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Third Highest Shelf Vittles: 6.11.98-7.8.98
- Back to Stale Vittles
- 7/8
- 7/7
-
DeanWermer just couldn't rest with some
people havin' openin' doors in laggy games on his
new "Jailbreak!" level, so he's been workin' day an'
night ta revamp it. Well here it is: Jailbreak v2.0!
Here's what Dean has ta say:
I have completly scrapped and redone
the cell area with sectors and script that seem to work better on the net.
I have tested the map with six players and the door opened 100% of the time.
In addition there are lots of nifty secret tunnels
around the various prison cells. Fer instance,
th' area yer seein' in our
Shot of th' Day kin
only be accessed after activating a pretty elaborate
hidden mechanism. Woo-hoo! Okay so now yer chompin'
at th' bit... well Dean tells me that
The Outlaws
Editing Team will soon have th' map on their
site, but in th' meantime you kin fetch it up
right here.
-
KaReFree, perhaps inspired by Taco, has
scrambled up an Outlaws
Winamp skin of his
own which you'll find at his own heapin' site,
KaReFree's
Outlaws Cavern. While I kinda prefer Taco's
skin's more textured feel, th' buttons on KaRe's are
certainly easier ta read. Oh you kin get Taco's at
th' "News" section of his
Mexican
Canteena. I see he's also got a new screenshot
of his current hush-hush project up there, an'
thankfully he's fixed his thumbnails.
-
You know ever since Taco got me innerested in this
Winamp thing with his Outlaws skin a couple of days
ago, I've been gettin' more an' more into it. See,
ever since I got Outlaws I've been wantin' ta get th'
real music behind it: th' Ennio Morricone-composed
soundtracks from Sergio
Leone's "spaghetti westerns," namely
"A Fistful of Dollars", "A Few
Dollars More", "The Good, the Bad, and
the Ugly", "Fistful of Dynamite"
(which I still haven't seen, darn it) and
"Once Upon a Time in the West". Lucasarts
basically ripped th' music straight from these movies
an' slapped it into Outlaws -- but as good as it is, th'
imitation pales before th' original.
Well of course with Winamp you kin play .mp3 files
which are basically very high quality, very compressed
sound files. People convert commercial music to ".mp3z"
and post them on th' web all th' time, legal or no.
Anyhow... if yer innerested in Ennio Morricone an' you
have a mp3 player like Winamp, you just might find
a couple hundred megabytes of interesting material
here. Or you
might not, don't ask me. All I kin say is,
"A Gringo Like Me" kicks ass... (although it's not
from th' "Dollars" trilogy, and may be a lil' cheesy).
; ]
- 7/6
-
Taco went an' whipped up a NEW version of
his Outlaws WinAmp skin, "Outlaw Amp." You kin get it over at
his Mexican
Canteena, on th' "News" page. Here's a lil'
screenshot of th'
skin in action. Neat, eh? Of course it's kinda hard
ta make out what th' buttons do but I suppose if yer
used ta WinAmp that shouldn't be a problem. Oh an'
while yer over at Taco's be sure ta check out th'
new screenshot he slapped up (pretty slow thumbnails
though ;p) of his latest Outlaws project.
- 7/5
- 7/4
-
Ugh this is what happens when I miss a day updating;
a mountain of e-mail awaits me. Not much time today
so I'm gonna try to plow through this.
-
Doc's
Quest
Outlaw Team site now comes in two flavors:
"Enhanced" fer those with cable modems like Doc,
an' "Lite" fer those of us stuck with old fashioned
telegraph modems. Dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot
dot! Now much easier to get in here, and there's a good
amount of stuff layin' around. Go see how different
his link page looks compared to mine ;).
-
Mad_Matt was good enough ta chip in fer th'
Shot of th' Day. In
an inspired moment of self-promotion, he sent over
his Home
of Jack Sanchez site logo. Well I might not normally
take that, but I'm in a rush today. Anyhow it looks
purty.
-
Outlaw's "DR Gang web site" is down because
he is no longer his old ISP. He's plannin' on gettin'
it back up soon, maybe on Geocities. Hope so, 'cause
it's a darn fine site. He's also workin' on a few levels
that we may get ta see shortly.
-
Ooo wish i had time now ta check out DeanWermer's
new level, "Jailbreak," which has been released
on th'
The Outlaws Editing Team Homepage. Basically, besides bein'
a very well designed level, when ya die ya respawn in a jail
cell an' hafta get yer buddies ta spring ya. All kinds of
great possibilities fer team play, go check it out. Oh yeah
lag seems ta cause problems with th' cell doors sometimes,
an' Dean wants ta make clear that this is NOT his fault, so
don't spam him! Here's what he says:
As I said I was a little wary releasing the level. Mostly this is due to the fact that I am opening myself up for flak for making a level where there can be some problems with the doors after
people are trapped in the cells. I want to emphasize again that this is a problem of Outlaws and not my script. To the extent that anyone feels irritated or jipped when this happens I
apologize. But Outlaws is based on an engine that's over 5 years old that wasn't originally written for multiplayer so what the hell do you want?
Wow Dean way ta nip spammers in th' bud. Hopefully I'll get
a chance ta check this one out shortly. Why don't you go
give it a try an' lemme know whatcha think?
- 7/2
-
Okay so you SHOULD get th' 2.01 patch if yer plannin'
on playin' Outlaws through Kali, 'cause some people
may fergit ta configure their game ta let in older
(2.0) versions of th' game. So get it here:
Outlaws 2.01 Patch (697k)
Once ya install it an' have Kali rescan fer games,
Kali will call it "Outlaws 1d61" fer some reason.
Don't worry, it'll still work jus' great.
