FNG - Friday Night Gaming ... Hosted by Jeff Litster

I was playing the Starcraft 2 single player campaign and was exploring "The Devil's Playground" mission.  In the bottom-right hand corner of the map, I saw what looks like a Diablo III easter egg.  You can decide for yourself.

Potential Diablo III Easter Egg? (click to enlarge)

I'm thinking so...

It's cool that Blizzard does fun things with their games that reward players for expanding their horizons and checking out all the details of their maps.  Can't wait to see what other fun things we'll encounter.  I've probably already missed some, so now I'll have to go back and play the prior missions again.  :)

Now, I spent some time trying to figure out how to get some Reavers over to the sucker and try to take it on; but alas, there was a big rock in the way on the one path they might have been able to rocket jump over to him.  I also tried landing a Command Center on it, but of course it wouldn't land.

If you've had better luck getting some Terran units over there, please let us know!

Epic Games signed on as a sponsor for GEEX 2010!
More details can be found at the GEEX website.

I'm stoked to see big names like Epic, Intel, Nvidia appearing at our event; and look forward to seeing what they bring to the expo.

I have to do a shout out to Geekbox Computers who has been busting butt to sponsor the LAN Party and some of the tournament prizes.

We hope the show will be a smash hit this year and even more fun than GEEX 2008 was.  Team FNG had a riot at the first GEEX, and we'll looking forward to some serious good times at this one.

We'll see you all there...

The Team FNG practice server for the GEEX 2010 TrackMania United Forever tournament is officially live, and will remain so until GEEX is over.


Mind you, it's still a test-bed for the tournament tracker app I'm writing to keep score during the GEEX tournament.  This won't affect your gameplay, except for seeing scoring at the end of each race (and being able to type /rank at any time to see your current tournament standings.)  Note that this will only work when I have the tracker app running... which will only be when I have time to work on it. 

We may or may not run some mock tournament runs with the app if I have time to do so; but most of the time when you see it running, I'll be making tweaks and fixing defects with it, so you'll have to bear with me when the scoring keeps resetting, etc.

Tonight, I'll be making the scoring reports show the players' aliases instead of their logins and working on a couple other things.

Feel free to practice on the server whenever you wish.  If it's not up, come back here and leave a comment so I can be notified about the outage.  I'll get it fixed as soon as I can.

I look forward to seeing you all at GEEX and spending some time racing with you before the tournament.
Register for the GEEX LAN Party
Register for the GEEX TrackMania United Forever Tournament

I'll hopefully be getting the in-game news submitted this weekend.

So go practice away and let's make this a spectacular tournament!

GG

Go to the Company of Heroes - Complete Pack page on Steam to download the following Soundtracks free:

• Company of Heroes: All Heroes Rise
• Company of Heroes: Songs from the Front

Thanks Steam and THQ for making these available!

While you're at it (and only today) -- get the complete pack for $24.99 (normally $49.99)

Last night was a huge success. I had to shut the server down and change my max players to 16, which we filled for a good portion of the night. I wonder if I could have kicked it up to 20 or 24, but I think my crappy upload speed would've finally been worked over with that and TeamSpeak going with 8 people in it. :)

Regardless, it was a good stress test for the app and I learned a lot and fixed a lot with it.

Here's what I fixed:

• Typing /rank in the chat at any point will give you your tournament standing (place and points) along with the person ahead of you (if applicable) and the person behind you (if applicable)
• The podium screen now only shows the top 3 standings to everyone; then shows your current standing (same as typing /rank) if you're below third place.
• My "debug" chatter that shows up in the app's UI was getting taxed again with 16 people in it... started getting behind after about 10 races or so, to the point it didn't report the scores one track.
  
  I've disabled the chatter and only have the app reporting error messages, which should make it handle many more people (we'll have to see about hooking up to another popular server out there that can host 50 people or more.)

Things I still need to fix before GEEX:

• Showing nicknames instead of login names on the Standings and Rank reporting.
• Any other stress-related issues we might encounter in future testing.

I had a ball last night and I hope the rest of you did to. We had people from all over the world join, including some from Austria and some from France... and the one from Austria we asked if he had connection issues. He reported a smooth connection, and there was much rejoicing.  A few of the racers were very high-ranked, including my old friend Scrappy who is in the Top 2500 in the world, and a couple others that were in the Top 25,000 in the world... which meant the times we were fortunate enough to beat them in a race, we earned some sweet multiplayer ladder points.  Good challenge.  Good times.

I'm hoping I can sneak some time before next Friday to run more tests, so you FNGers may be getting more invites to help. I appreciate all your support and hope this will help make the TrackMania tournament at GEEX more fun.

