out to the Curators at The Archive
Update: Added a few Helpful Controls for the emulation, at the bottom of the article

For those who don't know, there are now over 2,000 DOS-era games that are playable directly in your browser at The Internet Archive, here:

http://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games/v2

I have been testing out these MS-DOS games for the past while and want to share with you all what I have experienced so far...

Only a smattering of the huge library of games available to play at the archive

Looking at the huge list of games from my past, a tear almost came to my eye, thanks to Jason Scott, curator of the collection at The Internet Archive. He has uploaded close to 2400 games at the time of this post, to the collection at the first link above. Smiling at the possibility of him making a 2400-baud Modem 'inside joke' (even if he didn't mean to), I quickly found some childhood favourites to try.

The 'DOSbox' Loading Screen at the Archive for the browser-based interface to the games

The games appear to run in a DOSbox emulator, running within a Java-based Engine in your browser. Unfortunately, there seems to be some problems with how the games are running [at the time of this writing]. For me, trying over a dozen of these classic games, all of them had sound that was 'garbled', or 'glitchy', with 'echo-ey' clicks and pops, which weren't supposed to be present [weren't present in the originals].

Title Screen captured from one of the Classic DOS Games playable at the Archive (Wolfenstein 3D)
Click to see 'Full Size'

Although the games looked fine, I started troubleshooting what might be happening with the audio... At first, I tried different browsers. Originally playing them in Google's Chrome, I tried Mozilla's Firefox as well, and then Microsoft's Internet Explorer. In all three browsers, the problem with the audio remained, for me. So, I moved to other troubleshooting steps, changing my audio adapter from the built-in ('on-board') motherboard audio to a more dedicated device (I had a USB Sound Adapter from my Creative Labs Tactic 3D headphones, which I wasn't using at the time, so I plugged that in for a quick test). The problem with the 'static-y'/'glitchy' sound remained. Slash-sigh.

Gameplay screenshot captured from one of the Classic DOS Games playable at the Archive (Prince of Persia)
Click to see 'Full Size'

Just to test if it was some configuration problem perhaps (after updating Java and other drivers), I tried accessing the site from an older XP machine I have. The sound in games still had 'pops' and 'clicks' [at the archive site]... I lastly tried a couple of games on a friend's PC (which was running Windows 7 64-bit, as my system was) and still experienced the sound problem. All of these games from my childhood - and I can't get any of the sound working properly for them, no matter what I do? But I'm sooo close to gaming nirvana! I felt like I finally arrived at Wally World after travelling across-country all this time, only to get a recorded message of Harold Ramis, delivered from Marty Moose, telling me that the amusement park is closed for two weeks for cleaning and repairs... /ShakesFistAtTheSky

Title Screen captured from one of the Classic DOS Games playable at the Archive (Total Carnage)
Click to see 'Full Size'

But, all is not lost... Surely there are other people enjoying the games as they are - as I didn't find many people talking online about having sound issue(s) in a rudimentary search online. Just to make sure my machine wasn't completely becoming a sufferer of Dosphobia (an illness I just made up), I tried some DOSbox-run games that I purchased from Good Old Games [now GOG.com]. Thankfully, Theme Hospital ran flawlessly (when run locally)!

Welcome Screen captured from one of the Classic DOS Games playable at the Archive (Warlords 2)
Click to see 'Full Size'

So, my dear friends, a veritable treasure trove of games exists at The Archive now, and is awaiting to be experienced. Hopefully, you are one of those whom are having no problems at all - and if you are having audio issues as I am ...well just play without sound for now. How? In the upper-right corner of the page, you should see two small text buttons that say "Exit Beta" and "Feedback". Clicking "Exit Beta" will take you to the 'Version One' of the game collection's [Archive] interface. When clicking on a game to play, there should now be a "Mute" button below the area where the game runs. Although the game will run without audio, they still appear to run fine visually [I had no problems on my older dual-core XP machine, running the games themselves, even though the sound problem still existed].

