There have certainly been some wacky goings on this weekend. What with XLProdigy closing his site and effectively leaving the mapping scene and Zan spamming the Qboard and making a mess. If you're going to take a peek at the Qboard just be prepared to encounter a shed load of bitchy comments. Looks like everyones in a strop this week. Must be something in the water...

Continuing the weird theme, we have this moron who has covered his computer in mineral oil then used some cooling apparatus to keep his machine at -40 C. So that when he overclocks it doesn't get hot. I've had an unusually large amount of wack emails this week. One was from a guy asking about maps but gave the impression he was trying to hit on me, you're weird!  Then there was the normal 1 per week Quake 2 review request... anyone know Polish?

The PQ peeps have had some interesting things up this week. The first thing is a Doom 2000 article (nabbed this link from Pingu) by Fragmaster which to me looks like a load of old bollocks, but hey what do I know. The second thing is about the changing of the content editor. Reason I looked at it is because the pictures are pretty funny.

Peej has updated with a monster update giving comments on all thats new and interesting.

Ever wondered what Taskmaster (the guy who started MPQ) is upto? Well go read this interview he did for BarrysWorld. Can some enlighten me as to whats happening with BarrysWolrd? The last thing I heard was that they were closing down.

The ever friendly Wrath put this ickle message up on his site, "Paul over at the always friendly MPQ has started multi-reviews." Thank you Wrath, no point in being a grumpy bastard is there =P.

Interesting article on John Carmack and John Romero article on MSNBC.

I forgot to mention I got my bleem! key cd earlier in the week. Was it worth the $40 (US) and 4 weeks of waiting. Erm... at the moment no. The 3D hardware support is abysmal. I have my system setup as it requires. Latest D3D drivers for both my TNT and Voodoo2. The V2 gives a really bad picture, well actually I wouldn't call it a picture, just green and yellow dots. The TNT does look cool but runs extremely slow and the graphics flicker so much its enough to give you a fit. The sound is jerky as well, as are the movies. I wouldn't mind so much if it wasn't for the fact I've had to ball up some Windows settings to "try" to get to work. For example, turning off the Read-ahead on the cd drive. Now it runs extremely slow for anything but bleem! I'm hoping with future versions things will improve drastically. I'd ask for a refund but its not worth all the hassle.

Since everyone else has mentioned it I will to. John Carmack has changed the splash damage for the rockets. Wahoo! Heres the snippet from his .plan file.
* increased rocket damage radius from 120 to 150 units

I was messing around with the Dialectizer and put in the bit on my chat with the wall. See if you can make sense of it =).

Now ah's once agin a-gonna explain sumpin. Deja vu ennyone? ah's *hopin'* this hyar will be th' final time ah have t'do this. I've menshuned this hyar quite a few times an' it is clearly menshuned on th' submit levels page. WE ARE NOT ACCEPTING REVIEW REQUESTS FOR Quake 2 FOR THE TIME BEING. Now t'further explain, this hyar means at th' moment we does not be hankerin' review requests fo' Quake 2 send in, as enny fool kin plainly see. Not in enny shape o' fo'm, dawgone it. Thet said eff'n yo' kin getcher houn'dog t'talk th' requess to us, then thet'd be right fine. Ennyway, th' last bit means eventually we will be acceppin' agin an' ah will put a fuggin' trimenjus notice up in bright neon writin' t'say so. Ok. Shet mah mouth!.. unnerstood, cuss it all t' tarnation... acshully ah bet this hyar wall behind mah computer unnerstan's better than some of yo' varmints, yo' knows whut, I'll ax it...
Ebenezer : Hey wall, kin ah ax yo' a quesshun?
Wall : Sho'nuff thin', fire away.
Ebenezer : Ok, whut does th' phrase "We is not acceppin' review requests fo' Quake 2 fo' th' time bein'" mean t'yo'?
Wall : Wal ah reckon it means thet at th' moment yo' doesn't be hankerin' enny requests in whilst yo' git th' backlog cleared, cuss it all t' tarnation. Once thets done though yo' will be acceppin' them, dawgone it. Thet right?
Ebenezer : Spot on, as enny fool kin plainly see.
Wall : ah also reckon thet eff'n yo' did git enny, yo'd jest bin them, dawgone it.
Ebenezer : Yeap.
See whut yo' varmints haf done t'me, yo've driven me *MAD*. ah's talkin' t'inanimate objecks now... lock me up now... Oh an' one further thin', ah bet yo' type of varmints haf other problems, like wif corntrollin' yer bodily funckshuns. ah recommend yo' read this hyar page sevahal times, it c'd save yo' a whole lot of mess.

