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Twelfth Highest Shelf Vittles: 3.29.99-5.11.99
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Tuesday 5/11/99
Simon & Garfunkel Swedish, Play Outlaws
Betcha didn't know that, didja? Well you may be thinkin' of
a different Simon and Garfunkel—the two I'm referring to useta
be known as Emmett and Williams of the Dalton Gang. Th' Dalton's
are kaput so they've scrapped their old site and made a brand
new shiny one:
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Simon & Garfunkel Outlaws's Page
The English is a bit rough but the fun-loving tone comes
right through in the big cheery font. These two Swedish
gunslingers like Outlaws a lot and their happiness
bubbles out in the news, map reviews and other articles
on this well designed site.
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Well that's about all the news that's fit to print... had a bit
of a scare today as my network connection wasn't coming up.
Looked under the table and gee, no lights on my digital modem.
Luckily it's just the power supply that's diced, until I can
pick up a new one I'm running it off of my Zip drive power
supply (I never use that dumb Zip anyhow :P).
* * *
Monday 5/10/99
Snuh?
Hmm, not a lot of news today. Or at least not a lot I want
to print hehe. Pirate_Forty let me know that the
fix of Voodoo2 lockups that Sundance sent me a while
back does indeed work like a charm. Mebbe it isn't a
coincidence but Mallard
himself just made a post about it so I figger it is indeed
a good thing. Anyhow basically if you end up locking up with
a blackscreen at the end of an Outlaws Zone session you would
normally have to reboot to get yer voodoo card workin' in th'
next Outlaws match. But in fact all ya gotta do is right-click
on yer desktop, select Properties, click yer Voodoo card
display tab and hit OK.
StanJr wants to let everyone know his new email address
'cause his evil old ISP isn't forwarding his mail: you can get
him at [removed].
Saw over at www.deathriders.org
that Outlaw got hisself a Voodoo3 3000 recently and now averages
something like 230 fps in Sanctuary. Man, is that sick or what?
Hehe I want one...
Still haven't heard much about that Win98 registry hack I
thought up to try fixing the multiplayer join problem. I guess
4 people have told me it helped and about six have said it
didn't help. Well, I'm glad it helped a few folks out anyhow.
* * *
Sunday 5/9/99
Edit 2.0 Missions Thanks to Raptor
Star Outlaws utility maker (and humble guy) Raptor has
come up big again, this time with two lil' command line programs
that convert the 2.0 "Handful of Missions" maps into a format
that you kin open in LawMaker, thus allowing you to edit them
to yer hearts content. Here 'tis:
lvb_ovb.zip
(75k).
Now Raptor wrote that he didn't think there'd be much interest
in this, he jus' did it for th' heck of it. Well now I wonder
how he'd explain th' fact that there are ALREADY two maps
based on levels converted with his programs? ;) Well actually
I'll bet there are prob'ly more than this but I've only
got these two so far.
Gas made it into my inbox first with his
Cold Repair
ML, basically "Hargrove's Pattern Repair" with snow and
ML rules, here's a screenshot.
Raf also quickly picked up the new tools to produce
Civil
Farm, a map based on the second part of the "Civil War"
single-player mission, as you can see in this
screenshot. Makes a pretty
good multiplayer map with a lot of vertical movement in
the buildings—I've always loved that leap from the barn's
attic window to the farmhouse roof. Just don't jump out of
the barn's side window 'cause you'll end up in a little
invisible limbo area. OLTOMBSTONE time!
Other New Maps Too
Of course there were yer regular new multiplayer maps bein'
made too!
Poison made
Yard
Sort of one the big and flat side of things, good for
rifle-lovers I suppose. I do think he went a bit overboard
on the chickens though, you can see a whole horde of them
attacking me in this
screenshot. Since each chicken
adds more data to the internet transfer, well hmm a scary
thought.
SWL_Chet_R1 (I still can't spell that, I just cut
and paste it) sent in his
Avalanche.
Some not so nice looking spots in this one, but the houses
buried in snow are neat. Unusual layout with two separate lower
areas united by an upper area. Here's a
shot.
Outlaw contributed his newest level,
Senoritaville.
Sounds like my kind of place. ;) Actually it's a lil' underground
"town" of two buildings with a bridge over a dry subterranean
riverbed. Kind of neat, especially that big rocky wall texture;
reminds me of the old Tombraider or even "Die by the Sword" (and
that's a good thing). Good one to check out for some small
deathmatch action, as long as you aren't phobic of being buried
alive or something; check the screenshot.
Hmm kind of hard to make things out because of the even
lighting everywhere.
Well that's a wrap. I've been gettin' mails from some folks
who haven't seen me around in Outlaws places lately, basically
b'cause I've just been pretty busy. Oh yeah and Pete and
Kate have taken a shine to my DSL connection so they've
been doing the playing from over here for the last couple of
weekends. It's actually pretty amazing that Seattle, the
cyber-mecca that it is, has really poor DSL and cable-modem
coverage; you have to live either in the boonies or in a
lucky spot (like me) to get access to either one, otherwise
you're stuck on our overloaded phone system. :P
* * *
Thursday 5/6/99
GoJo on the Win98 Join Bug Workaround
I'm not going to call it a bug "fix" because it doesn't seem
to work for everyone, but several people have mailed me to
let me know that the quick registry hack I came up with has
enabled them to join games in progress in the Zone while
running Windows98, something they couldn't really do before.
For instance, here's what the always-thorough GoJo
tells me:
In all the time before the
change of settings I had managed to join a game in progress ONCE ever on the
zone. Since the change, I have tried to join 8 games in progress and failed
twice, but one of those may have been just a little quick givin up and the
other (tonight) it tried to start, but had the same kind of probs that I
sometimes have in just starting games, where it just doesn't load due to
hittin bad ping. Bottom line, for me and my sys, it is an unqualified
success. I was thinking that sys might have somethin to do with it:
233 P2 v90 modem which hits at 31200 almost always, IE4 and W98 , with
all the upgrades and patches. That last might be a big factor. Billy G has a
service at his page that tells when "critical" updates are out, as well as
other patches. I have no idea how many of your respondents take advantage of
this.
That's a good point, the Win98 updates
might help out though I must say I'm happy I'm using Win95,
an OS that doesn't seem to constantly need "critical" updates. :P
Anyhow once again for the steps to implement the workaround
(involves a little work in the Registry) see the first post
from Tuesday below.
XXX Posse Site Updated
SoldierSoul of the "XXX" posse let me know that the
XXX
Posse Home Page has been updated since I last took a look
at it. In fact, it's been totally redone and much for the better.
Clear and quick loading with lots of good info, map reviews
and details on the members of the all-Turkish XXX posse, I'd
call the completely revamped site one of the best examples of
an Outlaws posse site on the web, go check 'em out.
As a little end note I got a bit of a hands-on with a Voodoo3
2000 today. It ran VERY fast with a sharp picture and I must
say I was very impressed, especially considering that this is
the slowest V3 on the market—can't wait for the top-end 3500's
to come out at the end of this month. :) And you know even
aside from the speed, the best thing about the V3 may be the
drivers. I guess it's a result of having such an old basic
architecture (going all the way back to the original Voodoo
cards) but the V3 ran every D3D app I threw at it flawlessly.
That was in fact the whole reason I got to use it; we'd been
trying to set up a demo machine to show off a bunch of games,
but all the other cards we tried (including TNT 2s)
had graphical glitches or crashes in at least 1 of the games.
Popped the V3 in, problem solved.
* * *
Wednesday 5/5/99
Win98 Fix or... Not?
Still getting extremely mixed feedback on that hack for
possibly being able to join games under Win98. It's about
half and half right now, though those who say it has helped
are generally rather vague... still need more people to give
it a shot and let me know how it goes, check yesterday's
first post for what to do. And I'd say if it doesn't work at
first you might try going as high as 60, though this will
cause your computer to pause while searching for an Outlaws
session for up to a full minute. If it doesn't find the game
after a minute of lookin', I don't think it's gonna happen.
Then again, if you ARE able to get into a game after doing it,
try the reverse test of changing the value back to the default of 3
and seeing if you can join the game again.
I'm rather pessimistic based on those who say it isn't working,
and I'd imagine that lots of folks who didn't get it to work
aren't bothering to mail me, while all those who get some
apparent positive result are happily letting me know. ;) Anyhow
the jury's still out for a little longer, if you haven't tried
it yet give it a shot.
More on 3D Sound, Sorta
Saw that 3DSoundSurge.com
has posted a big list of 3D sound card benchmarks. Normally
nothin' would bore me more but they have comparison results
with the new A3D 2.0 2030 drivers for Vortex 2 cards like the
MX300, and the new drivers really cut down on CPU usage in
games, apparently.
Not sure how this will affect Outlaws' A3D sound though. There's
a note in the benchmark page that the new drivers still only
support 16 3D sound streams with a four-speaker setup, which
is what I have, whereas you can get up to 76 voice streams
with a two-speaker setup. Well as we know the trouble with
Outlaws' A3D sound is that it maxes out at 16 voices and then
carves down your framerate pretty fierce. I hastily unplugged
my rear speakers and tested again but nope, Outlaws is still
stuck at 16 3D sounds. Nutters. The new drivers may lesson the
framerate loss once you max out all 16 streams though, still
have to get into a noisy game and check that.
Searching for... uhh Something
I saw this on a site and liked it so I added my search function
in as a little field underneath the menu on each page, though
you can still find it at the bottom of this page where it
has more functions. I know I'm the only one who actually would
search this site for something (I have to look stuff up 'cause
I forget what I say hehe) but hey, I'm just happy I got it
to work. :P
Woo hey almost forgot, KaReFree posted on the
Outlaws Gang Busters
message board that he wanted webmasters to make local copies
of the
Outlaws Level
Manager utility so I got that up on the old FTP site, get
it now if you ain't got it already.
* * *
Tuesday 5/4/99
Win98 Multiplayer Join Problem FIXED?!?
Okay, I need help. Okay, the help of you folks with Win98, to
be specific. :P I've heard from three people about the
idea for a possible fix for the problem Win98 users have
connecting to Outlaws games that I posted a couple days
ago. It didn't help the first person. It worked for the
second two people. So does that mean it is the solution
to the problem? Well I dunno, I need more feedback as I
don't have 98 myself. To save you th' trouble of lookin'
back through th' news, here's what ta do:
Making sure Outlaws isn't running, go to your
Start Menu, select "Run..." and enter "regedit." In Regedit go to
the "Edit" menu and select "Find..." Enter
"Session Search Timeout" and click the "Find Next" button.
This will find the DirectPlay variable (check the
screenshot if you're
confused here). Double-click the "Session Search Timeout" entry and
change the value from 3 to a larger number, say 9. Now if you're
just playing in the Zone you won't need to change the Winsock
value, but it couldn't hurt. Go to "Edit" and select "Find Next"
which will take you to the Winsock variable; change this to the
same number you picked for DirectPlay. Now run Outlaws and see
if you can join games. If you still have trouble, try a larger
number, like say 25 (note that this may cause your computer
to stall for 25 seconds when trying to join a game).
