As PUBG Mobile gears up for a relaunch, several professionals have been left frustrated with the delay, causing them to switch to the Korean version for practice.
Announced 2 weeks ago, PUBG Corp had announced that it would be launching a brand new game under the banner of PUBG Mobile India exclusively for the Indian audience, with the anticipated launch date being in the first week of December. Several professionals and streamers like Dynamo, Kronten, Jonathan among others had uploaded teasers as well, yet the news regarding the relaunch has since gone cold.
Part of the reason could be approvals from the ministry and the logistical and technological challenges to make the new game compliant and completely independent from its predecessor. While PUBG India was registered as a company, it has been more than 20 days since the initial launch without much progress, which has forced the hands of the pros to continue practicing on the Korean version temporarily.
With the news of the relaunch, several scrims and practice tournaments have also started popping up, with the likes of Villager Esports hosting full fledged practice scrims yesterday with all the top teams taking part. It remains to be seen when PUBG Mobile is officially back in India before such tournaments can be brought back.
If you’ve been playing Free Fire for a while, then you’re probably aware of its in-game currency of ‘Diamonds’. Diamonds let you buy cool cosmetic items for visual enhancement of your character or weapon that provide no impact on the actual gameplay whatsoever.
Due to the increasing popularity of the battle royale by Garena over the past few months, more and more players are looking to buy themselves some Diamonds in Free Fire.
In case you’re one of these players, now might be the best time for you to make your first purchase, as Garena has announced a 100% top-up bonus to all the players who buy Diamonds through the Free Fire top-up center.
Among Us brings a pet to accompany you on the ship. To mark the collaboration between Twitch Rivals and Among Us, the Twitch Pet is introduce which can be obtained for free. Here’s how:
How to Get the Twitch Glitch Pet in Among Us
To get the Twitch Glitch pet in Among Us, watch the Twitch Rivals Among Us Showdown for at least 30 minutes between December 4 and December 18. Upon watching 30 minutes of Among Us Showdown, claim your pet from the Drops inventory.
what does every crewmate need?
YOUR very own Glitch Pet!
watch and claim yours with Twitch Drops during @AmongUsGame x Twitch Rivals shows, starting today Dec 4 through Dec 18
Playing Valorant can often become frustrating when encountering other players who intentionally throw matches for their own amusement. However, this kind of behavior might be coming to an end, as Riot Games reveals their plans to combat the increasing number of AFKs, throwers, griefers, and smurfs in the game in their latest Ask Valorant blog post released today.
For starters, to reduce the number of players going AFK in-game, Valorant is changing the restrictions for ranked queue from 20 matches to 10 wins starting from the next patch.
“We hope this will force players who are just spam farming matches to actually participate in play and strive for wins,” producer Sara Dadafshar said.
Riot has also claimed that they’re working on “better detection of this type of behavior that will lead to harsher punishment.”
The list of punishments for AFKs, griefers, or smurfs that Riot is looking into includes “rank penalties, experience mitigations, longer queue time restrictions, and even bans if it comes down to it.”
Dadafshar continued, “We want to distinguish between disruptive behaviors that stem from comms and gameplay, and then penalize accordingly. I can’t give away our secrets in terms of what our plans for detection are, but know that we are actively working on a way to make the game more enjoyable in this regard!
Riot has also mentioned that they might start planning to work on a system that lets players block griefers to prevent being placed in queues with them.
“There’s some nuances we’d have to work through to ensure queue times don’t significantly increase, but we understand how frustrating it is when you get matched up with someone who you just reported in the prior match,” Dadafshar said.
Valorant Patch 1.13 Release Date:
VALORANT patch 1.13 is expected to drop on December 8th.
Free Fire has some interesting in-game modes which add an element of freshness to the game as compared to any other titles in the battle-royale genre. The game modes are somewhat unique and requires different strategies and micro-mechanisms. To win modes like Clash Squad in Free Fire, there are things you should know before heading into the matches and one of the important things is character selection.
Free Fire has a big pool of characters where new additions and general tweaks are frequently made to keep the uniqueness alive and not set a standard meta in the game. These characters have their own kit of skills which can be used in-game to gain advantages over the enemies in certain situations.
All the characters are built differently but there are some which stand out of the crowd. Some characters are very easy to learn and once you know how to use their active and passive skills, the games matches much easier.
