Tomcat_

Agreed, and thank you for posting this. Shpetim is toxic. He's really the only memorable player who is seemingly allowed to get away with being a complete dick almost all the time because 1) he's skilled and people want to be on their team, 2) he's been in the community for a long time, and 3) some people get a kick out of it. He will go through phases where he gets called out, starts behaving for a while, then resumes the problematic behavior. It will happen now. Nothing will be done about it. Players who are done with the DDoS's and toxicity will move on to other games. Sniper Monkey aka Intenso aka Tomcat aka other smurfs I don't remember

Wrong vid? The harvy emp bug is unrelated to the grenade UI issues.

30-40 players were 1-day banned from the CT server today at once after a game of Lakeside for "glitching." Lolz aside, it's presumably an admin/mod fuckup, and presumably will be fixed. Thought I'd post in case any other players were still mystified or concerned.

During a game on XMountain, a beacon was placed on top of the rocks between the strip and the ref, and both structures (each at 100%) were destroyed by a single ion strike. Lack of Nod attention/defusers and strategic C4 aside, this obviously shouldn't be possible via map design, so I thought I'd post about it since I couldn't find any mention of it after searching. @kenz3001

It occurred to me that the Nod color scheme of black on red is pretty suggestive and may be mistaken by others for identifying with certain supremacist groups, so I ordered another patch in more subdued yet familiar colors. I think I like this one better! Certainly more appropriate for wearing in public, anyway.

We've all been there: when the combined frustrations of a match simply become too much, and we rage-quit. This post is meant to help others understand the mental processes surrounding the rage-quit and know how to alleviate the resulting negative emotions. Before getting into the meat of this post, I'd like to define two important terms: brain vs. mind. When I refer to "your brain," I refer to the part of your head that interprets and processes things in an unconscious, instinctual and calculating way. When I refer to "your mind" or "you," I refer to the part of you that has cognition, an internal voice and an ability to think and use logic. So you've rage-quit, and now the source of anger and frustration is gone, but those feelings are still there. You're still shaking, fuming, even though you know it's just a game. So why do you still feel so shitty? Your brain will interpret video games as competitive tasks. When you are repeatedly beaten down despite your best efforts, your brain interprets this as failure to complete tasks, as a failure to achieve, and as a failure to meet standards you've unintentionally set for yourself (or for your team). Even though your mind can make the distinction between failure in a game and failure in real life, your brain doesn't know the difference. Your brain will process perceived failures into negative emotions that manifest in your mind as anger and frustration, which can climax with a rage-quit. These feelings tend to linger afterwards, making you irritable and irrational. So how can you prevent or minimize the lingering negativity? You can't control your brain, but you can influence it. The best way to alleviate negativity after a rage-quit is to make yourself feel like you've accomplished something. If you force your brain to process accomplishment rather than failure, you will quickly feel better. I rage-quit pretty hard this morning. I felt like trash, and wanted to put my mind to other things. I made breakfast, took care of my recycling, handled some important phonecalls, went for a swim, took a shower, and then wrote this out, in that order. Sometime in the middle of all that, I realized how quickly I got over the nonsense from this morning, and why. It was because I'd avoided nonproductive, escapist activities like TV and meme-browsing; instead I'd focused on returning a sense of accomplishment through a succession of small "victories," as mundane as they may seem. So when you get pissed off at RenX (as one does), by all means, rage-quit. Then do something productive! Exercise, cook, clean, rotate your tires... not only will you feel better, you'll be rewarded with the fruit of your labors, and you'll have transmuted something negative into something positive.

Not sure if something's up with my settings, but I can only see the rain on Mesa if I look up (rain only renders on visible parts of the sky).

Ordered one of these sick Nod patches and just got it in the mail... no cheapo mass-produced circle with Tiberium Wars/Twilight logo... this is the real deal. TD/TS-era Nod patch! Not sure about advertising direct links to external websites so if you want to know where I got it, send me a PM and I'll send you a link and details (they have GDI patches too, but they use the TS-era logo) There are a few excess threads here and there, but it is an easy fix with scissors. I intend to sew it on the shoulder of a beige heavyweight denim jacket. Peace through power!

Yeah, I complain and bitch sometimes, I think everyone does. I define that on the same level as the occasional outbursts I discussed in the OP. Nobody's above that, certainly not myself, that was part of my point. But I wouldn't call it toxic. I didn't stick around, go on and on about it, or harass people or blow up the chat with abusive crap. I made my grievance known and then left shortly after the game's conclusion. If you ask me, the chat on that game of Complex was nothing compared to what happened on Crashsite, Under, and Field today. If you think "idiot team" is toxic enough to turn new players away, the stuff people were saying today would be enough to turn old players away, and it did. It was beyond ridiculous.

