October 1999
October 31
Ha ha ha... it is I, the evil
scary Zeoc, wishing you a happy Halloween... if you can survive through
it, that is! Well, all right, by now Halloween's almost over, and
it'll probably be November by the time you read this, but I'm not one to
forget the holidays. I was going to do a special Halloween page,
with ghosts and witches and pumpkins and all the other stuff, but I had
too much homework to do. I still have to write my Catcher in the
Rye essay and read most of Ceremony. Tomorrow I'll need to apologize
for missing that party. Sometimes I'm a real idiot when it comes
to getting things done.
I've been doing a lot of thinking
about things, and I've decided that the world doesn't really need another
web page griping about sexist comments made by people in the computer game
industry. It's like screaming into the fog, and it's totally negative,
and I want the Sine Wave to be about cool stuff that's going on.
I don't want to spend all my time searching for bigotry. That's why
Zeoc's List of Questionable Remarks in the Computer Game Industry is gone.
If anyone really wants it back, I'll put it up again, but I'd rather be
playing and making games.
Ever since I started my game
development label Nalenna back in 1997, I've been wondering if Nalenna
is a good name for a computer game developer. It doesn't really mean
anything; it's just kind of an esoteric onomatopoeia. That means
its only purpose is to have a distinct sound to its name. I'm thinking
of changing it to something else, but since I have no ideas yet, I'll stick
to Nalenna.
Ever since I got Drakan and started
reading the reviews, I've noticed a lot of reviewers compare Rynn to Lara
Croft and make remarks about her figure instead of other aspects of the
game. In fact, that happens whenever there's a game with female characters
in it. Why is it that women in computer games, and other programs
as well, are judged by their appearances over everything else? You
don't see any reviews comparing the figure of Corvus from Heretic II to
that of Duke Nukem. I notice it's mostly men reviewing these games,
but even so, can't they separate their game interests from their sexual
interests? I've looked at about 20 reviews of Drakan, and most of
them use a word like "beautiful" to describe Rynn. And another thing:
they also make a special point to mention that Rynn is a woman. They
all say things like "female heroine", which is a redundant phrase.
Another common phrase: "female warrior". You don't see Corvus being
called a "male warrior", do you? It's like the reviewers are so astounded
that the main character is female. My main concern is the sexual
comments, though. That's why I'm compiling Zeoc's List of Questionable
Remarks in the Game Industry. It was originally going to focus on
other things as well, like racism, but there isn't much of that, because
somehow the reviewers seem to know better. I'm only going to include
quotes from "reputable" game companies which write articles and reviews
for the general audience and are supposedly more mature than others.
A few days ago I got an e-mail
from Planet Drakan, a Gamespy Industries site, asking me if I want to join
them and run a level download section or an editing tutorial. I'm
probably the last person who should run a download section, because I'm
at school a lot and couldn't keep up with it all. As for the editor
tutorial, that job is best left up to Surreal, who actually knows how to
use it. I'm still learning and tinkering around with it. Besides,
I already run The Sine Wave, and I don't want what I write to be ruled
by some big corporation. I think Gamespy would put restrictions on
content because that's the kind of company they are. They won't even
let anyone go to their Planet Worms site. If I weren't the only person
writing this page, and I had people working for me, I wouldn't censor them
or put restrictions on their work.
After reading the newbie's setup
guide on the Sparrow's Nest, I decided to try my hand at Rogue Spear once
more. I started it up on Veteran mode, as opposed to Rookie, and
I didn't use the HQ plan. This time, I made my own. First,
I chose my team from the areas of assault, electronics, recon, and snipers.
I used the default weaponry, forgoing any extra silencers. I split
my team of eight into four groups of two, and then it was time for the
mission plan. I had the blue team, which I controlled, go around
the perimeter of the museum and to the area where the hostages were being
held. The red team went around the other way, and the green and yellow
teams started from the back and zigzagged through the middle. It
wasn't really the best thought out plan, but it turned out to work, eventually.
At first, when I tried it, my team kept getting killed off or hostages
kept dying. There are a lot more terrorists (or tangos, as they are
called) in the harder difficulty levels, or maybe they're just more skilled.
Anyway, I retried the mission about 10 times, and I finally figured out
how to approach the room with the hostages, and the mission was completed
successfully. I didn't use the heartbeat sensors or anything, and
my main tactic was peeking around the corner. My team was getting
killed off due to my flawed plan. Rogue Spear has a real strategy
element, and you can't get by on weapons skill alone. You have to
have skill at planning and stealth, too. My skills aren't very good
yet, but they're getting there with practice.
I had missed the opportunity
for the past 4 weeks, but I finally got around to seeing the movie Double
Jeopardy today. It's a thriller with Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones
about a husband who fakes his own murder and his wife is framed, and now
she's out of jail and looking for her child. I thought it was a pretty
good movie, if a bit formulaic. There were some plot holes, but none
too bad to detract from its suspense.
I have had really bad luck this
weekend. First, I was going to go to a Halloween dance for my school,
but there was nobody there. Today, I was supposed to go to another
party at someone's house, but I lost the directions and phone number.
Then, I tried to see if the school dance was actually today, but the gate
was locked. I've just been really out of it, and I think it must
be due to lack of sleep. Well, at least I'm good at keeping this
page updated every day.
I've been informed that the word
otaku
only applies to fans of Japanese animation, and in Japan, it's an insult.
