<Shanoyu> We don't want it, obviously
blank page
was all the rage
never meant to say anything
N e w s o f t h e D a y
31 January 1999
Time better spent . . .
This will probably be of use to only a handful of people, but since I'm a mapmaker first and a newsie second, it constitutes my update for today anyhow, and in fact my update for the weekend. Apologies for the silence otherwise. Will update tomorrow with a more universal appeal, including Why Tribes Sucks. Stay tuned. ;)The Mapper's Handbook
Bonus
Since you're probably mad at me by now. Big badass of a midi culled from the soundtrack to the first Dune game for PC--a poorly rated graphic adventure to which the legendary Dune II played unlikely sequel. 28 minutes of rare Frank Klepacki for only 186k of your bandwidth. Oldskool lo-fi 16 bit sounds strongly recommended. Enjoy.<El_Famoso> so wheres the streaming Chakotay vivo I was promised?
we need a helping hand
we have lost our touch
if his shadow appears
we're going to fall apart
N e w s o f t h e D a y
27 January 1999
Harloch gears up for SCF events
Captain Harloch, SSX demigod and Star Warzone auteur, has announced the details of the first Slayfest event, with some additional information on the series in general and a hint at other games to possibly be held in the newly revived Philosophy Club. The Slayfest events will run every Saturday night at 8:00 Eastern starting February 6th. Expect to hear more from me on this over the next week as I am psyched for it.Bomberman
One of the new zones that came up this last weekend is probably going back down soon. This is because it's my zone and I'd prefer to open it now and then for an event or a request rather than have it sitting empty most of the time. I simply do not have the time to properly promote and manage a zone with such an unpleasant learning curve >:P and I think the bandwidth is better spent on something more intuitive. However, if anyone would like to host and run the zone, as long as the spirit is kept reasonably the same I have no objections. Contact me.
You want a super zone? I'll give you a super zone....
Philosophy Club opened up this last weekend to the tune of a beautifully simple, almost improvisational little map and the absolute best super settings I have ever seen. Each ship is refined almost to the point of its proper use being a puzzle of sorts. These are Mine GO BOOM's own settings, carefully refined from almost the day he found the local.cfg file in his Subspace directory. Visually beautiful, fast paced, and still with some room for skill to come into play. It's been like this for a few days now so get some people and check the game out before he moves next week's game onto the server.Meanwhile, the zone which pathological Find Servers junkies may have recognized as "several ninjas' dojo" has found what looks like a long term host and is now running under the name SSCE ninjas at the DS Games server bank. The settings are heavily under construction, but the map--though nearly impossible to fly in--is quite a spectacle, some of the most intricate and pretty tunnel design I've seen. You might remember several ninjas' old map when you see the new one as no one else puts together such nightmarish combs and tiny interlocking chambers that make Doc Evil and hydro's Extreme Game bases look like powerball maps by comparison. Not recommended for those on the edge of mental breakdown, but for the rest of you it is required flying.
The Mapper's Handbook
Not updated yet! Sorry, I am working on it. I know all five of you who still actually make maps for this are eagerly awaiting my revisions :P but I haven't had time to update just yet. I promise tomorrow! Oh and since the SCF isn't really a test zone anymore, I kind of need for someone to donate a zone that I can crash a few times, just for a day or so. That is, unless someone knows the maximum length for a map filename? If so please contact me.As promised . . .
The link to Bolero's Cheat Information Page that I left off yesterday. Not only an essential source for beleaguered zone ops but also becoming quite a readable news page. Pretty nice looking, too.Shanoyu
Update your page, you son of a bitch!<Murasame> you kids need the bible.
These are the dregs
The last grains of the age
N e w s o f t h e D a y
25 January 1999
-
Quick sloppy update
Apologies for the silence. I can imagine that nearly everyone who reads this page knows how busy things have become recently. As reported at iNET's news page, this was a very busy weekend by recent standards. There were a few more organized games than usual, and Baudchaser's world domination plan has lunged into full effect, the resulting flood of name changes quite striking to the eye. My post from Friday spurred a number of protests and rebuttals which you can read on the Pro League board. I've responded to these posts to the extent I think is reasonable, and probably should have followed my own advice which I mentioned at DS98 a week ago: let the argument wind itself out on its own and do something productive instead. I do want to address the remarks wick sent to Cybrid, as they imply I wan't aware of iNET's encouragement and that he explained this to me. That statement was incorrect, as I believe I was pretty clear both in Friday's post here and in private conversation with wick that I was aware of Baudchaser's involvement. He is, after all, the person who sent the global green invitation to the opening of VI Chaos. I'm happy to chalk up the information at the News.Txt to misunderstanding but I do not want it on record that I was unaware of the situation. I was not.Before I sign off on the VI issue, I do want to be very clear about one important thing. My condemnation of the way they've gone about the new servers has nothing to do with golgi. I have no knowledge of his involvement and do not consider him responsible for any of this owner nonsense. Further, my mention of "disreputable" people was not a reference to wick except insofar as he apparently claims to possess configuration files that could only have been gained through kboom's hacking of sysop powers in December. My apologies for any implied reference to golgi and for grouping wick in with the underhanded plotting and illegal activity that ruined the last days of VIE.
More important things happened this last weekend, though. Speed is back. We had a small but long and healthy game in DSG Speed Zone midnight Saturday, during which Mafia made a surprise appearance after (as far as I know) half a year gone from the scene. This was a tournament game, in fact a series of three games, with Red Reign being the easy victor. The whole thing was poorly organized and I'm not sure he was even aware of a competition. There will be another each Saturday until February 28, when the winners of each match will face off.
