what am i playing now

Tuesday July 7th, 2009

Activision Publishing, Inc. has contracted with Even Balance, Inc. to integrate PunkBuster™ Anti-Cheat software into the online multiplayer section of the highly-anticipated Wolfenstein™, executive produced by id Software™ and developed by Raven Software and Endrant Studios. PunkBuster Anti-Cheat features will be available "out-of-the-box" with the retail release of the game on August 4th, 2009.

PunkBuster Online Countermeasures | Announcements

Here is an article by Verticae from the Crossfire Gaming Community Site.
Article - here -

Hopfully a few that read this will listen but I doubt it. Kleenex has already started producing extra stock of tissues for the expected tears and bulk crying the ET community will do upon this game's release.

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory was a game released back in May 2003. Since then, most of us grew to love it, and many still play it day in, day out, in an attempt to improve their skill and get some of that e-fame.

Surely, this game should be considered a classic. It has a brilliant mix between aim, movement, weapon management, teamwork and that ever helpful bit of luck. Many games have worked with a similar system since Return To Castle Wolfenstein first catered it to the masses, but it was in Enemy Territory where most will agree it was perfected.

So far, so good: Enemy Territory is a great game, has plenty of following.. But that's it. There's more games out there, possibly just as good. But the instant anything new pops up, it seems the community on CrossFire instantly rejects it on the sole reason of it "not being ET".


It's happened with a lot of games, but most notably, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and the upcoming Wolfenstein seem to be rejected by most - even if they haven't played it. "Wolfenstein has ironsights omg it must sukkk!!!11", it's a logic I fail to comprehend. Game developers want to try new things, and often do so to great success - despite the initial criticism. Look at how Shiny incorporated a sniper rifle into MDK (1997), an idea people didn't like during development, but nowadays is a part of nearly every shooter game. In fact look at The Sims (I went there!), a non-violent game that turned out to be a bestseller.

Gaming history is full of these examples, yet it seems the CrossFire community will reject anything that isn't Enemy Territory. ETQW, as an example, was written off by most people because it had aliens, vehicles, or simply because they didn't like the 'feel' (or system requirements). The majority of those judging it only played the demo, and never looked at ETQWpro, a mod which (albeit too late) made ETQW an amazing lot better. And if you think a game shouldn't need a mod to suit to your likings.. Go play some ETmain and realise it's not ETpro at all.


By the looks of it, Wolfenstein will be going down the same route: The game introduces new concepts to the ET players' universe, and because of it, it's disliked. Hell, people speak of boycotting the game already (even when they haven't seen any MP info or footage yet). For all we know, it could be an experience that, with some practice and perhaps a decent promod, could be even better than Enemy Territory.



For those that didn't feel like reading: Simply because it's 'not ET', is not a reason to dislike a game instantly. Come to your senses and realise that what made Enemy Territory great, is that it was different from what was out there (okay, and it was free). That's what developers keep trying to do. Give up the whining, and try it out first.

Rest In Peace Farrah Fawcett (Ferrah Leni Fawcett).

02 February 1947 - 25 June 2009

"I've lived a full and wonderful life. I've loved and been loved. I'm happy. I'm ready."

I've added another newbie friendly piece of software to my list.

Useful Free Software


BlockNote for the Net

This is an easy to use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor. I used this recently to make a readme for the SWAT4 reticle mod. I know zero about HTML so this program helped me, a lot! For full details of what this software can do, visit the site.

http://blocknote.net

The server cvar to enable voting for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is sv_vote_enabled. From what I've seen on the internet no one knows how to ultilise this cvar fully with some incorrectly stating in server guides that a value of 1 is ON (and 0 is OFF).

sv_vote_enabled has bit fields that enables server admins to select and deselect the various voting options.

The voting setup in this game looks to have not been finished. An extra line in the menu called Text makes no sense and cannot even be activated. The interger range for this cvar 0-255.


Here are the bit fields required to work with the voting options.

sv_vote_enabled 0 (disables the voting menu)

+2 Restart
+4 Quick restart
+8 Drop
+16 Ban
+32 Change map
+64 Change weather


sv_vote_enabled 126 (full voting options enabled)
sv_vote_enabled 255 (full voting options enabled)

To choose what voting option you want to use start from 0 (OFF) and add each number corresponding with the option you want on. Use the sum of what you end up with in your server config or enter it into the console.

eg. To only enable map restart and map voting use:

sv_vote_enabled 34

nedd

I've combined my Servers List page with the old Info, Link and Downloads page. Everything is now indexed from the one page (on right), neds gaming goodies.

This small mod alters the SWAT 4 reticle in both singleplayer and multiplayer. The various Weapons and equipment in the game have various reticles ranging from the weapons having a center dot with spread indicators to tools having a center dot inside a circle. This mod removes all reticle parts except the dot and makes this dot larger. I would have removed the reticle completely if the game had an aim-down-site function.

The reticle mod will work with:
-SWAT 4
-SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate
-many SWAT 4 Mods eg. Sheriff's Special Forces (SSF) Realism Mod



Thanks to the following!

• Jaster (http://hot-swat-mods.com) - Editor info
• Vetinari (http://phnc.net) - .dds editing
• TOG Fox & TOG Carcas (http://theoldergamers.com) - testing and feedback



-full details including installation instructions come with the download-

SWAT 4 reticle mod - link - 450KB

Many people know that the 1.50 patch for Battlefield 2 is in a public beta testing phase - LINK. Beta 1 was released to the public late April. There were some nice things in this like additional support for Windows Vista, a new map, various changes made to prevent cheating, added support for Widescreen resolutions, and increased the time to go prone after jumping from 0.3 seconds to 0.7 seconds. The last two I thought to myself FINALLY and GOOD WORK!! Full details - HERE.

Beta 2 has just been released. I read the changlog and could not believe my eyes.

• Consensus to revert to 0.3 second delay between jump and prone - Fixed

speechless





Beta 2 full details - HERE -

The beta patches can be discussed over at The Older Gamers Public FPS Forum
http://www.theoldergamers.com/forum/fps ... tches.html

Epic games are still releasing updates for Unreal Tournament 3 which is awesome to see! This latest release is patch #5 (v2.1). The recent release of patch #4 (v2.0) and the Titan Pack saw this average game turn into the great game it deserved to be.

UT3 patch changelog - here -
UT3 Titan Pack info - here -


More UT3 goodness in the Info, Links and Downloads section of the blog.