Archives: January 1999

Mod Watch:

Hey all, it's me again. For those people how have a good connection to the internet, I recommend downloading the PlanetQuake mod of the week, Gloom. I've watched the development of this mod on and off for some time, and it definitely was worth the wait, in my own opinion that is. The teamplay aspects are pretty cool with the 2 different sides, and the classes all have an uniquness of their own (Rocket Infantry takes a while to calibrate the rocket launcher, but it sure packs quite the punch!). I haven't gotten the grasp of some of the binds yet, but I guess that's what happens when don't really give a damn about Readme.txt's. I consider myself lucky for having the server quit, because I wouldn't have ever gotten any sleep. Get it at www.planetquake.com/rxn/gloom/.
Posted 2:27 EST by 2LT Ballistix

Half-Life News:

Valve has released a new set of goodies for Half-Life, including:
• 4 new models, including the grunt commander and "The Administrator" (guy with suit and briefcase)
• New decals
• One new teamplay 4-on-4 map
You can download it from any of your favorite data pools, such as this one at Blue's.
Posted 7:12 EST by CPT Rantage

Miscellaneous Rumblings:

Always a melting-pot of questions, answers, opinions and clever uses of the word "fuck", PlanetCrap's latest threaded discussion is a pretty good one. Here's a teaser, CTRL-Ced from their own page:

Regular visitors will know that there have been some concerns recently about Joost Schuur's decision to remove the Walnut Creek FTP mirrors of two prominent gaming sites, Frag.com and Telefragged.

Give it a read and throw in your two cents!
Posted 22:48 EST by CPT Rantage

A Company, 3rd Platoon News:

Practices have been extremely light as far as attendance goes for the last two weekends. Daft? Pfunk-dude? Are you guys still alive?

Anyway, I'm hoping for a good turnout this coming Sunday (31-Jan-99) as we will be having a closed-server exercise, probably a rotating 3-on-2 or 4-on-3 (if all of us show up). The reason behind a lop-sided battle is to force the quantifiably "lesser" of the two teams to work harder and use different tactics in order to overcome their particular offensive or defensive obstacle. Nothing get's your adrenalin pumping more than the thought of you being hunted down by a "pack" of players that outnumber you. :) See you all on Sunday!
Posted 23:08 EST by 2LT Ping Ping

A Company, 2nd Platoon News:

Yesterday RoCkY [SMS-T] had passed his cadre test against me. He fought very well, and I could do better if you asked me. At least I was able to fight my way out of the negative frag count = P. GG RoCkY, you've got just 2 weeks before you become a full member.
Posted 21:22 EST by 2LT Ballistix

A Company, 2nd Platoon News:

On the 21st of last week, SMS had a scrimmage with clan NOC. SMS won the second round, but NOC had won the 1st round and the 3rd. Both clans had congratulated each other for their skill and sportsman- and woman-ship. I talked to and agreed with Ska (NOC clan leader), that it would be good to have 2nd platoon vs. the NOC DM unit practices. I felt this was a great idea, and it would allow both clans to have a larger amount of people playing to make up for people that are absent from practice.
Posted 22:35 EST by 2LT Ballistix

Quake III News:

The best screenshots of Q3 Arena I have seen yet and not one bit smudgy can be seen HERE at q3arena. These are Beautiful. BTW I am testing some html in here if this doesn't show up good
Posted 21:23 EST by 2LT bIOHZRD

Quake III News:

More new screenshots have been posted here, scanned in from a European publication. If you can handle blurry images, follow the link and get the kleenex.
Posted 0:21 EST by CPT Rantage

B Company, 1st Platoon News:

Congrats out also tonight to Xanadu, who completed his probation tonight, and becomes a full member of SMS.
Posted 22:28 EST by 2LT Kreth

B Company, 1st Platoon News:

This is a little late going out, as I was at a business conference, but congratulations to Dragon, who has successfully passed his cadre test and completed his probation.
Posted 20:08 EST by 2LT Kreth

A Company, 3rd Platoon News:

Two items of note:

1) I'd like to welcome back Purge to clan Steel Maelstrom. He has decided to become a member of 3-Platoon to exercise his team-based skill-set.

