Wednesday, 9 July 2014

Discontinued achievements update issue 1 - WSoP Full House Pro, Monsters Love Candy, Dawn of War 2, Dance Central 3

It was confirmed by Microsoft that there will be no more events taking place in WSoP Full House Pro which renders the "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere" and the "Big Game Hunter" achievements discontinued on both Xbox 360 and Windows 8. 

Monsters Love Candy new has one discontinued achievement. The "Sweet Tooth" achievement. The store no longer has boost purchases available so it is no longer possible to get this achievement. If you have not unlocked the "Rainbow Eyes" achievement, I recommend getting it as soon as possible because if more of the store is taken down this achievement will also become discontinued. 

Nothing official has been announced yet, however, Steam achievements have been sort of released for Dawn of War 2. I can't find any information on anything official so I don't know when it is going to move to Steamworks but when it does it will likely render all of the online achievements for the game discontinued. 

In addition to the bad news there is some good news. The Dance Central 3 achievements related to sharing photos on Facebook have been fixed. The "Worth a Thousand Words" and "We're Friends Right?" achievements are once again obtainable. 

Monday, 7 July 2014

Keys are up and working and posting my content backlog.

I have been working on this post and a large number of updates and uploads over the last couple of week or so, so I hope I haven't missed anything.

I finally got around to posting the keys stuff. I posted a big chunk of songs that cover all of the pro keys achievements other than the trainers, listed below. They are located in the directory found here. Keys work exactly the same as drums so just switch your pro adapter over to the "K" position and play away.

25 or 6 to 4, Antibodies, Cross Town Traffic, Foolin, Get Up Stand Up, Heart of Glass, I Love Rock N Roll, Imagine, In a Big Country, Just Like Heaven, Killing Loneliness, Last Dance, Llama, Midlife Crisis, Oye Mi Amor, Rainbow in the Dark, Rehab, Rock Lobster, Smoke on the Lobster, Space Oddity, Werewolves of London, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.

I have a file for the pro keys trainers that works but still needs to be tidied up. I haven't posted it yet but that is on the top of my PBaE to do list so I hope to get it up pretty soon.

I am not going to list them all because there are too many, however if you requested it, it is probably there. All of the drum specific achievements that ripped MIDI files are available for should now be uploaded to the directory. Most of the files were submitted by anonymous contributors, but those that wished to be credited have been credited in the directory. Thank you all for your submissions. This would not have been possible without the community. I am going to have a community announcement in the next couple of weeks also.

There is also a project by PedroMontano that has been submitted to me that I put up. Pedro has come up with a method for playing guitar and bass on Rock Band 3 with the MIDI pro adapter. He has submitted instructions and a number of files that I have added to the Guitar and Bass directory. This method only works with Rock Band 3.

Now there are so many directories available that I have made a directory directory. I replaced the link to the drums directory in the sidebar with the directory directory.

I am going to try and have my first post for my new fun project up soon. It is almost finished I am just putting it all together so I hope you will all like that. I also plan on integrating some Google+ stuff into the site to make following posts and notification type things a bit easier. I would prefer to keep it Blogger only but it seems like that has been taken away and replaced with G+. If it still exists it is unfortunately too complicated for me to do, unless I am missing something.

Project Bombs and Eternity Directory Directory

Drums (Guitar Hero format)
Drums/Pro Drums (Rock Band format)
FAQ
Guitar/Bass
Instructions
Keys/Pro Keys
MIDI Charting Tutorials
Vocals

Project Bombs and Eternity Guitar Hero MIDI Directory

AC/DC Live Rock Band Track Pack
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
T.N.T.

Green Day Rock Band
American Idiot

Guitar Hero Van Halen
Hot for Teacher
I'm the One
Loss of Control
Mean Street
Painkiller
The Takedown

Guitar Hero World Tour
Assassin (Hard) - *Please see additional instructions*

Rock Band
29 Fingers
Are you Gonna be my Girl
Ballroom Blitz
Run to the Hills

Rock Band 3 Guitar/Bass Directory

These files and this method work only with Rock Band 3.


Follow the same method used for drums but make sure your adapter is set to the "K" position. When you go to play the song select guitar or bass and play as if it were a drum song.
-All credit for this method and these files goes to PedroMontano.


Bass

PBaE Keys Directory

Setting up keys is exactly the same as setting up drums. Just follow the same steps outlined in the drum video and switch your MIDI pro adapter to the "K" position.


Keys

Antibodies - Credit to PedroMontano
Child In Time - Credit to PedroMontano
China Grove - Credit to PedroMontano
Higher Ground - Credit to PedroMontano
Modern Love - Credit to PedroMontano
Roundabout - Credit to PedroMontano
Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting - Credit to PedroMontano

Pro Keys
25 or 6 to 4
Antibodies
Cross Town Traffic
Foolin
Get Up Stand Up
Heart of Glass
I Love Rock N Roll
Imagine
In a Big Country
Just Like Heaven
Killing Loneliness
Last Dance
Llama
Midlife Crisis
Oye Mi Amor
Rainbow in the Dark
Rehab
Rock Lobster
Smoke on the Lobster
Space Oddity
Werewolves of London
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Friday, 20 June 2014

Games for Windows LIVE will not be closing July 1 2014

There have been a number of rumors going around regarding Games for Windows LIVE since a statement (shown below) was found on Xbox.com, in August 2013, stating that Age of Empires Online would be closing on July 1, 2014 due to the closure of GFWL. This caused a lot of panic in the achievement community because the closure of GFWl would result in every achievement on the platform to become discontinued. This statement was pulled shortly after it was discovered, if I remember correctly only a few hours, and nothing much had been heard since.


In the months after the statement, a number of publishers patched their games to use Steamworks and remove GFWL completely from them. This combined with no official statement from Microsoft lead most to believe that there was a good chance that GFWL would be closing in July. As time passed and July 1 grew nearer and nearer it seemed more and more suspicious that there had been no official statement about the future of the service. That statement, however, surfaced today.

According to an article on gameinformer.com that can be viewed here, Microsoft released a statement (quoted below) stating that GFWL will not be shut down on July 1 2014.

"We are continuing to support the Games for Windows Live service. As previously announced, as part of the retirement of Microsoft Points the Xbox.com PC marketplace was closed. Although customers are unable to purchase new games from the marketplace or receive title updates, they can continue to enjoy previously purchased content by downloading them through the Games for Windows Live client as usual. We remain committed to investing in PC gaming in the years ahead, and look forward to sharing more in the future."

In addition to this statement from Microsoft Namco Bandi and 343 Industries also released statements about their games that use the service. A 343 team member posted a statement, that can be viewed here, on the Halo forums stating they will continue to support the GFWL service. Namco Bandai released a statement on their Tumblr page, that can be viewed here, stating that Dark Souls will continue to be supported with GFWL for the foreseeable future. These statements along with the above statement from Microsoft make the future of GFWL look pretty good.

Just a reminder to achievement hunters. Although GFWL will not be closing on July 1, Age of Empires Online will be closing its servers. Make sure you finish up everything you want to do before then, because when the server close the game will no longer be playable.

Other Blog News
I have not forgotten about all the other stuff I have been talking about, I have been dealing with school my extremely incompetent school administration, travelling, and scrambling to finish some of my GFWL games. I will be back home next week and I am going to try and get everything done then and update the site with some new stuff to make things more easy and more tidy. I also plan on posting about all future server closures, rumored or confirmed, in all games with LIVE achievements.