Whohoooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, maybe not that exciting, but all my exams are done. Just one term paper
left….
Some things to mention, the DOJ has ruled that Microsoft has to stop forcing OEMs to install IE on thier computers. I’d like to think that this will force MS to get their business through technical innovation, and not through heavy handed business tactics, but I’m sure it won’t. Linux is still here and still free, so I don’t really care 🙂 Speaking of linux, I’ve installed it on my computer at work, unbeknownst to the manager of course, and there a few things to still get working:
- the mouse (a logitech busmouse)
- X (cirrus5446, freezes up when I run X)
A few signs you know that the world is just fscked…
In Seattle (I think), a couple was taken into custody for the deaths (murder) of their 5(?) children in a house fire. They told police that the children were playing with matches, but police found that the fire had been set with gasoline. They had burned down the house to collect the insurance. Oh, and murdered their own children as well. Gads, it’s horrible.
So this is what I get for watching the news…. I think I’ll go back to being blissfully ignorant 🙂
On a totally unrelated note on violence…. Quake2 multiplayer is just awsome! I was playing last night with some guys (Action, BAWD, Spawn, Hemlock, Heml0ck and some others). We decided after a bit to go teams, guys against girls. So I assumed the persona of the amazingly designed female quakeplayer, wearing stylish jungle fatigues. After a dissapointing start (I sucked), us girls started kicking some serious male ass. After a couple maps, we were fully in our grove, and in a 4/5 or 5/4 team, we were in at least the first 2 spots, a quite a bit of the time we were all on top. Shit… should have taken a screen shot 🙂
Quake 2 Weapons Balance
id has done a great job with Q2 deathmatch weapons balance. Of course, I find the lag in q2 worse than that in quakeworld, so weapons that don’t fire immediatly (like the rail gun, rocket launcher or BFG) I found very hard to control, especially if you try to move while firing, or hit a moving target. The rocket launcher used to be the holy grail of a deathmatch, you either had it and had a chance, or didn’t and had no hope.
Now, each weapon has it’s advantages and disadvantages in a DM.
Pistol
- Advantages: never runs out of ammo, and you always have it.
Disadvantages: not much damage, slow (but not horrible) firing rate
Shotgun
- Advantages: from close up can cause some damage
Disadvantages: pretty useless from a distance, slow reload rate
- Super Shotgun
- Advantages: longer range of damage than the shotgun, lots of damage from short range
Disadvantages: Takes a while to reload, eats up the ammo, still pretty useless for long range
- Uzi
- Advantages: high rate of fire, adequate damage, works over long range. Many a time last night I’d circle strafe around someone with the railgun, just popping them with the uzi and not taking a hit myself
Disadvantages: Medium damage, you take a while to waste someone with a lot of health or armour.
Note: this is the gun I carry around while I’m prowling around a level. It’s very fast to fire (no spin up like the chaingun or hyperblaster), and does enough damage to be a sensible one to carry around all the time
- Chaingun
- Ahh… memories of Doom/Doom2….
Advantages: Destruction of amazing proportions. Just blast someone with this, let it spin up to full speed and watch them gib. To say that the rate of fire with this weapon is high is an understatement. You can also fire in short bursts, but in a DM I tend to prefer to just keep the trigger down and keep a bead on the other guy.
Disadvantages: Well, at such a high rate of fire your ammo supply dwindles rapidly. Also, if you fire a long burst, it takes time to get up to the full rate of fire, and then it will spin-down when you stop firing or run out of ammo (the latter being the more common problem 🙂
- Grenade Launcher
- Advantages: A little slower rate of fire than I would have liked. It seems that it’s not as easy to fill a hallway with grenades while running backwards away from someone like you could in Quake. Still a good weapon though. Grenades will explode on impact if they meet with another player, so getting one in the face when you open a door will definately do bad things. These have a lot of power behind them, and if you are not armoured up it’ll most likely send you down to the mat.
Disadvantages: This is bad for a close encounter-type-circle-strafing-fight. The medium rate of fire and fact that grenades bounce and roll make it more likely that you’ll miss, waste a grenade, or walk on the grenade yourself. Sniping with the grenade launcher is not a good idea because unless you can hit them first time (square on the top of the head hehehehe).
- Rocket Launcher
- The old king of quake weapons…
Advantages: Destructive, explosive, deadly. ’nuff said 🙂
Disadvantages: id has slowed down the rate of fire and the damage this weapon causes, making it not the most desirable weapon. If you have time to set up for a shot, then it’s great, but because of the slow reload rate, getting into a close corners fight with this is not recommended.
- Hyper Blaster
- Advantages: Like the chain gun, this delivers a high rate of fire, lots of destruction (especially to those without armour), and some really cool graphics when it’s shots hit the floor/walls. If you don’t fire long bursts, there is no spin-up/spin-down to worry about.
Disadvantages: There is no spin-up time, but after you’ve stopped firing, the gun will spin-down, causing a possibly deadly pause in your firing. Also, I have a feeling that the hyper blaster’s damage is more due to it’s rate of fire than actual damage per shot. But if you don’t have armour, you’ll see nothing more than some cool yellow/orange/red streaks and then a sideways view of the floor.
- Rail Gun
- Advantages: Power. Hit someone with this and they are dead. Period. Gibs. Clip them and their health is down so low that they will not want to jump any distance for fear of losing that last bit of health.
Disadvantages: Slooooow rate of fire. This is not a “blast around the room” weapon like the rocket launcher was. If you miss someone, there is no explosion, so you have to be presise. This works over long distances though, so it is a great sniper weapon (as was shown to me in the warehouse level last night).
I’d almost say that this will be the “new rocket launcher,” except that all you really have to do is circle-strafe an opponent and blast at them with the uzi or hyper-blaster and they’ll go down fast.
- BFG10K
- Advantages: clear the room, fast, gooily, and greenly. Also a very cool firing animation.
Disadvantages: Slow rate of fire. It takes something like ten seconds to fire. If you can sneak in though…. 🙂
Comments can be addressed to me (BOFH will deathmatching).