Tactical Gamer - Blogs - Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/ Tactical Gamer is the PREMIERE mature online gaming community. We feature games such as PlanetSide 2, Battlefield 3, Armed Assault (ARMA2), Natural Selection 2, and more. Our community is geared around teamwork, strategy and tactics in a mature environment. en Sat, 18 May 2013 23:24:55 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.tacticalgamer.com/images/styles/UndergroundStyle/misc/rss.jpg Tactical Gamer - Blogs - Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/ <![CDATA[The story of how you don't kill and insult TG.]]> http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/951-story-how-you-dont-kill-insult-tg.html Mon, 28 May 2012 07:55:24 GMT TG-18th HaveANiceDay (HAND) is a good guy: friendly, helps out, and just generally a swell person. But, this is not a story about HAND - this is story about what happens when you wrong a TGer. HAND was en route to meet up with me and the freshly-spawned Lancer. HAND and I were being honorable... TG-18th HaveANiceDay (HAND) is a good guy: friendly, helps out, and just generally a swell person. But, this is not a story about HAND - this is story about what happens when you wrong a TGer.

HAND was en route to meet up with me and the freshly-spawned Lancer. HAND and I were being honorable gentlemen and carrying Lancer's gear to him. (The reason Lancer died was that Dredge screamed like a little girl and wanted his Ghillie suit out of my pack right now, but that's story for another day.)

At any rate - Lancer and I are entering Cherno, overwatch snipers have eyes on us - and then, outta nowhere, a CZ550 sniper rifle rings out, and the chat shows "TG-18th HaveANiceDay has died". Well, someone just signed their death warrant on the west side of Cherno.

But this is where it gets better: the son-of-a-moralless-female-canine sees HaveNiceDay's death message and then types into chat: "have a nice day"

He's gloating about killing one of us.

Well, isn't that cute.
Isn't that just peachy keen.
Isn't that just strawberry shortcake with whipped cream on top sweet.

Mr. Hawkins just his death warrant 22 times in Chernogorsk.

Lancer and I are closest to the west side, and we're sprinting toward the warehouse where HaveANiceDay went down. We reach a corrugated metal fence - Lancer goes left around it into the warehouse, I head right. Just then - I see movement on the stairs to my right. The only thing I can make out is the familiar shape of the weapon favored by bastards and bandits worldwide: CZ550 sniper rifle.

This happens in seconds - the fella is moving as fast as he can up those stairs. At this range, even a single bullet from his CZ would kill me, twice. I scope my AKM and let 'er rip: full auto, 30 bullets into him.
Moments later, I see the death message and we all know - we'd found and killed the bastard that assassinated HaveANiceDay. We'd avenged one of our own.

And, at the request and much general amusement of everyone in channel, I showed our friend the honors:

hawkins_vs_TG.jpg ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/951-story-how-you-dont-kill-insult-tg.html The story of how Zhoey acquired a new assault rifle http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/949-story-how-zhoey-acquired-new-assault-rifle.html Tue, 22 May 2012 07:22:39 GMT At that very moment, there happen to be four zombies within spitting distance of Zhoey. Walking aimlessly, grunting like mad canines, and eliciting a kind of primal screaming that would set alight pools of adrenaline within a normal human being. That being said, Zhoey is not a normal human... At that very moment, there happen to be four zombies within spitting distance of Zhoey. Walking aimlessly, grunting like mad canines, and eliciting a kind of primal screaming that would set alight pools of adrenaline within a normal human being.

That being said, Zhoey is not a normal human being. Zhoey is a sasquatch, and sasquatches do not roll like that.
Thus, our intrepid hero is flat on his belly, patiently waiting for the zeds to pass before he makes his move.

Right then, as the scorching sun peaks out behind a few low clouds, a single shot rings out in Zelenogorsk. It is a pistol shot, and could it speak, it would speak like a frightened little child, anxiously hoping that its screams will ensure a bubble of warm safety.

Alas, the world of DayZ is cold, unforgiving and it enjoys skinning and slowly gnawing on the flesh of little children.

What follows, about 100m due south of our quiet sasquatch friend, is a series of seven frantic pistol shots, and then the sound of many screams and much running.

This obviously peaks the interest of our neighborhood sasquatch, who runs slowly toward the nearest hill and then faces south. The sight before him is almost from an old-time Tom and Jerry cartoon: a lone fellow booking it up the mountain side, and behind him a dustcloud filled with many feet, hands, and oddly-shaped zombie faces.

The fella turns around, and once again empties a pistol magazine into the unholy mass following him, but this seems to only make their movements more erratic, more frenzied, and generally more blood thirsty.

