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Eighteenth Highest Shelf Vittles: 6.26.00-11.15.00

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Wednesday 11/15/00

Puzzle On This
     rant_2 wrote to let me know that the rant Outlaw posse site now has some fun new Java games: there's a puzzle slider game where you slide tiles to unscamble a picture from Outlaws (I stink at this one) and a Memory one where you race the clock to match pairs of Outlaws textures, pictures and colors. That one's a lot of fun and since I finished two levels I now feel like a genius. Oh and the Outlaws wordsearch game now has some new boards (searching for Outlaws level names and the like) and there's now a history section on the quiz section of the week—these quizzes are really in-depth. Anyway, lots of fun and should tide you over until Outlaws 2 comes out ('round about the time the Voodoo 5 6000 comes out... ;).

Voodoo 5 6000 Canned, 3dfx Retreats
     Whoa. Some not-so-great news for fans of Glide-only games. :P On Monday came the announcement that the ridiculously powerful and expensive Voodoo 5 6000 graphics card was being effectively canned by handing the technology license to Quantum 3d; looks like the 5000 is the end of the line for the V5. Then today came the announcement that 3dfx is shutting down its production plant and going back to pure chipset design, and will let card manufacturers make the actual retail graphics cards (like nVidia does now, for instance). Thanks to salmoides for being the first tipster (he also mentioned a petition you can sign to encourage 3dfx to release the 6000).
     Sigh. Well I was savin' up fer that darn V5 6000 for a long time now. Ach. Now I guess I can finally get a new system and just stick a V5 5000 in it. Then again, I need a new car too. Car or computer? Hmmm... hrrmmm... err... maybe I'll just turn to a life of crime.
     Oh back on topic, its a little hard to say where 3dfx is going from here. There are still rumors about their next-gen "Rampage" chipset but the company itself is actually talking more about designing chips for non-PC stuff like set-top boxes, handhelds, etc. Are they pretty much ditching the PC biz? Will we all have to find Voodoo2s to keep playing Outlaws in the future world of non-3dfx graphics cards? Bah!

Wanted: Good Stuff
     Kid Macoo pointed me to this Gamespy article covering "Wanted!", the western mod for Half-Life (not to be confused with the Outlaws mod for Half-Life or the western mod for Quake 3). Talks about what's in the mod, its distribution (will be in upcoming releases of Half-Life Game of the Millenium Edition boxes or whatever) and so forth. There's also a link to the Wanted! home page which has been updated with snazzy new screenshots, etc.

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Sunday 11/12/00

Coast to Coast Maps
     Yesh I made it back safe and sound after quite a time in Boston, though Pete and I are pretty sure that "Sun Country Airlines" used to be ValuJet. They don't like to advertise that, for some reason... :P I'm also still a little woozy after taking a 7:00 am cross-country flight on two hours of sleep yesterday (we were up late in a 5-person Diablo II LAN game ;) so I hope you'll bear with any slipshod work on my part today. On with the new maps!
     USMarshal's Guild House (shot) by Alex: Small and fairly basic DM map with a square building, a cliff ledge behind it and a cave underneath the cliff. Textures are a bit garish but framerates are high and object placement is okay.
     Purgatory (shot) by Krummwaffe: The author didn't put his name in the text file for this map as "all" he did was take buildings from the 2nd single-player level and arrange them in a Sanc-like double row. Well actually he did much more than just arrange them, you'll find all kinds of nifty touches that greatly improve their flow make them easier to navigate. It's also a minor miracle how he managed to keep the framerate pretty playable with all these buildings concentrated in one area.
     fir (shot) by Prowler: Odd first map from this author which exploits the LawMaker bug (I think that's what it is, anyway) where floors turn see-through. So this is a small low-ceilinged room with a "glass" floor through which you can see a panning brick texture. Very odd. Also the four powerups (including a badge) seem to be hidden inside a wall, though you can still pick them up by brushing the wall. Very strange. Thanks to D.A.D. for sending this one in.
     FF (shot) by Prowler: Big, flat and dim map designed for CTF. You'll pretty much be in for lots of rifle battles here and it will be really tough to get across the huge empty spaces without getting riddled with bullets. Thanks again to D.A.D. for sending it.
     WPT Arena (shot) by HardknoX_3: Lack of shading makes this multilevel rectangular canyon map a bit hard on the eyes, though the layout is decent. Judging by the target range and ledges chock-full of different weapons and ammo this was built more as a training map than a normal DM affair.
     BiO (shot) by InFeCtiON: CTF map with two forts, which appear to have been adopted from JTMason's "AR Fort," facing each other across a very long valley with a bridge above a hill in between and a large tunnel running underneath. Missing ground problem (not intentional here, I think) on the central hill. Framerate gets a bit low at the ends, but playable. Overall the construction is a little "big-boned" but decent, and the view from the central bridge is impressive.
     Rogue Cheddar, the First of the Cheese Westerns (shot) by Krummwaffe: Inspired by a Monty Python bit, this two-building town in a roughly circular valley features Krummwaffe's usual brilliant texturing and attention to unexpected detail. Twin Sanchez-pistols replace the sawed-off shotgun and these devastating weapons are fun to shoot and feature a custom sound from the "Fistful" trilogy, as does the rifle. Lovely medium-sized, slightly off-kilter DM map.
     Winner's Circle (Shootout Version) (shot) by Blackyolero and Picante: Redesign of their teamplay "Winner's Circle" map takes out the waiting areas (which are pretty neat if you haven't tried that map) to concentrate on down and dirty DM play in the central area, which has had a few curves and a tunnel added to its gorgeous layout. I noticed slight slowdowns in a couple of the corners... well actually they aren't really corners because the rock walls in this map are very organic and curvy—and the curves can probably be blamed for the slightly lower than expected fps. Still it plays very well and should be plenty fast enough to keep your finger glued to your trigger button. Blacky had some interesting notes about the redesign which I've added to the text file.
     Temple CTF (shot) by Shotgun Joe and OLM_Lankman: Interesting layout for a CTF map: there's a wall with a few firing slits separating the two bases so you have to run though a twisty "W" shaped side tunnel to get the flag. There are also bunkers set in the cliffs that look down right into the enemy's base. This is gonna be a nasty one—not too many places to hide! Lack of shading and repeating textures take away your depth perception in a few spots. Framerates are high.

Half-Life Outlaws Mod Shots
     One of the authors (there are two) of the Outlaws mod for Half-Life which I posted about in my last update has been kind enough to send me more screenshots to show. He also mentioned that they estimate that they are about 65% of the way to beta and that he's had some responses since I made the first post and they have all been nice and supportive.
     The textures in these shots are taken from OL, the HUD is from Half-Life but the maps and models have been done from scratch and though they are lookin' pretty good even now, keep in mind this is still very much a work in-progress. Check 'em: character selection, Pattern Repair 1, 2 and 3, Dry Gulch 1 and 2.
     Again, send yer feedback to [removed].

Hooter's High-Visibility Sights
     Hooter sent in two custom crosshairs. Both are pretty sharp and in easy-to-see yellow, though on a Voodoo card they'll blur unless you're running at 640x480. Get the outline sight and square sight.

Other Sites

	Planet Outlaws Lots of Java, not Netscape-friendly. If you have IE you'll find pics of Outlaws players, a bulletin board and a few files for download, amongst other interactive stuff.
	The Wild Bunch Framed pages are graphically inconsistent but easy to navigate. Lots of info on this posse's members, some history of the gang and several informative ramblings by the members.
	Shotgun Joe's Outlaws Page Shotgun J dishes out his opinions on many aspects of Outlaws multiplayer including characters, favorite maps, weapons and other players. Also tips on map making and sound files to download. The individual pages all have different backgrounds and only the first page has a menu, which makes getting around a little tougher than it could be, but everything is illustrated with screenshots and written in an informative manner.

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Thursday 11/1/00

I'm Your Huckleberry
     Huckleberry's Revenge by HardknoX_3: Big name for a remake of (was it Marshal's?) "Sniper," keeping the modified rifle, has an auto-reloading high-ammo pistol and probably some changes to the level layout that I just can't really tell about because I don't remember the original level all that well. Seeing as how much Sniper gets downloaded from my ftp site there are a lot of folks who seem to like that modified rifle, so here's more of it.

Out-Life? Half-Law?
     There's an Outlaws mod for Half-Life in the works. Hey, you all right there? You looked a little faint. Not much to tell at this point, the author is just trying to get as much of Outlaws into the Half-Life system as he can. Not a half-bad idear. He feels his biggest challenge will be the character models: how to get the fairly wild 2d Outlaws characters converted into fully fleshed-out 3d polygons. Well from the looks of things so far I think he'll do just fine. He's been sending me screenshots for the past month or so... I deleted the first batch (didn't think he'd ever agree to let me post 'em) so I'll hafta get those from him again, but here's a lil' gat's-eye view of Orleans fer you ta check out. The map doesn't have lightmapping in there yet, the shots with lightmaps that he sent me of Hargrove's Pattern Repair were pretty darn spiffy. Hopefully I'll have some more shots when I get back from my trip. He's interested in player's thoughts on this so shoot him an email at [removed] an' let him know what'cha think.
     Speakin' of western mods, Martone has a link to a sharp-looking western mod for Quake 3 over at OGB Headquarters. If you're in a modding mood, of course. Not every game can get things right the first time. ;)

Space Cruiser Yamoto
     So that's all th' news fer now. I'm sailin' off to the east coast (the "right coast" I guess since a friend of mine from New Jersey calls the west the "left coast") Friday morning and will be back Saturday the 11th if all goes as planned. Catch y'all in a bit.

