Online

[icycalm]

I don't want to play TA or SupCom online until I've cleared their campaigns. I will start TA's campaign as soon as I build my PC, and will let you know when I am done. Then maybe you could join me for some matches online against other people. Qpo is welcome to join us too if he wants, and as many other people as the game will allow to be on a single team (the modded game, with 5,000 unit limits).

So for Sunday let's say AirMech unless Qpo comes up with something that looks cooler. And we'll play up until the point where someone drops out for whatever reason. If it's 2 or 3 hours, it's fine.

[infernovia]

Alright, sounds good to me.

[Qpo]

The plug-in works. It's not perfect, but it works, lol. You configure it manually, but hearing through walls is a fact. And the player characters talking on their own becomes REALLY fucking annoying once you have it activated, even though they don't talk that much.

We were working on tweaking it but had some connection issues with Steam so we cut it short. Hopefully we can get some more time in before Sunday, but since we don't leave the spawning area it's hard to know what settings are good for actually playing.

[icycalm]

Leave the spawning area then. You've already seen some of the first campaign anyway.

Why do the characters talking become annoying? Or at any rate more annoying than without the plug-in? Isn't the talking supposed to add to the experience?

[Qpo]

Maybe it adds to the experience of players that never talk, but since I do it is only annoying to both have lines stolen from me and words put into my mouth: if I get incapacitated I want to be the one to call out for help — or maybe stay quiet to show that I trust that I'll be healed as soon as there's an opportunity.

It's characters talking at the same time as players that becomes much more of a problem with the plug-in. Without the plug-in you'll set the volumes of Mumble and the game so that neither gets in the way of the other, so that you can hear everything said and taking place in-game at the same time. You set the voices louder than rain, but not as loud as an explosion up close. In this case the characters talking is annoying. But with the plug-in this happens: I am trying to speak with ksevcov when he's far away, and at the exact same time a character standing next to me starts talking, making it impossible for me to hear ksevcov. As this is exactly what I want zombies to be doing, changing settings to deal with the problem will probably also ruin the feature. Then we have when I'm standing right next to ksevcov to talk with him only to be interrupted by HIS character talking at the same time, and both voices clearly coming from the exact same direction and seemingly the same mouth is just lol.

But I'll test more as soon as possible, and it really is cool. And I don't remember the characters as talking very much anyway.

[icycalm]

Ok, I get you now. The only thing I don't understand is this:

Without the plug-in you'll set the volumes of Mumble and the game so that neither gets in the way of the other

Isn't Mumble the plug-in? Without the plug-in you don't have Mumble... no?

When you figure it all out it'd be nice if you could start a Mumble thread in the Hardware forum, tell us a little bit about it and how to quickly install it. I'll have so much stuff to install in setting up my computer -- from formatting 9.5TB of hard drive space, to installing Windows and a ton of software and making everything work properly -- that every little bit of help towards reducing that workload will count.

[Qpo]

Mumble is a voice chat program (like Ventrilo or TeamSpeak) that can be linked with games through the use of plug-ins. About 30 or so plug-ins are included in the standard Mumble client, one of which is for L4D. We'd be using Mumble even if we couldn't link it with the game, as it's better than the in-game voice chat. I'll be happy to make the thread.

I tested extensively with infernovia last night, and while it's still not perfect and you can still talk through walls, we managed to set it up a lot better than before. We're pretty intimate with configuring it now, so any further tweaks will be minor and quick. Characters talking is much less of a problem, and I'm really looking forward to trying it with more players.

Sagging behind only to be attacked, not sure if the others can hear you screaming for help or not...

[icycalm]

Sounds great! Gotta love PC games.

[icycalm]

Well, my PC is up and running, for what it's worth, but it resets randomly, so I think I have a bad RAM stick. Can't check which one it is because it's a triple-channel board and I don't have any spare sticks lying around. I am also missing a SLI bridge, but that's not terribly important. I've been up all night and I haven't even managed to install Windows...

I am gonna get some sleep until Monday morning and then hit the electronics stores. You guys should play some AirMech and let me know how it is. L4D will have to wait for next week unfortunately. Sorry about that :(

[icycalm]

My PC is working perfectly (posting from it right now), and since recoil is taking this weekend off, I am free both days all day. Are all of you in this weekend, and if so when?

Also, did you end up playing anything last weekend?

[Qpo]

We threw suggestions back and forth, then tried a couple of games only to find the ping too high, and finally ended up getting Icewind Dale working in multiplayer. We threw some characters together just to get going, died a bunch of times to orcs and then the night was over. It sounds kinda miserable, but I had fun.

I'm free the whole weekend, more hyped for L4D by the day but up for other games as well.

[Qpo]

And with the whole weekend I mean the full 48 hours.

[icycalm]

lol yeah, it does sound miserable. Why didn't you try AirMech at all? In a way I am glad you didn't so we can get into it fresh this weekend.

