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NEWS
& INFORMATION |
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The Future of PC
Gaming and The DCBB Clan |
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What the Hell, What's Next?
May. 6th 2008 - by SoupNazi |
On May 1st the DCBB had its Fifth Birthday as a Clan, I
have been here for three of theses last Five years. I became
a member shortly after the split between NBS, and DCBB. Since that
time I have been involved with the BF2 Div., The DC Div., and
Bama’s Mod.
In life there are many cross roads, and the direction that you
take at those crossroads defines who you are as a human being, it
defines your character, and who you are going forward. Gaming
Clans also have crossroads that define their character, and their
place in the world.
We are now at Five Crossroads.
1) The future of PC gaming is cloudy at best most new games
are ported for console games, and then PC gaming is defined by a
patch that might make the game playable, and then again might not.
2) The development of new games gets a further Wrench
thrown into the mix with the split on Direct X 9C, and 10, and
what additional expenses are involved with developing a game that
is compatible with this additional element.
3) The Number of shrink wrapped Beta Test games by the
publishing houses continues to increase until someone takes Legal
Actions and sues the publishers, and the developers.
4) We are currently lacking a direction for the Future and
until we can come to an agreement what that future is.
5) The games that we are currently playing are quickly
becoming End of life or are already considered to be obsolete.
Top PC Games of 2007: (Numbers in
Red Equals Units Sold)
1) PC World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack*,
Vivendi - 2.25mm
2) PC World Of Warcraft, Vivendi -
914K
3) PC The Sims 2 Seasons Expansion Pack, Electronic Arts -
433K
4) PC Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare*, Activision -
383K
5) PC Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars*, Electronic Arts
- 343K
6) PC Sim City 4 Deluxe, Electronic Arts -
284K
7) PC The Sims 2, Electronic Arts -
281K
8) PC The Sims 2, Bon Voyage Expansion Pack Electronic Arts
- 271K
9) PC MS Age Of Empires III, Microsoft -
259K
10) PC The Sims 2 Pets Expansion Pack, Electronic Arts -
236K
PC sales in August - 2007 (By Rank)
1) Bioshock - 2K Games
2) World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack -
Vivendi
3) World Of Warcraft - Vivendi
4) Guild Wars Eye Of The North Expansion Pack - NCsoft
5) Civilization IV: Beyond The Sword Expansion Pack - 2K
Games
6) The Sims 2 Deluxe - Electronic Arts
7) Age Of Empires III - Microsoft
8) Madden NFL 2008 - Electronic Arts
9) Warcraft III Battle Chest - Vivendi
10) Microsoft Flight Simulator X Deluxe - Microsoft
Console sales in August - 2007 (By Rank)
1) Madden NFL 08 - Xbox 360 - Electronic Arts
2) Madden NFL 08 - Playstation 2 - Electronic Arts
3) BioShock - Xbox 360 - 2K Games
4) Madden NFL 08 - Playstation 3 - Electronic Arts
5) Play With Remote - Wii - Nintendo of America
6) Guitar Hero 2 With Guitar - Playstation 2 - Red Octane
7) Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - Wii - Nintendo of America
8) Guitar Hero 2 With Guitar - Xbox 360 - Red Octane
9) Mario Strikers: Charged - Wii - Nintendo of America
10) Mario Party 8 - Wii - Nintendo of America
The Link below details last year 2007 Games developed for the PC
and has links and photos to each Title.
http://www.gamespot.com
Let's take a look at January - 2008 (By Rank)
1) Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Activision
2) World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest - Vivendi
3) World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack -
Vivendi
4) World Of Warcraft - Vivendi
5) Crysis - Electronic Arts
6) The Orange Box - Electronic Arts
7) The Sims 2 Deluxe - Electronic Arts
8) Pirates Of The Burning Sea - Sony Online Entertainment
9) Warcraft III Battle Chest - Vivendi
10) Unreal Tournament 3 - Midway
11) SimCity Societies - Electronic Arts
12) The Witcher - Atari
13) Hellgate: London - Electronic Arts
14) The Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
15) Microsoft Flight Simulator X Deluxe - Microsoft
16) SimCity 4 Deluxe - Electronic Arts
17) World In Conflict - Vivendi
18) The Sims Complete Collection - Electronic Arts
19) Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock with Guitar - Aspyr
Media
20) Civilization IV: Gold Edition - 2K Games
The Link Below is Photos, Trailers and Reviews of Game Currently
in Development for the PC as well as other information.
http://www.systemwars.com
The Way Forward:
1) Create a Team that will evaluate New Titles of Interest
as they Release with the idea of looking for Our Next Games.
