The Brain Fart

Ok, I admit it, I’ve been slacking on updating this blog. But, I have an excuse. The last few weeks of playing Battleground Europe have been so intense that I’ve been spending all of my spare time there. The map moved east fast early on, we got as far as Eindhoven before the lack of brigades halted us. But, now the ArFr players seem to have stopped logging in for some reason and the map is now experiencing a period of westward movement in the south and center. The BEF in the northern part of the map has not moved in 2 weeks. Well, we have. We’ve been pushed back to Antwerp at one point, but pushed back to Eindhoven. Effectively, we did not move anywhere.
The Axis players are literally salivating at the prospect of finally, after 3 campaigns, getting the Panzerkampfwagon VI Ausf. E Tiger I tank into a campaign. When the Tiger was first introduced with patch 1.20 (campaign 24) the Allies won the map so fast the Axis could not get the Tiger RDP’d. We took their factories 2 days (or was it 1?) before the RDP cycle introducing the Tiger was complete. They did get it in the intermission between campaigns 24 and 25, though. In campaign 25 the Axis had clearly learned the lesson of researching their tanks earliest and fastest. They finally figured out they could RDP the Pz IVG at the same time as the StuG IIIG. They won the campaign so fast, though, they were not able to get the Tiger RDP’d again. So, here we are in Campaign 26. With the slow-down of the campaign due to patch 1.21 and the addition of Brigades on the map, the Tiger will finally get into a campaign. The Axis players are beside themselves with glee. It’s sickening, really, but understandable. They’ve been waiting for this tank since forever. If the Tiger gives them the morale boost they need to win this campaign, more power to them.

In other news, I got accepted into the SAS brigade as 6th OiC and got my in-game HC tools and rank. I logged in the other night to play and was completely overwhelmed by all the information and everything happening on the hc and command channels. Whew, this is going to take some getting used to. I think I may start asking for a pay check…

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I was going through my Inetpub folder on my home computer looking for stuff to put into a portfolio, when I ran across some old images from my Starfleet Command days. Ah, the memories. I loved that game. Played it for years. I was a major player, running servers and hosting campaigns, and leading the various races in said campaigns. Starfleet command is a video game based on the Starfleet Battles series (which itself is based — loosely — on the Star Trek universe depicted in the original series).
The company that made the game, Taldren, Inc. is dead, as far as I know. But, their web site is still up. Go check out this classic game. It really was a fun game to play. A lot of BattleGround Europe players would enjoy it, I think. Especially the navy guys.
I miss that game…miss the people I met and gamed with on a regular basis. I had my first ever internet multiplayer experience in this game. Prior to that, I was intimidated at the thought of dealing with the 733+ dudez. But, the fleet I joined, XenoCorp, got me over that. Now I play an MMO that is exclusively PvP.
Back on track, one of the images I ran across was from one campaign where I was leading the Interstellar Concordium, which was allied with the Federation, against the Mirak (Kzinti in SFB), Romulans, Kilingons, and Gorn. If I recall, the Lyrans and Hydrans were allied to the ISC/Federation. The Mirak/Kzinti players had a fleet (guilds for SFC) that put out a parody newspaper for campaigns. This one I decided to try my own hand at the parody. Here was the result:

Click here to see image at full size

A blatent rip-off of CNN’s website, but well done in my humble opinion.
I have other images from my SFC exploits, as well as the complete website for my planned coup de’ gras The Arena. An SFC III server that was to be PvP only with small maps and limited ship spawns. Too bad SFC III was abandoned shortly after release, that server would have rocked with SQL backend support and some good bug fixes. I’m going to post it all up on this site again, just to have it here to show off.

Good times in online gaming. I have had others, too. SWG was great fun up until the first Combat Upgrade, it just went down hill from there and the NGE killed it. Now, my good times are had in Battleground Europe, were I feel the same comraderie I felt in SFC. I have fun in the campaigns, and look forward to getting into the HC and playing with the strategic options. I don’t think it will ever compare to my first, though. SFC forever!

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