Choose Your Class for Bless Unleashed, Coming Soon to Xbox One
Bless Unleashed is a free-to-play action MMORPG, coming to Xbox One this Summer. Your adventure begins with one very important question- “What class do you want to play?” Bless Unleashed will launch with five classic fantasy classes. Here’s the 411 on each class to help you take that first step on your road to adventure.
Crusader
The Crusader is our take on the classic medieval knight. If your idea of bringing the pain includes bashing your shield into your enemies face and slashing them to ribbons with your sword while still protecting your friends, you may want to play a Crusader.
When you’re playing a Crusader you can block attacks with your shield to greatly reduce the amount of damage you receive from an attack. However, to avoid any damage, you must dodge attacks and not get hit. Don’t rely too heavily on your shield, make sure you learn to time your attacks and combos to ensure you have time to dodge out of the way of an attack and get back to damaging your enemies as soon as possible to maintain aggro.
Priest
This is not your average RPG Priest. Priests in Bless Unleashed are not just heal bots to keep a tank up. No, our Priest’s are bad-ass holy warriors. They can help protect your party, and they have some of the best support abilities in the game. They also possess the ability to righteously beat down pretty much anything that gets in your way.
Maximising your usefulness as a Priest is all about timing. There’s no point to sanctifying the ground around your allies to raise their DPS if you need to abandon that ground and the heal immediately. Learning when, where, and communicating with your team about the use of your support abilities is the real magic.
Berserker
If you haven’t met a problem that can’t be solved with the proper application of a gigantic two-handed axe, this is the class for you. The wide arcing attacks of the Berserker offer some of the Area of Effect and Control abilities in Bless Unleashed, as well as great DPS.
Positioning is key for the Berserker. Running headlong into combat and attacking without care will only lead to an early grave. Make sure to watch for opponent attacks and move out of the way, ideally into a spot where you can keep your combos going for longer.
Mage
If you frequently find yourself wondering where the boom is, you should consider playing a Mage. As a mage, your arcane abilities allow you to deal massive damage to enemies. Whether you make use of raw magic, or elemental fire and ice, every enemy will fall before you with an earth-shattering kaboom.
For maximum kaboom, you can always call down a meteor to kill those annoying enemies. But sometimes, I really enjoy just mowing through enemies with my favorite combo, “X, X, X, Y, B” to weaken my foes with increasingly powerful barrage of raw arcane power before slowing them down with a sheet of ice, and sending in a giant slow moving comet to finish off anything left in my way.
Ranger
If magic isn’t your thing, but you still prefer ranged combat to being up close and personal, take a look at The Ranger. Your bow and arrow allow you to engage the enemy from afar, riddling them with arrows while they work to get close to you. This doesn’t mean you’re helpless in a close up fight. You still possess the ability to deal damage up close before retreating for another barrage of arrows.
As a Ranger, you want to start off fights with your aimed shot ability, taking a moment to unleash one devastating ranged attack before your enemy begins to close on you. Follow this up with your X combo which takes a step back every couple of shots to give you more time to do maximum damage. If your opponent gets too close, switch to your Y combo for a handy knock back before rolling away and unloading more arrows.
In the end, any class will be a blast Bless Unleashed. Our game is designed so that the “Holy Trinity” of MMO games isn’t a requirement. So no matter what class you play, you’ll always be able to find room in a group for that dungeon you want to run through, and won’t have to sit in a queue for hours. Bless Unleashed will be launching later this year and you can play it first on Xbox One.
A tactical, turn-based RPG from the makers of Legend of Grimrock games. Every action, every turn counts as you control your party of heroes through challenging, handcrafted missions in the ancient, mist-clad Menhir Forest.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 05-18-2019, 06:35 AM - Forum: Windows
- No Replies
Now live: Microsoft Business Applications Summit 2019 session catalog
The full session catalog for the Microsoft Business Applications Summit is now available! Explore more than 150 expert-led sessions and workshops (plus 16 pre-days!) packed into this two-day conference, taking place in Atlanta, Georgia June 10 – 11, 2019. Registration is still open, so secure your spot today.
