How didn’t you know? Every mother and his dog is on the train to flogging gamers for all their worth, so why aren’t you? Soon you can be making the millions from this clearly untapped market!

Honestly, there’s been loads of attempts that clearly worked, just look at these websites for ideas on how to run your own games for cash website!

• BattleFrag
• Prizefight
• Gamelio
• GoBlam!
• Tournament.com
• Kwari

Now all these sites have one thing in common, and its not that they are all making lots of money, it’s that they’re all shutdown.

If you have been in the gaming scene in the past 5 years you should have heard of at least one of the above mentioned companies, and you know that they weren’t successful. Which is a shame, but that’s just the way it goes.

They all have fallen into this same trap…

Step 1
The top players make money from beating the less skilled players.

Step 2
The top players rake in the cash, while the low skill players leave and don’t come back and don’t recommend your site.

Step 3
You attempt to attract new players by giving them free money to play with since all but the top skilled players have left.

Step 4
See Step 1.

I do hope that one day, the new budding entrepreneurs out there will look at the past efforts of this and go…

“Oh, look, there’s been other people who tried this, and from the looks of their websites it didn’t work out too well for them as none succeeded, perhaps we should try another area in gaming instead”

…and then leave it at that and try something else. Instead it seems to go like this…

“These other people failed at this, so let’s copy them, put a different spin on it, and then get the gaming sites to post news for us about how this time, it’ll work”

So why this post? There’s a new bunch of people on the street who think that they have the answer on how to make money from cash gaming (needless to say; whatever it is, it won’t work). They are called PlayAll; bets anyone on how long they’ll last?

In patch 3.0.8 Steady Shot was nurfed by 10% damage, so I have re-written my mashable macro a little to weave in Arcane Shot to increase it’s damage.

#showtooltip Auto Shot
/cast Kill Shot
/castsequence reset=shift/target Hunter’s Mark, null
/castsequence reset=target/3/alt Arcane Shot, Serpent Sting, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot

Basically the same as the first version I made, which you can find here along with the explanation on what everything does.

WARNING – THIS MACRO HAS BEEN UPGRADED, THE NEW VERSION CAN BE FOUND HERE

After a very long stretch of not playing around with macro’s in WoW, I decided to see just how far the legal macro system could be pushed. After various browsing, testing and changing I’ve come up with a key mash macro…

#showtooltip Auto Shot
/cast Kill Shot
/castsequence reset=shift/target Hunter’s Mark, null
/castsequence reset=target/3/alt Serpent Sting, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot

Now what does it actually do?

Start auto-shooting, then if it can, cast Kill Shot, otherwise (if shift is pressed or target has changed) cast Hunter’s Mark, after that cast Serpent Sting, followed by 7 Steady Shots (will reset if target changes, alt is pressed, or if macro is’nt used for 3 seconds). It has not been designed to cope with the Glyph of Serpent Sting, but if you do have that glyph changing this macro is as easy as adding 2 or 3 more Steady Shots.

This is designed to keep Serpent Sting on your target at all times, so that the bonus 10% damage from Glyph of Steady Shot will be applied on all your Steady Shots. It’s debatable if kill shot should be after hunters mark, but I decided to put it at the start so that if you can kill shot you do it as soon as possible, rather than waiting for Hunters Mark + 1.5seconds GCD. It should also be noted that if hunters mark fades, it will not automatically re-cast it, you’ll need to hold shift to get it to re-cast.

Enjoy

WARNING – THIS MACRO HAS BEEN UPGRADED, THE NEW VERSION CAN BE FOUND HERE

I recently started attempting to game on my Ubuntu machine using Wine, and I frequently play Warcraft III and World of Warcraft. However, when playing both of these I use Ventrilo to talk to my friends, so I thought easy, I’ll just run Ventrilo through Wine and have no problems. Wrong. Ventrilo does load up fine, however using Push-To-Talk is almost a useless option as it only works when Ventrilo is the active window. So to fix that someone make an application called VentriloCtrl (as of writing on version 0.5) and this simulates a keypress so that the push to talk functionality works from anywhere. So I set this up as one of the buttons on my MX revolution…

The only downside however is that the key it presses is hard coded as the letter “A”, not exactly the best key since most gamers run with WSAD to move around and for about a week I was beginning to annoy people by every time I pressed ‘A’ to move around I was transmitting. A quick dig through the code shows us where the key is defined, currently on line 17…

#define SIMULATEKEY XK_A // Simulate Key Press

Excellent, so changing this should’nt be too hard. After a quick search around I found a nice long list of all the codes that you could use instead of “XK_A”…

