P.O.O.S.
home
 vittles   seventh highest   Stuff on th' shelves.    
 
game
weapon
character
strategy
level
file
player
posse
domain
link

 
Seventh Highest Shelf Vittles: 10.18.98-11.22.98

  • Back to Stale Vittles
  • 11/22

    • Sling, deadly webmaster of th' excellent #Outlaws_Players site, sent me th' followin' piece of unfortunate news:

      I seem to be 'locked out' of my webserver. The password don't take. I am extremely pissed right now, as you may well imagine. I don't know if it got hacked into or whatever, so I have no idea when I'll be able to post an update, even though I have stuff ready to be uploaded sitting right here on my hard drive. Sigh...

      I know JUST how frustratin' that is, same darn thing happened ta me once. I miss gettin' my daily dose of Sling, let's all hope his ISP gets their act together ASAP!

    • I do have some bits of news, but I'm going to hold off on them because I want y'all ta pay attention to this -- I want each an' every Outlaw ta get involved in this, together we can make our favorite game perfect. We all love th' weapon balance, but when talking about it you always have to qualify it with an EXCEPT... except for that totally overpowered sawed-off shotgun. However in these days when LawMakers know how to modify weapon values, this can easily be remedied. We just have to find a new standard sawed-off model. So, I humbly present a

    Proposal for a New Standard Sawed-Off Shotgun

    [Disclaimer: The author is not a ballistics expert and has never fired a shotgun. The following proposal is based on a passing knowledge of firearms, experience playing the Outlaws PC game and discussion with other Outlaws players.]

    Purpose:

    Given that the default Outlaws sawed-off shotgun carries a charge so powerful that its use is banned in almost all on-line matches, and that Outlaws editors have now discovered the method of altering weapon strength on individual multiplayer maps, there is no reason to leave the sawed-off unused if a new standard weapon model for a play-balanced sawed-off shotgun can be agreed upon and implemented in future maps.

    Proposal:

    Each aspect of the weapon can be modified as needed to adjust the power of the sawed-off shotgun to a level more in keeping with the other Outlaws weapons. Outlaws map makers can include the modifications in their new maps, replacing the overpowered default sawed-off shotgun with the modified, play-balanced version.

    Spread and Range:

    The sawed-off currently fires in a very wide spread that restricts effective use of the weapon to very close ranges. This seems in keeping with the effect on weapon accuracy produced by a drastically shortened barrel and does not seem to require modification.

    Rate of Fire:

    The current sawed-off reloads slightly faster than the full length double-barreled shotgun. If we assume that the sawed-off shotgun is a modified 10-gauge originally identical to the double-barrel shotgun, then the increased speed seems to be in keeping with the decrease in weight resulting from a drastically shortened barrel which would facilitate manipulation of the weapon while reloading, and does not seem to require modification.

    Payload:

    The current sawed-off shotgun fires 30 pellets from a single barrel and 32 from a combination of both barrels. The current full length double-barrel shotgun fires 5 pellets from a single barrel or 10 in combination. Thus the payloads for single/double barrel fire on the sawed-off shotgun need to be changed so that the amount fired from two barrels equals twice the amount fired from a single barrel.
     
    However, the total amount of pellets fired should remain significantly higher than the amount fired from a standard shotgun. This is necessary to effectively model a wide shot spread without leaving large gaps in the firing pattern.
     
    In order to preserve the original spread density as much as possible, the author proposes modifying sawed-off shotguns to fire 20 pellets from a single barrel and 40 pellets from both barrels combined.

    Damage:

    The current sawed-off shotgun inflicts tremendous damage out of keeping with the other shotguns in the game. The six pellets fired by the 12-gauge single-barrel shotgun and the 10 pellets fired by the dual barrels of the 10-gauge double-barrel shotgun will kill a lightly armored opponent in a single shot provided all the pellets hit. This restricts single-shot kills with either weapon to very well-placed, close range shots. In contrast, the 10-gauge sawed-off shotgun can kill a healthy character with an accurate blast from a single barrel at close range. Even a glancing hit from both barrels fired together can kill a fully armored opponent instantly.
     
    Friction and air resistance slow projectiles fired down a barrel. The short barrel of a sawed-off shotgun will minimize projectile speed reduction, resulting in a shot more powerful than that fired from a shotgun with a longer barrel. Thus, the sawed-off should inflict slightly more damage than the full length double-barrel shotgun with a direct hit.
     
    The author proposes modifying a pellet from the sawed-off shotgun to inflict one third of the damage of a pellet from the double-barrel shotgun. With the double-barrel shotgun firing 5 pellets per barrel and the modified sawed-off shotgun firing 20 pellets per barrel, this will result in a point-blank shot from the sawed-off inflicting 33% more damage than a point-blank double-barrel shot.

    Summary:

    The sawed-off shotgun serves a useful spot in the Outlaws armory, providing unmatched point-blank firepower at the expense of range and accuracy. The current implementation of the sawed-off inflicts an incredibly unbalanced amount of damage when compared to the other available Outlaws weapons. This proposal aims to set a new standard for sawed-off shotguns, reducing the damage inflicted to slightly more than that of the other shotguns at point blank range. Because of the spread of the weapon its effective use will be restricted to very close ranges, thus balancing the superior power.
     
    The numbers proposed by the author are preliminary. The author has no direct knowledge of the particular values required by Outlaws weaponry. In addition, any modified weapon will require extensive play testing and very probably some tweaking before it achieves the perfect balance required for its acceptance as a new standard to be used in future Outlaws multiplayer maps. The author hopes that this proposal will begin a process culminating in the restoration of a long-neglected weapon to on-line Outlaws play.
     
    In order to bring this about, as many players as possible must participate in the process. A discussion forum is needed; the official LawMaker message board at DarkJedi.com seems ideal for this purpose. A new thread containing the above proposal has been begun at DarkJedi site; the board can be reached by selecting "Msg Board" from the main menu and then clicking on the "LawMaker Now!" button located on the main Msg Board page. The author strongly urges all Outlaws to contribute to this discussion; with your help we can make a lasting, positive impact on the Outlaws multiplayer experience.
     
    For future reference a copy of this proposal has been appended to the sawed-off shotgun page at "Paleface's OPINIONATED! Outlaws Site," http://outlaws.gagames.com/sawed.html.

    • Well I hope that wasn't too wordy but I wanted ta make it as definitive as possible. Th' thread is up at DarkJedi so go help out!

  • 11/20

    • Well I told'ja I had a beta version of a new level from Ghostbear yesterday. Today he's sent me th' finished version. Called Tough this one takes place in a couple small rocky canyons interconnected by jagged tunnels and ledges. Ghostbear hasn't been makin' levels that long but Tough has a great, natural feeling to it. He's restricted items to knives, pistols, a couple health thingers an' a gatling gun. While some may miss th' lack of a shotgun as I did at first, I think after playin' in it fer a while you'll appreciate how it forces ya ta make th' most of what ya got.

      I like th' way he varies enclosed and exposed areas in such a way that no single weapon will dominate th' map, and breaking th' action into two areas allows for pauses in th' action where you can take stock of your situation, not to mention CTF play. Th' open and closed areas also create nice contrasts of bright sunlight and dark shade that keep th' match interesting as you move around (see th' screenshot). Perhaps one or two slight rough edges remain, but they do little to mar this lovely map.

    • Doh! This is what I get fer updatin' th' page so late at night, I said "Grifter" instead of "Gryphon" when referring to th' latter's cool weekly Outlaws article hosted by Sling. Sorry 'bout that! How embarrassin'... :i

    • I've taken ta gettin' over ta th' "Gazette" news page at Outlaws Gang Busters on a reg'lar basis 'cause, well... Martone an' Hoss jus' have so much great news I kin steal! ;) They got a new map from JoeyTheKidd called DeadMans. They didn't recommend th' map too highly an' after lookin' at it I guess I kin see why; more of an exercise in weird geometry than an actual Outlaws setting. But hey, check out this funky effect where a campfire is burning through a wall! Probably not intentional, but hey I'm tryin' ta be positive here.

    • Gosh speak of th' devil, Martone jus' e-mailed me as I was writin' that. He's got some interestin' stuff ta say about that sequoia tree thingy:

      Now for the Sequioa and Ponderosa tree thingy. If ya check Hoss' map Ponderosa carefully you just might notice that hey, there are some Sequoias in there, along with Ponderosa (btw when looking for the Ponderosa tree with Lawmaker it will be spelled pondrosa to stay within the 8 character format). What happened with these objects is that there is an NWX for these objects but no .itm. You need an .itm file to "animate" the NWX. For some reason the Pondrosa and Sequoia never had .itm associated with it. If you were to look at the olobj.lab you would see all the NWXs for all the objects in OL and all the itms and even some 3dos. But you will not find a sequoia.itm or pondrosa.itm. For Hoss' map, Ponderosa, I found the pondrosa.itm from I think Wermer's Rangewar (because it was not listed in the olobj.lab). From that I made a sequoia.itm and voila we get sequioa trees. Now the thing about only the host seeing the trees is due to a bug where you need to place the itms in the map lab itself. If you don't then only the host will see the trees. Now I don't know why it's true for these particular itms. Just think if all the objects were like that..... you'd have to have em all in the lab file. Which basically they are in an obj file. You ever notice the same is true of sounds? Host a Sanc game and even before you enter what do you hear? Wind. But only if you are the host. If you have joined the game you will not hear the sound. Ok, it would be very ez for me to go into lawmaker and remove the sequioa.itm and pondrosa.itm from the lab file. Then I could join a game and not see trees. Do I get the booby prize?? Uh actually if I did that, when I tried to join a game I would get incompatible level data. But the point is with Lawmaker I can go in, remove the trees, send you a screenshot and be the winner of... what did you say?? An all expense paid trip to Cabo? cool. I'm just mentioning this to ya so ya can be on the lookout for "cheaters". Make sure the screenshot shows the frag table of players in the game so that you know that the map (or lab) has not been modified.
       
      Ahh, the Gang thingy. Well I spose that's good fodder for news for the next couple of days. Keep yer eye peeled out towards Headquarters and see what I put up in the next day or two.

      Hmm well I guess that WOULD blow my contest, except fer th' fact that I don't really care if somebody cheats ta win it hehe. ;D Go check out Martone's OGB site, there's more stuff there about th' whole Zone/IRC/Kali discussion, particularly an interesting bit sent in by rebel LawMaker GoJo.

    • Speakin' of that discussion, Mr. Slack keeps th' line taut (ooo man that was a bad one) with th' followin' comments on that an' other subjects:

      as for the modified weapons, I've been thinking that it would be interesting to make some weapons LESS powerful in multiplayer levels, to even out the playing field. for instance, make the shotguns less powerful on a small map, and... hmm acutally that's the only one I can think of except for meking the sawed off less powerful.
       
      and about that zone stuff, I try to avoid the zone at all costs because of my problems joining games and such.. but there are some nice people there. I have never been able to join an existing game in the zone, it always locks up while connecting, and I have to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL and then hit enter twice to exit (that is just saying quit the program and then confirming it, but I cant see it because the screen stays as the connecting screen.) the only way I can play games in the zone is by hosting them, or by being in the game lobby while it is launched.
       
      and what's the third thing? hmmm... oh yeah the one about the new posses always popping up because people aren't good enough to join an existing one. gee, I dont know what your talking about... I've never heard of anyone doing that... except me!!! buahahahaaaaaa!! I guess I have to plead guilty to that. but, while your laughing at my poor abilities, why dont you check out my crappy site for my crappy gang! uhh actually I think you already have the link on your site. then I guess this would just be a shameless plug if you post it in your update.
       
      http://www.humboldt1.com/~kinzer5

      Hey, I'm all for shameless plugs, they're th' best kind! ;)

    • Oo almost left off this new (small) site I came across:

      Skaggi's Homepage
      A small lil' site with some cheat codes, some concise singleplayer level walkthroughs an' a big orange background. It takes SOME kinda guts ta pull off an orange background, I guess Skaggi's got moxie or somethin'.