-
There was a bit of a to-do in Kali last night --
SiuChau got fed up hearin' about people complain
about lag. Well he sent me a pretty well-written
article about managing lag in Outlaws. I see that
KaReFree
posted th' whole thing. Most of th' stuff can be found
in my "Optimize yer Dialup Networking Settings" bit
on th' file page, but here's
a part that interested me:
when going to join a game, try to find the lowest ping one, and
consider the number of players of the game allowed. 28800 is good for 2 to
3 players only, 33600 is for 4 player at most, 44000 is for 5, and 50000 is
for 6 players. Remember, not only the host need to have the bandwidth
enough to handle the number of players but also EACH players too! So, if in
a 6 players game, all got 50000 connection, the game will be very playable,
but if half of them got only 33600 or worse, than half of the players in
the game will be appeared to be laggy to those 50000 connecting players and
all the players will be laggy for those 33600 players. So, again, if you
see only 1 players or SOME players to be laggy, it's they who lagged. If
you see all players in the game laggy, SHUT UP and you are the one who lagged!
Now I got me a 56k modem and nowadays I connect at
46600 bps. But come ta think of it I can't remember
th' last game I was in with more than four people that
didn't have seriously harsh lag. Generally I see a
little lag in 4 player games, and heck lately I've
been in some kinda laggy 3 player games! Th' game
of SiuChau's I was in last night was kinda laggy
when we initially had 4 players, then 2 or three
more people suddenly arrived and we were in lag city.
That's pretty much par fer th' course these days with
Outlaws players bein' scattered all around th' globe.
So do yerself a couple favors. Read through th'
file page and make sure your
modem is as optimized as it kin be. I useta be a
big-time warper but thanks ta those settin's I don't
warp much no more. Then secondly, when you host a
game, limit it to 4 or 5 players. More than that and
you WILL get major lags, no matter what yer modem
settings are!
-
Well all this lagger talk has kind've inspired me
ta draw a lil' picture: check out th'
Shot of th' Day fer
a rather exaggerated cautionary
illustration of how lag kin
get th' drop on ya. Yah so it's kinda rough -- I got
a low attention span these days, alright?
- 7/1
- 6/30
-
Bleh slow news day. Well actually I'm sure there's
a lot of stuff goin' on, I've jus' been outta th' loop
lately. Ptooey! Well check out this mean hombre
in th' Shot of th'
Day. Yikes! Where did this steely-eyed polecat
come from?
-
Ahh see if I bother ta look around even a little I
find stuff goin' on. Check out Raf's group,
th' Outlaws
Editing Team. Stud-monkeys Deanwermer and
Martone have signed on... I'm lookin' forward
to some cool stuff outta this bunch! In fact if ya
check th' "Screen shots" section you'll find a fistful
of new shots of Dean's upcoming "Jailbreak!" level,
ya know th' one where yer teammates hafta bust ya
outta jail when ya get "caught" (killed) by th' other
team. I missed a chance ta test this with Dean th'
other day an' I'm jus' eatin' my spleen now.
- 6/29
-
StanJr wants everyone to know that he's
revamped th' layout of his
Gunslinger
Gang Page. He's got a nifty news section where
you kin follow along with th' ongoin' GS saga, and
try to find the one or two periods he drops in every once
in a while. Gee, THAT made sense...
-
Gosh I've been gettin' like just a ridiculous amount
of hits ever since I posted that new level of
Templar's, The
Hill. Guess those new weapons are a real hit...
or eight hits if you git yer mits on that
semiautomatic shotgun of his. Temp has also graced us
with th'
Shot of th' Day, a
nice lil' atmospherically rendered image of Temp an'
his fellow BMG gangmates surrounded by a circle of
corpses, entitled "Family Outing." Looks a lot more
innerestin' than MY family vacations... we always jus'
go visit grandma, an' she ain't got no guns in th'
house.
-
I know a few of you really bored or lonely folks have
been missin' me lately. Well, here's what'cha do:
go watch some old episodes of Hee-Haw. Should be
about th' same level of wit I manage in chat...
but seriously it jus' seems like every time I might
have a chance ta play recently, somethin' comes up.
Like tonight I gotta go watch some World Cup on my
brother's impressive new surround-sound, big-screen
entertainment system. Woe is me! Jus' wish these fellas
would throw in some more bicycle kicks...
- 6/28
-
Okay you gun-totin' maniacs, you wanted BIGGER GUNS,
well you got 'em. Templar has jus' finished
up the first level with modified weapons, "The Hill."
Forts and bunkers surround a tower on a hill in
this new map jus' screamin' fer a good match of
Capture the Flag. Well, you'll need all th' protection
those bunkers an' forts offer, 'cause this map comes
packin' some serious heat like a concussion gun,
a "buffalo" gun, derringers and a "street-sweeper"
style shotgun -- check that one out in th'
Shot of th' Day; I kin
pin a whole fort down with this baby! Needless to say
if you don't use protection you'll wind up full'a
lead right quick on this one. Oh yeah you kin get
that
here fer a while.
Probably a good idea ta read th' readme txt before
divin' in.
-
Raf's
Outlaws
Editing Team now has a nifty web site. Check in
here ta see what they're workin' on, or ta see if you
got what it takes ta join th' Team! Looks like right
now they're workin' on a 6-level single-player
campaign, ooo! Not too far along yet, so if yer inta
map-makin' why dontcha go give 'em a hand?
-
It's big. It's bright. It's orange. IT is
The
Home of Jack Sanchez, an unabashedly Sanchez-lovin'
site from Mad_Matt of th' LJP posse. 'Bout
time we had one like this! Sanchez-lovers, welcome
home.
