Pokemon Go Gengar Day Coming This Weekend With Shiny Gengar
Ghost Pokemon have been a common sight in Pokemon Go this past week thanks to the recent Halloween 2018 festivities, and soon one will be the star of its very own special event. Niantic has announced it is hosting a Gengar Day on Saturday, November 3, bringing the Shadow Pokemon to Raid Battles for a limited time.
Like Pokemon Go's monthly Community Days, Gengar Day will be a brief event, only running for three hours. During that window of time, the Shadow Pokemon will appear as a Raid Battle at Gyms. These require a Raid Pass to join, but you'll be able to get five of them for free from a nearby Gym to help you participate.
Not only will Gengar spawn frequently at Gyms during the event, you'll also have a chance of coming across a Shiny one. You may not initially be able to tell it's a Shiny at first glance, however; unlike most other Pokemon, Gengar's Shiny variant is only subtly different from its standard form. It's still worth getting one, though, particularly if you plan on picking up Let's Go Pikachu or Let's Go Eevee for Nintendo Switch when they launch next month.
Shiny Mega Gengar artwork for Pokemon X/Y
Any Gen 1 Pokemon you catch in Pokemon Go can be transferred to the Switch titles, where you'll then be able to recapture them at a new facility called the Go Park. If you do manage to find and get a Shiny Gengar during the upcoming Gengar Day event, you'll want to bring it over to Let's Go; Gengar is one of the few Pokemon capable of Mega Evolving, and Shiny Mega Gengar (pictured above) is one of the coolest-looking Pokemon in the games. You can find the hours for each region's Gengar Day event below.
Pokemon Go's Halloween event is scheduled to end on November 1. It introduced a handful of new Ghost and Dark Pokemon to the game, along with the Gen 4 Legendary Pokemon Giratina, which will appear in Raid Battles until November 20. You'll also be able to encounter another Gen 4 Ghost Pokemon, Spiritomb, by completing a new Special Research questline.
Meanwhile, Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee launch for Nintendo Switch on November 16. As previously mentioned, players can transfer monster from Go to Let's Go, and doing so is the key to getting the new Mythical Pokemon Meltan, which we recently learned is able to evolve into a Pokemon called Melmetal. You can read more about the games in our hands-on impressions of Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee.
Video: How devs can find the right branching narrative structure
For RPGs, choice, consequence and replayability are viewed as crucial aspects of the genre. How can developers provide players with a satisfying experience without tripling or quadrupling their workload?
In this 2016 GDC talk, academic Jay Taylor-Laird explains how to more effectively use a story map as a creative and analytical tool when making narrative games.
Taylor-Laird compares three common branching structures, discussing the positives and negatives from both story and production perspectives.
He explains why the repeating diamond narrative or parallel paths structure is most successful in providing a satisfying branching experience, without the headache of a traditional branching narrative.
In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.
Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.
Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas.
I know for certain I’ve written this before, but the Xbox Insider Team is committed to bringing your ideas and feedback to life. The Xbox Ideas website is one of the most recent methods for gathering your insight and ideas for brand new features or important iterations on existing features. We’ve seen a lot of great requests here, but we’re always looking for more. In fact, we’ve even got a quick message from Jiunwei, an Engineering Lead for Game Pass, who wants to hear from you on how to grow Xbox Game Pass on console and mobile:
“The Game Pass team is always eager to hear from our subscribers and get their ideas on how we can make Game Pass even better! The Xbox Idea Drive has been very useful in giving us ideas on what to work on next. It also helps validate many of the things we’re already working on! So, when we announce the ‘next big thing,’ we’ll have confidence that our customers are going to be genuinely excited for it!” – Jiunwei, Xbox Game Pass Engineering Lead
If you have some time this week, why not check out the Xbox Game Pass Idea Drive? Jiunwei and the Xbox Game Pass team are keeping an eye on the forum (and our subreddit!) so let them know how they can continue improving upon Xbox Game Pass!
