Dawn of the Dead

You can always NOT DO Christmas, but you can't escape Halloween. - Mr. Ekted

    Jesus could you take the time

    to throw a drowning man a line?

DotD
Dawn of the Dead had its last run as a yearly event last night. Since there are so many zombie games in Subspace now I have felt for some time now that holding it only once a year does not serve to give it any kind of special status. I may participate in some effort to make it a unique experience next Halloween, but aside from that possibility I have handed the reins over to Pointman, and Dawn of the Dead will become the new zombie game in the formerly zombieless Extreme Games.

The event last night, its third run, was pretty successful, and that success is owed entirely to the moderators and co-sysops who helped me run it - Mackieman, Grelminar, Rude Awakening, and Travesty22 as well as the players who helped me keep it in order - and to the SS Council folks who helped get the word out, especially hedcase1, loops, and ZippyDan.

And speaking of Extreme Games. . .

If you haven't been there in a while, it might be worth checking out again. I was always a fan of the zone but left it in anger after hydro's awesome Turf variant was rudely shouted down by the players. This was probably a mistake, and I regret leaving, however I also feel I have reentered the fold in the midst of a small renaissance. There's a reason this zone has beat out Trench Wars as most populated zone on a consistent basis in recent weeks - the first time any zone has accomplished this in about eighteen months. While some of the most fun I've had in the past has been in EG, and in some ways it was at times a bigger kick in the ass back then than it is now, in so many ways it has never been better.

The game has changed over time, and the one vital thing that's missing is the hair-raising dogfights that occurred around the outside of flag bases back, back when wide splash damage and wall passing of the powerball made controlling the exterior so important to defense. Those elements are gone today, but in their place are nice, roomy bases - many of them perfectly balanced between open combat areas, bottlenecks, and tunnel fights.

More open terrain makes a base easier to navigate. Although I enjoyed hydro and evil's base designs for their strategic design and crazed tunnel fighting, I have argued for a long time that, in general, tight base design - such as was common until recently in ASWZ, and which has always dominated new and upcoming player zones - remove and important and central element of the game. In cramped surroundings, a good pilot has little or no advantage over a poor pilot. Aside from being obviously unfair, this also removes an aspect of specialization. If piloting skill is not an issue, there's not much of a reason to make decisions based on it. The hidden premise is a forced equality and group-centered mentality which in real life leads to far worse but in Subspace thankfully leads only to boring contests of brute numbers. Unfortunately, brute numbers are not what the game is about, and where it devolves into such a contest the game takes on a repetitive dullness that works well for goofy "snack" games like Chaos J12 and Alpha T20 but have no place in a flag game.

And so you have these enormous bases which take only a couple of minutes to navigate. Since many of them are circular in design, defenders can see an attack coming a long ways off. Defense has time to organize, attackers have an ominous approach ahead of them and an acute possibility of having to defend their rear as they go in. Everyone lives in fear of portal attacks, which are common and often successful. Between the length of the approach and the potentially fast flight are the potential for both suspenseful, planned actions and sudden sneak attacks.

And then there's the tile art. When I first fired up my thrusters in this zone after my long hiatus, I did not believe my eyes. Without consideration I subconsciously rejected the idea that this was the same zone I was used to. To the extent that the recent reworking of the Death Star Battle map was eye popping, what Wormhole Surfer has done in Extreme games in that much more amazing. Long ago I optimistically envisioned a true and official Subspace 2, and it looked a LOT like this. The artwork adds greatly to the gameplay by giving the fight a sense of atmosphere and a grounding in reality. The deep tunnels actually feel as though they are poorly lit and invaded by vacuum. This extends into the zone's elimination and dueling arenas, where other but similarly eye-popping tilesets give beautiful representations of castles and ancient tombs and so forth. It has been a long time since the look of a tileset really added to the immersion and atmosphere of this game. In fact, I would date that all the way back to Wormhole's early days at the zone, when he created a lot of the original artwork that gave the place its unique look.

Oh yeah, and if you come to EG you'll have the rare opportunity of seeing me fly something other than a Levi. ;)

Year 4

I've settled on a new format for this page's fourth year of life, and will start work on it soon. Expect something very different from what it is now, yet which hopefully will not be too far from covering the same territory. I did this in 1998 and it helped to keep the page fresh; I didn't do it in 1999 and now it is rancid. :P So keep your eyes peeled. Everything you know and love kicks the bucket at the end of this month. Familiarity breeds contempt anyway.