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Seventeenth Highest Shelf Vittles: 2.13.00-6.22.00
Back to Stale Vittles
Thursday 6/22/00
Bertherville or Bust
Must... post... some... news...
SOMEONE has done up his very first Outlaws
map,
Bertherville.
Although like many first maps Berthe tends toward the
big and flat look, you'll find careful attention has been
paid to gradations of light indoors and some interesting
and attractive things have been done with textures. The
"roof" sky is definitely out of the ordinary. A promising
map, I think. Check the
shot.
You can find out more about this 15-year-old
French-Canadian Outlaw at
his
web site (mostly non-OL related).
Speaking of sites, the
Metalliplasty's
Metal Militia Outlaws Site link is back online, the
site has been updated somewhat (red text on black background,
how very goth :).
I pray you, have patience with me if I don't get in a huge
update this weekend, someone had the brilliant idea of
making a deadline for our project on a Monday. We've missed
plenty of deadlines so far (every one, really :P) and there's
nothing to indicate we won't miss this one but that doesn't
mean we don't all get to have fun working through the weekend
anyway. =P
* * *
Sunday 6/18/00
Maps R Us
small
(shot)
by Killer: A square valley with some buildings,
a sniping hole or two in the canyon walls. Big chunk of
ground missing on 3dfx cards.
Granbury
(shot)
by Truffle: Named after a small Texas town near
the author's home, Granbury reminds me a lot of the one-road
town layout of Cutter's "New Cariboo" except a lot bigger
and with less attention to careful detail. There are some
minor texture popping errors that show up and one window
doesn't break for instance but if you want a big town, this
here's the answer. Unfortunately as you might expect with
a lot of buildings along one road, framerates along that road
are going to get really bad.
Theater
(shot)
by D.A.D.: Strange map in a valley focussing on
a small movie theater (hey Granbury has a theater too,
how about that?). A lot more normal than D.A.D.'s previous
maps but still has a fair amount of weird stuff thrown in
like acid traps, pitfalls, funky animal sounds, antigravity
water, etc. Really overdoes it on those darn bush sprites.
D.A.D. says this map is Voodoo-only, running it in software
mode will cause lockups.
And then Warrior just went totally nuts:
MiniSanc
(shot)
by Warrior: Long narrow canyon with two buildings,
cave base at either end and sniping caves along the sides.
Should make for pretty active small CTF matches.
DeathMatch Pond 2
(shot)
by Warrior: Two bases facing each other across a
pond, simple CTF style. Nice soothing canyon texture but the
lack of running sounds dampens the action a bit and the
scattershot item placement leaves it a tad unfocussed.
FaceOff
(shot)
by Warrior: Squarish simple grey buildings in square
canyons, another CTF map. Very basic, high framerates,
two-dimensional (not much use of altitude) and lacks running
sounds.
FaceOff 2
(shot)
by Warrior: Larger and better looking than the first
with improved texturing, a couple 2-story buildings and
running sounds (yay!).
GarboWay
(shot)
by Warrior: Very simple all-indoor mini maze map,
not altogether unattractive texturing though pretty lacking
in variety. Close quarters, high framerates.
Garboville
(shot)
by Warrior: Simple square valley with three buildings,
flat. No running sounds.
Labrinth
(shot)
by Warrior: Rather nice base texturing spoiled by a
big ugly "maze" in between the two forts. The maze doesn't
display on the automap but just running straight will see
you through and chances are you won't really want to go
back.
Warrior's Ranch
(shot)
by Warrior: Who would want to live on a two-room ranch
in a featureless valley surrounded by sniping slits? Simple,
solid, not particularly interesting.
WarTown
(shot)
by Warrior: Box-like buildings around a sides of a huge
valley. Ohhh, baby.
WarFortCTF
(shot)
by Warrior: Two forts in a rectangular canyon with
a peaked hill in-between, stop me if you've seen this before.
Simple, high framrates, etc.
WarCTF
(shot)
by Warrior: A lot like WarFortCTF except with crab-grass
(you know, with the red spots in it) instead of sand. I like
the criss-cross tunnels under the hill.
Warrior's Pad
(shot)
by Warrior: You can tell who's place it is because he's
signed his name in the ground. :P Aside from that stunt there
isn't a whole lot of interesting stuff in this little
one-building valley, the simple architecture and texturing
don't really grab ya but it should make a decent small DM
map.
Phew! Well despite the last-minute bombardments from Warrior
I finally caught up on maps. Now to see how much of the
other news I can catch up with before I drop. Probably not
much...
S_haft! He's the Ma-an...
S_haft is working on an Outlaws site with a "Shaft"
theme. Western blaxploitation? Hmmm...
Long MGL Rant
D1 and Only had the following to say about the MGL
drivers and for some reason figured I'd post it for him...
hmm.
Everyone playin outlaws multiplayer has 1 primary objective other than killin' ppl... That's high frame rates! FPS! The more the merrier! Well unless yer willin' ta spend $100 on a
voodoo card, then ya can simply install tha MGL Drivers from yer OL cd #1 or download it from pale's! It sounds all good an' easy, an' it does it's job of gettin' ya some higher PFS by
about 20% or 30%. And at tha lowest resolution, which I've used for the longest, and get about 275 FPS! That's swell and all but the only prob with that is that you cant see what yer
shootin'! and your gun looks like ice cream in the Sahara desert! The only way I've found to succeed like that is to shoot anything that's blurry an movin'!! I have been usin MGL drivers
for about 2 months now just fer the higher framerates. Now since I obviously don't have VooDoo, but I have been playin against people with VooDoo (needless to say I've been gettin'
massacred!) I have been tyin to squeeze evey last frame out of my system. And when I use MGL drivers, I notice somethin'!! Now everyone knows that its really hard fer people with
WINDOWS 98 to join a game on the ZONE. Well, it's even worse with MGL! If you can't connect to the game, guess what? You gotta reboot!!! This gets REALLY annoying cause MGL
tends to lock up more what Direct Draw which would let you use the Ctrl + Alt +Del tactic to exit (also called "exiting illeagally").
However, if ya try an pull this stunt with MGL, you see whatever screen you saw as you lock up and you can hear your computer workin in the background cause it IS! But MGL wont
update your display and let you see whats goin on! Therefore, you gotta press Ctrl +Alt + Del 2 times or hit the little RESET button. THis has happened to me at least 30 times in the last
2 months and it gets REALLY annoying. So I have switched back to Direct Draw drivers. Although I only get 50 FPS, i dont have to reset every other time I join a game! I get into 90% of
all games with Direct draw while I get into 50% with MGL. I for one don't think it's worth having to wair 3 minutes for your comp to reboot and do that SCANDISK which takes a minute or
two if ya do have errors. Anyway, I have stopped using MGL and I plan to get VooDoo3 which will put a stop to all my problems with FPS and freezing up (hopefully).
Another Western Grame?
Raf says Infogrames
plans to release a Wild West "Commandos"-style game called
"Desperados" around Christmas time. Are you as stoked as
I am about this? Yeeee-hawww. Okay so I'm not stoked at
all especially since there's nothing about it on the 'grames
site.
Aureal Sound Off?
Rumor has it that Aureal, creators of the Vortex sound
card chipset that gives Outlaws 3d sound through their
"A3D" API, has finally kicked the bucket. One clue is
that their web site is down. They've been financially
troubled for some time now and it's a darn shame b'cause
their sound cards are soooo much better than Creative
Labs. I mean I got my Vortex2-powered MX300 I think nearly
two years ago now and it's still cutting edge as far as
sound cards go. At work I had a Soundblaster Live! and
it died on me and I replaced it with an MX300 and suddenly
everything sounded better. Anyhoo... I really hope some
nice company comes along and saves Aureal, they make darn
good sound cards.
* * *
Thursday 6/15/00
New Outnet
Well I am still way behind on news stuff but this one
cuts straight to the front of the line:
lindow sent along the much-anticipated new version
of his mIRC Outlaws launcher,
Outnet v2.0b.
Version 2.0b adds fantastic bells and whistles like auto-detection of
your OL directory, server pinging, a map selection list for
hosting, a button to launch the OL config utility,
auto-nick renaming and more; this is basically
an elegant multiplayer front end to Outlaws. You simply
MUST try this out. Check the
readme
for all you need to know (aside from basic IRC stuff).
I'm hosting it here because lindow doesn't have it on the
official
Outnet site which hasn't been updated for like three
months anyhow. For future reference you'll be able to find
it on the
other useful files page.
Bah
Humbug. Three months and 70-80 hour work-weeks is getting
to be a real drag, even if it is working on video games.
Erg. Hopefully won't go much longer than the end of this
month... then also hopefully the V5 6000 will be hitting
stores, I'll have time on my hands and a pimpy new system,
not to mention Outnet 2. Soon, soon... maybe if I keep
telling myself that I'll believe it.
I did get my 19" monitor as a beginning to putting together
the new system. I like it. :) It's a "short neck" style
monitor so it only takes up the space of my old 17" and boy
does it seem a whole lot bigger. I can actually see what
1600x1200 looks like now... very tiny hehe.
Oh yeah... if anyone knows where I can get an Act Labs
"PowerRamp" PC arcade stick, please let me know. These
are great joysticks that don't take drivers or anything
because they work on a pass-through keyboard connection...
I found one in an old joystick compatibility bin at work
but now I need another for the rare times a friend comes
over to play stuff. :) More info can be found at the
official
Act Labs page; they aren't being manufactured
anymore so I have no idea
where I could get one, nuts.
* * *
Sunday 6/11/00
Voodoo 5 in Stores
Yup yup I saw with my own two beady little eyes a
Voodoo 5 5500 in Babbages this weekend. I was going around
looking for NGPC games I didn't yet have 'cause they're
going to pull them from stores this week, doggonit. Umm
but yeah V5's are out, someone send me some FSAA screenshots
from OL or something.
Outlaws Soundtrack Album Available
A bunch'a people, Joonas Linkola of
LucasFans
being the first, told me about LEC selling a special
version of OL (you'll see it on their
store entrance
page) with a separate "soundtrack" CD. Here's the
description:
Buy "Outlaws" for $19.95 and we will include the
original soundtrack
featuring the music by Clint Bajakian with your order.