Microsoft Business Applications Summit is your team’s opportunity to collaborate and learn alongside a vibrant community of power users, analysts, technical architects, developers, and more. Unleash your organization’s potential by learning how to break down data silos to connect customers, products, people, and operations. Meet the engineers, hang out with our inspiring community, and explore the latest innovations.
150+ ways to ramp up business-transforming skills
The session catalog is packed with hints and hacks to ramp up your skills and transform your business. Learn how to innovate at every level with Dynamics 365’s modular, multi-channel applications that work seamlessly with your existing systems. Uncover new capabilities, expand your know-how with the features you already use, and solve common challenges with guidance from the experts and engineers behind the tools you use every day. Plus, learn about the latest trends and product roadmaps before anyone else.
Here’s a sample of what’s in store this year, and be sure to check the session catalog for the full rundown and latest updates:
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Service: Built for customer outcomes Get a look at the trends, strategies, and vision for how Dynamics 365 for Customer Service leverages all aspects of technology to drive excellent customer service – from channel-less communications to AI, productivity to insights, and more.
Special guest keynote with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, aka the “Mayor of the Internet.”
Also just announced, Alexis Ohanian will deliver our special guest keynote! Dubbed the “Mayor of the Internet” by Forbes, Ohanian co-founded Reddit in 2005. Since then, the site has grown into one of the Internet’s most powerful community gathering spaces. It’s currently the 6th largest website in the world.
Ohanian has invested in and advised more than 200 tech startups, was a partner at Y Combinator, and co-founded Initialized Capital, an early stage venture capital firm, where he now serves as managing partner. He also created and hosted two seasons of Small Empires, a series profiling tech startups and their communities. Named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list two years in a row, Ohanian is the bestselling author of Without Their Permission, a guidebook for harnessing the power of the Internet for good.
You won’t want to miss this visionary keynote, sure to inspire you to take your organization to the next level with innovative new solutions.
All this, plus our vibrant community – register for the Microsoft Business Applications Summit today
We’re bringing together an incredible community of power users, analysts, solution architects, developers, and more – and you’ll have plenty of opportunities to connect and collaborate. Browse the session catalog and start planning your best conference. We hope you’ll join us for 2+ days of total immersion to drive better data, stronger solutions, and bigger transformation.
Doing something a little different today, simply because a piece of news dropped we can’t really ignore (and because reasons I can’t really write this up separately). I have dabbled with doing upcoming releases and similar such things in Weekender, but it’s not been consistent so far.
Apologise for the rather lack-lustre week again – we’re on track to have some decent reviews and goodies for you next week though, so hopefully that’ll make up for it.
Meanwhile, in the world of mobile gamining…
New Announcements
Microsoft just announced their own take on Pokemon GO in the form of Minecraft Earth. This AR mobile game will allow you to drop your Minecraft creations into the real world for everyone to see. It’s going to be stand-alone experience, meaning you will need to build everything within the app itself, using resources you source from in-game nodes in much the same way you visit Pokestops.
There’s also reference to something called ‘Adventures’, which are quick scenarios where you can interact with Minecraft creatures or enemies, which can be done solo or with friends. Not much else to say at this point, other than to leave you with a promotional trailer (I feel like we’ve been her before-ED).
Well now, isn’t THIS is a surprise. It’s been a year since Apple blocked Valve’s attempt to release their SteamLink app on the app store, citing “business conflicts”. Us Android users have been sitting here smugly enjoying our ability to stream Steam to our phones… maybe. I don’t know I haven’t actually used it yet. Been on my to-do list…
Anyway, our smugness is now at an end because Steam Link has finally appeared on the App store. I’m not sure what’s prompted this change of heart, or whether there’s any difference between the version, but it might be high time we look at this probably now that all mobile gamers can make use of it.
Nomad Games have released a new stand-alone Talisman experience. This new adaptation focuses on the solo experience and uses the completed Revisied 4th Edition Rules. It features 20 quests spread across 4 campaigns, with over 100 challenges and a new interactive tutorial. There are twelve characters you can control, and it seems like you can play as both good and bad.
Please note that at the time of writing, a bug on the App Store is preventing the iOS version from showing up when you try to search for the game. Nomad and Asmodee are working on a solution but it seems the problem is on Apple’s end.
