The Home of the Dot Gamer Clan!

Xfire is an instant messenger, voice chat, and clan/group system that is currently owned by Titan Gaming. Xfire is the ultimate all-in-one system for clan/group-based gaming when you have no budget (all of Xfire’s features are free). It allows you to create a group, invite people to the group, then it tracks your group’s hours played and lets you make a calendar, a forum, an announcements page, and a description all from your own page on Xfire.com.

Instant Messenger/Voice chat

Xfire’s instant messenger has all the standard IM features, but no offline message system. It has compatibility for AIM, MSN, and Twitter connectivity, which is pretty impressing. It’s voice chat is of lower quality than Skype and Mumble, but higher than Steam, TeamSpeak, and Ventrilo. It has support for group chats with up to 50 people.

Game Selection and Sales

Xfire was not originally made to be a platform for selling games, but when Viacom/MTV bought it they tried very hard to sell a few games, but got almost no sales, so they sold it to Titan Gaming. Titan wants to make Xfire more of a platform for selling games, like Steam, but for now they haven’t changed anything (just a note, it looks like Titan will be very indie friendly). With this all being said, at the moment of this post, games on Xfire are all sold for retail price, but the Xfire community heavily embraces free to play games, many of which you can download via Xfire.

Community

The people on Xfire are very fun and exciting. There are always trolls in every community, but even they get hyped up when an event is being planned by the Xfire team. There are often prize events in free to play games for players or groups that play so many hours, as well as live interviews with developers. The forums are always heavily used.

Group are everywhere on Xfire, and starting one is easy. Once you get one friend, there is a friends-of-friends list on your IM list, where you can add friends of friends, then once you add them you can add even more, and you can invite them all to your group. Groups on Xfire aren’t very professional due to the lowest average age (14 seems to be average) I’ve seen on any gaming platform, but they are fun.

Overlay

Xfire’s overlay is simply amazing. With it you can:

• Take screenshots
• Take in-game video
• Message others
• See your FPS
• Browse the internet
• Use voice chat like you would out of game
• Control your media player
• Server browser
• Game Laucher

and probably even more that I don’t know about. All videos and screenshots can be uploaded to Xfire and displayed on your group’s homepage.

Overall Quality

Xfire is a no-budget group’s dream. It has everything a gaming group needs to communicate, function and have fun. It’s overlay allows for in-game group conversations and calls, as well as a way to record your finest moments and show them to your friends. Of course, Xfire’s downfall is that if you use a third part website, voicechat, or forum the point of having Xfire is halfway removed, and that in its near future it will be heavily monotized. Hopefully Titan Gaming knows what they are doing and gives us a ton of cheap games instead of Xfire’s current list of a few expensive games.

You can get Xfire at http://www.xfire.com/

[18:30] Xfire was bought by new owners today. Most of the team that has built Xfire over the last six years is leaving. We enjoyed working for you for the last 127 releases and wish we could stay to create the next 127. Good bye, good luck, and game on. — The Xfire Team

That was the following message I received at 6:30 PM today. So for 6 years Xfire has been running off it’s original owners. Today they were bought out by new owners, as specified above. So the main news on Xfire.com says the following:

August 2, 2010–Titan Gaming acquires Xfire.

Titan will be taking on the Xfire name, with a focus towards ongoing innovation in the gaming space. The Xfire services will continue uninterrupted for its users. Xfire redefined how gamers communicate, Titan intends to build upon this tradition and utilize the Xfire platform to help gaming companies better engage their users. We look forward to continuing and expanding upon the Xfire service.

So basically, we’l all be fine when it comes to launching our favorite games from xfire, and talking to friends from xfire’s AIM, Twitter, Yahoo!, Windows Live Messenger, and Google Chat “Social Network Manager”. We hope to see great changes in he near future to xfire, but nothing to worry about, things are supposed to only get better.

Also, if you think that Viacom (MTV) bought out Xfire, you are wrong. Viacom, which is also MTV Networks, originally owned xfire BEFORE it was bought out by Titan gaming. The following is the Viacom website, you can see on the left all of the things that Viacom owns. Also, Viacom was not the creator of Xfire, they bought them out in 2006: http://www.viacom.com/ourbrands/Pages/default.aspx

Games on League of Legend’s micro-sized three verses three map Twisted Treeline are much more intense than games in the large Summoner’s Rift map. Though they require less patience, you must have a very good knowledge of your own champion as well as other champs to avoid getting yourself killed in battle. Player verses player is what’s showcased in TT, and you have to be quite good at it to survive. In this post I’m going to go over some small adjustments you can make in game and out of game to help you conquer your foes on this easy to play but hard to master map!