And for me the best news in months, though certain other individuals would argue it was not good news in general, is the upping of my map to A Small Warzone. This was an ancient map as far as my portfolio goes; in fact it was the first completed map I made unless you count the early version of 31 Flags. It was not designed specifically for ASWZ proper since it was begun in in December of 1997. It is a fun small arena for SVS but it failed in its early form as an ASWZ map. There were however some good bases, and over the weekend I redesigned the other bases to better go with them, opened up the map's center area, and basically turned what was originally a design-as-you-go level that irritated me in places and had a lot of problems, into a tight map that I am proud of. I've had a chance to play in all of the bases but one and am pretty confident of that one. The others are surprisingly balanced and there appears not to be a favorite among them as is so often the case. Player zone regulars as a rule aren't accustomed to weak bases or tunnel systems that can be navigated without hitting the walls, and mDk, who now runs ASWZ, remarked that he thought there was a bit of culture shock underway. I was worried that the map might damage the zone, but it did rather well actually. mDk took a lot of heat for what he did and he stood very firm despite no real precedent to go by, and further he did me a service by filtering a lot of general criticism from the zone population into information I could use in redesigning the level. You'd think that after and a half at it there wouldn't be much a person could learn about mapping, but I've learned a hell of a lot about it this weekend--not only on an artistic level, but on a technical one, and I'll probably spend most of tomorrow's update on my mapmaking guide rather than news.
On a related note, I mentioned Friday that we were having trouble putting the map up. It was silentdragon who eventually saved te day. I'll explain exactly what happened tomorrow in the guide update, as it is a bit complicated to go into on the fly.
I'm page of the week at Bolero's site. :) Cool. Bolero for his part is updating his page constantly and building a hell of a name for himself in the process. It's apparently in transition at the moment but I'll link it when it comes back up.
An important note from NfoCipher I've been meaning to mention. NEVER set arenamode=1 in your server.ini file! This opens a door to untold havoc...remember that smoking yellow stuff in Time Bandits? Well, you need to see Time Bandits, I guess. Anyway, don't touch it, it's EEEEVEIL.
Sorry for the mish-mash today...a return to Proper Form awaits you tomorrow, rest assured. Hopefully: A real update....info on a few of the new zones that went up this weekend, some thoughts on the whole SSC thing, and most importantly in my opinion a good size update to the Mapper's Handbook.
Remember that we are all tiny spaceships and we all bounce off the same ugly 256 color walls. Oh yeah, don't forget TurfNight Tuesday in the SCF at 7:00 Eastern. ;)
<PPaladin> I must have a big sign on my head saying 'lamers wanted, inquire within' now doesn't that make you feel better?
the pigs have won tonight
now they can all sleep soundly
and everything is all right
N e w s o f t h e D a y
22 January 1999
-
New Zones
The much-hyped DSG Monolith makes its grand opening today. This is intended as the flagship server for the DS Games server bank, and is of The Regent's own design, including a custom map with a nice, open base. What's unique about this zone is that a full blown game requires the attention of a moderator; the player who makes a powerball goal while his team holds the map's only flag is powered up with a super ship, which he keeps until he dies. The map itself is pretty simple but has a few nice features, and the general settings are moderate superzone style a la Death Star Battle; what makes this zone is the atmosphere of it, dark and open and lonely and very well matching the press releases that The Regent put together for it a couple of weeks ago.Philosophy Club has finally returned in the flesh and is up and running at the SSX servers under the command of Mine GO BOOM. It will be changing its game weekly to host new zone ideas and is taking submissions now.
VI Chaos went up last night and offers a "Chaos West" style game for players in the United States who connect using a 9600 or 14400 baud modem. I have more to say on the topic of this zone further down the update.
RiSC is now hosting Bomberman, my zone which ran for a while in the Sheep Cloning Facility last summer and was one of the more popular games there. The game features a central spawn box which tends to be a bust trap. Aside from being able to score points, holding the flag chambers at the far east and west ends of the map enables your team to break down the defenses of the opposing flag chamber, and ideally makes it possible for you to pin down the enemy in the spawn box using bomb lines. First person to complete a full hour's game without killing any of his teammates wins a prize. ;)
by the way, Baudchaser sent out a message this morning asking for everyone not to put up new zones. Sorry man, looks like you should maybe have sent that out yesterday. ;)
-
Yet another reason violence IS the answer
As if we didn't already have enough reasons to burn down Switzerland, here's another. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the International Lyrics Server was shut down by an evil cabal of fat, greedy music industry lawyers with the help of friendly officials at Swiss law enforcement. This was a fan-organized searchable lyrics archive which has been around for years, I visited it almost daily--like everyone else, to find the words to songs on CDs that I own, and the assertion that it was somehow sapping money from the lucrative lyrics sheet industry is preposterous. Read the story here.-
War Zone game tonight - now at iNET
The weekly big War Zone game is tonight at 7:00 eastern time. Bring your friends and squaddies and be sure to p1mp your own weekly games; it's only fair. ;) Please remember that SSX Warzone East is dead now and War Zone has now moved to iNET Warzone SVS.-
Turf Zone has a new home
GiGaKiLLeR has finally got a dedicated host for Turf Zone with the server bank, and da Reverend Spork has revamped the zone's home page to celebrate. My understanding is that the TNT event will remain in the Sheep Cloning Facility on Tuesday nights while the zone proper will sport smaller maps for players to rumble in throughout the week.-
New map up for testing in ASWZ
It happens to be mine. ;) It actually predates ASWZ itself so it might work properly with the settings, but give it a try anyway or, well, or you'll be sorry. It is not up and running just yet as it seems to be giving the client a few problems, but hopefully later in the day it will be running. Thanks to mDk for the chance--I've been trying to get this map hosted for well over a year now--and especially to QA Man at PCGaming for helping us figure out what the hell is wrong with the poor thing.-
Can you be any more ignorant?