XK_BackSpace
XK_Tab
XK_Linefeed
XK_Clear
XK_Return
XK_Pause
XK_Escape
XK_Delete
XK_Multi_key
XK_Kanji
XK_Home
XK_Left
XK_Up
XK_Right
XK_Down
XK_Prior
XK_Next
XK_End
XK_Begin
XK_Select
XK_Print
XK_Execute
XK_Insert
XK_Undo
XK_Redo
XK_Menu
XK_Find
XK_Cancel
XK_Help
XK_Break
XK_Mode_switch
XK_script_switch
XK_Num_Lock
XK_KP_Space
XK_KP_Tab
XK_KP_Enter
XK_KP_F1
XK_KP_F2
XK_KP_F3
XK_KP_F4
XK_KP_Equal
XK_KP_Multiply
XK_KP_Add
XK_KP_Separator
XK_KP_Subtract
XK_KP_Decimal
XK_KP_Divide
XK_KP_0
XK_KP_1
XK_KP_2
XK_KP_3
XK_KP_4
XK_KP_5
XK_KP_6
XK_KP_7
XK_KP_8
XK_KP_9
XK_F1
XK_F2
XK_F3
XK_F4
XK_F5
XK_F6
XK_F7
XK_F8
XK_F9
XK_F10
XK_F11
XK_L1
XK_F12
XK_L2
XK_F13
XK_L3
XK_F14
XK_L4
XK_F15
XK_L5
XK_F16
XK_L6
XK_F17
XK_L7
XK_F18
XK_L8
XK_F19
XK_L9
XK_F20
XK_L10
XK_F21
XK_R1
XK_F22
XK_R2
XK_F23
XK_R3
XK_F24
XK_R4
XK_F25
XK_R5
XK_F26
XK_R6
XK_F27
XK_R7
XK_F28
XK_R8
XK_F29
XK_R9
XK_F30
XK_R10
XK_F31
XK_R11
XK_F32
XK_R12
XK_R13
XK_F33
XK_F34
XK_R14
XK_F35
XK_R15
XK_Shift_L
XK_Shift_R
XK_Control_L
XK_Control_R
XK_Caps_Lock
XK_Shift_Lock
XK_Meta_L
XK_Meta_R
XK_Alt_L
XK_Alt_R
XK_Super_L
XK_Super_R
XK_Hyper_L
XK_Hyper_R
XK_space
XK_exclam
XK_quotedbl
XK_numbersign
XK_dollar
XK_percent
XK_ampersand
XK_quoteright
XK_parenleft
XK_parenright
XK_asterisk
XK_plus
XK_comma
XK_minus
XK_period
XK_slash
XK_0
XK_1
XK_2
XK_3
XK_4
XK_5
XK_6
XK_7
XK_8
XK_9
XK_colon
XK_semicolon
XK_less
XK_equal
XK_greater
XK_question
XK_at
XK_A
XK_B
XK_C
XK_D
XK_E
XK_F
XK_G
XK_H
XK_I
XK_J
XK_K
XK_L
XK_M
XK_N
XK_O
XK_P
XK_Q
XK_R
XK_S
XK_T
XK_U
XK_V
XK_W
XK_X
XK_Y
XK_Z
XK_bracketleft
XK_backslash
XK_bracketright
XK_asciicircum
XK_underscore
XK_quoteleft
XK_lca
XK_lcb
XK_lcc
XK_lcd
XK_lce
XK_lcf
XK_lcg
XK_lch
XK_lci
XK_lcj
XK_lck
XK_lcl
XK_lcm
XK_lcn
XK_lco
XK_lcp
XK_lcq
XK_lcr
XK_lcs
XK_lct
XK_lcu
XK_lcv
XK_lcw
XK_lcx
XK_lcy
XK_lcz
XK_braceleft
XK_bar
XK_braceright
XK_asciitilde
XK_nobreakspace
XK_exclamdown
XK_cent
XK_sterling
XK_currency
XK_yen
XK_brokenbar
XK_section
XK_diaeresis
XK_copyright
XK_ordfeminine
XK_guillemotleft
XK_notsign
XK_hyphen
XK_registered
XK_macron
XK_degree
XK_plusminus
XK_twosuperior
XK_threesuperior
XK_acute
XK_mu
XK_paragraph
XK_periodcentered
XK_cedilla
XK_onesuperior
XK_masculine
XK_guillemotright
XK_onequarter
XK_onehalf
XK_threequarters
XK_questiondown
XK_Agrave
XK_Aacute
XK_Acircumflex
XK_Atilde
XK_Adiaeresis
XK_Aring
XK_AE
XK_Ccedilla
XK_Egrave
XK_Eacute
XK_Ecircumflex
XK_Ediaeresis
XK_Igrave
XK_Iacute
XK_Icircumflex
XK_Idiaeresis
XK_Eth
XK_Ntilde
XK_Ograve
XK_Oacute
XK_Ocircumflex
XK_Otilde
XK_Odiaeresis
XK_multiply
XK_Ooblique
XK_Ugrave
XK_Uacute
XK_Ucircumflex
XK_Udiaeresis
XK_Yacute
XK_Thorn
XK_ssharp
XK_lcagrave
XK_lcaacute
XK_lcacircumflex
XK_lcatilde
XK_lcadiaeresis
XK_lcaring
XK_lcae
XK_lcccedilla
XK_lcegrave
XK_lceacute
XK_lcecircumflex
XK_lcediaeresis
XK_lcigrave
XK_lciacute
XK_lcicircumflex
XK_lcidiaeresis
XK_lceth
XK_lcntilde
XK_lcograve
XK_lcoacute
XK_lcocircumflex
XK_lcotilde
XK_lcodiaeresis
XK_division
XK_oslash
XK_lcugrave
XK_lcuacute
XK_lcucircumflex
XK_lcudiaeresis
XK_lcyacute
XK_lcthorn
XK_ydiaeresis

