<monocle> i feel bad
<monocle> i know all my gifts
<monocle> i'm involved in giftshakers anonymous
sharp and open
leave me alone
and sleeping less every night
as the days become heavier and weighted
waiting
in the cold light
kboom covers his tracksWith the word "jail" cropping up more and more in the last several days, kboom has started to clarify (i.e. revise) his version of events and turned on his supposed former collaborators, pointing a fierce talon in the direction of the Subspace team. Specifically, we may have a giant new can of worms in this post by kboom to the Pro League board. In fairness, he has here for the first time made a compelling case for what he did on the 22nd of this month, but the story here is his accusations against the Subspace team--accusations which, if true, , may threaten the future not only of Subspace but of Infantry.
Meanwhile, as reported at Warstrike, kboom made a recent post to the Chaos East board which seems to have assumed two things. First, Chaos players are morons. Second, no one in this game reads anyone else's message board. kboom has attempted to pass off an agreement with Bortas as a consensus, conveniently forgetting to point out that the 2.0 patch was installed on all servers, not just League, Chaos, and Alpha. Condemnations from Ghost Ship and vexxed were also ignored, never mind the sysops of zones such as FlagLeague, Turf, and the SCF which were taken down in the course of kboom's meddling. Wampit posted an interesting editorial in his Warstrike scribbles yesterday on this topic.
It has also become evident that kboom in fact used the patch in question without the permission of its author. I know this because I was involved in its creation. While I won't give out the author's name for obvious reasons, I do know that it was written not to be a patch to any existing zones but rather as a kind of brainstorm for a longer, ongoing project whose purpose was to come up with a voluntary and legal solution to the Twister problem, to be implemented slowly and carefully at the player zone level. It was never intended for use on the VIE servers and kboom was informed of this before he used it. (Sadly, this attempt will now never be made because, even if the players would ever again trust a client patch, the programmer in question has left Subspace in the aftermath of recent events.)
It needs to be pointed out in the bluntest and rudest possible terms that kboom is not the only person involved in these escapades who has less authority than Smitty74, Ghost Ship, myself, and all of the other zone sysops. Neither JeffP nor Blackie any longer work for VIE in any capacity, and unless the VIE sysops either receive confirmation of such authority from someone at a Virgin address or can be shown that ownership does in fact rest with someone else, any attempt by them to alter the servers should be met with the same hostility as if they came from less reputable sources. There are obvious conflict of interest issues involved here, and in fact the question of sabotage has been raised in some quarters.
If you have any doubts regarding Jeff and Blackie's authority here, I refer you only to Blackie's continued silence on this matter--and on all matters concerning Subspace--and to Jeff's considerably more glaring attempts to distance himself from the kboom and his silence in response to questions posed by vexxed and others. With kboom pointing fingers and two sources now reporting of an impending investigation at Westwood, this silence may not be such a bad idea.
-
By the way . . .
Twister 2.0 is out, and the VIE server software was downloaded by hackers over the weekend. Not only are our alleged saviours unwelcome, but they are also clearly unqualified. (When are you people going to learn?)
-
RC5 Wars
Since Jeff is being cheap and rude about this, I might as well be also. In August the CFC, largely at my urging, started a drive to join people to the RC5 Gaming Network, at Stomped, under the Subspace subranking. The idea behind this was to list Subspace among gaming oriented teams, who had banded together under the one name in order to increase their chances overall. Meanwhile, Stomped set up a nice listing of subteams where each contingency could advocate its own favored game among other game players.
I don't like that it came to this but since an attempt has been made to convert people away from the CFC team I feel it is appropriate to return the favor. If you'd like to see Subspace sharing a spot with Infantry low on a list of platform advocacy groups, IRC channels, universities, etc, feel free to join Jeff's team. To join the CFC team, be ranked among other game players, and maybe help us overtake the Final Fantasy slime and perhaps the Doom players as well, switch your team over to #40 (this is all going to take a couple of years so you've really wasted very few blocks), then list yourself as a Subspacer and make your keyrate count for something. Check here to keep an eye on our sublisting. We are doing ok so far.
Special thanks of course to Jeff for his continued support of this game as well as insulting me personally.
-
Tribes
I know I promised a review by now, but I've been too busy playing the damned game to write about it--hence also my recent lack of updates and absence from Subspace in general. Yes, I am cheating on you....but relax, she hasn't stolen my heart away just yet. I have discovered Defend and Destroy, however, a somewhat new type of game with similarities to Turf. The catch is that in order to win you must achieve certain objectives amounting to the complete disabling of the other team. Yesterday I spent two hours in one campaign, on a hill in the fog sniping ATV pilots and painting mortar targets. There is something intensely cinematic about watching teammates in pitched battle a mile away, and making the difference by picking off their attackers. The game is so varied and the experience one of such unprecedented depth that I still don't know how to review it. But never fear: Cybrid has finally published his review of the game for Warzone. Read it here.
I'll say only two things on the subject of that review. First, to thank Cybrid for turning me on to this game, which I bought the day it came out based solely on the strength of the review. Second, the screenshots you will see on that page are uncommonly sweet, but they do not exaggerate the atmosphere, the epic feel, or the intensity of teamplay this game has accomplished. In my opinion they are the only screenshots I have seen thus far which do the game justice. There are indeed people fighting on those background landscapes. Those base invasions are base invasions. The bombing runs are in fact bombing runs. You will be piloted over a floating space cruiser and dropped into a firefight on its roof, surrounded by gun turrets. You will lob mortar shells a mile into the clouds to take down enemy radar equipment. And yes, you will enjoy one-on-one dueling as intense and frightening as the dueling action in Subspace.
-
Oh yeah . . .
A few days ago I linked to float's page and he got a bunch of hits (thanks!) but he is greedy and wants more so he can hit 1000 by the New Year, so I'm gonna link to him again even though he didn't link to me yet. ;P
float featuring subspace and other good stuff
<PPaladin> I think I'm talking to myself
<PPaladin> either that or fallen asleep at the keyboard and I'm dreaming of typing
The soldiers close in under a yellow moon,
all shadows and deliverance
under a black flag.
N e w s o f t h e D a y
27 December 1998
-
Webboard massacre
Someone has been up to no good and Subspace message boards have taken quite a hit over the last few days. Saturday the Infantry HQ Infantry HQ news carried a post by Suicide detailing the extent of the damage there and giving the IP and other information for the persons involved.
-
Tribes rocks
I was skeptical about this game for a long time, then as the screenshots became more tempting I learned more about the game. Finally Cybrid let me have a look at a review he had written and my interest was so piqued that I bought the game the first day I saw it in stores. My first session lasted six hours, keeping me up until the sun was out. I was about to go to bed but something told me to go back and I played for another two hours. This game has that kind of addictive quality.
I'm still learning to play, but even as a newbie I'm able to take part in team maneuvers on a basic level. A highlight of this was piloting an APV over the enemy base while a teammate lobbed mortar shells down on them. Built in sniping mutli-zoom, the ability to set waypoints for other players, and target painting for long range attacks are only the surface. On some levels your base will be sporting a dedicated command console. If someone mans one of these, you and your teammates will start receiving instructions and hopefully pulling off coordinated attacks.
I can only speculate on how good this game is going to be once everyone fully knows how to play it. Until then I'll hold off on any further review talk except to say that the atmosphere of this game is truly wonderful. With huge maps that take several minutes to cross on foot, buildings the size of an entire Quake level often disappear in the haze. On some levels there is snow everywhere, and the feel of your movement alters accordingly. Thus far I've never experienced anything like rocketing up the side of a cliff for a sniper's perch, and from my high vantage point looking down at a huge, foggy tower jutting out from foothills below.
I'll review this in full once I've better familiarized myself with it.
-
Work, work, work . . .
Well, not really, but I am a bit busy lately and am feeling a need to get quite a bit of stuff done offline. Sorry for the wuss update. Next full update will probably be late tomorrow.
<byobong7>sorry if I spelled your holiday wrong
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th' angelic host proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem
Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the newborn King!
Merry Christmas
25 December 1998
-
Ho ho ho . . .
No update, just Merry Christmas. or merry December 25th if you like. My aliases say Merry Chistmas too. I'll update later today, don't worry. ;)
<Quickenin> You water your bosses plants? How fucking lame!
<Tom-Servo> only cause she is on vacation
<Quickenin> Do you talk to them and sing to them too?