That's it! If you're running Win98 and you've experienced
trouble joining multiplayer Outlaws games, particularly games
with pings over 400ms, give this a try
and let me know how it
goes!
OOPS! RogerWilco Registration is FREE
Thanks to Wynchester for persevering in enlightening
my large pit of ignorance. Forget that post I made about the
new RogerWilco yesterday. The new RogerWilco (utility for
gamers to talk to each other realtime while playing online)
DOES require registration to use for over 15 minutes at a time
BUT the registration is FREE. Which is why I couldn't find how
much it cost when I was lookin' yesterday, eheh. Geez. Needless
to say I've downloaded, installed and registered the new
RogerWilco version "Mark 1" and I heartily recommend you check
it out, at RogerWilco.com
of course.
Raf's "Barn2" and Sleepy's "Boulder"
Raf took a bit of a break from workin' on th' huge
single-player pack being developed by his
Outlaws
Editing Team to work up a new version of his "Barn" map,
namely Barn
version 2. Th' first version is a fine small deathmatch
level and with a number of fine little improvements, this
version ought to be even better. Here's a
screenshot in case ya never
saw "Barn" (where are you from, the moon?).
Sleepy sent me his latest,
Boulder
Dash. Well I must say Sleepy is really coming into his own
as a LawMaker, this map is extremely innovative and looks very
fun indeed. Takes place in a wide flat valley whose sandy bottom
is strewn and indeed mobbed by a good number of titanic rocky
peaks. You can skip about on top of the rocks, jumping from rock
to rock and sniping or dropping TNT on those below or you can
sneak through the twisting sandy passages ambushing people at
close range. Weapons and items are scarce, framerates in general
pretty high except from the top of a few peaks and darn it it looks
like a neat place to battle it out. Don't believe me? Try the
screenshot. But you're going
to download this map, mark my words. Look into my eyes.
You're feeling sleepy... sleepy... You want to download...
Sleepy's map... when I snap my fingers... *snap!*
Gosh you must have dozed off. Sleepy's map? Yeah, glad you
like it. ;) Oh, he also dropped off a few shots of a map he's
working on, to be called "Dead by Dead." Check 'em out:
shot 1 and
shot 2. You're feeling sleepy...
so... sleepy... zzZzzzz...
* * *
Monday 5/3/99
Three New Maps
Always an exciting day getting a new map from ay_suc,
perhaps the wildest LawMaker I can think of. Today he brings
us Space
Cowboys. "They call me Space Cowboy..." Actually what this
level most reminds me of are Chuck Jones' "Marvin the Martian"
cartoons with zany, jaggedy islets of rock floating improbably
in space. This makes a great premise for an out of this world
Outlaws map and if you thrown in a few space cacti, some
ringed planets floating off in the void and a gatling gun,
well yer gonna have a right old time. Of course, this being
cartoon outer-space you can breathe and there's normal gravity,
but one slip on that space-rock kin send you whirling off into
the endless void. Except you'll die way before you hit the end.
A MARVelous map and I think just as destined to be a classic as
Mr. Jones' cartoons. Check the space-shots:
shot 1,
shot 2,
shot 3,
shot 4 and
shot 5. Far out!
SWL_Chet_R1 (don't try to say that five times fast)
sends in his latest,
Library
in which you get to break the normal laws of libraries and make
a good racket. Kind of a strangely shaped library, no windows
or anything and some ramps, secret passages and such, but the
textures Chet uses sure make you think "library" more than
anything else. As it's all enclosed framerates are incredibly
high. I'd say a pretty good small to medium deathmatch area
as long as you can stand being surrounded by all those musty
old books. Where would a newfound map be without a
screenshot to show it off?
Hagen, just after I posted his sunny
SeaCliffs
map, sends yet another map,
Lakota
Basin. Quite a contrast from the bright light of the coast,
the Basin takes place under the stars and half-shadowed by
looming mountains. The map takes place in a circular
basin of blasted rock, seemingly formed by some awesome,
cataclysmic impact. VERY impressive handling of jagged rock
here and together with the baleful shadow and brooding dusk
it forms a memorable experience. Moreover, the raised edges of
shattered rock slabs make perfect natural trenches and the
circular shape provides an effortless focus for concentrated
action. Considering the detail of ground shapes and forms, framerates
are surprisingly high though they dip a bit at the very edges,
looking in across the basin. But for this incredible piece of
geologic engineering I'd say that's a small price to pay, for
a great map to play. Okay that sounded dumb, I'd better just
roll in the screenshot.
Updates and Suchlike
Diky let me know he's updated the
Saints
posse site with a bit of a design overhaul and the addition
of some new sections; I especially liked "Holy Land" where
the gang members discuss their favorite maps. The design seems
bolder and tighter than ever, great use of fonts and color
here. If you haven't checked it out, now you have no excuse. :P
Pallygus let me know that Resounding has finally gotten
out "Roger Wilco Mark I," the official retail release of their
Outlaws-compatible realtime internet speech utility that lets
you talk to yer foes as you blast 'em. The betas I tried worked
very well, then again I do have DSL... but it was enough to make
me run out and pick up a microphone. This official release is
shareware and will limit you to 15 minutes (like Kali) until
you pay the registration fee of... uh... hmm I didn't have
the patience to fight through the registration process far enough
to dig up the price. Anyhow you kin get all th' details at
RogerWilco.com.
Thanks to Karrde who let me know that my lil' registry
hack did not solve the Win98 game-joining problem. Nuts.
Mebbe Windows2000 will. :P
* * *
Sunday 5/2/99
Outlaws Level Manager Released!
KaReFree released the long-awaited "Outlaws Level
Manager" this weekend on his
Outlaws Programming
Team site. Programmed by Raptor from an idea by
KaReFree, this great lil' utility lets those who host lots
of custom maps get around the Outlaws host list's 100 map
limit by easily swapping maps in and out of your Outlaws
directory. It's also got a button to launch OL right from
the utility. And I do like how maps that "cheat" in their
filenames to go to the top of the Outlaws host list get
sent to the bottom of this one. ;) Great work by Raptor
and a great idea by KaRe, go snap it up. Oh yah I took
a screenshot so you kin
see what it looks like in action.
Now it does have one small problem but it ain't Raptor's
fault: OLMan can only completely swap maps whose files all have
the same name. Now, GOOD Lawmakers keep consistent filenames,
and pack all extraneous files (.wavs, .nwxs, etc) into their level's
.lab file so it isn't a big mess when you unpack it. There are
still folks releasing messy levels, but hopefully the issue of
OLMan compatibility will get people to clean up their acts.
Also, in case OLMan someday gets the ability to zip and unzip
maps on the fly (now THAT would be cool!), a map's files should
match the name of the archive they are zipped up in.
Fix for Win98 "Join" Problem?
Ev'rybody knows that people with Win98 have trouble joining
Outlaws games, especially those with high pings and especially
in the Zone. Poking around the Outlaws registry keys I found
a couple variables named "Session Search Timeout," one for
DirectPlay and one for Winsock. These are set by default to
"3" which means that when trying to join a game Outlaws will
wait up to 3 seconds to get a ping back from the server it is
trying to locate. Pings are measured in milliseconds (ms) so
this SHOULD find all games with a ping of less than 3000... and
you wouldn't really want to join a game with a ping of 3000
anyhow. :P However, Win98 may have screwed this up—it might be
waiting for just 300ms, which would explain why Win98 folks
can't join games with a 400ms ping. Maybe.
So the thing to do would be to raise this value. Here's how:
Making sure Outlaws isn't running, go to your
Start Menu: Run... and enter "regedit." In Regedit go to
the "Edit" menu and select "Find..." Enter
"Session Search Timeout" and click the "Find Next" button.
This will find the DirectPlay variable. Double-click it and
change the value to a larger number, say 9. Now if you're
just playing in the Zone you won't need to change the Winsock
value, but it couldn't hurt. Go to "Edit" and select "Find Next"
which will take you to the Winsock variable; change this to the
same number you picked for DirectPlay. Now run Outlaws and see
if you can join games. If you still have trouble, try a larger
number. I don't have Win98
so I need folks with Win98 to try this out and let me
know if it helps!
Increase Your Outlaws Sound Mixer Channels
More fun with Regedit. I was actually looking for a way to
get around Outlaws apparent limitation of 16 3D sound channels
when using A3D sound but couldn't find anything that would help.
However, I did find a way to increase your DirectSound channels.
You know how you can set your sound mixer channels to 4, 8 or
16 in the olcfg.exe DirectSound Advanced options? Well if you
have a sound card that supports more than 16 channels you can
boost this number for Outlaws, though to tell the truth it
doesn't really make a noticeable difference in most cases other
than lowering your framerate in noisy gunfights. But hey I had
to come up with something to make myself feel better when I
couldn't solve the A3D problem.
So what to do? Load up regedit and go to
HKEY_LOCALMACHINE\SOFTWARE\Lucasarts Entertainment
Company\Outlaws\v1.0\DirectSound. Double-click
the "Mixing Buffers" variable and change it to whatever your
sound card can support (my MX300 does 76 or so, so I used 64
just to be on the safe side). Voila!
How to Shoot Yourself
Yep, you guessed it: MORE regedit hijinks. Go to... wait, first
let me get this out of the way: yes, I learned how to use Outlaws
to play with myself. :P Okay now let's focus. Point regedit to
HKEY_LOCALMACHINE\SOFTWARE\Lucasarts Entertainment
Company\Outlaws\v1.0. There's a variable here
called "Multiple Windows" which is currently set to "N." Set
it to "Y." Now you can run multiple instances of Outlaws at
once, limited only by your computer's memory and processing power.
What's the point? I dunno, but I had fun joining my own games
and killing myself—this worked great with Winsock, not sure if
DirectPlay can handle it. Anyhow here's a
screenshot of me in
a 3-player game with me, myself and I; here's a
shot of what happened when
my Sanchez incarnation added a lil' spicy TNT to the mix.
Three times the pain! Also worked just fine fullscreen with my
Banshee; here's a shot of
me gunning myself down in cold blood. Seemed somehow fitting.
But wait, didn't the ancient ones decree that
"Paleface shall not kill Paleface?" Oh no, that was apes;
I guess I'm in the clear. :)
By th' way in case ya wanna find these in th' future, or
check out some other regedit fun, you'll find it all on
th' Tips and Tricks
strategy page.
Quake3 to Use Outlaws-Style Networking
Well it won't be peer-to-peer like Outlaws but apparently
id programmer John Carmack has realized the benefits
of asynchronous networking, th' good stuff Outlaws uses ta
make online play nice an' smooth over even really bad connections.
Here's th' stuff from
his 4/29/99 .plan file (saw this on Voodooextreme.com):
Q3 can run networked player movement in either an asynchronous or
synchronous manner. The default mode is to allow all client movement to be
done asynchronously with the servers advancement of time.
