-
31 October 1998
Happy Halloween
You Must be careful:
There is a red dog,
and there is a black dog.
- I'm Back -
And actually it was all pretty much my own fault, although I think my ISP were fairly rude and lame in the way they handled it. Nevertheless, I have a directory at Warstrike now and will be moving there shortly. My thanks to Reaper and Peasant's Paladin for this. Greatest thanks to Cybrid however, who pimped the hell out of my scenario when I couldn't and offered me webspace at Warzone even though he knew I was joining Warstrike.
- MORE BRAINZ! -
Cyb also wins the Scariest Zombie award for Dawn of the Dead. ;) If you don't yet know what Dawn of the Dead again, check here. We'll probably do it again today. Check the site again if you've already seen it as it's been updated with info on the new map. Thanks to everyone who came and played or helped last night. (Early Halloween morning, actually.) It rocked.
- The Exodus Continues -
Turf and War have new homes, Chaos apparently has something lined up, and the Sheep Cloning Facility definitely has a new host, thanks to eblana.com's owner Scoochie--who you don't know--and SilentDragon--who you'd damned well better know! ;) Anyway, remember to clean up your favorite servers list today and get rid of the VIE servers except for the ones you'll want to play in til they go down. It'll make things easier for you after the directory server is gone, and save you the trouble (for a while) of manually updating your favorites.lst file.
- More Later -
I'm updating minimally cuz I'm in a hurry, but I'll update again later and finish the site's Halloween costume. Props to DS98 for reporting from the SSCON, Hunter2 for doing a nice job filling in at PCGaming, and Chakotay for keeping his head above the water while dealing with 500 things at once. Hi to everyone at SSCON; hope you're having almost as much fun as we are. ;) We'll keep the light on for you but when you get back the damned heat will be OFF. :P
27 October 1998
The end is near!
Indifference, the plague that rules throughout this land:
omen signs in the shape of things to come.
- Sites of the Final Call -
For those not yet in the know, the SFC is an alliance of Subspace pages dedicated to maintaining unity and order in the game once the directory server goes down. This is a separate issue from that of the VIE servers. While VIE is ending its hosting of zones sometime around the beginning of next week, a much greater problem exists in the taking down of the directory server, which supplies Subspace with information about new zones and zones with changed internet addresses. Unless we have some very good luck very soon, the Find Servers button will cease to work.The Sites of the Final Call have come together in an attempt to organize and maintain information about zones as their IP information changes, and to educate players in the art of manually editng their favorite servers list. A number of requirements will be made to these sites, so that joining will not simply be a statement of sympathy but an actual job taken on by the webmaster: to update certain information on a regular basis. There are other requirements you need to know about if you'd like to join. (If you don't want to join we won't burn your house down or anything. For a while I was considering not joining.) Please check out the SFC Homepage at Warstrike, and definitely look to the Sites of the Final Call for new server information whenever it becomes available.
I'd like to thank Peasant's Paladin for starting this bandwagon and for the nod to the CFC. Both are much appreciated.
- Take ur shit an' leave! -
Interesting that VIE UK would not confirm and End Day of October 31 for the VIE game servers. Permit me to make an inconvenient and depressing, but probably smart, suggestion: Assume the servers are going down in thirty minutes. Get your server files, save your news texts, and say your goodbyes NOW. The servers could be floating their way up to Zone Heaven by the time you make it back. Play it safe and take care of business immediately.- War Zone Dies Early -
It seems that War Zone has taken on a position of leadership in the continuing downfall of Subspace. Until recently, the zone had shown a disappointingly healthy player population. However, in the last week, seemingly energized by news of the upcoming removal of the VIE servers, the good people of War Zone have become among the most active and productive ruiners of this game, evacuating the zone with efficiency and enthusiasm that we Chaos and Turf players could never hope to match. While much of the Subspace community appears to be driven by less mature, range-of-the-moment concerns such as "fun" and even the dreaded "thrill of the hunt", it seems that, with their healthy focus on winning resets and on getting onto teams full of truly great players of computer games, with their forward-thinking "what's the point?" ethic and undying loyalty to self-promotion, rudeness, and cheating, the War Zone players have us all beat.- Sheep Cloning Facility Moving Soon -
I think I may have hosting lined up for the SCF, and may have the new zone up early next week. Like all divine creatures, Dolly will live on and thrive in Her exile. Watch this space for details.- Cybrid Returns! -
With luck, the News Dot Text at subspace.warzone.com should be back up by the time most of you read this. Keep ur eyes peeled.24 October 1998
Happy Birthday!
