Facts:

1. EA and Gamespy are Cockmongers

2. Battlefield 2 is a buggy incomplete game

3. Battlefield 2 is fun as hell, and everyone* is playing it.

So! We are forming an alliance team to field what will hopefully be a 32 player squad. See you online!



In other news, we got hosed by ILAN. They went under and we lose a few hundred dollars worth of hosting that we paid for. There isn't much we can do about it, either.



*even Drastic

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/07/18/news_6129331.html

EA to distribute Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source
Multiyear agreement sees publisher take over retail duties on storied shooter franchise, EA publishing Xbox HL2 in October.

Just over three months ago, one of the most contentious relationships in game history came to an end. On April 28, after months of overt legal disputes and covert bickering, VU Games and Valve Software announced they were ending a half-decade-long publishing deal. The arrangement saw the former publish the latter's groundbreaking PC first-person shooters Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and Half-Life 2.

However, Valve's next console game--after the PlayStation 2 Half-Life and the Xbox Counter-Strike--will be distributed by one of VU's main rivals. Today, Electronic Arts revealed that as of this fall, it will be the international publisher of the forthcoming Xbox version of Half-Life 2, which will now ship in October 2005. EA will also assume distribution duties of a new Game of the Year edition of Half-Life 2 for the PC, which will include Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, plus Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, and Half-Life: Source in a single box.

However, Valve will now officially self-publish all of its PC products, although the newly announced--and carefully worded--agreement will allow EA to "deliver a collection of Valve games to players worldwide" in the future.

"We consider Half-Life and Counter-Strike to be two of the best game franchises of all time," said Tom Frisina, Vice President and General Manager of EA Partners, in a statement. "We could not be more excited to have the opportunity to help deliver these outstanding games to players around the globe."

Valve founder and president Gabe Newell had similarly kind words. "By combining EA’s unparalleled operation structure and distribution channel with Valve's award-winning development teams and games community, we’ve established an awesome combination for delivering great products to console and PC gamers around the world," he said.

The EA-Valve arrangement covers the boxed, retail editions of Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source, it does not affect digitally distributed versions of the game. As before, those titles will be delivered and updated via Steam, Valve's online service.

Man, out of the frying pan into the flame. Not that EA is in charge of any developmental aspects *yet* but...I'm just not having much faith in this working out well.

Everyone write your little love letters to Wally.

"The bomb has been planted, [R2]Wally has left the server"
Happy Birthday Wally
-Creo

Congratulations Mustang!

Lawson Scott Barker

Was born on July, 19 6:43 PM.
He was 8 lbs 1 once - 20 1/2 inches long.

Pictures!

(Cutest Potato Ever!)

We salute our proud new father!

So by now our struggles with the loved/hated CS5 have been well versed, but thankfully we have cause to move on. Behold the latest incarnation of Rangers CS:Source - 66.199.247.244:27015. Sphinx was kind enough to swing a deal which ultimately landed us a couple months of free server service from unkNown over at StaticServers [www.staticservers.com]. More information will be handed out over the course of the next week or so, but for now get everyone we know back into CS:S and lets get this mother filled. Preliminary specs show it's a 14 player public server, 100 tic rate machine. Here's hoping it performs as well as it looks on paper! Most important reason why we need people on the server is to load test it. We need as much feedback before our gifted period (2 months) is up to know if this is where we want to make it our permanent home.

Again, a big thanks to both Sphinx and StaticServers for bringing us back to where we rightfully should be: the CS world.

/me salutes you