A $12.95 value - yours
free with purchase. (While supplies last)
Hmm. Seems kinda funny since you kin just play the music
tracks off'a th' game CDs anyhow but maybe this puts the
tracks from both CDs on to one... guess that would be kind
of handy. Or you could just go get the actual Ennio Morricone
soundtracks from the "Dollars" trilogy since that's where
Bajakian ripped the music from.
New Maps Galore
These rascally LawMakin' types always send me a TON of
new maps whenever I announce I'll be missing a few updates.
:P So this isn't nearly all the new ones I got but this is
all I got time for t'night...
Forgiven
(shot)
by Tater: Loose layout of small buildings, a
river, a water tower and a few tunnels in a roughly
triangular, sloped canyon. I kinda like the ramshackle
layout. Features a modified 2-shot sniping rifle and
plays music off the 2nd CD.
New Water
(shot)
by Tater: Three ramshackle buildings on stilts in
a flooded, roughly-triangular canyon (is there a pattern
here) with tunnels around the sides. Didn't notice if there
was a modified rifle... Like Forgiven it could do with a bit
more attention to texturing and lighting and it plays music
off the 2nd CD.
Strip Mine
(shot)
by TenTacos: A die-hard sniper map. Extremely long
tunnels beneath a huge open arena. One beefy modified
sniper rifle. Those who love to snipe (bastards! ;) should
get a real kick out of this one.
The Spiral of Doom
(shot)
by Truffle: Good original canyon design with a
path twisting up around the valley below. The building
interiors aren't the most fascinating but the general
layout is very nice.
Moose sent in updates to three maps:
DomusDM,
MRanch and
Pesach.
MRanch and Pesach are some of Moose's early designs, don't
really care for 'em myself but the romanesque DomusDM is
lovely and well worth your time. Not quite sure what's
new in these, Moose just says
"i adjusted them, made them better and more playable..."
for a recent mIRC tourney. [Update: re-read Moose's mail,
DomusDM is actually a smaller version of
Domus,
preventing you from going outside the villa]
P.B. wrote to warn that he and a buddy have both
experienced lockups when running the recently-released
"Scalped" map so uh you've been warned.
Let me just close out this update with a big thanks to
Hoder for helping me clear a lot of deadwood out
of the links page. He also pointed
out three sites I'd listed twice in a row...
how embarrassing!
* * *
Thursday 6/8/00
Two New from Flopur
Doh it's late but if I don't get some sort of update
in everyone will think I'm dead. Actually I thought I
was dead earlier this week when I was at work until
9:30 am but after 8 hours of sleep it turned out I wasn't.
Sucks to get caught in morning rush hour traffic when you've
been at work all the past day and night. :P
Got two new map versions from Flopur,
Garbo
Map v2 and
Muddy
Ditches v3. The snow (if I remember aright) from the
first Garbo has melted into flowing water in the sequel,
kind of a nice change of seasons
(shot). The water ground
animation is a bit chunky and may prove distracting to some
but you gotta love those weird curly cracks. MudDitch3
removes the roofs on the outer buildings of the previous
versions and adds more detail to the central pyramid
(shot). I'm not sure I'm
too keen on the new look, also the central part now seems
to account for some rather low framerates.
Tombstone's Homepage
Austrian Outlaw Tombstone sent me the link to his
German-language Outlaws site. Am I gonna let a little thing
like a language barrier stop me from reviewin' a new site?
Sheesh is that a silly question...
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Tombstone's Homepage
All-German site by this Austrian outlaw, fortunately
you kin get a translated version through
Babelfish.
A bit heavy on the ripped graphics, animations and Java
stuff but there are a few things of interest like the
snippets of movie Westerns to download, some fan news,
odd music mp3's to download and an account of Tombstone's
Outlaws history.
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Ze Stuf
Saw "Shanghai Noon" this past weekend. Not a lot of
Jackie's trademark martial-arts action but it's just a
darn fun movie and to tell you the truth I enjoyed the
story and characters so much that I didn't even notice
the fighting bits were few and far between. A real
charmer—with two cute princesses to boot, you really can't
go wrong. :)
Uhh what else has been goin' on... oh 3dfx's Voodoo 5
5500's should be back on their way to retailers, goody
goody. I'm still waiting for the 6000 and there's still
no word on release date for that bad boy. I kinda jumped
the gun today by ordering a 19" monitor for my planned new
system. Pete said I should'a gone fer 21" but I don't think
my apartment is big enough. ;)
* * *
Sunday 5/28/00
Time to Steal Some News
Not a whole lot of news today. I had a new map but
thanks to a timely warning from Martone I
found that it has a crash bug in it so I'm not gonna
post it. :P
Hmm speakin' of Martone I'll jus' steal some news from
his OGB
Headquarters, namely a new Outlaws site... which
led to two other site's I hadn't seen before:
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Boothill Bob's Outlaws Page
Sets out to do things a bit differently and
succeeds. With things like best excuses for losing,
signs you're addicted to Outlaws and tall tales from
Outlaws battles, Boothill's put together one entertaining
site which also benefits from handsome design.
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Jake Big Chinn's Page
Very brief singlepager though the energetic rough
and ready presentation sort of makes up for the lack
of anything really useful to download, etc. Plain fun.
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Kickyerarse's Homepage
Sort of a lot of stuff, mostly cheesy graphics, thrown
together across several pages. Hard to make out
anything really worth the trip except for the Shania
Twain page—just seeing someone tie his obsession with
her in to Outlaws is rather impressive.
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Where is Klie Now?
There's a really really long article on the history
behind the making of Diakatana right
here
on Gamespot. I mention it because deep inside the article
(trust me, it is way longer than you think, just about did
me in trying to plow through it) if you can survive the
onslaught of innumerable smiling John Romero photos
you learn that Ion Storm
hired Chris Klie as lead level designer—Klie was the
lead level designer of Outlaws, he of the olanalklie
cheat. Poor fella, not really the project you'd wish
someone to end up on. And they didn't even get an Old West
time period into the game, what the heck is the deal with
that? :P
I guess I should warn y'all that later this week a friend
is moseying into town for a visit so I might not get in
updates next weekend... mebbe we'll go see that new Jackie
Chan East-meets-Western or somethin'.
* * *
Thursday 5/25/00
Was ist Passiert?
Anthrax has the unusual distinction of being a
native English speaker amongst a rowdy gang of Outlaws
loving Austrians, the
Mad Austrian
Desperados. Now being as how many English speakers
on the net use a barely comprehensible pigdin (and I count
myself among them), Anthrax is doing his best to compile
an Austrian Outlaws fan's guide to gaming language, which
you can find on the site under the "info" section. He's
off to a great start and the cool thing about this for
us English speakin' types is that it works in reverse too,
so now I know that "Crème zum verschwinden" means "Vanishing
Cream". Yay!
Anyhow to get to the real point Anthrax could use some help
getting more English "abbreviations and banter galore" to
translate into his adopted tongue so if you'd like to help
in this great project of bringing Outlaws internet gaming
illiteracy to the rest of the world, mail him ideas at
[removed].
Danke!
Mytie Mause Strikes Again
Speakin' of site updates, Mytie Mause has been
workin' hard pumpin' out updates to
Mytie Mause's
Outlaws Site. Th' mystery mouse now has two more
custom Outlaws Winamp skins, Sanchez and Bloody Mary,
as well as a new "high visibility" crosshair plus updated
news, Outlaw quotes and game tips. Whew!
Tra Laa Tra Laa New Maps
Art's Place
(shot)
by Kid Macoo: A recreation of some dude named
Art's apartment. Now I'm gonna be real worried if this
dude's pad actually involves two dimensional walls,
sawed-off shotguns and deadly fire escapes, but I guess
you gotta use what you have. Kinda small and close
quarters, not the most attractive place but if you had
say two or maybe three players could have some fun. Definitely
not ML.
Scalped
(shot)
by Kid Macoo: Ye olde two forts divided by river
CTF plan here. Some of the water sectors are kinda funky
and perhaps a bit many big bushes laying around but
otherwise this is fairly solid CTF action, so long as
you don't mind bobbers in the middle.
Flopur's
Fortress
(shot)
by Flopur: A large CTF map along the (long)
lines of Smo's classic "Smo's Feud" with a number
of important differences, mainly that the drop to the bottom
off the bridges is easily survivable and that the bridges
aren't hollow (so far as I could see) but you can run
around the backs of the forts and climb up a ramp. Also
the base forts are fairly large. Pretty good looking
semi-arena style CTF action.
Voodoo5's Delayed
Doh! 3dfx pulled their Voodoo5 5500's back from retail
outlets where the were supposed to go on sale tomorrow
in a last minute quality control check. Hmm. Overclockers
shorting out boards by frying eggs on them, no doubt.
So basically you'll hafta wait another week or two to get
yer grubby mitts on 3dfx's latest hardware. Durnit.
* * *
Sunday 5/21/00
Map Help for Silverspurs
SilverSpurs could use some help with a Co-op
level he's been working on:
I have created a Co-op level for Outlaws and its all done...but Im having
problems runnung the level. I tested it on mutli-player and it worked a few
times, but after playing it 2-3 times the level dosnt load again and I have
to re-publish the level in order to run it again...I dont know whats wrong,
I was thinking maby there was a file I need to create special for co-ops or
if just certain ITMs just dont work in multiplayer. If anyone out there who
has made co-op levels can help, please write to
[removed].
Appreciate any help I can get!
Twiddler on the Loose
D.A.D. sent me his second map,
Twiddler.
Now this is... uhh... it's... hmm. Funny angles, bizarro
animated wall textures, some juiced-up AI characters,
gravity zones—it's just plain nuts. Check the
screenshot and uh shield your
eyes. One of a kind map I think you can safely say.
Voodoo5 5500 on Friday
Voodoo5 5500 cards are supposed to hit retailers this
Friday. I'm planning on holding out for one of the 6000's...
hopefully they'll be soon to follow. Anyhow if ya pick up
a V5 send me a screenshot of Outlaws with that newfangled
anti-aliasing stuff goin' on. :)
* * *
Thursday 5/18/00
Three New Maps
Cave Arena
(shot)
by Outlaw and MikeDaKid: Sure there are
plenty of two-fort maps, but how about three? Aha! Cave
Arena has three forts arranged in a T formation around
a sunken cave area. Novel arrangement, lovely texturing,
high framerates; what's not to like?