-
Peacemaker had an idea for a feature ta throw
in that imaginary Outlaws sequel we're all hopin' is
gonna surprise us one of these days:
"What if gun jams were added and you had to change
weapons until you could hole up and unjam it somehow
or until you died..."
Oo that's pretty hardcore there. Gosh what if all yer
guns jammed on ya? I guess we all have bad days...
His idea's been added to th'
sequel page.
- 6/27
-
ArrRRrGh. I kinda figgered this was gonna happen;
seems that banner I had was a complete hoax. Never
got one thin dime out've it... they kept stringin'
people along with "system errors" an' "spam problems"
etc etc. Bastards. Saw this got reported on Thursday
on Dave's
Video Game Classics. Hope they wind up in th'
slammer. ;b So th' good news is that POOS is once
again ad-free. But mebbe not fraud-free. ; ]
-
I've said it before, but never bothered ta put it on
any of my site pages: Outlaws has the best multiplayer
method out there, rewarding marksmanship rather than
forcing attackers to hose down an area with explosives
in the hopes of hitting a lagging opponent. I done
stuck a lil' wordiness about that onto th'
game page.
-
This has come up before too but fer some reason I
never bothered ta stick it anywhere:
if you got a Voodoo 2 board, Outlaws'
Video Configuration thingy sometimes won't let
you select the Voodoo 2 drivers. Apparently
th' way get around this is ta switch to th' MGL
video drivers and THEN to the Voodoo 2 drivers;
Outlaws has a problem switchin' to th' Voodoo 2
drivers directly from th' DirectDraw drivers.
Saw this posted on th'
Outlaws Newsgroup
most recently by The Continuing Tom. I'm gonna
stick this helpful lil' morsel up on th'
Outlaws Video Comparison page
whose link (an' info about addin' th' MGL drivers)
generally resides on th' file
page.
-
Mebbe I should clear this up: you don't need
a registered version of Kali ta play in Kali-launched
Outlaws games. But you do need th' registered version
ta launch a Kali game. Of course many folks in Kali
still do things th' old way, jus' gettin' an IP
address in chat an' then enterin' it in Outlaws'
multiplayer screen. Don't need a registered version
fer that, of course, although yer chattin' is limited
ta 15 minutes at a time. Fer more Kali info see th'
domain page.
-
Th' Shot of th' Day
comes yet again from Fallsdown. This one's
a shot of th' program he uses ta induce lag on his
system, "Max Lag 98." ; ) Looks pretty comprehensive.
Issat shareware? Where kin I get th' warez version? ; ]
Oh, you may've seen this shot before on some
other Outlaws' site. Well, too darn bad; he sent
it ta me so I'm a'showin' it!
-
Damnit, why does everything happen when I'm out?
Seems that th'
Outlaws
2.01 Patch (697k) came out sometime before 8 PM yesterday.
Accordin' ta th'
Readme
this fixes probs with joinin' games when runnin' under
Win98 and th' prob with th' Zone recognizin' th'
installation of th' 2.0 Retail version. Hoo-ray.
Th' good news fer non-Win98-Zone playin' people like
me is that versions 2 an' 2.01 are still compatible,
so ya don't need ta get th' patch ta play with patched
people. Fer future reference that link'll be on th'
file page. Thanks ta
Dontknow, StanJr an' Dirty O'Lero
fer bein' on th' ball on this one while I was out
sowin' my wild oats, as it were. Interestingly
enough they haven't yet added th' patch info
ta th'
Official
Outlaws Web Site.
- 6/26
-
Uh-oh, not gonna have time fer much of an update
today. That's what I get fer stayin' up 'til 4 am
fixin' my page layouts. Okay so let's jus' get
th' Shot of th' Day
done: this one's from Wildarms. This Swiss
dead-eye wants everyone ta chill out in th' hot
summertime -- an' livin' out there in th' Alps,
he should know snow!
-
If every page on th' site seems a lil' different to
ya today but ya can't quite put yer finger on what's
different, well I fixed some table cell width
inconsistencies. My old layout was correct in
theory, but in practice neither Navigator nor Internet
Explorer handle cell percentage widths correctly;
they both sorta do their own thing. So I done got
rid of anything that left th' spacing up ta them
an' th' pages should now lay out more consistently.
An' if'n you got no idea what I'm babblin' about,
well don't you worry yer purty lil' head 'bout it none,
sugar.
- 6/25
-
If you've read through my sequel
page you'll remember I mention an old game called
4D Sports Boxing as having implemented scaleable
3d polygon characters like, over 5 years ago. More than
that, I think. Anyhow, come ta think of it that game
had another nifty feature that we haven't seen since:
on-the-fly level-of-detail optimization. Basically it
changed the complexity of the 3D rendering based on
how quickly your computer could process it, thus holding
a steady rate of frames-per-second. Fer instance, if
th' scene got too complex, th' game would drop some
of th' detail on th' characters to keep th' speed up.
You could also set it manually, going from stick
figures to full-fledged, buffed out polygon boxers
with textured faces. That game was waaaaaaaay ahead of
it's time; we're just now supposedly hearing of games,
such as th' upcoming
Blood 2 with
Monolith's
Lithtech engine,
that will do similar things.
-
Th' Shot of th' Day
comes yet again from that image-master, Fallsdown.
It's a tribute to that cool "Iceberg" level; he likes
all th' animals in it. I do too. He's gonna work on
gettin' that animated bunny....
-
Wildarms has been puttin' up a lot more nifty
Outlaws an' otherwise art in th' "Gallery" section of
his Apocalypse
Riders site. Some really cool drawings in there,
go check 'em out. He wants as many as he kin get, so
if you got a drawing go on an' send it to 'im.
