From: Paul R Wendt Jr
Subject: Soldier of Fortune and SiN -- switched at birth?

Hello,

I was wondering how many other people out there downloaded the Soldier of Fortune demo and enjoyed themselves immensely. I certainly did, but for both of the levels I kept feeling like I was having flashbacks to the time SiN came out. The first level takes place in a subway -- just like SiN. The grunts in SoF really aren't advanced and remind me of the SiN grunts -- I guess it's cooler that you can blow off limbs though :)

The second level was on a moving train, which would have been REALLY cool if it wasn't a SiN MP level.... Now I plan on getting a copy of Soldier of Fortune; I really had a good time with the demo, however I just wanted to bring up that thus far, I have felt like I've been playing an upgraded version of SiN [well, without the mutants]. Many apologies in advance go to everyone; this is not meant as a slam or anything ... just an analysis of things in general -- i mean ... how many different ways can you design a FPS? :)

--Paul Wendt

From: Robert Smith
Subject: The Sims, PLEASE!

Is there a conspiracy or something?? Why no news about The Sims? (or did I miss it?) It's gone gold for god sakes, people!!! EBWorld has a little special going on at its site if you preorder (you get some extra characters). Why no news about this (hopefully) completely awesome game??? Please, I implore you, get the friggin word out. Plug this baby!

I just felt compelled to start a little coup. ok i'm going back to smoke some more crack. :)

huntergod

We reported that it was gold, didn't we? Okay, you want some news? Check out this week's issue of Time Magazine. There's a really strange pseudo-review of the game in there (it reads like an AA confession). :)

From: -hal
Subject: blue's news

FYI

I was born on Ground Hogs Day, I traveled to Punxsutawney, PA to see this event, Its a joke! They keep the groundhog ln their local musuem all year round. They wake him up on Feb 2 put him in a cage to transport him to Gobblers Knob.

They then shine a floodlight on him, which is attached to a Telephone pole The mayor of Punxsutawney, PA reads what the weather will be from a scroll. You up get before the crack of dawn and freeze you but off going up to Gobblers Knob! Wear tons of clothes! That was in 1977 my wife and I traveled their, I dont think its changed.

-hal

That's pretty silly...I guess it's really just like the movie (well, except for the whole time loop thing).

From: Robert A. Seace
Subject: When Blue talks, everyone listens...

Geez, you just make one casual mention of the extremely late RGB3,
and suddenly everyone is running around to actually finish the thing,
finally! Hmmmm... Think you could maybe mention the Linux version of
the Q3A point release and SDK, which still hasn't shown up yet?? ;-)

From: Jonathan C. Forster
Subject: mailbag

What? A mail bag without an AntiELVIS submission?

-jonathan

I know...nothing makes sense any longer. Truly the world has gone insane (or sane, for that matter).

From: jalon
Subject: New Daikatana maps

You guys crack me up. You still print blurbs about daikatana as if 1) Anybody still cares and 2) It is not going to be a pathetic, ugly, bug ridden joke.

Honest man. No axe to grind. I bet you guys even have these thoughts. ;)

From: TrackZero
Subject: Black & White Movie> More Than Meets The Eye

The Black and White movie you posted about yesterday (from Nonstuff) has some amazing music in it I thought, lo and behold, in the credits at the end of the clip "Music by Sonic Mayhem".

Andrew Hodder
TrackZero
Administrator, Reaver Communications

From: Dale Cooper
Subject: More on the closing of UIX boards

Hey, thanks for running the story on the closing of the UIX boards. But it gets even worse, I can not believe they're doing this... they're systematically deleting all negative posts from the boards. Since this morning, the Technical Issues forum has gone from 3000 posts to 1074 posts... this is the most digusting behavior I've ever seen from a game company, could you please let the public know that this should not be OK for them to do?

Thank you,
Dale Cooper

From: PETER SESSIONS
Subject: Frames question

Any chance you can set up Blue's News so that upon loading the focused window is the main (news) frame and not the left (table of contents) frame?

I like to use the mousewheel and/or the arrow keys to scroll down through the news, as I'm sure many do, but I have to use the mouse to click the news window before I'm able to do so.

Small quibble, I guess, but I think a lot of people would appreciate it. Thanks.

