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First Person Shooters (Games) Games

Millions Watch As Entire Fortnite Ecosystem Becomes a Black Hole (msn.com) 77

Posted by EditorDavid from the game-over-man dept.
"Fortnite just blew up its entire map and all that's left is a black hole," reports TechCrunch. Some are speculating that this is simply a teaser for a new Fortnite map, but it's unclear when that new map will arrive... Fortnite's website is currently just a Twitch stream featuring a black hole.
The Washington Post reports: Anyone looking for clues on Fortnite's multiple social media accounts were left staring at the same image. The same black hole greets all visitors to Fortnite's Instagram. And intrepid players discovered that inputting the infamous "Konami code" launches a Galaga-style shooting game starring the mascot of Greasy Grove restaurant Durrr Burger.... As the event happened, many Twitch users reported having trouble using the popular streaming service, with more than 4 million people watching the event. Millions more tuned in on YouTube and Twitter, as well.... Rumors have swirled that the famous Fortnite map was going to be completely replaced, and given that everything's now gone, it sounds plausible...

Fortnite's Season 10 has been expected to end soon, and since last year, spectacular one-time live events within the game have been used to build hype, signal changes to the one map the game has used for two years, and usher in a new season and battle pass. This time, players who logged in at 2 p.m. Eastern time witnessed a rocket launch from the Dusty Divot area of the island, which turned into multiple rockets, all zipping around in a manner similar to the rocket that players saw in the first season-ending live event in Season 4. The rockets then converged onto an area where a meteor was landing, and the collision caused players to fly up into the air to witness a black hole suck the entirety of the game inside.

And since then, players have been left with nothing but the black hole.
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Millions Watch As Entire Fortnite Ecosystem Becomes a Black Hole More

Millions Watch As Entire Fortnite Ecosystem Becomes a Black Hole

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  • Nice (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Shaitan ( 22585 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @04:00PM (#59303920)

    sounds like a great cover while things are broken and nobody knows how to fix it

    • If it is a technical glitch, it is a very fortuitous one for them. The clever coverup has landed them all over the news. Can't buy this sort of publicity. We shall see in the next few days if they release something new or if it is quietly restored

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Shaitan ( 22585 )

        I imagine they'll release something new either way. How not ready the thing is, that will be the peek behind the scenes.

    • Nothing's broken.

      Elon Musk bought Fortnite last year and has finally shut it down.

      https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1053390822991790083

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cederic ( 9623 )

      I think it's a planned event. There were in-game scenes setting this up.

      There are apparently also digits being occasionally displayed within the black hole.

      I'm sure there'll be a big media launch of something or other in the next day or two.

  • Well (Score:5, Funny)

    by Some Guy I Dont Know ( 6200212 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @04:08PM (#59303942)

    Guess it's official now: Fortnite sucks.

  • And now? (Score:3)

    by rainer_d ( 115765 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @04:09PM (#59303944) Homepage

    Can you still play it or do we have dozens of millions with withdrawal symptoms sitting in front of the screen, waiting for their fix?

    • Re:And now? (Score:5, Informative)

      by pslytely psycho ( 1699190 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @04:35PM (#59304036) Journal
      I've never played Fortnite but clicked on the twitch link in the summery. The home page is the same, so apparently no, you can not play. The meteor strike ended the entire game. For now.

      It said 112,000 people were staring at a screen of a black hole.
      That's literally all there is on both the Twitch and home page. The only difference the home page said 108,000 people.
      A small black circle surrounded by an event horizon.

      A Forbes article said they've done similar things in the past.
      It's Forbes, so they hate your ad-blocker, but I'll post the link anyway as it was a short but interesting read for someone outside of the Fortnite ecosystem.

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2019/10/13/code-theres-a-secret-minigame-on-fortnites-black-hole-screen-heres-how-to-play-it/#77639e1a681a

      And here's the Fortnite homepage.

      https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/home

      • It's Forbes, so they hate your ad-blocker

        If you take the time to block their overlays, then the site works normally from then on.

        • If it's like the New York Times, if you just block all scripts the paywall doesn't rear it's ugly head. Block nytimes.com with noscript and you get the regular news, at least the text part that's fit to print.

      • It said 112,000 people were staring at a screen of a black hole. That's literally all there is on both the Twitch and home page. The only difference the home page said 108,000 people. A small black circle surrounded by an event horizon.

        It's a loyalty test. Having trained the dogs to salivate in the presence of a stimulus, they then remove the stimulus to see how long the dogs will keep watching the screen.

        They know they have a hold on a section of the market; they're just insecure as to how strong that hold is.

  • It's just cruel.

  • China is pulling out so they loses funds big time

  • That's pretty cool (Score:5, Insightful)

    by realmolo ( 574068 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @04:23PM (#59303992)

    I don't play Fortnite. I don't really play games at all anymore. I'm 46, and my gaming days ended when I was about 30. But before that, I was *seriously* into it. I played games all the time from about 1980 up until about 2003.

