0328-0401

THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 1999

UNREAL LOSIN TOP DOGS (3:35 AM EST)

OMG, Steven Polge (Reaperbots creator) and others leaving Epic Mega Games.... Shane Caudle, Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart, and Steve Polge and myself are all now leaving Epic Games to pursue other endeavors.
We wish Mark, Tim, James, and everyone else the best of luck at Epic.
We evaluated what we should be doing, where technology was going, and we came to one conclusion. We should make games for one of the largest installed hardware bases in the world.
We are naming our new company "Boys at Play." Shane saw a sign that said that in Amsterdam, and we liked it for a company name.
We shall immediately begin making our first title:
"GIRLZ N GUNZ" on the Colour Gameboy.
...
(oh, and April Fools, biatch. hee hee)

MORE EXCUSES TO SKIP WORK

From Bobby Duncanson's humor vault: I just found out that I was switched at birth.
Legally, I shouldn't come in to work knowing my
employee records may now contain false information.

The psychiatrist said it was an excellent session.
He even gave me this jaw restraint so I won't bite things when I am startled.

I prefer to remain an enigma.

My mother-in-law has come back as one of the undead and we must
track her to her coffin to drive a stake through her heart and
give her eternal peace. One day should do it.

I can't come to work today because the EPA has determined that my house is
completely surrounded by wetlands and I have to arrange for helicopter
transportation.

I'm feeling a little disgruntled this morning. You sure I should come in?

Rejected Dr. Seuss books

1. The Cat in the Blender
2. Herbert the Pervert Likes Sherbert
3. Fox in Detox
4. Who Shat in the Hat?
5. Horton Hires a Ho
6. The Flesh-Eating Lorax
7. How the Grinch Stole Columbus Day
8. Your Colon Can Moo---Can You?
9. Zippy the Rabid Gerbil
10. One Bitch, Two Bitch, Dead Bitch, Blue Bitch More from Bobby Duncanson's humor vault.........

REQUIEM DEMO II

Um, for some reason the demo tells me my DirectX 6.1 is not DirectX 6.0 or better. I reinstalled DX 6.1, and got the same error, so I couldn't play it. I emailed them, maybe I'll get a reply before the final version is on shelves.... Any ideas?

AWESOME SITE

Wayfarer sent me the most wonderful link today, SHELL EXTENTION CITY. This site rules so much. Ton's of utilities to tweak and optimize your computer. Man I spent over an hour going through there and downloading tons of toys... :)

NORM QUOTE

"What's up, Norm?"
"Everything that's supposed to be."

#40 CAFFIENE IS GOOD

Don't need to say any more......

RINE'S LINK OF THE DAY

Think you're a real Quaker? Take the THE QUAKE PURITY TEST and see if you really are....

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 1999

USER FRIENDLY UNDER FIRE (1:45 AM EST)

Apparantly the 'Evil Empire" *COUGH* *MICRO$HAFT* is attempting to sue UF's creator Illiad for his jabs at their power hungry company. There's a page up providing banners to show your support for Illiad and User Friendly HERE.

MELISSA VIRUS

Hahahahah, it's primarily targetted at Outlook Express users... HAHAHHHAHA Take that MICRO$HAFT. :P

REQUIEM DEMO II

Got 20% down the magic pipe.... I'll post a review tomorrow as soon as I get a chance to dig it a bit. As I said, the plot is cool as is, and the last demo was not too shabby in itself, you can snag a copy HERE.

NORM QUOTE

"What's up, Norm?"
"Corners of my mouth."

#39 LIFE'S LIKE A TOILET

Always receiving shit, get swirled around a lot, and basically you just sit there and suck. Not to mention the swirlies....

LINK OF THE DAY

This one is truly evil. Remember the lame all-guy pop group from the 80's. We're talking before New Skids On My Shorts, we're talkin MENUDO.

TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 1999

TRIBES VERSION 1.3.12 (12:15 AM EST)

Planetstarseige has Tribes version 1.3.12 posted for download. Changes:
Client & Server Changes:
      - Banning problems introduced in version 1.3 have been fixed.
      - A server side crash related to players dropping items then quitting has been fixed.
      - The remoteBuyItem() function now properly checks for team item limits.
      - Performance improvements for nVidia TNT cards.
      - OpenGL & 32 bit desktops. If your graphics card supports 32 bit rendering, then the TRIBES will now run 32 bit
      accelerated, otherwise the software OpenGL driver is run, which is extremely slow.
      - A crash bug related to having shadows turned on while using the Glide drivers has been fixed. This was a bug introduced
      in version 1.3.
      - Staying connected to IRC while playing the game could cause the client to crash.
      - OpenGL is now enabled by default, you no longer have to set the $OpenGL::Enabled variable.
      - If a client is missing custom files (or missions) loaded by the server, a "missing file" error message now appears during
      the loading process.
      - Clients now get a "connecting to modified server" notice when connecting to servers which have mods loaded. Mod or
      server operators may set an optional string ($MODInfo) that is appended to the notice.
Also there are mission editor changes listed on the Planetstarseige page. To go straight to the mirrors, click HERE.

