Quake Wars and spawn camping

Personally I am indifferent about spawn camping and those who whine about it just need to accept that sometimes shit happens. I am intrigued though by this tidbit from the Quake Wars site from the devs about how they are trying to limit spawn camping:

Yes, newly spawned players are temporarily invulnerable, unless they choose to open fire.

"The Strogg team do have energy shields as team doors/walls that will kill any GDF players/vehicles attempting to move through them, but the main change is in how spawning itself occurs. Players actually spawn in mid-air above the battlefield and descend to earth, the GDF slowed by a parachute, the Strogg by an energy shield that acts as an air-brake. You have some control over your horizontal direction and speed of descent, so you can steer towards where you want to land. This means that players are much more dispersed when they spawn, so even when their spawn-invulnerability wears off, they're too far apart to all get caught in the same airstrike/artillery salvo/panzer stonk.

"As the objectives and territories change hands, teams gain new spawns. There are also capturable spawn points, which can be recaptured by the enemy (although that doesn't mean the enemy start spawning there instead). By default you'll spawn at the spawn point nearest the front line, but you can select from the available spawns on the command map in the Limbo menu (sometimes your team's heaviest vehicles are only available back at your start base).

"I think people are going to really enjoy getting to grips with the Strogg Spawn Hosts - they add some interesting gameplay considerations. Strogg Technicians can create Spawn Hosts from GDF casualties. If a Strogg player goes up a Spawn Host and hits Use, they claim it. Then, when they're killed, they spawn from the Spawn Host, presumably nearer the frontline than the default spawn. GDF Medics can destroy Spawn Hosts with their Defibrillator pads (and should do so, whenever they can)."

So, that's pretty interesting especially how medics will not only have to do their normal medic duties but also work on taking out those Strogg spawn points.

Welcome to 1998!

Why am I welcoming you to nine years ago because somehow, in some way, a rift in space time occurred resulting in new news about Daikatana. Now why would a phenomenon that up until now was considered only a theoretical possibility decide to send back to us something as awful as this game rather than say the fetus of Hitler or bin Laden so we could abort them can only lead to one explanation: The future hates us and somehow John Romero has taken over the universe and is doing this out of a vengeful spite. We can save the future people. I know we might have missed our chance a few years ago after Doom 2 but we can stop the future from happening. Find him, make it impossible for more Daikatana news to appear.

Knights of the Old Republic online?

No penis, I don't want you to get awake like that right now. Yes, I know it's good news but down boy!

Getting back to basics with Company of Heroes

Company of Heroes reminds me why I like playing games. While I normally prefer the FPS venue, a simple and violent RTS can also help as well. Since CoH involves curb stomping Nazis then that is just icing on the cake.

Wermacht just get in the way of the real bastards of Waffen SS though. But hey, they all wear those gray/black uniforms and they're German so game on!

Rolling 10 Sherman tanks with artillery support all through the rear support units then pouncing on the enemy tanks is exciting. Graphics are top notch for an isometric RTS and watching Nazi bodies get turned into bloody stumps and then tossed 10 feet in the air is always a very good thing.

Basically what I'm saying is that shooting Nazis is a great pleasure. Although I am upset that the recently announced expansion of CoH doesn't include an Eastern Front campaign.

Oh god imagine THAT carnage, Russian barracks pumping out peasant soldiers and T-34s with a random number generator determining if the Russian foot soldiers have guns or not (maybe, maybe not). I would so eat that game up then proceed to eat the box it came in just to make sure I'm getting everything out of the game, including my daily allowance of fiber.

A slight uptick in PC gaming

I don't have much to say about this article regarding the uptick in gaming except that it highlights Quake Wars which should hopefully lead to more buzz for the game which means more sold (and therefore a further uptick in PC gaming) which means more people to play with and eventually teabag.

Anyway, don't even try blame the software sellers with this problem because they relegate the PC games to a distant shelf. Why should they feature them prominently when the PC gaming market has declined or been stagnant until recently? Make games that sell well and they'll give them frontage.

Also, the PC sales didn't include thing like online purchasing, something I've been using more as I'm sure a lot of other people have been doing. Anyway, rant done, go forth folks.

Oh come on Computer and Video Games!

Surely you jokers can make up better questions than this when you take up Paul W's time for interviewing him.

How much depth has gone into the vehicles?
Do you all live in a bubble? They've answered this about a dozen times. Vehicles are diverse for both teams. Heck, just looking at the Quake Wars website it seems to be that the Strogg have what appear to be lumbering beasts with an almost animalistic influence (insects mostly) that can switch from movement to siege mode. The Earth forces have a much more mobile force allowing for more rapid mobility along with transports for moving a lot of people quick if the need arises.

Dang CVG get with it and bring the thunder in your interviews.