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Twenty-Second Highest Shelf Vittles: 10.20.02-3.14.04
Back to Stale Vittles
Sunday 3/14/04
Fluffy Godzilla
First an update about Molycoat's "Goldcanyon"
that I covered in the last update--Moly tells me that
the explosive barrels do in fact respawn, they just
have long respawn times so as not to make the map
too explosive. Paleface.net apologizes for the
error!
Godzilla! CTKMD
(shot)
by Shifty Tuco and Molycoat: You've played a
128-bit gunslinger for quite some time now--how about
moving up to a 200-foot city-wrecker? Awesome mod job
here to transform Outlaws into a modern city complete
with little (relative to your formidable size) tanker
trucks, helicopters, suspension bridge, boats, artillery,
helpless civilians, Godzilla and, of course, skyscrapers.
You can even climb up to the top of the tallest
skyscraper with some careful jumping and poke your head
through the sky--now that's high up, man! All the normal
OL pickups have been transformed into appropriate objects
(the shotgun is an artillery piece, for instance) that
you snap up as you stomp around the city--a little
confusing at first, but I'm sure even GZ had awkward
moments in his early days.
Fluffy's Meadow CKMD
(shot)
by Shifty Tuco: Like something right out of an
old Bugs Bunny cartoon complete with blue skies,
butterflies, giant carrots in a field, a big puffy
tree, and lots of rabbit holes. All players even look
like different colors of what Shifty calls
"badly drawn rabbits,"
but I think they're rather cute.
The multi-layered burrows beneath
the meadow are a bit confusing (in contrast with the
meadow itself, which is a single circular area), but
don't you just want to play with those cute little
bunnies? It is rumored that the squirrel is a double-barrel
shotgun.
X_Villa CTKMD
(shot)
by Xaviar: Swiped this one from
Mr. Bone's HQ.
One of those high-concept maps, in the shape of a big
X, with forts at the end of the legs and in the middle.
It's an interesting configuration for team play, and
although the buildings are on the plain and simple
side, the texture work is nice. Molycoat helped out
on this one (the dude is everywhere!)--you'll spot his
explosive barrels standing around, for instance.
Other Western Games
Lanky pointed me to Polish developer Teleplan's
page for Gun
Warrior, a multi-angle Western shooter in which, in
their own words, "The major Player's activity is
eliminating hundreds enemies passing through mission-based
bloody journey as well as during the duels." Elsewhere
on their site they show their actual
development
schedule, a rather unusual thing to show to the
public and which inclines me to think that they're still
shopping for a publishing
partner.
It seems the once-derailed Western console title
"Red Dead Revolver" is back
on track and picking up steam now that the developer,
Angel Studios, has been bought by Rockstar. Apparently
you get to play third-person as a bunch of different
characters with different play styles, and you even get
to
ride
bison, if you have a PS2 or Xbox of course.
Truffle 2.0
Truffle is working on
Gunslinger
2.0, an upgraded version of his all-in-one
Outlaws utility program. According to his preview
page 2.0 will have lots of nice GUI tweaks, additional
functions such as tokenizing maps, and can even take
custom skins.
Legends of Pale
Her hair was falling loose
and now seemed to rise on her head, above her
ashen-pale face, like Medusa's serpent-coils.
Alexandre Dumas,
The Three Musketeers
translated by Lord Sudley
* * *
Sunday 3/7/04
Gold in Them Thar Canyons
Gold Canyon TKMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: Adoptation of part of the ice
caves Historical Mission thing, except now in bright
daylight. The canyon texture got a little blown out
in the time-of-day switch, but the water looks nifty.
Other custom graphical touches abound, including
plentiful whisky bottle canteens, explosive 3D powderkegs
(these don't respawn, darn) and even what Moly says is
a 3D model for the gatling gun that he dug out of the
game resources. It looks kind of like an alien
spacecraft eheh. Oh and the rope ladder, that's neat.
The level layout is kind of long and linear with lots
of little dead-ends, but exploring it should be
fun.
Out|@Wz i|\| 7i|\|Ux OMG!!
I ought to apologize for that headline, but really
I get a kick out of writing like that. Anyway,
Truffle has been experimenting in ways likely
not approved of by the DirectX compatibility verification
team at Microsoft, and sent me the following interesting
missive:I
was able to get Outlaws to run in linux (mandrake 9.1)
I used a DirectX emulator called WineX which is based off
the popular Windows Emulator WINE. Anyway, surprisingly the
game ran as fast as it does in Windows. Direct3D didnt work.
Im guessing this is because Linux didnt install any 3D drivers
for my video card, it told me i had to download them from
nvidia's website. The only problem i had with it was the same
problems that we all get in Windows XP. The backspace key
didnt work. Now
if that ain't fascinating, I don't know what is.
I really should try to figure out that Lin00x
thing one of these days.
Impassively Pale
But,
astute as she was in reading the minds of those
whose secrets she wished to discover, this time she
found her victim so impassive that her scrutiny
revealed nothing. The officer was about twenty-five,
pale, and with light-blue, rather deep-set eyes. His
mouth was sensitive and well-formed, his jaw
determined, his forehead the high forehead of poets
and visionaries, his hair close-cropped and, like his
beard and moustache, chestnut-coloured.
Alexandre Dumas,
The Three Musketeers
translated by Lord Sudley
* * *
Sunday 2/15/04
Which Way to Go
4 Way CTKMD
(shot)
by GravEs: A neat little geometric level of
four houses in tiny box canyons branching off from
a similar central canyon, with some secret passages
and bunkers in the canyon walls. Textures could use
a little tweaking and item placement is clumpy in
a few spots, but otherwise this is a very solid
DM map so long as you don't get lost between
the similar-looking canyons.
Note: I've renamed the map to "4way_graves.zip" because
there's already a "4way.zip" map.
Deathly Cheeky
'Fiend!' she shrieked. 'You've played a vile trick on
me and you know my secret! You shall die!'
She ran over to her dressing-table, half naked as she
was, and with trembling hands opened a marquetry
jewel-case, took out a little gold-hilted dagger with
a thin, pointed blade and with one bound was back at
d'Artagnan's side.
Brave as he was the young man flinched and shrank back at
the sight of her. Her face was transformed. The pupils of
her eyes were horribly dilated, her cheeks deathly
pale, her teeth bared in a snarl. He backed away from her
as far as the alcove, eyeing her warily like a wild
beast, and when his hand, damp with sweat, accidentally
touched his sword he clutched hold of it and drew it
from its scabbard.
Alexandre Dumas,
The Three Musketeers
translated by Lord Sudley
* * *
Sunday 2/8/04
Maps That Are Out There
Spacewar D
(shot)
by Molycoat: The master of map customization
outdoes himself again by converting the dusty old
trails and six-guns of Outlaws into the glistening
laser-riddled spaceways of the far future. It's essentially
a low-grav circular arena with mod weapons and character
sprites, not to mention brilliant space sounds (love the
thruster when you run-- er, jet forward). The
space feel is very vivid (as is the nebulous background)
and man, the whole affair is quite impressive. The
composite screenshot comes from Moly, who wanted to make
sure you could get a preview of some of the ship/player
sprites. Here's a bonus
one for you.
Mt.Mod CTKMD
(shot)
by GravEs: A long CTF-ish trench valley map
with a number of crafty bunkers, and ledges around the
top. Good framerate, sorta shaky construction on the
ramps and side bunkers, wish it had footstep sounds.
TheRing CKMD
(shot)
by GravEs: Lots of massive rendering glitches
in 3dfx mode make it a bit hard to evaluate this
large-ish map of several rambling buildings in a wide
flat area. The buildings are rather plain and blocky,
although the boxing ring is a nice idea, unfortunately
plagued by some of the aforementioned rendering glitches.
Also missing running sounds.
"Wild West Goldhunter" Released
Spikerama, aka "Larry," maker of many creative
OL maps in days of yore, has turned his creative game
ideas in a new direction and gone and made his own
entire game! Called "Wild West Goldhunter," it's a
Western-based first-person-shooter with a heavy
emphasis on solving mind-bending riddles, as well as
prospecting for gold. The official web site for the
game is
right
over here, and good ol' Spikerama is selling the
fruits of his labor for less than what it costs to get
in to a movie these days. He was kind enough to send me
an early beta version some months ago and although it
didn't run well on my machine (my old box is about at
his minimum spec in processor speed, so no wonder), I
sure ran into some head-banging puzzles! There are a few
crafty riddles/hints on the web site, as well as some
representative screenshots, so go check it out.
TKM's New Digs
Those Killing MachinE rascals seem to be modifying
their name somewhat and moving over to
this
address, and it's actually an entirely new site,
though somewhat reminiscent of the now-obsolete one that
I just posted a few weeks ago.
Wild and Pale
'I've got that ring, dear heart. You see it was I who
was here on Thursday night . . . not de
Wardes!'
The rash young fellow expected nothing more from his
mistress than surprise and mortification, a petulant
storm which would resolve itself in tears. But he was
very much mistaken and was soon to discover his
mistake.
Milady started up wild and pale. She forced d'Artagnan
away with all her strength and sprang out of
bed.
It was now almost daylight.
D'Artagnan caught hold of her flimsy crèpe-de-Chine
nightdress and held her back, meaning to coax her into
forgiving him. As she tried to jerk herself free the
cambric of the dress tore, leaving her beautiful white
shoulders bare. And on her left shoulder d'Artagnan
saw to his horror the fleur-de-lis, the mark of the
criminal. Milady was branded!
The young man let go of her nightdress and lay there
motionless, paralyzed with fear.
'God in Heaven!' he whispered.
Alexandre Dumas,
The Three Musketeers
translated by Lord Sudley
* * *
Sunday 2/1/04
Wild Down Under
Spikerama sent me
this
link to an Australian site showing what they say
is a Western real-time strategy game called
"Tombstone: Wild West 1882." Let's hope it's Y2K-compatible!
Haha. Er, sorry. It isn't clear if you can actually buy
the game directly through their site, in fact it kind
of looks like they deal with selling in bulk to retailers,
but I could be wrong.
Dead Men Have Good Poker Faces
Continuing the theme of 'games that want to be cool
like Outlaws,'
Pancho Villa pointed me over to
the official site
for Human Head Software's new western FPS, "Dead
Man's Hand," due out at the beginning of March for
PC and Xbox. Looks pretty neat from the screenshots,
and Pancho says that he's heard it will have multiplayer.
The official site has links to a lot of previews and
such which, one would hope, have even more screenshots
and stuff.
Excuses for Paleness
Having reached the man he had two courses open to
him: either to search him on the spot or to carry him
back, making a shield of his body, and search him in
the trench. D'Artagnan chose the second course. He had
just lifted the man on to his back when the enemy
opened fire. D'Artagnan felt the man's body jolt against
his shoulder, heard him scream and give a final shudder
of agony. The man had achieved the very opposite of
what he had intended; he had shielded his victim and
instead of killing him had saved his life. D'Artagnan
jumped back into the trench and threw the corpse down
beside the wounded man, who was almost as pale as his
dead comrade.
Alexandre Dumas,
The Three Musketeers
translated by Lord Sudley
* * *
Sunday 1/25/04
Curses!
I stumbled across a preview of an upcoming PS2/Xbox
game called "Darkwatch: Curse of the West." I mention
it because it is self-described as
"A cinematic FPS with explosive action and great gameplay
variety framed by a story and visual design that delivers a
frightening re-imagination of the Wild West." The whole
horror/western combination seems a little overdone
to me (I mean that it seems nearly every Western game announced
has to have some kind of dark Gothic side to it for
some reason) but you never know, it could turn out
all right. The preview, with screenshots and so forth,
can be found
here.
Side-Scrollin' Outlaws-Style
Truffle is working on a PC game he calls "Dr.
Death's Shootout." It's a 2D side-scroller in which you,
playing as Dr. Death, jump over crates and gun down
varmits with a variety of weapons. It looks almost
exactly like Outlaws, only fully 2D, which is pretty
impressive. He's still working away at it but if you
visit
his
page on the game you can see screenshots and even
download a rough but quite playable version of the game.
I found it really challenging, but the shotgun makes a
nice little equalizer. Overall it's an impressive
testament to Truffle's abilities with a computer and it
will be fun to play the finished version when he's got
it all done.
TKM Site Goes Live
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TKM's HomeBase
The "Team Killing Machines'" site by TheClown
sports details on each member of the posse, a few
pertinent links, some handy utilities for OL players,
info on the gang and a few screenshots, all in a
large, fast, flaming goth style (those offended by
an animated burning cross had best avoid).
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* * *
Sunday 1/11/04
What's GoJo Cooking?
GoJo is whipping up a new map and you can watch
him do it! Well, in screenshots, at least. Check
GoJo's
Current Project page for the goodies.
Snipers Have More Fun
Clown sent me some info on his Snipers posse.
Look, they've got a web site!
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Snipers HeadQuarters
Fast site of the Snipers posse has info on the
members, how to join, a few handy links, and so forth.
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What's So Happy About It, Anyway?
Hope everyone survived the holidays more or less
intact! I had a nice long break but the last two
vacations I've taken now I've ended up with a cold,
so maybe I shouldn't take time off anymore—seems to
be bad for my health. Too bad
this place
wasn't open New Year's Eve... Who says Seattle
doesn't have cowboys? Hm, tryouts today—looks like
this is my chance to live my old dream of being a
cattle-rustlin' cocktail waitress.
'Impossible,' said Milady. 'No gentleman would write
a woman a letter like that.'
Then she suddenly cried out:
'Good God! Could he have seen . . .?'
She stopped. Her teeth were chattering, her face ashen
pale. She now turned and tried to walk over to the
window to get air, but could only raise her arms;
her legs gave way under her and she collapsed into an
armchair.
Alexandre Dumas,
The Three Musketeers
translated by Lord Sudley
* * *
Sunday 12/21/03
We Three Maps
Deerhunt CTKMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: Lovely dry brushland/pine-forest
with a gently curving road running through the middle
and plentiful wildlife, including the titular deer
who have some very impressive animations and even
(in one case) the sound of hooves matching their
progress. A really gorgeous job of blending what
appear to be custom textures here, the autumnal palette
and sprites making up the open woodland are just
smashing. The whole area has a natural, organic
feel to it, helped of course by Molycoat's customary
attention to intricate wildlife details. You'll
probably get lost at first in the rambling wooded
paths but just sit back and enjoy the scenery
for a while and you'll soon get your bearings. I can still
hear that crow cawing somewhere in the distance.
Should make for a nice big stealthy kind of match.
The Ponderosa CTKMD
(shot)
by Vin_Egar: Impressive re-creation of the
Cartright's house and barn from Bonanza—well, I never
caught the show, but I'm told it's a recreation, and
even I can see that it's impressive. Custom textures
captured from photos were used (I'm told) to recreate
the interiors with the closest possible fidelity,
and they certainly look detailed and distinct.
The map was finished up by Molycoat, and I think
maybe I see some of his custom touches here and there,
like the unique breakable windows. My favorite aspect
is the generous scale of the interiors--you really feel
like you've got room to stand up and stretch in this
big, bright house. Framerate dips very slightly in just
a few spots due to all the detail included, but those
running any kind of halfway decent machine won't notice
a thing.
Snowtown CTKMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: Moly gets in the holiday spirit
and you know it's going to be something special.
Santa has scattered a generous number of wrapped
presents throughout this small snowed-in
enclave. What did they ask for for Christmas? Well,
shotguns, apparently, and TNT, pistols... you get
the picture, perhaps. The custom sounds when picking
up items --er, I mean unwrapping presents, are particularly
nice. It's quite the festive little DM level,
and if you're feeling a bit under the weather, why,
have a spicy egg-nog! This time Moly put his
obsession with detail in to the animating Xmas
decorations, with colorful lights strung up everywhere
and just check out the lovely star on top of the
big tree. And maybe do some sniping while you're up
there.
OL Mod for Half-Life Wants YOU!
Well, Chet figured that maybe some folks who
haven't been there before would like to know about
The
Outlaws Mod for Half-Life, which is just what the
name says. It's been around for a while now and has
got a good deal of polish, and Chet mentions that there
are openings for modelers, skinners, mappers, and of
course crazy players such as yourselves! Also,
coincidentally enough you'll find a few nice-lookin'
screenshots of a map Chet's made for 'em on the
front page of the site.
Golf Season Ends for GoJo
It's that time of year when GoJo gets the urge
to bust new ground with LawMaker, and I don't know if
he wanted me to post this in particular but I figure
he knows by now that I pretty much post everything
that won't obviously get me in trouble, so if you
travel to this
thread on TheOutlawDad's message board, you'll
find GoJo gathering the pieces of a map he's drawing
up, so far the plan as I know it is for two small towns
separated by a ridge, with some of the buildings in the
towns to be named by or after certain OL
players.
That GoJo... always stirrin' up trouble!
It's No Good Questioning Pale People
The shutter swung back again slowly on its hinges
and the old man's head and shoulders appeared in the
opening; he was very pale and seemed panic-stricken.
He stood in silence in the window while d'Artagnan
explained to him what he had come for, what he
had discovered and what he suspected. The old man
listened attentively, nodding his head from time to time
to corroborate certain details in d'Artagnan's narrative.
when the young man had finished his tale the old man
remained standing in the window, saying nothing but
shaking his head lugubriously.
'Why are you shaking your head like that?' cried
d'Artagnan. 'For Heaven's sake speak! Tell me what's been
happening here!'
