Blue's News MailBag

Letters are edited for spelling errors only (occasionally), and may contain profanity. Commentary by Jason "loonyboi" Bergman.

From: -theAntiELVIS-
Subject: Quake CD anniversary

I still have both those original CDs - the one I had to call to "unlock", and the "no lock" version they stuck me for an extra ten bucks to get. I think it all came in at around $65 - more than twice as much as I had ever paid for a game before.

I know it sounds dumb, but who knew that buying that CD would actually change my life in about a half dozen ways. For one thing, it was the last time I bought a game that actually WORKED right out of the box. Since then, installing a game has become such a technical challenge, I actually dread it.

BTW: Loonyboi is right - System Shock 2 rocks. Hmmm - and it worked right out of the box. So now there's a NEW last time that happened.

-theAntiELVIS-

Yep, I've got one of those old Quake CDs too. Hang onto that...who knows, someday it might be a collector's item (and if not, it makes one hell of a coaster).

A fair criticism.

From: Brian Crober
Subject: spoils it

That Shatner link might have actually been worth more of a check out but
staring at what appeared to be Sulu (with old racist buck teeth) intact simply ruined
it. Actually that page sucked no matter the glaring stupidity of Sulu's teeth because I tried to see what actually made it a worthwhile link....

I think any of us could do a more convincing sounding impression of ol Bill than that
web page delivers. I guess that page should show all us white men with teeny weeny little white penis's too just to show that we can laugh at ourselves?

Let the beatings begin?

From: loryan@sfu.ca
Subject: The time of the dominating LPB is at its end.

John Carmack's low-ping benefit elimination mechanism (the sv_maxRate cvar) is finally going to take the unjustly earned smiles off those goddamn LPBs' faces. This option alone is enough reason to buy Q3A. Finally, the playing field is going to be fair.

As a wise man once said, "Let the beatings begin."

By the way, I've been reading your site ever since it first appeared. Put my name and e-mail address on this message if it gets into the Mailbag.

Should I be worried? I've managed to get by on my more than average bandwidth ever since QTest...

Oh, and I can't put your name if you don't supply it. :)

From: Floyd McMichael
Subject: RE: Kid killers linked to video games

just thought I'd add my 2 cents:

It is ridiculous to claim that video games program kids to kill other people.

>"These video games are murder simulators -- we're training them to kill,"he
>said.
>
>"These kids go on autopilot -- they're drilled to kill every living target until
>they run out of bullets or targets."

People who are not already unbalanced either emotionally or mentally would not go on some murderous rampage... where were the excuses for violence in teens before video games existed? such as race crimes, burglary and murder; or the two young boys in England that kidnapped an even younger child and killed 'just to see what it was like'?

>Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone said there was a definite link between
>video games and the shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. that
>claimed the lives of 12 students, a teacher and the two student shooters.
>
>"These guys played a game called Doom, which is a game where you kill and
>hunt people down," said Stone. "The difference is the video games don't
>shoot back. We did."

However it was neglected that one of the two students released several graphical patches for Doom that made the death scenes for the monsters in Doom to be more gory and realistic. This is a sign of an already morbid personality.

>Parents of the three kids killed by Carneal in December, 1997, have launched
>a $130-million US lawsuit against several video game manufacturers.

>They're also suing the makers of the movie The Basketball Diaries in which a
>character blows away a bunch of kids.

Violence in video games, television and movies can desensitize children to acts of violence but they are not "training simulations". I agree video games and movies and television shows should have a ratings system but that system doesn't work if retailers and parents don't follow through. These forms of entertainment are *NOT* the cause of a crumbling society but rather the symptoms. Why are so many people quick to blame the makers of these forms of entertainment but not the society that produces these killers? That's like saying we shouldn't blame drunk drivers for driving while under the influence, but rather blame the alcohol breweries for allowing them do so -- and that's just stupid.

Floyd

From: Mark W. Farrell
Subject: Re: Speachless

Hey blue n' loonyboi,

First time for me here in your mail!

Been using your board for about as long as you have been there, all I can say is wow and thanks for all the hard work (take a bow dudes!!!).

I am 42 years, um, 'old'. I have a wife, son and two Siamese cats. My son (age 13) and I have a blast kickin' each others respective behinds playing fps games like Quake][, Half Life, and Starsiege. We also enjoy strategy games like Total Annihilation, CnC/RA, and the ever incredible Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. We even play Worms(2). (I actually dread the strategy games because he kicks my... ya get the idea.)

We just got my wife to play Q][, and she now understands what true fun is.

We also enjoy family things like: camping, reading, fishing, shooting (yes, my father (74) takes my son shooting), movies, roadtrips, Renaissance Faire, Scouting, comforting others, sushi, Tae Kwon Do, puzzles, museums, talking, listening, hugging, looking at the Caller ID before answering the phone, laughing at the system, laughing at stoooooopid people, laughing at life, laughing at eachother, and laughing at ourselves.

Out in the world, we see so many people that have gone bad and we wonder what kind of list their families could throw together.

We read in reports that 5% to 50% of kids in some school on various types of behavior modification medication (zombie drugs) so that the teachers can make it through the day and the parent does not have to cope with nastygrams from the school. Yes, I have met people with three kids that all have ADD/ADHD (mild to severe), survival depends on medication, sometimes. One was in my Cub Scout den <sigh>.

Isn't it odd that when the kids don't want the treatment it is called required medication, when they do it is called drug abuse.

