A little late in posting this, but we have a trackmania nations forever server installed and running. The game is free and can be downloaded from the Trackmania website. Be warned that it is a 500 meg download. so VM customers should do it after 9pm or face crippled net access for the rest of the night. /rant

Our server can be found via the in-game browser at UK, England, London. Post comments in the trackmania discussion thread and do point out or make some nice custom tracks for us.

Nexus War has moved into a new era, and we're still there. ID has moved to a new plane, Nimbus, in the clouds above Paradise, from which we intend to descend and inflict grievous pain on our enemies.

ID's size has stabilised and much of the dead weight has been pruned away. The faction has been heavily reorganised and extensive work has been put in under the current CEO Red Ligerton (/Rev Rolex) to make us more efficient and dangerous, and things have really picked up in the last few months. Hell, even Rogz has rejoined!

Let's keep the impetus going, and launch our mighty takeover of the Nexus. Anyone wanting to assist in the Great Mission, pop over to the public NW forums and shout, we'll tell what you need to know and help you out. Anyone who has drifted off into idleness, all returnees are welcome so we can smack our enemies and cast their souls screaming back into the void. We've got a lot of enemies and a hard-earned reputation to maintain.

Hopefully not just in the US!

LUMINES NOW ON STEAM
April 18, 2008 - Q Entertainment and Valve today announced availability of Lumines(TM) on Steam, a leading platform for PC games and digital content with over 15 million accounts around the world.
Lumines, the critically acclaimed music-based puzzle game, was created by Tetsuya Mizuguchi and is available now via Steam for as low as $9.95 for the Base Pack. The Base Pack contains 21 unlockable skins in Challenge Mode, Skin Edit Mode and a sampling of Time Attack, Puzzle and Mission modes. For a greater challenge, the Advance Pack is available for $7.95 and includes another 21 skins in Challenge Mode, 70 mind-bending puzzles in Puzzle Mode and 35 quick-thinking, fast-moving stages in Mission Mode. The Base and Advance Pack may be purchased together for just $14.95. An additional 10% is taken off at the time of purchase between now and Friday, April 25th.
For more information about Lumines and Steam, please visit www.steamgames.com

Rogan has set up a 20 player COD4 server running at 85.234.148.100:28960 This replaces an underused vanillaish CSS server (server 1) and the raven shield server.

Comments in the forum as always.

Wends and Far have had a baby girl. She was born at 2.34AM on Thursday the 29th of November and weighed in at almost 11lbs. That's about as heavy as a bowling ball folks.

The young lass has yet to be named, but I did suggest a working title of Wendetta. Names based on weight will not be appreciated. Far and W reserve the right to damage the mental wellbeing of their offspring, in a time and manner suited to themselves.

Young Wendetta and her mother are resting, doing well, and Far says they should be out today.

I have added her as our new mascot. Let's hope she turns out better than By0.

Guys, we've started a might alliance spanning the breadth of known space. You too can join our mighty galaxy-conquering endeavour. Get metal, crystal, radioactive stuff, build big fleets and wage interglactic war. What could be more fun?

View here for more info on OGame

In an effort to avoid scaring people off the CSS server, we're going to be removing our tags while we're playing there.

Short post - eh.

Well the gungame night was not the most successful, and I fear the Regulars night may also have been a washout if it was left to the community software.

Inviting people to the game, manually, saved the day. Much fragging was had by those who attended - nice one -and those that didn't are a bunch of bastarding bastards in bastard sauce.

I digress. Anyway we decided to set the server to one awp/auto per team, which Feroxy has just set up. <3 I've also found a small trove of remake maps. These will hopefully be added, by fer, sometime in the near future.

The quality of the maps will be variable, they always are, but I have multiples of the more suspect looking ones.

Off the top of my head we have:

No as_tundra :(
A Vegas remake (looks turd)
An original Militia (looks ok)
747 (port)
The usual VIP crapola (one oilrig looks ok)
Storm (port)
Vertigo (looks ok)
rotterdam (meh might be ok)

And some other stuff...

So, most of you have enabled the Community Beta. That's in settings > Enable Beta Content *ahem* Lordy Jazz^ *ahem*. And you've added yourselves to our groups.

If you've had a look *ahem* Lordy Jazz^ *ahem* you may have experienced a feeling of deathly calm.

To break this unhealthy silence, I've added a couple of new events - meets for Standard CS and Gungame. Additionally I've made Antoyne player of the week, for the lulz.

If you haven't enabled the beta *ahem* Lordy Jazz^ *ahem* please feel free to, asap you gits. :p

Well after juggling some servers around we've decided to stick the old CSS server on 32 players. There are a couple of reasons for this: the CPC server is dead so Lordy and co nowhere to play (aww), and Insurgency isn't as popular at the moment.

We had been running a 32 player insurgency server, but it seems like most people have decided to stay away until some of the many bugs have been patched. Feroxy had a look at the worldwide stats for the mods, and there were 1,000 players on 600 servers, so we're keeping it low for a while.

PS. I will be setting Vigil on fire, if seen, as is my wont.

The CSS server if you wonder is at: 85.234.148.100:27015 [join]

I have set up a 16 player Insurgency server at

85.234.148.100:27045

For mod info, manual and download, please check out http://www.insmod.net/

Comment thread

Counter Strike recently turned 8 years old, so feeling the nostalgia, I have set up a CS 1.6 server at the following IP and port:

85.234.148.100:27025

It is running classic maps from the yesteryear of counter strike so you may find yourself having to download the maps.

Quick question: Would anyone be prepared to download older CS versions (1.3 most likely) for a truly authentic experience? Let me know in the forum.

Goldeneye: Source

Another mod for us to try, albeit still in beta. Installation instructions and setup download are available from the Goldeneye: Source wiki

server is running at 85.234.148.100:27025 (also shown under server status on the website menu)

Discuss the Goldeneye server

Added 2 new servers to the mix.

First up is a short map cycle server running Dust, Aztec, Italy and Office 24/7. Find it at:

85.234.148.100:27025 [join]

The other is a server running GunGame for everyone to try out. It runs a mix of standard popular maps with some wacky customs too. Now its running customs only. Find this server at:

85.234.148.100:27035 [join]

Comments welcome in the forum as always.

OK guys it's that time again, we've got to chip in for a server. Now I admit that we really screwed up with that INX server. To be fair, though, we didn't have any of the problems we expected to have. The hardware was good, the server was stable, but the IP was in the wrong range.

It's not something we could really have predicted, but we're all sorry anyway. To stop this happening again we're going to go back to the old method of selection, where the council will decide which server provider we will go for.

I know it's not necessarily the iD way of doing things, but not everything can be decided by a vote or a committee. To be utterly fair to you this is something I'd realised before we went and got this sodding INX server.

At the moment Feroxy, Far, and myself are discussing who we will be using, and whether we really need to have a dedicated server. All I can really tell you at the moment is that we're considering a branded e-Frag public css server or a 4U-Dedicated box.

We'll be collecting donations in the usual way, and for the usual amount. So that would be a Paypal donation of up to £50 each. As usual, we're not asking you to go without food or water, so if you can only afford a tenner or a fiver then we'd be very happy to receive it.

I know that, just like me, many of you would like to play a good game of CSS again: essentially that's what you're donating for.

As you may have noticed, the website has been offline for the last few days and it appears my webhost has either had a major calamity or has gone kaboom/bust/whatever, but in either case I haven't been told about it.

This is a temporary solution until I find out what is going on or find a new host. No forums yet, sorry. Forums are running again.

We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
And a Death Cloud in your Strong Hold.

Whilst our NexusWar faction has been about stable in size for a while, our effectiveness has increased greatly. This is testament to the good work done by everyone: we punch harder than several factions larger than ourselves. However, there has been quite a high turnover of faction members. I have to keep the faction organised or chaos takes over, which both helps enemies spy on us and impairs our ability to get things done.

At the end of every month, I am going to do two things:

1) I'm going to kick anyone I've noticed has been idle for a long time. You're very welcome to rejoin if you've just been away temporarily: we're not miffed with you or anything, and we'll restore lost ranks as soon as you let us know.

2) I'll remove NW member forum access from anyone I cannot identify as having a NW character in our faction. Obviously, if I kicked you for idling, you'll also lose forum access.

This month's purge occurs on Saturday, see the following forum post:

http://www.invisibledanger.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1322

For those of you who don't yet know, the CS:S server is now running the beta of the game, with funky fluctuation prices. It is proving very popular, and, after one or two teething troubles, we have mani back. So head on over to the server and join many of the old crowd, and some of the new.

If you need to install CS:S Beta, it is on the Steam games list, and is about 10mb to install, and you get the privelige of being cannon fodder at the mercy of now even cheaper scout, so really theres no excuse not to.

Same IP as usual, or you can just remember css.invisibledanger.co.uk, which ill always point you in the right direction.

As a further attempt to diversify the games available, we are now running a 16 player True Combat: Elite server.

TC:E is a mod for the free Enemy Territory game and in terms fo gameplay is really very similar to Counter Strike. The main difference is that it features lean posture, prone posture and doesn't have any crosshairs: instead you use ironsights to line up your targets.

To play, you need an up to date install of Enemy Territory:

Download Enemy Territory and the 2.60 patch

Then download and install the mod:

Download True Combat: Elite mod

There are a number of mirrors listed, but when you choose one, make sure it has the .exe setup installer, rather than the zip to make things easier. You are looking for "setup_v049_0922.exe".

Once thats all done and configured, you can find the server at:

195.242.236.182:27960

Try it out and see if you like it.

INX will be relocating to a new datacenter next week and so have alerted us that there will be some downtime on various days during the week.

The days and times in question are:

• Tuesday 26th September - 9am-5pm
• Thursday 28th September - 9am-5pm
• Saturday 30th September - 9am-7pm

I don't know exactly what day our particular server will be transfered, so should anyone find that the server is not online on one of those days, you know why.

Hey all! The council has been having a chat about what the iD member list really means. After some discussion, we've come to the conclusion that playing CS and not interacting with the rest of the group is a no-go (unless you're Amster in which case it's cos you don't know any better).

Because of this we're going to be culling the members list to only include people who pop into irc. This may seem upsetting, but the rest of us have always made a concerted effort to remain at least vaguely available.

We did consider counting forum activity. Since the forums have been dead (apart from the NW sections) since the server moved, we decided that this would not be sufficient.

The only people exempt from this are Sandy, Jazz, and Ammeh as they have been in iD for a number of years. If you wish to remain on the members list then please idle in IRC and be vocal about your wishes to remain on said list.

This isn't meant to be a shock to the system or a cry for help. We're just giving the members page more meaning.

