August 1998

27 August 1998
Walk on the water. Step on the stones. Flesh becomes water; wood becomes bone.


- BREAKING NEWS -
I haven't even had a chance to read this yet except for just a short tease, but I will say it looks goddam great. Rod Humble has put up a set of short SF stories, Cutter 1 through Cutter 5, with the sixth in the series on its way. Check them out over at Humbling America.

- Pop Quiz: How many mapmakers are Vangels for Chaos East? -
The growing controversy over a map change for CZE (a move which I would cautiously support) has somehow turned ugly and changed shape into a discussion of how the Battle Drone should be changed. All varieties of cretins who have never made a map in their life are rushing to suggest alterations. "Take out the maze" and "a few more structures like J12" are two of my favorite suggestions from today's posts.
    Never mind the obvious question of whether or not it's proper to edit someone else's work without his blessing--how about we have several newbie map designers get together and learn to use SSME by taking out their aggressions on personal peeves they have with the landslide most popular Subspace level ever made?
    I am doing my part to see that all hell breaks loose on the Chaos East Messageboard. Be sure and chime in as well if map issues are your thing.

- Sorry -
For some reason I always update least when I have the most free time, I guess because a day off lends itself to long activities that leave little time to mess around on the computer, or maybe it's just that I can get more into actually playing. I actually have had Independence War for nearly a week now and haven't even installed it; my only experience of it so far has been through the demo. :/ Expect a full review of that sometime soon.

- Cat Out of Bag -
The MMG page is back up and running. I was tired the other night, and kind of pissed about a map related issue, so I linked to the new site in a messageboard post and now people know where it is, so I might as well make everything clear. The new Mapmakers Guild Home Page is up at Warstrike, but it is not yet finished. The vaults are not there yet, and some of the member pages need updating.

- Kill the President Postponed -
The scenario we were set to run in Sheep Cloning on Saturday is not going to happen for at least another two weeks. We're too sorely lacking in propaganda for the poor thing, and as a result of that (partially my fault) we've only barely had enough signups to run the thing if everyone shows up, which obviously never happens.
    The important thing I would like to point out here is that, in order for us to run scenarios with any more complexity and involvement to them than the WSL events already provide, the first thing we need is a person willing to set them up. The people arranging for future scens are going to lose interest if no one bothers to attend this one. (Mind you, I am a big fan of the weekly WSL events.)
    We are short on help at the SCF, and several of the people who usually get involved with SCF things have been busy elsewhere in the game. If you would like to get seriously involved with this game--and by that I mean in a capacity which is often thankless and frustrating--and you're willing to scratch others' backs in order to get yours scratched in return, even when you aren't personally interested in their projects.....if you want to be deeply involved in this game in a focused way and on a long term basis, contact me.

- Gommy updated his kick ass SCF page. -
As usual, lots of good reading. Maps and general Subspace stuff as well as personal notes. This has quickly become one of my favorite pages. Even if you think the SCF sucks, read it. ;)
22 August 1998
Between the spaces along the wall, appearing faces that disappear at dawn.


- Correction -
I screwed up the link yesterday for Kill the President signups. Thanks to Shanoyu for alerting me to this lameness. Signups this time really will go to FlippMode. Sorry for screwing up your scenario, man. :)
    For a reminded of what the hell I'm talking about, see yesterday's news.

- Circle Turf, Round One -
Yesterday's premiering of Chakotay's new Turf Map in the SCF was not quite the success that I'd hoped for in terms of player count, but it was a success insofar as the hall fights we had in the base ring were damned intense and a lot of fun. One thing I've noticed about this map is the ominous, epic character of the conflict owing to the circular design. Instead of taking a linear path a round the map, often you will be very close the the enemy physically, but a long way off as far as travel time is concerned. With only a wall between you, you race several sectors to the nearest juncture. Usually this pits an open field on one side against a tight maze on the other. Also because of this, there's not nearly as much flanking as the Gigakiller map provides, but you'll have to watch your back for long range approaches from several different directions. This is really a first for Turf Zone; I can see bottlenecks where not two but three or possibly four fronts will converge--the potential for a real bloodbath. Although I love Giga's map, I hope we get to play full scale in this level soon. I think it's going to be damned good.
    Round two is today at 6:00pm Eastern, in (yup, you guessed it) the Sheep Cloning Facility.

- MMG is set to return any second now. -
I know I mentioned this a few days ago, but I really mean it this time. ;) It's been a long haul, but the page is nearly done updating and may well be back up at its new location by the time you read this. Check back here for the link when it happens.

- Thanks for nothing; we'll miss you too. -
Pent has closed SubCenter for good after two months of inactivity. From Pent's heart-wrenching farewell to the Subspace community: "nothing really cool is happening in Subspace anymore, therefore I will take my site down and another site with the same name will be up by someone I don't know, but it will be called SubCenter, so bye."
    Don't count on it.

- Independence War is out! -
More commonly known as iWar, this game--and you can rub this prediction in my face if it does not come to pass--this game will be the model for the first great 3D space combat mmpog. Whenever the hell that happens. For the first time, fighting in three dimensional world, I find that I can maintain my sense of space and direction. This sensation, mixed with a wonderful feeling that there is no up or down, the feeling of vast distances all around, make this the best new game I've come upon since Subspace. Don't worry, it's not multiplayer just yet--it doesn't need to be.
    The look of it is amazing, and I speak from the perspective of someone without a 3D card to speak of. Although the accelerated graphics are unbelievable, the makers of this game pride themselves also on their software acceleration, and feature screenshots from that version at their page alongside the 3Dfx shots.
    On the other hand, people have called it boring--and they're right insofar as it is uneventful for significant stretches of time. It's certainly not for everyone, but they're doing something unique and effective here--game play over realism, but with realism commanding the atmosphere. You will certainly spend some time waiting for things to happen, but when something does happen you may well be more involved for all the time you spent approaching the action and watching it unfold.
    Particle Systems, the maker of the game, has set up a special Independence War website full of screenshots and other information. The demo is a complete mission from the game , nice and long, plus a training course. 22 megs but definitely worth the trouble. Hey, I was the first Subspace player to get sick of StarCraft....trust me on this one. ;)
21 August 1998
The world is a vampire, sent to drain. Secret destroyers hold you up to the flames.


- T2-17 Map Creates Chaos -
I have never in this game seen such a disgusting display as the reaction to the map change yesterday in War East. God forbid we should spend a few days playing in a map we predict we won't like and actually see first-hand how the base wars and chases play out. I was shocked also by the narrow minded assumptions made about the bases. No sooner had several elites finished calling the R17 structure impenetrable than it was stormed and taken by a public frequency. From several people I saw complaints along the line of "You can't tell where the bases are." This would all be fine if not for the abject lack of civility, the absence of any class or open minded approach to the situation. Countless people declaring that "this map sucks" before they had even finished greening their first spawn.The world ends tomorrow and I have to spend the last 24 hours of my life playing in a problematic map! Somebody help!
    I didn't want this map up either. I argued against this map at the WZVangels meeting ("it was announced at warstrike" - "wtf is warstrike?") and can see--nay predict--a number of problems with the bases, but for God's sake, when one of your own--especially one whose work you know from the past and owe the benefit of the doubt--spends dozens or maybe hundreds of hours on a level for you to play in and asks for nothing in return, you owe the map, and the mapper, and indeed the game itself, far more respect than that.
    I hope you people choke on those old VIE maps.

- Today's Schedule Again -
Just a repost of the cool stuff going down today, for those who didn't see my post yesterday. All times are Eastern.

    now - Signups begin for FlippMode's Kill the President scenario.
    now - A first look at Shanoyu's spankin' new War Zone map.
    4:00pm - Dueling tournament in iNet Duelzone. See the iNet page for details.
    6:00pm - Chakotay's Turf Zone map goes up in the Sheep Cloning Facility.

 - What exactly is Kill the President? -
(a mini-FAQ)
Q: WTF?
A: Kill the President is, as you're probably sick of reading but I get a kick out of saying it, the first full blown VIE scenario in over a year. It is throught up and designed by FlippMode and will be hosted in the Sheep Cloning Facility.
Q: What exactly is a scenario?
A: A scenario is a moderated event, usually with special map or settings, which does not play out as a normal zone but instead works around a story. Pilots role-play a bit, and each team has a defined objective. In the case of Kill the President, one side's objective is to carry out an assassination, while the other side's objective is to escort its target to safety.
Q: Do I need to know someone or have special access somewhere or know what the hell I'm doing in order to play?
A: Hell no. If you are reading this, you can sign up and play. The only requirement we make is that, if you do sign up, you read the rules and show up for the game at the time it runs.
Q: What is the Sheep Cloning Facility?
A: Just the old fashioned name for VIE Sheep Cloning GWest. Use your Find Servers button to add it to your Favorite Servers list. It's always open to the public unless we are actually running a scenario. (That should be a few hours out of the month.)
Q: So how do I sign up?
A: Send an email to FlippMode with the name you will be using when you play in the game. (It must be exact to the letter for inclusion in a permissions file, so you can get in during the scenario.)
Q: Where are the rules and story and all that?
A: Check back here this weekend and I'll tell you. It should be done by Monday at the latest.
Q: Isn't this in kind of poor taste?
A: I don't think so. The story is based in the future in an Subspace universe and has no basis in Earthly reality, historical or hypothetical or otherwise.
Q: When is all this going down?
A: Next Saturday night. We may have a King of the Hill game or two on Friday as a sort of "election" to decide who gets to be the President.
Q: Do I need to know anything else?
A: Absolutely nothing.

 - Shanoyu's War Zone Map -
Personally, after today I don't know why he bothered making it. Nonetheless, it did get a strong reception after being shown at the WZVangels meeting, impressing a number of people. That's right, Shanoyu ov the mighty Space Police sold out the ol' Minefield and showed his map to some people before my exclusive teaser pic, but it was a limited showing so I forgive him. ;) The map goes up in the Sheep Cloning Facility on Sunday.

    Shanoyu's 1337 WZ map

- The Hunter and The Hunted! -
I should have mentioned this yesterday but I don't normally keep up on League stuff. League has seemed kind of beyond me for so long that I forgot the event was open to the public. This was an interesting set of matches between turrets and swarms that took place in World Subspace League, a.k.a. VIE WS League MEast. I'm really glad that I'm probably going to be able to fly in the zone on a semi-regular basis as a guest; on first impression it reminds me a lot of the old Speed Zone, from a year ago. Good players, friendly attitudes, minimal whining and very little politics--as if all of a sudden the fate of the world did not hinge on whether or not someone was lagging. For anyone who prefers to play Subspace against other players who actually love it, I strongly recommend these weekly matches. They are generally held on Wednesday evenings, although the zone is open to the public all day Wednesday. For information on each week's event, keep an eye on their page.

 - Hyksos' Hanger -
Another stylin' page no one told me about. ;) It's just moved to Warstrike and so a few of the links are mussed, but it's a good, frequently updated page, noteworthy especially for its special attention to issues for European players. Hyksos--yet another member of the ever cool One Spirit doing the web thing--contributed an article to my Minefield Weekly before I closed it down, and his page is similarly highly readable. Have a look-see. :)

 - BAA! -
Gommy made a huge update to his Sheep Cloning Facility page, with a lot of information about the new scenario and his upcoming maps, plus his take on the WZVangels map contest and a long-past-due challenge to the VIE webmasters.

 - Omicron Sighting -
Since his departure from Subspace was not by his own will, I was hoping Omicron might pop in from time to time. Sure enough, Om appeared briefly on the Warstrike board yesterday. As it turns out, he's probably going to be able to log in from school every now and then. Head on over to the Warstrike Messageboard and give a shout.
20 August 1998
The world is a vampire, sent to drain. Secret destroyers hold you up to the flames.


- New Map in War East -
Well, Warhammer's map lost out due to some speculation about base strength, but was an easy second for the newest T2-17 map. The map change is going down as I write this, so be sure to spend some time in War East and check out T2-17's weird, revolutionary map. For those not in the know, T2-17 is the author of the map with the Blue Combs and B19 spiral which dominated War East for over three quarters of a year. He is also a master of the tileset, and the new map has a gorgeous, crisp look to it like nothing else I have seen. Well, what the hell am I doing here? Off I go.
    Read more about the meeting probably pretty soon at Subspace Warstrike Com.

- Big Ol' Friday! -
Stuff that is going down tomorrow. Take the day off. :) Sorry if I'm forgetting anyone.

    Dueling tournament in iNet Duelzone at 4pm Eastern. See the iNet page for details.
    Chakotay's Turf Zone map goes up in the Sheep Cloning Facility at 6pm Eastern.
    Signups begin for FlippMode's Kill the President, the first VIE scenario in a year.
    A first look at Shanoyu's spankin' new War Zone map, right here.
    There may well be a new map up in War Zone East. See story below.

