Tip 12a - What am I doing?

Ok. Better write this quick before I forget utterly what my first fps game was like.
Remembering that many players now have never played quake, let alone doom, I guess I'd better get things kicked off, explain some of the common terms, and see what happens.


I'm gonna assume you've got the game installed - but thats about it.

Right, in the bad old days the only way to change what keys did what in a game was to edit some text files by hand. This is 'editing your config'
Nowadays, you'll find that games have some pretty menu's which do this job for you - though many older gamers still prefer to edit the text files, feeling it gives them more control.

Now, fps games (first person shooters, sorry... first peron because it's from the eyes of a character in the game, not sat above their shoulder, or from the side like a platform game, and shooter because.. well...) have a vareity of controls you will need.
This is a TFC guide, so...
First of all, you need to be able to move. The standard way to move is using the keyboard, either using the arrow keys (for forward backward left and right) or asdw (a is left, s is back etc)
You can put these keys anywhere, but those are easy to remember.

Next, you will want to be able to turn around, and look up and down.
USUALLY you do NOT have these on the keyboard. You get so much more control by having them on the mouse.
This is 'mlook' (from the command in the config files to enable it, which is +mlook) It stands for mouse-look.

There are a couple of extra commands to do with mouse look (you'll find them in the 'advanced' section of config) which are 'invert mouse' and 'sensitivity' - oh and 'smooth mouse'
Invert mouse controls whether pushing the mouse forward should be look up, or whether it should look down (like in a plane) It's pretty much a personal taste thing.

Sensitivity controls how fast your mouse moves you. A high setting (the slider to the right) will mean a small movement of the mouse moves your view a long way - whereas a low setting will mean that you get much smaller movements.
This is complicated slightly by different mice having different sensitivities anyway (dpi settings)
A good rule of thumb is to set it as high as you can and still hit things. If you set it too high, your aim will get all twitchy. If you set it too low, you won't be able to turn around quickly enough.

Mouse smoothing is something technical you don't really need to know about - it tries to remove tiny twitchs. You'll want to leave it turned on unless you get a hugely expensiv mouse and know how to use it.

Now, some more controls.
The ability to fire weaponry at your enemies is sort of essential for the 'shooter' part of the game.
'mouse1' (the left mouse button) is the normal place to put this function.

You will also need to be able to jump. This may not sound terribly useful, but there are some bits of maps you can clamber over, and it can also help in the middle of a fight - not to mention all the fun you can have jumping away from explosions to help yourself fly. Mouse 2 (right mouse button) is a good place for this.

Right, now - many games give you a selection of weapons to choose from, and TFC is among these.
By default the weapons are on the number keys 1-5 and thats just fine. They are also accessible by rolling the mouse wheel. And thats good too.

Why aint things ever simple? Lets keep going.
You also have two 'offhand' grenades (which means you can use them while using another weapon too)
f and g are the defaults - you might want to move them somewhere else - [ and ] work for me.

Hmmm... ok, there's a bunch of other keys which you don't really need to know about. Stuff like duck and throwammo and so on.
Oh, two you WILL need. reload (r by default, I like SHIFT)
And 'commandmenu' (you won't need that OFTEN, but moving it somewhere out of the way like SPACE can help)
And put the 'use' key somewhere you can rememebr where it is, though you'll rarely need it - and 'speical' is good too (ENTER)

Right. Thats already WAY too many keys. Forget the rest. Leave them at defaults.

Right, the last non-techie thing you need to set up is your name. People tend to laugh at players who use the default name. So change it. And try to choose something sensible, with as few silly symbols in as possible.
Anything related to a current film or craze (matrix / pokemon) is RIGHT OUT.
You want something unique, and something you won't mind having as your name.

Now you may need to do some techie stuff. Like set what graphics mode you want to run in, (800x600 openGl) maybe twiddle the brightness....

Right. Now for a breif explanation of how these games run.
They are client/server games. The client is your machine. It draws the pretty graphics, and takes your commands.
The server sits elsewhere on the net, responds to your commands, tells you what new stuff is happening, and whether you take damage and so forth.
If you play a single player game, you are actually just running both the client and the server on your own machine.

Lets do this, for a quick demonstration of the game.
From the menu, select 'multiplayer' - then 'create LAN game'
It'll give you whole bunch of options, which you want to ignore for now, the important thing is the list of maps on the right.
The one at the top is '2fort' the de facto standard for TFC maps. Select that one, then hit 'ok' or 'create' or 'get the hell on with it' or whatever the button is :)

Right - a while later, after some incomprehensible messages which mean nothing to you right now, but which later you will learn to be invocations to the gods of TFC - prayers if you will, and you will learn which prayers please them and let you play, and which mean that the gods are angered.

Where was I? Oh yes.

A while later you'll be sat in mid air, looking down at a bridge over some water. Your view obscured by a huge beige rectangle, with a grey area and some text.
It says 'Welcome! Map rotation for this server is..." and then a list of maps.
Click the ok box, and this will be replaced by a team selection dialogue.

This will ask you whether you would like to be:
On the blue team (hit 1) the red team (hit 2) autoselect (hit 5) or spectator mode (hit 6)

Select 'autoteam' - this will put you on the team with least players - or the blue team if they are equal.

The menu's still go on! Now it will ask you which class you would like to be.
Browse through the list for a while, then we'll select a not terrible class for having a look around the map, and seeing how things work.

