The Bridge

Yi Jiang

00:07

badp

erm... erm... erm...

Yi Jiang

@badp Oy, were you responsible for that? :|

badp

Sometimes I drop jokes in that area

Yi Jiang

>_<

badp

as a very lightweight way of communication

Yi Jiang

00:08

punches @badp

badp

I didn't figure you were so interested in erm-erm-erm, sorry

Yi Jiang

@badp Oy.

badp

goes add oy to your favourite tags

Yi Jiang

@badp OY!

badp

(you can stop refreshing, I'm not doing that)

LessPop_MoreFizz

00:26

Site offline...

@badp what did you break

badp

@LessPop_MoreFizz Rebecca went 'oy' one time too many.

Arda Xi

01:04

@badp Mod abuse! (Can I get you fired now?)

badp

01:19

@ArdaXi Nope, I'm not employed.

LessPop_MoreFizz

02:15

I'm not sure what to think of every SCII patch adding yet another league at the top of the bracket.

(Newest PTR adds a Grandmaster bracket for the top 200 (fixed) players in the region)

> Leagues will now be locked during the final weeks of the season. As a result players will not accumulate additional bonus points and will not be promoted or demoted out of their current division during this period.

> This will allow players to focus on moving up in their current league without being promoted during the final weeks of a season, and having to fight their way up from the bottom ranks of their new higher league.

That's really really good though.

Tim Stone

I've always been wary of playing online due to my great fear of just being completely demolished. I suppose I should give it a try at some point, though, heh.

LessPop_MoreFizz

> Charging Zealots will now hit fleeing targets at least once.

Mana

02:51

@Tim If you're talking about Starcraft, the Blizzard matchmaking system matches you up with people around your skill level, so you're not going to get completely obliterated

Tim Stone

@Mana I know, I just have to convince myself of that. :P

Bob

03:22

0

Q: Please include info about spoiler sections on the "formatting help" page

As described on this MSO post, it's now possible to create spoiler blocks/hidden text with the syntax >! Spoiler text Can a blurb about this be added to the "formatting help" page that's linked to in the "How to format" box on the right of posting pages and by the little ? block above post en...

feature-request

0

Q: What's the point of titles in Tales of Vesperia?

I'm a few hours into playing Tales of Vesperia, and I noticed that each of my characters has a few titles to choose from in the Status screen. Does the active title affect gameplay/stats? Does it make cosmetic differences? Or is the only purpose of titles to be fun to collect? By titles, I mean ...

tales-of-vesperia

GnomeSlice

Twitter - Video Gaming List

I think it's still a bit cluttered.

Harumph.

Bob

06:08

0

Q: Does giving rations count towards your "rations used" in Metal Gear Solid 4

In Metal Gear Solid 4, you can walk up to militia or PMC troops and give them items, including rations. Does doing so count towards your "rations used" or not?

metal-gear-solid-4

Bob

07:08

0

Q: What are the upgrade paths for the academy?

The academy only shows what unit type it upgrades to for existing units already in the army, and only if you've already unlocked the correct race and level upgrades. Can anyone provide or link to a diagram or table (or the data in other other form, really) showing what upgrades to what?

kings-bounty-crossroads

badp

09:23

Mornin'

2

Q: Keypress Limit - Anomalous Problem!

I have read many an answer about the keypress limit (i.e. "Help! I can only press 2 keys at a time") and it seems that in most cases it is the need for a new keyboard that is the issue. Well here is a doozy for you then: Me and my girlfriend both have identical motherboards. I have more RAM than...

keyboard

If anybody wonders.

badp

09:43

uh, I opened TF2 and suddenly the game decided I had new items

Bob

10:38

0

Q: How to hack a turret in Bioshock?

I've found that most cameras can be hacked by sneaking another them and hacking from below. Also the flying helicopters can be hacked if they are protecting an enemy which is killed. What I can't work out is how to directly hack a turret. It's difficult to get close to them without suffering sev...

bioshock hacks

badp

10:57

TF2 is very excited by my finding of the Tribalman's Shiv.