'Don't question me, Sir, please,' answered the old
man. 'If I told you what I'd seen no good would come of
it.'
Alexandre Dumas,
The Three Musketeers
translated by Lord Sudley
* * *
Sunday 12/14/03
A Slue of New Maps
The holidays are in full swing and you're probably
wondering to yourself "Good gravy, how'm I gonna pass
the time 'til Christmas?" Well fret ye no longer,
little sprite, for today you have nine, count 'em
nine, new maps with which to play.
Foto CMD
(shot)
by Hooter: Readme says it's a reworking of
his map "OKC," which means a small ranch/town in a
valley with some good buildings and rooftop accesses
and things, and now sporting custom textures that he
captured from some of his favorite movies (thus the
title). Framerate is good, there are no obvious glitches
and the town for the most part has a nice open
layout.
TexasCajun TKMD
(shot)
by The 3 Amigos: Collaborative effort by Hooter,
Dog_Holliday and Molycoat puts you in a mid-size desert
town with some impressive two-story buildings at the
main crossroads--really impressive considering the
framerate even with all these buildings in view.
Molycoat-esque custom touches abound to delight the
senses, and the interiors do full justice to the
impressive exteriors, and feel like real unique
places--check the tool shop in the screenshot.
The town, though, is not as big as it seems at first,
as a nasty case of Invisible Wall Syndrome confines you
to a square section in the center of town--the boundary
is indicated by a slight change in shading on the ground,
but still, it distracts from the otherwise immersive feel
of the highly detailed playable area.
Slue CKMD
(shot)
by M_A_R_S: Mirrored CTF-style map with
two identical houses faced off across a bit of
water with a high embankment in the middle, all
enclosed in a narrow box canyon. There are a couple
very minor Glide artifacts but otherwise the map
looks quite nice, with the two houses thoughtfully
textured differently to help you remember which side
if yours. You can only really get into the houses
from the front of the ground floor, and there are no
side routes (unless I missed 'em, which is entirely
possible) so the action is going to be pretty hot and
heavy in a straight line between the two bases.
Town Bar CKMD
(shot)
by GravEs: When GravEs sent me this big bunch
of maps he warned that some may not be very good. This
would be one of those, I suppose--pretty nasty 3dfx
glitches, a clearly visible untextured pillar standing
a little way outside of the four-building "town," and
nothing really worth mentioning going on inside the
block buildings, except maybe for the civilian bartender
who will help lag up low-bandwidth users.
Blood Thirsty CTKMD
(shot)
by GravEs: Small and nasty little deathmatch
map where you spawn in little "legs" around a small
circular clearing, "Spider" style, and with an
underground boxing ring thrown in for the heck of it.
CTFTown2 CKMD
(shot)
by GravEs: Woo, this small canyon map has a
big 3dfx-glitch-surrounded hole in it, and if you happen
to stumble through it you get stranded out in limbo.
The three bartenders and mobs of seemingly endlessly
respawning stacked bottles probably won't help network
performance, and the sky sometimes looks like a wood
plank, but you'll have plenty of time to ponder the deep
meaning of these portents while wandering around in
a groundless limbo.
Stars Room KMD
(shot)
by GravEs: Float across a huge empty low
gravity square canyon or wander through the
interminable tunnels underneath it while marvelling
at the repeating alien face texture. And yes, some
visual glitches when you jump too high and poke your
head through the sky, or something. But that's, like,
your opinion, man.
Warmup TKMD
(shot)
by GravEs: Rather neat arena-style layout here
with two bunkered armories facing off across a
no-man's-land obstacle course of crates in a big
wood panelled room. Odd that it doesn't support
CTF, since it seems designed for it.
Xmas CTKMD
(shot)
by GravEs: The obligatory seasonal map with
snowmen, Christmas trees and a casual Santa next to
the chimney in a CTF-style cavern with several low
wall obstacles between the bases and very large and
plain passages running around the back and sides.
How does it snow in a cave, anyway?
Wassail, and all that!
Truffle's Toolbar
Truffle has a customized Outlaws Hideout IE
Toolbar available for download
at his "Outlaws Hideout" site,
right here.
You download it and it installs as a custom menu bar
in Internet Explorer, I gather. You'll also find information
on how to offer a donation for his efforts if you are in
the giving mood ('tis the season!).
Climbing the Ladder
DonMaximo sent me an update to let me know that
the BaD Ladder
Outlaws competition now has over 30 players duking it out
for fun, glory, bragging rights, and free beer (BYOB).
Okay so I just made up that last item.
Remember, you go the ladder board over at the
BaD Ass Mofos
message board nexus to sign up for the action.
MaD Page
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Team MaD
Sort of a visual patchwork but fast and sporting
consistent navigation, the MaD posse site offers
posse news, a message board, member list, info
on joining the team, downloads of member-made maps
and some handy links and files. I'm not sure
why there's a big banner/logo link to my site
at the top of the page layouts, but I guess I'm
not one to complain.
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Paling People for Fun and Profit
The answer was indeed a shattering one. Anne of Austria
imagined that the King knew everything and that the
Cardinal had persuaded him to feign ignorance during
the past week, in order to lull her into a false sense
of security. This was one of his favourite tricks.
She went very pale, leant her lovely hand, now
waxen-coloured, against a little table to support
herself, and stood staring at the King, speechless
with terror.
'I hope you heard what I said, Ma'am,' repeated the
King.
He stood watching the Queen, thoroughly enjoying her
discomfiture, without, of course, guessing the reason
for it.
'Yes, Sire, I heard you,' stammered the
Queen.
'You'll come to the ball?'
'Yes.'
'Wearing the diamonds?'
'Yes.'
Her Majesty was now so deathly white that she
appeared about to faint. The King noticed her perturbation
and rejoiced at it. There was a streak of cruelty
deep down in him, which sometimes came uppermost.
Alexandre Dumas,
The Three Musketeers
translated by Lord Sudley
* * *
Sunday 12/7/03
When a BaD Ladder is a Good Ladder
DonMaximo wrote to tell me about his BaD posse's
new Outlaws ladder which, for those of you that haven't
seen one before, is kind of an open, ongoing series of
one-on-one duels, like you have a lot of the time in
OL anyway, except that they track wins and losses and
you can see your rank along with everyone
else's. Interested? If so, then you'll want to check
the following sites:
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BaD Ass Mofos
Feisty message boards run by the BaD posse, including
a board for sign ups and challenges in their
Outlaws Ladder.
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BaD Ladder
Standings in the ladder run by the BaD posse.
See their "BaD Ass Mofos" posse site for sign-ups.
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Queen Pale
Anne of Austria backed away in horror. Her face was
deathly pale and she was trembling so much that she
had to rest her left arm against a table to support
herself. With her right hand she took the letter out of her
dress and handed it to the Keeper of the
Seals.
'Here's your letter, Sir!' she cried, her voice harsh
with rage. 'Take it and remove your odious presence from
my sight.'
Alexandre Dumas,
The Three Musketeers
translated by Lord Sudley
* * *
Sunday 11/30/03
New Gunfighter Shots
Mr.Ferstat sent me news that 3D Gamers has
some new screenshots
right
here of Gunfighter, a Western action game
from Polish development house Nawar. You can also find
the shots (very dark and moody) on
Nawar's
Gunfighter page, as well as a lot of details about
the game, with heavy emphasis placed on the claim that
it will have "maximal level of realism." They say the
game is coming to Xbox, PS2 and mobile phones (hm) as
well as PC, and I don't see a date other than a
"playable demo" being due "first quarter 2004." Also
no mention of a North American publisher.
After Scarlet
It is almost impossible to describe the effect produced
on Louis XIII by the Cardinal's words. First he flushed
scarlet, then he went very pale, and the Cardinal saw at
a glance that with one stroke he had regained all the
territory he had lost.
Alexandre Dumas,
The Three Musketeers
translated by Lord Sudley
* * *
Sunday 11/23/03
The Redneck Hoots at Midnight
Redneck CMD
(shot)
by Hooter: Another re-release by Hooter,
this time of one of his own maps, Redneck. He
removed the evil robots and poodle, laggers that
they are, and "fixed some textures and added a
few things." This version replaces the old one,
so get it if you want to stay up with the
latest.
In-Game Editor Guide
Hooter fell to reflecting that the average
Outlaws player probably has no idea of the existence
of the in-game level-editing tools hidden just
under their fingertips. To bring them to light
and empower the citizenry, he's written up this
In-Game
Editor Guide for your perusal. It's in
MS Word .doc format,
and I don't really have a place here for LawMaker
tutorials (since I don't know a thing about it and
couldn't tell a good tutorial from a bad one) but I'll
have it on the ol' ftp site for the time
being. If you're interested in giving it a real proper
home, you might just mention it to Hooter if you happen
to run into him.
Bountiful Banners
A couple more banners arrived this week and you'll see
'em at the top of pages as you browse around the
site. Heck, you might see one of 'em up there right NOW,
since it's random. You could also just sit there
refreshing this page over and over until you've seen
them all—I got enough bandwidth, so go right ahead.
And of course if you have your own OL site and would
like a banner link, all you gotta do is trot on over
here to see how to go
about it.
Even Paler Than Before
Aramis, seeing that
Monsieur de Tréville was calming down and wishing
to put in a plea for his friend, said: 'Please,
Sir, don't let it get around that Athos has been
wounded. It would break his heart if the King got to
hear of it. And his wound's really very serious; he was
run through the shoulder and the point of the blade
went into his chest.
We're afraid...'
At that moment the curtain of the door was drawn aside
and a man appeared. He was strikingly handsome but
desperately pale.
'Athos!' cried the two musketeers in
chorus.
'Athos!' echoed Monsieur de
Tréville.
'You sent for me, Sir,' said Athos to his officer in
a calm but rather weak voice. 'The fellows outside told
me you wanted me. So I've come to report. At your service,
Sir, now as always!'
With these words the musketeer stepped smartly into
the room. He was, as usual, faultlessly turned out and
showed no sign of having been in the wars. Monsieur
de Tréville, moved by this soldierly display of
courage, rushed towards him.
'I was just telling these gentlemen,' said he, 'that I
won't have my musketeers risking their lives
unnecessarily. The King rates courage very high and he
knows his musketeers are the bravest fellows in the
world. Athos, give me your
hand!'
And before Athos had time to reply to this affectionate
welcome Monsieur de Tréville took hold of his right hand
and gripped it hard, not noticing the pain he was
causing the young man, who, for all his self-control,
winced a little and grew, if possible, even paler
than before.
Alexandre Dumas,
The Three Musketeers
translated by Lord Sudley
8-8-8
Sunday 11/16/03
Support Your Local Gunslinger
Truffle has a new handy-dandy utility for
nearly all of your Outlaws needs:
Gunslinger.
What's it do? Well let's see now: lets you set up
your multiplayer settings, gives you a central location
for launching OL, LawMaker, and a bunch of the most
popular OL utilities, plus it has built-in links to
Truffle's selection of top OL sites and message boards.
How's that for service? And it all comes in a lovely
little automatic install program.
Gunslinger supports custom "skins" and Truffle says he'll
be working up some for release on his
Outlaws Hideout site in the
next few weeks.
Win9x users may get a "comdlg32.ocx" message when running
the program. Not to worry, if you follow the instructions
in
this
zip file Truff put together, you should be up and
running in just a click or two with an updated version
of that system file. Note: this modifies a system
file (replacing it with a newer version, in most cases),
so I'd advise that you only do this if you know how to
fix things in the very unlikely event that something
goes awry.
Doctor Banner
You'll notice that the first link banners are now up and
running, thanks to GraveZ DawG and Ch@llenger
for being the first to contribute! As I discussed last
week I'll be more than happy to host your own Outlaws-related
link banner, go
here for the details.
Head and Shoulders
Only this lady's head and shoulders were visible through
the coach window. She was between twenty and twenty-two
years old. We have already stated d'Artagnan's capacity
to take in at a glance every detail of a person's appearance.
He therefore noticed at once that the woman was young and
beautiful. And her looks struck him more forcibly because
they were of a kind entirely foreign to the southern
provinces where he was born and bred. The lady was fair and
pale, with long, golden ringlets which fell to her shoulders,
large, blue, languishing eyes, rose-red lips and hands as
white as alabaster. She was talking eagerly to the stranger.
Alexandre Dumas,
The Three Musketeers
translated by Lord Sudley
& & &
Sunday 11/9/03
I Need Banners
So... while messing around with my various email
accounts in a drive to reduce spam, I came across
an unforwarded mail from my banner hosts, ValueClick, which
they'd sent me a few months ago, in which they declared,
basically, that they're going upscale and dropping me
like the cheap tart I am. So that explains why the
banners had stopped showing up and why their tech support
only sent me meaningless auto-replies. Although I can
still log in to the secure section of their site. Oh
well.
Now what's a site without banners, I ask you? I was
perplexed. But then I remembered something I'd wanted
to do way back when, and realized that I now know enough
Perl tricks to make it happen, more or less.
I mean, of course, replacing those boring old commercial
banners with banners for other OL sites!
YAY!
Of course, I can't do this by myself—I'm not going
to make those banners, after all: you are! That's right,
you, Mr. Lurking-Outlaws-Webmaster-Person you! So if
you're at all interested in having your OL site linked
in a banner "ad" at the top of my site pages (which
banner appears on a given page is random, mind you),
check out the details
(linked from the main "link" page, for future reference)
and break out those mad .gif editing
skillz!
While updating all the pages with the new banner stuff
I figured I might as well do some tidying up of a few
non-standard layout things, so let me know if you find
anything newly-broken.
Every Map Old is New Again
Moantana MD
(shot)
by Hooter: A remake of Metallica's "Montana,"
I don't really remember the original much but it's
a house in a valley with a pretty waterfall. There
are some snipery-type ledges and things, all in all
a nice little DM level. Oh, I think he took out
the original's "NUKE" modified TNT, but I'm not
certain of that.
X Sanctuary CKTMD
(shot)
by GoJo: Fresh off the links and back on
the anti-hack warpath, GoJo arrives with his latest,
more powerful anti-hack technology. He calls this
map "sort of a BETA" and he'd really appreciate it
if those who know about OL hacking could see if they
can break it, and let him know how it goes. The main
difference for players now is that you don't have to
switch characters in the lobby, yay! You start out
with no weapons, and the weapons are given to you
after you take a step from the spawn point (but they
aren't automatically armed, so you have to select
one to switch from fists). Sounds pretty good to me.
All For Pale
But d'Artagnan decided first to take stock of this
insolent stranger's appearance. He looked at him
haughtily and observed that he was a man of forty
to forty-five, with shrewd dark eyes, a pale skin,
a pronounced nose and a well-trimmed, black moustache,
and that he wore a violet doublet and hose with
auguillettes of the same colour, with no trimmings
except the usual slashes through which his shirt
appeared. The doublet and hose, though new, appeared
creased, like travelling clothes which had long been
carried about in a valise. D'Artagnan took in all these
details with the speed of an acute observer, and his
instincts told him that the stranger was destined to
play a big part in his life.
Alexandre Dumas,
The Three Musketeers
translated by Lord Sudley
* * *
Sunday 11/2/03
Bushels of Maps
Dementia CTKMD
(shot)
by Dog_Holliday: Perhaps the trippiest
setting for a OL map ever: an upside-down house
inside a whiskey bottle. Tha's right. Quite literally
disorienting inside as you try navigate a house
where all the lamps are on the floor, the furniture
is on the ceiling, and you have to jump through
doorways--clever, but it really *is* disorienting,
a little light variation might have helped. Don't
forget to use the low gravity to jump up the chimney.
I really like the outside, with the cacti dangling
down above you, whiskey around your ankles, the
bottle making bottle sounds when you hit it, and the
massive room beyond the glass.
Juarez2 CTKMD
(shot)
by Dog_Holliday: Re-release of the nifty
night-time town centered on a colorful Spanish
Mission. Dog took out the scripted lights
that he thinks may have been causing some lag and
lowered the jail's roof to make for better jumping.
Oldmine CMD
(shot)
by Hooter: Re-release of the multiplayer
map based on the single-player mine level from the
main game, this version overwrites the old one and
replaces the brown rock texture with a grey one so
as not to give Anderson undue camouflage. The grey
texture isn't as easy on the eyes maybe, and may
give Doc a little camouflage, but darn those
malevolent Andersons.
Ricochet TKMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: Dynamite Dick's Dry Gulch
saloon gets the Molymedia treatment with lots of
custom props and sounds. Some good roomy areas
for fighting, and some cramped ones too. I don't
like hitting the forcefield beyond the gate (just
close the gate!) but the view is nice. The nifty
custom windows, I'm told, look funny in D3D until
broken--as if outlaws needed any more incentive to
break the windows out of a place.
More Arms
No! Know the gallant monarch is in arms,
And like an eagle o'er his aery tow'rs,
To souse annoyance that comes near his nest;
And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,
You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb
Of your dear mother England, blush for shame;
For your own ladies and pale-visag'd maids
Like Amazons come tripping after drums,
Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,
Their needl's to lances, and their gentle hearts
To fierce and bloody inclination.
William Shakespeare,
King John
from "The Riverside Shakespeare"
* * *
Sunday 10/26/03
Maps I've Been Saving
Well thank goodness for the end of Daylight Savings
Time, I finally get an hour to sit down and update
the site.
