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Nineteenth Highest Shelf Vittles: 11.19.00-5.5.01
Back to Stale Vittles
Sunday 5/5/01
A Newsome Twosome
AKO Headquarters
(shot)
by Gambit: A simple quasi-arena-style map dedicated
to his posse, AKO HQ features a boxing arena building
in a valley with uh another building. Not the bestest
looking place but nothing really wrong with it, especially
(I should think) if you're a member of the posse whose
name is emblazoned on the walls. The actual filename
is "pistol" so this level will show up in the P section
of your map hosting list.
WRM_80
(shot)
by El_Torro: Thanks to Prowler for sending this
one in. No idea what the name means / stands for. Your
basic generic building in valley with sniping caves
type of deal, with the apparent twist that you can't
get back into the two long side caves once you (I assume?)
spawn in and leave them. Item distribution is handled
pretty well, textures sure could use a stich or two on
the stairs.
Desperados = Fun
The Infogrames-published "Desperados" real-time strategy
Western adventure game thingy has been out for a little
while now, Badger reports that not only is it
out, it's actually fun! Always good to hear. As he
puts it: "those who liked Commandos will LOVE Desperados.
The gameplay, the graphics, everything is simply at it´s
best."
If this sounds fun, you might wanna check out the
60MB demo
of the game.
OL Fan Site Screensaver
The enterprising
Redeyed
Pete has made a screensaver of Outlaw fan site
graphics which you can download from his
site linked above. It's about 4MB and displays a slideshow
of Outlaw site logos to the accompaniment of Outlaws
music. Kinda neat, of course probably violating all kinds
of copyrights and such, though I'd be surprised if anyone
was stingy enough to actually protest. This will probably
baffle anyone who isn't involved in the OL internet
"scene" but that's part of the fun, eh?
* * *
Wednesday 5/2/01
Mapzzzzzzzzzz!
Sorry, started to nod off there. Not because of these
new maps here, of course, it was just a long day. And
now my cable internet connection is down for the second
time this evening... I sure hope... it comes back online...
soon... arghh...
¡Viva
La Rebelión!
(shot)
by Runaway_Jim: Gosh I love those upside-down
exclamation marks. I wish I could write in all upside-down
letters. *sigh* Well back in the real world good ol'
map-maker Runaway_Jim has another fine map on his hands.
It's a remake of Simms at Night, but now it's in daytime,
with lots of nifty new places to explore like basements
with flickering lanterns and rooftops (see Jim's trademark
water-tower? hmm framerate in that shot was a little low,
elsewhere in the fort it is nice and smooth though) and you can even
go miles out into the canyon around the fort... I ran
straight out for a while but didn't get close to the end
of the canyon and started to get thirsty so I had to turn
back. Well actually I cheated and flew back, 'cause I
was tired and had a little too much sun. Where am I?
What named is me? Uh... Oh yes so Viva! Viva! that
rebelion, I say! ¡Viva! ¡Undale! ¡Hecho en
Mexico! ¡Agua! Stand Up Sit Down Fight Fight Fight!
TheEar
(shot)
by leader1: TheEar! Comin' back'atcha! Woo! This
replacement version fixes that darn 3dfx problem so you've
just got one nice smooth sandy ear-shaped basin with
shotguns, shotguns, shotguns. I mean man, that's a lotta
shotguns! There really isn't anywhere to go (that tunnel
entrance in the screenshot is a ¡dead-end!) so you'd
better like shooting, and getting shot by, shotguns.
But who doesn't!?¡?
Cheat Codes of the Stars Revealed!
Now I could have sworn, SWORN I had OLREDLITE on the
cheats
list but dang, it just wasn't there. Well what it
does is freezes AI characters in their tracks so you can
run up to them and tickle their belly-buttons. I was
reminded of that code while perusing
GameFAQs.com so thanks
to webmaster CJayC and Vegetaman or whoever it was who
it said (my internet connection is down still :p) posted
that code there.
Also, I figgered out what that OLBOUNCE cheat does!
You have to hack your registry and get the "Very Fast"
key bound to something (see
the tips and tricks page
for how to do that), then you enter this code and press
the X key to jump while moving Very Fast and you uh jump
farther and stuff. ¡¡¡¡moM (That was "Wow!!!" in
upside-down talk, see?)
My Internet Connection = Still $@!# Down
Oop, sorry about that little outburst. *sigh* That's about
all the news I can come up with while my internet access
is cut off though. Looks like I won't get this uploaded
until tomorrow, and won't get through any of the email...
gahhh. ¡Viva!
It's Back Up, Yay!
Upload little pages, upload with all your might!
* * *
Sunday 4/29/01
Retro Load
Warped
CTF
(shot)
by Shotgun Joe: The author returns from an absense
with a pretty nifty effect up his sleeve. The "warp"
shuttles you quickly through a flashing white and black
tunnel—it's a fun, disorienting rush complete with very
appropriate whooshing sound effect. An effect does not
a map make, of course and fortunately the rest of the map
is sturdily made with nice defensive positions at the simple
bases. The lighting and texturing are quite plain. Framerates
are good. Don't even think about going for that badge,
neither. Don't say I didn't warn ya.
OldWest
(shot)
by Kbyrne: One of the real old-time mappers returns
with what feels like a fresh take on Sanctuary, with
four small buildings arranged in a roughly circular
canyon around a Dry Gulch-like town square. Good frames,
handsome design with good flow and some nice jumps. The
AI shopkeeper will add a bit of network traffic but I
suppose that will go away as soon as someone knocks him
off. The rooftops open up another level to the playing
field, don't jump too high though or you'll poke your
head through the sky.
Mother
Lode
(shot)
by Cutter: Pair the old mining building from his
"Mining Co" map with another old weather-bitten building
across a dry river bed and you have one awesome looking
deathmatch/teamplay map. The framerate isn't the highest
but you're well rewarded in realistic scenery to play
in. Sports some great custom textures—dig the rusting
sheet metal roof on the new building fer instance.
(No)More
Whiskey
(shot)
by Cutter: Adds Team play to his fantabulous
"More Whiskey" map. Since they're both darn near 1MB and
this one has everything the earlier had with one more
option I'm
gonna remove More Whiskey and just keep this one.
Swiped this from the good ol' boys at
OGB
HQ.
river
(shot)
by Werner Grund: Very sound construction in the
author's first map, two groups of buildings (one impressive
stone tower) separated by a wide curving river. Object
placement is clumpy in spots as is the framerate (in
fewer spots though) but nothing terrible by any means.
The bridge over the river is neat.
illcity
(shot)
by Werner Grund: You'll probably get ill (catch
cold or something, that is) if you hang too long in the
damp caverns and tunnels around this map... unfortunately
that's hard to avoid since they're rather on the dark
and maze-like side. Item placement is better here if
you can stand the badge (it takes a little jumping to
get to, at least).
LEC
Marshal Law Maps
by Martone: Sure we had sporadic ML versions of
most of the LEC maps (most notably from Saxster)
but nobody ever set about doing them
in a comprehensive fashion until now. Martone presents
all the LEC maps with Marshal Law enforced (he swapped
out the badges, vanishing creams and sawed-off shotgun
for more balanced items) all in one handy download pack.
If you'd like to download them separately you can do that
over at Martone's
OBG
HQ. Great work by Martone, I have a feeling this
is gonna be one of the most-used map downloads.
Desperate for Desperados?
Stryker passed along word that you can snag a
demo of the real-time Western strategy game "Desperados:
Wanted Dead or Alive"
from
Happy
Puppy. It's a big one, clocking in just under 100
MB. If you're on a slow connection you might settle for
reading some reviews, I think... hmm dang I forget where
I saw those. They weren't overwhelmingly positive but
heck neither were Outlaws' so just set ye olde modem on
overnight download if real-time strategy appeals to
ya.
Search Works
Ehh the site Search function is working again... it
had been screwy for a while, not because the script changed
but because some cut'n'pasted HTML in one of my news
updates was screwing up the results printout.
This was actually a shortcoming
in the original script from
Matt's
Script Archive... anyway that sounds better than
blaming it on my own willy-nilly HTML pasting.
:P At any rate I've made that part of the script (the
part that finds the page title) more robust and the Search
function should be working again for the 0.5 people aside
from me who use it every month.
* * *
Wednesday 4/25/01
Triple Dose!
TheEar
(shot)
by leader1: A tiered sandy basin with gently
curving walls, possibly ear-shaped. Looks like a nice
hardcore small DM map, perhaps slightly overstocked
with powerups. A rather unsightly 3dfx glitch mars
the level on Voodoo cards.
DeathO
(shot)
by KiL_Ler_: No two ways about it, this one is
completely overstocked. Unless you like nonstop frantic
fighting with none of that running and hiding
and looking for stuff business, in which case this map
should be right up your alley.
Stairway
(shot)
by Prowler: You might be thinking this map involves
a stairway. That's where you're wrong, sucka! It involves
eight stairways, all inexplicably converging at the top.
What is it? What strange ancient civilization built it,
and to what purpose? Did they like to exercise—perhaps
this is the Stone Age version of the StairMaster? It is
quite likely that we shall never know.
Petition for Permanent Ignore in Zone
As you all know I don't hang in the Zone so I don't
know first-hand what this is all about, but Fratricide
let me know he's started a
Petition
for a Permanent Ignore Feature on the MSN Gaming Zone,
presumably to give channel users some defense against
onslaughts of chat spam and general stupidity. If you're
thinking to yourself right now "you know, it might be nice
if the Zone had some sort of defense against onslaughts
of chat spam and general stupidity, like a Permanent
Ignore Feature or something" then Fratricide is already
way ahead of you and you might as well go sign this
petition.
Mystery Posse Site
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Home of MVG
Not incredibly informative (I still don't know that
MVG stands for) but this rather colorful site has
a small selection of the posse's favorite maps
for download, a list of cheats and a couple polls.
Layout requires Javascript.
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Wanted: First Person Western Shooter
Rather out of the blue, Stomped.com has an
interview
with Zombie Studios designer John Williamson regarding
"Wanted: Dead or Alive", the working title of a
first-person Western shooter they've got in development
using the Lithtech engine. The game is still in the early
stages but they've got some nice looking screenshots (pretty
horsies) and a good deal of info about the game including
the basic plot (guy returning home finds
family dead, tracks down killer—gee what does that kinda
sound like?), details on the weapons (branding iron?),
transportation (horses, train), multiplayer options (DM,
team DM, CTF variant, Jailbreak variant) and
"more." They don't have a publisher yet (uh oh) but the
screenshots look real purty.
