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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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hey, I'm all for shameless plugs, they're th' best
kind! ;)
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.
:)
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.
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. :)
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.
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.
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!!!
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.
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...
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.
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'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 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).
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. ;)
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"
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?
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.
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...
"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."
Then of course he has some new ideas of his own...
but you'll hafta go check out th'
sequel page ta see
'em. ;)
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!
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! ;)
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. :)
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.
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...
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.
Amen brother!
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!
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...
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.
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. ;)
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.
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?
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!
"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.
Sounds pretty darn cool, but I dunno if my local
Schlockbuster'll have it in stock...
Templar's also set up a lil' brackets page fer th'
tourneys:
Hopefully Temp'll put a link up soon, but fer now
ya kin get th' th' Rules page
here.
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!
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.
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
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!
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...
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 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.
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!
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!
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!
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.
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.
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. ;)
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