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It was some great racing last night and I think the closest finish we've had in any race so far.....just a shame I was on the wrong end of close finish 😞 Race 1 round Alsace village, I hopped on a little after 8 to get some practice in and Mike soon joined. I reasonably quickly got down to the 1:54's and wasn't doing much improving passed that. Harold then Kiwi joined giving us enough for a race. Some more practice later I'd squeezed my time in down to a 1:53.6 with Kiwi in the low 54's I memory serves. We moved on to actual qualifying and Kiwi smashed it out the park with a 1:53.4 or so which I couldn't match though managed to hit my PB of a 53.6 meaning I lined up second. The times were close though so there was a chance over the 10 lap race to get the better of Kiwi. At the race start Mike managed to jump me ( and maybe Kiwi too? ) but it didn't take long for me to get passed and be on Kiwi's rear bumper. This went on for a few laps and, I think, lap 4 I made a mistake going through turn 3 costing me a couple of seconds. Still there was enough laps to maybe claw back the time but Kiwi had been driving fast and clean so it was probably going to take a mistake. I stuck in as many fast laps as I could, getting down to the fastest lap on lap 9 of a 1:52.882 while desperately trying to close the gap. Coincidentally, on lap 9 Kiwi made a mistake in the hairpin near the end of the lap meaning it was going to be a last lap shootout for the win. Kiwi again drove fast and clean meaning while he couldn't shake me I also couldn't get close enough to try a move. I think the biggest gap between us was about 2.5 seconds after I made a mistake but ended up crossing the line only 0.5 apart. Race 2 - For race 2 we decided to do a MX5's round Tskuba as a quick race round a short track. Not really paying attention, I set the track up and as going in to it I didn't know what class the MX5 was so I left it unlocked. A few practice laps in and a few little things adding up it eventually dawned on me - my MX5 was tuned. My MX5 was N300 while everyone elses was N100 🤣 A little messing around in the menus' soon sorted that out. Quali was close and I thought Kiwi had the pole until the very last lap where I sneaked in a faster time. I massively cocked up the start but, similar to race 1, was soon on Kiwi's tail with the help of the slipsteam down the back straight. I think it was around lap 6 or 7 that I eventually go passed Kiwi round the last corner. After that it was mostly just trying to keep ahead of Kiwi and not let him get the slipstream to get passed me. I don't really know why, maybe down to line?, but Kiwi wasn't catching me on the straight like I was to him so ended up crossing the line for the win.

I've been bit by the outdoor cooking bug pretty hard. I always grilled on occasion, but nothing "special" and maybe 5-10 times a year in total. A few months ago I bought a smoker. That's some game changing shit, right there. It's a combination hobby, science experiment, and art with the result being (usually) very tasty meat. Trying different kinds of wood, different spice mixes, different temperatures and variations...it's all quite enjoyable. I note that as I've gotten older my new hobbies are rather sedate, but here we are. Yesterday I had both the grill AND smoker going at the same time. Note they are both charcoal/wood, no cheating with gas or electric. Burgers, fish, and veggies on the grill, whole chickens and shrimp in the smoker. It's enough food for probably four days. My wife's happy, as she likes the food and the not cooking as often aspect. I'm happy because I like the food and it's fun. My son is happy because food. I'm waiting to see if a pellet grill goes on sale for Black Friday so I can do long/slow cooks while it's unattended (overnight or while I'm at work). I'm doing my own dry rubs, but not my own sauces yet. Anyone else into outdoor cooking?

Activi$ion really don't know how to communicate properly do they? I can understand in this day and age dropping content more regularly rather than one big go but not in the way they are saying it as well as maps wise, you still have to offer good value for money at the start of a brand new game.

Part of me wanted to pick this up for the zombie mode alone but I’ll probably wait to get it on the cheap if it’s like this. I’ve paid enough towards these companies to play half a game for a few weeks and never touch it again.

