Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine – Exterminatus!

Exterminatus is the new co-op survival mode for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, for up to four players to face wave after wave of Orks..

We’ve waited a while for this mode, hoping it would work better than versus did.. when both myself and a friend ended up with network issues on the PC.  In the meantime, I’ve played with randoms on the 360.. and though I’d rather play with friends, it was still good fun.

I preferred the Seige Ground mode, as it provided a common objective for the team.. playing with randoms tends to mean less useful communication, but players tend to group up on the capture points anyway.

On to Exterminatus, though..

We tried this with just three of us against the waves of Orks being dropped off around the map.  You can play as Tactical, Devastator or Assault, depending on whether you’ve unlocked them yet or not.. and if you’ve unlocked them, you can use different perks too.  I picked Assault because of the Jump Pack 🙂

Just to break things up, there are a few Challenges issued during play too.. such as getting a number of headshots within a time limit.  These award extra lives or increased score if met, so are worth going for.. if you notice them in the Ork-killing frenzy, that is!

There are only two maps.. although there are a number of arenas in each map, which you move through if you clear enough waves of enemies.

We also found that all four players are wanted.. the game does not send less Orks if there are only two players 😉

ScampLAN 2

The weekend just passed was ScampLAN 2, with a couple of friends bringing their PCs round to our house for gaming and silliness 🙂

We played a lot of Dungeon Defenders.. which I had a look at last week.  This game has really grown on me over the week..

I’ve now tried out all the characters, but the one I’ve played most has been the Huntress, who specialises in traps and ranged weapons.  I felt she was slow to get off the ground with.. the traps start off with only a few charges and are soon used up.. but after gaining many levels and improving both the traps and the character’s stats, she now feels quite powerful 🙂

When you level up, you can spend your points on stats for the character or for your towers.. I’ve spread my points out between the Huntress and her traps, but another friend has put most of his points into his Monk, making him fantastic in combat but with rather weak auras.  For the characters the three of us developed over the weekend, this worked very well, as it meant the mana could be spent on building and upgrading stronger towers and traps, without getting too close to the defense unit cap.  We got as far as the Servant’s Quarters during the weekend!

Another game we had a turn at was Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising.
We tried to play this previously, but thought we might do better if we were in the same room and able to communicate a little better.  However, as in our previous attempts to play, we found barely-visible enemies were able to take us out with ease.. the game is supposed to be about realism and tactics, but if I’m approaching on my belly through trees and bushes, I don’t think it’s realistic to be shot down so quickly by people I can’t even see yet.

I also suffered from a rather random bug, which had my character float up into the air before being thrown back down again.. and of course, taking realistic fall damage.  This happened a few times, but settled down enough to complete the mission.  However, the fun was lacking for most of us, so we didn’t go back for a second mission.

In between the gaming I had a bit more of a poke around with VoxelSniper on Minecraft.
I had a failed attempt to add Zombe’s flying mod.. not quite sure what went wrong, but the game wouldn’t launch.. before I installed VoxelAir, which allows me to jump high into the air and land without damage, or hover above the ground.

You can jump rather a long way up.. and when I came down, I was surprised by the crazy number of mobs which had spawned!

I found an interesting bug with VoxelAir too.. after being killed while hovering, courtesy of a few Skeleton Archers and a lack of care, I respawned still hovering.. floating upwards in fact!  Using the “/give” command simply dropped a new feather at my feet, out of reach.. a friend also tried to give me a feather but it also landed out of reach.  In the end I used “/kill” a number of times and eventually spawned close enough to a feather for it to pick up.

Next up will be forming a nice piece of flat land for a huge project.. more later 🙂

With four people and a reasonably couch to take advantage of, there was also some console gaming.. though we found a distinct lack of co-op games allow four people on one console.  So many games boast “2-4 player co-op”, but don’t specify that this means two people on one console, and two on a second console.. annoying.  We tried Call of Duty: Black Ops.. we wanted the Nazi zombies, but only the arcade mode allowed all four of us to play.  We had a couple of runs on that, with me claiming the top spot for one run!  Red Faction: Armageddon failed us, as did Rainbow Six Vegas.. so we ended up shooting each other in Halo 3 which entertained us for a while!

Hunted: Demon’s Forge was picked up at the start of the weekend too, and we attempted some co-op in pairs.  We all found the game surprisingly hard, though Tim and Jason attempted to play without going through a tutorial first.. masochists!  I think the game would be a lot easier if you were able to carry more than one health vial each.. we also found the game punished deaths by sending us a long way back each time.  I’m looking forward to playing the game by myself at some point soon, too.

Another game which made an appearance over the weekend was Gears of War 3!
I hadn’t yet finished Gears of War 2, but the copy of #3 will be going home with Jason at the end of the week, and Tim wanted to start some co-op, so we’ve been playing through it anyway.. on hard!

