_FFC_
As 2007 winds down, I wax nostalgic and reminisce about the F.F.C. and all the good times we've had over the years. In many ways this has been a rough year for me personally...loss of job after 10+ years, family & friend tragedies and health issues, and many other private struggles. I know I'm not alone in being glad to see this year finally pass. But my good friends here have helped tremendously in get'n me through the dark times, so I want to take a moment to reflect on the F.F.C. origins if I may.
Back in the early origin days ('03, '04) we played buku rounds of "BlackHawk Down" and later the "Team Sabre" addon. Those games provided my first real experience hosting a game server, even if it was one sit'n in my closet at the time. And who can forget "Hammer'n Hank" and his kick'n our ass over a dial-up connection from some distant farm out in America's Heartland, or "Big Daddy" terrorize'n the sand dunes with a combat knife. Good times indeed...
Sometime after that I hosted the very first F.F.C. blog when we began playing "Call of Duty" and "United Offensive"....here's a very early (circa 2004) forum thread talk'n about those days. Then in October of 2005 the newsletter blog moved to it's current location and you can wander thru those archives here if interested. We also flirted with another game or two at times ("F.E.A.R. Combat" comes to mind) but have focused on the "Call of Duty" series since it's release.
Gameserver-wise, we've been thru several hosts over the years....my junk closet in association with NovaLogic, then ServerXtreme, Leetservers, Clanwarz, and so on. Seem to have better luck with the smaller host companies....definitely better pricing and service.
While we've had players come and go, our core "faithful few" has remained mostly intact. To those players I want to say "thanks!" for all the fun and support (both the $ and the fellowship)....it's really appreciated. It's taken a few years to "train" our wives but I think most have come to view our strange addiction in the same light as bowling, pool or poker leagues. At least we're home and not wandering the streets and bars...that helps the acceptance level a lot. To the newer players, I hope you are enjoying the F.F.C. even a tenth as much as us ragged old-timers....like a fine wine it only gets better as the years roll by....so stick around!
Finally, here's a link to vote for the Top Game of 2007...of course I cast mine for "Call of Duty 4" but it's up to you.
Happy Holidays!
M
_FFC_
As I mentioned via email, the Call Of Duty 4:MW 1.3 patch just released and is available in the usual places...I get mine from FileFront most times. You can try the game's AutoUpdate feature but that appears to link to Infinity Ward and I got a timeout when trying it...go figger. As to how well the patch works, guess we'll just have to find out!
There will doubtless be a 1.4 patch soon too, as I've already read of some "lean bug" problems with the 1.3 patch. I know IW was in a hurry to get the sniper and pure client issues addressed but this "patch the patch" jerk around has to stop soon.
A handy tool to backup your COD4:MW player profile can be downloaded here. This should allow you to restore your rank from the backed up profile once you've used it...notice I said "should". Worth running once in awhile just in case.
In other COD news, Treyarch may be developing yet another WWII release down the road. Could be for the console only but too early to tell. They did a nice job on UO but 3 was a big disappointment. We'll have to wait and see....more info here.
Last but not least, I wanted to extend a hearty FFC "SaaaaaaLUTE!" and welcome to new players Andy (LaPua), Larry (Ghost), and Jim (ZKJimbo). Hope ya'll can join us often...we need more regular players in the house.
_FFC_
As mentioned earlier via email I went ahead and upgraded our Ventrilo server to the latest 3.0.0 version. This was going to happen automatically by month end anyway. This means you MUST upgrade your client to the same version in order to connect!
The upgrade process will uninstall your old client but keep the settings. There are quite a few changes with the new version but most don't concern us. The funky "Guest" label that shows up by your name will be fixed in a forth-coming patch.
Also, I spent some time today trying a few tweaks to improve CoD4 performance, keeping decent FPS (Frame Per Second) rates while enabling most quality settings. It wasn't bad before but I was curious to see if it could be made better. I ended up leaving the Vsync (Vertical Sync, Sync Every Frame) setting "off". I get some tearing (artifacts mainly noticeable on vertical objects when moving quickly side-to-side) but it's not too bad and the trade-off is greatly improved FPS. However, if you are prone to motion-sickness it's best to leave the Vsync "on" as long as your FPS is tolerable.
I then used Nvidia's "Ntune' add-on to slightly OC (OverClock) my graphics cards. Have to really be careful with that since the heat factor can cause problems.
For those of you who run dual graphics cards in SLI (Scalable Link Interface), I found it's best to create a profile for the CoD4 MP startup file and set the SLI Rendering Method to AFR2. If you're interested in trying that out, it's done via the Nvidia Control Panel....I can give you the details on Ventrilo but here's a quick overview of the basic profile process.
_FFC_
Only a few days out the gate and already over 4 thousand MP servers out there! Of course this has caused load problems with the Activision master servers which in turn has caused connection headaches for the user community. Lots of complaints about that on the gaming forums so hopefully the problem gets addressed very soon.