It seems like the general consensus is that we'll be having Tuesday as our weekly hook-up day. :D

Starting next Tuesday we'll be having a weekly gathering. Of course, you aren't required to turn up if you don't want, but it should be a great time to catch up and play some CSS together once again.

The server is smooth enough, and should Valve manage not to ruin the game before next Tuesday we should have a ball. Since it seems unlikely that people will be around to play earlier in the day I suggest we all come in after 8pm.

If you want to kick off the day before that, then have a go. ;)

Since we all seem to be missing each other on the server recently, we're going to start a hook-up day: a meeting where everyone turns up at the same place and time each week.

We're running a poll on the forum to choose the best day for everyone. Please log in and choose your preferred day.

Thanks, Rogz

Righto - I've finally sussed out how to get FEAR working. It's still work in progerss but you can connect to the box on 195.242.236.182:27888; the game's free and it's actually pretty good fun - there's no slomo or anything running - don't worry. :'0

=====
Server Name: Invisible Danger ~Control
IP: 195.242.236.182: 27888
Version: F.E.A.R. v1.07
Mod: Retail
Game Type: Control
=====

OK I've moved Mani over to the new box and set it up just how you all like it ... well how it was anyway. I'll dump off a couple of maps and enable pingboost tonight - so it should be running sweet as a nut.

I've also enabled all the Mani chud, on the understanding that we are testing the server. If it works I think it will be left running lots of tat. If you don't like tat just turn it off using the settings command.

I figure people like that kind of stuff so we might as well turn it on. Stats whoring is no longer an issue because Mani now allows you to add weapon weightings - win.

Ok the new box is up and running. The new CSS server is at 195.242.236.182:27015 and is currently running a clean install of CSS. A quick FYI to admins - the RCON password remains unchanged.

We are also hosting a FEAR Combat server on this IP at the default port. You can sign up and get the free client from the link in the post below. You need to do some kind of sign up to get a key code but mneh...

The gameplay in FEAR Combat seems ok - a little like the close combat stuff you get in BF2. More info on the server when I suss it out properly.

Looks like the Multiplayer part of FEAR is going to be released as a free, standalone, download. ;) I didn't rate the MP aspect of FEAR as highly as some of you might have - but at this price it's difficult to complain.

http://www.joinfear.com/us/

Nah, we're all just waiting for a new server and some of us are taking a rest from CSS. If you're feeling all alone, then you should be using Xfire and the contact list on the forum to track the other regulars in the meantime.

You can also come into IRC and see us there.
[TIP] If you use a proper client like mirc you can leave irc running in the background. If you join irc, say hi, wait for five mins then quit you will never manage to talk to anyone![/TIP]

For core members of the community, the forums are a secondary method of communication. Forum traffic normally correlates to whatever games we are actively playing as a community. So while the CSS Server is empty so are the forums.

Cut short - if you want people to play on the CSS server with you you need Xfire. If you want to chat to the regs and members or find out what's actually going on in iD you need to join the IRC channel.

Fret not, we aren't dead, but the most active part of the community is now resident on IRC - not the old CSS server.

Hope to see you there <3 Rogz^

Another of these press release things... RO looks REALLY good BTW:

Red Orchestra: Five Free Days Starts Tomorrow

Five Free Days of Red Orchestra begins tomorrow via www.steamgames.com, with pre-loading available now. Those who try Red Orchestra during the Free Days will have access to the full game, including the brand new map (Leys Krovy) and new gameplay enhancements from Tripwire.

I've just finished talking to INX who are the providers of our next game server. As some of you know, our e-frag server was due to end soon. For a multitude of reasons, not least being e-frag exiting the dedicated game server business, we had been looking elsewhere.
As the post below indicated, we had shortlisted INX and Pulsegaming. Both provided a good environment for most people but there were some niggling issues with Pulsegaming's server. To be fair to them, for most people it was an excellent server and they went out of their way to set us up a test server on the hardware that we would have leased from them.
So we're going to use INX for the server. It is now being built and will be shipped and installed as soon as practical. Once I know more I'll post here to keep everyone informed.

I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to test each provider and all the others during the last few months. Testing is a crappy and generally thankless task (just ask Stoof) and I know that everyone who helped probably had other things they'd have rather been doing instead. The feedback we've had has been critically important in deciding where to go and I hope everyone is happy with the new hardware when it becomes operational.

If you want to get an email when it's running then see the post here.

Before Monday 31st we will decide on a new server provider for the iD games server. We have reduced the candidates down to two, Pulsegaming and INX. Pulsegaming were kind enough to put a server up for us on 217.64.127.122:27015 but this will probably be brought down on Friday. INX have a few about (feel free to search for them) but here are a couple of IPs 195.242.237.127:27015 and 195.242.237.116:27065. I would really appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to try a server on each provider and let us know your views. The main server vote is here. Please put post some detail about how the provider(s) played and why you would prefer the choice you've made.
I've deliberately avoided a third option which might have been titled "I don't know" or "Mneh" since we need opinions. If you don't have one then it's no good to us.

Come Monday I'll be in touch with the lucky GSP and arrange our new home. This does mean that the server and TS IP will change but that was going to happen whatever we did. However it seems like a good time to point out that css.invisibledanger.co.uk and ts.invisibledanger.co.uk will ALWAYS point to the right address, DNS is useful that way.

:)

I shit you not!

From some random email:

VALVE REVEALS NEW DETAILS ON EPISODE TWO

Includes Team Fortress 2 and Portal, Heading To PC and Next Gen Console

Bellevue, WA, July 14, 2006
- Valve®, developer of the blockbuster series Half-Life® and Counter-StrikeTM, unveiled Team Fortress® 2 and Portal, two new games to be included in its next release, Half-Life® 2: Episode Two. In addition, the studio announced its plans to deliver these products, plus enhanced versions of Half-Life 2 and Episode One, in one tremendous package for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

"By evolving our development process to an episodic approach, we're able to reduce risk from things such as schedule and funding and invest more in new types of gameplay," said Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of Valve. "This allows us to produce innovative titles such as Portal and Team Fortress 2 and deliver them in a timely fashion to customers along with Episode Two."

Episode Two advances the 16-million unit selling franchise, as Valve's trilogy of episodic single player releases continues the award-winning story of Half-Life 2. Armed with new weaponry and vehicles, Dr. Gordon Freeman must race through a countryside riddled with an increasingly feirce Combine threat.

Team Fortress 2, an all-new version of the title that spawned team based multiplayer action games, features the most advanced graphics of any Source-based game released to date. Players choose from a range of unique character classes such as medic, spy, sniper, or engineer and must work together to complete a variety of tactical objectives.

Portal is a new type of single player game that changes how players approach, manipulate, and surmise the possibilities in a given environment in a manner similar to how the Gravity Gun changed our approach to how an object may be leveraged in any given situation.

Team Fortress 2 and Portal will be included with all retail and Steam versions of Episode Two for the PC. In addition, these products plus Half-Life 2 and Episode One will be available in one tremendous offering for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. New videos from Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 will be released next week.

As many of you already know, we're playing quite a lot of Nexus War at the moment. What you might not know is that it's just got interesting.

Our faction, which is of course called Invisible Danger, has managed not only to build a base, but to defend it. I'm just telling you so you may bask in the glory; as with all things it may be short lived.

If you want to join us, though, high level positions are available to all our css regs. It's one of those half an hour a day web games if that's what you want from it. If you play the meta-game, though you'll find it goes extremely deep.

Currently we're allied with a number of fellow factions in the area, and iD being iD we are also making enemies at an impressive rate. Our enemies are wary now, though; so we should have plain sailing for a week or so.

Because we've played the hell outta this game already, we've done the hard work on researching how to level. If you join up, we'll get you leveled up and smiting our enemies with cricket bats and chainsaws in no time.

If you're interested you may like to read the wiki and have a look at our wiki page.

I've updated the server to the latest version of Mani to the server. This MetaMod version of the plugin (Beta 1.2N), offers some increases in speed as well as some interesting additions.

The best extras are the bet menu, which works like the old version, and an AFK swapper.

Admin Slap and Slay have been removed, so don't piss off admins or they will have to kick you. ^_^

I've added a team balancing script to the server. I know this may impact performance, but I'm pretty sure the slow degredation in performance is due to the way mani implements databases; in the worst case, we can fix this by deleting some files every few days.

Team Balancer Release Page.

I know some of you still remember him, and those that don't will certainly already have met him on the server. Well, after some time away getting a lovely tan abroad he's come back to the fold.

I am of course talking about Air; welcome back old boy.

Far is kindly checking the connectivity to the current dedicated server. This is to properly track down the poor hit registration that many have been complaining of.

If you've had any problems at all, or even if you haven't, we urge you to take a look at the thread and follow the simple steps to get all the data we can about your connection to the css server.

We need your help to properly assess e-frag's network and ratify the claims of poor reg that we've heard.

The thread is here.

Ok We've made some adjustments to the server's rates. FYI, all that has been changed is sv_minupdaterate from 9999 to 2500 as it was brought to my attention that 9999 may be causing choke on the server.

The server's maximum FPS is now also capped at 300, we did have it running at 600 fps recently. The maximum rate allowed on the server has also been decreased from 25,000 to 20,000 to reduce the load slightly. We may increase this value if the poor registration and warping are fixed.

That's all we can do at the moment.

You may also be able to help us test from your end too.

If you're connecting to the internet via a wireless network you will suffer badly as the server passes the 20 player mark. If at all possible please connect to your router using a network cable. If you are still having problems when connected via a wire then it's probably the server.

There is one other thing you could try, though, before blaming the server for poor performance. If you don't use the steam server browser to connect to the serve, your game launcher could be interfering with your game.

All the server browser's I've ever used (HLSW, ASE, GAMESHITE, etc) monitor the server you join continuously. This can cause major problems with hit registration and lag. What happens is the game launcher continuously pings the IP and port, which interferes with the communication between your client and server. If you've ever run two instances of HLSW and seen the big bars of loss that occur, you'll understand what I mean.

You need to go into the options section of your game launcher and specify that it should either go inactive or minimise. I'd suggest you set it to just quit when you join the server.

If you're using admin through HLSW while playing the game then you will certainly be getting interference between HLSW and your CSS client. If you must, open then quit HLSW every time you alt-tab in and out of the game.

Our donations total is now up to £567.19



That's half-way to a dual-core server. :{D

I know two wealthy Scotsmen who I'm sure will be happy to chip in... or they will find yon nuts in a vice.

Also, Stoofy has suggested something about him having testing experience in a group leading role. Well he probably implied it, and that he wanted to do all the organisation, but we can't be sure. Anyway, Stoof, how ARE we going to test these providers?

I wonder if we'll get cribsheets or something? I personally don't mind as long as it involves me, an AWP, and someone to shoot at.