Crevasse CTKMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: Icy but unslippery maze-like
level. Good framerate, lots of little hiding nooks,
should be good for an old fashioned chaotic deathmatch.
Uses a sound file from
Cap'n
Sawyer's, hopefully since I haven't heard anyone
complaining yet, Sawyer is okay with it. Generally though
it's a big burr in my bonnet when folks include files
that haven't been publicly declared free for re-use
by their authors, so for my sake, do try to avoid that kind
of thing.
CTFTown CTKMD
(shot)
by Graves: Very tiny, squarish town map. Doors
may open funny in laggy games, etc. High framerate,
naturally. Graves credits Moly with lots of help.
Underground CTKMD
(shot)
by Graves: Sorta tiny valley map except you
can sneak off down some tiny side-branches into
some funky house things with elevator-accessed
bombshelter things. Another side-credit to Moly
on this one. NOTE: I renamed the file from "underground.zip"
as there's already a map by that name.
Under Ground 2 CKMD
(shot)
by Graves: The bomb-shelters now have bigger
brickey basements.
MaD Town CTKMD
(shot)
by Graves: Tiny town (and when I say town, I
mean two little cottages and an outhouse or something)
in a squarish valley with a tunnel and an elevator
in the tunnel. The houses are a bit on the plain and
blocky side, but framerates are quite high.
Classic High Noon
Dirty O'Lero tells me that Microsoft has
moved Outlaws' "High Noon" matchmaking page into
their "Classics" section, which starts
here.
Hopefully you can find it from there--I don't have one
of their .NET Passport things, so I can't take you any
further.
Web Stuffs
|
Gravez Domain
Gravez' maps and info on the MaD posse. Shocking
color scheme but loads quickly and has consistent
navigation. Also links to a forum.
|
The "New Outlaws Message Board" has been redubbed
The 2003
Outlaws Message Board. Which I guess gives it
a little over two months to live? It looks like there's
chat goin' on in the camo-draped interface, but you
have to register before you can even see the post
listing.
Dont Know found a Western FPS entitled
"Western Outlaw" at
Groove Games
and shortly thereafter found it wasn't worth bothering
about, with "bad interface," and short play length,
not to mention no multiplayer. Thanks for taking one
for the team, DK!
RAF sent me a link to the
Lawdogs
site, where you can find out all about this upcoming
Western mod for Unreal Tournament 2003, currently in
some kind of open beta. Some of the screenshots look
fairly promising—nice mood in a couple of them. The
web site is pretty too, go take a gander.
Shorely
Upon this cheek lay I this zealous kiss
As seal to this indenture of my love:
That to my home I will no more return
Till Angiers, and the right thou hast in France,
Together with that pale, that white-fac'd shore,
Whose foot spurs back the ocean's roaring tides
And coops from other lands her islanders,
Even till that England, hedg'd in with the main,
That water-walled bulwark, still secure
And confident from foreign purposes,
Even till that utmost corner of the west
Salute thee for her king; till then, fair boy,
Will I not think of home, but follow arms.
William Shakespeare,
King John
from "The Riverside Shakespeare"
* * *
Sunday 10/05/03
El Loco Molycoato
Nacho Loco CTKMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: Stylish little cantina complete
with mariachi band. Little custom graphics,
combined with the band's music, give it the flavor of a real
location, and darn me if that lighting isn't just
brilliant. He even put correct shadows on the cacti for
goodness' sake. Gor blimey.
The Rectory Strikes Back
Dog_Holliday went through several releases of
his new "Devil's Rectory" map this past week, raising
the light level so that it's easier to see where you're
going and tweaking various technical things in his
perfectionist way. So
here
is the latest version, which he promises is the last—but
I won't hold him to it.
It's Me Noggin
Kuz'ma pale and dishevelled had his feet firmly planted
on the ground, and being deprived of the use of his
arms, butted at his adversaries with his large head.
Anton Chekhov,
The Shooting Party
translated by A. E. Chamot
* * *
Sunday 9/28/03
Sacrilicious
Devil's Rectory CTKMD
(shot)
by BuffaloFred and Dog_Holliday: A rather striking
bolt of lighting welcomes you to the haunted precinct
of Devil's Rectory, a church that seems to have gone
way downhill of late. The general theme and layout remind
me a lot of Zeurdoos' "RIP." Good flow and an
excellently creepy setting with very spiff sounds and
visual effects, not to mention super texturing--that
burned-out outbuilding is a masterpiece of
Lawmakering.
Outlaws Hideout Back, Evil
Truffle's
The Outlaws
Hideout site is back online, but with a twist:
not satisfied with the humdrum march of regular OL news
like the rest of us, Truff has turned to the dark
side: makin' stuff up! Happily, like the best yellow
journalism it at least makes for an amusing
read.
Regarding the current headlines, all I can say is that
he's got me all wrong: I came here to steal your
women.
Recipe for Overnight Paleness
The perplexing and ambiguous situation in which they
found themselves
in a strange house in which a corpse was lying, the
uncertainty as to when they could get away, and the damp
melancholy weather had driven the gipsies, both men and
women, into such a state of distress that in one
night they had become thin and pale.
Anton Chekhov,
The Shooting Party
translated by A. E. Chamot
¥ ¥ ¥
Sunday 9/21/03
Father Outlaw
TheOutlawDad
sent me a bunch of screenshots from that goth/horror/western
Korean MMORPG, "Priest," which is heading Stateside one
of these days (see post in my last update). Seems to be
a lot of voodoo weirdness going on in the badlands.
Here are some of the more interesting ones:
shot 1,
shot 2,
shot 3,
shot 4,
shot 5,
shot 6,
shot 7.
Ka-ray-zy, eh?
From Purple to Pale
It was Pëtr Egorych Urbenin, the Count's former bailiff
and Olga's husband. At first the company heard heavy
footsteps and the cracking of brushwood. . . . It seemed
as if a bear was making his way from the forest to the
clearing. Then the heavy form of the unfortunate Pëtr
Egorych came in sight. When he came out of the forest
and saw the company assembled on the clearing, he
stepped back and stopped as if her were rooted to the
ground. For some while he remained silent and motionless,
and in this way gave people time to examine him properly.
He had his usual grey jacket on and trousers that were
already well worn. He was without a hat, and his matted
hair stuck to his sweaty brown and temples. . . . His
face, which was usually purple and often almost blue, was
now quite pale. . . . His eyes looked around senselessly,
staring wildly. . . . His hands and lips trembled. . . .
Anton Chekhov,
The Shooting Party
translated by A. E. Chamot
~ ~ ~
Sunday 9/14/03
Yah Mule!
Horses4 CTKMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: Moly continues to almost singlehandedly
keep me in business with another just-add-horses map, this
time Hooter's "Hooter's" gets the honor. He's also
reduced the weapons to gats and TNT, and the dynamite
is a clever custom model.
E.C. KMD
(shot)
by Master_X11: Swiped this one from
TheOutlawDad,
it's a rather unique map (though many games have similar
puzzle platform rooms) in a square canyon, where sections
of the floor continually rise and fall in offset patterns,
so one moment you could be on a high spot and the next
thing you know you're surrounded by 30-foot high ledges.
I can't speak for how well this might work in laggy
internet conditions (I suspect that it may be possible for
players to get out of sync regarding what they see as the
current state of the platforms) but it's definitely
a startling and dizzying effect on its own. Some technical
issues remain (a couple periodically-floating pickup items,
and the way the side textures don't move with the platforms,
so they seem to "grow" and shrink rather than moving) but
it's worth a look for the novelty of the effect--not that
moving platforms is new, but I don't recall them being
thrown together in this way in an OL map before.
The Father of All Games
RAF pointed me over to the official site for
Priest,
some kind of comic-based Western/horror action MMORPG that's
being brought over from Korea. The screenshots and movies
on the English site seem to be broken, unfortunately, but
if you click the "Korean" link at the top you can see that
things are certainly hopping
overseas, where it appears to
have been online for some time now.
Vinegar: The Cure for Unsightly Paleness
It goes without saying that I found the Count with
entirely shattered nerves. This puny and flabby man looked
thinner and more dejected than ever. . . . He was pale,
and his lips trembled as if with ague. His head was tied
up in a white pocket-handkerchief, which exhaled a strong
odour of vinegar that filled the whole room. When I
entered the room he jumped up from the sofa, on which he
was lying, and rushed towards me wrapped up in the folds
of his dressing-gown.
Anton Chekhov,
The Shooting Party
translated by A. E. Chamot
* * *
Sunday 9/7/03
Molycoat Goes to the Movies
Eyehop KMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: Movie theater-based maps have been
done before but with an actual movie showing? Nah. So
in this sorta oddly textured building you can sneak away
from the noise and bustle of the firefight and grab a
front-row seat to a little animated feature. Of course
the animation probably makes the map file a bit bigger than
normal (along with Moly's typical array of startlingly
unique textures, and an animal or two) but it's cute.
I'm not so hot on the rest of the level, simply because
the textures used in the house don't really go together
in a visually pleasing way, and although the
custom windows are neat and you can bust them and jump
up to the awning over the porch and then to the rooftop,
the framerate outside the
house is pretty low.
Paleful Sleep
"How sweetly and tranquilly he sleeps! When one gazes on
this pale, tired face, on this childishly innocent smile,
and listens to this regular breathing, one might think that
it is not a magistrate who is lying here, but the
personification of a quiet conscience! One might think
that Count Karnéev had not yet arrived, that there had
been neither drunkenness nor gipsies, nor trips on the
lake. . . . Get up, you wretched man! You don't deserve
such a blessing as peaceful sleep! Get up!"
Anton Chekhov,
The Shooting Party
translated by A. E. Chamot
* * *
Monday 9/1/03
The Sounds of Sawyer
Captain
Sawyer has put up his latest custom Outlaws weapon
sound pack, "Lorde 7." It's been a while since his last
one and with the upgraded tools he has now he's able to
make the rifle and double-barrel shotgun sound even more
Spaghetti-Western-like than ever. You can almost hear
the smoke curling out of the barrel.
Not Eastern Outlaw
Doc points out a page for a new Western PC
game:
Western
Outlaw, from "Groove Publishing." The tiny screenshots
look decent and heck, even my old rig almost meets the
recommended system specs. I get that "budget game" feel
from the presentation but hey, you never know. No
specific release date, unfortunately.
* * *
Sunday 8/24/03
Leveling Off
Bonetown CTKMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: A one-room arena-style map
with lots of objects (particularly health items) and
platform jumping. I'm not sure how fun having a stick
of TNT whose explosive radius
covers the entire level is going to be, but at least
it makes it easy to break the chandelier.
Old Mine CMD
(shot)
by Hooter: A cut of the old mine level from
single-player that makes for a pretty twisty tunnel
map with very nice framerate. The frequent dead-ends
and branching corridors may make for something of a
slower game than you'll find in most DM maps, and
ambushes could be a viable strategy.
Paradigm CKMD
(shot)
by Dog_Holliday: Hah! Great twist, literally,
by Dog_Holliday as he's found a way to make hallways
between buildings that pretty much don't exist outside--so
you can have a hallway that crosses a street, and the
people in the street are none the wiser! I can see this
leading to some very odd maps. I like the look of
the little town here, though the all-of-a-level rooftops
may seem a bit odd, and even though the framerate is
pretty good it somehow feels a bit choppy to me on the
roofs. Maybe I'm just gettin' too old to handle
space warps.
Picksburgh CKMD
(shot)
by Captain Picky: I like the nice roomy feel
of the streets and high ceilings in this little
sandy town, and the high sniping window in the
barn that slews across one end of the main street
is a neat construction. Framerate is a bit low
in spots and parts of the map have a sort of grid-like
robotic feel, in a small way. But more maps with ceilings
like these would be most welcome.
WMDHEEVE CKMD
(shot)
by Vin_Egar: Two-mirrored-house CTF-style
thing in a largish canyon. The interiors are a bit
big and bare, and the doors, though attractively
textured, may behave unpredictably
in laggy games. I like all the windows to smash though. ;)
You'll notice the extensive use of custom textures right
off the bat: a little overly bold in their juxtaposition,
some might say, but you definitely won't be confusing
this map with one that uses the regular old boring
textures.
Board to the Bone
Not one to be found lagging behind the Tom, Dick
and Joneses, Mr. Bone now has a swanky new
message board on his OL site,
Mr. Bone's
Headquarters.
Swedish Guns
Big Nose Kate and RAF pointed me over
to
Wanted Guns,
an Old West game in the works by Swedish developers
Iridon. The graphic design looks a bit plain,
the gameplay sounds like a bit of a hodge-podge
("Combining third person action, horse-riding
and sneak’em up assassination with a cinematography
inspired rail shooter FPS mode") and the writing is
dubious:
One eye short, Reverend Devlin was not exactly what you’d
expect from your regular kind of preacher. The years had not
been his friend; wrinkles creased his scarred face and cracked
his pale skin alongside his hard grey eyes. Most people would
have mistaken him for the devil himself, were it not for the
white priest collar encompassing his neck while adding
credibility to his appearance.
Wait, now just how many hard
grey eyes does a one-eyed man have?
Anyway, the site is kind of nice looking and you can
see some screenshots. Maybe they'll have a demo or something
one of these days.
Pale Rambles
Tina stands there, pale as death,
but proud and determined; she has pressed her lips
tightly together so as not to betray by a single sound
the fear she feels. We fly ever higher and higher, and.
. . I can't remember how it ended. Then there follows
a walk with Tina in a distant avenue of the park, with
green vaults above that protect it from the sun. A
poetical twilight, black tresses, luscious lips,
whispers. . . . Then the little contralto is
walking beside me, a fair-haired girl with a sharp little
nose, childlike eyes and a small waist. I walk about with
her until Tina, having followed us, makes a scene. . . .
The gipsy is pale and furious. . . . She calls me
'accursed', and, much offended, prepares to return to town.
The Count, also pale and with trembling hands, runs
along beside us, and, as usual, can't find the proper
words to persuade Tina to remain. . . . In the end she
boxes my ears. . . . Strange!
Anton Chekhov,
The Shooting Party
translated by A. E. Chamot
* * *
Sunday 8/10/03
Farming for Bones
Mr. Bone's Farm CTKMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: Mr. Bone, having given me the
updated URL to his fine OL site,
Mr. Bone's
Headquarters, unwittingly tipped me off to a
new map from Moly that Bone started hosting earlier
in the week. It's a much smaller file size than we
usually see from Moly, and indeed the map doesn't
overwhelm you with custom sights and sounds as many
of his previous ones have. The view around the top of
the lowered ranch is just lovely, however, and in
addition to Moly's natural touch with wildlife scenes
and layout, we have GoJo to thank for some truly
gorgeous autumn woods textures. In fact the view around
the ranch is so nice that I took
an extra screenshot
just to brighten your day. And Moly slipped in some
spiffy effects in the form of custom smokey window
glass and a shattering door. The map itself is on the
small side, with the buildings taking up a good deal
of the space in the little open yard--good pickin's for
a dynamite chucker. The flow in moving around the map
isn't quite as effortless as could be, and the framerate
overall is lower than you'd want to run on your old,
say, 60mHz machine ;), but it's a charming little farm
complete with intimidating portrait of Mr. Bone.
El Yooars
|
Outlaws real Msg Board
Well-trafficked board run Mista featuring all the
usual bells and whistles of modern mass-hosted
message boards, plus discussions about weird OL
stuff. I couldn't find any actual MSG, however.
|
Being as how it's right next door, I might as well slip
in a mention that TheRock wanted me to point out
that he isn't the only guy running the show at
The New
Outlaws Message Board, you also have BearTracker
and AuStIn to blame for whatever sort of message
boarding mayhem goes on there.
Speaking of hitting the boards,
old-timer RAF pointed me over to
Carrion City,
a pleasant-sounding western mod in the works for UT2003,
although you'll have to do some digging through their
message boarding interface to find screenshots and
things of what looks like may be a promising mod.
Big Nose Kate sent me a link for a western game
in the works but I foolishly left the email at the office,
so I'll have to look that up and get it in the next
update.
Paleness as a Sign of Non-Cowardice
'Consequently, you will not honour
me with your conversation?' I continued to worry him
as I emptied another glass and laughed.
'Do you know my real reason
for coming here?' the Count broke in, desirous of
changing the conversation. 'I haven't told you as yet?
In Petersburg I went to the doctor who has always treated
me, to consult him about my health. He listened to my chest,
knocked and pressed me everywhere, and said: "You're
not a coward!" Well, you know, though I'm no coward, I
grew pale. "I'm not a coward," I replied.'
'Cut it short, brother. . . . This is tiresome.'
Anton Chekhov,
The Shooting Party
translated by A. E. Chamot
* * *
Sunday 7/27/03
Horsies!
Taos Ruin CKMD
(shot)
by Green_Horn_Slim: Clever CTF mirrored-layout
map with a three-story pueblo building in a small
canyon, with two small fort houses at either end connected
by tunnels running around the sides. You can't jump up
from the canyon floor to the ledge of the forts so to get
up there you either have to find your way up a ramp in the
little maze of side tunnels or jump off from the first
level of the pueblo building, and you only get up there
by means of two tiny staircases tucked away inside the
small rooms, getting to which probably involves crawling
through little holes at the base of the walls. Whew!
Attractive texturing and good framerate despite the
complicated building in the middle and the smooth curved
path running around the canyon.