More Fighters Are Being Added To The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate amiibo Line
@Knuckles-Fajita Looks like you were right about the reprints. Still blows my mind. Toys R Us is gone and Target doesn’t even have a section for NFC toys anymore, Starlink was buried with the games. Guess Gamestop and Walmart will be overflowing.
Piranaha Plant could potentially be the best ever selling amiibo. If they make enough, which we know they never do.
King K. Rool looks big and expensive, but it works for him.
Did we really need another freakin Link? That’s 12 I think. 12 different poses of Link, not counting Wolf Link b/c thats’ Midna on a wolf. Kind of defeats the whole “buy 1 toy to play anywhere” amiibo logic. Twelve. That’s more than Mario, and he got gold, silver and married.
Here’s the really important question of the day – anybody know the answer – will Switch Smash overwrite Wii U Smash save data? Also, will our Wii U Smash amiibo data be read, a level 50 amiibo in Smash 4 is a level 50 amiibo in SSBU, or do they all start from zero?
Hopefully it’s a MUCH better progression system. Every amiibo we have the kids leveled up to 50 in 4 hours. Should be at least be 20 or 30 hours for 50 levels, it was so fast it was nearly pointless.
Maybe I could get a good price for my AC:aF Isabelle on eBay from some impatient player. Hardly used.
Grim Fandango Appears Out Of Nowhere On The European Switch eShop
Amid all the Smash Bros. excitement, Lucasarts’ seminal point-and-click adventure Grim Fandango has gone live on the European Switch eShop, seemingly without warning.
The game – which is based on the recently remastered version – wasn’t included in today’s download update, but there you go. It’s live.
Grim Fandango is also available in other PAL regions, such as Australia. Let us know if you’ve downloaded it.
– Fixed a longstanding bug that caused units to attack more slowly than expected at certain attack speeds. – Fixing a bug that caused Morphling to not gain stats when leveling up while morphed. – Fixed a bug that allowed the Silence from Riki’s Smoke Screen to be applied to units with Spell Immunity. – Fixed a bug that caused Monkey King to become disabled when Feared during Primal Spring channeling. – Fixed post-game scoreboard text not clipping correctly with long strings.
It’s a very spooky day today, zombies everywhere, bats flapping around… It must be october 31st, Halloween! Man, can you imagine if it were also friday the 13th? That’d be truly scary. Here at Mojang, we celebrate halloween in style: with snapshots! And this weeks snapshot is another doozy! New cats! New blocks! Lots of new blocks! Keeping in the spooky theme of the day, though, we’ve not added any new functionality to the new blocks contained within this snapshot. How fiendish of the developers! What could they possibly be for? We may never find out… At least not today.
A full summary of the content available in this snapshot can be found in the changelog on Minecraft.net, the following is a short summary:
Split cats and ocelots to their own creatures and updated cats with new features!
Added lots of new blocks!
You can now right click on signs with dyes to change the text color
Lots of performance improvements, especially to client stuttering!
Added “Programmer Art” in the resource pack menu: it’s the old textures, easy to use!
CAT AND OCELOT SPLIT
Stray cats can be tamed
Tamed cats can give lovely (or less lovely) morning gifts to their owners
Ocelots can’t be tamed, but they might start trusting you if you feed them with fish
Phantoms are terribly scared of cats – how convenient!
Cat collars can now be dyed
Added several new cat skins!
NEW BLOCKS
Even more! Can you believe it?!
All of these blocks currently have no functionality and are only available in the creative inventory. This will change really soon, we just wanted to get the actual blocks themselves out there as soon as we could! They might also change visually, too!
Added Barrel
Added Smoker
Added Blast Furnace
Added Cartography Table
Added Fletching Table
Added Grindstone
Added Lectern
Added Smithing Table
Added Stonecutter
Added Bell
To get snapshots, open your launcher and go to the “launch options” tab. Check the box saying “Enable snapshots” and save. To switch between the snapshot and normal version, you can find a new dropdown menu next to the “Play” button. Back up your world first or run the game on in a different folder (In the “launch options” page).
Please report any and all bugs you find in Minecraft to bugs.mojang.com.