All I need is something good to feel alive.
- Very Very Important -
Visit these pages regularly and save their HTML to your hard drive. Consider mirroring the information. Show your friends how to edit their favorite servers lists. The most important thing anyone can do right now is forget about hosting for servers and concentrate instead on a much more serious problem: When the VIE servers go down, only people who read Subspace news pages are going to find and use these server lists. This is a minority of the VIE zone playership, and it needs to become a majority very, very soon, or this game will suffer an unprecedented and permanent loss of population.If you run a zone, please consider posting this information either in your news.txt or within the map itself or its tileset. Spread the information far and wide, and quickly. This is an emergency.
-
zone list at Warstrike
The Online Server List
- Not my birthday. -
My dad's, rather. Who never ever reads this page! but what the heck. :)- Bad Link -
I screwed up my Quake Journal link yesterday. Sorry, to anyone actually interested in reading it and thanks to Slayer of Small Dogs for pointing this out to me.22 October 1998
News of the Day
All I need is something good to feel alive.
- Minefield Radio -
Nah, it's not the return of my tiny mp3 site. That'll have to wait until I have a faster computer and a faster connection and more motivation. Nah, this is the music page I wish someone else would write so I could read it, only I'm the one who's doing it. Life is funny that way. I was going to save this for the revamping of this page, which will consist of several parts including a music section, but I got excited cuz the new Mojave album is out, so I said what the hell and fired her up a little early. Suggestions are invited and welcome. Please note that this is not the Playlist section of the Minefield but a new, much more serious page about music which I will be keeping from now on.Welcome.
- Quake Journal -
I am very iffy about making this public, because it is so newbie-ish, but I thought it would be an interesting thing to do, it's kind of cute I guess, and it might turn into something or at least be something to read if you're bored. It'll be part of my little Quake section, whenever I do a little Quake section, which might actually be the page I'm about to link to and not much else. Who knows. Warning! Read only if you play Quake and can tolerate my endless rambling. ;)Boo!
21 October 1998
Put away that cyanide tablet.
There's got to be someone we can trust out here among us.
- Unmitigated Disaster, Part I -
It aint over 'til it's over, folks.First, let's remember who made Subspace and what the changed their name to. Harmless Games' sequel to Subspace looms somewhere on the horizon, and it is not vaporware. We have that to look forward to. And until then?
Warstrike and Warzone are organizing the major Subspace sites to maintain an updated, standardized url list so that we don't all get lost and aren't unable to find or add new (or returning) zones. There's talk of an alternate billing server in the future. The show will go on, and of course the player zones will reign, but certainly they will in time come to meet the demand for purist, Burst standard settings and maps in the same way that, over the last year, they have left the super zone ethic behind and responded to the demand for more intelligent games.
We're going to survive and we're going to have fun while we're doing it. My advice to anyone who is concerned about the game: Get involved. Keep abreast of news. Join a news team or start a personal page. Make a map or two. Start an archive. Write a fanfic. If you love this game, know that doing your part--even a small part--to keep it alive, and to keep the community tight and fun, will extend the life of the game.
This could turn out to be a positive thing, when all is said and done--but don't just think on the bright side; help us build one.
- Proof That Baudchaser Is a Nicer Guy Than Me -
From todays update to iNet news:My personal opinion on selling a game that is Internet Only, and then closing down the only way people can play it, thats the biggest swindle/zwendel/svindel in MPOG history. Luckily the Subspace pilots don't have the money to sue VIE for their $20 back.
