How many Call of Duty 4 servers will there be next year ?

Posted on May 10, 2008 by UKDarkstar

The Call of Duty series has been one of the most prolific titles for PC Gamers since the original was released way back in 2003. The WW II realism combined with the ability to vary elements of the game by customising multiplayer servers made it an instant hit. Even today you can find listed well over 1000 online servers still offering players many game variants.

This longevity has been partly due to the ability for gamers to create their own custom maps and mods for the game. These allow for customisation such as “rifle only” servers or those restricted to just a single map. This trend continued with Call of Duty : United Offensive (still listing around 1500 servers) though this game variant was less well received. Many felt that the addition of vehicles spoilt the gameplay and was an attempt to cash-in on features found in newer games.

A change of developer for Call of Duty 2 brought a difference in the feel of the game and split the gamers who played. Many felt that whilst the visual side had been improved the gameplay lacked something and was more arcade style. Having said that, the same choice of maps and mods means that today there are somewhere between 4500 and 6500 servers still being listed for CoD2.

So what lies in store for Call of Duty 4 ? A check today with Game Monitor shows just over 18000 servers listed highlighting the multiplayer popularity as we are at six months since the game’s release. The developer, InfinityWard, also developed the original call of Duty and many feel the gameplay has returned to that original style but with a modern update as per the title – Call Of Duty : Modern Warfare.

The mod tools have been released and there are many new maps already out there. Admittedly, many map-makers are new to the CoD series and many of the maps attract criticism for their bugs but this is bound to settle down over time. There are several popular mods available too including those such as AWE and PAM (for competitions) which have transferred through the CoD series.

Server hosts, such as INX, have been quick to offer players as much variety as possible with their hosting solutions and support for custom maps and mods.

So, does the future look rosy for CoD 4 ?

Well, maybe.

Despite all the enthusiasm surrounding the franchise, the publicity for CoD4, the maps the mods and everything else there has been a hitch.

From release the in-game server browser has been hit with problems with players complaining that servers don’t show up. For many, particularly smaller Clans, who rely on getting new players and members to make donations this has caused a major problem. Combined with the fact that files (binaries) for Linux based servers have had to be developed by a third party (and all credit to Ryan Gordon at Icculus for doing this for free) there are a worrying number of servers that sit empty.

Granted, InfintyWard have worked on this and the last patch (1.5) did go some way to improving the issue but it is still a source of contention for many server admins that their servers just don’t get listed in the in-game browser. Much myth surrounds what can be done to improve your server’s chances of getting in the list but ultimately it is going to need to be sorted by the developer.

Undoubtedly CoD 4 will run and run as previous incarnations have done so. Maps and mods will be developed by players who stick with the series through thick and thin. However, with increasing support going to console versions, new games coming out and the server browser issue it remains to be seen if the high server numbers will be sustained in the coming years

Granted there will be CoD 4 servers two, three and probably even five years down the line. As high a number as currently ? Well with talk of Call of Duty 5 already about I don’t think there will be as many servers in a year. Do you ?

Darkstar

Posted in Call of Duty 4 News | Comments Off

Patches – The Bane of Call of Duty ?

Posted on May 4, 2008 by UKDarkstar

For my second blog I thought I’d comment on patches. These are the updates released to fix bugs or add features once the game has been commercially released. Patches are often released for all games so the Call of Duty series is no different there.

Even with the original Call of Duty, patches were issued though stopped at 1.5. The same was true of Call of Duty : United Offensive (patched to 1.51 or 1.51b or 1.52 depending what/where you read !), and Call of Duty 2 (patched to 1.3).

So what about Call of Duty 4 (CoD4) ? Well, we’re currently at patch 1.5 with patch 1.6 due (apparently withdrawn at the last moment as the developer, InfinityWard, “… found a critical bug during QA which broke kill cams when playing with mods among other things which put a hold on it and put it back in development”). So what do these patches actually do for the gamer and do you need them ?

