Wednesday, 05 April 2000 1600Z
Q3F review plus more... -Totentanz

Stop the presses! Two posts on Fort Bundy in 3 days, OMG! The world must be about to end, or something. Well, actually, I'll tell you the reason why updates have been so sparse, at least from myself, for so long. For a while there, I had basically lost almost ALL interest in TF. With the stasis that TFC maintenance was in, and my complete lack of enthusiasm in the clan aspect of TFC - caused mostly by the latter - I just didn't care much. I was more interested in chatter on the PF forums, things at work, and indulging in my other big hobby I have.

You see, I've got a secret to confess. I'm an Anime fanatic. Not to the extent that SailorScout is, where he changed his playing name to an anime-influenced one - but pretty close. I spend insane amounts of time watching it, reading webpages about it, on IRC channels talking with other enthusiasts. All because TF had failed to keep my attention, and I wandered away from it.

However, with the release of Q3F Beta1, I once again heard the sweet siren call of mistress TF, and came back. TFC had me really enthused for a while, but it didn't keep the level up there. I don't thing that will be a problem with Q3F. So, in the spirit of getting things rolling in a higher gear again, I've done my review of Q3F Beta1 right HERE. In the typical Fort Bundy style, it's long, it's wordy, it's irreverent at times - and it's all MY OPINION. If you don't like what I've got to say, toss me an Email and lemme know, huh? I'm willing to pursue any reasonable discussions, and arseholes that send unintelligent flames, well I reserve the right to ridicule them in public on the Fort. :P~ And when you get done reading it, and sending email to me if you so desire - Get out there and go play it, Warriors! Geez, it's one of the best things to come out in a while, you should go forth and slay.

Ok, onto other, community-related issues. If you scroll down to my February 6th update, in the bottom of that, I made a plea for being reasonable ansupportive of newbies. With the emergence of Q3F on the scene, this is even more important. The big problem ahead of the TF community, is that Q3 has a strong DM bias to it, since all they've seen up to now in it, is DM and the newer flavour of CTF, which I dislike. DMB's (DeathMatch Bastards) are for the most part, by nature, NOT teamplay-orientated. They come from a personal glory, "all for me, look at me pwn jur a$$" background. Many of them, quite frankly, are rude and direspectful jerks. I had the annoying experience 2 days ago, playing on a server, to run into one of these specimens. I was playing on q3f_2stag2, on offense, making flag runs. I was doing the usual thing, reporting where I dropped the flag, and location of enemy sentry guns - you know, the basic team communications. This cretin pipes up with "Shut up asshole, nobody wants to hear that shit". Usually I ignore idiots like that, but I was tired, so I replied, "shut up and learn how to play this game right, huh?". The only thing that mollified me at all, was that I got supportive comments from 3 of my teammates, one of whom said "you shut up and listen to Tot, he knows the deal". This made my day, hearing that.
What I want to get at, is YOU might run into one of these cretin DMB's with no clue. Don't sink to their level and shower them with abuse back. Try to teach them the RIGHT way to play TF. Who knows, they might become your new clanmate, if they learn how TF should be. TFers are better than the average DMB, in all sorts of ways. Let's continue to prove that, people.

Next, the state of TFC, and what's Tot going to do? I mentioned it in my review of Q3F, and I'll sum it up here.TFC just isn't doing it for me, in it's present form. Q3F has me VERY excited, I'm expecting much fragging goodness from there people. But to be completely fair, I'm going to wait until Valve gives us this promised patch for TFC. Then I'm going to stack the two against each others in several categories: Gameplay, Community support for leagues, support for the games themselves. Then I'm going to make a decision. As much as I hate to say it, but for me, I'll quote Highlander in saying "There can be only one." I only have time enough to seriously devote myself to ONE game, at clan level. I might play the other recreationally, on I might even delete it from my computer completely. The Future will see the result of that.

Oh, and yes, there's 2 other TF "ports" out there. There's something that's called UTFortress, in the early stages of development. Well, I don't know about you all, but I've got a pretty decent computer here. But when it takes almost 2 minutes for UT to fire up, and bring me to a menu, after launching it from the desktop - there's no way in hell I'm gonna go this path. And then there's TA, or Team Assault. This is the other Q3A-based TF port in the work that I know, also being developed by some other loyal TFers. However, after a personality clash with their PR guy, and apparently their project leader, the lack of visible progress on their webpage, and the fact that they're obviously behind the power curve in the release schedule, trailing Q3F - I see them as a dark horse, a longshot. However, when they do decide to release a functional version to the public, rest assured I will give them the same fair evaluation I gave Q3F. But for right now, I'm NOT holding my breath.

