General

• Anti-aliasing is now available and can be enabled in the preferences menu.

Classes and Combat

General

• Healing caused by crowd control abilities no longer generates threat.
• Tooltips for abilities modified by skill points now display correct damage values.
• The cooldown indicator on hotbars no longer causes all ability icons to appear grayed out (unusable). Now, when an ability is on cooldown, it will not be grayed out if its activation conditions (like resource costs or range) are met.
• Using character rotation keys no longer breaks a character out of cover.

Guard

• This ability now transfers to a new friendly target without requiring deactivation on the previous target.
• Activating this ability while targeting a guarded or invalid target will still toggle the Guard ability off.
• A distinct visual effect is now present on characters using Guard on another character, and another effect is now present on the guarded character if they leave Guard’s range.

Taunt

• A new visual effect has been added to the user and the target of the Taunt ability for the duration of its effect.

Jedi Knight

General

• Force Leap: This ability no longer functions on Portable Holo Dancers.

Guardian

• Enure: This ability’s cooldown has been reduced to 1.5 minutes.
• Force Push: Now finishes the cooldown on Force Leap.

Bug Fixes

• Force Stasis: This ability is now correctly an instant ability when both Stasis Mastery and the 2-piece PvP set bonus are present.
• Plasma Brand: This ability’s tooltip now properly reflects the damage it does. Its damage has not been adjusted.

Sith Warrior

General

• Intercede: This ability no longer functions on Portable Holo Dancers.
• Shatter: This ability’s tooltip now correctly reflects its damage; damage from this ability has not been adjusted.

Juggernaut

• Endure Pain: This ability’s cooldown has been reduced to 1.5 minutes.
• Force Push: Now finishes the cooldown on Force Charge.

Bug Fixes

• Force Choke: This ability is now correctly an instant ability when both Force Grip and the 2-piece PvP set bonus are present.

Jedi Consular

General

• Project: This ability no longer shakes the screen of onlookers.

Shadow

• Battle Readiness: Now allows Combat Technique to trigger once every 3 seconds.
• Combat Technique: Healing received through Combat Technique has been increased, scales properly at higher levels, and can only be triggered once every 4.5 seconds.
• Slow Time: This ability’s damage has been increased by 15% and it now slows the movement speed of all affected targets.

Sith Inquisitor

Assassin

• Dark Charge: Healing received through Dark Charge has been increased, scales properly at higher levels, and can only be triggered once every 4.5 seconds.
• Overcharge Saber: Now allows Dark Charge to trigger once every 3 seconds.
• Wither: Damage has been increased by 15% and it now slows the movement speed of all affected targets.

Smuggler

General

• Flash Grenade: This ability now has a 60-second cooldown.

Scoundrel

Sawbones

• Accomplished Sawbones: The tooltip now reflects the actual healing bonus of 10/20/30%.

Scrapper

• Underdog: The tooltip for this skill has been re-worded to clearly state which abilities are modified.

Dirty Fighting (Shared Tree)

• Rough and Tumble: This skill now properly reduces the cooldown of Wounding Shots.

Imperial Agent

Bug Fixes

• Corrected an issue where activating cover, using Explosive Probe, and then using Snipe could cause Snipe to be interrupted.

Bounty Hunter

General

• Incendiary Missile: This ability is no longer misclassified as an Area of Effect ability.

Companion Characters

General

• C2-N2 and 2V-R8 no longer vocalize crafting commentary during combat.
• The Carbonized Stream companion ability no longer breaks prematurely.

Companions

Ashara Zavros

• Ashara’s Force Blast ability has had its damage increased.
• Ashara now animates correctly when using dual wield attacks.

Jaesa Willsaam

• Fixed a bug that could block marriage dialogue options with this companion.

Kira Carsen

• Fixed an issue that caused players to be unable to progress in Kira’s affection conversations. Players previously affected by this issue can now speak to Kira and progress normally.