Monkey vs Robot
I don't usually post links to random weird stuff but
I'm in a random weird mood so may I introduce you to
the carnage that is
Monkey
vs Robot. Windows Media Player required,
unfortunately. :P
* * *
Sunday 4/22/01
Mailbag Rummage
Well what's in the ol' mail inbox today? Let's see
here... Well waddaya know, some new
levels!
Recried
(shot)
by Prowler: Remake of the old map "Cry" (neither
Prowler nor I can recall who the original author was).
Fixes stuff for 3dfx cards so now it'll look like a proper
multi-story building rather than some fifth-dimensional
funhouse.
2LifeS
(shot)
by Rambo: Speakin' of 5D funhouses... this map
has some 3dfx funkiness in the jail area. Otherwise it's
an all-indoor affair with sorta plain funny-shaped rooms
and lots of hidden nooks. Pretty small, high framerates.
Trench
WarFare
(shot)
by Number1_KidEver: Unusual layout here with a
tiny battlefield in a square canyon. Two trenches zig-zag
across it. You can't jump up out of the trenches, in fact
all you can really do is run into the bunker, up some
stairs and out into a gatling gun turret overlooking
the battlefield, though from here you can drop (it hurts!)
down to ground level. Quite vertical, definitely
different.
Invite > To Start Outlaws
BTJustice noticed that
"If you use the MSN Messenger Service and have Outlaws installed, you can get buddies on your list that also have
Outlaws. When they come online, you can right-click once on their name and left-click on INVITE > TO START OUTLAWS."
He hasn't tried it out himself so if you use IM and you're
bored...
Speaking of uhh internet Outlaws stuff, a big thanks
to Blackthorn for rooting around the links page
and finding the dead ones for me. That takes a lot of
time and patience which I why I'm really bad at it, so
I'm quite grateful for his help. :)
* * *
Wednesday 4/18/01
Boot This Hill
SoulStripper was kind enough to drop me a
Boot
Hill Online screenshot from the upcoming Unreal
Tournament western mod. There are more shots and
development details on the
official
site, the counter there estimates that the mod is
about 30% complete.
Mod team member Anthony Potamitis also dropped me
a line with a little summary of the project:
"We are making a total conversion for UT set in the wild west.
We are making it most historically acurate game ever made, with levels set in different
times ei Civil war levels where you can only use weapons that were available for certain ppl
at those times.
This stops eveyone using the same weapons and has ppl using the correct guns for the type
of character they have chosen. Also we have a list of character types that should cover every
type you can think of :)"
Anthony also happened to mention that they are shopping
for modelers to help make some of those historically
accurate weapons come to life, if you got some 3D Max
skillz (or Maya or Lightwave or whatever) and a
hankerin' for six-shooters and the like, go check 'em
out.
Lonesome and Nekkid
Lonesome
(shot)
by Prowler: In the flat, jagged and single-textured
category, Prowler's latest is pretty dull to look at but
uh at least it loads and runs fast and with the piles
of powerups everywhere you certainly won't have to worry
about running out of ammunition.
Naked City
(shot)
by Kid Macoo and TheOutlawDad: This map
wins the dubious honor of being the first "adult" Outlaws
map though as with most products labelled "mature" or
"adult" the content is actually completely juvenile: let's
just say it starts with South Park taunts and goes down
from there. Waaaay down. And then it twists around, comes
back and squirts you in the eye. Not even the powerups or,
goodness me, the crosshair is safe. Much less the characters
themselves. You know how geeks everywhere beg for "nude
skin" patches for games like Tomb Raider so they can see
Lara run around in the altogether? Well, I don't recall
ever seeing anyone ask for a Bloody Mary nude patch. And
now I know why. *shudder* The tragic part is that the
map itself is actually pretty good aside from some slowdown
looking across the map from the corners. Err. Anyway,
the map can be found on
TheOutlawDad's
site. But look, if you don't think you'd enjoy seeing
poorly-drawn, low-res male cartoon genitalia, there
really ain't much reason to download this thing. :PP
* * *
Sunday 4/15/01
Bang Bang Bang
Blackhawk3d (aka Aaron Sawyer) has three new
rifle sounds which you can use for Outlaws available in
the "Lorde5" file on
his
site. Lots of report and blowback here, though in
fact the three sounds are pretty much alike. Of course
real picky fellers may prefer one over the other, they
all sound pretty good to me.
Everything Old is New Again
Lots of new maps! Or... are they?
Minisimm
(shot)
by Prowler: Update of his cut-down version of the
night-time LEC level takes out the TNT which was causing
some lag, apparently.
Repapered
(shot)
by Rambo: Reworking of Gojo's joke map
"Paperbag" tosses in a surprising number of secret rooms
in this tiny little brown level. Something is pretty
screwy with the sky here, there are probably too many
powerups and the civilian AIs will add to lag.
151
(shot)
by YsidroMtBSki: Scratch "Saratoga," this map of
the author's very large, very odd house is
now definitely called "151." And the chickens are gone,
woohoo! Still some minor 3dfx flashes, nothing blinding.
Hey, there's a hole in the roof that shoots you up into
the air, allowing you to fall to your death in the spot
of your choosing in the yard. Woo!
SeaDogs
(shot)
by chaabo: A bugfix update, doesn't way what the
change is but maybe a fix for that one where you could
pop outside the playable area. I found another where, if you
swim up and down below the phantom square rafts behind one
of the boats, you kinda fall into a blue-greenish
limbo. Pretty trippy. Got a screenshot. :)
lilgulch
(shot)
by chaabo: Modified version of LEC's "Dry Gulch"
squeezes the buildings together a bit, lowers the
surrounding cliffs and adds rooftops for another level
of action. Looks good, though some of the underground
tunnels have been cut. Should be kinda fun and a nice
change of pace for Dry Gulch veterans.
Happy Easter
On a definitely non-canonical note...
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GoD's HeaVeN
Trash-talkin' posse site lookin' fer trouble. Nice
color scheme and layout has a few rough spots but
overall is looking pretty slick. Not much here yet
aside from profanity-laden posse member rants which
pretty much look guaranteed to amuse some and anger
others. Well hey at least the site is being updated.
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If you skipped the above let me summarize: if you are
easily offended, do yourself a favor and don't visit
the site.
* * *
Wednesday 4/11/01
Left Lane: What's It For?
Bahaha! Well it's been a while since my last update,
I've been keeping myself far too busy. Not much time
left tonight so I doubt I'll get through it all but
we'll see.
Just have to say this, I know MY regular readers aren't
clueless enough to need it and it probably won't help
me but maybe it'll help some people, somewhere: the
left lane on multi-lane roads is for passing.
So if you're in the left lane and there are people
behind you who look a little miffed and may be a
tad closer to your rear bumper than you would like,
CHANGE LANES!!!! Gah. Sorry. People in Montana, Idaho
and eastern Washington know this, I can testify to
that personally. But half the people in
Seattle apparently took a discount driver's ed.
course where they didn't mention that handy little
rule of the road. :P
Getcher Hot ReOutlawed News
Well not like piping hot, but JacO (used to
be "Oze") alerted me to the fact that he's updated
the ReOutlawed
user-sequel site with a fancy new logo and uh a progress
report on the project and stuff. GoJo plays
golf?!?
SWE Where?
The Team SWE site has been moving around, I got
confused but Lefty helped me nail it down to it's
current location. Here's the goods:
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Team SWE
Latest incarnation of this Swedish posse's homepage, now
by Lefty, sports a bright look and fast organized
layout. Lots of info in team members, news, play
tips, favorite maps, favorite players, message board
and email services and more.
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Levels You Can Download
SeaDogs
(shot)
by chaabo: Nice looking seabourne map of two
galleons facing off, with boxes and things floating
in the water allowing you to jump from one to other.
Framerates on the slightly low side and chaabo says
he couldn't figure out a few of the weird blippy things
where shadows shift around underwater if you have
transparent water enabled, but it isn't grotesquely
aweful by any means. I did manage to get outside the
map somehow underwater and couldn't get back in but
I was kinda looking for trouble. The boats look really
spiffing.
Saratoga
(shot)
by YsidroMtBSki: The author's first map, took
the popular route of making his house. Now this dude
has a big house. I mean I've seen hotels way smaller
than this. Anyway the size is impressive and I love
all the windows you can break, can't go wrong there.
The textures are a mixed bag, some are downright ugly
and others, though nicely chosen, could use some
alignment. Framerates are good and there are some nice
tricky ledges and jumps in the house's five levels. I
like the altitude you reach on the rooftop.
The flock of chickens in the yard will slow it down
on the internet though, and if you only have a few players
you'll probably be hard pressed to locate anyone in
the large, somewhat mazelike manse.
Oh by the way Saratoga shows up as "151" in the level
list. Umm it's like a secret code or somethin', yeah.
All Your Babes--Oh Nevermind
Base sent
a cell
from a new character he's working on, a purty gal in
a blue dress. Lookin' good so far! He wants feedback
on this character, and any suggestions you have for
other characters, so feel free to mail him at
[removed].
Oop, didn't get through everything, gotta hit the sack.
More next update.
* * *
Wednesday 4/4/01
Armageddon Round Two
Armageddon
Secure
(shot)
by PahPah: Armageddon is supposed to be the end
of everything. In this case it wasn't and that's a good
thing because Armageddon "Secure," the second version of
PahPah's massive CTF map with modified weapons, is a whole
lot more polished than the first. Mainly the framerates
are now quite playable, you'll notice that he removed a
lot of incidental details and closed off the middle area,
among other things. Also fixes to popping and stuff like
that, and stairsteps instead of a sloped hillside. Anyway
it's all a lot tidier so if you thought the first was kinda
cool you'll definitely appreciate this update.
