2/28/98
- MMG -
The Romulans has been updating the pages at the Subspace Mapmakers Guild. There are several new maps archived plus myself and HaNsMaN jR added to the member list. I've got a profile page up and everything. ^o^ Didn't want to jinx myself before it was official but I have to say this. If you are trying to get into the MMG, keep trying. This doesn't mean pester everyone to no end about applying, but it does mean keep making maps--good maps with a lot of care put into them. It's not impossible, just difficult as hell.
- The Obvious. -
Welcome to the the FREE! shareware version of einexile's minefield. Please turn off whatever you are listening to and insert an install disk you should never have to lay eyes on again, then exit to Windows and answer a stupid question. Enjoy your engine shutdown and please come again.
New version blah blah blah Warbird blah Spider blah blah blah blah. The back end of the Shark is paper thin. The change to the flag graphic constitutes sacrilege. Insultingly small-time and simple-minded changes to an immortal and revolutionary game by people who are not game designers and never will be game designers. You people should be bloody ashamed of yourselves. Go invent a virtual pet or something.
- This Saturday's No Meeting -
Blackie was punctual as always in failing to show up for the SSA or whatever it's not called IRC meeting. Since no one really knows how to manage an IRC channel, we scurried back and forth between three meeting channels and #subspace, watching the ops get nuked off of the channel names list. One channel was even masskicked by a fake Blackie. When a stable channel was finally set up, no one had anything much to say. I can understand missing meetings for a reason, but for God's sake not while you're logged in. Everyone predicted what 1.33 was going to be like, or leaked it or whatever, and no we weren't going to lynch you but there ought to be some kind of a reckoning, or at very least the meeting ought to be cancelled. There is a very simple and time-honored rule: If you are going to miss a meeting and wish for no one to hold it against you, CANCEL THE MEETING.
- New SS Page -
Bobby D's SubArena, linked to at the news dot text. It's a nice page with mainly small news articles at the moment, seems like a good place to watch for news on security cracks. Yes Virginia, I support and endorse security cracks. Subspace for the people.
- Busy -
I spent most of the morning working on my MMG profile page and trying to get together a squad practice that failed like nothing you have ever seen. Amazing. Anyway my sister is in town and I have a lot of other stuff to take care of, plus the situation with the ssupdate is damned depressing and I need to finish my small war zone map, so I may miss an update here and probably won't get to the Coming Soon business til at least tomorrow.
- Still Coming Soon -
Thoughts on the demise of SubStation, a bit about Flamethrower Zone, a small manifesto on minerepelling. Promise!
2/27/98
- Subspace at the GC Awards -
An acknowledgement would be nice. I'd really like to see Gamecenter print something about Subspace kicking ass over Ultima Online and every other nominee. I take this opportunity to bring it up because (and to my knowledge no one in Zonedom has yet pointed this out) Subspace recently passed double UO's votes and gained a comfy majority over all--53% of all votes combined. Now it may be that GC's voting system was just no good and we cheated. (Right, and no one else did.) It may simply mean we have a better organized community. It can mean any damned thing you like. I'd just like someone out there to report what Subspace did in that poll, and to me it looks like we're getting nothing but the most conspicuous sort of silence.
- Turf Classic. -
People were finding things to bitch and moan about the instant this zone went up. Yes, there were problems. They were fixed promptly enough. I wonder what that bell sounds like magnified through a crate of Pepsi. ;) There is a lot of misplaced anger involved with Turf Zone, and a lot of people blame General Rage's map. The problem is not General Rage's map, which is in many ways superior. Yesterday (or maybe it was late Wednesday) the scoring system was moved back to Arizona style, and I think that helped make the point that the old Turf map is not inherently better. The zone sort of cleared out. As I write this it is dead and there are 10 people fighting through Rage's map. Arizona outnumbered Classic all day long. Yeah, there's the Find Servers factor, and there's nostalgia bringing a lot of oldbies to the added zone. Fair enough. I maintain that Turf Classic is the better zone not because of the map, but because of the settings.
Yeah, the settings suck. The bullets are no fun, the Terrier is crippled a bit. That's fair all around. What's truly changed is the wealth of green throughout that zone. It allows small teams to green fairly quickly, it allows an unaided player to avoid being negged. The biggest problem in Turf Arizona is not the j11 neg game but the green radius. In Classic you can green away from the center, away from the action. It is wonderful. I personally prefer Rage's map. What I would really prefer is the original design of Rage's map. (Want a copy, Blackie? I bet I have the only copy, hehe.) That or Mafia's nifty design which has never been hosted. Given that we're probably stuck with the classic map, can we all please stop complaining and stop worry about scores and settings? At the heart of Turf is the high of an intense, long term battle through tight hallways between huge teams. If that doesn't do it for you, I respectfully submit that maybe Turf isn't really your thing.
