Wrestlevania

I'm crying with laughter rewatching that last one... so, so funny. toblix's death scream is amazeballs.

I've added this into the Steam calendar now, to avoid confusion. I was wondering if last week's massive simultaneous crash might have been caused by the 'Carmageddon' mod perhaps? I'm going to disable it before we play tonight, just to be on the safe side. It was a lot of fun while things worked though!

There's currently a bug in the game where stuff drops through the floor if you're upstairs in some buildings. You should be able to find it in the room/space directly below where you dropped it after a moment or two though. With regards to putting stuff on the ground for other people, the only problem I've experienced after ~20hrs of co-op Standalone is the lag between you putting something down, the server registering that in the world, and then it pushing that info back out to other clients (player) in your locality. This only takes a few seconds from experience, and we've yet to lose anything this way from the sessions I've played to date. So it's quite possible that you've walked off and left little presents everywhere for other players without realising it! ...or maybe this is a new bug that's just been introduced this week by the latest patch?

Well, I'm online now and wondering where everybody is. Add me on Steam, same username!

Most exciting, you can use a hacksaw on a shotgun… BOOM!

I'm around later this evening, from about 9pm GMT (about 5hrs from now). How does that suit you both?

Anyone else playing Teleglitch yet? The trailer pretty much sells the basics of the game; think Dead Space meets the Doom map, mix in a decent amount of lore and a cute crafting system, and you're pretty much there. The basic premise is that you're the apparently lone survivor of an accident on a military research base on a distant planet. Having been in hiding for some time, your supplies have finally run out and so you're forced to make a run for it. And your only means of escape is to risk using the experimental teleportation system throughout the installation. Gameplay is a tense trade-off between venturing deeper into each level to find supplies, weapons and the ever-sparse ammo, at the risk of stumbling into something nasty - sometimes even a whole swarm of nasty somethings - and being abruptly killed. Combat is typically fast, twitchy, and brutal. However, unless you're really unlucky, you can often control the flow of each fight. It's often possible to back-pedal out of a room and down the corridor you entered via, and mow them down your enemies as they rush towards you... that is until the click-click-click of your soon-empty gun. You always spawn with a combat knife for last ditch self-defence, but it's tricky to use, and suicidal against anything more than a couple of basic zombies. Each of the guns I've found so far feel distinct, once you get used to how each of them works. Many of the guns seem to be upgradeable, too, either by adding a part to make a more powerful or faster-firing variation, or by combining an existing weapon with several rare parts to create something entirely new. Makeshift, single-use weaponry can be crafted from odd bits of junk, too, such as one-shot rocket launchers and throwable nail bombs; after a while you'll find yourself conserving parts as you plan your future arsenal. It's also fun to experiment with each weapon to see which is most effective against each type of monster. Speaking of which, to begin with the enemies in the game are quite samey, but steadily begin to vary as you venture deeper into the facility. The game also likes to throw the odd surprise at you, a particularly devilish one being a subtle variation on the standard melee zombie who, it turns out, is actually carrying a shotgun. What's amazed me most is how long I can become engrossed in a level. I'm a bit of a completist with this sort of game, and like to make sure I've rummaged my way out to every corner of the map before moving on. Taking things cautiously and trying not to miss anything, the first level alone took over half-an-hour to cover satisfactorily; the second, almost an hour. I find the tense atmosphere, visual style and careful audio design to be completely absorbing. In short, I'm finding Teleglitch a frightening, horrible place to be, but also a ruthlessly compelling one. And I recommend anyone curious should download the generous demo and go exploring.

Fiddling around with Teleglitch's control pad config has made this a lot more fun now! I'd recommend setting the aim speed to about 75%, while having the aim radius clicked up just a single block from empty--makes it feel very responsive without changing your perspective too much.

Recently picked up Monaco, but still haven't played it yet. Would very much like to give this a bash with fellow Thumbs, if others are still keen!