I'm not talking about tongue-in-cheek ribbing or occasional outbursts, like calling someone a camper, a noob, a little bitch, even a cunt or whatever. That's fairly typical and easy to look past. It's momentary and not very harmful. It is expected in pretty much any multiplayer FPS. Even small arguments are inevitable and that's ok. I am talking about the unfortunate presence of real toxicity within RenX. I'm talking about players who launch into 20, 30 minute tirades about Player X for using tactics they don't like, or for "cheating," or for seemingly no reason at all. Using offensive statements over, and over, and over, and over again, well in excess of the situations I described above. Sometimes using unnecessarily abrasive words like faggot and nigger. Finding it necessary to make remarks every time they die or kill the player who is the subject of their ire. Changing their in-game name to provoke a response. General griefing or team hampering and being abusive to others. Others will comment, either in confusion, in annoyance, or in defense of Player X which prompts the toxic player(s) to target them as well. Disconcertingly, some comment in favor of the toxic player(s). All of this breeds frustration, anger, and disappointment that causes people to leave or succumb to the toxicity themselves, creating additional conflict through a vitriolic chain reaction. In another case, someone suggested that Player Y is female, creating a flood of commentary. Some players acted in an appreciable tongue-in-cheek way, some made cringeworthy statements, some were misogynistic at worst, and some danced a questionable line between the three. Looking at the chat, I had to wonder, what the fuck am I reading? It's the sort of stuff I expect in Call of Duty, even Battlefield, but not Renegade X; the reason being that I assumed Renegade X's playerbase is in their 20s to 30s, since many regulars have played since the original Renegade or shortly after its release. Some of these things are easier to ignore than others. It's hard to ignore certain things that happen in-game, and that includes player dialogue. Muting players is not a favorable solution because you can potentially miss out on messages relevant to the game, especially in teamchat. Votekick doesn't accomplish anything, because toxic players will simply hop back in and make a big stink about getting kicked. Mod presence is lacking, indifferent, or ineffectual. This kind of toxicity doesn't always happen, but I think it happens frequently enough to be a problem worth discussion, and it deserves a call to action. I believe there's too much tolerance for toxic players. There needs to either be a push by the community and the mods/admins to seriously discourage this kind of behavior, or introduce a 1hr voteban system, or preferably both. Boot the toxic player before the server gets sick, and keep them booted.

I've always been particularly fond of the TD-era Temple's design and was excited about this project. I was eager to see your continuing progress, but at the end of the day, it's your decision whether or not you'd like to share it with us. Even if you just wanted to treat it as a personal art project rather than something to be publicly released, I would've been happy with that. (Not that it matters what I think!) It can stand alone as the most solid reproduction of the Temple of Nod to-date and that's a big accomplishment. Huge props for that, Veyron!

Maps that involve tiberium wildlife or red zones like the Genesis Pit would be very, very interesting. Lots of potential for unique gameplay elements and environments beyond the typical forest, desert, or tundra. Red zones are nearly alien worlds, after all... you could have a lot of funky things going on, like platforming/jumping sections, bouncy/slippery/sticky terrain, etc. Sporadic waves of tiberium wildlife could threaten both bases and bring a welcome PVE element to RenX.

I don't have any problems with identifying friendlies vs. foes other than with stolen vehicles. I find that it's generally pretty obvious who's who unless you're in a shadowy area or some place with weird lighting, in which case I'd say combatant identification becomes more of an interesting gameplay element than a nuisance. The infantry in the middle screenshot look ambiguous because they're sort of far away. The fact that they're coming down the cliffside toward Nod vehicles from what appears to be the GDI infantry path should make it obvious that they're GDI. The third screenshot, though, I can clearly see that it's a Nod trooper and not GDI. Can't help you there... I have heard suggestions that it may be difficult for colorblind or near-colorblind people to tell the difference between the various muted hues of greys, yellows and greens on the infantry uniforms. I'm not suggesting you're colorblind, just bringing this up because I feel it's related. An option to increase color saturation for the colorblind would be a welcome addition. This is a feature already present in a number of multiplayer games. I recall some brief discussion about this mid-game just the other day. As for identifying stolen vehicles, I think alternate skins that activate when an opposing combatant captures it would solve the problem. Today, Jeff stole an arty on Fort and sat behind the strip for several minutes decimating everyone before he was discovered. The base was under siege at the time and it was rather chaotic, so nobody realized that the arty at the back of the base was an enemy until I happened across him after repairing the refinery. Alternate vehicle skins would look pretty fucking cool, to boot. Picturing a mammoth tank or an orca in Nod silver, or a stank in GDI gold... would be as cool as it would be visually helpful.

The Nod one looks like it was lifted straight out of the Temple windows... really fantastic work!