- Paintball Zone -
Gold's Fool Around Zone is now Paintball Zone. I think I got it mixed up and mistook it for two or three different zones, and there must have been a name change a week or two ago as well. At any rate, the zone is seeing a player list from 15 to 25 people on a regular basis and sport a nifty Powerball map by Zero Kelvin. However, this isn't really a powerball map at all. It's got genuine mazes on both sides, no symmetry to speak of, and goals hidden deep within these mazes. Paintball style soccer means one shot is a kill. Very satisfying to wait all that time for a recharge, watch as your pursuer misses a shot, and bust a cap in his ass while he runs without a hope in hell. Gold may be implementing a suggestion I made--a Weasel armed only with emps that do no damage but have extended recharge freeze. Now all I have to do is force through my unarmed Spider and get him to add that molasses speed Terrier from A Small Warzone. Make it the only ship with xradar, bro. That'll be some fun. :D
- Robotech!! -
Why did no one tell me they started showing Robotech on The Cartoon Network?? I have been waiting twelve years for this. For those not in the know, Robotech is three Japanese anime series butchered and rewritten into an 85 episode American soap opera featuring some of the best space battles ever seen on television. And when I say soap opera, I do mean soap opera. Love triangles, people marrying their cousins, real bullet holes, several planets destroyed. I'm not a big fan of altering a work of art but this sucker really argues for it in a big way, especially if you see what the original was like. Don't question, just watch and drool. Even in its soggy moments, this is the finest television you are likely to see in your lifetime. Just wait until Zor and Dana start having nervous breakdowns. Oh yeah, you get to see big space cruisers torn to shreds in orbit. Just indulge me on this one, ok? :) Weekdays and I think Saturdays as well, 4:45pm Eastern.
- Links Table -
I mistakenly had the MMG linked to Omicron's page; sorry about that. Added Fury's Subspace Page, thanks in full to Cybrid who as usual was the first with the scoop. VIE has been updated, a little. We all know about Turf and 1.33; are we trying not to jinx ourselves by mentioning the Vangels list? Blackie seems intent on releasing it tomorrow, and since I haven't a chance in hell of being picked I'm jinxing nothing. :)
- Still Coming Soon -
Thoughts on the demise of SubStation, a bit about Flamethrower Zone, a small manifesto on minerepelling. Promise!
2/26/98
- Dumbass. -
Well the cat finally called my bluff. I threw it outside and it ran away. Ended up looking for it all night or I'd have updated for real. Don't worry, it's not declawed or we don't live next to a freeway or anything. It *did* come back, about 9 hours later. >:(
- Links Outdated -
I hasten to mention that I have not updated the links below in two days. Please don't take my word for it that someone hasn't updated. Most of them probably have.
- Coming Soon -
The state of Turf, thoughts on the demise of SubStation, a bit about Flamethrower Zone, a small manifesto on minerepelling. Yes, papa, I have seen the Light and heard the Good News. I shall go forth and teach the hapless masses to minerepel with style and class and honor. No really, just you wait. :)
2/24/98
- Wow. -
Cybrid already linked to my page once at my request on I think it was Saturday. Now he's linked to it again and basically praised the hell out of it and I am very flattered. Thanks again Cybrid. All hail the News Dot Text.
- MMG! -
I finally got into the Subspace Mapmakers Guild, after months of (ahem) harrassing several of its members. Sorry guys for being such a pain in the ass. :) There is a problem with the ftp access, so I'm told, but with luck I'll be up over there soon, with one map and another within the week or so. Anyway I was mad at them for most of this time so I never linked to them ;) but now there is a link below. Go forth and look at maps, and expect more frequent rants from me about the current situation with the VIE zones; now that I'm a member it won't look like I'm kissing up to anyone. :)
- I'm kind of busy. -
When it rains here, my parents' yard floods, then their basement floods, then their heaters get ruined, then the sump pump catches fire until water puts out the fire. We get to slosh around a lot. I came home when the damned rain let up and slept through the Association meeting, like an ass. I also missed Robotech. I haven't read the logs yet and don't have much to say at the moment. I think a harrassment policy is a terrible idea. It's called ?ignore, dumbshits. What are we going to do, have someone (whose time would obviously be better spent updating the VIE pages and zone maps) keep a running tally of bad little IP addresses? How about narcs, do we get those, too? Now, maybe the harrassment policy is simply going to be a simple, conservative document--there for when it's needed. People who change names and flood, etc. I still recoil at the mention of it.
- Mafia goes off. -
Like most people, it's not often that I scowl and smirk at the opening lines of someone's argument and don't end up feeling the same way when they are finished. Here is an exception. Mafia thinks the Vangels are a rotten idea and after reading this I'm starting to agree with him.
- Apology -
Sorry about all the smiley faces. :) They're burned into my brain for reasons I will get into some other time.