The .zip contains a "local.msg" file. No it isn't
monosodium glutamate, it's a text file that puts in custom
messages for stuff in the game, so it can say you picked
up "Buffalo Rifle" when you pick up the gosh darn Buffalo
rifle. It's too bad it can't go in the .lab file or something
but I tried that and it didn't work so oh well... I've
got a feelin' there's some way to do it but I'm all thumbs
when it comes to that kind of thing. So anyhoo don't worry
about it, it won't make you fat or give you cancer or
whatever.*
*Paleface does not guarantee that this file
will not adversely affect your health, use at your own
risk. And don't forget to floss. :P
Now That's a Gun
A Mr. Guilmette referred me to
The Gatling Gun
Company,
"Manufacturers of fine Gatling guns, suitable for
display, reenactments, or actual use." They say their
live-fire Gatling gun reproductions ("authentic replicas")
can fire up to 600 rounds per minute but in their movie
(which fires smoke into the screen for half of it) they
can't really be getting more than maybe 300, and half
sound like misfires. ;) Anyway it's kinda fun stuff and
they look good so that's all that really
matters. They also have an interesting history of the
Gatling gun article.
Ooo... Shadows
TonToE let me know that he's updated the
Outlaws
Mod for Half-Life site with a bunch of really
keen looking screenshots—I think it's safe to say that
Bunkers and Buckshotville have never looked so good.
For those who missed this before, the OLMod4HL is about
taking the Outlaws sounds and textures and recreating
the characters, guns, weapons and levels in full
3d. Pretty keen stuff, they seem to be doing a bang
up job. Word is it's getting close to play-testing
time...
Sites for Sore Eyes
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Rockdawg's Dawghouse
Kinda multimedia-intense minisite for the DawgPack
posse. Definitely colorful however.
NOTE: The webmaster wanted to point you to the
link in the lower right corner of the first page
to a site with a ton of very ... colorful... Redneck
Rampage .wav files for your taunting pleasure.
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Fugitive Recovery Agents
Very slick Flash intro and menus and stuff, not
a ton of content but a kinda neat layout (if you've
got a modern browser) and some good files for download.
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The Outlaw once known as QOT_Doc wants folks to know
there's a CounterStrike clan of old Outlaws players,
name of "sLOw" (Silently Lethal Outlaws from the West).
Their site be here.
Moose and Newbie are planning on starting
up a ladder over at
The Outlaws
Center, Moose's summary is "Posses' select players to
take part in dm, tms, ctf games, then
arrange games themselves, and email me the results."
Well that doesn't sound so hard now does it? Sounds like
they're taking signups now so head on over.
Truffle has been updating
The Outlaws Hideout
a bunch lately (he scooped me on the OLMod4HL news,
f'r'instance), his latest big feature is a preview section
currently sporting previews of the OLMod4HL and ReOutlawed,
the project making their own OL sequel with the OL
engine.
Heretical
ShiftyTuco ripped some spiffy textures from
the game Heretic using the "Game File Explorer" utility
from Code
Alliance (they make other stuff besides
LawMaker, go figure). Here's a
screenshot
he took of a sample level using some of the textures
(he's quick to point out that it looks crappy 'cause it's
running in software mode) and
here's
the texture pack with 15 textures in it (and under 50K
to boot!). This is an extra super bonus file in my temp
directory so if you're interested you'd better download
it now.
* * *
Sunday 4/1/01
Gimme My Hour Back!
You know it's bad news when you only find out about
the Daylight Savings Time adjustment when you're
at work at 3:00am thinking hey, it could be later
when BING your computer pops up a window telling you
the clock has been updated for DST and now it's 4:00am.
:PP Anyhow this is my way of making excuses for the fact
that I won't get all the updates updated tonight, so
if you sent somethin' in and don't see it here well
hold your horses, it'll get in later this
week.
Actually nobody ever complains about me taking a little
time to get their update in... I just like to bitch about
Daylight Savings in spring.
Take My Maps... Please!
Los Inkas MOD
(shot)
by Bamz: Large arena-like area with grass-covered
stair-stepped grey pyramids with little sniping bunkers
at the top. And two sniping bunkers overlooking the whole
area from the side walls (looked kinda like Jai Ali
goals or something... well heck what do I know). Kinda
blocky and the tunnels are on the long/narrow/dark side
of things but there are some clever twists hidden below
the surface. Also, the framerate is quite impressive
considering the detail in the arena (not to mention that
this is the author's first map. The MOD part of the title
gives away the fact that there's a "buffalo gun" modied heavy
rifle in here, Bamz promises to follow up with a mod-free
version of the map as well.
Spirits
(shot)
by chaabo: Conversion of LEC's single-player
"Cliffs" level for multiplayer. It's been done before but
I don't remember it looking this good—could just be my
Voodoo 5 but I'll give chaabo the benefit of the doubt.
Item placement looks well done and hey, there's a roof
on the joint now (and you don't fall through it as in
his Sanctuary conversion, happily :). The vertical
switches in this level are just insane with all kinds
of surprising jumps thrown around. Looks like just the
thing for large-scale deathmatchin'.
Huckswar
(shot)
by WarWolf: Alternate version of his "Warzone"
map made for his pal Huckleberry, some of the modified
weapons and hidden doors are removed. Other'n that you
can just take what I said for Warzone, or just don't
worry about that and download the darn thing.
[11/14/01 correction: "Warzone" was made by ELCobra1,
not WarWolf. Thanks to ELCobra1 for the correction.]
JacK
(shot)
by KiL_Ler: Compact valley in nice reddish tones,
I like the wooden spars jutting out of the corner
towers. Feels a little over-bunkered though with four
really nasty bunkers lording it over this relatively
small area. I guess that could make for some really
strategic (or "cheap") play.
More
Whiskey
(shot)
by Cutter: The readme for his nearly two year-old
map Little Whiskey says "My last map." And in a way it
still is, as this is a remake of it. But whatta remake.
This small little desert town is now bristling with
even more sounds, billboards, props, windows and tunnels
than before. In fact the sheer detail makes it feel a little
crowded sometimes but then you run off into the desert
and run, and run, and... get impatient and zoom the
automap out and gape at the size of the area. Then you
start on back to town. ;) I loved Little Whiskey and this
pretty much outdoes it in every way. That detail doesn't
come cheap though: be prepared for a large download. Also
Cutter states unapologetically that the new detail carries
a framerate hit; well maybe it does but y'know the level
is still faster than most. So c'mon back to Whiskey,
pardner. Say hello to the dimestore Indian, and the
fella swingin' from a rope behind the jail. Oh and here's
fun, see if you catch the name of the map in a sound clip
in one of the buildings.
Heeeeere's... Wally?
Base sent in a custom character file,
Wally.
I'm gonna go ahead and stick a link to Wally at the bottom
of the character page just
because he's a top-quality example of how you can create
a standalone custom character sprite. Base is an old hand
at this: though the name has changed he's the guy who made
that old Batman character sprite in the "Gotham" map as
well as a Punisher character that I had up for download
a long time ago. Base had some help from Oze on
this guy and he's really nicely done. Never saw an Outlaw
with a red and white polka-dot bandanna before? Say hi to Wally.
Just don't point at him. He hates
that.
The readme
says Wally can be used for anything folks might like, so
hopefully we'll be seeing him popping up in some other
folks' upcoming levels (one nice thing about Wally is
his trim size: while most custom characters in the past
have added about 100k to a zipped map, Wally's archive
weighs in at a slim 51K. That's 'cause he lives on what
he kin catch with his knife, of course.
* * *
Wednesday 3/28/01
Two for the Road
ourtown
(shot)
by chaabo: Conversion of the full town of
Sanctuary from the single-player game (not just the
side street from LEC's "Sanctuary" multiplayer map)
with the addition of being able to run across rooftops,
which is pretty cool. Somehow I fell through one on top
of the bar though and ended up in this weird alternate
dimension with no ground textures and screwed up
physics (see screenshot). So I guess if you can avoid
whatever that was
this should be a fun, big multiplayer map; not the
highest framerate but a darn fine level layout as everyone
already knows. Update: just ran into the rooftop thing
a second time, use rooftops at your own risk. :P
grabgold
(shot)
by Spikeramas: His levels are always not just a
new level but a new game to play. This is a team deathmatch
level where you have to escape a valley with a bag of
gold. To do it you'll need a crowbar to get past a certain
large rock. Once you get out you shoot a bottle of your
team color to register the point, then fall to your death
to return the items to the point where they can get captured
again. Or at least that's what the readme says, this kinda
thing is kinda hard for me to try out in my little
review run. Sounds pretty cool if you can get a cooperative
teammate along. The map itself, or what I saw of it, is
a little on the monotone side with large steps that you
have to jump up and which really tire you out quickly,
which is kind of frustrating. High framerates though.
Nice body prop in there too...
One Cheek in the Sack
If this update seems a little half-assed (pardone mon
francais) it's because I'm short on midnight oil. Got more stuff
but it'll hafta wait 'til next time. C'mon back now,
y'hear?
* * *
Sunday 3/25/01
Sequel Petition Updated
Believe it or not the Outlaws
Sequel Petition still gets a steady flow of new
signatures each week. Been a while since I updated but
it's now got all 2337 signatures to date on it. Always
fun to read through these and see what folks have to
say about getting more Outlaws action.
WildBill Strikes Again
|
|
SBD: Silent But Deadly Outlaws Killers
Posse site by WildBill. Decent speed and layout though
other than the SBD members list, the site's other
features (Outlaws feature summary, player photo
gallery and a very handy archive of pretty much every
map every released) are identical to those found
at WildBill's Outlaws Bar.
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Serious Single-Player
You all know I'm a pretty critical cuss when it comes
to games. In fact I haven't bought a first-person shooter
since Outlaws. Yeah that's right. Sure I played demos
and stuff but nothing has grabbed me for years. Until
now. I bought "Serious Sam" a few days ago and am
insufferably wildly giddy about it. In fact I wrote out
a whole long review here but deleted it because it's
pretty off-topic. The multiplayer doesn't grab me (DM
is a cheap Quake rip and co-op, while briefly fun in
an insane kind of way, runs slow even on high
end systems with broadband connections
and there's so much going on that you don't
have time to really interact with other players: it
screams "LAN party" though ;) but the single-player...
well... I'll just say that this is the most fun I have
ever had with a first-person shooter in single-player.
A'yup. It costs $20 and it would still be a treasure at twice
the price.
Enough outta me. Gamespy has a review of it
here
with
lots of screenshots and good descriptions of the major
features
(much as I detest their cut'n'paste "Planet" sites and
their constant hawking of GameSpyArcade, their mother
site still has very well-written and thorough reviews).
