   | | vittles | fourth highest | Stuff on th' shelves. | ||
  | ||||||
         
|
Don't Let Outlaws Make You a Limp-Wristed Sissy!
It
almost happened ta me once, no lie. Mebbe it's jus'
'cause I got small hands or somethin' but at one time
I almost had ta give up Outlaws 'cause constant playin'
had given me a nagging pain in my left wrist, th' one
that stays sort of hunched over th' keyboard while
playing. I wouldn't'a thought that my wrists would
be in danger seein' as how I scooped ice-cream fer
2 years at Baskin Robbins durin' high school an'
did Aikido wrist exercises fer about 6 years
(heck I still do 'em). But before I realized it my
wrist got in a pretty bad way.
I think what really caused th' problem was that I
had set th' USE key on th' spacebar so I could pump
medkits easily in a firefight. But it turned out that
stretchin' my thumb back ta be in position ta use
th' space bar, an' holdin' it there fer hours on end
really caused some kind of nasty tendon pain in my
wrist. It got so bad I couldn't give a thumbs up,
and a jump-shot caused an extremely painful twinge
on my follow-through. It sucked. It really really
sucked.
Now you probably won't have quite as bad a time as
I did, but I'll bet that after long games yer wrist
often feels like hell. Well here's what I've done
ta fix my problem...
First I reprogrammed my Outlaws key layout so that
I don't hafta use my thumb for anything in th' game.
Now I have th' USE key on th' Q key that I kin reach
easily with my lil' pinky (secondary fire is on my
middle mouse button). My thumb jus' kinda chills
out while I play.
Next I went an' got me a nice ergonomic keyboard,
an Acer "Future" keyboard -- you kin read all about
it here
on Acer's page. Got mine fer jus' $60 by drivin'
out to an Acer distributor near Seattle. :) Works
great even if it does look kinda like a big green butt
with cursor keys around th'... well anyhow it looks
weird. I also find it a bit tricky goin' back ta usin'
normal keyboards, but fer typin' an' game playin' it's
great (except fer some lame games where you can't
reprogram th' controls, th' cursor key layout an'
detached numeric keypad can make things awkward).
Finally, I got me a squeeze toy. No it's not a
rubber ducky (those are cool though). Actually it's
jus' a big bouncy ball I had layin' around that's
jus' th' right size ta palm in my hand an' squeeze:
like this!
This sounds funny I know but it stretches an' strengthens
th' tendons in my wrist that get all cramped up
durin' long Outlaws games. Works like a charm.
Actually there are like commercial hand squeeze
things that you kin buy, but this works great fer me.
Yes this is really pretty hardcore geek stuff, chances
are you don't play frequently enough ta have this
problem. But if you do notice yer wrist feelin' kinda
stiff or sore, you might wanna take some precautions.
When you start you have no weapons and ammo. This is not a true player
hack, however. I found another way to
pull out the weapons. I can imagine a whole set of new levels without
weapons like:
So anyhow Showdown is
basically a modified Sanctuary where you start out
with no weapons. Now th' only problem I see with this
"LJ" idea is that Bloody Mary
is MUCH better with her fists than any of th' other
characters an' would have a big advantage at th'
start.
Dean wanted me ta be sure ta give credit ta
Laggy Luke fer pioneering this technique in
his map "Survival" which is simply "Wilderness"
with no starting weapons.
Actually I'm personally gettin' tired of Mary in
general, especially on small maps. I've been in lots
of games lately on a small map where a player will
start out with Doc Death or someone else, then leave
th' game an' come back with Bloody Mary jus' so they
kin' kick some butt.
Sure there was a time when I used Mary. But I got
tired of her -- she's jus' too damn tough, like a
freakin' freight train or somethin'. With her shotgun,
durability an' ammo she takes less skill than any
other character. I guess that's why so many
players like her. I don't mind her on larger maps where
her shotgun an' fists can be countered with long range
fire, but on small maps she's really irritating.
Actually come ta think of it I DIDN'T hafta call them;
they called me again this morning:
He: Hello Mr. Face, this is Charles with US West.
Somehow they'd fergotten... not exactly reassuring. But they had
this offer fer a free digital modem an' network card if you signed
up by midnight tonight, so I guess they wanted ta be sure they'd
gotten ta me with that. But then again there's still a $110 setup
fee. ;p
I discovered somethin' real important about managing lag
in laggy games last night. Well mebbe it wasn't so much
a discovery as me finally takin' th' time to observe what
was going on. With th' help of th' lil' Dial-Up
Connection Meter from my
file page I confirmed that no data
uploadin' takes place when yer dead. UNLESS YOU TALK.