Select 'medic' (number 5) this is a fast class - with a good selection of weaponry, no complicated extra special menus or keys to worry about, and is good for taking a tour around a map.

Ok. You'll find the game made a funny noise when you hit it, and whoosh, you're somewhere else.
Leave you hands off the keyboard, just use the mouse for now.
You may find you quickly end up spinning at the cieling.
Calm down, and SLOWLY move the mouse forwards and backwards until you're looking at something resembling a wall.
Then look around some more, until you find something resembling a door.

Don't worry if it seems a bit disorientating at first, soon it will become second nature to look around whilst moving.

Ok. Once you're looking in the right direction, keep the mouse still, and hold down the 'forward' key. (Defaults to 'uparrow')
Now, if you picked the right door, it will open for you.
Practice moving about - see how you can step to one side or the other, and generally move about all over the place.

Now, lets increase the interest, press the fire button. (Left mouse button)
Just a short press - don't hold it down or you'll run out of ammo.

Now, see if you can move around and keep those nails hitting roughly the same bit of wall (you can watch the little black spots it makes)

Ok, lets get to the chase.
Running around like a mad thing for a while is fun, but what you really want to do is learn how the game works.

Now, at some point in your wanderings, you ought to find the bridge that you were looking at at the start.
Turn around slowly on it, and you will see that there are two bases - one red, and one blue.

MOST TFC maps are laid out like this - the bases will be identical in every respect except colour.

So you only have to learn the layout of one :)

So, a quick tour is in order.
Head into the red base. You can go through either door, they meet up in the same little hallway.

Then turn right, and follow it around. You'll soon find yourself in the part of a TFC map called the 'ramp room'
So named, because of the two ramps in it.

Now, one of the ramps leads up behind you to the landing - we'll look at that later.
The other leads up and around, across a gantry to a hole in the wall.

Follow it up (try not to fall off the gantry too many times) and you'll find yourself in a small room with a liftshaft. Drop down the shaft.
You'll get a message telling you that your team can't use the lift, which is true. If you were in your own base, then the lift would have come up to meet you.

Right, don't wander around too far down there - you want to find the flag.
If you follow the tunnel to the left (past a door on your right which only the enemy team can open) then you'll find yourself in a more open area, which is fairly dark, and has three exits (other than the one you came in by)

The first exit should be right in front of you - at the far end - and leads to the spiral.
The other two exits both lead to the actual flagroom (you're only in the basement right now) and one is in front of you on your right, and the other is behind you on your right as you go in.

Go through either of these, and find the flag. It's shiny. You can't miss it.

Pick it up, and try not to jump out of your skin as the vox (the announcer voice) loudly proclaims that "You HAVE the enEmy fLAG!"

Right, now lets get out of the enemy base.
I'm going to take you the long way about, so as to try and show you all of a base :)

Go out the spiral (can you find it?) and follow it up.
At the top you get to the landing - going left would take you back to the ramp room. Going across to a small doorway would take you to the battlements. The doors ar ethe enemy respawn, you can't use those, and oing right takes you to a grating.

Drop down - and you are at the entrance to the enemy base, and could easily return to your base from here.

Instead, turn around, go LEFT as you re-enter the enemy base, and go down the staircase.

Follow the staircase down, and go for a swim.
You'll want to swim all the way along a tunnel, until you get to the other end where you want to swim up for air.

You're in the water that the bridge goes over, and both bases have a route in through it.

You may well gt turned around in the water - so look at the little marker lights. Red lights for the red base, and blue lights for... yup, follow those.

Swim in, and go up the staircase at the other end, and you'll be in the entrance to your base.
Go straight ahead to the ramp room, then up the ramps to the landing (not across the gantry to the lift)
Only one place left to go, the battlements.

The doorway is sort of front left of you as you get to the landing - so go out, and be careful not to fall off.

Take a good look at the nice view of the bridge and the battlements.

Midway along the battlements is a sort of hut, with the team symbol on it. Walk over it, and you capture (cap) the enemy flag. Mind the announcers voice again.

And that scores ten points for your team. Thats the object of the game, as well as stopping the enemy doing it.

Hold down the TAB key to see the scores.

Right, lets cover a few other keys.

You can try out your other weapons by pressing '1' '2' '3' and '4' (medics don't HAVE a weapon 5)

You can try jumping. Just hit the jump key (mouse2 I beleive you set it to...)

You may like to remember that you have to reload...

Hmmm.. what else.
Oh yeah! walk up to a wall, and press the 't' key - it sprays a logo on the wall.
You can set up your own logos...

Grenades. Press the grenade key to pull the pin, and release the key to throw the grenade.
3 seconds after pulling the pin, the grenade explodes (the beeping is to help you keep track)

The very last thing you need to know before playing for real, is how to talk.

Press 'y' for global talk (to everyone in the game) and 'u' to talk to just those people on your team (FAR more useful)
After pressing the key, type your message, then hit enter.
See where it appears? Keep half an eye up there for things people want to tell you.

Right - thats about it.
For actually getting into a multiplayer game, go to the multiplayer menu, then 'internet games'
Then 'update' to get a list of servers, and choose one to join.

Good luck, you'll find things a bit busier when there's more players, but hopefully you should at least be familiar with basic moving and shooting :)

i