Disaster can bring out the best in human nature. Emergency service personnel, rescue crews and volunteers work tirelessly, often putting their own lives at risk.  

Whether they’re responding to a natural disaster or other accident, rescue and relief teams increasingly use AI as a vital tool to save lives and to get help to the right place at the right time. 

These are some of the technologies from organizations beyond Microsoft that are making a difference in disaster zones. 

[Subscribe to Microsoft on the Issues for more on the topics that matter most.] 

Robot rescuers 

When a building collapses, rescuers will look for voids, spaces in the rubble where a person could be trapped. This is often slow, painstaking work in cramped and dangerous conditions.  

Enter Snakebot: a 5–centimeter-wide robot equipped with lights and cameras that can squeeze into tight spaces. Developed by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Snakebot can crawl, climb, roll and even swim. Prototypes were used in the aftermath of the Mexico City earthquake in September 2017. Operators sent the robot to search voids too small or unstable for people or search dogs to enter. Learning from that experience, the team that designed it now plans to add microphones and sensors that can detect hazardous gas. 

In Japan, the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant after the tsunami that struck the country in 2011 required robots to enter areas that people couldn’t. Teams sent a variety of remote–controlled and autonomous machines to inspect and remove the fuel rods.  

Eye in the sky 

Drones are giving emergency services a bird’s–eye view of disaster zones, which is proving particularly useful in fighting wildfires.  

Using surveillance drones that can stay aloft for hours, and small quadcopters, operators on the ground can see how a fire is behaving in real time and the hazards in the way. Some drones are equipped with thermal–imaging cameras or laser–imaging systems that help firefighters build maps predicting where fires will spread. 

Researchers are developing ways of using swarms of autonomous drones to assist firefighters on the ground. The Defense Science and Technology Laboratory in the U.K. and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory recently ran the Swarm and Search AI 2019 Fire Hack competition, looking for new algorithms and AI applications for planning and executing complex drone missions. 

Recent devastating blazes like 2018’s Camp Fire in California demonstrate the need for such resources.  

Targeted help 

When a disaster strikes, large amounts of information flow into control rooms and emergency call centers. Making sense of it is vital to prioritizing the response and to deploying resources and personnel correctly. 

AI can trawl through vast quantities of data in a very short time, spotting patterns that may not be apparent to people under stress. Capabilities include prioritizing emergency calls and analyzing social media to create a picture of events unfolding in real time. DigitalGlobe’s Open Data Program, which provides high-resolution satellite imagery for disaster response, was used in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai in 2019 to identify damaged roads, buildings and infrastructure from space. 

In September 2018, Microsoft announced the AI for Humanitarian Action program in collaboration with the United Nations. This $40 million, five-year Microsoft initiative harnesses the power of AI to help with disaster recovery and supports nonprofit and humanitarian organizations through financial grants, partnerships and technology investments, in addition to technical expertise. This work is across the areas of disaster response; refugees and displaced people; human rights; and the needs of children, and is part of Microsoft’s AI for Good suite, a growing $125 million commitment to using AI to help unlock solutions to some of society’s biggest challenges.  

For more on AI innovation, visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ai. And follow @MSFTIssues on Twitter.   

Zhidi

We’ve just shipped the official version of the SignalR Service SDK for ASP.NET support:

Azure SignalR Service is a fully managed Azure service for real-time messaging. It is a preferred way for scaling ASP.NET Core SignalR application. However, SignalR Service is based on SignalR for ASP.NET Core 2.0, which is not 100% compatible with ASP.NET SignalR. Some code changes and proper version of dependent libraries are needed to make ASP.NET SignalR application work with SignalR Service.

We have received many usage feedbacks from customers since we announced the preview support for ASP.NET, at Microsoft Ignite 2018. Today, we are excited to announce that we have released the generally available version 1.0.0 of ASP.NET support SDK for Azure SignalR Service!

This diagram shows the typical architecture to use Azure SignalR Service with application server either written in ASP.NET Core, or now, in ASP.NET.

For self-hosted SignalR application, the application server listens to and serves client connections directly. With SignalR Service, the application server will only respond to clients’ negotiate requests, and redirect clients to SignalR Service to establish the persistent client-server connections.

