Greetings friends, enemies, and George Clooney, for some reason. I'm here to announce something that may not have been signal boosted to as many people as possible. Anyway, after repeated requests to do so, the TF2 server has moved to a new location. What does this mean? Well a number of things.

1) New server IP - This is most likely the most important part. Due to the move changing servers, the IP has changed. So if you have the old one in your favorites, remove it. The new IP is as follows. Be sure to add this to your favorites!

68.232.163.42:27015

2) Better pings for the East Coast - Those of you connecting from the East Coast, as well as the UK, should be getting a better ping on the server. Originally, the server was located on the West Coast, in Seattle. The move changed the location to Dallas, Texas, closer to all y'all. The West Coast will receive a slightly increased ping, but so far it's been barely noticeable.

We have been experiencing some issues with the server since last week, which caused me to move the server, yet I'm still having problems. I'm currently working with it, but right now everything appears to be working better. We're having issues installing updates at times, the other admins are unable to login to update the server, and a few other things. Needless to say, I'm working to have everything working better, and am hoping to have stuff running fine again by this Friday Night Fights.

Last thing to note is that Steam has currently released a beta for a new distribution system called Steampipe. The problem is the server isn't set for Steampipe yet, and the users in the beta haven't been notified that they've been updated to Steampipe (or they're not paying attention to changelogs). If you are in the Steampipe beta, you cannot join the server. You will see an error of the server being out of date. If I say the server is currently up to date, then the server is up to date, and you are in the Steampipe beta. However, this is only temporary, as Valve plans to release Steampipe this Tuesday. This may cause a hiccup this TF2sday, but I hope it won't be a huge pain in the ass. We'll see.

Edit: Looks like Valve has released an update to let everyone in Steampipe play on non-Steampipe servers, and vice versa.

Tomorrow I'm going to be wiping the server clean and re-adding some stuff, as well as adding new content. This is where I'd like to hear from you. What would you like to see added to the server? Hit me up with maps, game modes, Sourcemod plugins, and more. If I like it, I'll add it at least to try out.

That that about cuts it. Thanks for reading, thanks for playing, and thanks for caring (I think).

Right now I'm coming down from a wave of anger. Anger that I experienced thanks to the pile of crap that is Aliens: Colonial Marines. I've only played the first ten minutes of the game, and after I killed my first Xenomorph, one of space's deadliest creatures, as it just stood there, I could tell that the game was a waste of my money and my time. The thing is, this isn't why I'm angry. I'm angry at all of the parties involved with this game. Not because it's shit, but because they won't own up and admit that they produced and published a whopping turd.

Yesterday, as reviews started going up, revealing to everyone that Colonial Marines was in fact garbage, accusations started flying and fingers started pointing. Gearbox claimed that they outsourced most of campaign to another studio so they could focus more on Borderlands 2 and the multiplayer for Colonial Marines. However, Sega is claiming this is a lie, and that Gearbox did most of the work, and the other involved studio, TimeGate, merely helped with the game. How about this? Instead of slinging lies and accusations at each other, why not just own up to your mistakes? Sega, you invested money and got a sorry excuse for a game in return. Investing goes that way sometimes. Gearbox, just own up to the fact that you made a bad game. It doesn't matter what TimeGate or anyone else did, you're still the lead development studio of the game, so you're the one responsible for making sure the game doesn't dirty your now dwindling reputation.



Think of it this way: If I were to write a paper for school with my name plain as day on it, stating that I'm the main person who wrote the paper, and got an F? Well, that's a failure. What if I then say to my teacher "An F? But other people helped!" Guess what? It would still be an F. A failure is a failure, and it doesn't matter whose fault it is. If you're involved with it, and your name is there for everyone to see, the only person at fault is you.

Blaming and finger pointing has been an up and coming trend in the gaming industry the past couple years. EA blaming used games for poor sales, instead of inflated budgets and sales expectations. Cliffy B blaming the games industry for horror games not having a huge place in mainstream gaming today. Ubisoft blaming pirates for their awful PC DRM that hurt their customers more than the people they were trying to combat. Many of the studios and publishers won't admit that they made a mistake, and instead try to blame anyone but themselves.