Developer Croteam
has a downloadable demo. And
here's
a little screenshot I took showing some hot double-six-shooter
action (also the main standby weapon is a double-barrel
shotgun, and there's a cowboy character model for
multiplayer; oh and the final boss is over six times the
size of that dinky little 45-foot demon in the
picture ;).
* * *
Wednesday 3/21/01
Oh Hey, Outlaws!
I always find it amusing when folks stumble across
Outlaws and think they've rediscovered a miracle that
nobody else knows about. ;) Such seems to have happened
to a fellow over at 3dactionplanet.com (the closest
they came to doing a PlanetOutlaws.com I suppose) as he
wrote up
this
article discussing why Outlaws should be considered
a classic. It isn't amazingly well written or informative
but it's kind of cute. Doesn't mention multiplayer of
course. :P Thanks to Blue's
for the URL and Lefty for reminding me.
#Outlaws_Players Moves to DALnet
Garbotalk wrote to tell me that the most-loved
Outlaws IRC channel, #Outlaws_Players, has moved from
the Undernet to DALnet, naming unreliable Undernet servers
as the main reason for the switch. You can catch the full
scoop in the news at the
#outlaws
players site.
There's Gotta Be One Here Somewhere...
Loophole
(shot)
by SgtGemini: Rather in the big and flat mold of
things, nothing terribly wrong with it though and framerates
are high since there isn't much to render. Object placement
isn't very creative. Map may get frustrating if people
keep sniping you from the bunkers hidden behind intangible
wall sections... But if you like sniping people from behind
intangible wall sections, especially when there's no
cover available to them, you'll pretty much love this
map.
* * *
Sunday 3/18/01
Holy New Levels, Batman!
Stage
Express
(shot)
by sunset_rider: Short but fun two-level
Historical Mission. You get to fight let's see I think
three boss characters but the placement of two of them
makes 'em pretty easy to pick off from long range. Very
linear adventure through some canyons and caves, nothing
too spectacular but about the right mix of shooting and
moving for me. sunset adds that this is the last map he
plans to make, he'll still be doin' his share of shootin'
online though.
Garboville
2
(shot)
by WaRRioR: Nice broad-shouldered frontier feeling
to the three wide buildings in this canyon. Very nice
sky as well. Not too many places to hide out though and
tons of items so this will be a very fast DM indeed. The
shading work with several holes that break down into
a basement is very nice, that area is about the only
loop in the place though. Framerates are good.
Oklahoma
City
(shot)
by Hooter: A sequel of sorts to his "Love Hurts"
map, what you've got here is a nice bright sunny town
with lots of buildings, a train track running through
some tunnels, and a nice lakeside view. Size of the town
is impressive and so is the framerate which only dips
if you look over the city from one of several second-story
balconies. Item placement is good and the fighting on
rooftops, in alleyways and through buildings should keep
things mixed nicely. Texturing and construction are
on the whole quite attractive.
LawTown2
(shot)
by TheRock: Kinda small but longish canyon
with two buildings facing each other the narrow way
across a hole which has tunnels leading around the
backs. Sniping bunkers at the far ends of the canyons
have a clear shot at anything moving outdoors. You can
get on the rooftops which is a nice touch though if you
jump while you're up there your head goes through the
sky and parts of the world disappear. I hate when that
happens. :P Framerate is solid. There's a funny thing
with the ground plane popping through one of the houses,
probably a Glide (and now D3D?) thing.
Son of a-!
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SoB: Sorry Ole Bastards
Somewhat bland graphically but fast and sporting a nice
easy layout, this posse site by Pacoloco has a
members list, handy files for downloadin', a
well-written history of the gang, a few links
a message board and a nifty poll type thingy
where you can see just how your opinions on Outlaws
matters meet up with everyone elses'.
|
The current poll asks you to choose your favorite CTF map,
go ring in your vote!
I guess this kinda fits under the title here... lindow,
longtime player, OutNet creator and occasional map maker, dropped me
a note to say he's retiring from active service, as it
were, and that he'll miss all you lovable Outlaws folks.
He plans to drop by and chat in the #outlaws_players
IRC channel once in a while, however, so he won't be
completely out of touch. :)
* * *
Wednesday 3/14/01
LEC OL D3D Driver
Years ago there were rumors that Lucasarts was working
on a Direct3D patch for Outlaws—I think this was fueled
by a posting on the official LEC Outlaws web site. Well,
turns out that they really were working on an OL D3D driver
back in '97. Thanks to Truffle, who obtained it
from parts unknown, you can get it
here (25k).
For future reference the download link will be on my
useful files page.
So to explain briefly, this file, extracted to your Outlaws
directory, will bring up a listing for "Direct3D" in your
olcfg.exe Outlaws configuration utility. Select it and you
have access to an Advanced window where you can toggle various
settings such as texture filtering, transparency effects, etc—basically
the same ones the Glide driver has, plus a few extra thrown in
that didn't seem to have much effect in my
tests. Anyway, just run the game and there you are playing
Outlaws with hardware acceleration on a non-Glide
card.
Big hairy deal you say, we already have the XGl200 Glide
wrapper that can do that (see the usefile files page for
that too). What's so special about this? Well, on a P3 700
w/ GeForce 2 the D3D driver was 10-20% faster than the
Glide wrapper and was able to do transparent water which
I never seemed to be able to do with the wrapper.
Transparent water seems a bit of a tricky spot though:
I crashed three times looking at the well in Sanctuary
on the GeForce 2, the times it didn't crash it really
killed the framerate. On a G200 it was stable but quite
slow.
In sum, this is a good alternative to the Glide wrapper
for those with non-Glide D3D cards. Generally speaking
it seems a bit faster and less stable though the precise
difference will depend on your card's drivers. And even
for those who won't use it 'cause they already have a
3dfx card, isn't it kinda nice to get in effect an
unsupported Outlaws patch four years after the
fact?
Load Screen Crash on WinMe
I have WinMe on one machine at work and so far it's
been quite frustrating. Trying to get a Radeon working
on it was half a day spent rebooting, fiddling with
different driver sets and motherboard settings. The
classic moment came when the motherboard BIOS update
utility, which requires DOS, wouldn't run from a WinMe
boot disc. Finally convinced it to go with some finagling,
never did get the bloody Radeon working on that machine
though. Doesn't help that ATI's drivers still blow
chunks after all these years.
Anyway, reader Rodney Lloyd is stuck with
WinMe also and unfortunately for him, it's all he's
got to run Outlaws on. I say unfortunately because he
locks up on the level loading screen every time. He's
tried all the display drivers (not the D3D one yet,
obviously) and reinstallations and fiddling with game
patches, desktop resolutions, ripping out cards and so
forth with no luck at all. I haven't been able to come
up with any solutions for him so I'm posting this here
in the hopes that some of you will have an idea or two
to send him. His system specs:
PIII 450
Windows ME
128 RAM
12 Gig HD
Direct X 8.0
VooDoo2 - with latest drivers (3dfxV2.drv)
Riva TNT - with latest drivers (nvdisp.drv)
Soundblaster AudioPCI 128 card
Logitech Wingman Mouse USB
If you have any clues for Rodney, mail him at
[removed].
HRC Creep Back
Creeper threw me a mail that the Hot Rod Cowboys
(HRC) posse is back in town, presumably to shoot the
place up in true Outlaws fashion. There's a mention
of this on
Blondie's
page... uh, that's about it though.
* * *
Sunday 3/11/01
Maps from PahPah
Anguaish
(shot)
by PahPah: Small central bunker with four identical
forts in separate canyons all around it. Framerate is
good. Textures could use some stitching here and there.
Fairly basic construction, can't fault anything about it
though unless I wanted to get picky and mention that the
moving doors may become difficult in a laggy game. Music
plays from CD 2 while you're in the level, I guess that
might annoy some but I thought it was a nice touch here.
Armageddon
(shot)
by PahPah: Very very large CTF map with two bases
divided by a large sandy hill with a swift river traversing
the top. When I say swift, I mean it: you fall in and
the current quickly sweeps you off to your death.
The safer route is a covered bridge crossing the river or
through a tunnel and cave route cutting under the river,
where you'll encounter some nice ambient sounds of rushing
water. Framerates range from quite low to really bad
in a lot of areas above-ground which may do a bit to
foil snipers taking advantage of the long open views...
probably not much though. A whole slew of custom weapons
may be fired at you from every direction. The readme
lists five including cannon, bazooka and Buffalo rifle,
most of these you've seen before in other maps. They're
a pretty deadly bunch so plan to do a lot of running,
dying and maybe a little drowning.
ReLinked
|
|
ReOutlawed
Oze's site for this very ambitious Outlaws
"sequel" in which you play Anderson's daughter
features a Flashy navigation menu and some
tantilizing screenshots and details on this
large work in progress.
|
* * *
Wednesday 3/7/01
Bottles and Cans, Just Clap Your Hands
Bottles
(shot)
by Spikerama: Spikerama's works aren't just maps,
they're inventions. This time he's inventored up a
two-player CTF game involving custom team-colored bottles.
Never thought you'd see th' day didja, pops? Well basically
you shoot the bottles that are your team's color, your
opponent shoots their bottles. Only when all your color
bottles are broken can you go after the other flag, which
isn't too far away from your own. There are a couple gats
in tough-to-reach spots so if yer a gambler or bad aim with
a rifle you can try to grab one of them to break your
bottles with. You can also try TNT but you may get some
unwanted friendly-bottle fire with that. ;) The bottles
don't respawn though so you'll have to
re-host the level to play more than one capture.
Two
Sofas
(shot)
by Flaming_Pinto: It's "Honey I Shrunk the Outlaws."
Not an incredibly original theme but pulled off here
quite smartly, you have just got to love those blue and
green sofa patterns. There's a fun confusion of scale you
see tiny little rifles sitting like toys on a mammoth
end-table. The bright wallpaper is a little tough on my
tired eyes but this is a clever medium-sized DM/Team
level.