There's a new thread in nt Announcements area of the forum to keep track of our running total for server donations.

We're at £145 already .. Whee!!

We have a reply from e-FRAG.

And a new server donations thread.

We have only 2 months to come up with the cash for a new server, but money isn't our problem: e-FRAG is. I don't know what anyone else thinks, but the connection to the server generally sucks considering the hardware (1Gb and 3700+) and server load (less than 50%).

I have long suspected that there are some serious hardware issues on frag, especially with their flaky as hell routers. IMO we've been with them for 18 months and we haven't seen an improvement in connection.

We may only hire one server for a year but we pay upfront and don't give too much hassle. I think we deserve damn good service for this, and while e-FRAG don't have a take your money and run approach I think their network is overloaded and not getting any better.

When the server runs well it's great, but when it has problems they just don't go away. For example I remind you of the daily DDoS e-FRAG used to get, the dodgy router and that frigging map differs from the server bug we had for an entire year. :@

If anyone has anything good to say about e-FRAG, or suggestions of other dedicated gaming server providers in the UK then please add them to this forum thread

I don't think we're getting as many players as we could. IMO we're losing players on map changes due to compromises in the primetime cycle.

ATM we're trying to make a cycle that's interesting as well as not having shit maps. The thing is there are only say 4 maps which aren't considered shit - dust2, azzy, italy, office - all the others are subject to discussion.

I was thinking we'd do better to rotate a full cycle (using the old arrangement method) with a popular cycle on certain days. I dunno how we'd go about this. Maybe we'd make Tues and Thurs full-cycle days and have the rest popular cycle days. Then promote the full cycle day on the server using adverts.

If full cycle became more popular then we could add another day and so on.

I say this because as we all know "£shit maps" can fill the server sometimes - assault for example fills it, so can havana, even bloody tides can fill it up. I think a large cycle will kill the server initially - but only on 1 or 2 days a week; we'd still be getting people coming on for the popular maps on the other days.

Post your thoughts on the forums.

As a little experiment I'm going to increase the twenty eight to thirty two players. The reason for this is simply because a) the server is rarely at capacity anyway, and b) people actively search for 32 player servers and larger.

Twenty Eight is too small to be noticed, and what the hell - can an extra four players make that much more of a difference? I figure it's worth a try, if only because it's free.

For historical reasons, we'll leave the name as "the twenty eight". Oh, for historical reasons and to irritate jobsworths. :D

I think it would be a lot easier for all of us if we had standard ban periods. So that someone who's just being a twat doesn't get the same treatment as racists and hackers. Wink

I was thinking:

racist/cheat: eternal bamnation
Repeat Idiot: 3 weeks
Idiot: 1 week
Repeat irritation: 1 day
irritation: 1 hour

Thoughts? ie what's the difference between idiot and irritation? Add them to this forum topic.

I stuck up a quick guide on adjusting your client. The Reduce Lag page will pop open if you say "lag" or "tweaks" when you're playing in the twenty eight.

It's all very straightforward stuff, but I hope it will help laggers adjust their connections correctly. Thus making them STFU.

I've started a guild for us. It's open, you don't have to be an iD member to join. Just hook up with me, if you can find me, in the game and I'll add you up.

It's easier to get hold of people on teamspeak or Web IRC.

Look at me. Free stuff for the Rogz!

There seems to be confusion about the disappearance of the WebStats.

Although ranking was provided to suplement the server, it's been heavily abused. Most players are changing their gaming style in an attempt to look good on the leaderboard. That's fine if it's just n00bs watching their skills improve: unfortunately this isn't the case in practice. And the stat whoring has spiralled out of control.

In team games individual stats aren't important. A great game of CS:S requires team play and lots of it. You're not playing the game to its fullest, if you can't rely on your team to back you up.

In the early days of the server, players would go out of their way to cover and protect you. Sadly these days of comradeship are long gone. In an effort to re-instil a sense of team-play on the server, stats are henceforth disabled; on the 28 they will remain so. We hope this doesn't ruin the game for you.

While it may take time, for the effects to become fully apparent, I've noticed a change for the better already. In a month or two you won't care about the missing stats, you'll be too busy enjoying yourself.

Oh, I forgot to mention a minor point, amnesty requires a request on the forums. There are plenty of tking, myg0tting, racist, random ballbags on the list: it would be a shame to let them simply drop in again.

Amnesty requests here.

Because of some changes on the server, we've been without a master ban list for a couple of weeks. I've been considering an amnesty, for those banned from the server, for a while. Now, seems like a perfect time to do this. Everyone who was banned, basically for being a twat, has been unbanned. However, the rules have not changed since you were banned; if you're a ball-ache, you will find yourself banned as before.

It is with great joy, and a full-on-robot-chubby, that I announce our new members.

HailToTheKingBaby
NewbieDragon
Behemoth.

Good luck, all; We hope you enjoy being "in" iD, for what it's worth.

Also, an old member, Dooms may be returning after a lengthy absence.

It's safely after April Fools now, so you can take this as serious. :p

Nominations are now open for three new admins.

Visit this thread to add your 2c.

I've noticed a couple of new black spots appearing in the 28's map cycle. To me, it seemed as though the server was having difficulty filling up, so I had a look. There were a couple of maps I decided needed to be broken up: galleria/militia; losttemple/nuke; port/oilrig. These maps were originally placed together because they are similar, and should lead nicely onto one another. In practice, it seems this is actually a pain in the ass, more variety is needed.
I've rearranged the mapcycle as so:

cs_office; de_port; cs_havana; de_prodigy; de_dust; cs_militia; css_galleria; de_piranesi; de_aztec; de_cbble; de_kismayo; de_train; cs_italy; de_chateau; de_losttemple; cs_compound; de_dust2; de_inferno; as_oilrig_wk; de_nuke

While this cycle still isn't perfect, notably the port/havana/prodigy slice of the cycle; I think the contrast should help make each of these maps more interesting, as they require totally different styles of play.

Of the official maps, we're still not using de_tides or cs_assault; I can't see many people complaining about that. The current cycle of 20 maps takes a maximum of six hours to run through (based on a 18 min map time), so at least you won't have to play a map repeatedly.

Of course, that relies on an understanding that some admin won't whimsically change map by vote or a command. Changing maps will ALWAYS leave the next map as cs_office, or de_dust (I forget which) this means you will either be constantly changing the maps or playing the same ones over and over again. So don't bloody well do it.

The only time a map should be changed, is when you're intending to spend the next few hours being some kind of bitchass server DJ. In that case it's fine because you're setting a mood with the maps you're playing; in other words a job for a Sunday and some new custom maps.

Just for today I've rolled back Mani Admin Plugin to version 1.2Beta K. This is the previous version of the plugin we were using, so it may fix the spiking.

To test properly, I've removed the scripts (bet etc) and the underlying structure that runs them. If the server runs without lag today, then we can try putting them back on. It may be the case that Mani and the Scripts interfere with one another; if that's so, we will remove the scripts.

Because assault is bumph, and mani was causing lag not VIP, I've swapped assault for oilrig_wk (the accurate version). While this may not be to everyone's tastes, it's well worth learning how to play the mode. In general: CTs win by JUST the VIP escaping, Ts win if the VIP is killed or the map timer reaches zero. Some guns are restricted for each team, this is to help balance the game: for example no MP5 for terrorists, prevents unstoppable rushes on the VIP; no AWP for CT stops them creating a 100% safe path for the VIP.

Enjoy, or at least give it a decent try. ;)

It seems that our recent server lag is due to a mani beta plugin. Because we aren't using any of mani's features, other than TK protect and kick/ban, I've decided to remove it from the server.

The main problem will be for admins. In respect of the fact you've all proven yourselves to be "fair" and trustworthy, you will be allowed rcon access. If an fellow admin asks you, please pass rcon on. Please do this in PRIVATE, thanks.

As far as TK protect goes, I've been wanting to try a very cool Mattie Script for this; it's called Puppet Punish. You can see the info on it here:
http://www.mattie.info/cs/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1115

Unfortunately, we need Mani before it will work. :(

In this forum post, I've started a new vote to choose de_kismayo or cs_havanna for the mapcycle. I'm pretty sure of the outcome, but I'll give the vote a little while to run.

In other news the new mapcycle seems to be working well; I've certainly felt inclined to play more often; it doesn't seem to have improved my score, unfortunately.

There has also been lag on the server recently. We're trying to find the root of the problem, but it may require a valve update to fix it. We've tried removing all the scripts, which has reduced the massive lag spikes. There is still some remaining lag, which won't shift. Far may be able to find the problem, but atm I'm stumped.

Some people on the steam forums are complaining about lag, though, and a lot of people are rolling their servers back to the previous version. I'm not keen on this as it involves shutting off autoupdate. Admittedly autoupdate is what caused the problem in the first place but mneh.

After some discussion on the maps thread, we're going to be running a short, but varied, mapcycle. It's built up using the core maps, some interesting ones and the best custom maps we've played.

Map Cycle Thread

As far as the VIP mod goes, it remains on the server, there's only one map in the cycle, the remake of oilrig. It's not perfect I admit but, until someone finds a better VIP map, it will do for the time being.

I've also removed the zombie mod from the server. There seems to be litle point in running it atm. I'll probably stick it back onto the CPC server, which means we'll get players from CPC coming on to escape the horde too probably.

Since there was a gap on the server I've added Matties Event scripts. If you've seen a mod running on another server, it's probably a Matties event script. I've stuck counter bet on the server atm, and it will stay, but I'll remove all the advert spam next week so it's running silently.

If anyone sees a good event script give me a shout on the forums and we'll give it a try. Particularly, we're looking for a map rating script, but I'll probably have found one by the weekend.

Event Scripts: Pack Releases

Edit: That didn't take long to find... Map Rating Plugin

I notice that people would rather play endless games of dust on Server 2 than an as_ map on Server 1. In light of this, perhaps obvious information, I will be making Server 2 a custom map server and making Server 1 a Full Rotation server.

*Blanket Retort* Very well, you told me so.

Server 1 will now be FF on and Full Rotation at all times. In the hours where admins normally unavailable (current zombie hours), a stern level of TK Reflect will be in effect.

The question of whether 'Full Rotation' means every offical map, or implies every official map except the crap ones (tides, assault, compound) is currently up for debate; if you wish to start discussion of the matter, please do so on the forums.

The webranks are now up and running again. I've deleted the previous data; now we're all back on an even keel. You'll also be pleased to know that the stats are now updated hourly instead of three times a day. I think the previous stats problem was due to a leading forward slash - exciting stuff eh? :P

The mapcycle and game modes on the server have been altered slightly. I've added zombie and popular maps to our cycle. It's already proving quite popular. There are about 10 players on there now, and I saw at least 8 joins and quits in the quick 4 rounds I played.