The primary reason is to allow player movement to be predicted on the client
side. The primary drawback is that while your movement is smooth, the other
players that you see running around in the world move with a jerkiness that
is relative to their framerate and network connection quality. It is NOT
necessarily relative to their ping - a player on a fast system with a clean
modem connection can move smoothly. If you see a player stuttering around,
either they have a bad franerate, or the network connection between them and
the server or you and the server is poor. The amount of stuttering is sort
of the sum of the dropped or variable packets on BOTH connections.
You can force Q3 to run all clients synchronously by setting
"g_synchronousClients 1" on the server. This will make Q3 behave similar to
Q1 for networking. All movement will be lagged except view angles, which are
still short-circuited immediately.
Some people claim to prefer synchronous movement when everyone had a very
good ping, but I don't personally think it is ever a play benefit. It
makes leading players a bit easier, but I think the crisp movement control
of client side prediction is a much better tradeoff.
Now he doesn't say
if other things like firing an' such will be asynchronous, but
at least Quake fans may be able to enjoy a taste of the nice
smooth movement Outlaws folks have been savoring fer th' past
couple years. ;)
Trim Those Characters Down to Size
If you've seen Slaters_dog's
OZ Hotel
then you know how fun good custom-made characters can be
(Raptor's kangaroo is great ;). They can also be a big download,
adding about 100k to the size of a map's .zip file. Well
when OZ_Hotel came out Slater and Raptor let me know that they'd
figgered out that multiplayer characters don't actually use
all the animation frames in the character files—only about half
of them are seen in multiplayer.
So I got ta thinkin': why leave those unused frames in there?
With Raptor's
NWX Editor
you can't delete them from the .nwx character files, but you
CAN replace them with 1-pixel transparent blanks, which is
basically what I did with character hands and guns in my
LiteGuns
pack to render them invisible and improve fps.
I asked Slater if they'd tried replacing the unused frames and
he said they hadn't so I thought I'd give it a shot. Well it
seems to work, I was able to bring a character from 83k zipped
to 40k zipped. Oddly enough the size of the unzipped .nwxs is
the same, but if people could use this technique for future
maps it'll save a good deal of download time.
Maps Maps Maps
Didn't get in any updates this weekend so I'm a bit behind on
new maps. Time to catch up.
Terrapin sent me
DeathValley
which he apparently made with CTF in mind. I like th'
construction in this big steep valley levels, especially the
big bare tower
(screenshot) in the middle.
Object placement is on the clumpy side though and stitching
is pretty lax. Layout seems good, with multiple paths to
each base, etc and in an interesting (these days) twist
he's made it non-ML, but of course if you play with reasonable
people you can just agree not to pick the things up if you
want an ML match. A couple rough areas but overall a pretty
good looking map.
sshep sent me his new map
Newfound
Oasis. Nice building here, I especially like his use
of watery areas (though I guess some cheap people use that
"bobbing" technique, I've never had folks try it on me).
Interiors are a bit cramped—in fact you can't make it down
the farmhouse's stairs without ducking. And as seems to be
the norm these days texture stitching is neglected. Is it
that hard? So again we have a map with nice layout, lacking
stitching with slightly low framerates in a few spots, but
I think you could get a decent small deathmatch out of this
one. Check the screenshot.
Hagen came up with a new one,
SeaCliffs.
Hey, he actually does most of the stitching! yay :) A nice
restive little map, you can almost hear the seagulls as you
bask in the sun and enjoy the cool breezes in this sandy inlet.
I'd avoid the clear blue waters though; the riptide is pretty
fierce. Hagen throws in some little custom objects to nice
effect and makes good use of lighting. Fps gets a bit low when
scanning the whole cliffside but at least it looks good. Gonna
hafta take a lil' holiday to visit this one when I get some
time off... 'til then I can enjoy the
screenshot.
Collected three maps from
Darlin's
ever-up-to-date collection. These would be:
EddWood's
Retreat is sort
of on the boxy side but generally fast and hey! Stitching! How
'bout that? Some items placement isn't so inspired but I rather
like the gat on the balcony (I hate having to tote that thing to a good
overlook, don't you?). Of course I also have a
screenshot.
Then two from
last1standing.
Sand Box
is an... interesting one. A roundish sandy arena spotted with
tall cylindrical structures with equally tall doors. The doors
and all the reactive items (barrels, breakable pots) may make
this map a bit of a drag with lag, and you may get tired of
the small flat area rather quickly. Or not, I dunno I just
take screenshots. Ah,
apparently sports some modified weapons and such by
heavygear.
Stranded's
.txt file says "im sorry if u lag its a beast lol." No lie.
And the chickens won't help.
Do people actually play maps like this?
Site-A-Roonie
More new sites, why bother with mine?
|
The BOK Homepage
Looks decent, if a little inconsistent. A bit of info
on the BOK gang, level section focussing on BOK-made
maps, some rather annoyingly jazzy Morricone-esque MIDI
background music.
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THEE 2002 version 2.0 website
If you're looking for Outlaws stuff here you won't
find much. Focused mostly on Rainbow6, they threw
in links to download the Outlaws patches. You can
enjoy a multimedia web onslaught while you
download.
|
Also, not new but Techno
has his Informative
site back online in temporary fashion, says he ought to have
a new version up by the end of the week. Oh yah and
BTJustice says he digs this
NeoPlanet thing that
lets you put skins and stuff on your browser and do all sorts
of customizations to the layout. It definitely does look
like a pretty slick interface if that's what you want...
most importantly I guess,
he says it hasn't crashed on him yet. Well that's something.
I had IE 4 crash on me at work and foul up my whole system.
Hurrah! Me, I prefer my browsers low-maintenance.
* * *
Thursday 4/29/99
New A3D Sound Drivers
Aureal has posted new
drivers for sound cards that use their Vortex2 3D sound
chipset, like my Diamond MX300. These are still technically
beta drivers but seem pretty close to final. I've been lookin'
forward to these drivers fer a long time, hoping they'd
solve the problem with low framerates in noisy gunfights while
using Outlaws' A3D sound driver.
The problem is I believe caused by maxing out the 16 3D
hardware streams allowed. I wasn't sure if this limit was
being set by the game itself, but the old A3D drivers limited
the sound card to 16 3D simultaneous sounds. These new drivers
allow up to 76 (or something, I'm in NT now so don't have
'em right in front of me).
Outlaws, however, still seems to limit itself to 16 sounds.
Now the real problem is that when hitting this limit, under
the old drivers you would get a massive framerate hit, making
noisy gunfights (ones with say 4 or more people) almost
unplayable with 3D sound. Now I haven't had time to playtest
in an actual game but my initial check shows that this may
still be a problem with the new drivers. :P
I loaded up Orchard
2 to test. This map has a long hallway lined with many
barrels. I turn on my framerate checker with OLFPS and toss a
stick of TNT amongst the barrels. When it explodes there's a
sudden loud shrill noise—not what you'd expect in an explosion,
but a sign that the sounds are still maxing out. Not to mention
the fact that my framerate plunged momentarily from 120 to 30 fps.
The new A3D drivers also have a function, on the "Info" tab,
that tracks the sound channels that are open. Tossing the TNT
and task-switching to Windows reveals 16 3D sounds in the
explosion even though more than 16 barrels are being hit.
So nuts, not promising. I'm gonna hafta do some real game
testing, hopefully this weekend, but it's lookin' like A3D
still isn't a real option for large multiplayer matches. :(
MGL = OpenGL?
This isn't really new stuff, after all SciTech hasn't updated
their
MGL page as far as I kin see. Now if you'll recall,
Outlaws comes with "MGL" video drivers that you can install
from the CDs to possibly get faster framerates than the
normal DirectDraw software video drivers (of course a 3dfx
card is better, but not everyone has one you know). Well
you kin find out all about that on
my MGL page.
Anyway, this post on VoodooExtreme.com made me think:
SciTech MGL is A toolkit for creating games and other interactive graphics
applications. SciTech MGL's full screen OpenGL API support provides
programmers with a 3D API that can scale from software-only (using low-resolution
graphics modes), all the way up to full 3D hardware geometry acceleration.
SciTech MGL allows developers to create applications using the OpenGL API in
either a window or full screen mode (rendering to VGA, VESA VBE or DirectDraw
surfaces) in the Windows or DOS environments.
Now, does that mean that perhaps 3D cards with support for
OpenGL hardware acceleration will get Outlaws hardware
acceleration with the MGL Outlaws video drivers? Hmm... come
ta think of it, I DID get pretty darn impressive framerates
on my old Riva128 card with the MGL drivers—the picture wasn't
all nice and smooth filtered like on a 3dfx card, but it was
fast at low resolutions. A little birdy from LEC told me that
MGL renders the game in a VESA window, and at the time I thought
no more of it other than that MGL performance was determined
by having good VESA compatibility. Now I'm thinkin' there's
more to it... My Banshee, which has no real OpenGL support,
won't run Outlaws at all with the MGL drivers. But mebbe a
card with good GL support, like a TNT... hmm. Say, if you
have a 3d accelerator with full OpenGL support, let me know
if the MGL drivers make a noticeable difference in fps over
the DirectDraw ones, would ya?
Battle on sshep's "Hoth"
Other than Western themes, LEC StarWars themes seem to pop up
now and then in Outlaws maps. sshep has just made such
a level,
Hoth, based
obviously on that neat wintery planet in The Empire Strikes
Back. Now an icy deathmatch map is nothin' new, but sshep
has made an AT-AT! No foolin', check it out in this
screenshot if you don't mind
the surprise being a bit spoiled. Neat! The rest of the map
has a lot of fairly cramped tunnels with neat crooked floors
and ceilings. Does a good job of feeling icy though I would
have liked some texture stitching. Lots of bunkers for
sniping, even a semi-invisible one (boo). But that AT-AT
just rules over everything. Watch out you don't get squished.
"You Texas Brush-Popper!"
Ahh, the man had a way with a threat, didn't he? Rat_Filthy
sent me another taunt pack, this time it's a
John
Wayne taunt pack (434k), sort of a companion to the
Eastwood
pack sent me by clint cartright. Very good quotes
here, a nice one to add to yer Outlaws taunt collection if such is
yer hobby.
Voodoo, the Site
Found a link on
Beig's
news page to a new Voodoo posse site, this one by
Gazo.
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Voodoo Outlaws Site
Somewhat high-bandwidth, a good deal of missing images but
generally well organized with pictures of the gang, posse
news and an extensive tourney section.
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* * *
Wednesday 4/28/99
Three MORE Sites
Wow, just an explosion of new sites lately. Here're three
more fer ya ta peruse:
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The Official Homepage of the KOA Posse
Site for the "Kickin' All Outlaws" posse. Ouch, don't
kick me! Not much here right yet except fer some big
bold text on Outlaws-ish backgrounds, but presumably
they'll be updating it with KOA gang info stuff. Oh
yeah there's MIDI, get ready for "Hotel California"
over and over. ;)
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Ace's Outlaws Levels
So okay, it's just one page of a large, non-Outlaws
specific site with an elegant framed layout. Still this
is obviously the first place to find Lawmaker Ace's
new maps, as well as a small selection of other folks'
levels.
