Feel the power

Tuesday's a news day

□ The aforementioned Homefront patch is, at first blush, working quite well.  The sniper nerf is probably going to marginalize the M200+thermal optics+4x zoom sluts, but from what I've seen so far, you're still going to fall to the M110+3x zoom with roughly the same regularity.  The two semi-auto shots to center mass remain deadly, and those nifty thermal goggles are still an option.

It appears that the devs have stabilized the framerates a bit, which should make (some) people happy.  I for one, am relieved that they didn't tinker with the ACR.  It's still the best weapon in the game.

□ Crysis 2 also has a patch (1.2.0.0), which sports some minor fixes.  The anti-cheat measures are supposed to be improved, but give it a week.  

There's also a note to Steam users:  "Steam users will experience some prolonged loading times in this patch for which we apologise. We will update the Steam build in the next few days to resolve this issue."

□ The next Black Ops DLC has been announced prematurely.  The promotional graphic, viewable on VG247, shows a May 5 release date (edit:  this version of the poster has more character).  The new content will include four MP maps and one zombie map.  It's a safe bet this means the release of the mod tools will be pushed into June.

□ Battlefield Play 4 Free is now live.  It's not clear whether the micro-transaction system means that you'll have to buy kit to enjoy the game.

Expect some bugs.  Or many.

□ The PC Alliance has announced that the PC will again be the top gaming platform.  It's a nice thought, but I don't buy some of their arguments.

We can hope:

'The spotlight has absolutely shifted back to PC gaming,' said Matt Ployhar, PCGA president and Intel graphics planner. 'I don't believe this phenomenon is going to slow down. A good portion of the companies that are flush with cash right now are coming from abroad, which largely ties in with my postulation about globalization spilling over into the PC gaming ecosystem.'  

'Investment dollars are also shifting back largely in favour of PC gaming for a variety of reasons. Most of this is tied to the profitability margins largely favouring PC gaming for the game developers themselves. For example, 'free to play' and micro transactions, practically no secondary sales market, and the shift to digital distribution to name just a few.' 

□ Finally, there's a Morrowind mod out there that will blow your doors off:

I never played Morrowind, but I did run through Oblivion once.  I don't remember the latter having landscapes with that kind of artistry.

Homefront 1.0.3 patch is live

From homefront-game.com:

The latest patch is now available on Steam and will be downloaded the next time you start Homefront.

FEATURES

Ban list rework

·         We now store two separate ban lists on servers; a local ban list, and a global ban list. The local ban list is for bans that originate on the server (via kickbans, etc). The global ban list is for bans that are initiated by a trusted ban list authority. The ban lists store the date of ban, the name of the admin who initiated the ban, the reason for the ban, and a URL field for any relevant ban evidence (demos etc).

New Feature – DEMO URL

·         A DemoURL can now be specified in the server playlist, this is used to indicate the location of stored demo files to user’s in-game (see the multiplayer options screen). A good practice for server admins would be to share the demo folder via FTP, this would allow users to grab demos of games they starred in, and also (very importantly!) allow users and anti-cheat authorities to download evidence for cheat reporting. Incidentally, it is now possible to dump all users unique steamID's from both in-game, and in-demos to the console or text file (this will make reporting abusive players and enforcing bans incredibly easy).

GAME BALANCE

·         RPG's now deal additional damage to HMMWV's.

·         Lowered m200 and m110 sniper rifle damages. The only 1 shot possible is now headshots.

·         Flak jacket now has a lower BP cost, and a slight effectiveness buff.

·         Diablo damage adjusted.

·         Weapon is taken out of ADS and accuracy decreases when jumping.

OPTIMIZATIONS & FIXES

·         The Rhino drones weapon attachment was not being properly moved with the Rhino drone on dedicated servers, causing the rockets to fire incorrectly. This is now fixed.

·         We have added some animation optimizations for large player games.

·         Several UI related improvements were added for large player games.

·         Fixed scaling text zooming on Battle Commander when opening up the battle chat or squad UI.

·         Switched the buttons around on the load out rename confirmation dialog to better abide by conventions.

·         Improved SLI/CrossFireX support.

·         A few reported issues with WinXP 64 bit edition have been addressed.

·         Improved menu navigation with analogue controls.

GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS

·         User feedback for kicks and bans has been improved.

·         The intermission lobby now displays clan tags.

·         Text chat is now possible in the kill cam, spawn selection, and intermission lobby screens.

NEW SETTINGS & CONTROL OPTIONS

·         EnableD3D10/11 is now accessible via the system settings menu.

·         Mouse acceleration is now accessible via the controls menu.

·         Mouse smoothing is now accessible via the controls menu.

L4D2 Hacks

Well, here's what's out there:

1) Utility that tells the server that all files are certified by VAC, bypassing server based anti-cheats. Overrides the sv_consistency and sv_cheats settings on the client, despite the server setting. That allows many client side "cheats" that are actually built into the game like full brightness, no-rain, etc.
2) Wallhack / glohack - of course. Multiple ones out there. Some just show characters through walls, others color the special infected red and survivors blue and highlight pills and stuff through the walls for survivors. Explains how some people I've played with always run into the right room to grab pills and pipes, but never bother to look anywhere there isn't anything.
3) Anti-boomer bile hack. Disables the bile effect on a boomed player so they aren't blinded.
4) Anti-recoil + no bullet spread
5) Fast respawn - I didn't expect this one but it explains a few things.
6) Speedhack. Only idiots use this as you might imagine, too easy to detect.
7) Auto-bash auto-dodge auto-evade the tank punches
8) SteamID Randomizer with name changer so you can get kick-banned and immediately reconnect on a different name and steamid


The problem with hacking in L4D2 is exacerbated by the fact that you typically don't play on your own server, or even the same server all the time. This means there are usually no server admins available to do human-based detection and the only option when a hacker is detected is to kick him (if his team agrees) or to find another server.

It's also very difficult to spectate - you get about a 10 second window as infected during which you can watch someone first person and usually the special infected are all dead during that, so there's no special hacking / aimbotting going on.

What's sad is that most of these cheats are actually made from a point-and-click "cheat generator" for valve games that VAC seems incapable of reliably detecting.

Lian Li case

I was thinking about how big Messiah's new case is and how nobody needs a case that big. Then I realized my Lian Li dwarfs it with 7 front facing 5.25" bays and 12 internal 3.5". All aluminum. Unfortunately I only have three USB ports in the front, not four, and they're all the way down by the floor ;-)

A new action hero

The (other) price of the Black Ops DLC

The "First Strike" DLC for CoD:BO is coming -- along with the 1.07 patch -- on March 25 for $15 ($13.49 if you pre-order).  Gameservers has said that they won't force anyone to run the new maps on their server, but what happens to the people that don't buy the DLC? Will they be able to join a server that's running any of the new maps? Will FS servers be segregated in the server browser? Will they show up at all for people who haven't bought the DLC?

All of those things are possible. More likely, though, you'll just get bounced once one of the new maps comes up in the rotation.

Homefront, in 4.5 minutes

I felt truly oppressed playing the SP. Only now do I realize: it wasn't the Koreans.

MotoFreak's Dream Setup

The Skinner Box

This could easily have been a dissertation on Call of Duty.