Arsclan.net Forums

BrickExpo 2010

jrhoffa — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:43:21 GMT

I can't believe I didn't hear about this until yesterday, nor that nobody else seems to have mentioned it here - or perhaps I just couldn't find the post - but:

BrickExpo 2010 is this coming weekend (11 Sep 9-18.00, 12 Sep 10-16.00) at the Clermont County Fairgrounds near Cincinnati.

LEGO.

I'm heading and who wants a visit from starbuck?!?

Starbuck3733T — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:41:14 GMT

Hey ya'll, I'm finally out on my mega vagabond nomadic adventure and I'd love to hear from you, especially if you're in CA, OR or WA. I won't be a burden and I'm basically self contained out of a trailer that I'm towing. It looks like a cargo trailer but it's got living quarters inside it instead!

I'm hitting national parks and music festivals and basically whatever I want, but I'm heading up to crater lake in OR tomorrow from Reno nevada where I am now.

Spears: Pour vous.

Y3k-Bug — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:41:43 GMT

Money Quote: Who's your daddy... who's your daddy....... excelsior

DC Universe Online?

Chewie — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:19:43 GMT

Anyone seen the beta of this yet? The trailers make me all happy and whatnot, but I was never pleased with City of Heroes, so if this is a remake of that with Superman pasted in I will be rather pissed...

http://www.dcuniverseonline.com

I see what you did there...

delirium — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:33:48 GMT

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/65452

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shacknews

A patch for Borderlands will raise its level cap and rebalance the shooter RPG accordingly, developer Gearbox explained during PAX panel attended by Joystiq.

The free patch for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will raise the level cap to the hilarious number of 69 and, in the words of Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, "rebalance the original game around the level cap."

The level cap was previously raised to 61 in the paid downloadable content 'The Secret Armory of General Knoxx,' a move Pitchford explained Gearbox did not want to repeat otherwise "you'd have to buy every previous DLC" for the new cap and rebalancing.

The patch will apparently be released around the launch of Borderlands' DLC-packed Game of the Year edition, which is scheduled for October 12.

It's A.L.I.V.E !!!!!!

Staubo — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 02:29:14 GMT

I guess you can't keep the Duke down!

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2...les-and-pc.ars

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/...y-be-released/

http://kotaku.com/5628894/its-offici...arbox-software

Firefall

d@sh — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:21:25 GMT

Have any of you guys heard about this ? It looks interesting, sort of like Borderlands / Global Agenda with a [graphical] splash of Warsow. It's being made by some of the same guys as made Tribes. Beta is apparently opening soon, full game probably not out until end of 2011.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/09/03/re...he-end-of-201/

Not a lot of info available atm, though.

Edit: I apparently can't embed videos, so here are the links:

Trailer
Gameplay

Live Stats on Sasha by HLStatsX

turb0z — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 03:31:06 GMT

Spent some time today to get it set up. Everything seems to be running as expected as rankings are already rolling in as people are playing.

This is a much more comprehensive system over psychostats, enjoy!

http://hlstats.midwest-gaming.org

Alienware Arena SC2 Tournament

delirium — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:59:16 GMT

http://www.alienwarearena.com/event/killer-launch/home/

Registration is open until Sept 5.

Qu�b�cois need not apply. :[

Scheduling is pretty aggressive for the prelims ... you have to play 12 matches over 3 weeks:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alienware

2.12 Online Preliminary Phase: The "Online Preliminary Phase" will consist of online best-of-one play among Players located at any location of their choice within the United States and Canada, excluding Quebec. Players will be assigned into one of 15 groups and assigned to play 12 Matches, at the rate of 4 per week, against other Players in their group between Monday, September 6 and Monday, September 27, with make-up matches due to be completed by Sunday, October 3. The top 8 Players per group at the end of this Online Preliminary Phase will advance to the subsequent Qualifying Phase. All others Players in the Online Preliminary Phase will be considered eliminated from the Tournament at the conclusion of this phase.

Players must use the communication tools available through the Alienware Arena control panel to negotiate their exact Match time, which can be any day and time as long as it is completed prior to the deadline day. Only communication through the website will be considered genuine and accepted by tournament Officials.

In the Online Preliminary Phase, Matches do not necessarily have to be completed in order. In other words, Players may complete their Match 4 prior to their Match 3. Each match will consist of a single map session only (in other words, not best-of-three).