The schedule is currently:

6pm-11pm: Normal
11pm-10am: Popular maps
10am-6pm: Zombie Horde

I haven't had much time to smooth the settings out yet, so zombie has no restrictions and various mapcycles aren't right. Hopefully I will have time to fix it tonight, otherwise I don't know when we will have it running as I'm away for the weekend.

New more dynamic and exciting vote here! W000p.

We've returned a pair of custom maps back into the cycle. You'll probably already have them downloaded to your cs/maps folder. If not, you can get them from Punk Ass Fraggers: Downloads Section.

The maps are:
de_lochs2 (Great map we didnt get to play because of issues..)
de_losttemple (Only plays properly on a full server but it's very nice)

They fit into the mapcycle thusly:
de_cbble
de_losttemple
de_piranesi
de_dust
cs_havana
de_dust2
de_train
de_prodigy
cs_militia
de_chateau
cs_office
de_lochs2
cs_italy
de_aztec
de_port
de_nuke

It seems like the mapcycle has all gone to shit since the server move. I've had a go at putting the correct list in but tbh I can't remember the order. It *should* be ok, though, no strings of particularly unpopular maps; I'm rather hoping it's fixed the problems with dust2.

I'm going to start a vote on how many custom maps will run on the server. We have information stating which are more popular - should it come to selection.

Anyway you can catch the Poll here. Link to the forum topic.

Full Change History:
[-] January 18, 2006 (current release)

Changes/Additions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Added cs_militia with High Dynamic Range (HDR) lighting
Hostages can open doors and step up onto ledges/stairs now
Hostages and Bots obey NAV_MESH_NO_HOSTAGES
Bug fixes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fixed player name crash exploit
Fixed rare visibility issue near portals such as doorways and windows
Fixed a bug that occasionally resulted in doors becoming stuck closed
Fixed animation issue with shotgun reloads interrupting fire animations
Fixed bug where footsteps sometimes sounded for crouched players on stairs or slopes (they no longer do)
Fixed buy menu locking up if keypad Enter is bound to "buymenu"
Detail props sway in the breeze now
Underwater observers no longer play drowning damage sounds


Game On!

On this auspicious date of Friday the 13th 2006 our server is finally getting its upgrade. Yep, the one we all chipped in for about five months ago now. The server will have about an hour or so downtime and will then come back up. It's unlikely that the game servers will be running until either Far, Feroxy, or I have a chance to start them from our shell account.

The server IP shall remain the same and all the files will be migrated, so we should be back up and running by latest 8pm tonight.

I do realise that; a) it's Friday the 13th; b) I'm superstitious; c) Jamie Lee Curtis is hot.

Anyway, I know you all hate it but I'll stick up a 64 player with some 64-player maps as a celebration of slaughter and a test of the new server. We have some very good 64 player custom maps now.

Game on biotchez!

The last set of nominations for our lovely new admins have finished. :D The results are in! Oh oh oh oh guess who won (win is kinda relative here).

Picking the admins this time was easier, with Hail, Behe and Newbie all getting similar numbers of nominations (lots). 'Side also had a shedload of nominations (more than twice the number of the next nominee), but still significantly less than the other three.

Admin funtions *should* be set up for these guys, try typing admin in console newbies ;), if not it will be as soon as I work out what is going on with this new Mani Admin system. (We had to move to some mega-beta because of the instability after the last CS:S update.)

Crappy source issues aside, welcome your new admins, may the earth tremble under their sandals and so on. :)

I've been instructed to add New Year's News, but I'm still feeling a little NYE ill so it's a short one. ^_^

Server is still up and just about running, however we still haven't received an upgrade and so on. I will be following this situation up and hopefully closing the issue once and for all.

New admin nominations are coming along nicely with some long-time regs getting just a little drop of appreciation. I also notice, now that we're talking about admins, that zombie horde has been pretty much forgotten - it may well remain that way.

However, the VIP mod should be out very soon and that will be run as soon as we have a 100% stable server. :D

I look forward to it, good luck in the New Year folks. gg
;)

The weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And since we've no place to go
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Well, it doesn't show signs of stopping
But we've got some corn for popping
And the lights are turned way down low
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

When we finally kiss goodnight
How I hate going out in the storm
But as long as you hold me tight
Oh, all the way home I'll be warm

The fire is slowly dying
But my dear we're still goodbye-ing
And as long as you love me so
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

(P.S. We haven't paid the RIAA for this, I expect they will sue us for Christmas, Yay!)

With a very special update :D

I had thought it was just our server dying - it probably did crash actually - but when I looked closeley I noticed it was caught in an error loop. On further investigation on the steam forums I found out that ALL linux servers are shagged. Anyway, if it's still down you know why. Let's all hope that this latest release fixes all the crashes etc. I hope it's not the case that they have just rushed this crap out so they can have a christmas.

I say: "Valve Softies CHRISTMAS HAS BEEN CANCELLED! Get back to your damn desks!"

Anyhoo, the updates we will get to see when Vale fix our server are:

Full Change History:
[-] December 19, 2005 (current release)

Changes/Additions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Added G.I.G.N and Guerilla player models
Sniper rifles that are in the process of zooming in don't get the zoomed-in accuracy bonus
Fixed crosshairs when running in a widescreen aspect ratio
Added a 'nextlevel' server side command to force intermission and a switch to the specified map after the current round
Fixed bug where players were able to throw grenades through thin walls
Added a server message for teammate attacks
Fixed buy menu not having mouse focus
Fixed buy menu re-opening when you try to close it.
Fixed centerprint panel and frames per second panel not resizing correctly after a resolution change.
'&' chars in player names show in the scoreboard and spectator UI
In-eye spectators see punch angles
Fixed bots thinking they are still on a higher nav area when they fall off
Added nav area ID to the bot debug prints
Extended the bot_add*, bot_kick, and bot_kill commands to accept skill (easy, normal, hard, expert) and/or weapon preference (sniper, shotgun, etc) arguments. For example, typing "bot_add_ct expert" will add a random bot of "expert" difficulty to the CT team.
Added difficulty, weaponclass, and skill modifiers to the bot_prefix string
Navigation mesh editing - raising/lowering corners correctly snaps adjacent corners to the same height

Since the server has been crashing constantly still we've taken measures to fi it. This may still take some time before it's working properly. Currently we are running on a backup copy of server1 with the latest update of mani: a total rebuild of the original code. While this presents some minor difficulties it is supposedly stable.

The server has also been set to 100 tick and maxrates of 30000/100/100 are now allowed. This may cause performance issues when the server is full, so you will all have to keep track of lag as the server fills. This lag will show itself as a dropoff of outgoing packets from the server as shown in the picture below.



That picture was taken when the server was still on 66 tick (before you ask), expect to see numbers like 95-100 from the server (except at spawntime), and whatever your connection is capable of, from you.

In other news - Custom maps have been removed from the server until we are assured of it's stability. There are very strong indications that at least one of he new maps was causing problems. We may incrementally add custom maps to the cycle, but don't count on it.

Zombies are also off the server until they have been properly tested - maybe we can have a test session over the holidays.

Until then please keep a close eye on the server. I don't need reports of the occasional spike, though, just if the server consistently underperforms when full. Or, indeed, if the shitbox crashes again.

After them having served as admins for some, time we've invited Kittenbait and Number6 to join the clan proper. I'm sure you all know them well by now, *loaded hint* even if they don't frequent irc as much as they might *loaded hint*.

As ever, in our horridly incestuous little community, some of our admins were not invited. This, other than the obvious reason of us being twats, is because we havent seen the loverly Action Hank, or Karma recently *sniff*, and Jimmy AKA furb is already happily clanned (and a little bit absent).

Of course, this suggests we will be holding another round of admin nominations and votes. *Yay* These - when they happen - will be the usual fare of 3 nominations per forum member, then those with most will be invited to become admins.

So in conclusion, give a warm welcome to our new members: Kittenbait and Number6

:D

As an addendum to the below rant (which I wholeheartedly belive in btw)I offer this honour system that I (for one) shall be sticking to from now on. Those of you who have played with us since we were on B33f (if you weren't we still love you anyway) will know the system - let's call it the pickup system.

The system works like this (and it does so very effectively), I only pick up sniper rifles (exluding scout), and if I'm really honourable I'll only pick them off defeated foes.

The system will not be enforced in any way (hence the honour part), it's up to you to do it or not. I tell you this, though, the most effective way to stop an awper awping is by bloody example.

This is exactly the old honour system we used to use before server plugins were available and it worked well then. More importantly it will still work now.

As I say it's not compulsory, enforced, or really expected, but this is how I will be playing on the server from now on.

There will not be any restrictions on the server. I personally (that's right I said I) am fed up with the whole restrictions thing. It was a slippery slope when we started doing it on the move to e-frag and it still is now.

What is needed is less complaining about how shite AWP is (it isn't) less complaining about how it unbalances aztec and dust (it doesn't really) and more playing of CS:S as it was designed to be played.

No one is pretending that it isn't totally shite to die loads of times by some crappy AWPER but that's what cs has ALWAYS been about. You might as well take bloody jumping out of Super Mario Brothers.

So from now on please refrain from creating or participating in discussions of how we could improve the server by removing awps and change the discussion to how we can improve the server by communicating with one another and beating awps.

There are enough other problems to deal with, without having this crappy circular argument.

I for one apologise from the depths of my heart for removing them in the first place and turning you all into pussies.

Sorry. :'(

Let's play the game properly again - AWP lam3rz please come back - all is forgiven.

Since the last update Server1 - the 28 player has been acting up very badly. It's been crashing at least three times a day, which is obviously a problem. :S

We're trying to fix the problem but it may be helpful if you could post in this thread on the forums.

Hopefully we'll get this sorted out in the next day or two.

Until then - here's a picture of some kittens. Aww...

The current mapcycle is:
(Test maps in bold)

de_cbble
de_nuke
de_storm_h
de_piranesi
de_dust
de_vertigo_css_b6 (may have insufficient spawn-ponts)
cs_havana
de_blast_ed (may have crashed the server)
de_inferno
de_canal
de_dust2
de_lochs2 (crashed server twice)
de_train
de_kismayo
de_prodigy
de_chateau
cs_office
de_cpl_fire_beta
cs_italy
cs_siege_sp
de_dust_pcg
de_aztec
de_losttemple
de_port
css_galleria

We'll be trying a variety of custom maps in the coming week or so. I've tracked down a couple of new maps and a handful of old cs favorites that we can all have a bash at. After we've played through them all a bit we'll run votes to clear out the chaff as we did before.