Meanwhile, you can try up'n your connection time attempts from the lowly 10 second default to something more realistic. I set mine to 60. To do so, use Wordpad (not Notepad) to edit your config_mp.cfg file (found in your game's ../players/profiles/yourplayername folder) and add the following using whatever new value in seconds:
seta cl_connectionAttempts "60"
There have also been complaints about the music and volume so we are not alone there either. I expect to see that fixed in a patch soon. But overall, the game is still awesome and a huge hit with the masses.
I also read that ping-wise, CoD4 displays higher than CoD2 even if the actual game performance seems normal. Even so, I'm having our 2 and 4 servers relocated from Dallas to Chicago. That's where we ran from in the past but I thought I'd try Dallas to see if it helped Crow....it didn't. For whatever reason, Chicago seems to have the best response for everyone.
Schultz got on Ventrilo last night and should have 4 in hand soon...he mentioned he already had a gift cert for it, just not been to the store yet. And I heard from Crow that Flop was ask'n about the new game so maybe we'll see "The Token" in there soon too!
We could use a few more "regular" players so if you have friends or know of interested player prospects, let me know. As long as they fit in with our relaxed play'n and fun'n style, the more the merrier.
_PC_
Hope ya'll had a Happy Halloween. But now that there's a short break between holidays coming up, it'll be a good time to load up "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" and blow the crap outta a whole army of virtual BGs. Me? I've been ready for a long while...put my pre-order in at Newegg back in early September. I hate standing in line at the game stores.
Not a lot new over on the official release site. A few silly-style fake "promo" videos from Castro, Putin, and the like. Good to see the IW/Activision team still has a sense of humor I guess.
They did release a CoD4:MW screensaver that has some kewl screenshots from the game. As you need to be a registered site member, I put a copy of the file here if you'd like to download it.
BTW, I did find a few new realistic CoD2 maps that I'll throw in on our WRM server. As they are largish in size, many will have SD or HQ gametypes to aid in up'n the action quotient. You may also have noticed I added Gametracker banners for our servers in the right panel here. Yet another way to see who is on where.
On a personal note, I start back to FT work at the new job in a few days so will have less time to spend on the game server tweaks and the blog here. Will miss that but I'm ready to have some steady $ coming in...been a rough year in many ways.
_PC_
With the release date (Nov. 5th) now less than two weeks away, CoD4:MW is starting to get a few preview reviews from the major sites, like this one from Gamespy.
Note that this review includes some talk about the Mulitplayer changes, including the "XP" system which will make it possible to tailor your character's abilities to your playing style. There's also perks and bonuses to add more flavor to the game and reward your accomplishments. I like those aspects but we'll have to see how well they're executed here in CoD. The old ET:RtCW game had similar XP rewards to increase skills which really helped the team wins but didn't carry over MMO-style between game sessions.
From what I've read, for the MMO XP to work I think you have to run the server as a "ranked" server which means it must run PB and can't be mod'd at all. Hmm....guess we'll find out in the next few weeks!
_FFC_
While the Meatbot mod is kinda fun, there are still too many bugs there-in to make it worthwhile right now. Just one of those mods that was best tried out with the group before I could make a call on how worthy this mod might really be at present. I think it has a lot of potential, but is not quite soup yet. I'll keep an eye on the mod's progress and maybe we'll revisit it later on.
Next up is one of the more popular "realism" mods, the WRM mod. Real in terms of iron sights, one primary weapon only, minimal screen clutter, weapon recoil and ballistics, ammo loadouts, and so on. The only stock setting in the mod I really skimped on was the grenade use and loadout, to keep Crow and the higher-ping players happy...er. But there's still a random factor on all the loadouts so don't always count on having grenades or the same amount of ammo. This isn't a "run and gun" spray everything in sight mod. Make your shots and grenades count. Still no sprint function as this mod doesn't include it...wish it did as from a realism viewpoint a solider should be able to sprint once in awhile.
The mod does include a bandaging system and a way to clear gun jams via a menu activated by your "Use" key; hit that key to toggle the choice then hold it down to choose. There are also different gun and player sounds. There was no blood mod but I added one in; not tested that yet. The maps are mainly stock with a few custom ones chosen for realistic theme.
I've also activated Punkbuster as I want to experiment with some of the admin features it offers. So make sure you have that turned on in your CoD2 game under Multiplayer Options. I had no problem connecting so assume the PB client auto-update works. If yours doesn't update for whatever reason (usually firewall) their update page is here.
The mod files are kinda large (over 60MB) due to the included sound files so allow ample time for the auto-download process the first time around. If you already had created a connection or favorite to checkout the Meatbot mod I posted about earlier there is nothing you need to change; same server just different mod. Otherwise, see my previous post here for the connection info.
_FFC_
Judging from usage and after polling the F.F.C. members regarding CoD:UO interest, I have officially retired CoD:UO (may it rest in peace). It was a great game but is a dog that has had it's day.