-
I noticed that among all th' other great stuff he's
got on his
site, Wildcat (not to be confused with Wildarms!)
has a section with a gaggle of pretty funny screenshots
from some multiplayer matches. Page takes a while ta
load 'cause all th' pics are on it, but I think it's
worth th' wait.
-
Th' QOT gang has finally done somethin' with their
Quest
Outlaw Team site. Lots of stuff there now, but
watch out fer a big bite of download on th' first three
pages.
-
Not too long ago I popped up a link ta th'
LJP Unofficial Homepage. Well now I get mail from
Blackthorn pointin' me ta th' "official"
LJP
Homepage. This is th' same guy who as El_Nino
brought ya th' hilarious
CSB Posse page. His LJP page is a bit more
serious, but has th' same slick layout an' font
fun as CSB, PLUS really detailed records of th'
gang members' matches as well as a hand-picked
selection of their favorite maps fer download,
arranged by size an' accompanied by 3 screenshots.
Gawrsh!
- 6/24
-
Well I see that KaReFree is happy with th'
hits he got yesterday on his
Outlaws
Cavern: just over 100, which is in fact about
how many I got yesterday too. Gee, now I know
where my hits have been goin' lately. ;) Hehe guess
he discovered my secret: talk dirty to people an'
they'll come back beggin' fer more.
Really though this is nice. It seems KaRe's got tons
an' tons of free time ta spend updatin' his new site.
So th' pressure's off me: I don't hafta bear th'
burden of bein' th' only daily Outlaws news site no
more. Now I kin relax, sit around in my underwear and
act like th' big loudmouth jerk we all hate, but secretly
envy.
Oh, wait, I do that already. Hmm... well, I could
start sittin' around nekkid. But ya know, it ain't all
that warm here yet... an' come ta think of it my chair
might start ta smell funky after a while. Okay, well
fer now I'll jus' settle fer doin' things a lil' more
half-assed. ; ]
I haven't had a chance ta get inta Kali lately... my
trigger finger's gettin' a mite itchy. But fer some
reason I hafta keep doin' stuff an' hangin' out with
people in th' evenings... gosh knows why. Ta give myself
a lil' Outlaws fix I played single-player a few times.
Kinda shockin' to a lagger like me ta see people fall
down right away when ya shoot at 'em.
-
Th' Shot of th' Day
shows off that level of Sticky's, "WARpath,"
that I liked so much in my review yesterday. See,
this is at th' top of th' rocky stairway, an' ya kin
jump from here ta th' roof, or vise-versa. You kin
also see th' opening in th' cliff opposite: that's
at th' midpoint of th' staircase. Well darn it but
I think it's pretty slick. Still that weird yellow
wall is vintage Sticky.
-
Someone mentioned ta me that they tried out th'
data compression settings in th' Dial-Up Optimization
section of my file page an'
have seen a happy improvement in their lag situation.
So if you haven't read that yet, do us all a favor
an' go check it out. 'Cause, ta paraphrase Smokey
(th' BEAR, not Smokey of
Outlaws
Unleashed) "Only you kin prevent packet loss!"
- 6/23
-
ArrGgh. You know, one of the worst things in the
world has gotta be tryin' ta help out computer-illiterate
friends with their computer problems. Especially over
th' phone. Like I have this one friend, we'll call
him "Jon." 'Cause that's, like, his name. Anyhow,
Jon recently bought Warcraft 2. He says it has some
kind of happy connection in his past. Don't ask me.
Anyhow, Jon wants to play War2 on his roommate's
computer. Jon finds that the mouse won't work. He
needs a DOS mouse driver. Well I get him one of those.
Then War2 just keeps crashing. Now, if I were over there
and could tell what was goin' on, mebbe I could figger
out th' problem. But Jon jus' keeps callin' me on th'
phone:
"Fatal exception! FATAL EXCEPTION!?! What the
@#$*@! is a FATAL EXCEPTION?!? %#@! it! Blue screen?
The screen's blue! Arrrrrgh!"
That's th' kind of feedback
I get. An' of course since I'm a "computer guy" I'm
supposed to be able to fix this, right away, over the
phone. Yeah. So I tell ya what: if you wanna play
computer games, learn to use th' freakin' computer
first!! Otherwise, stick with yer old NES. Super Mario
Bros still kicks booty.
-
Well my spleen feels much better now. Lesse what's
on th' menu... oho!
Outlaws
Unleashed is back! Yessir, after a long absence
Smokey has got his site up an' runnin' an'
totally revamped in th' bargain. Slick look (more
DOOMish than anything), lots of tips an' files an' maps
to download. Let's hope that leash is gone fer good
this time!
-
Oh yeah we were also goin' through some new levels when
I kinda pooped out yesterday. Man, I think I got too
much sun. We palefaces hafta be careful in summertime!
Nice an' cloudy again today though. Hooray, Seattle.
On whit 'da show:
-
LostTown - Not a level you wanna take home
ta mama. Kinda big an' blocky with repetitive item
placement an' two civilians, which is a big lag
no-no. No author indicated.
-
Railroad - by SiamRoad or somethin'.
It's a big flat triangle covered with trees and
railroad tracks. I kid you not. I think I'll move
on ta th' next station.
-
Twohouse - an ugly, sloppy edit of Raf's
"Barn." Why?
-
Wicked - Another freestylin' map from
Sticky. I don't quite dig on his particular
aesthetic, but however you want to describe it he
is definitely refining it. This looks ta be a decent
small deathmatchin' map.
-
Wiper - Whoa. Well this once certainly dares
to be different; check out this shot:
Shot of th' Day.
Eight narrow catwalks on two separate levels radiate
out from a thin spire to all sides of a deep,
circular canyon, ringed by two disconnected galleries.
