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Thirteenth Highest Shelf Vittles: 5.12.99-7.5.99
Back to Stale Vittles
Monday 7/5/99
Outlaws on #EFnet
Yay what a cool day, it's Monday and I didn't have to go
to work. Woohoo! :) Slack-Jawed Pete was over here
last night playing in the Zone under my name err so if you
saw me, it wasn't me. :P I must say Pete is as stubborn as
they come, he kept trying to win a 2 on 3 CTF match in "Simms
at Dusk" for like an hour and a half. It was painful just
watching it! Ouch.
You've probably fired up an IRC client and headed over
to #outlaws_players on the Undernet at some point. Well there's
another Outlaws IRC channel these days that you could
check out too: #lucasarts_outlaws on EFnet. Heck if you have
any kind of decent IRC client (
mIRC is a good one) you can have
'em BOTH open at once. ;) Kohna pointed #l_o out to me
the other day and now Cowpoke has sent me a lil' bit on
what the new channel is all about:
Efnet #Lucasarts_Outlaws
Once upon a time... in a far away ghosttown dotted with rolling
tumbleweeds were 4 guys who loved to play outlaws. In the
beginning we played ip games amongst eachother, until one day
we heard about a group of people playing on Undernet in a
channel called, "Outlaws_Players". We decided to go there to see
how other people played the game and wanted to make a name for
ourselves. At that time there was very little game play during
the week, but we lived for the tournament on sundays. After a
few weekends of not having any games run, we decided to HOST
a tournament on #efnet. The channel name we picked was the same
as to not confuse anyone coming over to another net. Well,
needless to say, the tourney never happened for lack of people
to play. In the interim, we decided to keep the channel alive
for new/undernet people who wanted to play. One thing lead
to another and OLM_KidKolt had some words with someone on
the Undernet channel about the pilfering of their channel name.
Albeit, childish as it was, we changed the name. Currently there
are 5 OLM members, which stands for Outlaws Misfits, those members
are as follows:
OLM_Cow
OLM_Bare
OLM_Kidkolt <_Stryker_>
OLM_Scobe
OLM_Slinger
Right now, OLM has about 5 levels out, with more in the works. IP games
are played nightly along with undernet and Sir_Kohna who keeps the link
between nets alive. The right to keep Outlaws an american favorite
passtime is our strongest pledge. I hope to find some of you in the
future looking for a GREAT bunch of people who enjoy the same thing
you do.
Well that sounds pretty good, don't it? So now there are TWO
IRC channels you can look to hunt up an Outlaws match in. The
more the merrier, I hope. There may be those pessimists who'd
say that this will only fragment the relatively small IRC Outlaws
community but ya know I think diversity can be a good thing and
as I mentioned there's nothin' stoppin' ya from havin' both
channels open at once (unless one of them boots you, har ;) —that's
a joke, son, they're much too nice ta do that).
New Version of XGl200 Glide Wrapper
Thanks to both Clint Cartright (hope I spelled that
okay) and salmoides fer lettin' me know that Scott
Cutler has posted a new version of his "XGL200" Glide
wrapper (lets you run Outlaws on a Direct3D card) at the
GlideUnderground.
I've also got a local version you can grab right
here
(121k). Apparently the only change is support for auto-mipmapping
which should give a performance boost on some cards, not sure
if that'll do much for Outlaws but it shouldn't hurt, Clint
mentioned that it works great on his "cheesy" (his word, not
mine ;) ATI Rage Pro Turbo 8mb card. I know a lot of folks get
stuck with cheesy cards so this should bring great joy to
many. :)
* * *
Sunday 7/4/99
OL Picture-Perfect on Creative TNTs
Dude sends word that the latest beta version of
Creative Labs' TNT
video drivers seems to have fixed all the graphical glitches
previously seen running Outlaws in D3D Glide-emulated mode
with their "Unified" driver. He's put up a page
here
with lots of screenshots comparing image quality and performance
speed of the latest drivers in Outlaws. Great news indeed for
OL fans who might want to pick up a TNT2 or Matrox G400 instead
of a Voodoo3, though the V3 WILL still be better for Outlaws.
You can check Dude's framerates in the screenshots he's got
though he doesn't mention his system specs: a p2 350 with 128 MB
PC100 RAM and Creative TNT. For the sake of comparison, on my
P2 333 w/ 128 MB 66mHz RAM and Banshee card I get about 95
and 70 fps in those last two areas he shows as compared to his
85 and 32.
New Map Stuff: Gore and the Draft
Whoops! Just realized there was already a "duke.zip" map. I've
renamed Stryker's new "USMC Duke" map file to
usmcduke.zip
to keep them separate. Sheesh, hard to keep track of names these
days. :P
DrDeath2 has
done up a new version of his "Coarsegold" map, bringing this up
to Coarsegold
v 2.1. This weighs in at a hefty 637k due to the 5 edited
character. Everybody but Bob has a gory death now, here's a
sample from the descriptions on his news page:
"Mary : Head explodes." Ouch! Let's see
here's my screenshot from the
first version, if you'll recall I liked this map. Still haven't
gotten to play a match in it yet but now I'll get to see various
extremities blow off. Whoopee! Man, I'm so behind I still haven't
even played Pinball yet, sheesh! Darn real life. :P Actually
I got a Jury Duty summons in the mail which freaked me out
until I noticed that it was addressed to the former tenant here.
Phew! I'll pass on my $10/day, thank you very much.
O-tay back to maps. Oh actually I only have one more map
today, what a surprise compared to the map frenzy that hit this
past week.
WWII Barracks
came to me from the mysterious collective known only as
TELM. Who are they? What do they want? Do they like fish?
Only time will TELM. HAHAHAhahaa...ha...ah okay so that wasn't
funny at all. Actually TELM stands for "The Elite Law Makers."
Modesty modesty. But this is a neat theme for a multiplayer
map and well made, check out the little tower in
there. Neato. Hey jury duty,
the WWII draft, there's a tie-in! I swear!
"Crossed Identity" Single-Player Soon
Raf sent me a beta version of the
Outlaws
Editing Team's epic single-player adventure, "Crossed
Identity." Oh man actually this is just Part One and it took
me all day yesterday to get through, I suck at single-player. ;P
But heck it was a lot of fun, the OET guys are seriously going
all out to make this 4-level adventure a real hearty meal of
Outlaws goodness. Yummy! Let's see Raf is handling the first
and last levels with veterans Picante and ShotgunMC
taking care of the two levels of creamy filling in the middle.
I've already shown screenshots of the first level, I think (do
a site search, I'm too lazy) but I snapped a lot of big pics of
levels 2-4 so you'd better look at them:
shot 1,
shot 2,
shot 3,
shot 4,
shot 5 and
shot 6. Hmm normally the
badguys don't look quite that limp but they were so excited I had
to weigh them down with a bit of lead to get them to hold still
for the pictures. Now that'll
hafta hold YOU until this thing hits the streets, judging by the
high quality of the beta it won't be long now.
Ratz'in Fratz'in Ding Dong Dangit
Sorry for the language, I'm just a bit peefed (please note
that is not a real word) with myself
for misplacing this bit of news for nearly a week.
Rat_Filthy updated his
Orleans
Seafood House & Tavern site a lil' while back with a
captivating account of how Annie took the Orleans
crown in a tough match against Wildarms. A good read
as is the rest of Ratty's great site!
* * *
Friday 7/2/99
The Big Map Catch-Up
As you know if you tuned in yesterday I'm behind on my map
coverage, so here we go. I'll start with the four from
yesterday and finish up with today's two new ones.
Runaway Jim has created what may be the new standard
for large western towns in
Bucksnort.
It is BIG without seeming too big, one of those rare maps that
feels made at a natural scale. He has created a whole town
from scratch, pulled it up from the dry dusty desert floor
and laid it out for us to play in. Framerates are just what
you would expect—high—even pretty darn high in spots where you
can see all the way across the large town square, for instance.
But back to what I was saying about scale. This is the kind of
map that makes careful cross-town shootouts possible as well
as gunfights that spill in and out of multiple buildings. Just
running around the map is fun, it has such great flow to it as
to seem effortless, made just for you to run, jump and climb
in. And that's because it was. I like it, I say. Here are a few
screenshots that just scratch the surface:
shot 1,
shot 2 and
shot 3.
DrDeath2's
two level single-player adventure,
Zombie: Dead
Outlaws Walk Again!, reminds me a lot of the original
Blood: lots of zombies muttering loudly to themselves
and you with a double-barreled shotgun with which to send them
back to their not-so-eternal rest. As a sheer zombie-blasting
flesh-fest it is tons of fun, DrD isn't at all reluctant to give
you a roomfull of zombies to cut down to giblets.
The one crazy thing is the volume of the zombies—their incessant
and LOUD moaning nearly drove me crazy. I STRONGLY advise
using LawMaker to extract the .wav files from the zombie.lab
and lower the volume—Window's SoundRecorder program can do this,
I found that doing "Decrease Volume" eight times for each .wav
gave me an acceptable level of zombie sounds. Oy. Once you do
that it's a lot of fun. There's a customized sawed-off that can
load a dozen or so shells at once, seems rather weak though,
fer my money ya still can't beat th' good ol' double-barrel.
Oh yes just so y'all know this IS the first single-player
adventure with customized bad guys good job by DrD. Wish the
level textures were stitched but oh well. Check out some
zombies about to bite it: shot.
Busta
Nut Ville by BlastingBob has what almost all other
maps by new LawMakers don't have: texture stitching. Just look
at the texturing on those long walls, gorgeous! Level itself is
a bit big, flat and simple, but the wide buildings each have a bit
of natural variation that shows promise. Check the
screenshot.
Dead by
DupE puts us smack dab in... uhh... a big dark red hot
rocky place with a thick blood-red sky. Happyland? I think not.
No, we are in the eternal bowels of something or other and not
too happy about it, I should think. Very large and flat,
extremely so you might say. Some weird effects show the author
is still experimenting with LawMaker functions. Well hey
whatever, nobody's forcing you to play anything. Unless you die
and spawn in there, I suppose. Check the
screenshot.
DupE sent me another new one today,
Twofort.