The ignorance and self-important attitude of the Pro League community has struck again, this time in the form of new zones going up at the VI server bank to accompany LeaguePro and Jackpot. Chaos VEast is presently up, with Warzone VEast scheduled to make its entrance Monday. To wit:All of the zones have identical settings to those used at the actual VIE zones they are replacing.
Excuse me? The VIE zones they are replacing? Chaos and War both have homes at iNET and are being run by the people Blackie chose to manage them last March. These zones are struggling already, and the people who have now run them for ten months have been to hell and back to secure them at reliable servers. It is unforgivable to split the populations they have worked so hard to move and to keep, in service to the lag needs of a few thin-skinned Warbird pilots--and wick's peacemeal attempt to undo the damage with a flimsy pronouncement that these zones "are in no way replacements for iNet" is laughable.
The VI name is not legitimized simply by the fact of the people running it, some of whom have questionable reputations anyway. The Subspace community will not welcome you with open arms simply because you have a fast connection and a good machine; you must also display merit. Specifically, you must observe proper form and good faith in not springing out of nowhere at your own convenience and attempting to thwart the work of far more experienced and better qualified people. It bears mention that wick doesn't have the old VIE settings for either War or Chaos, and he certainly doesn't have the versions that were being used at the time War MEast and Chaos GEast moved off of VIE.
This comes only a day after Baudchaser was remarking on iNET News that it was time for the server administrators to get together and clean out the unpopulated and redundant zones which he complained help to split the player base into small arenas. "I have suggested," he wrote, "that these 5 zone host coordinators set down a council, so we can get rid of the empty zones that give Subspace the 'Ghost Town' look." only hours later, a billing-wide green message invited the combined populations of iNET, SSX, RiSC, and DSG to the grand opening of VI Chaos. The council proposal is going to have a hard enough time getting off the ground anyway without having to climb up out of mixed signals like this one.
The lag limits have been raised substantially at iNET; live with it, quit complaining, and fight like a man. At very least, ownership of these new VI servers should be offered to the players who presently run iNET War and Chaos, but given the way these zones are going up I doubt either Peasant's Paladin or Bortas would be dumb enough to accept the offer. The whole way wick and the other people involved are going about this is just another example of the contempt that League culture as a whole has always shown toward the community at large, best summed up in the subject header of a no-text most to the sog.java.net board by an anonymous poster who was conceited enough to sign his message Subspace Community. "Wick," fellated Subspace Community, "we want flag server! :)"
Retire already.
<StormCat> lol i do make maps, and i am running the infantry mmg.
<StormCat> let me send you the map i made just yesterday
what have i become?
my sweetest friend
everyone i know
goes away in the end
Asshole Appreciation Day
19 January 1999
-
SSX Crackup - War Zone moves to iNET, others to follow
While the iNET community dealt late yesterday with the compromising of its billing server security, Xalimar cracked down within SSX, assuming (despite no accusation by Baudchaser) that the havoc had been brought about by someone who was "most likely an SSX sysop". FTP access was revoked because of this--an apparently temporary move which Xalimar said would become permanent and encompass all sysop powers should the password be leaked again. Such policy would make life near-impossible for frequently changing zones such as make up nearly half the SSX roster.
This came only a day after an unannounced and ill-explained server move left SSX War Zone players locked in spectator mode in their own zone. At one point the map and settings were changed without explanation. Peasant's Paladin announced today at his homepage that the zone will now be relocating to the iNET server bank. If the situation continues, at least three more zones including Extreme Games--possibly as many as six by my estimate--are likely to seek new hosting as well in the near future.
To give you an example of the cripping nature of this approach toward hosting: Sunday night I was shifting things around on the Subspace Weekly Events page, partly in anticipation of events I hoped to organized before they took place. It being late, I got my days mixed up and scheduled a game to run in the Sheep Cloning Facility less than 12 hours later. Monday afternoon I realized that I had scheduled a game for that day, and though it was likely no one would show due to short notice, I hurried to set up the game I had advertized. Upon logging into my isp, I found the SSX servers gone completely. An hour later they would resurface, with their sysop data changed and myself powerless to make any alterations.
This was in fact a stroke of good luck.
Why? Because had I come online only an hour earlier, I'd have thrown up my settings before Xalimar's alterations, and GiGaKiLLeR would not be able to run the weekly turf game tomorrow. If things don't change very soon, it will be impossible to run a scenario planned for next weekend which will require another set of changes. Even with owner settings enabled, it is impossible to expect a zone operator to manually change an entire zone's configuration using the ?getsettings command. It is also irresponsible to write fresh configuration over the template of an already non-standard server.cfg file because of the problems it can cause. Speaking for myself only, I don't feel that the Sheep Cloning Facility can survive in an unstable and hostile atmosphere, and the zone will be moving within the next week unless the situation changes very dramatically.
-
Interview with StormCat
War Zone's own StormCat, formerly of the celebrated and now sadly defunct World of Subspace page and now best known for his work on the upcoming StormCat's Infantry Gallery, sounds off on his bold plans for a new Infantry Mapmakers Guild in a Minefield exclusive interview. There may already be a lot of great Infantry pages, but we can always use one more. ;)
<Pl0k> WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU
<Pl0k> SUBSPACING AGAIN NOT I HOPE
If only tonight we could slide
into deep black water,
and breathe...
