Top Gun

I don't even want to look at the sale listings. Way too tempting, and I haven't even started my Christmas shopping yet.

Hmm, weird. Mine just came up as 82 MB.

Dat bowtie.

Ah, okay. Kind of a bummer, but the policy makes sense.

Something I've been wondering for a little while: does OCR have a policy on submissions of songs that appeared on a gaming system yet weren't from a specific game? The best example I can think of is from the Wii: a few of the menu channels have background music to them, and while I'm not sure who composed the songs, they're pretty catchy. The OneUps did a great live version of the Mii Channel theme a couple of years ago at PAX, and I thought it'd be cool for something similar to wind up on OCR someday, if it'd be allowed.

It'll probably show up for me soon enough too, but it's a Christmas present in my case, so no worries until the end of December. Plus, I'm still working on Twilight Princess.

Srsly. Most of you can't even use Skyrim as an excuse anymore. It only pops up in my friends list for like one or two people.

I would totally be down for any sort of team play. I'm equally bad at pretty much every class, so you can stick me everywhere! And woo, two new Genuine hats. I was probably going to buy Trine 2 at some point anyway, so why not now?

Hee, there's a related one from Baccano! Looks like a new update dropped, with a couple of promo hats from Trine 2 and some map fixes. I think they may have nerfed GM's trololo teleporter spot on Upward.

Sitting in BLU for a couple of minutes actually wound up working. Phill joined, then Frogg, then a couple more. Fun was had!

Ah, okay. I figured it was probably somebody's own server, but I just hadn't seen people playing there before now. And I'll give you Batman, Brush, but Skyrim? Bleh. I don't think I've ever had a grain of interest in the Elder Scrolls series.

So out of curiosity, is there any reason why half the regulars have been playing on a random password-protected server over the past couple of days? I've been pretty bummed that both RED and BLU have been completely empty every time I've logged in itching to play over the past week. Is there something going on I don't know about?

Yeah, free-to-play users can receive items in trades; they just can't give them. It's definitely worth it to snag something from the store, though. If nothing else, you get a bonus Mann Co. hat and a ton more backpack space.

I wouldn't mind a Fallen Angel and Steel-Toed Stompers, if no one else wants those. I grabbed a decent load of parts I didn't have for about a scrap each last week, so I'm trying to work my way through the rest.

Hmm, are those rate limits client-side? That might solve the issue my crappy modem has when the server browser opens, where all the incoming connections overfill its memory and nuke my connection. And looks like the new promo items are for Saints Row: The Third. There's a luchador mask and new gloves for the Heavy, and a badge for all classes. The gloves look like they act the same as normal Fists, except they make someone explode if you kill them with a critical hit. Fun!

Woah...what the hell? Hadn't heard anything about that until now. Don't script kiddies have something better to do with their time, like fap to tentacle porn? And either I'm just logging in at the wrong times, or the servers have been unusually empty for the past week or so.

I finally got my next gift drop tonight...and it winds up being a Haunted one no less. (It's depressing how much so many people are fapping over the distinction.) I think spending the last couple of nights in my one usual trade server was a bad idea, since the disabled control point meant that 10 or so people were dry-humping each other over the gift every time it started appearing. At least having actual combat going on gives a bit more of a chance. It also helped that I literally didn't give a damn about getting the things anymore.

Oh good, now he can kill you even faster when you're trying to get a gift! And heh, there's a blog post from the Administrator about servers that are cheating with the gift drop rate and such. Gee, Valve, maybe if you hadn't made it so absurd to collect them this time around, people wouldn't need to do that.

Apparently so. $5 says it doesn't work right the first time.

Oh, right, that's the other thing that sucks: less than two weeks' worth of event isn't nearly enough time to get everything unless you go into hardcore grind mode and/or have a ton of metal to trade for them and/or just buy everything. Since the Halloween stuff is now wearable during full moons, the least they could do is turn present drops on then too.

So now that we're about a week into it, any thoughts on how the Halloween Event has turned out? I have to honestly say that I'm not much of a fan myself. The comic and overall concept of MONOCULUS were great, but frankly, Viaduct isn't the sort of map I can spend a long time on without things getting extremely boring; I think that push-CP in general is a much more dynamic gametype. It doesn't help that MONOCULUS spawns much too frequently for my tastes; I'd think that a single spawn per round would be more than enough for everyone to get the required achievements without turning things into drudgery. HHH's spawn rate last year was pretty close to ideal. And the gifts? Ugh. Last year you just had to grind for nine of them, and Mann Manor was a big enough map that odds were good that you'd eventually find yourself near a few with no one else around. Now you have to do three times the grinding, and because the spawn points are so limited on a small map like Viaduct, there's almost always a crowd in the vicinity. (That's especially true in a trade server I frequent that's somehow disabled the control point entirely; there are usually six or seven people hovering right over the point when the gift is announced.) Even worse is when the gift spawns in the underworld, and you know you have no chance to get there, since you weren't lucky enough to be near a portal when it happened. I think I have only six costume pieces so far, one from winning a raffle, and I'm going be out-of-town this weekend, so I doubt I'll even get to the halfway point. Hell, I'm questioning whether I'll even bother going for any more at this point. Yeah...I'm a bit frustrated.

Could we get that switched to the old sound codec, too? Apparently my mic was inadvertently destroying some people's ears last night. Thanks so much for breaking that Valve.

I have no problem with getting killed while running through the underworld, but going after people on Loot Island does seem like kind of a dick move. Getting the special items/achievements is pretty much the whole point of the Halloween event, and if you don't know the person you're killing, it could be some random newbie who's already failed to get to the book portal several times. It's not like who wins or loses is vital when you're playing the same KOTH map over and over ad nauseam, so just let people have their fun.

It's Top Ghost as of the moment.

I have a Soldier and Heavy, but I could still use an Engineer. I also have a spare Spy that I need to try and trade with someone.