The story of Destiny is the story of a race wiped nearly from existence. Humanity and its allies (Exo and Awoken) must pick up the pieces of a crumbling civilization and push back against its enemies. For the first time in a Bungie title, there is no central protagonist in Destiny, no main character upon whose actions the fate of everything relies, no pivotal figure whose decisions could change the fate of an entire people. Instead, there are many heroes, each with their own story and each with their own opportunity to make a name for themselves, to create legend. These heroes are the Guardians, and they defend the last city of Man.

Before the fall, before the event that nearly destroyed humanity, Hunters were the outlaws. They roamed the wildernesses and the wastelands, tempting fate in search of rewards, making their own luck by bending — and sometimes breaking — the rules. Now they employ their unique skills to defend the city and recover lost artifacts and technology necessary to bring humanity back to the pinnacle of its former greatness.

Gunslingers as Hunters

What class are you most likely to play first?

Locke:
Hunter/Gunslinger. While I’d argue it’s a good idea to understand how each class works, specializing in a single class yields high success in a multiplayer raiding environment. I’ve always liked high DPS characters because of the highly competitive nature. Plus they usually hit the hardest, and throwing up huge numbers feels good.

Cozmo23:
The hunter, I always play the Rogue type classes with stealth, agility, and high damage output. I will play whatever class is closest to that which I assume is the hunter.

TTL Nightmare:
Probably the Hunter, although I’ve given the Titan a good look as well.

TTL Jericho:
In order of preference — 1. Hunter 2. Warlock 3. Titan

Titans are the ultimate defenders. Builders of the wall that now surrounds the last city, these are the warriors that sacrificed their own lives to protect it. They are descended from generations of heroes before them, and there is little doubt that they will continue that grand legacy.

Gunslingers as Titans

TTL Ranger:
Probably Titan.

Each of the classes have a draw for me, but I’m not really certain about what their distinct mechanical advantages might be at this point. My initial instinctual impulse was to try out the warlock, because “magic” characters tend to have a more extensive set of options available to them. “Oh, you can use guns?” The warlock might say. “Well, so can I. But I can also bend the physics of the universe with my mind.” The hunter seems interesting, because the idea of snipers is inherently cool, and the Law of the Jungle trailer made it out to be a deadly wolf-like class dropping foes from a distance with precision and style.

The titan hasn’t received the same kind of PR treatment. Its armor is the most stylistically medieval, which on one hand is kind of cool and on the other hand is a bit anachronistic. It does, at least, lend a chivalric air and knightly stature to the class, which is probably interesting to those that want to foray into the galactic wilderness as noble defenders of honor and justice. But really, I want to play a titan because they seem the most boring of all the classes so far. As an avid lover of the underdog, I am drawn to support the least interesting of classes. I figure there will be a lot of hunters and warlocks on the scene, so as to avoid being lost in the crowd of fragile wizards and craven rogues, I’ll play the broad shouldered space-knight getting hammered at the space tavern and obnoxiously challenging the peasants to arm wrestling matches.

There is no greater student of the mysterious Traveler than the Warlock. Through their studies, Warlocks have mastered many of the Traveler’s powers and are able to wield those energies with ease. Secrets surround the strange entity hanging low over the city, but if any are able to unlock those mysteries, it will be the Warlock.

Gunslingers as Warlocks

Pony:
Warlock. Always enjoyed playing either a high-damage glass cannon or disabler/controller, and weilding the power of the sun sounds like fun.

Bjorni:
Warlock. Sun. Throwing.

Sunburned Goose:
Warlock. I like to buff the team and have area of effect capability. Action at a distance makes it fun to make sure those who have high output can stay in the fight longer.

DeeJ:
Warlock. This is based on fashion alone.

Each class presents itself with its own unique play style, its own opportunities to advance and grow your character in Destiny over time. Whether it be Hunter, Titan, or Warlock, each class will touch on different preferences and sensibilities as you create your first character. It will define who you are in Destiny and shape what kind of mark you wish to leave on the world.

What choices will you make?

What combat style will you focus on?

What legend will you make for yourself?

