La Communauté FSW

Des joueurs de Modern Warfare 2 se sont amusés à comparer :Le temps passé à jouer qui est affiché dans leurs stats Modern Warfare 2.Le temps passé dans le jeu qui est mesuré par Xfire.En moyenne, ils ont passé 50h dans le lobby ou dans les écrans de chargement. D'après cet exemple, ça représente 16% du temps de jeu :

Je vous avouerai que c'est tellement énorme que nous avons eu du mal à y croire. Nous avons donc créé un thread sur nos forums pour connaître, avec un peu de recul, l'avis de nos joueurs concernant l'absence de serveur dédié et le système de matchmaking : l'unique bon point, qui revient assez souvent, c'est que le matchmaking force les gens à jouer toutes les cartes et tous les modes de jeu. La communauté ne tourne donc pas en rond sur l'équivalent de dust2. Par contre, les mauvais points sont légion :"Le matchmaking c'est une plaie, ça fonctionne très aléatoirement, on se fait constamment sortir du groupe, reset de lobby, déco, joueurs russes, c'est très pénible." - No

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Traumatisé par les ventes de Quake Wars sur consoles, Splash Damage répète cent fois par jour que Brink est parfaitement adapté aux consoles (et aux PC).

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Destructoid a essayé la version XBLA de Perfect Dark. En conclusion, c'est Perfect Dark, avec des graphismes plus fins, mais qui ont tout de même vieilli. Comme il s'agissait à l'origine d'un FPS console, le portage n'a posé aucun problème et le gameplay fonctionne toujours aussi bien.

Perfect Dark sort mercredi sur le Xbox Live Arcade de la X360.

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Gabe Newell pense que dans le futur, on utilisera de plus en plus la biométrie dans les jeux vidéo.

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C'est lors de la GDC, devant ses confrères, que Gabe Newell a répété qu'il ne croyait pas aux DRM qui enquiquinent les joueurs :Nous pensons que la bonne attitude consiste à se demander "qu'avons-nous fait pour nos clients aujourd'hui ?" Ca conditionne toutes nos décisions et une fois dans cet état d'esprit il est facile d'éviter des problèmes comme ceux des DRM qui font perdre de la valeur à vos produits.Il faisait probablement référence à la Protection Miracle d'Ubisoft. A ce propos, notre récent sondage, auquel vous pouvez encore participer, donne raison à Gabe Newell et à Ubisoft :

Il donne raison à Gabe Newell, car vous considérez que cette protection fait perdre de la valeur au produit.Il donne raison à Ubisoft, car vous n'êtes qu'une saleté de bande de petits pirates hypocrites.D'ailleurs, si le site officiel d'Ubisoft et leur système de protection sont encore dans les choux, c'est là aussi de VOTRE FAUTE ! Les honnêtes consommateurs qui ont acheté SH5 et/ou AC2 ont reçu un p

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AMD accuse Nvidia de payer les développeurs pour qu'ils utilisent PhysX. Selon eux, à part Epic, aucune équipe de développement n'a réellement choisi PhysX. Ils ajoutent que PhysX est une solution propriétaire qui finira comme le Glide de Voodoo.

Nvidia admet qu'ils investissent du temps et de l'énergie pour aider les développeurs à implémenter PhysX, mais prétendent qu'il ne s'agit pas d'une technologie propriétaire, car elle est capable de tourner sur n'importe quelle machine.

Tout ceci nous rappelle la dernière présentation de Metro 2033 où nous avons été invités. Elle se déroulait dans les locaux de Nvidia. Avant même de voir le jeu, nous avons eu droit au discours de l'attaché de presse qui nous prenait pour des demeurés : "Aujourd'hui, les personnages sont constitués de 300 triangles, mais grâce à la Tessellation des futures cartes DirectX 11 de Nvidia, vous aurez droit à des milliers de triangles !"300 triangles ? N'importe quoi... Bref, nous avons ensuite pu tester le jeu

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Quite often in gaming an update will roll round and introduce new things to the players. Team Fortress 2 can pretty much hold a record for how many updates it has released, from the major game patches that introduced new weapons and achievements to the small ones that made the smallest of bugfixes, they’ve always had something for everyone. Gamers rejoice!

