Eighth Highest Shelf Vittles: 11.23.98-12.26.98

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• 12/26
  • Guess what, that Banshee/Voodoo2 program that lets ya run Outlaws in 800x600 has already hit Version 1.1 (178k)! Whut's new in today's release? Well not much, Mark jus' made th' lil' Outlaws logo at th' top into a button, so ya kin switch yer resolution an' launch Outlaws right from th' same lil' control panel. Handy eh? I noticed that it leaves a lil' blank minimized window thinger on yer taskbar when ya do that, but hey I can live with that. :) Mark thinks that Voodoo (1) cards may be able ta run Outlaws at 800x600 if they select th' "minimal" setting -- if someone with such a card could give that a try an' lemme know what happens I'd appreciate it. Oh an' Mark wants feedback too, so e-mail him at [removed].

    I spent a good deal of time this morning eating chocolates and playin' around with shooting speeds in 800x600 vs 512x384 and 640x480. Well on my p2 233 I average about 75 fps at 640x480, an' mebbe 60 at 800x600. Testin' firin' off a whole gatling gun load, I fire about 5-7% slower at 800x600 than at 640. Not an immediately noticeable difference but in hot firefights every lil' bit is gonna count an' 7% is actually a pretty big speed hit.

    So I think I'll stick with 640x480 fer now. Hehe tomorrow I jus' may run out an' get a p2 333 with some of my Christmas loot -- see how 800x600 runs on that! ;) (333 is th' top non-overclocked speed of my Asus P2L97 motherboard, figger that speed should last me fer another year or so -- mebbe next X-Mas we'll have a hack ta run Outlaws in 1024x768 hehe.)

    Oh yeah a couple more notes about 800x600. Like 512x384, single-pixel width crosshairs get blurred -- I think 640x480 is really th' resolution Outlaws was designed for. Also, ya wanna be sure ta use the "standard" choice for "3dfx settings". The "all options" selection (which is currently th' default in Mark's utility, mebbe he'll change that) enables th' three "Maintain..." options in yer Outlaws "Advanced" Glide video settings. These give no visual improvement but make fer a big framerate hit especially when yer lookin' at stuff far away. Fer instance in that highres screenshot from Ski that I posted yesterday I was gettin' like 37 fps but that was with the "all options" setting. At "standard" it looked th' same but I got about 50 fps. Oh yeah I've also updated th' "Banshee Hacks" section of th' Outlaws Video Comparison page with this stuff -- that's where you'll be able ta find the utility's download link in th' future.

  • GoJo has finished up his level revision, Boxer 2. Much quicker map now with lots of lil' gameplay tweaks as well. Here's what Goj has ta say about it:

    The biggest complaint with Boxer was the low FPS. Many told me I should make it less complex to increase the rates. I like a challenge. If anything, Boxer v2 is more complex, yet the low FPS I get on my system is 68. By comparison, I get 62 for a low at Sanctuary. Please see the text file for the long list of Kali and IRC players who beta tested. Lawmakers would be lost without them. Most of all, thanks to Paleface, who responded quickly, numerous times with his usual excellent observations. There are other extensive notes in the txt file, including some that may be helpful to other lawmakers.
     
    One thing you may notice is a lack of lamps. I discovered that they are real lag makers. I fiddled with the object editor to fool the system into making some of them hard to break. The others I just left out. Where possible I adjusted the light accordingly, but in the buildings, I guess you will have to use your imagination. Recessed lighting, maybe??
     
    Paleface and I had a long discussion about breaking windows and how they lag a game. Although not as bad as doors which can be opened and closed numerous nauseating times, even the presence of the pre broken windows costs about 9-10 FPS on my system. As a Christmas present to Paleface, I made one window breakable. I chose the one that suffered the least from lag. Smash it in his honor. :-)
     
    Don't just run by the barrel in the back of the professional building. You can stand on it and use it to get to the roof. It has a lid, just a table trick with a barrell jammed under it.
     
    All who know me, know that I don't use secret areas, but I hide things well. There are two gat rooms with other goodies besides.
     
    The saloon was the hardest. I consider it my best work. Have some fun. The bannister has sector velocity, so you can slide down it. It is most pleasing if looking down while sliding. Makes me feel like a kid again.
     
    Now for the shocker. I don't much like this level. I don't use Doc or Mary. The lifesized rooms in the maze like buildings favor them over my dude, James. Even out of doors, there is only one fairly large area. The two streets make for good long distance battle, of course. The real killer is Mary if you decide to fistfight in the arena. As with the original Boxer, it is an LJ (LongJohns) level. All start with no weapons. It can get pretty rowdy watching and playing as boxers only. The other night people were throwning knives to the fighters in the ring. It might even things up a bit against Mary.
     
    Have fun. Enjoy it. Take the time between battles to look around. After all this is an art form.

    Yay! Gojo sure takes a lot of care with his maps an' all that hard work pays off with really polished maps. Good work man!

    I also have a lil' map here from a mysterious prankster callin' himself OjOg (try not ta strain yerself figgerin' that one out :P). It's called Paperbag, an' th' readme goes

    This one is definitely for those who don't take it seriously. Someone recently used a phrase I haven't heard in years, "Why, he couldn't even fight his way out of a paper bag." Here 'tis.

    Hehe. I'm not gonna spoil this one with a screenshot -- I got a good chuckle out of it. Actually this'd make fer a damn vicious deathmatch arena!

  • My dear Darlin' sent me a copy of Cutter's latest work, Gila Springs. This one takes a LOT of inspiration from Slater's_Dog's excellent Cactus Flat. See if these screenshots give ya a sense of deja vu: inside and outside. Not that th' similarity is a bad thing... Gila springs also has a few notable differences: the buildings are larger and more spacious and there are some modified characters (which accounts for this map's 452k size). Here's th' stuff from th' readme:

    Arizona Territory, 1888. Spittin' Jack's favorite destination for his bi-monthly bender. (As well a familiar member of the infamous Rat Pack Posse who can faintly be heard crooning from the bottom of the well). A word of wisdom from Jack? Don't throw dynamite at the pink iguanas in your hotel room when you're into yer fifth bottle of tequila.
     
    Designed for 1 on 1, this map features four characters from the single player game: Marshall 1 in place of James, Marshall 2 in place of Bob, Dick Farmer in place of Doc, and Russell Simms in place of Mary. Sanchez and Two Feathers remain unchanged.

  • KaReFree decided ta make ev'ryone an X-Mas gift of his revamped KaReFree's Outlaws Cavern (note new, still vaguely lewd URL ;)). Very nice new design, hopefully he'll get th' other pages put together soon though he ain't waitin' fer that ta start askin' fer folks ta send him their new levels. Cool logo! He's already found a new map fer us, Badlands by tileman. Sort of a medium-sized, kinda flat town -- here's a screenshot.

  • Gryphon has found out that th' ops in th' IRC #Outlaws_players channel may have had a good reason to ban Blackdeath after all... well yer prob'ly not gonna ever get th' full story, jus' how these things work. I guess I'll jus' wish fer a reconciliation in th' spirit of th' New Year.

• 12/25
  • I've met Santa an' his name is Mark Lütkefend. No time fer a proper update right now, but this guy has made a little utility (170k) fer those lucky Outlaws with Voodoo2s or Banshees an' relatively fast systems that lets ya run Outlaws in 800x600 on yer 3dfx card! Worked great fer me in both Win95 an' NT. Of course yer framerate goes down some but hey, that's why you got that overclocked Celeron, right? :P Actually fer those who wanna compare, in my reg'lar Thud Tower framerate test I got fps of 45,48 and 76; the high end score was down a good deal, but th' low end score was th' same as at 640. Then again as you'll see in this 800x600 screenshot taken in Ski my framerate plunked right down, got twice that much at 512. Oh also fer me th' "3dfx settings" options in this lil' utility didn't help much, only saw a 2 fps increase on "minimal" which takes away all texture filtering so everything's all chunky. Still, a fantastic utility, ev'ryone owes Mark a BIG Christmas stocking stuffer! He's made X-Mas quite a bit merrier fer those with stoked systems -- somebody lemme know if this works on yer Voodoo 1 card, okay? Gotta go eat an' open presents now... HO HO HO!

• 12/24
  • Well ya may notice a lil' somethin' dif'rent 'bout th' site today... hmm... can't quite put muh finger on it... oh wait, Merry Christmas! :)

  • While I'm in th' givin' mood, I got some crosshair stuff ta hand out. First, I haven't had a new Tip or Trick fer a while, but here's a new one:

    Th' Map/Crosshair Toggle Trick

    Now say yer like me an' ya don't like ta play with crosshairs on 'cause they're artificial an' they get in th' way of seein' what yer shootin' at. But then say you got somebody waaay off in th' distance with yer rifle an' ya gotta make sure yer first shot hits. What do ya do? There's no quick toggle key fer crosshairs, but there IS a toggle key fer yer automap! How's that gonna help? Well you'll notice that in th' very middle of th' automap there's a yellow arrow with a crossbar representing you. This arrow also happens ta look kinda like a crosshair, an' sits smack dab in th' middle of yer screen, right where th' crosshair would be. So jus' toggle on yer map, ignore th' white map lines, line th' arrow crossbar up on yer target an' plunk away. When yer done, jus' toggle th' map off again.

    Now a few people wrote in sayin' that my Mary crosshair wasn't too accurate. Well guess what, I didn't mean it ta be! I'm kinda subversive that way... I don't want all you crosshair lovers snipin' my lil' Sanchez be-hind. How-ever, in th' spirit of Christmas an' all I figgered I'd relent an' give out a few functional crosshairs. Ya kin snag 'em over on th' Miscellaneous File page, but here are some gif previews: a low-profile sniping crosshair and a red "laser sight" crosshair fer all you night-time commandos.