Now obviously, over half of those are going to be quite useless as they will create key-presses resulting in keys being randomly typed. The best ones that I have found for use with Ventrilo & games are…

XK_Pause
XK_Break
XK_Num_Lock
XK_KP_5
XK_Shift_Lock

99% of the time these keys will have no effect on your games at all, so they are the safest keys to use for transmitting. Personally I use “XK_KP_5″ which is the same as pressing the number 5 on your keypad when num lock is off, ie. nothing happens. Using that key also doesn’t mean you have to have num lock off either as this is a simulated key press, so unless some game gets clever, or you use the num pad and have assigned this key to something else, its possibly the best key to use for Push-To-Talk since it does not get used for anything.

So to change the key all you do is replace “XK_A” with whatever you want to use, then “make” and “make install” and you’re done

I came across The Unfinished Swan game, or rather, tech demo of this game while I was Stumbling around and it has an interesting idea for game play. From the video it has a feel like Portal and the maze parts of Max Payne, the game is simple yet partly challenging. The basic idea is that you are in a world of complete contrast, quite literally. The walls are either all white, or all black, and you have to navigate out the maze, but as its all white or black you cant see where to move until you fire your paint gun…

I’ll be keeping an eye on this for when they release a playable demo, as I think it could do quite well. Hopefully this will be the 2nd game that Stumble has helped promote to me, the first was of course Audiosurf.

The title could defiantly sum up the past week and a bit with work, play and everything else.

So to start things off, this Thursday is the UK’s launch for Unreal Tournament 3. Which should provide to be a really fun day since I’m hopelessly addicted to the entire Unreal franchise. Back in the days of Unreal Tournament 2004 I created UTAN which helped stop cheaters from ruining games and matches, after years of tweaking it was very successful. That aside back to the launch. So I’ll be going around Omega Sektor like a child on about 10 cans of red bull mixed with a random controlled substance professional.

So if im not banned from Omega Sektor after that, I’ll be returning there later in the month for a preview of Kwari. I’ve been keeping an eye on this since it has a very similar idea to Prizefight, and I have been invited along with other people from around the country to give it a play. It will be interesting to see how they handle the answers to the big 5 questions as so far they have been very skilfully dodged…

1. Lag, since the client/server code is generated by you, just how good is it?
2. Packet Loss, what happens with PL? Do I lose my ammo?
3. Bullet Recognition, again, just how good is it when working under different circumstances?
4. Anti-Cheat, I think it also speaks for itself…

Ok ok, its the big 4, I couldn’t think of a 5th.

Sandwiched between these 2 events I will also be at i32, which for those uninformed people is the biggest LAN in the UK and is held at Newbury Racecourse. Where I’ll be once again acting as Assistant Tournament Manager. It seems this time the schedule for the event has gotten even more crammed compared to last event. So this time I’m not even bothering to take my full rig as last event I didn’t even use it! Laptops ahoy!

Well, I seemed to miss this in the news while I was away at the weekend at Alton Towers. Needless to say, the second I saw this available for download I jumped on it. Contained within the zip file are 20 mp3 files, (so no longer the ogg format that Unreal Tournament 2004 used), but not all are music files, some are announcer sound previews. It appears that they have taken the announcer voice and added a slight reverb effect which adds to the surround sound effect.