Snapshots can corrupt your world, please backup and/or run them in a different folder from your main worlds.
Share your thoughts on how 1.14 is shaping up in the comments below!
As trick-or-treaters take stock of their sweet loot in real life, our own Festival of the Lost is entering its final stage. If you have yet to earn the mask that has eluded you, or still need to get your 600 Power Horror Story, you have until Tuesday, November 6. To close out the festivities, Amanda has a final quest. Over the next three weeks, she will unleash you in pursuit of those who killed Master Ives, the less-hated of the Cryptarchs. Each week offers up a new step in the quest, along with a powerful reward.
Happy hunting.
Getting Granular with Masterwork Armor
There have been some questions on how damage resistance works when Masterworking armor. In an effort to better explain some mechanics in the game where tooltips fall short, we are going to dive into some specifics. To explain the maths that goes into protecting your Guardian from incoming Arc barrages, Sandbox Tester Ryan Hammond will approach the chalkboard.
Ryan: Hello everyone. Here is a brief rundown on how Masterworking your armor increases your damage resistance from both all incoming elemental damage from combatants and all damage during your Super.
Masterwork Armor Breakdown:
Three families of Masterwork perks: Arc, Solar, and Void
Each family of perks has five tiers
Each Legendary armor item has a Masterwork perk, randomly assigned, allowing each player to potentially build up 25 cumulative tiers of Masterworks for a given damage type
Each tier bestows the following effects:
+1% damage resistance against any combatant attack carrying the specified damage type (not player attacks)
+1% damage resistance against any attack while the Guardian is in Super
Super damage resistance stacks regardless of family disparity; for example, if a player has tier 12 Arc and tier 3 Void, they have a cumulative additional 15% damage resistance while in Super, but only 12% damage resistance vs. Arc combatant damage and 3% vs. Void combatant damage
The in-Super damage resistance stacks multiplicatively with the innate damage resistance of a Super
Keep in mind that while your Masterwork Super damage resistance stacks with the base damage resistance of your Supers, you will never be 100% invulnerable to attacks. Lastly, differences in power levels between the Guardian and combatants, no matter how minor it may seem, play a large role in determining incoming damage, with Damage Resistances modifying that damage further. I hope this helps explain a little better what is going on under the hood.
When we see you asking the unanswered questions, we’ll continue to use this space to seek out the answers from the people who know the facts.
Unmasking the Winners
Yesterday, the streets in our town were crowded with people on the prowl, dressed as their inner heroes or villains. On the internet, we saw the same thing. The Festival of the Lost Costume Contest was a parade of passion and creativity. Here is a recap of the winners who paraded past the followers of our official Twitter account. Each winner will receive the special emblem that we reserve for those with an artistic eye.
With the weekly reset, we launched a new Refer-a-Friend program. It’s a great way to earn some new teammates and some fresh loot at the same time. The mission is simple: Introduce your friends to Forsaken and show them the ropes of the world where you’ve become the legend. You’ll earn some cool rewards along the way. Here is a look at what two Guardians are capable of when they work together.
For more information on how to refer your friends, visit this helpful resource. If you need more assistance with making the magic happen, your other friends on our Player Support team are standing by to assist you.
How Can We Help?
Something awry? Player Support is on the case. This is their report.
The Lost Cryptarch
We have observed reports from players who were unable to receive the Lost Cryptarch quest because their Pursuits inventory was full at the time they accepted the quest from Amanda Holliday.
Players who have not yet picked up this quest should ensure they have an open slot in their Pursuits inventory prior to speaking with Amanda Holliday. For players who have already been affected and are unable to begin this quest, we are pursuing a hotfix to resolve this issue.
Refer-a-Friend
As mentioned above, we launched Refer-a-Friend for Destiny 2: Forsaken. Players who previously played Destiny 2: Forsaken can now invite non-Forsaken players for to unlock Refer-a-Friend-themed rewards.