2) I'd like to join everybody in welcoming Bullgod to 3-Platoon, A-Coy. Although not an official member of SMS, due to the nature of team-play mods we will have Bullgod attend a CTF practice or two before his official cadre is assigned to him.

In other news, I'd like to thank CPT. Rantage for the kick-ass deathmatch on that Half-Life server tonight. If anybody still hasn't tried HL deathmatch and is interested in battles that have a pace anywhere between a stalking crawl to full throttle, you have to try it NOW.
Posted 0:27 EST by 2LT Ping Ping

SMS Llama Alert, Part II:

Funny thing about the Internet these days...it used to be that your malicious hacker types had to be whizzes in Perl, C/C++ or some other language to make mischief. Nowadays you can pull a script off of Rootshell or some Geocities slum phr33k page without knowing jack shit.

Which may be the case here. In response to yesterday's Llama Alert (see below), somebody apparently decided to spoof my identity and conduct a DoS (Denial of Service) attack. The aforementioned Chris Day sent me this e-mail today:

We will be taking steps to see that you are punished for this DoS attack. It
is inappropriate to send 150 some-odd e-mails to me because you are unhappy
that you are on a mailing list. We did not put you on this mailing list, and
it is very easy to unsubscribe yourself from the list.

Please refrain from this type of activity in the future.

Sincerely,
Chris.

I was a bit alarmed....after all, it's a bit like watching the news to find out that you're the lead suspect in a murder case after being out of town for six months.

I have informed Gibbed.com that I had nothing to do with the 150 or so e-mails that flooded their website, all apparently to the tune of (from Chris Day's e-mail):

> From: rantage@steelmaelstrom.org [mailto:rantage@steelmaelstrom.org]
> Sent: Thursday, January 21, 1999 4:58 AM
> To: Dick Face
> Subject: You miserable git
>
>
> STOP sending me spam you fucking asshole. How about I send you some spam,
> would you like that?

My, I am quite the Mark Twain of e-mail when I'm angry.

Especially at 4:58am on a weekday morning. *Ahem*

Hopefully Gibbed.com will realize that they're barking up the wrong tree here. If legal action is pursued, it should be focused on the pimply-faced child behind this little trick and not me. I would hate to be involved in erroneous suits and all that, especially when one can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting a lawyer. 'Nuff said about that.

I have a short list of suspects in this matter whom I will be turning over to Gibbed.com after I hear back from them. That, plus the rather glaring errors committed by our pest, should guarantee that the correct party is found and has the shit choked out of them.
Posted 16:22 EST by CPT Rantage

SMS Llama Alert:

Today's llama alert goes to the cranky staff of Gibbed.com, who have seen fit to add me to their spam list. Wrestling Games and Why They Work? Belkin Express USB Hub, 4-Port? Yes, they are some of the totally Quake-unrelated mass-mailings that I've received.

"To unsubscribe, merely go to the Gibbed.com website" the e-mails cheerfully proclaim at the end.

Sure. Go the website and score another hit for the banner ads. Nice trick.

Unwilling to waste my time and bandwidth, I merely hit "reply"...and sent copies to the stanard e-mail addresses (root, admin, help, etc) demanding that they remove me from a list that I didn't request. Try it sometime...it's amazing what kind of response you get. Here's what I got from helpful handyman Chris Day:

No. I won't, not because it's the time, but because you are lazy - and I don't help lazy people.

Well obviously not people who don't want to put a few more cents in the pocket of a "Premium Gamesite Hosting" franchise. Thanks buddy!

Want to do your fellow gamers a favor? Stay away from p1mps like Gibbed.com. Contrary to what the carpetbaggers spout, the gaming community does not need an influx of sponsors to keep it alive.

Don't believe me? Look at the Linux and Amiga communities. Hell, look at the community that sprung up and thrived around Doom and Quake I...!

