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26 January 2001 - In December of this last year, I allowed the Minefield to slip into a temporary state of disrepair while a new design was in the works. During this time, I resorted to an almost plaintext format, so important was it to me that I leave the old behind even while the new wasn't quite ready. It was a mistake to do so, and I've restored the month's updates more or less to the standard format for my archives. Any references to the formatting refers to the aforementioned plaintext setup, and any quotations have been added since thate fateful month, for consistency's sake.

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Answer me this much. Is there anyone out there who managed to play Doom properly -- on Ultra Violence the first time through without cheating - who managed to finish the fucking game? I never made it past E2M4, in large part because at the time I was forced to use the keyboard only, because of a mouse bug I still don't quite understand. So I'm playing it again and I know what's going to happen but I'm terrified. I cannot play the game. I say to myself, well, I'll just blast through it and not take it so seriously. Nope. Doesn't work.

Anyway, it was Doom's birthday about a week ago, so I've set out anew on a quest to actually find out what E3 and E4 look like. Think maybe I need thicker skin. Quake II even scared me, and that game is downright silly sometimes.

Apologies for the hiatus. I'm somewhat at a loss for words, lately. At some point between my growing frustration with Subspace's limitations and my growing enjoyment of it thanks in large part to Extreme Games, somewhere along the line my tendency to form opinions about it has been left by the wayside. I simply don't have any to share lately. It's wonderful to have EG in its present state, because in many ways it's more of what Subspace was originally meant to be than is perhaps any other zone in the game right now -- but, at the same time, a series of annoying limitations seems right now to prevent the game from ever becoming more interesting.

Then again, who cares? There's certainly no pressure today on game developers to offer much more than the usual set of tired old teamplay variants. The only games in the foreseeable future that seem to offer anything truly exciting are MMORPGs -- Star Wars Galaxies and BigWorld, both a good year or two off, and each already disappointing in its own way. And don't even talk to me about PlanetSide. After recent "reassurances" from its developers that players will enjoy an orgy of instant-gratification-style combat without meaningful consequences, I could not be less interested.

The problem is clearly my own. The question is, what do I do about it? Bide my time in EG and dream, that's what. And try to think of something more to say about it.

Meanwhile, thanks to (on one hand) Rude Awakening, Questioning Silence, and the other new staff in the Sheep Cloning Facility; and (on the other hand) my newfound ability to leave things the hell alone and not broke what isn't fixed, the zone is slowly becoming an interesting Zone type zone. Medium sized map I am dying to change but won't, nifty flag game that seems to be proving itself over the long run, childish point and bounty system...hell if I know why, but it seems to be working out well. Come in and have a gander sometime.