TheFirstMonk

Nice video. I almost thought it was a really old broadcast until I saw Dr. Manhattan's symbol in the first 30 secs.

Is Watchmen still on for a March release?

Girlfriend is in a college course that she is doing from home.

The teacher let her know today that she has to watch the film A Man Called Horse and write about it by Friday.

Bad part...we can't find the film anywhere in town.

 

Anyone want to help a brother out? Tell me about the film? Someplace to find it?

 

 

She should ask her professor where she can find the movie. Maybe he/she has a copy heh, or at least contact some of her classmates, someone might have gotten lucky.

 

Also document the steps you took to try and find the movie. If it proves to be an impossible task to locate it, she should be allowed to do an alternate assignment.

 

 

 

 

Shaftiel

I took some cinema courses in college, and I would go with what Shaftiel suggests. Since all colleges differ (and she's taking the course at home), I can't really assume these options will work, but they're steps I would definitely take in the same situation. Contacting the professor on this problem would likely be a priority though, even if the other options do not seem viable. The alternate assignment seems to be the most likely solution.

This sounds like a short essay, maybe 2-3 pages, considering the timeframe that the professor has given your girlfriend. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised at a 4-5 page essay. Good luck in your search.

Nice pics. Congratulations on your daughter's first birthday.

Bleh. This girl is probably going to get away with whatever she wants now. And the judge is dumb too.

Throwing a taco? Now that's just dumb.

Congratulations to Laz and Flitterkill (for the niece).

Really sorry to hear that, Shropshire.

Well, patch is up. I did experience one or two bugs though.

I can't connect to a server by console (Chentzen, Mav, and me tried it for Peeku's server, and it didn't work). I also have an achievement that shows up as completed ingame, but it does not show it as completed in the Steam browser when I look at stats; I didn't actually complete it before, so this doesn't bother me. It's still a bug though.

Anyone else get anything weird?

http://chicagoist.com/2005/08/16/why_does_...ate_chicago.php

I remember reading about this in the paper, and Comcast was basically the only cable provider in my area when I first moved here (newly built neighborhood). They did in fact take away the SciFi channel from the basic cable package and replaced it with some fishing/ sports show. You basically had to buy back the SciFi channel if you wanted to watch it, even if you received the channel prior to the change.

Of course, now we're all transitioning to digital, but back then, I thought it was a pretty rude move.

Don't know if any of you had noticed, but i haven't been around for a few months. I was busy taking care of my wife who was battling cancer. Unfortunately, we lost that battle. She passed away 1/6/9. I may still drop in from time to time, but my life priorities have changed to being a full time parent, both mom and dad. You guys/gals have always been like a distant family to me and i appreciate that. And just in case i don't drop back in, it's been a pleasure getting to know all of you. God Bless and take care.

 

Terry

I'm really sorry that happened, Demonic. I just saw you an hour or so ago in the server and didn't know about this. My condolences... I hope things start to get better for you and your family.

I get this for contra, cpl_strike and a few others.. it doesn't even try to download the map. I manually download the map from somewhere and put in the maps directory and it still gives me this error. Does anyone have a clue whats going on?

Found this:

http://www.gamrs.co/forums/in...showtopic=37024

It seems to address the same problem you have. I get the same message sometimes too when I try to connect to the GC server on certain maps. If I try reconnecting a second time to the server, it usually lets me download the map normally without a problem. That's just my computer though; you should probably try what the other posters have written in the above thread.

Yeah, so I have a couple servers from theville.org that I know Penty, my brother (ilovepotatoes), and I play on, which are full most of the time. When they are full to where I need another server, I look at the server list and most of them are either completely empty or close to full. The ones I usually play on are almost always close to full by 6pm.

 

I think if we have a few people that are going to get them started, we can get in people's favorites and have a shot at keeping it full a lot of the time. I also think last time we did this we had problems with our configs getting us kicked off of the normal server browser list, which impacted traffic pretty bad.

 

I figure we have the dedicated server now, might as well give it a try, eh?