  • 11/19

    • I been thinkin' 'bout some things havin' ta do with game modding (3rd party folks modifying the code to make new things in the game) and Outlaws. Nowadays these real smart LawMaker types have figgered out how ta modify pretty much ev'ry aspect of th' game. An' new games these days are shipping more an' more often with editing tools right in th' box.

      Now th' only real new mod type ta show up fer Outlaws so far has been modified weapons. Ta say they haven't really caught on would be an understatement: they're viewed with actual loathing by what seems to be a majority of players. An' ya know, I can't really blame 'em. I do think that modified weapons have th' potential ta add new an' interesting aspects to th' Outlaws world, but I don't really wanna see 'em catch on in a big way.

      Why not? Well me an' I think all other Outlaws fans love Outlaws fer it's great Western style and balanced weapons. Th' folks at LEC who made th' game took an' old engine (from Dark Forces) and made a Western world with it. Because they didn't have to invent a new engine they had more time to work on actually creating a fun game. This stands in direct contrast to most games today that sport new engines - in fact ta me it seems like many "games" are really jus' advertisements to licensees of a shiny new 3D engine. Does anyone really dig on Quake 2's dull brown world? Does anyone really get inspired by Unreal's weird alien weapons?

      Well mebbe a few odd people do... but most of th' attraction of games like this these days seems to be that "you can mod the hell out of it." People like the shiny engine and want to make their own game out of it. Which is fine, that's great, more power to them, but... except in extremely rare cases these efforts can never match the polish of professionally published games with real production budgets.

      So to get back to th' point, mebbe it'd be helpful to think of Outlaws as a professionally done mod of Dark Forces. It's not a new engine -- it's not really ABOUT the engine at all, it's about the carefully crafted look, feel and taste of this work of art. We love it for what it is, not for what it could be. I'll be happy ta try new tweaks to it, but it'd be a sad sad day if th' game were lost in all th' mods. Luckily I don't think that'll be happening. :)

    • MORE on that cool sequoia tree seen in DrDeath2's latest map Mountain Cabin. As to my wondering about not seein' an "itm" file in th' zip, Raptor (aka Jim_Sin) helped me climb a lil' out of my pit of ignorance by pointing out that itm's are contained in the ".lab" file. Boy do I feel silly. Thanks Jim!

      And th' Doc himself had this to say:

      Nope that is just a bug that happens. I know because Before I released it I had someone else Host and I joined and I did see the tree's I made sure of that.
       
      In Outlaws there are sometimes bugs that will make objects not appear. Mostly the pondersa Kind of tree's such as in Smo' Fued Map. This may happen when your playing Mountain Cabin but not likely. maybe once every 10 games. Not really sure what causes this bug.
       
      but yes 90% of the time you will see the tree's if you join multiplayer game of Mountain Cabin.

      Well that's pretty darn interesting. So I'm hereby holdin' a contest: who kin bring me a screenshot from that map with no tree where a tree should be? Be th' first ta send one in an' you'll win th' coveted POOS "No Tree" Award for Excellence in the Field of Not Finding Trees. :)

    • Stealin' stuff from Sling's excellent site again:

      Grifter's weekly Outlaws article is up, this time an interview with old levelmaster Smo. A very good read with great nuggets fer those beginnin' level editors out there, go check Sling's news page fer th' link.

      Speakin' of beginnin' level editors there's a new map from Ghostbear, Catacomb. Now this one may not make too many people's hit lists, but ya gotta admit Ghost is gettin' markedly better an' better with each map. This is a big underground narrow tunnel one with a few too many gats and sawed-off's thrown in fer my taste, but it does have some interestin (if perhaps not entirely successful) use of texturing, good sound effects and an interesting narrow spot where you actually get a bit squished between rock walls and take some damage. Ouch! There are a whole lot of rough edges though, fer instance you'll notice in this screenshot that he missed texturing a few steps.

      'Matter of fact I actually have a more recent map from Ghost that I had th' pleasure of playin' in with him an' a few others on Kali this weekend, but I think it's a beta so I ain't gonna post it 'less I get th' green light from th' author. This one still has some rough spots but has a genuinely inspired outdoor layout that plays very well. Hope ta have more on this later.

    • Well it's always fun stirrin' th' pot of online Outlaw angst. ;) Here are some responses my comments on yesterday's foray into th' Zone turned up (by th' way folks, if there's anything ya ever write ta me about that ya don't want posted here, make sure ta say so hehe):

      From Skeeter (who made up fer my suckin' it up in our Sanc team game -- hehe not a good spot fer Sanchez, doh!):

      I too have trouble at times exiting games but I have found that waiting a good minute or two after the game (staring at a black screen) seems to bring it out of the trance. I don't know why it takes so long but most of the time waiting works. And some nights at the zone all we play are IP games. It is a pain restarting the browser every time and signing back into the zone. If you give the zone a chance for some time it realy isn't bad. I have had some good games there, against some realy good players. There is a number of newbies, but they tend to stick to themselves ( as in posting "newbies only").

      From ShotgunMC:

      ...it does seem to have improved. When I first started Outlawin' it drove me as crazy as it did you and I basically abandoned it for 3 months of IP games. But when my list of Outlaws to get killed by on IP began to dry up I went back to the Zone and found it did indeed seem to have improved. I know there were some updates, but I always figured maybe it was just the better hardware everyone seemed to be packing which was improvin' gameplay. I still avoid any games over six (WAW beignet hosted an IP game on her shiny new cable modem the other night, eight people showed up, and I don't think the game lasted past three kills before crappin' out. Beig was ready to shoot up her cable-guy, but I think it was the number of players), and I obviously avoid anyone with red ping. All in all, followin' that advice, I usually have no problems anymore in Zone games.
       
      Except, of course, for the Twilight Zone black screen ya get stuck in when a game ends. Thru lots of askin' fellow Outlaws and punchin' my keyboard, I find the best solution is hit CTRL-ALT-DEL (screen stays black), then hit TAB, then hit ENTER. My game is not responding screen then pops up, I hit end game and bang! I'm back at the Zone! Not the shortest trail, but she gets ya there. My best guess is the CTRL-ALT-DEL fires up the game problem window like usual but ya can't see it 'cause of all the blackness. Then ya work the other keys to fire ya out of the game. The only drawback is sometimes ya miss the end score screen if you end too quick, but its better than the old days of crashin' and rebootin'.

      From DrDeath2:

      Most people I talk to don't know there is another way to plays OUTLAWS online. The ZONE seems to lag out at the CONNECTING screen and at the End of the Game when you try to leave. Why put up with the zone's Lag when you don't have too??? Do you enjoy hiding behind Lag out Players? The zone is so laggy CTF and TMS games die in minutes do to tremendous lag!!!
       
      Tech, The Zone uses Directplay to connect to games. When Lucasarts found out that it causes lag so in the 1.1 Patch they included another way to Play WINSOCKETS. But the zone decided not to use it. They I guess would rather have Laggy games that Will cause you to re-boot several times... ONCE YOU HAVE TRIED WINSOCKETS YOU WILL NEVER GO BACK!
       
      All Zone games suffer from wierd Jerkiness. It includes the game freezing then kicking back in a minute later. This never seems to happen with WINSOCKETS and outside the zone's kingdom of lag.
       
      So where else can I play Outlaws On the Internet? Well Try IRC a chatting program where people hang out in Channels (chat rooms) #outlaws_players is where you want to Go. They use winsockets (the way outlaws should be played) what they do is post the HOST"s of the outlaws game in the topic of the chat room. (an IP address everybody has on online) what you do is copy that down and then go into Outlaws Multiplayer Section select Winsockets and then hit accept then you come to a screen with a couple big black boxes type the IP address of the host in the box then hit accept. then you will come to the screen then hit Join Game and in seconds you connect easily and your playing a less laggy game.
       
      http://www.cool.simplenet.com/outlaws/irc.htm (Instructions for an easy to setup IRC program and how to connect with other outlaws players)
       
      when you leave the game you will actually leave. By the way you can close down IRC when your playing so you won't get lagged down like the chat room in the ZONE! That is why if you goto IRC channel room there might not be alot of people because there all playing be patient.
       
      KALI is another place you can play they use winsockets as WELL.

      From ol' SOD Badger:

      Iīd like to tell you about my impressions after playing for 1 and a half year in zone. I started playing there with a P100 and a 28.8 modem and a s every rookie does i started entering games with allready 7 players in and found lag and myself killed before hearing a shot. But I fell in love with playing multiplayer games at the zone. I think for most of the dedicated online killers the zone is the starting point because it is well known and quite easy to reach.
       
      It took quite a time until I found out about IRC and Kali. For us over here in Europe it is hard to play in Kali, cause most of the players there are from the States and play when we sleep. From time to time I drop in there and play Templarīs "Blind Date 2 vs.2-Tourney". The people there are very nice and gentle. U donīt find lamers, flooders or trash talking newbies there.Playing in the Undernet has the same advantages. Biggest disadvantage is the lack of players at my online times. In the zone you find skillfull players night and day.
       
      But back to lag... Beeing killed still drove me crazy and I did everything to improve my skills and connects. (Found most of the interesting hints and tips on your page or ArcherAceīs). Thatīs why I got ISDN and a 3dfx-card. ISDN made my connect much better and I never join games hosted for more than 6 players (4 is great in case they all have good pings). Going with these rules gave me a lot of fun and I still try to play everyday in the zone. I really canīt figure that the lag improved or became less. It allways depends on the ppl you play with. Llando pointed that out very well.
       
      One thing in the zone really makes me and other longtime players angry. All these new gangs coming and going. Seems like everyone founds his own gang if he is not good enough to join an excisting. Maybe we can get a discussion going on that topic...

      Hehe pretty cagey of ol' Badger ta throw that last bit in there... ;) I think this discussion is very constructive, it's nice to get opinions and thoughts from all sides about this... I hate ta think how many mails these'll bring down on me hehehe...

  • 11/18

    • As promised yesterday I took a look at Dusty's new map, Caved In. A darn fine lookin' map, but Dusty wasn't content with jus' good looks (oh by th' way here's a screenshot). Nope, he went an' put in some active elements such as a lil' elevator that makes a great grinding/gear sound, a sandy area that you can --well I won't BLOW it for ya... ;) And then there's a cow who has a rather nasty accident.

      All this adds some very cool interactivity, th' question that remains is does it increase lag? Well that remains ta be seen. My guess is that th' interactive stuff is processed on th' server, so you'll wanna make sure whoever hosts has an adequate machine or th' stuff may not work quite right. Then of course more data will hafta be transferred to each person from th' host when one of th' events triggers, but that really shouldn't be a significant hit ta anyone's bandwidth. So my feelin' is that if ya have a decent host ya shouldn't see any particular trouble, but I guess I'll hafta play ta find out fer sure.

