Tenth Highest Shelf Vittles: 1.15.99-2.13.99
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Saturday 2/13/99
Wednesday 2/10/99
Whew, it's been a while since I missed two days of updating
in a row. It's been even longer since I've been sick, and
this cold is reminding me why I preferred to keep things that
way. :P
Though I did manage to drag myself over to Big Nose Kate's
LAN party on Thursday where she and my brother Slack Jawed
Pete wanted to share th' party by going online. Well what
with Kate bein' rusty, Pete bein' new ta th' game an' me bein'
sick we got our hats handed to us, mainly by Doses but
also by his temporary confederates Badger, Fallsdown
and Saxster, despite the valiant help given us by
BigBart (hope I got yer name right!). Still much fun
was had, in fact I think I'm goin' over there this afternoon
along with Pete so ya jus' might see us postin' notices of
DSL-hosted games in Kali, IRC and th' Zone. :)
It's pretty humbling dropping about 200mHz and a generation
of 3Dfx chips off of yer playin' power. For those who maintain
hardware does not make a difference, I propose that if you try
going from a p2 333 w/ Banshee to a p133 w/ Voodoo you will notice
a profound difference in your ability to put people down.
That being said, how does one explain the success of guys like
Killercraig who whup people using lowly systems? Well
it seems ta me that success on a slower system has a lot to do
with adapting your playing style to your hardware. Now me playin'
with Sanchez on a slow system is prob'ly th' dumbest thing ta
do, 'cause Sanchez really needs high framerates to fire his
pistol fast. But slower, more powerful or accurate weapons
like th' shotgun or rifle will not suffer as much from a drop
in framerate. Still I don't think I'll be able ta give up
Sanchez, even slowed down he's still a lotta fun. I might try
usin' my "LiteGuns" modification (see the
other helpful files page) to regain
a few precious fps though.
Anyhow what I started out meanin' ta say was that
3Dfx has officially announced
their upcoming Voodoo3 lineup, due to debut in the second
quarter of this year (not too long now). Now as soon as I can
I'll be pickin' up th' fastest of 'em, th' 183mHz Voodoo 3500,
ta err "test" fer Outlaws compatibility. ;) Hehee...
Well while I don't mean just this new map,
FlashFlood from
Forktongue serves as a perfect illustration of the
new standard emerging for Outlaws maps. There's just no
ignoring the fact that these days our top LawMakers have gone
way beyond even Lucasart's standard for multiplayer Outlaws
levels. There's just a new conception, a new discovery of
just what is possible with the old Outlaws engine. This hasn't
come all at once and it's more than a simple combination of
features, but they include things like use of ambient sounds,
a perfectly realistic setting, mixture of indoor and outdoor
areas, a sense of a world expanding beyond the limits of the map,
new uses for old textures and inventive use of new textures and
objects to create a unique, compelling location.
Let's take a look at FlashFlood. Three perfectly rendered
covered wagons WITH horses sit in a narrow canyon. You can
climb on top of the wagons and even go inside them to examine
their detailed interiors. The canyon itself is no mere straight
slash of rock but a bending, twisting course crossed by a high
natural rock bridge and opening up on one end to a view of a
powerful river and on the other to a vast, endless plateau.
Just as you can climb on, in and around the wagons, you can
also crawl in and out of the canyon walls. Small pigeonhole
caves hide gatling guns and other treasures. Tunnels twist
through the rock, pierced by holes worn in their ceiling through
which light streams to illuminate the floor below. The tunnels
wind up, down and around, in no way bound to simple flat plains
and 90 degree angles.
Check out a few screenshots:
shot 1 and
shot 2. Recent maps like this
have raised the ante folks, and that's a great thing for all
of us who love this game. Guys like ForkTongue deserve to get
paid for this kind of work, but mebbe they wouldn't bring this
kind of inspiration and yes I say Love to work they were paid
to do. I think I know a map we'll be hostin' off'a th' LAN
today...!
Sleepy sent me another driver to get that third button
workin' on yer mouse. I went ahead an' added it in with th'
other one I have on my other useful files
page because I think each has its own strengths. This one
has a nice installer program and runs in its own little control
panel window where you can adjust the middle button function and
the mouse acceleration (titled "Mouse Speed" I think) on the fly.
The third button works great in Outlaws and unlike the other
driver the mouse works perfectly in Shogo (not that we really
care that much about other games, right?). The drawback to this
one for me is that the mouse acceleration does not work in
Outlaws. Some people like acceleration, some don't, so for those
who could care less about acceleration this would be the one
to go with. Sleepy says that for him the mouse movement is
smoother with this one.
Sleepy also sent me
a screenshot of a new level he's
working on. The screenshot was named "Polar" and shows a very
interesting use of textures from this new LawMaker. One to
keep an eye out for.
ShotgunMC has pieced together th' reason why
some folks without 3Dfx cards get texture nastiness in maps
with new textures like Templar's otherwise excellent
Gutter:
I realize like usual I'm a little slow on the response time, but awhile
ago you posted a problem a player was having with the map Gutter by
Templar. When he was playin in non-3dfx all of the custom textures
looked all stretched, basically making the map unplayable for him. You
asked then if anyone knew what the problem was. I only mention it now
because I ran into the same problem with custom .pcx's on a new map I'm
working on.
Here's a screenshot from
Gutter in DirectDraw that I took to illustrate th' problem.
Icky! But while Shotgun is mostly right there's an important
addition that must be made to his point:
Each dimension of a texture must equal
2^X where "X" is an integer. For instance, in Gutter one of the textures,
measuring 64 by 32, works fine because 64=2^6 and 32=2^5.
Similarly Cutter's
Mining Company, which includes
a couple 256x512 textures (256=2^8, 512=2^9), does not
show texture corruption in software (though
how it gets around the 256 pixel limitation of 3Dfx cards, I'm
not so sure!). However, Gutter also contains textures of odd
sizes such as 64x80, 152x192 and 256x192. These do not work
in software modes. Sorry fer th' math boys but I hope that clears
things up. :)
I figured out what the problem was when I was reading an old e-mail
from Dean Wermer. All custom pcx's should be in either 64x64, 128x128 or
256x256 size for the texture to appear normal in non-3dfx mode.
Otherwise, she's a mess. Don't know if ya already figured that out or
not, but figured I'd pass it on anyhow. And in case Templar didn't
realize what the solution was, maybe you could forward the info on to
him. He might want to release a version 2.0 for those poor Outlaws who
didn't get a 3d card in their stocking.
I've heard this from two people in the last week, that folks
mostly in th' Zone are agitatin' ta expand th' Marshal Law
play guidelines to include a ban of Mary and
the gatling gun. Well people I have to say I think that's going
overboard. While Mary and the gat can be powerful in a limited
way they also have weaknesses that, at least for skilled opponents,
balance them out. Firebrand StanJr had a piece ta say
on th' subject, take a deep breath 'cause this rips right along:
Seems some people in zone want to advance ML it started with the 3 main cheats in OL BADGE CREAM SAWED OFF then it soon went to the gat just cause some people dont know
how to fight it well boohooo live with it. Now they wanna place mary on the ML list seems like some more people who cant beat her want to add it i'd have to place money sayin that they
cant beat the gat either bunch of crybabies if you ask me mary is a CHAR in the game not a WEAPON or a ITEM. Lucas Arts put her in there for a reason since they couldnt start her off
with a light plate for some type of game reason so they just added to her what the plate added to her next thing they will want to add Chief to that list who is only 10 lesser then mary on
power shes at 95 hes at 85. Next it will be doc with his med bags because i've ran some test on a map i've been workin on with some beta players i have some damage areas mary comes
out with 2 hearts james 2 hearts doc comes out with 7 cause of med bags sanchez comes out with 2 or 3 depending on how fast u do it bob 2 chief 3 well i'll be them are pretty close to
together except for doc hm.... wonder why that is ohwell. LA done everything for a reason yes she is powerful yes that shotgun is one helluva killer. But i've seen doc killer her with 6
pistol shots james kills her with 2 rifle shots sanchez 6 pistols or 1 dyno stick bob can level her with that DB and the indian one stab or 6 shots and shes dead. So it seems to be the
people that want to do this is just cryin cause they cant beat her shes has alot of weaknesses shes big slow and very loud if you cant here her start quackin turn up your speakers i heard
her all the way across junction and ten paces. Now why would people wanna change a perfect ML rule keep the main 3 the hell with other ones that WERE AND LET ME REPEAT WERE
IN THE OLD WEST. and yes so was the sawed off so i dont see why that made it in the ML thing but ohwell cant change that i guess. So people need to suck it up and move on and play
mary or dont play her your choice cause i started out with doc and found mary more then easy enough to kill now i play mary doc james and sanchez and i still find weakness in all char
and strengths and i dont bitch so just live with it. Play the game for fun. Seems someone always gotta gripe about something lag cheaters gat users mary players james players it dont
matter what u do someones gonna complain so now its time that we just suck it up and quick being crybabies and play the game for what it was made for FUN ya who would have
thought that.
I pretty much agree with what Stan said except perhaps for the
part about the sawed-off shotgun. One look at the data files will
show you that the sawed-off does a completely insane amount of
damage. Now people may say the same for Mary's fists, but just
how many times have you been killed by Mary's fists in a normal
match? The sawed-off has sufficient range for use in most
close firefights and pretty much makes close fighting a foregone
conclusion with its wide spread and one-shot killing power.
Also, authors can simply leave the sawed-off out of a map
completely, thus avoiding lenghty debates on exactly how to
modify it to be fair (though I would still like to see that
done in an organized way).
Vanishing cream and badges have generally been disused (and again
simply left out of new maps) because they bring an undesired
element of fantasy to an Old West shootout. They also serve
to unbalance a game. That being said, I kinda like playin' a
map with vanishing cream now and then, nothin' I like better'n
killin' some guy who thinks he doesn't hafta dodge because
he's transparent. ;D
Tuesday 2/9/99
Yay new sites for us to click on:
Doses' Plaza
One-pager by this ol' Outlaws player with reasons why he
likes th' game and a brief but interesting history of the
SyN posse. Nicely written, informative and easy to read
makes it a winner in my book.
Blood Outlaws Killers
You can't really expect too much out of a site whose
authors misspell their own posse name in the title. You'll find
a list "Bloody Outlaws Killers" members accompanied with
rather vague commentary and that's really about it. Still
th' single page is fairly fast-loading and easy to read.
Don Haberles Outlaws
Unique site for the German DON gang. Mostly in German but
ya kin get th' gist of a lot of it, and th' very nice
pictures don't need no explanation at all. I can't read
much of it, but I likes it.
Thanks to GOOM_TheScott
for th' tip on th' DON site.
Also a couple updated sites: Techno let me know his
Crazy Outlaws Clan got an update lately, they now have maps
and stuff too. Mental tells me he's spit-shined his
Mentaltown site -- I can't
get through right now but chances are you will by th' time
ya read this...