Oh, man, the TF2 beta is a 9 GB download. WTF?

Arda Xi

11:16

@badp How was the Game On btw?

badp

@ArdaXi A failure, not enough people

Basically only I, Powerlord, Tom and Ivo showed up (and I think Oracle Certified Professional too)

but most of the time we were 3 people

...and Ivo could only join us because I sent him a guest pass.

room topic changed to The Bridge: of Gaming's StackExchange™ AlienOverlord AskQuestion™ mothership, wherein we take loving care of our recharging lazers. No mentions of Arda are yet made in this topic as scientific studies prove that continued attention can be unhealthy for tsundere mermaids.

Arda Xi

Well, I wanted to come, but I had... other things to attend to.

@badp [citation needed]

badp

You said you were stranded on a netbook?

Arda Xi

@badp That was early in the evening.

badp

@ArdaXi Continued attention caused excessive amount of whining from all 1 tsundere mermaids on chat.

Arda Xi

11:27

@badp Also, that's very weird causality.

What does the effect on tsundere mermaids have to do with me?

badp

scribbles 'on denial' on the character sheet

Arda Xi

11:48

@badp It's in denial, unless you're referring to some kind of drug.

If you are, hook me up.

Ivo Flipse

@badp would you think having embedded youtube video's be useful for gaming? you'd still need meta information to describe the contents and have it be findable on Google, but wouldn't it be way more explanatory?

Mana

12:16

What's up guuuuys O:

Ivo Flipse

aloha @Mana

Mana

Yo Ivo! How's it going?

Arda Xi

Hey @Mana

Mana

Hey Arda. What cool things are happening?

Ivo Flipse

well you can go and answer my question for badp too :P

Arda Xi

12:22

@Mana I'm waiting for my "I'm gonna make a terrible mod" t-shirt.

I need it before we do a meet-up, y'know.

Mana

@Arda fiiiine, I'll have the design for next week

Arda Xi

There's really a lot of t-shirts I want to buy but haven't because shipping to Europe is outrageous.

Mana

@Ivo I don't see any problem with it; the idea of embedding videos has been brought up several times on meta.SO and I don't think it's been met with great amounts of opposition

The general consensus is "Yeah, this would be a cool thing to have."

Ivo Flipse

18

Q: Add chat-like YouTube support to Stack Exchange

Some Stack Exchange sites, like Super User and Gaming, would derive large benefits from having some sort of YouTube integration. I'm not suggesting having embedded players in pages. Rather, I'm thinking of the kind of support chat has: a static video snapshot, with a play symbol overlay. The su...

feature-request stackexchange-2.0 video

well I want the team to simply make it auto-embed if I add a link or make it such as images

Arda Xi

Hrm, I just realised something. The word I was looking for some time ago might as well have been a malamanteau.

badp

12:45

@IvoFlipse embedded is probably overkill; some chat-like youtube "oneboxing" would be great however

with that awesome overlayed triangle

Ivo Flipse

I just wonder if it's a good idea to sent users of our page to watch it

Arda Xi

@badp You can do that alread- oh.

Ivo Flipse

yes, the play 'button' is great

badp

@ArdaXi Yeah, otherwise it just looks like a picture.

Arda Xi

@badp It already looks like a picture

badp

12:47

(see Yi's reply to my request)

Ivo Flipse

though turning it around: if we have dozens of video's on YouTube, new users will be able to stumble upon our network

Arda Xi

I need an example, taking a random video from @badp's favourites.

badp

they will if the videos link back :)

Arda Xi

►

Ivo Flipse

they should if they want to get upvotes from it

Arda Xi

12:50

Hrm, it's just some clever CSS.

