he wasnt lying.

I may or may not be up for tonight, I wish we started slightly earlier... 9pm eastern?

I can probably do 9pm eastern tonight. I was working late last night and did not feel like actually getting on last night.

TF2 @ 9pm EST tonight it sounds like. Hopefully Joe can make it!

Wife is going to probably kill me, but I should be in. We need to pick some designated fall back points... not the spawns. I think a added layer of targeted attack zone might help us some.

(Re:Stewart Development)

Oh, yeah. Is that still going on?

Currently sitting in 21C (rear exit, aisle) aboard UA1408 as we sit at the gate @ IAH, as we have been for the past hour and a half. Weather is fine, no mechanical issues, but for some reason they can't get the weight & balance sheet to print. I could have done W&B with a pencil and slide rule by now, and I've never even flown a 737...

Nope. But you said tomorrow, and I just had to reference it.

Sounds like you'll be in for TF2 tonight then, eh Joe?

More Miataturbo Vs Machines tonight?

Joe/Brain, buy in is 5 bucks btw... minimum they allow to fund the steam wallet is 5 bucks... .99 to do Mann Up ticket and 1.99 to do Squad ticket (so everyone gets extra items).

I will be Guild Wars 2ing, send me an invite when it's time.

... and they've now de-planed us. Back in the terminal, waiting for God-only-knows-what.

What's with this buy-in business? I am 100% out of the loop here.

Mann Up mode from MVM.

You buy in with a ticket for Valve's special servers with special maps that you can only access in Mann Up. At the end, you get guarenteed items - squad vouchers multiply the guarenteed items you can get.

For $3, you can walk out with between 7 to 12 items and some other special perks.

Lets get this party started! Heading in, might just play Boot Camp until you wankers hop on.

Lars and I are logged on Steam now...

Ugh, finally got home last night.

We knew something major was going on, as every single gate at IAH terminal E had a United airplane parked at it. As in: there were no United airplanes moving at IAH at all- they were all just sitting there.

That's never a good sign.

Periodic updates were given from the flight deck, each one saying something to the effect of "We still have absolutely no idea what's going on out there, but we appreciate your patience and we'll inform you as soon as we know something."

That's even neverer a good sign.

It wasn't just IAH, though. Apparently United's entire booking system went offline for about two and a half hours, grounding every single United flight across the country.

We finally took off about four and a half hours behind schedule. And the reason that they de-planed us was that the loss of the reservation system meant they'd lost all their data as to who had actually boarded the plane. So they ran us all through boarding a second time, this time physically tearing all the boarding passes in half and handing back the stubs.

On the plus side, my Russian chauffeur was right there waiting for me when we finally got into San Diego. I gave him an extra $50.

Hooray! Joe is back! Now MvM with us.

We'll need to run through a normal game first though so you can earn a Canteen.

Nice, can't wait for a game of MVM with you Joe.

Will you be available tonight?

I'm not entirely certain. My gaming machine was acting a tad funky when I powered it up last night (it automatically started to do the overnight backup which it has missed, and was still crunching on it 8 hours later, which is way too long), and this morning I seem to have crashed it by trying to do a remote reset. I don't think anything is seriously wrong with it, but I haven't had a chance to really play with it at all.



I think I'll probably run through a few games with other random idiots who I don't care about so that I can at least learn the basic mechanics of the game,

(Translation: I don't want all of you to see your beloved moderator thrashing around like a total newb.)

Hit me up for team queueing if I'm on then.

MVM is fun, but incredibly frustrating for me to random queue if no one with a clue is in the game.

No need to bother with randoms, game dynamics are the same. You can just upgrade lots of things like speed/resistance/damage etc... and the canteen provides some special limited upgrades.

Just rock out with us.

Incidentally, where did our server wind up getting hosted at, anyway? Given the fact that a lot of our folks seem to be clustered around Brainey over on the Socialist Coast, I'm hoping our ping times aren't too bad out here in the Land of Fruits and Nuts.

If Sam's location is accurate, New York.

Wait, what's wrong with thrashing about like a total noob? [asks the total noob]

I sure do get killed often...

I'm going in...

What time are we getting together tonight? For obvious reasons, I have some other things I need to get done.

pay to play is thumbs down. my cats provide free entertainment.

