Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by Falk

Several must-watch Promod shoutcasts

Falk — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 07:26:06 +0800

If you're into the whole Promod/competitive CoD4 thing some of the CIC7 enschende games had top-notch shoutcasts.

http://quadv.com/ondemand/#/1660-cic7-reas...s-dignitas/1815 map 3 (Crash) round 3 is the most lolworthy moment in recent history of competitive CoD4.
http://quadv.com/ondemand/#/1655-cic7-fnat...hostile-faction map 2 (Crossfire) the entire shoutcast is good. Tosspot almost gives a tutorial on what to do and what not to do and a round-by-round analysis of what went wrong/right. Definitely check it out to improve your crossfire game.
http://www.quadv.com/ondemand/#/1663-cic7-...s-reason-gaming CIC7.nl finals. Need I say more D:

http://www.fnatic.com/downloads/467/Stevy-CIC7-Finals.html Stevy's finals demos. Some sick shots in there.

Steelseries just announced a 10k Euro pot competition coming up. Their scene is looking to be the biggest year in CoD history ever.

Crossfire Challenge/CoD4/Asia

Falk — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 08:05:27 +0800

Since the usual news channels seem surprisingly quiet about this, here's an early heads up:
http://www.crossfire.nu/?x=news&mode=item&id=5254

I'm sure crashtec/Auricom will be posting in the CoD4/CS forums about this sooner or later with more details. This is a huge milestone for the Asian FPS community.

Also, QuakeLive<3

Sharks.

Falk — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:10:24 +0800

edit: RELEASED

Streams:
Tek-9 Cinema
http://www.wipido.com/video/KrFmraUDaKtH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OlYVyspIXs (Not 100% happy with Youtube's stream quality, but meh, for convenience sake it's here. Watch in HD, obviously)

Download:
Tek-9 Cinema (requires registration)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0M23NC43

QUOTE

Description: Beware of Sharks is a Team Movie featuring Sharks With Lasers pitted against various Malaysian and Asian CoD4 Promod teams. It includes frag clips from various local LAN events all the way up to the recent 2nd season of the online, community-run Asian Call of Duty 4 Championship (ACC2) in which 46 teams from all across the continent participated in.

This is my first serious movie project and I had to learn Premiere (not touching it again oh God), and After Effects while making up stuff on the fly. In my childish obstinacy I also insisted on using my own movie cfg built from the ground up so I'm sorry<3 for things which I realized later but had no time to fix like not disabling crosshair, enemy player names, and "Press A to autoclimb" (don't ask)

Inspiration for the style of the movie came from, among other things, Max Payne, DJMAX, 16-bit console emulation, and a bet that I could use only Impact in an entire 6+ minute movie and get away with it. (The comic book font doesn't count!)

A short clip of footage from Werner Mehl's 1 million FPS bullet impact montage was used, all credit for it goes to Werner Mehl.

Stats: 1280x720x50fps, 200fps avide... fraps
Uncompressed size: 55GB
Project folder size: 446GB (again, don't ask)
Work time: Sept-Dec 2009 because I'm a lazy ass, majority of it in the last 3 weeks or so.

Starring: Grr, flaveR, pr8sh, aStro, kLavieR, Squirtle, XioN, VickS, ZoK

Programs used: Fraps, Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, Paint Shop Pro 6, Adobe Audition, Cakewalk Sonar, VirtualDub, MeGUI.

Songs used: Croove - Outlaw, Syriana - Bexter, Zet - Bexter

Game: Call of Duty 4
Sort of Movie: team fragmovie
Length: 6:47
Size: 387 MB
Codec: x264
Produced by: Falk

MW2: My thoughts

Falk — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:49:30 +0800

Yes, I realize there's an existing (two) topics there. However with the disclaimer that I'm likely to offend quite a number of people, I'd like this to be read rather than buried within the masses off pointless one-line posts about opinions everyone's heard said a hundred times by a dozen different sites. I'd also like to think that I'm at least semi-well-known within the CoD4 competitive community so at least there's some insight coming from that slice of the community regarding what the future may or may not hold.

Mods: If you disagree with the above, you can always merge this into one of the existing threads. No hard feelings, and sorry for the inconvenience.

Anyway, first, the negatives. We learnt last month that our most anticipated release this decade would be wingclipped without dedicated servers. I was as pissed off as the rest, naturally, as that'd mean that -even if- competitive play worked, the community would have to come out of their comfort zone to get it to work, which isn't a choice many would make. Of course, IW then went on to reveal no consoles, no mod tools (officially - was only inferred prior), no features like lean, etc which just cemented the fact that the competitive community, myself included, was going to completely shun this game unless a miracle happened. Days went by and it ticked closer to launch. No change.

The bottom line is we got a glorified console port for 10USD above the usual retail price - for literally no good reason except for Activision running an experiment regarding making more money - their own words. I'd be honest with you. I got my copy yesterday semi-subsidized (can't go into the details) and I honestly, honestly would have given it a pass had I been required to pay the full amount.

The dichotomy here is interesting - We all already knew with the original dedicated server announcement that without some serious head-cracking at IW, the game wouldn't be competitive. No lean, no console etc was just more nails in a coffin 90% sealed shut. At that point my hopes for the game competitively went out the window. Yet I was still excited for the release of the game (the same way I'm looking forward to SC2 or D3, etc) because IW tells amazing stories, has amazing artists and sound engineers, and their games are always works of art.

