The Rage, Oh the Rage!

Been quite for a few weeks, you see I am a busy bee, sometimes the rest of the time I am just being lazy. But for my loyal readers. . .you have to be loyal to read this drivel, I present my new blog post.

Red Dead rage.

I had not lifted my PS3 controller for sometime so decided to play a game I liked the idea of but didn’t get when it was new, so I treated myself to Red Dead Redemption with the Zombie expansion pack for the bargain price of £17.99 brand new. As it is pretty much GTA on horse back it didn’t take long to get back in to the swing of things. At first I kept failing little side missions, for example I kept getting a guy run up to me to rescue his wife as she was going to be hung, figured out I should shot the rope lol another one for me was the ambushes I would ride right into them as I was paying more attention to riding my horse. Anyway things settled down and I was progressing nicely when two things happened that made me hang up my six shooters.

The first incident was when I met a guy I’d rescued a few time now during the “I know you” side story. The game had bugged out and I couldn’t holster my gun. So when I leapt from my horse I pressed by mistake the aim key and the story was then listed as “Failed”. As I had not saved the game recently I would have had reloaded a few mission back to get to this point again. The second straw that broke the back of the camel was just after I was given a task to break in a horse, so it could be ridden you dirty minded people, I was asked to get a guys horse back. I checked the map and he was some distance away already so I’d need my horse. I whistled and waited, eventually the horse I just tamed turned up just as I was told I had failed to get the horse back. To this I gave a heavy sigh turned off the PS3 and went to read my current book.

Battlefield rage.

With the new World of Warcraft 5.3 patch out I went back to play out the story of Vol’jin’s rebellion although fun it was very short, disappointingly so. After that there seemed nothing to do my grind quest items for the weekly hand in. So I went back to Battlefield 3 as a little diversion from that grind. For a few days I was quite sanguine and was enjoying myself immensely, I even switched to my alternative account as there was nothing left for the main account to unlock barring Sniper rifle bits and as I am a shit shot with those I felt it best to leave them alone.

The Saturday however was a different story, the game is back to people who are seemingly bullet proof and even after having a whole magazine emptied into them can then turn right around a put one burst into me and I am dead!

In one instance the target was 10 feet or so away (hard to really tell in game terms but pretty close) I aimed, red dot centre mass, pulled the trigger 27 rounds later he has 2% health left!! DAFAQ!

As so it went person after person un-killable but can kill me with ease. Look I know I am not the best player, far from it, I am pretty confident in say that I am just above average. I have a K/D of around 1000+ kills more than deaths, a 400 SPM and around 1.2 Win/Lose ratio. But it would seem on weekends there seems to be a whole raft of people that are not only un-killable but supremely accurate with weapons well out side alleged effective range.

At this point I am about 6 on the rage scale, I still putting in reasonable K/D per game, losing game after game though. Then I get to today, Sunday night, A few quick games and then back to reading. Playing TDM on Caspian Borders I see a guy through a gap in a barricade, I aim, I shoot, blood spurts, spent shell casing leap away in slow motion, 30 bullets later, considering I practically have my barrel pressed to his back, he is down to a few pixels of health and I aim killed by someone else!

9.9/10 on the scale!

I know when a gun is fired the recoil makes the gun bounce around a little but even the worst shooter in the world could not miss from there! Oh wait a minute I did it seem. I respawn and I am immediately gunned down, thanks game, thanks a lot. Respawn again and I find myself heading after a guy he runs into cover I am close, so close, I aim, I have him in my sights, he’s mine, dakka dakka dakka, 30 round spit forth, the smoke clears and low and behold he still has 1% health left and guns me down in one burst from his AK-74U!

The band Spinal Tap had a gag in their film about their amps going up to 11, well good new I have a rage bar than goes all the fucking way to 20 out of 10. So I quit out turned off the PS3 and walked away, it was that or I am going to the shops on Monday looking for a new PS3 controller and those smeggers are not cheap!

On a more lighter note.

I noticed that my alternative character for Battlefield 3 have a “Quit” percentage of 29%. Now I know I don’t quit that many games in progress but if I queue for TDM and get Rush mode I am out of there is a hurry, same with Conquest. If I wanted them game modes I would choose them, but it would seem EA/DICE’s quick match browser cannot tell the difference!

