Microsoft has confirmed a new detail regarding Halo Infinite's live-service elements, announcing that Credits will be earnable in Season 2's Battle Pass.

In a blog post, developer 343 said this change is being made in response to community feedback. "That means you will be able to earn Credits as part of your Halo Infinite progression. We'll have more to share on this as we get closer to Season 2," 343 said.

Season 2 is not expected to be here for quite some time, as 343 is planning to end Season 1 in May 2022, with Season 2 coming sometime thereafter. Campaign co-op and Forge--two fan-favorite modes that didn't make it in for launch--are expected to be debut beginning with Season 2 as well.

In other news, 343 recently made some changes to Halo Infinite's in-game shop to make items less expensive. "Our focus with these changes is on reducing pricing across the board, providing stronger values in our bundles, starting to put individual items outside of bundles, and more," 343 said. "This week we focused on reducing the prices of our weekly bundles, while next week will have individual items starting to appear on their own."

343 also mentioned that it continues to try to fix Halo Infinite's Big Team Battle mode, which has been in a less-than-great state since before the holidays. A new patch came out this week, but it did not improve the experience in the way 343 wanted. The studio is still investigating, it said. And while this week's hotfix didn't fix the issues outright, it did provide "promising data" to the team.

As 343 attempts to fix the problems with Big Team Battle, the studio said it will remove Big Team Battle-related challenges "for the time being."

"We don't want to alter Challenge decks when they are live (as it would removing people's progression on those Challenges), so these changes will start next Tuesday when the Weekly Challenges typically rollover," 343 said.

More bang for your buck.

The post Credits can be earned in Halo Infinite’s season 2 battle pass appeared first on Dot Esports.

Psilocybin’s therapeutic benefits have been recognized by the medical industry too. The Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research has invested in a psychedelic and psilocybin therapy and research center, thanks to $17 million in funding, so that researchers can learn more about psychedelics, how they can help treat illness, and develop new treatments for behavioral disorders.

With Apex Legends Escape--the eleventh season for the battle royale game--slated to end in early February, Respawn has started teasing what's to come in Season 12. And it's looking like Apex Legends Season 12's new playable legend may be Mad Maggie, a character we haven't seen since Season 8.

A major hint that Mad Maggie could be the new character popped up in-game on January 21, via the coolest Apex Legends content tease to date. If you drop into a match on Storm Point, you can hear and see a battle taking place in the skies above the map. During the battle, you may hear a huge explosion, indicating one of the ships has been shot down. You can watch the ship begin to fall towards the ground at the northern part of Storm Point, before the ship seemingly makes a warp space jump to an unknown location just ahead of the crash. A piece of the ship doesn't make it, though, ultimately falling down on the leftmost peninsula of North Pad.

Prominently painted onto the ship is the symbol of Salvo, which Mad Maggie loves leaving behind when she blows stuff up. So it's looking like Mad Maggie (or perhaps another person from Salvo) may be Apex Legends' next playable character. You can easily identify the piece of ship from a distance, given that it glows with a bluish-purple energy.

Who is Mad Maggie?

Margaret "Mad Maggie" Kōhere was first introduced as the childhood friend of Season 8 legend Walter "Fuse" Fitzroy. Maggie and Wally grew up on Salvo, a Fringe World of constant battle where warlords and their respective followers fought for control. Prior to the events of Apex Legends, the entire planet had been in a state of perpetual war for more than 50 years.

In this environment, Maggie and Wally grew up to become exceptionally competent mercenaries, relying on each other for decades. However, whereas Maggie strove to become Salvo's next ruling warlord--adopting the moniker of Mad Maggie--Wally fell in love with the glory-seeking nature of Salvo's arena bloodsport: the Bonecage. This created a rift in the pair's friendship.

Eventually the Syndicate--the group that oversees and runs the Apex Games--sought to acquire Salvo, promising peace for the war-torn world if it became the seventh planet to join Syndicate Space. Though Maggie fought against the takeover with all her might, the rulers of Salvo agreed to the Syndicate's terms. As part of the deal, Salvo was allowed to add one of their warriors to the Apex Games as a new legend and Wally was chosen, adopting the moniker of Fuse.

Maggie viewed Wally's decision to join the Apex Games as a betrayal of Salvo's fight for independence, and upon his departure, the two friends fought over his leaving--an argument that ended with Maggie tossing a grenade at Wally in a fit of frustration and blowing off his arm (which is why Fuse has a mechanical arm). Refusing to let her friend abandon her, Maggie followed Fuse to the Apex Games, orchestrating a terrorist attack on the civilian populace attending his welcoming ceremony (which is why whole sections of Kings Canyon are now gone).

Maggie continued to hound Wally and his fellow legends for the entirety of Season 8, promising a reward to anyone who managed to give her Wally's other arm, and temporarily taking over the Apex Games in Season 8's Chaos Theory limited-time event with the Ring Fury Takeover. She became the main antagonist of Season 8's Quest, Armageddon, which saw Fuse ultimately befriend Lifeline and kindle a strong connection (which has since been heavily hinted to be romantic in nature) with Bloodhound.

Isn't Mad Maggie dead?

Technically yes. Apex Legends Season 8 Quest: Armageddon does indeed end with Fuse, Lifeline, and Bloodhound watching Mad Maggie sacrifice herself, with the implication that she committed suicide after learning that she'd never be able to convince her oldest friend to join her crusade for Salvo independence.