If you see an advertisement on the SMS website, its not for profit or fame. It's an attempt to help the other sites out there that get shat upon and ignored by the "big boys". While we don't corner the market on interviews, "l33t walkthroughs", previews or .planfiles, we do offer more straight talk in a week than cesspools like Gibbed.com spam out to the public in a year.

Go ahead and advertise that.
Posted 20:1 EST by CPT Rantage

New Software:

PQ is reporting that Microsoft has released DirectX 6.1. I tried to find the actual downloads page in that rat's nest called the Microsoft web site but ran out of patience. You can download it from here, at the very least.
Posted 10:01 EST by CPT Rantage

Quake-Related Software:

This is probably the most heinous thing I've seen so far this year. Come take a magical ride back into the days of telnet and play Textmode Quake. Damn, I've got the willies.
Posted 9:55 EST by CPT Rantage

Y2K+1?:

Even before you thought it was safe to get back in the water, comes this: Microsoft Downplays 2001 Glitch. Yep, apparently due to a missing equals sign your favorite Windows applications may think they're running an hour ahead during Daylight Savings Time in 2001.

<SARCASM>Gee, I wonder if Microsoft has a product -- oh, around $89, upgrade price -- that will be coming out late next year that might fix this problem.</SARCASM>
Posted 12:17 EST by CPT Rantage

B Company, 1st Platoon News:

All good news today folks... Congrats to Trainees Pong and Griffin, who successfully complete their probation as of today. Also, welcome aboard to new Trainee Spot.
Posted 8:50 EST by 2LT Kreth

Files O' Plenty:

For anyone in Bravo company, 1st platoon, or any on elses interest, someone has made a tutorial on importing Quake2 models to Half-Life. bIOHZRd and I are working on a SMS skin for the model called Darkness. Check out the tutorial link and other info at http://www.planethalflife.com/wavelength/.
Posted 15:30 EST by 2LT Ballistix

B Company, 1st Platoon News:

Ok, I've got good news and bad news... The good news: Congrats to g0dzer0 and Raynar, who have completed their probation and are now full members of SMS. Now the bad news: God help those of you that have to practice with me tonight... I've been in two accident in two days, one of which trashed my Prelude, and I'm planning to kick some major ass tonight to vent...
Posted 11:24 EST by 2LT Kreth

A Company, 2nd Platoon News:

Sorry for my lateness for this message post, but Wednessday, Extreamist [SMS] has passed his 2 week probation. Unfortunatly I was told by Darken [SMS] that due to RealLife(TM), he has to take a break from SMS. The good news is, when life loosens up for him he'll be back in action. Great having you with us Dark, you've been a loyal member, and we hope keep in contact with ya.
Posted 22:27 EST by 2LT Ballistix

Half-Life News:

Well SGT Ubik of Alpha Company, 2nd Platoon (and not 2LT Kreth of Bravo as I originally reported -- Doh! It's sad, losing one's mind...) has already trumpeted this great news to SMS in the Members Section, but in our continuing mission to serve the public ("call now, your donations are tax-deductible") here's the blurb especially for you.

Valve has released the Half-Life 1.008 patch which not only improves net play considerably but includes new models and maps. Half-Life users can use the built-in auto-update feature or download the patch from a variety of URLs such as this one provided by Blue's News.

But the pants-wetting excitement doesn't stop there...oh no. In a move surely to give w00d to every TFer out there, they boys at Valve have announced that TeamFortress Classic, a free (!) add-on to Half-Life will be available for download around the end of the month along with the Half-Life SDK. TF Classic is essentially a straight "port" of the original Quake/Quakeworld TeamFortress with such Half-Life engine features as logos, visible weapons, hardware acceleration support and new models.

I suspect that Bravo Company's membership is gonna grow some more in February.... :D
Posted 19:27 EST by CPT Rantage

Miscellaneous Rumblings:

Regarding 1LT Ace's last post....if you treat SMS with a little courtesy you'll get the same in kind, whether you're a departing member in good standing, a member of another clan, or a lone wolf hanging out on our servers. But if you try to involve us in your little reindeer games we will jack you up.