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Static Outlaws
It's a rare pleasure to find a site with an actual
sense of web-appropriate style. StATiC_CoWbOy1's site
has this in spades, what it doesn't have is content
since, as the StATiC posse has disbanded, there isn't
a whole lot goin' on. Still worth a look if you wanna
see how to create a simple yet stylish site design.
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ACE_340's "NAS 2.0"
I fergit what "NAS" stands for (a posse, I think) but I do
remember ACE's first NAS map an' I kin see that he has added
a WHOLE lot of detail to this second version,
NAS 2.0.
Very nice details including a jagged hole in the surface of
the icy moat around the tower, an impressive rocky archway
and a sprawling network of tunnels underneath it all. The
high level of detail in the large open area lends itself
to lower than average framerates so you'll need a fairly
impressive machine to really enjoy this one (but you've
pre-ordered that Voodoo3, right? ;). Check out the changes
in the screenshots:
one and
two.
Speakin' of Voodoo3's
there's a very good series of benchmarks comparing TNT2s,
Voodoo3s, Voodoo2s, Banshees and Rage 128s among other
cards in a TNT2 review over at
Anandtech. Sort
of excruciatingly thorough but should give you an idea
how the Voodoo3 stacks up if you're thinkin' of gettin'
one (although they don't have benchmark's fer th' faster
V3 3500 'cause they aren't out yet).
Oh yeah, Massive Attack makes for some good
heavy funk/trance mood music, thanks to The Kid for
loanin' me his CD's. =j
* * *
Tuesday 4/27/99
Five Maps by Matt
Found five new maps by Matt at his Outlaws level
page (see new link update below), thanks to Frisky for
pointin' 'em out.
ConMan is
an odd square box with high walls cutting across from opposite
corners, converging on a smaller box in the middle. Very easy
to fall to yer death an' hard to get around anywhere, can't
say this one looks too fun. Framerates are rather low too.
Here's a screenshot.
Cosovo
puts some large boxy buildings in a similar box canyon. Framerates
are low, textures unstitched and chickens run rampant. Also
noticed some small 3dfx problems. I'd avoid this one,
personally. But check the
screenshot.
DeLong
gets really bizarre as twisty canyons run amok with absolutely
zero light. The floors and your gun are pitch black but the
walls are fully illuminated. An interesting effect but pretty
much goes to waste in this nearly unplayable jumble of
steep narrow paths, gravity drops and pitfalls. Makes for an
unusual screenshot, I suppose.
MindMaze
keeps a similar brick texturing scheme, minus the wacky black
lighting, and pastes it on a medium-sized flat maze. To my
way of thinking mazes don't make for the best multiplayer action
as all the fighting gets confined to narrow halls, and it
becomes hard to find people to fight in the first place. Anyway
here's the screenshot.
WaterWorld
is a fairly recognizeable recreation of the floating set from
the that waterlogged Kevin Costner movie. Atrociously low
framerates pretty much sink this one, however. Check out the
screenshot. Yeek.
Four New Sites
Man I'm gonna hafta go through my link page and do some
weeding, just getting too bloated with all these sites!
Anyhow here are the latest additions:
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Wildbills' Outlaws Bar
Large site with a unique MIDI theme for each page; starts
with "Johnny Be Good" and goes from there. Colorful,
high bandwidth and sort of just plain fun. Also informative,
with lots of individual info on members of the AR posse,
a good selection of files and maps for download and a
reprint of a good essay on the original Wild Bill Hickok.
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Pitz Pit
Home of Pitbullet. Tons of MIDI, animation and whatnot
in an extremely inconsistent layout. Lots of valuable
nuggets tucked away amongst assorted web junk. Hey,
it's Da Pitz. :P
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Matt's Outlaws Levels
A little table with LawMaker Matt's Outlaws maps available
for download.
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BMG Hideout
Kodia's put together a nice little site with a good amount
of tips for new players as well as some info in the Brotherhood
of Mediocre Gunfighters posse.
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Hmm actually there was one more but I can't get the server
to respond right now, guess it'll hafta wait; if yer impatient
try
this
link for the new KAO site.
Three French Hens
Beig
has been visited in the Big Easy by the "Dynamic Duo" themselves,
Templar and Nighty and, as seems to be her
usual modus operandi, has put up lots of up close and personal shots
of their get-together. A very photogenic threesome, I must
say. Mebbe Beig kin help Nighty to convince Templar to work on
some more Outlaws maps. ;) Beig also has more details on the
"Outlaws Get Together in Las Vegas" which will apparently
hit that desert den of iniquity on the last week of August.
Seems that plans are already well underway. Dunno if I'll be
there (that's way too far ahead for me to think right now :P)
but with Beig as a hostess you know it'll be one wild time!
Two Turtledoves.net
BTJustice had some more info for me about HEAT.net where
you can of course play Outlaws (apparently possible on WON.net
as well). Anyhow he finds HEAT less laggy than the Zone and
has been able to join games in progress under Win98, something
that is pretty tough to pull off in the Zone. You are, however,
limited to 4 people per game.
Also he tells me that for those too timid to get a real IRC
client, you can use Microsoft Chat, which comes with IE 5.0,
to get to the #Outlaws_players channel on the Undernet IRC.
Details are at
BT's site.
And a Paleface (that's me)
Ever come up with a really "clever" idea that seems to go
along great right until the very end where you can't figger
out a way to wrap it up and it all goes to heck? Yeah, me
too. And whatever was I thinking with Christmas carols in
April? Hmm mebbe I'll go put on a Bing Crosby album...
* * *
Monday 4/26/99
"Breakout!" by TJHoenecke
TJHoenecke has finished up a new single-player
Historical Mission,
Breakout!
Th' level itself comes from DeanWermer's team-play
map,
Jailbreak.
Wouldn't ya know it, it makes a darn fine single-player
adventure. You'll find yerself runnin' around solving
puzzles an' of course blastin' bad-guys by th' dozen. And
b'fore you go traipsing blithely through areas you think
you've already cleared out, you should know that these fellas
do call in reinforcements. ;) There's also great use of
custom .wav files for speech, especially by the end boss—not
gonna give away who that is, but this is probably th' toughest
boss you've ever faced—not one of those one-shot kill pansies,
no sirree; you kill this mother an' you can take pride in
having accomplished somethin'. A very fun adventure, time
to roll the screenshots:
shot 1,
shot 2,
shot 3,
shot 4 and
shot 5.
Willie Taunt #9
After I put that
Clinton Taunt Pack up th' other day I noticed that th'
.wav files were numbered, and #9 was missin'. So I asked
he of the clever voice impersonations, Rat_Filthy ("Rat"
is part of his name, not a posse prefix, oops!) what was up.
Well sho'nuff there was a ninth taunt an' it's now included
in the .zip file. This one's in the classic "I'm a lover, not
a fighter" mode, but of course it's pretty darn funny when
the "president" says it. Of course th' whole thing now
weighs in at 737k so I should probably throw th' new .wav
in separately... except that's too messy an' I'm too lazy.
Take a Walk in sshep's "Park"
sshep sent me a new map of his,
Park.
Just what it sounds like, a nice little park to cavort about
in while playing Cowboys'n'Injuns with your friends. Actually
I wish th' park my parents took me too was as cool as this
one, which has THREE slides, a large sandbox, a rope swing, a river with
a small waterfall, a little wooded area and a shaded pavilion
for the parents. Neat stuff with some very neat modelling of
complex structures; the slide contraption brings all the slides
together in one structure, each one corresponding to a different
level of skill: are you fearless enough to brave the "Expert"
slide? Yeek! A couple downsides, low framerates due to all the
complex thingies in one area and the two parents who may
make laggy games a bit worse (until you kill them, I suppose ;).
Oh don't forget to scrutinize the
screenshot.
Graphics, Sites, Venues, Sound and Some Nose
Oo let's see lots of things came in this weekend while I
was being irresponsible and not updating. ;) BartJames
(aka SixGun) has got hisself a Voodoo3 3000 and apparently it
works pretty wonderfully in Outlaws, which is great news (wish
3dfx would get those 3500s out the door...). Raf dropped
me a line to let me know he'd partially updated the
Outlaws
Editing Team site just before leaving town; he should be
back tomorrow I think but you can check out what he's updated
(whoa, a HUGE load of screenshots of upcoming projects, looks
like not all of 'em are up yet though). Frisky found
a bunch of maps I haven't seen yet over on
Matt's
Entertainment Page and
Wildbill sent me the URL of
his
Outlaws site; I'll hafta get a real look at those in th' next
update.
BTJustice noticed
that b'sides the Zone, IRC and Kali, you kin play Outlaws on
Heat.net and mebbe on WON.net. I've popped into Heat a couple
of times b'fore, of course you hafta download their 6.5 MB software
first and enable IPX which is all a BIG pain an' really I don't see that Heat is
any better than the Zone—in fact it looks worse. Never checked
out WON, guess I'll hafta do that someday.
For all those
with A3D_2.0-compatible soundcards (like Diamond's MX300, which
is what I have) I noticed over on
3DSoundSurge that
Aureal's next driver release, called 2030 or something, should
happen before the middle of June. Man, that's still a long time,
but I'm hoping that if as promised these drivers increase the
3D sound channels from 16 to 70-something then the problem in
Outlaws where you get horrible framerates when more than 16
sounds play at once will be effectively fixed.
Didn't get an update in yesterday (nevermind Saturday hehe)
partially b'cause Slack Jawed Pete and Big Nose Kate
were here last night fer a lil' get-together. Well they had
a few brews an' Pete wanted ta play Outlaws an' Kate decided
to show him how to handle a shotgun and b'fore you knew it,
all kinds of havoc broke out. Let's just say that Kate has
declared she's on a crusade to bring back non-ML Outlaws play
(she's not too big on playing fair ;). An' I mus' confess that
I do think she had a point when she an' Pete got into two Zone
games, in Bunkers and Dry Gulch, that were both declared "ML"
but, as she said, WHY do you play Marshall Law matches in
non-ML levels? I mean, there are ML versions available for
both Bunkers
and Dry
Gulch and if you host those maps, there won't be any
worry about anyone (like *ahem* Kate, who was playing
under Pete's Zone ID) breaking the rules.
I guess people are jus' too shiftless ta download maps,
even useful versions of ones they play ALL the time. :P
* * *
Friday 4/23/99
Show Me the Way to Your Senorita
Filthy sent me
Willie 1 (661k), a Bill Clinton
taunt pack for Outlaws. Now I don't really like to get
involved in that pit of seething backbiting known as politics,
but dang it Filthy does an incredible Clinton voice and these
taunts are long and pretty darn funny, revolving primarily
around the Brady bill and womanizing. Okay I guess that doesn't
sound funny when I say it, but when you hear "Clinton" saying
it... awww heck just download the taunt pack already.