CD RIPPERS....

Disruptor (id Software) updated his .plan with the results of his CD ripping request. Three programs seemed to be most widely suggested.

1) CD Spin Doctor included in Corel's Easy CD Creator
This didn't work for me. It wasn't sensitive enough in detecting the gaps =(

2) /WaveSurgeon
Looked like a neat program but went into a wierd endless loop when it tried
to save out the regions in a WAV file, and filled up my HD pretty damned fast.

3) Steinberg Recycle
    This seems to be the program that most people recommended. It's designed for
    cutting up drum loops, breakbeats, and whatnot. I'll need to run out and get
    a copy of this.

And for the curious, I'm using a drop in CDFS.VXD replacement for Win98 that
allows me to read in audio tracks from a CD directly as a WAV file. You can check
it out at http://www.cdpage.com/Compact_Disc_Consulting/cdfsvxd.html

Make sure you make a backup copy of your current CDFS.VXD if you decide to try
this out. I find it more convenient than using CD Spin Doctor to rip a sample CD.

I got the CDFS.VXD, and am using it for my WIN95, and it's very cool. You can play the tunes as CDA's, or WAV's at different levels. This makes ripping much easier, and you can cut and edit clips sooo easy... :)

REQUIEM DEMO II

Blue's has posted that a second Requiem: Avenging Angel demo will be out tomorrow. I downloaded the last small endboss only level, and thought it was pretty cool, you are a badass angel fighting demons and such. :) The new demo wil include:
    4 "JAM's" (or sub-levels) that make up the one level
    Setting in the Power Plant of New Damascus
    Tons of soldiers, Demon Rats, Demon Dogs, and Flying Kynthra
    Tons of Angelic Powers including Resurrect, Possess, To Salt, Bloodboil, and Warp Time
I'll be getting it, the plot alone is cool to me :) To read more about it, or get the download when available, hit the REQUIEM SITE.

NORM QUOTE

"How's a beer sound, Norm?"
"I dunno. I usually finish them before they get a word in."

#38 GOD MUST BE A WOMAN

It's the only way I can figure out why men are made to suffer as we do.....

LINK OF THE DAY

Maybe you heard about it, and thought it a joke, but someone really did pay $2025 for an Ultima Online account. An interview is up on the ARS TECHNICA site. They also have a link to the actual eBay posting. I'm torn whether or not I think this is stupid, after spending so many hours playing Quake and Quake II, tweaking, altering cfgs and such. How much would I have paid to have all the batch files and everything already there for me? I spent a good two months reading Quake news sites just to figure out how to play it online and not be a solid stone... :) Submitted by Browsemaster General Rine.

MONDAY, MARCH 29, 1999

TFC REVIEW (Part I) (2:30 AM EST)

Well I had some time to run around solo in the levels and check it out as a couple different classes. First off, the maps totally rule, they are the maps you remember (2fort, well, rock) but much prettier. The classes are the same as you remember too, with similar weapons (nailgun, sniper rifle) and grenades as the original. Also each class functions the same, although as far as I could tell, the engineer cannot upgrade his turrents. The weapons are not the lame Half-Life weapons you know and hate *COUGH* *ROCKET LAUNCHER* They are more true to form, the Rocket Launcher is no longer a slow, reload each shot weapon, it now functions much like the Q2 RL, can be fired repeatedly, and reloads when empty. Also, YOU CAN ROCKET JUMP!!! Yes it's true, and high ones at that... That's prolly why I like it so much :) Antyways I definetly recommend downloading this if you have Half-Life, and liked TF, it rules. As soon as I get Rine to play on the LAN a bit, I'll pst part two of this review, stay tuned.

CD RIPPERS SAY "AYE"

Disruptor (id Software) updated his .plan asking for some CD ripping help: <i>Personal Music Stuff...</i>

Scenario: I rip a sample CD to my HD in WAV format. There are multiple
samples per track that are seperated by a second or two of silence.