To participate in Refer-a-Friend, players must:
Own base Destiny 2 and Destiny 2: Forsaken on the participating platform account (PS4, Xbox One, Battle.net)
Have an applicable platform membership (PS+, Xbox Live) to join fireteams and participate in matchmade activities
Additionally, effective immediately, all players who purchase Destiny 2: Forsaken between October 16 and November 6 have an extended referral period to be invited as new players. After November 6, only players who have purchased and played Destiny 2: Forsaken for fewer than seven days may be invited as a new player referee.
Destiny 2: Forsaken Known Issues
In addition to the items listed above, Destiny Player Support is tracking the latest issues reported by players on the #Help forum. Provided below is a brief overview of the latest known issues in Destiny 2: Forsaken.
Harbinger’s Echo: We are investigating an issue where the Harbinger’s Echo Exotic Sparrow is not unlocking for some eligible players.
Hawthorne’s Weekly Challenge: Players who do not redeem their engram for Hawthorne’s Weekly Clan reward until after the following weekly reset will not be able to earn another engram for that week. Players will have to wait until the following weekly reset to get out of this state.
Tree of Probabilities: We are investigating an issue with point thresholds for the Tree of Probabilities strike.
Warden’s Law and Fourth Time’s the Charm: We are investigating an issue with the Fourth Time’s the Charm perk for the Warden’s Law not activating correctly.
Xbox One X Crashes: We are investigating an issue Xbox One X players may encounter a crash while in the Haunted Forest, receiving an “insufficient ventilation” error. Players who encounter this issue should play the Firewalled version of the Haunted Forest which disables matchmaking.
150 RPM Scout Rifles: We are investigating an issue where 150 RPM Scout Rifles may not fire at their intended rate.
Scary Movies
Welcome to Movie of the Week. This is where we show you our favorite community created videos. Here is what caught our eye this week.
Movie of the Week: Spooky Church
Honorable Mention: Your Chaperone Has Arrived
Want to see your video here? Submit your video to the Creations page. If you win, we will send you a special emblem to show off to your friends.
Since the release of Destiny 2: Forsaken, we’ve been on the hunt for feedback. Whether it be a request to improve your quality of life or conversations over the viability of an Exotic Fusion Rifle in the Crucible, we want to hear your thoughts.
We’ll be posting a few of threads to both bungie.net and the community run Destiny subreddit to gather your feedback. While we’ve been consistently gathering your feedback and giving it to the team, we feel this is a good way to get eyes on a lot of great feedback now that we are eight weeks into Forsaken.
These first feedback posts that we’re hosting will be general. Tell us how you’re feeling overall. No specific topic or agenda. We plan to keep posting these threads to gather more targeted feedback through the end of the year, and beyond.
Two Open Source Mobile App Development Frameworks To Make Mobile Dev Easier
Mobile apps have been a boon for developers. With Android the most widely used platform on the planet, it makes perfect sense for developers to ply their trade in the mobile market. Not only do developers have the chance to get their work seen, they can make money from the Google Play Store or the iOS App Store. For those who have yet to delve into the mobile development market, however, the process may be a bit daunting. What tools are available? More importantly, what open source tools are available? After all, if you’re developing on the Linux platform, you probably don’t want to work with proprietary software.
So, to get started creating the greatest mobile app on the planet, you need to get the right tools. One such tool is a framework. In programming terms, a framework is an abstraction in which common code (that provides a generic or general functionality) can be used and rewritten to provide a specific functionality. Say you need Function X for your app, but you don’t want to write all the necessary code for that function. You can use a framework that offers Function X and modify that function so it perfectly fits your needs. In other words, a framework is a way to make development easier and more efficient.
Are there open source frameworks available for mobile development? There certainly are. Let’s take a look at two tools available for this particular task.
Ionic
Ionic is both 100 percent free and open source. This project, licensed under MIT, enables you to build fully cross-platform, progressive web and native mobile apps for every major app store… all from a single codebase. You can develop Ionic apps on any platform you like. Of course, our platform of choice is Linux. Fortunately, Ionic offers a simple command-line interface (CLI) that can be used to create, build, test, and deploy your apps to any platform. Ionic also features:
Ionic Native, which allows you to unlock native APIs (and other features), by wrapping Cordova plugins in TypeScript.