Quack
(shot)
by Bad_Aim (aka JZombie): Taking a lead from a
message by Mudduck on the
Outlaws
Message Board concerning Manco's recent
"Quake" map, Bad_Aim gives us this tongue-in-bill deathmatch
map involving a small armory storehouse in the middle of
a half-frozen lake. Make sense? Nah, but it's good icy-cold
fun. Framerates dip a little around the edges but the big
surprise is... music! Playing off your second Outlaws CD.
Should make a nice change from that dang rave music I know
you all play while shooting people. ;)
Outlaws 3:
Straight to Video
(shot)
by Bad_Aim: Okay now any map featuring an old truck
up on blocks has got to be an instant redneck classic.
The previous two installments of his movie map series took
place in theaters, but this one moves in to the more modern
era of home video rental. So you enter the western town (a
mix of building borrowed from Sanctuary and Dry Gulch)
through a big-screen TV. I still think the first in the
series was the most inspired, but hey it's on video so you
can watch it any time, right? Look for this baby in the
five-day-rental section, pop it in and enjoy.
Skin Your WinAmp
Mytie Mause sent me this mousey new URL:
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Mytie Mause's Outlaws Page
Cute site with thorough game info, tips, some handy
files (Mause's own Outlaws WinAmp skin), sporadically
updated news, chat quotes and jokes. Sometimes hard
to read but a good bit of fun and useful info to
boot.
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Mause's "OLAmp" skin is pretty nice... I still kinda prefer
the look of the old
Outlaw
Amp skin by err I ferget who for the main window
as Mause's isn't as easy to read but OLAmp has skins for
all the little additional WinAmp windows as well, which
is a nice addition.
Outlaw Bash Info
Beignet has updated info on the second annual
Outlaw Bash get-together at
her site.
This year's is in her own home town of New Orleans, 40
die-hard varmits are already plannin' on attending. That's
a lot of varmits in one place! :)
Ah, thanks to vijohna for lettin' me know that TRH
stands for "The Rage'n Huckleberries" which is of course
the posse site you'll find right
here.
* * *
Sunday 5/14/00
Maps for Mom
Isn't it always tough to figure out what to get Mom
for Mother's Day? Well why not give her a fresh new
Outlaws map? We've got a large selection today, guaranteed
to put a smile on Mom's face:
Belly Acres
(shot)
by Martone: Continuing the friendly rivalry between
his OGB gang and the WAW posse, Martone brings us Belly
Acres, "Home of the Wit and Wisdom Gang". A sprawling
single-storey farmhouse in a wide valley with some caves
around the edges (naturally!), this one looks good enough
to settle down in. Watch out for a red stick of dynamite
that packs a tremendous wallop. Martone's even got a little
song about the map (to the tune of "Green Acres") right
here.
Quake
(shot)
by Manco: A conversion of the "Outer Base" level
from Quake II and I'll be darned if it doesn't come over
pretty well on the OL engine. Good "port" here, even sports
a "chain gun" (gat modified by Spidy with lower
damage but can move while firing) and lots of customized
textures. A bit dark... but so was Q2. Well done and a
nice change of pace.
hojo
(shot)
by Tater: Small town in a grey rock canyon, solid
construction, emphasis on the vertical makes everything
feel a bit narrow. Interesting lettering in the lawn but
no apparent relation to the Howard Johnson motel chain (which
is probably a good thing ;).
Stock
(shot)
by Gandalf: Very large CTF-style map in two sections,
one with a castle theme and one with a western theme, joined
in the middle by a wide permeable wall that plays rap music
when you walk through it. Texturing isn't the most attractive
and some surfaces lack running sounds. The map as a whole
feels rather abstract in design... but the real drawback in
my book is the flock of chickens that will add to lag.
ihlaw
(shot)
by Gandalf: I like the bright sunny palette, and the
willfully abstract layout brings a certain unpredictable
charm to this large deathmatch map but again some sections
of unattractive texturing, missing running sounds and chickens
hold it back.
Mad Dog
(shot 1,
shot 2)
by SnotENoze: Large multi-level single-player
campaign starts off stylishly (shoot a poster to choose
your mission) and delivers tons of people to shoot in
all sorts of interesting environments. Oh there is actually
a plot about recovering three stolen idols from the nefarious wretches
who absconded with them but thankfully it doesn't get in the
way of the running and jumping and shooting. I did hit
a crash partway through the Dynamite Dick level but I
haven't tried to repro it so I'm going to cross my fingers
and hope it was just WinNT sneezing, 'cause this looks like
a darn fine jolt of single-player action.
Garbo Map
(shot)
by Flopur: Unusual half-frozen look to this small
close-quarters map of ice walls and twisting tree paths (hard
to describe, see screenshot). Worth a look-see.
Wacky 2.0
(shot)
by Sticky: Second version of his old map, can't
say I remember the original well enough to recognize the
differences. Nice fast DM map around a building with
funny angles.
Wicked 2.0
(shot)
by Sticky: Another remake, the textures here are
definitely different and there's a sort of bunker at one
end of the cliff ledge now. Can't say I like the combination
of the textures and the lighting. Also, both of these
remakes from Sticky use a cheap filename trick to show up
at the top of the level hosting list, out of alphabetical
order. I really hate that.
sky
(shot)
by Squigglebox: Now this one's really up in the
air—or the clouds, to be more exact. High-concept, you
might say. :P A CTF layout with two cloud forts on opposite
sides of a large cloudbank, you run on cloud platforms through
the bank to the other side. Actually though running is the
old, land-dweller way of doing things—with a little practice
you can ride air currents from base to base instead. Pretty
smooth, too bad there's no in-flight movie (though if the
in-flight movie would be "Snow Falling on Cedars" that would
be a good thing (darn United)). Getting the flag back if
it falls from the clouds can be tricky but I did manage to
fall in such a way that I was able to run around down below
for a little while. Some disappearing scenery at certain
angles/spots on the map, framerate dips a bit at either end.
Whew! So that was 20 maps to catch up on since I got back
from my lil' trip. Man, what th' heck happened?
Sheesh...
Oh just a side note here, Slack-Jawed Pete and I
finally completed our (his) nearly year-long quest to find
good ribs in the Seattle area. If you're in town you'd
do well to drop by Dixie's BBQ in Kirkland—a welcome
and hearty dose of soul in the center of the snobbish,
techy East Side. I haven't yet met "The Man", Dixie's fabled
tongue-shriveling hot sauce lovingly ladeled out to lunchtime
patrons by the owner but now that I know it's right down the
road from my office I will, O yes... :d
Time is Coming
Bladester00 sent along two shots from a work in
progress and a description of the map, apparently to be
named "Time":
This one is a biggy ,no doubt its going to take some time to play and to
make.Just got the lay out started and 6 big gun towers,tons of
cells,four big outside court yards.Plan on making this high security
prison a night mare to get out of. If you live through the guards that
will be looking to take you out in this coup shot out.Far from done but
as I see it some heavy fire arms will be here and a few tricks will be
imported in this map.So when the big doors close on you it will be every
man for him self.
Oh and the shots:
shot 1,
shot 2.
News Roundup
In other news:
Raf pointed me to Lupine Games' page for
their upcoming game
Western
Riding, apparently a rodeo game of some sort. The
description says: "Ride in a variety of western events such as barrel racing and other
western themed competitions. Buy and raise horses as you
train them by competing in events."
TonTo E sent me an Outlaws font,
Tonto
E OL Normal. Pretty nifty work, actually does look
like the OL logo if you use it to type
OUTLAWS.
salmoides sent me a link to an
interview
with two LEC level designers, Kevin Schmitt
and Ryan Kaufman, from last November. Both these guys worked
on Outlaws, though they only really mention it in passing
in this interview which mostly covers their work on Star
Wars titles.
Sites Sites Everywhere
Outlaw sites popping up right and left:
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RaW: Rebels and Warriors
Fast text-only layout, very nicely done. As long
as webmaster Hoder keeps th' news a comin' they're top notch
in my book.
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Mad Austrian Desperados
High points for genuine Outlaws style, points off
for lack of content, but still ya gotta love that
font and those backgrounds.
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SBD - Silent But Deadly
Truffle brings another OL domain name, sbdclan.com.
Decent layout to this posse but fonts get a bit
confusing and aside from history and roster of the
SDB posse there isn't a whole lot here.
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The Outlaws Hideout
News, some game info, posse list, links, etc on
this general Outlaws site. Framed layout doesn't
quite work right in my crusty old browser. Truffle
makes the most of his domain name by offering
URL redirection (yourname.olhideout.com) and
email (yourname@olhideout.com).
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TRH
Web-based casino games, a little java saloon and some
ripped Outlaws graphics can't entirely make up for
the uneven layout, missing images and poor (and
often crass) writing. There's a lot of energy here
but the sketchy presentation and lack of useful content
(not even a mention of what their posse prefix stands
for, for instance) leaves a lot to be desired.
|
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TLL: The Last Lawmen
History of the posse (used to be TLG), a few maps for
download, game cheats. If you can stand it, the MIDI
background tunes are actually kind of decent (if loud).
|
* * *
Saturday 5/13/00
Map Madness Continues
Okay I'm delaying going in to work for an hour so I can
make a bit more headway into the massive map backlog
engulfing my inbox. Yeesh!
Law Town
(shot)
by TheRock and D1_and_Only: Nice square
layout to this two-building town, watch out for sniping
caves at either end of the main street. Minor 3dfx errors,
doors won't help lag but framerate stays surprisingly
high.
Scorpion
Ridge
(shot)
by KrummWaffe: How many maps come with a history of
the Sharp's Buffalo Rifle in the txt file? And how many
come with a modified single-shot rifle in the map that
sounds straight out of a spaghetti western? This is KW's
"heavy weapons" map featuring the aforementioned portable
artillery piece as well as sawed-offs, gats and shotguns
galore. Set in a big, lovely red rock canyon the framerate
gets a bit low at the ends (cave/building base at either
end with central tower, CTF style) but what with the gorgeous
construction and textures you probably won't care—you'll be
too busy dodging lead in any event.