Keep your dials tuned to the Minefield for up the the minute info, and maybe even a little opinion or two, here and there. ;)

- War Zone Vangel Meeting Today -
As reported at Subspace Warstrike Com, the War Zone Vangels are holding an IRC meeting tonight at 5pm Eastern in #wzvangels on EFnet. This will be the first hardcore meeting since Peasant's Paladin left for his tour of duty with the Shining Path in beleaguered southwestern Peru. War East has been running classic maps for two months now and PP is eager to put up a newer map; many others likely feel the same way. Mappers are encouraged to bring their stuff to the meeting, but not by me.
    Why? Because whatever you have to show, Warhammer's second map is better. Have a look.
    Moreover, this is a fairly old map, and none of his maps have been hosted on VIE servers. The result? It's been a while since we had a new map from Warhammer, arguably the second best WZ designer in the game. Support your fellow mapmakers and WZ pilots and don't contribute to great work going unrewarded.
    Next time around, you go up against me. ;)
    Get the level itself here while you're at it.

- And in yet another related story. -
The new MMG site is about to go back up, thanks to The Romulans' hard work on a cool looking new design. Keep your eyes peeled. The only thing delaying things now is me getting off my ass and writing the news setion. Meanwhile, I've updated my own MMG page to include newly-inducted Gommy on the members list, and made a few other changes here and there.

 - Old Maps Wanted -
I've been collecting maps for quite some time and probably have one of the most complete collections in the game. I'm gearing up to put together a giant map guide and could use some help, plus I would like to have early versions and rare scenario maps for the sake of preserving and archiving them as well as for my own satisfaction. I am especially looking for the early version of the classic VIE Turf Zone map and the Sheep Cloning Facility test/scenario maps that ran from last April to last June. I'm also sure I've missed a few good player zone maps. If you think you have something I would be interested in even if you're pretty sure it's junk, please contact me with a description of the map. Don't send me levels through the mail or I will probably experience problems with my disk quota. Thank you in advance.

 - Fireteam Update from Moby -
Moby has been playing a lot of Fireteam beta test and was kind enough to update me on the happenings in the game. If you're interested, here is what he had to say. Many thanks to Moby of course. :)

    There is a new phenomenon happening in Gunball (one of the four games in Fireteam).... people have figured out that a methodical, defensive approach to the game actually gives the best chance of winning! So what they're doing is protecting their ballcarrier in the back, while advancing slowly towards the opposing goal. The three guys basically blast away at anything while the ball carrier slowly moves up collecting medpatches and running away from enemy fire.

    Of course, this often means lots of games only have 1 touchdown, and the opposing team might never even have a chance to get possession!! Changes are being implemented right now to prevent this style of play (which ruins the spirit & fun of gunball) by putting in a "shot-clock". The ballcarrier will have a certain amount of time to pass the halfway mark or else he will lose the ball (fumble). We'll see if this works, I'm sure there will be lots of tweaking along the way.

    As for the game in general, the beta is going great (aside from occasional latency issues). The game seems to over-emphasize medpatches... these are like slow-acting full-charge greens in Subspace. If you have an abundance of them, you can take LOADS of punishment without dying. It seems to eliminate some of the strategy if the guy with the most medpatches wins, as is usually the case. Aiming and evading fire doesn't seem to be as important as it is in Subspace at this point. Some of the powerups are unbalanced IMHO as well... the auto-turret is a HUGE advantage in certain games and in certain locations. It's like having an extra teammate almost! We'll see how Multitude tweaks the game further to make it more fun and strategic before the final verdict is in though.

 - Another Awesome Page -
I've overlooked another great page at Shanky, which also hosts SS Impact. Mine Go Boom's server help page is the most in-depth and explanatory page of its kind I've seen yet, and if that weren't enough it's full of great advice, too. I've placed it on the links blob down below.
18 August 1998
News of the Day
Anybody with a heart votes love!


- Belated Player News -
A belated happy birthday to Prince Darien. Hope you enjoyed it. :) Also, welcome back to Peasant's Paladin from his 10 week exile in the mountainous regions of Peru, where I hear he spent his time burning peasant villages and herding prisoners into ditches. Way to go PP! I wish they had this when I was a boy. We missed you, man; don't do that stuff again. ;)
    And on the bad side of things, Omicron is losing internet access and won't be able to play Subspace anymore or do much of anything else. Omicron was instrumental in the building of Maxig and Warstrike, ran one of the best Subspace pages by himself for a while, and is a good player. His departure is not voluntary and so there is probably a reasonable chance of his returning eventually, but for now this is looking like just about the blackest day Subspace has known. I'm sorry to see you go, Om, and my sincerest thanks for all you've done for this game.

- What a fun weekend! -
The downed billing server provided a lovely opportunity to see the Subspace community make the best of a bad situation, pulling together and keeping their heads held high during hard times when others might well have faltered. It's this kind of can-do love for the game and zest for life that makes me really feel good about being an, um. Well. Makes me feel like neg killing, actually.
    Among this weekends refreshing events:

    WSL games canceled.
    WarZone League matches canceled.
    No one showed up for the Addiction Zone game in Jackpot.
    Planned game and newbie night in Turf Classic - R.I.P.

We need not thank the billing server for this weekend; it's not VIE's fault, but the players' fault. None of these events needed to be cancelled. Nullified in some cases? Sure, why not--but called off? Let's just NOT PLAY SUBSPACE because the billing server is broken? Come on! How many of you are actually playing not because you enjoy it but because of your stats? We all know that this information will eventually vanish off the face of the Earth, and is only important in the first place because of the game itself. So what exactly was the problem?

 - Great Page I've Overlooked -
It's not often that someone writes and asks me to pimp their page and I end up going there and feeling like an ass for not linking to it already. Fatal Image's SS Impact is a damned good page, a credit to the game, and I have to apologize to Fatal for ignoring it this long. The page promises daily updates at least and delivers 99% of the time--easily the best updated page in Subspace. Read it always.

 - First VIE Scenario in a Year Coming Up -
FlippMode's Kill the President scenario is all ready to go and is set for Saturday, August 29. Signups begin this Friday. Watch the skies for more on this. We'll have a page up soon, and signups will be starting on this Friday. It's a unique idea: A frequency of bodyguards protects the President from a smaller team of more powerful assassins while trying to get him to safety. Here's the catch: The President is on his own frequency and can be killed by the bodyguards as easily as he can by the assassins...

 - Map News -
As mentioned elsewhere on this page (sorry for all the overlapping stories but i don't know how else to do this) Chakotay's new Turf Zone map, entitled Circle Turf, ran for a short while in the Sheep Cloning Facility. It is awesome! The striking visual presence and beauty of the level had had me distracted from game play issues; where I did consider them, I expected to be disappointed. In fact there is some great level design here. With only seven entrances to the outer base ring, there should be come concentrated and nasty bottleneck fights when the time comes. The center neg-war base, now a staple of post-VIE Turf maps, looks like a classic fight as well, a great diversion for a small arena. My most heartfelt raised finger to all of you in Turf Classic who knew I was running this but didn't bother to come check it out. I don't see why you feel welcome in TC if you can't show some respect for the person who set it up. You'll have another chance when the map goes up again in earnest, this Friday at 6pm EST.
    In other news, Shanoyu (ov the mighty Space Police!) has completed the first draft of his War Zone map, which is looking pretty sweet as well--damned impressive for a first map, and full of interesting ideas. Shanoyu is actively pursuing Mapmakers Guild membership hot on the heels of Gommy's recent induction, and has a nice looking Chaos Zone map in the works as well. I'll be putting up an image of the WZ map on this coming Friday. It makes its SCF testing premiere Sunday morning.

 - BAA! -
Silent Dragon updated the SCF page, and I've moved that to the main links section in place of my own SCF page. Gommy has also updated his SCF page and I've added that down there as well. For your reference, Facilities #1 and #2 were at Warzone and Maxig but have since been abandoned or destroyed. Facility #3 is mine, #4 is Gommy's, and #5 is the new official one. If you can't figure this out it's probably just that you have better things to do or it's not 2:30 in the morning right now.
    We ran the Circle Turf map for a while but I took it down because I wanted to give it a proper treatment with an organized game. What's up at the moment is a racing map; I'm testing settings and playing with ideas for the Reaper's Circuit scenario. The god-awful eyesore that was up for the last week or so was my followup to the first Bomberman map. Anyone else want to take a shot at this? Because I give up. :P

 - Weekend SCF Events -
This is of course assuming that the billing server is running. If not, I will just have to PLAY SUBSPACE AS USUAL. (grumble). Just a rundown of all the ramble and blather I've hidden in random places around this update so you can actually make sense of it. ;)

    Friday

    Chakotay's Circle Turf map goes up for real. 6pm EST.
    Signups begin for Kill the President scenario to be held August 29th.
    Teaser image for Shanoyu's new War Zone map.
    
    Saturday

    Circle Turf game begins again at 6pm EST. Yes, head to head with TC. Let's see where Chak's loyalties lie. ;)

    Sunday

    Shanoyu's WZ map premieres for first test run. Noon EST.

 - Oh yeah, sorry. -
I saw someone complimenting this page as being updated on a daily basis, and it hasn't quite been like that lately. Maybe I'm making up for it some with the huge updates; maybe not. Anyway I'll try and get more on the ball about things.
16 August 1998
Nothing.
No one can give me the air that's mine to breathe.


- Just thought I'd say hi. -
Hello. See you in a few hours.
-
- 15 August 1998
B r e a k i n g  M a p  N e w s !
No one can give me the air that's mine to breathe.


- Chakotay Returns -
It seems that Chakotay is back in the game. Those of us who regularly fly in Turf Zone will likely have seen him by now, and he is once again maintaining the Turf Classic homepage. What you may not know is that, in his recent absence, Chakotay has been at work on a Turf map which has become one of the most unique and beautiful levels yet made for this game. I will be putting this map up Sunday around noon in the Sheep Cloning Facility for testing. For the time being, have a look at this.

- Gommy Joins the Mapmakers Guild -
I'm very pleased to announce that Gommy, best known for his small WZ map and the more recent Frontier Zone scenario which ran in Sheep Cloning a few weeks back, has joined the MMG as the first new recruit since HaNsMaN Jr and I joined way back in February. Have a look at Gommy's cool, weird maps here.

- Temporary MMG Page -
    If you entered at minefield.html (which I prefer but don't insist upon), you might have noticed the new link from the Mapmakers Guild logo. This is not the official MMG page, which is still in transit after the fall of Maxig. Rather, it is my own page about the organization, with my own spin on maps and mappers and so forth. I will probably be incorporating it into my section of the official MMG site when it goes up, or I may just keep it here in case we ever run across the same problems. For now it's just a lot of map-oriented rambling and some cool links. Enjoy.

- Even More Map News -
    The Romulans has a cool small map up in SEC Entertainment West, full of nasty dead ends and vulch corridors, plus some great open space fighting areas. This is a super zone so be sure and turn up ur frame rate knob to eleven. ;) Watch out for the naked chicks. Yes, there are naked chicks for banners in this zone. You probably knew that already, but I thought I'd mention it just in case. Not only can those things get you in trouble with the other slime inhabiting your dwelling, but they can make you bump into walls.
    Xirphoid, one of the Chaos West vangels and author of what will probably be that zone's next map, has started work on a new Chaos style map today. It's just a skeleton right now but I will be keeping my eye on this one.
    In the last few days, Shanoyu (ov the mighty Space Police!) also began work on a Turf map and a WZ map. They are both in the very beginning stages of design, but they look very promising.

- Addiction Zone Postponed This Weekend -
Betamax and D-Tox will not be around this weekend to run the Addiciton Zone game on Sunday. Instead, they urge us to hit VIE Jackpot at 3:00pm Eastern. Be there. :)

- Shade's Take -
LordShade, Chaos West turret fiend and fellow Space Police, has started a political column! Actually, he's calling it more along the lines of a talk show, but, we,, it's a political column. ;) It's pretty good, too. Kind of hard for me to judge when I no longer follow the news at all. He's doing it through an e-mail list. If you'd like to subscribe, contact him with your mail address in the message body.

- Subspace 2, *NOT* -
Rumor begets news story it seems. A post on Warstrike prompted QA Man of Subspace PCGaming Com to contact Blackie, and somehow he ended up with a response! Not my story though. Just passing along the good news. Go read Warstrike and PCGaming if you want to know what's up. :)

- Anyone still care about Star Wars? -
Of course you do! :) Not sure how widespread this news is in the popular media but I thought I ought to mention it here. The film thus far known only as Episode 1 will open on May 21, 1999. Lucas plans to control the release so that it only shows in the best theatres. Can you say ticket scalping? I'm predicting that small shantytowns will crop up around the ticket offices as far as a week in advance of zero hour. A shout out to the IMDB StudioBrief, from which I get most of that sort of news.

