The REAL battlefield 2 intro movie

We all thought the battlefield2 opening movie was exceptionally cool, but it does not really portray the true gaming experience. As such, this intro movie here is a much better representation of what it is like to actually be on the battlefield!

An Auspicious Year

Congratulations on BluPnutMM and Nobita on their engagement! Rumor is the proposal was made at the Hong Kong harbor in a drizzly afternoon. How romantic!

This must be a very auspicious year to get married. So far we have:

Papaya couple (engaged and married)
BluPnutMM couple (engaged) <--will be renamed AlwaysLate Couple in the near future
Grapes couple (practically married, just not official)
Person who got me addicted to EQ couple (soon to be engaged)
Wuthel couple (engaged)
Shamu couple (engaged)
multiple cousins of various people who got married/engaged

Of course...

Fascinating study shows that doctors who played video games 20 min prior performed surgeries 11 second faster (implying fewer mistakes) than doctors who didn't. This just goes to prove the further genius of House as even during dire circumstances with lives on the line, he still regularly plays his DS/PSP. While the other staff just think he's goofing off, he's actually training to do better surgery.

Now just imagine if he played something more sophisticated, like BF2. He would be performing surgeries so fast, he would be DONE before the guy was even anesthesized. Perhaps that instant revive from shock paddles isn't so over the top after all...

Initial Impressions of 1.3

From what I read on forums, the vehicle drops are wayyy too fast, you can drop 3 HMMV/Vodnik/HKWannabeVodnik in the span of 1 artillery recharge. Also if the vehicles land on someone, they become squished. This should provide a new tool for commanders to kill lone enemies. Simply drop a jeep on them.

There was also major changes with how medals/badges are earned. Many people report getting ~3-5 medals/badges upon logging in and playing a round. A (possibly complete) list of changes to medals/badges/ribbons found here. Grats to Grapes on his expert knife badge!!

BF2 1.3 out today

PATCH 1.30 Official change list

New Features

- Air dropped vehicles:
Squad members can now send a request up the chain of command for a vehicle to be dropped at their location.
- Co-op:
Co-op Mode allows you to play Single Player levels on the Internet and LAN with both AI controlled bots and human players. Several new options have been created that will allow the server creator to modify how the bots behave in game.

Number of Bots: This setting allows you to determine the total number of bots that will spawn in game.

Bot Ratio: This setting allows you to determine the percentage of total bots that will spawn for each team. For Example, setting this value to 25 means that 25% of the total bots will spawn in Team 1, and 75% in Team 2. Team 1 is always the MEC, Chinese, or their allies, While Team 2 is always the USA, EU, and their allies.

Bot Difficulty: This setting determines the skill level of the bots. 10 is easyest, 100 is the most difficult.

- Default Kit Selection:
The kit that you used last is remembered at the beginning of the round and between maps.

Bug Fixes and Gameplay Tweaks

- Fixed issues with remote console and Linux server
- Prevented ban list from being cleared in the event of a server crash.
- Fixed the bug where helicopters abandoned in the air would continue flying.
- Fixed issue with player not properly ranking up on servers where they continuously play.
- If the player joins a squad while dead, the player will not be able to use the squad leader as a spawn point until they have respawned once.
- Flag Capture bar now reacts accurately to players entering the capture radius.
- Fixed bug where friendly vehicles showed as valid targets
- Friendly Vehicle Lock: Lock-on weapons do not lock on to friendly vehicles.
The box with an X trough it will still appear, but a lock tone will not sound and then if fired, the missile will not track the friendly target.
- Fixed bug that altered mini map functionality
- Adjusted missile count on BF2SF helicopters.
- Fixed bug with Special Forces rank names.
- Fixed repairing HUD for the engineer when in a vehicle
- Added custom messages for server so that the private messages may be sent directly to a player. Messages may be sent from the server using the following command in the console.
host.sgl_sendTextMessage( playerid, channelid, typeid, text, flags )
Here is an example: host.sgl_sendTextMessage( 0,14,1, "Message Goes Here", 0 )
- Adjusted award criteria
- Added deterrent system against alternative ranking
- Fixed Linux server crash: A ranked server that can no longer connect to the GameSpy backend will become an unranked server.
- Fixed a tech hang when creating a single player account from an offline account
- Fixed crash when switching from BF2 to BF2:SF (or vice versa)

For those of you interested

Very interesting read here regarding the expansion for WoW. The main impression that I got from the developer is that he actually avidly plays the game and subsequently, actually cares about the fanbase and how they feel. Unlike say... another game, let's call it... Gtar Sars: Walaxies, where the devs completely destroyed the game with unwanted changes.