My apologies if any of you jumped in to find me in-game last night... I didn't actually log in to the game and start playing until way late... the first part of the night I was solely working on the app and the dedicated server... chatting with those in the server via ServerMania.  If I missed you, I'm sorry.  Catch us next time!

GG!

1. Register for the LAN Party
2. Register for the TrackMania Tournament
3. Get the Track Pack and start practicing!

If you have any questions let me know... most details can be gleaned from the Tournament details page and my blog entry.

I'm looking forward to seeing you all there. Please help spread the word about GEEX!

Well, I finally got the track pack compiled... and just in time to give everyone a month of practice before the TrackMania United Forever tournament at GEEX 2010.

Download the track pack now! (~34MB)

The pack will extract itself to all the appropriate places, and includes most mods/images/sounds/etc required to play the included tracks. Some images are missing but will be downloaded quickly from locators the first time you play the track. Players are encouraged to practice before the tournament to ensure all required data is on your computer prior to the competition.

The tracks are comprised of (but will not necessarily be raced in this order at GEEX):
PRELIMS:
AntiBoost (Bay)
Aretmis' Arrow I (Stadium)
Celt!c Sp!r!t (Rally)
Coastal Trip (Coast)
Dream Coast (Coast)
Dutch Delight (Stadium)
Eye in the Sky (Desert)
[GR] Poco Loco (Bay)
[GR] Night Hawk (Stadium)
Kingdom of Tricks v.1.00 (Rally)
Mad w0rLd (Island)
Remember Off Road? (Stadium)
Scotts Bluff (Desert)
Snow Park (Snow)
Stuntman Mountains (Snow)
Zen Island (Island)

FINALS:
[ATP]Community Track II (Snow)
Baysilisk (Bay)
Creative (Desert)
Deal Breaker (Stadium)
Etherlight (Island)
FlowCoastUnited (Coast)
Lunacy (Rally)

Details about the tournament and registration for the GEEX 2010 LAN Party and TrackMania Tournament will be available soon.

This is a bold experiment for TrackMania tournaments.  I decided I wanted to make a tournament that represents all types of tracks the community creates; testing all TrackMania skills, not just tech.

I even included a multi-path track that purposely set shortcuts... I figure the game has its own tracking mechanism for a successful lap: make it through all checkpoints and cross the finish line.  How you accomplish those goals is up to you... if you find a shortcut and can successfully exploit it, more power to you!

That said, spectating is also allowed, for those competitors that may not have found the shortcuts themselves, but notice that another player has a significantly better time.  This, of course, jeopardizes their own time to finish the track with a similar time, but if they can discover the shortcut and still execute it in time, the player will still have a shot at taking the podium.

Like I said, bold experiment.  But most I've spoken with about it when asking their opinions have liked the ideas, so we'll see how it goes.  I'm really excited for this tournament and hope it will be enjoyable for all.

Team FNG will be putting up a GEEX practice server some of the time over the weeks leading up to GEEX, but know that it will be in "experimental" mode, as I'm still developing the app that will track the tournament stats from the dedicated server at the event... and thus it needs a testing ground.  Feel free to join this server when you see it up and help me test the app when I'm around to work on it.

Please feel free to leave comments both before and after GEEX and let us know how you liked the event; especially the TrackMania United Forever tournament!

GG

This cool video, presented by evga.com shows off some really cool effects PhysX offers; in a lot of popular games like Mirror's Edge, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Cryostatis.

Enjoy.

(Thanks Bomajoe for this fantastic find...)

You heard right, gamers... Portal is FREE until 24 May 2010.  If you haven't played it yet, you have no excuse anymore.  Quit reading and download immediately. Time is running out.

Kudos to Valve for this incredible game; and more kudos for offering it free for a limited time.

Can't wait for Portal 2!

Remember when games used to ROCK?!  Remember when they allowed LAN play and didn't require an always on connection?  Remember when they were full of magic and wonder?

Well, check out this nostalgic video of my favorite game of all time... Motocross Madness 2.  Fun music and killer use of the in-game camera.

I thought I had some mad stunt skills, but the riders in this put me to shame.  FNGers will love seeing our staple 360's in here too.  Good times!!!



Please, please, PLEASE, Rainbow... give us the source code so we can make it work for everyone in Windows Vista and 7!!!  We want to keep playing...



Thanks for all the good times for the past 10 years, Rainbow Studios, and the entire Motocross Madness community.