Live Reload, which allows you to compile and re-deploy an app at every development step.
Ionicons, which is an icon pack that includes hundreds of the most common app icons (all MIT licensed and ready to use).
Deeplinking, which allow you to start your app from a web link (and can even load a specific view out of the box).
AoT Compiling, which helps your apps to load faster.
Create a free Ionic account here and then install Ionic on your distribution. For example, if you’re using Ubuntu as your development platform, to install Ionic you must first install Node.js and npm like so:
Install node.js and npm with the command sudo apt install nodejs
Install Ionic with the command:
sudo npm install -g ionic
You can now begin creating and working with your project. To create a new project, issue the command:
ionic start PROJECT_NAME blank --type ionic1
where PROJECT_NAME is the name of your project. You should see a newly created folder (with the same name as your project), that includes a number of new files and folders (Figure 1).
For more information on using the Ionic CLI, check out the official Ionic Guide.
PhoneGap
PhoneGap is an open source distribution of Adobe Cordova that makes it possible to develop your mobile app using web development technologies (e.g., HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) in just a few minutes. If you don’t want to work from the command line, PhoneGap does offer a desktop app (which is only available for macOS and Windows). The desktop app uses the same libraries found in the CLI, but it makes it a bit less daunting for those who prefer a more point and click-friendly method of app development.
PhoneGap includes the following:
PhoneGap Developer is a mobile app to connect your devices to your development machine (to see changes you make instantly).
PhoneGap Build enables you get app-store ready apps without having to maintain native SDKs for each mobile environment.
Plugin Library gets you access to a robust library of plugins to extend the capability of your mobile apps.
Third party tools is where you can find additional tools, created by the PhoneGap community, to help test, debug, and manage apps.
Developer community allows you to connect to thousands of developers working with PhoneGap.
Mobile App helps you pair your mobile device to the desktop app, so you can preview your new app.
To install the PhoneGap CLI tool, you’ll need jode.js and npm installed (as described above). Once that is taken care of, you can install the PhoneGap CLI tool with the command:
sudo npm install -g phonegap@latest
Once you’ve install the CLI, issue the command phonegapto see the help file (and show that the tool was successfully installed—Figure 2).
You might find you run into a permissions issue, when running the phonegap command. To resolve that, issue the command:
sudo chown -R USER:USER ~/.config/configstore
Where USER is your Linux username.
You should now be able to create your first project with the command:
phonegap create PROJECT_NAME
Where PROJECT_NAME is the name of your project.
To find out more on how to use the PhoneGap CLI, check out this reference.
There’s more to be found
There are plenty more open source mobile developer frameworks to be found. These two tools, however, can be thought of as a great launching point to help you get started with your mobile development journey. They are certainly not the only players on the field, but offer quite a lot in the way of power, flexibility, and feature sets. Give one of these tools a try and see if it doesn’t empower your mobile app development with the help of open source.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 11-02-2018, 04:41 PM - Forum: Windows
- No Replies
How your company can be a positive force for disability employment
by Jessica Rafuse, Microsoft Accessibility Senior Program Manager
NDEAM is a wrap, what’s next?
As National Disability Employment Awareness Month comes to an end, I reflect on the last month and ask, “Now what?!” Making a positive impact on the unemployment and underemployment rates for people with disabilities is a challenge that must extend beyond NDEAM and must be a collaborative effort. So how do we keep the momentum going?
To help answer the question, we gathered experts and influencers from over 75 different organizations from across the Seattle-area to the second annual Microsoft DisAbility Employment Symposium.
As Bri Sambo from T-Mobile put it, we must “lean on the community we have and collaborate with other companies.” The Symposium generated discussion on common challenges, lessons learned, and innovation in disability employment. We celebrated people with disabilities and committed to our ongoing efforts towards inclusion. Then we said goodbye. As the last guest exited the building, the lights dimmed in the conference room, and I realized, “Now, the real work begins.”