    There are two conditions on these crosshairs: First, because they're only a single pixel wide, they're all blurry an' useless in a 512x384 3dfx screen. Gotta run in 640 on a voodoo card ta make 'em work. Second, ya can't use 'em ta shoot me! :P

  • Jus' noticed that even with th' Banshee fix fer Outlaws some glitches may return if you go into th' Options screen while in a game. Well good news is ya kin fix it by goin' inta options again or task-switching out and back into Outlaws. Updated th' "Banshee Hacks" section of th' Outlaws Video Comparison page.

  • Man there were a TON of people in Kali yesterday! :) I MAY be hostin' a few games today too, providin' real life doesn't drag me off kicking and screaming. :P Played through some old maps I hadn't got to try out before, an' got a couple new ones:

    Angry man StanJr was handin' out Ski, a map apparently over a year in th' making. Well, LukeSky started it based on an idea of Stan's an' never finished it so Stan finally got around ta wrappin' it up with help from Foghorn.

    I for one am glad this map got finished, it's a very unique design that makes for a one-of-a-kind CTF match. Two long ski-jumps converge at right angles on a crystal clear alpine lake. Th' bases sit at th' tops of th' ski-jumps with deep icy crevasses on either side. There are two ways up to a base: on th' right side of each base there's a low-gravity spot that lets you sort of levitate all th' way to th' top, an' on th' left side there's a ski-ramp that whooshes you up to th' base. There are only two (safe) ways down from a base: th' low-grav spot or th' ski-jump itself. Whooshing down th' jumps an' flying off th' end into th' lake is quite exhilarating, especially if yer runnin' off with th' enemy's flag and they're shooting after you with rifles. Rifles come in tremendously handy here, especially in crossing or defending th' lower passes which are so icy you can't really strafe; you hafta build up speed an' skate along an' if ya come across someone th' person who gets a good bead first'll probably come out on top, though a prudent defender will stock up on nearby medbags. Also watch for gatling guns defending each base. Quite diff'rent from what yer used to, I hated it at first but quickly grew to appreciate its unique strategies. Here's a shot from near th' end of a ski-jump (I used olairhead to get a better view).

    Then I think it was Ghostbear (not sure) who gave me a copy of his new single-player map, PTricks. While it's got some rough spots, lacks a story and music and plays in a rather linear fashion, there are lots of guys to shoot which is always nice. Mos'ly you kin get away with snipin' 'em from long range, even th' end boss. BUT there are two ways to go through th' level which adds a bit of replayability. An' remember th' author made it fer his son. Aww. =) Ohh yeah screenshots: shot 1 | shot 2.

  • Gryphon tells me that longtime IRC fixture an' nice guy Blackdeath got banned from th' #Outlaws_players channel th' other day after he "accidentally" flooded th' channel when tryin' out a new script. Well that sucks, I remember playin' Blackdeath waaaay back in th' day. Now I dunno firsthand what happened so I ain't gonna say whuts right an' wrong here but Gryphon is gettin' up a petition ta get Blackdeath reinstated, so show yer support by e-mailing Gryphon. An' hey, isn't Christmas all about forgiveness anyhow? Share th' love!

  • Cyberdemon4 (scary name) tells me that Higster's old MIL gang, which counted quite a few members in it's strictly ordered ranks at one time, has been started up again in th' Zone. Nice ta have MIL back, I guess.

• 12/23
  • Outlaw_DR let me know that he's got a couple goodies up on th' Death Rider's Website. First there's a cool Java-somethin'or-other Christmas page. Then there's also th' DR Download page where ya kin get all th' levels by DR members an' see screenshots of a couple neat lookin' works-in-progress. Ho-ho-ho!

  • Blackthorn tol' me 'bout a rumor goin' around that there's a write-up on "Outlaws 2" in th' current British issue of PC Gamer. Seems this' th' ol' thing still goin' around, about a playable Can Can girl an' all that. Pretty silly that this like year-old rumor is jus' now gettin' press over there, an' in as respectable a publication as PC Gamer no less. Will this Can Can girl rumor never die?!

  • While polishin' away at his "Boxer 2" level, GoJo discovered somethin' fairly important fer LawMakers who wanna keep their levels fast:

    I fiddled with that area anyway since by simply backing up I could see that the area was a small problem. I thought no more about it until much later when I was doing a thorough run through, I checked FPS in the saloon first, ran around shooting bottles, lamps, crockery, etc. I ended up back in the saloon. Imagine the shock at seeing the FPS down by 20. Ouch! Then it hit me. Paleface and I had discussed how doors and breaking glass info had to be transmitted as a change of the map to all players, and how that momentarily lags a game. It stands to reason that the same would be true of broken items, especially ones that go from fairly stable to become ACX objects (fires.) After changing the hanglamps to lanterns, I once again ran around. Naturally, there was less breaking of stuff. When I returned to the saloon, the FPS had changed marginally by about 1.

    GoJo's tryin' ta keep his map real fast... faster'n Sanctuary in fact. So far it's lookin' real good. :)

  • Well I think I'm gonna get in some playin' time today, still got a bunch'a semi-recent maps ta try out first hand. I'll be leavin' messages up in Kali, but ya kin always jus' try checkin' my IP address (under th' menu on th' left) ta see if I got a game goin' on. Shoot ya later!

• 12/22
  • Hear ye, hear ye! Troublemaker StanJr is gonna be runnin' an' all-Outlaws tourney this weekend. Seems he means ta run it through IRC, Kali, th' Zone and ICQ. Whew! Well anyhow he'll be mad if y'all don't show -- an' how can ya not, he'll be ev'rywhere! Th' big gala event is set ta kick off at 9pm EST this Saturday. Stan's already got th' BMG an' Gunslinger gangs signed up so you can rest assured there won't be no shortage of varmits ta shoot at. So crank up th' heat, pull up a big glass of 'nog an' put th' whammy on them post-Christmas blues by slingin' hot lead at all comers!

  • Well no other real news, but since when have I needed news to make an update? :P I'd imagine mos' people are in th' midst of holiday madness. Then of course after th' big day news may also be a bit slow what with people playin' th' shiny new games they got. 'Course they'll be back as soon as th' newness wears off.

    I thought up a clever lil' idea fer an Outlaws Christmas "card" but if I do get it done ya won't get ta see it 'fore X-Mas... or at least not 'til late Christmas Eve. ;) Think I'm gonna put on some more Bing Crosby an' go work on it.

• 12/20
  • I am freezin' my toes off! Got th' heat up all th' way but it's STILL cold in here -- we don't usually get cold snaps like this in Seattle. Brrr! 23 outside right now. That may not be cold compared ta other places in th' country, but they prob'ly have double-paned windows. Eep! Mebbe some hot Outlaws action later'll warm me up -- keep an eye peeled fer me LATE in Kali or at my IP address under th' menu. I still got a bunch'a maps ta catch up on playin', then I'll have a big player/level review update, then mebbe I'll get a chance ta work on that sawed-off thingy.

  • Speakin' of workin' on stuff, GoJo is workin' up a new version of his Boxer map. Quite a few changes in th' beta he sent me, mostly designed to improve framerates. Here's a shot of th' new saloon -- note th' neat railing up th' stairs. He's also got a new twist -- barrels you can stand on, thanks to some careful small sector work; here's a shot. Pretty clever idea! Look fer th' new version after his rigorous play-testing process irons out all th' kinks.

  • Oh yesterday I put up that new WinterB map with modified characters. Was indeed done by Cutter himself.

  • Lookin' around fer sound card info at work th' other day I came upon Diamond Multimedia's site. Why am I mentionin' this? Well I thought it was interestin' that on th' "In Depth" page fer each of their three current top soundcards they've got a prominently featured audio clip from Outlaws to show off th' 3d sound features of th' cards. After almost a year an' a half Outlaws' sounds are still gettin' hype, that's pretty cool. Hey also th' full version of Outlaws ships with their new MX200 sound cards. Neat!

• 12/19
  • Whoa we got snow in Seattle today! Pretty darn unusual an' it wasn't even in th' forecast. Folks out here tend ta get a lil' nutty when we get th' least bit of snow. Jus' glad I didn't hafta do no Christmas shoppin' today -- I'm now on vacation 'til Jan 4th so I'll be able ta finish up shoppin' on Monday when hopefully there are less freaks on th' road. :P

  • Ya know it's occurred ta me that, maligned as Outlaws' graphics have been, I can't think of any other 3D game that gives the feeling of sunlight like Outlaws does. Most games, even those new ones with colored an' dynamic lighting, jus' don't have any areas that feel like they're actually lit by Earth's sun. It's kinda hard ta quantify but th' palettes Outlaws uses jus' seems ta render light that seems like sunlight more than any other game I've seen. An' I may be a paleface but that don't mean a sunny day doesn't lighten my spirits! I get tired real quick of all these dark an' gloomy games on th' market. :P

  • Regarding that solution ta th' Banshee's graphical glitches in Outlaws that I posted some days back on th' Outlaws Video Comparison page, DrDeath2 noticed that th' glitches would come back from time ta time. I noticed this too th' other day, turns out that if ya task-switch out of Outlaws an' then go back you'll sometimes end up with funky visual stuff. Check out these shots that Doc sent me:

    shot 1 | shot 2 | shot 3

    Fortunately ya kin get back ta normal by task-switching (that's hittin' [ALT]+[TAB] at th' same time) once or twice more.