Ivo Flipse

awesome music @ArdaXi, makes me feel 10 again

I guess we can't have everyone use a stackexchange account on Youtube though @badp :\

badp

@IvoFlipse that's unnecessary

Ivo Flipse

well it would help for brand recognition

badp

►

Ivo Flipse

though perhaps using 'standardized' banners or something in the video could help

yeah, putting it in the information part works too

though that isn't show when it's embedded elsewhere :\

Arda Xi

12:53

Anyway, an image link to i2.ytimg.com/vi/<id>/hqdefault.jpg is better than nothing.

Ivo Flipse

though I guess the network effect is more important: have more users make video's in a semi-organized fashion will draw people anyway

badp

well I'd rather not have to put banners before/after the video

it raises the bar unnecessarily

Ivo Flipse

can't you use the overlay things? :P

badp

recording, encoding and uploading a video is enough of a time sink :P

Ivo Flipse

true, though it would probably be useful to point to the question as a reference

hehe, I think handbrake can handle it :P

but true nonetheless

badp

12:55

I'd like to mention that gtk-recordmydesktop is awesome for making videos of games

however, Youtube doesn't like what that tool produces in the slightest

Arda Xi

You could even have an automatic set-up that uploads videos to a Gaming.SE account and adds the overlay.

After you garner some amount of rep, that is.

When is Google merging my account? :|

Ivo Flipse

one of the mods from Guitars asked me what other sites have tried to promote themselves

and I told him he should hold a small competition: who can play this solo the best? and have everyone upload a video to youtube and use it as an answer on Meta

just to get people to use their guitar to answer a question, not just words. It's a music website for christ sake!

Arda Xi

So you're saying we should use controllers to answer questions?

Wait... that could be awesome. Answering questions with Kinect.

badp

the keyboard comes in handy, yes.

Ivo Flipse

I say: put your game skills where your mouth is :P

badp

13:04

oh, but I suck at videogames.

Arda Xi

@IvoFlipse I would have, yesterday, but I figured it would be better to go out and drink beer than to stay in and play videogames. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME???

Ivo Flipse

that you're barely legally allowed to do so?

Arda Xi

I am allowed. Well, okay, I wasn't. But still.

I was referring to the fact that I preferred that over playing videogames.

Fabian

@ArdaXi The error was to drink dutch beer ;-)

Ivo Flipse

where are you from again @Fabian?

Fabian

13:07

@IvoFlipse Germany

Arda Xi

@Fabian Err... oh, yeah, it was Dutch.

Bob

13:35

0

Q: L4D2 - Conditions for the Confederacy of Crunches achievement

Steam describes this achievement as: Finish a campaign using only melee weapons. Ok, so that obviously excludes any primary weapon, but what about throwables (pipe bombs, molotovs, bile jars) and the pistol that mysteriously appears in your hands when you're incapacitated? Furthermore, if ...

achievements left-4-dead-2

Arda Xi

14:32

I kinda need a Gravatar that works in sizes like 64x64

badp

15:14

Oh, man.

The medals are for dominations right?

Because I think they were all dominating me :|

Yi Jiang

@badp Kills: 3 Deaths: 93? o_o

badp

Blu had complete domination of middle; I tried to help our team regain control...

Powerlord

@YiJiang He's playing Medic. I would hope he'd be healing his teammates and not concentrating on killing enemies.

Yi Jiang

@Powerlord Well yeah, but 93 deaths?

Arda Xi

@Powerlord Even so, 93 deaths?

badp

15:17

You can see the 36k hitpoints

Powerlord

@badp You can tell who is dominating you because they'll have fist icons next to them.

badp

Okay, so it wasn't as bad as I imagined, but still pretty bad.

Arda Xi

The medals are for any kind of domination.

So, any enemy. The fists are you.

badp

Also in team FPSes I don't care about death, I care about the objective; I think it's fine for support and offense people to die a lot.

Powerlord

@ArdaXi badp has had the game for like... 1 day.

badp

15:19

but it's just me.

obviously the objective is pointless when there's no score limit or time limit

Arda Xi

@Powerlord Seriously? Oh. Never mind then.

@badp No score limit on a CTF map? Really?