Beig
told me right b'fore she took off fer Quebec that th' original
Outlaw webmaster guy,
Saxster,
has been seen whuppin' it up in th' Zone lately. Sax's was th'
first Outlaws site I ever saw, hasn't been updated in a while
but it's nice ta know even he hasn't been able ta escape Outlaws'
addictive clutches. :) Oh and folks note th' spelling on his
name, Saxster. I screwed that up once an' I've
seen two people misspell it in th' past day or so. (*Beig*) ;)
Well some folks wrote me yesterday about a map they're workin'
on, a modified version of Twobitt's
The Dip! Well th' map is lookin'
okay but th' problem is that Twobitt's readme states clearly
that his map may not be used as a base for new maps by other
people. I wrote Twobitt ta ask him if he'd be okay with this
modification of his map but haven't gotten a reply... so if
YOU know how ta get in touch with Twobitt, please ask him ta
let me or some other Outlaws news type know where he stands on
this.
Now I'm going to try to get to sleep before 2 AM for once...
I think it's startin' ta catch up with me. Argh. :P
I should note that while in my three attempts the Artec drivers have
worked great for Outlaws, in "Shogo" they prevent the mouse from
working at all though they work fine in "Half-Life Day One." Like
I said I don't guarantee these won't detonate your computer so use
at your own risk. I just can't live without a three-button mouse.
As an added bonus the drivers support mouse acceleration which
I heartily recommend you try out -- it lets you able to turn around
more quickly while retaining fine aiming control. :)
Over at Big Nose Kate's ongoing Outlaws LAN party
last night, I started runnin' inta trouble. It's not that I'm
playin' on a 133, I kin deal with that. Th' problem was the
mouse, a three button Artec brand but I couldn't get that darn
middle button ta work. Well longtime readers will remember a
while back I had ta hold off playin' much 'cause some tendons
in my left wrist started protesting prolonged stretching of my
thumb down to th' space bar which I had configured to activate
my med bags in Outlaws. At Kate's, stuck with only two workin'
mouse buttons I hadda stick an Outlaws function down there again.
An' after a couple evenings of play it didn't really hurt but I
could tell it might start to.
So finally I took some time out from gettin' shot by th' peppery
Mr_Slack an' went lookin' fer drivers. I'd done this long
ago without success. Well this time I found th' site,
www.artecusa.com, almost
immediately, downloaded th' drivers and after a bit of registry
hacking had my middle button happily popping off caps from
Sanchez's alt-fire.
Then this morning, stumbling around bleary-eyed it hit me -- why
couldn't those drivers work for NON-Artec mice? Artec mice,
aside from th' third button, are pretty much generic as you kin
get and still have a brand name. Soo... at work today and at home
this evening I tried 'em with Logitech 3-button mice and they
worked!
What does this mean? Currently if you have a three button mouse
but no special drivers you can't get that third button working
in Windows. Tons of people out there probably have generic 3-button
mice with no custom drivers, so that poor middle button sits
there idle and neglected. Well, no more. Outlaws, limber up that
extra mouse finger, 'cause now ya kin get that third button
workin' fer ya!
Here's what's new on th'
other helpful files page:
Three-button Mouse Drivers
(221k) Win95/98/NT, serial and ps2
by Artec
Lots of people end up with a useless third button on their mouse
because Windows lacks a proper driver for that middle button. If
you don't have custom software from the manufacturers, your out of
luck. Or you were. This file contains pretty generic third-button
mouse drivers that just might work with your mouse in Outlaws. But
use at your own risk, and try these instructions:
Hey folks I just can't live without that third mouse button, I
tried honest I did! Plus mouse acceleration gives you that nice
extra "springy" feeling. :) Hope this helps some folks out.
Yeah, she'd BETTER run! Hehe... not only does Timestalker
accuse me of "having a life" in his touchingly generous
write-up of me as "WAW In-Law of the Week," Beig herself accuses
me of e-mail "heckling." Shoot Beig, I'm trying to learn casual
flirting and here I get accused of this... *boo-hoo!* *sniff*
Okay I think I'll make it... oh this is all over at Beig's
irrepressible
Wit and Wisdom Web-Zine, a site you should be readin' daily
ta stay up on all th' Outlaws gossip, an' ta get a goodly dose
of daily sass. ;)
HOWever I must protest this UN-founded accusation of my
livelihood, as it were. Folks, I spend at least 1-2 hours
a night updating this here site. Any spare time I have outside
of that and occasional sleep, I'm either jogging (hard) or
playin' Outlaws (easy). Like th' only reason I didn't update
yesterday was 'cause I was playin' Outlaws over at Kate's
LAN and DSL-equipped house-o-Outlaws-luv, where we managed ta
clog her dad's trash disposal with onion peels. Yay!
Actually ya may have noticed I haven't always been updatin'
or playin' th' past two weekends... well I'll only say that
I've been writin' -- about 11,000 words worth. While not directly Outlaws-related,
it could be... if it ever sees th' light of day. I ain't holdin'
my breath but it's somethin' I hafta try. And that's all I'm
going to say about that. :P
Time also accused me of contributing a lot to the Outlaw
community. Well I guess I do a bit, but all I mostly do is post
stuff that OTHER folks are doing, most notably th' many tireless
and ever-improving Outlaws map-makers, without whom we'd be
stuck playin' Sanctuary for th' millionth time. Thank YOU, people.
Top webmaster KaReFree seems a bit unhappy about th'
response he's received so far on his newly resurrected
Outlaws Cavern.
He's got a message up askin' for 150 supportive e-mails by
week's end or he's gonna shut down operation. He even has a little
message ya kin append yer nick to an' send to him to cheer him
up.
Well heck he deserves support, he's got a great site. I'm gonna
email him an' I suggest you do as well. But... well I dunno I
guess I think th' Outlaws world is a tiny one and it might
be unrealistic to expect a huge number of hits after only
recently rejuvenating one's site. My own experience has been
that it takes a VERY long time to build up a regular following
of readers and even then you can't expect people to spend time
patting you on the back. I don't want people to do that. I do
this because I enjoy it; what I want you to do is
to send me news that I can post. You oughta send it to
KaReFree too, th' more people th' better. And 150 mails in
a week -- heck if I got even half of that I'd be hopelessly
swamped. Well, let's swamp KaRe so he keeps workin' on his
fine site. He asked for it. ;)
Saturday 2/6/99
The other day I ended up at
www.gunfighter.com, or
"The Gunfighter Zone." Who would'a thought that while we're here
playin' cowboy games on our computers there are thousands of
folks who actually dress up in "Old-Tyme" gear, tote around
old guns or expensive Italian replicas of them and get together
and talk funny? Well you can discover this whole weird world
at the Gunfighter Zone. Actually it's mostly commercial stuff
except for th' Discussion boards which I highly recommend. Heck
in one evening I learned why quick-draw artists hang their holsters
so the gun barrel points a little forward (so they don't blow
their kneecaps off) and how to give an emoticon a cowboy hat
(c];)). Plus ya kin get embroiled in all kinds of arguements
about th' merits of various revolvers and who shot who and
why in the 1800s. What fun!
www.bignosekates.com
seems something like a modern bar attempting to mimic an Old
West brothel in Tombstone. Scary stuff. Anyhow amongst other
rather frightening things they have a step-by-step reconstruction
of th' shootout at the O-Kay corral, complete with cheesy
animated diagram. Wowzers. And no, this is NOT run by my friend Big
Nose Kate, okay?
Okay so not directly Outlaws related, but
babelfish.altavista.com
can translate between English and five other languages. Handy
for understandin' yer Outlaws buds from overseas, an' jus' plain
amusin' ta stick in a slangy phrase, translate it into another
language and then back again to see what comes out. ;D
www.gamespyder.com is
a good idea, a "Yahoo" of gaming sites. Th' thing that worries me
izzat it's run by those fellers from planetquake.com who seem
determined to corner th' market on gaming sites. And their sites
are BO-ring! Well I guess I'm glad Outlaws isn't THAT popular,
otherwise we'd be cursed with an planetoutlaws.com. Hmmm mebbe
I outta buy that domain... anyhow my reason fer mentionin'
gamespyder izzat I registered POOS with 'em an' they actually
listed me, so if ya want ya kin
go vote
for my site an' let people know if ya like it or not.
Not that I'm pimpin' myself out or nothin'. ;P
The WAW Web-Zine has gotten a bunch of new letters in their
hilarious "Dear Sanchez" advice column. Great stuff by
Timestalker... well usually -- sorry boys, I'm just not
that way.
Quantum Flux has
a pretty darn cool screensaver utilizing a 3D AI character with
"an infinite fractal dimension random wave function generator."
Plus she's a cutie in a tight jumpsuit. Anyhow she rambles around
this verdant plain with a great sky overhead and day/night cycles,
rolling terrain, trees... heck slap a Stetson on that woman an' you'd have th'
best candidate yet fer Outlaws 2 -- not that there's much
competition. I noticed a bug with blue alpha-masking on trees
on my Banshee an' told them about it, so hopefully that'll be
fixed soon but still a very cool thing ta have yer computer
do while yer off brushin' yer teeth.
I'm not sure if he meant me ta post this, or jus' wanted ta
share, or what... Fallsdown prob'ly has a couple rivets loose in that
big noggin' of his, but here's what he sent me:
So I'm thinking the way to expand the Outlaws universe and maintain a viable player base is to offer the game on Home Shopping Channel. I can see it now......(swirling fade to view of TV
with channel clicker in hand in foreground, clicking thru channels and stopping on HSC)..."we've sold over of 35,000 copies of this fine game so far tonight and we have 14 more minutes
left before we see that Cubic Zirconia dog collar we promised you. What would you pay for fine 1st person shooter action like this? You've got rifles and pistols and TNT and for a limited
time the next 15,000 callers with receive a free soda can cooler with Outlaws characters on it to keep thier diet pepsi cool during long hours of playing on line" "What? It's not enough you
say? What if we throw in at now extra charge Blood, Mayhem and a Magic Miracle Mop?" Now how much would you pay?
Talk about a few too many times stayin' up late an'
fallin' asleep in front of th' tube with th' wrong channel
playin'... well I guess if that's th' secret of his comic
genius mebbe I should get a TV an' give it a try... :)
Yes Marshall is not one ta let a lil' map cheating
scandal stop him, he keeps comin' out with new maps, or
at least new versions of old maps. Thus we have
Tunes 2. Still mostly a small
two-story building (ahh there's a name fer that type of building
but darned if I kin remember) in a large clearing, but this
time it's a roundish canyon rather than a square orchard.
Marshall could stand ta do some texture stitching (which I
learned a bit about th' other day over at
GoJo's
LawMaker School) but still a pretty nice lookin' lil' map
with good framerates, check
the screenshot.