-Ebenezer...

Sleepwalker came up with this link in a IRC chat. Its an amazing piece of ASCII art of the Linux Penguin.

(Now if anyone thinks I've just shamelessly ripped this idea of the qboard then you'd be right, so there =P).

Enough madness =). Some sad news. Yesterday marks the end of an era in map reviews. Ramshackle has now closed. Very little is explained as to what bought about this, other than the well used "its time to move on" phrase. The site will be sorely missed for its unique style of reviews. I thought things were just getting going again there since the site had its new look. Not to be though. Good luck to Jeff and Ramshackle crew on whatever they do next.

Now I've also heard that Deathmaps which was run by Dohnut has closed. I'm hoping we're aren't going to see a sudden collapse in review type sites. Whilst we do a lot of reviews here its not really of the indepth type. Now I was trying to get something similar going here but my efforts has been stopped by the people involved disappearing. If anyone is interested in doing such a thing here then drop me a line so we can discuss it further. I would like to make clear that MPQ isn't going anywhere, I intent on being around so I can review Quake 3 Arena maps =).

The Fribulator is well and truly back. Not only did he release two maps earlier in the week but he has released a third map, Maelstrom (305Kb), and has done the biggest update on his site that I've ever seen.

Cheshire has changed the look on his site, again! If you like orange then you're in for a treat here.

For all those tweak monkeys out there you'll probably want to see this page, its a tweak guide for the q3test which is aimed at Voodoo3 owners. Most of the stuff on the list though isn't V3 only, so anyone can use the hints.

I spotted on Friday that Unreal is now a year old. Like hooray and stuff. It still sucks in deathmatch but at least it a little less buggy now.

I've also edited the "unedited" chat log about the q3test. Mr Shambler "sir" asked for the irreverent bits to be removed (ie. where he spoke about beetles =p). I've also added another irc chat log. This one is not meant to be intelligent, just funny.

Mr Fribbles has released not one but two Quake maps! Wahoo! They are efdm9: Tangerine Dream (347Kb) and efdm10: WhiteChocolateSpaceEgg (376Kb). Both are very original looking and probably play just as well as they look, not that I know yet since I've not played them. My fav out the two as far as style is concerned is efdm9 due its more industrial type look. I'm not a big fan of the Hexen 2 style which is used in efdm10.

The "What's In Johnny's Maps Folder??" contest is now closed. The answers are now available and i was kicking myself at some of them. Like for example map 41, Argonaut (370Kb). In the final scores I dropped another place down to 5th. Biggus did jump up the charts to knock us all down one. Oh well. I really wanted one of those Quake action figures =). Anyway I'd just like to thank Johnny for running the contest. I really enjoyed scratching my head working out those map names. I don't think we'll see Johnny running a similar contest for Quake 2 though...

The Omicron Duel Challenge is also finished and Skorpion was kind enough to email me the results, which are below.

The contest closed Wednesday, May 19,1999 at 12:00 hrs (eastern time)

The winners were:
1st place:   Rum              107 frags
2nd place:   Danimal           95 frags
3rd place:   Mr. Stone         89 frags

The runners up were:
 4th place:   cyBeAr           84 frags
 5th place:   ZzJohnzZ         82 frags
 6th place:   Brillo           80 frags
 7th place:   [Smash]-Flash    72 frags
 8th place:   Gonzo            71 frags
 9th place:   LN2              64 frags          (tied)
 9th place:   Nih              64 frags          (tied)
11th place:   Touffi           47 frags
12th place:   Red              46 frags
13th place:   Who3v3r          42 frags
14th place:   Stef             40 frags
15th place:   MAD              22 frags          (tied)
15th place:   Rushking         22 frags          (tied)
17th place:   NightOne         10 frags
18th place:   YellowBelly      -4 frags

Pingu has redesigned his site again =). Its extremely cool and I agree with Peej that "I just go to mess about with the scrolly thing". Go on try it, you know you want to...

Heres a site you just *HAVE* to visit! Its a Quake clan site for the Green Nuns of the Revolution. Go to the site and run the Shockwave intro. Its bloody brilliant!!! It had me in stitches.

3DActionPlanet opened this week. Why is what I ask? It covers the news which Redwood, Scary and Blue (and co) already cover. I thing maybe they've gone a little too far with this one.