Horses CTKMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: Moly embraces his animalish leanings
by planting the player on horseback complete with
added velocity, clopping hooves and snorting horse
breath! Then you go rampage around this rocky valley
and jump around the ledges. Sports Molycoat's calling
card of little wildlife touches everywhere. Good framerate
and I like the jumps and paths around the rocks, although
some of the item placement doesn't feel quite natural.
Horses2 KMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: The author takes his equine show
on the road to JZombie's "JZ's Dynamite Shack."
I'd have thought that it was too steep for horses
but that just goes to show how little I know about such
things.
Horses3 TCKMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: The riders strike at Hooter's
"Chasm" along with the usual Molycoat gaggle of animal
life. Moly pointed out after sending this that if you go
for "the medbag in a crack in the rock you get
crushed" which wasn't intended, and that he made the map
a little too dark. I love jumping in the deep pool in
all the versions of this map that I've played and as
I was jumping my horsie back out onto the path, I somehow
shot several hundred feet straight up the cliff face! And
of course fell back down to my death, but it was
cool. I couldn't get it to happen again though, I guess
my horse got discouraged.
Meanwhile, Back in 2172...
Molycoat was certainly a busy feller this week
and wasn't done yet even after all that horsing around.
He sent me a
fix
for 2172
(2172
being his grand sci-fi single-player adventure) which
consists of a little batch file that will allow
those who have a modified LOCAL.MSG file in their
OL directory (some
maps come with them--they let the LawMaker modify the
text messages you get in the game) to launch 2172 and
still see Molycoat's proper custom text in the level,
or something technical like that.
Getting the Message
|
The New Outlaws Message Board
Various message boards in the past have held the
quasi-official-sounding title of "The Outlaws
Message Board." This new one from TheRock seems
to work well enough (registration required) and
has some additional specialty boards such as
a Troubleshooting board and a Tips and Tricks
board.
|
A Moustache is Very Becoming
He was
dressed in the same many-coloured dressing-gown
in which I had seen him two years before, and he wore
a straw hat. His face had a troubled, concentrated
expression, and it was very wrinkled, so that a man
not acquianted with him might have imagined he was
troubled at that moment by some serious thought or
anxiety.... The Count had not changed at all in
appearance during the two years since last we met.
He had the same small thin body, as frail and
wizened as the body of a corncrake. He had the same
narrow, consumptive shoulders, surmounted by a small
red-haired head. His small nose was as red as formerly,
and his cheeks were flabby and hanging like rags, as
they had been two years before. On his face there was
nothing of boldness, strength or manliness.... All was
weak, apathetic and languid. The only imposing thing
about him was his long, drooping moustache. Somebody had
told my friend that a long moustache was very becoming
to him. He believed it, and every morning since then he
had measured how much longer the growth on his pale
lips had become. With this moustache he reminded you of
a moustached but very young and puny kitten.
Anton Chekhov,
The Shooting Party
translated by A. E. Chamot
* * *
Sunday 7/20/03
Let's Do Some Maps
CTF Factory CKMD
(shot)
by Captain Picky and The Crow:
The official release from Picky, this one has the readme
in it. It also isn't compatible with the one released
early by The Crow, and note that it doesn't
overwrite the files from that release as those were
spelled "ctffacs" without the second "t."
Mexican Villa 3 CKMD
(shot)
by Warrior: New map inspired by Sticky's "Mexican
Villa 2," which was in turn inspired by Taco's "Mexican
Villa." Don't you people know that you're not supposed
to sequelize someone else's map? Oh well, I guess Taco is
free to show up and complain. This one has the single-floor
villa, the wall around it, the weird dead tree stump,
the mine/cave bit and the pool, as well as a bunch of
little outlying tower things. But no high-dive? Rats,
that was my favorite part.
Small Town CKMD
(shot)
by Warrior: A little town in a valley where the
buildings have their backs against the cliff walls. A
little river runs along a crevass through the middle of
town (don't go stumbling around drunk at night in
this town, brother) and there's a cave
bit too. Good framerate, decent setting, might have
benefitted from being able to get up on the roofs more or
something but I guess this way you can't hide as much.
Spider CKMD
(shot)
by Kat and Dusty_Old_Cop: Arena-style
cave map shaped sorta like a really squat, fat spider,
where the players spawn in the "legs" and then fight for
powerups around collections of crates in the central
"body" cave. Good framerate of course what with there
being just one real room, and good, if simple, texturing
and lighting.
Station Pit CKMD
(shot)
by Warrior: Combine a subterranean train station
with a pit and you've got Station Pit! Yessir. Real
linear layout seems intended for CTF with one team (I
presume) starting in the tunnel and one at the top of
the pit. The underground part could use a little spot
lighting to liven it up, and I don't like the invisible
wall blocking off the far end of the train tunnel, but
it's a solid map with high framerate and an
unusual layout.
Be Brave, Young |3370R
Phil Marsh, in his musical guise of
"Flip Martian," found Sergio Morricone's western
soundtracks inspiring a soundtrack of his own.
Be
Brave, Young Soldier introduces the hero, sends him
off to battle and wraps things up, a whole imaginary
movie soundtrack in just over five minutes of top notch
synthesized Spaghetti-Western-style tunes. Impressively
done and well worth a listen if you like the style of
the music in Outlaws.
To the Death!
DrDeath2 has his good ol' site back on the
interweb at a new
URL. He didn't really add anything new to it
after all these years and some of the file links are
now defunct but you should go visit it anyway.
Ooh hey it looks like Outlaw and the gang have
DeathRiders.org
back online, with some interesting news about an upcoming
message board and a new map based on a song with a weird
name.
When is a Pudding Not a Pudding
I had a fun couple of weeks careening around
insanely tiny back roads in Scotland and Ireland.
The driving and shifting on the left thing isn't so
bad, you get used to it after a day or so, but man
I dunno how those folks in southern Ireland in particular
nerve themselves up to drive around every day on two-way
roads that are narrower than most American cars. Maybe
with a pint of Guinness. It's particularly
cheering how each county or shire or whatever posts
a big sign with the number of local vehicular fatalities
in the last four years (Cork was leading the pack as
far as we saw...). They have good breakfasts though,
even without pancakes, and each farmer has an ancient
prehistoric Standing Stone or two which he
definitely did not stand up himself a couple years
ago to attract tourists.
Help,
hold his brows, he'll sound! Why look you pale? Sea-sick
I think, coming from Muscovy.
William Shakespeare,
Love's Labor's Lost
from "The Riverside Shakespeare"
* * *
Sunday 6/22/03
Sequel Petition Updated
Finally got off my buns and updated the
Outlaws Sequel Petition,
adding nearly 300 new signatures to bring us up to
over 2600 signatures in all. Have there been any
rumblings of sequel possibilities from LEC lately?
Nope. But we do what we can and hope for the best;
who knows what could happen?
Frothy Summer Fun
This may be my last update 'til mid-July as I'll
be takin' a lil' trip overseas for fun and
"relaxation," though from the looks of things it's
going to involve a lot of walking and driving and
carrying and sleeping in strange beds, so I'm not
counting on that second part. I'll be taking
the Pale's Place game
down while I'm gone since I like to unplug all electrical
things when I go away for an extended trip, just to
make it that much more difficult for the gremlins to
have their parties while I'm out.
You may
have your wish: my will is even this,
That presently you hie you home to bed.
Thou subtile, perjur'd, false, disloyal man,
Think'st thou that I am so shallow, so conceitless,
To be seduced by thy flattery,
That has deceiv'd so many with thy vows?
Return, return, and make thy love amends.
For me (by this pale queen of night I swear),
I am so far from granting thy request,
That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit,
And by and by intend to chide myself
Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.
William Shakespeare,
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
from "The Riverside Shakespeare"
* * *
Sunday 6/15/03
I, Molycoat
Robots TMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: All-mod weapon futuristic map
based on his single-player adventure
2172.
You're a robot so you clank around and drink motor oil
and shoot lasers and good stuff like that. I love the
sound effects--it sounds like a good pinball game (he's
replaced just about every sound effect in the game with
zippy futuristic zapping sounds). The
map has a rather unique layout of jagged ledges and rocky
outcroppings around a sort of starburst center ledge,
so it's all one big arena. This lowers the framerate a
bit but it also means that you can see (and throw photon
sticks, nasty) all the way across the map. It's a bit
dark and some areas are a little murky on my monitor,
I could have done with a bit of spot lighting but I
suppose it's extra-creepy this way. Watch you don't
fall in the lava, poof!
Linkz
|
Santa Monica Airlines
Nothing much Outlaws-specific on this multi-game
posse site by NotUsCopeUs
but at least it's got some nice flash
and the Beach Boys to keep you entertained.
|
|
Quiet Killers HQ
Another style-over-substance posse site
design by NotUsCopeUs,
but it's SUPAH STYLISH 2 TEH MAXXX! Yep.
|
Outlaw wants folks to know that although the
deathriders.org
site is currently down due to a dead power supply, it'll
be back up as soon as they get the machine fixed so don't
delete your bookmark just yet.
A big thanks to R_E_LEE for wading through my
links page and letting me know
about some deceased sites.
A Bad pSector... I Suspected As Much
Huh, I went to check my little
Outlaws hosted game and
found that Outlaws had crashed while running the level
"Last Stand." Not something that
happens very often there. And more interestingly still,
well okay at least for me, is that it asserted with
some debug
info! Ready? Here it is:
Assertion failed!
Program: D:\OUTLAWS\OLWIN.EXE
File: C:\proj\db\src\actor.c
Line: 1241
Expression: (((INT)(pSector) & 0xffff) + 0x0002000) ==
((pSector)->address)
WOW! Uh okay not really but hey. Curious that the
local file was in a project directory called "db"—that's
not really an Outlaws-ish name.
The Last One(gin)
No—every
minute to see you;
follow you everywhere;
the smile of your lips, movement of your eyes,
to try to capture with enamored eyes;
to hearken long to you, to comprehend
all your perfection with one's soul;
to melt in agonies before you,
grow pale and waste away... that's bliss!
Aleksandr Pushkin,
Eugene Onegin
translated by Vladimir Nabokov
* * *
Sunday 6/8/03
Didn't You Bring a Map?
Longhorn Palace CTKMD
(shot)
by Dog_Holliday: Amazing use of custom sounds
and graphics bring this old bawdy house to life, complete
with horses galloping away outside, upstairs casino,
Can-Can dancer, a rowdy crowd (from the sound of it),
and an ornate colonnaded staircase which may qualify
as the single most stunning piece of architecture
ever pulled off with the Outlaws engine. And it goes
without saying that the map has great flow, effortless
weapon placement and high framerates. A real keeper.
CTF Factory CKMD
(shot)
by Captain Picky and The Crow: Reworking of
the Captain's "TNT Factory" map, taking out the TNT-launching
cannons, putting in some water, and tightening up the layout
a bit as near as I can remember. Still doesn't have running
sounds and the framerate still drops a good deal in
certain spots outside, but that bombed-out building
still looks keen. Here's
the shot of TNT
Factory for comparison purposes.
HalfPint's Revenge CKMD
(shot)
by Outlaw and MikeDaKid: Night-time canyon
map with a tall house. The layout has a nice looping
aspect to it, particularly around the house,
and the bright house interiors contrast
well with the dark blues outside. A couple cave areas
are on the dark and dead-endish side but I suppose that's
pretty much what a cave is like now isn't it. Turns out
that "The Chicken" is the name of HalfPint's kitten,
so watch out for that bouncing bundle of joy in KFC mode,
and then there's something about finding her coloring
book in CTF. That kitty is a cutey.
Web Doin's
|
Mr. Bone's Headquarters
Active site with spiffy buttons and news, a great
map collection, a cool "featured map" page, and more
yet to come by the resurgent Mr. Bone.
|
Vin_Egar has a preview of Molycoat's
upcoming map "Robots" on his
Outlaws
Game Players site. Looks like a swanky futuristic
affair along the line's of Moly's epic
2172
single-player map, complete with laser guns, photon
bombs, and suchlike.
& & &
Sunday 6/1/03
The Truth About Zombies
|
Master_X11's Outlaws Page
Simple, highly-readable and fast-loading page from
this LawMaker with downloads of his maps, a choice
selection of a few other maps, and a couple
map-related linkies. Special bonus: don't miss
the Outlaws-unrelated "Zombie Threat Analysis."
|
As the Crow Lags
The Crow sent me an interesting
screenshot showing
some crazy lag-induced special fx, or so I gather.
When I start to see four left-hands is when I call
it a day.
Sure Proof That Paleness Leads to Phthisis
She does
not notice him,
no matter how he strives—even to death;
receives him freely at her house;
elsewhere two or three words with him exchanges;
sometimes welcomes with a mere bow,
sometimes does not take any notice:
there's not a drop of coquetry in her,
the high world does not tolerate it.
Onegin is beginning to grow pale;
she does not see or does not care;
Onegin droops—and almost,
in fact, is phthisical.
All send Onegin to physicians;
in chorus these send him to spas.
Aleksandr Pushkin,
Eugene Onegin
translated by Vladimir Nabokov
* * *
Sunday 5/25/03
An Old Eastern
This is kind of a thin lead, but it's a slow news
week so what the heck. Oldfighter pointed me to
this
thread on a Serious Sam fan site forum, in which
a fella going by the name "Damjam" says he is from
Croatia and has a dev team starting a Western first-person
shooter. Oh and he's asking for a good name for the
game.
To Serve or Not to Serve
Vin_Egar has a new web site (see below)
and is contemplating hosting two Outlaws game "servers"
kind of like my little
Pale's Place game. I think
he'd be happy to get feedback about the interest level in
this enterprise, so if you're interested why don't you
check his site and give him a buzz.
|
Outlaws Game Players
Page by Vin_Egar which may become the home base
for two regular Outlaws game "servers." He's currently
investigating network setup and interest level.
|
Death Rides Again
DR posse member Mike Da Kid wrote to tell
me that the
Death Riders'
web site is back online, after being down for
about a year following what appears to have been
a nasty hard drive failure on the old server.
Hurrah!
Darn That Monde
Tatiana
wishes to make out
the colloquies, the general conversation;
but there engages everybody in the drawing room
such incoherent, banal rot;
all about them is so pale, neutral;
they even slander dully.
In this sterile aridity of speeches,
interrogations, talebearing, and news,
not once does thought flash forth in a whole day and night,
even by chance, even at random;
the languid mind won't smile,
the heart won't start even in jest,
and even some droll foolishness
in you one will not meet with, hollow monde!
Aleksandr Pushkin,
Eugene Onegin
translated by Vladimir Nabokov
* * *
Sunday 5/18/03
One Map Forward, Two Maps Back
Sin City CKMD
(shot)
by Kat Eyes & Dusty Old Cop: Rambling sort of
layout makes this map seem rather small at first but
then you come to realize that it's made up of at least
three sorta separate sections with all kinds of passages
and things in between. Nice use of spot sound effects.
You may be a bit confused by the layout at first but
once you get into the sorta circular flow of things it's
nice and solid, with some good roof jumps and floating
cow skulls. Thanks to overseer GoJo for sendin'
it my way (twice, darn inbox eheh).
Lilhouse KMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: Re-release by Moly, removing the
birds an' other critters to minimize lag. Aw, I'll miss
those lil' guys. *sniff* But it remains a mighty-fine
map, and you can still see some animals in my old
screenshot. ;)
Sandbar KMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: Ditto the above, another animal-removing
re-release. You know if you run out to the pirate
ship you find that you've also grown to about 50 feet
tall, wow!
A Pale for All Seasons
Her walks
last longer.
At present, here a hillock, there a brook,
cannot help stopping
Tatiana with their charm.
She, as with ancient friends,
with her groves, meadows,
still hastens to converse.
But the fast summer flies.
The golden autumn has arrived.
Nature, tremulous, pale,
is like a victim sumptuously decked....
Now, driving clouds along, the North
has blown, has howled, and now herself
Winter the sorceress comes.
Aleksandr Pushkin,
Eugene Onegin
translated by Vladimir Nabokov
* * *
Sunday 5/11/03
Anna's Mix
Neil D. dropped me a mail to point me to
Anna's
Theme (Midnight Mix), a remix of the "Anna's Theme"
from the OL soundtrack by Bart Klepka, giving the
Morricone orchestral stuff an infusion of moody drum and
bass, as well as sound samples from the game. It works
pretty well as far as these things go, I suppose, in
fact I've just been listening to it looping while
writing this whole update, kind of soothing. Of
course, if you like the OL music the best thing you can
do is go pick up some of Ennio Morricone's old spaghetti
western soundtracks.
BT's High Speed News
B. T. Justice has been quite the busy fellow
of late. He quite rightly pointed out that the
alt.games.outlaws
OL newsgroup is still running, which is a pretty |337
way of spreadin' news related to the game (and reading
a little spam to liven up your day).
Now see, if you'd been followin' the newsgroup, you'd
have already seen this feature list of BT's custom
OL version of mIRC which he posted there, and of course
the program itself is available from his very own
High Speed Pursuit
web site. Without more ado, BT's custom mIRC feature list!
- Automatically connects to Undernet and goes to #outlaws_players.
- Automatically opens WinZip, if you already have it installed, after receiving .ZIP files such as Outlaws Maps.
- Has BT's mIRC MEDIA PLAYER so you can play .WAVS, .MP3s, .MIDs, & .WMAs within mIRC.
- Has lindow's OUTNET which helps you easily join any hosted games using WINSOCKETS. OUTNET will support DIRECTPLAY soon!
