o-BacklasH-o

You don't have to be a member of both, if you do I will be explicitly upset. It was not needed to be a member of both in past Socom betas (2 and 3), rather just one of the two. Being a member of both certainly increases your odds of getting selected. I'm hoping my PSU membership and GAP status there will be enough to get me selected for the beta.

I rendered that photo too when it came out lol, but I have yet to use it for something.

Oops, lol I forgot entirely about this. I'll have it for you tonight.

That looks awesome!

LMAO too funny.

The first home run of the 2008 season belongs to Mark Ellis as he just hit a laser homerun off Dice-K in the 1st inning. 1-0 A's.

LOL he got kicked out of the guild on Warcraft. He's really going to be depressed next episode. I love watching these, absolutely hilarious.

What is the easiest way to render something? Takes me forever. > Using the pen tool.

YIPEE! CAN'T WAIT!

After a week of waiting and desire for the league to commence I am happy to inform you that the league has begun. Here are the week 1 schedules taken off the League Schedule online on the Show: Primemeat @ Southpaw1621 Boody @ Eagles1fan5 Nino_Nemasis @ MarauderHD CpDude05 @ Sixx_Pack smokeosama @ Tool_Minion Fear_Wade @ xVicariousx DRKSOUL @ HeywoodJablome Stinky2 @ MaluNYmets Sequoyah @ Mr_M3T-Tastic Hush- @ Iceman808 Good luck in your matches and make sure to complete them by Thursday at 11:59 PM CST!

They have released a roster update and also when you log on issued this apology: That typo in the first sentence is their typo, not mine. Let's get back to playing online, I was going through withdrawals all day lol.

I'll do it when I'm waiting for the Red Sox game tonight.

http://www.ripten.com/2008/03/24/digging-for-truth-in-the-psn-leak-story/ Digging for Truth in the PSN Leak Story by Patrick Steen on March 24, 2008 Last week several media outlets received a leak from an unexpected source claiming to be a tentative schedule for downloadable content on the PlayStation Network. Initially, the leak was treated with cynicism, but, as many are beginning to discover, cold hard evidence is painting a much brighter picture. What is this hard evidence then, you might ask? The best way to find out is by looking at what lies inside the schedule. You have your HOME; your Resistance 2 trailer, Wipeout HD, and WarHawk: Operation Broken Mirror. If you take a closer look, though, you may find a small little title known as Ratchet: Quest for Booty. This title just popped out of nowhere. At least, so it would seem. Not so for the forum members who frequent MyResistance, Insomniac Game’s official forum for their latest franchise, Resistance. For the better part of the last month, these members were busy cracking codes. Codes? What for? Well, that was for them to discover. The codes were released as Easter Eggs in the music video Insomniac put together for the Game Developers Conference weekend. Within the video they had hidden four codes in the form of magnets. One of those codes was the infamous QBLDC4. This was the code that needed to be broken. Thanks to several hints offered up by Insomniac’s Community Manager, James Stevenson, and fellow comrade Rolf Mohr, the members of MyResistance narrowed down their options to a few select guesses. The first correct part was DLC being Downloadable Content, but the rest of the letters were illusive: Beta? Quarter? These didn’t appear to fit with Downloadable Content. On top of this, Rolf tipped the fledgling interpreters that they were very close to the answer without even knowing it. Still, the code crackers went from hot to cold, boiling to freezing. After weeks of discussion and intense debates, the board members started getting disillusioned and fell into a rut. Hoping to rescue them, JS tried to set them on the right track. They were told to think outside of the box. Many ideas came up and only divided the unit more. Eventually, one of the members asked that even if they had guessed the correct answer would JS confirm it. Regardless, the team continued to work, but demanded more hints. In response, he decided to reply with a cryptic message: Shocked by the response and overcome with confusion, the small band continued to persevere. They attempted several more guesses, but were then informed that they had missed a clue entirely. As a result, the team doubled back and looked through a long list of hints given throughout. Gradually, they began to weed out most of the guesses that did not abide by what was given. Finally they arrived at an approximation of two values. The answer either had to do with quests or characters/races. Their final guess before the leak broke out was Quest for B_ Downloadable Content, with no word for B. When the image made its first wave on the net, the forum members caught it and noticed that within the list was a title known as Ratchet: Quest for Booty. With that, they had their final word. As of now, Insomniac has made no comment on the title’s existence, but many believe that this is due to other developer projects. By confirming the identity of one game on the list, the theory is that the rest of the items on the list are also correct. Since then, an uncomfortable silence has followed in its wake. Should we be expecting these titles to be released, or not? What gives even more credence to the DLC holding true, is the fact that there was yet another Easter Egg within the (pin)Ballz video reported earlier. An obvious one which we noted on the video’s release, were the numbers 0708. It had always been thought to have been a date for something, but now we can confidently claim that this date, July 2008, was referring to Ratchet: Quest for Booty, since this is the date listed on the leaked schedule. To add to the turmoil, Sony released a statement with the following remark: Naturally? Really? Besides the obvious no comment reply, notice how the press brief included “subject to later confirmation.†Ratchet would follow this rule. An exclusive magazine reveal is expected. This Sony comment hasn’t stopped others from believing the list to be true in its entirity. On top of the typical HOME is being released around the same time as E3 theory, there has been one interesting deduction to go along with this state of affairs. Educated gamers have begun to notice that the same day the R2 trailer goes live, along with several other add-ons and expansions, the PlayStation store is reported to undergo a major revamp. These ideas may seem highly convincing, but any hopes for a formal confirmation continue to slip rapidly away. We’ll just have to keep our eyes open. As we draw closer and closer to the timeframe the schedule details, we will discover more and more about this increasingly suspicious reveal.

