Soldiers of the Wasteland

Tripwire Interactive have announced Snowstorm, a massive game event that features updates and deals on all of their titles.

The updates available for Killing Floor include four new maps selected from the Killing Floor Grindhouse Custom Map Making Competition, two guest passes so you can let friends try out Killing Floor, as well as a free completely reworked Mod, Defense Alliance 2.

The four maps are KF-Icebreaker, KF-Departed, KF-Crash, and KF-FilthsCross which is set in an underground tube station and is said to be one of the most challenging maps ever made for Killing Floor.

The all new mod, Defense Alliance 2, features six playable classes – Medic, Mechanic, Rocketeer, Machine Gunner, Sniper and the Rifleman – and pits teams of players against each other in attack/defend scenarios. Players are also able to set up turrets, drop ammo boxes and more to add more depth to the tactical gameplay.

Defence Alliance 2 also has a secondary gameplay mode named Co-op Specimen Survival. In this mode players are set up against waves of specimens and are able to use turrets and mines to help defend their position. However players only have a limited amount of respawns so care must be taken is victory is to be achieved.

The new maps as well as the the new mod Defence Alliance 2 can be discussed on our Killing Floor forums.

The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned is the first DLC for Borderlands and was released a couple of days ago. The DLC can be purchased from the Steam store for $9.99 US (or $12.99 is you live in Aus) and includes new scenery and areas to explore, new missions and new enemies.

The update also includes the highly objected addition of DRM to the game in the form of SecuROM. Listed on the Steam page for the DLC is that the update includes SecuROM and has a 5 machine activation limit.

However on the Gearbox store the DLC is listed as being
limited to 5 concurrent installations. There is a big difference between having a 5 time activation limit and being able to have 5 concurrent installs of the game at one time. At this point in time it’s not clear if the DRM restrictions are the same across all digital delivery services or not.

Feel free to discuss the addition of DRM to Borderlands as well as the recently released DLC, The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, on our Borderlands forums.

Another patch for Hellgate: Revival has been released, fixing a number of bugs from 1.0.1. Originally this patch was to be numbered 1.0.2 but due to the large number of changes the revision number was stepped up.

Full patch notes are available on the Revival forums. It should also be noted that the Zomper zombie skin option has been moved from the patch file and into the optional packages mod. So if you would like to continue using the Zomper zombie skin you will need to download the updated optional packages mod as well as the new patch file.

Maeyan has also stated that this patch will be the last for Revival, at least for a while, to allow himself more time to work on other projects. So a big ‘cheers and thanks!’ to Maeyan for all he has done on the project so far!

As always, the patch is available to download from our downloads page or from the Revival forums.

A minor update has been released for PC owners of Borderlands. The update fixes a number of issues including:

- Characters that have lost skill points will have the lost points refunded
- Item cards now display the intended five lines of detail text
- Lilith’s Phase strike and melee attacks from Phase Walk now function as intended
- Voicechat: users can now control volume and individually mute players

The entire list of update notes can be found on our forums.

Unfortunately the highly desired fix for multiplayer issues was disappointingly absent from the update. However ennui from the Gearbox forums has stated that-

The problems some users are experiencing with connectivity will be addressed in an upcoming update. A fix has been found and we’ll deploy it as soon as possible.

Hopefully this update gets pushed out to us very soon.

In the meantime, if you bought a physical copy of Borderlands from the store, you may download this update from the Gearbox Software site. If you bought the game via digital distribution (such as through Steam) then the patch will be applied automatically next time you log in.

A minor patch has been released for Hellgate: Revival, fixing some issues that arose during the Fawkes Event that began on November 5.

In a post on the Revival forums, Maeyan explained what had happened-

I had borrowed addresses from various ‘unused’ Fawkes items to fix the sell values for the Retrainers. This is why your goods are selling for copious amounts of Palladium.

Along with fixing the Fawkes related problems, minor tweaks have been made to the game including fixing bugged quests, implementing the level 55 cap correctly, increasing amount of palladium within treasure passageways and introducing the optional ‘Elite for Normal mode’ and ‘Superior Quests’ modifications. Full patch notes can be found on the Revival forums.

The optional ‘Elite for Normal mode’ inclusion reduces the difficulty of Elite mode back to normal mode standards, but retains the bonuses of playing in Elite mode such as increased mob density and a higher spawn rate of champion mobs. The ‘Superior Quests’ modification increases the objective targets of quests by up to 100 and increases experience & palladium gained from completing quests.

The Revival 1.0.1 patch, as well as the two optional modifications, are available to download from our downloads page or from the Revival forums.