- Has Vesuvio's CHANNEL MODE POPUP which lets you see currently available games, post new games to topic, and remove games you posted.
- Has a script I made which tells how long your computer has been on, how long you have been on mIRC, how long you have been on an IRC server and what the server's name is, and what your current IP address is.
- Has a few more Undernet servers than the default mIRC has so hopefully there is one that is closer & faster for you to use.
- All you have to do is open the file with WinZip and extract all the files directly to your C:\ drive. It will make a folder called "C:\mIRC". mIRC runs from this folder so there is nothing installed onto your computer hence there are no hidden files or folders or registry entries.
Common Symptoms of Pale Face
Thanks to BT and Molycoat for pointing out a
few goofs made in the frenzy of the news fallout last
week! I dedicate the following quote to them (I'm such
an old softy!).
Alas,
Tatiana fades away,
grows pale, is wasting, and is silent!
Nothing interests her
or stirs her soul.
Shaking gravely their heads,
among themselves the neighbors whisper:
Time, time she married!...
But that will do. I must make haste
to cheer up the imagination
with the picture of happy love.
Involuntarily, my dears,
pity constrains me;
forgive me: I do love so much
my dear Tatiana!
Aleksandr Pushkin,
Eugene Onegin
translated by Vladimir Nabokov
* * *
Sunday 5/4/03
High Noon Rides Again
Many people wrote in with these tidings but The
Crow beat you all to it. Here's the email he
forwarded me:
Greetings Zone.com Member,
Thank you for contacting MSN Games by Zone.com.
Based on the feedback from players like you and the responses from the game lobbies, we have decided to create an Outlaws lobby in our directplay area. Here is where you can find the lobby:
URL: http://zone.msn.com/directplay
Lobby: Outlaws - High Noon
This lobby is not a standard DPlay lobby, but is a recreation of the lobby that existed on the Outlaws game page so it will support the game the same as before.
Thank you for your feedback and playing on the Zone. Have a good day and we hope you enjoy the Outlaws lobby.
Regards,
ZoneMaster
So thanks to all the old-timers who bitched ;), High
Noon is back in the saddle. Kind of in a little hidden
backwoods now (witness the
screenshot
from Crow; I'm not sure how you'd get there from
the Zone's front page) but I suppose now that they've
got it tucked away, the Zone folks won't much care if
it stays there 'til Doomsday. So, cheers to the new
High Noon--may your shadow
never grow long!
Hmm, and now I get to eat crow (metaphorically speaking,
of course :d) and go change my Zone info back again,
whoops!
New Maps
dark twins single-player
(shot)
by ElBrando: Just my kind of mission: shoot
everyone in site, then go find more baddies to shoot,
and shoot them. Don't go thinkin' this is gonna be easy
though, this canyon complex is packed to bursting with
all kinds of bad guys, some of them custom jobs.
All the twists and turns of the canyons provide
quite a few fun shootouts. There are a few technical issues,
such as missing footstep sounds and a canyon wall that
seems to like to disappear if you get too close to it,
but there's quite a bit of single-player fun to be had
here.
Juarez CTKMD
(shot)
by Dog_Holliday: Darned fine little twilight
town here, I love the custom touches in the church.
Super use of lighting effects and nice texture
selection--the whole place just sparkles in the warm
torchlight. The free layout of the town coupled with
the many multi-level areas should keep things
hopping all through the wee hours. And check out how
the author handles the map border--the city wall makes
for a realistic and unobtrusive, yet effective, barrier,
and the way you can see out into the plains beyond just
gives the level a real sense of belonging in a larger
world. Great stuff.
While High Noon Slept
A lot of stuff happened before High Noon unexpectedly
returned. It's good to see that there are so many options
out there for playing Outlaws multiplayer. To take them
in order:
Garbotalk, moderator at the
#Outlaws_Players
Undernet IRC channel, hinted that tournaments may be
returning to the channel, that many new faces have
been appearing lately, and that they now shoot for having
both a Winsock and a DirectPlay game hosted (since
DirectPlay is sometimes a necessity for folks playing
over a home LAN).
Buford T. Justice announced the happy
re-appearance of his
High Speed Pursuit
site featuring
some very handy Outlaws links and info and his very
own modified version of the mIRC chat client, with special
scripts and stuff to make Outlaws gaming on IRC all that
much more fun and powerful.
BT also passed along word that
Kali.net is back in
action, with, as always, support of Outlaws over their
unique internet LAN simulation thingymabob, as well
as hundreds of other games. Kali is a pretty cool program,
and although it is shareware you can pretty much do
everything you need to with the free unregistered
version.
Long-time Lawmaker Cutter set up a very nice-looking
Outlaws-themed message board that he's dubbed
High
Noon II. Not that he expects it to replace the Zone
as a place to set up games, but a well-run message board
is a valuable thing.
HighWater and Newbie reminded me that
Outlaws can be played through
GameSpy Arcade,
along with bunches of other games. Newbie pointed out that
the interface allows you to watch the Outlaws channel
while you're doing other gaming, and pop in if you see
any old guns log on, which is pretty slick. GameSpy
Arcade is ad-supported shareware, which means that you
can register and use it for free, with ads (like the Zone
and hey, my site! :p),
or you can pay a small monthly fee to get the full service
ad-free.
Pale in the Shade
But the
day lapsed, and no reply.
Another came up; nothing yet.
Pale as a shade, since morning dressed,
Tatiana waits: when is it coming, the reply?
Olga's adorer drove up.
"Tell me, where's your companion?"
was the chatelaine's question to him;
"He seems to have forgotten us entirely."
Tatiana, flushing, quivered.
"He promised he would be today,"
Lenski replied to the old dame,
"but evidently the mail has detained him."
Tatiana dropped her gaze
as if hearing an unkind rebuke.
Aleksandr Pushkin,
Eugene Onegin
translated by Vladimir Nabokov
* * *
Sunday 4/26/03
High Noon for High Noon
What was not so long ago mere rumor has apparently
become fact, as many people emailed to say that
Zone.com is shutting down their "High Noon" Outlaws
game hosting and chat forum. Dirtyolero sent
me the following screen capture of the
message which announced the closure:
Outlaws is no longer listed even under
the Zone's "All Games" link, and according to
James Emerson all remaining Outlaws service will
end on the 29th of this month.
Well, that's a shame. Although playing OL through the
Zone had its own stability and latency issues, it has
been far and away the most populated place for meeting
folks to shoot it out with. The Microsoft folks running
the Zone really deserve a hand for hosting the service
for all these years.
Some folks have asked me, in effect, is this the end
of OL on the Internet? Well I sure hope not. There's
always the free hills of IRC, and what with the handy
mIRC scripts that
OL fans have come up with over the years, there's no
reason that hosting and joining OL games should be any
more difficult in the future than it has been in the
past.
Now, I know there are OLers out there who know IRC
like the back of their hand. I am not one of these
people, at least not these days. What is needed is for
one or more of these brave souls to come forward and
undertake the responsibility of hosting an IRC chat
channel for Outlaws games.
From what I understand, hosting a channel isn't all
that complicated if you know what you're doing (managing
player egos, now, that's the tricky part :p). As a
reminder for those who may be a bit rusty, the old
and once quite mighty
#Outlaws_Players
site still has instructions for installing and using
lindow's Outnet
OL match-making utility in mIRC.
Those of you who are interested in or perhaps already doing
this, I'll be more than happy to spread the word about
your OL channel in my semi-regular news updates. And
of course if anyone comes up with any other solutions,
I'll be happy to present those as well. Most of all,
I want to assure folks that yes, you can still play Outlaws
on the Internet even without the zone.com. In fact,
since you can host games via Windows Sockets rather
than DirectPlay like the Zone used, in-game lag should
tend to be better (depending on who you play with, of
course) than it was through the Zone. In any case, I'm
not going anywhere (where the heck would I go? :P), and
I'll do what I can through this little page to spread
the word on OL hotspots as people make them known to
me.
UPDATE: Dontknow of the #outlaws_players channel
emailed me almost immediately to say that the channel
is still up on the Undernet (not DALnet, which is where
I had checked, silly me). There are nine folks on the
Undernet #outlaws_players as I write this. Dk also sent
along a mIRC
FAQ (which I've taken the liberty of line-breaking
for view in web browsers) which should have all the info
you need to get started runnin' and gunnin' with Outlaws
and mIRC.
High-Bandwidth Banditos
|
outlawsinsects
Home page of a posse with an unusual name. The
unique thing about this site is that thanks to
copious overuse of large sound and image files
(whose presentation is a little lacking in style
to begin with), you can only browse about half
of the site per day before it gets shut down for
exceeding its bandwidth. If you stick with it
for a few days, however, you'll eventually find
info on joining the gang and on the gang's members,
info on the game in general,
a bit of news, some map reviews, and a message
board, as well as screenshots and a few files to
download.
|
'84's Greatest Hits
"Room 101," said the officer.
The man's face, already very pale, turned a color which
Winston would not have believed possible. It was definitely,
unmistakably, a shade of green.
"Do anything to me!" he yelled. "You've been starving me
for weeks. Finish it off and let me die. Shoot me. Hang
me. Sentence me to twenty-five years. Is there somebody
else you want me to give away? Just say who it is and I'll
tell you anything you want. I don't care who it is or what
you do to them. I've got a wife and three children. The
biggest of them isn't six years old. You can take the whole
lot of them and cut their throats in front of my eyes, and
I'll stand by and watch it. But not room
101!"
"Room 101," said the officer.
George Orwell,
1984
* * *
Sunday 4/13/03
Map Trio
Fort Picayune MD
(shot)
by Captain Picky: There seems to be more than
one Cpt. Picky. Anyway, this is this Picky's first
map, he says, and darned if it isn't an impressive one.
Just check out the scale and sweep of this cliffside
pueblo city. Yeah the framerate is lower than average
but there's a lot going on there. With few accessible
interiors and that nice descent, it should make a good
field for TNT chucking, one of the Captain's favored
techniques.
Shooot CKMD
(shot)
by zorba7: Wide ranch in a valley with some
outlying corrals and things. Interiors have sort of
a narrow scale and texturing could be a bit fancier,
but the most unusual aspect of this map is that there's
nary a pickup item to be found. Miles of tunnel run
around and under the whole ranch and I dunno, I think
may be overdoing it--after all, shooting it out in a
featureless tunnel without cover or room to dodge gets
a bit old.
Snake Canyon CKMD
(shot)
by zorba7: Run on, around and through a big
cylindrical cliff. Again the tunnels here are a bit much
but this time there are some interesting cliffhanger
areas and wind effects, and good
framerates.
Marshal O`Bryan: Tombstone single-player
(shot)
by Red_October: I couldn't seem to download this
from Red's site last week but he pointed me to
Mr. Baggins'
where I was able to snag the 2.5 MB file. Custom Molycoat
props have a lot to do with that size. Run through a
small frontier town, shoot the badguys, save the good
guys, watch out for badguys in disguise (brilliant
touch there) and jump through a few clever hoops to get
the keys to the boss. Fun small single-level adventure,
the only sorta letdown was the boss fight--give the poor
guy some cover, for goodness' sake! Nice building
designs.
A Good Year for Quotes
More
prisoners came and went mysteriously. One, a woman, was
consigned to "Room 101," and, Winston noticed, seemed
to shrivel and turn a different color when she heard the
words. A time came when, if it had been morning when he
was brought here it would be afternoon; or if it had
been afternoon, then it would be midnight. There were
six prisoners in the cell, men and women. All sat very
still. Opposite Winston there sat a man with a chinless,
toothy face exactly like that of some large, harmless
rodent. His fat, mottled cheeks were so pouched at the
bottom that it was difficult not to believe that he had
little stores of food tucked away there. His pale-grey
eyes flitted timorously from face to face, and turned
quickly away again when he caught anyone's eye.
George Orwell,
1984
* * *
Sunday 4/6/03
Maps That Go BANG
m00nbas3 CMD
(shot)
by Master_X11: Moon crater map complete with
weird alien building, tents (moon tents?) and a crater
inside the main crater. Some small missing polys and
not a whole lot to see, but you can't really go wrong with
a zero-gravity gun duel once in a while.
Marshal O´Bryan: Bluesky Ranch single-player
(shot)
by Red_October: Single-player map in which you
visit a ranch and raise a ruckus, six-shooter style.
Interior design is a bit plain and you couldn't call
it a long adventure, but nothing wrong with beating up
on some thugs and their boss, is there? Some nice custom
sprite touches (see credits for authors) help give the
ranch some color.
Marshal O´Brian: Red Rock single-player
(shot)
by Red_October: Blast your way into a jail/fortress
and liberate the innocent prisoners! Lots and lots of
guys to shoot, and a gatling gun to help. Haven't finished
it yet (darn jailor got me). Neat trick on getting in
to the jail (that had stupid me stumped for a good ten
minutes).
Other Games or Something
TonToE, always itching for Western action,
found this
article about the aforementioned "Dead Man's Hand"
Xbox game, complete with oversized screenshots/renders.
Not content with that, he pulled up
this
article about "Dead Red Revolver" for PS2, one that
got mentioned around last year's E3 I think and in fact
this article seems to be that old, but there are screenshots.
This article was saying the game would be out this past
winter, which obviously didn't happen. Rumor (treat with
with a big rock of salt) has it that it's now due out
around October of this year.
But wait, there's more. His ToEness mentioned a trio of
Western mods that have recently seen, or approached,
the light of day: "Unreal Badlands," a UT mod, "Western
Q3," a Quake 3 mod, something like "Wild West" for
Return to Castle Wolfenstein. I don't have URLs for those
so just hit Google or something and maybe you can turn
something up.
Click for the Red_October
Red_October surfaced (haha! err okay that was
weak) to tell me about his OL site and the maps that
I dug out of it and already posted above. There's another
big one but I wasn't able to download it yet, maybe
you'll have better luck.
|
Red_October's Outlaws Page
German fan site with maps by Red_October himself,
downloadable custom sprites and things for Outlaws
maps, and a forum where you can practice your German
while chatting about your favorite game.
|
Wherefore Zone Thou?
In answer to my recent query, Robond confirmed
that Outlaws is still indeed running on the zone.com
gaming site, and mentioned that the confusion was due
to the link to the Outlaws lobby being removed from the
"CD-ROM Games" list. You can still find the link to it
in the "All Games" menu page however, just find the
"All Games" link in the lower left of the Zone home
page.
Pale Brother Is Watching YOU
There was
a sound of marching boots outside. The steel door opened
with a clang. A young officer, a trim black-uniformed
figure who seemed to glitter all over with polished
leather and whose pale, straight-featured face was
like a wax mask, stepped smartly through the doorway.
He motioned to the guards outside to bring in the prisoner
they were leading.
George Orwell,
1984
* * *
Sunday 3/30/03
Levels Two
2172 single-player
(shot)
by Molycoat: [The version tucked away in my
Inbox these past few weeks turned out corrupt, so I
snagged a fresh copy from
TheOutlawDad's
site. Thanks Dad!] Another sprite-filled epic from the
ever-dangerous Molycoat, this time with a bouyant
futuristic space adventure theme complete with 1950's-style
sci-fi robots, laser rifles, and cheesy sound effects.
Quite fun and hard! I got blown up by some darn skulker
of a robot after taking out a fuel depot. Check the readme
for info (and even Moly says it's hard), there are custom
weapons here and you gotta run the game from the
2172.bat file that comes in the .zip (run the .bat, then
when OL loads up go to the Historical Missions menu).
As usual from Moly this baby is rather hefty, weighing
in at over 3 and a half MB.
Platforms MD
(shot)
by Master_X11: Narrow wooden platforms and
catwalks floating high in the blue sky, one wrong step
and you go... bye-bye! Haha err okay. Good framerate,
sorta grungy textures but for me they create a sort of
effective "steam punk" type image. A couple peripheral polys blink
a bit at certain angles but it's nothing you can't handle.
In some ways it seems crude but for some reason I like it,
I suppose because my head is in the clouds.
Xbox Western
Geu$ pointed me to
an
article on tothegame.com announcing a Western game
for Xbox called "Dead Man's Hand" by Human Head, due
to be published this fall by Infogrames' "Atari" label.
The article says it will be a first-person shooter
running on the Unreal engine with cool stuff like
black hats and smashing windows, and playing poker to
win health and ammo (err). Sounds promising and highly
Outlaws-inspired, oh and they say it will support multiplayer
through Microsoft's Xbox Live! service (not to be confused
with the Soundblaster Live! sound cards from
Creative).
Dead Zone?
Speaking of internet gaming services from Microsoft,
Darth Doctor mailed to say that their zone.com
service no longer offered an Outlaws matchmaking
forum. Well I went and looked and found their "High Noon"
listing 23 players in it, so I dunno if this is the
case. Maybe it was down for a few days? I don't have
a .NET passport thing and I forgot my Zone account info
long ago anyway so if someone wants to bring me up to
speed, go right ahead.
Guns and Stuff
Sleeping Bear Sam wrote me the following interesting
message, it seems he'd like to see certain pieces of
ordinance in Outlaws:
Just wanna let you know some of the ADVANCED shootin' irons
us Manistee River Maulers an' Mackinac Straits Mercenaries
use to keep the lawless desperadoes from Illinois,
Indiana and Deetroit from makin' a mess outta our gorgeous
territory up here at the top of the Great Lakes.... Maybe
these could be incorporated into th' Game???