http://www.therealsocom.com/2008/03/my-interview-with-joe-rybicki-of-1up.html Monday, March 24, 2008 My interview with Joe Rybicki (of the 1up network and writer of the EGM article) I was able to do a Q&A with someone the SOCOM community should be familiar with by now, Joe Rybicki, who free lances for the 1up network and is the man behind the SOCOM Confrontation EGM cover story arriving this week. I'm sure you will all enjoy this interview, and look for the 1-word peak at his cover story at the end of the Q&A. Q: First of all, thank you for doing this. My pleasure! Q: What is your current position at Ziff Davis, and can you tell us a bit about your history in video game media? Well, I'm part of the stable of regular freelancers for Ziff, which means I don't really have a "position" with them per se anymore. I started doing freelance after OPM closed in November 2006 -- before that I was with OPM since its launch in 1997, and with its predecessor P.S.X. for about a year before that; I started in June of 1996. This was right out of college. And by "right out of" I mean, "two weeks after graduation." I was very, very lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Q: When did you first play a SOCOM game and what were your first impressions? This would have been at an E3 over a year before the first game launched. So, probably E3 of 2000? Sony had started talking up their online initiative for the PS2, and was showing this SEALs game. And let me tell you: It. Was. AWFUL. The game ran at about 10 frames per second, the whole thing looked muddy and choppy and just kind of goofy. I saw what they were going for with the realism, but it was obviously taxing the system way too hard, and the whole voice-command thing seemed like a cheesy gimmick that didn't work all that well. So, fast forward a year to E3 2001. I get assigned to cover the game again, and go into the demo dreading what I'm about to see. And it turns out they fixed really just about everything I had griped about. I remember seeing how you could hide in a bush and basically be completely invisible to other players, and just getting so thrilled by the idea. I was pretty much hooked from that point on. Q: What is it about these games to you that have made them so addictive? I think it's the fact that SOCOM is one of the few shooters in which strategy is really more important (or at least can be) than raw manual skill. Yeah, if you're an insanely good shot you're going to do well, of course; but you can also do well by picking great hiding spots, planting mines in the right places, picking the right weapon for your play style, learning to lob grenades where (and when) you want them to go -- and more importantly, working together with your team. I don't know of any other game I've played where communication is as important as it is in SOCOM. Q: Do you still ever get online and play a few rounds in SOCOM 1 or 2? Every once in a blue moon, but it's very, very rare these days. I did just play S2 last weekend, and I was amazed by how quickly I could get back into the groove. This was after not having played in probably two years. By contrast, I jumped onto Halo 3 that night after not playing for just a couple months, and repeatedly got my ass handed to me. Different games, of course, but it was a pretty striking contrast. Q: How would you rank the SOCOM console games, in terms of your favourite to least favourite? Definitely S2 in the top spot. But here's where I'll piss off your readers: I'd almost always rather play S3 than S1 -- mainly because S2 and S1 are so similar. If I want the old-school style I'll play S2, if I want new-school I'll play S3. Q: What are your top 3 favourite online SOCOM maps (over any of the games)? Hrm. I'm not sure I can rank these, because my favorites change depending on how I feel like playing at any given time. But I'd say Abandoned has always been one of my favorites, in part because I got so good at tossing grenades through the windows of that center structure...I really liked the way Enowapi could play out with very good players on both sides...and Desert Glory was one of those that allowed for so many different play styles that I always had fun with it. I also really liked Last Bastion, but didn't get as much chance to play it as the others 'cause of the way it was distributed. If only more of you had bought those issues of OPM with the maps on them! Yes, I'm kidding, of course. I'll also say that I never liked Rat's Nest and always actively hated Fish Hook. I have no idea why people still play that map. And Crossroads? It's fine and all, but I honestly don't get what exactly it is about that map that everyone loves so much. I like it fine, but it's probably not even in my top five. Q: What are your thoughts about the direction Zipper took with SOCOM 3? At first, I really liked it. It seemed to me that it totally brought the SOCOM feel into a vehicle-based game. But once I brought it home, it sorta just sat on my shelf. I think the problem might have been that addition of vehicles tipped the balance back toward raw skill and away from strategy. I think this was exacerbated by the huge size of the levels, which made it harder to work together with your whole team...or at least, people in the games I played seemed disinclined to work together. Q: Do you like the direction Slant Six took with the PSP SOCOM game, Tactical Strike? Loved the idea, but damn did I have problems with the execution. I really hope they do a sequel, if only to get rid of all the problems. Here's my review if you're interested in the whole story: http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3164139&p=7 Q: You're one of the few people I've come across in the popular media who really seem to 'get' SOCOM and the community. Do you think the media has largely ignored this franchise over the years? If so, why do you think that is? You know, I never really got the sense that SOCOM was ignored in the gaming media, but of course my perspective is unusual. If it was, it's probably because the Xbox side was all about Halo for so long, and the PC side was all about Counter-Strike or whatnot. Or maybe it's because Microsoft was launching XBL right around that time and that became more of a focus for online play. I dunno. I've always wondered why people aren't as right as me. Q: It's safe to say that the SOCOM community was shocked when SOCOM Confrontation was announced and it sounded like our prayers might finally be answered. What were your initial thoughts after the announcement? First: "OH HELL YES MORE SOCOM!" Second: "OH GOD WHY IS IT SO UGLY?" I had to forcibly remind myself of my experience with the first game, and that Confrontation was still way, way early. (And yeah, those new screens you've seen? Those aren't touched up. The game really does look that much better than the first screens.) Just a couple hours after they showed it, I got to sit down with Seth Luisi, who's the director of development for the franchise, and once he'd given me all the details about wanting to get back to the feel of the first games and so on, I was very, very excited. I didn't even mind that it looked like ass. Q: We know you can't say anything at this point, but since you were one of the first people outside of Slant Six and Sony, to play SOCOM Confrontation, I have to ask, can you give us a one-word description of your time with the game? "Nostalgic." Q: Thank you for your time. The community is eagerly awaiting your article. No problem! Don't forget to go buy EGM instead of just reading all the details when they're inevitably leaked online, so that they can continue to hire me to write features for them.

