Why bother?

by Rincewind, 4/4/99

In response to a lot of editorials, news bits, mails etc. I thought I'd climb into my keyboard (roughly translated Dutch expression) and give you an opinion about it. Not because I consider myself to be "The Holder Of Eternal Truth And Wisdom" (although, it has a nice ring to it), but because I was annoyed. No, not at the x-th cheater, lamer or "have you seen what they have done?". No, I am annoyed with the TF community..

I'm a relative newcomer to the TF community in that I have played it since the beginning under various names, but only recently decided to devote some serious time to it. This has resulted in my strategy pages, and being a bit more outspoken on issues dealing with TF. Why? I have no idea, other that I like it and I am one of the people that hasn't played regular DM anymore since, pff, beginning '98.

I was playing one evening and that I got irritated at so many team members playing death matches out there trying to raise their own frag-average, and how difficult it had become for me. This last statement lets itself be explained by the fact that I had been absent from TF for a couple of months: my girlfriend had some serious objections on me trying to pull peoples intestines out while she was snuggled up on the couch with some wine waiting for me. I do admit, I see her point (Okay, so I'm weird, right). Anyway, I came back, and at first it was like being in a different world. A lot more of those idiot-children where running around trying to make my game seriously irritating. I must say, I like a good kill as much as the next guy, so if I get killed in some new and inventive way I usually applaud the guy who did it. Strange statement, but true. Now suddenly I was confronted with people grenading their own spawnrooms. Enemies hanging around in there, and engineers building sentries in the weirdest places. My first thought was: kill, kill, kill.

My second thought was: shrug. Yes, shrug: I shrugged my shoulders and went on to play. Every game has its difficulties, and I found out it worked for me when I just ignored these things. I mean, a lot of people seem to be upset about this, but I would say: devote your time to constructive matters. Complaining doesn't really help. Most of us are grown up, and my guess is that most of the cheaters, lamers, etc. will consist of acne-ridden, mentally unstable, unable to get s.x adolescents out there. And well, I cannot be bothered devoting any attention to them. However, I did find out that it sometimes works to inform the opposing team: I noticed that some "Old Guard" players will immediately assist you in getting rid of the "fungus" on your team. So, I look around for news, and what do I find: scores of pages devoted to ramblings on cheating, lamers, etc. I mean, I do my "professional literature" everyday (my boss thinks I'm reading obscure american newspapers), and honestly, I am much more interested in screenshots or discussions on TF, TFC, and TF2 then I am in rambling on and on and on about cheaters, lamers, etc. Every society has its downside, well, congratulations, we have ours, only ours is not criminals, we get stuck with biologically impaired bastard outcomes of genetic experiments gone horribly wrong. So what?.

And then, if this is not enough, we start to get "Gender Wars" I mean, come on! If women want to play among themselves, let them! There's nothing in any "normal" law which might forbid them to do this. Okay, granted, chauvinists care about this, but I am happy not to count myself among those ranks. Let's not try to take our analog hang-ups to the digital world. If you have an idea, it should get room and resources, not immediately get blown up and forbidden, we had a system like that in the real world up till '89, we all know why it didn't work. Go get them girls!

It seems that lately you get people who start to moan about everything: I mean, am I in the right game here? I thought this wasn't an old-folks hangout. Complain, complain, complain. As my mother would say: You sound like my mother! Don't complain, be creative (and try to keep it legal). Cheaters? if they use software cheats: email id games or Valve or whoever, but don't bother me with it.

Gender racial, ethnic issues? shouldn't be an issue on the Net and certainly not in TF. For is it not in TF that we are all red? Yes, red. Don't believe me? Here, let me just take a shot at you and you'll see what I mean:))

The TF-community has a lot of people in there whose names resound now and in years to come, names that will make you shudder even in 50 years time when your trying to hotwire your own wheelchair, and start you of at stories "I was playing on that server, and I just RL-ed the guy when...."(They will never get finished, because the nurses will think you've gone wacko, and immediately put you on thorazine, or some other sleepy-bye-bye-medicine). I know that a lot of new TF players look up to these people, visiting pages and trying to find out where and when they play. There's nothing wrong with that, its just that the "lill' uns" will become old guard one day, and you do want to set an example.