- More changes to the links table. -
I'm keeping the table itself reserved for frequently updated pages that I think make for good reading. The rest is below. I was asked a couple of times to put my mapfolio there and am putting Gommy's there as well. If you have one also, let me know so I can add it to the list.
11 August 1998
I'm back.
A man makes a picture, a moving picture. Through light projected he can see himself up close.
- Welcome to the Minefield -
Well, I give up. While the writing I received for the EMF Weekly was very good, there was not enough of it, and the Minefield Weekly didn't save me the kind of time I was hoping it might save me. It frankly had me spending even more time online, trying to gather submissions, structuring page sets, and worst of all just screwing around a lot because not doing the page depressed me.
    I don't like not maintaining this page, and on other levels I think it should not have been gone for the time it was. Subspace has been kind of a wasteland lately. Most of the news pages have either been down, under construction, or distracted by server problems. Those of them that have stayed alive and healthy have not generally been covering things that I think are important. The last several weeks has given us a lot of bad news: The fall of Subspace Maxig Com and subsequent mess with the subpages, from which they still have not recovered; the departure of Chakotay and Baudchaser from the scene, unending troubles for Subspace.Net and the 2xT3 servers. Sheep Cloning Facility excepted, I kind of felt like I was abandoning the cause.
    I also don't want to make this movie anymore. It's pretty well ruined for me. While things are working out okay, there are a lot of compromises that have had to be made for stupid reasons--reasons that could have been avoided with better planning. After many months of preproduction, I was talked into finally shooting this project despite an undependable crew with several important positions unfilled. Of course, I'd never made a movie before. I thought I could fill them and I can't, and have come to resent the movie pretty badly. It has ruined my Summer. I don't need an increased disassociation from Subspace adding to that resentment.
    So the game is more important than my life's work. Go figure.
    On that note, the most important reason I am back. I'd somehow forgotten how I look at the news archive for this page. I'd lost track of how it serves as a kind of diary to the game. Since the game is a large part of my life (and one of the few parts about which I am willing to write on the Web), it has functioned as a personal history, but I also think that because of its broad range of topics it serves also as a document for the game in general. I already hate the big hole I created there over the last three weeks. I don't want to expand on it.
    So anyway, I'm back. Hi everyone. You have to watch what you say around me again. }:)

 - Please excuse the mess. -
I'll be spending the next few days getting my links in order and so forth. The EMF Weekly is in July's news archive.

- New SCF Pages -
While Silent Dragon was busy moving the SCF page to Warstrike, I decided to put up my own, not to replace his but for a temporary substitute and eventually just to have it as a personal page for my capacity as SCF Vangel. Gommy followed suit, putting up his own page focusing on his projects for the zone. I've also set up a Come.To redirector so that next time Silent decides to move the page (or his server ends up in an FBI building) people won't lose track of the existing pages. Always on the cutting esge, us sheepdogs. ;) So check out the pages already! Get involved in your damned game! Make a map, write a scenario, tell us what you think of the settings. Dolly IS watching u.

    Sheep Cloning Facility
    my SCF page
    gommy's SCF page
    the redirect url

 - All Hail Destruction 98. -
I owe props to the folks at DS98. I neglected this page for a while because for some time it was not regularly updated, so it was always in the back of my mind. I only recently checked back and found it to be, before the return of Warstrike, the most reliable source of Subspace news. They have also been cool to this page and especially to the Sheep Cloning Facility. Be sure and check out the page, and remember to return there for at least part of your daily news dose.
- HELP! -
Silent Dragon is reworking the Sheep Cloning Facility and I just realized that some of the news is missing. These were the posts about The Dread Wooly being suspended and I really wanted to keep copies of them. If anyone out there can help me get this out of cache or something like that, I would really be grateful. If you've seen the posts I'm talking about, try connecting to subspace.maxig.com/scf and getting the news html out of your cache. Thank you in advance.

Pause.

A man makes a picture, a moving picture. 

Through light projected he can see himself up close.

A man captures color, a man likes to stare. 

He turns his money into light to look for her.

 
 

- Thank You and Goodnight -
This is not goodbye for the Minefield; don't worry.

I have ceased updates in order to devote the maximum time possible to my movie. Also, since this page has maintained one of the best reputations in Subspace for constant and usually daily updating, it is important to me that I place that on an official hiatus; the alternative would be the same page as before only with less content. Better to simply put the page on hold for now. I assure you that as soon as I have settled into a reasonable editing schedule, in the weeks following the completion of principle photography, this page will return to its form as a reliable source of information, opinion, and sword rattling.

I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this page's success during its first cycle--all of you who read it so often and make it satisfying to write and maintain, and those who have encouraged me or contributed material, but especially Cybrid and Omicron who really put it on the map. Also to those who have sent me pieces for the Minefield Weekly so that I can keep this place interesting while I am unable to write it myself.

Please visit the Minefield Weekly.

July 1998

The Minefield Weekly
-
At this point I ceased updates to the Minefield in favor of a guest written--and theoretically easier to maintain--weekly "magazine" format which did not work out well at all. While the first issue kicks ass and has some great pieces in it, I never got enough submissions to keep this project going. In light of that fact that it has not decreased my time spent online and is actually more difficult to maintain, I killed the EMF Weekly on August 11th. The guest pieces will be added into my articles archive, but here, for the record's sake and for your enjoyment, is the EMF Weekly's short history.
-
The Minefield Static
The page I made to keep the Minefield in a suspended format. Basically the standard EMF with a goodbye message and so forth.
-
The Minefield Weekly, issue zero
Kind of a front page or editor's soapbox which I kept while putting together the first and second issues.
-
The Minefield Weekly, issue one
A lot of good writing here. My thanks to all the people who helped me with this.
-
21 July 1998
Pause.
A man makes a picture, a moving picture. Through light projected he can see himself up close.
A man captures color, a man likes to stare. He turns his money into light to look for her.



- Thank You and Goodnight -

This is not goodbye for the Minefield; don't worry.

I have ceased updates in order to devote the maximum time possible to my movie. Also, since this page has maintained one of the best reputations in Subspace for constant and usually daily updating, it is important to me that I place that on an official hiatus; the alternative would be the same page as before only with less content. Better to simply put the page on hold for now. I assure you that as soon as I have settled into a reasonable editing schedule, in the weeks following the completion of principle photography, this page will return to its form as a reliable source of information, opinion, and sword rattling.

I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this page's success during its first cycle--all of you who read it so often and make it satisfying to write and maintain, and those who have encouraged me or contributed material, but especially Cybrid and Omicron who really put it on the map. Also to those who have sent me pieces for the Minefield Weekly so that I can keep this place interesting while I am unable to write it myself.

Please visit the Minefield Weekly.


Sn Jy 1998.
Ns. Dy.™
Thump click clickclickclick thumpa thumpa beep beep clickbeep repeat.


- Trixter Responds -
This morning I asked Trixter about the allegations of threats made by him against WiZT...

    No, there was no threats.  That interview was not all my comments, and even the
    ones I did were edited and twisted.  I was speaking off the record completely, and
    he posted it and edited it.  I asked them to take it down.

I must apologize for my rude tone in the previous story, which gave all benefit of the doubt to WiZT and GreyCloak and was unfair to Trixter. It was poor form and I have only left it unedited because I don't want to seem as though I am trying to conceal the remarks. I will keep the interview up today because it is part of a news story, but it will go down tomorrow out of courtesy to Trixter and because I have not been threatened in any way. Mind you, I am not discounting WiZT's version of events, which may well be truthful.

- Ae! -
Here ends my yearly-or-so week long ramble and fawning session over Autechre in anticipation of their newest release. I have the new album, it is awesome, and I am happy. It is weird and perhaps over-intellectual, like a set of etudes for digital samplers. I am personally a little disappointed in it because I love Ae primarily for the atmospheres they create, and in the course of their increasingly experimental development they have lost a great deal of that atmosphere. Then again, the album is basically flawless. It tinkers and folds and mazes into itself like a psychotic's puzzle box, but at the same time it is funky and entertaining and kind of creepy. I can't say it's their best album, but I have to admit its near there on the list. It's probably not for beginners. Earlier works such as Amber and Incunabula are prettier and not nearly as neurotically constructed.

 - The Infamous Trixter Interview -
As reported by GreyCloak on his scribblings page at Subspace Maxig Com, WiZT's recent interview with Trixter, in which Trixter first publicly fantasized about purchasing Subspace from VIE, was removed from Subspace.Net due to legal threats allegedly made by Trixter against WiZT. Way to go, Subspace.Net. Caving to pressure and censoring your own page before it has even officially opened is a great way to build a reputation for hard-edged journalism. ;) Then again, wouldn't we all have done the same thing?
  I'll get to that in a minute.
  This article was almost lost forever, actually. Articles referencing it mysteriously vanished from both Subspace Maxig Com and Subspace PCGaming Com. When I loaded the old url in hopes of retrieving the interview from my Netscape cache, instead of a bad url I found a sort of "retraction" page--WiZT's inevitable response to being threatened by a rich American who is probably twice his age. (No disrespect meant to WiZT.)  An anonymous posting to the Trashboard had been reset by the time I looked there. WiZT, for his part, had accidentally deleted the interview from his own hard drive.
  God bless my 100 meg NS cache directory and Windows 95's funky search utility. I managed to find the interview after all. The Minefield bends over for no man or god. Here it is.

- News.Txt Articles Page Is Up -
Cybrid has in almost no time at all pulled together a set of guest editorials for Subspace Warzone Com which ranks as the best this game has seen. I can't get my friends to be this prolific for me, yet Cyb has people from all over the map writing quality pieces for him. Most notable among these are Apollo 18's editorials. Not to suggest that Apollo's board posts have been useless or unthoughtful, but considering his reputation for abbrasive trash talk, rudeness, and not pulling one single punch ever since he was born, I am amazed at the compassion, insight, and restraint showing up in his writing. With all the hype and noise surrounding the recent openings of new pages, don't overlook these articles. All that work put into html design, funky graphics, etc, and here comes this little page full of text and contributes far more to the game in a much shorter span of time. The best thing to happen to Subspace since players started running War Zone.
Cybrid's Op-Ed Page
7/15/98
You're gonna walk on home. You're gonna walk alone. You're gonna see this through. Don't let them get to you.
- Since No One Can Take A Joke, Part VI -
I should clear up that my little barb against Subspace.PCGaming.Com and GreyCloak was in fact nothing more, and nothing less, than a barb. It's gearing up into a nice page and I have no quarrel with QA_Man. To quote Cybrid, "I was just a little curious as to how you can have a collaboration between the major SubSpace news pages without letting them know in the first place." I figured hey, QA doesn't consider my page major, so why not bite my thumb at him too. I was half-sure it was a mistake then. After finding out Cybrid hadn't been told either, I became convinced.
  Either way, GreyCloak told a fib. Neener neener! Can you believe he got mad at me for saying that? GreyCloak, I love you man, but you can't have my integrity. ;)
  I think I know what QA is up to. Consider that, in the course of announcing this all-site-spanning event without telling any of us about it, he has, in fact, created an all-site-spanning event. Either he's a damned genius or I'm sadly paranoid.

- Filmmaking Sucks -
My stupid movie fell apart again last night, this time because the camera has started making too much noise for us to record sound. So I stayed up late and read all the news pages like a good li'l miner, and drank lots of hot caffeineated beverages. You know what that means? It means I still don't feel any better, than it's 50% your fault.

- Autechre Update -
On rare occasion a very important album comes out in the UK on a Friday or Monday and we get it here by Tuesday. Which means I may well be getting my copy of the new Ae album before I next update. Cross ur fingers.
7/14/98
Behold ! The Minefield
Twilight fades through blistered avalon. The sky's cruel torch on aching autobahn. Into the uncertain divine we scream, into the last divide.


- Sheep Cloning Facility Reborn -
Just a harmless little test for my new Chaos Zone map. Hadar, you aint getting this one now, sorry man. >:) Add a jackpot game and you have some damned intense dogfighting, and as a born tunnel rat I can say I am pretty happy with the mazes and corridors.
  As a result of the new game (and probably the simple fact that there hasn't been a real running style game at the VIE servers in quite a while), the server boomed and the zone hit a record population (at least a record during retail times) aftera long stretch of minimal usership. I figured what the hell, people like points--who cares what I think of em? ;) In the long standing tradition of Sheep Cloning Facility, the points are now very very nice. In the last of three several games I played in, the final jackpot amounted to 356,649 points. Of course, this was after over an hour of intense fighting and I think it was well earned. The other jackpots ranged from 30k to 140k.
  The map is a bit unfinished at the moment--the tiling is especially sloppy--and the settings are somewhat screwed up from an earlier experiment. If anyone knows the command to upload a server.set file, please clue me in.
  The SCF is now your official late night funhouse, and home to the last Jackpot RZ game. Enjoy, and please let me know if you have any ideas.

- SCF Vangels Meeting -
It was damned unofficial but we had a sort-of IRC meeting with about half of the Sheepdogs. They're being held in #wooly on irc.dal.net if anyone wants to make a note for next time. When will the next time be? That's a secret. :)

- Fix the Minefield! -
Sorry for the broken links. They are left over from when I uploaded everything to Maxgaming with Netscape but used an FTP program to send them back to WestNet. CuteFTP didn't change the links. Duh. :P It'll all be back in order soon.
7/12/98
More later. Promise!
If you forget my name you will go astray, like a killer whale trapped in a bay, the ocean miles away.


- GreyCloak is a fibber. -
The word from Subspace Maxig Com today...

