A new venue for flames

I've read that in testing, they had PC and 360 people playing together. I wonder if that will happen in practice?

I hope not. Nothing against the 360, but there will be a lot more kids in that crowd.

Worse though will be cheaters. I've been reading over the VAC systems and a little on the cheat sites. I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would bother cheating. It's a pretty hollow victory.
posted by jeblis at 1:13 PM on October 8, 2007

Griefing is its own (questionable) reward, jeblis. I'm pretty certain that most people cheat to annoy; winning is just a side-effect, a means to an end.
posted by cortex at 1:19 PM on October 8, 2007

Given that people here are in the know:

Am I going to be able to buy just Episode 2 alone for a price well below $50?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:37 PM on October 8, 2007

No stand-alone Episode 2. At one point, there was also a Black Box (to complement the Orange) that only contained the three new games, but it was quietly killed. Considering the amount of Game that's in the three new releases, I consider the $45 pre-order price worth it.

I'm not a big fan of class-based games, but I really love the TF2 beta. I wonder if there'll be anything new in it tomorrow.
posted by Plutor at 1:53 PM on October 8, 2007

I wonder if there'll be anything new in it tomorrow.

Well, hopefully they'll NERF THE PYRO.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 1:58 PM on October 8, 2007 [1 favorite]

Yeah, the Pyro is way overpowered up close.
posted by killdevil at 2:16 PM on October 8, 2007

Fortress Forever is vastly superior to TF2, but then I am an ex-TFC addict and can't ~~live~~ stand playing without grenade spam or trick jumping.
posted by public at 2:42 PM on October 8, 2007

I am really very down with this idea. I'll be playing on the 360 as well, since my pc is teh p00p, (a phenomenon I'm starting to see happen a lot more recently. I don't know a lot of people who can keep up with pc graphics expenses these days) but TFC was always my favorite competitive game ever, so I'm definitely getting the orange box. I'll change my info on the wiki when I get the game.

Also, anyone who likes TFC, another incredible game in that vein is Shadowrun. I had the great pleasure of meeting the developers, and they told me that they definitely loved TFC and tried to bring that gameplay into Shadowrun. Friend me if you play it.
posted by shmegegge at 2:55 PM on October 8, 2007

The removal of conc jumps STILL upsets me.

I will join the group when I get home tonight!
posted by mrnutty at 2:58 PM on October 8, 2007

So does this mean Portal is out? And is there any way to, you know, just get Portal?
posted by Eideteker at 3:18 PM on October 8, 2007

Would it be completely ridiculous for me to get the orange box for both the PC and my 360? Because I'm considering doing this.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 3:21 PM on October 8, 2007

Oh, and I just realized I'd been conflating HaLo 3 and HL 2. Guess I fail at gamesumerism.
posted by Eideteker at 3:24 PM on October 8, 2007

It's okay, man. The Sumerians were shitty gamers anyway. Always camping sniper but couldn't shoot worth a goddam, for one thing.
posted by cortex at 3:28 PM on October 8, 2007

They basically invented camping ffs give them a break.
posted by public at 3:49 PM on October 8, 2007 [3 favorites]

Super Awesome! Mefi has everything! count me in.
posted by Student of Man at 4:00 PM on October 8, 2007

Everything but an Eve corp.

*floats silently in space, alone*
posted by BitterOldPunk at 4:22 PM on October 8, 2007

Awesome. Team Fortress 2 is the most fun I've had in an online shooter since my heydays of Rocket Arena 3. It is damn near perfect, and really, really fun. I'm in as elcraptastico, but my ping's going to suck from over here in Korea if we ever get up a game.

(For those who asked, Portal and HL2 Ep. 2 are preloading on Steam and out in a couple of days, TF2 is in public beta.)
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:26 PM on October 8, 2007

Preloading? Is that like preboarding?
posted by Eideteker at 5:00 PM on October 8, 2007

Preloading? Is that like preboarding?

Kind of, actually. Steam is Valve's digital delivery system for games, and despite howls of protest and bugs aplenty (especially at the beginning) and the DRMy aspect of it, I actually think it's pretty damn good. I used it for the first time a couple of days ago to buy the Orange Box.