Now I really don't care,
cause I'm dying to get the sun in my hair.
Yeah, I really don't care
that I'm here and you're still there.
Finally some good news!
24 December 1998
-
A friendly reminder about Subspace
That's exactly what you'll find at Float, the best Subspace page I've happened across since arriving late on the scene at nivaG's Ricochet Gaming. This page comes as a sight for sore eyes and a pill to soothe my throbbing head after the last three days of seemingly endless lies, deceit, and elitism. What you'll find here is a guide to goofing off. Stupid Alpha Zone Tricks, you might call it. You've likely seen 90% of it before anyway, but it will make you laugh anyway. The presentation is cute and the whole attitude of the page is a much needed reminder that in this life we are all truly nothing but tiny spaceships puffing smoke out the back and bouncing off of walls. More, please.
Oh yeah, there is a chance you might recognize someone in those screenshots. ;)
-
Harmless Games updated
Rod Humble added new information to the official Infantry page yesterday. No new screens, but there is some new artwork including a sweet rendering of a tank, which people are drooling over. My, and is that a genuine USCM pulse rifle I see Mr. Humble sporting in his tin jumpsuit? :) Meanwhile, fanfic auteurs will be please to find that Rod also added new information about Titan, thereby ruining all the stories they've been writing for the last four weeks. :P Next update will be sometime in January.
-
Tribes and Extremities are out
Starsiege Tribes is a Teamfortress style FPS flag game set in the Starsiege universe several hundred years after the other Starsiege games we don't give a shit about. >:) I sprung for this one the moment I saw it, based on a glowing review by Cybrid which I will link to as soon as the Warzone folks get around to posting it. Personally I haven't had a chance to play it yet.
Quake II Extremities: Internet Pak No. 1 (or something like that) is a CD full of mods anyone can easily get off of the internet, which might be kind of lame except that the developers are supposedly going to receive royalties and it's been said that the documentation is pretty nice, and there's a Quake III poster in there somewhere. Why the hell they included Railgun Arena, which is only a server modification, is beyond me. No I did not spend $45 on this :) but it's out and I approve of it so have a look at least.
-
What to go see on Christmas
Last year all these cool movies came out on Chistmas day. By contrast, this year we get Patch Adams, Stepmom, and The Faculty. I wanted to see quite a few of the movies that were out the weekend before last, and for some reason on a whim I went instead to see Meet Joe Black, a slow moving drama about Death's adventures on earth, directed by Scent of a Woman's Martin Brest and spanning a dangerous yet perfect 3 hours and 15 minutes.
While the pacing is slow, the often long scenes are full of detail crucial to the characterization and the time goes by rather serenely, although the film is not short on drama and is often moving and even frightening. Emmanuel Lubezki's beautiful, atmospheric photography is intimate and unpretentious, and the movie benefits from one of the most beautiful scores I've ever heard, by Thomas Newman of The Shawshank Redemption and The War. This may in fact be the best film to come out since The War; it is certainly the best I have seen this year. I don't think you will find it mushy; although it is emotional and sometimes sad, it is not a story without balls, nor is it the exercise in depression one might expect.
Trust me, all the movies out right now stink. I can feel it in the air. The sneak preview of that Robin Williams picture killed all the fish in the ocean along the southern California coast. I'm not kidding. Go see this one instead before it leaves theaters or I guarantee you'll be damned sorry when you finally see it on video.
-
Hmm
Someone please tell me if having the paragraphs broken apart like this makes the page easier on the eyes or if it makes everything look like one long ramble. I'm a bit uncertain of how I feel about it at the moment.
<kboom> No, I'm working on a solution which does not violate the user-end agreement.
I could have saved you all;
you gave me so little time.
N e w s o f t h e D a y
23 December 1998
-
VIE zones "updated" with illegal patch
As has been widely reported already, the VIE servers were updated late yesterday with an unlicensed fix for the Twister cheat. The outrage of having a player update the game servers without official permission or any sort of warning is obvious, and the Pro League boards were filled with condemnations of the action, often accompanied by angry retirement messages. Not least among these was Pro league sysop Ghost Ship, declaring that he would not work under the present conditions. "And frankly he betrayed the trust I put in him to keep the confidences of sysop powers when we asked for his help... I hope to hell they take down the servers soon so this self declared god of subspace can be dethroned."
By early this morning, the major news sites had warned people away from the patch, and most importantly the crucial hinge within the player zones had swung away from the use of kboom's patch, with Baudchaser instructing iNET players via iNET news that they should not install it or they will be unable to play on the iNET servers.
Baudchaser followed in a post early this morning that he had spoken with a representative of VIE UK and that the UK office in fact has no rights to Subspace and thus is unable to close the zones or take any other action. Other attempts will probably be made throughout the day to put the final merciful bullet in the brain of the VIE servers. Be it known that, with the rest of the community almost certain to follow the example set by the oldest bank of player zones, users of the new Subspace version will soon have no servers to play on whatsoever.
Reinstall Subspace, get the 1.34 update from iNET or DS98 if you need it, and as they say in Death Star Battle.....get legal. If you run a zone, please consider using your news.txt files to warn your players.
Who is sage386?
As if the situation weren't bad enough already, as early as last Friday reliable sources were placing the origin of the Twister cheat not in Russia but rather inside of Pro League itself. While I am convinced from several conversations with sage386 that he is in fact the author of at least one of the Twister cheat, individuals I cannot name at present have apparently credited Twister to kboom himself.
There are two factors to be considered here. The first is the nature of kboom's behavior, which has been secretive at best.
In Novermber, kboom credited the removal of VIE sysop controls to Blackie, but according to Ghost Ship there was no involvement by Blackie in the action at all.
As many as six different zones may have crashed due to multiple illegal acts. As stated by Vexxed on the WSL main page, kboom made two attempts to move the WSL zone, ending with both WSL and FlagLeague going down and failing to come back up during server recycles--server recycles allegedly arranged by kboom using a backdoor sysop command. This was supposedly with the approval of Blackie. Paintball and Sheep Cloning Facility went down at the time that the sysop passwords were changed back in late November. Running Zone vanished from the server directory Friday after a three player "beta test" of the new patch, and Turf Classic also went down around the same time.
Most important of all is kboom's refusal to deny any of the claims made by Vexxed or Ghost Ship. He is also said to have claimed during Friday's test in Running Zone that he was in fact working with JeffP, although Monday on the WSL board Jeff denied any involvement and kboom later confirmed his post as true.
Had I not spoken to sage this morning I would still not be convinced that he is in fact a separate entity. Frankly, the notion that kboom's accusors are lying is scarier--and make no mistake; there is no misunderstanding to speak of. Twister was named. It is difficult to give kboom benefit of the doubt at this point, and while my suspicion of sage was increased by his unwillingness--though he claims Twister is well behind him--to either name his six beta testers or give out more than snippets of his source code, I am at present more or less convinced of sage's honesty for the simple reason that he has pointed out an apparent flaw in kboom's patch.
"To override VIE patch," he said, "all you need is to replace the TFORM1 signature in subcheat.exe with something else."
A source who asked not to be named confirmed sage's analysis. "His patch looks for a certain window that's created by delphi programs called a tform window. If it finds it, it kills Subspace. A quick hex edit could change the properties of the window slightly, and get around that."
If only we'd been rid of 1.28 in such a timely manner.
<Shanoyu> why in the FUCK are you drunk?
And the rooks, they seemed to follow him
Wherever he goes--
Flapping in the flat sky,
Shrieking in the spire.
-
N e w s o f t h e D a y
21 December 1998
-
It Begins . . .
Vexxed has closed down the World Subspace League, and in the process has blown the whistle on alleged illegal activities by some highly respected individuals. While Vexxed suspects the best of intentions, there is more to this story. Watch the skies and watch your back. Things may be getting uglier.
I have to say this .
You won't believe me, but the new Willie Nelson album kicks ass. Daniel Lanois, best known for his work on The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby, has been producing some wonderful, weird records lately, best among them Emmylou Harris' 1995 masterpiece Wrecking Ball, but also Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind which won a Grammy Award (and just about everything else) a couple of years ago. Believe me, if the situation called for it my entire collection of county and western CDs could be hidden under the keyboard I am typing this on, but this album rings with uncommon honesty and a lonely, serene atmosphere that is difficult to describe. I never knew Willie Nelson was such a hell of a guitarist, and Lanois' always superb electric guitar work along with Emmylou Harris' backing vocals blend perfectly into a rich, strange flavor that probably won't ever be repeated. Give this disc a listen if you have a chance.