  • Good ol' GA_Reaper sent me over yet another new level with new playable characters. 4 of th' reg'lar Outlaws characters have been switched with bosses from th' single-player game in WinterB, a modified version of Cutter's Winter Post. I'm not entirely sure WHO modified it (GA_Reaper?) but anyway th' new characters look fun. I extracted th' nwx's ta take a look, check 'em out in this image. Looks Mary's put on a lil' more weight! Seems like each modified character adds about 100k to th' file zip of th' zipped map, this one weighs in at about 400k.

    This might be a good time ta point out that contrary ta what many may think, Outlaw's character graphics were not hand-drawn but 3D rendered. Actually many of them may have been rendered and then traced over in a process similar to "rotoscoping", or tracing over video footage, in classic cell animation. This would account for their somewhat hand-drawn look. Still you can see their 3D roots when you watch them move an' especially in characters like that replacement Mary.

  • HeavyGear sent me a copy of his latest map, Sinister. This is a very interestin' map; looks like it was made fer CTF with two forts across a river from each other, each with a big sliding door across their only entrance. Th' doors kin only be opened by a switch from inside th' fort (see th' switch an' open door in this screenshot. A neat twist, though two probs I kin think of are: 1) if one team gets ahead they kin jus' shut their door an' sit pretty unless th' game is played to a set score and 2) in laggy games active elements like th' doors get a lil' hard to control and kin exacerbate th' lag problem. Still there are some genuinely nice touches in th' individual buildings that show HeavyGear's promise as a young LawMaker. Try this one out an' see what'cha think.

  • Ya'll have played Taco's excellent add-on campaign Taco Saga, right? Well while he was still makin' it, Taco got ahold of one of th' Outlaws programming team who was gonna try ta help him make a lil' animated intro that would play when ya loaded th' historical mission up. Then he got hold of me ta do th' artwork. Well I didn't have too much free time so it may be a bit on th' cheesy side, but I did th' graphics -- it was going to be sort of like a book, with th' title on th' book cover an' then some parts of th' story seen in a series of pictures. Obviously th' intro never worked out fer th' final release, but here's th' art I whipped up fer it:

    The book cover
    Sanchez busts his brother Taco out of th' pokey
    Anderson discovers th' two dangerous varmits are on th' loose again
    Anderson tracks 'em far an' wide
    After a long chase Taco an' Anderson finally meet fer th' big showdown

    Like I said, nothin' incredible but well hey it's somethin' ta fill up space with. :) An' no, I don't have much free time anymore so don't ask if I kin illustrate yer level too! :P

  • Well it looks like I'll be able ta get in some Outlaws action later tonight -- if ya wanna come shoot me keep an eye out fer me ta be hostin' some recent maps in Kali, or jus' check my IP address a lil' below th' top left menu on this page.

• 12/16
  • Hey a slow news day, how 'bout that! I found out I'll be gettin' 'bout a week or so off over X-Mas, woo-hoo! I'm dreaming... of an Outlaws.. Christmas, just like th' ones I useta know...

  • Snagged a new map from Sling, Gringo Station by Runaway_Jim. Ya may 'member Jim's excellent Gringo Pass. Well it appears that this is all part of a Gringo Trilogy so we can look forward to yet another one!

    Anyhoo back ta th' second installment. Th' texuring looks a lot like Gringo Pass an' in a GREAT touch you can actually get to a point where you can see through a cave opening down into th' original Gringo Pass! Ya can't go down but what a stroke of genius that was, hoo-ee! There's also another nice spot in a barn where ya kin see th' ladder ta th' hayloft has fallen over on th' floor so ya hafta find another way up. Stuff like that really makes Jim's maps stand out.

    Overall I think I prefer Pass a bit over Station as Station is more wide open... of course those who like ta snipe at bit'll prob'ly like it more. :P A very solid map with nice touches, a worthy sequel ta th' great Gringo Pass. Oop almost fergot ta throw in a screenshot.

  • Fallsdown had this take on people hostin' 8 player games on dialup connections:

    If we want 8 then 8 it is and the lag be damned.. some people just play for the fun of playing with their friends.

    Well that's a darn good point too. I kinda ran inta some trouble of my own las' night in terms of # of players in a game -- I hosted up a couple 6-player ones but each time one person of this group of ol' Kali buddies got left out 'cause other folks came in. Now I could'a hosted a larger game ta let ev'ryone in, but I tend ta stay at 6 'cause after that lots of folks start laggin'. I notice this in Kali, that someone will host a game an' ev'ryone tries ta pile in at once whereas it'd prob'ly be more enjoyable to break th' players up into 2 smaller, less laggy matches. 'Course it's kinda hard ta be that organized but anyhow it's an idea.

• 12/15
  • Is it jus' me or is Outlaws, one an' a half years after its release, gettin' more popular? I mean, I'm gettin' more e-mail these days than ever, an' th' Outlaws newsgroup which fer a year or so now has gotten mebbe 2 or 3 posts on an average day is now gettin' like 8. That's a drop in th' bucket compared to th' "BIG" games of course, but fer a 1.5 year old game ta be gettin' MORE popular is pretty remarkable. Then again, Outlaws is a pretty remarkable game. :)

  • Slaters_dog has been playin' around with Raptor's (aka James Sulman) cool NWX editor. Now I remember a while back, before th' editor even came out, somebody came up with a hack that let ya play as dif'rent things in multiplayer. A chicken, fer one. :P Never tried it an' I don't think it caught on much, mainly 'cause other people wouldn't see yer cool disguise unless they had th' same files installed in their Outlaws directory.

    Well Slater has solved this problem! Here's what he wrote me in a mail called "6 new playable characters"

    Hehe thats right 6 playable bad guys from the single player game , I put the nwx for each in the level Lab file , works like a charm , just like the crosshair nwx in OL dir. but I if I put badguy nwx in OL dir. characters would allways appear as badguys in all maps , but zipped in the Lab only in that map , you need to exit OL back to windows after playing this map though otherwise which ever level you launch next will have the badguys again .
     
    The map is just Cowboys renamed Badguys .
     
    There are 93 individual .nwx files for James , to use james as a base for a totally new character would require redrawing all 93 images plus the hands for each weapon , but I don't think it would be too difficult to just touch them up a bit to make James look like , say Clint Eastwood , just drawing his coat in as that mex poncho Clint wears in the spaghetties would have the effect & just leave the hands .
     
    Of course this only changes what we see , James' other attributes would remain the same .
     
    All I did was extract the badguy nwx & rename it ,
     
    eg : bgy1.nwx to james.nwx
     
    bgy2.nwx to sanchez.nwx
     
    etc. etc. & put the new james etc. .nwx in my project directory & published the level thus zipping the .nwx into the map .Lab
     
    So if you wanted to spend some time drawing you could make levels in which you could look like anything at all , John Wayne , a bear a kangaroo maybe hehe
     
    Really the credit belongs to the genius of OZ_Raptor ( Jim_Sin ) who made the nwx editor , he put a pink dot on all those 93 James files , we tested a level & YEEHAW!!!! it worked , So that gave me the idea , all I did was exchange the character nwx for bad guy nwx .
     
    Also are some snaps compliments of the generous OGB_Martone which he took during our test sesion .
     
    shot | shot | shot | shot

    Is this awesome or what? Wow. Th' only downside izzat th' levels end up pretty large; his Badguys weighs in as a 600k download an' well over a megabyte unzipped. But dang this's cool... an' hard drives are pretty cheap these days. ;)

  • DrDeath2 had a bit of news about his recent CTF map Stalemate:

    Well Stalemate is really fun to play. People on IRC seem to be addicted to it :) I know it's nothing special or breath taking but it's just plain old fun. and Lots of action unlike those Long Huge boring CTF maps with no action :) this one you have to stay on your toes :) for some reason law makers thought that they had to make things BIGGER AND BETTER and More Detailed and FULL of strategy. But what I thought was people just want to fun and FAST FPS :) and lots of other people are having a blasts playing it :) (post that if ya like)

    I love it when people dare me ta post things. ;) Well I haven't played it YET (I'm umm a bit behind on playin' all these new maps) but it did look pretty fun. I like th' fact that dif'rent maps can offer dif'rent types of play: Stalemate plays pretty fast an' furious whereas th' "bigger and better" CTF Circle, fer instance, plays at a slower pace with more suspense an' sneakiness involved. Ya know with nearly 500 maps now I think Outlaws prob'ly has somethin' fer jus' about anyone.

  • A fella known only as Mean Bastard decided ta straighten me out a bit more about shotgun terminology. Which is good 'cause these days when I dunno somethin' fer sure I tend ta jus' guess an' let things sort themselves out. :P Anyhow he done pointed out that in shotgun terms, a 10-gauge shotgun is bigger'n a 12-gauge. Doh. So I went an' switched around th' numbers in my modification proposal on th' sawed-off shotgun page.

    MB offered his guess on th' origin of th' gauge measurement which it turns out was pretty spot-on. Accordin' ta good ol' Websters:

    gauge   6 : the size of a shotgun barrel's interior diameter nominally expressed as the number of lead balls each just fitting the interior diameter of the barrel required to make a pound

    In smaller words I think that means th' largest lead ball you could get down th' barrel of a 10-gauge shotgun would weigh 1/10th of a pound whereas th' largest ya could stuff down a 12-gauge barrel would weigh only 1/12th of a pound (that's less). I wonder if I'm ever gonna get off my ass an' look things up fer myself rather than findin' out th' hard way... prob'ly not.

  • That's it fer today's installment kiddies! If time allows I think I'll host a few games late this evening/morning -- toddle along ta Kali ta see if I got one goin' on, or jus' check out my IP address which you'll in th' left column a bit below th' menu.

