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Showing content with the highest reputation since 08/25/2013 in Articles

  1. Well, the day has finally come! 😅 If you've wondered why i've been reasonably more quiet of late and not updating a few events, my PPR, etc its mainly because whilst my own work has been extremely manic since the back end of last year, kids schools and work on the house just needed to happen now rather than later unfortunately. Every moment i did have spare though, I've stuck it into this place and tried to create something that gives you all a nice fuzzy feeling when you come to FG moving foward (even though, you really should feel that way already 😎). So, enter the room, FG Achievements. As a reminder to all, the objective of Achievements (with Medals) is to help us all interact more and have fun with each other on FG, and on Games we all play - Resulting in all of us using more/all of the fun features that FG has that you might not have even explored yet. This FG Achievements system breaks down into the following parts; Ranks, Points and Medals. Ranks Shortly today/tomorrow, you will start to see that you will have an XP bar with your profile: The more you interact with FG, the better it is for your own personal FG Rank. You'll also be able to see all the ranks and how many you've got to unlock on your own profile. As a reminder of the FG Rank Badges shared on the previous article I did in January, are below. Each one will have a specific name with them that you can find out, when they're live: Points So, how do I get to rank up, Lee? Ah, thought you might ask that 😅. Pretty much nearly everything you do to interact with FG, will gain you points. Replied to someone's post? Rack up a point. Put up a video in the Video section? Grab 10 points. Vote on a Poll....or even someone voting on your Poll? Maybe even just logging in every day will get you something...👀 Points totals aren't shown anywhere as the main objective with points is to see how you can get your next rank. You'll see from your XP Progress Bar how many points you have until your next FG Rank (see first picture above) so its a good way to know where you are in the world of FG! There is well over 200 different ways to grab points (and the following medals) so please do try and interact and get as much out of this system as you can! Medals Every loves a shiny thing don't they? Well, to aid your task to reach the top of the hill at FG, I've created an absolute shed of Medals - in fact, there is the best part of 200 Medals for everyone to try and achieve. They are broken down into two parts - FG Website and FG Games. FG Website Medals will cover off all the following activity, and beyond: Posts Topics Events Videos Polls Visits Follows Reactions PPR Guides Merch Quizzes Articles Memberships 👀 FG Games Medals will initially cover 5 of our top games played in the community, however I want more added over time so will be asking for lots of feedback...and lots of help too! Destiny 2 FIFA 22 Gran Turismo 7 7 Days to Die Valheim To help you understand what is available from a visual POV, I have created the following Infographics of all the medals so far. I will look to try and make a few more infographics along the way if people want to see what each medal gets you - I would encourage you all to take a look at people's profiles which may give you hints on how to obtain certain medals!! For Game specific ones, i'll create some form of Guide to help you all know what each one is, either in Guides or pinned in their forum section. Please remember, this is an initial launch - if we can hit the ground running and everyone is enjoying the fun out of obtaining Medals, then we will absolutely be creating more across the board for both FG and the specific games we all play Website Medals Infographics FG Games Medals Infographics PLEASE TAKE NOTE Its a brand new, never done before FG System. We will have issues problems from time to time so please share your thoughts and help us make it better! When its first turned on, it may take upto a few days to register everything - it has to run through every single rule i've created for every single FGer. Hopefully you'll see your Medals grow over time! We may tweak the Ranks and their respective points targets after going live if we find they are imbalanced in some way. Most Rules for points will be retrospectively activated when Live. There may be rules we add at a later date that will only look forward (e.g some Quiz ones will be created soon but look forward, not backwards) unless I rebuild the system...which may mean you get 're-awarded' automatic points and medals you had. Games will not look backwards - this is to help give everyone a chance to focus on starting out how to get them all and create some buzz about bringing FGers together. Most Games Medals are manually awarded with the help of the FG Team here. I expect us all to start talking and sharing information about our escapades as FG online in all of our games. It helps bring to life what we're all achieving together and it speeds up the validation time to award Medals. I will NEED HELP with this. If you're interested in supporting the cause in helping, please let me know. Its about doing things here but also encouraging FGers to get involved across all aspects of what we do. I really would love for you all to explore what we have available here. It's took me an absolute age to get it in a position to launch it as I wanted to give this the best chance of hitting the ground running. I'll set up a separate topic on the forums to capture any feedback and questions you may have about it all. We can then have separate topics where we can post up gaming updates to support the awarding of medals. Its a great thing to finally do something I've wanted for here for years. Its like our internal mini FG game, with lots of fun and interaction. Keep an eye out for when you start getting awarded points, medals and ranks - it may even be worth turning your browser notifications on (check your 'Bell' icon next to your profile and enable them!) so you can start seeing them pop up on your phone and other devices 😎 The only thing left is for you all to enjoy! GGFG
    12 points
  2. What a Monday Night Football. A huge night of games - 15 in total, which included many laughs and near misses, epic fails and glorious winning moments across the whole night. Not sure i've ever had to over 9 minutes of highlights but it was well worth it. An incredible start with free flowing football gave FGFC 3 wins on the bounce, with big Dennis Rodman @James5497 hitting the 'Money shots' or headers to be precise from @Macca89 Maccaroon's corners. Matty @Luseth was chipping in too from the right hand side, blinding the defence with his ridiculous fluorescent blue curly hair...and moustache. In fact, the scores could've been higher if some incredible flair shot went the other side of the post but where's the fun if you can't play some 'Overkick ball' with some sitters flying way over the bar. A little blip from some crazy games, one game somehow losing from a winning position, 6-4, the FIFA script was feeling like it was just around the corner waiting to inject some losses into the rest of the night. The team stayed resolute, especially after we found Martin @Findmartin later on at the back with Maccaroon playing a blinder at the Any role. @Ally was whipping dangerous balls in from the left and was unlucky not to get some assists as FGFC went on to rack up another 4 wins in a row. The last 2 games, scoring 14 goals across them. Teryiaki Sauce @Antpool84 put a killer display in CAM and Midfield alongside playermaker Pat De Groyne @jordie1892 with some incredible double X passes splitting the defences - and some Kung Fu Goals to add to the incredible scenes. Getting promoted on a subsequent Monday meant that FGFC starting to feel the skill level jump whilst the FIFA 23 Pros were still accumulating skill points and punching way above our weight. 4 end-to-end high scoring draws brought a super long evening of football to a close, not without a hilarious moment from Kilma Self @LordBaguette having an Eric Dier moment rushing to the toilet mid-game and forgetting he has 2 hands that can work independently at the critical moments (the highlights say it all below 😅). It really felt like MNF was back this week. Even @jordie1892 was falling for the top shelf Dad jokes. GGFG
    8 points
  3. You don't know? Okay. Let's have a chat about it then. First though, Happy New Year to everyone at FG. You're all fantastic, awesome individuals that deserve all the good luck and fortune that we can wish for. To look forward, we should always recognise looking back for a moment to see how far we've come in the last 12 months. With the world in still great difficulty, I think we pushed forward in many places and did many good things, to give FGers and all that are connected to us a bit more purpose and fun in their lives. Some stats I suppose help as always to back that up! 2021 Stats New FGers registering - 199 - Up 2.58% (figures against year before) Unique Contributors - 114 - Down 12.31% Users Who Reacted - 72 - New stat last year, no comparison available Reactions Given - 12,078 - Down 2.77% New Topics - 561 - Down 23.05% New Posts - 8010 - Down 19.88% New Events - 257 - Up 110.66% New Quizzes - 2 - Down 75% New Quiz Plays - 41 - Down 66.12% New Articles - 14 - Up 366.67% New Guides - 8 - Up 300% New Tournaments - 1 - First ever one New Teams - 17 - First teams created New Videos - 73 - Up 135.48% New Video Reviews - 28 - Up 16.67% New Raffles - 1 - Down 96% 1 Huge overhaul to our Home, with a brand new homepage and new sections 19 gifts via the FGFGF (FG's Feel Good Fund), inc. 2 brand new PS5s So, with all that exhausting our minds, what should we do this year? I'm a firm believer of building on good things, dusting ourselves off and giving it everything you've got. So I think we should this year after a few years of all our lives sitting virtually in purgatory with COVID dictacting every step of it. I think a good way to try and start somewhere is let's bring it back to what we great at - Games. Let's bring the togetherness back online and especially on here at FG. One way we'll look to do this is through Community Goals. This can be collective goals that we all work together and try and aim to achieve by the end of the year. I'm busy trying to create a page to store them all on so we can return here and see how far we've got as a team. If you have any good ones, let's hear them out in the comments below. For this to work though, it will need some support - like a lot of support. I'm urging all of you, to keep FG updated with everything you're up to. This is a great place to share after each session; how many raids you did, the best bits about your CoD battles, how many races you won, or lost in my case in Gran Turismo, goals we scored on an FGFC FIFA night, how many Zombies were killed in our 7 Days horde nights....the list could go on but I hope you get the jist. This helps me and others helping me a track of how we are doing towards our community goals as I won't be able to get everything from automated places. Let's make a real good go of it and do what we can. Next stop is Achievements. Mentioned this quite a few times and we've been terribly delayed whilst we waited for the software to be in place. And whilst its not 100% perfect, I want us to give this a go and improve as we go live. To support this, we have brand new FG Ranks to help everyone 'Level Up'. We spent a while designing these, and truth be told we couldn't do any of these without the talents of Christine AKA @WildeThang . I'll be asking her to help out with some medals and badges that we hope to give out over the course of 2022 and beyond. Stop by to make sure you give thanks to her fantastic work! I'll be trying to work on some form of an infographic with available badges soon, with some hopefully hidden for you all to find for yourselves. The main thing is to try and be supportive and engaging wherever you can. Not just on the forums, on videos, quizzes, events and even online games with FG. Maybe we can get some special FG Friday ones for all to try and obtain too 🤩 Outside of this, and with the help of all of you, we're also going to make sure we more sustainable moving forward. Some technical points are being changed behind the scenes and we'll hopefully see some great things that will help you feel like its super easy to come here and more often too. I don't want to say much on this part just yet, other than keeping watching this space... As the above are just a couple of things to highlight, you know the score with everything else. "What? We have a website?". Yes, yes, we do. The joke is something that should be one that I hope to be turned around with a mic drop saying, "There ya go. Enjoy." Come on, I need your support this year to make the best one we've ever had. More Posts - have a voice! More Personal Progress Posts - check on other people's too! More Events - more clicking those Going buttons! More Videos - grab those funny clips and stick them up here More...just everything! I'll sign out with the thought of all your generous donations and support have helped keep people alive in the world today - and that isn't even an exaggeration either. They'll be a moment we all need that friend, that family, in our desperate hour of need. Its why FG exists. We'll make the tracks, all you lot have to do is show people the way. GGFG.
    8 points
  4. Another solid evening last week where FGFC had reached the dizzy heights of Division 3 earlier than expected, we now faced tough battles against opponents that would be pushing our current ProClubs players to their limits given most of us are still in the early levels looking for more Skill points along the way. FGFC's first game was clearing out the cobwebs from the week before, coming close with a few chances from the 3 up top @Luseth, @Ally and @LordBaguette but somehow finding ourselves 4-0 down without playing that badly. Clearly taking chances was going to be something we needed to do to have any chance staying up or even pushing for another surprise promotion. It also doesn't help if @Macca89 forgets which player he is on the pitch...😅 Whilst losing the first game, our shooting boots were back on for most of the night as we nicked 2 goals back in a 4-2 loss. What then followed was an unbeaten run of 8 games, including 5 wins; an incredible achievement with most of our Pros still in the low 80s. Some clean sheets had too, and it always helps when a team bossing us unfortunately had a bad connection at half time and couldn't carry on 😅😎 Great to see @Ally getting on the score and assist sheets this week as she's been close to getting some on previous weeks. A pearler of a volley on one of her crosses from 'Hamez Rodriguez @James5497 in an emphatic 4-0 win against I Cusentini. A bit of game management from Pat De Groyne @jordie1892 in the 91st minute against Unsrs FC would've meant 6 wins out of 8...but it was well worth the giggle seeing another epic FG fail. King Assistmaker @Macca89 had yet another fruitful night with 16 assists; only thing stopping him from 17 was some late trickery from Wacky Hair Queen Matty @Luseth, dazzling us with some fine red highlights this week. Promotion was eventually secured with a final game remaining to try and win Division 3 title. Fatigue had finally sunk in though in a 5-3 loss to Invictus CF. Can't argue with a 50% win loss ratio by the end of the evening. Some great highlights below captured once again. GGFG FGFC Squad players across the evening: @James5497 @LordBaguette @Ally @Luseth @GazzaGarratt @Macca89 @jordie1892 @Antpool84 @Findmartin **Strange 4-5 second delay at 14secs but everything else is fine. Thats what you get sometimes with Twitch Highlights it seems!
    6 points
  5. GazzaGarratt

    FG in 2023

    Can I get away with Happy New Year still? 😅 We're still in January aren't we? (just!) HAPPY NEW YEAR FGERS! I sincerely hope you all had a wonderful Christmas time and had some well earned breaks from working to spend with the people you wantd to - or even just catching up on some much needed gametime. As you may have seen from the logo, we now enter our 100th year...sorry, 10th year of FG. Yes, TEN. In August this year we'd have had 10 amazing years of this place and I'm grateful we can celebrate with so many of here, new and old. So with that in mind, we've been busy doing a little refresh to FG that I hope you may like. I've listed what this article involves upfront so you can skip to the ones more interesting if you CBA to read this entire lovely epilogue 😉 New Homepage Refresh New Ideas Feature New FGers Group New monthly FGFGF Raffle Steam Game Keys for FGers Display my Medals Embed Google Documents Created FG WhatsApp Community feature. Changed Default view of Forums to Table ReWrite URLs Removed Events/LFG from Forums RSVP Auto-Enabled for Events Cleaned up Members Cleaned up Pinned Topics Fixed Unread Content So lets get into whats new and updated! New Homepage Refresh A lick of paint is always handy, and what better way to do it with some snazzy moving Infographics. It also shows off how much stuff that we do together and thats not even all of it! I'd encourage you to go and search stuff across all those areas on the Homepage and join in the fun where possible. We also have a fantastic updated logo for this year, special thanks goes to @Greboth for his awesome skills in helping create what you can see at the top of our Home. Finally, there's a quick way to see what's the new and latest information on FG. The tabular format reminds everyone what's not only new on the FG Forums, but also whats new in Videos, and loads more. Underneath you can also find some historic viewed FG Content and it will be good to see what breaks into these Top 10s across 2023! New Ideas Feature Just because we've been going for so long doesn't mean we can't have new and fresh thoughts from everyone! If you have anything in mind for us to do, across any of the sections across FG, please shout it up here. From as little as a new forum section, to maybe something bigger like a tournament, a game server or some merch ideas - we just want to hear them all. Others can then like an idea and comment to help it gain traction too. >> IDEAS SECTION New FGers Group In order to support some new features, it was time we gave everyone that is in FG a lovely new group name so they can advantage of these features, including making you all look fancy with a new title. When you are a new Member of FG now, you start as a 'Member' and once you hit Apprentice Rank (Rank 3), you will be promoted automatically into the 'FGers' Group. As we all know you can increase your rank in multiple ways and not just by commenting on forum posts. New monthly FGFGF Raffle The Forever Gaming Feel Good Fund is going to continue its good work with everyone's donations through a monthly raffle for all FGers. Some months may differ in prizes but hopefully a nice way to give something back to everyone here. We'll be utilising the FGers Group new feature so no worries about anyone signing up and just being able to enter these ones. Keep a look out for when they go up 🙂 >> RAFFLES SECTION Steam Game Keys for FGers! A brand new feature to FG and yet another way to give something back to FGers. Once you have been promoted into the FGers Group, you will see under the Merch Store section a new area called Games. This is where we will add a bunch of steam keys whenever we buy and obtain them. Some games will just be one available, whereas others there could be multiple so more than one FGer can enjoy. You'll only be able to grab one code per person. This is a thank you to all FGers so grab a code when you genuinely want to give the game a go. We hope to add more each month, yet again all through the amazing support we all give to the FGFGF. The more donations we receive, the hope is we can add more and more as time goes by. >> MERCH SECTION Display my Medals This next little addition is a nice shiny addition to all your profiles. If you're reading through the FG forums, you can show off 3 of your own medals and also see other people's medals too. Whilst set to show the latest 3 medals achieved you can update this to choose whatever 3 medals you want to show off! You can do this either via your profile on the Medals section or just clicking the medals when reading on the forums. It may even tempt others to grab a specific medal they haven't unlocked so far! Embed Google Documents A technical update which will hopefully help showing any stats in teh future if kept via Google Documents - or any other Google document for that matter! You need to ensure you select the 'XXXX to Web' link as per teh picture below for the link to work effectively. Created FG WhatsApp Community feature. Recently found a new feature on WhatsApp called Communities...so we now have one! Given it is still used to grab people to come online, just like the FG Discord, it brings together all the random groups i'm aware of with an Announcement channel at the top. This way, one message to update everyone in the Announcement channel can be done rather than multiplying updates to check something out on FG. As always, anyone is welcome and it will always be said that this place is the Home of FG, so we need to keep using this as much as possible rather than being the lazy ones sticking to separate groups. Changed Default view of Forums to Table Updated to show forums in more of a traditional way. You can still change the view to suit your needs via the option at the top of the Forums page. ReWrite URLs A technical update to help allow us to have better and quicker redirects if we share content from FG to other places. Removed Events/LFG from Forums Sub-forum no longer needed as we now are fully adopting the Events section to create online and IRL gatherings. RSVP Auto-Enabled for Events RSVP system will be set to 'ON' when anyone creates an event. This will help avoid Events getting accidentally created without the user selecting RSVP every time. Cleaned up Members We had years (and years!) of old bot members inflating the numbers so corrected all of this. Won't stop new bots but we'll try and keep on top of it moving forward. Cleaned up Pinned Topics Probably way overdue but finally done now. Had far too many Pinned topics in most sub-forums. Now we only have a handful to keep upto date info and activity right at the top. Fixed Unread Content A problem occurred at the start of 2022 where the 'Unread Content' stream which some of us use to read all of FG was broken and not showing any 2023 FG activity. This is now fixed so normal service resumed. And More TBC... Well we can't just stop there for 2023 can we? Theres lots more I think we can get ourselves motivated for, especially as its 10 years in August for us. Some stuff on the roadmap we know we'd already like to get over the line this year... 10 Year Anniversary Plans Guides Game Hubs Rework Grammarly Releases / Game Patches Achievements and Medals 2.0 Community Goals Relaunch Servers 2.0 Pick Scores Charity! And much much more! I think I'll leave it there for all the info. Thanks for reading this far as its more than I realised when looking back! I really hope we can make this year an extra special one. Don't ever be a stranger. Being around FG, checking out cool stuff and checking in with people, even if you don't know them as much, is something all of us can at least do once this year, and you really could be making someone's day, month, year by doing just that. Lets help others understand why FG is the best place to be on the World Wide Webz. Would love to hear all your thoughts below! What do you think is the best update? GGFG!