Last night at Sony’s E3 press conference, Bungie gave us twelve minutes of Destiny delights. If you haven’t seen the video yet, take a moment to check it out.

There is a wealth of data to be gleaned from that footage about Bungie’s new universe. Weapons, talents, equipment slots, drones, new enemy classes (and equipment!), public events, and so much more. And even with all that, it was still only just enough to whet our appetites. It’s like the hors d’oeuvre before a feast. The sampling we were given was delicious, and yet it leaves us wanting more.

Destiny has been touted by its creators as a game that is better with friends, and yesterday we got an inkling of why you don’t want to explore too far without a good fireteam at your side. Close quarters combat, brutish enemy bosses, and large public events where hordes of hostile aliens are literally dropped into the fray all demonstrate why the universe is a dangerous place to traverse alone.

But there are perks to exploration. Loot, in the form of Glimmer, experience that adds up to gain new talents, and powerful — and sometimes exotic — weapons that can be improved with use serve as compelling incentives for exploring the forgotten places of the world.

We’re excited about Destiny here at Tied the Leader, and here are just some of the things we liked about last night’s gameplay.

Stuicide:
“It looked like rich experience that takes some of our favorite things in other games and blends them into a seamless experience.”

Sunburned Goose:
“Hefty. That Spider Tank rocking the drop ship as it lept to the ground was memorable.”

Eisen:
“Warlock…Dibs.
This game will be the beginning of a whole new frontier.”

Tortacular:
“It looked like a lot of fun. I like the combination of FPS with RPG aspects.
Also love me some expansive worlds.”

pastor:
“The game has speeder bikes. Enough said.”

Snatch:
“It’s not halo. I’m really glad bungie can spread its wings and give us a game like this! So excited about the new story.”

Dren:
“I am really interested in the roaming firer teams coming to help. Do you make a call for help or do they get notice of trouble near by? I love the slight magic aspect to the fighting.”

TTL Nightmare:
“The gunplay looked great, very smooth, very accurate. Reminded me of Halo CE in the best possible way.
The customization options on the gun/s also got me really excited, and they are ‘shiny’ to boot.”

HEAD:
“The multiple fire teams and some of the guns/gadgets were the most interesting aspects. The gun leveling system looks interesting too.”

TTL zeuz patter:
“Loved the first impression. The ghost reference was really nice. The way the spider tank was beautiful, literraly like watching a spider walk from the ceiling to the wall to the floor. I really liked the way they hinted a bit about the characters in the cutscenes.”

Do you have your fireteam ready?

Now with E3 less than a week away, all eyes are on the city of angels as we await further revelation of Bungie’s latest and greatest universe, Destiny.

Bungie has already treated us to a glimpse behind the curtain with their Pathways Out of Darkness ViDoc, released earlier this year.

They’ve also instructed us in the Law of the Jungle.

Numerous communities have already sprung up around Destiny, community artwork has been created, and fan fiction has been penned. All this around a game that hasn’t even been released yet. Bungie continues to inspire our imaginations and kindle within us an unparalleled excitement as they delve into a genre they call mythic sci-fi.

And now, on June 10, just six days away, Bungie promises a new smorgasbord of Destiny delights with their upcoming gameplay reveal.

At our team meeting yesterday, the @bungie Team previewed the #E3 gameplay reveal for #Destiny. Soon, you will see what they have seen.

— Bungie (@Bungie) May 29, 2013

But of course, Tied the Leader has many voices, and they all have hopes and expectations for Monday’s event. Some are looking forward to the cinematics and flavor.

Sunburned Goose:
“Opening scene. A familiar Earth. Then they appear. Before the first weapon strikes our cities, wipe fade. Stars.
A ship. It enters atmosphere, passing over the familiar, now ruined cities. Over the horizon, the traveler rises over the distant clouds. Its size, unfathomably large, yet delicate as it rests above our home.”

Booster MPS:
“I would like to see Bungie do what they have done so well and previous events – reveal the game in an interesting way involving game play. Drop us into the game during real time game play, show us a few things discovered by a character, encounter a conflict, show the character overcoming the conflict. Along the way that gives you the opportunity to show a class in detail, show interaction with the environment, reveal weapons and their function, and see conflict against an opposing force.”