Looks like this'd become a snipin'
fest on whoever was stupid enough ta run out over th'
chasm. Hmm... may hafta give this one a try.
-
WARpath - Gosh one from Sticky that
I actually like. He's restrained his freestyle impulses
to sculpt a nifty lil' three-story fort in th' middle
of a narrow, roughly circular canyon. A stairway twists
up through th' cliff wall from th' canyon floor to
a point overlookin' th' fort's roof. A very nice use
of the vertical in this compact map. Since I like it
SO much you kin find it
right here fer a lil'
while.
-
Oh yeah I jus' saw on
Voodoo
Extreme that Scitech has released their MGL video
whatsamajigit fer free. Outlaws uses MGL -- in fact
th' MGL driver may be up ta three times faster than
th' DirectDraw video driver. If you ain't got a voodoo
card, check th' file page ta
find out how ta switch to th' faster MGL Outlaws
video drivers.
- 6/22
- 6/21
-
Ooo barely got this update in; had ta spend all'a
father's day hangin' out with th' fam. Well... okay
I should have had time in th' mornin' but th' night
before I discovered
Doom Legacy.
Man that Doom2 shotgun is fabulous! Fergot how great
that was: th' sound in perfect, awesome damage, yee-haw!
Of course ya can't shoot th' barrels separately like
in Outlaws, hehe.
-
Okay so on with th' show. This Screenshot
of the Day won't be here long so I'll use one
of th' older ones that image-processing fiend Fallsdown
sent me a while back. That Indian fellow had better
watch out...
-
More, I say MORE new sites:
I think I had their site up a while back but couldn't
find it... well
Team SWE
has gone an' redone their site. Fast, attractive, does
what it should. An' as a bonus they've gathered up a
fine crop of funky Outlaws taunts. Go get 'em.
VooDoo_Pix
has a lil' page under construction. Kin download a
few levels here.
- 6/20
-
WARNING: The Surgeon General has determined
that staying indoors and playing Outlaws for days on
end can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome, eyestrain and
paleface.
-
Even more newfound Outlaws sites fer ya today:
Fill out a survey (didn't work when I tried it)
or read some opinions of the Outlaws characters and
weapons on
Scott's
Outlaws Page. He seems to think shotguns an' TNT
are useless in multiplayer -- I think I could make
Scott a fairly convincin' argument fer th' opposite
point of view. Oh yeah ya kin also get Scott's "Lucasville"
level here.
If yer goin' in lookin' fer dirty pictures yer gonna
be disappointed by th'
XXX
Posse Home Page. But they do have a good amount
of levels an' files fer download, plus some crazy
Java stuff that didn't seem ta work quite right in
Netscape 3. Shucky-darn.
-
Our Shot of the Day
is another manipulated masterpiece by that crazy
WAW web guy, Fallsdown. "Understanding Lag (aka
the magic bullet theory)" brings Russian spies and
presidential assassination conspiracy theories to th'
otherwise placid "Bourbon Street." Quite a tour-de-force,
I'd say!
Hey you may not be as handy as Falls with an image-processin'
program but that don't mean ya can't getcher image
up as th' Shot of th' Day! Jus' check th'
file page fer a few details
on how ta go about gettin' yer own masterpiece up here.
- 6/19
-
Okay, yesterday was borin', an' I didn't have enough
time to play a real Outlaws match, so I went trollin'
around fer new Outlaws sites. Here's a couple ya may
not have seen yet.
Actually no one's seen this first
one yet; they've only got 16 hits so far an' 3 of 'em
are from me. ;] Nothin' much here but some info on
this 2 man posse, but some very attractive graphics,
check 'em out:
THUG
Outlaws Team.
Then there's th'
LJP
Unofficial Homepage. Actually this use to be "ROL LAND"
but the author switched over to the "Let's Just Play"
posse. He's got some pretty funny stuff here, like
comical animations of the various Outlaws characters
and a wacky "Mad Cow" sound file. Don't ask.
-
Yay, someone loves me enough to send me a screenshot.
Th' Shot of th' Day
comes from Smokey who's pretty quick on th'
trigger of his screenshot program; he's captured an
action shot of th' result of a good right hook on
a computerized cowpoke. Them boys have glass jaws,
don't they?
- 6/18
-
Wildarms has decided to open up the "Gallery"
section of his
Apocalypse
Riders site to any original artwork, Outlaw-related
or not. Have you made a purty picture, and want fame
and glory? Well go send it off ta good ol' Wildarms.
He's also been addin' new members ta th' AR posse like
wildfire -- if yer a top gun ya jus' might have a shot
at joinin' up.
-
Hmm, slow news day. Well it's been a slow day, period,
fer me. Ugh. All cloudy outside too, that's July in
Seattle fer ya. Oh here's a lil' pick-me-up,
th' Screenshot of the Day,
a shot of a level that probably only a couple other
Outlaws have seen: "Mary" by LukeSky. This
was really jus' a test on Luke's part ta see how
addin' a lot of AI characters to a map would work out.
The answer: not very well. Fer one thing it jus' plain
kinda crashed a good deal -- in fact I would'a got a
better screenshot showin' more Mary's but Outlaws kept
crashin' in NT, an' rebootin' NT takes FORever. Well
anyhow, ya also couldn't play it multiplayer because
each of th' scores of Marys created almost as much
lag on th' system as a normal player. I tried hostin'
a few times, but th' lag was so bad that
nobody could join until I had killed
off nearly all th' Mary's. In this here shot, I swear
I didn't kill that dead Mary -- her sister-in-arms
shot her from behind while tryin' ta hit me. Hehe.