The release date for HL2Ep2 and Portal and TF2 is Midnight Oct 10, if I recall. Before that, Steam preloads the games in their entirety, if you tell it to, if you've bought them, and when the switch is flipped at Valve to 'RELEASED', you can immediately start playing (in theory at least, there have been hiccups in the past, apparently). No need to go to a store, stand in line, whatever.

And the fact that you can buy a lot besides Valve games -- all of id's back catalog is now on Steam, for example -- and never have to worry about physical media (just redownload and authorize on a new machine) is pretty cool. If you've got massive broadband, of course.

There are negatives -- no discs to give to friends or resell when you tire of a game or whatever, for one -- but it's pretty much the future of distribution of this stuff, I reckon.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:17 PM on October 8, 2007

Note that people can and have and still do hack Steam and pirate Valve games, but if you want to play online (Team Fortress 2 or Counterstrike or whatever) on non-cracked servers, you're pretty much bound to use Steam authentication, so it's an anti-piracy measure to that extent too (which I'm not so keen on, in general), if not an effective one in any real way for single-player games.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:20 PM on October 8, 2007

I've been using Steam since day one. And it's day and night. The fact that you can continue the same discussions in the in-game overlays that you started out-of-game is amazing. Inviting additional friends to one-on-one chats seamlessly. The "friends" tab on the in-game server search. Valve knows a lot about leveraging out-of-game relationships to make the game experience more fun. I'm glad I've stuck with them.

id's catalog is just one example. There's tons more. BioShock. All of the Civilization games. Call of Duty, Hitman 1&2, all of the Tomb Raiders.. and on and on. 206 total available in the US.

It's slick, it's easy, it's fast, and if the game has multiplayer, it makes the whole experience a pleasure. And that's something that was sorely (and ironically) lacking in PC gaming.
posted by Plutor at 7:17 PM on October 8, 2007

God, I sound like a shill. I just left an hour-long TF2 killfest with two friends in Stamford and one in Philly, and I just love how easy it was.

Why can't I stop it?
posted by Plutor at 7:19 PM on October 8, 2007

No stand-alone Episode 2.

Actually, I can see it on Steam now for $30.

Funny. I don't mind paying $30 for it, or $45 for E2 + Portal. But the idea of paying $45 for E2 + Portal + other shit I already have makes me pig-biting mad.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:53 PM on October 8, 2007

/joined
posted by falconred at 8:06 PM on October 8, 2007

But the idea of paying $45 for E2 + Portal + other shit I already have makes me pig-biting mad.

I just don't get this attitude, and I've seen it everywhere. Not to get into another Important Internet Argument about The Issue, but I think it's way cool of Valve to throw in copies of HL2 and Ep1. $45 for TF2/Ep2/Portal is freaking cheap these days, let alone the inclusion of free copies of the previous bits of the saga... (You do know that if you already bought them and you buy the Orange Box, you'll get credits for the first games that you can give to someone else, right?)

But yeah, I'm coming off like a bit of a fanboy, too. Which is because I AM! Heh.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:01 PM on October 8, 2007

Actually, I can see it on Steam now for $30.

Yeah, the people claiming you can't purchase them separately obviously haven't seen the Steam pages. They cost about twice as much a la carte than they do in the orange box.

And they're all so great that I really don't have any respect for anyone not taking the deal.

Anyway, any decent Heavies want to go walkies on the end of my medigun leash? C'mon . . . walkies!
posted by cowbellemoo at 9:13 PM on October 8, 2007

Amen, stavros. Tell it, brother!
posted by cowbellemoo at 9:15 PM on October 8, 2007

Anyway, any decent Heavies want to go walkies on the end of my medigun leash? C'mon . . . walkies!

Oh god damn I was cursing (my wife walked in and gave me The Look) and hammering my Go! voice message thingy last night playing with clueless pubbies on one of the servers here in Korea last night, trying to herd some heavy weaps guys in the right direction while I buffed 'em up with that thing. Yaargh! Go, you doofus!

There are so many cool little moments in this game -- I was a sniper, chasing down a medic who for some reason was running to the back of the map, hitting my "Medic!" key again and again until he finally stopped and healed me. Unprompted, my Aussie-accented sniper said 'Thanks for finally standing still, wanker!'

The way Valve did that stuff is in the commentary mode -- well worth the listen!