Bug Fixes

• Companions will now sell trash items when requested, regardless of group size.
• Companion healing abilities no longer apply a permanent green effect on the character.
• Fixed an issue that caused Companion Characters to sometimes have the incorrect appearance in cinematics.
• Companion abilities that have been disabled by the player no longer toggle back on when the companion is re-summoned.
• Corrected an issue that caused the indicator that a companion wants to talk to you to disappear.
• Companions no longer need to be re-summoned after selling trash items if the player mounts a vehicle after dispatching them.
• Traveling from a Contested Area to a Contested Region now causes companions to be unsummoned correctly.

Crew Skills

Crafting Skills

Below, you’ll notice some changes to high-end Biochem and Cybertech crafted items that reduce their output. We understand that these changes may cause concern for Biochemists and Cybertechs, but we’ve made them in order to prevent a situation where any specific crafting skill becomes the objective “best choice” for players challenging endgame content or PvP. We only make this type of change after very careful consideration, and only to ensure a level and fun playing field for all players.

Artifice

• All mod type item modification schematics have been removed from the Artifice trainer. These schematics were invalid, and could not be used if purchased.

Biochem

• Biochem medpacks that heal a player and their companion no longer revive defeated companions.
• All Energized, Exotech, and Rakata adrenals and stims now require 400 Biochem for use.
• The Exotech Medpac is now named “Exotech Med Unit.” Its overall healing has been reduced and is now in line with similar level medpacs, and it temporarily increases the maximum health of its targets. Use of this item now requires 400 Biochem.
• The amount healed by Rakata Medpacs has been reduced. This item now additionally increases maximum health briefly. Use of this item now requires 400 Biochem.

Cybertech

• Wynz-Tek grenades now require 400 Cybertech for use.
• Wynz-Tek Grenades have had their damage reduced to bring them more in line with grenades of similar level.
• The Wynz-Tek Firestorm grenade’s damage has been reduced to bring it in line with grenades of similar level. It now deals damage every 3 seconds over 12 seconds.

Bug Fixes

• Corrected an issue that prevented recently completed Crew Skill missions from showing up in the next list of available missions.
• Fixed a bug that could cause Crew Skills a character didn’t have to appear in the Crew Skills window.
• Players can no longer loot harvesting nodes they do not have the appropriate Crew Skill for after a group member harvests (but does not loot) a node.

Flashpoints and Operations

General

• A new level 50 Flashpoint, Kaon Under Siege, is now available for play in Normal and Hard Modes!
• The Gav Daragon and the Ziost Shadow have been expanded to accommodate the Kaon Under Siege gateway.
• The difficulty of some non-boss enemies in Flashpoints has been adjusted.
• Enemies now drop credits more frequently in Flashpoints.

Flashpoints

The Battle of Ilum

• Krel Thak’s Allied Weequay Pirates have had their toughness reduced in Hard Mode.

The Black Talon

• Some enemies in this Flashpoint are no longer invisible.

Cademimu

• General Ortol’s rocket fire damage no longer occurs when the rocket is not active.

Colicoid War Game

• This Flashpoint’s mission now correctly leads the players into the Flashpoint.

Directive 7

• Bulwark was dealing more damage than intended in Normal Mode. His damage output has been reduced.
• Corrected an issue that caused Interrogator to sometimes spawn far more cyborgs than intended. The fight is now more manageable.
• Corrected an issue that allowed Replicator to become susceptible to crowd control in Hard Mode, making the encounter easier than intended.

The False Emperor

• The Sith Entity’s affliction ability now properly deals damage in Hard Mode.
• HK-47 now has the correct amount of health in Normal Mode.
• Tregg no longer immediately initiates his whirlwind attack after leaping to a player target. Players now have more time to react and avoid whirlwind damage.
• Corrected an issue that caused Jindo Krey to randomly target players with his blaster attack. He now focuses those attacks on his primary target, making him “tankable” as intended.
• Players can now acquire special Pulse Grenades outside of Darth Malgus’ throne room. These grenades aid groups lacking knockback abilities in defeating him.