Studios and publishers, stop pointing those fingers at others, and instead point them at yourselves. If you keep blaming everyone but yourself for your mistakes, you're just going to keep making the same mistakes and end up bankrupt. All because you couldn't admit your own faults. One of the biggest steps to success is being able to admit your failure. If you can't do that, then you will never succeed.

Halloween is tomorrow! To celebrate, the map rotation tonight will be only Halloween maps! 2spooky4u. Sorry there's not more here. I'm busy getting the server together, and I didn't expect to have to write this, but I guess Spencer is drowning his sorrows.

So join us, won't you?



Server
IP: 63.208.142.126
Port: 27015

Early Match
Time: 8 PM EST

Late Match
Time: 12 AM EST

cp_manor_event
koth_viaduct_event
koth_harvest_event
koth_lakeside_event

If you have any suggestions for next week's match, sound off below! Also, we'd love to recap this week's events during next week's post, so take lots of screenshots and email them to spencer[@]destructoid.com!

Special thanks to me for streaming the session over on Streamtoid, and me for being freaking awesome.

Greetings Dtoiders! Spencer is away working or something (does he work?), so I'm writing the TF2sday post on the cblogs.

If you played with us last week, you may remember us playing the Halloween maps, and having them crash when a boss was about to spawn. Well today I installed a SourceMod plugin that will hopefully fix the issue. We'll be killing the Headless Horseman and Monoculous in no time! And, if for whatever reason this plugin crashes the server again... whoops. Hopefully it'll work though. The bosses will only spawn when there's 10+ players on the server, so we'll test it tonight!

And if you're going to skip out on us and play Dishonored, Xcom, Retro City Rampage, The Walking Dead, or Borderlands 2, FINE! BE THAT WAY! MEANNIES!



Server
IP: 63.208.142.126
Port: 27015

Early Match
Time: 8 PM EST

Late Match
Time: 12 AM EST

cp_manor_event
sd_doomsday
pl_goldrush
cp_dustbowl
ctf_2fort
cp_badlands
pl_badwater
cp_gravelpit
plr_hightower
koth_viaduct_event
pl_cashworks_prefinal
cp_degrootkeep
koth_nucleus
ctf_well
cp_fastlane
cp_well
koth_king
cp_foundry
plr_pipeline
pl_thundermountain
cp_egypt_final
pl_barnblitz
cp_granary
ctf_turbine
pl_upward
koth_harvest_event

If you have any suggestions for next week's match, sound off below! Also, we'd love to recap this week's events during next week's post, so take lots of screenshots and email them to spencer[@]destructoid.com!

Special thanks to me for streaming the session over on Streamtoid, and me for being freaking awesome.

If there's one thing in recent internet history that drives me nuts, it's the fact that people feel like Valve owes us Half-Life 3. Every time Valve releases a new game, or a new feature on Steam, someone pipes up with a "Where's Half-Life 3?" or "Why are they releasing this and not Half-Life 3?" My thoughts on this trend is "Since when did Valve owe Half-Life 3 to anyone?" Honestly, it's getting a little annoying.

Valve is, by far, my favorite game developer. The Half-Life series is my favorite IP of all time, and, In my opinion, I have not played a single game from Valve that was bad. Plus, Team Fortress 2 is my favorite online game of all time. On top of all that, I rarely buy a PC game that's not on Valve's Steam service because of the sheer convenience that the service delivers. So it should be no surprise when I say that Half-Life 3 is my most anticipated game of all time. Yet, I'm okay with waiting for the game.