A Real Man's FPS
You know how I said I didn't want any more "my framerate
is higher than your framerate" type of screenshots? Well
you have to tack on "unless it's funny" to the end of
phrases like that coming from me. :P
Blackthorn has this to say about his
amazingly
unimpeachable screenshot:
"Allow me to submit what I believe will be the final word on this
subject. I afforded myself the liberty of choosing a map which I believe
caters towards optimal frame-rates, and I hereby scoff at the notion
that the screenshot enclosed has been 'altered' in any way whatsoever."
Big words but as you can see the proof is in the pudding.
I understand that sometimes they put valuable rings in
puddings, so watch out or you may chip a tooth.
Site Seein'
Truffle is havin' a level contest over at
the the LMT site:
whoever sends in the best map each month, as hand-picked
by grizzled experts of the LMT, will get it hosted up
permanent like on the LMT site with a page all it's own
with screenshots and a gushing review and suchlike. What
mroe could an honest map ask for, I ask ya?
Pistolero has the old
WAC: Whoop
Ass Crew posse site back online. When I say old, I
mean ollllld. But I mean that in a very good way. :) Pistolero
mentions that he plans to add a few drops of extra shine to
the old home page, also that it'll stay online until OL is gone
or Geocities starts charging money... our equivalent of "hell or
high water" I suppose. ;)
Goody Goody
Well the minnit I post it, he makes an update,
how do you like that? If you're like me, you like
it a lot. :) Blackhawk3d has a new version
of the "Good Rifle" custom rifle sound on
his
site. This version is sharper, accordin' to him.
It also comes with a long sound clip from "The Good,
the Bad and the Ugly," from whence the sound itself
originates. Lots of other shootin' sounds in there
may provide inspiration for future OL rifle sounds...
Speakin' of good sounds,
Ennio Morricone's trademark "wah-WAH-wahhh"
makes it in there a few times.
* * *
Sunday 3/4/01
ElCobra-Lalalalalala!
Deadwood
Canyon
(shot)
by ElCobra1: Smallish deathmatch canyon with lots
of ledges on the edges, where you'll also get some framerate
drop as you can see the entire canyon at once. I like
the texture choices here though they could use stitching.
The three interlinked wells or pools are neat, bit of
a hit in the framerate though. Lots of items, probably a
bit much for me but the action definitely won't slow
down in here.
LinkyDinks
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|
KDA Posse: Kill Dem All
Fast-loading posse site by JoeyTheKid. The drop-down
menu and popup loading navigation system seem a little
more complicated than needed, you gotta love the
background music though. Not much here yet aside
from short member bios.
|
|
|
WAC's Profiles Page
Site by XaviarOlero with a page for each member of
the Whoop Ass Crew posse. Not complete yet, also
suffers from a bit of multimedia overload in a
non-Western vein to boot. Handy thumbnail index on
the main page.
|
Well Cross My Hairs
Uh-oh, this may be the beginnings of a crosshair
frenzy. Someone really oughtta make an Outlaws
crosshair site. Anyone? Help! ;) As you know, I
only post them temporarily.
Anyhow, th' crosshair of th' day comes from Tuff_Mike,
grab it here.
Mike's got a tiny central red dot-cross with larger
grey bars around it, an interesting combination. As usual,
just extract the "croshair.nwx" file into the same folder
as you olwin.exe and run the game.
Now That's-a Good Rifle
Blackhawk3d, aka Aaron Sawyer, has a new custom
Outlaws rifle sound posted on
his
site. He got "Good Rifle" from "The Good, the Bad
and the Ugly"... which may indicate that he's got a few
more rifle sounds planned. ;) Anyhow, "Good" is of course
Clint's rifle sound, starting with a stuttery report
which releases into a big reverberating who0osh. So if
you want a lil' more Goodness in yer rifle shots, go
grab that. You'll also find a ton of other custom gun
sounds for OL at the site, have fun!
Framerate 2500
Okay like I said a week or so ago, we're pretty much
past the point where there's much point in comparing
your four-digit Outlaws framerate numbers. I just had
to post this though, I was kind of wondering if someone
would try this. ;) TheRock scrunched his DirectDraw
screen size down as low as it goes and managed to
glimpse
2500 fps on his 866 mHz machine with Voodoo5 in
Pattern Repair. Of course you have to weigh the image
quality vs quantity, mebbe. ;)
Okay that's it though, I don't want anymore look-how-big-my-fps-is
screenshots! They just make me feel inadequate. :P
* * *
Wednesday 2/28/01
A Newsome Twosome
Gladiator
(shot)
by sunset_rider: Inspired by last year's
blockbuster movie, sunset_rider's first multiplayer map
brings high framerates and a dark stone look to the table.
I'm not sure how much fun folks will have stumbling into
that dark lava-filled pit in the catacombs below... hey!
That wasn't in the movie! Plain but solid arena-style
layout.
Headache
#9
(shot)
by chaabo: Two wagons that have seen better days
flank an old tavern in the middle of a desert valley.
The naturally undulating valley walls are impressive
though the lack of texture stitching gives them something
of an unfinished look. chaabo said
said the framerates weren't sky-high but they aren't
really that bad. Check out the shadows under the
wagon poles—nice detail! Not too bad for map the author
just had "laying around the hard drive." And he can
certainly be excused if he says he's taking a bit of
a break from LawMaking, considering his recent massive
output!
Oh, chaabo says to make sure you have "Maintain all
sprite directions" checked in the olcfg.exe's "Advanced"
3dfx Glide options window or things won't look quite
right—horses will rotate funny in their traces and stuff
like that, I imagine. If you're running on a 3dfx
card (or D3D card w/ Glide wrapper) with more than 4 MB
of video memory you should just keep that checked all
the time anyway.
New SoL
Angel sent me the URL for the new SoL posse site he just
put up, the old one is no longer online:
|
|
SoL House
I always cringe when I see a site that has been
made with homestead.com's web-creation utility.
Don't expect fantastic design, watch out for some
high-bandwidth multimedia but if you dig around
you'll find pretty much everything you could expect
to learn about the SoL posse from a web site, plus
a few of their favorite maps for download.
|
A Portrait of the Outlaw as a Young Man
Aha just as you were saying to yourself "thank goodness
he hasn't cursed us with another darn fool literary
quotation lately" I ran across another one and hey, this
could even apply to Outlaws kinda if you read it in a
certain way. So there.
There were pale strange faces there, great eyes like
carriagelamps. They were the ghosts of murderers, the
figures of marshals who had received their deathwounds
on battlefields far away over the sea. What did they wish
to say that their faces were so strange?
— James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
* * *
Sunday 2/25/01
Livin' in the Past
Haha! I knew I'd do it sooner or later—my last two updates
were dated last year. :P Luckily nobody noticed,
whew!
Newbie 0wNz Links Page
Newbie was home sick a couple days ago and
did me a huge, unexpected favor by going through my
links page and checking each and every one to make
sure it was current. Wow! That is a huge load off
my mind. So, a lotta dead wood has been cleaned out
of the links page, all links should be workin' now.
If not, blame Newbie. Hahaha joke, joke! If you run
into Newbie tell him he's the
Man. Even came up with a new site (or an old site
that's been converted to a new one):
|
|
InV: InVincible
A little cursing and misspelling here, otherwise
a nifty little minimalist posse site.
|
Heh I was just thinkin' about some of those old
sites. Patti's site, fer instance: all in German,
slow as heck, very little content. But it hung on
for years! Gone now... dust in the electronic wind.
*sniff* But man Roger's site is still up, wow. That
dude was definitely thinking ahead when he made his
news page format: doesn't list the year at all so
you can't tell his page is that out of date. Wish
I'd thought'a that...
Cross Your Hairs
Oze was playing around with a paint program
and whoa, a little
Outlaws
crosshair popped out. What are the odds? You stick
that there file in the same directory as your olwin.exe,
by the way, and remember of course that it will overwrite
any other custom crosshair you've got in there.
1896 Was a Good Year... and Framerate
You remember last week I posted
a
screenshot from NeOCrOmBiE showing him getting
1896 fps at 800x600. I was pretty sceptical 'cause he
hadn't provided any other real information. He got back
to me though so let's see just how possible that fps
might be (those with super fast systems can probably
verify this themselves, I suppose).
He says his CPU is an AMD [Athlon?] 1.1 gHz, overclocked
to 1.3. He overclocked his V3 to 260mHz by hacking his
overclocking tool to allow speeds that high (I forgot
to ask what V3 it was, they ranged from 143 for the 2000
to 183 for the 3500.) 260mHz is a ridiculously high
number, more than I would have thought possible. Indeed,
NeOCrOmBiE says that he had trouble booting up and that
he had to take the shot somewhat hastily since he figured
the card wouldn't last long at that speed, which it
didn't.
The ground in the shot is all pixelly because he chose
the minimal detail setting when using
Mark Lütkefend's
utility that allows you to push your 3dfx resolution
to 800x600. I had assumed that he would have gotten
a higher framerate in that position if looking at the
sky but actually I just tried it on my Celeron 533
w/ Voodoo 5 and noticed that ground/sky is the same
framerate there.
Now if you compare his framerate with the one on an
old shot that Notorious sent in a long time ago,
showing uhh I think it was 625fps on a P450 or something
like that, you can do some math and discover that
1896 on a 1.3 gHz machine seems well within reason at
that rate. Of course, Noto was taking advantage of
how Outlaws will spike up to a much higher value for
a frame sometimes
if you're looking at nothing at all—I'm hard pressed
to find somewhere where I can even get anywhere close to
625 on my machine. I have found spots where I've seen
500 on my old P333 though (or was it 233? can't remember)
so 625 isn't that unbelievable.
So anyhow there you go. I'm willing to grant that 1896
is theoretically possible. Actually, with CPU speeds so
darn high these days it really is becoming pointless
to compare top framerates on 3dfx-powered systems. Running
non-3dfx on a Glide wrapper is a different story... I
tried OL on my P3 700 w/ GeForce 2 at work and I think
my max was 83 fps at 640x480. 512x384 was actually slower
and 800x600 was a crawl. Funny how GeForce's run the
Glide wrapper so much worse than TNTs. One slight benefit
though is that you can run with anti-aliasing and though
it doesn't look as good as a V5's, you're already running
the game so slow that it incurs no framerate hit
whatsoever.
