Good Online FPS Games/Servers For Beginners?

An anonymous reader writes "I have been playing videogames for years, but only recently got a DSL line in my house and so have never played any online games before now, as dial up was always too slow. Now that I have a fast connection, I want to get into online gaming, FPS gaming in particular. My problem is that Unreal Tournament, Counter-Strike, Quake and all the other popular games seem to be dominated by people using cheats, and by established clans of players who are a lot better than me. Are there any online FPS games or servers whose barriers to entry are not too high for the average player? I am looking for something that I can just connect to for a half an hour now and then when I am bored and can have fun with."

Comments

America's Army

[servicepack158]

America's Army is free i just downloaded it :) it's pretty sweet. go check it out. It's more realistic too, ie no missle super guns and cheats that I know of.

Re:America's Army

[Atroxodisse]

America's Army is a grenade fest. The only thing to do is launch nades. Also, it restricts what maps you can play based on your current honor, which goes up and down depending on your actions. For instance, if you launch a grenade into a room and your idiot team mates all run in and die you lose honor and can't play the better maps.

Re:America's Army

[Psycho77]

I would recommand AA too, its very realistic, you have to do tranning to start and there is beginner servers for the training. Its not easy thought. But easy FPS dont really exist because peoples that play FPS online, play them a lots usually.

Re:America's Army

[Gyorg_Lavode]

Recommending America's Army is cruel. AA has a VERY steep learning curve. It takes a while to get the hang of working with teammates (which you really have to do), navigating the maps, keeping your head down, knowing the objectives, using the weapons correctly etc. For one thing, in AA, your weapon doesn't fire strait. If you machine gun someone who is a ways away, you'll be lucky to hit them once while they sight a shot and 1-hit kill you.

That said, I think the person saying it's all about grenades isn't really fair. A lot of times you can't use them because of the close quarters and worries about killing a team mate. Also, once you learn the places the opposing team will most likely throw grenades blindly, you can avoid most of them. On most maps, teams will use grenades right off the bat and people will run strait into them.

Re:America's Army

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? I have no idea what you're talking about. Sure, grenades are a thing to avoid, and some maps (Bridge) are filled with them. But most of the time, it's realistic fun. Especially on larger maps such as Mountain Pass SE and Radio Tower.

Also, America's Army has punkbuster anti-cheating software to prevent aimbots. It works pretty well too. I'm noticing less headshots/impossible stuff done by noobs. Development for the most popular aimbot has also stopped since it's users were constantly being banned.

As for the honor requirement, you need 15 honor to play a special forces role on the SF maps. Otherwise, you play as indigenous forces (only difference is you can't mod your gun as IF).

There is one map that restricts to 15+ honor, and that is Pipeline SF. If you have less then 15, just play normal pipeline.

Re:America's Army

[mrjohnson]

Play FLS.

It's easier to get honor there for a number of reasons:
- if you're a good shot, you can take out enemies from assault positions without risking exposing yourself. It's difficult and takes a lot of practice, but if somebody leaves their head out for me, I'll take them in one shot at long distances.
- one player can win the match by using stealth to get close enough and either a) taking out e or b) running to the door. Or, lob a smoke and run into the confusion before they can nade where you came from.
- or, play defense and use your powerful gun against their wimpy m16s and get massive scores. A good d player on FLS should be able to get 1,000 points in one round (not match), even if assualt manages to get to the door most of the time.

It shouldn't take long to get good enough honor to go into any map. FLS is fun, too.

Re:America's Army

[smclean]

I disagree. Anyone knows where a 203 (grenade launcher) can and cannot get to, and after playing for 5 minutes you should be smart enough to realize how to go about keeping out of a 203's reach. This is realism. Writing off AA as a grenade fest is like writing off quake as a rocket fest.

Also, I don't know any situations in which the maps you can play is restricted by your honor rating. Unofficial servers should give no bearing to honor at all, and people who do not like the honor concept can bypass it completely.

I agree with you that it sucks that idiot team mates can easily reduce your honor by running into your grenades because they do not pay attention, etc. This has certainly happened enough times to me, but in the end it is a rare enough event that I do not hate the game for it. Chock it up to realism, in real life you might want to anticipate that your team mates may be confused or just plain dumb, so throw your grenades far enough away that they won't injure themselves.

The biggest qualm I have with AA is the annoyance of the training missions. I just want to get my friends on the internet to play me... NOW. I don't want to go to people and say, I found this great game called America's Army, why don't you spend 3 hours tonight passing all the training, then sometime tomorrow night we'll play. It just isn't enticing when I try to sell it to friends and coworkers.

Otherwise, I love AA, more than counterstrike or quake. When on a good, communicative, cooperative team, facing creative opponents, the game is extremely enjoyable.

Re:America's Army

[randyest]

Easier to play than AA (and much better, IMHO) is Battlefield 1942, particularly the free Desert Combat modern warfare mod you can download for it.

There are very few (useful) cheats, and the latest 1.6 patch includes PunkBuster and that's almost eliminated all traces of cheating. Even before PunkBuster, cheats were pretty rare, especially if you play on "pure" servers (which is most of them).

Not unlike the awesome old Team Fortress, BF1942 has a variety of classes you can play (assault, anti-armor, medic, engineer, scout, etc.) so there's a spot on the team for everyone, even those without the experience or trigger-happy twitch fingers.

And, very much unlike all other FPS games, there are vehicles. Planes, tanks, battleships, humvees, helicopters, motorcycles, artillery, etc. This, to me, add so much to the genre that I have trouble playing other FPSs without getting bored quickly. Vehicles can also be a good equalizer -- no matter how twitch fast that enemy is, if you're in a tank, and he's on foot, he's toast.

As an added bonus, you can find 64-man games pretty easily, which makes it even easier to get along without a lot of expertise. You can play a support role (engineer, medic) effectively with little practice, and so you'll be able to help your team win even while learning your skills.

You can pick up a copy in the stores for about $35-40, or online for $20 or less. There are two "offical" addons: Rode To Rome ($15) and Secret Weapons ($20), but neither are required to play. And, if you gravitate toward the DC mod (as most have, based on recent server stats), the add-ons are totally useless.

Oh, and the number one most important thing you need to work on to be good at FPS games is your config. That is, how you assign your player functions to your mouse and keyboard keys (please resist any temptation you may have to not use your mouse for looking around). Think about this carefully before you just slop something together. Otherwise you'll get used to a bad config and have trouble switching from it later when you realize that you need to be able to do action A and B together a lot, but you've got them both assigned to keys that use the same finger.

Re:America's Army

[doorbot.com]

America's Army is a grenade fest. The only thing to do is launch nades.

Learn to snipe with the M16. Mountain Pass is a lot of fun when you can snipe with the M16, well out of range of grenades. Also, learning how to move and how not to be seen will keep you from getting tagged by a grenade. Learn to listen for grenades and cook off the ones you throw.

And here's a quick guide I wrote on defending the Weapons Cache map... it contains some suggestions that you might find useful for other maps.

But other posters are right... AA has a steep learning curve; if you give it time you'll find it very rewarding.

Re:America's Army

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't be further from the truth about. You obviously have not played much. Only newbies who suck get a lot of ROE from nades. I got a good deal of ROE early on. The game is *supposed* to be realistic - meaning that you can't just act like a irresponsible dumbass and throw grenades at anything that moves.

The fact that you only need to complete some trivial training and go up 5 levels for access to all maps, guarantees that you have little to no experience with the game.

Re:America's Army

[Chuck Bucket]

nice sig, the mantra for my site is "if you can't be nice, at least be vague" http://lefttochance.com/

regards
CB

Re:America's Army

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha Ha!

Look at your responses. Everyone's just pointed out you are crap!

Re:America's Army

[Desprez]

As others have said, I agree that AA is not a good choice for a casual gamer. Especialy considering that there is no way to really practice on your own, aside from exploring the maps, and even that takes the use of cheat codes that are immediately apparent. Also, I have found that the players on AA are one of the rudest crowds in FPS. Which I find somewhat strange. I expectd AA to have a more mature, serious gamer considering the high realism nature of the game. I'll play Ghost Recon anytime, I'm not sure I'll go back to AA.

Re:America's Army

[74nova]

as much as i love it, quake is a rocket fest. you can be a reasonably better but if you have any other weapon, you will lose against the rocket. sure, some people are pretty good with other weapons, but the rocket rules 99% of the time. i dont have a problem with this at all, however.

that being said, i agree with everything else you said about AA. the realism is nice, but its nice to just be able to jump right into a game like enemy territory(which, for those not in the know is for linux as well)

Re:America's Army

[abolith]

The best map by far is JRTC Farm raid. lots of sneeking and lots of heavy firefights, and if your smart when assaulting grenades don't do much, and Defense doesn't worry about grenades anyways.

Re:America's Army

[Giggles Of Doom]

...and how not to be seen...

Ah, he was behind the middle bush.

Re:America's Army

[FictionPimp]

Dont forget, unlike real life, when you hear a pin pop, rush them and shot them down. This works well on indoor maps. When they die, the cooked gernade, if not throw wont explode :-)

Re:America's Army

[TopShelf]

The biggest qualm I have with AA is the annoyance of the training missions. I just want to get my friends on the internet to play me... NOW.

Considering the price of the game (FREE!), I think that's a pretty minor annoyance. Besides, there is a payoff in finally passing that marksmanship exam so you can get that sniper rifle...

Re:America's Army

[cb8100]

Battlefield 1942 is a *great* multiplayer game, but I think it might go a little fast for a "newbie." Also, I've found --through my experience-- that there are a *lot* of campers and rapers on some of the BF1942 servers.

I'd highly recommend America's Army since it's free, it's fun, and it's multiplatform. It's also easy to find a server with other relative "newbies" since the developers created "high honor" servers quite some time ago (these servers restrict play to "good" players).

Re:America's Army

[Golias]

Back in my Quake days I could let just about anybody have all the rockets they wanted, and still gib them six ways from Sunday with other weapons. They might get the occational "splash damage" kill on me if I step too close to a wall at the wrong moment, of fail to "rocket jump" off their shot, but at the end of the level, it would be my name at the top of the screen, not theirs.

A team-mate of mine would frequently kill rocket-weilder's with the crowbar just to prove he could. Rockets were great, but they can be avoided if you know what you are doing. People who complained about rockets in Quake I are whiners.

I'm with you on liking the old rockets. I don't think I've ever enjoyed an FPS deathmatch more than the original low-gravity level on quake. (By the way, in big low-G maps, other weapons were much more effective than the rockets, unless your opponent was foolish enough to keep his feet on the ground the whole time. Hitting an airborne moving target with the rocket launcher, while you are also airborne and moving, was both very tricky and very fun.)

In answer to the poster's original question: It doesn't matter what FPS you start with. You will feel like a total "n00b" for a while. Even with a brand-new game, you'll find yourself on servers populated entirely by the original beta testers, all sitting on the local networks of their ISP office and taking full advatage of the DS3 drop. Even when that's not the case, somebody who's mastered one mouse-based 360-degree FPS is going to be pretty good at all of them, so they will always have a leg up on you until you've played a little more. Just get in there, get killed, have fun, and you'll learn. Ignore your scores while you practice your strafing techniques and get the hang of aiming on the run. Soon you'll be spraying death everywhere with the rest of us.

Re:America's Army

[lightningrod220]

Medal of Honor: Spearhead Much better game. Same genre, though. It lets you sort out the servers, then find one you like and keep a favorite. It's very addictive, doesn't take a lot of power, and is quick and easy, with a lighter learning curve than most games. Personally, I love it. Try it and see what you think.

Re:America's Army

[smokin_juan]

Does AA have voice comm, ala counterstrike? i hate typing.

Re:America's Army

[Blakey Rat]

I'm guessing you never played Tribes. Alas, the game was killed by Tribes 2's release and subsequent sucking of ass, but it had pretty much all that stuff almost a decade ago.

Not to dis Battlefield 1942 any; I don't play it myself, I'm just saying that classes and vehicles in an FPS game isn't rare by any means.

(As a note, what's with all these uber-realistic games? I want to play fantasy fighting games like Unreal or Tribes! Do you know how un-fun Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is when someone playing makes a crack like "you killed him like a concentration camp jew!" And yes, I've seen that more than once.)

Re:America's Army

[74nova]

i never played any of the mods, really. i played fvf, which was awesome, but it had like 8 completely new characters each with new weapons. every time i used to play the original quake, rockets pretty much ruled. i did like the nailgun, tho, that was good fun.

Just get in there, get killed, have fun, and you'll learn. Ignore your scores while you practice

you said it. thats they key, just get in there and let er rip. one tip to original poster: no matter how temping it is, do not become one of the "jumpers." it just looks ridiculous. thats a joke, son, laugh.

Re:America's Army

[smclean]

Agreed. And yes, I enjoyed the training missions too, except perhaps the 'test' type missions. The weapons training and obstacle course and stuff was actually useful, I like when games have that kind of stuff.

It's just that they have been a continued inconvenience when trying to play LAN games of AA at work :)

Re:America's Army

[grub]

"Isn't it interesting how you can make anything sound omnious just by adding "of Doom" to the end?"

"Shut the Fuck Up of Doom".. by gum, you're right!

Re:America's Army

[Lurgen]

I'd have to agree with this one... Counterstrike, while definitely the best game in the genre is flooded with dumb-ass kids who cheat. Never much fun, playing a game properly only to be sniped through a wall by some kiddie.

I switched to BF1942 and loved it. It's better on a LAN, simply because you have a better chance of getting a balanced game out of it but once you get the hang of things it's almost as good as CS.

The variety is probably the most impressive part of Desert Combat - I occassionally play with a bunch of friends, and we inevitably separate into our chosen areas of expertise. No sniper-whores, simply because there are many good alternatives.

One criteria for picking a decent FPS online these days though is PunkBuster. Not that it's fool-proof, but at least it weeds out a few of the cheats.

Re:America's Army

[randyest]

I played Tribes, and liked it for (1) big maps and (2) vehicles. I disliked it for everything else (boring sparse maps, bad netcode, jumpy prediction, mediocre graphics, lack of mods). I even witnessed the suckathon that was Tribes2, for a short while. While Tribes1/2 certainly included vehicles, the variety (a few sizes of the same personnel-carrier in Tribes vs BF's battleships, carriers, tanks, jeeps, planes, artillery, submarines, . . . ) and number of variatons (4-5 in Tribes vs. 32+ in BF) really didn't make vehicles as integral to the gameplay of Tribes as they do in BF. Nor were they particularly "cool" or "fun" vehicles that one might tweak one's skill with in order to become an awe-inspiring expert at the controls. They were utilitatian and plain. IMHO.

Now, in the Really Has Vehicles list I also know about: Codename Eagle and HALO. (Many omitted because vehicles must be (1) freely driveable and (2) armed.)

And for the record, these are the upcoming titles that I believe plan to include vehicles: Unreal2k4, HalfLife2.

So, unless you know of more, compared to the hundreds of FPS games out there, I'd say true vehicle support is very rare.

Re:America's Army

[mrjohnson]

Yeah, I too love Farm. But it sucks when the d runs around the back of the map and takes your team from behind. That's the nice thing about FLS, a bunch of e stuck in little boxes to shoot at. A lot of really good players camp on Farm's d and assault is usually mostly ~12 honor guys.

Still, I almost always play assault because it's more difficult. With a little training the newbies can do alright if they follow orders. Of course, then they'll think you're cheating because you just one a match against a much more highly rated d. :-)

Re:America's Army

[prockcore]

Mountain Pass is a lot of fun when you can snipe with the M16, well out of range of grenades. Also, learning how to move and how not to be seen will keep you from getting tagged by a grenade.

Mountain Pass epitomizes everything I love about America's Army.

It's the only FPS I've found where you don't run in with guns blazing. The idiot who runs around bunny hopping like he was playing quake is going to be the first to die. Slow and tactical wins the match. Being careful to stay hidden, making sure you don't sillouette yourself at the top of a hill, it makes AA stand out from all the other FPSes I've played.

Mountain Pass is down right scary. "Am I exposed? Can the enemy see me? Is the enemy sneaking up behnd me? Where the hell is everyone?" Then *blam* you get hit from god-knows where... and in limbo a teammate says "He was on CP". Man what a rush.

Re:America's Army

[prockcore]

Does AA have voice comm, ala counterstrike? i hate typing.

You mean like Teamspeak? Or do you mean like quickchat? AA has both. Hit G and you can pick from a number of quick voice commands like "Enemy Spotted" etc.

Re:America's Army

[ZipR]

...not to mention a great recruiting tool for the U.S. Army, which is kinda creepy if you ask me.

Re:America's Army

[NoxiousB]

I totally agree with everything this guy has said. I had a 56k up untill a few months ago, then I got DSL, I wasnt very good at the whole online gaming thing, so I got Medal of Honor Allied Assault and that was a good starter, then I went to Battlefield 1942, and now with Punkbuster support, its everything a geek could dream of.

Re:America's Army

[Anonymous Coward]

If you see a "jumper" in just about any FPS, aim high with the fire weapons.

There are few things more entertaining than watching somebody leap right into your shot and end up with his hair on fire. :)

Re:America's Army

[MrAngryForNoReason]

If you are into the rush of not knowing where the enemy are or where the next shot might come from, you should check out Vietcong. Single player is a bit of a dissapointment but multiplayer is incredibly tense.

You sneak through the jungle being as quiet as possible, making sure you stay in cover, going from tree to tree bush to bush. You don't hear anything, wonder where everyone is, then suddenly you come out from behind a bush and are literally face to face with an enemy. Its that split second rush where you both just crap yourselves and start firing. This of course pushes everyone else over the edge and suddenly the jungle just erupts with gunfire.

It has the same problems as other games with griefers and people who don't take it seriously but if you get on a good server it can be very tactical.

Re:America's Army

[snero3]

The biggest qualm I have with AA is the annoyance of the training missions. I just want to get my friends on the internet to play me... NOW. I don't want to go to people and say, I found this great game called America's Army, why don't you spend 3 hours tonight passing all the training, then sometime tomorrow night we'll play. It just isn't enticing when I try to sell it to friends and coworkers.

I find this feature quite good and useful. I feel that it adds to the game rather than detracts from it. I have found that you get better players when they have had to earn their stripes IE had to play and won enough games to be Special forces, passed certain accuracy rating to train to be a sniper etc.. I think that the worst thing in any online game is when a newbie jumps on a big weapon and wipes out half his team because he doesn't know what he is doing (I speak from experience on both sides of the fence)

if you want to sell the game to your mates, run and home server and turn the honour requirements on, better yet run it at work :)

Re:America's Army

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck it! It's a fascist game!

Re:America's Army

[randyest]

Well, "fast" was sort of in the spec (hop in, play 30 min, log out), unless you mean fast gameplay (which is really common only on airplane-heavy maps in my experience). AA doesn't really work well as a "fast" games in either sense.

I think BF1942 has one of the smallest gaps between best/worst players of all FPS games I've played, probably because the vehicles are good equalizers, and no class or firearm is excessively powerful or abusable -- the all-too-commonly-annoying sniper is pretty well nerfed). This makes it a good n00b game and very easy to get started in.

AA, on the other hand, has a built-in entry barrier (training mission and honor-building stuff that does less to improve your skills than it does to hassle you and delay your fun). And the gap between best and worst players, although somewhat mitigated by the high-honor servers, is huge.

There are also very few hard-to-learn "tricks" in BF1942 that advanced players can use to taunt and bewilder n00bs. Not that there are such tricks in AA (unless you count learning to sit really still for a long time and move very slowly, which was indeed hard for me to master), but there are in most FPS games (rocket jumping, conc jumping, wall walking, speed-hopping, etc.)

Re:America's Army

[Snookmz]

there's no crowbar in quake, uncle fucker!

Re:America's Army

[SQLz]

Now thats the best idea for multiplayer I've seen in a long time. That way all the morons stay on the beginner maps and the serious players are not bothered.

Re:America's Army

[bioshazard]

I could not make myself like this game. The training was long and tedious, but it was marginally interesting. What I really hated was the lack of single-player missions, so you could at least have some chance of figuring out what you were doing BEFORE going out and getting blown up or sniped in 5 secs. or less.

All FPS online games are pretty much dominated by people who have WAY too much free time, in my opinion. I can't get into any of them, because I never feel like I'm making any progress at all. Personally, I've had the best luck with Unreal Tournament.

Re:America's Army

[Anonymous Coward]

there is in some mods, and there's no need to be rude.

Re:America's Army

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with a crack like that? It's history man - it happened. Why is it OK to joke about any other massacre in history - but not the Holocaust? Man, more Russians died in WWII than any other group... The Japanese practiced ritual extermination of Chinese non-combattants.

History happened, people died and that sucked - but not allowing people to joke about it doesn't make it go away. Grow some skin or get out of the multi-player world...

Re:America's Army

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new here.

Re:America's Army

[Jondo]

I was always one with the railgun in Quake II. Instagib railgun with ninja rope is still by far the most FPS fun I have ever had in any game.

Re:America's Army

[Sparr0]

And said payoff is nowhere near enough to cover the dozens of attempts it takes. If you made it in less, consider yourself lucky. The rifle used in that test is not accurate enough to hit 90% of the targets. Play it out a hundred times, a perfect marksman (perfect aim) wont get 36/40 even 20 times (out of the 100 attempts)

Re:America's Army

[BuckaBooBob]

some FPS's need better voting systems to boot and ban players so when you start a newbie game and a "Pro" enters (There are too many freaking idiots out there that get kicks from entering a newbie game and Nuking them into quitting the game) a vote can be cast to boot a player from the game.. Of course if too many "idiots" are in the game to use the voting to boot them off its a good sign to just start another game with thier IP's on ban.. eventually you will have a game where you can play in a somewhat competitive atmosphere.

I think WCIII player matching to some degree reached many goals to match player abilities somewhat evenly... But I haven't seen thier thinking passed onto the FPS gaming arena.

Re:America's Army

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, it's not that hard. I did it in 2 tries. Maybe you just suck.

Re:America's Army

[epidemic99]

It is cool that there is a full version of a game that looks good for free, the bad news is that it is financed by us, as in the US Army. Yet another good use of yours and mine tax dollars. ;-)

Re:America's Army

[Slime-dogg]

You take rockets, I'll take the rail gun, and you won't live long.

Rockets are slow and easy to avoid. Rails are a little harder to aim, but do much more damage, and are near instantaneous. If I stayed on a jump pad, for instance, you would have a really hard time hittimg me with a rocket, while I'd blast your ass with a rail.

Re:America's Army

[bigman2003]

I don't know...

People like that are why I am glad I live in the U.S.

We can have fun, without pretense.

Re:America's Army

[operagost]

That's only true with the original Quake. The rocket was too powerful. In Quake 3, precision with the rail gun is more valuable, and I think the plasma and lightning gun are best at close range.

Re:America's Army

[74nova]

ill take your word for it, i never played 2 or 3. i was referring to unmodded quake 1. sure, the map matters. i mean, with the rocket laucher in the level with the lava in the middle(the end of the first part) you could pick off people as they spawned and the halways were so tight that blast off the walls did all the damag you needed. however, in close quartered levels, the plasma gun was deadly, especially with a few folks in teh room

Re:America's Army

[benjaminchoate]

Vehicles can also be a good equalizer -- no matter how twitch fast that enemy is, if you're in a tank, and he's on foot, he's toast.

Not quite true. Indeed the tank has a great advantage, but I have taken out more tanks than I can recall with det-packs/C4 or even with just the bazooka and good dodging/hiding skills.

Re:America's Army

[Cruciform]

Video games are played worldwide.
Which disgusting country do you live in?

Re:America's Army

[GooberToo]

There are a ton of cheaters on AA!! I'm an avid AA player and cheaters are rather common. Some days, it's hard to find a server that doesn't have at least one cheater on it. Other days, people that are not using cheats, are in the minority.

AA makes use of Punk Buster. While PB is better than nothing, it's only as good as it's latest update. If I create a new cheat-hack for AA tomorrow, it may take a month of more for the PB guys to get it, probe it, and write a PB detection signature for it. At which time, I'm free to start the hack again.

Worse, there are some clans, where the whole clan cheats! If you complain about being headshot through a wall, where they couldn't even see you, expect to get booted, whereby, you may lose honor points. If you get an admin, expect the whole clan to lie about them cheating and claim that YOU were kicked for cheating. They will then nicely ask to have you banned. As such, many people just take cheating with a grin, and bare it.

In short, cheaters are a common annoyance on AA.

For the life of me, I honestly can't grasp the depths of loser-dom, that one has have, to be a cheater on a FPS game. But, there sure doesn't seem to be a shortage of them. Seriously, how small does your ego have to be? How pathetic do you have to be in the real world where cheating in an imaginary world is your only escape. While they often get the last laugh in the game, I have no doubt that life gets the last laugh at them, all the time. What losers!

Re:America's Army

[Mir322]

"Also, I don't know any situations in which the maps you can play is restricted by your honor rating."
The official SF pipeline. Only for SF qualified players / which is to say, Honor 15 and up as opposed to the regular 10pt new player rating. You might also count the official "Elite" 25 honor and greater servers.
---

Re:America's Army

[MasterSLATE]

Vietcong also came out with an expansion pack recently which adds a few new maps and I think a few new weapons, making this game even better... Plus, the coop mode in multiplayer is fun to play..

Re:America's Army

[mo^]

Shame you all act like fucking retards when some scrawny tart shows her tit on TV though isnt it.

Re:America's Army

[Mr Europe]

Actually the launcher is himself the idiot if he shoots granades to buildings before finding out if theres any own forces ! In AA it is simple to use 20 seconds to write a message to the own team and ask if any body is "in the heliroom". Even faster is to press the quick key for message "Report your position" and wait mates to press the hot key to send messages such as "Reporting in Garage Door".
I have never experienced "honor going down" as You say. It goes down when you kill friends.
Compare the game to the reality.

Re:America's Army

[Anonymous Coward]

OK and how about a game that isn't a recruiting mechanism for Bush's war machine? Grrrr.

Re:America's Army

[Anonymous Coward]

" team-mate of mine would frequently kill rocket-weilder's with the crowbar just to prove he could"

there's no crowbar in Quake... credibility out the door!

Re:America's Army

[evil crash]

Quake had a crowbar? You must be thinking of Half-Life.....

Re:America's Army

[Chiron Taltos]

For instance, if you launch a grenade into a room and your idiot team mates all run in and die you lose honor and can't play the better maps.

Maybe you shouldn't be launching a grenade into a room your "idiot" teammates are planning to overrun. I've played AA, and it shows you where your teammates are, plus you have squad-only communication. Sounds like you're not a team-player.

Re:America's Army

[Golias]

You are correct... and for the life of me I can't recall the hand weapon from the original Quake. I recall the Medic in the original Quake Team Fortress mod hand kind of an axe-like thing... Was it a knife? I guess it's true when they say the memory is the first thing to go when you get older.

Re:America's Army

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, television represents the beliefs of a whole nation of people. I'm so glad somebody outside sees that!

Re:America's Army

[Chiron Taltos]

artillery

I was at a Christmas Party and having a dull time. Then I found the game room and the couples' kid was playing Battlefield 1942. He set me up and it was okay. I was on one of the Pacific Theatre maps, and I come upon an artillery emplacement overlooking the beaches. I asked him if it was decoration, and he said no, it was usable. So I climbed into it and started aiming and firing at the landing craft below. The kid is telling me how it's not much fun because you can't kill anyone with artillery. It's too difficult to hit anything, etc. ... just then I get the range of this piece and ... *boom* ... I nailed one of the landing craft and scored three kills.

The kid couldn't believe it, and I was having the time of my life. By the time the allies figured out where the "raining death" was coming from, and offed me with a bomb from one of their airplanes, I had killed about 24 players before they ever had a chance to hit the beach. The kid gained a new found respect for artillery.

Yeah, I like this game a whole lot!

Re:America's Army

[Xeo2]

Some of us enjoy our "missle super guns". It's a freakin computer game, it's not supposed to be realistic. And it's not like America's Army is any better. You can still take 4 bullets to the chest and run on like nothing happened...

Re:America's Army

[Anonymous Coward]

I have NVidia TI4200, with NVidia's proprietary driver. AA refuses to run, claiming certain X extensions are missing.

Re:America's Army

[Somnambulator]

what you all forget about AAo is that 1) it's ran by the army (price is their biggest concern) and 2) b/c of #1, they contracted SCI (worst host ever). maybe if 90% of players didnt have 50% packet loss and 300 ping, and if auth servers werent down 10% of ALL THE TIME, then MAYBE it would be a decent game. these reasons, however, make any serious gamer shy away and not look back. viva la HomeLAN

Re:America's Army

[Cybrr]

Quake had an axe. Popular mods included a morning star/grappling hook.

Re:America's Army

[zedmelon]

Completely ignoring the potential for political uproar of this (also ignoring the existence of BF1942, SoF, and Counterstrike-less obvious others), I would say it's only a concern if you are so drawn into the action by the gameplay that you find yourself saying, "Hey! I could probably do this in real life too! Why don't I sign up?"

Please be sure to note that compared to the game, you'll likely get

• a far less-glamorous position,
• far less appreciation for acts of heroism,
• far fewer chances to "respawn."

Re:America's Army

[Sigma 7]

you can be a reasonably better but if you have any other weapon, you will lose against the rocket

A skilled player using the grenade launcher is more powerful than a skilled player using the Rocket Launhcer. Those who have checked the QuakeC source code can see that the cooldown time for the GL is 0.2 seconds shorter than the Rocket. In addition, the GL always does 120 direct hit and radius damage as opposed to the 100+1d20 performed by the RL.

It's also why "Grenade spamming" is considered annoying in that game, even though it is only a short range weapon.

Re:America's Army

[Sigma 7]

I think WCIII player matching to some degree reached many goals to match player abilities somewhat evenly... But I haven't seen thier thinking passed onto the FPS gaming arena.

Actually, it has - Check out Descent 2, Descent: Freespace.

These two games assign a ranking to the player which gradually increases as you complete multiplayer games. It is generally based around the number of kills you make, with a few other factors.

The rankings are only really enforced with PXO - with regular internet servers, it's possible to spoof your ranking to make it look higher or lower than it really is.

If you cheat, your ranking goes up but you may find that you can get detected much more easily and get banned as a result. And since you're high rank, you can't join the newbie servers.

Re:America's Army

[Havokmon]

America's Army is free i just downloaded it :)

I agree, excellent game. I was always a big fan of Descent.
After I decided to download AA, I left CompUSA, and said to myself, "WTF? I just bought a mouse to play a game on my Mac?"

Oh how times have changed.

Savage

[SuperQ]

I've been playing Savage a bunch recently, it's a great combo FPS, and RTS.. I saw it at Best Buy for $20, and after playing the demo.. what a deal. (the demo is a bit bugy, but fun, the retail version update 2.0 fixes all the previous bugs)

info: http://www.s2games.com

Re:Savage

[SuperQ]

I forgot to mention, it's got Windows and Linux binaries.

Re:Savage

[SuperQ]

Nah.. there are a bunch of demo servers with lots of newbs on them.. and the game isn't very complicated.. except for being the team commander, which takes a bit of trial/error to learn.

Re:Savage

[13Echo]

Definately! Savage is the must-have game of late 2003 - early 2004. The demo does not do it justice. I purchased my copy online, from iGames, for Linux, and I've been hooked ever since.

Savage is definately one of the best PC games that I've played for years. Give the demo a try, but don't judge it too hard. The demo is buggy, but the 2.00 version of the official game is fantastic and has a ton of extras.

I can't wait for S2's next game. I hope that a Linux game is in the future as well.

Re:Savage

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe there is also a Mac client.

Re:Savage

[Slothy]

There are no keygens for Savage, because when I generated the CD Keys for it I did not do it algorithmically. All of the valid keys are kept on the server, which is where the cd key check happens (not locally).

Jon (Slothy)
Ex-employee, S2 Games

Re:Savage

[IgD]

I want to echo this. Savage is a really awesome game. I used to play Command and Conquer back in the day. This game is like C&C and Battlefield 1942 combined.

Re:Savage

[parkanoid]

Don't forget to check out the original, Natural Selection, a Half-Life mod. I'm not sure if Savage is based directly on NS, but NS has been out for quite some time and has matured in many aspects. NS can be a lot less demanding in terms of pure twitch than Quake/HL, depending on the version you play, and has a focus on teamwork. I haven't have time to play 3.0 yet, but it should still be good.

Re:Savage

[Slothy]

No, Savage is completely separate from NS. Savage was already under development when NS was announced. If you want to really look for prior art, you should look at Allegiance or some of the others that predate Allegiance.

Jon (Slothy)
Ex-employee, S2 Games

Re:Savage

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Jon you big slothy monkey. Adam here :) Also EX employee at S2games :)

Re:Savage

[OzRoy]

Ex-Employee??? What happened?

Re:Savage

[Slothy]

After we shipped Savage, I stuck around and worked on major parts of the 2.0 patch, and then left to come work for Namco. I'm now working on a console game at Namco, and it's great (S2 was great, and so is Namco).

Jon (Slothy)

Re:Savage

[Pxtl]

For a similar game, but with only one human player per army, play the Battlezone games. Oldies but goodies. Also, because they're hover vehicles and not humans, the action is slow enough for FPS n00bs to stand a chance.

Re:Savage

[Sigma 7]

For a similar game, but with only one human player per army, play the Battlezone games.

Battlezone II has fixed this for sure - up to four players are allowed on one team, although there are still a few bugs in the interface (e.g. regular unit appearing in the same command slot as a human player.)

Re:Savage

[OzRoy]

Thats a shame.

We have been in contact with Rob from iGames trying to promote Savage as much as possible here in Australia. Although it has been difficult as the game hasn't been released in the stores yet.

http://www.ozforcesforums.com/forumdisplay.php?s =& forumid=1609

Good luck with your new job. And keep us in mind when your next game is released :)

RtCWeT

[Lumpy]

Return to Castle Wolfenstine Enemy Territory...

excellent game that REQUIRES team play and has lots of friendly people if you are interested in actually being a team member...

I'ts one of the very few I play on a regular basis..

Re:RtCWeT

[FortKnox]

Umm... he's a newbie to FPS.

Enemy Territory would be waaay too much for him. He needs to learn the basics of a standard fps before you add the complexities of teamplay and working on attacking/defending checkpoints.

Re:RtCWeT

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a heirarchy of difficulty for a given game.

1) The hardest servers will be fully patched to the newest version.

2) Much easier servers are servers that were never patched. Many noobs here, young kids, etc that didn't play enough to want to patch, or don't know that a patch exists.

3) Easier still is the demo version. Almost entirely newbs here, everyone at all serious layed out the $40 long ago.

So, using Return to Castle Wolfenstien as an example,

- The 1.4 servers are tough. Clans live here.
- The 1.33 servers are much easier
- The Wolf MP test beta is easier still.

BTW Wolf has punkbuster. Just because someone gets constant headshots does not mean they are cheating. I can regularly dominate a match, but I also routinely get owned by peole who are simply phenominal.

Re:RtCWeT

[Chip7]

Also, RTCW:ET uses punkbuster. It doesn't catch all cheats but does a decent job keeping the game fair.

Re:RtCWeT

[JuliusRV]

Yes! It's fun, it's free (as in beer) and you can play it under Linux!
But be prepared to get addicted... after a few days, your vocabulary will be reduced to the messages of the quickchat, as happened to the people in the video on this page (hilarious, a must see!):

http://www.et.gamesunited.de/files.html

Re:RtCWeT

[NutscrapeSucks]

I love RTCW:ET, but I wouldn't recommend it for the casual player.

The maps are very large and there's a complex set of objectives which have to be accomplished. Basically, you have to know where to be and where to go or else you are largely going to be useless.

I tried it with some friends of mine -- while in standard RTCW you could just bumrush the Map Room or whatever, these guys never really got the hang of ET and were always wandering around the wrong side of the map.

The good thing about the games is that if you aren't the best FPS shooter, you can be a Medic or Engineer and just play defense.

Re:RtCWeT

[Gyorg_Lavode]

TtCW:ET has another steep learning curve, (much like AA:Ops). You have to know the game, objectives and missions, and teamwork on top of knowing the weapons, how to move around, avoid fire, etc, (the general FPS stuff).

Re:RtCWeT

[Akki]

Seconded. ET was the first multiplayer FPS I ever got into. It was absolutely confusing at first, but once I stepped back and ran through the maps locally to figure out what the hell was going on, I loved it. You really get a sense of accomplishment from team-based FPSs that deathmatching can't get you. And ET is a wonderful team-based FPS. When you're new, the people on your side can take up your slack a little and you can learn from watching them. Strategy and tactics are very important. I'm still discovering new tactics eight months after starting. I'm even to the point now where I carefully calibrate my mouse, spend way to much time tweaking graphics settings, and set my FPS to 125 so I can strafe-jump just that little bit farther.

Re:RtCWeT

[ill_mango]

I agree. Great game, and some of the roles (i.e. medic, engineer) are easy to pick up and let you get a good amount of points andhave some fun.

Re:RtCWeT

[fadethepolice]

WOOHOO Enemy Territory BABY YEAHHHHHHH!!!!!! need a medic ;-) try the beginner's park server or SuperWOLF ohio and remember, it's FUN to be destroyed by an airstrike

Re:RtCWeT

[Anonymous Coward]

Seconded, RTCW ET is free and fun. Unskilled players can be very helpful by playing as medic or engineer. It takes a while to learn the classes system but thats an extremely short while compared to learning how to get 60% accuracy in CS.

Besides, it runs under Linux admirably, and runs like nothing else under kernel 2.6 with the updated nvidia drivers...

Re:RtCWeT

[lactose_incarnate]

I just a got a computer good enough for gaming last year, and my first online FPS was ET. Yeah, it did take a little while to get the hang of objectives, but it's not really that bad. If you don't know what to do on a map, you can just pick up a Panzer or go Medic until you get the gist of it. I think it's a pretty good starting point (especially since it's free).

Re:RtCWeT

[NutscrapeSucks]

It's also a personal frustration of mine -- I hate joining a random server and having half my teammates being useless n00bs who are making no attempt to complete (or even learn) the objectives. It is a kick-ass game, so if you are willing to put some time into it, go for it.

Also, if you are new to ET, don't bother being a sniper or stealing people's pants. Most of the time, that's really no help at all.

Re:RtCWeT

[74nova]

you know, i played that for the first time the other day and was in awe at the quality i got for free. beautiful maps, relatively smooth graphics, and pretty nice gameplay. the objectives and style of play involving teamplay are great.

however, i found that a lot of people dont tolerate noobs. i hit a couple of mines in a game and they almost voted me out. pissed me off that i had been playing 15 minutes and they just coudlnt stand somebody new playing.

without a doubt ill play again, however.

Re:RtCWeT

[tunah]

If anyone's confused, the parent is talking about Return to Castle Wolfenstein, not Wolfenstein Enemy Terrirory, for which the current version is 1.01 IIRC.

Re:RtCWeT

[Anonymous Coward]

V51!

Re:RtCWeT

[Anonymous Coward]

RTCW ET is a great game! For the person above who mentioned the complex objectives and being a medic or engineer - the best way I have found to learn the maps and different player types is to start a server on your own machine that only allows you to be in it so you can explore the maps and figure out the objectives ahead of time. Then when you understand what to do go ahead and get on-line.

Re:RtCWeT

[Anonymous Coward]

Most likely they almost voted you out if you filed a complaint against them for stepping on a land mine.... Most people in the game get upset if complaints are filed and they lose XP when it wasn't their fault you were killed.

Re:RtCWeT

[74nova]

i did that once, but i was pretty sure it wasnt my fault(it didnt involve the afore-mentinoed mines). i hadnt thought of that tho, i bet new people do that all the time. they see "team kill" because they stepped on the mine and report it

Re:RtCWeT

[Anonymous Coward]

Some engineers had probably spent a lot of time placing those mines and and got pissed that you fucked up the defenses.

Stepping on the occassional mine happens, but there does seem to be some newbies who just run over all the little flags without working out how to go around them.

Re:RtCWeT

[grolschie]

I usually dismiss a complain if I get killed by team member. Third time, they get a complaint. But if it happens again and again, I vote them off.

If you are new to ET, float around in spectator mode to see what the teams are up to. Spectate a few map and learn. There are only 6 maps in the standard download.

Re:RtCWeT

[Exiler]

Unless that pair of pants stealing helps you beat the Fuel Dump defense in under 2 minutes?

Re:RtCWeT

[CmdrGravy]

I've just started playing ET and think it's great. Generally I am pretty crap at on-line FPS and end constantly being killed by people I never see.

However with ET if you start out as a medic you can hang around at the back, automatically heal yourself and get the hang of what's going on around you.

All the maps are fantastic, the objectives mean everyone has to work together for victory and with evenly matched teams the game can go right to the wire before someone wins.

Also the punkbuster thing does seem to ensure fair play and the other players are mostly pretty cool towards new players and will tell you what you need to be doing with the minimum of "f*ckin lamer noob" comments.

I'd definatley recommend ET to get started with, the Fuel Dump map is fantastic.