- 6/17
-
I wanna show ya why havin' a good ping tool like th'
one I have on my
file page,
UO Trace
(43K), kin really help you out when
playin' Internet games. Every time I connect to my
ISP so's I kin play Outlaws I immediately have UOTrace
send one or two hundred pings to my Internet Service
Provider (ISP). Why? 'Cause all yer internet data
comes in an' out through yer ISP, so you wanna make
sure you've got a good connection. An' while my ISP
is really cool 'cause they never have any busy signals,
I've found that a good deal of th' time th' connection
I get to 'em ain't all that good.
So how do I check how good my net connection is? Easy.
In fact I have a nice graphical illustration in th'
Screenshot of th' Day
so check that out an' then follow along.
First I connected to my ISP. Then, like I always do,
I ran UOTrace, entered my ISP's URL (www.jetcity.com)
in the address field and hit th' "Ping" button. After
that first ping gets through you kin use th' "Poll"
button to send a stream of pings automatically. In this
case I wanted a good test, and Polled for 200 pings.
Well, you kin see th' results. 26 of my pings, or 13%,
didn't find their way back to me from my ISP. In
addition my average ping time was 117ms, quite
a bit higher than it should
have been (ms = milliseconds = 1/1000th
of a second). You shouldn't see any packet loss at all
when pinging your ISP on a fresh connect. My connect
was BAD!
The remedy? Simply hang up and dial back in. Once
connected again I ran the same 200-ping test, and you
can see that my results were quite a bit better: no
packet loss, average ping at 89ms. Smooth! Now I'm
ready to play! If I hadn't checked this I would'a gone
on ta try ta play with that first connect and would
inevitably have lagged in every game I joined. THAT's
why it's handy to run an ISP connection-quality check
every time you dial in! Fer yer future reference
I'll have this up on th' file
page under "Step 4" of the "Optimize your Dial-Up
Networking" section which I hope you've all read
through by now!
-
Well there's been a bit of a brouhaha about those new
weapons that Templar came up with. Apparently
people started pesterin' 'im ta make a level with 'em
in it right away. Well, both he an' I have reservations
about editing up new weapons. While they have th'
potential to create a lot of variety in gameplay, they
kin also totally unbalance play if used injudiciously.
Then again, there are lots of crappy maps comin' out
now, an' I don't think making this method of altering
weapons public will really affect the ratio of good
maps to bad maps. Well anyhow th' long an' th' short
of it is that you kin stop pesterin' Templar, he's
workin' on a map with specialized weapons that'll be
out in a number of weeks. THEN we'll see if you can
indeed make a good map with modified weapons.
-
Wildarms, webmaster of the
Apocalypse
Riders site, has decided ta open his "Gallery"
section to th' public. That's right, if you draw somethin'
Outlaws-related jus' send it to him an' he may stick it
on up there. Go check out his damn fine portrait of a
traditional Native American fella fer starters.
-
On a somewhat related note, KaReFree has
spanked out a totally revamped version of
KaReFree's
Outlaws Cavern. Th' new design looks pretty darn
smooth, and although th' first page takes a lil' while
ta load there's so much stuff packed in here that I
think you'll find it worth th' brief wait. Anyway as
I was sayin' this is somewhat related ta th' post
about Wildarms' gallery 'cause among all th' other new
stuff KaRe's got in there, he's also got an
"Artwork of the Day" feature. Gosh, what an' idea eh? ;)
-
Hmm speakin' of which I sure could use some more screenshots
ta show here. Send me some shots darnit! How? Well
that's on th' file page, don't
worry it's really easy.
- 6/16
-
Okay, as promised th' Screenshot
of the Day show's Templar's modified rifle,
dubbed the "Elephant Gun," in action. That little chap
you see flyin' through th' air is th' boss from th'
"Wharf Town" historical mission, although we're currently
in a test map made by Templar. Now I've taken this
fella out with one Elephant Gun shot before, but in th'
instance here it took two. Sent him flyin' a fer piece.
For more on what this is all about, see yesterday's
lead item. Can't wait ta see a gun like this in a
THOUGHTFULLY DONE multiplayer level.
-
Ugh. Lagged all over last night until finally switching
from a 56k to 33.6 connect speed. ARG.
-
Played some newbies, Artie, justy james
and Macoo. Also finally got in a few good games
with JigSaw who of course put a whuppin' on
me. Got all these fella's on th' player
page.
- 6/15
-
This is momentous. This is cool. This is gonna change
th' way we all play Outlaws, or at least the way we
shoot each other. Ya see, crack level-guy Templar,
aka "Saint," has figgered out how ta modify weapons.
The coolest thing about it, though, is that all the
weapon modification stuff is coded into the data file
for a specific map, and indeed for specific items on
that map. So while he could, say, make a variant of
a double-barreled shotgun, that variant would not
replace all th' normal db shotguns on th' map... but
when you found it an' picked it up, then it would
replace whatever weapon slot th' author wanted it to.
Okay so what did I see so far? Well check out th'
Screenshot of the Day.
Take a good hard look. I did not touch this picture
in any image-processing program. You are indeed lookin'
at an' honest-ta-god eight-chambered shotgun: the
Outlaws version of a Tommy gun. I could fire that baby
eight times before reloading an' it made this cool
popping sound, almost like an' assault rifle. That
funky lil' pistol ya see on th' ground, that's a sweet
four shot derringer revolver. It replaced th' knife
weapon slot an' features a faster rate of fire an'
heavier punch than a normal pistol, but with less
range an' payload.
Th' deadliest piece he had to show me was th'
"Elephant Gun," a single shot, high caliber rifle.
This baby sounds like hell,
kicks like a mule (the screen jerks back when
you fire, it's impressive) an' hits like a blast of
TNT. You kin kill people with one shot at virtually
unlimited range. Ouch. Think I'll stick up a shot of
that baby in action tomorrow.