I used to play on one of those servers when the game first came out, a 28 man server I believe. I haven't played TF2 in a while though; I haven't even tried out GoldRush yet. I might be up for playing it, but I would have to reinstall TF2 since I reinstalled Steam (because of problems) a while back and haven't had the chance to get all my games back.

I warn in advance that I usually play the Spy.

...yes, I am that annoying in both CS and TF2.

aahhh what i'd give to be a 13 year old girl again, how did she manage to get away with that during school? .. i always remembered cell phones being banned from use within the property of everyschool in the city, and if a teacher caught u.. which they always did.. it was taken away

 

... altho at that point she could probably stare at a board and do it all by feel.. tricksy hobbit

When I was in high school, cell phones weren't banned, but it was frowned upon when a phone went off during class. I guess things have changed since cell phones are so normalized and integrated into society now. Plus, texting can be silent, so the teacher is likely not going to notice.

In addition, if I ran a $3000 bill for texting, my dad would have thrown me into a wall and not be smiling like the dad in that picture (he was lucky to have unlimited texting).

Have you tried watching it using VLC?

 

Have you upgraded anything else (hw or sw wise)? Have you checked nVidia's community forums for similar incidents and possible solutions?

 

Just installed and tried VLC worked fine. I did check nVidia's forums etc and got jack squat. I think the problem may have occured because I didn't actually uninstall the old drivers I just overwrote with the new ones. I should probably figure out how to do that in the future. (my new GPU has a different arcitecture from my old one I think)

That's most likely the problem. If you have Windows XP, you go into the Control Panel and go to Add/Remove Programs. You want to uninstall the Nvidia Display Driver. It'll ask you to restart your computer. Once you do, you'll have a very low resolution when you reboot, but that's normal. Install new drivers, and it should set your resolution back to normal (or you can manually set it back to your native resolution), and you shouldn't have a problem. If someone sees a problem with what I've posted, you can correct me; I'm not an expert, but this is how I do it.

Hrm. dweezil says to use VLC, Ringadon uses it. I say use it, Ringadon doesn't. I need to use a mic or something.

Many of us jumped in there to check them out, not necessarily to get banned. And I think the only one who successfully got banned is the OP. It's not like you can awp on their server and pull some no-scopes.

Technically, I was also banned, although many months ago. Then again, I am not as important as Brew is to the GC community, so I forgive your omission.

You guys are acting exactly the way we discourage here. What would you do if we banned somebody and half a dozen people came here to complain about it or came to the server to "see how fast they get banned?"

 

Easy naw...anyone who bans my Brew deserves to be raided, even if it's by a bunch of middle aged gamers and some Mac users.

 

Now had it been Jackie...

As I've said before, most of the FGA members are pretty smart and can tell if someone is hacking or not. The problem, in my opinion, is that there are 3 or so FGA members who have final say in a ban; this was the case when I was last there. If you are banned by one of these 3, you have a very slim chance of being unbanned since they generally do not dispute their decisions. I think the only way you could get unbanned is by having a trusted FGA member vouch for your credibility or have a recording of your playing that threw the possibility of hacking into doubt, but this is still not a foolproof method (I was playing on their server for about 6 months before my ban). Having the GC community post on their website would not likely sway them either; they tend to ignore any posts by anyone other than the person who was banned.

I would have to agree with san here. As much as I dislike seeing a legitimate player being banned by FGA (and I have seen legit players being banned by them along with myself), FGA does try to create a positive gaming atmosphere on their server, and they probably won't respond to us well if we post a lot on their website on this issue. I don't agree with the way that a few members approach banning players, but I'm hoping they do change and start considering the fact that they may be wrong sometimes. That's most likely going to happen within their own community and not by ours unfortunately, when players they know and trust start confronting them. I'm not saying we should be passive and do nothing, but Brew has made his case to them as I did mine; if we push them too much on this in a negative way, they'll likely feel justified in their decision and ignore us even if we are right about Brew not hacking. This is something they're going to have to figure out and solve on their own, or they risk losing the community they've built.

