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MForce83

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Activision mapathy... AKA, a failure in PR


Just got some info on the MW2 mappack.  go check the link, i'll wait... 
 
Ok, now that everyone is up to speed, there are a few things that reek of cashing in.   
 
The only map pack for COD4 was 800 ms points for only 4 maps.  200 points per map, or in real world dollars, $2.50 each.  this new pack is 1200 points for 5 maps, 240 per map, $3 each.  of these maps, 2 are complete rehashes of COD4 maps, namely Overgrown and Crash. 
 
Now, i can't say anything about WaW map packs other than they were 800 points per pack, never cared to get them so anyone who has got these packs send some info my way and i will update this post. 
 
What made Activision decide that Crash and Overgrown were the 2 maps the community wanted most?  Personally, i would have prefered Wetworks and Shipment but thats bside the point.  Was there a poll conducted by IW on which maps to bring back, a ballance in maps issue, or the random thought that hey, we will say old maps will sell, regardless of which ones we use?  if there was a poll, send link...  If not, there is a disconnect in the company. 
 
I don't want to waste $15 on five maps, 2 i could easily play by popping in COD4.  So what other insentive do i have buying this pack.  Are there more single player maps to play?  No(not suprising since this is a mostly Multi Player game).  Spec Ops?  No(this one is suprising, Treyarch had some sense to always have a zombie map in their map packs).  so, what we get are just what is 5 maps for multi. 
 
The other thing of note is PC and PS3, if following current trends, will get these maps for free.  not a good day for a 360 MW2 fan.  So i ask everyone here, will you buy this pack?  Unless there is more meat on this personally, i will just let Bad Company 2 give me their 2 maps for free.
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The Art of the Merc in Multiplayer FPS


Mercing: the ability to utterly pwn noobs with the tools at your disposal.  In order to be a total pro, one must embrace the ideas that inhibit proper mercing.  This term derives from the word Merc. short hand for Mercinary, the pop culture icon that can plow through opponents while taking pay from the highest bidder. 
 
In my gaming adventures, i have come across a universal truth, gamers are divided into four groups when it comes to gaming, nOOb, Intermediate, Casual, and Pro.  for the sake of this article, casual gamers are not the target so they wil not be referenced.  This is for people who wish to play competativly. 
 
What seperates these groups when it comes to multiplayer? 
 
nOOb: these people mostly whine about imbalance and wants to "play fair"  what is imbalanced?  whatever mercs them.  These people do not understand the Meta of the game and will try to play honorably, whatever that means.  most of all, they will not adapt.  even someone who has the controll scheme imbedded in their hands can be a nOOb.   Also, noobs are notorious for trying to rack up kills withought the thought of other objectives, which is fine with deathmatch style games but will hamper other team based games.  i would put grievers and hackers into this catagory too since they are 1: detrimental to the team and 2: cant play within the set or intended rules of the game.
 
Intermediate:  these people grasp the fundamentals of Meta, they understand that in order for one to win, there must be a co operative effort for the team based games.  most of these people understand that 1: a main key to winning is communication, 2: avoid needless death but if what they do helps their team, to do it, 3: find out what other players are playing (Meta) and incorporate these characteristics into their tactics.  Anyone who starts using "flavor of the month" tactics would be considered intermediate. 
 
Pro: These guys are a well oiled machine, they don't follow "flavor of the month" setups, they make em.  they see what the compatiton is using and they adapt on the fly.  While intermediates will stick to the vanilla build to be safe, pros will create new builds to counter the current trend. they realize that the team and the objective is key to winning and will do whatever it takes, other than cheating, to win.  alot of noobs will get pissed because of some of the tactics pro's employ but my word to noobs who can't grasp the idea of using a noob tube, taking an objective, or coming up with something that can overpower most other builds is "Evolve or die, now STFU". 
 
now, what is Meta? 
 
Meta: the metagame, all of the stats and how they are used to be a better player.  in FPS multiplayer, a pro realizes something is overpowering, or can be made overpowering, and uses it to win, an intermediate will see and will immitate to get into a better position, a nOOb will bitch cuz he cant figure out why he has to wait for five seconds afer his pathetic 10 seconds of life are over. 
 
