Archives: November 1998

100% Nothing To Do With Quake:

Well, I have to agree with Rantage regarding his statement (his exclamation, really) about Half-Life.

This game sucked me right in. The environment is so complete, so immersive that on more than one occasion I had to take my headphones off, turn on the lights and step away from the computer to check my shorts because I had just been unimaginably terrified. When you fight the government troops Rant talks about you don't think, "boy, those bots are amazing", you know that those soldiers have the necessary means and the orders to kill you. Now, I have real-life experience with modern contemporary weapons and when I hear bullets ricocheting off the wall near my head...in this game, I duck!

Man, this game is something that no other is: exhilarating.
Posted 1:45 EST by 2LT Ping Ping

SMS Consumer Alert:

Nun and I purchased Half-Life last night.

Holy shit.

For the last year I had been pretty much oblivious to the HL hype going on...but from what I have seen so far it has all been worth it. Valve has tweaked the Quake II engine like you wouldn't believe. If you Doom players out there remember the thrill that Heretic brought with all new weapons, looking up and down, pushing things, etc...multiply that by ten.

This game is gorgeous and incredibly immersive....from the characters' lips that move with the words to the cockroaches that scurry about to the realistic sound properties to the Lovecraftian aliens.

And AI? I got into a firefight with some government troops...who proceeded to flank me and almost cap me from behind. In another section I was kept pinned down by the troops lobbing grenades up onto the catwalk I was trying to reach.

If I can get some time I'll write up a full review after testing out the multiplayer elements.
Posted 14:55 EST by CPT Rantage

Roster Changes:

Welcome Trainee Ubik to SMS. You may him from the fragboard, he's currently #1. He has been added to the DeathMatch platoon and placed in Squad 2, his info is currently being changed. (It shows his nick as CarniWAR but it'll be changed to Ubik ASAP)
Posted 14:3 EST by 2LT Tempest

Files O' Plenty:

As promised, here is the demo of Makaveli and I playing a 1on1 match. Quite entertaining to watch IMO! :) Anyway, download it here.

Tell me what you think,
Posted 15:18 EST by 2LT Tempest

3rd Platoon News:

Hey 3-Platoon. I just sent out an e-mail reminder to all of you regarding your prefered times of play. Please mail me your available time windows, in PST please. I'm itching to spar.

Thanks, all.
Posted 1:54 EST by 2LT Ping Ping

Shout Out:

I just had the honors against playing with Makaveli who will soon be a part of Deathrow and not SMS unfortunatly. Ok, well he wooped my butt on q2dm3 nicely, 14-0, however, I know this sounds like an excuse but we played at 12:15am and I was dead tired. We might doa re-match later today when I'm actually wake. I made a demo of the match, I'll post it a bit later.

Cheers,
Posted 0:24 EST by 2LT Tempest

Shout Out:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all my fellow Americans, who will be stuffing themselves with way too much food today before the annual pre-game nap.
Posted 12:59 EST by CPT Rantage

Roster Changes:

-Wicked is now a NEW trainee to sms. Welcome and have fun. BTW he's in 4th platoon.
Posted 22:54 EST by 2LT bIOHZRD

Roster Changes:

Congrats to Aerodynamic, who passed his Cadre test and rode out probation...and is now a full member of SMS.
Posted 17:9 EST by CPT Rantage

Battle Time:

Steel Malestrom battled Clan Nocturnal last night and came out victorious, but it was tight. The first match was a tight victory by about 6 frags (55-49 I believe). The second round was a complete disaster for us, we played q2dm3 and got our assess royally wooped by a score of 80-40ish I think. We played quite un-stratigically and lost. We learn from out mistakes though. The final round, q2dm8, was better then the first two. We played fast, and aggresivly and won by about 35 frags(ish). I was lagged majorly though, my CPU kept swapping cache, heh, I need more RAM. Anway, the Nocturnal guys were fun to play with and we wish them luck in their future battles.
Posted 8:15 EST by 2LT Tempest

Battle Time:

We will be battling Clan Nocturnal [N] at 9PM EST. Participating is Darken, SgtBallistix, XO-Ace, and myself. Results will be posted here as usual.
• Our next battle is December 1st against Reach out and Kill Someone.
  Posted 18:20 EST by 2LT Tempest

Gentle Reminder:

Just for those of you who don't know, Steel Maelstrom has a Rocket Arena 2 server up now; running @ 207.236.110.70:27912. We also have a GX MOD server up, mainly for clan battles. The address is really NOT for the public so I won't give it out. This is good for news for mainly the 4th (DM Variant Platoon) and the DeathMatch Platoon (2nd).
Posted 18:13 EST by 2LT Tempest

Miscellaneous Rumblings:

Ok 4th platoon i talked with nick today and you guys will have an sms rocket arena server. Nick said the server should be ready tonight or tomorrow night the Ip is the same as the other servers but the port is 27912.Have fun 4th platoon.
Posted 20:51 EST by XO Ace

Gentle Reminder:

Well, Boys and Girls, PingPing is just about ready to respawn. Again, I apologize to 3-Platoon and the rest of the bunch for my scarceness as of late, but let me explain to you why I was gone for so long.