    6 points
  6. Race 1 - 12 Laps Willow Springs Gr4 Even though the Audi TT has been given a Balance of Power (BoP) nerf recently, this race looked like it was going to play out in a similar fashion to Laguna Seca a few weeks ago. The Audi TT is significantly faster but is Front wheel drive and suffers excessive front tyre wear meaning a pit stop is required. Choosing a different car though would mean being slower on ultimate pace but able to do the race without a stop. Which would be quicker in this race of strategy...that @Mikepjbell screwed during practise by explaining the assists he use causing Phil to force them to be off for qualifying and the race. Qualifying Out of the 12 racing, only 4 chose not to use the Audi TT so qualifying was going to be difficult for us. The four were myself in the Toyota GT86, The birthday boy @JBR-Kiwi in the Dodge Viper, @tronic44 in the Peugeot RCZ and first time racer @techno in a Lamborghini Huracan. I got out the pits first and so crossed the line first, I set a new PB of a low 1:16 but this was short lived as Mike crossed the line shortly afterwards with a blistering 1:15.8 whose pace already surprised himself with everyone slotting in third down. On the second flying lap, the times and positions didn't change much with the exception of Lee @GazzaGarratt jumping up to fourth, then on his third qualifying lap take his first pole from Mike by a tenth. Race Unlike the last few weeks, we were doing standing starts, which saw Lee on pole get nothing but wheel spin allowing a better starting Mike to hold the inside in to turn 1 and take the lead. A bit of door to door action saw Tom@LordBaguette get squeezed leaving Kiwi on my tail going in to turn 2. Keeping an eye on Kiwi in my mirror, I missed my braking point for turn 3 allowing Kiwi to make a pass and move on up the podium positions. This was relatively short lived though as on the tricky last corner both Lee and Kiwi run wide giving me an easy second and as Kiwi got a better run on to the start finish straight, it saw Lee drop from second to fourth in one corner. Lee stuck close to Kiwi though and manages to re-pass him at the top of the circuit on turn 4 which also allows Tom get passed on the downhill section. The leader, Mike, touches the dirt on the way down the hill allowing me to close and get a run on him in to the last corner but the Audi is monstrous through the final corner so Mike pulls a small gap. Lap 2 it was Tom and Phil's @phil bottle turn to run wide at the final corner and losing them places. Tom running wide, left Kiwi again chasing down Lee and on the following lap, making a pass on the downhill as Lee runs on to the dirt and very wide costing him several places. As the saying goes, third times the charm, on my third attempt to follow Mike through the final corner he gaps me but I get a better exit and close up down the straight to take the lead through turn 1 which is all to brief as in a copy of Lap 1, I run wide in to turn 3 allowing Mike to retake his lead who then runs wide in turn 6 letting me back passed. Kiwi has a couple of bad laps of running wide on the last corner and ends up behind @jordie1892 who battle for the place with Kiwi making the pass, Jordie retaking the position before Jordie runs wide on on turn 3 of lap 11. To end the race Phil and @Lurch get close with their final position coming down to the final corner where Phil runs wide allowing Lurch to take the place by a little of one tenth of a second. To somewhat show how tricky the final corner of this track is, I think half my notes for this race revolved around someone or other running wide 😆 Race 2 - 3 laps Sainte Croix A Gr3 There was no qualifying for this race as we decided to try out a reverse grid based on the results of the previous race. The race is only 3 laps but as it is one of the longer tracks in GT Sport so there was going to be plenty of time for action as the faster cars at the back made their way through the pack. Race As race 1, this was a grid start which caused carnage from the start as @Shucker couldn't race but forgot to remove his entry so was at a stand still at lights out causing Mike some issues. The majority of the pack got off well and running 3 or 4 wide heading for turn 1 was a risk for a big pile up but with the exception of Pete getting knocked wide and pushing Tom wide it was mostly clean. The exit of turn 1 had Rich @tronic44 in the lead being chased by Kiwi, Lurch in 3rd with Phil and Lee bumper to bumper in 4th and 5th respectively. Mike had recovered from a stranded Shucker and was 3 wide with myself and Gary going up to turn 2 where I managed to take 6th with Mike in 7th and Gary in 8th. Rich makes a mistake runs wide at turn 6 letting Kiwi take the lead while Lurch runs wide out of turn 4 allowing Phil and Lee to close the gap. Phil takes the inside in to Turn 6 but like Rich runs deep while Lee also follows while helping Lurch in to the wall too giving me an easy pass straight to 3rd place. Sadly in recovery Lurch spins a few corners later and retires form the race. Rich goes offline through turn 8 which allows me to run round the outside of 9 and take the inside of turn 10 to move myself up to second place. Mike shortly follows with a nice move to overtake Rich at the hairpin at turn 13 with Rich losing a further place as Tom makes the pass down the start finish straight at the end of the first lap. The race calms down after the manic first lap as most people have found their rough positions and running with gaps though a few mistakes give chances and passes. I haven't really been able to close down the gap to Kiwi but in pushing Kiwi runs wide turn 10 on lap 2 allowing me to close right up but with some work still to be done if I want to get close enough to try a pass. I fail to close the gap with my last option being to try and out drag Kiwi to the line but due to misjudging my speed from the tow I brake too late for the final corner allowing Kiwi a clear run to the line. Lee, Gary and @slamminbones all get close with Lee managing to overtake Gary who shortly after takes the position though Lee manages to pass Gary right at the end. Race 3 - 4 Laps Tokyo East Loop (Wet Race) This race was scheduled for a previous week which due to time constraints it was not possible to do so it was re-run this week. In the practise for the previous weeks race, Bones was quick and topping the times but was struggling to achieve the same times during this practise session. Though I think everyone was struggling to adapt to the slippery conditions after two dry races on some of the softest and grippiest tyres available. Due to the time, we didn't do any official qualifying for this race so the grid was decided by the practise times. Race Sadly there is no footage of this race due to someone, who might have been me, forgot to save the replay which is a shame as the drag to turn 1 was interesting. Again we started this race with a standard start but on Tokyo the start line is in a tunnel so the track is dry and it's a looong run to turn 1. We all go off relatively clean but the differences in cars became apparent as Pete's speed saw him take the lead just as Phil in his Aston Martin also made a charge through the pack. Phil takes a defensive inside line in to turn 1 and brakes early catching me out causing me to have dive for the outside as I brake later. Due to the conditions both Pete and Lee run wide touching the wall but getting away mostly clean. Pete takes a drive at turn 2 to take the lead from me as Lee runs wide again this time picking up a penalty for hitting the wall. Towards the end of the lap, I make a pass on Pete retaking the lead as Lee closes up to Pete too. Lee attempts to pass Pete by going round the outside but due to the lack of grip they run wide and in touching the wall, Lee spins and sadly the game doesn't reset him until most of the pack has passed. Lee is chasing down Bones in to the final hairpin where Bones does his best Tokyo drift impression which Lee takes advantage of but Bones gets a better run and with the help of the tow repasses Lee down the straight. At the end of lap 1, I cross the line in the lead with a gap to Mike in second who has a gap to Kiwi and Phil in 3rd and 4th who in an attempt to close in on Mike try some shake and bake bump drafting though Rich has been sneaking up on them and makes a surprise pass on Phil at turn 1. Lee succumbs to some technical difficulties as his wheel slips on the desk causing him to go all pinball wizard by hitting every wall trying to re-clamp it. Kiwi without the need for shake and bake, manages to pass Mike who then tries to convince Kiwi to slow down on the straight so he can be in the tow - for some reason Kiwi doesn't.
    6 points
  7. Could we? I mean, how dare we? Try and stay in Division 2 and mount a challenge to the promised land? Nah, you're alright thanks 🤣 An incredible start to the night had us thinking the impossible of keeping ourselves in the mighty Championship and then mounting a challenge to get up to Division 1 for the first time in our FGFC FIFA 21 existence. A mighty battle started with FG going 1-0 down after half an hour. The main contributing factor went to Torpedo Tony @TonyAE86 having lag, but not by the conventional issues we usually find. This time out it was the...Washing Machine. Yep, apparently all of the spins impact his WiFi speeds these days. Having said that though, we immediately sprung into life with a bullet from Gin Tronic @tronic44 at the near post. The positivity was growing, and with a goal from either side in a matter of minutes to make it 2-2, we found ourselves with a corner. Tony looking for our headshot king, Dennis Rodman @Lurch ...but we didn't expect the following at all. Mulletov @G_dub52 rounded off a 4-3 win in our first match and we were pumped for what was to come. Forgetting the unfortunate blip straight after where we went unfortunately down 3-1, even though we dominated the play througout, the momentum was took forward to the third game of the night where it was a near perfect performance. The assist king @Macca89 got his shooting boots on and rounded up the Man of the Match perfect 10 performance with a sublime hatrick from some amazing assists and team play throughout a 6-0 riot. Tom @LordBaguette was notching the penalties early doors and the back 4 of Club Tropicana @GazzaGarratt, Sensual Choc @jordie1892 , Dennis Rodman @Lurch and Torpedo Tony @TonyAE86 had a stormer. Unfortunately, previous days results alongside the second game blip left FGFC needing yet another win just to survive relegation to Division 3. A stellar performance with yet another @Macca89 goal set us up nicely but an equaliser shortly followed and for all the tea in Rich's house, we just couldn't push a winner past the keeper. It was worth mentioning though James yet again kept us in the game again with some fine defending. A quick highlight reel below was a delight to clip. So Season 44 was upon us and after a short break and a swap around of all our positions, we commenced another season in Division 3. When all the positions change up somewhat, we always struggle to find the momentum again and it hurt us badly at the start, going down heavily in a 3-0 loss. We dug deep to then take a 4-1 lead in the next game to nearly throw it away with two late goals...apparently something about James making a rare mistake had to to be noted down on the stats. I'm not that harsh though, so i'll just write about for everyone to see rather than stick on the infographic below 😎 Inconsistency was definitely showing again though with another 2-0 defeat hitting us hard, we then tried to buck the trend of losing too many matches early doors. With the game poised at 2-2 and battling extremely hard into the closing stages, GD Pontevel broke forward after another chance for FGFC was saved. The rest was history. Can somebody lend us a spare FIFA script when they get chance please? A successful 3-1 win followed this stinging defeat, but we couldn't keep up the levels we had started out at the beginning of the night and aptly ended the evening in a goal crazy 5-4 defeat. Not a night we expected and I think the results were extremely harsh on us all, especially when there was some lovely football being played and a few belters that went in. @Macca89 showed his worth this week topping the Goals and Assists columns with Connor @JamaicanSteve starting to slot in nicely after his loan deal was made permanent when Chill Ya Beans United accepted FGFC's bid of 2 baked beans tins and a packet of Uncle Ben's Golden Rice. We're still fortunate they didn't check the Use By Date in advance. Superb night of banter and laughs along the way as always. GGFG @Macca89 @LordBaguette @JamaicanSteve @tronic44 @jordie1892 @G_dub52 @Lurch @GazzaGarratt @TonyAE86 @Findmartin
    6 points
  8. First match report for a while so here goes it! FGFC have managed to find our way back up the leagues to Division 3 after restarting to try and challenge ourselves to get all the trophies and medals. Luckily enough we don't disappoint and don't get anywhere near these accolades whilst we bemoan our FIFA Script luck. A night full liquorice allsorts, starting promising with a few quality displays @JamaicanSteve Connor Chameleon doing his best to finish top goalscorer with 8 goals from his favoured CDMLWBLWCF position, the best one of the lot coming from his new 8ft 2" build that is a slow tank at Left Back, bursting through to score one of our winning goals. Early wins were followed by close losses, taking early leads only to be pegged back and concede goals out of nowhere (well, thats what the defence want you to think). At one stage @GazzaGarratt's pass completion rate for a single game was 3.4%. It was epitomised by a game dominated by FGFC, only to lose a goal on the break to 'Jareer Ball'. They soon went down to 10 men just after the hour and a barrage of shots came in; most notably by Torpedo Tony @TonyAE86 who was doing his best to recalibrate his goal compass and went close...eventually. A late run by No Pace James ended with a shot narrowly going wide but a penalty awarded as the player took him out just afterwards. After the penalty was converted, FG pushed hard for a winner, only for the ref to inexplicably blow up with Connor through and the keeper off his line by 40 yards. Script Life. One highlight was the incredible start against 'laddo FC', as they seemed to be mesmerised by the humungous long ball and the raw pace of Where's Martin @Findmartin who then played a first time lobbed ball to Tom Cebious @LordBaguette , who quite frankly scored a goal to finally knock him out of his permanent depressive state for at least 2 minutes. FGFC then ended up losing the game 5-2 😄 A few more yoyo-ing with good wins and devastating comebacks from the opposition gave us consolidation in Division 3 by the end of the night. Whilst we thought two bad defeats started the next season, FGFC ended up finishing on a high by destroying LGBTQ United (yes, that was their name) 7-1, a brace from both Tony and Connor. MNF Night Stats Top Goalscorer - 8 - @JamaicanSteve Top Assists - 6 - @Macca89 Top Clean Sheets - 1 - @Findmartin @GazzaGarratt Highlights below. Enjoy. 😄
    5 points
  9. Race 1 - Dragon Trail Gardens Gr3 We did this track a few weeks ago with Gr2 but the tracks holds the same challenges, namely; getting through the chicane at the beginning of lap without losing too much time or spinning out entirely as well as tackling the long 4 apex right hander towards the end of the lap. Qualifying Qualifying is important for your starting position and with the limited time it can be a challenge to set a fast lap under pressure. With Dragon Trail Gardens, the length of the start finish straight it is important to get a good run out of the final corner but @Macca89 and @Shucker spun on their first laps. Though Shucker managed to get a good lap in at the end to line up 8th on the grid. It was good to see Clive @Teenwolf25 doing well to qualify 9th as, I believe, it's his first time racing with us. Race It was decided by our benevolent overlord @phil bottlethat this race would be a rolling start which does have the benefit annoying @crispymorgan who had got released from the auto drive on the final corner. It also spreads everyone out to help keep it clean through the first few corners though that didn't drop Kiwi and I pushing a little too much at the first chicane as we both pick up a penalty for cutting the track. A few locks ups and a bit oversteer but everyone keeps it clean with Lee getting a good exit and a run to the hairpin; one of the best overtaking places on the track. Lee misjudged his speed and brakes way too late having to take avoiding action to avoid rear ending Phil but then running wide as Phil pulls a textbook cut back to retake his position. At the start of lap 2, sadly Clive undoes his great first qualifying by dipping a wheel on the grass and even through a valiant effort to catch the slide ends up fish tailing in to a spin directly in front of @Stretch616 who with nowhere to go T-bones straight in to the side. Lap 3 is Phil's turn to get that chicane wrong as he runs wide through the first part, convinced someone hit him though the replay does absolve Lee @GazzaGarrattof any guilt so clearly it's Mike telekinetic powers, getting back on track with perfect timing to be broadside in front of Lee who helps Phil off in to more gravel. Before Phil can reverse, the game resets him in to the path of Stretch who manages to avoid another crash by running wide allowing Paul @slamminbones to close up maybe have a chance in to the hairpin though Stretch manages to come on top this time. The track had more surprising in store as @JBR-Kiwi , holding on to second place with @Mikepjbell nipping at his heels , runs wide at turn 8 dipping a wheel off the curb and in to the gravel sending him round and round. Then just as Kiwi is recovering, Lee does a carbon copy of Kiwi at turn 8 and spins himself out though unfortunately Shucker was following Lee so also spins. Though this isn't the last turn 8 has to offer as on Lap 5, Mike having been gifted second place following Kiwi's spin a couple laps earlier, also runs wide and spins on the exit though bonus points have to be given to Mike for the most consecutive spins of the week. Results Race 2 - Sardegna C N200 In a small change to the schedule, race 2 this was Sardegna rather than Red Bull Ring due to some not having Gr2 cars. Sardagna is a fast flowing track with the only proper braking points being turn 1 at the final hairpin so in slow cars like N200 it's important to be smooth to keep your speed up as high as possible. As usual, this race didn't have any qualifying as the grid is set as the reverse of the finishing positions of race 1. Race Unlike Race 1, this was a standing start though which caught Phil out as due trying to launch properly only bogs himself down as everyone else pulls away on the run to turn 1. As I won the previous race, I started at the back but made a nice dive down the inside of turn 1 much to Mike's surprise but thankfully narrowly avoiding hitting anyone. Turn 1 bunched up the pack and a few knocks going in to turn 4 saw a few us knocked a little wide costing time on the run down the hill. Out front Kiwi and Tom @LordBaguette were having a good battle for the lead, Kiwi tried to take the inside line for the right bend before the final hairpin but causes both of them to run wide in to the wall though ever the gentleman Kiwi gives the place back to Tom. Leading up to the final hairpin, I get a good run on Macca and move to the outside to take my normal line as I see Macca braking way too late so I leave the door open for him to overshoot the corner and run wide and giving me the perfect switch back to retake the place. This put me on to the tail of Lee and Crispy which due to them battling between themselves I caught up quickly and thanks to a bit of contact and distraction of each other they both run wide at turn 4 giving me an easy double pass. Mike, in third, in an attempt to close the gap to Kiwi in the lead tries some shake and bake with Tom by bump drafting him down the start finish straight. This work out for Mike though the extra speed causes Tom to misjudge turn 1 and run wide and dropping him from 2nd to 7th. Tom rejoining the track causes a few people to go offline giving me an easy pass on Paul and a run on Stretch up to the final hairpin which goes slightly wrong as Stretch moves to think about a pass on Phil clipping me on to the grass to the hairpin which causes a little contact at the hairpin but we both make it away without too much time lost. Though it does allow a recovering Tom to catch up and he and Stretch battle over the next lap. In the heat of their battle, there's