Re:RtCWeT

[s0l0m0n]

Noobs are ok, as long as both teams are balanced. When the teams are unbalanced, and the decent part of your team is stats whoring as a feild ops or panzer, it does kinda suck.

Covert is one of the most fun classes in the game, but it does take more practice. I really wish that more noobs would spend thier first month playing an engineer instead of a covert with a sniper riffle. You really only need one covert on most maps. It's a bummer when you need a covert and all 5 of them are too busy trying to be an elite sniper to steal the pants and open the door for you to finish the objective.

Xp whoring sucks, too.

jones

Re:RtCWeT

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, you can do pretty well on attack as an engineer.
I almost always play as one and often get 'Highest Fragger,' without compromising game goals, of course.

The rifle grenade is my bestest friend.

Re:RtCWeT

[NutscrapeSucks]

Nah, I'm not against anyone trying to win -- only the guys that take uniforms and then spaz out 30 seconds later and loose them -- or run right back towards your team and die in a hail of friendly fire.

I have noticed that even the Coverts that know what they are doing rarely spot mines though.

Re:RtCWeT

[mark_space2001]

Please add another vote for Enemy Territory. Darn fun, mostly cheat free and lots of servers to play on.

I have a wiki page on how to start, but the quicky version is to use spectator mode to observe what's going on. Watch what both sides so you can learn WHY they do those things.

(Spectator mode: Log on, make sure the default SPECTATOR is highlighed by default, and click ok. Use WSAD to fly around.)

Then just jump in and play. Find someone at your spawn and follow them around to learn the map, and shoot the bad guys when they pop up.

Soon you'll be noticing tricks and things that people do, and you'll start to figure out how to couter them and play like a pro.

Re:RtCWeT

[mordicus]

The good thing about the games is that if you aren't the best FPS shooter, you can be a Medic or Engineer and just play defense.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Even though the maps in Enemy Territory tend to be largish and without knowledge of a map's quirks and understanding the objectives you might end up wandering around waiting for someone to snipe you, a very good way of getting the hang of things is playing a medic.

Just hang back, follow the ones that seem to know what they're doing, avoid fire and keep your syringe ready.

Once you're starting to get the big picture, you might want to try engi or c-ops, just don't rush into fieldopshood - poor judgement with airstrikes is a sure way to get flamed :)

...and remember nobody likes a kamikaze panzer soldat.

--
dereksmalls@euroservers

Re:RtCWeT

[mordicus]

Oh, and don't go out the back door.

Re:RtCWeT

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, stay the fuck off the beach.

Re:RtCWeT

[Chris Siegler]

Return to Castle Wolfenstine Enemy Territory...
excellent game that REQUIRES team play and has lots of friendly people if you are interested in actually being a team member...

There's also a cool "trick" to playing with opponents who are also new don't install the upgrade! Without the upgrade, your game will run the older Protocol Version 82 and you'll find servers completely populated by noobs who will be kind enough to stand nearly motionless while you shoot them in the head.

Re:RtCWeT

[Alioth]

I'm a covert ops!

That role rocks on RTCW:ET. I'm totally addicted to the game. I usually play CvOps, sometimes engineer and sometimes a medic.

Re:RtCWeT

[Pxtl]

IMHO, that's a problem with the game, not the players. I get angry when I hop into a multiplayer map that I haven't played before and find out that I am given no fucking clue what to do. I'm here for fun - not to study, and certainly not to waste my teammates' time standing around reading objectives. UT started this bad trend in their Assault mode (Assault was a race, and you had to waste race time to read objectives) and few people fix it.

For those who say "play the map offline" - that sounds like studying and work. If I'm going to learn, I'm going to do it having fun with other players.

Poor documentation I'd expect from an indy game like Cube or a mod like Natural Selection. Not a game from a real software company.

Remember Team Fortress Classic? That game had signs all over the place. If you couldn't find the flag, it was because you couldn't read. Maps were simple and easy to understand.

Gaming is fun, learning is work. If learning is required, make it part of the fun.

Re:RtCWeT

[Sigma 7]

I get angry when I hop into a multiplayer map that I haven't played before and find out that I am given no fucking clue what to do.

MOD PARENT UP!

This is especially too true on most large maps. Even ones that have fairly straight forward objectives, there is no method to determine how to reach one point or another making it impossible for you to do anything other than defend. I've barely seen any changes made to correct this issue (UT2003 fixes this somewhat by giving a pointer to the objective.)

UT started this bad trend in their Assault mode (Assault was a race, and you had to waste race time to read objectives) and few people fix it.

That is true - you did have to read the objectives in order to know what is going on. On the other hand, there are a few things that are generally helpful:

1. AI players tend to bunch around the objective to defend - you'll know what the target is (but not always what to do with it.)
2. AI players constantly swarm the objective (unless ordered otherwise by default or by player), usually at the cost of being prepared to defend themselves. They get killed most of the time, but if you can take out the defenders, the AIs should do the job for you.
3. The maps are generally small enough that they are straight forward - no need worrying about hunting down that enterence.
4. You perform each assault map in the campaign, reading the objectived without eating into your timer. (Exception: custom maps, which may or may not be designed properly.)

LORD!

[coronaride]

Legend of the Red Dragon on someone's telnet BBS. Oh wait..he said FPS! oops!

Re:LORD!

[Valegor]

Lord may not be a first person shooter, but I rank it up there as one of the greatest games of all time.

Re:LORD!

[Tebriel]

Holy cow, how did your post end up right ahead of mine and saying the same thing basically? Talk about coincidence.

Re:LORD!

[coronaride]

wait...do I know you? did you attack me in my sleep while i was with the barmaid??

Re:LORD!

[Darken_Everseek]

Sorry, gotta disagree. TradeWars, all the way.

Truth to tell, I played both religiously for a good long period. *sigh* I miss my 9600 baud.

Re:LORD!

[TwistedGreen]

Talk about coincidence.

Well, coincidence maybe, but not a terribly unlikely coincidence. This is Slashdot, after all. I'm sure plenty of /.ers know all about LORD.

Re:LORD!

[Anonymous Coward]

No reason to miss it. There's a lot of telnet BBS/DOOR servers out there. telnet://www.ags2.com/ for example

Re:LORD!

[DR SoB]

9600 was blazing fast compared to my 1200. :D TradeWars, and LORD were good. But NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING, has, or probably will ever, beat BRE/SRE. Inter-BBS wars rule! I remember taking the source from Teleguard and re-writing the Telix BBS terminal with some of it's source to come up with my grand 'ole BBS, nothing like it on this side of the pirate world. How about this: Can you define: TDT, THG, RZR, etc .. etc.. 0-1 day warez during it's finest days.

Re:LORD!

[phungus]

The Dream Team
The Humble Guys
Razor 1911

Where is my cookie?

Re:LORD!

[Anonymous Coward]

9600 was blazing fast compared to my 1200.

Great, jocks measure one thing to determine stature, here at slashdot, we measure who had the slowest baud.

Re:LORD!

[DR SoB]

"C:\windows\TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES\" Those were the easy ones.. :D

Re:LORD!

[akira69]

Whoa, is Legend of the Red Dragon playable through the internet and telnet??? I actually *own* this for my old BBS. I'd like to play. Is there a server somewhere that someone knows about? Go Renegade BBS!

Re:LORD!

[tringstad]

You may find Legend of the Green Dragon entertaining.

-tommy

Re:LORD!

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

The Legend of the Green Dragon (main server) is a quite good web-based clone of the Legend of the Red Dragon. The GPL'd PHP code is available from Sourceforge, and if you feel creative enough most of the game interface and storyline can be customized; e.g., Trystell Adventurer is a heavily customized fork of LotGD.

Of course, it's still not an FPS...but it's a great way to waste 30 minutes...an hour...a day...either playing or coding....

Re:LORD!

[LeRoco]

Here's a blast from the past. Connect to http://lord.nuklear.org/play.html there's a java interface or you can use your CRT. All the old cheats still work too!!

Re:LORD!

[VisorGuy]

Usurper and Barren Realms Elite were amongst my favorites, too.

And of course TradeWars 2002 mentioned in other threads was fun.

Re:LORD!

[kikawala]

Or maybe the open source Legend of the Green Dragon.

http://lotgd.net/

Re:LORD!

[Mishura]

My step-dad used to run a BBS "back-in-tha-day" and I was one of the top players on LORD. In fact, our BBS was mainly a LORD server really... It was very popular. We even had expansions to it. Ah, memories...

We need a remake of this game... is LOGD (Legend of the Green Dragon -- PHP version) any good?

Re:LORD!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is pretty true to the original, I plan on having some fun...I used to run a BBS with TW and LOTR, and the Pit. Blacknova Traders is a nice PHP version of TW.

Re:LORD!

[nahdude812]

Yes, of course it is.

Re:LORD!

[nahdude812]

bleh, that was supposed to have [/shamelessselfpromotion] in it, using greater and less than signs, but I guess Slashdot thought I was really trying to post HTML :-D My bad.

I recommend

[Tebriel]

Try Legend of the Red Dragon. Very easy to get into.

Re:I recommend

[Tebriel]

Wow, he beat me by a couple seconds. My IQ must be low. Kick me out of the gene pool now.

bzflag

[pherris]

bzflag is great. Easy to start, easy on the eyes and it's OSS.

Re:BzFlag

[madhippy]

I'll second bzflag ... brilliant ... lots of fun .. simple ..

Re:bzflag

[Anonymous Coward]

That's easy on the eyes?

Jeez, man, take a look at Unreal Tournament 2003. And that game doesn't even compare to Half-Life 2' or Doom 3's graphics.

Re:bzflag

[D4rkm1lk]

I'm totally hooked on this one :)

It seems very simple to start with, and so is good fun straight away, but is actually quite complex to get truly good at. I find it interesting to experiment with the strategies for defeating players with different flags.

I think it says something this in the docs: newbies should start on a server with limited shots, no jumping and probably just a few other players. Unless you're the sort of person who likes jumping in the deep end!

In the newest versions (10.0.x) there's some robots which will provide reasonable target practice, (start with -solo n) and watching the tactics of the autopilot (press 9) should help a little too.

There is some cheating around, but the newer versions are getting better and some servers are better than others.

Re:bzflag

[Evilive]

I second that vote.
I love bzflag. "Battle Zone" in 3-D and with teams.
If you search the server listing (late at night or EARLY morning), every now and then you find an unoccupied server - a perfect place to 'practice'.
Joining a team (as oppossed to being a 'rogue') is great for 'newbies'. A common goal: blowing up tanks that are not the same color as you.
When I first started playing, even the more experienced players who'd been at it a while were pretty friendly: "Welcome to the fold, dude" kind of attitude.

Of course there's always the occasional dickhead, but there are ways to keep them off the playing fields.

Re:bzflag

[GooTi]

I second that. It's the 3D game with the highest fun:polygons ratio.

Re:bzflag

[Refried Beans]

What I like most about bzflag is that it's not a twitch game like so many FPS are. Everyone turns at the same rate and can only shoot forward. That gives the newbies a chance at killing the veterans.

Re:bzflag

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy on the eyes? Is that sarcasm?

I haven't seen an uglier game in ages.

Well

[doomy]

Most online FPS use punkbuster or something similar now, and cheats are almost non-existant. You might wanna try out America's Army, it's a free download and free online FSP shooter (pretty detailed and fun).

Re:Well

[CompWerks]

If you think there aren't any cheats that circumvent PunkBuster/Steam then you are't looking very hard.

Re:Well

[JavaLord]

Most online FPS use punkbuster or something similar now, and cheats are almost non-existant.

You are joking right? This should have been modded as funny. Counter Strike has aimbots and hacks that get around punkbuster, and Unreal Tournament has hacks that get around Pure and Client Side Hack protection. (The two types of UT "punkbusters").

Re:Well

[Zathrus]

Another thing to note -- if you aren't experienced in the game you have no way of knowing if someone is using a cheat or not. Even if you're good it can be hard to tell.

I'm a decent FPS player (on public servers I usually rank in the top 2-3%; good enough to get accused of cheating from time to time), but I have a friend that can beat the crap out of me. To the point that I won't ever get a kill unless he goofs around. And I know he's not cheating -- he's just that much better than me.

If you're not familiar with the game then you're not going to be able to tell if you just died to some l33t script kiddie that is using an autoaim hack or to someone that just knows how to play.

Even if you only play 1/2 hour a day you'll get better (unless you just have no tendancy towards being able to play well), but you're going to spend a lot of time just dieing at the start. It simply takes awhile to learn the feel of the game -- what weapons work well where, how to navigate certain maps, etc. It's just like anything else.

Re:Well

[rylin]

You mean someone actually got Steam to work???

Re:Well

[tricops]

Be that as it may, I don't understand everyone's automatic assumption that so many people are cheating.
Granted, I know there are people out there who do cheat, but people have a tendency to blame cheating
any time someone is much better than them. If it were anywhere near as bad as some people make it out
to be there would be a ratio of like one person not cheating for every 3-50 who are. :-p

Re:Well

[Graelin]

Cheats are still very prevelant in CS. Dunno about other games.

I like America's Army. The price is great. The grahpics are really good. The maps are very detailed but I think it's a bit overkill for a beginner FPS. It's just a bit too realistic for beginners.

Re:Well

[CompWerks]

I love CS as much as the next guy, but I have yet to play on a server for any length of time before an obvious cheater joins the server.

It's just too obvious when someone get's nothing but head-shots one after another.

Re:Well

[Gyorg_Lavode]

I'm sorry but I call BS. It is standard procedure in any FPS, (but especially CS), to call anyone better than you a cheater and attempt to kick them from the server.

Re:Well

[doomy]

I'm a good FPS player, when ever I get on an online game there are half the people who bitch about me cheating, but I'm not. And I know this happens to several others.

The anti-cheat stuff like punkbuster is pretty solid now, and the only complaints I have are from noobs.

In light of this, a honor system like that in America's Army is a very nice bonus. But this does not seem to solve the problem at all. I think it would be better if game servers are dedicated to three different classes of players (newbies, intermediate and expert). That should help solve the unevenness in some games.

Re:Well

[jandrese]

I hate when you're creeping up behind some camping punk and he uses the gun built into his backpack to snag you with a headshot.

Re:Well

[88NoSoup4U88]

Wow, people still ignorant enough to say there are no cheats around :/
Allthough Punkbuster, for example, updates itself most of the times at least once a week, there are still some (private) hacks that are either slipping though their detection schemes, or are, atm, not possible to track.

Re:Well

[DR SoB]

Try playing Counter-Strike. Once you've seen the 10th person walk through a wall, fly over your head, or hit you in the head from all the way across the map with a handgun, you'll get the idea. Try playing DOD (HL mod too), it's way better. I can get a score of 100-20 on DOD without cheating, but most people are 1-1 types..

Re:Well

[Shalda]

That brings to mind the biggest problem with playing games online. People are weenies. That's why I've given up on the Internet and gone back to LAN parties.

Re:Well

[LordKronos]

I don't understand everyone's automatic assumption that so many people are cheating

Here is what I base my assumption on. I've always been good at online games, usually finishing first or near first place of any game I was in. However, over the years, as cheating has grown more common, I've noticed that my apparent skills have followed a pattern. When a new game comes out, I do very good at it. However after a few months of playing, once the cheats start spreading, I find myself doing worse and worse. Eventually it gets to the point that I feel like I'm a n00b at the game. When a new but very similar game comes out, again I find I'm very good at the new game for a few months, but gradually start getting worse again. Now it may be innocent coincidence, but I have a hard time believing that either a) my skill level declines with practice, or b)other players get better than me but are somehow unable to transfer those skills over to other games, and thus take months of practice to surpass me again.

I've reached the point that I've just given up on online games completely.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean someone actually got Steam to work???

What's wrong with Steam? I just installed it a couple of days ago and it seems to work fine. It's kind of annoying that you always have to wait for it to download updates to the games and cache content, but I guess that's the price we pay for cheaters. Now, as for counter-strike... something happened to that game somewhere between beta-6 and this weird Steam version that just makes it suck. Oh well.

Re:Well

[tricops]

Well, I've tried CS. I haven't played it enough to have a hope of getting decent though. That game is rather painful to play with no skills, especially on that bloody iceworld map which people seem to like so much. :-p

Anyway, I wasn't saying that people don't cheat, just that it's blown way out of proportion. Maybe CS is far worse for it or I'm just blind, but I've never really seen/had "much" of an issue with it in Q3, 2, or even 1. People just get extremely good and it's hard on newbies who have no idea what they're doing :-)

Re:Well

[sixide]

Well.. I despise CS, but whenever I am goaded into playing, cheaters are fairly rare. They certainly exist, but more than likely you're just playing against people who don't suck. Headshots are almost the norm if you aren't either lagging a ton, or aiming poorly.

Re:Well

[Worminater]

If you think headshot after headshot is sign of a cheat,er you shoudl go back to the .7 servers... the im+ league players routinely pub with friends just to get those insane scores for the fun of it. Picture a cal-i team leader joining a random pub server, and playing. No one on the server would believe he wasnt hacking, I know, i see it every day (im not cal-i but i get accused of cheating just from wasting too much damn time on the game)

Re:Well

[prockcore]

In light of this, a honor system like that in America's Army is a very nice bonus. But this does not seem to solve the problem at all. I think it would be better if game servers are dedicated to three different classes of players (newbies, intermediate and expert). That should help solve the unevenness in some games.

The honor system accomplishes this quite handily I think. The officle MILES training maps won't allow people with more than 15 honor to play, the regular official maps are for intermediate players, and there are the Elite official maps which require honor of 25 or more.

One thing that AA does well is you never see anyone TK on purpose. The penalties are just too great.

Re:Well

[EulerX07]

Yup, but once one of these players gets on the punkbusted list, he's gone from all servers using the global ban list. Cheaters on a good punkbuster-enabled server are just waiting to get caught, and that's great because you know they'll be gone. Admins can take screenshots off the player's screen, or they can just record a demo or start watching that guy that headshots everyone with every bullet in his clip. Same goes for that guy that always seems to know you're behind that wall.

The nicest feature is that they globally ban people that try to interfer or modify punkbuster. No more playing on punkbuster servers for these punks.

On a more personnal note, there are two types of people that I despise in this world, cheaters and thieves. I don't get the guys that get a kick out of playing the game and using aimbots to kill everyone. Like this BF1942 game I was playing on a random server where they had killed us 130 times and we killed them 5 times. Nobody's that good. There is also a special place in hell for team-killers, you know that retard on the deck of the carrier killing people of his own team and blowing up the carrier with grenades. Of course man, you're really "pwning" us, your teammates.

Re:Well

[tricops]

Well, my main issue is with "so many people".

I won't argue there is no cheating, but... just to play the devils advocate... When a game first comes out, everyone starts from the same base (well, ignoring prior fps experience). After a few months the people with the most potential start to reach it while the people with a little less skill are pushed down by them (especially when there are younger kids who have nothing better to do than spend 5-8hours a day playing the game =P).

Sure, there are still people cheating and it sucks, but the main reason it gets harder is because people are getting better, unless you really believe the majority of people are cheating. I've never bothered cheating myself and I don't really know anyone who has... while that doesn't mean people don't cheat, if I've seen so little of it, I personally could only see like 5-15% cheating maybe, not the 50-70%+ people make it sound like. That's enough to be a pain in the ass, but I can't see it being enough to completely ruin the experience or destroy your own playing ability.

On the other hand, I've just about given up on online games as well, but just because people are so much better than I am now and I can't seem to catch up again.

Re:Well

[Ugot2BkidNme]

Bots will exist no matter what the game its part of it like it or not. I don't see what the freaking big deal is. I used to play Quake2 for a very long time I dealt with many a bot user. If you think the person is using a bot then leave the server for another server. The sad fact is most players call every good player a bot. I used to play team games me vs 8 or more people and win its not that I was a bot its that I had been playing the game for over 3 yeatrs and was very good at it. The simple fact of the matter is either your good or your not. If your worried about bots don't play on-line. If you want to go into a game and think you can immediatly compete with people who have been playign for a while think again. Even a brand new game you will still experience getting your butt-kicked left and right. Why because thats the nature of the beast all FPS share similar characteristics. aim shooting and movement. once you get these down, it just becomes a matter of timing and weapon choice. I can play just about any FPS game and be competitive for the simple reason I have played so many different FPS'es and I have good timing and aiming ability. So my advice to you is to sit down and learn the games well. Or don't play online. Don't whine don't complain ask intelligent questions and you will find players like myself who will help you learn to play games better.

Re:Well

[Ugot2BkidNme]

damn I gotta remember to use line breaks

Re:Well

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

After a few months of playing, more skilled people start joining the game as it gets more popular, and more people have practice. Anyone whos good within the first month or two of a game arn't good at the game, they're just decent at gaming in general. Once people have had a few months to learn the game(maps/weapons/classes/whatever), they actually get strategies and can outskill someone who is only good 'by default'.
Atleast, this is how it is/was in counterstrike. Genenerally most of the best players have been playing competitively for 3 or so years now (where competitively is mostly 3 or so matches a day excluding weekends, for 3 years, it adds up).
But theres still some people that have been playing for 3+ years non-competitively (maybe they play when their friends on, when they have nothing else to do, when their normal game is broken, whatever), who would get spanked by someone whos actually improved over the years.

I don't mean any of this as an insult, just a possible explination. Sure there is plenty of cheats, but its really hard to detect them -- The only valid anticheat is doing it on lan. the close second would be games with spectating, but even thats only good for detecting(not stopping) cheaters, and you still need a large amount of skill to tell, I've seen people acuse me of cheating just because I killed someone through a wall(a so called spam spot, as in somewhere worth emptying 15-30 shots into because theres usually someone on the other side).

Re:Well

[JavaLord]

...impossible to read rant snipped... So my advice to you is to sit down and learn the games well. Or don't play online. Don't whine don't complain ask intelligent questions and you will find players like myself who will help you learn to play games better.

what does this have to do with what I said? Did you mean to reply to the parent? You have the typical attitude of an average FPS player by the way. Its funny to watch how pissy the legit middle tier players get over bots.

Re:Well

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Its not in their backpack, thats a common misconception. In reality, all of the skilled players have just learned to fire a weapon out of their ass. I fart nothing but headshots.

Re:Well

[randyest]

Damn straight! I mean, who needs people? I find it so much more fun to play at my own LAN party, with all my life-sized celebrity cardboard cut-outs posed appropriately at each station.

They're not very good players, unfortunately. But at least they're not weenies.

Re:Well

[Ugot2BkidNme]

OK I can explain this for you

When the game first comes out you get it. Good for you you may be a decent player. I dunno I will assume you are cause you say you are.
I myself am a good player I will not get the game when it first comes out after a time I might by the game if I do and I show up in a short while I will beat most peopel who think they are good. Do I cheat no. I just happen to be very good at FPS games. While I really suck at RTS games go figure.
The Simple fact here is the better players don't immediatly get the new game but when they do they will be better then you in a ver short time.

Yes there are people who use bots but they are easy to spot unless the players set the zone of which to aut fire from to be very small and if thats the case you can still beat them. just don't enter their field of Vision shoot them in the back. I have been playing FPS online for roughly 6 years now and I have heard people complain and whine about bots since day one. At first I believed them then I met a few of these so-called bot players in person and saw them actually play. They were jsut flat out better. so I strived for that. and eventually after playign 40+ hours a week for over a year I got to that point. now I rarely play at all but I can still keep up with most players. All you need to do is practice hard for a whil eand you will get really good stick with one game master it then start playign other games. Or stop Whinnign cause your LLAMA arse can't hang with the 1337 players.

Re:Well

[kinzillah]

I'm replying to your sig. Order is possible, but will entropy get you order? :)

Re:Well

[Falcon 213]

I find it fairly easy to spot cheaters when watching them from a first-person view, this is either a rare ability or most people just don't care (probably the latter), because I get kicked out of cs servers and other game servers all the time by admins who claim I cheat. When I'm dead, I tend to watch the people with the best k:d, and many times I'll see people who are obviously (obvious to me, at least) not cheating, yet the same happens for them.

The best way to find a game without cheats, though, is definately to find a game with a smaller dedicated community that has an active anti-cheat.

Re:Well

[notsoanonymouscoward]

actually i've been tk'd on purpose =) i've had people switch from opfor to my team just to tk me. talk about flattering ;-)

Re:Well

[Worminater]

It will if by chaos itself you define order, and in all honesty, is there any greater order than that?

Re:Well

[Ugot2BkidNme]

Your right I did go a bit off topic however.

You have the typical attitude of an average FPS player by the way.
I dunno if this was meant as an insult or not.
Regardless though when I was younger yeah I used to get upset about players and those I actually knew used bots.
Then I realised I couldn't do anythign about it. So I jsut played when a bot would show up. I would watch him from sidelines and point out why he was a bto by having everyone on the sideline chasecam him and point out the things he would do. Or I would go to another server. Eventually these players get such bads names they just gave up.
There are really only two reasons to use a bot.
One is to make up for your lack of endowment. in trying to make a name for yourself.
Which eventually you will be foudn out and everyone will get bored of you and go play elsewhere
Or the Other your screwing around.
which is usually at the point where the player realizes they suck so badly that they will never be any good. But now with there bot they can beat teh people that they coudl never compete with. This adds extra challenge to the good players so it si a good thing

Re:Well

[bigpat]

Just play online with friends on a password protected server, if you think most people are weenies. Get enough people together and make it a regular thing.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to code cheats for counter-strike. The anti cheat programs only catch cheats released to the public, and even then they don't get the latest ones. It's just too easy to make cheats if you know very little C. My cheats even worked between different versions of cstrike, I would be cheating hours after an update was released. Someone needs a better idea for an anticheat. Everyone I've seen to date can be bypassed if I put my mind to it.

Re:Well

[jo_ham]

The ability to rail on the move gets you called a cheat a lot.

Most people can't beleive you can aim and fire that accurately while flying off a bounce pad through the air, especially if theyare used to some lag. I can't say my connection hurts my aim fortunately.

Re:Well

[mysterymeat]

The good thing is that if someone's being a weenie at a LAN party, you can punch them in the face.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Cow herd]

Well, if you are that goatse guy, you probably have room up there for an AWP or two :-P *yuck*

Re:Well

[rHOnDO]

AA can accomplish this via the honor system. A server can be configured that only allows players with honor 0-15 for n00bs, 15-50 for intermediate and above 50 for elite.

Re:Well

[Dukael_Mikakis]

Just get used to seeing:

[]: HahAHahA, j00 Ju$+ 9o+ fux*x0r3d!

and

: **!!! (* *) H3aD$h0+ (x x) !!!**

appear on your screen 1/2 second after you die.

Re:Well

[trmj]

but I have a friend that can beat the crap out of me

I have one of those too, but he was(is?) the best CS player in PA, and one of the best in the country.

I routinely get cd keys banned from servers for cheating in CS and Battlefield, which is why I have stopped playing on public servers. I don't cheat though, and it gets rather annoying.

Because of that, I have stopped playing FPS games altogether except for World War II Online, which is an amazing game, other than the fact that most of the people that play for the allies are complete idiots. (No, really. A friend and I defended one city nearly by ourselves from hoards of panzer tanks(up to 5 at once sitting next to each other defending themselves and attacking, I killed them all as an infantry guy), infantry and planes for about 3 days. We go to our respective jobs and come back to see that the city is gone)

Anyway, lanning is the only way to play games anymore.

Re:Well

[snero3]

well they are cheaters. No one is better than me!!!! :P`````

Re:Well

[machine of god]

more than that, it's neigh impossible to tell a cheater from a non cheater unless you are good and have cheated yourself.

Re:Well

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

one awp, a shield, a he grenade, a deagle, an m4, kevlar, and full ammo.

(they're actually patching that bug today.. go buy a grenade, prime it but dont throw it (just hold the attack key like you were), now buy whatever guns you want, as many as you can afford. you can keep the shield up with your gun out. goodluck havefun.)

Re:Well

[LordKronos]

But do you really think that when a new game comes out, all these people that are more skilled than me suddenly can't figure out how to play this new game, so I become better than them again at first? And the thing is, that was never a problem for me in the days when cheating was more underground and less well known. I know correlation doesn't imply causation, but there seems to be a VERY strong correlation...strong enough to make me very suspicious.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

How about using periods and commas. 1337 0n3... P.S. Get a life as well.

Re:Well

[dosun88888]

It might not be cheating.

If me, and just about anyone else in the world starts playing a brand new game at the same time, I'll beat them. I'd bet money on it (if I were able to somehow verify that it was indeed their first time). But if they practice, and I practice, they'll eventually beat me at it. Why? I don't know why. Maybe I don't care to get any better at the specific game since it serves me no purpose. Maybe I'm content with my initial skill level. Who knows.

In general, I'm a great first-time gamer. But if I work for 20 hours to improve, and someone else does the same... I will likely not get much better. Perhaps this fits your situation as well.

~D

Re:Well

[Brian Boitano]

how does that quote go?

When you kill 6 people in Unreal Tournament it's "Monster Kill", In Quake3 it's "Excellent", in Counter-Strike it's "Kicked by console"...

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

There was an incident is a UT based game, were a notorious cheating clan more or less leaked one of their cheats to the public. So far nothing too unusual.

However, they had a backdoor in their cheat, reporting each user, and they made that list public. There were a lot of ppl on that list, many repeat offenders, and many players well known in that game's community...

Re:Well

[ThaReetLad]

There's only one Zathrus I know, and he's always drunk.

[WGC]Sneaky.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats the difference between a pro and a n00b. The n00b will kick you. The pro won't. He'll try to identify you, determine if there is actual cheating going in, and follow up if needed.

Re:Well

[ThaReetLad]

We cheat at ID'ing cheaters. Every game is recorded on the server so the replay can be reviewed as many times as required to say for sure. Then we just pull the IP from the log and ban it, and post the replay so people can review it for themselves.

All this has lead to Wolfgrowls being one of the most respected servers for Ghost Recon on the net, and one where cheating will not be tolerated.

Re:Well

[Ticklemonster]

Ummm, not true. We in the Zark community are busting them all the time. Ever hear of the infamous Lamp? He's an unabashed botter. I have him in my buddylist in the all seeing eye so eny time he comes on line I can find the server he's in and go harass him (non-Zark servers, mind you). I chased him for 4 months last year before I finally killed him by crouching and sniping him on CTF-Face. ( http://www.theblacklegion.com/tm/finally.jpg bah, I'll figure out the url coding later...)

But, a buddy of mine knows a dude who works for the Gov. detecting hacks and stuff. Dude is supposed to be the best. Turns out that people pay him to write undetectable bots. Yeah, they're out there, you just have to pay attention and be vigilant.

Re:Well

[The Evil Couch]

kind of. if you're in a clan for awhile, you eventually know who in your clan will always make good calls about vote-kicking, so you don't even bother checking it out and you just vote yes.

until one day, his hands get ahead of his brain and accidentally votes to kick himself and everyone just hits yes, because they're used to it, all the while he's screaming, "NO! VOTE NO!" on teamspeak.

Re:Well

[Daetrin]

Agreed, i'm exactly the same way. Odds are i'll kick the crap out of anyone else for the first few days if we both pick up the game at the same time. However as more time passes if we keep playing they'll catch up and eventually surpass me.

The _only_ game where I managed much improvement was Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge, and that was only through more than a year of constant playing, and i certainly wouldn't be suprised if there are other who have surpassed me now that i haven't practiced in about two years.

LAN with Friends

[DreadSpoon]

Honestly, just get some friends together on a LAN and play. It's more entertaining than playing with a mass of immature idiots online anyhow. ;-)

It'll also give you the opportunity to build up those skills to get good enough to compete with the losers^wpros who spend all their time playing FPS games.

Re:LAN with Friends

[blanks]

"Honestly, just get some friends together on a LAN and play. It's more entertaining than playing with a mass of immature idiots online anyhow. ;-)"

Compared to what? playing with a mass of immature idiots in your living room?

Re:LAN with Friends

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but he's looking for something when he's bored for like 30 mins. A LAN party in your living room isn't going to be available like that. Pay attention to the requirements.

Re:LAN with Friends

[CatPieMan]

I have actually found that playing with my friends is much more difficult than online games -- especially with FPS's and RTS's.

I was quite disapointed the first time I played Quake 3 online and destroyed the rest of the players to the point they thought I was cheating (I wasn't, it is just that the people I played against were so just so excellent, and I tend to do better when there are larger crowds [one shot, four kills - versus with my friends where they have much more chances of dodging my shot]).

-CPM

Re:LAN with Friends

[Pxtl]

Amen - not only that, but with LANs you can run all the most obscure mods you want. Before you say "who has a home LAN" - think it through, most geeks out there have a few old P166 boxen around. Anything above that level can run HL or Q2 - Voodoo2 cards are like $20 if you hunt for them. Just from keeping old computers around when they get replaced, I've got a 7-PC lan of computers faster than 166 at my family's house.

If its an older lan (p133 and up) get Quake 2 for Superheros Q2, Weapons Factory, Transformers Quake 2, and Action Quake 2. And get BattleZone. Half Life if you've got Voodoos. If you get HL, don't be afraid to hunt for the more obscure mods - my fave mod for HL is an obscure little action/racing hybrid named Turbo. Very fast, very violent, very cheap.

Good introductory games:
UT - easiest deathmatch FPS ever. An endless supply of good mods exist, and unlike in HL you can mix and match them.
Nerf ArenaBlast - UT for the kiddies!
Cube - simple, but painfully fast. wouter.fov120.com/cube
Serious Sam - easiest FPS to learn, no getting lost, no thinking - just shooting.

The newer FPS games I've played have all been harder, faster games. UT2k3 lost the whole "Quake for newbs/girls" appeal that the old UT had.

Oh, and BattleZone 1 is the greatest RTS/FPS hybrid ever.

Re:LAN with Friends

[Skweetis]

I'm glad this was modded insightful. I actually find that I enjoy LAN parties so much more than online gaming that I usually don't bother with online play anymore. There are a few reasons for this:

• All those latency problems disappear (unless you have a really crappy hub, or something).
• It's easier to choose who you play with, important as FPSs are much more fun when players are evenly matched.
• It's a social event. Get some pizza and beer, and enjoy yourself! (The beer may even help improve the skills :).

Re:LAN with Friends

[Mysticalfruit]

that's the whole idea of playing with "friends".

I'm pretty sure that nearly a 1/3 of 1/2 the people I play against online I'd probably run from for fear of my life if I met them in person...

Re:LAN with Friends

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, just get some friends together on a LAN and play.

Some what now?

Re:LAN with Friends

[B1ackD0g]

I agree that LAN parties are a better experience all around. We used to play every day over lunch at a company where I worked. I went into withdrawal when I changed jobs.

The problem is that it's sometimes not an option. I took the route of finding a clan server where they didn't mind my hanging around. Most clans are pretty good places to learn skillz in the FPS arena. Most of them also take a dim view of cheaters as well (There are a few noteable exceptions, but that's another thread).

As a result, I have three or four servers that I prefer to visit when I play online. I know the guys that play them and they know me. It's like a LAN party with lag, but it's there every night and you don't have to kick in for pizza all the time. :)

Re:LAN with Friends

[reality-bytes]

You tried changing your aftershave? :D

Re:LAN with Friends

[chamilto0516]

A group of consultants and I played Age of Empires each week on our out-of-town gig. After several weeks, we got to be pretty good. I finally jumped on the Microsoft game server and played against a bunch of high-school and college kids and realized I could probably never win against them. I'm pretty sure it was because they had almost infinitly more time on the game than a working, traveling husband and father.

Re:LAN with Friends

[Anonymous Coward]

playing with a mass of immature idiots in your living room?

Yes but at least they are the immature idiots I call friends!!!

Re:LAN with Friends

[Anonymous Coward]

What are these 'friends' of which you speak?

Re:LAN with Friends

[Dagrush]

"Honestly, just get some friends together on a LAN and play. It's more entertaining than playing with a mass of immature idiots online anyhow. ;-)"

immature indeed.
I've found the most fun thing to do is have everyone log onto some clan server, act like their in the clan, and TK until the server's dead.
Now THAT'S fun.

Re:LAN with Friends

[spinkham]

Darn straight!

Re:LAN with Friends

[Anonymous Coward]

Battlezone 2 was even better, a lot of fun on LAN or even over modem 1v1

Practicing with Bots

[Meridun]

Why don't you try playing single player, or perhaps set up a LAN game filled with some bots while you bring yourself up to speed with the games?

I know that the question specified "online", but if you consider yourself a beginner, then you probably need to practice some before you get online and swim with the sharks. Many of the current FPS games allow for single-player with bots, and the bots are often good enough to mimic real players, with the useful difference that you can adjust their difficulty. I know that my officemates and I practiced with Tribes 2 that way for several hours when we bought the game before we logged into the online servers, and it made a world of difference in our enjoyment.

Re:Practicing with Bots

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you try ANSWERING THE QUESTION!?

The guy wants to play games, he isn't preparing for the SAT.

Re:Practicing with Bots

[doorbot.com]

set up a LAN game filled with some bots while you bring yourself up to speed with the games

This is a good idea, but the bots are too predictable after a while. To offset this, slowly turn up the game speed and bot difficulty as you improve your skills. You should be using the bots to improve your reaction times and "fundamentals". In Unreal Tournament, if you can win the matches with the bots at 150% game speed and the higher levels of difficulty, you'll do fine when you play online at 100% gamespeed. On Unreal Tournament, play this way on the Instagib and you'll be a pro in no time.

Re:Practicing with Bots

[rsilvergun]

You know, it's all well and good to tell the guy to practice, but has anyone ever considered the possibility that he doesn't _want_ to get that good. I know I fall into that category. I just don't have the dedication (or inclination) to practice that much (nor the inherent skill that makes practice unnecesary).

What would be nice is some sort of in game system that could filter servers by skill level. Maybe just a ladder would be enough. Set it up so if one player dominates, he gets booted to another server with a higher rating, and the weakest players get booted to a lower level server. Throw in some load balancing for good measure and you might have something accessible for newbies.

Re:Practicing with Bots

[tulare]

Hehe. I'd say that practicing against bots is mandatory for things like flying a chopper in Desert Combat. There's nothing like jumping into the gunner's seat of a chopper, only to have it fly fifty feet in the air, spin a 720, flip upside down, and crash =-|
Good piloting is only a couple hours away...

Re:Practicing with Bots

[88NoSoup4U88]

hehe, i was all with you, untill i read 'I know that my officemates and I practiced with Tribes 2 that way for several hours when we bought the game before we logged into the online servers, and it made a world of difference in our enjoyment. '

Tribes 2 had the worse AI in years ! THe single player part , as far as i can remember, had 5 missions, and were total sheit :)
Nowadays Counter-strike 1.6 has some nice-ish bots walkig around.

Re:Practicing with Bots

[raphos]

I disagree. I have been playing online FPS since Quake 1 and my experience tells me that the best way for a player to improve his skills is playing with the guys that kick his ass. You won't be learning anything if you keep playing with people that play worse than yourself, creating a system that would filter the players would just create a elite.

Re:Practicing with Bots

[haystor]

Tribes 2 can be had for $10 right now (a re-release). I've found the Tribes players to be a bit more mature.

I'd also suggest trying out the Planetside demo (7 or 30 days free, depending).

Both games allow for slower more heavily armored, heavier hitting classes. These are good for the newbie as they'll last a bit longer and have more opportunity to learn the game.

I like planetside because it can be played with a mind for tactics, rewarding fire and maneuver more than a typical FPS.

Re:Practicing with Bots

[Mr. Jaggers]

Actually, Tribes 2 onlne (or even classic Tribes, there are *still* servers up) is great for this on it's own, no bots needed. Predominantly, there aren't cheats, unless the server allows it, and that information is presented publicly. Plus, you can join a 45 minute long game, play for a while, and quit out before the game is even over. You don't *have* to be a member of a tribe, you don't even have to be good! It's especially easiy to blend in on a 50+ player server... But you do get better quickly. The game itself has a much faster pace than most FPS games. Plus, if you are lucky, you can get your grubby mits on the linux client for T2 (glad I got mine while I could!). Or, more realistically, since they are nearly impossible to find now, you could pirate it from a buddy, and buy the windows version for the key. Oops... did I just advocate software piracy?! Well, other people's piracy, anyway. Besides, what the hell are you supposed to do when a company won't even stamp the damn discs out??

Re:Practicing with Bots

[sixide]

So, wait a second... you want to play a skill-based game and *not* get better? Go play board games or something if you just want some fun without a challenge.

Re:Practicing with Bots

[Worminater]

I dont know about you, but if that happened, the game would, well, suck. half the reason people play a game long enough to be THAT good is to join a server with friends and whip the shit out of a bunch of "nublets"

Take that aspect away, and i see 1/2th the peope who play for more then 4 hours a week quiting the game. If I got kicked to a new server every time I pulled a decent score, I would say "fsck this" and give up the game, as how to you play with friends and develop communities, and all that shiz

Re:Practicing with Bots

[dubl-u]

What would be nice is some sort of in game system that could filter servers by skill level. Maybe just a ladder would be enough. Set it up so if one player dominates, he gets booted to another server with a higher rating, and the weakest players get booted to a lower level server. Throw in some load balancing for good measure and you might have something accessible for newbies.