I guess it's like our word maniac or fanatic, only more negative.
I'm in my third year of Japanese so far, and we still haven't learned much
about anime yet. We did watch the first part of Tekken, but the plot
was so ridiculous that we all laughed through it. The video game
might be good, but the anime just didn't work out.
I downloaded some mutator mods
for Unreal Tournament, and I'll tell you about a few of them. First,
there is the Fatboy mod, which makes you fatter for every kill you make
and thinner for every time you are killed. It balances it out because
the fatter opponents are easier to hit, plus it's funny to see a highly
skilled player become huge. Then there's the Golden Gun mutator,
which replaces all weapons in the level with one: the instant-kill Golden
Gun. I think that might have something to do with the Nintendo 64
game Goldeneye. It's not as solid as the Insta-Gib mega shock rifle,
and sometimes there's a bug where you can't use ammo for it. The
Vampire mod gives you 50 health points for every kill you score, so it
makes skilled players all the more dangerous. There's an All Weapons
mod that gives you all the weapons from the demo and some ammo when you
spawn. Out of all of these, I'd recommend... well, it's really no
trouble to download them, so go ahead and get them all. But my favorite
so far is the Fatboy one. You can download mods from http://www.unrealfiles.com/.
After absorbing a little more
knowledge of the intricacies of anti-terrorist combat, I'm ready once again
to tackle the Pandora mission in Rogue Spear. I'll give a second
overview of the game, and tell you whether I understand it or not.
Once again, the newbie's guide on the Sparrow's Nest is where to look for
info on how to set everything up. As for now, it's time to work on
yet another secret project, and then I need sleep.
I'm not going to have my Ethereal
Light story at the top here anymore, but I'm not giving up on it.
From now on you can find that story on my alternative site, Nalenna.
I've given the Nalenna page a major style change, so if you go there, be
prepared for a different look. Please, give it a look. The
link is right there at the top of the left column. Feel free
to e-mail me about anything and tell me what you think of my site, because
feedback is always welcome.
Well, the game which I have been
an obsessed fan of for the past few days is again showing signs of downfall.
The game search feature doesn't work today because something is up with
the master server. Now that we have all these mods and levels, not
only are there extremely few people playing, but none of the servers are
accessible. It's ironic that now is the time Planet Drakan has asked
me to work on their mods team and write an editing tutorial. The
truth is, I only know a few things about the editor, and I'm still learning,
just like everyone else. Surreal is who to ask when you want a tutorial,
and they're working on one right now. Well, I guess if enough people
want to know about the basics of the editor, I could contribute what I
know and put it on this site or send it to someone, but I haven't really
picked up anything that can't be learned elsewhere.
Tomorrow, I'll be Friday, so
I'll download the Unreal Tournament demo patch and a few of the mutators
available for download, and I'll tell you all about them and how much I
like each one here on the Sine Wave. I'll also have a Question of
the Week for anyone who cares to answer it. I put the old counter
on here today, at the bottom of the links section, but it keeps saying
"888888" all the time. I don't understand why it's doing this.
It used to work all right with my old page before July, but now it doesn't.
I don't usually add to entries
after they're done, but the counter only shows up when the page is actually
on the server, not when it's being written on my computer. That must
be a feature to keep people from stealing your counter and artificially
giving you more hits on your page. On the server, it reads 380, which
must be the real number. That's counting the total number of visitors
to my site back when it was my family page.
It was a warm, clear day, so
Kate decided to go play in the front yard. She started kicking a
beach ball around in the grass, and it hit the window. Sarah heard
the noise and went out to investigate.
I know you're sick of these slow
news days, but there's not really much I do that anyone would be interested
in lately. I went to the dentist, but I won't bore you with the details
of that. I will tell you that I saw a few games I might be interested
in. They were mostly for the console, though. Final Fantasy
VIII is out, and people aren't quite getting sick of that series, but we
all agree that it's time for some story line that doesn't follow all the
traditional RPG guidelines. Unfortunately, FFVIII relies on most
of those traditions, like the archetype-based characters and the dungeon-boss
routine. There's still enough new stuff to keep it interesting, like
the battle system and alternating storylines, so I might check that out.
I also played the demo for Donkey Kong 64, and it looked good. I
got creamed by both of the demo bosses, but my controller was broken...
um, yeah, that's it...
Nobody seems to be playing Drakan
online anymore. Every time I check the servers, they're all empty
except for a few ground ones. Compare that to the Unreal Tournament
demo, which had 432 servers the last time I checked. I guess Drakan
just isn't a very popular game. Someone said a few months ago that
it was #2 on the selling list, but that must have been on the release date
or something, and now it's not even in the top 10. I thought the
level editor was going to revive the online community and give players
more variety of levels. Now there are plenty of levels that are playable
in multiplayer, but there aren't many people to play them.
Here's a question for anyone
who cares to answer: What do you think of Ethereal Light so far?
You know, the story I'm assembling bits and pieces of in the first paragraph
of every entry now. Is it a "good" story that holds your interest?
Would it translate well into a computer game? Remember that if no
feedback is given, nothing will change.
I don't believe this. Five
years here and I still haven't made contact with the rogues. I really
miss Shalian. I hope he's all right sailing the seas without me at
his side. Sigh... if only this desert mission would end...