Regards to everyone I know and don't know,
Rincewind

©1999 - "Rincewind" - All Rights Reserved

So Little Time

by BlackKnight, 4/4/99

The Development of a Gaming Community (Told through my short life):

I've grown up in the age of computers, and believe it or not, my dad still owns a Commodore 64 with Logo at that little white turtle. That's what I found ammusing as a child, a little triangle going around the screen, by putting in lines of code that you asked it to do specifically. Years later my brother had introduced me to Doom. A simply great 3D must-have game! All the kids in school had it, and everyone was playing it. It was the most fun anyone had since Wolfenstein 3D. Then Doom 2 and all the others, but what shocked the gaming "community" was Quake. The 3D likeness, the enriched graphics and new controls in gameplay. Now you could aim where you shot instead of shooting straight ahead of you, and the AI had somewhat of an intelligence. So I scrapped Doom and played Quake for god knows how many hours at a time. I mean, Doom 2 was very good to me. I played it hundreds of hours over the modem/phone line with my friend as we conquered level after level in cooperation mode. But Quake was just completely different, and there were more styles of gameplay! In awhile they were having CTF and even a new thing that no-one heard of on the face of this Earth.

TeamFortress.. What was it? I don't know some mod for Quake, but it looks pretty good. I thought I'd try it so I did. I fell in love with it ever since I played my first game of 2fort4. So as the 2 years went by, Quake 2 came out and I got it... No big deal, great graphics, gameplay, the whole spiel, but what I thought I was getting was TeamFortress 2 like so many other mods that were comming out for Quake, had now started comming out for Quake 2. So I bought Quake 2 downloading new mod after new mod, which I still do, and I eagerly anticipated the arrival of TeamFortress 2. Then all of the sudden I asked my friend when it was expected out. He had started laughing and told me that it wasn't going to be out for the next year or earlier for a new game called Half-Life. Well I fell on the floor on my knees and felt all my blood go from my head as I started having a seizure over the news (Not really). I couldn't believe that I spent about $40 on Quake 2 and now I would have to buy another $40 game to play the mod I've been waiting for? So, time went by and I bought Half-Life a couple months after it's release. And today I still anticipate TeamFortress 2.

The making of a great community? Not really, and by moving TF2 to Valve's Half-Life (Which I have no problem in) is kind of destroying it in the process. I know some stubborn people that won't by Half-Life even though that they loved TeamFortress to death. All because they're more loyal to the Quaking community then to the TeamFortress community, and that's fine. But you voice your opinion rather then just go over and play Digital Paint 2 for Quake 2 waiting for Quake III: Arena, you have to go out, buy Half-Life and get it done with, because you'll feel alot better if you do. Putting TF2 to Half-Life I thought was probably the worst things that could happen to Team Fortress, as I watched (literally) the community drop into shammbles. I can't wait until this whole entire better multi-player game debate is over and that everyone just goes back to playing the games they like. Don't try to persuade people into thinking TeamFortress is a better game... And don't persuade people into thinking that Quake III: Arena will be the best out there because there are mods to consider for Quake III: Arena that will be built and change the game around to make it more fun. But then TF2's community will build better new enhanced maps that will have new features and new way's to get points rather shoot'em-up. Tag and Frag or something will come out for either one. They will both have equal communities in the end which most of the players will be dedicated to most games, because TeamFortres originated from Quake, and no-one can resist a new Quake game after being addicted by ID's hit.

- The Opionater (A.K.A: BlackKnight)

©1999 - "BlackKnight" - All Rights Reserved

Muzzle flash in TFC

by Zorak, 4/4/99

Team Fortress Classic: Why We Need Muzzle Flash , the corrected version

Due to an ICQ screwup an old incorrect version of my article was posted. (Its all Hal's fault mwuahahahaha) There were some incorrect facts that I forgot to double check in the article, and I realized that my incorrect article was posted when people started mailing me.

There is muzzle flash in TFC. In a way. The model lights up, but not the area around it. In my opinion this is amazingly lame and bad looking. The flag carrier also no longer glows. The explosions dont light up either.

Why did Valve do this? I think it is an engine limitation, because it isnt in single player either. I dont see why it is there if there is a limitation. The other thought I had was framerate, but why sacrifice light effects for that? I would much rather skip something else.

Having light effects would really add even more to TFC. Seing an explosion with no light just isnt right. Also having the models only light up make it looks bad. We also need the flag glow back. It looks nicer than some soldier carrying a model in his pants.

If its an engine limitation, then there isnt much that can be done about it. But if its just in the code, Valve, PLEASE PUT LIGHT EFFECTS BACK!

-Zorak
[email protected]
Feel free to mail me, but please do not flame/spam me

©1999 - "Zorak" - All Rights Reserved