Origins isn’t the only thing Nomad have been working on – the Ancient Beats DLC is also now available for Talisman: Digital Edition.
Please note that the same issues that’s effecting Origins on iOS is also affecting Ancient Beats on the app store.
Sales
There’s quite a few sales this week that attracted our attention:
On iOS, Overhaul Games have discounted their entire catalogue down to $1.99, which includes games like Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale and more (not on Android, sadly).
To celebrate the release of Origins and a new DLC, Nomad has discounted Talisman: Digital Edition on iOS & Android.
Kingdom: New Lands Is also discounted on iOS & Android.
Sentinels of the Multiverse was given a minor update at the start of the week, and is now discounted on iOS & Android.
And last but certainly not least, iOS readers can pick up Jade Empire for $2.99.
Seen anything else you liked? Played any of the above? Let us know in the comments!
My Time At Portia Switch Update Improves Performance And Adds New Content
When My Time at Portia was first released on the Switch, the loading times were incredibly painful to endure. The game took multiple minutes to boot up, load a file and enter the game world. Exiting and entering houses was even a hassle. Fortunately, Team 17 and its developer Pathea Games have been working around the clock to improve the performance of the Switch version.
While the previous update sped up the load times and overall performance, the game still struggles and is a tad sluggish at times. In the hope of making the overall experience a little more enjoyable, a new update has now been released. It includes a performance improvement for input lag and sturring, a fix for the “infinite loading” issue and various bug and crash fixes.
It’s not just a bandaid fix, either. There’s also new story content and side quests to check out. More in-game features have been added as well, including birthdays, family features, new clothing, new character customisation and new ruins to mine.
You can view the long list of patch notes over on the official game page.
Do you own this game on the Switch? How are you finding this latest update? Tell us below.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 05-18-2019, 12:32 AM - Forum: Windows
- No Replies
Now live: Microsoft Business Applications Summit 2019 session catalog
The full session catalog for the Microsoft Business Applications Summit is now available! Explore more than 150 expert-led sessions and workshops (plus 16 pre-days!) packed into this two-day conference, taking place in Atlanta, Georgia June 10 – 11, 2019. Registration is still open, so secure your spot today.
Microsoft Business Applications Summit is your team’s opportunity to collaborate and learn alongside a vibrant community of power users, analysts, technical architects, developers, and more. Unleash your organization’s potential by learning how to break down data silos to connect customers, products, people, and operations. Meet the engineers, hang out with our inspiring community, and explore the latest innovations.
150+ ways to ramp up business-transforming skills
The session catalog is packed with hints and hacks to ramp up your skills and transform your business. Learn how to innovate at every level with Dynamics 365’s modular, multi-channel applications that work seamlessly with your existing systems. Uncover new capabilities, expand your know-how with the features you already use, and solve common challenges with guidance from the experts and engineers behind the tools you use every day. Plus, learn about the latest trends and product roadmaps before anyone else.
Here’s a sample of what’s in store this year, and be sure to check the session catalog for the full rundown and latest updates:
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Service: Built for customer outcomes Get a look at the trends, strategies, and vision for how Dynamics 365 for Customer Service leverages all aspects of technology to drive excellent customer service – from channel-less communications to AI, productivity to insights, and more.
Special guest keynote with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, aka the “Mayor of the Internet.”
Also just announced, Alexis Ohanian will deliver our special guest keynote! Dubbed the “Mayor of the Internet” by Forbes, Ohanian co-founded Reddit in 2005. Since then, the site has grown into one of the Internet’s most powerful community gathering spaces. It’s currently the 6th largest website in the world.
Ohanian has invested in and advised more than 200 tech startups, was a partner at Y Combinator, and co-founded Initialized Capital, an early stage venture capital firm, where he now serves as managing partner. He also created and hosted two seasons of Small Empires, a series profiling tech startups and their communities. Named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list two years in a row, Ohanian is the bestselling author of Without Their Permission, a guidebook for harnessing the power of the Internet for good.
You won’t want to miss this visionary keynote, sure to inspire you to take your organization to the next level with innovative new solutions.
