A Bit of a Catch Up

Right I’ve got a couple of things to post about, so let’s get going:

More Choice, More Variety: Non-English Language Commentary

I think it’s important that there’s variety of choice in most things (as long as there’s quality too – no one wants a choice of brainsurgeon ranging from world class, to comes bottom of his class when playing ‘Operation’…) and so when I’ve had people message me about setting up their channels I always give them the same advice:

Do it because you enjoy doing it
Do your own thing, be your own person

Being a UK/Europe guy another topic that pops up from time to time is “I’m from [insert country] and I’d like to do commentary but they have to be in English….” This seems to be a misconception. Sure, if you want to reach the widest audience then doing it in English is going to help out, but I think it’s something of a shame that more people don’t commentate in their native language. It’s definitely a good way of gaining confidence should that person then decide to move on to English language commentary.

I may be odd, but I quite enjoy watching/listening to non-English commentaries. Anyone else?
In the meantime (I tweeted this the other day) for Polish language commentary ThrashHMG has begun putting up commentaries (BFBC2 at the moment):

Powodzenia Thrash, Twój komentarz brzmi świetnie do tej pory (google translate, so apologies for any errors).

MrCheapKills PSN Account

When Vietnam came out I had trouble with the PSN store not accepting my card to the point where it locked my account of the transaction area all together. Sony (non)support were enthusiastic, but ultimately useless and so (with prompting from Donncha) I thought “I’ll just create a new account, download it and play on that!” By some fluke, MrCheapKills was available so I registered with that.

Vietnam downloaded and I was ready to go….. except for one fatal flaw: no VIP codes. Dagnabbit! Well yesterday my pal Nintendo Mike came round for some beer and gaming. He’s a much keener gamer than me and generally beats me on everything we play…. except CoD4. I put that in last, 1v1 and I was like a god! I know it’s not much fun getting beat so we then played some co-op World at War and zombies, then a bit of Spec-Ops on MW2. So what’s this got to do with MrCheapKills?

When Mike had left I thought I’d have a go on MW2 for probably on the second time since I got BFBC2. So MrCheapKills – total noob, level 0 and the first lobby I join….. and infection/hack/something lobby!? Double-You-Tee-Eff! I didn’t think they had them on the PS3. Anyway, as I’m curious about these things I stayed for a look around:

None of that video is speeded up, or edited, that’s how it was – as soon as the game started and I saw what it was I hit record.

It just seems completely pointless to me, and I’m glad I don’t play MW2 anymore, especially as the the next game I got in to was a pro-pipe extravaganza on Terminal. It’s a bit hypocritical for me to have a go at pro-pipers, but the game has been out sooooo long that surely people are bored with that sort of thing now?

Right, so on to what this has to do with MrCheapKills….. after the debacle that was MW2 I decided to play some Level Zero BFBC2 non-VIP. SDM I go and find that level Zero must be where all the CoD players live as the first “conversation” I had was this:

Australian Kid: Anyone got a mic?
Me: Yup
Australian Kid: Where are you from?
Me: UK
Australian Kid: Cool, I’m from Australia
Me: That’s good to hear
…..couple of minutes later
Australian Kid: Hey, UK guy?
Me: Yeah?
Australian Kid: Are you gay?
Me: Erm, no. Do you wish I was gay?
Australian Kid: NO! Why would you say that?!
Me: Well why would you ask if I was gay?
Australian Kid: I don’t know
Me: Well it was you who asked the question so you should know…
Australian Kid: Well it’s just that most UK people are gay.
Me: Of course, I’d forgotten about that.
*leave game*

So then Duck joined me and we created havoc among the hard of thinking. We even spent some time being bush wookiees on Laguna Presa as that is what all the cool kids do. I even got a cool long quick scope on a medic who must have been new as he shot his LMG everywhere around me, but not really at me. It was fun, but a bit like playing against bad AI for the most part. Even the high ranking players (level 46) tended to be not very good – and that’s something coming from me!

Video to follow

Okay so here’s what it’s all got to do with MrCheapKills. My main account in PSN is going to remain as evaDlivE as that is where all my DLC access. But for future games I’m thinking that I’m going to be using the MrCheapKills account to tie things in a bit better. Hmmm, took me long enough to say that.

