NBR Steam Gaming Comunity

For all those interested we are organizing a game community for NBR. It will be based on Steam, the software client used to play games like half life 2, Team Fortress 2, Portals, Bioshock ect.

This is an open group, you do not need an invite just navigate to this url and join us!

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/notebookreview

Joining allows you to see anybody online that is in the group so you can chat with them, see what game they are playing and join it. There is also a central chat room where the entire group can chat at once.

This will offer a great opportunity for anybody in the forums to get to know one an other better, and have alot of fun while your at it.

You do not need to be a gamer to join us, if you would just like to participate in the chat feel free to come. This is going to be very casual allowing you to play with other NBR members online at a whim and not a full fledged "clan" that has planned competition with other clans.


Update 12/10/10

Enhancing the NBR Steam Group further is our very own Mumble server.
Get more details and join the server at: http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...mble-chat-server-alt-teamspeak-ventrillo.html

 

i signed up

 

I'm in. NBR for ownage!

 

Steam community crashes my Steam client.

 

First I have heard of with that. There was a known crash issue with the store tab in vista, but a patch fixed that.

All I can recomend for now is to reinstall the client, from there I would seek out the steam forums to see if somebody else has your problem.

Just a note, to add yourself to the group try to do it thru the steam client and not thru your web browser, for some it wont work if you try the later.

Me and forerunner have already played a few games together it was fun, I cant wait to see the group grow bigger so we can have more players from the forums in the game, plus the chat room can finaly come alive when we have enough people.

 

What kind of a headset do i need to chat?

I posted a thread earlier about chatting while gaming, and apparently can't be done unless you use some voip program.

I'm wondering whats the best/cheapest headset to use while playing css or team fortress 2

 

i'll join later, my steam name is mD-

 

When I say chat room, as for the group here on steam its just a typing chat room, however within steam you can IM (instant message) anybody in the group or start a voice chat, wich is what your refering too.

To voice chat you need nothing more than a microphone and speakers. A headset is generally much prefered tho because it keeps the sound isolated from the microphone so you get no reverb, also you get better localization in games (being able to tell where somebody is by sound)

I used to use a plantronics DSP500 headset, it has the best microphone I have ever used or anybody ever heard, I was so clear in games and voice applications, and it has great bass. It was 80$ but over time it has gone down to like 25$ I think on clearance from the plantronics clearance store because its discontinued.

I finaly did away with them when I upgraded to a pair of Audio Technica A700 headphones. The reason for this is because there is a fairly large gap between the quality of nice audiophile headphones and a headset. The problem is that with heaphones you have no microphone. So you can get a standard desktop microphone, or you can be creative and do what I did.

I got a cheap 7$ ear piece designed for skype or something like that, wich goes in one ear, and has the microphone, I place that under the padding of my earphones and use only the microphone on it and not the speaker. Essentially moding my headphones into a headset of a much higher quality than normal.

 

Just join, I play CSS, Zombie Master, Insurgency, and does anyone knows if COD4 is gonna be on steam?

 

so you're saying I can listen to game sounds through my 5.1 surround speakers and only hear voice communication through my headset while playing? Is this possible? If so, that would be great.... from what i've seen you can only get game sound and in game chat from a headset and not separately like on an xbox 360. I don't know if this sounds stupid but I just want an in ear microphone similar to a bluetooth headset for chatting or talking while playing but enjoying my 5.1 surround speakers

 

Actually it IS possible and I have done it before, however there is a catch.

You need special circumstances and equipment to do this, like I had when I did it.

In game like say the current game most of us are playing Team Fortress 2, it has intergrated voice chat, this chat system goes thru the same sound channel as the game itself because its intergrated, meaning the game sounds will be with the voice. Then also on the hardware level, you have to understand that a single sound card only runs one channel and powers one audio device at a time. This is the reason you cant say use bluetooth headphones with your computer at the same time you have its speakers on, its one or the other.

Now for the exception and how to make it happen. Remember how I said my old headset was plantronics dsp500s? well it so happens they are usb powered and have there own built in soundcard. A pretty good one too. This now gives your computer 2 sound cards to choose from. As for the software problem, you have to un-intergrate the voice chat from the game. I did this when I played world of warcraft because my guild would use ventrillo or team speak to communicate when we played.