Dear god, I am a fanboy.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:18 PM on October 8, 2007

Crap the patch for the heavy exploit has me dead in the water. Every time I try to find servers it locks up. Oh well, I played through the included peggle game... actually kinda fun.
posted by jeblis at 10:49 PM on October 8, 2007

Oh man, the pressure to spend the $45 is increasing. Why must you tempt me, intarwebs?
posted by !Jim at 11:50 PM on October 8, 2007

Oh man, the pressure to spend the $45 is increasing. Why must you tempt me, intarwebs?

All in all this is one of the best deals around. Portal, Team fortress 2, HL2,HL2E1, and HL2E2 in one package.

You can also give away your extra licenses fro HL2/HL2E1.

Price goes up after the release.
posted by jeblis at 12:20 AM on October 9, 2007

I don't think you get the ability to "give away" HL2 if you buy the package on Steam, which is too bad.

I thought I read somewhere that Valve is updating the original HL2 game to use HDR rendering like the Episodes do, but this might just be wishful thinking on my part.

(As long as we're mentioning Steam, here are three thoroughly excellent games that can be obtained cheaply and easily via Steam: Darwinia, Psychonauts, and Deus Ex.)
posted by neckro23 at 1:12 AM on October 9, 2007

Actually, I spoke too soon. Now I see the "Gift" links in Steam.
posted by neckro23 at 1:14 AM on October 9, 2007

You know, I was a big FPS person Back in the Day. I remember when American McGee was just Id's support guy.

And the whole time back in these prehistorical FPS days, I was telling people that I wanted to see squad-based FPS, that working as part of a team in a FPS environment would be the coolest thing ever.

But for some reason, the rise of squad-based FPS passed me by. I don't recall the exact dates, but I'm thinking that these began right about the same time as I removed Blue's News from my link list. I was getting tired of computer gaming, it's been a long, slow decline probably beginning in my early thirties. I spent last month playing Civ IV, which was the first time in years that I spent any considerably length of time gaming.

Anyway, there's a point to this. I've still bought a lot of these games (but less and less so over time). I got a Steam account when they first went live. I just recently re-installed it and HL2 (which I barely even started, even though HL was one of the few games in the last however many years I played all the way through) and even bought The Ship, too.

But just playing HL online, which I tried two years ago, was humiliating. And the barrier to entry for squad-based games is much higher. I've not even tried when I've wanted to because the combination of me being A) an old fart who doesn't have the absurdly fast FPS reflexes of young people and B) that being a newbie in a squad-based game just sucks because you don't know, yet, what you're doing...well, together, I'm dissuaded.

So how do you older folk, like stav who is my age, and newbies get into this?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:33 AM on October 9, 2007

So how do you older folk, like stav who is my age, and newbies get into this?

Sounds like me except I was about 15 when HL came out.

I was a big TFC player (and also CS while it was in "beta") and part of a fairly successful league team but basically stopped playing games for a couple of years until recently.

I recently got ET:QW and basically I suck, most of the time I have no clue what so ever what's going on, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it.

Basically I think you either need to play with some people who know what they are doing and can teach you, or you just need to lose over and over again.

FPS games aren't like chess where even a relatively poor player has quite a high chance of winning considering their skill. If you suck it will show and be embarrassing and getting past that stage is painful and laborious. It's not unlike picking up a musical instrument you've never seen before. You can kinda put together how it's meant to be played just from its appearance, but getting any good at it – enough to be fun – takes a fair bit of experience.

I guess that's why TF2 is so popular atm. There is no skill requirement other than running in the right direction and clicking Mouse 1.

I think playing with a bunch of MeFites is probably a good way to pick things up as well since it sounds like there are some good (or at least keen) players here :)

/BEANS
posted by public at 5:51 AM on October 9, 2007

EB: you really, really, really owe it to yourself to check out Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142 - you can purchase them via download direct from EA, and they *define* good squad-based multiplayer FPS. Moreso than any other game *including TF2* (TF2 takes cooperation, but the recent Battlefield games define squad-based gaming)

As far as skill goes: practice practice practice. Just because you're a dinosaur doesn't mean you've completely lost neuroplasticity. It might take longer than before, but you'll get there. Games like the Battlefield series and TF2 offer many classes some of which intrinsically have lower exposure to danger/twitch gameplay.