What can your company do to continue the journey to positively impact disability employment? Three things: get Ready, get Set, Hire!
GET READY
1. Nurture a culture of inclusion
A common theme across the Symposium was the importance of nurturing a culture of inclusion. Celebrating people with disabilities within your organization will ignite a sense of disability pride that results in a more inclusive and productive workplace. Here are a few things to consider:
Recognize Talent: People with disabilities are an asset to the workplace. From innovation to troubleshooting to project management skills, each individual with a disability brings with them a unique set of skills that they have honed as a result of their disabilities. Remember that 70% of disabilities are non-apparent, so you like have someone in your workplace today who is already adding value to the team.
Create opportunity for connection: To build a culture you first need to build a community. Our Disability Employee Resource Group is a long standing group of employees, who have helped to define disability inclusion at Microsoft. If you are looking for a first step in this journey, start here. Just a few passionate employees with common experiences can support your business in the creation of truly inclusive culture.
DisAbility Employment Symposium Opening Panel – in order left to right: Jessica Rafuse (Microsoft), Keith Clark (Seattle Lighthouse), Megan Mauney (Amazon), Becky Curran (Disability: IN) and Bri Sambo (T-Mobile)
GET SET
2. Invest in accessibility
Another common theme we saw during the event was companies referencing the importance of embedding accessibility into the fabric of their companies as key to recruiting and retaining talent with disabilities. So how do they do it?
Be creative, be frugal, and be resourceful. “Investment” does not always mean “budget” allocation. Utilize resources that are available for free on public platforms. For example, watch Introduction to Disability and Inclusion to learn the basics, and educate your colleagues by using Microsoft Accessibility Training Resources particularly our At a Glance series, which provides bite-sized accessibility trainings.
Leverage technology to empower people with disabilities. The role of technology is indisputable in empowering all people, including people with disabilities. From accessible career websites to assistive technologies like screen readers (e.g., Narrator and JAWS) for people who are Blind or Low Vision, accessible technology can make your company more attractive to talent with disabilities. As an individual, you also have a role in making your workplace more accessible with a few simple tricks. Try using the Accessibility Checker before sending an email or turn on Translator within PowerPoint during your next meeting. If you want to know more about accessibility features check out our Accessibility Feature Sway and at the Microsoft Accessibility Site.
Accessibility in all levels of your company. Senior leaders are immensely influential as accessibility champions. Ignite your leader’s passion for accessibility by sharing personal stories about how your company’s business has positively impacted the lives of people with disabilities. In support of NDEAM, Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, celebrated with six accessibility feature demos: Inclusive Presentations, Seeing AI, Xbox Adaptive Controller, Learning Tools, Soundscape, and Eye Control.
HIRE
3. Hire someone with a disability today!
The timing is now. While nurturing your company culture and integrating accessibility into all that you do, actively seek candidates with disabilities to join in your journey. People with disabilities are just the problem solvers you need to provide feedback on your efforts as you strive for improvement.
Transparency in recruiting: candidates appreciate transparency in your company’s inclusion efforts and clear timelines on the accessibility journey. For hiring managers, open communication is key to confront bias and to allow for discussion around your company’s policies for workplace accommodations and benefits.
Identifying gaps: partner with your internal talent acquisition team, HR, legal, or other stakeholders to understand the process for working with candidates with disabilities. Ensure that your organization has a process for soliciting and responding to requests for accommodations. Offer trainings to all members of a recruiting ecosystem and co-create resource guides that are specific to your business. Don’t wait for the processes and policies to be perfect, “Hiring talent with disabilities is just common sense, just ask us what we need.”- Nyle DiMarco
Jenny Lay-Flurrie and Nyle DiMarco onstage at DisAbility Employment Symposium
Thank you again to all the companies, organizations, and disability influencers who participated in our DisAbility Employment Symposium and to those who helped develop these learnings. For those who were not able to join us in-person, Disability:IN can help you to find other businesses in your area that are also committed to disability inclusion. Be curious, be bold, and be collaborative. Hire someone with disabilities and they will guide you along the way.
