WarFlail's Archives - January 1999

Go to WarFlail's Archives - February 1999

I'm going to be away on business from today, so you won't see any updates to this website for about 2 weeks. Fear not, though - I promise to update as soon as I return. In the meantime, be good! :-)

There is an excellent, in-depth review of the new Abit BX6-2 motherboard at Thresh's FiringSquad.com. This looks to be the motherboard to get if you haven't upgraded from a Socket 7 to a Slot 1 (Pentium II) processor yet.

I have finally finished tidying up my website, adding a few colourful buttons here and there. I've even added a site map to make it even easier for you to navigate around WarFlail's Armoury. Enjoy.

Okay, part three (the final part) of my website reconstruction has been completed. Bill Gant's HârnMaster House Rules page has been converted to fit in with the overall visual theme of WarFlail's Armoury.

There are exactly 4 months to go (only a third of the year!) before the eagerly anticipated Star Wars: Episode One is released in cinemas in the USA, hopefully coming here to Australia shortly afterwards. Since I've been waiting over 15 years for this movie to come out, I suppose I can wait just a few more months...

An unknown company called Katana Software Inc. is producing a commercial Total Conversion of Quake II, called Infinity: The Kai'Ren Threat. There's even a 22MB demo you can download as a taster. I haven't had a chance to sample it yet so I can't comment on Infinity, but if it is better than that hideous TC, Juggernaut for Quake II, then it is probably worth a try.

I hadn't realised that the Abit BH6 motherboard (arguably the best Pentium II motherboard for overclocking) is so RAM sensitive. RAM that works perfectly on any other board can poop on a BH6 - beware! There is a detailed report (The Celery Report #3) at Anandtech.com.

The game's not even out yet and already there is a Quake III Arena Guide! Anyone remotely interested in finding out about the next generation of multiplayer first-person shooters should read this comprehensive article.

Part two of my website revamp has been completed. The Demon Horde of Balgashang clan-page has been totally overhauled. I think it looks considerably more organised now.

I decided to improve on my main webpage, since the old one was beginning to look rather stale. I hope you like it - look, no frames! :-)

At long last, Canopus has released a Win95/98 driver for the Pure3D II graphics card that supports both Glide 3.0 and DirectX 6.0. The driver is still a beta, but it's better than nothing at all. If you are a Pure3D II owner, download the 2.8 MB Beta 2 file from the Pure3D II Software Updates page.

Speaking of long-awaited updates, Valve has released a patch to upgrade Half-Life to v.1.0.0.8. It includes new multiplayer maps, player models, a new team-play mode (oh yeah!) and significant improvements in Internet bandwidth utilisation. Head on over to Planet Half-Life to download the patch.

It's official: Intel has announced two new Intel Inside processor brands: the Pentium III and the Pentium III Xeon. When they become available for sale later this quarter, expect some tempting price drops in the Pentium II and Pentium II Xeon CPUs. That is quite a relief for me, since I've been looking to upgrade my old P166MMX for months but have been daunted by the hefty price tag.

My clanmate Ned Kelly and I tested Resounding Technology's excellent walkie-talkie program, Roger Wilco, in a two-hour session of teamplay Action Quake2 today. This little application has been designed specifically so you and your friends can talk to each other while playing multiplayer online games. No need to type messages to each other anymore! It worked so well that NK and I started to rack up the frags big-time simply because we were in constant communication with each other and could coordinate attacks and movements. We didn't notice any impact on performance from having this program running, and the sound quality even in its lowest setting was perfectly acceptable. All you need is a sound card capable of full-duplex audio (e.g. SoundBlaster AWE64, SoundBlaster Live!) and a microphone. The only downside to Roger Wilco is that it is a time-limited beta that will expire on 15 March this year. In the meantime, give it a go while it lasts - this is a must-have for all teamplay AQ2 fans!

I just saw the Macworld 1999 Quake III Arena Preview (actually, I'm watching it again even as I type this!). Although the .AVI file has been available for download for a few days now, it's taken me this long to get it because the servers were all congested. The 2-minute preview shows off quite a few of Q3A's cool features, such as curved surfaces, mirrors, fog, highly-detailed models, etc, but nothing that really blows me away - Unreal and Half-Life have done a good job of stealing much of Q3A's thunder. Call me a cynic, but I think I'll be needing something a little more powerful than a P166MMX to play this game - time to start saving for that Pentium III (or Katmai, or whatever the hell Intel decides to call it)! You can download the 23MB movie from 3DFILES.COM.

For the past week I've been attending the Hopman Cup tennis, one of the biggest international events held in Perth. I'm overjoyed that the winner this year is Australia, after Mark Philippousis and Jelena Dokic defeated Jonas Bjorkman and Asa Carlsson of Sweden in a straight-sets victory in today's final. Australia had not even made it to the final since the very first Hopman Cup in 1989 so this is a great achievement.

Sorry to stuff you around like this, but if you viewed or downloaded the second revision of my GunMaster II rules, please try again now. I thought I had already implemented a small-but-fundamental change in the Recoil rules back in 1997, but had forgotten to update my master document! The only pages that have changed are 6, 14 and 22.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! May there be happiness, good health and prosperity for all in 1999.

Some time around noon, I managed to crawl out of bed after a long night of New Year's Eve festivities. It's not easy to sleep for too long in the summer (yes, it's summer here in Australia - nice and hot) so I put my awakened state to good use and completed a second revision of my GunMaster II rules for HârnMaster 2nd edition. Basically, in this revision, I have made shotgun cartridges and grenade fragments a lot more dangerous (as they should be, at close range...) and have redesigned the ballistic armour rules so that they more closely conform to the blunt trauma rules that I already use in my HârnMaster 2nd ed. House Rules. If you're a HârnMaster GM and you want to experiment with a bit of contemporary megagaming, you might find these rules handy. Enjoy.

Go to WarFlail's Archives - December 1998

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