So far, I’m loving it.. though noticing a few changes! The world has been destroyed by the Hammer of Dawn, and the enemies now include mutated Lambent creatures.. I’m noticing a huge change from the graphics of the original Gears of War as well, with the character models all being far more refined.  Good changes all round.. and still a great game, as far through as we’ve gotten this far! 🙂

Now VoxelSniper is working..

There are plenty of guides on how to use VoxelSniper, but I’d always rather learn by doing.. so I watched the first part of a guide on how to build a road, and then started fiddling around by myself.

Your VoxelSniper tools are an arrow.. a bog-standard arrow, nothing special.. and a piece of sulphur, maybe better known as gunpowder.  All you need to do is give these to yourself via op command: “/give $player 262” and “/give $player 289”, and then have one in your hand to start sniping!

Default values mean a brush size of 1, with material air, so you’ll only see an effect from using the arrow, which replaces the block you’re pointing at.  Changing the material allows you to see a bit more.. using the command “/v (material)”.. for me, this was “/v 57”.. then a right click with the arrow replaces your block with a diamond block, while a right click with the sulphur adds a diamond block on top of the one you were pointing at.

You can change the brush type: “/b b” for ball, or “/b d” for disc, then size: “/b (radius)”.
I went with the disc to start with..

Maybe I went a little mad with the diamonds, but they are meant to be a girl’s best friend 😉

So.. right clicking with the arrow replaces whatever is at the position you’re pointing at, while the sulphur places your material on the row above whatever you’re pointing at.  To remove anything, simply set your material to air, using “/v 0”, and click away.

I clicked a few times.. making a nice hole in the ground, through caves.. and then got carried away.
VoxelSniper lets you remove Bedrock too 😮

I lit the place up using balls of Glowstone (“/b b”, “/v 89) for this screenshot 🙂

The server handled all this very well.. I didn’t notice any lag during the excavation.
Tim was looking at the server stats.. so I decided to push it a bit, and started placing lots and lots of materials, followed by deleting even more!  Holding down the button and sweeping it caused only the slightest delay in seeing the results.. I’ve seen worse “lag” using crazy custom brushes in Photoshop!

The server barely noticed.. but I think it’s safe to say I’ll be wiping this map and starting again for any real creative work! 😀

Dungeon Defenders

Dungeon Defenders is a Tower Defense Action-RPG game by Trendy Entertainment.. delayed some months, but finally released yesterday.  There have been a few combination tower defense and action games lately, and like the others, there are two phases per round: the Build phase, where you place barriers and traps, then the Action phase, where the enemies come..

Our enemies here are goblins, orcs, dark elves and similar, and they head towards the Eternia Crystal in the centre of your castle, while you use your player character’s abilities to help fend them off, as well as repairing and upgrading your defenses as you go..

There are four classes of player characters to choose from: Apprentice, Huntress, Squire and Monk, each with their own abilities and defenses, and apparently more to come later.  The characters all level up and acquire loot through the game too, unlocking more defensive options and stronger abilities.

The game has a singleplayer mode, as well as co-op for up to four players, and a PvP mode.  We had a few problems getting into the game to start with.. being unable to connect to the servers or each other.. we managed to launch the game around an additional update coming out, but after validating the game files and restarting a few times, we were able to get into a co-op game together.

Starting off, you are placed in the host’s Tavern.. this has a number of other features I’ve not yet explored.  From here, you can choose whether you’re doing a Campaign or a Challenge, and choose the level and difficulty.

For our first co-op playthrough, I took the Apprentice, who specialises in elemental towers and magical attacks.  He starts off with a Magic Missile Tower.. but it wasn’t too long before I was also able to use Magic Barricades.  I’m looking forward to the Fireball and Lightening towers, but I’ll need to level up more first!

The enemies will go out of their way to attack your defenses, but you can repair them, and with enough mana, upgrade them too.

Killing enemies awards mana, and at the end of every level you can open chests around the map, which provide mana as well as various pieces of loot.. armour and weapons.  Loot comes with varying stats on it, and some pieces are class-specific, so as it dropped we shared it out accordingly.. my friends were playing as the Squire and the Monk.

After defeating all waves on the first level, we were able to move straight on to the next level, which had enemies coming from three sides.  We were doing well enough until the Kobolds arrived.. but they explode, and cause rather a lot of damage..

If you are killed, you have a short count-down to respawning.. but if the enemies have reached your crystal, that’s time you don’t want to spend laying on the floor 😉

The three of us were unable to beat the second level on this attempt, but as the characters have levelled up and gained some nice loot, I’m sure we’ll do better next time..

Successful Sniping!