Powerlord

I do find it humerous that you're playing on a 24/7 server.

badp

@Powerlord I just followed @Ivo

Powerlord

Meaning that they're running the same map all the time.

badp

I don't think he knows any better :)

Powerlord

15:21

@badp Ah, I see.

Yeah, playing one map constantly can make you really good... at that one map.

Arda Xi

I recall playing TF2 on 24/7 surf to 1. Practice surfing properly and 2. Get weapons.

Powerlord

or at that map type in generally, I suppose, although ctf maps tend to vary wildly.

Arda Xi

And yes, @Powerlord, I changed my mind about TF2, now that I've figured out you can easily get any weapon you want.

badp

meh, I just wanted to play with Ivo, given that his guest pass ends tomorrow.

Arda Xi

Can you see what guest passes you have without launching Steam?

badp

15:24

I don't think so

Powerlord

@ArdaXi By... trading or crafting? :P

badp

@ArdaXi Who is Zero?

The Zero in your friends list, I mean.

Arda Xi

@Powerlord Crafting, mostly.

@badp Er?

badp

Dunno, he requested my friendship. I figured, since you accepted him, that you'd know him.

Arda Xi

Macha, Ireland

3.6k 5 25

xbox-360 pc steam dwarf-fortress halo ps3 pokemon

badp

15:26

I see. adds

Arda Xi

Oh, guzhno is ivo

VNCs into his desktop in order to check if he has any guestpasses

Powerlord

I still think we should find someone with a server in Europe we can steal for the Game On! thing... most of the people who play are in Europe, but I'm hosting from my Dallas, TX, USA server.

badp

I say next game on we just pick a server and join it with other random people

Arda Xi

@Powerlord Pick me, pick me!

badp

TF2 requires ~12 people apparently, we'll never get that much

Arda Xi

15:28

I'll have to install SRCDS

384/768 MB RAM should be enough to host a small game.

badp

heh, how many times that does your laptop have :)

sure, your laptop's not a server, but virtualization is funny that way

Powerlord

@ArdaXi The standalone server can be installed without requiring Steam. Valve has some directions.

Arda Xi

@Powerlord I'm not new to this.

Powerlord

@ArdaXi Oh, OK.

Arda Xi

@badp 2.67 / 1.3

But my laptop doesn't have burst RAM

badp

15:31

hmm... barbecue RAM...

Arda Xi

I've actually home-hosted a TF2 server where almost everyone had about 30ms ping.

About 1 MB/s up

Of course that doesn't beat my VPS' 112 Gbit/s

badp

So, out of curiosity

Powerlord

I'll never have 30ms ping since I'm in North America, but eh. :D

badp

What is it that the server sends when HL2-based stuff "receives server information"?

because that step takes ages

Powerlord

@badp TF2's various server connecting stages confuses me. I assume it's also doing some map loading stuff when it's receiving data.

Particularly since certain maps take longer to load than others, and it always seems to be during the last few steps.

badp

15:35

That'd make sense

Arda Xi

"Source-based stuff" please.
Also, what it does is negotiate at least a while of server info

Powerlord

This is amusing... one of Reddit's Europe TF2 servers says it's "TF2 Midwest Chicago/Ireland"

Arda Xi

You need to download more data than was generated in the time while you were downloading it.

That's probably really unclear.

Basically, a server doesn't send everything that happens in real-time, right?

Because that means it has to send n-1 packets for every packet it receives, where n is the amount of players connected.

Instead it works with ticks, every tick it basically calculates what the world looks like, takes a snapshot, and sends that to every client.

On the client-side, it seamlessly interpolates between ticks.

In order for that interpolation to happen, when you're receiving server info, it's not just initializing all the data (it does that too) but it also downloads as much ticks as it can, until you're synced to the current world and it can provide a reasonable game world.