Peas and loaves.

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Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

David Nicol is Articles Editor for hupitgaming.com, YouTube gaming commentator and blogger based in the UK.

Spot the Prestige Hackers…

The screen shot in this post is from a rather well known YouTuber. I’m not showing the names on the list as I think that’s a bit much, and the YouTuber in question is NOT a prestige hacker. But a number of people on his friends list are…..

I only noticed the hacking when I saw the impossible amount of time that one person had been playing for – 10,682 days. Which by my calculations works out as approximately 29 years. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like to make sure that I’m in possession of all the facts. So I checked Wikipedia and found that time travel, although theoretically possible while moving into the future (using ultra fast speeds time would slow for a traveller compared to the surrounding time/space) is not possible for travelling back in time. Therefore, that player is definitely a prestige hacker. The guy two spots below is also either the most beastly player too, or a hacker – level 70 tenth prestige in less than three days? Yeah right.

But Prestige Boosting/Hacking doesn’t hurt anyone, right? Right?!

Wrong. I’ve already posted a number of times on the subject so use the search function and the keyword ‘cheat’ for more on that. But in a nutshell being level 70 Tenth Prestige does affect other people, and it does give you an unfair advantage. Not only do you get the extra custom classes, but you also have all the weapons and attachments, including things like extended mags, and all the perks with Pro abilities. So the pathetic boosters with their even more pathetic excuses and justifications are wrong.

Boosting does affect legit players.

What I don’t understand is why XBL have not picked up on these people. 402 stated that Microsoft were banning prestige hackers – well they’re obviously doing a bang up job there.

Another thing is that people complain about cheats, cheaters and boosting, but don’t do anything about it. They turn a blind eye while their “friends” cheat. I’m not like that. Things are slightly different on the PS3 though. You don’t have the JTag bullshit so there aren’t hacked lobbies as such. But you do get boosters and boosting.

So far, I’ve had two people message me to “boost” (ironically on BFBC2 rather than MW2, you don’t really get anything for boosting BFB2 other than a pin or award, but that’s not the point) and in both cases I’ve ignored the messages. I’d like to think that these guys haven’t boosted, but who knows….

One thing is for sure is this – if I KNOW that someone on my Friends List is a booster then they’ll be gone. I’m not interested in playing with cheats.

The buck may stop with the game developers and platform operators, but it starts with us in the gaming community. While we make it acceptable for people to cheat and/or boost then they’ll continue to do so. By doing nothing, we condone the very thing that the majority of us abhor.

Peas and loaves.

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Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Cheating Hits the Frag Cup…..

And it’s only round one!

I don’t really follow the Frag Cup but this is a fairly major turn of events.

Team OpTiC have been disqualified after it was shown that their player DTreats had hacked attributes. After my posts here and here and disappointment with CODNation.net all on the subject of cheating and boosting it is nice to see that there is still hope out there, and that not “everyone wants to cheat”.

Here’s the Machinima Respawn where Sark and Hutch reference DTreats cheating – although I think they were a little harsh accusing him of using an aimbot….

Here’s the game footage:

He has a hacked gamefile, that is for sure, and as high profile as this is I’d imagine XBL/Microsoft will be wielding the ban hammer in his direction some time soon.

Unfortunately there are still a lot of people out there who are attempting to excuse DTreats with various arguments based along the the line of “he shouldn’t be DQ’d because having a fourth kill streak didn’t help him in a non-killstreak game….”. Well, that’s really not the point – he broke the rules of the tourney therefor his team gets disqualified – and not getting the benefit in a tourney doesn’t mean that he isn’t cheating in public games WHICH IS EVEN WORSE!

But worse still is the fact that OpTiC would allow people into their fold who employ cheats and mods. As far as I was aware OpTiC were/are pretty major and like to show how 1337 they are, yet at least one of them flushes his integrity down the toilet with hacked lobby shennanigans. It makes you think – are they the best because of their 1337 skillz, or are they top because they cheat? In this years Frag Cup we’ll never know.

Stupidity at its finest.

