Friday, January 28, 2000

New Master .Plan -- 10:56 pm CST, Update by The Master

Okay, I'll admit that I'm a pessimist (or, as A.T. calls me, pi$$y), but I just had to comment on all the furor over Y2K and post-Y2K. Check out my newest Master .plan for my views on Y2K.

Monty Python Back On TV! -- 6:41 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Late last year, A&E started showing Monty Python's Flying Circus on Saturday evenings. There was much rejoicing. After about a month and a half, one of A&E's trained baboons decided to take it off the air. Upon revisiting A&E's Monty Python site, I noticed that they are showing them again! Set your VCRs though, the shows air at 6 AM ET/7 AM PT. Oh well, poorly scheduled Python is better than no Python at all. Please note that this is for the U.S., I believe A&E Canada (and elsewhere?) is different. And I'd like to conclude by putting my finger up my nose.

Open Source and User Interface -- 6:15 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

sendmail.net has this column from Mike Kuniavsky about one of the failings of the Open Source movement: poor user interfaces. His argument is that since most Open Source software is written by haX0rs for haX0rs, very little attention is given to providing a good interface for the fine code beneath. This may be the Open Source's Achilles' heel that keeps its software from being used by the masses. Thanks Slashdot.

Graeme Devine on Persistent Worlds -- 3:18 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's Graeme Devine lays the smack down on persistent world gaming in Gamespy's developers week. He probably ticked a lot of people off with this article, but the man speaks the truth.

As much as people rave about Everquest and the like, I don't think I'll ever try them. Paying a developer $50 for the privilege of paying them $10 a month to play the game is against my religion.

The Best Game Ever -- 1:33 pm CST, Update by J.t.Qbe

According to this article in Salon, the best game ever isn't Q3A, UT or even Deer Hunter (sorry A.T., I know that's your favorite). Instead, the best game ever is Nethack. If you've never played it, you'll think this guy is nuts. Try Nethack once and you'll wonder what the fuss is about. Try it twice and you'll like it. Try it three times and you're hooked. Ahh, I remember being addicted to Hack in '86, and '88, and '89. . .

Clan Hell -- 12:39 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Lowtax and the boyz at Something Awful have found a new target for their wrath: clans with profoundly bad and ugly webpages. Check out Clan Hell. See the point where 1337-ness meets profound stupidity. These pages serve as a reminder of how necessary it is for us to take our Ritalin.

Linux Q3A Point Release -- 9:46 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

sCary mentioned in his "Werd" today that the Linux Quake III Arena point release is entirely in the hands of Loki (the ones who did the port), not id. He hopes to find some word on a release schedule. When we get our Q3A server running, it will be on Linux. Let's hope they get that point release out while we still have our youth.

Lamer Alert -- 9:42 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Well, upon perusing the EZ-Net Q3A server's log last night, we discovered that we have a regular visitor who is an aimbot user. What a lamer. I'm not going to mention his/her name (gotta take care of some "business" first). Just a reminder that Big Brother is watching.

Thursday, January 27, 2000

CliffyB on the UT Bonus Pack -- 11:07 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Epic's Cliff Bleszinski updated his .plan with news on the munch-anticipated Unreal Tournament bonus pack.

I'd be a liar if I said the snow here hasn't slowed down the forthcoming free-release Epic Bonus Pack.

For those of you who are patiently waiting for this I can tell you that all the content is ready to go and we're testing it.

Apollo I remembered -- 9:00 pm CST, Update by The Master

I can't believe I forgot this one, but on this day in 1967, Virgil Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died in a flash fire onboard their Apollo I capsule. This was the first of two accidents in the U.S. space program to kill astronauts. May they rest in Peace.

This Week's Sign of the Apocalypse -- 6:23 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

According to this USA Today article (motto: what we lack in content, we make up in shallowness), the top selling video game of 1999 was, um, Pokémon with 12 million copies sold. The highest selling "M" (mature) rated video game was Half-Life with less than half a million copies sold. The article claims that it is a reaction against ultra-violent video games. I think it's a sign of increasing recreational drug use, but that's me. Thanks Shugashack for the link. I think.

Interview with Alan Willard -- 6:08 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Voodoo Extreme has slapped up an interview with Epic's Alan Willard regarding his work on UT and something about Monica Lewinsky (leave it to Billy W.). Thankfully, they do not ask him how he got into the business.

While this one is decent, I'm really getting sick of sycophantic interviews. If I read one more softball question no one cares about, I'm going to throw up. It seems that websites are in a rush to interview someone but forget that they really should think of something worthwhile to ask. Check the interview with Willits and Steed from yesterday for ideas on how to interview properly.

LithTech, Inc. created -- 4:14 pm CST, Update by The Master

Well, according to Jason Hall's .plan update, Monolith has spun off the LithTech engine into a seperate corporate entity entitled LithTech, Inc. Now we know what Monolith is doing! They're making .coms! Heh-actually-they're going where the money is-engine licensing. Here's a snippet:

This announcement is extremely significant. We have been working hard to make sure that LithTech is geared and ready for the future. This announcement shows that we are moving in the right direction.

It is the highest compliment to be able to attract someone of Dr. Whitten's caliber. This guy really knows solid technology when he sees it.

I am looking forward to watching LithTech grow and proliferate as a true 3D gaming operating system (3DGOS). The end result of all of this is an even more robust development toolset that has a clear direction and a solid future - and more importantly, great support!

Just try to ignore Jason patting himself on the back. I don't see what he's so proud of, considering Monolith's track record in game support, but hey, maybe they can turn it around. . .

A.T. Hun comments: Whoopdeedoo!

Mozilla M13 Binaries Released -- 3:28 pm CST, Update by J.t.Qbe

The latest Mozilla milestone, M13, has been released. If you're running Win32, MacOS 8.5 or Linux, you can try out the alpha version of your next browser. Get it at the Mozilla site. Check out the Tucows review while you're waiting for the download. I'm running the Linux version, and it looks good and is much more stable than the last release. However, it does appear to have some rendering problems with The Haus! Still, it's worth a look.

A.T. Hun comments: First off, a big welcome to J.t.Qbe as another news guy! Check out his column if you haven't already. Second, as Qbe mentioned, this is an alpha release of Mozilla so stability should be much improved. There may still be some "show stopping" bugs though. Almost there!

Update: I just got M13 installed. I don't understand why the date bars aren't displaying properly on the news, but are displaying fine in the nav bar on the right. Wierd. ESPN.com still looks like garbage. Hopefully these issues will be addressed with Mozilla goes beta with M14. All in all, it seems to be much faster and more stable than M13.

Mod Power! -- 8:26 am CST, Update by The Master

Brandon Reinhart of Epic posted a .plan update writing about some games he's recently played, and a ton of stuff on the mod community in general. This is an excellent read, but it's very long. I have to agree with BR on much of it. As a longtime Quake(x) player, I have gotten maximum enjoyment out of the Quake series from all the mods. I played the original CTF (with the keys as flags!). I player Requiem (still my favorite mod). I played LFire Q2 CTF. I've enjoyed them all.

Thank you to the dedicated, mostly unpaid programmers out there who crank out great mods. You make the games we play all the more enjoyable!

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