2) We may have to examine the current structure, and make
changes that make adoption of new games simple, and easy.
3) We need to continue to Recruit, and Increase our Active
Rolls, and continue to Promote the EL Alamein Desert Combat
Server.
4) We need to take ownership in what we do, and think of
better ways as we go forward and remain open to the changes that
happen as the Clan Continues to evolve.
5) Remain Faithful to the Clan, Minimize the Drama,
Maximize the Fun Play, and play Bama’s Final Mod Release, and keep
a positive role in the Future Of DCBB. |
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HOW BOUT SOME NEWS |
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Clan
News & Other Happens
March. 6th 2008 - by angelnine |
Hello brothers and sisters, it
is your lowly new front page content provider trying to make this
place a little more fresh. I will be trying to update this front
page with a new "article" hopefully weekly, but with life, as you
all know, anything can happen.
Here we go!
The big news this week was of course the release of
Frontlines: Fuel of War.
 A
few brothers have tried the game, and quoting a few forum posts we
begin to get some first hand insight on the official release of
the game.
[DCBB]Redhand
"I finished this game last night it's a good game but it's more
like BF2142 than BF2.
I played a couple of games online and the game play is almost the
same as [the] single person game.
Just have to play more online to see if this is really a game that
will replace my addiction for BF2"
[DCBB]Nightson
"...I had to turn off many of the graphics down to play. Too much
"concussion" and "motion blur" effects...
...Overall, it's very pretty. Not quite as good as I would hope.
At least, that's my first impression."
We can see the first impressions coming out are mediocre at
best, hopefully with some patches, this game will live up to its
hype.
Also, a new FOW forum has been created. Check it out here!
http://www.dcbbforums.net/viewforum.php?f=55
Note: Copy the above URL then click,
you can past after the button entrance.
Happy birthday to [DCBB]Blackraven (February
28th)
[DCBB]Bama unleashed his El Alamein
map for his "Brothers at War" mod for Battlefield 2. The big news
coming out of this release is that there are now nuclear weapons
that you can use, complete with devastating effects to enemies and
the landscape. The sky is dark and dreary after a many nukes have
been detonated. Bravo Bama!
Check it out here!
http://www.dcbbforums.net/viewtopic.php?t=8172
Note: Copy the above URL then click,
you can past after the button entrance.
And now some of the most popular forum posts of the
week....
From the R&R forum...
Garnering 115 views and 12 replies
http://www.dcbbforums.net/viewtopic.php?t=8176
Note: Copy the above URL then click,
you can past after the button entrance.
From the private members General forum
Accumulating 324 views and 23 replies
http://www.dcbbforums.net/viewtopic.php?t=8185
Note: Copy the above URL then click,
you can past after the button entrance.
As always, fight hard and fair. Please contact me (angelnine)
via PM for any suggestions or help you would like to contribute to
this effort!
-[DCBB]angelnine
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THE MEASURE of A
CLAN |
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Just
Plain Proud
Sept. 26th 2007 - by Bama |
How do you measure the quality
of a Clan? By it's Membership would be true, but how do you
do that? As large as we have grown, and as many members we
have seen come and go over the years it's quite impossible to know
everyone in the Brotherhood. Sure we get a few bad apples
now and again as any clan does. We also have squabbles between
members, and we have twice now seen members leaving to form their
own clan. All this is natural and will always be a part of
an on-ling gaming clan.
So, if you had to use just one thing how would you measure
the quality of a clan? How would you measure the quality of this
Brotherhood? It's hard to say, but I do know one thing that
we have that other clans don't have, and that is money!
Yeppers, Money! Most clans have major problems keeping
together because they can't raise the funds to keep the clan
going. Most gamers want to play and be a part of a clan, but
they don't want to support it out of their pocket. So,
considering this aspect of gaming on-line I would have to pick
money, funds, donations, the old bank account, or in our case the
DCBB Pay-Pal Account.
As everyone knows we do not have dues in the DCBB, no one
is required to pay a penny to be a member. However we do
except donations from our Brothers as well as the public who enjoy
playing on our servers. Today this Brotherhood, the DCBB has
over $2,800.00 in it's Pay-Pal account, and this my Brothers
speaks volumes about this Clan in more ways than the money.