Match 1 Deadline: Thursday, September 9 - Blistering Sands, default: 9 p.m. Central Time
Match 2 Deadline: Thursday, September 9 - Blistering Sands: 10 p.m. Central Time

Match 3 Deadline: Monday, September 13 - Desert Oasis, default: 9 p.m. Central Time
Match 4 Deadline: Monday, September 13 - Desert Oasis, default: 10 p.m. Central Time

Match 5 Deadline: Thursday, September 16 - Kulas Ravine, default: 9 p.m. Central Time
Match 6 Deadline: Thursday, September 16 - Kulas Ravine, default: 10 p.m. Central Time

Match 7 Deadline: Monday, September 20 - Lost Temple, default: 9 p.m. Central Time
Match 8 Deadline: Monday, September 20 - Lost Temple, default: 10 p.m. Central Time

Match 9 Deadline: Thursday, September 23 - Metalopolis, default: 9 p.m. Central Time
Match 10 Deadline: Thursday, September 23 - Metalopolis, default: 10 p.m. Central Time

Match 11 Deadline: Monday, September 27 - Steppes of War, default: 9 p.m. Central Time
Match 12 Deadline: Monday, September 27 - Steppes of War, default: 10 p.m. Central Time

GL HF ARSCLAN FIGHTING

Hello Everybody! (wtf, post icons?)

roxxor — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:36:54 GMT

It's been a while, and I have come out of hibernation -so much has changed... post icons... I remember when this site was a dial-up BBS hosted out of Fuzz' young, yet flourishing gnomish beard... and Kamidake never left his chair due to some sort of hand-glue-no-no-uh-oh accident. Damn it took a while to get that chair apart.

Anyway, I apologize for my sabbatical to the cold and harsh world of trees and mountains and Twizzlers, I should have not strayed so far. You know I love you ArsC. I didn't mean to hurt you baby, let me make it up to you...

Especially for all of you who were looking forward to me showing at JRX *ahemBCNrhamnf* and I got held up with work, I am sorry. I've missed you guys.

Yes, I am older (not as old as Ronin of course)
Yes, I am balder (I think Starbuck's balls may have me beat)
Yes, I am beardier than ever (yeah, now who's laughing?)

BigCommieNat - BABAH! Babah loves j00. Oh, and babah's babah had a babah, and babah wanted babah to tell babah, "BABAH!" (everyone else, disregard, I wanted to show some Commie <3; you can deal) Oh yes, and I don't care what anybody says about you, you're still my hetero-life-mate. I saw him first; back off bitches.

Fuzz - you're totally a dad. I just wish the baby was born with as big a beard as you have. But I still love you regardless, and I miss our little chats. We should schedule more of them. (Yes, one would equivocate to more than none, let's do this.)

Zapgun - Dude. DUDE! We need to get drunk on vodka and have a boken vs. kitana fight again. It was fun, dangerous, and possibly irresponsible. Read: It was really fscking fun! (If we can convince Fuzz and BCN

Redneck - you'll always be my first bitch. Before you, I never had a bitch before. It was a beautiful learning experience for us both. But somehow you're still getting your feet stuck in places they don't belong... Have you introduced the lady to the laptop position?

Oh yeah, and to all the louivillians of the ArsC persuasion - I will be frequenting lulzville quite often, and may possibly move there next year to ease my work commute from Cincinnati every week, so (AmishJosh) this means you guys - I want to meet for beer a la Cumberland Brews, or BBC, but please let's not do 4th street unless we can take JohnnyAce with and show the rest how it's done.

There are just too many people I should say what's up to in here, and a lot has gone on since I last left the foray. So How's everybody been? And to those of you who don't know me - what it be?

Hello all. New RTSer old Arsclanner checking in.

Nuncio — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:06:49 GMT

Hey everyone, just thought I would make a thread and introduce myself to the Starcraft 2 community. You can always count on ArsClan to have a solid group of players no matter what the game you are playing :).

I might have played with some of you in Counter Strike, or WoW, or TF2, or L4D2. Anyway, I just brought Starcraft 2 a few weeks ago as basically my first RTS (did the campaign in War3). It has been quite a shift from the other games I am experienced with, but so far I've been having a good time. I spent the first week playing through the campaign, which I enjoyed. Then I moved on to multi-player.

I did my placement matches right off the bat with no practice league, figuring it would be better to just get an accurate ranking and work my way up from there. I went 1-5 and placed low in Bronze. I started off losing 80-90% of my games as I learned all the different ways you can get stomped and how to make a wall at your entrance :P. Since then I have been working on improving things and have started to get a decent build order and strategies down. I am getting better about having a solid economy and trying to work on harassing more early while keeping my macro going.

At this point I have learned a lot and been able to turn things around, probably winning 80%-90% of my games right now, sitting on 788 points in Bronze league. I seemed to mostly matched against high level silver and low level gold players, but the system hasn't wanted to promote me yet. Here is my profile http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/1397531/1/Nuncio/. If anyone is looking to do some practice games with a low / mid level player drop me a line :), username Nuncio, code 619. Nice meeting everyone, look forward to playing some games and getting some good tips.

Thanks,
Nuncio

In Bronze, trends are emerging

mykungfuisgood — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:33:04 GMT

Quote:

Originally Posted by mykungfuisgood

Hey guys found this post on TL.net. Pretty interesting read. [source]

I am not a great player, but enjoy the game, cruising around the top-5 in my bronze division with about 90 games played.

I have noticed certain trends and patterns.

First of all, let me say that the majority of my match ups are against top bronze players with 150+ games. Most of them have twice as many games as me, and while they must have some flaws in their game and have not advanced to silver (or were demoted), they are good at certain things.

