Newbie/Help FAQ: Read before posting!

I have noticed people ask the same questions again and again without using the search button at all. So, to make things simpler, here is my compilation of the Newbie FAQ. Make sure you read this before asking the same thing in a new thread.

Keys used:
Blue Color = Question
Red Color = Console Command

Here goes:

>What is ESF and how can I play it?
ESF is "Earth's Special Forces" [www.esforces.com], a modification built for Half-Life. To play it, you need the a copy of the Half-Life CD (available in any gaming store for about $10). You then need to update your Half-Life with the 1.1.1.0 update patch. After doing so, you can download and install the latest version of ESF from here.

>How do I play/record Demos?
To record a demo:
record demoname
To Stop:
stop
To play a demo:
playdemo demoname
(To play the demo, the .dem file must be in your ESF directory and you must have the map used in making the demo installed on your computer.)
To view the demo in thirdperson camera:
thirdperson

>When will the new version of ESF come out?
The team is working on the next version and programming it, debugging it, and building it will take time. The last thing the team needs is to be rushed and questioned by fans all the time. The next version will be out when it is ready and when the team feels the need to release it. Watch out for updates on the ESF Homepage.

>Where can I download custom models, maps, and sprites (also called weapons by some) for ESF?
Red Saiyan has a wide variety of these, you can get most of the proper and legally released ones there.
(If someone has more websites of this sort, PM me and I'll add it to the list.)

Edit- Red Saiyan isn't exactly around anymore, but if you search around the forums you will most likely find links to newer fan-based support websites with model hosting. ~Boyster

>How do I call/use the dragon?
To call the dragon in-game, you first must collect all 7 dragonballs to one location and when they start glowing, point at them from closeby and press your USE key (which is b by default). Once you have called the dragon, use the mouse to click on one of the 3 options. Strength gives you more PL, Immortality makes you invincible for a certain period of time, and Friendship increases your wish points in the score (not sure about this) for games played on the basis of which team has more wish points.
[Please note that CTDB (Capture The Dragon Balls) mode is still in it's experimental stages in this mod. It will be perfected after the team has finished working on other aspects of the game. Also, to play in the CTDB mode, the host of the server must have the server running with the CTDB mode option in *Create Game > Advanced*.]

>How do you turn ssj2, ssj3, ssj4?
You CAN'T ascend to anything beyond one transformation in the current release of ESF. The team will implement further tranformations in future releases, but ssj4 or anything related to Dragonball GT will not be used (as ESF is a mod for DBZ, not GT). Stories of people turning ssj2 and transform tricks are all FAKE, this does not happen. Perfect Transformation Level means instant ascension without any of the animations/sounds or any other sort of delay.

>Why does my ESF lag? I get terrible FPS!
One word: STICKY!

>How can I look-for/join servers other than using ESF itself?
You can use Game Tiger, All Seeing Eye or HLSW. (Use google to find the downloads.)

>Aww, did a moderator spank you for spamming?
Read this and this.

>Why doesn't my console show up?
You need to alter your ESF shortcut (or create one pointing to HL.exe in your Half-Life directory), and add the following parameters to it (right click & properties):
-console -game ESF
This will make the shortcut start with console enabled and will switch to ESF straight away provided you installed ESF in the "\ESF\" directory.

>Bots Bots Bots!
If you can't play online, or want to practice alone, use the LATEST version of the ESF bots, which can be downloaded from here. Download and install the ESF bots in the correct directory, excecute the 'activate bots' .exe file in your ESF directory, and use the = key ingame to bring up the bot menu (which you can use to add bots, note: this works for your server only). Any questions pertaining to bots can also be asked on the ESF Bot Forums.

>How do I play mp3's in the game?
Go to your ESF directory/mp3 and use the playlist editor excecutable to load mp3's into your playlist and save this as playlist.txt in the same directory. Now press F8 in the game to birng up the MP3 menu. (You can also use HLamp, but this means running winamp in the background.)

>My ESF crashes and returns to desktop after a while! What do I do?
Make sure you have updated graphics card drivers installed on your computer and try switching your ESF Video Mode to OpenGL on a stable resolution.

>Where can I get the ESF Cvars list?
Sticky again! If you want something very specific, try PM'ing MrSatan - he's the master of cvars! =p

>How do I see the server status/check someone's WONID?
status

>How do I increase my PL faster than usual? It takes too long to transform!
Well if you attack someone with a relatively higher PL as compared to yours, then the attack raises your PL much more than normal. So a trick could be, try attacking an ascended person without your Turbo on, this would make the PL difference the most and give you the most PL. But this also leaves you vulnerable for more damage.

>How do I take screenshots?
You press F5 in-game for a screenshot to be taken. This is automatically saved as a .bmp file in your Half-Life directory (not your ESF directory).

>How do you turn demos into AVI video files?
Use a programme called Camastudio, with which you can directly convert a demo into an avi by capturing the whole screen or just a window only.

>Can I add new characters to ESF?
NO, you can only replace models/sounds/sprites for existing ones, you can't add new characters into ESF.

>I downloaded Half-Life, now how do I play?
YOU DON'T! You have to buy the original version, go to your nearest gaming cd's store and pick up a copy. ESF is an online multiplayer game and it won't work with any downloaded versions and also, talking about downloaded HL is forbidden as that falls under 'warez'.

>How do I use melee?
By reading this and also by walking through the n00b friendly flash manual located in your ESF directory.

>How do I use mics in ESF for voice conversations?
Firstly make sure you have voice enabled in MULTIPLAYER > CUSTOMIZE, and then type this:
bind key +voicerecord
Then whenever you have that key pressed, people in your team will be able to hear you.

>Why can't I find any ESF servers in the game?
Under Multiplayer -> Internet Games -> Go to filter and change the "are playing game" dropdown box to ESF. This will filter all online games to show only ESF ones. If you want an alternative way to find servers and join them, use ALL SEEING EYE, HLSW or GAMETIGER. [use google to find out how]

>Is the server you're trying to join using a different 'protocol'?
This is because (A) your Half-Life isn't updated. Download HL Update 1.1.1.0 from here; or (B) your ESF version installed is an older one. Download the latest beta from here.

>How do I add marquee or glow into text in the forums?
*/EMBED> *marquee>*TABLE style=filter:glow(color=YOUR COLOR GOES HERE, strength=#+1)> YOUR TEXT GOES HERE */TABLE>*/marquee> */EMBED>
Replace all the * with <
If you want a simpler ONLY MARQUEE method, try this:
<.marquee behavior="alternate">THE MARQUEE<./marquee>
Without the .'s.

>Help! I get the client.dll error!
There are more threads on this than there are hair on Hsu's head! (jk =p). This error mostly comes when you try to join a server which has a different client.dll file than yours.
For WON users:
- Make sure that you have the latest version of Half-Life installed (1.1.1.0).
- Make sure that you have the latest version of ESF installed. [ link ]
- Make sure that the server you're trying to join is an updated beta server as well (i.e. - not running another version and is also on WON).

For STEAM users:
- Make sure that your Steam is updated (Steam should automatically update HL before running).
- - Make sure that you have the latest version of ESF installed. [ link ]
- Make sure that the server you're trying to join is an updated beta server as well (i.e. - not running another version and is also on STEAM).

