Gaming News

Another good turnout for our Friday Night gaming session. First up was CS:GO with an hour on Casual, and then a few rounds of Arms Race. Wreckfest was next, where the team games were great fun. Sadly no win for AngryDaz this time though!

Bean wins at CS:GO and AngryDaz wins at Wreckfest - what's going on?! The world has gone mad.

Is it possible to kill an entire five-man team with one shot in CS:GO? You'd have thought not, but here's proof:

• Victim's point of view: Reddit
• Shooter's point of view: Youtube

What's even more amazing is that the shooter was blinded by a flashbang a split second before he fired - incredible!

One from last week - the developers of Wreckfest had promised to fix the really slow loading times, and they certainly have. The previous version took around 1 minute 20 seconds to load the game to the initial menu, whereas the new version takes 15-20 seconds, a huge and welcome reduction.

The first ever virtual BobLAN event took place this weekend, and I think everyone will agree it was a complete success. Of course, one of the major aspects of the real BobLANs is just being there in person to catch up with everyone and enjoy the food and drink that's on offer. That said, Discord came to the rescue and we had 19 people on the video chat at one point - not only an amazing turnout but remarkable that the technology held up, even whilst gaming.

On the gaming front, some games worked better than others. Here's a rundown of what we played and how it went:

• CS:GO - Pup did a great job of setting up the servers on his AWS account, and this was the go-to game throughout the weekend. Even the scripted game mode changing process worked smoothly, as did the new map selection we tried
• Wreckfest - the other favourite throughout the weekend performed flawlessly. No dedicated server, but we were able to spin it up on a client PC and with the appropriate firewall ports mapped it worked a treat
• GRID Autosport - we only had one go on this, but it was quite good fun
• Rocket League - the tournament was fun, but a little one-sided. Well done Foxy and DBoy!!
• Battlefield 1 - didn't feature much but we enjoyed playing it. The maps are just too big for the numbers we usually have available
• Battlefield V - for some reason, we really didn't enjoy this and it's unlikely we'll play it again. Shame, seeing as it wasn't cheap
• Snow Runner - watching Foxy drive the truck round was actually quite addictive!

So there you have it - BobWAN in a nutshell. To view the full schedule of what we played, who attended and links to the photos head over to the BobWAN 2020.1 page. Hopefully the next one will be a physical event, but we now know that we can do it remotely if required.

The first gathering of 2020, albeit a virtual one, starts later today. Meet up in Discord to vote on games, join the voice chats etc. Also keep an eye on the BobWAN 2020.1 page for the schedule and links to join servers where possible.

Usually on a DFC anniversary, we're looking forward to meeting up for a BobLAN. Sadly that won't be the case this year, however we'll do our best to have a great weekend playing remotely. Pup is doing a great job setting up the servers in AWS, and we've started trying out some online versions of board games such as Ticket to Ride. Server test sessions, aka CS:GO sessions, usually take place every Friday from around 9pm - check out our Friday Gaming Night page for useful links and information.

The first BobLAN of 2020 should be starting three weeks today, however this will now be a wholly online event. We've been testing out game server options for CS:GO and QuakeWorld, and for the most part those tests have been successful. Testing has been every Friday evening from around 9pm, and will continue throughout the lockdown.

Game and server details will be posted in the schedule on the BobLAN page over the weekend, and also on the Friday Gaming page as a simple list of servers.

As well as the standard FPS games, we'll also be trying out the online versions of popular board games - things like Ticket to Ride, Carcasonne etc - should be fun!

It is now almost certain that the first BobLAN of 2020 will actually be a BobWAN due to the Covid 19 outbreak and subsequent movement restrictions. Whist social distancing might sound like a geek's paradise, it means that we will not be able to gather for the weekend like we usually do.

The plan so far is to still use the time we've all booked off work, but to play remotely instead. Many of the games we play support cloud-based server hosting or renting, so we should be fine there. We will be using Discord for comms, both over the weekend and in the build-up. An invite to the Discord server was posted in the BobLAN Geeks Facebook group.

More details will follow, so check back here periodically or join the Discord group.

Friday saw the release of the first non-beta version of Black Mesa, complete right to the finale. There have been many fixes and improvements over the recent Xen update, including an overhaul of the opening menu screens and the addition of a quicksave option.