I had to write the rough draft
of my Catcher in the Rye paper today, so I just threw something together.
I also went out to a lake to do chemical testing on it. I've figured
out that nobody in my school knows exactly what they're doing, and their
expectations are not consistent from one project to another. That's
my life: one surprise after another when it comes to homework. Now,
on to computer game news...
Someone on the Drakan forum named
Signal has a site that reviews a selection of games, mainly role-playing,
but also Drakan. There's no text URL for the page, but there is a
number code. That's very odd. You can visit the page at http://206.160.0.203/.
There's a Surreal News page that's been around for a few days now, with
a few new forums, and I've added it to the Drakan links. Also, if
you want the latest on game demos and release date information, check out
Gone
Gold. It's one of the best info sites if you can get it to load.
I'm just reporting all this because I haven't gotten a chance to do anything
of my own lately, except this page of course.
Nicole paced back and forth in
the room. "I won't give up, Tritha. Sarah's not gone.
She's still out there somewhere, I can feel it."
Lately I've only gotten 3 or
4 hours of sleep a night, and I think it's affecting me. I never
have the ambition to do anything anymore, not even homework or human interaction.
That's why you haven't seen much of me lately on a certain forum.
I also forgot to change the closing quote on this page again. It
won't happen anymore, I promise.
I'm going to make another level
for Drakan, this time with Arokh in it. It's going to be a canyon
level, like the Wartok Canyons, and I'll try to find some way to have more
interaction between Rynn and Arokh. It's going to be a difficult
task, but if I can come up with an interesting level from one layer of
mountains, then surely I can pull this off. After my next level,
though, it's time to program my new Nalenna game, Lunaria. I still
have the Drakan story to write, though...
Shalian looked out to sea.
"So you need to go to the eastern continent?" he asked.
You may have noticed that today's
segment of the story is incongruous with yesterday's. That's because
I'm going to skip around between several different points in the story,
sometimes using the point of view of one of the characters. It's
a different style, but it should be interesting to piece everything together.
If you're like me and are totally
inexperienced with the new Rainbow Six game, but you want to learn how
to play the demo, there's a newbie's guide at the Sparrow's
Nest. It has advice on how to set up your team, scout the area,
and eliminate the terrorist threat. Since the demo documentation
doesn't explain much, the guide is helpful in figuring out just what you're
supposed to do.
I've finished my Drakan level,
the Crossroads of Drakan, and it's now ready for download. You can
find it on my Drakan links page. The level uses the mountain world
theme, with a few tropical objects thrown in there to make the castle ruins.
There are some enemies and weapons that you never see in the normal game,
and it's non-linear because you can take any path you want to get to the
exit.
Sarah looked around the desert,
the heat of the sun pounding away at her forehead. She saw nothing,
but she was determined to find her daughter in this wasteland.
Let me explain the preceding
paragraph. From today until I don't feel like it anymore, I'll be
writing a short passage from Ethereal Light, my new adventure story that
will eventually be a computer game, as my opening paragraph. Partly
this is to let people in on a good story, and partly it's better that way,
because I can't write about any different topics there since my style dictates
that I shouldn't have a header under the date. The story of Ethereal
Light is like this: Sarah's daughter Kate goes off with Sarah's ex-boyfriend
Mark, who is Kate's father. Of course Sarah doesn't know he's taken
her away, and when she goes to investigate, along with a neighbor named
Nicole, they are all pulled into a luminous vortex, hence the name of the
story. Mark has a vehicle of some sort, like a chariot or something,
waiting on the other side, which is a desert on another world. The
world will be populated by humans, I've decided, but the rest of the story
is still forming in my mind. It begins with the search for Kate,
but then it becomes an adventure across the world. Some other stuff
happens, too, but I'm not going to tell you about that aspect of the story
just yet.
I've mentioned this once already,
but I'll repeat it - in March, I'm going to Costa Rica on a field study
for my school. I'm going to see the rainforest, and you know what
that means: more photos! Yaaay! Just when you thought you couldn't
get enough of the Utah photos, there is news of more pictures to fill your
Internet cache. This trip isn't new like the Utah one, but there's
no web page for it yet on the school's site. In fact, most of the
field studies have no pages about them on there, or else they have a minimal
report. If you want the real info on the Utah or Florida field studies,
The Sine Wave is the place to look.
You may have noticed that I haven't
said anything about playing computer games today, and that's because I've
been working on a secret project. You probably already know what
it is, and I said I wouldn't say anything about it until... well, you get
the idea. Tomorrow I'll have the latest on playing the Rogue Spear
demo again after reading the documentation.
I know I've been kind of negative
over the past few days, and too mired in a single game, so I've decided
to change things around a little. First things first: I'll only talk
more about my Drakan level when it's done. From now on, I won't mention
its status on here because there isn't really much to say. As for
now, I have other things to do, such as unveiling:
Not everyone is crazy about Drakan,
and that's kind of all I've been writing about for the past month, so I'm
changing the prime topic of The Sine Wave. I put all my Drakan links
on a separate page, and now I'll write more interesting stories and reports
on other computer games that look interesting. For now, my main focus
will be the Ethereal Light story, because it's not going to write itself.
Okay, I didn't really know what
to expect from the Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear demo. It's a strategy-based
game, and I have never really been good at those. I always lose at
chess and a lot of other board games, so I was thinking I wouldn't do too
well in Rogue Spear. I started up the game and set up the controls
the way I thought I would like them, and then I went to New Game.