I seriously drought there are many clans on the net with nice fat
bank accounts. Our little old Pay-Pal Account speaks
about much more than money. It makes this old Bama Man very
proud. |
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY
DCBB |
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4
Years Old Today
May 1st 2007 - by Bama |
Four years old today, Damn!
It's hard to believe that four years have passed since this
Brotherhood was started back in 2003. Three old friends from
my Descent3 days got together and started this Clan, and never did
any of us think we would still be going stronger than ever four
years later, but here we are still going & growing.
The DCBB is only the second Clan I have been a member of and the
very first one that I started. We have seen a lot of
Brothers come and go over the years, but that's expected, there is
a thing called real life that makes us all move on eventually.
Four years ago we started with 10 Brothers, today we have almost
150 active members, with new Applications coming in every week.
So what is the reason for our longevity? I sure
can't take all the credit, I must give a ton of credit to the
Brothers who stepped up to the plate and gave their all to making
the DCBB a great Clan. Brothers like [DCBB]Rookie, Rambo,
and Blackdeath, and others who are no longer here, but gave & gave
to the Brotherhood while they were.
The DCBB was not always on the right track, we learned as we grew,
and we learned from our mistakes. Yes, we had hard & trying
times, and yes we overcame them, and we learned, and we grew
stronger in many ways. The one thing today that sets us
apart from most clans is the attitude of the Brothers in game and
out of game. We try very hard to always be respectful not
only to each other, but everyone we come in contact with. I
know deep in my heart that many Brothers will take these lessons
of life they learned here in the Brotherhood into real life and be
better for it. God Bless Each And Every One Of You!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DCBB! |
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NEW DIVISION ADDED |
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The
OG Division of the DCBB
February 16th 2007 - by Bama |
Twelve years ago when I first started
playing on-line games "Descent 1 & 2" I was very conscious of my
age. I had the misconception that all the gamers were kids.
I soon found out I was wrong! One night about 2:00AM the
game I was in was winding down and soon there was only four of us.
We four started chatting via keyboard and the question of age came
up. In short I was the youngest of the four, and ever since
I have been proud of my gaming age. So, what does this have
to do with a new Division to the DCBB?
The OG Division is an elite and very special Division of Old
Geezers. There are only two requirements, you must be DCBB,
and you must be at least 50 years old. It's time us Old Geezers
get the respect due us. All DCBB Members age 50 and above
are automatically a member of the OG Division. This does not
mean you must leave your Game Division, the OG is the only
Division where you can be a member of two Divisions.
I am, of course the Division Commander, and I appoint [DCBB]MadMat
as my second in command. What will we be doing? I
don't have a clue, but we will find something, like maybe
supporting Old Geezer gamers everywhere.
Remember, "Old age and treachery will win
over youth and skill"!
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Battlefield 2
Modding |
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What? Me do that? Yes, me do that!
October 27th 2006 - by Bama |
I used to do a little server-side
modding of the EL Alamein 24/7 server, but this turned out to be
quite easy, and the way I had set it up players seemed to like.
However I don't play DC any longer, and I quickly found out BF2 is
all but impossible to server-side mod.
I had gotten into playing BF2 when it came out, and I played it
till sometime last march. In march I just could not take the
rank-happy smacktard's anymore, so I quit playing on-line.
There are many more reasons I quite, but I want get into it here.
When POE2 was released I did play a number of games on line, and
enjoyed it for the most part, but it still did not play like I
would have wanted. The problem with BF2 and most mods is
that there are way to much crap in the maps, and the weapon
inaccuracy tends to piss me off. I was brought up in the
country and was shooting game at nine years old, I hardly ever
missed what I shot at. After I quit I spent most of my time
working on the Clan web site and other Clan related stuff. I
did play a little off-line Coop on my gamer from time to time.
I had started visiting the forums over at
www.battlefieldsingleplayer.net , and would pickup new maps
that their members had nav-meshed. Some were really good and
some were not, but I soon new who did the best job nav-meshing a
map. Several weeks after POE2 came out I was cruising the
single player forums when I came across a thread about making a
POE2 Single Player mini-mod. A number of the regular members had
gotten interested in this and had already gone to work on the
mini-mod. I downloaded the very first beta and it worked
great. I think there was only one POE2 map at the time, but
that soon changed.
The one thing I really liked about the POE2_SP mod was the weapons
tweak to more of a realistic approach. When I aimed at an
enemy I hit him, two hits would bring him down, and one
headshot he was down. This I really liked, however there was
still way to much stuff in the maps. I tried to use the
infantry only, or BF2 no-vehicles, but this would not work in POE.