You've just highlighted my exact concern - Modern Warfare had a pretty limited map pool at launch hence why the same maps kept popping up. It's gonna be even more limited in Cold War plus the maps we've seen already (half of the final count) weren't exactly great either. Other COD's definitely weren't as bad as this - MW2 and BO1 both had way more off the bat which were all 6v6 appropriate and were designed to accommodate all the other modes on offer. It was a fine and varied selection. Nowadays the devs are not only giving us less content at launch, the maps that are there are split based on the playlist type so there may only be six 6v6 maps in Cold War. We should really be getting at least 12-15 original 6v6 maps for starters and if the playlist modes do split the maps then there should be 6 or so ground war on top - 2 is just lame really. Off the top of my head:- MW2 had Afghan, Terminal, Highrise, Karachi, Underpass, Estate, Derail, Quarry, Favela, Skidrow, Sub Base, Invasion, Rust, Rundown, Scrapyard, Wasteland - that's 16 off the top of my head in the base game and I've probably missed a couple. Black Ops had Jungle, Summit, Firing Range, Nukertown, Array, Crisis, Cracked, Hanoi, Havana, Radiation, Villa, Grid, WMD and Launch. I've probably missed one there too but that's about 14. A poxy 8 maps for a premium multiplayer FPS game in 2020 is pretty disgraceful really and we already know recycled content is coming once again.

I am struggling to find this @BO7H B4RRELS . Not many things online pop up when you can search for 'exact size GPU blah blah etc'. I have also tried to search for the design specifications - that surely would have an exact drawing Tommy. Anyone else had a crack at this?

So they can’t even release a pre-made map with different textures? GG...G-fuckin-G

P.S. There is a few GT Sport copies in the FGFGF Xmas Giveaway so if you know anybody that has always fancied joining us or loves racing games let them know people. Also, if anyone else reads this thread and you haven't got it, you know what to do! ➡️ FGFGF Xmas Giveaway link

Sorry I missed Tuesday night everybody. I'm super glad you still did it though. I'll be back next week but i'm loving the update @Greboth, definitely keep these coming! Maybe next week we'll have at least 6 of us vying for the prize 😎 @phil bottle👀

Not even this will be here tomorrow

So I would've added a little simple 1 minute Lost Sector farm in here to quickly help anyone to get to 1200 power but thats just been patched late yesterday so its likely not going to drop as quick as it was before. In all seriousness the levelling up to 1200, whatever you do will still be pretty fast imo. I reached around 1140 (start at 1050) after a solid first night hopping around on the new story missions and just picking up blues and a few purples everywhere. As the story missions become harder as you progress like @Baabcat says, its definitely worth popping around to do some other stuff. Lost Sectors and Public Events are what i focused on between 1140-1200 because I dodn't want to lose the chance of getting a powerful gear drop too early from Crucible (Standard or Comp), Gambit or Strikes. If you actually do the Vanguard Strikes but just on a different burn to this week then you can get the rewards without triggering the Powerful reward off so this could be the way to go for you. After 1200 the basics are Powerful Gear drops first if possible, followed by Pinnacle Gear drops. Also note that each level you go up in Crucible or Gambit will drop Powerful gear I believe - this is significant as you should be able to creep up slowly through the games. Sometimes difficult to do because some powerful ones are get 8 bounties for Crucible, Gambit, Strikes which you'd have to do before you complete the number of matches it takes to get a Pinnacle but you can do it if you really focused on the bounty objectives. As I first thought, levelling isn't a grind that should put you off this expansion. You will likely manage to get past 1200 before next week's Tuesday reset where you have access to all the Powerful and Pinnacle rewards again. Next week we will also have the Story mission and potential new PvE activity for this Season as what we've been playing on Europa so far is purely linked to the DLC. Getting to 1230 should be fine. I think its more how high an you get to do the raid after the contest mode has been deactivated which gives us all the best chance of completing the new raid. Oh, DON'T FORGET!....GHOST MODS! I'll try and put up a separate thread on it cos you really need to start focusing on mods now. They are making it easier to understand so it shouldn't be too difficult to see how to do it, however just for this particular levelling guide. Once you get to 1200, upgrade the energy on the Ghost so you can equip mods. You need at least 3 energy to use the mods linked to either Crucible, Gambit, Strikes & Nightfalls that will give you a good chance of dropping purple gear. Get used to changing this mod over and over (only costs 500 glimmer per change) so you can maximise the chances of legendary purple gear to constantly drop. I'm on 1212 with my artifact power included after 2 nights and i didn't do too much last night either. 🙂

@Docwagon the in-game tutorials are pretty rubbish. You learn much more from this game by looking at tutorials on Youtube.