Others hope to see more about account management.

Fezzer:
“How the game will be persistent, specifically the nature of push notifications, etc. Do we dictate how and what we get updated about? Can we affect character (or similar) game changes via our PDA’s?”

TTL Nightmare:
“How will the character/account be handled? Can you create more than one? Are characters tied to your xbox/PS account or your Bungie account? Will there be character leveling or will scaling be solely gear based? What role will the 7 factions play? Will there be a public beta?”

Still others are interested in specific game mechanics.

Pony:
“Will the Warlock have a mana bar? Does he ‘learn’ spells, or find/buy them?”

And, of course, there’s that one piece of information that some might consider the most important.

Bjorni:
“Release date.”

TTL zeuz patter:
“Release date. I hate being on “hold”. Whatever else comes is extra.”

Whatever it is that Bungie chooses to show us, it is TTL Nightmare who perhaps sums up our feelings on it the best.

“It is gonna be awesome.”

See you starside…

Discuss…

Last week Gunslinger Emeritus and all around great guy Tim Simons sat down with The Indoor Kids podcast on the Nerdist Network to discuss his role as POTUS lackey Jonah on the Emmy award winning show VEEP, and more importantly to those reading this blog, his gaming habits.

It is an interesting listen throughout, and Tim mentions his time with the Gunslingers at 21:00 and then again at 28:00. I was lucky enough to get a shout out at 29.05, and now the world knows that I find much humor in a good beat-off joke. So beware, some of the talk is a bit NSFW.

 Keep up the good work, Tim. And remember, if you ever get a hankering for some Call of Duty, you know where to find us.

You can follow Tim on twitter at http://twitter.com/timothycsimons.

> The Indoor Kids: Veep-eo Games with Tim Simons – Nerdist

When I say it feels snappy, I mean that the movement in the game seems quick and not sluggish.  The perceived movement speed is tinkered with for each Halo game, and certain games employ faster mechanics than others.

I had assumed the major components in the perception of a Halo game’s speed are:

1) Base Movement Velocity

2) Field of View

3) “Strafe Time”

I define “strafe time” as the amount of video frames that it takes for the player to go from maximum strafing speed in one direction to maximum strafing speed in the opposite direction. In other words, the time it takes for the player to completely reverse direction.

It has been well documented that the Field of View has changed from game to game.  I decided to run a comparison between five Halo games to see if strafing time had been altered as well.

In each test, I stood on a flat surface and directly faced a flat wall with defining marks and/or patterns on it (i.e. bullet holes) and strafed parallel to the wall.

To execute the strafe, I held left on the movement thumbstick until the player was going full speed laterally, and then quickly flipped the thumbstick to the right and held it there until the player reached full speed laterally in the opposite direction.

After importing the captured video into a motion tracking software (Mocha for After Effects), I tracked the wall that I was facing as I strafed, making sure to ignore the stationary HUD elements.

After transferring the tracking data to After Effects, I counted how many frames it took for the motion trackers to go from max. left speed to max. right speed, and therefore, how long it takes for the player to completely reverse direction.

Here are the results for the strafe times (in video frames) for each Halo game:

Halo 1: 12
Halo 2: 12
Halo 3: 12
Reach: 13
Halo 4: 13

(Note: I performed the tests of Halo 1 and 2 on an original Xbox to avoid any potential influence of the Xbox 360′s emulator.)

In comparing five Halo games, the amount of time it takes to completely reverse directions differs by only a single frame. That’s 0.03 seconds of difference, which I think is much too small to be noticed during gameplay.

So why do the games feel so different? What makes the strafes in different Halo games more or less effective if the the strafe itself lasts virtually the same amount of time?

My first thought was that different games might have variable strafe acceleration rates even though the time spent in the strafe is the same.  In other words, one game’s strafe might slow down/speed up quickly and have a lull in the middle (like a “U” shape).  Or the strafe acceleration might be eased in and out (like a sideways “S”).  So I graphed the velocities of the five strafes, expecting to see different shapes which would indicate different accelerations for each game.

