Moolie Zone is new and tasty

1/15/98
Moolie Zone is new and tasty! Another tiny map a la A Small Warzone, brand new and with a little bit more haphazard an appearance to it. Nevertheless, this map kicks ass. The zone is officially a Chaos game, and it indeed plays well as Chaos. The news.txt implies a future as a War style flag game, though, and the bases are yummy. That is to say, for a small game they are. I'm not sure they will work for war because they are not easily defendable, but they are nifty and a lot of fun to defend. I believe this is run off of a 56k so there is not a whole lot going on, but one nice thing about these small zones is people in them are usually friendly, polite to their opponents, and enthusiastic about team play. Those who aren't haven't got the attention span or constitution for the zone and leave. As a result, we were fighting all over the map. One player would occupy a base and send out taunts, and soon enough all 6 or 8 players in the zone would be there fighting over territory. This might get a bit boring after a while, but there are a lot of map details worth fighting over, plus the Alpha-style floating space junk is nicely made. This is one of my favorite private zones so far. Go take a look.

A Small Warzone has gone through some changes. I'm not sure I like all of them, and there seem to be a few tiling errors here and there, but the overall result is LONG games. I spent an hour in here tonight in a nine or ten man game, fighting over only five flags. The more I play here, and the more I try to put together a small zone where I can run a 32k server, the more I realize that the bases here are really masterfully put together, and I'm noticing that tiny maps are kind of a unique art. This was something I intended to do for a long time and I'm kind of mad at myself for not beating the guy to it. Then again, I don't think it's a matter of who got there first but how damned good the map and settings are. I am starting to think this is the best zone in the entire game.

Mr. Savoy!!!! is apparently now a highly respected fixture in ZERO Annihilation West. You will excuse me if I don't bow or tip my hat. This loser spent months--maybe even half a year--as the most obnoxious superturret driver in War Zone. One day I managed to talk to him there on a civil basis and it ended up as the typical whining you might expect. No one will give me a freq! The elite players all cheat! Yeah, and preying on helpless pub negs *really* helps that problem, right? I used to get my friends together and antiwarp his little turret in safe zones, or join his frequency and ride around close-range-bombing the walls, and usually it ended up with him calling me names and then leaving the zone. Yesterday it was my pleasure to be invited to his elite frequency. It went something like this:

    Savoy> 1979
    Savoy> 1979
    Savoy> are you there???
    e> no
    Savoy> no what?
    e> no leave me alone
    savoy> fine fuck u asshole!

Jesus, the effort this guy made (once we'd gotten into it) to let me know he had eight million points and what a good flagger he is. Such a good flagger I was able to join his team and kill him while he was busy screaming at me and (of course) bitching endlessly about the snobby players in War Zone etc. who Need To Lighten Up. When we stole all his flags, true to form he left the zone without a word. I dig Annihilation a lot, but what the hell kind of a messed up person brags about their score in a zone like that one? Savoy has to be BY FAR the biggest idiot I've encountered in Subspace. It amazes me that he hasn't shown up on people's lamer lists more often. Consider his consistently dishonorable playing, add to that a virtually unequaled rudeness paired with the victimish whining, and top it off with the fact that he's not even very good. I think Savoy just about holds the title. Be sure and send me your Savoy stories, and certainly alert me if there are any challengers to his title. I sure as hell hope there aren't.

Ninja Speed Zone. I haven't actually had opportunity to play there, but the owner has made a beautiful map. It looks like it will be a fun Speed Zone map; it looks like it might also make for good War, as he said in the news.txt file. The map is based around tunnels that run between wormholes. The gravity of these wormholes jets you down the corridor at impressive speeds. Aside from these tunnels, the map is separated into bases made primarily of asteroids. This added to the unique random space objects gives the map a visual look that really has to be seen to be believed. I kid you not. Nothing anywhere looks like this map. It is a radical and totally original design and I am awed and humbled by it. Even if it turns out to be a nightmare to play in, it's at very least a hell of a nice experiement.

Arctos' Chaos Zone map is up in Witch Doom!! I guess I should check the boards more often. This zone has been around since the Summer and people were too fucking stupid to host it. Now if someone would only bring back Mafia's Speed Zone map. More on Witch Doom when I have a chance to play there.