In TF2 it's the engineer. In BF2 it's . . . the engineer (in a tank) and in 2142 it's support.
posted by Ryvar at 6:03 AM on October 9, 2007

i'll be playing on my 360. i expect to be spending all waking hours that do not involve prior committments (poorly scheduled family wedding, for example) over the next many days playing thru HL and portal. then i'll fire up TF and see if i still completely suck at multiplayer. :-)
posted by rmd1023 at 6:23 AM on October 9, 2007

Ryvar, I think I actually bought Battlefield 2142. I didn't get through the tutorial, I think. It seems like I have a harder and harder time finding games interesting and so I just don't give them a chance.

But I think I'd like heavy-teamwork games if I gave them a chance. I have played a considerable amount of MMORPGs, from Ultima Online onward¹. And although I've never (you guessed it) been a heavy MMORPG player—I've resisted being in guilds, for some reason—I found that what I really like is to do support work, team stuff. In MMORPGs, that's translated into "healer".

Anyway, I'm reinstalling Steam now. It's gonna take a long while to get all the games I've purchased loaded, though.

1. (What used to be true about me but isn't so true anymore is that whether I played the games or not, I really had my ear to the ground for cutting-edge tech and gameplay ideas in computer gaming. And industry gossip, though I never worked in the industry!)
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:31 AM on October 9, 2007

Heh. Just finished a two hour TF2 session, and came here to post this, in case there's anybody who hasn't seen it yet, as the countdown to Episode 2 ticks away.

you really, really, really owe it to yourself to check out Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142

You know, I don't like the Battlefield series at all. It's a funny thing -- I'm really picky about the 'feel' of the engine, which is why I could never get into Unreal Tournament too much -- the engine just didn't feel right to me, somehow. Carmack on the brain I think.

I've been an id games player since Wolfenstein, and I actually did Doom over direct dialup to my friend's modem when that was state of the art, kind of skipped Quake 1 online, then went big on Quake 2 (DM and Rocket Arena) and Quake 3 (RA3 FOREVAR!) with lots of stops in between, but always back to my sweet sweet John Carmack engines. Even Quake4 is pretty good now with the latest patch for multiplayer tweaks, but there's nobody playing it.

As far as team stuff goes, well Rocket Arena always was that, but I'm actually more of a straight deathmatch or 1v1 kind of player, or used to be.

So how do you older folk, like stav who is my age, and newbies get into this?

TF2 is really amazingly well-designed though, and it's totally sucked me in, even this these clueless goddamn Korean kids on all the servers over here. Heh. It pretty much teaches you in that Valve kinda way how to play the game without being too obtrusive about it, mostly. Easy to get into, depths to be learned.

Best way to get into it is to hop on to a server and just give it a go!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:48 AM on October 9, 2007

Wait, aren't we supposed to be playing Halo 3?
posted by mkultra at 7:08 AM on October 9, 2007

Countdown.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:20 AM on October 9, 2007

“I've been an id games player since Wolfenstein, and I actually did Doom over direct dialup to my friend's modem when that was state of the art...”

Yeah, that describes me, too. I was on Hank Leukhart's email list beginning about five months before Doom came out. And I'd played Wolfenstein, and modded it, quite a bit. Man, remember what a pain it was to get modem Doom working? When UARTs were slow and you had to hack all sorts of thing to get it going? I was big on the music part of the game because I had a Gravis Ultrasound. You can still find my analysis of all the samples used by Doom using the GUS in the Id archives. So you were absent when the whole Quakeworld thing happened? That was probably the single most important game/moment in time in modern PC gaming.

Yeah, I'm a Carmack fanboi, too. But, unlike you, I was a fan of Unreal from its beginning, too. I remember the day someone first told me about it. I was a build engineer at Schlumberger Austin, and someone told me to go look at a website for this new game that was coming out. I was floored—I didn't think anyone could compete with Carmack for making state-of-the-art 3D engines. But I had been a fan of Epic from a couple of their prior games, specifically Jazz the Jackrabbit and One Must Fall, which were both really well-designed games.

Quake 3 was about when I got off the FPS bus, I guess. I was back on, shortly, for Half-Life, but otherwise I've just not paid much attention since that time. Well, I've paid attention to what games were being released, but I stopped buying and playing everything.