As there wasn't a lot of interest expressed in a game other than CoD2, I replaced UO with another CoD2 server. Ah, but this one has a twist! I loaded the "Meatbot" (Mbot) mod on this new server which gives me the ability to add in fairly smart AI players aka "bots". This way if there are only a couple of us around we can go fight the bots or balance out our teams with'em. There are some pros and cons which I list below.
Pro:
- Balance teams for odd man TDM matches
- Us against Them, man against the machine teamplay!
- Ranking system included, become an officer!
- Battlechatter and mortars, a little buggy still
Con:
- Only works with certain stock and custom CoD2 maps
- CoD2 stock features only (no sprint, one gun, auto-health, etc)
- Mod is from Russia so support is difficult to find/understand thus far
- Map rotation and bot re-connection is buggy, so I must be around to babysit
Elaborating on that last "Con" a little more, as we are limited by the server host to 10 slots and the bots count toward that total, we could in theory have a server full o'bots and no FFC player could then connect. And who knows what kind of wild party those bots might have in there without us...all get drunk and burn the damn server down. LOL
So we'll see how things go. Eventually I'd like to be able to leave the server run with a couple bots in there all the time. That way if a FFCer is bored you could go fight dem killer bots. But thus far I've not figured out if that's possible.....maybe later.
And if the bots don't work out or we get bored with'em, well, having a second stock CoD2 server makes it easier to try different mods....like, say, a realism mod.
Here is the new server connect info:
Name: FFCMbot
IP: 69.28.221.15
Same password
I also updated our "FFC Server Monitor" page to include the new server in the usual fashion. If you have a "quick connect" shortcut, just make a copy of it, go into the Properties on the new shortcut Target and change the last octet in the old IP from 136 to 15 and you'll be good to go!
_PC_
After a very rough start trying to get the %$#*ing demo to download at all from those YaaHoos at Yahoo! I was finally able to get the download finished up right before FFC game time last night. Guess they got off their incompetent arses and fixed whatever server problem they were having....I only had to do one "resume" about half way through the 1.5GB download (thank goodness for GetRight ;). There are many mirrors and torrents now available hosting the demo so go check it out!
This demo (and by extension the game) kicks extremely serious ass!! For all of you BHD oldtimers think "BlackHawk Down" meets "Call of Duty 2" and you'll have a good idea of the environment, weapons and so forth. I especially like the M4A1 with grenade launcher, the killer Javelin anti-tank weapon, and hey there's even a few Dragonovs lay'n around. The AI is decent, similar to what's in CoD2 and the animations improved. One favorite example: I sniped a BG on a balcony who was about to fire a RPG, he fell backward and the RPG shot straight up with a smoke trail 200' or so into the sky then it arc'd over and exploded mid-air! TOTALLY kewl! You can also throw back grenades (if there's time), use night vision, knife melee, shoot through some barriers (I smoked a camel-jocky right thru an old couch he was using for cover ;), and more. Providing the MP is as good as the SP when this rolls out to the game servers, we will all be very happy campers.....uhh, no camping allowed soldier!, but hey you get the idea.
I had zero problems with the install on XP and Vista. Well, nothing that wasn't my doing at least. I tried skipping the DirectX 9.0c update section the first time since I already keep my DirectX up to to date. Bad idea....DirectX error...game wouldn't run. I tried to reinstall the demo and it first uninstalled the demo, then exited. On the next install attempt I let it do the DirectX and all was fine. No reboots required but I lost a lot of time. Ah well, such is the testing life. ;-)
As for performance...on XP the demo ran very smooth at 1024x768 with all other settings (including 5.1 audio) maxed out, averaging about 35 FPS. That seems low compared to CoD2's 55 FPS (using DirectX 7) but keep in mind there's a LOT more going on in this demo. It's a very "busy" environment...lots of billowing smoke clouds, burning debris, frenetic jihadists shoot'n RPGs with vapor trails and AK bullets whiz'n all over the place....kinda like well, war. I lost a few more FPS when running the demo under Vista with the same settings...more like 20's FPS average but still very playable. I noticed no Vista disk swap'n activity even with my 1.5MB vs recommended 2MB of RAM. IF I were to run the game under Vista I'd likely be cranking a few graphics options down for the better FPS trade-off. Those of you with lesser hardware may want to stick with XP if possible. Keep in mind there is no DirectX 7 choice for this game like with CoD2....it's DX9 or nothing. So try the "Optimal System Settings" choice tho' that was way under-choiced in my case. I tried it and it didn't do a very good job of adjusting to what my hardware would actually support so I cranked things up manually.
In summary, it appears that IW did a fantastic job with the development and especially the performance optimization of CoD4:MW. I am amazed how well the demo runs given how much is going on even at lowered FPS. Yes, I have some "heavy" hardware altho' said hardware is now more than a year old so ain't bleeding at the edges. I'll be anxious to hear back from the rest of you as to how it performs and plays.
_PC_
Currently over 2 HOURS past the 9am PST release date of the much anticipated CoD4:MW PC Demo and NO ONE has been able to download it. I've checked on all the official and unofficial gaming sites and the story is the same. Apparently Activision made an exclusive deal with Yahoo! (my gawd WHAT were they thinking??!) to distribute the demo and they royally screwed the pooch....[heavy sarcasm] gee how unusual is that for Yahoo! ?[/heavy sarcasm]....by having only ONE distribution server!