To me, the five charts look almost identical.  They all have a “V” shape, indicating a constant strafe acceleration.  In other words, in each strafe, the velocity changes by basically the same amount from frame to frame.

It appears that strafes in these five Halo games have almost an identical linear acceleration.  So what makes different game’s strafes more or less effective?

My best guess is that it’s a combination of differences in a few areas.

First, changing the Field of View between games will affect the perceived speed of all movements (including strafes), as this video demonstrates.

Second, each game likely has different amounts of Aim Assist which will change how magnetized your reticle is to the target.  If there’s a large amount of Aim Assist, it will be much more difficult to strafe in a way that causes players to miss shots at you, adding to the perception that the strafe is slow.

Third, the animation of the player models might make it look like a strafe is more responsive than it truly is.  For example, one game might start a new walking animation immediately when the player changes directions, while a different game might smoothly transition from one animation to another.  The first way would make a strafe appear to be more responsive since the player model would be twitching back and forth instead of gliding, even though the strafe accelerations are almost identical.

Fourth, if the Halo games altered movement speeds drastically, then the value for the acceleration experienced by the player will differ, affecting the strafe.  More research is necessary, but movement speed will be the focus of my next analysis.

There might be other reasons why the strafes seem so different between Halo games, and the ones I just listed are just my best guesses.

But based on the data collected, it is inaccurate to say that the Halo games differ drastically in strafe times.  In fact, it appears that has remained virtually constant since Halo 1.

If you have any comments or questions, please post them here.  Thanks for reading!

We are Sunburned Goose, TTL Cozmo, TTL Cute, and TTL Faithkeeper, and this is our story.

The night begins with a Stary Sobor loot run.  Cute, Cozmo and I were turning over loot in the tents for about half an hour until Faithkeeper, who was relatively new to the game, joined us.  He casually noticed that there was a ‘new’ red car among the destroyed vehicles that we had been passing by all this time. We stopped looting the tents and started looking for parts to get the car back into driveable shape. It needed 2 or 3 wheels, a fuel tank and engine parts. That’s me in the passenger window lookin’ creepy.

We had been searching across the area looking for industrials to loot for parts. Cozmo went to Novy and Gorka while Cute, Faithkeeper, and I kept turning over Stary. Suddenly, we heard a distinct sound growing lounder, ‘wup wup wup wup…’

Feeling the heat from the chopper crew, we get the car running and get out of the Stary hotspot. We travel north to the Factory to finish fixing the car and add some spares into the trunk. We turned over the factory for the better of an hour and then decided to move on to Berezino to see if there is any action over there. Knowing that there were other players on the server, we broke up to two squads, with myself and Cute scouting out Berezino for engine parts and players, and Cozmo and Faithkeeper remaining behind to keep turning over loot. On the way out to Berezino, Cute found an ATV and brought it back to the Factory.  This was turning out to be a great night for finding vehicles.  Now, we began the long walk to Berezino again.

Just as Cute and I make it into Berezino, Cozmo calls out the heli again. Unlike last time, the heli crew began to circle around and hover over the factory. The bright red car parked out in the open may have been too much to pass up.  Cute and I jump right to our maps to set waypoints. They were 3k’s away from the Factory. There’s no time to run around Berezino safely. We would have to just run straight through, as the crow flies. We agro’ed zeds left and right, building up quite a train. Once through the city, we lost our zeds in the bushes, and sprinted across an open field all the while hoping the chopper crew wouldn’t see us out in the open.

Cozmo and Faithkeeper gave a stream of information just like that scene in Taken before the daughter is kidnapped. We knew that there were two on the ground with the chopper hovering over. We heard the first firefight where Cozmo was killed.  His Bizon wasn’t a match for an AKM. Faithkeeper came back from AFK to find out they were in a firefight, and he took down one of the players who killed Cozmo. Ultimately, Faithkeeper was shot dead by the second player to approach the Factory.

By now, Cute and I were just approaching the hills overlooking the Factory. There were two peaks to setup overwatch, one directly before the gates with a great view looking into the Factory, and a second off to the left which had a view of the side and behind the Factory. We split up with Cute taking the hill looking directly into the Factory since he has a ghille and a M24, and I took the far hill as I only had Camo and a Barrett M107. Once in position, we watch.

