By Malcolm Owen
Monday, April 06, 2020, 03:40 am PT (06:40 am ET)

Apple could still be preparing to refresh the 13-inch MacBook Pro in May, a leaker claims, which could get a 14-inch display without dramatically altering the overall physical size.

Apple is thought to be working on its usual refresh of the MacBook Pro lineup, one which could occur in the near future. Following the update to the iPad Pro range, it seems likely that Apple will launch updated MacBook-family products next, but it is suggested there may be a bit more of a wait before the company makes its announcement.

According to leaker Jon Prosser on Twitter, Apple will be bringing out a refreshed 13-inch MacBook Pro “next month,” meaning sometime in May. In a follow-up tweet, Prosser goes on to clarify it would be a refresh of the current 13-inch model, but a move to a bigger 14-inch display “is a big possibility.”

While the tweets could be considered educated guesses based on Apple’s usual product cadence, along with incorporating details from other rumor reports, Prosser also makes the claim the new model will have the codename “J223.” Prosser has also been making more Twitter-based pronouncements about Apple’s product line in recent times, with some level of accuracy, which frames the tweet’s details as being genuine.

On March 3, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo proposed there would be a replacement of the 13-inch MacBook Pro by one sporting a 14.1-inch Mini LED display. In Kuo’s note, the analyst doesn’t specify when the model would launch, except it would be sometime in 2020, and that product development of Mini LED will “remain unaffected” by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Kuo has also suggested in earlier notes a refreshed MacBook Pro model with the new scissor-switch keyboard mechanism would arrive in the second quarter of 2020, though stopped short of saying what models would be affected. Earlier Kuo predictions for 2020 MacBook Pro upgrades include notes dating back to 2019.

Our focus this week is a streamer and a Destiny completionist who specializes in helping people – both IRL and in-game. In addition to raiding with her fellow Guardians and somehow managing to finish every challenge, Triumph, and Seal in Destiny, she works a demanding job as an emergency room nurse.

During this time of international concern, we thought it was important to introduce you to an inspiring member of the Destiny community who’s not only helping Destiny players make the most of their experience, she’s also helping people in the real world. Please meet iLulu.

Thanks for joining us. Please take a virtual seat and tell us a little bit about yourself and what your role is in the Destiny community.

iLulu: My online name is iLulu (formally known as: Lulusoccer) and I go by Melissa outside of gaming. I’ve been a part-time streamer for almost five years now with a main focus on Destiny. My passion for the game started with the Beta on the PS4 and has been ongoing since. I’d like to think my role within the Destiny community focuses more on teaching raids and completing end game content within my community. We just hit our 100th+ Garden of Salvation clear with 63 Sherpa completions!

We play with any type of gamer, [including those who are] new to the series or raid masters. We’ve got some great “helpers” in this community that are willing to help anyone. I’m also very much a completionist in the game with a max Triumph score and all Seals acquired. Rivensbane is still one of my all-time favorite Seals.

I’ve only done one Seal and can only marvel at how you were able to get them all. We appreciate you being brave and continuing to help others, especially now with so many people sheltering in place. Can you tell us a bit about what it’s like being nurse right now and what you’re doing to keep your spirits up?

iLulu: I’ve been a pediatric registered nurse for 10 years this May and a year ago I decided to pursue Trauma Nursing and am currently working in a Level 1 Pediatric Emergency Department. Nursing has always been an evolving field with changing practices and advances, but currently processes are changing every day to try and keep nursing staff, patients, and families safe.

I feel like all nurses right now are dealing with the stress of constant change and some fear of what the next month will look like. None of us knew a few months ago that COVID-19 was going to drastically change healthcare/daily life as we knew it. We have to adapt not just as nurses, but as a society. I work with an incredible group of people and we are committed to continuing to provide the best care we can, given the circumstances. I absolutely love working in a busy ER – you could call Destiny and nursing my passions in life. I couldn’t imagine not doing either of them!

In order to stay positive with everything happening, I make sure to take time for myself outside of work. Streaming is a part of that and Destiny has always been a great way to de-stress. I’m also looking forward to other various games coming out soon. One thing I’ll encourage all of you to do, though – please, stay home. Go online to see your friends, meet up in the Tower, but let’s keep as many people safe and healthy as we can.

Well said. We’re glad Destiny provides a way for you to get away from everything and we appreciate the great work you’re doing. You obviously play a lot, what has been your favorite Subclass and weapon?

iLulu: Nightstalker Hunter has always been my favorite since it was introduced back in D1. She gets the majority of my playtime … Even with the nerfs! ?

One of my favorite weapons in D2 for PvE has always been One Thousand Voices. I don’t use it as often anymore but always loved how unique it was and [the fact that] it came from one of the best raids in Destiny 2. I’d be lying also if I didn’t mention Recluse … considering it’s almost always equipped for PvE stuff. However, I’m still a Hand Cannon girl at heart! For PvP when I use a controller, I have a god-roll Service Revolver and Mindbender’s Ambition that I enjoy running. Learning MnK for PvP I’ve been using Rose a lot, I feel like it has a pretty easy learning curve!

