Blue's News MailBag

From: Steven Siloti
Subject: Dark Forces "fish eye" effect

Just a quick piece of info, I just read through last week's trivia contest and notice the question about which game first used a fish eye effect when you looked up at buildings. In fact the stretching of the level as you looked up (or down) was not an effect but rather a bug caused by the 2.5D rendering technique the engine used.

I don't know the the technical details of why this happens but I do know that it was not intentional. That is why any game that uses the same type of rendering engine (any Build Engine games, ROTT, DOOM I/II, ect.) will show the same effect when you look up or down (if the game allows it). As an example, with any of the non-GL DOOM mods (OpenGL versions are another and much more complex story) which add support for looking up/down you will see the same effect. Just thought you might find it interesting that Lucas Arts did not utilize the effect but rather where forced (no pun intended) to put up with it.

Steven Siloti

They might be calling it after the fact, but CD-ROM Magazine printed this blurb (which I've shamelessly yoinked from the Dark Forces FAQ):

"...Dark Forces includes some of the features which id is supposedly including in its latest title, Quake. The most obvious difference is that in Dark Forces, you can look up and down. To create the right perspective, the programmers employed a clever fish-eye effect which makes buildings look as if they're really looming over you."

Take that as you will.

Some people will read anything.

From: Cameron Aycock
Subject: Beowulf

Blue,

I must disagree with you on the suckage of Beowulf. I thought it was one of the coolest, grossest, interesting, and awesome books I read in high school. As far a comparing it to Hitchhiker's Guide....I'd have to say they are fairly equal. I just loved the vivid discriptions in Beowulf..quite a piece of work (or folk legend). Anyway..I'm just writing to tell ya I disagree, NOT to tell you, your wrong. To each his own ;)

Thanks allowing me to get it off my chest...O yeah..love the site

Cameron

I think Beowulf is culturally significant, and as a legend is fine - but remember that these things are meant to be spoken, not read. As literature, I'm afraid it simply comes across as the worst bit of writing I've ever read.

"Just don't take any class where they make you read Beowulf." - Woody Allen.

We can't make this stuff up (really!).

From: SlipMat]GOD
Subject: Stop it with the....

Hey guys,

I'm soooooo sick of hearing the "over used" quote "You just can't make this stuff up" Please, you've used it two times today, and you've used it almost everyday here for a while. You should probably change the name of BluesNews "All the carnage that's fit to post", to Bluesnews "We just can't make this shit up!" I mean, come on, it was funny the first time, but now, I'm sick of it, think of something else, it's old now. This reminds me of my mother, she's just picked up on the 'old' term "NOT!", and I wanna gag every time she says that.

Thanks for using something new,

SlipMat]GOD

What, you expect us to be original here?

Blair Witch Torture?

From: Jason
Subject: Blair Witch

Please tell Looni to stop pimping what is easily the second worst movie ever made. Some extraordinarily bad actors playing some very low IQ types who tromp through the woods yelling fuck at each other and reacting to situations as if they were in a Seinfeld episode is NOT a good movie.

UGH! I get more scared biking to work each day. BW was just sad. Of course, it might have been because I was rooting for the lousy actors to get slain, and was quite disappointed they weren't disemboweled in a very painful and torturous manner. :)

To each their own, I suppose.

Us city folk.

From: North Cheney
Subject: Dove.

Hi Steve. Never ceases to amaze me how out of touch with nature you city folk are. I experienced your wonderment with that bird about 50 years ago when I was 5 and my Dad showed me the new Robins. Screw trying to climb down those 245 flights. Pray that the baby bird learns how to fly on his first attempt!!! ;-)

North - (Loggitt)

The third man - er, person.

From: Jonathan Forster
Subject: third person mailbag

What's up with all these third person games? Wasn't the lackluster Heretic II performance enough for them? Like we're all Tomb Raider fans or something? Personally I'm thankful, it weeds the field of playable games down to something more manageable, there's too damned many good games coming out now and in the next few months and if I can just plain ignore all the third person ones I'm still going to have all my re-creation hours filled and then some. I don't think this over abundance can be a good thing for the industry, publishers being the rock brains they are will probably can the games I like.

-jonathan

Don't ask me, I liked both Heretic II and yes, even Tomb Raider. :)

Um...you're welcome?

From: Severian
Subject: About that letter about Outcast

My band has been searching for a good name for some time, and thanks to the letter from Lars Westergren about Outcast in the last Mailbag, we have one.

Ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it for the:

Large & Realistic Anuses!

