RTS game loses online support as AI company buys out its servers

AI is starting to cause real, tangible issues in the gaming industry now. On top of just making everything much more expensive, from RAM to SSDs to entire consoles and machines, it is now actively sabotaging online multiplayer titles by taking over crucial server infrastructure to use it, you’ve guessed it, for training and providing models to salivating corporations.

This is exactly what happened to StarCraft’s spiritual successor Stormgate, a free-to-play RTS made by the former’s, well, former developers. As Delisted Games writes, Hathora, Frost Giant Studios’ server provider, has been purchased by what developers only describe as an “AI company” that will be putting its servers out of reach for gaming. The devs wrote on their Discord that Hathora’s new owners are “winding down their service at the end of April,” which will render Stormgate temporarily offline.

Frost Giant Studios has a contingency plan of sorts, as it will make the game playable offline while it tries to sort out the server problem, potentially finding a new host and provider to make the multiplayer available again.

“We hope to restore online play in a future patch, but this work will be dependent on Frost Giant finding a partner to support ongoing operations,” the devs said.

AI has been aggressively taking over tech infrastructure for years now, making the lives of ordinary people that much more miserable. Data centers cause surges in energy prices, make water more expensive and scarce, cause outages and disruptions on power grids, pollute like there’s no tomorrow, and generally serve no one but the richest trend-chasers of this planet.

Now, we’re seeing those activities finally spill over into gaming itself, as there are high chances that more and more AI companies will buy out server farms to support their growing infrastructure, potentially taking many games offline or at the very least disturbing online play.

However, even though I’m AI’s number one hater, as you can clearly see, I have a feeling that Stormgate won’t be coming back online and that it was bound to go offline at some near point in the future anyway. It pulls less than 100 players on average daily, and though it had massive hype surrounding it back when it was first announced and campaigned for on Kickstarter, it hasn’t really had much success in recapturing a strong RTS audience.

Unfortunately, the genre has been eaten up by MOBAs and similar online multiplayer strategy titles, if not singleplayer grand strategies like the ones Paradox and CA make, leaving traditional, base-building-focused RTS behind.

It’s good to see the devs make it playable offline, though, compared to how Ubisoft and other companies behave.

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Prototype gears have arrived in The Division 2 with the start of Year 8 Season 1, and they currently sit at the top of all types of weapons/armors. Gears belonging to this item quality sit above High-End, Named, and other set items, making them truly unique.

Let’s find out how you can get these elusive items to improve your arsenal.

How to obtain Prototype gears in The Division 2

To obtain Prototype gears, you’ll need to participate in missions belonging to the Escalation mode. This is a new difficulty to complete missions that you’ve previously completed inside the game. Every week will have a set number of missions to finish.

There are ten different tiers for each mission. The higher the difficulty, the better your chances of getting Prototype gears. However, you can also get more of these items via the route of upgrades.

How to upgrade to Prototype gears in The Division 2

You can upgrade items starting from High-End quality to Prototype gear. To do so, you’ll need a Prototype Core. The cosen item must also be at the maximum Expertise level (30), and the item must be at maximum level (40). The item doesn’t need to be full optimized for the conversion.

Once you change an item to Prototype gear, it can no longer be optimized or recalibrated. Hence, pay full attention to its stats before spending the Prototype Core on it. However, the upgrade is worth it since your gear will improve its stats and also gain augments.

Here’s a list of augments that are currently available.

• Quantum – Provides a small chance to become temporarily immune to damage.
• Echo – Each bullet fired has a chance to deal its damage a second time.
• Atomize – Increases grenade radius and damage.
• Amalgam – Each bullet hit has a chance to apply a random status effect.
• Trapper – Increases the duration of status effects you apply.
• Entropy – Increases your Health based on a percentage of your total Armor.
• Anomaly – Skills restore a portion of the damage they deal as healing.
• Paradox – Provides a chance to refill part of your magazine while firing.
• Synesthesia – Bullet hits have a chance to slightly reduce skill cooldowns.

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