• 12/14
  • A while back I posted Gas's new CTF map, Fortified Canyon but didn't have time ta look it over. Well I had time recently, looks pretty darn good. Very large an' roomy with huge canyon areas between two large forts. Rifle will rule over everything -- here's a shot to give you an idea of th' size of th' large open areas. Very nice texturing job on this one too.

  • Well if ya like big maps, you jus' won't know what ta do with yerself after ya get a look at ay-suc's latest, CTF Circle. Now anyone who knows his earlier maps, including Fort Remix and Tarnation, knows that ay like's 'em large. But CTF Circle completely blows everything out of th' water. It is jus' H U G E. Made fer CTF it's got a roughly circular shape with forts on opposite sides of th' circle, but gettin' between th' two ain't no easy job.

    I'd be surprised if any map for any 3d-shooter came close to capturing the sheer bewildering scope of a natural environment like CTF Circle does. You'll teeter over countless bridges of all types, from half-cut logs to sturdy stone trestles. You'll traverse what seems like miles and miles of canyons, desert, stream banks, caverns and subterranean rivers. You'll try to find your way around the two large buildings. You'll encounter things you've never seen before around each irregular bend -- and belief me, there are more bends than you can imagine. Just going through this level to take screenshots left me plum tuckered out!

    I didn't wanna spoil too much of it, so these shots are jus' a taste of what awaits ya:
    shot | shot | shot | shot | shot | shot | shot

    Whew! What an incredible experience. Th' only problem is of course just gettin' enough people together to play this mammoth. I'd say you'd need at least six gunslingers, an' you'll still be spendin' mos' of yer time wanderin' about on yer own. Then again that's th' way he intended it -- th' game becomes rare chance encounters over a long, arduous journey. There's a definite scarcity of items in this territory too, so conserve yer ammo an' watch yer health. If ya make it there an' back you'll have quite a story to tell.

    Thanks ta th' eternally lovely Darlin' fer sendin' this one to me -- actually it turned out ta be an early version with a, um, unintentionally burlesque title an' a few rough spots. Th' one here is th' second, finished version sent in by ay-suc himself. So fill yer canteen an' get yer travellin' shoes on, this's th' wildest country yer computer's ever been in!

  • Newsgroup hound salmoides has a mouse tip ta share:

    I'm sure we have all had our mouse cable get hung up at the worst possible moment. Over time the cable tends to form angles when ever it doesn't have a straight path to follow. This will anchor the cable at the worst possible moment impeding mouse travel. My solution is simple. I put a nail in the wall (about a foot above the desk top) behind my mouse pad and simply tied a string to the nail and then to an appropriate part of the cable to allow maximum movement and minimal resistance to the mouse. Works like a charm. Keeps the cable free of the desk top and all the potential resistance that it could cause.

    Not a bad solution to this eternal problem. Me, I jus' got a pretty bare table area an' a long mouse cord.

  • Remember yesterday's solution to those graphical Outlaws glitches with a Banshee? Well not only did Bill of billsworkshop.com solve th' problem, he's made it today's Hot Tip of the Day over on his excellent Banshee info site. Thanks Bill, all us Banshee-slingin' Outlaws owe ya one! :)

  • Not satified with his old site (which I thought was pretty darn good), Gas has put together a new one which is even better, wouldn't ya know!

    Gas Levelman Gas's second site. Much cleaner an' more elegant than th' first. Find his latest maps right here at his very own site. Also has views of works in progress, tips for Outlaws and Lawmakers (check out his "How to Make a Vaulted Ceiling" tutorial for an idea of just how tough it actually is to make even a simple Outlaws map) and an area where you can send in ideas for new maps. A very useful site with style.

  • Grifter wants to remind people of somethin' very important fer Outlaws play online:

    what's got me so steamed under the color this time is how people with regular dial-up account will do something like host a game for 8 people! i know this issue has gone through the ringer, but it seem that no one has gotten the message yet. i just got done with a game that was so laggy i could have been playing a game full of superonline.com customers (if you play irc ya know what i mean by that...) look on the back of you Outlaws box, it says TCP/IP 2-3 players. there is really no reason for there to be any more than 4 people when the host has a dial-up account, the only exception is if you know everyone has a strong 56k connection, then possibly 5 people. the bottom line is fellas, you just can't play huge games like that on slow connections....please keep that in mind in future

    Well Grift is absolutely right -- except mebbe about th' player number, my box bottom says "Supports up to 4 Players via 28.8 Kbps or faster connection to the Internet." Anyhow I know exactly what he's talkin' about, even me with DSL I don't host games over 6 players unless I know everyone has some kind'a high-bandwidth connection. Ta illustrate his point, Grifty sent along a lil' picture... be warned, this's a bit on th' raunchy side: Grift's pic.

  • Mr. Slack wants ta get in on this sawed-off thing:

    I've always wondered, why it was that Lucasarts chose to make the double barreled shotgun half as powerful (per barrel) as the single barreled. One would assume that two is more powerful than one, but it seems not...
     
    I think that if you are going to modify the sawed off shotgun to make it reasonable for use in multiplayer, then it would also be necessary to modify the other two shotguns. I think (and am probably wrong on this, but oh well) that it would be the best to cut the srength of the sb shotgun in half, make each barrel of the db shotgun the same strength as the one barrel of the sb shotgun, with a reload time of twice as long as the sb shotgun (and also the db should probably be made able to kill any character in one shot with a head-on close range blast with both barrels, as the current one can kill all characters in this manner except mary. Trust me, I've tested this with with a player willingly standing still, and it brings her down to 1 heart.) The sawed-off shotgun could then be made the same as the db, but with a wider spread, shorter range, and higher velocity of pellets at close ranges (plus the added reload time)

    Well Mr Slack probably has a bit of a point. This's why I call th' single barrel a 12 gauge an' th' double a 10 gauge. Th' double probably should do relatively more damage, but th' problem then is that th' single would be too weak. I unnerstan where he's comin' from but I think those two weapons are pretty darn well balanced now. I advocate modifying th' sawed-off (an' only in new, individual maps, not as some kind of law) because as it is people don't like using th' sawed-off 'cause it's so darn out of whack with th' other weapons that it ain't really fair an' can take th' fun out've a gunfight. Anyhow that's jus' me, everyone's got there own opinion, thank goodness!

  • StanJr, far from retiring from Outlaws, is now thinkin' of startin' up his own weekly tournament fer players from all points of th' Outlaws world:

    im planning to start hosting some tournys now that im completly sick of everyone who hosts these damn things im gonna do one myself. Now the list of the tourneys will be a 2 on 2 a 1 on 1 a 3 on 3 and a all out gang tourney now i need some info on these i would like to do these once a week one tourney a week changing every week no random teams and maps that i feel will work good for fps with all people now i just need to see how many people would like to see this happen i will be doin it from zone irc and kali and by icq this way we can all get a good shot at all people who play outlaws and enjoy these great tournies. OK POST that

    Okay, I will. ;) Anyhoo Stan want's ta know how many people are innerested in such a thing. He was hopin' that I would compile th' votes fer him but frankly he's smokin' somethin' if he thinks I want ta deal with all that e-mail! :P So g'wan an' send yer vote fer havin' these weekly Outlaw tourneys ta Stan hisself at [removed]. That'll learn 'im ta dare me ta post things hehehe. :) Seriously can be a lot of fun when done right an' Stan seems pretty set on doin' it thoroughly so why don'tcha mail 'im an' tell 'im you think it's a wunnerful idea?

• 12/13
  • Is this a crazy time of year or what? Spent mos' of today gettin' not one but TWO Christmas trees in th' pouring rain. I think X-Mas may be rained out in Seattle this year! :P

  • Bill of Bill's Workshop is simply awesome. Not only does he maintain th' best Banshee info site on th' web, he had a fix for Outlaws' graphical glitches ready as soon as I wrote him. All I was doin' was informin' him of th' trouble with certain things in Outlaws appearin' pitch black on th' Banshee so he could update his excellent Game Guide, but he done went an' solved th' problem! This has been added to th' lower portion of th' Outlaws Video Comparison:

    If yer runnin' a Banshee in Outlaws ya may notice a few graphical glitches:

    • Name blacked out in Deathmatch
    • Black rather than red tinting when damaged
    • Knives and TNT appear pitch black

    Well I had this trouble too an' could only get Outlaws lookin' right when I used a very old set of Creative Labs Blaster Banshee drivers with my Quantum Raven. I noticed over on Bill's Workshop, th' best darn Banshee info site there is, that Bill didn't have no info on Outlaws so I wrote him tellin' him th' problem. To my great surprise an' delight he actually came up with a fix right away that lets you use yer latest Banshee drivers fer everythin' else while keepin' th' old drivers jus' fer Outlaws! Here it is, short an' simple:

    Try putting the Glide files from the OLD driver into the Outlaws folder (probably just need Glide 2x.dll and Glide2x.ovl). It should use them, whereas all other games will use the system Glide files.

    Genius, sheer genius: it worked like a charm! Fer yer convenience I've got those two files right here:

    glide2x .dll and .ovl (232 k)

    Jus' extract th' two files inta yer Outlaws directory an' ya should be all set. Even works in Windows NT! Is Bill th' man or what? :)

  • Y'all know that I've been workin' at this modified sawed-off thing... well okay work has slowed down 'cause I'm jus' so darn busy lately, but th' conversation is still goin'. Slater's Dog, an actual shotgun owner and expert (as far as I'm concerned) had some real ballistics info for me. Check it out it's a very interesting read:

    The sawed off , well staying with 5 pellets per barrel is ideal , as in the 10g double , but increasing the destructive effect above that of the Double is not realistic as shotshells & cartridges are designed to burn all their charge ( powder ) in the barrel length for the given firearm to attain maximum muzzle velocity , now a short barrel will not burn all of the powder & most of it especially in the case of a short saw gun would simply be blown un-burnt out of the muzzle , thus reducing muzzle velocity & hitting power .
     