    • 'Nother new map, this time one I yanked from OGB Headquarters: Street Fight by Badd and Ruthless. A very attractive small town complete with a couple main streets and a corral in the middle of th' town (see screenshot). Ya can't go in any of th' buildin's; this isn't called "House Fight" after all. ;)

      Th' interestin' thing 'bout this map is th' chickens. Or rather, pseudo chickens. See th' prob with chickens in a multiplayer map is that they move around an' their position data hasta be sent between th' host an' th' players, which kin increase lag. Now I dunno what they did, but th' chickens in "Street Fight" don't move. Basically they're stationary like good ol' horses an' cows. [Hmm that gives me an' idea -- would it be possible ta animate th' horses an' cows? ;)] So anyhow th' bottom line is there are nice lil' chickens in here that squawk an' all that, but don't cause lag. Pretty cool.

    • I got a couple mails regardin' those cool pine trees in DrDeath's map Mountain Cabin. Dusty wrote:

      I'm just writing to inform you that those trees you see in the level "mountain cabin" are built for single player, what this means is that unless your the host in a multipayer game, you just wont see em. I had similar problems way back in my first (and crappiest level) Dust. The trees are ponderosa I believe. That's why they aren't included in the lawmaker DrDeath2. Anyway, mountain cabin is cool map with or without those trees, I myself have the whole series of evil dead movies.

      Similarly, Sticky said:

      I have a comment on those trees. 1. I used them in my map ballpark andanother map which i cant recall. The outlaws name for those pine trees is sequoia. There is no ITM and u need to make your own itm if you want to use those trees in multiplayer. However, if you dont include the ITM of the sequioa in your project directory, then only the host of the game will be able to view the trees. Thought you would like to know.

      Aha. Well I don't see an .itm file in th' level .zip so I guess th' trees won't show up fer players? Haven't been able ta test yet. Anyhow I remember somethin' similar with disappearin' trees happened fer me in th' original version of DeanWermer's Rangewar (don't think I have a copy of th' original anymore). Somebody make a sequoia .itm! :)

    • I went into th' Zone this evening. Why? Well it got started with this mail I received from Lando242:

      I just looked at your thing on the Zone and I dont know what Zone you were playing on but it was realy messed up. I've bin playing on the zone for over 2 years now and I have played many games there (Age of Empires, Jedi Knight, X-wing VS. TIE Fighter, Ultra Corps, Chess and soon to be Asherons Call just to name a few) and have never run into any problems. I have an older v. of IE and have no problems, the sign up is pretty small all you need is a name, a email, a callsign and a password, and there is a small download if you only want to play a few of the games. As for the lag this is alot if you join the wrong game but all you have to do is look at the persons ping (click on the persons name and it telling you there ping #, and for me most peoples ping its 100 to 500 and i run at 28.8).
       
      Also there is at lease 10 people playing at all times (2:00am to 4:00am) and a max of almost 150 daily ,OUTLAWS_Players has 5 at 4:00pm PST on a week day, thats not even a full game!!! Theres nothing wronge with Kali outside of the 20 bucks to get anything good out of them and the fact the half the games they have there come shiped, out of the box with there own server (like I'76). Also on the zone most of the games tend to last till all the players leave ,anywhere from 10 min.to 3 hours, (3 hours was the longest game I've ever played of outlaws and it was damn good) and if you are hosting and are running at a fair speed people are always comming and going. Now I dont know your connection speed, your motherboard speed, or if you have a 3D card or not but im running a 200mhz with a 28.8 and no card and i do fine. So I think you should ask more people about a way to play a game before you tell everyone its crap, beside I have not bin going around telling people the OUTLAWS_Players has noone it it half the time and if the are there already in a game. Or that Kali is just out to make a buck by selling to a bunch of trigger happy, 400mhz, cable modem, 3D card, 200 bucks a mouth on online games, servers, and phone bill, Doom, Quake, Unreal, UO, junkys that could not tell you what the real meaning of RPG is if you glued D&D to there head, hacking, swearing, scum of the earth, cheap, rotton, lowlife, dirt eating, snake licking, inbread, overstuffed, blood sucking, dog kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, hartless, fat ass, buggeyed, worm headed sack of money shit they are, but i wouldnt know cause I never play there }:-). And since you never play the Zone dont put it down (I bet its cause you got your butt kicked}:-)).

      Well... other than th' lil' joke at th' end :P I thought he had some really interesting arguments, but I confess th' main thing weighin' on my conscience was that I hadn't played in th' Zone fer a long long time an' things could very well have changed fer th' better in th' meantime. Then there's also been some discussion of th' merits of Outlaws play methods as at OGB Headquarters, an' some people mailin' me jus' sayin' I should come by th' Zone an' say hi.

      So off I went. Still had trouble gettin' th' Zone workin' on my configuration (IE 3.02, Win 95). After that hassle was sorted out I hadda come up with a new username an' password 'cause my old one had been fergotten by my system when IE somehow went goofy. This was all th' same stuff I remembered from th' Zone of old.

      And really th' Zone interface has barely changed. Th' chat functions are still almost completely bare-bones, aside from th' addition of Zone Messages, lil' talk windows ya kin send ta people. 'Course ya kin do that in Kali an' IRC, somewhat more gracefully I should add.

      Th' Zone still has goin' fer it th' fact that there are lots of Outlaws there (34 at 11 PM PST) an' that nifty graphical interface where you kin host an' join games. That's nifty. I hate havin' ta run a browser ta get it, however.

      Anyhoo I no time I was in a team game with some friendly OGBs an' WAWs. As usual th' OGBs shot me up pretty good. It was at first a six-player game an' there was some lag. BUT I didn't hit that sort of not-so-smooth feeling I useta get in th' Zone, where there was a slight jerkiness to all movement. Mebbe it's jus' my new DSL connection, I dunno. I'd appreciate hearin' from longtime Zoners whether or not they've noticed an improvement in that aspect of late.

      Anyhow it was a fun game aside from th' lag an' one person crashing out. Also it was in Sanctuary, not that Sanc is a bad map but th' fact that th' Zone does not support file transfers between players means that many Zoners seem to stick with th' default LEC maps, which to me get sorta stale after a while.

      And then once th' game ended I was happy to see my old friend, Mr. Black Screen. So Outlaws still hangs on exiting from a Zone game fairly often. I used to hate that, an' I still do. Zone players seem quite used to it, I guess ya gotta admire 'em fer puttin' up with it so cheerfully. ;)

  • 11/17

    • Ugh... work... late... stupid... game... patches... whew!

    • Doominator who has been seen whuppin' mine an' other folk's booties lately, had this reply to some comments I posted from Lando242 th' other day:

      Thanks for his information about gun reloading but for what James used was a gun from Remington, called "1875 Remington style revolver" which use the reloading method I stated. Check out this page for "Guns of the old west"
       
      http://www.gibbsrifle.com/navyarms/goldwest.htm
       
      Anyway, what I meaned by bobbing is a cheating method that floating in the water, with half the body showing and shooting people. People outside the water cannot hit him at all due to some bugs. Hope this makes thing clear.

      Well I dunno much at all 'bout authentic old guns myself so I can't really comment on all this. Anybody have any more info?

    • Haven't had time ta look at it, though I did post a lil' preview pic that Dusty sent me a few days ago of his new map, now out, called Caved In... look through th' last few posts, or jus' download th' friggin' map fer yerself! ;) I'll take a look-see soon...

    • Martone an' th' boys at Outlaws Gang Busters have been kickin' somethin' up in their fine news section, th' "OGB Gazette." Right now there's an in-depth discussion on th' various merits of playin' Outlaws through IRC, Kali or th' Zone, an' a couple new levels ta download. I won't snatch 'em here yet 'cause ya really outta go over there an' check things out.

    • DrDeath2 has a cool pine tree in his new map Mountain Cabin. It kinda looked Outlaws-style but I didn't remember seein' it in other maps before, so I asked him about it, here's what he said:

      the tree is from the LEC. The Reason most people never see it . is because in Law Maker it's not on of the choices of ITM for some wierd reason. I found it by opening the two feather Cliff map (8 level in main game) found the file name and placed it in.

      Well that's a freakin' bit of genius right there, it's a great tree. :) Actually I had a screenshot of it a few days back, go check it out.

  • 11/16

    • Had a GREAT time playin' yesterday, thanks ta everyone who came but ta put some lead in my butt! :) Played fer 'bout five hours through some great maps with some great folks, what a blast. Man I gotta do that more often!

      I wanna thank ay-suc especially fer showin' me jus' how much tush Sanchez kin kick when used properly. I mean before I say ay-suc come in an' pretty much dominate everyone with Spittin' Jack I'd always kind'a figgered Jack wasn't that deadly in yer average gunfight. Sure I use him 'cause he's fast an' starts with TNT but MAN if ya use him right he kin also jus' flat out destroy people with that pistol. Woo! Wanna also thank Sling fer a tip of his on pistol use... really helped me out once I put it together with ay-suc's aggressive play. :) I ain't gonna spoil it by tellin' yet, jus' go check out Sling's articles on strategy an' mebbe you'll come across it buried in all his other nuggets of wisdom.

      Short on time today so I'll hafta sign off now...

  • 11/15

    • Gonna be hostin' games outta Kali fer most of th' evening; I'm rusty as all hell an' I got a big list of cool new (well okay some aren't so new anymore) maps I wanna try out, so if yer lookin' fer someone ta whup, come on down an' whup on me. Oh an' if ya don't wanna use Kali, jus' check fer a game on th' IP address that's on th' left side of th' screen a lil' ways down th' page.

  • 11/14

    • Man it's kinda weird -- Outlaws has been out fer such a long time but NEW sites keep poppin' up all th' time; here are a few more:

      GA_Reaper's Outlaws Crypt
      Reaper put a lot of effort into makin' a personal yet informative Outlaws site. Yeah he's got links, levels an' stuff like most sites but it's all viewed through his own take on things; in other words he's actually taken time to evaluate the things he posts. :) Plus he's got some of his own taunt packs ya won't find nowhere else. Nice ta see a site with thought put into it like this one.
      Lawrence's OutLaws page
      Still going through some growing pains but shows signs of promise. Stays up to date with news and the latest levels. Now if he could only work on his spelling...
      Wild Wolves Clan
      Extremely attractive and very brief -- basically a few levels and list of the Clan members. Still worth at least one look for the amazing wolf graphics.

    • DrDeath2 has finished up his latest map, Mountain Cabin. This is a very nicely done mountainous/rocky area with a few dilapidated wooden houses, a broken bridge and some interesting paths twisting through rocky canyons. He's also got a very nice evergreen tree graphic (check it out in this screenshot) that I don't remember seeing anywhere before. Also, any map inspired by the cult classic "Evil Dead 2" must have SOMETHING going for it.... like a good quantity of "boomsticks."

    • Vader sent me th' URL for this article about that CIH virus I touched upon briefly in th' last post. I heartily suggest you go educate yourself about this bugger, which is th' first virus to actually threaten yer computer's hardware: it corrupts yer motherboard's BIOS. When this happens, ta quote th' abovementioned page, "a motherboard replacement is effectively necessary." OUCH. Check out th' article, an' I'm sure that then you'll be wantin' ta snag that lil' antivirus program I also mentioned in th' last post -- especially since McAfee's VirusScan CAN'T clean files infected with this virus. Believe me, I have firsthand experience with this... it's not pretty.

