limsup

Yessir! Testing Corps reporting for duty! Tiberium moat, you think that this will keep us out?

Dear Doctor Anubis, I have found a few things, that you might consider worthy of looking into... http://imgur.com/a/WD7GI (sorry, since a few days, the imgur gallery preview does not load for some reasons...)

This is a Technical Service Bulletin from Try-Out http://imgur.com/a/NKx5l UPDATE Try has found the mountain range behind the bunker to be accessible for climbers. Gallery has been updated. For reasons unknown, the gallery preview is not showing... Please click on the link if you wish to proceed to the Gallery, which contains Try's screenshots and their description.

This is a Technical Service Bulletin from Try-Out "Luhrian must know that his CliffSide .zip File contains a double of the .mp4 and the .upk File in the wrong folder. It causes an Error-message, if you install this as it is... Apart from this issue, and the ones shown in the screenshots, the map is fine now."

I think we can be grateful for the developers that they published the 64-bit binaries at all. Supporting two architectures instead of one can be pretty hard work! In theory everything should work fine, but it is much more complicated than that. In one case, regarding a software system that my team developed, which has been operating at that point (32-bit) for 3 years, the Customer wanted x64 ports besides the x86 ones. In retrospect it is kind of funny, how even we ourselves have underestimated the complexity of this task... Tons of .dll issues, also with the Windows Registry, then with generating forms... What I try to say here is, that such a migration would need a significant amount of manpower and work hours from the developer's side, and is FAR from trivial. Meanwhile this present situation could still be useful as for mapping the areas that would need their attention in the future.

I wholeheartedly agree! This must not be taken lightly, and both parties must attempt to solve any interpersonal issues privately, only escalate things should that fail. Indeed! In my "article" my focus were those few people who were harassing others (and in many cases hampering their own team) on a regular, daily basis - with determination. Also I would like to thank you for kindly clarifying the specifics for us!

I sincerely believe, that @Tomcat_ has touched upon a serious issue, which while it has always existed, it was nowhere as severe as it is now. It is true, that I follow this Community only since February, but it has struck me, how much more worse this situation got since then. “Toxic” remarks are now practically constant, appearing 3-5 times per minute on a “usual” CT-Marathon evening. The persons propagating this, usually do not suffice with having shouted their remarks for *all* to hear (whether they want it or not), rather they keep reviling, insulting, slurring for *hours long*. Often foul, profane, discriminating regards to age, gender and sexual orientation these remarks are frequently quite personal. Generally this kind of foul tongue is not presentable, but in these quantities they can almost certainly disturb a significant portion of people. According to my own personal observations, these constant spam of slurs are most of the time perpetuated by the same few persons. As bad as it is if someone starts this directed “flame-campaign”, there are always 1-3 other people, who join in and further instigate the one, who started this, “enjoying the drama” more, than the game. As @Gliven remarked, these people are often very counter-productive to their own team, on numerous occasions they do more harm to their team, than to the enemy team. Actual examples I witnessed were not repairing building under attack, but fooling around it even when warned, destroying teammate’s vehicle, or obstructing MCT repairs. Generally these would exhaust the term Team Hampering. Besides this they tend to *constantly* flood the chat with their incessant bickering and hate. So perhaps someone spotted/wrote something important, but it does not reach people, because someone joined the game to typewrite 10 slurs per minute. Most of the time, these “players” cherry-pick one or two targets, whom they constantly bully in public chat, team chat, or even in private chat. They do not stop, until their victims left the game, nor do they stop after. They immediately start looking after their next target, who commit the crime of stumbling upon them. While it is true that by a *very* wide margin @poi and @jpjtyld get the most of the insults, their departure means by no way the end of these slurs. They just choose alternative targets, or if none are at hand, they foul-mouth either their own team, or the opposing and at times the entirety of players present at that moment. Another thing that I have recently noticed is (from my own perspective), is the *seemingly* decreased in-game moderator presence (when mods play in-game too, bearing witness to this first hand). I do know, that a significant portion of the staff is from North-America, and have very little time or chance to attend to a game played in the evening (by European time), but there definitely is a positive correlation between active, in-game moderator presence and a decline of hate speech, a more encompassing mod presence would be in my humble opinion be most welcome! I concur with @CampinJeff, in my humble opinion the game could benefit from his proposal. I also think that the procedure @KrypTheBear mentioned is very fair, also I wholeheartedly agree that banning should be reserved as a punishment of last resort. Still, muting someone – while in no way should it be taken lightly – could be at least a temporary remedy of some sorts… But I strongly believe, that this phenomena must be addressed some way or another, in order to uphold other player’s rights and the general civility of the game’s tone. I have difficulty in believing, that having a constant hate war in the in-game chat for hours does not disturb others too… I would kindly like to ask @Agent and @KrypTheBear, for what would the standard procedure, formality and the specifics for the filing of such a complaint be? I guess we would need some specifics such as minimal image resolution, file format, time stamp perhaps? (along with the written testimony) and exactly who we need to contact in this matter? P.s.: I apologize for this “Wall of Text”, and I sincerely thank those, who took their precious time to read it.