<Leigh> no
<Leigh> don't obey e
With the sound of your world
going up in fire,
it's a perfect day to throw back your head
and kiss it all goodbye.
-
N e w s o f t h e D a y
20 December 1998
-
Pirate Nation
In recent months it has become common practice for respectable players to give out the full version of Subspace and the CD crack without remorse; the game is, after all, very nearly impossible to find for sale, and is for all intents and purposes out of print. While the act has always smacked of an angry patriotism, it has nonetheless gone on in relative secrecy. In the last few days, this has begun to change. It seems there is a movement cautiously gearing up to distribute the full version of Subspace openly, along with the CD crack. Thus far, the files have gone up on at least one player's homepage, and a well known server bank has privately expressed an intention to follow suit. With at least one major news site (not including this one) hinting at a willingness to join in if the spread of the files becomes endemic, we may not exactly have a revolution on our hands, but we could gain quite a few players.
Which leads me to the obvious question. Would you?
The Passing of Subspace
dbx brought this article at mpog.com to my attention, probably the best and most positive piece I've seen printed about this game outside of its own news pages. It was by no small coincidence written by a long time vet of the game, Kevin Jenkins a.k.a. Rak'kar.
A future for Subspace 1 . 35?
NfoCipher, with some help from a small posse of angry Subspace players who happen also to be programmers, has developed his own 1.35 server-client patch based on sage386's explanation of Twister's internal operations. A beta server may be up sooner for testing, but because of an incompatability with version 1.34, players will need to upgrade their clients--a move which will deny them access to the VIE zones and any other servers not along for the ride. It is hoped that all of the major player-run server banks will band together here, but the willingness of players at large to leave VIE Chaos and LeaguePro--where competent moderation has curbed cheating but no sysop remains to change versions--is still very much up in the air.
A MINEFIELD POLL:
1. Would you be willing to upgrade if it meant you had to leave VIE?
2. Would you maintain two installs in order to play on both types of servers?
Please contact me with your two answers preferably in the subject field along with [nt] so I can delete it. This is fairly important as having enough data here may affect how or if the patch is implemented.
A Small Turf Zone
SilentDragon has set up a zone at RiSC with SirBlah under the name A Small Turf Zone, featuring dgus' settings and one of GiGaKiLLeR's small maps. Turfies let's get our stuff together and see if maybe this is a way to draw new players to the Holy Cause. ;)
The page is kind of done . . .
That is to day i've got proper placeholder pages up for all the unfinished stuff. Don't let it linger on there too long though (I know the mine is pretty to look at) or on some of them it might reopen the entire page inside this frame and that would be nutty. :P Alive and well at present are News Archive, Mapmaking, Guides, Schedule, Final Call, Quake Journal, Radio EMF, Fonts, and Links. Some are of course still in a state of ill repair but they're all working and at least partly complete.
Very important Infantry news
To make things around here special during the holidays, this page is launching an ambitious collection of no Infantry content. Very soon readers will have the pleasure of experiencing and participating in:
no Infantry messageboard
no Infantry contests
special no appearances from JeffP and rodvik
nothing whatsoever about EGN
no FAQ
no angry anonymous naysayers
no pictures of tiny men shooting glo stix at one another
We at the Minefield Staff Lounge hope you enjoy this special treat. Please do not send no submissions if you would like to not contribute, as we are not interested.
I'm just kidding by the way
You know the Minefield would never do anything to hurt you. >:)
-
<Shanoyu> please tell me so I can get to working on pretending like I didn't hear you.
Some deeds done wrong
won't scare me long;
I've done a few,
maybe one or two.
If you want to know all of my original sins,
ask the Virgin. She knows where I've been.
-
N e w s o f t h e D a y
19 December 1998
-
Chakotay Retires
The first Vangel and god-emperor of Turf has left the building. He ran the hardest campaign to bring back a zone that this game has ever seen, and for a long time it was very successful. He was a superb sysop and kept the best zone-specific page on the web. Claiming not to be a mapmaker, he was nonetheless one of the best, though sadly he only produced one map. Most importantly, he was a classy, courteous player who always showed respect for everyone no matter how much garbage we talked at him. Subspace has lost its finest pilot. So long Chak, and good luck with everything. You'd better come back for the next game or we're going to hunt your neg ass down. :)
Mine-field Staff Humiliated
In defense of my honor--and indeed, the honor of this, my humble home-page--my mighty squadmate Shanoyu (actually a mercenary "double-agent" working toward my destruction in collaboration with the evil forces of vile Finland) valiantly defended my honor in a late-night duel with the hated "Masked-Miner", who continually castigates me on the Infantry HQ message-board. This event occurred late to-night in iNET Expert Chaos before an all-star audience. While Shanoyu aptly tore the fiend limb-from-limb, I was myself later dealt a lowly insult as this bandit craftily and with great dishonor used a "repel" device to switfly send my beloved space-craft careening head-over-posterior into a waiting mine-field. While it pains me to bestow the Mine-field Honor Prize upon such villainy, I none-the-less am compelled--nay, forced!--to acknowledge his dark talents. Hence-forth let it be known that "the Masked Miner" shall stand with the a-curséd Data-Munky as unique in having done me dirt with this cruel tactic.
"The Masked Miner's" true identity remains a mystery, but it seems that all evidence points to the fiend called "Peasant Paladins," as it is said he was present in-cognito for the event. Be sure that, if such is the case, painful justice indeed will come to this "Paladins" before I have rested in my quest to un-mask "the Masked-Miner!"
War Zone game SUCKED
Only 17 people showed for the game organized in SSX Warzone East last night, and half of those who came didn't have the sense to simply play, instead spending a great deal of time complaining about issues no one present was capable of addressing anyway. Folks we are all running this show now, and part of responsibly running a game is knowing when to bring up problems and when to set them aside and just do your best to make the game work. The days of being handed a game on a silver platter are over; you've got to start holding up the platter. War Zone is on her last legs. If you'd prefer never playing War Zone again rather than play outside of conditions you consider ideal, be thankful that we are indeed damned close to never playing War Zone again.
Next week's game is at the same time, with the Harmless meeting dead center, of course. At this point that factor seems to be helping.
Minbari tells it like it is.
Ripped from the pages of DS98. Can't help myself.
Ok, enough already VIE. Shut the damn zones down! Without the billing server running, the zones are now being plagued with cheaters using every name imaginable. I watched Blackie, JeffP, and several 'famous' people flying around last night building houses with bricks and thoring the hell out of everyone. The VIE zones are now a hazard to SubSpace itself. I would hate for anyone who has not played in a few months to return and try one of them. We are now ready so please shut them down and let them die with honor and not be remembered for what they are now becoming.
Watch your back .
Yeah you. We're on to you, and you're going to get it.
-
-
<Quickenin> that's what I say!
<Quickenin> It's not XXX hardcore butt-reaming anal amateur action, it's art.
Would you have a woundrous sight,
the midday sun at midnight?
-
N e w s o f t h e D a y
18 December 1998
-
The Mapper's Handbook
This is a little bit in beta still but I figured I'd put it up anyway. It focuses on stuff not handled by the existing mapmaking guides--namely safety, community, and proper form. A bit in-depth for a new mapper but in my opinion essential stuff everyone should know before they get into editing. Please contact me with any suggestions. Enjoy. I'm focusing on the mapmaking page right now, by the way. Expect more stuff to go up there soon.
War Zone game tonight
The official weekly WZ game starts at 7:00pm Eastern in <SSX> Warzone East, the official replacement for VIE War Zone MEast. The classic VIE settings will be used, and the game will be heavily modified against cheaters. If you have never been to this zone, you will start out the game in spectator mode; this is a security measure intended to sto cheaters, and for the most part it is working. Be patient and a moderator will add permission for you so you can get in the game.
If someone has stolen your name in the SSX zones, create a temporary name for now; since no one can do anything about this while the game is going on, make a mental note and send someone a nasty e-mail after the game breaks up.
Welcome to SSX, by the way. Stay frosty and don't let the bat get ur sword.
Burn it down, Rudolph ! Burn it down !