2/22/98
- SubStation Closing -
Woop @$$$' page, which has been one of the better and more frequently updated Subspace pages at least since I found it only recently, is closing, Visit the page for his explanation. This is disappointing to me because I hadn't known about it all this time and it is really a very good page. There is also a sort of ominousness about this One Year Itch which seems to affect SS players. Woop @$$$ started playing last February. Rincewind started playing Subspace exactly a year before his page closed. The suddenness of both closings also kind of shocks me. Anyway I'm coming up on a year. What do I plan to do April 5th? I'm going to have a party, then I'm going to try and play for 24 hours straight. As for the present matter, I intend to ask if I can archive SubStation here, a la Rincewind, if he does intend to physically take down the page as opposed to letting it.sit. If you have a Subspace page and are planning to close it, or feel that it deserves a link from here, please don't hesistate to tell me. I'm still not all that hooked in.
- Chris' Small Warzone -
A brand new zone (I think) much like the older Small Warzone. With this, there are now (afaik) three cool small warzone servers, the other two being Games Norway League and of course Moolie. I am thinking of starting a separate page for these since they are pretty popular, have no home pages associated with them, and are more reliable than most. Anyway, this zone has a new map with some really nice pase designs, clever and balanced with open spaces to fight in. I haven't actually played in it yet, unfortunately. One of the coolest things about this zone is that the news.txt contains a nice primer to War Zone games, something that WZ has needed for a LONG time. I would like to see this or something like it implemented as a standard. Then again, anyone who doesn't bother to learn the rules and quirks of a zone the first night they are in it probably won't read the news.txt anyway, but I still think it's a good thing to put in. I've asked for permission to keep a copy on this page. Til then, if you'd like to read it, add the zone and play in it. :)
- Gold's Fool Around Zone -
This is a new Paintball style zone. I think it may be an exact copy of another zone, or vice versa, but I need to check on that. Gold is thinking of changing the map and tweaking the settings some. At any rate, it was fun to play there because Gold was on and people actually spoke English. Some of these new zones, you go in them and try to ask people questions or just talk and all you can get as a response is "???". This might be fine if the idiots were really into the game, but what usually happens is you kill them and then they leave without a word. Pathetic. If you are one of those people, just go away. Don't even read my page, you fuckers. In fact, please don't play Subspace anymore at all. You are all really annoying. Anyway, could someone please clue me in to the origin of that Paintball map? Is it from a Powerball zone or did it just turn up someday? Who made it?
- Elsewhere -
Cybrid put up a picture of himself! Nasty java trick on Omicron's page; heed his warnings. The most interesting thing on the boards in the last two days is someone finally pointed out that the Vangels debate was getting old and unproductive. Thank God.
- Here -
I had more to say but it's nearing 2/23 and I'm going out. I am starting an effort to get my squad organized and would appreciate any help I could get, esp. in the form of advice about how/when to or practice and meet for games. I think I am going to put in a frame here, and stick the update table (seen below) and some kind of a server list or chart in the frame, and maybe get some kind of random midi player or something. Can someone point me to a classy looking midi controller that has no ugly front end or logo to it, just a couple of nice buttons? Would a frame ugly the page up? Hm. I changed the logo again. The other just looked too glassy and fragile and smelled like some sort of godawful incense or herbal candle. If this one is too big, I apologize. It's temporary.
2/21/98
The Update from Hell!
- A Small Warzone, R.I.P. -
I should have reported on this much earlier, but I hadn't been spending as much time in the small zones and I missed it. A Small Warzone, perhaps the first great player-run zone (and, until its demise, the best), is no more. Several people including myself have made attempts to get in touch with its owner, dgus, with (to my knowledge) no success. It is said that the server was taken down because it could not find a permanent home. I'm also told that it already did have a reliable and fast connection. I certainly hope that it was taken down for logistical reasons and not because dgus felt it had no following. That zone was--and is--held in highest regard by many. ASW fans are now spotted most frequently in Moolie Zone, a comparable if more roomy and less radical zone with frequent map changes. See you all there.
- New Server -
The best zone news in weeks is Das Zone! This zone, run out of San Diego by Das Cook, has an original map, wide open spaces, funky minimal settings, and a hip idea behind it...
So why did I do all this? I was thinking about those grand
galactic space battles where a whole bunch of small snub
fighters are fighting amid gigantic capital ships and
stations <ala: the starwars trilogy or something...> Little
small manuverable fighters other little small manuverable
fighters with not much more than a small rapid gun. <ever
see those old WWII dogfight guncam shots? Now THATS
what I'm talkin' about.>
The map has been updated several times already. He is thinking of making the capital ships defendable and putting a huge artifact in with a flag inside to fight over. The settings are such that you have a stripped down ship with almost no recharge. When you take a bullet, there is a sense that you are taking real damage. Best of all, there is none of the trouble or gimmickiness of Starship War, and real care has been put into the visual design. Beautiful asteroid fields, cool looking capital ships, and creepy ruined space artifacts give this zone a vast, bleak quality. I am very excited about this zone. Let's hope it doesn't go the way of Neg Wars and A Small Warzone.