When I have the time, I shall update this imgur gallery with the OTHER path up here...

This is a Technical Service Bulletin from Try-Out "If i run a Server with the 64-Bit .exe, then CliffSide has no Problem... So I think that perhaps Luhrian has some issues or something is not right in his 64-Bit SDK"

That is provided, that you realize their existence / presence of course, before taking a trip to Heaven

I wonder, how many people would wait idly by for this time period to pass, instead of quitting and then re-joining...

Thank you!

What a fine Death-Match setting it would make...

Superb! Could you please post lyrics too, there is a part that I can't really make out, at 0:27 what's up with @Fffreak9999 and bananas?? I understand the rest, after " @yosh56 and @poi attacks"...

How do you mean this? Perhaps I misunderstood - you are scrapping it because you think other people would not like this to be in the game?

Genuinely forgot this was possible. Yesterday I witnessed (by chance) for the very first time, IR smoke being used to block repair beams, in order to protect the Nuke beacon. This revelation makes me feel that IR smoke's versatility is underestimated by a significant number of players... P.s.: I apologize for being off-topic!

When the update dialog, and the launcher windows closed, a Notification should have popped up, for Windows Command-line processor asking for admin rights. Did you push the "Yes" button?

Yes, thank you @Agent and @Fffreak9999 for your help, it works fine now!

Dear Jessica, Thank you for your kind answer! I only tried this about page with TheDeadlyWolf, the "About Me" tab did not show for either of us on each other's profile page at the time (we were logged in) Guess we must have missed something... Update: @DarkSn4ke can't see my "About Me" page either I understand. As this issue only presents itself during specific lighting conditions, and only on matte displays, I hardly think it would affect a wide range of people. Actually yes, I was indeed thinking about the default PowerBoard theme... While I laid the architectural designs of some web-applications (and myself not proficient in the field of web-design), I do know that a trivial-looking theme could be a tedious work to make and maintain, thus I kindly pass this opportunity to those, more attuned to web-design I just wondered, if there existed any quick, and trivial solution. Perhaps I just invert the colors in my Web browser with some accessibility setting... P.s.: In my humble opinion, the overall visual design of this site is superb, and streamlined. I like it, and the color scheme very much! Faithfully yours, Andras

I was unsure of who is tasked with the maintenance of this Forum, so I decided to ask my questions regarding the Forum itself here. (Should this be redundant, please feel free to relocate / merge it with existing topic) My first question would be: Is there any option, to set the Forum's "skin" to one with more brighter backgrounds / graphics? I have a matte display, both home & at work (plus notebook) and when external light is at higher intensity, it makes the Forum less legible for me (btw. I am using eye-glasses, but this is not a reflection-based problem for me), for the darker things appear very dim. My second question would be regarding the "About me" tab, at the personal profile page. In the beginning, I was under the impression, that if I filled that out in my profile, this would be visible for others (perhaps not anonymous users, but at least to logged-in members). I found that this is not the case. Is this some configuration mistake, that I've unwittingly made? Thank you in advance, - limsup

The following post perhaps accentuates my previous findings: Have your opinions evolved in the light of this particular case, or over the past month?

Generally speaking, indeed its true. However, unexpected infiltration, and greedy players picking up CrateNuke and taking half their team with them could turn the tides What else? Something like the TCN Nodes in C&C 4? Most insightful remark! 5. Tutorial map (a MUST!), and perhaps some scheduled PUG/like games, where more experienced players could demonstrate interactively to an audience how it is done right In-game voice chat could help a lot, I do not know if this is planned at all, or how feasible would it be to incorporate...