The Heli has landed in a field to the west, and Cute calls out the player that shot Faithkeeper as he is looting our vehicles. Once he stopped near our car, Cute takes the shot and puts a round into his chin.  ”FernandoM was killed.”

This spooks the heli and it lifts off immediately and begins to circle around. Cute and I hide under conifers waiting to see if they’d land to try and reclaim their fallen friends weapons and gear, or avenge their deaths.  For 10 minutes, they circle the factory, often in short loops, but sometimes they go wide hoping that we would come out of cover sensing they may have left the area. We sit tight and the heli would come back looking for us. It is intimidating to know that above you is a M240 pointed down towards you. Ultimately, they put the bird down in the field on the backside factory. As the players had hoped, Cute couldn’t see the heli land as the Factory obstructed his view, but I had an angle from my hill and called out two players on foot. One went west to a tree lined ridge, and the other stayed behind near the heli under cover.

Cute and I waited another five minutes watching for them, discussing our strategy. I suggested running around the backside and snatching their Heli from under their noses, but it is decided to sit tight, and take them out first.

While scanning the likely routes, I saw movement along the ridge. I zeroed in my sight, took a breath, and pulled the trigger. My shot kicks up dirt just before the sniper! Damn it! I raised my gun up, quickly pulling a shot off just as the sniper gets up, and the round connected . The M107 is a one shot gun and “Vanilla Lightning was killed”.

I turned my sights back to the heli and saw that it was spinning up. The second player trying to make a quick getaway with the chopper instead of sticking around. Taking Cozmo’s earlier advice, I started pouring round after round of .50 Caliber Anti-Material into the heli, trying to bring it down. Cozmo says, “Just shoot the pilot out of the window!” I aimed my gun true, pulled the trigger, and out fell from the floating heli Chocolate Thunder, lifeless, and our new chopper landed a couple meters away.

Confident that the assaulting team was taken out, Cute and I took it slow and easy, checking out the area as we moved forward.  The dead were looted, along with the heli, and I came away with a silenced M9 pistol, a ghille, night vision goggles, and an range finder.  Cozmo ran back from the coast and reclaimed his loot.

Faithkeeper’s body is in the background, and his victim, Milky, is in front.

FernandoM, who caught a M24 round to the chin, and a glitched ghillied body in the back.

Vanilla Lightning, the sniper in the woods. Not pictured, is Chocolate Thunder, the pilot.

After a quick check of its airworthiness after passing 8 rounds of .50 cal. through it, Cozmo, Cute, and I fixed up TTL’s new chopper, filled its gas tank, and took it for a spin. The heli takes 1000 liters of fuel, or 50 jerry cans, or an hour of your life to top it off from empty.

Our Reward.

I was very proud of our team of Gunslingers that night. We worked together, fought our attackers, and won the night in spite of the attackers advantage. Even though some of our team fell under gunfire, we left the evening with much more than we started, and that is the best you can expect from DayZ.

Join us on our forums to leave a comment about this this post or to join in on the discussion around DayZ.

Some tactics succeed with flying colors.  Others fail, often spectacularly.

These are their stories.

This week, we focus on that most versatile of explosive.  As famous Mythbuster Jamie Hyneman once said, “When in doubt, C4.”

Share your Good & Bad Ideas here.

I said there is no ultimate objective but there is an immediate challenge… survive. The towns are full of zombie hordes that will rip you to pieces. You can avoid the towns but eventually you will need food and water and must risk the threat of the living dead to scavenge for supplies. The real danger is not zombies or hunger/thirst it’s the other players. Everywhere there are other survivors around you competing for the scarce supplies. Do you try to work with them to help fight off the zombies? You could form a rewarding friendship, or you could end up with a bullet in the back of your head when they decide they want that nice backpack you found. You never know who you can trust and who will slit your throat for a can of beans. You would think it would be in everyone’s best interest to work together, but in the back of your mind you know that if you put your trust in this stranger they could kill you when your guard is down. The entire game really fits the theory of the Prisoner’s Dilemma quite well.

