Greboth

While it has seen a significant rise in PC players recently, I think some of the recent rise in popularity is last months launch on consoles. Though as I understand it, the original PC release was different somehow and it got quite the update alongside the launch on consoles.

Anyone else playing this? I missed the launch of it last month on console but downloaded it over the weekend and I'm loving it. For those that don't know what it is then the title pretty much covers it. It's a free to play 4v4 arena based FPS that very much resembles Halo; the standard armour is very Masterchief, teams are red v blue, the standard loadout is (typically) an auto rifle and a battle rifle with special weapons dotted around the map like snipers or a laser weapon (can't remember the name but it's a spartan laser) or a baseball bat looking this that's a Gravity hammer. Not to mention gamemodes like Oddball, SWAT and shotty snipers which have been ripped from Halo. However it also comes with Portals, that work just like in Portal; fire 2 and you can (or anyone else) can go through them and to quote Portal, speedy thing goes in speedy thing comes out, which makes portal jumping across the map great fun. You can also shoot through portals making giving them a tactical element to taking points in domination or king of the hill to just flanking enemies in TDM. A good video review showing off some gameplay too; Gamemodes available are; Team Deathmatch — 4v4: Kill the enemy team to score points. The first team to 50 wins. Free for all - 6 player free for all, first person to 25 kills wins. King of the Hill — 4v4: Score points by standing inside the hill. The first team to 200 points wins. Domination — 4v4: Score points by capturing and controlling the three hills. Once a hill is captured, you don’t need to stay inside of it. The first team to 600 points wins. VIP — 4v4: Each team has a designated VIP. Kill the VIP to score points. The VIP cannot spawn portals, but they have double the health. Team Oddball — 4v4: Grab the ball and run! Control the ball to score points. The player with the ball cannot shoot weapons, but they are free to go through portals and melee enemies to death with the Oddball. The first team to 200 points wins. Team Swat — 4v4: Kill the enemy team to score points. Headshots are insta-kills. Team Shotty Snipers — 4v4: Kill the enemy team to score points. The first team to 50 wins. Gun Game — Free-for-All with Six Players: Kill enemies to advance your gun. Melee kill enemies to decrease their gun tier. Race to the final gun. The first person to get 22 kills with the mode’s 22 weapon tiers wins. Showdown — 3v3: Eliminate the enemy team to win the round. Loadouts are randomized each round. No respawning. The first team to score 6 wins. Takedown — 3v3: Eliminate the enemy team to win each round. Spawn times increase with each death. The first team to score 4 points wins. When queuing you pick which games modes you want to play which I've only excluded FFA and it keeps it more interesting as you don't get bored stuck in one game mode. The standout for me has been Takedown though, it's a twist on a competitive 3v3 mode but the added element of trying to hunt down the last player before the respawn timer counts down to spawn their team mates back or, on the other side, trying to hide so you team mates can come back is great. From memory, the initial respawn time is 5 seconds but the more you die this extends up to 30 seconds so rounds are still over pretty quickly. It's not all perfect though, the UI and menus are rubbish! Luckily as anything offered through buying the season pass or coins is purely cosmetic you don't really need to worry about navigating menu's too much. I'm also not a fan of a couple of the maps (High fall and Olympus) as they're a little too cluttered with too many halls, walls and rooms to have a decent flow to them. There also aren't very many maps (10 I think) so that does limit the game somewhat. As a final note, and most of the reason I mention this game, it also has the option for private lobbies. Private lobbies can be up to 5v5 and, from a quick look, be any of the team game modes above. So if nothing else, could be something to try on an FG Friday as being free no-one can say they don't have it.

I've got the standard PS5 version ordered and most probably will be the version I'll stick with. I can understand getting the gold edition if you're on last gen and looking to upgrade at some point but harder to justify getting the gold version to be able to play last gen. I did think about getting the ultimate version as if it's good I'd be looking at getting the season passes however I've been burned by it before. So think I'll wait and see if the game is good first as if it costs a bit more it shouldn't be too much extra.

I'm easy either way with the manufacturer. Though I liked Kiwi's idea from last week of us having a randomly chosen manufacturer or having you lot choose what we use 😄 It would certainly mix it up a bit.

Nice calendar and looking forward to it. Given it’s not long to the season, are we doing manufacturers again?

I believe that advice should also extend to PC’s 🤣

On that note, I didn’t realise for a while that a long press on the mute button mutes everyone in the chat. Interesting, I prefer the PS5 way of doing things especially in that quick menu does cover up half the screen you can still see the game you’re in. It just seems more intuitive to me that a quick press is the quick menu, long press is the full menu.