New maps:

cs_estate_css_final.bsp
cs_siege_sp.bsp
de_apparts_b3.bsp
de_blast_ed.bsp
de_cpl_fire_beta.bsp
de_lochs2.bsp
de_losttemple.bsp
de_menace.bsp (promising but texture corruption)
de_shipment.bsp
de_storm_h.bsp
de_survivor_J.bsp
de_vegas_J.bsp
de_vertigo.bsp
de_vertigo_css_b6.bsp

All maps are available from - PunkAssFraggers

Zombie horde is now back up on the server again after the recent Valve update. The gun restrictions are back and a little tighter than they were before - Less colts, one awp, and more fear for the survivors.

Remember - headshots ftw!

Has been removed.

I think we have enough good admins to be able to ban cheats. It was just a knee-jerk reaction of mine. *ahem* I have to admit I only saw one person wallhack once and I'm sure the unnamed haxxor won't be using said tool the next time I see them on the server.

Nothing to see here - please move on about your business.

I've added us to Steam Bans so you can expect to see some rather random banning happen in the next couple of weeks. This is beacuse I have seen certain people, even regulars, on the server who were running a variety of cheats. Most suprisingly I saw a reasonably longtime regular with a wallhack just yesterday - I found this suprising.

Anyway, the Steam Bans system works by sending in cheat demos for the Steam Bans admins to watch. You cannot just state that SteamIDXXXXX is a cheating slag, proof is required. To this end if you see or suspect a cheat on the server please take a demo and link it on the forums so it can be submitted.

I hope this doesn't seem too draconian a measure but it seems that the stats may have corrupted certain people. Unfortunate but there's nothing we can do. If you are using any cheats, and you for the greater part aren't, now is the time to remove them if you're playing our servers.

More information can be found on the Steam Bans FAQ.

It looks like the VIP mod will be released soon. On this page it says that the underpinnings required have now been released by Valve and TR.

VIP ftw!

*hopes tundra will be included*

Full Change History:
[-] December 01, 2005 (current release)

Changes/Additions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Added de_nuke with High Dynamic Range (HDR) lighting
The Bomb (C4) can no longer be planted on breakables, movable physics props, or other players
Fixed problem where players were not always "grabbing onto" ladders that were approached from above
Crouching while traversing a ladder reduces the player's speed (matches CS 1.6 behavior)
Improved door logic to prevent doors from opening into the player using them
View-smoothing is now done when going down stairs as well as up
Bomb-related sounds play for everyone correctly now (not just the bomb-planter)
First-person spectators are blinded and deafened just like the person they are observing
Exposed VIP player index to plugins/mods
Added "mp_disable_autokick" so players with rcon access aren't idle-kicked
Bug fixes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fixed incorrect bullet penetration calculation through concrete+grate materials
Fixed changeteam exploit
Fixed DX7 early prop fade-out
Fixed rare player animation issue while holding grenades
Fixed apparent lockup/hang due to the disconnect dialog showing up over the quit menu and hiding it
Fixed crash when shooting explosive objects that would result in the shooter's immediate death
Opening the buy menu and equipment menu on the same frame no longer leaves the buy menu in a bad state
DEagle no longer always plays deploy animation when starting to spectate its owner
Non-localized HintText displays correctly again
"soundscape_flush" no longer forgets about soundscape entities

After checking the recent map polls, we've removed some custom maps. Only the outstandinly popular maps (and canal) remain and tides will also be making a return to server1.

de_cbble
de_piranesi
cs_italy
de_dust
cs_havana
cs_compound
de_dust2
de_train
de_kismayo
de_port
de_chateau
cs_office
cs_assault
de_tides
de_dust_pcg
de_aztec
css_galleria
de_prodigy

The gloves will be coming off, though, because all weapons are unlocked and with the ranking system offloaded to a remote webpage the play should be getting interesting without the rank spam.

Give a warm Irish welcome (half brick to the head) to Gory, who's rejoined us after some years away in the fields. During his lengthy sabbatical he's been enjoying dancing with goats, but he's also made friends with a few ewes in the period since he left - winter 2002 (or 03 can't remember).

Nice to have you back ginger one.

Vote for which maps will stay and which will leave the server here.


Make your own decisions ;)

After a little discussion rank is being removed from mani-plugin. Instead, we've got a psychostats rank page on http://invisibledanger.fusionstats.com/ This updates at 10pm / 6am / 2pm obviously this means stats are updated once a day at about 10pm because the rest of the time is zombie mode (unranked).

For those of you missing statsme there's a bonus. To get psychostats working you need to have a statsme plugin.

Here's the cvar:

scl_show_dmg <x>

0 -> No Stats are shown
1 -> Show Dead-Stats
2 -> Show End-Round Stats
3 -> Show Both

And say command:

/statsme

Displays the session-stats of a player. If the player disconnects, the session-stats will be deleted.


It isn't a ranking system, it just does round and session stats. OK Optimus?

It's a tad early for Spring madness, but the insanity seems to have commenced anyway. That's right, weekly Counter-Strike:Source practices have started again.

The proponents of said insanity will be looking for the company of other members on Sundays at around 9PM, so you should have digested your tea by then. :D

Since we're practicing we need to pracice something - so we're going to be specifically working on our voicecomms. It does take a lot of time before people are confident and clear on the microphone, so we'll just be having lots of fun 'till then.

Things we need to hear from you over the voicecomms are: When you see an enemy; how many you saw; where you saw them; what direction were they moving in; if you're under fire; how many people you're engaged with.

After a while you'll get used to spitting this information out as second nature and indeed in replying to it. As far as replies go we need to hear: which way you're going; suggestions which route you think your backup should take; when you're at your destination; when you're thinking of throwing a flashbang. In fact you need to tell everyone exactly where you're going and help guide your team with you.

When we've got that done we'll work on tactics. :p

(PS PMS are looking for recruits .. they have no predudices other than those against the opposite sex so they say - I think they prefer men nipping round thier ankles so they get can one day get thier tits out in Maxim for a fiver. Not that I've got preconcieved ideas or anything.)

Whilst happliy checking my daily blogs I came across an interview with Athena Twin from the girly gamers clan PMS. Some of you already know in great detail my thoughts on girl, or indeed guy, only clans and how they are sexist stereotypes that don't have a place in gaming. Anyway, that's by-the-by. As I trawled a little through the generally insulting website/interview/profiles of the gamers I realised something: they only interview the nice looking ones... obvious I know, who wants to look at a munter.

But why, don't the munted ones have anything to say? I mean I thought that was the great appeal of the internet, you don't look like anything, everything is based on your personality and how you choose to represent yourself.

Girl only clans get on my tits, the thought of girl only events makes me sick. In fact, what's worst of all is the way all this leads to segregation in gaming where lasses can't even use a mic for fear of calldowns. Thing is AFAIK half the problem is that girls are afraid to mic up or admit they're girls. What's up, you can admit to being girls IRL, so why do it online.

The one REAL chance people have at true equality and they're scared of it. I mean who gives a fuck if some pimply reprobate trash talks you cos you've got a squeaky voice? Can't you tell them to piss off? Men have to. We have all the same crap you have, the same idiots that will take the piss out of you for being girls; they'd take the piss outta men for whatever similarly pissweak reasons i.e.: You're gay, can't aim, you cheat, so on ad infinitum.

Instead these stupid protective groups form with girls segregating themselves from the boys. All I can say to these fucking paranoid girlclan freaks is, ironically, GROW SOME BALLS! You are equal already, now start acting like it goddamn it! Damn retards...


dumbassed links are from here and here

May all single sex/religion/colour clans burn in the firey pits of damnation, and if the firey pits of damnation don't exist they need to be swiftly constructed so we can throw all these bloody idiots in!

We've added about 10 new custom maps to the server's rotation. We've tested loads and only the very best ones have got through. Hopefully it'll break the monotony of all the maps we're so used to. I certainly found that assault was even enjoyable after having played a decent map. :D

Map Pack Download

The current mapcycle is as follows:

de_dust
cs_urban_v2
de_cbble
fy_48th
de_piranesi
ad_egon_world
cs_italy
//de_inferno
cs_havana
de_velvet_east
cs_compound
de_dust2
de_train
de_kismayo
de_port
de_western_story
de_chateau
de_maya
cs_office
de_canal
cs_assault
de_dust_pcg
de_aztec
css_galleria
de_prodigy
de_view_update1

Now I know not all of you get all excited by yet more zombie stuff. But I'm sure even the most reticent amongst you will be gently drooling over some of the work that's being done on Zombie Panic : Source

Heres a few teaser shots :D







At least the graphics look good. :D

A proper fix has finally been released for Zombie Horde. So rejoyce or whine, depending on your zombie acceptance level.

Quite a few little fixes have been made, including anticamp features. :D Bots seem eager to plant the bomb still, though. But I guess you can't ask for miracles. :'(

We're currently testing a load of new custom maps for addition to the regular mapcycle. We've found some pretty good ones already but additions and suggestions are very welcome.

You can download the map-pack and discuss the maps here Link to Forum Thread

I just put a 12 player DoD:S server on server two 83.142.52.155:28020 it's pinging well and running smoothly. I did notice that dod_anzio is corrupt, maybe Far could fix this as I don't have a clue howto. :'(

Enjoy.

The polls are closed and we have some winners folks.

Our two new admins will be Kittenbait and Number Six, both of whom recieved a mass of nominations and votes.

Comiserations to 00 Lordy and Hailey, both of whom also had a shitload of nominations for each of them. But never mind, there's always next time.

And Carrera you know you always get my vote m8; chin up. ;)

The admin vote has now started in the forums.

Please vote wisely!


Direct link to Admin poll.

Today we made a payment of £700 to e-frag for a new server. :D The new box will be a 3700+ and the update should be seamless (i.e. not leave us without a server for weeks.)

Time is something we have a lot of as well: I managed to get us an extra three months added to the rental with the discount. So, we now have a box up from 11th of October 2005 to 11th of July 2006. Pretty sweet huh?

I have also arranged for us to have full access on the server so Far may irreparably fuck it up and cost us extra in repair costs. Yay!

Anyway, I think that for this period we can say we reached our donation total. :D

Thanks for your support!

I've started a thread to nominate and later vote in two new server admins. Most of our previous admins were invited into iD, so we have space for some new admins to be selected from the ranks of the regulars on the server.

Only two admins will be chosen through this process and they will join Hank, Karma, and Jimmy and have the same privilidges via mani. It would be nice to have people who are available in offpeak hours but it's not the primary concern. The primary concern is that there is always an admin on at peak times, and that the admins have been playing long enough with us to know how the server(s)are run.

You can find the thread here.

Good news this month, we have two new members. Admittedly, new may not be the correct term since one is an old member and the other was our last long-term trialist.

