Recap for February 1, 2013

Despite an update to Far Cry 3 sixteen hours before the session we still had our share of ghost players, difficult-to-enter rooms, party drops (Xbox LIVE issue) and unexplainable host migrations that dropped players.  We even had a room fragment into several rooms (many with only one player in them) during a match.
And yet, we play on.  Such is the drive of the Far Cry Friday Crew.
This week saw a lot of new folks and a dearth of our regulars.  The room size varied throughout the night, but peaked at eleven players for almost an hour, exceeding the capabilities of LIVE Party Chat.  The guest list for this party included BiTTeReRli0N, Broken Piggy, Caidkiller (briefly), Chongokiller, Cold Justice, Darksteel Titan, DT58Fan4Life, EddieNES, FND Killer Tuner, Panyc333, RGC Cambles, wickedmoose306 and xXxMentalxXx.  Although we had anticipated the triumphant return of PrisonedBullet to our ranks, he was sadly missing from action.
We opened the evening at 7PM sharp with DapperHayden007’s beautiful garden arena KAIYU SHIKI TEIEN.  It’s a good opening map and was new to many of the folks who joined in.  This map has a well-deserved Silver status with 26 plays and 29 votes.
Next up was a dramatic facelift to Broken Piggy’s New Camelot.  The addition of vegetation and the play of light and shadow from changing the time of day were welcome improvements to this map.  TDM and Transmission game modes played well on this map, but the raised daises used for Domination made that game mode almost unplayable and will need to be reworked.  This map remains unpublished for now but is nearing completion.
We followed with Trailer Park, a new map for FCF from FND Killer Tuner.  This is a fun map for TDM with a typical trailer park setting.  Domination played generally well, but many players complained that the point in the sewer was too hard to find -- despite the provision of three separate entrances to the sewers.  Firestorm played very well, even with the questionable placement of the radio dish on top of one of the trailers.  Broken Piggy and Cold Justice, who have become adept at winning Firestorm matches using minimal communication over party chat, were able to take and hold the point long enough to set the park ablaze.  Ahh… I just love the smell of napalm in a trailer park…  This map is Silver, with 62 plays and 43 votes.
From there we moved to the debut of Broken Piggy’s latest opus, Apocalyptica.  This arid, debris-strewn map set in the aftermath of a cataclysmic upheaval was played in all game modes.  The map was extremely well-received by the panel and played well in all game modes.  I did find a spot where you could get stuck sliding into the ravine during Transmission – but since it was directly behind one of the transmission points, I didn’t survive long enough to complain about it.  This map was published on Saturday and already has silver status with 13 plays and 14 votes.
We tried to play on Cold Justice’s Jonestown since the room was at eleven players.  But Xbox LIVE and FC3 conspired against it, fragmenting both the party chat and the lobby during play.  In the confusion it was decided to move on to a different map.  Jonestown has Silver status with 24 plays and 18 votes.
As we tried to reform the party, we shifted to BiTTeReRli0n’s 1ion5 D3N.  This is an arena-variant map based on the game’s Ancient Temple object set.  The group’s reaction to the map was quite positive, although there were a few rough spots where a running player would come to a dead stop for no apparent reason.  TDM and Domination both played well.  This map has Bronze status with 2 plays and 4 votes.
We closed the night with xXxMentalxXx’s derelict factory map, Relictus.  We played this map a few times, concentrating on TDM and Domination.  The group’s feedback was very positive.  The map is clean and has a very natural-feeling multi-path layout.  Domination played very well with the center area being highly contested.  This map has earned a silver status with 9 plays and 10 votes.
The session ended just before 1AM Central Time. 
Not played this week: mambonuts’ Pot Luck and ST x Erock’s unwanted.  We ran out of time for these two, but they will be at the top of next week’s playlist. 
NOTE TO MAP MAKERS: When there are a lot of new maps, the host prioritizes the maps made by people present in the room over maps whose makers are not available.  This is to maximize the feedback given to a map maker and also shows respect to those map makers who take the time out to attend the session.  Note that his is not a criticism of those who were not able to make it this week, but a statement of how I run the room.  Not being there doesn’t mean your map won’t be played, but it does mean I’ll prioritize other maps above it in order to maximize the effectiveness of player feedback.
Do you have a particularly memorable moment you’d like to share?  Add it to the comments.