Fully agree on One Thousand Voices; it feels like you are calling in an air strike. Tell us about your channel, what kind of content can we find there?

Glad to see you’re already prepping for Grandmaster. It’s going to be tough. Where can we go to find you on the internet?

iLulu: Here are links to all my channels:

What’s been your favorite Destiny moment over the last few years?

iLulu: I can’t pick just one specific moment. Some parts of Destiny that I love though are the blind raid races, the hidden puzzles, and teaming up with friends I’ve met over the years. I also love the personal satisfaction feeling of completing a challenge I was working on in the game. These include the Triumphs, Seals, or low-man raid challenges.

This game has also given me so many opportunities – from meeting friends/people outside of the game, to traveling out to the studio. I had no idea when I started D1 it would change my life so significantly. I have so many specific moments that I’ll treasure throughout the rest of my life. These moments may mean nothing to others, but I know when I’m 80 I’ll look back and say, “Yeah, you lived a great life!” My advice to everyone out there: It doesn’t matter if people find what you do to be “silly,” “dumb,” or “stupid” – the real question is, are [you] living life how you want?

That’s a great way to see the world and live your life. Hope we’re all still gaming when we’re 80. Anything else you would like to add before we let you get back?

iLulu: Adding to that last statement, we are all just Guardians in this world, all trying our best to navigate the thing we call life. Can we all just be a little less judgmental to one another? We categorize people before we even know them. From the disconnect between “streamers” and “casuals” and “PvE players” and “PvP players,” life is not this black and white. Most people are somewhere in between. I really want to encourage people to talk to each other. Not everyone is going to like everyone along the way and we are for sure going to have different opinions but respect goes such a long way in the world.

Very true. Be excellent to each other. Even when we disagree, we can still respect others.

The Gamasutra Job Board is the most diverse, active and established board of its kind for the video game industry!

Here is just one of the many, many positions being advertised right now.

Location: Los Angeles, California

Heart Machine is a deeply motivated and close-knit team located in Los Angeles. Our focus is gameplay that’s engaging, fluid and fun, while also building worlds through vibrant art, great stories and incredible sound design. We’re immensely excited to be creating things we love every day.

Although we are all passionate and work incredibly hard, our studio is not a crunch-factory – we like to live our lives, have holidays, and remain healthy throughout a project.

We’re looking for talented, passionate, smart, highly communicative and just plain good people to become part of our crew, to collaborate, shape and build something ambitious and unique.

Your Role

If you’re an incredibly capable level design with ample spatial reasoning skills, a strong sense of storytelling, great sense of pacing and an eye for good compositions in 3d, please reach out to us!

Level design requires a massive amount of testing and collaboration between all of us on the team; you’ll primarily be working with the project lead each day, while also testing new designs with internal members of the team as often as possible. Once production ramps up, we like to hold monthly group playtest sessions with select outside sources to keep our designs sharp.

Your Responsibilities & Attributes:

• Work closely with the project lead to help compose a structure for numerous unique zones.
• Help to concept and craft the feel and design standards for levels and various in-world interactions.
• Take the lead on specific regions or zones of the game world, moving a level from greybox to completion.
• A passion for great level design derived from firm examples within other games.
• Capable of telling a story through level design.
• Capable of giving and receiving constructive feedback on designs. Strong communication skills are vital, as we’re incredibly open and straightforward when it comes to our internal conversations about gameplay.
• Capable of working independently, keeping on-task and motivated.
• Excited and able to work with a smaller, nimble team and participate in major decisions.

Skills & Experience:

• Shipped/built to completion at least one game as a level designer, preferably single player.
• Working knowledge of Unreal 4, particularly working with Blueprints and other relevant toolsets for scripting.
• Worked with playtesters, with a firm grasp on how to conduct play test sessions whether individual or larger in scale. Can process and implement player feedback appropriately.
• Highly skilled game player with third person action games.

All full-time employees will be offered a robust medical package, including dental. Salary and bonus structure can be discussed upon interview. Ideally you’re located in Los Angeles, or at the least willing to relocate or be an incredible communicator.

Interested? Apply now.

Whether you’re just starting out, looking for something new, or just seeing what’s out there, the Gamasutra Job Board is the place where game developers move ahead in their careers.

Gamasutra’s Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.

Looking for a new job? Get started here. Are you a recruiter looking for talent? Post jobs here.

This week at Bungie, we look towards Io.

So, you’re a few weeks into your seasonal journey. You’ve cleared the EDZ Bunker of Fallen, and have been taking the Hive to task on the Moon. You’ve reclaimed The Fourth Horseman, and maybe even completed its catalyst. So, what’s next?

Tuesday, the final Seraph bunker will open on Io. New Seraph weapons and seasonal mods enter the mix, giving you more options to build your monster-killing machine. Later in the month, Guardian Games will kick off some good old-fashioned Guardian rivalry, accompanied by the Grandmaster Nightfall difficulty.

This week, we’ll be parsing through some feedback we’ve been seeing since the season launched, and discussing next steps for emblem stat trackers.

