|
|
The
Hussars Gaming Group
(HGG) is an organisation of like-minded games players who
participate in a variety of games either individually or in
groups. We prefer a friendly, fair and fun playing style and
are not interested in competitive leagues or antisocial behaviour
caused by the urge to win at any cost. We play games to have
fun and because we enjoy the comradery and teamwork.
HGG is not a clan as such, but is rather a loosely knit community
envisioned by some of the senior members of the 1st
Hussars clan (from Battlefield 1942).
HGG is designed to cater for a wider range of games and to
act as a focal point for like-minded players, whether individuals
or members of other clans, with the 1st Hussars clan still
active at the heart of the community.
Feel free to visit our forums
and see what sort of people we are.
If you have any comments or
feedback about us, please visit the GUEST BOOK section of
the forums and post in the appropriate threads. No registration
required.
|
|
PC GAMING NEEDS YOU!
Gaming News:
Why we must fight to keep dedicated servers
As a PC gamer I am appalled at the way that development companies seem to be treating the very market that not only spawned them, but which is responsible for future gaming development and developers across all platforms in the future.
PC Gamers pay a lot more for their platform of choice than console owners and the reason for that is mostly because of the freedom and flexibility it gives them.
The decision by IW not to include dedicated server or mod support for Modern Warfare 2 is such a ridiculously bad decision it is comparable with using a time machine to kill your own parents.
Any game developer claiming they understand what their PC gamers want or that they support PC gaming while removing dedicated server support should be rightly ridiculed and vilified.
Many games developers today started off life as modders some of the most successful online games are (or started out as) mods. Counter-Strike, Red Orchestra, Killing Floor, even Left 4 Dead. PCs are the heart and mind of gaming. All games are developed on PCs. Cutting edge technology is developed on PCs. Consoles are cheaper but more limited versions of PCs. Because of this they sell more and console game sales greatly outweighs the PC game sales as a result. But the overall PC gaming market (including hardware costs) is greater than any of the console markets.
As an example of PC innovation, it was realised well over a decade ago that the typical peer-to-peer networking approach for games (where a player hosts the session and other players join it) is not suitable for any games where more than a few people are playing, due to the dependency on a single client connection and the imbalance that this provides in performance (the host has no lag but other players often do, giving the host a big advantage).
Therefore dedicated server programs were created by games developers to get round this.
These can run on machines used solely for that purpose and even can be located in data centres with large broadband connections, enabling larger numbers of players to have a better playing experience.
Dedicated servers also mean permanent servers, which caused PC gaming communities to spring up in a way that is not possible on consoles. Dedicated servers became comfortable homes for their regulars and often had regulars or clan members policing them as admins to protect against abusive or cheating players. Again, this is not possible on consoles.
Many companies sprang up providing servers and connections for clans and gamers to host dedicated servers on and they remain popular because for a good, solid gaming experience and for any kind of serious competitions, there simply is no other viable alternative.
Our very clan came into being seven years ago precisely because of the existence of dedicated servers. If not for the community server we could play on, we and several other clans would not be here today.
David Brickley (of Rebellion) recently said in an interview when asked if there would be dedicated server support in the upcoming game Aliens versus Predator, that "running an operation like that is monumentally expensive."
This does not make sense. PC gamers appreciate that expecting developers or publishers to incur the expense of hosting dedicated servers is unreasonable, in the same way that expecting publishers to make popular mods for their games would be unreasonable.
That is not what is being asked for. All PC gamers want is for developers to provide the tools to allow them to host servers if they choose to, or to modify the game if they choose to.
Multiplayer gaming on the PC has flourished over the past decade precisely because of dedicated servers and modding support. It drives the platform (and gaming as a whole) in the way that the more commercially successful but more straight-jacketed console gaming cannot.
This is not just whining by a minority of "hardcore" PC players. These are intelligent gamers seeing how short-sighted this is and how it will damage the future of all gaming, not just PC gaming.
If more developers do this they will not just be killing off PC gaming as a viable platform (why spend four times as much on hardware than console gamers just to have a console gaming experience?), they will also be killing off the future gaming innovators and developers within the PC community.
Please do not let developers get away with this. Lobby against this move and lodge your protests to any games journalists, game magazines and games developers you can. Write to games magazines, send letters and emails to gaming sites and developers. Spread the word and ensure your voice is not dismissed. Play your part in saving your platform of choice because if you don't you will find yourself marginalised even more than now.
Thank you for reading this. Now go and do something about it.
Posted on 30 Oct 2009 by Quercus
Busy Busy Hussars
Hussars News: So busy in fact that I haven't updated this page in a while.
Naughty me.
Anyway, we have three different regular events on the go currently; some of us are participating in the TWB Genocide friendly CoD4 tournament under the [HEF] banner, some of us are continuing with the Company of Heroes campaign; Operation Aubergine and yet more of us (and quite a few of them) are participating in the hotly contested Hussars Cup Challenge 4 (GTR2 racing).
In fact, Smoke has managed to get the most recent HCC video online with code to embed it, so I have added it to our POTW (picture of the week - or more accurately now, Image of the Week) page for your enjoyment.
Posted on 17 Apr 2009 by Quercus
Company of Heroes Co-op Campaign
Hussars News:
Next Monday sees the start of "Operation Aubergine", a campaign pitting the CoH players against the computer in a race towards Paris. For more details go to the mini-site here: Hussars CoH Campaign Page
Posted on 03 Sep 2008 by Quercus
HCC3 - Montreal Approaches
Hussars News: Yes, this weekend sees the final qualifying session before next weekend's race.
The track is Montreal and this marks the eighth circuit for the Hussars Cup Challenge Season 3.
After this there are only two more tracks to go before it is all over and already there are preparations for HCC4. The car being raced is the Lotus Exige, the proposed rules (and shift from individual drivers to teams) have been fleshed out and our talented artists have already started skinning the cars ready for it.
Posted on 03 Sep 2008 by Quercus
<< Previous 1 2 3 Next >>
|
|
|