Mebbe a few too many weapons an' only one
way upstairs but some people like it that way... I guess?
Friday 2/5/99
Silverwire let me know he has given th'
Snake Posse
Hideout a bit of a makeover and has added a page about
th' Snake gang's storied history so check that out if yer in
a readin' mood.
Got th' following site link from
Beig's
Web-Zine:
The James Gang
Lots of good levelmakers run with this gang so this's a great
place ta get some of the best new maps. Also sports a gang
news section. Not the easiest site to read, not the worst
either.
Kidding folks, kiddding! I do NOT want to encourage drinking...
though it seems like J-Kiddd doesn't need much encouragement
anyhow as on his latest Outlaw music overdub, "That," he sounds
something like a liquored-up Al Yancovik. Which isn't
neccessarily a bad thing, in fact it's downright amusing if ya
kin make out th' rather... mature... lyrics. Pick it up at
J-Kiddd's page.
I'm kind of wondering why there are not one but TWO forklifts
dumping a truckload of lumber right next to my house. Ohh I do
so love hearing that truck-backing-up sound in STEREO. ;O Aren't
these construction types supposed to be out getting hammered on
a Saturday night? Is the whole world turning topsy-turvy?!?
Wednesday 2/3/99
Yessir, an Outlaws LAN party with some good friends is a mighty
fine thing. Now there were only three of us but Big Nose
Kate, my brother Slack Jawed Pete and myself stayed
up 'til th' wee hours gleefully blowin' each other away an'
yellin' like we were fit ta be tied.
That's really th' great thing about a LAN... it's jus' like a
non-laggy game except that yer nemeses are right there across
th' table smirking and yelling and cussing right back at you,
and sometimes threatening to throw things... keeps ya on yer
toes, lemme tell ya! An' th' best part is when yer in yer own
house so ya kin yell as loud as ya damn well please. ;D
We finished off th' night with a long game of "Kill the Fool
with the Chicken" in Cutter's excellent new
Mining Company map. KFC really
takes on a new dimension when ya kin work together verbally with
one another ta track down th' person who's hidin'. A little
snippet might have sounded something like this:
(Pale gets the chicken)
Kate: Where IS he?!?
Pete: Uhh... shoot not upstairs!
Kate: Damnit --there he GOES! In the house, in the house!!
Pete: Where? WHERE?!?!
Kate: Downstairs, he went downstairs!!
Pale: No I didn't. ;)
Pete: He's not downstairs!
Kate: Whaddaya mean he's not --AHH HERE HE IS!!!
Pale: Oh crap!
Pete: Where where??
Pale: eeeeep!
Kate: He's behind th-- aaagh!!
Pale: Heheeheee
Pete: Whereishe?!?
Kate: Behindthehouse! Behindthehouse! KILL! KILLLLLL!!
As ya kin see Kate get's a lil' excitable at times an' lemme tell
ya she kin shriek her head off! Hehe... anyhow it was a lotta
fun, we'll prob'ly be back at it when they get back from helpin'
out at th' YMCA this weekend.
Th' great thing about it is that a LAN doesn't really take that
much ta set up aside from some old computers, some network cards
and a little hub. Heck I was on a 133! In fact it occurs ta me
that Outlaws' peer-to-peer networking really has an advantage
in easy LAN play over all the other client-server type games.
Imagine you have a group of eight folks who want to play on a LAN.
Happily enough they have eight computers. But if they were gonna
play a client-server type game they'd be short one computer,
because they'd also need a fairly fast SERVER to handle th'
networking computation. But since with Outlaws there's no need
for a dedicated server they'd be all set an' ready ta go! Yay
for Outlaws!
Speaking of yellin' at yer friends, if ya don't have
a LAN setup ya still might be able ta shout at yer buddies online,
provided ya have a computer microphone. BTJustice tipped
me off ta "Roger Wilco," an online voice communication program
from Resounding Technology,
Inc. Apparently this program is very well regarded in some
Outlaws Zone circles, an' best of all it's FREE until March 15th
so ya really can't go wrong... Outlaws is listed on their
"compatible games" page with one little note that you'll certainly
want to read before trying it, but if ya got a microphone (I
don't :() give it a shot!
Yes this happens whenever I miss an update or two I'm suddenly
inundated with new maps. So here we go in the order I received
them:
Darlin' sent me GDO by
Rebel. There's jus' one word to describe this palisaded
town in a huge valley: Gi-normous! Actually it's more of a fort,
all th' buildings have these funky slit windows fer shootin'
through, an' bunkers guard the entrances. It's a bit on th'
dark and brown side, but lots to explore and lots of strategy,
should be good for BIG CTF games in particular.
shot 1
shot 2
shot 3
Whoops, wait a sec it doesn't have CTF. Hmm... pretty darn odd,
seems like a big, strategic map like this screams fer it. :P
Oh might be worth notin' that this big, open town can slow
framerates on not-so-fast systems.
Naughty Nighty sent in Templar's latest
achievement, Outfitters. A bit
of a switch from his previous cityscape maps, this one takes
place in a very large warehouse with tons of big boxes arranged
in a multilevel maze for you to explore. A great mix of
enclosed and open spaces here, as well as a real sense of
purpose and functionality, especially in the crowning touch
of the working conveyor belt leading through the warehouse to
the wagon-loading area, with a supervisor's loft overhead.
Not as much to see in terms of variety as his previous maps,
but more concentrated action and strategy.
With incredibly fast framerates for such a large map this looks like
another masterpiece by our man Temp. =)
shot 1
shot 2
Sleepy sent me his second map,
Dynasty. A huge step over his
first map, this one looks very good with high framerates. To
my way of thinking he got those high fps by dividing it up
a bit too much, it becomes a seemingly endless series of
rather similar rooms. The central warehouse area looks very
nice, makes an interesting comparison to Templar's. One other
thing I have to note is his inclusion of chickens, which will
lag a map. Sleepy knows that but said he couldn't resist. All
in all I'd say this is a very fine exhibition of him mastering
LawMaker skills, next I hope we'll see more refinement and
concentration on making a cohesive structure; I'd also like
to hear footstep sounds. Good work though,
Sleepy! (damn sight better'n I'll ever do...)
shot 1
shot 2
Slack sent me his Mental
Town 2.1. Th' slight change is th' addition of an AI
character, Dynamite Dick. Now that will spice up th' map but
like chickens will add to bandwidth consumption -- of course that
ain't a problem on a LAN, hehe. Slack also fessed up ta bein'
th' author of Wiper, one of
my favorite maps, a highly original effort with a lot of
strategy to it -- if you haven't tried it, you oughta. Finally
Slack wanted people to take a look at his
Junction 2, a rework of Shifty's
classic Junction. And hey
why not give it a shot, you know you got nothin' better ta do
with yerself. :P Ohh yeah here's
a screenshot of MTown 2.1.
Gas seems ta be back in th' LawMakin' groove, sendin'
me a new one called Play Ground.
Very fun looking arena-style map, reminiscent of his fine
Mudland with a lovely texturing scheme
similar to that seen in The Gambler's gorgeous
Pueblos as ya kin see in
this screenshot.
Laid-back Loke
sent me a copy of Picante's new map
Cripple Creek. An enormously
attractive map, mebbe one of th' best looking ones I've ever
seen, but unfortunately fer those with older systems th' looks
come at th' cost of some low framerate areas. Don't think I'll
be tryin' this one on th' 133... my 333 seems ta handle it
okay though. :) Lots of lovely, innovative construction here,
as well as an interesting anti-Mary measure: Mary's normally
robust 0.8 damage multiplayer has been hobbled to a brittle
2.5, meaning she can take only 2/5 the damage of Anderson
on this map. Yikes! Well that's one way ta make sure folks
won't use her. A gorgeous map, will have to give it a go on
a good system. Check out the screenshots:
shot 1
shot 2
shot 3
Rene sent me his posse's new URL:
Official CBO Home Page
Fast-loading site with info on the "Cold Blooded Outlaws"
posse as well as some good info on Outlaw posses, taunts and cheat
codes. Nice to have all this stuff but the tiled,
contrasing backgrounds make it a challenge to read.
Also goes a bit overboard on th' MIDI, or mebbe that's
jus me hehe. But did I mention it loads fast?
As a side note I noticed that his mail address has a
NetZero.net domain, so
I guess there ARE Outlaws takin' advantage of that free
ISP deal. Neat!
GoJo has added a new section to his
DOG House,
a "LawMaker School" with step-by-step, illustrated tutorials
on tricky mapmakin' stuff. Readin' through his first tutorial
reminds me why I'm a map critic rather than a map maker (it's
easier! :P) but even I managed ta learn a thing or two from
his amazingly detailed lesson. This is gonna be a must-read
site fer those learning Outlaws level editing. Here's what
GoJo said:
There is only one lesson up, but it is a biggy. My hope is that other LawMakers will contribute their expertise by sending me a lesson they have put together. I
have several in mind for myself, none of which will be as big as the initial one, Stitching. The school page is set up in three columns, Title, Download (if applicable),
and Author. You can go straight to the lesson by choosing the title. Once in, you may decide to use the download. Mine includes all the HTML files for viewing
with a home viewer, to include the graphics files. Also included is the map that I wrote to illustrate the process. This would have to be loaded into a separate
directory of LawMaker. It is not a playable map, but could be tested under LawMaker. If I were the student, I would use the download, simply because I could
then work through the process much the same way the LawMaker Tutor is set up.
Sounds like great stuff, I know I sure have seen a lot of
people askin' fer a tutorial better than th' one that comes
with LawMaker. I sure hope that other top LawMakers
*poke poke* will join in ta expand th' school into a full-fledged,
accredited institution! Heck, mebbe I'll even learn enough
ta make that nice little cabin I've always wanted...
I would love to have an NWX professor. As noted on the page, a prospective instructor would send me what he has and how it should be presented, to include
any downloads. I would edit and return for approval. Once agreed upon, I would post the lesson and add it to the Course Catalog.
Courses I intend to add:
How to make a Doc level (what to avoid if ya don't want to)
Holy water: Two Solutions (for shallow water only)
Fun with slopes as opposed to &^%(#@ slopes.
Fun with objects: especially making Doc players insane with inaccessible Med Bags
Other stuff just to stick in at the end here. Martone
of OGB has checked
through Marshall's new
Silva 2 map an' found it free from
any potentially cheats. The Doominator dug up
this page
with a replica of the pistol that Anderson seems to use,
a Remington Model 1875. Interestingly this version is dubbed
the "Outlaw." The site has a bunch of other nice pictures of
Old West gun reproductions if yer innerested in gettin' into
th' fine details of real historical gunslinging. And thanks to
Rick and Martone fer tellin' me about th' way
up to th' rooftops in Blazing
Saddles (by the building with the gat on th' roof, it's
tricky!). :)
Tuesday 2/2/99
...is that each computer needs to have a network card and a
connection to the hub. Now on th' preconfigured mega big LAN
at work that was no prob, worked on th' first try with Outlaws.