Using the ASP.NET support for Azure SignalR Service you will be able to:

• Continue to keep SignalR application using ASP.NET, but work with fully managed ASP.NET Core based SignalR Service.
• Change a few lines of SignalR API codes, to switch to use SignalR Service instead of self-hosted SignalR Hubs.
• Leverage Azure SignalR Service’s built-in features and tools to help operate the SignalR application, with guaranteed SLA.

To receive the full benefit from the new ASP.NET support feature, please download and upgrade your SDKs to the latest supported versions:

• .NET: 4.6.1+
• Microsoft.AspNet.SignalR.*: 2.4.1
• Microsoft.Azure.SignalR.AspNet: 1.0.0

Many factors, including non-technical ones, make the web application migrate from ASP.NET to ASP.NET Core difficult.

The ASP.NET support for Azure SignalR Service is to enable ASP.NET SignalR application developers to easily switch to use SignalR Service with minimal code change.

Some APIs and features are no longer supported:

• Automatic reconnects
• Forever Frame transport
• HubState
• PersistentConnection class
• GlobalHost object
• HubPipeline module
• Client side Internet Explorer support before Microsoft Internet Explorer 11

ASP.NET support is focus on compatibility, so not all ASP.NET Core SignalR new features are supported. To name a few: MessagePack, Streaming, etc., are only available for ASP.NET Core SignalR applications.

SignalR Service can be configured for different service mode: Classic/Default/Serverless. For ASP.NET support, the Serverless mode is not supported.

For a complete list of feature comparison between ASP.NET SignalR and ASP.NET Core SignalR, the proper version of SDKs to use in each case, and what are the recommended alternatives to use for features discontinued in ASP.NET Core SignalR, please refer to doc here.

We’d like to hear about your feedback and comments. You can reach the product team at the GitHub repo, or by email.

Zhidi Shang

Principal Program Manager, Azure SignalR Service

Follow Zhidi   

I’m technically not here as you read this, so this week’s updates is short and sweet again – sorry about that. I’ve been set on catching up on some overdue reviews this week, which is why so many have dropped this week. Not as many planned for next week but there’s still interesting games on the horizon worth exploring.

Next week it’s going to be a mixture of additional reviews, plus extra passes at Auto Chess and Harry Potter as those are still proving popular.

Meanwhile, in mobile gaming…

Out Now

Santorini Board Game (iOS & Android) – Full Review Coming Soon!

Despite its light-hearted aesthetic, Santorini offers a wonderfully pure form of strategic play where your moves are few, but the tactical depth is near endless. 2 -4 players are given workers to move around a grid-based board, where the only things you can do is move, and build. Your goal is to firstly build a tower up to three levels, and then get one of your workers on top of that tower. The thing is, you only get to do one move/build action per turn with one worker. Plus, you can ‘cap’ towers to stop your opponent getting to the top (and they can do the same to you).

It’s an excellent abstract strategy game that should fit really well on mobile. The Santorini app, by Roxley, features challenging AI, pass-and-play and online multiplayer, as well as tutorials, challenges and other goodies. If you own the physical game, it can also be used as a companion app and features the optional ‘God’ powers that spice up what is an otherwise simple game. We can’t wait to do the full review!

Updates

There’s actually quite a few updates worth highlight this week, so this section needs must be a bit breezier than usual.

• Legends of Andor (Review) has received a small update that improves the UI and adds an ‘undo’ button, amongst other things.
• Carrier Battles for Guadalcanal (Review) is one of the few decent iOS wargames our there right now, and it’s just received a new content drop. This update reworks all of the scenarios, looks at Fog of War and makes a lot of changes to the air game.
• Mini Metro (Review) is another favourite of ours, and its latest update adds a new city, as well as smoothing out some kinks with our areas of the game.
• Knights of the Card Table (Review) – this deck-building/roguelike now has a new challenge mode where each dungeon follows its own unique set of rules, allowing you to experiment with equipment load-outs.
• Codito’s version of Le Havre has just received an update, despite the company closing down a few years ago. The Big Hamlet expansion is now available as an IAP, and there was also a free update adding some additional gameplay options.

There’s also been an update to the official Steam Link app, and of course Star Traders: Frontiers has received yet another content drop. Phew!

Sales

Not much to really shout out about this week, although Egypt: Old Kingdom is on sale for the first time since it launched, at nearly half price.

Seen anything else you liked? Played any of the above? Let us know in the comments!

The team at Blizzard Entertainment published a blog post today in which company cofounder Frank Pearce lays out his intent to leave the company and “pass the torch to the next generation.”