    • Lando242 had some things ta say about th' prospect of an Outlaws sequel that, though kinda hard ta make out at first, are kinda interestin'. First he had some comments on sequel ideas that other folks have sent in fer my sequel page:

      "Old west pistols didn't reload like that! They should be reloaded by opening a hatch, then use the ejecting rod to push out the empty shell, then replace the bullet."
       
      Next not all the pistols back then relaoded that way,(only the old crapy ones did }:-) sed paper cartirges (btw sorry for any spelling errors) which were hard to load in battle so you could buy a bunch of cilenders load them before battle and when in battle when you ran out of bullets you could replace the whole cilender in one fast move and keep shooting fairly quickly. Then later on (around the time of the game) they had systems were you could snap the bullet cilender and barrol down so all six, or five, bullet slots were open then reload you gun keep firing (it was used mainly by the US Cav. because it was hard to relaod most guns when riding a horse).
       
      Next "NO MORE BOBBING ALLOWED PLEASE!" bobbing should be allowed but you should be able to see at least half the person doing the bobbing. "Get the saw-off outta the game! Give me a bow and arrow instead." He can have the bow but the sawed off should stay, the shot gun was the gun that won the west(not the six shooter anyone knows that) and many of them were sawed offs (ever seen a western bar brawl? as soon as the bartender whiped out the shot gun everyone cleared out, and thats how it was realy like).
       
      Like it was stated in other posted you should be able to leave out weapons, ammo, cheats, characters and iteams when in multi player but not out of the game.
       
      "Th' story: Dr. Death didn't die from his fall an' returned ta wreak vengeance on Anderson fer cripplin' 'im." There has already bin an unofficle return of Dr. Death in "Return of the Medicine" and I think it should just be left alone at that level.

      Then of course he has some new ideas of his own... but you'll hafta go check out th' sequel page ta see 'em. ;)

    • Gas dished up ANOTHER new map: Meadow. Like many of Gas's maps this one has a unique, rather offbeat design -- a couple buildings around a depressed, circular meadow with cows in it. The ground actually slopes down in th' center; check out this shot. Very interesting... an' thank goodness someone has made a sunny map fer a change!

    • I figgered out a way ta make sure I'd be able ta connect with my DSL in th' evening -- leave my computer on all day! HEheh...

  • 11/12

    • Dogginit this WAS gonna be yesterday's update, but after finally gettin' connected late in th' evening (USWest actin' up again) I couldn't upload to th' site fer some unfathomable reason. ;p What th' heck good does a fast connect do me if it won't work? Arrrrrr.... So I guess this means we just get an early update today. ;)

    • Sling tipped me off ta th' fact that that guy I posted a quote from yesterday, "Pierre Arsenault," is in fact none other than top Outlaw Vader himself. Boy do I feel ignorant... hmm that's pretty much my usual state these days.

    • Dusty, catchin' on ta clever ways ta hype one's maps, sent me a lil' screenshot from a level he's workin' on. Here's the shot and his commentary:

      heres a tantalizing lil screenshot of a level I'll be releasing within the next couple of days. Right now it has an elevator, collapsing ceiling, and (as you can see from this shot) a section of floor that blows away to reveal a larger cavern.

      Man, that is one cool lookin'... hole. ;) Boy I can't even tell if I meant that sarcastically or not... that IS a cool hole!

    • Okay okay I got a few more mails about th' whole hardware issue... I kind'a feel like we're goin' around in circles. Some people feel it makes a difference, some don't. I think I'm gonna hafta close this out fer now by statin' my own feeling on th' matter.

      Does hardware help yer game? Yeah, of course it does. Faster, smoother play will always help. Besides which, not laggin' so much will make playin' online a heckkuva lot more enjoyable. Does it make you a better player? A little bit, but not all that much. Skill makes most of th' difference. Hardware, particularly connect speed, makes more of a difference th' more people you have in a game. Great hardware will not make you a great player all by itself. If that were th' case, I'd be a great player. 'Nuff said! ;)

    • At work today we found out that one of our own internally distributed demos had a nasty lil' "CIH.SPACEFILLER" virus in it. This meant that nearly everyone had th' virus on their machine. Some folks had McAfee's popular virus scanning software which was how we detected th' virus in th' first place, but McAfee's was completely unable to remove th' bug -- it told me I would have to reinstall windows. :P Then a fellow tester saved th' day with a lil' DOS virus cleaner called "F-Prot." This baby wiped th' virus out lickety-split, even cleaned th' McAfee VirusScan files which had become infected! Th' latest version kin always be found fer free download at Frisk Software International's site.

      Since it's an unfortunate fact of net-life that viruses are out there, an' since a large part of online Outlaws involves downloadin' th' latest files, I'm stickin' this link up on my Other Utilities page fer ya ta use. I heartily recommend goin' ta their site, grabbin' F-Prot an' havin' it look through yer files fer nasty bugs that may have taken roost. If you find anything, reboot in DOS (because under Windows some system files can't be cleaned) and run F-Prot again, this time on Auto-clean. :)

    • Let's see I promised lil' looks at those maps I posted yesterday so here goes real quick ('cause it's gettin' late darn it, that's what I get fer goin' grocery shoppin'):

      Bearcave -- by Kodia: a simple lil' one-on-one level with one HUGE bear! He even growls at you. COOOOL! Well okay honestly he really scares me...

      Crazy -- by ??: narrow cave twisty thing with a hole you float in. Umm. Not really worth takin' a screenshot of. Shows up in yer level list as "pysco". :P

      Gringo Pass -- by Runaway Jim: WOW! A great outdoor area with caves, a train track, water tower, and a little shack, check th' shot. Looks like a real winner. :)

      Old West -- by Gas: bright, sunny map with very attractive texturing and solid layout. Here's th' shot. Should be a very good all around deathmatch level.

      Sunville 3 -- by Turok: somewhat odd layout but no real problems. Nice overall use of textures, neat waterfall. Interesting that his boxes have normal wood tops rather than box tops. A bit quirky but by no means bad. Here's a shot.

  • 11/10

    • Man I was going to have time to finally play some multiplayer yesterday evening and what happens, my USWest DSL fails to get a connection for the second night in a row. D-arrr!

      Well I finally got through th' mountains of pent-up e-mail that have been building in my inbox. ;) Boy that took a while! So I guess today's update is going to be stuff from other people (nice and easy for me hehe). In roughly chronological order...

    • StanJr sent me a sneak peak screenshot of a map he's workin' on with Kodia. Prob'ly won't be out fer a while but hey, th' more time people take with their maps th' better. Stan says he was inspired by Frenchy's nifty Olympic ice-rink map Nagano.

    • Got a good long post from th' Outlaw known ta me as only Pierre Arsenault a while back that deals with hardware an' Outlaws. Seems ta pretty much sum up th' consensus I've found among th' top players I've talked to about this, he says things pretty well so let's put th' debate ta bed with this:

      Hardware doesn't win you matchs, however hardware does make the game run smoother, giving you a more enjoyable feel to the game. If you can move better, your going to play better. Just like when the 3DFX cards came out, it didn't really make anyone a better player, it just made it feel better, the game wasn't as choppy, easier to aim, you could also see your opponents better at far off ranges.
       
      Now back to the heavy hitting hardware, I feel the same about this! You may feel like your motoring around the maps like your on steriods, and others may think the same, and will blame it on hardware too (Comments like if I had your hardware or connection, I would be just as good). Well I've noticed one thing about hardware that most don't seem to touch on or realize! When someone tells me that I move way to fast and blame it on hardware that I use to play the game, you should sit in my shoes - have you ever thought about what I see on the screen (meaning don't you think your flying around on my screen too). Also weapons seem to be more powerfull, atleast that's what some people think, well yes it is easier to kill people with the heavy hitting hardware and a good connection, but their is a draw back you die just as easy too. Just because I can shoot down a Mary with three rifle shots, doesn't mean I don't die from her shot gun blast! You still have to have skill in playing the game in order for your wicked game machine to server you well! If you think your hardware going to win you matches or it makes you a super OL players like the elite players out there your very misguided.
       
      Now onto connection: This is the key to any multiplayer game, it doesn't matter where you play or how you play the game, connection makes a big difference, but again doesn't win games. Lots of IRC/Kali players will say the Zone is laggy, well at time yes it can be, but I know IRC/Kali can be just as laggy, it all depends on who joins the game or how well the server can handle the connection. We all live from different parts of the world an can't expect every game to be lag free. I personal have noticed connection problems with myself in the past, (ie rubber bullet syndrome), I have also had the opportunity to play on connections greater than T1, and have noticed a difference in game play. But once again it's a two way street - Just because my shots seem to cause more damage and you die more quickly, doesn't mean that I don't take the same amounts of damage. Now this is where the elite shine through, because they have better accuracy and tend to move better than the average OL player making it seem like the can't be killed. Alot of good players can predict where your going to respawn or where your going to peek you head out and will drop you before you have a chance. Now onto some other notes, first off I have noticed that certain 56K connections are extremely poor for game play, 45,333 has to be the worst this is where I see rubber bullet syndrome the most. The best connection for 56K modems seems to 48K, I played most of my best games with this connection, guess it because I wasn't shootin blanks but using the real thing. Now I connect to a 33,6 modem and usually connect at 31,200 and guess what I still play as good as I use too Some cable modems that recieve faster than they send will also cause a certain amount of lag ( unable to back this up - strictly on what others have told me) but I can see this happening because of the Asymetrical properties. So in conclusion alot of factors play into making a fair game of OL.

      Amen brother!

    • Frost, at least I THINK it was him, sent me a screenshot of a beta map he's workin' on with th' help of Sticky and Strobe called "Crooks". Ooo, beta...

    • Warp-8 let me know that th' "Crossbow" map I put up in my last update was by no means a finished product... in fact he kind of wondered how it got out. Well, guess there's a leak in their operation somewhere ;). Oh yeah his brother Raf thought I should be clear that while Warp is a member, th' fine Outlaws Editing Team is HIS organization, in case my last post was a tad unclear. Dang it, clarity is tough sometimes when yer rushed!

    • Kodia sent me his new map Bearcave and Gas dropped by with YET another new one :), Old West. I also snagged a few others from Sling: Crazy, Gringo and Sunville 3. Download 'em now, hopefully I'll get a look at 'em tomorrow.

    • Mental let me know that in addition ta him bein' back in town after a brief hiatus, his "Saint" posse has added two new angelic members, Sicky and Baby. Anyhow ya kin get all caught up with them St's over on their fine site.