The upper-right corner buttons to use if you are having issues with audio (as I was) or if you are experiencing the mouse not being aligned properly (the mouse being far away from what is shown on the screen). To fix that problem, see the below Tip

If you are having issues with your mouse not lining up properly (not being 'where it should be' on the screen), try disabling the newer Beta interface/page by clicking on the "Exit Beta" button in the upper right corner. You will get a page that should now have buttons below the area where the game runs. Clicking the "Fullscreen" button should allow the game to 'take over your mouse' and align it within the in-game cursor more properly.

Gameplay screenshot captured from one of the Classic DOS Games playable at the Archive (Dune 2, The Building of a Dynasty)
Click to see 'Full Size'

Since the collection is still in Beta, it is understandable that some problems are present and hopefully these glitches will be fixed in the future - for those that experience them, like me. For now, it is still a fantastic effort by Mr.Scott to make all of these Classic games available at The Internet Archive website. Check them out - and enjoy reliving (or experiencing for the first time) a 'Golden Age' in gaming.

Menu Screen captured from one of the Classic DOS Games playable at the Archive (Eye of the Beholder 2, The Legend of Darkmoon)
Click to see 'Full Size'

By the way, because the games are being presented in DOSbox (an MS-DOS environment emulator), this also means that DOSbox keys should work within the Stream interaction as well. I haven't tested all of them, but here are some that may be helpful [and I know these work for sure with the Streaming Archive as I have used them myself]:

CTRL+F10 - Release the mouse (if the game has 'captured' it) and also get the game to 'recapture' it
CTRL+F12 - Increase the cycles the game uses [of the server, since that's where it's running].
CTRL+F11 - Decrease the cycles the game uses.

Cycles are how many Instructions that DOSbox will try to emulate each Millisecond. When running DOSbox locally (on your own system), a window in the background will usually display the Cycles setting the game is on, but as this is an online ("remote", client/server) version, that window isn't seen. If a game is seeming sluggish/slow/laggy/etc however, you can still try increasing the Cycles; but be aware that if it goes too high, it can make the game skip/chug and seem laggy as well. It's sort of a balance you'll have to find [I try to increase it if a game is running a little slow, but if the sound starts to cut out or skip, then I pull it back down a bit, and this seems to give a good emulation speed - this is the same process I use when playing purchased DOSbox games locally, on my system].

For ALL the controls available for the DOSbox Emulator, see this page at the Wiki for DOSbox:

http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Special_Keys 

(Note: I have not tested all of these over the Streaming playable games from The Archive, some of them may not work the same way [when used through the streaming interface as opposed to using them when running DOSbox locally])

Enjoy and See You In The Games!

[Update: During the period of testing and writing this article, some changes have been made at The Internet Archive's MS-DOS Games Collection. It seems that some games are now automatically 'Muted' (the audio is turned off). They can be 'Unmuted' via a button, but this is encouraging evidence that the curator et al. are listening and responding to Feedback that has been submitted at the site. To quote a new piece of text that now appears at the collection's page: "Thank you for your feedback - we will continue to upgrade/bugfix the emulator going forward". Fantastic, in my opinion] 

[Update 2015-01-17: Going back and testing many of the games that I had first encountered in this article, the audio has been improved (less clicking, stuttering) in all of them so far -  kudos to the Curators at The Archive!]

Raw Gameplay (Unedited) - Battlefield Play4Free (32 Players, Saiga-12 Won from The Daily Draw)

Battlefield Play4Free is a Free-To-Play title, where it doesn't cost anything to join in, but you can purchase weapons, armor, clothing and other items for Real Money by purchasing Tokens that you can then use in the in-game Store. There is also a nice feature where you can win prizes (weapons, armor, clothing, etc) from a game called The Daily Draw, where you choose a card from a draw of eight and it will generate an item for you.

The items range from temporary one-day use weapons and clothing, to seven day usage, to permanent items your character (Soldier) can use in the game forever (for example, a scope that can be attached to a gun for that soldier for all time). This is great for those who can't afford to purchase many in-game items, as it not only offers the possibility of getting some great gear 'forever', it also gives a nice preview of a weapon, mod or clothing, so that you can see what it will look like/feel like, if you decide to splurge and purchase it for yourself (supporting the game and developers as well) sometime in the future.