Out of Game

• One of the most important tips I can give you is to play Twisted Treeline with an arranged team that you know communicate with you and help you when you need it. The most important moments in TT are when you transition in and out of team fights, and in order to get your team’s timing perfect you must have good communication. With this considered, I suggest you getting a microphone (which are fairly cheap now; every PC gamer should have one) and a free voice chat program such as Skype or Xfire. If you have no one to play with or want to try a game with a good team everyone is welcome to join our Mumble voice chat server (download it HERE, when in click “Add New…” and put your port to 31089, adress to mumble.dotgamerclan.com, your username to whatever you desire, and leave the password box blank).
• Start using the QWER keys to activate your abilities! This shaves off a few seconds of clicking and aiming an ability, which means life or death in Twisted! This may take a few games to get used to for first timers, but trust me, in the long run you will appreciate it.
• Do your research! Know your build BEFORE you start the game! With this being said, make sure you also know how to adjust your build depending on the situation! Don’t get stack items if you are losing, get the frozen hammer if they are getting away from you when you melee them, buy an oracle if they have an invisible champion and it’s doing damage, etc! If you want to check out new items and read some advice on builds check out League Craft. On this website you can go over masteries, items, and runes to see how strong your champ will be, and even read tutorials on some builds!

In Game

• Boots! You need these things so you can switch lanes as fast as possible as well as raid the jungle as fast as possible. Don’t get caught without boots; your opponents will be able to chase you and kill you if they are faster!
• Jungle! Even if you aren’t a jungling character, the idea is not only to get that little bit of gold and exp BETWEEN MINION WAVES (that was capitalized on purpose), but to prevent your opponents from obtaining the exp, gold, and bonuses. With this being said, make north lane have your strongest character who can jungle. It doesn’t matter if he solos or not, but if he is good and is able to manage the minions, the jungle, and the enemies at top he will level at a crazy pace. And, yes, it is possible. I play as Mordekaiser and do just that. Just remember your lifesteal if you plan on jungling a lot.
• Do not stick to a lane! There is no reason to if you have boots. If you get as much damage as you possible can in one lane and they are sticking to their tower, go and help the other lane. You can always come back in just a few seconds if they manage to push back.
• Know when to retreat! If you can’t teamfight the other team, then don’t! In Twisted Treeline there is always a chance to win, you just know when to go play defensive and when to go gank and kill that kid that pushed just a little too far (this goes back to getting your boots).
• If you think you may get ganked get out of there! You can always come back, and since TT is such a small map you barely loose any exp from doing so.
• Elixirs help so much more on Twisted Treeline because you get more battle time for your money because, again, the map is small. My personal favorite is the Elixir of  Brilliance, which decreases cooldowns by 10% and gives you a nice amount of ability power for four minutes, all for just 300 gold! This makes it so not only can you spam abilities faster, but they do more damage! You have to be the judge on whether to spend your money on elixirs and get less permanent items, but if used in the right situation Elixirs can give you that little cheap boost you need to kill someone that is overleveled.
• Remember, having a bad kill to death ratio does NOT mean you will loose! It’s teamwork and skill that matters!

Well as most of you have noticed, Combat Arms has gained more of a sleek look throughout the ages. But this week’s patch was nothing like they have ever done before. A WHOLE new skin was introduced, along with new buttons, menus, and chatting options. It seems to have a more futuristic look to it as well as being quite confusing.

What did I think about it? Well to me, the whole new skin seemed EXTREMELY confusing. And I know what I’m doing, I mean I’ve been playing for a year now so I’m familiar with the system. Anyway, when I open the game (on the direct start (And yes there is one, just browse your CA folder for it)) I was completely blown away by the new start button and silver skin outline. So the opening screen is the same along with the little man running on the bottom right, that you can still make jump with the space bar. I saw that they had the same background picture on the log in screen. So I log in and…..WOW. For about 5 seconds of my life, I was proud of Nexon! so I went into the Alpha server, same business with the low, moderate, busy, full capacity. I went into channel 6, and completely took back of what I said about being proud of Nexon.