Posting in the BF 3 forums.

I made a bet with a friend recently that if I post in the Battlefield 3 forums with a reasonable amusing, throw away post it would attract trolls who just can’t help themselves but be sarcastic or nasty. He said people would just ignore the post because I was not trying to make a contentious post about nerfing a weapon or accusing someone of cheating.

Needless to say I won and very quickly too. So I tried something else opening a thread about suppressors. I took great pains to point out that I am not requesting a change or a nerf or suggesting that suppressors are OP but putting forward an idea. That idea was suppressors only quiet the weapon, I quoted my sources Mythbusters, Sons of Guns and American Guns TV series. Now in game when you fire a suppressed weapon or someone fires one near you, you can quite clearly hear the “click” of the weapons action and the “puff” of the round leaving the suppressor. With this information in hand I suggested that maybe if a shooter near you is using a suppressed weapon and within a certain range they should still appear on the minimap but only to those that are close enough to hear the shooter.

So I stood back and waited for the trolls to post, However just for shits and giggles it was suggested that I defend the position to see what happens.

Needless to say, even pointing out that I am notcalling for a change to suppressors or a nerf, that is exactly what I was accused of within a few replies. It was then I noticed something that is akin to that old game of “Chinese Whispers” the further down the thread the replies went, it was beginning to become clearer that less and less people had actually read the initial post and was basing their whole argument on what other people had said.
So very quickly I had become someone who “saying that suppressors was OP” and “demanding suppressors to be nerffed!” when it was plainly clear that I hadn’t done.

I will say both myself and my friend had a great laugh at these two threads and maybe engage in the forums again sometime soon just to see what reactionary idiots we can fish up in the “troll nets”

Banhammer

“Canal” Surgery.

I have a policy for when I am playing Battlefield 3 on Noshahr Canals and some Recon class player decides that the crane in the corner of the map as an unassailable sniper nest, I will without hesitation switch to my own Recon class and farm you to get my sniper rifle kills up 🙂

Now I am a terrible shot with sniper rifles my longest head shot sniper kill is 228.77 meters ok not bad, could be a lot better but considers my lack of sniping ability I am quite proud of that one. The sniper rifle I have the most kills with is the SKS, 95% of those kills have been over point sights and bashing away at the trigger like a mad man 🙂

However every now and then when these special people camp out in the crane I will switch to a bolt action sniper rifle (the SV98 normally) and I will make it my life work (for that game at least) to kill you as often as I can, not mater how many times I die, I will shoot at you.

The reason I do this is because I find anyone who uses fair means or foul to gain access to areas that 9 times out of 10 are unreachable by any normal methods. In my opinion these areas are unreachable for a reason, so I will do my best to pick you out of that location. Well we all have to have a hobby!

Banhammer

Mega Value Collectors Edition!

Well it have been a few weeks since EA/DICE released the well named “Premium” deal for Battlefield 3. For those that don’t know Battlefield 3: Premium costs £40 for UK players and give those that buy it a few extra trinkets:

1. A remodelled knife, does no more damage than the current one.
2. A really awful looking shitty gun camo!
3. Some dog tags.
4. Priority in queues or some servers.
Lastly and to be honest the most important part of Premium price tag and that is:
5) All the expansion packs. (Five of them in total: See next paragraph)

Here in lies the problem I have with Premium, many people have already paid for the first expansion (Back to Karkand) or got it free as part of the “Collectors Edition” or as part of the pre-order offer. So being told that I am making a saving on buying “all 5 of the expansions” should I get a small refund because I’ve already spent £12 on Back to Karkand? lol what was I thinking of course I wouldn’t!

So in actual fact I don’t save a whopping £19.96 for all 5 but in fact a less impressive £7.97 as I have already bought one of them! Don’t get me wrong it’s still a saving to be made but traditionally with computer games the older it is the less resources available to make a quality expansions and game fixes it, as they are diverted to the next version (Battlefield 4?) or moved to other projects. Which could mean that by expansion pack 4, which the website claims is released March 2013, most of the staff (and funding) would have been diverted off to the aforementioned projects. Hell if it’s good enough for Activision to do for the Call of Duty series than certainly EA would not be above such practices!