It's neat that a lot of my gaming heroes are still working; people like Will Wright, Sid Meier, Carmack, Peter Molyneux, Raph Koster. Which reminds me: is Spore ever going to be released?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:24 AM on October 9, 2007

EB: Spore is scheduled for Q1 2008 atm.
posted by public at 8:19 AM on October 9, 2007

TF2 really is alot more like World of Warcraft's multiplayer than a hardcore FPS squad game like Counterstrike. Success depends more on fielding good class combinations for offense and defense, and communicating about routes and obstacles within the map geometry.

A pyro to protect a engineer's turrets from spies. A medic healing a heavy through the destruction of a turret. A spy or scout to take out medics too busy healing. Soldiers and demomans sealing off bottlenecks. Pyros scattering people capping a control point.

It's the kind of thing where being smart and harassing the enemy away from control points can have as big an impact as uber omgwtfpwnz0r BOOM HEADSHOT skills.

Anyway, I am eager to get away from the public servers where the adolescents call each other the N word over voice chat as if it were, ya know, funny and not disgusting.
posted by cowbellemoo at 8:19 AM on October 9, 2007

I've joined the group- I too got off at the Quake 3 stop, and never got back on. But TF2 has been so much fun. I've been playing mostly on the Penny Arcade servers, but would love to join other mefites.
posted by wzcx at 9:47 AM on October 9, 2007

Now that we've got 27 members, we should have a TF2 meetup and get our "With Friends Like These" achievements unlocked.
posted by Plutor at 10:06 AM on October 9, 2007

Ethereal Bligh: you'll like TF2. It has a good mix of approaches; every class is different. Some are 'twitchy', some are strategic, some are primarily support, making the other characters better. (mostly the Medic: the Engineer to a lesser degree.) Spying, in particular, rewards a high degree of intelligence. I'm pushing 40 and I have a great time with it.

Mostly, the game rewards teamwork. Get a group that works together and you can beat much better players that work alone.
posted by Malor at 12:29 PM on October 9, 2007

we should have a TF2 meetup and get our "With Friends Like These" achievements unlocked

haha, that's what I was thinking too :)

I'm signed up as winters720, if anyone is wondering who the hell that is.

For the iD fans, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is out as well, and it's awesome.

These are great times for those who dig first person shooters.
posted by First Post at 2:07 PM on October 9, 2007

Sounds like I need to check out TF2. I was playing BF2 up until a few months ago when the quest for ribbons/medals became tedious.

I've been playing Doom2 over the last week. Brings back memories. Funny how you instinctively remember where the secrets are.
posted by Big_B at 2:09 PM on October 9, 2007

FWIW, Samizdata, engineer extraordinary and very occasional medic is on the team.

As, umm, Samizdata.

(Hated Steam originally, but have come to love not having to find CD keys and CDs.)

(Completely non-plumbing related)
posted by Samizdata at 3:23 PM on October 9, 2007

I have a copy of Half-Life 2: Episode One to give away. Maybe someone should make a new thread for giving away gift licenses to needy mefiosi.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:20 AM on October 9 [+] [!]

AWW man I would kill for that. You really giving it away? email me and you can send it to me!!! With much Mefi love& thnx!
posted by Student of Man at 3:27 PM on October 9, 2007

You guys are so boned if we ever play, for I used to be a professional cyberathlete!

BRING IT ON!

Also: I've got a copy of HL2 to give away, according to steam. Send a msg or summin if you want it.
posted by herrdoktor at 3:29 PM on October 9, 2007

I'd jump on the HL2 giveaway, but my license is already promised to a gamer coworker.
posted by Samizdata at 4:15 PM on October 9, 2007

Also has HL2 and EP1 to give away.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 5:01 PM on October 9, 2007

HL2 gift code here, send a pm and be happy!
posted by darkripper at 6:11 PM on October 9, 2007

(darkripper, (I don't want a copy -- I have mine already) there aren't any PMs on Metafilter and you don't have an email address on your profile, so if someone wants, they can't send you a private message...)