I usually end up having a week or 2 off work at the end of Feb to use the last of my leave so that is perfect timing for me. Loved HZD so this is a day 1 purchase for me.

Update time 🙂 Matt continues to work on his castle is (currently) the biggest build in the little FG village. Though Mike has started outlining a build on top of the hill next door. I think he said with the intention of maybe joining it in to Matt's castle which would make it a pretty big build. While the house on the hill which, I think, was built by James and Lee has also gained an extension of a tower. Jordie has decided to move a bit closer than his first base so has moored his Dreamboat on the river at the foot of Mike's work in progress The storage room has finally got an outside too, I decided to go with something that leaves no doubt as to what the building is for 😄 And lastly we've also gained a villager trading hall next door to the storage Currently it has 8 prisoners...I mean volunteers in captivity, 4 farmers to trade crops for emeralds one each for wheat, beetroot, potatoes and carrots. Though they all do melons and pumpkins which is the easiest as they're both can be farmed automatically. I've done some trading so we're starting to build up a supply of emeralds in the storage room. The other 4 are enchanted books and the sign above their heads tells you what each sells. I've also traded with them and left a supply of each book in the chests above their heads. Each villager has been zombified and cured so should be offering most things at a rate of 1 emerald. If the figure is higher it's because they've been traded with recently and if you wait a day or 2 in game their prices should come back down. Currently have trades for; Mending (armour and tools get repaired as you gain XP) Impaling 4 (I think there's an impaling 5 but two impaling 4 books can be combined should anyone want this) Looting 3 (Gives you better / more loot when killing passive or hostile mobs) Aqua Affinity (goes on your helmet and allows you mine faster under water) Fire Protection 4 (exactly what it says on the tin, protects you from fire so you take less damage if you're set on fire. Best combined with Protection, Blast Protection and Projectile Protection but we don't have them yet) Infinity (goes on your bow and means you only need 1 arrow in your inventory to fire an infinite number of arrows) On the list still to get; Unbreaking 3 (tools and armour wear out slower) Efficiency 5 (tools mine quicker) Fortune 3 (get more drops when mining ores) Silk Touch (get the block you mine, stone won't turn in to cobblestone etc. and you can also mine glass and other breakable blocks) Sharpness (goes on sword or axe and increases damage) Protection (goes on your armour and does exactly what it says) Blast Protection (goes on your armour and does exactly what it says) Projective Protection (goes on your armour and also does what it says) Feather Falling (you can fall further without losing health or lose less health if you fall a long way) Respiration (Stay under water longer) Depth Strider (Move faster in water) Smite 5 (goes on your sword or axe and does extra damager to undead mobs; zombies, skeletons, drowned, wither skeletons and the wither boss) Knockback (goes on your sword and maybe your axe but knocks enemies back when you hit them - great for creepers as it can knock them out of exploding range) Fire Aspect (goes on your weapons and sets mobs on fire when you hit them) Flame (same as fire aspect above but for your bow) Power (goes on your bow and increases arrow damage) By my count that is 21 enchants so with 4 farmers, we will have 25 villagers. So while I think I've covered the important enchants, we have 7 slots spare if there's any you want that I have missed. Any spare slots at the end, I'll probably fill with tool/weapon smiths to save us always having use diamonds to make tools and weapons.

Definitely, the MCU has weaker films but I don’t think they have any bad films. So I’ll be keeping the faith until I’ve seen it.

It’s great to see the multiverse coming to the MCU and though the trailer raises a few questions it hasn’t grabbed me and made me want to watch it. Though I still will as I’ve enjoyed Holland’s Spiderman. My biggest concern is it’s going to be similar to Maguire‘s spiderman 3. Being that it will focus on his relationships and there will be too many bad guys to properly focus on any of them.

Welcome back Anna @craftofboredom Great to see you back. It’s annoying when life gets in the way but hope it’s treating you well. Of course you’re welcome though, once an FG’er always an FG’er. I assume you’ll be on PC? so you can download the windows 10 version of Minecraft and click the invite link Misneach posted above. Let us know when you’re hoping on and I’ll give you the tour 🙂

Nice one Phil, I’ll have to try it out as it’s a game I’ve been interested in but always been waiting for a proper game. Though hard to argue the value if it’s free to try.

Winner winner chicken dinner! Congratulations to @slamminbones , great to win the team championship with you mate. Team GreBones FTW!