What were the problems that I noticed with the lobby? First of all, I had to lean towards my screen a WHOLE 12 INCHES just to read the game name, players, and type; the font size I imagine is about 8. It used to be about 18. Second, CA wants you to work hard in finding the right kind of game. It’s not like it used to be where you can say, “Oh this game’s waiting.”, or, “Oh these people are playing, but there’s still room left in the game. How do I know you might ask? Well it’s quite, simple: THE FONT COLOR IS YELLOW!” Well I’d hate to hurt the feelings of whoever’s reading this but….they don’t do that anymore, sadly. Instead they reduce the font size (And yes i know that I’m stressing that, because I have the vision of a rock) and turn ALL the font gray, except for the word ‘waiting’ to blue, and the ‘in game’ to green

So when i get in the lobby right kind of game, it takes me awhile to find the ready button, 10 seconds exactly, even though it takes up about 1/8 of my screen. The switch teams button is a little different, along with the chat. But the good thing is that when going into the modification screen, or the buying items screen, you can still see the chat lobby chat. Oh and I just can’t wait to tell you about the store menu!

So I went to check out the store, to see if anything changed, and WOW do I have news for you: IT’S TERRIBLE, and yet again, confusing. The menu is just a list. That’s it: A LIST. Do you want me to say it again?: A LIST. Anyway, I went to browse the guns, and I found out that in order to get a view of the gun that you’re buying, you have click on the weapon. And if you’re looking to quickly scan the list for permanent weapons, good luck. It’ll take a while. Or if you want to know if it’s an smg, AR, SR, Shotgun, etc., you have to click on that too.

So my first game was death room, elimination, 6v6. The usual countdown was there, but it made no beeping sounds; that depressed me. Anyway, no depletion in the loading time, I went through the loading thingy (Even though I only see it for 2 seconds) and got in the game. So I started to pwn some noobs as I normally do, and I noticed an in-game text stating: NOOB HACKER KICK HIM PLS! Only this was no ordinary text. The text was red. I used my common senses: red=bad, green=good. And 2 seconds later green text popped up saying: OMG NOOB G T F O (of course there were spaces in between the letters, for they wanted it not to be blocked). So I was correct on that note. I then experimented with the team chat: the team chat’s white, instead of lite blue. So I wasn’t that disappointed about it, just had to think about it. So I went out of game and saw that the chat was still there from the previous games. That was cool. I still have yet to check out the ingame clan chat color; who knows, it might be yellow. lolz.

The downside is that we can’t pwn noobs anymore, because CA is becoming less and less user friendly. If they would have kept it the same, our KDR’s might actually increased. So in this new patch of CA, some good things arose from it, mostly terrible things, but I’m sure that they’ll fix it in the next few weeks or so. Will Nexon ever do anything good for a change? And also, the new skin was “taken” from other FPS F2P games. So now CA is NOT unique in it’s own special noobish way. It’s now made for, I guess you can say: “Players that can actually play and enjoy the game like real PC gamers and don’t complain about noobs/haxors/lag all the time.

Well, Maners and I have been gone for a while, as you have noticed if you’ve been on the site recently. We’ve been busy with school and homework (You know how that is… (right?)). In our free time, we’ve started to play Combat Arms, which we haven’t played in about a month or two. Anyways, the good news is that on Combat Arms, we’re in the process of assigning jobs to our clan members (i.e. Sniper (Taken by Potzi), Artillery, Tactics and Infiltration (Taken by me, Jarvis7) Heavy weapons/ Armor, Ninja (Taken by MANERS)). Anyway as I said, I found more super duper secret sniping spots; The fact is that I’m too lazy to make a Youtube video about them.

Anyway, the Bad news is that we’re still having trouble hosting the mumble server. Currently our default VoIP is Skype, which has great quality. The down side is that Skype takes up too much of the CPU and memory, and Combat Arms takes up a lot as it is… And Mumble, as we found out, takes up AT LEAST 10x less than Skype. The quality may not be as good, but it’s good enough to use while playing games like Combat Arms or Battlefield 2.

Ah…that reminds me: Battlefield 2. I found out that it works on my computer though it says only for Windows XP. Overall, I think that the games about a 8/10. I’m currently in the process of convincing Maners to add it to the Xfire game list, and for him to buy it; the ultimatum: I have to buy Warcraft III before he buys Battlefield 2. What I found out while I was browsing the servers on Battlefield 2, you can rent a server! And also, when the server’s up, you can put a banner up in the picture spot (I made a banner for dotgamerclan about 2 months ago and now I can put it to good use). This means that we can get more publicity AND that for you people who play battlefield 2, can play on your favorite multi gamer clan website server of all time!! ;D