SNAPSHOTS

I know it's only a matter of time before people start popping in here to tell me to stop my crying about this (likely would have already happened in spades if I didn't have the cowardly anonymous commenting blocked) so I decided I'll start keeping a visual record so there's at least some form of proof that comments on my uploaded files did in fact exist before they get redacted.

Let's see how many days or even hours it takes for those to disappear, shall we?

And again...

Another glance at my uploaded file over at the DoomWorld/idGames Archives shows that the trend is continuing; almost everything spoken in defense of the file is deleted while the trolling comments are allowed to remain and no one is permitted to respond to them.

Why don't you assholes save us all some time and grief and just delete the whole damned file permanently?

NEXUIZ and XONOTIC

Apparently pronounced like "nexus", Nexuiz is a fast-paced arena first-person shootout quite reminiscent of Quake and Unreal Tournament. Though I've only just recently discovered the game myself, I've learned that it has been around for a few years now, originally developed as a mod for Quake and later being released on the old X-Box as a full game. These days, however, the game has become an open-source project which of course means that it's TOTALLY FREE. (With that statement I should clarify that I'm talking about what is now referred to as "Classic Nexuiz" which could easily be confused with a newer version of the game.) Rather than bore you with a TL;DR description here, I'll instead embed a YouTube video so you can see the actual gameplay for yourself:

To make a potentially long story short, at some point the developers of the open-source Nexuiz for whatever reasons split into two separate teams, one group continuing to work on improving Nexuiz while the other group went on to further develop their own very similar but new version of the game called Xonotic. (Fortunately, like it's parent game, Xonotic is also TOTALLY FREE.) Again, rather than bore you with a wall of text comparing the two games, I'll embed another gameplay video for your viewing pleasure:

Though both games are obviously designed for multiplayer action, antisocial gamers like myself might be pleased to know that each game has a single-player mode as well. In each case, you can choose between playing through the maps in a predefined succession or maps that are randomly selected, all the while fighting against opponent "bots" that are trying to toast you as you attempt to achieve your goal of either surviving for 5 minutes or scoring 20 points.

In short, if you (and your friends) are into "deathmatch" games like this you might want to check out Nexuiz and Xonotic. Since they're both free there's really nothing to lose by giving them a try. Did I mention that both games are totally free? I love free games...

Béla Bartók Plays Doom

Since in the Classic Doom Hall of Fame I seem to be ranked right up there with prolific legends like Terry and Ruba, I've decided that it's time to release my next great Doom project. Though I've taken the project completely seriously, to others it should at least be good for a laugh or two.

I've been a fan of the compositions of Béla Bartók for many years now. Unlike the more conventional works of the famous composers one might think of when classical music is mentioned, the more contemporary pieces written by Bartók tend to be very edgy and somewhat unnerving, to me conveying feelings of mental and emotional chaos. When in the absence of an audio sample trying to verbally describe his music to someone unfamiliar with Béla Bartók, I usually say something like: "Imagine the music from an old horror movie." Bartók's 6 String Quartets are fine examples:

Opus 17, Second Movement

Thinking that Bartók's 6 String Quartets would also work well as a Classic Doom soundtrack, I decided to pack them into a WAD and test my theory. I was pleased enough with the results that I decided to upload the WAD to the id Games Archive, where I'm certain it will be well-received by my peers.

Since I did the FTP thing just a little while ago, the file is not yet available for download from the Archive. In the meantime, anyone interested in this music WAD can download it from GameFront. (Requires a sourceport that supports .ogg playback.)

It should be interesting to see what kind of "reviews" this one will earn...

Futility

Glancing today at my aforementioned file entry over at the DoomWorld/id Games Archives I noticed something quite odd. The voting stats have dropped from almost 80 votes back down to 30 votes and from 3.5 stars back down to 2.5 stars. So not only has the "Archive Maintainer" deleted over half of the votes for the file but he has also deleted the majority of the positive votes and left the majority of the negative votes.

Now, the folks over there love to tell me that I'm overly sensitive and should stop crying about this, but I can't possibly be the only one who can see that this is wrong, can I?

PROVE IT

Rather than let this evolve into a full-page rant, I'm going to keep it brief...

I was just glancing at the continuing stream of "reviews" for My Doom Upgrade WAD when I noticed this concise accusatory comment:

"This is just a ripoff of Mobius (id=16360). Great going, Herculine."

To that my only reply is this: show us some PROOF that I've stolen anything at all here. Otherwise, go fuck yourself.

DOOM DEPOT Returns

I haven't mentioned the "D"-word in an official post here for a while now, but after just seeing this bit of DoomWorld News that was posted a couple of days ago I just have to share...

I'm happy to announce that the Classic Doom Website DOOM DEPOT is at last accessible again. They've been having some sort of server issues for several months now (seems like just nigh a year) but appear to have finally resolved said issues.