New and No-So-New Maps
Hostage
(shot)
by sunset_rider: You saw this one last week
as "Hostages." The original file sent me was hostages.zip,
I noticed this conflicted with Gas' map of the same name
and changed it to hostages_sr.zip. But Dirty O'Lero pointed
out that some of the contained files over-wrote Gas',
so with the author's permission (though I was hopin' he'd
do it himself hehe) I h@x0r3d the map, renamed everything
"Hostage" and it seems to work. I didn't play through
the whole thing to the end buuuuut I'll just cross my
fingers and figger it's all good unless I hear different.
Jasper
(shot)
by Spidy: Small town DM just like mom used to
make. Framerates are good and there's some lively roof-jumpin'
action to be had. Interiors could use a little more
texture and lighting detail—enough Outlaws, of course,
can provide that in the form of muzzle flashes and
bullet holes. ;)
Dead
Horse
(shot)
by chaabo: Delightfully atmospheric moonlit
plains environment with super-high framerates. An
irregular plains area surrounds a low hill crowned
with a small shack. A tunnel runs from the shack to
a small building at the base of the hill, there's
also a bunker under one side of the hill. Aside
from very minor texture stitching issues the level
looks great, the distant low moon (credited to
Danger_) is a wonderful touch. If you were to stop
and think about it sure, the place is probably brighter
than it should be but this ensures that visibility
isn't hampered: the pitch-black sky with that great tiny
moon pulls off the look all by itself.
* * *
Wednesday 2/21/01
Oze LAN Trouble and a Map
Regarding his mysterious freezes detailed in the last
update, Oze relates that he has discovered it
has something to do with his LAN; if he connects on
his own he's fine. If anyone has a clue as to what
that could be all about, mail him at
[removed].
Despite his networking worries he's decided to give
out his first, heretofore unreleased map:
Navajo
(shot)
by Oze: This whopper (259k) is goin' in my temp
folder so get it while it's there... An ambitious CTF
map, probably tries to pack too much into the middle
to do the framerate much good. Lots of custom props
and stuff (I think I see GoJo's candlesticks, for one)
Oze says to just thank everyone for their contributions. ;)
Hope this doesn't ruffle any feathers. :P The drip in the
tunnel below the lake is a nice touch though as with footsteps
it is missing any sound. Parts of the cliffs disappear
when you jump in the lake in the middle of the map but
that little lakehouse fort is kinda cool, dig the custom
breakable windows.
Links
|
|
OQP's Outlaws Levels
Tiny section of his full site, you can get
sunset_rider's maps here. The page itself has
a really bland layout and doesn't load in some
old browsers but hey, any site where people post
the fruits of their honest Outlaws labor definitely
has something going for it.
|
|
|
DUT's Web Page
Simple layout with big colors for the Clan Dutchy
site. Navigation isn't the smoothest but you'll
find info on the posse members, a few very handy
files for download and map-specific gameplay tips
in a fairly quick-loading format.
|
* * *
Monday 2/19/01
Maps For Download
Hostages
(shot)
by sunset_rider: Single-player map gets it right
in a really important category: lots of guys to shoot.
The level layout is a bit on the simple side but largely
effective with some nice tunnels and stuff. Plot involves
saving hostages from Sanchez or something... try not to
let that get in the way of the shooting. I was playing
through on GOOD and a bad guy killed me so I'd say the
challenge factor is pretty good (he was just lucky with
that TNT stick though... :P).
Survivor
(shot)
by Spikerama: No tribal councils or anything here,
just four Outlaws who enter a map (based off of Walker's
Cavarly
Town) simultaneously, the winner being the one who
doesn't end up dead—'cause if you respawn, you can't get
back in to town. As with many of Spike's new games you
hafta have a cooperative bunch to work this right, but
it will make for a definite change of pace from the usual
OL shootout. The town has very little left in the way of
weapons and ammo, you've only one life... so make every
shot count. Cav Town always had kinda dumpy framerates
and they aren't entirely gone here but the old layout
(slightly modified and compacted) holds up well.
Trailer
Trash
(shot)
by chaabo: If you've always wanted to shoot it
out in a trailer park, this here's the map fer you.
For the rest of us, it's a bit cramped in the trailers,
the framerate isn't too high and lighting and texturing
aren't what you would call gorgeous... but no real
problems here either. Good place to bust out those
redneck taunt .wav files you've been saving up.
Tunnels
(shot)
by TOWER: Texture stitching and a realistic
layout are completely lacking in this arena level and
framerates in spots are mediocre. But I'll tell you one
thing it does have in spades and that's flow: movement
around this squarish medium-sized DM map is smooth as
butter, with perfectly spaced jumps on multiple levels
and nice transitions between. The gorgeous warm clay
texture set complements the buttery navigation quite
nicely though more light/dark contrast would help
depth perception. This map reminds me of classics like
Ten
Paces and
Junction.
The framerate may be a bit low in spots—I'll have to
play a match here to be sure—but this map has a great
old time deathmatch feel to it. Thanks to
WildBill
for sending it in.
Sitings
|
|
Outlaws Mod for Half-Life
Home of an OL mod for the ridiculously popular
Half-Life. Authors TonToE and Trigger
are trying to be as faithful to OL
as possible while moving it into a true 3D engine
complete with polygonal characters and weapons
not to mention client-server-based networking.
Sounds and textures are taken straight from the
game—yeah so who cares about copyright infringement,
this is non-commercial stuff for die-hard gamers,
durnit. Is this the future of Outlaws? If so,
it ain't lookin' half-bad.
|
|
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Team SWE
Latest incarnation of this Swedish posse's homepage, now
by Lefty, sports a bright look and fast organized
layout. Lots of info in team members, recent and
favorite maps for download, a page highlighting
certain players as well as a message board, mail
service and select links page. Nice production.
|
Unfreeze Oze
Help a fellow Outlaw in distress! I don't have
direct experience with this problem or with his system
model, could be you know something that would help.
Here's what he wrote me:
Hello Paleface, OGB_Oze here. Lately I've been having tons of problems with
my Compaq Presario. Most of the time its fine but when I play Outlaws I
freeze. There will be no lag and BLAH im frozen. It usually happens when I
am shooting or picking up an object and I will hear the .wav over and over
again. Not only does the game freeze but I can't do anything about it. I
can't just close OL I have to reboot. If you know anything about why this
might be doing this can you please tell me. If you could please put something
onto your site a bout it and ask anyone who knows the problem to please email
me at this address [removed]. Thank You !!!
Sounds to me like some kind of sound card/driver
issue...
Sky-High Framerate
Hmm well this is kinda funny, if maybe a bit hard to
prove. NeOCrOmBiE writes that he had a spare
Voodoo 3 laying around so he decided to pop it into
his system and overclock the bejeezus out of it.
According to him the card is now melted and useless but
fortunately he managed to snap a screenshot of
his framerate in Outlaws before it turned to goo...
Now certain pessimistic types may think you can pick
out a few suspicious looking aspects of
this
screenshot but in any case you can say that
NeOCrOmBiE has definitely managed to pull a fast
something or other.
* * *
Wednesday 2/14/01
A Map for Mid-Week
Warzone
(shot)
by ElCobra1: Big canyon map, at first you'll
think it's pretty flat and just kinda big, with narrow
twisty canyons along the sides. Then you might discover
the hidden tunnels (masked by permeable walls) leading
up to the cliff-tops above, which literally opens up a
whole second level. Probably going to be a lot of
sniping here and frustration on the part of those who
don't know the secret entrances. Object placement is
rather thick and clumpy for my tastes and there are
a couple floating signs near the crates next to the single
building but otherwise construction is fairly sound
and framerates are high. Nice use of ambient wind sounds
too.
* * *
Monday 2/12/01
New Voodoo Drivers
Well well well. Here you were with yer Voodoo 3,
4 or 5, thinkin' that you'd never again get another
driver update for the poor thing now that 3dfx has
been bought by Nvidia. Oh woe is me! you cried, your
bitter tears wetting the tech support supplement of
that new game that just wouldn't run right on your
beloved card.
Okay okay I'll get to the point. Apparently some ex-3dfx
employees, from the Belfast branch specifically, put
together a site a
www.x3dfx.com (clever,
eh?) and released heretofore unreleased beta Voodoo
3, 4 and 5 drivers for Windows 95, 98, Me and 2000.
Whoa Nelly. And they're still there, so I suggest you
get them while you can, even if you don't think you
need them—you just might be kicking yourself later if
you don't.
The site's main page says they took it down but pay
no heed and click through to the "drivers" page to find
that familiar 3dfx Javascript driver selector, then download
away. I've installed them and the installation was about
as trouble-free as all V5 drivers have been on my Win95
system (a few blue screens, freezes and various reboots
later, plus repeated messing with tweaking utilities
to restore overclocking and refresh rates, not to mention
resetting all advanced options again and Voila! back in
action :P). And Outlaws runs just fine with them which
is of course the important thing. Well okay I locked
up but I think that's 'cause I'm overclocking my board
mercilessly. :)
No release notes with these drivers and no support.
Browsing the nutty message boards at the site it looks
like some are complaining that they can't use FSAA in
D3D now. I didn't try it so I can say, but these beta
drivers are definitely love 'em or leave 'em... and
probably the last things we'll see from 3dfx.
Oopers Troopers
Ooops! Thanks for the couple of gentle reminders I got
that Trooper founded the original TOC site, with
Robond, Newbie and Moose as his hardworking reporters.
Hope that straightens things out. Don't flame me, I mean
well, honest Injun! :P
* * *
Sunday 2/11/01
Websy-Daisy
Lotta Outlaws web-stuff happnin'
lately:
|
|
The Outlaws Center
Moose and Newbie have resurrected Robond's
old Outlaws interview and news site to good effect
with a nice clean design, entertaining map reviews
and interviews, some handy files and more.
|
|
|
Warwolf's Outlaws Site
Clear layout, some nice play tips and character
analysis plus maps by Warwolf and other members of
his Wolf Pack Tribe posse who also get an
informational page of their own here.
|
Truffle has got a fancy new bulletin board
system in place on the
LawMakin' Team
site, with a discussion board for just about any
Outlaws-related talkifyin' you may want to do. And
if you bother to register (you don't have to to post)
you can choose an Outlaws character pic to appear
by your name. Now fess up, you've always wanted to
be able to do that.