    If anything the sawed off should be a little weaker than the Double , The Saw guns strength being it's spread of pellets for close range . I don't know what damage factor the double pellets have now in relation to the current saw gun but some how I think the new gun may be real punishing even at a damage factor less than that of the double , at most ya might have to quickly reload fer just one finishing shot I'd think , ever stuck the double in someones back , it's damned effective .
     
    Anyway to sum up my opinion , which you may well disagree with , I'd say the ideal sawgun would be 2/3 - 3/4 the power of the Double with 5 pellets in each tube & a spread equal to that of the current one .
     
    The spread ( pattern ) of all shotguns is controlled by what is known as ' choke ' this is a slightly smaller diameter section of the barrel right at the muzzle , Real shotguns can be ordered with the choke that best suits the hunting you're getting into , most commonly in the U.S. measured as 'full' , ' improved modified ' , ' modified ' , ' Improved cylinder ' & ' cylinder ' ( full , 3/4 , 1/2 / 1/4 & cyl ) cylinder being open like a saw gun which is used for solid slug loads , so in relation to Outlaws you could say the Double had 2 'full choke ' barrels ( tight pattern ) , the single would be about 1/2 ( more open pattern ) I take great pleasure in using the double in OL as it does very realistically gives the feel of swinging onto a target with the real mcCoy , I own a double , the first barrel being 'full choke ' the second ' 1/2 choke , So I'm right at home with it , hehe

    I noted this in a modification to my proposal that can be found on the sawed-off shotgun page. I think in any event we'll have to do some tweaking to the damage values. It'll jus' take a good deal of thorough testing to properly play-balance the weapon. I'm very glad that an expert (and great LawMaker) has filled in my pit of ignorance a bit more. Now all's I gotta do is actually teach meself enough LawMaker ta make a real testing map and we kin get down to some hardcore shotgun balancing. :)

  • Slater's also gotten into th' recent crosshair-craze himself. He sent me a copy of his own personal crosshair, a very thin cross designed for precision an' visibility. Here's a preview; download th' actual .nwx here. As always jus' extract to yer Outlaws directory an' fire away!

  • Ever-lovin' Darlin' sent me a care package with three new Outlaws maps. Is she a sweetie or what?

    First up we got Bermuda 2 by Sticky. He's taken out some bits that were slowing down framerates, an' most importantly he's redone th' elevator an' trampoline so that they use some kinda anti-gravity effect rather than INFs (active sectors) which can get all crazy in laggy games. Should be quite a bit smoother now, looks pretty darn good.

    Th' other two come from Cutter. O'Patrick's Feed and Supply converts the upper area of the single-player Granary level for multiplayer. Looks pretty well done, though th' active doors may cause difficulty in laggy matches. Check these shots of th' interior and exterior.

    Then we've got another conversion, this time of his own recent map Trading Post (which already has gone through four tweaked versions). Winter Post gives th' trading post that frosty seasonal look thanks to Frenchy's cool snow texture (that first made its appearance last winter in Frenchy's excellent OGB Fort). Dang I wish Seattle would look this cool, all we get is rain. An' more rain, an' mud, an' rain, an'- oh sorry. Actually I like th' rain, gives me a good excuse ta stay inside an' warm my toes with a cracklin' game of Outlaws.

  • Silverwire has revamped his Snake's Posse Hideout, makin' it a bit more useful an' easier to load. He's also got a very handy "All single player levels" page, a nice touch for all those trying to find more single-player Outlaws adventures. I'm hopin' we'll see more single-player add-on maps in th' future, there still aren't that many now (especially compared to the over 400 multiplayer maps!).

• 12/10
  • Hmm this is innerestin'. As of yesterday 92 people downloaded my lil' custom crosshair that makes everyone look like Mary. Which is nice. But I haven't got one darn email about it... sooooo as far as I kin tell that means one of three things:
    1. Everybody who got it loves it so much that they've been playing with it without stopping since they got it, and haven't had time to tell me what they think of it.
    2. Everybody who got it hated it, trashed it instantly and was so mad at me that they couldn't think of words to sufficiently express their disgust.
    3. Everybody who got it tried it once and was so completely unimpressed they instantly forgot about it.

    So hey I guess all signs point to #1? Eheh well mebbe not... but at least I know that there are a lot of folks out there who like th' idea of shootin' Mary a lot. ;)

  • Speakin' of my hairy Mary, ya kin find her on Sticky's new site, for better or worse...

    Sticky's World Somehow I feel that "The Ultimate Outlaws Hideout" would not have quite so many blinking lights and blank pages and would not open up new pages when map files are clicked for download, but th' up to date level list with brief reviews makes this worth a check now an' then.

  • Wildarms sent word that his fancy new Apocalyse Riders site is near completion. He's added a couple new tips, one on th' 3dfx page about yer advanced video options (which I think are set that way by default, but pays to doublecheck I guess) and a tip on his "Newbie" page about how to make yer "walk forward" key into "run forward" so you don't gotta use that pesky run button no more. Well that may help some people, though it strikes me that you'd still need "run" for sidestepping an' backin' up, unless I suppose you hacked all those keys too, not sure that's possible....

    Actually I'm glad Outlaws doesn't have an "Always Run" toggle. Th' games we play at work do an' th' other testers are always running into trouble (that's a pun haha ugh) when they have to execute delicate maneuvers such as posing for screenshots. That's when I laugh my ass off... :D

  • Harmonica sent me an innerestin' mail. I can't tell ya all of it (heehee too bad :P (boy I'm mature today aren't I?)) but I can share that he has been playin' without auto-aim on lately an' lovin' ev'ry minnit of it! He likes havin' ta aim a bit more with th' rifle, doesn't even mind losin' "half" of his kills. Gosh. Fer a while I played with auto-aim off but ran inta big trouble when I lagged, couldn't hit squat. Guess I might try it out again now that I don't lag no more. Now mebbe Harmonica could try playin' without a crosshair, see how he does then HAHAHAHA oh dear there I go again.

    Oh yeah an' there's a Mr_Harmonica in th' Zone, which Harmonica doesn't appreciate much. Better look out Mister, Harm ain't no gentleman when he gets that shotgun in his hands...

  • DrDeath2 has done moved his USM gang site to http://members.tripod.com/~usmarshalls/main.html. He also adds that he's been havin' trouble with some DOS applications since he got his Banshee an' suspects that it's 'cause th' Banshee drivers are takin' up some 40k of that precious Conventional Memory. Well that sucks indeed... time ta get Doom Legacy, or mebbe even GLDoom... Oooo...

  • Take a visit over ta Outlaws Gang Busters an' check out their news Gazette. They got a long post from th' Doominator about his theories on how fps affects speed in Outlaws (which are probably sort of right but I don't think quite as much as he makes it sound) an' some news from some Zone official guy about why Win98 + Zone + Outlaws = lame. :P

  • That's it fer today! I'm pretty much all caught up news-wise after my absence this weekend but I haven't had time ta get through e-mail so don't be mad if ya ain't got a reply yet, I'm gettin' to it as soon as I can. Eeeep!

• 12/9
  • Oaugh... what a weekend or so. I'm trying to think of some kind of lesson I can pass along... oh okay here it is: do NOT get into a line at a fast food joint that has a guy holding a cardboard box in it. Don't ask, jus' take my word fer it. :P

    Anyhow I got lots of stuff ta pass along but I'm 'bout ta keel over, so I'm jus' gonna focus on th' new level stuff tonight. Here we go:

  • My Clementine Darlin' an' then Slater's Dog himself both sent me Slater's newest invention, Cactus Flat. Slater says he was mainly making it for 2 to 3 players, an' that originally it was going to have a Mexican theme but that changed as he worked on it.

    Well ta me this one serves as a reminder of why I've always felt Slater was tops in creating playable settings with that genuine Old West (tm) feel. Three old dilapidated buildings sit in a flat, windswept plain extending to th' horizon in all directions. That's right, this map has no visible borders. Invisible walls prevent ya from gettin' too far away from th' lil' town. He makes excellent use of environmental sounds, even throwing in a Morriconesque riff at one spot.

    Check out th' wide open spaces in this screenshot. Needless ta say a rifle will work well here, though in a 1 on 1 a pistol or shotgunner camping in th' town should do all right. Not much ammo or items so be careful with whatcha got.

    A fantastic map. Th' feel reminds me of th' deserted, rickety trainstation in th' beginning of Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West". Loverly. :)

  • Darlin' also did send me Paintball by TECH570 (nice name there bud). Took me a second to see it but I suppose it could resemble an indoor paintball arena, with bases at either end of a large space dotted with small barriers (screenshot). Well I dunno, I think I'd rather shoot it out in an old western town rather than a paintball field... besides which th' technical side of this map seems a bit neglected what with no real lightsourcing, misaligned textures and two dimensional walls. Not my cup of tea but hey, mebbe it's yours, 'specially if yer hungerin' fer all th' CTF ya kin get yer mitts on.

  • Okay, not satisfied with all th' lovin' she was sendin' me I confess I went ta Darlin's site an' snuck away with some more, namely House Fight by Badd an' Ruthless, th' pair that recently conspired on Street Fight.