See fer a long time now, mebbe ever since my lag got bad
(heh) I've had th' habit of sayin' somethin' when I die,
an' then hittin' th' respawn key immediately. THIS IS EXACTLY
the WRONG thing to do in laggy games. So my big mouth was
basically 'causin' much of my severe lag woes. Here's a
replica of what I've posted at th' top of th' Lag section
on th' strategy page:
Don't try to respawn immediately in laggy games!
You'll be in lots of games with a good
deal of lag; it's pretty unavoidable. Outlaws kin handle lag very
well but after a certain point th' game becomes unplayable. However,
unplayable lag IS generally avoidable. Th' best way to keep lag from
gettin' outta control is to wait a few seconds before tryin' to
respawn after you die.
I know that every pore of you is screaming to get back in there an'
extract bloody vengeance from yer enemy's dastardly hide, but hittin'
th' respawn key (usually SPACE or ENTER) right after you die may
actually take LONGER than waiting a few seconds (2 to 4 should suffice
im most cases) before trying to respawn.
Why? Because really bad lag is frequently a result of just too much
data comin' in fer yer modem ta keep up with. Or rather, your modem
WOULD be able to keep up with it, if you weren't moving and thus
sending data OUT at the same time. When you're running and shooting,
especially in matches with lots of players, sometimes all the data
can't fit through th' modem at once. It starts to accumulate, sort
of piling up on both sides of the connection. As this continues you
get farther and farther behind the dataflow, and your lag gets worse
and worse.
Now, if you stopped moving and did nothing, your modem wouldn't hafta
upload and would be able to focus all it's bandwidth on catching up
on the incoming data stream. Of course doing nothing will get you
killed surprisingly quickly in Outlaws. But if you're ALREADY DEAD,
they can't kill ya, can they?
You may have noticed in laggy games that after you hit the button to
respawn, the game seems to freeze up for a while, longer in games with
more lag -- I've counted respawn lags of 10 seconds or more. During
this time you can sometimes hear sounds from the area around you, but
your screen remains frozen.
What's happening? Basically your modem fell behind while you were alive
and uploading/downloading simultaneously. When you die, data upload
stops -- th' other players aren't updated on yer position or facing,
because, well, yer dead. Now yer modem has a chance ta catch up with
th' dataflow. BUT if you try to come back in BEFORE yer modem catches
up, you start uploading again, the dataflow lags again, and it takes
time fer yer signals ta get through ta th' host ta let you restart.
Then once you do restart, yer laggin' worse than ever. Data continues
to pile up on both sides of yer modem bottleneck, and yer lag gets worse
and worse until the game becomes unplayable.
So the simple solution is just to wait a few seconds after dying
before trying to respawn.
This gives your modem time to catch up with the dataflow so that when
you restart you won't have any accumulated lag. How long you need to
wait depends on how laggy the game is to begin with -- you'll know you
didn't wait long enough if the screen freezes up for a significant
period after hitting the respawn button. Next time you die, wait a
little longer.
Also, if you simply MUST say something when you're dead (and I often
can't resist the temptation to make some kind of remark to lessen the
humiliation of my death, something especially witty like "ow") be
sure to wait for a while after sending the message. This is because
the message has to upload, thus interrupting your modem's catch-up
process momentarily.
I WAS running fine. Since I last played on the net, I exchanged my
K-Flex rockwell modem for a PCI Lucent v.90. I also upgraded from DirectX 5.2 to
DirectX 6. Microsoft also updated some of my networking "stuff".
I have Outlaws version 2.01 and run under Win '95.
What is now happening is this. I join or host a TCPIP game.
The game is going along fine, very little lag. All of a sudden
*while shooting at someone), the game locks, goes to a black
screen, then the PC reboots. No error message or anything, it just
reboots.
Do you have any idea which if any of the recent changes I made
may be causing this? It tends to make people not want me in a game.
I suggested that it may be a problem with his
Winsock installation; I think I had a similar
symptom at one point but reinstalling the MS
Winsock 2.0 upgrade seemed ta fix it. Anyhow if
you have any helpful comments fer Dave send 'em along
ta
[removed].
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Okay so th' main thing is that, come September 10th,
my laggin' is a thing of th' past. I got a phone call
this morning, th' beginnin' went somethin' like this:
He: Hello Mr. Face, this is Thomas with US West.