Bravo! This is a great solution to the problem. It is also what happens in real sports.

Another option is the sporting notion of a handicap. If somebody is really good, then the server makes it harder on them. If the server makes the handicap public, then they still get to be known as a bad-ass, while everybody still gets to have fun.

Re:Practicing with Bots

[SteakandcheeseUm]

T2 is nice because you have more defined roles. For instance, I could spend an entire game repairing and defending the base, and not fire a single shot! There is a learning curve though. I dont know if this would be the right game for a beginner. Hell, I started out with Quake2 myself, and I turned out fine.

Re:Practicing with Bots

[randyest]

You have a good point, but I think you're jumping too quickly to a solution in the wrong direction, IMHO. You want servers filtered and segregated by skill level. I don't think this will work. Here's why:

Intermediate-to-advanced players will surely occasionally hop onto a n00b server to shoot some fish in a barrel, take out some frustration, test a new tecchnique, or whatever. This will annoy and discourage players who are "expecting" to do well because of server skill settings.

Some new players may even incorrectly assume that they don't have to bother with the (relatively high) learning curve of the controls and coordination required for most FPS games.

A sort of Peter principle kicks in: as soon as you have one or a few games where you start to do much better than the preset skill level for that server, you have to move on. It would be hard to tune the system to choose the "break-point" at a proper time for everyone. If I get lucky and a wild grenade kills 10 enemies, am I ready to move on? A tough AI problem, for sure.

The idea of filtering by skill quickly gets reduced to filtering by score, or at best aggregate average scores. This can work if you have a game with uniqie id's and centralized tracking. But then you'll need to account for multiple player for the same game CD, which allows for "cheating" the system by creating new "n00b" accounts.

Even if you work around the problems above, note that score is really not strongly related to player skill. Scores are more a combination of relative player skills, the maps, and playing styles used in each game. Bad players can get high scores and good players can gwet low scores, especially in team games, depending on the class and role they are playing.

In fact, some team-based mods are now actually not tracking individual player scores, but only team scores. This is to encourage more teamwork and less Rambo-style play. Some players get very high scores by baseraping with planes or whatever, yet still play poorly (by definition) because their team loses, and they don't help. If team victory is the goal, individual scores don't do well to promote it.

The above emphasise the problems with determining "skill" in terms of segregating servers and enforcing the segregation, and it also leads into my suggestion.

With class-based games, you have the option of focusing on 5 or 6 different skill sets / strategies. If you're not the best/fastest twitch finger in the West, consider playing classes other than assault/soldier and choosing not to run head-first into the front lines. Maybe you would be better playing medic, or engineer, or artillery support. I play a variety of classes (mostly in BF1942), and each one is a very different experience requiring totally different skills and play styles. Please consider trying them all a little and see what you may have a natural knack for, and enjoy.

Re:Practicing with Bots

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah or *shock* get outside your cube and breathe in some fresh air.

I mean, I have fun playing 'kick the can' with people from the office. Nothing competitive about it.

Re:Practicing with Bots

[Poeir]

Bravo! This is a great solution to the problem. It is also what happens in real sports.

Also WarCraft III.

Re:Practicing with Bots

[Anonymous Coward]

This will be trivial to everyone who has *ever* played a multiplayer FPS, But I just wanted to point out that, even if it would be possible to find/create a server with people of your own level, you should get accostumed to getting fragged the whole time. Go figure out, if everyone is just as skilled, everyone would have about the same amount of frags per minute, and consequently, everyone would *get fragged* just as regularly. Which means you die for every person you kill. There's no multiplayer FPS on earth on which you can go out and kill everyone without a scratch, like in a bad action movie (unless you're a *lot* better than everyone else).
If that's what you want, just stick with Single Player.

Re:Practicing with Bots

[Daetrin]

Another option is the sporting notion of a handicap. If somebody is really good, then the server makes it harder on them. If the server makes the handicap public, then they still get to be known as a bad-ass, while everybody still gets to have fun.

They have handicaps set up in Super Smash Brothers Melee, and it works great. There's a little bit of frustration if another player constantly has a higher handicap that you, but no where near as bad as if that same person is constantly kicking your ass.

Of course it's also fun for the whole group if you're playing with a bot to see how negative a handicap you can get it down to :)

Halo isn't too bad

[Mantrid]

I've found Halo to be pretty fun for what your describing...log on play for 15-20 minutes and quit. The vehicles make it interesting, although the game is not without its problems. But if your just playing casually on line it isn't going to be too big of a deal.

Re:Halo isn't too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Except when a teammate would rather shoot you and take your vehicle/launcher/etc than try to get their own.

Many a game I've sat in hiding with a fuel-rod launcher, waiting for 'Red' to come around the corner, only to be 'naded from beind by some jackass who wants to take the launcher and look for trouble (sually dihin 10 seconds of taking it).

Re:Halo isn't too bad

[DigiShaman]

Halo has got to have the worst 3D engine in terms of frame rate. Even at 1024x768, the game bogs down with choppy frame rates in major combat. At this is on a P4 2.8Ghz/1GB RAM/ATI 9800 Pro system.

Re:Halo isn't too bad

[EulerX07]

I find that Halo totally pales in comparison to BF1942 and Call of Duty. I got on Halo and IMHO the game has been way too much Console-ified. The graphics are not that great. However, I disagree with another person that replied about performance. On my Athlon 2600+ (A7N8X mobo), 1 gig of ram and Radeon 9800 pro it runs totally smooth at 1600X1200.

Re:Halo isn't too bad

[tricops]

Well, Halo was fun when I played it.... but I just wish TimeSplitters 2 for the PS2 had online support. That game was fun(ny) as hell multiplayer.

Re:Halo isn't too bad

[wgnorm]

I haven't had a chance to play the full Halo online yet, but if it's anything like the demo, the game is not for beginners.

I played Halo on XBox quite a bit, and am fairly good in FPS games in general, but the demo had me wanting to break my keyboard. The basic problem was that banshees would strafe or just crash into the spawn point constantly, killing everyone as they spawn. After a couple of days of playing the demo, but barely getting to actually play beyond the "spawn-die-spawn-die" cycle, I just gave up in frustration.

Re:Halo isn't too bad

[HoneyBunchesOfGoats]

Halo is actually a great game for beginners, since it's not all about fast twitch reactions. The pace of the game is slower, the fact that one can only carry 2 weapons, and the vehicles make for a lot of strategy (especially on the outdoor maps). I started a friend off on Halo, and now he's "graduated" to the more traditional (in terms of FPS gameplay) UT2k3.

To comment on the performance issues, I've got an Athlon 2500+ (1GB RAM) with an ATI Radeon 8500 and have had no issues with framerate. I know others with better systems have had problems though, so YMMV.

Re:Halo isn't too bad

[TLSPRWR]

I agree. Halo is fantastic if you want to play short, quick games. The maps are smaller than some other games maps, and a lot easier to memorize. Because of the maps being small, you do get a lot of lame snipers right over the spawn points, who'll take you out as soon as you spawn. Also, people tend to abuse vehicles (mainly, Scorpion tank), but you can go to servers with vehicles disabled. Keep in mind, Halo is VERY frustrating at first, ecspecially if you get the wrong server. Lamers like mentioned above populate a lot of servers, so just give it time. Go through the single player at least on Normal for a few levels to gain some skill. Halo's AI is very good and is good practice for online play. BattleField 1942 is a great online game ('specially with Desert Combat mod) kinda hard to get into at first, but fool around in Single player for a little while with as minimal bots possible, to keep CPU up fine. Try using all the vehicles, and mastering each's control schemes. In Desert Combat, make sure you can fly the helicopters in single player before taking one on multiplayer. Anyways, there's plenty out there to choose from. All are rewarding in their own way, and every one has it's own fun-ness to it. Just remember when you get sniped or killed lamely to just have fun and retaliate

Re:Halo isn't too bad

[jwnichls]

The only online FPS that I play is the console version of HALO. You can use software like Xbox Connect (xbconnect.com) to link your Xbox to others on the Internet and then play via the system link. The games tend to be a bit smaller, but they're still fun.

You can use Xbox Connect to play a lot of other games online too, though I've only tried HALO.

Re:Halo isn't too bad

[Squidgee]

You shouldn't have any problem with the scorpians if you're good. Throw on grenade, and they're dead. Fuel rod cannon? Dead. Rocket launcher? Dead. Sniper rifle? Dead. Etc.

You just need to get outa the way, that's all. But they're slow, so no worries.

Re:Halo isn't too bad

[xalres]

Halo is an awesome online game. Every now and then you get a server with TKers but it's becoming easier and easier to find a good server. The vehicles add a nice twist as does the regenerating shield, making combat a little more tactical.

My only major gripe with this otherwise great game is how bloody powerful the pistol is in online play. You can empty 3 full clips of your machine gun at someone from 25 meters and not even deplete their shield yet someone from 100 yards away can plink you in the head twice with a pistol and you're dead.

Re:Halo isn't too bad

[TLSPRWR]

My only major gripe with this otherwise great game is how bloody powerful the pistol is in online play. You can empty 3 full clips of your machine gun at someone from 25 meters and not even deplete their shield yet someone from 100 yards away can plink you in the head twice with a pistol and you're dead So... use the pistol. What's the problem? Assault Rifle sucks all around anyways unless it's the absolute only weapon you have. Seriously, use pistol, you won't turn back.

Re:Halo isn't too bad

[Desano]

I enjoy lanning up halo with 3 other boxes. And just so you guys know, every vehicle in the game is easy to take out with just about any weapon if you know how. IF you cant get a rifle, pistols are the best weapons against snipers. And tanks, they are open in the front, use any weapon you want (except shotgun as you cant get close enough). Banshees are tough unless you have sticky grenades, then its just fun.

Re:Halo isn't too bad

[AlexMax2742]

Guy: Doc, it hurts when I do this
Doc: Then don't do that.

The assault rifle is a greatly underpowerd weapon. Don't use it unless you're in close quarters.

gunbound

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not an fps, but it's still quite some fun... gunbound

's a scorched earth like game. really fun, and nice and easy to play.

Re:gunbound

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea gunbound is good fun and it's really addictive :-)

If it has to be shoot'em'up I would recomend "Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory" (www.castlewolfenstein.com) since is free and has some good gameplay..

Re:gunbound

[ObNoX]

Never played Gunbound but I have heard a lot of positive words about it..

Team Fortress 2!

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep your eyes peeled for Team Fortress 2! You will love it.

Re:Team Fortress 2!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's coming out right after Duke Nukem Forever.

TexanGirlz Servers

[miketang16]

I've been playing on the Texangirlz Counter-Strike servers for almost a year now. It's a great recreational place to have fun. Generally the servers are filled with all levels of players too.

Check them out: Texangirlz

Re:TexanGirlz Servers

[Anonymous Coward]

We've had a lot of success with empyrean Hosting (www.empyreanhosting.com) for our game server hosting in the past. You can specify that the FPS server you use have anticheat software installed and the guys working there are really friendly and helpful. In addition, the skill level runs the gamut.

Re:TexanGirlz Servers

[halfabee]

I learned about these servers because the guy(s) who run it are a friend of a friend of my brother's... or something... anyway... The TexanGirlz servers were started by some guy who was looking for a "safe" place for his son to play online (with out the less desireable members of the web joining in.) So, the attitude there is much more "user friendly" and inviting than your average server.

Re:TexanGirlz Servers

[miketang16]

Very true, "Boss" (Hue) is a great guy who has created an awesome community.

Enemy Territory

[S. Bolle]

Enemy Territory is an incredibly fun team-based game and completely free. Most people are migrating from the (dead) RTCW now, so if you want to join teams and grow along, this is the time.

Re:Enemy Territory

[Anonymous Coward]

Nearly all the games have good intro-level webpages up there to cut down the barrier to entry. For ET, you'd try:

RTCW & ET 4 Dummies

As for finding servers and not feeling pereptually useless, that's a bit harder. Mostly it's trial-and-error with anything, and even most servers have different feels with no admins, specific admins, or a whole bevy of them. You could start looking here but that's geared towards semi-competitive types. Good clans that run somewhat more gentle servers aren't listed there - but you could certainly ask on some clan forums. The Teamwarfare site, btw, includes easy ways to find both the clans, and their contact info (web pages or IRC channels).

With the multiple classes in ET, there's almost always something you can do to be useful even if not the best shot. Being the guy who tags along after your team's alpha male... running around the corner to revive and give health... can be a great way to get appreciated while coming up the curve. Just whatever you do, don't do any more than dally as a Covert Ops player... they're almost universally reviled among server admins.

Re:Enemy Territory

[Le'BottomEh]

Also, Urban Terror will be releasing future versions on ET instead of Q3. I've found Urban Terror to be quite entertaining after I got bored with Q3 Rocket Arena, Q3CTF, Q3 Classic CTF and some other Q3 mods. I'm glad they've made the decision to move on to ET.

Re:Enemy Territory

[Anonymous Coward]

one word for ET..... mortars.

The maps have been around so long now there are mortar specialists who just go to their training location and can hit the enemy spawn and every objective in the map perfectly.

Mortars are a major problem in ET now, it is in need of serious redress.

Re:Enemy Territory

[Quill_28]

hmmm... i guess I haven't been playing long enough for that to be a problem.

Re:Enemy Territory

[Anonymous Coward]

ETPro is also coming out with a replacement for Punk Buster. PunkBuster is the built in anti-cheat software that's been used in RTCW as well as ET.

Jedi Knight/2/Academy

[Anonymous Coward]

Pick up one of the Jedi Knight games. It seems that the vast majority of JK players are kids, and the learning curve from "beginner" to "I'm pretty good" is fairly shallow. Some of the stuff takes a while to master, but it definitely isn't "dominated" by guys that have been playing it since 1999 or anything.

Re:Jedi Knight/2/Academy

[Anonymous Coward]

But play on a low force setting server. Force choke and push weenies on levels with bottomless pits are lame and cant win any other way. Losing you saber duel? Push em off the edge.

duke nukem 3d

[Anonymous Coward]

only noobies will be playing duke3D, all the experienced players will be jamming up the duke nukem forever servers.

Try Wolfenstein:

[big_groo]

Enemy Territory. It's free. It's fun. Runs on Windows or Linux.

Did I mention free?

Are there any?

[FractusMan]

No.

Re:Are there any?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is unfortunate, but the parent post is right. If you go online with any game that is more widely known, it will be tough. I know of no game that has something like a handicap system. WarCraft III supposedly matches only players who are on the same level, but their matching system is kind of broken. I got into CS a couple of years ago and I like to think that I did pretty well, but now I'm just 0wn3d.

Sorry mate!

Great games

[JAJ5818_X]

I would recomend downloading Steam from Valve. It hooks you up with all the Half-Life mods you'd ever want. You'll soon forget about CS... Day of Defeat and Natural Selection are where you want to be.

Urban Terror

[mindstormpt]

Urban Terror (a quake3 mod) used to be quite fun.. Not too hard to learn up to a medium skill, but of course you can't expect to be level with guys who've been playing for 4 years... But then the community (or part of it) was very lame and rough on new players... Haven't played in a while though.. this might have changed :)

Re:Urban Terror

[tulare]

You should jump back in... a lot's changed, and SID just announced that they are porting it over to the Enemy Territory engine, so within a couple months there should be enough of a shakeup within the games so that those people with amazingly well-developed skills will have to get back onto the learning ladder.

As far as being a newbie to UrT, my experience is that if you say sorry when you TK someone, don't make the same mistake too many times, and generally try to be friendly, on most servers you'll be treated well even by the most experienced players. Of course there are still some jerks, but that's the case everywhere. Some of the better servers around are TexasUT, FSK405, Mumble's Meat-Rack, and The 6th Floor...

The more the merrier =]

Re:Urban Terror

[HeadbangerSmurf]

I'd highly recommend the TTSOM servers also. They're an older clan consisting of mostly married guys who have kids and play just for fun. They're easy to get along with and are very welcoming to the new players. When I started playing Urban Terror I found their server and have been playing there ever since.

Re:Urban Terror

[mindstormpt]

Maybe I'll come back some day... I played since 1.33 till 2.6, but I really knew I should stop when I spent more time rcon kicking than playing

If you want that....

[geek4ever]

look for the next big release that comes out, and get it opening day. If you do that, most players will be as inexperienced as you. However, some may have skills that transfer from game to game. Still, it's the best shot I can think of.

BF1942

[scumbucket]

Get Battlefield 1942. It's really fun!

Once you get the hang of it, get the Desert Combat mod. Updates the weapons, vehicles, and maps to present day.

Re:BF1942

[Tophorn]

I would agree with this statement. I've played Counter-Strike for about 4 years now and recently started playing BattleField's Desert Combat mod. Mostly the maps allow for beginners to "run-around" somewhere that will allow them to stay out of the action and work on whatever skill you feel you need to improve. Also it's got pretty graphics.

Re:BF1942

[trayl]

Yup, Battlefield is great. Lots of depth for a fps (tanks, jeeps, aircraft, naval craft, out of sight artillery) and a burgeoning mod community supporting WW1, Korean wars, and sci-fi settings. Desert Combat (DC mentioned by parent) was voted best mod of 2003 by someone somewhere. Team work can win a game, but solo play is very rewarding as well.

Re:BF1942

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. I only have the demo to BF1942: SW, but I play it constantly. Now just to secure a job so that I can buy it and all the xpacks...

-Tupper

Re:BF1942

[ZaMoose]

How can I put this nicely?

You're smoking crack.

Where to begin? The difference in speed along between vanilla BF and DC makes it an entirely new game.

The helicopters are a pain to learn, but once you do, you can wreak some serious damage on the enemies.

The speed and lethality of the jets is highly enjoyable and makes for VERY entertaining aerial combat.

Each of the classes is multi-purposed, unlike in plain BF.

Shall I go on?

Re:BF1942

[protohiro1]

Second that, its very fun and there is so much to do that even a newbie can enjoy it. If you keep getting killed as infantry try manning the anti aircraft or the artillery or whatever. When you get bored you can move on to DC.

Re:BF1942

[JaredOfEuropa]

Good suggestion. I have never noticed any blatant cheating, and if you know which server to visit, you will find a reasonably mature crowd to play with (behaving maturely that is, not necessarily being of age).

Another pro is that it runs reasonably well on dated equipment. It worked just fine on my 1Ghz machine with an older graphics card.

Re:BF1942

[Barlo_Mung_42]

Does BF1942 have integrated mic support like CS? This is something that I like a lot and I hope all on line games start doing.

Re:BF1942

[74nova]

agreed. even the demo allows full playability on the wake island map. ive played just the demo online for hours. i havent played MOH, but bf1942 has got to be one of the best. ive noticed that it is a lot easier for noobs to learn, as well.

Re:BF1942

[zbuffered]

Just make sure you have enough RAM for it. I used to go to the bathroom and grab a drink waiting for a level to load. Maps ended before I was able to get in. 512MB minimum.

Re:BF1942

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but some servers use TeamSpeak. Even so, it's not worth the hassle if you only want to play short games, or you hop around servers a lot.

It's sad - mic support is *great* when you put the effort into it.

The only plus is that you won't have people wandering onto the servers spouting profanities over your speakers.

Re:BF1942

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Battlefield is the best! (really) I've been playing a lot of lan-games, and this one offers the most compelling gameplay ever. (No, I'm not a EA games shareholder :) )

It's got highly realistic war situations and missions. Needs a very fast computer though, AND a fast connection when you want to play on the internet. But it's worth it!

IHOC Quake

[Anonymous Coward]

IHOC runs the best of Quake 1 mods ever released (Orange Mods) and their server admins take cheating seriously. Q1 is still the One Quake that rules them all.

Re:IHOC Quake

[mrvis]

I'm going to have to agree on Quake 1. Team Fortress and Threewave Capture the Flag are great. TF especially. The team nature of both of them really help introduce you, I think. Learn offense, learn defense, be a sniper, be a demoman. It's grand.

And the first time I ever played 16v16 on TF it was just impressive.

The Specialists

[Raptor-DP]

Personally, I'm a fan of half-life and its resulting mods, but when it comes to cheating, the best of them are the sorta popular ones, but not too popular. My favorite being The Specialists. A matrix like game, designed for players to be just as effective at killing their opponents with dual SOCOMS as with an AK...Black trench coat not included.

Re:The Specialists

[y0bhgu0d]

black trench coat is included if you use the laurence model :)

BTW this is all we play on the LAN here at the dorms... crazy stuff.

Small and Simple

[Jailbrekr]

Give BZFlag a try. (Multiplayer CTF Battlezone)

http://www.bzflag.org/

Its small, simple, and a helluvalot of fun to play.

Re:Small and Simple

[CompWerks]

I second the recommendation on BZ.

I can't play it myself for any length of time because it makes me physically ill and dizzy for some reason.

rtcw:enemy territory

[Anonymous Coward]

rtcw: enemy territory is free and has a ton of servers to choose from. also has linux servers/clients. it's pretty fun for a game now and then, and the system requirements aren't that insane that you need a high-end machine to play. i highly recommend it.

BZFlag

[Anonymous Coward]

BZFlag is fun and free. It's at http://bzflag.org.

ArmageTRON

[Stavr0]

FP Light Cycle Game (open source, multiplatform) just like the movie.

Multiplayer Games

[Null_Void]

I know a number of people who enjoy a game called BZFlag in that manner... (kind of a 3rd person/tank shooter game).

Re:Multiplayer Games

[Null_Void]

Er... first person, I mean. Oops.

Single Player

[Anonymous Coward]

Play single player games first, most FPS games have bots you can play agains with variable skill levels. You can also try finding some friends (yeah, slashdot, i know) that have the same skill level as you and host your own server.

Delta Force Series

[Knacklappen]

The Delta Force series from Novalogic has some rooms servers especially for newbies.

It realy depends

[outofpaper]

It realy depend on what you are looking for. If you want just to have a good time you must use punk buster and might be best off acepting the fact that your going to get you ass wooped any untill you get better. You other option is to start your own clan

Single Player

[ivan37]

Play single player against bots that you can select difficulty. You can keep bumping up the difficulty until you are good enough to play online.

Tribes

[AstrumPreliator]

Try Starsiege: Tribes. It's an old game but people still play it. It's actually a pretty easy game to pick up, but damn hard to master. You will lose the first couple games, but thats going to happen in any FPS you pick up. Tribes takes advantage of the third dimension (jet pack) so it teaches you to lead properly and it gives you a good feel for hitting someone with a projectile. Once you get good at Tribes you're almost garunteed to be good at another FPS.

Re:Tribes

[Swanktastic]

The only people playing Tribes these days have been playing it for years and have mastered every single aspect of it. Don't take me wrong, I love the game, but the original poster was worried about starting up a game and getting his mouse handed to him on a plate. Plus, Tribes is so different from every other game, the learning curve is quite difficult... I don't think Tribes is a good first game to learn about online FPS.

UT2k3

[Lehk228]

If your machine can handle Unreal Tournament 2003 it's good against cheaters and you can usually find public servers with enough other n00bz to have a good time... also if you can find an invasion server that isn't using the RPG mod then you don't play against other players, it's human players v. computer aliens.

The newest on the market

[FortKnox]

Find the newest game on the market. Most are all pretty much the same now-a-days, and if you want to get on a game that has no established game gurus, and no cheats, you need to get the bleeding edge game that no one has had a chance to master and/or crack.

Honestly, any game someone mentions thats a bit older (like Enemy Territory) is a bit too complex for a 'fps newbie'. A fps newbie should get used to playing a standard deathmatch, and learning things like circle strafing... THEN get into a game that requires complex strategies and team play.... that's when things get really fun :-)

Re:The newest on the market

[drinkypoo]

I strongly disagree. The newer they are the more complex they tend to be. I suggest GLQuakeworld. True, you can't crouch, but at least you can jump. People still play quakeworld, because it works on slow connections (like modems.) And it's fun! There's lots of cool Quake mods.

Re:The newest on the market

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. First of all, a good player in any one FPS is good because they have mastered skills that can be, more or less, universally applied to FPS games. Skills like good aim, effective weapon management, and clever tactics. I would think that these elite players of FPS games - those who seem to spend all their time playing - would tend to keep up on the latest games moreso than the average, casual player. In theory, most of the players of an older game would probably be those who don't spend enough time playing to warrant spending $50 on the latest and greatest FPS. Obviously this argument is invalid for the free FPS games, such as America's Army and Enemy Territory, although the large download sizes of such games might act as a smiliar barrier.

That said, the cheating question is still a valid argument against older games, as the older a game is, the longer people have been trying to cheat at it.

Re:The newest on the market

[Anonymous Coward]

I like to try out all the Multiplayer Demos. Usually they offer pretty good Online play, though you do get the occasional "unfriendly" teammate. Hop on FilePlanet while you're at work and by the end of the day you can have one of those "cutting edge" demos to play.

Re:The newest on the market

[Nick_dm]

I do think starting with a new game is a good thing, before things have settled down you tend to get a more varried base of players, people won't have got bored of it, beginers won't have been scared off. With the older games most people still playing them will have been playing for a few years at least so they'll be pretty damn good compared to a beginner. Some body mentioned the good players always jumping to a new game, often the reverse is true, because they are more experienced they tend to be more picky about what they like.

However I don't think starting with deathmatch is necessarily such a good thing, while it seems simple as a beginer there's really quite a lot going on and it can be very fast paced. Games aren't always team based on public server so you probably won't have anyone good to protect you :) With the "tactical/realistic" type games you can possibly pick a class that suits your strengths and learn while having people back you up, there will be a lot to learn but your told the main objectives when you start and you can always follow team members :) Also since these games are a bit more mainstream you will find more casual players then in deathmatch games (well that's my experience, though all of this does change from game to game).

Re:The newest on the market

[Torinaga-Sama]

While you make a good point I don't %100 agree. There are always issues playing on a new map, and part of being really good at a game is knowing the maps. There is a certain flow of timing on a map and understanding how a map can play out can make a huge difference in your ability to frag successfully.

Medal Of Honor

[Krafty Koder]

Medal of Honor is still a firm multiplayer favourite with me. The "team match" mode is probably the best is you are starting off, as no matter how many times you get shot, you immediately respawn (kinda like Quake Arena in that respect). But, if you feel you're not up to the skill levels of the other players, you can always just pick a sniper rifle as your weapon and sit in a bush or up a church tower, hiding , and occassionally sniping the opposing side. I've not tried Call Of Duty multiplayer yet, so i cant comment on it - but for pure thrills , Medal Of Honor multiplayer is awesome.

Re:Medal Of Honor

[Strog]

MOHAA is a great game. Call of Duty is made by the same people and is better. It's more optimized on the hardware so it plays very well on decent gamer rigs.

There's a beta linux client for Medal of Honor from our good friends at icculus.org. Thanks guys.

FPS?

[WwWonka]

Man, tough weekend when I look at the subject and see "A Good Online FDS?"

Talk about an online innovation for not only women but mankind in general!

Your best bet...

[Jacer]

Your best bet is a LAN party with your friends. Your real friends, who, if you catch cheat, you can nail tacks through their, well, ya know. Online gaming is dominated by cheaters and fourteen year old kids who threaten to hax0r your computer when you're doing better than them. Though they rarely know what an IP address is, let alone a port. If I sound a bit bitter, it's because I play a lot of Warcraft, and the maturity level is insane. I don't talk to people when I play, and all I can stand to lay is team games with my room mate. I played a lot of C-strike in the day, but it just lost its appeal after having played Aztec for the hundred-thousandth time. Not to mention all of the kids who use aim bot. I have it a bit easy, where lan games can be arranged by walking down the dorm hallway and yelling at the kids on my floor. It's really hard, and a lot of people ruin the fun. Though, I guess your other option is to just get insanely good and hop around all the servers screaming "3a7 my r0ck37 biz0tch" as you let loose your fury in such an unholy manner everyone just assumes you ARE cheating, and ban you.

Re:Your best bet...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the ban kick you for 'having a high ping' when your ping is lower than the server mods that kicked you but your score is higher.

Re:Your best bet...

[EulerX07]

Battle.net...

You will never see such a wretched hive of scum and villainy anywhere else in the galaxy. We have to be careful not to be pwned.

Re:Your best bet...

[yoshi_mon]

This is not a flame but just a suggestion, if your sick of the WC3 croud might I suggest Rise Of Nations?

RON is a more grown-up RTS that has a more grown-up player base. And it's gameplay is just outstanding.

It had MP issues when it 1st came out but as of right now, patch 3, it is very easy to play MP and there are plenty of games to be had.

Re:Your best bet...

[74nova]

dont necessarily need a lan, you could just play online with just them. that way, no lugging machines around and less tiem travelling. my friends and i play diablo2 like that. the guy w/o the router hosts the game and the rest of us just connect and play like its battlenet

Re:Your best bet...

[Anonymous Coward]

and all I can stand to lay is team games with my room mate.

That sounds like a lot more fun than playing a FPS online...

Re:Your best bet...

[Anonymous Coward]

The only time I ever played online was BattleNet w/StarCraft.

I barely built a few tanks and a platoon of Marines before I was getting nuked. Total set-up. 8 Nukes hit me before I could send out a platoon.

We used to play Age of Empires II on the LAN at my previous job after work. That was fun, esp when your buddy hears the trumpets blaring, and you hear "fuck fuck fuck, who is attacking me?". The only sucky thing was the job was in a sketchy part of town, so getting out late at night could be a bit intimidating. Esp when the local gang bangers would use the parking lot for a Fast and Furious donut training session.

America's Army

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, First Post?

Anyway, try Armerica's Army

It is free. It has several levels of online training allowing you to practice your skills, meet other players, and form your own 'clan' before venturing on to where all the real bad asses play. Not sure how well it protects against cheating though.

- Nicholas
Hacker Intel - Constantly Updated Hacker News

Depends on what you like

[Explodo]

I've always found Return to Castle Wolfenstein to be pretty boring as far as multiplayer goes, but lots of people love it. I prefer Soldier of Fortune 2's multiplayer. I don't really like the Quake or Unreal multiplayer/"death lasers and bombs in space" sort of stuff. Vietcong doesn't have much support, but the multiplayer is pretty fun. It looks like Far Cry(coming soon) is going to have some good multiplayer, but you never know until it comes out.

Just gotta take you licks....

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunatly for you, you have entered the age of online FPS in what is kind of a dead-zone....Usually I would say you HAVE to just go and take your lumps and put up with with being called a "newb" in CS games until you get better. This is because CS (Counter-Strike) WAS the best online game hands down EVER. BUT, with the very shaky introduction of STEAM the CS comunity has become highly fractured and many have quit CS and are awaitning the next best thing. That next best thing will most likely come out after Half-Life-2 or perhaps with a new Tribes game. Either way, this is a very poor time to enter online FPS gaming for the first time, you are kinda both too late for the original CS and too early for the new replacement :(

Return to Castle Wolfenstine.

[Rhys]

Download the MP demo and go to town. You'll take a while to learn not to shoot friendlies (ff=on) but it's pretty easy to pickup. Stick to the axis first, then go allies later once you understand it.

I'd start as a lt so you can drop ammo. You'll use a lot till ya get better. Medic is good cause you have more health and thus in an even fight with a non-medic will usually win. Eng are almost useless for axis, and newb soldiers usually get kicked due to friendly-fire damage.

xbox live

[drjenk]

I would recommend xbox live, and Unreal Championship or any of the many online FPS games (RTCW, Rainbow6 3, Ghost recon are all excellent). You don't have to worry about cheating (to my knowledge, at least I haven't noticed any), and it seems like you are usually on with a couple other novices. And if you like racing I highly recommend Project Gotham Racing 2, which is xbox live enabled.

Quake 2 and Quake 3.

[blanks]

I was playing these games for years, and never once played a game with cheats enabled (if they were I guess I was to good).

With most FPS online games you can sort your sever list and remove the servers that allow cheats.

Tribes 2 is the same way.

BF1942

[dfj225]

I would suggest battlefield 1942. You can hop in to a game quickly, and it uses punkbuster, so there is little to no cheating. BF1942 is not one of those games where people get insanely good and know every little inch of the map. Plus, if WW2 isn't your bag, you can always download destert combat for some modern action. I personaly like DC better than the original, but thats just me.

How about...

[GrendelT]

looking for free games? or retail games($)?
Me, personally, I've been playing Battlefield 1942, which just got Punkbuster added to it. Then there's the free Desert Combat mod for it. Also been playing Call of Duty. And Battlefield : Vietnam should be out within the next month or so.

As for free... How about America's Army? I haven't played it in a long time, but I loved it when i did play it. There's also Wolfenstein : Enemy Territory.

Desert Combat

[bbk]

Check out www.desertcombat.com

It's a mod on Battlefield 1942, and offers modern weapons and vehicles. It also has a fairly gentle learning curve - you can start off just play infantry, move up to Humvees and Tanks, and then work on the planes and helicopters. The gameplay is the best I've seen in any FPS that includes vehicles.

It's also a teamwork game - nothing like flying a blackhawk full of guys through a city, having two guys on the chainguns mowing people down, and the rest paratrooping in to take a base.

I've been playing it for a few months now, and it keeps getting better with every new release.

Re:Desert Combat

[The Ape With No Name]

nothing like flying a blackhawk full of guys through a city, having two guys on the chainguns mowing people down, and the rest paratrooping in to take a base.

Unless you are doing it for real. I think Garry Trudeau calls this "Landing Craft Envy."

Battlefield 1942...

[puppetman]

As simple or complex as you want to make it.

Also has punk-busters integrated in it as of the 1.6 patch, so no cheating, and you can kick annoying players. DiCE/EA seem to be interested in patching and adding new maps/content as well.

Won game of the year a year or two ago, and is perfect for that 30-minutes worth of entertainment

Problem with Game Balance

[Prien715]

I've played quite a bit of CS, and one of the biggest problems is lack of balance between servers and players. It doesn't matter if a player's cheating or not, but if the player's 30-3 someone should kick them. They're either playing against people who are much worse than them in which case they should join a server with better players or else they need to stop cheating. I'd like to see more servers with kick votes to help with this kind of stuff.

Re:Problem with Game Balance

[Tweakmeister]

Sorry to say I'm one of those people who is typically scoring "30-3" on a server where others are no where close. And I don't cheat!

You play something long enough, then you get good at it. You play the same maps long enough, you start knowing all the little tricks, and where people *always* go. People are creatures of habit, and thus my shooting is made easier ;)

Find a cool game and stick with it. I've played a lot (SOF, RTCW, Unreal, etc.) of online FPS' but CS seems to be the most fun, and the matches cycle quickly enough that you can get plenty of play time in.

For practice on the downtime work with bots or host your own LAN parties.

Re:Problem with Game Balance

[prisoner]

his point is still valid. If you're 30-3 you should probably move on to a server with better players.

Re:Problem with Game Balance

[santos_douglas]

Though you don't state it explicitly, you're on the track of what I was thinking: the best way to enjoy CS still outside a LAN party is to find a good server that is actively admined, as many now are not. Nothing improves gameplay like a good admin who wastes no time pulling the kick trigger. Vote kicking is a good idea but rarely seems to succeed. Make a list of these and stick to them. It can be a pain when they are full, but its better than playing on a server full of cheats.

Re:Problem with Game Balance

[Tweakmeister]

This isn't a communist arena, it's a competition. You play to succeed and win. Don't kick the guy who's doing well, take the initiative on your own and go to a different server.

Re:Problem with Game Balance

[TOGA! TOGA TOGA!]

you know, i agree with you in your sentiment that the 30-3 player is not necessarily to blame. really, it is hard enough to just find a good server with cool players, that one shouldn't have to worry about being too good. i used to be part of an admin team that ran a server that was frequented by many of the best players in the UC system. we found that welcoming good players only attracted more good players. eventually, the level of play was well beyond that of most pub servers. please don't bash good players (mote: I am not that good) just because you aren't as skilled/experienced/whatever. take the time to learn their skills and accept the challenge of competition. i promise you will have more fun.

Re:Problem with Game Balance

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who's been on the other side, sometimes it's just fun to kick the living shit out of every other player with little or no effort.

Fair and balanced is fun most of the time, but once in a while destroying some n00bs is a good feeling.

Re:Problem with Game Balance

[madcow_ucsb]

True - good stress relief.

I haven't played a FPS since freshman year of college (dorms were ideal - it just seemed much less fun playing on the internet after moving out). But back then I was pretty good (and I was pretty damn good at the Quake TF before that). At the times when I was dominating it was fun to either 1) bring in another kickass guy I knew so we could *both* wreak havoc or 2) Go on a pistol or knife spree.

The only thing more discouraging to a newbie than getting killed repeatedly is getting killed repeatedly with a knife :)

Re:Problem with Game Balance

[Bob Vila's Hammer]

I play CS way too much, I'm good enough that I get accused of cheating all the time. But I totally agree with your observation. The game is the most fun when it is fair and the thing about CS is that most of the servers are notoriously unfair - the teams are almost always stacked. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to play fair and find that you have to deal with 16 vs 10 and the 3 afks are on your team. It basically comes down to piss-poor adminning. Piss-poor admins destroy the game, and really disrupt the uninitiated from learning how to play.

I have played enough to find certain servers that utilize a team balancing function that keeps the scores even. It checks all kinds of stats and transfers key players over to the opposite team each round if needed. These servers are really fair, fun for newbies, and generally the most fun to play on.

If you're going to play CS, download Cheating Death, its one of the best things you can do to prevent cheating. It does have drawbacks, it is required on certain servers and prevents you from playing on others, but it works for the most part.

And the best thing to do overall is just play enough, die enough, and get pissed enough until you get good. Counter Strike is, in my opinion, the best intro and development FPS shooter game for that regimen.

Re:Problem with Game Balance

[Anonymous Coward]

you guys are crybaby-whiners. just get good at the game so that person isn't 30-3. and yeah you probably can't do that if you just play for 30 minutes a day. but others shouldn't be punished just because you don't want to put much effort into a game. you talk about making the game fair or whatever but i think it's already fair, everyone has the same opportunity to play everyone else.

Re:Problem with Game Balance

[Anonymous Coward]

No way!

I am am ok, top 4 or so on any FPS I pick up.... but CS I am top 1 or 2 in public servers (clans are for wussies) and I am SICK of the little trolls who try and kick the good players for no other reason than that they are better. Even at my level of skill, I still have massive downs and get 0-9 or whatever occasionally when warming up. I don't take it too hard though learn how to lose kiddies - isn't that something the facist gym teacher always used to say about sport that it teaches you to lose? I, for one, hated jock bastards and their sport but perhaps there is something to learn from that. We are, after all, superior to them we should be able to learn the lesson through observation rather than participation, but in this case we ARE playing e-sport. Sure I bang my fist (killed one keyboard in many years of gaming) and swear alot, but kick people?

And to top it off I normally play on servers at a level with my skill - where I have to get my heart pumping to keep first place on the ranks with people nipping at my heels, but occassionally it's just the wrong time of day or there are more noobs than usual and I just PWN them.

Then they try and kick me. Not fun at all.

Re:Problem with Game Balance

[Prien715]

The purpose of the game is not to win, but to have fun last I checked (being the best CS player on a public server doesn't get you money or a date).

There's a reason non-computer games tend to have leagues. It's precisely because you don't want to play Michael Jordon playing against your ten year old son. Why should computer games be any different?

BzFlag

[ScottG]

Try BZflag (www.bzflag.org).

Its open source and available for Linux/Windows/Mac and probably others.

Its conceptually simple, and therefore pretty quick to get started, but there are always new tactics/counter-tactics to learn.

Being open source, there are cheaters. But I've found this to be a minor problem. Most players seem to be honest and when you do encounter someone that appears to be cheating, just switch to a different server.

Its very sensitive to latency, so you will likely find that some servers work better for you than others. Each server has its own combination of rules/options, so you should try out several servers anyway, just to see what you like.

Its Free! Give it a try.

Day of Defeat

[michtu]

Day of Defeat is a great WWII mod for half-life. It's easy enough grasp the game play and to pop on for a while and servers are starting use cheating death or other software to crack down on cheaters. I also like Americas Army, but it requires you to pass some training and sign up before you can get online. However because of that and the experience point system it uses, there is a lot less morons team killing for the fun of it like you see in DOD or counter strike.

Re:Day of Defeat

[DR SoB]

Although it sometimes happens, Team Killing is not much of an issue on DOD as FF=OFF is mostly set, and Team Killers are normally banned quickly and permenantly. I agree with you, Day Of Defeat is simply the best online game, and has been for the past 3 years.

Re:Day Of Defeat

[metrazol]

DoD is king. Makes CS look like a 14 year old camper fest...wait, that's what CS is...

Seriously folks, RTCW:ET can't hold a candle to Day of Defeat. I played casually for a week and then got hooked. It's worth it, and you can get yourself a Steam working CD-Key off of an copy of Half-Life, CS, or DoD retail, which run, oh...$10 online. Shameless plug, I got mine from dirtcheapgames.com and have been Ownzorin' Allie N00bs since September.

Re:Day Of Defeat

[DR SoB]

I've been playing for 3 years, since version 1.3b. I own the map dod_avalanche. If you see me online it'll be under "JustJk [Canada]".

