Completely New to this... apologies in adv.

[pha+z]

Good Mornin'.

I am by no means familiar with Half Life 2, although have been MP FPS'ing for a number of years now.
What started as a bit of fun with Quake, rapidly became a passion and addiction. I have spent the last 3 years playing Wolfentein/ET, as the founder member of SenF|Team Mustard.

For some time I have harboured the idea of creating a Lan Party events company in the South East of the UK. This s about to become reality.

So for some months now I have been sampling and experiencing the game play of todays "of the moment" MP games that will be played at the events from a permenantly dedicated premisses.

So 2 days ago I started on HL2DM.

I am hoping that this post will generate some helpful comments that will guide me easily to links that I can use to compile a tips and tricks page which will be added to the company website. The aim being to provided newcomers to the game, that attend an event some helpful tips so they dont get completely owned as soon as they get plugged in.

If you have any helpful hints they will be greatfully recieved, and of course credited to that player and also linked back to this forum.

The "search" button is my freind, so I will use it immediatley, but in the interest of speed, your help would be much appreciated.

Weapons Guides. (found here)
Aiming tips.
Movement tips.
Map guides. (found here)
Anything else that think relevant.

Thank you in adv.

/Pha+z

 

[Anthraxxx]

I think it's great that you are trying to help newbies who have never played multiplayer games before. However, I don't think that this will have much effect on wether a newbie will be able to grasp a game or not. It is my observation that newbies who play a game for the first time will suck really badly for the first few matches, but will eventually get better as the lan party progresses. I think that the most important thing for a newbie to learn is basic movement control. WASD/Arrow keys, jumping, crouching, and strafing are prett much all a newbie needs to learn. The rest is just point and click.

 

[pha+z]

Very true Sir, as with most FPS games, keep moving, aim true and fire.
Does movement affect accuracy?
Is accuracy increased by crouching?
Burst fire or jam mouse 1 down until ammo is depleted?

These small tips could just give the complete newbie, a head start.

I am kinda hoping that ppl will try the game before they turn up, as their enjoyment will depend allot upon their skill level.

HL2DM does seem to pretty much be point and press, while remaining very good fun.

Thank you.

 

[ComradeBadger]

Movement doesn't affect accuracy. Crouching does not improve accuracy.

 

[pha+z]

Movement doesn't affect accuracy. Crouching does not improve accuracy.

Thank you. :thumbs:

 

[CMEast]

Yeah this is, in true DM fashion, a completely unrealistic game so weapon acccuracy is not be affected by movement or recoil. Instead of recoil the machine gun style weapons have a certain inaccuracy built in to begin with so you can hold that trigger down as long as you like and still be accurate.

The key areas are:
Movement - It's best to never stop as you never know when you are going to be shot. Staying in one place doesn't work in this game as the person you killed will respawn instantly and know exactly where you are. You can't camp or you will die. Plus you are harder to hit when moving, in fact when under fire you should move as erratically as possible so the enemy can't predict where you will be.

Aim - Headshots are 3x the damage of normal shots but aren't possible to get when the enemy is crouching so aim below the lungs (as the crouched hitbox is a current issue with the game). This is no excuse for ignoring movement of course because once the enemy know how to compensate you are literally a sitting duck. Make sure to predict ahead with weapons like grenades, props (the most common name for the various items you can throw at people with the gravgun) and of course the crossbow.

Management - Each weapon is designed to fill a specific role with Magnums at long range and shotguns at short so it is very important to use the right weapon. New players need to get used to switching between weapons depending on their surroundings and where potential threats might be. Ammo must also be managed as running into a fight with a low clip will get you killed every time, especially with long reload times like for the magnum. However guns do automatically reload their clips (providing you have the ammo on you) after about 10 seconds of not being out so you don't have to hide everytime you run low. Health and armour is readily available in the majority of HL2DM maps and so knowing when to refill and where to get them is a big advantage in a DM game. Finally managing your AUX power (or your 'sprint') is very important, you should always try to hold some back in case you run into an enemy but getting around to different places is vital to dominate a map, a good hint is that if you jump you maintain your momentum whether you hold the sprint button or not.

Observation - Keep both your eyes and ears open for everything around you. You can often hear exactly what an enemy is doing and where they are, especially if you wear headphones (which you probably will as its a lan party). Combine models make more noise so it's probably best to use rebel models even hough their stunstick does more damage.

Gravgun Tricks:
You can catch pretty much everything except rockets and MP5(starting gun) grens so you can have some amazing prop fights. Especially as most props are instant kills so a good catch saves your life and if you can fire it back it's almost a guarenteed dead enemy, you can literally turn the tables on someone .
This means you can catch pulse orbs (also known as combine balls) and fire them back. The good thing is that it fires faster than the Pulse Rifle (or MP7) can fire it.
You can also catch grenades, often useful when they are thrown at you and picking them up resets the timer on them too! However more importantly, if you just drop it (mouse2) in front of you (while standing) and then quickly pull out your gravgun and grab it you can then fire it a lot faster, a lot further and, best of all, primed so if you time it right it will explode just as it reaches your target.
Finally you can do gravjumps with the gravgun, just stand on an object and fire down at it to gain some extra hight. It can take some practice to get it to a reasonable hight and a massive amount of skill to leap over buildings but it is possible.