The short answer is yes, you do need them. It would be sensible to keep a folder with all the patches for all your games so that you can easily re-patch if you have to re-install (sometimes you can get away with just the last patch, sometimes you have to apply all or several). Virtually all server admins will ensure their gameservers are patched to the latest and so if you don’t patch your own game then you won’t be able to join the server (and probably won’t even see it listed in the in-game server browser).

Shouldn’t these bugs have been fixed before a game is released ? Well it’s very easy to say that. In practical terms it is always impossible to test for all possible situations, especially with multiplayer, so the patches are a good way to fine tune the game. InfinityWard have been very pro-active with CoD4 to get patches out within a relatively short period to deal with major bug fixes and with patch 1.4 even added a bonus map for the festive season (Note : this means you will need to patch 1.4 to have access to the Xmas Crash map). Even this had been repeated with the original Call of Duty which added multiplayer maps with patches.

So what of the next patch 1.6 ? Well the wish list from players is very long and perhaps some of the suggestions are impractical. However, for most gaming Clans the two pressing issues are being able to use colored player tags with longer names and having the in-game server browser detect more servers. The latter has received much criticism since the launch of the game and it is hoped they (IW) have found a way to improve this. Whether these things will be fixed in Patch 1.6 remains to be seen.

After the PC Map Competition debacle (see previous blog), it is of note that the IW spokesperson “fourzerotwo” has said of Patch 1.6 “We’re continuing to evaluate it and looking into releasing it when the map pack potentially hits PC”. With all the confusion over the competition for mappers I sincerely hope they get on with releasing the patch and don’t delay it for months to decide on the release of a map-pack.

So, are patches a bane? Yes, it is annoying to have to patch, wait for servers to be updated and keep copies. Overall though, they do improve gameplay and add features so I suppose they are a necessary “evil”. What’s your view ?

- UKDarkstar

Posted in Call of Duty 4 News | 1 Comment

Violence Mars GTA4 Release

Posted on May 1, 2008 by John

Two separate attacks occurred around the time of GTA4′s midnight release that ruined the release of the game. One was an unprovoked stab attack and the other was a vicious weaponless attack in which two men broke a teenager’s nose and jaw to get his copy of the game. Even if two men are prepared to resort to crime to get hold of their copy, I doubt they can justify that level of violence to get hold of it. They can’t. They aren’t men.

It’s tragic that a climate of fear should penetrate our games community, and on behalf of INX I would like to express my support for the victims and condemn such crimes.

If you have any information about the stab attack in Croydon, London (there were 50-100 potential witnesses that night) please report it to the Metropolitan Police (you can do this anonymously).

If you have any information about the robbery in Lancashire please contact the Lancashire Constabulary (again you can do this anonymously).

- John

Posted in John, Random thoughts | 1 Comment

Halo 3 and why I’ll play it again

Posted on May 1, 2008 by John

I’ll admit, at first I was skeptical of Halo 3. I’d played a bit of Halo 2 (both single and multiplayer) and the game seemed to be fundamentally flawed in many ways: Having self-healing armour meant that you had to run off each time you got hurt (each time the fight got started), being able to jump that far meant that you could just hammer the jump button repeatedly and be nearly impossible to hit. The game just felt like an exercise in fight evading acrobatics.

And I felt the same way through the start of Halo 3. Other than sometimes stupefyingly good graphics (some of the scenic shots are even better than the ones we saw in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) and some of the best vehicle-based fighting we’ve seen in an action game (my favourite is a sort of hovercraft called “Ghost”) there was nothing remarkable here, but there were annoying harmless little aliens with annoying squeaky voices, there was a backstory that the game made no attempt to explain (but the manual does, so take note) and there were several pistol weapons that seemed pretty much interchangeable: overall a wholly missable experience.