So come with us to bootcamp modes.

Sokath, his eyes opened! The beast at Tanagra, Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra, Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel.

Stop talking in cultural metaphors Joe :p

At least somebody got it. :)

One of the Random Strangers™ I was playing with last night hummed the opening tune to Monty Python, and seemed genuinely surprised when I then said "And now for something completely different." Apparently the internet has grown to the point where it can no longer safely be assumed that every individual who uses it is intimately familiar with 1970s-era British comedy.

A sad day, indeed.


So, yeah. Wave after wave of killer robots. Kind of an interesting turn. Can somebody explain to me what is the benefit to me of paying for a Golden Ticket? Is it just to get item drops and the Canteen? From what I can tell, the ticket is a one-time-use item, meaning you have to buy a new one for every single game. Surely I must be mis-interpreting this?

Ticket only gets used if you succeed in the entire round of waves for that map. Then you get an item drop.... which can be useless.

I think our main goal is to win a full round of waves with everyone having both tickets, so we each get the extra squad ticket drops and then get decent items. Which can make the MvM game more interesting, weapons specific to MvM.

Beyond that.... hats?

Only get's used if you win.
You can get a Canteen by winning any MVM mode and is required to not be gimped in Mann up.
Mann up is 5 to 10 times harder (there for less boring and more fun) then Boot camp / playing a privet server.
The trick is to get 6 people all with squad tickets that don't suck so you can have fun and end up with 7 items for the price of 3.5.

Ah.

So, more hats.

Among other things.

So join us sometime, and stop being such a loner Joe!

... he says to the guy that's been on the road for the past month and a half.

I need to put my car back together enough that it's legal to drive before this weekend, but I'll definitely be on after that. It's hard with all you east coast communist-type folks, as I'm typically either still at work or just getting home when you're firing up the game.

Whos up for some more fun tonight?

I am, but Joe's ignoring MT peeps apparently. WTF Joe! :(

Joe just doesn't love me :(

Joe doesn't love anyome from mt.net apparently. :(

Joe's an idiot who can't figure out how to join y'all in a game. He keeps getting a message that says "this server can only be joined via matchmaking" or some such crap. This ain't like regular TF2.

Then send a message to me in Steam when you are finished with your current game, and I'll show you what your problem is.

So yes, once you use the matchmaking/party stuff, you can't join those servers. Even if you disconnect by mistake or hl2 crash, it doesn't allow a rejoin. So typically we gather and go in as a group, so we are the people running the show.

I won't be on for the next few days probably though, but when I'm back lets play :)

This is how I fail:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1346419341

You cannot join a mann up server that has a game started. You need to accept the invitation sent to you. When you click it you will join the TF2 match making service that is basically a chatroom from which a moderator kicks off the game from.


I'm back from Canada. So if you're all around tonight please invite me.

So whats everyone doing for labor day weekend? If ya'll busy we should plan some matches after.

i might be available for some matches tomorrow. Evening, mind you.

Tonight at 9pm EST I will be on and ready to play. Lets see if we can get 6 of us.

Count me in.

I'll be around.

I do not think you have signed out of tf2 since you got home.

Im kind of losing interest in this. Its a blast, but its such a pain in the ass to get into MVM then people ragequit and I have to wait again to get into another server.

Stop playing with noobs and start playing with MT.Net people.

I do not see how anyone expects to win at mvm with a random group of people. The reason people rage quit is not because they lost. They quit because they realized the group wont be working together. So unless the group pulls together, which is rare, its a waste of time. I only play with MT net people or I just dont bother.

^Sam's right on

I usually don't bother closing out of it, I just leave it running in the background. Probably explains why I see so many chat requests when I come back to the PC.

.....Chat requests you never respond to even when you are AT your PC :P

Honestly, I never ignore chat requests when I'm at the PC, unless someone is trying to trade me some silly hat in exchange for my Strange Rainblower or some other silly thing.

So, Joe, I've got a silly hat to exchange you for your strange rainblower...

Err.

I mean, will you be up for TF2 tonight with the MT group, or are you skipping out on us again?

Well, if I see a little chat window at around 6pm pacific time that says "you've been invited to frag bots with the MT clan" then yeah.

It is 9pm and I am trying to get a game started. Everyone respond to my invites.