Also, maybe if people have already given away their copies, they might want to say so here.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:21 PM on October 9, 2007

stavros: I was referring to a message on Steam, but maybe I wasn't clear enough. BTW, the nickname it's still the same on steam.
posted by darkripper at 6:26 PM on October 9, 2007

Ah, gotcha. Sorry.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:27 PM on October 9, 2007

TF2 is awesome but my god the people. I was just in a game in 2forts, 50+ kills, dominating 3 people, leading the score by a good 15 kills. There is a gaggle of guys chatting about video cards and cackling into the mike and when I ask why there are no turrets, and in fact, no defense whatsoever in the intelligence room someone goes "wow she asks a lot of questions for a girl." And then, the guy who is bringing up the bottom of the score with a lowly 4 kills goes "Hey I bet she gives a great BJ on the mike." Really? I mean, seriously, I am owning up the game with captures, I'm dominating a third of the opposing team, I'm slaughtering people by the handful while you've gotten a TENTH of my kills and the first thing you can say when I ask for defenses on THE THING WE ARE PROTECTING is "lol blowjobs?" REALLY?

THAT IS WHAT YOU WANTED TO ASK ME? BECAUSE I THINK YOU SHOULD BE ASKING ME FOR TIPS ON HOW TO KICK ASS!

fuck.
posted by hindmost at 8:08 PM on October 9, 2007 [1 favorite]

hindmost: The biggest problem with TF2 right now is that most of the servers are full of useless noobs.

So far the only ones that seem to be consistently somewhat decent are the passworded Penny Arcade servers. I don't know if they want the password posted everywhere so I won't, but when I checked it was freely viewable on the PA forums without even an account.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:25 PM on October 9, 2007

Thanks for the tip! It didn't occur to me that PA would have passworded servers, but the password is exactly what I thought it would be.
posted by hindmost at 10:25 PM on October 9, 2007

This thread just taught me something. Eve Online players are sneaky paranoiacs. I've found my people.

*waves to all his new trading partners, and to all the pirates who think he's not flying battleships*

And I'd join in the TF2 fun if my 360 weren't borked and awaiting repair. I don't know who to blame, UPS or Microsoft.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:45 PM on October 9, 2007

Hey! As one of those stupid noobs I resent that! I've somehow been lucky enough to avoid the public servers with douchebags, though. Except the one last night with the guy playing music. Fuck that guy.

hindmost, I would appreciate any tips on how to kick ass.
posted by graventy at 12:13 AM on October 10, 2007

Here are an amusingly written and quite useful series of posts on each class and how to play 'em, in case anybody's still looking at this thread. Good gaming blog I just discovered.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:33 AM on October 10, 2007

OMFG Portal was a trip.

I'm going to bed now.
posted by cowbellemoo at 3:04 AM on October 10, 2007

"Okay, one half hour of Portal before I go to work."
This is going to be a mistake, and I know it.
posted by Plutor at 3:57 AM on October 10, 2007

nooooo! amazon has sent me mail saying that my preciousssss orange box is delayed and won't arrive until the middle of next week.

*shakes fist at uncaring universe*
posted by rmd1023 at 4:28 AM on October 10, 2007

Yes, Portal is pretty cool. I just played through the first 17 levels of, what, is that part the tutorial? I had some difficulty with 18, though, and my computer crashed as I was trying to figure it out.

I see that 2 of the 3 mefi group members that are online right now are playing Portal.

It's also very funny.

I wish we had a mefi group TF2 server up all the time, or something. With a password, probably.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:23 AM on October 10, 2007

I spent the morning doing admin stuff instead of playing Portal. Fie, Metafilter. Fie!
posted by cortex at 6:34 AM on October 10, 2007

I wish we had a mefi group TF2 server up all the time, or something. With a password, probably.

We'd need a volunteer with a spare box and a decent net connection.

Anybody? Eh? Eh?
posted by cortex at 6:34 AM on October 10, 2007

I might be able to provide one, what sort of spec do HL2 servers need?
posted by public at 6:41 AM on October 10, 2007

No "Games for Windows" in Steam so no cross platform, LOLVISTA and all that. It seems that only yesterday I was 12 years old and hotly anticipating Quake 2 mainly due to the presumption that it would be the platform for TF2. Now it's 10 years later and I'll probably be playing it not in my dusty parents basement on a CRT with dialup, but on an HDTV in my own living room with broadband and wireless controllers. Life is pretty funny.
posted by prostyle at 6:59 AM on October 10, 2007

Anyone know the system requirements for TF2 on PC? (Yeah, I looked for it.)
posted by neuron at 7:33 PM on October 10, 2007

They're much lower than most new games these days, neuron. I run it smooth as butter on my several-year-old homebuilt box: Athlon 64 3000+, 2Gb RAM, Geforce 6600GT.

