It appears my week of alcohol abuse and hardcore partying
has begun in earnest after several of you mailed with warning
about a HIV needle stabbing at the club we were intending to
go to. I'd imagine that it would have cleared the club this
week, whether it's a hoax or not. We had a similar problem in
Reading not long ago, although in that case it was a hoax, it
still cut the entrance numbers in half for the fortnight
following. It makes me wonder just how low the competition
will sink to gain an edge these days…. Either way, I guess
we'll have to shout louder to make up for the lack of punters
eh… J Ta for the warning tho.
A couple of others mailed to say my update icon doesn't
work. This is in part because I`ve been stupid enough to pick
such a stupid Quake 2 alias, and also because Tony's got so
much on at the moment. I'm sure it'll be fixed sooner or
later, but in the mean time, feel free to check back in case
it hasn't. J (You love me really
Durz, and you know it J)
Life online has been a little slow of late. I appear to be
the only player still bothering to wonder where the final 3.20
or 3.21 (or whatever Zoid decides to call it) patch has gone.
The lack of servers using the 3.20 beta, despite the numerous
bug fixes, such as rails through gibs and teleport
with wrong facing is getting a little depressing. And with
Half Life stealing Quake 2`s fame it appears we'll suffer the
same vacuum QuakeWorld felt when Quake 2 originally appeared.
On which subject I'm left wondering exactly what Valve is
up too, and whether id will follow suit with something similar
to WON authentication to avoid the piracy problems Half Life
has suffered. Maybe now the warez types will realize exactly
why it's a bad idea to pirate software, even if you are
intending to buy it later. And if id do use a login key for
multi-player as Valve have done, you can be sure they'll make
a much more secure version having Valve's mistakes to learn
from in hindsight. But at the same time, the problems with
people hacking the WON keys will teach Valve for not making
the OEM publicly downloadable. P1mping the game as they did,
without giving the general public a chance to try it was only
gonna lead the hackers on. If they'd have released the OEM as
a demo for those willing to endure the large download times,
people may not have been so eager to hack the OEM (and with
the few changes in the engine between the OEM and the final
release, hacking the final release must have been extremely
easy,) and pass it on to their friends. Then there wouldn't
have been a need for the keys in the first place. Anyone could
have told Valve the WON system would be cracked eventually,
and it appears they didn't bother to consider the consequences
for the people who'd paid their money, leaving me to wonder
just how much Valve value their customers…
Anyways, returning to a game created by a quality company
that actually supports it's users… (Can you say "libel?"
J) Remember those old spectrum
text adventures you could buy? I had a particularly amusing
conversation with TD from RainBow Six clan
and Sephiroth
tonight which brought back some happy memories…
<Carla> lol, despite his ping of
70? :-)
<Teardrop> well he`s just got that
<Teardrop> before it fluctuated from 80 to 300
<Teardrop> now he has low ping but terrible packet loss
<[K]Sephiroth> I`d love to play on us servers..nice 50 ping
for me then and not you both. :P
<Teardrop> hmm
<Teardrop> wonder what my ping would be
<[K]Sephiroth> Give you the 130`s.
<Teardrop> christ that would be terrible
<Teardrop> high ping and no sound or gfx :(
<Teardrop> might as well play text Quake2 :)
<[K]Sephiroth> hehe
<Teardrop> "you are in a room"
<Teardrop> "you see Sephiroth"
<Teardrop> shoot sephiroth
<[K]Sephiroth> Too late. ;-)
<Teardrop> "shoot sephiroth with what?"
<[K]Sephiroth> rofl
<Teardrop> "Sephiroth has killed you"
<Teardrop> :)
<Carla> lol
<Teardrop> "you have 0 frags"
<Teardrop> "press space to try again"
<Teardrop> :)
Thought for the Day:
If it's possible for something as anorak as Robot Wars to
make it on to prime time TV, and even have a weekend repeat,
what are the odds of ever seeing "Live on the Entertainment
Channel, more heart stopping action from the Quake3:Arena!"
J