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Monday 10/30/00

So Many Maps It's Almost Scary
     My emails came through... and how! You know how usually on Halloween you fill up on candy until you feel like barfing (at least, in America we do this because we're pretty stupid)? Well this year you can do the same with Outlaws maps. How many can you fit down the hatch at once? Chug! Chug! Chug!
     Hostages (shot) by Gas: It's not often these days when I load up a new map and say "Sweet!" It's even less often when I am moved proclaim "Holy sh--!" Now I know this is something of a "family" site so I apologize to my tender readers for that last sentence but I literally couldn't help it. First of all, you're in a CTF map set on three fantastically perilous islands in the middle of a boundless ocean. These are arranged in a row, the end isles being quaint little army camps and the middle being a wooden palisade which blocks the view from camp to camp. That's the "sweet" part. Then you find that there are twisty tunnels under each island shaped to channel you in various winding ways... then you come to the entrance of one and discover that it flings you across the gap (there's also a bridge for pedestrians) to the next island over. That's the "holy" part. This map picked me up and threw me, and I went back for more. Looks great too, fps a bit low at either end but playable.
     ZoneML (shot) by D.A.D.: Dedicated to Zone players who like to pass on the trimmings, this flat map is shaped sorta like a squished hourglass, with two wide triangular sides meeting at their points in the middle. There are canteens around but not much else. What's the point (haha)? To shoot and be shot, I should think. High fps, needless to say.
     DadZone (shot) by D.A.D.: It's the previous map with the trimmings, including barricades bolstering the defense of either side and various powerups like vanishing cream, etc. Still done in the same grey pseudo-sci-fi style.
     RayTown (shot) by Kid Macoo: A nicely-done town on a large flat plateau cut by a railroad. Kid Mac wanted to make it look open instead of surrounded by cliffs so three sides just sort of end in a blank wall of sky, which feels a little odd but doesn't really look bad, though he tells me that without a Voodoo card you'll see mountains popping up if you stand on a rooftop. I like the layout of the town except for the large hotel, which is kind of rambling and maze-like, and the fact that there are several AIs wandering around which will add to lag. Framerates are impressive for what he put in there.
     Cripes (shot) by Meany: An impressive debut map by this author (I think? although the email address is familiar... hmm), Cripes reminds me of the ground level of Thud Tower with its two layers of simple mazeworks, though here they're in a light wood rather than a heavy brick tone. But the layout is more focused here than in Thud and the framerate is fantastic especially given how many archways you can see through at once. Also a sharp and consistent use of shadow here really puts a nice clear edge on things. Very well done arena-style map.
     Ebony (shot) by TenTacos: This may be the darkest map I've ever seen. It isn't completely dark mind you: it has just enough light bits to make the rest of it seem that much darker. You're tomcatting through the windows and manholes of a bayside city street on a dark and cloudy night, with very feeble illumination from the public street lighting. This will be one very difficult map to play. Tempting but probably not the best idea to turn on your lantern 'cause you'll stand out like a Christmas tree. Then again fps is kinda low looking down the whole street so you might get a couple feet before snipers hiding in the darkness fill you full of lead.
     Patriotwar (shot) by Warwolf: Smooth green hills. Oh baby, are these a sight for (literally) sore eyes. This's a classic hard-core open field CTF map in the lines of "NoMans" but without the underground tunnels and the field between the solid earthwork bases is comprised of gently rolling grassy hills. Simple and very polished with gorgeous texture selection. Hmm... three of the last four maps on my "must play" list (which is really long these days) are now CTF maps. I don't even like CTF. What the heck is going on? :P
     Mini Repair (shot) by Excalibur: Edit of LEC's "Hargrove's Pattern Repair" brings in the fence almost right up to touching the small building. Cuts down on the advantage of the rifle in the normally large field. I like what's been done with the sky here... actually when I first run the map on my Voodoo3 the sky is this groovy green shade, then it turns red after a few seconds. I'm not sure what's up with that, the green is pretty cool though.
     Did you really eat all that? :P Then again, on a "more than you wanted to know" note, I generally didn't OD on Halloween candy back when I could get away with Trick'r'Treatin'. Because my parents were pretty strict "health food" disciplinarians, Halloween was the one major infusion of sugar and corn syrup that Slack-Jawed Pete and I could get away with each year. So I rationed my candy out to last me as long as possible. I still remember the year I got a bag of Red Hots (this was back when people who gave out unwrapped candy weren't immediately locked up on charges of attempted poisoning) and eventually got down to allowing myself one Red Hot a night. Sure they got kinda sticky and hard but Halloween lasted 'til nearly Christmas that year!
     On another light note, Raf (he has some other nick these days, but I forget what it is) pointed out that the "Brain Transplanation" web site indicated in that spam mail I posted in the last update may be some sort of front for a group also trying to make their living at commercial web design. Their design site is here. I love it... the logo (from the "ABC's of Graphic Design" school) reads "web desing studio." Man, this stuff's too weird to make up...
     Pete and I are headed to Boston to visit Big Nose Kate for a week starting this Friday. I think I'll get in another update before then, but ya never know. We're flying on an airline I'd never heard of before a search for cheap tickets turned them up: Sun Country Airlines. Should be quite an adventure.

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Thursday 10/26/00

Send That Mail Again
My email finally came back online, I was notified of this by two spam mails plunking down in my inbox. I've never been so happy to see spam. Just for that I'm going to post my favorite-ever spam mail (that I actually received). But what I'm really making this update for is to say that if you sent me an email since 7am PST on Tuesday, you'll have to re-send it because I didn't receive it. Pretty cool eh? ;P Okay here's that spam:

Subject: BRAIN TRANSPLANTATION - Be Young Again !
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 21:20:33 -0700 (PDT)
From: brain_trans@yahoo.com
To: [removed] [My old address still gets spam, how nice :]

Have you ever dreamed to be young again?
    To relieve memory of your childhood. Or may be you just want to have strong, beautiful body. It is all becoming possible right now with a latest advancement in microsurgery. Thanks to the procedure called: Brain Transplantation. When you car is too old to fix it - you will buy new car. Your body is that car, and you just a passenger. Get new body - keep your IDENTITY !

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE VISIT www.ny-best.com
    Human always dreamed to live forever. Now when it is became possible our responsibility is to make it in ordered way. Unfortunately brain transplantation involves a lot of complexity. Especially in finding appropriate host body. As a result waiting for operations can take up to two years. To be considered for nearest brain transplantation we suggest you to join our waiting list. We will keep you posted about latest news in Brain Transplantation, you will be receiving semimonthly issues of Identity Advancements Today magazine free of charge. As soon as your term will closing in you will be notified by our staff.

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE VISIT www.ny-best.com

legislation for commercial email (s. 1618 - section 301). " persuant to section 301, paragraph (a) )(2) (c) of s. 1618, further transmissions to you by the sender of this email may be stopped at no cost to you by submitting a request via email SUBJECT = "REMOVE".
     Further, this message cannot be considered spam as long as we include sender contact information.

I love it! And oh man it just got better—when I got that mail the web URL didn't work so I figured oh well, that was kinda funny. But there's an actual web site for it now! For only $499,000.00 you can get a brain transplant into a fresh young body. Best of all, if you sign up for the waiting list now you get a 10% discount! Now how about that. So what I want to know is, where do they get these healthy young bodies that they'll transplant you into? Do they grow them in vats? Oh hang on they say that too: "Most of the bodies comes from Eastern Europe. Age bracket from 13 to 30 years old." Hmm... that's kinda goulish... Oh and: "Because of the ethical aspects we do not discuss how and were we getting new human bodies for brain transplantation." Darn those pesky ethical aspects! Gee it is just so tempting to fill out their waiting list form so I can see what this great magazine has in it... probably some great ads... ;)
Don't forget to re-send your mail!

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Wednesday 10/25/00

Gah Part 2
     Gah. Not only have I heard diddly and squat about the dedicated IP addresses I ordered from Qwest, now my incoming mailserver is not responding and my DSL is slower than drivers on the morning commute. So this update won't have anything that was sent to me today... which is doubly frustrating because I know there was a reminder I sent myself from work that now I can't get—and I can't remember what it was. :P
     Hmm now that I look at it the last email that got through to me came at 7:30 am Tuesday morning. :PP Great.

Not Quite Maps
     LawMaker .inf Template by SnotENoze: A set of templates that mapmakers can use for making doors in single-player levels. Sounds pretty useful ta me (but not for me since I don't know word one about making maps :).
     graybo (shot) by outlawtrain55: Uh. Never a good sign when the .zip and .lab file together hold over a score of duplicate files that I have to weed out. If you like items and textures jumbled into a small level with a shooting poodle, this one's all you.
     Gurdon (shot) by outlawtrain55: Gee this one only had about three files to delete and a few to rename, so things are looking up already. But the map name is spelled different than the filename. That's usually not a good sign. At least this doesn't have stuff thrown all over the place but three vanishing creams in a two-room level seems a bit much. Maybe ghosts are in for Halloween.
     shot by outlawtrain55: Let's see a few files to delete... oh and have to put the .lab file together for the author who was apparently in such a hurry to get this two-room, no-item map out that he couldn't be bothered. I'm not even going to post this. Don't click link above, it won't work. I'm just leaving it there because I can't be bothered. This map will be taken out and... :P
     test3 (shot) by outlawtrain55: Hmm delete those duplicate files... check the .lab oh yeah those shouldn't be there... and hey now it runs. This is actually the best of the batch, which really isn't saying anything. Really.
     WarsTown (shot) by WarWolf: Well well an honest-to-goodness map here. Sort of a big-boned charm to this large town square. Probably could have done without that finely-detailed well in the middle though as framerates are a mite spartan. Definitely not ML. Still, this is the rousing success of the evening. And no, my email being down doesn't make me grumpy. Not at all.