Story is the same all over...try to download, get either "Connection Refused" or about 16-20MB and then it stops. Download managers don't help, nothing helps, it just don't work, I've tried it myself for an hour.
Needless to say the fans are up in arms all over the globe so it will be interesting to see if there is any official word or apology issued soon. I know I AM PISSED since I have the time today to mess with this but won't next week. Grrrrrrr!!
Only positive note is that they did finally release the System Requirements for the demo which should be the same for the game....see below. Weep or rejoice depending on your current hardware, but I'll have more to report about the reality of the specs IF the demo ever gets truly released.
“Recommended Specs” CPU: 2.4 GHz dual core or better is recommended RAM: 1GB for XP; 2GB for Vista is recommended Harddrive: 8GB of free hard drive space Video card: 3.0 Shader Support recommended. Nvidia Geforce 7800 or better or ATI Radeon X1800 or better
“Required (min) Specs” CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 2.4 GHz or AMD(R) Athlon(TM) 64 2800+ processor or any 1.8Ghz Dual Core Processor or better supported RAM: 512MB RAM (768MB for Windows Vista) Harddrive: 8GB of free hard drive space Video card (generic): NVIDIA(R) Geforce(TM) 6600 or better or ATI(R) Radeon(R) 9800Pro or better
_FFC_
Turkeyfiles, the free redirect map host we've been using over the past year or so has shutdown their hosting site. Seems it was costing them too much for the bandwidth...well, DUH!! What did they expect? Ah well, it was a good ride while it lasted. And I'll miss all the different maps that showed up there regularly for CoD2 and other games.
In case you were wondering just what the hell a redirect map host is anyway, read on! The game maps that I upload to our game server have to be uploaded to another server elsewhere too. This is because the game hosting companies generally don't have the extra bandwidth and storage to support buku megabytes of map files being transfered each day, per hosted game server. Or if they do they charge extra $ for it. So Turkeyfiles was a big hit with many game admins since they hosted maps for free for anyone, but obviously they bit off much more than they could afford.
Most of our maps, especially the olders ones, are still hosted on one of my sites so we'll go back to using that one full time. I started using Turkeyfiles when I found it since, 1) They already had most of our maps and some good new ones which meant less work for me since I didn't have to upload them there and, 2) Other gamers would upload their map files so new ones would show up regularly that were often worthy of play. Made my work a lot easier/simpler. It wasn't a perfect solution since being a public server I had less control over the maps themselves meaning any maps I customized for our server caused conflicts. But overall it worked pretty well and now it's gone..."C'est la vie".
Sooooo.....I'll be increasing the storage space on my DD site and get'n the missing maps (that were only hosted from Turkeyfiles before) uploaded there. I'll have to test each download rotation of which we have 20 right now, times 5 or more maps per rotation. In actuality we have about 85 "user-created" maps as some of the rotations have the stock maps mixed in. Hopefully I'll get this all ironed out during the next week or so, but if you experience any weird map download problems hey, at least you have some idea WTF is going on.
_PC_
With some extra time on my hands lately, I installed Midway Games new release, "John Woo Presents Stranglehold". A full review with which I mostly agree can be found over on Gamespot. Being a major "Max Payne" fan (I played both 1 and 2), I immediately noticed the similarities as did the Gamespot reviewer. Think a Chinese Max on steroids with updated graphics/audio and you've got a good idea what to expect. Similar 3rd person perspective, similar vigilante-cop attitude. Performance-wise, I've had no major issues...the game runs mostly smooth on Vista at 1024x768 with no crashes thus far on my beefy Hornet game PC. I get an occasional lag in play when disk access is heavy, no doubt due to my only having 1.5GB vs the recommended 2GB of RAM. I need to get another 512MB before CoD4 releases anyway. The min specs are ridiculous for this game, as noted in the review. You need some serious hardware but what new game these days does not? The game is fun if hardcore repetitious, and if you liked Max Payne I recommend it. Do note that it's a HUGE mutha to install, what with all the in-game movies and such; two dual layer DVDs which eat a whop'n 13GB of hard disk real estate.
_PC_
Can't keep a bad girl down ---
The sequel to 2005's megahit game "F.E.A.R." has now been officially named. Trailers for "Project Origin" can be found here. Yes it looks a lot like the old game but it's too early to tell how many new features will be incorporated other than the obvious new guns and baddies. I assume Alma will be haunting the blood-soaked halls in usual fashion. No release date announced yet.
Is that a crow in the rubble? ---
"Warmonger" is supposed to release FREE in mid-October this year although the details on their official site are still pretty thin. The video looks damn good altho' I do hope there is a sniper rifle or two to go along with those spray & pray weapons shown blasting the destructible environment to smithereens.