Re:Day Of Defeat

[glesga_kiss]

I second that. DoD is highly realistic which adds to the fun. No more circle-strafing while pumping shotgun shells into each other due to silly health models. Many of the rifles are one-hit kills.

And it's dirt cheap, free if you own any Half-Life games and legit CD-Keys.

Re:Day of Defeat

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO, DoD IS one of the best out there. Just be kind and don't immediatly pick up a sniper rifle and sit in a corner of a map somewhere and hope someone comes by. In my experience, DoD is almost COMPLETLY *team* based...meaning score-whoring doesn't get you all that far...your team still lost...good job : \.

Here's the link...I think

Posting as the hated AC due to Points -
Archangel_Azazel

Re:Day of Defeat

[Anonymous Coward]

KarWhorez 4ever baby.

Re:Day Of Defeat

[Anonymous Coward]

DoD rocks hard.

1000x funner than MoH or CoD.

Re:Day of Defeat

[KlaymenDK]

I want to support this as strongly as I can -- Day of Defeat is *THE* online game.

True, it's the basic two-team FPS just like Counter-Strike (bleh), but it's soo much better. Unlike shoot-everything games like CS and "Serious" Sam, DoD is a difficult-to-master piece of action.

Shoot your Browning twice, and you're suddently aiming more than 20 degrees higher. Jump twice or run 40 paces, and you're so low on stamina that you'll have to walk slowly for a while. This game is HARD, damnit! If you go it alone you'll be lying on your face in the mud in no time.

Plus, if (when) you die, there's only a few seconds until the next respawn wave, so unlike CS if you die 30 seconds into a round you don't have to wait for the whole round to restart. Then there is the community -- most people are helpful and there is plenty of activity on the forum (http://www.dayofdefeat.net/forums/index.php).

O yeah, and if you're without DSL for a while, you can always install the excellent Sturmbot AI and play against the computer. There is no real single-player mode.

Only downside is you have to run Windows, because DoD is based on Half-Life. And it's only fair to warn you - it shows in the graphics, but it's still a pretty excellent piece of eyecandy, plus you can run it on "any old Pentium".

"KlaymenDK"
playing since Beta 1.1...
--
Not using my moderator points so I can commend this game!!

Re:Day of Defeat

[KlaymenDK]

Oh yeah, and you might want to check out http://www.moddb.com/ -- they have a thorough listing of ALL the mods out there.

Windows or Linux?

[msimm]

I've been playing online games under Linux for a few years now. First 'serious' game was Tribes 2 which is a hell of a lot of fun, but teaming with clanners (not much trouble with cheats though). Now I play Postal 2 exclusively. It might fit the bill if you don't mind toilet humor mixed in with the game. The online extention is still fairly new I don't know about clans in the retail (because Linux retail version hasn't been released yet). Anyhow, its fun and fast paces so you could easily log in for a half hour and get a good game in. I only know of one cheat, but it only effects the demo servers (retail servers have been patched for it) its a 'health cloning' bug, so its only nominally annoying (pick-up health, spawn extra health, easily fixed with a well placed shotgun blast to offending users face). Anyhow, thats my suggestion. Its good fun and you get to play Gary Colmen!

The only number you need.

[MEGAGatchaman]

The only number you need is:

64.246.60.18

The only game you need is Enemy Territory from www.splashdamage.com It's free and you can't beat the fun. The [MEGA] Server is a great place for beginners and pros alike. Come on in. We run the latest in anti-cheat with active admins as well. BOOYAH!

Gatcha~

bzflag

[BadBlood]

http://www.bzflag.org/

The game is like the old Battlezone game where tanks move around trying to simply kill each other. The flag part is where you run over flags and get different "power-ups" depending on the type of flag.

It's cross-platform, simple, and the graphics are scalable such that it can be run on a variety of machines varying horsepower.

Not FPS, but...

[mangledspine]

These are not FPS, but they are good games to get into, since there aren't many players to begin with. That was *one* of your requirements, at least.

EVE:

http://www.eve-online.com/ MMORPG.

12.95/Month/USD to play IIRC. Very Babylon 5/Star Control/Trade Wars 2002 type feel with lots of group and individual play options Excellent graphics! Nice tutorial, will get you up and running in about 30 minutes. View the user-created video section branched off the main page.

Look me up - "Lochlann"

PristonTale

http://www.priston-tale.com/ - Free online fantasy MMORPG. Excellent graphics. I don't play this much, but it's definitely got something to it!

Stick with the staples

[Atroxodisse]

I think your impression of UT, CS and Quake are unfounded. There are definitely people who cheat in these games but the vast majority do not. Most of the time people who are accused of cheating are just really good at the game and the noobs don't know whats going on so they accuse them of hacking, aimbotting etc. UT2003 is only $19.99 at amazon.com and its pretty fun(you could probably pick it up for less at a second hand game store). UT you can probably pick up for $5. CS is free if you have half life. You don't need to be good at the games to have fun. I can't speak for Quake because I never played them that much.

Re:Stick with the staples

[Man Eating Duck]

I basically agree, but never pick up online games which rely on a cd-key or serial number for identification at second-hand stores. The key is likely to be in use most of the time. A friend of mine picked up Half-Life without the shrink-wrap (he didn't think about it then) at regular price, the key was already being used.

Steam/VAC

[lukewarmfusion]

Counter-strike 1.6 is delivered via Steam. It authenticates users via the net and if you're playing on a "secure" server, you'll be protected from cheaters by their Valve Anti-Cheat System, or VAC. It detects cheaters/hackers and bans their ID (and cd-key, consequently) from the system for five years. I've never seen a hack/cheat in a secure server on Counter-strike or Day of Defeat.

Re:Steam/VAC

[jswinth]

You are kidding right? I run a CS 1.6 server in secure mode. Hacks abound. VAC takes a while (like months) to catch on and stop each new hack. The little kids that use them just their parents to by a new CD if they should ever get banned. The only thing that comes close to helping is some server mods from United Admins.

Re:Steam/VAC

[Worminater]

Never seem?

You are either grossly nubish um...

yea your grossly nubish.

With steam, if you get banned as you say from a server, your cd key isnt banned, your steam id is banned. If you make a new account with the email verification shiznit, your unbanned from the server you just got banned on. Only minus to ge5tting banned is it resets your steam friends if you use it :p

Re:Steam/VAC

[lukewarmfusion]

Your steam Id is tied to your cd key. Your cd key can only be registered once. If you try to set up a new acct. with the same CD key, you'll be rejected.

Your only option is to buy a new CD (or try to get lucky with a keygen, I guess).

On the other hand, I mostly play on servers that I trust and only on secure servers. I don't recall seeing a hack or cheat used since I've been using Steam. Trust me, I know what a cheat looks like. As for being nubish, I've been fps-ing since Wolfenstein 3-D, Doom and Ken's frickin' Labyrinth. Not that those had much in the way of multiplayer cheats. My 2400 bps wouldn't have stood it.

Website

[TheAngryMob]

Someone forgot to put a URL...

americasarmy.com

Re:Website

[glitch23]

Go figure, never would have guessed that one. Good thing there is google.

Enemy Territory

[Quill_28]

It's free and so far I have been pleased with it.

Team play is crucial and the overall maturity seems higher(relatively) than some games like warcraft and counter-strike.

Also, the different classes allow the not-so-quick trigger-finger-player to still play a vital role.

Folks seem friendly, but that may not last.

Some good places to start

[HappyFunnyFoo]

If you are referring to UT2003, try GibGames.com port 2206 or 2225 for the more "skilled" players, or just connect to one of the countless deathmatch servers. Cheaters are rarely a problem; I encounter a cheater once in every twenty matches on UT2003. With Quake 3 your best bet is to only join servers with punkbuster enabled (this should have been obvious already) as it seems to stop cheating to some degree.

Some inexperienced FPS players automatically assume that someone's cheating when they get smacked down, often repeatedly. 99% of the time it's just skill, in my experience. I often thought the same way when people would have 20 frags and no deaths. However, I now realize that it's just talent. I am not in any way saying that you are one of these people, it's just that cheating is a lot rarer on online FPS games than one might expect from reading this post.

I have no experience with Half-Life: Counterstrike. This only applies to Q3 and UT2003.

Play UT on CSHP servers

[j-turkey]

(I haven't played UT in a few years, so I don't know what's what with the UT community as of late)

When I played UT, all of the best servers ran CSHP. There's a little more info here. (Sorry, I didn't have time to find better links -- the CSHP home page seems to have gone away.) CSHP stands for Client Side Hack Protection. This is a aimbot/cheat protection mod that makes sure that everybody is playing on a level field. All of the servers running is, advertised it.

I just don't get it. What's the point of playing an online game if you have to cheat to win? What a way to ruin a game for everyone. (eyeroll)

Re:Play UT on CSHP servers

[abusedesk]

One of the mods for UT, Excessive UT (currently living at this site and using two mods) has a community and admin group that border on rabidly anti-cheat. Though the servers do show up in the UT browser, you will find it easier to look for them in the via the website. The players there are a small community; we mostly know each other by tag and location, although some of the players actually live near each other. You are extremely likely to get a fair game, every time. There are random botters that show up; but the servers are actively monitored, and cheaters kicked and banned, sometimes right away. Be warned: Excessive UT is a series of bright lights, loud noises, and the screams of your dying enemies. IOW, it's the perfect game. I play as Jack Death; if you show up and see me, say hi.

Re:Play UT on CSHP servers

[Total_Wimp]

I just don't get it. What's the point of playing an online game if you have to cheat to win?

I think it's the great sense of satisfaction you get from knowing you're skilled enough to download a cheat. I don't know about you, but when I get just the right "english" on a downloaded cheat it's like both my feets are floating in the air. I feel the rush of super nitrous adrenalin as I watch the download status bar. When it's actually installed on my computer the warm wet sensation in my pants tells me I'm truly in heaven.

Please respect my Mad Downloading Skillz.

TW

Tribes 2

[j_sp_r]

Tribes 2 is cool (and cheap nowdays). There is a linux version but that isn't availble anymore in stores(try P2P and buy a windowze cd for the key). There are some decent crazy players (trying new tactics 26/7), but the KATA servers are fun. By using DefenseTurret(triben.de) servers ensure there are no lamers/cheaters.

Re:Tribes 2

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, i've got tribes 2, and i must say, it is a very good game to learn teamwork, and build upon simple defensive strats to work into an offensive role, such as raping or capping. and the vehicles make the game just that much more intresting and fun. and it's cheap to buy too.

Re:Tribes 2

[CrowScape]

Good choice, but you don't even need to go to the sequal. Tribes 1 is still a great game even if the graphics are dated, and I believe all the cheating issues have been worked out.

Move up through the ranks

[Apreche]

Beginners should play single player first. Get yourself a copy of doom. Beat the game on at least hurt me plenty mode. Then beat doom 2 the same way. It doesn't take long. Then beat quake 2 single player on normal. Forget quake 1. Then beat half-life single player on normal. After that you should have amassed enough fps skill to rock the house.

Play some good old team fortress classic. It isn't that popular anymore, but people still play. It will train you to apply your already existing fps skills against real players. Once you've got the multiplayer fps groove and the skills to avoid being called a n00b pick your game of choice. You can go for a slower paced lower skilled game like america's army, BF1942. A middle of the road game like UT. Or the high skill fierce competition games like CS and natural selection.

There are lots of fpses out there, and one of them is right for you. But don't jump right into the online world like you're in the polar bears club. Remember, you're going up against guys like me who've been fpsing since wolf3d on dos and the game wont be fun for you if I frag you in two seconds every time. Go through the same skill building process we did. You have the luxury of not having to wait years for new games to come out, so take advantage of it.

As for me lately the only fps I'm into is NS.

Re:Move up through the ranks

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget quake 1.

You sir, are a moron. Quake 1 is more fun and requires more skill (both for single player and multiplayer) than Quake 2 ever will.

Tactical Ops

[Nocta]

Tactical Ops is now a retail game based on the Unreal Tournament engine. It's a small community, I guess it's starting to die off (Unreal Tournament IS getting pretty old). Some are turning to Frag Ops, its UT2k3 counterpart. The game is your basic swat vs. terrorist round-based FPS (similar to Counterstrike, only better).

The REAL basics

[CompressedAir]

It depends on how new to the genre you are... I say this as someone who has recently tried to teach his girlfriend to play Natural Selection.

I mean, it never would have occured to me that mouselook would be a major stumbing block. Having started playing games without it (ala Doom), mouselook was such an improvement that I don't remember a learning curve at all.

She spent a while running around staring at her shoes, or the ceiling. So if you're really new to it, pick a game that lets to play offline to learn the little basics.

So, I'd say learn on Half-Life, and then play Natural Selection once you've got the basics down. So long as you are not intentionally a jerk, the NS community tends to be pretty open to newbies.

Re:The REAL basics

[Sarcasmooo!]

You shoulda suggested he start as a gorgy so he doesn't need to fight well. What are you some kinda non-gorging res whore? omfghomo!! ;]

Check out Tribes2

[marklyon]

I'd suggest you check out Tribes. Not only can you play different roles in the game, but lots of the servers are pretty evenly balanced between newbies and "game gods".

I play on the T2War server http://www.tribeswar.com.

Server name: -2004 TRIBESWAR.COM
IP Address: 66.237.58.11:28000
Daily restart time: Approx. 5 AM PST

For more information about the game, and how great being able to play different roles than just "deathmatcher" or "flag grabber" check out: http://www.dansdata.com/t2bastard.htm

Re:Check out Tribes2

[Troy]

I don't have a large amount of experience with FPS, but let me throw in another vote for Tribes 2. It has several features that make it very newbie friendly:

1. The game design promotes teamwork, which mitigates the impact of a single experienced player running roughshod over an entire opposing team. Most powerful vehicles don't work properly without several players operating them, while the single player vehicles aren't that powerful.
2. There are lots of honestly useful roles for inexperienced players to play, while they get used to the game. Every large base needs a good medic to heal guards and repair turrets/generators.
3. It can be found on the bargain rack for about $10.
4. The single player missions can be challenging, albeit a little repetitive. Their AI bots are particularly worthy advesaries and will keep pushing your abilities.
5. People are generally friendly and well-behaved. Most of the immature 11 year old players have moved on to more popular games. In the absense of an admin, users can elect a temporary admin and/or vote troublesome people off of the island.

-Troy

-Troy

Rubberband health

[edwilli]

Have any games/mods considered rubberbanding health like many race games do with speed? Seems something like this would make it more interesting for experts and less frustrating for beginners.

Play Against the Clans/Difficult Players

[nordaim]

It will force you to become better quickly. Only a few hours is needed to really push your learning curve through the roof when you play against this calibre of players.

Spend an evening or a weekend on one of these servers; it won't put you on their level by any means, but when you do pop on to kill some boredom, you can enjoy the experience more than asking Slashdot for a newbie server.

---

Any new game

[onelin]

You could have fun with any new game of your choice. The key thing is that games with 5, even 7 years of a playerbase, everyone who still plays is going to be DAMN GOOD. There isn't much you can do to get around that, unless you purposely seek out servers with no skill level or improve your level of skill to the point you can have some good fun with the hardcore players.

More recent games are: Call of Duty, MoH games, etc? I play Battlefield 1942 and after a few weeks I got to around the top 10 on a popular server. (granted, I played for more than 30 minutes at a time)

Playing with people you know is the best way to have fun; things are usually more lighthearted that way.

worse yet

[abe ferlman]

punkbuster seems to not work right on my linux install of quake3, it's always complaining that it needs to update versions. Anyone else found a fix for this? I'm patched up to the most current q3 binaries as of about a week ago.

Re:worse yet

[tulare]

Actually, punkbuster has been releasing a LOT of updates in the last month or so. I actually had it nail me twice on the same session! I loaded a game of my favorite mod, fragged somebody, got bumped for a punkbuster update, switched to a vt, ran pbweb (much faster than waiting for the ingame download to work, if it even ever does), got the update, did a /reconnect to the game server, and played for about 2 hours, at which point I got bumped to spec AGAIN for a pb update. I just had to laugh.

Those pricks like noskill must be hating life these days =]

Re:worse yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to the punkbuster website, and they have some utility called pbweb or something, that you can use to manually update punkbuster before you play. I haven't had any luck updating in-game, myself, so I just make sure I run that before I play.

Think Tanks!

[bennomatic]

I had a bunch of fun playing Think Tanks when it came out for the Mac. It's fast paced and cartoony, and a lot of fun. I gues it's really a 3PS, not FPS, but I figured I'd mention it anyway.

CS

[Anonymous Coward]

Try downloading CS 1.6 w/o Steam & with bots, then you can practice against the bots before you play online...http://cs.rin.ru/download-cs16-non-steam- eng-old.html

Sorry :P

[rylin]

GET OFF THE INTERNET, N00B!!!
/me desperately tries to avoid the troll-filter

any new game would do

[Anonymous Coward]

i usaly only play new games and only keep playing them for a month or two. if the game is new everybody is about the same level and there arent any cheat availble yet. after a month or two people tend to take the games way to seriosly it takes the fun away. ok so i like gaming but i dont like it when it gets to the point where you have to play 4h+
each day just to keap up. so my recomondation try any new game that looks cool

PunkBuster

[grolschie]

Plus ET has punkbuster to detect cheaters and kick them. Often new cheats are detected quite quickly too. Other games with punkbuster are RTCW, Americas Army, Battlefield 1942, Quake3 Arena, Call of Duty (soon to have pb), Rainbow 6:3, etc.

ET is an awesome game. Can't get enough. It's completely freeware, and there are stacks of user made levels to download. Highly addictive! Plays great on 56k modem (hardware modem, not win-modem) too.

Re:PunkBuster

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheaters cheat because their skills suck. Rather than becoming good players, they try to ruin it for everyone else using their kiddie scripts. It these lamerz that cause the need for pb. It's the true gamers who want pb. True gamers petitioned to get pb in Call of Duty, and now that's coming soon!

Re:PunkBuster

[LilMikey]

I totally agree that cheaters do in fact suck and cheat only to supplement poor skill. However, Punkbuster has its own problems, namely false positives and complete dicks for admins. Check out their forums... tons of stories about people getting kicked for all sorts of stupid crap (ie: can't connect to punkbuster's servers... wtf?) and the admin pretty much saying 'too bad, f'n cheater.' While I haven't had a problem with PunkBuster I know personally 2 people who have.

There are other operations in town to detect and eliminate cheaters and it's unfortunate that PunkBuster was chosen to lead the pack.

Re:PunkBuster

[pugdk]

I couldn't agree more. Banged my head against the wall recently with people from the unofficial punkbuster forums (since they are too afraid to have a forum themselves).

Some of the admins at that place are pure ****heads, while others do at least have the decency of admitting to behaving badly when all you do is come there for advice and questions.

Also EB is really good at that "silent" treatment.. Contacted them about a cheat I found that wasn't detected by Punkbuster.. their reply: Do not test things out yourself.. no asking for details, no asking which cheat, where I got it yada yada, just telling me to go away and mind my own business.

As I am (unwillingly) a customer of Punkbuster since I bought a game that supports it I feel that kind of behaviour not satisfactory.

-pug

Re:PunkBuster

[Anonymous Coward]

Put yourself in PunkBuster's shoes -- 99.9% of the people who want to talk to them are cheaters who got caught, bad players who just got beat by good players, or people trying social engineering hacks. They have their cadre of admins to keep pulse on what's going on.

Re:PunkBuster

[Anonymous Coward]

Good call. However, I think pb is a good start though. PB should give their admins a kick in the pants. I emailed pb about a cheat, and got a fast as response from Ken Creedon( kcreedon at evenbalance...). He was very helpful. EB do need to hear this kind of user feedback. If you got suggestions, they are willing to hear. Send an email to: support@evenbalance.com

Re:PunkBuster

[Anonymous Coward]

I went on a server, and someone (a pb admin) started killing my entire team, but posting it as me. I mean, I did absolutely nothing, yet on the screen was "xxxx was killed by teammate yyyy" where my name = "yyyy". It even said "yyyy" killed himself, even though I was still alive. Next all these quick talk posts came flooding out with my name next to them. So you can imagine what happened next, everyone voted me off the server, I get the kick.

Re:PunkBuster

[jred]

It doesn't matter what service you use, some people are going to have problems and others are going to pissed off about something.

Re:PunkBuster

[cortana]

PB is just a tool. It's not its fault if the server you chose to play on is run by arseholes.

This is one of the reasons that playing on public servers doesn't seem to make much sense any more...

Good quick games

[sloanster]

Even though I've got ut2000, ut2003, RtCW, enemy territory and some other great games, I find that the good old quake 3 arena demo is still great after all these years. Nothing complicated to learn, just aim well, move fast and kill the bad guys more than they kill you.

It's a free download (around 50 MB) from ftp.idsoftware.com for mac, linux and peecee platforms, and there are a lot of q3demo servers still out there with plenty of users, and continuing mod development (muckleball and freezetag are especially fun)

After a stressful day, there's nothing like tossing back a few cold ones, firing up q3demo and fragging some hapless win32 quakers for a while. it's not uncommon to see mac and/or linux players on popular servers, and there are also some good female players out there, so at times q3a can become basically a chat room with 3D effects. ;)

Re:Good quick games

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree -- I had so much fun playing Quake3 Demo that I never got around to buying the game.

Re:Good quick games

[leadfoot]

Which Mac file do I download, there are 3 there.

Re:Good quick games

[sloanster]

A quick gander tells me the one you'd want is MacQuake3Demo.bin -

See ya on the net

Good game

[SphericalCrusher]

Yeah, this is a great game. Call of Duty is awesome also.

Re:Good game

[dreamer98]

Call of Duty all the way.

Battlefield 1942 w/ Desert Combat mod

[NitroWolf]

I've been playing Battlefield 1942 with the Desert Combat mod a lot lately.

I've not played FPS's since Doom 2 (no joke), because they are all pretty much the same old, same old. Couple that with the rampant cheating, and I was just totally turned off by the genre until last month.

My brother came to visit and convinced me to play, and I was pretty much hooked after awhile. You can pick up BF1942 for $30 or less and the DC mod is free... and it's a killer mod. It's worth the $30 to give it a shot and see if you like it.

Like any online game and FPS, though, there's an adjustment period where you feel like a dumb ass. I was very frustrated and felt like a total noob the first week or two I played, but now I'm getting pretty decent, and make it into the top ten fairly often. I still get pwned by a lot of the better peeps, and I think there are still a few cheats out there, even with PB supposedly protecting a server, but it's not terrible, and maybe some of those cheats really are god-like players *shrug*.

It's worth the $30 if you want to try out an online game, IMHO.

Re:Battlefield 1942 w/ Desert Combat mod

[slcdb]

I agree with the parent 100%. Battefield 1942 is quite possibly the most fun multiplayer game of all time (IMHO). It breaks the FPS mold by bringing a "capture and defend" style of play, with a ton of different vehicles thrown into the mix. In other words, it's not just about having a frag fest. Tactical and strategic use of vehicles and weapons are key in this game.

I've been playing now for well over a year and have become quite accomplished. I'm almost always in the top three at the end of any round. And I've achieved this without ever cheating. In fact, there's only been about two servers that I've ever joined where I suspected that other players were cheating. So I figure since I never cheat and I always do well, there must not be many cheaters, otherwise I'd be getting my ass kicked.

Compare this with my experiences with Quake 3 which were so bad from cheaters that I stopped playing it altogether after probably only 3 months.

Re:Battlefield 1942 w/ Desert Combat mod

[MaineCoon]

Tactical and strategic use of vehicles and weapons are key in this game.

Agreed. It's the only game I know of where you can have a prolonged firefight from cover without dying (if you're lucky), or be pinned (or pin down) victims. There are plenty of times I've dived for cover after taking a hit from an enemy machine gunner or armor, then crawled to safety. Terrain makes a big difference, especially when it comes to tanks.

I usually get bored with games within a month, but I'm still playing DC since the day it came out, for at least an hour a day.

Quake2

[Unregistered]

I used to pplay quake2 a lot and the community was pretty good. No major cheaters annd such. Most of them moved on to q3. Of course, i think gamespy has really started to suck since i last played, so it may no longer be feasable to find games (q2 has no builtin gamebrowser)

Try SOCOM2 on PS2

[barneyzang]

So far it seems to be cheat free and usually has a pretty good crew playing :)

Terracorps

[Spleen]

Terracorps is an online armored combat game that does not have huge hardware requirements. This is a very simple shooter type game, anyone can play, but the strategy behind it can become incredibly complex. This game pulled me away from Quake III and C&C Generals.

Unreal Tournament

[Anonymous Coward]

sometimes when I'm bored, I play an online game of "Time t3h 1337".

I log onto one of those one-shot-kill servers that has a somewhat cubic map with little ostructions, so I know it's 1337.

If I'm killed within half a second of starting a game, I know I found a good one.

I just have my character stand there while holding a chronometer to see how long before the 1337 opponent stops headshooting me to ask me wtf I'm doing there.

On a more serious note, UT2004 should be more interesting with its vehicular and space combat maps... scheduled to be released on March 15, last I checked... hopefully they dont push the date back further.

Re:Unreal Tournament

[Nivoset]

i so wanna see the space fighting and all. its looks cool... sorry off topic. Lanparties with UT people, or just a PW'd game online with friends is a good thing for UT

Better link for Think Tanks

[bennomatic]

Windows, Mac and Linux versions here...

Wow, this server's got forty players!

[foxtrot]

It must be good!

Don't make the mistake of thinking that way. It probably matters a little less what game you play (though I highly recommend Enemy Territory).

Find a fairly small server, maybe ten people total. This will have the benefit that you'll be able to hear yourself think. You might actually see some of the map more than a dozen yards from your spawn area.

Most games have an in-game chat function, and messages will show up on your screen. People will try to point you in the right direction.

If you do decide to try out Enemy Territory, try out the Medic class; you give everyone on your team extra hit points just for being there as a medic. Pick someone and follow him, he'll wind up showing you the objectives as he tries to achieve them. And you'll be able to keep him healthy and revive him as you go. It's not a bad way to learn.

-JDF

Re:Wow, this server's got forty players!

[alyawn]

I agree! You may also want to startup your own server and play by yourself for a while. This gives you time to adjust to the map and objectives. But Enemy Territory usually has players that are nice enough to teach you the game along the way.

Re:Wow, this server's got forty players!

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus ET has a map function so you can see where the rest of the players are :)

When all else fails

[Anonymous Coward]

www.svencoop.com

"Easy" FPSs

[Anonymous Coward]

When you're first starting, it does seem like everyone is either cheating or is super-l33t.

Couple of suggestions:

1. Play BF1942-- fun and doesn't really require a great deal of skill (flying can be tricky tho)IMHO. Not a troll, just my experience.

2. Read some strategy guides-- see the ones e.g. at www.csnation.net. When I started at CS, I plain sucked. I still suck. But there are a few really basic things that can really help (like sticking together, how to shoot the ak or when to use that 'nade).

3. Play on clan servers with reasonably good players. I found that playing DoD or CS with people who could kick my a$$ made me much better after time. You just try harder as opposed to those pubs where people are screaming n00b or h4x all the time. :)

4. lower the mouse sensitivity. I'm amazed at the accuracy improvement. Those nerves won't screw you up as much.

5. learn the maps. Start an empty server or play on a lan and try to figure out the camping/sniper spots. That's how a LOT of kills are made, esp in HL-based games.

6. Keep moving when shot at, stop when you shoot back. How often do you say, "WTF I WAS SHOOTING AT HIM???"-- quite possibly you were running at the same time.

And I could go on. FPS, especially HL, require lots of practice. That should help a little.

Enemy Territory

[Eberlin]

Ok, so I've been playing ET for a week or two now and I still suck at it. Getting better, though, as far as I know. I still get yelled at as a n00b a bit. Doesn't help when an airstrike goes wrong and I team-kill half the team. :(

You still do get those Clanfolk who totally dominate maps, and spawn campers who make it tough and sometimes lame to play.

I guess the key is to learn the maps first. The best thing you can do is run through with the least number of players just so you know where respawns happen, where the objectives are, etc. At least you'll know where to run and hide, where to expect resistance, and where to go to get things done.

Again, first order of business is to learn the maps. Then play the game as a medic or scout first just so you're doing something useful for everyone else. The more experienced folks seem to accept you more when you're useful. :)

Whatever you do, don't call airstrikes on your teammates.

Hang out on a Clan server

[Belisarivs]

Just hang out on a clan server. Most clans are nice if you are friendly and mature, even if you are a newb. And by striking up a friendship with a clan, even one you aren't going to join, you can learn and quickly climb up the curve. Don't push it, just consistently hang out on their server and be honest (but not annoying) about being a newb.

You are probably just going to accept that you're going to suck for a month while you learn the maps and tactics.

Postal 2 and Jedi Acadamy.

[JavaLord]

Both postal 2 and Jedi Acadamy both seem to have plenty of "new" players and not too many that are very skillful. Postal 2 "Share the Pain" has a free multiplayer Demo that is worth checking out, if you don't mind the blood and guts.

Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike, etc are usually hackfests, or you run into people who have been playing since the game came out. You are much better with a lesser known FPS for your first online FPS game.

Natural Selection

[CeleronXL]

Natural Selection is quite good. It's a Half-Life mod that has an excellent player community - very few nubs, and almost zero hackers. Relatively complicated gameplay, but once you learn it, it is very fun.

Re:Natural Selection

[Anonymous Coward]

Have to second that :)

Plus with the new "combat" mode you can have 10 minute games as well as the hour long games in "classic" mode

Re:Natural Selection

[CeleronXL]

I also might add that you get the standard feel of an FPS while playing as marines, but you get a refreshing change when you play as aliens, which are very different.

Just jump in there..

[msimm]

Suck. We all did it at one time or another. Gaming is *fun* not Holy. My advise would be to start playing Capture the Flag. You'll learn a lot about playing an probably become a more rounded player. I always start with the basics: defense. Once I have that I work on aim and general mayham, specifically creating it in close proximity *without* hurting my own team members. After that its all about the flag baby! If you start with defense you'll learn a lot quickly and other players will see you more as an asset and be more likely to give you tips and hints. Play for the team and they'll remember you for it, even if you only play from time to time.

C&C Renegade

[Anonymous Coward]

C&C Renegade is incredibly cheap ($10) and extremely fun to play.

The teamwork is awesome, you really get a feel you need to work together in your team to win.
Unlike Counterstrike, the goal is not just to kill people, but to destroy enemy's base, and to protect your own. There are bunch of different buildings on the base, which control different functions (say, if your refinery is destroyed, no more steady money). Large arsenal of soldier and vehicles. Overall, much fun.

Servers usually contain descriptions if its for pros only, usually you can get in 8 person server for starters and just run around, see what everybody's doing.

HIGHLY recommend, one of the most underestimated games of last two years. Probably because Westwood went down, I guess...

Tribes 2

[Entropy Unleashed]

I am in much the same situation currently. I bought Tribes 2 some time ago and have begun playing regularly now that I have access to a a good connection. The graphics are admittedly somewhat dated, but the gameplay is rock solid. There are no major gameplay-ruining cheats, mostly due to a solid architecture and a very customizable interface. It emphasises strategy, tactics, and teamwork over pure fragging skills, but can be played as a pure FPS if you have the desire. The ability to move in the z-dimension with a jetpack literally adds a whole new dimension to combat. I've been able to make meaningful contributions even as a neophyte player, since the game also has some challenging support roles. There's a decent mix of servers running various rulesets and mission types, so you'll probably be able to find something that suits you. Although there are a fair number of clans, they don't tend to dominate any particular server. All in all it's a fun and balanced way to get a foot into door of online FP Shooters.

Day Of Defeat

[DR SoB]

This is a half-life mod similar to Counter Strike, only 1000 X's better. It does not have the cheating issue's that CS has. I have been playing it since the release of Half Life, and it is amazing. Everyone that plays it with me is instantly hooked. I can't say enough good about this game. I have been a gamer since Sierra's earliest days (yes, I still have my original copy of Police Quest 1.).

Urban Terror getting ported

[mindaktiviti]

Urban Terror of Silicon Ice fame is getting ported to RtCW: Enemy Territory since they released the source (I think, or at least Silicon Ice Development has it) so they'll release an official version 1 (no beta this time) which is the equivalent of version 3.3 (I think).

Urban Terror will guarrantee that you fail at least one course because of it. :D

Do you want to play with others or just win?

[GoofyBoy]

> seem to be dominated by people using cheats, and by established clans of players who are a lot better than me.

With any game this is going to happen. Its like playing football with other people, sometimes the other team is going to have big bulky guys and sometimes you are going to lose.

Play and have fun. Its no fun losing 0-10 but thats why you have rotating maps and teams get mixed up. And you will get better.

My suggestions:
1. Learn the maps. Learn the guns.
2. Follow another player. Do what they do. Talk in game to them. (use team talk)
3. Try and play as a team. Say thank you. Joke around (Sexual jokes are welcomed. Homosexual jokes more so.)
4. Enjoy the excitement with playing with pretty guns and the thrill of shooting them off.

Re:Do you want to play with others or just win?

[jellomizer]

Well it is sometimes an issue of not of winning all the time. But for the sake of fun, it is nice to win every once in a while. Playing with a group of people who are at your skill lever or only slightly better actually makes the game fun and not seem and not just a you die fest. This reason of Super Advanced players is the reason why I say away from online games, I don't mind loosing but I like having a chance, and at least be in the middle most of the time.

Re:Do you want to play with others or just win?

[prockcore]

1. Learn the maps. Learn the guns.

That is the single most important piece of advice in this entire thread.

Even if you suck, knowing the maps is crucial. Otherwise you may find yourself dying a lot because you either get lost, or you don't know that the enemy can pop out of the tunnel behind you.

Join a server that has 0 to 2 players, that way you can run around and explore the map and no one will get in your way. Find out what the objectives are, look for alternate routes, test out all the weapons, see what their ranges and accuracy are.

Then find a server that doesn't rotate maps (usually they mention it in their server name, like "Bob's Beach-Only Server") and play on that server. That way you'll quickly learn that "if I go running through that door, I'll get killed 9 out of 10 times.. perhaps I should throw a grenade through it first".

The more advanced FPSs aren't things you can just jump in and start playing. It'd be like trying to play football without knowing any of the rules.

Blizzard's diablo2

[jevring]

diablo2 is good, because you don't play against anybody, unless you don't want to, it's all cooperative. granted it's not an fps, but it's still one of the best games around.

Re:Blizzard's diablo2

[WinterSolstice]

I couldn't agree more. I play it online with friends and family all the time.

Not an FPS, though. Best part is being able to play it on almost all hardware.

-WS

leagues

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually instead of trying to find an obscure FPS to play, I think the real problem is that fact that the established FPS's don't have the concept of "divisions" like sports leagues do. I suck at soccer, yet I can play in a division 3 recreational league with other people who also suck at soccer and have fun. Maybe the next generation of FPS's will have such a concept if we are lucky. Then I can join a div 3 recreational Doom III league and have fun, instead of trying it out, getting fragged a million times and not bother to log on again.

Just a thought

Unreal and Quake

[cpuenvy]

I play Unreal Gold, which ties in with Unreal Tournament, online. There are many good servers out there, and many that are in fact dominated by experienced players. The only way that they got good was playing people with a higher skill level. That being said, there are noob servers out there for you to pick from, as well as servers that are noob friendly. You can check out my team at http://www.mibunreal.com.

I also have alot of experience with Quake, and from my point of view, their servers are similar to Unreal in the case of players, etc. I do know that on some of the Unreal Servers, there is a thing called "Kickban", as well as anti cheating mechanisms to make your gaming experience better.

Have fun ;)

Everyone is better than you for a reason.

[Rexz]

Online FPS gaming is very different from its offline counterpart. The optimum strategies are often counter-intuitive, your enemy actually thinks, and you are forced to rely on other people in order to stay alive.

Most people playing online have been doing so for months if not years. They've developed the reflexes, knowledge of game systems and maps, and tactical know-how to stay alive. Unfortunately, the only way to gain these skills is practise.

I suggest you download Wolfenstein: ET. First of all, it's free so if you decide online gaming isn't for you after all, you haven't lost anything but a little time.

Secondly, the penalties for death aren't too harsh. Unlike Counter-Strike, where you have to wait up to 5 minutes after dying to play again, you'll be back in the game within 30 seconds.

Thirdly, it's "easy-to-learn, hard-to-master", to use the cliche. You don't have to learn complex firing patterns or master the intricacies of every weapon in order to play competently. You can introduce more complicated elements and strategies at your own pace without being left behind.

Finally, during your 30 seconds of waiting to respawn, you have the option to view one of your team mates through their eyes. Watch what they do. Think about what they do wrong and what you'd do differently. See if they charge too easily or hesitate too much. Don't treat online gaming like linear, formulaic single player games. Always think and try to learn from your mistakes.

Re:Everyone is better than you for a reason.

[DR SoB]

Great post! That's the one problem with getting my friends into online games, they always suck when they start, and rarely last more then 30 seconds. You mentioned some issue's with Counter-Strike. Well I'd like to point your attention to Day Of Defeat - another HL mod. You don't wait more then 15 seconds before re-spawning, you have the option of viewing through teammates eyes (if enable on the server). It's simply amazing. DOD V1 is retail, you can buy it in stores for under $30 and then download any other HL mod. I really can't say enough good things about this game, I've been playing it for 3 years (since the beginning!) and have never grown bored of it

Ghost Recon ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only is the pace of play slower than most FPS games -- no turbo speed or rocket jumps here! -- GR excels in co-op and team-based play. Grab a copy of Roger Wilco and you're ready to go. (The players at red-sector.com are friendly, skilled, and prone to boot cheaters.)

A good Clan

[Anonymous Coward]

www.aswp.com is a clan of all types and games. I think you would have a good time on their servers.

You're playing the wrong games

[quakeroatz]

All three of those games are hardcore, teeth cutting, high paced, footsolider FPS'.

While they are fabulous games, they are not for beginners not willing to take a few thousand gibs before they make top 5 in a full server. I you're not prepared to commit the time and take an prolonged asswhipping until you get the rust out, try BF1942. The vehicle aspect and adjustable bot play allows even the newbiest newb to find enjoyment. More specifically, Desert Combat is the mod of your eye.

Only in DC can a first timer drop a Scud into a highly skilled pack of clanners and smear them across the terrain.

Planetside

[von Konrad]

For a really addictive game, that's like Tribes gone global, check out Planetside. You can easily pop in for a few kills with the instant action feature. It also lends itself easily to huge weekend campaigns.

Re:Planetside

[sterno]

There are a couple advantages to Planetside specific to the question here.

First of all, the game involves many different roles that you can fill. You don't have to be a good twitch FPS player to be able to have fun. You can fly aircraft, drive tanks, gun for tanks, be a medic, be an engineer, etc. I started off doing more support work and then as I practiced with the game, I got better and slowly got more into a fighting role.

The only draw back, as far as the original question goes is the cost. You have to pay a monthly fee for it, and if you are only going to play for 30 minutes occasionally, that may not be worthwhile to you.

If the cost isn't such an issue though, there's nothing in the game to make hopping in randomly a problem. It's easy to get involved in a battle just by looking at the map and seeing where the hotspots are. If you want to hook up with a group, there's always people looking for squad members. Sure, if you are only on occasionally you won't work have as much equipment at your disposal, but it doesn't prevent you from succeeding in the game.

It's had it's problems, but over time it's become quite a good game and I would recommend it if you can stomach the price tag. At the very least you can download a free trial and give it a whirl before you commit to it.

Re:Planetside

[sterno]

Oh, and one other thing. There are cheaters, but they are infrequent, and dealt with well by Sony. They'll insist that they catch the person while they are cheating, but I've personally witnessed few obvious cheaters in the game. Most of the "cheaters" are really just good at the game.

Unreal tournament Cheating / Recommendations

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

My advice would be to 'jump right in' to one of the games that is very difficult to you right now. My first FPS was back in the Quake days, and I started late (people using all types of cheats/bots/hacks/etc). Plus the skill of many clans.

In other words 1 g0t 0wn3|).

However, it prepared me for the next generation of games. I knew what to look for as far as cheating was concerned, and it forced me to sharpen my reflexes. When Unreal tournamnet appeared, I was ready. Now some clans ask me to join. I'm not the best out there, but I can hold my own.

As far as Cheating in UT, you have to look for servers with the latest versions of things such as 'PURE' or some other form of Client Side Hack Protection - this is usually posted in the name of the server. Of course, someone usually figures out a way around it, but the serious Clans and Admins usually keep on the ball and either boot(Kick) or ban (IP Ban) anybody found cheating.

Also, you can usually find somebody (after a reasonable amount of effort who is willing to act as sort of a Jedi / Padwan relationship, teaching you tips and tricks and secrets.

One good site is UMXTREME, although the gameplay may be to intense for the newbie, especially the Extreme Overkill Mod.

My clan's site FTB where it's just about having a good fragging time, we have newbies and experienced members alike in the clan, and we will BAN any cheaters.