So ta make a long story short I'm gettin' DSL service
installed on th' 10th of September, if they
show up on time an' don't find anythin' terribly wrong
with my studio's wiring (fingers crossed). You may
have heard of ADSL, or "Asymmetric Digital Subscriber
Line." Well that's one DSL flavor; it has faster upload
speeds and slower download speeds, hence th' "asymmetric"
bit. My particular flavor will be HDSL, or
"High data rate Digital Subscribe Line" which can
upload AND download at up to 7 megabytes per second.
Seems I'm close enough ta th' "Central Office" to
get up ta th' 7Mbps rate, but that costs a lot; I'm
jus' goin' fer th' 256kbps rate.
Since HDSL lines can do data and fax or voice at th'
same time I get ta drop my second line. I also hafta
switch to a DSL-compatible ISP (uswest.net) but all in
all my monthly cost only goes up by $15-20, and I get
a dedicated connection at more than 5 times my current
maximum modem speed, with far greater reliability.
Damn this is gonna KICK ASS! Hell I'll be able ta do
stuff like leave Kali open with a new map offered in
an "/away" message while I host a large game on that
map and run a RealVideo streaming download all at th'
same time without even gettin' CLOSE ta maxin' out my
bandwidth. YeeeeEEEE-HAW!!
Oh er where was I? Ah yes if yer in a US West area you
might check
here
ta see if DSL will be available in yer area. Ya do
hafta be within 15,000 feet of a "Central Office;" fer
instance poor ol' Big Nose Kate who lives jus'
a few miles from me can't get DSL at her house. :(
So if yer check comes up positive, be sure ta give 'em
a call at th' number on th' page an' have 'em check
ta make sure...
Now since I'll be gettin' a new ISP, this page
will move if I do indeed get DSL installed.
I'll also have a different e-mail address
an' so forth. Won't know what these'll be until th'
switch but my current ISP SHOULD be able to handle
forwarding me fer a while so you'll be able ta
track me down.
Dang I dunno how I'll be able ta stand th' wait fer
a whole month!
I fixed my OL problem. It involved alot of reformating and
reinstalling. But i got rid of Win98 and now OL works fine. I think my
problem was Win98, becuase i was also having troubles with Kali, but its
all working fine now under Win95.
I wanted to thank you for helping out with my problem. And perhaps you
could post a general thank-you to all those who emailed me with
suggestions.
Yay Z! Looks like gettin' rid of 98 has been fixin'
things fer people.
Oh yeah an' he's dished me up
a sneak peak of somethin' th' OEG's workin' on:
here's a shot of a cozy
shadow-casting fireplace in a dark room. Get out
those marshmallows!
Oh I almost fergot, he's ALSO made a little
discussion forum newsgroup thingy fer Outlaws editing
conversations on DejaNews
although you hafta register with DejaNews
first. Actually there's already an Outlaws discussion
board fer LawMakers that seems quite popular... ehh
I'll cover that tomorrow mebbe.
this news prolly aint worth a penny....but i got a nasty virus the other
day from some outlaw related files...called the Stealth Virus...ya might
just wanna put on the files list, "a virus scanner" the one i got it
at: http://www.avp.com.
Stick it to that nasty Stealth Virus!
In th' latest version there's an AI boss across th'
broken bridge. AI characters will add latency to
multiplayer maps because their data has to be
transferred between everyone just as if they were
another player. So our four player game had, in effect,
the lag of a five player game. Oh you kin get a lil'
glimpse of 'im here.
Now in th' first version there's no dude over there.
Thus, the first version is less laggy. But perhaps
equally important, at least ta me 'cause I thought it
was a real cool touch, was th' modelling of th' stream
in th' canyon below. It's subtle an' hard ta make
out in a static shot like
this but in 3dfx
both th' surface of th' water AND th' stream bed are
semi-transparent. This means that you kin see th'
moving, global sky/cloud texture through th' bottom
of th' stream. Sounds weird but with a voodoo card
it adds this fantastic, magical shimmery sheen to
th' water. Unreal eat yer heart out.
Th' only down side, an' probably th' reason that he
changed it, is that because of th' way he had to do
this effect if you fall in th' water you get
stuck (looks somethin' like
this). But even
without that yer stuck in th' bottom of th' gorge
anyway, so what's th' diff? You kin always have
someone blow ya up or, as a last resort, use th'
dreaded suicide cheat. I'm sure people jus'
bitched about it so he changed it... which is too damn
bad 'cause it is probably th' spiffiest damn effect
I've seen LawMaker pull off.
So, less laggy an' better lookin'; I'd go with th'
first version of
"Fort Remix" over
th' second version.