This is significant because Pearce was the last Blizzard cofounder who hadn’t left; fellow cofounders Mike Morhaime and Allen Adham have both departed at this point, though Adham resigned in 2004 and returned in 2016, while Morhaime left just last year.

Alongside Pearce’s farewell message is a note from Blizzard president (and former World of Warcraft executive producer) J. Allen Brack thanking Pearce for his work and explaining that Pearce had stepped into an “advisory role to help with the transition” when Morhaime departed last fall.

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from video game industry ‘watcher’ Simon Carless (GDC, Gamasutra co-runner), rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend.

This week’s roundup includes a look at Thatgamecompany’s Sky, the rise of the professional dungeon master, and the far-ahead tech of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter on N64, as well as the latest on No Man’s Sky, Dead Cells, and lots more besides.

Another busy week – we just added six new members to the GDC ‘Core’ Advisory Board, including Sean Vanaman, M.E. Chung, and Elan Ruskin, and we opened up the call for submissions for our 2020 show too – tell your friends! And in the meantime, read these excellent links…

Until next time…
– Simon, curator.]

——————

Minecraft Earth’s closed beta: This augmented reality needs more augmenting (Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica – ARTICLE)
“After five days with the game’s closed beta (which launched seconds ago as a closed, invite-only beta in the Seattle area), I must report that the game’s early version is missing the series’ magic—and Mojang is going to need to put some more pixellated blocks into place before calling this one a victory.”

Designers Are Imagining Video Games Without Guns (Keith Stuart / OneZero / Medium – ARTICLE)
“But after years of playing games like these, I’ve started to ask myself: Would it be possible for any of these mainstream blockbusters to exist without guns? Have developers overlooked other ways to explore stories? Are there more interesting dynamics we could play with in games, designs that could encourage a different kind of feeling in players?”

The Design of Subnautica (Charlie Cleveland / GDC / YouTube – VIDEO)
“In this 2019 GDC session, Unknown Worlds’ Charlie Cleveland discusses the design of Subnautica and how it created feelings of exploration, discovery and the unknown.  [SIMON’S NOTE: also new from GDC on YouTube this week – this video on the making of Florence.]”

How Japanese RPGs Inspired A New Generation Of Fantasy Authors (Aidan Moher / Kotaku – ARTICLE)
“Scott Lynch’s experience growing up with Japanese console RPGs “absolutely” influenced his later writing, he said. “Most specifically, the grandeur and atmosphere the Final Fantasy games evoked through their blending of magic with technology, and via their use of Yoshitaka Amano’s art and Nobuo Uematsu’s music.””

The Rise of the Professional Dungeon Master (Mary Pilon / Bloomberg Businessweek – ARTICLE)
“On a recent Friday evening, Devon Chulick stood in the kitchen of his San Francisco apartment brewing potions. A dry-erase game board with a grid of black squares to assist in drawing maps was laid neatly across the coffee table in the living room, along with a dozen or so miniature elves, wizards, and drow rogues, which had been released from their Tupperware prisons.”

Pac-Man Ghost AI Explained (Retro Game Mechanics Explained / YouTube – VIDEO)
“Ever wondered how exactly each ghost follows Pac-Man around? It’s all explained right here.”

With ‘Sky,’ thatgamecompany’s Jenova Chen wants to fix what’s broken with games (Todd Martens / LA Times – ARTICLE)
“If one is going to make a game focused on love and caring, where advancement is helped by human collaboration at its most kind, you better believe Chen has the research — and the pitch — to prove his point. His Santa Monica-based company has taken risks — and a path counter to the rest of the business — to focus largely on themes of compassion in its titles.”

A Top 20 List of IF (Emily Short / Emily Short’s Interactive Storytelling – ARTICLE)
“This year, I’ve deliberately skewed my list towards the criterion of maturity: games that represent what IF has become as a medium, that benefit from thought and careful play, and that communicate something about the human condition that is truthful, important, and hard to convey.”

DF Retro – how N64’s Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was years ahead of its time (John Linneman / Eurogamer – ARTICLE & VIDEO)
“Bungie’s Halo or Rare’s GoldenEye are often thought of as the first games that truly delivered a technologically advanced, first-class FPS shooter to console platforms – but from my perspective, Iguana Entertainment’s Turok: Dinosaur Hunter for N64 may well have got there first.”