I could write an entire book describing the world of DayZ, but it really is something you have to experience for yourself. The player interactions that it has created are very unique and I have not witnessed anything quite like it in other games. When your character dies you start over at the coast and all of your hard earned gear stays on your corpse free to be looted by your killer or anyone else that wonders by. Because of this you develop a healthy fear of death and everything becomes a calculation of risk/reward. You may need to go to the hospital to get medical supplies, but there are only a few hospitals meaning many other players will also be there. I started this game playing mostly alone, but found it very difficult and began urging people to get the game and back me up. The game itself is fun just trying to stay alive out on your own crawling in the pitch black of night terrified of the sounds of zombies all around you. As with most games though, once you get a squad of your buddies together is when this game really starts to shine. Tied The Leader has never had a big PC following but this game was really unique so a few of us tried it out and then immediately started sharing our stories and encouraging others to give it a shot.

It gets really dark at night. Luckily we found these nice glow sticks.

We started out just trying to survive and gather gear, but soon we had ourselves a respectable arsenal and began to get bored of killing the zombies inland and avoiding the coast where the majority of the other players were. We found a truck fully loaded with tons of gear and thought we would take it north and hide it in the woods. On the way there we hit a bump and the truck exploded killing all of us. It was a tragedy but still had us all laughing. Now that we had lost all of our gear we felt more free to interact with other players in the major cities and this is where the adventures got even more crazy.

Even in a post apocalyptic zombie world you are likely to die in a common car accident.

The shear chaos that transpires during the game is astounding. The only thing you can control about the way your player looks is their face, unless you find some other clothes in the game which is very rare. This creates tension as it’s hard to keep track of who is friendly. Because of this I watched a guy walk through the woods right at me thinking it was another Gunslinger and he promptly shot me in the head. He was instantly killed by TTL Cute, but I had a long 8 km run to get back to where they were to pick up my stuff. Friendly fire doesn’t just occur when you are confused about who is who. It’s often easy to accidentally shoot a friend when trying to pick off the zombies chasing him.  TTL Pony found this out when he tried to help out Sunburned Goose, promptly killing him with a poorly placed Lee Enfield shot.

RIP Sunburned Goose

The 3 major cities are where the real action is. As I said earlier they hold the only hospitals as well as a ton of other supplies. We found ourselves in Elecktro and TTL Pony and I were heading to the fire station. For some reason military loot like guns and ammo spawn there so it’s a hot spot and very dangerous. TTL Cute sets up an overwatch position up on the hill in the woods with his sniper and we go inside the fire station. I am going up in the tower when I hear Cute say “There is someone on the roof!”. This immediately elevates my heartbeat and I freeze. He takes two shots and then I see blood pouring down from the roof and he confirms the kill.

Pony looting the body of a player Cute just sniped from 500 meters.

Pony goes up to loot the body and I move down the street to a church. I find a few dead bodies laying around and then Pony spots another guy going into the fire station while he is stuck on the roof. I move silently back down that way and post up looking at the back door. Pony hears him digging around inside and finally he runs out the back door and I open fire with my M16A2. He runs back and forward a few times having no idea where the shots are coming from and darts back inside. He then runs out the other door and Pony takes some shots and he falls over dead. At this point Pony spots another player running in from the other direction and starts shooting at him. At this point Cute and I hear an engine approaching and a lot of honking. I have no idea what is going on and am trying to worry about the other player as well as the mystery machine behind me. Cute spots a tractor driving into the city which runs straight into a wall and explodes.

I hope he was wearing his seat belt.

At this point Pony has shot and killed the last player approaching us and I have moved further into the city. I am up in a residential apartment when a player runs up the stairs right at me. I instinctively fire but he yells friendly and does not have a weapon. I tell him to hold still and bandage him up and give him a blood bag which basically allows you to bring another player to full health. I decide he does not seem like a threat and tell him to follow me and I will show him where he can get a lot of tools and supplies off some guys we had killed. As we are leaving I spot the tractor wreckage and we go over to check the body. My new comrade tells me he is still alive. I am shocked because the crash happened about 15 minutes ago, but I bandage him up and then drag his unconscious body all the way back to the fire station where Pony is.