But then again I'm jus' silly.
So let's see we got
Grifter
and Taco Incorperated (sic), a tandem site fer
these two lawmakers. Actually it looks like it's really
Grifter's site seein' how he's th' webmaster
an' Taco already has
a
fine site of his own but ahh who cares, this's a
refreshingly designed site with maps, gossip, taunt
packs an' more goodies.
Then there's
Dachsy's
Outlaws Shack, another site made by a level-makin'
Outlaw. Actually this's jus' another mirror fer
KaReFree's monopolistic OLMAPS level distribution
scheme, but hey it's pretty functional. An' there'a this
eyeball that looks at you. Yeah.
Lastly we come to th'
Snake
Posse's Hideout. This'n takes quite some time
ta load, but th' fat graphics are actually pretty
attractive so if yer lookin' fer eye candy (not
necessarily original eye candy) then you might not
mind th' wait. Also info on th' gang, quite a few
levels ta download, blahblahblah. They tried ta do
some funky font stuff but th' font's didn't work right
fer me (probably because I already have different versions
of th' fonts installed). Sort of yer typical posse
site with heftier graphics.
Well, I have encountered many people that have their machine locked up
during messaging in the play, or when choosing menu. Before you try to
reset, press ALL your mouse buttons. This kind of SOFT-LOCKUP is induced by
one of your mouse key signal is stucked, especially often when you are
using a 3 button mouse, and you try to do something like messaging or menu
choosing. By pressing all mouse buttons again, you release the lock.
Actually when this kinda thing happens to me
(usually when I try to say somethin' when I'm dead)
I've found that what works is ta task-switch out
fer a sec by hittin' ALT+TAB, then when I pop back
inta th' game I have mouse control back. Voila!
My cat uses my large mouse pad to sleep
on when I'm not around...and sometimes while I'm
trying to play Outlaws so regular cleaning is a must.
I am having some problems with outlaws. It was working fine, but i had to reinstall it, and now it won't run. OL will load normally, and the intro movies will run fine,
but when it starts to load the level everything slows to a snails pace. It takes about 10-15 minutes to acutally load the level, and any keypress takes at least 5-10 min
to execute.
have you experienced anything like this before? I tried reisntalling, tried the game with and without the patches... no luck.
I figgered i would ask you for some help becuase you have a wide knowledge base, and alot of ppl see your site, so maybe you would know something.
Also... this is the first time its happened to me. This also happened to a game called Warlords III. That game worked fine, but then it suddenly started doing this
"slo-mo" thingy. To this day, neither games work.
Here are my system specs:
AMD K6-166 (overclocked to 188)
Misc.
All drivers and firmwares are current.
this computer is Peer-to-Peer networked with another computer
Running Windows 98 :(
Well thats about it.... if you need anymore information, just ask.
I'll appreciate any help you can give me.
Big_Z
Good luck Z! If you got any idea what
his problem might be, why dontcha be a pal an'
help him out.
However, after runnin' though it I was a bit
disappointed. Sure it looks great an' everythin'
but, well... it seems stunted somehow. Especially
compared to th' over-th'-top multilevel layouts of
his previous maps, "Night/Dark/Stormy" is just
a bit flat. There are cool stairways and doors hinting
of other levels but they're all dead ends. Fake.
And while you can see ramparts and a courtyard far
below out the windows (check this
out) you can't get out there and say drop TNT down
on people like they useta do with boiling oil.
Now it's interesting that in th' readme he
thanks people fer helpin' him make th' level smaller.
Hmm. Well I'd say why try to make a big level small?
This one has "grandiose" written all over it -- it's
simply not "small" in any sense of th' term, so why
try to make it somethin' it ain't? Well shucks anyhow
it's still some great-lookin' work from a LawMaker
who just burst on th' scene.
PROBLEM: After installing win98 and the outlaws 2.01 patch.I'm unable
to join Outlaws games on Microsofts "Zone".I had no problem until I
installed win98.
An' they wrote back with this reply:
Hi:
Thanks for your message.
What type of game is it that you're playing, and what map is selected?
What happens if you try a different type of game or a different map, or
if you or a different player hosts the game?
There appears to be a compatibility issue with the game and the new
version of Winsock (2.0) that is installed with Windows 98. We recently
released a 2.0.1 update to address this problem, but we are currently
receiving feedback from some Windows 98 users who are still unable to
join some multiplayer Outlaws games on the Microsoft Internet Gaming
Zone (www.zone.com).
