SO lets go over the rules.

1- No Texture mods – Don’t make people have to pay for a texture mod any moder could easily add to the game. Yeah some crazy person might pay $3 for effectively a texture mod, but to the vast majority of people just go “WTF are you insane?”

2- We Bought the game, so give us the game – Don’t cut features inherit to the game and then sell them as DLC.

3- DLC? Didn’t they call them patches in my day? – Don’t sell patches to problems in your game. Fix them for free as patches. DLC means EXTRA CONTENT, not FIXED CONTENT.

4- Easy access, Easy Install, Easy Reinstall – DLC should be easy to find and purchase, Easy to install, and Easy to Reinstall if you uninstall it.

5- Don’t Break the 4th wall – Don’t advertise the sale of the DLC in game. Have a link on the title screen menu, or have it as a totally out of game experience. Nothing ruins immersion faster than a 16th century merchant asking you for your credit card details.

6- Add value, or make it free – If you DLC is so expensive people could go out and buy an epic Indy Game like torchlight or Plants vs. Zombies for the same price, why shouldn’t they? I mean your adding a few features or maybe an hour extra game-play, while the new game might keep them going for 10 hours +. Price DLC relative to the compertition and what it provides, or better yet make it FREE. Nothing causes sales of the ACTUAL REAL £30 GAME like FREE DLC.

7- Don’t we all ready have the mod for this? – If there is a widely available and FREE mod for a feature you forgot to include in the base game, don’t try and sell it as a core feature of a new DLC. Either buy the Mod off the moder and provide it as a free patch, or don’t include it at all and let people just find the mod.

8- If in doubt don’t add Cliches – Zombies, Arena Mode, Survival. If you can’t come up with a decent unique idea don’t make people buy an idea or mode they can play in 1/2 a billion other games, and probably better. Be unique and make something that’s linked to and plays to the strength of the CORE GAME.

Imagine if you will the BBC is removed, and Remembrance day is moved onto ITV or something. It’s approaching the two minutes silence, the queen, the army, the nation is watching. When suddenly it cuts to an advert of modern warfare 2. or an advert for washing powder. or of anything. It would be the greatest insult to the memory of and to serving solders if that happened.

So what do the other 3 do? Go medic, scout and scout. I am forced to uber the other medic, and we just about take down the sentry gun and cap the first point. The other medic now switches to sniper. so I think seeing the scout idiots are still scout and aren’t going to change to combat classes, my only real option is to go spy. Maybe i can keep the sentry guns down enough to keep the scouts pushing foreword. I manage to work my way past the enemy pyro and destroy the enemy level 3 sentry. “PUSH!!!!!!!” i shout.

But no. Now All 3 of my Allys are snipers.

Then they follow-up with below average server support or other ridiculous things and… well it’s just stupid.

IF YOU ARE LOSING PROFITS TO PIRATES REMEMBER THIS:  Ensure your product is better than the pirates.

It’s simple. if your product is better than the pirated version, your game will sell. If instead you add ridiculous restrictions the pirates get round before release date, and you don’t support the community with official servers, there is NO INCENTIVE TO BUY THE REAL THING.

I’ve never pirated a game. But the way most games developers are going I’m getting tempted. I’m bored of waiting weeks after Johnny X-Box has a game to play it officially on PC. When i could just have pirated it. I’m frustrated by over zealous security which pirates crack in hours, but I the paying customer have to live with forever. I’m infuriated by the stereotype that because I play on PC I’m a pirate.

I just wanted to be treated like a paying customer, and get a game that’s superior to the pirated version, and is released at the same time as other platforms. Is that too much to ask?

Sometimes i wonder if i should buy these games for my Xbox. then i remember, I’ll get more frequent patches on the PC.

I do a quick search on the release date. the 15th! that’s yesterday! WOOHOO! then i look again. the 15th is in the US. Here in England the release date is the 9th… Of next month.

Why do companies do this. They create something of such genius people want and then release it in america or japan weeks or in this case an entire month early. Why can’t they hold the release date till they can do a global release?

The last game I remember to be released in Europe before the US was spore. And we all know what the difference between spore and a bucket of shit was. (i’ll give you a clue it’s a 6 letter word beginning with B and ending in ucket)

Now since the sniper/spy update (now referred to as “the update”) people are in one of two groups. People who played 5 minutes and got a spy/sniper weapon and people who have played 8 hours and only got heavy/pyro/medic/scout repeats. I of course have fallen into the second group.

All the people who got a nice drop at the start of the day have kept with “Oh but it’s so easy to get them lulz… just wait and you will get them” Then they are nice enough to shoot you in the face with the weapon.

I MEAN COME ON! 8 hours and all i got was the killing gloves of boxing and the axetinguisher. Meanwhile my friend Arch got  The ambassador, The Huntsman A sandvich and a Backburner in the first 5 hours of playing.

The point of randomness was to make things fair, not to make things VERY UNFAIR.

Sooo 10 hours in I’ve rage quited and been reading the internets and complaining.

Turns out the guys at rock paper shotgun have captured robin walker, and have locked him in a cage until he fixes it.

I think i might go down there and poke him with a stick.

First the tools! Well we have the dead ringers watch which lets me fake my own death and turn invisible straight away. BUT ONLY FOR 8 SECONDS. Now I’m sure people can find a use for this, But TBH I can’t see a good use. The point of cloak is to get behind the enemy without them seeing someone on there team going backwards (the clear spy call) And without that you can’t really get in the enemy’s base. Your only option is to attack from the side, which requires large open maps.

Next we have the cloack and dagger watch. Now this is more like it! A watch which regains cloak by standing still while cloaker. Awesome. In maps like badwater it’s more than possible to cross the map with just ammo crates, but on the ammo dry maps this is going to be a godsend.

And then we have The Ambassador, For all your diplomatic needs. AKA a massive Hand Cannon. The point of the revolver is to be a last resort weapon, and this thing knows how to go down in style. There is a longer wait between each shot, but each one is going to be MASSIVE. This thing I like. I’m not going to be able to go toe to toe with a group of enemies, but 1v1 I’ve got the upper hand.

And now the competition. With any update comes the influx of players who suck at the class who want to give it a go with the unlocks. These guys are going to rank as a minor annoyance, swooping in and sapping stuff (and then getting killed for being so obvious) right before I do my perfectly timed kill and sap. But I’ve only ever back stabbed 6 cloaked spies, so this should be good.

The other problem is the pyros. These are going to be the real problem. oh how they will swarm. Now a pyro ain’t a problem if you know how and where to avoid them, but there are going to be hundreads. My skills could let me avoid one or two pyros after I attack, but 4-5 on a team? 6? Smart pyros who just stay on an engies stuff? this is going to be tough. However I think the ambassador will give them a good try.

Graphs, they make the world awesome.

Total Domination – 75% of the enemy team is dominating you. You switch to your best class, or you spy rage to try and get a suicide kill. you still die.

Total Retardation – 75% of your team is dead 75% of the time. WTF guys!

Total Entrapment – 75% of your life is spent inside your spawn room. the rest is spent re-spawning.

Total Confusion – 75% of your team has given up on the use of the English language and is now swearing in a combination of German, French and Russian.

Total Asshole – 75% of all your deaths are at the hand of 1 guy.