1. Sharps 45-450-110
Rifle 45 is .45 bore, 450 is bullet weight 110 grains of powder.
3/4 length hand burnished walnut or red or black oak stock.
Flip up long range sights or machined grooves for telescope sight.
Weight is a hefty 22 pounds with a 34" octagonal 1 in 15
twist barrel but accuracy is awesome: 2" diameter 5 shot
group at 460 yards! Any criminal trying to do his devilish
deeds up to half a mile away would git a fist sized hole
blown in him (or her) even through a stove- lid armor plate.
2. Bee Hive Cannon 6 inch Bore
While the Sharps
45-450-110 is the long range weapon of choice this
is the total opposite. Made from an axle from a heavy
rail freight car this behemoth packs 22 pounds of 4.5
inch long heat treated nails instead of buckshot. Reason?
The nails fly farther 'n' faster than buckshot and have
greater piercing power due to their elongated coke bottle
shape and .375" diameter. At 200 yards they'll punch through
one inch of solid oak or cedar and make a circle 30 feet
in diameter. Just the thing for dealing with crazed
lynch mobs, human wave attacks from other hostiles
an' assorted frenzied savages bent on rape pillage
plunder an' anarchy. When the thing goes off the hundreds
of nails makes it sound like a huge swarm of bees or hornets
snarlin' and buzzin' all together real, real loud. Hence th'
term Bee Hive. The cannon is a bit over 7 foot long weighs
600 pounds and can be mounted many places. Heat up the nails
to red hot before firin' 'em and you set the sails of
hostile pirate ships a blazin'.
So, that's the newest
from the guns blacksmiths in the finest part o' Wolverine
State! Thanks
Sam! I'll be sure to be on my best behavior the next time
I visit Detroit!
Quoth the Pale: 1984
As usual Winston
hardly looked at Julia as they drifted toward one another
in the crowd, but from the short glance he gave her it
seemed to him that she was paler than usual.
George Orwell,
1984
It was the
first time that he had stripped himself naked in her
presence. Until now he had been too much ashamed of his
pale and meager body, with the varicose veins standing
out on his calves and the discolored patch over his
ankle.
George Orwell,
1984
"Dearest! You've
gone quite pale! What's the matter? Do they make you feel
sick?"
George Orwell,
1984
* * *
Sunday 3/9/03
Map Attack!
Canyon Runner CTKMD
(shot)
by Blinker: Well, turns out that the recently
released "Mahobi" was just an early work-in-progress
version of this map. This one certainly looks a lot
nicer, and has pickup items, though not many so you
still gotta conserve ammo. Thanks to
TheOutlawDad
for compiling the map and readme together, as they were
originally supplied separately.
Rock Guardin' CTKMD
(shot)
by Dog_Holliday: Er. Wow! A twisting desert
canyon forms the convoluted setting for one of the
most gorgeous maps I've seen. Check out the incredibly
dramatic use of shadows--stunning. Also packs in some
natural wildlife with custom sounds and sprites, and
watch out for the quicksand (but fall in at least once,
because it's darn cool). If you managed to use
TNT and a boilerplate to blast yourself
up to the outer rim you'd find some walls you
can walk right through but I don't think you could snipe
anyway because the rest of the world disappears when
you go through the wall. But you'd have a darn nice
view of an incredible map.
Trenches CMD
(shot)
by master_X11: A no-man's-land affair with
some squarish yet impressively convoluted trench
fortifications--impressive in large part because
the framerate stays high with a ton of stuff all in
one (really) big area. Hardly a new theme but done
well--just bring a lot of people along for when you
want to go over the top. The main map file (trenches.lab)
overwrites the map file from some other map (didn't
think to check which one before I overwrote), which
isn't too cool really, so you might want to watch out
for that.
Snow Resort CKMDT
(shot)
by WaRRioR: White house in a snowy canyon = hard
to see ;) but the layout features some nice twists and
turns, and I like how the snow spills in to the nearby
cliff tunnels a little bit. CTF-styley with two bases,
unusual in that the bases are quite a bit different from
each other, so it isn't just a mirror match. Of course
this might mean that one side somehow has an advantage,
but you gotta live a little sometimes ya know.
Killhouse CMD
(shot)
by Gas: CTF map with mirrored bases surrounded
by a high fence. Good framerate even with the two buildings
and their extensive outside rooftops and stairways in
view. I'm not sure if the author meant for you to jump
on the fence and thus be able to go anywhere you like
around the compound without having to go through the
open area in the middle, but if you do that you'll be
punished by seeing some funky graphical clipping, so
there. Aside from that and a little winky surface in
the upper stairways, the map looks solid in Gas'
typically clean style.
The Advantage of Throwing Like a Girl
BadRel wanted to point out the following TNT
disposing technique:
Also it is possible to shortrange/loop tnt by moving backwards and throwing TNT while in midair.
This means that you can throw TNT at medium to small range even if you have pressed the throw
button for the full amount. This is handy if you for some reason want to shift your TNT range, and
the manouver can also trick the enemy to dodge wrong because the TNT will have much slower movementrate
in this mode.
Of Stuff
Updates are a bit sporadic this month due to just a lot
of stuff in my life going on all at once. Darn stuff! I
dunno why it can't be a little more considerate and
moderated, but there you go.
These are the last of Midlothian, I swear. Oy! Though
ironically enough I may be seeing the remains of the
place in person this summer.
She did so, and, as
he drew aside the curtain of his bed, the light fell on
his pale countenance, as, turban'd with bandages, and
dressed in a night-gown, he lay, seemingly exhausted, upon
the bed.
Sir Walter Scott,
The Heart of Midlothian
But the form
was indisputable — Douce David Deans himself, in his
best light-blue Sunday's coat, with broad metal-buttons,
and waistcoat and breeches of the same, his strong
gramashes or leggins of thick grey
cloth — the very copper buckles —
the broad Lowland blue bonnet, thrown back as he lifted
his eyes to Heaven in speechless gratitude — the grey
locks that straggled from beneath it down his
weather-beaten 'haffets' — the bald and furrowed forehead —
the clear blue eye that, undimmed by years, gleamed
bright and pale from under its shaggy grey pent-house —
the features, usually so stern and stoical, now
melted into the unwonted expression
of rapturous joy, affection, and gratitude — were all
those of David Deans; and so happily did they assort
together, that, should I ever again see my
friends Wilkie or Allan, I will try to borrow or steal
from them a sketch of this very scene.
Sir Walter Scott,
The Heart of Midlothian
* * *
Sunday 2/23/03
One Old, One New
Epitaph CTKMD
(shot)
by Dog_Holliday: Small update to his detailed
little town map with (just going by the readme here)
a floor sound fixed and a few additional ammo boxes
added.
Mahobi CKMD
(shot)
by Blinker: Thanks to
TheOutlawDad
for sending this one over from his massive archive.
Sandy caves laid out in a long
CTF style with some very creative multilevel stuff
going on in bridges, ramps and spiral staircases.
Nice framerates and, in a twist, no pickup items
at all. This sort of thing probably favors Mary's
fists or maybe even the Chief's knives, but I'm
always in favor of nice level design. Thumbs up.
Yet More Midlothian
On receiving
this hint from the attendant, the unfortunate young
woman, with a hasty, trembling, and apparently
mechanical compliance, shaded back from her face her
luxuriant locks, and showed to the whole court, excepting
one individual, a countenance, which, though pale and
emaciated, was so lovely amid its agony, that it called
forth an universal murmur of compassion and sympathy.
Apparently the expressive sound of human feeling
recalled the poor girl from the stupor of fear, which
predominated at first over every other sensation,
and awakened her to the no less painful
sense of shame and exposure attached to her
present situation. Her eye, which had at first glanced
wildly around, was turned on the ground; her cheek,
at first so deadly pale, began gradually to be
overspread with a faint blush, which increased so fast,
that, when in agony of shame she strove to conceal
her face, her temples, her brow, her neck, and all that
her slender fingers and small palms could not cover,
became of the deepest crimson.
Sir Walter Scott,
The Heart of Midlothian
* * *
Sunday 2/16/03
Wilderness Resistant
Wilderness HR 1 CKMD
by GoJo: GoJo continues spreading his good
"Hack Resistant" conversions with this one of
LEC's "Wilderness" level. Harder to hack and
Marshal Law-ed to boot!
Of Lite Guns and Cros Hairs
Vin_Egar sent in
his
custom crosshair for use in Outlaws. Howsomever,
this ain't just yer reg'lar ol' "croshair.nwx" file
here. Nossir. It seems that Vin uses my old "Liteguns"
hack which sacrifices visible weapons for a bit of a
framerate improvement on old machines (see the
other useful files page for
more on Liteguns), and he missed having a crosshair when
using the rifle scope (personally, I have no idea what
anyone could see wrong with
this! ;). So he came up with these files
which restore that crosshair, and a normal crosshair
for the invisible Liteguns rifle, if you just pop the two enclosed
.nwx files into your Outlaws directory. As usual, get
'em while they're still available from my temp ftp
directory, and of course use at your own risk--note that
these two files will overwrite two from Liteguns, though
of course you can just restore the originals Liteguns
stuff, if you should want it back, by re-extracting Liteguns
into your OL directory. Who needs clunking installation
programs? Just give me handy dependable .zip files any
day, by gad!
The Horseman Rides Forth
Warrior has returned from who the heck knows
where to update his good old
The Four
Horsemen posse site. He's even removed the looping
audio track, so you can browse from work without
alarming the boss!
A Pale Pick-Me-Up
I didn't have any news for you last week, and good heavens
I forgot to do a quote in the previous update, so to make up
for that (and to get through Midlothian as quickly as
possible...) I'm going to subject you to not one, not two,
but three
pale quotations this week. Aren't you lucky? Say
"yes."
He was about
the middle size, stout, and well made, having a military
air, and yet rather a gentle and mild countenance.
His complexion was brown, his face somewhat fretted
with the scars of the smallpox, his eyes rather languid
than keen or fierce. On the present occasion, however, it
seemed to those who saw him as if he were agitated by
some evil demon. His step was irregular, his voice hollow
and broken, his countenance pale, his eyes staring and
wild, his speech imperfect and confused, and his whole
appearance so disordered, that many remarked he seemed
to be fey, a Scottish expression, meaning the
state of those who are driven on to their impending fate by
the strong impulse of some irresistible necessity.
Sir Walter Scott,
The Heart of Midlothian
He partook of
the temperament of his mother, who had died of a
consumption in early age. He was a pale, thin, feeble,
sickly boy, and somewhat lame, from an accident in early
youth. He was, besides, the child of a doting grandmother,
whose too solicitous attention to him soon taught him
a sort of diffidence in himself, with a disposition to
overrate his own importance, which is one of the very
worst consequences that children deduce from
over-indulgence.
Sir Walter Scott,
The Heart of Midlothian
Her mistress
sometimes observed her in tears, but they were signs of
secret sorrow, which she concealed as often as she saw
them attract notice. Time wore on, her cheek grew pale,
and her step heavy. [...] Neighbours, also, and fellow-servants,
remarked, which malicious curiosity or degrading pity,
the disfigured shape, loose dress, and pale cheeks, of
the once beautiful and still interesting girl. But to no
one would she grant her confidence, answering all taunts
with bitter sarcasm, and all serious expostulation with
sullen denial, or with floods of tears.
Sir Walter Scott,
The Heart of Midlothian
* * *
Sunday 2/2/03
Two Mappies
Reckon CKMD
(shot)
by HyDroPoNix: Cave/tunnel CTF-style map
with a custom character for Mary, sort of a crazy
patchwork of the other characters all in one. Lots
of winding tunnels and tricky little hidey-holes for
sneaky folks.
Superbowl CTKMD
(shot)
by ShiftyTuco: Well, it's a football stadium
I don't think there are any pickup items, and if you
go out of bounds you start taking damage, so it's
pretty much a head-downfield-shooting type of affair.
The field markings and goalposts are kind of blocky
but the framerate is high.
Free Wanted
TheStamper pointed out that the
Wanted
Western mod for Half-Life, which once cost money for the full
deal, is now free. So head on over and download it if you've
been patient all these years.
* * *
Sunday 1/26/03
CTF, Fast!
aCTFast CTKMD
(shot)
by Dog_Holliday: Compact two-canyon CTF
layout where the canyons are nice and round with
a cute fort in the middle and ledges all around. The
three short tunnels between the two bases should keep things
moving at a pretty quick rate but be careful on the
last jump up to the flag area! Nice-looking level for the
most part with unusual textures and a framerate that's
lower than what you might expect for the small area,
but still well within "playable" range on my ancient
hardware.
Crow Crossing
Crow sent in
a
custom crosshair for your enjoyment. It's just like
the default crosshair, only high-visibility yellow instead
of the regular grey. To use it, just plop the "croshair.nwx"
from the .zip into your OL directory (you don't need to
do anything with the included .bmp file, that's just there
as a preview I guess). If you want to go back to the
default crosshair, just delete the croshair.nwx
file. Get it while it's hot as I won't leave it up
forever (although what with me being lazy these days,
things tend to sit in my temp storage folder longer
than they really should).
*gasp* I just had a brainwave supernova. You know what
would be cool? A little "Crosshair Configurator" type
utility that would let you swap between multiple
custom crosshairs (and the default crosshair),
and would let you preview them before switching. That
would be a handy little thing indeed.
Generic Ultimate Role-Playing Online Western
I never actually got around to playing any of the infinite
flavors of the GURPS pen-and-paper role-playing games but
now they're going massively multiplayer (what isn't
these days) and one of the first is supposed to be
GURPS
Online: Old West where you play a cowboy and stay
up all night flirting with cowgirls who are probably,
in fact, boys. Or vice-versa. Wait, that probably doesn't
go. Anyhow, it all sounds a long way off but you can
go absorb the hype at the site linked above.
The Chaise Rides at Midnight
The thin
pale-faced man, whom their good nature had brought
into their society, looked out of place, as well as
out of spirits; sate on the edge of his seat, and kept
the chair at two feet distance from the table; thus
incommoding himself considerably in conveying the
victuals to his mouth, as if by way of penance for
partaking of them in the company of his superiors.
A short time after dinner, declining all entreaty
to partake of the wine, which circulated freely round,
he informed himself of the hour when the chaise had been
ordered to attend; and saying he would be in readiness,
modestly withdrew from the apartment.
Sir Walter Scott,
The Heart of Midlothian
* * *
Monday 1/20/03
Take Your Thumps
Thump Tower CKMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: Unlike his previous map, Thump Tower
isn't packed with scads of custom objects and widgets.
He's constructed what he calls a "jungle gym" of ramps,
ledges and spurs around the big round tower from Thud
Tower, allowing you to be rather creative about how you
get up or down. There's more to it than that, of course,
and you'll have quite a time sneaking and zipping around
all the little channels and jumps he's constructed. And
of course you should throw as much TNT off the tower roof
as possible.
Pictorial Disclosures
HyDroPoNix (aka "Metallica") sent along a little
assemblage of windows showing him with 8 players in a
game, all on a single machine, which you can see
here.
He used the "Multiple Windows" registry setting to do it,
which you can read about down near the bottom of the
tips and tricks page under
the title "Shoot Yourself." HyDro recommends this as a
good way for map makers to test various aspects of their
level. Also, if you'll look closely you'll notice that
the character is a custom job, soon to make an appearance
in the work-in-progress map you can see in the shots. The
lower-right-hand shot is from a single-player level he's
working on which he says will have a story with both a
good twist and humor.
Our second composite screenshot comes courtesy of The
Crow, demonstrating his recommended Display Options
settings for a GeForce 2 MX 400, which you can see
here.
Of course, you should not overclock your card unless you
know what you're doing and are willing to void your
warranty, start fires, and melt stuff.
Return to Wild Wolfenstein
Phil pointed me to the
"Wild West" mod
for "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" which certainly
looks rather impressive, I like the style and color in
the screenshots they have on display. As for how it plays,
I have no idea, but the site lists some presumably active
servers so if you have RtCW I suppose you can install the
mod and find out.
Welcome Woe? Whoa.
In
him the painter labor'd with his skill
To hide deceit, and give the harmless show
An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still,
A brown unbent, that seem'd to welcome woe,
Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so,
That blushing red no guilty instance gave,
Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts
have.
William Shakespeare,
The Rape of Lucrece
* * *
Sunday 1/12/03
Hi-yo Levels!
I have got to start thinking up some better
titles...
tube MD
(shot)
by Peter M: Re-release by TheOutlawdad
who took it upon himself to put
the LawMaker files up into a nice tidy
.lab, write a .txt file, and remove some modes that
didn't work properly. Always good to have dad around to
tidy up. By the way, if you already installed the original
version, go delete all the "tube.*" files in your Outlaws
directory before extracting this one.
Jammed CKMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: Lovely scene of an abandoned
ranch house being reclaimed by the elements in a sandy
valley. The curving sandscape outside, and the atmosphere
that goes with it, reminds me of Templar's
"Forgotten Depot." Inside you're reminded why Moly is
the king of custom props as the single-story house is
simply packed with posters and gew-gaws, my favorite so
far being the cigar and burn stain on the carpet. I
also appreciate that the windows are double-thick, so
you get twice the breakage by shooting one. ;) The insides
are, in fact, almost too crowded for comfort, but I don't
think anyone wants to go retraining Moly's creativity at
this point.
