Raptr gets in-game support from Champions Online

Social game utility company, Raptr announced this morning that Cryptic Studios has joined the Raptr Partners Program. What this means to you is that Cryptic Studios will bundle Raptr with Champions Online, which is being released to retail today. The game’s official launch is also today.

Champions Online is also being integrated with Raptr APIs to surface game data such as character level, powerful items, and heroic achievements. By entering their Raptr username in the Champions Online in-game status sharing screen, players can automatically connect their Champions Online account to Raptr and share rank, status, items acquired, and achievements earned with their friends and other players. Cryptic was toying with this idea already with small little gifts to players like in-game Twitter access and Facebook support, so adding Raptr into the mix makes perfect sense.

Raptr members will have access to all this data they are sharing on a special Champions Online Raptr game page, which allows them to and track their achievements against all players of Champions Online.

Companies interested in signing up for the Raptr Partners Program can visit partners.raptr.com, while users can sign up for Raptr at raptr.com. Finally, more information about Champions Online can be found at www.champions-online.com.

Those interested in seeing how Raptr will work both on Raptr’s official site and inside Champions Online, need only click on the screenshots below:

Xfire Communities go live, game publishers sign on

Today, Xfire announced the launch of Xfire Communities, a new communication platform geared towards game publishers that supposedly gives them the ability to utilize Xfire features like Live Broadcasting, Instant Communication and Video Capture for events. Several publishers have already started Official Communities on Xfire including Funcom’s Age of Conan, Gamehi’s Sudden Attack, Cybersport’s Football Superstars and Aeria Games’ DragonSky and Wolf Team.

Gamers will apparently benefit from the new Xfire Communities features which include unlimited game tracking statistics, news, activity reports, event calendars, reminders, live streaming broadcasts, archived video, forums, screenshots, email access and instant message alerts.

For more info on Xfire, check out xfire.com.

PlayStation Home Finds Its Voice

Last Thursday, we reported on Sony adding a new patch to its Home service, which added facial hair to the avatar options while disabling the service’s voice chat capabilities. Apparently, a weekend of silence was more than enough though, as Sony has released a brand new patch to the Home beta, giving users back their collective voice … with a few conditions.

Ostensibly, the voice feature was originally dropped due to the strain the feature was putting of the service. Of course, the decision to yank the feature was probably helped by the fact that much of the chatter going on in Home was of the juvenile smack talk/pickup line variety. Now that the voice chat feature has been re-established, players will be able to go back to hitting on each other, but only in the comforts of their personal spaces and clubhouses. So, you’ll have to actually convince someone to come back to your place before you can try to talk them into “coming to your place”.

By clicking on their PlayStation Home icon on the PlayStation Network column of XMB, Home users will be automatically prompted to update to 1.05. Users who are online with PlayStation Home will need to log-off and click on PlayStation Home icon for the update to register.

Home Loses Voice, Gains Facial Hair

To say that PlayStation Home has had a lukewarm launch would probably be one of the biggest understatements of the year. The PS3’s social networking service has been plagued with server crashes, stripped features, and even reports of widespread hacking. Sony seems to be scrambling to fix things, though, as a post on the PlayStation blog is reporting that the service will be undergoing another round of maintenance today to try and fix some of the issues.

The new update, moving things up from v1.03 to v 1.04, is supposed to address “the difficulty some people are having accessing PlayStation Home due to the high demand for the service”. It also looks like Sony thinks some of the issues may be stemming from the chatter going on in Home, as the voice chat feature on the service is being “temporarily suspended”. Who knew that that smack talk and cybersex could take up so much bandwidth? Well … who besides more than three quarters of the people who ever go into virtual worlds? (Second Life anyone?)

To make up for the temporary case of laryngitis on Home, the new update will add give players something extra in their avatar closets: beards. While the selection is extremely limited, and you still can’t create the “Mirror, Mirror” style evil twin of your Home persona to blame for all your actions, there’s a nice big set of muttonchops and even a full beard/moustache combo that would do Santa proud. If nothing else, this should bring a little more diversity to the appearance of the Home population. The fairer sex, though, is out of luck. With no new additions to the female avatar toolbox, it looks like the Bearded Lady will have to be content to stick with her carnival act.