    • Ach there are a couple other things but that's gonna do me fer tonight. Oy this catchin' up business is hard work! ;)

  • 11/7

    • Whew it's time to start catchin' up on all th' stuff I got backlogged on. Let's see... well th' mos' obvious thing is new levels so let' start there an' see how far I get. By th' way th' OTHER big thing I'm backlogged on is e-mail, so if ya haven't gotten a reply from me fer some time don't take it personal, I figgered I hadda be fair an' not reply to anybody since I didn't have time while workin' 16 hour days. :P I'll catch up soon, but first lemme try ta get back ta speed on these maps:

      Bridges by Gas: Th' baddest Outlaw in Israel comes right back from his CTF "Longwar" map with another CTF... err... waitasec there's no CTF option on this one, which seems kinda odd since it's built in th' basic "two forts separated by multiple paths" CTF mold. In this case there are somethin' like 8 path's in between, including yes some bridges over deadly deadly lava. Well I ain't gonna cry 'cause I don't play CTF too much anyhow (too much darn strategy hehe) it jus' seems odd. Still a fun lookin' map, pretty open fer rifles jus' watch yer step over th' lava! Oh yeah check th' screenshot.

      Crossbow by Warp-8: This map jus' goes ta show a level can be important an' innovative without bein' good. Crossbow is a single-player Historical Mission, probably th' smallest one I've ever seen. Heck in multiplayer this'd barely be a 1 on 1 map! An' at th' end there's a fella who kills you in one shot, even on easy. How nice. Anyhow th' main thing 'bout this map is th' new weapon -- the "crossbow" not only acts differently than the standard weapons, it also LOOKS different, which is a first for Outlaws. Check it out in this screenshot. Looks kinda like a shotgun with a stick on th' end, an' acts like one too. Still this is an exciting breakthrough, hopefully we'll be seeing more interesting uses of this innovation in the future, perhaps from other members of Warp-8's Outlaws Editing Team.

      Hike by umm I fergit: Now this is an odd duck. Basically it's a bunch of small canyons with bunkers cut in the sides connected by low twisty tunnels with barrels all over the place. Here's a typical view. Last time I went on I hike it sure wasn't like this, thank goodness!

      Hold Up 2 by Dusty: Well he swears he made a couple small tweaks but ehh looks th' same to my fergetful eye. "Hold Up" was a darn fine map, this is th' same with th' addition of Tag an' CTF modes. You know you like it so get it already!

      Killer by umm shoot ? : Take the ugliest Duke Nukem map you've ever seen and then add a lot of headache-inducing parallel lines along th' floor and ceiling, might look somethin' like this. Argh!

      Papoose by ForkTongue: A cut-down version of his fantastic "Apache" with some help from OGB veteran Hoss, Papoose for me has some really good things but also some... well... Okay I like how it's a lil' smaller an' tidier than Apache, an' th' new exterior look fer th' cliff-dwellings is real smooth, but I miss th' secret areas an' drumbeat when ya walked over th' central room, and is it jus' me or are the interiors hard on the eyes? I mean I'm kinda tired but ouch! Anyhow I'll prob'ly hafta play a game or two on this map when my eyes are rested up to get a real feel fer it. Forky told me he made this one primarily fer slower systems that had some trouble with Apache, but he didn't like th' constraints an' figgers he'll jus' go ahead with what he wants ta do an' assume people have at least a voodoo1 in th' future; judging from Papoose I'd say that's definitely the right move.

      Skull Rock by ShotgunMc: A very interesting and in many ways stunning map. Shotgun's got teepees an' a huge skull in here whose eyeballs you can actually jump into! Th' worms crawl in, the worms crawl out... I'm gonna hafta try this one out. Creepy atmosphere too!

      Sun Ka Creek by GoJo: Th' top DOG continues th' outdoor brilliance he began in "Coonhound Holler" with his latest map ("Sun Ka" is Lakhota Sioux for "dog" which is also GoJo's posse). He's also got a teepee which is better looking than ShotgunMc's, though you can't go in it. But th' coolest part is th' water and trees which look like nothin' you've ever seen in Outlaws before. That stream may look like rocks in th' screenshot, but load up th' map an' watch it distort as if looking through a stream's current an' you'll be amazed at what GoJo's done with th' old Dark Forces engine. An' th' trees are an actual solid grove that really feel like yer underneath heavy foliage. I guess th' real thing I like about this map, taken all together, is that like "Coonhound Holler" it really makes you feel like yer outside in th' country somewhere. Great stuff.

      Trading Post 3 by Cutter: Well he continues ta twiddle with his map which is a sure sign of a dedicated artist. I still haven't even had th' chance ta play th' original version, an' I'll hafta correct that as soon as possible!

    • Ya know I kinda have an issue with th' above maps: except fer "Bridges", "Killer" (ick ;p) an' mebbe "Sun Ka Creek" they're all kinda darkish. I mean damn it's hard ta see what's goin' on! At first I thought it was th' gamma on th' Banshee but then I loaded up "Sanctuary" an' found it as bright an' sunny as ever. Let's get some daylight on these maps, people! =D

  • 11/6

    • I'm back in th' saddle! Workin' on gettin' a write-up on th' Banshee in Outlaws. Th' good news is that after fiddlin' with drivers it works perfectly... hope ta get th' full report out tonight, stay tuned.

    • Okay it's done! Th' followin' was added to th' Outlaws Video Comparison page (I also added a new utilities page to th' file section, you'll find that link below):


    Voodoo2 and Banshee

    The "Glide" numbers above were as stated seen on an overclocked 3dfx "Voodoo" graphics card. 3dfx has since come out with faster cards: the "Voodoo 2", another 3D-only card with faster performance and either 8 or 12 MB of video RAM, and the "Banshee", a 2D/3D combo card with 16 MB of RAM whose 3D component consists of a Voodoo 2 without the second texturing unit (unused in Outlaws anyway) and with a higher clock speed (100 mHz vs 90 mHz on the V2).

    If a Voodoo card runs Outlaws quickly, Voodoo 2 and Banshee run it, err, extremely quickly with essentially identical image quality. Below is a comparative chart of performance on the system listed above, except for the Banshee tests a Quantum 3D Raven AGP Banshee card in lieu of the Flash/Riva combo. The Banshee was NOT overclocked since all the benchmarks I have seen have shown relatively little increase in performance in exchange for the risk to the card. Besides, the Banshee runs Outlaws quite decently at the default clock speed...

    3dfx Voodoo vs 3dfx Banshee
    Color Key: Voodoo Banshee
    fps:
     
    512
    x
    384
    A
    B
    C
     
    640
    x
    480
    A
    B
    C

    NOTE: Some people have reported that Outlaws' Video Configuration program won't allow them to switch to th' Voodoo 2 drivers. Accordin' ta The Continuing Tom, ya kin get around this by first switchin' from yer DirectDraw drivers to th' MGL drivers (see th' MGL page fer how ta install th' MGL drivers) an' then from th' MGL drivers to th' Voodoo drivers.

    I had a few glitches with the Banshee at first that turned out to have been driver related: the kill list text was blacked out in multiplayer, knives and sticks of TNT laying on the ground were pitch black and the screen tint when I took damage was black rather than red. Installing the 3dfx Banshee reference drivers over the Quantum 3D Raven drivers solved this problem.

    For more Banshee info I recommend Bill's Workshop. Entech's shareware "Powerstrip" utility also comes in VERY handy for setting screen refresh and memory and core clock rates on the Banshee -- see the Video and Mouse Utilities page to snag the program.


    • So yeah, I'm likin' this Banshee. Hadda fiddle 'round with drivers fer a while -- currently I got both Quantum 3D and 3dfx's drivers installed, 'cause 3dfx's solved th' black glitches in Outlaws but don't have a setting to disable "Sync to Vertical Refresh" which prevents yer framerates from goin' above yer screen rate. Now I DO have my screenrate set at 120 mHz thanks to Powerstrip but HEY, I want more! ;)

  • 11/3

    • I'm still alive! Been doing crazy overtime trying to get the game I'm testing out of the door. To top that off it turns out USWest had overextended itself with this new DSL service; I was only able to connect twice in the last 4 days. Kinda like when airlines overbook a flight, I HATE that!

      Anyhow I prob'ly won't have a decent update fer another couple of days at th' earliest. :( I have had a lil' time ta get th' Banshee runnin' and it works great with Outlaws with one hitch I've noticed so far: in Deathmatch yer name and kills are blacked out, and dynamite and knives lying around are pitch black. Rather odd, but I think it's a driver issue 'cause I had this same trouble before when testing on th' reference card but was able (I thought) to fix it by messin' with different drivers.

      It runs pretty darn fast in 640x480 Outlaws with good image quality, though on my p2 233 (the slowest p2 around, thank you very much!) it doesn't seem THAT much faster than my voodoo1 card was especially in low-framerate maps. That's jus' my initial impression, my first priority when I have time is going to be gettin' some real Outlaws numbers posted. Still it is nice and the 2D is extremely quick. Happily also that texture glitch problem I was having on my old Voodoo1 ever since installing 100 mHz RAM has disapppeared. :_)

      There are some very cool levels comin' out! While I don't have time ta keep up with 'em fer now, I wanna encourage people ta go check out Sling's #Outlaws_Players site where he's doin' a great job keepin' up ta date with stuff, unlike me! Don't fret though 'cause I shall be back someday soon. ;)

  • 10/29

    • Well gang here's th' scoop. Th' game I'm workin' on is s'posed ta go out like late today or mebbe tomorrow afternoon. What this means is I will be doin' MAJOR overtime, so prob'ly won't have an update fer ya before Saturday, or Friday evening at th' earliest. Lots of people have written in concernin' certain controversies that have come up, and my BANSHEE is sitting here staring out of its box at me, so I do have a helluva lotta stuff ta post when I finally get to it. :)

  • 10/27

    • Well that lil' PS/2 mouse sampling rate utility that Sling kicked up yesterday REALLY hit it big on th' net today, I mean this thing is ALL over ev'ry gaming site worth it's mustard, an' fer good reason: it's great! Gives ya silky smooth motion even at high framerates, feels very very nice. Over at VoodooExtreme they've got a quote from some Ion Storm guys' .plan file with a few tips on usin' it, in case yer puzzled. If ya got a PS/2 mouse an' ya play Outlaws, ya gotta get this free program!

    • Speakin' of Sling, he also wrote me weighin' in with his two cents on th' issue of elite gamers an' hardware. Seein' as how he's one'a th' top Outlaws who's ever whupped me I appreciate his take on th' topic, an' I see that ta save me th' trouble he's already copied his letter onta his News page, so pop over there an' give it a lil' read --- okay I'll cut ta th' chase, basically he says gettin' new hardware didn't help him become a better player...

    • Speakin' of elite players, I met Thresh today. Fer those who don't know, Thresh, who's real name is Dennis Fung, is th' most well known Quake player in th' world. Woo-hoo. He even got so well known as a player that PC Gamer made him a columnist in their magazine so now he gets ta go around ta game companies an' get treated like royalty. While he was in town today visiting Valve he also dropped by my lil' company ta check out th' game I'm testin' with them.

      Well UNFORTUNATELY th' multiplayer on th' game was kinda broken today... what happened was that Thresh joined in a game... and just kept dying (or gibbing as Quake-types call it) every time he tried to respawn. It was actually pretty darn funny an' he really took it pretty well. All in all he seemed like an okay guy an' jus' watchin' him dance around th' keyboard I'm pretty sure he would'a put a lickin' on me if multiplayer had worked out. He's jus' spent so much time perfecting his skills, an' ya kin see it in th' intent manner he has when he sits down, and th' way his fingers jus' kinda hover over th' keys, striking down in precise little strokes. He is, after all, a professional game player.