>Sometimes you may get a dll problem for a missing fmod.dll file!
ESF uses the fmod.dll file for it's mp3 player. Make sure that you've got an updated version of this file in your HALF-LIFE folder (whether you're using WON or STEAM, doesn't matter - you still need this file). [ link1 :: link2 ]

--------------------

I will keep adding more to this list as things come up and hopefully, we'll have a good archive soon. Please PM me if you think there is something worth adding. (Mods PM me as well, don't edit/add to this post.)

Thanks,
grOOvy

[align=center]ESF CHARACTER MOVES[/align]

Im tired of new people asking what someone they fought did to them and trying to explain what it is that happened. These are the only attacks the characters have in Beta 1.1. And every character has the melee, ki blast, and generic beam moves with the exeption of Vegeta.


Buu
-Mouth Blast - A move where Buu stores a pink beam in his mouth.
-Transform Beam - A move where when a character is being hit by the beam loses health and Buu gains PL. When the character has run out of health a menu comes up with three selections, one of the selections is doughnut, most often used, which brings up Buu's PL.
-Regeneration - Buu hunches over recovering one HP a second which uses up PL when being used.

Evil Buu
-Mouth Blast - A move where Buu stores a pink beam in his mouth.
-Transform Beam - A move where when a character is being hit by the beam loses health and Buu gains PL. When the character has run out of health a menu comes up with three selections, one of the selections is doughnut, most often used, which brings up Buu's PL.
-Regeneration - Buu hunches over recovering one HP a second which uses up PL when being used.


Goku
-Kamehameha - A move by putting his hands together on one side and charging up a beam while saying Kamehameha.
-Spirit Bomb - A move where Goku puts his hands up into the air and little energy balls rise from the ground over Goku's head creating a large energy ball.
-Mini Spirit Bomb - A move where Goku glows white and charges up a Spirit Bomb in one hand but not as powerful as the original Spirit Bomb.
-Solar Flare - A bright flash, when next to an enemy, blinds them for a while making them unable to see.
-Kami Torpedos - A move where Goku stores up energy in a certain spot, when done the ball of energy stay in that spot. Goku can do a certain amount of these. Then right click at a certain spot to unleash this massive attack.

SSJ Goku
-Teleport Kamehameha- A move by putting his hands together on one side and charging up a beam while saying Kamehameha with the ability to teleport while doing so.
-Solar Flare - A bright flash, when next to an enemy, blinds them for a while making them unable to see.
-Kami Torpedos - A move where Goku stores up energy in a certain spot, when done the ball of energy stay in that spot. Goku can do a certain amount of these. Then right click at a certain spot to unleash this massive attack.


Gohan
-Masenko - A move where Gohan raises his hands to his forehead, charging up a beam while saying Masenko Ha.
-Energy Shield - A move where Gohan creates a yellow sphere shield around himself preventing anyone to attack him with the exeption to some attacks such as the Finger Laser and Distructo Disk.

SSJ Gohan
-Masenko - A move where Gohan raises his hands to his forehead, charging up a beam while saying Masenko Ha.
-Energy Shield - A move where Gohan creates a yellow sphere shield around himself preventing anyone to attack him with the exeption to some attacks such as the Finger Laser and Distructo Disk.
-Kamehameha - A move by putting his hands together on one side and charging up a beam while saying Kamehameha.


Krillin
-Kamehameha - A move by putting his hands together on one side and charging up a beam while saying Kamehameha.
-Distructo Disk - A move where Krillin raises one hand into the air and creates a yellow disk of pure energy to kill an enemy in one hit.
-Split Beam - A move where Krillin raises both hands into the air and concetrates on an energy attack, then throws it in a straight line. If there are any enemies around the ball that Krillin had thrown, it shoots out smaller energy balls toward the enemies.
-Solar Flare - A bright flash, when next to an enemy, blinds them for a while making them unable to see.

Krillin With Hair
-Kamehameha - A move by putting his hands together on one side and charging up a beam while saying Kamehameha.
-Distructo Disk - A move where Krillin raises one hand into the air and creates a yellow disk of pure energy to kill an enemy in one hit.
-Split Beam - A move where Krillin raises both hands into the air and concetrates on an energy attack, then throws it in a straight line. If there are any enemies around the ball that Krillin had thrown, it shoots out smaller energy balls toward the enemies.
-Solar Flare - A bright flash, when next to an enemy, blinds them for a while making them unable to see.


Frieza
-Finger Laser - A purple beam that shoots out of Frieza's finger in a straight line, and when right clicked, he shoots twice as fast.
-Distructo Disk - A move where Frieza raises one hand into the air and creates a purple disk of pure energy to kill an enemy in one hit. Unlike Krillin's Distructo disk Frieza can retract the disk to come back to him by clicking the right mouse button.

Second Form Frieza
-Finger Laser - A purple beam that shoots out of Frieza's finger in a straight line, and when right clicked, he shoots twice as fast.
-Distructo Disk - A move where Frieza raises one hand into the air and creates a purple disk of pure energy to kill an enemy in one hit. Unlike Krillin's Distructo disk Frieza can retract the disk to come back to him by clicking the right mouse button.
-Death Ball - Similar to Goku's Spirit Bomb Frieza raises one hand and creates a pink electric energy ball with almost the same power as the Spirit Bomb, yet Frieza can move around while doing this.


Piccolo
-Scatter Shot - A barage of randomly shot energy balls and when right clicked on a certain position, they home in on that spot.
-Special Beam Cannon - A move where Piccolo puts his finger toward his forehead and charges up a beam, when done he shoots a spiral straight beam.
-Masenko - A move where Gohan raises his hands to his forehead, charging up a beam while saying Masenko Ha.
-Eye Laser - Two red laser beams that shoot out of piccolo's eyes in a straight line, that can even shoot through Gohan's powerful Energy Shield.

Powered Up Piccolo
-Scatter Shot - A barage of randomly shot energy balls and when right clicked on a certain position, they home in on that spot.
-Special Beam Cannon - A move where Piccolo puts his finger toward his forehead and charges up a beam, when done he shoots a spiral straight beam.
-Masenko - A move where Gohan raises his hands to his forehead, charging up a beam while saying Masenko Ha.
-Eye Laser - Two red laser beams that shoot out of piccolo's eyes in a straight line, that can even shoot through Gohan's powerful Energy Shield.


Vegeta
-Galite Gun - A move where a small energy field surrounds Vegeta while he creates a energy blast to his side.
-Renzoku - A move where Vegeta charges the attack and lets you hold up to 6 kiblasts and then unleash them all at once. The secondary has now become a "normal" kiblast.

SSJ Vegeta
-Galite Gun - A move where a small energy field surrounds Vegeta while he creates a energy blast to his side.
-Renzoku - A move where Vegeta charges the attack and lets you hold up to 6 kiblasts and then unleash them all at once. The secondary has now become a "normal" kiblast.
-Big Bang - A move where Vegeta stands still with one hand point in the direction of fire. Once enough energy has been stored he shoots out a small blue ball with massive power.
-Final Flash - A move where Vegeta spreads his arms out to each of his sides and then puts them together in front of himself. A yellow electric surrounds Vegeta untill he lets out the strongest blast he could possibly make.