    Hehe well I mus' say I kinda get a kick out've it when people blame me fer th' idea fer their map. ;) But while it's got a fairly tight design, with some small bedrooms above and stables (screenshot) below, th' claustrophobic design (what kind of house doesn't have windows?), insistent symmetry an' lack of lighting effects make fer a somewhat dull level. These are all things that worked great in th' outdoor Street Fight but backfire inside in House Fight. Mebbe this comparison will illustrate th' problem: in Street Fight you could see the houses, but couldn't enter, while in House Fight you can't even see the street at all. Still, you'd be assured of no lack of action with even two people -- just don't expect it to hold yer attention all night.

  • Okay one more then I'm gone. DrDeath2's Stalemate. Doc returns to th' classic style of CTF map with two forts connected by a main drag as well as looping side passages. Nothin' particularly stunnin' in th' look or execution, but th' final result has a nice sense of space screenshot), not too cramped or too open. I'll hafta try this one out... be warned that in a bold move it doesn't even support DeathMatch play, it's Team or CTF only here. Pretty ballsy decision by Doc2, I gotta admire that. ;)

• 12/4
  • Well my friend ain't here quite yet so's I whipped up a lil' somethin' fer ya folks. I saw over on Outlaws Players that Metallica done come up with a fancy new crosshair fer all those snipin' bastards out there. Well as a non-snipin' Sanchez type who plays with crosshairs OFF I can't say as I'm gonna use it, though it is pretty neat. An' it set me ta thinkin', jus' what could be done...

    Well I know there are lots of folks out there who hate havin' ta play against Mary. I also know that nothin' motivates me ta play harder than havin' a big ol' Mary comin' after me with her shotgun. Soo... fer all them Mary haters out there, here's a Mary crosshair.

    What does it do? Well, it makes ev'ryone look like a mean ol' Mary! Yee-ikes! Look out, here's one now! Eeep! There's another over there! They're all over th' place! NoooOOoooOOoo!

    Ta use it ya jus' extract th' "croshair.nwx" to yer Outlaws directory. If ya get sick of it, jus' delete it or rename it. Better get a move on, there are Mary's ev'rywhere!

    It occurs ta me that ya kin prob'ly make bigger crosshairs too... all kinds of wacky stuff could be done. It might be neat ta see a crosshair with calibrations fer lobbin' TNT...

  • Well I gotta run fer th' weekend, but before I go here's a brand new map from Gas called Fortified Canyon. Sez he made it fer CTF. Try it out... hey, there are Mary's in here, too!! IeeEeEE! ;)

• 12/3
  • Ya know I've noticed that sometimes a player will get on a big roll in a deathmatch and won't notice it until they finally look up at th' kill list... then it goes ta their head an' they promptly start gettin' whupped. This happened ta me at work today. Doh! Darn psychological trickery!

  • Well an ol' college chum from back east is ridin' inta town ta visit fer th' weekend so I may not be gettin' in updates fer th' next few days. Y'all kin still send me news an' stuff, it'll jus' be delayed in gettin' posted fer a bit. On a related note, I've noticed that my web server seems to be havin' some troubles lately -- couldn't pull th' page up last night. It's hosted fer free an' all so I guess I can't complain too much -- aw heck yah I can if this keeps happenin'. :P

• 12/2
  • Those of ya lucky enough ta have a Banshee video card may have heard that 3dfx has come out with new Banshee reference drivers that are, of course, supposed to be better than all previous drivers for most Banshee cards. Well on my Quantum 3D Raven they had th' same graphic glitches (black name, black or tinted knives and tnt) that most drivers other than th' previous 3dfx ref drivers had. I do NOT recommend usin' th' new drivers if Outlaws is important to ya, or at least not if ya have a Quantum 3D, I guess I can't speak fer th' other cards -- though when we tried to install them at work on an STB Banshee, Win95 had a bluescreen crash on each reboot. Ouch.

    Nosin' around fer news about this I ended up on th' best Banshee news site I'm aware of, Bill's Workshop. Now th' real important thing you'll find there is a link to th' site with th' "Banshee Control Panel" utility. Jus' tried out th' latest version and MAN, that is one great utility. Lets ya set clock speeds, vsync, Glide and D3D options and best of all ya kin now set yer refresh rates for EACH an' ev'ry screen resolution. This is somethin' that I've never been able to do in any other driver or utility, and frankly I never could understand why not -- it's th' most important thing a video control panel should do as far as I'm concerned. Well this utility does it, so if ya got a Banshee yer in luck. :)

  • If I didn't think it it'd embarrass her I might be in love with GDO_Darling; she's been sendin' me all th' new maps that her sharp eye comes across. =) Today she sent me Lodge, th' latest from Fesstus. Well this basically looks a heckuvva lot like a slightly smaller version of his Fessville -- one very large, sort of winding building and some outlying structures. Pretty well put together, though seems quite dim. Lamps for instance cast no illumination which makes it kinda hard on th' eyes after a while. Or mebbe I should jus' get more sleep at night heh. Oh wait I thought I was done but I'm not, I fergot th' screenshot.

  • From Outlaws Gang Busters I snagged Gringo Pass 2. Runaway Jim has made some small improvements to his incredibly perfect map which I'm ashamed to say I haven't played yet but I am SO looking forward to. Th' OGB's have a very nice review of it; alls I got fer now is this screenshot.

  • The mighty Sling has a very interesting post on strategy from Vader. Doubly innerestin' is th' fact that Vader prefaces th' letter by announcin' that he an' partner Zeus are retirin' from Outlaws to go on to "more challenging" games. Well after readin' th' post I think what he means izzat since th' two of them have pretty much established themselves as th' top duo in th' game (from what I hear, anyhow) they feel th' need to conquer new territory in new games, which is perfectly understandable. I won't be too surprised if I hear that they come back to shoot it up in Outlaws from time ta time though...

    This got me ta thinkin' (uh-oh hehe). What exactly is th' advantage of bein' a good player? As far as I can tell, and believe me I live this in almost every game, there are quite a few advantages to bein' a BAD player. I don't mean bad as in nasty, but bad as in, well... weak. :} Here are some pros that come quickly to mind:

    1. No stress. There's no need to prove yourself the best day in and day out if you're not expected to win, you can just kick back and enjoy yourself. Relax that trigger finger an' do somethin' silly!
    2. People take pity on you and are extra nice to ya in chat if they feel a lil' bit sorry fer whuppin' ya so badly. :)
    3. Weaklings make friends easily! No trouble findin' people ta play with when they know they'll be able ta get lots of easy kills off'a yer worthless hide.
    4. When ya end up doin' somethin' dumb yer opponents will tend ta try ta help ya out rather than jeer you for yer blunder.
    5. When skill is not expected of you you can win praise and accolades by getting just a few kills in a row.
    6. When you can't beat the average player you never run out of challenges.
    7. Since kills an' bein' killed don't matter you can take more time out of fightin' ta practice yer witticisms in-game. A real crowd-pleaser.
    8. If you accidentally kill yourself you can just giggle and everyone will laugh at -er I mean WITH you.
    9. You can cheat and people will chalk it up to ignorance rather than villainy. ;)
    10. Caving in at the first sign of disagreement lets you avoid nasty arguments.

    Heh so ya see there ARE benefits ta bein' a loser. Why wear yerself out practicing and building skill, all for th' appreciation of people who will just end up envying and hating you? Well okay that's a TAD of an exaggeration. But devil's advocate is such a fun job...

• 12/1
  • Got a look at that site I came across th' other day, I'm afraid it's somethin' of a new low in Outlaws sites:

    GNR: "The Gunners" Well this is just disgraceful. Not only does th' front page of this site have that 140k animated Outlaws logo in a layout that doesn't even fit in a 1024 pixel-wide screen, but th' only meaningful part of their site, th' levels page, is ripped straight off of #Outlaws_Players. Shame on you, Gunners! ;P

  • Well hey GNR kin do it, so why not me? ;) Stole a new map from Sling's excellent Outlaws Players site called Snotburg by one Snot_E_Noze. Ahem. Okay one thing I noticed loading this map up, the name (and author's own name) are in all CAPS which just looks stupid in the level list. Anyhow, things looked pretty good at first, a multi-building town in a large valley, but then I hit those nasty drop-your-fps-under-20 doors that Sling found. Ack. Also, even with th' doors that worked okay, thing to keep in mind izzat in multiplayer each door movement adds to the data transfer, and in laggy games doors can start going wonky.

  • I been thinkin' a takin' a dive into LawMakerin'. ;) Now I know this'll be a field day for all those LawMakers whose maps I've critiqued to date, but let me qualify this by saying that if I DO end up givin' it a try, it'll jus' be a lil' arena map fer testin' modified sawed-off shotgun variants. So my excuse is that it's SUPPOSED to suck, hehehe.

    Actually if things pan out like I think they will I'll only be workin' part-time fer th' next month or so which means I'll have LOTS more time fer umm whatever I wanna do, which of course includes Outlaws in a big way. :) I don't really wanna go too far into mapmaking, don't think I have th' born-to-edit inclination fer it, but I AM considerin' muddling around with NWX editing. Fer those who don't know, NWXs are basically all th' people an' props ya come across in Outlaws -- th' freeware editor is available from th' fine folks at th' Outlaws Editing Team. People look a bit tricky, but I think I'd like ta try my hand at makin' props an' textures an' other things that map editors might wanna include in their maps.

    Now this is all wishful thinkin' at this stage... at th' very least I think I will be doing a lil' NWX stuff ta make th' modified shotgun item look different so people know it's not th' normal overpowered one.

• 11/30
  • Metallica has put together a new map featuring a modified sawed-off shotgun. While it doesn't quite match my own proposal, that's probably a good thing since we'll be able to get a variety of opinions on different versions. The map is called Montana. The sawed does 1.6 average damage vs the normal 2.0, though I noticed the range (but not accuracy) has been significantly enhanced. I'm interested to know what people think so fire me off an e-mail if you try the gun out. Oh there's also a stick of TNT that pretty much kills everything in half a mile... yikes.