Have the parents of these kids grown-up-so-much that they encourage their children to rebel to all that 'Mom and Dad' stand for? Is there any personal (not the Sunday song n' dance mumbo-jumbo) relationship with their version of the Powers That Be? (as Ben Grimm would say 'nuff said')

Is there an understanding, like I had with my parents (and we have with my son), that no subject is sacred or taboo? If the child needs to talk, then the parent(s) needs to listen - openly! Do not condemn your child for curiosity, or especially questioning the system. If your child has done something wrong (or just plain stoooopid), offer your life experience, offer your help, offer your understanding, offer constructive guidance. Explain that adults obviously don't always do the right thing, or know how to play nice together, or share - just because they are adults.

It must be so convenient to be able to suddenly blame a rash of previously unexplainable behavior on some-thing. It must be comforting to know that the parents didn't go wrong or neglect their children in any way.

I get nausious when I hear all the crap about specialists and professionals spewing forth their own self-important drivel and people cling to it like the Emperor and his new clothes...

I gotta go do some family things here...

Again, Thanks for the fine community service:

Mark W. Farrell <<The Doctor>>

Cute furry animals being ripped to pieces by horrid malformed monsters.

From: Pepe Val Pew
Subject: Link Of The Day, maybe

I have for you all a posible link of the day, I make sure to visit Bluesnews at least once a day and I'm quite adament about it, the link of the day I look forward to because must of the stuff I really dig and couldn't or wouldn't find through any other site.

I any event this is a huge online comic with the basic premise of cute furry animal caricters being ripped to pieces by horrid malformed mosterus furry caricters, think "Tiny Toons Vs. Night Of The Living Dead"

http://www.where.org/~pepe/rtd/

Hope yah like it.
Drip

I don't know why, but this seemed like an appropriate letter to follow the Ottawa Sun feedback. :)

Cracking a necessity?

From: Chris Harmon
Subject: Draken bad CD follow up

Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and Amiga or Atari ST were babe magnets (ok, maybe that's a stretch)... We had a nick name for Psygnosis. We said it was Latin for "Lucky to Load". They had a habit of pouring so much copy protection onto a diskette that often you had to crack the protection just to play a legitimate copy. If you floppy drive was .000001% out of factory specs, the protection would kick in and tell you that you were running a pirate copy.

Which was pretty funny considering you had the torn shrink wrap still crinkling in the trash can.

Everytime I hear you say this or that Psygnosis game has a loading problem (counting Draken it makes 2 this year) you take me back to my teenage days on the plains of Kansas. When cracking was a necessity, not an option. (Returning a game was impractical, 2 hours round trip)

[OCR] Broken Tusk

Chris Harmon

Maybe we need pretty colors?

From: DX1
Subject: Feeedback : small suggestion

Hi,

Why don't you use a different color for your news updates? I almost didn't see the update for Action HL beta2 (mainly because I was to eager to download the new beta). Something like bright orange would surely get more attention (just for the word "update").

Thanks for your great news site.

Regards,
[qWp]RoqueFort

Ahhh...not quite.

From: Pablo J. Nevares
Subject: KAK's contest

"Send your guess to kak@idsoftware.com. (Hint: it's blue and it's a place you can go to discuss the bus tour)."

Is the Q3A tour bus taking an unscheduled detour to the Blue Tower in NY??

-Pablo.N.

Not exactly. But boy would that be more convenient than my flying down to Texas again. ;)

Um...

From: Joseph Bass
Subject: QotD

Then... DIE!

He's referring to the pop culture quote from Ghostbusters, "are you a God?" But it's still strange to get an e-mail that just says that. :)

Crimes against cola?

From: Sean M. Graham
Subject: Jolt

The new tastes are a crime against cola also. I live in Rochester, NY, home of Wet Planet Beverages (and Jolt). We have had the "Citrus Climax" and "Cherry Bomb" flavors here for about half a year.... They taste completely horrid. "Citrus Climax" tastes like some cross between drano and Flinstones vitamins. "Cherry Bomb" has the same "crime against cola" taste to it, with a suggestion of something tasting sorta like Dr. Pepper or Cherry Coke in it...

Ugh. Nastiness to it's greatest degree.

seanf();

What if I never thought Jolt tasted decent before? Does that mean I might like it?

Regarding editorials.

From: fRy
Subject: Editorials

I'm glad to see you post links to editorials that may not (or for sure are not!) making statements in id's favor. Too often we see hardware sites selling and favoring certain hardware manufacturers, we see tech news sites favoring certain companies, and of course we see way too many gaming sites kissing the rumps of id no matter what they do. You being the leading gaming site out there and having a lot of id influence and posting these links is excellent. It's appreciated by many, I'm sure.

I'm 100% sure that id has lost their original focus and is hellbent now on selling as many copies as possible and appealing so as many 'end users' as possible. They have comprimised hugely between the hard-core gamer and the average computer owner so that they can sell copies to EVERYBODY. The 'arcade' feel, the insanely pretty and vibrant colors, the id tour bus and all the rest of the propoganda, and a slew of other things. In my view id has gone from a company who wants to please the hardcore gamer to a company who wants to please themselves and activision by selling as many copies of their product as possible and making it 'as 'newbie-friendly' as possibly which is so incredibly evident in the increasingly silly game quake3arena.

In any case, it's great to see you post things of this nature, and I hope negative publicity of id's latest creations will give them the kick in the butt they need to realize who their true audience is.

fRy