Gmod

Open Thread

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So far I’ve just been taking it easy. On my first day I slept in quite a bit which I didn’t want to, but I was more tired than I realized. I’ve had to fix the TF2 servers then test them along with the Gmod ones. Spent a good amount of time on some of them today with Yutram. We destroyed n00bs and then chillax’d in the cinema watching some YouTube.

The next thing I should take care of should be the TF2 MOTD’s so that they point to the group page. Our group has expanded quite a bit since I’ve had the group page appear on each server’s message of the day.

We haven’t started working on the new hardware yet but will soon. We’re waiting for a couple RAID cards for additional storage, once those arrive we’ll be ready to install CentOS 7 and get to work adding all the servers to the new setup. Maybe even some new servers since I have plans for a few more.

In the process of gathering more footage

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I have some more gmod funtime footage to go over at a later date. I’d like to start filming some other stuff too as I feel like I’ve been uploading too much gmod in general. But it’s just too much fun with friends. 😛 I did try to capture some TF2 MvM footage but nothing noteworthy happened.

And now for an overdue post

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Been playing more gmod lately with friends. I recently installed the stargate pack on my sandbox server and we’ve been having a blast. I’ve recorded quite a bit of it, just need to go through the footage at a later date.

I’ve also been paying attention to the latest tech news. Like how Unity, Unreal and even Source 2 are going to be free (some of them within reason). Makes me wonder what games will be produced in the near future.

I’ll write more later (threat intended). I need to get some sleep for work.

Contemplating a revival of Comedy Night

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Once upon a time in the Myst/Uru community my group The Guild Of Slackers had a community thing called Comedy Night. In those days The Guild Of Comedy would dress up as the comedians and perform on a stage in the Guild Of Comedy Neighborhood (or The Blue Neighborhood if the act was rated 18+) and the person presenting the comedy audio would dress as the comedian. It stopped gaining interest during the first run of Myst Online. I’ve been stewing on this for well over a month now. I want to revive it, but not in MOULa.

Why? I’ve been in there a few times, and between the forums and the people who play in game themselves I doubt there would be much interest. That and quite a few people these days including myself are annoyed with the ancient voice chat system. We could stream it on a shoutcast server but it wouldn’t be as immersive, plus there would be those old sticks in the mud who refuse to listen to streams because you know… An audio feature from the early turn of the century is sooooo much more immersive than Speex or Opus codecs that are used in modern voice chat programs like Mumble, Vent, etc.

So where would I want to hold this? In the Garry’s Mod cinema gamemode.

steamworkshop_webupload_previewfile_118824086_preview

I’ve been watching my server for awhile now, and people have been gathering in there to watch all sorts of things. Sometimes it’s some pretty stupid stuff, but I’ve seen some people come in and have anime marathons (the latest one was a Deadman Wonderland), dance parties and one of my regulars held a movie night! So why not have a comedy night? There are lots of full comedy videos on YouTube, and YouTube is supported in the gamemode.

Of course you would have to own a copy of gmod to get on the server, but the map that we use doesn’t require any assets from other source games. At the very least they would need to have the cinema map and gamemode, and optionally download any playermodels they would want from our workshop collection. Then bam. Comedy Night in a nutshell. I don’t expect people to buy the game JUST to join in on this. But for now this seems like the best way to hold an event.

Due to my work schedule it won’t always be on the same day and might not even happen every week. But once I can get people to agree on one solid day and time we can have a few laughs.

Saturday was impromptu anime night with strangers

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I got off work and like the good server owner that I am I checked my statistics. I played a bit of TF2, then headed to the cinema where I saw 4 people on. Two were in different theaters. The first one I went into was nothing but derp videos with deliberately horrid audio quality, the kind where you swear you’re going to go deaf. I decided to check out the other theater where it was just two guys watching anime. For some reason they thought it was cool that I was a server owner who happened to know what anime was, and didn’t turn out to be an annoying 12 year old there to dick around with them via admin controls. Apparently that isn’t normal? Anyways I sat down with them and enjoyed some anime via YouTube. I can’t remember the title of one we were watching, but it was pretty fun. It had explosions and swords. :O

I’m loving this gamemode more and more. 😀

Lets close this year up with games I’ve actually finished. O_o

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I figured I would do something different as an end of the year blog post. I’m going to talk about games that I’ve finished this year. Yes! Out of all the games I have there are actually some titles I can honestly say that I’ve finished!

bioshock_infinite_2

This was up there in terms of games that I could not put down at all. Every night when I got home I HAD to get further into this game. I was captivated by not only the beautiful graphics and the extremely pancake thin french fries. But also the characters and their roles in how everything played out. I kept wanting to find out more about Elizabeth, Booker and those creepy twins that followed me around.

twins

Seriously I almost expected them to appear in some random hallway, saying “Come play with us Booker, forever and ever and ever and ev…”. Yeah… That game was one hell of a circle jerk. But I loved every moment of it. I still need to play the rest of Burial At Sea Part 2 though… and finish the other BioShock games. 😛

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I finished this game as a siren, and now I’m replaying it as a mechromancer. I had a hard time getting into Borderlands 1, but that might have been because I had no one to really play with. Plus gamespy always pissed me off (but with it being steamworks now I’ll have to reconsider). I loved the writing behind Borderlands 2, all the characters were amazing and there were even moments that had me busting my gut from laughter. I think Handsome Jack has to be one of the best villains ever created! And the whole storyline was an absolute pleasure to get wrapped up in, and even more fun to play with friends and family. I intend to play all the other classes too. Still need to tackle the DLC for those, but now that the steam sale has arrived, and I’ve been passing around DLC left and right. I think I’ll be able to get around to that. I imagine by the time I play through all the classes AND finish Borderlands GOTY, Borderlands the PreSequel will be cheap enough to snatch up. 😛

Jazzpunk

I don’t have much to say about Jazzpunk because really, it speaks for itself. I’d say it’s really up there with The Stanley Parable in terms of uniqueness. It’s so abstract, nonsensical and filled with the kind of humor that you would expect from Get Smart or The Naked Gun Movies. You never really know what you’re going to encounter next in Jazzpunk. One minute you’re standing in the middle of a beach, the next you’re playing Wedding Qake, or fighting some honda.

And last but not least…

MGR

When I first saw this appear on Steam back in the winter of 2013 for pre-order I was surprised that a Metal Gear title of any kind graced the PC master race. I was aware of the fact that this release had no Snake or Big Boss… But that didn’t stop me from getting it. At the time I didn’t really know who Raiden was or where he fit into the Metal Gear universe since I never played MGS2, so I was willing to give the game a fair shake. In all honesty I liked the game a lot more than expected. Don’t get me wrong, at first it was hard for me to really get into. Not because of the lack of it being a Metal Gear Solid game, but because it was a bit hard to learn for me even on easy. But after a few bad days of work and wanting to slash through the world in anger I got a nice taste for the game as well as properly practicing the controls. Plus when this video was shared with me I suddenly had the desire to continue playing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JA5uw4d-Y4

It was fun. I look forward to seeing more Metal Gear titles appear on PC, and I wouldn’t mind seeing all the older ones ported over as well, and maybe even a sequel to this one. 😛

Well, that’s it for 2014. Lets see what the new year has for us, regarding gaming, technology, and real life matters. I look forward a happy, better, newer year.