From: stoneface
Subject: Bleem! - What Does It Mean?

Just say an episode of Happy Days on Nick at Nite with the kids.

Robin Williams was on as Mork from Ork and wanted to take Richie back to Ork from for 2000 years, which he called a "bleem".

Was the meaning of the game Bleem! ever guessed by anyone?

Could this be it ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Sorry if you've heard this before.

Can't say I've lost many nights over the meaning of "bleem" myself...although Shazbot! was a whole other problem.

From: Jonathan C. Forster
Subject: UT hits the Big Time.

Well we know UT is Big Time now, a Blue's News Tips and Tricks page! That alone will validate the game more than anything else. Well almost.

-jonathan

From: Captain Wonkybutt
Subject: cost of living, the City is out of hand

>Fruit of the loon [loonyboi-12:17 AM EST]
>I think i'm going to have to go back to eating nothing but ramen noodles
>(three for 99 cents!) so I can afford to get all this stuff.

I can't believe that you pay that much for ramen. Down here in Florida (I was wearing shorts and a tshirt today) we get ramen at 6 or 8 for a buck. If you really eat that much you can always go to Sam's or Costco and get cases that are even cheaper.

sheesh.

Cpt. Wonkybutt

From: Jay Oliver
Subject: romero went down to dallas

Here's a little song we came up with.. thought you might enjoy it.

Romero went down to Dallas - by #balance
With apologies to the Charlie Daniels Band
Vision by Redfalcon
Lyrics by #balance

Romero went down to Dallas, he was looking for some code to steal.
He was in a bind 'cause Daikatana was way behind and he was willing to make a deal.
He came upon a young man hackin' at a game that wasn't too damn hot.
Romero jumped up on a hickory stump and said, "Boy, lemme tell you what!"
"I guess you didn't know it, but I'm a game designer too"
"And if you care to take a dare, I'll make a bet with you"
"Now you design pretty good games, but give Romero his due"
"I'll bet pics of silicone against your code, cuz I think I'm better than you"
The boy said, "My name's Carmack, and my game's worse than SiN"
"But I'll take that bet, you're gonna regret, 'cause yours is the worst that's ever been"

Carmack, fire up your Cray and port your code tenfold
'Cause hell's broke loose in Dallas, and Ion Storm's been sold
And if you win you'll get these pics of naked silicone
But if you lose, Romero gets your code

Romero opened up his case and said, "I'll start this show"
And fire rose from his Voodoo5 as he hacked away at code
He added in the sound module and it made an evil hiss
Then his lackey Porter took control so the game was sure to miss

When Romero finished Carmack said, "That's a piss poor hack old son."
"Now let me at that keyboard, and I'll show you how it's done"

Fire up the laptop, run code run
Ship it though it's buggy and not too fun
Where's the final build, we just don't know
Eidos, will the game ship? No child no

Romero bowed his head because he knew he'd been beat
And laid the Killcreek Playboy at the ground by Carmack's feet
Then Sweeney ran them out of town, never to return again
"I done told you once you son of a bitch, UT's the best there ever been!"

Fire up the laptop, run code run
Ship it though it's buggy and not too fun
Just release and patches will make it fine
What the hell; No matter what, it can't be worse than Ultima 9!

From: John Susek
Subject: Nostalgia

I was perusing the News Archives, and came upon a story that struck me as a little funny, I thought I would share it:

-Announcing The Quake Spy Homepage
Hosted here at blue's. Yep, a program as essential to the internet Quaker's
life as Quake Spy deserves its own home page, so I've worked a deal with
the program's authors, Joe E. Powell, Tim Cook, and Jack Mathews where, in exchange for providing space and administration of the site, I get to keep
half the profits they collect on the program.

Hey, I know QSpy is freeware, but it beats my deal with Panix.

The site will open as soon as soon as version 3.0 is released. Stay tuned...

Obviously things have changed since this post (September 5th 1996), with Gamespy becoming the web portal for all the Planet* sites. The have received multi-million dollar funding from some individual (someone in the movie business if I remember correctly). Gamespy now comes bundled with new games also.

Things sure have changed a lot huh? From a simple freeware program by
three guys, to a new media company with multi-million dollar investments and
game bundle deals.

So what happened Blue? Did you end up hosting their page? For how long? When they left to go elsewhere (their own domain?), did you expect anything like what they are now?

Later,
John "SoLo" Susek

Blue's News hosted quakespy.com many moons ago. When they changed the name to GameSpy, the site moved to what was then PlanetQuake/CriticalMass. The rest, is some kind of history.