First off, my move was brutal. Canada is freakin' wide and I DROVE across the damn thing. So, getting settled in my new digs (and job) took some time, but my Net port wasn't ready when I got here so that caused more delays... Secondly, I sold some hardware components before I left (you know how quickly they deteriorate when you o/c them? Temperature, electromigration, and abuse, OH MY!) and it took me some time to find the "proper" replacements :) Last night I bought a Diamond Viper V550 TNT AGP...sweet! Anybody play Quake2 in 1920x1200 resolution?

That's pretty much it. I've done my best to keep in practice over the past 7 weeks or so, and come Monday night I will be fully "connected" with the rest of the world. Remember that flag-jamming thing I was talking about last week? Well, everybody chalk your hands and put your bibs on 'cause tomorrow is the Second Coming of PingPing!!!

Members of 3-Platoon should mail me with time preferences for weekly practices
Posted 16:34 EST by 2LT Ping Ping

Roster Changes:

Due to certain time constraints, Anthrax has left Steel Maelstrom, he was a good person and player and we wish him all the best!
Posted 15:57 EST by 2LT Tempest

Ace's Ramblings:

Well I bought myself the Logitech wingman warrior joystick. Boy is it gonna take a while to get used to.If anyone knows a good config for this stick please let me know.
Posted 15:53 EST by XO Ace

100% Nothing To Do With Quake:

ION STORM BOMBSHELL: RATS LEAVING A SINKING SHIP?

Blue's is reporting the resignation of eight developers from Ion Storm, company of Doom developer and often reported dead guy John Romero. I think its safe to assume that Ion's upcoming projects -- Daikatana and Anachronox -- will suffer a serious release date pushback. Ion will be losing two programmers, four level designers, an audio director and an artist.

In a letter sent to Blue, the resigning developers claim that each left for their own reasons....but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that there's some common motivator, be it an internal Ion dispute or just a desire to seek greener pastures. It makes me wonder if Ion's a sinking ship.
Posted 17:17 EST by CPT Rantage

Miscellaneous Rumblings:

WOOHOOO...Hey everyone bIOHZRd here...on my new 300 p2...with my monster 3d voodoo2. Just wanted everyone to know that I am officially BACK, on my e-mailz, comp, q2, as being 2Lt, etc. Wow I gotta lotta stuff to do... Cya sometime soon on sms server, [SMS]2Lt bIOHZRd OuT
Posted 18:54 EST by 2LT bIOHZRD

100% Nothing To Do With Quake:

Ok, here's a tidbit even less having to do with Quake than 2LT PingPing's announcement below (congrats, BTW)...

Lucasfilm has released the Star Wars: Episode I trailer onto the Net.

Ok, I'm a geek. Bite me.

Posted 12:58 EST by CPT Rantage

100% Nothing To Do With Quake:

Hello, all.

Just wanted to let you know that it is official; I have signed on with PlanetHardware as a staff writer and hardware reviewer. I figured that since I love computer technology, roll in hardware all day at work, and basically would trade my GF in exchange for a piece of bleeding-edge PC gadgetry (j/k, HotelQueen ;) -- why not write about the stuff?

Hehe, that's my bit o' news for today. If anyone has any recent hardware information (preferrably related to gaming in some way) that they would like to share, please mail the Ping'ster at jason@planethardware.com.

Later...
Posted 1:12 EST by 2LT Ping Ping

100% Nothing To Do With Quake:

Cut-n-pasted directly from CNNfn.com:

SUN WINS JAVA RULING

In a stinging defeat for Microsoft Corp., a federal judge Tuesday backed technology claims by Sun Microsystems Inc. and gave Microsoft 90 days to modify its Windows 98 operating system or pull it from the market. Sun said it was pleased with the ruling while Microsoft said it would comply with the decision.

This is not only a victory for Sun, but a victory for anybody in support of a platform-independant programming language. Java was designed to work on most platforms without requiring the kind of labor-intensive code re-writes that traditional programming languages require (which is why the Mac version of Quake came out so long after the PC version, for instance). Microsoft had added Windows-specific functions to Java on Windows platforms, essentially tying that language to a Wintel box and defeating one of the main goals of the language.
Posted 18:51 EST by CPT Rantage

A-Wal's Quote of the Day:

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent."