a little side contact on the run to the final hairpin but rubbing is racing though it does cause both of them to run a little deep in to the hairpin as Stretch performs a perfect pit manoeuvre on Phil spinning him in to the inside barriers. This drops Phil back as James @Lurch gets passed as they run down the start finish straight. Phil fights back over the next lap and gets a good run on James down the hill though a small bit of contact sees Phil pull a nice drift king to hold the slide at the cost of some speed as Crispy and Lee sweep passed on each side just as Crispy runs on to the grass causing him to miss the apex of the hairpin and Phil to regain one place. Meanwhile just in front, James gets a run on Tom out of the last hairpin and it becomes a race to the line which causes Tom to make some unorthodox moves to block James and hold on to 4th. Results Race 3 - Red Bull Ring Gr2 Red Bull Ring is a fast track with some slow corners at turn 1, 2 & 3 which can cause plenty of unforced errors in braking too late or too much throttle on corner exit. As this race was the one to include tyre wear and a choice of tyre, it opens up the strategy as to what to run and if people will be pitting. Qualifying A fast lap at Red Bull Ring is all about that fine line of taking the shortest and fastest lines possible but without running wide or cutting the inside of corners too much else you can get a lot of penalties as Tom found out as he picked up a penalty at the final 2 corners which ruined his first flying lap. Kiwi gets his first lap together and takes provisional pole which he further improves on over the next few laps. Lee manages to put in a good lap early on to move himself up to 4th though this is soon down a position as Phil follows up to move himself to provisional 3rd. I had been struggling to walk that fine line and picking up penalties preventing me from setting a fast lap but I get one in towards the of qualifying to take pole position. Race As race 2, this was a standing start which could be interesting with how tight turn 1 is though with the exception of a couple people running wide, turn 1 is kept clean. Kiwi, who started second, has a better turn 1 than me and a better exit as he takes the lead on the long run to turn 2. I try to retake the lead but out brake myself and run wide letting Phil to move himself up to 2nd place. Turn 2 doesn't go too well for Tom or Mike either as they share a bit of contact though mostly get through unscathed. There's a decent straight between turn 2 and 3 which gives me chance to line up Phil for a pass in to turn 3 for me to retake 2nd as Phil gets a love tap up the rear from Lee then a small side swipe from Tom. Phil and Tom run side by side up to turn 4 but Tom out brakes himself and runs wide but manages to hold on to his 4th place though this is short lived as Tom gets a little out of shape through turn 1 of lap 2 which causing some fish tailing but through skill (or luck?) it's all gathered up and Tom carries on with his race. Through all the action of the first couple of laps, Lee had managed to keep it clean to be in 4th but running wide on the exit of turn 3 sees him take a trip through the gravel. Lee manages to keep the car pointing in the direction though and tries to rejoin the track as quickly as possible where he's side swiped harder than Mike on Tinder and spun off in to the gravel. The start of lap 4 sees me almost copy Tom on the exit of turn 1 as I get a massive kick of oversteer, I gather it up but my mistake allows Phil to take 2nd place off of me. Though Phil, in an effort to finish at least one race this week, doesn't fight too hard as I make a move at turn 2 to retake second much to Kiwi's annoyance. The race then enters the spinning phase as Tom loses it at turn 4 shortly followed by Mike pulling a pirouette round the final corners as Tom takes another turn, this time on the way in to pits as the autodrive didn't take over fast enough. As we move in to the final half of the race, the strategy comes in to play as Mike and I had switched to hard tyres for the race while everyone else had been running mediums. As Phil had pitted for new mediums, this brought him out behind Mike who was still on his hard tyres from the start of the race so Phil tries to make a pass at turn 1 of lap 9 but doesn't managed it and tries again at turn 2 but out brakes himself and runs wide giving Mike a little breathing room. Phil, on fresher and faster tyres, gains on Mike and tried again at turn 2 and turn 3 of lap 10 but again Mike manages to keep ahead. Until Phil has a third attempt on lap 11 but this time Phil gets it all wrong at turn 2 and the game resets Phil giving Mike enough of a lead to hold on 3rd place until the end. While Phil was making a meal of getting passed Mike, up front Kiwi and I had been having our own battle. Both of us were trying to do the whole race without a pit stop however I was on hard tyres while Kiwi was on mediums. This had worked out for Kiwi for most of the race as on slower tyres I was unable to gain on Kiwi. However as the tyres became worn, the race came back to me around lap 9 as Kiwi's lead of ~5 seconds was down to just 0.2 by the end of lap 10. I tried to make a move at turn 2 of lap 11 but due to some perfectly timed ghosting by the game Kiwi held on to his lead on the run to turn 3, I closed up and tried to run around the outside of turn 4 but without much chance of success as Kiwi squeezes me on corner exit. Kiwi manages to hold a reasonable lead which I fail to close down on the run to turn 2 of lap 12 but due to having no tyres left, Kiwi brakes extremely early which catches me out and causes a little bit of contact but with some defending in to turn 3 allows me to take the lead and quickly pull away. As Kiwi has a large enough gap to Mike in 3rd, he pits for new tyres for the final lap giving me a gap to cross the line for the win. Results
    5 points
  10. Race 1 - 4 laps Fuji Gr4 Fuji is quite a technical track with some tricky tightening radius and off cambers corners with the first half being faster with flowing corners and the last sector being all slow and tight corners. Qualifying Due to some technical issues this week - the pit out bug - qualifying had to be stopped and restarted. After the re-start the real qualifying began unfortunately Lee was still unable to leave the pits but we bravely carried on regardless. @JBR-Kiwi was considerable faster in practise and carried this to qualifying with his first lap being over 1 second faster than Mike who took provisional second spot with myself in third followed by Shucker, Tom, Bones, Phil and Lurch. Everyone was up to their pace quickly so there was little change over the rest of qualifying with the exception of Pete who improved his lap to move up to provisional third then further improved to take second on the grid. Race Following on from last week, we continued using a grid start rather than a rolling start which caused Pete some problems as he got too much wheel spin off the line and started to drop back. Paul @slamminbones and @phil bottle both ran deep in to turn 1 causing a knock on effect of pushing some cars wide. One of which was myself and I rejoined at the back of the pack with the aim of recovering as many positions as possible which was helped by Matt @Misneach_ kindly pushing Paul wide at turn 4 making it easy for me to gain 2 places. Though this was soon undone due to Gary @techno who used my car as a brake a couple of times through the final sector putting me almost to the back again. At the lead end of the start finish straight, @Shucker firmly in Phil's tow misjudges his braking zone and pinballs in to Phil causing him to run wide but due to the tarmac on the outside of turn 1, Phil gets a good run and manages to stay ahead in to turn 2. The pack had become reasonably spread out by this point however Mike @Mikepjbell and Kiwi continued to have a brilliant battle for the lead over the remaining laps with Mike taking the lead in to turn 1 of lap 2 but Kiwi soon re-took his position at turn 4 of the same lap and Mike sticking one up the inside of the final corner to again retake the lead. Though due to the length of the straight, Kiwi manages to draft up to Mike and take his lead at turn 1 of lap 3. Over lap 3 Kiwi and Mike swap places several times which allows Tom @LordBaguette to catch up and join in the battle with Tom managing to briefly get passed Mike around turn 3 of the final lap though Mike soon retakes this as they go through turn 4. This fighting slows them down meaning Shucker also is in the fight for the final half a lap but sadly this is ended as Tom runs wide at the hairpin at the start of the final sector and in cutting the grass infield gets reset costing him a podium. Pete had also managed to catch up to Shucker and with the finish line being a considerable distance down the straight, manages to draft up to Shucker with them finishing just 0.05 seconds apart. Results Race 2 10 laps Monza no chicane Gr3 Monza is a world famous track for it's heritage and speed with it's long straights separated by chicanes. In the layout raced this week though we skipped the first chicane meaning Curva Grande became turn 1. Similar to last week, the grid for the second race was a reverse order of the finishing positions of the first race so there is no qualifying report. Both the Medium and Hard racing compound tyres were available to use though the rule was that at least 1 lap had to be done on the hard compound tyre. Race Again we used a grid start rather than a rolling start which has the benefit of keeping the pack far closer together than using a rolling start. Without the first chicane it opened up the possibility of managing to sort ourselves out ready for, what is normally, the second chicane. This didn't happen! Due to the various speeds of people getting off the line and the run down to Curva Grande being so long the tow became important with the cars lining up 4 wide on the run to turn 1. This didn't end well going a few small nudges through turn 1 saw Gary , Paul and Tom run wide in to the gravel but manage to recover and carry on. @Lurch wasn't so lucky though as his trip through the gravel ended up with a spin and being parked sideways in front of Lee @GazzaGarratt. @crispymorgan kept it clean and managed to hold on the lead though running wide in the first chicane and then coming out of the first Lesmo left me with an easy pass for the lead. As it turns out the Lesmo's were a problem for a few people during the race with Lee, still struggling to get used to his wheel, becoming the second victim as he got out of shape through Lesmo 1 and spun hitting the inside barrier. Kiwi had close the gap to me in the lead and using the tow down the start finish straight took the lead which I didn't fight too hard as I had picked up a time penalty and I knew I could use the tow from Kiwi to serve my penalty without losing any actual time. Matt also manages to get a slight tow on Paul going down the start finish straight and has an attempt for a pass in to the first chicane but a massive misjudgement of his braking point saw him run clean over the chicane with the game resetting him giving Lee and easy pass though Matt closely follows Lee up to the Ascari chicane but failing to retake his position. Lee on the charge at this point puts in a couple of fast lap to catch up to Paul on the following lap and manages to draft passed him going through turn 1 to take fifth place. Unfortunately for Lee he becomes a victim to Lesmo 1 again costing him a couple of places as Pete and Paul move up the order. I briefly take the lead from Kiwi down the straight though this is soon reversed at the chicane - at this point I'm reasonably confident Kiwi is on medium tyres and will need to pit whereas I decided to the whole race on the hard compound so won't need to pit so I decide to just follow Kiwi rather risk a pass or lose too much time fighting. This is undone through as going through the Ascari chicane I get a snap of oversteer running the kerbs costing me time and allowing Mike @Mikepjbell to have the run on me down to Parabolica to take second though this reversed as I get a small tow on to the straight and re-pass Mike through turn 1. Mike then becomes the next victim of the Lesmo's as he runs wide costing him time and allowing me to have some breathing room to catch back up to the leader, Kiwi. I get a good run on Kiwi out of Ascari though he only leaves me with outside line for Parabolica which is a difficult pass. A bit of door to door rubbing ends as Kiwi, as well as Mike in third, peal off to do their pitstops (much to Mikes disguist that I would use such a tactic). Kiwi exits the pits with a few seconds lead over Mike though due to a mistake through Lesmo 1 and running wide through the gravel and grass, Mike has a run up to Ascari. Mike takes the inside line and takes second from Kiwi but unfortunately runs a bit deep as Kiwi pulls a switch back and retakes his second place which manages to hold on to until the end of the race. The final victim of the Lesmo's is Paul who on the final lap, with a chance to catch Matt, runs wide and spins at Lesmo 1 then rejoins and runs wide on the exit of Lesmo 2 also. Results Race 3 6 laps Blue Moon Bay Infield N200 We've done the oval of this track before but decided to try the infield version that has a few more corners than turning left all the time. The track has a small number of corners with an especially tricky turn 1 due to the bump in the braking zone as you come off the banked oval section. Again, the grid for this race was decided as a reverse of the finishing positions of the Monza race. Race Lee decided to really push the boat out for this race and try manual gears on top of also using his wheel. This cost him slightly at the start as he forgot to change gear off the line though for the most part Lee, and everyone else, got off clean meaning we were all bunched up through turn 1. Phil got nudged slightly which Mike was quick to defend that it wasn't him this time though Mike made up for it by then hitting Phil at turn 3. Lee runs wide at the hairpin giving Kiwi an easy pass up the inside as Gary also follows Lee wide though in Gary's case this was helped by Tom. Lee follows Kiwi out of the final corner and on to the oval section and with the help of the tow, makes a move down the inside for turn 1 but brakes late and runs wide in to the barriers of the outside of the corner. This fighting leaves Paul with a small lead much to his own and Mike's surprise but with Kiwi in second and myself in third it was going to be fun to find out how long he could hold the lead as the gap gets smaller over lap 2. At the end of lap 2, Phil gets in a 3 way fight with Pete and Gary and unfortunately gets switched back on through the final corner and run in to the wall on the outside of the oval. By this point Kiwi and I had managed to close in on Paul in the lead with Kiwi making his move through turn 3 causing Paul to lose some speed. I try to take advantage though I get caught out and have to take to the grass to avoid crashing in to Paul as I misjudged the overspeed I had. The fight continues down to the hairpin where sadly Paul gets a bit to eager and a snap over oversteer sees him get a slow exit allowing me to take second. While this is going on, Crispy, Matt and Gary are all very close and soon they're joined by Phil, Macca and Lurch for all 6 of them to run nose to tail through turn 1. It's all kept clean though Crispy forgets which corner he was at and brakes unnecessarily costing him some places. As they get to the hairpin, Lurch runs wide on the grass dropping him out of contention. Matt also runs a little wide but managed to keep it on the black stuff until Crispy, who is also running wide due to Macca on his inside, has some contact with Matt and spins him out. This leads on the final lap as Kiwi and myself start the final lap side by side on the oval as Kiwi takes a wider line through turn 1 to get ahead but I keep my car alongside to have a move in to turn 2 but fail to make the pass until Kiwi runs wide in turn 3. Though Kiwi makes quick work of recouping the place at the first hairpin which I attempt to make the pass at the second hairpin. Due to some dodgy ghosting, we pass through each other with Kiwi in the lead but on the outside for the final corner with me on the inside but with only my nose along side. We try to make it through the final corner but Kiwi, in a repeat of Phil's earlier accident, gets run out wide in to the wall. As I had so little alongside I should have backed out of the final corner so I lift off to give Kiwi the place back and for him to take the win. Paul managed to keep in front of Mike also to hold on to third which I believe is his first podium so congratulations! Results
    5 points
  11. Greboth

    Gran Turismo Tuesdays

    Race 1 - 8 Laps Tsukuba Gr.4 A few of us had practised this combination over the weekend with most of us having decided on what car to use. That was until an update the day before the race rebalanced the cars. A quick check of the leaderboard soon told us the new fastest car but it was going to be a rush trying to get used to it. Qualifying; This week saw qualifying start off in some rather unusual circumstances - Rather than Mike apologising, Mike was being apologised to! This didn't distract Lurch though who crossed the line first and setting what would be provisional pole until Kiwi crossed the line around half a lap later. I followed Kiwi across the line slotting myself in to second place and bumping Lurch down to third. Over qualifying Phil managed to get a good lap together to finally take third on the grid leaving Lurch to take fourth. All the time Lee was getting more and more angry at himself as he was failing to get near his optimal lap time or the time he managed in practise meaning he had to settle for fifth. I improved my lap time but was still second though, with my optimal fast enough for pole, on the pnultimate lap of qualifying I got my lap together to take pole by less than 0.1 seconds from Kiwi. Race: A rolling start saw us all reasonably separated and so turn 1 was clean but with everyone trying hard it didn't take long for mistakes to happen. The first victim was @Stretch616 , running wide through the middle chicane but through skill (or luck?) managed to hold it. By lap 2 the pack had closed up allowing Lee @GazzaGarratt to make a nice pass on @phil bottle at the final hairpin to move up to a podium position. This was shortly followed by @slamminbones trying a similar move but failing to pull it off and running wide and costing himself a few places. Sadly this followed by Stretch running wide through the final corner causing himself to fall down the order. Out front, I was slowly pulling away from Kiwi in second until a mistake at the start of lap 4 saw my lead halved and down to just 0.2 seconds by the end of lap 4. A few more unforced errors with Matt running ride through the middle chicane before hitting the wall and Bones copying Stretch and running wide through the last corner saw further changes to the order. I had been eeking out a gap to @JBR-Kiwi but an unforced error of my own at the final hairpin meant I had to go defensive against Kiwi through the final corner and turn 1 of lap 7. Kiwi took the lead in to turn 1 but being on the outside he couldn't hold on to it. Through all the action and mistakes, Bones had caught up with Stretch and tried a repeat of his lap 2 dive at the final hairpin. Bones keeps it on track this time but Stretch gets the switch back causing them to run side by side down the back straight, the final turn and the start finish straight. Sadly for Bones a misjudged braking zone for turn 1 saw him off in to the gravel leaving Stretch to easily keep his place. And so began the final lap with the win up for grabs, I was in the lead but bumper to bumper with Kiwi in second. Kiwi took some unusual lines in trying to find a way passed with me taking defensive lines through the final hairpin and corner to take the win by a little over 1 tenth of a second. Final Result: Race 2 - 9 Laps Mount Panorama Going in to this race, it was always going to be tricky. Gr3 cars are fast and give plenty of oppurtunites to make mistakes going over the mountain where there's no run off areas and lots of walls to get penalties from. Qualifying; From practise it was looking likely that I would take pole with Kiwi lining up second on the grid. However qualifying didn't start well for Kiwi who managed to spin on the final corner of his out lap but a quick reverse up the track saw him start his first qualifying lap at normal racing speed. I cross the line first but with a lap overtaking Phil and a mistake saw Lee initially setting the pace with a 2:03.7 lap, almost 3 seconds faster than his PB in practise. Kiwi manages to get a good lap in though and takes provisional pole following half a lap later by me taking provisional pole. In the middle of qualifying, Mike has time to play deceit when Matt asks him what his time is and Mike gives his optimal lap time rather than his actual - sneaky! Phil who has been down the order gets a clean lap in to take provisional fourth but is promptly beaten to by Mike dropping him to fifth place. At this point, I nail an almost perfect (for me) lap and scrape a 2 minute dead lap time causing Lee much disguist. Lurch closes out qualifying by jumping himself from seventh to fifth on the grid and further demoting Phil. Race: Due to the extremely short start/finish straight at Mount Panorama, the rolling start didn't work out for some as it started them on the last corner and causing Matt @Misneach_ to fall back from the pack much to his annoyance at not being able to get a tow up the hill after turn 1. Lee made a great start though and with the tow from Kiwi makes a move in to turn 2 which after some battling Kiwi holds his place as Lee falls back a little. Sadly Lee's race soon takes a turn for the worse as he runs wide at the final corner of the mountain and the game reset him costing him valuable places and his sudden re-appearance causing Stretch to also hit the wall. This saw Stretch fall backwards with Matt right on his tail which starts a fight that gets picked up a few times through the race. Lee making a recovery chases down Phil until Phil runs wide on the last corner of the mountain allowing Lee to take fifth place. Phil doesn't give up though but following Lee over the mountain on lap 4, dips a tyre on the grass and spins. As Phil recovers he holds up Matt a little who is then caught by Stretch to continue their battle. Sadly for Matt, he gets a little loose out of one of the corners and with a little tap from Stretch spins right round (baby, right round) but ever the gentleman, Stretch waits for Matt to recover and retake his position. While all this has been going on down the field, Lee still recovering from lap 1 catches Lurch in fifth and following a side by side battle over several corners, Lee emerges victorious. This is short lived though as the following lap, Matt recounts his excessive penalties and distracts Lee which allows Lurch to retake his place with 1 lap to go. Lee now mostly on his own starts the final lap only to begin the celebrations a little early with several doughnuts at turn 2 letting Bones and Phil to gain an easy position. To give credit where credit is due though, Lee follows up the doughnuts with some nice drifting going up the mountain Final Result:
