RPGN radio streams now public
Just a quick follow-up to the previous news post to let you know our online radio station is now linked with our new streaming media server. This means you can now listen in using your favorite media player using the playlist files provided below the current flash radio player. We have provided easy links to PLS (Winamp/VLC), ASX (Windows Media Player) and M3U (others) playlists, however you may tune in using any player that supports streaming mpeg audio.
Our streaming server is still being tweaked and tested, so you may find it unavailable if I am working on fixing any bugs we encounter, but it has been up for the past week and is stable. It is directly linked to our current radio, meaning your requests via the website will still be played. Any problems or questions, feel free to post a comment!
on October 08th 2013 at 3:22pm
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RPGN Radio updates: Streaming via external media players!
Well, some good news for you radio listeners, I have been working on a solution to allow synchronization between a streaming server and our web radio player. This means soon you will be able to tune in to our game music radio using external media players such as winamp, foobar, windows media player, tunein, etc.
This feature is still being tested, but so far it has been running fairly smoothly. You can still request to hear your favourite songs via the website interface, and we will be working on an option to toggle the web radio player on and off, so you can turn it off if you are listening via an external player (so the music isn't echoing!). This way you can still use the radio page functions to see recent songs played, make requests etc. I hope to have these features done in the next few days.
We will also have some radio signature banners you can use to link to us, which will display currently playing songs and other information. These should be finished up soon.
As always, we are still welcoming any and all song suggestions for our music database. Adding new songs has been slow lately as we have been busy, but feel free to drop in to the chatroom, and we will see your requests and get to them as soon as we can!
on October 04th 2013 at 12:55am
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500,000+ Radio Streams, Site Adjustments
First, I would like to thank all of our loyal radio listeners for helping us reach our latest milestone: 500,000 songs streamed! I'm glad to see people enjoying our radio and using the site, as it has been rather quiet around here.
We are in the progress of a site slim-down to re-focus on the important and useful parts of our site. Our radio, game music lyrics, polls, forums and possibly music reviews will remain, while the rest of the site (FMVs, gaming news and reviews) will be archived and retired. We have many ideas, but the lack of design talents and artistic flair do slow things down a little bit. Do you have talents in image design and website design (CSS)? Please do not hesitate to contact us. We could use some help! Unfortunately, all positions here at RPGN are non-paying positions, but your work will be displayed here on RPGN for all to enjoy! If you think you might be able to help, please drop by our IRC chatroom or drop me an email (admin -at- rpgamers.net).
on July 02nd 2013 at 9:37pm
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Sony's E3 2013 Press Conference
Shots fired, shots fired! Lets get the biggest news out of the way immediately. The Playstation 4 will cost $399, €399 or £349 when it launches. The box shares somewhat similar design than PS2 did back in the day, and it looks significantly smaller than the Xbox One does. Also, Sony isn't going to have any used games restrictions on the system, and there isn't an online authentication check associated with it either. On the downside, they are going to require PS+ for online multiplayer, but I don't care about that anyway. And then the list of games. These are all coming to PS4 at some point or another, some are exclusive some are not. I decided to skip any Vita and PS3 stuff, there was nothing super interesting there at all.
The Order 1886
Killzone: Shadow Fall
DriveClub
Infamous: Second Son
Knack
Transistor
Don't Starve
Mercenary Kings
Octodad: Dadliest Catch
Secret Ponchos
Ray's the Dead
Outlast
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee remake
Galak-Z The Dimensional
Diablo 3
Final Fantasy 15 (this is Final Fantasy versus 13, they rebranded it)
Kingdom Hearts 3
Final Fantasy 14: A realm Reborn
Assassin's Creed 4: The Black Flag
Watch Dogs
NBA 2K14
The Elder Scrolls Online
Mad Max
Destiny
Lots of that looks interesting, if not system seller material. But the biggest slap in the Microsoft's face was definitely the very direct jabs at the various restrictions that MS is placing on their system, and apparently Sony isn't. You don't see standing ovations on press conferences that often, so when that happens you know something's up. Surprising rebranding of FFversus13 and confirmation that Kingdom Heart 3 is in development is also kind of a big deal to many people. Last Guardian was a no-show again, but I'm not surprised. I'm a little sad that Ubisoft didn't truck out Beyond Good & Evil 2 here either, I guess I'll just have to wait another year. All in all, they showed a ton of games and bitch slapped Microsoft big time. It's hard to imagine that Nintendo will blow us away with anything of this magnitude tomorrow, Sony won E3.
Well, I guess it would be better to say that the consumers won E3 because of what Sony promised in regards to our games and how we play them.
on June 11th 2013 at 7:32am
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Ubisoft's E3 2013 Press Conference
First things first. No Beyond Good & Evil 2 at Ubisoft. So unless Sony bagged that into their conference, I will be a very sad man later today. On to the list of games.