And we keep Briggs! Talk about owned.

Just released, downloading it now. Here is it's contents: The ability to copy PS3 Music and Photo playlists to a PSP system. We introduced the ability to create Music and Photo playlists on the PS3 in firmware update v2.0. Now you can easily export your playlists to your PSP. You can now play DivX and WMV format files that are over 2 GB. In addition, you can now display subtitles when viewing DivX files. Resume Play - begin playing a DVD or BD disc from the point where you previously stopped it, even if you eject the disc and insert a different movie or game. Use your PSP as a remote control to play back your music files on your PS3 without turning on your TV. The Internet browser now displays some web pages faster. In addition [save Target] has been added as an option under file. This option lets you save a file that is linked to a web page to your PS3 hard drive or storage media.

Same, server issues... When these clear up I'll kick off the league.

LOL queertivity! I like that.

You won't beat me .

I know I'll be up to watch Dice-K dominate the A's in front of his fans in Japan! I can't wait!

Let's simmer down fellas.

Indeed. You will know your first opponent by tonight around 8 PM Central. I will be posting up in the UF on the Fly section to set up my game!

Ok, I will be starting the league tonight and you'll have 3 days to complete your first game.

Lot's of potential closet homosexuality going on here ;D.

You have a 3 day period to complete each scheduled game, it's not like 29 games in 2 weeks or something.