Now I'm going to make this as clear as possible. We are not accepting Quake 2 reviews. I have no idea as to when we will resume accepting Quake 2 reviews. I'd like to give a date but its unfair not only on the reviewers since it puts pressure on them but also on you because its most likely the date I would give would be incorrect and you'd all be annoyed. You will know when we are accepting reviews because I will personally email each and everyone one of you that visits the site. Well... ok, I won't email but just keep popping by the site to check.

I've been messing about with the index file for the IE version of the site. You'll probably notice now that its more adjustable and better to read. I finally got around to adding a contact page for the site. If you want to know what we do here and want to email us individually then thats the page to go read.

Peej has an article up on his site about his first impressions of the q3test. Interesting read. Also Jerkoff has released a Quake map called Shroud 2: Anxiety (332Kb). It a verison of a map called Shroud of the Fallen which is now decorated in Quake 3 Arena textures.

My opinion of the q3test on whole is that its pretty good. I found it very easy to get going. Its not as slow paced as Quake 2 but not as fast as Quake. I'm just hoping id aren't trying to create some kind of Quake/Quake 2 mix. It could end up being a real mess. There are some things that I'm not to keen on, but everyone's a critic right =). The rockets could be a little more beefy. At the moment they seem a little light and fluffy (if you can call a rocket that) like rice crispies. Its just I feel at times I could walk up to an opponent and cause more damage by farting on them.

My weekly look at the Omicron Duel Challenge shows some interesting things have happened. Apparently Quanchi who had a score of 112 has been disqualified. I emailed Skorpion to find out exactly what he'd done. Apparently he broke practically every rule in book from changing his movement speed to fiddling with the demo file. Oh well. Now this means Rum is now at the top of scoreboard with 107 and that Danimal is in second with 91. Theres just one week left and there are a load of people who haven't submitted demos yet. I'm wondering how the final scores will come out.

The "What's In Johnny's Maps Folder??" contest is now coming to a close. I've now dropped down to 4th since Bal and Notorious Ray have jumped ahead of me. Oh well. I'm looking forward to seeing all the map names once the contest has finished because I'd really like to get hold of some of them.

Redwood has now merged with Stomped. So he now helps provide the news for the Stomped site. What is weird, is that apparently he's doing this full-time. Does this mean he's left his full-time job and now gets paid to help run a news site? Geesh easy life...

Theres a good interview with John Carmack about 3D accelerators on GameCentre... sorry GameCenter. On the subject of 3D accelerators Brian Hook has posted some q3test benchmarks earlier on in the week which are worth looking at.

Apparently the final build of bleem! is now available for download. My question is "Where the f**k is my bleem! CD?"

I broke my intellimouse yesterday. I was having problems with it. It would just refuse to move left or right and the only movement I got out of it was up and down. I tried to sort it out but got a tad annoying and smashed it. Oops! Now I'm back to using the crappy mouse I got with my computer. Doh!

Barring no major problems id will be releasing the Q3ATest. About bloody time =).

The final two sets of pictures for the "What's In Johnny's Maps Folder??" contest are now up. As of this update I'm in 2nd with 120, but we're all expecting BiGGuS to beat everyone and take the number one spot.

I've also added a Top 10 reviews section to the site. If you're new to the site or have not been coming here very long then this will probably interest you. If you're an author you can see where your map is and be all smug if its in there.

First Update
Heres 8 new Quake reviews and 2 Quake reviews.

The plans for the webboard are coming along nicely. We're running some tests to see how quickly we can break it. I'm unsure as to when it'll go live but I'll keep you posted.

I've also fixed a load of download links in the Quake reviews and archives. Thanks go to Doug Burmeister for pointing out those broken links, didn't know they're were so many!!! Heres list of those I've fixed and not fixed. If anyone knows what the correct links for the unfixed ones are, please do email me.
 

Fixed	Still Broken
Fallen Installation Fortress behind forest Strafin2 - FreeStyle Gibbage GenDM2 - Hyperalgesie Elkdm2 - Iron Trees Chesdm1 - Primal Etchings Spank Me Again! (spank1.zip) The Grinding of Teeth (teeth.zip) Insomnia Nightmare Bassai Dai dayDream Fragfest Embrion APDM4 - The Lava Pools	Extreme Measures Kaffe & Kaka 2.0 (cbadm2v2.zip) Takul mi Surka (takul.zip) Extinction Level Event

Heres something I can't believe I've not mentioned yet. Its a guess the map contest called "What's In Johnny's Maps Folder??" There are a hundred different Quake maps from which you have to guess the bsp name. Yours truly isn't doing too badly, I'm 3rd. I'm a bit annoyed since I recognise at least 5 more maps but just can't remember or find their names!