The psychological reasons certain games feel like coming home (Astrid Johnson / Polygon – ARTICLE)
“The Legend of Zelda series, as a whole, has always been effective in making me feel like I’ve returned home when I spend time in their worlds. The first time I noticed the phenomenon, which I’ve been taking to calling the “holiday immersion” effect for lack of a better term, was coming back up to the surface of the Great Sea after exploring the submerged Hyrule Castle in Wind Waker.”

Can We Make Talking as Much Fun as Shooting? (Game Maker’s Toolkit / YouTube – VIDEO)
“Certain RPGs make the tantalising promise that you can skip combat altogether, by talking your way past the bad guys. But how can we turn this into genuinely interesting gameplay?”

Losing yourself in virtual worlds can have good as well as negative effects (Jennifer Ouellette / Ars Technica – ARTICLE)
“Now a psychologist at Bath Spa University in England but still an avid gamer, Etchells specializes in understanding the behavioral effects—both positive and negative—of video games. He chose that focus after going on an alcohol-fueled pub rant as a graduate student, annoyed by a fear-mongering newspaper headline claiming that computer games cause dementia in children.”

Gardening games are blossoming in turbulent times (Lewis Gordon / The Verge – ARTICLE)
“The past few years have been host to a flurry of gardening video games, most of which foreground growth and cultivation over the industry’s more traditional subjects of conflict and challenge… Often these games emphasize the methodical processes of the IRL pastime over the explicit advancement of a narrative or the mastery of game systems.”

Why are so many old games coming back? We asked developers why they chase nostalgia (Brendan Caldwell / RockPaperShotgun – ARTICLE)
“Reviving forgotten entertainment relics is nothing new (hi, George Lucas) but the recent glut of resurrections has made me wonder: why are developers and publishers so keen to go back to old ground? Why do they want to chase this sense of nostalgia? So, I asked them.”

‘My son spent £3,160 in one game’ (Zoe Kleinman / BBC – ARTICLE)
“Last week we told the story of the family whose children emptied their parents’ bank account buying players in the video game Fifa. It generated a big debate about whether parental controls are sufficient, how much responsibility lies with mum and dad – and the ethics of encouraging young players to spend money within games and apps.”

Road To King of Iron Fist – Tekken 7 Documentary (Hold Back To Block / YouTube – VIDEO)
“In 2016, Bandai Namco put together a North American tour for Tekken 7 before its console release, bringing arcade boards to tournaments around the country to give players a chance to play the game before release and also win a spot in the King of Iron Fist finals in Tokyo, Japan. Now for the first time, watch the stories of those tournaments on Youtube!”

The Glorious, Profitable, Inescapable Art of Addiction (Jeff Vogel / The Bottom Feeder – ARTICLE)
“I can’t be the first person to notice that complaining about these games’ loot drop rates is like being mad that the bartender is watering down the drinks. Complaining your character’s numbers aren’t going up fast enough is the “My weed dealer sold me a bag of oregano!” for the new millennium.”

Publishing: The Good, the Bad, and the Necessary (Tanya Short / Kitfox Games / Medium – ARTICLE)
“Don’t let their successes blind you. Dig deep to find the lesser-known published titles in their catalog — the ones that didn’t do so great. Ask them (and yourself) why those ones performed so differently, and what they learned from the experience. Would you be OK if your game performed similarly?”

Looking At How Far No Man’s Sky Has Come (Blake Woog / Game Informer – ARTICLE)
“Early No Man’s Sky was barren. It was a collection of empty planets good for harvesting and little else. The first two updates, Foundation and Path Finder, started to turn these planets from desolate rocks into homes. The Foundation update added a major base-building component that has been built upon since 2016 to the point that it now allows for some incredible base-building creations from the community.”

How Dead Cells Cheated to Make the Game More Fun (Ars Technica / YouTube – VIDEO)
“Sébastien Bénard, lead designer at Motion Twin, goes behind the scenes of Dead Cells’ development. Sébastien explains the challenges they came across and how they made the game feel so good to play.”

‘Project Winter’ Is the Best Game About Betrayal This Year (Cameron Kunzelman / VICE – ARTICLE)
“This is the core conceit of Project Winter, a game of survivors and those who want to kill them in an arctic hellscape. Each game is made up of eight players: six survivors who have thirty minutes to find a way to escape and two traitors out to stop them by any means.”

