In which is discussed Deus Ex, The Muppets, ASCII Half-Life, coding and The Log.
Weishaupt 02/01/01 21:21
monsieur
10998521 02/01/01 21:21
my sir
Weishaupt 02/01/01 21:23
or my sire, i don't think
it's entirely definite
i got deus ex for christmas
why the fuck does the dragon's tooth glow?
it should just be very shiny and just morph
eerily in your hand
10998521 02/01/01 21:23
it glows because it's a
light sabre by another
name
obviously
Weishaupt 02/01/01 21:27
It's not, though. It's a
goddamn self-sharpening
nanotechnological sword. It's not a lightsabre.
I'm in the ocean base fighting greasels and Bob
Page has told me he's going to be God.
10998521 02/01/01 21:29
you're gonna start taking
that game too seriously
like everybody does
Weishaupt 02/01/01 21:30
it's too fun to take
seriously.
but I wanna pet greasel.
10998521 02/01/01 21:31
i got a letter from
cambridge today
i'm in if i get 4 As and 3 Bs
Weishaupt 02/01/01 21:32
deary me
how will you manage
what if you're overqualified?
10998521 02/01/01 21:33
dunno
doesn't say
Weishaupt 02/01/01 21:36
oh well
incidentally
care to share your deus ex experience with me?
as in, choices made, because I'm too lazy to go
back and see if they make a difference
10998521 02/01/01 21:37
can't remember
haven't played it in about a month or so
i seem to remember checking with a friend in
school and discovering that, while the choices
you make have some effect, the main plot is
unaffected
Weishaupt 02/01/01 21:42
even whan you decide to stay
with unatco?
don't you get to join mj12 and oppress the world
and stuff?
10998521 02/01/01 21:43
no
i think you're forced to leave anyway
Weishaupt 02/01/01 21:47
dangit
that's kind of annoying
but it does save them from writing two games
10998521 02/01/01 21:48
yes
while still giving the illusion of control
and as people are unlikely to play the whole
thing more than once
Weishaupt 02/01/01 21:50
because it's pretty damn' big
10998521 02/01/01 21:50
that it is
Weishaupt 02/01/01 21:54
incidentally, just how far
into the game is that
ocean base?
10998521 02/01/01 21:55
can't remember
half way, give or take 30%
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:00
probably give 30%, I've been
playing for too long
One thing I really want to find out about this
game is just why they're making greasels
everywhere. What exactly are they good for?
10998521 02/01/01 22:01
just play the game
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:04
so it actually does get
answered. that's allI
need.
I thought of someone else who could play Gordon
Freeman, and it wasn't Tom Green. And I forget
who,.
10998521 02/01/01 22:05
darnit
tom green would be perfect
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:07
maybe eric clapton
animatronics, even
10998521 02/01/01 22:09
muppet half-life
starring kermit as gordon freeman
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:11
kermit in an HEV
voiced by tom green
10998521 02/01/01 22:12
yes
and fozzy as a barney
and beaker and bunsen as scientists
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:15
Animal as Alien Slaves...
Snuffleupagus as Garg
10998521 02/01/01 22:15
miss piggy?
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:19
fat barney (op force)
The Count as the G-Man
who plays Nihilanth?
10998521 02/01/01 22:20
gonzo?
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:22
yes. Gonzo as Nihilanth.
Any other characted sets we can try to shoehorn
into Half-Life?
maybe ASCII
10998521 02/01/01 22:24
ascii half-life?
starring G as Gordon Freeman
g as a garg
s as an alien slave
N as the Nihilanth
b as a barney
no, it's not going to work
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:26
use the funky ANSI DOS
characters, like they did
in KROZ.
solid yellow smiley as Freeman
inverse blue smiley as G-Man
solid blue smiley as Barney
solid white smiley as scientist
inverse white smiley as human grunts
umm
10998521 02/01/01 22:28
this is starting to sound like lyndskey's game
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:29
tentacle-beast made of
slashes, hyphens and pipes
(|)
10998521 02/01/01 22:29
or just the letter V
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:31
letter V on the end
10998521 02/01/01 22:31
and W
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:34
% as alien slave
this could be pretty cool
we'd make it pseudo-3d
the one that's not quite isometric
like the Chaos Engine
10998521 02/01/01 22:34
in ascii?
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:35
remember kroz?
it wouldn't be too hard
10998521 02/01/01 22:36
i never played kroz
it's sitting on my hard drive but i've never
played it
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:37
all right, like ZZT
they weren't pseudo-3d but it'd just take a
little fiddling around to do it
10998521 02/01/01 22:38
sounds like effort
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:43
it'd be like Final Fantasy
Half-Life, except you
can see them coming and there's only so many, and
it's all in ASCII.
10998521 02/01/01 22:44
so different then
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:45
but with a Final Fantasy
perspective and flip
screen thing
10998521 02/01/01 22:45
nishe
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:47
but still DOS-based
or maybe Unix.