I'm tempted to just paste today's entire post from DS98 right here, but that would of course be Poor Form™ so I guess not, but I'm damned well pasting it here at midnight tonight when it becomes old news. Truer words were never spoke. (At least not on a page with a black background, hehe.)
And on that note . . .
I hereby quit the VIE zones with the exceptions of Chaos and League, who fortunately are blessed with billing servers. It was kind of cute and certainly flattering the night before last to have two fake einexiles turreting on me, but I'm not going to wait around for someone to pull something ugly out of that hat. Not that anyone's got a brilliant reason to impersonate me anyway, but to put my mind at ease let it be known for the record: Except for Chaos and League as long as they have their billing server, if I play in the VIE zones it will be anonymously.
Goodnight.
I ended up spending most of last night on the above mentioned mappin guide, finally got to bed and was suddenly assaulted by a nice idea for a story, so I ended up at the computer again at 7:00 in the morning, still not having slept. Idiot. Well either I'm staying up and working or going to sleep, but either way I've plucked my share of chickens for today and I'm out of here for now. :P Cya. :)
<silentdragon> gommy is tiling my map
<e> ha!
<e> lazy
<e> you tile it!
<silentdragon> i tiled for about an hour and got dizzy
fed through the tube that sticks in me
just like a wartime novelty
tied to machines that make me be
cut this life off from me
-
N e w s o f t h e D a y
17 December 1998
-
This terrible silence stops me . . .
Well, it's about that time again...in the aftermath of another storm of panic arranged by VIE we have again been robbed of our catharsis and our mobilizing determination. Instead, we now have a set of servers which for the most part have no one to run them. Those few zones smart enough to switch billing servers before sysop powers were removed have a set of mods and smods, but no way of appointing new smods or owners. The rest of the zones seem doomed to rot away under the pressure of cheating and player impersonation. It's really quite a shame because twice now we've had a momentum and a unity where the player bases might respond to the zone reloactions all at once, all in the same boat together. Now it seems it will happen in bits and pieces, and that we may well lose a lot of folks along the way.
Congrats . . .
to DS98 on their 10,000th hit. Also, be sure and read yesterday's sermon as it is both scary and inspiring. Add me and iNET to that stupid SFC banner tho if you're going to insist on leaving it up. :P
New servers at SNT
A lot of people pulled their hair out yesterday to get replacement servers set up for Chaos and League, and we got a bonus flagging zone out of it as well. :) Word up to stripper and Tito's Burritos, and everyone who helped get them up and running. Keep an eye on these zones; I think they are going to be full service sometime soon.
<SNT> Chaos Zone
<SNT> Super Zone
<SNT> League Zone
VIE War Zone Schedule
There is thankfully only one replacement for VIE War Zone, which is SSX Warzone East. Still, things have not been going well there because its player base has been scattered to the four winds, so a time is being set up for weekly games. Peasant's Paladin sent me this obnoxious spam. ;) Sooner or later someone is going to have the sense to put up a Schedule Page. ;)
SSX Warzone East will have sceduled warzone games this and every Friday at 7
pm est. These games will be moderated to prevent any sort of cheating and will
be using warzone svs (standard vie settings). Show up at 7, and play as long as
there's a game going on.
I know my damned links are broken !
It'll only be a few more days. At least they all kind of point to the right place tho eh? Who's the man? Right now all that works are the news archive, links, fonts, and my silly island. Mapmaking is a skeleton right now but have a look if you like. Oh, and the Schedule page is up.
<e> is there a virus that screws up your fonts?
<Neoguardian> \/\/|-|/\+?
From this maelstrom free are you.
-
N e w s o f t h e D a y
16 December 1998
-
J12 - The finest piece of real estate in all Subspace.
-
A True Love of the Game.
It was heartwarming to see some of the best and more respected players gather in the lameness capital of Subspace to say goodbye to the VIE servers. This screenshot doesn't actually do it justice, as there was great commotion around the area with people trying to get in--difficult even though the mods had called for a ceasefire. I had to retry about 10 times because of lag alone. I don't think this was the height of it either. At one point there were so many people you could barely see anyone's name. If anyone has a better screenshot (preferably one with me in it ;) please sent it this way. Click the screenshot for the full size picture, which is much bigger.
For their part, the VIE game servers are still alive and kicking despite the demise of the billing and directory servers, said to be permanent. There may still be time as you read this to say goodbye to your favorite zones before they vanish.
TurfNight Tuesday
I totally forgot about this! Thanks to Rev.Spork for reminding me. The Tuesday night Turf game was a huge success. We played for maybe 4 hours, first in Giga's small Crystal map and then when the battles became too large for the level we summoned the vile Chakotay and he switched us to the old VIE map. Nearly all of the fighting centered around the Crossroads entrance, which is not a good place to hold if you are really playing Turf but a great place to fight if you just want a quick game. It is one of the most mloved map details there is. With only two freqs, this was a very bloody fight, but the terrain there is so cleverly designed you can fight there forever without it getting boring.
Unfortunately we were so possessed by nostalgia that we never really played a proper game of Turf, but it was fun anyway and there's always next Tuesday. :) I have it on good authority that it rocked today as well, though personally I was spending my time in my old stomping grounds of Speed, Dueling, and Chaos.
Yup, it's over.
In an ICQ session with the operators of what are to become the official replacements for the VIE Chaos and Running zones, Blackie confirmed that the VIE servers are indeed being shut down at 5:00pm Pacific. Get in there and get some last kills. I'll post about these two new zones as soon as they are up and running.
Goodbye to VIE
From all estimations, the VIE servers are kaput as of sometime today. The information at Subspace HQ implies that the community will now constitute the entirety of web and server support for this game. The conventional wisdom holds that the bomb will drops at 5:00pm Pacific.
Good.
If the conventional wisdom is correct, starting this evening Subspace begins not down a new road but down the road back. I will miss the VIE zones, but I will not miss the VIE servers; it's high time that this game was 100% player run. The cheaters who have so thrived in the VIE servers since we lost sysop powers there are about to receive a kick in the teeth. It's called VIGILANCE, and it's going to give this game back its reputation.
Now is not the time to retire. Retire now, and you are fucking us. The classic zones--Chaos, War, Turf, League--are moving to new hosts and sticking to their roots. In so doing they risk losing their player bases; if that happens, the zones die and the classic SVS settings many of us love could vanish. The operators of these zones--Smitty74 and Bortas, Peasant's Paladin, FlippMode and GiGaKiLLeR, Ghost Ship and Eclipse--have a lot of work ahead of them, and much of it will be thankless work. Help them.
Extreme Games Goes to War
hydro updated the news.txt file for Extreme Games yesterday, denouncing the EG clone servers at RiSC in the strongest possible language. In an amusing eye-for-eye turnabout he offered to rip map designs from those zones at players' request until they lose the copycat routine.
Bear with me.
I'm finally working on the left frame so this page is going to be messed up at least until you see more articles above this one. If you have some time, hope around my pages and tell me what's broken and what opens in the wrong frame, etc. I know about as much about html as you know about my inner ear, so any help would be appreciated. :) What I want is for all the left frame links to open in this window, and all the links from this frame to break loose from the frameset or share a single second window.
-
<e> is there a virus that screws up your fonts?
<Neoguardian> \/\/|-|/\+?
We must suffer to free our pain;
can you help us to find our way?
You're here to stay.
-
N e w s o f t h e D a y
15 December 1998
-
Flattery will get you nowhere. Maybe you should try throwing a tantrum.
Special thanks to whoever is secretly running the VIE page for dissing me on the last day it is in operation. Baudchaser says thanks too, although I think he may have been a little sarcastic. You never can tell with subtlety.
-
-
Don't forget TurfNight Tuesday!.
GiGaKiLLeR is organizing the last big VIE Turf game, tonight in VIE Turf Classig GEast. Get there early and plan to stay late. Bring your jaded friends and demand Giga put up his own map. ;)
A Brief History of Subspace
Cybrid linked to a nice article written for Warzone by Liquidated, covering the development of Subspace and its culture from its beginning to present day. It is very informative and extremely well written. Cybrid mentioned that most of us already know it by heart, but I don't think that's necessarily true for a reason which the article itself touches on: the fragmentation of the community. Surely a broad perspective, and not necessarily a complete history, but a damned good one, and definitely on the required reading list.