The Team: it should be obvious that besides free for all, you are on a team.  there is no lone wolf except for the one that is in my crosshairs, *boom* headshot.  what was i saying???  Oh, in team games, lone wolfs usually get killed pretty quick by a compitant team, use the mic and let others know if you are checking something out.  if you die, at least the team knows that there is enemies in the area you checked.  lone wolfs should not be confused with meat puppet.  The job of the meat puppet is to get filled with holes so the rest of the team can tri-angulate where the shots are comning from.  too many times i have focused on killing a meat puppet only to get some cranial ventilation from a sniper.  if you got pwned by an uber team and their lowest player is worse than your lowest player...  he was the meat puppet and by killing him, you gave your team away, congradulations. 
Assault usually is a team that has four peple or more moving at the same time near each other, they command more guns in an area than one person and will mop the floor with lone wolves.  they can handle sniper fire and meat puppets fairly compitantly, maybe a casualty or two on their end, but their team will regroup as soon as possible.  their only weakness is explosives.  and people wonder why the noob tube is used alot?  anti infantry, if you use the tube or whatever else that explodes on this group, it's not cheap, it's war. 
Sniper: your eyes and ears, will pick off enemies with one shot, use the teritory to blend in, and piss people off.  it's like where's waldo, with waldo able to pick you off from the other end of the map.  to take out these guys, you might have to send the puppet out and wait for the bullet to hit him to trianguilate where this guy is firing.  if you get lucky n find one on patroll, savor the moment, shank him, then teabag him for being stupid enough to be found. 
Medic:  if you are in a game that has some kind of medic class, be nice to these guys, they will save your ass more often then you can count.  only problem, medics are alergic to sniper bullets and are usually the first to be picked off, treat your medic right n protect him and he will revive you when the dust settles. 
Pyro: anything that burns or goes boom turns this guy on.  assault teams hate him.  main job of pyro(or demolitions) is to take out enemies en masse using the power of explosives.  He is usually the second one snipers pick off after the medic rolled his last band aid.  also, while they can deal massive splash damage, they take forever to reload.  send out the puppet to eat his first tube and turn him into swiss cheese when he is reloading (or out of ammo, even better). 
long story short, adapt to your team and you will see an increase in wins.  and use the mic. 
 
i could go on with this but right now, im itching to merc some noobs on MW2 or BC2.  if anyone would like to contribute to the Art of Mercing, send some ideas through the comments.  we must all strive to evolve if we want to win and if you want to merc with me, ACE8 MForce83 on the box, just please use the mic, it's not only imparative to communicate to win, it's boring if no one else is talking.  And don't be one of   thouse guys (http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/mforce83/thouse-guys/30-26759/.)
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Batman, CoD 4, and GuildWars

Batman, where to begin... 
 
Definately a love letter to the fans of the comic, i won't repeat anything except that it is GotY worthy.  
 
Now, building up to the new Modern Warfare release, i have been in touch with my cousin trying to get our old clan, Ace8 back up and running for the Modern Warfare 2 release, if anyone would like to join in a few skirmishes sometime, just keep in mind we are politically incorrect, you have been warned. 
 
Guild Wars: another vice that can be fun.  i wonder if there would be anyway to put the Guild Wars title tracks on Giant Bomb.  Some more awards to show my lack of this thing they call a life. 
 
Now to get ready for work.  will be on later tonight for some CoD4

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"Thouse" Achievments

These are the achievments that should have been put in the what were they thinking category.  Here it is, the top five achievments/trophies that are just  frusterating, idiotic, and should not have been put in games.

Riddick: win 1000 matches.  Basic math, let's say the shortest a match can go for is five minutes, game mode, team deathmatch.  5 minutes/match * 1000 matches = 5000 minutes, with a probability of 2:1 of winning the match, if a person is smoking hot, they should clock it in in 5000 minutes, right?  No.