Claim
Jumper
(shot 1,
shot 2,
shot 3)
by Hoss and ForkTongue: Based on an unfinished
LEC level, the ins and outs of this map take a bit of
exploring before you'll feel comfortable but this is a
map you will want to keep playing. Mostly fairly close
quarters in and around mine shafts and a small town, custom
props and lovely details abound. Excellent.
Macoo
(shot)
by D.A.D.: Author's first map is an extraordinarily
odd affair with several AI bosses (playable both single
and multiplayer I think), two skymaps strange black water
on the ground, bottles levitating above a bed, etc. Very
odd indeed.
Colvins
(shot)
by Hot_Pistols: Flat, bush-riddled desert canyon
thing with pitch-black caves and a few AI characters. Bushes
or darkness make it hard to see, though the layout is so
simple there really isn't a whole lot to see anyhow.
Strange one.
Wharf Rat
(shot)
by Runaway Jim: Unique small map by Jim featuring
his usual payload of ankle-crunching jumps and good looks,
though unlike previous maps this one goes with a dark
and forboding look. Don't like the blue cliff
texture but otherwise very attractive (and dark) small swamp
canyon with warehouse in the middle. Nifty.
Winner's
Circle
(shot)
by Blackthorn and Picante: The author's have
invented a new play style they call "Winner Stay's In"—the
map is meant for team play but teams wait in booths on
opposite sides of an arena and one member of each team
launches into the arena at a time for a series of one-on-one
combats. Innovative idea, lovely map, humorous sound
effect--great stuff all around.
That's all for today, hope to finish catching up with a huge
blowout tomorrow. :P
* * *
Thursday 5/11/00
E3 From Home
Well the online E3 media blitz has begun, bigger than
ever this year. Gad. This means of course that you lost
a week of development time working on a demo for the
show and another week because all the big-wigs take off
to take in the show. So E3 sets you back two weeks and
for what? A moment of glory on some cheesy game news site.
Grahhh. And I don't even get to go. I hate E3. :P
Too Many Maps to Post
Boy oh boy this'll teach me to leave town, I've got wayyy
to much new stuff to cover. Guess I'd better start with
the new maps and see how many I can get through
tonight.
Big Heist
(shot)
by Chet: It's tough being a hero when your first
inclination is to hide in the closet. But hey that's what
stories are made of and though you start in the closet you'll
soon be shootin' it out with all kinds of lowlifes, if you
live long enough. I haven't got too far through it
(that darn viking guy keeps killing me) but this looks to
be a fun single-player adventure promising four levels
of excitement. He's got a large, copiously illustrated
guide to the adventure right
here.
Indentation
(shot)
by Chet: A sloping bowl with a hole in the bottom
that goes down to the top of a subterranean hill. Interesting
layout but not a whole lot done with it. No footstep sounds
below. Guess that's why Chet says the map took 10 minutes
to make.
Venture
Ridge
(shot 1,
shot 2,
shot 3)
by Chet: Gorgeous textures and surprising
architectural touches abound in this vertically sprawling
outdoor map. Fast and diverse, this one will keep you
busy for a while.
Ohh-K so I only got through maps from one person. Oh
boy it is going to be a long weekend... argh and there's
Mother's Day too. :P I mean uh hooray for Mother's Day!
Yay!
* * *
Sunday 4/30/00
GeForce Does Wrapper Well?
Well when I tried Slack-Jawed Pete's GeForce
with the XGL200 Glide wrapper and Outlaws framerates
were unspectacular to say the least, 30's on his P2 400,
but according to IAmTheLaw he averages about
100 fps, up to 250 at times on his GeForce + Athlon 500.
Now that's nowhere near Voodoo performance (I average
something like 140 fps on my humble P2 333 + Voodoo 3 2000)
it's definitely nothing to sneer at and indicates there's
a fine chance that Outlaws via wrapper will work quite
well with a GeForce 2 should you choose to go that
route.
Two New Maps
Two squeaky new maps for your clickings this
evening:
The Big
House
(shot)
by Bad_Aim: The Big House is, of course, the pokey.
The slammer. Jail. Prison. Okay? This one has a nice
exercise yard for the inmates (you?) as well as several
ghoulish touches including an electric chair... brr! You
could call it the Big File as well, weighing in at 911k
(in my "temp" folder so get it quick) but for that downloading
time you get to play characters and bosses from the single-player
game rather than the same old dirty half-dozen. Texturing
is a bit rough in places but on the whole a good fast
map with nice custom touches.
dead2
(shot)
by tater: This isn't a sequel to anything, it's
just that the filename "dead" was already taken. So the
author isn't too big on creative names... fear not 'cause
he has still made one darn fine old-style CTF map. In fact
this one gave me some pause—I mean, it isn't a new idea
(two buildings facing across a pool) but somehow the
implementation here seems fresh and exciting. The scale
is certainly smaller than the usual expansive CTF map, in
fact you could probably say this one's designed for 2 on 2
action. Then again each base has 2 gatling guns so I'm not
quite sure... There's gonna be a lotta death in no-man's
land in this one, fortunately there's a knife an an elixer
down at the bottom of the pool, should get you out of just
about any scrape, right? Ahh back to basics here, brings
a tear to my eye. Oh but not all is old school... almost
forgot this but there are... modified shotguns! Gasp!
Trip Down Video Card Lane
With all this recent hubub about the upcoming Voodoo 5s
and GeForce 2s a little bit of work this past week served
to put things in interesting perspective. My manager had
a huge pile of old video cards kept around for compatibility
testing purposes and I needed some 8MB cards... and in the
search for them got sucked into finally organizing the whole
big silicon mess.
Man, the crazy stuff that was in there. The Cirrus Logic
boards, the Tridents, the red Permedia reference board,
the Real3D Starfighter (just about the most clumsily
constructed card I've ever seen), the lame old ATI cards
in untold variety, the Oak Technologies... whew! Quite
a few museum pieces in there but I admit it was with a
certain glee that I tossed duplicates into the "garbage"
pile. ;)
The kings of the collection however are undoubtedly two
Quantum 3D cards:
the Obsidian and the Obsidian 2. The Obsidian 2 I'd known
about, basically Voodoo2 SLI on a single card—and MAN is
that one big card! I remember back when we tested on the
thing it was the fastest card in the house... but tended
to overheat and lock up when run at resolutions over 800x600.
;)
Ah but the original Obsidian... this was new to me. At
first I mistook it for some kind of early Voodoo 2 reference
board and for this I think I can be forgiven as it clearly
had two TMU units just like a Voodoo 2. Well not just... the
second was on a small daughterboard that plugged in on top.
Basically the Obsidian was a 6 MB Voodoo (1) with a 4 MB
Voodoo plugged in on top—a single-slot SLI Voodoo 1!
Wow. Who'd'athunk it? One of those Obsidian's will be mine
one day... oh yes, it will...
Other'n that the last surprise was when I grabbed what I
thought was an 8 MB i740 reference board... only to find
that Intel's i740 reference boards had only 4 MB RAM, 2 of
that coming on a plug-in card that I had removed... so I
was running on a 2 MB card. Yargh!
Pale Skips Town
May be a little longer than usual before my next update,
I'm headin' out to the Midwest later this week and won't
be back 'til next Tuesday. So if I don't get in an update
b'fore I go (and I don't expect I'll manage it) then I'll
fill y'all in when I get back.
* * *
Thursday 4/27/00
Outlaws Does Fog
Truffle has been messing around with palette
effects some more and came up with some funky "fog"
type shots—colored fog at that. Dig it:
shot 1,
shot 2,
shot 3.
Voodoo 5, GeForce 2 Standoff
Two days ago Voodoo 5 previews hit the web, then the
very next day GeForce 2 previews come along.
Anandtech.com
has pretty thorough previews of both. I must say that
it sure looks as if nVidia is a bit ahead of 3dfx these
days... mebbe 4 months or so—which in the current 6-month
product cycle of the computer video card market is a big
gap.
What'sit mean for Outlaws? Well, I think the Voodoo 5 will
still be the better card for OL, 'cause you'd have to run
the GeForce through a Glide wrapper—and as far as I have
seen the first generation GeForce boards didn't run very
fast on the XGL200 wrapper, for instance. However, if you
play other games a good deal of the time and Outlaws just
a little, you might want to go for a GeForce 2. I'm still
contemplating holding out for a Voodoo 5 6000 but man,
$600 is a heck of a lot to pay for a card these days...
I guess if we're lucky the stuff competition from nVidia
will force 3dfx to go in for hefty price reductions.
:)
I'd like to point out one thing that all the previews seem
to gloss over, however. The favorite benchmark of new cards
is Quake 3 because its highly optimized engine really shows
video performance well... but this just happens to be the
one game (not counting other Quake-engine games) that really
takes advantage of the GeForce's hardware T&L, so the Voodoo
5 might compare more favorably in other
games...
Oh! Speaking of the V5 6000, Dude directed me
to the first real
photo
of the V5 6000 that I've seen, from
Shugashack.com. There are two more shots if you hit the
"next image" button... Good Gravy that is one ridiculously
large card—and that's not even showing the external power
supply. Four fans?!?! Yowza. The only vid card I've
seen that comes close to that size was the old Quantum
Obsidian...
Kali 2.0 Official
Saw on Blue's News
that Kali v. 2.0 has
finally been released after a very long beta period. If
you haven't seen it, 2.0 is quite a bit more configurable
and user-friendly than the 1.x versions—you really ought
to check it out.
On a related note, BTJustice wants to point out
that Kali (even counting the $20 registration fee that
actually for Outlaws you don't even need to pay) is his
favorite online Outlaws venue because of "Superior game play thru
IP instead of DirectPlay (which is what The Zone uses),
interesting people, file sharing (i.e. LEVELS), away
messages (i.e. games being hosted) chat font and color
options, no OPs of any kind, IGNORE features." All good
points, my favorite Kali feature has got to be the
individual fonts—everyone can set their personal font and
others see whatever they type in that font. Makes
chat feel a lot more personal... in a good way. :)
Talk It Up
I haven't used Roger
Wilco in a while but BTJustice also pointed
out that there's a new free internet voice application on
the net with Outlaws multiplayer support,
BattleCom 1.31.
