Crysis 2... You going to buy it? Should we host a server?

[Failhorse]

Anyone here going to be playing this game?
Based off server preorder prices for servers.
Either the game doesn't use much server side resources, or it's going to bomb.

Either way, it's a new game. I'll guess it will have some sort of matchmaking system to join servers. This means if we get a ragtag group to join it, the matchmaking system will fill it up quick. If it fills, moves up the list, then starts filling itself, thanks to matchmaking.

Ideas?
We could easily fit a 16 slot into our new setup. And it would expand the sandvich beyond tf2.

Edit.
I may be searching wrong. But it appears they may only be offered dedicated server support through providers, not public. Bastards.

[Nikki Wolf]

But I already expanded the sandwich past TF2 (but it's Counter-Strike, so probably not that much)

I'm planning on getting it, but it will most likely be in the summer. I still need to finish the first one and start Warhead.

[Toaster]

But I already expanded the sandwich past TF2 (but it's Counter-Strike, so probably not that much)

I'm planning on getting it, but it will most likely be in the summer. I still need to finish the first one and start Warhead.

Warhead was disappointing

Not going to get #2 unless it goes on sale for like 5$ I liked the idea of being on an island in the middle of nowhere..

[John Magnum]

So, I tried to try the PC demo last night. I couldn't manage to make an account in-game. I couldn't manage to make an account out-of-game. I couldn't manage to log in with existing EA or GameSpy accounts. So all I got to see was the "how to play" video and "Press Start To Begin".
Not...the most inspiring demo. I'll try again today, because I do want to be amazed by it. But...yeah.

[Vivi Hill]

Haven't played the demo... yet... due to my computer problems. But I heard that it's very console-porty, with auto-aim enabled by default. Also, 'sucks' is censored in the chat.

[Vivi Hill]

So I have managed to get into the demo, but the settings are too high for my computer. No way to customize the settings besides good, gooder, and gooderer, which means there's no way for me to play it properly.

If anyone's still trying to get in I made a stupid account not linked to a real email if you want to try:

Login: bennyhilll (three Ls)
Password: hatethiscrap

Don't care that I'm publicly releasing the password. I dont even remember the email I used but it was something like crappygame@stupidhatehatehate.net. It didn't matter because there's no email verification.

[John Magnum]

Today, Steam downloaded an update or something to the Crysis 2 demo. There's no changelog. Tried to run it again. The only thing that was different was that now the start screen says Press Enter To Begin. I still can't log in or create an account.

[Vivi Hill]

Oh, well I'm glad they fixed that bug!

/sarcasm

[John Magnum]

OKAY. So, I finally managed to get past the login screen with benny's account. Crank the resolution, crank the game from Gamer to Hardcore to see what it runs like, join a game.
There's only a dozen or so servers. Every one of them is full. Even the ones that say they're 0/12 in the server list are full. They're 12/12 if I check them with Info. Sometimes, they'll be 0/12 in the server list, 10/12 in the Info panel, and full if I try to join. Finally I join a server. Except it seems to be stuck in the lobby. No way to hit Ready, no sign that anything is advancing. Just frozen in a lobby forever. Leave, hunt for a new non-full server, join it.

The game runs okay. 20-30 FPS, although I'm sure I get drops to the teens once in a while. It looks very nice. I haven't played Crysis 1 much so I can't say if it looks worse, but the geometry and animations and lighting are actually pretty darn impressive to me. The character design, particularly on "the dudes who aren't wearing the black suits", is kind of crappy, but whatever. I'll probably scale it back to Gamer if I play again and see if my framerate goes up--it FELT pretty bad for some bits.

The actual gameplay I didn't care too much about. I'm pretty much fine with Call of Duty to begin with, and this is very Call of Duty. One funny thing--the killstreaks I saw listed are functionally identical to CoD4's UAV, airstrike, and helicopter. Just the same thing, but sci-fi'd up. It amused me. But six-on-six TDM and Domination are fine by me. You get marginal differences with the armor modes. There was probably something more sophisticated in place for Crysis 1, whatever.

