So apparently I had been listed as a guest making an appearance at PortConMaine next weekend. Unfortunately, this is news to me, and I only found out last night that I was scheduled to be a guest. Due to short notice, I won’t be able to attend, so I apologize if anyone was hoping to catch me there. There will be some other great guys there, though, so you should try and make it if you can.

In other news, I hate to sound like a broken record but man… Battlefield 2. Along with trying to ease myself back into WoW a bit, B2 is the main game I’m playing right now, and it is incredible, even just playing the one demo map over and over. Brian and I have set up our own demo server, CAD/8BT Official Server, and when retail comes out in a couple of days we will switch it over.

Right now I think we’re leaning towards making it a password protected server, with the password listed here, so that only CAD and 8BT fans will access the server. Obviously we’re also going to have some rules, so without further ado, I give you:

Tim’s Guide to Battlefield 2

Teamkilling: Ok. WHAT THE FUCK? Chronic teamkilling is really annoying, and we’re not going to tolerate it. I know that teamkilling happens. You may order an artillery strike and not realize there is another squad in your area. In the heat of battle, you may throw an errant grenade. A teammate may run out in front of your moving tank or eject from your jet only to be sucked into the engines. It happens, but it’s pretty easy to distinguish accidental teamkilling from just being a dipshit.

If you teamkill someone: APOLOGIZE! If you killed your teammate by accident, apologize right away so that they KNOW it was an accident. Typing it out is more sincere, but for the heat of battle there is even a “sorry” voice command in your radial dial. Make sure they know you didn’t do it on purpose.

Also, stop and look! Friendly units have blue names, enemies have red names. Also, their uniforms are different shades of brown. Don’t just shoot at anything that moves! At a distance it takes longer for the name to appear over a target’s head. ESPECIALLY in vehicles, it may take a second for you to be able to discern if they are friend or foe. Don’t shoot until you are sure what you’re shooting at. There’s an old saying, “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes”. Well, don’t shoot until you see the color of their nametag!

If you are teamkilled: Don’t just immediately punish the teamkiller because you’re angry. The option to punish a teamkiller stays up there for a while, so WAIT! Give the person a chance to apologize. You may have just been the victim of a freak accident that wasn’t intentional. Don’t punish people just because you can. Punishing someone just because you’re being pissy about having to wait 10 seconds to spawn is just as bad as teamkilling.

Keep note of who is teamkilling you. If it is the same person over and over again, they may be a really bad player, but most likely they are being a stupid shit and need to be banned. So if you notice a trend, punish or report them, but give people the benefit of the doubt first.

Grabbing that vehicle: This is a TEAM game, genius. I can’t count how many times I spawn a second after a guy, just to watch him jump into an FAV buggy and just peel out, leaving everyone else in the dust to walk. Don’t be so fucking selfish. Yeah, driving gets you to the battle quicker, but you’ve got teammates that need to get there too. Not to mention that most vehicles have multiple gunnery spots.

What are you going to do with that buggy once you get to the battle? Probably just run it into a tank or hop out and fight on foot. Well if you have waited a second or two for your teammates, you’d have someone on the huge machine gun mounted to the roof, and perhaps a medic or engineer in the passenger seat to make the thing a mobile asskicking machine. But no, you just had to rush off.

So when you jump into the drivers seat, take a second and look around, or look at your map! Are there any teammates who might want a ride? The more people you bring to a battle, the better the odds.

I’ll post some more to this guide later today.