A Blast of Sax From the Past
     I'm still not too sure about that title but oh well... Saxster, the first big-gun on the Outlaws web-range back in "the day," is now heavily involved in Counter-Strike and goes by the name "Foehammer" on sites like www.xiles.org and www.foehammer.net. Good to see he's still in the web game... game. So anyhow if you run into FH in a Counter-Strike game, be sure to embarrass him in front of all his pals by talkin' "countrified" to him in familiar tones about the old days. I'm sure he'll love it. :)

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Sunday 10/22/00

Nothin' But Maps
     Loads of new maps today. Swiped the first two from Outlaws Gang Busters:
     Rowdy2.0 (shot) by Pittbullet: I was pretty happy with this little canyon map with high fps in a nice open canyon floor and some small buildings around the edges until I noticed the little nook with the badge and then also the back tunnel with spiders (AIs take up bandwidth) and smaller nooks that are hard to get into. Well made, I just don't like the item choices.
     YeS (shot) by ?: Nicely laid-out little town with open horizons and very nifty tunnel system below-ground. It's a darn shame it feels unfinished, with unstitched textures and pretty low framerates. The telegraph poles are a neat idea though they may be contributing to the low fps.
     Casper (shot) by Outlawtrain55: First map from this author so far as I know definitely has that first map feel anyway: big and flat, with willy-nilly item placement.
     Hooter's (shot) by Hooter: Revisit of his small (3 sectors!) "Hooterville" map, this time starting you out with your character's normal weapons. No pickup items at all, this is about as pure a DM as you can get!
     LMAO (shot) by Tater: Medium-sized canyon DM with pretty nice layout that keeps moving around and through. Lots of permeable walls (which tend to annoy me) and also mod'ed rifles, I think they do more damage. Clint says "Groovy" when you pick them up and they have that "Sharps" rifle sound whose origin I can't recall just now.
     Deserted (shot) by D1andOnly with help from TheRock: Well-designed CTF map with a fort at both ends of a V-shaped canyon. Double-bunker at the bend will control the map, if you can hold it, but watch out for the tunnels cutting underneath and the cliff-face bunkers that guard either base. Not the best-looking map but they kept framerates nice and high, even while viewing both bases at once.
     CrazyCTF (shot) by SoL_Kil_ler: Two bases in square canyons with a lot of bunkers around for cover fire, connected by a short L-shaped channel and a long straight tunnel that goes right into the heart of either base. Nice trick with the sky (one fort is night, other is day) pulled off almost flawlessly—talk about your long day's journey into night. Framerates good, layout a bit squarish and item placement a bit clumpy but this is a solid map with some nice touches.
     Liltown2 by Blink: Very minor modification to MikeDaKid's original "Liltown2" map, taking out the waterfall primarily, which improves framerate some. A few other minor changes but still pretty much the same nice small packed DM map.

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Wednesday 10/18/00

Map This
     Wolf Pack Tribe subHQ by Morilec: Simply weird little level with four rooms of different shape separated by long narrow tunnels. Low gravity zones and glowing textures abound. Sorta reminds me of the old days when there weren't that many good maps out. ;)
     Hmm I had two other maps but they didn't seem to work, had to send 'em back for retoolin'. Doh.

Return of GoJo
     Didja know he's named after a household cleaner? Anyhoo, GoJo is back online after switching ISPs and has move his web site, new address is here: GoJo's House. As it has always been, a valuable page with tips, tactics and a LawMaker school section.

Revenge of SWE
     Fimpen sent me the URL to the new SWE site (though the old one is still up if you want to wander in):

Team SWE
Ultra-stylish, slightly high bandwidth (but very carefully budgeted) design by Fimpen, this Swedish posse's site features a bit of posse news, info on the members and (soon) a choice selection of maps to download.

Gettin' Desperate
Fit ta be tied fer more Old West action? Well it isn't a shooter and it isn't 3D and it isn't by Lucasarts but the upcoming adventure game "Desperados" looks fairly high-quality. Check the preview on Gamespot. Thanks to far-roving salmoides for the link.

LawMaker Help for Flopur
Floper is encountering some odd issues with one of his maps. Read on ta see if you kin help:

It's been a while since I've sent ya new maps, but this email is about an old map of mine. Flopur's Fortress (flopfort.zip). When I released the map, I did not find any bugs in it. However, I have noticed the last few times I played the map that whenever it is CTF, a flag seems to disappear and then the game would freeze. This is a warning to all the people out there to not play my map until the bug has been resolved. Meanwhile, can you post a message on your website to all the mapmakers out there that I need help with this map. I've checked my map in Lawmaker and did not find any errors. Maybe someone else will have better luck. The problem is with CTF gameplay. More info, all the games that have done this, Garbotalk from mIRC was hosting. I dont know if that is the problem, but she is a good host with all the other many maps I've played so I think it is my map. Thanks.

     You kin email Flopur at [removed].

Status Report
     Actually not much to report because I don't know what the heck is going on with my DSL. Haven't seen hide nor hair of the dedicated IP addresses I ordered. Looks like I'll hafta find a time ta call Qwest and see what the heck kind of business they think they're running. Bah. Also, probably one or two of ya noticed I missed an update this weekend. Made the mistake of thinking it wouldn't take long to modify a CGI script to my liking. Haha. At least now I know more Perl than I ever wanted to.
     Oh okay I gotta share this too. Now some of ya may have heard of a fairly popular mod for that fairly popular game Half-Life, called "Counterstrike." It's a team-based multiplayer first-person-shooter where you kind of play cops and robbers but of course this is the 2000's so it's terrorists and counter-terrorists. The main twist is that when you die, you're out for the rest of the match. BUT you can drift around in free camera mode and watch what's going on.
     So of course if you bite it but say your buddy you're playing with is still in the game you can ghost around and watch his back for him, provided you have a means of communication (the in-game chat doesn't allow deadies to talk to the un-dead). So after hours two of my co-workers who share an office were playing and if one died the other became near omniscient as thanks to the help of his friendly ghost he now got instantaneous reports as to the enemy's whereabouts: "He's in the monitor room. He's turning back to the door—don't open it! Wait... he's moving away again... He's at the monitors... He's looking at the security monitors! Go! Go!" At which point he busts in the door and shoots the poor sucker (who is scanning for him through the level's security cameras) in the back. Well, they do say it pays to have friends close-by... never thought that included dead friends though. ;)

* * *

Wednesday 10/11/00

New Rifle Sounds From Aaron
     Aaron Sawyer has new rifle sounds at his web site, the new ones are the "Slim Beta Pack" with a playful variety of lighter rifle sounds and "Henry's Revenge," another version of his Henry rifle sound. He's been working to refine the timing, since Outlaws plays the sound at a specific time in relation to firing the actual gun. He'd like me to mention that if you're in to these things, his site also has X-Wing, Tie Fighter and Jedi Knight sections.

ExK Site Move, Redesign
     Trooper seems to get itchy all over if he doesn't come up with a new web design at least once a week. He's redesigned the ExK posse site, they've also moved to exk.50megs.com.

DSL Issues
     Still haven't heard about my dedicated IPs... that's not what I'm postin' here about though. Janitor also has QWest DSL and he's found that even with just one computer hooked in, under the new PPP mode they made everyone switch to he can't join any Outlaws games at all. Doh! Their tech support says that most DSL hosts are going this way. Well... this bites. If you're trying to decide between cable and DSL right now, I'd say you're probably better off with cable. Dunno 'bout where you are but in Seattle it's faster and cheaper than DSL, and you get a real dedicated IP address.
     Well that's all for t'night, got late on me while Slack-Jawed Pete was over here tryin' ta get me ta design a new logo for his engineering company. I hate designing logos. :P He showed me shots of Vince Carter jumping and dunking over a seven-foot tall French player though, that was kind of impressive. I didn't watch any Olympics at all this time around so I guess I missed one or two highlights like that. :P

* * *

Saturday 10/7/00

Help Unreal Get Outlawed
     soulstripper, a map-maker for Unreal: Outlawed, a Western Unreal mod, passed me a note ta say that they're lookin' fer a few experienced cowpokes ta help out. So if you got mad h@x0r skillz or somethin' like that (obviously, I don't), go check them out and see if there's something you can do.

Hmm uhh...
     Gee, slow news these past few days. I'll just have to fill in with some pointless blather. Let's see...
     I downloaded and played the "small" (35MB) version of the new "Escape from Monkey Island" demo. This version didn't have voices, I would'a had to download the 80MB one for those, and ~120MB to get the intro movie. Jeez. Anyhoo, it seemed to have that old Monkey Island flavor to it and man, I suck at these things. Just don't have the patience at all. I mean, the problem is that you have to go through tons and tons of conversation options to maybe possibly unearth the one right one... unless you're clever and figger these things out. Well I'm too impatient for the first, too dumb for the second. So I finally gave up and followed the walkthrough. Yay! Then I uninstalled the demo. :)
     Been kinda sick this whole past week and am finally feeling better today... sleeping for 10 hours probably helped. I am so bad at getting to bed at a reasonable hour these days but I forced myself to bed down early last night for my own good. So cranked the heat up, slept in, had French toast and have been drinking Tang with extra vitamin C put in it all day long. Woohoo! It don't get much better'n that.
     Mmm what else. Oh yeah, my dedicated IPs are "supposed" to come along on Monday. What exactly that means, the guy at USWest ("Now QWest!") couldn't tell me. Guess we'll see what happens Monday... I won't be surprised if my internet connection goes down. :P

* * *

Wednesday 10/4/00

Official Strategic Stuff
     Truffle pointed out that Amazon.com is selling Outlaws: The Official Strategy Guide. I think this is the same Prima guide that's been around for a while but hey, this link is new to me so whatever!