- New War Zone -
B8_Factor's map for War Zone, which to my knowledge has never before been hosted, is up in EUROPE - War/Jackpot. I doubt this will attract many people since B8 is nowhere to speak of and so no one is speaking out for the map, but it is a very pretty map with some great base designs and neat ideas otherwise. The starting bounty is high, but otherwise the game is a traditional settings game. This is a very cool map and could server as at least a temporary solution to the stagnation of VIE War East.
- games.no -
These zones were first mentioned at Addiction's page. For a server located in Norway, I am getting some killer low ping times from California. There are two small zones and one big. The big one boasts the "classic" WZ map and no demo limitations. This doesn't seem to be attracting many players, but maybe it will soon. The other two zones are doing better. There is a small Running zone with a tiny map that looks basically cut out of one of the existing maps. (I am not too familiar with the Running maps but I do recognize objects from Rabbit Chase when it opened.) The most outstanding, however, is League. This is a WZ game in a small map, and easily the best small map I've seen this far (except for my own, hehehe) with nice open spaces, bases that are easy to navigate, and an overall visual flair that reminds me of the regrettably very short-lived Ninja Speed Zone. Unfortunately this one is soon going to be invite-only.
- Blah. -
Not only do I need help making an animated mine for a white background; I'm now famous for it! GaiaGaia is my homey Ashen, who sucks so much at Subspace he got mad and deleted it. He is also the Quote King ov my page empire.
<eisaway\minefield> I will grant permanent notoriety to someone who can fix an animated gif for me. :)
<Kenta> whats wrong with it, e?
<eisaway\minefield> hm
<Kenta> mine are having some problems, also
<eisaway\minefield> well see it's transparent or black in the background
<Kenta> ok
<eisaway\minefield> i need it against a white background for a page, right?
<Kenta> ok
<eisaway\minefield> the problem is that it's antialiased, so the edges are receding into darkness
<eisaway\minefield> i need them receding into light
<GigaGaia> is it that stupid little mine again? if you try to change the background it totall screws the mine up.
- Autechre -
A particular favorite band of mine (if you can call two guys rewiring things and scaring people a band) in general and more specifically for company in Chaos West is Autechre, as described on my Playlist page. A year ago they released, for a limited time, a RealAudio broadcast of a radio show they do weekly in the UK. This really pissed me off, actually, because I was trapped in a 486/33 at the time with 4 megs of memory and I ended up paying $12 to listen at the ecafe downtown. This was probably the turning point in my decision to finally upgrade, after insisting for so long that all I needed from a computer was Word 6 and a UNIX account. If not for that Autechre show, I would probably not be playing Subspace and you would not be reading this page. Frankly I don't know if anyone would know the difference, but the point being I finally found that .ra file on the net. It's an hour long at only six megs. It's also a good and free introduction to one of the most innovative and fun artists of this decade. Take a listen. This is a nice Ae page in general (Ae is tDR for Autechre.) and has some good information if the band happens to interest you.
- Here -
I updated the Links section, taking out all the bad links and shifting a couple of things are around. Please mail me if you feel you should be linked from there. I've also got up to date images of my three maps in the Mapmaking section. My small war map is ready to be shipped off to Moolie Zone any day now. I've reapplied with these to the MMG, this time through Arctos. Wish me luck please. What do you think of the new logo and the minor changes to the layout? I think they are kind of pussy and new age, but everyone has a right to his opinion, I suppose.
- Elsewhere -
Nice big update at Omicron's page. God damn did this guy miss his internet connection or what? :) For a while there he was updating every ten or twenty minutes. Hell, he could be updating again right now. Cybrid is obsessed with Fireteam. Everyone pray really hard that he doesn't get on the beta list or we'll be without a news page again. ;P Addiction is anti-playerzone and therefore evil. Go read and then shun him please.
- Off-Topic Rant -
I recall mentioning the SI swimsuit issue. I neglected to mention that it SUCKS. Ads stuck in the middle of everything. Ads for cars, for freakin cigarettes for Christ's sake. Horrible design, a cheezy "equator" theme, more ads...I cannot emphasize the extent to which they were stuck in the middle of everything, often disguised as part of the ahem articles. Never mind the various attempts at treating skimpy bathing suits like a serious sporting interest. I even laughed at some of this, and I don't often claim to laugh at things. It's a cheap attack, but I'm frankly pretty damned annoyed. That I even blathered on this long about it ought to say something. Sorry guys.
2/19/98
No News of the Day
Hello there. I am just tweaking the page today so go away! Sometime after midnight I'll have a real update with lots of server news as well as some nice stuff in other parts of the page. If you are bored, go read the pages listed below, or better yet go listen to Aphex Twin mp3s. :)
2/18/98
This is not really an update yet. Look later. This is me apologizing for the stupid mess I made of the archives pages. I had been saving the February updates onto the January page. It's all in order now.