However, Big Nose Kate wanted ta get in on some of this
LAN action too, cooked up this scheme with my brother to set
up a 3-station LAN in an ADSL equipped house she has temporarily... acquired. ;)
Anyhow that would'a worked great except... in all th' hustle
an' bustle of gettin' th' equipment together, they neglected
to pick up a third network card before th' stores closed. Doh!
So we got it as set up as we could an' I guess we'll give it
another try tomorrow after Kate hits th' stores... seems like
Kate wanted ta hit Kali too so mebbe we'll see ya 'round
tomorrow night. 'Course two of th' computers are jus' p133 an'
p166 with Voodoo1 cards but hey, sometimes ya gotta rough it.
Ended up spending a lot of time waiting in my car fer Kate ta
come unlock doors fer me today so we got th' quickie version
of Vittle today. Got three new maps, one from Templar
(thanks Nighty! GRRR!), one from Rebel (thanks Darlin'!!)
an' one from Sleepy (thanks Sleepy! ;)). You'll find
'em as th' most recent in th'
new maps archive, I'll try ta have
a more proper introduction of 'em... umm... whenever I get a
chance ta do a real update next. An' then mebbe I'll get
caught up on my email too.
Monday 2/1/99
Hmm, that headline need's work. Anyhow th' gist of it is that
HeavyGear has come out with a new map,
Blazing Saddles. He put a lot
of care inta this one, here's an announcement he wanted me
ta print:
Hello fellow outlaw players. My new map called blazing saddles is the first map to give you brand new NWX's, PCX's, ITM's and WAV's. The two new guns you will find are called
"The Cannonball" and an Assault Rifle. Don't worry, they're not cheat guns. The cannonball is sort of like the sawed off because it scatters about 60 bullets but deals 10 times less
damage. The other gun is designed to be a double barrel shotgun with good aim. It has aim better than a rifle but is also powerful like a double barrel shotgun. In the middle of th map on
a wall you'll notice that there's a iron door that says FORT MCHENRY. Inside that base is going to be my next and final outlaws map, so stay tuned. Thanks for taking the time to read
this and enjoy the map :)
So there you have it. This's a very interesting map with lots
of new things ta see, some of which you'll notice in these
screenshots:
shot 1,
shot 2 and
shot 3.
Well obviously you'll see th' modified shotguns with their
capacious magazines. That's kind of been overdone if ya ask
me, though I'll be interested ta test out that Cannonball one
fer play-balance ideas.
As fer th' map itself you'll notice a good amount of detail
indoors and smooth outdoor areas fer good framerates. Th' mebbe
one thing that kind'a frustrated me was that I couldn't figger
out how ta get up onto th' rooftops which obviously form an
important "high road" in th' level -- there's a gat up there too.
I spawned on th' hotel's back balcony once (man if you aren't
a multiplayer game-knowin' person that will have sounded REAL
weird 8|) but that was th' only time I could get ta rooftop
level. Well mebbe somebody'll figger it out an' fill me in.
All in all HeavyGear put a heckuvva lot of effort inta this
one, well worth checkin' out.
Bummer man. Well, th' show mus' go on... Raptor is
gonna be havin' a new version of his NWX Editor program soon
so you'll be able ta make new Outlaws props an' characters
better'n ever. Snagged Mining Company
2.0 from Darlin'
site. Looks like a few small fine-tuning things done ta
this fine lookin' map by Cutter. Get it.
May be gettin' a lil' Outlaws action goin' on th' company
LAN tomorrow. I've never done Outlaws on a LAN, I played th'
demo on a small LAN but that's it so if there's anything
weird I need ta know, let me know b'fore I leave fer work
tommorrow! :P
Sunday 1/31/99
Ohh boy why did Monday hafta come? Who wanted it? Doesn't it
know when it's not invited? Well I guess Mondays are part'a
life but that don't mean I can't complain about 'em. ;P
Gots three new maps ta start th' week with. First up would
be Runaway Jim's Mesa Verde.
Fresh off his excellent "Gringo" trilogy Jim has really
branched out into somethin' new. This lovely lil' ranch house
sits on a ridge above th' prettiest view in Outlaws land. In
fact accordin' ta th' readme this's one of Anderson's favorite
retreats from th' dust an' dirt of huntin' down varmits. Check
out th' vista in this screenshot.
Of course, should ya happen ta fall off th' edge, it's a long
way down... ;) A great map, exceedingly attactive an' jus'
th' right size fer small ta medium deathmatchin'. Looks like
a new classic ta me!
Speakin' of which, next we got ForkTongue's
Rebunk, his own personal reworking
of LEC's "Bunkers." No I kin see how some old crochety purists
may grumble an' shake their canes at this one but man, this is
THE most complicated, in-depth, where-th'-heck-do-I-go-NOW map
I have ever seen an' I mean that in a very, very good way.
Now you've played Bunkers before, certainly. So imagine Bunkers...
with about two ta three times th' area of th' original, an'
twisty, secret tunnels connecting everything together -- there
are so many truly sneaky secrets that mastering this map will
be a true challenge but will certainly pay off fer those who
make th' effort. Once you know all th' secrets it's like a whole
new map has opened up around, inside an' through th' old one,
taking the complexity to a completely higher level. Truly
mindbending.
Well I'll jus' shut up now an' make with th' screenshots;
see if ya kin see th' old Bunkers in these:
shot 1,
shot 2,
shot 3. Finally I should note
that in th' coupe de grace you kin actually go OUTSIDE
those darn bunkers finally! Check out th' view from outside in
this screenshot. Now try ta
figger out th' two ways ta get out there... hehe...
Finally Darlin'
sent me a map by one of her GDO posse members, Magz1,
called Space. Now I think it was
Magzl who came out with th' Spaceship map a week or so back an'
this one's pretty much in th' same style, but he's explorin'
th' possibilities a bit... mainly th' possibilities havin' ta
do with th' nasty effects of an unprotected spacewalk. Ow.
Watch out fer airlocks or you'll find yerself on a one-way
float trip ta deadsville. Also watch out fer th' windows, I got
stuck jus' outside of one with no way back in. :P Here's
an interior screenshot and
a shot from an unscheduled spacewalk
that suddenly ended rather painfully fer me. :\ Can't say this
is really my cup of tea but it is certainly a change of pace.
So I'm sittin' around lookin' through th' files in Cutter's
recent map Mining Company, looking
at all th' custom textures he threw in there
(he's also got some surprises fer KFC and three of the characters)
an' wonderin'
why th' heck they look so much better when viewed in Microsoft
Paint than in the actual game. Then it hits me -- th' darn
gamma in the game is pumped up too high!
Well then I did some more thinkin' an' came up a new page
fer th' site, th' gamma and monitor
calibration page 'cause it occurred ta me that some of
ya may be strainin' yer eyes unnecessarily, an' gettin' some
ugly Outlaws play ta boot. Well we can't have THAT, can we?
So anyhow ya kin go read th' page, or if yer lazy well heck
I'll just throw it in here:
Gamma and Monitor Calibration
The most expensive video card an' monitor won't do ya no good at all if ya don't use 'em right. Unfortunately most gamers don't bother ta adjust their video settings to reduce eyestrain and maximize visual quality. It's really quite simple folks, so let's give it a quick runthough.
1: Fix Up Your Room
Light in yer computer room will have a big effect on how yer
video calibration will come out. Ideally you will want to have
a dimly lit area with no light shining directly on the monitor
or in your eyes, and no glare reflecting off the the screen into
your eyes.
I've found that th' best place fer yer computer is against th'
outer wall, placed between windows so that sunlight coming in
will not shine in yer face or on th' computer screen. If you
get a lot of bright sunlight through th' windows you'll find
soft blinds handy fer keeping down reflected glare.
For interior lighting, indirect lamps work th' best. I like
these tall halogen floor lamps that direct their light up to th'
ceiling, and also have dimmer settings. One or two of those
in th' room should provide a nice soft ambient light that'll
make it easy ta read yer screen while lettin' ya also see yer
desk. Position them on the sides so that the light reflected off
the ceiling does not produce any glare on the monitor screen.
2: Set that Gamma to 1
Okay let's first make sure we all know what we're talkin' about;
no, this gamma has nothin' ta do with th' Incredible Hulk. In
computer graphic terms gamma refers to the relative brightness of
the graphics displayed by the video card. If ya got anything like
a decent video card yer video preferences outta have gamma sliders
somewhere. Right-click on yer desktop, select Preferences from th'
popup menu and look through th' tabs. Ya might hafta click some
kind of advanced settings button ta find it.
Th' default fer gamma is pretty simple: 1.0. Raising th' number will
brighten mid-tones, lowering will darken them. High gamma looks
washed out, low gamma looks dark and oversaturated. We're calibratin'
yer system so fer starters we gotta get yer gamma set ta 1. Go
through yer video prefs an' set those sliders to 1 for both yer 2D
and 3D cards (3Dfx card gamma is usually labelled "Glide"). If ya have an
old Voodoo card ya might hafta edit yer autoexec.bat file manually;
see th' Outlaws video page fer more on
that.
Settin' yer gamma is especially important fer 3Dfx cards. See, most
Voodoo card drivers set th' default Glide gamma to 1.3 or 1.4,
probably ta brighten up ridiculously dark games like Quake. While
this will let you see better in those games, it will result in
a washed-out picture in more well-adjusted games like Outlaws.
Click that thumbnail to th' upper right ta see
a side-by-side comparison of th' difference between 1.3 and 1.0
gamma in Outlaws. See how th' left side at 1.3 gamma looks pale
and washed-out next to th' more intense right side at 1.0? Much
better at 1.0 if ya ask me. If ya don't see th' difference very
well that's because ya still need ta calibrate yer monitor!
Let's move on to the next step.
3: Pump up Those Refresh Rates
A refresh rate is how often yer monitor updates it's display. We're
concerned about vertical refresh which is measured in Hz. Th' faster
th' refresh, th' less flickery th' display an' th' happier yer
eyes will be lookin' at it fer hours on end (which you should avoid
anyhow by takin' little breaks ta rest yer eyes, but let's face it
sometimes in th' heat of combat we fergit that part). You will want
to set yer vertical refresh rate as high as your monitor and video
card can take it.
For Outlaws we're talking about vertical refresh rates at resolutions
from 320x200 to 640x480. Most video cards and monitors will be able
to do at least 85 Hz up to 640x480. I find that below 85 Hz, like
say at 75, I can still distinguish flicker, but at 85 or above th'
display looks pretty darn clear. Still, if you can get it above
85 that's even better. 3Dfx cards can do 120 Hz at 512x384 and
640x480, so if ya have a good enough monitor that's what ya should
shoot for.