Heres an interesting Quake map you might want to check out. Its been given the short title of ... q1q3test2 - The Not-so-long Yard (quake1 conversion of a q3 map) (402Kb). Kinda sums it up. All the textures have been ported and from the screenshots I've seen of the original it looks pretty faithful.

A new version of HeadHunters for Quake 2 is now out. Its now at v2.60. If thats your bag then go download it!

Looks like something weird has happened at Quakeintosh. The reason I mention it is because I was going get one of Juniors maps but found the site no longer exists. Junior, if you're out there please do tell me and tell me where your site is =).

The Omicron Duel Challenge continues. The top spot has now been taken by Quanchi with a whooping score of 112! Danimal seems to have jumped up the the scoreboard as well, he is currently in third with a score of 92.

Theres an excellent article about the Mac version of the Q3ATest up on Thresh's FiringSquad. Well worth reading. Its only 20 pages long!!!

The Win32 version of Q3ATest *should* (fingers crossed) be out on Sunday night. I've been keeping track of .plan update the id guys have been doing and it looks like the 3D card to have is the RivaTNT. See this .plan update by Brian Hook to get the full picture. 3Dfx have just released some drivers which are compatitable with the Test.

Those Japanese have a wicked sense of humour. I found the correct use for an iMac. I couldn't agree more! Also this is cool looking site, Gameart. Contains loads of computer art.

A couple of excellent Quake maps have just been released. Peej's Strafin6 - Quake Addiction (180Kb) and Pingu's Return to Atlantis (363Kb). Expect a review of Pingu's map, along with those other 5 I promised this weekend.

Just spotted a new site called FilePlanet. This site contains over 9000 files for loads of different games. If you ever need a patch you'll know where to get it from! Now why the hell wasn't this site done earlier?

I finally got hold of the KingPin demo of the cover disk for PC Zone. Wow! Very impressive. Its looks unbelievable. I like the way all the swearing is bleeped out, but if you put captions on you can read the swearing. Doh!

Thanks go to Robert Baeuml for letting me know that the Linux version of the Q3A Test does work on SuSe Linux.

Linux peeps will no doubt know that the Linux version of the Quake 3 Arena test is out. I'm just wondering as to which versions/brands of Linux the test can run on. I heard that Redhat and SuSe can't run it.

Pingu has moved from his Uni site over to the good old Planet Quake network. Nifty looking site. Theres also a link on Pingu's site to a guide on DHTML. Pretty impressive stuff.

Killjoy has moved his site back to good old Geocities (didn't we all start there?). I'll leave it to him to explain why. The main reason I mention his site though is because he's got some screenies up on some maps he's working on and its fugging cool stuff.

Not much has happened this week on the mapping front this week. Frib is working on a map and Peej is beta testing Strafin6 (yes I nabbed that news from Pingu's site =P). I've heard Headshot has plans for a second incarnation of the Qboard. I don't know whats planned but its meant to pretty good.

The competition is really heating up in the Omicron Duel Challenge. The top spot is taken by someone called Rum with an unbelievable score of 107 to 0 (0 being the bots score)! Watching the demo just makes me dizzy.

I also I had a look at this site earlier on it in the week. Its full of tips and info about Quake. I fell across it after the guy who ran it dropped some comments on not liking the look of the site, he didn't actually mention he ran the aforementioned site but a bit of detective work on my part digged that link up. Actually hes the first people to complain in about the 40k thats visited since I changed the look, so thats not too bad =P.

The 224 patch for Unreal has finally been released! Maybe its release has something to do with what Blue said. Is the patch worth 7Mb download... no it isn't. Its crashing more than 220 did, which is impressive.

Besides the q3atest, there is another game that I can't wait to get my hands on. Its Black and White by LionHead Studios. Everytime I see a new article on it, it just looks better and better. If you're interested have a read of this article on the game over at Next Generation Online.

I was given this link earlier today. Its called the WebCrawler SearchVoyeur. Basically you can see what people are searching for on WebCrawler. Some of stuff is unbelievable! There were a load of I want models name nude piccys, but some people do searchs for URL's. They put in an entire URL and search for it! Wierd people! Heres a list of some of the non-rude ones (well other than the last one) that made me laugh :

• whats the best way to fold towels
• history of the unicorn
• crazy stuff
• what is good remedy for swollen feet
• what suggestions do you have for presents for my mother
• crotch rockets

The order I sent for a copy of bleem! (Playstation emulator for the PC) has been accepted so I should be getting hold of that pretty soon. It costs just over $40's which isn't too bad. It works out at about 25 quid.