Re:Unreal tournament Cheating / Recommendations

[TheRealFreakish]

While many servers aren't moderated well, many more are - CSHP was the old cheat protection and PURE is the latest (although it hasn't been updated in quite a while). Find servers running PURE and play there - the protection has been broken by now, but if they're running PURE you can assume the admins are at least somewhat interested in the server and may make an effort to ban cheaters (we are actually running a custom version of PURE in the hopes that those using cheats that get by PURE will not be able to get by ours).

The other thing to think of is that many players you will think are cheating are in fact just really really really good - they'll be able to anticipate WHERE you're going to run and will make excellent shots. I'm not saying cheaters aren't out there, but that if you stumble across a server of hardcore players that you may think them all cheaters when in fact they're just really good.

UT's fun though..I've got it and UT2003 and still play UT over 2k3 any day. I play primarily on our custom map server (UnrealPlayground - the link by my nick) and we've got an active group of admins so we don't get many cheaters at all anymore(I'd say all of our recent bans have been for players harassing each other..not for cheating). The community is friendly and helpful to beginners - if you've got UT then stop on by and give your connection a workout. :D

Re:Unreal tournament Cheating / Recommendations

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

I'll have to look you up on there server, I play UT EVERY day.

Re:Unreal tournament Cheating / Recommendations

[Ticklemonster]

I play UT religiously. I'm in the Black Legion Clan, we are a Zark sniper run and gun clan. Wanna stop by sometime, we'd love to see you. our server at present is: 66.150.112.171 but we may be changing, so come to www.theblacklegion.com and you can find the server ip listed on the front page.

That's what he is (and I am) trying to avoid

[Mr. Underbridge]

Why don't you try playing single player, or perhaps set up a LAN game filled with some bots while you bring yourself up to speed with the games?

Because you never get up to speed playing maybe a couple hours per week, like the guy in question does. You play that infrequently, and you still get your ass kicked.

Bottom line is he (and many of us!) want servers where one can be capabibility-matched, so as to have a fun and competitive game regardless of skill level. Basically the idea is to vent some real-life frustration without making the game a full-time job.

Re:That's what he is (and I am) trying to avoid

[Bi()hazard]

Filtering servers based on skill level would be a great idea, and with the advent of statistics tracking and master servers, I don't know why nobody is doing it yet.

Imagine the following system: every player has a skill rating that appears along with their name and ping. The rating is tracked by the master server that provides the game server list. Servers can recommend average skill ratings, or set upper and lower bounds. Or they can choose to ignore the system entirely.

People could manipulate the ratings by dieing intentionally, but all the cheaters and "uber d00ds" would try to maximize the rating and join servers where they'll just get their asses kicked. Good players who lower their ratings to get to abuse newbies will stand out, and can be kicked easily.

The ratings would identify "easy" servers, so skilled players and cheaters can avoid the "lame" servers, and inexperienced players can find each other. Good players wouldn't have to put up with so many newbies getting in the way. Of course, the system hinges on having enough servers available to provide every group of players with lots of variety.

So why aren't there any games with a system like this? If implemented as an option and guideline rather than a hard rule it would probably work well enough to be very useful. Any FPS developers reading this?

Re:That's what he is (and I am) trying to avoid

[CAIMLAS]

Hrm, I odn't know about that.

Back when CS was in versions beta 5 - 1.2, I was an avid player. I went from sucking quite a bit (anywhere from mediocre to poor online), to frequently getting accused of cheating (around beta 7) due to owning up on everyone. Then I started sucking horribly again - to the point where I'd have games with 0-20 scores. Maybe I got bored, I don't know. I then basically gave up and only played on occasion.

Even with all the cheaters in CS nowadays, I'll occasionally fire the beast up and play for half an hour or so. I don't game, really anymore (under an hour a week, probably, on average), but when I do play, I'll have scores along the lines of 20-3.

Re:That's what he is (and I am) trying to avoid

[rblum]

Not an FPS developer, but I used to work on an arcade game that used something similar. (It was networked between LA, SF and CHI)

It worked fairly nicely, but you always have the problem of griefers - they just get a new account, pretend to be a n00b, and get to crash all the beginners parties.

If you can tie a unique ID to a player, it might just work. But as long as an ID is cheap to get, it won't work. Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt. (Not much else, unfortunately :)

Re:That's what he is (and I am) trying to avoid

[jred]

America's Army shows other players' honor (skill level) before you join, so you can choose games where your skill level is matched.

It's also a pretty good game for casual players (like myself).

Perfect Timing

[mapmaker]

The demo version of Unreal Tournament 2004 is to be released this week. The full retail version is coming soon after.

Download the demo when it comes out and you'll be getting in on the ground floor with a new game that no one else knows any better than you. And there won't be any cheats yet either since it's a new game, although that will most likely not be the case in a few months time.

bzflag..

[dtperik]

simple, fun, addictive, and open source.

fps greatness howto, suck it up

[Akatosh]

The older games you listed will have people who are much much better than you. A lot of them will appear to be cheating. Every now and then someone really is. Most of the time they're just that much better than you. Some of us have played for years, since the day Quake first out, and have better aim than the best auto-aim cheats. A lot of these players play the newer games too, a lot of skills carry over between fps games.

Unfortunately, at first, you will feel like you are getting your *ss handed to you and get frustrated, accuse people of cheating, maybe look for a new game. But those who become great learn that the best way to learn is to get wooped, repeatedly. Take your beating and learn from it. Try to emulate the smackdown you receive and pass it on to others. It may take several years, but you will become great, 'cheater' in the eyes of newbies.

RTCW

[Chuck Bucket]

Play a noobie server of Return To Castle Wolfenstein. there are plenty out there, and it comes with PunkBuster installed - play a server with that on it, and you should be clear of cheaters. plus, the game is damn fun, and if you're new you can play as a MEDIC and follow around/help out/learn the objective.

CB

Cheating overstated

[badmammajamma]

A lot of people think people cheat who just happen to be VERY good. When I first started playing UT2k3, I thought a lot of people were cheating. After I played it for 6 months, I realized I was very wrong. Some people are just exceptionally good players. Just because you can't do it, doesn't mean it's impossible or cheating.

In any event, when I first started UT2k3 I was a n00b, but after several months of playing I became quite good, joined a clan, competed in ladders, etc. It just takes a long time to get there. Practice, practice, practice. You also have to learn how to tune your mouse, know what kind of mouse to use, have a good mouse pad for your mouse (logitechs are great mice but finicky with what pad you use), hotkeys, etc. Just get over the fact you're gonna get your ass kicked all over creation for a long time and you'll be fine.

it depends on what you mean by beginner...

[lambadomy]

I used to play counter strike off and on on a friends server, which had mostly good players and I was average at best.

While most of the players on the server were regulars, and many of them were real life friends, often new players would just appear, as the server was listed publicly.

One of these players was named Bizzaro. We're not sure to this day if Bizzaro was an actual human being or a family dog enlisted to play counter strike. He didn't move much; When he did he'd invariably find a way to get stuck in a corner. He definitely used the mouse, you could tell because he would occasionally spin wildly, and was almost constantly either looking at the sky or at his feet. Any round his team lost would typically culminate in the winning team trying to find Bizzaro.

I tell this story because, if you play the games like Bizzaro does, it won't matter what game it is. You need time to practice. You mention cheaters in your question, but for all I know the people you think are cheating are actually that good.

My recommendation is to find a game like Quake III where there is not necessarily teamplay involved, and you can just run around killing, to practice things like aim and dodging/moving in the world. Until you can do these things reasonably well team games are going to be pretty pointless and frustrating.

Rainbow Six 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Rainbow Six 3: Ravenshield supports terrorist hunts with up to 8 players. That's where I spent most of my early online gaming. Easy, at least with non-elite terrorists, noncompetitive teamwork that lets you learn the maps and the equipment. Just don't forget the last man standing rule and let everyone else get a chance to play.

Nothing beats dialup

[jetmarc]

For FPS games like Quake3, nothing beats dialup. The ping time on an ISDN line can be as low as 10ms. On DSL you have 90ms typically (due to FEC interleaving). Analog 56K is worse (~250ms), and only topped by Satellite (>500ms).

If you really want to compete in Q3, you have to get ISDN.

Re:Nothing beats dialup

[endus]

Well, since this reply is complete and utter nonsense, I wouldn't suggest listeing to it. Who would mod this up? It's total nonsense. Anyone who has played a game and paid attention to their ping for more than 5 seconds can tell you this is wrong.

Re:Nothing beats dialup

[Anonymous Coward]

that is total BS

I play CS online, and I get around 20 ping on some servers using DSL.

and I use a wireless network, which I assume would up my ping quite a lot, so I could prob get even lower pings if I didn't use that.

What kind of cheating do people do?

[Blarfy_Snarflepoop]

Just wondering - I've heard of people making walls see-through, but what else is there? Guided missles, etc?

Re:What kind of cheating do people do?

[Mr Pippin]

The most common I see are what are called "aim bots". This means players that have a cheat that automatically locks on to the nearest target. You can usually tell them if you walk into a room, they have just killed someone and instantly rotate to shoot at you. I personally don't see the attraction in using cheats.

Don't try Enemy Territory

[asoap]

The game is crack! Almost literally.

I first started to play it, and found that it was to diverse. There are TOO many things that you can do in it. So then I had to try everything, and what started as a couple hours of playing has turned into a 6 month obsession.

Every night I can't wait to get home from work, and load up my riffle nade and shoot some nazis. It's become pathetic. I dream about Enemy Territory, I get words like "Danke" and "Aufiedersien" stuck in my head. I continually chant "We've captured the old city, DYNAMITE the old city wall! They've captured the old city! We've captured the old city, DYNAMITE the old city wall! They've captured the old city!"

At work I try to needle nose my monitor, but that doesn't get my work done!

If you like having any social life at all. Stay away from ET, it's 100% addictive. It's worse then smoking.

Re:Don't try Enemy Territory

[endus]

LMAO! Yea this started in RTCW for me...those german accents are too funny and get stuck in your head. ET is the same way.

LOL especially at needle nose your monitor at work...

Re:Don't try Enemy Territory

[fltsimbuff]

I agree with you there... I am still playing ET after about 9 months, usually as a medic with a tommy.

It is a little confusing when you first start, but once you get used to it, you just can't stop playing.

Though I must admit that lately it is getting a little more irritating than anything else, what with all the rifle naders, and panzies around... Getting blown up around every turn.

The other night, there were only a few people on my usual server, so we started trying new things...

First, knife fights... knife only, enforced simply by suggestion, of course. If you have not tried this, you don't know what you're missing :P.

Then we moved on to Standing Mobile MG-42 fights. I'm terrible at that... have to be against the person to do much damage.

And one of the funniest was when everyone started using Mortars. I would run up to someone, we would get our mortars deployed, I would fire straight up, and try to get out of the way before it came down.

Anyway... Back to the topic, I would DEFINATELY recommend ET, as it is both Addictive, and FREE (as in beer). Also, the Punkbuster that most of the servers run seem to help keep out the cheaters... I have yet to see someone that could be positively identified as cheating.

Come play me sometime on ET.EOF.NET.

Re:Don't try Enemy Territory

[asoap]

I've been in knife fights but they've always been spur of the moment stuff. Stuff like on rail gun, when you have the axis backed into there spawn, and you run out of ammo. So you start chasing guys down with your blade. But, yes. Panzers can be annoying, but getting around the panzers just makes it one more thing to accomplish. Plus with some real good team effort, taking out panzers isn't all that hard.

Re:Don't try Enemy Territory

[Anonymous Coward]

If I have ammo and you are empty i won't take your gun, if i have no ammo and you you have ammo i will take your gun, if I don't have ammo and you have no ammo I will take your gun unless I already have an enemy gun in which case i will keep my gun.

"I need a medic"

So i will run out into the middle of the feild revive you then run back to my hiding place...you will get shot again then i will revive you again but look at who shot you then run back then you will die again and i will run out but not revive you yet shoot whoever shot you then revive you then run head first into the enemy lines. I will assume you followed ut of course you didn't you ran away even though i revived you 3 times and i will kill one axis but the other two will kill me but if you hadn't run away i would have gotten the rest and we would have won but no you ran away.

Re:Don't try Enemy Territory

[fltsimbuff]

I know what you mean... I'm talking about 5-6 panzers on the opposing team that do suicide shots every time they pull the trigger. Those can be impossible to dodge when you come around a corner and are suddenly face to face. Rifle nades are another annoyance. They do take some skill, but I am just bothered by anything that comes out of nowhere, and is an instant kill. Probably because I like Close Quarters gunfights.

I mostly pull out my knife for amusement. I remember I was in a gunfight with an engineer... he wasn't hitting me at all, so I whipped out my knife, and knifed him to death while he shot at me.

Fun, Fun, Fun!

Re:Don't try Enemy Territory

[asoap]

Ha ha.

One thing that is fun to do is, is to make Panzers into martyrs. When that guy pops out from around the corner with panzer in hand, and you know you are smoked. I like to jump at the guy just to make sure that he kills himself too.

But yeah, it's annoying when they suicide run.

Re:Don't try Enemy Territory

[fltsimbuff]

"So i will run out into the middle of the feild revive you then run back to my hiding place...you will get shot again then i will revive you again but look at who shot you then run back then you will die again and i will run out but not revive you yet shoot whoever shot you then revive you"

Heck... you revive me, I will kill whoever somehow killed me the first time, and say Danke for the assist... That's about as far as your little saga will go :P, Besides... you can't revive me AFTER taking my gun. I have to be 100% dead before you get it.

Re:Don't try Enemy Territory

[fltsimbuff]

I must admit that being on the giving end of a panzer can be amusing... Especially when you see a bunch of enemy medics, and field ops giving each other stuff in a big circle, and can fire down and get 6 of them with 1 shot.

Anyway... Back on the topic, doesn't that sound like a lot of fun? I'd everyone I know that plays it has been hooked on it. Even with all the panzerweenies with n00b t00bs, this game stands out to me as one of the best.

You post fast, btw.

Definately BF1942

[phorm]

I've been playing DC for a little while not, and the gameplay is incredible. With the levels that are really loaded, you have a huge array of things you can do.

Walk around with your gun... get shot by a tank
Respawn, grab a helicopter or a bomber, blast the tank... get blown away by a jet
Jump into an AA gunsite, or a tank with AA... blow away the jet.

The vehicles greatly enhance what you can do, and of course there's also joy in just trekking around on foot. Nothing quite like the joy of actually taking out that annoying hind all by your lonesome with just a stinger missile.

My experience with FPSs

[Rassleholic]

The last time I had the bandwidth to play an FPS, I only saw some goon jumping around wildly with an RPG for about 1.5 seconds before I got fragged and my screen turned red with my n00b blood.

Don't do it!

[Anonymous Coward]

FPS games rot your brain!

At least trying to beat the players online... there are more worthwhile things to be better at.

Newbie Rooms

[Kones]

I always liked the idea of having rooms for new players, to learn the ropes so to speak. Unfortunately, there's always some jackass who's a pro and wants to just shoot fish in a barrel . . .

Call Of Duty

[coene]

It's new, and it's a great mold between deathmatch (Q3/UT) and round-based teamplay (CS). There are some really good players, but most are average or below. Give it a go.

Re:Call Of Duty

[edgezone]

Amen to CoD! The first version had some "bugs" (more design flaws) where people would be jumping around like bunnies (the dreaded bunnyhopper) while blasting away. It really took the realism out of the game to see a russian soldier doing the mad hop in circles around people. Also, the sniper rifle was too much of an uberweapon in the right hands.

The recent patch addressed both of these problems (there's now a lag when ya land from a jump and slow down, plus the sniper rifle takes a few seconds to line up the sights when you bring it to your eye). I've played and played and played and slowly gotten better (have even won a pair of deathmatch games! but I definitely prefer team deathmatch).

As for game modes, they have quite a few:

Deathmatch
Team Deathmatch
Retrieval (think capture the flag, but only one team has a flag, the other defends it)
Search and Destroy -- Two targets that need explosives planted on them. The defending team does have time to defuse)
Behind Enemy Lines -- A few allied players and a whole bunch of axis players....killing an allied player respawns as an allied player (while the killed player becomes axis)
Headquarters -- Control a specified zone of control for a set period of time to get points

There still are some problems, such as spawn point killers (which really sucks since you don't even have time to find them before you're dead) and some granade throwing contests, but all in all, it's fairly easy to get into and start improving and getting more kills.

Team Deathmatch definitely works as a starting point as you can use other players as a crutch while you explore and learn the maps (which are decent sized and varied, although there are not a ton of maps).

I have DEFINITELY gotten my 50$ out of it and then some. Oh, if you're ever in team deathmatch and see St00pidN00b, take it easy on me ;)

Puzzle Fighter

[ambienceman]

FPSs are ok, but man...a nice gamne of Puzzle Fighter beats it all. Un less you're going against some Super Akuma user.

Or maybe you can play one of those game from the past and bring the net play back from the dead. Doom or Duken Nuken should be fine. Everyone will have forgotten their rudimentary skills of the game, surely...

Re:Puzzle Fighter

[tepples]

a nice gamne of Puzzle Fighter beats it all.

Did Capcom make Super Puzzle Fighter II for PC? Or have you found some way to play the GBA version (the only one being sold new) online? Or have you found a free, net-enabled clone of SPF2?

Or maybe you can play one of those game from the past and bring the net play back from the dead. Doom or Duken Nuken should be fine.

How would one recruit players for one of these?

Re:Puzzle Fighter

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a PC version of SPF2. I used to have it but my cd went bad =(

Counter-strike

[88NoSoup4U88]

I love the game mechanics of Counter-strike, but as said by the poster, it has been ruined by cheaters over the last couple of years, despite several attempts of VALVe to stop 'em (if those attempts are any good, is not for me to judge)

Still, the game mechanic of Counter-strike is very inviting to new players.
I would suggest getting a good game-server-browser , AllSeeyingEye for example (get it at www.udpsoft.com)
Then randomly connect to some servers, and see if you can find any adminned servers around.
Allthough i have not been playing CS for months now, it is the only chance of seeing me play it : On a well-adminned server.... Then again, most cheats are too invisible to be even pinpointed these days.

step by step guide

[maliabu]

personally i recommend Ghost Recon as it requires more strategic thinking before each move, so it gives you some breathing room, and opportunity to communicate with your team and build up a relationship.

step 1.
play single player mode until you can get pass the most difficult level easily. since you're coming from a video game background, the controls will be your bigger learning issue.

step 2.
play in demo/newbie game rooms only. this way you are playing with players about the same skill level as yourself.

step 3.
play in the common room, don't talk (type) too much, just play with good players whenever you can.

step 3.1
if you're luckly, you'll be invited by clans to go for a trial-out, this way you have more chance to get accepted since they already like you in the first place.
otherwise, participate in some clan trial-out, and remember to talk less but do more.

once you're in a clan, it's just a matter of playing with them often, and that's about when you start enjoying the game.

Re:step by step guide

[ThaReetLad]

Ghost recon is great. I play it way too much, bu I have to disagree with you about playing in n00b rooms. Go and play with the big boys, and when you are out watch through the eyes of the really good players.

Get teamspeak. At Wolfgrowls.com we always like to have people, even guests and visitors, on teamspeak and it doesn't matter how bad you are because we are just there to have fun.

7-Card Texas Hold 'Em

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like poker, only with seven cards. You hold two, and five are flopped. You bet against other players and try to come up with the best poker hand out of the seven cards. The software doesn't cost anything and most, if not all, poker sites will let you play with play money, so you don't have to spend anything either.

Try Battlezone from 1998 - Great Community

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a great community around the game Battlezone released by Activision back in 1997, it won Best Game of the Year for 1998 and is loosely based on the old vector arcade classic with much updated graphics and superb gameplay. Pick a tank and hover through maps blasting opponents in a FPS perspective. You can pick up a disc image of it here: http://battlezone.nucleardays.com (click on Merlin's disc image link) or you can order the box used on ebay or half.com. Activision mothballed it years ago but many people still make maps and mods for it. Last weekend we had 50 people online playing it, die hard fans not jagoff script kiddie hackers.

Legends!

[nulltransfer]

It's free (~80 MB download), runs under Linux, Windows and Mac OS 9/X, and comes with both server and client for all three platforms...

Loosely based on Tribes...

http://hosted.tribalwar.com/legends/

Re:Legends!

[TeachingMachines]

Interesting. The first interesting Torque Engine releases that I've seen. Strong network code here.

UK2.net for Counterstrike beginners

[Robmonster]

As much as I hate to recommend the UK2.net servers, they do have a few servers flagged as Beginners servers that automatically kick and ban players who do too well.

However, once you become a little better I'd move to a different server as the UK2 ones tend to have too many annoying voiceovers and in game branding. Its ok while you are learning but you will tire of it after a while.

For fun games you could try the AXIA servers, one for CS 1.5 and 1.6 . www.axia.org.uk or #axia on quakenet irc for more info.

OSP for QIII & RTCW

[psycht]

www.OrangeSmoothie.com created the OSP mod for both Q3 & RTCW. There is a server generator that will let you create your server using a 'point & click" user tool. Its easy to start and allows you to create a server that's quick & easy for multiplayer.

The newest releases of Quake and RTCW have punkbuser (made by evenBalance.com) that has come along way in terms of preventing cheats & hacks.

Also, any game you come across is going to have very skilled players. But there are usually servers out there for us newbs.

Tribes

[Slack0ff]

The origional tribes owned and still does today. Very few cheats that actually work and enough mods to staisfy whatever kind of player you are. I'm sure you can find someone with a CD of it and it doesnt requier the cd to play. I recommend the "Shifter" mod as it is the most refined and still being develeoped.

Operation Flashpoint Resistance

[Anonymous Coward]

Flashpoint has a great multiplayer co-op feature. Generally on co-op servers you don't have to worry about cheats. It's an old game, however, and most servers are now running mods to keep it interesting, so it's high maintenance. There are several good public servers for co-op play: vetsquad, suicide euro squad, LOL majors and Rebel. You'll need to download each server's mod packs to play all the maps on the servers. (You can find them with the in-game browser). The game is more realistic than most, and some people say the keyboard interface is hard to figure out. But it's addictive and after awhile, your spoiled-- no other FPS will do.

Re:Operation Flashpoint Resistance

[yevgyeni]

I completely agree. So few games offer a good co-op feature, and when it comes to playing war simulation games, I'd like to play WITH my friends, not against them. Plus, once you get into it, the flexibility offered in the mission editor can give you a chance to play some pretty amazing, complex and innovative mission. Definitely, Flashpoint is one of the best.

Orbz 2.0

[leoxx]

I happen to like Orbz. It can get boring after a while, but for some quick cheap multi-player fun, its pretty good.

I agree Socom II rocks!

[nicodaemos]

I used to be a big Quake III / Weapons Factory Arena fan but I got sick of the version upgrades (some didn't work) and getting owned by people who were upgrading their hardware more often than me.

Playing Socom II on the Playstation is awesome. No worries about having to get the latest video card or worrying that your hardware is out of date after 2 months. The gameplay is great, as is the ability to speak to your team with the headset. You can play strategies of run and gun or stealth ... it's up to you.

Actually I should say more about the stealth aspect. This is the first FPS I've played where you can actually play slow and stealthily through the entire game. It's a great feeling when you sneak up behind someone to get a headshot with a pistol -- grenade launchers are for wimps -- if you're going to kill someone, you should be able to see them up close. ;-)

There are people using glitches in the game -- but more often than not I've seen the community self policing this by voting off people who bend the rules. Socom is not perfect in this regard, but then I don't know if any game can be.

I actually purchased the PS2 simply for this game and I am an *extremely* happy buyer.

Live life to the fullest ... until you stray in my sights. ;-)

find a good community that plays..

[Antilles]

examples of these would be, www.stoofoo.net and www.shacknews.com ... in the comments section, almost daily 'stoobattles' and 'shackbattles' are announced with much fanfare, and scheduled to begin at around 9pm EST. if you play regularly, and frequent the boards, you learn the games, when new patches come out, and meet a lot of cool people. Also, you get to know the people you play with, and it gets to be better than any lan game you can play because you play against / with these people on a regular basis. Plus, its much easier than transporting yer whole rig to a spot, and its almost like your favorite sitcom that comes on 'every tues at Xpm', you just know to show up.

Re:find a good community that plays..

[Prof.Phreak]

Just wanna mention another great community at http://www.houseofsmack.net

in quake3, type:
\connect punk.houseofsmack.net

Been playing there for many years; it's really the best friendliest place as far as game servers go :-)

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

That's good advice!

Nitpicking

[88NoSoup4U88]

Nitpicking, i know :
But if we talking bout anti-cheat software, they are Punkbuster, and VAC (VALVe Anti Cheat).

As said, nitpicking ;)

Console Gaming is the answer

[woody188]

I've recently switched to console gaming more than on my PC. The PS2 and Xbox both have online capabilities. SOCOM 1&2 and Tribes:AA are great on the PS2, and they have lots of sports titles with online features.

Basically had to switch because cheating is so prevalent in PC online gaming. That and you have to patch, patch, and patch some more, whereas consoles don't typically have patches, especially PS2 where there isn't even a hard drive. I've also gotten some games recently for the PC that don't work really well. AVP2 has sound issues and SimCity 4 is very resource intensive. Top it off with wanting to ditch Windows and that cuts your game choices down to just a few. (I play on Linux and Mac too.)

The console online experience has been a positive one. It will only get better with the newer consoles in 2005 and 2006.

Free Tribes 2 Clone

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently had a fit of nostalgia and reloaded Tribes 2 for some good ol' Shifter mod fun and ran across a link to Legends. Legends is a stand-alone, free, community developed Tribes 2 clone. It even uses the same engine as Tribes 2 (GarageGames - Torque). I don't know about skill barriers but this one certainly blows away the money barrier and if you liked Tribes 2, this is a must have. If you've never flown a jetpack or ski'ed around huge maps at a high velocity then you don't know what you've been missing.

http://hosted.tribalwar.com/legends/

It's still beta and it's not entirely stable but make no mistake, this is Tribes 2 for free and it's playable and fun.

If you already own Tribes 2 or $9.99 doesn't put a cramp in your drinking money then you can download the Shifter mod for it at www.shiftermod.com. The shifter mod has added tons of different vehicles (mechs) and deployables to the mix. You can spend hours doing nothing but planting walls, turrets and base defenses if that's your thing. -Note: HUGE learning barrier to Shifter but well worth the trouble if you like to kill time.

-AC

PlaneShift OSS MMORPG

[OzJeep]

You might be interested in PlaneShift. It's an open source and free-to-play MMORPG. I have been interested in it, both as a player and to help out, but have not done either at this point. Laziness mostly. Anyway, YMMV, but looks like you can download it for Windows or Linux and start playing quick enough.

Serious Sam?

[mobby_6kl]

I'm not sure about online, but LAN co-op games are really fun and don't require m4d 5ki11z, I played it with my dad (not a FPS player) and we both enjoyed it. There are options like unlimited respawns, weapons stay and some more stuff which could help a beginner.

Re:Serious Sam?

[PatrickThomson]

Mod parent up, serious sam is a godlike game. the cooperative singleplayer is the best thing I've ever played. More so in serious sam the second encounter, with extra weapons.

Quit your whining.

[NerveGas]

seem to be dominated by people using cheats

While people using cheats do exist, they're not nearly as prevalent as you seem to think, you're just unable to accept that people are that good.

Take Quake 3, for example. I got tired of having my butt handed to me by people with the railgun. So, I limitted myself to *only* using the railgun. In time, I got pretty good. With more time, I got really good. With even more time, I got fan-freaking-tastic. When you're single, don't own a home, and have a 1-megabit pipe into your apartment, it's amazing how much time you can dedicate/waste on those things!

So, what did that get me? A bunch of whining cry-babies yelling "Aimbot! Cheater!" every time I killed them. After they did it enough to annoy me, I'd chase them down and kill them with the gauntlet. At that point, they'd generally just leave the game.

steve

Re:Quit your whining.

[Zed2K]

Its not only cheaters but also people that don't play fair but they don't consider themselves cheating. People who take advantage of map or game glitches to get the kill instead of playing by the rules are just as bad as cheaters. People who create such complex scripts that they can fire, switch weapons, jump and do other things all with one key press I also consider cheaters. The ability to script movements in these games is really ruining it on some servers.

Re:Quit your whining.

[DR SoB]

Trust me your wrong. Any experienced GOOD player does not use scripts, they always interfere. I can switch weapons, fire, jump, etc.. faster then any script can, and I can change my mind in the middle and abort, whereas a script, you can't. As for people who use game glitches, well, your sorta right there, but people over bitc$ about this too.. As far as taking "advantage of the map", that statement is just plain wrong, if your a good player, you SHOULD take advantage of your knowledge of the map, if your good, you will still be able to defeat these players (and possibly use it to your advantage, by knowing what that player is going to do next..). What I really hate are people that accuse people of cheating simply because that someone is MUCH better then themselves. Those people ruin games.

Re:Quit your whining.

[endus]

You're wrong buddy. The original reply was on point. There are not nearly as many glitches and all that as you think. There are also very few players using scripts of any kind. I watch people in limbo all the time and have never seen anyone use any kid of script like you say. You are just a whining noob. People aer just very very good and practice a lot. Noobs who wine and call unfair and cheating and all that are just that: noobs.

Re:Quit your whining.

[sirgoran]

So the folks who spawn kill are okay then because they're simply better at the game?

That's crap.

The thing that screams cheating to me are the kiddies that set-up shop next to your spawn area and frag you as you re-enter the game.

After all if your ability is so poor that you can't even allow the enemy into the game, then you really should fine a newbie server.

-Goran

Re:Quit your whining.

[Zed2K]

So basically if you were playing an online racing game with someone and you discovered you could take a right hand turn and cut through a hole in the course, driving through stands and buildings, without any penalty you would do it just because the game let you?

That is cheating. You are taking advantage of a glitch in the system. Same thing with fps. If you find a way to walk through a box or disappear into a wall or walk above the map, you are cheating. You may not want to admit it. And if that makes you feel so god like and good then so be it. But it takes more than high kill ratios to actually be good at a game.

I see scripting all the time on really good players, and they admit it. I got no problem when admitting someone is better than me. What do I care, its just a game. But at the same time I want to have fun in the game without worrying about cheaters. There are more of them than you people think. I've been playing for many years and you can spot those that cheat.

Re:Quit your whining.

[prockcore]

So the folks who spawn kill are okay then because they're simply better at the game?

Play servers that are OLTL (One Life To Live). There aren't any spawn campers because there isn't a spawn.

Plus it's more of a thrill because there's a real consequence to getting killed.

Re:Quit your whining.

[DR SoB]

You tart you should learn to read better I said: "As for people who use game glitches, well, your sorta right there, but people over bitc$ about this too.." and you actually said: "That is cheating. You are taking advantage of a glitch in the system." So you are disagreeing with me, but you are saying the same exact thing... Comprehension wasn't your fortay at school I assume?

Re:Quit your whining.

[iainl]

'A bunch of whining cry-babies yelling "Aimbot! Cheater!" every time I killed them.'

Actually, that is my single biggest problem with PC FPS games these days. Not that some people cheat, but that the assumption is that nearly everyone is. This not only increases the number of real cheats (hey, if "they" are cheating, "we" better level the playing field seems to be the argument), but means that there is a general atmosphere of distrust. I just don't take my online gaming seriously enough to be po-faced, and places less prone to this paranoid atmosphere (XBox Live, bzflag, Armagetron and so on) are a lot more fun to frequent.

Re:AND YOU WILL PAY THE PRICE IN VOMIT, FAILURE! Y

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitch I get frostys all the time with my other accounts. IVOT isn't a firsty account, it's a failure notification account. Now how about you go crawl back up into the bowels of CmdrTaco.

-IVOT

Star Trek Elite Force

[rtilghman]

They've since released STEF2, so you can find STEF for cheap in the discount bin at any store. Often its in a package with like four other games for $20, a great deal if you like the games.

Anyway, their are still a HUGE number of servers and clans associated with it, its got tons of maps/models/cool mods since its been out so long, and cheating is a non-issue since you really can't cheat in any serious capacity.

I also like Battlezone and Battlezone 2, both of which still have moderately good followings though cheating is more prevalent in the first. In the case of BZ and BZ2 there are even whole mods and expansions created for free by the user community! Driving a hover tank on Europa while blowing the crap out of the Red Army is sooooo much fun. ;)

-rt

Re:Star Trek Elite Force

[hawks5999]

Elite Force was the first online FPS I ever played. It may just be nostalgia, but I don't think any other online game since has been as fun for me. I spent countless hours with EF. There was a type of deathmatch that gave everybody one weapon, one life and unlimited ammo. This was the best (as long as you ended up with grenade launcher or photon blast). I miss those days(nights really).

Quality game communities are hard to find.

[duran.goodyear]

I'm a senior admin over at http://www.arsclan.net

We have CS servers, NS servers, BF1942 Servers, an occasionaly other servers that pop up and vanish as popularities wax and wane.

the community is where its all at though, we have a top notch admin team, who take cheating and general mis-behavior very seriously, and do an amazing job keeping the servers fun for all levels of players.

AA Tracker

[Numeric]

http://aaotracker.4players.de/

One of the primary reason that I play AA is to track my frag rate.

1) Yes there is a learning curve but most games do, don't they? Find a map that you enjoy and play it over and over and over til you master it. If you are new to FPS, I think map memorization is key.

2) Follow an EXP. player. If one of your teammates has a good FR (10fr/3deaths), follow them around and see what they are doing. Even after you die, switch to the person and follow them. Watch their kill style and technics.

3) Recognize your enemies and friendlies. One thing that I really dislike is being TKed (team killed), it occasionally happens and its not your fault.

In anycase, my favorite frag technic on a n00bie is to throw a flash bang grenade and than leave a nade right at their feet. When they are flashed, they will only see a white screen and hear white noise and they won't move at all. After they are fragged, the screen is cleared and they can see and hear again. However since I used a nade to kill them, I have already disappeared. The said n00bie will never know what killed him/her.

headshot from the distance

[dindi]

Playing the mentioned game made me quit online gaming FAST .. the amount of cheeting on PC is just sad ...

I do not spend 5 hours a day in front of games every day, so playing against fanatics was hard enough ....
I found out very soon why almost impossible: it's a catch-me-if-you-can game ... they ban cheats, new cheats come out ...

I saw videos of counter strike .. with transparent walls, and auto-aim bots ... it is sad ....

Get a console .... like a PS2 with a broadband adapter .... I am sure there are tricks already, but probably still better than the PC gaem scene ...

XBOX ? dunno ... have one but no LIVE ... try xbconnect though ....
IMHO with the harddisk there is a slighter bigger chance you meet patched up games ....

Thousands of Severs to choose from

[The Happy Camper]

Quake is an excellent way to learn. With broadband you have thousands of servers to choose from. Many do not allow cheats and ban cheaters. A few also are filled with less than average players. The greatest thing about Quake is instant re-spawn, constant gameplay. If someone frags you, get them back, even if it takes 50 lifetimes. Even Quake-Gods die, and they respawn all naked and vulnerable. Get in there and fight!

You will notice the light in your room slowly increasing and decreasing in brightness as the days go by. One week, and you will know way around most the levels and be able to give the average player a hard time.

One of the strange, druglike effects, is the way Quake alters your sex life with flashes of an Quake-reality during endorphin overload.

Advice for FPS Newbies

[jejagua]

Don't play with other newbies. You will get better, faster if you play against challenging opponents.

Play on lightly populated servers. Generally, the LEET get bored on these and move on to higher frag opportunities.

Watch for hacks. There are plenty of servers that allow cheats. Read the MOTD. Often servers will identify their exploit policies and installed mods. It won't take you long to realize if you've fallen victim to wall hacking or other exploits. Observe the other players during your dirt-nap to see if they're cheating.

Get a fast video card, plenty of RAM of of course a decent processor. Lower the vid. quality if necessary to get a decent frame rate; a consistent 60 FPS+. Lots of folks disagree on this because your eyes can only detect something like 32 FPS+ or less, but trust me on this. Lots of other factors come into play and a high frame rate removes other bottlenecks and quickens reaction time.

Buy a decent mouse. USB Optical mice work best in my experience, and there are mice available that are specifically designed for game play.

Listen to the environment. Get a decent surround speaker system. It is a great advantage to hear a shot or footsteps with 360 degree accuracy. If you can't afford this, play with good headphones. Remove distractions.

Don't drink beer. I haven't formulated a precise equation, but you can expect your frags to decrease exponentially per ounce of alcohol consumed. Other intoxicants will lead to misplace your icons.

Re:Advice for FPS Newbies

[endus]

Excellent point about the sound. I no longer play with speakers though because headphones are so much better. It's almost like cheating you can hear so much better. I wait behind walls and listen for people coming all the time...very very very good tactic if you want to be the best of the best.

Re:Advice for FPS Newbies

[Anonymous Coward]

I find that I get *more* frags when I consume alcohol.

Normally, I'm a very timid player. I don't venture outside of my team's base. I don't go for huge frag counts. I don't make a flag runs. About the only thing that will get me out of my base is that I will mercilessly hunt down a flag thief. I tend to snipe a lot, but not like those annoying spawn-camper idiots. I usually snipe enemy snipers. All around defense. And I have a high length of life rating, too.

When I get a bit of alcohol in me, though, I'm way more likely to get out there and take a chance and go for the flag (or whatever the objective is). My aim loosens up a bit, usually helping my close-range frag count.

Now, when I'm on a server with a lot of attackers coming at me, I stay sober, but when I'm on an easy defense team (where the other team needs help), I have a drink and bring out the other me.

Re:Advice for FPS Newbies

[Xamot]

Watch for hacks. There are plenty of servers that allow cheats. Read the MOTD. Often servers will identify their exploit policies and installed mods. It won't take you long to realize if you've fallen victim to wall hacking or other exploits. Observe the other players during your dirt-nap to see if they're cheating.

Unless a person is blantently cheating a 5-30 second spectating of the person you aren't really going to be able to determine if they are cheating. With Punkbuster I've only seen a few I could say with certainty were cheating. (I've watched people for 30+ minutes sometimes)

Some tips for spectating players:

1. Good Sound System. Headphones or surround, with a decently loud volume. With the advent of directional sound what may seem like a wallhack to one person is often good ears. Maybe they heard you reload, maybe they heard you running, maybe they heard that gun fight you just won, etc.
2. Play with video settings. PB allows servers to limit certain settings to reasonable values, but this doesn't mean that people won't be using them within those limits to see things better. For example, turning up your brightness even a smidge may help you spot other players against difficult textures better. Also playing with these can help you achieve things like jumping further/higher/faster (quake), or spread reduction (HalfLife?)
3. Make a demo (RTFM). Ask someone else with more knowledge to watch and learn a little from them.
4. If nothing else you will learn a ton spectating people. Map secrets, tactics, etc.

I'm sure there are lots of more details on what to look for out there on the web, but I find these things will help in most cases.

Re:Advice for FPS Newbies

[Anonymous Coward]

The most valuable advice I can give is: Listen to the other players.

If they tell you to do something do it.
If they tell you to stop something stop doing it.
If you don't understand ask.

It doesn't take long to work out who's yanking your chain but most players will give genuine advice.

If you ignore what you're told don't expect to be welcome for long in any team game. Your enjoyment depends on the goodwill and cooperation of the other players.

Soldier of Fortune 2

[1337G]

This has been my fav for a long time. For a total n00b, random map generator (RMG) capture the flag shold work out pretty well since you don't have to worry about getting lost or getting owned constantly by some fool who's got the map totally memorized.

Devastation

[wo1verin3]

Devastation is a pretty simple but cool FPS game. No major cheats, basically run around and kill things. It gets a bit brutal so it's not for the younger crowd, but I do love the remote controlled rat which you can pick up and control (first person) and then explode him when you're near a target.

First time I saw a rat come up to me I had no idea it was about to explode... :)

Re:Devastation

[MadMarko]

I just finished the single player part of this game, and while it is crazy-glitchy, I really loved it. I was thinking about online play, but when I checked their fora, was discouraged by the maturity level of the posters. I may just create my own server, though, as I have gotten a few friends hooked on it. Maybe a private server where we can get together once or twice a week to take out our aggresssions on eachother. It is discouraging to play online, though, for this reason: I have a full-time job (my own business) and a family. I cannot and will not practice for four hours a day seven days a week just so I don't get schooled by people who have this much (and more) time to kill. On a side note, I noticed that in this game, my military background came in quite handy. With most games, run and gun is the rule of thumb. With this one I could run and gun or get tactical, which was nice.

You know what I miss?

[suso]

I miss standing at the entrace inside the dungeon in the original Diablo, then saying to people in the town "Hey, come down and help me". Then when they come through the entrace... WHACK! "Hey you fucker, why did you do that". Great fun.

Anyone who calls me a sicko probably did it too.

Battlezone Rocks! Download it FREE!

[Geodesic45]

Someone mentioned Battlezone here and I have to second their opinion. It is a great tank FPS perspective action game plus it has a RTS component where you can build bases, manufacture different offensive and defensive units, play for hours against all comers etc. Or you can just jump into a quick game with nice folks. I have met people from Norway, England, Georgia (usa), France, South America and some jerks from Australia too! All in all it is a great game. You can download it here

Good luck finding a good game. America's Army takes too long to get into IMO.