I forgot to mention Reason No. 6.

Reason number six that EA have offered for what makes premium such great value is the ability to “Reset your stats” 0.o Why on earth would anyone want to reset their stats? Well mainly because due to things like overpowered or glitched weapons (e.g. USAS-12, FMAS, M26-Dart to name a few) players level really fast, add to that double XP weekends (and if you are a premium player they are giving you one whole week of double XP). What to do upon reaching Colonel 100? I know, offer them a stat reset and they can level all again, then when each and every expansion comes out players can reset once again because I dare say the double XP weeks/weekends will keep coming!

The other fun thing to consider with the purchase of Premium is the unforeseen “Special Snowflake” effect. There are two levels of this phenomenon, a quick trip to the official a few weeks ago and you would have seen the forums awash with people proudly boasting that as Premium purchases everyone else must be “So jelly!” and other internet banalities. The other symptoms manifests itself in Social media as a desperate need to prove that by purchasing premium they are right to have done so (and by consequence better person) and anyone who have not or does not see it as a great boon are in fact idiots!

Do I sound bitter at all?

Most likely, but I assure you I am not. There are a number of reason why I do not fell the need to charge out and buy premium. First off if I paid the £40 for premium now I doubt that I would still have the interest in Battlefield 3 by March 2013. Secondly and more importantly in a few months time Medal of Honour: Warfighter is released, quickly followed by Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. So in all honesty why would I want to spend £40 on a few trinkets and 4 expansion packs that I might not bother even playing in a many months time when those two glorious games are hitting the streets?

DLC the bane of modern gaming!

Back in the dizzle when Valve released the epic Half Life 2 (after what seemed an eternity after Half Life and it’s expansions, a new term was being banded around by Valve, that term was “Episodic gaming”.
The idea was that after you buy the main game, Valve was going to release further “episodes” of the game. Ideally this would mean the games “Story” would be continually moved forward. It seemed the end result was that Valve couldn’t make the episodes fast enough (pure speculation I hasten to add) and they went back to releasing expansions via CD and Valves digital service Steam.

I really did not like the idea of Episodic gaming as (at the time) I felt that what we would end up with is a bunch of very short and over priced and most likely broken/bugged levels. But this is the point that I claim the insidious idea of DLC was born in the minds of game developers!

Forward on a few years.

With the PS3 and 360 becoming a bigger gaming market than the PC, combined with the increase in broadband speeds, has lead to a vast increase in downloadedable games and extra content.
The main criticism levelled at games these days is that the solo campaign is to short, something that was has been said about nearly all of the recent Call of Duty games.

Many times this is a little unfair as the online part off the game normally offers lots of replay-ability, ok online play may not be to every ones taste, but it’s there if you chose to. On the opposite side of the fence you get games like Skyrim where the amount of content is excessive (just kidding) but there is no online play at all.

So why is DLC so evil!

I firmly believe that DLC is evil as it encourages game developers to become lazy (and calculating) and produce games that are deliberately short so that they can then offer you expanded content in the form of DLC. Many times the DLC fills like it has been lifted wholesale from the main game and with held so it can be offered back to us as DLC.
Ok I will admit that this is the cynic in me talking out loud but I have no doubt that this is true in some cases. Circling back around to Call of Duty and the enthusiasm Activision have for releasing map packs and in abundance.

So once you’ve paid full price (or less ofc) for a game that you complete in a few hours, don’t worry in a week or so they will release some “new” content for around a quarter of the full game price, release a few expansion DLC’s and you’ve bought the whole game again but you don’t really notice the money as it’s a trickle rather than an large layout! You see evil!

A final word on DLC.

I normally don’t purchase DLC, I have bought the Back to Karkand expansion for Battlefield 3 and the odd map pack for various Call of Duty titles, so I can’t completely call it evil. Not that long ago many of the extras that we had to buy on the console was just given away to PC owners, for free. With Valves online store, Steam and EA’s version, Origin now in full swing what was free for PC owners now is only available through these digital stores and for the same cost as console gamers.

