Splash Damage have gone live with the first teaser of their new game. BRINK appears to be a game set during an apocalyptic event, although very little is known beyond this. I suspect that the game will be a first person shooter that is also a fully developed role playing style game with player actions dictating the direction of gameplay.

True to their word, I think that E3 will reveal something unique and unusual about the game.Watch this space for an exclusive article with Splash Damage in July, and keep an eye on www.brinkthegame.com

Valve has released an announcement claiming that updates to the free Steamworks system will now make DRM obsolete.

Valve has just announced that unveils several new features to the Steam and Steamworks platforms which the Half-Life developer reckons will make DRM a thing of the past. Steamworks is a system of freely available tools for developers and publishers that allow them to make the most out of the Steam platform. Some of the new features that Valve announced for Steam were things we already knew about, like the ability for developers to make downloadable content available through Steam, which Ubisoft is already doing with a new set of weapons and such for Far Cry 2.

The other updates are much more interesting, namely a new anti-piracy feature called CEG that is being incorporated into the Steamworks system. CEG, which stands for Customer Executable Generation, is Valve's latest anti-piracy effort and works by essentially creating a uniquely structured version of a game for each customer. The benefit for publishers and developers is that the game is then pretty hard to copy as it is distinctly identifiable to a specific user, while legitimate customers are able to use their unique copy on as many PCs as they want. No install limits, no SecuROM, no StarForce, no rootkits, no nuthin'.

Valve reckons that CEG is a system that only benefits customers and publishers and has hopes that it'll be adopted by the market quite quickly. Since Steamworks is free for any developer to use, there's no reason why not.

The Group Thing is pleased to announce that our very own leagues and ladders will officially open on Saturday 23^rd May 2009, that’s this Saturday folks!

We will be starting slowly with in house games, although clans outside TGT are more than welcome to join the leagues.

Clan, Squad & Team leaders please take some time to visit our site here:

http://leagues.thegroupthing.org/

And familiarise yourself with the various functions.

A huge thanks go out from all members of TGT to Hangman for his many hours of hard work, and time spent working on the league website, and also to Mustang for making sure that bookable match and practice servers are ready and available for TGT members.

If you are interested in helping out with the leagues, as an admin, forum moderator or writer please visit the site and click the “Staff button”

Lets make this huge guys

As most of you know, The Group Thing was founded last year with the intention of providing grief free gaming, as well as league gaming and support for the mod communities.

We have been very successful in doing all of these things. Our new dedicated server now hosts:
12 – Left 4 Dead Servers
10 - Killing Floor Servers
1 - 24 Slot Hardcore CoD 4 Server
1 - 32 Slot ET:QW Gather Server
1 - 24 Slot TF2 Server
1 - 14 Slot CSS GunGame Server
1 - 14 Slot W:ET – ETro server

Plus a very large selection of bookable and league servers installed to cater for our competitive teams and upcoming leagues.

Our servers were the first Killing Floor servers to go online and remain in the global top 50 running at 96% capacity all day, and our L4D servers hosting Haunted Mod are popular all hours of the day and night with players from around the world.

With the release of the Left 4 Dead beta Development Kit our mod developers are already looking into how to improve Haunted mod, and we will shortly be releasing a standalone beta installer to enable other clans and groups to host the mod.

The Dev Kit will also see work truly begin on the highly anticipated Left 4 Dead Pro Mod, designed to balance Versus play for the Left 4 Dead Community.

Our level mappers for L4D are already investigating the kit with a view to working on the custom TGT campaign.

In addition to this we will be officially launching our TGT Leagues next week with matches easily bookable, and results recorded on our custom designed league site at http://www.thegroupthing.org/leagues/

As a community we are a thriving, productive and friendly place to be, and all of this is achieved with the kind support of Alpha Networks and the Donations of our members.

So if you enjoy being part of TGT, please take the time to send a paypal donation to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it every little counts because if we all put a little bit in often, then the group never finds itself short of funds.

Thanks for reading and for helping to make The Group Thing a reality.