Gamer	Final Score
FNG_ThatOneGuy	300
bomajoe	228
FNG_d6Amefath3r	179
FNG_DirtyDan	148
FNG_Thundr	145
FNG_Josh	88
ricowan	54
FNG_beuchety	52
FNG_Mandi	38
MockObject	18

Here are some pics of the event (Names of players are left-to-right):








bomajoe and FNG_Josh couldn't make the party, so they joined our tournament online.

LAN Party Recap:
The party started at 6:30pm, with gamers trickling in for the next hour or so.  I was stoked as I'd been able to spend about 4 hours or so prepping an app that would communicate with the TrackMania dedicated server in hopes of having an automated way of tracking tournament stats.  I programmed the tracker app to report the current tournament stats back into the game (through the in-game chat) at the end of each race.  This would be our first test-run, to find bugs so I could work them out and perhaps use it at GEEX this year during their TrackMania tournament.

We ordered pizza at 8:00 and were chowing down at 8:30pm.  Many thanks to Papa Johns that night for some excellently fresh pizza; especially the pepperoni and jalapeno.  (They were probably thanking us as well, since we placed two orders with them that night!)

9:00pm hit and it was time for the Turkey Bowl 2009 rematch tournament.  We made sure we had bomajoe and FNG_Josh in the server with us... the next track loaded, I started the tracker app, and we were off-to-the-races.

There were many jeers and cheers as we all met with our successes and failures during each round.  There were also many laughs shared, especially when my son, FNG_d6Amefath3r stumbled on the pronunciation of bomajoe's name (bow-muh-joe)... he laughed and said, "What?!  It sounds like Barack Obama-Joe!!!"  I'm pretty sure my car slammed into a wall and flipped off the track at that moment.  It was a good thing we were in Time Attack mode instead of Rounds...  We laughed a long time, and I'm pretty sure Joe has a new nickname that will stick for a while.

More humor flew our way with our FNG LAN Party new-comer, MockObject.  He was certainly living up to his name when we'd hear groans about how bad he thought he sucked at the game, how "unpossible" it was to finish some of the tracks and how much fun it was to finally discover what the Finish gate looks like.

After the 9th track, my app got WAY behind on writing out the XML responses from the TrackMania server (my bad for not turning those off before launching the app... since we didn't really need them.)  It got so back-logged, that it took another 30 minutes after the tournament ended for the app to finally get everything written out so I could go copy the XML and later analyze it so I could find out the final scores.  Looks like I have some work to do on the tracker, yet... (Did I mention I only got 4 hours to invest in it before the party?!)  :)  Incidentally, the night before the party, I found a cool TrackMania Server Plugin System that I may be able to use to put an in-game UI piece in that will have the tourney stats constantly up... we're discussing ideas about that currently... we'll see how it goes.
A good time was had by all; with the potential exception of ricowan and MockObject who might have a permanent hatred for me for putting him through the ringer with our brutal choice of tracks. All I can say is that I tried to hook up with you both early enough to give you some time to practice before you came. ;)

Seriously though, I do hope everyone had a good time... I know I did.  It's always a great time to get good friends together for some LAN gaming.  I certainly hope the game developers out there don't seriously switch their models to this "always-connected" BS we keep hearing about in the latest games.  I want to keep LAN gaming around for a lot longer, without the fear of us all getting dumped out of our games when my internect connection decides to hiccup.

We finished the party off by playing some other potential GEEX tournament tracks, and then revisiting some old-school TrackMania Nations maps... some of the ones that made FNG fall in love with the game when we first discovered it.

This LAN party was good for helping me solidify ideas for the TrackMania tournament coming up at GEEX in July.  I hope to have the track pack compiled and available online in April, as well as the tournament rules and sign-up available on the GEEX site soon.  (I'm still looking for sponsors for prizes so we won't have to charge a tournament fee... so if you know of anyone, please get in touch with me!)

I hope to see you all at GEEX for the TrackMania tournament in July!

GG

PS: All that attended, please take some time to leave your thoughts about the party here on the blog!  Much appreciated.

Look for the InstallKey=****-****-****-****-*** value in the Nadeo.ini file located in your Steam install folder for TrackMania United.

The stars will be alpha-numeric characters (letters are capitalized/upper-case)


The default installation paths are:
32-bit Windows
C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\trackmania united\

64-bit Windows
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\trackmania united\

Just when we thought one of the big publishers was finally listening to their customers...

Well, PC Gamers, put another nail in the Publishers-think-you're-idiots-and-will-believe-their-bullcrap-spin-on-persistent-internet-connection-DRM coffin.  "Oh you'll sooooooooo love the things we're doing with OUR game that you won't care about the SMALL inconvenience of being forced to have a persistent connection to play."

Blah blah blah, we've heard it all before from Blizzard and Ubisoft, and now EA has officially rejoined the DRM freaks ranks again with their C&C4 title released today.