      In fact th' computer they sat him at turned out ta be actin' up an' I went ahead an' let him use mine. Th' mos' innerestin' thing fer me was that he uses a keyboard layout pretty much like th' Outlaws default, with W=forward, S=back, A and D ta strafe and th' mouse buttons to shoot. He differs from me in that he uses his thumb fer jump (spacebar) and duck (left-alt) -- I don't use my thumb no more 'cause it got ta hurtin' me once from too much Outlaws play, darn my small fingers! ;) It surprised me but he set his mouse sensitivity a bit lower than I had mine.

      Anyhow he seemed like decent fella, mebbe takes himself a lil' seriously but hey he is pretty good at what he does. 'Course he's prob'ly never played Outlaws but hey, nobody's perfect.

    • Seems there still some controversy in Kali 'bout playin' with Mary -- many people feel she's too powerful an' don't like it when Mary's join their games. Well hmm... First of all I'd say that ya should be able to play AGAINST all th' characters (see Sling's note fer his input on that too). Mary is indeed extremely tough but she does have her weak points -- lack of a rifle, slower movement, that quacking sound... I think people who use her ALL th' time are kinda cheap, but she is an Outlaws character an' adds ta th' game. Personally I kinda hate playin' against Dr. Death more. People'd do better ta stop winin' an' learn ta become better players. Those who only play Mary ARE limiting themselves an' will never be THE best they kin be. Take playin' against a Mary as a challenge and use th' opportunity ta improve yer skills.

      It was Kodia who brought this ta my attention. A long time Kali player, he had this ta say:

      this is getting old i love to play this game but not when thay cry if i use mary and tell me to grab my dress and play this is like the zones no gat rule well i just wonted to say this some times we forget that there is some one on the outer side of the screen but thay are so lets be nice!!!!

      I agree. I haven't been in Kali (or anywhere) too much of late but I did see some of this anti-Mary sentiment, an' I think it's misplaced. There WAS a time when almost everyone was usin' Mary but mos' people these days have, I think, gotten tired of usin' her all th' time. Still those who want ta use her damn well have th' right ta do so; let's not start discriminatin' against th' fair sex, okay?

    • Speakin' of controversial players, th' always-edgy StanJr (an' I mean that in a good way) tossed me a new map by Ghostbear called Arena. This is by my count Ghostbear's second map an' it's a big improvement over his first, with a use of different altitudes and a much more detailed layout. It's still kinda rough in spots layout wise, mebbe doesn't look incredibly exciting (here's a shot) an' prob'ly has too many items an' not enough space but hey ya could get a pretty intense small deathmatch in there.

  • 10/26

    • Sling came up with a lil' utility on his #Outlaws_Players site that lets ya set th' sampling rate on yer PS/2 port mouse. Why does this matter? Well apparently Windows defaults to 40hz sampling for th' mouse, which it seems means that if yer gettin' over some 40fps in Outlaws yer mouse is still gonna be runnin' jus' at 40, or somethin'... anyhow alls I know is that I used it ta set th' sample rate ta 200hz and it did indeed seem ta make Outlaws mouse control a WHOLE lot smoother, though it also slowed it down; I think that's 'cause it wasn't skippin' frames like it was at th' 40hz, but of course ya kin bump mouse movement speed up in th' Outlaws mouse options. I won't know 'til I getta play an actual game with this thing but my initial impression was that this is somethin' ya jus' gotta have, an' at ~13k well worth yer downloadin' time! Hopefully Sling'll actually add it to his Utilities page so I don't gotta go an' put up an actual file link to it (*hint hint nudge nudge*).

    • DrDeath2 wanted people ta know that since his 4 barrel shotgun, which he jus' showed a screenshot of a few days back, turned out ta raise some serious objections from people he's scrapped it from his upcoming map.... I dunno, might'a been fun. There ARE ways ta balance out powerful weapons ya know. ;P Anyhow it's been scratched so don't send him no more flame mail ya weenies!

    • About th' bit I wrote on hardware in Outlaws yesterday... well talkin' it over a bit with Martone it occurred ta me that I come from th' view of a guy who doesn't play too intensely an' doesn't try ta compete in hardcore elite tournament stuff. So fer me hardware doesn't make that much of a diff 'cause th' people I play with tend ta have vastly different skill levels (usually better hehe) than me. BUT if ya are real competitive I admit that top of th' line hardware could give ya that lil' boost ya need ta beat th' competition... anyhow I'm glad most Outlaws I've met tend ta play fer th' fun of it -- 'specially since I WAS a better player back when I had my p120 ;) an' now I got no excuse fer gettin' whupped all th' time except that it doesn't bother me. =P

  • 10/25

    • Whew this workin' all weekend can get a lil' tirin', I'm beat! An' man we got a lotta news an' stuff too...

    • If ya liked th' sharp graphics editin' over at th' new Wild Deadly Cowboys site ya should know that it was done by Outlaws image-processing extraordinaire Fallsdown, who of course has his own posse site with tons more cool graphics: The Wit and Wisdom gang site. Oh yeah an' th' WDC have added some photos of real-life Outlaws players ta their site, always a hoot ta see what these varmits look like, I think there's even one that might be me in there...

    • Martone has decided ta include editorial opinion articles in the "Gazette" news page of his long-running Outlaws Gang Busters. Ta break in th' new wrinkle he an' fellow longtime OGB'er Hoss weigh in with some very insightful thougths on the use of modified weapons and on playing against gamers with extraordinary hardware.

      Well I talked a bit about modified weapons yesterday, but this hardware issue is one I haven't said a whole lot about recently. One of the things I really like about Outlaws is that you kin play it with a very "low" end system and still get a lot of enjoyment from it -- I had a blast back on my p120 with no voodoo card and a 28.8 modem.

      But was I a great player? Well probably not. Actually I was probably better than than I am now 'cause I played more an' updated th' site less ;) but th' gear I got now (DSL modem, PII processor, soon to have Banshee card) definitely helps, no question. I get this stuff 'cause I kin afford it an' 'cause it makes Outlaws even more enjoyable.

      Does it make me a better player? Well, to a point. Basically if ya kin average over 30 fps and not lag too badly ya won't be much behind me in real gaming terms. Since Outlaws is peer-to-peer it really isn't affected nearly as much as client-server games like Quake by the difference in bandwidth connections between players. Obviously if yer connect is so bad yer losin' bullet packets yer gonna have a tough time, but in most cases ya won't be able ta walk all over someone jus' 'cause ya got a faster connect, especially in two or three person games. And when ya get right down to it th' elite find out who's best in one-on-one matches, so lag isn't a factor since it'll be th' same for both -- they hafta share all data, after all.

      So yes hardware does help up to a point... but really there's no use in bein' jealous or whatever about somebody's system jus' 'cause ya got beat. If somebody has a sweet system well that's their good fortune, or good money. Anyhow I'm jus' ramblin' now, on ta th' next bit o' news!

    • Kingfu told be somethin' 'bout a movie I'm gonna hafta track down: "Il Mio Nome e Nessuno" or "My Name is Nobody", a 1973 parody of Sergio Leone's "Man With No Name" Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns made by another Italian director. Interestingly enough it stars Henry Fonda who also starred in Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West" but appears here in a comedic role. Anyhow here's th' third-party review Kingfu sent:

      "My Name Is Nobody" is, in my opinion, the best movie anybody ever made. It is funny, thought-provoking, and just plain special. great acting by everybody. This movie is the reason Terence Hill is my very favorite (number one) actor to this very day, although I first saw this movie some ten years ago (for the first time, that is).Great, unforgettable, The Best.
       
      Henry Fonda is great in this film. No words are even needed because in most scenes his eyes tell the story. The scene towards the end on the train with Nobody (amusingly played by Terence Hill with his own baby-blue eyes) tells it all when Fonda is staring at Nobody, and he slowly breaks into a slight smile. Listening to the music clues you in early on that this is a lighthearted episode that will let you follow the aging gunman and his great admirer to its wonderful and appropriate end.
       
      This is the best western "nobody" has ever heard of. This is the movie that started the Trinity movies. Henry Fonda is great and Terance Hill was never better.This movie rates right behind the Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns. If you love the westens of the 70's then, this is a must see. The only problem I have had is that most vedio stores don't carry this movie (at least not in Northern Va.).
       
      Ok, man, need to say more ? Just go and get it. The english title is "My name is nobody".

      Sounds pretty darn cool, but I dunno if my local Schlockbuster'll have it in stock...

    • Templar sent in th' results of this Saturday's Kali 2 on 2 Blind Tourney an' surprise surprise he won again! ;) Well I ain't too shocked folks, Templar is damn good. This time he was partnered with Kodia, they defeated Capt_Ron and Blood 30-23 in th' final round.

      Templar's also set up a lil' brackets page fer th' tourneys:

      Blind 2 on 2 Outlaws Tourney
      Shows th' brackets from th' latest 2 on 2 tourney in Kali. Th' brainchild of Templar, these are held every Saturday in th' Kali Outlaws channel, 9 pm EST. Yer partnered up with a random Outlaw an' turned loose ta wreak havok -- a great way to meet folks an' have fun on a Sunday evening! Site itself is pretty plain but very informative.

      Hopefully Temp'll put a link up soon, but fer now ya kin get th' th' Rules page here.

    • Speakin' of th' Tourney, StanJr took part an' it seems he had a grand old time indeed! He was jus' bubblin' over with stories of his excitin' battles yesterday, here's th' good stuff:

      Well temps tourney isnt rigged but it looks that way hehe with him and kodia as pards and the way the teams were drawn out and the teams that i had to play looks like another first round knock out but boy was i surprised i thought i had a newbie pard wasnt the case he was fairly new but could carry a shotgun pretty well. Anyways the team me and waffle had to play was {TT}KillerCraig and Skeeter{HSS} well didnt look like we were gonna get past the first round but we did with us needing 2 kills and them only needing one we popped off some type of damn miracle cause i shot killer in the back as usual hehe and got our 29th kill then seen skeeter and waffle going at so i popped skeeter in the side a few times and as he died waffle also died so i was wondering who the hell got the kill well the game ended and of course the ending score took some time to come up and it showed me and waffle as the winner well i was pretty well shocked as we all figured out it was like a 1 milisec of a shot from me that got us the win or well the transfer seems i had a faster connect to craig then skeeter did and waffle did so me and waffle got the win. We didnt make it past temp and kodia but we are the first to ever and i repeat EVER knock killercraig out of a tourney since he has only been in 4 and won 4 it was a hell of a victory and we only lost to temp and kodia by 2 kills then they played GS_Capt_Ron and BLood{BMG} and won the damn thing by 7 i thought we had the thing but just shows that not everything can be the way it seems as temp figured craig and skeeter winning it all and me and waffle losing to them but it wasnt that way thank god but it was a great tourney with some good outcomes. That is the best news u should have on the site hehe.

      Wow must'a been somethin' ta see Killer get taken out -- never seen that myself as far as I kin recall! I mus' say th' 2 on 2 Blind format is a very good idea as it kinda takes th' pressure off'a playin' ta win with someone ya practice a lot with an' jus' get's down ta partnerin' with people ya normally don't an' havin' a good time. Sounds like a blast -- if I weren't workin' th' weekends lately I'd be droppin' by ta get worked over!

    • My aforementioned Banshee video card has not been seen since ridin' hard outta Memphis three days ago... seems ta have given th' boys at th' UPS Tracking service th' slip. NOT very encouraging -- that darn varmit could be anywhere by now!