    5 points
  12. What a ding dong of a FIFA evening last week was! An evenings of no draws on the menu, and games swinging either way to the end, a fantastic showing of FGFC skills to keep the team in Division 1. Luckily @Luseth and @James5497 had their shooting boots on which dragged us through the first 4 games with 2 wins and 8 goals. Even the Rodman MoneyShot from the regular corners we take was enough to make Never One quit the game early doors. It was also a welcome back to Connor @JamaicanSteve after missing a few MNFs and he made the perfect comeback with a sublime strike against the same team. Going from the sublime one game to the down right awful luck and football the next, where We Like to Fist 😅 comfortable performed said action against us, scoring 4 to no return. The highlight of the match coming more so from Tom's @LordBaguette antic's on the last IRL FG meet up than the lack of any fine football skills on the pitch. The battle was real through the night, after securting another 4-2 win against Tetaball FC, it was probably expected that the outside chance of Division 1 was on the cards until a swift 8 goals were put past the weakened FGFC defence across 2 losses. A resilient battling display kept FGFC in Division 1 though for yet another season with 2 wins coming against FC Mvtnga and Internazionade; the former of the two being pegged back from a 3-2 lead for FGFC to win grab 2 quick goals in 2 minutes in the last phase of the game to break the opposition hearts. As usual, a final game always seems to end up on a loss most weeks as fatigue hits in...with @James5497 having a very early bath trying to be too eager to get to sleep the ball, receiing a red card in the first half. Another hard fought evening with some great highlights as always! GGFG FGFC Squad players across the evening: @LordBaguette @Antpool84 @GazzaGarratt @Luseth @Ally @JamaicanSteve @James5497 @Macca89 @Findmartin
    4 points
  13. Another successful evening had with FGFC last Monday, even with harder opposition we seem to have coped well with the regular experience of Monday Night Football and the odd Super Sundays we've had across the past few years. An easy quit gave us an early winning start, followed by a tough 2-1 win against FC Yeazerr. We probably spent too much time talking when Macca realised that Madtekz was one of the previous number one teams in the Pro Clubs on a previous FIFA. In all honesty we seemed to play well but concede every time that had a shot so 4-1 was a tough loss to take but it spurred us on to bounce back immediately with another close win. Some battling performances breaking up the play by @Findmartin and @Antpool84 allowed FGFC to keep an unbeaten streak going that eventually reached 6 games; most needed when we were down to 10 men due to @LordBaguette losing ahead early doors to Phoenix Esports and they dug out a draw for FG. @jordie1892 became a resilient pivot-point for the team as we pushed on to gain 3 wins in a row near the end of the night whilst @James5497 @Luseth and @LordBaguette were having success up top. The 'FG money shot' was probably used way more than this night than previous; @Macca89 assisting once again from multiple corners to the pinpoint heading stats man @James5497, leaving them with 6 assists and 8 goals respectively. Final 2 games of the night happened off stream which was a shame as @Findmartin found his shooting boots, collecting a hat-trick for his efforts upfront. A very tidy win percentage of 58% to finish the night in Division 1 is something not be grumbled at. Mini highlights below as usual along with the stats.
    4 points
  14. We're finally back with the reports and back with a bang too! For the last month I think we've all been enjoying the FG inter-tourney Super League so our form and number of games has dipped somewhat on MNF sessions, however it all clicked this past Monday when FGFC dominated all aspects of play to get promotion back to our usual Division 3 status but also set up a very promising Season 78 to get back up to dizzy heights again! The night started out in true typical FG fashion...by going 1-0 down 😄 I love the fact we're so nice to our opponents to give them a one goal head start. Although, we weren't phased by it much as our passes and link up play was on point from the off. Club Tropicana @GazzaGarratt has been changing his build to try a little more CF play and built up a great connection with resident big man Rodman @Lurch which resulted in a brace for Tropicana, with the winner being an unlikely role reversal of the giant forward Rodman crossing it in for a big bullet header from the little pocket rocket Tropicana. We were trying to make it hard for ourselves as we tried to build momentum as the second game started off with a straight red card to Jordan Prickford as they broke away after 5 minutes, and the 10 men of FGFC could only last 10 minutes before going 1-0 down again. A back and forth game however saw the game swing both ways up until it reached 2-2 at half time, followed by a fantastic second half with Teriyaki Project @Antpool84 turning into the follow up king, and Yeezy @jordie1892 finding his shooting boots once more to secure the 3 points. Those results secured promotion back to Division 3, however 3 more points would secure the title and with 4 games remaining, we thought we'd have a great chance at finishing 2 full seasons if we carried on the winning streak. Alas, why is it always the way?? A 3-3 draw was first up - a ding dong affair with a never say die last minute goal from TestiCal @TheMuggySpud to start the erupting scenes, but brought back down to earth when it was followed by a game that can only be described as the biggest script we've ever seen. The game started emphatically, a super 3-0 lead after 30 minutes with goals from Maccaroon @Macca89 and a double chip from Yeezy @jordie1892 led Gary Goals @LordBaguette to even say his famous words of 'I smell a quit'. Oh, how wrong were we. The FIFA techymites were busy behind the scenes concocting their greatest achievement - and it really took the biscuit for sure. Before the half had even finished they were back in to go HT with the score at 3-2; their second goal completely covered by 6 of us, but somehow the pass finds the man at the edge of the box for him to shoot through the same 6 players and keeper to find the one spot it could go in. Every attack in the second half kept on getting blocked and you could feel the pressure building up. Maccaroon making some crucial last gap blocks to push their ironic 100% pinpoint accuracy efforts wide. Thor then went for a second yellow just after the hour which felt inevitable. What came after was more unbelievable. 78 minutes saw the equaliser, a few more near misses for FGFC, followed by some intricate passes in front of us which somehow made Gary Goals slow down so the forward could have the ball and slot it home. The 5th and 6th followed in the closing stages where their team hit techybites special super button to renew their stamina and beat every FG defender to the ball to win 6-3. C'est la vie. Eventually, after a close fought 2-2 draw, a 4-2 win finally came; Maccaroon having enough of waiting to get another title by smashing a perfect 4 goals in from a hatrick of assists from Gary Goals. Being back in Division 3 gave us all a lift, with renewed spirits coming from most of the team chipping in with goals through the night (even TestiCals @TheMuggySpud notching from a classic team goal). A draw and 3 wins to end the night on was quite simply superb. There was some extremely solid defending through the team, with lots of blocks from Yeezy, Roberto Barlos @Findmartin and Rodman. Teriyaki Project @Antpool84 has his dispossession boots on, grabbing the ball back multiple times in the middle to start off plays, resulting in more Follow Up King goals to add to his tally. Maccaroon continued to add goals and assists, with even a Penalty save in the mix too - right deserving being the top goalscorer and assist maker on the night (although he had to considering he was singlehandedly on his own with 2 red cards from earlier in the session 😄). Averaging 2.9 goals per game, it really was a night to remember where FGFC, turned their seasons around with promises of maybe reaching the Holy Grail at some point in the coming weeks. GGFGFC @Macca89 @jordie1892 @LordBaguette @Lurch @Antpool84 @GazzaGarratt @TheMuggySpud @Findmartin Highlights below with some great goals through the night (My voice was muted on stream...which i didn't know. Probably best as you could hear what was going on over my excitedness 😬)
    4 points
  15. Race 1 & Round 2 of the Spring League Interlagos Gr3 13 Laps Fuel usage x5 Tyre Wear x6 Qualifying; In the short testing leading up to qualifying a few of us had been trying different cars to get a feel of which one to us. Lee @GazzaGarratthad primarily been using the Corvette but decided to switch to the Peugeot RCZ right before qualifying which was going to be either an inspired or disastrous choice. We all exit the pits at the beginning of quali which cause everyone to bunch up towards the end of the lap while trying to make some space. Tom @LordBaguette is the first to cross the line and setting new personal best on his first try though his lap is quickly beaten by Kiwi @JBR-Kiwi then I set a new PB to take provisional pole. Lee manages to nail his second flying lap to move himself up to 2nd until Kiwi crosses the line with a lap 4 hundredths faster than Lee. @Mikepjbell who had been having a not so great qualifying decided he wanted some of this action and on his third flying lap to move up to 3rd before getting 2nd on his next lap, beating Kiwi's time by 6 hundredths of a second. Both Kiwi and Lee go faster on their final lap with Kiwi managing to retake his second place on the grid and Lee missing out on beating Mike to 3rd by 5 hundredths of a second. Race; With these league races having a standard start, some cars a tricky to get off the line but everyone got of well which meant we were all bunched together for turn 1 which didn't go all the cleanly. @crispymorgan runs a little deep and tapping the rear of Lee who then runs in to me and pushing me wide. In this pinball, Lee got a bit sideways giving Tom nowhere to go except to hit Lee further and pushing him in to a full spin and dropping him to the back meaning another recovery race for Lee. In all the chaos of T1, Phil had managed to sneak through unscathed and move himself up to third place behind Kiwi and myself however a difference in braking for T4 sees me having to take avoiding action to not ram Kiwi giving Phil an easy pass in to the second. Running over the kerb had cost me a lot of my momentum but luckily for me, Mike rear ends me and bumps back up to racing speed to the cost of his speed as Tom sails passed him. This puts Tom right on my tail as we go through the infield section but a misjudged braking point at turn 10 has Tom running in to me right as Phil spins off in front of me. The contact between myself and Tom gives Mike an easy pass up to 2nd place though I managed to hold on to 3rd as Tom and Phil drop to 6th and 7th respectively. I get a good run out of the final corner and get the tow from Mike up the hill, I try a pass in to T1 but Mike defends and keeps me in third. I get a second chance at T4 as Mike runs wide but a snap of oversteer has him swerve across the track and, in a reverse of the first lap, I hit Mike's rear bumping him back up to racing speed. Though my chance came thanks to Lee channelling the commentators curse by saying at least Mike has spun who then spins right afterwards. Behind this battle, Tom trying to recover again manages to spin on the exit of T10 and then when getting going again, runs wide at T12 and spins again. Paul @slamminbones seemed to be having a quiet race in 5th but loses a place to a recovering Phil on lap 3. Lee, also on a recovery drive, decides to take an alternate strategy and takes his pit stop at the end of lap 3 changing his racing super softs for racing softs which hopefully are enough to get to the end of the race. The infield section was proving tricky as tyres started to wear as T10 of lap 5 sees Phil spin, shortly followed by Tom and then immediately by Lee. I had managed to catch up to Kiwi in the lead and getting a good run out of the final corner, I again use the tow to try a move in to T1 of lap 6 but unlike against Mike, this one works thanks to Kiwi being quiet compliant - which worried me as playing catch up I had used more fuel than I'd have liked and Kiwi not defending too hard suggested a different strategy but more on that later. As the race was 13 laps, I decided to split it as evenly as possible and pit at the end of lap 7 for a new set of racing super softs and fuel to the end dropping me to 3rd. On fresh tyres, I began catching Mike who had taken over 2nd due to my stop but Mike pits the end of lap 8 also for a new set of super softs. This leaves me chasing Kiwi for the lead and I had taken over 6 seconds out of his lead as he pits at the end of lap 9 which was enough for me to have extended my lead with only a few laps to go. Tom who had gotten fed up of all his spins and pitted on lap 5 but didn't take on any fuel has to do a second stop to take on some fuel. Lee who had managed to recover to 4th but suffering on his worn softs, runs wide at T12 on lap 10 and gets reset as Phil moves up a place. After 10 laps the field had become quite spread out meaning a quiet final few laps until the end of the race with me taking the win, Kiwi 2nd and Mike 3rd. Results League Table after round 2 Position Driver Race 1 Race 2 Total Pts 1 Greboth 25 25 50 2 JBR-Kiwi 20 20 40 3 Mikepjbell 12 15 27 4 phil_oi 15 12 27 5 GazzaGarratt 9 11 20 6 slamminbones 8 10 18 7 Crispy 7 8 15 8 JTLurch 11 n/a 11 9 TEENWOLF25 10 n/a 10 10 Lord Baguette n/a 9 9 11 Misneach DNF n/a 0 Race 2 Suzuka East N200 7 laps As with recent weeks, the league race has qualifying but the following races grid is set as a reverse of the finishing position of the previous race. Race Due to some technical issues with takeaway delivery, Crispy was AFK for the start of the race and as he finished last in the league meant the pole sitter was not going to start. This caught Lee out who hit the non moving Crispy dropping him to the back again. I try an ambitious move around the outside of T1 but run a little too wide and get very sideways dropping myself to last with a few seconds to gain to the pack. The pack stays close together on the run up through the esses with some small contact between Tom and Mike that ends with Mike in to the gravel at the top as Lee also follows in to the gravel. With all the contact, it had allowed me to recover and following Phil in to T1 of lap 2 as Phil gets it a little wrong allowing me to get passed with the aim of catching up to Tom. Tom runs wide through the essess and rejoins abruptly catching both Phil and I out as we both hit him. Tom recovers well but makes a further mistake as Phil and I get passed to continue our battle. Again I follow Phil in to T1 as Phil runs wide and giving me the place with only Kiwi now in front. Though Kiwi had started on the back row with myself, he had a relatively clean race and had opened a lead so was unlikely to be caught without him making an unforced error, which he did not but there was more action down the grid. Tom, Mike and Lee had managed to all end up on the same section of race track and battle up through the esses of lap 3 and on to lap 4 where at T1 Lee and Tom run wide, Lee manages to recover to the track quite quickly but it catches Mike out. In taking some avoiding action, Mike gets a bit lose and side swipes Lee harder than a nymphomaniac on Tinder but they both carry on without too much time lost. This is short lived though as on the following lap, lap 5, Mike touches the grass up through the esses and while he tries valiantly to hold on to it, lots of fish tailing later sees Mike in to the gravel and easily giving the place back to Tom and Lee. This time though it was Lee's turn to as at T1 of lap 6 Lee runs wide and spins out and although he gets reset quite quickly it is enough for Mike to retake the place which he holds on to until the end. At the chequered flag, Kiwi crosses the line for the win, myself in 2nd with Phil taking the final podium position. Results Race 3 BroadBean Raceway Gr4 12 laps Race Going in to the race, most of us had done no practise and were trying to decide which cars to use. It was quickly established the Audi TT was fast but Kiwi was setting the pace in the WRX so I switched to try the WRX too. This caused some comedy at the start of the race as the lights went green and both Kiwi and I took off thanks to a 4WD Subaru against everyone else in front wheel drive Audi's. Kiwi was clearly the fastest though and at no point did I ever look like getting close enough to try a move. Down the grid, Crispy was suffering due to having harder tyres than the rest of us so was quickly passed by Lee and then Phil. Lee runs wide out of T4 and clips the wall giving Mike the momentum to make the pass and on the following lap a repeat situation on lap 3 but this time giving Phil the overtake. Phil catches up to Mike and on lap 8 overtakes Mike round T1, Mike tries to fight back but clips the inside wall of T2 costing too much speed so can't fight to retake his position. Everyone was spread out by this point and so the positions remained the same until the finish where Kiwi took his second win of the night, as myself and Phil took 2nd and 3rd respectively again. Due to the lack of highlights for this race, I haven't made a video for this race. Results Final words Another night of good racing from everyone. It was a shame to see Lee have another difficult race in the league race but keeping it together and carrying on to push saw him recover a reasonable position. Race 2 was a fun race and raced like touring cars should be; as was once said rubbing is racing. GG all, here's to many more weeks of close and fun racing.