Look What You Stepped In
     oopupado (shot) by D.A.D. The author's first CTF map has an unusual organic shape. Err. Anyhow, the tricky layouts with high cliffs and sniping ledges mean it will take a lot of strategy to conquer this map. Hint: get to the room with the gat, cream and badge. :P High framerates, nice lighting effects, textures not really my favorite but do the job for the most part.
     WPT_HQ (shot) by Warwolf: Named after the author's "Wolf Pack Tribe" posse this is a visually impressive level with generally solid construction. There are a few points, namely hinged doors and the framerate at several locations in front of the large barnlike building, that hold it back a bit but still you should be able to get a good game on in it, so long as you don't mind a few sawed-offs and gats thrown in the mix. Nice use of wells, water towers and underground waterways.

Sitings

	Outlaws Planet Mista's "Guide to OL" site has a very attractive, fast layout with unique news, a poll, gameplay tips, some interesting files, a selection of favorite maps, a bit of info on his posse buddies, his takes on the OL characters (sassy!) and info on playing Outlaws through mIRC. That all adds up to a whole lot of Outlaws web goodness. Page may not load correctly in old browsers.
	Extreme Killers The ExK's site is another fine design by Trooper. Not a whole lot of stuff on this new posse site but hey, he's still workin' on it.

     Truffle has a mailing list based from his olhideout.net site. If you go there and sign up you'll be treated to regular batches of goodies from him including a run-down of recent OL-world events, OL-related stories and miscellaneous humor that he likes to share. Nothin' wrong with that now is there? Hmm actually lemme just post the whole darn September issue as a sampler, check it out right here.
     Emerson has a new URL for his "Emerson and the Outlaws" site, www.outlaws.cc. Along with the kind of neat Real Audio stuff (interviews with Eastwood about Fistful of Dollars, and Ennio Morricone music... I think a little Dirty Harry thrown in there too) that plays in the background while you browse, he's added a bunch more biographies of famous outlaws, includin' Pat Garrett and Ned Kelly. Good reads.
     The Zone in an attempt to do something festive has a list of Top 10 scary games. Actually... there's only nine on the list. But Outlaws is one of 'em, go figger. Weird marketing gimmick no doubt but hey, anywhere Outlaws pops up has something going for it. Thanks to Bad_Aim for the tip.
     siNJin wants to add that, in light of recent bitter experience, should you ever have to make a contentious call to some web vendor that ripped you off, record the darn phone call. Probably sound advice.

Getting Committed
     Well I ordered up some dedicated IPs for my DSL network here, they're supposed to go in effect early next week. Hopefully this'll allow me to get my lil' hosted Outlaws game back online. It kind of costs way more than it should... maybe once the monthly punch to my wallet starts to smart I'll ditch it for a cable modem hookup. Right now I just want to get it workin'.
     Had a scary moment today where I caught myself thinking "Gee, it would be cool to have a t-shirt that said 'Born Again Redneck'." Yikes. I'd better stop reading the Jeff Foxworthy day calendar that someone left at the office.

* * *

Saturday 9/30/00

Return of the Outlaws Hideout
Truffle's new college class isn't as tough as he feared it might be so he's got time to bring back his olhideout.net site. Not a whole lot up there yet but hey, hold yer horses.

The Outlaws Hideout
Fast tabled layout, some goodies like email services (yourname@olhideout.net), a few files, a bit of news, etc.

Watch Where You Buy
     Well I don't usually handle consumer-protection type stuff but hey, couldn't hurt. siNjin says his buddie EasyTarget recently got ripped off buying computer stuff from the online retailer "Dynasty Express." There's a site that collects buyer feedback on online hardware vendors, ResellerRatings.com. Check their score on Dynasty. Ooo, not good.
     Actually I'm kind of glad to know about this site myself. As soon as 3dfx decides they feel like selling their mythical V5 6000 I'll be going in for a new system. Probably a Thunderbird system, I guess. Anyhow, so I have to find a good place to shop for computer stuff too. I was leaning toward Accubyte because of their fantastic prices and the fact that they stock stuff most places don't have, like 512 MB PC133 RAM sticks, for instance. But they got really bad ratings at ResellerRatings. Hmm...

Dedicated Pale's Place
     So I continued my new favorite past time, calling USWEst ("Now QWest!") tech support about my DSL. Apparently the only thing I can really do to get my computers workin' both on LAN and online is to lease dedicated IP addresses. Well hokay I guess I can do that, what's money after all? :P But there's some kind of crazy catch, they only sell them if you sign up for their small business program or something like that. Very confusing. Anyway I have to call them, of course they're only open until 5 M-F and I forgot to call on Friday. Sigh.

* * *

Wednesday 9/26/00

Ugh
     Well my DSL in the new "improved" PPP mode is a dismal failure. It would be all fine and dandy if I only had one PC that I wanted to use on the internet, but adding more gets troublesome because in PPP mode they all need to share a single IP address. You can try to juggle ports around but applications like Outlaws, which appear to require use of a specific port, just won't work.
     So I'm gonna hafta do something. First plan is to call up my ISP and see if I can go back to good ol' bridging mode, where every computer that plugs in to my hub gets its own honest-to-god real IP address. If they won't let me do that, maybe I can buy some static IP addresses. If that won't work, I'll see if I can get cable modem service... AT&T's @Home is $10/month cheaper than my DSL, faster, and offers additional static IP addresses at just $5/month.
     This is really irritating...

Maps, New and Sorta New
     Rope's End - CTF by Runaway Jim: Reworking of his great (and big) "Rope's End" map with special attention paid to CTF, including streamlining the flow a bit and ensuring that you can't lose the flag in the river. If you liked "Rope's End" and you dig on CTF, you'll like this.
     ItsWindy (shot) by Spikerama (with technical help from Nowhere Man: Maybe you could see this coming from the title—it's really windy, and the wind is pushing you through the canyon. You can see refuge behind a house wall, in trenches or side tunnels. The map isn't amazingly beautiful (is it just me or does the automap look like a... nah!) but the bushes and trees (and other things) blowing in the wind are cool. Definitely an idea that has not been done before. Take Anderson—he's skinny and probably has less wind resistence.
     Junction 2 (second version) by Slack: Okay, this is going to confuse people even more than it did the first time. Slack's original "Junction 2" map was a reworking of Shifty's classic "Junction" map (whose last version was version 2.0s, hence some of the confusion). Now this new "Junction 2" is a reworking of the earlier "Junction 2," if that makes any sense. Phew. Slack says he's opened it up a bit and redone the bridge so it looks a bit more solid. Still hasn't textured the crates correctly but oh well, can't have everything.

Webbin's

The Official Home of Voodoo
As witnessed by their two old an long-untouched web sites, the Voodoo posse sort of went away a while back. Slack aims to resurrect the gang, starting with his slick-as-heck web site. Not a whole lot there yet but he's still working on gettin' the Voodoos to crawl forth from their mouldy graves...

SOL: Sh-t Outta Luck
It may not be the most original, tasteful or logical posse name ever but confound it, it's an Outlaws gang and this is their web site. Pacolero runs the joint and the handsome woodsy design kinda makes it feel homey. Info on the gang, info on the game, new maps to download, CTF maps (SOL's specialty) to download, utilities, links and so forth. If they can keep it up to date, well, aside from some rough-n-tumble spots there ain't much bad you kin say about it.

Slack also wanted to say this regarding the rekindling of the Voodoo posse: "Im gonna start having tryouts on the zone, need new members. So if you think that you got what it takes to become a VooDoo member, just challenge me in a tryout. Cya on the zone."
BTJustice has revamped his High Speed Pursuit site, good place to go for learning' how to use IRC and Outlaws. Loads a lot faster now too. He also wants to remind people that the relatively new GameSpyArcade game-finder supports Outlaws, BT says it looks cool and games run pretty smoothly.

* * *

Sunday 9/24/00

Tale of Four Cavarly Towns
     Hooter and I knocked our heads together and figured out that there have actually been two versions of Cavarly Town, "cvtwn10s.zip," online all this time. His summary was: "The one posted at OGB has all the 3dfx errors and it has all the doors. The one you sent me [from my map archive] still has 1 3dfx error and 5 doors in it. In the last version [of "Xerox"] I sent you, I removed all the doors and fixed the remaining error."
     So. I checked the file dates and OGB's version is dated 8/12/97, mine 8/13/97. The 8/13 readme has notes about fixes for 3dfx problems. I was thinking of renaming my version "cvtwn11s.zip" but judging by the name the author, Walker, chose, and the severe nature of the 3dfx problems in the 8/12 version, I think he intended to obliterate that version entirely by not even acknowledging its existence. ;) This means that while there were in fact two Cavarly Towns and two Xeroxes, I'll just pretend there was only one of each. Yay!