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

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BFBC2, Mario *Cheat* Kart, Donncha’s PS3, and YouTube

BFBC2 – Battlefield: Bad Company 2
I picked up BFBC2 from Game yesterday for the PS3. Traded in those games I had on Ebay as it was fairly obvious they weren’t going to sell on there – even for a tenner each. I’d worked out that after paying Ebay twice (once for the final valuation fee, then again to withdraw the cash from Paypal) I would probably end up with as much as the trade in price….so to avoid the inevitable bag o’ crap that occurs when selling on Ebay I saved myself the hassle.

How is it? Am I enjoying it? Do I prefer it to MW2?……..Don’t know. It’s still sitting in the cellophane wrapper on the TV table. Hopefully I’ll get on there later tonight.

Unfortunately, BFBC2 means that the Hauppage Fund has taken a hit. For the last time I hope.

Mario *Cheat* Kart
Regular readers will be aware of my views on cheating. If you’re not then check this post, and this one. You may or may not be aware of my love/hate hate/loath relationship with Mario Kart Wii. If you missed those posts then you can find them here and here. Well, my Nintendo Fanboy Mike sent me a text earlier asking if I fancied getting destroyed on Mario Kart Wii again. Glutton for punishment as I am I agreed.

After a couple of one on one races he takes us to the big bad world……which shouldn’t be that bad as this is everyone’s favourite cuddly plumber and chums. The first couple of races were pretty fun actually. 8 – 10 people of varying levels of incompetence is alright. I even managed to come in at a blistering fifth place!

But then something unusual happened. We drive off the line and from behind someone all sparkly with the “doo doo doo do doo do doodoo” music comes barrelling through…… hang on a minute – we’re not even in to the first corner and haven’t passed any boxes so how are they all sparkly and musical? They were sparkly and musical for the entire race – or as I prefer to call it: cheating. I’ve seen it all now – how pathetic do you have to be to cheat on Mario Kart?! “Mario” and “Cheating” are two words that shouldn’t be in the same sentence. I didn’t think it was even possible to cheat on the Wii, but obviously I was wrong…… and it’s put me off that stupid game and console even more than I was before.

Amusingly, and in keeping with my ‘cheating = wanking’ analogy, the cheat’s name was Richard….. yup a Dick.

Donncha’s PS3
It looks like it’s all systems are go – bar a cable – for Donncha and his PS3. He’s already got some BFBC2 games in, so hopefully we can get in a squad and he can act as a human shield show me the ropes.

YouTube
This is literally just a couple of quick things that some people may not be aware of when viewing or uploading to YouTube.
Viewing: On some videos, especially those by Machinima, there are adverts. You can close them off in many cases. However, if you have control of the browser you are using you can do away with them altogether. I don’t know if there are similar add-ons for other browsers but I’m using AdBlock Plus on FireFox – both of which you can get for no monies!

Machinima YouTube video in Google Chrome

The same video in FireFox with AdBlocker Plus

On the subject of FireFox add-ons and YouTube, if you ever feel the need to download a video from there you can use any of a whole host of add-ons available for that very purpose. I’ve been trying to work out which add-on I use, but they pretty much all do the same thing.

And lastly for YouTube – uploading. I know Geoff does it, I do it and a couple of other people do it – but one thing that a lot of people don’t do when uploading videos is to set their work to ‘Private’ until it has finished processing. Even Machinima doesn’t do it which is quite surprising – but is also the reason why the first 20 or so messages on their uploads are always along the lines of “Quality sucks…”.

A couple of uploaders said that doing this messes with the subscription visibility for their subscribers, but I suspect that they chose the Private option after it had completed the upload. The Private option needs to be chosen and saved before the upload completes.

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Boosters, Boosting and general disappointment

This is sort of a follow on from my original cheating post. This post concentrates on boosting, and the gaming community attitude towards it.

As a PS3 player of Modern Warfare 2 I have no personal experience of boosting. But just as I’ve never been to China, I am in no doubt that it exists.

Boosting Flavours

There are two types of boosting. You have the title/emblem/camo boosters, and prestige boosters. There is a difference between how each goes about their “business”, but they are essentially doing the same thing – cheating. If a player gains something while abusing in-game mechanics then it is cheating. That’s the way it is, and that is how it always has been. From tenth prestige to a spinnning nuke emblem, if you didn’t earn them, then you didn’t earn them.

