ParanoidDrone

Duly noted for future reference.

And I'm a failspy.

Love you too. <3 (For the record, fooling people with YER never gets old.) Unrelated: Is the Machina particle thing a server problem or general game bug?

I got kicked briefly when I finished downloading that snowy payload map (Buzzard something-or-other) but was able to rejoin immediately without problems. Something about a snapshot overflow error IIRC.

I think my favorite EDI moment happens if you (mild spoilers) encourage her and Joker to hook up. "Jeff assured me that I did not have to conform to societal standards of feminine beauty. I called him on his bullshit, and we proceeded to talk normally." She actually says "bullshit" too. It's amazing.

Damn, our evil plot has been exposed!

First! Hopefully we can have a get together of sorts soon.

Speaking of custom maps, I found a map called koth_drogentote_1, which is a visually accurate replica of Meet the Medic. The geometry is ripped straight from Badwater's first point -- I can't tell if this was for the mapper's convenience or if they actually recycled it for MTM as well. There's limited space between the point and spawns, so spawncamping is probably going to be easier than usual, but each spawn has two distinct exits a fair distance apart to mitigate that.

Oh god yes, EDI is comic gold in this game, full stop.

Husks are no longer instakilled the moment they're hit with a crowd control power, unfortunately. Neural Shock as a standalone power is gone, but you can evolve Overload to do the same thing. The evolution, appropriately enough, is actually called Neural Shock. You can easily spec your Engineer to specialize in casting Incinerate, etc. or spamming Drones to distract enemies. Both work quite well, and the new weight-based cooldown system means that you can easily throw out a power every 3 seconds or less, provided you're willing to tote lighter, and thus usually weaker guns into battle. (Which honestly shouldn't be a problem, given that doing so lets you spam powers out the wazoo.) It should be noted though, that at the maximum level of 60, you'll have enough points to max out every power except 1, with enough points to get that 1 power to Rank 4 and a few extra to spare. This is with a bonus power -- if you opt not to take one, you can max out everything. You'll still need to choose how to evolve the powers, but you don't need to worry about leaving any of them unexplored. You can also respec your powers at any time on the Normandy -- first time is free, each additional time costs 5k credits, then 10k, 15k, etc. Same for squadmates.

Infiltrators in general can put out absurd amounts of damage, but the Salarian is widely regarded to be top tier, yes. It's probably a bit early, but the Geth Infiltrator is looking to be pretty strong as well thanks to Hunter Mode. Squishier but stronger.

So far I've found the Batarian Sentinel, Krogan Vanguard, and Geth Infiltrator. (Insert "Geth do not infiltrate" joke here.) Sentinel: Blade Armor is meh, a brain dead set it and forget it ability. There's no benefit to turning it off and I don't think it cuts your recharge speed when in use. Boring but mildly practical. Not sure how it interacts with Phantoms, but there's potential for hilarity. Shockwave is Shockwave, i.e. mediocre and bugged if you took the Radius evolution at Rank 4. Submission Net counts as a tech power for those who care, and lends itself well to sniping for obvious reasons -- it's basically a tech-based Stasis. And like the Stasis bubble, if you shoot it at the environment instead of an enemy, it'll linger and trap the next enemy to walk over it. Krogan Vanguard: For some reason its Charge is slower than the Human/Drell/Asari versions. Not sure what's up with that, but it definitely takes longer to get from A to B. Between Barrier, Rage, natural bulk, and Charge restoring your barriers, it's really hard to die. My shotgun of choice right now is the Claymore, which weighs only marginally less than a lead brick, so my cooldowns are ass. Geth Infiltrator: Oh my god I love this thing. Hunter Mode is a limited-range wallhack, so combine this with a sniper rifle that can penetrate walls and hilarity ensues. (Lucky me I have a Widow V.) I think the Javelin counts as a Geth weapon as far as the passive is concerned, so that'll get an extra damage boost. One thing I did differently from my other Infiltrators is spec Tactical Cloak for extra power when cloaked over extended duration, and suddenly my Proximity Mines are blowing up mooks instantly, especially with Hunter Mode enabled. The low health and reduced shields during Hunter Mode are surprisingly a non-issue between your cloak and wallhack. Unless you get tunnel vision you can see enemies coming a mile away and prepare accordingly. </wall of text>

Well there's a difference between camping spawn because you're supposed to, such as RED during the opening moments of every A/D map ever, camping because you need to buy some time or the objective is simply too close to spawn, such as BLU when attacking every final point ever, and camping because you and/or your team is taking the piss out of the enemy. Anecdote: The second game of TF2 I ever played, I joined RED team on Dustbowl's second stage. BLU had a full spawn camp going, we're talking Demomen, Heavies, Medics, and Sentries. The whole nine yards. That kind of spawn camping should definitely be discouraged, but I'm not sure how to differentiate it succinctly for a server rule. EDIT: An idea. "Please exhibit proper sportsmanlike behavior." Possibly a few words about how we're all here to have fun, not to wave our e-peens around. (Fun fact: Firefox recognizes "e-peen" as a word.)

I think the racist/offensive remarks and harassment fall under "be courteous," although I suppose being specific doesn't hurt. Good call on having admins reserve the right to lay down the law. I understand the intent behind prohibiting sticky camping of spawn doors and it's almost definitely a good rule to have, but I have to admit that something about dictating the way you're (not) allowed to play the game rubs me the wrong way ever so slightly, possibly because a Spy or Heavy can be almost as deadly when camping and there's no rule against them. (Goodness knows I love camping spawn sometimes.) What I'm getting at is if there's possibly a way to achieve the same effect without explicitly saying "don't play the game this way." IDK, I'm rambling slightly.