Suddenly, it changed. In chapter 4 a machine called a “scarab” gets dropped and you have to destroy it by shooting at its joints with rockets (sound remarkably similar to almost every other boss battle ever made ever? If not it should do), but the difference is now that I was having fun! I was excited and enthused and hooked! Then, in the following chapter, the monsters suddenly went up a notch: they looked scary and suddenly posed a real threat, especially en masse (which is what they were). Halo 3 had gone from being mediocre to being a great gaming experience. The jumping no longer bothered me, the squeaky voiced enemies did return, but much later thankfully, and I was really looking forward to the vehicle sections. I even forgave the game a bug which killed me about 7 times (when you destroy the power source while standing close to it in the Scarabs in chapter 7 there’s about a 30% chance that shrapnel from the exploding power source will knock you out of the edge of the world. Admittedly this is more likely to be Havok’s fault than Bungie’s), as opposed to the bug which I didn’t forgive which sometimes prevents the allies from driving cars you’re in, either sensibly or at all.

One of the most common complaints levelled at Halo 3 is a messed up difficulty curve. While I admit that the last chapter is surprisingly easy (and full of damn good buggy-based fun!) compared to the 8th, the game does become increasingly difficult as you play it, and what more do you expect from a difficulty curve?

Halo 3 gave me a load of vehicle and FPS fun, some achievement points, and a desire to play more Halo 3. And what more do you expect from a game?

- John

Finished the Fight.

Posted in Game Reviews, John | Leave a comment

Team Fortress 2 servers update 30/04/2008

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Olly

The required Team Fortress 2 update is now live.  Please run
hldsupdatetool to receive it.  The specific changes include:

Source Engine:
Improved particle performance on multi-core machines.
Added FOV slider to Options | Video | Advanced for all games (moved
there from TF2′s multiplayer options)
Fixed surround sound initialization problems with new speaker modes
defined in Vista.

Team Fortress 2:
Added Goldrush.
Added Character Info and Loadout to the main menu.
Added 39 Medic achievements.
Added unique Medic items:
- The Blutsaugher, The Kritzkrieg, and The Ubersaw.
Added new attack animations to most melee weapons.
Added new speech for the Heavy and Demoman.
Added Stopwatch mode to Tournament mode.
- Automatically used on Attack/Defense maps.

Teleporter effect no longer shows up on invisible or disguised Spies.
Spies disguised as their own team can now capture control points.
Increased force taken by pipebombs by bullets and explosions
Target ID hud is now colored red or blue to match the spectator target.
Tournament mode no longer ends matches early if the time limit is nearly
up when a new round starts.
Fixed exploit where clients could start benchmark mode on servers.
Fixed drowning exploit that allowed players to regenerate health.
Fixed reload exploit that allowed plays to fire instantly after
switching weapons.
Fixed flamethrower bug where a player flush against a wall couldn’t be
lit on fire from the front.
Fixed invulnerability overlay not drawing if the invuln player was
previously on fire.
Fixed “times used” entry in teleporters maxing out at 32.
Fixed rare client crash on level change during control point capturing.
Minor fix to stat gathering to prevent players using sv_cheats to easily
garner achievements.

For mapmakers:
- Mapmakers can now directly place the tf_gamerules entity into their
map. Fixes Hammer thinking the inputs to it are broken.
- Mapmakers can now place Engineer buildings directly into a map, with
an option for them to be invulnerable.
- Added “AddRedTeamScore” and “AddBlueTeamScore” inputs to
tf_gamerules.
- Added “SetRequiredObserverTarget” input to tf_gamerules. Force
spectators to use the specified viewpoint.

Granary:
- Added setup time logic, and gates to the middle.
- Fixed an overlay alignment bug on one of blue’s gate signs.
- Minor lighting fixes in red/blue spawns.

2Fort:
- Added medium ammo and health to basement hallways.
- Added small ammo and health to top of spiral.
- Fixed a clip brush exploit outside blue sniper deck.
- Fixed number “2″ overlay on front of red base not being assigned to
the brush face.

Jason

Posted in Team Fortess 2 News | 1 Comment

sv_downloadurl / fast downloads for Counterstrike Source

Posted on April 28, 2008 by Olly

The following tutorial will talk you through setting up Fast Downloads through the sv_downloadurl cvar for Counterstrike Source.