I love the spin they're trying to put on it this time as well... in a quote from an Ars Technica article:
"... as a nice side effect, since C&C4 requires players to be online all the time in order to prevent cheating, we'll be shipping without any form of DRM."

Sure enough, Steam lists it without notice of DRM in the right-column where they usually mention it.  My question is, where on Earth does anyone get off passing off a required persistent internet connection as NOT being a form of DRM?

I'm starting to lose my faith in gamers, since we are responsible for this madness continuing and persistently getting worse in our lives.  Until we put an end to it by stopping the consumption of said defiled games, we will continue to see a decrease in our liberty to use purchased content as we please.  Freak, it won't be long before these software companies start telling you when you can use your computer for non-gaming related activities.

If we don't take a stand together and do it now... this will be our lot in life for the rest of our gaming lives.  And don't give me your "I don't care about being forced to have an internet connection all the time... My computer is always connected, so I'm good..." crap either.  It's a principle people.  The principle of losing your liberty.

The principal of giving up your freedom to use something you purchased because you "have to have the game" or you don't feel like a hard-core gamer.  I've got news for you folks... having the game first doesn't make you any more of a hard-core gamer than the next guy... I promise you'll live for a few more weeks while we all put our foot (and our wallet) down and let these companies know we're not going to take their crap anymore.

And if you really can't pull yourself away enough to stand up for what is right... then go enjoy your game as a slave to the man... and I'll just finish my career as a gamer with what little time I have left with the games that I have freedom to play how/when/where I want.

It's too bad... there are a lot of good creative developers and game creators out there.  It's a shame these greedy publishers are ruining it for all of us.

So, to the pirates and hackers/crackers out there... Enjoy your short challenge of beating the system this time, and enjoy your stolen copies of the game; whilst the rest of us suffer for our honesty/integrity... I'll be waiting for the articles soon where people who did buy the game don't get to play because the EA servers are down, just like the Ubisoft ones after Assassin's Creed 2 release.

[sarcasm]Good Game[/sarcasm]

It's in my grasp... oh yes, it's in my grasp.

Well, I hate to overshadow the amazing work Valve has done with the Portal 2 ARG and announcement (wtg Valve!), especially with a new post about DRM, but here goes.

See the GameInformer article...

Also, don't forget to keep track of GameInformer's bi-daily updates all throughout March...
GameInformer's Portal 2 Hub

"This was a triumph..."
   - GLaDOS

GameInformer's magazine cover with Portal 2 pics has been leaked, and a cool Kotaku article titled "An Insider's Guide to Portal 2" shows it and discusses some of the things being discovered about the highly anticipated game.

The cover is awesome... Go check it out!

It's official!!!
This morning, Valve officially announced Portal 2 will be coming this holiday season.

See the official Steam annoucement.  (There's not much there yet, but I'm excited to see more over the coming months.)

Valve has been messing with our minds, and making us return to thinking with Portals!  And it's been a fun ride to start March out... here's what's going on:

01 March 2010 - Portal Update Released;
"Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations"

... which spawned this viral thread on the Steam Forums that, as of this morning has 656 pages of replies, and is constantly growing ...

It also brought a new achievement called "Transmission Received" that has us all replaying the game, frantically looking for radios with red lights on them, playing "Still Alive".  When radios are found, the player must run around the level with it until they find a point where the radio goes to static.  As they find the right spot where it can "tune-in", the radio light turns green and different sounds are heard (morse code, etc.)

Most levels have one radio, two to three of them have multiple radios.  Some of them are very cleverly placed and the hunt is an enjoyable way to replay the game.

Even more interesting... the audio files that were added with this update contained embedded images that people have been extracting and attempting to decipher.

Needless to say, the community is buzzing around the clock trying to solve the mysteries.  And we're all anticipating an announcement soon of either a sequel, a new episode (or new version) of Half-Life, or both!

Valve has an Aperture Science BBS up that people have been dialing in and finding more vague and bizarre clues.

Two days later...
03 March 2010 - Portal Update Released:
"Added valuable asset retrieval"

This update added an extra 5-10 seconds to the ending of the game... which sparked more conversation and theories about what is going on.

Today is another two days later... will get get another update through Steam which will bring us any closer to knowing what's going on and/or give us more reason to continue replaying the fantastic game that is Portal?

Here's to hopin'...

One thing I have to say, is a HUGE kudos to Valve for doing something so fun in the PC gaming community (again - since they had similar action before Portal was originally released.)  As of late, it seems the hype around new killer game announcements is always quickly stifled by rantings and ravings (including my own) about crappy DRM and DLC schemes that other big publishers seem to be so into lately.  Thanks, Valve for giving us something fun to chase instead.  It's an incredibly nice diversion, and breathing new life into the PC gaming community.