Jazz, whom I hope you should all know, has returned to us after a brief spell with a different clan. We're all very glad to see your return mate.

Stoofer, who spent a very long time on trial, has also returned to take up the offer of a place I gave him some months ago. Admittedly this is not something, which we would normally allow, but due to a troublesome situation I deemed it sensible to leave the offer of membership open indefinitely. I'm very glad that he has now chosen to accept.

I know you will all be as pleased as I am to welcome them into the iD, so make sure to introduce yourselves to the lads if you haven't done so already.

Just a quick heads up to say that we have set-up a TS2 server on the iD box. It's public and will remain so, however if a password is added to the server (it has been) it will be available from the forums in the server section.

The teamspeak IP is ts.invisibledanger.co.uk:8767
The password is 'invisible'

You will need the latest teamspeak client from goteamspeak.com, it's only a small download. If you do join, then please make sure to introduce yourself to the people iding there, they don't know who you are unless you announce yourself. You also need to set a name just to get logged in, even if there is no password.

As ever the usual iD rules apply, namely - don't be a dick - I'm sure you wont be. ^_^

Anyway, we look forward to talking to you all on there. There are after all 32 places, more than enough for everyone.

gg hf ;D

A little update to let everyone know that we are currently running a 6 player Alien Swarm server, in addition to our usual css server.

Alien Swarm is a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 (UT2004) in which players command squads from a top down perspective to achieve objectives and kill aliens, in a cooperative multiplayer environment. If you have UT2004, download the mod and give it a go!

Download Alien Swarm for UT2004
Alien Swarm homepage

Server address: ut2004://css.invisibledanger.co.uk:7777/ (Launch)

Well the time problem was promptly fixed when I sent off a support email. So that's one less hassle. However, we have a new obstacle in that the server will need to be renewed for another six months come the 4th of October. So if any of you would like to donate, please do so I don't have to mug Amsterdam for the remainder. We already have £209.51 GBP towards the cost of the server (it was £630 last time.) We do need to hire ourselves a nice big Teamspeak server so everyone who plays the server can come and have a chat. Which will probably cost 30-50 quid for the period.

I think for reasons of practicality we should stay with e-frag, however we may need to ask for new hardware or a reinstall because I can do without 6 more months of these map consistency errors. Link to the forum thread. And Julian, thanks for the donations dude, you're too kind. :)

Unfortunately e-FRAG in their ultimate wisdom have set the time wrong on our server when they were performing last night's moves. This means that the schedule on the server is out by five and a half hours until we get it fixed.

After talking to some low ranking under tosser at e-FRAG I'm no further forward. So it may take a short while before we get hold of anyone with the access or experience to fix the problem. ;/

Server1 Schedule

I finally got aound to fixing the time of day setup after everyones displeasure about Zombie Horde cluttering up the server. The schedule works as listed below. It takes about 3 mapchanges for the server to change state by mani plugins control. I noticed it decided the maplist was actually just de_aztec as it was changing, so you can expect a double map when the thing switches from one mode to another.

Work nights:
00:30 - 14:30 Zombie Horde
14:30 - 18:30 Popular Maps
20:30 - 23:30 Full Rotation + ff

Weekends:
01:30 - 10:30 Zombie Horde
12:30 - 16:30 Popular Maps
20:30 - 23:30 Full Rotation + ff
All other times are Vanilla CS:S

Each of these modes has a maplist devoted to it.

Zombie Horde
Reduced maplist - by vote rotation
Excluded maps
de_aztec
de_tides
de_port
de_cbble
cs_compound
de_piranesi

Popular Maps
Listed maps - by rotation only
de_dust2
cs_italy
cs_office
de_prodigy
cs_assault
de_inferno

Full Rotation
Full maplist - by rotation only

Vanilla CS:S
Standard vote rotations we've been playing

Zombie Horde has now been added to the server and will only operate during off peak times. The plugin cannot be properly run during peak times by vote or rcon, but it can be turned off after each mapchange by an admin during offpeak times by vote or other methods.

This plugin is only executed during periods where the server would normally have emptied or have dropped to less than 10 players. Please bear this in mind when you are playing at these times.

This is a continuation of the previous discussion we were having about a server setup based on time of day, please discuss the matter in this forum thread. If the start and stop times on the plugin seem wrong would you please discuss it on the forums as these settings are easily changed.

As I'm sure you've noticed, there are some new faces wearing the iD tag now. We invited the chaps into the fold after they proved themselves to be stand up people through and through. :) In case any of you felt overlooked (I'm sure you didn't but there you go) we reached a descision based on who was most active on the server, irc, and the forums from the group of admins we all nominated earlier in the year. To give you the skinny on the news - our newest members are (in alphabetical order ;p)

iD|Caveman
iD|Luck
iD|Optimus
iD|ZeroNiner

We will be going through the same process again to invite and recruit new members starting with a new admin nominations/elections/selections as soon as we work out the best and fairest way to go about it. :D

ggs all :D

As you will probably know by now iD has changed from a standard war clan structure to a community based council structure. While this doesn't actually change anything for anyone, especially those of you who only play the server and don't come into irc, it does mean that we will be changing the way trials are conducted and allowing more members into the clan officially.

While this may sound like there will be a massive influx of new members, that's not necessarily the case. While we will be inviting people, we won't be doing this randomly and we have already decided who will be invited. Since these are the first people we have invited for a trial in three to four months, you can take it as read that we aren't too desperate. In addition, the only way to get invited will still be to be a long term regular on the server and forums and be selected by the council. Nevertheless, the big bonus is we will now consider people we know well to have been through trial, so no annoying three-month trial periods will be needed any more.

I will send out invites as soon as I have internet at home. I will tell you however that our normal capacity of five active and five inactive players will become something more of the order of 20 or so active players. It will obviously take us quite a long time to reach this number though, bearing in mind that we are currently on about seven active and five inactive members, or thereabouts.

Ok I'm finally getting around to making a setup that will vary by the time of day. This means that things like mapcycle ff and so on can be set dynamically. So far I'm thinking something along the lines of:

Weekday
(morning short map vote popular only)
(daytime short cycle)
(peak times 8-11 full cycle and ff)

Weekend
(morning short map vote popular only)
(daytime short cycle)
(peak times 5-11 full cycle and ff)

Friday Night
(special friday night setup)

We would have the current system as it is running most of the times apart from when we know there are enough players around to fill the server, then we play the old mapcycle with the voted out maps removed. All other times we allow votes from a full maplist. More interestingly we could have little tweaks, say shotgun hour on a tuesday, pistol hour on weds etc etc.

Please take the time to comment in the forums. Link to forum thread.

I have added a new section for admins in the mani menu. Now you are able to start votes for the following: ff on/off; restart round; unrestrict all guns; restrict snipers; set knives only; pistols only; shotguns only. I know you all wanted to be able to start ff on/off votes so the rest is just candy. ;)

Most people are having lag problems when they join servers, me included. Fortunately, there is a way to fix this although it doesnt seem to get rid of all the lag. What is supposedly happening is that clients are having difficulty downloading the latest PB updates as they join the game. This results in either shedloads of lag, or shedloads of lag and you getting kicked from the server.

To fix the problem download pbweb from this link and extract the pbweb.exe to your "C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\pb\" folder. Then just run the file and leave it to update. Next time you join a server it should be ok, bear in mind that pb is updated almost daily, though.,

If you see someone cheating on either the CPC or iD servers and you want to send us a demo of them so that we may ban them please send your recorded demos to serverdemos@gmail.com along with their name and steamid which you can get by typing status in console. Since the email is a gmail account it can handle attachments of 5-10 meg iirc so don't worry about the file being too big.

Valve has finally got VAC2 to a public beta stage. After picking my jaw up from where it had come to rest on the carpet I enabled the beta on both the iD and CPC boxes. They are looking for support, specifically if you cannot join a secure server.

The details are on the VAC section of the steampowered forums.

The BF2 demo was just released and we have thrown a litle server up for your vehicular pleasure.

The server IP is 83.142.52.155:16567 and you can get hold of the windows client from one of the download sites in this list http://bf2.mindfeeder.net/

Well it was a close run thing but you guys voted for the full seven admins in the end. I will be setting up mani access for them tonight. Obviously I dont need to tell you the server rules - you either already know them or you can just look on the server rules page. :p

The new admins for the server are:

Action Hank
Karma
Optimus
Luck
WAM Jimmy
Zero Niner
Caveman

So now there is a good chance of there being an admin on the server when you go for a game. No more buggering about trying to get hold of someone on irc. Although you are alll more than welcome to come idle. ;)

To spice things up ever so slightly we have changed server 2 to play the plan of attack mod for hl2. Plan of attack website The mod files and instructions on how to install them can be found on the site.

I cant say I have much of an idea what it's about other than it has a similar buying system to cs with maps that are objective based ala BF1942.

//Update//

It rocks - you win by holding all the areas of interest on the map. You take it in turns attacking an objective while the other team defends. Next round the roles are reversed and the other team attacks. Different objectives give diferent awards. Gets pretty interesting.

I removed FF and took off mani autobalance teams today. They didnt seem too popular. We can always vote ff on if an admin is available anyway.

Also Teamspeak is up. There is now a small (12 slot) server here: ts2.gameage.co.uk:2131 If there is a password it will probably be in the L message in #invisibledanger.

We are having a discussion now about giving some of the donators admin rights. Please go to the thread below and add your vote.

Please reserve judgement until you have read all the comments in the thread.


Go to Polls

Using only my l337z0r h4ker skillz I fixed mani. So, um that's sorted.

More interestingly for many of you I would like to elect some non clan admins for the server. I thought it would be cool because the server is after all pretty heavily subsidised by the regulars.

You can vote in the all new Key Votes section of the forum.

There is another poll in there about maps, please vote.

Mani on the server is busted - this means no restrictions - no timeleft - nothing.

I am trying to fix it but even if I do I think the restrictions should be left off. The server was better when we didnt awp because we agreed not to - not because we couldn't. The same goes for autosnipers.

I think we all got a bit carried away with the plugin to be quite honest.

Post in the server area of the forums about it.

Over the past few days we have lost some members:

Dave
Pugger
Droog

Who have left to form their own clan.

gl hf

Planetside forum is still up but I expect Dave will make a new exclusive one.

Finally, we now have a Invisible Danger Planetside Outfit lead by myself and we are currently recruiting active team players who are looking for a more organised fun style outfit, please come on #invisibledanger if you're interested in applying and contact me (yes we actually take applications for this game, unlike css which is invite only).



Other bits

Planetside Forum

Dave.

Finally we are back up and in business. I will send out an email later to inform those of you who donated that the server is up - and to ask for your STEAMIDs.