For a mode like Clash Squad where four players face a similar squad in a round of seven matches, there are some characters which can help you win the games more easily. In a set of seven matches, you have to win four of them to get that Booyah and claim the victory. This mode has its own ranking system and hence, picking the right character is very important.
Best Free Fire Characters for Clash Squad
DJ Alok
This is one of the best characters to ever get introduced in Free Fire. It is based on a real-life DJ and has some interesting set of abilities which can make you invincible if you play him correctly.
His active ability is known as Drop the Beat in which he surrounds himself with an aura which increases the ally speed by 10% and also restores 5 HP per second for a total duration of 5 seconds. This ability can be maxed up to last for a maximum of 10 seconds.
It provides a lot of sustainability for your team and hence, if you prefer to play with your friends or your squad, this character is a perfect fit for you.
K
K is the latest addition to the pool of characters in Free Fire. This character was a result of a unique collaboration between Free Fire and DJ KSHMR. This character offers much more than others on the list.
He has two skill modes in which, the active skill grants the allies within a 6m radius get a 500% increase in the EP conversion rate and the passive ability restores 2 EP every 3 seconds and once the bar reaches a total of 100 EP, the active skill can be used.
Captain Booyah or K is always one of the best choices to ever take in to the battlefields hence do no hesitate to try him in your matches.
Jai
Jai is the a character based on Bollywood actor Hritik Roshan and is a SWAT trained agent according to Free Fire. This Delhi based character has an odd ability known as Raging Reload.
This ability reloads the gun by 30% with each takedown and can be maxed up to 45%. It helps the players who look out for action and if you are hunting for blood and like to rain down bullets on your enemies, you should opt for Jai.
Jai is probably the best option for aggressive players as the reloading skill provides large amount of ammunition in combats and if your aim is on point, you can dominate the Clash Squad using Jai.
Hayato
This character is termed as a legendary samurai and has some different skills which make him stand out. His passive ability is known as Bushido and it grants an increased armor penetration by 7.5% with every 10% decrease in maximum HP. The armor penetration can reach a maximum of 10% when the character is fully maxed out.
Hayato is again one of the characters which can be used to make risky plays which are necessary to win matches in Clash Squad. If you are confident about your skills, his skills can greatly assist you to take down the enemies.
Kapella
This character is slightly different than others on the list. If you like to play as a support to your team and assist them in the fights, using Kapella is your best choice. Her abilities increases the healing effect by 10% and the HP lost by allies is reduced by 20%. Overall, these skills will provide you with the sustainability and tenacity required to face enemies using aggressive characters.
This is our list of top five characters that can help you win the Clash Squad mode very easily. Let us know if this helped you in any way. We wish you good luck.
Within only a few days of the new ‘Sensation’ skin bundle hitting the in-game stores of Valorant, it seems like data miners have already managed to dig up hints towards the next Valorant BlastX skin bundle coming to the competitive shooter.
According to Valorant Leaks on Twitter, the upcoming weapon skin collection will be named the ‘BlastX collection’ and it will arrive at the Valorant store later this month. While not much is known about the BlastX skin bundle as of yet, the data miner has shared with us a picture of a skin included in the bundle for reference.
The BlastX collection will be releasing on 12/23. No official images of the skins are released but, we do have an old image of the collection. #VALORANTpic.twitter.com/vTbCVMGhMo
In the teaser released by Riot, the video ends with the date 12/23. This goes in accordance with what Valorant Leaks claimed on Twitter – the bundle will release on December 23rd.
No official confirmation has been made by Riot on when will the next skin bundle be available in Valorant. For now, it’s safe to assume that we’ll get to see the BlastX bundle on the above-mentioned date.
PUBG Mobile has officially released its latest beta 1.2 update. This update will bring in a new theme to the game and a new mode named Extreme Hunt will be launched in the game. This update is currently only available on the beta application and the global version might soon receive an update once a stable patch is tested for a longer time.
The new Extreme Hunt mode will include a dedicated feature in which, a Powered Exoskeleton suit will be provided to the players which will amplify their defensive stats. The exact details about this feature are not known right now, but as per several leaks, it is suggested that this suit will have different parts.
Equipping each part will increase the sustainability and after one equips the entire suit, an ability known as Dragon’s Breathe Grenade could be activated.
These details are not confirmed as the official patch notes are not out as of yet but finally, the PUBG Mobile Beta 1.2 version is launched in the market. earlier, a third-party website named GameExp started the registrations for this update but finally, an open-for-all version is out.