I'm not a hardware expert, but I tried searching for something similar to your problem.

http://www.tech-forums.net/pc/f77/nv4_disp...lay-dvd-160848/

It looks like you've done some of the things suggested in that thread already. If all else fails, you could try using a program like VLC or a similar program (maybe you've already done this) to play DVDs and see if you still get a BSOD.

Your problem is very strange. I upgraded from a 7300LE to a 7600GT about 2 and a half years ago and can still play DVDs on my computer.

...that is awkward timing. Bounces sideways right when the hippo opens its mouth

Sorry for the post delay, but I just noticed it now.

 

1. Whose server were we playing on? TheMaster's

 

TheMaster's

 

2. How well do you guys know TheMaster and phrosty? I just met them today. They seemed like decent guys to me, but I've only played one game with them.

 

I met these guys by joining a random VS server and we played VERY WELL together. So well that we added each other to our friends list and have been playing VS with each other for several weeks now. These guys play as a team which I VERY MUCH like since it is a rare thing in L4D VS mode and we have not lost a game yet in VS when we play together. Every time I play with them I can tell you that we do not cheat and that game we played was the FIRST time we turned on sv_cheats ONLY for the purpose of playing Dead Air on VS, which you cannot play unless sv_cheats is on.

 

To answer your question about the Tank in the parking garage, TheMaster spawned the tank to help out your team because he felt that the AI Director wasn't helping your team out enough since we all had basically full health AND unused medkits. As far as I know, this was the ONLY situation where he "Cheated," but it was to help your team out since the game felt unbalanced. As for the many hunters you saw, no exploit was used, just teamwork. As I said in the last paragraph, we play together often now and communicate A LOT on the mic to let each other know when a smoker has pulled someone and when a hunter needs to attack, etc.

 

 

3. When you guys died, JackieChan and YoMamma, did you spectate the other 2 guys while waiting to respawn?

 

I was specing everyone at different times when I'm dead since there is a 20sec respawn time and I did not notice anything unusual going on.

 

4. Does anyone find this unsettling?

 

That video you posted shows a glitch that I've seen other people use and it is VERY unsettling. I know those 2 guys don't use it because one game we played together someone used it against us and we STILL played the game out the legit way for several more minutes before finally banning the exploiters from the server. In addition, they were even complaining about several exploits that your team used (skipping portions of the map by jumping on things, etc) because they wanted to game to be played in a normal and clean manner. I personally didn't mind since when I play with you guys on EXPERT MODE we use the easiest way to win, but that just goes to show how clean they actually are. They mentioned it to your team after you did them, so I think you may recall. But once again, these guys are as clean of players as any GC member.

 

Also, that was our first time playing that map on VS. TheMaster has the cfg file to play the 2 maps that the game won't allow so perhaps the "fast moving glitch" was a bug from the game or perhaps it was since we technically aren't supposed to be playing that map.

Lol, you didn't really have to post, but thanks though. It's not an issue anymore if you've read the later posts by me and Jackie Chan. I don't doubt your credibility or theirs; as I said in my previous posts, they seemed like decent guys. Explanations aren't really necessary.

To clarify one point, I know they spawned a Tank to help our team; I only mentioned their ability to do so as a possible way around a bug that occurs where Tanks do not spawn when the hunter exploit is used (which I stopped believing they were using once Jackie said you knew them). And I do remember them asking us not to skip parts of the map (which we apologized for), and to not pick up extra medkits at the end of one level (which I apologized for when I picked one up by accident).

Happy Birthday.

thank you. thank you. i consider this a mile stone and would like to thank all of my fans who never gave up on me. The server "Family Gamers Alliance" (http://www.clanfga.com/index.php) decided that my super leet counter-strike skills were a little too god like. So they banished me out of the fear of my awesome glory! Even when i pleaded my case in the banned forum, they saw my words as beams of super bright rays of truth and blocked my online account!

 

If anybody needs a good warm-up server a suggest that one.

