Glitch Message Board

IGN explores the town of Ludendorff, North Yankton and finds a few strange things scattered around the glitched city in the sky.

Glitch was an ambitious 2D MMO that focused on crafting and socialising instead of combat or grinding. It launched its original beta in early 2009, came out of beta in September 2011, went back into beta that November due to a lack of accessibility or depth, and finally closed down in November 2012.

Or maybe that wasn’t final. Maybe that was just the beginning of something else. Tiny Speck, the developers of Glitch, have just released all the game’s artwork and some of its code into the public domain. That means you can now use it for whatever you want, including new commercial games.(more…)

Grand Theft Auto Online is still pretty darn glitchy. Here's a few of the crazy gaming sessions we've had.

A recently-discovered glitch in Dead Space 3 that allows players to farm infinite resources for item crafting isn't a glitch after all, according to EA's statement to GameFront. The method for obtaining said resources, skirting the game's microtransaction system, won't be patched out, either.

"The resource-earning mechanic in Dead Space 3 is not a glitch. We have no plans to issue a patch to change this aspect of the game. We encourage players to explore the game and discover the areas where resources respawn for free. We've deliberately designed Dead Space 3 to allow players to harvest resources by playing through the game," EA rep Jino Talens said.

The microtransaction model, which allows players to skip the resource-gathering at a cost, is still an option for players. "For those that wish to accumulate upgrades instantly, we have enabled an optional system for them to buy the resources at a minimal cost ($1-$3)," Talens added. With the farming glitch going unchecked, it's more likely that Dead Space 3 players will spend that money on cheap burritos.

Dead Space 3's inclusion of campaign microtransactions incited a negative gut reaction from some potential players, and if we can count on one thing in life, it's people finding ways around things that make them uncomfortable. A glitch in Dead Space 3 allows players to infinitely farm random items from one room near the end of chapter eight, as discovered and recorded by Game Front.

Dead Space 3 allows players to purchase materials for crafting weapons, in both single-player and co-op modes, alongside the standard scavenging and lucky find methods. For the record completed the game without using a single microtransaction, and we still found the experience enjoyable (in a terrifying kind of way).

Tiny Speck announced last night that Glitch is coming to an end: “The live game/world will be closed on December 9th at 8pm Pacific time.” The enormously ambitious browser-based MMO attracted loads of talent to the development process, but failed to interest gamers. At one point the game was actually unlaunched, due to serious issues with the design. Tiny Speck explain: “Unfortunately, Glitch has not attracted an audience large enough to sustain itself and based on a long period of experimentation and our best estimates, it seems unlikely that it ever would. And, given the prevailing technological trends — the movement towards mobile and especially the continued decline of the Flash platform on which Glitch was built — it was unlikely to do so before its time was up. Glitch was very ambitious and pushed the limits of what could be done in a browser-based game … and then those limits pushed back.”

It was a brave idea, but one that definitely didn’t do what it set out to do. A sad day. More details and information about the closure can be found here.

So there's this bug in Borderlands 2. It wipes out players' Badass Ranks, golden keys, heads and skins with no chance of redemption, at times lowering stats to unplayable levels. The bug affects Xbox 360, PS3 and PC versions of Borderlands 2 and it doesn't appear to follow a pattern of attack. Seems like a big deal.

The bug, viewable in the above video, doesn't reset any of the challenges it erases, meaning players can't go back and try to complete them again. A 300-response thread on the official Gearbox forums chronicles players who have encountered the bug, though Gearbox Community Manager Chris Faylor says it is a "fairly rare" occurrence.

"Thanks for all the reports and specific details, folks," Faylor writes in the forum. "Our engineers are looking into this, and the information you've provided has proven to be a great resource while we investigate. At the moment, it seems to be a fairly rare issue and we'll keep you updated on when we resolve it."

So far one piece of advice in the forum tells players who log in to find wiped Badass Ranks or achievements to immediately quit the game and boot it back up.