——————

[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at tinyletter.com/vgdeepcuts – we crosspost to Gamasutra later, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to [email protected]. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra & an advisor to indie publisher No More Robots, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

Season 12 is now live and will take us right through the center of (northern hemisphere) Summer, which is the perfect excuse to stay inside and play Rock Band Rivals.

Rivals Mode – Themed Challenges from the Rock Band Catalog

Rivals Seasons are a set of eight themed Challenges played out week-to-week using portions of your existing song library. Players team up online, working together to promote their Crews and earn exclusive cosmetics for their band. For Season 12, we’re profiling the many tastes of the Harmonix staff. Each week a different person will craft a Challenge centered around their favorite songs in Rock Band’s expansive catalog. We’ve got folks from all over the company participating and it’s been really interesting to see what songs people pick for their week. It will be fun to see what weeks resonate most with players – there are bragging rights to be had!

Exclusive Rewards for your Avatar

For Season 12, your rewards will be colorful wings. As you climb the tiers, you’ll get increasingly expressive wings made from each tier’s material and gemstone. From Bronze crystals jutting out of your spine to body-sized Bloodstones floating in position, no one will be confused as to how great you were during Season 12. You’ll get the wings associated with every tier you were in during the Season, so the higher you climb, the more you earn. You’ve still got a bit of time to prep your Crew, so be sure you’re all set to start the Season off on the right foot.

Stay Connected

We also continue to poll our Companion App users, incorporating their feedback in everything from Season structure and quantity, to future rewards and even DLC releasing in Season 12! Don’t have the app yet? You can still download it to get in on the list – the app is completely free and links to your Xbox Gamertag to show account gameplay information. You can view weekly challenge data, see your activity feed, manage/moderate crews, and even engage in app-only features such as crew chat.  Thanks to everyone who’s participated in these surveys so far!

A new Season means new beginnings, and whether you’ve played Rivals before or not, it’s a great opportunity to jump in and see what the fuss is about. We’ll see you on the leaderboards in Season 12!

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Shadowbringers is Now Available on Steam!

Take part in the next saga of the critically acclaimed FINAL FANTASY® XIV Online with the next legendary expansion pack—SHADOWBRINGERS!

Explore breathtaking new environments, encounter exotic new races, master exciting new jobs, and fight alongside prominent characters with the new Trust system as you embark on a new journey as the Warrior of Darkness!

With over 16 million adventurers worldwide, join the next chapter and become what you must. Become the Warrior of Darkness!

As North American Launch Partner for the Overwatch League, the automaker looks forward to collaborating on behind-the-scenes content for league fans

IRVINE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Following a thrilling opening week for the Overwatch League that drew more than 10 million viewers worldwide, a major new brand-marketing partner has signed on to support the league during its inaugural season: multinational automotive manufacturer Toyota.

Toyota will be a North American Launch Partner for the Overwatch League, and is looking forward to future collaborations around bringing behind-the-scenes content to fans. The automaker plans to have additional broadcast integrations, as well as a vehicle presence at Blizzard Arena Los Angeles.

“Toyota is excited to be a launch partner of the Overwatch League,” said Steven Curtis, vice president, media & engagement marketing for Toyota Motor North America. “We love the passion of esports fans, and the goal of our partnership is to help take the Overwatch League and the fan experience to the next level.”

“We’re thrilled to welcome Toyota to the Overwatch League,” said Pete Vlastelica, president and CEO of Blizzard Entertainment’s MLG division. “When we were building the league, our desire was to create a premium experience for players and fans, and partners like Toyota are helping us do just that.”

The Overwatch League is further supported by sponsors HP® and Intel®, with players competing on cutting-edge gaming hardware including HP’s OMEN gaming PCs, powered by the latest Intel® Core™ i7 processors.

About the Overwatch League^™

The Overwatch League^™ is the first major global professional esports league with city-based teams across Asia, Europe, and North America. Overwatch® was created by globally acclaimed publisher Blizzard Entertainment (a division of Activision Blizzard—Nasdaq: ATVI), whose iconic franchises have helped lay the foundations and push the boundaries of professional esports over the last 15 years. The latest addition to Blizzard’s stable of twenty-one #1 games,^[1] Overwatch was built from the ground up for online competition, with memorable characters and fast-paced action designed for the most engaging gameplay and spectator experiences. To learn more about the Overwatch League, visit www.overwatchleague.com.