Wilderness Goes Canadian
     Canaderness (shot) by Oze: Sent in by DonMaximo who contributed some ideas, this map gives LEC's "Wilderness" the Canadian treatment... probably the drunk Canadian treatment, really. You've now got Canadian and US bases, the Canadian is snowed in. Each is festooned with custom graphics and billboards (apparently one has a certain Outlaw's real-life phone number on it, sans area code). There are also some wacky props thrown in and Mary has boxing gloves. Does it make sense? No. Did anyone involved in making it care if it made sense? I doubt it. :)

The End of Pale's Place?
     Well, October's almost here so that means I have to switch my DSL from bridging to PPP mode, after having put it off for several months. The main difference appears to be that under PPP mode, computers connected to the digital model/router will not have real internet IP addresses, just local ones. So I'm not sure but this may make some things problematic, like running my Pale's Place hosted Outlaws game. We'll just have to see. I'm hoping I can still get email... :P

* * *

Thursday 9/21/00

Xerox Again
     Hooter released an updated version of his map Xerox, which fixes a few things in Walker's classic map Cavarly Town though I never saw horrible 3dfx problems in it (in fact going back to the readme for my version of Cav Town it says "All known 3dfx bugs have been fixed" so I guess there must be at least two versions of the original Cav Town). This version of Xerox gets rid of the framerate-killing doors... which never existed in my version of Cav Town. Hmm.

Use That Mouse Wheel
     Gojo found out how to bind his mouse wheel to Outlaws functions with the latest Intellipoint drivers. Check out his page fer th' scoop and a screenshot showing what the setup looks like in Regedit. Seems he also has a joystick rigged up as a foot pedal for Run, pretty crazy stuff!
     Actually, there's a deficiency in my own OL controls setup that has been nagging at me lately: I can't jump forward and to the right very easily, 'cause I have jump on E and use WASD for the movement keys. Originally I used SPACE for jump, but marathon sessions of OL started to give my tendons some trouble about that. I'd love to put jump on a mouse button but I need those for Fire, Alt-Fire and Reload. Dang. I need my mouse to grow another button.

Western Mod for Rogue Spear: Urban Ops
     It seems that many of you are interested not only in Outlaws, but in any other Western-themed game. At least, many of you send me non-Outlaws news on that assumption. :P BTJustice called in to mention the "Wild Wild West" mod for Rogue Spear: Urban Ops. The mod's home page is here and here's a shot BT took from the mod.

The Life of Paco
     It's been a really weird news week. Paco sent in a little story about his experience playing Outlaws. It's pretty gruesome, with a slow buildup, action-packed middle and finale and a twist ending. Uh well here goes:

     The adrenaline had not subsided yet; the idea of a disgraceful ending had become visible on the mental horizon. The heavy broiler plate which once seemed near was now, sadly, separated indefinitely, by my nemesis WM_Dysleixiamaximus. Was it true, have my ammo deposits gone painfully low? As I crouched behind the bullet -stricken barrel, gun shots ripped across my torso, further reducing my life force to only a mere life token. Without a single med bag in site my hopes for survival were fleeting.
     How could I lose this game? This game?! This harsh reality I call life was no game.
     The mocking words of WM_Dyslexiamaximus were burning into my soul, destroying the pride that I held on to still in these very last moments of struggle. Again I could hear shooting, this time the shots were close at hand, I could hear the shotgun that foretold my death, fearless, merciless, and mad. As my pummeled body was at last separated into pieces of lifeless flesh by the brutal force of the twelve gauge, my lifeless torso collapsed on the floor. I was utterly destroyed, utterly broken. And then I respawned.

Well I guess we can all relate to that, eh? And that's "boiler plate" kids... can't blame that one on Dyslexiamaximus.

rant Site Update
Mike Rega aka rant_2 wrote to let me know he's updated the rant Outlaw Posse site in a big way. There are fun puzzle games to play there now :) as well as maps to download and more info about the gang members. My favorite part of the new update is from the brief history: "Somewhere along the line we lost the distinction between a joke and starting the posse seriously..."

* * *

Saturday 9/16/00

Let Me Draw You Some Maps
     1875 (shot) by Kid Macoo: Made in tribute to Turok's "1872" map (by the way people if you're in doubt as to who made a map, try using my site's search function, mmmkay? :), 1875 is one of those maps that plays a lot bigger than it's size due to the use of weird angles, narrow corridors and constricted fields of view. In short, you're lost much of the time. ;) This can be good or bad, depending on your mood. Mostly short range fighting in this well-built map.
     Indian Creek (shot) by Kid Macoo: Most maps that try running a river across end up taking a big hit in the framerates. Kid Mac has avoided this pitfall, while adding a few of the physical, painful variety. ;) Made with Two-Feather's in mind, this map gives the big chief lots of opportunity to show off his ability to fall long distances without taking damage and to use that nasty knife of his in water. Watch out for riflers at the ends of the canyon, however. Odd entrance to the creek at one end: you walk into the side of the water! Otherwise again very solid construction from the Kid.
     Xerox by Hooter: New version of Walker's "Cavarly Town" with fixes to the 3dfx rendering glitches. Actually, I had to look hard to find these in the original but if you really play it a lot I suppose they might have started to get irritating. Hooter adds in a few doors but they have that problem where the framerate chunks terribly as they open. Doh.
     Grape Shot (shot) by sshep: Cool theme for a map, a Civil War battlefield where giant artillery rounds have smashed things up. Brilliant touch with the spent rounds resting in little craters (see screenshot). Very nice looking map with a lot of variety, particularly nice use of vertical movement. Unfortunately there are a few really slow spots, especially one up by the bridge seen in the shot.

SOD me
     Whoops, I had the old SOD link up for uh well at least over a year after they stopped updating it at that address. So if you wanna catch up on SOD stuff, check out the current SOD posse site. Thanks to Moose for setting me straight.

Shoot Henry the Third
     What's this? A cry to assassinate the founder of Microsoft or a medieval English monarch? C'mon, you know I'm strictly a peaceful rabble-rouser. ;) No, "Henry 3" is the third version of Aaron Sawyer's great custom rifle sound for Outlaws which you'll find at his site along with all of his other great custom weapon sounds. This latest version (actually version 3.1 but that doesn't make for as catchy a headline) still packs all the whallop of the previous one but he's cleaned up the sound so that it blasts through louder and clearer than ever before. Top notch.

* * *

Wednesday 9/13/00

Outnet Author Out of Net
     lindow, author of the very handy Outnet mIRC script which makes hosting and joining an Outlaws game through that chat program a matter of a couple mouse clicks, passes on the regrettable news that he has found his new college dorm has no internet access. Not sure what sort of stone-age college he's been exiled to, poor soul (they also won't let him install mIRC on the lab computers), but it looks as if Outnet version 3.0 will be delayed, at least until he can get network access piped into his dorm room. Doh!

Feudin', Killin', Lovin', Hurtin'
     LetsKill (shot) by Spikerama: CTF/DM version of his "LetsFeud" teamplay map, set in a jagged canyon with serrated clifftops on either side for lots of rifle action. Nice looking, large map for strategic play.
     Spikerama also adds that Gojo pointed out you can get your own time-trials in Spike's KFCtest map by running Outlaws twice on your computer—see the "Shoot Yourself" tip under registry editing on the tips and tricks page for how to do that (you can't normally run your own time-trials because the KFC timer won't start until someone else joins the game).
     Love Hurts (shot) by Brother Love: Had to snag this one from OGB. At first this little corral town in a wide canyon looks overly simplistic but after touring the level you realize that the buildings were kept simple to keep the framerate high even when viewing the entire town from far away in the desert distance. And the buildings, though simple, are quite well laid out, giving the small town a real solid feeling and allowing access to the rooftops, with a little effort. Sniperoos may lurk out in the desert but then again they'll have to come in to town from time to time for supplies, not to mention fending off foes from getting their mitts on one of several gatling guns. Well done, fast and comprehensive DM map.

Reply from LEC on Win98 Join Problem
     I got a few replies from LEC tech support about the problem joining Outlaws games while running under Windows 98 (you all went to their E-mail LucasArts Tech Support page and did the same, right?).
     In the first reply, the support guy, Jason, ran through the standard troubleshooting stuff—it contained references to Win95 and IPX networks so was obviously a bit outdated and cut-n-pasted. At the end it suggested going to the Zone and trying to play. So I mailed back and said yes this is a problem in the Zone too, if you go there I'm sure you can get plenty of immediate feedback on the problem. ;)
     So Jason went and did a little checking around (I hope) and replied back with this:

I spoke with one of our senior reps and he informed me that Windows 98 is indeed the culprit and a fix is not obtainable. We apologize for the inconvenience. At this time, no plans have been announced for a revised patch for this problem.

     Now, this sounds disheartening though in a way it is at least the first step in getting a fix: they admit there is a problem. Thing is they understandably don't want to spend the resources putting together, testing and releasing a patch this late in the game's cycle. The short reply above is rather interesting in that it sort of contradicts itself: first he says "a fix is not obtainable," which seems to imply either 1) they can't fix it because it's a Windows bug or 2) they can't fix it because they don't have the resources, but then he ends with "no plans have been announced for a revised patch" which seems to imply that a fix would be obtainable, if they were to make plans for it.
     Sounds like they just need some convincing. =] If you haven't already, please E-mail LucasArts Tech Support and tell them you would really like a fix for the problem of joining Outlaws games using Windows 98. Get on, now!

Site Updates
     Toad aka "Desert Z" aka "Mental" passed a note to tell me the BmF Homepage has been filling out with lots more detail on the gang, game tips, a message board and so on. Real nice design work by Chucky (aka "Simon" and according to a post on their board he'll be changing his name again soon ;), go check out the updated site.
     Truffle is pretty happy with the new bulletin board system they're sporting over at the LawMaker's Team site these days. It's got private messaging features and groovy stuff like that, once you register. Of course, the LMT site has other attactions such as details on the team's upcoming Outlaws maps, well worth a visit.