This works for me.

One thing that just came to mind. I remember there being a kerfluffle a while ago over some troll abusing the exact words on the MOTD to justify his actions. With that in mind, either instead of or in addition to the rules, can we have a general "Don't be a douchebag" rule? Preferably in all caps, bold, 72-point font. (Not really, but you get the point.)

Regarding admins, I'm on the west coast now instead of Louisiana, on the off chance it makes a difference. I'm perfectly willing to keep my position, but grad school has a nasty habit of eating my free time. I'd also like to preemptively remove myself from consideration from root admin on the grounds that I don't have a fucking clue how to operate a server. Regarding customs, I don't have any major problems with Bahamut's list since odds are they'll rarely be played anyway. However, I do have a strong dislike for Orange maps, and IIRC we played on koth_aperture before and collectively decided we didn't like it. I do recognize a fair number of maps that I know are of halfway decent quality, so props for that.

For the record, the "carts roll forward during overtime" mechanic exists only on Nightfall. Pipeline and Hightower have no such contingency in place. That said, I enjoy PLR for the most part, Pipeline in particular. Expanding on Sombrero's point, I think server stability should be...not a goal, that's not the right word, but a definite factor in deciding what plugins, settings, etc. to use. Given the choice between a perfectly vanilla, stable server and a tricked out unstable one, I'll take the first every time. If that means removing some plugins, then so be it.

Whelp, time to try out the Kunai again.

Custom Sounds: PLEASE make sure you prevent the Spy's decloak sounds from being modified, no matter what you end up doing. That is all.

I forgot about Arena. A plugin to increase the number of players for those maps is definitely a good idea. (Why is it limited to begin with anyway?) I'm aware you can grant plenty of different abilities to reserve slot holders, but I have some reservations about the different ways we can go about granting them. I'll try to outline my disjointed logic: -We can take applications for reserve slots and approve them on a case by case basis. We could then safely grant them relatively powerful privileges due to the inherent screening process, but we risk turning the whole thing into a clique. This may or may not be desirable depending on what we want reserve slots to represent -- dedication to the community, or just people who happen to play a lot on our particular server? -We can grant them fairly unilaterally, possibly for donations to keep the server running. This effectively stops the forming of a clique since there's no application process but opens the system to potential abuse by people who would seek to cause mayhem with their new powers. The thought occurs to me that it's probably not possible to completely automate the reserve slot process, thus any implementation will always have the opportunity for one or more persons to check if the applicant is genuine or a troll. If this is the case, then I have far fewer misgivings about the degree of powers granted to reserve slot holders. </paranoia>

Disclaimer: I am unfamiliar with the specifics of server configuration so some of the following may or may not be feasible. Maps: All stock maps for sure, or at least most of them, with a selection of quality customs. (Aerospace, Swiftwater, Obscure, etc.) If possible, the normal rotation should be popular stock maps only, with unpopular stock maps and customs available exclusively via nomination or some other kind of vote. This is mostly to keep the server population up, since customs and unpopular maps like Hydro tend to empty servers unless specifically voted for -- if people want to play there, fine, but don't force it on them. Plugins: Powerlord's voting plugin is amazing for the simple fact that it doesn't disable the number keys. Definitely in favor of keeping that. I don't care one way or another about pregame mayhem. Settings: In a strictly either/or situation, I'd prefer map switching to be based on the number of rounds played rather than time. In my experience, playing the same map more than 2 or 3 times in a row tends to get old fast, especially in cases like Dustbowl where a match can last up to a half hour if RED successfully defends the last point. I'm not sure if it's possible to combine the two, although I see no reason why it wouldn't. Features: IMO autoupdating is important. Powerlord was always pretty fast on the uptake, but in the interests of making the setup relatively future proof, it would be a good idea to remove the human element from the equation. Admins: It should probably go without saying that whoever is the primary owner/manager/what have you of the server should be a root admin if only for sheer convenience. Unfortunately I have no real suggestions other than that, although I'm aware that we're trying to avoid a single person dictatorship situation, as it were. Reserve Slots: TBH I'm quite apathetic about it, although perhaps apathetic isn't the right word. I'm under the impression that reserve slots are handed out to people that play regularly and are generally respectful to others. In other words, trustworthy members of the community. If this is the case, then I don't have a problem with them being granted extra privileges, and depending on the nature of said privileges, they could even act as a group of "minimods." However, it has the potential to turn very cliquish very quickly, which I don't think is a good thing. The alternative is to grant them to anyone who makes a donation to keep the server running, in which case any privileges would have to be fairly innocuous, otherwise you'd be able to literally buy a mod slot. Both sides have their advantages and disadvantages. Food for thought.

I've heard very good things about the Geth, Hunter Mode in particular. Terribly excited to try them out, but my luck is unbelievably shitty. (Except when it's not -- got a Respec and Asari Adept in one pack once.)

Resurgence Pack: Free Multiplayer DLC Featuring 6 new characters: Batarian Soldier Batarian Sentinel Geth Engineer Geth Infiltrator Krogan Battlemaster (Vanguard) Asari Justicar (Adept) Three new weapons: Striker Assault Rifle Kishock Harpoon Gun Geth Plasma SMG Two new maps: Firebase Hydra Firebase Condor (And a partridge in a pear tree.) I didn't recognize Hydra at all, but Condor looks like the Turian moon you're on in the singleplayer campaign to pick up the Primarch. There are plenty of new abilities to go around, too. DLC goes live Aprill 10 on PSN, no idea about XBL or PC.

I remember when Lale wrote that.