By the way, I am having some trouble buying games from Steam because I registered a US account and they won't accept my European credit cards. I even bought Steam points from Play-Asia, then redeemed them on Steam, and Steam STILL won't let me spend the fucking points in my account to buy a US game! And it doesn't give me the option to buy the EU versions either! Proxys don't help either. Fucking Steam checks your IP every second and no matter what the problem is, tells you to go fuck yourself and contact customer support, which asks you to make a NEW customer-support-exclusive account and wait in a giant fucking queue SO YOU CAN SPEND THE MONEY ALREADY IN YOUR ACCOUNT.

Fucking Steam lol. After all these years of hearing hype about it and how great it is I finally get it and it won't let me buy anything. Meanwhile, Sony lets you do whatever the fuck you want whenever you want, and Microsoft lets you do 90% of that, and the other 10% can be done via a proxy easy as pie. The most draconian DRM I've encountered is with Valve. The worst customer service. They treat you like fucking scum who doesn't deserve anything on their fucking site.

Anyway. You can tell I am pissed at them. What I was trying to say is that I am still struggling getting hold of L4D, and there doesn't seem to be any other digital store that offers it. Would a pirated copy work? If not, could someone gift me a European version of the Steam game, and I could PayPal them the money? The only other option I can think of is if I make another, European Steam account just to buy L4D.

[ksevcov]

Can't you just buy the European version with the same account, i.e., select Spain as your country of residence when buying the game? I don't think Steam accounts are locked to any particular region.

[icycalm]

They are. There is no way to change my country of residence. All prices are in US dollars. That's in fact the only way you can tell which region your account is. The only thing you can change is the language, but it has no effect on the region.

[ksevcov]

Have you tried buying with PayPal? What does it say your country of residence is then? I can try gifting L4D to you if that doesn't work.

[icycalm]

The first thing I tried was PayPal. Steam told me that my PayPal country is not the US. Then I tried credit card. Same deal. Then I bought a points card from Play-Asia. I got the card redeemed on Steam and now I have $50 I can't spend on anything (I tried three games: L4D, Planetary Annihilation and The Forest).

[ksevcov]

You could try creating a European account and gifting L4D to the US one.

[icycalm]

That's what I am going to do. But first I'll try playing a game in the US account. Because I fear it might not let me play at all when it detects my Spanish IP. I can use a proxy to administer the account, but I can't play games through a proxy.

I have over 100 Steam keys from Humble Bundles. I will try redeeming the shittiest game and see if it works.

[Qpo]

ksevcov wasn't into AirMech.

L4D might work pirated as there's a LAN mode, and we can simulate a LAN by using Hamachi, but it'll take some testing and fixing.

[infernovia]

I won't be able to play Saturday due to a sickness. Hopefully, I will be fine by Sunday.

[icycalm]

I've put in a support ticket with Steam, asking them why I can't use my goddamn wallet funds. I'll give them until tonight to respond, and if they don't, or if they do and nothing comes of it, I'll make a European account and get the game with that (and I will play on the European account to make sure no more problems occur). I have only a light reservation about this because I have a Spanish IP and a Greek credit card, so if they are THAT anal that they won't allow me to do that, I won't have a way to get the game until next week (when I'll be able to use my Spanish debit card, to which I need to add money to buy stuff). Or I could next-day a retail copy from Amazon UK. lol what a nightmare.

But I think chances are good I'll have the game by Sunday, so as long as ksevcov is available, let's tentatively say Sunday at 5PM UTC again, pending infernovia's recovery.

[icycalm]

I think I've been banned from Steam! It was either my sharply worded email or I may have tried to log in without the proxy by mistake. At any rate, when I try to log in now it tells me to contact support. So I did. Again. Though they haven't even replied to my first message yet. Hate is not a strong enough to word to describe what I feel for Valve right now.

I've ordered the game from Amazon UK.

[icycalm]

My ongoing Steam troubles will be documented here from now on: http://culture.vg/forum/topic?f=3&t=43&p=23366#p23366

tl;dr, I can play freemium games and redeem Humble Bundle codes, but I can't buy anything on the actual store, so if we are going to play on Sunday someone's going to have to gift me the game. Don't do anything yet, give them until Saturday to get back to me, and if the issue is not resolved, post here if you can do it. (Don't just send the game without posting, because we don't want anyone to lose their money because someone else has already sent me the game). Of course I'll reimburse you via PayPal asap (which is to say, sometime next week).

[icycalm]

I will not be able to play L4D tomorrow/today (Sunday) because I played PA for 16 hours this weekend, without a decent meal or decent sleep, and I am beat. BUT, I will definitely be ready next weekend. I won't let PA get in the way again. I'll play PA during the week, at random times, whenever I have a free hour or two (with whoever happens to be online at that time), and I'll make sure the weekends are free for this (and Gears with recoil).

So, please be patient for another week ksevcov, and we'll start the game, I promise.


P.S. I've solved my Steam problem and have the game in my Steam library now.