We'd need a volunteer with a spare box and a decent net connection.

Yeah, I'm gonna put up a server on the weekend (which starts in about 6 hours for me), but the ping for you folks across the Pacific will suck, so probably not worth it except for NEAsia folks. If I can get it working, I'll put the details in the Metafilter Steam community thing, if there's a way, or in my profile there.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:56 PM on October 10, 2007

Sorry, more detail on the spec thing: I run it with everything on High at 1280x1024, no AA.

Also, if somebody can put up a private server in NAmerica for us, I'll play on that, even if my ping is north of 200. I think the server specs are not at all outrageous, in the same way as the client is well-optimized, public.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:58 PM on October 10, 2007

We really should have gaming.metafilter.com, you know.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:00 PM on October 10, 2007

I skipped my only class today to beat Portal and Episode Two.

Part of me wishes I had dragged it out some more.

I feel an AskMe coming on.... "How can I extend the replay value of the games I just bought?"

Can't wait for the content to be ported over to Garry's Mod, that should help.

/ramble
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 11:52 PM on October 10, 2007

I just finished Portal. That is some fucking great stuff, right there.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:22 AM on October 11, 2007

Well, I played Team Fortress 2 on a server with several mefites last night, cortex among them. I pretty much suck, but was marginally useful as a medic and then, later, surprisingly useful as a heavy. It was fun, but I'd like to be even marginally competent. I can't even keep the maps straight.

Later, I went back and completed levels 18 and 19 of the training portion of Portal, and just now got a ways into the “Party Invitation” level. I am really having a blast with it because it's good game design, at least for me. It's not trivially easy for me, it's pretty non-intuitive, and I'm slowly getting some intuition about how to use the portal gun and what happens when I do. 18 really stumped me earlier today, but when I went back to it I just decided that I must be able to stand on that button pillar and thus be able to open portals to deactive the energy ball at my leisure. I had to try jumping to the pillar a number of times. I suspect that part was probably trivially easy for a lot of people who are more experienced at FPSs than I am (I have unusually long experience, but not long, intense, continuous experience). It took me too long to figure out leverage falls to upward portals to go to higher and higher heights by opening new outbound portals as you reach apex. That should have been obvious, but for some reason it wasn't. But what a powerful tool!

I'm sort of stuck on the three sentries in doored alcoves around a center room with barrrels area, though. I was killed about twenty times in a row and then I got a BSOD. So I came over to MeFi.

But I'm pretty darned impressed with Portal. Everything about it is extremely well-designed. The AI overlord character is hilarious and deeply creepy. The game is only as visually and logically complicated as necessary. And where it's complicated and seems cluttered, it's satire on the TV/movie/game trope of the Inexplicable Room of Rotating Blades of Death.

I also played the, um, HL2: Lost Island mini-level.

On Preview: Yep.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:24 AM on October 11, 2007

CitrusFreak12: "I feel an AskMe coming on.... "How can I extend the replay value of the games I just bought?""

1) Have you tried the advanced levels (under "bonus maps" from the main menu)? I hear they're tough. I haven't quite beaten it yet, so I can't vouch.
2) Have you tried the time trials (in the same place)?
3) Have you unlocked all of your achievements?
4) TF2
posted by Plutor at 5:24 AM on October 11, 2007

It was fun, but I'd like to be even marginally competent. I can't even keep the maps straight.

The great thing about Valve's obsessive (and I love them for it) attention to design is that the more you play the maps, the more you start to see where it all fits together, and where this or that class fits in to the architecture of it all.

I'm gushy about all this, but I haven't really have had such a revelatory experience of fun (with TF2 and Portal especially) since the very early days when FPS shooters lit up pieces of my brain that had never been lit up before.

I was trained by one of my Great Teachers never to trust 'wheee' (long story), but man, I love the whee-factor I'm getting from these games.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:48 AM on October 11, 2007

I'm pretty thrilled with what they've done with TF2. Playing last night was a lot of fun, especially on a busy server that had a few folks in the Mefi steam groups (hiya AGorilla, 4BIT, EB, splatta). It's just plain fast and fun a really well done.