It's called a class action lawsuit. ;) Here in America we've gotten really good at suing people. Frankly, though, I'm not so sure it's a bad idea in this case. Oh yeah, but I forgot that I agreed to their stupid user license just by opening the instruction book. In fact, by even thinking about Subspace I have indicated my agreement to thank VIE daily for making it possible for me to play a game I bought from them.
Moral of story: User licenses are figments of the imagination, and we may have a legitimate complaint against VIE.
- Big Ol' Update Imminent -
I'll be spending the next few days making this site into what it really should be. Bear with me as I will probably crash your browser a few times. ;) Look for lots of new content very soon.17 October 1998
Hold on.
This place is old, it looks just like a beat up truck. I turn the engine but the engine doesn't turn.It smells of cheap wine, cigarettes; this place is always such a mess. Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn.
- Been Busy -
I'd hoped to have the new design up by now but it's proven to be fairly difficult to put together, and I've been too busy with school and too careless with free time to get it done. So there'll be a few more updates here before I get that all worked out.- Is Stephen King Off Topic? -
I guess so but who cares. :) I have to respond to Cybrid's mention of Apt Pupil, which comes out in a week. I have been psyched for this movie for a long time because the director is Bryan Singer from The Usual Suspects, one of the true badass movies of this decades and one of the finest crime-suspense films ever made. This movie is already regarded as a classic. (It's rated #9 on the IMDB, right between Raiders of the Lost Ark and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.) And it deserves its reputation well. Make a point of seeing it if you haven't already.Stephen King's Different Seasons has actually been made into three movies, now--the third being Stand By Me, which was based on The Body. It's actually a terrible movie, but I thought I should mention it.
The most exciting news for me, however (which I only just learned because I needed to look up the screenwriter credit for Apt Pupil) is that Bryan Singer and The Usual Suspects writer Christopher McQuarrie are doing the X-Men movie. (Talk about production hell!) Woo! I don't know how reliable this information is, but just see one of Singer's movies and you'll be jazzed too.
- Quake III Arena -
Sorry about the bad link the other day. I'm informed that the screenshots are back up on PlanetQuake, though for the life of me I can't find them. It doesn't matter because the new PC Gamer is now out on newsstands and you NEED a copy of this issue. Page after page after page of the most amazing and beautiful screenshots ever from any game, tons of information about the way the game will work, the word on skin and map editing--the single image of the map editor is going to give me nightmares--and interviews with John Carmack and Todd Hollenshead. Tons of text, huge screens. This game is going to destroy everything else you could probably think to name. Get informed and start drooling. ;)8 October 1998
Oldschool!@#$
And those who deny this world
Is the soul of the unbroken one
Lie
This is indeed Paradise
- Julius joins the CFC; unholyone stays on as well -
While both Julius Caesar and unholyone remain retired from Subspace, unholyone has let me know that he plans to continue on in the CFC.As far as CFC projects go, I WILL DEFINITELY help you guys...(And I will prolly help you with most things, just not as unholyone oranything like that...I have pretty much burned out on actually playing subspace, but I feel loyalty for the community)
Julius, meanwhile, has actually joined the CFC since retiring from Subspace and will be working with us on a number of projects. It should also be noted that he has a new alias.
ive changed my name on the internet to Xael... julius was just too
unoriginal and i had too many clones, so in SS/IRC/quake wherever,
i will be Xael, ok? so 'Xael' is joining CFC, not julius :)
- The Romulans Working on Mapfolio -
The Romulans has so many maps he can't seem to find them all. Nevertheless, he is working on what should become the third, and most ambitious, full-blown portfolio of Subspace maps. If you've ever read the level reviews in the Map Vault of the Mapmakers Guild, you can probably imagine that this will be quite interesting to read. The Romulans is far and away the most prolific mapper in the game, so expect a lot to look at. I'll be linking to this as soon as it's done, so keep an eye out.Speaking of the MMG Map Vault, Rom is also spiffing that up and you should probably see an update within the next few days.
Breaking News!