Trunks
-Sword Melee - Replaces the original hand to hand melee, Trunks uses the sword to slice his enemies to pieces.
-Blinding Attack - A move where Trunks moves his arms in a certin patern then lets out a yellow beam, when hit the enemy will be blind for a small amount of time.

SSJ Trunks
-Sword MeleeReplaces the original hand to hand melee, Trunks uses the sword to slice his enemies to pieces.
-Blinding Attack - A move where Trunks moves his arms in a certin patern then lets out a yellow beam, when hit the enemy will be blind for a small amount of time.
-Finishing Buster - A move where Trunks reaches behind and stores up energy, then throws a blue ball of energy in a straight line.


Cell
-Galite Gun - A move where a small energy field surrounds Vegeta while he creates a energy blast to his side.
-Kamehameha - A move by putting his hands together on one side and charging up a beam while saying Kamehameha.
-Special Beam Cannon - A move where Piccolo puts his finger toward his forehead and charges up a beam, when done he shoots a spiral straight beam.
-Distructo Disk - A move where Frieza raises one hand into the air and creates a purple disk of pure energy to kill an enemy in one hit.
-Solar Flare - A bright flash, when next to an enemy, blinds them for a while making them unable to see.

Second Form Cell
-Galite Gun - A move where a small energy field surrounds Vegeta while he creates a energy blast to his side.
-Kamehameha - A move by putting his hands together on one side and charging up a beam while saying Kamehameha.
-Special Beam Cannon - A move where Piccolo puts his finger toward his forehead and charges up a beam, when done he shoots a spiral straight beam.
-Distructo Disk - A move where Frieza raises one hand into the air and creates a purple disk of pure energy to kill an enemy in one hit.
-Solar Flare - A bright flash, when next to an enemy, blinds them for a while making them unable to see.

Thank you Glenn| for this information.

[align=center]BASIC MELEE GUIDE[/align]

Ok...so...I'm in game and I notice a lot of people complaining about the melee sucking that aren't using it properly. I just thought these players stunk at first (no offense), but then I had a friend in real life who was playing against me on my LAN. He was one of those "melee sucks" guys. When I watched him play though, I realized: he was doing it incorrectly!! And there's two sides to melee, too--recovering from hits is just as important but he didn't even know how to do that. So then I realized...wow, there are just a lot of stupid jerks out there who don't read the manual at all (there's no excuse, the damn thing is animated anyhow, even the illiterate should be able to figure it out).

Therefore it is my theory that a majority of the people who dislike the melee in the game are not using it properly. I've heard foolish complaints such as "dude melee sucks, you can't even get up," or "dude melee sucks, you go flying and can't do anything about it," or "dude melee sucks i never hit anyone even when I swoop right into them." So I thought I'd help set the record straight with a big-ass TUTORIAL ON MELEE. >:0)

--PART ONE: Basic Control Functions of Melee
The control scheme of melee doesn't work as simply as the rest of the game's attacks do. Depending on whether or not you are locked on to an opponent, the functions of your mouse are slightly different. Let's take a look.

NOT LOCKED ON:
Primary Fire (Left Click) = Locks on to the opponent under reticle
Secondary Fire (Right Click) = Melee Attack (when within close quarters)

LOCKED ON TO AN OPPONENT:
Primary Fire (Left Click) = Enters Swoop mode
Secondary Fire (Right Click) = Melee Attack (Held during swoop toward targeted opponent)

A few things should immediately come to your attention. The first of these things is that while you are "locked on" to an enemy, you may notice that your character does not intuitively swoop in a beeline towards the target. So technically you are not really "locked on" and shouldn't think of it in a traditional sense, because you will most likely get confused if you are a beginner.

Also, take notice: while swooping, HOLDING RIGHT CLICK is the best means of attacking your selected target, but this will ONLY WORK FOR THE TARGETED ENEMY (i.e. you cannot lock on to an opponent, enter a swoop, and swoop-melee another opponent by flying into them and holding right click, as you would the locked-on enemy).

Take heed: When you are NOT locked on to anyone, the only way to perform a melee attack is to right click while you are within a close proximity to a target. The disadvantage is that you cannot swoop (although many players substitute teleporting) to hit any target, but this form of melee is advantageous in the sense that when coupled with swoop melee tactics, it allows you to take on multiple opponents at once without having to worry about re-locking on to each target separately during the fight (which is rather difficult and inefficient), and also allows the technique of block-countering to be possible within the game.

Mastering the combinations of these techniques is the key to being able to manhandle an entire server with minimal effort.


--PART TWO: Offensive Tutorial
Offense is usually a point and click affair but in ESF Melee combat, things are a little different. There are two ways to attack an opponent: while locked on, and while not locked. Let's have a look:

Scenario 1: You get an enemy in your sights. Let's assume you want to melee him. Left-clicking/primary fire while the target is under your crosshairs will "lock on" to the target, causing a red box to appear around your foe. Think of this red box as a sign saying, "Swooping is Enabled" because that's basically what it does: you are able to now use primary fire to enter swoop, where you will move several times faster than normal.

Swoop is for gaining ground against enemies rapidly in melee combat. You can cover a lot of ground quickly but at the cost of ki. While swooping at your targeted enemy, melee is pretty simple: just hold down right click while you are swooping and ram into him to score a hit (assuming he does not block or teleport or move, which will be discussed later).

Things are a bit more complex when you aren't locked on. Holding down right click does not attack enemies, and nor does actually clicking it; for some reason or another, it is the RELEASE of the button that can trigger the attack. When an enemy is unaware, or when you are a great deal faster, or have the ki to do some serious teleporting, then this method of melee is a good choice because even though it is more difficult it is less notable by others, and does the relatively the same damage.

Now that we've covered the two basic types of offense, let's tutorial it up, tutorialman. >:0D We'll start with a basic offensive situation.

Offensive Scenario 1: An enemy is in your sites. Your options for melee are fairly varied. Let's review.

[SOLUTION 1] Left Click on the enemy to get a lock, then left click a second time to initialize a swoop, using your mouse to guide you towards your opponent, all the while holding down right click. If you hit your enemy and he is undefended, you will score a hit.

[SOLUTION 2] Get yourself adjacent to your foe and right click once you are within melee range to score a non-swooping melee hit.

See? It's not that hard, right? Now, on to the next part of the tutorial: Defense & Recovering.


--PART THREE: Defense & Recovery Tutorial
Many players do not seem to understand the in's and out's of defending themselves or recovering from a hit. It's pretty basic but still, those who do not read the Manual.swf file will not know this simple information, and to be pretty blunt, it severely hampers enjoyment of the game. Let's have a look.

When you are struck with a melee attack and you are not defending yourself, you will be sent helplessly flying across the map. Any landscape or object you hit will add damage to the wounds you've already suffered from being hit, and eventually you will tumble to an unconscious halt on the floor, where you will remain for anywhere from a few to several EXTREMELY VULNERABLE seconds.

This is usually the point where people who don't know how to use melee stop and type, "OMFG melee is so ***!" or something of that nature.

Well...you may or may not have noticed but a struggle bar appears at the far right of your screen while you are helplessly tumbling. By holding primary fire, your character will use some ki to right himself in midair, or do a cartwheel/handspring back to his feet if he is tumbling along the ground, thus avoiding the obnoxious "frozen" state, and also avoiding being slammed against buildings or mountains for additional damage.

