Stardew Valley Live is Coming to a City Near You!

Note: Stardew Valley: Festival of Seasons adds new tour dates worldwide due to overwhelming demand!
Additional tickets go on sale starting Dec 1st, giving more Stardew fans the opportunity to experience live orchestral renditions of the game's soundtrack
 

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Jaggy's Corner - Saturday July 28

This weeks' news consists of a new patch called No Man's Sky Next, an announcement for Stardew Valley's Multiplayer, and Psyonix released some huge Rocket League news for the upcoming RLCS season.

No Man's Sky

The free patch for No Man's Sky recently launched and it has caused people in the gaming industry to take notice. Last year, when No Man's Sky was made available to the general public, the consumers were angry. The developer promised a ton of features but delivered none. Sean Murray addressed the Press with buzzword articles, constant delays of its release, and many more blunders! Needless to say, the game went down in history as one of the biggest disappointments.

Steam, in an extraordinary and different stance on their refund policy, allowed players to get their money back even if more than two hours were played (which is the maximum allowed to be played to qualify for a refund on Steam). To date, because of the massive upset, it maintains more than 80,000 negative reviews. Most of the games sites gave No Man's Sky poor scores and the general concensus was that it was dead on arrival... until now.

Hello Games, the development team behind No Man's Sky, obviously had a great vision and they set out to right the wrongs of the past. It was clear that No Man's Sky was released much earlier than intended, which is largely in part what led to the negative reviews on Steam.

To give a brief summary of what has been changed, No Man's Sky has been completely overhauled. At the beginning, there were some quests, alien languages, and minor crafting features. Later, two updates released that brought in base building, ground vehicles, and a complete graphics change. Once Atlas Rises launched, No Man's Sky featured quests, freighter ships, a pseudo multiplayer mechanic, and another graphics overhaul. Finally, Next launched a few days ago and has inspired enough people to write positive reviews on Steam. Over the last week, it has garnered more than 1k positive reviews bringing the games status to 'mixed'.

How did that happen?

Well, in case you aren't willing to fork over $60 USD for a game that was essentially a shell, we have all the information right here.

To summarize No Man's Sky: The Complete New Edition (Obviously that isn't the title of it. The update is called 'NEXT'), here is a list of new features:

• Replaced the materials found in the game
• Can pilot entire fleets of ships
• Another graphics overhaul
• MULTIPLAYER (like what was promised to the public, so they believed)
• New base mechanics
• Crafting mechanics with use of several components
• Added a refinery mechanic
• A complete story with quests
• Alien creatures can now be hostile
• Increased the number of ships that spawn in a system
• An economy overhaul
• No microtransactions! Nothing can be purchased off the site or in game with real money (because that's what microtransactions are...)
• Players can have multiple bases and multiple ships (hence the new fleet mechanics)
• and more!

In a way, it's a good thing that gamers were willing to give a game that was kicked to the dirt and left for dead to rise from its ashes. Make no mistake. Despite the additions and changes to the game, and the precedent it has set, don't let the story of No Man's Sky be the expectation in gaming. Most games do not come back from the backlash. Most don't have a development team of 14 that are able to redeem themselves.

As an example, perhaps gamers remember the debacle around Mighty No. 9. Remember that? You should. It failed horribly after being successfully Kickstarted in two days. (Someone give us a real MegaMan game and no one will get hurt! Editor's Note: 20XX, *drops mic and walks away*) And while Hello Games has earned its success, it's too early to expect that all companies will revive their games from the dead. I say that because there are still plenty of hot mess games and they are often abandoned.

No Man's Sky has a $60 price tag and from my understanding, it appears to be worth it. While I'm not endorsing this game personally, I will reinforce a belief I have, which is let the reviewers, streamers, and Let's Player's give impressions of a product before the public makes any purchase. Various people have vastly differing opinions when it comes to products, and that should be taken into consideration. Don't let this Cinderella story sing the praises of all future games because very few will have the chops. Yes. It is an admirable story but make informed decisions anyways. That's all I ask for.

Anyways, here is a clip from CohhCarnage's stream of No Man's Sky. Take a look at it and decide for yourselves whether this is your style of game:

Stardew Valley

There is a large post about the upcoming addition of multiplayer to Stardew Valley. Many people, myself included, have been happily playing in the beta. For the uninformed, players can marry each other, have individual cabins, share the wealth, and even have the other players make up for the skills that they personally lack (like fishing).

The Stardew Valley Multiplayer Update will be out for PC, Mac & Linux on August 1st!https://t.co/WsIdIVW73Y

— ConcernedApe (@ConcernedApe) July 20, 2018

To summarize some of the upcoming changes on August 1st, players can expect the following:

• Added Night Market event
• New heart events for Jas, Linus, Pam, Vincent, and Willy
• Rare treasure chest rooms in the Skull Caverns
• A few new items like an Auto-grabber and new seeds
• A new community upgrade in the Carpenter's shop
• Secret notes can be found in Pelican Town leading to special items
• Reduced pricing on Tub o' Flowers
• If players have reached the bottom of the mines, the dwarf will attend weddings
• Seed sprites are updated (I saw that the beets had a noticable visual change in the beta version)
• Gifts reset on Monday instead of Sunday
• Golden pumpkins are universally love instead of hated
• And many more changes!

Check out the full post regarding the update

Rocket League

After a killer Season 5 of the Rocket League Championship Series, Psyonix boasts an even better Season 6. Firstly, they are raising the prize pool to be $1,000,000. Additionally, there will be $100,000 on the line for the Rival Series.