Added handy links list right there below the archives link. These are what I consider the most important or reliable Subspace oriented pages, as far as SS news is concerned. The exception is Jeff and Rod's page, which most people don't check often because it isn't updated often. When it is, people ought to know. At any rate, don't take my word for it since many of these pages are more frequently updated than my own. This is just for convenience, and something I've kind of wanted around for myself but never made.
This is probably going to go nowhere, but do we really need everything Blackie says to be pasted into everyone's news updates? Would everyone please stop that? I'd much rather hear opinions and speculation than read paste. I mean no disparagement to those pages, mind you. Both of them are better than this one IMHO. I am simply saying that everyone who cares will check the VIE news page if they see a link to it. For my part, I can appreciate Blackie's reason for missing the meeting, and yes his update provided some information that ought to interest most players. What he hasn't done is address anything discussed at either of Monday's meetings. It's clear that Blackie is swamped well beyond even his own frank descriptions. We are talking about HUNDREDS of messages here, people. No one has time for that. I've experienced that kind of a flood and seen it experienced by others, and the result is always the same. The victim freezes up and shuts down, even if he doesn't wish to. The degree of involvement always goes down. That aint what's needed here. There are members of the Subspace community who can be trusted; we all know who they are. Blackie would be wise to ask these people to attend meetings and read the boards then report to him with the pressing issues. Then he should change his mail and ICQ information and ignore the rest of it. I think this would very likely bring his participation back to the level it was at a week and a half ago, and when he closed War Zone to demos in response to a board post. In my opinion, that level of involvement and enthusiasm is worth any number of ignored chat requests and deleted messages. In the meantime, I think we should all leave him alone and stop scaring him away.
I also take issue with the subserviant attitude taken by would-be Association members toward all of this. I've said it before but I'll say it again. Blackie may be putting this together and hand picking the members,. but the Association must eventually run itself and is only going to exert as much influence as can result from the combined raised voices of its members. We do not need Blackie in order to start, and I certainly hope lack of Association membership isn't going to stop anyone or calm them down. As Blackie himself has said, everyone is invited to these meetings. To my knowledge he's shown no favoritism yet to potential members, and there's no reason to forsee any once the organization is formed.
Interesting links today from Cybrid's page. New zone descriptions at Addiction's site. Zones I haven't even been to, actually. I'm playing a lot of VIE War lately, but this server sound promising, largely because it is not running all superzones. I'll try and check it out tonight.
But fuck Subspace. The swimsuit issue is out.
2/17/98
This page will be moving shortly to Maximum Gaming. I will have more space there, and certainly it will free up space here. I'll leave a forwaring page here, though, as well as probably store some of the subpages and graphics on this server, which is my home account and not going anywhere soon. Maxig is already home to some of the better Subspace pages, including Addiction's page and Omicrons SS Database. Sooner or later I think they may be giving Warzone a run for its life if the kind of responsiveness I've enjoyed from them keeps up in general.
I guess I am more or less alone in this sentiment, but I thought Monday's IRC meeting was a success. Of course, it was a mess in #subspaceassoc...too many ops, too much confusion over irc modes and scripts, and of course Blackie was not there. No organization whatsoever. Once Cybrid moved the bulk of the meeting to #ssmeet things really brightened up and I started to feel hopeful again. This stuff IS going to come together, with Blackie or without him. I posted a big ramble to the ssboards about the meeting in case anyone's interested, and Arctos posted the message I would have liked to post, had I been of sound mind and character. ;) Maintain optimism, people, or at very least some good cheer. Pick a specialization and get some people together and fire a salvo. Yankee99 has the right idea. He is focusing on the problems of Turf Zone and trying to get a posse together over ICQ. Please contact him if you are concerned about Turf.
I started a fanfic! I've tried several times but never got the flavor right until last night. This is going to be weird and fun if I ever finish it. Watch this space for details...I might make it a serial.
A new all time lameness high has been set in War Zone. I won't name the asshole who pulled this trick as he would probably enjoy the notoriety earned from it, and no I should not have fallen for the trick. I was on a pub, no one was flagging, and I like to try and trust people sometimes. A teammate asked for attachments, telling us he had a portal set. We were asked to stay attached. He turned on a rocket and drove us all into mines. He only managed to kill me, and that is because I do not know how to properly control my ship because I am an ass. Stupid trick to fall for, and no one else fell for it, but watch out for this stupid trick. I've always been pro-pub but it's getting so you can't even trust people on your own team anymore. In better news, I played a 3 hour War game last night with several freqs seriously flagging. Just like the old days. Maybe times aren't quite as dark as they seem.
2/16/98
No real update today, atleast not at the moment. Check back here tonight and maybe I'll have added something significant.