Feeds

0

Q: Universal User Recent Activity Page

Right now, each Stack Exchange site has its own Recent Activity page (http://stackoverflow.com/users/recent/userid). I find these pages immensely useful, as it's nice to see recent changes in rep and favorites. (I track it daily to find downvoted posts that I can improve upon). I would suggest...

discussion feature-request stackexchange recent-activity

Arda Xi

@badp tl;dr: It's doing stuff. Be patient.

badp

15:46

@ArdaXi I'm aware of that, but other games don't need as much :)

you only interpolate on two? three? ticks?

Arda Xi

You gotta realise that Source is 10 years old.

badp

@ArdaXi cough Quake 3 cough

rather I see the limiting factor being the amount of bandwidth each client has, which is kinda small when you have to accomodate 24/32 clients... except on @Powerlord's server yesterday connection times weren't really better.

Arda Xi

Source Multiplayer Networking

Ivo Flipse

16:14

I gave up @badp, I ended up in a team that kept getting owned

badp

@IvoFlipse Did you mean the one I was on? :)

Ivo Flipse

I got switched a couple of times

badp

1 hour ago, by badp

Ivo Flipse

but in the end we just got spawn killed

badp

Yeah, me too.

At the time of this screenshot (and at the time I'd left) you had complete domination of the map

Ivo Flipse

16:16

they had 2 engineers on our roof

portals

badp

It irks me that you can't shoot at sticky bombs to make them explode, btw

Ivo Flipse

heavy's dropping in for spawn kills

I think you should be able to :S

the sniping reminds me of scout knives or awp maps :P

badp

(at least that's the way it works in Quake 3 Team Arena, although those are trip mines)

Powerlord

@badp No, but you can shoot at enemy sticky bombs to make them go away.

badp

@Powerlord er, that's what I meant.

Ivo Flipse

16:18

who else has TF2?

Powerlord

Although... I think it has to be a weapon that shoots bullets or a melee weapon.

Ivo Flipse

it did waste my whole afternoon, which I had planned to spend reading :P

badp

so if a demoman camps the spawn doors with sticky mines you either are a class with a pistol, or you are screwed

Powerlord

Lets just say... there's a reason we have a rule against sticky camping spawn doors on OCR TF2.

Although, if you were playing Doublecross, your spawn DOES have three exits... upper floor, lower floor, sewer.

badp

upper floor being the one that matters :)

Ivo Flipse

16:22

who wants to have another go?

Mana

►

This is amazing.

badp

@IvoFlipse maybe in 30 mins

unless you need to have another go now or never.

I need to recharge my wireless headphones :/

user30

We playing TF2?

Ivo Flipse

yeah but just a random server

user30

Sure

Ivo Flipse

16:26

well my GF wants to start making dinner in 30

badp

maybe not a 24/7 server

Ivo Flipse

perhaps not no

I had no idea what I picked though

user30

Okay, join me?

badp

joins @ThomasMcDonald

Tim Stone

@badp If you like your wireless headphones, I need you to tell me what they are, because I'm looking to buy some. :P

user30

16:31

fails

badp

@TimStone Wireless headphones are like wired headphones, but with thrice as much wires.

Tim Stone

Ah, well that clears things up.

badp

Wired headphone: computer ←→ headphone

Wireless headphone: computer ←→ transmitter ... headphone

the transmitter needs a plug and the headphone batteries need recharging with a third wire

Hm, when I finally connected to the server and got through the intro video @ThomasMcDonald has changed server :)

user30

@badp No I haven't.

badp

oh okay.

user30

16:37

I'm just not doing very well.

Bob

0

Q: Do the Colosseum and Theatre need separate population for their benefits?

It is stated for both the Colosseum and the Theatre that they can only provide as much happiness as there is population. I believe they both provide +5 Happiness for a population of 5. Do they stack on the same population meaning I would get 10 Happiness with a population of 5?

civilization-5 happiness

user30

@badp Amazing.

badp

yay for the hole

Tim Stone

@Mana That was hilarious. :D

Arda Xi

We playing TF2 now?

user30

16:44

Yes

Arda Xi

I'll join if the server lets me.

Ugh, Steam is freezing up.

Server is full. I'll join it once there's a spot.