Think the name pretty much says it, he's going for the straight
up fort vs fort approach here, apparently trying to get a
"Team Fortress" feel to the thing. Well I haven't seen a whole
lot of Team Fortress but as far as I can tell the maps are
big, blocky and pretty suck-ass. But tons of people still play it
like they've got nothing better to play. So err hmm. Here's a
shot.
Stryker sent along
Duke, a map which succeeded in
making my head hurt. Not to say that's a bad thing, that's just
what happened. Rugs, lamps, stairs, boxes and holes seem to
go every which way in this weird "house" that made me feel at
times that I was trapped in an Escher print. I think the
textures and lighting in particular made it tough for me to
distinquish depth which left me feeling rather disoriented. Or
maybe it's just been a long week. Here's a
screenshot. Thank goodness for
a three-day weekend; I swear it seems like everybody in Outlaws
is on summer break except for me. :P
Web Site News/Updates/Sex-Changes
Whoa I don't know how that last bit slipped in there... ahh too
late to head it off before it hits the press, oh darn. A good
deal of web-based stuff in the past few days.
Simon has decided to discontinue his nifty
"Simon and Garfunkel" site. In its place has arisen a new,
decidedly different Outlaws page:
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The Five Ravens
Combine Swedes, Outlaws, the movie "The Crow," shake
well and you get something pretty darn cool: a stylish
posse page. Well written, nice visual theme and that's
about it for now.
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Oh yeah Simon has also put up a little memorial to an old
Outlaws posse, "Guns 4 Hire," which you can check out
here.
Levelmaker Yoda has his own site at
http://members.tripod.com/~YodaBog.
Not gonna add it to the link list as it really isn't Outlaws-specific,
but you gotta love a news page that has the guts to post an
update that just says "I'm tired. More News tomorrow." Man,
that rocks! (I'm serious here!)
And before my head hits my keyboard with a hollow thunking
sound, got to get in that Silverwire (or SnakeSilver
or VodkaMan or whatever his name is today) has updated the
Vodka 4 Ever posse
site with ICQ contact info, remarks on the playing styles of
the members and a link to a page where he recounts episodes
of drunken debauchery, I'm sure that will be a big draw. Anyway
I've got to go fall over now...
* thunk *
Thursday 7/1/99
Women's World Cup
Okay so I spent the evening watching Women's World Cup
quarterfinals so all I've got time for right now is to
post the latest maps, hopefully I'll be able to give this
stuff (and all the other news that's come in) the proper
treatment in my next update. The new maps are:
Bucksnort
by Runaway Jim
Zombie: Dead
Outlaws Walk Again! single-player adventure by
DrDeath2
Busta
Nut Ville by BlastingBob
Dead by
DupE
Hurrah! Go get 'em—gosh I hope they all work, sight-unseen
posting like this almost always backfires on me somehow. ;)
And just to show everybody that I do still care, I'm just
out of time for today, check out the following cheap stunt!
* * *
Wednesday 6/30/99
625 Frames Per Second?!?
Notorious sent me a screenshot showing him getting
625 fps looking at the sky in 512x384. This is the same
shot posted by Wildbill
and I thought it looked a bit suspicious so I asked Notorious
about it... turns out Wildbill had edited it a bit to "fix"
the player name. Here's
a direct jpg of the original .bmp screenshot. Looks pretty
legit to me, of course these are easy to fake but hey, let's
give him the benefit of the doubt. His new system specs are:
"pentium 3 450mhz with 196mb ram a voodoo 3 3000 overclocked to
183mhz." As Jim C. might say, "Smmm-Okin'!" Wildbill has a bit
of an interview about it, check it out.
Fix for Win98: Dual Boot!
Hagen has experienced firsthand the dreaded Win98 join
game problem in Outlaws. He found a lil' way to take care of
his trouble. It may be a bit more trouble than most are willing
to go to, and you need a copy of Win95, but here it is:
i went and was
snoopin round www.winfiles.com to see if there was anything there that could
help me. Anyhow, i managed to find something that i thought may help me.
it's a nifty lil program called My Boot Manager. It allowed me to install
both win98 and win95 on one HD, and with no probs whatsoever. I know that
you and probably hundreds of other people have known about the ability to
install 2 or more operating systems onto a pc, but why noone has ever
offered this as a solution to the windows 98 join bug baffles me. The only
prob with this workaround to the join bug is that you gotta have access to
both the win95 and win98 cds. But in tihs age of friends everywhere, it
sholdn't be too hard to procure one :) Anyhow, the homepage URL of "My Boot
Manager" is as follows :
http://magicb.webjump.com
One Link Leads to Another
I'm gonna hafta think of something soon, my link page is really
getting out of control. Found the first link here on Wildbill's,
which led to more...
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The DTG Website
Title page is a bit multimedia heavy but otherwise a
very smooth, attractive posse site with a ton of info
on each of the members. Well done and really gives you
a good idea (seems to, anyway ;)
of what this group is all about.
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Bad Gunners Posse
Not much here yet, some maps, links and list of posse
members. Okay if you can take MIDI Western music and
Java applets.
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DTG LilAngel's Web Site
Very out of date but attractive small site for two Outlaws.
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MBH Homepage
Learn all about the MBH posse, a small collection of
German Outlaws from the village of Massenbachhausen.
Unlike the name the site itself is short and sweet.
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* * *
Tuesday 6/29/99
Two LawMakin' Veterans with Two New/Old Maps
Hmm that title is pretty confusing. What I meant was that
whereas yesterd'y we had lots of new maps from LawMakers relatively
new to the scene, today we've got two new versions of older
maps made by two very veteran Outlaws map makers.
ShotgunMc starts us off with
KJBD Hideout,
the fanciful results of the KJBD gang taking over Hargrove's
Pattern Repair. Yes it's yet another modified Repair but
the KJBDs have really remodeled the place, digging out a
large cellar and thoughtfully adding in a two-seat outhouse
to handle all those big parties. Emptied beer bottles abound
as well as a number of lighthearted jabs at other Zone posses.
But the gameplay is all serious stuff with the benches cleared
out of the main floor to add speed and the tunnel underneath
the building opening up many new strategic variations. All
done with nice twilight texturing and bright lighting
indoors. Very good stuff indeed if you can stand seeing all those
poor empty beer bottles around. Here's the
screenshot.
Now here's a real blast from the past. Does the name
MikeyJo ring a bell? How about MrBurrito? Yep,
the maker of the classic "Tenpaces" and "Clatsop" maps has
returned to LawMaking with
Longrun
(hmm, does it make more sense than "Clatsop?" ;), a combination
of his two popular old maps. Take Clatsop, stick Tenpaces
on the side and spread the Clatsop texturing all around, add
in a connecting tunnel or two and you've got Longrun. Now going
by Nacho, MrB still hasn't bothered to go back and
stitch his textures or anything. However the old maps were all
about pure deathmatch gameplay, so do two great-playing maps
add up to one supermap? Or an Übermap, if you will? Remains
to be seen. Very nice to have Nacho back in the saddle, he's
even saved his tacky old MrBurrito sign for us old-timers wax
nostalgic about. ;) Here's a memory-jerking
screenshot.
* * *
Monday 6/28/99
Too Many New Maps to Count
After all this time I should have suspected. Here I am
Saturday and Sunday, toddling around attending to other matters,
not taking time to update here because there really wasn't
enough news to warrant it. Then along comes Monday and BANG!
Actually it was a lot of BANGs today. Let's rip into 'em.
Over the weekend I found
BGP at
Outlaws Gang Busters.
This falls into the ever-popular big, flat and ugly category.
It takes nearly a minute just to cross the danged thing and
the buildings are so ugly you'll probably regret the effort of
getting to them. An entire building with floors that moan when
you walk on them. Oh, baby. ;P Here's a
screenshot.
Sleepy snuck into my inbox in the wee hours this morning
to drop off Do or
Die 2. A very small strictly arena map, perhaps a bit
artificial-looking but coming from
Sleepy you know it's just going to be tons of fun to play.
Check out the funky sloping floor in the
central area.
BigDogCH introduced himself and piled on a whole slew
of maps. Well okay only three, but the first is worth at least
a dozen slews all on its own. It's a ten level single-player
adventure called
The
Waddy Gang. It's mammoth. It's an amazing achievement. It's
a modern day Moby Dick. Yay it is all that and more, and I only
got through the first two levels (and that was running). See,
there's one bad thing...
It doesn't run in Glide accelerated graphics. Well okay it runs,
but it crashes. A lot. I finally hit a seemingly unavoidable
crash at the beginning of level 2 and had to switch to
software and if you have a crappy DirectDraw and MGL card like
my Banshee you'll be clawing your eyes out. Still I stuck it out
through 1 and a half levels and I'm glad I did because I hit one
of the most incredible single-player experiences I've had: there's
a train tunnel where you have to ride along a train car gunning
it out gatling-gun to gatling-gun with a horde of badguys. There
are lots of hordes. And I only got 15% through, if that, and
it took me all night (and mostly running through on "Good," albiet
hindered by lots of crashes). In-freakin'-credible. I can only pray that
somebody gets this guy a 3dfx card or takes the time to convert
it with his help (and stitch some of those textures).
Astounding, and o so close to being the best; for those w/o a
3dfx or Glide Wrapper compatible card it probably IS the best. (you run it through
the Main Game menu item, and have the first CD in for the music
to play)
BigDog's other two are multiplayer.
Waddy
Arena ML is another arena-style map but this one is
definately a place: a boxing ring, to be exact. Watch out for
the gat in the announcer's booth and critters in the ventilation
shaft. Very well done indeed and no 3dfx problems (a bit dark,
but that's being picky). Here's a shot.The other,
Waddy
Neigbors ML, I can't recommend as highly. It's got a very
original twist as you can shoot yourself up onto the roofs of
the two tall houses by TNT-blasting out of the adjacent wells,
to drop TNT on people from the relative safety of the rooftops
BUT there is a nasty 3dfx problem as well as moving doors which
could add to trouble in laggy games. Check the
screenshot.
Chet_R1 clocked me with another new map,
Boxes.
Yes it is a big warehouse with box-constructed mazes, not
original but done better than most of them with areas you can
tell were designed specifically to test your jumping and climbing
skills. Throw in a healthy dose of gunpowder (is that a
sawed-off hiding up there?) and you're bound to have fun.
