Information
From now on, every Satuday I THINK night from 7 EST to whenever we feel like stopping, there will be a Nintendo Pipeline gaming night. It's recommended that you have two things to join: Skype, and Steam. A decent quality microphone is also recommended. Many of the games that we play will be over Steam, so it's recommended that you have it downloaded and installed, and Skype is there for organizing. If Skype's an issue for you, let me know and I'll try to find a decent alternative. With that, too, it's recommended that you have the following games, as they're fairly popular and will certainly be frequently played:
- Garry's Mod ($10, Steam) - A fun, cheap sandbox game. With this, you're also going to want to have some Source games so that you have more to play with, and so that everything loads properly. This will probably be played later in the night when we're tired and feel like dicking around. You're going to want to have an alright processor for this one. It's pretty physics intensive, and depending on how many people are playing, could get pretty cluttered. You don't need anything incredible, but just make sure that it's fairly fast.
- Killing Floor ($20, Steam) - Probably the best zombie killing game out there. Don't think Left 4 Dead, it's different. You fight off waves of zombies, and a good strategy is to stay in one place and hold your ground most of the time. It's really more fun and intense than it sounds, and is a great team game. It's worth pointing out that only six people can play at a time, though - we won't be doing any of those extended servers unless you can find a decent one without a ton of godawful downloads. The game's pretty easy to run. Check out the guide that I wrote if you're new to it.
- Left 4 Dead 2 ($20, Steam) - Another fun zombie game. We'll likely be playing Versus mode, which allows up to eight people, though or smaller nights, the standard is very possible.
- (CURRENTLY NOT PLAYED, SERVER STATUS IN LIMBO) Minecraft ($27, get it here) - The most expensive game that I'm going to recommend that you get. It's fairly popular, and we have a forum server. It might not be in the rotation as much, as it's not as pick up and play friendly, but there might be another gaming night for Minecraft, or we may have special nights set aside for it. This game, too, is pretty easy to run, but it's not really the best optimized and fairly processor dependent.
- Team Fortress 2 (Free, Steam) - A pretty decent online FPS. I personally think that it's gone down in quality lately due to the multitude of new items, but it's still a decent time with friends. It's also free, so there's not much of an excuse unless your computer is especially awful. It's easy to run.
- Terraria ($10, Steam) - I haven't played it, so I don't know much about it, but I know that it's fairly popular. And that someone should probably get it for me (itt decho exploits the intent of the thread to get free video games). My guess is that it's easy to run.
A couple of other free games to look into: League of Legends (here) and Realm of the Mad God (both Steam and browser). As a warning, League has a pretty decent learning curve, so be sure to play and understand beforehand. Soon, there will be a post where I'll edit in game recommendations, but we'll talk about that when we get there.
Anticipated FAQ
Q. What if I don't have a game?
A. While it would be great if we could all play at the same time with no worries about someone not having a game, this is bound to happen unless we lock ourselves down. In this instance, I would say just wait patiently or get a couple of other people together and start playing another game. I'm not quite sure how Skype will work yet for this - maybe just mute people playing a different game. Major announcements like game switch will be made in the Skype chat.
Q. How will I know which server to join?
A. Two ways. One, be friends with someone on Steam and join into their game whenever they're on the server. Two, request that someone give you the IP address and join manually. If you're not sure how to do this, look it up for whatever game that we're playing.
Q. The server's full.
A. This is bound to happen. Let us know - it's possible that we can find a new one. Keep in mind that with games like Left 4 Dead and Killing Floor, there's a cap on how many people are in the game (four and six, respectively, sans L4D's versus mode). We won't be finding a bigger server on games intended to have only so many people on, but for, say, Team Fortress 2, it's possible that we didn't notice.
Q. What dedicated Nintendo Pipeline servers are there?
A. Not many. If you have one that you're willing to have open to us, let me know and I'll put it into one of the posts. It would be great if we have more.
Q. Merde. It's 7:01.
A. This is a join at your leisure type of thing. Try to be on time, it will get you a say in what we play and make server hunting easier, giving you a better chance of being able to join in without wait, but you can come in whenever and drop out whenever.
Q. I have a few friends I want to bring on to the server to play.
A. I would rather you didn't. This is intended to be a more private Pipeline member thing. If they have an account here, they can. Obviously, I'm not going to be a dick and tell them to get out, but out of etiquette, it would be nice if you didn't. There's also the issue with server space. If there aren't many people on, ask and I'll probably say yes.
Q. Decho where art thou?
A. Decho won't be on every Friday - he has other things to do with his life. But you're big kids, you can handle yourselves.
Q. Why don't we do this every day?
A. To keep interest up in it. It loses its special charm if we do it too often.
Q. I won't be available that day. Push it back.
A. No. This is going to need structure to work. If you're not available, your loss. On the other hand, if a lot of people aren't available, or you never are, this might happen. Still be sure to mention it, but be polite.
Rules and Guidelines
- This is intended to be a Nintendo Pipeline event. Please get my permission before inviting anyone else.
- No complaining. If we don't pick your game, deal with it or play it anyways. We're not all going to get our way.
- Nintendo Pipeline rules apply. Don't be a dick. We'll be lenient with swearing, but avoid slurs or taking it too far.
- Whatever server we're crashing, follow those rules.
- No webcamming. Online gaming is demanding enough on the old internet connection as it is.
- No blasting music. Yes, we all like blaring Queen on HLDJ, but just don't unless everyone's fine with it. Sometimes it's nice to talk to each other instead.
- As a guideline, have everything tested beforehand. This isn't a tech support group, so don't expect people to stop to help. Get your issues solved before starting, or it's your own problem. Obviously, if someone's nice enough to help, great, but nothing's going to be put on hold to make sure that you're all set. On the other hand, feel free to utilize this thread for that.
- Another guideline: make sure that your microphone is decent quality, and that it's an appropriate volume. Listen to people if they ask you to turn it down - odds are, they're not just being horrible jerks, and no, it's not their responsibility to manage everyone's audio levels on their end.
Games for the Weekend
We'll try to decide this beforehand. Doesn't mean that we're going to play all of them, it's just to get some ideas and to make sure that everyone who's considering buying a game to join in is able to.
No games decided on yet! I'm putting my vote out there for the bulleted ones that I mentioned earlier.