    4 points
  16. One of my favourite things on Call of Duty is the domination game mode. It’s fast paced and forces out all of the campers as you have to push on to flags etc to win. After watching many different videos and playing for a long time I have to admit - playing dom, getting the win and hitting some streaks requires a certain strategy. My argument for this is, it’s hard to go on long kill streaks if you don’t know where your enemies are coming from, this is why I’m not a fan of team death match as the spawns are a lot more difficult to predict and gun fights are often 50/50 rather than 90/10 when you know an enemy is coming. Also, you don’t want to be the loser camping in corners trying to get a streak going whilst the enemy has 2 flags capped and you’re losing the game. So, what is the strategy? Well it’s nothing ground breaking but it is often one that is overlooked - grab a home flag (A or C) and cap B. Then, use the power positions overlooking the enemy spawn to kill them as they come out. This only works if all members of the team don’t break the imaginary line that crosses between the last third of the map where the enemies will spawn at their home flag. The problem is, it never seems to go this way as we all go looking for kills or (what usually happens) the enemy pushes deep into our spawn and then we get flipped over to their side. In this circumstance you shouldn’t cap the enemy flag but instead retreat and catch the enemies on the flank. Communication is also key in this context as each member of the team is responsible for covering gaps in the map and maintaining map control. A word on this. Map control relates to having a member of the team in certain areas so that enemies do not spawn their (for the most part). A good strategy when capping B is for someone to push past the B flag and kill anyone coming to defend. So, if you want to hit some streaks and get a guaranteed win on Dom, give this strategy a try the next time you are in a sizeable team! Also, give this topic a little YouTube as well because there are people much better than me who can explain it better. Thanks Elliot
    4 points
  17. Looking Back Don’t blink too fast or it’s gone. Oh, sorry. Already has. Well, that’s how I felt anyway. And from the sounds of it most of you all did too. - Robbie Coltrane. Due to our average age currently at 36 and the many personal IRL things that have happened to many of our family this year I’m not surprised to say that games this year didn’t bring the best out in us. More so reminded us of a time that we thought we were invincible playing MW2 or even early parts of Destiny 1 in the newer era smashing raids out of the park. So you have to keep moving. Let’s face it, I’m friends with every single one of you for your company, great banter and the odd occasion where golden MLGpro360noscopeskillz come out, so I can say ‘I was there’. That’s been difficult for even me this year. Motivation when things are quiet are always hard and even more so when you gather energy to go again, only to bumped back by a personal loss. But we all hold each other up, like the absolute Champions that you are. And amidst all the anguish and despair some encountered, we’ve still created lots of stuff to do, fun and ‘Feel Good’ moments for as many as we could last year. In facts we had: 9,452 posts posted 802 topics created 30+ Videos made by you and uploaded 5 Quizzes you’ve got involved in 40 Events created and attended 2 Crispy Controllers fixed External Hard Drives, Multiple PS4 Games, PC Game Codes, Annual DLC Passes and 1 very shiny state of the art PC from the Forever Gaming Feel Good Fund (FGFGF) 1 very big FG Meet Up If I didn’t mention two things in more detail before we move on, that wouldn’t be quite right. The first was how everyone rallied around for our favourite part of the furniture, PlumberDave. Being able to chip in together, buy the parts we could and have an amazing trip to Ipswich to surprise our awesome friend was a moment to treasure (last time amazing and Ipswich go together though, sorry Dave). And finally for 2019, there was the first ever Huge FG Meet Up organised, in a remote location in Hereford. To have over 20 people come from all over the UK and even other countries too was truly incredible. We don’t take enough time to look back at these wonderful moments, so please do this more often. I don’t think anyone couldn’t get an amazing boost from the memories made on that weekend. If you didn’t make it…let’s hope and work out ways you can get on to the next one. Make it happen. Giving Something Back To Gamers As the last decade departs, I’m such a big believer and getting off your arse and doing better than last time. There’s some amazing facts shared above and you were incredible in 2018 too, actually even more so which can remind you that we are capable of so much more than what we do today. - Germany Kent We’ve had for a while an identity crisis, not dis-similar to some games out there ironically. This ‘thing’ that we/you do here is a pretty cool gig if you ask me. So if someone asked me to put ourselves out there even more, I say yes. Yes we should. We must. Forever Gaming is you. And all of you deserve to leave a Legacy. Something to be proud of. ‘Giving Something Back To Gamers’ is what we do best. We’ve helped so many people that we must continue to help as many more as we possibly can and spread what FG is all about. The Feel Good Fund couldn’t do as much as we wanted too last year and that’s okay. We have to find different ways to raise funds and ask people to help others. At the same token, I want to gain more support. This does mean more funding because I don't want us to be in a position to not things like Xmas Giveaway (because we didn't raise anything) but also there are many other ways to support. Creating events is helping as much as putting a fiver in to help someone out. Creating spaces for gamers to get together is something we should do more of and join in. We’re not scary, well not much anyway, and you guys can teach a whole load of people about some new skills to learn or hidden items to find. We need to create new videos to show this. Things that anyone can be a part of. The base of games out there on consoles and PC I feel is in a decent state right now. Some really solid titles since September and some long-standing ones mean we can do a whole lot more this year than before. So we have this place and I want to utilise more of it. I want you all to utilise more of it - but I need all your help. If theres something you think you can help out with, shout up. If you don't really know what but you are still really keen to get involved in any way SHOUT UP. Let's make: More Posts More Articles More Videos More Quizzes More Events More Giveaways More Feel Good Moments More Streaming More Helping Let's start Giving Something Back at FG. #GGFG
    4 points
  18. Where to start? In fact, that's a good point in itself because I have no idea where the starting point is for 2024 now we're already in February! 😅 Life has seriously flown by from what I've experienced, even when it has certainly been busy (Yes, 'busy'. The common phrase we all fall into using most days...I have also been one of those victims 💀). With 2024 already well on its way and started it would be awesome to see the energy pumping back up again across the board. As you get older I've realised that my purpose in life is really to make others feel happy and that they have meaning too. Seems cheesy, like, really cheesy doesn't it. 🧀 But sod it, I don't care. And it matches what FG does and already has been doing for years and years. Depression, Loneliness, Illness, Loss, Sadness...I could go on. Think of all of the things you can you think of that aren't a great feeling to have in life, FG has been there in some way to help people with this. We should do more of it. We need to do more of it. Someone said to me recently you can't change the world...yeah, yeah, I know that. But I woke up today thinking, well is there any problem if we did give it a go? 😎 So, rather than go on and on as I know you all love it when I do 😘 lets be far briefer than previous articles. All I ask is we make one promise together here at FG in 2024 - to put in as much effort as humanly possible making our FG Home alive and kicking more than it ever has been. No metrics, just pure effort. You'll quickly find you'll be helping more FGers than you realise just by sticking around, getting involved and thinking of others. GGFG ❤️🖤
    3 points
  19. 2 for the price of 1 this week! The last few weeks have been a real hard slog for FGFC, with many matches not going our way whilst also coming up against formidable opposition. However, this wasn't all the FIFA Scripts fault as some of the highlights from both nights will show. Epic fails and some hilarious luck meant that the wins were very hard to come by. Alas, we didn't let it defeat us as FGFC trundled down the leagues: @Ally is hotly contesting the Offside Championship with reigning 7x Champion @LordBaguette @LordBaguette farting and burping is distracting his usual upbeat depressiveness @Macca89's comedic timing is still really way off @James5497 needs to rediscover his heading stats @Luseth needs more hair dye to distract the opposition full backs getting in the way @Findmartin just needs to be found @JamaicanSteve's Pro needs more than one position just like his game collection needs more than one game @Antpool84 is trying hard to stop being obsessed with the colour Yellow, although he still finds the cards @GazzaGarratt needs to Believe even more than he already does @Camers93 is just happy to be here It wasn't all bad news though. There were some gems scored and others that are not allowed to be shown before the watershed for all your children's benefit. Next week we'll be trying to get back to the dizzy heights of the Gold Leagues and bring some energy from our recent EA Cup runs that have been successful on the past 2 previous Super Sundays.
    3 points
  20. A testing Monday last week as FGFC really struggled to get going and as we know in Division 1, there isn't much room for horrible results, so by the end of the night it was great to see us all pull through to save relegation in the final game of the Season (much to the modest joy of @Findmartin). The night started with a close 3-2 loss which isn't unusual as everyone started to get their Monday Night Football juices flowing, although it went from bad to worse as Public Enemies wiped the floor with FGFC 5-0 straight afterwards. We thought we stopped the rot with a quickfire 4-0 against SS Dux, Dennis Rodman @Neatstorm on form with his usual moneyshot headers. More drama unfolded as Micky Red smashed 6 past the lacklustre FG defence. It really felt like the FIFA Script was setting in full flow for the whole night as some comical errors and horrible AI mishaps kept ended up in goals against us. It was that bad at one stage, the pressure got too much for Maccaroon @Macca89 and he pulled a few CBAs that you'd usually expect from Gary Goals @LordBaguette. 2 battling draws finally stopped the rot, the latter with a full end to end ding dong against FC Eckerngrade. Pat De Groyne @jordie1892 scoring a silky finish with 10 minutes to go from a lovely team passing move. Working so hard against 'The Script' 😅, it was still only 2 points so needing 3 wins from 3 the focus was fully on FGFC to try and turn it around - and indeed we did. 10 goals over 3 games secured a fantastic end to Season 11, and an array of lovely finishes from @LordBaguette and @Luseth as the games went on. It should be pointed out that some well fought Gail Cleansheets were secured through the night @Antpool84, @GazzaGarratt and @Findmartin picking up 2 each at their respective full back positions. Season 12 has been set up intensely with a win and a loss coming at the closing stages of the evening....good job the end positioning doesn't take into account goal difference 😅
    3 points
  21. A night where the drum roll lasted longer than expected for FGFC to kick into a real gear this week. But once it did, it banged like never before. Season 56 was a real hard season to overcome, especially as we've noticed that it actually gets harder when we have a 10/11 players. However, it really adds to the excitement as is even more rewarding when the hard work pays off. For the first time that I can remember, FGFC got rolled over comfortably even the first 3 games. It wasn't just warm up nerves. The teams we came up against were on point and ripped our defence apart. At least we now know how Jurgen Klopp feels like when whatever he tries of late, it just wasn't working. Highlight though was Gary Goals @LordBaguette incredible skills in mini sparks of craziness which deserved a few goals after he beat 4-5 defenders in 2 separate occasions, but the goal just didn't want to come for Gary, much to the anger of @LordBaguette . Clearly alexobar felt sorry for us when they turned up against us after 3 losses in a row, so a quick quit gave us a lifeline whilst FGFC were struggling to pick the points up to remain in Division 3. Although h3ro team who also played with PSG, didn't feel pity and took a 1-0 lead early doors in our 5th game of the night. Trying to find inspiration, Sexual Chocolate @jordie1892 started shouting for throw-ins through his TV. It seemed to work, weirdly. In injury time a little inside ball to Maccanohairman @Macca89 from Rodman @Lurch gave him the perfect opportunity for a trademark Macca curler into the far right corner. Riding our luck in the second half, a strange penalty given away by Sexual Chocolate was saved by AI Diddums kept us in it. Unfortunately the AI Diddums suicide-passed to @jordie1892 to give their forward a tap in. He then chipped a ball on 2 minutes later straight to their forward (again!) and could only parry his shot back to them who finished their second goal in 2 minutes to take a 3-1 lead. Dejected but not defeated the Forever Gaming passing started to flow. A lovely passing move so a rasping drive from Rodman get tipped over for a corner. We didn't let the momentum slip as the resulting corner was whipped over for our trademark FGFC corner with @Lurch getting the header at the front post (2-3). Final balls were just getting dispossessed, tackles started to fly in as we could sense their nerves. An 87th minute attack saw the Assist King @Macca89 scoop the ball over the centre back's head for Gary Goals @LordBaguette to belt the ball home for a 3-3 draw. Whilst the football juices were starting to flow, we just couldn't get the results we needed. That well fought 3-3 draw wasn't much reward and a 1-1 draw quickly followed. Long term absentee Henrik Larrson @Glen11 was back after injuring his left ball sack in a dog accident which left him missing numerous weeks. His return through the night meant we had 11 for the first time, so in good spirits Club Tropicana @GazzaGarratt took the job between the goalposts. It was a difficult job and some goals crept in which I was hoping wouldn't be the case but credit to the lads. A fantastic spirit saw FGFC fight back from 2-0 down to 2-2. After falling behind early in the second half, @Glen11 was back in form like he hadn't been away, with a quick equaliser and then @Macca89 started making the late goals a habit with an 88th minute winner. A valiant effort followed but we succumbed to a late winner which sentus down by the end of the night. We could've easily felt like the night got the better of us, but no one felt down and gave up. We were thirsty to keep the spirits high and really good football that started to show in the past few games. Division 4 started and everything clicked. 👊 Early goals from Barlos @Findmartin , Larrson and Rodman gave FGFC a 3-1 lead at half time of the first game and the carnage continued into the second half with another 4 goals hammered in, with a beaty of a freekick nestled in the bunch of goals from no other than Maccanohairman himself. A few high score draws followed and as the night entered the final stages with people signing off for the night, Monday Night Football fireworks erupted, with an explosion of 17 goals across 3 games. The forward play was incredible, Sexual Chocolate getting 5 in one game and some direct teamplay as some usual defensive minded players switched up their positions to contribute towards the tally chart - most notably Stretch Armstong @Stretch616 notching a hattrick too. A little gutted that I didn't get any highlights from those games but I managed to get a highlight reel from with the goals from the 7-1 win that started off Division 4. Promotion back to Division 3 was secured, leaving a title game for another night. @jordie1892 finishing with 12 goals and the Assist King @Macca89 on top of the assists with 11. Great to see @Glen11 back and notching a trio of goals and assists in each column. A great night of football and laughs from the terrific twelve that turned up. GGFGFC @jordie1892 @Macca89 @Lurch @JamaicanSteve @Stretch616 @Glen11 @LordBaguette @Findmartin @GazzaGarratt @TonyAE86 @Antpool84 @tronic44
    3 points
  22. A trophy secured and another oh-so-nearly season although it didn't look like it early on! We welcomed new free agent Cal Nash @TheMuggySpud . Highly surprised to snap up the cool and calculated Irish dynamo all for a promise to buy him a Chicken Burger and a Sprite at the next big FG meet up. The first game of Monday Night Football we expected to use as watm-ups but needing 3 points from 2 games for the Division 4 title, it spurred everyone on to battle hard and comprehensively beat a strong Nuttin 2 Suttin side 2-0 at the first attempt. Another trophy in the bag!! When it came to starting the Division 3 attack, the team took a while to settle in to the night - precisely 5 games actually 😬 - with people like @GazzaGarratt having internet problems and the usual strikeforce misfiring up top. Apart from a glorious 3-0 win, we took some heavy beatings, with a few of them being a little harsh but there wasn't much FGFC could do about some very good sides and defence splitting balls in which there was no way we could defend them, even if we had 110 Pace. Those through ball killer passes are a nightmare for flat footed defenders. We needed something to stop the rot and to get out of our Baguette Blues we were having. Firstly, we'd spent a number of weeks trying some extra formations out from what we started out with for many seasons. A suggestion was put up to go back to the infamous 4-1-2-1-2 formation. Difficulty was that the ridiculous Pro Clubs mode has a bug that doesn't change the formation on screen but does in game. So for the first 17 minutes of the game, Gary Goals @LordBaguette has to spend time switching people into the correct positions. Not ideal but it came just in time. The game against Royal Accademys ended up to be a balls to the wall, defending masterclass by all involved. The back 4 of Torpedo Tony @TonyAE86 , Sensual Chocolate @jordie1892 , Club Tropicana @GazzaGarratt and AI defender Jordan Prickford, were helped hugely with the concentration skills of Gin Tronic @tronic44 at CDM and the rest of the team. A winner from debutant Cal @TheMuggySpud , made the 1-0 win even more sweeter. No need to explain the rest, role the tape. This gave the whole team new renowned hope for the rest of the night as FGFC before that were speeding for the relegation zone again. The 1-0 win was a catalyst for FGFC to obliterate their next opponents 6-0. A late inclusion jumping online straight into the back line was Roberto Barlos @Findmartin immediately grabbed a clean sheet, the Assist King @Macca89 back on form with a Man of the Match performance and Rodman @Lurch back to his best with a hat-trick. James continued to show how amazing his alternate tall Striker really is ending the night top of the goals again, and more than double than anyone else. A closer fought battle followed straight after but another strong defensive show proved useful yet again as Torpedo Tony shined through with some crunching tackles, one of which started the first goal where Maccanohairman crossed to the glorious heed of Rodman. The same show struck late on in the game too, even though I think we have to thank Jordie the Mindreader after Rodman had his pen saved 🤣 Just as there was a freak glimmer of promotion out of nowhere, it was quickly ended with 3-1 defeat to end Season 52, however remaining in Division 3 felt like a good result by the end of the night. We're getting close, incredibly close, to the top two divisions and I think thats hugely commendable given the difference in experience everyone in FGFC has. So good to see some cracking teamwork yet again. GGFG @Lurch @JamaicanSteve @jordie1892 @LordBaguette @TheMuggySpud @Macca89 @TonyAE86 @Findmartin @tronic44 @GazzaGarratt
    3 points