I started out at Recruit difficulty because I was a total newbie.
The game went into about 9 setup screens, and I just went with the default
choices, because frankly I had no idea what I was doing. Then it
was time to go into the action phase, which had that first-person shooter
familiarity I was expecting. I started outside the Egyptian exhibit
of a museum, where hostages were being held. Knowing that I would
no doubt fail on my first try due to the complexity of the game, I decided
to fail with style. I went into the museum, guns blazing, although
there was nobody in the main room, or in a lot of other rooms for that
matter. But there were a lot of objects to shoot, and I started shattering
the windows and the display cases. Yes, I know Rogue Spear isn't
that kind of game, but this was just my "test" campaign to see how badly
I could screw up. I kept hearing a voice saying "Tango down."
I don't know why I was being told to tango down - I thought Rogue Spear
was an anti-terrorist game, not a dancing game. Then I realized that
"tango" means target, and in this case it meant a terrorist had been neutralized.
Okay, I had learned at least one thing about the game. It was then
that I started a real mission, but to tell you the truth, I wasn't much
better this time around. The character I was playing didn't shoot
any terrorists or save any hostages, but somehow I managed to win the mission
anyway. It's really a complicated game, and there's a steep learning
curve, but if I ever learn how to play it, I'm sure it'll be a blast.
I'm still messing around with
my Crossroads of Drakan level, and I think it's about half done.
I have the textures and ruins throughout the level done, and now all I
need to do is add weapons, enemies, and powerups. It's not a very
fine tuned level, but it has a lot of area to cover. But the way
Drakan works, you'll find yourself tempted to jump-walk all over the land.
I wish the game wasn't designed so you go faster while jumping. In
real life, you don't see the fastest runners in the Olympics jumping all
the time, except in the hurdles event.
After I finish my level, I'll
be working on a few stories. There's the Drakan story, which I'm
seriously thinking about delegating to someone on the forum because I really
don't know how to write a story, and then there's the script to Ethereal
Light, where it doesn't matter how badly it's written because it'll turn
into a computer game anyway. I have a lot of ambition for that game,
Ethereal Light. I'm expecting it to be a captivating adventure story
that takes over 120 hours to finish and that has a lot of different branching
storylines that all come together naturally in the end. There won't
be any plot holes or unsatisfying endings like a certain other game that
is one of the main focuses (foci?) of my site. Sigh... if only I
had the skills to actually do it.
I was watching ER tonight when
I saw a very peculiar ad. It was for a battered women's shelter,
and it had the usual melodramatic voiceover with slow motion images that
are popular with that sort of thing. It was really a good ad, very
touching, until one important thing showed up: the name of the sponsor.
It was Philip Morris. A tobacco company. A company that makes
a malignant and malicious product that kills people every day is now saying
they're helping to save people. I don't believe it for a minute.
I don't think Philip Morris cares at all about ending abusive relationships.
I think they're just trying to win the public over by pretending they're
this great philanthropic company that cares about people. Really,
this sickens and disgusts me. It could be any other kind of company
sponsoring the shelter, and I would be glad, but Philip Morris is an institution
of death that sells putrid, evil, addictive cancer sticks. They're
trying to win over more smokers, that's all. They said they would
help the children, too, but then I bet after the kids are in the shelter
they'll hand them a cigarette. Really, this is worse than Joe Camel.
I hope they get sued into bankruptcy when some idiot smoker burns down
one of their shelters after falling asleep with a lit Philip Morris cigarette.
I'm not saying the shelter is bad, I just think it needs a sponsor that
doesn't make money by killing people. That's my opinion, and if you
don't like it... well, I didn't force this page into your web browser,
you know.
I raised such a fuss about my
game Nebula, but I haven't heard what anyone thinks of it. I'm starting
to think that nobody cares about the simple little games I've made.
That's really a shame, because if I had some feedback, I would know what
to change and what people want in future games. And I would be honest
and tell people if I didn't know how to do something.
It's really late right now, and
I didn't get much sleep last night, so I can't write much today.
Actually, I've been spending most of my time with the Drakan editor.
I'm working on a mountain level called the Crossroads of Drakan, with a
lot of secret passages through the hills and walls. It'll be a fortress
kind of thing with walls all over the place, kind of like an Anasazi city
with more Wartoks.
The Order of the Elements has
posted the first multiplayer Drakan level, the Ubernaught Arena, made by
Trev of the Immortals. There's a link to their page from here, so
if you want to play on that level, and can find others who also do, check
it out.
The Drakan editor... get ready
for this... finally came out today! The good news is I can make new
levels, but the bad news is that I might take a while to learn how.
This thing is really complicated. I tried to make a short little
"test" level to try out, and after much bumbling around with stuff (there's
no help file), I managed to put Rynn and Arokh into a rectangular area
with no texture. When I tried to play the level, it crashed back
to the desktop. Okay, it's only my first day, and I think I'm coming
along all right with the editor. I'll be making new quests and areas
in no time, as well as multiplayer levels! A new patch also came
out, and it gets rid of the bug where you could generate infinite items.
You can find them both on Surreal's Tech page.