We've reached out to Gearbox for more information about the bug and any potential fixes.

[Thanks to everyone who sent in this tip!]

Sure, you're lethal with a FAMAS in Battlefield 3, but you've gotta stop - at least, until EA fixes a problem associated with it. There's a glitch lurking out there, preventing Battlelog from recognizing progression and stats. It's like you never even played that last match.

According to the Battlefield 3 Facebook account, if anybody is using a FAMAS in any given match it's possible that no stats will be recognized - for any players. Best to table that firearm until this bug's number is up.

Having fun with Diablo 3? If you hope to keep having fun, you might want to avoid the game-breaking bug discovered by fellow players. According to many posts on the Blizzard forums, equipping a Templar follower with a different shield may result in the game desynchronizing from Blizzard's servers. Users are also reporting that they are unable to log back into Diablo 3 - specifically encountering timeout error 3006 - even after restarting the game.

As noted by Eurogamer, the issue may be restricted to the Demon Hunter class. Blizzard is currently looking into the problem. In the meantime, regardless of your class, you should probably avoid swapping equipment with the Templar follower.

#watchthis This jeep in Battlefield 3 is special. It won't listen to reason when you say things like, "But you're just a Jeep. You were designed for 4-wheeling and hazardous shooting." More »

#glitch Glitch, the casual MMO that's the work of the creators of Flickr and Katamari Damacy, launched with a ton of promise! It also promptly turned out to be a bit rubbish. So rubbish that its developers are "unlaunching" it. More »

The Glitch blog announced: “Two months ago we launched Glitch to the world. Now we’re unlaunching it.” The problem is, apparently, that it’s just not fun enough. The team explain: “making radical changes to core game mechanics is something that’s a lot harder to do while the front doors are open and we have to focus on scaling to support growth, stability and providing the quality of service we aim to achieve for the live game. Going back to beta will let us make the changes that need to be made. And so we’re “unlaunching” — and going back to beta.” These things are always complicated, but hopefully the quirky 2D MMO can survive this and be the game it was supposed to be.

Read our review of the launched game here.

Glitch is certainly intriguing. Being made by a spin-off team from the developers of Flickr, and having hired Katamari-creator Keita Takahashi, it proceeded to tell us about its potential for emergent play in a quirky 2D world. It wants to be the cleverest of the “casual” MMOs. But could it live up to such ambitions? Or is that beautiful art and imaginative writing stuck in a quagmire of MMO grind? We sent in Agent Smee to find out.(more…)

Update: if you're having trouble getting in (it's open to all, but there might be a wait), Tiny Speck has set up a "fast pass" site for Joystiq readers here.

Glitch, the cute browser MMO set inside the minds of giant monsters, is officially opening up to the public today at 10AM PDT after a long beta period. The game is the work of Tiny Speck, a new company formed by Stewart Butterfield, Cal Henderson, Eric Costello, and Serguei Mourachov, four co-founders of Flickr. It's a free-to-play game with subscription and virtual currency options, both used for avatar customization items.

Speaking to me in a phone interview yesterday, Butterfield claimed that the game is playable in a casual style, but also accommodates players interested in a more intense experience. "We wanted to have enough depth to capture the imaginations of people who want to go deep," he said. "There are 1000-plus items and 90 skills."

Glitch has potential for emergent gameplay, which he compared to Eve Online, though he was quick to note that it's not as combat-oriented as Eve and more fun to actually play. For example, he related an anecdote from the beta, about players creatively using a "notes" system. "Early on, some of the richer players started a bank, with an alternative currency that was based on notes," Butterfield said. "They just guaranteed the notes with their supply of in-game currency based on the timestamp and the person who created it."

Glitch, a new free-to-play MMO from the creators of Flickr and Katamari Damacy, is now live. According to the game's official site, "Glitch is a web-based massively-multiplayer game which takes place inside the minds of eleven peculiarly imaginative Giants. You choose how to grow and shape the w...