There are many reasons why I'm willing to wait for Half-Life 3. First off, with the trend for Half-Life games, I feel as if Half-Life 3 should be delivered on a next generation Source engine. Half-Life 2 was the flagship title for the Source engine to begin with. While Counter-Strike: Source was the first release on the Source engine, Half-Life 2 was the game that showed off what it had to offer. The biggest selling point of the Source engine were the physics, and Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun was the weapon to showcase what the engine could do. To me, a new Half-Life should be a flagship title to a new engine. Unless we're looking at Half-Life 2: Episode 3, which most people think we're not going to see, Half-Life 3 should launch with a new engine that not only has newer graphical capabilities, but new features to the Source engine overall. What would these features entail? I'm not entirely sure, other than DirectX 11 support, or maybe even further next-gen PC support. However, we do know that a Source 2 is most likely on the way, so perhaps Half-Life 3 will show up sooner than later.



As for why people think everyone deserves a Half-Life sequel? It's kind of hard to say exactly why. I think part of it is because the last Half-Life we saw was Half-Life 2: Episode 2 back in 2007 with the release of The Orange Box. Episode 2 had a cliffhanger ending, and that left us all wanting more. On top of that, after Valve decided to release Half-Life 2: Aftermath as an episodic series, we've gotten two out of the expected three episodes from it. However, I feel the biggest reason people are clamoring for this game is due to the day and age we live in.

If you look at the state of Triple A games these days, we're getting sequels to lots of the big games at least once a year. While Valve normally delivers one game a year, the game usually isn't the same thing each year. While we did get Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 a year apart from each other, overall they mix up what we get every year. Another thing is that these days we can get most of our media instantly. Steam allows us to get a new game fairly quick. iTunes allows us to download music and movies within minutes. With today's instant media delivery, it's easy to want things faster than they can be created.



All in all, it has been a few years since we've last seen a new entry in the Half-Life series. And while a sequel to the Half-Life series is something I want more than anything, I'm willing to wait. Especially since Valve is still delivering quality games and services in the meantime. All that I ask of the rest of you is to try to be patient as well. Valve owes you nothing. If anything, you owe Valve for the revolutionary services and quality games they've delivered to you while you wait for Half-Life 3. Valve will release the game when it's ready. And knowing Valve, it'll be one damn fine game when it's released, and well worth the wait.

PAX Prime 2011 was my first big PAX. The reason I say big PAX is because I went to one of the first years of PAX back when it was in the Belleview Convention Center, before they moved over to Seattle. Overall, I had fun. But I had one problem with the convention: I was shy.

During the last PAX, I was just starting to be a part of the Destructoid community. I barely knew anyone from the community going in. However, I went to every scheduled Destructoid function, with the exception of Rock Bottom the last day. The first night I went to the GameWorks meetup and visited with a couple of the people I knew and had talked to before, like Mr. Andy Dixon and Max Scoville. It was fun seeing them and talking to them, but overall I felt lost. I was in a sea of people that I didn't know.



Over the weekend I talked a few other Dtoid staffers and community members. When I'd introduce myself to people, I was surprised at how many people actually knew me. Before PAX, I usually would comment on the front page, play Bad Company 2 with Mr. Andy Dixon and company, and write a few cblogs. But that was basically it. I didn't feel like I would be known by very many people, yet I was. I remember being in line for Destructoid Live 2.0 and meeting Gobun. I'd heard of him before, and he'd heard of me. What I'm kicking myself for back then was that I didn't try to get to know him or any other Dtoider that weekend. I let my shyness get the best of me.

As I type this, we're just a week away from PAX Prime 2012. I've promised myself that this year is going to be different. In the past year I've gone from just Swishiee, to the guy who runs the Destructoid Team Fortress 2 server, hosts a live show on the new community steaming channel, Streamtoid, and runs PC Friday Night Fights. I feel like I've made a name for myself in the community, and as such, I shouldn't be so damn shy around the community. Plus, in the past year I've become friends with quite a few Dtoiders who plan to be at PAX. I'm looking forward to PAX Prime 2012 not because of the games, but because of the Destructoid community. I can't wait to see all of you sexy people in Seattle!



This is going to be the longest week of my life.