In this video, I present 'Raw Gameplay' (unedited gameplay) of BFP4F after winning a Saiga-12 Shotgun for one day's usage on my Medic via The Daily Draw. I had joined a 32-player server (running a Rush map) that was nice and full (16 soldiers per side). After getting the kinks out and getting used to the controls again after not playing for a while, I think things picked up as the game went on.. I was soon having fun arming MCOMs and healing and reviving. Near the end, I realized that my Aircraft controls weren't set/got reset, as my mouse wasn't 'inverted' and I couldn't fly the helicopter at all, haha.

Recorded game: Battlefield Play4Free, Online FPS
Recorded with: Bandicam (Registered Version) @ 864p
Recording codec: MPEG-1, 70% Quality, 30fps

This video was also a test of a few things (though not an 'Official Testing Video'): I was messing around with different settings (resolutions, quality settings) to see how low I could set things before the quality suffered too much. This is of course, something VERY relative and what looks 'good enough' to one person, looks 'like crap on a cracker' to another person. What I was testing here was, what seemed good enough to upload to YouTube (since it recompresses anyway) and still be enjoyable, while making the recorded file as small as I could via Quality settings (which limits the bitrate somewhat) and resolution size (the larger the resolution, the more bitrate/filesize that would be required).

As I have stated in earlier articles talking about Quality, Bitrate and Filesize, I still find that going below 60% produces too many compression artifacts (macroblocks and 'trails', Gibbs effects and more) for many games, especially if there are large dark areas (which would get compressed more highly and have these compression effects occur in them). This doesn't happen with all games however; some games are fast-moving and/or do not have many darker/flatter areas and using 50% quality doesn't look too bad, even with the MJPEG codec. It's a balancing and testing game, as some games (especially with text) look fine and others look very bad (the compressor will try to allocate more bits around edges like text and compress even more highly then, the flatter/darker areas in a scene). I have done recordings of news streams and other things however, that allow for a very low quality recording setting (down to 20%), but that is mainly because the source itself is of a low quality (many streams are highly compressed and there is not much 'extra' compression artifacts produced by recording it in a lower quality/bitrate, especially if you are going to downsize for the final output video).

For most games, I found I could go down to 70% Quality comfortably - as long as the resolution stayed 'higher' [720p or higher]. With lower resolutions, the bitrate/quality reduction means too many 'casualties', as 30% of a 1080p recording isn't that many pixels when you consider the screen size; but one-third of a 480p recording is a huge amount of the already small screen being 'lost' to compression. Thus, with some testing (again to what looks "ok to me") I arrived at a middle ground of 864p, which maintains decent clarity of text and is large enough to discourage overcompression of darker/flatter areas. For keeping recorded files small and downsizing to 720p HD, it looked fine to me in tests - and on some games, doesn't look that bad even if you wanted to upsize to 1080p HD (clear text was maintained, etc).

So, enjoy this first installment in an 'unofficial' Video Series here at The Game Tips And More Blog: "Raw Gameplay" of Battlefield Play4Free. If you like the game, play it, tell others about it and buy some stuff from the Online Store and support it!

See You In The Game!

Any gameplay videos or animations uploaded are only one example of one possible path of game play and is not representative of the gameplay experience of the entirety of the game material as it is non-repeatable in exactness (movements, actions, viewpoints, etc) to a high degree of accuracy (especially in regards to online multiplayer play and interactions) and therefore is not a representation of a large portion of the game content (this includes complete Walkthroughs/Playthroughs, Raw Gameplay Footage and Tutorials). All material and content uploaded attempts to respect copyright and is presented for Educational and Entertainment purposes only, utilized under Fair Use and can be construed as Free Advertising. No copyright infringement is intended and cannot be inferred. Any possible representation approaching any infringement, to those seeking infringement action, requires double notification and will be honoured by permanent removal of the infringing material.