After Fuse tells Maggie that he's found a new home among the legends and that he's not returning to Salvo, Maggie attempts to kill Lifeline and Bloodhound with some hidden turrets. Fuse quickly blows the turrets up, but the resulting explosion knocks him and Maggie over the side of a skyscraper. Both manage to grab hold of hanging scaffolding, but when Fuse offers Maggie his arm to help pull her up to safety, she smugly replies that she's decided he can "keep it" after all and then lets go, seemingly falling to her death.

Given that Maggie's body has never been recovered, however, she could still be alive. Respawn has yet to officially confirm that she's dead--just look at Ash, a character supposedly killed in Titanfall 2, who went on to return as a playable character in Apex Legends. And even if Maggie suffered a mortal wound, in a universe where human minds can be transposed into simulacrum bodies (the way Revenant was), even death doesn't technically mean someone is permanently off the board.

What abilities will Mad Maggie have?

Respawn has yet to confirm whether Mad Maggie is Season 12's new character, so we don't even know if all this speculation will even hold up. As such, we don't yet know what her abilities might be. That said, however, we can make two educated guesses.

The first theory is that Mad Maggie will have abilities tied to what we've already seen her do in-game, when she took control of the Apex Games in the Ring Fury Takeover. In that takeover, Maggie figured out a way to shape the energy that creates the ring to make "ring flares," pockets of dangerous energy that appear within the safe zones. So maybe she can temporarily tweak the ring, making small ring flares as an offensive character or lessening the damage of the ring for her allies and herself as a support character. Apex Legends has long needed a new support character, so maybe Season 12 is finally when we get one.

The other theory is that Mad Maggie's abilities have potentially already been revealed via a datamine. Several of Apex Legends' characters have been hinted at months ahead of their official release via datamined abilities attached to code names. Revenant initially appeared as "Blackout" in datamined Apex Legends files, for example, and Valkyrie was first listed as "Valk."

So, in theory, one of the datamined legend profiles could be an early placeholder for Mad Maggie. The most prevalent guess going around right now was first put forward by Apex Legends dataminer KralRindo, who pointed out similarities between Mad Maggie's abilities as depicted in the in-game comics and those of datamined legend "Husaria," who seems geared towards offense as an explosive door breacher.

According to the datamine, Husaria will have a gun strapped to her leg, giving her the passive ability that she can break down doors and more aggressively melee attack enemies if she has shotgun ammo in her inventory. Her tactical ability is supposedly a flashbang grenade that temporarily blinds and deafens those caught in its blast, and her ultimate ability is a device that emits a sonic wave that forces open doors and destroys traps. All of that fits Mad Maggie's aggressive personality, but given that Husaria is a datamined legend and thus could have been scrapped ages ago, there's no way to tell if she's still the starting point for an upcoming Apex Legends character.

Other possible datamined characters that could be Maggie include an "Elite Mercenary" who seems to be able to create ring flares with their tactical ability (though the community commonly believes this character is a potential placeholder for Blisk) and "Downfall," who possesses abilities related to blowing stuff up and is able to passively grow angry enough to withstand fire damage.

When does Apex Legends Season 12 start?

Respawn has not officially revealed when Season 12 will start, but if the pattern for Apex Legends holds, the new season will begin on the day that the previous season ends. The battle pass for Apex Legends Season 11 concludes February 8, so the implication is that the season will end that day as well. Thus, Apex Legends Season 12 will likely start February 8.

Financial markets, built on the premise of speculation, are natural breeding grounds for volatile price action. Crypto markets, in particular, are notorious for their excessive volatility which is the result of a myriad of factors such as the relative lack of liquidity, regulatory concerns, adoption-related developments, media hype, etc. Now, as a participant in this […]

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Quality assurance testers at Activision Blizzard's Wisconsin-based Raven Software studio - where strike action has been ongoing since December, following the firing of 12 members of the developer's QA team - have announced their intention to form a worker's union.

The instigating incident - which came amid an already troublesome time for Activision Blizzard management, who had been repeatedly criticised following the California state lawsuit calling the publisher a "breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women" - took place in December when around a third of the QA team was laid off. The firings, coming after a five-week period of overtime and anticipated end-of-year crunch, occurred despite Activision allegedly promising the team it was working on a pay restructure to increase wages.

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Auditing is among the most effective ways of keeping checks and balances in any organization. However, with the entire financial landscape shifting, the future of audits depends on a few key technological trends.

Solidproof provides a comprehensive auditing process, automation of many recurring tasks, and service execution. In 2021, the company's three founders saw an uncertain future for blockchain-based projects. This was primarily due to the scarcity of proper audit tools and numerous faulty protocols.

Nevertheless, they continued to invest their efforts into creating a more secure environment through extensive auditing solutions. Today, Solidproof has over 350 projects that range in size from industry-leading protocols to up-and-coming applications. 

Additionally, the team behind Solidproof.io has worked hard to improve its services. To this end, they fine-tuned their business and continuously adapted to the market's changing needs. Just recently, they also announced the integration of marketing services to help the project further with their goals. Now, Solidproof plans to introduce its first smart contact automation, which should change the industry for the better. 

The Solidproof Audit Process

Solidproof generates audit transparent and thorough reports that identify any problems or vulnerabilities within a protocol's code. Next, they classify and list these errors depending on their severity level - critical, medium, and low. 

Additionally, Solidproof uses built-in KYC (Know Your Customer) standards. The company uses them to establish the users' identities and determine whether they pose money laundering risks. Furthermore, it helps protocols understand if potential investors get their funds from legitimate sources.

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Besides smart contact audit automation, the company team aims to increase security and ensure optimal privacy for its customers. While blockchain auditing may be challenging, Solidproof is off to an impressive start and will soon dominate the industry.