The Foundry

• Corrected an issue that could cause the final boss to become stuck at 10% health.
• The final boss now resets if he is pulled out of his chamber. This prevents an exploit allowing players to avoid the encounter’s mechanics.
• The final boss was unintentionally dealing 70k damage with one of his attacks. This has been corrected.
• Players can no longer cause the final boss to become stuck in an immune state by damaging him too quickly in his final phase.

Maelstrom Prison

• X-37 Oppressor Droid’s grapple can no longer be resisted, ensuring the fight mechanic behaves as intended.

The Red Reaper

• The Red Reaper mission now updates correctly for the entire group when the mission is obtained on the Imperial or Republic Fleets.

Operations

Eternity Vault

• Players are now able to successfully loot the chest after defeating the Infernal Council.
• Perimeter Defense Cannons have been re-tuned and have improved targeting behaviors.
• Soa’s Mind Trap and Force Throw abilities no longer target the same player multiple times; they now target every player in the group once.
• Ball lightning enemies summoned by Soa deal damage in a smaller radius.
• The Annihilation Droid’s rocket burst attack no longer deals double damage in 16-player Operations.
• Soa now summons fewer ball lightning enemies during the final round in 16-player Operations.
• The Ancient Pylons now reset correctly if not solved within the allotted time.
• Soa’s mind traps unintentionally had 200k health in Nightmare Mode. This amount has been reduced significantly.
• The duration of the Penalty of Destiny effect in the Infernal Council encounter has been increased to 1 minute. Players are unable to assist other players in their fight for the duration of this effect.
• Players are now released from Soa’s mind traps in the correct location after the encounter.

Karagga’s Palace

• Four new bosses can now be battled by players in Karagga’s Palace!
• Players no longer get stuck attempting to exit the Karagga’s Palace phase.
• Reduced the damage of Bonethrasher’s Overhead Smash attack and reduced the distance players are knocked back by his Backhand attack in Hard Mode. This gives players more room to avoid being knocked into the pit.
• Bonethrasher no longer attacks players immediately after they fall into his pit when re-entering after being defeated, allowing players to regroup before engaging.

Bug Fixes

Flashpoints

• Corrected an issue that prevented some enemy NPCs from spawning in Flashpoints.
• The correct error message now displays when a player attempts to enter a different Flashpoint than the rest of the group.
• Flashpoint gateways no longer display as orange in incorrect circumstances.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Flashpoint difficulty from being set properly.
• Fixed an issue that caused mapnotes directing players to some Flashpoints to not appear correctly.
• Corrected map issues that made locating mission objectives on the Gav Daragon difficult.
• Fixed an issue preventing some players from opening a chest after a boss fight if the group was previously defeated by the boss.

Items

General

• An Item Modification Table has been added to the Supplies areas of the Republic and Imperial Fleets.
• Several tanking relics that had the incorrect stats have been corrected.

PvP

• Battlemaster Gear Tokens have been converted into Battlemaster Commendations, which can be used to purchase any Battlemaster gear. This allows players to purchase any piece of gear instead of requiring them to purchase the piece indicated by the token.
• Battlemaster Bags now contain Battlemaster Commendations instead of Battlemaster Gear Tokens. They still also contain Champion Commendations.
• The PvP item “Heal Consumable” is now named “Warzone Medpac.” Its cooldown has been reduced from 5 minutes to 3 minutes and it now shares the 1.5-minute cooldown with other medpacs. This item can be used effectively over time, but now cannot be stacked beyond what is intended.
• The PvP item “Overcharge Consumable” is now named “Warzone Expertise Adrenal.” Its cooldown has been reduced from 5 minutes to 3 minutes and it now shares a cooldown with other adrenals. It (and other adrenals) no longer stack with the PvP Power-Up that increases Expertise to prevent Expertise values from increasing beyond intended levels.
• Warzone Medpacs and Warzone Expertise Adrenals no longer share a cooldown with each other.
• A new line of high-end PvP relics with appropriate PvP stats have been added to PvP vendors.