Edit 09.24.07 - Found this enlightening article; seems you must have a seperate Aegis PhysX card ($150) to play this game so that explains the "free" part. Those guys must be smoke'n their socks to think there's a real market for dedicated physics cards...sheesh. Soooo...nevermind!
Return to Roswell ---
Another very interesting release, coming up in November this year is "BlackSite Area 51". This is a spooky squad-based game with driveable vehicles, co-op play and more; reminds me of "Half-Life 2" crossed with "Rainbow Six". Demo is out already for the Xbox 360, but don't know if there will be a demo for the PC...kinda doubt it.
And don't forget (like I would let ya ;) that November is also "CoD4:MW" month! I added a news widget link to the upper right panel of this site, so be sure to check it often for updates!
_FFC_
I uploaded another small-sized maps rotation today. The ones that are DeathMatch will have limited weapons (shotgun, pistol, one grenade); just FYI that's pretty much the norm now for DM maps otherwise it gets too damn chaotic. One of the TDM maps has some very kewl weather effects and the ability to call mortars via radio and binocs, reminiscent of the UO artillery style.
There's a couple new videos of the "perks" out for CoD4 now. Here is a link to the longer one. I downloaded the HD version (110MB) and watched it on my bigscreen TV (MPC player worked best)...very kickass!! The other video showed some stealth moves indoors and the graphics reminded me of "F.E.A.R." so maybe it won't be too demanding on the hardware after all. Still no word yet on the requirements.
_FFC_
Pre-orders for what is sounding like THE best CoD release ever (Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare) are now being taken at the usual places, like Amazon, Newegg, EBGames and GameStop (I already ordered mine via Newegg!).
Activision is pulling out all the marketing stops this time around, even using Valve's Steam distribution network for the initial release. Personally I prefer having the DVD media in my hand vs a humongous download of this size but some folk really like Steam I guess. I've used it for Half-Life 2 and a couple other games....just not my first choice.
Average prices for the PC version of CoD4 are $50 and $70 (Collectors Edition). Not sure what is in the CE version but last time it was just a fancy case and some extra video so I'll pass on that this time around. Also unknown are the PC system requirements....which is kinda stupid since the game releases on 11.06.07 and it would be nice to know what upgrades might be required ahead of time. But as a true CoD diehard, I'll upgrade if I have to regardless. I'll be sure to post here again when the specs release. From what I've read on the IW forum, the PC version will, as expected, require some hefty ponies especially in the graphics card department. It is still DX9 (not DX10) and this time is NOT a port from the Xbox like CoD2, so should be optimized for the PC platform. Sounds like there has been a lot of thought put into options for the multiplayer side of things, which should make it a popular replacement on the server networks. If so, maybe sometime next year we can drop UO and switchover to 4 and 2 or maybe just 4.
_FFC_
I actived the "funmod" section of our new AWE3.3 mod today. This adds a basketfull of random "fun" powerups you can pickup, some good, some bad. Or you can ignore them. Figured we'd see how it goes. Some are useful and some are really funny...you'll just have to see for yourself. ;-)
Also played around with the new "Meatbot" AI mod from Russia. This adds bots to CoD2 which could be a nice addition when few players are in the house. Trouble is that it doesn't play well with any other customizations, including custom maps and AWE. So there's no easy way to make it work with our existing setup. But I'll keep an eye on the development.....might be something useful down the road.
I'll be around at the usual time...finally done with family visits and so forth. Now just concentrating on finding a job....again. Sigh....
_FFC_
I did some testing/config on my home server this week with the latest AWE mod (Additional War Effects, version 3.3). I just now updated our FFC CoD2 server to this new mod version.
The mod is in a new AWE33 folder and should download on your next connect. If it timesout, exit out of the game and then try it again; mine took a couple tries to get in.
Below is a list of changes to gameplay. I think I covered all the major changes.
Note: a "*" means it was added for realism and a "#" means added for fun.
*Parachuting - Like in the mod for CoD:UO but you can pick your landing spot
*Tripwires - Can now jump over them if you see them first
*Scoping - Three levels of zoom w/rangefinder, use your "Use" and "Melee" keys to adjust
#Announcements - For various kill zones/style, taken from UT2004
*Weapons menu - Now includes deployable MGs depending on terrain, use your "sight" key
*Compass - No more red dots so listen for shot direction, compass style more realistic too
#Camping - Punishment starts at 3 minutes, gets worse the longer you camp
#Teamkill - Usual crush punishment for third offense, after that instant death for repeats
#Points - Extra points awarded for Headshot/Bash but do not count towards Team total
_FFC_
I added in an all new 5 map rotation this afternoon. Some small ones, and a couple medium maps one of which is a CoD2 remake of the "Nuenen" map we have for CoD:UO. Note that the "ZP_Supreme" map is a combo jump/traditional map...might be interesting.
To save space on my redirect server I put all these on the Turkeyfiles RD server. The issue we ran into last time is that I customized several of the soundalias files for our server maps so when I moved those over to the TRD (turd? ;) server there were conflicts with the original files. Still trying to sort that out in the long run.