But the numbers you have all been waiting for are here:

83.142.52.155:28015 - Server1 28 player
83.142.52.155:28020 - Server2 16 player

We will definately kick these babies off with a playathon on the weekend. But until then who knows ;) See you on all.

These servers are located in germany *Ahem* So you can add about 20ms to your normal ping. We get them for free until e-frag sort our server - soon let's hope.

213.133.126.133:28015 - 28 player
213.133.126.133:28020 - 16 player

See you there

I'm afraid we are all still waiting. Will at e-frag said to me that he cannot get the CPU. Right enough they are out of stock at ebuyer.

This leaves us dancing merrily around the maypole until ebuyer get in stock of 3000+ in my humble opinion. So we are stuck basically. Anyway, as a heads up you can expect three iD servers in addition to Hoppers HL2DM. These will be:

28 Player - +1 reserved slot for joining.
16 Player - passworded with stats enabled and no mani admin plugin
Swat4 Co-op server

I've been thinking about how to thank those who donated to the upkeep of the server. (Wherever it may be.) And have finally come up with a solution that I'm comfortable with.

I realise that I had said you could have admin kick and ban if you paid over £25. However, I can't help thinking that allowing people free reign over kick and ban may cause problems for other regulars.

So instead I will set the main server to 29 players, the final slot of which will be for entry by server contributors. The way this will work is that when you (the contributor) join an active player will be booted from the server (non contributor).

This way you can join the server without having to Q as a small thankyou. I will probably think of something a little extra for those of you to whom I promised k+b to.

So for now, my apologies for that.

Server won't be up this week because e-frag haven't got our CPU yet. So hopefully next week.

Well until our lovely new server goes live sometime next week (it has to be built and installed by e-frag) we are on the CustomPC 40 player server. In case you can't find it the IP is 83.142.52.53:28015 since the admins are the same, and we have no where else to go you can expect it to be a similar vibe. Well it will be if we manage a takeover for a week.

Also if you come into #invisibledanger on uk.quakenet.org (you need mirc http://www.mirc.com ) you can eat cake, drink tea and chat shit with us till we get a nice cosy new home. :)

See you in irc or on the server .. PS we need more idlers in irc anyway :x

Since the server only has about a month left on it we need to start putting money in for another 6 months.

The amount of money we get will determine whether we will be osted at B33f / e-frag or if we are really lucky a dedicated box somewhere. For b33f we need £300 e-frag £400 or for a dedicated box £600.

If we don't have enough I will stump up the rest of the cash on b33f. If you want a faster server. Or if you want to have a little server that we can play whatever's new (ie. a process on our own dedicated server) then chip in that little bit extra.

For those of you unable to paypal I will happily take money electronically from you and then donate it via my own paypal account.

Rogz^

We must be becoming all big and important. Today our website was hacked. Fortunately it wasnt malicious and none of the code from the site seems to have been lost. So goodo.

Since Dave has left, Hutz is moving house, and Jazz is playing planetside we need to build a new Match team. So that means three spaces are available for PCWs.

All this means is any of you can jump in and play some PCW. We will need a new War Arranger, is about all. As usual I'll give Sandy first refusal for team, then we can se about getting some of you a bit of praccy matches.

As ever being able to use mic on TS2 is mandatory for match play.

Have Fun.

I'm doing a little article on the demoscene for work at the moment. Since I know how much you all enjoyed info pornographic. (if you actually watched it you would have anyway, fucking heathens)
I thought I'd post two of my favs up for your viewing pleasure, a trip-hop one and a rock one. Both are really worth watching, so you should dl them and have a look. :p


Download Come Clean


Download Planet Risk

From Strange Places

Subject: Re: [ agsf ] It's time to LART www.tickling.com
From: Edward Scissorhands <EdwardS@...>
Newsgroups: alt.gothic, news.admin.net-abuse.usenet,
news.admin.net-abuse.email

Some time previously, David Gerard <fun@...> whispered
darkly...
>"Sam" <sam-001@...> wrote:
>
>:The performance from their web server is still
abysmal.  I get the
>:impression that they are running of an ISDN line. 
It's that bad.
>
>You fscking Americans. In Australia, that's a GOOD link ...

Hah. In Scotland we have two well trained celts, holding a yoghut pot
and peice of string, repeating the screeching noises made by a 300/1200
baud modem connected to the net by a bit of rusty coathanger and playing
out a gramophone horn.

Text doesn't take two long, but pictures are a real pain, especially
when Jimmy (who can understand progressive JPEG) is away on the crofts
and Dougal has to take ove. He can just about manage GIF 87 - he has
trouble drawing the pages if there is a background /and/ a transparent
GIF.

Binaries are the worst, though. Downloads take years, as each has to
UUDecode, type the code out, reverese engineer and recompile before
manually burning the code onto CD with a magnifying glass.

download me!

Supposedly this little gadget will scan your pc and tell you what needs updating. Thats games and drivers folks. It doesn't update you automatically though.

http://www.viagreasemonkey.com/

Forum Thread has all the info, basically we will have the match team and selection team. Please read and comment.

Since I'm a bit pissed off and bored of waiting, I've put us live on the ED CSS ladder. We join in 102nd place, good luck to us all and happy climbing. (we hope) :)

Here he is, the man himself, expertly making a cuppa, and I thought he had a good agent. Milk and two for me please.

I have finally organised the team for ED.

Which is as follows:

Rogan
Jazz
Dave
Byo
Spam

We will be PCWing untill the end of the month, then we will go full blown on ED. Although, we may need to challenge less practiced clans at first until we find our feet.

Good luck all. Further info is in the clan area of forums.

For those of you who asked this is my m8 Alex who I work with.
I inadvertantly took the images and thought it was funny, simple things as they say, amuse simple people.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and hope you all enjoy a great Christmas Day!

It turns out that it may be really quite cheap to build a Dual Xeon server for co hosting in a 1U server space, talking about around £300-400 for a dual 3.06, maybe even a quad. Thats enough for 128 css player slots folks. Broken up into servers however we want.

However we need a high bandwidth co-location host. So get asking about!

As i see it if we are going to run 2-4 servers we might as well host on our own boxes to save these bloody restart hassles we are always going to get. It will probably work out cheaper in the long run anyway. Especially figuring 4 servers is going to be about £80-100 per month.

Lycos have released a very handy tool to kill spammers, unfortunately not literally :(

It's a screensaver that requests pages from the sites who use spammers for advertising. Basically one client will request four megs of data per day from various websites, thus pumping up bandwidth costs.

You can even submit spam sites, all sites get validated by lycos staff as well so no innocent companies get harmed. Very cool.

Get it at make love not spam, you can even see who is getting attacked when the screen saver is running, and how vicious the group is being. So damn cool. :D

get get get get!!!11!!oneone!!1

60k users already and its only been running a couple of days.

ED has opened the CSS ladder, so I have had to create a NEW entry.

You will find it here ....
http://www.enemydown.co.uk/clanmembers.php?id=17115

Please add yourselves to clan again.

I just had an email telling me that my 'invisibledanger' Tripod account was about to be closed. I had totally forgotten about it, it's the pre/post zude hosting site. Bit of history for you here :)


http://members.lycos.co.uk/invisibledanger/

I have the best job ever :D

My '60 solid' comment in the fps debate didn't go down too well either. ;p

It looks like the linux binaries of Doom3 are actually playable if these numbers at Anandtech are anything to go by.
Website Article
Suppsedly running under SUSE 9.1, which means that we may be able to ditch our frikken XP sooner than expected. It's just a pity that:
A) Bill Gates has everyone programming in D3D and HLSL.
B) ATi have S*** binary drivers, and worse open GL drivers.

I think I will have a play with all this stuff in SUSE and see what works under WINE etc at home. The only bummer is, Doom3 Linux hasnt been compiled for A64. Minor oversight, but still promising.

D3 Linux FAQ can be found here ...
Doom3 Linux FAQ

I quickly added a new section on the site, a Quick rcon guide. It's just the commands you need to be able to kick and ban people off the server. What each of them does, and why you would want to use them.

Give it a quick read over, if there is anything else you need to know tell me so I can add it. Also, if you havent got the rcon.cfg script for logging you into the server give me a shout. Unless your an asshat in which case don't bother.

Happy admining people, last one to ban a buttmonkey smells of garlic..

As you all know our Source server has been up for a week now.
For all of you who don't know the IP it's 82.136.36.16:27015

There are 28 slots, however it can get full and i prefer not to use reserved slots since it screws it up for people who are trying to get in from a browser. You know, the whole "Connected to server; You have been disconnected from server; Reason reserved slots" malarkey

There is also a Team Speak server @ IP 82.136.16.201:8819
The password for TS is "invisible"
Use your own nick to log in, and select Anonymous mode.

See you all there.

Just a couple of random shots on chateau.
I should have got the terro spawn with every one legging it, but never mind. You can't really see what it's like without it rippling :D

OK, I started another new ED account since no one seems to know who is registered as cl of the original page. Never mind.

just visit http://www.enemydown.co.uk/clanmembers.php?id=15590 and add yourself. Remind me so I can validate you etc.

CS:S is out soon, and i still have a server to be co-located :p A copy of XP .. a real one ;D and a copy of PC anywhere so the beggar might actually work. Here's hoping :p

Now if i can just be bothered to get a HDD for it and some games installed ...

Yarrrr!

Thar be a strong souwesterley blowing arr!
Blowin all ye salty sea dogs to ye puzzle piracy Yarrrr!

Join ye the merry band of cutthroat lads and lasses on the good ship id arrrr!.

we be meet yarrr here http://www.puzzlepirates.com/ at turtle island arhahrharharhahrahrrharahrrarrrrrr!


arr ye lubbers get downloading afore ye be findin yerselves in davey jones locker. Yaaaaarrrrr!

The iD shop is now open for your crap merchandise needs.

May I suggest the iD sipping mug for sir, or a nice yellow #invisibledanger bag for madame. All proceeds go to the getting Rogan pissed/stoned/laid fund.

Thank you, come again.

Bored? Find a random webpage.

3million words, just hope that none of em are tubgirl or goatse.

Good luck ;D
W00hoo Bring on the internet!

Also, why would you want the A-TEAM?

A-TEAM Pwn us all!

Interviewer:
In retrospect, would you have imagined that computer gaming would reach the level of complexity and depth that is apparent in the comparison of Half-Life and Half-Life 2?

Gabe:
Well, there's always been this issue posed by people thinking about extraterrestrials. The universe is really, really old. Even if intelligence is super-rare, and even if most intelligent species wipe themselves out, there is still plenty of time for intelligent life to fill up the galaxy even traveling way below sub-light speeds. Using just about any statistical model, we should be ass-deep in ET in our galaxy. So where are all the alien civilizations?