I'm updating to remind you that the Association meeting is at 4:00pm Pacific time, today (Monday) in #subspaceassoc on EFnet. There is a nice guide to getting started on Addiction's page. Personally I have some trouble getting on an EFnet server, but have had luck consistently with irc2.blackened.com in case the you have trouble with others.
I did add something new to the Playlist, if anyone is interested. This page is probably moving to maxig.com sometime soon, so I might have a little space to put up sound clips from some of that music if anyone it interested. (They will be on this server, not the other, in case this bothers anyone.)
After ten months, someone has finally used my cheezy minerepel trick on me! When I told him I was the guy not to use it on, he got mad at me. I meant it as a compliment though, actually. Oh well, you get yelled at for nothing these days. This was in alpha zone, too. Bleh. Is there some new Subspace guide up with a whining primer near the beginning?
I got a li'l rave from P-Mav. :) I hope he doesn't mind my including it...
2/14/98
Before I say anything else, apologies to Mafia, who complimented this page even though I stupidly forgot he had a Turf map in my comments on 2/8. Mafia does have a Turf map, so there are actually three, not only two. Duh. Sorry about that, man. :)
The Association meeting was something of a disappointment, I hear. Nice move scheduling something like that on the one day out of the year when people feel like losers if they find themselves in an IRC channel about a video game. Nice work guys. Next time let's shoot for a *real* religious holiday, or maybe a world leader's funeral.
I am online right now because my girlfriend's mom for some reason calls on Valentine's Day, hehe. Anyway I lied about updating yesterday or whenever, but oh well. :) My ethics guide still isn't quite finished but I should have some time to devote to it on Sunday. Meanwhile, I kind of updated the menu stuff below so it's not all apologetic anymore, since most of the links actually have things in them now.
I tripped across Addiction's Subspace Page, which for some reason I hadn't heard about. Perhaps because the common assumption is that Warzone is the only Subspace dedicated site, when in fact Maximum Gaming has a nice selection of Subspace pages as well. I am considering moving this page as well as my squad pages there, if the prospect is tempting. At any rate, Addiction has put together a great page. It has very nice introductory pages as well as some good tips, and is pretty big. My only complaint is that there is a big overlap with Rincewind's Guide. Regardless of that, it is a decent page with a lot of good information on it.
I have a list of links up, which is pretty weak right now since I just pasted in an outdated chunk of my bookmarks, kind of as a placeholder. My intention is to make it a damned good list of Subspace links soon, so watch this space. I also mean to put some articles in my opinion section which did not originate here but are now (afaik) off the net.
As always, I invite anyone with something thoughtful or interesting to say to send it to me, especially if it might be inappropriate to other sites. This does not mean I want to put together a patchwork page of submissions with a staff or anything, but I remember when I first got started playing, what really caused me to be interested in this game was the depth of its details and ethics, which I had not even begun to understand. I remember printing out Rincewind's article about avoiding neg killers and reading it to my girlfriend. (No, I am not that boring; she plays now too.) Subspace's edge over other games is in its complexity and in the huge span of choices you have in play style, focus, and behavior. If you love this game and want to see it remain healthy and grow, I urge you to consider writing about it. If this means making a page or writing a guide or ranting on the boards, great. If you have something thoughtful or interesting to say that will make this game look tempting to new players, please consider sending it to me.
I had something to say but I forgot what. I'm flew my first Weasel last night. They used to piss me off a lot and I kind of objected to them in principle. Now I only object to the way they fly. It handles like a Jav because the thrust is halfway between it and the other ships, but there is no speed compensation, plus the bombs are damned slow. In the Lev, however I've been getting better at closing suddenly when I know a bomb is coming. Some single fire combined with a stupid point blank bomb on the opponent's part is pretty damned deadly. Anyway I picked up three greens in Dueling Zone last night doing this. ;) Weasel is a hard ship to drive but I'm intent on learning.
Look for something new in the Playlist soon if not now.
2/11/98
Sorry for the tiny update. Beats no update though, don't it?
The second part of the upcoming Minefield Guide is well underway. The Essential Newbie is actually finished on paper but probably won't be published until after the current project is up. Expect my ethical guide to be up by tomorrow night at the latest.
A little late on this topic and I'll probably get my ass kicked for saying it, but I've had enough...