Silly llama, Steel Maelstrom is for adults.
Posted 19:16 EST by CPT Rantage

SMS Llama Alert:

Well lately I've IP Banned a cople of loosers. Especially this looser Morch he's an ex clan Lax member. If any members of SMS have problems with loosers on our server please give me their name .I'll Ip Ban their ass.Im sick and tired having to deal with assholes on the server. I will not tolerate theses jerks putting down my clan or it's members.
Posted 15:21 EST by XO Ace

A Company, 3rd Platoon News:

S.A.S. has updated his Guide to CTF site, with information regarding the recent release of CTF 1.50 and the new maps included with it. He has put together some comprehensive tactics and strategy articles that I would seriously consider reading if I were you, including one on detecting the use of the infamous Zappa Bot (Z-Bot) and the proper protocol and procedure for dealing with the slack-and-idle, bag-of-shit, piss-ant, no-skill, lame-ass fools that use it. Go read the goods.
Posted 19:21 EST by 2LT Ping Ping

B Company, 1st Platoon News:

Congrats to PVT Ice and PVT TBIRDX. They have completed their probation and are now full members of SMS. Nice job, guys.
Posted 10:56 EST by 2LT Kreth

Quake III News:

When I first saw the Real Media version of John Carmack's first public demonstration of Q3: Arena on a Mac G3 (wtf?), I personally wasn't very impressed. Now that I've seen the MPEG and AVI versions I must admit that I am impressed with the technologies being used. The bezier curved surfaces (while extremely lag-inducing and used sparingly throughout the levels, I'm sure) add greatly to the immersiveness of the environments. Even the volumetric lighting looks nicer than Unreal's. Though the demo map was dark like traditional Quake levels, the high colour bit-depth made things seem crisper and more "real" than ever. This affected everything from the awesome-looking weapon objects to the quad-damage lightning effect on the character. I was really bothered, however, with id's plan to stay with their tried-and-true character-frame animation. While it worked well in the first two Quake titles, after seeing Half-Life's skeletal animation system and reading about TF2's parametric skeletal animation, seeing the character in the Q3 demo "slide" when rotating kind of turned me off. Still, the detail put into the animation this time around is a cut above Quake2's and the result is characters that seem much more alive. Add to all of this rotating brushes, realistic mirror effects, metal-looking textures, highly-optimized network code and proven performance on a G3 (the 15k of Mac code will be free to licensees) and I think id will have another winner on their hands. Lucky us :)
Posted 16:04 EST by 2LT Ping Ping

Policy Changes:

Recent events involving several different individuals and clans have led me to make some decisions about how SMS operates, recruits and conducts battles. So effective immediately:
• All applicants after this date must own their own computer or have reasonable measures in place to ensure that their SMS passwords and e-mail accounts are used only by themselves.
• All Trainees and members are responsible for the security of their e-mail accounts and SMS passwords. Failure to keep control over either one of these will result in ejection from SMS. After all, if we can't trust you to keep your own stuff secure...why should we trust you with access to our site?
• This is not new but I include it here as a reminder: SMS will not accept applications from individuals using any type of "free" e-mail account such as those provided by Hotmail, Yahoo! or Geocities. Any llama can sign up for one of those accounts and claim to be Joe Smith, and we don't play the ambiguity game anymore. If we can't confirm who you are then we don't trust you...and we won't deal with you.
• Individuals changing e-mail addresses must inform their chain of command before switching. Same reasons as above: confirmation of identity.
• On the battle front: SMS has a new battle requirement. Battles scheduled with SMS must take place within 30 minutes of the arranged time, or the clan (either SMS or the challenger) unable to play forfeits the game and is considered the loser. SMS has had battles pushed off at the last minute due to internal and external problems, this is my attempt to fix it.
I will be posting these changes to the Rules and Regulations, Challenge and Join Us sections immediately.
Posted 15:44 EST by CPT Rantage

B Company, 1st Platoon News:

Congrats to Trainee Dragon, who passed his cadre test last night. We are gradually getting all of the new trainees tested, and will soon have enough full members to begin scheduling official Half-Life battles.
Posted 14:12 EST by 2LT Kreth

A Company, 3rd Platoon News:

Please note that the proposed scrimmage with the unmentionable clan is not going to go ahead. The contact within the clan cancelled the match citing not much of anything, except that "maybe" it could be held on Sunday.