10998521 02/01/01 22:48
telnet
Weishaupt 02/01/01 22:59
run it on LaserMAME
10998521 02/01/01 23:05
why not just go all the way with punch cards
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:06
because LaserMAME is
incredibly cool
the address is on E2, if you haven't yet seen it
10998521 02/01/01 23:07
very very nice
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:10
don't you just... want one?
10998521 02/01/01 23:11
yes
yes i do
and a cloudy night
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:16
or a wall
or the Utah Salt Flats
10998521 02/01/01 23:16
or the moon
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:17
or a nearby nebula
using some kind of faster-than-light superlaser
10998521 02/01/01 23:18
of course
otherwise you'd get lag
and i'd hate to play asteroids with a bad ping
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:21
or Bubbloids
10998521 02/01/01 23:21
yes
i've got the source to that somewhere
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:22
do you have it compiled?
10998521 02/01/01 23:23
i think so
i must rework it so it doesn't need bgi
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:26
gonna write your own
graphics funcs in ASM?
screw the include files
10998521 02/01/01 23:27
nah
i got allegro
which compiles in and lets you use proper hi-res
truecolour graphics modes
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:30
wow
real graphics
10998521 02/01/01 23:31
yep
it's what i'm using for my metaball thing
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:32
oooh
are you using fancy shading?
10998521 02/01/01 23:33
wireframe at the moment
i'm still coding the surface-fitting algorithm
thingy
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:35
gonna Phong it?
10998521 02/01/01 23:36
dunno
there's some built-in gouraud functions
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:40
any good?
10998521 02/01/01 23:40
ok
not ideal but better than nothing
and they're damn fast
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:42
do they work in X colours,
like scalable to your
choice of colour depth?
10998521 02/01/01 23:43
they run in 24-bit
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:46
and that only?
dammit, I want them to render nice big chunky
cartoon shading when I say so
10998521 02/01/01 23:47
you could do that
just reduce the colours after the rendering
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:48
hmm
stupid extra code
10998521 02/01/01 23:49
yes
you could write your own chunky shader
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:50
I could
or ask a real coder
or get a compiler before I even think about any
of this crap
10998521 02/01/01 23:51
yes
djgpp is good
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:54
nng
damn effort
10998521 02/01/01 23:56
you'll never get to play
with the funky code if
you don't put in a little effort
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:57
maybe I will
I'm out of votes here
10998521 02/01/01 23:58
i still have four
Weishaupt 02/01/01 23:59
oooh
how long since your last WU, anyway?
10998521 02/01/01 23:59
well, i added to the people
registry the other
day
before that, ages
Weishaupt 03/01/01 00:00
tsk
at least write some crap
10998521 03/01/01 00:01
i've been busy
i was finishing off all the formatting and stuff
on the icq logs
and i wrote a bibliography
Weishaupt 03/01/01 00:01
bibliography?
10998521 03/01/01 00:02
there's a bibliography and
suggested reading
section at the back
Weishaupt 03/01/01 00:03
i have to download this
10998521 03/01/01 00:04
i just added anything i
could think of at the
time
i thought we might release an annotated and
expanded version in a few weeks/months
Weishaupt 03/01/01 00:05
I really will have to
download that, especially
to add my own input
10998521 03/01/01 00:05
do
do you have a word processor capable of editing
such a monstrosity?
Weishaupt 03/01/01 00:06
don't know
maybe we should split it up and make it html
10998521 03/01/01 00:06
maybe
or maybe i should warez a copy of acrobat
Weishaupt 03/01/01 00:08
just crack it so it's called
Hackrobat and
pretend you wrote it yourself
10998521 03/01/01 00:09
i think html might be the way to go
Weishaupt 03/01/01 00:13
maybe even frame it and
distribute it as a fancy
package
frame as in html thing
10998521 03/01/01 00:14
yes
that'd be nice
we'd need someone who knew their html
Weishaupt 03/01/01 00:16
html ain't hard
we could just do it in Frontpage
10998521 03/01/01 00:16
ah frontpage
i've got a nice copy of frontpage 2000
Weishaupt 03/01/01 00:19
I don't. I have the crap
that came free with
win98
10998521 03/01/01 00:20
that's pretty damn crap
Weishaupt 03/01/01 00:23
it does basic formatting though
10998521 03/01/01 00:28
does it do frames?
Weishaupt 03/01/01 00:29
dunno
10998521 03/01/01 00:30
if it does, it'd probably be
better than the one
i've got
which has too many features and is really really
confusing
Weishaupt 03/01/01 00:33
frontpage sucks ass anyway
do it by hand
10998521 03/01/01 00:34
frames by hand are a pain, afaik
Weishaupt 03/01/01 00:35
maybe so maybe no,
I have to go anyway
10998521 03/01/01 00:35
goodnight sir