While he reloads, the clump of zombies catches up to him, and, what follows is a but a handfull of slow-motion moments where he tries heroically defend himself against the heartless horde of liver-chewers. In the end, he succumbs and the last sound that is heard over the disgusting defilation of his corpse is a single futile click of an empty pistol...

On the bright side :), that also happens to be how how our friend Zhoey came into the possesion of an AKM assault rifle, an M1911 handgun, a map and a compass, and a brand new backpack. The world of DayZ seems especially tuned to reward sasquatch-sized bastards. ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/949-story-how-zhoey-acquired-new-assault-rifle.html 1:10 http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/697-1-10.html Thu, 12 May 2011 07:18:36 GMT

That's one happy little dude. Made my day.

PS: TG BF2142 server is dying. Lots of good times there, sad to see it go. Fingers crossed for BF3. ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/697-1-10.html <![CDATA[Interesting article abou the "quality" of online communities]]> http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/323-interesting-article-abou-quality-online-communities.html Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:19:05 GMT Article: http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software-sundays-2-the-evaporative-cooling-effect/ Key quotes: ---Quote--- The Evaporative Cooling Effect ... occurs when the most high value contributors to a community realize that the community is no longer serving their needs any more and... Article: http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social...ooling-effect/

Key quotes:

The Evaporative Cooling Effect ... occurs when the most high value contributors to a community realize that the community is no longer serving their needs any more and so therefore, leave. When that happens, it drops the general quality of the community down such that the next most high value contributors now find the community underwhelming. Each layer of disappearances slowly reduces the average quality of the group until such a point that you reach the people who are so unskilled-and-unaware of it that they’re unable to tell that they’re part of a mediocre group.
If anyone can join your community, then the people most likely to join are those who are below the average quality of your community because they have the most to gain. ... Communities that are allowed to select their members in some way are much more immune to Evaporative Cooling.


Social Gatings are mechanisms that allow participants to self-select out of the group. The only people who would choose to participate in this group in the first place are those who find the talk sufficiently interesting to take 3 hours out of their life. This, by itself set a minimum bar.

Unequal roles of participation can help shift the gradient of power and kill the evaporative cooling ... When the community is small ... High value participants are treated as special because they have recognition & reputation from the community ... online communities seem particularly resistant to the type of elitist promotion structure common in real world institutions

one of the most successful technological systems ever at scaling while maintaining quality: Facebook. when some random person is participating in Facebook from Brazil, it has an absolutely negligible effect on my experience
---

A response (of sorts) and something that I can immediately recognize from my past contributions, is here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_...e_by_pacifism/

It's refreshing to see ideas that I've mulled on recently analyzed in such a critical and clear-thought fashion. ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/323-interesting-article-abou-quality-online-communities.html parsing HTML with perl http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/235-parsing-html-perl.html Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:36:23 GMT Maybe I'll detail my adventure here.

So I started out with regex. Each span has a unique ID, so regex -- why not? Slurp the whole file, match on the IDs, barf out the content.
Not my most brilliant moment, I've got to admit. The HTML is often formatted strangely, and this method is pretty inefficient for large files. I figured someone had already done this (I knew, in fact, I just figured this'd be faster and simpler), so method #2.
The HTML Parser class from CPAN. Write a hook for start, text, and end tags, then match on ID. Didn't seem elegant or efficient.
I bet there's some programmer looking at me now, laughing, because I'm just stumbling around in the dark.

What I would ideally want are CSS-like selectors that operate on the HTML ... in perl. So I could say ("#myUniqueID").content to get the content. JQuery is awesome in this respect: I can just ask for what I want.
I know there's a way to do this, and someone's already done it. I've just got to keep hunting around to find it. Maybe perl isn't the right language to do this.

In other news, I think we should load up the new BC2 maps on Server 2. I'd want to play them now, not the old maps. ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/235-parsing-html-perl.html Funny comics~ http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/174-funny-comics.html Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:59:00 GMT - 1 - (http://www.tacticalsites.com/~zhohar/img/vidya_01.jpg) | - 2 - (http://www.tacticalsites.com/~zhohar/img/vidya_02.png) | - 3 - (http://www.tacticalsites.com/~zhohar/img/vidya_03.png) | - 4 - (http://www.tacticalsites.com/~zhohar/img/vidya_04.gif) | - 5 -... - 1 - | - 2 - | - 3 - | - 4 - | - 5 - | - 6 -

Enjoy~ ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/174-funny-comics.html <![CDATA[Gimme some cookies NOW, and I'll do whatever you want later.]]> http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/146-gimme-some-cookies-now-ill-do-whatever-you-want-later.html Mon, 17 May 2010 23:46:02 GMT Previous loadout: Assault + USAS + extra C4 + extra shells.
Current loadout: Medic + USAS + extra speed + magnum ammo.

