Gaming News

Another great weekend draws to a close, and what a fun time it was!

As with previous writeups, this will be a collection of thoughts and quotes from the weekend...

• Pup: Glad the CS2 server and stats behaved itself. Nice to get the golden knife ribbon. AngryDaz - let's discuss updates/issues/features (i.e. I need to read our other thread don't I ??). Would be good to incorporate these in the next week or so, so I don't forget :) I also want to get the auto-update of the server IP address working.
• Pup: BF2042 - I enjoy this game. Nice mix of running, shooting, flying, driving, killing and dying.
• Pup: Rocket League was quite a lot of fun. The random teams worked really well. And I'm pleased that everyone is equally shit at it.
• Pup: Outside time - spent a good amount of time outside chatting to people, and I do enjoy it. Think I've slightly burnt my face.
• Wij: I also have a slightly burnt face from the 20 mins I spent outside talking mainly to Daz. Outside is dangerous.
• Mesmer: Every BobLAN brings something new. In all my years, I have never seen anything quite like the kebab down the stairs!
• AngryDaz: Absolutely brilliant fun as ever - catching up with people and playing some fun games. Still loving BF2042 and the squad mentality. CS2 seems to be back where we want it and getting some decent maps again. REPO also made me laugh much more than it has any right to.
• Bynar: "BobLAN 2025.1 : Flying kebabs and unexpected water cooling" Great weekend again, the classics continue to entertain (not just referring to the games :) ). Everyone on top form as usual, enjoyed catching up with everyone more than anything else.
• Fox: If ever we needed a reminder of how we'd be without Bob we just need to remember that 30 minutes when he wasn't!! #kebabGate Haven't had such a good laugh in ages - already looking forward to the next one!
• Max: What a fantastic few days. Massive thanks to Lynda and Bob for everything. Had a great time catching up with everyone. Never cried so much with laughter over that REPO game, and Themys flying kebab
• Trebz: Another absolute blinder of a weekend, thankyou Bob and Lynda for putting up with us!! Quiz wasn't bad, but felt like it was missing something to make it truly wonderful. Nice to get a pass to eat food downstairs but I somehow feel that will never happen again due to some incompetence. Looking forward to November!
• Voltsa: Thanks Lynx as always for another great BobLAN, with less mincing than normal too (other than Trebz helping me move my OS to a new SSD, thanks alot "fat Norris") The finals was great, loved the CS2 custom maps (finally codewise is back) and REPO looks like it deserves to be upgraded on the Daz BobLAN games list to a likely/possibly

It goes without saying that everyone expressed their thanks to our hosts Bob and Lynda - what you do is beyond incredible and is highly appreciated!

One final point - congratulations to Parzival who won the PupQuiz! This was the first win by a TNG attendee, albeit by a single point!!

Just past the midway point, and we have played a good range of games, had plenty of banter and consumed much food and drink! Keep up to date on our BobLAN page for the full schedule.

The first BobLAN of the year starts today. Follow the schedule on our BobLAN page, coupled with regular updates on Bluesky.

Delta Force Season 4, codename Eclipse Vigil, starts today. Changes include a new operator, night mode, new weapons and new difficulty modes for Zero Dam.

Other changes include a new Loot Protection System whereby players without kills/assists must wait 120 seconds to open a crate, or request an unlock. The soundscape has also been improved to help identify where enemy footsteps are coming from.

Read more at Overgear, who have a comprehensive article on the update.

IEM Melbourne 2025 started today - follow the results on hltv.org or watch live on Twitch

All Call of Duty Warzone servers will be shut down from 5pm on Wednesday 2nd April for 24 hours to allow for the release of the new Verdansk map. This also coincides with the start of Black Ops 6 Season 3.

It looks like DMZ is unaffected, as I can see that this is running normally as of 7am on Thursday 3rd April.

The good news about the timing means that there shouldn't be any major updates over the BobLAN weekend!

With just 6 weeks to go until the first BobLAN of 2025, it's time to start building the games list, planning upgrades etc. More to follow as we approach the event!

Scammers are using CS2 as an attack vector to get unwitting epsorts fans to part with their Steam account details and crypto currency. Whilst most epsorts viewers wouldn't fall for it, some clearly have. Read more on Bleeping Computer.

Valve have issued surprise updates to Day of Defeat and HalfLife 2 Deathmatch. Some of the updates are to keep them in line with the HalfLife 2 20th Anniversary Update, but also for things like 64-bit support, borderless window option, fix to "jankiness" etc. View the full details on Steam for Day of Defeat and HL2 Deathmatch.

This year's Intel Extreme Masters in Poland is currently under way. The draw and results can be found on hltv.org, or watch live on Twitch.

Some more news courtesy of Phixate - reports indicate that DMZ 2.0 will be linked to Ground War rather than Warzone. This could be a good thing, as there were many complaints about DMZ mechanics being present within Warzone. Ground War does seem a better fit - time will tell.