    QA Man from SubSpace.PCGaming.com has said they are gearing up something big. It will be involving all of the major SS news sites, something never done before. Look for it in the following weeks. [GreyCloak]

Funny, I heard nothing about that. :) I'd also like to point out that SubSpace.PCGaming.com is *not* a major news site. :P

- Gigakiller's Turf Map Rules All -
I've been dying to get back there and play for the better part of this afternoon, so I will write more about this later tonight. In the meantime forgive me for quoting myself, but there is little point in writing the same thing twice.

    Chakotay just added it today. It is amazing. Hall fights as intense as C5 and
    G19 are all over the place. Angled walls create chaotic space but the space
    is just right and the bombs come flying through at just the right angle.
    Somehow there are more dead ends than the other maps *and* better
    opportunities for circling and flanking. A great deal of variety. Some of the
    map is derivative of old structures, but always in a new context or with a
    new twist. Exits into adjacent tunnels appear just at the moment you need
    them. First day out and already blood is ALL over those walls. Sweet new
    ideas, War Zone staples, and an excessive number of entrances that
    somehow functions to make the fights more territorial. An homage to the
    ol' Crossroads that far surpasses it.

    This is just about the finest day Turf has ever known. It's like out of
    nowhere Subspace is reborn. Have a look on the TC page and check the
    game out tomorrow afternoon.

- dgus owns Subspace -
It's official, Trench Wars is the biggest zone in the game.I'd congratulate dgus on the victory, but since he apparently has no idea that I exist there is probably no need. :P

- SCF and TCE Move -
The home pages for the Sheep Cloning Facility and Turf Classic have moved from Warzone to Maxig. Since the move came with little or no warning, the good people of Warzone are offended, completely ignoring the fact that the admins of these two pages left because they were angry with Warzone.
  Personally, after some consideration I now think the surprise and outrage are phony. Over twenty days ago I mentioned here that the page would be leaving Warzone because the html was edited by some or other member of the Warzone brass. Quite a bit more warning than Silent Dragon gave to Maxgaming before moving his Spiral to Warzone, no?
  I think Subspace Warzone Com is angry that what they know should happen finally is happening--and we can likely expect more of it soon. The inevitable collapse of a Subspace site where too many people have lost interest in Subspace.
  Watch next for quickly deleted forwarding pages, already promised..

- SCF is jumpin, by the way. -
Not the zone, but Silent is rebuilding the site nicely, and as of today we have a set of Vangels.

    Silent Dragon
    Super.Fly.
    The Dread Wooly
    Gommy
    Dennis21
    Ocean
    FlippMode

- Zone News -
Better updates here later, but I've got to get this out of my system. The new map up in Turf Classic is a masterpiece, one of the most fun maps I have ever played in. TC was open past midnight tonight for the first time in months. Giga has given us an amazing piece of work, and it's prompting the coolest fights I've seen in a long time. Nonstop fighting for long spans of time. A full review of this map tomorrow, or soon at any rate. Chaos West is hanging in there, and the SCF vangels are rounding up some nice scenario ideas. We should be in business pretty soon.

- Another Mapfolio Already! -
Gommy took my advice and made his own mapfolio (his term, soon to be mine as well). Impressive stuff. More on this tomorrow as well, but have a look. Gommy also asked me to relink mine.
7/11/98
No update 4 U !
We're all held captive out from the sun--a sun that shines on only some. We the meek are all in one.

- news.txt now! -
Bobby D, formerly of SubArena fame, is writing League updates for Cybrid's page. The perfect man for the job in my opinion, judging from the readability of SubArena in its time. Also, Cybrid got printed in PCGamer's letters section. Read all about it.

- Turfy Stuff -
Chak raised some good points at the TCE page about my piece yesterday on the new Turf map. One additional point occurred to me, which I probably shouldn't mention since Chak and I are not in agreement about tunnel-swarms in Turf (because they KICK TOO MUCH ASS! ;) If all those entrances force people to pick their turf carefully, defensive freqs may not expand past a point where they can't cover all their entrances. Swarms may well dominate the remaining areas, and in fact may still hold an advantage over the turf-defenders. It will be fun to see what happens though. Translation: Screw voting and change the map already, man. :)
  Oh yeah and....oops, I forgot to link to my Turf FAQ. Never assume other people have 175k bookmark files. ;) This should be version 1.0, by the way, but I am too lazy to change the number.

- Actually, I am not lazy. -
Finally shooting my movie again in earnest. The scenes are moving slowly and we're doing a lot of takes; we're probably going to vault way the hell over budget. Ugh. Still, the performances keep getting better and better. We spent three and a half months casting this sucker and the acting is sure as hell not going to be what one would expect from a student film. I'll probably start babbling about this stuff again soon. I'm also going to be really busy over the next few days, so you're going to get chickenshit updates like this one. Sorry! :)

- Go play in Chaos West -
Just an extra Bit-O-Pimpin™ for CZW, which is kicking ass with a (finally!) growing population, an awesome, Speed-style map by my fellow MMG member Mafia. It's centered around a creepy Pentagram design, with a fresh new J12-type safe zone war just southwest of there. 150 start bounty, a few nifty tunnels and duel-dromes. Go in and enjoy it before Chaos West goes back to its same old problems; the Battle Drone will be around forever, but this map is a rare and possibly passing treat.
  If you do play in Chaos West, be sure and visit The Wormhole, the zone's official homepage. The best way for a zone to stay active is for its participants to take an interest in how it is run and keep up to date on news of that zone. No offense to the Chaos East vangels, but that zone has become a haven for the status quo. If you are a progressive player who digs map cycling and the occasional experiment in zone settings, be sure and visit the page (and especially the message board) from time to time.
  In the interests of fairness, here is a link to the CZE page as well. For all my spew about West, the East vangels are keeping a tighter zone and making a more organized effort, and their zone continues to be the most frequented in the game.
7/10/98
BAA!
Don't believe what you hear, don't believe what you see; if you just close your eyes you can feel the enemy.


- Awesome New Turf Zone Map -
Chakotay, Vangel G'h0d of Turf Classic East, has just added a maps section to the TCE Homepage. Featured, as if out of nowhere (perhaps I haven't been well enough keeping up on things) is a brand new map by GiGaKiLLeR. It is very nice, and to accompany it is a nice, big, very specific review written by Chak.
  I am a bit curious as to why GiGaKiLLeR alone is credited as author when Chakotay explains in his review that four people made the map. Is this a throwback to Happenstance's WZ map? The new Turf map is much more solid and consistent, but has that same scatteredness about it, little spaces of weird ill-fittingness, where it seems that you cross a line and all of a sudden you're in a different zone. I also think there may be too much in the way of homages, tributes, and the wearing of influence on the sleeve, as it were; offhand I can spot eight references. A bit of nostalgia here, or was the Crossroads map perhaps used as a template?
  All that aesthetic jabber aside, this may well be the best Turf map yet made. It looks very promising. The only real problem I can see is that there are fourteen entrances to the base ring--more than Crossroads and General Rage put together, I belive. Say bye bye to locking off huge sections of base, but then again in a zone with twenty man frequencies this may be for the better. I think this map should be put up as soon as the Shark issue is resolved and any more scoring tweaks are finalized. It really deserves to be tried out and played on. Til then I will remain a General Rage fan, but I'm keeping a very open mind. :)
  Someone remind me to update my Turf FAQ. And actually, while you're at it, someone remind Chakotay that there is a Turf FAQ and he might wish to link it on his page.. ;)

- My Groovy Map Portfolio -
A bit narcissitic perhaps, but I did put it together for a reason other than just to show off. Aside from that, it's something I've been wanting to do for a while. Aside from this page, mapping has been my primary involvement in Subspace, and as my collection of maps grows along with different drafts of my own work, I wanted this page as a way of keeping track of my levels, and more importantly as a personal record of my involvement in the game.
  Since I am lately becoming too busy with my movie to spend much time on mapping, and since i'm not sure anymore of how friendly the remaining Subspace community is likely to be toward new work, I've sort of slowed down some of my mapping efforts. It gives me more time to just play the game. Thus there are a few incomplete maps here. The designs are more or less finished, but the playtesting and tiling will take a lot of work and hours that I won't be able to put in for the next several months.
  I can think of several mapmakers I asmire--some of whom are retired and very much missing in action--who I wish had pages like this one for me to look through. I hope someone out there enjoys this page similarly, and more important I'd like to suggest that other mapmakers put together similar pages if the idea suits them.

    my "super" ! MapExtrava-ganza™

- Reasons to Fear the Chaos West Vangels, Volume One -
<control^> UnGAH!
<control^> !
<control^> I AM GORPON!  KING OF THE MUTANT SPACE BATS OF THE PLANET REGIS 9!
<control^> I WILL BE MEETING WITH NERPON, THE GRAND LORP INQUISITOR, KING OF THE ZETAN CLONE BEASTS
<control^> WE WILL DISCUSS THE FUTURE OF EBLANA
<Celest> Cool.
<BossGirl> ok
<BlackShad> wewt.  We need some order around here.
<BlackShad> Even if it's kept by Zetan clone beasts.
<Celest> Who are you? Will something cool happen if I op you? =P

- New Autechre Album in Three Days -
If you are anywhere near a good record store, I recommend keeping your eyes peeled for this sucker. I'm betting it's going to be hands down the best album of 1998. Have a listen at the sound clips on the album page for it at the Warp Records site. You will need the RealAudio player to hear these. If you don't have a good record store nearby, you can always order the stuff directly from Warp. No I am not a pimp for the label, I just love them. :)
  If anyone from the UK would like to risk an untested purchase, please contact me quick. We could work something out where you buy your copy on the 15th and if you hate it I'll buy it from you....provided that you make me some mp3s for me to listen to in the meantime. ;)
  Most recommended: Tracks 2, 3, 7, 11.
7/8/98
We're all going to die.
Then someone will say what is lost can never be saved.


 - The Cult of the Final Something? -
Whatever it's called, a lot of people responded. You'd never *guess* who the first two people were. ;) Aside from a few Apollo 18 types, mostly very positive stuff. Whenever the last-ever Subspace game happens, it's going to be pretty big! Meanwhile, it's looking like this is going to be an exercise in dividing the heads from the bowling balls and seeing who really cares versus who would rather be playing Quake 2 because VIE doesn't answer their ICQ floods.
  No, I do not know what we're going to do.
  BUT it may or may not have something to do with doing what Vangels are supposed to do anyway. Welcome new players, foster creativity and growth, all that good stuff. The CFC Pledge™ is as follows. (This is a beta version.)
I, (ur name here) promise to work with you people for the
furtherance of Subspace even once I start to hate all your guts.

Tomorrow, or possibly later today, I will put up some of the cooler (as well as lamer) things people sent me. I have no idea what this is going to amount to but at least it makes me feel a whole lot better. ;) Join the crusade! The Cult of the Final Call is now accepting recruits, recruiters, donations, and hured mercenaries. What have you done for your obsession lately?

 - Chaos West Mops Up -
Today was the first good day for CZW since almost the first of the year. While I was there it peaked out at 109 players. While the settings, geared for a small arena, promoted some rather nasty behavior in a large one, the instant attaching and no greening meant fast action--perhaps too fast, but the J12 war is great :) and it's a good way to get used to a map. The J12-style spiral safe-zone base is actually located at J10 in this map, but people are referring to it as J12 anyway--a first, as far as I can recall. J10 is different, however, especially with the T20-style instant attaching. It may take the new award as the bloodiest fight in subspace. I saw people rack up hundreds of kills (and losses) in under an hour. When one freq is holding the base, it is almost impossible to invade.
  Mafia's Chaos map is big and funky. Lots of junk floating around and indeed very chaotic. Short on tunnels for my tastes, but the open space fighting is sweet and you actually see a lot of action around the outside. There were a lot of complaints about vulching, but I personally think this may be just a matter of getting used to the map. You can't very easily detect or avoid a vulch if you aren't familiar with your surroundings.
  It always amazes me how much more enlightened certain individuals must be than myself with so much less experience. here I am with maybe 150 to 200 hours experience in mapping, writing about maps, and playtesting maps, and yet I still need to actually fight in the various parts of a map in order to make a judgement about it. Compare to the deft holistic critiquing that led to such cogent statements as "this map sucks" and "the map sucks" after only a brief look at the alt-key display. Impressive indeed. If only we could clear up political and social issues this way! Oh wait, a lot of us still do, don't we....scratch that.