180 degree turnaround in gameplay.

What's the end result?
a) 2x more effective squads. I'm a smart dude -- spending 2 minutes of my time to C4 a tank that's nearly useless anyways is not the best way I can contribute to my team. Pulling off 5 revives in that span of time makes my squad, and my team a lot more effective.
b) waaaaaaay more fun. Squad morale is a lot higher after a dude is revived each time he dies. People shoot better, act more confident, and win rounds. I like morale. You can just feel this -- I don't want to brag, but there have been times on Sunday when I felt like I carried two squads forward with revives. That is an awesome feeling: I do my job, you go kick ass.

Huge difference. I stole this idea off June and Lyra (medic thing that's dedicated), but I combined it with magnum ammo and USAS because I like to kill people in CQ, and with speed boost perk because USAS isn't good at long range -- I've got to get in close to my target quick.

I've been ranting and raving about this kit all this weekend. Loving it. ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/146-gimme-some-cookies-now-ill-do-whatever-you-want-later.html You had best un**** yourself ... http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/129-you-had-best-un-yourself.html Sun, 02 May 2010 02:18:17 GMT http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhY3EDjxExA#t=1m51s

How to un**** the BF franchise:

1. More punishments: Steal a dude's tank and drive off like a punk? -200 points. Ignore a revive as a medic? -100 points. Don't spot as a sniper? -100 points. Revive a fella, he gets killed, revive him again, he gets killed, revive him again? -500 points.
2. More rewards: Keep a random dude's tank repaired for a round? +200 points. Pull off 3 revives in a row? Every one is worth more points. Be the squad that breaks through and captures a flag? 2x points for capturing the flag.
3. More VOIP: proximity and direction-based VOIP (mumble), SL-to-SL VOIP, and CO-to-all VOIP.
4. More teamwork: require two people to revive one soldier up, require two people to operate stationary weapons, require a pilot and a gunner at least for armor, etc.
5. Bigger maps, bigger teams: 64vs64 player battlefield, with maps large enough to make fighter jets plausible.
6. Tit-for-tat tactics: Tank snipes from 200m and kills 2 people in one shot ... but if it's approached up close, its main turret turns way too slowly to do anything, and one infantry grenade shoved down the hatch kills the occupants. Stop nerfing things in order to make them fair: provide an effective counter instead of making a tank shell feel like a feather pillow.
7. Smoke, fire, water, heat, cold -- affecting the soldier: Cough in smoke, burn on fire, can't swim with certain weapons, freeze if carrying a light pack on a large snow map. Make soldiers real, not cardboard cutouts.
8. Add more "hardcore" server options: Option to mutiny the CO, option to disband squads as a CO, option to have only VOIP-enabled people in SL/CO positions ...
9. Defend flags: allow a squad to slowly dig and fortify a flag to make defense actually be feasible instead of always attacking.

10. Stop catering to everyone (multiple-platform release) and stop imitating other FPS games (MW2): make something unique, original, and fun. ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/129-you-had-best-un-yourself.html If it looks, walks, and talks like a cock-tease ... http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/121-if-looks-walks-talks-like-cock-tease.html Tue, 27 Apr 2010 02:48:59 GMT Battlefield: Bad Company 2:
- no VOIP
- no squad leader
- no team commander
- no armor
- tiny maps
- no teamwork

I consider my money well spent on BC2 -- it's a fun game and I've spent a fair bit of time in it, but ... is it a Battlefield game?
Hell no. ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/121-if-looks-walks-talks-like-cock-tease.html Why does it bother you what weapon kills you? http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/107-why-does-bother-you-what-weapon-kills-you.html Sat, 17 Apr 2010 17:54:51 GMT Why does it bother you what weapon kills you?
At the end of the day, you are still dead, the enemy alive, you worse, he better, and that's how it is. The rest is whining, plain and simple.

I don't look at being CG'd any different from being killed by the 3-burst pistol: I still screwed up and I need to improve.

I just don't get the mentality of "oh no, it's definitely NOT my fault because I was killed by that particular weapon."

Come on. That makes no sense at all. ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/107-why-does-bother-you-what-weapon-kills-you.html <![CDATA["Realism" and video games]]> http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/91-realism-video-games.html Tue, 23 Mar 2010 23:32:54 GMT I was looking at this post here: http://www.tacticalgamer.com/battlef...ml#post1472891

The fella's going on about realism "ANYTHING that makes a game more REALISTIC Im all for"

... and I'm thinking about realism, and I'm picturing this inside of my head:

Some kid is sticking his head out of a tiny house, looking how thousands of US soldiers are advancing into Iraq. He's looking all incredulous and starts screaming and shaking his fist "OMG WTF, TEAMSTACKING! U GUIZE R SO LAME!!!"