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in the U.S. and North America for 60 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands. During that time, Toyota has created a tremendous value chain as our teams have contributed to world-class design, engineering, and assembly of more than 33 million cars and trucks in North America, where we operate 14 manufacturing plants (10 in the U.S.) and directly employ more than 46,000 people (more than 36,000 in the U.S.). Our 1,800 North American dealerships (nearly 1,500 in the U.S.) sold almost 2.7 million cars and trucks (2.45 million in the U.S.) in 2016—and about 85 percent of all Toyota vehicles sold over the past 15 years are still on the road today.

© 2018 Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. OVERWATCH, OVERWATCH LEAGUE, BLIZZARD and BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT are trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. MAJOR LEAGUE GAMING is a trademark of Major League Gaming Corp.

[1] Sales and/or downloads, based on internal company records and reports from key distribution partners

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements: Information in this press release that involves Blizzard Entertainment’s expectations, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future, including statements about the sponsorship arrangements for Overwatch esports, are forward-looking statements that are not facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause Blizzard Entertainment’s actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements set forth in this release include unanticipated product delays and other factors identified in the risk factors sections of Activision Blizzard’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking statements in this release are based upon information available to Blizzard Entertainment and Activision Blizzard as of the date of this release, and neither Blizzard Entertainment nor Activision Blizzard assumes any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements believed to be true when made may ultimately prove to be incorrect. These statements are not guarantees of the future performance of Blizzard Entertainment or Activision Blizzard and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond its control and may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180118005540/en/

Overwatch League
Mark Van Lommel, 949-955-1380 x61147
MVanLommel@overwatchleague.com
or
Toyota Motor North America
Zachary Reed, 214-316-1128
zachary.reed@toyota.com

Source: Overwatch League

News Provided by Acquire Media

We’re now feeling confident enough in the stability and feature-completeness of 1.14 – The Village & Pillage Update – that we’ve decided to enter the pre-release phase. Whilst we know that there are still bugs to be solved and polish to be added, we feel that this version is now good enough that we can ask you all to please help us test and find any issues for a smooth release in a few weeks. Remember to report anything you find to our bug tracker, or give feedback on new features over to our feedback website. It helps us immensely!

A full summary of the content available in this snapshot can be found in the changelog on Minecraft.net.

• Fixed lots of bugs
• Some optimizations
• Inside optimize world screen there’s now an option to remove cached world data (e.g. height maps and light), so that it’s recomputed on the next load

• MC-134755 – All short mobs drown just below the surface of water
• MC-137451 – Mobs heads rotate super quickly when looking around
• MC-138979 – Scaffolding switches quickly between entity and block when placed on some non-solid blocks
• MC-139255 – Cave ambient sounds are not playing
• MC-140936 – The tall grass in the plains village structures doesn’t take the block it spawns on into consideration
• MC-142134 – Light sources spontaneously not working in some chunks
• MC-142228 – Skylight shines through blocks
• MC-142729 – Puffed puffer fishes with “NoAI” tag can shrink down
• MC-142768 – Mobs can suffocate below blocks, if the eye height isn’t inside the collision box
• MC-143112 – Duplicated files in village structure
• MC-143591 – Spiders and cave spiders fly-climb
• MC-143699 – Trader llamas won’t despawn
• MC-144798 – Barrels always try to set their “open” state to false
• MC-145031 – Crash while ticking barrel
• MC-145766 – Iron golems spawning at an alarming rate
• MC-146295 – Loom top texture is backwards
• MC-146538 – Eye position for riptiding player is incorrect
• MC-146800 – Villager can make the discount number of unstackable item more than 1
• MC-146860 – Trading sometimes takes the full price instead of the discounted price when player has the Hero of the Village effect
• MC-146919 – Drowned, fish and guardians are not spawning
• MC-147031 – When a zombie wakes up a villager, the bed tag is still on occupied (occupied: true)
• MC-147056 – Zombie villagers spawned with a zombie village move very fast
• MC-147207 – hs_pid_error appears for no reason in snapshots.
• MC-147227 – Shift-clicking an item out of the trading inventory instantly locks the trade
• MC-147240 – Villagers can trade Arrows of Luck
• MC-147268 – Villagers don’t run away from ravagers, pillagers, vindicators, evokers, zombies or husks
• MC-147270 – Player can still move at normal speed and sprint while sneaking in a 1.5 blocks tall space
• MC-147274 – Villager ‘Happy’ and ‘Angry’ particles not showing, even when particles are on ‘All’
• MC-147298 – Arrow facing down with 0 degrees on both x z (basically straight down) cannot be picked up and play a sound on loop
• MC-147305 – Player crouches with a delay
• MC-147363 – “Villager disagrees” sound is played twice when right clicking a villager without trades
• MC-147513 – Unable to focus anvil textfield by clicking
• MC-147529 – Background is not dimmed for book or lectern
• MC-147532 – Chunks stop loading after change view distance
• MC-147538 – Cannot drag any slider in “Video Settings” options
• MC-147560 – Mobs stop spawning over time if the render distance is less than 11
• MC-147607 – Command block text field isn’t focused when opening the GUI anymore
• MC-147642 – Narrator is toggled when typing in text fields
• MC-147681 – X-ray with door and slab