However, after all these updates there are still some things wrong with the game. Maybe you’ve noticed them and maybe they’ve slowly been bothering you. So, with the Engineer Update just around the corner I thought I’d share with you my favourite tweaks and mods available from FPSBanana, all of which do their best to patch up these errors. Feel free to leave a comment of your own recommended performance tweaks and I’ll add them right here, but bear in mind that this list is looking for a specific type of mod. It must contribute to or even improve the visual splendour and art style of the game. I’m not looking for ‘realistic’ mods, or mods that change the models outright. (there are a few exceptions)

DISCLAIMER: It is recommended you back up your game files before attempting to install these mods. As is the nature of custom content they are provided “as is” and aren’t guaranteed to work with your installation. Always consult the instructions and readme files provided with the mods so you don’t screw stuff up. A lot of these skins require a powerful rig but I’m guessing you’re already aware of this since you’ve already read this much of the guide. Also as with any other user created content some of these mods will only work on a whitelisted server, or one with sv_pure set to 0.

Something you’ll see quite a lot in this guide are mods designed to patch stuff that haven’t been updated since TF2’s beta-stages of development. Note the default icon for the Spy class for example, its shows the beta Spy – the new Spy has a pinstripe suit. Other classes still show the beta shading, so this mod updates the class icons with the current textures and shading.

Link: http://www.fpsbanana.com/guis/20517
Credits: fOku5

What other HUD mod gives you advice on improving your tactics in game? This mod makes a very useful contribution to the ever-changing rules of TF2 combat. It’s also good if you’re bored of reading the same basic advice in-between loading. It includes tips on how to use unlockable weapons and even a few joke tips.

Link: http://www.fpsbanana.com/guis/20854
Credits: Shugo Takahashi

The bucket icons were never updated to match the shading and texturing when the style was updated. This mod uses the official Valve Backpack icons for the base weapons, resized and reformatted to replace the originals. Note to Valve – if you’re going to flat-out ignore updating a default part of the game – what’s the point of having it in the first place? Nobody I know uses the bucket anyway.

Link: http://www.fpsbanana.com/guis/20643
Credits: Shugo Takahashi

The next time you’re in single player build up an ubercharge and uber an Engineer. Now look at his face – the invuln goggles texture will go across his nose. That’s right; the ubercharge skins were never updated from Beta. This skin pack uses textures based on the modern player models. This will affect all nine classes on both teams as they all have problems with their textures.

Link: http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/74875
Credits: Shugo Takahashi

Whether you’re stealing plans to build a mega-death laser or the blueprints for the perfect clown car, make the intelligence briefcase worth dying for and slap a new texture on this bad boy! (note: will not fix that seal to stop important documents flying out)

Link: http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/66376
Credits: {H.H} Boba Fett

The flamethrower, the bane of spies and loved by newbies everywhere (don’t flame me). Want to make it even cooler (I mean hotter) by adding a yummy high-res texture? This is the mod for you! Download it and Spies everywhere will faint at the very sight of it (or faint after bumping into you, results may vary).

Link: http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/30659
Credits: DDbrother821

From here-on, you’ll start to notice these are reskins of unlockable weapons in the game. The only possible explanation for this is that Valve likes to cut corners when skinning the new weapons so they’re released on time. Such as the case with the Kritzkrieg, the texture is bland and ugly. This new texture has been painstakingly blown up to a massive 2048×2048px resolution, making the original texture look inferior

Link: http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/48749
Credits: 90SK

Made by the same guy that made the previous skin, the higher-res backburner updates the design with yet another 2048×2048px texture. There is also a medium res texture at 1024×1024px if your computer can’t handle that much awesome. While it does lack in team-based colouring (much like the original), there is the option to keep or remove the snake eye and use a stripe design.

