Continuing on with the Feature Friday barrage of awesome gaming videos, I have a ridiculous Starcraft 2 replay commentated by HuskyStarcraft. This game is between FruitSeller aka oGsCool and another Korean. oGsCool makes some good use of Queens, creep tumors and spine crawlers to best his opponent and makes for a very entertaining game.
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SkyChase (CS 1.6)
Feature Friday is another day of the week in which we pump out a post (or posts) with a common theme. Friday is a little different than Tuesday though, in that we may post upwards of 3-5 “Feature Friday” posts simply because of all the different games and all the sweet videos people dish out. Today’s first FF post is a kickass CS 1.6 frag video from PLDX. It’s a little short and the frags aren’t really anything special, but the visuals and audio are totally awesome. I don’t want to spoil anything, so just check it out yourself.
Team Loaded
To keep the week interesting here at SR we’ve decided to have some recurring, day-related posts. The first one is called Top Team Tuesday and it’s a chance for either myself or another writer to talk about a team they are interested in. It could be a pro team, a main or amateur team, or even just a casual scrimming team in a free league. I’m especially excited about this because it directly ties into the eSport database I want to build for the website. It also will help me, and maybe even you, get a feel for who’s out there and who you might consider cheering for in various leagues.
This week I’m going to keep the post a little shorter than anticipated because I didn’t really sleep last night, what with Reach coming out, and my day today was extremely busy. So anyways, the team I chose for this week is Team Loaded. The reason I am interested in this team is because I actively followed them in the ESEA TF2 Invite league last year (Season 4). It was an exciting season with a bunch of ups and downs, with a finals match between Loaded and Evil Geniuses. From what I remember I think EG was slated to win considering their record, but Loaded swept through both Blands and GPit to take the Grand Finals. Unfortunately Loaded appears to have dropped their professional TF2 team, but still maintain a CS 1.6, WoW, MW, HoN, and Quake team. If they ever get back into TF I would definitely keep an eye on them.
If you’re interested in learning more about this team, check out their website here.
Reach for a copy
Halo Reach is almost upon us! Tonight at midnight around the country, gamers will be gearing up for another installment of the Halo franchise, sure to rake in millions more for Bungie and Microsoft. Golly gee. Should be a damn good time. I personally am only moderately excited. Halo 1 was fun, Halo 2 was amazing, Halo 3 was close, ODST was kind of disappointing except for firefight, so I’m not sure what Reach is going to do. It seems like we’re on a sloping downhill, but I remain hopeful. My love for Master Chief and the Halo saga burns deep in my soul, so I will be purchasing a copy late tonight. Afterward I’ll post an update and give my first review of the game. Or maybe I won’t because I’ll be so entranced by it’s remarkable story and gameplay. Either way, eventually I’ll write something about it.
UPDATE 1: It’s going to be a late night… :D
UPDATE 2: It was about 5 am last night when my fellow comrades and I finally set down our controllers, tired and weary. Our eyes heavy and spirits worn, we cheered proudly having just beat the campaign in one sitting. How would I describe it? Totally bitchin’. It was epic start to finish and had some amazing moments as we watched humanity fight for its right to survive the convenant invasion. Mac cannons blasted ships, innocents died, the battles were fierce, but we the spartans pushed forward with one purpose: to save humanity or die trying.
If you haven’t played the campaign yet, get on your fat ass and load it up because you’re missing a great experience. One recommendation though, do it with some good friends. I played with a couple of my best friends last night and we laughed, yelled, cheered and gasped together all the way through. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
Features, Features, Features
Spawn Room is going to be an ever growing, changing website, but there are a few features we want to implement here regardless of it’s grand direction. The first is to provide accurate, reliable guides that help new players and even experienced players, find all the information they need. I’ve often found it annoying that large eSport websites don’t provide the simplest data most players are looking for. It is my goal to create some sort of system we can use here to ensure new teams, players and games are constantly created and updated. Obviously this is a task too large for one or even the few people running this website, so it’s going to require, instead, community input. I want to make something like a submission form people can use to submit a team, their website, games played, etc. This way we’d only have to moderate the submissions and otherwise just let it grow with the community. This way it would also allow Invite, Main, Amateur, and Free teams to get noticed. Definitely a feature worth implementing (assuming it’s done correctly), and one I think would be great for advertising. Imagine if every time you loaded the main page here a widget in the sidebar randomly displayed a team, player, or server you could look into.
SR tournament and team. Eventually we hope to establish a community here with interested players in a variety of games. Assuming the site population is large enough, I’d love to host our own tournaments. I think we’ve got some interesting ideas that could be a lot of fun. In terms of a team, I’m not entirely sure how that route would go. Either we’d just want a casual group of players that represent the site by displaying the [SR] tag in their name, or have a smaller team for certain games and compete in the big boy tourneys. Definitely something to consider, alongside an SR ventrilo server.
The final major feature we’d like to focus on is scheduling. This is one of the biggest headaches I have with the eSport community. It doesn’t seem like there is one great resource for finding IPs and URLs to live matches. You have to bounce around here and there to find ones for StarCraft, ones for Counter-Strike, and ones for Team Fortress. Spawn Room wants to devise a clever way to bring them all here, in one spot, sortable and ratable, so your life can be easy. Enjoy the games and don’t waste time sifting through posts only to find out you missed the stream by a half-hour.