The mapfolio is actually done but needs a few changes made to it. I will tell you now it's a superb presentation that goes past where mine or Gommy's has gone--part restrospective, part map guide, and part autobiography, with a lot of insight and history and a lot to read. I am humbled. Check back here soon as I will be linking to it the minute the finished version goes up.And here it is.
- Does Electronic Arts Suck? -
Thanks to my homey Golbez over at the kickass MPOG.Com for the heads up on this sinister and troubling new development...one which may indeed affect the Subspace world at some time in the future. The PlanetQuake Community Rant for October 4th tells the sad tale of EA's acquisition of Virgin, and what has happened to Thrill Kill because of it. Corporate greed? Executive creative interference? We should be so lucky. EA has tossed out the completed Thrill Kill for far more despicable reasons--and it gets worse.- Cafe Eblana: The Game -
That's right. Dariakus of the mighty Space Police is working on the first Eblana game. It was originally to be a port of the first Final Fantasy game, meant simply as practice on his way to making his own full-blown RPG, but now the Final Fantasy motif has been more or less thrown out, and it is becoming an original Eblana adventure--and not in a silly way, either. This is to be a serious game. No telling when it will be done, but Dar is in early stages of building the engine. Ashen is doing artwork and I'll be helping with story and puzzle design. Jarkom will be aiding with programming and just about everything else. We'll put up something for this pretty soon, just for fun.I normally balk at online projects like this, as they are usually haphazard and naive, and never seem to amount to anything. I don't feel this way about the Eblana game, however, because it is Dar's game, and Dar has shown remarkable ability to actually finish things he starts. ;) Plus since it's intended mainly to be a learning tool, if it's never finished at least something good should come out of it.
Ahh...but it WILL be finished. Fear the Cafe. }:)
- Quake III Arena Screenshots!. -
They're out and they're up. Damn I envy the Quake community's enthusiasm and efficiency. These are some of the most incredible screenshots I have ever seen. In fact, I would be awed to see textures and structures like this in real life. Honest. Thanks to Golbez for this tidbit as well. (Gol is an old Subspace retiree. He waxes nostalgic about flying with rodvik and Rincewind sometimes...it's sad. Snicker.)Q3 Inna Houze
- Upgrade Time -
Well I installed that hard drive, tried to install NT but gave up so instead I finally dumped my falling-apart old Memphis 1410 (sigh) along with its broken rightclick functions, non-support for Iomega drives, and (I'm serious) crashing shutdown operation...all sacrificed to the beast Windows 98. I risked the Memphis build because Win95 crashed constantly--eight times in one day was the final straw--and it was indeed faster and more stable despite some ongoing problems. Win98 is much much faster, everything is flashing and zipping around at my whim. I feel like I have a brand new computer. To hell with the enemies of Windows. I'm in love.In that spirit, say goodbye to the current Minefield format. This is the last update you'll see looking like this. It'll be pretty much the same only without all the silly links that have been here since the page started. It should be handier when I'm done, and probably a bit more interesting to look at. Don't worry, I'm not using a black background. ;)
- New James Cameron Newsletter -
I get this periodically in my mail. A lot of people don't know about this because there are so many worhless JC pages around....Titanic pages last updated a year ago, etc. I've mirrored the new issue here for now sinceit's not up yet at the website, but look there for older issues. In the meantime, here is the new issue.- New Current 93 Album -
Their new album just came out. It's characteristially beautiful, although very, very simple....nothing but pretty, muted piano tunes with David Tibet's trademark talk-singing. The band is definitely not for everyone, and this album is probably right for even fewer people, but I had to mention it because they rule and a new full-length from them is a major event in my book. I consider their 1992 album Thunder Perfect Mind one of the finest albums ever recorded. (Anyone want to lend me 80 megs of webspace for a while?) The new album is called Soft Black Stars.5 October 1998
News of the Day
Those lips conspire in treachery
to strike with cloak and dagger, see!