All this, plus our vibrant community – register for the Microsoft Business Applications Summit today
We’re bringing together an incredible community of power users, analysts, solution architects, developers, and more – and you’ll have plenty of opportunities to connect and collaborate. Browse the session catalog and start planning your best conference. We hope you’ll join us for 2+ days of total immersion to drive better data, stronger solutions, and bigger transformation.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 05-18-2019, 12:32 AM - Forum: Windows
- No Replies
Building responsible and trustworthy conversational AI
From financial robo-advisors to virtual health assistants, enterprises across every industry are leveraging virtual assistants to create outstanding customer experiences and help employees maximize their time. As artificial intelligence technology continues to advance, virtual assistants will handle more and more mundane and repetitive tasks, freeing people to devote more time and energy to more productive and creative endeavors.
But like any technology, conversational AI can pose a significant risk when it’s developed and deployed improperly or irresponsibly, especially when it’s used to help people navigate information related to employment, finances, physical health, and mental well-being. For enterprises and society to realize the full potential of conversational AI, we believe bots need to be designed to act responsibly and earn user trust.
Last year, to help businesses meet this challenge, we shared 10 guidelines for building responsible conversational AI. Today, we’d like to illustrate how we’ve applied these guidelines in our own organization and share new resources that can help developers in any industry do the same.
Responsible bot guidelines
In November 2018, Lili Cheng, corporate vice president of Microsoft AI and Research, announced guidelines designed to help organizations develop bots that build trust in their services and their brands. We created these bot guidelines based on our own experiences, our research on responsible AI and by listening to our customers and partners. The guidelines are just that — guidelines. They represent the things that we found useful to think about from the very beginning of the design process. They encourage companies and organizations to think about how their bot will interact with people and how to mitigate potential risks. Ultimately, the guidelines are all about trust, because if people don’t trust the technology, they aren’t going to use it.
Designing bots with these guidelines in mind
The bot guidelines have already started to play a central role in our own internal development processes. For example, our marketing team leveraged the guidelines while creating an AI-based lead qualification assistant that emails potential customers to determine their interest in Microsoft products and solutions. The assistant uses natural language processing to interact with customers, ensuring they receive the information they need or are directed to the Microsoft employee who can best help them. To provide a useful example, we’ve highlighted the ways in which our marketing team has approached three of the guidelines below.
Articulate the purpose of your bot and take special care if your bot will support consequential use cases.
Since the assistant would be customer-facing, the marketing team recognized the importance of completely thinking through every aspect of how the bot would work. Before building the lead qualification assistant, they created a vision and scope document that outlined the bot’s expected tasks, technical considerations, expected benefits and end goals in terms of business performance. By outlining these details early in the design process, the team was able to focus on developing and refining only necessary capabilities and deploy the bot sooner. Creating this document also helped them identify and design for edge cases that the bot was likely to encounter and establish a set of effective reliability metrics.
Ensure a seamless hand-off to a person where the person-bot exchange leads to interactions that exceed the bot’s competence.
While considering these edge use cases, the marketing team identified a couple of scenarios in which a handoff to a person would be required. First, if the assistant can’t determine the customer’s intent (for example, the response is too complex or lengthy), then the assistant will flag the conversation for a person. The person can then direct the assistant to the next best course of action or respond directly to the customer. The person also can use key phrases from the conversation to train the assistant to respond to similar situations in the future.
Secondly, the customer may ask something that the assistant doesn’t have pre-programmed. For example, a student may request information about our products and solutions but not be interested in making a purchase. The assistant would flag the conversation instead of forwarding it to sales. A person can then reply through the assistant to help the student learn more.
Ensure your bot is reliable
To help ensure the bot is performing as designed, the marketing team reviews a set of reliability metrics (such as the accuracy of determining intent or conversation bounce rate) through a regularly updated dashboard. As the team updates and improves the bot, it can closely analyze the impact of each change on the bot’s reliability and make adjustments as necessary.
Helping developers put the guidelines into practice
We have taken lessons learned from experiences like this one and important work from our industry-leading researchers to create actionable and comprehensive learning resources for developers.