A Brief History of Subspace
More on the Trench Wars Quake map
I talked briefly with Zerker who is converting SilentDragon's famous castle into a Quake level, and there will indeed be three dimensions to it, with access to the roof from the turrets, which will also have line of fire to each other. This could wind up as a standard deathmatch or a set of Teamfortress or CTF bases. I may put a new screenshot up later today if SilentDragon ever comes back. :P
Today in Subspace History
Awesome logo, huh. =]
And, uh, I beefed up the Playlist section with reviews of John Kelley and Etnica cds.
Nothing else. :P
FF8 cancelation rumor is bullshit.
Those of you who follow the RPG scene enough to have read Stephen Gohan's bizzarely written warnings of a canceled Final Fantasy VIII have probably not believed him outright, but perhaps worried a little that behind the poor form and illegal nature of the posts was a shred of truth. I am now convinced that there is none. Why? Because I received an e-mail from Mr. Gohan, to whom I have never spoken.
I have never covered role playing games here, and have not participated in Square culture for two years. I am mentioned onced in the alt.games.final-fantasy FAQ, though. ;) Gohan has no reason to try and reach me except that I happen to write a news page--any news page. The mail obviously smells like a Bcc: spam, and by way of that smells like a vendetta of some sort. For the first time since the initial posts went up, I am thoroughly convinced that Final Fantasy VIII is indeed still in production.
Help!
I'm trying to run the original Tomb Raider with my Voodoo^2, which the game for some reason doesn't support. A player-authored batchfile was supplied at the Eidos page (unsupported, of course) and I'm getting an "Out of environment space" error on the 6th, 7th, and 8th lines. If anyone can help me with this I'd appreciate it.
set SST_GRXCLK=90
set SST_FT_CLK_DEL=0x4
set SST_TF0_CLK_DEL=0x6
set SST_TF1_CLK_DEL=0x6
set SST_VIN_CLKDEL=0x1
set SST_VOUT_CLKDEL=0x0
set SST_TMUMEM_SIZE=2
set SST_SCREENREFRESH=75
set SST_GAMMA=2.0
<xalimar> chaos is devil worshippers zone
We serve an old man in a dry season,
a lighthouse keeper in the desert sun.
Dreamers of sleepers and white treason,
we dream of rain and the history of the gun.
-
N e w s o f t h e D a y
14 December 1998
-
Goodbye to Turf?
A game has been planned in VIE Turf Classic for tomorrow night, which may well be the final big Turf game ever if the VIE servers do indeed cease to exist on Wednesday, as was reported this weekend at Subspace HQ. Show up early in the evening and make plans to stay late so we can have a big game. :)
No I did not make this silly banner!
Trench Wars for Quake II
A Minefield exclusive. >:) At the moment this map is not being planned for any particular Quake mod or server, but as hinted at several days ago, SilentDragon has hooked up with a well known Quake mapper and the first Trench Wars map, arguably the most popular base in the player zones, is well on its way to becoming an FPS arena. While the picture here implies a very two dimensional space, according to Silent that fact is soon to change. A first look at Trench Wars uber Quake. I'll keep you posted, of course.
Isn't it about time you started playing Quake?
-
RiSC Clones
Nfo Cipher, sysop of the RiSC servers, asked me to post an apology to the people at SSX.
I have recently discovered that one of my newly appointed zone sysops committed a
major act of plagiarism. My time is limited and I rely on my sysops to perform in a
somewhat professional manner. In this case, SirBlah, copied SSX>Extreme Games 's
map and settings exactly without my knowledge. I shut the zone down as soon as I
found out and I apologize to Xalimar and Hydro for the mishap. If something like this
happens again, please let me know about it directly at risc_server@hotmail.com .
-Nfocipher
Since I received this message, the plot seems to have thickened. Wormhole Surfer, one of the original Extreme Games operators who according to news files of yore was fired, has signed onto the project and the EG clone, though gone again at the time of this writing, was alive and kicking this afternoon. This is not the first time Wormhole Surfer has been messed up in zone stealing. Some time ago he signed his name to a retiled version of the above mentioned Trench Wars map (very nicely retiled, to be fair) and that map ended up in a zone called Trench Wars II. The appearance at the moment is that Wormhole has been brought back under the pretense of being its original owner, much in the same manner that SSX Trench Wars is justified. If Wormhole was indeed fired from Extreme Games, then the parallel is almost certainly not in order.
I should point out that this may be partly my fault, since I did at one point tell NfoCipher that I thought he may have overreacted.
Today in Subspace History
This is a new section I'm doing cuz I feel like it and because I am such a packrat I will probably always have something to put here. Submissions are welcome, of course. Fuck, I don't actually have anything for today. Well, it's slim pickins but here goes. Don't worry, In a few years this will be a cool section. :]
I think I added that mine sound to the page.
I turned my weird Aussie friend Pl0k on to Fields of the Nephilim.
StarCraft missed yet another release date.
Me and some squaddies had a kick ass fight in the H2 base in Alpha Zone. Go try that if you've never done it. :)
22,222 Contest Fraud Shocker !
I was quite surprised the other day when I checked my mail again and found out that not one, not two, but three people had sent me screenshots of my 22,222nd hit. Hallu was horrified when he read that he had won this silly contest. In fact I was glad, because if the shot he'd sent me was genuine that meant I'd only had eight hits in nearly 24 hours, since it was only at 22,230 when I checked the page the next day. To complicate matters, Mine GO BOOM did the same damned thing! I am fairly sure that Danneskjold sent me a genuine one so thank you to him and apologies for the confusion this probably caused him, which was probably even worse than what I experienced. ;)
-
<Dariakus> what is the world's fascination with nude japanese schoolgirls
<Dariakus> no
<Dariakus> wait
<Dariakus> scratch that
<Dariakus> what is the world's fascination with japan?
<Dariakus> i saw godzilla again today
<Dariakus> i barely made it out alive
And the temple of love grows old and strong
But the wind blows stronger, cold and long
And the temple of love will fall before this
Black wind calls my name to you no more
-
N e w s o f t h e D a y
12 December 1998
-
GiGaKiLLeR and SilentDragon join the MMG
Turf's poet lauteate GiGaKiLLeR a.k.a. GiGaMoN and SilentDragon, god of the player zone snake tunnel map and euthor of the Trench Wars map you know and love ;) have joined the Mapmakers Guild as our 12th and 13th members. SD joins with a brand new full-size level for Chaos Zone, which I will have up as soon as it is tiled. Giga has just put together a mapfolio. He's got a lot of good designs here and I am kind of a fan of his, so check it out even if you hate maos and just want to see some pretty designs. :) SD, for his part, endured a lot of crotch-kicking from me in getting his map finished, and I want to say I think it is a kick ass map. Congrats and welcome to both.
VIE , RIP
The main page at Subspace Headquarters has been altered to notify of its impending disappearance. While the post only warns that "directory and scoring information for SubSpace will no longer be available" beginning on Wednesday, it also includes ominous words implying that user-hosted zones and websites are about to become all that is left of Subspace.Good riddance. On with the show.
Sage's 1 . 35 patch only a beta
sage386 has informed me that the patch he released to several zone sysops, which has since been widely criticized as unstable, is a beta version. The patch is still being worked on, and the final version may incorporate the CD crack. Meanwhile at least one other major effort is underway to create a fix for the Twister problem, this time by a small group of respected sysops and web folk. If you have means to help in this effort please feel free to contact me in confidence.I got a semi-new map up
A different version of The Li'l guardians, my second Chaos Zone map, is running in the Sheep Cloning Facility (SSX SCF West) today along with some funky settings which are being worked on. The map has been retooled for an as yet untitled super zone that will go up soon. It includes several War Zone bases, some defendable powerball goals, and a better open space for swarming and flag runs. It would be one of my better maps but I still haven't tiled it. ;) Please send me any suggestions, criticism, etc. Also take note that the zone is not presently protected against cheaters. Apologies for that; I'll have it in permission mode 2 soon.22,222 Contest Winner !
Many thanks to the immortal Hallu, special events badass for the World Subspace League, for screenshotting my 22,222nd hit.<Shanoyu> heh, i put in ur name into the anagram machine
<Shanoyu> and it crashed it
I went out drifting through the capitals of tin
Where men can't walk
Or freely talk
And sons turn their fathers in
I stopped outside a church house Where the citizens like to sit
They say they want the kingdom
But they don't want God in it
-
N e w s o f t h e D a y
11 December 1998
-
Map News
SilentDragon and GiGaKiLLeR are both about to join the Mapmakers Guild (finally, thank God) and both have mapfolios in the works. SilentDragon is joining with a brand new full sized (well, almost) Chaos Zone map which is BAD ASS. Meanwhile, there is talk of a well known Quake mapper converting SD's famous Trench Wars castle into a level for Quake II....camper's paradise! My mouse hand is twitching already.Me, I'm converting The Li'l Guardians, my second Chaos map, into a War Zone map for an as-yet-unnamed super zone. I'll post an image of it later on.