I apologize to all of 3-Platoon for this; I know how much you were looking forward to this battle and I also know what an inconvenience the cancellation has caused you. There is a possibility that CPT Rantage will look into this matter so as to prevent future day before cancellations from wasting our valuable time.

Thank you.
Posted 2:37 EST by 2LT Ping Ping

A Company, 3rd Platoon News:

Howdy folks! I'm back after spending 14 days 2000 miles away from my computer. Thank god I brought my portable altar (IBM ThinkPad ;) with me.

Anyway, looks like the CTF scrim is happening. I hope all 3-Platoon members can make it out, and I hope we can see a member from one of the other platoons step in to give us adequate numbers to participate. I'll be hanging around the SMS CTF server Friday night for a little practice. If any of you want to schedule a small practice sometime Saturday before the scrim, I'll make it happen.
Posted 22:02 EST by 2LT Ping Ping

Battle Time:

Silencer has informed me that 3rd Platoon has a scrimmage with another CTF clan this Saturday...our opponents (to be announced) want a 5-on-5 and we appear to be a bit short-handed.

If any SMS members wish to volunteer to take part, please contact me ASAP and we'll see if 3rd Platoon can fit you in. Volunteers will be accepted on a first-come, first-served (placed?) basis.
Posted 21:13 EST by CPT Rantage

A Piece Of My Mind:

I'm going to beat this dead horse a little bit more.

The other day I posted the "state of the clan"; a summary of what has taken place in SMS over the last year and what I anticipate happening in 1999.

Self-discipline was one of the things I mentioned. So was self-improvement. I don't take these things lightly, and don't expect the members that I place in charge to take them lightly, either.

So when I find out that one such individual has lied to me, broken the rules and regs, left his platoon in chaos so he could go play in a battle in which a trainee was allowed to fight (the second time this violation of the rules and regs has occured) I take action.

SMS has no room for liars or players more interested in their stats on the SMS fragboard than they are of working with their teammates. I certainly don't have time to babysit. And, more importantly, there's only one thing to do after you've given somebody more than one "last chance."

SMS has played this game before, when a high-profile member leaves. We tend to lose members. And, as history has shown, we tend to come back stronger.

I'm not worried, and neither should you be.
Posted 23:35 EST by CPT Rantage

Roster Changes:

Effective immediately, Tempest is no longer a member of Steel Maelstrom. He has been ejected from the clan for failure to obey a direct order and the SMS Rules and Regulations.
Posted 22:12 EST by CPT Rantage

Miscellaneous Rumblings:

SGT Ballistix picked me up in the deja vu bus and took me on a tour of this clan's site. Hmmm. Say, does anything look familiar?

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery....hey guys, I'm flattered. Cut-n-paste flattered, but nonetheless flattered. ;)
Posted 20:42 EST by CPT Rantage

B Company, 1st Platoon News:

Bravo Company is no longer accepting applications at this point. I currently have a roster of 20 members, most of which are trainees. Once they've been cadre tested and passed their probation period (minimum of 2 weeks), we will once again be accepting new apps. Until then, I suggest you check out the clan listings over at Black Mesa II.
Posted 21:50 EST by 2LT Kreth

100% Nothing To Do With Gaming:

I don't know how many of you have been watching the stock market, but I've had my eye on Yahoo since it first started selling stocks. Although I'm not an investor yet, I knew that Yahoo stocks would be a big money deal. I had no idea how right I was. Yahoo stocks opened at $10 dollars a share, and I almost bought some except I was out of money at the time. Well, those same Yahoo stocks are selling for $236 dollars a share now, more than Microsoft at $138 dollars a share. If I had put $100,000 dollars into Yahoo when it opened at $10 dollars a share, I would be a millionare by now, with a net worth of over $2,360,000 dollars. Think about that next time you have some extra cash.
Posted 2:5 EST by SSG A-Wal

A Company, 4th Platoon News:

Nothing real exciting, but we got a new trainee to ra2! woohoo....name is Nitrous......[SMS-T]Nitrous .....BTW anyone got a good list of the clans members for e-mail? send it to me
Posted 18:56 EST by 2LT bIOHZRD

Roster Changes:

Trainee eXtremist has passed his test against Sgt.Ballistix and will become a full members as of January 16th. Trainee Killy however, did not pass his test against Suko but will give it another shot soon.
• On a side note, I think we set the record for the best turn-up in IRC tonight!
  Posted 23:30 EST by 2LT Tempest

B Company, 1st Platoon News:

You guessed it... a few more trainees from Bravo have passed their cadre test. Congrats to g0dzer0, Raynar, Pong, and Griffin. I had to take it easy on 'em, as my ping was spiking up over 1000, but they're in. Congrats guys.
Posted 22:37 EST by 2LT Kreth

B Company, 1st Platoon News:

Congrats to Trainees TBIRDX, Ice, and Skullfire, who all passed their cadre tests tonight.
Posted 23:25 EST by 2LT Kreth

Rantage's "State of the Clan" Address:

Fellow SMS members, trainees, and visitors: good evening.

The year of 1998 was one of incredible change and growth for Steel Maelstrom.

In terms of organization we went from a very static, micromanaged structure to one that allows for faster decision-making, growth and personal responsibility on the parts of senior clan members.

In terms of members, we saw some good (and bad) members go and quite a few good ones sign on. At the time of this writing we have a total of fifty-one members, trainees and reservists on the roster.

In terms of operations we saw the creation of the SMS Members section and the automation of a lot of administrative tasks which , in the past, have slowed the rapid progress of SMS. With these new capabilities SMS has begun to learn from its mistakes.

The end of 1998 saw SMS branch out into new territory, something besides Quake: Half-Life. The new structure allows the various "companies" and "platoons" within the clan to have their own focus and mission, and this is what has happened with Bravo Company. Time will tell if it proves to be as successful as Alpha company (Quake II).

Looking ahead, one doesn't have to be Nostrodamus to realize that 1999 is going to be an exciting year.

Quake III: Arena is on the horizon, and I'm sure after its release SMS will experience some growth similar to that caused by Half-Life. Unlike during our switch from Quake/Quakeworld to Quake II, SMS will continue to be a Quake II clan for as long as we have members interested in it. This will not prevent us from moving forward into the realm of Quake III, or any other games on the horizon that may prove to be popular.

Self-improvement will be our top goal for this year. Building on what has been accomplished in the latter half of 1998, SMS will continue to review battle footage, research tactics and conduct internal training of members both new and old. Self-improvement also includes self-discipline, and SMS will strive to set a higher standard of behavior amongst its members when dealing with the public on its servers and elsewhere.

The Steel Maelstrom website will continue to be opinionated, informative and (most importantly) advertisement-free in 1999. Unlike other Quake and gaming websites, this one is not operated to make a profit; it is done for the love of the game and a willingness to help the gaming community. To that end, I will endeavor to keep it as current and helpful as possible.

Thanks, and have a fun 1999.
Posted 19:31 EST by CPT Rantage

Gentle Reminder:

Ubik has set up a SMS Half-Life server at 207.236.3.220:27015. Please be aware that space is limited so you'll have to stand in line to get in the door. Hope to see you there...
Posted 14:40 EST by CPT Rantage

B Company, 1st Platoon News:

Congrats to MrUDK, who passed his cadre test on New Year's Eve. He just needs to ride out his probation and then he's in. Welcome aboard.
Posted 0:8 EST by 2LT Kreth