Make some sense now, people?

(Look for SaiyanPrideXIX's Advanced Melee Techniques Tutorial, coming soon)

Thank you SaiyanPrideXIX for this information.

[align=center]HOW TO INSTALL ESF AND BOTS[/align]

1) if you dont know how to start ESF!! First install 1.1.1.0 <--- new update for half-life .. then start halflife.exe ( hl.exe ) , Go to custem game menu, and click on earth special forces beta, and click on activate,


http://games.sierra.com/games/half-life/support.html <-- download the Half-Life Update Utility so you can download 1.1.1.0 here. just download file. and install it. and the select a download server.



2). for esf servers,, go to this site! http://www.gametiger.net/search?game=all&mod=esf

or use All seeing eye <- click on all seeing eye *all seeing eye is a advanced server finder for many games and mods*


3) for bots click on links below!


http://filedb.redsaiyan.net/filedb....ion=file&id=155 <-- alpha bots *click on download this file*

http://members.lycos.nl/rick1304050/ <-- for the Newest Bots

( please read the *.txt file HOW to install the bots!!
if you installed the KI-BOT installer of 3.0 you dont have to read the readme. its already automatic added. press the ---> = <---- button on your keyboard for the BOT MENU , *only for ki-bots* )

[align=center]PROBLEMS WITH VOICEICON.SPR[/align]

you can get it here:

http://mitglied.lycos.de/ghoststalker14/voiceicon.spr

put it in:
...\half-life\valve\sprites\
or
...\counter-strike\valve\sprites\

(thanks ghoststalker)

[align=center]harSen's PROBLEM SOLVERS[/align]

harSens said:

Know issues with esf, and fixing them:

Issue: I can see through the models arms, and/or i can't see the beams for the attacks.
Problem:Esf won't look good in software mode.
Fix: Set your videocard to D3D/OpenGL if it supports that.

Issue: The installer ask for a 2nd disk.
Problem:There is a CRC error in the esf installer you downloaded.
Fix:Download and install esf again

Issue: Esf crashes to a blue screen at startup
Problem:You're probably using EAX or Aureal sound fx, and your soundcard doesn't support that.
Fix: Disable those fx and try again.

Issue: The mp3 music doesn't play, and/or you get an Wrong dll version error in the console.
Problem:The installer installs fmod.dll in the windows dir, instead of in the halflife dir, and there is an older version of fmod.dll in your halflife dir.
Fix: Copy fmod.dll from your windows dir to your halflife dir.

Click to expand...

For all you Australians who are having trouble finding quality AUS servers:

AUS ESF Community Started!
WarHawk
Registered User
Joined: Jul 2003

Heya guys, I've seen a number of people asking about AUS servers being put up and not enough being online. Well I'm a network manager for several gaming networks here in Australia which all provide gamer standard pings and quality of the servers, no problems at all. I've decided to start an AUS ESF Community, I'll need all the help I can get from anyone who's in AUS for this communinty to work well, otherwise I may have to reconsider what I'm doing.

#ausesf @ ****
No website or forums have been setup yet, but if we get the right numbres then I wouldn't mind getting it done, come and show me you're interested and I'll get everything setup just fine, Thanks

[align=center]ALL SEEING EYE Tutorial[/align]

----------
frist download all seeing eye at http://www.udpsoft.com/eye2/index.html

look in the right and click on N.america or Europe to download the Program..

Next when installed. and you launched the program you see a small box popping up with the titel: SETUP WIZARD. and you see welcome to all seeing eye. now press NEXT

click here your connection speed or let all seeing eye checking your speed by clicking "Auto detect connection setting" when did that. press NEXT again. then press next again cuz the next 1 is just a text box.

Now you see a box called GAMES.
*maybe you see half-life or counter strike already under "INSTALLED GAMES" so not. click the + at "Not installed" Select the game you want, and in this case. search for HALF-LIFE. when you found that. click on the half-life game in the list.

Then look in the right. you see

Player name
Config File
Program location

type in player name, the name you want.
Skip config file.
in program location. search the game exe file. example c:\half-life\hl.exe

when you did that. press NEXT again. then click on COMPLEET.

ok. when you did that. half-life is now added in the list. look in the top left. and you see half-life
+ the half-life icon. press on the + next to it.

then you see a big mod list. search "earth special forces" press the + on it. and click on 1.1 . then right click on 1.1 and click on REFRESH.

you now see servers where you can play on. when you want to play on. double click on the server.

also you see where the server is playing from in what country.


it looks hard. but it isnt. when you are done with all the settings. its easy as pie then.

*tip: you can press F5 to to refresh servers..
-------

Thanks to SkyRider for this information.

[align=center]ESF Beta 1.1 Proper Melee Guide[/align]




I wanted to write a guide like this because most people that play ESF end up quitting because they do not understand the melee system. I notice players fall into two basic categories: people that get owned and people who own others. Very rarely is there an in-between type of player. Hopefully, after you read this, you won’t be getting owned anymore. If you’re already good at melee, this guide may teach you some things you didn’t know.

A common problem I notice is that people need SSJ to do what they want. Well, hopefully after you read this, you won’t rely on SSJ ever again. You’ll be able to pick someone other than Gohan and Trunks and still win in your normal state. As for taking on SSJs while normal, well I still can’t do that if the enemy SSJ even has 75% of my skills. So don’t try to be God on the battlefield.

Characters

Most people don’t even know which characters are the best. They think in terms of powerlevel, when they should be thinking in terms of speed. The biggest misconception in ESF is that the characters are balanced. THEY ARE NOT. These balances in power level were done to account for beam strength, not melee. There are good melee characters and there are bad ones. I will run down the list for you now.

Buu is the best melee character in ESF. This is because he has 220 speed. This is more than any character besides Cell. However, Buu gets 160 health, while Cell doesn’t. The fact that Buu starts with 1,500,000 means nothing to us. You have just a little more ki to play with. His candy is also great for gaining more power and recharging his life. You could also use it to just damage the guy when he is lying down doing nothing.

Cell is the second best character. He has 220 speed, and 290 when transed. Also while transed, he doesn’t burn any ki to fly. This makes him the best choice if you want to have a transed fight (without the use of transed Buu or Krillin, an unwritten rule). What I’ve noticed with Cell is that because of his animations, he responds the quickest to teleports and button presses.

Vegeta is the third best character. He has 216 speed. You shouldn’t pick Vegeta with the hopes of transing him. That’s not what he is for. For whatever reason, he responds faster to melee attacks up-close. I think he has a higher priority or something, but I can’t be sure. All I know is that I have more success with Vegeta than I do with Goku.

Goku is next. 216 speed and the hero of the world. Goku has the fastest block animation, making him the blocker’s choice. He is also the most commonly chosen character. I find that a lot of Goku models are big though, so you might limit your visibility by picking him. Some people like the teleport during your beam thing when he transes, but I don’t beam much because it won’t make me any better.

Frieza is next, and for good reason. He starts with 150 health. Almost as cheesy as Buu, but he only gets 180 speed. This makes it harder to do just about everything. 180 speed characters are generally at a disadvantage in every aspect. However, his laser is a powerful tool if you use it wisely, between melee hits.