Bug Fixes

• Removing a modification from an item and then re-inserting it no longer causes that modification to be lost upon area transitions.

Missions and NPCs

General

• All Bonus Series missions and their required missions can now be abandoned.
• Certain Wampas on Hoth that were preying on lower-level characters have had their level reduced.

Missions

Imperial

• In Cold Blood: Enemies that use Armor Piercing Cell during this mission no longer each stack a debuff on the player.
• A Dangerous Auction: The step “Travel to Hutta” now updates if the player travels there via the Imperial Fleet.
• Death Marks: This mission now advances in the Star Cluster Casino regardless of player decisions regarding Yjal on Balmorra.
• Enclave Raid: This mission no longer becomes blocked if players complete the task “Defeat Tarisian Enclave Masters” before completing “Recover Tarisian Artifacts.”
• Geroya be Haran: Objectives related to this mission now glow when selected.
• Honor or Glory: Players can no longer repeat a conversation with Torian.
• Hutt Hospitality: The conversation with Ambassador Rove now takes into account the outcome of a decision regarding Grub.
• Legerdemain: The dialogue with Chaney Barrow can no longer be repeated.
• The Mandalorian Killer: Kellian Jarro and Thendys Noori now correctly spawn during this mission.
• Pressure Points: The Lerantha Lurker no longer engages players in combat before completing its spawn sequence.
• The Sacred Flame: Blank dialogue options no longer display during this mission’s conversations.
• Shadow Spawn: The Sith Spawn no longer knocks players down for longer than intended.
• The Slave-Killers: Players can no longer repeat a conversation that belongs to this mission.
• Spiking the Punch: Players can no longer repeat Vicebaron Heitor’s initial dialogue.
• Thuggish Behavior: Corrected an issue that could cause the player to remain stuck in combat during this mission. The required kills to complete this mission have been reduced.

Republic

• Back Alley: Players now receive credit for defending the point with the turret.
• Climbing the Ladder: A conversation related to this mission no longer ends prematurely.
• Droid Clean Up: Corrected an issue that caused the bonus mission to persist in the player’s mission log.
• Lab Work: Choosing the dark side option in this mission no longer causes this mission to stop advancing.
• Prison Breaking: Rist Slayers, Stalkers, Torturers, and Prison Guards now respawn correctly.
• Rescue Operation: This mission now progresses normally if the player is defeated on the step “Use Your Personal Holocom” when fleeing the base.
• Scorched Earth: The mission objective NPC in this mission no longer spawns as friendly and unattackable in some instances.
• Shattering: Mission progression no longer becomes blocked if the player returns to the med center after being defeated in combat.
• The Shadow Fist: Mission progression no longer becomes blocked if the player closes the loot window on the step “Recover the Stealth Field Generator.”
• The Summit: The difficulty of the encounter with Sidone has been reduced.
• Thwarting House Thul: Thul Mercenaries, Thul Sharpshooters, and Thul Colonels now respawn properly.
• Vivicar Awaits: Lowered the amount of enemies that attack the player during the step “Find a Way Past the Force Field.”

NPCs

General

• Redris Korin on Corellia now uses ranged Force abilities in combat.

Bug Fixes

• Jilcoln Cadera’s abilities now correctly take into account whether a player is immune from knockbacks.
• The “Primal Destroyer” World Boss on Belsavis is now “Overwhelming” as intended.
• The World Boss “The First” on Dromund Kaas no longer inhibits Bounty Hunter’s Rapid Shots, and Imperial Agents will no longer be knocked out of cover during combat with it.
• Fixed a bug that could cause specific NPCs to appear miniature-sized in conversations.
• Players using the French and German clients can now obtain daily PvE missions.

PvP

General

• The shuttle room in Dorn Base Command Center on Hoth is no longer considered contested territory.
• Ka on Voss is now a PvP Sanctuary.
• Players who are interacting with a Warzone objective and are then affected by an area of stealth effect will have the objective interaction interrupted. This ensures players cannot exploit area of stealth effects to secure Warzone objectives unaffected and unseen by defending players.