I’m assuming already that you have a working knowledge of FTP / adding maps to your game server, and have uploaded any custom maps to your game server, and they’re working ok.

1. Set up web hosting

First, you need to get hold of some web hosting, free or paid. If you are an INX customer, you can currently (as of April 2008 at the time I write this!) set up free web hosting on your control panel.

In this tutorial, I’ll assume you are using our free web hosting.

Connect via FTP to your free web hosting.

Navigate to the public_html folder.

Here we are going to copy exactly, the structure of your game server. You’ll need to create new folders, and subfolders. When you’ve finished, the directory structure should look like this:

public_html
– srcds_l
—-orangebox
——cstrike
——–maps

The rest is simple. Upload your custom maps (including all the files that they come with) to your maps folder.

Warning:

If you want to add skins, sounds etc, then these also need uploading, again, using exactly the same structure as your game server.

2. Editing server.cfg

The easiest way to do this is via the file editor on the INX Control Panel.

Go to the file editor, and select to edit server.cfg.

Let’s imagine your free webspace URL is ‘http://mydownloads.inx-gaming.co.uk’. If you have uploaded your folders and files correctly, you should be able to load and see:

mydownloads.inx-gaming.co.uk/srcds_l/cstrike

So, copy and paste the following into server.cfg:

sv_downloadurl “http://mydownloads.inx-gaming.co.uk/cstrike/”
sv_allowupload 1
sv_allowdownload 1

Obviously, substitute in your URL that you’ve setup ;)

Finally, reboot your server!

If you’ve done everything above right, it should work fine.

Are you a current customer? Have any problems? You can contact our support team – http://support.inx-network.com

If you aren’t a customer and would like a game server with fast downloads, then you can order a game server via our website.

www.inx-gaming.co.uk

Enjoy :)

Posted in Tutorials | 8 Comments

Call of Duty 4 Mapping : PC Gamers fairly treated ?

Posted on April 27, 2008 by Olly

Well for my first blog I thought I’d start with a contentious issue – Call of Duty 4 Mapping !

The CoD Community has always benefitted from the dedicated individuals willing to make new maps for gamers to play. Way back (as it seems now) at the start of the year the tools were released for CoD4 and immediately there were protests. The beta release to the selected few had been leaked and wasn’t working for many; the official release came out but there were many new mappers eager to get started who didn’t have a clue what to do (and the Wiki wasn’t ready), and, those old time CoDders (like myself) wanted all the old maps reworked for Call of Duty 4.

The eagerness of the new mapping army quickly turned to frustration when it was found that many of the new maps were bug-ridden, not properly tested, had files incorrectly constructed and wouldn’t work with a lot of the mods (such as AWE) giving nasty red screens. Then there was the competition.

Great ! cried all the mappers, eagerly rushing to complete their maps for the 31st March deadline. The customer face of Infinity Ward – known as “fourzerotwo” – promised “special prizing and opportunities” and there was a plethora of map releases especially right up to the deadline ……. which then came and went and no news from Infinity Ward.

Days went by into April and then …… an announcement ! A Map Pack, downloadable for … XBOX owners ! Uproar followed until finally on 23rd April Infinity Ward announced – A Mapping Contest ! So what had happened to the original contest ? Well, forgotten apparently. The new contest has just provoked even more uproar as it is divided amongst countries, some of which (like Ireland) apparently can’t even enter the competition. There is so much legal jargon in the T&C’s that mappers don’t even understand what they’re signing up to and a great debate on who actually owns a map that has been developed with tools provided by Infinity Ward.

And yet XBOX owners are happily downloading their extra content (for which they pay) which is producing millions of dollars in revenue and PS3 versions are on the way.

Now given that there are still new maps being made for vanilla CoD, CoD UO and CoD2, now several years after these games were released, you really would think the makers would show a bit more interest in the PC gamers and mappers wouldn’t you ? Oh well, that’s just big business I suppose. Us poor old PC gamers really can’t compete when it comes to consoles can we ? The fact that there’s in excess of 12,000 Call of Duty 4 server for the PC gamers obviously counts for nothing and the likes of INX are wasting their time offering us nice gameservers to play on.