Trunks is next, and I’m sure many of you are wondering what I’m smoking putting him this far down. The most common misconception I hear people talking about is that “Trunks is THE melee character” because 1) he has a sword, or 2) he has no good beams, or 3) the sword gibs at 20% health. Pick him if you like number 3, but the other 2 reasons are not good reasons at all. Trunks has 180 speed, making him a slow character compared to the others. When he transforms, he is still slow at 250. However, Trunks has more health than Gohan or Krillin.

Piccolo is next, he has a slight health advantage over Gohan. His speed while transed is 250, so he has no real edge over Trunks except +10 health. As a namek, I don’t see why he doesn’t get regeneration, but oh well. Why would you pick Piccolo? Quick special beam cannon access? Scattershot fun? Eyelaser fun? Who knows.

Gohan is a whopping 8th on my list, and for good reason. He has only 100 health, and only 180 speed. These stats are terrible for melee. He just can’t compete with anyone else unless he transforms, and even then, his health stinks. If you want to transform before everyone else, I guess you pick Gohan, but Trunks is still better for that. The only reason you pick Gohan is if the enemy is SSJ Trunks and you need more speed to beat him. But as I stated earlier, we don’t need SSJ anymore to win.

Krillin is the absolute worst. His trans is way too far off, so forget about it. The only reason you pick Krillin is if you want to show the world how you can win with the worst character. I guess if you wanted to trans him that badly, you could scatterbeam for 20 minutes.


Basics

Many people take the wrong approach when they try to get better. They focus on the most advanced moves that they’ve seen, trying to get good at them, when they haven’t even mastered the basics. The basics include running, launching, teleporting, turbo usage, swooping, recovering, targeting, blocking, and mouse sensitivity.

Running should be simple and straightforward to understand. This is when you are on the ground, and you move your character around. Every time you do this, you should get into the habit of pressing turbo. You move much faster and have the chance to evade incoming meleers. Half the people I smash are just walking around. As a general rule, I would avoid staying on the ground as much as possible.

Launching refers to what you will do every single time you respawn. It is a maneuver done from the ground, by simply pressing jump, then an arbitrary number of teleports, followed by a recharge back to full ki. Launching is so important because the majority of people die from beamspam. Therefore, you must get quickly off the ground and above the range of any blasts that could hurt you.

Teleporting is an art form. Each person will use it differently. However, there are basic rules governing this popular trick. If you have no one targeted, you want to move around quickly while you acquire one. Teleporting is one way of doing that. You simply press the teleport button, then hold recharge immediately as you press it. You’ll teleport and regain all of your ki within a second. There is a certain timing required to execute multiple teleports quickly while still remaining at full ki. If you’re having trouble getting your timing down, work backwards (In otherwords, when practicing this, it is better to be a little less than full ki before the next teleport than it is to make sure you have full ki). You have to get into the habit of constantly moving. If not, you run the risk of some random person coming up and smashing you. If you feel like you aren’t threatened by anyone, or if you’re in a hurry, you can do two at a time. This will make you stand still for awhile though as you recharge. Once you’ve acquired a target, your senseless teleports pretty much end. Teleporting can be done in any direction. You don’t have to hold the intended direction, you just have to tap it. However, I advise all of you to hold the direction you are going to teleport before doing so. This includes teleporting up (jump) and teleporting down (fly). One exception would be if you keep getting nailed before you get to teleport, in which case a frantic teleport with no directional input may save you.

Turbo Usage is very important, since there is no guide on when or where you should use it. As a general rule, you want to avoid this button during actual combat. This button should only be used when you are too close to swoop. You must turn on turbo to move quickly and get a hit, or you could just teleport out. People think that turning on turbo will make them swoop faster. This is not true at all. Turbo simply increases your power, allowing you do to extra damage. I use turbo every time I fire a beam, but never before a swoop. This is because of the ki draining effect it has. Most people don’t know this, but you can turn on turbo while you are recharging. This is only good when you are fighting a newb and want to end it quickly. However, I’ve seen it used as a trick to get people to think you’re swooping so that they will move first. Try playing with this by teleporting, hold recharge, then tap turbo and watch the pretty aura.

Swooping is the basis of every battle. It is the only weapon you will use 90% of the time. Swooping can only be done once you acquire a target. Once you have done so, you tap left-click to begin your swoop. You cannot swoop if you are close to any enemy on the field. The swoop ends in three ways. Either you let it run its course, or you stopped it by tapping left-click again(or you held it in, which is much worse), or you got too close to someone and it stopped on its own. If you let the swoop run its course, you can re-initiate it immediately with no delay at all if your timing is right and there is no enemy nearby. If the swoop ended by your left-click, there is a delay of about a second before you can swoop again. Usually, if I stopped my swoop and I plan to swoop again, I teleport and recharge to keep myself busy during this delay. If I stopped my swoop and I don’t plan to swoop again, I tap the drift button as I’m stopping, and I coast through the air with the momentum I had from the swoop. If your timing is off, you’ll just freefall, which is quite annoying. If your swoop ended because you got to close to an enemy, you have a serious problem. Maybe his swoop didn’t end like yours did, leaving you very vulnerable. Or, maybe his swoop ended too and now he intends to hit you up-close. A simple way out of this is a teleport followed by a new swoop. If this isn’t working, you unluckily teleported too close to him. Be persistent and teleport twice if they keep catching up to you. If you are pressured, you can always teleport twice away, initiate a new swoop, drift with momentum, then recharge. It will give you some extra time to see if he is chasing you or letting you go, plus you get the advantage of having him in a situation where he is being predictable and rushing you.

Targeting is very important too. Quick targeting comes from constantly tapping the button while trying to get the crosshair over the enemy. Most people tend to hold the button and just drag the crosshair hoping to “catch” them. This works only sometimes. Tapping is the best way. If you mis-target, a quick way to de-target someone is to flick your mousewheel down. This will switch your weapon to kiblob, then flick your mousewheel back up to melee. Then you can re-acquire your intended target. I prefer to have a button nearby that I can press for melee incase I am selecting kamehameha and I wish to quickly target someone without scrolling through each weapon.

Blocking is a debateable technique. Some people like it because they use it in the show a lot. Others frown upon it. I personally never block unless I have no ki left to teleport. Blocks make you take damage, and I hate taking damage. However, for the block freaks, here I go. When someone is coming at you, and you haven’t targeted them, you don’t have to run. You can hold block and then melee them. This is where 90% of players make their mistakes. They don’t realize that the attacker is still a huge threat. If the attacker doesn’t run flush into you, he’ll “slide” a little, and you cannot hit that. He will score the hit when he stops sliding and you’ll go flying. Or, maybe he chose to teleport and swoop back at you. Then you block again and this process repeats until you die. This is why I don’t block. However, if you are dead set on blocking, there is an advanced technique in the next section that you can master, the insta-counter.