For anyone having problems with Ventrilo, the server did change awhile back. The correct address is IL3.LeetVent.com and the port is 3994 with the same password as before.
And in case you've been under a rock for the past few months, be sure to check out the lastest info on "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare". You can download the newest trailer in 720P HD with 5.1 Surround (looks f'n awesome!) over on the official site or view a small streaming version here. PC version release date is 11.07.07.
_FFC_
Couple o'thangs to post about today...
First off, I uploaded a new CoD2 map rotation...looks to be a fair mix of small CQB-style and divided sniper'n maps. I tacked that new "ToyBox2" map onto the end of the rotation; thus far just been loading that one manually.
Secondly, we are get'n a LOT of CoD2 maps and they take up space and bandwidth on my commercial upload server, to the tune of 65 map files and 340MB of space. So I'm in the process of moving those to a free server. Many of the maps are already on the free server, in some cases that's where I found them to begin with. So the ones we have that aren't there I'm uploading. Most of you won't be effected by this as you already have those maps locally. But any new players may get download errors if I miss any in this synchronization process.
Just FYI, the same map files have to exist both on the game server and on the redirect server. So part of the process I must go through each time with new maps is uploading them to both places. Using this new free server will greatly reduce work for me (since many of the maps are already there or get uploaded by other game server admins). Plus it'll help keep me in the black stats-wise on my commercial server.
Lastly, Gonzo told me his nephew is get'n geared up to try join'n in on the FFC server soon. Not sure when we'll see that or what his player name is....have to bug the Gonz I guess.
_FFC_
I added in 3 new CoD2 maps today. Nothing too fancy and the files are small but at least it's something new. Oh, and there's also one small new mod that will download. One extra free Orc kill goes out to the person who first spots what the mod adds.
_FFC_
The new Xbox 360 teaser trailer for CoD4 (yes, the damn series just WON'T stay down in the foxhole ;) is now out. Can't tell much about the actual game from such a short chaotic trailer but if you've a mind to check it out, here is a link.
Other "new"s....I just finished uploading a complete new 5 map rotation for CoD2, plus one new floater aim-style map. A "floater" is what I call a very small map that I manually load up when there's only 2 or 3 players. Good example is that "TuTu" shotgun map. Just a small quick action map to float some time by until the slackers...uhhh...other players finally show.
So as usual, get in a little early today if you want to get a head start on the new map downloads.
Last "new"s....we could use a couple more new players on the servers so if you know of any likely fresh meat...uhhh...candidates, be sure to give them an invite!
_PC_
Been quite awhile since I've offered any non-FFC news here, sooooo here are a couple reviews on single-player modes of games I tried out:
"Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30"
Lots of reviews out there on this older (2005) game which was the first in it's series. I finally got around to trying it out recently, so here is my input. The game does have some interesting aspects, if you are into squad-based control military shooters (similar to "Full Spectrum Warrior"). But I found it very frustrating for four reasons. First, you can't skip thru many of the cinematic sequences and that gets tedious. Second, there isn't a manual "Save" option...you have to play to a specific auto-save point then start over at your last such when you die. Not unusual in yet another console port-to-PC game, but still sucks. Third, some of the missions are really boring to complete. In one you have to eliminate the enemy (of course) but then blowup several "field poles" to clear a landing field. Repetitiously overdone. And after the last one, if you don't quickly get out of the way the $#@!ing glider lands on your head and you have to start all over...again. Lastly, the weapons are inaccurate to the point of stupidity (excepting the sniper rifle). You can literally stand 5 feet from an enemy and repeatedly miss them with any shouldered weapon. I often found it more effective to just bash them with it, tho' that too is so slow in action as to be idiotic.
For all the reasons above, I found it necessary to go find "God" cheats just to finish the game without putting my fist thru the monitor from frustration. Yes the game had some great play aspects for it's day, but I can NOT recommend wasting your money on this one.
"Rainbow Six: Vegas"
After hearing back from Hammer'n Hank that he regularly plays this game (on Xbox 360's network) I decided to check it out. Again many reviews on it, and here is some video on the multiplayer features. In similar manner to earlier R6 releases, it has it's squad-based aspects, but unlike those releases you only have 2 team members to control. I found this (along with the simpler control functions) to be much more playable if you like the "run & gun" style better than tactical. IMO, this is a lot of fun and a nice addition to solo play. You can (and often must) use your team to provide cover fire, do room clears and so forth. The con is that if either of them dies, you have to start over....yes, as this is another port-to-PC there are no manual "Saves". Expect to spend a LOT of time starting over in this game too. Again, very stoooopid IMO, since many of the missions are extremely hard to survive without a lot of experimentation to find the right tactical solution....there are several "Trainer" hacks out there, so obviously not my opinion alone. But it is still a very fun game and I'm enjoying it a lot. As it's a newer game (late 2006), the graphics are much better if still a little "cartoony" compared to the realism in the likes of CoD2 or F.E.A.R.. The baddies aren't real creative and varied, but the AI is decent if overwhelming in numbers at times. They remind me of newer versions from the BHD SP play. Still not as good as the AI in the afore-mentioned games (will any AI ever rival F.E.A.R.'s?) , but decent. And at least the weapons are fairly realistic in use and ballistics...too much so at times since it can be difficult to see past the muzzle-flash with certain models. And if you like silencers, plenty of those in the game.