In all seriousness, I was also banned by them back in 2007. I used to play on their server for about 6 months before I was banned and started played regularly on GC's server (I had played once or twice before on the GC server because I knew Undercover from a previous clan he was in). Some of the members at FGA thought I was hacking and banned me for my p90 "skills."

To be fair, some FGA members didn't think I was hacking at all; I still keep in touch with some of them. My ban has been permanent though, and I rarely see a ban reversed (although an FGA member/friend has argued for unbanning some individuals with some success). I made my case on their website too (my account might still work, I don't know), but the general message was that I would not be welcomed back for a couple months at the earliest while my case was under review. I waited for a definite response on whether my ban was permanent and even posted in my ban thread to ask for confirmation; my thread was deleted. Another player that I know of who was banned also had their ban thread deleted, so I believe that blocking your account is a similar means of removing traces of the topic. Even if I was able to rejoin them, I suspect that I would be watched and eventually banned again.

Some other people who used to play on their server that I know were not hacking were also banned; Specification, for example, who sometimes plays on the GC server and can be seen using a scout most of the time, is a friend who used to play on their server and was banned after I was.

I wouldn't take the ban personally, Brew. It's happened to other legitimate players too, so I believe it is a systematic flaw of judgment with a very few FGA members. I always keep in mind though that there are plenty of FGA players/members that are decent people, and their server has standards of conduct similar to GC's (no swearing, player bashing, etc.); I try not to be too disappointed because I do miss playing with some of them sometimes. It worked out for me eventually since I play on the GC server now and annoy all of you.

Nuts, I just bought and installed Vista 64-Bit on my new computer (that I cannot currently use) last month, and it sounds like version 7 is better. Have they released any information on what the cost is going to be? I know it'll be at least a year or so before they release a full version, maybe late 2009 at the earliest, but I'm just wondering if I can hold off on switching to a different OS.

Also, what makes it a good gaming OS, ZeroDamage? I know it's supposed to be more compatible with multicore systems, but I don't know how to judge it for gaming purposes (which is what my new computer was supposed to be for primarily).

Wall O' Text...ftl

It'd be a "Wall O' Text" if I didn't make paragraphs; at least I had the courtesy to do that, heh.

As a rebuttal, I say "Low attention span, ftl!" Jk.

Does it take videos at all? or just pictures.

It can take vid's whatcha thinking?

 

 

Don't ask... its better not to know.

 

 

 

 

Shaftiel

I'm thinking we do a remake of "Predator"....or an even worse version of "Hollow Man."

Played Versus mode with 5 people I know (Chentzen, thegeek, Shaftiel, YoMamma, JackieChan) and 2 people I did not know (TheMaster, phrosty). A couple of questions:

 

1. Whose server were we playing on? TheMaster's or Jackie's?

 

2. How well do you guys know TheMaster and phrosty? I just met them today. They seemed like decent guys to me, but I've only played one game with them.

 

3. When you guys died, JackieChan and YoMamma, did you spectate the other 2 guys while waiting to respawn?

 

4. Does anyone find this unsettling?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SSa2xcrmDk&fmt=22

 

It's a hunter exploit. I am wondering if one of the two guys last night was doing this. My team seemed to be getting attacked by 2 hunters simultaneously (perhaps one person was spawning a hunter while the other was a legitimate player, and then the person would spawn another under the 20 second time limit of respawn), or immediately after fending off a hunter, a boomer or smoker would attack us. I am well aware that JackieChan's and YoMamma's team could have been well coordinated, and I wouldn't accuse them of using this exploit. Here is what makes me slightly suspicious of the other 2 guys. An excerpt from a webpage that has posters on the subject. Look at Post #16 by NdRw (I asterisked the swear words):

 

http://www.left4dead411.com/forums/index.p...&topic=8340

 

"unfortunately we couldn't 'spectate' during vs, but by switching between survivor and infected teams we were able to pull the s*** off... i dont know about them, but i experienced some strange s*** while i was getting mauled by 6 hunters, 3 boomers, and a couple smokers...

the survivors moved in ultra fast motion for me. everything from melee to running was sped up drastically to hunter speed. at one point, zoey died and her DEAD icon disappeared, as if the game was actually Left 3 Dead. special infected started attacking special infected. it was strange... it was as if the AI Director had no idea what to do!"