Personally I think that game developers put more effort adding more content to the initial release (and not some over priced “limited edition”) and expend some extra effort in producing something new and not tweaking something that feels like it’s been removed from the game.

MW3 fixes, maybe.

There is a campaign gathering steam (I guess?) which hopes to pressure Activison (well Infinity Ward/Sledge Hammer games) to fix the current crop of problems that Modern Warfare 3 online play is suffering from. The organisers made this video to highlight their campaign.

I will say I don’t play Modern Warfare 3 as much as much as I played MW2 or Black Ops, mainly because Battlefield 3 wasn’t out then, but that is another story. Not that I think MW3 is bad, far from it I loved the single player campaign, such a great story, I would even go so far as to say it would make a great film or even a book. I find the way they have approached levelling, weapon unlocks and perks far better that MW 2 and Black Ops and quite frankly can’t wait to see if they go for a MW 4 or take the game in another direction. So I have not seen the problems that these guys speaking of in such great detail but I am keeping an eye out for how this all goes down on the 20th.

Battlefield 3 gripes.

The reason I mention this is that EA/DICE while they did eventually address many of the issues plaguing Battlefield 3 (USAS-12 + 12g Frags, MAV riding and many weapon balances) it took them far to long to do so. The eventual list of fixes was extensive but far to little to late. The “honest” players had either become dishonest i.e. taken to MAV elevating/road killing or USAS-12 boosting stats, or have stopped playing altogether, which is what I did. The growing resentment towards playing a game when everyone at the rank of 43 and above are running with the USAS and 12g frags and just dominating each map. Or some joker spending the whole game trying to bash your head in with a sensitive piece of equipment (the MAV) yet it remained rather resilient to bullet strikes and took some shooting to bring it down or use a SAM and it’s a one hit deal but that means only 1 class out of 4 could bring it down.

But I digress. . .

I was discussing the comparisons between both games, online wise at least. Although I maintain you can’t as while they are both shooters MW3 is very much fast paced, quick reaction with no direct reward for team play. Where as Battlefield 3 is a more realistic, team play based shooter.

Anyway I’ve always maintained and if you take a look back, that Activision, sorry Activi$ion have a very tight grasp on the purse strings. The end result is that pretty soon after a games release that money (well what’s left after the shareholders/investors take their cut) is directed towards making the next game in the Call of Duty franchise, in this case what ever Infinity Ward/Sledgehammer are making after MW3. Which means that resources (i.e. money/programmers/peons) are diverted away from the upkeep of MW3 and the slow decline of not fixing glitches or countering hacks begins again. Try playing a game of Modern Warfare and very soon you’ll see what I mean.

Want a more recent example, when IF released the expansion for MW2 which contained the map “Fuel” someone discovered that a certain rock could be jumped inside making you bullet proof, although not grenade proof 😛 Was this glitch fixed? hell no, although they did release anther expansion pack after that.

In the end it was good to see EA/DICE put so much effort into “fixing” Battlefield 3 even if it was somewhat to late to fix the damage done to the games reputation. I only hope that the campaign to try and get IF/Sledgehammer to put some real effort into fixes.

Next time I shall rant about DLC.

Way to long between blogs.

I apologise to anyone who is a loyal reader for not posting any blogs recently. I have been busy levelling in Battlefield 3, I’ve managed to get to level 32, slow and steady is the name of (my) game. You can check out my profile at EA/DICE website Battlelog (You have to have registered with them to be able to see my profile though which is silly tbh)

Iron Tauren: Part 4

For those that was looking forward to any Iron Tauren news I can tell you that I have got Cattleina to level 45 and finally got my first plate armour items, 5 level later than I could actually use plate 0.o
She finished off Ferelas and was working her way steadily though Thousand Needles when I had to stop. Not because two people have completed the challenge but because it is actually hard work battering your way in hand to hand combat and I kinda hit “the wall”.

On the official web page a player called Kripparrian has already got to level 85, but he was player as a hunter which is as good as having an extra character helping you out, pfft cheat :p
I plan to get back to levelling Cattleina very soon, I feel that I am neglecting her heroic progress across Azeroth, although there is a good reason.
I have managed to get a new zone completed with Banhammer and made good head way into another, 10 achievement points at a time (slow and steady remember lol)

I read books, me!