In summary I do like this game and can recommend it, and would be interested in trying out the multiplayer if any other FFC'ers think it's worthy.
_FFC_
A bit o'news on the CoD2 front. While the AWE mod main support programmer (Bell) recently retired from active duty, he passed the support torch over to the Raiders community. If you recall, we used to run the Raiders RCMod in the first CoD2 hosted server incarnation.
In honor of all Bell's great work on AWE, several modders are putting together a "CE" (Community Edition) of the AWE mod. This should incorporate many new features, and a few new gametypes. Not sure yet what all it will contain, but it's now in beta testing....I'll watch for the release.
Haven't heard from our newest member "Sgt. Schultz" lately so I sent him a short email today. Hopefully he is still around and able to play. I know he was fighting a cold or flu bug awhile back.
And for all you old timers who recall our infamous nemesis "Hammer'n Hank", I wrote to him recently and got the following reply; he's still alive and game'n on....can't stop the Hammer!
"I was wondering about you guys the other day. We moved to the other side of the woods and now have DSL. I bought a XBOX360 and play online alot because of recent knee surgery. My gamer tag is BullSkater. I play Rainbow Six LasVegas a good bit but have Call of Duty 2&3. Maybe we can get up a game." - HH
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I know we played a new rotation yesterday, but those were all smallish maps. I like to have a couple "small" rotations for when we don't have lots of players around. Some of those new ones (like "MP_Bobo") worked out very well IMO. And I like the new "Rats" map better.
You may not know this but there are a LOT of crappy game maps out there. But I always strive to find the best quality maps. Ones with above-average design and texture quality, and decent layouts for our small group. Given that latter qualifier, I dropped the "Kraut Hammer" map from the server so you can delete that one locally if you wish. No, not just because Crow bitched about it (haha), but because it didn't fit our group size and playing style very well.
With those standards in mind, today I uploaded a whole NEW map rotation for CoD2. Okay, mostly new as "Elevation" ia a map that we played way back when on the original ServerXtreme setup. Here is a short breakdown on the new ones:
MP_WarArena - Arena-style battlefield map of medium size with lots of good cover, machine gun bunkers, towers and so on.
MTL_Raiders - A medium/large desert map with excellent Egyptian textures, in the theme of the dig site in "Raiders of the Lost Arc", complete with movie intro music/loadscreen. Very open map, so tho' it's kinda big it should be good for sniping.
MP_Chelm - A small winding country farm setting in Poland. Not a large map but the layout meanders around so I made it an HQ (radio) map to lessen the hunt for targets.
MTL_Hobbiton - An awesome map re-creating the landscape of "The Hobbits", complete with background music from the LOTR movie! The music track was way too loud originally, so I edited the map file script to soften the volume. Again, a largish map but completely open for snipers.
MP_Elevation_V2 - Tricky arena-style map with a twist. Lots of winding platforms at various levels with ladders, bunkers, a jumble of cover objects and a drop to your death rewarding any casual mis-step!
As usual, you should connect in early if possible to get the downloads out of the way. Biggest map is about 11MB. Since downloading is working more correctly now, you'll need to "Vote" thru the rotation to get all the downloads.
_FFC_
Looks like Shooter (aka Sgt. Schultz) has decided to become an "official" FFC member, since he tossed some coins in the hat this month. Welcome aboard Sarge! Hope you get to play a little more often. Always good to have more players in the group since it's seldom that "the gang is all here" so to speak. More members means increased odds of more regular players, thus more mayhem and fun for everyone!
Map-wise, ya'll can delete that "Durdon_Cross" map file yet again. Seems it was still too noisy so I commented out the ambient background soundtrack completely this time. As in the past, delete it so the newly edited file will cleanly download.
Speaking of maps, I added in a couple new ones today:
"Kraut Hammer" is a medium multi-level semi-maze arena map that probably needs 4+ players. I don't care much for maze maps but this one looks interesting....whoever makes it to the top can dominate...for awhile.
"Valley of Giants" is another new map in which I edited out the ambient soundtrack; didn't seem to fit the map IMO. It's a smallish map with big buildings and lots of ladders...ol' Bird-Breath should like that one. Just watch yer step, it's a looooong way down!
_FFC_ * Edited*
A couple of the new maps didn't work out due to size/layout. Please delete the following map files from your CoD2 game's ..\main folder:
mp_villa.iwd
mp_africorps_final.iwd
durdon_cross.iwd
Actually that last map (Durdon Cross) will re-download next time if you delete it before you connect again; otherwise you may end up with two copies...if so just disconnect, delete them both and reconnect. The reason it's a re-download is that I edited the scripts within the map file to remove the rain sounds and effects. Too much noise, and altho' the rain visuals were great you only see them if you run DX9. So kind of a disadvantage for us DX9ers visibility-wise against a DX7er....too bad, as it's a great realism effect.