Oh great, I have a crate. (Pun not intended) Does anyone have a lockpick I can borrow?

user30

Um, they're one-use items (keys)

user30

And they cost.

Arda Xi

Yeah, I know about keys.

That's why I want a lockpick, not a key.

Downloading crap, then joining.

Bob

0

Q: Slimes all over my mob trap, unkillable and blocking everything

My mobtrap was working perfectly a few hours ago. After relogging to the server, a massive amount of slimes spawned in my trap. They seem to be unkillable and block the canal and grinder. How can I get rid of them?

minecraft multiplayer

Arda Xi

17:03

I'm actually using some of my downlink to download at the same time, but I'm pretty sure it's still much better than yours, @badp

user30

Okay, that's enough for now

user30

I have stuff to work on

Arda Xi

Ah... so that's why a spot opened up.

Bob

0

Q: Does anyone know of a good PSX emulator for OS X that's not at EOL status?

Title pretty much explains it. In case you don't know: EOL, End of Life.

psx

badp

@ArdaXi Uh, actually I found out Steam was downloading and Minecraft was running while I played

Arda Xi

17:19

Steam doesn't download while you play.

badp

unless you force it to, and I'd forced it while playing Minecraft in single player

(I also launched MC from Steam)

Arda Xi

Ah.

I don't use the non-Steam game feature much, people start accusing me of piracy.

badp

also, 80 rep to go

Arda Xi

For what? You already have access to mod tools.

badp

It's a nice milestone, and I need to work on my retirement plan.

also in 80 reps I'll lose the link to 'about'!

except they fixed that bug

ah well

Arda Xi

17:23

@badp Which link?

badp

gaming.stackexchange.com/about

10kers, and now mods too, have it replaced with 'tools'

but you knew that

Arda Xi

I thought the 'tools' link was in the top-right, not the bottom-left.

badp

The about link is in both places with low enough rep.

gaming.stackexchange.com/boo

(the 404 page doesn't check your reputation)

...I guess the about threshold got lowered even further then

Arda Xi

@badp You meant the about link, I assume.

badp

8 mins ago, by badp

also in 80 reps I'll lose the link to 'about'!

Arda Xi

17:31

5 mins ago, by Arda Xi

I thought the 'tools' link was in the top-right, not the bottom-left.

5 mins ago, by badp

It is in both places with low enough rep.

badp

The 'about' link is in both places

Arda Xi

I know, but you implied that the 'tools' link was.

badp

Happy?

Arda Xi

Never.

badp

Then I'll make you unhappier.

room topic changed to The Bridge: of Gaming's StackExchange™ AlienOverlord AskQuestion™ mothership, wherein we take loving care of our recharging lazers.

Wait, is that you being happy?

Arda Xi

17:35

Aww.

No. Yay! would be happy. Yay. is sarcastic.

badp

Incoming forced reputation recalculation for everybody, to accomodate the upcoming user list redesign. If you lose (or gain!) reps, you now know why.

Arda Xi

Why?

badp

10

A: Sudden sharp drop in reputation; find out reason (recalc?)

We are running a global recalc right now across all Stack Exchange sites in preparation for showing leagues on the /users page, you can see more details (and suggest things!) in this question: Redesigning the /users page Note no reputation rules have changed, we're just doing a recalc to get you...

12

A: Redesigning the /users page

To expand a bit on this, the first change will be rep leagues on the main /users view, when landing on /users you'll see the top users by reputation...this week. With these options they'll be new sub-tabs (like the user activity view in the profile for example) with options the same as the stack...

C. Ross

Someone imitating GraceNote

badp

Aw, @CRoss, I was hoping for an impersonator. I had my suspend stick ready!

Arda Xi

17:47

@CRoss Nope, Grace never uses a beamed pair of notes.

badp

I think this is a pretty easy call, but just for doublechecking, any reason why I shouldn't merge emulator and emulation?

They don't overlap at all and the questions covered seem pretty similar to me.

(cc @ArdaXi, who will complain either way)

Arda Xi

No I won't.

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