Die Gatling Gun Die
     Peter Jensen plays Sanchez and like me knows the pain of being mown down by a gatling gun burst from a camping enemy (this does not stop me from using them at every opportunity as I play very cheap these days but *cough* I digress ;) so in the interests of Sanchez players everywhere who face these mechanized terrors daily, he wants to publicize his strategy: throw a stick of TNT right at them. That is, don't lob it at their feet like you normally would but throw it straight into their line of fire so that their volley hits it and blows it up in their face. This may take a little luck but, if done correctly, means you don't have to wait for the fuse to burn down while dodging bullets. Of course if you do it wrong it will blow up in your face, or miss completely, but that certain mix of chance, timing and high explosives is exactly the fun of using dynamite, honey child!

* * *

Sunday 9/10/00

Dogs Not Hogs
     In my doddering old age I'm starting to get my mammals mixed up. The map "Law Dawgs" posted in my last update is about prairie dogs, not ground hogs as I stated. Gah! The embarrassment.

Unreal: Outlawed
     There's a Western mod in th' makin's for Unreal Tournament. Big Sexy pointed me to the mod's home page and Silverwire was kind enough to send me a large screenshot of one of the maps. Looks like all they really have so far are maps but it looks as if they're planning new character models and weapons. Well... good for them!

Tell LEC About Windows98 Join Problem
     Well Raptor recently dropped me a line to say that he and others still experience problems joining games with Windows 98. One of the reasons I've stuck with 95 myself. He points out the LEC may just not realize this is a real problem. Now at this point another patch is pretty unlikely but maybe if everyone who has experienced this problem in some form or other were to tell their tech support about it, something might get done. Worth a shot, anyhow.
     Go to the E-mail LucasArts Tech Support page and tell 'em all about it in thorough detail. Even if you don't have '98 you've probably tried playing with those who do and had trouble getting in a game together. So get on the horn and let's make sure LEC knows about this issue. Make sure to point out that yes, you have all the patches and they did not fix the problem (LEC likes to pretend the 2.01 patch did the trick).

* * *

Wednesday 9/6/00

Dawggone
     Law Dawgs (shot) by Runaway Jim: Are ground hogs taking over the world? We have here the second ground-hog-based map in... uh... well a very short time anyway. This time you go even more in-depth, if you will, gettin' right down into th' critters lil' homes and bedrooms. And wait a sec, why's th' house aboveground so big? Like giants lived here unless... uh-oh! You're a groundhog yourself, and so is everyone else! Very cute to see everyone waddling around on their two hind paws wearing nothin' but fur, a gun belt and a big cowboy hat. Great looking map with lots of subterranean twists, clever little custom textures and sound clips and a great change of scale. Go to ground for the winter with this one. Warning: big fat 768k download.

Small Voodoo5 6000 Preview
     salmoides pointed me to a brief Voodoo5 6000 preview over at Eurogamer, based on the behind-closed-doors showing 3dfx made at the recent ECTS show in London. Not a whole lot new here except rough speed estimates ("fast"), a few shots of the foot-long beast (the video card, darnit) and a rough shelf date (before the end of October). Grr I want one now, I have a feeling that I'll feel pretty silly plunking down that much cash on this card in two months. Ah well, get it out of me while I'm young I suppose.

Shots from the Simon Jeffery Chat
     The chat with new LEC president Simon Jeffrey went down this Tuesday evening. Outlaws fans were represented and made themselves heard though from what I understand the response to questions about a sequel was slightly underwhelming. Kohna asked a very carefully phrased question and got a pretty stock response. Here's a shot he took of it, and another taken by James Emerson. Well, I can't say I'm surprised there wasn't a more positive reply, unfortunately, but still ya never know. In fact, if you look on the bright side he didn't say "heck no we're never sinking money into such an offbeat project again." ;) :P

Henry 2: The Next Big Bang
     Now this baby has some KICK. Aaron Sawyer has made a sequel to his previous "Henry" rifle sound called of course "Henry 2." This sucker nearly knocked me out of my chair when I played it the first time. I'm serious: I had my volume up a tad as I had been listening to a new CD (Portishead Roseland NYC Live :) and the massive blast of base this sucker unleashed freaked the heck out of me. Go pick it up at Aaron's site—you stick it in your Outlaws directory to replace the normal rifle sound. He's also got a ton of other custom OL gun sounds of course, like his "John Wayne."

Newbie Update
     Newbie wanted me to say that his personal HQ site has been updated with some news, preview of a new TOC site design, and so forth. Well okay... even if he did list my site as "Paleface's optional Outlaws site" I guess I'll overlook it just this once. ;)

New mIRC
     There's a new mIRC, king of the IRC chat clients. Why care? 'Cause plenty of rough-n-tumble Outlaws types meet in the #outlaws_players channel on Undernet IRC, silly. Anyhow, go to www.mirc.com to get 5.8, the latest version.

Desperados Previews
     Desperate fer more digital Western action? Well, RAF pointed me to previews for the game "Desperados" being made by Spellbound, a German company, and published by Infogrames. There's a preview on Gamespot and on Gamespot UK (coincidence? I _think_ not). So it ain't a 3d action game, still ya gotta admit those backdrops are real purty.

* * *

Sat'day 9/2/00

Chat Tuesday with LEC Pres. Simon Jeffery
salmoides, DrDeath2 and Kohna all pointed out that the latest LEC email newsletter mentions a chat session with relatively new Lucasarts President Simon Jeffery. In case you didn't get the newsletter (dunno what I did with mine hehe) here's the notice:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LUCASARTS.COM SPECIAL EVENT - Chat with LEC President, Simon Jeffery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Join us on September 5th at 7pm (PST) to spend some time with LucasArts President, Simon Jeffery. Simon will be on hand to answer your questions and bring you up-to-date on current and future activities here at LucasArts. Pass the word and get your questions ready!
http://www.lucasarts.com/exclusive/chat

     That link is doubly important since you have to register first to get in, so if you're interested in attending the chat session, probably oughta register now so you'll be good and ready. I'll be at work when this goes down so somebody be sure to log the chat and send me any good OL-related tid-bits! Kohna wants to turn the event into something of a "Outlaws II Rally" as he posted on his Outlaws Tournament on the Undernet site.
     Remember folks you'll have the most impact if you're polite, supportive and enthusiastic and heck throwing out some compliments to butter him up couldn't hurt either. Also remember that this won't be (if past chats are any indication) a formal press release type of thing so even if LEC does have any kind of Outlaws plans, Mr. Jeffery will still have to be fairly non-commital in his replies. That's just how it goes. :P

Link That!
     Surf's up, baby. Hang 10 at the following new links:

	Axe56's Place Small site with this LawMaker's levels for download, a little info on the author and a handful of custom textures in Outlaws format.
	NBK: Natural Born Killers Guess what? Yet another NBK posse site by MistaMan. Let's hope this one lasts longer than the past three or four. Nice graphics, a selection of maps and a brief summary of NBK's turbulent history, which includes such twists as "It was going good for about 45 mins."
	WAC Underground Large site by Notolero with news, list of WAC members, handy files and a few maps for download and tons and tons of very detailed playing strategies and tips all in a zippy interface. Very nice.
	The Outlaw D.A.D. Unusual through stylish radioactive green design highlights D.A.D.'s fairly quirky site. All kinds of things here from various filez to Outlaw photos, strange "news" and D.A.D.'s resume. Offbeat to say the least.

Just Deserts
Deserts o' Death (shot) by BillyKid: CTF map with raised ledges overlooking a very large squarish valley that slopes down toward a large central pit. The central pit is a low-gravity zone and there's also a hidden low-grav zone allowing quick access to each base. The huge open central valley will mean a field day for snipers posted at either base, though they will be somewhat exposed themselves. Weird raining cow skulls in the central pit and a dozen chickens wandering the valley floor won't help lag, however. Good framerates.

BANG!
Aaron Sawyer has cooked up another excellent custom rifle sound for use in Outlaws. It's called "Henry" and you can get it over at his site. This one has a real punch to it, if you have your sound turned up you can almost feel the shock hit you and roll off. Great stuff!

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Thursday 8/31/00

Bunches of Maps
     Whoa! Bunch of new maps and links rolled in over the past few days, let's see how many I can get through tonight.
     Prairie Dog Town (shot) by Axe56: [note: If this map doesn't work quite right, it's because it was missing a .rcm file and I hacked one in. Uh... hope it works.] Quite a different little map this, take a circular plot of prairie grassland, enclose in fence, sprinkle with man-sized round holes, connect holes with tunnels, ladel in weapons and ammo, then bake. Mmmm... tasty! It's going to be funny to see Outlaws popping in and out of lil' burrows to shoot each other. Framerate flags a bit if you stand on the outside of the field and look across but most of the action will happen underground.
     Danger Zone (shot) by Oze: An interesting expansion of the normal dueling-forts-across-bridge CTF design, with long one-way tunnels in the cliffs on either side affording nice fields of fire over the central bridge, as well as side-routes along the cliff bases and a well that, by shattering all laws of hydro-whatsit, allows access to the bottom of the ravine. Framerate low across middle, bases look a little simplistic but CTF gameplay should prove meaty for a good number of players.
     dEniAl (shot) by Creek: Loosely designed level with squarish buildings scattered about the floor of a very large, long twilit canyon. Bunker-style buildings and long open spaces of ground make this a rifle map, no question. Clumpy item placement, sometimes ugly texturing and lack of lighting effects don't really endear this one to your eye and framerate can be low due to the open building designs.
     deserted village (shot) by tater: Small rural town in an oval canyon. Somewhat garish texture mix pokes you in the eye a bit but the architecture is solid, if slightly sluggish in a few spots. Building layout lacks a real plan but on the other hand I guess you could say things remain a bit unexpected.
     Bridges (shot) by ShiftyTuco: Strict square geometry rules this small arena-style canyon map, with criss-crossed bridges forming an upper level. Not too sexy but it gets the job done, solid construction with very high framerates.