Honestly, after playing through the SP campaign (which is completely EPIC, btw), I'd still say 'not really'. If it were priced at the usual ~45-50USD, then maybe. But caving in to Activision's get-rich-quick(er) scheme strikes me a little like lapping up their vomit and submitting. No thanks.

The question I keep running into post-purchase is, 'was it worth what I paid?'.'Would I have paid 60USD for it?'.

If the game had delivered that amazing SP experience PLUS a solid hope of being the future of competitive FPS, something that both CS and CoD4 players alike would flock to, then yes, it'd be fully worth the extra dosh.

It's still a good game. I just feel like at the moment it's an overpriced swan with its wings clipped. Whether said swan will ever fly in future, that's really up to IW and patches. The fact that a key binding for 'console' is listed in the manual strikes me that it's not something that they decided on at the start of development, just something they turned off close to the release candidate - meaning their minds may not be set in stone that much about the entire deal.

Conclusion: I'd recommend anyone holding on to their cash to still do so, try out the game at a cafe, and if only buy if you think your experience was worth USD60 along with the fact that you'd get spec ops and the ability to play pubs (lol). I personally don't. It's close - really close, but the deal sealer like I said above is not wanting to lap up Activision's vomit.

Maybe my opinion will change after playing around with the multiplayer a bit. Who knows.

[addedon]November 10, 2009, 6:57 pm[/addedon]Oops, forgot to share the two main positives I got from running through SP

- SP is completely epic - it had something CoD4 didn't have - all-out war between two superpowers, except this time we're not using Garands and STG-44s all over again. CoD4 basically was a steamroll of Iraq (or whatever you believe the Al-Asad's country to be) and then a few covert ops missions. MW2's on the other hand campaign brings back paratroopers, trenches, tanks, artillery, completely blown out cityscapes, and puts all that in a modern setting introducing stuff like UAVs, nukes, terrorism.
- Sound engine is a -lot- better. Maybe I'm a little too oversensitive due to my line of work, but I felt that a lot of FPS sound engines really, really detracted from the experience. Don't get me wrong, CoD4's sound effects were awesome, but had that very plasticky quality you get from directional sound being a simple volume-based pan. MW2's seems to have environmental reverb, much better directional cues, and almost every gun is a pleasure to fire (the youtube videos don't do the sound clips justice). The only caveat is that the overall levels seem to be lower (probably to avoid clipping/distortion) but hey, that's what volume control knobs are for. Not to mention the greater dynamic range just adds to the experience anyway.

Also P.S.
Competitive? Probably not. Existing CoD4 scene is likely to stick with Promod Live 2.04 in terms of cash prize tourneys and leagues, with the occasional fun scrim (SnD or otherwise) with MW2... although the lack of people buying originals (for good reason) may be quite a big wrench in that works.

We'll see how the coming months look.

edit: Seeing as how this post is linked to on a couple of other forums and websites, some other posts of interest for quick skimming of the thread:
- multiplayer part of the review
- What's wrong with IW.net and how simple shit would fix it
- fraps done on request

Public Service Announcement for Malaysians

Falk — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:56:43 +0800

Tank:

Tanker:

Stop being dumb. Thanks.

(Yes, waiting for maintenance to be over is boring )

[addedon]April 15, 2009, 4:03 am[/addedon]Alternatively,

Tank:

Tank:

[ESPGL] Conduct Rules Feedback.

Falk — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:36:16 +0800

As you know, there are several rules enforced for all ESPGL-related on-location events that do not exist in online competitive leagues, or even on-location events not run by ESPGL. The original reason for these rules is to maintain professional conduct of participants and to present a good image to the public eye.

We're not saying we're going to be making changes to the rules at this time but for the moment we'd like community feedback on a few things:

1) Dead chat. You are currently not allowed to talk to teammates (including other dead teammates) via in-game teamchat OR person-to-person while dead.

2) Locked dead speccing. You are currently not allowed to flip through still-live teammates while dead. (This is the infamous 'hands off mouse' rule)

3) Communication with opponents. You are currently not allowed to communicate (taunting OR otherwise) with opponents when matches are live, both via in-game chat OR person-to-person, with the exception of team leaders using the in-game chat. (And obviously no taunting even then)

4) Foul language. For any reason whatsoever, foul language results in an instant warning. This pseudo-officially includes "shit".

There were very good reasons for implementing these rules, and I believe to a certain extent that those reasons still apply. However due to the past culture of FPS gaming, up to the CyberFusion event we've been trying to be as lenient as possible with the rules, administering reminders instead of warnings or totally letting things slide for minor cases. However due to the scale of the CyberFusion tourney we had to be much stricter with the rules we decided upon.

There comes a point where the ideals of professionalism starts to clash with the overal event atmosphere and enjoyment of tournaments. This is why this thread exists now, so you guys can tell us what you think, and how the rules have or have not worked out practically.

I'll get a little bit into the 'why's of certain rules after this thread develops a little, but I'd like some feedback FIRST before saying anything. If you have a beef with the rules, this is your chance to speak up!. Your time and effort is greatly appreciated.