Mouse Sensitivity is huge. Quite possibly the most important basic you can put your time into. Without this being set correctly, you will run into a wall which prevents you from getting any better. The higher this is, the longer it takes to reach that wall. Therefore, the person with the highest sensitivity can turn faster, aim faster, and be a better player overall, assuming he can get used to it. You want to select the highest sensitivity such that you control it at a slower pace than its capable of, but you have the option of using its full speed to perform quick turns incase you miss. In the beginning, most players need to steadily work their way up to high sensitivities. I would classify “high” to indicate the range of 13-18. Anything past that is too high and the human brain cannot process the frequency of the background moving that quickly without getting confused. Note that you can fine tune your frequency to a decimal place, such as 17.5 (which is what I like to use). Make sure processes like Point32 don’t run, these alter your sensitivity. An exercise in sensitivity control is to swoop at your opponent, but not directly. Come from the right side, then press your mouse against the pad for control, and try to force the mouse to move left slowly such that you slowly turn to close in on him. Stay wide. You want to fly past him only slightly, and while keeping him in the corner of your left eye, move the mouse at a steady speed left until you smack him in the back. If you stop to his left, your sensitivity is too low. If you stop to his right, your sensitivity is too high. If you smack him in the back, you got it. Once you can do this consistently, you’ve pretty much found your perfect high sensitivity. This is the slow speed at which you will perform every single turn, controlled and smooth. You want to be able to hit a moving target during a swoop no matter where he is going or what direction he is coming from. Typically, players get in “whirlwind” battles, where they just swirl around and around and people are just moving the mouse left or right and not aiming carefully. The above exercise helps you to turn carefully and controlled and score those hits when they count. You don’t want to become too predictable, however. You need to throw in some random movements, such as quick jerks or swerves. A favorite trick of mine is to move in an “S” pattern, which is done by moving the mouse in a figure 8 on the pad. I do it faster than I would turn, but once I’m facing the intended direction, I slow down to “control speed” again. One thing you want to avoid is a head-on swoop. This is risky and could send you flying, in the heat of a swoop battle it is never certain who has more ki. Therefore, whenever you suspect a head-on collision, stop your swoop and teleport somewhere, either up or to the side, then recharge and face your enemy. You then must watch for his swoop, which is still ongoing. If he didn’t stop, he’s coming for you, so you must teleport a few times until his swoop ends, or you can swoop around and try to hit him just when his swoop ends.



Advanced Play

Once you have mastered these things, you’re ready to begin the ownage. Keep in mind that these are only the techniques I use. There are many more out there and the only thing making my techniques better than anyone else’s is my own opinion (and the fact that I’m rank 1).

Swoop-tele-tele-swoop is one way to continue your swoops. Just stop your swoop and tele twice. The delay for starting another swoop should have passed by now, allowing you to continue.

Foreverswooping is a phrase I coined to describe a more advanced way of continuous swooping which I touched on before. You wait until the swoop is over, then tap the button with perfect timing. The result is a smooth endless swoop until you’re out of ki. This doesn’t work if the swoop ends too close to the enemy, and this happens to me quite often. In this case I teleport away and recharge, then try again. While charging after a screwup like this, is where I get hit the most. Typically, if you use this with no logic, you will become predictable. The highest success rate from this move comes when you dilly-dally, swooping around until your swoop is just about to end. Then you face the enemy. In his mind, he has evaded you long enough and your swoop is about to end. He’ll assume that you’ll teleport and try to recharge, so he will take that time to recharge. That is when you continue your swoop and smack him. This has to be done perfectly. If you face him while you’re too close, you can’t foreverswoop. If you face him while you’re too far, you run the risk of him seeing where you’re coming from, which will set you up for a HOW.

HOWing (head-on whoring) describes a technique that I personally hate. It is commonly also referred to as LSM (last-second melee). This is taking advantage of the fact that head-on swoops are decided by who has the most % of full ki (more blue bar). Players that do this keep track of how much ki their opponent has spent, using tricky things like drifting and blocking to reduce the amount of ki they spend. Then, when they suspect you attacking them with less ki, they force a head-on and you lose. This is one of the most frustrating and trickiest things to watch out for. I will not teach anyone how to become good at an abusive style like this; ask someone else. To counter it, there are a few options, but they have to be done perfectly. One counter is just to HOW them back (lame). Another is to use foreverswooping with side-hitting. A third is to use Tele-Up-Swoop-Down.

Tele-Up-Swoop-Down is a technique which assumes your opponent is heading directly at you. This may be because he knows you have less ki, so he is not afraid. Or it is because he is just a predictable player. You can lure him into this easily. Assuming you are floating in the air, hold jump as he is coming at you. When he gets halfway the distance between the two of you, teleport up once, face straight down immediately and swoop. When you learn this move correctly, you will smash him in the head every time. This move gives you the added bonus of knocking him into the ground for more damage. A lot of people try to trail people when they miss a move like this. That usually doesn’t work, so don’t bother.

Side-hitting is another art form. It comes from the high sensitivity practice mentioned above. A lot of people cannot grasp this concept because they don’t think “outside the box”. They always assume they must swoop at someone to hit them. You, as a player, have to learn that you can control wherever you move on that field. There is no rule of melee that states you must swoop towards someone to hit them. When I intend to swoop at a moving target, the one thing going through my mind is, “carefully move to that spot with my mouse.” I try to be confident and visualize that I can hit anywhere on the field if I put my mind to it. Once you have this mentality, you no longer need to aim at your opponent. You can swoop wherever you want, ignoring where your opponent goes, just swooping around in his general area. The huge red box will show you where he is when he flies by you. A side hit almost never comes when you see the opponent. They are done by instinctively knowing where the opponent will be in 2 seconds, and then turning there quickly. The rader is no good for this. You don’t want to be looking at it unless you completely lost track of the guy. Do not chase the enemy frantically with the mentality that you are so good at keeping track of him and staying on his tail. Instead, picture in your mind where he is flying, above you, below you, to the right, or to the left, and then just turn that way. When you first score a hit like this, it will seem like dumb luck. Eventually, as this dumb luck happens more and more, you get a feel for what dumb luck feels like. And then one day, its your own skill, and not luck. That’s the best way I can explain it. A favorite trick of mine that uses this concept is the Tele-Back-Sidehit.

Tele-Back-Sidehit is straightforward. An enemy is swooping directly at you because you have less ki. You teleport back, and then swoop. His vision is blocked by dust particles from the teleport, plus he is confused, so you have free reign to side smack him however you want. Just don’t run into a HOW, that would be a bad thing. You want to teleport back to the side slightly, to make the hit easier. In fact you can do this from any direction, even tele-right, if you face the left before back teleporting. This is a very quick sidehit.

Insta-Counter is a block counter with zero delay. This is what is used by elite players to catch a player off-guard. The key is to release block as they are just about to hit you. The animation takes a few milliseconds to complete, so you’ll still block the hit. Then, the delay is there, but it can be broken. Simply hold jump to float, and hold melee immediately after. This has to be one fluid and fast motion. Try to imagine holding block, then holding float while letting block go, then holding melee while letting float go. The result is a beautiful instant counter with no delay whatsoever. Floating also gives you an advantage because if you messed up the insta-counter, you’re still above the guy for a normal hit. Also, most players, when they see someone blocking, tend to teleport straight up. What better trick is there than to accidentally float right in the way of where they wanna teleport? They’ll teleport right into you and you’ll smack them down.

Blast-em-while-they’re-down is a low blow. Whenever you score a hit, you can switch to ki blast and throw a quick 9 damage burst at them. Then you re-target while they’re recovering. Don’t get carried away, or you will pay for it. Buu, Frieza, and Piccolo have cheesy attacks that are much better than a ki blast, so remember that when you pick them. You should use a generic beam if you’re SSJ, its more powerful then.

Drift-after-hit is a fairly new trick. As you hit someone, quickly tap fly. You’ll stop flying and start drifting, hopefully right along with the enemy you hit. You won’t go as fast as him obviously, but it’s better to stay near him and recover some ki on the way. I do this A LOT. It helps a great deal if a guy blocks. You just fall down and he gets confused as to why you’re not open to a counter. Then you could just swoop back up while you’re falling!

Tele-after-hit is if you don’t want to pressure the guy. You just tap teleport as you hit him. Don’t forget to recharge, that’s the whole point of doing this. I guess if someone is on the ground charging a beam, and you’re afraid if you smash him into the ground the beam will explode on you, this is also useful. Tele-after-hit is the basis for my favorite combo.

Combos are advanced ways of hitting someone more than once. The combo I referred to before can be done easily. Whenever you hit someone down into the floor at an angle, they are open to a simple combo. You can swoop right after them, hugging the ground, and smack them up into the air. This only works if they’re rolling. If they stopped and lied down already, you’re too late. If they recovered, its also too late. That is the 2-hit combo. You can then realize that your hit is going to smack them straight up, so do a two-teleport launch and swoop straight after him. When he bounces off the ceiling, smack him in the back as he’s falling. You’ll plow him for a 3rd hit if he didn’t recover. A 4th hit is possible with a lucky teleport smack. This is easier to do while SSJ, and only works on newbs who can’t recover if you’re not transed. The guaranteed 3-hit combo requires you don’t swoop after the guy for hit #2. You have to tap fly to freefall, then teleport straight into the ground twice. Even if you reach the ground in one teleport, that second teleport is crucial! You then hold forward and teleport right in front of the guy while holding melee. If you keep trying to do this in one down-teleport, you will never correctly teleport in front of the enemy. As he flies up, you’ll notice he soars slower than a swoop-hit. As SOON as you hit him, you spam the teleport button until you are at the ceiling of the map, look straight down and swoop hit him back down. He should smack the ground. A combo like this can also be executed by turning on turbo and running right up to the enemy holding melee, but only do this if you’re so close that a 2-teleport down combo is ridiculous. The only important thing is that you up-close hit him, so he soars slower. Now for mid-air combos. When you insta-counter, you can teleport 4-5 times to either side of the guy, then swoop in a 180 and smack him in the back. This is my favorite combo, I don’t get to do it often cause I don’t block. Another mid-air combo would be to insta-counter them, then, take a second to carefully aim at the guy, and teleport 3 times into him holding melee. You can chain this into a 3-hit combo if you practice. These are so much easier to do while SSJ, but I do them untransed all the time. These to me are simple combos. Advanced combos happen luckily usually, but you go for them hoping to get lucky. If you swoop hit someone into a mountain on Cell Day, you can almost guarantee a combo hit if you don’t stop to recharge. Just swoop again and aim carefully, and he’ll go flying. This requires a lucky break in terms of where he bounces. I like this combo especially when they bounce off of something like a ledge, I can swoop them for a second hit and make them smash into something. Another lucky advanced combo involves falling. When you hit someone then drift, one out of ten times, you’ll end up in a combo position if you hold melee! So don’t forget to. Also, if you hit someone from above with a normal up-close hit, look down, teleport forward frantically and hold melee. You might catch them with a second hit. The most elite of these that I have seen is when someone can up-close hit you and then teleport right next to you for a second hit in a single teleport. This is beyond my skill but I’ve seen it done.

Beam-jumping is an advanced technique because it helps you to get away from someone you don’t want to fight. I’ve seen people get away from me all day with this trick, though I never bothered to master it. You could also use it to blast someone with the bigger beams as they are rushing in at you. I guess the only time I do this is when the enemy is lying down while recovering, and I missed the combo, I charge a full generic beam, then beamjump off his body. Its quite funny.

Generic beam spamming is a technique I like to use, but not that often. I put this section in here mainly because generic beams are generally allowed in melee-only fights. Maybe if a SSJ who I can’t kill is trying to beat me up, I will use this. First turn on turbo, every time you do this. You simply charge up the beam to its minimum and let her rip. Right-click explode the beam every time right before you think it will reach them. They usually are coming towards you, so this is the way to do it. If you hear them yell in pain, then you hit them, obviously. Just keep it up. An exploded generic beam will stop any swoop, which is funny sometimes. However, they can just swoop again with no delay. So you have to slide left or right and turbo dodge them. You’ll get hit a lot at first, but once your aim is nice, you won’t ever get touched. This is a cheesy way to win I guess.

Turbo Dodging is one of the most underestimated moves. You just turn on turbo and move out of the way of incoming swoops. Then you can swoop and smack them, since their swoop stopped when they were too close to you, but you slid just out of swoop range. I learned this trick by observing that certain newbs perfectly dodge me on accident (much like Mr. Satan accidentally dodges Kid Buu)! So I decided to use it as a controlled move. It works wonders, but sometimes if you overuse it, you WILL get hit.

The drift-run is a move that you use when you are low on ki and need to retreat, or you just don’t feel like losing your target. Simply swoop away from your opponent, stop the swoop while tapping fly, and you’ll drift along. Turn to face your opponent and watch him chase you, burning his ki, or watch the smart player recharge, giving you important time to recharge. Good players like to attack you during this point, so use it as your chance to pull of a fancy teleport move like the ones above.


Conclusion

I hope you found this guide helpful in some way or another. Some of these things are so obvious that it hurts to read them, but I wanted to make a guide that everyone can use. So please feel free to just take what you need from this to improve your game. This is only how I play the game, and in many people’s minds, I am not the best! You have to find your own way of playing, but remember not to skip over basic things before you go wasting your time on advanced things. In otherwords, don’t try to improve 3% of your game mastering the 3-hit combo, when the basics cover 80% of winning!

----------------------------------------------

Thanks to ForeverZero for this information. :yes: Please note that this information might not hold true for everyone, as it has been submitted based on the gameplay experience of a particular individual.

<CENTER>HL and ESF Installation Tutorial</CENTER>

Half-Life
This is necessary to play the modification, so you need this first!
You can pick this up at your local game store for around £7 ($10) or buy the bundled "Half-Life: Generations" for around £15 ($18).

You can also buy online at Amazon or GAME and find it cheaper!

Installing Half-Life

Ok, so now you've got your discs, but how the heck do you install it??

Insert the CD into your appropriate CD-Drive and if you dont have Auto-run, enter "My Computer" and double click the HL Icon which has covered the CD-Drives Icon.

A window will pop up after the disc has been read, click INSTALL.
Follow the prompts and you've just installed HALF-LIFE!

Updating Half-Life

Current Version: 1.1.1.0
Now, you will need to UPDATE your half-life in order to play online. You can do so by downloading the current version (displayed above) from Fileplanet or any reliable source. Fileplanet offers free downloading, but you need to register to use the service. If you cannot download the update (due to bad connection) you can pay a small price for a CD.

The current update is around 100MB.

Getting Earth's Special Forces
To download the Earths Special Forces modification for HL, visit www.esforces.com/files.php and choose a mirror. The file is around 60-80MB I think :] and make sure to get ESF 1.1 BETA!

Installing ESF
Now that you have downloaded ESF, go to the folder you downloaded it to and double click the .exe file to execute the installing procedure. Follow the prompts and it will start installing.

Playing ESF
Double click your HALF-LIFE shortcut and when it has loaded select "CUSTOM GAME".
In the list which appears find "Earths Special Forces", select it and click ACTIVATE.*

Now you may play ESF Online! We hope you will enjoy this fine modification brought to you by the ESF Team.

Seph

* Alternatively, you can add -game esf to the half-life shortcut to instantly go to ESF

EG - C: \SIERRA\Half-Life\hl.exe -game esf -console
This will activate the game upon clicking the HL exe, and also activate the console aswell!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks go to Kame-Haka for this helpful guide

[align=center]Beginners Guide - IRC[/align]

What is IRC?

IRC, short for "Internet Relay Chat" is a program which allows users to send messages to other people and recieve messages back. Similar to MSN and AIM but with mass capacities (you can send to unlimited people at a time).
IRC is connected by a set of servers which "relay" the information to the other servers connected to the main server.

A good example of this is GAMESNET. east.gamesnet.net is the main server, but there are around 40-50 other east servers connected to it relaying information back and forth.

How can I get IRC?

You can download the most reliable IRC Chat program from www.mirc.com (mIRC is the most widely used) or you can use the java version if you need to be quick/dont want to install at www.gamesurge.net/chat.php (I think, correct me if I'm wrong).

Download mIRC and install!

OK, I've got mIRC how do I use it?

To chat in the ESF channel you need to be on GAMESNET! So go to "File > Options" in the mIRC window. On the side bar, select "Connect" and you will see various fields. Fill these in (Nick, Alt. Nick, Name etc) and then from the drop-down menu on the page, drop it down, press G and the look for gamesnet.

Another drop down window is below it, and it asks which server to connect to (EAST or WEST) this doesnt matter.

Click OK and your done! But your not through the storm yet! Click on the connect button on your toolbar at the top. You will go through the connect procedure and the MOTD (Message of The Day) text. Once you have connected, type /join #esf

If you are on to get esf help, /join #esf-help.

Enjoy!

--------------------------------------------

Thanks to Kame-Haka for this information.

[align=center]ESF Tool Version 1.1[/align]

This is a multi-purpose ESF Tool program, made for the purpose of:

- Easy server browsing, favourites list;
- Player searching, favourites list and browsing;
- Advanced mp3 playlist editor;
- Advanced server creator with which you can customize almost every option and cvar related to settings;
- Official bots manager - fully functional with the new ESF Bots v3.0;
- This is fully compatible with both WON as well as STEAM;

Image Previews List:
Image 1
Image 2
Image 3
Image 4
Image 5

Mirror List:
ESF Stuff
Zack's Mirror
Half-LifeFiles.com - 3 Mirrors
ESF-World

------------------------

Thanks to ZacK for this information and useful creation. =]

[align=center]Ze Combos[/align]


Currently in esf there are special combos that can be done durring a directional melee attack imput sequence

there are currently and ill say this several times

TWO COMBOS

not 4 or 5 or 6 just

2 COMBOS


neather of these combos are for one character only they are just generic combos all characters share

ALL CHARACTERS HAVE THESE 2 COMBOS AND ONLY THEM

inorder to land these special combos one of the hits must be unblocked if they are all blocked then the combo is not done

ONE HIT MUST LAND TO DO THE COMBOS

and lastly these combos are not to be posted on the forums nor are they suppost to be pmed around or are u suppost to ask for these combos

if u need to know these combos go train untill u figure them out

DONT ASK FOR THE COMBOS

Most of the other FAQ's are out of date. Here is one that was put together as of May 11, 2005.

What do I need to play ESF?
You need Steam, and a valid copy of either Half-Life or Counter-Strike.

I have Half-Life version 1.1.1.0 and ESF will not work right, or at all!
That's because you aren't using Steam. To play ESF you will need a copy of Steam and a valid Half-Life or Counter-Strike CD-Key.

I hate Steam, I want to play without it! How can I do that?
You can't. ESF requires Steam to play online.

Ok, so I need a valid Half-Life or Counter-Strike CD-Key. Where can I get one?
You need to buy the game(s).

I have a Counter-Strike : Condition-Zero CD-Key and ESF will not work!
A Condition-Zero CD-Key will not work. You need to get a valid copy of Half-Life or Counter-Strike.

Wait a minute! I have Half-Life : Source! That's better than Half-Life so ESF should work right?
No. ESF will not work with Half-Life : Source or Half-Life 2. However, if you bought them via the Steam's Silver package, you should also have Half-Life!

I have a valid copy of Half-Life for Steam, but ESF won't run properly!
You need to have run Half-Life at least once before you try to install ESF. To do this simply start a single player mission. You may exit the game once it has loaded up. After you have done this, you should install ESF.

I have all the right requirements to play ESF, but the install button is greyed out! Help!
You need to have run Half-Life at least once before you try to install ESF. To do this simply start a single player mission. You may exit the game once it has loaded up. After you have done this, you should install ESF.

I get this error when I try to join a game! Your dll. [cl_dlls\client.dll] differs from the server's
Make sure you are using the latest patched version of ESF. The current version is 1.2.3.

I get this error when I try to join a game! LAN Servers are restricted to class C.
The server you are attempting to connect to is a LAN server. You cannot connect to it.

I was just in a game and I saw another player flying around and smacking other players around! How did he do that!?
Read this :
http://esforces.com/Mastasurf/Manual/manualR1.htm
It's a bit outdated but it will still give you a good understanding of how things work.

I was just in a game, and someone did this amazing combo move on me! How did he do that?!
There are two (2) secret combos in the game. Do not ask for them on the forums. Forum users are not allowed to tell you. If you would like to figure them out you may do so by trial and error, or ask someone in-game and hope they are willing to help you.

Transforming takes so long! Is there any way I can give myself more power?
There is no built-in way to alter your power level without fighting other players.

I can't find the dragon balls! Where are the dragon balls?
The dragon balls only appear on certain maps, and only under the correct game setting (CTDB mode).

I can't find any Senzu beans! Where are the Senzu beans?
They are located on only a few maps, and are well hidden. If you would like to find out where, you may do so by trial and error, or ask someone in-game and hope they are willing to help you.

When is the next version coming out?!?!
When it's done.

I have a problem with Steam. Should I post it here?
No, you should post it on the Steam forums.

I have a question that was not answered in this FAQ. What should I do?
Make sure you are using Steam, and have the latest patch for ESF (1.2.3). Double check this FAQ to make sure you did not miss a question that was answered. Then you should check the other FAQ's that are around. Such as these listed below (please note some of these may be out of date) :
Newbie/Help FAQ: Read before posting!
EVM and EEA <-- Read Here!
THE BIG MEGA THREAD OF HELPING!!!
FPS / PING / LAG - HELP!
Beta 1.2 Help Thread
If you still have a problem you should make a thread in the "Help" section and post in a clear and detailed manner, what your problem is.