Did You Know
     Way more people use AOL than you might expect. Frightening, isn't it?
     Oh dear it went and got late on me. Have some new web links for you in the next update.

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Sunday 8/27/00

Sequel Petition Cracks 2000
I've finally updated the Outlaws sequel petition which is now at a total of 2061 signatures! Signature 2000 was (if I can count right) made by Chris Hibbard who on the 10th of last month penned the immortal words "please make the sequel for your fans!!!!" *sniff* Brings a tear doesn't it? I'll go ahead and mail LEC a little update on the status of the petition. There's always hope... and there are most definitely plenty of fans. I'll be honest with ya, when I started it I thought that maybe I'd be lucky if I could get 500 signatures. Well it's far exceeded my most optimistic expectations. Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to sign the petition!

Two Links in One
The following is kinda two sites in one, but if you went to either branch first you'd uhh ah heck I dunno.

Emerson and the Outlaws
Starts out with a very large (and listenable) rendition of "Ghost Rider in the Sky" by the band Outlaws. This'll probably slow things down quite a bit for those on modems... Anyhow, then you've got a very large personal site by Emerson with neat Old West biographies, artwork and info in himself and his buddies. Then there's a completely separate site by him for his posse, the Hotrod Cowboys (HRC), which has quite a bit of info on the gang. Both sites have lots of info in an easy to browse format.

A Fussin' and a Feudin'
LetsFeud (shot) by Spikerama: Spikerama just can't be satisfied by ordinary Outlaws gameplay, he's always gotta be inventing his own new game! He even insists that he hates mapmaking but he just has to get his ideas out, and invites others to take his ideas and run with them. Well, I gotta say that this map shows perfectly solid mapmaking skills and definitely a wagonload of inspiration that you aren't likely to find in many other maps. In this one you can only play in teams, you start at the same spot and divide up to opposite sides of a canyon. Spike says it's based on the histority feud between the Redfield's and McBlue's. ;) Anyhow, it comes down to a big rifle fight between two teams on roughly (emphasis on rough—lots of places to crouch and hide, etc) equal ground. A good place for an old fashioned family showdown.

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Thursday 8/24/00

Hotlinks and Bacon
New sites bloom even this late in summer:

rant Outlaw Posse
Mostly a one-pager with short descriptions of the members of this "first numerical posse." Unique naming scheme, certainly. Also a page of links to Western movie trailers.

GRS: Ghost Riders of the South
The beautiful, seemingly airbrushed GRS site comes in two flavors: Light is an efficient, quick browse through the guts of the site while Enhanced takes you on a tour of Sanctuary where each building you enter is a different page. Places to visit include maps to download, extensive details on GRS posse members, an edutainment "Newbie Jeopardy" Javascript show that is actually kind of fun, and promises of more stuff to come. A lot more fun than your average site, an' better lookin', too.

Map May I?
     Updated KrummWaffe's just-released Team Fortress, he found a bug which somehow snuck past LawMaker's consistency checks, where a couple flag points were out of their sectors. Since this is strictly a bug fix update I've overwritten the previous version.
     Flaggers (shot) by BillyKid: Simple and sorta original CTF scheme here, narrow enclosed course of small number of rooms in a row, end rooms are bases. The ceiling is split into light and dark sides... not that it matches the bases but it's kind of interesting. Hidden straight tunnels down the sides, exceedingly high framerates but no pickup weapons or ammo at all. A chicken wanders around to confuse chicken-snatchers in KFC. Wandering chickens add to lag but just one won't be too bad, kind of a unique idea for spicing up your KFC a bit.
     KACarena (shot) by BillyKid: Looks like a pretty tortuous small DM map. Only three pickup items, a double-barreled shotgun, a rifle and a sawed-off spaced around a wide roughly-circular arena with raised embankments at two opposite sides, the embankments can only be climbed from opposite ends. Solid in a simple way, the red and black repeating texture is a little hard on the eyes though; where's that darn Visene...

And
     Nintendo revealed their next-gen console in Japan today, dubbed the "Game Cube." Maybe this will give MS's "X-Box" a run for its square-sided money in the next-gen field rounded out (haha... oooh) by Sony's Playstation 2. Actually I hope they swap names, then we'd have "Game Box" and "X-Cube." Those sound a lot sharper, don't you think?

* * *

Sunday 8/20/00

Oops, Try This Newbie
Guess the link I posted on Thursday was to his old site... this is the kind of embarrassment I get caught in when people don't include their URL in their mail. :p Okay, so try Newbie's new site here.

Another BMF
Does the Outlaws world need another BMF gang? Well looks like we got no choice, Desert_Z announced that he's started up another posse by that name. Here's their new site:

BmF Homepage
Entertainingly terrible grammar makes the short stories of the BmF members that much more entertaining. Other than those you'll also find a handful of maps for download, and the tidy black brick design promises more stuff to come.

Map Extravaganza
     Wow, I feel like a used car dealer with that headline. Whelp, we just got us a truckload of shiny new maps here fellers, dig in. Whoops, well one less than I thought, one turned out to be a return-to-sender. :P
     Broken Treaty (shot) by Truffle: How do you get some real cowboys and indians action? Take an old map of Sleepy's, put in a lot of custom items and stuff by GoJo, whip together some teepees and voila! CTF setup between a Native American camp and a western fort, the indians have bows and arrows and good stuff like that. The bow is fun to shoot, check the screenshot. The fort is decent if a little strangely shaped, teepees are nice though.
     OL Town 2 - The Battle Continues (shot) by Truffle: The sequel to his first map from way back when, OLTown2 sprawls a bunch of buildings, some definitely reminiscent of buildings from LEC levels, around some irregular canyons. Designed for 3 on 3 CTF the item layout is definitely of the clumpy variety. Some nice use of roof accesses to spread the action up and down, though parts of the map feel a bit disjointed.
     Cannonball Run (shot) by KrummWaffe: A shamelessly modified weapons map sporting a deadly Buffalo Gun, a portable gatling gun (yee-haw!) and a Semi-Portable Cannon (see screenshot) in something of a quadruple fort layout—but the good stuff is in the center. Got th' guts ta go fer it? Ouch! All this and good looks too...
     Team Fortress (shot) by KrummWaffe: Based on one of his favorite Team Fortress (Half-Life mod) maps (hey, I even recognize that one) complete with custom heavy-metal theme, team insignia and a rather familiar, and painful, crowbar... should be an excellent CTF map in a non-Western way, don'tcha know?
     Down & Dirty (shot) by KrummWaffe: Ye olde No Mans Land map. D'ya love barbed wire? How about barbed wire and mud? How about crawling around in mud while stuck with barbed wire? Then this here's your map! Straight shot across to either base to keep yer head in the trenches. Very solid design work among the bunkers.
     War 2 (shot) by Warwolf: Kinda confusing layout in a grey canyon under a dark red sky with weird angles everywhere. There's no place like home, there's no place like him... click click. Darn shoes... Uh, anyhow this is an odd DM map, try not to get lost. Very high framerates in pretty close quarters.
     KFCTest (shot) by Spikerama: Another new game from Spikerama! This one is based on the ingenious idea that, in the KFC game, you've got a built-in stopwatch... so why not have a race? In KFCTest you grab the chicken at the start point, then race through one of three trails, completing difficult jumps and maybe even a test of weapon skill on the way. When you get to the end you jump into the central "Death Pit" where you drop the chicken and stop the clock. Then the next player takes the chicken and gives it a whirl. Best time wins!

Odds and Ends
     In addition to the two new maps, Truffle has a new poll at the SBD site, this one asking who's in favor of his proposed "LTW" ("Law of the West") rules which would allow sawed-off shotguns while banning cream and badge (as opposed to ML which generally bans all three).
     RAF read an article in PCGamerUK about gamediscovery.com, a site to which you can submit game ideas—not so much with the idea that a developer will use your idea, but that they will be able to see the types of games people are interested in playing. What surprised me more than anything about the game ideas on the site was how lacking in originality most of them were—in fact most are along the lines of "this would be like Quake but with [strange feature]." But you know, that's what people want...
     Nothin' like squishin' bugs with yer own two hands. I'd been noticing a few fruit flies here and there in the apartment this weekend but when I went to take out the trash this evening—ay carumba! They sallied forth to protect their rotten fruit hive. My hackles raised and lacking a flyswatter, I went for them barehanded. Fruit flies got gooshed by the dozens! My palms are still tingling...
     I thought I'd got all but about four and was prepared to let those go (they seemed a little bit smarter than the others, and refused to fly down into my hands) but when I went to wash up and turned on the hot water, the steam flushed more out of the woodwork. Ack, they're everywhere! Take that, and that, and a little of this! Eck. Phew. Seem to have taken the fight out of 'em, though a few hardy survivors have been taking flyby's as I'm tied down the keyboard here. Now my legs are itchy... I swear these things are bloodsuckers, a few that I smashed bled red. Yeck! Ahh summer.

* * *

Thursday 8/17/00

Tourney Brackets By Newbie
     Newbie has the brackets from the recent #O_P tourney on his site. C'mon, you know you love a good bracketing.

Stronghold and SaveMe
     Stronghold (shot) by Squigglebox: Mary in a cage. A high bridge crossing a perilous river canyon, transfixed with sniping positions from all sides. One-way ladders. Signs. Narrow tunnels through grey stone. Two fortress-like cliff bases. All this goes into Stronghold, a CTF map from Squigglebox. Texturing and lighting could be better but he more than makes up for them with sheer creativity. Get ready for some pretty fierce cliff-dwellin' CTF action here. Oh, and don't fall in the river...
     SaveMe (shot) by Spikerama: Slightly easier version of Spikerama's "RescueMe" survival game where you have to fight off foes as you navigate perilous paths to rescue a maiden fair. A little more forgiving this time around but it is still crazy stuff, give it a whirl if you haven't already.