    I know that Fortnite has something of a less-than-stellar reputation as a...kids game? A game for jerks? A game for wannabes? It's unclear why it's disliked. From what I've seen, it's the natural progression of the FPS into total absurdity. Which is kind of cool. Not for me, but kind of cool.

    And their events...that shit is awesome. It' the kind of thing you always hoped for in the "old days" - a game that actually changes radically every now-and-then. Even the various MMORPGs don't do that kind of "outside-context" change.

    Yes, I realize that in the end it will still be Fortnite. But at least they are doing fun stuff and not just letting it stagnate.

    • Re:That's pretty cool (Score:4, Insightful)

      by fred911 ( 83970 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @04:36PM (#59304038) Journal

      ''From what I've seen, it's the natural progression of the FPS into total absurdity.''

      Even further than that. I am not a gamer either, as you that time has past. But, it is cool to see the incredible development.

        Everyone who as one time was a master of Space Invaders or Asteroids, needs to give it a try. It's quite the blast to get humiliated by some 9 year old. The youngster in that clan these days have absolutely no mercy.
       

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Same 9 year old kid grows up to be the 21 year old still at their parent's house, with no marketable skills, and wondering if they are losing their edge.

        The other people who don't waste their time on MOBAs will be making contacts (not wanting to shoot people first thing), earning skills, getting degrees, getting jobs... and becoming productive members of society.

        • Re:That's pretty cool (Score:4, Informative)

          by war4peace ( 1628283 ) on Monday October 14, 2019 @02:05AM (#59304768)

          Amazingly, I've done all that while gaming for at least 2h every day (and I still do). In all fairness, others spent that time watching TV, so there's that.

        • While the above reads like a "get off my lawn" rant, I believe that Fortnite and other modern games require a much larger time investment that we ever put into Quake back in the day. When the game changes a little every month there's always a new "meta" to keep ahead of and the world to compete with. Quake was quake, a few matches to shake the rust off and you could enjoy yourself again. Sure, some people will have been unhealthily addicted, but it seems that modern games are designed to foster addiction ra

        • Same 9 year old kid grows up to be the 21 year old still at their parent's house, with no marketable skills, and wondering if they are losing their edge.

          Or, this [dexerto.com]. Lots of money is being won by kids these days, all from playing a game. Of course the things mentioned by AC are true, but perhaps the 21yo will still have a couple million bucks.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I know a few of these kids. They love to talk about how they kick everybody's ass in-game and think of themselves as way alpha for a 13-year-old. Meanwhile the book-nerd girl at school could probably pin their ass and choke them out in under 15.

      Even riding a bike could make them significantly stronger than tapping the mouse after school.

    • Re:That's pretty cool (Score:4, Insightful)

      by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @06:16PM (#59304186)

      > It's unclear why it's disliked.

      Because it's the latest "fad gaming" and a lot of dumb streamers are constantly promoting it. Plus its "cool" to hate whatever is popular. PUBG went through the same thing a year or two ago before Fortnite.

    • I don't play Fortnite. I don't really play games at all anymore. I'm 46

      This was the part where I was going to bitch about how most games I play these days are on my phone, and that I'm not buying a modern game console or overpriced GPU to play the latest FPS du jour - then I look and it turns out Fortnite actually would run on my phone. If you ask me though, staring at a black hole might actually be more entertaining and less frustrating than trying to play an FPS game on a 4.7" touch screen.

      I'd say the part about getting old that makes gaming less appealing, is that time see

    • There's nothing wrong with the game itself, it's just that the company is unethical as hell and the popularity among kids has caused issues to spill into real life.

  • Lame (Score:3)

    by grungeman ( 590547 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @04:23PM (#59303994)
    I sent my kids to bed fifteen minutes ago, it wasn't even a problem, although they intended to watch the live event. The younger already had shut down Fortenite because he got bored and started playing Minecraft. BTW, did you know that Minecraft again became more popular than Fortnie just a few months ago? Here is the Google trends comparison: https://trends.google.com/tren... [google.com]

  • I felt a great disturbance in the Force.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kryptonut ( 1006779 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @04:25PM (#59304008)
    as if millions of 12 year olds suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

    • I was wondering what that shrill, high pitched reverberating scream was!

        Oh well, all of those Fortnite skins and items paid with with real world money went bye bye, and the execs were last seen climbing on the jet plane with big heavy overstuffed suitcases with the odd 100$ bill dropping out here and there.

      "Put all of your most valuable data in the Cloud!"

  • It's good that Fornite is a black hole, it needs to be completely shutdown. Kids are addicted to the game and it's a real issue. Parents are equally to blame though, they need to be parents and not let their kids live in front of a screen 16 hours a day.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I agree, videogames are bad and way too addictive these days.