  23. A game of 3 halves is what they say isn't it? FGFC started the night in Division 4 after midweek impromptu meetups didn't quite pan out as we'd have hoped. Still, we were raring to go and eager to change our slow 'warm-up' starts and it paid off with a gruelling 1-0 over vanssssssss (I was tempted to carry on there for a moment...). A tremendous defence-splitting pass by Rodman @Lurch in his commanding CDM role found Crunchy Connor @JamaicanSteve to go through 1-on-1 to score the solitary goal. The FG train was on a roll and swiftly made the next team quit, obtaining a default 3-0 win. Needing one more win to go up, we turned up against a better side in Team Taunt UK. A goal a piece in the first half meant it was a tight affair but early in the second half a lovely worked play down the left ended up Forlan @ChaosGladiator putting a sweeping cross in, for what was to be the biggest salmon jump we've seen so far playing FIFA...or so we thought! Division 3 carried on where we left off with a sublime 2-0 win; a brace from Rodman just showing how much of a utility player he is for FGFC, like the stellar Aaron Mokoena was back in the day for Blackburn Rovers and Portsmouth. Memorable, right? 😎 After such a good start, we got to the end of the first Third of the night (although we didn't know this at that point in time). The next phase of the night started with a 3-3 banger, all goals coming within 30 minutes of the first half. The Tennis match was soon over though with a cagey 2nd half of constant defending, not all because of the opposition mind you... 😄 A horrible patch followed with 3 back-to-back defeats. Some goals the back 4 couldn't do much about, whereas others we just kept on losing the ball in dangerous positions outside of the box. I think most teams will seem to have these spells through a night (I can hear Tom @LordBaguette screaming in his sleep something beginning with S...) but i'd say we weren't flat throughout that period. Just on the wrong side of luck. Our 2-1 loss Jakes U15s could've been different if Gin & Tronic @tronic44 had expected the penalty to be passed to him, although it was still a cracking save. Near the end of the bad middle spell, we were doing everything we could against some good, skillful sides but perhaps also having a ton of luck against us. 2-0 down at H/T to TTN GaMiNg, we battled to stop further goals coming through. Torpedo Tony @TonyAE86 , Roberto Barlos @Findmartin and makeshift centreback @jordie1892 were pulling out all the stops keeping them to just one extra goal, going into the last 10 mins 3-1 down. Sensing we'd had enough of getting the wrong side of this luck, @Macca89 hot a screamer against the bar with Mulletov @G_dub52 crucially following in to force an headed own goal. It set up a tense finish, with TTFN getting a corner on 89 minutes and unusually it was FGFC that managed to break away, a side-splitting pass from Torpedo Tony allowed Mulletov and Sensual Chocolate @jordie1892 to play a one-two with Mulletov smashing the equaliser home. You wouldn't believe that last minute winners aren't our specialism. However, when one last minute goal comes, another soon follows, as the saying goes. Toronto Rabbits put up a strong fight and we were deadlocked at 1-1. We thought we lost our chance - twice - but the following 30 seconds were truly incredible stuff. FIFA at his best. They still must be screwing over that since Monday. Unfortunately, the damage was already done early doors in Season 46 resulting in FGFC bouncing back down to Division 4. The last minute winners and desire from those games though did give us some heart at the end of the night as the third phase kicked off, we became more dominant in overall play. Sensual Chocolate found his shooting boots, alongside MaccaNoHairMan. Rodman went back up top and his found some form with his head, alongside Mulletov and Roberto Barlos that finished some lovely team goals. 9 goals in 3 games and a lovely 3 winning game streak to end the night on. Moment of the night went to good ol' Torpedo Tony @TonyAE86 . It does have awful trouble with his WiFi at the best of times due to his Washing Machine being on 🙈🤣but this week's excuse for missing a 2 yarder was more down to some food stuck inside his controller. Don't ever change, Tony. Overall, its clear to see we play better with 3 halves to the night 😎 GGFG all @Lurch @Macca89 @JamaicanSteve @jordie1892 @LordBaguette @Findmartin @ChaosGladiator @G_dub52 @TonyAE86 @tronic44 @GazzaGarratt
    3 points
  24. Yes, here we are again. Another CoD and another year of what the hell the next developer screwed up - or did they this year? Call of Duty Modern Warfare has certainly divided opinion after a strong and solid Beta that was released, coupled with early news that there will be no loot boxes to the sounds of joyous high fives in the community. The game has managed to retain a lot of positives from the beta into the launch unlike other CoDs and has been highly praised on the fact they've kept many underlying mechanics and gameplay to the level that everyone wants. So why the hell are people still hating on this game? Well, we all love opinions don't we? And when it comes to the Call of Duty franchise its unlike any other game that i see out there over the past 5, 6, 7 years that takes this level of criticism. You see, most criticism that is strong usually comes with emotion. And emotion for this game is strong. Possibly the highest I ever see on a game, because it is the basics of boys and their toys imagination of being Action Man: The Greatest Hero of Them All (don't lie, you sang that line in your head, didn't you). So my view of the world as I see it right now for this CoD is that people jump to the negatives straight away, forgetting the positives. I understand that to a degree - this one still has some glaringly obvious ones. Maps - The most open maps a CoD has ever had. Yet still manages to have a 762 snugs for camper based play to pick you off 4 seconds after you spawn Skillbased Matchmaking - Not a massive negative for me, but i've had the odd game whereby you get a Road Rash punch in the face at 150mph, and the same happens every 2 seconds until the round is up Challenges - Can be cumbersome in how they are implemented and only one at a time is frustrating at times Menus/UI - Overall, that is a shambles, like most CoDs because they do not care about it Most importantly though, I find its the behaviours we're all used to that come out because we want CoD to do well so we can get that nostalgic feeling back when we played early CoDs and ransacked every team in town. Let me be clear - This game has the ability to give you that feeling. Open your mind to it. For all the weaknesses, the pros are clear as day and when they get things right, regardless if it is part of Activision, the developers deserve some credit for listening to the community. What am i talking about? Well: Gunplay - These has to be one of the best CoD games ever for overall gunplay. Guns feel solid. Nearly every gun does (apart from Pistols at the time of writing this but thats not fundamentally a bad thing). Gunsmith - The amount of customisation thats available at your disposal is huge. It gives the game a sense of depth to each and every gun. When the game is all about the guns, you want variety at your disposal and you have stacks of it here Changing Loadouts IN GAME - Why o why we have never had this is insanity. It looks like the smallest of Quality of Life changes but it makes a huge difference to the game. Loadouts can be really overwhelming to most people and usually once you've made it you'll stick with it but now theres more incentive to change an attachment mid-game and try more varied loadouts No Prestige - I see this as a massive plus which to some may be surprising. To Prestige in CoD literally helps nothing other than seeing how huge you wanted your forehead to be. I was with many others that used to level up to 55 and never Prestige as i wanted access to all the guns. This way you have that but can still unlock further items and attachments the more you go into the game. Having Season ranks after that level is a way they can keep a certain amount of grind to the game with access to vary the offering to the player base with specific seasonal content in the future. Its a great model to have to help players return more often Choice - In my opinion there's more than enough choice in gamemodes AND maps. Whilst maps require some fine tuning, they aren't all as bad as people say they are. Apart from Piccadilly. Piccadilly can die by being sucked up in large Black Hole with loot boxes. Some have some great verticality and decent sized lanes that have a twisted on how interlocking doors connect each lane. Just because its never been done before doesn't mean its a bad thing. Gameplay - Over the past week i've noticed it doesn't matter what style of game you play any longer. It all depends on what you mode you play in. You can run around all you like in Hardcore and dominate the scoreboard like a madman, or, take it safe and steady in Core. Score and Killstreaks - Not too hard and not too easy to obtain. Not many seem OP and the ones that do, usually can be shot out of the sky reasonably quickly. UAV spamming doesn't seem an issue any longer like it was in the beta. The Personal Radar is a great alternative and also gives away your position so with great reward comes with great risk. Veteran CoD players really need to give this time and try all gamemodes. Clearly, in a party it will ALWAYS be better because people will react to how you're feeling and make you feel brighter. Even if you're team is getting spanked. Our mindsets have to change from this CoD forward. We can't just keep labelling it same old CoD anymore and also running around trying to find the first piece of info to royally fuck it over. Give yourself a fresh outlook on a game that has usual dusty name.
    3 points
  25. Race 1 - Round 6 of the Spring League Fuji Gr2 15 laps Fuel usage x 4 Tyre wear x 3 Qualifying Kiwi has always been fast at this track so for the first lap of qualifying it was a surprise to have provisional pole with Mike, Lee, Phil, Paul, Crispy and James completing the top 8. Mike nails his second flying lap though and managed to take provisional pole by a tenth of a second. However Kiwi, about half a lap behind, sets a blistering lap to take provisional pole from mike by over 4 tenths. James constantly improves through qualifying and moves himself up to fifth place making the top 8 Kiwi, Mike, Me, Lee, James, Phil, Crispy and Paul. After several failed laps, I get a lap together to move myself ahead of Mike though still some way behind Kiwi who only further improved his lap time. Race At the front, I get a good start to edge a lead going in to turn 1 however Paul, starting 7th, got an even better start and got himself up to 3rd and in the pack with Kiwi, Mike and Lee challenging for 2nd place. Over the first lap, Paul drops back as the fight continues for second place which Lee briefly holds but a bit of contact at turn 6 sadly sees him run off track and lose a lot of places. Mike and Kiwi continue their battle for 2nd place with Mike managing to make the pass through the final corner though Kiwi uses the tow down the long start finish straight to retake the position in to turn 1 as Mike runs wide. Phil, who had a clean opening lap, takes the opportunity of Mike's mistakes to make a pass in to turn 2 though Phil's podium position is short lived as Mike re-passes Phil at turn 7 of the same lap. The fighting for position had given me a clean break out front however by the end of lap 2 everyone had mostly settled in to their positions and Kiwi began closing the gap down. At the end of lap 2 my lead was 3 seconds but by lap 7, this was down to just 1 second though a mistake on lap 7 gave me respite at the lead opened back up to 2 seconds. At the end of lap 8, halfway through the 15 laps, strategy started to come in to play with Mike and Phil both making a stop swapping their super softs for another set of the same and taking a splash of fuel to see them to the end. Crispy, who started on mediums, didn't stop as he attempted do a no stopper as Kiwi and myself, on super softs, were trying the same. Crispy, who hasn't stopped, gets to turn 1 and meets Mike who has just exited the pits and causing Crispy to get distracted and make a mistake and spin on to the grass. This mistake drops Crispy back and a further mistake at the final corner of lap 10 allows Phil to look at a move in to turn 1. Phil runs a little deep allowing Crispy to hold on to the place though Phil makes the move stick through the complex at the end of the lap. While this was going on, the battle for the lead had become tense as Kiwi had managed to close the gap down to 0.8 seconds by the end of lap 12. I had saved enough fuel that I could run flat out to the end and had a good start to lap 13, opening the gap back over 1 second; an important marker as around 0.9-1 second is where the tow starts to take effect. In pushing, I make a mistake through turn 8 of lap 13 costing me too much time and giving Kiwi an easy tow down the start finish straight. Kiwi takes the inside line in to turn 1 and takes the lead as we begin lap 14. Knowing turn 1 is the best overtaking spot on the circuit, it's my aim to re-pass at T1 on lap 15, the final lap, but a bad exit out of the final corner sees me drop too far behind to even attempt a dive in to T1. The only other real opportunity is turn 6 but again I don't manage to keep it close enough to attempt a pass. A different line, or a mistake maybe, from Kiwi allows me to unexpectedly close up in to turn 8, the penultimate corner, so I dive to the inside and manage to retake the lead. Some hard defending of the inside line of the final corner sees me get a small nudge in the rear and knocks me wide on the exit of the final corner. There's tarmac out there though so it all comes down to a drag race to the line - I'm initially ahead but Kiwi drops back in to my tow and starts gaining but the line comes a few metres too early as I cross the line to win by just 0.05 seconds; by far the closest finish we've had in all the races so far. Results Race 2 - Alsace Village Gr3 5 laps Fuel usage x 0 Tyre wear x 0 As common practice now with these races, Race 2 sees the grid being the reverse of the results of the previous race. Race The getaway from the grid and turn 1 is clean as we all try to make some space through turn 2. Phil and Mike out front have a small bit of contact at turn 3 which Paul also gets involved with. Kiwi and myself commit to the corner and unfortunately it's unavoidable to hit Paul which spins him out. I follow over the rest of the opening lap and through a better exit out of the hairpin get my nose alongside which gets squeezed in to the barrier much to Crispy's amusement. Turn 3 is again the point of contention on lap 2 as Crispy makes a move on Phil but Kiwi, Phil and myself all get it wrong and run wide on the exit. Kiwi and Phil get away with a small time loss though in an attempt to hold on to the car, I spin out. This promotes Crispy to second place though a recovering Kiwi makes quick work of overtaking to re-take the position. I catch Crispy going in to the long banked right hander and somehow get a far better exit meaning I have to take some avoiding action and end up running over the grass giving Crispy the place back until he runs wide at the next corner. The positions hold steady then until the end of the race though Mike has a scare at the end of the final lap as he runs wide on to the grass but by this point he had built up enough of a lead to be able to cross the line for another win. Results
    2 points
  26. Race 1 - Round 4 of the Spring League Monza Gr3 14 laps Fuel usage x 4 Tyre wear x 4 Qualifying As a sign of things to come, we all exit the pits at the start of qualifying shortly followed by most of us out braking ourselves at the first chicane and having to cut it. Tom decides he might as well cut all the chicanes as it's only the out lap but get such a large time penalty he has to stop to take a picnic to get rid of it. Everyone else gets round though a small pack is still bunched up which costs Mike his first flying lap at the first chicane. It all goes wrong through the Lesmo's too as Lee, Mike, Phil and Crispy all get mixed up together. I get a clean lap and cross the line to take provisional pole with Kiwi second, Clive third and Crispy 4th as everyone else had made mistakes. Tom, now significantly behind everyone, finally sets a lap to move himself up to 4th. Until Crispy briefly takes 3rd until Mike and Phil get their laps together to take 2nd and 4th respectively dropping Crispy to 5th. Kiwi suffers with a penalty on his third flying lap but gets a good run on lap 4 to take pole position as Clive also nails his lap to start 5th. Race I get a good launch and break away at the front giving me a clean turn 1 chicane while everyone else is bunched up which obviously goes wrong as Tom hits Paul who knocks Clive and in recovering Clive crashes in to Phil. Lee recovering from the turn 1 shenanigans attempts a pass on Clive at the first chicane of lap 2 but runs a little deep giving Clive a chance to come back at him. Clive overtakes and the fight continues to the second chicane where he out brakes himself running wide through the plastic barriers. Clive manages to hold on to his lead over Lee to the Lesmo's where he runs wide and Lee follows in to the gravel. Lee spins out but Clive manages to keep it going and tries to rejoin the track but misjudges and spins back on to the grass until getting reset to the track. Kiwi who held on to 2nd through the first lap chicane had been chased down by Mike who had deduced that Kiwi was on the hard tyre contrary to everyone else so save time overall Kiwi lets Mike passed rather than fighting him unnecessarily. Phil on a recovery drive, catches up to Crispy and due to a mistake from Crispy through Ascari, Phil managed to draft passed on the run down to Parabolica. Cripsy attempts to follow Phil's braking point and corner positioning but massively out brakes himself running wide through the gravel but recovering it well. Over laps 6 through to 9 everyone goes for their mandatory pitstop with the order remaining unchanged however Kiwi had changed his racing hards for mediums while everyone else had done the opposite. On lap 11, Kiwi's faster tyres had allowed him to catch up to Mike as he makes a pass for 2nd place in to the Ascari chicane. Kiwi runs wide through giving Mike a chance to retake the position which he briefly does on the straight but on the slower tyres Mike can't manage to hold the position on the outside of the Parabolica. Kiwi then begins chasing me down in the lead and manages to catch me through Ascari on the final lap with only the Parabolica to go to decide the winner. I keep to the right to ensure I hold the inside line for the final corner so Kiwi will have to take the long way round. A bit of door to door rubbing and pushing see me miss my braking point and run wide squeezing Kiwi who runs off the track and this gives me enough exit speed to cross the line for the win. Results Race 2 Willow Springs Gr4 8 laps Fuel usage x 0 Tyre wear x 0 Race As the second race of the night the grid for this race is set by the reverse of the finishing positions of the last. This was a fantastic race with overtakes happening amongst us all at various corners and over all 8 laps. Unlike the above, there's no real nuance or clips not worth including for this race. So rather than type up exactly what happens, I'm going to let the video do all the talking for this one. Results
    2 points
  27. Greboth

    Gran Turismo 16 March

