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Reviewed: Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition

Streamlining, self-publishing, annual stories—if you left, it’s time to unretire for 5E.

Dungeons & Dragons just celebrated its 42nd birthday—an auspicious number, to be sure—some 16 months after the release of its 5th edition. Since D&D’s latest release in August of 2014, many players and Dungeon Masters have rolled their polyhedrals in approval, and publisher Wizards of the Coast has grown its support for the world’s most popular role-playing game in ways you might not have expected.

No matter your edition or specific RPG of choice, today D&D continues to be the measuring stick by which other pen-and-paper games are judged, be it on sales, popularity, or even complexity. For many gamers over the course of the game's existence, D&D has been the entry point into role-playing which sparks a lifetime of storytelling and adventure.

So, with more than a year behind it, how does the newest edition of D&D hold up for newbies and hardcore fans alike?

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Electronic Superhighway review: Sex, Wi-Fi, and videotape with Douglas Coupland

New London exhibit takes us on a 50-year-long trip through the light (and dark) Internet.

I’m a stalker. Not a virtual stalker, a real life stalker. The good news is that Douglas Coupland—author of Microserfs and Generation X—doesn’t seem to mind.

Snatching my camera, Coupland reassures me in his smooth Canadian brogue that “electrons are free, one of these has to be OK,” before firing off 20 selfies, while I stand here in shock.

Text Butt 2015 by Olaf Breuning (credit: Lucy Orr)

This may be somewhat at odds with the art that he's here to promote at the hot new Whitechapel Gallery exhibition, Electronic Superhighway (2016-1966), which has just opened to the public in London. Coupland's large mixed media pieces are black and white photos with Piet Mondrian-like coloured cubes, or black and white stripes stuck over them. Titled Deep Face, the images (see gallery below) represent a critique of Facebook’s face recognition software.

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Starry Station $349 WiFi router looks a lot less fancy on the inside

Starry recently announced plans to offer a high-speed internet service in the United States by delivering wireless broadband signals using millimeter wave band active phased array technology. But the company’s first consumer product will be an expensive WiFi router called the Starry Station. It’s expected to sell for $350 and features a touchscreen display that can […]

Starry Station $349 WiFi router looks a lot less fancy on the inside is a post from: Liliputing

Teen sues TV station for $1M over unauthorized broadcast of his genitals

Family asked KOAA to report on issue, story ended up showing the boy’s name and his penis.

(credit: NURV.com)

A South Carolina teenager has sued a Colorado television station over allegations the station broadcasted a picture of his erect penis taken from a cell phone video uploaded to YouTube.

The case, known as Holden v. KOAA, asks for $1 million in damages and accuses the station, its reporter, its parent companies (NBC and Comcast), and other defendants of violating federal child pornography laws, invasion of privacy and negligence, and other allegations.

According to the lawsuit, the teen was 14 years old and living in Colorado at the time of the incident. (The incident occurred two years ago, but Ars will not name the individual as he is still a minor.) The cell phone video had been taken of the teen and put online as a way to blackmail him. His father’s girlfriend, Heather Richardson, soon contacted the KOAA TV station to let them know about the situation. KOAA sent a local reporter, Matthew Prichard, to the family’s home in Pueblo, Colorado, where Prichard interviewed the boy and filmed the offending material. The suit claims that the boy’s father specifically told Prichard to keep his son’s name out of the report.

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Daybreak Game Company: Zombiespiel H1Z1 wird aufgeteilt

Noch gibt es nur ein H1Z1, ab Mitte Februar sind es zwei: Das Entwicklerstudio Daybreak Game Company will dann ein Überlebens- und ein Actionspiel anbieten. Die Community hat es offenbar so gewollt. (Games, MMORPG)

Twitter: Neue Sortierung der Timeline kommt

Twitter folgt bei der Sortierung der Timeline wohl dem großen Konkurrenten Facebook: Bereits in den kommenden Tagen soll die Timeline nicht mehr grundsätzlich chronologisch sortiert werden – sondern zumindest auf Wunsch auch so, wie Algorithmen es richtig finden. (Twitter, Soziales Netz)

Twitter folgt bei der Sortierung der Timeline wohl dem großen Konkurrenten Facebook: Bereits in den kommenden Tagen soll die Timeline nicht mehr grundsätzlich chronologisch sortiert werden - sondern zumindest auf Wunsch auch so, wie Algorithmen es richtig finden. (Twitter, Soziales Netz)