Track Listing:

1. UT2007 MenuTheme (3:40)
2. ONS01Mix (4:20)
3. Announcer Male KillingSpree (0:02)
4. Mech8Mix (3:32)
5. Announcer Female PrepareForBattle (0:01)
6. GoDown Mix (3:06)
7. RomNecris02 BeatMix (1:24)
8. Taunts Malcolm AhHellNo (0:01)
9. UT2007 MenuTheme2 (2:52)
10. RomUT02Mix (4:00)
11. Announcer Male DoubleKill (0:02)
12. RomNecris01 AmbientTheme (2:12)
13. GoDown SuspenseTheme (1:11)
14. RomNecris02 VictoryTheme (1:48)
15. LockdownMix (4:48)
16. RomNecris01 VictoryTheme (1:12)
17. Announcer Female NewOpponent (0:02)
18. Outpost SuspenseTheme (1:27)
19. RomUT06 ActionTheme (0:50)
20. SpaceDnB VictoryTheme (1:00)

After listening to the first few tracks I can tell you now that Epic Games have defiantly gone back to their original Unreal Tournament roots, as the menu theme is a remixed original menu theme. Within the second menu theme there is a fantastic bass line which I think my neighbours will learn to like.

Throughout this soundtrack though there are other remixes of the old music, such as “Go Down” and “Mech8″ which sound amazing and all I now want to do is play the original and salivate in waiting of Unreal Tournament 3.

Download Link – Unreal Tournament 3 Official Soundtrack (34mb)

For those who know me for my World of Warcraft addons, you’ll know I created a very popular extension which was called EnemyCastBar. What this allowed you to do was to see your opponents casting bar for their spells, therefore allowing you to (and if you could) interrupt them at the last possible second. This was especially effective for rogues fighting any healing class so that they would save a stun for when they attempted to heal. Having this tool to see not only the length of a cast time, but also what they were casting at you made PvP a lot more interesting, as effectively everyone knew when you were doing something, and subsequently how to counter you…

“Ahh, Mr. Warlock there is casting Shadow Bolt, I’ll cast Shadow Ward to protect myself from part of the damage”

“Ahh, Mr. Priest there is trying to heal himself, I’ll fear him to cancel the heal”

However the addon didn’t start as a pure PvP mod, it started as a proof of concept addon just to see if I could do this. The idea was generated from the original Boss Mod scripts from CT_RaidAssist, which alerted you to when a certain boss event was about to occur. As all the raiding encounters in WoW are based on timed events, this meant showing warnings was very simple once the timings had been worked out.

I then “ported” over the Boss Mod scripts into EnemyCastBar to provide a full PvE raiding section, for the whole of Molten Core, Blackwing Lair and some of Ahn’Qiraj. These visual timers allowed for some encounters to be near trivialized as you knew exactly when an ability/event was about to occur. Where as before EnemyCastBar you only had about 5seconds notice, as all warnings were done in a text alert format…

“Fear in 5seconds!”

Providing a visual timer allowed you to monitor the situation completely, it also allowed you to keep checking when a special event was going to occur, so that you were not caught off guard at any time.

So why am I writing about ECB? Well, after I stopped playing WoW, I handed the maintenance of the addon to Natur so that it could still keep running after patch releases etc. He did a great job of maintaining it, and subsequently took my addon to levels I couldn’t imagine. But that isn’t, again, why I am talking about it.

In about 2months (maybe less), the expansion for WoW called The Burning Crusade will be released, and within this, there will be my addon, or rather my idea. As the idea behind EnemyCastBar has been integrated into TBC, this gives me mixed feelings regarding the whole situation. It means my coding or idea, no idea which, was good enough to be merged into the most popular MMORPG in the western market. Meaning that an estimated 7million subscribers to WoW will see my invention in their game play everyday now, rather than it being a percentage of the market who actively researched and installed addons.

As good as that is, as I am quite proud, but theres only one part of this which eats away at me. Which is the fact that I, nor Natur, receive any mention of the creation and maintaining of the addon in the first place that I can find. Ok, the integrated version will never compete with the version we make, but even then, a quick “hi, since your addon impressed us so much, and the fact its being widely used, we are going to merge it with the game for The Burning Crusade”. But no, Blizzard have sent me nothing of the sort, which is why I am slightly annoyed. Ok I agreed to the terms and conditions, and I knew that, but I thought Blizzard was a but more community oriented. Also I know I am no longer the official maintainer, and I don’t create releases anymore, this isn’t about that. It’s more just the general principle. I just really hope that they don’t screw it up completely, although they seem to be making a good attempt at killing off the addon community with the changes they are making for TBC.

Bottom line, they must respect the authors, creators and maintainers, even if its only a small amount, perhaps they think integration is good enough, I don’t. The respect is still needed because without us, addons such as CT_RaidAssist (probably the most downloaded addon for WoW), Scrolling Combat Text, and now EnemyCastBar, wouldn’t have existed in the first place for them to effectively.. “steal”.

On a final note, it will be interesting to see if other MMORPG’s will pick up on the idea of seeing enemy spell cast times, and to see if they put similar functionality into their games as well… damn me for not copyrighting it!