  • About that Doom2 Western TC I added yesterday, Mr. Slack has discovered that yes indeed it does work with Doom Legacy; you just run it by going to your Doom2 dir and entering
    doom3 -file fistful.wad
    at the command prompt. Worked like a charm fer me, thanks again Mr. Slack! :)

  • Raptor, aka James Sulman th' guy what made the very impressive Backpacker Hostel has come up with his second map, Fort Anne Lost. A very fine looking map this, with wonderful use of sounds, lighting effects and diagonal construction that really give the feeling of a destroyed, abandoned structure; check this screenshot which really only gives you a look at a fraction of th' detail in this map. And in case you thought level design was a pretty straightforward operation, here's a bit of what Raptor sent me about this map's design process:

    As always the hardest part of making a level is coming up with a new idea that no-one has done before. I've always wanted to do a fort but as we all know it’s hardly new. But then I had a idea, that (as far as I know) hasn't been done yet. I though maybe an old run down fort which was badly damaged - like there was once a mighty battle there - which the occupants had lost (Hence the title - hope someone out there gets it).
     
    For a while there in construction I really thought this was going to be a winner - I had walls fallen down - others tilting badly. One of the towers was half blow away - while another had fallen and was lying on its side - and all around was debris from the broken walls, towers and walkways.
     
    Soon however the map brought my computer to its knees and there was just too much for it to draw, so the whole level went though a big face lift a lot of walls went back up (to hide complex areas) and a lot of debris removed. Then I got a few fellow OZ players and we gave it a good test - the result I’m afraid was not good, with two players the frame rates were poor but acceptable - with three the level was no good at all. So, almost at the point of giving up, I polished up my delete key and got to work again - more walls went back up - more debris vanished and all of the jagged, broken edges were straightened.

    Okay so I admit I don't get th' title, but that ain't gonna stop me from hostin' up this fine lookin' map soon as I get th' chance.

  • GDO_Darling has just been too kind of late; she sent me off another new map that she came across, Gunners' Hideout by el_polo. A very curious one, this. First thing you'll notice (at least if you're the host) is the surprising and inventive use of ambient sounds -- for instance there's a persistant little fly that seems to be buzzing around your head from time to time: custom wav files, very nice. Then there's a modified weapon (*cringe* ;)), a high-caliber rifle somewhat akin to the "elephant gun" used by Templar in his map The Hill. This one seems to have even MORE kick to it: basically infinite range with the accuracy of James' rifle and a damage of 15 compared with the rifle's 2. Hmm. Well some people may like one-shot kills, if you're that type check it out. To me it kind of spoils the nice environment (check the screenshot).

  • Actually I owe Darlin' double thanks since that map came from a site I didn't have a link to yet -- whoops! Th' site is down right now, I'll try it again tomorrow...

• 11/29
  • Th' always delightful GDO_Darling sent me a new level by HeavyGear, Hillside. Not th' most polished map, but has a couple good sized buildings. Here's a screenshot of th' inside of one'a th' buildin's. Thanks Darlin'! As always, don't fergit ta visit her site for th' newest levels as soon as they come out.

  • Well some of ya know that I'm a bit behind gettin' new write-ups on ta th' level and player pages. Well jus' hold tight, I won't fergit ta do it. In fact I was kinda meanin' ta get it done today, but well... my excuse izzat Mr. Slack sent me a link to a great Doom2 add-on called "A Fistful of Doom." Since I done got unlimited web space I went ahead an' stuck this baby up on th' other utilities page -- so it's not a utility, so sue me! Here's what's been added:

    A Fistful of Doom (1.73 MB) DOS
    by The WadFactory
    Unzip this archive ta yer Doom2 directory and BANG, instant Doom Spaghetti Western! A must have fer Sergio Leone fans, this excellent add-on features great (for Doom engine) graphics and music, sound effects and speech sampled straight out of Leone's "Fistful of Dollars" movies. Only 2 levels and doesn't work with Doom Legacy (ie no real mouse support or support for higher resolutions) but captures the feel of th' films perfectly. Check out the installation screen fer an idea of th' quality of this excellent Doom2 mod.

    Thanks Mr. Slack! Had a blast with it, try it out yerself folks!

• 11/28
  • Ever vigilant Doominator pointed out that I'd forgotten to include the effective range for different character's pistols on the pistol data sheet. The range is the same for all characters except Two Feathers who's pistol can be used at longer range. The chief's pistol also shoots heavier bullets, I think that means you get knocked back more when they hit you. Well take a look fer yerself, I got it in there now, thanks Doomy!

  • Runaway_Jim sent me his latest map, Hotel California based he says on that good ol' Eagles song. Well this may be "a lovely place" but I kinda wish it was a lil' better lit... mebbe that's th' point though, I dunno. Look out for underwater pits that kill you, and don't take th' elevators in a multiplayer game, bad stuff happens. An interesting one, this; see what you can make of this shot.

  • Good news from Sling, he's gotten access to his Outlaws Players site again. In fact now it really IS his as he's taken over footin' th' bill from Shifty. He tells me if all goes well he should have one mammoth update goin' up sometime tonight. :)

  • That crazy Swiss Outlaw Wildarms, who whupped on me a lil' bit under an alias th' other day (ow!) has given his Apocalypse Riders site a complete overhaul. On a high resolution screen (at least 800x600) it looks fabulous. And most importantly he's got tons of well organized information ta getcha shootin' with th' best of 'em in no time. Still under a bit of construction so mind th' unfinished bits...

    He also had a map I didn't have, Turok's 1872. Quite a bit of an improvement over Turok's earlier maps, very solid with a nice open flow. Here's a screenshot.

  • Well that's it fer th' news, I'm off ta host games in Kali fer an hour or two. :) Drop on by or jus' check my IP address which is down an' to th' left as always...

• 11/27
  • Well with all this talk 'bout Outlaws stats an' all lately I decided ta go inta LawMaker an' get all th' numbers fer myself. ;) So now at th' bottom of each character an' weapon page you'll find a link to a text file that has th' various stats pulled straight outta th' game files. I noticed a few innerestin' things that I hadn't really thought of before, fer instance Doc is th' only character who doesn't start off with a lantern an' Sanchez starts off with 16 cartridges even though he has no rifle. Funky.

  • Neanderthal (at least I think that's th' callsign he uses) had some ideas fer an Outlaws sequel. Go check 'em out at th' end of th' list on th' sequel page.

  • Young LawMaker Ghostbear has been in a tizzy of activity lately. I met him in Kali yesterday an' he handed me THREE new maps: Chutes, Crossroad and Duels. I can't say I like these as much as his charming Tough; they all suffer from jagged texture alignment, lack of multiple story buildings and an overabundance of ammo and weapons.

    Crossroad would be my favorite of th' bunch: a little square four-building town (screenshot). Don't remember seein' any sawed-offs in there. Th' others have sawed-offs a-plenty... Chutes has that "lots of passages around a central clearing" style with an almost obscene amount of stairs and tunnels (screenshot). Duels sort of has th' look of a CTF map with two chapels facing each other across a canyon, but stairs only go to one side (screenshot).

    So all in all a rather troublesome bunch, but it's nice ta see so much energy bein' put out, I'm sure he's learnin' with each map he makes.

  • Had a nice game in Kali yesterday an' I'll be back in this afternoon fer a bit as well. Drop on by or jus' check my IP address (down and to the left).

• 11/26
  • Sling has figgered out his problem updatin' his excellent #Outlaws_Players site: th' password got changed somehow, an' since th' site is registered to Shifty they won't tell Sling th' new password so he can upload to the site. So if YOU know how to get in touch with Shifty, please pass th' info on ta Sling at [removed] so he kin' get th' site updated.

  • Th' discussion on th' proposed new sawed-off shotgun at DarkJedi.com (on the official LawMaker message board) is going along nicely thanks to th' Doominator who has posted th' actual variables used for the different shotguns. Now that I've seen th' hard data I've altered my proposal somewhat. Go check it out an' contribute yer own thoughtful 2 cents.

  • Thanks ta Hitman fer helpin' me test a couple things. Most important is th' fact that Metallica I think misinterpreted (or I just didn't understand him correctly) th' damage done by double barreled weapons. Two barrels from the double barrel shotgun does indeed do twice th' damage as one barrel from th' same gun -- Hitman took some shots at me and th' difference was pretty obvious. Thanks Hitman!

  • That's it fer me today, I wanna go get some Outlaws fun in before Turkey time. :d I'll be hostin' games in Kali fer a few hours, drop by or jus' check my IP address (look down the left column of this page) fer yer chance ta pump some lead inta me. :)

• 11/25
  • Metallica has been lookin' into this whole business of creating a new sawed-off shotgun to replace Lucasart's overpowered one. He dug up some VERY interesting details lookin' through th' game data files:

    The single-barreled shotgun has exactly twice as much power then does both barrels of the double-barrel put together. The sawed-off on the other hand has 4 times as much power as the double-barrel and nearly twice as much power as the single-barrel. Another thing about these shotguns that Lucasarts messed up on is the damage count of the double-barrel and sawed-off. I thought this was a real weird part. When you shoot the sawed off or double barrel with one barrel at a time it does the same damage as using both. So if you shoot both your barrels at the same time it does as much damage as one barrel. I couldn't believe it when I saw it, hehe. Another thing, the only hard part about making this modified sawed-off weapon is that part about picking up the sawed-off and it saying "Modified Sawed Off Shotgun." That's a part i'm not sure about that I can do. It might not even be possible. Outlaws gives you numbers that you can type in that Outlaws will recognize and make the phrase that shows when you pick something up. So you can't type in any old word that you want and it show up. If someone knows how to do this part I'd like to have some help on it. One more thing, I could make this so that if everyone put the .itm files of the weapon in their folder then it would change the weapon in every level of Outlaws, like Sanc, Bunx, all of them. Even the one's that people have made. If everybody could download this file and put it into their folder then you could play with the sawed-off. If the host has the file in his folder and launches and the other players don't then they won't get in. They'll get a message saying "Incompatible Level Data".
     