If a user upgrades Win95 to Win98, in Add/Remove programs they can
restore the Winsock 1.1 configuration, and that seems to help. Clean
installs and OEMs with Win98 do not have this option though.
Here are some other general suggestions that we have received from
Microsoft:
Run TRACERT. Run a tracert to the one(s) lagging. Look at the times.
Look for times of 750ms+, *'s that replace times, or timeouts
altogether. Tracerts run to the Zone are useless when attempting to
diagnose retail game performance other than for Ultracorps and Fighter
Ace.
Close open programs. What programs are running in the background? ICQ,
etc? Disable system agent, etc. All require the system to run in the
background.
Disable CD auto insert notification. If a CD is in the tray, disable
the auto insert notification. Causes the system to read and update what
the system shows as what CD is in the drive.
Uninstall WebTV. Running Win98 and have WebTV installed? Uninstall
WebTV by double clicking on My Computer, Control Panel, Add/Remove
Programs, the Windows Setup tab. Uncheck the box WebTV, click Apply,
then OK. Restart the PC.
We are currently researching this issue to see if it can be corrected. I
would suggest that you periodically monitor our website regarding this
game, to see if there are any further updates released to address this
problem with Outlaws and the Zone, using Windows 98.
Thanks,
Eric / LucasArts Technical Support
Well, hope that helps some of ya.
Lemme know
how it works out fer ya if ya try it. Of course, you
COULD always ditch th' Zone an' use Kali or IRC, as
some of you have done already.
So after readin' th' above letter I
decided ta remove th' Winsock 2.0 (yet again). But
now, err... I can't seem ta get anywhere. I kin
get a connection, but no data transfer... awww HELL.
An' I really wanted ta play tonight, too.
I hate Win95. Guess it's a bit better'n 98 though.
You poor bastards.
First I hafta get over ta my brother's apartment.
Normally it's like a three minute drive. This time
he'd asked me to pop by th' grocery store an' bring
along an onion an' a tomato (yes he eats healthy).
Store's two blocks from his place, on th' way, not
a problem. In fact I was happy to cruise around because
it's in th' 90's here in Seattle, an' at least drivin'
I kin get a breeze. What I didn't count on were the
hundreds of police suddenly infesting his entire
neighborhood.
Some kind of freakin' parade, or somethin'... I wanna
know WHAT KIND OF FOOL stands out in th' sun on a
90 degree plus day watching some sweaty people toddle
slowly down th' street? Well I guess I learned th'
answer to that question today... so anyhow th' parade
started up a few blocks across my path. So I have ta
detour mebbe five blocks, through clogged residential
streets with no sidewalks. Annoyin', but at least I
reach th' store.
Now out of th' store I see I'm gonna hafta go around
th' "back way" ta my brother's apartment 'cause th'
parade has closed off th' street I normally go down
ta reach his place. So okay I can handle that...
except that now th' street that I have to cross to
get to his place, which is right on th' other side,
is blocked off too. Seems th' parade has sorta trapped
me in an L-shape surroundin' th' store.
Arg. So more detour, and... no that street's blocked
too... and that one... hey UP YERS buddy... damnit!
Well ta make a long story short it ended up bein'
a 40 block detour, through side-streets packed with
pissed-off, sweaty people. And the setting sun in my
eyes. I hate that.
Finally I get there. It's still very hot in his
apartment even with all th' windows open. In fact
they're kinda makin' things worse, 'cause workers
are retarring th' roof of th' building across th'
street. Ahh, nothin' like th' scent of warm tar on a hot
day. My brother mentions he's dizzy, but can't smell
the tar anymore. Fear grips me.
Turns out I'm invited ta dinner. Which normally would
be great, but tonight it's leftover rice with beans.
And there's nothin' on TV (what, you expect us to TALK
durin' dinner?!?) except an old Sinatra movie. One
of the bad ones. Bing Crosby leading Frank, Dino and
Sammy in an unspirited
rendition of "Look Out for Mr. Booze."
I start to feel faint. Meanwhile sirens, shouts and
firecrackers or gunshots continually sound from outside.
On the way home, I have to stop as a dazed bicyclist,
having just picked himself up from a near run in with
a car, winds haphazardly across my path. Well that's
rough, buddy. As soon as there's room I hit the
accelerator. Strange to say, I feel somewhat elated.
I got my modem back.
Well since it ain't th' modem, an' however I configure
my Dialup Networkin' doesn't make a difference, and
because in some games I DON'T lag even with lots of
people, an' since I keep careful watch over my ISP
connection ta make sure it ain't gone bad, I think th'
only cause fer this lag that's left is th' people I
play with. I'm stuck way up here in Seattle and
most of th' folks I play with are at LEAST one or
two thousand miles away. That's gonna bring ya some
lag from time ta time no matter how ya slice it.