* * *

Sunday 8/13/00

News From Truffle
     Truffle has been a busy dude lately, here's some new stuff he's got:
     The Law Makers Team site has a new bulletin board. In their news section they've also announced that that old semi-retired lawmakin' hand DrDeath2 is back in action working on a LMT project. Yay Doc!
     There's a new poll on the Silent But Deadly Clan site asking whether or not you think the sawed-off "should be taken out of ML." Now back when I used ta care, when people declared a match "ML" (Marshall Law) that meant you couldn't use badge, cream and sawed-off. Nowadays maps are either made for ML or not so there's no question of rules so I kinda lost track of how things are done, but it seems there's some confusion. Anyhow, go head on over and throw your weight in on the poll.

Outlaws Take New Orleans
     The OL Bash 2000 in New Orleans seems to have been quite a party and Beignet has updated her webzine with the pics to prove it. Yes, this means pictures of drunken Outlaws players! Ohhh baby! Judging by the smiles on their faces and the empty glasses blocking the camera view they had a good ol' time down in the Big Easy. :)

Taunts from MasterTimbo
     MasterTimbo sent in a pack of taunts taken from movies (779k, in my temporary directory). A large helping of Monty Python in there as well as Bond, Bogie, Austin Powers and more. Oh and come on, you know you love Flash. Anyhow, good general deathmatch taunt material, check the readme for all the details.

A New Link
     Point and clickety-click:

Redeyed Pete's
A quick, simple and somewhat nebulous layout hosts a huge map collection, a photo page of real Outlaws players (send in your own) and a few handy links. Sounds like a fine site to me.

WildGun By HardknoX_3
Wildgun (shot) by Hardknox_3 (and Gambit): Simply-made building-in-a-canyon map with ledges and caves in the canyon walls for sniping. This one's made for rifle battles, no doubt about it. Texturing and lighting didn't get a whole lot of attention and object placement is clumpy but the general layout is solid enough and framerates are decent.

* * *

Thursday 8/10/00

Maps!
     Well last update didn't have any new maps, now you can rest easy with these new babies:
     River Rat (shot) by Savior: Based partly on work by Grifter, this CTF map has the standard two-bases-separated-by-river layout with two differences from the norm. First, the bases are similar in function but fairly different in actual design. Second, the flags are not in the forts proper but in narrow defiles tucked up in the cliffs behind them with only one way in, which will make for quite a fight to grab one. Oh eheh and okay there's a third, the antigravity elevators marked out by the black rectangles in the screenshot. Zzzzzzip!
     Creeks (shot) by Creek(?): Not sure about the author's nick. This is a very long CTF type level, you'll be pretty tuckered out when you finally make it to the enemy base, not to mention running straight back to your own. There's also an even longer secret tunnel route along the side. Lighting and texturing have some rough spots, overall not a bad looking level but for one slightly odd looking 3dfx error in the larger base. Despite the size framerate is very high just about everywhere. Also sports a custom machine pistol, uhh I think we've seen this elsewhere before but I'm not sure where so I'll just gloss over it like so (and there's no readme provided).
     RescueMe (shot) by Spikerama: Based on his "1v1CTF" map, RescueMe has players all joining the same CTF team (the map supports only CTF) and racing to rescue a girl by picking her up (she's the blue flag) and carrying her back through a grueling and very long series of obstacles to their horse (the red base). Well I cheated like crazy and still only made it about halfway through the course before plummeting to my death. Ouch. Imagine what it would be like with yer buddies trying to shoot you down. You could probably cut glass with this map, it is really hard!

Rifles Galore and More
     So you've got enough new maps but you still want to download some Outlaws goodie? Then head on over to Aaron Sawyer's site. Aaron, the "Blackhawk3d" who brought you the cool new rifle sound a few weeks back, now has another new rifle sound, "Roofer," available from his site. In fact I see he's got a big .zip file weighing in at over a meg of more than a dozen rifle, pistol, fist and other sounds, plus a custom graphic for Bob's rifle: check it out in this shot. Cool stuff, well worth a download.

* * *

Sunday 8/6/00

BDO Site Moved, Redone
     The Rock tipped me off ta th' fact that his BDO: Best Dang Outlaws Homepage site has changed addresses and in fact has been completely redone. Mostly only of interest if yer lookin' fer info on th' BDO posse but there's lots of stuff ta dig around in.

Oh Yeah, That's How It Works...
     Based on something Krummwaffe said when he sent me his last map I got to wonderin' how it was that LawMakers were finally able to edit the "Handful of Missions" add-on maps. He reminded me that it's all thanks to a converter utility made by Raptor which you'll find hosted over at the official LawMaker site, code-alliance.com. Just thought I'd mention it in case anyone else had forgotten about it besides me. :)

Wanted! Half-Life Site Updated
     Several folks, Anthony Lacey being the first, pointed out that the Wanted! For Half-Life site has been updated recently with new screenshots and a note on progress. Wanted!HL is a Western-themed mod for Half-Life (there's also been a Wanted! for Quake). Since some folks seem interested in it I thought I'd mention it. The screenshots look decent though the hand-held weapons still look kinda funny. Wanted!HL is, I believe, going to be both single and multiplayer and from the look of the screenshots will have quite a variety of Western stuff to mess with.

Kinda New Wire Up
     lifewontwait passed on word that he's got a new issue of The Wire posted. It's actually the issue that Blackthorn never finished so the mails and responses aren't in fact brand new but Outlaws being timeless and such it doesn't really matter all that much now does it? You know you've been pining away for a new Wire all these months, here it is!

Site From Spain
     Curro Jimenez was kind enough to pass along his Outlaws site address:

Curro Jimenez's Outlaws Page
A fun, bright site by this Spanish Outlaw features a beautifully organized map download page and a gallery with pictures of Clint Eastwood in various Old West roles.

LMT Site Up
Having recently lost it's home when Truffle's olhideout.com went down, The LawMaking Team is back online thanks to the efforts of Bare and Truffle himself:

The LMT and #LMT on Undernet
Nice easy layout makes the LawMaking Team's site a breeze to navigate. You'll find LMT-related news, past and current projects, info on their Undernet IRC channel and more.

* * *

Thursday 8/3/00

Map News From Truffle
     Truffle, though he recently shut down his OLHideout site, has some map making news to report. First up you'll find shots of work in progress by The Lawmakers Team here, here and here. Truffle himself is working on a sequel to his map "OL Town." [Note] If the above screenshot links come up with a weird page when you click them, do this: right-click the link, select "copy link location" or whatever, then open a new browser window and paste the screenshot address into the address bar.

OLBash News at Beignet's
     Beignet has updated her Webzine with a detailed itinerary of the imminent Outlaws Bash 2000 (not the latest update, but the one before—I can't keep up with her these days). Activities will include a streetcar ride, a wedding, an Irish pub, an oyster bar, karaoke, Cajun Zydeco music and dancing (I have no idea what that is but I'll bet those who are going will find out!), a casino, various activities involving *cough* beads and much more.

KrummWaffe's "Skull Valley"
     Skull Valley (shot) by KrummeWaffe: KW continues to consolidate his lead as one of the foremost current LawMakers with this large CTF map shaped, in his words, "like a Mercedes symbol" with three bases at the end of voluptuous canyons joined at a central hub. The convoluted rockwork of the canyons is amazing especially combined as it is with brilliant texture work. But the real kicker is that all three bases are unique maps in their own right; there's a sawmill, a southern-style mission and a timber stockade. Makes me wish Outlaws supported 3-team play. :)
     The readme also hints that he's going to be releasing a new map named "Cannonball Run" sometime later this month.

* * *

Sunday 7/30/00

Rifle Sound Gets Its Own Site

Aaron Sawyer's Game Website
Aaron Sawyer, aka BlackHawk3d, he of the cool "Lorde" custom rifle sound, now has his own web site. Not much here besides that sound but man, is it a good sound. Go get.

     The sound has graduated up to version 4, gettin' better an' better. Aaron adds "I got these sounds from a great western movie called "Covenant Rider" from Willie George Ministries."

Two New Maps
     Fisher Town (shot) by DrDeath2: Neat fishing village with an interesting undertow effect should you venture out into the bay. Looks nice, good framerate, rather linear layout will lend itself to team play.
     GrimBunx (shot) by Warrior: Not a whole lot of visual variety in this small all-indoor level, but it has a decent circular arena type layout.

Western Web News
     In addition to sending a new level, DrDeath2 beat a lot of folks to the punch be lettin' me know that Lucasarts has some stuff on their site of possible interest to Outlaws fans, namely a thingy where you could ask questions of LEC developers and also a poll for your favorite game music. Uhh I may be a bit late with this news, I went to the site and couldn't find 'em. Then again I didn't look too hard, 'cause Big Nose Kate is in town and playing DiabloII, which is somewhat distracting. ;)
     DrD2 also had this to report: "I just got an e-mail from Maverick. The company that is doing the Old West add-on pack for Half-Life WANTED. They informed me they will have many multiplayer modes including a mode they call "CAPTURE THE CHICKEN". Anyways it should be out this Septemeber!! I'm excited."

LMT News
     Lots of developments concerning Truffle's "LawMakers Team." First off, they have registered the channel #LMT on Undernet IRC for chattin' about LawMakin' stuff of all flavors. I think Bare is runnin' this now and may be doing a new LMT site soon, 'cause Truffle is shuttin' down his olhideout.net site, which was their web presence.