I like that design-wise they came full circle back to the bright and cartoony roots of TFC instead of going for the grittiness they'd been hinting at way back when TF2 started getting promised. The rise of the WWII shooter in the interim probably had something to do with that; while hyperrealistic army-green grunts with era weaponry sounded like pretty hot shit at one point, that's been done and in better settings so many times now that red v. blue with a really clear, individualized sense of design is the better choice.

Turns out my skills with everything but the Soldier class have atrophied a bit. Even with that good old standby I'm pretty damned rusty—I was only just getting back into rhythm of leading with my rockets when I quit last night. But my brief, stabtastic stint with a spy was good fun, and I'd forgotten just how much I enjoyed the rhythm of a the demoman.
posted by cortex at 6:51 AM on October 11, 2007

I've finished Portal (the credits and theme song are fantastic, too...what wonderfully high production values!), but not done any of the bonus/advanced material. But I found it a truly enjoyable experience. The game design as far as the mechanics are great, but it would still have been only “very good” and not “excellent and impressive” had they not been so spot-on with the script and voice work and general tone of that aspect of the game. And the AI character was truly funny and creepy and absurd, but at the final level when she says in a notably not-jokey manner that she's going to kill you, it gave me goosebumps every time she said it (when I restarted after dying).

So far, I've worked through the first five test chambers again listening to the commentary. They've not discussed the story side and related production of the game yet, which I'm really interested in hearing about. And the first comment mentions that this was an academic student project initially, and I'd like to learn more about that. And Gabe is right: they've only scratched the surface on this kind of gameplay.

As for TF2, I'm wondering how many people use actual voice in the game? I have several headsets and such, but it's been a few years since I tried this tech, mostly before it was integrated into the game engines themselves, and my experience then wasn't great. I've not ever bothered to use voice in WoW, although not being in a guild is part of it. Am I wrong in thinking that TF2 supports it within the game?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 8:08 AM on October 11, 2007

I will never use fucking voice commo in a game on a pubbie server. Ever. It's way too goddamn intimate, letting 15-year-olds shout NIGGER FUCK LOL in my ear.

That said, I've never used it yet, so yeah.

And the first comment mentions that this was an academic student project initially, and I'd like to learn more about that.

Narbacular Drop. I played it, I hated it, but it wasn't meant to be a game, it was only a term paper. I loved Portal, because they turned the idea into a Thing (and hired the kids who 'wrote' the term paper). So, yeah, whee!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:15 AM on October 11, 2007

Am I wrong in thinking that TF2 supports it within the game?

You're not wrong; it looks like they've incorporated that tech pretty tightly (it's been there for a number of previous releases, as well). The built-in voice sounds a lot better than it used to, as well, though it's still not up to snuff with Skype, which is what I use with friends when we game cross-country.
posted by cortex at 8:20 AM on October 11, 2007

This post and the comments -- particularly those about Portal -- therein have utterly destroyed my resistance to gaming. I joined the Mefi Steam group last night, am downloading the Orange Box at my home computer right now and taking tomorrow off. I hope you're all happy. (Those of you who're already playing; is there any hope that I can get this out of my system before Nanowrimo?)
posted by cog_nate at 9:05 AM on October 11, 2007

Much love, cog_nate. Hope you enjoy it as much as we do. I think you'll like Portal. Jumping into TF2, especially if you've had little FPS gaming experience, will likely be overwhelming. But I envy anyone playing Half-Life or HL2 for the first time.
posted by Plutor at 10:19 AM on October 11, 2007

I used to play some FPSs, but not really any multiplayer. The Return to Castle Wolfenstein demo was the only thing I ever checked out in that way, and I think my most memorable moment was when some other player and I had running commentary, cracking wise about our in-game usernames -- both from the Manos episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. (Oh, the shame of it all.) Stopped playing pretty much everything except a few old DOS RPGs for a couple years, but the fact that I've heard nothing but good things about the Orange Box collection really brought me back all of a sudden. Fun times ahead.
posted by cog_nate at 12:40 PM on October 11, 2007

A new venue for flames October 8, 2007 10:35 AM Subscribe

A new venue for flames
October 8, 2007 10:35 AM Subscribe