Morning Discussion

In case you weren't paying attention, heads up. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving--at least in the United States, Canada had its Thanksgiving back in October--while the day after is the nationwide celebration of consumerism known as Black Friday.

To briefly explain Canada's Thanksgiving: Martin Frobisher was trying to find the Northwest Passage,a sailing route that would take him from England to India and China, for the purposes of trading. He ended up in Canada each time. After his third and final attempt in 1578, Frobisher held a celebration giving thanks that he had survived.

And that's how Canada ended up with Thanksgiving in October. At least, according to Wikipedia and my vague recollections of history. The more you know!

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
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    November 26, 2008 7:19 AM

    Left 4 Dead achievement stats published:
    http://www.steampowered.com/status/l4d/

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      November 26, 2008 7:25 AM

      Valve's stat gathering is brilliant and informative.

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      November 26, 2008 7:28 AM

      Wow I am surprised so many people got the Tankbusters achievement.

      I'm guessing its because they played at Normal

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        November 26, 2008 7:29 AM

        You can get that achievement in VS mode as well. I've seen it happen more often there, because a player sometimes doesn't know WTF and you can kite them fairly well.

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        November 26, 2008 7:29 AM

        according to this, only 2,1% of all players finished an expert campaign O___o

        less people rescued someone from a closet than people that survived being vomited on without damage.

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          November 26, 2008 7:30 AM

          Sounds like those things are very likely to play out if you play on pubs.

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          November 26, 2008 7:31 AM

          maybe there's a lot of people like me who have only played versus (i did a coop campaign once)

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          November 26, 2008 7:32 AM

          the blind luck one is also a entire group achievement so that could account for why many more people got that then rescued from a closet.

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          November 26, 2008 7:55 AM

          I survived No Mercy on Expert but I didn't get Zombicidal Maniac. >:(

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      November 26, 2008 7:28 AM

      Some of them it seems you just have to do on an easy difficulty to get... last night I loaded up Easy just to see... so hilarious. The zombies don't do like any damage, and you can 1 shot all of them with the pistol.

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      November 26, 2008 7:29 AM

      It' interesting that the 'survive the campaign' ones are so low. Is it that hard to make it to the end?

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        November 26, 2008 7:30 AM

        i'm guessing add and versus monde come in the way

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        November 26, 2008 7:33 AM

        I think it's bugged, or I'm not reading it right. I've survived all 4 campaigns (made it into the boat/apc/etc) but I haven't got the Death Toll or Blood Harvest achievements yet...

        I've survived them both on vs and coop as well.

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        November 26, 2008 7:33 AM

        I played coop multiple times and I still haven't gotten any of the Finish achievements once.
        Not sure how they award it but it seems broken

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          November 26, 2008 7:34 AM

          same here

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          November 26, 2008 7:35 AM

          I've also played a game where it was 4 of us in the same room, and we all completed the campaign (made it into the finish) and only 2 of us got the achievement. In that same game, 1 of the 4 got the '4 people survived' achievement. And we all needed both.

          No clue how it's supposed to work. Those will randomly work someday though.

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          November 26, 2008 7:58 AM

          Yeah I think they're bugged. I was playing Dead Air and right before the end of the campaign someone joined. They got the achievement but I didn't.

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        November 26, 2008 8:01 AM

        survive means you are not allowed to die ever

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        November 26, 2008 10:24 AM

        I think you have to be there from the VERY start of the game and you're never allowed to go idle.

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      November 26, 2008 7:30 AM

      Some of these I will never get :(

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      November 26, 2008 7:30 AM

      this one doesnt sound too hard, im surprised no one or next to no one has gotten it
      LAMB 2 SLAUGHTER
      As an Infected, incap a Survivor who has entered and left a safe room.

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        November 26, 2008 7:34 AM

        Well you would have to incap them... so it's pretty hard once they get that far. Most games I see, the survivors stay inside once in, so it's hard to get them out. It'll happen eventually.

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          November 26, 2008 7:40 AM

          as a smoker i've dragged one out of the safe room before :D

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            November 26, 2008 7:41 AM

            I am slowly liking the smoker more and more, It requires a lot of patience and good timing, but when it works it works so well. It's also a good strategy to use them to pull others for hunters to pounce on.

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              November 26, 2008 7:51 AM

              it's good to separate the group. as a hunter you should go after the guy who tries to get the smoker :)

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                November 26, 2008 7:56 AM

                Yeah that's what i meant. Timing is everything in this game. i think everyone is collectively getting better as the infected so the sprinting technique is not working as much.

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              November 26, 2008 8:02 AM

              Smoker would be more fun if you got to spawn a bit more frequently or could use your tongue a bit more often. Good smoking requires good timing and a decent location. A lot of times you only have a fraction of a second to snag someone before they're safe and then you're just sitting waiting for it to recharge, which 99% of the time results in death before it happens.

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                November 26, 2008 8:03 AM

                it should reel people in faster

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                November 26, 2008 8:04 AM

                Yeah If they break your tongue you freeze for a second or two after they brake it so it gives them ample time to destroy you. Also the tongue recharge time is awful.

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                  November 26, 2008 8:04 AM

                  brake=break damnit.