Slow Day
Not too much going on lately. It seems people are still blowing fuses coming to terms with the factthat Jeff's patch does NOT fix the Twister cheat. ;)I've been playing Extreme Games exclusively and I think it is quickly becoming my favorite zone of all time. Practically every single time I play there I find myself part of a big, decently coordinated team fighting long, pitched battles against another large team, and with a minimum of bullshit and whining. It's like swarming against squadmates in the Chaos West tunnels. The base designs have become very sophisticated, and the super-settings appearance belies a powerup system that is very much pro-greening, and very difficult to become good at. I'm going to put up more about this zone later today, or perhaps tomorrow. Meanwhile try it out. <SSX> !Extreme Games! ...and no I am not just saying this because I'm a mod there now. ;)
Infantry HQ has started squad signups, and left off the Space Police even though we are first on the ICQ list. Punks... Anyway, to sign up as an Infantry squad you need to have some organization toward Infantry activity evident on your squad's page.
In other rambling, I picked up a great cd which I happened to hear in the store while searching for something just like it. DJ Cam, Mad Blunted Jazz. Nice slow beats, consistent mellow atmosphere with sampled strings, vibes, piano, and of course scratching. Right about now is usually the time some obnoxious rapper or campy samples from television shows come in and ruin the feel of the record, but not, in this case the album is solid and doesn't deteriorate into any sort of a cacophony, at least on the first CD which is all I've heard so far. (It's a two disc set.)
Bleh . . .
I realize that right now I kind of sound like a rumor guy in a cheap video game magazine. (Is Quartermann still around?) Kinda tired is all....gimme 9 hours and I'll be back in form. (Whatever the hell that amounts to.)22,222?
Screenshot me my 22,222nd hit and I'll immortalize you in one of these silly bottom-of-the-page posts. ;) PLEASE do not reload my page just to get the screenshot as I actually use the hit counter [gasp] to see if my readers are being good li'l web bunnies or if I am boring them to death. Also it's cheating!<Shanoyu> The first time that e was ever wrong
<monocle> not really
<Shanoyu> This is quite obviously a milestone in eblana history
I went out walking under an atomic sky
Where the ground won't turn
and the rain it burns
Like the tears when I said goodbye
-
N e w s o f t h e D a y
9 December 1998
-
Two patches! Not one!
Since some people have been very confused about this, it should be clarified that there are in fact two patches out there now. They are totally different from one another and that difference should be noted.JeffP's patch
Plugs the hole which allowed players to hack sysop in player zones.
This is apparently in use on the VIE servers and some major server
banks have installed it already. It appears to be working fine. Jeff
confirmed his involvement on the Infantry HQ board.
sage386's patch
A patch for both the client and the server which claims to negate
the Twister cheat. Written by the author of the cheat itself, and
therefore dubious at best in the eyes of many. Apparently has
caused server errors in tests and no one is using it at present.
Since Jeff's patch does NOT deal in any way with the Twister cheat, you will probably not see Twister gone from the player zones any time soon. The best solution right now is to keep your zone well staffed and keep communication open between the mods. Set your permission mode to 2 so that new players can enter and spectate before they have permission to play, and include a courteous news.txt in order to avoid ticking people off. These tactics are working well in Extreme Games right now. I'll have a story on that tomorrow.
Infantry Holiday Sweepstakes
Georgia and Bishop22 announced a set of contests sponsored by Infantry HQ "to help raise the spirit of the holidays". If you can write or are a good artist, get over there. :) One of the prizes if Half-Life!Infantry HQ Holiday Sweepstakes
Turf League moves to RiSC
The troubled (and troublesome, heh) Turf League has found a permanent home at the RiSC server board. On behalf of the Sheep Cloning Facility I bid you hepcats adieu. Dolly especially wishes to send Her warmest farewell to a pez addiction in particular, who She says satisfied Her like no real man ever could. BAA!Sorry
I called LavaMan a cheater in Extreme Games this morning and tossed him into spec mode with insufficient evidence and no warning to his team, who suffered because of it. It was poor modding even if I'd had proof, and I want to apologize to everyone who felt its affects..Damn .
Thought I only missed one day but I missed two. How did that happen? Sorry...this is a short update for now because the story below is important. More later including a report from the front lines of the Twister Wars. ;)Small emergency . . .
Subspace PCGaming Com have lost their news posts for this month. If you've been there in the last few days please check your browser cache and see if you have the main.html page there. If you're using Netscape try searching the html files for the last week for text from any story you might remember there, and drag the resulting files into your browser to check them. I know there was a story about Suspended II; can't think of what else offhand. Thanks.I'm leaving these down here for a while .
I swear I'm going to fix that navbar! :)
News Archive
Mapfolio
Fonts
Links
yeah, nice interview i`d rather he was bastard tho, it would make me feel better
- Gommy
I went out walking through streets paved with gold
Lifted some stones
Saw the skin and bones
Of a city without a soul
-
N e w s o f t h e D a y
6 December 1998
-
A Working Ban Mechanism?
BD Vine at iNET has posted news of a possible way to make banning work properly in Windows NT and will be doing some tests over the next week to see if it is viable. Check their news page for more information.hydro speaks
Extreme Games, the most popular player-run zone since the heyday of Trench Wars--and now the unwilling home base of Subspace cheaters everywhere--shut down abruptly and without explanation early Saturday, and stayed off the map for well over 24 hours. For a time there was speculation that the zone might be down for good, and in fact, while the zone will go on, things are about to change drastically at EG. To quote the great Rod Humble, it's called VIGILANCE.Yesterday morning, I entered the zone to find the sheep msg modified,
and all the mods without power. I was soon told by everyone's favorite
lameass, sage386, that he had hacked smod/sysop status. I know he didnt
have full sysop, or any normal semblance of smod, because he wouldve
been able to destroy the entire zone. I immediately turned permission
back on and started revoking all of his known names. Within two minutes
he was back in the zone, so I shut it down.
From here I have two choices, continue on and share with the prick
what I've worked so hard on, or kill the zone and release the cfg's.
Neither choice is acceptable to me. What I'm going to do is make the
zone semi-private, using mine GO BOOM!'s suggestion of free spectating,
but permission only play. A few more mods will be hired to take care of
permitting all those deserving to play, and all mods will be Smods now to
guard against this hacked smod status.
For now, I'm working on a brand new map and tileset with Dr.evil. I
saw the clone that has started to come to life because of eg's shutdown,
and it reminded me of the layout of eg's old days(not the settings, just
the map layout). Look for a tournament in the coming weeks that will
try to involve all skills needed for success in Extreme Games.
Twister Help
Quick note for people linking from Wampit's post today at Warstrike. The information he mentioned is a new area of the How To section at Mine GO BOOM's Server Help page. Just to clear up any wrong impression I might have given, I didn't actually find it; the article is brand new and MGB sent me the url yesterday right after posting it.Sorry the page is still unfinished.
It's been such a newsy and busy week I haven't taken the time this page needs to have a correct frame structure and a good set of internal and external links. I promise these will be taken care of soon. Temporarily for your convenience:
<silentdragon> everything i say dont repeat
<silentdragon> heh
<silentdragon> EVERYTHING
<silentdragon> except funny things that have nothing to do with nothing
<silentdragon> are you even here?1
The world is a vampire, sent to drain.
Secret destroyers hold you up to the flames.
N e w s o f t h e D a y
6 December 1998
-
How to Stop Twisters
For those of you willing to wreak havoc on your server settings, Mine GO BOOM has added a section to the How To section of his excellent Server Help page. You'll be playing a different game, but it will be more or less cheater free, at least to a point where the benefits of cheating probably won't be worth the stigma they carry. There is also some important advice regarding the wisdom of speccing over banning as well as permission modes.Foil a cheater today.