I can't wait to find out what's going on.

If you haven't checked out the updates yet, and you're a Portal fan, you owe it to yourself to snag the updates and go replay Portal.

"There was even going to be a party for you. A big party, that all your friends were invited to. I invited your best friend, the Companion Cube. Of course, he couldn't come because you murdered him. All your other friends couldn't come either, because you don't have any other friends, because of how unlikable you are. It says so right here in your personnel file: "Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter, unlikable loner, whose passing shall not be mourned." Shall NOT be mourned. That's exactly what it says. Very formal. Very official. It also says you were adopted, so that's funny, too."
    -GLaDOS

While following the rant thread I created on the TrackMania forums, someone posted this gem of an article from InfoAddict today about how Ubisoft's new DRM was cracked in under 24 hours!!!

Most game publishers have been changing the video game scene's focus as of late from the actual game's content, to the "bonus game" on-top-of-the-real-game called DRM.  This "bonus game" is intended to promote hacking/cracking of the game, giving pirates/crackers the challenge of seeing if they can hack this new one faster than the last one.  And they're very good at it, good enough that it seems to be pleasing the publishers enough to continue dumping countless resources into providing said "bonus games" with all major releases of their new games.  It's not about the real game's content anymore, it's about the pirates...  And they continue to win.

When will enough be enough?  When will companies finally realize that if they re-channeled the DRM resources (development time, licensing money, etc.) to the actual content of the real game, they may be able to make a higher quality game at a fraction of the cost and time taken to release said game?!

Imagine that... they might actually be able to lower the price of the game some, which would make it even more alluring for customers that actually pay for their products and not leave them high and dry with games that don't work, while the pirates who never plan on paying enjoy their game problem free, because there aren't any draconian DRM systems in place anymore that hamper their experience (and sometimes violate their computers.)

Will we see another class action lawsuit against Ubisoft this time around, like we did with Starforce back in the day?  Couple those costs with the costs it takes to implement the crap to begin with... and add the costs to support the paying customers riddled with problems after it's released, and I'm thinking net loss for everyone, publishers, developers and paying customers alike.

Wake up people, and STOP THE MADNESS!

Go read the InfoAddict article, and pay close attention to LordCancer's comment at 03 03, 2010 04:03 that brings up a Gun Control analogy.  Bob Barker's comment at 03 03, 2010 06:45 is good as well...

I'm still hopeful that Ubisoft will pull-their-heads-out before the release of TrackMania 2 and rid themselves and we gamers of this garbage. 

Alas, my hopes have been semi-shot-down some, thanks to a Voodoo Extreme article entitled "Ubisoft: More Sequels, More Often" that states: "TrackMania 2 for PC will feature innovative content purchasing options."  They'd better be talking about the existing copper system from TrackMania United Forever, because if they're talking about real money for content, the TM community will be angered.

Anyway, all who know me know I'm the last to advocate piracy and cracking, but I'm glad this happened, in hopes that these companies will wake up and realize they're only hurting their paying customers... Oh, and keeping one gaming community alive and thriving... those that relish the challenge of a new DRM system to break.

Good news for RTS fans!

Electronic Arts (EA), in celebration of the up-and-coming Command & Conquer 4, has decided to allow PC gamers to download the following, free and legal from commandandconquer.com:

• Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun + Firestorm
• Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Just click the commandandconquer.com link above to re-live some of the classics.

I hope they're DRM free, but I haven't had the chance to confirm at the time of this writing. If you download and try them, please return and post a comment to let us know if they have DRM or not.

Be sure to look at the installation instructions for each, as there seems to be a little trickery involved in getting them working.

I finally figured out a way to get my GeForce 9800GX2 to run TrackMania in SLI mode without all the weird anomalies we've all experienced in an SLI configuration with SLI enabled.

See my blog post on how to Run TrackMania in NVIDIA SLI mode on my Tech Support blog for step-by-step instructions.

Here's the screenshot of the magical setting that worked for me:

Leave feedback there letting us know if you got it to work or not!

Bomajoe has been hard at work dethroning me from any and all top spots I hold for our FNG group in TrackMania.

To put the icing on the cake, he nailed a 27,000+ score on Rally A4. He's currently 60th in the World on that track and only 0.17 seconds behind the #1. GG!

My highest has been a 22,000+ on Island C2, followed by DirtyDan with 17,000+ ... so kudos to Joe for having the highest solo track score in Team FNG... the gauntlet has been thrown, who will top it?

Looks like our work is cut out for us...