  • 10/24

    • Gas sent me a copy of his latest map, The Long War. Th' title ain't jus' fer show, neither: this is one long map! It's designed fer CTF around th' usual two fort theme, although there's a lil' twist this time in that one for has a sort of Indian look to it.

      Now I kin count th' number of times I've actually played a real CTF game on my fingers -- mostly it's tough ta get a good CTF game goin' 'cause ya need a good number of people an' of course that gets more an' more likely ta lag. So I dunno all that much about CTF really, but from th' looks of it this should make a pretty good CTF map as there are multiple ways to get between forts, a good no-man's land in between and good defensive positions in both bases. Here's a shot of the "cowboy" base.

      On th' other hand I wasn't too blown away by th' actual modelling of th' map, though I suppose th' simple rendering lends itself to higher framerates. Anyhoo I'll hafta wait an' see in an actual game on th' map, which at th' rate I'm goin' now will be sometime next year. ;) That was a joke... I hope.

    • King_Fu of th' GOOM posse (aka "Gang of Old Men", just found their website yesterday) sent me a big ol' snazzy GOOM logo / Outlaws piece of art graphic. Pretty darn cool, in fact let's make this one The POOS Shot of the Day! Been a while since I had nice eye candy 'round here... speakin' of which th' GOOM site also has a nice shiny logo, why dont'cha head over there an' gawk at it? Heck, they've even got a European mirror site...

    • Stole another map from Sling, this one's called Dynamite. Unfortunately it's more like a wet firecracker -- th' layout would be decent on it's own but there are some ugly 3dfx texture alignment problems and just some plain weirdness like th' black pit in this screenshot. Can't say as I'd recommend this one.

    • Speakin' of Sling, Grifter has dashed off his Weekly Update that you'll find hosted on Sling's site. This week Grifter picks up with th' debate about usin' modified weapons in Outlaws. He pretty much seems dead-set against 'em. Now me, I do agree that they shouldn't be over-used an' will never replace th' great weapon balance of th' reg'lar Outlaws arsenal, but I do think that when used tastefully they have th' potential of addin' a lot of flavor to Outlaws maps. At th' very least they make fer an innerestin' change or pace, or at least somethin' ta argue about, an' there's nothin' wrong with that. ;) Anyhow I don' wanna spend too much time on it here, go read Grifter's article!

    • Speakin' of which... DrDeath2 has a screenshot on his site of a multiplayer map of his that is in th' final optimization stages, called "Mountain Cabin". A kinda grainy low-light software-rendered screenshot, but gives a hint of some nice lighting touches we may get ta see in this one, as well as a lil' surprise down at th' bottom... well I ain't gonna blow it, you'll jus' hafta go see fer yerself.

    • Here's a lil' trivia fer ya old gamers out there -- actually, it's a LOT of trivia: the GameSpot Aptitude Test. It's a multiple choice test of yer gaming knowledge and MAN is it thorough -- took me over 20 minutes ta fight through and that was answerin' questions as fast as I could, guessing on most of them heh. I got 920 out of 1600 so I guess I did okay but I'm sure some of ya kin do much better. Could'a done better if they'd had some OUTLAWS questions... ;P Anyhow it's kinda fun, go check it out if ya got some spare time.

  • 10/23

    • This is so weird... in the training level of that HereticII demo that came out today there's a chicken that sounds EXACTLY like th' chickens in Outlaws. I mean it literally sounded like they used th' same .wav file... is this some kinda homage ta Outlaws or what? ;) In case yer wonderin' that demo looks okay fer an adventure game, though th' third person view basically makes it tricky ta see people that yer aimin' right at sometimes. ;P

    • Gas popped in ta titillate me with hints of a new map he's workin' on, CTF in a Cowboys vs Indians theme. Woo, none'a that political correctness BS here, nosiree!

    • Swiped a new map from Sling, Leader_1's Barn 3D 2. Can't say as I'd recommend this one -- pretty big an' flat with a nasty "skyhole" in th' ground on 3dfx cards and a coop with about 10 chickens, each one of which adds jus' a tag of extra lag. Arr!

    • Well th' Banshee hasn't been seen since ridin' outta Memphis in th' wee hours yesterday mornin'. Th' tireless boys from UPS's Tracking service say his tracks were pointin' west... so keep an' eye out on th' prairies, word is this fella's packin' lightnin' fast graphics an' is headed straight fer my house in Seattle -- unless my order got screwed up even more than I know it did already. D-Arr!

    • Hmm Templar didn't send me a reminder but unless somethin' unexpected has come up they'll be havin' yet another installment of th' oh-so-popular Blind 2 on 2 Tourney in Kali's Outlaws server tomorrow at umm... 9pm EST -- but get there a lil' early ta register! Aww heck don't take my word fer it, jus' go check out th' official BLIND 2 ON 2 OUTLAWS TOURNEY RULES, get in there an' show 'em what yer made of!

    • Oh almost fergot, found some new sites by my new sneaky method eheh:

      GOOM: Gang of Old Men
      This bunch'a grumpy old cusses put together a pretty decent site with all yer usual posse page stuff like a member list, links, info, favorite levels, etc an' topped it off with some neat old-West Hollywood scans plus a nice logo.
      The BOG Posse
      Hmm well a page that starts out with a 168k splash screen isn't too user friendly... th' rest of th' images are pretty hefty too, though on th' plus side th' site LOOKS nice once it actually loads up. Some pretty good humor in here 'bout th' posses' origins an' members, but if yer th' impatient type on a modem ya might as well skip it.

  • 10/22

    • Whew, finally a slow news day. Man! Actually it's a no-news day, though I don't THINK my e-mail is down... hmm. Anyhow I gotta find somethin' ta make up today's quotient of Outlaws-related blather, so let's see...

      Oh yeah! As I anticipated my Banshee order did indeed get mishandled. I ordered it second day FedEx on Monday and didn't hear anything about it until this morning, when I get an e-mail telling me it had just shipped out of Memphis via UPS Ground. WHAT TH' HECK?!? Not only that, this very same email confirmed the charge to my credit card for FedEx Second Day shipping! I called 'em up ta threaten ta cancel my order if they didn't send one off ta me on Overnight Express but they craftily pointed out that since they'd already charged my credit card and the package was already in UPS's loving hands th' only way I could get my money back would be be refusing to accept th' package when it arrived, an' then waiting three weeks 'til my refund got processed. Ain't mailorder grand?

      Soooo.... I guess it'll arrive sometime next week in fairly battered condition, IF they didn't also screw up sendin' me th' correct item. Oh by th' way th' place I ordered through was HardwareStreet.com, don't think I'll be utilizin' their services in th' future thankyouverymuch. ;P

    • You know I'll bet Outlaws players are th' best first-person-shooters out there. Why? Well obviously I MAY ;) be a lil' biased, but Outlaws gunfights generally involve a great deal of dodgin' an' weavin' whereas th' outcome of battles in other fps's tends ta depend on who grabbed th' big gun first.

      This occurred ta me as I was watchin' two tech support boys at th' company I test for duke it out fer a lil' while afterhours this evening. Basically whoever had th' big gun would fire it until th' guy with th' smaller gun died... I mean sure they ran around a lil' bit, but it was mostly stakin' out camper positions an' stuff. I was sittin' there thinkin' that jus' about any Outlaw worth his sixguns could'a run rings around these guys.

      Now ta be fair these guys weren't top players. I've played some with some'a th' other testers an' well I didn't do so good. Okay it was jus' really one game, an' I jus' couldn't get useta th' fact that th' weapon I started with was basically useless an' that I hadda run around this weird maze of a "building" to find a better one. Then once everyone has a big gun it kinda comes down ta who pulls th' trigger first when ya come around a corner inta each other's field of fire, an' since my first inclination is ta dodge I end up gettin' hit by th' blast radius of whatever weapon they have before I get a shot off. Then you respawn an' ya gotta go get another big gun before someone finds ya.

      Now I ain't no dummy, with some gettin' used ta it I could prob'ly do all right at that kinda thing. Heck, I was cleanin' up in th' last match, set in a more outdoorsy level, until one of th' guys bitched so much I swapped computers with him. Anyhow th' fact of th' matter is it's a type of playin' that jus' doesn't innerest me that much. Sure these games are fun but they jus' don't have th' feelin' of a good Outlaws duel, where if ya kill someone it ain't jus' 'cause ya were th' first one ta th' quintuple-damage and superhealth powerups. Blech!

    • Hey my parent's dug somethin' up from waaay back... well I guess they were lookin' through their old scrapbooks of all my youthful junk an' found a page of character drawings I did in second grade when I was seven years old, which was a pretty long time ago jus' on case ya were wonderin'.

      Anyhow ta get ta th' point amongst such colorful characters as "The Purple Polkadoted Pagama Person" and "Mirdy the Birdy" there was a certain smilin' varmit labelled "Owboy the Cowboy". I promptly swiped this valuable youthful memento an' snuck it home ta my scanner: here he is. A lil' crude, I admit, but he seems ta have some potential...

      So I guess I had outlaws on th' brain even at that tender age. I glad I was able ta come up with a better handle than "Owboy" eventually. ;) Though my handwriting sure was better back then...

  • 10/21

    • Got ta compare th' Banshee with a TNT today on th' same system. Actually th' Banshee was gettin' a higher low-end framerate, 20 vs 18 fps in this game I'm testin'... AND th' Banshee didn't have vsync disabled while th' TNT did. This was on a p2 266 -- so ya see TNT needs a pretty fast processor before it'll start pullin' ahead of th' Voodoo2 an' Banshee, though ta be fair th' TNT's video quality is noticeably better. No word yet on th' Banshee I ordered; although it SHOULD be gettin' in tomorrow I ain't holdin' my breath...

    • Sling manages his Outlaws page like he plays th' game: kickin' booty at an' alarmin' rate. Besides tons of daily news he's also got an #Outlaws_Players Rankings Page managed by Turok which apparently is trackin' th' standin's of th' ongoing tourney goin' on over in IRC. And of course he's at th' head of th' list, as anyone who's played him would expect. ;)

    • I had some maps yesterday that I didn't have a chance ta look through then, but I did today. First one I checked out was Dusty's Hold Up, a very original lil' map that should be super fer 2 or three players. I knew I was in fer somethin' dif'rent th' minnit I spawned in 'cause I came in OVER water an' splashed down before I knew what was goin' on. Crawlin' outta th' pond a lil' bedgraggled I found myself at th' base of a cool terraced hill. At the top there's a bridge, a tunnel an' a road, not ta mention th' entrance ta a cool "mudslide" that takes ya on a wild ride before spittin' ya out over th' pool again. :)

      Th' really cool thing 'bout this map is how by jus' givin' glimpses of th' world beyond th' playin' area itself it creates a very realistic impression of an actual location in th' wilderness. Very well done! He's also paid special attention ta object layout, tryin' ta place objects realistically so they aren't jus' strewn about randomly, ya gotta know where ta look. Very innerestin'. Oh yeah how would a lil' review be complete without a lovely screenshot?

      Also yesterday mentioned Turok's Gateway, not a new map but one I didn't have. Designed fer CTF it's got two octagonal "forts" facing each other across a pond, as in this here shot. Well I don't play much CTF but this one looks like it has possibilities... there's only one way ta get ta th' other base so th' action will get pretty heavy in this one. Not big on looks but very balanced.