So, I started looking inside of the mod's guts.
I picked up a lot of info from the single player forums, and
learned a lot through trial and error. I soon had my first
version of what I call POE2_sp_inf, but not just infantry. I
placed light skinned vehicles like the dingo & wolf jeep in the
maps, and soon found out that to many and the bots just wanted to
stay in them and not fight. I started placing them at the
start flags only and this worked much better. The POE2 map
"First Snow" works really well set up like this, and just lately I
did add one tank at each start. The point is that without so
damn many vehicles in a map you have much better game play.
I took two vanilla BF2 64 player maps, "Gulf of Oman & Zatar
Wetlands" and took them a step further. I made every flag on land
owned by the UKR team, and changed the Carrier to a German Air
Assault Carrier. I even learned how to change the flag names
in-game. I added the German NH 90 Transport choppers and the
Euro-tiger Attack chopper on the Carrier. Now the only way
for the German to get started is by way of an airborne assault on
the UKR Bases. Now this was not easy, at first they would
not bail or even shoot the choppers weapons, but thanks again to
the crew over at Single Player I soon had re-done ai-scripts, and
they now will shoot your ass off and bail the flags.
Today I am working on my 3rd version of my mini-mod of a mini-mod,
tweaking and adding new stuff that makes play even more fun.
I have only a few more changes to make in the objects_server.zip
and will then finish up some changes in the now 8 to 12 maps for
the mod.
Another thing I learned was customizing the vehicle skins and
removing them from the very heavy objects_client.zip then adding
only what I had changed to a new zip file, then pointing the way
for the game to pick them up. Works like a charm. All
the 3d skins are inside of a .dds file and I know nothing about 3d
Max and don't care to learn. However, I had found a great
NVIDIA Filter for Photoshop awhile back that does a great job of
opening and saving .dds files. So now when you download my
next version you will find several GER vehicles marked with the
DCBB Clan Tag. You will even see my old-man picture on the sides
of the Dingo. :)
Some other tweaks that make the mod fun are tweaks to the
helicopters that make them fly much better than BF2 or for that
matter POE2. In fact the Euro-Tiger fly's better than the
Apache in Desert Combat. Another neat thing is the Anti-Armor kit
now has an Anti-Personal RPG, which works fantastic. The
Anti-Armor kit also comes with a very nice MP-7 instead of a
Pistol.
Finally I am not going to release this mod to the public, but only
to the Brothers to enjoy, but guys you have to download it to play
it. Everyone who has seems to really like it, and they have
not seen nothing yet. I'll be releasing the 3rd version in a
week or less. The mod without maps weights right at 50megs,
and I will place the maps in several Map packs, and even then your
not talking heavy weight. I will provide them in a
self-installer so all you will need to do is click the setup file.
I am also removing the version 2 I place for download.
One last thing, please don't piss me off by not at least trying my
version 3 mod when release it. If you don't mine getting on
my bad side then don't try it, however remember it might come back
to bite you in the ass. |
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Battlefield 2 and
The Single Player |
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Forgotten and Disregarded, Why?!
September 15th 2006 - by Bama |
When I first started playing
Electronic Arts first Battlefield series Battlefield 1942 over
three years ago I was impressed by the single player AI. The
ability to play against at the time great artificial intelligent
Bots was not only fun, but good practice in learning the game.
The success of Battlefield 1942 in the market place was nothing
short of phenomenal, and is still selling today. In June of
2005 EA introduced Battlefield 2 to its mega following, however
they had short-sheeted the large Single Player Community.
Battlefield 2 maps had three levels of play-size, 16 player, 32
player, and 64 player, however it came with only the 16 player
maps for Single Player and no coop at all. Why was this, is
not single player a major part of the gaming market?
Obviously Electronic Arts didn't think their game was, but they
were wrong.
While many of the single player community bided their time
thinking this would be addressed in a future patch EA continued to
disregard them. When a new free map was introduced "Wake
Island 2007" there was no single player version at all. The
BF2 single player community began to get the idea that EA had very
little respect for them, and they would be right. BF2 has
been out for 15 months and EA has still done very little for the
single player. They did add support for coop with their
buggy 1.3 patch, however they forgot to add coop to the in-game
menu. What's even more sad is that the BF2 AI is really quite
fantastic, and far better than BF1942, however EA has no
understanding of it's value or the marketing savvy to exploit it.