There's a 4-day weekend coming
up for me, and I have to do an assignment where I interview an elderly
relative about the family's oral tradition and stories passed down from
generation to generation. It's for an assignment having to do with
this book I'm reading, Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko. Yes, that's
another rite of passage story, courtesy of Ms. Daniels. I'm just
putting this on here because I have to remember it and I'll forget otherwise,
and also because nothing else happened today except the editor and patch.
But the editor coming out is momentous enough, right? When I finally
make a level, no matter how lame it is, I'll post it here.
I finally finished reading The
Catcher in the Rye today. Now I have to fill in a sheet about the
symbolism of the story. Ms. Daniels is always lecturing us about
the symbolism of everything, and she always gets very emotional about it.
She's very much into the "rite of passage" theme, and it seems like everything
we've read so far has to do with rites of passage. Everything last
year kind of had that theme too... I think Ms. Daniels may be in control
of the entire school reading curriculum.
When I started up the demo, I
saw a loading message just like the original Unreal, but then it took me
to a screen that was kind of like the Windows or Mac OS. It had a
list of menus at the top of the screen, and you could select a command
from there. First, I set up the controls, and then I started a practice
session with the bots. I wasn't hooked up to the Internet at the
time, so I couldn't play online. Anyway, I chose all my configuration
commands and started the game. I appeared in a place that was on
top of some buildings with low gravity so I could jump around easily.
Everyone (the bots and I) was flying around, being blasted by rockets and
propelled off the buildings. Most of the weapons are functional in
the demo. There's the shocker, which is a short-range weapon that
you charge up. Then there's a standard-issue pistol called the Enforcer.
You start out with both of those, and you can pick up another Enforcer
for two-gun action. Then there's the ASMD Shock Rifle, which shoots
energy blasts and can be used for a combo attack, and the Pulse Cannon,
which can shoot rapid-fire plasma shots or a steady stream of plasma.
The Minigun uses up ammo quickly and fires at a fast rate, but it is not
very accurate. Finally, the Rocket Launcher can be used to fire explosives
as either missiles or grenades, and it can load up to six to fire all at
once. Basically, they are like the weapons from Unreal, but with
better balance. The Dispersion Pistol, Stinger, Razorjack, Flak Cannon,
GES Bio Rifle, and Sniper Rifle are not in the UT demo, and some of those
weapons might not make it to the full game. The bot AI is good, and
it's almost like playing against real human beings, except they can't swear
at you, accuse you of camping, or blame the lag. They're saving that
feature for the full game (just kidding). You can modify the game,
even the demo, with files called "mutators", which change some of the graphics
lines of code in the program to create different effects. For example,
there's a mutator that equips everyone with an ultra-powerful shock rifle
that explodes the enemy in one shot. I'm having a lot of fun with
this demo, and I hope the full game lives up to it. They promised
more than 70 arenas, as opposed to the 6 in the demo, so we should see
a wider variation of settings. I can't wait to run around somewhere
like Na Pali from the original.
If you want to download a new
Drakan theme, there's one that was recently made by someone from the forum
named Fastdad. It's available on the Blood that Binds clan page,
which you can link to from here. It includes wallpaper, logos, and
sound. There are new .wav files in it, including the Islands music.
The Ruined Village music and the Succubus Lair music, which are not on
the CD, can be downloaded here.
I'm starting another Nalenna
game, called Lunaria. You control a hovercraft going over the surface
of an alien moon, while flies and rocks get in your path. You have
to dodge the bombs dropped by the flies and either blast or swerve around
the rocks. This is all going to happen in pseudo-3D, like Nebula
but more sophisticated.
I'm thinking about trying to
make more of a pseudo-3D game as the next Nalenna project. It'll
still be an arcade-style twitch shooter, but with better graphics and gameplay
than my previous efforts. Maybe it will be like the old classic Moon
Patrol, where you drive a lunar car over the moon and jump over craters.
I hope to someday make a game that goes beyond my usual routine.
Most of my games are like the ones you find on graphing calculators.
I'm not going to be like Surreal
and give you false hope of the release date for my big adventure game Ethereal
Light. I really want to make this game, but the truth is that I don't
know how. That's right, I'm not actually a good programmer.
After I finish the Drakan story, I'll start working on the Ethereal Light
story. Once again I'm taking on a lot of projects all at once.
Well, that's it. The Drakan
editor doesn't look like it's going to be released anytime soon, so I'll
quit giving daily updates on its progress. I'll only mention it again
when it's available and on my computer. I really hope Psygnosis hurries
up with that legal agreement. It shouldn't take them this much time.
The Drakan forum community is fading slowly...
I don't know if the Drakan editor
came out today. My Internet account failed on me, and I'm unable
to connect. This means you might not see today's update of The Sine
Wave. I'm going to call the ISP tomorrow and see if I can get it
working again, but I have a nagging feeling that it will take a long time,
just like everything else in the computer-related industries. I really
don't know what the holdup is with that editor. If you do see this
update today, it's because I'm going through another account, which seems
unable to access any site but this one. That's really weird.
All right, I went and programmed
Nebula today. You can find it on the Nalenna writings and games section
of this site. I bet you've never even gone there because you probably
just skim the text on this page without reading any of the things to the
side. I know I do the same thing sometimes. Anyway, I promised
October 15, and here it is. If you don't want to see the Nalenna
site you can just click here to go to
the download page. It's only 208K this time, instead of over 240.
That probably means I did something wrong...