All I had to do was set the voice chat program to use the headset sound card, but set the game to use my internal sound card and 5.1 speakers. The result was perfect. I got all the bass and surround sound from my home theater system, but had all the voice communications isolated from it on my headset so it was nice and clear. I dont know of anybody else that has done this but it works great. It takes alot of work tho and a serious guild or something to make it work.

Right now the gaming community group I started is very casual, you can log on and see anybody in the group online and talk with them or join there game. Its a very easy way to meet somebody in the forums and play games with them. I hope to have the chat room have some activity too when we have more members. However since we are not a "serious" gaming guild we dont have a team speak server or anything like that and will just use the games intergrated service.

later down the road that may change if somebody wants to donate one and deal with the hassles of running it. I however will keep my hands clean, I have done it several times in the past and it takes alot of work to corignate all that, and its usually only good for a small closed personal guild and not a entire forum like we have going on now.

 

I joined up.

 

I joined! I play CS:S all the time. Maybe join up sometime when I'm playing.

 

Cool everything is going strong so far.

HL2 Ep2 and Portal have only about 2 hours left untill they get released!

 

Steam Id C2. I'm in the group. Portal is the bleep, I swear.

"Portals conserve momentum. In layman's terms, speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out"

Gotta Love Valve.

 

just to let you know I am in and under the name of zmaster

 

I beat portals already

it gave me an idea for this months gamer of the month challenge.

The first one to get all the achievments for portal gets awarded gamer of the month. The challenge was going to be who beats the game first but unfortunatly that didnt take very long.

 

I just got the orange box today so I will be online for team fortress 2 in a few hours... gotta hit up the gym now though!

see you all online!

 

No you wont because imm'a spy and ill be behind you with my knife.

 

joined i added vicious and forerunner..i have no idea who the others are yet..LOL hoping to get orange box during the weekend

 

whack attack!! More studying aaaah! I tried the bonus maps. I was able to get 13 done in advanced and 14 i igot th ebox but didn't have time to get the orb back.

 

I'm TooBigToFit. All I have is CS Source

 

Just added a steam account.... Chonga is the name

Seems a lot of tf2 players have put a good amount of time into it already, i stink at it but i just started so hopefully i get better. Very fun nonetheless.

 

Joined! My steam name is also foxStick.

 

Ha I beat the first challenge with a gold using only 4 portals! I had it backwards at first after I figured it out it was kind of a no brainer. Now soon as my wireless network comes up at work I can log on and do it again and get credit for it...

 

I joined. Phule 103. Can't run TF2 at the moment When I try to load it just cycles through various resolution settings. I may need to try new drivers. This will only be my fifth set of video drivers and I've only had the machine since the end of August. It was a year before I even considered updating my desktop drivers.

Sheesh :twitcy:

 

top, can this be a sticky? no reason for anybody not to join us.

 

I just joined my steam ID is "Tristan"

 

new day new players.

 

I just joined, my ID is _bare. I still need to get the orange box though

 

just signed up today, ID kenlee1660.

 

Cool glad to have you aboard! For the sake of conversation get around to overclocking the ATI 2600 yet? or get a handle on the drivers with the c90s GDDR3 8600gt?

 

Still always ready for more members.

 

I'm joined up

 

Whats your username?

 

Is it time to start putting together some teams?

 

i joined

my screen name is d4rke

 

Just joined; Steam ID is jdmnodoubt (also my XBL gamertag if anyone is interested).

 

I just signed up.

Name is egregious. I play CS 1.6 and Source rarely.

 

I had an epic (1 hour, 45 minute) match in tf2 last night. Does anyone know if the map lazytown originally came with the game? It would be awesome if there are user-created maps already...

 

lazy town? I dont think I have played that one.

 

Yeah, it looks like a user-created map. If you sort find server by map, you can see a few servers hosting it.

 

Sorry I forgot to mention that
Dodo_101

 

I joined, my username is the same on steam. Though I very rarely play anything other than 1.6, and that only occasionally (mostly cuz I suck...)

 

I joined the group. Although I don't have as much time for gaming as I used to. My name is the same as my name here by the way.
Tim

 

Krmlmnstr

in Steam also ... add me, if you like! Play TF2... for christmas holidays i plan COD4 ... =)

 

I signed up to

 

Haha, what the heck, i'll join now, seeing as i just got my c90s today.

 

Welcome. Nice, I just started playing team fortress 2 again on steam and played with a couple of people from NBR.

 

Thanks, I'm probably going to eventually get some steam games, but in the mean time, I'll play Lost Planet that I got for free on steam.