How to download PUBG Mobile Beta 1.2
Follow these simple steps to download PUBG Mobile beta version. This link will only work for android users and iOS devices can get the support very soon.
Click here and it will redirect you to the official PUBG mobile beta page.
Click on ‘Download for Android’ and simply install the game after completing the download.
Make sure you have 610MB free storage on your phone and have enabled the third-party app installation toggle from your settings to run the game smoothly.
Download the game and be among the very first to try this new update. If you face any errors while downloading or installing the game, simply retry the downloading process. We hope that you will enjoy this new update.
Controversies seem to be the norm for 2020 and there is another one brewing in the Indian chess scene.
India scripted history by winning the gold medal in the first ever Online Chess Olympiad held by FIDE. The current world situation had compelled the event to be held online and FIDE subsequently changed the format, amalgamating all different disciplines under the umbrella of one single nation, with the Men, Women and both the junior sections all competing together for Team India.
The medals are here! Thank you @FIDE_chess. On the way to dispatch them to the rest of the team now.
It wasn't easy getting it! It reached from Russia to India in three days, but took more than a week to reach from Bangalore to India, and had to pay customs duty! pic.twitter.com/vVGAbFQ8N5
India ended up sharing the gold medal with Russia after server outages caused disruption in the finals.
While Pentala Harikrishna is in Europe and has already received his medal, the medals for other members were finally received by team vice-captain Srinath Narayanan, who will now duly forward it to each member of the winning team.
However, the chess GrandMaster did reveal that he was asked to pay a custom duty of 6300 INR as well as produce a certificate of composition to prove the contents of the medal while explaining the details of why these were being received, much to his frustration.
Bear in mind, a 2017 government directive had declared that all medals won by sportspersons will be exempt from custom duty. This highlights the lack of recognition for chess in India, despite the country boasting of a large number of Grand Masters.
The same was highlighted during the tournament itself when captain Vidit Gujarathi had lamented on a lack of governmental support for the Indian chess team, which suffered a few setbacks related to internet connectivity over the course of the event.
It is disheartening to see that, despite the growing popularity of chess in India in 2020, the Indian chess players are still bereft of proper recognition as sportspersons by the government.
Epic has decided to drop the Fortnite World Cup along with all other live events for the year 2021. Given the situation of LAN events around the world, this is the least surprising announcement heading into the next year.
In their latest blog post, Epic confirmed that all live events heading into 2021 have been put to a halt for obvious reasons. Epic Games are concerned about the health and safety of the staff and fans, which will inevitably be put at risk when attending LAN events. Fortnite events pull fans in abundance, no major Epic event has gone by with unsold tickets. Thus, expecting a huge crowd, Epic has called off the 2021 Fortnite World Cup.
“FNCS will continue throughout 2021, and we are standardizing the FNCS party size to Trios for the foreseeable future! While Trios will be a constant in FNCS, we still may alter the scoring and/or qualification formats season by season. Our hope with this change is to place more stability and consistency around FNCS.” read the statement.
This might come as a hard to swallow a pill for the fans, however, this was anticipated by everyone. Epic is not the first developer to call off their event; for the majority of 2021, every competitive game has resorted to online matches rather than LAN for tournaments.
“With competitive playlists, the new Bars system will reset players to 0 Bars at the start of each match, and these Bars cannot be carried over between competitive matches” expressed Epic regarding their future plans with Chapter 2, Season 5. They further added that they are working on a strategy to apply this to the competitive mode without having a negative impact on it.
According to a report by Luís Mira from HLTV, Valve has scrapped the first CSGO major of 2021 which was scheduled to be held in Spring. The game developer had to settle on this verdict after the effects of the ongoing Coronavirus Pandemic spread across the globe. Valve had previously planned to conduct the CSGO 2021 Spring Major between May 10-23. As reported by HLTV.org, Valve already has a partner and an EU venue lined up for the Fall Major.
In a blog, they did emphasize the safety concerns for their crowd who would have attended the major, stating,” We’re not going to ask players and fans to risk their health in order to attend a Major while the pandemic still poses a threat to travelers. Therefore, we have made the painful decision to cancel the November Major.”
In 2019, Valve had revealed its plans for the 2020-2021 majors which were:
2020 Major
May 11-24, 2020
November 2-15, 2020
2021 Major
May 10-23, 2021
November 1-14, 2021
The fact that we can’t expect a CS:GO major until the next fall has transitioned into a reality from a potential nightmare.