As part of our free, online AI School, our Conversational AI learning path enables developers to start building sophisticated conversational AI agents using services such as natural language understanding or speech translation. We have recently added another module, Responsible Conversational AI, to this learning path. It covers how developers can design deeply intelligent bots and also ensure they are built in a responsible and trustworthy manner. In this learning path, developers can explore topics such as bot reliability, accessibility, security and consequential use cases and learn how to mitigate concerns that often arise with conversational AI. We have also created a Conversational AI lab in which a sample bot guides developers through a responsible conversational AI experience and explains its behavior at each point of the experience.
You can also go to our new AI Business School to learn more about how Microsoft has integrated AI throughout our business and how your organization can do the same.
By Roger Fingas Friday, May 17, 2019, 01:43 pm PT (04:43 pm ET)
In the next few weeks Spotify will begin a U.S. test of its first hardware device, an auto accessory offering hands-free music control.
Dubbed the Car Thing, the device is powered by a 12-volt outlet and links to both a smartphone and car over Bluetooth. A small circular screen shows what’s playing, while buttons offer access to preset playlists.
By saying, “Hey Spotify,” people can make Siri- or Alexa-style requests, such as “play ‘A Flaming Ordeal’ by Raison d’etre” or “shuffle my ‘Bedtime for Bonzo’ playlist.”
Spotify is only reaching out to a select group of people for testing, and the company says it’s interested primarily in gauging in-car music and podcast habits. Spotify is concentrating on being “the world’s number one audio platform — not on creating hardware,” it wrote in a blog post.
An anonymous source for the The Verge backed this statement, saying there are no intentions to launch the Car Thing as-is, or even to the general public. Nevertheless the company has trademarked “Car Thing,” “Voice Thing” and “Home Thing,” laying the groundwork for potential commercial products.
Hardware like the Car Thing could get around a key limitation on iPhone, which is Apple’s control over voice commands. While people can ask Siri to play songs if they have an Apple Music subscription, they can’t do the same if they have Spotify Premium or any other on-demand third-party service.
Team Sonic Racing combines the best elements of arcade and fast and fast-paced competitive style racing as you face-off with friends in off with friends in intense multiplayer racing. Race together and work as a team by sharing power-ups and speed boosts. Take control of your racing style -- Choose from 3 distinct character types and unlock game changing vehicle customisation options to suit your racing style. Speed up. Gear Up -- Team Racing at Sonic Speed!
PS4 Shooter Removes Mandatory VR Requirement Through Update
PS4 first-person shooter The Persistence will receive a free update that removes the necessity to play the game in VR. Dubbed "the Complete Edition," The Persistence will make the jump from the PlayStation VR to "flat screen TVs."
Firesprite's game director Stuart Tilley took to the PlayStation Blog to make the announcement. "The Complete Edition is going to be the next free update for everyone that already owns the game," Tilley wrote. "And for the first time ever, this update will make The Persistence playable on what we now fondly call 'flat screen TVs.'" Tilley also discussed a few additional enhancements launching alongside The Persistence: Complete Edition.
In the graphics department, The Persistence: Complete Edition will "deliver 4K at 60 frames per second on the PS4 Pro, and 1080p at 60 frames per second on PS4." Lighting and particle effects will also be improved and will include "entirely new technical visual effects such as Motion Blur and Chromatic Aberration."
Since The Persistence: Complete Edition can be played without the PSVR, camera animations had to get retooled. According to Tilley, the game's camera will now feature "subtle head movement when moving, and transitions between different poses--such as crouching and standing--are now animated to add a greater sense of situational awareness."
Going from controlling in PSVR to controlling on a PS4 controller can be an awkward transition for some, but Tilley and the Firesprite team is looking to address any of these concerns in this free update. "There is also a brand-new way to interact with objects and collect pick-ups." Some weapons, like the Gravity Hook, will have "new ways to fire them when you are playing on your TV."
Lastly, along with graphical and camera adjustments, the game's UI will get "updated to make them super intuitive for flat screen displays." There's no word on when The Persistence: Complete Edition will launch, but Tilley did confirm that the "free update is getting close to being complete." The Persistence is out now on PS4.