It's asinine of them to default the Nanovision binding to N, especially when your Z key goes totally unused by default. Yes, okay, N stands for Nanovision, but it's the frakking N key, you shouldn't have to reach for something so basic. They bind universal chat to Y, which I usually set it to anyway, but bind team chat to U. Really? Universal chat is amazingly sluggish. There's a second or so between when I hit Y and when the entry field shows up, and then ANOTHER delay between when I hit enter and when it shows up for people.

There's no feedback on whether or not my voice chat is going through. I can't tell if it's PTT or threshold based--it's quite clearly threshold-based in the lobby, but there's a keybinding for PTT. There's no indication of whether or not it's broadcasting my voice (or it never broadcasted my voice, ever, except when I was in the lobby and there WAS an indicator). I can't tell if people heard me, or if the match had alltalk versus teamtalk. This is also incredibly annoying in Bad Company 2. I presume that, if people ever did speak, it wouldn't tell me who was speaking--again, incredibly annoying in BC2. It's not SO bad in Bad Company 2 because there are only ever three possible people who could be saying something, but it's still bad design. There's a lot of space on the screen to put a speaker icon and the username of who's talking.

As far as I can tell, crouch is ALWAYS a toggle and using the sights ALWAYS requires me to hold down the button. I can't switch either one around. This is an annoying oversight. Requiring me to hold down M2 to aim down the sights is very bad. No prone, as far as I can tell.

I am awful at the game. My KDR would be 0.25 on a good day. If I play the demo more, I'm sure I'll learn the maps and when when it's appropriate to use armor versus speed/power versus stealth. It'll take me a while anywhere to pick up general FPS accuracy, which I don't have. Killcams show that much--I can't track targets very well, and they can track me excellently. I have no idea how much of that is down to players leaving auto-aim on and how much is just players being better than me in general.

Now that I've had a chance to play it, the demo doesn't overwhelm me, but neither does it fill me with unbridled disgust. Even without comparing it to Crysis 1, there are aspects that don't feel great.

[Vivi Hill]

There are a whole bunch of commandline flags you can set to change things like zoom/crouch toggle, as well as for turning down blur and fov etc. I think they were just being lazy since it's the demo.

I tried to find a source that has the flags but was unable to in the short benny attention span. I'm sure google will show some stuff if you look.

[John Magnum]

Yeah, I'd probably up the FOV and turn down the bloom if I could. I'm not sure I'll bother.

One thing I'd forgot until now but find remarkable all the same: The PC version is shipping with DirectX 9 support only, with DX10 and 11 support to be patched in post-release. Kind of incredible.
I really, really, really, really hope that they include more granular settings than just Gamer/Enthusiast/Hardcore in the full game. They can't have received ANY good feedback on that call. Even just the ability to adjust anti-aliasing, or to separately tweak CPU- and GPU-intensive features.

[Vivi Hill]

Yeah, I don't see how simplifying the menu system is helpful to anyone except complete newbs. Plus, the system Crysis 1 used--named presets--works fine for those types of people.

[John Magnum]

My guess is that they didn't want anyone to be able to disable the crazy lighting stuff they've got going on, because it's what they're the most proud of. So even the lowest graphical settings still need to include tons of bloom and HDR and specular and so forth.

[Hatred]

no want to play this after hearing your opinions ... no i wont use the server .... thanks anyways

[WHAMbulance]

I've played the demo on a friends rig.

Graphics were meh, too many ooh and aah effects that don't really make the game any better.

Gameplay is basically COD + Halo with some special features.

Personally I found the actual game to clunky and cumbersome to find fun/functional. I know it's just a demo but to me it just played like a semi-retarded COD clone...which it is.

I wouldn't waste money on a server.

[Nikki Wolf]

Elevator party, much.

@ WHAM

The demo has a fixed config. The actual game, you can tweak a lot of the graphics settings.