Well not quite new, but newly free, or something.
Obi-Wan, Not OL2
ToddSm66 pointed out that the thumbnail that looked
kinda like OL on the
Lucasarts
E3 Preview page was actually from their upcoming
Obi-Wan game—the thumbnail link to the full screenshot can
be found on their
Obi-Wan
page. Well... that sure seems to be the case... but
I'd swear those aliens are holding six-shooters...
:P
Skull Rock Strikes Again
ShotgunMc sent me a new map,
Skull
Rock II. Well okay you can tell from the title that
it isn't a new new map but rather a sequel to
his fine previous map of the same name (minus the "II" :p).
He's done quite a bit of renovating to This Old Skull but
you will still recognize a good deal. The new additions
consist of a mysterious stone block, funky new textures,
a couple tunnels I don't remember from the original that
appear to improve the flow and some home-boy beats when
you're struttin' your stuff up on the big skull—after
being blown up there through the eye-hole, of course.
If none of this makes sense to you... just try it,
you'll like it, man... how about a
shot or
two to convince ya
(just had to get in one of the revamped teepees, prob'ly
th' finest you'll see anywhere).
New Sitez
Down wit da homies... yeah... hey does anyone remember
someone named "Arabian Knight" from the old NWA group? (I
only remember Easy-E (may he rest in peace) and some guy
named "Yella". :P)
I guess I work with him now, sorta.
At least, that's the rumor. Life is odd. Uh where
was I... oh yeah two new sites for your dialecting, from
Gandalf and TwistedTweak:
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OKP: Outlaws killing posse
German Outlaws posse site. I don't sprechen zie
Deutsch but it appears to have news, members list,
map reviews/downloads, guestbook, forum, links. Also
cheezy animations: the universal language?
|
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Sh-t Outta Luck
Well, the spelling on the site isn't quite like that...
I guess I'm getting sensitive in my dotage. Almost
nothing here yet except for slasher photos of the
webmaster's sister. Not that that's a bad thing
mind you... oh nevermind.
|
* * *
Sunday 4/23/00
Go to 8x6!
salmoides wanted to point out to folks that now
that computers are getting ridiculously powerful you can
probably run OL at 800x600 without really losing much
in the way of meaningful performance. He says that on his
P3 500 w/ V3 3000 he still averages 140-160 fps at 800x600,
so he's going for it!
But wait you say, my olcfg.exe only lets me go up to
640x480 in Glide mode! Well then me bucko you've obviously
overlooked Mark Lütkefend's
"Outlaws Banshee/Voodoo2 Setup" utility—run over to the
OL video config page and check
it out.
Oh hey and happy Easter to everyone who cares to celebrate
it. I think Cadbury runs Easter these days... anyhow they
sure spread those cream eggs around. Mmmm... :d Three-hour
movies and uncomfortable seats is a bad combination,
remember that.
First Glimpse of OL 2?
Okay okay so that was a cheap headline. But scrutinizing
RAF has been taking his keen eye to the
Lucasarts
E3 Preview page and thinks that one of the tiny little
thumbnails looks a heck of a lot like an OL sky—it's the
upper left one in the right-hand set at the top, or look
directly at the image
here. And
hey I just noticed that the image name is "o1.jpg"—yeah that's
a "one" not an "L" but hey, what could the "o" stand for?
Man, we really are getting desperate aren't we? Oh well heck
speculation is fun. The titles will be officially announced
on May 10th... hmm I'm actually going to be out of town that
weekend, guess I'll have to catch all the excitement when
I return (no not going to E3 :P).
Yoda happened to mention that LEC has confirmed one
of the titles officially announced will be Monkey Island 4,
for all you Threepwood fans (and you know very darn well
who you are).
Outlaws in New England
I guess this is a shameless plug but Bladester00
is putting together a new posse, GMB: Green Mountain Boys.
All the current members live in Vermont but they will
take members from anywhere in New England which strictly
speaking means Vermont, New
Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode
Island. Interested parties write to Bladester00 at
[removed].
Chet's "BigHeist" Nearly Done
Chet imparts the happy news that his four level
single-player adventure "BigHeist" is "days away from being
done." His NNO
site has info on the map and his
Chet's Place
sports "tunz" of screenshots and even some hints that will
come in handy. Hmm actually his site now says the thing
is done and just needs testing—in the 'biz we call that
"beta." Check the site, lots of goodies.
New Site for Tweak
TwistedTweak sent me the URL of his new posse
site:
Crazy 8 Canyon and Salt Creek Ranch
Two new mappies t'day!
Crazy 8
Canyon
(shot)
by Runaway Jim: A remake of Jim's first map "Octagon"
featuring a large castle-like fort, canyon and broken bridge.
Fort and surrounding areas are more detailed now with more
tunnels and such, fort has been retextured and touched up
somewhat. Nice looking map, improvement over Octagon, only
down side would be slightly slow framerates at the outsides
looking in as was a problem in the original
version.
Salt
Creek Ranch
(shot 1,
shot 2)
by Truffle: First of all let me say that this map
uses a filename trick, purposeful or not, that puts it
at the top of the in-game hosting list. I don't like that.
:P
The map itself comes in two versions: color and black & white.
Say what, you say? Well, Truffle realized that since OL
uses per-sector color palettes, you could create your own
custom palette for interesting visual filter effects. So
the black & white version simply uses a custom palette
that is all grayscale. The map itself is a small ranch
enclosed in a tall thick fence with tunnels running through
the surrounding cliff faces. Decent layout, framerates stay
pretty high even with a lot of stuff all out in the
open.
Back to Truffle's custom palette. I think this is really
just the tip of the iceberg here. He did straight greyscale
but imagine a sepia-toned map, or one that changes to sepia
for just certain areas, or heck in to red-scale for hellish
areas or what-have-you. Obviously this could create some
pretty odious-looking maps but used correctly this really
opens another very powerful dimension to map
makers!
* * *
Friday 4/21/00
Whoops! Nawlin's Not Norleans
Thanks to Martone at
Outlaws
Gang Busters fer pointin' out that I overwrote a map
yesterday. The original
norleans.zip
is a map by Hagen. The new "N'awlins" by Grifter
has been renamed
nawlins.zip
following Martone's lead. :)
* * *
Thursday 4/20/00
Eyes On Voodoo 5
Got a gander at a Voodoo 5 in action today. Looks pretty
darn good, especially with that anti-aliasing stuff goin'
on. The 4-pass (there's also faster 2-pass) anti-aliasing
caused about a 40% framerate hit in the game I saw it on
but man did it look smooth. Well I guess you could still
see a little bit of jags on lines near vertical or horizontal
at 640x480, but at 800x600 you don't really see pixels
anymore, just one beautiful seamless image. Anyhoo, I guess I'm still
savin' up my beans for a Voodoo 5 6000 whenever they
come out—the one I saw today was the 5500, which has a
little power-port on the side of the card. Cute.
Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaps
Uh-oh. I dunno what happened but suddenly everyone an'
their mother-in-law is sendin' me new maps. Yipes! Don't
think I'll get through all of 'em today... well let's just
get goin'...
Boozehound
(shot)
by ShiftyTuco: Not the prettiest map, texturing could
be better but it's fast anyhow. Simple buildings separated by
twisty canyon paths, pretty straightforward layout.
Basehome
(shot)
by Warrior: Another simple windy canyon layouty type
of map, the dark tunnels in this one aren't quite as smooth
but the texturing is more attractive.
Casa Loca
(shot)
by Axe56: Very small bar building, probably went a bit
overboard with bottles and railing posts but otherwise looks
pretty cozy for one on one games.
Red Valley
(shot)
by tater?: His first map, a big boxy canyon type of thing
sporting an unusual red/black type of look. As far as big boxy
canyon maps go this one isn't so bad. Rifles will definitely hold
the fort in this one. Did I hear running sounds? Hmm can't
remember now.
Sol
(shot)
by TenTacos: Man they musta had a sale on big boxy levels
this week, here's another one. Nice texture and light work here,
definitely a CTF style layout with two forts opposite, some
unusual tunnels in between. Kind of classic style CTF if ya
know what I mean. Looks pretty solid.
N'awlins
(shot)
by Grifter: Grifter dried up LEC's "New Orleans" map
to nice effect, particularly on the frame rate. Seems kind of
plain without the water and the central pier but definitely
a good alternative for those on slower machines, or those
who hate bobbers.
Trench
(shot)
by EARCARAXE: Now this is one big flat map. Actually looks
are kind of deceiving, you can't really see the river and
trenches in that screenshot. Dim and not-so-attractively
textured but people who like to pick off suckers toddling
across large open plains should get a kick out of it.
Tommygun
(shot)
by Bladester00: If you dig on ambushing people you will
really dig this map, the dim light, low contrast, profligate
shrubbery, dark buildings with many narrow windows and sniping
towers should pretty much be your dream come true. If your
preference is more for the running and gunning deal you just
might as well slap a big glow in the dark SHOOT ME sign on your
back, those gats with 500 rounds of ammo in the towers will make
hash of you right quick. Sound like fun? Then this be yo map.
BEBE
(shot)
by Brume: Hmm a big deserty canyon, sorta jagged rather
than box-like, with a sizeable (and dark) underground tunnel
area. No running sounds, doh.
Chet's Okay, Okay?!?
Chet sent me a plea for help... 'cause he was
getting too much help. ;) His problem was solved with a
hard drive wipe (ooch) so uh don't email him with any
more helpful suggestions, thank you very much.
:P
Well I got through all the maps. Still got over neferious
news bits accumulating, guess those'll hafta wait 'til
next I update...
* * *
Sunday 4/16/00
Grrrr
Ugh. As I write this my machine cannot get an IP address
going—which doesn't make any sense to me since it connects
just fine in '95 (I'm "working" now in NT) and the other
machine on my little home LAN here is also connected just
peachy. Arrrrrrrrgh. Who knows when I'll get this
uploaded...