Don’t you die on me!

After I got him back to the fire station it took another 10 minutes for him to finally wake up. “Thank you, you are my savior!” was the first thing he said through direct chat when he came to. I showed him and the other guy where the gear was and they decided to stick together and our groups went our separate ways. As you can see all player interactions are not violent. Sometimes you can help people if you choose. All the guys we killed were armed with machine guns so it would have been very risky to not take them out before they had a chance to do the same. Even the guy I healed had a rifle so I kept a close eye on him. Just because you save someone does not mean they won’t kill you as soon as giving an opportunity. I have a video of us all sniping a guy that had moved into a military camp up north we had just finished looting. He saw our chemlights on the ground but ignored them and went in anyway. a mistake that cost him his life.

He had the biggest backpack as well as an AS50 the rarest sniper rifle in the game. Sometimes you feel bad for killing other players, but up  north at places like Stary Sober in the video it’s kill or be killed. On the coast you can sometimes find new players and help them out, but if someone is looting military bases or airfields inland than they won’t hesitate to kill you.

If anyone is interested in trying this out and wants to play with us you are welcome. You need a pretty decent computer with a good video card to run it. We can help you tweak your settings for the best performance. The mod is free but you will have to buy Arma II as well as Arma II Operation Arrowhead to run the mod. There is a package deal on steam called Combined Operations. If you do get the game let us know and we will help you out. There is a pretty steep learning curve and if you start out on your own you will die a lot until you get the hang of it. We can provide food, we can provide shelter, we can provide security.

If you have any comments feel free to post them here.

I was thrilled to discover that Certain Affinity was integral in the development of the Forge for Halo 4. Not only do they of course have deep ties to the Halo franchise itself, but they have been making great multiplayer environments for both the Halo (H3, Reach, H:CEA) and CoD (World at War, Black Ops) franchises for most of the last decade. These guys know how to build maps that are not only balanced and competitive, but also have great atmosphere and detail.

A number of things were touched on during their presentation, which you can watch via Youtube thanks to ReadyUpLive.

3 “Forge Environments” will ship with Halo 4

News that will obviously be met with some enthusiasm. As amazing as Forge World was, there were limitations in terms of map visuals. I would suspect we will get a variety of geography and climate when all is finally revealed. There was no word on whether or not each environment would have it’s own specific objects or object sets, or whether it was possible to alter the appearance of the forge pieces to make them more suitable to each environment.

A number of fixes to infuriating Forge problems of the past, including the ability to “lock” or “magnetize” objects as well as more detail with the reticule that allows you to tell which Forge piece you are currently highlighting.

No more spending an hour trying to nudge one block up against another just right, or spending a night building bridge supports to hold up that sky bridge. Less time doing tedious grunt work means more time for Forgemasters to be creative. Sounds good to me. It will also be nice to know that I will be less likely to pull the keystone out of my wall while trying to pick up a Mongoose this time around.

Dynamic lighting, as well as an emphasis on Forge object details

These may seem more artistic than functional and they are, but they are what separates a good map from a great map. No more ultra-bright metal surfaces in the middle of a dark cave. No more vampire objects that don’t cast a shadow. An emphasis on detail for the objects is no surprise, given that Halo 4 figures to be by far the most graphically impressive of the series.

Player Trait Zones

You can introduce different player traits into specific zones within your map, much the way you would set up a spawn zone in previous Forges. This allows you to alter such things as gravity, player speed, jump height, damage resistance, etc. Such modifications would allow Forgemasters to construct a map like the outstanding “Anchor 9″ in Reach for example, where a portion of the map is zero gravity. This is a tool that could really push the boundaries of map creation into some very interesting places. Warthogs In Space?

This is just the beginning, both for Forge and for Halo 4. We will no doubt be buried under a mountain of information between now and November 6th. I’ll go ahead and put the over/under on Lockout remakes at 1,038,222. And take the over. Place your bets?

More specifically I mean the move to offer servers for people to rent so they can host their own Matchmaking experience.