How to Make a Faster Wrapper
TheOutlawDad started mailing me an article
about how to squeeze a higher framerate out of OL
using the Glide Wrapper (for those who have a D3D,
non-3dfx video card)... and kept emailing me updates
for several days. Here then is TOD's comprehensive
Outlaws Wrappery Screen Refresh Tips thingy, as laid
out in his final unified email:
Ok, Seams you know your way around the computer. But for the ones that don't, I will write this in detail. Trust me this will get you the
Highest FPS you can get With a Voodoo Card or The Glide Rapper.(We will use dc for double clik and cl for clik, if it doesn't say right it is a left cl)1st Step:Right cl my
computer,cl property's,cl device manager,dc Monitor,cl the type of monitor listed,cl Property's Tab,cl Drivers tab,cl update driver,cl specify location of driver,cl next,cl
display a list of all drivers,cl next,cl show all hardware,Pick your monitor from the list,cl next, cl next ,cl finished,cl close ,cl close. If your monitor was not on that list you
must use the have disk feature, get the drivers from the net put them on a floppy and use that feature.2nd Step:dc my computer,dc control panel,dc display,cl settings
tab,cl Advanced,cl Adapter,click the small arrow on the window that says refresh rate,cl Optimal,cl apply,cl ok on small window that comes up,cl yes on next small
window,cl ok, cl ok on the last window so it will close,3rd step:dc my computer,dc C Drive,right cl AUTOEXC.BAT,cl Edit,cl mouse at the end of the last line written in
there. If there is not a line in there just click the mouse,cl enter on your keyboard,Now you are ready to type,Type the following just as it is written here:SET
FX_GLIDE_SWAPINTERVAL=0 Then cl enter on your keyboard,Then Type this: SET SST_SWAP_EN_WAIT_ON_VSYNC=0 ( Yes I Hit The SPACE BAR Between SET
and SST)cl X at the top of the screen, cl yes on do you want to save window, cl X on Local Disk Window, Reboot your computer and go kill in the game, type olfps on your
keyboard when you are in the game to check your FPS Rate. Now go to http://theoutlawdad.com Sign the guessbook and say thanks for the info. Part 2: Getting back to
the article I wrote. If you check the directions you will see I have them set there monitor to Optimal, This is as fast as it will run. And will also keep them from setting it to
high and getting the black screen that everyone use to get at 120, when they only had 75 monitors. So Screen Refresh code is not needed.As for the FX Glide setting I
have them set it to 0 This will Swap backbuffers/frontbuffers ASAP as fast as it can, No need to write in any other glide settings.When running in voodoo or wrapper Glide is
on.The 2 Codes I wrote in the article will work on any Voodoo Card or the Glide Wrapper. I have run them on all the voodoo cards out there.Or at least a s--t load of them. I
was just trying to make it simple for everyone to get the high FPS Rates and not damage there cards or have to over clock them or run at the speed of the Wrapper. As you
can see the article doesn't say anything about over clocking. That would be a way to get a little more FPS but at the risk of your card. Not needed in Outlaws. Once anyone
has gotten to this point they should just learn how to play the game. TheOutlawDad http://theoutlawdad.com All of the above was written by TheOutlawDad
http://theoutlawdad.com Part3: Forgot to mention you have to have at least a 4mg video card in your machine to run the wrapper. Also I left out the Set SST_
SCREENFRESH= 60 or 75 or 85 or 120 code on purpose. This just to me adds to there troubles if they don't know what they are doing, Because any time you go above 60
you now have to add the SET SST_VIDEO_24BPP=1 Code to the AUTOEXE.BAT And sense I had them set the Monitor to Optimal, I think they will be good. We could get
into different codes for ever but that wasn't the point of the article. Getting guys a Faster FPS in a very easy way was. I Hope this clears things up for the few people who
have mentioned to me I left those codes out. Also they need to know at the end of the article I wrote if they need more then this they should learn how to play the game.
Guys without 4mg Video Cards should try the MGL Drivers. They may help your game. TheOutlawDad http://theoutlawdad.com
And just in case you missed the link to his web site,
it's theoutlawdad.com.
Come Down From Your Fences
There's a 36MB promo movie showing in-game cinematics
and gameplay from the upcoming "Desperados," a Western-themed
isometric RPG of some sort being developed by hmm lets
see I think a Swiss team (well I forget) and published
by Infogrames (too lazy to look it up to be sure). What?
Oh! The download is right
here
on the German site gamesweb.com. Looks like pretty good
production values. Gameplay is nothing like Outlaws of
course but I get email from folks desperate fer any kind
of new Old West action so here's hopin' that 36MB download
keeps you busy fer a bit. ;)
End of the Line
Trail's
End
(shot)
by chaabo: At the rate he's going, chaabo is
likely to get burned out, proclaim he's done with
LawMaking, then realize he can't live without it and
continue making maps that get better and better. Speakin'
of which, check out this one. The author described it
as "around a small church high up in the north
woods." Now see, can you sense the atmosphere already?
It ain't just any woods, or even east woods or something.
No, it's in the north woods, by cracky! And the north
woods are kinda dark, even on a clear day, and there's
spooky sounds in dark corners and maybe even some
bodies buried roundabout somewhere, long forgotten...
Well, it all makes for a nice scenic smallish DM-style
map. The skull on the church wall is a nice touch...
* * *
Wednesday 2/7/01
Quick! Maps!
The
Trade
(shot)
by Sunset_rider: Action packed, clean-limbed
small/medium size single-player adventure with good mix
of running, jumping and of course shooting. Only nit to
pick is a couple 3dfx glitches but these hardly render
the maps unplayable. Oh, and you can snipe Bill Morgan
while out of his range, poor fella.
Otherwise very solid stuff, nice
emphasis on lots of guns. ;)
Cross
the Fort
(shot)
by LMT: Attractive gothic castle in a dark
valley, the kicker here is that the map is different
for different game types (can't stray outside the castle
in KFC, get out into smallish valleys in DM, these are
expanded into large valleys in CTF). Even the time of
day changes! Very cool stuff, plus lots of love and
care with custom objects, score screen, etc. Framerate
gets a bit low looking across the parapets of the castle
but the view is worth it, plus if you're up for a few
tight jumps you can sail across the castle rooftops
Errol Flynn style (he did that, right?). SnotENoze,
GoJo and Lindow take authoring credits, with maybe
some help from Truffle though he modestly denies it,
as well as help from other LMT members and friends.
Nice work boys!
Blackrock
(shot)
by chaabo: Interesting white-walled enclosure
around a nearly featureless building, feels like you're
encarcerated in a government institution. Ahh, those were
the days... What? Oh err well the building isn't too
exciting but snipers tip-toeing along the top of the
outer fence get things hopping for ya. Feels a little
plain but framerates are high and navigation is smooth.
Ding-Dong Doors
Outta time. Figures everyone clumps their stuff into
two or three days of the week. :P Have web site news
and other stuff, will have to wait for the next
update... (which will be soon!) :P
Wait ack one more thing! SnotENoze found
a tiny bug in the sample door scripts he made earlier
so he's giving out
this
updated version with the fix. These are templates
for moving doors for single-player maps, sounds pretty
handy.
* * *
Sunday 2/4/01
Wildbill's Bar Re-opens
Been a while (a year and a half to judge by the last
date on the News page) but Wildbill is back to storming
the Outlaws web scene with his mighty big site:
|
|
WildBill's Outlaws Bar
Huge collection of maps, gameplay and video tips
and Outlaws-related files for download. Some
non-Outlaws-specific stuff here as well but the
menu makes it fairly easy to sort out. Secret
Britney attack!
|
No More News Today, Move Along
Well that was a slow half-week, news-wise. In fact if
it were not so very very slow I would not have been
tempted to post this next bit, I swear! :P Manco
dug up his very own "pale" quote. In the first chapter
of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, the eight verse
of the dwarves' sad song goes
The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon's ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.
Quite the party animal, that Smaug, eh? My favorite
song in that book though is the goblins' "Fifteen Birds in
Five Firtrees." Anyone else
looking forward to the upcoming live-action Lord of the
Rings movie? Ooo!
Sudden Popularity?
What th? Browsing to ftp.paleface.net brings up the
following:
FTP Error
FTP Error
Could not login to FTP server
There are already 300 users logged on.
Too many users; please try again later.
Whoa. Uhh... hopefully this won't last too long.
Umm... let me know if it does.
:P
Look Maw, Two Guns!
Hmm hope it wears off soon because this is going on
the ftp site as well (which will make things worse
hehe). This
screenshot I mean. Can anyone guess what upcoming
game this is from? Seriously, sam—I mean, can you?
Well to give you a hint the shot came from a recent preview on
pc.ign.com. The
demo was fun, I'll probably buy it for some nostalgic
Doom-style beastie blastin'. Those six-shooters look
pretty sharp, too. Those probably aren't Old West gunslingers
in the distance there but if'n you squint you kin kinda
pretend.
* * *
Wednesday 1/31/01
One Mother of an Update
Mother
(shot)
by chaabo: Update to this tiny single-player map,
this time with scrolling intro text telling the very
touching story of the abduction of your dear mother,
and related concerns you have. As chaabo says, scrolling
text "makes all the difference in the world." It also
doubles the play time of the map! :D
Wharf Rat
2.0
(shot)
by Runaway Jim: Update to this tiny DM map fixes
a few small things that probably bothered nobody except
Jim, makes one jump a bit easier (but the others are still,
as Kate would say, "hard as nuts" in the great RJ
tradition) and adds CTF play. Sounds like a fine excuse
for an update to me!
Another One...
Okay I swear, just a quicky pale quote this time. From Twain's
The Trials of Simon Erickson: "It was easy to see
that he was a gentle creature and that his madness had
nothing vicious in it. He looked pale, and a little worn,
as if with perplexing thought and anxiety of
mind." :P
* * *
Sunday 1/28/01
New Maps
killctf
(shot)
by Kil_ler: I dunno 'bout killin' ctf but one
thing this map'll kill is yer framerate. Big letters
on the ground spelling names and rivers with islands
in the middle of the map will do that, so will buildings
with lots of windows facing each other (with the rivers
and islands and letters in between, of course). Aside
from the framerate it doesn't look too bad though there
are a few blinky areas in the middle, around where my
framerate went down into the 20's. Haven't been that low
in the long long time. ;) Still if it weren't for the
framerate and the blinking this'd be a decent if somewhat
conventional cft map.