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                  November 26, 2008 8:05 AM

                  it should only have that long recharge time only if you're actually able to damage someone, which is almost never for me

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        November 26, 2008 7:40 AM

        It isn't too bad, but most survivors never leave the safe room after entering it.

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        November 26, 2008 7:52 AM

        Shackers are bad and leave their friends to die. Other night we had LEAVE NO MAN BEHIND and won.

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      November 26, 2008 7:42 AM

      There are 13,539 People playing "Football Manager 2009" right now??? WTH.

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        November 26, 2008 7:44 AM

        don't think it might be popular in the rest of the world? where soccer, i.e. football is crazy popular?

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          November 26, 2008 7:45 AM

          I'm wondering why people are playing it all, actually. Why is it #3 on the list of games being played?

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            November 26, 2008 7:45 AM

            it's a huge seller in a lot of other countries.

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              November 26, 2008 7:49 AM

              Maybe this game isn't what I think it is.... it's not a fantasy Football team organizer thing?

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                November 26, 2008 7:54 AM

                yeah, a manager as the name states. put your team together and play a season of football. kinda like a fantasy team, but even more fantasy :)

                Does it really surprise you? you know the viewership for the soccer world cup final is well over 1 billion people, just as an example of popularity :)

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                  November 26, 2008 7:55 AM

                  but it's not football... it's soccer?

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                    November 26, 2008 7:56 AM

                    Soccer is football everywhere else in the world. And it's the most popular sport in the world.

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                    November 26, 2008 7:56 AM

                    football manager is a soccer manager, only you funny americans call it football

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                November 26, 2008 7:56 AM

                Read moshmans post.

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            November 26, 2008 7:57 AM

            Soccer management is massively popular, and the current Football Manager dates back to 1992. The original dates back to 1982.

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        November 26, 2008 7:45 AM

        wtf, no way

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        November 26, 2008 7:57 AM

        [deleted]

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          November 26, 2008 7:59 AM

          well they used to do that, but they have some crazy custom software now in the football clubs, my brother worked a bayern for a while and the stats they collect are insane.

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        November 26, 2008 8:28 AM

        I am constantly amused how many shackers totally fail to grasp how some people can find sports (games, but also in general) to be entertaining. I mean it's fine if it's not your thing but being totally baffled by people who like it is a whole new level of incomprehension. I think WoW is boring as shit, oh man why does anyone play that game at all wtf?

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          November 26, 2008 8:51 AM

          If you read further, I posted that I didn't even think it was a game, just some type of management tool.

          Thanks though.

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          November 26, 2008 10:12 AM

          Someone posted a week or so ago that they were mortified that Out of the Park 7 got a 9.5 rating.

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        November 26, 2008 8:49 AM

        i am not going to add myself to that count. I am just going to keep playing 08 and stfu . . . .

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      November 26, 2008 7:52 AM

      [deleted]

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        November 26, 2008 7:56 AM

        [deleted]

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        November 26, 2008 7:58 AM

        bots are pretty lame... but they dont FF so your set there.

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        November 26, 2008 7:58 AM

        i can't take it. the AI is quite good actually but I miss real people

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        November 26, 2008 8:31 AM

        it's okay single player but the AI, while competent, is a poor substitute for real dudes. they mostly just hang back and wait for you to do shit, which is fine because otherwise some bot might fuck up your game, but they always seem to be 20 feet behind you. what's awesome is that they seem to be good at not getting hurt so they always have extra health to give you. oh also they never use pipe bombs or molotovs and most of the special infected seem to ignore them in favor of going for you unless you are already incapacitated.

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          November 26, 2008 8:33 AM

          oh also it's more or less impossible to beat anything above normal with them. the last stand in every campaign in particular they get their faces raped since they can't seem to deal with being attacked from multiple angles. they are awful at the last part of no mercy since they seem to pick the worst possible spot to fend off the hoarde and won't follow you to a better one :(

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            November 26, 2008 8:43 AM

            mikecyb, you need to play this game with more friends. :[

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              November 26, 2008 8:49 AM

              I play it with people all the time, CrustyB, I played through each campaign once on single player and that's it! I mostly wanted to see the maps before playing them with other people but also because I am apparently a achievement whore :(

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            November 26, 2008 8:48 AM

            Also they won't buy tampons, and leave it to you to do :[

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      November 26, 2008 8:03 AM

      1 person playing luxor? cant get enough on xbox, can you jedi?

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      November 26, 2008 10:01 AM

      http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

      what's up with the dips at around 16:30? i'm also assuming this is PST?

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        November 26, 2008 10:15 AM

        Probably the east coaster's going to bed?

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        November 26, 2008 10:32 AM

        I assume that is a daily maintenance thing. The number probably doesn't drop, but one or more of their server are down for a few minutes that causes the reported number of players to be lower until it comes back up.

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      November 26, 2008 10:15 AM

      [deleted]

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        November 26, 2008 10:17 AM

        rumors were valve people had it and if you had played with someone who had played with them it got passed on and so on.

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          November 26, 2008 10:27 AM

          You have to get barfed on by someone who has it in a VS game. That is how I got it and how I passed to some others.

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          November 26, 2008 10:29 AM

          I have this, msg unjustend on steam sometime and we can play.

          <3

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