- Tsujigiri and the Senior TGT Staff.

TGT is expecting a lot of activity and interest surrounding two major dates in the gaming world this year, namely the highly anticipated release of Wolfenstein on June 26^th, and later in the year the release of CoD Modern Warfare 2 on November 10^th.

Unlike many of the games released in the Call of Duty series, Call of Duty 4 “Modern Warfare” was a fast paces and very well balanced game that remains popular amongst gamers.

Modern Warfare 2 is likely to be a similar experience as it is also being developed by Infinity Ward and to cater for what we expect to be a busy time, we will be setting servers up as soon as the game is released.

Wolfenstein, although not initially anticipated as a multiplayer game seems to have a well developed multiplayer aspect to it, so of course we will be hosting servers as soon as the server software is available.

The SP game continues the story of B J Blazkowicz and his battle against evil, magic wielding Nazis, and promises more of the same oppressively dark style of game play.

You can pre-order both games from Amazon and get £10 off the full cost of each by clicking the links below.

As an added thought, for those who enjoyed Big Daddy and Little Sister, whilst it may not have an online presence that I am aware of, Bioshock 2 is due for release on October 30th, just in time for Halloween.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Wolfenstein
Bioshock 2

It"s with cautious excitement that we announce a new game to join the TGT servers:

Killing Floor

Developed by Tripwire from a UT2004 mod, this co-op zombie bash pits 6 soldiers against an army of genetically mutated zombies...

If it ever works properly.

TGT is among the first groups in the world to host servers for this new game, in fact we"re in the top 50 servers internationally, but the delayed launch of the game at 11pm GMT and the problems players are reporting connecting to servers shows a rocky start.

For players used to Left 4 Dead, this is a very different experience, the game feels, looks and plays differently, when you can actually get onto a server. Equipment is purchased, and characters gain experience within the game, there is also a greater variety of weaponry within the game which should make for some hilarity.

Our servers were full within seconds of the game going live, and that’s good, however a bug in the game often reports servers as full when they are empty and sometimes gives a “Connection Failed” error.

I’ve had reports of players being unable to change their in game screen resolution, but a restart of the game may fix that.

In short, this isn’t an auspicious start to this games career as a retail game, but I am fairly confident that Tripwire, with Valve riding them will soon get their act together and iron out these issues.

You can find our servers on these IPs:
217.146.93.136:7707 - Normal #1
217.146.93.136:7709 - Normal #2
217.146.93.136:7711 - Normal #3
217.146.93.136:7727 - Hard #1
217.146.93.136:7729 - Hard #2
217.146.93.136:7731 - Hard #3
217.146.93.136:7747 - Suicidal #1
217.146.93.136:7749 - Suicidal #2

Are you sitting comfortably, warm and relaxed, possibly with a drink and snack, maybe even with some music playing. Well if you’re reading this and doing those things then you are potentially placing yourself in significant danger.

So now’s the point where you’re wondering what the hell I’m writing about, is it cholesterol, unhealthy lifestyles?

Nope, these things are health issues; I’m talking about actual, physical danger.

When you’re sat on your pc, crawling through the web, chatting to people who you may never have actually met you should always be on your guard, because you can’t ever be entirely sure of what is occurring.Virtual friends are in most cases actual strangers, with motives, lives and histories that you can only take their word for.

Take the tragic example of the couple, who used to run the now defunct warcentral.com. Joanna Whitton and Matthew Pyke conducted their entire social life online until Joanna attracted the attention of another young man named David Heiss.

Despite living in another country, across the English Channel and hundreds of miles away, Havid Heiss travelled over to the UK to stalk Joanna, and then later to kill her boyfriend Matthew. All because the lady, and her boyfriend said; “No”.

Now, I know most of you feel safe sat at home behind your desks, but just for a moment consider the truth of this. Much of who you are, and what you do is online, if you have a paypal or an ebay account, then your credit details are online, along with your home address.

Every time you log into a website or forum your i.p. is logged, this unique number identifies you as uniquely as your house or phone number, and it can easily, very, very easily be used to find your house number.