Pulled a Magoo on Macoo
Yeah apparently I should'a tried Netscape 4.x on the
Macoo.com site I
posted a link for in my last update. I'd do that now
except... you know. Grr. Anyhow I'm assured it does work,
the member list just requires a certain flavor of Java which
your browser (NS 4.x or IE 4+) probably
has.
Okay network connect back up, yeah it does work under NS 4.
Can't say I like the site, but it works (and now it got
into back-to-back updates ;).
Getcher OLHideout Email Address
It isn't enough for Truffle to have a thorough
Outlaws site with lots of good stuff to read and download.
Noooo, his OLHideout
site now has to offer you a custom email alias, like
yourname@olhideout.cjb.net. Isn't that swell? It'll forward
to yer regular address and err... it probably looks cooler,
I guess is the point. So why not, it's free and will make
you feel special. Head on over to the Hideout and get yours
today.
Rough Week for Maps
Hmm well two outta four ain't bad... waitasec yeah it
is. Four people tried to send me maps, one was just a text
file and one was link to a download that didn't work. So
that leaves two...
Err no actually one of those crashes when I turn a certain
way, and now my mouse is moving about half as fast as it
should. Arrgh....
Hey my network connection is back! Okay so the only map
to make it is
Trailer
by Mercedes. And I'm being generous here, had to remove
an extra .lab file from the .zip. Ah well. This is a weird
map, can't say I understand what's going on. Readme mentions
a sniper gun. Seems to be a movie trailer lot of some sort,
with big metal pits and rather ugly custom textures. Except
for ones of Batgirl and Robin—check the shot of
batgirl.
Help Chet
Chet was in a pickle, for all I know he still is.
Help him out! Here's what he wrote:
Hi there... BigHeist WOULD have been done for
Saturday morning, and would have been tested then, and
probably released Sunday, but now my Lawmaker has
stopped working... And I don't know why. I have
attached pix of the 2 errors I get. I am thinking of
re-installing Windows, and think this is a hacker
problem... Maybe you can just out it out there, and
maybe someone knows exactly how to fix this without
reinstallin windows.
I have already reinstalled OL, and Lawmaker. and
rebooted at least 50 times. I re-downladed lawmaker as
many times as I re-installed it.
c ya
Chet
PS- The first error is when I open lawmaker, the
second is when I hit TEST. I made the quality poor so
you didn't have a large download... they are still
readable I think.
The pics are error messages. One is a Windows access
violation caused by LawMaker, the other is an error
message window that says "The process cannot access the
file because it is being used by another process." Durn
them processes, can't they share? Well if ya know
what's ta be done
mail Chet.
* * *
Thursday 4/13/00
Sequel Petition Updated
Finally updated the
Outlaws Sequel Petition, now
at a whopping 1839 signatures. Keep 'em comin'! :)
Uh A Tourney or Something
Man most sites I see these days sorta have the basics
down. This one has some issues. If you have IE 4 or 5 you
may have better luck. Anyhow The Outlaw wrote me
about it to say that the guys who run the site are going
to have a tourney on the 16th, but you have to be signed
up as a member. I can't seem to bring up the signup bit
of the site. Hrmm...
|
|
Macoo.com
Supposed to be some kind of gang member list or
something here, doesn't seem to work in any version
of Netscape. Can see some ugly ripped cowboy animations
and hear some annoying sounds over and over, however,
so that's something anyway.
|
* * *
Sunday 4/9/00
Well Well Well
Yikes, didn't get in an update all last week. Which means,
of course, that I got a whole slew—or two—of relatively
recent news ta slap down here. So hold on ta yer sombrero,
cowboy, 'cause th' news is about ta start flying fast and
furious.
Ten New Maps
Hot enough for ya yet? Ten new maps should keep even the
rowdiest roughnecks busy fer a bit...
Toxic2
(shot)
by Sleepy: His second rendering of an old west toxic
waste dump (what, you didn't know they had those?) is much
more accessible than the last, leaving behind the damaging
pools of waste (my blisters thank him) and coming through
with a very polished look... as polished as toxic dumps get,
anyhow. In a long-canyon CTF style with lots of crates and
fences, framerate gets a bit low at the ends.
Hazard
(shot)
by Moose: Creative arena-style map here, reminds
me of a small "Wiper" without the big pit below the intersecting
paths (my bones thank him). Detailed "curved" areas scream
out for texture stitching, really like his use of that wood floor
texture though. Looks like a fun one.
Die in
the Dark
(shot)
by MikeDaKid: Simple, big-boned map based on an idea
by CID. Twilight adds a certain atmosphere to this somewhat
plain canyon town. Good framerates even with an open river,
not something you see too often—nice lookin' river too.
Roman
Arena
(shot)
by Angua: Another arena-style map, but really Old
World. Actually does look like an ancient stone arena with
detailed tiers of seats that don't hurt the framerate nearly
as much as I would have thought. Nice texture job. Two
beefs: chickens in the basement will hurt lag and could
use more ways to get from point A to point B. Riflemen will
like perching up in the cheap seats however. Running long
distances with no footstep sounds is a bit surreal.
Toyster
(shot)
by Leroy Brown: Weird world in a wood panelled canyon.
Uh... high framerates though. Man, Voodoo5 antialiasing is
really gonna make the horizontal lines on those walls look
a lot better than they do now... I hope.
Stopit
(shot)
by Leroy Brown: Picture yourself in a round,
high-ceilinged room with no exits, four gatling guns and
tons of TNT. Maybe this should be called "make it stop?"
Hmm. Could be fun for a minute or so.
Los
Cazadores 2.0
(shot)
by Sonic55: Second version of this big, rangy CTF
map with two turretted forts claims to be bug-free. I
always take that sort of thing as a challenge. See if you
can spot something out of place in the screenshot. Nice to
have the 3dfx issues out of there though. Still missing
running sounds.
Heck
(shot,
shot2,
shot3)
by Krummwaffe: Never thought I'd say this but you
all really should go to Heck. No seriously, it's a darn
fine map. The completely custom texture set makes for one
darn spooky castle of the damned. Skulls skulls everywhere,
oh yeah baby. Tight design, high frames, what's not to
love?
Heck Lite
(shot)
by Krummwaffe: Very slightly pared-down version of
Heck, intended for smaller DM play. Say you like Heck, but
only have a few people on hand? Heck Lite to the rescue.
49er
(shot)
by hownow: CTF in a very long canyon with a third
fort/building in the middle. Spare but solid construction
give his framerate, could use some lighting touches but
CTF fans won't mind that one bit.
Voodoo5 Web and Store Spottings
3dfx has been pimping their Voodoo5 boards a lot lately,
salmoides pointed out one such
preview
on HotHardware.com. The low and mid-end cards are
supposed to come out at the end of this month, with the
top-line card to follow in a few months. In Babbages earlier
this week I was surprised to find a Voodoo5 5000 teaser
box on display. Oh, a box, the excitement!
Mad Dog Comin'
SnotENoze sent along a few preview shots of the
single-player adventure he's working on, now titled
"Mad Dog." May not be that much longer before single-player
fans can get a new fix, here's what he has to say:
Actually, the end is in sight. The first two maps are complete
and the third is well underway. I've been able to get things written so that
it will be a Historical Mission along the lines of "Marshall Training". You
will be able to randomly select one of the three missions at your office and
upon completion it will tally up your score for Gold, Kills, Wounds, Bounty,
Level Score, and Game Score then return you to the office. Not that the score
means anything. In the level for Dynamite Dick there are plenty of bad guys
to earn enough points to go from Deputy to Marshall. But it sure will give
your mouse a workout shootin' 'em all!
And don't forget to check the screenies:
shot 1,
shot 2.
Truffle Dug Up
Aha, Truffle has at long last revealed himself
as the mysterious webmaster of
OLHideout. He's
also been working quite a bit on the site, the current
new layout looks quite similar to a certain site I visit
a lot but he says he'll probably be changing the design
frequently. Frequent updates on a site always puts a smile
on my face, go check it out.
Back to the Grind
Phew, that does it for another of what has sorta become
weekly updates thanks to my current schedule. Hopefully I'll
get one or two in during the coming week but we'll see. As
an extra bonus Karrde sent along a little western
cartoon
fer yer enjoyment.
On a lark today I tried out the "preview release" of
Netscape 6. Man, that browser is going straight downhill.
Was pretty shocked to see that it just looked and felt...
bad. Of course AOL who now owns Netscape doesn't really
have to care I guess, they can spoon-feed anything they
want to their dialup customers. Gack. Looks like the old
Pale browser of choice remains NS 3. :P
* * *
Friday 3/31/00
Dairy Desperados
Was alerted by several (Larry, Stryker and a
dude who's public 'nick I always forget) to the recent release of a valu (tm)
priced western title
Desperados.
Now I haven't played this game and I doubt I ever will but
from the screenshots all I can say is that it looks
ultra-cheesy. And I don't mean good cheese like from
Wisconsin. Umm... I think I need to get some
sleep.
Fistful of Fallsdown
Ever mirthful image-slinger and raconteur
Fallsdown has been poking some good-natured fun
(or so I'm told) at the widely-respected OGB posse lately.
I didn't post it a while back when he sent it but
well heck time heals all wounds or something right so here's
the original OGB-edition of Falls' "Western Enquirer"
rag: link.
What he recently followed up with was a err possibly
illegitimate screenshot
from the Zone chat where he got "permission" from the gang
to appropriate their likenesses. ;) But lest you think
he's just about pulpy scandal sheets, he's got a
preview
of an OGB movie poster he's working on, and a
Western
Cartoon of the day, this one by a certain well-known
cartoonist whose daughter I went to high-school with but
didn't realize she was that Larson until afterwards.
Not that it would have mattered. :P
CrayZ New Map from Moose
Moose sent in a new map,
CrayZ.
He simply went nuts with stone staircases here and to
curiously pleasant effect. Framerates stay high despite
a wealth of stairy detail as you can see from the
shot. Darn good exercise
going up and down those all day I'd say.
BillyKid Gets WildWild
BillyKid sent in
WildWild,
a pretty darn simple map—back to basics in a big way I
guess you could say. A simple block building in a cubic
canyon. Didn't catch any running sounds.
Texturing could use some work though surprisingly
the general effect of tones and two waterfalls ends up
fairly pleasing in a plain sort of way. Framerates are
quite high, needless to say. How do you get on the roof?