If you’re interested in helping us achieve these goals and create a one-of-a-kind, totally ballin’ eSport website, then post in the comments and I’ll see what I can do. Otherwise, thanks for reading and check back periodically.
All Hail the Glorious Spawn Room!
I spent the whole summer fine tuning the site, working on ideas and patiently waiting for my FAFSA funds to roll out so I could blow some of it on hosting. Finally, as of yesterday, I purchased some and launched the site. Now today I present to you the Spawn Room, a gaming and eSport news blog with a mission to provide the perfect home for gamers. Imagine, if you will, a world where you can find the top gaming and eSport news, mashed together with patch notes, and witty opinionated articles (that don’t suck balls). Now take that picture and multiple it by 1000 because we’re also going to provide information for live streams, IP’s for matches to spec, lists of the best teams, guides on how to get into eSports, and everything in between.
Why did we make this our mission? Because as a fellow eSport enthusiast I’ve always found the lack of information about the industry frustrating. When I first stepped into this world I had no idea where to start. Who were the best teams? Who were the best players? What games are most popular? What games should I play competitively? Unfortunately for me, the answers were spread out all over the Internet and required tedious research to solve. But not anymore, not for you. Spawn Room is going to provide a comprehensive resource of gaming knowledge for gamers all over the world. We’re not going to parrot news, we’re not going to lick our sponsors nut-sacks, we’re going to tell it like it is, and give you exactly what you need: just the best gaming news.
So enjoy the Spawn Room, because everyone dies once in awhile, and you need something to keep you busy while you wait for respawn.
Runes of Magic – Live Server Exploration – Undeveloped Zones / Beneath Varanas
This video is a brief exploration of the world behind Runes of Magic. I only played for a short while so it only covers an area by the “new character zone” and Varanas. This was all done live and as far as I know still possible on live servers to date. Note however, this footage was frapsed Spring of 2009.
Both areas I reached, before entering undeveloped locations, was done so by “climbing” the mountains. Very similar to how you can reach undeveloped areas in WoW. Like most of my videos, this is done as an “artistic” representation of the game and not a “how to.” Music Credits: “Peace Orchestra – Who Am I” and “PPK – Resurrection”.
Level 60 Mage, Double Trinket – Joink PvP Video (Vanilla WoW)
Joink’s quote about his movie from WarcraftMovies.com: “Mage gear offers huge increases in damage. Exactly what a mage wants right? That is what the video is all about. The movie gives a quick glimpse into the world of my mage and endgame itemization.”
This video is an old vanilla PvP video that shows off the power mages used to have. It also employs the double trinket that basically allowed mages to one shot any class every few minutes (or at least hit them super hard). It’s a fun video to watch and for pre-BC players it may bring them back to the good ol’ days. Hope you enjoy.
The Emerald Dream – World of Warcarft (Exploration BC Era)
This video stars “Spoons” as he explores the hidden world of the Emerald Dream (or Emerald Nightmare).
I created this video because I love exploiting and exploration in WoW and other MMOs. This desire was heavily influenced by Nogg-aholic the Movie and if you haven’t seen it, it is imperative that you get a copy ASAP! lol (seriously though)
I also recommend you watch it with the “high quality” setting because the normal quality looks much worse. Song is: Xploding Plastix – Donca Matic.
Team Fortress 2 Class Strategy – Soldier
Soldiers are a simple and moderately effective class that best fits new players and those offering defensive or offensive backup. I recommend new players using the soldier because it will give them a chance to explore the maps while offering the most help to the rest of the team.
The soldier’s main weapon is a 4 round rocket launcher that can serve two effective measures. First is to simply add to the barrage of fire from other classes in either an offensive or defensive maneuver or to rocket jump. Rocket jumping is the act of jumping and firing a rocket at your feet. This propels your character to normally unattainable heights and can be used to gain the advantage over the other team. The secondary weapon is a standard shotgun that many other classes possess. It deals moderate damage and can be useful when targets get too close. The shovel serves as the soldier’s melee weapon and is comparable to most other melee weapons.
Soldier health and speed also come into play when determining class selection. The soldier’s health is much higher than most but they sacrifice a lot of speed making them a deadly choice for snipers and spies. I would recommend sticking close to the pack to help deal out the DPS in offensive strikes. I would also like to note that while soldiers can hit fairly hard the low round capacity can severely hinder their performance on the field. Soldiers should also note that while they can take a beating, turrets are still deadly and can’t be faced head on (but you’re in luck because soldiers usually have enough time to flee the LOS).
So where do Soldiers belong in team strategies? Pretty much anywhere! Soldiers can be very helpful both defending and attacking and have some crowd controlling abilities when using the splash damage from rockets. They also can be useful for pinning down enemy sniper positions, aiding in the destruction of turrets and other engineer buildings and pushing back uber charges.
I recommend having a soldier per 5-7 players.
Tip 1: While soldiers seem like an obvious class to uber, doing so is rather ineffective. Medics should avoid ubering soldiers unless absolutely necessary due to the fact soldiers can only carry 4 rounds at a time.