Rocksmith 2014
Splinter Cell: Blacklist
Rayman Legends
The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot
South Park Stick of Truth
The Crew
Watch Dogs
Just Dance 2014
Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag
Trials Fusion
The Division (Tom Clancy's The Division, technically)
While I'm definitely excited for Splinter Cell, Watch Dogs (and I refuse to write that with an underscore, fuck that shit) and Assassin's Creed, I kind of knew what to expect. These games have been on past shows, I was hoping for some new stuff. The Division looked pretty cool, but with these demos and trailers it's hard to say what the open world multiplayer really really means. What does it all mean?!
The South Park game, I have no idea what it even is, but the trailer was sufficiently funny. And the rest just don't move me. Though Just Dance should move everyone, right? Right? Because dance!
Only Sony left for the big conferences, and then Nintendo is going to do that Nintendo Direct stuff tomorrow, I think. Hopefully they show me something fun fun.
on June 10th 2013 at 7:08pm
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Electronic Arts' E3 2013 Press Conference
Electronic Arts had their thing just now, and here's the list of things. Their show was shorter than Microsoft's, probably for the better.
Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare
Peggle 2
Titanfall
Star Wars Battlefront
Need for Speed: Rivals
Dragon Age: Inquisition
NBA Live 14
Madden NFL 14
FIFA 14
UFC (14?)
Battlefield 4
Mirror's Edge 2
The PvZ trailer was pretty amazing. Titanfall looked just like it looked at Microsoft thing this morning. The Star Wars Battlefront thing was a very short teaser, DICE is developing it. Need for Speed looked pretty slick, good cards, good sense of speed. Dragon Age supposedly runs on the new Frostbite engine, but it looked a bit crummy to be honest. SPORTS SPORTS. I don't care about sports. Battlefield 4 multiplayer demo was impressive, clearly a scripted match but 32 on 32 live on stage demo was pretty neat. And Mirror's Edge 2 was a pretty short trailer.
All in all, not really super pumped by EA either. The comeback of Mirror's Edge is a pretty nice surprise, I hope they fix the glaring problems that the first game had.
on June 10th 2013 at 4:23pm
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Microsoft's E3 2013 Press Conference
Alright, Microsoft's press thing ended about an hour ago, here's everything you need to know about what they showed in order of apperance. Sorry for the wall-of-text approach, but I'm too lazy right now to edit it all proper like. Maybe I'll come back later and clean it up a bit. I'm not going to link to any videos because at this point it's mostly just stream captures that are floating out there. But before I get to the games, I'll just list some other things first. New 360 design is available today, based on the look of the Xbox One. Xbox Live Gold is changing a little starting July 1st, by adding 2 free games per month. Sort of like PSN+ does with their thing. When Xbox One rolls out, the friend limit will be gone, same for Microsoft Points. The box is going to cost $499, €499 or £429, in November 2013, 21 territories. Too rich for my blood. Alright, then games games games.
Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain, looks pretty nice and has new horse stealth. Bunch of weird character intros, just like you would expect from a MGS game. A solid start for a conference. Get it? Solid, right? Right? Dude on horse is Ocelot. Punished Snake is Snake's name this time. I think it's the Xbox One version, but I don't know if they specifically said anything.
Next up is a trio of 360 games, starting with World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition. Don't really know what to say. That tank just hit a big-ass ramp. Team based 15 on 15 warfare. Free to play, but obviously you need XBL Gold.
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood looks like a family friendly 2D platformer. This looks like something that's probably a licensed property or something, I just don't know it.
And lastly, Dark Souls 2 trailer. Didn't we already know that Dark Souls 2 would be on 360? Seems like a waste of time to show the trailer here. DS2 is coming March 2014, that seems quite late in the cycle.
The rest of these are Xbox One games. They even made a point to say this, just in case anyone was going to be confused.
Ryse: Son of Rome from Crytek. Very quicktime heavy combat, looks pretty though. Some kind of tactic thing happening, group formation with fellow soldiers.
Killer Instinct returns, naturally exclusive to Xbox One. Jago, Saberwulf and Glacius confirmed.
Sunset Overdrive from Insomniac Games, Xbox One exclusive. Some kind of stylized open world shooter game, not really digging the style at all. Shooting monsters with guns, pretty original.
Forza 5 from Turn 10 Studios. Looks like a car game. Some kind of deal with McLaren, they even lifted a new McLaren P1 on to the stage. Pitching a new learning AI, powered by “the cloud”. Doesn't sound like something that needs cloud power. Just saying. They call it Drivatar. Man, who comes up with names like this, seriously.
Minecraft coming to Xbox One. Nothing like Minecraft to show the power of Xbox One.
Quantum Break from Remedy. We saw a little of this 3 weeks ago, but now with more game and less live acting. The ultimate Remedy experience, with some interesting looking time mechanics. Dude is walking through a moment stuck in time, freeze frame of an explosion. Looks cool.
D4, from Swery65, creator of Deadly Premonition. Episodic murder mystery, looks sufficiently Swery with a stylized look.
Project Spark, looks like Microsoft's very own game creator thing. Sort of like a Little Big Planet clone. Coming to Xbox One and Windows 8.
Crimson Dragon, from the creator of Panzer Dragoon and Phantom Dust. Hey guess what, it looks a lot like Panzer Dragoon. They had some sound problems during this one, and the audience decided to start providing their own sound effects, pew pew.