Still, as long as I can still play on a Pavlov map, who cares ? Oh, and the latest competition ? No-one knows the end date so I guess the mappers will be making maps for ever !

- Darkstar

Posted in Call of Duty 4 News | 2 Comments

Three tips to choosing your game server host

Posted on April 25, 2008 by Olly

Happy very belated Easter all :)

I didn’t receive any Easter Eggs this year, I’m far too old for that kind of stuff. Anyone wanting to send some chocolate through to me can do so through our contact page ;) Anything, to get me away from Call of Duty 4. It’s far too addictive :(

One thing I’ve been thinking about over the Easter break, is how do people choose a game server provider? Back in the day (/me gets out tweed hat and pipe) it was a relatively easy task. When we started five years ago, you had three, perhaps four providers at max to choose from.

As the price to rent dedicated servers has decreased, so has the number of game server hosts. Again, at risk at sounding an old git the first dedicated server we rented was £100 a month, and we paid £100 setup. That was for a Pentium 4 2.4 with 1GB RAM :)

Many dedicated server providers have in turn, completely ignored that power and space costs are around 5x + what they were 2-3 years ago. But that said, servers are now way more power efficient, so you get more bang for your buck ;) You can now pick a dedicated server 4x as powerful for less than £70 a month. Granted, we don’t rent dedicated servers anymore. In fact, we rent them out to lots of smaller GSP’s and clans. But, basic fact – cheaper dedicated servers = more game server providers!

The majority of game server hosts rent these cheap dedicated servers. Now the hardware itself has to come at a catch right? So very often that dedicated server is no better quality than a cheap desktop stuck in a rack. Stick a copy of Windows XP on it (naughty, naughty) and bang a control panel on.

HAI, I’m A GAME SERVER HOST<3

You then have game server hosts that invest in quality hardware, quality network infrastructure, and try and keep those middle men down.

So, tip #1. Ask your game server host, is your next Call of Duty 4 server going to be hosted off someone’s second hand desktop PC? Or are they running nice business class hardware. While the cheap end makes it easy to host at daft prices (we’ve seen below 50p a slot!), it isn’t going to give you and your clan / community the quality it deserves.

If you go into town, and you want a service, whether it be paying cash in at the bank, getting something horrible removed from your foot at a chiropodist, or chewing on a muffin…in a coffee shop, you know their opening hours, yah?

It’s not like they can shout, “Er hai, eat your muffins 24/7″ and lie about it. Because if you had the hankering at 2am for a chocolate chip, and you found they were closed, they’d get found out.

It’s a lot easier on the internet. I’ve seen web hosts, game server hosts claim the funniest of things.

‘We’re 24/7 because my MSN is signed in all day’ – Erm, come again. My msn is signed in 24/7, but you certainly wouldn’t want to catch me on there before I go to bed.

We’ve seen one-man-bands who go to college / school / work all day claim to be 24/7 -We answer all emails within 24/7′.

Continuing the rather enjoyable food theme of this article, please, don’t be such a donut! That’s not 24/7 support. It’s not even part time.

Good support would be 9-5. And that means, always someone logged in 9-5. Excellent support is 12 hours, i.e. 10-10. INX and a few other game server providers properly manage it. Amazing, theoretical support is 24.7 support, which we haven’t yet seen a GSP claim, and live up to :) Although like any professional internet service provider, we monitor all our equipment 24.7. And if something breaks, we don’t hang around to fix it.

So, tip #2 - Find a host that’s good with support, but honest with support. Because there’s far too many bullsh*tters out there.