A low-gravity zone along one wall, of course! Man, do I
have to explain everything? ;) Check the
screenshot.
Camp with Warrior
The description in the text file of Warrior's new
map
Camp says
"1 building, 1 pond, and 1 well." Pretty accurate self-assessment
there, lessee if I can get a screenshot with all three
in it... ah yeah there we go.
Notice how the framerate dips when all three are in there at
once. Very small level, pretty in a bright, sandy, big-boned
way.
PaW Does Twin Towers
PaW sent in his very first map,
Twin
Towers. Actually it isn't quite his first, this
is v1.1, the first version had a little error corrected in
this revision. A very neatly thought-out level of two
three story buildings interlinked with bridge, awning
and basement, kind of a circuitous route of stairs and
tunnels and a jump running through everything. Nifty in
a slightly linear sort of way. Take some lamp oil along
for the basement. Check the
shot.
Interesting 3dfx Article
Wow, that was an amazing title there. Sometimes I even
amaze myself. Especially when I'm groggy with lack of
sleep and licorice-induced sugar low. Mmm... Uhh oh
I wanted to tell you that Penstar has a very thoughtful
if slightly 3dfx-biased
article
on 3dfx past present and future. Got that link from
VoodooExtreme.
Lots of discussion on why 3dfx actually knows what they're
about with the Voodoo 5, due out (in certain flavors, anyhow)
this very next month. Of course the big question is will
that hardware anti-aliasing work in Outlaws and there's
no word on that yet, but you stick around right here an'
I'll let ya know just as soon as I get word.
"But Pale," you'll say, "Outlaws is sprite-based characters,
you can't anti-alias those." "Shut-up," I'll say, as I
slap you ever-so softly upside the head. :p
Outlaws Hideout Tricked Out
The oh so mysterious webmaster of
The Outlaws
Hideout has redone the site in a new style and posted
a photo of Dead Horse Point, Utah, to celebrate the
occassion. Break out the watered-down beer and the cheap
party favors!
Me Sleepy
No that's Sleepy, I'm Paleface. I'm also tired.
Gee, I always thought "I wish I wish I could some day
work 80-hour weeks" and now that they are upon me
I just love them all to death. Think about it—who needs
rest when you could just... stay late at work every night?
It's brilliant I tell you, why didn't I think of this
before? O the many wasted hours I could have spent more
productively (but not more profitably—that's the trick,
you don't get to work 80 hour weeks until you're salaried
and ineligible for that whole "overtime pay" concept).
But I think I'm already starting to lose my edge and slack,
I may take this Sunday off. Oh shame...
* * *
Sunday 3/26/00
Don't Let Sleeping Maps Lie
Krummwaffe (now goes by "Exul" in chat) sent in a
very revised version of a previous map of his,
"Hardgrave's Pattern Rigor Mortis." The new revamp goes
by the moniker
Hardgrave
- Exhumed. Here's his comments:
Hardgrave's Pattern Rigor Mortis had several consistency errors
and a low FPS. The first thing I did was
eliminate Hargrove's Pattern Repair from the map. The only thing
left in the map from Hargrove's is the fence. Deleting Hargrove's
not only increased FPS but it also
removed most of the consistency errors. It seems that the original
Hargrove's map has several consistency errors (and I thought they
were mine). I deleted most of the
sound bites to make the zip file smaller. However, I included two
new sound bites in the LAB file for taunt use. Sneaky.wav and
Sucker.wav are from the movie Johnny
Dangerously and I thought they would make nice taunts during game
play... For CTF I only put in two
flag positions on the map in order to ensure a good flag dispersal.
So there ya go, here's
a shot to refresh yer
memory of what the place looks like. Nice farm, fps has
improved though still low from spots (mostly sniper spots
so I don't have too much pity hehe) and if you don't think
the map is huge then you haven't been in the underground
part yet--I got lost. Dark. Eek.
* * *
Saturday 3/25/00
Wrapper Stuff
Ugh. I really shouldn't have gone in to work today,
considering that almost nobody else bothered to show.
Garrr. And now my DSL is down... see how far I can get
here without being online.
Stuff about running Outlaws on a Glide Wrapper.
IAmTheLaw sez
"I got an Athlon 500 with a Geforce and using the XGL2000 I got around 70
fps, however with massive graphic errors when shooting at water and when
getting hit. Those forced me to turn off the tinting.
I then tried Creative's Unified drivers, that do emulate Glide mode as well
and I get around 60 fps without graphic errors. Overall, it's way to slow
considering I got one of the best graphics cards available, but it's OK."
And three_fingers adds
"I have a ATI all-in-wonder pci 32mg card and was pretty disallusioned
with the framerates in outlaws also. I tried the glide wrapper, which
made for a nice picture (minus tnt), but as it says in one of your
original comments, the price you pay is in framerates.
Direct draw was also a washout as the movements all seem to float.
So I ended up using the game supplied mgl drivers, that despite their
tendency to crash going in and out of games, they really jacked up the
frame rates. These seem to vary with resolutions and ended up fastest on
my 400pII with 400xwhatever it is.
I actually queried Lucasarts on the prospect of supplying drivers for
other cards than 3dfx, but the reply was "they had no plans to do so".
Another point for outlawsII."
Hmmph. I say save yer beans fer a Voodoo5. Well, hopefully
they won't completely suck heh.
Six-Shooter Still Kickin'
Not exactly OL news, but a number of folks have asked
me from time to time whatever happened to "Six-Shooter
Studios," the group that licensed Lithtech to make a
Western shooter last year? Their web site went down...
but apparently they're still around, though mebbe not
gettin' much game development done at th' mo'. Karrde
sent me
this scan from
an article in the April issue of PCAccelerator. Not so
positive for any true believers we have out there,
but alive is better'n dead.
Who Knows? Chet Knows
Or not. I love wacky map names.
Chet sent in a new map done by himself name of
DuNNO;
NNO is Chet's posse so isn't this a clever word play.
Chet has really got a seemingly effortless way with
fluid, organic structures now that is so amazing you almost
don't notice it's there. Sez he's learning some new
techniques... I'd say he sure as heck is. High framerates,
creative medium-sized map and a real looker too. Check
the shot.
Worms and Nasty Things
Got an email from laylow or err someone forwarding
it from him, something about a nasty new virus called
Wobbler that comes through your inbox by way of an email
titled "California." So be on the lookout for that, if you
see such a mail don't even open it, delete immediately. And
I guess "Win a holiday" is another nasty sneak virus lurking
in email waiting to bite your nose off.
Speaking of nasty computer things, I seem to have one.
Or rather, I keep getting one. F-prot (freeware antivirus
program, see handy files page)
calls it "VBS/Netlog.A." I call it a royal pain in the bum.
I think it's a worm that somebody is putting on my "Pale's
Place" machine by scanning my IP address with a portsniffer
or something like that. Anyhow I can't seem to block it
from getting on there. So far it's completely benign, but
I just want to get rid of it. Oh and don't worry, this isn't
something you could get by joining my Outlaws game hehe.
Just in case it couldn't hurt for you do grab a copy of
F-prot and make sure yer clean of all assorted (and sordid)
infections.
Web Stuff
Hey my DSL is back online! And first thing in the gate is
an email called "Big Busty Babes Hanging Out Everywhere!"
I guess I have friends in high places... :P Gosh I love
the internet.
Okay Outlaws web news. Beignet has something of a
write-up front-lines report on recent spam wars inflicted
on the Zone by new IRC converts. Go check out the full
scoop on her
site. What a mess. IRC old-timers know of course that
part of the whole reason to go to #outlaws_players is, or
was, to avoid that kind of thing. Ahh newbies. Hopefully this
is just one of those growing pain type of things.
Bloodeye has done up a massive revamp to
his site
which looks on it's way to being pretty smooth. I see he's
got a pretty frequently updated news page which as far as
I'm concerned is a prime-requisite for any decent gaming
web site. :)
Speaking of IRC, Kohna has some interesting
tidbits:
I'm looking for a new logo for the Tournament page. So I'm calling out all you
fine graphics designers to submit one that will be suitable to have the honor
to fly over the website. I'm also considering providing an Outlaws_players
Tournament jacket to the Champion of the Grand Event. If the logo is
spectacular it will also be worn by the Illustrious Champion with "Graphics by
yer nick" on the jacket. ;)
Submit yer entries to [removed] and I will make a page to show them
off and have the OL community vote to see who will have the
honors.
Don't forget we have a Tourney this Sunday and the Champions playoff coming
soon.
For more information visit
www.outlaws.simplenet.com
* * *
Wednesday 3/22/00
IRC Hoppin', Web News
Dr "semi-retired" Death2 sez that the
#Outlaws_Players channel on Undernet
IRC is really hoppin' these
days, if you haven't seen the scene lately go check it
out. I actually forked over the money to register mIRC
several weeks ago, call me a sucker but it's just a darn
fine program that deserves support.
The Outlaws
Center continues to pump out the hard-hitting interviews,
latest being with Grifter who gets grilled pretty
good by intrepid reporter Robond on map making.
Here's a taste: "[Grifter] of course it's 'easy' to make a map,
the tough part is making it good."
DarkJedi.com, home of the LawMaker level editor, has moved
to Code-Alliance.com.
Still got the same LawMaker downloads and forum though.
Thanks to Tweak for the tip.
Two More Petition Mentions
salmoides, having managed through hard work and
favors best left unmentioned to get the
sequel petition mentioned on
just about every gaming news site in existence, has now
begun to track down fairly exotic sites that are new to
me, I'd never heard of
bennyland.com or
Dayton's Misc
but there they are with nice news posts about the petition,
thanks to sal (and to Benny and Dayton).
Thanks guys!
Wrapper Slow on GeForce?
My brother Slack-Jawed Pete got a shiny new GeForce
card some months back and my first thought of course was
to try in with Outlaws running through the XGL200 Glide
Wrapper (see the handy files
page to grab the wrapper). Behold and lo, the graphic
quality was perfect but on his P2 400 I was only gettin'
about 30 frames per second. I think I mentioned this here
at the time. Well Breakaway just wrote in the other
day to say that's about all he's gettin' too on his GeForce.