I hated both tracks. Knocked over all the cones in the second race though, should get a trophy or something.

One of my Basque mates in Tottenham does the occasional Basque barbecue and he's an amazing cook but having no garden that's not something I can do myself sadly. I've always been very impressed by the Catalans when I visit Barcelona. They do a lot of outdoor cooking, mostly paella based, and there's friendly competition around it. I've seen outdoor cooking in the US on TV and those ribs have me salivating. But when English folk do outdoor cooking it's all burnt crusts and pink uncooked insides in my experience 😁

I've got a Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Super Gaming OC 8 GB. The item descriptions on Amazon says it is, 11.02 x 4.65 x 1.61 inches. But, what I'm looking for is an exact outline of the backplate. I want to use my wife's Silhouette Cameo 3 to create a custom vinyl for it. Any idea where I can find this? Thanks!

What a hole in one!

I hate to admit it, but James is pretty spot on. Now I have a lot of respect for J. You always have valid and logical explanations to your concerns. But as you touched on, 8 maps for a premium triple A rated publisher/developer online multiplayer FPS is a disgrace. That's the problem, it's not MP anymore, it's everything else. BR/Warzone etc. Zombies and campaign sure they have been about for years and that's fine. But the main gripe here is they can't psychically produce all of it year in year out. It will never happen, but if it was up to me BR/Warzone should be a separate entity. A different disc, a separate price. Make the base game 10-20 quid cheaper and charge like 20-30 for a separate Warzone game. That way shitty warzone ain't filling my storage with it's obscene pointless Gigabytes. It took MW how long for Warzone? Can't remember, but ever since it's existence the game in general lags more. Ribbon challenges have more warzone challenges in it each season and more attention thrown on to it. I would happy pay 50-60 quid for a "True" multiplayer experience with plenty maps and good support/content. The game lasts a year, it's not overpriced if it's fucking fantastic. Like those old BO 1/2 and MW2 days. The microtransactions in BO4 were disgusting. But they left MP fizzle as they built BR up more. I truly think the Warzone/BR aspect has ruined the MP experience for us old vets. Don't get me wrong if you enjoy warzone/br etc that's fair enough, I'm not going to play it because it's there or it's cool or all the updates and features are there. Fuck that! All it is to me is a giant FFA, and FFA is the most boring game mode to me. I remember playing a game of sabotage on wasteland on MW2 that lasted about 20-30 mins into triple overtime. Was ridiculous but fun thinking back. I played demo on firing range and have been on both ends of spawn trapping. Activision are promoting and promising too much, but providing very little if you scroutinise a recent cod in detail. It's a shit show at launch. Lack of maps, remakes. The same old guns usually. Terrible lag etc. I swear there is an AK and an MP5 in the last 8 cod's or something. Kinda going off on a tangent here as I ramble. Oh yeah I preordered and I love Moscow the map on CW 😂

Do it all the time in California due to the nice weather I measure cooking time based on number of Beers. I have 1, 2 and 3 beer meals. I own a gas grill (on our Balcony), the Condo association has Charcoal/smokers in common areas. I quite like it. My wife seems to like it because I end up doing the cooking. I do meat, fish, veggies, bread on the grill. Everything is done from scratch Cedar plank Salmon with a Maple glaze is one of our favorites.