 

I highlighted the part that I thought could be partial evidence of the hunter exploit being used last night. At the beginning of the first map on Dead Air, my team, the Survivors, were running and shooting exceptionally faster than normal. Chen said his shotgun felt like an auto shotty; I noticed an increase in speed when running. We went back to the lobby and restarted the game. At the last map of Dead Air, when my team played as Infected, and JackieChan and YoMamma's team were the Survivors, TheMaster commented that his team was faster and called it a bug.

 

I'm hoping it was just a bug. And I'm hoping neither of the 2 guys were using the exploit. I'm not a sore loser about what happened last night, but I want to make sure that nothing like this was used. I don't know how accurate the above post is; perhaps the poster was on a server that had sv cheats on, or maybe he's not describing what happened that well.

 

There is some evidence that suggests that this exploit was not used; for example, some people say that the tank will not spawn if this exploit is used. A tank did spawn for both sides on certain maps; however, I believe TheMaster said that a tank would be spawned for our team in the third level of Dead Air in the car garage because his team "had a lot of health left." It may be possible that he spawned one for his own to counter the lack of one. As you can see from the youtube video though, the text in the corner shows that the person is switching between the spectator's and Infected side repeatedly. I did not see this during the game, which is the strongest indicator that no one was cheating.

 

In any case, I may look around for some more evidence. I would prefer to find solid proof before coming to a definite conclusion; everything I've listed is just speculation based on a few pieces of information. If I find nothing or very little, I'll assume that last night was a legitimate game, and everyone was playing fair. In any case, if we do play Versus again, I would prefer to play it with friends or people I know at least until Valve releases a patch; I may still play Versus with strangers, but I would prefer not to.

 

If anyone else playing last night has an opinion, feel free to post. I'm prepared to be ridiculed, though I'm trying to make it clear that I'm only slightly suspicious of last night's game.

 

1. Was Master's Server.

 

2. Yomamma knows them. I never met them before.

 

3. I didn't spectate the other two.

 

4. That is a very unfortunate exploit. I ended up finding out about it either by the Steam forums, or from http://left4dead411.com. I have a fix for it on my server which shouldn't allow it. Well, it's a fix for only servers that use SourceMod can put on there.

 

The whole "survivors going faster" issue is a bug and has been brought up in the Steam forums which I frequently go to since the game's release, and that's the first time I've ever experienced that happen.

 

 

I didn't seem to think he spawned any tanks for our side when Yomamma and I were playing as the Infected. My guess it's either good or bad luck depending on how you look at it.

 

I could sense frustration from you guys last night too and I caught a "I just want this to get over with" before I switched teams to fix the auto-switch issue. I'm in the same boat with you though, Monk. I would prefer playing with other people we know though, but those two didn't really seem like bad people.

If YoMamma knows them, that's good enough for me. I'm dropping the issue since there's pretty scant evidence of anything wrong; I'm probably suffering from some form of whining like in CS, where "anyone who kills me hacks!" I didn't know there was a survivor speed bug by itself, so that seems to explain everything. The tank spawning is likely the way you say it is, based on luck; my team wasn't scoring that high either, so that may have been a factor too. And I agree that they, The Master and phrosty, seemed like pretty decent people. I wouldn't be against playing with them again.

I wasn't really frustrated last night, although I can't speak for some of my teammates. I was a bit exhausted afterwards though (I have a slight headache from playing late last night). Versus takes some more energy out of me due to planning and looking for opportunities to strike while on the Infected side, but that wasn't the fault of anyone last night; it happens all the time. I think I could have helped my team's morale more somehow, but I didn't offer many words of encouragement last night like I do in CS. By the end of it, it felt a bit like work (or an exercise in self punishment) to Chen, Shaft, and thegeek; I lost focus after the construction site myself and plodded through the maps. That "I just want to get this over with" you heard was probably Shaft since he dislikes Versus in general.