-- Subspace hit by wave of angry retirements. -
I'm surprised not to have seen this headline yet; to me it all seems unavoidably jarring when taken as a whole. Are we avoiding the point, or does each news page simply run with a different crowd? I hope we don't have another week like this one anytime soon. A quick breakdown of recent retirements:unholyone quit the game and left the CFC early last week, citing lag, cheating, and loss of fun as reasons, each on many counts and after much apparent frustration in trying to live with the problems.
Julius Caesar sent out an arguably angry ICQ message, explaining that after his game became corrupted (as is common for many people), he opted to delete his directory rather than reinstall. "It's awfully sudden, I had to clean-out my recyle bin right there before i changed my mind... I didnt want to quit, but its best for me I guess, I wasted too much time on that damn game anyway." While for the most part his leaving seemed to be in good-to-lukewarm cheer, the abruptness of the act and curtness of the goodbye messages and posts confirm recent remarks that Julius had become frustrated with the game to the point of losing interest.
In the most widely reported departure, dgus hung the whole lot of us out to dry, and frankly came off as well beneath his reputation, complaining of "a mostly ungrateful, whining, immature SubSpace community", remarking that his zones "have been stolen repeatedly", and ending with a special thanks "to the general SS community for CONSTANTLY reminding me how flawed human nature is, and how stupid the general public is."
Following the closure of Subspace.Net, Rift left the game, vowing to erase his identity entirely. Quoting from the Warstrike story: "I am removing all references to 'Rift' from the internet. Including email addresses, ICQ uins, and soon - SubSpace itself." CybeRise announced his retirement only days later.
On a more satisfying note, if not necessarily a more positive or cheering one, Shanoyu appeared on the Warstrike Message Board the other day, voicing a remarkably vicious and long-overdue attack on the recent cacophony of bitching and moaning in the player zone scene. It's not a nice message but I'm proud to be a squadmate of its author. Go Shan.
- Battle Turf Is Up -
The Sheep Cloning Facility is featuring Arctos' fab new tiny turf map and a fun 20-man fight. This is the first brand new Arctos map since April; what the hell are you doing playing anywhere else? ;)- We're #2! -
The backstabbers at DS98 are attempting to steal my long held position as the second best Subspace page. Why they would want to give up their share of a tie for first best page is beyond me, and will be treated as a hostile act. I've passed up many an offer to join the Council of First Best Pages in order to entrench myself in second place, and I'm damned if I'm going to share the position with one of you upper-tier fancy pants! If you think I'm going to take this lying down, you're in for a big surprise.- CFC Second Phase -
Phase two will be ready tomorrow. It will be small and unassuming with almost no drain on your CPU. You can do it offline while you are asleep, even, and it'll bring notoriety to the game plus help make the whole world a better place. If you can guess what the hell I'm talking about, you win a slice of the ever-growing tie for best Subspace page. ;) Keep your eyes peeled for details. Third Phase is right on its heels, almost ready to go, and that one will be an epic, hellish quest through time and space for you all to sink your teeth into...Cult of the Final Call
- Lolita is finally out! -
All possible props to Showtime and the Samuel Goldwyn Company for finally getting this movie into American theatres--a ballsy move which I do not take lightly and am very thankful for. It is beautiful, moving, classy movie--wonderfully acted and photographed, and directed in such a way that I was totally drawn into the movie. Ennio Morricone's score is one of his best and accents the story's development perfectly, although it is mainly atmospheric and in a background capacity.- Last Summer at mars Hill is finally out!. -
Elizabeth Hand's new book, a collection of short stories and novellas, came out sometimes within the last week or so. She's kind of sick and weird, but then that's one of the things that makes her my favorite writer. The main draws, however, are her dark and beautiful visions of future and the vivid, poetic descriptions and streams of consciousness in her books. Check out the first few pages of Winterlong sometime and you'll see what I mean.- Lame. -
Ripped from the IMDb Studiobrief...Acting on complaints by major film studios that U.S. movies on DVD discs ("Region 1") were being sold in Britain ("Region 2") in many cases before the films were released theatrically there, the U.K.'s Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), along with local police, raided at least two large DVD retailers last weekend, confiscating their supplies, according to local reports.
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