I have my pet theory which I pretentiously call the "Gambeboy Really Really Advanced Theory." About the time that any species reaches the level where it could actually build an interstellar spaceship, they are also building super-powered computers capable of playing super-powered video games. ET then has a choice of going and exploring the real universe (lots of dull travel where the exciting question of the day is "how much space dust will we collide with") or exploring the virtual universe created on their Gambeboy Really Really Advanced. So ETs are out there, but there just too busy playing and exploring virtual universes that are much more immersive and compelling than the real universe.

I guess that means that I have a lot of confidence that we have only scratched the surface of what will be possible in videogames, and that, thanks to the twin forces of Moore's Law and increasing sophistication among game developers, whatever the delta between Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2, we'll see much greater advances in the near future.

Rogan:
*snikker*

(@FrogZilla):
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I websurfed, weak and weary,
...Over many a strange and spurious website of 'hot chicks galore',
...While I clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning,
...And my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour.
..."'Tis not possible," I muttered, "give me back my cheap hardcore!"
Quoth the server, "404".

Someone else get this baby!
C'mon you know ya wanna. :D

http://www.fileshack.com/file.x?fid=5237

If you can't kill it with just your flashlight, you're not a real man.

If i cant kill it with one well placed, close range shotty blast. I dont like it.

http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=news

Counter-Strike: Source Beta 1 Coming Soon!
July 7, 2004, 4:11 pm · Chris Bokitch
Starting later this summer, Valve will be conducting a limited-time beta of Counter-Strike: Source via Steam. The beta will first be open to subscribers of the Valve Cyber Café Program, and then extended to owners of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. The next installment of the world's number 1 online action game, Counter-Strike: Source blends CS's intense teamplay with the advanced technology of Valve's Source engine.

Now is that an incentive to buy that steaming pile ..

(p.s. dont worry its actually staged)

...this time based on Blakes 7 apparantly (which I have yet to see any episodes of, sadly). Its called orac³, being named after a weird computer thing that appeared in the series. The ³ in the name comes from the case being constructed using a C³ acrylic case .
It's visually impressive and the workmanship that went into it also can't be denied. Theres actually 5 parts to the whole making of, but part 5 for shows the final result. I'll add links to the other parts as soon as the I find them and the server recovers from the traffic load..

Orac³ part 1

Orac³ part 2

Orac³ part 3

Orac³ part 4

Orac³ part 5

Ever wondered what Quake 3 would look like if it was rendered completely using ray tracing? Wonder no more, because here is Quake 3 using ray tracing.

Some German students used a number of AMD XP1800s to produce a virtual 36Ghz processor and this is the result. The video itself is something to be seen...

Ray Tracing Egoshooters
Screenshots
Quake 3 ray traced video [56MB]

If you have UT2k4 you should really give this a whirl.
8 player co-op, squelching hordes of aliens .. YAY!

Its got a really cool class system as well ;D

http://www.blackcatgames.com/swarm/

Worth 1k is doing class photoshop compo.
So how does a superhero pay their rent

I just thought I would post this, as I was very impressed with it. This guy has made a HalfLife 2 themed case mod, down to the mouse and keyboard, complete with the good old radioactive gunk from we all know from halflife. It is really an excellent piece of work and one of the best case mods I've seen yet.

check it out the pictures at: http://members.home.nl/gis/. There's also a link to the original forum thread on that page.

Is this the best webby ever?
ooooooooo I must get a photy of myself on that site :D

There has been much chatting about game servers. So, since most of us have jobs, it might be feasable for us to get a server of some description.

There is a new topic in the forum, please add your opinions.

I will get the hardware if some1 else *coff* Far *coff* does the software setup. Then it would just be a case of driving it to Reading, exciting stuff, and having it plumbed in.

Raven shield supposedly runs under Wine, so we could run a nice cheap Linux server. Athlon 2600+, 512/1Gig Ram, need a nice fast HDD and we would be set.

There are other options, but tbh they either involve paying thru the nose, if we rented a prefab server; or lots of hassle, should we sell space on our wubly gameserver.

Get your comments on the forums please people.

You've gotta check this out!

THE RASTERBATOR

Make your own wall sized murals from sheets of A4, how many student walls have bigassed pics of Che on them now? Spam?

We've got a huge picture of an iduck on the wall here .. lol, its just too badass!

Some of the readers on the CPC forums (mag I work for) have started a folding team. Unsuprisingly called ... CustomPC. Currently we are steaming towards being in the top 100 folding teams.

If you'd like to join in, it's not exactly taxing, and if you can stand the forum; check out the thread at www.custompc.co.uk for info on how to get the client running (it's not difficult) and join the team (team number to join --> 35947).

A helpful chap at Extreme Overclocking is running some cool individual statistics for everyone in the team .. which would be good, but im losing .gah!

So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to trade
Your heros for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

Otherwise known as the old bump and clear .. Shamone!
(we might have visitors sometime so i cleared all the filth :p)

The latest steam update improves the elites a bit and also reduces the price to $800. Another shield bug gets fixed too (again), as well as some other misc. fixes. The game engine (for all games) recieves some "Small CPU optimizations".

But anyway, why the hell are you still playing CS?? Get COD now!

As an aside ot feroxys comment, I heard from a (biased?) source that the HL2 physics demo was pre-scripted.

He saw it at E3, the boxes physics demo was running with no-one controlling it. :D

Wonder why they really need till next september to get it released? :)

from csnation.net:

Doug Lombardi, Valve Software's director of marketing, confirmed the company's progress:

[Valve] is currently targeting this summer for the completion of Half-Life 2.


More news here

The website is now back and operating under its own domain name now, so you can point your browsers to http://www.invisibledanger.co.uk/ now. Email addresses at the domain are also available if anyone wants one (pop3, smtp and webmail available)

Thats all for now, more later...

www.darwinawards.comA 27-year-old white male resident of Wimbledon was arrested in a pumpkin patch on Friday, and charged with lewd behavior, public indecency, and public intoxication.

The suspect stated that he was driving past a pumpkin patch when he was overcome with an insatiable desire. "You know, a pumpkin is soft and squishy inside, and there was no one around here for miles. At least I thought there wasn't," he stated in a jailhouse interview.

He pulled over, picked out a pumpkin that he felt was appropriate to his purposes, cut a hole in it, and proceeded to satisfy his alleged need. "I guess I was just really into it," he commented with evident embarrassment.

The man failed to notice the approach of a Wimbledon Municipal police car, and was unaware of his audience until Officer Brenda Taylor approached him.

"It was an unusual situation, that's for sure." said the officer. "I walked up and he's just working away at this pumpkin. I went up and said, 'Excuse me sir, but do you realize that you are screwing a pumpkin?' He was startled at first, then he looked me straight in the face and said, 'A pumpkin? Damn, is it midnight already?'"

So server has been up for a couple of weeks. Long enough for spam to learn how to aim .. not long enough for rogz to learn how to aim though :( (he h8s u all ,, gits)

youngbaba quit for some reason or other dunno what, I think some 1 slapped him or summat. nm gl baba.

Spam still refuses to take any payments for server for some reason, no doubt something to do with hacking and his aforementioned improvement in aim :p

Still waiting for some people to signup or to use the forums. Possibly pointless entering that here seeing as if they dont use forums they prolly dont ready news either. So to the world in general will have to be told instead. :p

ps scoutzandknives rules airninja sux :D

We have NEW forums, every1 must sign up for them. http://www.invisibledanger.tk So sign up now. People are going to be put onto an inactive list if they do not use forums. Your input to clan is appriciated and if it is nonexistant, it is noticed! SO USE THE FORUMS! k

Firstly Lycos has been kicked to the kerb as its advertising was really starting to take the piss. Which was lucky as our new host www.zude.co.uk or #zude.co.uk on quakenet very comprehensive package if any1 is interested.
/me sucks up to zude plenty

Spam has paid for 1 months rental of an ohs server #ohs-servers
so give him some money, he has bnc's (bouncers) to give if you slide him some cash.

#Swatclan folded, so swat[eX] has ripped up the cheques os he sez :p

Spam has bought a server, it also comes with 10 BNC's, so suck up to spam if u want 1. Or just palm him some cash to chip in on the cost of the server.

The server comes with 10 free BNC's
Since #Swatclan already have bnc from their sponsor they have given us theirs :D ty
I dont need 1 so that means there are 10 to go around. deffo 1 for the 2 dcls Spam and Grae. So 8 left, they will go to guys who idle most and guys i normally need to see.

We are no longer accepting trialists for the near future.

So stop offering trials out guys .. u know who you are :P

Current trialists are:

Mac
Lyth
Caveman900
NightFall

Ok well we are back to looking at Reactor-overload servers.

Which means Yegol will also be admin when we have server.

Number of admin places was reduced to 4 since Swat[ex] has changed provider. now 120 for 3 months.

Admins will be Jazz, Spam, dirty^ari and Rogan

Also 69ers, ex and 2 other guys from swat.

New trialists Lyth and Caveman900.

Taking Mr^Jynx off trial as i havent seen him regularly.
Was trialing miggy^ but he seems to be in #Celldamage.

We are chiiping in with Swat #SwatClan on irc to rent a cs server. Five of us will be paying £15 each. Those who pay will get full adminmod access. We will have Rcon but it will be restricted to Swat 69 and Rogz (respective cls).
People who have Displayed an interest in paying are as follows:
Rogz,Spam,Jazz,Ry,Mick,byornski and gory.
Only five may pay for reasons of simplicity.

Get further details from me(Rogz) in irc.
Payment and as such admin will be on a first come served basis.

Also we have a new trialist Mac, good luck.

Rude, Danger Mouse and Rob all accepted :D

Finally :)

All the rest of u READ THE BLOODY FORUM ... Gits ;L

Wp all those who turned up for practice.
We will be redoing the same practice until all players are comfortable with taking and holding positions.
Sign up to the forums if you havent already. Further tactics discussions will take place in members area of forum.

dirty^ari accepted

n1 ari

Ok, Practice will be starting this Tuesday

The server is booked for 8:00pm until 9:30pm

Since tactics are in general fairly complex we will be mustering at 7:30pm to discuss them and we will be deciding who will be playing what positions.
To summarise ... make sure if u are available for practice that you have FPSstrat installed and working

Be in #invisibleDanger @ 7:30pm

I will be hoping to complete as many trials as possible using praccys to judge. Make sure you are there or you will have no say on who gets in, ALL AVAILABLE SHOULD ATTEND ;0

New webby is up courtesey of feroxy and lycos, who you can also blame that st00pid ad in top right corner for. :@ it goes away .. eventually.

All members are asked to use the Clan forum, please create a profile if you do not have 1. I will then give u members status so you may use members only areas. Invisible Danger Clan Forum