Epitaph CTKMD
(shot)
by Dog_Holliday: A good ol' town-in-a-valley
type of map, in the evening,
with lots of windows and rooftops and back
doors, not to mention some of Moly's patented
decorations. Just the kind of place for a shoot-out with
your very best enemies. Framerate isn't what you would
call high in all spots but does a good job of staying
decent considering that everything's out in the open.
Rainy Repair CTKMD
(shot)
by Who: Pattern Repair's seen snow, so here's
a rainy version (much more comfy for those of us here
in the Pacific Northwest ;). The water drop sprite could stand
to be redone a bit for this type of effect though because
it's kind of blue and fat and short, so if you jump you're
actually above the rain for a moment.
The lighting and thunder, on the other hand, is absolutely
ace, and you should definitely run this map to experience
the effect. I've tried to capture a
slice of it thanks to
the breakthrough of Stroboscopic PaleVision tm
but you really have to see it for yourself (and crank up
the base on the subwoofer) to appreciate it properly.
DirectX 9 Released
Microsoft released DirectX 9 just before the holidays
with so little fanfare that I only just now noticed that it
was out. There's very little exciting and new to the
average user, although DirectPlay (their networking
interface) is supposedly rewritten quite a bit, and
Direct3D has a new level of customizable "shader"
support ("shaders" are algorithms or whatever that
use 3D acceleration to achieve nifty surface effects
like chrome, transparency, cell-shading, etc, I think).
Probably doesn't do much for Outlaws but you'll have to
get it eventually, and as far as I know it hasn't caused
much trouble to speak of, so I guess you might as well
get it now.
Of course, you can't uninstall it, so if on the other hand
you aren't playing any new cutting edge games or whatever,
there's no pressing reason to install it just yet.
CTF Gets a Home
|
Outlaws CTF
Excellent source of Capture the Flag maps and
strategies, wrangled together by Jalapeño from an
experienced team of contributors. Read all the
articles here and I guarantee that in your next CTF
match you will be at least
a little less likely to panic and go rushing around
typing "WHERES TEH FLAG?!" as everyone naturally does
at first (an effective strategy for convincing the
other team that you're useless).
Nice fast and readable layout.
|
A few of the "Resource" articles are currently offline
but I'm sure they'll have those cleaned up shortly. Also,
I gotta make one qualification to what I said above about
this being a great source of reliable information: in
his interview Crow names me as one of the great old
CTF players. Now, that's obviously not the case unless
he means that I was a great person to have on the other
team, since I mostly ran around like a chicken with my
head cut off. So I hope that clears up what at first glance
looks like a heinous error on dear old Crow's
part.
Heap Big Space
A while back I wrote about a reader who was having this
mysterious "ran out of heap space" error when trying to run
certain custom single-player levels.
After trying just about everything including
swapping hardware, he discovered that the solution was to
install all the game patches, which he hadn't bothered with
previously since he only played the game single-player
(links to the patch files can be found on the
demos and patches page). So,
if crazy "heap space" messages ever pop up in Outlaws,
make sure you've got all the patches installed.
Darn Painters
In
great commanders, grace and majesty
You might behold triumphing in their faces;
In youth, quick bearing and dexterity;
And here and there the painter interlaces
Pale cowards, marching on with trembling paces,
Which heartless peasants did so well resemble,
That one would swear he saw them quake and
tremble.
William Shakespeare,
The Rape of Lucrece
* * *
Sunday 1/5/03
Giddee-up!
After a long and lovely break I'm struggling back into
my various saddles. A pretty good amount of news dropped
by over the holidays so let's get to it, shall we? Happy
New Year, all!
Code Alliance Site Back
Thanks to Mr Baggins and err Lars F. for
pointing out that the
codealliance.ca
site, home of the authors of the LawMaker editing program,
is back online, message board and all. Yay!
Get Yer Name in a Readme
GoJo is crankin' "Hack Resistant" ("HR") versions
of the official OL multiplayer maps out at quite a rapid
rate these days, and he could use your help in testing
them out to make sure they're up to snuff. If you're
a good tester, of course, he'll probably credit you in
the map's readme file, thus granting your immortality,
so head on over to his
Current
Project page to see what action you can get in on.
Looks like "Wilderness HR 1" may be on the menu.
Also, for you programmy types, GoJo has a question about
editing the map.itm file so that the game loads character
IDs from an alternate source. If you have any clue as to
what that means, check out his specific question on
the page linked above and drop him a line.
Western WWII
Aaron Sawyer (of custom OL rifle sounds fame)
pointed out that there's a fan-made Western-themed level
for that popular "Medal of Honor: Allied Assault" WWII
first-person shooter game. The level can be downloaded
from here
and Aaron sent along some shots to demonstrate the
Western-ness of it. Looks kinda neat and you may notice
a certain Outlawsish touch in them...
Shot 1,
shot 2,
shot 3,
shot 4.
Levelicious
TNT Factory CKMD
(shot)
by Captain Picky: There's been at least one map with
player-launching cannon before, and at least one set in
a TNT factory, but I don't think we've had a map with
TNT-launching cannons before. You light the stick, drop
it on to the cannon's surface, it slides forward and then
ZING! off it flies to land and explode on a distant
part of the map. You can't aim them so you'll just have to
wait until someone is crossing a target zone, such as
that long bridge hehe. Now as a staunch Sanchez fan I'll
maintain that a good eye and throwing arm beats a cannon
any day of the week, but I'll admit that it'd be hard
to throw as far and as accurately as these big steel
babies. The map itself is large and attractive (nice bombed
out fort) although the open design leads to slightly
below-average framerates, which of course won't matter
to anyone playing on something faster than my ancient
533. Lack of footstep sounds is a bit of a bummer but
you can just pretend that that last TNT blast numbed
yer ear-drums.
West End single-player
(shot)
by Dog_Holliday: Tense hunt for banditos through
dark city streets filled with a vast number of traps and
ambushes. Started life as an experiment with triggered
sequences but turned in to quite a fun and atmospheric
single-player adventure. You really have to keep an eye
and ear out for danger in this one, and don't forget to
look up.
Dizzee KMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: In most maps you just spawn in somewhere
and then go run off in some direction to collect bullets
and try to shoot people with them. How inefficient!
Moly's streamlined the procedure, launching you at high
velocity out of a tight chute, handing you a laser gun on
the way, to land you right in the middle of a deep arena
death pit where you try to burn holes in your fellow
players. As you'd expect from Moly, excellent use of custom
graphics and sounds, and very nice texturing and layout
as well. It's laser-ific!
tube CKMD
(shot)
by Peter M: Aptly-named map with large square
tubes that launch the player in various directions and
can be more painful than a TNT cannon if you don't land
right. Lighting could be better as it's overall quite dark
and hard to distinguish some areas, and there are a couple
graphical glitches in Glide mode. Somewhat big and plain
in layout but at least there's less for you to hit when
you get launched out one of the tubes.
Snowy Repair CTKMD
(shot)
by Who: (Appears as "Winter Repair," but where
"snowrep" would appear alphabetically, in the
map list.) Pattern Repair becomes a dark slippy slidey
ice level in wintertime with a hot roaring fire in
the fireplace. Hey, there's a fireplace? Good thing too
since everyone left all the doors and windows open!
Rather on the dark side (unless my old eyes are just
growing dim) but a solid conversion otherwise.
Lights Out
Here pale
with fear he doth premeditate
The dangers of his loathsome enterprise;
And in his inward mind he doth debate
What following sorrow may on this arise.
Then looking scornfully, he doth despise
His naked armor of still-slaughtered lust,
And justly thus controls his thoughts unjust:
"Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not
To darken her whose light excelleth thine;
And die, unhallowed thoughts, before you blot
With your uncleanness that which is divine;
Offer pure incense to so pure a shrine:
Let fair humanity abhor the deed
That spots and stains love's modest snow-white
weed.
William Shakespeare,
The Rape of Lucrece
* * *
Wednesday 12/18/02
And They Think They Have Big Hats in Texas
In his secret identity my brother,
Slack-Jawed Pete, moonlights as an engineer.
His company's latest project is the restoration of
the "Hat n' Boots" gas station in south Seattle (I
guess the neighborhood is known as Georgetown, but this is
the first I've heard of that name
:p).
If you're wondering why I'm posting about my brother's
work, well, just take a look at these on-site pictures
they took in preparing for the project.
shot 1 |
shot 2 |
shot 3 |
shot 4
Some big boots to fill, huh? (The boots were the restrooms.)
Not to worry, ol' Slack-Jaw is the man for the
job. Visit the station's web site at
www.hatnboots.org
for more info if for some reason you just can't get
enough of a 44-foot hat and 22-foot boots.
The Two Pales
The hat n' boots shots were an excuse for a quick an' frivolous
mid-week update, but now's also a good time to mention
that what with this bein' th' magical holiday season
an' all, updates may be a bit irregular. Big Nose
Kate is gonna hit town tomorrow and, well, things
tend to get rowdy. I may manage to sneak in an update
or two but if not, have a Merry Christmas and Happy New
Year!
This would not, of course, be an update without a quote
just for you. And lucky you, seeing "The Two Towers"
today inspired me to dig through the ol' book and find
a couple quotes for you. One of 'em pops up in the movie
mangled and slightly out of context--keep an ear
open an' see if you can catch it at the show, eh?
'You
speak justly, lord,' said the pale man sitting upon
the steps of the dias. 'It is not yet five days since
the bitter tidings came that Théodred your son was
slain upon the West Marches: your right hand, Second
Marshal of the Mark. In Éomer there is little trust.
Few men would be left to guard your walls, if he had
been allowed to rule. And even now we learn from Gondor
that the Dark Lord is stirring in the East. Such is
the hour in which this wanderer chooses to return. Why
indeed should we welcome you, Master Stormcrow?
Láthspell I name you, Ill-news; and ill news
is an ill guest, they say.' He laughed grimly, as he
lifted his heavy lids for a moment and gazed on the
strangers with dark eyes.
J.R.R. Tolkien,
The Two Towers
The woman
turned and went slowly into the house. As she passed the
doors she turned and looked back. Grave and thoughtful
was her glance, as she looked on the king with cool pity
in her eyes. Very fair was her face, and her long hair
was like a river of gold. Slender and tall she was in her
white robe girt with silver; but strong she seemed and
stern as steel, a daughter of kings. Thus Aragorn for the
first time in the full light of day beheld Éowyn, lady of
Rohan, and thought her fair, fair and cold, like a morning
of pale spring that is not yet come to womanhood. And she
now was suddenly aware of him: tall heir of kings, wise
with many winters, greycloaked, hiding a power that yet she
felt. For a moment still as stone she stood, then
turning swiftly she was gone.
J.R.R. Tolkien,
The Two Towers
An' just because I can't shut up, I'll say that, although
this is kind of the "filler" part of the trilogy, and
they take many more liberties with the source material
than they did in the first movie, it comes out fairly
well. I could have done without the Aragorn/Arwen
dream sequences and Legolas surfing down a staircase
while firing arrows, oh and the incessant Gimli short
jokes, but I suppose one must make some concessions to
the modern moviegoer. It doesn't have the advantage of
setting the stage and introducing all the fascinating
characters of the first movie, so it's kind of slow
until the last hour or more, which is all battle scenes,
but if you liked the first one you should have a pretty
good time.
* * *
Sunday 12/15/02
Two Levels Again
Repair HR 1 CKTMD
(shot)
by GoJo: Hargrove's gets the Hack Resistance
treatment from the canine avenger. A big download, 1.2 MB,
since the Hack Resistance stuff prevents NWX hacks
by forcing you to load custom versions of the sprites
from the map file itself, but for the slight inconvenience
of a larger download time you get to play a level which
stops known hacks dead--this one even stops a new hack,
apparently, by using a new technique that gives characters
ammoless versions of all weapons when they spawn in.
This changes the weapon balance of the map a bit since
any character can pick up shotgun ammo and then will be
able to fire the shotgun they spawned with, but hey, it's
that or suffer hacks. There are no item spawn sounds
because the spawning of the invisible ammoless items at
the start points was too noisy.
Item placement has also been tweaked
to make the map ML, and I think GoJo lowered the interior
loft windows a bit to make them easier to get through,
among his other usual perfectionist
tidyings-up. As usual with the HR maps, make sure that
you switch to a different character in the lobby before
entering the map if you don't want your weapons to jam
or explode or turn to snakes or something.
Canyon Bunkers CMD
(shot)
by Yackin: A fairly straightforward
CTF area, two huts separated by a bridged river. It's
gonna be fast an' furious though 'cause the high
water level allows you to just skip over the water
to the other side. Framerate is slightly low for
such a simple-looking map but not bad. The sides
are just about identical except that one side is
closer to a certain mysterious waterfall. Note: appears
under "B" in the map list.
New OL Art at LEC
A month ago I posted about OL being mentioned in LucasArts' "History
of LucasArts" at their
LucasArts
Entertainment Company 20th Anniversary site, but
I don't recall seeing the four layout sketches of the mine
cutscene which you'll find if you click the "Art Gallery"
thumbnail in the lower left corner of the main page
there. Thanks to Doc for pointing that
out.
Sitez
|
Mista's OL Hideout
Mista's latest, and he indulges himself in poking
fun at a few of his cyber foes. I don't really get
the in-jokes, I guess.
|
|
Outlaws Photo Album
An album of real-life Outlaws player photos,
tastefully sepia-toned and weathered by SeNfuL.
|
Frontier 1859 "Interview"
Daniel McMillan, president of
Cosmic Origins,
sent out a link to an interview he and co-worker
Gary Clayton gave Gamers Connect .com, right
here,
about their massively-multiplayer western game
"Frontier 1859," in which they show off some of what their
site claims as seven years of research into the game's
historical setting. It sounds rather heavy on concept
and low on actual delivery (no screenshots or any other
kind of evidence of an actual game in production) but I
guess it makes for a semi-interesting read if you're
into those kinds of games.
A Quote a Day
O
what a sight it was wistly to view,
How she came stealing to the wayward boy,
To note the fighting conflict of her hue,
How white and red each other did destroy!
But now her cheek was pale, and by and by
It flash'd forth fire, as lightning from the sky.
William Shakespeare,
Venus and Adonis
* * *
Sunday 12/8/02
Two Levels
Hookers Hideout 2.0 CKMD
(shot)
by last1Stndin: Th' first edition of this map
had some kind of error, apparently, so this's the
second version but the first I've put up here. A pretty
good-sized town map, with a sort of corral with bunkers
running around it. The town itself is delightfully
fleshed out with a profusion of custom props from by
Molycoat. Also, check out the mirror in the barber shop
for a clever effect. The whorehouse dominates one side
of the town, of course, and as you might have expected
those hard-workin' girls from Duke Nukem are upstairs
doing their thing once again. A lot to see, and lots of
room to fight outside though the framerate gets a bit
low behind the water tower.
Lilhouse KMD
(shot)
by Molycoat: A little farm on a gentle hill
makes a charming setting for this winter map by Moly,
embroidered with his trademark custom props and animals.
You can see the crows in the screenshot (they "caw" and
flap around), and that pond in the far right actually
has a few critters of the mammal persuasion infesting
it--and then there are some others who wouldn't sit still
to have their picture took. Great attention to textures
and lighting as well, and interesting use of forced
perspective with the moonlight and a path which leads
away from the hill. The few rooftops here have nice jumps
between them. Th' interiors are maybe a bit too
lil' for comfort, but packed with neat things like
flickering candles. Framerate is good and I love the
haze effect at the horizon. I'm not sure I love being
able to run right up to the horizon though--it's way
far off, and I'll bet you'll end up with people runnin'
way off to snipe back at the hill from out in th'
distance. But there's no ammo out there so maybe
they won't be able to camp all that long.
A Pitchur Show
Molycoat's certainly been a productive fellow
lately, and just to show that he's a complete Outlaws
fiend, he also came up with some standalone animated artwork
for us. We've got th' epic saga of
Jack
vs. Doc (nice quickdraw animation) and then th' idyllic
scene of the
Smithy,
parts of which you'll recall from recent maps (the smith
can be found hammerin' away in Hookers Hideout, fer
instance).
New OLSet
Yackin has released version 1.3 of his "OLSet"
configuration utility, you can grab it from his site
right
here
(1.5 MB). It lets you set up multiple control configurations
for Outlaws, then swap between 'em before you run the
game, all in a nice simple interface. Just th' thing if
you've got other Outlaws lovers in your household who
are always remapping your controls on you. Similar to
Cia_Bpi's old "Outlaws Configuration Manager" (see the
helpful files
page).
LawMaker Makers Gone?
Yackin pointed out to me that the
Code Alliance
site, home to the makers of the LawMaker Outlaws
map editor and many other fine pieces of programming,
is no more. I haven't been able to find news of them
anywhere. Anyone know if they've popped up at a new
address? It'd be a great loss if they were offline for
good.
Ever Dance With the Devil
The road
gashed across the land, stretched silent and empty
before him, and below the east was the rumorous
promise of moonlight. He trod in dust between dark
trees like spilled ink upon the pale clear page of the
sky, and soon the moon was more than a promise. He saw
the rim of it sharpening the tips of trees, saw soon
the whole disc, bland as a saucer. Whippoorwills were
like lost coins among the trees and one blundered
awkwardly from the dust almost under his feet. The
whiskey died away in the loneliness, soon his
temporarily mislaid despair took its place again.