I relogged this evening and I've still got the same, slightly-out-of-time character from a couple of sessions ago (as described above).

I think the Steam release was the Die More Edition, so that might be why I've noticed it. I was playing the original Desura release before now. The differences are very subtle, in terms of how much look-ahead you seem to have and how the zooming/framing behaves. It just feels a bit less claustrophobic and intimidating to me now as a result. Thanks for the controller settings tip. The structure of the menus is a bit different to the original now, and I've not had a proper dig through them it seems. Definitely. It's still an excellent game, regardless of what I think of these tiny changes, and still wouldn't hesitate to recommend it!

I feel a bit mixed about the updates to be honest. The new lighting model is definitely prettier, but it seems to make spotting secrets much, much harder. I liked the stream of light through a crack in the wall in the previous version; now you get almost no perceptible indication by comparison. I'm also not in love with the changes that have been made to the camera's behaviour either. It doesn't feel quite as unique as the original release did, somehow seeming less isolating for your character. I've only played about an hour of the update though, so I might just be being curmudgeonly and need to settle in properly. I do like playing with a controller now, weirdly enough. I'm much more accurate with sticks than I am wildly flailing with my mouse in all directions. I don't like how far the aim range extends, though. Moving the right stick from centre just a moderate amount seems to leap the reticule halfway across the screen—it seems much too far. I'm going to see if I can hack this down in a config file somewhere, or at least lower the sensitivity and/or dead zone.

This happened to me too, but in a slightly different way. When I logged in last night, for the first time since the new patch was rolled out, I'd been mysteriously switched to a character I used to play as about a year ago in the mod version of the game. Totally confused - not to mention quite angry (my best character to date apparently wiped) - I logged out back to the main screen and had a poke around. Then I remembered that they introduced character renaming in the latest update, and sure enough my character name had been changed on the main menu. Clicking on this and retyping my original Standalone character's name - which I think defaults to your Steam name when you first started playing Standalone - and then logging in again, my most recent character was back! Albeit with a few hours' regression in progress, like YoThatLimp describes. Logging off and logging back in again to a few other servers had mixed results, though; sometimes I'd have my almost-up-to-date character and be in the right location again, other servers I'd be the same character but back on the beach as though I'd just spawned. I don't know what's causing this, but I suspect some public servers which seem to be running off the Hive are in fact not running off the Hive, and instead have their own character profile stores. (Or things could just be a bit fucked up still whilst the latest update rolls out properly.) Bohemia are meant to be fiddling around with the Hive servers today, so I'm hoping whatever they're up to will bump character profiles back up to date properly.

Those sound like small but really good gameplay additions... I'm going to have to pony up for the Die More Edition on Steam aren't I? Scratch that, it's just popped up via Savy Gamer on a 48hr "75% off" discount!

Aaand it's working again. I'm guessing it was a certs mirroring thing taking its sweet time gathering everything up. Phew!

I can't seem to rejoin Mumble at all. I've tried installing the latest release candidate (1.2.5) alongside the one that was working, uninstalling both and reinstalling the RC, and nothing works. I just keep getting the same "SSL mismatch" error every time, even when I try logging in with a different username. Very annoying.

...actually I can't make GTA this evening. Have double-booked myself!

Tonight's on—same Thumb Time, same Thumb Decentrali(s/z)ed Distribution Platform! Monday, 8pm GMT on Steam.

Amazing!

This made me laugh.

~whispers~ Switch your phone off!

toblix and I are up for some racing and rocketing an eye exam tonight—who else?!

Steam Group event says 6pm tomorrow (Saturday)?

I can't do Saturdays, but don't let that stop you. I'll see if I can make it this week at least!

So, as you all probably are well aware already, the DayZ Standalone Alpha has been released on Steam at last! I've not played the mod much at all lately, as it was still quite broken even with all the more recent updates. But I'm definitely going to pick up the Standalone Alpha sometime between Christmas and New Year. Would be great to get something Thumby going!