F4T C4T

Okay, I just finished RDR. :'(

I'm STILL without internet at home (which is a major pain in the arse when it comes to online gaming. I'm switching providers now as it's been almost a month and they still can't tell me what the problem is!), but as long as I can download the files from work here I'm still good for this at least! Are we doing the 1 year each thing? Might be better to do a couple if there's only a few of us. Or we could keep cycling it around until we encounter the inevitable 'fun'.

Miffy, I feel your pain. About 8 hours in I had one of the more emotional moments I've experienced in a game for a while. Allow me to recount my tale. I'd just left the saloon in Armadillo after another dismal poker session ("there goes my boys inheritance"). As I watched a drunk stumble down a step and roll his face across a horses arse, I considered a way to recoup my losses. Just then a guy in the street ran up to me shouting about his horse being stolen and figuring there'd be a bit of a reward, I gave chase. As I ran I whistled for my loyal steed, Chloe. I'd had offers for better horses in the past but Chloe was my horse. We'd been riding together from the beginning and that meant more to me than pace. We easily caught up with the thief and I lassoed the rascal, yanking him from the saddle and let him drag behind me a while as I followed the stolen horse. Once it had settled down to a trot I hopped off to hog tie the scumbag. He hadn't survived my measure of justice though. Oops. Anyway, job done. Dude just wanted his horse. Back in the saddle I lassoed the stolen horse and began to lead her back towards Armadillo. Out of nowhere I was surrounded by a band of outlaws riding hell for leather, pinging bullets all over the place. Letting go of my lasso, I dead eye all three of the goons in the face. I turned to find out where the stolen horse has got to and... ping! A rifle bullet whistled past my ear. Then another. One of the bandits limped out from the bushes and I instinctively fired the rest of the barrel into him. Silence fell. As I began to trot away in search of the missing horse, I was thrown to the ground as Chloe collapsed in a heap. What? What happened? I didn't see any other bandits about, nor had I heard a gun shot. At this point I'm in shock. I must've stood by her corpse for about ten-fifteen minutes trying to figure it all out, looking for bullet wounds, hoping it might have been a physics glitch and she'd get back up soon. No such luck. She'd taken a bullet in the fight, probably the little fucker who'd fired a few pot-shots as he limped out of the bushes. Chloe had ignored the pain and continued on until her last breath without a neigh or a whinny of pain throughout the whole ordeal. I wanted to bury her, but my only options were to skin her or leave her to the quickly accumulating vultures. I shot at a few to deter them but it was a pointless exercise. With the stolen horse nowhere to be seen either, I turned towards Armadillo and started the lonely walk back. R.I.P Chloe, stolen by a bullet.

I'll still be up for GTA in the future, the itch I have right now can only be scratched with a spur.

I'm still at the mercy of BT fixing my internet connection (its been out since about 3 days into this game now) so I haven't been able to enjoy this at all. I tried going to a local wi-fi spot but I just can't do it often enough to take part really. I'm afraid if the a.i. hasn't taken control of me yet, it will do and I'll probably leave it at that. I was really looking forward to this game as well, shame.

Argh, no internet at home is driving me crazy. I've got RDR now and loving the single player so far but I'm itching to get online with an idle thumbs posse! Hopefully next week I'll be able to join you all.

I'd be up for this! I'm still getting to grips with the game but I reckon it would be a lot of fun to see what happens between us. What version were you thinking of using? I've been using the 2010 version for a a little while now but I'm thinking that 40d might be a better bet, if only because there's more tutorials and info on it already.

Of all the times to have an internet blackout, a few days after starting a Neptunes Pride game is possibly the worst. I'm at work at the moment but I'm heading to a cafe at lunch for some free wifi to check up on things. I fear the worst. Depending on how my date with a BT engineer goes tomorrow, that cafe might be seeing a lot of me this week!