The editor could be out right
now and I wouldn't know it, and all because of this dumb nonresponsive
firewalled company Internet connection I'm forced to use right now.
Oh well... I guess instead of reading the Drakan forums and looking at
movie reviews tonight, I could just get some sleep. Hopefully the
problem is on the MNInter.net server and not my account so they can fix
it and everything will be okay tomorrow.
It seems my account started working
again. It wasn't accepting me before midnight, but now all of a sudden
I can get on... and I think I know why. Last night, I fell asleep
without shutting down my Internet connection, so I might have used up all
my hours for the 15th. I didn't miss anything, though. There's
still no editor.
Guess what? The editor
didn't come out today! What a big surprise! I'm getting really
sick of this waiting game. First they tell us it'll be out last Friday,
then Monday, then Tuesday, then today, but where's the Drakan editor?
I don't see it! Frankly I'm starting to doubt it'll ever come out
now. I made the prediction that it would be today, but it didn't
come true. Waiting for this editor is like watching an animation
in an adventure game. You see the guy put the glass to his lips,
you see him drinking, but he never gets done with the drink.
I finally downloaded that Unreal
Tournament demo today and played a few games. I haven't gone on multiplayer
yet, though. I just played a few games with bots. UT is a great
game, and the weapons are much more effective than in the original Unreal.
The only multiplayer game I've played besides that demo is online Drakan,
and the UT demo just blows Drakan out of the water in that aspect.
Like I said, I haven't been online with it yet, but I bet it doesn't crash
after 2 minutes like Drakan does.
I've made a new prediction about
when the Drakan editor will be released. I think it will not be available
until November 12, which is exactly five weeks away from its intended date.
All good things require five weeks of waiting. It was the same way
with Drakan itself - it was supposed to be released on July 14 or 15, but
in fact the true release date was August 18 or 19. The patch had
several delays as well. I've included the screenshot of the editor
in my Drakan links section, so you can look at it if you want to see what
it's like.
Today I received a screenshot
of the editor from Sparrowslain, but I don't know if I'm supposed to show
it to everyone or not. I guess it doesn't matter, though. The
editor will be out tomorrow, I can feel it. This is my prediction,
and it may or may not come true, but I hope it does, because I really want
to start making some levels. I've seen the interface of the editor,
and I've described my interpretation of it as follows:
"I see from the shot that it is showing the section of Wartok Canyons above the villager's house. The terrain seems to be a grid with elevation mapping and different layers for levels of ground. I don't know how the ceilings and arches will be rendered, though. The fence looks like three bounding boxes near a larger one, which is probably the house. The rest of the screen looks like it's filled with modifiers for all the objects in the level, as well as textures for the level terrain, with a viewer in the middle. The landscape generator is unlike any I have seen before, and it seems fitting for large outdoor areas, as opposed to the overlapping cubes and pyramids of Quake. This would explain why there is such slowdown when you're inside a house - because the house is made up of entity objects instead of level geometry. I see the STOMP sequence editor looks like a sound mixing utility. The level looks rather simple in the upper left box, kind of like the overworld map in a Final Fantasy game."
Tomorrow I'll tell you all about it, and I may even have a level or two to put on here if I pick up on it quickly. By the way, if you have Rogue Spear or another co-op game and have a fast connection or live in the southeast USA, you may be interested in Sparrow's Rangers. The Sparrow's Nest has more info on that.
We've been learning about endangered
species in school lately. In Africa, rhinos are being poached by
hunters for the horn and nothing else. That's as bad as hunting elephants
for ivory. At least there are still a large number of elephants left,
but the rhino population has decreased severely, down to there being only
10 or so in a wildlife refuge. The horn is used only as a status
symbol, in the form of a dagger handle that people would carry around to
show that they were elite, and as an aphrodisiac in Asia, and we all know
how well those work. So what we have is people risking their lives
to hunt an animal and selling the horn for a pittance, and the horn isn't
even used for anything really practical. Personally, I think the
idea of an aphrodisiac is kind of a dumb superstition. Maybe a great
many good, stable marriages started with the horn of a dead beast, but
I doubt it. Status symbols are another silly idea, and they are often
nothing but a way to reinforce macho attitudes and control. It stems
from that rutting instinct, like elk in the forest, seeing who can be the
biggest man. I've also seen many of those attitudes on the Internet,
particularly in the multiplayer game area, and maybe that's why I waited
so long to play anything online. I just thought some players' attitudes
were pointless and stupid. And they probably wouldn't care about
the rhinos.
Tomorrow I'm going to download
the Unreal Tournament demo if the editor isn't released, and maybe if it
is, I'll download it while making levels. I've heard it's really
good, and there are already some mods out for it. It's not even a
full game, and there are mods. People tried making some for Quake
3 Arena, but they were all pulled off the web. There has yet to be
a multiplayer Drakan mod.
Well, first they promised the
editor would be out by last Friday. Then they promised it would be
out by Monday, for real that time. Now it's Tuesday and still there's
no editor. ToxikMan says he finished coding the editor on Friday
and that it's going through all the legal stuff now. Frankly, I'm
starting to wonder if the editor even exists. I haven't even seen
any screenshots of this phantom Drakan editor, and my faith that it will
come out is starting to waver. I've been through this kind of thing
many times before, and sometimes what we are promised is never delivered
at all. Now, they said it would definitely come out sometime this
week. I sincerely hope they are right.