Most 3Dfx card drivers will let you set your preferred refresh
rate. Fer Banshee owners there's a great utility,
Kool Smokey's 3Dfx VooDoo Banshee Control Panel, that lets ya
set refresh rates for every single screen resolution.
You may also have to twiddle with yer monitor's settings ta get it
ta go to th' right resolution. If yer havin' trouble gettin' 'em
ta cooperate, Entech's
shareware "Powerstrip" program may be just what ya need, with
lots of control over monitor settings.
As far as monitors go, I can personally recommend
Korean Data System's
17" Visual Sensations monitor. These babies are very high
quality, never given me any trouble in over two years of constant
use. Along with my Banshee I can run Windows at 1024x768 on smooth,
clear 85 Hz screen, and Outlaws looks great at 640x480 and 120 Hz!
I've seen these offered for as little as $200 at online mail order
shops, pretty good deal.
4: Calibrate Your Monitor
Here's where th' magic happens. Actually it's an extremely simple
process though some folks seem ta want ta make it out ta be black
magic. Ya don't need any calibration meters, all ya need are yer
eye an' yer monitor's controls. Here's th' process:
Ta-daa! Wasn't that easy? Well, not too hard anyhow. Now yer
video is set fer maximum visual quality in Windows, Outlaws and
any other program you use. You may of course want to change your
video card's gamma for different games, though some like Outlaws
have in-game gamma controls that let you tailor the gamma specifically
for that game. Your eyes will now be much happier with you.
Whew, that was a little bit of typin'. Anyhow I've been noticin'
that with all my stuff calibrated some levels come out a bit
dim. That screenshot comes from Gas'
Fortified Canyon, a pretty bright
sunny level. But there are lots of levels with sunny skies that
still seem too dark -- I think LawMakers aren't setting
ambient light levels high enough (however that's done :P).
Mebbe some of them will calibrate their monitors an' figger
this out *hint hint*. ;)
Hey that headline worked pretty well didn't it? And it's almost
even on topic -- ya see Big Sexy, who useta be known
as Unforgiven and Redemption in his posse days,
has put up yet ANOTHER big fat dirty-talkin' site. Well okay
mebbe that doesn't sound like I liked it, but I do:
Big Sexy's Canadian Outlaws Site
So it sounds, and even looks, a bit like a renegade
ex-Chippendale's site. Well "Big Sexy" may have some
"issues" -- scratch that, he certainly does an' he has
no problem lettin' everyone know! Fortunately besides
th' often amusing, always scathing tirades you'll also
find lots of admittedly biased news, info on the game, plenty
of tips, levels to download, links and all th' good stuff
ya need in a good Outlaws site, as well as some other
stuff ya may or may not need, like a naughty word or
picture or three.
So there you have it, browse with caution if yer th'
easily-bruised type.
Somethin' a bit out of th' ordinary Outlaws run of things
today. First Joe-Kiddd let me know he was fiddlin'
around with th' Outlaws soundtrack an' decided ta add some
vocals to th' mix. Here's what he said:
I was bored and did a little experiment with the outlaws track called Anna's Theme. For those of you who
are not familiar with that tune, it is on track 5 on your outlaws cd. Well anyway's, I wanted to see if I could put some vocal's on that song :) It took a little doing but what a blast, I could
not come up with any cool lyrics but heck what I did put in is placed nice... No offense but I was bored of all the map making and I wanted to try something a little out of the ordinary.. I
recorded the track in a WAV format, but do to the oversized structure of WAV files I had to compress it to MP3 format. You will need Winamp to listen to this file, and personally I think it
sounds much better in MP3 format. I supplied the addy for winamp on my temp page. What the heck if you are bored give it a listen :) Pretty cool stuff...
www.cswnet.com/~scot
Wow. Starts out kind'a uneven but ya know by th' end I was
really startin' ta get into it. :) By th' way his ISP doesn't
seem ta have .mp3 files set ta download correctly, so if it
comes out all scrambly (this happens 'cause th' binary .mp3
file has been downloaded as ASCII) you'll need ta descramble it.
Fortunately I got a couple descramblers here,
a small 24k command-line utility
fer those power users out there an'
"Uncook 95", a nice graphical
utility fer us slower point-an'-click types.
Not ta be outdone, Doominator let me know that he's
just redone his Spaghetti-Western inspired MIDI orchestrations
on his
site with all new improved instrumental, bass and reverb
effects. He's got 'em in .mp3 format, I checked 'em out an'
they're pretty darn impressive. Powerful stuff, check it out. :)
Well let's just say I'm glad I don't use certain
radon-rich Chinese stone flooring products. Yikes! Anyhow
let's see what news we got left here. Blackthorn
let me know that "Portishead" is th' name of the suburb in
Bristol, a city in southwest England, where
the band and certain
helpful Outlaws (take a wild guess) hail from. Thanks Blackthorn!
Now I kin sleep at night...
SmellyRoach, feisty young Outlaws webmaster who at one
time had like three sites going at once, came by with th' happy
tidings that he's back in th' Outlaws world. In case you were
afraid he was lying dead in a cold cold ditch somewhere you'll
be happy ta know you were wrong, he was just off philandering
with some pretty young games that tempted him. Of course once
th' honeymoon wore off he realized that they jus' didn't meet
that high standard of happiness and perfection which Outlaws
creates, basically spoiling us for any lesser game. ;) Oh yes
and he didn't have Kali set up... anyhow he's back, mebbe even
gonna get his own Outlaws web domain thinger. Woo-hoo!
This seems like a good opportunity fer me ta admit that yes,
I do own a few other games besides Outlaws. Somehow though
I don't really end up playin' 'em too much... ;) If Outlaws
DIDN'T exist though or if my internet connection went down
or somethin' I might wile th' time away playin' either
Close Combat or Die by the Sword. But ta
give ya an idea of how much I actually play these games, I
got th' new "Close Combat 3" two weeks ago and have so far
played it for oh about an hour. :P It's looks like a great
game (CC2 sure was) but man somehow I always end up stickin'
that OL cd in th' drive...
Oho, today's also a momentous day in that it's th' last day
my calendar has a Western cartoon for us. Boohoohooo! Well it was
fun while it lasted... here's th'
last cartoon, a fittingly bittersweet one at that. :[
Thursday 1/28/99
Yep, I'm a dummy. If ya got a Banshee you'll know about th'
zipped custom driver files I had on th'
Outlaws Video page that, when unzipped
into yer OL directory, fix th' little graphical glitches normally
seen in running Outlaws on a Banshee. Well I was too lazy ta
check at th' time but in fact ya only need one of those files,
glide2x.dll; th' glide2x.ovl file doesn't do nothin' fer ya
so go ahead an' delete it! I removed the file from the zipped
download so now the bansheehack.zip
is just a 113kb download.
Incidently if ya haven't got a Banshee or Voodoo2 by now ya
might wanna wait a bit longer -- th' Voodoo3 is gonna be comin'
down th' pipe in within th' next three or four months. Actually
I've heard that even clocked at 183 mHz th' V3 isn't really that
much of an increase in gaming power over 3Dfx's previous boards...
well that remains ta be seen in th' final version I guess. Even
if it ain't all that great, it'll at least bring down th'
price of Banshees and V2's! Of course I'll be gettin' one as
soon as I can ta let y'all know how well, or poorly, it runs
Outlaws. ;) Of course by that time we may even have a working
Glide wrapper that'll mean ya won't need a 3Dfx card ta run
th' game with hardware acceleration...
Bit of a lull on th' news front lately which is good 'cause
1) it means people are playin' th' game instead of fussin'
an feudin' and 2) it gives me more time ta work on my "secret
project" hehe.
Mad_Matt tells me he actually won a T-shirt from th'
big giveaway bonanza my sponsors
Gamer's Alliance held
a week or so back when they kicked off their big redesign.
Nice ta know SOMEBODY got somethin' outta me havin' ta post
that stuff... but ya know what they say about bitin' th' hand
that feeds ya. ;D Now I'm jealous about that T-shirt...
Marshall ain't layin' low after that nasty map
cheating debacle, in fact he's sent me a new version of his
map called Silva 2. Well this
is far and away th' best lookin' of Marshall's maps, very
attractive little valley containing a small house next to
a river -- here's a screenshot.
Th' elevated cave ledges at either end of th' valley will make
snipers pretty happy with this one too. Now while I'm pretty
sure Marshall has learned from his past mistakes I dunno enough
about it ta check th' files fer any funny stuff, so if any of
ya out there notice anything be sure ta let me know pronto.
But, barring any nasty surprises, this is a pretty good lookin' map.
Beauregard tipped me off ta th' fact that a certain
bloke known only as Doom has joined up with his
Goom
posse. Now many of ya outta be able ta guess who this
might be... anyhow it gives me an excuse ta tell ya ta
go check out their fantastic site which they continue to
make even better and better all th' time -- th' great western
graphics alone make a visit well worth yer while, not ta
mention th' thumbnail-arranged level page, the tips and tricks
section and some of th' funniest stuff you've ever seen on an Outlaws
site. Go!
Th' western cartoon run is almost over, only one after
yesterday's and
today's. Of course you'll always
be able ta find 'em in th' screenshot archive
if ya need a good chuckle. :P
By the way folks in addition ta listnin' ta good stuff by
old spaghetti Western composer
Ennio Morricone I have really been gettin' inta this
British group
Portishead lately.
I got no idea what that name means, an' I don't really care fer
other "trip hop" groups, but damnit Portishead really kicks
booty. Wish they had more than two albums... but anyhow my
excuse fer mentionin' them is that th' first song on their
second album is called "Cowboys" an' though I sure don't get
any "westerny" feel out of it it's a great little ditty. Here
are th' lyrics which I found over at
this
Portishead fan site:
Cowboys
Did you sweep us far from your feet
Reset in stone the stark belief
Salted eyes and a sordid dye,
Too many years.
But don't despair,
This day will be their damnedest day,
Oh, if you take these things from me.
Did you feed us tales of deceit
Conceal the tongues who need to speak?
Subtle lies and a soiled coin,
The truth is sold, the deal is done.
But don't despair,
This day will be their damnedest day,
Oh, if you take these things from me.
Undefined, no signs of regret,
Your swollen pride assumes respect,
Talons fly as a last disguise,
But no return, the time has come.
So don't despair,
And this day will be their damnedest day,
Oh, if you take these things from me.
Oh, if you take these things from me.
Wednesday 1/27/99
Interesting, yesterday I posted about KaReFree comin' back
after an absence an' today I get an email from level man
Slack announcing his return to th' Outlaws world. Then
th' very next email I get comes from
Loke who has two
new Slack maps -- or rather, two new versions of previous
Slack maps, Mentaltown 2.0
and Nest 2.0.