Yeah, the Dwarf Manager bit is about where I got to. Once I discovered the wiki though I was having too much fun figuring things out on my own to go back to the tutorials. I've started on the aforementioned waterfall fort. I found a great site. It's going to be a long time before I can even think about starting building it though as it requires damming a brook and re-diverting it's course. It was great at first because the river was frozen and I thought I'd be able to dam it fairly quickly. Unfortunately half way through floodgate construction it thawed... I haven't figured a good way of doing it while it's flowing. Tried some techniques from the bay12 forums which didn't go too well. Now I have trolls and dralthas running around the place. I'm forced into making a temporary hovel away from that site until winter. The main thing now is to just survive! All I want is a glass windowed viewing deck/meeting hall looking out through a water fall. I suspect that may be more 'fun' than I can handle though.

Haha, yeah I wasn't prepared for the roleplaying... made me chuckle when I read my inbox. Thanks guys I'm going to do my best to play along. I'm SP4CE C4T in game. Space cats don't look quite how I imagine them, but they are from space I guess, so it's ok.

Haha, nice scribbles Sombre. dibs, I haven't quite figured out all those connections yet either. I only got about half way through those tutorials before going off on my own and building/destroying about a dozen forts (mostly I get to a point where I think I can do better and start again). I should go back and read the tutorials some more.

That Bronzemurdered story is awesome. Love the visualisation. The past few months I've spent 90% of my gaming time on this damn game! Not to mention about 50% of time that should be for other things... it's all your fault Sombre! I'm loving it though. That matrix pic is great Wurtsi, I'm amazed at how much of the game I can understand at a glance now and how fucked up I remember it looking before hand. Although vanilla is too much for me, I'm using a graphics tileset (the deep quantas one I recommend although it's not perfect. I'd like to see that combined with Mayday's set for the animals/enemies and some objects). I'm at the point of thinking and designing engineering feats and fort layouts on scraps of paper on my lunch break now which is kind of worrying. I haven't been engaged by a game in that way since Little Big Planet and it's level editor. My only problem is how long it takes to get resources to do anything like I can imagine. I've usually fucked it up well before I can start thinking about doing anything that isn't vital for my Dwarfs survival. I've just left one fort struggling in a flat wintry desert (due to not paying attention on the embark screen) with a werewolf problem on the surface. There's only one military wrestler left now and he's been locked in combat rolling around the snow-scape for about 3 months. They don't seem to be able to inflict any serious damage on each other, only getting tired or unconscious every now and again. Amazing for the Dwarf though considering this particular werewolf already tore down 2 military, 3 woefully mistimed migrants and a trade caravan. If I ever go back to it, whichever way it goes, I'll create a memorial for that dude. In the meantime I've got a crazy idea for a waterfall fort next... p.s this may be a little late dibs, but hit q and move the cursor over that errant bed and select x to remove construction. They should take it back to your stockpile and then it's available to put down in a more appropriate place. I've stuck so many beds in doorways instead of doors...

I'm with Marek. I'm pysched for this to start too. Waiting for this to happen is like playing the game itself from what I've read! (I've still not played a game yet so I'll be fresh meat for the grinder). Is there any chance we can get it going this weekend so I have a bit of time to spend getting the hang of it? I'd set one up myself but I'm not prepared to pay for 20 games until I've experienced it.

Good races last night. I really must spend some of those credits I've accumulated in the single player so I have some decent cars to compete. I was saying about being disappointed the custom paint jobs didn't transfer over from Forza 2 to 3 and I thought I'd check out some of my old ones on the Forza 2 online photo uploady thing (I traded it in to get F3 so I can't check them out in game). I can't seem to get access to that stuff anymore though, I get an error trying to access it. Does anyone know if that stuff is still online? It would be a shame if they've already abandoned that version.

Hey, I'm up for this if there's still room. I signed up to it a few weeks back when I finished reading the RPS articles but haven't had the time/balls to drop into a game just yet. Would love to give it a go with you lot though.

8 PM GMT is cool. See you this evening.

Hah! I've not seen the birds dropping through the roof yet. They make me laugh anyway as they fly around with their viagra legs. I'm pretty sure birds tuck their legs in when in flight! The game redeemed itself a whole lot last night. While trying to find safe cover from the emission I'd previously perished in, I stumbled into a zombie/mutant rodent infested ventilation complex. I battled my way in to find myself caught in an anomaly which was very reminiscent of the one from the Tarkovsky film which I'd watched only the night before. Very cool. I don't want to say too much here in case of spoilers but anyone who's ventured into that place will know what I'm on about. It's not far from Yanov station, near the No.1(?) crash site. I had to come away confused by it's trickery but I'm determined to find out more about it and head back in.

