Newbie Questions - Black Dots?

[QuadMXRacer]

I have had Land Warrior for 9 months or so but only play very occasionally (once or twice a month). I have read on this board about black dots, what are they? It sounds like it helps people see you when inside of buildings? I always wondered how I could get shot when inside and not near a window.

What does it mean when it says "QuadMXRacer was killed" instead of saying who killed me? Normally it says "so and so killed QuadMXRacer" but sometimes it just says I was killed?

What does it mean when I get killed without ever hearing any shot? This only happens occasionally but sometimes I get killed with no shot, explosion, or anything?

How can you get killed repeatedly without being able to see anyone at all? Some maps I can't hardly take 10 steps after respawning without getting shot again. When I look around the hills I can't see anyone anywhere. Of course I assumed it was a sniper far away but I swear sometimes there is no one in site.

How can you shoot someone repeatedly without them dying? Sometimes a guys is running right at me and I am unloading on him but he keeps on coming and shoots me.

How can someone only get killed 1 or 2 times during a game when everyone else got killed 15-20 or more times?

How do people shoot you while they are running? With the gun bouncing around while running it seems awful hard to shoot someone else. I am sure it is a skill develped from lots of practice but sometimes I wonder.

With me being new to the game I can't tell if someone is cheating or if they are just very good. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt but my friends are convinced most of these people just cheat. I hardly join a game without someone accusing of cheating and it makes it me not want to play. Just wondering if someone could explain some of these questions so I dont get so frustrated. Thanks.

[Steve]

ok u got about 7 questions there and id say 5 come down to LAG!

i dont know if u know what lag is but its the time difference between the computers. soooooo...

"QuadMXRacer was killed" and i presume " QuadMXRacer is dead" is also a common one? this means u died cause of lag in your connection, if ur data gets too far out of the hosts data then u die, simple as that.

this will explain why u die without hearing anything to.

u die without u being able to see ppl? well people do like to hide and this is something u get used to is u play more regularly, u see the tiny of movements, you can also tell where ppl are by their gun noise. i think this is just a case of not enough games

shoot someone without them dying? thats lag usually, cause u see blood comming off them but according to the host computer they are not in the same spot u r shooting. this can be fixed by shooting infront of the player, you need to predict where they are going and shoot a few meters infront.

how can someone die only a few times? well this is just practice / the faster connection you have the better scores ppl tend to get cause they dont get much lag / natural skill / better computer. obvioulsy there is going to be better players than others, just like with everything in life.
also luck sometimes comes into it.


well cheating is a big problem in the whole DF series but a lot of ppl forget that this happens in EVERY game, quake, c&c, whatever. its a problem that cannot be stopped unfortunately either. however ppl who shout 'cheat' first are pl that get me annoyed. JUST CAUSE A PLAYER IS BETTER THAN U DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE A CHEAT!!! i wish more ppl would realise this. ive played many many many games of LW and i have only seen cheating 1 time. someone who kept jumping about 50m in the sky, but they ending up dying the most in the end lol, sad b****d.

ive never played stats games but i do believe cheating is worse in there. the cheat most ppl say about is auto aim where the person theoretically doesnt have to aim at anyone to kill them. but there is no auto aim cheats at all, they dont work ( AND NO I DIDNT TRY B4 ANYONE ASKS) .

most cheating players wont bother with public games so i reckon ur safe there.

[QuadMXRacer]

Wow, thanks for the quick reply StevieB! Yes I figured some of these problems were caused by lag. I play motocross madness 2 all the time (hence my screen name) and know all about lag in multiplayer games. This brings up another question. In the few online games I have played there is always a way to evaluate ping between you and the host and/or server. Why does DFLW not have this? It seems strange joining a game and having no idea if you have a good connection between you and the host.

And i still don't know what black dots are, LOL. Thanks again.

[Steve]

ok ok i forgot about the dots.

just a big glitch thats totally novas fault. at a resolution of less than 1000x700 a player ona hill for example shows up as a black pixel, and on a green or desert or sniow covered hill, this extremely noticble and this is why it mentioned a lot, because it sure takes out a large chunk of realism.

this also happens if someone is in a building, some building more than others. and if its a building like the beirut buildings you can get shot by a sniper with a .50 .

if u want to know the ping to LW games get hold of IP4LW. this lets u check the ping of games and also bypass nova world login for faster access to the games.

[Friday128]

ya i think it all comes down to one thing : Novaworld sucks at some things

[STEALTH]

You can also die in DM when there is AI in the map. Like choppers for instance.

[Spam Man]

the black dots, don't work under about 250m and above about 600m, but most of the time under 250m you can see the player anyway.

Also when you are unloading rounds into a player, if they have just respawned, they have respawn armor, something I think nova programed in to stop respawn raping. Respawn Armor, gives the player 6 seconds invunrability, or until they fire, which ever comes first, so if they have just repsawned and not fired, you can't kill them for 6secs.

About the low deaths, snipers usually have low deaths, as they run and hide, and gunners most of the time have higher deaths as they charge in.

Another reason why you may not be able to hear the shot is the distance of the shot, if a sniper has taken you out at about 800m, its hard to hear the shot. But it is prob also because of what StevieB said as well:

""QuadMXRacer was killed" and i presume " QuadMXRacer is dead" is also a common one? this means u died cause of lag in your connection, if ur data gets too far out of the hosts data then u die, simple as that."

I think what StevieB is talking about here is Nova deaths, also called Bug kills.

The cheat problem is greatly reduced in public games, as the host has direct control over punting and banning people, also some cheats, cheat to improve their stats, and most public games don't have stat's. Or stats that everybody will look at.

For an example of the cheating problem in nova games, have a look here http://www.geocities.com/snipers_and...c_cheating.htm

But he left shortly afterwards, so wasn't a big problem.

Any way I'm whitering on here.

Hope this is helpful

Peace Out

[QuadMXRacer]

Thanks for the reply's guys. I used to have a cable connection before I moved out in the country. Now cable and DSL are not available so I guess I will have to live with the lag problems. But mostly I need to practice more