you go that! (I forgot)

Peltz, you gonna test one of those servers out or what?

Well, i tried connecting to one of the empty NY serves, but it wouldn't let me join.

208.167.242.210

I found the full list of console commands

http://left4dead.wikia.com/wiki/Complet ... e_commands

Don't immediately see a "create lobby" command in there but I'll fiddle around when I get home.

I tried summoning the console to use the openserverbrowser command in the lobby, but for some reason it won't appear in the lobby. Maybe it's by design but it could also be because Valve has a tendency to make the console unreliable when on a non-standard querty keyboard.

Satsi, can you try opening the console in a steam lobby some time? If you can't I'll know it's not my fault.

Btw, me, Derf, O'Cram and Peltz did Hard Rain on expert yesterday. And jesus, expert is a world of pain. I got incapped more times than I remembered...ok, so I was a little tired, but still, I was sucking ass. On the whole we did pretty good though, the occasional wipe but nothing incredibly frustrating. Hilarious/cool moments:

- Me accidentally incapping Peltz and Derf in the same shotgun blast I felt so bad. What happened: we were sitting out a horde and I was shooting over their heads with my autoshotty. As I was doing so I 'slid' off the bed to the floor and, naturally, my line of fire changed from 'above their heads' to 'back of their heads'. Derf insisted that I spazzed though.

- O'Cram being a whiny fucker when he's incapped or dead. "Help me!!"

- Crossing the cornfield at the end and beginning of the 2nd and 3rd chapter. Tense tense tense. Also, witches everywhere. I should probably mention that i startled like 3 of them.

- Corpse looting before reviving or rescuing anyone. It's gotten to the point of paranoia, with your 'teammates' being almost more dangerous than the infected. "Don't steal my shit" "WHo took my kit?" "Did Derf heal himself twice?" and "Where's my X (usually deagle)" were probably the most common sentences used last night.

- Glorious finale: we held out relatively easy, made it to the boat, but an engine bug 'swung' us away from it and 10 meters back. No dmg, but enough to get us fucked by infected and the tank. Except for me. I ran past all three and got the fuck out of there. I'd rather be alive than a hero!! I'm actually surprised the others didn't shoot me as I was going for the boat...I was quite clearly not going to bother with picking them up.

Anyway, some adrenaline-pumping good times. Minor drawback was that the server reset difficulty to "normal" every round, lessening the experience slightly and meaning it doesn't count towards the achievement thingie. No matter.

Gotta love Hard Rain though. I can see us making it on expert realism some time now. Can't wait.

So....were you the only person that made it? Sounds like you just left everyone incapped.

Hahahha, i'm laughing my ass off @ paranoia. So true.

It was an awesome session. I thought it went quite smoothly overall. It may have been one of the easier campaigns, so that may have helped.

I could tell you were somewhat tired since a good portion of the fuck-ups and wipes were down to you. I remember one time, you startled a witch with the GL, so we all fell back and took up firing positions, only the witch decided to suddenly blame it all on me so I got insta-killed for Ox's fuckin shenanigans.

I also remember running across the field, jacked up on adrenaline cos I think the safe zone was near. I got there ahead of the rest and then stopped to wait. I was suddenly smoked and charged thinking to myself "oh shit, i'm fuckin dead"... but amazingly you guys managed to shoot them both off me and minimize the pain.

I also noticed a few "i'm stuck" moments (especially Peltz wedged between 2 cars). And the boat bug was fucked up. It looked like 2 invisible chargers had taken O'cram and Peltz away as soon as the boat stopped. I was incapped seconds before from a fuckin sniper tank shot thorough the storm from a million miles away. I guess he must have had infrared optics or something. I don't blame you for going solo since you most likely wouldn't have been able to get any of us revived.

Oh and Peltz, I see he's taken some lessons from the golden god of recon. Bought a joyful tear to my eye watching someone else enjoy the much misunderstood art of recon.

Fuck yeah I did. It's not like Derf would have waited.

And yeah Derfmeister, I fucked up a ton of times. Died 2-3 times, managed to get incapped by tank ranged 2 times in a row during the finale (tho I still think his throwing angle is too sharp ), startled witches, incapped teammembers...very bad all around. I was amazed to be making it out to the boat at the end.