Here's a boxy screenshot.
Sshep finishes us off with
New Park,
a replacement for his old "Park" map which did a great job of
modelling all the structures in a park/playground but had some
slow framerates. "New Park" spreads things out a bit, the map
is still one big circular area but framerates are acceptable,
even respectable for a centralized map with this much detail.
Climb the tree, coast down the slide, mosey through the picnic
area, play in the sandbox or fill your buddies full of lead,
it's up to you. A little dark but then again I guess they
don't permit gunplay during normal daylight operating hours. ;)
Check out the pre-dawn (or post-sunset)
screenshot.
That's it for the maps. Dude sent me a
screenshot of Scott Cutler's
XGL200
Glide wrapper running Outlaws in 3D acceleration on his TNT card.
Seems it has less graphical glitches than Creative's "Unified"
Glide wrapper but slightly lower image quality. Good to hear,
and let's keep fingers crossed for a new version in a week or
two. If somebody could keep an eye open on
GlideUnderground
for it I'd be much obliged (darn good 3dfx emulation site and
"official" home of the wrapper, btw).
Okay that's really it now, man my eyes are killing me and it's
past my bedtime. Darn that Waddy Gang, the non-accelerated
crafty bastards kept me up... Going to be behind on emails, don't
take it personal if you don't get a reply right away and, as
always, many thanks to those who continue to help by sending in
news items. :)
* * *
Friday 6/25/99
More Bundles from Chet_R1
Oh dear what has been unleashed? Chet_R1
has even more OL lovin' today, two new maps and another web
site. Sheesh!
Grave
Robbers sticks you in a graveyard amongst pilfered and
looted graves and tools lying about. Now who could have done
such an infernal thing? Hope they aren't hiding in that
bunker in the cliff there, that'd be trouble! Very nice work
on the graveyard details here with high framerates and lots
of detail of dirt, tools, graves, coffins and more. May bog down
a bit in some of the narrow tunnels below, and up-top is a
bit spoiled by a rather nasty 3dfx texturing problem. I asked
Chet about this and he can't really fix it as he doesn't have
a 3dfx card to check it with, so it's there to stay (at least
until he gets a 3dfx card—donations, anyone? ;). Here's a
screenshot.
Pyramid2
is the rapid-fire sequel to Pyramid which I just posted here
yesterday. Whereas the first takes you inside the tricksy
guts of the ancient pile this sequel, almost perfectly
symmetrical both east-west and north-south, has you running
and scurrying about the edges, sides and top of one of these
massive burial monuments. Pretty dwarfing I must say, though
a good rifle will as always cut things down to size. Here's
a screenshot; for
scale reference, that lil' smudge atop the pyramid (which is
a stylish domed shape rather than a strict 4-sided cone) is
a gatling gun. :P
And here's the latest URL from him hehe mebbe it bit
premature but of course I'll update the writeup ;):
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Red Eye
Beginnings of a site by Chet_R1. Front page layout
looks promising with buttons for levels, links, files,
cheats, gangs and info; let me know if there's more to it
when you check it!
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XGl200 News Blurb
Saw over at the
Glide Underground
that Scott Cutler, author of the great
XGl200
Glide wrapper that lets you play Outlaws in Direct3D by
emulating 3dfx Glide (a bit slower than a true Voodoo card, of
course), hopes to have an updated version in a week or two
with some speed improvements. He also confirms the rumor that
he is now working for
nVidia, quite a catch for
them if his wrapper is any gauge of his talents.
* * *
Thursday 6/24/99
Bundle of Goodies from Chet_R1
After some begging and pleading on my part Chet_R1
sent along three of his maps that I didn't yet have, as
well as his web site URL.
Phoenix
is basically a redo of "Buckshotville" with the same basic layout
but most of the detail redone. Still got that door that raises
and lowers when you press the button though. If you like
Buckshotville but mebbe want a little variety, this is your
map. Here's a screenshot.
Abandoned Village
is likewise a revamp of "Dry Gulch" though things are significantly
changed around this time and you may only recognize it once
you've run around it a bit. Some of the texturing is a little
tough on the eyes, but the underground passages look very nice.
Here's a shot.
Marsh
is all-original, a swampy pool in a small canyon with a big
tree in the middle and sniping rooms in the cliffs on two sides.
There are chickens on top of the tree, which is neat but may
slow down laggy games. In an interesting move on of the
bunkers has a sliding door that drops down after you enter
and can only be raised with a button on the inside. Now campers
don't have to worry about watching their behind, I guess. Hmm.
Tree in the middle puts a damper on the framerates though it
does look a bit neat. Here's the shot.
Here's his site URL, plus a second I found on his links page
and then another I found on THEIR links page (that's networking
for you, I guess ;):
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Unofficial SWL Site
Large site by Chet_S1 with lots of detail on the
"Shooters Without Law" posse members, a library of
his multiplayer maps and some interesting game tips.
Gratuitous backgrounds and animations slow things down
a tad but the site as a whole is pretty solid.
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SWL Posse
Colorful and eclectic, extremely high-bandwidth
presentation for the official SWL site. Lots of
info on posse members, game analysis, levels to
grab and so forth but those with slow net connections
may not have the patience to get all the way through it.
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Les Hors La Loi
Beginnings of a large all-French posse site. Most
of the menu items aren't in place yet but you will
find some very large graphics. Still the LHLL site
(roughly "Those Outside the Law" ie Outlaws) has to
get some kind of credit for pure Gallic pride.
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DrDeath2's "LawMaker's Peace" Award
DrDeath2 is having a vote for the best single-player
map ever made. Head over to his
LawMaker's Peace
page to ring in for your favorite. Haven't played some of
these single-player maps? Download 'em while yer there then!
* * *
Wednesday 6/23/99
Two New Maps
MikeDaKid made it into my inbox first today with
DeathRiver,
a smallish deathmatch river map with a twist. Literally. The
river has a kink in it. :) Also you'll want to heed the .txt
file's warning, "don't drink the water!" Bleh! A very nice
looking level, simple but different, solid framerates, lots
of shotguns, and that catwalk around the top is SO perfect
for dropping dynamite. ;) Yeppers here's a
screenshot. Also I want to note
that I like the filename he chose for this map. There seems
to be this silly convention of shortening the FIRST word in
maps, so most people would have done "driver.zip" or something
like that. But you know, that makes it pretty darn hard to find
the map alphabetically by filename. His "deathriv.zip" is so
much easier, don't you think?
Chet_R1 was hot on his heels with
Pyramid.
Not the first OL map with an Egyptian or archeological theme,
but I think the first to really take you in-depth inside one.
Conveniently enough it's brightly lit inside so you won't have
any trouble avoiding that huge pit now will you? ;) The outside
is particularly striking in a monolithic sort of way
(shot) though the inside is,
as you might expect, a bit on the cramped side of things with
low-ceilinged small rooms and long tunnels. Still
construction is very solid (they built them things to last, ya
know!) and there are some interesting touches such as the
trip switch in the floor that hides a gatling gun standing
on a pedestal (shot). Might
not work great in laggy matches but heck we all know that
already. If I were a pharoah I think I'd be pretty happy to
be sent to my eternal rest in this map. =)
* * *
Tuesday 6/22/99
A "New" Map and Four New Sites
Picked up a new map over at
Outlaws Gang Busters,
Sand Box 2
by Last1stndin. This is jus' basically a redo of th'
first one, he went back and gave it a little more attention.
Still no running sounds though. :P In case you don't remember
it here's the
screenshot of the first one
(and you wondered why I keep my old screenshots around ;).
Metalliplasty sent me the URL of his new gang site,
and I picked up another new site link at
Mallard's site...
then a new link from THAT site, then I remembered that Kali's
Outlaws server had more links listed recently, and so:
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Metalliplasty's Metal Militia
Hrm... umm... I'm thinkin' this is one of those love it
or hate it type of sites. If you like Heavy Metal MIDI,
blood-red backgrounds on black text and grab bags of
Outlaws web graphics and game taunt sounds, you will
love this site. If not, well... Hard to read, long to
load and loud but has good details on the gang members and
the aforementioned custom taunt sounds.
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Leccy's Place
Attractive, well put together individual Outlaws site.
Webmaster Le Caillou mixes in news, a map review forum, files, etiquette,
game info and more to make a one-of-a-kind original site
with opinions and info you just won't get anywhere else.
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Picante
Well there just ain't a lot here besides an old wood
background texture, a spinning skull, some MIDI
and Picante's maps. But then again this is I guess
the home base of said maps, so that's got to be worth
something.
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The PAL Headquarters
A decent selection of files and maps, some posse info and links
in a functional layout.
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* * *
Monday 6/21/99
Yeah, I Got a File For Ya
Just noticed that Scott Cutler's web site seems to have
been abandoned so I put up my own local copy of his
XGl2OO
Glide Wrapper which you can find normally on my
other helpful files page. Again,
this program lets you run Outlaws with hardware acceleration
on most Direct3D-compatible video cards, though not as speedily
as a genuine 3dfx board.
Yoda is the latest of a number of folks to tell me that
Internet Explorer 5.0 seems to make it difficult to get into
the Outlaws section of the Zone. But he found a work-around:
I recently downloaded Internet Explorer 5.0, (and
know I regret it for the bugs it has.)and it wouldn't
let me go into certain game rooms. I had to change
some settings that the zone told me to do, and it
still wouldn't work. I found that if you restart your
browser then goto the same webpage it will let you
into the game rooms.
Well that's good news. And if you've held off getting IE 5
already, well I'd keep holding until they come out with
a much more bug-free version. :P
* * *
Sunday 6/20/99
Two New Maps
Doh can't think of a zinger to lead in the news today... damn.
Finally saw "The Phantom Menace," found I actually enjoyed it.
Sure there are holes in the plot, little character development,
etc etc, doesn't equal "Star Wars," blah blah, but it's still
a darn fine piece of entertainment. Hurrah. I think I'm actually
looking forward to seeing cute young Anakin (darn hard-to-spell
Episode 1 names ;P) turn into evil Darth Vader
and crush all the hippie Jedi guys along with good old two-faced
Palpatine (darn them names!). ;D Actually though the one
touching scene in the film was when he had to leave his mom,
*sniff.* Why they didn't just send back and bring her along once
they got back and got some $, I just don't know—did I mention
plot holes?
Oop on with the show. Floppy sent me his map
Dogwood,
a largish two-forts-across-bent-canyon type of CTF layout. The
buildings are kind of Picasso-ish, the item layout on the
scattered/clumpy side of things but framerates are good,
construction is solid and it's nice and sunny. Here's a
screenshot for ya.
Drdeath2 just
came out with
Coarsegold.
I like the layout here: a small town surrounded by a deep river
gorge in the middle of a big plain. Scenic, nice wind effects,
high framerates esp. with the number of buildings he packs into
the place. Lots of stuff to do, looks pretty darn fun. Here's
a shot. There's a broken bridge
on the far side of the gorge, you can't jump there but I blew
myself over with some TNT. I think the ground over there kills
you instantly or something so I died but I noticed that the
surface of the bridge was wavy like the water below, as you
can mebbe see in this shot.
Not sure why I did that but it was kind of fun. :)
* * *
Saturday 6/19/99
So That's Where The New Maps Were...
I thought it was a bit of a slow week for maps, then
I stumbled across Hoss's latest update at
Outlaws Gang
Busters. So THAT's where they were hiding! ;)
Well okay I got one from Pretender (used to be known
as "Poison"). His
School
has a blackboard (except it's one of those green ones, you
know) and some desks and mebbe a shotgun layin' around (gee,
I didn't have any of those in school ;). Lack of running sounds
and the unusual scale of the buildings (makes me feel like I'm
in preschool) are kind of downers, but nothing terribly wrong
with this smallish map. Check the
screenshot.
On to the maps from OGB. MapleBar's
Repaired Repair
is, as the name implies, a modified "Hargrove's Pattern Repair."
Pretty much just some textures switched around, I'm not sure
I like the muddy ground but the rooftop area looks pretty good
as you can see in this shot.
Ah what a sneak, he's named the files "hhh" to appears right
after Hargrove's in the list. ;P
Don Winz's
Lowtown
looks a bit like a compact CTF map, with two houses in a narrow
canyon, separated by a sort of ramparted wall thing. There's
a lot laid out in the open which means framerates will be on
the pokey side of things. Not too bad, though I don't much care
for the lack of texture stitching or some of the object placement.
Here's a screenshot.
Caleb's Shout
isn't too easy on the eyes, what with extremely unstitched
texturing and blocky, unlikely buildings. Still again there's
nothing terribly wrong with this largish town map and you've
got to admire his moxie in the readme's Additional Credits:
"Thanks to me for making it." Har. Again I make with the
screenshot.
Same thing goes for his
Tomb though
it is a bit more elaborate and I like the layout better as it
leaves the central area open for fighting. Bet you didn't think
I'd have a screenshot, but I
do.
Winztown
(doesn't have an author indicated) puts a couple buildings in
a BIG valley with tunnels running through the surrounding
cliffs. The buildings themselves are pretty well made but the
construction doesn't seem to have had framerate optimization as
a big priority. FPS here isn't BAD, but just seems like it could
have been much better with some minor adjustments. And the
lack of texture stitching is really out of hand in the tunnels.
Think I'm being picky? Check this
out.
Last in alphabetical order comes
WWOGCity
by El_Quickjo, his first map. He doesn't buck today's
trend of big blocky unstitched towns in valleys and he's got
a couple small 3dfx problems to boot, but if it counts for
anything his town is the largest of the bunch and the interiors
are pretty good. What say I throw in a little
screenshot?
Get Frisky With It
Frisky advertised his new site on the OGB message board:
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Frisky's Outlaws Den
A fast, fresh site that is very easy and enjoyable to
read. News, maps and game info/tips as well as special
little features all his own make this one worth a browse.
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Hmm guess this means his old
DML Headquarters
isn't going to get much attention any more. ;) Let's hope he can
keep up the good work on this one.
salmoides had a helpful tip for those with Win98.
Apparently the standard Win98 disk defragmentation utility
doesn't tell you how fragged your hard drive is, like the old
Win95 one does. Well fear not, you can get the freeware
defragger Crackup
from ZDNet which apparently does all that and more.
Wildbill
let me know that he's added a massive Game Tips section to his
already juggernaut-caliber site. He's even got step-by-step
illustrations of how to install new maps, golly. Oh yeah and
he's been pilfering Outlaws player portraits right and left,
he's up to about 130 or so Outlaws mugs now. Quite a few people,
who knows who you'll find in there?
* * *
Thursday 6/17/99
A-Maze Your Friends
MikeDaKid whipped up another new map,
Maze.
You guessed right, it's a maze area designed for CTF, with
an underwater tunnel linking the two far ends to keep things
stirred up. I'm not too fond of the texturing here, seems a
bit more chunky than it could. Framerates are high. Err.
It's a maze. You try to find a flag. And shoot stuff. Oh
can it here's a screenshot.
Fort "Don't Call Me Hank" McHenry
Heavygear did announce a while back that he couldn't
run Outlaws anymore but he had a swell start of a map he
was calling "Fort McHenry." Well he's gotten a certain for-now
anonymous LawMaker to help him finish it up and to get yer
mouths waterin' he's sent me some screenshots of the work in
progress. These are a bit fuzzy b'cause I converted 'em from
fat .gifs to slimmer .jpgs but I think you'll agree they still
look right purty:
shot 1,
shot 2,
shot 3 and
shot 4. He also says that the
map is currently over 500 sectors and still growing, and will
include lots of new never-before-seen stuff that was too
top-secret to stick in the screenshots. Ooo I'm all a-tingle!
Bits and Bobs
Man the week goes fast, especially when the weather's nice. :)
But oo look there's some news stuff left! Klaxon Viper
(that's a weird name, but kind of catchy) let me know he's
updated the THEE gang
web site with more Outlaws stuff. Some new screenshots, game
info, tips for TCP/IP gaming and some links. And the delightful
Darlin'
sends word that Creative's
new TNT drivers with the Glide Wrapper built in run Outlaws
very well, with lovely picture quality and 80fps in Sanctuary
(fps will vary depending on CPU power but hey that's pretty darn
impressive for having no 3dfx card). So yes for all those who
want to ditch 3dfx there ARE options for Outlaws: they won't
ever be as fast as a native 3dfx graphics card but with
CPUs and graphics cards getting faster and faster soon it may
not matter all that much...
* * *
Wednesday 6/16/99
Dum Dee Dum
Nothin' much shakin' today, news wise anyhow. Think I'll take
the rare opportunity to get a bit more caught up on my
favorite level list. I tried out
Dude's numpad "always run" thing and yeah, I could
run without having to hold down a key but hehe I couldn't
stop. No brakes, no brakes! Well might work for you though,
as I've mentioned I have a funky ergonomic keyboard that looks
funny but ooo it feels so nice. :j Oh yes,
Wildbill
put up a new version of his logo, this one isn't blurry at all
and looks pretty darned good if I do say so myself.
* * *
Tuesday 6/15/99
New "Silent But Deadly" Site
Hmm when I was a kid we had certain things we referred to
as "silent but deadly" err... nevermind. Anyhow Truffle
has taken the new SBD posse site live, check it out (but mind
the warning, for goodness sake :p):
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Official WebPage of the SBD Clan
Looks pretty much like yer usual run of the mill posse
site, but the game info, news section and levels to download
pull the "Silent But Deadly" a bit higher than many even
if it is a bit tricky to navigate. If
you can't stand Western-style polka MIDI you will want
to avoid this one, however. ;)
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How to "Always Run" With the Numpad
I'm going to have to check this out when I get a chance, have
a feeling it may only work on certain keyboards (and my keyboard
has a funny numpad). BUT Dude
reports the following:
I don't know if it's anything new or not, but it's always kinda bugged me
that I had to hold the run key down all the time in OL, and it has been more
pronounced lately since I've been playing a lot of the newer games where you
can "always run" by default or by setting it that way in the setup. If I
played OL and then played Q3Test or HL I'd be all messed up trying to strafe
cuz my left strafe finger would always want to go to the run key for OL :)
Anyway, I figured out how to make OL "always run" using the numeric keypad.
It has to do with the fact that NumLock on the keypad is generally the same
as the Shift key. What you do is: after starting the game or respawning hold
the run key down that you've assigned on the keypad and hit the NumLock key
at the same time...and that's it. Now you're always running. Only thing is,
you'll have to change you keypad config to the inverse of the normal
settings, i.e. the "7" key now have to be the "Home" key, etc. because
you've turned off NumLock to get the effect.
Whoa shoot that's gonna be tricky, I'm not used to the numpad.
Actually I personally detest "always run" keys—people get so
used to using them that they can't move slowly and carefully
when it would be useful, not to mention the fact that if you
run constantly in OL you are going to be sucking wind pretty
quickly. Well off to bed, I'll have to try this out tomorrow
I guess...
Reviews, Framerates, What's It All Mean?
Raf found out this interesting morsel while ransacking
his old PCGAMER UK collection: Outlaws only got a 50% rating
from the mag when it came out, but later that year the readers
voted it the 73rd top game of the year. Hmm. That was in the
September 1997 PCGAMER UK.
Stryker has put up a
page all about
framerates wherein he tries to figger out just what framerates
mean for him. He's got a bunch of screenshots from his recent
Sunk City
map, with framerates ranging from 100 to 340 fps. Man, that's
pretty darn good. I get down into the 30's at certain spots on
the far side of the river, and let me tell you you definitely
can tell when that happens as moving and aiming just become
slower and more difficult. Anyhow Stryker has some things to
say about the whole fps thing, won't you listen in?
* * *
Monday 6/14/99
MikeDaKid's "Death in the Middle"
MikeDaKid sent me his latest,
Death
in the Middle, a small arena-style map with narrow ledges
criss-crossing over bubbly lava pits. Relatively simply layout,
I like the black ashy ground and actually I think the lava
effect, using brownish-red water, is one of the most convincing
I have seen. The stairs and caves set in the cliffs are a bit
on the rough-hewn side, however. Do you dare go for that elixer
in the middle? Well here's a
screenshot.
C the Site
DeadlyShot has made a new site for his CCC posse:
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Central Coast Cowboys
Extremely clean, distinctive design plus lots of
posse member info, files to download and game tips
make this an exemplary posse site. You can even learn
to tie knots by studying the background!
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It's probably also worth pointing out that while the CCC site
is using my screenshots, DeadlyShot asked me if he could well
before the site opened. Always nice when people are considerate. :)
More LawMakin' Hi-Jinks
Thanks to all th' smart fellers who filled me in on th'
mysterious color-changing textures I ran across yesterday:
turns out that it's a simple matter of having separate palettes
for two adjoining sectors. Pretty neat actually, I didn't know
Outlaws could sort of switch palettes on the fly like that: I'll
bet you could make all sorts of interesting effects with this
trick. Like... err... well okay none spring to mind yet, but
fer instance when I ran into this yesterday, going indoors and
having the textures turn all red I thought "oh-no I just walked
into a big oven and somebody turned it on!" :P Oh yes let's
see Raptor, Dusty, Hagen and GoJo
all had the answer for me, but since GoJo was the only one to
phrase his answer in the form of a question he gets the big
prize! (hmm not that I phrased my question in the form of an
answer, but oh well who's counting, there's no prize anyway ;)
Err let's see there was something else... oh yeah! Hagen posted
on the OGB message
board about a couple files you can get from
www.darkjedi.com to let
you adjust sector and wall properties in real-time while running
Outlaws in a window. Now I've never been too hot to use LawMaker
what with the arcane interface and not really being able to see
what you're doing (plus I'm lazy and math is hard) but this
"Sector Wall Adjuster" thingy is fun! Got a few error messages
when starting 'er up but it seemed to work okay and in no time
at all I was gleefully destroying a level by changing the
textures and sector heights and so forth. Whee! Well besides being
fun for me this is probably also a great tweaking tool for
serious LawMaker types, so get it if you ain't got it, foo!
My Cat's Breath Smells Like Cat Food
Well I don't have a cat but I bet if I did I
that
would be the case. Let's see there were a few things left.
Wildbill
made a new, more compact logo for his big site. A bit blurry
but fast and more interesting than the last one, I think. And
DirtyDon tells me that recently he found he was no
longer able to get into the Zone, turns out IE 5 was the
culprit. Actually I know a number of folks who have had trouble
with IE 5, but that's why it's still beta. Oh wait no it isn't
is it? Oh dear. :P
* * *
Suntag 6/13/99
Two New Maps and Lots of LuvTM
Okay so mebbe not so much Luv. But there ARE two new maps!
Hawk (as in BOK) sent in
Outdoors.
As the name implies this is very big and open though set beneath
a sicky green sky (I hear you get it green by using a sky that
isn't meant for that level palette). Two gatling guns but really
Doc and James will dominate here with rifles. Simple level so
framerates are high but there is one nasty 3dfx glitch that should
have been caught—somebody get that boy a 3dfx card! Here's the
obligatory screenshot.
Then, Hawk (he kicked ass in Buck Rogers) strikes again, this time teamed up with fellow posse
mate Poison to create
Land BOK 2.
Again sort of in the big'n'simple mode but if there's one thing
these maps have going for them, it's high framerate. This one's
a bit more complex and I must say I kind of dig the offbeat
texturing (yes I did just see The Spy Who Shagged Me ;). Sort
of a fight around a big fat block of a one-room building. I ran
into something here that I don't know that I've seen before,
however. When I crossed the threshold into the building the
textures would suddenly redden (is that a word? oh well it is
now). See, here's a shot
just outside and then one
just inside. Is this just my
Banshee going nutzoid or have the magnificent BOKmeisters hit
upon a trippy new effect? <insert Jeopardy music here>
* * *
Saturday 6/12/99
New Version of NWX Editor
As he promised earlier this week, Raptor has
released a shiny new version of his great Outlaws object
editing program,
NWX Editor v0.3 (181k).
A whole heap of improvements and new features in this release,
check out the
version
text for the full list. Some nice kinks worked out to make
it a lot easier to work with but the main improvement is
definitely the new file size reduction capabilities 0.3 sports.
Not only is there a handy "remove" feature for getting rid of
unused cells, you can also set frames that look the
same to use the same cell so that you only have to have the
image in there once no matter how many times it appears in
the object's animation. Smooth! This is definitely a must-have
for LawMakers and even for the casual nwx fiddler like myself.
Ah almost forgot, Raptor's included a guide for reducing nwx
file size in the .zip that even has specific frames to remove
for the six standard characters, check it out
here
while you download the full .zip. :)
Stryker Updates SunkCity
Stryker has updated
his recent map, coming out with
SunkCity2.
Still the same funky underwater parts where you can breathe
inside the buildings and shoot out into the water, but it looks
like he's fixed the 3dfx trouble spots (yay) and generally
toned up the map a bit. Framerates are still on the l-o-w side
in some spots, but if you liked the first version this update
will make you pretty happy. That water trick sure is interesting—I just
noticed that if I come out of the water through one of the tunnels
instead of the beach area, my breath bar remains in place of my
fatigue meter. I still get tired though, dang! :P
Take Vittles With a Big Grain of Salt
Apparently a couple folks out there have misunderstood the
purpose of my mini-reviews of new maps. When I get a new map I
just run through it, explore the whole thing to see what's
inside, try out any interesting features I find and snap a
screenshot or two if I find an inspiring view.
When I write about it afterwards I try to remain as faithful
to the impressions I got while running through it as I can.
Why do I write anything about it at all? Because I want to
share my views. I want people to try out maps that I like.
That's the main thing.
There are, of course, maps that I don't like. This is my opinion
and I know that my opinions differ from everyone else's. That's
as it should be. So why share a negative opinion? Well, since
I talk about positive aspects I think it would be hypocritical
of me to ignore the negatives, as I see them. I talk about things
I don't like ultimately in the hope of having people think about
them and perhaps, just perhaps, remedy them in the future.
I'm not going to whitewash things I see that could be better.
But again "better" is a subjective term. I never claimed to be
unbiased or that I can completely avoid hypocrisy. But I do try
to be fair and honest. I try to point out positive sides when
I can see them. Sometimes I can't, and more often then not that's
my problem. But people tell me they find what I write helpful
and if this site is going to have any value at all I think I've
got to keep telling things like I see them. That's what this
site has to offer: my opinion.
MY opinion. NOT YOURS. I am not an authority on what you like
and dislike. Just because I didn't like a map does not mean that
you won't and it certainly does not give anyone the right to
insult a LawMaker. Even trying a map for yourself does not give
you that right, but it will give you a basis for your own
constructive criticism. But anyone who takes what I say in a
map review as ammunition to use against a LawMaker is making
a baseless argument. Anyone who insults a LawMaker because of
an opinion I had about their map is insulting me as well.
I've never made a map. I admire those who do. My feelings about
a map have nothing to do with my feelings about the map maker.
My aim is constructive criticism and the last thing I want to
do is discourage LawMakers. I try very hard to avoid anything
resembling a personal attack in my reviews and if you see anything
of that nature you have every right to write me and demand an
apology. And I will thank you, my readers, to refrain from
attempting to use my map reviews to insult anyone. If I could
ban such people from viewing my site I would do it in an instant.
Just felt I ought to clear that up. :P
If You're Still With Me...
There're still a few news tidbits left on the plate. Dude
tells me that the recent 1.12 version of
Creative's "Unified"
driver which runs 3dfx Glide games on their TNT and TNT2 cards
doesn't have any Outlaws improvements, and that Creative's Bill
Ball has posted on their newsgroup that Outlaws is not
a priority for them. Well I can't blame them for that, anyways
the Unified wrapper does run Outlaws decently aside from a
few minor glitches, from what I hear. And remember this is
the driver that has earned Creative a big lawsuit from 3dfx
so they really have stuck their neck out on this one.
Scott Cutler's "XGL200" wrapper runs Outlaws pretty darn
well on lots of D3D cards, check the
other helpful files page for more
info and links.
Karrde is working on a VERY intruiging new Outlaws map.
I've seen a short "demo" of it and I can say that he is really
attempting some groundbreaking stuff with this one. But he can
already see that this innovation is going to come at the cost
of an unprecendented map file size. He doesn't want to release
something so large that you won't want to download it so he'd
REALLY appreciate it if you all could let him know if you think
he should go ahead, file size be darned, or just not bother.
Now personally I say go for it,
OZ_Hotel
showed that people are willing to wait on a download if it's
something really good, but remember you all have your opinions
too! Give him a hand by emailing him at
[removed]
and let him know where you stand. He hopes to have the map
done in about two weeks or so. He's going to be on vacation for
half that time so now is the crucial time for him to get your
feedback. Let him know!
Lastly but not leastly Rat_Filthy has posted his
bi-weekly ranking update for the deadliest Orleans fighter at
his great Orleans
Seafood House & Tavern. Annie gets the title this
time around because, in Rat's words, "not only
did she beat the livin' snot out of the RAT, but she did it
with......gulp......Bob friggin' Graham!" Hehe. Well I definitely
know what it is like to be humbled by a Bob—certainly gives you
something to think about. Well that's more'n enough outta me
today.
* * *
Thursday 6/10/99
Three New Maps with No Txt Files
Oh dear, never a good sign when the author hasn't even bothered
to sign their work. :P
Still I know who made th' first two, 'cause he sent 'em to
me. SwissChez sent along two of his own maps,
Shady
Acres and
Fair Play.
By his own description, "Shady Acres" contains some "weird
stuff." Well, the only weird stuff I found were some rather
large 3dfx holes in the ground and a lack of stitching in
the walls, otherwise this canyony ice-field is rather visually
pleasing, though a bit maze-like for my tastes. Check the
screenshot. "Fair Play" is
designed for CTF with two perfectly identical floors one
above the other. A somewhat new idea for a balanced CTF map,
on the plain side but serviceable, I should think. The sawed-off
in each base would certainly stir up some trouble. Here's
a screenshot.
Picked up the third map at
Outlaws Gang Busters.
GDO Home
by Sniper (okay so his name is in the map title line)
is the old theme of doing a house in a 3d game engine and
expecting your friends to enjoy running around in it. Hmm. Well
I enjoy 3dfx errors, no stitching and instant death floors
about as much as I enjoy traffic jams at the airport baggage
claim (don't ask :P). Here's a screenshot of one room that
actually had some visual flair. I suppose I really ought to get
a shot that better represents the map as a whole but who wants
to look at an ugly screenshot?
Web Stuffings
Besides the new map, also found a new site mentioned at OGB...
oh wait no I already had
Tuff Texan's
Outlaws Tournament Page on my link list. Just didn't
recognize it as it's grown somewhat. Ironic that the only
real Outlaws tourney permitted in the Zone is run mostly
through straight IP games to reduce lag. Hehe.
Simon is a finicky fellow, he's got the web design
bug pretty bad. Just let me know he's posted a third re-design
for the already sharp-looking
Simon &
Garfunkel Outlaws Site. Getting better all the time I'd say.
Beignet
has updated her site with more of her patented Outlaws
naughtiness. Geez, her new kitty died, too. *sniff* Still the
irrepressible Beig remains her ever bubbly bad self, you can
even catch some of her older cheesecake pictures still on the
news page. Sheesh. ;j
Lastly, Nintendo has posted a preview of an upcoming
Western game for that kick-ass Game Boy Color (what can I say,
I'm a fiend). Lucky
Luke from Infogrames (you kick butt JJ :) is a platform game
with the tried-and-true plot of
"The most infamous outlaws in
the old west have broken out of
jail, and Lucky Luke is the only
cowboy crazy enough to try to
stop them." Cartoony nature of the screenshots actually reminds
me a lot of Outlaws, I could swear I see Sanchez and Two Feathers
in a couple of 'em. And is that Bob flying through the air? Oh
wait no that's probably a vulture. ;) Hmm actually Infogrames
has quite a site up for the original 3D Playstation version at
www.lucky-luke.com,
almost makes me wanna buy a PSX. Almost.
* * *
Wednesday 6/9/99
Go To Mallard's
Yeah go on, git outta here an' go visit
Mallard's
Saddlebag. He's been real busy lately, spoonin' up
tons of level reviews, news and even a HTML basics section
fer all you budding web masters and mistresses. He had
a map I didn't,
Suntown
but I pretty much agree with his review that this big flat
squarish map with chickens isn't really worth yer time. He's
got oh so much more than that though, so get on out of here
an' head over there now! I ain't got no more news t'day. :P
* * *
Tuesday 6/8/99
Raptor's "Pinball" Land
A big chunk of a file landed in my inbox from Raptor.
A hefty 946k, Pinball
is a REALLY unique map indeed. Perhaps you've played a little
game called "Kirby's Pinball Land" on the Game Boy in which
you smack a round little chap named Kirby about a bunch of
pinball table shaped level (lots of fun, by the way! check out
the recent review at
recent review at gbc dojo),
here's a screenshot. Anyhow,
in Raptor's "Pinball" you learn what Kirby must have felt
like: you become the ball in a giant pinball machine!
The table is based on the simple but classic layout in
Microsoft's little Windows Pinball game.
To complete the transformation Raptor has put together an
incredible array of pinball-perfect sound effects, textures
and character images. Yes, the characters actually do look like
big steel balls with handguns. ;) Here's a
screenshot of me as a pinball,
I've probably never looked better. There are appropriate
pinging and ringing sounds for everything, even for picking
up items and reloading your weapons!
But the very best part is, of course, ricocheting around this
electronic arena at supersonic speeds. It's dizzying,
exhilarating and probably not for the faint of heart. Man,
this is one level that I am REALLY going to have to make time
to play, basically the most complete transformation of the
game yet seen, well worth the download I should think. Check
out these screenshots while you get the map:
shot 2,
shot 3 and
shot 4.
By the way, Raptor took special care to reduce the file
sizes of the character .nwx files as much as possible, as these
make up a large part of the map's file size. If you're going
to include custom characters in your level, you need to use
his .nwx editor to replace unused animation frames to keep the
file size down as much as possible. The simple thing to do is
just to replace the unused frames with 1x1 transparent pixels.
The unused frames are different for each character. Raptor has
a list, hopefully he'll get this on the web somewhere for
LawMakers to use as a reference. I just don't want to see
maps wasting space with un-needed character animation frames.
A Keyboard Turn Speed Tip
Ben Rogers found a way to make keyboard turning
more responsive:
When playing around with the Outlaws registry
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Lucasarts
EntertainmentCompany\Outlaws\Users\Default User\Keys) there's a string
called "Yawl Accel MSecs." I found that by changing this from the
default (200) to zero, I negated the annoying lag that would possess
your character when using the keys to turn left or right. I think it
must have something to do with the delay before reaching full turn
speed; i.e. changing it to 0 meant no delay, whilst 200 was something
like 200th of a second (?).
Well there you have it. Not really sure how many folks out
there are using the keyboard to turn; frankly, you'll get
MUCH better control using a good mouse to aim. Buy yeah there
are always people who just have to do things their own way...
Asianary's Outlaws Site
Well it's a bit wild and wacky, but here 't'is:
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Asianary's Outlaws Western
Grammatically unusual, a bit rough around the edges
and definitely not very PC but, if you can take it,
an interesting and definitely unique individual
Outlaws site.
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* * *
Monday 6/7/99
Trojan Virus Warning from Stryker
Remember that supposed Lucasarts music converter that
Stryker posted
the other day? Well a routine virus scan of his system found
that the files in the archive are infected with a virus.
So if you downloaded it, delete it; I don't think it would
have worked with Outlaws music anyhow (Outlaws music is standard
CD audio). If you unzipped it, do a virus scan to be sure
nothing's gotten into your system. On my
other helpful files page you'll
find a link to the freeware F-PROT antivirus program, a very
good one. Heck even if you didn't download the file, try
F-PROT out anyhow you just might save yourself a lot of trouble
later.
New Maps
Man, what is up with Mondays and new maps? Gosh.
Stryker scores news again with a new map,
SunkCity.
The interesting thing about this one, set up sort of as a two
fort deal with a lake between, is that in the submerged city
you can breathe inside the houses, and shoot out into the water.
Whoa, pretty funky. See, here's a
shot from underwater. Actually
you can't quite breathe normally as your breath bar doesn't
go back up, but at least it doesn't go down. This raises a lot
of interesting possibilities. Otherwise there really isn't a whole
lot to recommend this map as framerates are pretty darn bad
(something to do with the water trick, I think) and there are
a few small 3dfx errors. Here's a
shot from up top.
Skywalker sent in his latest,
Ugly.
Actually it's very nice looking, I especially like some of
the interiors as you can see here.
A small town in a canyon, framerates are amazingly high in most
spots especially for the number of windows and posts and things
he's got in here. Here's a
shot of the colorful saloon.
Looks like a good lil' town fer a shootout. Some of the interiors
are a bit narrow, have to see how that works when I try it out. ;)
Hmm okay well there were almost more maps than that, but one
the author decided he needed to work on more, and one I'm hoping
the author can optimize a bit 'cause it looks incredible. If
anyone can do it, it's him. Hope to have more on that tomorrow.
There are also a couple more news items but frankly I've just
got to get some shuteye now. :p
* * *
Sunday 6/6/99
Four New Maps
Slow week for new maps last week, I had a feeling more were
a-brewin' and here they come.
Picante sent me his spicy new one,
Jalapeño
(you have to savor that n and roll it around in your mouth,
you see). This is a medium-sized Mexican fort with very nice
texturing and construction. The fort is very well planned out
and you feel like gosh, so this is what a Mexican fort looked
like!
The interior of the fort has buildings around an open courtyard
with a double-tiered fountain, and that fountain is my only
niggle with this map. The Outlaws engine doesn't handle looking
through circular areas with detail in the middle very well and
the framerate gets a little rangy looking across the courtyard,
especially from the rooftops.
Then again it is a very authentic-looking fountain, and who
can blame Picante for the fact that Mexican forts just weren't
made for top framerates? Blame the old Mexicans, I guess. Here're
the screenshots:
shot 1,
shot 2
and shot 3.
Sleepy made a new map called
Dead By Dawn,
a pretty large outdoorsy map designed with CTF in mind. The
layout is interesting and doesn't rely on sides that are
exactly identical: one fort is a cabin which has multiple
entrances but only one approach and the other is a mine shaft
with only one entrance but multiple approaches, if that makes
sense. There are lots of trees outside and a waterfall that looks
nice. Everything is a bit dark but this is supposed to be
pre-dawn, after all. There are very few items around so you
have to make the most of your resources. A very good addition
to the ranks of Outlaws CTF maps, I think. Check some shots:
shot 1 and
shot 2.
I collected two maps from
Darlin's
site,
Tricky Fix
and Tricky 2,
both by the same guy whose name I forget, same guy who did the
recent Tricky
I should think. Well I didn't like Tricky much and I'm not sure
what "Tricky Fix" fixes but it doesn't make the map more
interesting for me. "Tricky 2" isn't low-gravity like its
predecessor but it goes for this very cramped underground tunnel
maze with no lighting variation that actually came near to
making me nauseous. Not very well put together, either. Ahh
I had a screenshot but it really isn't worth it, I only got 10
megs out of 80 left anyhow. ;)
* * *
Friday 6/4/99
Cutter's Big "Little Whisky"
As I mentioned yesterday, Cutter just released a
new map
Little
Whiskey that easily takes the crown as the largest
Outlaws map file ever, weighing in at a mighty 1 MB even
when compressed and over 2 MB uncompressed. What takes up
all this space? Well he's got 5 modified characters in
there, replacing everyone except Two Feathers with badguy
characters from the main game. He's also got a ton of
audio clips from Hollywood westerns that play when you pick
up certain objects. And he's got a heap of new items and
textures to give the level a very special look.
Overall it's a very nice level, in the open horizon style
with a small 4 building town in the desert. There are a good
number of small windows facing the street, making cross-street
shootouts a possibility. The place looks very nice and the
custom sounds should add a fun old Western touch. I found that
a few of the normal items didn't have their regular pickup
sounds on them, could have just been my sound card. On the
whole this is a very well tailored map, well worth the download.
I took a few screenshots:
shot 1 and
shot 2.
LucasArts LAB Utilities
Stryker has added
"LucasArts LAB Utilities v1.3" to his "Misc addons" file
section. These seem to be sort of hacks to... well here's
some of what the readme has to say:
There are two utilities included: UNLAB and IMX2WAV. UNLAB will extract
and decompress all of the files in a .LAB file so that you can do what
you want with them (background gfx, sound themes...whatever). IMX2WAV
will convert any LucasArts .IMC or .IMU music file to a .WAV file.