Hmm.
So I tried out OL w/ XGL200 on the PIII 450 w/ TNT2 they
stuck me with at work. Framerates off the charts (hitting
the 120mHz refresh rate, that is). So there seems to be
some kind of holdup running XGL200 on GeForce cards, 'cause
it runs much more quickly on TNTs and TNT2s. If anyone has
any clues about this lemme know.
* * *
Monday 3/20/00
New Marshal's Ravine
Angua fixed a prob with one of the respawn points
in her map so you'll want to get the new
Marshal's
Ravine if'n ya downloaded it yesterday.
Mysteriouser and Mysteriouser
Makin' up words is fun... Anyhow I posted a link to the
new site
OLHideout
yesterday, and now the mysterious webmaster thereof is
tellin' me that his/her identity will be revealed 12 days
from today, on the 20th. "12" may somehow be significant,
I really dunno. I'm horrible with names and numbers, ta
tell ya th' truth. Mebbe one of you smarter folks can figger
this one out.
Call Me Paleface
You know them, you dread them: literary references to Paleface.
Here's another I stumbled across, this from the first
chapter of James Joyce's Ulysses:
Young shouts of moneyed voices in Clive Kempthorpe's
rooms. Palefaces: they hold their ribs with laughter,
one clasping another. O, I shall expire! Break the news
to her gently, Aubrey! I shall die! With slit ribbons of
his shirt whipping the air he hops and hobbles round the
table, with trousers down at heels, chased by Ades of
Magdalen with the tailor's shears. A scared calf's face
gilded with marmalade. I don't want to be debagged! Don't
you play the giddy ox with me!
Hmm, mebbe it helps to be Irish to understand that. Aha,
there's the tie-in I was looking for with Saint Patrick's
Day, just a couple days late is all. Blarney!
* * *
Sunday 3/19/00
Three New Maps
Squigglebox sent along his new level
Black
Forest (I do believe he's German so he knows a Black
Forest when he see's one, I'd bet). This is a very very
large outdoor level with a soothing dark blue moonlight
palette. There's a neat lodge and a small sniping tower
among the hills and trees. Very nifty stuff, though the
oddly bright path, 3d tree and a passel of minor 3dfx
errors slightly mar the otherwise lovely looks. Still
those looking for a big, stylish place to practice their
rifle skills should like this one. Here's a
shot. Watch our for a really
freaky sound effect when yer out alone in the dark
woods...
Moose sent along his latest,
Domus,
which accordin' to him is Latin for "house." He was shootin'
fer a kinda Roman villa look with this one and well I think
he did a pretty darn good job, 'specially considering he
didn't even use any custom textures. Gotta love them
smooth black columns and the framerate for the most part
holds up well even with the open roof design. TNT all
around the rooftops, woohoo! Actually no wait that's bad,
I like it better when just Sanchez has the boom-sticks.
Hehe. ;) Check the
screenshot.
Angua sent in her first map,
Marshall's
Ravine. This is an impressive first map, very solid
construction, texturing and lighting and object placement.
If it errs in anything, in fact, it would be that it is
a mite too ambitious, cramming canyons, tunnels, sheds,
a waterfall and a full-fledged town all into one spot,
leaving low framerates in several major areas. It's got
a good look to it though, as you can see
here.
Sites an' Stuff
An anonymous person sent me the URL of their new site,
which doesn't have their name either. Hmm...
|
|
OLHideout
Attractive framework for a general Outlaws site. Some
files and links and a message board
there now, layout also has spots for
maps and news.
|
I pity th' foo who tries to resist the world domination
of Mr. T. Banjo sent me a handy URL which transforms
my humdrum site into
a
T-enhanced extravaganza. Now I know what's been missing
here for so long...
owlofdoom is thinkin' that if everyone wants an
OL sequel so bad, why don't y'all just get together and
do a Western mod for Unreal Tournament or somethin'? Anyhow
he's all fired up to get started on this project, if'n yer
innerested in helpin' out (mod experience not necessary a
big plus :) go ahead an' mail owl at
[removed]
or hunt him down in the Zone from 7-9 PM Mountain time
most Fridays.
* * *
Thursday 3/16/00
A Prayer From Grifter
Grifter just recently made his return to LawMakin'
but is already goin' nuts like a hog in a trough (uh no
I don't know what that means either), he's got yet another
new map for us:
Sinner's
Prayer. Intended as a small 1 on 1 deathmatch map it's
just one small church and a well, the church has a bunch
of nice big open windows that you can jump through. Sky's
kinda odd but a nice little map, here's a
shot. Grifty thinks there
may be issues running the map in software mode, I didn't
check that.
Two From TenTacos
TenTacos, not to be outdone, sent in two maps:
Cover
Me and
Redwood.
"Cover Me" is a full-on CTF two-base-mirror map, the bases
have kind of an Aztec feel to them and nifty features such
as a slide that accelerates you toward the center of the
map and very nicely designed sniping ports. Sniping in fact
is the name of the game here with bunkers and a custom
sniper rifle taken from "Rampage." Here's a
shot.
"Redwood" is a nice-looking forest map that, like all
forest maps I have seen that attempt 3D trees, sucks up
framerate like nothin' else. So if ya got th' hardware
fer it ya kin play in some nifty arboreal forts an'
such. Heck you can even kiss the sky since he faked the
skybox. Here's the shot.
Outlaws in Print
Exidor mentioned that the April 4th edition of
PC Magazine has a review of online gaming sites. The
Zone is in there, of course, but he says the nifty part
is that they used a pic of the Outlaws Main for the
screenshot. Well, it is kinda purty...
* * *
Wednesday 3/15/00
GameSpy Arcade to Support Outlaws
Just learned about GameSpy's latest brainstorm,
GameSpy Arcade.
The old GameSpy software (now "GameSpy3D" :p) lets you
pull up lists of dedicated servers running various
client-server type games such as Quake, Unreal, etc.
"GameSpy Arcade" aims to do a similar job for peer-to-peer
games. Who cares? Remember, Outlaws is a peer-to-peer
game and in fact is listed in the ranks of the 50-odd
games GSA will support when it comes out for download
at the beginning of April.
Of course, a fair number of online gaming services have
aimed to offer Outlaws play and none of them have done
it amazingly well, and I include the Zone and Kali in
those ranks. For my money I really doubt it will beat the
sheer grace and elegance of using
Outnet
and mIRC but hey, I
guess we'll just wait and see. Speaking of money, GSA is
ad-supported freeware, meaning you get to wait for ads
to load up and animate as you use the software. I love
animating ads, they make me feel pampered and catered
to.
Misc Ramblin's
They made me install Windows 2000 on a dual-boot for
compatibility testing at work, hoorah. It's pretty
slick and stable, the thing that just gets me about MS
operating systems is that each "evolution" requires
twice as much RAM as the previous one. Oh they've also
fit more ads for MS services in there, that's nice. I
hadn't realized 'til now though how much the look of
the Sims (the blue background, the fade-in menus) is
based on Win2k.
This whole X-Box thing really sticks in my craw. All the
journalists go bonkers over those ridiculous "demo" movies
they showed. What do those mean? What can they mean,
seeing as how they don't even have a CPU or video card
built for the darn thing yet, not to mention the OS? They
don't demonstrate actual performance, that's for darn sure.
But everyone seems to have swallowed them lock, stock and
barrel.
Most of ya won't be surprised to hear me say I hope MS
loses a lot of cashola on the X-Box. As far as I can see
from the paper specs, it's gonna be a buggy, complex,
expensive game console and/or a dumbed-down, unexpandable
computer. What's the point? Oh well I'm forgetting,
according
to MS X-Box "guru" J Allard, "X-Box is the international
standard for fun..." Gee, I hope Outlaws is Fun
Compatible (tm). Sheesh.
I had one more ramble... oh yeah, the Voodoo4/5 is set
for release at the end of April. Of course that'll probably
slide back a bit but dang, I'm lookin' forward to that
anti-aliasing stuff.
* * *
Monday 3/13/00
Fistful of Maps
Five, that's right I said five new maps today. If'n ya
recall last week I said I was gonna have way less time
fer updatin' startin' this week so I'll probably be
experimentin' with newer speedier formats...
Bastille
by Chet
(shot) — Gotta love a good
castle map. This one's mirror-image CTF style with two large
stony castles. Lots of sniping from battlements and stuff,
fps a bit low in just a few spots.
Monkey in
the Middle
by Axe56
(shot) — Another treatment from
the "PlayICQ" map from Grifter's
Unfinished
Maps set, using some of the new textures from the
DBTS
texture pack I posted a while back. The new textures
may be a bit obtrusive here, but a very solid open CTF
design with a big tower in the middle.
Passages
by Barefoot
(shot) — Another CTF map,
this one with narrow passages, watery and dry, between
areas. A bit more free-flowing than the others, fast
framerates, worth a look-see.
Rebellion
by Grifter and Taco
(shot) — A map Grift and Taco
started over two years ago and never finished. Grift's story:
"The evil Bob Grahm's iron fisted rule has pushed this border town too far! An uprising has occured and the town is destroyed and abandoned, luckily, you and a few other
Outlaws arrived just in time for some deathmatch/team play/ctf fun!"
Different thinking than most maps, makes it very hard to
access many areas... I couldn't even figure out how to get
to the second floor of the warehouse (respawn?). Tricky
one.
Vulture Canyon 1.1s
by DrDeath2 — Just an update to the readme
file.
Site Stuff
Greenhead wants people to know the
SIO site
has the maps page back up after recovering from some
nasty hacking. GodZilla has a NCAA basketball pool
going on at
BOC Outlaws.
BTJustice has started a perpetual poll of who's yer
fave OL character, and has a link to the growing CNET
User Opinions for Outlaws page, all on
his
site.
New link from TheRock:
And to wrap up, another
work d'arte from Arrowsmith,
this one purporting to show Bob's secret membership in
err some sort of bad boys paramilitary organization. No I'm
not sure I get it either.
Phew that still took a long time... sheesh. Gotta get
quicker at this and not run off at the mouth so. :P
* * *
Saturday 3/11/00
Hunters, Take Two
Grifter got the footstep soun |