Lynch'n
(shot)
by chaabo: Another ctf map with the river in the
middle of two bases thing. This one's on a big flat
wide valley rather than a narrow canyony valley and
the framerate is better for the most part though still
on the slow side in spots. I like the river, it has
a nice natural winding look to it. The bases are
simple though the couple of moving doors may be
problematic in laggy games, especially since they block
off the main clumpy stores of guns'n'ammo. One odd touch
is a Sanchez AI character in one base... he'd cause lag
too but I'm betting he won't last too long, poor feller.
Get Down Get Down
Blackthorn sent the interesting and somewhat
coincidental news that Ennio Morricone will be
doing a UK gig alongside members of Portishead (a
band we both enjoy), Asian Dub Foundation and others.
Mr. Morricone of course did the soundtracks for the
"Fistful" spaghetti Western trilogy which LEC straight
ripped for Outlaws. He's no spring chicken these days
so it's rather surprising that he's doing a show,
especially alongside contemporary techno (or whatever)
bands but hey, what a wonderfully wacky world we
live in. Or Blackthorn does anyway, he's in England
I mean. :) So if you're gonna be in London in March,
go check the show. Here's the
article
scan he sent me from the New Musical Express with
the details.
A Paleface at Niagra
Boy are you lucky, not one but two "paleface" literary
references in as many weeks. Now just calm down, I know
it's something of a sensory overload. ;)
To set the scene for this one, our tourist narrator,
visiting Niagra sometime in the mid-1800's
and interested in the Native Americans
supposed to be producing the little carved statuettes
found in the gift shop, has been attempting to converse
with the "Children of the Forest" he finds outside.
Two rebuffs in unexpected rough brogue have somewhat
disheartened him but finding a large group he endeavors one
more attempt at conversation, addressing them as follows:
"Noble Red Men, Braves,
Grand Sachems, War Chiefs, Squaws, and High Muck-a-Mucks,
the paleface from the land of the setting sun greets you!
You, Beneficent Polecat—you, Devourer of Mountains—you,
Roaring Thundergust—you, Bully Boy with a Glass eye—the
paleface from beyond the great waters greets you all! War
and pestilence have thinned your ranks and destroyed
your once proud nation. Poker and seven-up, and a vain modern
expense for soap, unknown to your glorious ancestors,
have depleted your purses. Appropriating, in your
simplicity, the property of others has gotten you into
trouble. Misrepresenting facts, in your simple innocence,
has damaged your reputation with the soulless usurper.
Trading for forty-rod whisky, to enable you to get drunk
and happy and tomahawk your families, has played the
everlasting mischief with the picturesque pomp of your
dress, and here you are, in the broad light of the
nineteenth century, gotten up like a rag-tag and bobtail
of the purlieus of New York. For shame! Remember your
ancestors! Recall their mighty deeds! Remember Uncas!—and
Red Jacket!—and Hole in the Day!—and Whoopdedoodledo!
Emulate their achievements! Unfurl yourselves under my
banner, noble savages, illustrious guttersnipes—"
— Mark Twain, "A Day at Niagra"
The cringing PC types among you will be happy to know
that these "savages" turn out to be hardworking
Irish immigrants who, not appreciating the narrator's
high-flown speechifyin', quickly beat the tar out of
him and fling him over the falls. But the peace-loving
bleeding-hearts among you may take heart that the
loudmouthed victim remains upbeat upon hearing the doctor's
prognosis: "...thus far he
thinks only sixteen of my wounds are fatal. I don't
mind the others."
* * *
Wednesday 1/24/01
One Small Mother
Mother
(shot)
by chaabo: A tiny single-player map that would
even be on the small side for a multiplayer map, "Mother"
puts you on the assault against some Outlaws boss types
shacked up in the middle of a desert canyon. So you
assault the shack. Hey, it's fun in a brief way.
Truffle Teaches HTML
Truffle has put together his own HTML
tutorial, dubbed
Truffle's
Black Book of HTML (163K) though as he points out in the
introduction it is neither black nor a book but rather
a handy Windows Help file with hyperlinks and wiz-bang
stuff like that. And the guide shows you how to do
hyperlinks and tables and frames and even a little
dynamic HTML all in your very own HTML from scratch.
How's that for service? So if you ever wanted to start
learning HTML but were too lazy to get goin', download
this baby. Just do it soon 'cause it's in my temp
directory and won't stay here forever.
Web Clicks
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WildBill's Outlaws Essentials Page
A brief but well-designed and thorough overview
of Outlaws with system requirements, vital links
and a shopping cart thingy. Sort of a bridge page
between WildBill's large mp3 site and the Outlaws
world. I bet Britney and the Backstreet Boys would
like the game.
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Young Guns
Not really compatible with Netscape, the YG gang
site feels a bit scattered but you'll find
comprehensive members lists as well as global
maps on which to locate them.
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* * *
Sunday 1/21/01
Oops!
Thanks to Blackthorn for pointing out a typo
in my post about the command line option for converting
Outlaws maps to more compact binary form. The spelling is
"/tokenize" rather than the last name of a popular
fantasy author. Yeesh!
Hot Stuff
Lava
Bunker
(shot)
by SCH_007: Circular arena-like DM map
converted from his single-player "Powder River 3"
map, the cool round canyon with the lava moat in the
middle. I really dig that animated lava texture but don't
get too close, it'll burn ya to a crisp quicker'n...
uh... quick. Circular maps tend to get low framerates
looking in from the outside and this one is no exception
though it could be worse. Sharp looking little place
(gonna pretend I don't see that misaligned box top
in that there screenshot *cough*)
except that if you jump while on the outer ledge parts
of the world turn invisible until you land.
Literary Dribblings
Been a while since I stumbled across a good
self-glorifyin' pale-faced quote but hooray the drought
endeth :P:
"I perceive that we can keep no secrets from each other, even
the Prime Secret. You have a Typhonic, or harvest-red, beard,
you write left-handedly, your nose is hooked like an eagle's
beak, your face is pale, your eyes are sea-green and luminous,
the veins in your forehead branch in a blue Upsilon.
But the seventh sign of royalty?"
Jesus answered: "Under this garment my right shoulder is white
as ivory."
— Robert Graves, King Jesus
Well, three out of seven ain't too bad.
There's also an eighth sign but I get the shivers just
thinkin' about it.
* * *
Wednesday 1/17/01
Snotty Map Stuff
SnotENoze has some more semi-technical map
wisdom to share which is probably only really of
interest to folks who use LawMaker but since we all
benefit by their work I'm happy to print it
here.
First, maps won't launch in preview mode from the
OLMan utility unless they have a PLAYER object in
them. From what I understand the PLAYER object is
the single-player start point and is in every map
by default. So, no harm in just leaving it. Raptor
deduced this and SnotE confirmed it.
The second bit is SnotE's method for converting
map data from text to binary and thus significantly
reducing the amount of space that installed maps take
up on your hard drive. This is a little involved so
I'll just pull a big cut'n'paste:
Outlaws is capable of converting the .lvt and .obt files to binary
using the "olwin.exe /tokenize" command. I got this information from the .rtf
file included in a program named Laber. Laber is a DOS program available from
the
Code Alliance
site. It is probably not worth bothering with for smaller
MP and SP maps. I started using Laber last year when I was working on
MAD_DOG. In text format the 95 files in MAD_DOG took 5.08 meg in the OL
directory ready to play. Converting to binary reduced the size to 2.71 meg.
That's a 2.37 meg reduction in file size. The difference between the zipped
versions of the files was only 84 KB, 623 KB compared to 539 KB.
To expand upon this, you don't need Laber or any other
program to wreak this thrifty compression upon your
map. Just stick your .lvt and .obt files into the same
directory as your olwin.exe. Then open a DOS Command
Prompt and type the path to olwin.exe followed by
the "/tokenize" option followed by the name of the file
to convert.
For instance, if my level was pale.lvt and
Outlaws was installed in c:\games\outlaws, to convert
it to binary I'd enter "c:\games\outlaws\olwin.exe
/tokenize pale.lvt" at the command prompt. If I now
have a pale.lvb file in my Outlaws directory (which
will need to go into my pale.lab file, naturally) then
it worked! Same thing for .obt files, they convert to
.obb files—from "t" for "text" to "b" for "binary," get
it?
So there you have it, I hope we'll soon be seein' every
new map make use of this space-saving
technique!
Mmmmm... Beta
Well it's a slow news day and I haven't had a mail from
him for a long time so I figger I'll post the bit of "news"
DirtyDon mailed me. The
Western
Quake 3 site, which I've mentioned here before, has
some new shots up from their beta 2 including new models
and level screenshots. They look pretty nice... it's
funny though that with all the shine and shadows the
Quake 3 engine gives them, they almost look more fake and
toy-like than regular Outlaws levels.
* * *
Saturday 1/13/01
Two New Maps
HenHouse
(shot)
by Snot_E_Noze: A section of a single-player map
that Snot_E is workin' on yields a multiplayer map which
doesn't seem extremely focussed in layout but boasts very
solid construction and good looks. Four farmhouse buildings
dapple a valley done in the "horizon" style with gently
rising hills around the sides. The texture work on the
buildings is particularly well done as is the performance
considering that you have all these buildings in a single
open area. A few bits of the construction feel a little
odd, for instance the stairways are very steep and narrow
and you can't crawl into the henhouse through the little
chicken-hole on the side (just a little too small) but
honestly these only stand out because the rest of the
construction is top-notch.
On a side note, I'm late in posting this map because
it wouldn't run through OLMan's "preview" launch mode
which is generally how I look at maps. I should have
tried loading it the regular way (which works fine) but
in a way I'm glad I went to Snot_E with my problem
because in trying to help me figure it out he mentioned
that he's "been converting the .lvt and .obt text files into .lvb and .obb
binary files because the size is reduced by one half and seem to load and
play a little faster." The file sizes are definitely quite a
bit smaller when uncompressed, a very nifty trick that
I hope other LawMakers will take a look
at. (The files being binary is not the reason
why the map doesn't launch straight from OLMan;
a text version Snot_E was kind enough to send has the
same issue.)
DieNow
(shot)
by flaming_pinto: Nice construction of
angles and crawlspaces in this partly-adobe desert
canyon. If anything the design is just a bit ambitious
since all the open gaps mean low framerates i |