Icon Boosters

The first category of boosters (title/emblem/camo boosters) can usually be found in Free For All, or Friendly Fire/Ricochet game types. In FFA they’ll normally be nuke boosting, although trading headshots for camo is also prevalent. The main problem is that calling in a nuke you didn’t earn spoils the game for every other legitimate player. Trading headhots or some other type of kill to unlock an attachment or camo is just as bad – if not worse. Ocassionally you’ll also find boosters in other game types, the most prevalent is Riot Shield boosting where one person equips the riot shield in order to get a load of points from taking damage. They will usually be in collusion with at least one other person in the lobby. In a Friendly Fire/Ricochet game type it doesn’t even matter if their cohort is on the other team! Big deal? Well no. While they are playing with each other your team is at least one man down! In both examples the boosters are spoiling the game experience for the people who are actually trying to play the game properly. Not cool.

Prestige Boosters

And then you have the prestige boosters. I don’t think there is much of this on the PS3, but on the Xbox360…. well it seems that booster lobbies are much sought after and lucrative to the so called JTaggers. What happens is that a person gets hold of a modded Xbox360, alters the game code, invites people in – usually for a fee and then bish bash bosh you’re tenth prestige in minutes. Why should that be a problem? It’s just a title right? Well no. Being tenth prestige means you have a total of 15 classes available to you, ten customisable and all weapons and attachments. That puts them at a major advantage over the legitimate players. Plus using a modded Xbox and/or altering game code completely against the Terms and Conditions of use.

Forums Encouraging Cheating

But the biggest disappointment to me is the likes of this (link) on CodNation.net. Here we have a site that is all things Call of Duty. But as far as I’m concerned they are not only condoning boosting, but actively encouraging it with the new “Boosting/Modded Lobbies” section. That’s just completely out of order. They should be doing all they can to discourage cheating. What’s even more pathetic are the types of responses they have there:

if anyone knows someone that does 10th lobbies for free please message me i have been scammed over 10 times and have lost almost 60 dollars. message my xbox live gamertag or have them message me on my gamertag. my gamertag is ******. please help me out

….scammed over 10 times? Boo hoo hoo! Don’t cheat, don’t get burned.

be very very careful. its really easy to get ripped off in doing this. i even scammed a few kids before so i could change my name hehe, and im not the smartest. make sure you know that they can do it before you even think of sending them points

….I’m speechless. Cheats and thieves all in one spot!? Where’s Sandy Ravage!

Yet, on the same site there are people up in arms about nuke boosting…. the mind boggles. I’ve made my last post on CodNation.net – I’m not going to condone cheating by participating in a site that encourages it. It’s one thing to have a section that discusses cheating in order to make people aware of what to look for – but this goes beyond the pale!

Obviously there are plenty of sites and forums out there dedicated to cheating – which is another kettle of stinking fish. But I thought that CodNation was reputable.

Is Boosting Ever Acceptable?

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of boosting is when, if at all, it is acceptable. The one example that springs to mind is WoodysGamertag. He bought a PS3 in order to enable him to play with his subscribers and then mentioned about boosting in order to gain the weapons and perks he had unlocked on the Xbox360. It takes time to level up and unlock stuff so in Woody’s case, and if he was only doing it to play with his subscribers then that is acceptable to me – if you disagree then let me know why in the comments. I’m having enough trouble finding the time to level up on one console, it would be an impossibility to try it on two! However, his decision may come back to bite him on the bum due to his foray into the MLG/GB scene (Major League Gaming and Game Battles) as part of their rules state:

B. Cheating
2. We have a zero tolerance policy for cheating. Teams caught cheating, “glitching”, or abusing in-game mechanics in any way will be removed from GameBattles.

I’m pretty sure that boosting comes under the heading of abusing in-game mechanics. But that could only relate to what happens during play.

Like I said in my first post on this subject, cheating is like masturbation. It’s something that you should only really do when you’re on your own. No matter how you dress it up, or justify it, you’re still a wanker.

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE