If you have been playing AVA this weekend, you know that the Watermelon Event is on. We blogged the details earlier here. The new event also celebrates the introduction of a significant patch this month.
The new event allows players to earn a bit more on a daily basis so that they can spend their new found wealth on weapons, armor or even bling.
Play for one hour during the event and you get rewarded with a completely useless fruity helmet. The real reward is in the 3000 EU that you get. Typically, after one hour of in-game play you’ll be reimbursed the money the day after. Why a watermelon? Well it represents summer right?
Here’s some pics I took in game of some of the more ferocious looking melon-heads:
If you have not played AVA is a while you will also have noticed that the HUD has been significantly modified. Here’s a primer on the information now being displayed. Have a look:
What you are seeing is a first-person perspective of one of my teammates. I’ve just been fragged and I’m waiting to respawn.
- A: Team Score card. Note it’s Team EU 2 vs. Team NRF 1. The little “4″ under EU shows that there are 4 players on EU versus 1 for NRF. The red blob in between the scores is the trip-alarm (which has not been set off — it’s not lit). The trip-alarm goes off and a klaxon sounds if the EU team crosses a certain boundary on this Escape map.
- B: Real-time Frag list. The head shots are clearly visible. The Thre gray names are on your team. Colored weapons will periodically show up — those are GCoin guns.
- C: This is who fragged me last. The display shows you what weapon was used. In this case, the player used a Blue Skull (GCoin gun)
- D: Registration. You can see who I’ve hit and who hit me. Damage is clearly shown.
- E: Total rounds remaining in your weapon
- F: Time remaining in the mission.
- G: Health and Armor bar. As well, just below it is your score (S) and the number of your deaths (D).
- I: Radar Map. Extremely important in AVA.
- J: Death announcement (the person being spectating just head shotted AnonymousOpF).
- K: Crosshair (turns red when it is on an enemy).
- L: The objective
- M: The name of the player being spectated.
Great looking and useful HUD in my opinion.
As for the rest of the patch…while the new Escape map is great, sadly, great deal of lag has been reported (I don’t see any difference here in North America myself). Mmhh, I wonder if its due to the extra GPU strain caused by all those curvaceous watermelons!?