      That's why I blocked all game-related URLs and left all the porn-related ones wide open.

      I'd rather have my kids masturbate all day long than be stressed out by idiots in online games.

      • I agree, videogames are bad and way too addictive these days.

        That's why I blocked all game-related URLs and left all the porn-related ones wide open.

        I'd rather have my kids masturbate all day long than be stressed out by idiots in online games.

        After all, you can only wank so many times before the chafing gets to be a problem, but you can game aaalll day. Until your thumbs bleed, anyway. Thumb controllers—the worst ergonomic disaster ever visited on computer interface hardware.

        This is why I still use a keyboard and mouse for gaming. The chafing got to be a problem.

    • I also hope the kids learned a valuable lesson to not spend their birthday monies on virtual baubles that the big bad execs can suddenly take away.

        This is a good thing, because they are getting an early lesson on why cloud dependent computing is bad.

  • A new map of appeasement (Score:3)

    by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @04:30PM (#59304020)

    The new Fortnite map will be "China Friendly", as jointly agreed upon by Fornite's executives and high level officials of the Chinese communist party.

  • ...extended maintenance.
  • Did they piss off China?

  • The Twitch stream is playing the same trippy new-age music my local Burger King uses for ambiance in the dining area. It confuses the HELL out of patrons and workers alike especially since hip hop or rap would be the music in that neighborhood. Nobody would listen to this trippy stuff. They'd use a different S word; not stuff.

    I've tried to describe the weird BK music before. Now I can just point people at the Fortnite Twitch stream. Done.

    BTW, their black hole looks wrong. I'm sure they care about accu

  • Fortnite is last year (Score:4, Interesting)

    by labnet ( 457441 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @06:30PM (#59304204)

    My 2 younger kids (and all their friends) have ditched fortnight and gone back to mine craft of all things!

  • ....of Fortnite players wining and crying like little school girls, unable to use the items they plunked hundreds or even thousands of dollars down for,

  • Way to go Tim, billions of dollars and can't get an update right, no STW, no SBMM, no nothing ... worst season turn over ever ... hey, I missed the big event, no problem, the whole thing is just a hole anyhow. Could anyone have actually thought this was the way to make the players happy? Gross incompetence, typical executive decision, make everybody wait while you flail in the wind. Oh well, back to real life, ... wait, how much did the parents pay you to let their kids enjoy thanksgiving dinner, bet it was

    • Well, these morons seemed thrilled:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

        They are the same kind of morons who would set an expensive $LATEST_HOT_GADGET on fire just to go on Youtube and say "Loox we seht teh latest graytest ifhone on fire cuz we're spehshil and gotz muney to waste! We wahnt attehshun!"

  • The what? (Score:3)

    by o_ferguson ( 836655 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @09:14PM (#59304394)
    A game is not an "ecosystem" get your head out of your ass.

  • Could give a sh*t about Battle Royale (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cmdln Daco ( 1183119 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @09:33PM (#59304422)

    I bought Fortnite for Save the World and Creative modes. Their stunt with Battle Royale has disabled my ability to play those games. The hell with that. I paid the extra amount you pay to get Save the World and Creative and have never entered the 'free to play' part of the game.

    I know I could never get a refund, though. This is a big titan game publisher.

  • Chewbacca defence (Score:3, Funny)

    by Trevelyan ( 535381 ) on Monday October 14, 2019 @12:07AM (#59304626)
    I guess Blizzard needs to distract us from some controversy?

    • I guess Blizzard needs to distract us from some controversy?

      Because Blizzard gets one of their competitors to stage a huge event to cover up some controversy? What?

  • My kid had a relationship with Fortnite like some people did with cocaine, but with school starting and a return to the more restrictive rules around the house and other school-related distractions, he's been playing a lot less.

    If I had to guess, the people responsible for Fortnite knew that a big season change like the fall could potentially disrupt something like Fortnite at this stage of its evolution. Best to do a huge publicity stunt about 6 weeks or so after everyone's back on their school year sched

  • Infamous, really? (Score:3)

    by cob666 ( 656740 ) on Monday October 14, 2019 @09:36AM (#59305482)
    From TFA:

    players discovered that inputting the infamous "Konami code" launches a Galaga-style shooting game

    I think that many people don't really understand what 'infamous' means.

  • Sounds like they are going for downtime to allow them to upgrade systems, fix bugs, and help with queue management. This is a perfect way of doing this.

    1) Allows them to play it into the 'story' of the game

    2) Allows them to create a new innovative map, that's different and stronger

    3) Upgrades to graphics, play styles, new modes?, and overall mechanics of the game

    4) Optimizing their internal systems and database to handle all of the pressures of being a million+ player game.

    Brilliant way of doing this.

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