One final thing. I've gotten a couple of emails from people, asking that since I've dealt directly with Robin Walker and Erik Johnson from Valve software, if I have any info on an release date for TF2. It seems some clans have/had been gearing up for TF2, and with the release of Q3F, their members want to give that a shot. But the leaders want to know if TF2 is gonna hit anytime soon, so they won't be wasting their time with Q3F, and then having to switch to learning a completely different style of game. To this, I say - read my lips - I have NO inside information on TF2 whatsoever. Zero! nada! Zip! I'm privy to a bunch of information on TFC, much of which I cannot disclose. But as for TF2 - I know as much as any other Joe that reads all the webpages.

Welp, that's it for Uncle Tot for now. And if you'll excuse me, I've got a pocketful of third eyes I'm just dying to hand out to unsuspecting recipients. See you on the battlefield - in my gunsights, of course. ^_^

Monday, 03 April 2000 1600Z
Catching up on stuff... -Totentanz

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? Bundy-sama has been on another extended roadtrip for his job in Real Life(tm) and I've been....uhm....distracted by various other things, and neglecting the loyal readers of Fort Bundy. Sorry about that folks. I'm mulling over a solution to the dearth of updates, and if it works out, I'll let the cat out of the bag. But now, onto the important stuff. I've had a good month to collect rant materials, so here they come..

About 3 weeks ago, ole Tot got a bellyfull of something to get him going, snapped, and wrote a rather long and pointed but not quite disrespectful letter to Valve software, asking that it please be passed around to the development team. I'm not going to disclose the actual contents of said missive, but lemme tell you, it was a humdinger. To my complete surprise, shock and and pleasure, only hours later that very day I got a response back form none other than Robin Walker himself. This pleased me, as being he is one of the 2 people there that truly was Team Fortress Software, before they joined Valve. This led to a coupla emails being tossed back and forth on the various subjects I brought up in my letter, including the state of bugfixing, the time it has been taking to see the results of said bugfixing, the effect of this delay on the morale of the TF community, and it's flagging confidence in Valve, and that's possible effects on their interest in TF2 - amoung other issues.

Now, I'm NOT going to itemize things in detail, and there are some things I cannot say. However, the feedback I got from Robin was EXTREMELY encouraging, as to what outstanding issues are going to be addressed. I'm not saying that everything was addressed to MY particular liking, mind you. But it was encouraging, definitely. I don't have a firm date as to when we will see the patch, either - right now Valve doesn't have one. They gave me a ballpark timeframe, depending on if everything goes right - and trust me, it's not that much further now. If grouchy old Tot can have some patience in this matter, trust me, you can to.

As to the eternal question of WHY it's taking so bloody long, I CAN provide some illumination on that, actually. The thing most people fail to realize, is that Valve is NOT like id Software. id is in the enviable position where they can dictate terms to their producer, Activision - and get away with it. Their track record allows them that bit of latitude. Valve, on the other hand, is bound MUCH more tightly to Sierra - as is the case with the vast majority of the other game developers in the business. And Sierra, in case you don't know, is owned by Havas, which is a French corporation. So, not only does any product or update have to pass Valve's QA, It then has to go to Sierra's QA to be signed off on prior to release. In addition to the obvious trickle-down management hierarchy structure, is the importance that it placed on international releases with Sierra products.To quote Robin, "Halflife has US, Spanish, German, Italian, UK, French, and Korean versions." Now, follow my logic here, folks. The US/UK versions are essentially the same, but when you talk about the other version, you run into things like actual OS differences, Government regulations, and translations. For instance, to not be places on the "index" list in Germany, so they would not be prohibited from selling it on the shelf, and not being able to advertise it in magazines, etc - they had to substitute robots in place of the grunts, and you can't shoot the scientists or barneys. In that version of TFC, the distinctive skins/models where replaced by the robot as well - so the only way you could tell, is colours and the weapons it's carrying. Pain in the arse, huh? Translating the text is another challenge in itself. Any of you readers that are multilingual know that quite often there are NOT direct translations for everything. So they have to make sure all the menus read correctly, and yes, even those retarded signs you see in the levels have to be translated. Ensuring this is all done properly of course adds time to the development cycle, and has to be rechecked with every update. But it IS a requirement in Valve's contract with Sierra, so it is a step that is required to be taken. And this can only be done after the patch is in "code lockdown".

Add to this, the impending E3, and the premiere of Half-Life for the Sega Dreamcast. Although Valve themselves are NOT doing the actual porting/development of it - Gearbox is - You know for damned sure they are still being consulted about it, so it is eating some portion of Valve's time in providing some level of support for that project. To not assume so would be naive, IMNSHO.

So, what I'm saying is, yes it's been a long time coming. Yes, we've still got a bit more to wait - but it's not that much longer now. And I'm certain you'll be presently surprised once it does make it out, trust me.

Well, I wanted to touch base on a coupla other issues as well in this update, but after working all night, I've plumb run out of steam. If I get the time later today, I'll make another update, and touch on some community issues. I should have my review of the Q3F Beta1 done tonite, and have that available for your viewing displeasure tomorrow as well. Until then - what are you still doing here? Go go forth and frag !!