    Race 1 - Round 3 of the Spring League Autodromo Lago Maggiore Gr3 10 laps Fuel usage x 4 Tyre wear x 6 Qualifying: Lee struggled to set a fast lap in practise and decided to change car right before qualifying which looked to be a bad choice as he managed to spin twice on his outlap. Lee wasn't alone though as Tom, Crispy and Paul also made a mistake to scrap their first flying laps. I cross the line with a new personal best to take provision pole though Kiwi manages a close second with his lap slowed down as he caught up with Phil. Tom manages to get his second lap together and gets himself up to 5th and later improving further to start 4th. Mike initially struggled with his qualifying as he spent too long trying to qualifying for a drifting championship but eventually keeps the car pointing straight to line up 3rd on the grid. Lee continues to struggle before exclaiming he'd like a lap under 2 minutes which he promptly manages as he gets to grips with the new car. Kiwi free from Phil, nails his lap and takes pole position which while I manage to closer I can't beat. Race; I get my start all wrong by getting too much wheel spin which gives the pack chance to close up and overtake on the run to turn 1 which causes me to misjudge my braking and I crash in to Tom who spins. In recovering, Tom gets back on the track and spins at turn 2 also. At the tricky turn 5, James keeps a tighter line and takes advantage of Lee and Crispy running wide to gain 2 places in one corner. Phil gets a better run exist out of turn 5 than me and makes his move up to 3rd at the chicane. This puts Phil on to Mikes tail for the long run down to the chicane where Phil jokes about not messing up his braking point which he then does but manages to avoid running in to Mike. Mike makes an easy switch back to hold on to second though it compromises his exit and giving me the chance of a pass up the hill to retake 2nd place. The nature of the track, the field had already become reasonable spread out by the end of lap 1 and this continues as Kiwi extends his lead out front. Lap 4 sees the start of pitstops with Clive and Paul pitting followed by myself at the end of lap 5 and Phil, Mike and Kiwi at the end of lap 6. The pit stops were pretty even so didn't do much to change the order though Phil was working too hard on his strategy plans made a mistake at his stop and didn't change tyres. Due to Phils faster stop it did bring him out in front of Mike however with Mike on fresher and grippier tyres soon made easy work of retaking 3rd place. Lee and Crispy also made a miscalculation in their strategy plans as they both forgot to calculate in the final lap causing them to be short causing them both to need a splash and dash stop on lap 8 and 9 respectively. On to the final lap, Clive is defending from Lee and spins at the turn 1 / 2 combo giving Lee the place. The race ended with Kiwi crossing the line for a dominate win which never looked in doubt and for this first win of the Spring season. Results; Race 2 ; Nurburgring Nordschleife 1 lap N200 There was no qualifying for this race as we used a reverse grid from the finishing positions of the first. There's not much of a report for this race as it's hard to keep track of where everyone is over a 16 mile lap and I don't know the track sooooo here's the results; Results; Race 3 Blue Moon Bay speedway Gr3 12 Laps Again, the grid for this race was decided as a reverse of the finishing order of race 2. However with an oval where drafting is so easy and so important, qualifying is less important. Race Lee makes a similar mistake to mine in the first race and gets too much wheel spin off the line and manages to spin and spear Paul as he tried to pass off the line. As the pack mostly remained close, there was plenty of rubbing and more than a few people getting a knock in to the outer wall. Mike managed to get passed me through the final corner and had a plan to bump draft Kiwi in an attempt to break away from the following pack though this was short lived as Mike decided to go for the pass rather than bump Kiwi. By lap 4, the field has spread out a little with the lead group consisting of Mike, Kiwi and myself with Phil and Crispy in a pack of 2 close behind with the rest spread out on their own. Over the next few laps there's a number of changes of position as we all draft passed and then re-pass each other with the end game being to be in the best position come the final lap. Mike makes a mistake though on lap 9 by running wide and hitting the outer wall too hard and getting a penalty but he manages to get rid of it so it's a 3 way fight for the lead going in to the final lap with Kiwi in first, Mike second and me in third covered by only 0.5 seconds. I draft up to Mike but hang back to try and get a run in to the final corner where the 3 of us take different lines but all try to occupy very similar parts of the track at the corner exit. Due to the natural line to run wide on corner exit, Kiwi's line takes him wide and across the nose of my car giving him a small wiggle but coming back across the track further contact is made with the front of my car causing him to spear in to the side of Mike slowing them both down and giving me the win. Results
    2 points
  28. Race 1 5 Laps Circuit de la Sarthe / Le Mans The first race this week marked the beginning of the Spring league and so the first FG GT Sport race where points were on offer. The race took part at Le Mans, or Circuit de la Sarthe as it's sometimes called, using Group 3 GT cars. The track is a mix of purpose built sections and public roads with the beginning and end being mostly fast flowing corners while the middle is dominated by the Mulsanne straight separated by chicanes. Qualifying; In the practise leading up the event it was a battle to not get penalties which almost, if not, everyone got and this carried on in to qualifying with at least myself and @phil bottle picking a penalty on our first flying lap. Though penalties weren't the only impact on flying laps as @JBR-Kiwi had a trip through the gravel and @Mikepjbell spun on their first laps. Due to these issues, I take provisional pole with a lap several seconds slower than achieved in practise. The second flying lap of qualifying offers a chance of redemption right up to the point that I pick up another penalty and Paul @slamminbones also making a mistake. However Kiwi managed to keep it clean on his second lap to take provisional pole as through further penalties and mistakes, no-one improved on their final lap meaning Kiwi had managed to bag pole position. Race: The race was going to be an interesting one, for the number of teams entering the 24 hour of Le Mans the pit lane is exceptionally long so you lose a lot of time making a stop. However the fuel saving required to make 5 laps is also high so costs you seconds per lap. Which strategy would people go for and how would it all work out in the end. Kiwi showed his hand at the end of qualifying by discussing his change of strategy and pitting to medium tyres and Mike also switched to soft tyres over the super softs used for qualifying. For the league race, we used a grid start for this race and the getaway was clean with everyone getting away roughly in their grid order until Paul misses his braking point for turn 1 running himself and Phil wide but thankfully without any loss of time or position. Sadly Matt @Misneach_ had some technical issues with being stuck in the wrong view which ended his race before it really had began. The super soft tyres myself and Phil were using meant we were all over Kiwi and Mike respectively as they were on harder and consequently slower tyres. The pit stop strategy only works if you can break away from those going for a no stop which I managed overtaking Kiwi to the first chicane on the Mulsanne straight and shortly followed by Phil also getting passed at the second chicane. This separated the leading pack to Phil and I who were stopping ahead of Kiwi and Mike who were planning to not stop so at this point we were in our own battles. Mike gets a good tow on Kiwi down the final section of the Mulsanne straight and makes a move but runs a little deep as Kiwi attempts a switch back which results in a little contact and Mike spinning in to the wall. Right as Mike is spinning, Lee @GazzaGarratt, who had been running 5th, runs massively deep in to the same corner too and both of them get reset to the track and in the following pack. Lee's mistake had dropped him to 7th but by Indianapolis and Arnage, Lee had managed to climb back to his original 5th place but sadly got a small tap on the rear by Clive @Teenwolf25 in the braking zone led to Lee taking another trip through the gravel and on recovering has some further contacts and ends up spinning out dropping him to the back of the field. The fighting in the pack allowed Mike to catch up and be right behind Paul and @crispymorgan going in to the Porsche curves and as neither were Phil, Mike pulls over a couple of quick and clean passes to move himself back up to 6th place. Crispy was a bit unclean as Mike overtook him and this continues through the final 2 chicanes as Crispy gets a bit sideways on the exist of both giving Paul all the opportunity to make up a place himself. A lap later, Mike has caught up to Clive and through some mistakes by Clive through Indianapolis and Arnage corners, Mike gains a further place to now have recovered to 5th. Due to the length of the track, everyone was reasonably spread out by this point but it was now time for pit stops and strategy to come in to play as everyone on a pit stop strategy pitted the end of lap 3 (except Lee who had pitted the end of lap 2). The pit stop dropped me from 1st to 3rd, 15 seconds behind Kiwi in the lead and 7 seconds behind Mike in second. The pit stop had also dropped Phil from 2nd to 4th however on fresh tyres and not needing to worry about fuel, it was now a question of if we could catch Kiwi and Mike before the end. I managed to catch and pass Mike by the beginning of the Porsche curves of lap 4 leaving my 9.5 seconds to Kiwi. At the end of lap 4, Mike decided to go for a splash and dash pit stop which, due to his comments on his car not arriving, I don't think he'd realised how long the pit lane is and so giving Phil an easy pass up to 3rd place. I continued my pursuit of Kiwi and had been gaining but it was going to be extremely tight if it was going to be enough but sadly Kiwi ran deep at the end of the Mulsanne costing him several seconds and allowing me to take the lead. And with the exception of a small mishap at Indianapolis as Kiwi on worn and dirty tyres sailed passed the corner, it was then an easy win for me on fresher tyres and no fuel saving. Overall it was a good first race of the spring season and it's a shame we didn't have a race to the end, in writing this, I found that Kiwi had a 4.2 second lead on me when he made the mistake and on the previous lap, I had made 4 seconds up. A big thank you to @phil bottle for arranging these events. Results Race 2 The first rally race we have tried and we have to remember the first rule of gt sport racing is we don't talk about rallying. The second rule of gt sport racing is we don't talk about rallying. Race 3 Tokyo East Inner Loop (Wet) Gr3 For a bit of fun the final race of the night is one of only a few wet races available in GT Sport around the streets of Tokyo. Being a street track there is zero run off so any mistake means running in to a wall and at any speed means a penalty. As becoming normal, this race grid is based off of a reverse of the last so there was no qualifying. Race The different cars being used by everyone meant the long run to turn 1 was interesting, I got a good launch in the Porsche and was following Crispy who was out front. But the GT-R's are fast in a straight line so soon started hauling us in so by turn 1 we were mostly all bunched up 2 or 3 wide. Even with a small imagination, it isn't hard to imagine how badly this went thanks to someone who I won't name *cough* Phil *cough*. I don't know but I'd guess a mix of missing his braking point in the pack, the wet track and going faster than expected in to tow caused Phil to run deep and take me with him in to the wall on the outside of T1 for which we both go reset and then in my frustration I spin it in to the wall again for good measure. Mike who had been hanging back going in to turn 1, slips passed the carnage to take the lead. Turn 1 at this track is the hardest as it's a hairpin so getting out of it, especially in the wet, is difficult but Lee managed it to be set up for a move to overtake Crispy at the turn 2 & 3 switchback as Kiwi manages pull a similar move on Paul too. After my turn 1 punt and spin, I managed to catch back up to Phil who clips a wall giving me the over speed to get alongside and then get squeezed in the wall but Phil then gives me space so I take the place at the next corner. After the manic turn 1, we were quite spread out but over the next lap, I caught up to Paul who decided to let me passed but in doing so got a penalty so I don't think he'll be so kind next time. I spent the following lap catching up to Lee and Kiwi who were running together which as I caught them at the end the lap this led to us running 3 wide down the long start finish straight and to turn 1 - because it went to well on lap 1. Thankfully it all went well this time with Kiwi coming out in front, me in the middle and Lee at the back. I push to get passed Kiwi and bump him in to the wall for which he picks up a penalty though the favour is quickly repaid as Kiwi runs me in to wall too. Phil decides to end his race as it started by running wide at turn 1 of the final lap and getting reset which allows Paul to gain a place which he holds until the end. Results:
    2 points
  29. As many of us are currently working from home, i thought it would be benifical to go through some suggestions that might make your life a bit easier, more comfortable and better for your health in general. 1. Get dressed For some people, the prospect of staying in their pyjamas all day is the most tantalising aspect of working from home. But washing and getting dressed will not only improve your state of mind, it will psychologically prepare you to start work. Whether you need to change into business attire depends on the type of person you are and the nature of the job you have. Some people find that dressing formally is helpful, and also useful if they need to dial into a video call. But for many others, the point of getting dressed is being forced to shower and change out of clothes they associate with sleep and rest, even if that means just changing into a T-shirt and jeans. Wearing respectable clothes also increases motivation to leave the house. Likewise, changing out of work clothes when you clock off for the day helps your brain to understand that the working day is over. 2. Establish boundaries If you're employed by a company, you'll probably have set hours of work, and it's important to stick to these when you're working from home. Be ready to start your day at the same time as you would normally arrive in your office or workplace, and finish your day at the same time. Em Sheldon, a blogger and freelance writer, says she sticks to a routine while working from home. She advises "going to bed at a reasonable hour so that you get enough sleep and then wake up at your usual time. "I also find things like booking in a workout or getting my gym kit ready means I have to get up and go," she says. "Once you do something over and over, it becomes a habit, so the first week may be challenging but eventually it becomes part of your routine." At the end of a working day, it's best to switch off your computer and tidy away papers and other items. Space allowing, set aside a specific, separate area in your home where you can set yourself up - ideally with a properly adjusted desk and chair, similar to your workplace. The NHS advice is that you should adjust your chair so you can use the keyboard with your wrists and forearms straight and level with the floor. If there are other people in the house, finding a space where you're not likely to be disturbed is essential, as Prof Robert Kelly found out the hard way in 2017. He was being interviewed live by BBC News when his two children burst into the room, creating a now infamous video, which has been viewed more than 30 million times. It's also important to not "overcompensate" because you're anxious about working from home, says Ross Robinson, who manages a team of freelancers at his Ignata Consulting firm. "Many people tend to over communicate when working from home - either wanting to 'be seen', or overcompensating to ensure people know what they are up to. That's fine - but don't go over the top. You know if you're on task and being productive - keep yourself in check." 3. Get out and about (if you're not self-isolating) Working from home shouldn't mean you stay cooped up indoors all day. While you might not miss your daily commute, it does guarantee that you leave the house at least once during the day. So get your shoes on, get outside and enjoy that fresh air. A different perspective will also help undo mental blocks and give you a fresh pair of eyes for any tasks you're struggling with. Matthew Knight, founder of Leapers, a group that supports self-employed people and freelancers, says getting outside first thing helps him feel like it's time to work. "There's a mental angle for each individual that makes you feel like you're working," he says. "I will leave the house and walk around the block and feel like right now I am at work. Find ways of putting in those boundaries otherwise it becomes difficult to switch off." If you can't go outside, you could even bring the atmosphere of the office to you. "I like bustle and being around people, so I use sound to help make a bit of an atmosphere," says Gillian Roche-Saunders, whose entire regulatory consultancy firm Adempi Associates work remotely. She uses an app that plays background sounds such as a train moving along tracks, or the chatter of a coffee shop. 4. Pick up the phone If you're working from home, the chances are you'll be alone, so you won't get distracted by colleagues' conversations and other office noise. When you're at work, you're more likely to engage with colleagues but when you're working from home, you could spend the whole day without speaking to anyone which can be isolating. Make some time to pick up the phone and have a real conversation, rather than relying on email and instant messaging. "More and more people hide behind email rather than pick up the phone and talk to colleagues and contacts," says Hugo Mortimer-Harvey, who's worked remotely from Spain as a freelance PR consultant since 2018. "When you spend the day working on your own, actually calling people and having a conversation can be much more stimulating and indeed productive than a chain of emails." Jack Evans is lead business psychologist at workplace wellness consultancy Robertson Cooper, which is planning to have all its staff temporarily work from home. Their plan is to speak to each other for 30 minutes every day via video conferencing. "At about lunchtime we will just chat over video message about nothing in particular. It's to make sure people don't just turn into work monkeys. We will maintain conversation about work but it's also about not losing that social connection, which is much easier to get in person." 5. Take regular breaks It's good to have a routine when you're working from home, but work shouldn't become monotonous. And you shouldn't stay glued to your screen all day. It's important to take regular screen breaks and get up from your desk and move around just as you would in an office. Research has also found that short breaks throughout the day are more beneficial than less frequent, longer breaks. Many home workers recommend the Pomodoro Technique, a method of time management which breaks your working day into 25 minute chunks. Each chunk is followed by a five minute break. Ellie Wilson is co-founder of virtual assistant service, Virtalent, and has a team of more than 50 remote workers. "It's important to stand up, stretch, move around and even go for a short walk to take a break from your work and your screen," she says. "Being cooped up without stopping for a break can mean your productivity levels drop, you become more tired and less motivated to complete what you're working on." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51868894 6. Workstation adjustment and efficient working posture
    2 points
  30. Advice for everyone - Coronavirus (COVID-19) Stay at home to stop coronavirus spreading Everyone must stay at home to help stop the spread of coronavirus. You should only leave the house for 1 of 4 reasons: shopping for basic necessities, for example food and medicine, which must be as infrequent as possible one form of exercise a day, for example a run, walk, or cycle – alone or with members of your household any medical need, or to provide care or to help a vulnerable person travelling to and from work, but only where this absolutely cannot be done from home Important These 4 reasons are exceptions – even when doing these activities, you should be minimising time spent outside of the home and ensuring you are 2 metres apart from anyone outside of your household. There is separate advice about: staying at home if you're at high risk of getting seriously ill from coronavirus staying at home if you or someone you live with has symptoms of coronavirus How to stop infection spreading There are things you can do to help reduce the risk of you and anyone you live with getting ill with coronavirus. Do - wash your hands with soap and water often – do this for at least 20 seconds - use hand sanitiser gel if soap and water are not available - wash your hands as soon as you get back home - cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve (not your hands) when you cough or sneeze - put used tissues in the bin immediately and wash your hands afterwards Don't - do not touch your eyes, nose or mouth if your hands are not clean Looking after your health and wellbeing To help yourself stay well while you're at home: stay in touch with family and friends over the phone or on social media try to keep yourself busy – you could try activities like cooking, reading, online learning and watching films do light exercise at home, or outside once a day For more advice, see: Every Mind Matters: 10 tips to help if you are worried about coronavirus Every Mind Matters: how to look after your mental wellbeing while staying at home strength and flex exercises you can do at home What to do if you need medical help If you need medical help for any reason, do not go to places like a GP surgery, pharmacy or hospital. If you have symptoms of coronavirus (a high temperature or a new, continuous cough), use the 111 coronavirus service. If you need help or advice not related to coronavirus: for health information and advice, use the NHS website or your GP surgery website for urgent medical help, use the NHS 111 online service – only call 111 if you're unable to get help online for life-threatening emergencies, call 999 for an ambulance Stay safe everyone!