OK, how about tomorrow evening (Wednesday) 9:00pm GMT? I could also do this evening around the same time but I thought it might be late notice. Anytime between 8-10, Monday - Wednesday is usually ok for me (providing there's nothing on t.v. my girlfriend wants to watch). I still haven't plugged the xbox in yet to accept your invite, but I will do tonight!

My fascination with the emissions has come to an abrupt end. During my third encounter I ran into a room and close the door behind me to find a large group of bandits standing around in a circle. I figure it must be a decent place as all these guys seem pretty relaxed in here once I've holstered my weapon. Feeling a little weird standing in the middle of all the balaclavas, I find a small table in the corner behind the leader and sit down to an awkward silence while the emission passes. Next thing I know my health is almost gone and draining quickly, wtf! This must be an emission suicide cult or something. It's too late to find any proper cover (although several ground hog day-like reloads later I've discovered there isn't any nearby. pro-tip: don't quicksave during an emission) so I sit down and decide to watch the show. My huge smirk at the thought of all of us dropping lifeless in unison is suddenly replaced by disappointment as my lone rag doll hits the deck. My audience didn't even bat an eyelid. After looking online to find out if it's a bug or something I discover that the PDA points to predefined locations that are safe. I completely missed that in-game. I'm left with a feeling of unfairness that these guys could survive in there and I couldn't. I know there's drugs which allow you to survive an emission which I guess these bandits could have taken, but according to what I've read you'd still fall unconscious. Does this bother anyone else? I'm still enjoying the game but that really put a dent in the atmosphere.

Cheers Groucho, I've not been on the box recently but I'll accept when I get on there next (the curse of having too many games machines, too many good games and not enough time). How about we make some time for a game this week? I'm on GMT time so if it suits you, Monday to Wednesday evenings are usually best for me. If there's a time difference thing going on maybe the weekend would be better though.

Looks awesome, I'll definitely be getting it on 360. Can't wait to stride into town as the Idle Thumbs Posse and fuck some shit up.

I just bought Greed Corps on 360. If this thing is still going ahead count me in. I've been playing more strategy games as of late but I'm not that good at them either. I'm prone to risky manoeuvres and tunnel vision. I'm also playing Napoleon: Total War at the moment but have never tried the online stuff out in that series so if anyone is up for that give me a shout. You can find me in the Steam group or on xbox live as F4T C4T.

Sergey, it is standalone but despite all the new bits it adds (which I think are great btw), it plays very much the same as the original so if you didn't care too much for that, I'm not sure you'll care too much for this one either. I guess it depends what exactly you didn't care about in the original though.

Well, I spent last night re-installing my sound drivers to no avail. I did find a small fix in which someone increased the player sounds volume but it still doesn't sound right. Ah well, still enjoying it despite that. I think it's standing out to me more than usual as I've just been playing Far Cry 2 again and the sfx in that are amazingly good.

I loved the original Stalker and just last night I cracked open my copy of Call of Pripyat. I'm really enjoying it so far, especially my first emission. I was on board the Skadovsk(sic?) during the warning and a sudden rush of Stalkers ran in. I didn't know what was going on and wanted to go out on deck to watch. I wasn't sure how much cover you needed though, whether you had to be inside with doors closed or just a roof over you're head. I was freaked out enough by the panicked Stalkers around me to curb my curiosity and settled on peering out of the biggest crack I could find on the boarded up windows of the ship. Watching the red hell outside with only a glimpse of what was going on was terrifying. I haven't encountered another yet to answer the many questions I have of the phenomenon. I spent the rest of the time trying to figure out why everyone else's gun sound really loud and my own gets drowned out by the ambient sounds. Anyone else encountered this? It's really breaking my immersion when I can't hear my shotgun above the patter of light rain. I've tried windows settings and in game settings galore and can't find any fixes online as yet either.