Hey everyone,

Like we did a few weeks ago on the Livestream, we’re going to continue to talk about how Destiny will continue to evolve this Fall and beyond. This update is about how we’re changing Eververse.

We’ve already made a number of changes to Eververse in Season of Opulence (we’ve redesigned the store, we’ve made Bright Engrams only include Year 1 gear—and have it bias heavily toward giving you items you haven’t unlocked in your Collections), and we’re going to make more changes to the economy, store, and armor in this fall’s patch.

Armor 

It stinks to go to the Eververse store and see an item that looks cool and then seeing that the item has bad perks on it. In fact, when we’re setting up the armor, we’d twist ourselves up in knots to make sure the Eververse armor sets didn’t have good perks. We did this because we want the best way to get sweet perks on your armor to be by playing the game, not shopping for enhanced Hand Cannon loaders at Tess. The root cause (dating all the way back to Destiny 1) is that Eververse armor has always had perks/gameplay capability as a part of the package.

We’re done with that. As of this September, all Eververse armor is being converted into Universal Ornaments. These Universal Ornaments can be applied to all of the Legendary armor sets we’re releasing this Fall. They override the look of your equipped gear while preserving the perks, mods, and stats of the original item.

Any Eververse Armor you have acquired in your Collections will have its Universal Ornaments automatically unlocked for use on new Legendary armor. For example, if the song in your heart is to have your Titan roll with the 2018 Tin Man-esque Festival of the Lost Helmet, you can put it on any of the new Legendary armor coming to the game this fall.

Work in progress build.

Evolving Bright Dust

Historically, the best way to earn Bright Dust in Destiny 2 has been to buy a bunch of Bright Engrams, shard everything from the engrams, build a giant bankroll of Bright Dust and then spend it when the Warlock Dire Ahamkara helmet shows up the Bright Dust row in the last week of the season. We’re going to change this.

This Fall we’re changing Bright Dust from a pay- and/or play-to-earn currency to a play-to-earn reward. We’re adding Bright Dust as a reward for completing Vanguard, Crucible, and Gambit bounties. We want all players to earn Dust for playing, not for spending money and destroying a bunch of items in their inventory. After you complete all your bounties for the week, there will be an additional avenue to keep grinding out Bright Dust.

It’s also been pretty uncool to go to the Collection screen and spend Bright Dust to get shaders or Ghost Shells or whatever. We’re going to fix that too. Beginning September 17, Eververse items in your Collections will cost Glimmer and Legendary Shards. If you want to keep pulling out that Exotic Sparrow that looks like a motorcycle until you get the good Sparrow perk (Instant Summon), you can do that with Legendary Shards and Glimmer.

Changes to Dismantling Eververse Items

Lastly, because we are changing the cost of pulling things out of the Collections, Eververse items will no longer dismantle into Bright Dust. This Fall, Eververse items will dismantle into Legendary Shards and Glimmer.

However, that means right now the absolute best thing you can do with all the Eververse items you don’t use regularly—armor, Sparrows, shaders, Ghost Shells, transmat effects—is dismantle them. Sitting on a pile of Midnight Talons or Metro Shift from your Year 1 stockpiles? Shard ’em for Dust.

That’s right! Everything must go—dismantle the extra stuff you have in your inventory, build up a huge amount of Bright Dust, and spend it on sweet stuff as it rolls through the Eververse store—because on September 17, everything changes.

TL;DR recap for Twitter:

On September 17, 2019: 

Before September 17, 2019:

Thanks and see you soon,

Luke Smith