Thanks Lars!

We're as cool as Slashdot!

From: Andrew Tetlaw
Subject: The Blues News Effect

Dear Blue,

I thought you'd be pleased to know that 'The Blues News' effect may yet live up to the legendary 'Slashdot Effect' (http://www.slashdot.org). My website (http://evem.org.au) was the subject of the Image Of The Day link in the 2nd August news. Of course I was completely unaware of this as I was running around tearing my hair out with worrying why our 128k ISDN link was showing 100% line usage for hours at a time... all day.

After trying everything I could think of and contacting our ISP to see if they could pinpoint the problem, I received several emails telling me my site was linked from Blues News.

ahhhhhh that's why!

It's getting better today but it's still around 70%

Thanks for the Link by the way.
--
[EvEm]_Xtro
Evil Empire

Cool! I always wondered why we didn't have our own "effect." Life is good.

Goofy captions.

From: Russ McDaniel
Subject: World's Biggest LAN Party

My co-workers and I generated this string of presumed quotes that might be heard at the LAN party depicted in your "World's Biggest LAN Party" link today: (maybe you'll get a chuckle out of these :)

"Hey, does anyone have a small nuclear power plant we could borrow for the weekend?"

"Dude, like, I found us this airplane hangar... get someone else to find the power..."

"Alright, who forgot to plug in the terminator?"

"A duplicate TCP/IP address was detected. TCP/IP network services will now disable."

"I'm taking my power strip and going home!"

[Sucks to be those who daisy chained to it!]

"You mean that every one them is infected with the virus?"

"Is that smoke coming from the server?"

"I wonder what this switch does???"

...darkness...

"The Nation Weather Service has announced a severe thunderstorm warning effective immediately for the following areas..."

"Hey man, let's all run SETI..."

"Anyone wanna order a pizza?" ... "Is this Dominos? Uhh... yes, we'd like 1500 pizzas delivered to the local airport hangar. BTW, do you carry Jolt cola?"

"Aw, @)#!%, where're the breakers?"

"Whaddaya mean there are no bathrooms in this place?!?"

Mmm...bumpy.

From: Lt. Flaarg
Subject: Bump on the Head

Dear GreatMasterOfAllInformationWhichIsQuakeAlsoKnownAsBlue,

I am afraid that something may be wrong with me. I check all of the links and screenshots that you post on your page, and I keep up on the gaming news - but the bump-mapping is eluding me. Is bump-mapping a BIG DEAL and there is something I am missing, or is bump-mapping a little deal which card manufacturers are making big hoopla about?

When I look at the shots I often can't even tell what in the image has been bump mapped.

Lt. Flaarg

ps. Your site rocks.

pps. I was bumped on the head as a child; it may account for my deficiency w/r/t this issue.

Bump mapping is one of those things that doesn't really come through very well in screenshots. I recommend finding an MPEG movie that demonstrates it. You may still be unimpressed, but at least you'll see what the fuss is all about.

On a serious note...

From: Bill Roeske
Subject: Death in the Community

I'm not quite sure how to put this properly, as I, myself, found out only a little while ago. I'll let his brother's message, as I got it, explain:

Jim Srb Dodge died yasterday at about 3:00PM. He drowned in lake Michigan the least I can say is that he was having a great time beforehand. If anyone wishes to contact me (his brother). I'm truly sorry and I would appreciate any contact... good luck to you all...

Jim Dodge, or "Iguana Guy" and "Aqualung" as he was known on the Internet, founded the Quake 1 Total Conversion project "Doom3D", (WhereI met him for the first time). Since then we'd worked on a few projects together, including the revival of Doom3D, for Quake 3. Jim's combination of coding skill, design vision, and enthusiasm were unparalleled within the Doom and Quake community, as anyone who knew him can attest. Jim had the rare spark that you so seldom see these days, wanting to give everyone your all, and to do so freely. Though we'd never met face to face, Jim helped me through personal times where even my local friends would have gotten tired of hearing. I consider him part of my family; to lose Jim was to lose a brother.

His brother Dan (ShamRock) Dodge asked that if anyone would like to contact him (or his dad, as he asked for anyone who knew him over the internet and would like to help him understand their relationship to him), please get in touch with me as I'm hesitant to post either of their addresses in the open (As aweful as that sounds, I don't want them to have to experience anything like a mail spam at a time like this).

Bill "Dark Adder" Roeske

A cutting board?