Another very good reason for lacking of blogging is that I have recently finished of several of my Xmas books I got/bought. First was Terry Prachett’s Snuff, yet another great book from the master himself. I also read the most recent Horus Heresy book. Know no Fear by Dan Abnett, another master author. This book tells the story of the Word Bearers attack on the Ultramarines, good news is there is plenty of scope for a part two of this book, I do hope there is. I started on Nick Kyme’s Nocturne which is part three in the series about the Salamanders chapter of Space Marines, but I left it in the truck at work and won’t be able to get it till Monday 😦
I can’t be that sad as I still have plenty of other books to read including book 2 and 3 in the Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin. Although I will add I am loath to start them as the TV series starts on Sky Atlantic soon and I don’t want to spoil the TV show.
Normally I prefer books to the film/tv versions but in this case I started with the TV show rather than the books so I’ll carry on that way.

In unrelated news but. . .
. . .because I want to post them, here is two pictures of soem miniatures from Games Workshop I painted.

Space Dwarves are making a come back*

Cadian Ork Hunter. I painted this guy before Citadel’s new washes and it looks very rough. I might remake him soon.

Battlefield 3 getting it’s fix on!

Finally it seem DICE are getting around to fixing many of the issues people have had with this game. Issues that have affected the players from the lowly grunt to the pro-pilots.

Now I can’t fly helicopters or planes for shit, never have and I’ve played all the Battlefield games since Battlefield 1942. Ok I say “All” I didn’t enjoy 2142 at all and I didn’t play Battlefield: Modern Combat on the consoles either, but other than that I played em all, honest oh and on the PC. . .true fact!

I think DICE hit a sweet spot when they made Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Nice big character models, weapons and terrain, add to that the ability to destroy buildings knock down trees and all sorts of other sweet stuff and you had a great game.

One thing though that has, in this humble bloggers opinion, always marred the game series is the planes and helicopters. Get a helicopter or a plane in the hands of a skilled pilot and they are devastating. But the game was always good at providing ways to clear the skies of the air menace. That though was not actually the problem, the issue was actually was that to many people team killed to get a air vehicle or just camped out at the air fields and didn’t bother capturing flags and winning the game quicker, nothing beats a a personal Kills to death ratio. 0.o

A moment of nostalgia.

When playing Battlefield: Vietnam I would generally end up on the side of the NVA/VC which meant I had access to the lovely AAA weapons and vehicles. This would result in me getting MANY kills off the “pro” pilots as they considered themselves untouchable up in the sky. Shoot one down and move position. Wait for the sucker to get another plane/helis and as they head back to get their revenge on me I would shoot them down from else where. Much fun was had!

Back to reality.

Despite how good Battlefield: Bad Company 2 multi-player was, a map with Helicopters normally ended up going badly for one team. One team would end up with both helicopters and the game was pretty much over. A good pilot would also know the location of the the few available AAA guns and destroy them leaving them untouchable *sigh*

Battlefield 3 has now been out a while, bringing with it even better environments, more destruction, modern weapons and all round awesomeness. Not that the game does not have it’s issues for example the USAS-12 + 12g Frag rounds and people using the MAV to float themselves to high and unreachable places, I didn’t have any issues with people using the MAV to kill people although the speed at which it hits and kills was a little to “generous” to the pilot of the thing.

Fixed!

Judging by this article at PC Gamer magazine it lists a rather large list of incoming fixes, many I have been waiting to see others I didn’t know about lets just see how many of these fixes make it to the final patch or how long it take for DICE to get the patch out.[http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/02/23/dice-rebuilding-battlefield-3-with-massive-upcoming-patch/1/]

Some highlights (well for me at least) are.