Does anyone know of any programs out there that will batch split up the
individual samples into multiple files? (ie: track01.wav has 7 samples
in it. I want to have 7 seperate files) I've tried both Cool Edit Pro 1.1
and SoundForge 4.5 and neither of them allow me to do this. The Roland
GrooveSampler does this, but it saves out the samples into it's own
proprietary format.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

CAN'T SLEEP...

Anyone know a good way to make yourself sleep? I haven't slept but a couple hours in a week....

#37 WOMEN, CAN'T LIVE WITH THEM, CAN'T KILL THEM.

Sigh....

LINK OF THE DAY

THE WORLD'S BEST TOILET SEAT, can I say more? Submitted by Browsemaster General Rine.

SUNDAY, MARCH 28, 1999

TF Classic LAN Release CRACKAGE.. (1:10 PM EST)

Well, just like the MPLAYER only Daikatana, TFC has been fuggured out, and it's really not too hard, you just do it like any other server you run for any other Q2 based game. TO CONNECT: hl.exe -console -toconsole +connect (ip adress)
DEDICATED SERVER: hlds.exe -game tfc +map 2fort -port 27016 Found this posted from xp3rt on Blue's

TF Classic LAN Release (1:45 AM EST)

PlanetFortress has posted the TF Classic LAN ONLY version for download, so if you have a LAN (I do :) ) then go over to PLanetFortress and get it... For all you non-LANNERS... the net version is due out next Friday. I'll be posting a review of the LAN version tomorrow(?) if I can get Rine to reinstall Half-Life... :)

THE QUAKE II WESTERN PACK DEMO

Well the Wanted Q2 conversion has reached demo status, and is availible to download on the WANTED homepage. The scoop:
66.5 MB download - Yes, its big....but read why. (125 Mb installed):

All Weapons, All Pick-Ups, All Textures, All Sounds (not Music),
5 active models in the Single Player maps.
2 Single Player levels (not in the final version), 5 Deathmatch
Levels....DM mode is fully functional and superb fun.
Q2 3-20 upgrade file. Demo Story, Full Version story, Manual text.
Wanted Poster, Sample of Music, Pictures of all Models, Windows
Background BMP, Web Site Banner.

Now if I wanted all those banners, posters, sample music, and a Quake II 3.20 upgrade, I'd download them myself. A chunk of that 65 MB is the extra crap. I played a bit of it, and was not impressed, to me it looked like another sequal in the Coconut Monkey story, as well as looking a lot like it. And to me, that's not a good thing.... Also, a point of note, 3D CARDS ONLY, sorry software folks, none for you, which might be a good thing... :)

HUMOR FROM WAYFARER

"...and the agnostic, dyslexic, insomniac, laid awake all night wondering if there really was a dog..."

NEW DIAMOND DRIVERS FOR IE5 USERS

As you may have read a couple days ago, Diamond put new drivers out for a couple video cards, including the Monster 3DII. However, if you had installed IE5, you would find your computer all messed up since it overwrote a crucial file (comctl32.dll) in your Windows/system directory. Diamond today released the IE5 Friendly version of those drivers, so if you've installed IE5, and have a Monster II 3D, Monster Fusion, or Viper V550 just click it's name to go get the newer drivers.

NORM QUOTE

"Can I draw you a beer, Norm?"
"No, I know what they look like. Just pour me one."

LOOKING TO PROLONG YOUR CPU'S LIFE?

CpuIdle, a CPU cooling utility, has a new version out, version 5.5 beta. What it does it disables your CPU when it's not in use, therby cooling it, and prolonging it's life. You can vist the CpuIdle page for information and downloads.

FOR FUEL TO THE FLAMES

PeStIlEnCE[DI] sends word of a forum up on his clans page called "Whiners Corner", which currently is featuring RA2IO's Essobie. So to check out the flames, or add some fuel yourslef, head over to the Damage Incorporated homepage to join the fun. I will. :)

#36 There are two rules for ultimate success in life: #1. Never tell everything you know.

Submitted by Wayfarer. I make this one a point to remember.. :)

LATE START..

Due to real world problems, which have left me sleeping 3 or less hours a night, and having to work late tonight, this update is wayyyy late, and I forgot a Dingleberry yesterday. Sorry. I usually try to post before work (12:30-1:30 PM EST), and again at midnight (EST) but well..... Life does suck.

LINK OF THE DAY

And another Teletubby link: TELETUBBIES EXECUTION CHAMBER. Also, I failed to mention that yesterdays, as well as todays links are submitted by our local Browsemaster General, Rine. Thanks pal. :P