As with previous updates, this one breaks compatibility with previous saved games. If you were part-way through the game, you can start at any chapter you like (albeit with a default set of weapons, ammo and health, and not with what you had before).

Overall feedback is very positive, particularly on the earlier levels. However, the difficulty of Gonarch's Lair is ridiculous, and has caused many to post on the forums that it's taken the fun out of it. For my part, I spent about half an hour on that level at the weekend and couldn't get anywhere with it, so looks likely that I will have to skip to the next chapter which is a shame.

In a day of shock defeats, following Liverpool's loss at Watford, it was a resurgent Na'Vi that knocked Astralis out in the semi-finals to set up a final against G2 Esports. Astralis were never really in it, in contrast to G2's tight match against Fnatic.

The best-of-five final starts today at 4pm, which you can watch via the ESL_CSGO Twitch channel, or on the ESL Event app.

This year's IEM Pro Tour event in Katowice started on Monday with the opening round. The semi-finals are on Saturday 29th February and the final is on Sunday 1st March.

Follow the action on the ESL Twitch channel - games start at 11:30, 14:30 and 18:00 in the first round, 14:00 and 17:55 in the semi-finals and 16:00 on Sunday for the grand final.

The dates for the first BobLAN of 2020 have been confirmed as Thursday 30th April until Sunday 3rd May. Get those diaries booked!

Note that due to the imminent closure of the DFC Forums, there will be no forums topic for this LAN. Game and hardware discussions should be done via the Facebook group. As usual, you will be able to follow the LAN via our dedicated BobLAN 2020.1 page.

Voting is currently underway to decide the dates for the first BobLAN of the decade. The weekends at the start of May and June are the current bookies' favourites :)

A full announcement together with all the usual content will follow once voting is complete.

After what seems like years of waiting, the Xen update for Black Mesa was released this morning. It is a 10GB download, so they have likely changed other things too. More info to follow after some game time...

Steam's annual Winter Sale is now underway with some great deals for the older games. Games like Rainbow Six Siege, Sniper Ghost Warrior bundle and The Witcher 3 can all be had for under a tenner. Wreckfest is also down by 60% for those who may want it for a second account.

Head over to the Steam Store to bag yourself a Christmas bargain!

A new feature of CS:GO has been revealed today - Operation Shattered Web will allow you to earn the ability to use any of the CT or T player models on any map, rather than being forced to use the default ones on each map. You can also earn new weapon skins, knives, graffiti and other pointless stuff. Needless to say, you have to pay for it. You can achieve the rewards without paying, but won't be able to actually use them until you have.

The announcement is here on Steam and full details with some pretty graphics are on the Shattered Web page.

The roundup this time comes courtesy of Pup's post to the BobLAN Geeks group:

Awesome BobLAN as always.

Great to see lots of smiley faces. Really enjoyed the gaming:

• Wrestfest (apart from my unlocking strop)
• RocketLeague (Unstopable partnership with DBoy as ever)
• Battlefield 1 (that bloody last room!!)
• Counterstrike (fine... but losing its appeal)
• Jedi Whatsit (you need a bit of single player to chill out to)
• Ticket to ride (Wij getting upset that someone else would possibly dare to take his route)
• Table football (great blast from the past)
• THE PLANK (oh my god!!)
• and I'm sure a couple more.

Pleased that day of defeat didn't show its face. Felt odd not to play any Grid!

Food. Great breakfast. Loving the haggis. Shame about the pizzas. Chinese excellent.

Fastest clean up for a while - even if it did sometimes seem like a never ending vacuuming task for T-Dog

The second BobLAN of the year is in full swing. By far the most dominant game so far has been Wreckfest, I think largely due to its accessibility for everyone. Not much in the way of team games so far - a bit of CS:GO and that's about it. More to follow in the post-LAN roundup.

No BobLAN preview would be complete without looking back at the poetic masterclass that is 'Twas the Night Before Easter. It may not be Easter, but it's still a great read at any time of year :)

Numbers are looking good, again the Thursday "setup" session looks like it's going to be well attended. The attendees list is at the bottom of the BobLAN page.