So I come to my FINAL SOLUTION: THE LIST. I've
been mullin' this over fer a while an' now it looks like
it's my only recourse -- basically I'm gonna have a
sheet of paper with two columns: "GOOD" and "BAD."
If I'm in a game with four or more people an' we ain't
hittin' bad lag, those folks' names go in th' "GOOD"
column. On th' flip side, if I'm in a nasty lagged game
those names go in th' "BAD" column. Now anybody who
ends up with their name in th' "GOOD" column won't be
put in th' "BAD" column even if I'm in another game
with them that lags bad, 'cause I was in at least one
good, non-lagged game with 'em so I know we've got a
decent connection an' th' bad lag was probably 'caused
by th' other players.
NO I'm not goin' to publish th' list, it'll be fer my
own reference so I know what games to play in if I have
a choice. It doesn't mean th' players are good or bad
themselves, just that I have a bad connection with
them. And it won't really be relevant fer anyone else,
unless ya happen ta live in Seattle an' use th' same
Internet backbone as me (in which case you have my
sympathy).
You know I think one thing is that certain characters
are more difficult to use under lag than others. Or
at least certain weapons. Fer instance in this eight
player game I started with Sanchez, and had a real
hard time killin' anyone with my pistol. TNT wasn't
workin' so hot either. There were at least 3 Mary's
in there an' fer th' most part they were doin' real
well -- mebbe one shotgun blast uploads more efficiently
than six pistol shots? Well anyhow I came back as
Two Feathers an' lag-knifed people all over -- that
worked pretty well. ;)
Somethin' that's been worryin' me fer a while is that
if I'm in a game and switch back to Kali and hit
the sword button to see people on the server (chat is
closed) it shows me with a ping of like 8000 if I've
just been runnin' around an' shootin' people. Now
that seems bad, but mebbe it's just 'cause th' pings
from Kali aren't really goin' through too good when
I try to bounce one off th' server an' back ta me...
I dunno. Hmm. Mebbe somebody could try it out fer
themselves an'
lemme know
what they come up with.
Kali
1.51 2.3M 2441k
Don't seem to be any major changes fer us Outlaws
but it don't hurt ta have th' latest version. An'
c'mon, admit it, you like downloadin' large files
jus' ta put that bandwidth ta use, dont'cha?
I see people are FINALLY catchin' on ta startin' Outlaws
games with th' Kali launch thingy. 'Bout freakin' time.
Most of all, think about WHY anybody would want to
play your level. Does it have something unique and
compelling to offer? There are literally hundreds
of Outlaws levels out there now, so it ain't like
we're starved fer maps ta play on... will anybody
be playin' yer map a week from now? Is there any
point in releasing it other than to get yer name
on a few web sites and to give level reviewers
somethin' ta do?
Well let's see... there's a semi-interesting one
called Falloff set on a narrow height with modified
"concussion rifles" (stolen from Templar's
TheHill, I think) that you use to knock people off
to their doom.
Can't say I expected much at first from "Fort Remix"
by ay_suc. I mean do we really need another
version of the Fort? Well, I'm convinced now that
yes we did. If you thought the Fort was big, well,
umm... you'll discover that everything's relative.
THIS is big; he's totally reworked th' Fort, added
another story, tons of additional spaces and underground
caves and lots of inspired design work like some
drop-dead gorgeous lighting effects, check 'em
out:
I love breakin' windows an' bottles and there are
tons of both in Frantville. Nice buildings,
decent layout but way too many items. And what's
with th' magic dirt floor in th' jail?
Outlaws Square by Katarn10 has a
modified rifle that fires three-round automatic
bursts and sounds like a submachine gun. Kinda neat
although th' rest of th' map doesn't do much fer me.
Spook Canyon by Cutter is very inventive
and stylish, mebbe a bit repetitive though.
As in his Fort Remix, the level of detail in ay_suc's
Tarnation is astounding. This is the most
mazelike and convoluted map I've ever seen! Not
as polished as Fort Remix, and the extreme detail of
the rock formations causes very spotty framerates
even on my P2 233 with 3dfx. Th' other prob with this
one is that without th' overall guiding structure that
he had with the Fort, it jus' gets plain confusing.
Oh and if yer inta single player at ALL, you gotta pick
up The Riverboat Oakstar by Oakstar.