I had a small nervous breakdown last night because Subspace is looking to be in really poor shape. For several hours there were fewer than 150 players in all zones combined. This is not a good thing and I am tentatively changing my position on the demo process. I think I may have figured out what part of the problem is; if not then I at least have reached an important (to myself) conclusion about the way the game is being run right now. To deprive a player of his name and reputation is wrong even if the alternative is closing down the game. This is simply not how the internet does or should work. We all pay our service providers for access, and of course we pay extra for various details that make it nice to have a net account. Always there is free and there is pay, and always there is a choice, but I can't think of any precedent for the kind of forced anonymity presented by the demo version of Subspace. While I didn't nail it down for a long time and very few other people have either, I think there is something patently offensive to people about this practice. I do not mean an unpleasant incentive to buy the retail version of the game; I mean the kind of violation that makes people not want to do business with VIE, and they may have a point. In no way am I questioning the company's right to dictate its own shareware policies any more than I am disputing their right to demand sex in return for employment; my point is simply that it is a terrible idea. One could argue that these players are spoiled; they are getting something for nothing anyway and have no business expecting more. This may be technically true, but in essence they are being made to give up something in leiu of payment: their identity, which is theirs by right in virtually every other place on the net. It's one thing to limit what you give a player who is essentially a freeloader, and yes I thought of the obvious point that your Subspace identity is part of their software yadda yadda. It's another thing entirely to take from them the one thing that really separates us from each other online. I think it's a fucked up practice and I no longer wish evil upon anyone who cracks their way past it. Your name is your most important asset online and you have a right to keep it. VIE in turn owns their program and has every right to stop you--with a patch. Until then I hope to see you all online under your usual aliases. I didn't spend $30 so I could play flags against four other people.
Sorry to rant. Real update tomorrow.
2/8/98
Nothin' to say at the moment! Lazy, lazy, lazy. I've decided to write a damned ethics guide to Subspace because ignorant morons can't tell the difference between a duck and a duck with a pipe bomb tucked under its coat. I don't know how many times now I've been called lame and warned about my reputation because I repelled someone into mines which I set DURING A FIGHT THEY STARTED. And then there's the "I'm a cloaker, what did you expect?" school of thought. To hell with that shit. Expect a guide to ethical and classy conduct up within the next week or so. I may incorporate it into my newbie guide. Probably not.
I'd love to say more here but I'm really only updating out of a sense of distaste for unupdated Subspace pages. Maybe I should have left the old stuff up but it's always in the archive for anyone who wants it. I played War and Turf and Chaos today and have absolutely nothing to talk about! It is time for a new Turf Zone map. Unfortunately there aren't any Turf Zone maps to speak of other than the two we've played in already. It's also time for a new War Zone map. The current one kicks ass but it's time to put up Warhammer's second map. Failing that, a return to Arctos' or Rod Humble's maps wouldn't be unwelcome either. I'm sick of the reigning lvl and it's mirrored in half a dozen lamer zones anyway.
Oh! I knew there was something semi-relevant I had to say. I got the screenshot thing sort of working and have put them up in the grand opening of my little Screenshots section. (See below.) They're pretty stupid but I'm just getting started. One thing I am probably going to do is rotate out the old stuff and keep a constant flow of just new screens in there, assuming I really do much picture-taking at all. Hopefully that will keep stuff a little interesting.
Sorry to bore you. If it's any consolation, I have bored myself even worse. :P
2/6/98
Be sure and vote for Subspace in the Game Center Awards for 97. Respect to Havoc for posting this information on the VIE Trash Talk Lounge.
Chaos West Revival! Last night I kind of gave up on Chaos. This means I god sad for a minute about the apparent demise of Chaos Zone West (a.k.a. VIE Chaos GWest) and sulked back into Nevada. What the hell, I miss Chaos. There were 0 players in West at this time. I made a few bitter remarks on the public channel: Why doesn't anyone play in West anymore? Etc. A player I did not yet know named Irish! anounced that he would go to West if others would follow. This was my jump point for bitching and moaning on the public channel as well. It worked. Maybe this has happened before; personally, I've seen a maximum of 6 players in West over the last month or so...either it was the Nevada bitching or just the sight of players in the zone, but within the hour there were 12 players there. God I missed that zone! Small arenas are always friendlier than big ones, and I think everyone was glad to be playing again on that map, so an added bonus was the good will and light atmosphere you normally only see in Speed or a few of the smaller privately run zones like Moolie and A Small Warzone. I'm Anyway, today I saw 19 people in West. Right now there are 5, which is not bad for the middle of the night considering recent averages...
I took a trip back to The Subspace Guides by Justin Valcourt. I originally found this page thanks to a link from Cybrids news.txt page. At first I was not so impressed, but it is shaping out nicely, and while I don't agree with some of what's presented here, it is very well thought out and nicely put together. For the present time the Guides focus on Battle Drone's and Starseed's maps for Chaos Zone, but the analysis is extremely in depth, much in the way that Rincewind's Guide treated the Classic and Ancient maps for War Zone. What's really interesting here is the bits about the so-called "noskill" settings, as in Pure Hell. It's nice to see people actually thinking about strategy in these games that have garnered such a bad reputation. Skill will only take you so far and to a certain level of satisfaction before most intelligent people start tinkering with cleverness, and that's what I see here; an enthusiasm and respect for cleverness, trickery, and bluffing. Cool.
I finally got around to downloading and installing HyperSnap-DX so maybe something will come of my screenshots section after all. Come to think of it, maybe there is something in there already. ;)
Jarkom is going to make something very cool for this page and when he does he will go on a special page with Leo who is also one cool bastard. See the Files section if you are wondering what the hell I am talking about.
