Headline RePLAY – 5.11.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Diablo III pre-orders break records, Republique reaches its Kickstarter goal of half-a-million dollars hours before it expired and the unexpected conclusion between Blizzard vs. Valve over the DOTA name.

Demon-slayers are anxiously waiting to combat the forces of Hell on May 15th, no less evidenced by the sheer amount of pre-orders on Amazon.com that had the retailer declare it to be the most pre-ordered PC title of all-time.

“Today, it became the most pre-ordered PC game of all-time on Amazon.com–even exceeding pre-orders for Blizzard’s own StarCraft II and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm,” an Amazon.com representative told Joystiq.

Four days to go until the battle between Good and Evil begins once more…

|Source: Joystiq

It’s another Kickstarter miracle: Republique, a stealth game by newcomer Camouflaj, reached its $500,000 goal today with just six hours to spare. By the time the Kickstarter expired, almost 12,000 backers pledged $555,662 to the cause.

The project plateaued at around $400,000 in donations earlier this week until a last-minute media blitz by various news outlets prompted donations that launched Republique towards its half-a-million goal.

Congratulations, Camouflaj!

|Source: Kickstarter via Destructoid

The legal battle over the DOTA name draws to a close today, as both Blizzard and Valve announced “mutual agreement” over how the term should be used. Valve will be able to use DOTA commercially for DOTA 2 while Blizzard gets to preserve noncommercial rights for its community.

“Both Blizzard and Valve recognize that, at the end of the day, players just want to be able to play the games they’re looking forward to,” said Blizzard Entertainment’s Rob Pardo, “ so we’re happy to come to an agreement that helps both of us stay focused on that.”

Pardo added that Blizzard DOTA, Blizzard’s take on the genre, is being changed to Blizzard All-Stars as it “ultimately better reflects the design of our game.”

“We’re pleased that we could come to an agreement with Blizzard without drawing things out in a way that would benefit no one,” said Valve’s Gabe Newell. “We both want to focus on the things our fans care about, creating and shipping great games for our communities.”

Headline RePLAY – 2.10.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Valve’s update on the Steam being hacked, Blizzard duels with Valve over DOTA and Mass Effect: Infiltrator gameplay details.

Back in November, Valve reported that Steam’s forums and database were hacked. Fast-forward to today, and Valve is still investigating the breach.

“Recently we learned that it is probable that the intruders obtained a copy of a backup file with information about Steam transactions between 2004 and 2008. This backup file contained user names, e-mail addresses, encrypted credit card information. It did not include Steam passwords,” wrote Gabe Newell.

“We do not have any evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or billing addresses have been compromised.”

The statement ends with some advice to watch your credit card activity and to keep Steam Guard on.

*Source: Destructoid

Blizzard is suing Valve over DOTA. It’s not the game that Blizzard objects to, League of Legends is DOTA in all but name; it’s Valve attempting to trademark the term.  

DOTA a.k.a. Defense of the Ancients, began as a Warcraft III mod made by IceFrog. Valve recruited IceFrog to make a sequel, but when it was announced to be DOTA 2, Blizzard objected:

“By attempting to register the mark DOTA, Valve seeks to appropriate the more than seven years of goodwill that Blizzard has developed in the mark DOTA and in its Warcraft III computer game and take for itself a name that has come to signify the product of years of time and energy expended by Blizzard and by fans of Warcraft III.

“Valve has no right to the registration it seeks. If such registration is issued, it not only will damage Blizzard, but also the legions of Blizzard fans that have worked for years with Blizzard and its products, including by causing consumers to falsely believe that Valve's products are affiliated, sponsored or endorsed by Blizzard and are related or connected to Warcraft III.”

*Source: @DevinConnors via Destructoid

Mass Effect: Infiltrator is like Mass Effect and it isn’t. The mobile title is not about the heroics of Commander Shepard, but rather the efforts of a Cerberus solider named Randall Enzo. It’s not the full-scale RPG of the consoles, but rather a slice of its third-person, cover-based combat with some of the RPG elements left in.

Enzo is a Cerberus soldier that hunts down and captures alien species for study, but when his loyalty begins to waver, he conspires to send intelligence to Commander Shepard.

Like the title’s namesake, Enzo is based on the Infiltrator-class and can sneak in for a kill while employing cover in firefights. His stealth abilities are complemented with a variety of new weapons like anti-gravity grenades and beam weaponry.

While iconic Paragon/Renegade decisions are in the game and will make an impact on Mass Effect 3, it was stressed that Infiltrator wasn’t needed to obtain the best possible ending.

In order to benefit from the assets obtained in Infiltrator to your Mass Effect 3 game, an EA Origin account is required.

No release date was announced, but EA reps have said the game will be launched around Mass Effect 3’s release date.

*Source: Kotaku