Mentaltown has had a drastic change, with the surrounding
cliffs being removed for that "endless horizon" look that's
all the rage these days. This also adds space around the town
for rifle shootin'. Solid map though on both this and Nest I
would like ta see more attention to lighting -- simply put,
there isn't any, though they are both very fast. It's been
a while since I saw the original Nest but one thing I see
is that he's removed the chickens, a very wise move. Here's
a shot of the new Mentaltown
and one of the new Nest.
A few mysterious and intruiging comments in that mail from
Slack... first about Mentaltown 2.0 he says:
"There is also a fella named Dynamite
Dick included on this multiplayer lvl...hehe. How about that." Not
sure what he means by that, th' level doesn't seem to include
any modified graphics or character files... hmm well if ya
play this level today lemme know if ya figger this one out!
Slack also alluded to a mystery project he's working on,
hinting only that
"Im putting a lot of time right now on the project, all I can say is that
its 3 new maps that has a lil special touch, and they will be great fun
to play...believe me." He hopes ta have them done soon so I guess we'll
jus' hafta wait a bit ta see what he's got cookin' up fer us.
Nice ta have ya back, Slack!
Mebbe you don't remember but I have mentioned this before... now
it looks like it's gettin' pretty far along -- in fact on
their
web site the Outlaws Editing Team estimates that their
large multi-level single player add-on "Crossed Identity" is
about 80% finished. OET member Raf wuz thoughtful enough
ta send me some work-in-progress screenshots ta whet yer
appetites with, so here goes:
shot 1 |
shot 2 |
shot 3 |
shot 4 |
shot 5 |
shot 6 |
shot 7
Pretty interesting shots eh? These levels look pretty darn
big, an' they're not even done yet! Oughtta be quite a bit
of fun when it comes out. :)
What's up with that? ;) Mallard
has published th' results of his poll of Outlaws players.
Some stuff here you could guess yourself,
but some other more surprising results involving average system
RAM, percentage of people with 3Dfx cards, etc. Now of course
many people didn't bother ta take th' poll (shame on you! ;P)
but this does provide a good look at yer fellow Outlaws players
-- without having ta see what they actually look LIKE, hehe.
Mallard's poll also asked about Internet connections... judging
from his results a lot of ya should be interested in a recent
Gazette update at
Outlaws Gang Busters in which Martone shows th'
results of research he has done on 56k modems and Internet
gaming. His findings pretty much go along with my own
unfortunate experience, that in mos' cases yer better off
reducing th' speed of yer connection ta get more reliable
gaming performance. So go check that out, he's got lots
of good info there. Then th' mos' recent update, mebbe th'
last we'll see from Martone fer a while since he's bummin'
about his modem situation (:( hey folks send him some encouragement,
okay? I've been down that road an' it sucks) has ta do with
what he found in th' Outlaws documentation about updating
yer Win95 system with th' latest networking goodies from
Microsoft. If you'll recall I recommended installin' these
things some weeks back, an' so far I haven't seen any trouble
with 'em, an' mebbe even lower pings. So git goin'!
Yes, webmaster burnout, it hits us all... in that case, it's
a good idea ta take some time off. Or ta read a good cartoon,
which is just what we have here
today.
Tuesday 1/26/99
Man, just when I think I'm gonna have an easy news day
somethin' like this happens. Found seven new maps over
at KaReFree's
Outlaws Cavern. That's right, seven! Yikes!
Hmm well fortunately from a lazy reviewer's point of view
we can whittle that figure down rather quickly, as two of
them, "Ravine" (which takes the filename of the classic
"Rattlesnake Ravine," a BIG faux-pas ;P) and "Underground
Hotel" wouldn't even load for me so I'm not going to stick
them in my map archive as they don't meet the functional
definition.
Granite Canyon has missing footstep
sounds and 3Dfx errors as well as an overly plain layout.
Koki seems more like an immature
experiment with wacky LawMaker effects than a real level.
Things get a bit better. Powder River 1
is a single player mission by SCH_007 who also did
"Granite Canyon." Starts out kind of big and open, with large
areas you might as well just skip -- follow the river to the
left and over the falls. The end actually gets okay.
This screenshot comes near the
beginning and this one closer
to the end. Spaceship by
Josef Sundberg is just what it sounds like, a space ship
you can run around and shoot each other in. Kind of a maze-like
layout but look at your map and it'll make more sense. Very
effective use of texturing here, though I'm still not convinced
I want to run around a spaceship with spurs on. Check the
screenshots, shot 1 and
shot 2.
That brings us to by far the best of the bunch,
Cutter's Mining Company.
Very authentic feeling, beautifully constructed map with a great use of
props and a couple of
curious things about the design. There's a short mine shaft and
an abandoned mining company building at one side of a wide
sandy canyon. Across the canyon there's a little nook where
you can duck out of site of the building, and that's all.
Also the map supports just DM and KFC. Strange stuff... guess
I'll hafta try it out to see what it's all about - mebbe
that nook is th' "new twist for kfc" that th' readme mentions?
Got a few
screenshots: shot 1 and
shot 2.
Don't worry that's in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. I don't
know any Outlaws fans from Uganda so I think we're okay.
Well that map thing pretty much wiped me out news-wise.
Dirtnappin' liked Forktongue's ML conversion of
the classic bunkers I presented yesterday, but would really
like to see an ML version of Hargrove's Pattern Repair. I
must concur on that, I think Repair is my favorite of the
maps from LEC's "Handful of Missions" add-on patch. Mebbe
some brave soul will be willin' ta convert that one to ML? :)
Mental announced that he's redone his
Mentaltown news section and
has added some scanned Outlaws players photos to his "Funpics"
section -- beware, if yer th' sensitive type do NOT look at
th' very last picture there... let's just say you've been
warned. Umm by the way Mental if you expect to ever get an
e-mail reply from me you better send me messages with
REAL reply-to addresses. :P
Ahh yes let's not leave off the daily
cartoon; how WILL I survive th' day without one of these
after the end of this month?
Monday 1/25/99
Ever since th' 2.0 patch came out Bunkers has been a very
popular level. Th' only possible downside to it has been
th' badge, vanishing cream and sawed-off shotgun which most people don't
like to play with because they're so powerful they topple
the balance of gameplay so dear to most Outlaws. Now all
th' popular original game levels have long ago been
converted to Marshal Law -- no cream, sawed-off or badge
included. But the 2.0 levels could not be edited in
LawMaker because they were saved in a different file format
-- and thus ML versions were impossible to create.
But ya could always do it the hard way -- recreate the entire
map from scratch and leave out the offending items. Nobody
has been that dedicated and well just plain nuts until
now: ForkTongue has recreated Bunkers, entirely from
scratch, in his new
ML-Bunkers. This one's bound
to be a classic -- well actually it won't be, because he's
promising a second version out soon -- it's already being
tested.
Still I can't even see much wrong with this version -- seems
authentic right down to th' bushes outside th' bunker windows.
Well okay it's been a while since I've been in Bunkers, mebbe
those doorways are a bit thinner than I remember. I'd have
to go back to the original to check and even then I dunno if
I'd be sure. For all intents and purposes this IS the original
Bunkers, without th' darn sawed-off, cream and badge. Pretty
darn amazing folks, but don't believe me, believe yer eyes --
here are a couple screenshots that you'll "recognize:"
shot 1 and
shot 2. Tough ta tell, eh?
Yep, StanleyJr jus' hadda get in th' last word. ;) Here's why
he says he plays Outlaws:
You know i wasnt convienced when i read the reviews so i wasnt gonna give the game a chance then my dad GS_O_Gunslinger when out and bought it. I played single player and fell in
love with it soon took over to multiplayer where i met killercraig and mfs who kicked my arse several million times. There constant helping me out to get better kept me in the game and
helped me get good now i play the game cause im just to dern addicted hehe j/k i play it because i enjoy the game its a game where u can gain friends and enemies. Finding myself gaining
more friends across the world playin this one then when i played duke and quake and war 2. The other reason why i continue to play this game is i have to reach a certain level of play
before i quit and the way its goin now I'LL NEVER QUIT, i also enjoy workin on the maps and killin every mary hater out there hehe just makes the games more interesting.
There ya have it. Now if ya can't come up with yer own reasons,
yer jus' not payin' attention. Of course why bother strainin'
yer bean ta come up with reasons when ya kin jus' play an'
be happy? :)
No I did NOT make that up, it seems that's what happens when
you mix crazy Finnish villagers, Viagra and the United Nation's
declaration of this as the Year of the Aged.
Anyhow let's see what's left today... I spent a good
deal of time this evening going through the
link page which had grown a bit unruly
lately -- what with all th' new sites added in I'd been
neglecting ta take old ones out, so finally trimmed out th'
deadwood ta make a handier page fer ya.
Marshall has a new level, COD
which I snagged from KaReFree
(who has finally got back ta do some updating, hooray!). Now
this one will probably undergo some scrutiny seein' as how
Marshall's last maps were embroiled in a cheating scandal. Well
I didn't see anythin' wrong with this one but I didn't look in
th' datafiles, I'll hafta leave that fer those who know what
ta look for. This one's actually less of a multiplayer map an'
more of a dedication to Marshall's COD posse. Not too original,
another recreation of the Office from the Historical Missions,
and not too practical what with the AI bosses in the jail cells
creating more lag. Anyhow here's
a screenshot.
Finally Metallica (who probably wouldn't want to be
mentioned in a paragraph next to Marshall because of his own
involement in a certain map fiasco but oh well, past is past)
wanted to let people know that he's found Bon Jovi's "Blaze
of Glory" to be a good Outlawsy song, an' says ya kin find
th' mp3 version by searching for "BlazeofGlory" over at
allmp3.com. Now me
personally I much prefer some stuff ya might find searchin'
around over at this page
but then again when it comes ta music I'm a pretty picky guy.
And then of course we have today's
Western cartoon, dig 'em while they last.
Sunday 1/24/99
Yep, you kin do jus' that with th' latest version of th'
great NWX Editor by Raptor. He's given me permission
ta put up a copy of th' new edition, here's what's been
added to the other helpful files
page:
NWX Editor
(v.21, 178k) Win95/98/NT
by Raptor
This great lil' program lets ya make yer own Outlaws graphics!
Don't like that crosshair? Wanna spit-shine yer guns? Need a
potted plant fer yer new map? NWX Ed to th' rescue -- extracts
Outlaws sprite images to editable .bmp format an' then kin
export 'em back in. So git ta work on that quilted bedspread
fer th' ranch, Cletus! Still in th' dark? Check out
this screenshot of the
editor in action. Official homepage at
The Outlaws Editing Team Homepage.
There ya go, now ya kin give Anderson those hot pink chaps
ya always wanted to! Err... well mebbe not... pink... :)
Whew man still gettin' responses ta askin' why folk are
playin' this game! Seems ev'ryone wants in on th'
action. Well buckle up, here goes today's edition:
DufDuck McFly
I bought a year and a half ago, and its the only game I keep playing.