Do you own a website

Well that itself can be used to find you and you are legally responsible for everything on it under the laws of the country in which it is hosted.

So should you be worried?

Well that depends on what you get up to online, who you speak with regularly and what you communicate.

As human beings we are naturally inclined to forms relationships and friendly bonds with others with whom we share common interests and goals, and the charged atmosphere of a shared team game, especially one such as Left 4 Dead, where you actually depend on each other is guaranteed to encourage this.

However online you can’t be certain of exactly who you are speaking with and a picture is no guide to the truth of an individual. So as a little word of caution to all those who read this, especially younger gamers, never give out your home address, telephone number or school online.

You have a gaming nickname, use it and don’t reveal your given name unless the person you are speaking with has some form of existing and accepted public identity.

The most important thing to remember is that whilst you may form friendships with people from outside your physical, real life social environment, they may not be what they appear and you should never invest all of your hopes, dreams and emotions into someone who you have never met, or even place your entire life online in order for others to see it.

Even social networking websites such as Facebook have a privacy function allowing only friends and family to access your account. Steam allows you to make all your account details private should you need to and most chat programs have a blocking function, but these are only effective if you haven’t already revealed who you are.

The last thing to be aware of is that a lot of people don’t give any thought to the fact that the icon or name they are interacting with on their screen is in fact a living breathing human being, with hopes, fears and frailties. Because they are also sitting comfortably, it becomes very easy to de-personify whoever you are talking to, making them nothing more than pixels dancing on the screen for your amusement.

This social divorce is one small step along the path to becoming a sociopath and if you notice anything on that list that you recognise in yourself or others, then its not too late to change it! So be safe out there people, there are actually sharks in the virtual water and they are far more cunning, cold and manipulative than even they realise.

Bethesda and Microsoft Games Live have once again managed to shoot themselves in their virtual feet. The much anticipated and flaunted downloadable content pack for Fallout 3 "Broken Steel" has been released to the gaming community, and much as many others I rushed to download and install it!

Aaaaannnnd ... It"s broken.

In a manner somewhat akin to the debacle surrounding their last release of DLC for Fallout 3 "The Pitt", which mangled X-Box Live game installs everywhere, this time is is the turn of the pc owner.

The content, all 510.03MB of it downloads just fine, well, fine for me as I have a whopping great 30mb connection, but then doesn"t install. I really feel for those gamers on a slower connection who wait for hours for this content and then can"t actually play it due to the sheer ineptitude of the publishers.

As if this wasn"t enough, the lastest news from gamers on the X-Box who have the game is that ingame bugs now prevent the activation of a previously working, and entirely significant part of the main storyline.

Well done Bethesda, you"re coming dangerously close to a FAIL award!

A news update from one of our old members, ChaosRaiser (aka Tsunami, aka Dan), who's been working hard to earn some cash from the eSports scene!

"Thought I would let you guys know how we got on at iSeries, even more so because it was the most epic iSeries ive ever been to! So much stuff happened it was unreal

We started off without a seeding. Although we should have had a seed, what with being placed 1st in the ESL EAS at the time, and our previous performances in cups and ladders, we were ommitted from the seeding which put us in a bad position for the tournament.

In our groups we came up against 2 seeded teams, Crackclan who were seeded 3rd and Space Pandas who were 30th seed. However this didnt really matter because 1 of our players had to to be rushed to A&E on the Friday morning and we were left with 4 players! We found a replacement in the form of Tweedz and Nero's brother Gimp, but things just didnt go our way and we didnt make it into the pro tournament, making 4th in our group.

Luckily mulitplay had arranged an intermediate and beginner tournament that people who didnt make top2 in the groups could compete in. With this we set forward to win this tournament and undo some of the damage to our reputation

With our player back from hospital too, we set to work and became undefeated in the intermediate tourney and went on to win in the grand final vs FM! Sapphire. 16-13 to us. Was epic

You can read the full story on our site's front page and can see the our results with the link below.

http://www.team-darkstyle.com

FINAL STANDINGS