Oddly enough most RO Tactical Realism servers are keeping Death Messages on. I was surprised to see this, having Death Messages off has almost become a Standard for TR servers in other communities. To some its not a big deal, to others it adds to the overall experience of TR.

Lets dwell into this a bit. Having Death Messages on confirms your kill and often when players can confirm their kill, it increases the tendency for a player to lonewolf on his own working up his score rather then functioning as a teamplayer. RO doesnt really have this problem as much as other games since its very team-based but, there are still very many players who ignore the team and do their own thing. When you take away that confirmation and remove the Death Messages, players are no longer able to know whether or not they have killed their target unless it was a close encounter. Ideally having the messages off creates panic to someone that isnt used to it, this panic tells the player that he better stay close to his team and work closely with them, again this is one of the ideas behind it, some people may still ignore teamwork.

Playing several different games in the TR style, I can openly say I see much more team work being ultilized on servers that take away the ability for player to confirm their kills and see the Death Messages. This feature should be embraced by any TR clans looking for an increase in Teamwork and Realism.

This setting in the Red Orchestra ini will change death messages to totally off:
[ROEngine.ROTeamGame]
DeathMessageMode=DM_None

Ghost Recon’s official site released a bunch of new screens for Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. While the jury is still out on the gameplay, the screens sure look great.

Also check out these two flythrough videos of GR:AW maps: here and here.  GR:AW is scheduled to release this May.

Insurgency, or INS, is the highly anticipated squad based modern combat modification for HL2. The mod entered private beta 2 months ago and the team recently announced they entered the “polishing” phase of development and are searching for an animator to revamp their player animations.

It’s tough to say what level of Tactical Realism gameplay will be built into this mod, but what particularly interesting is the focus on customizeable squad based gameplay.

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ButchCassidy over at Raiders has posted a nice optimising guide for Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41 - 45. Also included are common console commands.  Check it out here.

Valve’s marketing director Doug Lombardi said in an interview with FiringSquad that Tripwire’s Red Orchestra product became profitable through Steam pre-orders.

FiringSquad: Even more attention is being made over Valve’s Steam service. Has Valve been surprised by the amount of interest in using Steam to distribute games?

Doug Lombardi: What’s been surprising is how successful Steam has been for the 3rd parties. The Red Orchestra team saw their project become profitable through Steam pre-orders alone. It’s always nice to turn a profit before your game has shipped. The Introversion guys made more from Steam sales of Darwinia in two weeks than from months of retails sales of the same product. Also, after forming a relationship with us to ship their games via Steam, both the Rag Doll and Red Orchestra teams found retail distribution deals.

This is great news for any fan of Red Orchestra let alone Tactical Realism games. Read the interview here.

This is sure to make the CoD2 PC multiplayer base even less happy than they already are with IW: the XBOX 360 version of CoD2 is getting patched tonight, but no definitive date on a PC patch.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW CALL OF DUTY 2 XBOX 360 TITLE UPDATE NOW AVAILABLE

Infinity Ward Also Reveals New Details Regarding Upcoming PC Update and New Maps Santa Monica, CA – March 21, 2006 – Fans of the award-winning, blockbuster hit, Call of Dutyâ 2, will be locked and loaded with today’s Title Update for Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft. Developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), the Title Update offers significant enhancements, including improved multiplayer performance, the ability to reserve friend slots in private game lobbies, post-game lobbies so friends can play longer, configurable host options and more. The Xbox 360 update will be automatically applied the next time users log into Xbox Live® with Call of Duty 2.

For fans of Call of Duty 2 for Windows® PC, Infinity Ward and Activision have also revealed new details surrounding the upcoming release of a highly-anticipated update, which will include the previously announced PunkBuster™ anti-cheat technology, as well as two new multiplayer maps: Rhine and the longtime community favorite Harbor, from the original Call of Duty.

The part in bold is some of the most uneducated marketing bullshit I have ever read.  Do these guys live in a cave?  Read more at IWNation and XBOX.com.

Not surprising that the first modification for a WW2 game set in the Eastern Front is going to cover the Western Front. Don’t get too excited though, this modification is in the planning phases. The question now is, which will finish first (if at all) - Resistance and Liberation or Normandy?

I called Best Buy stores in Seattle, Chicago and on the East Coast and all of them confirmed that they will get the game on their shelves tomorrow, Wednesday. The bad news is that quantities seem light — each one of the stores I talked to was getting no more than eight copies! Granted this isn’t CoD2, but there were only six copies coming to the Best Buy in Bellevue, WA. and that seems too few to me. My advice to those looking to get the game in stores tomorrow is to call ahead and have a copy held for you.

FilePlanet.com has the Ten Hammers Demo available. I didn’t find very much replay value in the first game, however there was just something really cool about commanding two fire teams. I’ll definitely check out the demo for the sequel to see if anything new has been added.

|pz505|Heinz posted this cool link to a site that has all the RO:Ost maps with screens and summaries.