William Faulkner,
Soldier's Pay
* * *
Sunday 12/1/02
Just Business
Attentive UK reader P. Wooding, or, perhaps to better
protect his privacy in this age of internet spam spiders,
I should refer to him as "Pete W.," points out that
the Western game "Far West" (not to be confused with
Konami's late-'80's side-scrolling arcade shooter of the same name),
which
the official
web
site describes as "business simulation in the Wild Wild
West," has hit retail.
At least, it has in most of Europe.
I'm not sure that it's out or
coming out in the States, as I can't find any current
reference to a North American release on the official site above
or on the product
page on publisher JoWood's site. Indeed,
the game site's message board is full of frustrated customers
complaining of bugs and no technical
support.
Anyway, you can download the 63 MB demo from the
first linked site above and take a look for yourself,
assuming it runs. The screenshots of cattle stampedes
and the like through little Sim-Cityesque Western towns
look interesting.
The Pale's The Thing
The
garden was worth seeing. An avenue of roses bordered
a gravelled path which passed from sunlight beneath
two overarching oaks. Beyond the oaks, against a wall
of poplars in a restless formal row were columns
of a Greek temple, yet the poplars themselves in slim,
vague green were poised and vain as girls in a frieze.
Against a privet hedge would soon be lilies like
nuns in a cloister and blue hyacinths swung soundless
bells, dreaming of Lesbos. Upon a lattice wall wistaria
would soon burn in slow inverted lilac flame, and
following it they came lastly upon a single rose bush.
The branches were huge and knotted with age, heavy and
dark as a bronze pedastal, crowned with pale
impermanent gold. The divine's hands lingered upon it
with soft passion.
William Faulkner,
Soldier's Pay
* * *
Sunday 11/24/02
More Hack Resistant
Sanctuary HR 2 CKTMD
(shot)
by GoJo: Nothin's changed in the map itself, I
think (except maybe a texture tweak or two by the
perfectionistic author), but the Hack Resistant stuff
is a much smaller download now because GoJo has been able
to get the characters to share .nwx hands and things.
Throw in resistance against yet another form of OL hack
and you may have the best version of Sanc yet. As in
HR 1, you can get up on the rooftops, and the framerate
is a bit better around the well than in LEC's original
version. For further news on GoJo and his doin's, check
his updated and always interesting
Current
Project page.
In other news of big maps getting smaller, Dog_Holliday
sent along a revision of his excellent
Hades,
the difference being that he removed an extra copy of
the .lab file (hidden inside the first one!) and chopped
the .zip size down from 2 MB to just 1, which should make
your modems much happier. Oh, while I'm giving figures,
Sanc HR 2 is 1.3 MB. Crank up the old 33.6!
Black Screens Are No Fun
A fellow known as Phil is having trouble getting
Outlaws to go online on his shiny new system with
Win98SE, 512 RAM, a 2 Ghz P4, and Outlaws 2.1. He can get
online with other games but when it comes to OL, he gets
to the "Connected" stage on the load screen,
then the screen goes black for a few seconds and he winds
up back at the main menu. Not much fun, eh? If you have
any idea what may be ailing Phil's new machine, gimme
a buzz.
Get Thee To a Palery
I'm readin' too much lately I guess, or maybe I should
lay off the old stuff, 'cause my backlog of pale quotes
is gettin' outta hand—I may have to start rollin' 'em
out two at a time soon. And I swear I'm only picking the
best ones, too. =P Well, this's th' last of Richard III
that you'll have to suffer through.
No, so God help
me, they spake not a word, But like dumb statues,
or breathing stones, Star'd each on other, and look'd
deadly pale; Which when I saw, I reprehended
them, And ask'd the Mayor what meant this willful
silence.
William Shakespeare,
The Tragedy of Richard the Third
* * *
Sunday 11/17/02
Bit Damp in Here
Flood CTF CMD
(shot)
by Yackin: This could come in handy if you
want a quick'n'mucky CTF round, or if you want to play
CTF but don't have a whole lot of people. Two single-room
sewer bases connected by three straight watery channels form the
whole of the map. Nice lighting and sounds, clever "R"
and "B" signs for the two sides, and of course the
framerate's as high as she goes.
My Kingdom for a Quote
How darkly
and deadly dost though speak! Your eyes do menace
me. Why look you pale? Who sent you hither? Wherefore
do you come?
William Shakespeare,
The Tragedy of Richard the Third
* * *
Sunday 11/10/02
A Level or Two
Dry Run CTKMD
(shot)
by Dog_Holliday: One of the most gorgeous Outlaws
maps I can recall seeing. You wouldn't think that a
dry riverbed in a desert at night with a train track
over it could be a thing of beauty but this map has
come along to change your mind. The lighting, the
subtle texture palette, the ambient sounds, the
attention to detail with custom props that fit in just
right, the gentle curve of the bridge over the jagged
and tiered riverbed, the whole look of the thing is
just captivating and really transports you to this
world that DH has created for us. Two things might
interfere with this: 1) the framerate is on the low
side, though it stays roughly playable by my outdated
equipment, 2) the playable area is a square blocked out of the
natural desert/riverbed landscape with invisible walls.
Nothing quite takes me out of my suspension of disbelief
like smacking my nose full-tilt into an invisible barrier
in the middle of the desert. This artificial boundary lets
Dog create the nifty effect of forced perspective on the
receding railroad tracks, making you really feel like you're
out in the middle of nowhere, but at the cost, perhaps,
of a bloody nose or two. As far as actually playing the
map goes, it's gonna be a tough snipery type of affair
as it's mostly flat and open with just a few small
buildings around the edges of the playable area.
Room22 CTKMD
(shot)
by ShiftyTuco: From the nitty-gritty realism
of "Dry Run" we now shift gears to something nearing
complete abstraction. "Room22's" blank walls
and lettered pickups come near reducing Outlaws to
an XYZ riddle. A simple one in execution, however, since
in the single blank room your opponents will stand out
like fireflies against the surrounding white/gray limbo.
Framerates, as you may have guessed, are about as
high as they can get. My feeling is that, like much
post-modern/deconstructivist art, the map may be worth more
in theory and shock value than it is in real utility, but how much
could one more head-trip hurt? Relax your mind...
Outlaws at LEC's 20th Anniversary
Doc noticed some Outlaws stuff on parade at
the
Lucasarts
20th Anniversary showcase including a sketch of
James Anderson and a bit of a write-up on the game in
part 3 of the essay on their company history. Slipping
in mention that OL's visual style was a fore-runner of
cel-shading seems a bit much, but hindsight, as they
say, is whatever the heck makes you look good.
New OL Mod for Half-Life Patch Tomorrow
TonToE gave me the tip that there'll be a new patch/update
for his group's "OL Mod for Half-Life" posted tomorrow (Monday
the 11th) at their
official
web site. He also pointed out that if you go to their
Media > Models
page and click on the "Wanted" posters you'll find a
larger version with a little biographical bit on each
character. Not sure where these were scanned from--maybe
the official player's guide? Here's his big old
list of what's new in the thingy you can download for the
mod tomorrow:
-Added the contest maps OL_BqoBd, Railtown, Sommerton
-Added 3 other maps Coalmine, motherlode, tehC, Thud Tower
-Added Multiple Doc bags can hold up to 6 now
-Fully compliant with SDK 2.3, adding better spectator modes
-Fixed crash when a map can not load a wad not listed
-Fixed server stability crashes
-Fixed badge's double damage and causeing some server crashes
-Added X-Tender's Desperadoes textures
-Rebuilt all maps to fix CTF telefragging
-Added Colored kill sprites
-Fixed stamina getting stuck
-Adjusted weapon strengths
-Adjusted Character differences
-Fixed func_breakable gibs
-Fixed hit metal sounds not playing
-Gatling gun is more accurate within a certain range
-Changed KFC mode to enforce style of game play
-Fixed Chicken running through walls
-Lessen the number of ammo given by ammo boxes (was way too much)
-Changed Knife weight value
-Fixed Taunts while spectating and dead
-Uprgraded all sounds to 16 bit
-Added team colored messages
-Added Overview images for HLTV and spectating
-Added Bots and waypoints
-Eliminated spinning badge sprite
-Added item_belt entity
-Added Shownames
-Added Gamemode selection to the menu
-Added voice support
O, Something Something
The red
rose and the white are on his face,
The fatal colors of our striving houses;
The one his purple blood right well resembles,
The other his pale cheeks, methinks,
presenteth.
William Shakespeare,
The Third Part of Henry the Sixth
* * *
Sunday 11/3/02
Happy Halloween! Err... Oops
As far as I'm concerned Halloween is pretty worthless
once society decides you're too old to get free candy.
Then again, I'm sure I'd be of a different mind if
I'd been invited to a swanky masque ball with lots of
mysterious young women. But I wasn't, and got no candy
either, so... why I ramble? Oh, well so this is late,
but Who made a little web-based Outlaws
Trick or Treat for you right
here.
It requires Flash, and it's kind of an old joke, but
perhaps appropriate for this time of year. Well, for
last Thursday. Warning: don't be holding or near anything
valuable and fragile while you're viewing this page.
American Cowboy Wants You. Well, Me.
Like any honest red-blooded American, I get my share of
spam: video games, sports teams, shysters, hucksters,
porn, pyramid schemes, gambling, you name it. Same old
boring stuff day in and day out. Well finally some
different spam blessed my tired old inbox this week.
I guess by reprinting this I'm giving them undeserved
free advertising but I just find it amusing that this
was sent to me:
Don't miss your opportunity to be in American Cowboy magazine's
Jan/Feb 2003 issue!
Reinforce your advertising message to American Cowboy's print
readership (over *330,000), Internet visitors (over 580,000 unique
visitors, monthly), and through bonus distribution (6000 bonus
copies). This special issue kicks off the New Year with two great
series: 100 years of Western film and the nationwide celebration
of the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial!
Special Advertising Sections:
• Adventures West (Travel section)
• Real Estate (Real Estate section)
• The Stable (Horse-related section for products/services)
• Western & Wildlife Art (Art section)
Brand your product or service in Jan/Feb 2003 and receive the
following benefits:
· Over *330,000 responsive Western enthusiasts who read American
Cowboy cover-to-cover.
· Over 580,000 unique visitors to Cowboy.com.
· Bonus distribution at the Denver Market, Denver, Colo., Shot
Show, Orlando, Fla., & Equine Affaire, Pomona, Calif.
· Free banner advertising on "Cowboy.com" (for spreads, single,
two-third, or half page insertions).
· Featured link on "Cowboy.com" under category of your choice.
· Your ad will appear on "Where to go, Where to Shop" feature on
americancowboy.com.
Deadlines:
Materials: November 11, 2002
On Sale: December 31, 2002
Call the advertising department today to reserve prime positioning-
800-369-0196. Visit www.cowboy.com/ac/advertising/.
*total paid and non-paid circulation of 110,434 and 3 readers per
copy (ABC Publisher's Statement, June 30, 2002 and 2002 Readers'
Survey).
___________________________________________________________
If you wish to be removed from future mailings, please reply with
the subject "Remove" and you will be blocked from future mailings
Old French Novels Aren't All Good
Her thin
face, framed in a borderless cap, was wrinked as a
withered russet, and from the sleeves of her red
bodice appeared two drooping hands, gnarled at
the joints, and so caked and chapped and hardened
by barn-dust, wool-grease and washing-soda that they
looked dirty though they had been rinsed in fresh
water. Years of service had left them hanging open as
if to bear their own humble witness to the many
hardships they had endured. A touch of cloistral
austerity lent some expression to her face, but her
pale stare was softened by no shade of sadness or of
feeling. Living among animals, she had grown placid
and mute as they.
Gustave Flaubert,
Madame Bovary
Alan Russell translator
0-0-0
Sunday 10/27/02
Out In The Great Beyond
TheVoid CKMD
(shot)
by HighWater: Nice take on the empty
whiteness of Limbo here, except that there's a bit
black metal base floating in the middle of all that
nothingness. Careful use has been made of gravity
zones, so outside the base you can super-jump up to
the rooftop, or jump off the side and float down to
the flat white "ground" below. Nice use of ambient
sound down there. Also features some of Krummwaffe's
nifty automatic weapons. Getting back up may take
a few tries as you have to find the right anti-gravity
zone to carry you up, then drift over to the rooftop
at the right time to land safely. The author says that
the level was designed for DirectDraw and having compared
I'd say that it actually looks better in DirectDraw than
3d-accelerated, as it came out very dark in Glide mode
on my Voodoo 5. And there were some spots of very low framerate
in Glide mode around the base's portals that were actually
faster in DirectDraw.
An Introduction
Folks don't usually write up a fancy introduction
when they send me their posse name for inclusion on
the posse list but Race
Dog did and I think this is amusing enough to
post here.
MRM Manistee River Maulers and MSM
Mackinaw Straits Mercanaries
Territory: Northwest Lower Penninsula of Michigan.
Favored Weapons:
Colt .45 chambered revolvers
.45-90 Winchester lever action rifles
.45.-110-450 Sharps single shot rifles
40mm-57mm (bore size) English "punt" guns
(a massive shotgun mounted on a small canoe like
boat called a 'punt' used for waterfowl hunting
in England in 19th and early 20th Century)
1.1 inch bore Gatling Gun.
These posses generally defend the northwestern
third of Lower Peninsula of Michigan from the
area of Pentwater north to the Mac Straits Bridge.
Suffice to say, a 450 grain bullet pushed by 110
grains of powder is gonna cause a WHOLE lotta pain
and tear a huge burnin' hole in anything or anybody.
Likewise a 3/4 pound of BB shot pushed by a coffee
cup full of powder is gonna shred anything within
150 yards. And the Gatlin' Gun spits railroad spike
sized slugs that punch through a foot thick fire-
hardened birch log at 300 yards like a Bowie knife
through a box of tissue paper.
Chicago and Detroit gangsters (and gangstas) take
heed, you come up here you're floatin' home!
So I guess you may want to
think twice if one of these fellas invites you check out
a new modified weapon map that they've made. ;)
Ideas for Sanc HR 2
GoJo is fine-tuning his second version of
Sanctuary with his new and improved "Hack Resistance"
technology. He's pondering some interesting gameplay
changes regarding CTF and default weapons, and is wondering
whether or not it is worth ditching custom lobby graphics
to save on file size. Read his full ponderations on his
Current
Project page and send him your thoughts on what you'd
like to see.
2nd Lieutenant James Anderson
DrDeath2 pointed out that the lead character in
Dreamcatcher Interactive's new PC alternate-history WWI FPS,
Iron Storm, is named
"James Anderson." Just coincidence, or could there be some
Outlaws fans at Dreamcatcher? The site has a downloadable
demo and some pretty screenshots.
Motherboard on the Blink
Hoss passed on some of his hard-won computer tech
wisdom. Are you having mysterious boot failures on your
system? Could be bad capacitors on the motherboard, according
to Hoss's findings:
It has to do with bad capacitors on Abit MB's and other brand
MB's. All of a sudden they start to act erratic and have boot
failures among other problems. The cap problem is more or less
common knowledge to Abit mb users... come to find out that the
cap problems was/is spead over a wide range of prouducts & peripherals.
My Abit BE6-II motherboard took a crap, had boot probs etc. I
replaced the "known" bad capacitors my self and fixed the
problem... months later the mb failed again due to other bad
caps which I didn't replace at the time. The second time it
failed it took out my cdrom and cdrw ( I assume becasue they
don't work and both went out at the same time as my boot probs
started again) due to the bad caps and however/whatever current
flowed incorrectly. I replaced "all" the capacitors known to go
bad valued at 1000mf and 1500mf and all is working fine; replaced
the cdrom & cdrw :-/
The story of how the problem arose is an interesting read
involving secret formulas, robbery and back-alley business
deals. Here's a scary quote: "IBM further stated that the
problem is universal, affecting most brand name computer
manufacturers in North America and Japan." Check these
related links (from Hoss):
http://www.niccomp.com/taiwanlowesr.htm
http://www.ttiinc.com/MarketEye/zogbi_on_passives_20021014.asp
* * *
Sunday 10/20/02
What's In A Name
Crap DM
(shot)
by Simon: *cough* Well er moving right along,
this is a nice little DM level—emphasis on the little,
as what you see in the screenshot is pretty much the
whole place. Should be just dandy for two players
though, and some wicked jumps will keep you busy
if you go for the high ground. It'd have been nice to
have a touch of shade in a spot or two, and maybe
one or two fewer shotgun ammo pickups, but then again
I'm just a bitter old man.
To Draw a Draw
Molycoat sent along
this
.gif animation of a brief showdown between Doc
Death and Jack Sanchez. As we've learned from many an
old western movie, the lesson is: don't be the guy in
the distance.
Outlaws Mod Site Move
The
Outlaws
Mod for Half-Life site has completed its long-planned
move to being hosted on PlanetHalfLife, which probably
bodes well for coming popularity. News and screenshots
there are also updated, and it looks like TonToE and
company are close to putting out another update (promising
to have multiplayer bots among other things) for
this big mod, which is still "beta" but already has
a number of posses and fan sites of its own.
Sanctuary HR 2 Update
GoJo updated his
Current
Project page with the latest skinny on his
upcoming "Sanctuary HR 2," which will refine his
patented "Hack Resistance" map protection scheme with
smaller file sizes, among other things.
Last Musketeers Quote... For a While
'Do not go
on, monsieur, I entreat you!' replied the faithful
servant. 'You have grown quite pale.'
Alexandre Dumas, The Man in the Iron Mask
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