I'm currently enjoying Strike Force but I think INF will be better due to the more realistic weapon ballistics. Tac Opes i tried but didn't like.

Counter Strike i havent played but it's undoubtly the king of realism mods right now.

What mods are your favourites among these and what do you feel about realism mods in general?

Marcus

Tried SWAT 3 yet? Also you really ought to try counter-strike, obviously, since it's wildly popular for good reason.

The magic of CS is that it ever-so-slowly forces you to play along the team axis, dramatically more so than any other teamplay game I've ever tried. You'll wince when 3 of your teammates die. And it does this even with random people all over the internet playing. The spontaneous team efforts CS produces on public servers (not clan servers) is nothing short of miraculous.

Most so-called "teamplay" games (CTF, TF, etc) degenerate into a bunch of mini-Rambos running around the level. You simply can't win at CS that way-- you need the money from team wins to buy good weapons, and you need the support of your teammates to not die and stay dead the entire round.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

But ive heard the cheating is dramatic on CS.

Have you checked out Infiltration?

Marcus

I'm still having connection problems in CS (thanks Valve!), but at the suggestion of someone around here I've been playing with the RealBots. They don't always shine, but there are certain maps they aren't bad at. Dust, Italy, and Backalley seem to be the best ones. They will even set the bomb sometimes on Dust. But best of all, they don't cheat.

I like Infiltration a lot, but it is a different game due to respawning and the loadout choices. Use the weapons in Domination, it rocks!

I think the respawning can be toggled though. I set it to 1.

A bit irritating witht the start where you accidentally kill someone :).

About bots. SF has among the best bots i have seen, inf has some great bots too. They are not perfect on assault maps though but in team dm they shine.

They are working on Beirut maps for INF 2.85 plus many more large outdoor maps.

Marcus

"But ive heard the cheating is dramatic on CS. "

Nah, it's really not that bad. I play at least an hour every day. The speed cheat (system hack where your PC clock runs at 5x time) sucked bad, but has been eradicated via a server patch. As for the aimbots (this is done via a bitmap screen capture greenscreen model approach that would work with *any* game that doesn't lock down player models).. every now and then I will run into players whom I wonder about, but the vast majority of the time, even the good players are all too human. Remember you can switch to the FOV of any player after you die. This makes spying on the so-called "cheaters" pretty easy, and is why I'm confident that it isn't really a factor.

There are a number of people who have EXTREMELY good aim, and I think once the "people can cheat" cat is out of the bag, it fucks with people's minds. But in my expert opinion (I think I'm qualified, since I evidently play more CS than anyone else here), it's very uncommon.

Besides, it probably isn't cheating-- there really are some outstanding CS players. The game has been mature online for over a year now, so there has been ample time for a very skilled gaming community to grow up around the game. But even with perfect, godlike aim, you can't hit what you fire at all the time (running, walking affects your aim).. just one of the great teamplay equalizers in CS.

I don't know how you guys can play with bots when there is such a thriving, huge online community for CS. I could understand if it was one of the many mods that nobody really plays..

As for connection problems-- you blame Valve? I've never had any problems in the last year.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"As for connection problems-- you blame Valve? I've never had any problems in the last year."

Yep. Everything worked fine for a long time (I started playing CS around Beta 3, IIRC). When they released that huge update patch for Half-life several months ago (1.1.0.1? 1.1.0.4? Their numbering system is odd.), that broke its connectivity.

It is not just me, either, there are lots of people affected by this same bug. I've tried everything, and the various pleas on the forums have not received an official response. People have reported that email responses have been along the lines of "Not our problem, must be your hardware." I might be willing to believe that if not for the facts that 1) my machine is high-end, and 2) other games (like UT) still work. I know it is not my connection since I can update the server list, and I know it is not an engine problem since I can play against the bots. Very odd.

Have you tried deleting your half-life folder and re-installing?

Dunno, if there was some sort of widespread problem I don't think we'd see upwards of 50,000 players doing TFC and CS at peak times.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

Cheating is really bad in both CS and TFC. You can find places where admins take care of it however sometimes its the admins who do it. *shrug*. Yesterday I was an online gaming junkie and played about 10 hours (maybe more) of TFC & CS and in that time I ran into atlest 30 people using a cheat over the two games on different servers. (mostly speed cheats) Hopefully the next patch will take care of it.

BTW side question, is strafe jumping or "bunny hopping" considered a cheat? I know it isn't a hack persay but it seems unfair and against the game concept. Especially in TFC. When a scout did it last night on an open fire nap I saw a scout just float by to sentry guns pointed at a flag, grab the flag and take almost no damage. He was also faster than any weapon. Its like using the speed cheat but not really. Any calls on that?

I've uninstalled and reinstalled a couple of times. I deleted the folder. I reformatted my HD at one point, and still had the problem after that. I've even moved my NICs to different slots. Nothing I've tried fixes it, and Valve is either unwilling or unable to fix it.

Connection problems are widespread. There are lots & lots of people in the CS help forum with connection problems. Here is another unanswered thread with my same problem: http://forums.counter-strike.net/showthread.php?s=9ab444d01b6ada63f2f22a1eb0903b74&threadid=90629

Reading through the forum posts, the speed hack fixes seem to have triggered this problem for more people. To me, all of this points to problems in the networking code. Hopefully the next patch will fix it, but until then many people cannot play.