I've designed what I think may be the final base in my upcoming War Zone map. What's left is space junk, asteroids, tweaking, testing, and of course tiling. There *may* be a new tileset made especially for this map. Not that there aren't already three great War Zone maps that have never seen the light of day, but what the hell. It's a hobby; what do you expect? :P
If anyone knows where JeffP and Rod Humble's new page is, please tell me. I seem to have lost the url. Thank you.
I have decided to start reading and posting to the VIE boards again, as one might have gathered. See you there.
2/5/98
Thanks in part to a mild storm--but mainly to the Santa Barbara's pathetic lack of ability to cope with a mild storm--I had no power for a painfully long time. No power not only mean no heating but also no Subspace. No Subspace for 48 hours!!#@!#% What hardship, what woeful cruel fate! Anyway I cam back all jazzed to play but had this nagging feeling of getting behind in my zone news so I thought I would take a tour around.
Level 6 looks interesting. This zone is pretty new and boasts "one of the wildest maps you have ever seen". While it's not exactly *that* wild, it is indeed a nice map with some groovy narrow spaces here and there, balanced by wide open areas, There are also some interesting duel boxes along the bottom. Overall the map is Chaos style, original but with a few bits I think may be lifted from Alpha Zone. (I could be wrong. It's been a while.) The settings are moderate and there's a flag game in effect. I didn't get a chance to play there much before the place emptied out. I do recommend checking out the map, however.
No Escape is a smarter and superior ZERO Annihilation West, with similar settings and a War style flag game. There is also a patchwork map. What's different here is you don't have a lot of wasted space. Annihilation uses 70% of T2-17's VIE War East map and throws in a few staples from other zones, takes a lot of stuff out of context and generally manages to waste a lot of space. Another problem in Annihilation is the imbalanced bases; B2 and A17 are both extremely hard to attack, and you really have to have a team full of morons to lose either one of them. The base situation in No Escape is far more balanced, and there are some nice surprises. That poor disused castle from the northeast corner of Mafia's now homeless Speed Zone West map is dead center--and while it doesn't make a good base, it does make an ok base and is fun to play in. With some alterations it could make an interesting War base.The old Alpha castle is there also, along with an altered version of Battle Drone's Chaos
East castle and a base that seems to be a redesign of the "ancient" War map's underrated i10 base. Lastly, for anyone who ever tried to defend either the Cross or the Tower in the "classic" War Zone West (_castle.lvl) and found that whole northwest area to be a useless waste, there is a reworking of that in this zone--a very nice piece of work, in fact.
There is also a little network of tunnels which appears to be original and looks defensable, though I didn't play in it except to chase someone. Overall this is a very nice level for a patchwork, and I think the zone would be much more interesting and appealing if the settings were not in the overblown configuration you have in Annihilation and the other noskill zones. Sooner or later people are going to figure out that there area lot of War Zones out there and the most popular one is consistently the old VIE War East with the traditional settings. Personally I hope that day comes soon.
ANARCHY has seen some map alterations. I still think most of the map is wasted space. There have been some nice changes to the centerpiece; other than that the changes are bad. More paste from the Chaos maps and a lot of cramped, unused spaces that are unnecessarily hard on the framerate. I also don't understand how people get the idea that giving official names to map details by labeling then with map tiles is cool or acceptable. It has barely ever been done in a credible zone, and for good reason. If the map detail is interesting and has character, it will earn a name. Giving it one yourself strikes me as not only a little vain but also as foolish, because you risk putting ideas into people's minds about how the area should be used, when in fact there may be great potential for some other activity. At any rate this is still a pleasant zone to play in; very friendly and not a lot of lameass behavior or whining. I've always been a bit partial to it and was never able to figure out why I nevertheless avoided it, and it just dawned on me that it's a bad zone. Oh well.
For the next few days I'm going to be sacrificing a bit of my Turf playing in order to work on my War Zone map. Still no pic up of that yet, but soon. I also should be adding something to the Playlist section in the next couple of days, and I might put back the Rincewind stuff.
2/3/98
Well it's a new month and I'm still not updating as frequently as I would like to.The situation is likely to get worse before it gets better as I am approaching a lot of very time consuming work in the next few months.This page is probably going to take a very light approach for much of the forseeable future. Expect a lot of unimportant, pithy kind of shit, and maybe more guest contributions. I know I will be coercing another good one out of Mura soon...
One thing in Subspace that I am spending time on is my new War Zone map. Watch the Maps section for details and a preliminary floorplan.
My former ally Maduin made an attempt at answering the Seldom Asked Questions and, among other things, claims to have coined the term "green". Hmm. We'll have to see about that. I'll put some of it up after I've managed to decode the run-on sentences and nonsequiters. :P Um...please don't go assuming I don't know the answers to those questions. I know the answers to about half of them and am looking for proof before I post them myself. Silly.
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