 - All Hail the Sync Turret! -
That's right, you heard me. I enjoy having that thing around. The sucker's not all that hard to kill, he's friendlier than half the populace of the zones he inhabits, he gets negged a lot and never complains, and if my understanding is correct he has four copies of Subspace and a pretty nice connection. Unfair? Hell yeah! If God had wanted life to be fair, he wouldn't have invented people. (Or 19" monitors, heh.) It's an interesting twist, it's not ruining things any more than the good old fashioned turrets do, and it's cute. I think you people who hate the sync turret are bloody jealous.
  It also bears mentioning that if ol' Sync has actually purchased four copies of the game and is arranging for his synch in hardware, as most of us suspect he is, VIE would be violating his rights and a customer by banning his play style from the servers. It should, however, perhaps be made an option to ban such turrets from player servers.
7/5/98
Happy Fifth of July!
We sleep in the mornings. We dream of a ship that sails away, a thousand miles away.
  - No News? -
Nearly every page has been lamenting the lack of news in Subspaceland of late. The Minefield alone dares to ask the question: Why is there no news? Who is responsible for this lack of interesting stories or events? Gee, hmm, could it be us? :)
  Think about it. Read back to the old news posts. How much of the news you see is about VIE and the people who work for it? Meanwhile, how much of the news came about because of the actions of forward-thinking, enthusiastic players from a vibrant and clever community? I remember a time when we didn't sit around waiting for things to happen. The players organized and debated and drew lines in the sand. I remember the first time I read the TTL and followed a link to the Blind Justice Jihad, and thought to myself, this is the coolest fucking game in the world.
  Where is all that enthusiasm and dedication now?
  Well let's see. There are four regularly updates Subspace pages, aside from the legions of pages whose authors spend days on the html, hire a "staff" then vanish off the face of the earth. This accounts for six or seven people. There are two fairly active Vangel pages, each with painfully low participation on the message boards. The Suggboard is in ruins; apparent victim to the defeatist philosophy that Subspace is in its final version and VIE will not listen to suggestions. Has it occurred to anyone that VIE may someday make another game? Has it occurred to anyone that other developers like suggestions too? How about the time-honored tradition of telling your friends an idea you have simply because it is an interesting idea? It's one thing to be inactive in a discussion and another thing entirely to discourage others from throwing in their own two cents.
  I think a bit of it might be the nostalgia factor, and the fact of Subspace being an apparently shrinking community. Perhaps we all know each other too well for there to be any serious enmities or rivalries to speak of. Did Burst fail to produce a game with a true span of moral greys? Has good won out over evil by simple virtue of the evil players having too short an attention span and too low a creative drive to become seriously involved in this game?
  Has anyone seen Mr. Savoy lately?
  There are a few nice scenarios on the horizon. The 2xT3 servers are alive with new ideas. Now and then an interesting thread crops up on the TTL. Well, sort of. But just imagine what would happen if Cybrid, Omicron, Imago, and Famous Anus were all buried alive in a freak coal-mining accident tomorrow. This game would end that very same day.
  For quite some time, to spite those who said this game was dying, I have maintained that I will be the last one out the door when it happens. I will call to have the phone and utilities shut off. I will turn off the light and nail boards over the door. That was kind of funny to joke about until I started envisioning it actually happening. What scares me is not the prospect of Subspace's demise but the idea that no one is really very upset about it. How many times have you seen the following statement, or something like it? "Subspace is dying. I've been playing a lot of StarCraft and Quake 2." I feel as though, without actually becoming much more dedicated to this game, I have nonetheless become more dedicated than just about everyone else. What has happened to all the people who in my newbie days impressed me with their obsessive love for the game? I am sure I am not alone in this respect. I would bet that those of you who consider yourself loyal to this game, who daily work to keep it fresh and moving, once felt quite unspectacular in this loyalty and dedication. I would bet that a year ago, or even six months ago, you felt surrounded by that sentiment. Today, if you still play this game and you retain that attitude, you are a marvel. Why is this?

 - The Cult of the Final Call -
Or, um, something. I am thinking of starting a cult. There are people who do nothing but play Chess. The CEO of Nintendo of Japan plays no game other than Go. Isaac Asimov got up with the sun and typed until the sun set, practically every day of his life. John Gardner spent seventeen hours a day revising. I bet there are professional basketball players who don't play much baseball. Or attend every party to which they are invited, or see a lot of movies, or a number of other things.
  Allow me the luxury of a bold, shocking, bloody damned obvious statement. Subspace is a better game than Chess. (It is also a better game than basketball.) I want to know if anyone else out there has given up a lot of things for this game; I want to know who is going to lock up with me when the Subspace heads off to the Great Emulator Page in the Sky. I want to hear from those few remaining among us who would draw blood over this game, and I want us to pool our ideas and do something more about the state of Subspace than wring our hands and wonder about Harmless and debate player control of the VIE zones. Completely apart from the specifics of zones and politics, I think the players can and should control the fate of this game. What I need to know is how many people are willing to put in the work and stick it out to the very end. Yes, there will be meetings. Yes, we will carry out secret assassinations of our enemies. All that good stuff. Mail me. For real this time; I mean it. Mail me, but only if you mean it. The very last people out the door. And spread the word, please.
7/4/98
Happy Fourth of July!
We knit a web to catch one tiny fly for our world without sound
- oops -
I almost forgot! Happy 4th of July. :)

- Return of the Templar Knights -
control informs me that this once-great squad of early version Chaos fame is gearing up for a reuinion and a return to glory. More on this later tonite when I have a chance to get the story straight.

- Incoming Scenario -
VectorBoy's impending Star Trek scenario is only a week away. Signups are still being accepted for the Federation side. Write to VB at ICQ://597238 for more information, or again, check back here tonite when I have time to mention more about it.

- A Kewl 4th Page -
Shockw@ve, a retired Space Police and recipient of the Minefield Award™ for Excellence in Quitting Subspace, has made a nifty 4th of July page. It's simple but a nice tribute, and I thought since I'm not doing much here I should link to it. Outside of Subspace, Shockw@ve goes by the name Ashen and keeps a regularly updated page of designs, logos, art, photography, etc. He is best known, of course, for creating the SCF's awesome Evil Sheep banner. :)
  Go have a look at his page and poke around the site some. He even has a super-narcissistic page of all his CD covers somewhere. ;P

- I am not taking the day off! -
Well, maybe not. :) For all the work that was put into the founding and building of this country, I find it a bit weird to see so many pages announcing in advance that they are taking the day off. Sure, you take the day off from work to hang out with family or friends and party some, you take some time to watch fireworks, etc, and far be it from me to chastise anyone for not updating their pages. What I can't quite figure out is the whole "this page is closed in celebration of Independence Day" thing that some of the pro magazine and news pages are doing. I don't think it's wrong; just a little goofy.
  Having said that much, yes, I know this is not a proper update, but I'm damned well going to write one today if there's any news worth mentioning and if I have time to mention it.
7/3/98
Spider and I sit watching the sky on a world without sound.


- Soul Reaver Information, Please -
(very very off-topic)
Tonight I went on a little Legacy of Kain kick, hunting around the web for information about Soul Reaver, the upcoming (supposed) sequel to Blood Omen. I'm a bit out of it lately, having devoted myself more or less to Subspace, but I can't help keeping a special place for Blood Omen, and the screenshots for Soul Reaver are looking very nice.
  Anyway so I find out it's not authorized. Crystal Dynamics seems to have taken their payment of Silicon Knights' development costs on Blood Omen as meaning they now own the rights to the story and characters as well as the actual game developed for them, and are making the sequel in-house. As anyone who reads this page often can probably guess (wink) I am very angry to hear this.
  Unfortunately, the newest stories on any of the gaming sites is about Silicon Knights filing for an injunction against Crystal Dynamics. I can find no news on whether or not they succeeded, nor any information on events since. If anyone can point me to a source for this, not to mention just a general good source or forum for Kain fans, please contact me.
7/2/98
News of the Day
Spider and I sit watching the sky on a world without sound.



- Extreme Games is back. -
After a hiatus almost too short to bother announcing, Extreme Games is back up on its old server, 2xT3. Wampit at Maxig reported Tuesday that the zone would be back shortly, and it did indeed return soon after. What was not mentioned is that EG is now sporting a new map--no big deal if you know how often EG changes its map (this is the 6th in my collection, how about you?)--but this is a great map. It may even live up to RX7's promise of being one of the best maps ever.
  The down side is it's a patchwork map, pasted together from designs by Arctos, The Romulans, B8 Factor, T2-17, Gommy, VIE, and I think maybe Starseed. What sets it aside from other patchwork maps is a genuinely creative application of old structures into new bases. The old WZ castle is grafted onto a system of tunnels, and a mean dynamic has been added to the Keep. Half of an Armada base is stuck onto T2-17's tower. Arctos' famous double spiral is used as a juncture. Only B8 Factor's combs are left relatively untouched, and while I'm not sure I like this fact, that structure stands apart from the others in that it has never seen life in an active zone.
  The center greening area is sort of sectioned off, allowing flaggers to avoid most of the bullshit that used to end up wasting your time after dying or on your way to a base. A nice amount of open space and sparse placement of structures, added to EG's weird radar settings, give a creepy sense of isolation and travel over long distances. Best of all, there are brand new structures incorporated into this map as well, many of them intelligently designed. My only criticisms of this map are that it is sloppily edited in places, with entrances placed a bit haphazardly and some of the structure grafting seemingly without motivation. Despite this, I am really impressed with this map. It is probably the first really respectable patchwork map. Props out to RX7 and Pent for it, and to EG in general for having the balls to finally put up a full size level when smaller designs seem increasingly to be the norm.
  Go play in Extreme Games. :)

- How many shopping days til Christmas? -
Subspace.PCGaming.Com has scooped us all. Are these the same people who put out the Easter candy displays on the day after Valentines? :)

Someone want to break the news to QA Man? ;)

- Turf Bug Remains? -
According to Julius Caesar per his posts to the TCE Board, Chakotay's changing the Turf scoring from Territory-style to Periodic did nothing to stop the crashes. Whether the flag reward divider was actually deactivated is unclear. It may be that Turf flags don't refer to that setting, but indications seem to be that it should. Let's hope some solution is found and that the zone returns to life.

- Alpha Zone?. -
For some reason I've been playing in Alpha Zone recently. More surprisingly, I've been turretting there. I realized tonight that I never actually did that, so I figured what the hell, and got a turret frequency together. Weird. Anyway it just goes to show that there are always things to do in this game when you get bored or frustrated with something else. I'm wondering if I'll ever run out of reasons to play.

- Silence! -
Not much else going on. Shot a bit more for my movie and realized it will probably take until mid-September to really complete principle photography, plus at least half a year to cut together. I don't know if I can sit at one of those annoying little editing tables for that long. :/ We get our first dailies back today sometime. Wish me luck. :)

- Music! -
Check out these unbelievably yummy sound clips from the new Autechre album. Tracks 2, 3, 7, 10, and 11 are especially good. ;)
7/1/98
Happy July!
When I am king you will be first against the wall, with your opinion which is of no consequence at all.


- Ding dong, the Turf bug is dead. -
From the Turf Classic page today....heartening news, though I wish it had come about by way of other circumstances.

    Tuesday 06/30/98

                 As you all have undoubtedly noticed einexile has flamed me on all the boards...
                 I don't like flames... I don't like them at all. But e does have a point.
                 These months have proven that it doesn't work as we all would have wanted
                 it to work. The scoring has been switched to Periodic reward.

I forgot about the word "flame". I suppose Subspace isn't accustomed to genuine article flame wars. My roots are in the indie music listservs--often some of the nastiest forums online, despite also usually being intelligent and informative. As one might guess, back when I was an active poster I had a set of fans on one hand and on the other hand a horde of people who wanted my head on a plate. I guess some of that shows up here every now and then, but I'm a bit more mellow now, especially in Subspace matters. I guess I do get pretty nasty from time to time. It is not ever for an arbitrary reason, however. I love this game and hate to see it failing. When I see it failing because of someone's coordinated efforts, I can become very angry.
  Having said that much, I did pull my punches with Chakotay, and did write those message board posts as angry admonishments to a friend--one with whom I had discussed the situation privately on a number of occasions with no result. It's the Vangels' job to help the game, and while I admit that, yes, I was too nasty and such bile has been known to do more harm than good, I resent Chakotay's labeling of my posts as flames. The word implies an unnecessary and cheap attack, an attack based on petty details or a misrepresentation of some sort. Not only did I post those messages as responses to rude flames against VIE (and Blackie & BFrog specifically) in which Chakotay actually cursed them out for not taking better care of his zone, but my posts did, after all, change his mind. I frankly don't see how a person can be won over by an argument and still label it as a flame. Yes, my posts were blunt. In a way they were mean. I kind of wish I was a little better at that. But they were honest and to the point, and I maintain that they were necessary.
  The question I now have on my mind, which perhaps should have been on my mind eariler, is will anyone want to play Turf after all this? I hope I haven't spoiled the fun for Chakotay or anyone else. If I have done so then I am genuinely sorry.
  An added note. At the risk of nitpicking, I'd like to point out that we did not all want the team divider to work. While I'd never go so far as to wish it didn't work, I think team size division sucks in its own right. It is a narrow view of the conflicts between different kinds of teams, and ignores several important aspects of the game. Anyone who has organized a successful public flagging freq should know this.

- Woohoo! -
It's July, and you know what that means! That's right, I get to change my Kate Moss calendar!@#
  Then again, there's my Alphonse Mucha calendar....a picture of Sarah Bernhardt with a double chin. Blah. Back to the title page we go for Mr. Mucha...

