The North American warsow scene sounds pretty much identical to the Aussie one. There’s only one CA server that is consistantly populated. The rest of the gametypes are mostly a crapshoot as to whether the server will populate or not.

As far as the new/old movement debate goes. I use both, but think that old movement is easier once you know both systems. For new people joining the game, I usually ask them if they’ve played Quake 3 or Painkiller. For the quake players, I tell them to use Old movement, and for the painkiller folks, new. New movement has superior air control and forward bunny acel, good for constant speed, and quick corners. Old movement is far easier to gain speed with because of its superior strafing acceleration. There’s only one reason to ever let go of your forward button in old movement, and that’s for the quick 180 degree dash turns. When new movement was introduced, I had alot of difficulty trying to rocket jump until I realized that you had to actually let go of that forward button. Now that I have that down, I can easily switch between the two, and I do depending on the gametype i’m playing.

What warsow really needs (and judging from the .5 beta we won’t get anytime soon) is one unified movement system. As it stands, old movement is better for CA/DA/Race, and new movement is better for DM/DUEL. I can only imagine the bitching on the forums if one or the other was removed.

But, enough talk, give warsow a go.

The wetwork the game lays out is flipped on its head about 3 times in the full length NS match, classically.

marines vs skulks

marines vs the lurk and fade (greater mobility and threat)

then jetpack/heavy marines vs fades/lerks (marines bringe greater mobility/toughness)

finally jetpack+heavy vs all aliens with a wide range of upgrades(all out warfare)

I sometimes wish other games had the same sense of chronology to them. Say in battlefield games starting off as early strike paratroopers, securing the beaches with amphibious APC’s and later tanks being brought in. End game with planting a tactical nuke in the enemies base and getting out, or not and biting it to assure victory..

Unfortunately (in the context of Warsow, that is) I’m in Australia, so if I ever do see you in-game one of us will probably have about 500 ping to contend with :)

(Since I first started playing, the Australian Warsow community has always seemed to be one step away from dying, as people move on to other shooters (Quake Live, for one) or simply disappear. The fact that there are effectively three ‘tiers’ of gametype, often with very little player overlap — we have duelers, DA/CA players, and instagibbers — doesn’t help. But somehow it’s stayed popular enough that while the servers are often empty, it’s usually possible to attract a few opponents just by joining one.)

And I agree with you up to a point on the learning curve, though I do think people overstate it sometimes. It’s true that any new player without Quake (/UT/etc.) experience will get absolutely destroyed in their first few games, and that someone who is used to CS-style shooters will be overwhelmed at first. But I really don’t think it’s that hard to get the hang of, for people who are interested enough that they don’t mind practicing a bit.

I’m not sure that I would have coped had I started before New Movement was introduced, or if each jump had to be precisely timed, but given that a newcomer can gain speed just by holding down the forward key and pressing and holding jump while in the air — only later worrying about strafe-jumping, rocketjumps, etc. — I reckon it can actually be a pretty gradual learning curve if tackled one step at a time.

My deathmatch background was some enthusiastic but highly nooby Quake III and UT2kx (in both cases, almost exclusively against bots and equally nooby friends, and using no advanced movement), and a bit of mostly low-grav HL2DM, so I’m certainly not some sort of skilful old-schooler. Warsow did take me a while to pick up, and I’m still terrible compared to the really good players, but I found the learning process pretty enjoyable and I’m now good enough to hold my own (and have a huge amount of fun) playing DA and CA. Still get destroyed by decent Duelers, but I prefer the “pure combat” feel of the item-free gametypes anyway.

Anyway, apologies to anyone who tried to read that rambling wall-o’-text! Basically what I’m saying is that I really like Warsow, and I reckon it’s actually pretty accessible — especially if there are a few friendly players in your region to set you off in the right direction.

Rook: I thought the fairly obvious winner would be Fallout 3

lol?!

I actually found that the Kharaa did NOT require fantastical twitch-shooting abilities, particularly if you play the Gorge. Build, heal, upgrade – none of which require amazing movement skills.

I’ll agree on the marine side it often does become difficult to play without being amazing at FPS’ – but you can tell your commander to simply give all build orders straight to you. That’s what I do anyway.

I know nothing about any mods. Bah.

Warsow is excelent, but the learning curve is very steep if you’ve never been exposed to strafejumping/bunnyhopping/trickjumping before. It’s a game for people who love and miss the shooters of old. The dev team is very active on the forums, and they take feedback and advice from the community seriously. If you’ve never heard of it before now, it’s worth taking a look.

I spend most of my time in the Smooth Operators CA server, and occasionally you can find me in a random DM or race server. Perhaps i’ll see you in game.

I was a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings: Total War mod, which I used to play even before the patch that included a proper playable campaign, too. Presentation-wise, it wasn’t the best, but it was an enormous and ambitious feat, considering it was a total conversion of a game with notoriously bad mod support, and the amount of models, skins and other aesthetic changes it made was quite something to see. There were a few things that were implemented that didn’t fit at all (Flying units, such as the Nazgul, Frodo and Sam’s appearance on the campaign map…), and a few things that were fatally missing (No custom buildings meant that Helm’s Deep was a Gaul City), but for field battles with the backbone units of LOTR armies, it was lovely. Not boxed-copy quality, but getting there.

It’s just a shame it hasn’t been updated since 2007…

What about things like Europa Barbarorum for RTW? It’s been around for a while now, but this sort of modding for a strategy game can be quite comprehensive and provide a lot of playing-time.