Just when you think you're finished
with a project, it returns to haunt you and jar you back into reality.
Today, I saw a photo, which had already been framed, that I hadn't put
up yet, so I scanned it in as the final Utah photo for this site.
I've completed a little more
of the Drakan story, but there's still a lot more to go. I'm only
about 5% done right now, because I'm only up to a little past half of the
first part of the first level. They say a picture is worth a thousand
words, and they aren't kidding. I may not have time to work on it
tomorrow because I have a lot of homework to do again. Plus, I will
be playing around with a certain editor that's coming out tomorrow...
I really hate to be unreliable,
but it looks like my new game Nebula won't be finished by October 15.
I really want to get it finished sometime, but I think it's time for me
to start looking for a better game programming utility than C++ Builder
3. It's not even meant to program games - it's for Windows API functions
and things like that. If you've downloaded any of the games from
my Nalenna section, you would see that they're all more than 240K.
This is because Builder has to compile all the C, C++, and Pascal libraries,
plus all the conversion algorithms, into one file, so what you're really
getting is an operating system along with every game.
If the Drakan editor doesn't
come out tomorrow, I'll be sorely disappointed. It's not so much
that I want it so bad, even though I do, it's that the game makers are
playing this little guessing game with us about everything. First
it was about the release of the actual game itself, then it was about the
patch, and now it's about what is to a lot of people the saving grace of
the multiplayer game. It'll probably be worth it when it's out and
I can make my own levels and weapons, so I guess I should be happy.
I just realized that I have a
Drakan story to write. I'd better start working on that tomorrow
if I have the time and patience. I had to work on math homework today,
so I didn't get to do much with this site. Basically just this column
is all. I really want to do more... I've got it! I have a sound
file from Crossroads II that I've uploaded here, and you can download it
and see what the game I've been talking so much about sounds like.
Keep in mind that it is from a Commodore 64 game made in 1988.
My English teacher, the subliminally
dysphoric Ms. Daniels, has assigned the book Catcher in the Rye to us.
We need to have the first 80 or so pages read by Tuesday. The book
is a story about a cynical student named Holden Caulfield who gets kicked
out of school for the fourth time. Everyone swears a lot, and it's
full of colloquialisms which seem a little dated now. Still, it's
more interesting than most books assigned in English classes.
Sometimes when I use Netscape
to visit certain sites, such as the one that I get my Drakan forum signatures
from, the program goes into a sort of browser limbo where it doesn't load
pages right and when you close all the windows, the program stays running
and you have to use the reset command to shut it down. This has happened
with all versions of Netscape, but they should've fixed that bug by now.
Why is it that some bugs are common but they never get fixed? There
used to be a page on the Eastview High site that crashed Netscape every
time because of some table error, but I guess it's been changed.
Well, the Drakan editor was supposed
to come out today, but it didn't. I'm glad it was planned to be released
so early, but planning doesn't give us the ability to make our own levels.
Apparently Psygnosis didn't approve of the editor yet, and that could only
mean changes to it, and possibly restrictions. I originally thought
they would force Surreal to drop some of the tools, but I recently got
word from Surreal's own ToxikMan stating that the editor would be released
in full. I can't wait to start making levels and weapons with that
thing. I wonder what weapon I'll do first - a boomerang? A
sword with a real ice shield spell? Or just a good old-fashioned
hammer of ultimate destruction? Only time will tell.
I said this would be the Sine
Weekend, with a whole lot of new changes, but that was before I heard about
the editor's impending release. I've been on the Drakan forum all
day, making suggestions and getting people all riled up over my views on
the editor. I'm sorry about that, though. I really shouldn't
come up with crazy speculations, because that only leads to rumors, which
lead to lies and misunderstandings. And that's the true path to the
Dark Side.
Well, I finally did it.
I put up the Utah photos, and you can find them by clicking on Southern
Utah Expedition and going to Emily's photo log. Most of the pictures
on that site were taken by her, but it's mainly a collection of photos
I didn't take, like ones of the Colorado River and Devil's Garden.
There are only 35 of them, so it wasn't that big of a deal. I expected
there to be a lot more. Now, the photo count is up to 265, which
is probably more photos of the southwest than you can find anywhere else.
I modified the Far View mod for
Drakan, so if you downloaded the first one, you can now download Farview
2. I modified it by putting the camera a bit more above Rynn as well
as behind, and I made it work for Arokh too. I haven't been playing
much multiplayer Drakan lately, and from the looks of the servers, neither
has anyone else. The net play just isn't good enough to draw in a
big crowd like Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament.
To start off the Sine Weekend
right, I did a major update to this page today. I moved the weekly
quote to the bottom of the page below my net name, and I changed the subtitle.
I'm working on an improvement to the far view mod in Drakan, because it
really makes game play a lot different. You wouldn't think a camera
angle could affect so much, but it does. I can't wait until I get
that editor so I can make all sorts of weird and crazy stuff for the game.
You may have noticed that there's
a new link here today. That's right, I took my Florida field study
page back from the school and transferred it to this site, because the
school had failed for about a year now to put it up on theirs. I
made a few changes and updates to the pages, and I would never have gotten
to do that if they were on the school site, so I guess it's all for the
best.
I made a new Drakan mod today.
This one replaces another file, System.odb, and it places the camera further
behind Rynn so you can see more around her. It's good if you're tired
of her getting in the way of your vision in the game. I call it Farview.