Ah...ha. Well LawMaker's ConMan can manage .lab files, but that
music converter might come in handy for those wanting to mess
with the Outlaws soundtrack, if it is in one of those formats.
New GSK Posse Site
Yessir a nice new site I recently found out about:
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Graveyard Shift Killers
An excellent example of how to make a stylish site
without using images. Great use of fonts and color
make this site a breeze to browse, and the extensive
information section provides a well-written reference
guide with solutions for yer Outlaws troubles.
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Toodles!
* * *
Thursday 6/3/99
Oops!
Well I managed to mess up just about everything yesterday,
that's what I get for letting new maps tick me off. :P So
let's see... I screwed up the JOE page URL, got that fixed
this morning thanks to quick feedback from Runaway Jim,
Grifter and Karrde. Hoss politely mentioned out that it was him, not
Martone who pointed out the extra .rcm in cavebear, as I should
have known because the OGB news guys thoughtfully color-coordinate
their news posts. And some dude named Rick and Grifter too
let me know that IE 5 lets you turn Javascript off, like
Netscape. Hurrah!
So let's see, what can I screw up today? Hmm not much, I
spent most of my free time this evening playing with
Mp3Spy which is pretty
darn cool, sure beats the heck out of the lame local radio
stations. Oh wait okay I did screw something up, I missed
Cutter's latest (and last?!?) map over at
Outlaws Gang
Busters. This baby weighs in at over 2 megabytes
when you unzip it, man! So I haven't looked at it yet, go
get the scoop from Hoss at OGB. He's also got a preview
of a new one coming up from Runaway Jim, looks like
a real firecracker...
* * *
Wednesday 6/2/99
Map Blitz Continues
Yes we have even more new maps today than yesterday, five
count 'em five new ones. Man is it hard to keep up...
Hagen is one of the prime movers yet again today,
sending me his map
New Orleans,
an edit of the LEC "Orleans" level. Hagen has dried up the
map, literally: he's removed the water to prevent the dreaded
"bobbing" technique that I always hear LawMakers complaining
about. Now me I'm not too sure what Orleans is without water,
as this lets you run about and jump up to areas you weren't
able to reach from the water before... hmm (and I think
Rat_Filthy's
Orleans Seafood House & Tavern might back me up on this one). He's also removed
non-ML items and added in some of his own custom props. I
miss the pretty watery blue, as you can see in this very reddish
screenshot. I mean sure mebbe
removing the water defeats the "bobbing" technique but it
also sort of defeats the purpose of the map as a whole.
I filched the rest of the maps from
Outlaws Gang Busters.
However I should note right off that I changed the archive
for Kodia's Cavebear.
As Martone pointed out at OGB, there was an extra .rcm
file in there... it actually placed itself in an entirely
new folder in your Outlaws dir, which I didn't think was very
cool at all. ;P Cavebear is a rework of his "Bearcave" level,
adding in some new play modes. In case you don't remember,
here's the screenshot I took
of the original Bearcave. "Bearcave2" would probably have been
a more appropriate name but yeah it's hard to pass up a pun.
Martone also had two new ones from
Don Ramoses,
Don City and
Don Camp.
These are very nice looking levels with lots of buildings
windows and cross streets and stuff which would all be great
except that the structures are too open and there are quite
a few areas where framerates drop considerably. Here are a couple
screenshots: City and
Camp. One other thing I think
I should mention about "Don Camp:" the readme notes "Abandoned"
as a base. Slaters_dog's readme for
Abandoned
says quite specifically that it may not be used as a base for
levels by other LawMakers. However, looking through "Camp"
I didn't see anything I could say was taken right from the
Abandoned .lvt file, so I'll let that slide. BUT just so you
know, if I do find maps that use other people's work without
their permission, those maps do not get posted on my server.
The final map is
Hometown,
yet ANOTHER map by the fiendish Chet_R1. I kept crashing
when I tried to go upstairs in this big house/building structure
so I gave up trying to get a screenshot. It was probably something
to do with running the map in NT but normal well-behaved maps
do not have a problem with that. I might bother trying to check
it out in Win95 but heck, Chet doesn't even bother writing a
new .txt file for each map so I'm not too motivated to make the
effort. ;P Hmm I think today's maps have put me in a bad mood, shoot.
JOE Guild Site Online
Kali fixture DirtyDon has been planning this and
various other JOE schemes for quite some time now and it looks
like they're starting to come to fruition. The site is
still in the early stages but I'm giving it top marks first
because you can really see the time and planning put into it
and second because Don would never let me hear the end of it
otherwise, and I have to respect his dedication. ;)
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J.O.E.: An Online Multi-Game Guild
The JOEs started back in the early days of Kali Outlaws
and have flourished ever since, branching out into all
sorts of other games. However their roots are in Outlaws
and they haven't forgotten them. This site sports stylish
50's Art-Deco graphics wrapped around a ton of information
on this huge and busy bunch of Kali gamers.
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There now that wasn't so hard. Let's see what else today...
uhh... oh yeah I realized I made a format goof-up with my .html files
a little while back. Went ahead and corrected that, reducing
all the pages by about 15% file size so things should feel a
little bit zippier around here. And thanks to Idgit for
showing me how to disable Javascript in Netscape 4, good to know
you can still do that in the new versions (something IE has
never let you do :P).
* * *
Tuesday 6/1/99
Map, Map, Map and Map
Gosh, just a four day work-week this week (in the U.S., that is)
and we already
have four new maps. :)
Hagen, in whose excellent
Lakota
Basin I and seven other people spent close to two hours
joyfully mauling each other yesterday, sent me a brand new
map last night.
Heartbreak
Ridge is, like Lakota, an attempt to model a natural
landform. But there Lakota was essentially one big bowl-shaped
area, the Ridge breaks the area up into multiple irregular
openings, canyons, tunnels and caverns. Needless to say
strategic possibilities abound... you'll have to do a lot
of bounding yourself if you want to get around! Heh for me
this map could be called Anklebreak Ridge, but I'm sure
I'll get th' hang of things eventually. I took a number of
pictures 'cause in addition to building great natural rock
formations, Hagen is pretty darn good with natural lighting
and texturing effects as well. Oh yah he's also got custom
props and sounds in there too but time presses so on with
the shots. Just get this map, pronto!
Shot 1,
shot 2 and
shot 3.
BaD BoB sent me a new map of his own,
Bobs
Bunker. Sort of a one-level cave and clearing affair, with
nice wood flooring and brickwork in the cave. Dang, that cave
is nicer than my apartment. Well at least I have a
screenshot to enjoy it in.
Wildbill
has been going great guns with his site lately, today he sent
along two new maps that he's collected (posted on his site first,
obviously),
12th Level and
SWL, both
by Chet_R1. Chet has been crankin' out maps like crazy
so yes "12th Level" is indeed his 12th Outlaws map. Mebbe he
named it that instead of a descriptive-type name because it IS
a bit tough to describe, some buildings in canyon with
slightly unexpected twists to them as well as lots of doors
to open, which is a little annoying. Here's a
screenshot of an interior.
"SWL," I guess his 13th map and named after his posse, is yer
usual elbow-shaped-two-fort-CTF type map with some very
unusual switch manipulation required to get through the bases.
This is an interesting idea, though it could prove a tad
frustrating in laggy internet conditions. Well anyhow here's
a fort screenshot and a
shot of one of the switchy
areas: in this one you have to trip a switch to get in a cell,
then press a panel, wait for an elevator to descend, hop in
and wait for it to go back up. Whew.
* * *
Monday 5/31/99
Ratted Out in Orleans
Rat_Filthy has done up a new site dedicated to just
one thing, the "Orleans" map. Now you'd think this'd be a
small site... an' you couldn't be more wrong! To quote the
Simpsons, Ratty has made one helluva site dedicated to this
"home of pirates and drunks and whores" (not that I've
ever been there myself).
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Rat_Filthy's Orleans Seafood House & Tavern
The only Outlaws site dedicated to a single Outlaws level,
Rat's Seafood House covers every aspect you could possibly
cover in the "Orleans" map, and does it with a whopping dose
of rodent flair. A bit heavy on the download but each custom
image is either instructive or hilarious, and usually both.
If you want all the low down on Orleans, the best place to
get it is from the Rat's-eye view. An' even if you couldn't
care less about Orleans, the Seafood House & Tavern has
plenty of great tips and humor that even the most jaded
Outlaw will appreciate.
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Two New Maps from OGB
Found two new maps by Caleb over at
Outlaws Gang Busters.
Both are of the err big-boned variety, with huge wide tunnels
and such, no texture stitching and no running sounds.
But there's something almost compelling in the self-titled
Caleb map,
it goes a little beyond the usual starter map and actually seems
almost like a real place. Maybe you can see it in the
screenshot. I wasn't as taken with
DK's Hide
which is sort of tunnels in boxworld, or something. Check the
screenshot.
Well that's about it, have a good Memorial Day. I'm hoping to
get in a lil' Outlaws action later this evening. Oh yah
SilverZ added a rather odd
screenshot
page to his "V4E" site which is already pretty weird.
And I tried some behind-the-scenes reworking of some of my larger
pages (links, levels) to make them display faster, but gave up...
Netscape and IE just don't agree on how to align tables,
and the solution that worked in one just wouldn't work in the
other, and vice-versa. Gah. I guess I could break the pages
up into multiple smaller pages, but I'm stubborn and I just
don't want to do that, so there.
* * *
Sunday 5/30/99
Four New Maps (Wildbill Updates)
Yeesh, I am gettin' really bad at updating regularly on the
weekend. :P Let's see what I've been missing...
sshep sent me yet another new map he's made, this latest
called Boomtown.
This is a medium-sized town with a jail, hotel, barber shop,
theatre and so forth. Framerates are good throughout and there
are some interesting ways to get around, though some of the
building layouts seem a little odd. Pretty good map though.
I took a lil' screenshot even.
Not only does
Wildbill
have a full review of Boomtown with like 13 screenshots of
the level, he also had three other new maps as well. He's also
spruced up his site by adding the level reviews section and
reducing load times by cutting down on the graphics and music.