Over the weekend, I spent a bit of time installing a CraftBukkit server, then trying to get VoxelSniper running on it.. the first worked fine, but VoxelSniper didn’t want to know.  I went as far as to reinstall both server and plugin as it seemed not to be working, and I thought maybe I had an out of date version.

However, it turns out I may just have been using the wrong command to get at the tool..

Having watched the start a fairly simple video tutorial using the tool, I had seen the command “i arrow” being used to get an arrow.  This command, when run on my server, produced an “Unknown console command” error.  Googling around only turned up suggestions for reinstalling VoxelSniper, making sure I was running the right version, etc.

I mentioned this to a friend, who asked if it wasn’t just “give (arrow id)”.. a normal op command in Minecraft.  I hadn’t considered this as I assumed an “i arrow” arrow would be something different to the regular one, just sharing the skin.. but once I gave my friend the arrow and added him to snipers.txt, he was able to use the tool as intended!  I’m guessing “i arrow” works with some kind of mod.. something I might have realised if I’d played with more mods or thought about if I’d had more server experience.. but if you learn from your mistakes, then this is all good 🙂

I only wish I had access to play on the server from here.. and that I didn’t have to get back to work 😉

More Server Things – Garry’s Mod

When I got my virtual server, the other thing I’d planned was to run a Garry’s Mod server.

In the past we relied on public servers and been at the mercy of whatever admin appearing and deleting our stuff without so much as a word.. somewhat putting me off trying to build anything that takes more than a few minutes.

The first step was installing the Half-Life Dedicated Server Update Tool Setup Program.. what a mouthful 😉

Once installed, it apparently then needs updating (once again I have Tim for an instruction manual).. before running.  Garry’s mod requires the Orange Box, so the tool went off to find that as well..

More fiddling checked the tool had updated, and then the server was started!

As it all worked, there had to be some kind of celebration, right? 😉

I have a Bukkit!

This post is a story about learning how to install a CraftBukkit server, and add a plugin.  Sounds simple, right?

I wanted to play with terraforming on Minecraft.. and as I have my own virtual server now, there was no reason not to try, except.. where to start?  VoxelSniper was the plugin I was directed to for terraforming, and to install that, I required a CraftBukkit server.

My prior server experience is pretty much this: connecting to the server, installing a Minecraft server, and connecting to that to see if it worked (it did).  I prefer to know what I’m doing, and why.. but it seems that anything relating to servers has a rather elitist following who go by the guideline of “If you don’t understand it, you shouldn’t be doing it”. Therefore, I ended up following this newb-friendly guide, which got me as far as installing the latest CraftBukkit download and running it.. before coming back to the question which had been bugging me from the start.

What do I have to do once I’ve installed CraftBukkit?  Move my Minecraft server into that?  Point the CraftBukkit server at my Minecraft server?  I ended up having to ask Tim to take a look 🙁

The CraftBukkit server actually contains the Minecraft server as part of itself.. something that I think could have been included on the FAQ, but maybe it doesn’t need saying to those who have more server experience.. I don’t know..

Next was to install VoxelSniper, which was less intimidating as I felt like I knew what I was doing.. install to the Plugins folder, restart CraftBukkit, and edit the snipers.txt file to list those who can have access to use the tool.

Now to see if it works..

Well.. the server launched fine.. but VoxelSniper?  I was able to get at instructions for it, but completely unable to give myself the arrow tool which was indicated.. the server just didn’t recognise the command.  More rooting around the forums..

VoxelSniper works with a slightly out of date CraftBukkit server.. #1060 rather than the “most up to date” build that I’ll have been given in the noob-friendly guide.

Re-install time.. this time doing it by myself..

It appeared to work, but when I went to reconnect, the server just gave me a Connection Error.. my Minecraft client needed backdating too.  Once that was done, I was able to connect..

However, “i arrow” still gives me an “Unknown console command” error..

Well.. giving up for now 🙁

Catching More Espers

A few weeks ago, I came across Geomon, a role-playing game by Loki Studios, where you fight and capture spirit-based creatures called Espers.  The game makes use of geolocation, time of day, and weather conditions to determine which Espers will appear on your radar, and it is this part of the game which has really had me coming back.. I love the fact the enemies are different every time I turn the game on.

Missions were added to the game today, adding a little more direction to the game.

These are optional, and rather simple: for instance, “Where is my Mind?” requires me to scan and dissipate (defeat) four Mind Espers.  “Night Glider” suggests using a particular Esper to complete the mission, so I think there is a potential for more challenging missions later, but for now, it’s nice to have something else to make progress towards.

I also came across an Alpha this week..

The Alpha appeared as a star on the radar, and when I clicked to look, I found he was “only” level 12, compared to my level 13 Varg.  He turned out to have rather a lot of health, and after a few strikes on either side, he summoned minion drones to fight in his place, which I had to defeat before fighting him again.