Link: http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/48867
Credits: 90SK

The Ambassador was a notoriously lazy skinning job. The engraving looked illegible, the colour scheme was awkward and they even forgot to put a hole in the barrel for bullets to go through. This skin solves this problem by applying an equal amount of detail throughout the whole model, changed the colouring and materials on the gun to make it look like real metal and added shading. (Oh yeah, don’t forget the bullet hole)

Link: http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/66290
Credits: Argle Bargle

Why would you make a weapon unlock that is just a pair of boxing gloves? Weren’t boxing gloves invented to prevent injury to fist fighting? What bloody sense does that make? By wrapping them in barbed wire it at least makes a bit more sense. But still, why not have the fists dipped into hot glue and broken glass like in Kickboxer? That would be dope.

Link: http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/67826
Credits: Evil_Ice

A higher res Energy drink… ‘nuff said…

Link: http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/60732
Credits: BrainZ

You know, for a video game company that released a groundbreaking game about a physicist that went around shooting aliens, soldiers and zombies, you would think they’d know a little bit about physics. Alas, the jarate, no matter how much you move will only jiggle a bit after you equip it. Installing this add-on makes the jar of wee jiggle around in the jar when you move (if it’s really that important to you).

Link: http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/77423
Credits: Sparkwire

Pop quiz: You introduce a class that has a gun that can fire a maximum of six grenades, the developers decide it’s too powerful and decide to reduce the number of grenades that can be fired by two. What is the maximum number of grenades that class will be able to fire now? If you guessed four, you should shoot yourself for guessing.

Link: http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/61893
Credits: Ampersand

This pack makes an improvement on the original gibs by increasing the texture file size to 1024×512px, combining the gib skins with the official player skins. Oh yeah, the originals weren’t updated from the beta stages.

Link: http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/49262
Credits: The Kins

That concludes this guide for TF2 improvements. With that, I end this article with an open statement to Valve: Maybe you guys think I’m being a pedantic tosser and like nitpicking. That’s not the case, for the most part TF2 has raised the bar in the video gaming industry with its stellar art direction, offbeat humor and unique gameplay- and raises that bar even further whenever an update is released. But that is certainly no excuse to flat out neglect certain parts of your game because if left to their own devices for long enough they’ll keep coming back to irritate players just like me.

Hell, if you’re feeling generous how about you make these mods official and give the authors community weapons? (hint hint)

Sign-ups for the €500 Esports Heaven Sapphire Challenge are closing this weekend. If you're able to field a team for Monday night, make sure you sign-up and do your part in growing TF2's stature as a competitive game.

Click here to sign-up!

You can find the french unedited version on http://www.i-play.be/d...s/interview_payard_fr.doc..

Our lovable Techtron has been spotted with Pentia tag. On ETF2L, he has left iG and switched over to the Pentia roster.

It seems Techtron wasn't happy with his team's medic and decided it was time to move on (again:p). Loco apparantly succombed to techron's obvious charm to be a allarounder for Pentia, with a possible future spot as permanent soldier.

Pentia roster has known constant changes yet has managed to keep a great level of gameplay. Initially Dr Justice was to be the supposed scout for Pentia (lasted 2 weeks), but he has disapeared to join a new upcoming team for next season.

Pentia's current roster :
Loco (medic)
Admirable (soldier)
Memento Mori (soldier)
Koeitje (scout)
fadestep (scout)
Line (demo)

Techtron (sub allarounder)
Masther (sub soldier)
archy (sub demo)
havok (sub scout)


On that, we wish the best to both iG and Pentia

Although no official word yet, it seems their is an evacuation plan in progress in the Empire ranks. The first one to leave "Ice" the superstar scout of Empire, seems to have left out of discouragement and anger. Empire probably didn't see much hope without Ice, and seems to be leaving one by one.

It's quite unfortunate if this is the case, Empire did proove to be quite a worthy adversary in maps like Well, where they managed to tie the map vs TCM in ETF2L Week 1.

For some of us, Empire is an unforgettable team that has had it's ups and downs but was never to be taken lightly. Damn russians!

Good luck to the ex Empire players.

Over at the official TF2 blog, Valve have posted an insight into their weapons development and..

It's time reclarify exactly what is gossip. Lets take a look what wikipedia says and since it suits us, lets stick to it.
"Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others. It forms one of the oldest and most common means of sharing (unproven) facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and other variations into the information transmitted. The term also carries implications that the news so transmitted (usually) has a personal or trivial nature, as opposed to normal conversation."