From: RiverDog
Subject:

Blue, occasionally you have a newsy bit on new mousing surfaces and in your reviews of August 3 you had a good one on "A Better Mousing Surface". I would like to pass along my experience with an excellent, easily available and cheap mousing surface. I use a flexible cutting board. They are available in cooking stores, mine cost about $5.00 CDN and is the fastest surface I have ever tried. This board comes in a variety of sizes,can be easily cleaned and it does not warp. Anyone who likes online FPS' needs a board like this. Try it, you'll like it!

Regards,
RiverDog
Calgary, Alberta

A clarification.

From: nimajneb
Subject: HALO - The real dirt.

>You know what "halo" means to a military guy? High Altitude Low
>Opening - This is when you jump out of a plane at really high
>altitude, over 30,000 feet, and rocket towards the ground like a
>meat rocket, and open your chute only a 1000 feet up

Hey devilbunny... just wanted to correct you a little there (I can't help it, it's in my nature ;). The SEALs use HALO the most, and jump from up to 36,000 ft high, and open the chute as low as 400 ft.THAT is nasty folks.. there's a lot of nasty things the SEALs do, but THAT is really nasty. Think hitting the ground VERY hard :-)

Even though they wear goggles and oxy that high, it's common to black out, have your eyes freeze, or your goggles shatter.. listen up here guys, it's common.. not rare :-) It's also a regular to break your bones doing that. And if that's not bad enough? a HAHO (high altitude high opening) is even harder.. you wouldn't think so, but it is: by far.

- nimajneb

It's true, and they admit it!

From: Redman
Subject: Microsoft admit to being evil?

My comp class sucks. they tried to teach us MS word (or whatever that thing with the annoying helperthing is) :O (what need is there? none that i know of) Anyway, i was bored and asked the helperthing "What is evil?" and it responded by referencing me to the Microsoft webshite.

Interesting, to say the least

-redman

Regarding online gaming.

From: Dave Hopper
Subject: Online gaming issue

Dear Sir,

You may not respond to this letter, however I would like to see a comment or article on your page etc. I want to know if Mr.Carmack has ever looked at Gamespy and seen all the low pingers dominating the games? Does he care? There are a lot more 56k players than low pingers and yet this is not being addressed. Why? I have not seen this issue addressed at any of the gaming sites. I am considering a boycott meeting someone is starting up to get their attention. Since the majority of the players are on 56k connections and our issues are not being addressed this is pure neglect. I firmly believe there is a way to balance the connections on the server so one doesn't have this big advantage, NOT just a server side setting either but built into the game code itself.

Now that many more people are getting high speed connections vrs. the majority still at 56k this has really made the situation worse. The issue is simply that no matter what skill level you attain in the game, when playing a skilled low pinger you don't have a chance. After awhile we should just give up and not buy any more online gaming software? This is the message ID and the others are telling us. The companies better start paying attention to this story or they will lose us. Many of us simply don't have hi speed access to the net period end of story. We don't play on LAN's like Thresh or most of ID. The public server situation is whole different ballgame. I will not buy anymore online gaming software until something is done.

Thankyou,
Phoenex

At least it wasn't Vogon poetry...

From: Graham Mitchell
Subject: mailbag theory - Douglas Adams & Beowulf

The recent mailbag entry was rife with weird connections. I feel bound to point them out. Consider the following:

* You (loony) suggested that Beowulf be replaced in the canon by Douglas Adams' excellent Hitchhiker's Guide series.

* A point of plot in that series is that the biological systems on earth are really an interconnected supercomputer designed to compute the

*question* to the answer of life, the universe, and everything. This answer was referenced by Alaric's message (42), as well as a guess for the question (what is 9x6).

* In similar form, in real life we are today exploring the use of huge distributed networks to solve some fundamental deep computing problems such as OGR, RC5-64, the Human Genome project and SETI.

* A "Beowulf" cluster is a particular example of a large, massively-parallel distributed computing system often used in solving such problems.

Coincidence? I think not.
--
Graham Mitchell

DUDE!

From: Thomas Quarles
Subject: Here's a nice round one...

Your server is getting stoned? DUDE!

(I wondered why it was acting strangely)

Thomas Quarles

Voxel Accelerators?

From: Robert Smith
Subject: mailbag

It's a shame that out cast and delta force get such a hard time over their graphics.. if it wasnt for the fact that we have such uber poly accelerators these days then we'd prolly look at games like outcast in a much different light... like "GODDAMN that's a gorgeous game, crappy poly's.."so whens someone gonna make a Voxel accelerator huh?. cos voxels have ALOT of potential, i just wish more people would realise that

Robert