    • Well of course I also got MORE maps today, they jus' keep comin'... hey lemme take this break here ta say that I really wish more level makers would put their name next to their map's title as it appears in th' Outlaws level list when ya go ta host a game, ie "Mapname by Authorname". This would make it much easier fer me at least ta keep track of which maps are which, 'cause since there are far more levels than there are levelmakers I find rememberin' author names much easier than rememberin' level names, so if a map has a name by it I'll think "oh this is one by so-and-so ah I remember what his are like and oh yeah now I think I remember this one!" If ya catch my drift.

      Well enough bitchin' let's get on with it. StanJr sent me a map by budding LawMaker Ghostbear entitled Wildkill (he does have his name next to th' title, hooray!). Well you kin kinda tell he's jus' gettin' his spurs by this flat level with eleven, count 'em, ELEVEN gatling guns all in a row in a big open area. But hey it's a start, definitely somethin' I haven't seen before anyhow. :i

      Then we've got another LawMaker's SECOND ever map, ShotgunMC's Robber's Roost. This is a darlin' lil' level, a small house in a wooded clearing. There's even a story with this one, basically there's a guy in th' house who's under siege (could be YOU!) an' has blocked up th' doors an' windows with furniture. Luckily fer whoever's attackin' he's neglected a cool hole in the roof, but he's left himself an escape route through a secret tunnel in case things turn bad. All in all an extremely well thought out scenario with all kinds of quaint little touches like a big rooty treestump that make it feel very homey and individual. A ton of personality in this one and like "Hold Up" should be great for 2 or three people.

    • Great new site fer ya ta visit:

      Wild Deadly Cowboys
      Very interestin' site by Kali player COG an' his band of Outlaws veterans. Check out pics of him an' his brother DeadAllready surrounded by babes and mug shots of th' other WDC fellers, as well as some playin' tips an' lists of COG's favorite Outlaws.

      Heh whew! I made one of his lists, though it seems he couldn't resist makin' fun of th' size of my Kali font... oo I almost made a bad joke at my own expense but somehow resisted. All I kin say is after hearin' people cry an' moan about how they couldn't read it fer months an' months I recently made it a bit bigger... though I haven't been in there much lately fer people ta see it what with my current testin' gig an' all. But it's bigger now, I swear!

  • 10/20

    • Woo I kinda with this game would get done so I'd have a bit more free time. Reeal pressed today so this is gonna be mega-brief. First, Sling is kickin' booty on his site, takin' names an' numbers hehe. He's also got more time ta do news stuff than I do right now, makin' me look bad darnit. ;) So go check out his site, Outlaws Players. Oh yeah I brought him up 'cause I stole a level from 'im, Cutter's Trading Post 2 which has jus' some minor tweaks over th' original that came out like jus' a few days ago.

    • Dusty jus' sent me a new map that I really wish I had time ta look at, but ya'll jus' hafta check it out for me 'til tomorrow: Holdup. Somethin' about robbin' a stage coach and some kinda crazy soundin' mudslide. Man I can't wait, but I gotta, hopefully have a preview tomorrow.

    • Noticed DrDeath2 has a map I don't have on his USM Outlaws Gang Page called "Gateway" by Turok. Jus' 'cause I want ya ta get out a bit an' see his page I ain't gonna put a copy here 'til tomorrow, don't have time ta take a look at it now anyhow.

    • Oh yeah th' maker of that Sniper map was Metallica who mailed me yesterday. Had modified weapons which I thought were kinda neat sounding (like a silencer) though I didn't get ta actually play on it. Apparently there's a heated debate goin' on about this on Sling's site, actually it's pretty darn funny, go check his news page.

  • 10/19

    • Well I be POed! No freakin' AGP Banshee cards ta be found anywhere within a reasonable distance. There were store's whose web sites said they had them but when I called the story was "we're getting then soon." Fat lotta good that does me! So I went ahead an' ordered one 2nd Day Fed Ex, which means it should be here Thursday if someone in Shipping or Handling doesn't forget about it... man I HATE waitin' fer things ta come in th' mail! Oh the suspense...

    • I suppose this gives me some time ta catch up on news an' stuff though. Veteran Outlaw Martone sent me this lil' reminder of th' importance of a good connection as well as good hardware if ya really wanna fill people with lead bigtime:

      while, yes, OL is probably one of the better games as far as playability and connect goes, the connect is at least 50% responsible for good even multiplayer games. I can host a game with someone and shoot rubber bullets. Then if I join a game with one of our members who has access to a T1, I can play that same person and just kill em ez. I know there are some differences as to hosting and joining and such. My experience tho has been to play OL when my isp and the net traffic in general are not peaked out.

      That's DEFINITELY good advice -- if yer connection tends ta kind of lame out on ya, avoid playin' durin' yer ISP's heavy hours. My old dialup ISP would get bandwidth-deprived from about 4 to 11 pm, so I always played really late at night (or early in th' afternoon, but that was pretty rare). 'Course now that I got DSL I don't hafta worry about that fer th' most part -- only had it flake out on me a couple times.

      Of course, all this talk of hardware an' upgradin' an' stuff is by no means necessary fer havin' a blast playin' Outlaws online. Heck, I had a great time back when I was playin' on my p120 with 16 MB of RAM, a 2MB video card an' a 28.8 modem. :) It's jus' that after playin' longer an' longer people tend ta wanna tweak everythin' ta get every las' bit of performance out of it. 'Course if ya got th' money ta blow, more power to ya!

    • Noticed somethin' th' other day that I'd pretty much completely fergot about but is definitely worth mentionin'. On my Outlaws box under "Internet Play" it says:

      Supports up to 4 players via 28.8Kbps or faster connection to the Internet.

      Fer some reason I know that I an' many other people always thought th' recommended number was "up to 8" but in fact that's th' number fer playin' on a LAN... so an important reminder -- If ya got a 28.8 or even a 33.6 modem an' ya run inta lag in a 5 player or larger game, yer modem's jus' too darn slow! That don't mean ya can't play Outlaws... heck, most of th' games I've ever been in were about three or four people, an' that's more'n enough in all but th' largest maps. So if ya got a slower modem, don't go divin' inta a six player game -- you'll lag an' you'll lag other people too!

    • Somethin' innerestin' 'bout that Banshee I tested yesterday that I fergot ta mention: the Banshee was significantly FASTER in 640x480 than in 512x384! Is that kooky or what? Not that I'm complainin' mind ya, but gosh it ain't often ya kin expect a HIGHER resolution ta give better performance. I'll be sure ta be testin' out th' dif'rence thoroughly once I get one here.

    • Got a chance ta take a look at th' new map Jim_Sin sent me yesterday, Backpacker Hostel. This is a great lookin' map -- both realistically based and highly original an' I can't wait ta play it. Basically it's a large, very detailed multilevel building on a hill (yes, an actual HILL). There are some raised cliff ledges on one side of th' hostel, an' a river with tents and campfires on th' other side (yes, actual TENTs). Never seen an Outlaws map quite like this one an' it feels like a real setting. Check this this shot of th' tents with th' hostel across th' river, an' this shot of th' detailed hostel interior. Very nice indeed. I dunno 'bout backpackin', but I'm lookin' forward ta doin' some shootin' in there!

    • Snatched a map from Sling's Outlaws Players News Page, th' only page I make SURE ta read each an' ev'ry darn day -- 'cause I kin swipe stuff from it, of course! ;) But seriously he's been doin' an incredible job updating it every day an' he usually gets his update in earlier than I do, so go check it out an' you'll see jus' how "NEW" some of my "news" is hehe...

      Okay but seriously this new map is by Turok an' it's called Catletts. Not really sure what that refers too an' th' map itself is a bit of a puzzle -- a largish outdoor area with various buildings around a lake. Got a nice waterfall, see it in this screenshot.

    • An' last but certainly not least, Sticky finally shined his map Bermuda into a state he was willin' ta pin his name to -- if yer memory goes back that far you'll recall I had a lil' preview of a beta version a number of weeks ago.

      Well Sticky's really pushin' th' LawMaker barriers in this one. He's added in an elevator since I saw th' map -- go check Sling's page, he's got a pic of it. My favorite bit is th' trampoline which he moved an' tightened up fer th' final version. You kin jump on it an' it'll bounce ya up inta th' air, pretty darn fun. Here's the trampoline an' then me bouncing up in the air -- whee! You kin even bounce sticks of TNT off this thing, like so -- cool ta watch although I'd think too many goin' at once would cause some lag.

      He's also thrown in many other innerestin' things: a flashing tunnel, a pavilion, a roll of toilet paper (is that a LawMaker first?) an' more goodies ta keep ya amused. Well worth a look an' I think that chock full of goodies as it is this one'll be pretty darn popular, although as I mentioned don't overuse th' elevator or th' trampoline in laggy games 'cause they'll add ta th' amount of data that has'ta be sent around.

  • 10/18

    • Jim_Sin sent in a new level called Hostel. Don't have time ta get ta it today, hopefully tomorrow... but in th' meantime why don'tcha check it out yerself?

    • Templar sent me th' results of this weekend's open Kali 2 on 2 Blind Tourney. Seems he once again took his own prize (he SWEARS it ain't rigged); in a pair with Foghorn they defeated Creepndeth and Lameshot 30-12 in th' final match of an 8 team tourney. That's a pretty big bunch of people but they're lookin' fer more next week so SHOW UP! I'll have a reminder on Friday if Templar remembers to remind me ta post um th' reminder. Whew!

    • Well I'm runnin' late 'cause I was testin' Outlaws on a Banshee. Is it all I'd hoped? Well, I'm pretty sure it is. Outlaws runs fine, at least on the latest drivers I borrowed from the Quantum 3D site (this wasn't a Quantum board, but hey who cares?). Th' one thing that I could't do was turn off vsync fer some reason -- I've seen reviews of Quantum's card where th' drivers let 'em do it, so I dunno what was up other than it was a 3dfx reference board rather than a Quantum, mebbe it had vsync disabling disabled. ;)

      Well you want numbers anyway. Clocked 50 fps on th' LOW end -- that was pretty much as low as it went at 640x480. Keep in mind this was on a crappy monitor with vsync on so I couldn't go over 75fps in any case -- most of th' time I was runnin' around my framerate was jus' stuck at 75 fps. This was on a p2 266 btw, AGP slot.

      At comparable settings on my p2 233 th' voodoo1 gets about 36 fps -- so that's a 40% increase with th' Banshee over a 14% CPU speed increase; you go figger it out. I'm also pretty sure that'll improve quite a bit with th' right tweakin'. All I know fer sure is that it worked, it worked damn good, an' I'm gonna go out an' buy a Quantum 3D AGP Raven tomorrow so I'll be able ta do some REAL down an' dirty pla- er.. testing. ;)

    • If ya sent me mail today (and um a lot of ya did) I appreciate th' lovin' =) but I tested games fer 22 hours this weekend (plus another 1.5 with th' Banshee in Outlaws) an' I'm pooped AND I gotta start a fresh week in th' mornin'. :P I'll get back to ya tomorrow!

  • Back to Stale Vittles

 
P.O.O.S.

home | game | weapon | character | strategy | level | file | player | posse | domain | link

 
 vittles   seventh highest   Stuff on th' shelves.