N e w s o f t h e D a y
18 January 1999
-
iNET billing server passwords leaked
SSX down; key iNET zones missing
4:10pm All of the SSX servers have been taken down temporarily following an apparent leak of the iNET billing server password. This comes only a week after a merger of SSX into the iNET billing server, which was hailed as a new dawn of centralized Subspace. The sysops of the SSX zones received the following from Xalimar, the server bank's administrator:
TO ALL SSX SYSOPS:
Today somebody leaked out the password to the iNET billing server. Most likely an SSX sysop. This caused a LOT of problems for both SSX and iNET. Baudchaser has changed the password on it but if the password leaks again SSX will not be allowed to use his billing server. I will also revoke EVERYBODY'S sysop access. Right now FTP is down completely until tomorrow.
Being one such sysop, I will reserve my opinion on the matter until I've had a chance to talk at length with Xalimar. SSX has been one of the most tight knit server banks, and I can say from personal experience that there has been a minimum of bullshit between the sysops and moderators, and an uncommon amount of support and cooperation. Without sysop access, many of the zones hosted by SSX will be unable to change map and settings on the fly or competently run events, and will surely leave--breaking up one of the friendliest communities in Subspace. Reading between the lines, it appears that this may well be a very nearly permanent policy. In followup, Xalimar threatened that "if somebody decides its fun and does it again I guess I can't give people access to that kind of info..taking away sysop is the only way to do that."
The beginning of the end continued unabated.
-
Hyksos' Hangar closes
One of the best personal Subspace pages and a crucial source for iNET players has closed down. Hyksos, squad captain of One Spirit, explained in his update on the 13th that he no longer has the time to maintain the page properly and that Wednesday's update would be his last. The page's archive will remain up at Warstrike, however, and Hyksos will continue to bring us regular editorial pieces courtesy of Infantry Warstrike Com This is a loss for the game at large, but I look forward to the Infantry pieces.
Here is the first of those articles.
- Extreme Games homepage opens
After nine months of activity, the flagship zone of the SSX server bank has finally put up a homepage . Largely the work of Captain Harloch, it features helpful explanations of the ship types and other zone wisdom, plus info on events, staff, and the zone Hall of Fame. A messageboard seems to be on its way as well.
Additionally, Harloch has now settled on an official time for his series of scenarios in the Sheep Cloning Facility. These were initially to be only Star Wars related scenarios, but now it appears as though Extreme Games may be running scenarios on that night as well. -
Friday's WZ Game
This last Friday, the official replacement for VIE War Zone GEast broke its own post-VIE arena size record for the third consecutive week, topping out at 74 players this time and lasting well into the night. This was in no small part due to the fact of something I'd hoped would happen: cross pollenation from other SSX zones. There were private frequencies present representing both Turf Classic (which now meets weekly in the Sheep Cloning Facility) and Star Warzone. I must thank the Turf players, since I had been asking them to participate, but Captain Harloch's freq came without any prodding, as far as I know. Very cool. The largest game was unfortunately ruined at the last moment by a cheater, and a confusing server change anouncement Saturday thwarted several people's attempts to get a game started, but hopefully the trend will continue. Now let's see some War Zoners come to the TurfNight Tuesday game for a change, eh? ;)
DSG> Speed Zone permanent, Mafia map may return
Minbari Warship of the DS Games zones has informed me that the Speed Zone server recently set up there is not a pre-contest placeholder, and will remain up indefinitely. Several good sized games have been played there already, and Minbari has expressed an interest in running Mafia's long-abandoned Speed Zone West map as well as other, newer maps made for open space dogfighting zones.Philosophy Club to return
VIE's old scenario and testing zone, Philosophy Club, is gearing up to return after a year and a half on the shelf. It had a false start this last September when Blackie agreed to let Mine GO BOOM run the zone at the VIE servers; due to the sudden collapse of VIE support and the company's sale to Electronic Arts, this never happened. Now plans have been made to host the zone at the SSX server bank: MGB announced yesterday on his Server Help page that the zone should be up sometime within the next week. Oddly enough, in ancient times the Philosophy Club was a venue for scenarios, while it's sister zone the Sheep Cloning Facility ran tests and other experiments. The roles are now reversed quite by coincidence: the SCF has over the last eight months evolved from a test zone into a scenario and events zone, while MGB has designed the new Philosophy Club to focus on weekly guest hosting of new game styles. To that end, if you have a map or settings you would like tested, contact him with the details now as there will likely be some competition for the space.Well actually, if you only have a map you'd better send it to me ;) but if you have both I guess you can send it to him...
Philosophy Club
DataMunky has left the building . . .
Subspace's second greatest mine repeller (and so by definition my sworn ally for life) has retired from the game for what will probably be a year's time, as he will be moving from Australia to Brazil to study as an exchange student, not to mention drink and womanize his way into Hell. ;) DataMunky has been of great help to me with the Sheep Cloning Facility and my scenarios and I--along with probably everyone else who knows him--will miss seeing him in the game. He has promised to get back on the internet once he has settled himself there--a promise we mean to hold him to, employing the use of low yield thermonuclear devices if necessary.
Take care of yourself over there Data, have fun and don't forget to write.
His fellow Aussie T@urus had this to say.....
Hi, I thought that I should bring to ur attention that the great Datamunky is
gone. He left for Brasil this morning, and wont be back for 12 months. U may be
lucky and see him once in a blue moon, but the chances are slim.....what I would
like is for everyone who knew DM that has a homepage, or if u have an SS
homepage, be sure to post a little message for him. Thankx heaps..
P.S HAVE A BLAST BRO
T@uruS
DataMunky left Subspace sporting a 150-0 win:loss in iNET Chaos Expert.
<xalimar> damn i'm gunna be on a pub in turf
You have slept now for a thousand years
beneath starless nights.
And now it's time for you to renounce the old ways
and see a new dawn rise.