    2 points
  31. Have you been questioning the directions in which most studio's have taking recently? Maybe it's the content or even the possibility of only digital titles, in the rambling's of this controller warrior you may find some of your queries raised. The expectations of the modern gamer seem to have drastically changed due to the games in which we purchased being released broken or unfinished, we then purchase said product with the promise of it being hot-fixed or patched, this sadly has became the norm and more people are becoming numb thus letting it slide. I personally find this quite disheartening, as the sole users our say should be driving studios to make changes to the way games are released. Let's go back to the days of old, no internet, no CD's that act as product keys I'm talking about cartridges. Games were as intended and I think it's needs to return to that methodical style of producing in order to not stifle or erode the games industry. For many people games are collectors items, whether it be a limited edition, contain extras such as prints or figurines. In my eyes a code for in game currency or a downloadable soundtrack should never be put into this because they are not physical, this is going to be a huge issue for many fans of a particular studio/franchise. All in all I feel somewhat fobbed off when I buy a new title, after spending hours downloading and then copying only to finally get stuck in then find a game breaking bug. Don't worry though guys, it will get patched and this all depends on the size of the studio for time scale. Hopefully things will change with the next gens - not only graphically also with the games being done to a better standard.
    2 points
  32. This past week, @Rumelylady and Myself were in Columbus Ohio for Origins Game Fair 2022, working with Six Sides of Gaming to provide the A/V feed as well as streaming from the main hall of the con. It was both our first time in Columbus and I really liked the city as a whole. Great people and some amazing food in and around the convention centre/downtown core. The con itself was shrouded in some controversy thanks in no small part to two of the "Special Guests" having they're true colors revealed to the TTRPG community by a large amount of people sharing their experiences with these two, and just how horrible, disrespectful, and unprofessional they've both been when working with them in the past. Needless to say, It was a topic of discussion for a lot of people on the show floor as most were trying to distance themselves from them. Both people in question were removed from all appearances they were scheduled to make and replaced rather quickly by some other more professional people in the industry. Aside from that, The turn out suffered as well thanks to a mask mandate being in place for the convention. A lot of people that were going to attend cancelled due to the back and forth by the con with regards to this. Shame really, as they missed a pretty good show. Our job went off without a hitch. Audio/Video quality for the sow was top notch and we were praised for our work we put into it. Our streaming however was fairly lacklustre due to one member of the company failing to obtain people for most of our convention programming. Attendance was mediocre, but that was the case for most of the convention as a whole. A lot of demo room, panels, performances, and even the costume contest (Which had some amazing outfits) all had a poor showing but fun was had none the less. To get into everything from the floor here would take a lot, so I'll choose a couple things that we bought that really caught our eyes. First was a board game called Wonder Book by DV Games Wonder Book Board Game WWW.WONDERBOOK-BOARDGAME.COM This one caught our eyes right away thanks to the creative way they've implemented the game board. It opens up like a book, but as you progress through the chapters of the game, It turns into a big pop up book with movable tabs! It's truly something you have to see up close to appreciate, and we were happy to buy this from them. The other was various sets of dice and cards by a group called Inkwell Ideas https://inkwellideas.com/ They had an assortments of dice and cards that created dungeon maps, terrain, and NPCs for random TTRPG adventures that really blew us away. There's so many options you could end up with using these products and it really expands what can be done with a random generated TTRPG adventure setting using say 5E rules. We spend a lot of money here. Excellent products that I would recommend to any TTRPG game master looking to add a few things to their bag of tricks. It was a fun week, but also the last we will have working with Six Sides of Gaming. A lot of issues have caused Sarah, Myself and our Friend Adrian to step away, BUT... We have already begun the work to start our next endeavour based around our podcast called Dice to Pixels. We will be starting this up within the next few weeks and we fully intend to fire up some TTRPG streams and some boardgames play-through and walkthroughs as well. All in all, Origins was good especially thanks to some of the people we had the chance to hang out with and enjoy together. Columbus was a nice city that I would 100% return to and who knows, Maybe we will be back next year to do the same thing. Only with our new group. Cheers Folks!
    1 point
  33. In the forums you may have noticed that a series of topics around health and wellness have begun to pop up. The reason? I’m a strength and conditioning coach – so health and wellness are the corner stone of my existence! Today I want to address something that impacts all of us here at FG – Sleep. If you’ve played with me at all you know that I often log off first and go to bed at around 9.30pm, why? Well according to several studies there is a link between video games and the quality of sleep we can get. Sleep is one of, if not the, most important factors influencing our physical and mental health and wellbeing. Getting a solid 8 hours of sleep every night is truly the fountain of youth as it has links to lower blood pressure, weight loss, cancer…..you name it – sleep impacts on it. In a recent study it was found that even the smallest exposure to video games led to: “The analysis indicated a reduction of Total Sleep Time (TST) and an increase of Sleep Onset Latency (SOL), modifications of the REM sleep and Slow Wave Sleep (SWS), and increased sleepiness and self-perceived fatigue.” That means when you play video games the amount of sleep you get is reduced, the time it takes you to fall asleep takes longer and you don’t get as good quality REM sleep (the important part of sleep). To mitigate this, I have made the following recommendations on the forum: 1. Be in bed with enough time to fall asleep and get at least 8 hours sleep. For me that’s 10pm, so I log off at 9.30pm, make my lunch and bits for the next day and get in bed by 10pm. 2. Stop drinking caffeine after midday. This one is a tricky one as people like their tea and coffee etc. However, the half-life of caffeine is actually 5 – 6 hours on average, that means if you had a black coffee at midday that’s 100mg of caffeine in your system, by 6pm that’s still 50mg in your system, by midnight 25mg. See the problem? If you drink coffee at 6pm with your dinner it’s still raving out in your system at midnight. Something to think about is that the issues with video games and sleep are acute. You play video games, you have poor sleep, you wake up and you’re tired. You don’t play video games that evening, you sleep well – all is good, right? Wrong. The acute effects of video games and sleep soon build up and the study suggests that long term exposure to video games can have long term chronic issues related to elevated heart rates and blood pressure, obesity and other various ailments. Hopefully this information might help you to make some different choices about how often you play video games, how late you play them and if you can find ways to mitigate the impact. Here are the final conclusions from the study, which is linked below: In summary, exposure to VGs before falling asleep can have important effects on the subsequent sleep characteristics, in both children/adolescents and adults. The reduction of Total Sleep Time (TST) and an increase of Sleep Onset Latency (SOL) and the possible change of components of sleep (mainly SWS and REM) identified in the study investigated, are clear indicators of poor sleep quality, higher tiredness and fatigue that may have repercussion on cognitive and behavioural activities of the subsequent waking. In fact, some cognitive abilities as sustained attention and verbal memory, can result worsened as a consequence of VGs exposure. Since the relevance of sleep for health and life quality, a great effort is required to address additional research for clarifying the role of acute and chronic exposures to videogames. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6361300
    1 point
  34. The new Season of Dawn is nearly upon us. And as we get closer to the ‘shortest day of the year’ (22nd December if you wondered) some gamers are struggling with the same lack of daylight we are used to, or content in the case of Destiny 2. A beautiful trailer as always by Bungie displayed less content than some Destiny lovers hoped for. Then the Bungie stream felt even more sparse with information as they attempted to go back to allowing players to find new things on the launch day rather than give every single bit of info out to the general public. Where the problems seem to lie now for Bungie is the capability of being able to meet the evolving expectations of some of the Destiny community to deliver what is seen as new enriched endgame content on a regular quarterly cycle – without the help and support from Activision and studios like Vicarious Visions (who made two very good seasons might I add). I think as soon as the words ‘Raid’, ‘Trials’ and ‘Dungeon’ didn’t feature in the latest information the whole season became a huge let-down for the masses. It's not even here until December 10th. I won’t try and explain Game Development and how hard it is as I haven’t been one. However, I do get system development and releases work which isn’t too far away to game development cycles. You can’t just magic up Raids, new gamemodes and Dungeons within 3 months. You need Requirements, Options, Solutions. Then it’s Build, Test, Build, Test, Build, Test, Fault Fix, Test, Get Ready to Release, etc. Maybe because someone thinks they know exactly what everyone wants they can just build and forget testing it because Benny over here knows best. Things take time and you can’t just turn the ship around if they think the next imminent content is not going to land well. Equally, getting more employees isn't an answer that solves problems overnight. However, going towards the Season model of dropping a portion of content each 3 months will automatically change mentality in how gamers will fundamentally play the game. FOMO can immediately kick in so they rush through content as quick as they can. I've felt this big style. No one is a fan of time-gating content, but hey, with ravenous gamers not taking in any of the time and effort spent on well-made content I can see why they do it. That’s not endorsing it though. They’ve set their own expectations by committing to 4 drops rather than 3 in a Season Pass all with less developers and less income streams. There’s no wonder why Eververse has so many thing on sale for Silver only. They have to continually make money somewhere. ‘Who gives a Rat’s-Ass Thursdays’ Well, seemingly not many players. But that is the world we live in. No matter the fact that Bungie have explained very clearly early doors that content will be readjusted and spread across the season because they can’t build things as quick as they could. No matter the fact that Seasons cost generally less than previous ones and cost approx. £6-7 when you have the pass. No matter the fact we don’t know all the content for the next 3 months as they want people to discover it on their own. No matter the actual content that is being delivered is still considerable when you list it down. No matter…oh you get the point. Datto put it very well immediately after the stream. People don’t care how much effort goes into making good stuff. They just want to know when they’ll get it and is it good. Just like they don’t care how long it him to make a YouTube video or you not caring about me writing this essay. They just want the good shit. Well, if you have those expectations, unfortunately you need to ste; back into the real world. Just because what you want isn’t there doesn’t also mean that the content is bad. We have to be more realistic and start reminding ourselves of what skills we learned or experiences we've had and adapt. Like when you we’re at school and we actually listened to people so we could understand how the world works. Or even if you were a D1 Guardian and played hours and hours when there was dramatically less content AND no regular updates. Just strikes, crucible and a few raids. Good to take stock at these points.
    1 point
  35. Alright, as this was requested, here goes. I want to be very clear that this is just what I do when I spawn in with nothing and other may do things differently or have additional tips. Alrighty then, as a fresh spawn in the land of Chernarus there's 2 things you want to find as quickly as possible. The number one thing is something to drink as you spawn with your thirst level at about half. So check every house you come across and any zombie you end up punching to death. The second thing you want to find is a melee weapon. It'll make it easier to kill zombies and should you run into a hostile player it might save your life. Bladed weapons seems like the better choice for zombies, doesn't matter if it's a Machete or a steak knife, they both do the same job. Knives also open canned food and gives you the most out of those cans besides actual can openers. (Any tool besides the can opener that you use will cause you to lose a bit of food.) Once you have those two things down. Start trying to get a backpack. Being able to carry supplies is important if you want to get away from the coast and backpacks are your best friends! The bigger they are the more shit you can carry, but that also cuts your stamina once you carry a lot of heavy stuff and you wont be able to sprint for as long. Once you have a backpack, start looking for food and medical items. Most of the medical items aren't much use if you are on your own, but Chlorine tablets and Tetracycline pills will save your ass as you can either purify even the filthiest ditch water with chlorine or cure the impending cholera you get for drinking said ditch water without purifying it by popping a Tetracycline pill. Once you've loaded up it's a good idea to start moving inland, I'd suggest having a map open on your phone or laptop next to you so you can navigate easier, look for signs just outside cities/towns and check the map on phone/computer to figure out where you are and where to go. There's always better gear inland than on the coast. I'd also suggest not sprinting, just jog around unless you HAVE to sprint to get away from a player, you can't sprint for an unlimited amount of time so be careful with it, it also burns drink and food levels much faster so again, don't do it unless you have to or you have plenty of supplies to get food and drink levels back up. Once you get inland I'd suggest going to places that have either hunting cabins or military areas or both. This is the best way to get geared up with weapons to defend against other players, clothing with more storage space, ammo, night vision goggles and more. These are usually high risk areas, but if you go about it with some care you should be good. Don't go to these places at night without Night vision goggles (NVG's) as there are a lot of zombies around and if there are other people around with NVG's... Well you're fucked. Do not forget to check your indicators at the bottom right of your screen, always keep an eye on your food and drink levels, as well as anything that indicates an injury or illness will pop up there. Quick stop in terms of clothing items again, your shoes/boots will get worn down over time, make sure you check them regularly or keep an extra pair on you as once they get to their "ruined" state, you may suddenly start bleeding on your feet, same goes for running/walking without shoes/boots. Also try to avoid sliding down ladders without gloves, you might also cut your hands and start bleeding. Also, if caught in the rain, you may get a water symbol in the bottom right, if you do, get to shelter. Once in shelter take your jacket into your hands and wring it out, same with your pants. This will stop you from getting a cold and possibly dying. I'd also suggest playing this with a group. There's a fuckton of running in this game and it's not so bad if you have people to talk with/run with while doing so. It's also nice as you don't need to carry ALL the things, you can easily split it up between the group and share it as needed. Finally, do not trust anyone. If you see a player always asume they will kill you for your shit. Not everyone will, but the majority will even if you have nothing as they are just cunts. So if you see another player, either avoid them, shoot them first or prepare to get in a fight. Hopefully this will get you to survive the intial 30 mins of DayZ and even more, if anyone else has tips, feel free to pitch in!
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