As Tied The Leader we jumped on it, it meant that we could finally control the one thing that irked us most about the BF3 online experience. How hard it was to get on the same team/squad and consistently stay on the same side for a few games in a row.

We posted a disclaimer on both this very site and the load screen saying exactly that. “Come here to play, we will try to play together with our friends, have fun.”

The results have been very good, a few of our own have picked up BF3 again after being frustrated playing against your friends time and time again. We ran into some old friends who came to play a few games in our digital playhouse, seen some regulars develop on our server and even shut it down one night for a challenge that came from one of those groups who dropped by our clubhouse.

Tied The Leader has always been about teaming up and going out into the wild, playing random people, shooting them in the face in a nice way and spreading the good game message. So feel free to drop in for a few games.

The server also enabled us to set the table, you can set the maps/gametypes and tweak with the settings. The Gunslingers like to play Rush, an objective game where you unlock the map stage by stage by blowing up 2 M-COMs, we also have no complaints about the Default game settings DICE set out initially. So our server is Default Rush on a selection of maps that suit that gametype well. (Operation Metro, Firestorm, Caspian Border, Seine Crossing, Strike at Karkand, Karg Island etc)

We set up a few rules: No glitching, No MAV lifting to impossible places, in short: don’t be a jerk. Admins will message someone with a warning before kicking someone for still using the glitched version of the M26 (pre-patch)

The response has been awesome, we got a few messages telling us that people really liked the server, the aforementioned regular faces showing up and the fact that the server is regularly up and running games without any of us being online.

As someone who does a bunch of gaming by himself as well since my clanmates are not always online during my gaming hours there are some effects that the move to owned servers had on the Matchmaking experience.

What did happen when DICE offered up the servers for hire is that we went from this:

To this situation:

The result is that there are hardly any official DICE/EA servers left active since they have all been rented out, don’t be fooled by the [DICE] tag in the server descriptions. What that means is that as someone who really enjoys the Default game setting in a ranked environment my options are very limited. 200%+ ticket count servers are almost everywhere and before the latest update you couldn’t tell if that would be the case unless someone put in into the server title themselves. Any ticket counts over 100% usually end in an attacker victory, unless the defensive team is just so much better and the games last for ages.

In the new update DICE has enabled a § symbool for non standard servers, but that (unfortunately) is on volunteer basis, so the situation is the same. The server admin chooses to advertise the ticket count himself.

Next to that are the honor rule servers, the ones that state “No Camping, No Sniping, No Shotguns, No whatevers”. At TTL we always believed that if it’s in the game it’s fair game to be used, unless something is obviously a  glitch (maybe confirmed by the developer), like the underslung M26 with the Heavy Barrel attachment (again pre-patch). Not only do those servers not appeal to me personally, but the enforcement of those rules is off course impossible and usually only applies to 1 team.

Even more frustrating are the moments when everything in a game is clicking, you are picking the right routes, showing up behind the opponent, getting a few streaks going, only to be shown a black screen with a “You’ve been kicked by the Admin” message.

If you like BF3 go watch Battlefield Friends, it’s awesome.

I’m not saying there is no place for “24/7 Rush Operation Metro 500%” servers but the offering seems to consist of a lot of those type of games, while the servers that do offer up the default settings regularly have honour rules in place or some heavy handed Admin action going on. On the other hand the DICE/EA servers, if you can find an active one, lack any form of in-game moderation, so the M26 problem was very apparent there.

For a connected gamer who has an active friends list and is willing to set up a server, this system seems to offer all positives, for a lone mercenary wandering in the wastelands there are a myriad of problems apparent.

So, is a company like DICE/EA responsible for making sure they offer up a standard matchmaking service, or did they do their part by setting the players free?

Why is it that a server based game that thrives on the PC platform runs into so much trouble on a console?

Did you run into any more upsides/downsides connected to the rented servers?

Let us know in the comments how you’re experiencing this shift in Matchmaking mechanics.

To be very clear: I love BF3, I bought premium because I think adding 16 more maps to this game is awesome, I really like the detailed Calender they published straight away telling you what you will get for that Premium Purchase.

See you on our server?