GOOd Evening
Frisk 04 sent me the URL of the GOO gang site:
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GOO Gang
Layout is ugly and inefficient, content is for the
most part the usual brash new posse stuff. But
"Gang of Outlaws" site
creator _Billy_Kid_ actually went and put up
his opinions of the weapons and characters which
are terse but mostly pretty much to the point;
my favorite is his view of the pros and cons of the
sawed-off shotgun:
"Good: SUCKS Bad: REALLY SUCKS." A fine economy of
words.
|
Whew it's late. Been a long week,
I am so looking forward to not going to work tomorrow. :)
* * *
Thursday 4/22/99
If You Build It They Will Deathmatch
Hehe I knew it. :) Gas is back from his retirement
to bring us a new map,
Field of Death.
He calls this one "another arena-type map" but to me it feels
like Gilligan's Island meets
Junction.
And I mean that as a compliment. Bright yellow sand, deep
blue sea, clear sky, washing waves and whistling wind make for
a very memorable little deathmatch island environment. Framerates
are mostly high, the strategies are many, this looks like a real FUN
map! Check the
screenshot.
Get Over Your Voodoo Zone Hangups
Well we've all had them: blackscreen lockups when playing
Outlaws through the Zone. SunDance has what sounds
like a possible solution (at least it works on SunDance's
system):
I play Zone outlaws with a voodoo card equipped computer. I find I
oftentimes have Outlaws hang up when playing on the Zone, especially
when the game ends, usually with me down about 20 kills :( Then I have
to control-alt-delete to abort the Outlaws application. This works,
however, when I get back into the next game, the game will often lock
on start-up with a black screen with a small white hourglass. I think
this is some problem with the voodoo card and the problem can be fixed
with a computer re-boot. However, re-booting the 'puter all the time
can be a real hassle. I have found that I can fix this problem without
a re-boot by simply opening the "Display"
icon in the Control Panel. I just open the 3DFx tab that appears on
the "Display Properties" window and then just hit the "OK" button
without making any changes at all. Just simply opening the 3DFx tab
does the trick. For me, this always corrects the "black screen at
start-up" problem without re-booting the machine, which improves my
disposition considerably.
Yes I daresay we could all use a
sunny disposition; if yer getting blackscreen problems, give
that a try.
* * *
Wednesday 4/21/99
Eastwood Taunt Pack by Clint_Cartright
Clint_Cartright sent me a
Clint
Eastwood taunt pack (471k) with a good selection of pithy
Clint quotes. Some of 'em have background noise, not from the
recording but from the movie they appear in, but all in all
a pretty good roundup for Eastwood fans. Of course yer
opponent hasta have th' taunts in THEIR Outlaws directory to
hear you mocking them which to me has always made custom taunts
something of a moot point as the surprise factor is greatly
reduced, but hey as taunts go these are quite good.
"WWOGTown" by SWL_Chet_R1
What was his mamma thinkin' when she gave her boy such a name?
Well anyhow SWL_Chet_R1 has come out with a map
called
WWOGTown.
Snagged this from
Outlaws Gang Busters;
is it just me, or are Martone an' Hoss really
breakin' out lots of great stuff lately? Anyhow this is an
interesting map. Run through it fer a while an' see if you
recognize... *SPOILER AHEAD*... Wilderness? That's what it
feels like to me, can even spot most of the recognizable areas
of LEC's map, completely redone. Odd thing to do... Wilderness
was always confusing and in this remake with more cramped spaces,
no lighting, running noises (that I could hear) or texture
stitching, I got kinda dizzy. Still it's pretty darn big and
complex so those who are into good matches might appreciate it.
See if'n you kin recognize anything in this
screenshot.
Crazy Web Tricks with Techno
I noticed that Techno's "Informative" site went down
last week and wasn't really sure what was up, but he now
tells me not to worry as they'll be back soon. In the meantime
he's put up a
page where you
can preorder Voodoo3s (actually a new version of an old
page) and a
page with
a link to a pay-you-while-you-browse money-making scheme
that he seems to think is a good thing. Not too sure about that
myself, but I just post anything anyone sends me, you know. :P
Get Dialectized
Remember the whole education thing recently with "Ebonics," etc, etc?
Well now you can wreak similar havoc on web sites with
The Dialectizer,
a site that translates standard English on web pages into...
ermm... some interesting dialects. Actually it's most similar
to the
Babelfish translation
service, but instead of converting from English to French,
German or so on it does English to "Swedish Chef," "Cockney" and
"Jive," among others. Pretty darn hilarious actually. I think
I'll finish the rest of this post in Dialectized (tm) "Redneck."
Wal folks thass all th' noos fo' today, time t'go defrag mah
dadburn hard-drives fo' th' fust time in umm like a year o'
two.
* * *
Tuesday 4/20/99
Whew, New Site
Aww man today was a close call, almost had no news for ya.
Here I am, half an hour before I should get to bed and I
got diddly squat. Well luckily fer me some folks are more
plugged in to th' newer Outlaws scene; I found a new site
link at
Darlin's.
Well mebbe it isn't new, strictly speaking, but it's new
ta me hehe...
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Regulators
Pretty standard posse site possibly distinguished by
extra Western graphical touches which make some text a
bit hard to read. Fast loading, easy navigation, info
on gang history and guidelines.
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There now wasn't that nice? Oh hey
I did have a bit of news... well actually more like a correction.
I noted that DrDeath2 had redone
his site but that
the white on white text was hard to read. Well that may have
been an issue with the page in my trusty old Netscape 3... anyhow
I see he's redone the page in definitely high-contrast tones
just to be sure. Last time I checked he'd also somehow gotten
the Zone to put up a link to his site which pretty much
guarantees him a steady audience and it's great to see he's
doing everything he can to give folks a good reception. You
know, if I may say so, Xoom's new method of advertising themselves
on their member pages with a top frame really blows!
Doug Flutie Needs Your $
Regarding that monologue on what I do with this here site
that I babbled on about yesterday, I should just note that
I started this site back when I had LOTS of free time (ahh,
those were the days) and when there wasn't that much Outlaws
news to be had. Times have changed and I think for the better. :)
Got some nice mails on the subject, thanks all. Even got one
from the Doug Flutie Foundation... oh wait, they just wanted
money. You know, it's kind of baffling to me why Doug F., a guy
whose peer group consists of several hundred 300lb multi-millionaires,
has to resort to asking lil' old me fer cash. Doug, if missing
out on my $25 puts you an' th' missus out on th' streets, you'll
have my deepest sympathies.
* * *
Monday 4/19/99
"Law_Tower" and "Secure Mud"
This weekend an anonymous party sent me
SecureMud,
which purports to be a secure version of Gas' popular
Mud Land map.
I kind'a like Mud myself, though if yer inta arena-style maps
at all I think you'll really enjoy Gas' later map
Playground,
which features a great two-layer design, lovely texturing and
a healthy dose of TNT. :)
Skywalker sent me his third map,
Law_Tower.
I know he worked hard on this 'cause he asked me ta look at
early builds several times and I'm afraid I wasn't very helpful
'cause I don't know my way around LawMaker. :P Well luckily th'
map turned out just fine without any "help" from dear old me...
in fact I probably would have sent development back by a month
or two hehe. An extremely solid map with a very heavy atmosphere
(dig those rolls of thunder), Law_Tower takes place in a large
fort with buildings and tunnels underneath. It's quite large
and you can see for long distances but somehow framerates are
kept very high. In fact Skywalker says this is a cut-down
version of a single-player map he is currently working on.
Anyhow, looks like a good map for large team games. I especially
like his attention to interior vs exterior light and the
texturing which really brings out the feel of a strongly built
fort. Good map, check out the
screenshot.
DrDeath2 on the War Path
DrDeath2 has redesigned
his site
a bit and added a News section where he's currently trying
to drum up programming support for an idea he has for the
perfect Outlaws multiplayer gaming/chat interface (but
does anyone else find white text on a white background hard
to read?). Actually
it's an idea he had a while back--I thought it was originally
more of a clever parody of Kali/IRC/Zone but in fact he
really seriously wants to get the thing made, and I say more
power to him, it'd be great. You should go check it out and
see what it's all about. Now I can see that it might be a bit
tricky to run as you'd need some kind of dedicated server to
host it (just like the Zone, Kali and IRC all run on servers)
but heck servers aren't that hard to set up. Hehe well okay
except for mine, can't seem to get the system from the guys
at work... d-arr...
Who Do Voo Doo?
Saw over on EmuHQ a new
version of that G1ide emulator that works with Outlaws (lets
you run on a D3D card, no need for a 3dfx card to get
hardware acceleration). This new version is cleaned of any
files 3dfx had a beef with so is nice and legal... but I
couldn't seem to get it to work with Outlaws. Some of you
folks out there with different cards should give it a try
and see what you can do.
Speaking of 3dfx, I got a lil' hands-on with a Voodoo3 at
work today. Installing the drivers was a snap.
Didn't get to try it with Outlaws (doh!) but
in the games I did try it with it worked very well and ran
very fast. Image quality was surprisingly sharp and colorful,
I'd say even better than the Banshee. And this was the slowest
V3, the 143mHz 2000. But even this one ran very hot, couldn't
hold my finger on the heat sink after running for just a little
while—think how hot the 183mHz V3 3500 will get! Anyhow, lots
of folks have been razzing the V3 'cause of the lack of true
32-bit color and textures larger than 256x256, but I tell you
what, this is the fastest card for the current crop of 8 or
16-bit games, bar none.
As to how it will do in Outlaws, I'm still not sure but I think
it will be quite the butt kicker. Reports are that it has some
of the game glitches that the Banshee had, but then again the
Banshee's Outlaws problems were fixed pretty well by that
special version of the glide2x.dll driver I have on my
Outlaws Video page, and later versions
of the Banshee reference drivers fixed the problem completely.
I Need a Life
Ran across an interesting post on the
Outlaws Gang Busters
message board which I could swear was ghost-written by my
mother, except that she doesn't know how to log on to the
Internet. Actually rather flattering to see someone (besides
dear Mother, that is) so concerned about how I spend my free
time—basically saying that there's more to life than Outlaws
and that I should do something more constructive.
Well I won't argue that there's more to life than Outlaws.
There are all those other games—kidding! But yeah, I know.
Actually the reason I didn't update yesterday was 'cause
after a three-hour afternoon soccer "death" match I found my
ankle so cramped up I could barely stand and just settled for
going straight to bed. Mmmm... sleep. :)
Do my days often consist of work, get home, update site, sleep?
Well yeah that does happen. I tell you what, there are many days
where I say to myself "okay, that was a heckuvva long update
today, but there can't be THAT much news to cover every day!"
Hehe someday I'm going to realize that there can be... sheesh.
In fact I now spend
far more time on the site than I do playing the game—I really
only get around to playing once a week or so.
I didn't quite bargain on this much news coverage when I
started this site, it kind of snuck up on me.