Extreme Games Is Back
As reported earlier by my dubious source who happened to be sage386, Subspace's last great hope is back alive and kicking. Not a moment too soon, either. :) The cheating has worsened, with Twister users now warping into flag bases. One prick even hid a flag inside the map signature, a sick insult to one of the great mapmakers of the player zone world in my opinion. The game goes back to permit.txt on Wednesday. Props to Hydro and the other mods for hanging in there, and of course death to the cheaters.The greatest trick the devil ever pulled
was convincing the world he didn't exist.An interview with sage386, much-maligned author of the Twister cheat. I think you will be surprised. I certainly was. Enjoy.
Extreme Games Returning?
A questionable source has informed me that SSX Extreme Games will probably be going back up today. (I personally believe the source.) It seems that it was taken down due to cheating....so if you value your zones, stop cheating in them, people! Soon we will have none left.More on that source later...
Pro league Not Quite Dead
As has been widely reported, Ghost Ship has decided to effectively end Pro League. In a post Saturday to the Sog.Java.net main page, he said that the remainder of the season was canceled. Since then, it has become apparent that it may be possible to continue the playoffs through to the end of this season, although this will probably be another season after this. kboom asked in a post to the sog board that players show up for their matches this weekend. Repeat! Show up for your matches this weekend! Thank you. :)Good luck to Ghost Ship and the other LeaguePro gods with keeping the remainder of the season orderly and with whatever's next. Also to Eclipse, who yesterday retired from running the World Subspace League.
What went wrong . . .
Well, Suspended II fell flat on its ass. For this I blame not any one factor but a convergence of factors, and in the end I have only myself to blame for the mess.It could have gone off right; the configuration and map design were essentially done and we had some moderators ready to manage the game. The tilework looks like shit through no fault of the tilemaster, Roseo, who as you can see did a kickass job on the parts that were completed. A crash destroyed several hours of work, however, and in the end we decided that other issues were more pressing.
The big problem was that something was wrong with SSX's FTP server. This problem had actually been present for several days, but being new to non-VIE servers I'd assumed it was an error on my part, and neither double checked nor acted on it until it was too late. I should have confirmed my FTP days in advance, as well as several times on the day of the event. As it too often the case when there are too many things on one's mind, I failed to see the forest for the trees.
The last mistake pissed me off the most because it so easily could have been prevented. NfoCypher was kind enough to put up a server at RiSC, with no notice whatsoever. By that time, my mind was in a whirl and I stupidly sent him the wrong version of the settings--almost perfect but for a slight, minor error which, oh, well, which put all the players on the same damned team. :( By the time I caught the problem, NfoCypher had gone offline. Also missing from my brilliant server.cfg was the line designating an arena owner, so I was unable to ?getsettings and fix the problem by hand.
I was pretty surprised, then, that the ships and map (at least its center) were likeable enough that about ten to fifteen people hung around in the zone for maybe twenty minutes, teamkilling in the center greening pit. It was actually a lot of fun. It's my hope that when the game actually runs, teams will be faced with a difficult choice between weakening their defense and trying to conquer that area so as to keep their team well greened.
The game will be rerun, but not for some time. It will probably be two weeks from now. In the meantime, I will be keeping the map and settings up at either the SCF, RiSC Suspended, or both, and will be doing some map and config work on them, as I've had a few ideas and come to dislike a few elements of the map. I am in love with the Javelin's bombing runs and will probably giveit more opportunities to wall bomb the shit out of tunnel ratting war parties. Another element I plan to add is a ship, probably the Lancaster, with such a nasty charge rate that you will be unable to kill it without a weasel present.
Where is Extreme Games?
One of the oldest and most popular zones in the game--at times, the most popular zone--is gone from the server list without a trace. I am particularly upset by this because I used to play in the zone a lot and had only over the last week become reacquainted with it. The game has evolved into a multifaceted WZ game with its own weird culture and set of etiquette and slang. It was a great arena for solo play, but constantly there was a team game going on, and not the bullshit team play that has gone on in the VIE zones for so long, where the pubs refuse to flag. Always there are pubs playing the flag game in Extreme Games. Always they are responsive. Often you will see players sacrificing themselves for the good of a team--the way team games ought to work, in my opinion.People have often criticized Extreme Games as a super zone, and in some ways it is, with its instant kills, instant attaching, and diabolical networks of snake tunnels and vulch holes--but they said that about Zero Annihilation as well, yet in Annihilation what did we have? Obvious flaws aside, we had a nonstop, multi-team flag game. I'd rather compromise my ideals on settings and map structure than repeatedly be disappointed by the common absence of teamwork found for the last year or more in both War and Turf. More importantly, I'd rather play Subspace than sit in a 20 man arena talking about the good old days and who retired this week. That's what you do in Extreme Games--play.
Best of luck to the mods of that zone, who have put up with quite enough bullshit lately and are more than justified in quitting, if that's what they've done. I hope they haven't. If you have any information on what has become of this zone, please let me know.
Rydia
I'm sorry I gave a few people the impression yesterday that this page is shutting down. I simply wanted to put up a small memorial for a friend of mine who was killed last year by injuries inflicted in an automobile accident. She was 17 years old; I'd known her online since she was 12. Kind of a stupid point, but does mean something to me for whatever reason, is that she was probably going to become a squadmate of mine. Rottenly enough, I got my copy of Subspace that same day. Life sucks. Apologies, however, for piling yet more negative on top of what I know is already a shitty weekend for many of you.Fonts
A few people have complained that this font is hard to read and have suggested Arial as an alternative. I almost went and did it, but personally Arial is harder on my own eyes and I figure the opinion might be split. If you dislike the fonts I'm using please let me know so I can get a better guage on things.And like that. . .
I'm taking a day or two off. Gonna play some Quake or something.5 December 1998
The page is closed for today in memory of my friend Rydia, a.k.a. Melissa McLain, who died one year ago today. Out of respect to those who came to last night's scenario, I do want to apologize again for the problems, and send all possible thanks to the many people who helped me in my attempts to keep it together.
The Minefield will be back up tomorrow.
-God knows that the minefield never has had any content.
It needed some graphics to make it a good page.
Super.Fly.
You can have my isolation;
you can have the hate that it brings.
You can have my absence of faith, you can have my everything.
N e w s o f t h e D a y
4 December 1998
-
-
UPDATE
Scen will have to be held in SSX WarzoneSorry for the last minute changes
Suspended II - Saturday Morning - 1:00am Eastern
The map is being tiled as I write this, thanks to Roseo, and I should have it up tomorrow. An early version will go up late tonight and I'll be working on the configuration for it if you want to stop in and have a try at it. If you are playing in the scenario tomorrow night [1:00am Saturday is after all 10:00pm Friday) please try and get there a bit early.
-
Please note that the scenario is being held in the SCF West zone in SSX, not VIE!
-
Also, be sure and read the news.txt as it will contain any last minute information including any backup host we may have if necessary. If you can donate a backup zone for the evening, please let me know. :)
-
If you aren't signed up yet, sign up now. :) There is still time to get into the permission list, but once the game starts I am going to be closing the zone and no one who hasn't signed up will be let in. This is necessary in order to havea more formal-style scenario without such pressure on the moderators to deal with cheating and other bullshit.
-
You know those player zones where they tell you that you need to read the news.txt before you play? This aint like that. You won't get away with not understanding the ships in this scenario. Here, (if the game works the way I want it to!) your ignorance will cause your teammates to die constantly! =] So read up and be sure to set some macros.
-
The Ships.
Exclusive features in RED.-
Warbird - The fighter.
Guns and bombs.
No powerups.
Rockets.
Javelin - Long range bomber and transport.
Light armor. Very fast.
Bombs only. Drops them rather than firing them.
No powerups or specials.
Turret driver.
Spider - The cloaker.
Guns only.
Cloak and stealth.
Portals.
Turret driver.
Leviathan - The minelayer.
Heavy armor. Heavy ship, in fact. Maneuvers poorly.
Bombs only--with a hell of a kick.
L3 mines, and lots of 'em.
Xradar.
Terrier - A mobile pillbox.
No engines; must be transported.
High powered, long range guns.
Bricks, thors, portals.
L1 mines; high shrapnel.
Turret.
Weasel - The way it was meant to be.
Unarmed.
Bombs do no damage; 45 second EMP effect.
Antiwarp.
Rockets.
Turret.
Lancaster - The transport.
Heavy armor; poor charge rate.
Bouncing bombs. Increased damage with bounce.
No wormhole affect.
Turret driver.