Mean while the single player community was not sitting idle
waiting for EA to come to their rescue, they had come to realize
that this was not going to happen. Instead they went to work
to make BF2 into a far better single player experience. The
meeting place for many of this community is a
Planet Battlefield hosted site called
Battlefield Single Player,
and from this home came unity and interaction on a huge
scale. Soon this community was turning out maps in all three
map sizes with full bot support. BF2 is not BF1942 and it's not
easy to learn the ends and outs of the BF2 editor and the coding
involved. In fact making a map with the bot meshing is very,
very difficult, and beyond this writer ability. As time
passed a few of these people rose to the top of the pack making
not only great maps, but with AI bot support better than the
developer's themselves. Just to name a few of these masters,
you have people like
Xstax981,
Clivewil,
ShaneJohn, and
ImTheHeadHunter. Then you have a
one of a kind map making, bot path'ing dynamoe named
Hayabusa. Hayabusa has
turned out so many single player maps it's hard to keep count, and
he even found the time to make a BF2 mod called Mercenaries. All I
can say is he must be a master of time management. There is
also
Korben Dallas and
kysterama, both have contributed
big to SP and are also involved with the mod Allied Intent.
Korben Dallas did a very nice
interview with DICE just before
the 1.3 patch, and
kysterama is noted for his "Bf2
Single Player Editor and Navmesh
Tutorials!". There are
many, many more great people who have contributed to the Single Player fun by
giving to all single player enthusiast free of charge the
enjoyment a good old AI fight-fest either by themselves or with a
few friends.
The single player community is not a big secret to EA or DICE,
they have been bombarded by thousands of single players about the
lack of support for their part of the game. EA and DICE have
made promises, but have actually done very little when it comes to
the single player part of BF2. At this late stage no one
really expects them to do anything more. In the last patch,
"the 1.4 release" EA left the single player community with one
final reminder of just how little regard they held for them.
While EA DICE gave the multi-player a small new feature to disable
all the vehicles on any map for good old Infantry only fun, they
locked out the single player and coop from using this feature.
Sad, so very sad!
Now we have the new title BF2142 being released this October 17th,
and no one is expecting much support for the single player.
The question I have is, how can a major company like Electronic
Arts totally disregard a major faction of their game purchasers?
Why would they do this? Are they misreading something in
their marketing analyses? If so, have they considered it
might be faulty? What ever the problem EA and DICE have with
single player & coop they will soon see many dollars migrating to
other new titles, which will be arriving soon. Hopefully
they will not be a EA product. |
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Non-Member Server
Donations: A Big Thank You |
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17 Platinum Club Members!
September 6th 2006 - by Bama |
This morning I just had to
give out some Kudos to the 17 non-member players who have donated
$488.70 to the DCBB Server fund this year, Thanks a lot Guys &
Gals! I sure wish that a some of our membership had the same
giving attitude as you.
The top Non-Member donator so far is
Mental Atrophy, who has given $100.00
to the DCBB Server fund this year, and in second & third place is
=CDU=Pvt. Sack &
Dr. Bob. I also want to
express my thanks to even the smallest donation because in some
cases that might be the largest donation of all.
OK, I don't expect any of you to break any of the EL server
rules, but if you should ever get banned depending on the
circumstances you will get a Git-Out-of-Jail-Free.
Lets give these Donating Players a Name: The Platinum Club!
Note: The Platinum Club members
should use the same Nick-Names on our server as your donation
Nick-Names.
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The
Platinum Club! |
| Mental Atrophy |
$100.00 |
| =CDU=Pvt. Sack |
$60.00 |
| Dr. Bob |
$60.00 |
| Almighty_Roger |
$50.00 |
| |SSB|Jollymon |
$28.70 |
| -=Major Payne=- |
$25.00 |
| Whack |
$25.00 |
| Don't Shoot Me! |
$25.00 |
| Dale |
$20.00 |
| Rocko |
$20.00 |
| =CDU=Bryce Cavendish |
$20.00 |
| >MOW<2LT York |
$20.00 |
| Max Rockatansky |
$15.00 |
| deflator-mouse |
$15.00 |
| >>jwebb<< |
$10.00 |
| =Snakebite= |
$10.00 |
| sean5892 |
$5.00 |
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Non-Member Donations
Total to date 9/13/06 |
$508.70 |
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A Higher Gaming Experience |
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