Warzones

General

• Level 50 players now participate in their own Warzone bracket and will not be matched with lower-level players.

Huttball

• Players can no longer respawn inside the Warzone with full health under certain conditions.

World PvP

Ilum

• The daily and weekly mission objectives in Ilum now require defeating enemy players and/or collecting armaments from the center objective.
• Players now gain increased Valor from player kills in Ilum.
• Players now gain increased bonus Valor for kills based on the number of objectives controlled by their faction.
• Increased bonus Valor is now granted for player kills when defending an objective your faction owns.
• A notification is now displayed when a player gains Valor.
• Three new respawn points have been added for each faction.
• Companions are now restricted from the PvP objective area on Ilum.
• Notifications are now displayed when enemy players are close to an objective.
• Automated defense turrets have been added to Empire and Republic taxi spawn points.
• Particle Cannons around the Empire and Republic bases now activate more reliably.

The Outlaws’ Den (Tatooine)

• Chests containing Mercenary Commendations are now available again in the Outlaw’s Den.

Bug Fixes

General

• The scoreboard value for “Highest Protection Per Single Life” now functions correctly.
• Players who have left a Warzone can no longer receive an MVP vote from teammates.
• Your PvP status will now be toggled automatically upon leaving a PvP region.
• Additional feedback is now provided when a player attempts to toggle their PvP flag.
• The Bolster tooltip now more accurately represents the buff’s effects.

Huttball

• Corrected a rare issue that could cause the Frogdogs to be declared the winner in a 0-0 match even if the Rotworms held the ball last.

Ilum

• Mountable turrets in Ilum no longer deal damage to targets behind them or outside their range.
• Turrets no longer immediately dismount the player after use.
• Fixed a bug that would not grant proper credit to the first player to interact with a mission loot chest.
• Players will now receive proper Valor and mission credit when defeating another player.

Space Combat

Bug Fixes

• Armor Upgrade 2 now has the correct armor value.

UI

General

• Players now receive the appropriate message when they are unable to enter an area because they are in an Operation group.

Maps

• Fixed a bug that prevented the minimap title from displaying when loading into the game or refreshing the UI.
• Corrected an issue that caused some mapnotes to disappear from the minimap when other mapnotes were updated.

Items

• Item hyperlinks now display stats for crafted research items properly.
• Item hyperlinks no longer display erroneous additional information relating to schematics when examined.
• Attempting to place a non-mission item into the mission inventory now displays an error message.
• Dragging equipment onto the character paper doll no longer prompts an item deletion notice. Items dragged to the paper doll are now equipped if possible.
• Item set bonuses now appear on the tooltip when viewing an item on a vendor.
• Items that can be modified now display with the correct loot color in the loot roll window.
• Comparative tooltips now correctly display stat differences when mousing over items in the Crew Skills window.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the tooltip display for ability cooldowns over one hour in length.
• The interface for splitting stacks of items now displays correctly.
• Servers that are online now always display on top of servers that are offline in the Server Select screen.
• Corrected a typographical error in the “Additional Commands” context menu option.
• Players nearby a player who achieves a new Legacy level no longer receive the Legacy level-up notification.
• Legacy name display preferences now persist when travelling between planets.
• A new confirmation dialogue now appears when submitting spam reports in game.
• Sorting now works correctly in the Guilds tab.
• Opening the Inventory Panel with the button on the Menu Bar now always correctly displays the reverse engineering button.
• Inviting a new player to a guild no longer causes the member list to display incorrectly.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

• The owner of a holocall conversation is no longer shown in the last frame of the cinematic.
• Players can no longer teleport to the location of a player whose conversation they are spectating.
• Players can no longer prevent others from using a mission-related item in the world by refusing to close its loot window.
• The spacebar button is now recognized when a player presses it to progress after a loading screen even if the spacebar button has been re-bound.
• Additional issues that could impact performance on Taris have been addressed.
• Vanity pets can no longer be considered targets for any abilities.