    Now when you said about those weapons that have weird sayings on them you were most likely talking about the map "The Hill". It says stuff like Concussion Rifle and Assault Cannon. Well, since Outlaws is made from Jedi Knight you can take the names of weapons from that game and use it in Outlaws.
     
    And one more thing I want to point out about your payload thing too. None of the shotguns shoot over 6 pellets. The single-barrel shoots 6 pellets. The double-barrel shoots 5 pellets with both barrels together or single-shot. The sawed-off only has 5 pellets that shoot out too. Let me tell ya why. Ya know when you shoot a sawed-off, single, or double-barrel and smoke comes out of the holes?? Well, only the holes that make smoke out of a wall are pellets. The rest are just to throw you off. Ya get me?? Try shooting at a wall with the weapons and counting how many holes smoke.

    Whoa, wonder why nobody noticed this stuff before. I guess 'cause no-one had a real reason ta go pokin' around into it. Well I'm excited about gettin' this new sawed-off thing goin', again I want people to go add yer insights/opinions/whatever about this to th' discussion thread on th' LawMaker message board at DarkJedi.com.

  • Speakin' of which, here's somethin' I got from StanJr that he could'a posted on th' board there, but mebbe it's better here:

    u can make the sawed off sound just like the double barrel if u fire off one shot at a time and trust me it does the same damage. I done some tests a while back in a game that i was playin in with some GS and it kills almost as good with one barrel as it does with 2 and they were askin if i was using the double barrel so i came through and told them it was the sawed off a nasty lil trick that most or most should know if they have ever encountered someone cheating in bunkers and wanted to even the score or if they were just to lazy to fire both off in a no ml match.

    Gosh I never really thought about it before but he's right, th' sawed-off single fire sounds jus' like th' double barrel shotgun. Geez.

• 11/24
  • Well today seems ta be th' day fer not-so-new but improved levels. ;) Always nice ta see mapmakers committed ta their work; quality so rarely wins over quantity these days, especially in games.

    GoJo sent along a new version of his first map, this one's now called RedDog2. Think makin' a good map doesn't take much brainpower? Here's what GoJo had ta say 'bout this revision:

    It comes as no surprise that the author of a map generally kicks butt in his level, at least at first. This is because in the almost interminable testing, he becomes intimate with it. Being able to navigate backwards is the biggest plus in that regard. However, if the map was made from a strategic point of view, only the author fully grasps the nuances. Heck, I came close to beating Kohna the first time we played Coonhound Holler. Those who have played both of us, realize what an accomplishment that was, hehe.
     
    So, bottom line, I intend to share the strategic ideas that I put into my maps. I sent out REDDOG2 last night. (apologies to Martone, I had forgotten to add you to my address book, so I neglected you. Won't happen again. Copy included here for your benefit.)
     
    One look at the canyon textures and size make it obvious that I made it for my favorite character, James. It goes well beyond that though. The high ceilings in the buildings are so that James can get his full jump advantage, even indoors. I tried to choose textures that minimized the out of proportion look. The other jump areas also benefit James. He can make the cliff leaps without the speed key enabled, although using it as a measure of safety is advised.
     
    The map is really for CTF. There are three obvious routes. The perimeter cliff route takes a little longer to discover and is frought with danger from the jumps. (I originally had bridges there but they seemed out of place in the scheme and reduced FPS, so I trashed them, and adjusted the space for the jumps mentioned above.) The fifth route is very effective and not obvious. From the log building go out front door, up the inclined inner cliff, negotiate around the horseshoe. A well timed jump will put you on the roof of the plank building. Drop off the back and either enter through the back or move to the side. Reverse for the other team. On the reverse trip, it is advisable to sidestep down the incline.
     
    The sound problem in Outlaws makes these only benefit the host. Dog sounds indicate someone is entering or leaving a building by a door. The sounds are slightly different. The dogs are not disturbed, however, if you enter or leave via a window. Wolf howls are used in two places, so this may not be that helpful. Note where they are. The tunnel leading to the bunker has gravel sounds, so listen for the footsteps behind you.
     
    Defeating the bunker can be done in either of two ways. Dropping TNT from the cliff above is pretty effective and fairly obvious. Sniping it is easier though, if you know the best place to do it from. That thick crosshair in the scope makes it advisable to do so from an angle which means that the obvious location of inside the plank building is difficult. Pick up a scope if using other than James and go to the roof of the log building. While approaching the front, crouch and move to the right of the adobe barricade. Snipe away. The adobe side camouflages Doc and other white shirts, and the log side camouflages the rest. The occupant of the bunker will have to have scope on to get you, but having it on all the time reduces his bunker advantage to almost nil.
     
    That's about it. I hope this levels the playing field for REDDOG2.

    Some very impressive strategic depth to this one, no question. Wide areas do indeed favor James, check out a view of th' two bases in today's screenshot. While this one wasn't one of his that I REALLY liked, each an' every one of his changes has been fer th' better, he's now got yet another impressive map in his repetoire. You GO, GoJo!

    Th' remainin' maps I stole from Outlaws Gang Busters. They've jus' implemented a great new map review section where a bunch'a th' OGB's get together an' play a map, then all their collective impressions are gathered together fer an extremely in-depth review. Geez, makes me wish I had four or five lil' Pales runnin' around... Their first review covers Dusty's excellent Hold Up 2, go take a look it's a darn fine read.

    Ah yes on to those maps. We got a sequel by Dusty himself, Caved In 2. With help from OGB Martone, this one's been expanded an' fleshed out. Th' first was pretty petite, this one's more roomy. A great lookin' bit of modification, check it out. Then there's Badd an' Ruthless's Street Fight 2. This one looks pretty much th' same but with better framerates. :) Cool. If ya missed it th' first time, be sure ta give it a try now.

• 11/23
  • Ack! Delayed from uploading by a nasty windstorm which brought power and Internet outages. Darn ol' assertive Mother Nature...

  • Almost as soon as I finished up my proposal fer a new standard sawed-off shotgun (see yesterday's post, darnit!), th' Doominator pointed out that th' Outlaws box an' manual say th' single barrel an' double barrel shotguns are 10 gauge, while th' sawed off is 12 gauge. Well that's real perceptive of Doomy, but I'm gonna stick with my bore designations fer several reasons. First, if th' double an' single barrel shotguns are th' same bore, why does th' single do far more damage? Second, two 12-gauge barrels on th' sawed-off would jus' be too darn powerful, that could be what got th' darn thing so overpowered in th' first place. Th' discussion has begun on th' LawMaker board at DarkJedi.com; please drop by and help contribute, this is a project that needs to involve the entire community.

  • Raf let me know that Trooper of UGO has set up a a tourney -- check th' new link farther down for more on that. Raf also mentioned that Metallica has made a new Outlaws crosshair (nwx format) that allows for greater rifle accuracy. Cool! I don't use crosshairs myself but jus' th' fact that you kin edit th' darn things is neat. Raf hopes ta have th' new crosshair up on his Outlaws Editing Team site this Saturday.

  • Dusty sends word that he an' Martone have expanded Dusty's "Caved In" map -- should be ready later this week.

  • Th' extremely prolific Gas dished up another new map, Emigrants v2.1. This's a pretty small lil' farmstead, includin' a corral with a section of floor that you kin blow up ala Dusty's Caved In. A pretty nice lil' map, here's a screenshot.

    Seems Gas also committed a bit of a faux pas in IRC recently an' he wants to publicly apologize. He asked me if I'd print this bit from th' Emigrants readme, here goes:

    OK, i have somthing to tell to you all. few days ago, i hacked to someone's computer with netbus and its a really mean thing because not only I can enter his computer, anyone else can too. in the same day, i tried to send it to another guy in #O_P but after i realized how stupid it is, i stopped it before it even started. Now, no-one trust me in the channel and im really sorry the situation is like this but, its my fault, i caused it and i can't blame anyone. So... to anyone i tried to send, i want you all to know that im really sorry, i won't do it again to anyone else. Before we go to the real level, i recommend you all to go to this URL and get the protection from this mean proggie: http://surf.to/netbuster/

    Well sounds like he's genuinely sorry fer what he did, so let's all try ta make it up, eh? No reason ta have bad blood out there in cyberland.

  • Oh my gosh where do all of these sites keep comin' from?!?...

    	Outlaws United Gang Graphically spare but with a stylish use of fonts, this's a pretty good site if ya kin overlook th' not so great English. A good deal of info on th' gang.
    	Sharp Shoot'n Outlaws Site makes th' gang look like a bunch'a lowdown horse thieves as th' logo an' levels are stolen straight from th' Texas Rangers, an' mos' of th' other graphics I've seen before on other sites. Aside from th' graphics th' site seems very hastily thrown together with no real cohesion. Looks like a large gang, but they sure got a crappy web page. ;P
    	ANV Gang Home Page The "Army of Northern Virginia" site concentrates more effort on educating viewers about th' organization of Robert E. Lee's army, but also contains a bit of info on th' gang an' a frequently updated bulletin' of gang info.

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