He's currently workin' on a sawed-off gun that shoots
TNT -- right now it's a little buggy an' blows up in
yer face when you pull th' trigger. Th' new guns had
a slight tendency to jam, but this was easily fixed by
momentarily switching to another weapon.
Are you excited? Think of th' possibilities! Like a
"Safari" map where he who gets ta th' elephant gun first
will rule th' roost... man this is gonna be awesome.
Hopefully Temp'll get us a level we can play with
pretty soon -- I can't wait!
-
Another important item today: a bug fix fer
those who bought th' retail version of Outlaws 2.0,
th' one that came with th' "Handful of Missions"
already installed. Th' prob is playin' in th' Zone:
when you go there it tells you that you hafta download th'
2.0 patch. Guess what? It's a problem in th' Registry.
Hurray! Get out yer regedit an'
change th' key "Version" under
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\LucasArts Entertainment
Company\Outlaws\v1.0" to "2.0" instead of "1.1" for the
combined "Outlaws" / "Handful of Missions" CD currently
in the stores to work properly in the Zone.
Fer yer future reference I'll have this in th' "Bug"
section at th' top of th' file
page.
-
Doominator wants people ta know that th'
Screenshot of th' Day I showed yesterday wasn't actually
shot by him, he jus' sent it in. Hope that gets ya
outta yer hot water there Doomy. ;]
-
Added Mongo to th' player
page.
-
Look! My news items are spaced apart now. Should be
easier ta read. I guess. Lemme
know if it's better or worse this way.
- 6/14
-
The Screenshot of the Day
comes from th' Doominator. This posin' fer
group shots on awnings thing seems quite popular
of late. This one at least shows all six characters
in a nice little row, and one sight even
rarer: th' Doominator at death's door! Enjoy
it while ya can.
Hey I need more screenshots! They're easy ta take
an' a fun way ta strut yer stuff. Jus' check out
how ta do it on th' file page
an' get snappin'!
-
That tasty Taco has gone an' moved his site
to
another
crappy server.
Well mebbe it's jus' me but fortunecity sites always
take FORever to download. ;p Anyhow he's gone an'
reformatted his site, looks pretty, umm, dirty. I mean
that in a good sense. An' he's got an official Taco
FAQ with insights such as this:
Q: You live in Mexico or something?
A: Actually no. I live in Canada.
Well I'll be darned! Oh yeah don't miss his "news"
section fer a snapshot of a lil' project of his that's
nearin' completion... damn should'a stolen that fer
th' screenshot of th' day... oh well.
-
Let me tell ya somethin' I learned last night: you
do NOT know th' full meanin' of sufferin' until you've
had ta endure a full length, drunken an' extremely
loud rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody." OoOooog.
- 6/13
-
Amended step #2 of th' "Optimize yer Dialup
Networking Settings" section of th' file page; it's now called
"Use SOFTWARE Data Compression
and HARDWARE Flow Control." This is pretty embarrassing, but
all this time, while I had my modem's "flow control"
set correctly to "hardware," my modem's PORT flow
control was on "software." ARrrGgg! Now I've set 'em
both ta hardware as they should be, early signs are
encouragin'. You outta check that bit out if ya ain't
sure ya got yers set right.
-
Okay okay most of ya know that I ain't too prone ta
braggin' about killin' people in Outlaws, but I had
such a cool, lucky-ass kill last night I gotta tell
ya about it. I won't mention my opponent's name 'cause
it really was luck on my part. Okay, I've been usin'
Sanchez lately 'cause he's
so fun with his TNT an' all. So here I am up above
th' central bar in "Bourbon Street" when my opponent,
playin' a Doc Death scurries in through one of th'
shattered plate windows. I get kinda excited an'
toss off a lit stick of TNT, followin' it up with two
unlit sticks fer good measure. Well he dodges, comes
after me an' I scamper around but quickly run out of
TNT without havin' done him major damage. Switchin'
hastily ta my pistol I jump down ta th' floor but overshoot
'im; now he's behind me! Before me I see th' bar an'
on th' bar those two sticks of unlit TNT I had
tossed down before; th' first, lit one had landed on th'
floor an' I hadn't thrown th' second an' third hard
enough so they landed on th' bar where they were
protected from th' explosion. So: two sticks before
me, my opponent behind me with my by sombrero in his
pistol sights. Only one chance: I dodge right, scurry
around th' end of th' bar an' spin about facin' th'
two sticks on th' bar. I've lost sight of my opponent
in my haste but I know he's somewhere in front an' to
th' left of me, on th' other side of th' bar,
'cause he pursued me a bit when I made
fer th' bar. I start bustin' off my pistol at th'
nearest stick of TNT. My first couple shots hit th'
side of th' bar top (I don't use gunsights), too low!
Raise up, raise up! Only a couple shots left now, why
isn't it blowin' up that last one was dead on I--
BA-BOOM! Th' sticks both go up! Th' Doc was on
th' other side of th' bar, th' explosion must have hit
right on top of 'im an' he's blown away. Somehow I'm
still alive! Out of breath an' severely scorched, all
I can think of is typin' out what a cool stroke of luck
I jus' had... of course Bloody Mary had heard th' racket
an' came in an' blew me away a few seconds later, but
I didn't care. ;] Hee hee Sanchez rocks!
-
Gosh I'm giddy as a school girl here. Hmm what else
did I mean ta do... oh yeah th' Screenshot
of th' Day! This'un comes from StanJr, he
took a shot of some of th' gang posin' on th'
awning of "The Dip." Gosh must'a been pretty darn
temptin' ta aim up jus' a tad an' let his finger
tighten ever-so-slightly on that trigger...