Players who spectated conversations no longer unleash an initial massive critical social roll in their next multiplayer conversation.

• Corrected an issue that could cause some preferences to reset to defaults upon area transitions.
• Respawnable chests are no longer present in some mission phases.
• An Aim Datacron on Ilum is now accessible and no longer repeats its initial cinematic once used.
• A Datacron on Coruscant is no longer blocked by unintentional collision.
• Corrected an issue with older ATI cards that could cause the game to render as a black screen.
• Falls on the Republic and Imperial Fleets that should lead to death now properly do so. Players who die on the Fleets now respawn at the appropriate med center.
• Corrected an issue that could cause the game to crash during area transitions.
• Fixed a bug that could cause players to fall through the world during or after a conversation or cinematic.

Here is a small listing of some of the changes that will be taking place.

• General performance and loading time improvements
• “Black Screen” fix for an issue occurring on some PC configurations
• Stereo and rendering support for Nvidia and AMD graphics cards
• Fixed several crashes that occurred when joining multiplayer and co-op sessions
• Fixed a problem with high speed mouse movement (aka “negative mouse acceleration”)
• You should no longer be able to damage a friendly vehicle when sitting in an open position
• Grenades now drop to ground if you get killed while attempting to throw it (dangerous in Hardcore mode!)
• You should no longer spawn too close to enemies in TDM, SQDM, or Conquest
• A large number of damage and range tweaks on a number of weapons to fine-tune overall balance in the game
• Added round duration and ticket summary at End of Round screen
• Fixed a problem regarding key bindings while playing
• Significant changes to the Join Squad interface, detailed at the bottom of this post

Stop by the EA Battlefield blog and read all about it: More Details Here

If you have any problems with the new layout please let us know and bear with us as we continue to update the site and make changes in the next few weeks.

‘”Counter-Strike took the gaming industry by surprise when the unlikely MOD became the most played online PC action game in the world almost immediately after its release in August 1999,” said Doug Lombardi at Valve. “For the past 12 years, it has continued to be one of the most-played games in the world, headline competitive gaming tournaments and selling over 25 million units worldwide across the franchise.’

From the descriptions and trailers that I’ve read and watched, this new addition to the CS series looks like CS:Source with updated maps, player models, weapons, and gameplay modes.  The graphics look to be enhanced but only marginally better.  It also looks like there will be new buy menus, new achievements (insert your favorite facepalm here), and other minor visual tweaks.  It feels as if Valve gave CS:Source a new coat of paint to try to keep up with the popular Battlefield and Call of Duty series.  Check out the official trailer:

Here’s a gameplay video from IGN:

It remains to be seen how different the gameplay will be compared to CS:Source.  CS:S, im my opinion, will always be the benchmark for fun, competitive, team-based FPS’s.  The reason the majority of our community has stopped playing the game was because it became too stagnant.  The relatively recent additions of achievements and other “gimmicks” did not help.  In fact, it may have made the game less fun to play.  Add in the overwhelming number of cheaters and immature players and it became too frustrating to play at times.  Hopefully, this “expansion” will give the game enough of a refresh so we can get back into it (for however long of a time period).

Valve is currently targeting an early 2012 release.

I don’t want to spoil to much but if you are willing, click the drop down below and check out my review.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark Review

If you are interested in learning more about Firefall go here.

Targeted by a vicious criminal cartel that are hunting “the blood of the Hawke,” you must put an end to their relentless attacks. Leave Kirkwall, and journey to an ancient Grey Warden prison in order to find the source of the aggression and uncover the harsh truth about the Hawke lineage. Playable from any point in the Dragon Age II campaign, face new breeds of darkspawn, forge a powerful new weapon and come face to face with an ancient horror.

Check out the trailer below:

For more information on how to register your preorder code for early access, check out MiseryMachine’s forum post here.

If you haven’t already watched the cinematic trailer for the game, I highly recommend it (it looks even better in 720p):