Signups to qualify for RLCS and the Rival Series begins August 6th. As with last year, Saturday August 11th will be the NA qualifiers and Sunday August 12th is the EU qualifiers. This format continues for the subsequent couple of weekends. The Rival Series Play-In begins September 1st. Any players that are citizens in EU or NA and are 15 years old or more can enter the qualifiers.

What I'm super excited for is the official debut of Kyle "Scrub killa" Robertson from Scotland. He recently turned 15 and is ready for this season in RLCS. He has been a force of nature on the field and many have had him on their radar for quite some time. To illustrate my point, here is a montage of his plays thus far:

The reason that the Rocket League community has set their sights on this young lad is because of his list of achievements. Due to many tournament restrictions with regards to age and eligibility for prize winnings, he has competed in a few minor tournaments like weeklies. Most recently he placed second in Rival Esports: EU 1k Cup and won first place in the Twelve Titans showmatch series back in February of this year. Previously, he has placed first in the Gfinity Challenger series and GO4RL Europe. Here are Scrub Killa's list of accomplishments.

Personally, I can't wait to see the Scottish player tear up the arena this season. All of the details for RLCS can be found on the official website.

What do you guys think about any of the topics above? Are you jumping on the No Man's Sky bandwagon? How do you feel about the multiplayer for Stardew Valley? And who is on your radar for Rocket League this season? Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time,
Article by Susan N.

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Jaggy's Corner! - Saturday May 5

This has been a very trying week because of news that I didn't want to read. Anyways, this week I have two pieces of good news when it comes to gaming. First let's discuss Stardew Valley.

For the uneducated, Stardew Valley is the spiritual successor to Farmville. It had a large number of features that people enjoyed and other features that were despised. It set the creator of Stardew Valley on a mission to come up with a game that made the fun concepts about Farmville without having all of the irritations.

In Stardew Valley, players take the role of a person who works a boring office job, until receiving a letter from their grandfather. In it, he states that the player will inherit his farm. Because the player is so sick of the 9 to 5 grind, they take a chance and move to the farm. Thus begins the adventures of tilling soil, planting seeds, watering plants, timing crop growth, fishing and/or mining, and building relationships with the other citizens. In short, this game is rather relaxing.

This week, the creator opened up the multiplayer beta version. When in this beta mode, there are a couple of things to know like the game doesn't auto-pause when in the menu screen as it does in single player. That even includes when doing events. As the host of the multiplayer game, I'd be in a cut scene while my friend was running around doing other things. Time still passed at a regular rate.

When a player wants to end the day, all players have to be in bed and answer yes in the dialog box. The same kind of prompt occurs for the festivals, so I've been told.

Another thing to note about the multiplayer beta is that some things are shared where other things are not. Shared things include farm land space, money, and world updates. Individual things include: skill level ups, inventory space, and relationships.

During game play of the beta, I discovered that just because I was able to talk to the wizard, my friend was not able to because he hadn't yet explored the community centre. In other words, certain events are limited, where other things like museum donations show up globally.

Another interesting feature is if a person joins a game and then disconnects, the host has to give the invite code a second time. The code is not the same! And if someone else comes into the game, the houses are not exclusive to particular players. There are four total houses. The host will always remain in the large house but other players might not begin in their houses. Keep that in mind when opening up your games to other people.

I found it's much easier to play Stardew Valley when there are other players in the game. Someone could focus on farming while another can do fishing or mining. Another could head off to the community centre and blacksmith to donate items. The possibilities are endless in the multiplayer of Stardew Valley and I'm happy for it.

If you are even remotely interested in this game, it's fun to play with friends. Now you might be thinking, “How do we get into this beta testing?” First you need to know that to opt into the beta testing, keep in mind that it is only available to Steam and GOG Galaxy users at this time. And any information about how to set it up can be found here though make sure to back up saves first!

Rocket League

There are a couple of different events happening in quick succession.

First up is the Promotion Tournament for NA and EU begin today!

North America begins Saturday May 5th at 12PM PDT (3PM ET) while the European tournament begins Sunday, May 6th at 9AM PDT (12 ET). The following teams will be playing in this promotional tournament:

• Counter Logic Gaming
• Allegiance
• Cloud9
• FlyQuest
• Out of Style
• FNATIC
• Team Secret
• Servette Geneva eSports

The Rival Series will be streamed on Twitch and there will be fan reward possibilities. Make sure to link your Twitch account with your Steam to get a chance at receiving drops! And don't forget, the rewards are NOT guaranteed. Don't spam the chat peeps. It doesn't increase your odds of receiving something.

Secondly, before the Season V World Championship, there will be another Rocket League event to tide everyone over. Rocket League Esports is teaming up with Northern Arena for NARLI 2 where players get a shot at a $50,000 prize pool.

We're teaming up with @NorthernArena for #NARLI 2 this summer!

-Open Qualifiers May 17-18
-Online Regional Finals May 19-20
-Live Finals July 14-15
-$50,000 Prize Pool

Check out the blog for more details!https://t.co/xZtY3dZwLQ pic.twitter.com/YOsUJmsiYJ

— Rocket League Esports (@RLEsports) May 4, 2018

Make sure to check out the NARLI 2 webpage for more information. Also keep updated on Twitter through @RLEsports

Thirdly, LAN was announced in London, England on the June 8-10th weekend. Information about the event can be found here. It's sure to be a great time and I think the Europeans are happy that LAN has finally crossed the ocean again. Make sure to book your hotel and tickets as soon as possible because they will most likely sell out quickly!

This season is sure to excite Rocket League fans everywhere so keep up to date through Twitter for event details, articles, and schedule information.

Until next time peeps!

Article by Susan N.

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