Fantastic level design on a huge luxury riverboat.
The really great thing about it, besides the nice
level of difficulty and the large amounts of baddies
to blast, is that it appears very open-ended while
invariably guiding you along to the final confrontation.
Top notch!
*Sigh*... hard ta teach old dogs new tricks. Well if
that's still too complicated fer ya, how about this:
when goin' ta host or join a regular IP game, use
th' Kali launch bar Outlaws icon ta load
up Outlaws. Why? Fer one thing, because it's a very
easy way to load Outlaws. An' it'll shut down chat
automatically so ya don't gotta worry about chat
lag.
But th' main reason ta do it is ta support th' Kali
Outlaws community. When ya load Outlaws with th' Kali
Outlaws icon
(to get that icon you gotta have
Kali scan fer games ta find it, of course)
chat shuts down but yer still listed in
th' Outlaws server's game list, only with "OlWin"
instead of "Kali95" next ta yer name. This lets people
know that yer around an' playin' Outlaws, an' that
you'll probably be back in chat sometime.
This is IMPORTANT because often what happens is everyone
in Kali leaves th' chat to go play, an' people who
then pop inta th' chat channel get th' impression that
nobody ever goes there. Th' more folks people see
logged into th' Kali server, th' more they'll want to
stick around and get a game goin'.
So do it fer th' team! It's easy, painless,
lagless, and oh so user-friendly. It's what I'm gonna
do when I go to play a regular IP game outta Kali from
now on.
So why's it called Trigger Mortis? Well here's what
happened: I had whipped out th' gatling gun on th'
slope of a mesa in "Monument Valley." While I was shootin'
at someone else (and missin' of course) Stan charged
up an' shot a few loads of buckshot into me. Well since
I was laggin' it took th' buckshot a second ta reach
me... I died from th' first hit, but th' subsequent
hits kept bouncin' my laggin' corpse along th' side
of th' mesa. All th' while my finger was locked on
th' gat trigger, firin' away - thus you see th' clever
pun was made when I mentioned that "rigor mortis" had
set in rather quickly.
In today's shot Stan has induced a
particularly nasty case of Trigger
Mortis on poor StarLight; that's him you see
airborn in th' distance. Needless to say th'
malady is invariably fatal.
I found this out usin' this little program:
Dial-Up Connection Meter
1.02B (28k)
This is an old freeware version that you probably
can't get elsewhere these days of a little utility
that makes a graph of yer modem's data transfer so
you kin see what's really goin' on. I had this runnin'
while playin' Outlaws last night; when I was usin'
software compression th' graph levelled off at about
3 K/s, meanin' that I was hittin' my transfer limit
and thus losin' subsequent packets. When I switched
to hardware compression th' graph was all jagged,
spiking way above 3 K/s and also dipping below: this
means that data was being compressed (seen in the
higher transfer rate spikes) and I wasn't constantly
dropping packets.
Oh also that pinger/tracer UOTrace MAY interfere with
Outlaws' internet data transfer. Not SURE yet but ta
be safe you might wanna close it before playing a
multiplayer match. It's still very handy fer checkin'
yer connection to Outlaws hosts and to yer ISP though.
That's on th' file page.
So that's th' good news so far. I've reorganized most
of th' Dial-Up Connection stuff on th' file page
'cause I think most if it is at best useless fer Outlaws,
and at worse detrimental to Outlaws Internet play...
I'll be addin' more things as I'm able to get definite
tests done, so stay tuned.
hey join game://Paleface-- Sanc DM
which would appear in the chat window something like
hey join
game://Paleface--
Sanc DM
depending, of course, on their default chat font.
Then people could click the blue link and be shunted
off directly to th' game! Oh th' "Sanc DM" isn't
needed, it's just an example of how you can throw
in a little description to let people know what they're
in for.
This is also handy for you when you're hosting a game
and trying to get people to join, because while yer
game appears in th' Kali Game Window people don't
always have that window expanded and thus won't see
it, but you kin direct 'em to it with this method.
Does Kali kick some booty or what? Fer complete
details on playin' Outlaws through Kali see th'
domain page.
I've heard people griping because they upgrade to win 98 and
can't play Outlaws on the zone. This is what happens: They get the
connecting screen, then connected, and I think loading level, then it
goes to the credits screen and dumps them out of the game. So... I
upgraded to Win 98 and hehe... having the same prob. I'm gonna work on
it, and see if I can figure this out.