A small update on the server, the mob farm has been expanded to now also include an iron farm with a small sugar cane farm. The sugar cane farm probably is a little too small currently so will be expanded in the future if we need it. The mob/iron/sugar cane farm has been linked through the nether too and the portal can be found at East -7. I'll be bringing the stuff back for the main storage room but for now all the drops can be found at the farm. On the subject of storage, the storage room above is no more and it has been replaced by a much bigger version. The new version features 2 double chests for 64 sortable items currently set to iron, gold, redstone, copper etc. and bulk storage of 12 double chests for the common items like cobblestone, stone, andesite, granite etc. All chests are marked by the block in the floor or ceiling with items that don't have a block form marked with an item frame. There's still 10 slots not assigned so if you think of anything that isn't assigned, let me know and I can set the filter. Currently any items that aren't filtered just go to the chests above this room which is accessible using the water column in the middle of the room. # Upstairs is a bit bare currently though ultimately will feature overflow storage for the auto-filtered room as well as manually sorted chests for those things we won't have a lot of i.e a redstone chest that will contain comparitors, repeaters, observers, droppers etc. basically stuff linked by a common thread but that we won't have bulk numbers of them. If there's room too, I'll be adding a super smelter too as as they're always useful. Giving the size of the building, I'm hoping for a 16 furnace version but we shall see how things pan out. And yes, the storage room is an eye sore currently as I've built the inside first as that's the practical part. I know how I shall be decorating the outside but I just need to gather enough blocks first then it will be made pretty......well prettier at least.

While it hurts me as I really like Toyota, I like Kiwi’s idea of picking different to the manufacturers we used this season. As for reverse grid, I think keep them out of the league races. But we could go back to how we had it before, with the race for fun after the league race being reverse grids.

They do say a bad workman blames his tools 😛

Echoed what I was just writing about manufacturers and teams. Though we tried to balance the teams it was only semi successful. I have quite enjoyed sticking to a manufacturer though and does add some ebb and flow to each round where tracks suit different cars. Maybe drop the teams, stick with manufacturers but the manufacturers is a free choice? As if we’re racing individually those picking last would be royally screwed over. Regarding the endurance race, there is that eliment of that. Though if you make a mistake in a short race there’s little time to recover. An endurance race though would give more time for people to catch up. I’m happy to go with anything though 🙂

Following @Mikepjbell posting in the summer league thread about not knowing where he's losing time to myself and Kiwi. I thought I'd start a thread where we can discuss and compare laps to try and improve everyone's lap times. I figure this can take one of 3 forms, 1. A lap guide. I've done a couple of these in the past but basically talking through one of my fast laps, where I'm braking, references I'm using for braking or turning in etc. If you want one of these just say which track and car class (or specific car) and I shall get try to get it done asap or; 2. Drop me a message and we can hop on a server together and compare laps in real time. 3. Which I think would probably be most useful is if you post a video of a lap and I'll do a lap in the same car so we could compare and see if there's any specific corner or corners you're losing time. Some general tips to get this thread started; Consider the racing line - I think we all know about taking the racing line of taking the widest entry into a corner, clipping the apex on the inside and then running as wide as possible on the exit. However most corners shouldn't be taken on their own and it's worth considering how your line out of a corner will effect the next one. If it's a corner on to a straight you want to focus on your exit to get the best run down the straight. However to get the best line through the final corner, you might have to compromise your line through the last but one corner. This compromise will lose you time through the corner but overall you'll gain back more time with the better run on to the straight. Try to be smooth - this is easier said than done and even more so when using a controller. However any sudden braking (more so coming off the brakes than on), steering input or throttle input can upset the balance of the car causing understeer or oversteer both of which will cost you time. Understand tyre grip - I'm not going to bore you with the full details but the general principle is good to understand. A tyre only has so much grip, if 100% of that grip is being used for braking then if you try to steer you will lock up or, as we now all use ABS *cough* Jordie *cough*, understeer. Therefore you want to get all your braking done before the corner - it is possible to carry some braking in to a corner (known as trail braking) however this is tricky as you need to constantly balance your braking and turning to come off the brake the more you turn in. With some practise it is possible though and I find it easier on longer corners like T1 and Kyoto for example.

I was chatting to Dave about it the other day but sadly no, we couldn't figure out what was wrong. There several threads about the same thing on the Windows help but none of them actually contain solutions, just lots of people moaning about the same issue. I did find a page that had a few steps to fix it (make sure windows is up to date, reset the store, verify computer etc.) and none of them worked. It doesn't make any sense to me that if Dave is logged in to his MS account in Windows, on the store and his PC is linked; why does it error saying no devices linked.