N e w s o f t h e D a y
14 January 1999
-
iNET and SSX billing merger
Baudchaser and Xalimar, the admins of the iNET and SSX server banks, have joined forces after a fashion and registered all of their zones under one common billing server. The good news is that squad and ?chat channels will now reach across a total of 17 different zones. (Why the hell did I ever oppose this?) While this brings back an important aspect of Subspace whose disappearance has done much damage to squad culture over the last several months, there will be issues of name and squad overlapping that need to be sorted out, and there have been some complaints about increased lag at iNET. Let's hope it goes well so this game can have a true center again soon.
Subspace at iNET Online Gaming
Subspace X
-
Turf is back!
Or so it would seem. Owing to a lot of good publicity and better than usual organization, Tuesday's game in the Sheep Cloning Facility drew a medium sized crowd peaking in the high teens--far better than recent turnouts. Thanks to GiGaKiLLeR's map there was a lot of team tunnel action despite these relatively small numbers, and the game lasted about three hours.
A few people asked me to post scores for the night and after looking into it I've concluded that it really isn't possible. Next week I will reset everyone's scores so that at the end of the night we can pick an MVP and all that good stuff.
Meanwhile, in Turf's capacity as a zone per se, Giga mentioned on the Turf Classic Homepage that, with the help of Peasant's Paladin, the zone has secured what looks to be a reliable source of ongoing hosting for Turf, courtesy of Sabre. It's likely that the weekly game will remain in the SCF for some time while the dedicated zone remains there throughout the week with the classic map or one of the newer maps made for small arenas.
I want to say thanks to all the people who helped spread the word and came to play and helped to moderate the game. It was one of the smoothest running organized games I've ever been to, with basically no BS whatsoever. See you next week. Well, actually...
War Zone game Friday night (again)
Don't forget! Same time as always. 7:00pm Eastern. Anyone want to start a Turfies freq? ;)
Subspace Events Page
I started this a little while ago but hopefully it will grow on its own now. Peasant's Paladin set up a new directory for a dedicated Subspace Weekly Events page and it is growing quickly. I believe very strongly that the force rotting this game has not been that players are leaving but that they spend fewer hours in the game. Why do they spend fewer hours in the game? Because their favorite zones are active only rarely, or never. Creating focus points for different types of games in the form of special events can in time mean that every variety of Subspace has an active incarnation at least sometimes. It is my conviction that through this strategy we can increase the average number of people playing at any given hour substantially, without actually increasing the number of players overall. If you want to help increase the life of this game, support the regular weekly events and other special games. Even if they aren't your style, think of them as a way to recruit players to the game you like.
Subspace Weekly Events
Get Subspace!
The cat is out of the bag, and practically everyone with 7 megs of spare webspace is now hosting the full version of Subspace along with the CD crack for your downloading pleasure. For your newbie friends I've put together a short primer on the morality of pirating this game along with links to most of these pages and archives, many of which themselves offer player guides and other newbie oriented material. Spread the word and let the civil disobedience begin!
Get Subspace an' stuff.
Chaos rides again
After a long time away from Chaos East (now officially moved to iNET Chaos Expert), I finally returned to the zone today to find it doing very well indeed. I was there to take a screenshot for DataMunky's stats for him (dear God, he has a 150-0 win:loss ratio) and it struck me that this must to be the most amazing recovery I have ever seen from a zone venue change. After little more than a week's time, this server is once again the most popular zone in Subspace. Its move to iNET allows the impressive roster of mods to deal in a real way with cheaters as well as run special events and put up ad banners. If you ever enjoyed Chaos, get back there soon. It's heading for a renaissance.
There is an elimination event scheduled there for this Saturday which will require signups no later than tomorrow. Check their page for details.
Subspace Net RealAudio Archive
SilentDragon put these up some time ago and I forgot to link them. Throughout the summer of 1998, the Subspace.Net page in cooperation with some of the player hosts put together a RealAudio program which during its short lifetime provided this game with a fun, weird surprise that for many will remain an irreplaceable aspect of that period in Subspace's history. I didn't like the show very much, but I really miss it anyway. Silent has archived all of the programs at The Spiral. They're kind of big, but bookmark em and save it for a rainy day or something.
The Spiral's SS Net RealAudio Archive
It sucks, but get RealPlayer here anyway.
<Shanoyu> this sheep thing is sick!
Trust in me through closing years;
perfect moments wait,
If only we could stay.
Please say the right words...
or cry like the stone white clown,
and stand forever
lost forever in a happy crowd.
N e w s o f t h e D a y
12 January 1999
-
Trixter has a son
Taken directly from the news dot text...
Sunday, January 10, 1999
Houston, we have a boy. 6:00 PM BlackHorse
Zachary Stephen Fisher was born 9:35am Sunday, January 10th,
1999. Zachary was born at 37 1/7 weeks old, and even being a bit
early, weighted in at 6 pounds, 10 3/4 ounces.
Zachary has a Diaphragmatic Hernia, which is very much life
threatening. He is a very sick little boy, but doing extremely well.
Please send him, Trixter , and Roxanne your prayers, as Zack needs
every little advantage he can get.
Welcome to the world Zack!
Zack may not respond to emails for a few years. ;)
Turf League closes; Turfnight moves to the SCF
I apologize for posting the first half of this story so late. As reported at the Turf League page on the 8th by the Reverend Spork, FlippMode sent out a mail officially closing down Turf League and apologizing for what he called "something that has to be done". The League has been plagued by no-shows and server changes ever since it started, and by the time it had a dedicated server the organization seemed to have more or less crumbled. "Most of you," Flippmode explained in his letter, "will agree this is long overdue." The zone donated for Turf League by the RiSC server bank went down the following day, leaving Turfnight without a home.