But I take issue with the contention that I could be spending
this time in a more "constructive" manner. For one thing, this
is my free time, I'm not going to be writing the next War and
Peace weeknights after a long day at work. Keeping up this site
is fun. I admit that sometimes I feel that if I don't update
I'll be letting folks down, but by and large I do this because
I enjoy it. And yes, it is an ego trip, can't deny that. ;)
Not only is it fun, I also learn a good deal doing it. I've learned
how to get my own domain up and running, how to analyze web traffic
stats, how to use Telnet, how to hack Perl scripts. It's
been educational in terms of web site design and has taught me
the fundamentals of making a site that can deal with frequent
updates and heavy traffic. It gives me an outlet for creative
and sometimes even useful writing. More to the point, it went
a good way towards getting me my current job, and I think it
could also land me jobs in web design or web journalism if
I should choose to pursue them. I'd say that's pretty constructive.
But most of all it's gotten me involved in working with lots of
creative and fun people on an incredible variety of projects.
I tell you, it's pretty damn satisfying to help people publicize
the fruits of their long labor. It makes me feel like I am
making a difference when people ask me for my input on their
projects, or just let me know that they got something useful out
of my constant dribblings.
Speaking of which, this one has become rather long-winded. I guess
that post triggered some thoughts of mine that have been brewing
up. Should I take more days off now and then? Yeah, probably.
But running a daily news site is so damn addicting... ;) Then
again, I realize this isn't something I'll be doing forever.
But for now it's a pretty fun gig.
* * *
Saturday 4/17/99
DrDeath2 brings CTF to "Klondike"
It seems that DrDeath2
felt his last map,
DeadCow,
was a bit on the dull side and he's been obsessed with redeeming
himself ever since. Well I didn't think DeadCow was horrible or
anything but it definitely wasn't as good as his new effort,
Klondike.
This one takes place yes up in the Yukon, right on the US/Canada
border. You have make an incursion into the other country,
grab their flag, and nip it back to your homeland on the trot!
A border war for CTF is a great premise actually, it's a wonder
nobody's done it 'til now. Klondike is a big, roomy map with
wide frozen canyons and two medium-sized bases. It's got a crisp,
clean look to it with high framerates and is looking pretty good,
I'll have to give this one a try. :) Here're some shots:
shot 1,
shot 2 and
shot 3.
BOK-to-BOK New Maps
Found two maps from BOK posse members gracing my inbox today.
Hmm wow actually it was three maps, the the third isn't done
yet. ;)
sshep made it in first with
Fork BOK.
A very solid map that reminds me a bit of the classic
Fort Smo,
but with a river in front and a couple buildings on the side,
as well as a simpler layout for the main fort. The buildings
are neat and fun to run around in—except that there are no
footstep sounds. Argh! Out front there's an odd bit with cannons
that "fire" you over the river but you won't want to hang out
too much over there 'cause yer framerates'll be pretty low.
A big, solid map except for the footstep problem. Check the
screenshots:
shot 1 and
shot 2.
Poison rang in next with
LandBOK.
This is in the old big and flat mold, with some really nasty
3dfx errors to boot. Well, at least framerates are high 'cause
there ain't much ta see: shot.
Pie's "House"
Pie has come out with another map,
House of
Pie (got this one over at
Darlin's).
Man I'm jealous, Pie has a really nice house. Hmm well
actually mebbe I'm glad I don't live there... not sure I'd
want to deal with falling into a 3dfx error or staring at the
orange/grey of a missing texture in the morning. There are some
really nice modelling touches here, like the
piano in the entryway, but that
makes the glaring errors all the more puzzling. All I can say
is that it seems like it was released before it was quite
finished or something. Here's a
shot of the outside. Still you
might just drop by to eat a bit of the pie left on the picnic
table outside.
Map Previews vs Reviews
Martone had an excellent point at
Outlaws Gang Busters
about the difference between a map preview and a map review.
The above articles were previews, where I just run through
a map and take a picture or two to give folks an idea of what
it's like. However, as Martone quite rightly points out there
can be a difference between how a map looks and how it plays.
Which is why I have reviews of my favorite maps on the
level page.
Now back when I first started this site I was doin' an entirely
new page for each map that came along. See back in those days
(man I feel old now) we only had _maybe_ one or two new maps
a week, if we were lucky. So it wasn't really that big a deal
to cover new maps. Well... then things started speeding up and
I hadda give up doin' full page reviews pretty quick; it
was getting so that I dreaded playing a new map b'cause I'd
hafta go write a review of it. :0 Well obviously that wasn't
gonna work out so I needed ta come up with a new system. You can
still catch a few of those old reviews in there though.
Well yes indeed I did come up with a new system.
When a map comes out I do a preview like the ones above. If
the map caught my interest as I ran through it, I write the
title down on a little list I have. These are maps that I mean
to play when I get the chance. Once I play one of these maps,
in a real game with other Outlaws that is, I either cross it off
the list or I put a star next to it. ;) The star is there to
remind me that I liked it so much that I'm gonna add it to my
level page list. I currently have 7 starred listings and 3
unmarked ones which means I'm a bit behind on writing up my
reviews hehe. Well no rush—these are the maps that I feel are
all-time classics, an' I'll get 'em up there in good time. And
yes, I do sometimes remove a map from the list, mostly if I
look back and realize that something about that map just
doesn't compel me to load it up anymore—also as the number
of maps increases more and more I get pickier and pickier hehe.
StanJr Hosts This Week's "Blind 2 on 2" Kali Tourney
The "Blind 2 on 2" tourney run by Templar and
Nighty in Kali every weekend has become something of
an Outlaws institution. They're currently on a break but
our man StanJr has bravely stepped in to take up the
slack. Here's what he sent me:
Well with temp and nighty on vacation for 2 weeks i decided that i would host this weeks tourney. It was all the same blind 2 on 2 to 30 kills went fairly smooth. Helped i had 3 people
helping me run it GS_O_Gunslinger done the winners and losers and my lil sister drew the teams and matches for each round well the teams once and the brackets till it was done. The
people who participated in the tourney were Team 1 (BMG)Blood,BT_Justice
Team 2 JOE-Badd,GS_Wizard Team 3 Spur,GoJo Team 4 OZ_Hagen,GS_IbBad Team 5 GS_O_Gunslinger,St_Mental
Team 6 (BMG)StanleyJr,SIR_Kohna Team 7 (BMG)Swan,Vicous_Quigs Team 8 WAC_Golylero,GS_Karrde
all games went really well if there was really any major lag they done a rematch which did seem to prove very well come the semifinals when one player clearly couldnt be killed. The finals
came down to Sir_Kohna (BMG)StanleyJr vs GS_Karrde WAC_Goly was a hard fought battle game ended Goly and karrde 30 and me and kohna 20. The whole tourney was full of tough
battles didnt seem like anyone was handed a victory the semi finals were some of the hardest battle fought throughout the tourney. But to all who participated i wanna say thank you and
congradulations for a great tourney and maybe I'll get another chance to host one and it'll go smooth the same as this one did.
Thanks Stan!
"Ska" Email Virus Spotted Again
Got an email from an Outlaw this weekend that was accompanied
by ANOTHER email from them, with no text but an attachment
with the filename "Happy99.exe." This's th' second time I've
gotten something like this so I'm a bit wiser now an' didn't
run the .exe; from experience I know that it displays a little
fireworks show in a black window for a few seconds. Then it
infects your system with the "Ska" virus.
So if you saw that little firework show, you're infected.
Don't be mad at the person you got it from 'cause they didn't
know they had it. What it does is it sends itself in a mail
to anybody you email, without you knowing it. Pretty clever.
Fortunately it's very easy to diagnose and remove. See
this
page for instructions.
Search for Lutefisk
Hey it occurred ta me while writin' that bit about
previews an' such that a Search function fer this
site might come in handy, fer instance if you wanted
ta find a screenshot fer a particular map. Well it
took me a while ta get it figgered out but I've added
a search form at the bottom of this page. Go try it out!
Comin' home from work on Friday I ended up following a truck
for the last couple of miles that had a bumper sticker which
read: "When lutefisk is outlawed, only outlaws will have
lutefisk!" Well it had "outlaws" in it so I figgered that
was enough of an excuse to mention it, but it also gives
you an idea of the weird old Norwegian fishing neighborhood
I live in. For those lucky souls who haven't experienced
lutefisk in all its questionable glory, you'll learn more
than you wanted to know about it at this
Ode
to Lutefisk. 'Bye now!
* * *
Thursday 4/15/99
Trainload of New Maps
And it's a darn big train, at that. I've been slacking off:
visits to th' OGB
and Darlin's GDO
sites turned up let's see NINE new maps. Yikes!
WalkerTR kin claim responsibility fer at least three
of 'em (mebbe four, think I remember one credit to him for one
of th' one's w/o a readme at Darlin's who is so much better
at this type of thing :P).
BadBoys
shows that he's really coming along with this LawMaker stuff
with nice use of ramps, differences in altitude, more
believable buildings and pretty good framerates. Sort of a big
square canyon with a high bunker/cliff jutting out through the
middle, large scale will favor rifles but he is mixing up
spaces a bit so others won't be entirely out of luck. Check
the screenshot.
Next up is his Haunted,
shows his sharpening skills as an interior decorator with
this nifty billiards room. Well
okay upstairs in this large house things get a bit odd but hey,
mebbe some people have houses like that. Did I say "big" house?
Well there's "big" and then there's WalkerTR "B I G." I went
outside, up a ramp behind an invisible wall (blah) and ended up
sort of looking down on the pitched roof of the structure. Hey,
I can jump to that roof from here, I think, judging by the
relative size of everything. Well I get a good run, launch
myself towards th' roof an' then realize in midair "ohh gosh
my sense of scale was waaaay underestimating this gap here"
*kersplat.*
Then he's got Subway.
I'll admit that as I spawned in to the brickish, blockish
above-ground area that I thought ohh dear, this looks pretty
much like the last two. But then you get outside, and it still
looks similar... THEN you notice the stairways going down. A
nice big subway tunnel awaits you below, I think he did that
part pretty well especially with framerates in the tunnel with
pillars everywhere. Here's a screenshot.
My goodness we're only 1/3 of the way through! Onward...
ACE_340 lays claim to at least two of th' maps.
His Ace's Place
is, well let's get it out there, an "arena" style symmetrical
canyon layout with nice bunkers connected by tunnels that go
in and out, up and down, and all around. Hehe okay so I got
lost trying to run through it fast. Readme says designed for
CTF and yeah I can see that, th' symmetrical layout makes sure
things stay balanced. And there's a pretty neat water tower in
th' middle of it all. A real strategic type map what with all
th' bunkers, you'll need ta have some buddies who are good,
patient rifle shots. Nice lookin' map, a tad on the slower side
b'cause of all th' bunkers/towers in th' middle but acceptable
I think. Here's a screenshot
from one end.
