Hehehe, haven't played it either. Don't hate me if I play it before the weekend tho. Or actually, maybe derf and peltz should play. They both already rotated out of play. We'll see.

Didn't mind the backtracking at all in Hard Rain. Didn't even feel like doing the same map, the flooding changes everything. The finale is the easiest of all so far though...you can easily run from the tank on the roof, it's big enough for it and defending against infected is easy too.

We still gotta get you that gnome achievement Satsi.

I know! I want my freakin' gnome! If you guys don't mind, I think we should just do that campaign on easy. I still need to get my moustachio achievement too... I let Shiny get it last weekend when her and I played that campaign.

I still 'need' to get the other Moustachio achievement. Well actually I don't want the achievement as much as I want to win the freaking game (the whack-a-mole thing).

Sure, we can do a run for your gnome and/or other achievements, but not on easy man. Normal is more like it. Advanced is trickier in L4D2.

Ugh.. you guys just want me to die a lot. I may just try to bot it on easy, but you know how that goes.

I didn't realize you could get an achievement for the whack-a-mole.

Realism mode is pretty cool imo. We tried it on advanced today, me, peltz, ox and left the other slot public. Unfortunately, we were pretty much forced to kick 2 of the dickweeds that joined, one guy because he robbed peltz's stuff before peltz got de-defibbed, but also failing to know his way around the map. The other asshole joined when we were about to start the rollercoaster event, and went ahead and started it even if ox and peltz needed time to heal.

Given the lack of a 4th player, we would have made it at least to the last level much smoother if we had ocram or someone.

Anyway, good bash nonetheless, although it was a pretty long ass game, 2 hrs or something?

Yeah, intense but cool. I think the game mostly took so long because of the 4th player debacles...cost us a lot of time and made it harder to advance (stealing medkits, leaving defibs lying around, using items in the wrong places etc). With a full squad we should be much quicker.

Apart from the panic event on the penultimate map of Dark Carnival (where we quit) anything was doable on advanced, though the rollercoaster and merry-go-round were close. Some remarks (for those who haven't played it yet):




All of this has two major implications: voice comm is essential, for pointing out items and finding each other when split up. Also, the witch becomes doubly dangerous when in the way since she not only kills but you won't respawn near. As I painfully found out on 2 occasions. All in all, a great gameplay mode, but maybe we should try to finish one campaign on regular expert before going the distance on realism.

I might be wrong but it seemed to me that the tank went down easier but it couldve been so because the witch seemed to take forever to kill, even when she was on fire.

Theres also the fact that when the witch doesnt reach the person who startled her in some time, then at one point she will just fuck up the one who is closest. The witch is evil with realism mode.

The don't fuck with the witch in realism mode is how I would summarise the witch in realism mode.

I'm not sure the tank went down easier, I think the increase in difficulty forced us to generally play better.

The biggest change I find that realism brings is that you find yourself soon getting used to keeping track of the location and proximity of your team. Without realism, you can pretty much steam ahead and wait for a "cue" to tell you about someone that's in trouble, but in realism there isn't that cue. You don't need to stay uber-close, like Homer & Chief Wiggum, but it does (in comparison) require some brain work.

I didn't think anything would force Derf to stay close.

Nope. Reconnaissance for the epic win!!!

Valve fail! As satis said, they should rename themselves to Drain.

lol... yea, the valve thing was getting pretty annoying.

I started looking into dedicated server hosting... looks like we could get a private, 8-person server for about $10/month. The problem is finding a host with decent pings for all involved. I consider sub-200 for all to be good enough.. luckily the game's not ultra-sensitive to ping times like some (*cough*TF2*cough*)

I don't even know if it would be worth our time to get a server... it's not like we're a guild, and we don't play on a daily basis. *shrug*

DISCUSS

I don't think the problem is if it's worth it as such, because I think we'd all be glad to have an ensured smooth playing experience for a pittance. I think none of us would mind donating 2 bucks or less a month for it. It's just the logistics.

1) where do we find a good host
2) how do we ensure a smooth coordination of the moneys to the person primarily paying it. Ie, where that person does not have to go whining for money every month from everyone.

I wouldn't mind being the go-to person for this when it comes to the payments, but I don't know the first thing about the practical side of servers or renting them.

Would Peltz and Derf (and Shiny) be willing to contribute?
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For Derf: post action report on me, Satis, Shiny and Peltz doing The Bridge finale on advanced. The campaign in itself went remarkably smoothly (even if it took us AAAAAGEES to find a decent server for all involved), and we did the finale on the first try! I got incapped for a moment but was helped up, Satis didn't get smashed off the bridge this time (that was hilarious), and when we got to the end of the bridge Satis threw a tactical pipe bomb which pretty much cleared the way for us. You know, that pipe bomb Marco should have thrown when we were doing the finale.

The run from the bridge to the actual chopper is actually very far. Plenty of room for last-minute 'accidents'...you know, the kind that happens to the peeps who just run for it and don't look back once the chopper comes. I actually popped an adrenaline shot once I heard the chopper, and got the fuck out of there. Satis was 15 seconds behind or so. Lmao.

After that we took Gnome Chompski all through Dark Carnival on normal. It's WAY easier than advanced, almost a joke. I went through the game attempting to only use melee weapons but slipped up twice because of MAGICAL PISTOL appearing a) when i was incapped and b) when my chainsaw ran out of fuel and disappeared. Apparently it's physically impossible to have empty hands in L4D. Some highlights did include:

- me chainsawing the tank (ok so he was almost dead)
- Satis picking up his "Cr0wned" routine from L4D1 and killing witches with shotty powah
- Satis going bananas on the grenade launcher
- Peltz getting raped a few times by taking pages out of Derf's Great Book of Reconnaissance (or How to Get Raped by a Hunter in a Dark Corner).


Also, I jumped into a survival game with O'Cram and Derf yesterday...we assembled like 10 gas cans and a few explosive cannisters at a strategic spot...until Derf let go a shot or something and shot one of them. Was positively the n00best thing I have seen in ages!

Then i proceeded to hit the radio and summon a horde before they could get ready, jumped out of the game before they could shoot me and went to bed.

For the record, it was a Jockey and you guys were too lazy to turn around and shoot it.

The first one who reaches the tunnel on the coaster has to turn around and cover the others which ofcourse didnt happen and as the jockey does next to no damage on normal he ran miles before incapping me.

Was kinda hard for me to shoot it off using melee weapons.