Error 53: Unautorisierte Ersatzteile sperren iPhone

Eine ältere Fehlermeldung von Apple sorgt für neue Diskussionen: Ab iOS 9 sorgen unautorisierte Komponenten – etwa für den Touch-ID-Fingerabdrucksensor – in einem iPhone für die Fehlermeldung “Error 53”. Der Hersteller verteidigt dieses Vorgehen. (iPhone, Apple)

Eine ältere Fehlermeldung von Apple sorgt für neue Diskussionen: Ab iOS 9 sorgen unautorisierte Komponenten - etwa für den Touch-ID-Fingerabdrucksensor - in einem iPhone für die Fehlermeldung "Error 53". Der Hersteller verteidigt dieses Vorgehen. (iPhone, Apple)

Escape Dynamics: Firma für mikrowellenbetriebene Raumschiffe ist bankrott

Die Firma Escape Dynamics wollte einen mikrowellenbetriebenen Raumgleiter bauen, der kleine Nutzlasten kostengünstig in den Orbit bringen sollte. Nun ist die Firma pleite. (Raumfahrt, Internet)

Deutsche Bahn: Wlan für alle ICE-Fahrgäste möglicherweise erst 2017

Freies Surfen für Hunderte Fahrgäste, auch bei Tempo 250 und im Tunnel: Das hat sich die Bahn vorgenommen – aber es dauert wohl auf einigen Strecken noch länger als erwartet. Unbegrenzt Daten herunterladen werden die Passagiere auch nicht können. (Deutsche Bahn, WLAN)

Freies Surfen für Hunderte Fahrgäste, auch bei Tempo 250 und im Tunnel: Das hat sich die Bahn vorgenommen - aber es dauert wohl auf einigen Strecken noch länger als erwartet. Unbegrenzt Daten herunterladen werden die Passagiere auch nicht können. (Deutsche Bahn, WLAN)

Pirate Group Suspends New Cracks to Measure Impact on Sales

The China-based cracking group that recently bemoaned Denuvo’s anti-piracy system as all but unbreakable has delivered a second surprise announcement. 3DM says it will stop working on single-player games cracks for at least a year so it can assess whether genuine sales will be affected.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

One of the hottest topics in the game piracy scene in late 2015 surrounded the Avalanche Studios/Square Enix title Just Cause 3.

Released on December 1, 2015, pirates were eager to get their hands on the game for free. However, JC3 is protected by the latest iteration of Denuvo, an anti-tamper technology developed by Denuvo Software Solutions GmbH. Denuvo is not DRM per se, but acts as a secondary encryption system protecting underlying DRM products.

All eyes had been on notorious Chinese game cracking group/forum 3DM to come up with the goods but last month the group delivered a killer blow to its fans.

According to the leader of the group, the very public ‘Bird Sister’ (also known as Phoenix), the game was proving extremely difficult to crack. In fact, Bird Sister said that current anti-piracy technology is becoming so good that in two years there might not be pirated games anymore.

One month on from those words and Just Cause 3 still hasn’t been cracked and today brings even more bad news for those hoping to obtain the best gaming titles for free. Taking to her personal blog once more, Bird Sister has just announced an immediate end to the cracking activities of 3DM.

“We just had an internal meeting. Starting at the Chinese New Year, 3DM will not crack any single-player games,” Bird Sister says.

For those wondering, the Chinese New Year is next Monday, February 8.

“Cracks by overseas warez groups will still get posted on the [3DM] forum, and we will actively deal with these,” the group’s leader adds.

It is not entirely clear what “actively deal with” means, but the suggestion is that these cracks will not be allowed on the 3DM BBS/forum.

Bird Sister

What is perhaps most interesting, however, is the group’s apparent reasoning for ceasing their cracking activities. Denuvo was previously cited as a headache for the group but this time around that technology isn’t mentioned.

Instead, 3DM essentially indicates they’re taking part in an experiment to see how the lack of cracks affects the legitimate market.

“We’ll take a look at the situation in a year’s time to see if genuine sales have grown,” Bird Sister says.

There can be little doubt that the effective withdrawal of 3DM from the piracy market will be received as a huge blow to the group’s fans internationally who have come to rely on it for their pirate fix. There is a modicum of good news for the Chinese though, since 3DM will still work on translating and localizing games for its internal market.

The announcement comes on the heels of yesterday’s earnings report from Square Enix, the company behind Just Cause 3 and fellow Denuvo-protected (and also yet to be cracked) title Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Square Enix of America and Europe CEO Phil Rogers said both games had enjoyed “solid starts” but stopped short of revealing sales stats.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.