From: theAntiELVIS
Subject: Haven't you heard?

Daikatana Shots [loonyboi-5:00 PM EST]
Gamer's Voice has posted seven new screenshots they received from Eidos Interactive, showing off Daikatana, John Romero's Quake II engine title that is in its final design phase.

--------------------

They're switching to the Unreal engine - so it'll take 3 more years.

(ha ha ha ha ha ha ha - oh, God, that kills me!)

I've decided that for this game, I will flip a coin: heads and I buy it, tails and I buy it but don't open it for 3 years.

(oooh! hah! I'm dying here!)

I hear the Justice Dept. is considering prosecuting Ion Storm as a monopoly - apparently they've been using their influence in the market to force all their competitors to finish and ship their games first, so their feaures can be incorporated into Daikatana.

(gulp! retch! I'm having an embolism!)

Daikatana will ship with the world's most powerful level editor - it takes three people to use it, and all it outputs are screenshots of the game.

(oh! My sides hurt!)

As an added incentive to buy, each copy of Daikatana comes with a single strand of Romero's hair, so long it is actually still attached to his head.

(That's it - I've expired!)

-tAE-

From: coryh
Subject: Quake3 CTF JIP!

I'm sitting here trying to figure out why id has put minimal effort into Quake3 CTF. I think I read that there will be only 4 ctf maps. 4 CTF MAPS??? What is wrong with this picture?

I am an oldschool Quake player. I was one of those guys that was online drooling over any tidbit of news that came out about the new generation 3d game, from the makers of DOOM, the dream game called "Quake". I played qtest, quake, quakeworld, q2test, quake2, and now Q3test and Q3demotest. Along the way I also spent some time playing Tribes, Half Life, and Unreal Tourney. You can say I have a bit of playtime here :) Shoot, I was once
even honored to meet American McGee at a SIGGRAPH show, where he showed me (and others) Q2 before it was even out. He is a cool guy, and I was bummed to hear he was leaving id.

The point is, through my years of loyal Quake purchasing and playing, I always played CTF. As far as I can remember, DM and CTF have always been pretty close as far as the amounts of people playing them. Even back when you had to capture the "key" while "ice skating" through the lag and throwing your axe/grapple, there was a huge group of people who
preferred CTF.

So what gives now? What is the reason for only 4 CTF maps? Those will last us about 2 months and everyone will be screaming for more maps. Yes, I know that id wants to see the community take on this project, but it couldn't have hurt to have a few more high quality OEM CTF maps. Disappointment.

I love id's work....always have, always will. I still feel a bit jipped though. I'm in the process of building a $3500 gaming machine JUST to play Q3. It's a bummer to know that they didn't think a little more highly of us diehard CTFers. Oh well....life goes on.

end of whine.

sungod

Well, in case you haven't heard, Zoid released more maps for CTF. Snag 'em here.

From: Nick Dana Waters
Subject: Q3A Minutia

The gameplay is awesome. No complaints there...its beautiful. Especially
that big tongue...

I miss the 3D symbols for the weapons, ammo, and charge-ups. I want em in
the final game!

And what's with the clunky interface?

Orbis

From: Dorothy Reynoso
Subject: unreal tournament site

hey blue!i'm a first starter in gaming venue. i wonder what site should
i go for unreal tournament to check the news. thanx....

codename SheGamer

Well naturally, our recommendation for UT news is Blue's News, but if you're looking for more Unreal-specific stuff, try any one of the many UT fan-sites out there, including PlanetUnreal, Unreality, UnrealEngine.com, and UnrealUniverse.

From: Chris Blakely
Subject: Star Trek sucks

Blue- I love your page...

Just thought that I'd tell you that Star Trek - Hidden Evil is about the worst demo I have ever played.... and that's coming from a huge Star Trek fan...

I actually looks pretty good considering you can't customize the settings at all, but gameplay is rediculous!!! I finished the demo quicker than I finish most preview movies. And its worse than Star Wars: The Phantom Menace if you can believe that...

Keep up the good work on the page tho!!! :) It's been my home page for 2 years.

Sneak

From: Patrick \"Vinttech\" Cronin
Subject: Crazed MoFo's

I got a good question that most Blue's News readers would love to know: What the hell do you do? I mean damn, you guys have news up before it's even news!

-Vinttech

Well, since you asked so nicely, i'll let you in on a little secret. We have no lives. :)

I'm only partially joking, of course...but seriously, we rely heavily on reader-submitted stories for a huge portion of our news. If you guys didn't send it in, we wouldn't have as much news as we do.