Powerlord

ocrtf2.com is moving its DNS and files around sometime this coming week, so there may be an outage or two with the stats, Sourcebans, and file mirror.

Today's update includes the Propaganda Contest, a poster design contest whose grand prize is a personalized Hat. (I thought it was a Melee weapon based on the posters, but the link goes to the Hat intro page) Second and Third prizes are also one-of-a-kind, but not as good as the first prize. 25 runners-up will get a Mann Co. Prize Package... I'm going to make a wild guess and say that this one contains all the current hats.

You do that and I'll retaliate by playing Demo. And suck at it without even trying to suck at it. No, seriously.

If you think that's impressive, I know another game music site that will enter its terrible teens this year...

QFE Anyway, send me, Fireslash, or Bahamut a note about reserved slots. Also, voice chat died on both servers for some reason. P.S. Enabling alltalk on RED (#2) by default by popular demand.

The first details of the War update are upon us. It turns out that both Demo and Soldier will get 3 new weapons... but whichever class kills more of the other in the next week will also get a fourth weapon. For those of us who really don't care that much, Valve has noted that we'll have new maps this update, too. Details on the update will be released over the next week, including the new maps, achievements, weapons, and "surprises." Makes me wonder if surprises deals with the Engineer update...

If both updates are essentially finished, why implement only one?

According to Valve's HLDS Linux server mailing list, there's a required update coming later today. No word on whether it's the actual class update or not (which was implied by the text on the TF2 page).

Turns out the Steam issue was on Valve's side. They've fixed it now. However, I'm doing other stuff now and should go to bed early anyway... haven't had enough sleep lately.

That was the purpose for removing the Stock label. Also, I suggest a complete removal of all customs on both servers and just put back the ones we like. Agreeing on what we like is the hard part. P.S. It appears that I'm not the only one with Steam connection issues. I think it's trying to tell me to go play Zelda: Spirit Tracks instead of TF2.

Hey, is anyone else having trouble connecting to Steam? I can't connect to Steam at all (it just immediately prompts me to Retry or connect in Offline mode).

I haven't gotten around to extracting them yet, and the linked video doesn't list the filenames. Look, the only reason I'm even home right now is because I'm working on a paper, otherwise I'd be at work.

I was chatting with someone on IRC, and they suggested something entirely plausible... these will be used for an upcoming holiday Event.

I'm not sure that I like the idea of having more stuff to download. Also, my video card has been oversaturating certain colors since a recent nVidia drivers update, and I'd rather not make it worse. That would be aimed at Dusk specifically.

Oh yeah, I renamed them a while back. Whoops. I thought about putting the numbers and/or descriptions back, but seriously... people seem to want certain customs back on #1 and detest a lot of customs on either server. So, right now the main difference is that #2 has Alltalk off, a larger map selection for map votes, and the Monday-night scrims. Anyway, new update today... sounds like waffle-fire may finally be fixed.

In general, OCR's regulars are extremely paranoid (no pun intended). If you don't believe me, go play on a random pub server. You'll find backstabs a LOT easier there. Frogg also has this uncanny ability to do an instant 180 turn... usually at the exact moment I'm doing a backstab. Waaait, I thought you used the Dead Ringer. Seeing as how you HAVE to get spotted by the enemy* to use the Dead Ringer, clearly there's something to that. I'm a terrible shot with the Scout's primary weapon... I'm still not used to the "get up in the face of the enemy" bit, particularly since that tactic only works as a frontal assault against Scout, Demoman, Engineer (not near his sentry), Sniper, and Spy. Scout also has to deal with the decision of whether the Sandman and its stun ball are worth -30HP. That loss might not sound like much, but it makes a difference in how many shots you can survive of the miniguns, needle guns, scattergun, pipe and sticky bombs, and how far a non-headshot sniper bullet has to be charged to kill you. *Or take damage by jumping off something. As strange as it sounds, I've been playing Sniper more recently, particularly with the Huntsman. The Huntsman's headshots are considerably more random than the sniper rifle's, but if you're not that good a shot with the rifle... That and they can also be done without the enemy seeing the telltale colored dot of the sniper scope. The drawback is that the Huntsman cannot be fired instantly, making it much less effective than the non-scoped sniper rifle for close range combat (if you've opted not to carry the SMG). Of course, you may need to be closer to the target to do this... My least played classes are Demoman and Heavy, and will always remain that way, because: 1. Demo's pipe bomb launcher is my worst weapon. 2. I can't stand how slow the Heavy moves, particularly when he has his minigun spinning.

Does anyone remember who was asking for a reserved slot on the server yesterday? I don't remember. Incidentally, this is why I ask people to post here or send me a PM about reserved slots.

Blizzard gave a bunch of people a week of free time (me included). Which, for me, ended today. So, you might actually see more of me now. However, with finals next week, maybe not.

I've taken the time to check the server logs. I checked the profiles of every user I didn't recognize on the server for the Tuesday's cp_steel match that I was referring to earlier. Here's the list of all the players I found that were in either nQa clan: L 12/01/2009 - 19:46:48: "[tigers] Guante, MD<590><STEAM_0:0:19170033><Unassigned>" joined team "Blue" L 12/01/2009 - 19:47:04: "Jackets<567><STEAM_0:0:5839583><Unassigned>" joined team "Blue" L 12/01/2009 - 19:47:10: "GUN!<483><STEAM_0:0:946908><Unassigned>" joined team "Blue" L 12/01/2009 - 19:50:48: "-|nQa|- Crump<637><STEAM_0:1:7795408><Unassigned>" joined team "Blue" [after the team switch] L 12/01/2009 - 20:12:56: "-|nQa|- DEATH BLOW<644><STEAM_0:1:11009491><Unassigned>" joined team "Red" 5 people, all the same team, all the nQa people I saw who were on for that map. Rather than choosing the random door? Interesting. You know, I'm pretty sure this is the reason why your clanmates were telling you to STFU, because this is an implicit admission that you attempt to team stack.

They were, plus I was on the server at the time, so I was a witness... hence why he could accuse me of standing by and doing nothing. I've also made a comment on the Admin group about this particular incident.

Bolded for emphasis

I'm not garian, but this is not the first time the issue of team stacking by nQa has come up. Technically, I should have banned a bunch of nQa people when I was on yesterday (Tuesday), due to complaints* of team stacking on steel. The *only* reason I didn't is because I was lazy and didn't feel like doing it. *I realize this gives duckyboy every right to bitch about me doing my job as admin, but I'm not really sure I care at this point.

Or to get a sniper to "kill" you.

So, in addition to my desktop, the laptop I bought over Black Friday may be powerful enough to play TF2. I'll find out once I've finished preparing it for use (PC Decrapifier and AV installs first, methinks). I bought it online, but for whatever reason, it already arrived here about 20 minutes ago.

I nominate A Random Tiger to start [tigers].