-- Eleanor Roosevelt
Posted 16:2 EST by SSG A-Wal

Battle Time:

Our battle with Reach out and Kill Someone [ROKS] has been rescheduled to December 1st due to family get- together's for ROKS. The new date of slaughter is December 1st, same time.
Posted 18:45 EST by 2LT Tempest

Surf's Up:

Here's a quick blurb on the upcoming Voodoo3 accelerator to be announced today at Comdex.
Posted 12:16 EST by CPT Rantage

Quake III News:

A Chat With John Carmack is a write-up of Johnny C's recent talk at the PGL Finals. Written by Rob Jellinghaus, it's targeted for you technical types.
Posted 9:57 EST by CPT Rantage

Roster Changes:

A couple items of note:
• The new roster is up and running. Give it a gander. More improvements on the way in the coming week or two.
• PVT Red-XIII has changed his name to Ares, for all of you keeping score at home.

Posted 23:36 EST by CPT Rantage

3rd Platoon News:

SANTA'S COMING EARLY!

That's right, 3-Platoon. PingPing is coming out of hibernation (my ADSL port is ready, thanks Santa ;) and will be ready to grab the enemy's flag and jam it down his throat, pole and all!!!

More flag-jamming details to come...
Posted 16:30 EST by 2LT Ping Ping

Mod Watch:

The Rocket Arena 2 client side update has been released, featuring 96 new arena's and a shit load of bug fixes (see Thurday's news update). You can get your update to the (IMO) the best Q2 MOD right here. Roughly 14 megs.
Posted 17:58 EST by 2LT Tempest

Battle Time:

Steel Maelstrom: DeathMatch Platoon has recieved quite an ape-shit load of challenge requests lately.
• First, tonight we will be having a re-match with Clan Triad at 9PM EST. It will be a 3on3. Participating in the battle will be Pandemic,SGT Ballistix(due to Thorn's absence today) and myself. As usual, results will be posted here.
• Second, we have a battle Saturday, November 21st with Clan Nocturnal, a rather Gothic clan. They are propsosing a 4on4 on either their server or ours. Maps will be q2dm1, q2dm3, and q2dm5. FFA Tuesday to decide who plays in this battle.
• Finally, we are battling clan Reach out and Kill Someone [ROKS] Tuesday, November 24th. It'll be a 4on4, maps q2dm1, dm3, and dm6. Again, FFA to decides who plays.

  I think SMS has a good chance of reigning victorious on all these battles. Anyway, the DeathMacth Platoon (DMP in short) has its work cut out for it.
  Posted 13:34 EST by 2LT Tempest

Quake-Related Software:

Blue's has a report on Scrim OnDemand, a piece o' software by Clan TULL that allows one clan to find another for nondiplomatic purposes. Perhaps some of the SMS platoons may find it useful as well...
Posted 22:12 EST by CPT Rantage

A-Wal's Quote of the Day:

"The difference between greatness and mediocrity is often how an individual views a mistake."

--Nelson Boswell

"Life will sometimes hand you a magical moment. Savor it!"

--H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Posted 13:44 EST by SSG A-Wal

Mod Watch:

There's a Rocket Arena 2 release party Saturday evening at 9PM, undernet #arena, to celebrate thr updated version of Ra2. The new version features 8 new maps, in total, consisting of, get this: 96 NEW ARENA'S!!, SWEEET! This should definetly be a must download for anyone who plays Q2 MODS and of course people you play Ra2 frequently. Here's the full list of changes:

8 NEW Maps with 48 new Arenas! That brings the grand total to 16 Maps with 94 Arenas!

• Off-center countdown
• Player remaining count on status bar in pickup
• One team is spawned on even spawn points, one on odd. This keeps you from being surrounded by 3 guys on the other team at the start
• Health and Armor Protect on the voting menu
• Only changed items are shown on the voting menu Server ops can specify things that can't be voted on
• Anti-Vote Spamming code
• New Standard logging options Server Admins can lock arenas (for matches,etc)
• OPTIONAL Offhand Grappling Hook (can be enabled in server config only, off by default)
• Fixed endless ticking from hand grenade
• Fixed telefrag protection on lifts
• Observers telefragging players bug corrected
• All New Skins, including support for Crackhor and Cyborg
• Countdown doesn't make voting/other menus disappear

  
  Posted 8:19 EST by 2LT Tempest

Battle Time:

The battle on Wednesday against the Vicious Vixens went as planned with one minor nitch...the SMS servers were down, however, we managed to find a good GX MOD server to play on. It was a 4on4. Participating in the battle for SMS was: Thorn, SGT Buck, SGT Ballistix and myself (2LT Tempest). We played maps DM1 and DM3, both of which we came out victorious by a very nice margin (about 80 frags on both maps atleast). As before, we enjoyed playing with the Vicious Vixens, they were a blast to play with! :D
• Speaking of battles, we are facing Clan Triad again for a re-match next Saturday at 9PM EST. Results will be posted here.
  Posted 22:10 EST by 2LT Tempest