• FAMAS: The FAMAS combines an extreme rate of fire with extreme recoil making it very difficult to use at anything other than close quarters combat. Due to update restrictions, the FAMAS had different stats on all 3 platforms. The FAMAS is now uniform on all platforms and now has the correct 25 round magazine.
• The MAV can no longer be used as an elevator.
• The MAV will now be destroyed when running into a soldier or vehicle at high speed. It is still possible to strategically sacrifice your MAV on a soldier; it will be destroyed in the process.
• Semiautomatic and automatic shotguns firing FRAG rounds now do slightly less splash damage.
• Zooming shotguns with Buckshot and Flechette loads will now result in a slightly tighter cone for the pellets.

Read the full list to see if your pet peeve for this game is included : )

Bright Ideas and Multi-player maps.

Very occasionally I have bright ideas, well I think they are but it’s not often that I chose to share them outside a few RL friends, but this one I think needs to be shared. Although this blog isn’t read that much I am hoping that it’s a start that may get the idea spread and like many things on the internet take on a life of it’s own.

A very, very brief history.

Since the time of the classic game Doom made by iD software, yes I know not the original FPS but arguably one that really made FPS’s big business. Following that we had (in no particular order) Doom 2, Duke Nukem 3D, Unreal and Unreal Tournament, all great games and all offered the ability for the user to make and use custom made maps designed and built by gamers for gamers.

As game technology improved, games environments moved from being inside or at least inside nice high walled city streets with a touch of sky to open world environs, we now even have “realistically” destroyable buildings (thank you Frostbite2 engine, I love you!).

Now to the idea.

I’ll talk about the current “big name” games for this part, namely Call of Duty and Battlefield series games, especially the Battlefield series. When EA Games released the demo for Battlefield 1942 we first saw the Wake Island map [http://battlefield.wikia.com/wiki/Wake_Island] it quickly became a favourite amongst the players, so much so it has been included in Battlefield 2143, Battlefield 2 and now more recently Battlefield 3.

While in the Call of Duty series each version and resulting map packs produces several maps that once again become a favourite with the players and always get voted into the rotation more often than not. Infinity Ward even went to the trouble of remaking a few of the maps from Modern Warfare and released them as a map pack for Modern Warfare 2. (Namely Vacant, Strike, Crash and Overgrown)

Ok NOW I’ll get to the idea.

After reading all that I sure you are all waiting with baited breath for the final reveal or you’ve stopped reading : P

What I would like to see is some of these great maps redone but for the “rival” games Wake island and Strike at Karkand for Call of Duty and any number of maps imported into Battlefield 3 (I guess only for TDM or SQDM) now here is the kicker the maps are to be bundled into a pack for charity so it will be the first cross platform, cross game gamer friendly map pack for all the family! Tad Dah!! worth the read huh? Spread the word people! 😀

Hollywood Explosions!

As I had a day off recently I decided to give World of Warcraft a break for a day (almost) and play Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. As per usual it took a few games to get (re)used to the PS3 controller, as I normally play the Xbox and prefer the Xbox controller as I find the triggers better for shooters.

Using the lower triggers for aim/shoot I find feel more natural for shooters.	PS3 quite comfortable but the R1 buttons for aim/shoot I find feel odd to me.

Had an interesting time on Battlefield 3, while I find the controls sometimes a little sensitive, especially with moment of fast ADS (Aim Down Sights) while using the ACOG scope on the M16A4. The Point sight or the Holographic sight I find easier to control, I think it has something to do with the magnification levels. The ACOG uses X4 compared to the Holographic x1.5 magnification. So I’m thinking that with so much zoom a small movement of the weapon means the aim actually move a larger amount.

Anyway that is beside the point, the reason I called this particular blog post “Hollywood explosions” is during a game of Rush mode on the Metro map I was working my way to the 3rd tier of M-COM stations and I noticed a guy crouching behind the desk near the left M-COM. I decided to be “clever” (which got me shot in the back a second later) and throw a grenade at him. The resulting explosion was so excessive for a hand grenade, I thought Battlefield 3 had gone all Hollywood on us. Until I noticed I was getting a lot of bonus points for destroying enemy ordinance, namely the C4 he was booby trapping the M-COM station with. So instead of the bang and screen shake I was expecting for my grenade I was given the joy of a Hollywood level explosion, almost tempted to write to Mythbusters.

Lonely Island, such a funny band buy the Albums you’ll not regret it!