Focused Feedback

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been watching the conversation about Season of the Worthy, and more specifically Trials of Osiris. We wanted to walk through the topics we’ve been exploring and give some basic thoughts on what we’d like to approach in the future. Some items below may be addressed in the coming weeks, but other may take a season or more to tackle. We’re having meetings and discussions daily to determine the best course of action. In the meantime, it’s important to us that you know your voices are heard.

Card Rewards

We’ve been discussing feedback around a lack of incentive for players to go Flawless. We understand that some players have found the first few games to be more lucrative, which we’d love to shift to the later games. Early card token farming, as some would call it, is something that we are very interested in solving. We want to make sure that every Destiny player who wants to play Trials has something to show for it at the end of a weekend.

Additionally, we’ve seen feedback that the Flawless chest isn’t comparable the rewards associated with grinding out Nightfalls. This is something that we’d love to improve upon. There are quite a few ways we could approach this, and we’re currently discussing what would be the best for Trials in the long run.

Disconnections

We’ve been investigating an issue that prevented us from enabling rejoin options when Trials first launched. The short version: A player’s score could reset if that player left and rejoins the match. Since we’ve resolved this issue, we are currently planning to enable rejoin in Update 2.8.1.

Additionally, our teams are continuing to investigate the rise in error codes since the launch of the season. This is one of our top priorities, and we’ve made some progress in identifying the issue. What’s left is developing a fix and testing it. We want to take the appropriate time here to avoid introducing any further issues into the game.

Fair Play

We’ve seen reports from players that have encountered cheaters in Trials over the last few weekends. What follows is a quick update on what we’ve been doing to improve your experience, and what we’re discussing internally for future improvements. To restate the note in the intro, some of these items may not be addressed for some time, as we’re in early conversations, but we wanted to give you an update of what’s going on behind the scenes here at Bungie.

And if possible:

I know that some of you out there may find the statement of “We’re listening!” to be a repetitive cliché of community management, but the first step toward taking action is to listen. We’ve been collecting your feedback and looking to fully understand the root of the perceived issues that are being discussed by players in the wild. Your voice is important to us, and helps us as we walk the path to what’s next in Destiny 2. We’ll be sure to keep you updated on our plans as they become more concrete, and we thank you for your continued feedback on the game.

Speaking of the future, let’s talk about Stat Trackers.

Back on Track

At the beginning of the season, changes were introduced to stat trackers to give players more ways to express their achievements in Destiny 2. We introduced weekly Seasonal and Lifetime trackers, and these were completely optional to those who might want to have a clean emblem. With this overhaul, previously featured trackers were removed. Players were quick to highlight this as a pain point, which we’re eager to address. This week, we have a list of the stats we’ll be bringing back in Update 2.8.1, which is coming later this month.

We understand that there may be a few stats that are still not present that you’re interested in returning. To be clear, we have a hard cap on how many stats can be listed on emblems, so we want to make sure we have room to grow in the future. Please continue to give feedback on what you’d like to see, and we’ll keep you in the know of what our plans are.

Under the Magnifying Glass

No stone is left unturned when Destiny Player Support is on the case. When issues begin to trend, they disperse troubleshooting articles, but also dig deep to diagnose the issues.

This is their report.

HOTFIX 2.8.0.2

On Tuesday, March 31, we released Hotfix 2.8.0.2 to the world. While maintenance was underway, we incorrectly noted two items in the 2.8.0.2 patch notes:

Spinning Up

Look, I’m biased towards Omolon weapons. Hard Light was one of my first Exotics back when Destiny first launched, and it’s fun to see it take the spotlight for a season. That said, Auto Rifles in general are pretty hot right now. This week’s winner takes Suros for a spin, making some great plays in the Crucible.

Movie of the Week: The Suros Simulation

Honorable Mention: Honey, I’m good…

The days and weeks are beginning to meld together. As our local weather station put it, we’ve entered the month of “Maprilay.” The sun continues to rise and fall, but it’s becoming a little difficult to keep track of what day it is. Thankfully, we have Destiny 2 to bring us together during these times of isolation. Sometimes, the only thing I have to remind me of what day of the week we are living is this every-Thursday mainstay blog article.

I’d like to take a moment to highlight the Essential Workers of the world. While we’re all in this together, we couldn’t do it without you. You are all Legends in our eyes. You’re helping to keep the world spinning in times of crisis, and we cannot thank you enough for your efforts.

We’re cooking up some initiatives on our side to amplify the good in this world. More on that soon…

Much love,

Dmg04

RESIDENT EVIL 3 is Now Available on Steam!

Jill Valentine is one of the last remaining people in Raccoon City to witness the atrocities Umbrella performed. To stop her, Umbrella unleashes their ultimate secret weapon: Nemesis!

Also includes Resident Evil Resistance, a new 1 vs 4 online multiplayer game set in the Resident Evil universe.

Damien has over a decade of professional writing experience under his belt, as well as a repulsively hairy belly. Rumours that he turned down a role in The Hobbit to work on Nintendo Life are, to the best of our knowledge, completely and utterly unfounded.