SMS Consumer Alert:

For those of you who are drooling over the new Pentium2 450mz chips, I have some wonderful news for you. The new AMD K7 chips will blow Pentiums clear out of the water, leaving it stranded like a beached whale. The K7 chips are planned to ship in the first quarter of 1999, and will have projected speeds of 500-600+. Added to the fact that AMD has gone with a totally new architecture, and the current Pentium architecture can't match it. Pentium will need to start from scratch with a new architecture to even come close. There's a really good article on all this over at Tom's Hardware Guide. The address is listed below. I had planned to get me a P2 450 system, but after reading this article I've changed my mind. I'm saving my money for a K7! I'm hoping there will be some dual K7 processor systems within the next year. A man can dream, can't he? :)

Read the article at: Tom's Hardware Guide
Posted 16:23 EST by SSG A-Wal

Miscellaneous Rumblings:

For those of you who have had problems accessing the SMS website due to an odd login/password box error, here's a bit (a very little bit) of hope for you: I spoke to my ISP today, who is aware of the problem. Up until last night (when I finally encountered it) I suspected that many of you were smoking crack. :D

Of course, the ISP folks don't know what is causing the problem.

I have my own theories...ranging from the insulting to the paranoid, but I'll keep quiet for right now.

Just keep trying to get in. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Posted 13:59 EST by CPT Rantage

Gentle Reminder:

The time has finaly come. You can now sign-up for the Game Develpers Conference, and if you do so before December 11th you will get an early registration discount. Of course, as an "Alumni" guest from last year, I get a 75% discount. Alumni are anyone who went to the conference last year, so that may be an insentive if you ever plan to go in the future. Unfortunatly, the 75% discount is only good for one ticket, and only if it's for me. Last year I got a free StarterPass from SegaSoft, which only let me in the Expo and a few parties. I had fun at the Expo and the SegaSoft party kick ass, but I want to attend some actual conferences this year. If you're short on cash, the StarterPass is a good buy. However, I think you will get a free StarterPass if you volonteer. New this year is also a Student Conference pass, which is the same as the ClassicPass except cheeper, but my 75% discount on the ClassicPass turns out to be less than the StudentPass. Go figure! Anyhow, I suggest stoping by the GDC's website, and signing up as soon as you can.

Check 'em out at: www.gdconf.com
Posted 13:17 EST by SSG A-Wal

New Software:

Microsoft has released a new version of DirectX...DirectX 6.1. No word yet on what the improvments are, but it sounds good. Download here, (4.3 Meg D/L).
Posted 19:12 EST by 2LT Tempest

Battle Time:

The battle on Saturday went as planned with Clan Triad. SMS had Pandemic, Thorn, and myself. Unfortunately, we lost. Triad won the first match on q2dm1, we won the 2nd match on dm3, and Triad won the deciding match on DM8. It was an interesting battle and I believe SMS will learn from it. The Triad's were a great group of people and a re-match is in the works. Speaking of re-matches, we are planning on re-facing the Vicious Vixens sometime soon. I'll keep you informed on both these developments.

Thanks,
Posted 23:23 EST by 2LT Tempest

100% Nothing To Do With Quake:

Here's another body found under the stairs in Renton, Washington...CNN has an Infoworld story about an internal Microsoft memo discussing the threat Linux poses to NT. The second such e-mail leaked to the public, this one touches upon how Microsoft could slow the development of Linux via the court system. Bastards.
Posted 8:27 EST by CPT Rantage

A-Wal's Quote of the Day:

"The shadows dance like demons in the night, thrashing and taunting with untrusted delight.

Thunder cracks across the sky, blackend ash falls upon their mortal cry, and silence awakens upon the night, dancing in the pail moon light.

Dreams wander through the haze, bringing despise upon the maze.

FLASH

The mortal cries again!"

--Paul Walton (A-Wal)
Posted 22:44 EST by SSG A-Wal

Roster Changes:

I've updated the platoon pages in the Roster section; give it a look if you're curious.
Posted 22:53 EST by CPT Rantage

3rd Platoon News:

Ping Ping has been promoted to Second Lieutenant (2LT) and placed in charge of 3rd Platoon, the CTF/CTF mod platoon.
Posted 22:52 EST by CPT Rantage

Battle Time:

Steel Maelstrom will be battling Clan Triad next Saturday at 9PM. Should be an interesting battle...results will be posted here as usual or on the DeathMatch Platoon site when it's up.

Thanks,
Posted 18:43 EST by 2LT Tempest

A-Wal's Quote of the Day:

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment."

--Barry Le Potner
Posted 0:23 EST by SSG A-Wal

Miscellaneous Rumblings:

Older news items have been placed in the Archives.
Posted 22:10 EST by CPT Rantage