Re:Battlezone Rocks! Download it FREE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed! This game still gets my adrenalin flowing, and it is not so complicated that you have to have three different hands doing four different things at once... easy to pick up and very fun to play. I am new to it myself and got the disc image off the nucleardays.com website, I wouldn't have known about it otherwise...

My idea...

[throbbingbrain.com]

but if the player's 30-3 someone should kick them

I play Unreal INF and there's usually someone on each server that is so much better than the rest that it lowers the fun-factor for everyone else.
I think the player with the highest score should glow in some eye-popping color and have access to only the lowest hit weapons. When their score drops, they go back to normal and the next highest takes their place. Call it an equalizer.

Re:My idea...

[blair1q]

I play a lot of Medal of Honor, and if I feel I'm ruling a little too hard I'll switch from machine guns to rifles. I still end up ruling because nobody understands the range and accuracy of a rifle, but I don't feel so bad about it.

Re:My idea...

[mortonda]

Yeah, and if that doesn't "equalize" things, I get out a knife, or bash them.

It really make people mad when they get owned by a knife. :P

Re:My idea...

[pixel_bc]

> Call it an equalizer.

Communist.

Re:My idea...

[TeamLive]

OK, I really do not want to start a flame war, BUT, what you are suggestion would pretty much remove incentive for people to play. If they get penalized for ownage, then whats the point of playing? I might sound like an ass for it, but now and again, there is nothing more satisfying than pumping less competent players full of high velocity pixels. Look at it from the other side as well.. if the n00bs never play anyone better than them, how are they ever going to learn to defend and eventually beat those good players? FPS's dont implement communism because it is counterproductive, and ends up stratifying the play levels too much.

The best solution is to practice so that you can kill that player, not to remove the challenge from your scope of gaming so you dont have to deal with it. No pain, no gain, right?

Re:My idea...

[throbbingbrain.com]

When you have a half dozen people on a server and the stats look something like "0-1-7-9-10-80", then there's only one person in there who's really having a lot of fun, and that person is either playing in the wrong league or cheating. You can bet those toward the lower end probably aren't coming back.

If you're good enough to "own" a map like that, surely you'd do just fine with a dayglo orange skin and a pistol. It's better than being booted, as the original poster suggested.

On the (rare) occasions I get to a #1 spot in a game, I pick up a searchlight and run around with it on to give the noobs something to shoot at.

Re:My idea...

[VisorGuy]

The Unreal Tournament 2003 Mutant game mutator (mode) is sort of like that...

The current mutant has all powerups and glows a translucent purple, but loses health continuously until (s)he makes another kill.
All players can be killed with one hit.

It's really a lot of fun! Sadly, there are very few servers running the Mutant game mutator.

Re:My idea...

[null-sRc]

right... so the next logical step from your idea,

would be to not only take away a means of attack, but a means to move!

infact lets all stand in a circle and take turns getting frags!

I don't think so.

If someone is ruining the fun for you, because they are too good, then well, throw a few LAN parties or something until you get good enough to compete online.

Re:My idea...

[glesga_kiss]

Most two player racing games have a catch-up model, where the loser gets a speed boost to help them catch up. What you are suggesting is the the same, however it has one disadvantage; it's noticable. Driving game catch-up can be very subtle.

I don't know if online driving games have catch-up, never play them.

Re:My idea...

[zbuffered]

there's usually someone on each server that is so much better than the rest that it lowers the fun-factor for everyone else.
I'm that guy. It's fun for me.

"Remember my name -- you'll be cursing it in a minute!"

Re:My idea...

[hiryuu]

I think the player with the highest score should glow in some eye-popping color and have access to only the lowest hit weapons.

Not that this addresses the issue, but I remember introducing my office mates (at my previous job) to Quake, and setting up lunchtime deathmatches. By this time, I'd been playing FPS for years (since Quake was more than a bit aged when we played) and everyone else was new to the concept (much less the game.

To level the playing field, I set everyone up with drab skins, hard to see on most of the brown Q1 maps, and gave myself a bright stop-sign red skin. To boot, for quite a while (until people learned the maps, the moves, and the weapons), I used only shotgun. Everyone appreciated the equalizing.

The funny part, to me, was the different verbal reactions: with some, it was "when I see red, I know where to aim," while others said "when I see red, I run away!"

My pointless two cents. :P

Re:My idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds pretty damned fun. As a reward for being a good player, you get to be an easy target and have the weakest weapons.

Please never get into game design.

Re:My idea...

[robotoverflow]

That would make for a good UT Mutator.

Re:My idea...

[c_jonescc]

Right-o. I was going to mention the same thing. I think racing games are WAY more fun with a catch-up mode, because the races are always really damn close. The better player still wins most of the time, but the lesser player gets to feel like they're actually competing.

Something like the weapons discrepency in Mario Kart would be quite nice in an FPS, I think.

Re:My idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of another way to help beginners. We used to play X-battle and I was always better than my friends. If I won a couple games in a row, they would all team up on me. There was no way I could stand long against them all. Of course once I was gone they turned on each other. Once in a while, they turned too soon and I still won.

Re:My idea...

[blair1q]

Bashing always gets me.


(*THUMP!*)

Wha?

(*THUMP*)

you were pummeled by Xxxxxxxxx....


By the time you realize what the noise was, you're looking at a respawn timer.

I recommend Descent 3

[M0b1u5]

Descent 3 (Outrage, 1999) is available for about $9 and is still, to this day, one of the greatest online games of all time.

The community is small, the servers seldom see cheaters, and there's a LOT of support for online Nnewbies. My web site http://planetdescent.com/d3help provides a lot of help and is specifically targetted at online game-play.

You'll need a descent (decent!) joytsick and some time to get used to the 6DOF (6 degrees of freedom) mode of play, but it leaves ground-pounders (Quake, UT et al) for dead.

The online service at www.pxo.net is reliable, and despite the in-game chat/games list feature being useless, there are several windows based proggies for chatting and checking/joining servers.

Best $10 you'll ever spend.

Note: The Descent 3 Demo(s) do not work online - as they require servers running the same version - and none do.

LMAO

[endus]

LMAO at "dominated by people using cheats". I'm sure some people here (although not too many judging by the player base of ET) know that as the cry of frustrated noobs everywhere. Nothing is funnier than aimbot accusations...I've never even DOWNLOADED one much less actually tried one, and yet the noobs persist. I love trying to goad noobs into making the accusation after you start getting "BS" and "no way...ONE SHOT?!?!?" after every time you kill them. Aaaaahahahahahaha!

Rule 1 if you want to learn to be a good player: nobody is cheating. If you play on servers with punkbuster enabled (ET, RTCW, Q3, etc.) then the likelyhood of people actually cheating is not that high. And if they are? Don't say anything unless more experienced players do first. There is nothing that paints you as a noob not worthy of help faster than dopey accusations against people who are just plain better than you. Even if they ARE cheating...look at it as an opportunity to fight against a VERY difficult opponent. Hone your skills: I have beaten people who were later revealed to have been using aimbots before, it's a matter of identifying weaknesses and modifying your game. If they can hit you at a distance, don't let them shoot you from a distance...etc.

There are almost always some servers that will have noobs welcome or something like that in the name. Look for those. Play hard, PAY ATTENTION when in limbo, and watch others closely. RTFM for the love of god! I cannot stress how important this is. I can't tell you how many people in RTCW or ET are Soldiers with a sub machine gun when they could be a field ops, medic, or engineer...which means they get the same weapon but have other capabilities that can help the team. So read up on the features of whatever game you are playing then use those features to your advantage. Team based games like RTCW or ET can be good because you can take a "supporting" role for a while as you hone your skills. Give out tons of ammo or med packs...be HELPFUL rather than whoring for a high score...it won't work until you get better anyway.

EXPLORE THE MAPS ALONE. Find an empty server or start a server on your computer and look around the map. People are constantly bitching about not knowing the map and stuff. Just explore it on your own...run through the objectives if it's that type of game, and elarn where the hiding spots and stuff are. I don't claim to always do this with a new map, but if the map is big or hard or wierd, take a run by yourself so you can have time to look around. Where is there health, armor, or ammo....what objectives are there if it's that type of game and how do you destroy them? In ET there are some palces where you would THINK that you need dynomite, but dynomite won't even work...and other places where you have to plant the dynomite in a different spot than seems obvious. Learn the maps quirks before playing it.

PING IS IMPORTANT, but don't whine. Try to find servers where you have a low ping...usually 100 or less. Watch out for players with a 15 or 30 ping even if you're under 100. It DOES make a difference...people say that's BS, but that's because they are not good players. A couple of ms makes a difference when you are trying to shoot someone in the head from halfway across the map. I used to play RTCW on a server that I had 170 ping on every day. It's possible, but it's harder. You have to learn how much to lead people based on your ping. If there's one server, that's fine. But muscle memory is key, so playing on one server with a 20 ping, one with 100, and one with 200 regularly is going to confuse you. Some games like ET also don't react as well to a high ping as a game like RTCW. Don't whine about the conditions of the server though...just find another one. As you get better you'll come to know what you can whine aboutand what you can't.

THINKING is key to these games. I noticed recently that a LOT of people will keep shooting at you after you run behind a wall. Sure there are times when you need to keep someo

Online gaming? Why?

[Albert Sandberg]

Give away some free ftp accounts, web accounts and cvs accounts and you'll be a hero for so many, so many... until the provider calls you and THEN, only then, you say you're a q3 player going wild.

Half Life

[GonzoDave]

It's about $10 now, and there's a huge selection of modes. I'd recommend Natural Selection. Regardless of what game or modyou choose, server wise, if you want a good selection you'll have to shell out for TASE(the All Seeing Eye), but once you've got that finding a server with x ping, y players and cheat protection should be a piece of piss

Getting into a clan is worth it

[hellfire]

If you are going to get into online gaming, the time spent getting into a clan is worth it. Just finding a community of like minded people who you can trust is huge. I don't do FPS gaming but I've done Diablo 2 and online RPG games.

Many games have very loosely organized clans. You register on a website and you are basically in on a clan. Most RPGs with clans like this set up servers or games with password protection so that you can't get into the game randomly from a server list. This may seem silly but for script kiddies and random crackers who like to ruin other people's games, adding just this basic level of security is enough to make the cheater move onto the next server without a second thought.

So before you dismiss a clan as not worth your time, look to see if there are any clans who accept casual but trustworthy players. Clans are not just for hardcore 23 hour a day gamers.

Wulfram

[Hexedian]

A good First-person shooter I would recommand is Wulfram. It's a futuristic, tank-based first-person shooter with fairly realistic movement (i.e. you can't turn around 180 degrees in half a second.) URL : http://www.wulfram.com/

Day of Defeat

[Trailer Trash]

Get into Day of Defeat, learn it, and don't worry about how well you do compared to others. There are plenty of clans, don't let it bother you. It's rare that a server is domainated by a clan at any given time.

Another game to consider is Ricochet. It has few players, but there are no clans and it's extremely fast-paced with no teams, just everybody vs. everybody. Of course, as a newb you'll get your ass kicked in ways that you didn't even know possible, but you'll catch on.

What are you talking about?

[Argyle]

Playing on DSL & cable modem lines provides plenty of sub 90 ms ping servers. You will find many servers under 50 ms, especially near bigger cities.

ISDN? Give me a break. All modern broadband is better for gaming than ISDN.

Re:What are you talking about?

[Anonymous Coward]

ISDN? Give me a break. All modern broadband is better for gaming than ISDN. "

Umm i use ISDN and pings are around 80ms, thats better than some peoples cable or dsl. So it is fine.

ReactionQuake3

[pugdk]

Now, what you should try is this game:

RQ3.com

It's fun, it's addictive and.. well, just download it and try it. You have to play a couple of hours to get the feel for it, but once you have that feel it's great fun. Also, there are both good and bad players playing this mod :-)

-pug

Measuring your self-worth

[Fubar]

It's amazing how many guys on these online games link self-worth to game performance.

Maybe it's bravado spurred by anonymity. Maybe it's the only way the guy can feel superior to someone else. Maybe the guy (or kid) is just immature.

I've been cussed out and ripped a few times by folks playing SOCOM on PS2. Great, you're better than me in a video game. Make sure you put that on your resume.

From a casual gamer

[Ymiris]

My friends and I play RTCW as well, a very good game that you can just play for a few hrs. Also Call of Cuty's Multiplayer is good. You could also venture into Planet Side, a good game wich doesn't require a ton of commitment..well besides from your wallet.

spotting cheaters

[Chip7]

after a while, spotting cheaters is relatively easy. Most online FPS allow you to go spec (spectator mode) and follow other players. That way you can investigate before crying cheat

For example if your suspected cheaters anticipates or reacts to ppl behind walls, chances are good you've got a wallhacker. Also, many games gives stats (hit ratio, rounds fired, head shots, ...) If your suspected cheater has over 50% headshots with 300 bullets fired, he's no longer suspect.

Do be carefull though because some ppl have aimbots included in their heads. It's called talent and no punkbuster will save you from it! :-)

ban? Don't think so

[Barbarian]

Unfortunately, the same people that are modifying punkbuster or any other anti-cheat system have hundreds of cd-keys to play with. They always claim it is a keygen, which is usually false. What happens is they set up some irc bots to send people trojans who join irc channels (a good way to always target people who play the game in question), or they scan for open windows fileshares. As an example, there was a windows file sharing scanning program going around cable modems near me--you'd see it try to connect every 5 minutes or so from a different IP (all local cable modems in my city). I made a samba share to look like a windows directory and got a copy (and sent it to Mcafee and norton) showing that it was really a trojan/worm.

Anyways, one day I decided to try connecting to the people scanning, and sure enough, they had open fileshares in windows, usually c:\. I probably shouldn't have, but I left a note in autoexec.bat followed by "pause". The other thing was, they all had Half-Life directories. I could have stolen their cd-key's if I wanted by copying their registry! I'm betting they all got duped by a "cheat program" that someone put out.

LoD

[Westech]

Land of Devistation was by far the best BBS door game ever.

Re:LoD

[Hadean]

I just wanted to second LoD! Of course, I played LORD, TradeWars, BRE and a whack of other games, but for some reason, I just loved LoD enough to want to play it offline (which was a nice option).

Wow, the days of redialing at 12:01am to get my turns in before anyone else (and then whining about how I had to wait allll day to continue what I just did). What ever happened to those simpler days?

Here's the official Land of Devestation site by the original author.

(Whoa, memory rush: I just remembered how happy I was to find Kirk, Spock or some other such character stranded on the planet and trying my hardest to kill him.... ack).

And note: "There are some 1620 paid registered sysops of the original Land Of Devastation. I promised them registration for life, and yes, they will be granted free registration to the new NETLOD."

Team Fortress (TFC) is cheap, easy, and fun

[Daemongar]

I would strongly recommend TFC for beginners, as it allows a player: 10 different classes with different abilities to play, instant respawn, team play, runs on the Half-Life engine, is a free download to owners of Half-Life, and doesn't allow team kill*. Also, as an added bonus, someday TF2 will be released http://tf2.sierra.com/ but the last update was in 2001 - so I wouldn't go preordering anytime soon.

No matter what game you play, tho, make sure of the following:

1. Snipers - learn how to snipe, for God's sake - they rock
2. Encourage team play - CS is great, but all it takes is a server with Friendly Fire turned on to make everyone unhappy - BF1942 usually has this turned on to drive me crazy.
3. Make sure you are enjoying yourself - I have played a lot of online games, and at the end of 2 hours was pissed off something fierce. Then I thought "WTF am I doing?!" and promptly moved on.
4. You play on the same server regularly and get to know people a little. Doesn't hurt if there is an active admin who can kick nincompoops, either.

Good luck, and if you see RevCo online - just log out and save yourself a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.
*generally

Re:Team Fortress (TFC) is cheap, easy, and fun

[Grievre]

TFC is also not free software and not ported to anything other than windows. and btw, Snipers ruin the game.

Try DoD

[SkArcher]

I'm a reg on a DoD server Tanelorn - the website has all the details and other stuff). There are 2 DoD servers (and a BF1942 server as well). The gameserver itself is in Atlanta, USA

The MAIN server rules are;

• We do not tolerate bigotry in any form
• FF is OFF
• Don't complain about the weapon limits
• Teamplay is mandatory - no score whores allowed
• No firing in spawn (it masks enemy fire)
• Don't use your teammates as target practice
• No excessive camping.
• Tanelorn practices a zero-tolerance policy towards arseholes and cheaters.

See the forums for more detailed discussion of our rules.

Both gs1.tanelorn.org.uk & gs3 are STEAMed DoD servers. gs3 has a couple of differences - FF is on, and only custom maps are in rotation. The map pack is downloadable from the website.

Say hello on the forums :)

P.S. Camperstrike Sux

It all depends on the server crowd.

[SmartMoose]

I used to play a lot of CS, DoD and UT, but CS won out becuase i found 2 or 3 servers that had a regular players who had a good skill mix so I could always learn new hings but still own on occasion. Most importantly, those players weren't assholes about everything, especially someone who was playing really well. Maybe cheating is as endemic in CS as is widely believed, but i have honestly only seen 3 occasions where pople were cheating, and 2 of those were the admin testing it to see if they could stop it properly. The one "Real" cheater got caught within about and hour and a half. So it really doesn't matter which game you play, so long as assmunches don't play there.

Day of Defeat, anyone?

[Kagenin]

I've found that Day of Defeat, an add-on for Half-Life, kicks much ass. My Girlfriend, who has always had a penchant for Quake (and Quake-alikes), took to this WWII-based mod like a fish to water. Teamwork is MORE prevalent in this than say Counter-Strike, where I've found most players as of recently are only concerned with their individual statistics than the team score (and getting the bomb planted/diffused).

Certain objectives reqire two teammates to complete on some maps. And did I mention that the elaborate, detailed maps are some of the best maps I've played in any game? Many maps are Cap'n'Hold, a "king of the hill" like variant of Capture the Flag, some are Attack or Defend (one side has the objective to blow something up before time runs out, the other team has to wait for time to expire before their shit blows up...), some are mixes of the two - one map has one side seeking plans from a downed plane (a la one-flag CTF), the other team has to blow up tanks with shoulder- mounted Rocket Launchers before the other team caps the plans.

Sure, less people play it than CS, but this can be a good thing - I've found players are of a better calibre than CS. They don't cheat as much, they appriciate good teamwork, and don't TK as much when Friendly Fire is on.

I used to play some FPS games on Dial-up, up until about a year or two before we got DSL. Things were great when most gamers only had Dial-up - I used to play A LOT of Quake 2 (especially ExpertCTF) on Dial-up, and during one of my binges, found my name on theclq.com's listings of the top ExpertCTF players in the world for a week (in the top 150!). But then the prices of DSL started to drop, and the early adopters were rewarded with lower latency, fewer dropped packets, and an easier time lining up sniper rounds.

I've also been playing a lot of Team Fortress Classic - again, less players than CS, but a better player you'll find, usually.

And Practice makes Perfect. FPS games are no exception. Sure, some are born with killer instincts, but the rest of us have to learn the maps (and appropriate tactics) on our own.

If yer ever playing DoD, and you bump into "The Outsider" (me), "Kagenin" (me again), lulu (my girlfriend), or "General Spanky" (my sister's boyfriend), say "Hi!" or something.

Kagenin

Re:Day of Defeat, anyone?

[Lonewolf666]

Yes, DOD is definitely one of the better games around. Currently my favourite FPS, despite occasional technical problems.
If those get too much, by buddies and me might move to Call Of Duty. Almost equally good in terms of gameplay and it seems to be more reliable.

BF1942

[Lord_Dweomer]

BF1942 is good for beginners. You can play with only bots for a while, and now, when you play online with the 1.6 patch, it can search for Punkbuster only servers, which blocks cheats (most at least). Plus, if you get on well populated server, odds are there will be someone suckier than you.

Also, why not learn it like the rest of us did? Keep playing against the guys who keep getting head shots on you, and if you practice long enough, suddenly you start getting head shots on them.

Nobody ever got better at a game by playing against a bunch of people who are worse than them.

My fav...

[enyalios]

is called cube. Its really simple to learn, doesn't require rediculous hardware, and is tons of fun. The url is: http://wouter.fov120.com/cube/ Go wild.

you're missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

The point here is that none of the game developers have ever made playing an FPS (or many other game types for that matter!) online easy for n00bs. I have many friends who are casual game players and would really like to go online and play but don't because too many times they have gone online and got owned.
My brother loves playing computer games, loves it! But never goes online to play because of this issue, as a more hard core player I know how much fun he is missing playing online, and it make me mad! I wish the game developers would pay attention to this silent majority who are stuck playing against bots or LAN simply because no one will write a system that will allow these people to find each other and have a fun game!
Talk about a huge untapped market!

"Any system to connect n00bs will never work!" I hear you say!
Well I've thought about this a issue a little bit, and I have an idea that I think might just work!
Its called: The fun system!
How it works: Every 5 mins (or at some other convenient interval) you answer a survey about the people you are playing with. The survey is: "who are you having fun with? and who is making the game not so fun for you?". Then the (master) server simply puts all the people who are having fun together on the same server.

Simple eh? So simple it might just work.

Anyways, rant over...

Enemy Territory = Nerd Crack

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice to know I'm not the only ET addict...

The old city wall thing's funny, but nothing beats the axis "Attack!" shout.

cheating?

[Reivec]

I find in a lot of these games people just blame good players for cheating and don't always back it up with proof. I never cheat in online games.. hell I just don't care that much. But I HAVE been banned from servers for cheating, simply because I play well.. and you know.. listen and pay attention. In my experience cheating is FAR LESS of a problem as people would have you believe. Either that or the people cheating still suck cheats or not and I still own them. Either way it is a moot point for me. I also do NOT play in clans and I do NOT "practice" to get better or attempt weird ass shit while alone in a server to see just how far I can pull a jump etc.. I just play when I have time with random people. The only real trick to starting an online FPS is to realize it is just a game and not get pissed when you are lossing. It is better to try to figure out why you are lossing and experiment with some new ideas a bit. You will probably die if you are experimenting, but you are dying anyway, so why does it matter? Eventually you will learn by this trial and error method.

I find most people do not vary their attack too much unless they never get any kills at all. So I generally do not dominate right off the bat, I do average until I figure out where each player likes to go and how they like to move and then I just pick them off left and right. The key is being able to adapt. If you are the type who gets super angry when you die, just start drinking lots of beer while you play... then you kind of expect to play poorly and you have some scapegoat you can blame it on, you still get some learning experience either way.

MoH is a blast

[Anonymous Coward]

I only dip my toe into gaming now and again, but love to charge around in Medal of Honour:Spearhead Demo, which is a free download and allows you to play online in two maps. Mac or PC versions available. I can always find a game filled with idiots or one with gamegeeks, it's easy to learn, and a most satisfyng way to waste an hour or two - or six if you're not careful.

newbs

[jiffah]

New players invariably take licks while trying to learn any game. Trying to get through the learning curve against people who've been playing a game for years is a tough situtation, but you'll have to deal with it.
Fps games really boil down to map memorization.
And if you're worried about cheaters, you'll need to play console games instead. It's to easy to download skill then take the time and develop it.

Nova did it correctly for a change.

[Anonymous Coward]

Delta Force Black Hawk Down (with team saber addon). www.novalogic.com One of the best new shooters out there.

Lionheart

[Ignatius_VI]

It's definatly worth giving Lionheart a try. It is, by far, the most dynamic game I've ever played, and for once an RPG can keep my attention.

At $25 you can't go wrong. It mixes history with fantasy, in a way...

There aren't very many multiplayer games, hopefully that will change.

http://lionheart.blackisle.com/ is the website. It has a demo and a lot more information. The 1.1 Patch fixes a few bugs that are in the demo.

Unreal Tournament Newbie Servers

[Radojevic]

The truff Unreal Tournament Servers are good. There's a newbie, intermediate, and open server. The newbie and intermediate servers are monitored by admins to make sure everyone has a good time. This means, especially on the newbie server, players are not allowed to run their scores too much. If you dominate on the newbie server, you'll be asked to move on to the intermediate, and so on. g

get some

[dhanes]

Just go on out and play on whatever game looks most interesting at first. You'll get your ass handed to you for awhile, but that's part of the fun.

Eventually you'll get the hang of what's going on, and you should have a pretty good time. Just listen to what other players are saying, ask questions, read the pertinent FAQ's or readme's.

Then you'll be able to reflect on what makes that particular game fun or not, and look for what you're missing in other games.

Happy Fraggin'!

Good luck

[key nell]

I'm probably too late for anyone to read this, but let me just throw some stuff up because this is an interesting topic.

The "casual" online gamer is not going to be rewarded in the majority of online games. If you want something fun to play online "for a half an hour now and then when [you are] bored" I suggest either Yahoo games or a different hobby. FPS's and MMORPG's are dominated by people with nothing but time on their hands. And the hard and fast rule of getting skill in any competition is that it takes a lot of time to become skilled. A casual gamer is going to be "owned" because he simply is not going to be able to compete with the hard core gamers. This fact, combined with the presence of many people who are not graicous winners, insures that online gaming won't be very fun for the casual gamer. However, if you are committed to this style of play perhaps there are some alternitives which hopefully I will be able to iterate.

*Try playing a mod of your game of choice. Preferably one that simply changes a few of the game's core rules. The reason for this is that hardcore gamers hate change. They have worked very hard to obtain their level of skill and they dont like it when their game is messed with. You want to be playing with a population of gamers that are roughly at your level of skill for it to be fun. You may find that the people that play mods are friendlier as well.

*Play on servers with restrictive rules and omnipresent admins. Gamers generally have foul mouths online. A server with rules against profanity or racial slurs will usually not be populated with hardcore gamers. Thus you get a good server to play in with players of average skill who aren't playing to call each other "fag" and what not. Homelan runs servers like this for many different games.

*Like other posters have said: be nice. If you can find a group of people that are friendly towards you and that you are comfortable with it will make any game that much better. Online gaming doesn't have to include social alienation.

*Play new games. Older games almost always have a high population of hardcore gamers who don't take kindly to newbies and casual gamers. Again, it just isn't fun to play a FPS where you are constantly dominated.

The basic rule for FPS's is that you need to find the server which works for you. Shop around until you find a server where you are comfortable playing on. It will make your online experience much better.

The game you want to play

[Anonymous Coward]

No cheaters.

No clans.

Duke Nukem Forever!

ModsModsMods

[p)-(ragment]

If you get a chance check out UrbanTerror. It is a Quake3 Mod from SID. I have found that Mods generally have a better overall community with people willing to show you around. Check it out at: http://urbanterror.net -MT

Just jump in..

[Gillious]

It may seem frustrating at first, but the best route is to probably choose a game that's been around a while. The tribes series has always been my personal favorite. But go with whatever floats your boat. The thing about FPS games is that each game may have simalarities, but all "feel" diffrent. Just go with what game "feels" right.

Quake!

[Grievre]

Quakeworld has been GPL for a few years, and it's still a quite entertaining game. For a good *nix client (SDL based so should be easily portable), try the quakeforge project (http://www.quakeforge.net/) The shareware quake game data is available some- where on id's ftp (ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/) And if you can't bear having just the shareware levels, you can get a free mod such as Team Fortress (http://www.planetfortress.com has files). Otherwise, the commercial version costs like 10 bucks.

Re:Quake!

[Anonymous Coward]

A QuakeWorld news portal.
FuhQuake QuakeWorld Client.

Re:AND YOU WILL PAY THE PRICE IN VOMIT, FAILURE! Y

[Anonymous Coward]

Second place is still a fucking loser.

Mixin it up doesn't mean shit. Trying hard doesn't mean shit. Giving it your all doesn't mean shit. There is only success and failure.

The rules of the FP are the rules of life

Re:Play UT on CSHP servers (and UTPURE)

[solarium_rider]

CSHP died a while ago, most the people that are still using CSHP today are using custom versions, that require them to be hacked specifically to cheat on them. Therefore public hacks won't work on them.

However, for the last year or two, it's been UTPure that everyone uses for cheat protection.

Unfortunately, UTPure is hacked quite easily, and there isn't anything to do right now to protect it. The only way to add protection to UTPure is to add MD5sum package checking (such as UT2003 has.) It's currently being worked on by UTPG. They are a group of volunteers, working with epic to further fix the bugs and problems with UT. Epics last release was V436, they have since released V440 and V451 (which takes care of the DDOS exploits along with some other minor fixes.) They are all network compatible with each other. The big jump will be when they add MD5sums, since this will break network compatibility, but as mentioned earlier, will allow UTPure to stop cheaters, and even CSHP will become useful again. There's also other methods of detecting cheaters such as ASH (checks keybinds), and other various package and mod menu loggers to stop cheaters.

Overall, you just need to find a server with active admin's and there will be not that many cheatrers.

-{DvNA}solarium_rider

Captain video's newbie server

[kop]

Wat you are looking for is something like my server.
It's called captain video's newbie server and for the name alone it usually attracts beginners.
If somebody too "l33t" logs in they are usually politely asked to leave and most of them do.
If not, they are voted off.

It currently runs "urban terror" a quake 3 modification. For instructions and download locations visit http://www.captainvideo.nl/quake/

If you allready have urban terror then simply type connect 62.221.195.175:27960 in the quake console.

I play with the nickname kusje
Hope to see you there!

Anti-social people

[bonch]

Online FPS are dominated by anti-social people...kids who don't have social lives and so spend all their time in UT2003/CS chatrooms and servers.

So, it's hard for a beginner to start because these kids have all the time in the world to become either frighteningly extreme experts or lame cheaters. And if you somehow do manage to beat someone--like you mentioned, they become weenies about it.

LAN parties are where it's at. You get to play with your buddies, you get to have fun. Yell insults at each other as you play. Hand each other some sodas and chips. Way better.

Response from another casual gamer

[{tele}machus_*1]

I only play FPS games online every once in a while. When I started out, I learned some useful fundamental skills that still allow me to have fun even though I'm never the best player on the server.

In general, I will echo some comments already made: (1) if you are just starting out, don't assume excellent players are cheating; chances are, they are just much better than you. (2) Don't be intimidated. And don't be afraid to suck, because you will suck mightily for a long time. (3) It's probably not a good idea to play round-based games at first, because you will spend a lot of frustrating time waiting for the round to end if (when) you are the first person to get killed.

More specifically, if you need to buff up your aiming, dodging and moving skills, play Quake 3 against the bots on the second hardest difficulty level until you are consistently winning the map. You just need to build up your twitch-gaming skills.

If you want to play C-S, here are some specific tips to help you avoid common newbie mistakes:

(1) Concentrate on staying alive, not racking up kills. Don't lead the rush into a hail of bullets. You learn a lot more by staying alive through a whole round than you do trying to get one kill right away and then waiting out most of the round after dying in the first rush. Plus you can actually learn your way around the map.

(2) Contrary to your instinct, don't bother playing with other beginners. You will learn more playing with advanced players, because your mistakes will be punished and your good habits will be reinforced. If you only play against bad players, you will only develop bad habits.

(3) Use headphones, unless you have a top-notch surround-sound speaker set-up. With headphones you can get a better sense of directional sound. It makes it easier to locate people by the sound of their footsteps or gunfire.

(4) Use controlled, 1-3 bullet bursts. You can stand right next to a guy, and if you empty your clip at him in a long continuous burst, there's a good chance he will blow your head off before you kill him (I have seen this happen, and it has happened to me).

(5) Learn to compensate for recoil. The easiest way to get used to recoil is with the AK-47. With the Ak, aim at your enemy's upper chest and fire a short, 3-bullet burst. You'll find that the third bullet will most likely be a headshot.

(6) Learn the Buy menu. Don't worry if everyone is long gone by the time you finish buying your gear in your first few rounds. Once you figure it out, you'll be ready to go with the team.

(7) Don't use the sniper rifles. Just don't bother. You don't learn anything by hiding and trying to pick off targets from a distance.

TRY WARCRAFT III

[mr.mas]

really the best online game i have played so far. just connect to battle.net, play 1 or 2 games for half an hours, then disconnect. its all so easy. battle.net also just let people play against each other who have somewhat the same rank

I highly recommend call of duty

[leprkan]

Call of duty is an awesome game. PC Gamer gave it an editors choice award and also the Action Game of the Year for 2003, and PC Gamer rarely messes up. Call of duty ranges in experience... from lots of lots of newbies, too about 4 or 5 differnet leagues and several hundred clans. Hacking is rare, there are wallhacks and boxhacks out but they are VERY hard to find. I have only played with 2 people that were cheating. Also, if you can get good at call of duty you can play any other fps games with no problem. -leprkan p.s. Lineage 2 comes out in a few months and the tiawan beta was promising :-D

Americas Army - Honor

[thelizman]

America's Army - which is free, very nicely done, and available on Linux/Mac in addition to WinPC - has a system called "honor". honor is accrued through kills and goals achieved as both an individual and to a lesser extent as part of a team. The system does a fair job of separating noobs from ubergamers, so you can always get a good idea of the company you're with. it's not foolproof - or cheat proof, but with the addition of punkbuster software the cheater population in AA has dropped significantly, and is lower than just about any other game out there.

Not a problem.

[reality-bytes]

If PB isn't updating properly / quickly - just go HERE look under downloads and you can easily do a manual update. (Much quicker IMHO)

Savage

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought Savage a few months ago and I still play it today (off an on around 30 minutes at least a day). Whats interesting is that you can buy a copy right online and start playing as soon as you download it. On top of that they do have Linux and Win32 binaries. Plus they seem to be very on top of things such as patches. Their latest patch added in 2 new classes, new maps and a lot of balancing.

Playing the game also is pretty fun for someone new, the game seems to be extremely balanced. It might take you a few minutes to get down what exactly is going on, but once you get the hang of it, its a lot of fun. I have more fun with Savange than Quake, BF1942, or Unreal Tournament.

Re:AND YOU WILL PAY THE PRICE IN VOMIT, FAILURE! Y

[Anonymous Coward]

Eat my shit.

-UrMom

Oldie but goodie

[Werelock]

Might I suggest the Wheel of Time? It's an FPS that requires brains and patience to play - it is not a twitch game such as the Quake or Unreal series, but it is exceptionaly fun. The game won several game of the year awards - including GameSpy iirc. It is about 5 years old so should run just fine on whatever computer you have. The community is very dedicated to the game and has no known cheaters. Also, we are extremely helpful and if you ask for help on the servers 90% of the players will jump to [Teacher]name mode and the current games will go into teaching someone how to play.

We truly do want new players. You should be able to find WoT in the bargain bin somewhere. Stop by the official WoT Clan Forums and introduce yourself and ask for whatever help you need (the main Game forum is basically empty these days).

Re: Ridiculous

[benzapp]

Beginners should play single player first. Get yourself a copy of doom. Beat the game on at least hurt me plenty mode. Then beat doom 2 the same way. It doesn't take long. Then beat quake 2 single player on normal. Forget quake 1. Then beat half-life single player on normal. After that you should have amassed enough fps skill to rock the house.

Just because it has taken you 10 years to learn how to play a FPS doesn't mean the average geek reading this site will require that much time.

Doom I??? Doom II??? I haven't heard of anyone playing either of those games in at least 5 years. My god, they had a Doom release on the Atari Jaguar!!! Think about that!

I think you have dedicated way too much of your life to playing these games.

In the amount of time that has expired since Doom I came out, you could have gotten your undergrad degree, gone to medical school, AND finished your residency. You would be a real, licened, ready to probe the vagina gynecologist.

Lets get our priorities straight here. Games should be a minor diversion, not an activity which requires 15% of your life to master.

All Your Base are Belong To Us

[Anonymous Coward]

All Your Base Are Belong To Us

Re:All Your Base are Belong To Us

[Anonymous Coward]

You Have No Chance To Survive Make Your Time

The very premise of your question is wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your question is not a very good question. I am not trying to be insulting. Please let me explain.

Let me reword your question:
What kind of game can I play where it totally doesn't matter what skill level you have to play it. I'm looking for a game where the more time I invest in the game, the less I get out of it. I want a game where the reward for playing it more is that I do just as well as when I started.

You see. Here is the basic problem. One of the things that people who play FPS are looking for in general is to be rewarded for time spent. This reward does not come as in a MMORPG with increased levels, weapons, etc (RTCW minor exception here). The reward is increased skill. The reward is increased socialization (clan activity).

I think you are looking for a game like Hearts on Yahoo or possibly Solitaire on your Windows machine. FPS multiplayer will never be for you. The only exception might be a brand new FPS. However, that will only work for like 3 weeks. Then, everyone who played will be better than you.

Oh BS

[Anonymous Coward]

1) PB is hacked within hours, sometimes minutes, of release. Just check the more subdued, harder to find cheat boards, especially those in the UK and Finland. There is usually a new cheat for PB games within hours.

2) Further, PB is blind to several classes of cheats... it can nab the lazy cheater (aim bots, speed hacks, OpenGL/D3D view hacks, armour hacks, etc), but it has no chance against the hardcore, elite cheaters. There are thousands of these guys out there. I have seen some of these in action and they fiddle with predictors and net traffic directly with fast, non gaming boxes (the most popular is a LINUX redhat box and app actually) with a pair of NICs.

3) PB 'global' bans are absolutely useless for the hardcore guys... they have dupe accounts, hacked accounts using stolen keys, key generators (very popular... the deep underground scene is full of good ones for games and apps/oses that work and the mainstream is never aware of), etc. They are back online in minutes. I have even seen a post by these guys on a popular, easily searched cheat/hack site where he could create AA accounts at will with what ever honor/stats he wanted (this was only a few weeks ago) due to a game bug.

4) Personally, I find the flaws in BF1942 amusing... any game that lets you get away with TKing like you see there is kind of amusing... I used to kill off my entire team on the carrier regularly once I got bored with it... and it's a laggy, sound bug riddled, junk title for the most part anyway.

Re:Oh BS

[vrai]

How tragic is it that people put so much effort in to cheating in va ideo game. Hours spent trying to circumvent anti-cheat mechanisms! Hours spent acheiving the square root of fuck all.

It's not even as if they gain any kind of kudos from doing it. I can understand why people like demo writers will spend days hacking out a visual effect that has no real use. At least they can garner some level of respect from others, if only for their technical skill. By comparision online game cheats are either hated (by gamers) or considered as sad as sad can be (by everyone else).

At least they are sufficently lacking in technical/social skills that I'll never have to work with them.

WWIIonline

[Lodragandraoidh]

World War II Online is the best battlefield simulation - bar none. It is also a FPS - in that you can only view the environment from the first person perspective, whether you are an infantryman, a tank, a ship or a plane. However, it is not for people with short attention spans, or folks who want instant action. It more than makes up for this with the following capabilities:

1. Massive Map. The map is of Western Europe; you could spawn into Holland, and walk all the way to Switzerland if you wanted to (1/4 scale - with accurate elevations and terrain features that nearly match the real map of Europe) - this would take you days, if not weeks to do this. There is no 'zoning' between smaller areas like in other online games - and the map is humongous compared to any FPS currently on the market. You don't have to worry about running into a wall when you are trying to maneuver - and battles don't end up being 'frontal assaults through a bottleneck' - with interesting results and possibilities for offense and defense.

2. Visual Distance. The edge of the 'fog' curtain at the edge of your vision is 6 or more kilometers away. You can see men with your avatar's naked eye out to 2 Kilometers, ground vehicles out to 3 kilometers, and much larger vehicles, such as ships out to the edge of the fog (6km or more). Optics, such as binoculars or telescopic weapon sites allow you to see further for each type. Tank battles typically occur between 500 and 2000 meters.

3. Damage System. The damage system is very realistic - going so far as to break up different parts of your infantry avatar (head, torso, extremities) - and apply damage based on the physics of the weapon that is impacting the 'part' of the body or vehicle (or both).

4. Combined Arms. The game includes Air, Land and Sea forces that all operate on the same battlefield; while there are a few games that do this (such as Battlefield 1942) - none have the same feeling or realism that engagements in WWIIonline have. Whereas in an infantry based FPS (like Socom, or the Rainbow 6 series) - you can pretty much ignore the other components, in WWIIonline you must work together with other branches to succeed. Calling in an airstrike on an enemy position, or doing an amphibious assault (river patrol, destroyer and transport ships currently modeled), or flying as a pilot, or being a ship commander, or a tanker, or an infantryman (sappers, riflemen, light machine gunners, and soon rifle grenade equipped infantry - plus smoke and frag grenades - as well as knife) and all working together move the map.

5. No Gankers. You can not kill your own side. That being said, that does take away from the realism a bit - but more than makes up for it in the playability department - unlike other games where griefers use team killing to get the choice equipment, or just disrupt the gameplay.

6. Night and Day. Currently the system has a fast clock that has a 'day' that lasts 6 hours (don't quote me on that), and a night that lasts half that time (3 hours?). There are clouds - but currently no weather effects - but that is planned for future development.

The game begins with a 'map reset' - where the starting 'frontline' positions are set to the defaults. The game commences immediately and the map runs 24 hours a day 7 days a week until a winner is declared. The winner is the side that captures the vast majority of the enemy's towns (large towns/cities count more than small towns - but are also harder to take). Maps last anywhere from a week to several months. After a winner is declared automatically, the map is reset and the war begins again.