I sincerely think that your recent topic touches upon fundamental issues related to the overall gameplay. Generally games such as this one, have a diverse player base, with actual active player numbers fluctuating due to a variety of reasons, such as seasons (school season, summer vacation, etc.), time of day (time zones), and people’s own amount of free time. Also, like you mentioned, there are numerous „type” of players: from the first-time gamer, who downloaded this out of sheer curiosity / nostalgia, to the casual player, who plays for fun, and when he/she is in the mood, to the more dedicated people, hanging around day-long, leading up to the top 1% „monsters” (some of which were named in your topic). I think there is a need to have a debate about this particular issue, in my humble opinion, you did well, to bring this up, and have a discussion about it. But we have to note, that this is also a particularly complex problem! Since this is practically an “Indie” game, and also free-of-charge, it is exclusively made by people voluntarily, in their free time, at their own expense. It emphasizes a certain degree of open-mindedness. Players are the users of this software, and (based on my own previous software development experiences) this Game caters to the most people it is capable of, within reason. All of this said, and if I correctly assumed that I understood your point, your dispute lies with those few, albeit extremely talented players, who, even on their own, could make a disproportional amount of impact in-game. In your opening post, while not directly asking for active alterations for their preferred character classes, but you were asking for measures to “lower their attraction” for this game, practically asking to inhibit them in one way or another… Many players (including the “Killers”), have posted to this topic, offering numerous advice, that are worth considering. Nobody is immortal, no one single being is invincible. There are fruitful strategies against such threats, as some people have proved this in-game. When others spoke of “less whining”, I believe that they have meant something along the following line: many of us, Humans in general, like to win. When the tide of the battle starts to turn against us, we tend to lose composure, focus and hope. To a certain degree this in all our nature. Then we tend to make even more mistakes, finally many people, instead of adapting their tactics, and consulting with the team, give voice to their frustration and quit instead, often leaving behind a gaping hole in their team’s defense. It is practically a domino-effect, given time, a statistically significant portion of players have either left, or switched teams. This is an issue (on which I do not have any viable solution / recommendation). The most dedicated, (often most proficient) people tend to combine their forces. Why? Maybe they realize not only each other’s individual strength, but their combined strength (even) as a (small) team, with the whole, being more than the sum of its parts. By all means, if “average” people run in to one of these “Rene-Gods”, the most trivial solution would be to pool their resources, and defeat them with a combined effort. Even a “Rene-God” could only defeat a certain number of casual players, not more! With myself, being often at the receiving end of a rifle, having tried this, I definitely say, it WORKS. Perhaps it took five of us, mortals, but we DID take down a “Rene-God”. Well perhaps it is a win-win situation for both, as we pushed him to his upper limits, he was not bored, and we enjoyed the fruits of our labor But more often than not, teamwork, probably the single greatest skill there is, goes neglected by the casual gamer. From this, frustration is born. I do not presume to know a solution. But venting our frustration on that handful of players, who are among the most dedicated seems not to be a feasible solution to anything (nor being ethical). Complaints themselves are not “the root of the problem”, it is indecision, and the lack of efforts/coordination which often follow, are in my opinion the fundamental problem. Conclusion: by sufficient effort and teamwork, these few, (statistically) disrupting players can definitely be counterbalanced. (We have a saying in my country: "A flock of geese can take down a giant boar.") P.s.: I apologize to everyone for my own “Wall of Text”!

It is easier to blame personally You (first and foremost), and recently jp and NieR, for any and all grievances in the game, INSTEAD of honing one's individual skills, AND TEAM PLAY / COORDINATION.

@lawANDorder An elaborate article, recommending action versus the top 1% of "Killers" / Achievers". How refreshing to see an analytical person come by now and then Regarding this, while this post has highlighted a number of things, I still feel (despite me usually being at the bottom of the food-chain as Tech) that this ecosystem needs it's "Apex predators" too. In my humble opinion, team swapping rules should be reinspected, and perhaps revised... @j0g32 "Another more general problem could also be that with a limited player base, there is only one server that is playable - and you dont have many options to switch, if you are not happy with the current server population..." - This is a very profound observation! @DarkSn4ke "I have no clue if the j-poi-stack is back, but 2 weeks ago that stack was dead. Know why? Every time* they stacked players began to group up on them and ruined their precious K/D until one of them (or both) raged ;)" - Well they too aren't immortal per se, but there is no reason to get personal here... @lawANDorder "The effects do not only result from game mechanics but also from psychological factors like frustration of dominated players. A game that requires teamwork can't be won by a team of frustrated and angry players. That's my point. We need to mitigate the negative effects these dominating players cause. So we either take away their ability to dominate (can't imagine how this could be done) or we reduce the relevance of their actions for the affected players." - So how do you recommend "taking away the ability to dominate" of a player, who is horrendously lethal with basically everything, because it has superb aiming skill/reflexes (besides permanent ban)? Teamwork is (or at least would be) the only effective counter. @DarkSn4ke "... the less people play, the more impact exceptionally skilled players have..." - E X A C T L Y ! ! ! @sterps "It's not enjoyable to play against unevenly matched teams (skill and experience wise), which result in very short lived and unsatisfying games " - Agreed, any recommendation / specifics?