I think greater practice on Dead Air would probably have given both teams, mine especially, a better sense of what to do on the Infected side. Part of the frustration felt from my team, in my opinion, had to do with confusion since it was our first time for that map (although it was probably the first time for you guys too).

And that sucks what happened to your team, ZeroDamage.

Played Versus mode with 5 people I know (Chentzen, thegeek, Shaftiel, YoMamma, JackieChan) and 2 people I did not know (TheMaster, phrosty). A couple of questions:

1. Whose server were we playing on? TheMaster's or Jackie's?

2. How well do you guys know TheMaster and phrosty? I just met them today. They seemed like decent guys to me, but I've only played one game with them.

3. When you guys died, JackieChan and YoMamma, did you spectate the other 2 guys while waiting to respawn?

4. Does anyone find this unsettling?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SSa2xcrmDk&fmt=22

It's a hunter exploit. I am wondering if one of the two guys last night was doing this. My team seemed to be getting attacked by 2 hunters simultaneously (perhaps one person was spawning a hunter while the other was a legitimate player, and then the person would spawn another under the 20 second time limit of respawn), or immediately after fending off a hunter, a boomer or smoker would attack us. I am well aware that JackieChan's and YoMamma's team could have been well coordinated, and I wouldn't accuse them of using this exploit. Here is what makes me slightly suspicious of the other 2 guys. An excerpt from a webpage that has posters on the subject. Look at Post #16 by NdRw (I asterisked the swear words):

http://www.left4dead411.com/forums/index.p...&topic=8340

"unfortunately we couldn't 'spectate' during vs, but by switching between survivor and infected teams we were able to pull the s*** off... i dont know about them, but i experienced some strange s*** while i was getting mauled by 6 hunters, 3 boomers, and a couple smokers...

the survivors moved in ultra fast motion for me. everything from melee to running was sped up drastically to hunter speed. at one point, zoey died and her DEAD icon disappeared, as if the game was actually Left 3 Dead. special infected started attacking special infected. it was strange... it was as if the AI Director had no idea what to do!"

I highlighted the part that I thought could be partial evidence of the hunter exploit being used last night. At the beginning of the first map on Dead Air, my team, the Survivors, were running and shooting exceptionally faster than normal. Chen said his shotgun felt like an auto shotty; I noticed an increase in speed when running. We went back to the lobby and restarted the game. At the last map of Dead Air, when my team played as Infected, and JackieChan and YoMamma's team were the Survivors, TheMaster commented that his team was faster and called it a bug.

I'm hoping it was just a bug. And I'm hoping neither of the 2 guys were using the exploit. I'm not a sore loser about what happened last night, but I want to make sure that nothing like this was used. I don't know how accurate the above post is; perhaps the poster was on a server that had sv cheats on, or maybe he's not describing what happened that well.

There is some evidence that suggests that this exploit was not used; for example, some people say that the tank will not spawn if this exploit is used. A tank did spawn for both sides on certain maps; however, I believe TheMaster said that a tank would be spawned for our team in the third level of Dead Air in the car garage because his team "had a lot of health left." It may be possible that he spawned one for his own to counter the lack of one. As you can see from the youtube video though, the text in the corner shows that the person is switching between the spectator's and Infected side repeatedly. I did not see this during the game, which is the strongest indicator that no one was cheating.

In any case, I may look around for some more evidence. I would prefer to find solid proof before coming to a definite conclusion; everything I've listed is just speculation based on a few pieces of information. If I find nothing or very little, I'll assume that last night was a legitimate game, and everyone was playing fair. In any case, if we do play Versus again, I would prefer to play it with friends or people I know at least until Valve releases a patch; I may still play Versus with strangers, but I would prefer not to.

If anyone else playing last night has an opinion, feel free to post. I'm prepared to be ridiculed, though I'm trying to make it clear that I'm only slightly suspicious of last night's game.