I haven't the foggiest idea how you would go about changing that. :)

From: Crowdpleazr
Subject: the mailbag message with a 733t subject

FYI for other game sites please pass on the word

DOES NOT WORK WITH NAME BRAND 3DFX Cards and WAS KNOWN not to work BY the Developer

Here's one guys email. to SYSOP at
http://www.talonsoft.com/cgi-bin/WebX?13@92.5APtEP5b^2@.ee6d092/0

TALONSOFTWARE add-on Devil's Bridge for HIDDEN & DANGEROUS DOES NOT WORK WITH NAME BRAND 3DFX Cards and WAS KNOWN not to work BY the Developer with issues they found in EUROPE while testing and release in Europe but they did not address this issue. WHY. Here are some people who all got messed up
with this lousy programmed game.

These message straight from
http://www.talonsoft.com/cgi-bin/WebX?13@92.5APtEP5b^2@.ee6d092/0

Don't Work!

I just got DB today and am having trouble running it. In my search for a answer I came across the H&D unofficial site. It was there I found out that voodoo3 owners in Europe are having serious problems. I have a voodoo3 2000 and the game goes through all the load screens fine but when I get to the mission set-up screen it crashes with a DrawlndexedPrimitiveVB:DDERR_INVALIDPARAMS0x80070057 fatal error! whatever that means. My biggest ? is why wasn't this fixed before shipping in the U.S. there was enough time. Also now that I opened the game I only have 10days before I can return it otherwise I'm out 30.00.So will it be fixed soon??

Here's another one

Having the same problem.

If I use the back level voodoo3 drives(from the CD) the game starts working , but run into other problems, like the you can't quit the game without rebooting win98. The uses of the old drives is a bad idea since alot of other games depend on the lastest video drivers. Is this a problem that will be fixed soon? If not, then I want to return game.
Thanks Rick

And another one

Why Promote DB? Ashton, perhaps you can help explain why TS would back this product, given the numerous problems and bugs, especially with a very popular video card like Voodoo3... Methinks TS's reputation is being harmed more than you think

KEEP GOING MAN theres more

So far the only way to get the game to work is with DX6.1 and older voodoo drivers. The same problems happen with a RIVA TNT with DX7. I tried ebrinks uninstaller but without much luck. And i'm in no position to reformat.
How come ? I have heard that this game was released in europe first and that they were having problems with voodoo3 cards! How come it has been released in the US without addressing this problem. I have gotten the game to run with taking off DX7 and and loading DX6.1 and older voodoo3 drivers (reformating hard drive to do this!)the first two levels run fine then comes level three and the game starts to slug along so anyone thinking of doing this it is a wast of time! Man I hope this is fixed or this game is going back and think twice before I buy another Talonsoft- T2- game again!

Your add-on messed my orig install of HD
all my saved games
all my time and efforts cause I trusted your add-on.
Talon needs a good kick in the ass for letting a product out untested with name brand hardware and using there updated hardware and drivers. Guess were dealing with a company trying to cut corners, while they collect our 45.00$ expense. Sure save your money let us deal with sloppy programming.

NICE

How very very nice. I will not get my money back for RD let alone HD bought 9 months ago. I guess your companies laughing and I am out 45$ less in my pocket that I could of put towards another game.

I know next time I will not purchase TALON or ILLUSION software or ANY T2 product, That I will share with as many people out there.

Nice work TALON / T2 very very nice work. Hire some educated programmers and don't be so quick to take shortcuts in testing and benchmarking your product.

YOU GUYS ARE SUCH LOSER FOR THIS RELEASE... OUCH

I think the guys who can't run this game should get together with the people who can't run Ultima IX and switch. :)

From: Richard Carlson
Subject: Thanks!

Thanks, guys.

: )

That post I put up at GameSpy, re: Laidlaw's article on character, was from the heart.

You guys are awesome for bringing it to the attention of others.

Richard Carlson
Quake Nick: Zdim
designer / mappie
Looking Glass Studios

From: Base-Head
Subject: Quarantine Sequel

I just read a review of Dreamcast Crazy Taxi, it sounds alot like Quarantine. Except people dont shoot at you and you cant put buzz saws on the front of your car. Anyway that game was fucking awesome, any news on a sequel?

No idea. Of course, I've tried Crazy Taxi - I figure why bother, when I can walk outside and get the real thing?

