October 2000
October 15
The Sine Wave returns!
I wanted to have something really special on the day of this page's return
to the world, and I finally do. The first level of Drakan: Across
the Meridian is complete at last, and I think it's a good start to the
series. You can download it here.
The archive file for the latest version, 1.00, is actually smaller than
0.02 because that file included the Meridian Magic Test, and there's no
real need for that anymore.
The first level is mostly melee combat, with some spellcasting. You'll really only need to use magic to defeat the flying scorpions, also known as drones, and even then you don't have to choose a path where you'll need to fight any drones. This level has two main paths to take: one through the valley shown in the screenshot on foot, and the other along the flooded valley and inside a cave while riding Arokh. The Arokh path is much, much easier than the valley, but the valley has a powerful axe weapon and some more spells for you to collect, so it's worth it.
Finally, back to today.
Meridian is very close to being finished now, and just needs some final
testing before I can release it on this page, get it all uploaded to the
web, and announce it on the forums. I don't think I can send it to
Surreal-News yet because they stressed that they only take completed stuff,
and the entire Meridian series is far from being finished. So, until
the final version of Meridian is complete, with all the levels, it will
stay right here on The Sine Wave. I don't even know how many levels
there will be. 14 was just an estimate. I think I should draw
up a little plan for each level and what will happen on each one, because
there's a lot that I want to do in this series.
My conference went fine, as did
everyone else's, so don't worry. Of course I did well because I'm
Shanvar, intrepid explorer, and... oh well, forget it, the Shanvar bit
has already been done, and would just be old now. There are more
important things to spend my time on. I continued on Meridian again
today, and now it is closer to being finished. When I say Meridian
here, I just mean the first level. It will take a much much much
longer time to finish all 14 or so levels in what will now be called "Drakan:
Across the Meridian." I call it that for a perfectly good reason,
because it's a journey from west to east, through a meridian, or line of
longitude. Actually, it's northwest to southeast, because that's
the only direction to go from where I started the map layout.
Looks like I'm lapsing into madness
yet again. You might see another episode of Shanvar's Legacy once
again! This time, I finished the report for my writing class.
It wasn't really a report, but a press conference, and with the little
understanding of the exact format I was supposed to use, I got plenty of
information.
Darkness falls across the land,
it could cause a little trouble for our merry band, oh yeah! Oh yeah!
This time, the darkness seemed to me, a little Environmental Science report
to be, oh yeah! Oh yeah! (Enter guitar riff) I finally
finished that report, because they said it was due tomorrow and I did it!
Of course, I had done a little research on it earlier... this was the one
about the energy sources.
It begins. Today was the
day of Ultimate Frustration in Math, trying to figure out all those confusing
limits but failing miserably, just like when I try to play multiplayer
Drakan using only the left spin move. I really had trouble with the
trigonometric ones because they just wouldn't go to the Very Useful Limits
that I had learned. Some of them did, but others were impossible.
Oh well.
Lately, I've been thinking that
if I weren't so much into other things, I could be more into music.
I know that sounds like an obvious statement, but I had this idea that
I would make my song lists on my CDs into sort of pseudo-stories that,
really, only I and a few people like me would understand, but they would
be good because they would sound good and have more obvious themes.
Also, I would explore several different styles and fake up some life experience
to make it look like I could keep it real. But then again, maybe
it would be better to be genuine.
I'm running SaliNet Air now,
which has only air levels. There are plenty of ground servers already,
so my contribution is good for those who like to fly the mountainous skies.
I might even start work on Meridian again soon, after all this work next
week is done.
Now, I've definitely decided
on some topics to pursue. For the reading report, which is for my
actual Environmental Science class (I hate having to type that word all
the time - "environmental" - it's a strain on the fingers and easy to mistype),
I'm going to be studying renewable and nonrenewable resource technology.
For the environmental advocacy report in my writing class (I'm serious
- having to type that word all the time is starting to make me become frustrated
and not want to become, you know, an E-word scientist), I'm studying pollution
in the Minnesota River, which is close enough to my hometown to matter.
It has to be a personal issue involving E-word matters.
There's a little danger up a-loomin'
in the air tonight, yep, 'cause I'm-a havin' ta write this little bit of
a report. It's, guess what, yet another environmental science report!
But don't be thinking that I'm being ragged on in that class, because I
am now taking the same class twice, for a few more weeks. That's
right, the Environmental Advocacy unit for my Creative Thinking and Expression
class is underway, and has been for a while now.
I don't know how I did on the
test, really. I think I did well, but most of the questions were
essays, and those are more tricky than ones where there's one right and
one wrong answer. Not only are we learning about environmental science,
we're learning about regulated systems and truth-seeking as well.
It's kind of like high school so far. I just know I'll end up being
an environmental scientist or biologist or something, or maybe I can combine
that with my computer education to come up with new data simulations for
medical waste buildup.
Well... I took a look at an example
of what the test would look like, and it's harder than I thought it would
be. Mostly, it deals with random ramblings the professor went on,
or they might have just seemed random and actually been part of the lesson.
There seemed to be the same ramblings from both this year and the last,
so I think it's just a style thing.
Ugh, there's math to do for tomorrow.
Again, it's a lot of math, and this time it's about trigonometric derivatives.
Those are kind of hard, of course, but at least most of them follow a pattern
I can handle. Now that my math is done, I just have to worry about
this environmental science test that's coming up on the 5th. What
a big steaming pile of fun.
I'm actually writing this late,
on the night of October 14, mainly because I've had a lot of homework to
do over the past 2 weeks. I would just skip ahead, but that would
defeat the purpose of being a daily updated page. Oh well... I can't
remember anything really important other than homework and SaliNet, so
I'll keep it to that.
The Sine Wave will be returning
later this month! I have come up with a solution on how to get my
web page back on the Internet. Now, I can't upload the files directly
to the server, but I can send them to my family back in Minnesota, and
they will upload them to the server through the MNInter.net connection.
FTP doesn't seem to work with my dorm room connection, probably because
of a firewall or something. I've still been hosting SaliNet Air/MoD
because no one else seems to run those kinds of levels. Meridian
is still not finished, I'm afraid, because I've had homework to do, and
good editing requires a long stretch of time during the day for me.