This is significant (at least to me) because Doom Depot is the home of perhaps the earliest DOOM 64 TC and is also a great place to download full-color IWAD maps and a couple of great Doom music WADs. I've done my best here at my little blog to keep those music WADs available to the public in the absence of Doom Depot, but alas I've had issues with the file hosting sites due to the size of the files and the fact that they seem to randomly delete things I upload. At least now I once again have a reliable source to point to for people who are interested in these files.

Welcome back, Doom Depot!

MASS EFFECT

I'm not going to do a review-style blog entry on this one since the series of Mass Effect games is so popular that information and images regarding each can be found virtually everywhere on the internet. In other words, if you haven't heard something about these games it's likely you've actually been living in another galaxy.

This morning I started playing the first Mass Effect game because Mass Effect 3 (as you may have heard) is out now and I decided that it was probably as good a time as any to actually start playing the game(s). Since they've received almost nothing but good press and have been praised with gaming awards, I went into the first game with rather high hopes regarding how enjoyable it would be to play.

So far I'm not mass-ively impressed. I'm an action-oriented sort of gamer and I enjoyed playing through the game's first combat sequence, but now the sun is setting here in Ohio and I find that I've spent my entire day wandering around a huge space station talking to other characters and listening to them talk. That's at least eight hours of "gameplay" of just talking. RPG fans might rejoice, but thus far I've been kinda bored. Perhaps this explains why "Herculine Shepard" does not appear amused...

...but then, this gal doesn't look like she's easily amused...

So anyway, that's what I've been doing. Unless I get to kill something else pretty soon, I'm going to go back to playing Two Worlds or maybe even Doom...

Neverwinter Nights Nexus

To whom it may concern: Robin Scott has yet again expanded his game modding site empire by adding the Neverwinter Nights Nexus, a site which hosts mods for both NWN1 and NWN2. At the moment it's not quite as well-populated as the NWN Vault, but from what I've heard a great many members of the community were in favor of having such a branch of the Nexus so hopefully it will indeed be popular. As you may note from the first link in this post, I've already uploaded my NWN Female Portrait Pack as my show of support.

My thanks go to Dark0ne for continuing to support the prolific modding of games both old and new, and also to my friend Druuler for bringing the new addition to my attention because I had no clue that the site even existed.

Two Worlds (yes, again...)

I wasn't going to do yet another post about this game since interest in it is so limited (not a reference to my readership, but rather a reference to the fact that even the Two Worlds Forums don't show much activity where the first game is concerned), but there's still a thing or two I feel compelled to share.

Two Worlds has been compared to Oblivion by many more gamers other than myself, thus when I reached a particular location in the game I knew I needed to share at least one screenshot. Does this Two Worlds locale remind anyone of any other game in particular?

I was also reminded of a certain more popular RPG when I encountered my first invisible wall and was greeted by the message: "YOU CAN'T GO ANY FURTHER. TURN BACK."

But as you might guess from the stark appearance of the bit of rock I'm standing on in that screenshot, I encountered said invisible barrier while pushing my hero's dexterity to the limit against the physics of the game world by rabbit-hopping my way up the side of a steep mountain that I apparently wasn't meant to reach the top of to begin with.

This discovery reminded me yet again of my disappointment that the modding craze that other games have enjoyed never really took off for Two Worlds. There are plenty of only partially-developed areas around the borders of the map that would be perfect locations for cities, castles, enemy camps to invade et cetera, and it's really a bit of a shame that the potential of those areas will likely never be utilized.

The world is big enough that, even in the middle of the map, there are still plenty of areas with enough space to accommodate the entrances to underground dungeons or even above-ground enemy enclaves.

I've been playing for nearly 40 hours now (not consecutively, of course) and have only explored a fraction of the accessible game world.

The darker sections of the map are the unexplored areas while the brighter bits indicate where I've traveled thus far.

Here I "zoomed in" on the map with the mouse wheel to get a closer shot of one of the cities to give a reference point regarding the overall size of the map...

I've passed the level 50 benchmark (there's no level cap, I'm told) and I'm still encountering areas filled with enemies that can "one-shot" me. Obviously there's still plenty of gaming to do here, just in case anyone was wondering and again comparing the game to that certain other RPG. I'm a particularly stubborn gamer, though, and I press on into these areas and find as many cheesy ways as possible to deal with the tough enemies. My favorite thus far is planting myself next to a healing shrine or magic source and juggling the enemies with spells that briefly stun them while doing damage.

So that's what I've been doing lately. So far this is the longest in quite some time that I've played a single vanilla game without getting bored and switching to another game for a while before returning to it (classic Doom notwithstanding). I guess Two Worlds is simply satisfying my love for basic hack-and-slash dungeon crawls (as it has plenty of those).

Can my readers look forward to yet another post about Two Worlds? Ah, only time will tell...