- Music -
  The new Red Snapper single is out and it is awesome. Red Snapper are pretty unique in that they are essentially a three piece avant garde jazz band on the premiere electonica label. Warp put out that Boards of Canada album I was raving about the other day, as well as Broadcast, who are prominently featured on my "other" page. Aphex Twin, Autechre, Squarepusher, Plaid, Nightmares on Wax, LFO, and so on. And this cool little rocking weird jazz band. This is called Bogeyman. The single is just four different mixes, but all so different from one another that it makes for a satisfying listen all the way through.
  Thinking about those old mailing lists and finallt getting back in touch with my fly friend *k-j* has got me in the mood to do a music page. It might just be a subset of this one, or a separate one. I was once fairly well-known (and yes, fairly well-disliked) for my music reviews and rants. First I need to see if anyone else is doing the sort of page I am thinking about. If you're interested in contributing anything please let me know.

Ns. Dy.™

Sn Jy 1998.

Ns. Dy.™

Thump click clickclickclick thumpa thumpa beep beep clickbeep repeat.

- Trixter Responds -
This morning I asked Trixter about the allegations of threats made by him against WiZT...

No, there was no threats.  That interview was not all my comments, and even the
ones I did were edited and twisted.  I was speaking off the record completely, and
he posted it and edited it.  I asked them to take it down.

I must apologize for my rude tone in the previous story, which gave all benefit of the doubt to WiZT and GreyCloak and was unfair to Trixter. It was poor form and I have only left it unedited because I don't want to seem as though I am trying to conceal the remarks. I will keep the interview up today because it is part of a news story, but it will go down tomorrow out of courtesy to Trixter and because I have not been threatened in any way. Mind you, I am not discounting WiZT's version of events, which may well be truthful. 

- Ae! -
Here ends my yearly-or-so week long ramble and fawning session over Autechre in anticipation of their newest release. I have the new album, it is awesome, and I am happy. It is weird and perhaps over-intellectual, like a set of etudes for digital samplers. I am personally a little disappointed in it because I love Ae primarily for the atmospheres they create, and in the course of their increasingly experimental development they have lost a great deal of that atmosphere. Then again, the album is basically flawless. It tinkers and folds and mazes into itself like a psychotic's puzzle box, but at the same time it is funky and entertaining and kind of creepy. I can't say it's their best album, but I have to admit its near there on the list. It's probably not for beginners. Earlier works such as Amber and Incunabula are prettier and not nearly as neurotically constructed.
 
 - The Infamous Trixter Interview -
As reported by GreyCloak on his scribblingspage at Subspace Maxig Com, WiZT's recent interview with Trixter, in which Trixter first publicly fantasized about purchasing Subspace from VIE, was removed from Subspace.Net due to legal threats allegedly made by Trixter against WiZT. Way to go, Subspace.Net. Caving to pressure and censoring your own page before it has even officially opened is a great way to build a reputation for hard-edged journalism. ;) Then again, wouldn't we all have done the same thing?
 
  I'll get to that in a minute.
 
  This article was almost lost forever, actually. Articles referencing it mysteriously vanished from both Subspace Maxig Com and SubspacePCGaming Com. When I loaded the old url in hopes of retrieving the interview from my Netscape cache, instead of a bad url I found a sort of "retraction" page--WiZT's inevitable response to being threatened by a rich American who is probably twice his age. (No disrespect meant to WiZT.)  An anonymous posting to the Trashboard had been reset by the time I looked there. WiZT, for his part, had accidentally deleted the interview from his own hard drive.
 
  God bless my 100 meg NS cache directory and Windows 95's funky search utility. I managed to find the interview after all. The Minefield bends over for no man or god. Here it is.
 
- News.Txt Articles Page Is Up -
Cybrid has in almost no time at all pulled together a set of guest editorials for Subspace Warzone Com which ranks as the best this game has seen. I can't get my friends to be this prolific for me, yet Cyb has people from all over the map writing quality pieces for him. Most notable among these are Apollo 18's editorials. Not to suggest that Apollo's board posts have been useless or unthoughtful, but considering his reputation for abbrasive trash talk, rudeness, and not pulling one single punch ever since he was born, I am amazed at the compassion, insight, and restraint showing up in his writing. With all the hype and noise surrounding the recent openings of new pages, don't overlook these articles. All that work put into html design, funky graphics, etc, and here comes this little page full of text and contributes far more to the game in a much shorter span of time. The best thing to happen to Subspace since players started running War Zone.
Cybrid'sOp-Ed Page

June 1998

6/28/98
But when that song begin to play I just can't bear to look away.


- Movie Stuff -
Shot a scene. Damn it went good, the first scene with several people in one room and eyes darting around, reaction shots and so forth. Finally something went really really right and basically on schedule. Yay.
  Actually something really weird happened. I ended up making a friend at the cafe downtown because they gave us the coffee we returned to them last night. It was basically my fault and when I returned it I got into a conversation about music. Weird.

      A few words of advice before I forget them...
    1. Keep a soldering iron around.
    2. Careful leaving mayonaisse out for a long time.
    3. Don't forget to turn the appliances back on.

- EMF Weekly -
I promise tommorrow night! I really really promise.

- SS Tiny News™ from Gommy! -
If not for my funky fresh homeboy Gommy I would have nothing to say about Subspace, so thanks to Gom for these li'l tidbits...

    War League is looking for teams.

    The VIE East servers crashed yesterday or something. (Ha! Servers 'em right!)

    
    Yeah, and Gom's map for Brick Wars. He sent it to me the other day. It is AWESOME...a special War Zone map designed for brick fights. All the bases are weak on defense, but we will give you enough bricks you can build your own from the skeletons provided. Gommy has two killer things I want to run in SCF and I can't because we have no population. Someone want to organize us a scenario from these? :)

6/27/98
EMFN,® now featuring "Sloppy News™ !"
I left my soul there down by the sea; Ilost control here living free.


- Chaos Tournament! -
Good idea from Xirphoid on the Chaos West board. (Not that anyone left in the VIE zones wants to see a single damned new idea the whole rest of their lives.) I'm hoping this will round out into a nice, friendly, fast-play type of zone the way Dueling Zone used to be. Arrange your own fights--single or team, turret or no turret, specials or duel style--without settings-enforced rules and so forth. Instant attach, big turrets, and a little map? I like it. :)

- Mafia Chaos -
I forgot to mention last night that the Evil Pentagram in Mafia's CZ map, which caused some controversy a while back, went up UNCENSORED in Chaos West the other day. All hail Hadar for having the balls to do it. No disrespect meant to the people who objected to the thing, but let's face it, Subspace transcends and supercedes the petty good-versus-evil conflicts that divide us from time to time. Mafia may be a minion of Satan, but damn it, he's a fellow Subspacer, and that's good enough for me.

- My Li'l Movie -
I guess I should say something about it. It's going pretty well now, minus the normal problems one might run into. Moving a little slow and needing some better organization, but damn if we aren't getting some killer performances and lighting for a first time director and a first time cinematographer. The movie will probably be 45 minutes long. It's in color, shot on film, and I'll probably be doing the music. It should be finished with editing and printing and so forth by January. No I won't tell you the title or the budget. Yes I will put up a vivo or something when the time comes. :)
  Either that or my resume, seeking work in the exciting fast food industry...

- Kick Ass List -
Ignore the graphic up there please. It's outdated but I'm lazy as hell so fuck it. The spanking new KA List is as follows:

    1. Trench Wars, because dgus is the godfather of the player zone and SD's castle is awesome. Simple, focused, fun, and frustrating as hell, but as addictive as anything since the high times of J12.

    2. War Zone East, for keeping up the good work. The zone is alive and healthy, they're running a classic map, risking player dissatisfaction after a very popular new map, and weekly meetings continue unabated. All with the owner gone away to summer camp or something. Awesome work.

    3. A Small Warzone. After all this time, it's still alive and kicking, and well on its way to being the most popular zone in the entire game. I don't really like all the tiny bases anymore, and dgus *still* hasn't put up my small WZ map which SD sent him (the first of its kind and still the best, hint hint neener, I dare you dgus you punk)...but the longevity and variety of this zone continues to impress me, and it continues to ruthlessly kill every small WZ that opposes it. Nice work.

    4. Dueling Zone. As much as I don't like Tyrsis' policies or some of the attitude that prevails here about certain styles of fighting, Tyrsis did finally get what he wanted with his map changes. The zone has remained well populated in a time that has seen most of the small or specialized VIE zones bite the dust, and for that it deserves a nod.

    5. In memoriam, Scenarios of Irony, which remains burned into my mind two months after its untimely demise--the finest player zone ever, featuring possibly the second best map ever made for this game. I haven't had this much fun in Subspace since the glory days of Chaos West, and I haven't had as much fun since, either. Someone please contact A Clove and force a host on him.

- Quickie Album Review -
I've been listening to the Boards of Canada's debut album nonstop for the last month or so. It's mellow, moody, brilliant elecronica, perfect for sitting around by yourself thinking. Pretty depressing, but very pretty, and it's not often that electronic music wields such a light touch and yet so often sticks you in the gut.
  The album is called Music Has the Right to Children and is available only as a UK import on the Warp label. Yes, it was expensive as hell. :P If you're lucky enough to live near a good record store, see if they have a copy and listen to track 10. Yow.

- Doh -
It's 3:15 and my damned feet still hurt. Getting up in 5 hours again. Why do I do this? Blah. Oh well, you've got something to read at least. Well, sorta. ;)


6/26/98
Indifference, the plague that moves throughout this land: omen signs in the shape of things to come.
- Bad Minefield -
I'm sorry, I'm a flake. No updates, no sloppy new, no Minefield Weekly. Worst of all, no movie. Last Friday the production kind of fell apart, before it had even gotten up off the ground. It will be repaired, but I have this to say. If you ever make a movie of any length, don't get your jobs mixed up. The director should not be scheduling shoots, the cinematographer should not be taking phone calls--and especially not loading film--and the gaffer should not be operating camera. No one should be doing continuity but the same person who did it the day before, and if you can't get someone on continuity you really shouldn't shoot at all. And always know everyone's schedules in advance.
  It's a week later and things are feeling a little better organized, with a less ambitious shoot probably going down tomorrow, gearing up into more difficult stuff on the weekend. We've got a tighter crew and more help, and with some luck we'll have more fun this time. I'll still be doing these little updates, and hopefully I will have the Minefield Weekly up tomorrow night, and each Friday thereafter. Please send me stuff for it so I am not wracked with guilt at just leaving the poor hapless Subspace community with my pitiful Sloppy News™. :)

- New CZW Map -
My map was taken down from Chaos West and replaced with Mafia's map. The zone still aint doing too well, but that's not so bad for me. I can't look objectively at my own map for obvious reasons, but I *know* Mafia's map is good and no one's playing in it either. VIE Chaos players just suck. First Rod/Jolly (twice!) then me, now Mafia. Go back to mudding, the whole lot of you!
6/20/98
Indifference, the plague that moves throughout this land: omen signs in the shape of things to come.
- With friends like this, who needs PC Gamer? -
Got to love the way Warzone sticks ads on your pages without so much as a "you're going to eat it and you're going to like it" for courtesy's sake. Silent Dragon wrote me the other day asking me "hey who put that ad on the SCF page =)" so today now that I have a few hours to breathe, we're looking for a new host, and maybe a nice gooey animated porn ad to put up in the first ad's placeplace as our little goodbye / thank-you present to Trixter and Zero3. Let's just say don't load the Sheep page with someone looking over your shoulder.
  As always, submissions are welcome.
  Watch this space for the location of the new pasture.

- Heh. -
I forgot I was even doing this. I had hoped to type a little bit about the movie as it goes, if nothing else but to keep a small record of it and maybe record whatever mistakes are made....but frankly all I want to do right now is play Trench Wars.
  Filmmaking sucks because no matter how much planning you do it is never enough.

- WTF. -
I have absolutely no idea what is going on around here these days. Sorry. :)

- I forgot. -
Minefield Weekly should be up tomorrow. I have the material and just haven't had a chance to really put it together. After the first installment it should be a cakewalk.

- Fickle Bastards -
Don't forget Paintball is back, now at the 2xT3 servers. Paintball is probably the second or third great player zone, and has had a lot of trouble with all the moves around the net..Don't turn your back on em now. :)
6/17/98
EMFN®, now featuring Sloppy News™ !
When all the leaves have fallen and turned to dust will we remain entrenched within our ways?


- Introducing Sloppy News™ -
Instead of never posting news, I'm just going to post poorly written news from now on. Often it may be about things no one really cares about. (Not today, though.)

- Very Close -
The first issue of the Minefield Weekly is almost upon us. Keep your eyes peeled.

- Imago is upset! -
The grand overseer of the 2xT3 servers has posted an abrasive but important challenge to the Server Board which should be of interest to anyone who frequents the player zones...and perhaps to the rest of us as well. Apart from issues of server versions, Imago has actually gone so far as to suggest that VIE shut down its servers sooner than planned. As in: right now. Scary stuff, but maybe he has a point.
  Look.