Dead Rising 3, exclusive open world zombie game from Capcom. Appears to have the combo weapons of Dead Rising, but now you can also drive cars. Revolutionary game mechanics. Tonally seems a lot darker than previous Dead Rising games. Dude calls an airstrike from SmartGlass app. I don't know why he can do that, but hey, video games.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt from CD Project Red. Looks great, Geralt has a beard. Open world environment, some kind of voice command support too. Sexy mermaids confirmed.
Battlefield 4 from DICE and EA. Looks nice, but we already knew that. More audio problems on the stage. Someone stepped on a cable probably. Jet destruction confirmed.
Below, from Capy Games. Capy has the best logo of all time, by the way. Top down adventure game with rogue like elements.
Sneak peak at an untitled stealthy game from Black Tusk.
Halo 5, from 343 Industries, 2014. No gameplay shown, but hey it's a first person Halo shooter. Promising a 60 FPS game.
Titanfall from Respawn Entertainment. That's the former Call of Duty guys, in case you didn't know. Very fast paced first person combat in and out of mechs, jetpack powered double jumps, wall running, stuff. Spring 2014.
And that's that. The key phrase today was “the power of Xbox One”, or the variation “the power and performance of Xbox One.” Almost everyone who was on stage said that phrase, and got paid the big bucks to do it. Nothing really stuck out to me as a must have. Sorry Microsoft, no deal yet.
on June 10th 2013 at 2:52pm
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E3 is coming, are you ready?
Well, are you?
Officially E3 starts on the 11th of June, but that's really only when the floors open. The things that I'm personally looking forward the most are the press conferences, which are all held on Monday, the day before. Microsoft will kick things of at 9:30AM, followed by Electronic Arts at 1:00PM, Ubisoft at 3:00PM and closing with Sony at 6:00PM, all times are in PDT. If you haven't been following the news, you might think that I forgot to include Nintendo. Well, nope. Nintendo decided not to have an E3 press event this year, and is planning to use their Nintendo Directs as their primary communication channel to its users. They will still have a presence on the floor though.
I'm most likely going to watch all of them live, and I'll try my best to write some notes down and post about them afterwards. No promises though, I've made similar promises in the past, then not delivered and felt somewhat bad about it. So no promises this year. You can of course watch all of them live yourself, Gametrailers probably has a good stream up, they usually do. Certainly your other big game sites such as Gamespot and IGN will have theirs as well.
With both Sony and Microsoft now officially out with some information on their next systems, I hope and expect that E3 will be games games games. And I'm also hoping that third parties will also have some new stuff to show, now that they can talk about the next generation more openly.
And I better see Beyond Good & Evil 2 from Ubisoft this year. They've repeatedly said that this next generation of consoles will be needed to realize Michel Ancel's vision. I'm going to hold them to that. 
On another note, site updates have been slow as of late. We have been adding songs to the radio every now and then, but it's harder than you might think. Adding songs from games that you have never played takes a lot of listening when you have no base line of "yeah that boss battle song was pretty ace when I played through the game". And then some games are just full with awesome stuff, but it's not like we plan to post full soundtracks in there, so picking the right songs is not easy.
on June 02nd 2013 at 6:55am
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Site Focus Changes
Over the past week or so I have been considering a direction for our humble community. We will continue to focus and expand RPGN Radio, our game music radio station. We will also work to spice up and improve our game music lyrics database. The future of our reviews section is still on the table. I plan to trim down and clean up the forums, simplifying them into a few sections rather then many.
The videos section (FMV's) which we were once very proud to host, have been long obsoleted by the coming of YouTube. Although the video section will be going offline, most of our videos can still be found on the RPGN YouTube channel.
I've also gone ahead and removed useless pages and links from the menu. Kilu has hinted at some changes to our layout, so maybe we will have a bit of a facelift in the process as well. We can only go up from here, so I'll stop rambling and get back to work. If you have any comments or suggestions for improving the site, just leave a comment on this post.
on March 27th 2013 at 1:54pm
2 Comments
The Future of the RPGamers Network
As usual, our site takes one step forward and two steps back. It has been a sleeping beast for many years now, other then our fairly active radio station. I have been considering the future for the site, and am looking for opinions and suggestions. Should we try to get the entire site back up and running, or should we fold down some of the areas and focus strictly on the radio?
I mean, we haven't had a new review posted in ages, and the lyrics section is in dire need of updating and expanding. I just can't run this place by myself anymore, and finding motivated people to help me code and update the back-end and add content has been unsuccessful. The forums have not had a peep in months, our re-launch of them did not last long. Some hard choices have to be made in the next while about the future of the community.
I am happy to see our radio station continues to draw in listeners even while the rest of the site sleeps. We have a fair selection of music available now, and a huge to-do list of tunes to add as it expands. If you have any feedback or suggestions, please feel free to drop me an email or come in to our IRC chatroom.
on March 09th 2013 at 2:01pm
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Poll
How do you feel about vocal songs in the radio rotation?