Gilded Falcons – Alundra

Alundra is an underrated and tough RPG from the PlayStation 1 era. Suffice to say, the challenge wasn’t just the annoying puzzles and platforming but doing so while finding all 50 Gilded Falcons. Sound easy? The Falcons themselves can be found in a variety of places including dungeons that you never revisit. The Falcon in Olen’s Nightmare is especially punishing since all Murgg enemies must be defeated within the time limit. Fail to do so and the dungeon is gone, never to return again.

Curtis Henke

Better known as FaZe Dirty, Curtis Henke was the subject of an ABC News report when he was revealed to have been swatted. Essentially, someone posing as Henke claimed to have shot his parents, prompting the police to investigate. Henke’s parents were alive of course and were absolutely clueless as to what was going on.

After ten years  at the helm, Rod Cousens is leaving the company he helped make such a big name the world over, as he is officially stepping down from his role as the CEO of Codemasters. He will now be joining Jagex, the developer of the popular game Runescape, instead.

“Throughout an illustrious career within the UK video games industry, Rod has presided over the likes of Activison, Acclaim and, most recently, Codemasters,” Jagex said in a statementt released exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz. “Now, in this latest role, he brings his experience, insight and acumen to Jagex as it enters a new chapter of business.

“Rod will oversee the company during a period of expansion in which the studio’s flagship title branches out into the collectable card game genre via the recently announced Chronicle: RuneScape Legends. Meanwhile the tactical online shooter, Block N Load, will bring its strategic combination of construction and marksmanship to the world on 30th April 2015. Away from the public domain, an additional number of games are currently moving through development towards announcement.”

As for Codemasters, Frank Sagnier, Codemasters’ Chief Operating Officer, is currently in charge to help the company through the transitory period, though it is expected that his rokle will become permanent once the formalities are completed.

“I am honored, humbled and excited to lead Codemasters through its next stage and we sincerely thank Rod for his many achievements and wish him every success in his new venture,” said Sagnier.

“Over the years, Codemasters has built award-winning games and franchises with an amazing pool of talent and the support of its principal shareholder, Reliance ADA. To this day, Codemasters remains an iconic brand and I am committed to making it shine brighter than ever. The industry’s continued growth, driven by the explosion of new platforms and new business models, represents a significant opportunity for Codemasters to expand existing IP and continue to innovate.”

Currently, Codemasters is working on releasing F1 2015 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC; they are also rumored to be working on a new game in the Dirt franchise.

Blizzard created another hit out of nowhere when they released Hearthstone, the collectible card strategy game for PC that acted as a spin off and supplement to the Warcraft universe (while being set in it and based on it) earlier this year. The free to play title was an instant hit, and became the most played online card game easily, supplanting genre stalwarts such as Might and Magic and the Pokemon Trading Card Game.

Now, it looks like another MMORPG will be getting its own card based spin-off game: Jagex, the developers of the hit MMORPG Runescape, confirmed today that they would be developing a new game set in the Runescape universe, and that this game would be a collectible card game, same as Hearthstone.

“Played out within the pages of a living book the game focuses on quest building, allowing players to craft their own miniature RPGs against enemies, including classic RuneScape boss monsters, before entering into tense PvP combat,” says the press release.

It’s called Runescape Legends, and it is due some time next year, and that it will be hitting PC, smartphones, and tablets.

To celebrate, the community team is starting with one of 12 player events that will be ongoing through the weekend.

Design director Mark Ogilvie states, “2012 was filled to the brim with game updates both large and small. Last year saw flurries of graphical reworks of the popular areas of the game, bigger and better boss monsters, an overhaul of the combat system, new starting areas as well as the challenging task of introducing voice acting into the game.

“For me, the highlight of the year was undoubtedly witnessing the creation of the 200th million RuneScape account, which secured the game’s place as the most played online game of all time. But 2013 is going to be even better.”

There are currently plans for HTML5 to provide a faster experience along with two new skills, a Grandmaster-level quest, Wilderness Warbands, a Construction skill rework, improved grouping systems, and the ability to customize the screen/interface.

Source: VG24/7

Runescape players will be pleased to know that the game will get a new ‘Jagex account guardian’ system which will help protect accounts. What it does is lets you add trusted devices to your account which will not require a lot of security measures.

It’s sort of like Steam guard in a way, and people who log in using unauthorized ids will be required to input a lot of extra information.

 “Ensuring the integrity and security of our valued community’s information has always been a top priority for us, this recent update serves to strengthen the number of other innovative countermeasures we have developed over the past years,” Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard said.

“Unfortunately a lot of people tend to use the same username and password on other websites. Many of these are not well managed from a security standpoint and end up becoming compromised, others are simply phishing websites intended to steal player credentials, sadly the industry also has a very long list of high profile games publishers that have been hacked resulting sensitive customer account information being in the public domain.”

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Thanks GI.Biz. Via VG247.

The Dutch Supreme Court today ruled that stealing a virtual item still counts as real world theft. In 2007 two teenagers held another adolescent at knifepoint, demanding he transfer some of his possessions in Runescape to them. The two teens were convicted by a lower court in 2009, but one of the defendants then appealed to the country’s supreme court on the grounds that the goods stolen “were neither tangible nor material and, unlike for example electricity, had no economic value.”

Judges declared that these virtual items were of value as they represented “time and energy invested” to acquire. The two teenagers were sentenced to 144 hours community service.

Thanks to Massively for the info.