- New SD Map in Trench Wars -
This news is several days old, but I thought I should mention it because I am a fan of Silent Dragon's maps. (Plus he is my bud.) SD is well known for his small war maps, especially in ASWZ and one-time player zone co-champ Moolie Zone (now sadly gone). This is actually not a full map because Trench Wars doesn't call for one. TW is about holding a single base (or sometimes two) for as long as possible. It works itself into a peculiar conflict, as one might expect knowing it to be the creation of dgus, ASWZ mastermind and arguable the godfather of intelligent player zones. SD's map presents a tight set of problems. Not a lot of variety in that matter, but plenty of ways to approach those problems. I think it's the first serious attempt at mapping for the potential of this new game.
6/16/98
All I need is something good to feel alive.
- Sabbatical Closing Fast -
This is probably the last update I will make to this page before it changes form temporarily. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm going to be very busy shooting a short film for most of the next two months. The Minefield Weekly's grand opening will be Wednesday night. Actually, it won't be very grand. I'm shooting for medium intensity--just a few pieces of good writing each week from the various scoundrels and jackals you know and love around the game, plus some up and coming slime whose contributions I'm sure you'll enjoy.
  At very least, expect a contribution from me. :)

- SCSG Grand Opening -
Or something. The SCSG is the Sheep Cloning Scenario Guild. I have no idea what it's about exactly, and I'm not sure whether or not it's a conflict of interest or not for me to be a member, or if I belong in it since I'm probably never going to run a scenario, but think of it as a show of solidarity.
  The apparent purpose of the SCSG is to organize and discuss potential and actual scenarios for the SCF. It will not reside over things like a council and no one will be required to join it in order to run a scen in the SCF. The impression that I have right now is that the organization will be around primarily to help people design and arrange successful scenarios.
  Nor am I sure what membership is or how one gains it. If you are interested in joining or otherwise participating, please contact VectorBoy, Silent Dragon, or Excalibur.

 - Casa Eblana -
I'm testing a single base in Sheep Cloning GWest at the moment, which I've dubbed Casa Eblana. The game is screwy--sort of paintball style, with fatal or near-fatal hits--but also extremely slow recharge. It's a timed game of five minutes; die three times and you'll spend the rest of those five minutes in spec mode. The idea is to force cautious, carefully considered maneuvers and use of resources in a base attack. The Casa is more or less in four sections. I can see three or four freqs holding sections of it, or one dominating by holding the entrance. Turf flags make certain areas more valuable than others; a one minute periodic reward will be the deciding factor in the scoring of the timed game.
  Please let me know what you think of the game and if it's worth playing around with some more.
6/14/98
Who can you trust?
- Minefield Weekly -
Lately I've had increasingly less time to update this page as well as maintain Subspace and do anything related to it. It's going to get worse before it gets better. While I am by no means abandoning the page or adopting a "staff", I'm going to take the opportunity to have some fun with it and get some interesting reading material up here that otherwise never have happened.
  Between next Thursday and late July, I will be shooting scenes for a 45 minute movie that will constitute my final project for school. This amounts to shoots between ten and fifteen hours, three and four days a week. I wouldn't be surprised if I don't write one single word for this page that whole time.
  Starting this Wednesday, I will be taking a leave of absence, and this page will take on a temporary magazine format. Nothing hugely ambitious, mind you. Four or five pieces of quality writing about the game and its players. Your submissions are of course welcome and appreciated.
  Don't worry, I'm not Rincewind and this aint SubScene. I'll be back. :)
  Submit!

- EGN -
Um...
  I hate it!
  I'm sorry, but the program is silly--not because it currently lacks features that are upcoming, but because it's at its root a copy of someone else's good idea. The planned changes are irrelevant window dressing to that fact. Even if I am wrong about this, whatever is added to it--and however the look is changed--it's still a bandwagon jumper. If EGN is to become anything more than an embarrassing waste of someone's time, it ought to be specialized for gaming--severely specialized, as in totally useless to non-gamers. It ought to assume ICQ is running and avoid any overlap with it whatsoever, including away status and messaging.
  Fine, don't take my suggestions seriously.

 - SCF Mixup -
It was mentioned on the news.txt page that VectorBoy would be running scenarios for Sheep Cloning Facility and would be making certain maps for upcoming events. This should be taken as something of an exaggeration. While VB will be mapping and running his own scenario, and may be helping with others, anyone who runs a scenario in the SCF will be moderating that scenario unless he specifically asks otherwise, and will have his choice of moderators, or at very least not have any moderators thrust upon him against his will with the possible exception of myself.
  As for the mapping issue, VB is one of several people making custom maps for upcoming events and so forth. No one has been promised anything and everyone who submits something has a chance of having it used.
6/08/98
Overland the winds of change consume the land, while we remain in the shadow of summers now past.
- J12, R.I.P.? -
With all the current argument over the zero bounty start in Chaos East, not enough attention has not been given to the J12 contingent. They have been a low-noise and loyal fixture in the Battle Drone map for at least as long as I have been playing, and one of the more pleasant groups of people to team with in a zone where the majority of players seem often more interested in individual reputation than in fighting together with their frequencies. J12 freqs commonly stick together for hours on end while swarms and turrets split or simply fall apart. When J12 players turn on each other, there is still a certain comeraderie that exists, and kills are generally accepted with a minimum of bitterness and whining.
  The change to starting bounties seems to have ruined the J12 war, which always depended on high bounty negs and a minimum of greening. Unfortunately, while the J12ers tend to be in too great a hurry to return to their base (or base invasion, as the case may be) to cause trouble, that old bounty setup has rightly been accused of unleashing negs-with-bursts disease on players who are trying to increase their averages and/or ratings.
  I do support the zero bounty start, and would actually like to see -12 bounty brought back (although I believe the software no longer even supports that), but the J12 battle has always been an important--if not the most important--part of the Battle Drome map; it influences everything around it by way of the tunnel which spans the level. The maze above the tunnel is shaped by this fight. The dogfighting in the open spaces below will not likely keep the same flavor without J12. The J12ers are among the least vocal players in Subspace. They simply spend too much time playing the game to be involved in politics. I know this because I was very much one of them for a very long time. It really seems that there is no one gunning for them right now. While the Chaos East vangels' experimentation with the zone settings is admirable, I think a little more is perhaps appropriate in order to balance the first change, at least once the effects of that change are more clear.
  Having said all that, let me also say this. People who go into a zone and immediately start complaining about changes they cannot possibly have given a fair try--the kinds of players who get involved in a debate only once that debate has ended--are not worth the paper they are printed on, and should not be playing this game at all. We do not need that kind of negativism in a game that is struggling like this; it always does more harm than good and is selfish as hell. An intelligent person spends time assessing something before bursting out with an opinion about it. Considering how damned frustrating it can be to get other people interested in this game, I'd expect Subspace players to realize this fact better than anyone. I'm really disappointed in this game's populace at the moment. Having taken a slight beating over my Chaos West map--not a fun experience--I can better appreciate why the vangels of Chaos and Turf, who have been treated far more viciously, would become frustrated with this game.
  These people are doing you a favor by running zones that otherwise would be completely and utterly neglected, and they have made themselves far more open to suggestions and criticism than VIE ever has. If you'd rather they just sat around watching their zones--your zones--waver in doldrums and disintegrate as they did for the first four months of this year, just keep up with the knee jerk reactions and cheap insults. I'm sure you'll get what you want sooner or later.

- Armada Rocks -
I've had The Romulans' screwy Armada game up in Sheep Cloning Facility for quite a while now, and it's going to stay there a while longer. The two-team war game really kicks ass once the zone raises above 15 players; the dueling tourney we had this weekend helped that happen. I missed a 45 player game Saturday but was able to play in a decent sized arena Sunday and it was more fun than I've had in a while. The two team dynamic has unfortunately forced me to make the server reset scores of people who change frequencies--otherwise people join the winning team at the last minute--but I'm finding that this sort of setup holds teams together and forces good players to slum with bad players and people who are screwing off. It forces people who are serious about flagging to whip their teams into shape. It may become a staple for War games in the SCF. If you are a War player or an SCF regular, please let me know what you think about this.

- Go Om! -
Outer Rim has shut down server hosting due to lameass hacker activity. Omicron of Maxig tells it like it is.
6/07/98
Severance. The birds of leaving call to us--yet here we stand, endowed with the fear of flight.
- A Special Request -
DataMunky's friend Mick, also a Subspace player, has been horribly injured and is in the hospital. They aren't sure he will ever fully recover, and he is in very poor spirits--and, I imagine, a lot of pain. DataMunky has put together a Get Well Soon page, "as a testament to the power of the Internet and to show others and my friend that there are people out there who care and hope to see his condition improve." It is a simple guestbook for people to leave messages in--whatever thoughts or wishes or quotations or little stories you think might cheer him up. Data plans to print it out and take it to the hospital. As Omicron has already pointed out, please don't mess around with this page. This is real-life stuff.

- 31 Flags Guide Finished -
For those not yet aware, 31 Flags is my map which has just gone up in VIE Chaos GWest. I thought I was going to complete this last night but time went by too fast and I was not feeling well so I just went to bed. Sorry about that! Anyway, being both a map purist and a history buff, I wanted to put this together to explain what has become a fairly controversial map, considering the map it replaced and the elements that have never been seen in Chaos Zone before. Hopefully this will make a few people feel more at home in the place. I also wanted to set a precedent, because there are a lot of maps out there that I've enjoyed immensely and wished there were some page or document identifying the designer and discussing the structures and some of the purposes and stories behind their creation. Well, here's mine. Sorry for the big ol' jpeg.
Guide to 31 Flags

- 45 Sheep! -
As reported by the one the only Grandmasta Sheepdog Silent Dragon, the Rise from Chaos dueling tourney, organized by Gone^Nuclear, brought dozens of people into Sheep Cloning Facility (VIE Sheep Cloning GWest) yesterday. As a side effect from the tourney, the Armada game that is running there now--The Romulans' WZ game designed for two huge teams in two huge bases--peaked out at 45 players, and the tunnels are said to have been a bloodbath. With luck we can get a second game together today, and I won't miss it this time. ;( The tourney starts at noon Pacific time. Sorry to get rid of scoring (it now resets on freq change), but it was encouraging cheap last minute frequency changes, which I don't think ought to be rewarded. To make up for this, the jackpot is going to be huge. Get out HyperSnap. :)

 - Who said Godzilla was a bad movie? -
The people who say Godzilla was a bad movie for various reasons--don't believe them. It is probably the worst movie ever made, and for every reason I can think of. Possibly the most unpleasant experience I've ever had watching a movie, and certainly the angriest I've been in a theatre, and I don't even have any attachment to Godzilla. This was long after I'd given up on the thing, too. My heart was actually racing--I nearly cried I was so fucking pissed off. I do not exaggerate. I don't know why I didn't just walk out.
  And I'm not the type to analyze movies while I'm seeing them...I'm really not...but you'd think that with such a terrible story and script, with inadequate models, sets, and monster design, and with one of the worst casts ever assembled for a motion picture, they could at least get their exposure right and have the picture look ok. It was so grainy my girlfriend actually noticed it, and I wasn't aware she knew what grain is. I haven't been so entirely uninterested in making movies since the day before I saw Star Wars.

- Outer Rim is alive and well. -
Leaving this news up since it is important and I added it late yesterday. Outer Rim's zones and web servers are down due to temporary problems. They are not dead so don't forget about them. See the news.txt for the full story.
6/06/98
Let the waste cross the ancient trail to you, far out beneath the sorrow clouds.
- Outer Rim is alive and well. -
Well, not well. Zone and web servers are down due to temporary problems. They are not dead so don't forget about them. See the news.txt for the full story. Just thought I should mention it here.