In general, the level of play has increased from a month ago. I could rush-bust 60% of people at release, now everyone has figured out how to defend a rush. I am also starting to see some semi-competent harass and micro. Unfortunately I am not playing as much so I am stuck behind the wall of 150+ game bronze players with competent macro.

One of the things I have noticed is that most players of a certain race play particular maps the same way. What I mean is that if I match against a Terran on Lost Temple, it is guaranteed to be a siege fest. (I am terran too) Defensive play rewards on this map. Just get enough ground forces to repel the first attack, line the ridge with tanks, and then mass air and expand.

What I mean is that rather than scouting, responding, and attacking, people have figured out how to defend a certain map, and utilize the same "play". Im just not seeing the same variety I used to see.

I have also found that 10 times out of 10, on Scrap Station, zerg will wall with spine crawlers and then mass mutas. My goal is to scout and make sure they are not massing lings/roaches and attempt to rush with MM before they get the SCs up.

Rather than developing good "skills", I have noticed that people are starting to customize their play to the map they are on. There is very little scouting, just defensive builds that have a good chance of success on a particular map.

In general, most players at this level are turtles. Zerg, Protoss, and Terran alike. I dont see development in response to certain units, most just wall up, mass BCs, Ultras, or Carriers/Void Rays, when given the chance, and then wait for their opponent to push.

This creates a problem for me as a player who likes to rush, sieze an advantage and then keep pushing. It seems that the game is now more about macro and patience, no one is willing to take any risks, just mass a big blob and wait.

I really hate the fact that games are taking longer.

There isnt much cheese at top of bronze. I play custom games and see it all the time from platinum and diamond players. All the time.

The game seems to be resolving into a simple decision matrix.

If I am TvP on map X, then I open with Y, because I know they are likely to play Z.
....
....
and so on.

I see it play out the same in 90% of games.

But there really isnt much improvisation going on in the mid-game. They just mass as much shit as they can, hope for an economic advantage. I try to figure out ways to fubar their expansions, but attacking and macroing is harder than turtling and macroing.

Mumble Server (Please Test)

mcdermos — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:04:38 GMT

After some recommendations i've set up a temporary Mumble server to test to see if its any better than our current Vent server.

Quote:

Mumble is an open source, low-latency, high quality voice chat software primarily intended for use while gaming.

More info and the client here

Some of the features include positional audio ( supported games ), automated normalization, supposedly a better overlay compared to vent, etc etc

So please would people try this out

Connect Info

Click here if you have Mumble installed

IP: 64.34.202.140
Port: 3437

The server is based in virginia.

I've just setup a few public channels and 1 test channel that requires a token to enter. If anyone wants some private channels or rights to make some, get in touch with me.

If people arent interested I can just let it expire after the initial 3 months as it wasnt expensive at all.

The status of Arsclan's competitive side.

Sauce — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:36:55 GMT

So as many of you know, after Arsleague season 4 I became quite enthralled with competitive tf2. I had made a post about forming a 6's team here on the main tf2 forum.

I had very little luck with that, as most of the people that were interested in making/being on a 6's team had that already figured out. I branched out, and tried to look for a team on various other forums, like gotfrag.

However, after I realized the unbelievable ridiculousness of the gotfrag community, I quickly realized that while there may be a ton of awesome people interested in competitive tf2, there were also a lot of douche bags.

So then, I sort of treated competitive tf2 the same way I treat public tf2. I just didn't want to join some random team with a bunch of scrubs that I didn't know, or have any affiliation with. Where countless other communities are a cesspool of scrubs, Ars seems to be the opposite. There are very few people that are a member of this community that I simply dislike, and most importantly trolls are just NOT tolerated. That makes respecting the people around here a whole lot easier, let me tell you.

Anyways, I was a little late to the game. When this most recent season of TWL/CEVO/ESEA started I was just getting into the 6's game. I had 100-200 lobbies under my belt and thought I was ready to be on a real team. Maybe I was, I dunno.

Either way, I've had quite a few offers these last few weeks from different low - mid teams to join, and I just don't want to. Usually, I just know 1 of the people on the team, probably through tf2lobby, and I just don't care to join a team of people I don't know at all.

This got me thinking about Ars again. With the most recent season now over, I am curious as to what the Ars competitive tf2 community is planning for next season. Specifically, 2+2=5, LGND's/abunchofothernames, NLS. I do not seek to join these teams particularly, but I am curious as to what is going on with the players that are on these teams. Are you continuing on? Doing next season? Looking to go out and seek new oppurtunities?

Whats up?

Announcement: TF2 Admin Changes!

turb0z — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:56:36 GMT

Starting today, your Admin team is changing up quite a bit. We've had some people leave the team by choice, others not so much, but there are lots of new names that are on the list. The goal here is to provide a list of admins who are more active on our servers that can provide the support everyone needs instead of having to search your friends list or hop on IRC.

I'm treating this as an announcement only, which is why you see this thread is locked. Feel free to welcome all the new admins on the server and let me know if you have any questions!

Check out the complete list here: http://arsclan.net/forum/showthread.php?t=22985

-b0z