Shark. - Scary little shit, aren't you?
Highly maneuverable.
L1 bombs; high shrapnel.
Bursts, repels.
-
Unless your ship is marked as a turret, attaching to a turret driver will cripple his ship and you should detach as soon as is safe.
The Terrier carries low powered mines, but they will be good for protecting tunnels with shrapnel. If you want a terrier to mine for you, have him attach and drive him to where you want the mines placed. It will be desireable to set up some moves in advance with other players. For instance, for a portal repel, the shark will want to ride on the spider, which is the only turret driver with portal capability.
The Powerball of Death! Please don't be shocked when this happens to you. You will want to pick up the powerball because it is a valuable weapon, but you will suffer severe penalties for picking it up. This, after all, is what makes it a weapon. When you pick up a powerball, a moderator will warp your ship, give you an engine shutdown and an energy drain, and downgradeyour ship several times. Obviously you don't want to be in the way when the enemy team comes down the hall with all three of these. Please note that you will NOT receive the downgrades for passing the ball between teams.
To win the scenario, you must control every flag in the arena. If a victory becomes impossible because of the circumstances of the game, or simply drags on too long, I or one of the other moderators will define a new objective or simply discount part of the map for the purposes of the game.
Please remember that this is just a scenario, and nothing about it is going to matter a week from now except whether or not people had fun playing. If a moderator screws up with the powerballs, please take it up with him briefly and then accept his judgment call. Sort it out in a duel later. The moderators will be doing something weird here which
-
Suggested Macros
//I need ANTIWARP at %coord.
//I need XRADAR scan at %coord.
//I need SHRAP MINES at %coord.
//I need PROX MINES at %coord.
//Safe to attach!
//UNSAFE - Please wait 10 seconds.
//Help has arrived. Thank you.
//CANCEL LAST.
-
//RESPONDING in 5.
//CLOAKER at %coord!
//I need REPEL at %coord.
//I need SHRAPNEL at %coord.
//I need a TRANSPORT at %coord.
//I need EMP at %coord.
//Calling for invasion posse at %coord in 30. Confirm readiness please.
/Attaching in 5; please get safe.
-
Sorry .
I realize I am failing to respond to some stuff and I owe some people my help and so forth. I also know I am forgetting some important news. I promise I will get right to everything as soon as I have this scenario all worked out. I planned too much stuff for this week and at the moment I am so busy with the scenario I may not get a chance to sleep before it happens, :P I do want to send a big thanks to Gommy for sending me 1.8 megs of maps and weird wav files. :)<Gommy> e!
*** Gommy has quit IRC (Killed (trapdoor.ca.us.dal.net (netcom-r.on.ca.dal.net <- services.dal.net[0.0.0.0])))
<Dar\Work> rofl
<Dar\Work> e!
<Dar\Work> he just committed suicide for you!
<Dar\Work> you have such devoted fans!
*** oneko has quit IRC (Client exited)
<Dar\Work> after shouting your name, he leapt into the trapdoor of doom
*** P13 has quit IRC (Connection reset by peer)
<Dar\Work> e secretly leads an underground suicide cult
<Dar\Work> i hereby declare today to be e-day
But if I had some time
I hope it's this time
Escape to somewhere beautiful
Then maybe I could really see the subtle things you see
I'd consider it such rare and privileged company
N e w s o f t h e D a y
2 December 1998
-
Argh .
A lot of stuff going on today, plus I need to set aside some time to work on non-Subspace things. (I'm serious. You don't believe me?) I promise I will get the specs on the Suspended II ships up tonight, or tomorrow morning at the latest. I also have a banner I need to spread around. Anyone good at fixing screwed up gif animations?When I can I will fix the out of whack links and be putting up a funky internal link frame thing that will be cool to have if I can make it work properly.
Another new Trench Wars map .
RuneCaster, formerly known as SS Jade Falcon, has put together a really nice map for Trench Wars. It looks kind of like an eagle. He's in the final stages of tweaking it at the moment. With luck it will be ready by the end of the week and hopefully end up in one of the TW zones."What's that green blobby thing?"
It's the symbol for the Cafe Eblana. The kingdom of Eblana was destroyed near the beginning of Final Fantasy IV, and its people persevered through a time of exile by living in a cave before emergying to rebuild. Six years ago, the Cafe was a Final Fantasy club; right now we don't know what the hell it is except that it is kind of cool and is slowly gobbling up Subspace players. =) The green blobby is our symbol, based on the shape of the island of Eblana.Space Polce® to launch "Ground Effort" .
I was kind enough to post an updated PolicyBriefing™ for the new activities which the Space Police® will be undertaking in the near future. Unfortunately, for the first several years we will be allowing only "peaceful" squads to operate in an Infantry capacity, but there will still be plenty of work for you people to do. If you are planning an infantry squad, be sure and consult with your assigned Benevolence Verification officer as soon as possible in order to avoid unnecessary preventive bombardments. Thank you.Please note that while the Space Police are not at present accepting applications, we're always willing to make special exceptions for our personal friends.
It's about that time again .
Today is my birthday, so if you're reading this send me a really old map. :) Shahab sent me this, which took up most of my morning. Make sure you are comfortable before you go here.
News archive is back up .
I think. Please let me know if there are any problems with this. The fonts you need for this page are linked from yesterday's news but I'll put a new link for them soon. I was going to just let people do what they want, but a few people have told me they really like the fonts so now I'm ordering you to go get them. =)
The Minefield News Archive
No ,
I have no idea how to synch up those counters. I'm using both of them simply because I don't trust counters.
<Shan\tiling> ever accutally taken a marker and drawn on those floor tiles?
<Shan\tiling> just so they don't annoy you?
<eisaway> no
<eisaway> did you?
<Shan\tiling> yes.
<eisaway> did you make a map?
<Shan\tiling> i used a tile set of blue and red smelly sharpies
Another Prophet of Disaster
Who says the ship is lost,
Another Prophet of Disaster
Leaving you to count the cost.
N e w s o f t h e D a y
Year Two
-
Safe at our new base; attach to defend .
Well, here it is: The big move to Warstrike. In no way complete, I hasten to add, but I wanted to get it done today. I launched this page exact one year ago. It's been a long haul but it's been fun, and I haven't stopped enjoying the work. And while I'm in no way happy to have seen other pages disappear, I am kind of proud that this is now one of the oldest Subspace pages. I'm going to expand it a little, but keep things simple and retain a Subspace/Infantry focus.
I do have a reason for the redesign, and a plan for better organization of the page, but that will have to wait a while as things are very hectic right now. I'm deficient in html so please excuse the sloppy code, messy links, etc, and do contact me with complaints or suggestions. Sorry in advance for the messy left frame. The name of the news page is news.html if that is an issue, though I promise to clear it up in the next few days.
Thanks again to Reaps and Wampit for setting me up; also Peasant's Paladin, SilentDragon, and especially Cybrid.
Pls get my fonts .
You're not going to miss out on a whole lot if you don't get these, but I think the page looks nicer with them and they are nice fonts to have around besides. There are only four of them: Metrostyle Extended, Futurist Fixed Width, Merchoba, and ArchitextOneType. It'll take you two minutes. :) If you're using Windows, they go in your windows\fonts directory; if you're using anything else you probably don't need my help.
Feast ur eyes on THIS ! =)
I pieced this together from the radar screens from five of the either game shots that have thus far been published. If nothing else, it's a new reason to drool on your keyboard. Personally I loved seeing this fit together because it provides a better view of how the maps are going to work and of the general sprawlness to the lay of the land in this game. If anyone can figure out how to piece the other three in here, I'd be very happy to see it done.
The most important thing I see here however is the discrepancy where the third and fourth radar screens down overlap. It seems to suggest one plane of map cropping out over another, somehow. That green dot down around H16 is Slick's tank, from the Payback's a Bitch bombardment (a.k.a. shot02.jpg). Careful examination of the scene supports this; take a close look at the shadows and how abruptly the diamond floor tiles end.
-
Until I know the name of this map I'm calling it The Outskirts. =)
-
Suspended II is three days away !
Just in case you still haven't signed up yet. :P
Suspended II Scenario Page
Sign up immediately!
Don't worry .
I never destroy much of anything, and I'll have all the original stuff up here soon, most of it reorganized but also with the old page hiding somewhere. If you need something from the old page, for now I am keeping it here.
No comments:
Post a Comment