You see, Riddick also has a way of rebalancing teams too, the match goes great, your moping up the other side when suddenly people drop because they hate being pwned.  The game decides that since you were the uber pwner that you should go on the other team to even everything out when your 3/4ths of the way done through the match.  no chance of winning even though the majority of the other teams points came from you.  Right there i just said F*** it and put Riddick on the back burner.

GTAIV: Pidgeons.  200 pidgeons that you have to kill around liberty city, with just a little cash and an achievment to show.  Not as bad as Riddick but i don't want to waste time looking for things unless there is a massive weapon at the end of the sidequest.  I blame Zelda: Orcarina for this, the Gold Skultullas formed the bases of hidden packages, intel, pidgeons, and other find the crap side missions that we find today.

Ninja Gaiden II: Replay game with x weapon.  As much as i love Ryu Hyabusa, i just don't see playing a game over and over with a diferent weapon each time when there are other games i would like to play. 

Multiple Games: The viral tag achievment.  You have seen this one before, kill someone with this achievment to unlock this achievment.  at the begining of a game's life, this achievment is ok, but later, if you don't have it, you haven't played multiplayer yet.

Fable 2 Pub Games: Sync with player in Fable 2, 0 gs.  An achievment... with no points associated... Based on an arcade game where if you got it, chances are you would be getting Fable 2 anyways...  This is the anti-riddick here, where there is no work and no reward.

What I would like to say is Achievments and Trophies should be based on mostly skill and not wasting time.  Sides, who want's to win more than 1000 matches in any game other than CoD4.  On the other hand, make the achievments mean something too.  There is a fine line between skill and monotony.

Now, if you excuse me, I need to play some Contra. 

-NOTE-
Most of these achievments are on an xbox 360 perspective since i do not own a PS3. 

-EDIT-
Looks like i'm not the only person upset with the pidgeons in GTAIV, strongschwarts also has a similar rant on his blog, here's the link
http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/strongschwartz/achievement-unlocked-nothing-else-nothing-else/30-26852/

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"Thouse" guys...

Ever made a friend on X360 or any of the friends list variations only to find out he was one of thouse guys?  I have had some of them as friends, online and off, that really got under my skinter i found out who they were.  Probably preatching to the choior here but let me break down some personae that reallnder my nerves.

#1: Person hates multiplayer because of the smack talking teeny tots.
  -Buddy of mine in real life, doesn't like playing Multi-Player CoD4 (wierd, i know) because of the smack talk of the whiny teeny tots.  This is one of thouse things where maybe i would like him to help out our team or just a friendly match.  If you dictate that you don't like something because of other people's etiquite, don't wreck it for everyone else.  Also, there is now a thing called party chat on X360 ast friends use Ventrillo instead of game chat so they don't have to listen to the teeny tots so all i can say to them is quit being a noob.

#2: Elitest SOB
  - A guy i became friends with in playing Riddick, found out he was thouse guys who would mock others for their taste in games if they didn't like said game.  Game in question, Bionic Commando next gen.  Now you may not like the games i play but please do not tell me that a gaim i enjoy was a waste of $60 over and over...

#3: Fanboy trolling
  - Same guy as in #2, I got on playing the box early in the eavning when i see a mass message from him saying that he was going to sexbpx for a PS3 since the people on xbox suck and PS3 is better.  if you have to act like this, i don't care if you are unsatisfied with said console, STFU and get off it if your hurt so bad. 

#4: Teamkillers
  -CoD4, Hardcore Search and destroy, that guy who picks the RPG and mercs the whole team at the starting point.  Its bad enough having only one life at the start of each
round and have to worry about this SOB.  

   This all stems from a lack of online etiquite, of these guys have one thing in common, they will wreck the fun of others when they play, grievers in the biggest sence.  there will always be people out there which will bug you to no end.  I will admit, iuman nature to be one of thouse guys sometime, i'm guilty of it myself but most people try not to be an unlikeable SOB.  The only way to stay way from these guys is to constantly monitor who you play with and make list changes as necissary.

  If you have any other personalities i might have missed, send it off in the comments. 

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