Ahahaha ... :D ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/91-realism-video-games.html When you see it .... http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/84-when-you-see.html Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:24:34 GMT Image: http://www.tacticalsites.com/~zhohar/img/whenyouseeit.jpg ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/84-when-you-see.html How Zhohar Came To Be: The Evolution of a Species in Pictorial Form http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/76-how-zhohar-came-evolution-species-pictorial-form.html Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:26:52 GMT There have been many requests about Zhohar's history. Now, for the very first time, we offer a never-before-seen footage and candid insight into this often-misunderstood creature. Follow the evolution of this humble yet sexy animal throughout the ages -- look below.




















And this brings us to present day. Today's Zhohars are a far cry from the unitelligable and often hostile Wookies of the past, and the horribly misunderstood Sasquatches. The Zhohar of today does not feed on human blood, nor does it gyrate its hips in a mating dance toward young, nuble Repaqs.
It does, however, still retain its longing for flight. So long as there has been recorded history, man has known that Zhohars have wanted to fly. In recent times, this fantasy has come out in rather strange fashion: by making other creatures fly. The generous and humble Zhohar often employs highly-refined explosives like C4, in order to bring true the dream of flight to his chosen target.

We hope that this program has given you a small insight into this curious creature. Stay tuned for Episode 2 where we discuss the feeding habits of young Zhohars. ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/76-how-zhohar-came-evolution-species-pictorial-form.html How to install games while working http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/64-how-install-games-while-working.html Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:50:11 GMT I worked through the Battlefield Bad Company 2 launch, and considering how much I've anticipated this release, I wanted to get the game ASAP. Here's how I installed it on my home PC while at work.

Step 1: Download one of the thousand different variants of VNC -- a remote PC control software. I chose TightVNC because it's free, open source, fast, and simple.
Step 2: I went to www.WhatIsMyIPAddress.com and found out the IP of my home machine.
Step 3: I've set up the VNC server as a service on my home machine, chose a password, and made sure that "remote events" were not disabled.
Step 4: I emailed my IP address and the VNC password to my work email address.
Step 5: I disabled Windows Firewall on my machine.
Step 6: I called up a friend and I tested this to make sure it works. (Also remember to change the password after you're sure your setup works -- much as I like Chris, I don't like him enough to let him mess around my machine.)
Step 7: Come 10 AM Pacific at work, I installed the TightVNC viewer, pulled up the email with my IP and password, connected to my machine, right-clicked on "Bad Company 2" and clicked install.
(This is probably a really newbie walkthrough for most people on TG, but if you don't know, it's nice to know something like this is easy and possible.)

Isn't technology wonderful? :)

PS: Step 8 -- unistall the VNC server/disable the VNC service after you're done, enable any firewalls and connect to the router if you had one before. Paranoid Zho is paranoid. ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/64-how-install-games-while-working.html <![CDATA["Please disable AdBlock on our website!"]]> http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/40-please-disable-adblock-our-website.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:59:52 GMT Lately, I've seen some websites post this: "Please support us and disable adblock on our webpage!"

Do you really think that the best way to raise money and support your website is by annoying and distracting the users of that website? Do you have no self-respect? Do you not value what your website does?

How does this even come about? I mean, who sits down and thinks "Oh, I wonder how I can generate money for my website. Well, I have a lot of fans ... maybe I should ask them to do something irritating, distracting, and annoying all the time to maybe help me a little bit! Yes, that's it!" ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/40-please-disable-adblock-our-website.html <![CDATA[Moments that make me glad I've pre-ordered Bad Company 2:]]> http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/31-moments-make-me-glad-ive-pre-ordered-bad-company-2.html Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:33:34 GMT Within a span of 30 seconds: destroy an enemy light tank in our base, kill one MCOM defender with a Thompson rifle, knife the other one, defuse the MCOM, and hence win the game 13 tickets later. Hell yeah! :)

I've had more fun with 4 days of this laggy, buggy, and limited beta than I have in the two months of the top-selling, hella-polished, widely-praised Modern Warfare 2. The idea of teamwork with a lot of depth and a fast pace is just addicting as all hell.

Oh, and it doesn't hurt that I was surrounded by chill people enjoying teamwork instead of 12 year old children swearing at me. That's a plus too :) ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/31-moments-make-me-glad-ive-pre-ordered-bad-company-2.html My thoughts on the new TG look http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/6-my-thoughts-new-tg-look.html Sat, 30 Jan 2010 09:10:10 GMT Image: http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/8284/heckyeah.jpg Heck yeah!

Heck yeah! ]]> Zhohar http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/zhohar/6-my-thoughts-new-tg-look.html