Thanks to Sageous for directing me to the file where that info is kept.
I'm afraid that, once again, there is nothing else to talk about.
So I'll spare you the agony of reading more of my ranting about how good
Crossroads II is and how nobody knows about it.
I have realized that I'm taking
on too many projects all at once. So far they include my games Ethereal
Light, Nebula, and Crossroads III, my Drakan story, my Utah photos, and
this daily entry. I'm going to set my priorities right now.
First I'll finish the Drakan story and put up the photos. Then I'll
work on Crossroads III and Nebula, and finally, although I don't know if
it'll ever see the light of day, Ethereal Light. Don't get me wrong
- I'm really looking forward to making Ethereal Light, but it'll take some
time for me to learn the programming skills necessary to make my vision
in that game a reality.
This weekend, I'm going to put
aside what little social life I have and spend some time updating this
site. You'll see the photos up before Sunday, and this time I mean
it for good. I know I've said it before, and it hasn't been done,
but it will. I might also come up with a new name for Nalenna, like
I said I would do. I've been getting lazy, and I'm sorry. There's
really nothing to talk about today, so I'll just leave it at that.
They say there's nothing you
can't find on the Internet. No subject uncovered by at least one
web page. Well, my friends, I have found the void of subjects on
the Web, and its name is Crossroads II. There is not one single page
dedicated solely to that game. That's why I'm going to make one as
soon as I can. I'm also going to put Nebula on hold and start working
on my own Crossroads game. Before my time is over, the world will
know about Crossroads II: Pandemonium. And that's a promise.
I was sick today. My stomach
hurt and I had to go home early. Yesterday I complained about Drakan
on this page. I don't know if the two events are just a coincidence,
or if my illness the result of a curse caused by badmouthing Drakan.
I'm sure it's just a silly superstition. Anyway, I hope that Drakan
editor is released soon, because I'm going to try and make the most of
the Riot engine before everyone loses interest in the game. And people
are losing interest, I'm sorry to say. Maybe it's because the multiplayer
is so weak, or maybe it's because of the lack of secrets and quests in
the single player game, but there just aren't as many people on the forums.
I really wish the multiplayer game was more stable and had more maps.
I've been talking too much about
Drakan and not enough about what I think is the best game ever: Crossroads
II! Seriously, while I found out today that that other game I mentioned
(gee, I forgot the name already... Dricken? Drexel?) doesn't even
let you play on a network, CII doesn't even NEED a network. It was
programmed before the days of network code. Yes, I know not having
network code is primitive, but isn't it better than code that doesn't work?
Now before you give my site the
evil eye, read further, because I have a decent explanation today for why
I don't have the Utah pictures up today. The truth is that I hadn't
even started reading Last Chance to See yet, so I had to read the whole
thing today and take notes because they're due tomorrow. Yesterday
I was too busy checking out the scene on multiplayer you-know-what.
So I don't really know when I'll have the photos up, and I don't know when
I'll have my new game Nebula done. It's a terribly difficult task
to juggle my computer and school life like this. Like I said, I'm
deleting my copy of Crossroads II... however, my brother's copy
will remain on my computer. It's too good a game to give up completely.
Drakan multiplayer still has
some problems, but it's still fun. However, Crossroads II multiplayer
had no problems. Maybe that's only because it didn't have to deal
with network problems or packet loss, but that's no excuse. I should
be able to play a game without it crashing on me all the time. Like
I said, though, some servers are better than others when it comes to stability.
If only the Internet itself were more stable...
I've been writing so much about
Crossroads II on this page and it hasn't even been mentioned on any other
site except as part of a list, so The Sine Wave truly is the prime source
in the world for information on that game. So if that's the case,
why not celebrate it? Even after 12 years, I have respect for the
Crossroads series. It's still a good game. Most games become
tiresome after a few months, but not this one. In fact, and I know
it could be blasphemous to say this, even Drakan may eventually become
tiresome!
Right now, I'm bending my leg
at the knee rapidly so that I kick myself in the butt, because I forgot
all about the Utah photos! But really, there are so many already...
are you sure you've looked at them all? Okay, it's my bad. I'll have
them in tomorrow, I swear on my copy of Crossroads II. Maybe I should
have the tagline read "Your #1 Internet source of Utah photos!"...
I've decided that from now on,
September only has 29 days, as you can see from that month's archive.
Just kidding! Actually, I spent the whole day of the 30th camping
out in the woods behind the zoo for an activity called BioBlitz.
I took a survey of a plot, but it wasn't very accurate, I'm afraid.
We sat by the campfire in the cold night as a student, Steve, read To Build
a Fire, by Jack London, to us. It seemed fitting, especially with
the cold weather here in Minnesota.
I added some new things to the
links today. There's the Drakan Night Islands animation, which is
a stylized animated GIF, and the Crossroads II animation, which is like
a time lapse animation of a level. I also added the Order of the
Flame legend backstory to my Drakan story, so if you've wanted to see that
in print, you can now. I've been playing more multiplayer lately,
and it still crashes sometimes, even with the patch. Oh well, nothing's
perfect...
A few days ago, I promised to
put more Utah photos on my site, and I still haven't done it. Uh
oh... I'm turning into one of the industry robots! Tomorrow I'll
scan in the photos and upload them to this site like I did with the others.