- New Map Up in Chaos West -
I told you yesterday there would be something nice for you in Chaos West and I always come through on my promises! ;) Obviously I got advanced word on this because it's my map that's up. So far, my assessment of it seems to be correct: It pisses a whole lot of people off, but a satisfying portion of those it doesn't piss off are amazingly gung ho for it. I've been having a lot of fun there and I hope it stays up. My thanks to everyone who is taking the time to give it a fair shake, and to the supporters it already had for pimping it and swelling the arena size all day long, especially Monocle who doesn't even like Subspace and Moby who is as much of a map co-author as I'm likely to have. Last and most to Hadar and the other Vangels who supported or tolerated it. You guys rule. :)
  Anyway, I put together a little guide. Enjoy.
Guide to 31 Flags

- And while we're at it. -
Let's get this straight once and for all. :P




- New KA List -
I redid the Kickking Ass list up at the top. Been a while; sorry. :) Note the heavy emphasis on VIE zones. This is not simply because I have been playing in VIE zones a lot lately, but because I am damned impressed with the work that is being done in them. The War Zone Vangels have been more active than those of any other zone, holding regular meetings, constantly reviewing problems and other issues arising from settings, and taking a forward-thinking approach to the map scene, featuring two new maps since they started making changes to War East only a couple of months ago. And yet the next map on the schedule is a classic level by Rod Humble, out of use now for well over a year. Zen Dogg, for his part, has been making War West available occasionally for map and settings tests, has for the time being brought back the very first War Zone map, and will soon be giving up what is practically his own private zone in order to make room for WZ League.
  While the Chaos East folks rested on their laurels, appeasing their players with continuance of an age-old game while Chaos West went to hell (along with the badly underappreciated map thatw as in it), Hadar and the other West vangels sprung to action, although not drastically. Care has been taken not to alter the settings too much, and experiments that have pissed off the players have been changed back fairly quickly. Not only am I grateful to Hadar and co. for giving my map a chance there, but impressed at their unilaterally tossing out the map vote precedent and taking so much heat for it. For a long time I've been hearing from zone owners and ops, "I can't do that; it would make people angry and everyone would hate it." Granted, desperate times call for desperate measures, but it takes balls to put up with the flaming I saw today in Chaos West, and thick skin to weigh negative feedback against positive by proportion rather than by decibels.
  And I do not exempt my own zone, the Sheep Cloning Facility from the above. Aside from the fact that I am obviously going to prefer a zone that I have set up myself, there are other reasons I've included it. The player population has been uncommonly loyal for such a hole-in-the-wall zone. The atmosphere is among the friendliest in the game and reminds me of the old days of Speed West, with whining and insults almost always at an extreme minimum. The Vangels of the zone (insofar as I can make people Vangels; I am calling them Sheepdogs) have been taking up different jobs to do with the page and promoting the zone and so forth. People like Silent Dragon and Gommy are now making maps just for the zone, just for fun. I've managed to get a logo made by someone who doesn't even play Subspace anymore. The whole thing makes me feel good about the way people still care about this game. That said, yes, it is also on that list because I am running it--that is to say, I run it like the zone I wished someone would put up for such a long time.
  I took out Turf Classic because it crashes all the time and no one seems to give a damn. Sorry, I love you guys but you're making me mad.
  Anyhoo...though I'm gravitating now back to the VIE scene, I still find myself coming back to Extreme Games. It is radically experimental, designed for weird fun without fear of or apology for causing frustration. It is also utterly meaningless--and in a time when all these player zones out there seem to have a gimmick or a very strict design, it's nice to see combat simply for combat's own sake, especially in the absence of super settings.
  Hats off and nods to the zones I haven't been playing in but which I know are cool as hell: A Small Warzone, Paintball, most or all of the iNet zones, most of OR, and yes, I know you'll laugh at me but I'm going to say it anyway: Annihilation West.

- The Man -
Thanks to Cybrid for the bad link report. Always be a good little miners and watch for link scum!
6/05/98
  The world is a vampire, sent to drain. Secret destroyers hold you up to the flames.
- APB -
I avoided mentioning this for a long time because it is an answer to a contest somewhere, but it's been several months and I want to get to the bottom of this. Who is, or was, Dev's Apprentice? Is he the author of the Battle Drone map (that is, the J12 map) or the original incarnation of the Jolly map, or is there a missing Chaos level somewhere? Both Chais East' and Chaos West's ?sheep messages say "Map named the Battle Drome". (Apparently at one point that map was running over in West as well--probably before The Romulans' map which came before the original version of the Jolly map. Can someone confirm this?)
  At any rate, I am convinced that there was never anyone named Battle Drone. If someone out there knew (or knows) Dev's Apprentice, please contact me about this.

- Mommy, what are those flashing lights? -
J12ers and tunnel rats, keep your eyes on Chaos West today. Trust me on this one. ;)

- MapMakers Guild Civil War!@!#$ -
Speaking of map...well, we had a little spat over my page update, tho everything is fine now. I did go a little overboard with the style changes and it will probably end up looking more like it used to than it does now. What's good about this, and why I'm mentioning it here, is that the incident seems to have sort of livened up the MMG. (I am speaking, of course, from my own standpoint.) I'm hoping a little more activity will come out of all this. T2-17 even tried to neg me today. ;)

- Zone Spamming -
If you're idiot enough to spam a zone run by players, at least have the sense and courtesy not to do it while the zone owner is present, eh? For the record, it didn't work, and we outlived them by almost three hours. :) Pffftthbbt.

- damn shrap -
Sigh. I'm not normally one to complain about change, and I didn't play a whole lot before random shrapnel was implemented, so I'm willing to give it a try but I'd just like to mention that I miss it. I also think it is a bit rotten to use it in both servers of a particular type, i.e. Chaoses East and West. It's a nice diversion, but seems largely justified by an argument that nothing in this game should be left to chance. Too often, that little slogan is an easy way out for people doing something foolish because of poor foresight, in the same way that bursting is called cheap most often by those who don't know what a burst trap looks like. If we're going to make changes, let's do it for the sake of game play, not for realism or to massage someone's frustration.
  Even if the fate vs. skill argument were valid to begin with, the contention that random shrap is unpredictable is bogus in the first place. Shrapnel does very little damage if it hits you immediately after its release; by the the time it becomes deadly, it has indicated its direction. Once you know where it is headed, you can predict where it will bounce. It's a little more to keep track of, but in my opinion it's a sight less to deal with than a rain ofthe stuff from all directions in open space.
  Still, I suppose I'm open to it--I just hope random shrap doesn't disappear off the face of the VIE servers entirely.

- Armada! -
Now playing in the Sheep Cloning Facility, a two-team War Zone style game in a crafty zone designed by The Romulans. This game was hosted at Warzone about half a year ago, and never really took off. Two enormous bases, identical but forthe fact of being mirror images of one another. Awesome flag chambers in the middle, and a hair-raising rush to get there from the flag-spawn area outside before the timer runs down. Nice juicy jackpot reward. Tonight saw the zone's first really successful War game; it lasted into the early morning, and seemed to hold players' interest more than previous games. I will be keeping it up for a while, I think--possibly until next weekend. Some of the juiciest tunnel fighting available. Enjoy. :)
  Next up: Gommy's answer to Turf. You'll see what I mean.

- Eight words I never expected to string together. -
The new Smashing Pumpkins album is a masterpiece. I've never liked them, but for some reason I have all of their albums. Recomendation of a friend, big hype, heard some songs on the radio, etc. I could never stand them. I guess it had become a tradition, but this year has been so bleak for music--hell, it's almost Summer and there is NOTHING to listen to--that after hearing Ava Adore a few times I actually anticipated the new album, and made a special trip for it early Tuesday morning.  A minute into the record and my little world is falling apart. I'm sitting in my car admiring someone I've found obnoxious for the last six years. No way was this going to hold up for a full album, expecially a long one.
  Lo and behold it does. Every single song on this album is as good as the single, or better. From end to end it is classy, restrained, cleverly and carefully written, stylishly performed. More often than not it is heartbreakingly beautiful. What the hell is going on??
  It's not offending the Punkin fans I know, either. It's not a radical departure or a betrayal, but a toning down--a clarification. It's all here, but in far more well considered design. They've risen above genre music and into the rare space occupied by albums like The Downward Spiral, Achtung Baby, and OK Computer. Do yourself a favor and take a listen to this one if you can.
6/01/98
News of the Day
I am certain, I have no doubt: Life is for playing.
- MapMakers Guild Updated -
By me, no less. Let's hope I don't get in trouble for screwing up the HTML. ;) I figured now was as good a time as any. One of the dumb ol' Chaos West vangels told me the MMG was dead, and that got me all mad so I decided to do something about it. Not much yet, but just you wait. :) Have a look and be sure to tell me what you think.
  In related news, I screwed up the SCF site badly. Sorry. Nothing lost, but you can't view it in NS for some reason, and since I have no brain in my head I need to wait for Silent Dragon to fix it. Sorry :/

- Minefields ½-Year Birthday -
:)

- Chaos West Considering Big Changes -
In response to near complete abandonment by the players as well as requests and suggestions made at the Wormhole messageboard, Hadar (owner of Chaos West) announced that, beginning at the next reset, the unfortunate zone will see a number of changes, including a new map, zero start bounty, and medium starting levels for status. Changes already made include a higher team greening limit, immunity to wormholes for the Shark, and an increase in the number of greens. Go Hadar. :)

- SubScene is Dead. -
Formerly one of the best Subspace pages, SubScene, which started in October of 1997 in a "magazine" format then became more of a traditional page early in 1998 before finally winding down to a halt a couple of months ago, has breathed its last. The Romulans turned out the lights and nailed the door shut late Thursday night. The Minefield has the exclusive story. ;)

    Some of you may be wondering what happened to SubScene, some of you
    might not care, but here it goes anyway...

    When I joined SubScene I expected to have limited duties, one, maybe two
    sections of the entire site after we got on-foot, however things fell
    apart. People were not contributing, people were leaving/retiring,
    whatever, and Young Gun, the person mainly in charge of the whole thing,
    left to go to another country. So I was left there, pretty much by
    myself (and Arctos doing the League of course) trying to get by and
    update until Young Gun got back, until the Poll was fixed, until the
    Private BBS was fixed. But these things never happened, I went on a
    holiday and then went back to school, work pilled up and so did all my
    new games (hehe ;), and then SubScene was just "left" there for a few
    months until now, where its been deleted from the warzone servers. I
    must thank, on behalf of the SubScene staff, Trixter and Zero3 and
    Warzone for their space for the site, also I must thank all those that
    helped contribute (Tactics, news etc). For anyone wondering what'll
    happen to all the info and stuff that was on the SubScene site
    (especially the fan fic section!) you'll be pleased to know that parts
    of SubScene will be making a come-back on subspace.maxig.com (a site
    very similar to SubScene in many ways), where I'll also be doing some
    general SubSpace type stuff in the future :). Anyway, I'll see ya
    around.

    The Romulans - MMG and general SubSpace Addict.

- Ancient War Zone Map Up in WZW -
This has been pimped all to hell over the past couple of days, but I thought I would mention for those who have never played there that the Ancient map is not the one with the Castle and Combs, commonly mistaken to be the oldest War Zone map. The map that is up in War West right now predates even that, to such an extent that there are clues all around it indicating that it was designed before War style flags were ever actuall played. The map suffers from imbalanced bases--many of them so weak as to be useless while two others are nearly impenetrable--and a whole lot of chaotic random junk that doesn't belong in a WZ map. That said, it's got some nice fights, and is a fun map to fly in; it might be nice to see it in Chaos someday, actually.
  As for the allegation that the map may never be used again, I find it silly, and it sounds like a ploy to get people to play in the zone. After showcasing two new maps, the WZE Vangels are heading back to an old classic for that zone's next map in a couple of resets--one made by Rod Humble well over a year ago. Don't play in the Ancient map because it's going to be gone; play there because it's been such a long time.

- Gommy's War Zone Map Finished -
Gommy's map page has been tracking the progress of his map for a few months now, and the map finally went up for testing a week or so ago in War Zone West. Now it is officially complete, and you can see an image of it at his page. It looks very nice, full of evidence of his small player-zone roots but still appropriate for a nig map, with some nice open combat areas. In fact, I think this might even be a good map for War Zone Wars, since it will be new to everyone and presents a variety of base styles.
  One thing I predict will become an issue when War Zone Wars is that War players in VIE and player zones are used to radically different map types. I was in South Park the other night and marveled at the extent to which everyone was happy to bounce around, the constant repelling around three and four tile mazes. Having played only the more moderate Scenarios of Irony and iNet War zones in the recent past, I frankly couldn't stand it. Regulars to Moolie and A Small Warzone are likely to be pissed off by the more difficult defense necessary in a VIE style base, and VIE players will probably be uncomfortable in small-map type bases, most of which present an even greater defensive advantage than the T2-17 Spiral. Perhaps in Gommy's mixed-style map there can be a compromise.

    Gommy's Complete WZ Map

    version history page

    Those interested in learning to map should definitely check out the different versions. :)
    v.25    v.30    v.50    v.80    v.85    v.90    v.95    v1.00

Gommy has also announced two upcoming maps for the Sheep Cloning Facility as well as a map making guide based on his experience in making this map. I've read bits of it and found it damned insightful, and will be sure to pimp it here when it is complete.

- Player Zones Back from the Dead -
Paintball Zone is back! This time it's being hosted at OR, so the connection should be solid and hopefully it will be going for a while. Don't everyone bug out on your old favorite player zone; re-add it right now. I'm not going anywhere. :)
  The other night I spotted Anarchy, the classic super zone from early retail days, up on the server list again. Now it's gone. Keep your eyes peeled.
  Realism Zone, formerly hosted at VRGN and featuring The Ghost Ship's carefully designed settings, has found a new home at iNet. The map is unfortunately the goofy St. Patty's Day map, but this will probably change once the game is started in earnest.

- 10k! -
I topped ten thousand hits the other day. :)  Anyone take a screenshot?

- WTF? -
Since I came online, my silly little cat has done this about twelve times: She walks behind the desk, jumps up on the little rolly drawer thing my printer is on, looks out the window, gets up on the desk, walks past the keyboard, and jumps off the other side. Always counter-clockwise, about once every ten or fifteen minutes. Am I missing out on something?

- Birthday Present -
As your half-year birthday gift to this page you may wish to download and install the correct fonts. ;)