With that in mind, lets move on to "Blight Part II". Seems Blight is becoming more and more of a soap opera as after the dismissal of Dajackal, both Dreadi and Tommi (ex eLD players) have decided to part ways from blight.

Which teams will benefit from this departure? Possibly brz (div2) who are on the verge of ending their run? Talks of a total revamp of their entire roster, replaced by Dreadi and Tommi? Or shall the mighty duo Dreadi and Tommi go on to resurrect the old eLD team with TCM's bm, who currently seems to be effectively benched, following close behind?

Blight Gaming's medic Depch had this comment to make:
Dreadi leaving was his own decision after he got put out of the core lineup as I brought in Hekka also for the team. Tommi was just being loyal towards his brother then. We understand and respect the decision totally.

Good luck to Dreadi, Tommi and Blight.TF2

Cadred has published it's latest instalment of their monthly Top 10 features, and this month sees Dignitas dethroned from the number 1 spot for the first time in Cadred Top 10 history.

Do you agree with the rankings? Click here to read them...

The Steam Client was released for the first time in 2003 and there has never been a major UI update since then. Now, 7 years later, Valve have decided that the Steam UI is outdated and are therefore launching a new graphical user interface soon. If you want to try the beta version, go to Steam Settings, Account and..

What women want have replaced their original demoman, numlocked, with former Power Gaming demoman Bash.

Bash has recently impressed with an outstanding individual performance at Winter Assembly 2010 and played well alongside former teammate wltrs in practises and the ESH ASRock Challenge with what women want.

What women want were reportedly unhappy with numlocked's attitude. It is understood that he was offered the chance to stay on the roster and earn playing time, but he declined and left the team instead on the day before their first ETF2L official.

Assuming that numlocked continues playing TF2, will he be able to find a top team to suit his talents?


What women want's current roster:

Dunc (medic)
Bash (demoman)
Jones (soldier)
Evil (soldier)
Haza (soldier/scout)
Predz (scout)
wltrs (scout)

nubonamission (scout, inactive)

Depending on who you ask, the Week 2 maps, Turbine and Well, will either challenge your teams technical and tactical ability (my words) or make you rage so hard that the entire Steam network crashes and require a bath with scented candles to get over the misery (paraphrasing Dunc).

One thing we can't argue about is that the Week 1 Well grinded out some surprise results and, maybe even more surprisingly, exciting spectacles. No upsets were bigger than Team Empire drawing 1-1 on Well with the highly favoured TCM-Gaming, and we saw a couple of minor shocks with The Last Resort dominating Well after losing Badlands to FakkelBrigade (keep in mind FB's great performances on Well last season vs the current PwR and Moose's PwR) and the same thing happened to Mister against infernal Gamers. What women want also had a good chance to take the full 6 points in a statement game against Power Gaming, who finished second last season, losing 2-3 on Well after winning Badlands.

We're now past the 50 games mark in our predictions contest and Dave has taken a comfortable 4 game lead over me and Perry. The guest predictor this week is D2M, head admin of ETF2L and scout for the Division 3 Team Vertex. The panelists can either pick a team to win (a 6-0 or 4-1 result) or tie (represented by the image of a black tie).

Note: Dave was too lazy to submit his picks for Week 2 after me annoying him on a daily basis about it, and in waiting for him to submit them we ran too deep into Week 2 and therefore 1 game has been played already. All the selections were made and text written before that game took place.


Results from previous contests

Esports Heaven ASRock Challenge

Dave - 9/14
Jimmy - 7/14
Perry - 7/14
reCon - 6/14

ETF2L S7 Wk1 (4 games left to play)

Dave - 7/11
Jimmy - 7/11
Perry - 6/11
Xzar - 4/11

Overall standings

1. Dave - 39/53 (74%)
2. Jimmy - 35/53 (66%)
2. Perry - 35/53 (66%)
3. Guest - 30/53 (57%)


Division 1

I Don't Know? vs I Don't Know? Frog (from week 1).DaveJimmyPerryD2M
Rumour has it that Frog did very well in a pcw against the "first" team. But after a ESH 0-5 smackdown on Gullywash last night, it'd be remiss to pick Frog on that basis.