The reas'n I'm play'n Outlaws is complecated.
I like the game, and also being cowboy myself. I think there are more people
like me. Maybe I need a shrink :-)
When the are planning on Outlaws II, I have some idea's... Let's hope the
start very soon.
Playing Outlaws, is not just playing a game, it's a feeling...
Mental (part II :P)
Heyas!
Kodia
Outlaws has less lag then any other 3d shooter i tried
Outlaws Keeps me away from the pub (sometimes)
Outlaws makes my friends cuss at me when playing LAN
Outlaws hhhhhhhmmmm
Outlaws is more than just shooting...its the talk between games i love
Outlaws gives me an ego boost ;-P <---good or bad?
OUTLAWS RULES! ;-P
well i got my 1st
pc on 4/5/97 i got a cd and book combo it was BOOT DISC well outlaws was
on it there was no 3dfx yet a friend told me about kali and i was hooked
bad i started looking for the full game that day!!! ;p it was not out
yet? i ask red dragon and i think he told me it came out the 22nd i
played some great players like bli and (BFM)buckshot i think bfm was it
"Bad @#$%$%& Mexicans" and he was hehehe well i got the full game on
4/28/97 weeeee the 1st game with it was with killercrag "no DT yet"
and allot more great players hehe what a way to start DOH! its kill the
newbe time :( that's why to this day i dont go ez on the newbes ;p ever
time i turn around its like a new game 1st i played with a space orb for
6 month it broke in 1 intense with MFS so it was keyboard and mouse
until the orb came back 3 weeks orb was back 6 months it was broke then
keyboard and mouse then microsoft sidewinder 3d pro and mouse it broke
now its PANTHER XL dang im ruff on joysticks hehe or is it 4 years worth
of playing in less than 2 years i do have allot of new games but on the
net its just to dang laggy if your not the host a fiend is doing a map
for half life it took 13 hours to compile what he had done in it he was
not half the way done with the map i dont wont to know how long a full
map it going to take ouch! most of the map makers dont spend 13 hours on
the full map hmmm where was i going with this oh the players on kali
are so darn nice you just have to killem :)
plus i love to kill some one with mary and hear the cry in chat hehe
just makes my day ;p
i do play all of them but bob cant do bob at all its odd to because
that's who i started playing with well dang its time to play im in kali
like ever day from 8pm till 12am come by and we
will shoot the bull for a wile or just shoot you :) hmmm i did not use 1
period so put them in for me here thay are ..................;p
ForkTongue
I still love playing the game a year after getting
it. And I must say it is quite the controversy amongst my family and
friends. First I would agree with all the reasons stated by the other
Outlaws who have written in. I think for me the main thing I would
pinpoint would be the shear variety of maps characters and best of all
the many ways to Kill and Die. There aint nothing so satisfying as
absolutely freaking some one out with a stellar move. Believe me they
are rare, but ya know ya hit a classic Kill when the victim quits less
the a second after havin their world rocked. I detest quitters
especially when they are the host. But don't we all? The other thing I
seek is a classic death, what I mean is when someone kills me so well
that I actually learn something new. My first game with you I learned
probably one of the most important techniques to becoming a prolific
Outlaws gun fighter. That little tidbit that change my game 1000% was to
switch weapons while in midst of battle. You Paleface were the first
guy that I ever saw switch to gat as you where jumping through a window.
I use that move when ever I can and I've seen more then a few guys quit
because it freaked them out. HooooooooYaaaaa . Then there's the classic
death. These are the kind of deaths where ya just bust out laughing out
loud. Dynamite has a real power of creating intense deaths. One time
while reloading under the horses at sanc I got rocket launched into the
window and smacked head first right into the post right above the badge.
I hit so hard and with such velocity that I would swear I felt the thud
of my skull cracking on the wood ;) I must say that I like all the
Variety of characters as well while Doc is my most comfortable would
chose him first if faced with a game of Real killers. I also Love the
others. Yes I LOVE BOB. and I LOVE MARY too. I love all the maps. Ya I
said all. Because I believe the maps have little to do with a good game.
I believe the participants and what they do to make there Kills in the
game make it fun, not the maps...........I have only one complaint other
than the whiners and the quitters that I think detracts from the
experience. That is the people who play in some kind of rut. What I
mean is the folks that play only one kind of game. Example of that might
be the person who only plays Mary ML at bunkers no gat, or Sanchez in
orleans and chucks dynamite while bobbing for the entire game, no matter
how many times ya jump in and stab with a knife. Or the wall hugger
James at Sanc. I still have fun killin them cause its easy. But it gets
boring fast. I like the Variety of maps. I like ferreting out the hiders
in a secret cubby hole. They only get maybe one or two kills on me
anyway before I seek and destroy. And I Enjoy an in yer face PrisonYard
style riot as well. And the tension when you are the guy with the enemy
flag waiting for yer teammates to get yours back, cant be beat. So to
some it up ""Variety""...................................PS :Lawmaking
makes me feel like God.
Hehe well thanks again all for responding. I gotta take up
a bit of what Forky was talkin' 'bout with spectacular moves.
First of all, I do NOT ever remember switching to a gat while
jumpin' out of a window! I wuz prob'ly fumblin' around fer
th' [Oh Crap!] key an' hit th' gat by accident. ;) I HAVE met
a number of great Outlaws who kin switch on th' fly an'
lemme tell ya, it is a HUGE advantage in a tight fight. I'm
jus' kind'a learnin' it now, I think workin' testin' first
person shooters 8 hours a day fer th' past 3 or 4 months
is actually startin' ta pay off in that respect hehe.
In fact I jus' remembered somethin' I was thinkin' of las'
night. See I use Sanchez so I use TNT a lot, but I got this
split keyboard that puts #7, th' normal TNT key, too far away
ta hit with my left (keyboard) hand. Well that #6, fer th'
sawed-off, is about 4 inches closer... an' since I never use
a sawed-off... pull th' ol' switcheroo. Now I should be able
ta get that dynamite out a lot faster heeehee. =D
Th' other thing I wanted ta share was a lucky kill I had th'
other day in Kali on a newcomer goin' by Smokin' Crack
who was also usin' Sanchez. We were both in a deathmatch in
Sleepy's Toxic. There's
this big black rectangular pit with a few handy items...
Crackboy ran in there. I chucked a stick of TNT in... no
result, but he hadn't jumped out so I knew he was still in
there. Chucked another one, a bit harder this time. BOOM!
Crack pops STRAIGHT up in th' air, his own stick of TNT which
he was jus' in th' process of throwing flying high way over
my head, buoyed by his own sudden upward momentum. He reaches
apex about 50 feet above th' pit, hovers fer a split second
an' smashes back down into the hole. The fall kills him an' we
both crack up. ;D
Yeah that's right this was all a couple sites that I found through
a post in th'
The Outlaws Newsgroup:
Stryker's Outlaws Extras
Seems Stryker's lucky enough ta have his own virtual
domain with dedicated IP address (166.82.239.28) which
he's been wise enough to put to good use as an Outlaws
game/file server. Th' site has a ton of files and levels
to download in a simple directory listing layout. Stryke
an' some of his fellow OLMisfits also host #Yank, a
channel dedicated to Outlaws on Efnet IRC.
The OLMisfits
Neat but eventually irritating Morricone MIDI music and
large yellow background can't succeed in completely
ruining this gang site, if only because it tells where
to find their #Yank Efnet Outlaws IRC channel and has
new maps from gang members.
Well that is so cool! Wish I had a static IP -- mine tends
ta change if I don't log on every 4 hours. Anyhow at th'
OLMisfits site I got Cliffs,
a new map by Barefoot and Stryker. This one
gives ay_suc's CTF
Circle a run fer it's money as Biggest Outlaws Map Known
to Mankind but in this case I don't think bigger is better.
Cliff's is just way to big to seem real, and way to empty
to seem interesting. If you do wanna play here go heavy on
th' rifle an' turn on th' TV to survive and stave off boredom
crossing endless
expanses of rectangular plains. Lose yerself in
screenshot #1 and
screenshot #2.
That's just about it fer today folks! Here's
the daily cartoon, remember these
only last through the end of this month. :( I really like this
one though!
Saturday 1/23/99
Yep, more quotes from folks responding to my poser: Why
do you play Outlaws?
Raptor
Well I bought the game purely because of the single player stuff - then
in a dull moment at work - way after I finished all the missions - I
wondered if there were any new levels out there in internet land. I
then discovered Lawmaker and the Multiplayer aspects. Why do I still
play? Well I have no idea, I'm a really crap player and every time I
play I lose and wonder why I bother, but I suppose its to talk to all
the guy's and have a bit of fun.
The Doominator
Despite there ain't much old west stuff here in Asia, especially the
culture-desert Hong Kong (a place always concentrate on financial and
economic, rather than any culture), I grew up admiring the people,
atmosphere and the music of old west. Maybe that is related to my solitary
childhood (ya, painful disease, divorced family, trouble students who
always fought classmates in school and walk away alone....). The music of
old west just give me the right tone in the heart. Traditional folk songs
gimme a homeward feeling that I long have lost. The spaghetti western music
gave me the power to go on the struggling, with a lonely but yet powerful
feel...
Mr. Slack
When I first downloaded the Outlaws demo, there was a dream yet to
fulfilled. I was the DOOM guy of Hong Kong way back, and had a very good
doommate (was my best friend also, TMSK), we wished to play with foreign
players. Quake disappointed us that we cannot even play with local decently
with our mouse skill. With the lag tolerance of Outlaws, we are able to
play with overseas people. The dream is finally fulfilled by Outlaws! While
my best friend now turned to be one of my haters and he have no good memory
about Outlaws anymore, I still stick with Outlaws.
Another reason I stick with Outlaws... well, I must mention the first
moment I finished the demo and the song played ...... "Da Da..... da da da
da...... da dad da " (music of the Last Gunfight in wave format) and showed
James' angry face in the mine (the mine Doc died... well, supposed to be
dead.) AHHHHHH! THE ENERGY FLOW.... THIS IS THE ONE I MUST BUY AND PLAY FOR
A LONG WHILE SINCE DOOM! (Played doom for 3 years, now Outlaws for 2 years)
Not to mention all the technical excellences, gameplay excellences,
weapons balancy, etc. it has that I have already mentioned many times in my
gaming articles and other mentioned in this page! Just wanna tell a bit
more than that, some personal reasons to love this game besides my logic
sides.
Well, Let me put it this way: summer of 1997, I was in Costco, I had a
choice between spending my 40 dollars on Outlaws, or Quake. I think I made
a good choice, don't you? I beat every level of Outlaws on the Good, Bad,
and Ugly settings (yes, even the historical missions) before even venturing
into multiplayer. I'd have to say that counts pretty well for Outlaws,
considering the only games I have every been able to play for that long a
time are Rise Of The Triad (I'm still looking for the full version
somewhere...) and Final Fantasy 7.