But that may have had something to do with me using up 3 (!) medkits during the finale while you bitches were actually fighting the tank, hahaha. I don't think anyone noticed.

I really loved the corn field part where smoker got derf, i turned around (was grey at this moment) pulled off a perfect headshot, unfortunately it was Ocram so insta incap of him and then i got the smoker off from derf.

It was very difficult to switch from advanced gameplay to expert. There was the constant need to shoot the random zombies when we should have been moving forward.

I think we killed about a total of 1400(expert) commons while on advanced i think we broke the 2000 barrier, i remember that derf had like 900 kills alone when we did it on advanced. So the ammo issue certainly comes up on expert.

As for FF, Ox won and i was second eventhough we had the same nr on winning shots .

Ox we subcounsiously tried shooting you, but probably ended up killing those random commons chasing you

Thanks for the game earlier guys, inviting me half way in (stupid family xmas do). Twas the same good ol' fun it always is.

Didn't go too smoothly for some reason though. It felt pretty savage compared to last time we relatively breezed it (when ox saved himself). I think it was down to us being generally a bit "off" and maybe starting & stopping too often. I think the stopping often gets us tired quicker and perhaps keeps up out there longer than we should be. We were pretty coordinated with the whole diving-for-cover affair since Ox made a good job of calling that shit out.

Still, we all managed to get to the boat. I was doubting whether peltz could make it since he was limping his way to us safe and snug on the tug, but you made it man, and i'm proud of you.

The FF stats were through the roof for Ocram and Ox, maybe Peltz too. And the number of incaps too. Jesus. That fuckin bug where you incur FF damage if someone shoots while in your same position hurts. I think it may be a device to stop "stacking" or "phalanxing" (how i put it) but it's BS nonetheless, even more so on expert.

Me, Ox and Ocram each had exactly 40 incaps. Derf had less coz he joined later. But even the three of us put the total incap number above the magic 100.

Yeah, once we got rid of that liability Satis we could go for the win. Hehehehe. Nah, tbh it still took us a loooong time to beat it, and it was TOUGH. Jesus H. Christ.

Funny enough, the finale (with its expert tanks) was actually the easiest part of the entire endeavour. It only took us 2 tries, and tbh if we'd played our cards right in the first run we would have beat it right from (were a little hasty to run to the boat and a nasty tank spawn right next to us).

I still love Hard Rain for its variation. It's got the wide areas with the lootable houses, then the witch level (which we actually managed to pass without startling any on our succesful try), the canefield (hate it), the return through the canefield, and then going over the roofs through the storms with the added difficulty of the pools of water below rendering you practically immobile. It's especially hard to fight the tank in those areas, because you need to be on roofs and inside buildings to be able to outrun it.

Pretty proud that we beat it, in any case. Looking forward to more gameplay. There was some looting paranoia again but it was mitigated by our troubles, but I love the voice chat for quick trash talking and decision making. Like I said to Derf yesterday on steam, if I sound like a dick during the game barking orders then I apologize. It's just that someone needs to do it on expert, and for, stuff like coordinating pipe throwing etc. We milled about on why it was so tough compared to last time too...I cant honestly say. Maybe because it was already quite late for me and Peltz, maybe because we did a few too many horde stops, could be. I'll try to keep us on the move a little more next time.

Oh and fuck Marco with his stealing my katanas.

Just a brief AAR for Monday:

Myself, ocram, ox, peltz got together for another stab at expert, this time on Carnival. It was a resounding failure. It was just too damn hard. Too many incaps and wipes. We didn't even get to the finale. It was a very strange experience getting absolutely owned at seemingly every corner but then I remembered that we've only really had 3 attempts at expert. I think we're getting owned due to a lack of skill (FF, practice, twitchiness, alertness, horde management) but a big factor is "bugs" too, they cause us alot of pain without us necessarily realising. To list a few:

- Firing when you're "ghosting" inside of a teammate... Costs anywhere between 20 to most of your HP.
- If you and a jockey meet on a ladder, you're incapped regardless of health.
- Hunter melee damage taken when he falls, when he's pounding someone, and other weird times.
- Generally all animations are off.

I would be up for trying to super-rush it, so long as we're very switched on in terms of reacting for hordes and we all keep up.

Who's ocram?

My bro.

A few of the stats taken from our latest game.