From: leonard matthew pickering
Subject: radiskull link

hey blue
visit your site everyday
blah. blah blah..
you and scary are the best
im looking for the link you posted for the
original radiskull full page site
this is for my son
lost original link due to reformat
lame and stupid but not made up
have searched to no avail
thanx len

Here you go..enjoy: http://poppy.macromedia.com/~jsparks/radiskull/Radiskull_menu.htm

From: JonnyZ
Subject: DNF..

Start rant.

Duke Nukem Forever. Yeah. Great.

"When it's done.". Uh huh.

Open letter to George Broussard: I can understand that 3drealms doesn't want to mess up the Duken Nukem franchise with crap. I can also understand that they want their product as polished as possible. But just how long is too long? There's a gazillion platform games released using the Duke Nukem name (okay, maybe no a gazillion, but a million at least) and for this we've seen, what? 3 PC titles under that name to be out in over a decade? Sheesh. Enough with the hush-hush already. George, if you're listening, get 3drealms down off it's high horse and release some details about the damn game already. Either that, or don't give any at all. This putting out 8 screenshots over 4+ years of development kinda blows. Okay, it really blows. Stop leading the game community on. I have no doubt the game is great and it's really playable and you've done a lot of mods to the Unreal engine, but, come on. Why don't you devote your all programmers time to DNF and stop producing damn platform titles? Please? Final point: If I click on "Duke Nukem Forever" at the 3drealms site, I don't want to inundated with DN console news crap. It's junk. If I click on DNF, is it asking too much to get news dealing with *gasp* DNF?

And while I'm on my 'leading the gaming community on' bit, Shiny, do me a favor and don't release Messiah. I've already played it. I've seen every nook and cranny of the game in the 10 gazillion screenshots that have been released. They aren't impressive anymore. Really.

End rant.

On a happy happy note, the screenshots that were released for DNF are really nice.

Duke Nukem starved,

Dead_Cow

From: J Garett Sheldrew
Subject: How come #quake is inviteonly?

How come #quake is inviteonly?
How come #quake3 is invite only?

Are there any IRC channels that can accomodate intelligent questions about q3?

You're asking the wroooooong guy. I'm not entirely sure there's such a thing as an intelligent IRC channel. :)

From: Adam Smith (Katarnoca)
Subject: How is "Linux" pronounced?

A bunch of the guys in my CISCO class insist it's pronounced "Linn-uhks". I disagree, because (correct me if I'm wrong), Linus is pronounced "Line-uhs". Wouldn't it be "Line-uhks", not "LINN-uhks"? Somebody must know for sure.

-Katto

Yeah. Like I'm really going to get into that argument.

From: indiv
Subject: Why we have to register to post comments

For the person who asked why we have to register to post on the Blue's News message board, allow me to point out the ".plan comments incident"... a while back, Blue implemented a system where we could comment on .plan updates, and we could do it anonymously.

I'm willing to wager that not a single mature, non-hostile post was made to any of the .plan updates. Luckily Blue cut the life on that system short, after 4 days I think. I like reading through the comments now and don't want to have to filter through nasty posts by some pre-pubescent teen who has decided that since he can't have friends in real life he doesn't want them on the internet either. Of course, even registration doesn't filter all the hostile posts out (aka any comments on a Diakatana news story...) but those are easy enough to skip now.

indiv

Bingo. :)

From: Adrian Taylor
Subject: downloads

I've noticed a few comments on Blue's News complaining about accidentally cancelling downloads and other problems with the MS Internet Exploder download window. I've been using a download manager called Go!Zilla, which lets you categorize, resume, and use multiple mirrors for downloading files. It will even automatically switch sites midway through a download if the first site gets slow. I find it really useful, even though I have a cable modem and theoretically shouldn't have to worry about speed and reliability (hah!). It's even free, if you don't mind the ad banner pane on the main window, at www.gizmo.net.

This sounds like a paid endorsement, but I'm really just happy with the software. It's eliminated a lot of frustration for me, especially with all the 40+ meg demos that I must download for evaluation.

Adrian

From: Scott Fraser
Subject: Guy with "isset_es" problem in Mailbag

I had the same thing, its related to Norton Anti Virus.

Disable Norton before putting in the cd and it should run fine.

[NzR]Kyuss