I hope this helps , it isn't completely comprehensive but you said you were looking for a handy guide for a newb and this is as much as they need to know to begin with I think. Anything more is just not needed (detailed weapon explanations, that is more fun just trying it out) or too advanced (maximising your jumps, hoverboarding etc).

 

[pha+z]

Very informative CMEast, and thank you for spending the time to write it so well.

With your permission I would like to use extracts of it on the tips page for HL2DM. (with credits to all that help).

Nice to find a forum where the community are more than will to help.

:thumbs:

 

[netrex]

When will this LAN be held or approximately when will it be?

 

[pha+z]

When will this LAN be held or approximately when will it be?

The 1st Lan will be in approximatley 6-8 weeks, once we have secured the business location.
Then once the site is live with online bookings, we can begin to play.

The lans will, unlike other lan parties, be held 1 per week to run on a Saturday, and maybe also Sunday depending on demand.
Every Staurday we will run 2-3 servers, running 1-2 games.

So Week 1 will be Counter Strike Source as a main game, with HL2DM as a secondary game.

Week 2 could then be HL2DM as the main game, with UT2K4 as a secondary.

The games will rotate each weekend so that ppl dont get bored of the same game over and over again.

Log files will be parsed an results posted to the website.

The idea is to provide a single location for peeps to come to on as regular a basis as they want, to play their favourite games on a high speed Lan.

We will have 40 player slots per Saturday, and then thro' the year we will organise larger events for 150-200 players, on a 3-4 monthly basis at a venue to be disclosed at a later date.

Obviously as soon as the site is up I will be advertising on as many MP Gaming forums as I can to let everyone know where to come.

For the time being I am unfortunate enough to be in the unpleasant situation where I am being payed to test the prospective games :cheers: and also collate as much info as poss to improve the website when ppl start asking "How do I?.................."

Hence the post, which I am pleased to say has unvieled some very usefull info, so far.

 

[WySiWyG]

Where abouts in the south east will it be? Never been to a lan.

 

[ComradeBadger]

Where abouts in the south east will it be? Never been to a lan.

Ditto on that one

Pity we couldn't play last night WySiWyG .. was a mate's bday the night before - I was dead ;(

Oh, and Halflife2.net should have a HL2DM guide up soon enough :O

 

[CMEast]

Of course you can use it, just glad to help. Of course if anyone feels I've missed anything then they are more than welcome to chime in with more but I think I pretty much covered the basics.

I'm in the south east of UK, would be nice to go there... well nice until I'm owned by newbs who have just read my guide

Lan parties are awesome, I've been to a few of Multiplay.co.uks 'i' series. Good fun

 

[pha+z]

Location = 8 miles north of Brighton. Burgess Hill.
2mins from main line station.
Parking available.

Once the site is up all will become clear. :E

And may I say it's encouraging to get such positive support.

p.s. what server IP do ya frequent, i'll try and stop by for a sesh, and you can all own my big butt.

 

[ComradeBadger]

Ehm I'm on the Multiplay.co.uk servers, and the 22g servers and b33f Halflife2.net Public

 

[Zeus]

A tip: something I always like to do, grab a table or something big and move it somewhere with the gravity gun. then duck behind it and pop up shooting at anyone that comes by. if you are low on health hiding behind the table will usually keep you out of sight so you can wait till the guy runs past you so you can go get some health and get back.

Another thing I do is take some big stuff and block entrances to places.

hope this helps

 

[WySiWyG]

Location = 8 miles north of Brighton. Burgess Hill.
2mins from main line station.
Parking available.

Once the site is up all will become clear. :E

And may I say it's encouraging to get such positive support.

p.s. what server IP do ya frequent, i'll try and stop by for a sesh, and you can all own my big butt.

Nice and close to me then :]

Im usually on killercreation tdm, drdrillers or the snarkpit.

KC- 217.146.89.4:27045 (i think)
Dr Drillers- 195.20.109.38:27015
Snarkpit- dunno the ip off hand, but its 4userversthesnarkpit in the steam server list thing.

Get xfire and add bo0da.

I'll look out for u on xfire cb, have a bash soon.

 

[pha+z]

Excellent....

 

[netrex]

Excellent....

I sent you a pm dude =)

 

[pha+z]

I sent you a pm dude =)

got it...... good idea

 

[WySiWyG]

sry for the bump, phats you still about?

Looking to get some lans going.. sent you a pm.