So this week was a weird one for me. The track I didn’t like before Tuesday and was really struggling on, I actually did well on! And the track I thought I was going to have my best chance on I drove poorly in the last few laps 😂 Before the the first race started I had been struggling to get into the 1:55s and even those were incredibly inconsistent. Then quali rolled around and somehow I managed to find nearly two a half seconds and wrestle pole away from Greebs! I do have to say, my performance might have been down to the fact I really needed a piss which actually almost cost me as the urgent run to the loo actually meant I missed the start of the race!! 😂 luckily @Greboth @Mikepjbell and @Spacedeck were good sports and waited until I got back. As Greebs has gone through already, the race was close and thankfully consistency won me the race asides from one mistake 😄 Second race started off with some very suspicious power advantage from a certain member which provided a fair bit of hilarity. Thankfully an FIA investigation reduced the perpetrators advantage for quali and the race 😂 Race wise, the mx5s were actually surprisingly tricky to drive as momentum was everything and any mistake was magnified a hundredfold. Drafting down the long straight had a massive advantage as well which meant that any gap I made in the infield was negated on the straight. Around the 7th lap(?) Greebs got past and from that point I was really struggling and laptimes went to shit for no reason I could work out and ended up finishing second. But either way It was a good evening of races so roll on next week and hopefully a few more drivers 😄

I’ll be getting Grounded on steam on the PC 😁 In all seriousness, I can’t see myself getting one for a long while. I currently have limited time on my hands and the idea of spending a few hundred pounds on something that’ll just sit there, makes me feel like I won’t get one.

Can anyone explain why my main character is 921 light? Edit...It seems it's because I had witherhoard equipped ffs.

I have bought this one as I did the principaled thing last year and I haven't bought a cod myself since blops3, but having played the crap out of blops4 I have nothing to really do on that game and I expect people will have moved on. However this will fill a hole occasionally not be the game I sit on for hours like before, or that's what I expect.

I’d say save your money, I will be.

I read a YouTube comment last night that said something along the lines of 'the second beta releases Friday'. To be honest, that's not too far from the truth. The final game has 4 more maps, 5 more guns and 6 less scorestreaks and that's it. I still haven't bought the game and this could be the first Call of Duty I don't ever ever get. It certainly will be the first one I don't have at launch. If I don't pick it up today I probably never will. I really enjoyed the beta but the lack of content off the bat is disgraceful really. Surely you want to keep people engaged right off the bat rather than dangling one extra map in the next 5 weeks that may or may not be a remake. Treyarch also really piss me off these days - I still regard the original Black Ops one of the best games I have ever played and BO2 was an exceptional package. They are lazy as fuck now and completely out of ideas - all their new maps are shite and in such few quantity, they then have to relentlessly recycle old content. People will probably blame the pandemic and in some cases it has impacted development but let's not forget they had 3 clear years with BO4 and we didn't even get a campaign, only got 12 maps for MP in which 4 were recycled and the zombies community were shafted up the ass for Blackout. If Nuketown is finished already, why the hell don't they give it to us now? Holding out paid content to ransom is a joke! Infinity Ward were churning out MP, gunfight, FFA and GW maps all year and Treyarch seem to be toying with when to release Jungle for the 39th time in the last decade. COD YouTubers are at it again too - one minute they are conveying their concerns about the lack of content and how disappointing the game will likely be on release and then 8 hours later they publish a brand new video saying 'OMG NEW PATCH NOETS IN AND TREEARCH R LISTENING TO US' and '2 WEOPANS BUFFED AND DORK MATTER CAMO IS BACK - THIS GAME IS AMAZzzING YO' and then everything is forgiven even though that doesn't change anything about the lack of maps. I will have to make a choice by this evening - either pay £45, get about 40 hours out of it until Cyberpunk drops and just take what's there or save the money and vote with my wallet. I'll probably have nothing much to play but it'll be a principled move.

The problem is when they have issues with pre-made assists, so many of these maps were designed years ago. So apart from adding new textures and the occasional new assist, it should be easy. Having a load of new maps, then re-releasing old content for money is a fucking disgrace. Don’t get me wrong, it takes time to build all these environments but they need to get a grip and stop rehashing old shit. Don’t get me wrong, I love nuketown but it should be part of the original release. If it comes after, it should be free. How many times have we purchased Nuketown now?