Since setting up Turf games at the last minute has proven fatal in the past, I set up a game in the Sheep Cloning Facility, and after discussing the matter with GiGaKiLLeR (sysop in exile of Turf Classic ) and Rev.Spork, who started TurfNight the game has been officially moved there for as long as they like. GiGaKiLLeR remains in charge of the game so go to him with any questions or complaints, though I'll be happy to help out. Also keep in mind that Turf is going to be sharing the zone with at least two other weekly games, so the map and settings won't be up for all of the week.
Game time is Tuesday at 7:00pm Eastern as always.
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Cybrid goes off
http://www.warzone.com/columns/cy/ It was bound to happen; we all knew that sooner or later Cybrid was going to tell us what he really thinks. ;) Another story I should have posted on Friday that slipped past me. The first installment of Cybrid's new monthly Soapbox column is up and it is some damned good readin as one might expect. All hail the dot man.
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DS98 Zones!
Destruction 98 sent out a mailing announcing the impending opening of four news zones under the DS Games imprint. One of these zones, The Monolith, has already been described; another in the works should be announced next week, and the remaining two will be decided in a contest.
The DS folks also broke their silence on the subject of pirating Subspace, giving a tentative nod toward endorsing it and possibly hosting the full version and crack in the future. This in the wake of Cybrid's recent words at his Soapbox page (see story above). For now, they have linked to Dark Mage's Subspace Page. Warez aside, this is looking to be a pretty nice page in itself. Have a look, and link it often. Do it for Dolly.
Infantry Stuff
Another new sister site to subspace.warstrike.com opened yesterday--the long awaited Infantry page. In celebration of the event, ljc of Harmless Games, author of SSME, granted an interview and informed inf.ws.com webmaster pet virus that the map editor might not be released with the game. Lovely. (Will someone please turn Rod Humble onto first person shooters?)
Meanwhile, Georgia revamped Infantry HQ for a new luck and a better organized surf all around, and in spite of my growing lack of enthusiasm for the game I must say that this page is fast becoming one of the best Subspace related pages ever. Very nice.
We also have another new Infantry site in the Infantry Outpost, maintained by my bad sheepin' homey Mailliw along with the the feared and hated Fiber Optik. ;) It's just starting out but it has an uncommon and very tight look to it. Good luck with the page, guys.
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Asher's Dominion
Part news site, part graphic design page, this went up in October and sports a lot of nice images and some interesting content otherwise, updated often. We're going to have an official-type link exchange sometime soon for a zone I am working on, for entirely coincidental reasons I won't disclose at the moment. ;) Have a look.
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Bolero Speaks
But not just yet. This is a bigger story than I can handle at the moment, consisting of a couple long letters to me and a good sized webboard thread. I'll post a story on the subject after I have a chance to talk with Bolero.
On Whores . . .
I apparently upset a few people with last update's mention of the "whore vangels" of Chaos East. To clarify the nature of that remark, it was meant to be a playful barb at people I consider friends and allies. The ^H^H^H is an old standby of UNIX humor. It used to be that if you didn't set your backspace up correctly, various chat clients would send a ctrl-h instead, leaving the backspacer with the illusion that he had erased his typos or embarrassing statements when in fact what he sent was what he originally wrote, then a bunch of control characters, and then his corrections.
Get a fucking clue!^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HMy sincerest apologies for the misunderstanding.
Upcoming very important days
January 15, 1998 - Moolie Zone opens to the public.
January 16, 1974 - Kate Moss is born to an undeserving world.
<tennin> i had a dream about subspace, and i've never even played it
All I need is a little time
to get behind this sun and cast my weight.
All I need's a peaceof this mind,
then I can celebrate.
Redemption?
8 January 1999
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sage386 posts the Twister sources
After several weeks of reluctance, the infamous author of the Subspace Twister cheat program has released the source code for his work, apparently hoping that it will aid anti-cheaters in the authoring of patches and other foils. sage has on several occasions claimed that he never intended for the cheat program to spead beyond his immediate circle of friends.
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War Zone Game - Tonight at 7:00pm Eastern
Don't forget! We finally got the game into full gear last Friday, with the zone population reaching over 50 players for the first time in nearly two months. As a result, at least one full blown game started on its own this week, and War Zoners are apparently beginning to take charge of their zone. Don't pass this one up; War Zone is a pillar of Subspace and every effort should be made to keep it alive and well. Be there tonight and be a part of one of the best fights in the game. Yes, especially you Turf players; maybe you can get some of the WZ crowd to come to the game Tuesday night. (Hint.)
Rumor has it that certain factions within the Forces of Good™ are putting pressure on Peasant's Paladin to bring out the classic Arctos III map for the occasion. What do you think? ;)
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Alpha Zone returns
In many ways Alpha Zone has been dead for quite some time, and yet it lived in various forms. Without mods it was a haven for cheaters through much of December. After kboom uploaded his infamous 2.0 patch, it cleared out for the most part but resurfaced as a fake-Blackie zone, i.e. a player zone running a subgame.exe hacked to allow phony usage of the VIE name.
Alpha Zone is officially back, as far as I am concerned. SilentDragon has set up a server with SSX sporting the classic map and settings. While the mod infrastructure isn't together yet, you can probably report cheaters to the usual gang of reptiles and see results soon after. We at SSX do not take kindly to brick castles and walls of thors. ;) For now, get your ass to J13. The place is getting lonely.
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Chaos Zone returns as well
Meanwhile, in the last few days the Vangels of VIE Chaos East have picked up and moved their entire operation to iNET Chaos Expert. This is now the official home of VIE Chaos Zone so get on over there. Bortas is still running the show where the Vangels are concerned, although Super.Fly. will retain his sysop position in the zone. To celebrate the occasion, the Chaos East whores^H^H^H^H^H^HVangels have redesigned their home page to look exactly like all the other iNET pages. We at the Sheep Cloning Facility are proud indeed. BAA! :P
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Twilight of the cheaters?