The equipment is based on WWII types, with a more historic approach than other games (such as BF1942) that start off with the Tiger tank (for example). Instead you will learn to use the PZII, PZ38, PZIII, Sd232 on the Axis side, and the Sumoa, Char 1B, Renault, and Panhard on the French, and Matilda, A13, and Vickers on the British (they

Re:WWIIonline

[Cosmik]

Ah, yes. Good old WWII Offline, where you too can TAXI TO VICTORY!!!

Re:WWIIonline

[Some Bitch]

That may be the single funniest IRC log ever :)

Re:WWIIonline

[Lodragandraoidh]

The game has changed 100% - it is nothing like when it was as initially released. - we are currently at version 1.11 - soon to be 1.12 - and it is an awesome battlefield simulation - so good, in fact, that the Pentagon is investigating using the game engine for training and strategic gameing real life senarios...

I started playing November 2001; I agree that the game was not complete when it was first released. However, in fairness to the developers, the producers (read -- financial backers) forced the game out the door before it was ready. It is now where it should have been in 2001; I would urge you to give it a try before you pull out old garbage on a game that really doesn't exist in that form today.

You can go to the website and download the game, as well as order a game key to get started. Additionally, if you don't want to fork over your hard earned money, periodically they have trial memberships for X amount of time for free.

Don't knock it, until you try the latest revision. Additionally, if you are 10 years old, or have a short attention span, don't bother.

DF:BHD

[TedBot]

Also you should try "Delta Force Blakhawk Down".
The single player game helps you learn the weapons and tactics (plus some great eye candy ie: The guys fast roping out of the Blackhawks). When you go online it has stat based servers that rank by the thing you do in multi player and they have a bunch of new player servers that you can only go on if your rank is low enough. All in all it's a good system and a very fun game.

XBOX LIVE

[Anonymous Coward]

want cheat free fps? xbox live is the way to go.

Gamespy's managed servers

[Sheik Yerbouti]

I love ask Slashdot it seems like the absolute worst way to find the answer to something as people rarely address the posters question. He didn't ask what your favorite FPS was. He want's to know what FPS he can log into and casually play from time to time without putting up with a bunch of smacktards and college dropouts with too much free time. And the answer is none really. Any of you who say cheating is not a real problem are either really naive, stupid, or are in fact cheating bastards PR people.

Yes there are people who ignore the rest of their life and personal hygene that are uber. But fact is when you finally succesfully sneak up behind someone and unload an entire clip right into their head and they just talk trash they are cheating bastards and it happens all the time. Just take a look a battle.net where Blizzard actually tries to keep a handle on things they have had to ban over 100k accounts in one fell swoop because of cheating smacktards. When I heard that figure I knew there was a market opportunity there.

Take Xbox for example I despise the homogenization effect that consoles have on gaming (tony hawk pro skater and other teeny bopper games) but one nice thing about Xbox live is that because Microsoft manages the whole shooting match (networks, servers, and accounts) the product is much nicer for casual gamers who want to play online games. No cheaters, high bandwidth, mother servers. There is an analouge in the PC world thank god and that's gamespy's managed servers (I don't work for them I am just a satisfied customer). http://www.gamespyarcade.com/subscribe/

Gamespy set up some phat servers with mega bandwidth uses punkbuster where possible and actually patrols the servers for cheating smacktards. Many of you will find this reprehensible because you can't be cheating smacktards on them. But for those looking for a better multi player game experience on the PC this or some service like it is probably your best bet. When I first became a gamespy subscriber I did so grudgingly for file planet access. But now after being a founder level subscriber for a year I would say the service in total is worth every last penny

Team Fortress Classic

[Robotech_Master]

I'm not so very good at shooters myself...Counterstrike, I tend to spend 95% of the time floating around as a ghost. I just don't have good enough hand-eye coordination to do a good job.

But a shooter I tend to enjoy is Team Fortress Classic, another one of those team-based Halflife mods. There are so many different kinds of classes you can play, and a few of them (Engineer, Medic, Spy) have abilities that are not directly predicated on one's ability to shoot someone else...so you can be bad at it and still have a good time.

Alas, nobody plays my all-time favorite shooter mod, Opposing Force CTF, anymore... :(

Divide and Conquer

[Josiwe]

My clan runs one of the premier "feel-good" servers in the nation. We are currently running Call of Duty. We have a large flux of players from around the nation, and are hosted on a backbone out of Abilene.

All clan members are rcon admins, and we have strict rules about not abusing these privileges. At the same time, we are empowered to kick people at our discretion.

Our philosophy is that the purpose of the game is to have fun - to that end DaC members almost always spread themselves out across teams, and there is no cursing allowed on the server.

Visit the webpage to grab the IP address and visit us if you have the game (if you don't, it's really quite good.) I'll keep an eye out for ya ;-)

- Josiwe[DaC]

FPS tips

[xihr]

Here's an FPS tips site which includes tutorials and information on Quake, Aliens vs. Predator 2, Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament 2003, and Wolfenstein.

Planetside

[DECKARD6]

If you are looking for the most rewarding team play FPS on the market look no further. It might take a few days to figure out the advanced tactics but even so you can log in and frag to hearts content. The elite players are too busy trying to transport players around rather than being stat whores.

Play on FFA servers, avoid 1v1 servers!

[Matt Ownby]

As far as generic FPS games such as Quake3, FFA (free-for all) servers are huge newb magnets and you will find the easiest competition on these. This is a great place to get your feet wet. In Quake3 specifically, the rail-gun only instagib servers attract newbs like moths to a flame. Good players hate FFA servers and quickly move onto hardcore teamplay servers and/or 1v1 duel servers. The 1v1 servers are where the top players are to be found.

As far as team-based games, look for servers that have a ton of people on them all the time. The more people there are on a server, the more likely it is that there are a lot of newbs on there, and top players dislike playing with newbs on their team. Therefore, you will have easier competition on a server with tons of people. Avoid servers that have people with the same "tags" in their name (either a prefix or suffix that is the same). This implies a clan or a team and they probably are more serious and won't take kindly to newbies.

As for RTS games (Warcraft 3), the 'random team' type game always has the biggest newbs in it (for pretty obvious reasons--the newbies like to get on a team with an experienced player to give them a better chance to win). Arranged team and 1v1 are where the more experienced players are to be found.

CounterAdmin

[Anonymous Coward]

You should go to counteadmin's server if u plan on playing at a good Counter-strike server. They have really low pings and let u buy admin. I think the ip of the server is 131.215.45.119
or just go to counteradmin.com. I recenty bough admin there and its really cool with low gravty and stuff

BZflag has nothing on BattleZone and Battlezone 2

[IPFreely]

Try BattleZone2. It is first person shooter plus strategy. It has several play modes for local and online. The easiest is Deathmatch. You get a variety of hovertanks, rolling units and walkers and an even wider range of weapons. And if you do happen to get blown out of your ship, your pilot can snipe another and take it over ;). There is also a lively modder community around it, and they have created missions and maps that really enhance the original game.

The mix of strategy can be used when you are more involved. You can build bases, take territory, gather resources, and make an army. Strategy player vs player or player vs machine are also available in multiplayer.

One of the nicest parts is that the community is dedicated. They help new users and play cooperatively for training and learning. Go check the forums and screenshots. It' a little old (2000) but it still looks great, and playes nicely on older hardware (a 300-500 P3 will work, wants 16Mb+ graphics, 32 better). Some original developers are keeping the code up so bug fixes are available and improvements are on the way.

Several Options

[g0bshiTe]

You have several routes you can take on this matter.

1) You could host your own game. That way you control if cheats are allowed or not.

2) You could join on of these clans that play online. I have played FPS games for years and found that there are people who play for fun and dont feel the need to cheat unless, it is a mod only game.

3) This option is as lame as number 1 but here goes. Just play on a server that doesn't allow cheats. Some servers will advertise this.


Just remember when playing online games via PC, it isn't like a console. Your oponent may have better equipment than you. In which case you may mistake lag for cheating. He who has the fastest processor and or ram. Wins the game, or at least always kicked my ass. To better your performance learn where to get powerups, it'll save you tons of frustration. Play the map in single player mode if you can.

As far as FPS I recommend Soldier of Fortune, it's a fun game though most of the servers do seem to use cheats. UNLIM AMMO ARMOR that type stuff.
Medal of Honor (ANY TITLE) The game is excellent, you really get the impression of WWII Combat.
Though not really a multi player FPS Hitman has some fun factor. Plus there are some neat cheats. I for one like one in particular that allows you to hit hot keys and the textures disappear. All you see is wireframe, almost like x-ray vision. It's great for seeing what's around the next corner.
Most FPS games also come with some sort of map editor, these are worth checking out.

Exaggerated cheating

[xihr]

Although cheating is a serious problem on some servers, the fact is most claims of cheating are false. It's the beginners who see cheating when it's not there. They come from newbies who don't realize that although they think they are good, there are people much, much better than them. There's a hierarchy of tiers of player skill in FPS games, just like there is in life. Even people in the top tiers will get trounced by people on the even higher tiers.

All the problems that come with people cheating can be eliminated simply by playing on a good, reliable, well-administrated server that you've come to trust. It can take time to find one, but it's worth the investment. In short, don't sell out Quake, Counter-Strike, and its progeny just yet.

Re:Exaggerated cheating

[Anonymous Coward]

try urban terror, that's where all the cheaters are. It is being ported to Enemy Territory soon which should make it better than the Quake 3 Arena engine. It's a great game anyway.

Re:Exaggerated cheating

[Anonymous Coward]

I think cheating is actually a lot more prevailant than most people realize. A lot of comments I've read in this thread have been along the lines "well if you play on good servers" or "if you play on well moderated servers". Well of course there aren't going to be many cheaters on clan servers or well moderated servers! Thats like saying "well people in China are always short". Most public servers have numerous cheaters, lack moderators, and have a generally unfriendly group of players. If Slashdot was to run a 64 player CS server, chances are there'd be no cheaters. But if Joe Average was to run a 64 player server of CS, chances are he'd never moderate it, never have anyone else moderate it, and/or never install any anti-cheating programs.

Planteside

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are really worried about cheats and want a game with enough depth that the key to the game is not just how to use -insert killer weapon here- correctly try out PlanetSide(PS).

planetside.station.sony.com

Planetside is an FPS placed in an MMOG or Massive Multiplayer Online Game.

Having played many FPS as well as MMOG I found planetside to be an excellent combination of the two.

There is advancement of your character ala RPG but it does not dominant to your gameplay like an MMORPG like EQ or SWG. A lvl 4 player (takes about an hour to play to get to 4 in the training simulator) can easily take out a lvl 20. Just put on an infiltrator suit(makes you invisible) and sneak up on an unwary opponent and stick them with a knife.

Cheating, while it would be incorrect to say could never happen is constantly being monitored by the managers and developers of the game. Since PS is a subscription based game there is monetary encouragement for the developers to continue to enhance, and police gameplay to maximize everyones enjoyment. This means a zero tolerance to cheat policy.

Since the game has everything from bombers to tanks to robotic enhanced armor the depth of strategy is much greater in my experience than most FPS games.

You are free to focus on the style of play you prefer. Maybe that is strafing players from the air or perhaps you like to play anti-air role. Or if you are feeling like a bit more chaos you can put yourself in the role of shock trooper for inside base assaults for a more traditional FPS frag fest.

In addition to traditional FPS features and some RPG mechanics the game has the infrastructure to help coordinate battles on a grand scale. Often I found myself in battles of 100 players a side or more on continents with 2 or 3 of these battles occuring at once. There is a whole command system you can get into in addition to in game support for outfits (clans) as well as smaller units like squads and platoons.

I never found it hard to get into a squad and there are plenty of great outfits to join.

Overall I have much enjoyed PS and found that the monthly subscription of $12.95 is well worth it to ensure the game is constantly being enhanced and improved.

Of course the subscription is a negative for some who would like to play on free servers but given the massive amount of cheating that can go on with FPS games the fee is well worth it. Then again I am used to paying a monthly fee being a MMORPG fan so it is not so much of a leap for me as it is for FPS players used to paying once for the CDROM and playing for free.

Re: Ridiculous

[Apreche]

Just because I've been playing for 10 years doesn't mean it's a full time activity. In fact I only play maybe 2 hours of fps a week. It just happens that I've been doing since a long time ago. It didn't take 10 years to learn how to play. But I've got 10 years of experience under the belt. If you've got 0 and most players have at least 3 or 4 you've got a serious disadvantage. And for most people, dying instantly every time is not fun. Doom, however old it is, is still a quality game. It teaches the player the basic fps skillset and provides a strong foundation for playing other newer games. Just like anything else in life you need to know where you've been to know where you're going.

So yeah, there are lots of things I've been doing for 10 years or more. It's just a hobby I've had, not something I dedicate my life to. Are you somehow saying that in order not to be a loser someone has to change their hobby every 9 years? It would be one thing if I played all day for sure. But I don't. So... yeah.

something else that may help...

[MrBallistic]

my online play improved quite a bit when i picked up the nostromo n50 (which i just replaced with the new n52). not to sound like a shill or anything, but this thing is amazing - and i've gone on to buy one for most of my friends over the past year.

it's essentially a small usb keyboard that has a d-pad by your thumb. the d-pad is super useful for some of the weird buttons that you have to mash at all of the worst times (jump, crouch, reload, etc). usually, you wind up moving your fingers off of the home keys when hitting those, which makes it a bit hard to move. by moving these to your thumb, you can crouch behind a wall, popup for a shot, crouch, move left, then pop up in a different place - which should help you keep your head on your shoulders.

the newer one is a big improvement - it's heavier, has more keys, and fits better with my hand.

also - one other thing (totally unrelated). when setting up your 'puter, pay close attention to the sound settings. i've found that i've had more crash issues because of weird sound issues than anything else. once i got 'em all happy and squared away, my fps went up a bit and my overall experience wasn't marred with system lockups. ugh.

oh yeah... to answer your question, i'm all over bf1942 - and desert combat. it's a bit slower than the tourney games out there (which just feel like twitch-fests) and really relies on good teamwork over playing tasty-taste from 'fear of a black hat' (just spray the area!). i'm all over it.

enjoy!

Re:something else that may help...

[MrBallistic]

oh yeah... another tip:

play through the singleplayer versions of either ut or quake3. if you can get through all of those levels without cheating, you've got all of the skillz that you need to defend yourself.

t

Re:something else that may help...

[Jaysyn]

I got The Claw by Ferraro Designs, & I can tell you it was worth it just to reduce the motion of my left hand during long gaming sessions, I've also got it set-up for other programs (AutoCAD, Winamp, Baldur's Gate). Too bad the company stopped selling & supporting them.

Jaysyn

You're looking for the Quake 3 FreezeTag community

[xski]

Easy to learn and play with lotsa friendly, helpful peeps in the communities, PB enabled servers so cheaters are a minimum (and once found out they're permanently banned from most servers).

Lotsa noobs, lotsa old farts like me who only play a few times a month and a few people who are just going to suck at it forever but they hang around anyway so easy pickens for you newcomers. Every community has its assholes, but by and large, this is a decent place to hang out and play for those who just want to play for fun from time to time. For competition and clanmatches, Online Gameing League runs a Freezetag ladder.

find out more here:
www.dayentech.net
www.instafreeze.net
www.thefrostzone.com

Ok, no, really..

[msimm]

Team killing is always really popular. If possible (depending on game) throw gernades, light team mates on fire or generally stand around in peoples way.

If someone shoots you a lot and you cant seem to touch them, that means their cheating. Its always best to call them a cheater out loud. This will show the other players that you just want to play a fair game.

Monopolize. If your playing on a level with any 'scarce' items its probably best if you get to them first then run directly over to the enemy side and open up! Just to show them how leet you are (they'll apprecaite you donating the weapon too).

Talk shit. Players really respect a player who knows how to talk shit. If your losing, insult the enemy team! This goes great along with accusing enemy players of cheating.

Finally, if *your* using a cheat its probably best to start accusing enemy players of cheating *as soon as you log in*. Your team mates will apprecaite this and admire you for your honesty.

Don't forget to bunny hop! Good gaming!

Panzerfaust == Panzie?

[VortexVertigo]

Another reason RTCW:ET isn't for new players, people like me who use the Panzerfaust and MG a lot :) Not to mention those sneaky covert ops folks, another favorite of mine.

Gunbound's a Blast ;)

[kwandar]

A friend recently introduced me to Gunbound, a cartoonish game, where you can pick a mobile cannon with different features, add features, play on a team, chat away, and blast away until someone is finally blown up or falls through a hole you've created. Only downside is the lack of instructions - kinda learn as you go

I seem to find a lot of women playing too - which always makes things a little nicer, IMHO ;(

Unreal2 XMP

[Anonymous Coward]

You can find out more information at www.u2xmp.com

There are many, many elements of XMP that require skillful execution and some which require skillful execution by more than one person. It rewards people who put in the effort to master these things. At the same timeit provides many other activities that an inexperienced player (or a player with a terrible ping) can enjoy: There are automated defenses that the player can drop, which will then aim and fire on enemies autonomously (while giving the player who dropped them a frag). There are energy sources which must be hacked (probably the most important activity in the game), an activity that doesn't require good aim and which allows a new player to contribute to the success of his team before he's learned the ins and outs of the teamwork. There are plenty of spammy weapons (large area of effect grenades, mines, shotgun etc.) which are effective even before they're mastered. Finally there's combat, which allows DM players to get into the game and really help out their team before they've learned about energy, artifacts, etc.

Mentioning the DM players brings to mind another aspect of XMP that I think was really successful: it provides many roles (encapsulated in 3 classes) which allow players with very different styles to contribute and enjoy the game. If you've got Leet aim, you can play as a Ranger and kick ass with the sniper rifle. You can also play as the Ranger if you can't aim at all and go around healing your teammates and losing enemies with your smoke grenades. You can play as a tech and focus on hacking energy sources, deploy points and your enemies' defenses, you can play as a tech and repair your buddies' shields or you can use him as an extremely effective short-mid range combat god. These same things go for the Gunner as well. Add to that the skills of piloting a vehicle or being its gunner and the differences between assaulting and defending and you've got a lot of different activities that lend themselves to all sorts of playstyles.

Re:PunkBuster ALSO Cheating Death

[feross101]

There is also Cheating Death from unitedadmins.com. I use it all the time with Counter Strike. On some servers it's prohibited to play unless you have CD on.

Classic games as multiplayer (Planet Spogg)

[CaptainFoo]

Slightly off topic I guess, since the site does not have any FPS games. But still for multiplayer gaming I think they have the best remakes of old classics. I have become totally addicted to their Popout game, and I guess my girlfriend would have been a lot happier if the hi-score lists hadn't been there...

Anyways, here's the link: Planet Spogg

I *WAS* a FPS newbie myself...

[CashCarSTAR]

You need a game that is controlled enough to allow you to practice, yet intense enough to constantly push yourself.

I suggest Day of Defeat, a Half-Life Mod (Although you can find a stand-alone version). It'll allow you to get good practice without getting boring.

The "cool-down" time is only 15 seconds or so after dying, so you're never sitting out too long. Pick a map, and learn that map, and play that map. (I suggest Caen or Avalanche to start.)

World War II online

[Anonymous Coward]

Runs in Windows or OSX. Never seen any cheaters. and good team spirit typically.

www.wwiionline.com

new to online?

[Cruciform]

It doesn't really matter if you're new to online gaming or just to specific titles. There is a learning curve that embraces not only the game but interacting with the community that plays that game.

Some servers will have friendly people that don't mind if you're new and make mistakes. Others will be full of loudmouths who won't cut you any slack. Ignore them. :)

I found with America's Army that if you say you're new, and learning the ropes in a level, that people will generally accept mistakes if you listen to and learn from the advice they offer. With a team game, a smart player knows they have nothing to gain from ripping up a newbie teammate. The more they can help you become an effective player, the better it is for the team. And with a good team around you it doesn't take long to learn the ins and outs of a new level.

If it's deathmatch, just have fun. Run around learning the level for the first few rounds. Don't worry about racking up a huge frag count. If you can practice offline and learn the gameplay that way so much the better.

Whether you buy the game 6 months or 6 hours after it comes out, there will be people on the server who are going to be better than you. Don't worry about it. Have fun, treat others with respect, and you'll find that you'll start to recognize the names of other players that are fun to play with or against.

And don't let cheaters get you all worked up. Eventually they get bored and bugger off. The cheating mentality also seems to have a very short attention span, provided you don't entertain them by freaking out on them :)

Have fun.

Re:America's Army - bzflag

[i621148]

try bzflag http://www.bzflag.org/ it is pretty fun and works on linux

One what computer?

[comedian23]

Why don't you post your computer specs so we can at least narrow our suggestions down to what we know will run on your machine. Maybe you could say whether you like more realistic games or more arcade style play too to help us narrow it down.

Also take a look at gamespy.com and see how many servers are currently being played on for each game you want to try. Don't waste $40 on a game only to learn it is impossible to find a good server in your area.

-Comedian

Some stuff to get.

[Gldm]

High resolution optical mouse: $55.

Polished porcelain floor tile with high resolution speckled pattern: $8.50.

Can of Pledge: $5.99.

Accuracy so high you constently get accused of using an aimbot and banned: Priceless.

There's some things money can't buy, like skill. But superior technology can sure go a long way towards making up the differrence. ;)

Should be rated "unhelpful"

[Theaetetus]

Beginners should play single player first. Get yourself a copy of doom. Beat the game on at least hurt me plenty mode. Then beat doom 2 the same way. It doesn't take long. Then beat quake 2 single player on normal. Forget quake 1. Then beat half-life single player on normal. After that you should have amassed enough fps skill to rock the house.

Come on - the question was what games/what servers to play for the casual FPSer. Someone who likes to play to relax from work, but doesn't want to devote more than a half hour or so to a "session". With what you recommend, at a half-hour a day, you're talking months, if not years of daily playing to beat all those games (at that half-hour per day) before they can get online. That's of no use to the questioner - he wants to get online *now*.

But don't jump right into the online world like you're in the polar bears club. Remember, you're going up against guys like me who've been fpsing since wolf3d on dos and the game wont be fun for you if I frag you in two seconds every time. Go through the same skill building process we did.

He's not asking to go against you - he's asking "where do you and your ilk *not* play?"

For another point, I really like multiplayer FPS games, but I really hate single-player FPS. I got the RTCW multiplayer demo, loved it, bought the game, played half (yes, half) of the first level on single player, and then never played single player again - just went multiplayer. I prefer playing against human, not computer AI.

-T

Cheats

[Zevets]

I am a server admin for my clan. We play SOF2 which is crowded with cheats. There is PB, but it does not work. I somtimes dont play and watch for hackers. With a trained eye hacks are very easy to spot.

Headshot Hack is the easiest identifiable hack. Every round they get a HS, and off to ban land they go. A harder variant is the Neck Shot, which is a 1 shot kill, but no announcing. With both of these in close quarters you can see the weapon jump with (lots of practice) and these can be noticed.

The other hacks change how the gun fires, by making it shoot a perfectly straight shot and have no firing cone. These are very easy to tell as there are tracers on all the guns except the MP5. What is harder is a new hack which is just plain evil. It shoots bullets that always hit the person, causing weapon jerks etc. This one is hard, but I can usually kick (not ban) these punks.

Bots are tough to find, when they are not using previously mentioned cheats. The easiest way to bust a botter is to see if they type while they move/shoot.

You can say that detecting cheats is hard/impossible, but a good server admin is tough to get by.

Quake3 With Urban Terror Mod Is My Favorite

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.quake3arena.com

http://www.urbanterror.net

Using punkbuster as shown to keep most of the cheats out of the online games.

Experiment the $%#@ Out of Online Games!

[Anonymous Coward]

What this guy really needs to do is just take all of these suggestions with a grain of salt, then go out and just start playing. He might find that while he casually enjoyed FPS, he really gets into RTS. The only way he'll know is just trying different games out, by demo or purchase.
I would really suggest picking up a game with a close friend. Even if it's just one other person, it will make you look forward to playing the game more because you both are personally involved, and it's not just something where you lock yourself away in your room for 30 minutes every night. You may find that you're willing to put a lot more time into a game that you previously were frustrated with, because of the encouragement of your friend.
It doesn't matter which game you pick out of all of these that were listed. You don't need to listen to anyone regarding a certain genre or mod or weapons. Because when you learn a game with someone else, you'll pick up on it faster, than you would by yourself, no matter what type of game it is. And when you play against a cheater, you have someone who you can talk about it with, and who will vote "Yes" to kick him from the server.
So tell everyone with an opinion to take a hike, and just have fun. Play whatever you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want, for as long as you want.
Also, you really should check out Soldier of Fortune 2.

There's a far more elegant solution to all this

[TyrranzzX]

If you don't want to practice and put in the time to get good(which tends to make you decent at a number of games when you get good at one), then stick to single player games. There's simply no way you're going to be able to go out and have a good time in FPS games without spending some time learning a game well. Expect to, especially when the game is as difficult as tribes, get your ass handed to you on silver platter for the first few months, and that's if you're putting in a few hours a night and you've got the talent. I know a guy in my clan who is 40 somethin years old, a retired marine and he's k3wl as fsck, but even after years of tribes he can't mid air a guy jetting up and down. He can do other things and be a sneaky bastard but he can't mid air people consistantly (last time I played with him, that is).

There simply is no multiplayer FPS game that exists that doesn't have the skilled players and cheats and clans (whom almost all usually cheat to some degree, usually the highest clans either don't cheat at all or cheat like a mofo with custom stuff). That's the reality of it.

With that said, there are some excellent single player games out there like morrowind (if you've got the super powerful hardware) or Deus Ex, Chrome, and a couple others. There are also some low-skill multiplayer games like planetside, halo, and everquest that are designed for someone like yourself, but obviously some have a monthly fee. (I'm taking this in comparison to high skill games like tribes, BF1942, and to a lesser extent Q3, UT2K3, Natural selection, etc).

Generic FPS advice

[beeoffvrah]

As far as recommending a beginner a game to play online, I would say one of the Unreal games might be in order. The game engine and weapons are a bit more forgiving than some of the more realistic games. Basically, for the most part if you're aiming at a person and push the fire button you should hit them.

No matter what game you play, here's some general advice:

• Don't get discouraged. At first, you will be taking your lumps no matter what game you choose.
• Look for servers that have a reasonable ping (you'll never have fun on a server you're pinging 1000ms on).
• Frequent said servers until you find one with a decent "crowd". All servers are visited by the occasional moron, but you can usually find a server with some friendly regulars.
• Most important of all, remember it's just a game and have fun.

The Specailists

[Starve]

Check out The Specailists its a mod for Half life, its pretty much a Matrix T/C for Half life, really fun the community is still small, theres only a few clans and they are willing to educate people on the more advanced moves and techniques, as long as you RTFM and get a basic jist of whats going on

Natural Selection

[Beardydog]

I have to put in a shameless plug for the Natural Selection Half-Life mod. They've done a beautiful job with it.

Marines vs. Aliens, playable from each side. Combat mode, where kills and experience earn you equipment/ability purchase points and ranking, or Classic mode, with buildable upgrade structures, where one player becomes an RTS commander to guide the Marines against the more chaotic Aliens.

It's a gorgeous cross between the movie Aliens, StarCraft, and the old game Marathon.

It's on Steam now as a third party game, getting anti-cheat all up in it. Current version is 3.0 Beta, available for anyone to play.

Re:Response from another casual gamer

[Anonymous Coward]

(7) Don't use the sniper rifles. Just don't bother. You don't learn anything by hiding and trying to pick off targets from a distance. How will you know a sniper's weakness if you've never tried it? Sooner or later you will run across some accurate sniper who wont let anyone on your team get a shot off at him before blowing you back. Jumping doesn't help as they can predict where youre going to land and have the crosshairs waiting for you. Strafe left and right and always remember they have one shot every couple seconds. When they miss once, use that time to sprint towards him. Dont hide and wait they know where you are. Use two flashbangs, one after the other to blind him. He will most probably look away from the first one and not be blinded much but the second should get him. Your timing must be dead on.

What's wrong with my config?

[Chr1s-Cr0ss]

(please resist any temptation you may have to not use your mouse for looking around)

What exactly is wrong with using the mouse for looking around? It makes it easier to maneuver and aim at the same time.
What do you use to look around? the arrow keys? I frankly can't think of any other way to set it up. Plus that's the default for every FPS game I have played.

Re:What's wrong with my config?

[VultureMN]

You misread. He said to resist NOT using your mouse to look around. Meaning, use your mouse to look around.

Yeah, it was kind of clunky wording. I had to look twice, too.

My two cents

[Berrik]

When you kill 6 people in Unreal Tournament it's "Monster Kill", In Quake 3 it's "Excellent", in Counter-Strike it's "Kicked by console"

Anyways... If you're just starting off in FPSes, keep away from all these class based mods. It's better to stick with something that's pretty much just simple run 'n gun, such as UT or Quake 3. Once you have the basics down, then try some of the harder stuff.

BTW, is it just me, or are at least 80% of the people who play Counter-Strike l33t using 13 year old losers?

Berrik

Enemy Territory

[Fledsbo]

I am seriously hooked on Enemy Territory. It's free (download from www.splashdamage.com), runs great on linux, and is open source.

Find a server where you like the crowd, and stay there. Having people curse at you for beeing a "noob" really kills the fun, but not every server is like that.

BEHOLD MY COCK DESCENDING INTO YOUR MOUTH!

[Anonymous Coward]

EAT MY CUM!

Re:BEHOLD MY COCK DESCENDING INTO YOUR MOUTH!

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed. Faggot.

Re: Ridiculous

[TwistedSquare]

Doom I??? Doom II??? I haven't heard of anyone playing either of those games in at least 5 years.

Regardless of the rest of the post, I played doom 2 quite a bit about a year or two ago and plan to go back again soon. It is still as fun as it ever was, especially coop multiplayer. The only other game truly like it is Serious Sam, which is also great fun.

Gamer's Hub

[Chr1s-Cr0ss]

Last friday I went to this really awesome place called the Gamer's Hub that is basically like a huge LAN party that you pay to go to. I would definitely recommend a place like this for people who are fed up with cheaters and weenies.
The major advantages:
-No cheaters, because theres no cheats installed on the computers
-If someone is being a weenie, you can walk over and slap them on the back of the head
-Supports very strong team play, as you can easily talk to members of your team without some loser weenie screaming profanity over his microphone.
-There's plenty of people there, so the games are more exciting than 4 or 5 person LAN parties
-You get to try out games like BF1942 or Savage which i had not played before and am definitely going to buy now.

I'm not trying to advertise for this place, just telling you how fun this genre of play is. If there is any place like this near you, definitely give it a try, it is way more fun than a LAN party or the 'Net

Bah

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah on FPS.

Go JUMPGATE! Best game I have played in a long time.

Or its predecessor, Action Quake 2

[InvisiBill]

RQ3 is a pretty good game. I was actually one of the people involved with the birth of the idea.

RQ3 came about because the A-Team was working on Action Half-Life and Action Unreal Tournament, and had no plans to port Action Quake 2 to Q3. A group of old-school AQ2ers took it upon themselves to port it over themselves.

If you like RQ3, you should check out AQ2. It's what RQ3 is trying to mimic (right down to adding the strafe-jump bug back into the Q3 code). AQ2 isn't quite as pretty, but it's more popular, has more maps, and will run better on older PCs. I believe AQ2 is/was the most popular Q2 mod overall. Note that Gooseman of Counter-Strike fame worked on AQ2 back in the day. Most AQ2 fans consider CS to be a cheap copy of AQ2 with less of the fun stuff and more boring added.

A lot of the AQ2-related sites have died off now. The last official version was released early '99, so that's to be expected. However, if you can get a hold of them, there are many variants out there. There were several DM bots coded to make use of the unique features of AQ2. A coder who went by "William" added scripting and AI bots, making for something to do single-player besides DM with a bunch of bots. An Action version of the single-player Q2 has been released. You play through the standard game but with Action weapons, items, and damage. AQDT maintains the Tournament Edition. It has controls for doing competition matches and scenario-based games like Capture The Briefcase, Assassinate The Leader, and Capture And Hold. People have also tweaked the code just to get something different. One version increased the kick on weapons, so shooting would send you flying backwards. Another modified every bullet particle to be a knife (one-hit kills).

Action is not the best place to learn to play online. However, getting good at Action will make you better at other FPSes. Action requires more thinking than other games. Rather than just grabbing the biggest gun and mowing everyone down, you slowly bleed to death when you get shot. You can stop and bandage, but you can't shoot while doing so. You can add a laser sight to your rifle to increase your accuracy, or you can wear slippers to sneak up behind your victim, or you can wear kevlar to provide some extra protection. Each weapon also has strengths and weaknesses. Even the standard DM scoring rewards smart play - you get more points per kill the longer you stay alive.

http://aq2.action-web.net/ is the website for AQ2. http://aq2.action-web.net/about.htm has some info about the game if you want to check it out before jumping in completely. This game truly is a classic, and probably at least partly responsible for many of the "realistic" FPS games out there now. With the Q2 source being released, you can even download a free standalone version of the game.

question

[neko9]

do i have any chances to play online games with cable connection?

If you're over 20...

[Griffon26]

... give up hope of ever being at the top. The (reduced) reflexes will make sure there will always be people faster/more accurate than you are.

Instead aim to avoid the last place. On most servers there are at least some n00bz playing, so try finishing ahead of them. Over time you will start recognizing nicknames and you'll know how good they are. You'll know when you get killed if it was a miracle you survived that long against that particular player.

In some games it pays off to focus on other things than simple frags. In Capture the Flag style games it is often very important to have a reliable defender of the base that provides the attackers with supplies when they return to base to rearm. You may not be the l33test guy on the block with a >=1.0 kill/shot ratio, but you can still be valuable to the team.

And join a clan once you've got some skills, there's nothing more fun than a clan war (well, nothing involving shooting at other people anyway).

Re:If you're over 20...

[Anonymous Coward]

Over 20? Not.

Take solace in the fact that with a little practice you will wax this poster. Nothing better than beating arrogant little kids.

Re:If you're over 20...

[Erik_Kahl]

Fast != Smart

Some of the most amazing gamers I know are in their 30s. Sometimes how fast you can hit the fire button doesn't matter...but where you're standing does.

Re:If you're over 20...

[Griffon26]

I am way over 20, so I guess you are right that he will wax me. I'm just talking from experience; it's the arrogant little kids that have the best reflexes. Of course it also depends on the type of game if reflexes are really important.

Write your own

[saddino]

using a web browser!

;-)

0wn3d

[tedgyz]

Sorry, but chances are you will be 0wn3d by just about every FPS player out there. Your best bet is to develop a thick skin (ego) and keep playing.

I run a Quake 3 server (lovedump.net) and have been playing for years. There are lots of players who simply kick my ass, despite my years of experience. You just have to get used to it. The repeated spankings are worth tolerating for those rare moments when you find an equal player.

As far as cheating, I think it is over-rated, much like software piracy. There are cheaters out there, but the top players can usually beat them, so they tend to crawl away rather quickly. If I were to guess, based on the experience running my server, I would say only 1% of the players out there are cheaters.

Re:0wn3d

[Erik_Kahl]

I know your server...

Totally agree. In UT and UT2K3 I've spotted many a cheater and beat the crap out of them. Most cheaters aren't very smart or skilled...thats why they cheat. Most of the time, anticipating a cheater's moves is easy. Then its just a matter of using a splash damage weapon to whack them from around a corner.

Also, informing others on the server of the cheaters presence often results in the cheater leaving. Don't threaten...just say "I think xx is cheating, watch out". Other players will observe and draw their own conclusions. I've seen everyone on a UT server turn against one player and smash him to bits for cheating. A cheater can't win if he's spawncamped.

About general skill, just find a server with people you like....and get used to losing. The best way to get better is to get your ass kicked by great players while learning their moves. Watch and learn. Ask them questions...not too many, remember they're in the game to have fun, not to train people. But, most good players will give you a little advice...like weapon suggestions for beginners or good maps to practice.

In all...don't worry about losing, have fun.

Kids these days

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly the point, to feel like a n00b for a while. What ever happened to kids working for the glory?

I understand your desire to not be immediately gibbed to hell, and it's telling that the cheat situation has destroyed amazing games. Still we forget that half the fun of these games is getting to that point anyway.

Buck up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Buck up and get good.

It's the only way.

Pick an instant-respawn game

[Anonymous Coward]

When I first started playing online FPS games, I started with Counter Strike. This was a bad choice for me. I'd get killed fast and then have to go take a nap until the round ended. Then I discovered Team Fortress Classic (which came with Half-Life/C-S). In this game, you respawn with no delay. So if you get killed, you can run back into the action and get more experience. Much less frustrating and much more entertaining.

So my advice is to play games where you respawn instantly on death, at least when you start.

Good luck!

Teamspeak

[chrispl]

If you want to make your online gaming ten times as fun grab TeamSpeak 2 (available for Linux and Windows) and a headset microphone. Playing games with TS2 I have met so many cool, mature online players. Find a good TS server and make friends, then you will always have buddies up for a few rounds. Having a voice to go with the players gives you a sense of having real people around instead of just names and tends to get everyone to act more mature. That and you can tell who is 12 years old instantly...

Rational Rating Systems Needed

[jason_j_hinze]

I've often thought that the online gaming experience could be greatly improved by the incorporation of consistent rating system, such as the one used by the U.S. Chess Federation. It would be hopeless to walk into a room full of mixed-skill chess players and just play some pick up games. In order to have an enjoyable game, it's vital that you play someone in the same skill range as you. If the difference is too great one way or the other, one person will win with such regularity as to make the game boring. Sound familiar?

This is exactly the situation with online gaming. I am very good at some games, to the point at which I am accused of cheating. At others, I'm fair to middling. And I'm hopeless at some. All of these games would be more enjoyable for me if there were an online rating system that matched me up with players of similar skill. I've seen the fledgling effort in Warcraft III, but it doesn't seem to work very well. Why not just have a USCF-like rating system, where, if my UT2k3 rating is, say, 1643, I could get on a server for people rated 1600-1800? And for Q3, I'd be unrated, so I could get on a 0-1000 server until my performance had been logged for a while, so that the rating bot could assign me a provisional rating.

This would certainly require some effort on the part of online game developers, but the general problem of rating systems is well understood. The developers could choose to "stand on the shoulders of giants", rather than on their toes, by adopting these proven solutions into their online games, making more fun for all of us, and more sales for all of them.

Re:Rational Rating Systems Needed

[Lodragandraoidh]

Not necessarily. If you get involved with heavily team oriented games like PlanetSide or WWIIonline, then skill is less of an issue than working closely together as a team...the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

Yes, you can too.

[Wooji]

"Red Orchestra" is a good mod for UT 2k3, that you can try. It really doesn't have many established clans or a lot of 1337 players.

Enemy Territory.

[EduardoFonseca]

Nice Game. Try it. It works with PunkBuster and its multiplatform.

Team Fortress

[KeelSpawn]

Do you have Steam? If you downloaded Steam with all the half-life mods included, you should be able to play Team Fortress. Tea Fortress is a great little game that you can just get in and shoot. There are "classes" you can switch to (sniper, medic, engineer, solider, etc.). Usually if you are a starter, go as a Medic/Engineer and just run around healing/reparing your teammates in the front lines. You can really get a lot of fun just by doing that. After you get used to the feel of the game, try being a Soldier or something. The different classes were designed for different levels of players.

Wolf ET

[mp3phish]

Most people call this game Wolf ET, or just ET. Don't let the name fool you. It is full blown WW2 saving private ryan style FPS. Its awesome...

Here are some quick tips for newbies:

- Start out as a medic. You can revive people with the needle, and lay down health packs for other players. If you do this well, people will start to help you by protecting you when u get into trouble. As a medic, stay in the back or middle of the pack when you spawn so you don't have to fight first. Insted, play cleanup, and finish off the enemy and revive teamates. Reviving teamates is the easiest way to get a good score and get yourself on the scoreboard if your a newb (but don't let this fool you, most of the top players play medic regularly) Another good reason to start medic is that your health automatically replenishes, so you will live longer.

- Learn the maps. All the maps have objectives. After completing the first objective, there is usually a second main objective. As a medic, you will be able to follow the better players around.

- teamplay teamplay teamplay... This is the name of the game. Don't run off by yourself or you will die and have to wait for respawn. As a medic you start out with smaller levels of ammo. You will have to be nice to your teamates or they will not give you any ammo. Also, without medics, everyone dies faster. Without fieldops, there isn't enough ammo for the team. Without engineers, there is nobody to complete the objectives. This game requires teamwork. Cover the engineer while he is planting the bomb. stay behind as a medic so the guy in front of you will have a backup in case he gets ambushed, etc etc.. Teamwork is the name of this game (most of the teamwork is pretty straightforward so the basics should come naturally, this is the best part of the game and why most people play it) If you are in it just to get frags, ET probably isn't the game for you...

- Try not to talk shit. Its probably OK to talk shit sometimes, but this game isn't like CS where 24/7 shit talking and unfair gameplay is tolerated. People doing lame shit will be booted by most server admins if they see it. This is also a good reason why its such a popular game for both newbies and hardcore clan players.