Then he did some checkin' an' got back ta me:
I found that people running P2 chips have very few problems compared to us poor people with P 166's and less...
also, even the guys with the P2's have problems connecting to a game if there is a bad connect. go figure. But, they have
the same symptoms... they get the connecting screen, then connected, loading level, then it goes to the credits screen and
boots them out. I got a game going with 3 other people who were using Win 98. 2 of them had P2 chips.. me and the other
guy had p166's. When I hosted, it booted everyone out 'cept me of course. Then one of them with a P333 hosted and everyone
made it in.
Pretty darned weird if ya ask me. Frankly I blame
Microsoft -- Lucasarts did everything they needed to
to make Outlaws work in th' Zone, and then MS comes
out with Win98 which somehow screws th' whole thing
up! LEC already patched the initial problem, but
now apparently there's ANOTHER bug in th' system!
Well I see two ways ta go fer you Zoners left out in
th' cold: (1) Bitch as much as you can to th' Zone
Monitors and e-mail the Zone and Lucasarts or (2)
Go play in Kali or IRC! I say boycott that damn
bug-ridden Zone. And fer those of you thinkin' about
givin' MS $ fer their supposed Windows 98 "upgrade,"
I'd think again.
PD: Okay, this game has to have the same fluid controls
as the first one. It has to feel the same, really
smooth and responsive, okay?
Meself and
SWE_Doc is making Mentaldocs lvl. So far it looks great I must say.
Ive had some problems with texturing boxes....as ya might now...haha.
But SWE_Doc as a rock on making them look as they should.
The lvl itself aint finished enough to make a screenshot on....but I can
tell ya that its gonna be great......its small with almost no health at
all. A well, a barn, a saloon and a warehouse of somekind. Its a mexican
town....and all characters should work ok although its a damn small lvl.
We think that the lvl is gonna be a blast.
Well not sure what all that means but it sounds
positive. You GO boys!
In a game with 5 or 6 players, those with 28.8s or
33.6s will start to drop packets when th' goin' gets
rough - that is, when a lot of data is being transferred,
like when everyone starts runnin' an' shootin', their
modems won't be able to download all th' data quickly
enough ta keep up. Lag ensues.
Now me with my 56k modem, I'm downloadin' okay without
droppin' packets. Say me an' Mr. 28.8 get in a gunfight.
We both shoot at each other, dodgin' around. Our
computers calculate that we each hit each other, and
try to upload that information to th' other person's
computer so damage can be calculated.
BUT Mr. 28.8's modem is too slow ta handle all th' game
data comin' in at once. Some packets get stuck in a
line, some don't ever get in th' door at all. So say
we each unloaded 6 pistol shots into each other.
Mr. 28.8's droppin' packets like they're goin' outta
style, an' only 4 of th' "I hit you" packets from my
computer get through. He's still alive.
Meanwhile his six bullet hit packets wing their way over
to my computer. I'm not droppin' packets, so they all
register as hits. I die. Since Mr. 28.8 is laggin' pretty
hard, he may not even feel some of th' hits until I'm six
feet under.
So I think from now on I'm gonna limit my games ta
4 players, unless I know everyone's got at least a
33.6, in which case I'll take 5, or a 56.6, in which
case I could do 6 people. Otherwise th' laggers'll
slaughter me. ;p
Authors may use this level as a base to build additional
levels.
You MAY distribute this level, provided you include this file, with
no modifications. You may distribute this file in any electronic
format (BBS, Diskette, CD, etc) as long as you include this file
intact.
Now, what Slack FERGOT ta do was ta include a readme
with his version of th' map, givin' credit ta th'
original author. Not that that was technically required
by th' statement in th' junction.txt, but it would'a
been th' considerate thing ta do. However, I notice
that Slack hasn't been in th' habit of puttin'
readme's in any of his level packs, so it's not like
he did it ta spite anyone. AND he did give th' author
notice as best he could before releasing it but
apparently Shifty didn't bother ta reply.
Which means he did not DENY permission. And since
th' readme gives permission ta modify th' map,
Slack was well within his rights to release th' level.
So lay off! If you don't like it, don't play it. ;p
Ever have that dream where you go to school in
your underwear or pajamas? Well I bet the same happens
to outlaw types as well. As evidenced by this screen
shot captured using a special dream capture device I
downloaded from the net.
Oh hey don't fergit that you too kin have yer pic
up here in lights as th' Shot of th' Day. Just foller
th' simple instructions on th' file
page.
|
|||||
|
|
home | game | weapon | character | strategy | level | file | player | posse | domain | link |
|||||
| vittles | fourth highest | Stuff on th' shelves. | ||||