And for our final tip, I shall try and keep off the thoughts of food, as its a recipe for disaster. Oops, ok, it’s Friday, I finish work soon and I have pizza to look forward too :)

How long as your new potential new gaming server host been around? 5 years (we and a few others have :) ), 5 months? 5 weeks? 5 minutes? There are so many fly by nighters. Going on the point above, how long do you think a small host can survive on unrealistic pricing margins. Every week or so we see a host disappear, along with customer’s hard-earned pre-paid money.

While age isn’t everything (as someone with a younger girlfriend, I wouldn’t so much agree, but that’s not suitable for a company blog) it’s not a bad indication of how long a potential host will stay around to look after you.

Tip #3 – wisdom comes with old age. :)

Until next time, enjoy your weekend’s gaming :)

- Olly

Posted in From the office | 3 Comments

First Impression: Crysis, you get what you pay for

Posted on April 25, 2008 by John

Crysis is one of those games which PC suppliers look forward to. There’s one game release every year which triggers the games community to rush out and spend all of their hard earned (or for those under 18 kindly donated) cash on a brand new super computer, the likes of which non gamers (I speak of non gamers theoretically since they’re becoming increasingly hard to find) have never seen before, so that they stand around and gaze at the new beast with that unique blend of trepidation and awe which only expensive technology can evince.

The back of the Crysis box states that you need the following to run it on an XP machine (with Vista you need higher specification – these are shown beside XP’s in brackets):

Processor: 2.8 GHz (3.2 GHz)
Memory: 1.0 Gb (1.5 Gb)
Hard Disc: 12 Gb (12Gb) – my install was 6.03Gb but then I didn’t install the additional programs on the disc or the French, Czech, and Polish language packs which are ticked by default. When you install this game make sure to uncheck these.
Graphics card: NVidia GeForce 6800 GT or greater, ATI 9800 Pro or greater (Radeon X800), 258 Mb.

However, Hellgate London wasn’t available for me to play (the spec of which is closer to my laptop) so I ended up playing Crysis instead on my portable beast which clocks in at:

Processor: 1.66 GHz
Memory: 1.0 Gb
Hard Disc: 60.0 Gb
Graphics card: GeForce Go 7600 128 Mb

So I need to point out that, even on the lowest settings for all of the options, it still churns and rocks and grass are visibly streamed as I approach them (I put this down to my “low” spec laptop not the game). But I will say this: even on the lowest settings, it looks lovely. The HUD comes in four colours, all of which make it look downright sexy, the models are detailed and the textures are among the most detailed that we’ve seen in games. The AI really brings the Korean soldiers to life and makes this open world a really hostile one – when you waltz into a defended area it throws enemies at you relentlessly. The game gives you four different modes to act in (which are accounted for by, believe it or not, your suit): armour mode (where your health recovers), speed mode (where you can zip past enemies), strength mode (where you can leap high into the air), and cloak mode (where you are invisible for a period of time). So it’s a bit like a free-roaming Halo 3 but, thankfully, without the stupid enemies with the annoying voices. But there are limits to the free-roaming – I tried to swim out to a boat in the distance and was promptly fed upon by a beautifully detailed pair of sharks. Ah well.

This isn’t so much of a review since I haven’t completed the game yet, it’s more of a “first impressions”. But I can tell you this: if you have a beast of a gaming rig then you owe it to yourself, and your machine, to buy this. You will be staggered (even my grandma commented on how beautiful the scenery was). Rest assured, I will post a full review when I have completed Crysis.

On my proper gaming rig.

- John

john AT inx-gaming DOT co DOT uk

Posted in Game Reviews, John | 3 Comments

Free downloads for Call of Duty 4 game servers

Posted on April 24, 2008 by Olly

Hosting a Call of Duty 4 game server with INX? Having to pay out for a costly piece of webspace for your map downloads? Why not get a Call of Duty 4 game server with INX?

We’re putting together a free map repository system, in the lead up to the release of the Download Core 4. Any Call of Duty 4 server customer can get free hosting for their maps by contacting support :)

The whole fast download thing with Call of Duty is a quite a pain in the arse, so why not move your COD 4 server over to INX so we can take the hassle out for you?

Posted in Game Servers | Leave a comment