Power Gaming vs The Last Resort.DaveJimmyPerryD2M
TLR were fantastic on Well last week against FakkelBrigade (and FB consider Well to be their best map!), but Power on Well in the last week: two EMS wins against TCM and a 3-2 ETF2L victory over www have to make them the favourites.


Team Dignitas vs I Don't Know? Frog.DaveJimmyPerryD2M
How will Dignitas respond after dropping the ball against TCM in ESH? They'll be glad they drew newcomers Frog for Turbine. For all the talk about Broder, I'm just grateful that we don't have to watch Dignitas vs Rockit.


FakkelBrigade vs Team Empire.DaveJimmyPerryD2M
I went with FB last week and got burned after they fell apart on Well, and Empire shocked us all by drawing against TCM on Well 1-1. Going by the form guide, Empire seem destined for a win there this week. But I think FB will have made the necessary adjustments to make less mistakes this time round.


Blight Gaming vs TCM-Gaming.DaveJimmyPerryD2M
After a bumpy month, it seems like Blight are finally getting back on track to winning ways. But, for the moment at least, TCM are still way out of their league.


I Don't Know? vs what women want.DaveJimmyPerryD2M
What women want almost came away with the full 6 points against Power, so assuming Dunc doesn't aneurysm from having his players fail to deal with Well and Turbine, this should be straightforward for them.


Division 2A

HolyShit! vs chaotic community | black.DaveJimmyPerryD2M
It's hard to call this without any idea of how good CC2 actually are, having wildcarded their week 1 game to tomorrow night. HolyShit get the nod from the panel for their hard fought grind-it-out draw against Breeze last week (2-2 Badlands 2-2 Well).


breeze vs SpecialAttack.DaveJimmyPerryD2M
Looks like we don't know what to make of this game. Breeze are too talented to not start winning soon, right? If they lose here, and with their Pentia date next week, they're going to risk falling off the face of 2A. And what's with all the awful posting on the ETF2L forums? Less whining, more winning, please.


Northwave vs inGame.DaveJimmyPerryD2M
Again, a difficult one to call since Northwave haven't completed their Week 1 game and inGame (then Carpe Diem) got obliterated by Broder. Will probably take a few weeks to get a proper read on these teams.


Team eMpathy vs PENTIA`.DaveJimmyPerryD2M
Second week in a row that we've all gone for Pentia. They look like a great team on paper and have some awesome pcw results to boast about, but what's up with their ESH performances? Losing ESH games to Division 3 teh team on Turbine and then last night to the giant killers Crack Clan isn't entirely confidence inspiring for a team that has the potential to win this division. Even if you aren't running your first team lineup.


jAgarna vs Broder.DaveJimmyPerryD2M
Broder win. Broder go to Div 1 (eventually).


Division 2B

Crack Clan vs Exhilium (from Week 1).DaveJimmyPerryD2M
I'm sure Exhilium are a decent team, but Crack Clan's recent results can't be ignored.


Crack Clan vs Blame.DaveJimmyPerryD2M
The Crack Clan bandwagon starts here! Just how good are they? Blame might be disciplined enough to bring them back to earth.


Team NEUTRONICS! vs Nobody's fault but mine.DaveJimmyPerryD2M
We haven't see Neutronics play yet, but according to the Cycle of Ownage, Neutronics are (thought to be) better than Blame, and Blame easily beat Nobody's fault last week, so Neutronics will own Nobody's fault. TF2 logic at its most pure.


Paroxysm vs Mister.DaveJimmyPerryD2M
Feels dangerous picking Mister here after the Week 1 stinkbomb they dropped on Well, and Px are probably better than most give them credit for. Important game for both teams.


notag vs infernal Gamers.DaveJimmyPerryD2M
I haven't personally seen notag play yet, but you can't argue with that roster. That said, Well 3-0 against Mister last week must give infernal Gamers (formerly PoD) a chance.


RAGE.MULTIGAMING vs Exhilium.DaveJimmyPerryD2M
I get the feeling that it's going to be incredibly difficult for Exhilium to squeeze any points out of this game. Welcome to Div 2.


Disagree with our predictions? Add your own in the comments below!