Company of Heroes is amazing - Relic not so much

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Article mirror Company of Heroes is amazing - Relic not so much

When I finally think they have things running pretty well in company of heroes, they go and up the anti of stupidity. I do not play the game for stats, stats are for statwhores and completely useless to me. I do not take any value in them at all. Achievements are another story, if they aren't setup as some of the TF2 medic achievements, which promote statwhoring. A game with achievements which promote teamplay and can be completed by just playing the game are nice. Also linking weapons or items to them is a popular game eddition that a lot of game developers seem to embrace, yet it is a big failure and does not promote anything they are trying to promote (teamplay/fun). To bad even Valve is doing this. Anyway, enough about achievements...

Imaging the annoyance I get from seeing Relic's stupidity reach another high.

I was playing a match versus the AI, as I like to play until the end and destroy the entire enemy base with LOAD upon LOADS of craters everywhere. I always play airborne or the defensive doctrine so the craters do not belong to me, well at least not all of them ^_^ This type of map destruction is simply not possible online versus players as they usually quit the game and in this case I just don't see any point in finishing of the now replacement AI.

Now here's the thing, I (and my friends) like to take our time to completely level the level, hehe. This takes time and normally people like to play quick rounds, I guess. The AI never complains or quits so this is the main reason I only play against the AI (always outnumbering our teams by 1 or 2)

Now onto the very nice message we received from Relic. It seems the match was arbitrary, in other words the outcome to calculate the stats was not clear, now normally such a message would not annoy me, but what DID ANNOY THE HELL out of me was the fact that the match now had ended because of this stats related problem.

Well thank you Relic for completely screwing up and ruining our fun of coming back from the brink of destruction. This message popped up when we were about to setup our first offensive move in a long time due to resource problems and the enemy pounding on our frontlines pushing us back into our base. The map near our base and in our base was near black from artillery and other kind of explosions. You could call it an EPIC BATTLE, just as we like it. Coming back from the brink of destruction overcoming the odds.

We were given the choice to view the stats and points earned or have a look at the battlefield. I chose the second, because continuing our awesome battle was not an option and I like to have a look at all the destruction we've caused and perhaps take a screenshot or two.

However I would've rather continued the battle as we've been looking forward after ~1.5 hours to push the Germans back. But alas Relic, in all their wisdom, thinks that their statwhoring system was more important and ended the match...

I say to you Relic: You create a game that is completely dependant on your online stat and login servers and their stability is VERY questionable. You do know about Valve Software and their Steam platform? Same idea, but Steam actually works! And now you come online into our games and state that the game is arbitrary for stats calculation? Screw you Relic and GTFO with your failure of a stats system.

The only thing, which keeps me playing this game, is the fact that the game itself is extremely awesome. But PUHLEASE keep your statwhoring system out of my face and game. Also do something about the stability of you servers, I mean you don’t design a game which is dependant on these servers and have the servers crash or go off-line all the time. Or is this working as intended, well to be fair they have not been off-line for a while now. So I guess this has been fixed for the time being.

It’s so sad to see you guys develop awesome cutting edge games like the Homeworld series, Company of Heroes. And fail completely in terms of stability when CoH is concerned. If this keeps up I fear for CoH Online, creating another game that is complely dependant on online servers seems like a bad idea if you guys can’t even get CoH+OF running properly...

Prove me wrong Relic as your games are awesome, but these discisions are simply bad until the day you fix them!

Team Fortress 2 - Ironman 2008 (Über pyro)

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Article mirror Team Fortress 2 - Ironman 2008 (Über pyro)

Upon seeing this scene in the new Ironman movie all I could think of was the pyro from Team Fortress 2. And because my other parody "TF2 Tremors" has been enjoyed by a lot of you, I thought of making a parody with the Pyro.

TF2 has so many options available for parody usage even if the pyro speech is limited, it does at least deliver a comedy effect.

GTFO Valve with this combat medic!

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Article mirror GTFO Valve with this combat medic!

Now I'm not one to speak badly about games in general, but if things get this bad even I will say so. Must be that positive attitude I have towards everything!

This seems to be the new medic

Some of the Medic achievements were dodgy at a first glance.

- ubering a scout
- getting a heavy to punch during an uber
- shooting people for an achievement
- bonesawing people for an achievement

And a lot more combat type of achievements. Now normally this wouldn't be a problem, because the medic also does combat in a normal round. But what is a problem that some of these achievements are impossible to complete if you play the medic as he should be played.

Seriously Valve, were you guys drunk or stoned once again. With once again, I'm referring to the silly crits system that they have implemented from the start. Which is something I could live with, but this crap is totally bogus. They probably have a different idea on what a medic is/was in TF2.

During the previous versions, he was a combat support class who heals people and keeps the team alive. A jewel to have around when pyros go on a frenzy. And they were essential to push on maps that need ubers.

Now even with the new weapons, which you can unlock with achievements it still is

A COMBAT SUPPORT CLASS

It seems Valve has promoted the medic to a combat role, if you look at certain achievements.

It is quite weird as Valve is a top-notch game designer, and to have the crème de la crème screw up like this is just sad.

First they have the console command unlocked where you can simply type the unlock achievement command to get all of the achievements without doing any work. Well they fixed it with a patch, but some people already used it (not sure if they are going to reset their medics stats though). And now this...

These achievements promote un-medic like behaviour by people who usually do not play medic. Resulting in 80% medic teams as I said before, which only go for the achievements. I've seen people running around with the bonesaw, while they have an uber ready or people walking around with a heavy who only punches during an uber.

Come on Valve couldn't you in all your wisdom predict this kind of behaviour when implementing achievements that promote this kind of crap? The old achievements could be completed by playing the game as you should be playing it, these new medic achievements are just screwing over the already hard to find good medics and replacing them with statwhores.

Also I'm kind of curious as to why there are no achievements for the new map pl_goldrush. I kind of expected them, but alas they do not exist.

Well let's hope they will somehow rectify this nonsense by changing the achievements, if they are as wise as we all think they are... At least the new weapons and map are very nice, but the way you need to play to get the new weapons is just screwed up beyond repair.