Hey! I know there are tons of folks who visit this
site every day... why are only a couple of ya sendin'
me screenshots? Don't be shy, I want 'em! Jus' go
find out how ta go about it on th' file
page an' you'll getcher name an' masterpiece
right up here too!
- 6/12
-
Well Vesuvio knows how to respond to my
admittedly semi-premature criticism of his popular
"Outlaws_Players Tower of Power" map (or "OPToP" as
I like ta call it): by gettin' his own two cents in.
He's whipped up a lil' strategy guide fer playin'
on his map. Take it, Ves:
-
If you duck in the trenches, and hug the inner wall, you can't be seen from
the dam. (So, for all the slow people out there, you can move from one side
of the map to the other, without ever being seen by a sniper. -- so much
for rifle dominating the map).
-
The knife is a DEVASTATING weapon in this level.
-
You can almost always see the top of someone's head peeking over the top of
the dam, and you CAN hit it with a snipe from the field.
-
TNT thrown through windows can not only clean out the tower, but it can blow
the cowards clear off the top of the dam from the corners below.
-
Finally, practice team strategy 2 on 2 in this level. Find someone who
compliments your skills properly. In this level, two players with average
skills but great teamwork and communication can annihilate two top players
who try to be prima donnas.
-
Well, thats all I want to give away this early. People can learn the other
tricks for themselves. But there aren't any secrets, no hidden places, no
"super" weapons, and no inviso potion or anything like that. It's just a
map that requires good aim, strategy, and most of all, teamwork.
-
Oh, and yes, there are 2 things that are being fixed -- one texture, and one
3dfx glitch (as listed in the txt file). A couple of minor things may be
massaged as well.
There's th' word from th' man himself. Now go play!
-
Th' Screenshot of the Day
comes yet again from WAW Fallsdown's fertile
imagination. This one's titled "WAWzilla." Gosh, 'zilla's
got an impressive number of kills there on Bourbon
Street. I'm glad he used th' good ol' rubber Godzilla, not
that freakin' new computer generated monstrosity that
popped up in th' movies this summer. I ain't into this
whole namby-pamby, hermaphroditic lil' whimp who lays
eggs, hides in sewers, can't swallow a taxi, gets caught
in suspension bridge cables and killed by a few lil'
missles version of Godzilla. Damnit, Godzilla didn't
lay eggs! He kicked ass! He was big, slow and foul
tempered. He ate boxcars fer breakfast! He didn't
tunnel through buildings, he flattened 'em! WHAT are
these Hollywood freaks thinkin'?!?
-
Okay, okay I'm calm now. Got a brand-spankin'-new
site fer ya:
Patompitaya
Outlaws-Temple homepage. So that doesn't make much
sense, eh? So what? She's from Thailand! Nice orderly
layout and unique color scheme although th' graphics
are a lil' fuzzy... loads pretty quick though. An' th'
front page sports a picture of th' lovely
SiamRose (aka Patompitaya) herself. Somehow
th' MIL boys got her in their gang, th' lucky devils.
-
Wildarms has had waaay to much free time lately
an' keeps updatin' his
Apocalypse
Riders gang site like it really is th' end of th'
world. Now he's gone an' improved th' load time on
some of th' pages an' added in some new features, like
a page where he lists among other things his favorite
French bands (he's Swiss) with cool names like
"Noir Désir." Swanky. T'es fou Wildarms!
-
Umm what else I know there was somethin'... Oh yeah.
I've seen this posted a couple times on th' Outlaws
newsgroup alt.games.outlaws;
seems that IE 4.0 makes Outlaws crash when ya try ta
run th' game 'cause that version of Internet Explorer
changes th' way Win95 reads ".url" files, some of which
Outlaws installs on yer system. I've seen two solutions:
to delete th' installed ".url" files or, better yet,
upgrade ta IE 4.1 which doesn't have that prob (as
posted today by He][razer). My solution of course
would be not ta install IE 4 in th' first place. I
mean, WHY do you want a browser that is effectively
running and taking system resources whenever you run
yer OS, an' that is impossible to remove??? Stuff like
that is usually called a virus. ;p
-
Yeah yeah I'm cranky, didn't get much sleep last night
an' spent all day talkin' ta a used car salesman. Go
have a nice weekend damnit an' if ya jus' graduated
from somethin', congratulations! Now you kin play
Outlaws all summer!
- 6/11
-
Th' Screenshot of the
Day is a peek at Dean Wermer's latest level
"Jailbreak" under development in the Lawmaker level
editor. Dean says it's about 95% done; he hopes ta
release it in a week or two! In case you don't remember
I showed a screenshot
of th' level itself recently... th' area in th' shot
is pretty much in th' middle of th' Lawmaker image.
You'll remember this level is th' one bein' designed
fer team play where when yer killed ya respawn in a
jail cell an' hafta rely on yer buddies ta bust ya out!
-
Wildarms has gone an' totally refurbished his
action-packed Apocalypse
Riders posse page. Hey he's even got me on there,
an' he doesn't mention how bad he whupped me. What a
pal. ;] Anyhow he's filled it up with tons of slick
fantasy an' western imagery an' flat out went crazy
with image-processing edge effects. Golly!
-
Vesuvio, creator of th' "OP Tower of Power"
map that I sorta hastily reviewed a couple days back,
wanted ta point out that it may look unusual but th'
strength of th' level is in th' gameplay, especially
fer 2 on 2 matches where each team member hasta know
what's what in order ta emerge victorious. Well I'll
give 'im th' benefit of th' doubt on this, as I haven't
quite played a REAL match on it yet. Eheh.
- Back to Stale Vittles
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