- Since this game isn't like quake*, you only have 1 main weapon, not 9 of them. So it will be easier for you to learn your loadout. There is pistol, main weapon (usually sub machinegun) and then your special weapons (needle and health packs for the medic) This simplicity means you can learn the gameply much faster. The drawback is that you have to navigate the "limbo" menu before you can join the game. This is the hardest part for most newbies: just select which team you want to be in, and select which class you want to go (medic, fieldops, soldier, covert ops, engineer) and then select your weapon. Thats it! Jump in the game and start going

- Try not to get frustrated when your respawn timer is high. That is part of the game and if everyone had instant respawn, the gameplay would be way less fun. It keeps people from doing rambo rushes and gives value to your life. One small problem is that the enemy might try to "spawn camp" you in which case the game is no fun. If you are a serious newb, try another server, or if you get better, kill the spawn killer and your problems are solved.

above all, have fun. This game is awesome and free. Go download it ASAP!

What about Co-op games?

[dspyder]

I can't stand PC gaming for some reason, but really enjoy XBox Live games like Rainbow Six 3, Ghost Recon (I know the PC version has lots of modding available), and even to an extent the Team Dogfight mode of Crimson Skies.

I too get frustrated by the instantly killed, never time to learn or get better world of most FPS. Lan parties are a decent solution if your friends all live locally and/or your wife doesn't mind them coming over or you going there... but online is definitely the way to go. What about an online private LAN party? Same game, but only with people you know? Is that doable on those PC games? I know on most XBL games you can reserve slots for friends.

--D

Gamespy

[kidlinux]

Get Gamespy. It lists all the servers you could want, and you can generally tell what kind of game it is ahead of time by checking out who's playing and how many frags they've got.

And try not to whine too much. After playing years of quake, I can only recall a few instances where cheaters were a problem. And they got booted in a hurry. And as much as I hate PunkBuster, it seems to do the job. So make sure you've got it installed, and look for PB enabled servers.

And dialup is not too slow. Before I had high-speed cable, I was owning railgun-only Quake 2, because I learned to stay ahead of the lag. I kept up with all the LPBs, which was a lot of fun.

good server

[Anonymous Coward]

TFC (a mod for hl) has a very good server which i play one it is very poppular but when u egt in its worth the wait its called Drippy's some people are really good but they don't care if youre bad or just new to gaming here is the website http://lunaticrage.com/drippy/

Re:Don't forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

What if I have 2 CPU's ... the fee is surely more

anybody played Savage - The Battle for Newerth ?

[bonezed]

really good game, like a combined RTS/FPS.
has a lot of open source technologies in it.

It runs on both Linux and Windows too

and its cheap, US$30 online from http://www.s2games.com/

"The worst part of multiplayer games...

[superultra]

...is playing with other people." - gabe, Penny Arcade

If you're wanting to avoid these crackshot players who've been playing since the day the game came out, you're going to have to start playing the day a game comes out. What's worse is that a lot of these people are just darn good at FPS anyway. A team game might be just what the doctor ordered in that case, except that it means getting into clan.

My suggestion, and one that I haven't seen mentioned, is to first find an FPS with a much smaller following. Tron 2.0, NOLF 1&2, for example, are great games with such small followings that even though they're really great, they're so desperate for other players that these guys will take you by the hand and help you get good if only to have fresh blood.

I remember then the now completely forgotten Legends of Might & Magic came out, I happened to get a free copy at work. Think Counter-Strike + Might and Magic but suckier. The thing is that there were only 5-10 servers, but everyone was really nice and a very tight group, and they were more than happy to show newbies the ropes. Even though the game design really blew, the community made it much more playable.

So, to summarize, my first suggestion would be to get in on day one on some upcoming FPS, maybe Far Cry. My second, and more realistic, is to find one of these small FPS games you like and just jump in. =)

Ah.... those were the days....

[Anonymous Coward]

Though, I guess your other option is to just get insanely good and hop around all the servers screaming "3a7 my r0ck37 biz0tch" as you let loose your fury in such an unholy manner everyone just assumes you ARE cheating, and ban you.

*sigh*, the story of my CS "life." After getting insanely good, (and insanely cocky), I started getting banned at servers I liked. After chucking windows, and having a few brief trysts with CS and DoD under Wine+NVGL (and seeing HL becoming unplayable on Wine thanks to Steam), I am done with HL, CS and DoD.

I do miss cs_assault on the T-side. I do miss fy_iceworld. I do miss dod_avalanche and dod_flash. I now play Enemy Territory and UT2003 (or at least used to until a couple months ago - now I am actually trying to go out in the sun and greet life instead of slowly mutating into an FPS-playing Gollum)

Settlers of Catan

[IroNick]

Well, this might not be FPS, but it's certainly not a disadvantage with DSL. Go to http://www.s3dconnector.net, download the (unofficial) game and play aganist rookies and veterans. This is a great port of the classical board game.

Half-Life with Steam and Tribes 2

[Sargerion]

Get yourself a copy of Half-Life at EB for like $10, then go to www.steampowered.com and download the full Steam client (there's a BitTorrent link of this there as well, in case you don't want to wait in line for FTP), which, when used with an actual licence of Half-Life enables you to automatically play all the popular and various mods and expansions for half-life, all with much improved network interfaces. Team Fotress Classic or just the Half-Life game itself are good starting places, but for a real game, get Science and Industry:
http://www.planethalflife.com/si/
This is probably one of the most well developed Mods for any game i've ever seen. Just go to the site and read all about it, and you'll want to instantly start playing.

Another option is Tribes 2. While not entirely well known, it's a big winner in my book, due to the excellent integration of cool gadgets, guns, and vechicals into an intelligent multiplayer interface that is quite mod-able. (if you go this route, be sure to grab Construction Mod, it's supreme).
And, of course, you could always wait until Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 come out, where all new clans and player bases will be established, giving you an opportunity to make yourself just as good as everyone else.

Call of Duty

[starjax]

I am not sure wether you are interested in running your own server or wether you just want to find a server to playon that is fun and cheat free. I recomend Call of Duty. Now that they have released a patch and are working on punkbuster intergration it should be even better. Now I do belong to a clan, "V for Victory". We are rolling out our own custom anti cheat protections that made us famous back in the Medal of Honor days. We run a public server that runs custom maps and a variety of game types. A large majority of the v4v members have admin access to control those who get by the cheat protections or who just don't play fair. I don't have exact numbers handy but are over several thousand different players that have played on our servers with most of them repeating. Its a great place to have fun. check http://v4v.150m.com for more info. Starjax =v4v=

WWII Online

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.wwiionline.com

Best online game for those who aren't cheese eating high school kids. It takes equal amount of strategy and fps skills. You can be a grunt, dirve a tank, plane or destroyer. It's 1/2 scale map of europe. It does cost money $12 a month but it's worth it. The graphics are a bit old school but I grew up playing the original mechwarrior so i dont need ultra realistic graphics. I came to the game from tribes and tribes 2, which when tribes 2 came out I fell into the problem of just getting killed for being a bit slow.

Re:LORD! -- No.

[MrDigital]

LORD the best BBS game? No way. It was alright, especially if you thought Jennie Garth was "HOTT". But those of us in the know preferred Usurper!

Gunbound

[snippy]

Gunbound is a scorched earth/worms type game that's insanely addictive and fairly hack/cheat free at the lower levels. Average 4v4 game is about 10 minutes, although if you look up and it's 5am don't put the blame on me :P

Oh, it's also free to download and play ;) You win 'gold' from matches to upgrade your 'avatar', although you can also use Paypal to purchase items to wear.

http://gunbound.net

Any FPS without respawn

[terminal.dk]

Respawn really kills the game, people don't act realistic in any way, and uses bazookas all the time to blow themself up, sometimes killing someone else as well.

Games without respawn is way better. A good current example is Rainbow Six. Start playing cooperativew games to learn. Mature gamers, friendly atmosphere. Have yet to meet coop cheaters. This game rocks.

Otherwise go for strategy games, like some of the best out there. Myth II Soulblighter rocks.

NS != newbie friendly

[Anonymous Coward]

We're talking about the game where the manual includes information like "skulks might be able to walk on walls". If you can't give clear information in your manual, ask the freakin user community to write a manual.

Imagine this poor guy installing NS, joining marines and hearing "Someone take the comm". He'll have some serious fun deleting the game after getting yelled at by the whole team for 45 minutes as the aliens torment the rines with stomp+devour.

Unreal Tournament ratings - good for mixed skills

[foomanchoochoo]

I really liked Unreal Tournament's persistent rating system (other deatmatch games must be using something similar?)

Firstly you could see the ratings of all players on a server before you joined it.

Secondly the rating rewards/penalties for a frag depend on the rating differential. This mitigates the pick-on-the-newbie incentives - they are only worth decent points to a newbie. Plus when the newbie does frag some demi-god they are showered with a huge reward - all of which comes straight off the demi-gods rating.

A game where you are fragged 5 to 1 is still fun if you rating goes up and your opponents ratings go down - the game is saying "well done newbie - that was some vicious competition".

RE: about practice

[King_TJ]

You know - I tend to agree with you. I love playing online games (typically FPS, but also RTS games like Warcraft 3 or Age of Mythology), but I also have no desire to study all the minute details to the point where it's no longer just casually playing "for the fun of playing".

In Warcraft 3, for example, I almost *always* lose these days - because so many players seem to be hell bent on getting as high a ranking as possible. They practice day in and out, reading up on all the details of exactly what order is "most efficient" to build every structure, and memorize all these little statistics about exactly how many of a certain type of creature you should send out after people, and how many to gather each material... on and on. It reduces what's normally just a fun game to clicking through everything in memorized patterns, as quickly as possible.

Personally, I have more fun just playing and trying out different random things - and yes, losing!

ThinkTanks!

[AndyCap]

I'd would suggest ThinkTanks as it's reasonably cheap, runs on Linux, Mac and Windows and is easy and fun to play. I downloaded and played the demo for a couple of days before ordering the full version. Love it. Good for firing up for an half hour (or 5) and getting in a few rounds of scrum

System requirements

[tepples]

Doesn't the newest game on the market cost an extra thousand U.S. dollars for CPU, motherboard, RAM, and video card upgrades? So is the dilemma between spending thousands per year on hardware and getting 0wn3d with a 0W-93L record on those games old enough to run with more than 15fps at 320x240 on your machine?

Re:Response from another casual gamer

[rizzuh]

Counter-Strike is a very newbie-friendly game (except for the cheats). Be sure to check out CS-Nation's Counter-Strike Guide for full info on how to play. Sorry to pimp my own site, but CS-Nation is a very popular Counter-Strike news and information source.

However, don't let anyone tell you how to play. Feel like sniping? Do it! Wanna have fun with pistols! Do so! Make CS fun to play for yourself. Just follow the objectives and from there you can find any niche.

You left out some important tips:

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Half of the good players are cheating. Give or take. If you can find a server with an admin actually playing, keep that server bookmarked (somehow). Cheats are available within ten minutes of searching, so yes, it is as bad as you think. "But we have cheating death!" ... doesn't matter. They're cheating.

2. Lag plays an extremely important role in a reaction-fest like Counter-Strike. And that is why, of course, ABSOLUTELY NO ONE knows how to fine tune their net connection. I won't get into it, but you'd better know what all these do:
-net_graph 3
-lc
-lw
-cl_updaterate
-cl_cmdrate
-rate (or setinfo rate)

3. Remember: if you think someone is cheating, chances are that they are. If they're cheating, then there's no point in being fodder, so leave the server. If they're not cheating, then there's no point in being fodder, so leave the server.

4. Learn how to disable the microphones. If you get on some sort of private server, you can re-enable them. But for public (casual) play, the chatter is usually just annoying or 'pipsqueakery', meaning pre-pubescent kids will be 'ordering' you to rush. So figure out how to mute, pronto.

jDoom

[mrgrey]

Doom I??? Doom II??? I haven't heard of anyone playing either of those games in at least 5 years. My god, they had a Doom release on the Atari Jaguar!!! Think about that!

Have a little respect. Doom is still an awesome game. Go download the Doomsday Engine and try to remember how great of a game that it is. I would venture to say that most FPSers wouldn't even be around if it wasn't for Doom. It's still a fun multiplayer game as coop (which most games lack now) or DM, especially with improved network code.

Cheating is not Exagerated

[Zevets]

I have been a CS server admin and then SOF2 server admin. Cheating is rampant. If you get flanked, the person is not cheating. I would say that in SOF2 1 in 25 cheats(1 person at all times is likely cheating). If you see people join who are good, are not in a clan and you have never seen before (only applies if you server admin for long time), they are worth checking for cheats(ghost abusively). They also may leave when doing really good after being accused of hacking. People who don't hack don't leave after being called cheaters. If you want to see the signs of cheating, mod up my earlier post.

DooMII

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been having a crapload of fun revisiting Doom II. Buy/restore your doom2.wad, and download zdaemon from zdaemon.org.

add -width 1024 -height 768 -nomusic to your startup parameters in zlauncher.exe and choose a server with someone on it.

It's simple classic deathmatch.

Quake3 Arena

[Anonymous Coward]

I just recently started playing online FPS style games. My first was Quake. On most of the servers I have played there are not any people using cheats. There are a number of common modifications that everyone used to make the game more interesting. I also stumbled across a clan, BNB, full of some very helpful people. They recruit based on personality not ability. They are always willing to help out anyone on the servers- not just fellow clan members. Check out our forum http://bnbclan.fragism.com/gl-bin/forum/ There are a number of tips in the open section. Or go online and look for the BNB Semi Loaded server or Blackdiesel's Loaded server. They are both BNB Servers.

Re: Ridiculous

[imidan]

You would be a real, licened, ready to probe the vagina gynecologist.

Um. Somehow that doesn't sound better than playing FPS games for ten years. I mean, do you have any idea how many incredibly old, incredibly fat, incredibly ill people show up at doctor's (including gynecologists) offices? I leave the rest to the imagination...

(I mean no offense to old, fat, sick people. I will probably be one myself some day, and I pity my doctor.)

Not for the faint of heart...

[Scooter]

First off - there's nothing wrong with dial up for online FPS play as long as you have a decent modem. I played Quake 2 in the Uk league for years on a 56K SupraExpress. Mileage varies with the game though - Half Life was always pants on a modem - but then it ran like a 3 legged donkey at the best of times. Broadband is, of course better though.

Now then - what to play as a "casual" n00b? Don't play Quake. What can I say? Even Quake3 is way too fast to get any instant success as a player. Quake2 is even faster. (Before you all reply about the weapons, I mean the movement rate, not the firing and weapon swapping rate).

For a more sedate level of play try any game based on the Half Speed engine - like Counterstrike, or Team Fortress Classic - a game you can play whilst eating your dinner and still do well.

Similarly, RTCW (and the just as good - and free Enemy Territory) is quite a leisurely paced game with breaks (when you die) and it enforces teamplay. (teamplay in 4v4 Q2 for example requires active thought on the part of the team and it's leader - whereas in RTCW, CS and most team fortress class-type games, the whole map strategy is laid out with helpful neon pointers saying "this way to ye olde strategic objective").

Another game I found quite relaxing is Jedi Knight II CTF - just don't waste time trying to foght people with those light up sticks - there ain't no substitute for a good blast^H^H^H^H^H rocket launcher at your side kid.

UT/UT2003/U2XMP are not exactly lightning paced games either (you shuffle along like your pants are round your ankles) but boy are the weapons fiddly. You get all manner of sludge guns, explosive ball thingies and other wierdo stuff (although XMP is not so bad on that front and has vehicles too).

I'm afraid I don't agree about the level of cheating. I know cheating goes on, but I rarely see any and I play most FPS games online. Sometimes, a high level of skill may seem like cheating. The Quake2 source code was released a while back so potentially, there are many hacked clients knocking about for Q2, so if you are feeling braver than your post would suggest, make sure you install something like "NoCheat" or "Biteme!" and play on a server that actively enforces using these client validators. The All Seeing Eye (ASE) is perhaps the best way of locating servers - http://www.udpsoft/eye

I think if I had to pick one for a new player - it would be RTCW ET - free, runs punkbuster and is fairly easy to get some initial encouragement with.

When you're ready for something quicker - try 3wave Capturestrike for Q3 - full on smack! smack! smack! fzsst! bang! whack! gameplay.

Oh yeah, and just one other tip - in the words of Obi Wan Kenobi " Use the MOUSE Luke!"

Pob lwc!

System requirements?

[tepples]

I would DEFINATELY recommend ET, as it is both Addictive, and FREE (as in beer).

What kind of CPU and video card would one need to get more than 30 fps at 320x240 pixels in such a recent game?

Re:System requirements?

[fltsimbuff]

It works Ok on my AthlonXP 1800+, with a GeForce4 Ti 4200, 512MB of RAM. At 320x240, you wouldn't need anywhere near that much power, though.

I run it at 800x600, and probably get upwards of 50fps.

Define cheating

[tepples]

That is cheating. You are taking advantage of a glitch in the system.

Taking advantage of game bugs may or may not constitute cheating. Read each server's TOS to see which game bugs you may exploit on that server.

How an N64 FPS countered spawn camping

[tepples]

Goldeneye 007 for N64 solved that problem in a different way: the game chose a random spawn point not too close to other players.

Back to the basics: Cube

[Jman314]

Cube, the proof of concept of the open source Cube engine, is about the simplest FPS you can get. No storyline, just frags. The scenery is really basic but the hardware requirements are low. If you want simple, here it is. Unfortunately I can't comment on the multiplayer gameplay much. It's kind of obscure, so I don't think there will be many cheaters online.

Marathon

[Gilmoure]

Base requirements are a 33MHz Quadra with 64MB RAM and 512k VRAM. Sweeeeet! There's only LAN play so you can pick and choose who you go up against. It's not 360 degree, only 45 degrees up and down, so less chance of getting disorientated. You can jump so that's one less key to worry about too.

Frog blast the vent core!

Enemy Territory

[Netmonger]

Enemy Territory ROCKS!!

Realism

[Beardydog]

I downloaded it after all you guys mentioned it. Played training for a few minutes. Shot my trainer in the head.

Now I'm in prison.

Seriously. It loaded a map, and now I'm wandering around in a tiny cell, and nothing has happened for five minutes. It's the most brilliant thing I've seen in my life.

There's a harmonica playing.

Re:Realism

[operagost]

I never could go to prison. I must know somebody. I shot the armorer at the firing range and it just popped me back to the briefing.

Re:Realism

[Beardydog]

It seems to take a few tries to get in trouble. I shot the guy training to my right first, and had to start over. I got yelled at, failed to learn my lesson, assassinated my instructor, and then went to prison.

I've spent the last hour getting yelled at in medic training for jumping on tables, looking at other people's papers during tests, and standing up for no reason.

As far as escapist gaming goes though, it might be a little too real. If you talk to the nurses too often, one of them tells you she's married, and the other tells you she has a 6 foot tall, 240 pound boyfriend in Special Forces.

Rejected by pixel-women...

FPS? Try TPS

[focitrixilous P]

A game that is a good intro to the whole online gaming concept has to be Soldat It's a shareware title, 9 bucks to register. Its far simpler then the average 3d shooter, as it exists in 2 dimensions. It really gets you into the whole navagating maps issue and deathmatch tatics without you really having to know a massively complex 3D layout. It runs on just about anything with a monitor, and really is quite fun. The whole concept of a 2d shooter takes getting used to, but if you aren't trying for the high and mighty l33t gamer, it is really quite fun. The servers are plenty, and the bots can give you a decent feel for the game before sticking your neck out to the online games.

A FREE NON FPS to try!

[Teahouse]

This is an excellent game Microsoft abandoned called Allegiance. Space shooter with a whole lot of strategy if you want to go farther.

• http://www.freeallegiance.org/

Where else can you download and play a $50 game a company abandoned?

No Mac version

[koi88]

Sorry, but I can't find a Mac version... Is there really one? Where?

Play the PC Game of the Year

[daddy norcal]

call of duty.

This is exactly what you are looking for.

The game has amazing graphics and sound, it's fun, and overall i would say the average skill level you will find while playing online is low, when compared to bf1942 or cs.

But you don't have to take my word for it:
rottentomatoes.com 96%
gamerankings.com 92%
gamespy pc game of the year 2003
shacknews pc game of the year 2003
ign best pc action, best sound, best multiplayer game of the year, 2003
etc

Not to mention, killing russians never gets old ;)

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Serious Sam uses many elements from today's popular FPS games, and incorporates them into itself. I actually started this way a few years back, and picking up Counterstrike was no problem at all.

Unreal 2 XMP

[CmdrMooCow]

Excellent gameplay - and many a time can be played with lower-level players. The higher-level players are very kind and the overall community is very cooperative online, albeit relatively small at the moment (>300 players online at any one time)

Try this

[Minkey Brines]

Go Postal. Or rather, go Postal 2.

TetriNET

[Anonymous Coward]

It's free, it's Tetris and involves the biggest muscle of them all.

Battle Field 1942

[rofthorax]

Come on guys, get it.. I can nail all your butts with it over a 56Kbps modem, you don't even need a DSL line and can still manage to do team speak with a few of your friends.. Its fully 3D and over a modem I was able to play about 22 others last friday.. And it kicks Quake's sorry butt.. Its a bute!!

Increase your skill by using bots first

[Secahtah]

In your situation, I would suggest playing offline with bots to increase your abilities. I love UT, even if it is SOOO 1999. Play a practice match, then keep turning the bot skill level up. I try to practice two skill levels higher than I know I can win. Also, if you increase the speed, it increases your reflexes.

If you get good enough to be able to beat the bots on a ridiculously high skill level (like inhuman or godlike), then you should have the motor skills to be able to annihilate most human players. Granted the AI can't compete with a human's creativity, but you can adapt to that once you have the basic skills down.

An easy fun game to jump in to...

[El Camino SS]

May I suggest Tribes 2.

It's easy, and there isn't a real steep learning curve.

It's also simple, and easy to understand what is going on. /going to hell for this one

Planet Side

[AP31R0N]

@ There are no cheats for PS as it is all server based and all the servers are run by sony. There are some exploit behaviors, but every one can use them equally. Skill is good, but organization is king in PS. A gaggle of cooperative players can beat a gaggle of L33T players who are playing solo. Join a big outfit or an ultra organized one, and you'll have a blast.

you can still play cs

[Anonymous Coward]

If you download Cheating-Death (i don't have a link, sorry), you can ensure no one in CS will be cheating. CD is basically a program that only authorizes those users who don't have any cheats running. You still have to deal with clans but if you get any good you'll be able to hold your own.

Best of all, W:ET is free and open source!

[ahecht]

W:ET is perhaps the only modern FPS that I know of that is: a) absolutly free b) available for windows and linux c) open source If you are interested, you can download the source from SplashDamage. There is even an SDK available for modding the game. Yes, like any other FPS, it will take you a few hours of play to get used to it, and each map will take a few rounds to learn, but it is a heck of a game.

Try a really hard server. No, really!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that this will ever be read, but I found that if I located the most difficult counter-strike server and played nonstop on that, got killed a bunch of times. By the time I was a mediocre player on that server, I could go to the general net ones, and play much better than everyone else.

Older game, or "kids" game

[canadian_right]

If you pick a less popular game, or a game more popular with younger kids you'll play against less skilled people and be able to enjoy playing without practising for 6 hours a day. "Global Operations", or that version of Command and conquere hat was a FPS.

Just now?

[zedmelon]

Heheheheh....

While I certainly can empathize (and agree) with all that you've said, I have to ask: Did this happen to you in the last thirty seconds?

In addition to your point, I can't fathom how anyone can really enjoy the game when they know they're cheating; I'd rather "Get My Ass Royally Kicked" than win the round/game/whatever using some cheat hack.

...but I can laugh now because you sound just like I do right while it's happening. With my usual attention to spelling and grammar lying comatose in the corner, riddled with shrapnel, you'll find me screaming at the monitor and banging on the keyboard. I get so flustered that my already-crippled 55-WPM typing plummets to around 20, and is still as riddled with holes as my poor character's cyber-body. Zedmelon the Online Gamer can be quite the poster child for rage-supressing medication.

YOu stup8id mother*($&@#!! Can't y0ou just pul;l up your panti3es and play fair?!?/1 what p9ossibvle enjoymeaint couildf you get ou5t of fragging me fr0om behind a wall .002 seconds after I spa2wned??!?! WHat the hell is your G0da^m problem?!? DId your mother jkeep you in the xcellaer as a child!??!

etc...

I feel for you, GooberToo. I really do.

Re:Just now?

[GooberToo]

Hehe. Thanks for the reply.

The answer is, no, it didn't just happen. It is, however, a sore spot. When I go to play the game, I do so to relax, unwind, and shoot some bad-guys. The frustration added by cheaters removes most of the enjoyment from the game.

Once I've determined that someone is cheating, it always leaves me wondering, what kind of sorry sack, they are in real life. Recently, I've started pointing this fact out...about the fact that their family life probably sucks, their parents probably dislike or resent them, and that they probably have no friends, etc... Seems, I too, have found a sore spot with several of these losers. Surprisingly, I've recently made two losers realize just how much of a loser they are. They left the server and game balance was restored. Which, seems to confirm that the personalities that do cheat, do so as a cry for help to escape their pathetic life. Seems online reminders of how pethetic they are is enough to force the more sorrowful to go elsewhere for their twisted enjoyment.

That's two points for me! ;)

Cheers!

Re:Just now?

[swv3752]

Sometimes they are just really good/lucky and not a cheater.

In Tribes2, I got ban a couple of times because I was to effectively snipe from Long, Long range with the Spinfusor disc gun. You get familiar with a map and you can launch discs at spots beyond your vision range. Know the likely spots where your enemy will be hiding out and you can often get lucky.

The other is set yourself up with a remote equiper and setup a mini base behind the enemy's. Then you can setup annoyances like put turrents in the enemy's base. Remote control the turrets and everyone ignores them until you start shooting them in the back.

Anways people start thinking you are cheating when these shots are coming out of nowhere.

Re:Just now?

[GooberToo]

Sometimes they are just really good/lucky and not a cheater.

You're right. I have no problem with luck shots. Sometimes they happen. They just don't happen, every round, through walls, taking out the majority of the team, round after round. Either you've never played AA, or you're just very, very, very naive.

So tired of hearing this. In AA, after you die, you almost always get a dead camera view of your body. Being headshot, while the enemy had zero visibility, in no way, shape, or form, can be confused with a lucky shot. Specially when one guy is taking out 1/2 or more of the team by him self in something like 2 or three minutes, all single shot headshots. Total BS. Naive opinions like yours are part of the cheating problem.

Put it this way. Almost everytime I've had to call an admin, someone has been kick or banned. Only once have I ever been kicked by an admin, and it was because of the situation I outlined above. People like you, which attempt to give the beneift of the doubt to a cheater rather than an experienced player, only encourage and further enrage people that have been wronged. In other words, you're knowingly or unknowingly, part of the problem, as it would be so much easier to simply get the votes to kick the losers off.

And, BTW, comparing cheat detection and gameplay between two completely difference games is completely worthless. That's right, saying Tribes compares to AA, is completely wrong. Any time you have two games which use two different sets of net code, you're going to have completely different oddities and quirks.

The rest of your comments can be safely ignored as it does not reflect AA's gameplay, not one bit.

Re:Just now?

[swv3752]

You kinda missed my point. While there are many cases of cheaters, sometimes it is really a case of skill/luck/ superior tactics that is taking you out.

I am not familiar enough with AA to comment on what those might be in that particular game. But presumably they are there.

Re:Just now?

[GooberToo]

No, I didn't miss your point at all. It's just the I'm tired of hearing exactly your comment from people that clearly don't have any idea what they are talking about.

I am, by no means, an awesome AA player. I get spanked on a regular basis. I have no problem playing or finding players with skills that far exceed my own. Likewise, I certainly don't have the fastest net connection in the world. Not to mention, my system certainly isn't the fastest either. Put those all together, I get my arse handed to me on a regular basis. No complaints here. That's part of the game. That's life. As such, it's VERY easy to decern cheaters from skilled players. No matter how skilled you are, you are not going to single-shot headshot me through a wall where you have zero visibility...let alone, round after round...and half the team, at that, while still being half way across the map.

How about the run cheats? Hmmm...two players are running 10x faster than everyone else. I guess they are just more skilled too. What about hte guy that can point his gun at the ground, with his back to you, and headshot you, first shot? He must be really skilled! Impossibly so. What about the guys that can shoot their 203's, from within a building, having zero visibility on anything outside that room, and rain them down directly on your head, everytime, no matter where you are at...nope, no radar and/or aim bot there....it's just skill. How abou they guys that can headshot your with a 203 round everytime. Even though they normally won't blow, with a luck shot, those "skilled" players, somehow, pull it off.

I could go on and on. This has nothing to do with skill. You can observe skill. You can learn from skill. But what you can't do is, constantly, every round, break the statistical odds and call every headshot a luckshot. Headshot once, fine. Headshot twice, maybe. Three times? Somthing fishy? Maybe? Everytime? That is one cheating SOB and people like you are keeping them on the server.

I'm constantly amazed at how stupid people can be when playing these games when it's so obvious. And the ignorance shared here, is a major contributor to why so many cheaters get by, not being held accountable.

Be part of the solution...not part of the problem.

Invasion

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been playing UT since the game first came out, and switched to UT2003 this past fall. I've enjoyed UT2003 more than UT precisely because it seems there is less cheating, and when there isn't less cheating, less irritating nonsense--like spawn sniping--that isn't cheating per se, but isn't exactly playing fair either.

I've played a lot of game modes and mods on UT and UT2003, and I have to say that Invasion has a special appeal. When I first played UT2003, I played single player more often for awhile, and didn't enjoy Invasion as much.

But the online multiplayer version of Invasion has an entirely different feel--there's a sense of cooperation and teamwork that you don't find in other team modes like CTF or DD. That's basically because everyone is playing against the AI, more or less.

Invasion is a great place to get your feet wet with online FPS, because it's an entirely cooperative experience. I really wish this sort of thing were pursued more in online FPS.

I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

In SOCOM II, they've introduced respawns (er, into the SOCOM consciousness, anyway). People behave almost as seriously as they do in the regular games. The downshot is spawn campers -- scum that are in any FPS.

That said: SOCOM is the best FPS I've ever played, on any level. I got a PS2 just for SOCOM I, and once I got sick of cheaters, I went to SOCOM II, noob to wings.

And then I dumped tequila down my chin and into my lap. THIS IS WHY YOU DO NOT SLASHDOT DRUNK, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, and also the reason the AC exists.

The funny thing is, I could die of alcohol poisoning right after I blow you all away with my M87ELR .50cal sniper rifle. :-)

Fun but hard

[harkje]

I'm still reletively new to this game and it's very difficult. I usually end at the bottom of the rankings. The hardest bit in the beginning is identifying the enemy. When you are creeping trough buildings and suddenly a soldier pops around the corner I need some time to determine wheter it's on of ours or one of them. If it is an enemy I usually find out soon enough because I'm lying on the floor crying out for a medic! If it is a friend I usually notice right after firing some shots at him... :) But it's still fun and free!

Free Online Training Communities

[fizze]

The only I know of is the Jedi Academy does anyone here knows of others ?

Those lamers on publics can really piss one off.

Re:Free Online Training Communities

[bazoomd]

I'm trying to put together a training community - one which takes you outside of the gaming environment, where you can focus on the individual skills involved in gaming, such as reaction speed, hand eye coordination etc.

This is what you do in other sports/games: you split up the skills involved, work on them individually, then work on the whole by actually playing the game. I'm experimenting with a similar concept at Video game trainer

Re:Free Online Training Communities

[fizze]

The site is indeed interesting, but the casual from time-to-time gamer will most unlikely exercise at such an extend.
Much more appreciated would really be sites with online communities that just help u improve cross-gaming-wise. Such as it is done prior to some games on LANs.
Its just much more fun to face an enemy that knows HOW to fire a gun, at least in your direction. ;)

Sven Co-Op for Half-Life

[rhomboid]

If you don't get to play a lot and you're frustrated by the skill/learning curve of many games I'd recommend Sven Co-Op for Half-Life

http://www.svencoop.com

It's a blast with friends and is all about teamwork and cooperative play.

Try some demo's

[robnauta]

Several games have multiplayer demo's that are excellently playable. They are usually only one level/map but then you can get a decent feel of how the gameplay is like.
I played the Soldier of Fortune II multiplayer demo for months, and it's still quite fun to just play that for an hour now and then.

Level playing field

[bazoomd]

I agree with the original poster - the world of online gaming is very hard to get into if you don't have much experience. What's needed is a way of levelling the playing field. Aside from dissallowing cheats etc, one way I can think of improving the situation is by doing some training outside of the gaming environment before you go in and try your hand. I have started a web site where I am trying to find ways of working on the individual skills involved in videogaming, such as hand-eye coordination, reaction speed, concentration etc. You train these focussed skills, then put the lot together when you actually go and play the game. This is an experiment at this stage: worth a try I reckon! The site is at http://www.videogametrainer.com for anyone who's interested in helping.

Best FPS games.

[crhylove]

Currently the most popular on my home LAN are:

Enemy Territory, which is a fantastic game.
and Urban Terror, which is as real as it gets (in my opinion).

however, quake 2 has phenomenal gameplay, too, imho, and it's source mod quake2evolved is simply great.

have fun.

Re:Good Online FPS Games/Servers For Beginners?

[R1ch4rd]

Hy there,
I've been in the same situations a few months ago when I got my
Cable Modem :D
I played UT a LOT on single player, so it was OK for me, thou on
advance servers I get fragged a lot.

For Unreal Turnament there is a beginner server:
"Truff's Newbie-Friendly Unreal Tournament Servers"
http://www.truff.net/

For CS, I don't know beginner servers, just stick to common public
servers. Make sure they run some anti-cheat, like: Cheating Death http://www.cheating-death.com/
Stick with your team or a good player and you'll learn from them.
Also try to read some tips and tricks. This is a good place to
start: http://www.csimmortals.com/

Take care and have a Good Game,
Richard

Postal2

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are new to FPS, play Postal2. It introduces you to a simple FPS game, with a very limited objectives, lets you practice headshots and other special features that aren't available in other FPS...like pissing on people and lighting them on fire with gasoline...two key features that SHOULD be in every FPS. Its the only game that lets you kill Osama and other Afghanis while pissing on some chick to make her puke. Good quality family entertainment there.

Re:LORD! -- No.

[Valegor]

I could have understood a reply of Trade Wars 2002, or Barren Realms Elite, maybe even Falcon, but Usurper? It wouldn't even make my top 10. Sometimes I miss the good old days of staying up all night calling 12 boards.

Planetside??????

[bigsmelly]

Nobody's mentioned planetside yet?

the only true MMOFPS i know of.

Even though it's for sale, it still feels like beta. they keep evolving and tweaking the rules.

Pros:

1) 200 player battles are not uncommon.
2) three empires with specific weapons
3) not as bandwidth hungry as BF1942
4) Air vehicles, tanks, buggies, atv's
5) character development means that newbies can drive most powerfull tanks etc, but not be as flexible as developed players (who can drive those, and also maybe planes and be snipers)
6) Flying mini-mechs (if you play VS like I do)

Cons:

1) 15 dollar monthly sub
2) need monster Memory ,CPU and GFx card
3) Some balance issues with weapons
4) No way to "win" - the battles keep on going forever

It's a Science Fiction world. Lots of nano stuff to explain the fact you can respawn.

Re: Ridiculous

[benzapp]

Yeah, but despite all that... after you turn 21, what chance do you have to see an under-18 pussy legally?

I am sure to some, the pain would be worth that forbidden pleasure.

Not me though, I appreciate your point.

Play Games Based on Liscences

[Anonymous Coward]

The games based on movie or TV liscences are always full of newbies because people who are fans of the original liscence but suck at FPS are always playing them. The prime examples are Star Trek: Elite Force 1 or 2 and Star Wars: Jedi Knight 2 or Star Wars: Jedi Academy.

No good FPS player takes these games seriously. They may try them for a month when they first come out but quickly go back to UT2k3, RTCW, Quake3, BF1942, or some similarly good game.

There is a slight problem with this theory though: because these people are newbies, they make up all these stupid rules of combat that were not originally designed in the game. They are put in place to make it easier on the newbies, but just annoy the hell out of "good" players. No self respecting FPS player would ever ignore someone just because they don't have their lightsaber out.

PlanetSide easy? As hard as you want it to be!

[Anonymous Coward]

Erh PlanetSide low skill?

PlanetSide certainly recquires social and strategic skills.

Try leading a platoon of 30 people (that's real people, not bots). Arranging transport, setting targets, taking into account enemy troop deployments at the current battlefield and also who the battles goes on the other side of the continet. Timing hotdrop of a squad from transport aircraft with air cover from MAX units. Guarding one base while attacking another.

Or try leading an outfit (regiment) of 140 people. You * will * lose sleep. Who to promote, demote. How to recruit. Organizing outfit events.

Several people with military background play PlanetSide because of its simulation parts.

Re:PlanetSide easy? As hard as you want it to be!

[Lodragandraoidh]

Of the SciFi genre - I would say Planetside is on a par with WWIIonline - very 'realistic' and immersive on all levels.

If you just want to get in an blast away - choose Quake et al.

If you are more interested in an immersive battlefield simulation give PlanetSide or WWIIonline a try - these are my top two picks.

Skulks!

[B33R N1NJ4]

Play a game where its nearly useless to have cheats. Natural selection for example, aliens have cloaking, Marines have motion tracking/scan sweep, it basically balances out. Well its like built-in hacks mostly

Re: Ridiculous

[imbaczek]

Doom I??? Doom II??? I haven't heard of anyone playing either of those games in at least 5 years. My god, they had a Doom release on the Atari Jaguar!!! Think about that!

I've completed Doom2 on ultraviolence just 2 years ago, you insensitive clod!

Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory

[billmarrs]

http://enemy-territory.com

Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory is a freely available full-featured multi-player first-person-shooter for Windows and Linux. This game is much more than a simple deathmatch. There are character classes, each with various special abilities and available weapons. Each mission scenario has 2 teams, Axis and Allies, each with their own goals. There are 6 missions, split into two campaigns that cycle through the server in order.

Cooperative Play -- Serious Sam!!

[NeoMoose]

Why not practice your skills in cooperative play in games such as Serious Sam. You can get Serious Sam: The First Encounter and Serious Sam: The Second Encounter for like $30 bucks and they offer some great gameplay.

Even Serious Sam's single-player modes are good for practicing your twitch gameplay in the higher difficulties.

http://www.serioussam.com http://www.croteam.com Enjoy.

I remember thinking the same thing

[butane_bob2003]

First time I got into quake or unreal deathmatches it was with teams of experts at the game company I had just started working at. The clans there had some of the top ranked internet players, including the #1 rated player on the internet (for UT or Quake3, I can't remember). My team would play against another game team, who apparently never worked after 3pm (afternoons were set aside for quake). I got killed often. Best way to learn to dominate is on a local network with a bunch of really good players. It will take time. You will die often. Eventually I got better, but was only good, not exceptional. Then I realized how much time I was wasting and that my shooting skills in the real world had improved little....

more tips....

[Simulant]

Keep track of servers you like. Don't just join a random server every time you want to play. There are alot slight variations in server setups that can throw your game and make the learning curve more difficult. Use something like All Seeing Eye or Gamespy to track your favorites if necessary and when you find servers you like, go back. Play real team games. Generally speaking, you will die alot more playing deathmatch/team deathmatch oriented game types. These can be fun from time to time but capture/retrieve/destroy/ mission oriented games are more fun IMO, and will teach you more. Cheaters also tend to be caught and dealt with quicker. When you find a game type you like, stick with it for while. Don't switch around until you are comfortable with it. Don't get too frustrated by losing. Nobody wins all the time (well maybe a few). Just stick with it. I've been paying online FPS since doom and still get spanked royally on occasion. (ok.. frequently) Give Call of Duty a try. It's not too complicated/not too simple and is new enough that you won't always be completely out-classed. It's also one of most stable games, right out of the box, ever relased... in the tradition of Quake. Everything just works and feels right. And finally, and this is the key to EVERY FPS: Learn the maps. Learn them well. Play them until you know where everything is and what the most popular strategies are. This will give you your greatest advantage.

Battlefield 1942

[less]

Battlefield 1942 is imo currently the best alternative for a gamer that doesn't want to invest major amounts of time and money but still wants a game that doesn't get boring after a few tries. It allows beginners and hardcore gamers alike to play "peacefully" together. It's easy to begin with, has high activity (servers etc) and a healthy age mix among the players.

The game is extremely versatile with many different player classes, vehicles (tanks, planes, boats, apcs), maps and mods. There's room for a gamer just to explore new stuff for an hour or so, just to check out the landscape or cities.

Given the current pricing of the game it's also a very cheap investment ($25 or so, no monthly fees) and for continuity there are websites like BF Tracks that records all your activity over time wrt to performance, medals, play time etc.

jedi academy

[Anonymous Coward]

i personaly like jedi academy,because of mostly prefered saber combat aimbot has no chance ;) and other cheats are really rare in this game