His other one is
NAS, apparently
dedicated to th' NAS posse. Looks like another one made with
CTF in mind, this time in a non-symmetrical L shaped canyon.
Th' construction is a bit simplistic with a 3dfx problem in
a corner and not-so-great texturing, but he does make good use
of lighting (as he also does in "Ace's Place") and elevation,
as well as an interesting tower surrounded by ice that you can
see in the distance in this
screenshot. A pretty solid map.
DumbUgly brings us
Cave and I'm
glad to see a small deathmatch map, seems like it's been a
while. A irregular canyon with a twisting cave at either end
looks like a very nice layout for small deathmatches or one-on-ones.
Well th' lack of stitching and shading don't make it th'
greatest thing to look at but play should be fast and furious,
with strict item placement. Check the
screenshot.
Terrapin comes along with
House of secrets
though the file is seeminly carelessly titled "whatever." Well
that same sense of ennui set in on me once I ran through th'
unispired layout and haphazard scattering of items; I certainly
didn't care to waste time looking for many "secrets" though it's
hard to avoid stumbling on some whichever way you turn. Oh yeah
I took a screenshot somewhere
along the way.
Then we got Duke
by an anonymous artist. Well th' layout of this lil' ranch
ain't th' greatest, framerate wise, an' th' construction is in
spots pretty blocky, with a total lack of texture stitching but
you know I kind of like th' charming layout of th' lil' ranch
house. Also it is SO nice to see a good SUNNY map after all these
damn brooding gloomy goth cloudy levels. Man it was sunny and
warm here in Seattle today and you could hardly budge outside
b'cause everybody came out to bask in it but MAN it was nice.
Whoops personal tangent alert, Aoogahh! Yes just give the
nice reader their screenshot
and move on...
El Paso
was I think th' one that Darlin' attributed to WalkerTR. Aha
but th' host title says by his wife, MissKitty. Well
yes it does seem a bit rough around th' edges but there is
something charming about th' simple design of th' bulky
buildings in this small town as you kin see in th'
screenshot of th' main street.
An' I swear when I got to this one golden room with a pool
I had some serious Tombraider demo flashbacks—check the
screenshot. Charming, mebbe
not incredibly playable but hey, make one yerself (hehe).
Wow those nine kind of flew by, I guess I got my groove down
tonight.
I Know Jack About LawMaker
More an' more lately I've been gettin' questions from folks
workin' with LawMaker tryin' ta make their first map... well
I've never made any bones about it: these people already know
much more about LawMaker than I do! I know how to extract
files from .labs, and how to umm ohh wait no that's pretty
much it. So much as I want to I jus' can't provide any real
help fer LawMakin' types, aside from this: if yer gettin' into
LawMakerin', th' best place to go for help and advice and
ranting is the OFFICIAL LawMaker forum over at
DarkJedi.com. They made
LawMaker, they have a fine message board specifically for
LawMaker and some of th' finest, friendliest LawMakin' types
you could want to meet hang out there JUST WAITING TO ANSWER
YOUR QUESTIONS. I swear it's true! So go ask them stuff, they're
beggin' fer it! Yes!
Well it's not like I don't WANT to learn LawMaker but err I
just haven't gotten around to taking th' time to sit down with
it an' teach myself new tricks. Actually I jus' last week had
this minor breakthrough in a plan for a map that I would make
if I knew how and had th' time, loosely based on an interpretation
of Dante's "Divine Comedy." Hehe no I'm serious. :D Aheh anyhow
IF I were ta make a map I'd want to do like custom textures
and sounds and everything like that so it's probably not going
ta happen ANYtime soon though I would sort of like some time off
this summer... then again it's not like I can stop paying rent
so that's more of a pipe dream than anything else. Where th'
heck does that expression come from, anyhow? Who dreams about
pipes? Plumbers? Is this a Shigeru Miyamoto reference?...
btw that reminds me
I had a few hours recently while working at home and downloading
a 300 MB file to get back in touch with
my Game Boy Color and that "Zelda: Link's Awakening" game. It
rocks! I mean, in what other game can you give a can of
"juicy beef" to an eager anthropomorphic crocodile who chows
down heartily, wagging his tail and bouncing around and who, to top
it off, gives you a bunch of bananas?
No I'm serious durnit! Hehe well mostly. It's just a lot of fun
an' I've discovered that what with sun out now and all I can
go to th' park during lunch to eat, play Zelda and "scope out
babes" (that's what I'm supposed to be doing, right?). I'm not
too good at it yet, I can only do two of those things at once. :P
* * *
Wednesday 4/14/99
Ignorance and Sloth Nothing New
Especially online. :P Anyhow found a discussion started by
Cutter over at
Outlaws Gang Busters
about how it's kind of disappointing from his point of view
as a meticulous LawMaker to find everyone playing either LEC
maps or maps like Sniper (I think you know what I mean there).
Well I agree, it is, BUT it is hardly unexpected. I see this
as mostly taking place in the Zone. Problem with th' zone is
that there's no way to exchange files, so people are too lazy
to go find new maps an' play 'em... or they just don't know
about them at all. Now that ain't helped by th' fact that
th' Zone's "related" links fer Outlaws doesn't include a single
site with comprehensive, up to date levels. I mean heck OGB's
Martone was a Zone "Op" until he just yesterday quit,
an' they don't even have a link to th' excellent and up to date
OGB site there. I would sure like to know why "The Pale
Horsemen Gang" gets a link to their rather cutrate site while
an excellent, longstanding site by some of th' very best fellas
ta grace Outlaws land doesn't get squat.
Well that's th' Zone for you: doing as little for the
Outlaws community as possible. :P Okay so I didn't mean to go
off onto this tangent exactly... what I meant to get into is
that yes there will always be a large amount of ignorant folks
out there who just can't or won't distinguish quality work from
crapola. BUT that's life, it's like that wherever you go--worse,
for the most part. In general Outlaws is blessed with one of
the more well adjusted followings in online gaming.
But mebbe some more effort could be put out ta promote maps
people really find incredible. Fer instance OGB's own map
listing doesn't indicate any kind of recommendation fer maps
they like... hmm I thought they had some kind of level review
section but I can't find it just now. Oooh but they do have four
maps I haven't seen yet, mebbe I'll get to 'em tomorrow but
you kin get 'em from OGB now, of course. And actually you
really should head over there 'cause Martone's got another
survey, this one asking who are the Top Ten Players?
Pretty appropriate in fact since we're discussing quality of
Outlaws types in general, an' this was all started in reaction
to th' results of Martone's LAST survey, which asked people to
vote for their favorite maps. Damn I feel like I've gone in
circles now. Ahh getting dizzy... need sleep. But no, must...
finish... post... tell people to... go... use... OGB Message
Board to... discuss... *THWUNK*
* * *
Tuesday 4/13/99
Single-Player Sleeplessness
Man is there ever a lot going on with Outlaws single-player
stuff these days. Now obviously my primary focus here is
multiplayer, but you gotta realize that something like only
5% of game buyers actually play a game like Outlaws online.
An' while most of th' remaining 95% don't check out th' web
at all, lots of 'em do from time to time so there really is
a large audience lookin' specifically fer single-player stuff.
And of course it is fun fer those times when yer worn out from
multiplayer and just want lots of easy targets take out. ;)
So far th' biggest thing that's hit th' Outlaws single-player
scene has been Taco's multilevel campaign known as
The Taco
Saga. But th' Saga suddenly has some competition.
If yer wonderin' why I didn't get an update in yesterday, blame
Raf. He sent me a beta version of just the first level
of "Crossed Identity," a multilevel single-player epic in the
works by the boys over at the
Outlaws
Editing Team. Accordin' to their site there's gonna be five
levels in all, th' first an' th' last done by Raf... an' I think
he's doin' one other one as well, so mebbe that makes 6. Well, if th'
first is any indication, "Crossed Identity" is gonna keep
single-player freaks happy fer a long, long time. It it simply
huge. No actually, it's BIGGER than huge because it kept going
_long_ past where I first though "Man, this thing is HUGE!"
Of course, size doesn't necessarily quality, but don't you
worry there. Th' beta version I played obviously isn't done
yet but it played extremely fluidly, combining shooting, puzzles,
fancy-footwork and exploration with seemingly effortless style.
Th' time frankly jus' whizzed by—it has that "just one more
corner" feel to it—an' next thing I knew it was half an' hour
past when I should have been in bed. But I got through it! Wellll
okay so I sped things up by using the map cheat. What can I say,
I suck at single-player, okay? :P
Raf figgers he oughtta be done with his levels in about 3 weeks
an' hopefully th' other OET fellas will be finishing up soon
too.... this is gonna be one great adventure. I took a bunch
of screenshots playing through, so here they are (remember, this
is all in just the FIRST level!):
shot 1,
shot 2,
shot 3,
shot 4,
shot 5,
shot 6 and
shot 7.
If a few of th' shots look somehow familiar, good memory! Raf
used TinyTwerps
Vertigo Towers as a base. However, where Vertigo Towers
was a rather confusing and precarious CTF multiplayer map,
Raf's single-player bonanza makes sense out of all the criss-crossing
bridges and twisting passageways. But he's also expanded so much
on the original base that most of th' gameplay takes place in
entirely new areas. Anyhow, after seeing just this one fraction of
"Crossed Identity" I can say pretty confidently that we are
in for a real treat when this is finished!
But there's MORE! Yes, more. TJHoenecke has been
working away at many Outlaws projects in the past months, and
at least one is VERY near fruition: a single-player adventure
called "Breakout!" (hehe Raf's first chapter is called "Outbreak" ;)
based on DeanWermer's multiplayer teamplay map
Jailbreak.
Not a HUGE map, but TJ has simply packed it to the gills with
fantastic gameplay—and I've played through it a LOT in the course
of beta-testing. He's made it into a complex interconnected
web of switches, keys, levers and secret doors—not to mention
the tons of good ol' fashioned gunplay. It really is a blast to
play through with particularly nice touches in the badguy placement.
You can be backtracking through an area you thought you'd
cleared out—and stumble right in to a couple badguys who've
gotten th' drop on ya! Yikes! I die a lot in this map. ;) Have
I mentioned I suck? Well you knew that anyway.
Breakout! also has some truly inspired small touches that will
stick in your memory for quite some time. There're a number of
fantastic custom .wav speech files used to great effect. But the kicker
is the final boss... it's... it's... Oooo no no I can't tell!
But oh maaaaan is it satisfyin' ta blow his—did I say "his?" Uhh
I meant "their." Yeah. Shut up. :P Hmm nuts I don't have
any screenshots handy but actually ya kin get an almost exact feel
fer th' layout by running around in Dean's Jailbreak map.
One last single-player thing. I talked it over with Skeeter
an' neither of us can actually trigger the ending for Jareso's
Law in
Eastvill single-player map. You blast Sanchez and he drops
a chicken (?!) and... nothin'. You just stand there. Anyone knows
what's up, I'd like ta be enlightened.
Multiplayer Marsupial Madness
Actually got some multiplayer in this weekend (yeah pretty sad I
know).
