New Xbox Features on Xbox One and Windows 10 Rolling Out Now
We are only just a few days until Windows 10 launches! So today Microsoft announces that today, game streaming is being enabled for all Xbox One owners with a Windows 10 PC or tablet! You can update Windows 10 for FREE on July 29th 2015. Everything will be ready for you on July 29th. Xbox App on Windows 10 Ramping up more gaming and social features on the Xbox App on Window 10, too, giving you more and better ways to access your gaming world and connect with your friends and the Xbox Live community. New features available in the July release of the Xbox app include: -Party Chat – Above the Friends list is a new option labeled Start a party (beta). This enables you to start a party chat or game chat with your Xbox friends across Xbox One and Xbox on Windows 10. Press ‘+’ to invite friends, and simply click on your friends to invite them to an online party. -My Games – The app will support automated discovery of Windows Store games and a large number of older non-Windows store PC games so they get added automatically to your game collection within the Xbox app upon first launch. If a game is not automatically added, you can manually add it to your collection by selecting My games > Add a game from your PC. The Xbox team will continue to add non-Windows store games to a service-side list, so that automated discovery will improve over time. -Home – Updated Home to enable easy access to Game streaming and allow quick launch of a game from the Recently played Also, there is an updated Featured games section on the home screen below your recently played list, which lets you discover and install new and popular games available from the Windows store. -Profile – You can choose to use your Avatar or gamerpic to be displayed to your Friends. Additionally, you can easily customize your Avatar, change your gamertag, gamerpic, and user color, and update your name sharing settings in one place under Customize. -Share with your friends – Coming in the July release, you can upload your local game clips and screenshots for Windows store games to your shared collection on Xbox Live. Go to Game DVR > On this PC > Share to upload your local clips and screenshots and have them appear on your Activity Feed. You can capture game clips and screenshots for non-Windows Store games and access them via Game DVR > On this PC > Open folder. -Xbox Avatars – They are updating the Avatars app, so you can use the “Take a photo” feature and save a specific Avatar photo as your gamerpic. There are several ideas on Xbox Feedback that inspired this change, but this idea with over 2,100 votes and the various comments from fans drove the team to deliver this as a new feature this month. Time to head to the Avatar photo booth, select a post or a frame of animation, select a background, and select Picture size > gamepic. Then click the camera icon, and select Save as gamerpic to make your new pic visible across Xbox on Windows 10 PCs and Xbox One. -Day One Experience – For PC owners that are new to the Xbox ecosystem, Xbox is adding a feature to the Xbox app to help you create a new account, get a gamertag, and then land in a basic user experience that helps you get started finding games, earning achievements and using your activity feed. Discuss this in the comments below!
Halo Community Update – Limited Collectors Edition, Raid on Apex 7 and More!!!
From today’s Halo Community Update, we’ve got more details on Raid on Apex 7, highlights from last week’s San Diego Comic Con, and concerns addressed by 343 industries on the Limited Collectors Edition of Halo 5: Guardians. First off, the update starts off on the response regarding the concerns for fans who have pre-ordered the Limited Collectors Edition and prefer to own physical version instead of digital will have the option to exchange the digital version for a physical version with out extra cost. More details will be revealed as we get closer to launch. Next up, team has briefly informed they’re currently working on the final touches on Action Sack Playlist, which will be the next game type to be available in Halo: The Master Chief Collection, but there’s currently no schedule for it’s release. For those who will like to contribute and sound off your feedback, then feel free to join the discussion laid out by 343 in the following link https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/forums/58b8518e005f432381ab99fbcaf931e0/topics. SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON 2014 It may not be that much of a surprise to see Halo appearing at this year’s Comic-Con in San Diego, but it did deliver quite enough content to keep the fanbase quench. Of course Comic-con isn’t just about new content, it’s also a good time to express your fandom by usually showing off your cosplay like the members of the 405th at this year’s Comic-Con (shown below). Also we may not have gotten what the newly announced Warzone Map Raid on Apex 7 would look like in-game, but with 343 industries partnering with Megablox, we were provided a glimpse of the map actually looks like with a piece by piece diorama shown below. The Creation of Raid on Apex 7 When creating maps that are as massive as Raid on Apex 7, they don’t always turn out like they originally appear. Since it was first revealed, it was considered to be the spiritual successor of Halo: Combat Evolve’s Silent Cartographer mission. Of course, it does contain some of those elements, and some it is shown in these paper prototypes by 343’s Multiplayer Level Designer, Jeremy Raymond. As seen here, this first version of Raid of Apex 7 apparently was going to turn out to be a combination of classic Halo maps such as Highland, Longest, Cold Storage, and Zanzibar. Looking at this right now, it does look like an interesting map to play on, but it hard to imagine to see if enemy AI’s in Warzone could fully work on it, since maps like Cold Storage works well for PvP. Who knows, this idea might not be fully scrapped and could potentially be used for as a forge map instead. Seen in this version, the overall size of the original concept was cut off, and we now see islands that are separate from each other to where locations of the bases can easily be traversed by the players. With the previous version “not feeling right” for the designer, it was scrapped and we now have a version that was smaller than the previous versions. As shown here, it appears to be more well designed and more balance than previous versions. Right here is now the finalized version, and as stated by the designer “It clearly messages the overall layout, theme, base locations, and encounters” he has used to the first playable version. From early on in development, Raid on Apex 7 is team’s largest and most ambitious Warzone maps they have created to date and below are what will be featured on this map. Epic Scale – Apex 7 is among the largest of all of our Warzone Maps Island Paradise – We were heavily inspired by The Silent Cartographer, AI beach assault at the beginning of each game is a great example of this. The art team has done an amazing job of creating this beautiful battleground. Opposing Bases – Apex 7 has a unique layout as the team home bases face away from each other. BTB Style Vehicle Combat – We drew quite a bit of inspiration from vehicle combat and battles on BTB experiences like Valhalla and Paradiso. Mystery – Fitting with a remote Installation on a Halo Ring, we ensured there were many hidden areas to engage bosses in, the home bases also feature passageways to the center. I expect it will take many playtests for players to find and hunt down all of the bosses in Raid Apex 7. Massive Forerunner landmark – Our environment artist Chin Fong really knocked this out of the park with this one – it also serves as the central base and main contest point of the map. Halo 5: Guardians is set to release October 27th of this year, and in case you’ve missed it, here’s the Hero Reborn Vidoc shown below.