There have been rumours around DMZ 2.0 for a while now, but a Phixate video yesterday hints that the next iteration of Call of Duty from Infinity Ward will include the updated version. If they stick to their usual release calendar, this would likely be Autumn 2026.

Until we hear something concrete from Activision themselves, nobody can know for sure - we can just hope!

Nvidia have this week announced the arrival of their new 5000 series graphics cards, codename Blackwell. The unveiling at CES 2025 covered the range of models, their release dates and USD pricing. The 5080 and 5090 will release first (January 21st), followed by the 5070 and 5070Ti some time in February. The main features include DDR7 memory, DLSS 4 and Reflex 2 and a whole load more cores.

Pricing for most models is on par with or slightly below the 4070 equivalent pricing, so if you are in the market for a new card and you manage to find one available, this would be a good option. Is it a worthwhile upgrade if you already have a 4000 or even 3000 series card? That will depend on the types of games you play and the resolution of your monitor.

Read more on Tech Radar

A happy new year to all DFC members and BobLANers!

Following on from the confirmation of the BobLAN 2025.1 dates, we now know that the Autumn LAN will take place from Thursday 13th to Sunday 16th November 2025, so effectively the same weekend as the one just gone.

The confirmed dates for the next BobLAN are Thursday 1st - Sunday 4th May 2025. The dedicated BobLAN page will be created with around a month to go.

DFC have made the move to Bluesky after being forced to stop using our Twitter account shortly after Musk took over.

You can find us at @desertfoxclan.bsky.social

The plan is to reintroduce the integration points back into this website when time allows.

As another BobLAN drew to a close, the attendees shared their thoughts on Discord. Here is a compilation of those...

• BF 2042 - loved, but think we need to put a little extra effort into map lists. And have a mix of humans only, human and bot, and human vs online players - all have their place. Favourite map was with Q as a gunner and repairer whilst I rampaged with a tank (the helicopter we moved to was slightly less successful) [Pup]


• Another great LAN, fantastic host, brill quiz and some terrible ideas like watching a pensioner question his life choices at 5.30am - although that's possibly not the first time we've done that [Bynar]


• CS 2 - really enjoyed. I do think it is better with stats. Thanks to both Daz and Dan for their support in getting this working. Still a bit of work to do, but getting there. First stop will be a good set of instructions for getting it running locally with hyper V, and then federating dev [Pup]


• Absolutely brilliant couple of days - really enjoyed it. Thanks to everyone for the excellent banter and great fun games. Thankyou so much Lynx for your continued excellence at hosting and thanks to Lynda for all her work behind the scenes [AngryDaz]


• Absolutely brilliant weekend - loved every minute - even the abuse I got whilst trying to do my Wordle! Unbelievable hosting as usual Lynx and Lynda - can't wait until the next one! [Mesmer]


• Bob doing Bob things. Just the nicest host in the world - the amount of effort to make the weekend a success is pretty mind blowing [Pup]


• Thanks Lynx and Lynda for being wonderful hosts as always, had a fabulous time! Shout out to Pup for the quiz as always, really appreciate you doing that. Thanks also to pup for sorting out CS, I'd thank Daz but I think he just spent the weekend introducing problems to be fixed by someone else. Boxing was a stupid idea. Food, beer and banter was as gorgeous as ever, can't wait til the next one! [Trebz]


• PupQuiz seemed to go down well. Sharing the responsibility for creating the content really helps me, thanks to all those that contributed. Favourite stat is Wij getting 20% without being able to see the questions or the answers, yet Themy only got 15% and was in the room :D. And how excited was Dan at finally winning?! [Pup]


• Massive thankyou to Lynx and Lynda! Feeling a bit weird having been last out of bed this morning and having managed a solid 8 hours sleep, very un-BobLANesque [Fox]


• Thank you Lynx and Lynda :D truly awesome weekend [Reubs]


• Can't add anything that hasn't been said so I'll just add my thanks Lynx and Lynda for a great couple of days. I am insanely tired, I'm assuming this is a normal side effect? [Elmo] (spoiler: yes, it is!)


• Not much to add what already has been said but. Thanks to Bob and Lynda as always for opening their home to us. And everyone who makes it a fantastic weekend [Max]

Day two is usually when the team gaming starts in earnest, and this was no exception. We had some excellent Battlefield 2042 with 12 players on the same team against some online randoms. In the evening we had some superb and well-balanced rounds of Counter-Strike - huge credit to Pup, Trebz and AngryDaz for getting the server and stats working and sorting out the map rotation!! Add to that some Call of Duty Zombies, GRID Autosport and Pup's quiz and it was a brilliant day.

Setup day included some CS2, BF2042, Call of Duty and Wreckfest, plus a coding session to get stats working on the CD2 server. All rounded off with Bob's curry and chilli - great start to the weekend!