I would have liked to capture him.. I should probably note that I really love the creature design and sheer variety between the Espers I’ve seen so far 🙂

On defeating him, I received a huge XP boost to all five Espers in my party, even the ones that died in battle.. they don’t normally receive XP after a fight where they are defeated, so this was unexpected, though I’m not going to complain about it 😉

Geomon is still being developed, so there a few features are still incomplete, such as Bounties.  I have collected some items listed as Bounty Samples, and at present they don’t have any use that I can see.. but they don’t take up any room in the inventory so it isn’t a problem.  I’m guessing that Bounties will be PvE, with powerful Espers to hunt down rather than any kind of PvP, as I think this would be easier for people to drop in and out of.

There is some PvP in the game, in the form of Duels.. though when I’ve looked at the mode so far, I’ve only turned up an AI Sparring Drone.  Duels work like the fight against the Alpha, with minions being brought out first.  There is also a 30 second time limit for you to make your move or lose it, and you have no access to your inventory for healing items, I guess so it can’t be exploited by somebody buying a large stockpile of improvement items 🙂

TRAUMA

TRAUMA came into my possession as part of the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle.  TRAUMA is a photographic experience by designer Krystian Majewski, where you explore the mind of a traumatised woman, through point and click scenes with clues to be found..

The first scene, “The Next Hurdle”, is a night-time scene with a teddybear trapped under a large stone weight..

Moving around the environment is rather easy.. point and click on blurry angled pictures, onto items within the frame, or via painting gestures on the screen.. you learn these from some of the Polaroids hidden in the scene.  The photos are rather nice looking, and combined with the easy to operate interface, I find the whole thing more curious and relaxing than a typical puzzle game, which tends towards head-scratching after a while.

The clues are all voiced by the traumatised woman, and while some seem irrelevant to the task of rescuing the teddy, I guessed they would be involved in an alternate ending, or in for one of the other four scenes.  There are a set of Polaroids in each scene too.. either for teaching gestures, giving a clue, or telling us a little bit about the woman’s life.

On my first try through the level, I managed to lift the large stone ball from the teddy, and completed the first ending: “Save the Teddybear”.  There were three more endings, listed under “Discoveries”, but I wasn’t able to get at them straight away..

The second scene is “Following Role Models”, with a task of capturing the ghost.. a man who has been blurred through most of the scene by long exposure photography.  One of the Polaroids had a picture of the storm cloud from the sky in “The Next Hurdle”, linking the centre of the storm to a drain.. and then in “What They Expect”, I was taught a gesture to use on drains.

Using this gesture in “The Next Hurdle” allowed me to find the “Swallow The Skyscraper” ending!

As I’ve achieved an ending for each of the four scenes now, I could consider myself to have completed this game.. however, with so many undiscovered endings, it just doesn’t feel finished yet!

Technics Pack – Industrial Craft

After selling the villagers plenty of wood and a few bricks, it seems I’m a bit more welcome: my status is now “Regular Visitor”.

The village is growing nicely too..

I had to check.. but the Town Hall has even had an upgrade, with the walls of the central part now being made from the smoother-looking cooked brick, rather than the mud bricks it began with.  The bricks take rather a long time to make, though, and I wanted to move on..

I decided to leave the villagers to do the rest, while I finally started on the Industrial Craft part of the Technics Pack!  I did have to resort to a tutorial from the Industrial Craft wiki though, as I just didn’t know where to start..

The first task is to find a Rubber Tree, and extract the rubber using a simple Treetap.
The tutorial said the trees were rare, but I found one without too much trouble.  After taking the rubber from the one Sticky Resin hole on it, I ripped the tree down, hoping for saplings.. and with the help of a little bonemeal, I soon had a Rubber Tree farm!

So now I can start on the long-winded stuff..

Gather resin, turn it into rubber, combine it with copper to create cables.. which are then combined with more and more stuff to create machines, such as an extractor which will increase the efficiency of rubber production.  However, the machines require electricity.. which means building a generator.  The generator requires rechargeable batteries (cable, tin, redstone), refined iron, and an iron furnace (more iron and a regular furnace)..

Hmm.  I’m building things to build other things, to do a job I was already doing, albeit slightly more efficiently.  Long term gains, I guess..
Fortunately, I found a lot of resources while looking for redstone, so it’s now just a matter of following instructions.

Out in the rest of the game world, I managed to tame and ride my first horse.. though I had to check the internet again to find out how to dismount X)

As well as horses, there’s a Unicorn and a Pegasus, which have lower spawn chances, and the Pack Horse, Nightmare (black unicorn) and Black Pegasus, which are only available through breeding.  Like the crazy friend who got me into this mess, I will probably attempt to collect them all.. collect ALL the ponies.. 😉