This could well be the end. Bolero's Subspace Cheat Information Page is regardless one of the best things to have come along in the last several months. The awareness alone of these cheats servers the game well, but consider the ramifications of the anti-cheat program developed by Bolero himself: The Deliverer claims to detect between 81% and 100% of various cheats, and at the user's option will deliver a teardrop nuke to the cheater in question.This nuke is said to avoid the DUN 1.02 patch and work against Windows 98. If true, this is in itself a story, but we'll have to wait and see.
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SNT shuts down
After a star-studded firestorm of bellyaching, replacements for VIE Chaos and League zones went up three weeks ago along with an unmanned "Super Zone" at the SNT internet provider. They were recently shut down because not a single person entered them. Is it my imagination or should certain people have been more clear about where they intended to go for hosting, hmm? Let's try and not generate any more of this sort of ill will in the future.
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The official homepage of Poor Form™
Shanoyu of the mighty Space Police has begun a damned weird news page focusing on a diverse set of topics. Packed with obscure links and of course every bit as readable as fans (if you can call shellshock victims fans) of Shanoyu's messageboard posts might expect. Just wait til he gets mad. ;)
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Quake III movie!! :D
This sucker is over two minutes long, a full-blown avi of a Quake III demo which is the most amazing thing I have ever seen. I mean that very seriously. Visually there is absolutely no comparison to anything else yet made; it is at once beautiful and horrifying, and the potential for new elements in the gameplay looks incredibly rich. It looks like Quake is back to its gruesome basics, and this game will be the closest thing yet to walking through a very bloody H.R. Giger painting.
Apparently this was first posted at GamesNet. The demand for this is obviously pretty high but I got a decent transfer rate from U-Net. (This is a direct link to the file.) Thanks to the immortal SoSD for the heads up.
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Gentlemen, start your jetpacks . . .
The finalists have been chosen in the Infantry HQ fanfic contest, and a few people you probably know are in the running for the grand prize. You only have a few days to vote so make a pot of coffee and find a place to curl up with a nice thick stack of printout.
<Chakotay> Rear Admiral? is that a new word for homosexual?
This time make no mistake:
Resolute and crystal clear, this time I'm ready for you.
N e w s o f t h e D a y
7 January 1999
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Affirmative Action on the Net
I just found out that Norton Utilities' definition of a crash is relative. That is, it recovers crashed programs not by resolving the error or saving any working information, but by crashing everything else that is running. Thus my update for today is reduced to a notch in Bill Gates' big wrestling belt. Special thanks to ljc for making it all possible.
I haven't the time to rewrite the update but I'll try and do it late tonight. In the event that I am eaten by giant rats on my way home, please remember to PLAY IN WAR ZONE TOMORROW NIGHT AT SEVEN EASTERN. Thank you.
<SoSD> the least you could do is recover from your drunken stupor enough to say happy new years :P
remember that time that the trees fell down
the wood crashing through the wall
remember the sound that could wake the dead
but nobody woke up at all
H a p p y N e w Y e a r
5 January 1999
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Where in the hell are you?
Heh. Well I've been a bit busy. My apologies for not updating in recent memory, especially to those people who check the page every day. I feel I've sort of abused a trust since I updated nearly every day of December then suddenly vanished, and so an explanation is in order--but the apology part of that explanation ends here.
A convergence of two elements basically removed me from the game, only one of them vaguely holiday oriented. First, Tribes came out. Not only is this game nearly as good as Subspace but it has a healthier community--really a better community. More optimistic, less set in their ways, more open to new ideas. I hope that with many of the the people who are the antithesis of that set in the Subspace community leaving after the downfall of VIE, Subspace will be moving back towards that kind of attitude, but it certainly was nice to see a game community that is alive and vibrant.
Never mind the fact that Tribes is extremely fun in the long term, with your loss on one map contributing to your strategies on the next map, and always you must adapt your strategy to the capabilities of your present team. What worked with one team won't work with another.
Best of all, there are quite a few Subspace players there.
The second element was the RC5 thing, which really turned me off to ths game for a while, or more specifically to the League culture that quite frankly really doesn't know what the hell is going on in Subspace. I don't like to attribute people's actions to ass-kissing, and while accusations of that have become a fixture of the Infantry HQ board I don't think it was responsible for most of what happened, but aside from Jeff's attempt to convert people away from the Stomped faction, it irked me that so many people on the baord had no idea that the effort had existed in the first place despite multiple mentions of it on every single Subspace news page. The conclusion I drew a long time ago which has been confirmed here is that League players--and Infantry HQ is 90% League players--do not read news. As it became apparent that the VIE servers really were going down, I started to receive ICQ spam referring to a mass exodus from Subspace, as though it were assumed that, without a set of corporate-sanctioned arenas and without an official web page and a league validated from on high, why play the game anymore? I have come to believe that there are many, many people in this game who have lost sight of why they are playing, and who have become more concerned with status, and with the idea of a community, than with the basic things that make this game worth playing in the first place.
In the FAQ at sog.java.net, Suicide (who I respect very much) had the audacity to declare Pro League "the town center of the Subspace community", and in that capacity a replacement for Running Zone. He suggests that it is the alternative to retirement. In fairness to this claim, the League community is indeed tight knit, and enviably awake and partiticatory where other communities, even within VIE, seem to exist largely within overlapping ICQ contact lists and personal playing schedules. This needs to change; for Subspace to stay alive it needs for the kind of organization and involvement apparent within League culture to spread into the rest of the game. The people making the most noise about the game's downfall and the lameness of the player-run zones are the very people most capable of stopping that downfall and influencing the lay of the land within playerdom. This is not a lot to ask, since that culture has contributed absolutely nothing else to the game, outside of its own cloistered walls and wrought iron gates--unless you count the quiet death of Chaos Zone and the dominating of tech support's time and energy as a contribution.