Got in a long match at Runaway_Jim's
Arizona.
Had a lotta fun but I did encounter a few things that bug me
a wee bit. For instance folks with rifles kin run far out into
th' desert an' snipe at ya from where you kin hardly distinguish
'em from a cactus. As a Sanchez-lover, I hate bein' sniped and
am _such_ a sucker for it! :P Th' other thing is a bit of a slow
fps spot near the open barn door—things can get pretty choppy
over there. Then again the map is a very amibitious and successful
design so err what am I talking about.
Also got in a match in Slaters_dogs
OZ_Hotel. MAN that is a wacky map! I mean
sure I was doing okay until along bounds this KANGAROO. He looks
at me for a second. I stand there amazed at this brush with
nature. Then he whips out a six-shooter, blasts me full of lead,
and hops off around the corner. Th' whole game those kangaroos
(Doc Deaths) were kickin' my booty big-time 'cause ev'ry time
I saw 'em I jus' started laughin. =D They jus' look so amazingly
funny doing their little hopping run all over the place; sure
it's a simple animation but man it really works. Plus they're
kinda hard ta hit anyhow 'cause Doc's hit box doesn't really
match up with their wide side view, I think. Of course there are
some other wacky custom characters in th' level but those crazy
kangas steal th' show. It really is hilarious shooting it out
with giant marsupials—if ya haven't tried it yet, trust me, ya
should.
Actually, lemme check some server stats... wow. Now this
is revealing. All those who thought levels with big filesizes
wouldn't be popular, check this out. At 624k, OZ_Hotel is th'
second largest Outlaws map ever, right below th' 1,020k
GDO. But
with 235 downloads to date, OZ_Hotel is by far th'
most popular map from my ftp site; next highest with 163
is GoJo's Pearl
River Plantation, no lightweight itself at 389k. Together
those two maps alone account for nearly 19% of my FTP site's TOTAL byte
traffic. Gracious me.
Then again, GDO has only been downloaded 28 times (keep in mind
these stats only count back to March 16th). So I guess
what it really comes down to is the good, unique stuff a map
has—OZ_Hotel has custom characters and objects, Pearl is packed
with new textures and items. People WILL take the time and
hard-drive space to get something worthwhile.
Oh Jesus! Don't Touch That!
Ever alert Sleepy recently received a warning that
he's not sure is true, but why not alarm everyone? No seriously,
couldn't hurt to pay attention. Reportedly if you get an email
entitled "It Takes Guts to Say 'Jesus'" it contains a virus and
you should delete it.
Well I'd delete a mail with that title anyhow (I hate
email evangelism), but a good rule of thumb is not to open any
attachments sent to you unexpectedly, even if they appear to
come from a trusted party—remember, it's the easiest thing in
the world to send an email with false credentials.
Actually th' wording of the warning Sleepy's got is a bit... hmm...
interesting: "DO NOT open it. It will erase everything on your
hard drive. Forward this letter out to as many people as you can."
Now, which letter do they want you to send out to as many people
as you can: the virus, or the warning? ;) Makes you wonder, there's
some wacky folks out there in e-land.
Speaking of which, somebody's come up with a lil' utility that
lets you overclock your CPU right in Windows. Now if you don't
know why you would want to do that, do NOT get the utility
'cause you will end up with a puddle of goo where your CPU
used to be. Heck, I downloaded an early version of this thing
months ago but well I'm pretty hesitant to try o/c'ing my
CPU anyhow, let alone through good "Old Reliable"
Windows 9x. Anyhow, those who like living dangerously kin
pick th' "SoftFSB" program up at
www.h-oda.com.
Thanks to Badger for th' tip. Come to think of it
though, my own framerate recordings with Outlaws indicate
that as long as you have at least a Pentium 2 processor with
a 3dfx card your
CPU clock speed doesn't matter much b'cause yer slowdown is
coming from yer video card, NOT yer CPU. Which is why I'm
lookin' forward to gettin' that 183mHz Voodoo 3500, which may
put the ball back in my Pentium 333's court. ;)
* * *
Sunday 4/11/99
Squat in Yoda's Hut
Yoda (well that's his nick) sent me a map he's made,
Yoda's Hut.
That pretty much describes it, a small firelit hut in the middle
of a big boggy place. Has a neat swampy water area where trees
grow out over the water, pretty effective in getting that
Dagoba (or whatever that icky planet's name was) feel. High
framerates of course b'cause there isn't much to see, and
rifle/gatling snipers will love it. Here's
a screenshot.
A Long Dry Article
About three months ago I started writing a rough idea for an
Old West type of first-person-shooter. I guess I started it
because all these years of playin' Outlaws has given me some
ideas, an' it's clear that LEC isn't planning a sequel (or
if they are it's a _very_ well-guarded secret :P). Anyhow I
already have a sequel page, this
game I began writing was different, more of a simulation of
gunslinger life in the Old West of popular myth than a
Spaghetti Western game with a plot, specific charactersd and
so forth. It's not that I don't like Outlaws (c'mon!) but I
think the Western genre can accomodate a wide range of game
styles.
It's actually kind of funny b'cause th' day after I posted
what I had written on a secure page on this server so that
some folks I know could look at it, Six-Shooter Studios announced
their intention to make a Western Shooter. Then I think a week
after that there was word of another Western game in the works,
or mebbe it was that Western Quake mod, or whatever. Weird.
Anyhoo, it's a slow news day so I'm gonna post the article fer
public consumption. Called
Sketch for a "Realistic" Western
Shooter, it's rather big (91kb .html file) but I tricked it
out with topic and subtopic hyperlinks so you should find it pretty
easy to browse through. Not sure what I hope to accomplish with
it... well, having it made into a game is I guess the real goal
but not one I can say I realistically anticipate. ;) But ya might
find it interesting somehow. Ohh but I should warn ya that
I wrote it in a pretty dry textbook type style to seem more
"professional" hehe.
3dfx Wrap Up
Dude sent me the URL of
an
article at The Register about 3dfx's recent heavy-handed
crackdown on G1ide emulator sites. Now th' Register isn't really
what I'd call th' most reliable source for even-handed, reliable
news, but this particular article does a pretty good job of
coverage. Actually I noticed over at the
Glide
Underground that th' author of th' emulator that worked
with Outlaws has talked with 3dfx's lawyers an' it looks like
with some cleanup of his code he'll be perfectly free an' clear
ta continue work on his program. Great news for those Outlaws w/o
3dfx cards.
Well it feels like it's been years since I actually got a chance
ta play (knock on wood :P) but looks like I'll be havin' an
evening free tonight. Yay!
Big thanks to Skeeter who did indeed find a crowbar
in Eastvill;
man, I feel dumb now. Or dumber than usual, to be more
precise. ;) Now I'm off ta finish up that huge mother of
a single-player level!
* * *
Saturday 4/10/99
Help HeavyGear Finish Fort McHenry
HeavyGear has run into some nasty computer trouble
an' can't run Outlaws on his machine anymore. He's been workin'
on a new multiplayer map with the working title
Fort
McHenry but now due to his computer trouble he can't finish
it by himself so he's lookin' for "an extremely talented
lawmaker" to take over the project, though HeavyGear will
be more than happy to help out with PCXs an' animations
an' suchlike. I mus' say that even though
he says th' map is in its beginning stages it looks very
impressive, with a unique sort of organic architecture that
interconnects in unexpected was and enables him to have lots
of detail onscreen while maintaining fast framerates. If these
screenshots get you interested, why dontcha
mail HeavyGear an'
let him know you wanna help? Here goes:
shot 1,
shot 2,
shot 3,
shot 4,
shot 5,
shot 6.
Outlaws ICQ Skin from Fallsdown
Well we jus' got an Outlaws ICQ
Sound Pack from Kodia an' now Fallsdown whips up
an Outlaws
ICQ Skin that should have all you ICQ users in Outlaws heaven.
I'll jus' snip what Falls told me:
All you have to do is install ICQ Plus which works with any version of ICQ and
then unzip into it's own folder in the Skins folder in ICQ. Start ICQ and select the yellow plus icon and select outlaws folder and you're all set.
I'm working on some different backgrounds and different buttons. You can change backgrounds or buttons from within ICQ and you'll find a somewhat risque background pic if you
change the name of the background pic from veegator5 to just plain veegator. I should have renamed that file to outlawsback or something like that I suppose.
Lots of other skins are available from ICQ Plus links.
www.ICQplus.com.
Boy, I don't like ICQ (annoys me hehe)
but I'm almost tempted ta install it again ta check out these
files...
Slaters_dog Abandoned Again
Boy, don't you love clever headlines that don't really tell
you what th' heck is goin' on? Anyhow, Slaters_dog
sent me a new version of his classic
Abandoned
map, called surprisingly enough
Abandoned 2.
Lots of small changes, I'll jus' post his description 'cause
otherwise I won't remember 'em all :P:
I thought I'd try & get the fps up a bit in Abandonded , I moved a few adjoined walls
about & got rid of a few others .
You'd never know unless you looked at the plan in Lawmaker , seemed to help a lot in places but did little in others , map looks just the same as the
original in that regard .
Stiched up all the unstitched textures . ( wasn't sure about that when I did the first Abandoned )
Lowered the tank stand & bed so you can't get underneath them anymore .
Added just two more canteens , a pistol & rifle are now where the ammo boxes on the tank were & a pistol in the back bedroom , also the bushes are intangible
so you don't get caught up on them ,
TNT on the cliff is now in a box , the crate up there had to go to help fps .
err.... the hay bales are lower to keep play speedy & repositioned a bit to help fps ,
hmmm , think thats about it , Snake wanted me to take the double out , but thats my fave weapon hehe
Hope ya don't think I've ruined it , Twobitt & myself played a couple of marathon sessions to test it all right out , made a few changes along the way
, seemed ok by us .
Hmm now it's always tricky messin'
with th' classics, but I think I kin live with this version.
May take a bit gettin' used to, I'm still partial to th' "bigger"
feel of th' haybales and water tank in th' first one.
Here's a screenshot of th' new
version, see how many differences you kin spot!
"Law in Eastvill" Single-Player Map by Jareso
A chap by th' name of Jareso sent over a new single-player
map he's made,
Law in Eastvill.
Man, this one kept me occupied fer like near three hours
today, an' I still haven't finished! See, ya start out an'
ya find yerself in this two-street town with TONS of badguys.
TONS! It's great! Oh yeah and lots of windows to smash. ;)
And chickens, lots of them, too. Whee! So that's pretty fun
for a while and there are lots and lots of buildings to
explore and put bulletholes in and stuff. In fact there are
so many buildings that you'll get some pretty darn low framerates
running around in town, but then again it isn't that big a deal
'cause this is single-player, where bein' careful matters more'n
speed. Which is bad fer me 'cause I'm pretty heedless. So
I got killed a LOT. :o
Now that's all fair an' fine, I kin deal with that. In fact,
I like sinkin' my teeth into a good challenge. But |