Suns Wins

Suns rocked LA just like Clay Aiken rocks the music halls. Clay Aiken has a new CD coming out, just like how how this series was the coming out party for Nash.

GRAW

Perhaps Hamachi would be a better tool than Kali to try to simulate a virtual LAN. I did some research on the boards, and this one seemed to have some good reviews. A quote from the site is particularly promising:

"Believe it or not, but we are able to successfully mediate p2p connections in roughly 97% of all cases we dealt with so far (few tens of thousands as of early March 2005). This includes peers residing behind different firewalls or broadband routers (aka NAT devices). It is high-tech and it is really cool :)"

The Return of the Lemon

eLemonator has been a staple member of team VGI since the good ole Ghost Recon days. He has been very busy with his PhD recently, but he has some time now and can join us on weekends for BF2. Here I offer some tips to our newest =VGI=

1. =VGI= GrapesOfWrath is quite deadly with the knife, but has some serious issues with grenades. If you see him out with grenades, running in the direction he tossed the grenade is your safest route. He will toss the grenade, which will promptly bounce off a tree and land right at your feet if you stay back.

2. =VGI= Cucumbernator has some issues with trigger-happiness. If he is squad leader, be wary of spawning on him without prior notice, as he will most likely gun you down right as you spawn. Same for vehicles; if by some fluke, you are inflicted by the red name tag bug, be very wary of =VGI= Cucumbernator in a tank.

3. =VGI= Catnipped has some issues with trigger-happiness but not as bad as =VGI= Cucumbernator. Deadly with C4, =VGI= Catnipped is always a welcomed member of the squad. She also has the remarkable ability to "no more" in many fantastic ways. Like her named suggests, she has feline like instincts and will always land on her feet when casually jumping from great heights with no parachute; often times leading to many revive points for the fellow =VGI= medics.

4. =VGI= Kiratomato is the pilot for VGI. While having no real shortcomings in BF2, he has issues with his joystick. We always know when he's in an aerial vehicle because we can literally hear the "squiggy" sound of his joystick from a mile away.

5. =VGI= MoldyPlum does not play with us often, but always makes a good splash when he plays. Excels at sniper.

6. =VGI= DataSix does not play with us often, much like =VGI= MoldyPlum. Enjoys sniping people... but with the SRAW.

7. =VGI= eLemonator has never played ranked BF2. But notable one notable exploit from the demo is killing 6 people in a row with the sniper rifle......while talking to his mom on his cell phone. Imagine if he was actually concentrating on shooting people....*shudder

BF2, 1.23

1.23 will introduce a new concept to the commander role:

NEW FEATURES

• Co-op: Co-op Mode allows you to play Single Player levels on the Internet and LAN with both AI controlled bots and human players. Several new options have been created that will allow the server creator to modify how the bots behave in game.
• Air dropped vehicles: Squad members can now send a request up the chain of command for a vehicle to be dropped at their location.

I can see how this can increase the fun factor of the game.... but it can be strangely unbalancing. Imagine if you will, an enemy squad trying to capture a flag when suddenly... a Vodnik falls from the sky squishing the entire squad before they know what happened. Hopefully, only light jeeps can be dropped from the sky as allowing armor to be dropped (as much as I would sooooo love that) would be way too unbalancing.

It would also be very cool if the commander can just continuous drop vehicles at an enemy helicopter, creating many many obstacles for the enemy pilot in the sky as they drop down. Or if you can hover next to a falling vehicle and man the vehicle as it is falling. It's like a floating weapons platform.