Indeed, I should be ok every Tuesday now until Crimbo. Looks like I need some practice 😁

Ouch!

It took a couple of hours to stabilise but all was fine after the initial doors been blown open

My favorite version of ourdoor cooking is when I go camping. I use a tripod grill over a fire and do bbq chicken. I enjoy doing steak on my grill at home. I don't have a smoker but I'd absolutely love to get one and get into it. They seem pretty pricy though. Any out there that are affordable and still decent?

I love out door cooking, don’t get to do it often whilst living in London but being out in the wilderness and cooking is a favourite of mine. I don’t eat meat for 99% of the year but if I’m bbqing, I get a big old slab of meat and then let my body regret it later 😄 Like Phil says, our outdoor cooking differs from America’s out door cooking. We tend to see how much we can drink but you guys see how well you can cook. Always wanted to try a smoker and proper grill, I also agree with the no gas and coals. Have you tried flavouring your wood? (I feel there’s a joke in there somewhere 😂)

I'll start with FIFA 22

I haven't even gotten through the tutorial and I'm pretty sure CK2 is not for me. It seems like way too many moving parts, a fairly complicated UI, and just more then I'm looking for in a game. I'm sure it's immersive and fun if you want to put the time in to learn all the bits and bobbles, but I don't think I do at this point. Honestly, I'm just looking for more casual games at the moment.

^ what Bob said ^T Crucible makes levelling up easier and if you can team up to do it, pick up the clan bounty for it as well

It was the same story pretty much with WW2 which released with just 9 MP maps. We played 3 of those to death during the beta and out of the other 6, three were absolutely dreadful leaving 3 which were borderline acceptable. There were 3 other maps in that overwatch-type mode but that's no excuse to shrink the map pool of the core multiplayer especially when a lot of people had no interest in playing it. The minimum amount of entry maps for 6v6 should be at the very least 12 new ones regardless of how many other modes they are supporting with specifically designed maps. I think 15 would be ideal and I wouldn't care if no new ones came out for 3 months - they should focus on retaining as many people as possible. I got burned on the beta after about 6 hours as the maps got old but I wasn't expecting this to make up about 40% of the final game!

Not good but then again I did 90% of my MW career on shipment rust and shoot house. Not sure I could actually remember the name of another map !

So this is broken as well 😂 Didn't even realise it had sort of launched

Yep that's a piss take..it's indefensible even for the Activision shills

It looks like some sort of attempt at humour. I skimmed it, but it seemed like something in a school magazine written by an ambitious but talentless 14 year old with humour so obscure it can only really be described as narcissist shite.

They certainly are, seriously you need to watch this as it's a great bit of fan service and an easy story to follow.

Credible rumours going around that Cold War will only have 8 playable maps at launch with Nuketown following a couple of weeks later. If this is true then it’s a travesty regardless of how many are drip-fed in the coming months. Those will probably be rehashed ones (Jungle, Summit, Firing Range) too. What’s worse is that barely any can accommodate 6v6. I really hope this isn’t true because it could be a devastating dealbreaker for me. We should be getting at least 15 6v6 maps right off the bat. Seems they are just supporting too many modes which have their own specific maps. A full list can be found in a few articles but this one lays it out nicely All COD Black Ops Cold War MAPS (2020) | Full List of Call of Duty Cold War Multiplayer Maps including Fireteam WWW.GAMESATLAS.COM Full list of multiplayer maps in COD Black Ops Cold War including additional Season DLC maps, Fireteam modes...

Sitting at 9% positive LOL! The original is £1.99 too

Sadly it appears to be a shoddy remake. Getting destroyed in the Steam reviews.

Seems the remake is disappointing according to a few early reviews which is a shame. I've watched quite a bit of gameplay and I can safely irrespective of anything else that this game has the worst screen tearing I have ever seen in a videogame. Almost every scene is plagued with it and this review shows it well Here's some prime examples