Saturday, July 03, 2004

CoD Multi-Player

Played a few hours of Call of Duty Multi-Player last night. Mostly "Behind Enemy Lines" with a little "Headquarters" towards the end. Mostly scored middle-of-the-pack, fragging as much as I got fragged. I like "BEL" play, it's sorta like "directed death match" as 75% of the players attempt to hunt you down. "HQ" is fine because of the ebb-n-flow where the two teams switch between offense/defense depending on who has control of the radio's current spawn point. "BEL" is a good newbie game because you don't worry too much about teamwork (players switch sides too often).

The big problem that I currently have is simply that I don't know the layout of the maps. Where to setup ambushes, where not to stand to avoid sniper fire, the likely places where players will hide, what spots are easily defended. Or simply, whether the map is conducive to using rifles over SMGs.

One thing I wish they'd change is to make the Russian PPSH (SMG that holds 70+ rounds) a heavier weapon (like the Bren or BAR). That would reduce the mobility and balance out that weapon a bit. Once you use it, you see how over-powered it is between the rapid rate of fire and the huge capacity magazine.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 1:58 PM (0 comments)

Monday, June 28, 2004

Video Compression

I'm in the process of changing my video capture setup. While attempting to clean up some old Anime tapes that I had captured off of the TV, I'm having trouble with mosquito noise (or at least, what I think is termed mosquito noise) around the pen/pencil lines (e.g. the outline of a figure). I think it might be from using PicVideo's MJPEG codec, as it sort of looks like something that JPEG images do.

So I've downloaded the HuffYUV codec, which is a lossless codec, figuring that I could put up with the additional storage space required as compared to the MJPEG codec. Hah! For this particular tape (a noisy VHS source), HuffYUV actually compresses better, without any loss, then MJPEG at Q20. Whether or not it works that well on regular TV, I haven't tested that yet.

For a 704x480 NTSC feed, the data rate was only around 8MB/s for HuffYUV using YUY2 (4.85GB for 10 minutes), while MJPEG Q20 YUY2 is around 9MB/s (5.36GB for 10 minutes). That's 29GB/hr for HuffYUV and 32GB/hr for MJPEG Q20. Uncompressed 704x480 NTSC 48kHz 16bit stereo is around 67GB/hr.

However, I'm giving up on 704x480 and switching back to 720x480 for all of my footage. The additional space savings of Huffyuv means that it'll end up taking the same amount of working space as 704x480 using MJPEG. Plus, using 720x480 for everything means that I can combine clips easier into a single chapter (even if I start using DV instead of analog).

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 3:01 PM (0 comments)

Multi-Player Idiots

Well, that didn't take long, because I ran into my first annoying player last night.

We were playing "Behind Enemy Lines", which is an unique form of multi-player where a few people are the prey and everyone else is hunting them. The prey attempt to stay alive and hidden for as long as possible (gaining points every few seconds) while attempting to kill off any hunters (also gaining additional points). The hunters attempt to find the prey and are guided by "?" marks on the compass (the "?" marks show where the prey was a few seconds ago and aren't very accurate). If a hunter kills one of the prey players, the two players witch places as the hunting player now re-spawns as prey.

This was towards the end of the night ('round midnight I think), so we were down to only having 1-2 prey and 3-4 hunting players. I had just gotten tagged by a hunter and was re-spawning as a new hunter, so when I suddenly noticed someone standing near me with a weapon aimed in my direction I whirled and let off a shot. Oops, that was a fellow hunter (our idiot, with an idiotic name).

No harm done, however, since friendly-fire was turned off on this server. So I just went on my way and started hunting the prey player. Apparently, however, this immature brat's feelings were hurt because he proceeds to shadow my every step for the next 10 minutes, attempting to TK me. Firing his weapon at me, attempting to melee me with it, or simply standing in my line of fire. All of which is rather pointless since friendly-fire is turned off and it's accomplishing exactly zero. So I just ignored him and worked my way around the edges of the open ground looking for movement in the far treeline where the prey was.

Eventually, I spotted they prey making a break between cover. Since he hadn't seen me on the far side (even with the idiot jumping up and down making a major racket), it was easy enough to side-step the idiot, draw a bead on my target and put it down. (Thus, escaping my shadow by re-spawning as prey in another location.)

Funny thing is that I have it all on tape, including what the idiot's name was prior to them changing it. I'll have to looksee whether the kid was a clan member somewhere.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 2:23 PM (0 comments)

Sunday, June 27, 2004

Starting Call of Duty Multi-Player

Well, I played my first bit of multi-player last night in Call of Duty. It went about as I expected and I'm considering changing my handle to "FragMagnet".

The hardest thing with Multi-Player is figuring out where to start if you don't know anyone else who plays. I don't know what the customary rules are for joining a server, or whether you're allowed to just jump in or if you can just spectator. Password-protected servers are obviously off-limits but most of the rest of the servers seem to be fine with non-clan players.

Side note: Regular players of online multi-player games are often members of a "clan" (FPS terminology) or "guild" (EverQuest terminology). It can be anything from a group of friends who get together and sponsor a server, to a hundred players who are organized into squads and battalions with a defined chain-of-command. You can usually tell clan members by the prefix that they'll put onto their handle (e.g. "[Foozers]Playername" means that Playername belongs to the Foozers clan).

A technical issue is that a lot of servers require custom mods (modifications to the game) to be installed. There's a good bit of variation in which mods you'll need, and not every server allows you to auto-download any needed mods. Which means you'll either need to get the mod files from another server or find a website where you can download them. The easiest way to get the mods is to find an empty (0 players playing) server and connect to one that looks like it might have the mod you need. Servers that require special mods (e.g. "Revolt", "CoDaM", "PaM") often say so in the server name, or you can look at the server information dialog.

You should also familiarize yourself with the maps in Call of Duty. One way to do this is to look at the Warlords of Earth listing, or login to an empty server that has the map already loaded. This will let you run around the map without getting shot at so you can familiarize yourself. Another way is to join a semi-populated server where a match is already in progress and use the "spectator" mode to watch the game and fly around to learn the lay of the land.

To learn about the different multi-player game types, check out CallOfDuty.org and look for the "Game Types" link. "Team Death Match (TDM)" and "Headquarters (HQ)" are probably good ones to start with as you get to re-spawn after about 40 seconds. "Search and Destroy (SD)", OTOH, you only get one life per round... so you might be stuck in spectator-mode for a while.

So how bad was my playtime last night? Well, the first map that I joined was 2 on 2 Headquarters and I was teamed up with a clan member who knew their stuff. It was a town setting, but I don't remember the name. We won a round, lost a round, and I pretty much managed to kill about as often as I died. However, once the map changed to Stalingrad and it was only 1 on 1, I got myself fragged repeatedly. My opponent killed me half a dozen times by simply sneaking up on me from behind. Sometimes, I suspect they were following me for a bit before putting me out of my misery. That got old quick and I logged after the end of the round.

Later, I joined a busier server (7 on 7, Headquarters) after spectating for a while. That was crazy, almost a 100% SMG-fest, where I never lasted for more then a minute before getting fragged. Small, close quarters maps tend to be that way however.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 2:11 PM (0 comments)