The maps in this new rotation look pretty good and not too large but we'll just have to see now won't we? ;-)
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I really like the quality of those RnR maps (like that BoB "Lost Patrol" one) so I tracked down their site and found some more high-quality maps for us!
And I also tweaked the map rotations, mixing in HQ with TDM for the larger maps, so it breaks down like this:
One rotation of 6 relatively small stock CoD2 maps.
One rotation with 6 maps which are all CoD2 remakes of some of our favorite CoD:UO maps such as "Pavlov", "Townville" and so on.
One rotation of 6 custom maps we've played already, like "GOB: Rats" and "Malta", but with a few new ones thrown in.
One rotation of 6 completely NEW maps!
For now we're on that first rotation as it took several hours of time to download the maps, weed through and pick out the best ones, then create and test the rotations. I still have to upload the new maps to both the game and the redirect servers and that'll take awhile too since I don't have as much comparative UL bandwidth.
No word yet on up'n our server player slots but will keep ya'll posted. Until then, he who gets in first gets to kick kick kick ass! ;-)
_FFC_
Altho' a few of the new maps had some neat features, I weeded out the ones that had high FPS rates, playability issues and so forth. What's left is, IMO, a very good rotation of the best custom maps we've played. And two brand new maps made the grade...one that is based on "The Lost Patrol" episode from "Band of Brothers", and the other is yet another UO favorite remake, this time it's "D-Day+7"! To round out this excellent TDM rotation, I added in the stock "Caen, France" map but in HQ mode...it's a gorgeous map but slightly largish for TDM.
Along with the map changes, I swapped out the client file for a different blood-effect one....can't really test that without other players so guess we'll see next time. The new file should download into the mod folder as usual.
I also downloaded the new "Merciless" mod for CoD2 and will try that out on my test server maybe this weekend. I've always wanted to check into that one, but need to read up on the features and setup first before I waste any time on it.
BTW, was good to see Big Daddy back in form on CoD2 finally. Also, Sgt Schultz was working on his CoD2 install so maybe we'll have a shot (or ten ;) at him in there soon too!
_FFC_
I took some time this week and did extensive research and testing with CoD2 to figure out a few annoyances. You know, things like the game settings not "stick'n" after you change them. Pretty sure Floppo was having that problem too from what he said on Vent last week. So I updated the "Readme1st.htm" file in our Gamefiles folder to include that info, along with cleaning up that document overall. I also made sure our new CoD2 server is showing up in the Join Server master list. It is now and I was able to create a Favorite and get it working properly. So check out the updated readme when you get time.
_FFC_
I put a new CoD2 rotation in today. Several new maps, an old map we used to play, another "macro" map for all you dirty rats, and a couple remakes of UO favorites (Neuville, and Suicide Creek). One of the new maps is a basic split sniper map...you can't cross the invisible middle boundary, but bullets and grenades can of course. Only one of the new maps (set in Germany) might pose a problem...it's pretty overboard on environment effects. Might be choppy in parts for some...guess we'll see how it goes. I think that map is around 25MB, the rest aren't too bad size-wise. Frag ya later!
_FFC_
Our new commercial server for the resurrection of "Call of Duty 2" gaming is now configured and online. I just finished upload'n the maps and config files, and the server looks to be running okay but haven't personally tested it yet as I'm not at home. I'll send out a group message once I've tested things out....looking good on the setup at least! I can't say enough kind words about our host (LeetServers)...they cut us a great deal and got the server installed quickly. Sure is a nice change from our last host....grrrr!, don't want to go there. Thanks go out to Crow, Mufasa and Hock for help'n me pre-test the server setup ahead of time.
New server IP: 69.28.221.136
Servername: ForumFightersClub (just like for our UO server)
Patch level: v1.3 (you can download that here if needed)
Also, I added another monitor section for this server to our usual monitor page.
You can setup a direct-connect desktop shortcut just the same way as you did for UO. All you'll need to change is the IP number to the one noted above. Password is the same new one that we use for UO.
This new server runs the same mod (AWE) as the one we run for UO, and I've tried to keep the configurations similar for less confusion. This mod doesn't have all the features of the UO version mod (yet) but overall I think you'll like it.
There's also a "no CD" hack in my Gamefiles folder if you like using those fixes...I do. Note that if you want to be able to Alt+Tab to your desktop in-game, you do need to run the game at a different resolution than your desktop. Example, in my case my desktop is 1280x1024 so I run the game at 1024x768.
If you have the hardware, the game looks kickass with all the eye-candy turned on and waaay up on the settings. The smoke, fire and other particle effects are schweet! But if you find it too choppy, let the game set your perf settings and be sure to change the rendering to "DX7" instead of "Auto" or "DX9". (Options->Graphics->Rendering Method Preference)
We'll figure out the playing schedule along the way; for right now we'll still be doing mostly UO until we have more players up-to-CoD2-speed.