Wow, see now there's a guy who doesn't take time off on the
weekend like lazy old me hehe.
The most recent of the new maps I found there besides Boomtown
was TNT's Favorite
17. A pretty bizarre map by TNT_PoPeYe, basically
a level shaped like the number 17, with bunches of items thrown
around. Hmmm okay... anyhow I took a
screenshot, this is from the
top end of the number "1." :P
SWL_Chet_R1 did up
Face It
as a two-forts-facing-each-other style CTF map. Nice construction
here, the broken bridge between is particularly well done. Some
odd bits like a wall that appears after getting the vanishing
cream from atop the waterfall. Also I may be missing something
but the map might be somewhat unbalanced, for instance I found
a badge in one fort but not the other. Interesting. Here's a
screenshot.
Fort Matt
rounds off the bunch. This one was really frustrating just to
run through due to the fact that certain areas area accessible
by only one long, treacherous path, with nasty falls along the
way. Most buildings also have their entrances blocked by doors
which could be aggravating in a laggy game. Well anyhow here's
a screenshot.
Simon, Nikita Also Update, Maybe I Will Too
Simon let me know he's redone the design of the
Simon &
Garfunkel Outlaw's Page, much easier to get around in
now. :)
Nikita has also given her site a big spring makeover
and even a new name,
Niki's Outlaws
Party Palace. Still brazenly pink and purply but darned if
it isn't one fine site.
I'm gonna look into making some of my longer pages (like that
darn link page) display faster... darn site's getting too fat
hehe.
* * *
Thursday 5/27/99
A Real Win98 Join Fix?
Wes Hardin wrote me this:
I have been having a lot of difficulty getting into games that have
already started. Was getting into about 1 in 8. Would get a
"Outlaws not responding message".
I checked my internet security level setting and it was on high. I
dropped it to medium low and started getting into games at about a 4
in 5 ratio.
So mebbe we have here a genuine fix for the problem people
are having joining games when running Win98. Since I don't
play in Win98 myself I'd appreciate it if some of you folks
could try this out an' lemme know if it helps. :)
Spectre's "1999 Outlaws All Star Ladder"
Spectre has an interesting idea for a new twist in
a two-on-two Outlaws ladder. He's looking for teams to sign
up right NOW, so if yer gang thinks you have what it takes,
check it out!
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The 1999 Outlaws All Star Ladder
Just imagine of each Outlaws posse sent their
two baddest hombres to an elite two-on-two
tourney. Think of the carnage to ensue! Well
this is Spectre's brainstorm, all topped off
with a neat theme reminiscent of a certain
major baseball league. Play ball!
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The Biggest Outlaws Logo of All
Silverwire (aka SilverZ) sent me the following URL,
a site which he has made stand out in rather brilliant fashion.
Oh yeah then I found another new site on their link list,
so we have two URLs actually:
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Rock 'ard Renegades
Slightly better than normal looking posse site, though
the RARs do boast the single largest logo in Outlaws
history thanks to the mad stylings of SilverZ. How big?
I'd say 964 pixels wide is pretty darn big... the neat
thing is it all fits into 30k. So I like big fast loading
things, okay?
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ACS hq
Wow! Big backgrounds with Outlaws graphics... really makes
text hard to read! Who would have thought it—but now
we know. Not a whole lot here other than regular posse
info, some maps, tips on using taunts... did I mention
how it's really hard to read?
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More LawMaker Discovery Time with WinSanc
Yes, I think the little winter conversion of Sanctuary is
being adopted by the Outlaws LawMaking community, sort of
a lost little lamb that everyone wants to nurse back to health
so they can shoot the heck out of it. Today, Runaway Jim
pitches in with several tips for our poor waif (I'm
being lazy so I'm jus' gonna paste th' whole thing, post-script
and all :):
Heya....was just on your site and noticed the problem you had encountered w/
the Winter Sanctuary fix concerning the changing skies...this usually
happens when Lawmakers change sky textures and forget to change a sector or
2...therefore, when u look at that sector from certain angles or are in that
sector u get the sky change...that's easily fixable...I took the liberty of
going into Lawmaker and finding the culprit...sure enough, this being a
Lucas Arts original, the bar porch upstairs had the old texture....this is
due to the fact that LArts mapmakers didn't take full use of the layers
provided in Lawmaker so if they have a sector over-top of another sector and
providing they don't overlap height wise, it's perfectly O.K. except that it
makes it difficult to notice that sector when editing...HOWEVER, when
checking for errors, it said that the # of Walls <> the # of sectors and
also that there was a bad sector that it couldn't fix....to be honest, i
have never encountered these error and from the looks of these, it can't be
good...one thing I would suggest to the author is to delete the town square
sector and make another one... I would have tried that myself but i didn't
want to take the time adding and stitching the textures again....I don't
know if those errors will keep the map from working, but I'm betting that
they do....anyway, i think that's all i have to say about that...
P.S. - Don't quote that suggested fix for fact because i'm not sure if it
will work but i hope it does as it seems that this is a fairly popular map
right now
Whoops, late breaking update. Marshall just dropped his
own updated version of WinSanc (which was his originally, btw).
I'm renaming the file to keep it straight, so come get
wintersanc2.zip.
Mechanized Mice, Poltergeists and Bad Email
salmoides sent me the URL for
this
Logitech press release hyping their upcoming force-feedback
mouse. I think Microsoft actually announced one recently as
well... now call me a pessimist who's blocking progress, but
why on Earth do people think it's a good idea to put a rumbling,
vibrating motor in a precision pointing device? Okay, so maybe
force-feedback Minesweeper WOULD rock. :P Here's a snippet from
the PR: "Novice gamers and kids could benefit from a mouse that
moves by itself to guide them through an unfamiliar interface.
Force feedback will also enhance the online experience. Now
internet-based gamers will feel the impact of being fragged
by an online nemesis thousands of miles away..." Yeah, they'll
be getting fragged because they can't control themselves as
their mouse skitters away across the table. Sheesh. One of my
coworkers is fiending for one of those new Microsoft mice,
you know, the one with tail-lights. Maybe I can get a force
feedback mouse to come along and break the tail-lights. ;D
Stryker sent in
this screenshot which he
describes as follows:
"We were playing proudness and while standing in the corner,,,,this
thing popped up in front of me..There were only two of us in the map
checking it out and he was way over on top of that platform with
TNT...this thing blocked my view... but didn't his... he killed me
lol... strange it looks like a guy..." Whoa, that sure is one weird
screenshot. Stryke doesn't mention why he was playing in 800x600
software mode, not to mention running a screenshot program, but I
guess we can consider ourselves lucky he managed to snag this bizarre
shot. Mebbe I should have a contest to explain what it is.
If you wrote me an email recently I WILL be replying like a civil
person, just as soon as I get time. I get to drive the parents
to the airport tomorrow morning so they can jet off to Italy,
home, as we all know, of the Spaghetti Western.
Bonjourno! (or whatever)
* * *
Wednesday 5/26/99
Maps: "Proudness," "Desert_Town," More on "WinSanc"
This week's been a bit slow on the map side of things, up
to now. French (I think) LawMaker jackling sent me
a copy of his very first (I think) map,
Proudness.
Well for a first map this one is extremely impressive, I must
say. It's a very complicated, somewhat symmetrical indoor/outdoor
maze atop a deep canyon. Mastering this one will take great
skill at hitting all the tough jumps 'cause if ya miss one, well
it's a long way down. Yee-ouch. Framerates are on the slower
side outdoors looking over the maze but should be acceptable,
I think. I would NOT want to have to navigate
this maze while being sniped
at! Oo and here's a neat shot from one of the
indoor areas. Very attractive
texturing I must say, though no stitching (doh). But like I
said a very impressive map indeed.
MikeDaKid sent me his latest,
Desert_Town.
Town may be stretching it a bit, after all it's just three
one-story buildings in a wide canyon. There isn't a whole lot
else to tell, but framerates are pretty much as high as you
can get and you could have some pretty wicked one-on-one rifle
contests here. Again no stitching but I like his selection of
textures, the pale red sand especially makes this map stand
out as you can see in this here
screenshot.
Skywalker pointed out that th' latest
wintersancfix.zip
still has a problem, namely with the sky. Most of the time it
looks like a windy wintery sky but if you look at it jus' right
it sometimes turns into a sunny summer sky, as you kin see in
these screenshots: one second it's
winter and then just a bit to the
right and you have summer. How
'bout that? Sheesh.
Doominator Updates His Western Songs
Th' Doominator has really taken to this composing thing
lately. He's up and moved his MIDI-made .mp3s to
http://www.amp3.net/lancelot
(I guess you could call "CHAN Lancelot" his recording name :)
where you kin download his very latest Spaghetti-Western
inspired composition, "Showdown." VERY nice to listen to with
quite convincing vocal harmonics and
he's got some good base in there too hehe. Give it a listen
though keep yer volume down at the start to get past the
brief but LOUD little advert.
* * *
Tuesday 5/25/99
Is ADSL Available in Your Area?
USWest sent me a new digital modem today 'cause as I mentioned
last week my old modem's AC adaptor died. I thought they might
jus' replace th' adaptor but hehe they sent over a whole new
modem. These things are pretty cool, Cisco model 675s... basically
they're self-contained routers and once hooked up they become
your default gateway with their own IP address and everything.
They've got their own operating systems, VRAM and best of all
they look like tiny little stealth bombers perched on top of
your computer with mysterious twinkling lights. Took me a while
to figger out how to get this new one working, but now I guess
I know a bit about programming digital modems. :i
Anyway what I was going to mention was that if you're interested
in a fast connection there just might be an ADSL (or other
flavor of DSL) provider in your area. adsl.com has a
list
of ADSL providers that you might want to check out. See
today some of th' guys at work noticed that besides USWest,
another company called Covad
offers DSL service in Seattle, among other areas. So it turns
out that my brother Slack-Jawed Pete, who wasn't close
enough to a USWest "central office" to get a good DSL signal,
IS within range of Covad. Cool!
Cable modems are another fast internet connection option you
might try checking into, I guess the thing to do is to call your
local cable companies. Out here in Seattle TCI has an exclusive
service contract and they are REALLY draggi |