Fallsdown
oh speaking of something someone said about Outlaws being easily
customizeable, I would have to disagree....
When I think of customizeable, I usually think of easy to hack, like Doom
is. Sadly, Outlaws doesnt even use a .cfg file or equivalent for setting
preferences manually (at least not one that I can find). And speaking of
that, I need to set my mouse sensitivity manually in all my games now,
since, well, my computer is messed up. The mouse is extremely slow in
games, and the only way to get it the right speed is to set the speed
higher than the game will allow. This would need to be done in a text file
or such.
Anyhow.. enough rambling. I play(ed) outlaws because its fun. Don't get
much of a chance of that with this crap-ass Windows 98 anymore.. maybe
it'll work with NT 5 or Linux in the future..
10-All my dern friends are there and I can't get them to come
to Scrabble or Acrophobia and expand their vocabularies anymore.
Tileman
9-NBC's new fall season really reeked.
8-I can't afford any new games with cool graphics and stuff.
7-The Outlaws CD is stuck in my computer and I can't pry it out.
6-Killing Mary is like getting back at all the authoritarain
figures of my childhood.
5-Gotta love that loss and redemption stuff.
4-No body in the Rainbow 6 or Quake 2 rooms would understand
the Quake Enquirer or Rainbow 6 Vacation pics. (shameless plug follows):
www.geocities.com/yosemite/rapids/6752/western1.hthl for the Enquirer
www.geocities.com/yosemite/rapids/6752/docholidaze.html for the Vacation Pics.
3-Blood lust!
2-To quote a famous guy's word and like stuff "Oh the Humanity!"
1-I like the way the female player's butt look in chaps.
i have got a few outher online games quake2 half-life and a few more
but they lag like heck hard to get in to and some times you lock up
geting out some times with outlaws too but only on the zone for me.
all my online buddys that i met was on a game of outlaws .
i found that most of the guys will help you out. not like quake2 or
half-life all stuck up.
i hope the game dont take a back seat to all these new so called games
on the selfs today
ill stick with outlaws .
Nighty
I may be late with this lil ´comment of mine, but heck, i think i have
to say this:
I agree to all you guys there ... i made a lot of good friends on the
zone and im still
hooked to this friggin´ game that makes me loose sleep..... i´m
sometimes scared ´bout Outlaws not bein´ on the zone some day(not too
stoopid , eh?)..... it wouldnt be the same to play sth else...and
Outlaws is definately the only game that i´m playing....it´s charms are
not to describe, although i´ve seen a couple of good tries on this page
up to now ;)...
We are just one big family out there and im feelin´ more than just a
lil´ bit "at home" in that family ! ( Eventhough there are some quarrels
and weird things goin´on....but thats the salt in every soup, dont ya
agree? ;))
Mental
OUTLAWS RULES!
Can't argue with that. ;)
Snagged a new map by Hagen over at
Outlaws Gang Busters.
Arthouse is an Outlaws art
gallery with all sorts of stuff ranging from classic to modern
(a multilated cow, cunningly displayed with all four hoofs in
the air as a crackling criticism of our modern paradigm of
mass production and environmental plundering). Th' bullets wizzin'
around this small place may distract you from the art a bit...
here's a screenshot. A tad
small but most galleries do have limited budgets these days.
Then I found some old maps I'd somehow missed -- or that nobody
bothered to send to me (boo hoo). At the
goom posse
page I found their neat level page which is organized by
thumbnail pictures of the maps. Anyhow they had two that were
new to me, Don_Arena and
Don_Valley by
Ramoses and Haeberle respectively. Don Arena has
very nice construction, a circular multi-tiered arena, but
as is often the problem with circular designs the framerate
drops as you look all the way across the arena, and also on
the whole the place is just really really dark
(screenshot). Don Valley features
a neat dried-out riverbed and canyon with surprisingly high fps
for a map with a bunch of sectors running down the middle.
The architecture (other than the peaked roof) is a bit simplistic
and the texturing could be more attractive, and a rifleman can
dominate most of the map from one end
(screenshot) but not a bad map.
Also hmm now I can't remember where I got this, but got
one by an anonymous author entitled
El Ratons. Like Don_Arena a
circular arena thing, but this one is immediately identifiable
as a bullring and features simpler construction for higher
framerates. A couple moving doors won't help too much in laggy
games and you'll have to watch for snipers in the box seats
but this could be a fun one,
here's a screenshot. Ole!
Levelmaker Gas wants help coming up with ideas for new
maps. The way he churns th' things out I guess it was no wonder
he'd run outta ideas of his own pretty quick... so if you've
got some map ideas that you wanna see made, go give him a ring
over at
his Outlaws page.
Ooo, bet she missed playin' Outlaws. Anyhow I've been toolin'
around a bit on th' various pages here, no big changes but
jus' lettin' ya know I keep busy hehe. Also thought I'd
mention that I've begun to notice lately that if I'm hosting
a game and there's someone laggin' really bad, it will
give me REALLY bad framerates. Like the other day I was
hostin' a game in Pueblos,
a really fast map, when my fps just went way down an' it
felt like I was wadin' through molasses. Pretty soon after
I noticed that I found a player lagged out, running in place
against a wall. Well I gave him th' boot, took a while to
take effect but AS SOON as he disappeared my framerate went
back to normal. Sheesh. Oh yeah almost fergot this section
is just an excuse to give out
the daily cartoon -- not too
many more left now! :(
Got a lot of responses when I asked what keeps people playin'
Outlaws after all this time what with new shiny games comin'
out right an' left. So here go the responses:
salmoides
Well the first reason I'm still playing
is that I got hooked in the first place. This is the first multiplayer
game I ever played and the reason I explored the multiplayer aspect was
because I feel in love with the single player game. The western theme
was a big draw as was the spaghetti western angle. I grew up with the
spaghetti western and this aspect definitely struck a cord. The music
(awesome) and storie line just buried the hook that much deeper. After
that it was just a desire to keep this new found love fresh and new. Of
course multiplayer met those needs. I'm still playing a year after the
purchase because I simply still have fun and all those map makers keep
it fresh. Their also seems to be a real sense community with this game.
Thanks in no small part by the many active web sites dedicated to this
great game.
cia_bpi
I read u were jugling around with Half-Life, so i had to buy it too.
Installed without a glitch, run smooth like a baby's but, great
action, great graphics, neat sound, ... and yet ... NAHHHH, just gonna
stick with OL, cause nothing gives me the feeling i get when playing
OL ... and i always come across the same girls and guys in the zone,
on mIrc and Kali.
Keep it short and simple ... why fix if it aint brooken.
Skeeter
One thing that keeps me in outlaws is the group of friends that I have made here. I have friends in Kali, IRC and the Zone. The other is the fact that MOST people that play OL seems to
get the fact that we play for fun. While I may have had a few times I was pissed-off, I seem to remember that it is just a game and to get over it. I have bought over 30 games in the past
year and none have come close to producing the same feel. When I went to 3dfx, it was like a whole new game! Now I have a new computer and the sound is 3D like yours. The game
seems to keep getting better and better. Don't think all these things help my win/loss ratio though, seem to be in a slump lately. But it is just for fun......right?
Crazy Cockroach
I still play because that even after you complete the game or a level, you
can always go back and play it again, and do something differently, it can
create a whole new game! You can explore and find unfound secrets. Also
doing it with cheats can change a lot and is fun.
Dilbert
1) It is difficult to cheat. A few people have managed, but not many, and not for long. Cheating has ruined many a multiplayer game (Diablo, Total Annhilation, Star Craft all have
"trainers". Quake has its "bots". Many other games you can hack player stat files with ease.)
Buford T. Justice
2) The Outlaw players are a fairly mature group. There are young players, but they tends to act mature. The general mentallity is "it's about playing the game", not "win at any cost" or
If I can't win then I can ruin iy for others".
3) Outlaws is easy to customize. No #$%^ console and undocumented switches. Even a game gives you options of Freindly fire on/off - number of Kills ect. in an easy to use menu
interface.
4) It isn't always inside/dark. Look at the maps/levels and you'll see what I mean. Compare to QII or Duke 3D sometime.
5) Even if you warp in when someone has the BFG or equivalent, you may live long enough to health up. Other games you start with a wimp weapon and darn well better be able to find
a better one quick. Outlaws pistols are as good as any other weapon when used with skill. The swaed off shotgun is a bit of an exception, but not when compared to a rail launcher,
rocket blaster, ...
6) Outlaws is fun. Taunts are fun. Varied characters are fun.
Why do I love Outlaws still? For one, it is the only game I play. Why? Because for me it is perfect. It is damn rare that a game has a backing like Outlaws has
always had. Another thing is that I have made it a goal to continually improve. I noticed you updated my review so I guess I am headed in the right direction. All the
people I have played Outlaws with and against are good folks and you become aqainted with them and talk with them all the time. Lawmaker and the endless supply
of maps keeps Outlaws great also and keeps folks like me playing it. There may be an Outlaws 2, but if there isn't, Outlaws will still be a great and challenging game
for anyone for years to come. There are always people less than, as good as, or better than you. You would have to be completely pathetic to quit playing because
it is "too hard", hehehehe.
Kiddd
First I would like to say, I loved the article in comparison to these other fly by night, high tech, today's new's tommorrow's forgotten games. In my honest opinion these other games
just don't have the great story line to them. Myself, I grew up watching the old western's and quite frankly, since this is still fantasy some what, I find myself fitting into that role of yester
years instead of trying to trick myself into figuring out why the heck these robot's and sort are trying to kill me??? I think people can acctually relate to this game in more of a "Real Life"
situation, hehe even though it is still a game. Hey after all when we were all little kids didn't we all
play cowboy's and indians at one time or another :) I don't ever remember playing kill the man with the hyper alloy photon phaser???? Well I just thought I would share a little on my
personal thoughts about this great game.
KillerCraig
OK , well there are a few reasons why i still play
outlaws alot, one is like u mentioned in the new , we dont have to
find a server to host us all , any player can host and there is no
advantage to it for the host, if anything its "seen" as a
disadvantage , the theory being that all players are guarnteed a good
connection to the host , true or not i dont know. What i do know is
taht for the newer 3d shooters they all seem to be "server based"
meaning that the host get a nice ping advantage, so who wants to host
when u do well the others think its cuz of the advantage only, so u
NEED a server, then like you said your stuck to whatever its doing.
Reason Two is that outlaws seems to be the only game lately taht you
actually aim AT your target ,i hate haveing to guess where the
opponent is going be by the time my bullet finally gets there, also
there is a community of players where we all get to sorta know
eac