The notion that Subspace outside of VIE does not exist, or doesn't matter, is especially offensive to me because I know practically all of the people who run it. They are not lamers who came late and ruined the game. They are VIE players who after tiring of the traditional games went on to make their own maps and their own configurations while many, many other players went and cried in their tea, losing themselves in rankings and predictions for a game style of such single-minded and "deep skills" based focus that they became hostile to nearly everything else in the game. To disrespect someone who passes this up for actual work on the game, even if it is bad work, is reprehensible.
Now League is on its last legs and we are hearing an increasingly loud, paganesque chant invoking The Coming of Infantry, The Coming of Infantry, The Coming of Infantry. I half hope that Infantry sucks for all the sweating and self-mutilation this would cause. A partial shifting over from active involvement in Subspace to anticipation and preparation for what is effectively its sequel is understandable, but the extent of it is unhealthy, even for Infantry itself. However, I have come to suspect that this anticipation is not all of what it claims to be. People are using Infantry as an excuse to "get out". This is understandable for certain people who have been deeply involved in Subspace and could use a break, but as usual many people--specificially those who are bailing out now because the VIE servers have vanished--are retiring not because they are sick of the game or they dislike it, but because they love it too much. This kill-your-girlfriend mentality has done far greater damage to the game overall than all of our cheats and scandals and server problems combined. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: The only thing killing Subspace--the only thing that ever killed Subspace--is the players who think it is dying. If something one loves is suffering, decent people do not destroy it in a fit of frustration or leave it to bleed at the side of the road. Decent people treat it, whether it is a child, an animal, a work of art, or a stupid mass media obsession. And we can comfort ourselves that yes, Subspace is a stupid mass media obsession, a silly waste of time...but then why have you spent a thousand, two thousand, six thousand hours within its walls?
How does all of this relate to the RC5 effort? Jeff's RC5 team is a symbol for the most well-organized Subspace community's complete and willing ignorance towards the other 90% of this game. If, instead of obsessing over a meager two-dimensional team pickup game, those people who are now finally doing RC5 had put time and effort into this game amounting to half that invested by the least productive player zone operators, we would not be where we are today.
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Dammit . . .
I ranted for so long that now I have no time to put up any actual news. Check back later for some information on the "new" VIE servers, a link to Shanoyu's ass kicking weird news page, and one other thing that I forgot. Oh yeah! We're kicking the SCF into motion soon. I'll write about this the moment I get it officialized. Meanwhile, go play Turfnight Tuesday NOW. Turf League. Add it and get in there. Big apologies to the Reverend Spork for failing to advertize his game again. :( No I can't make it but I might be back for the end.
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News of the Day
Random snippets on the happenings about town, because no one else will ever really love you.
The most important thing that has happened in recent memory is that the VIE servers went down. This would have provided some much needed catharsis and an end to the parade of patches and general closed-door trickery that has been going on. However, no sooner did those zones go down than we saw half of them return--or so it would seem. In fact what you are most likely seeing here is kboom up to his old tricks again. As reported at DS98, and confirmed by Baudchaser, they are in fact at entirely new locations--fakes, running either on a stolen VIE subgame.exe or on player servers hacked to allow "VIE" to be placed in the zone name. This hack does exist and I have confirmed it personally. Buyer beware: When you enter one of these new VIE zones, certainly use a password which you don't use at any other server bank, but also know that you are playing in a zone where the server executable has been tinkered with, perhaps in ways that only the author of the hack is aware of.
I would also like to mention that SoSD, who originally rang the warning bell on this one, is one of the mighty Space Police. :) Erm, actually he's my squad captain now, come to think of it.
Let's see, what else is going on.
The Turfnight game did not go very well due to a lack of pimpage and so forth. Be prepared for next week's game though, as we are going to make a concerted effort to get the word out and get players involved who might not be otherwise. FlippMode has put GiGaKiLLeR's awesome full size map up finally; I said some time ago that, unlike most full sizers, this level is great with only 10 or 20 people. In fact tonight when I arrived late and there were only between 4 and 6 people left, we were playing in territory deep within the base ring and it was still fun as hell. In any other map the action would have deflated and we'd have ended up doing Crossroads / Space Needle type J12 neg fighting, but this was for real. Start spreading the word now and let's see if we can have a good long game next week with a lot of people.
The Schedule section of my page will be moving to its own area of Warstrike soon, and will probably no longer be run by me, although I plan to still work on it. It's going to be expanded soon, so if you have a weekly event you'd like for people to know about, get in touch with me and I'll put you up there. Please note that DS98 already has a calendar for general events, so one-offs, monthly games, and anything with an inconsistent schedule should be put up there. The purpose of the Warstrike schedule page is to unite the players of otherwise unpopulated zones so that we can play a healthy, fun game once a week instead of a cheezy ten-player game four times a week. Friday we saw the first case of this strategy working, and in fact a very positive start to the New Year in a full blown, hardcore War Zone game which saw a peak population of 55 people, all flagging, and stayed up at around 50 for at least two hours. Congrats and thanks to Peasant's Paladin on this, by the way.
New SCF configuration. This is in the works but I am in the process of moving some well known regular events into the SCF, and will hopefully be reviving a third event plus doing my own little thing, which as you may have guessed will involve maps. ;) With luck in time we will have several different groups of players partitipating in and supporting each other's games, and thereby breathe life back into the SCF. Some of these events will be in need of moderation, so if you are interested in helping out on a regular basis--very possibly in a capacity that will not always necessarily be fun--please get in touch with me.
Sorry about the sloppy update for today. Back to normal tomorrow. :)
Did anyone screenshot 25k for me? :/
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