News from December 1999 & January 2000

3rd January 2000AD - [MKC]Spiritos

General
Happy New Year folks! (No, I'm not going to say "Happy New Millenium", just how many times have you heard that recently? Exactly, more than enough, so you're safe here ;)

It's still 'off-season' for the majority of leagues and competitions, so, as well as allowing the required time for 'eating and being merry', there's also time for us to check out the two titles involved in the biggest 'fight' this millenium (soz, no more millenium puns, honest ;)  : Quake3 and Unreal Tournament. I know I've been 'having a go' at both of them, although I reckon I've played more Q3 than UT. Seems to me that id wanted to raise the average fragcount for games compared to Q2 (most of the team games I've seen or played in have fragcounts higher than those expected from similar Q2 games). At the moment, I don't think that's a bad thing; certainly plenty of fun being involved in high-scoring 'frag-fests' :) Serious team-play may be a different matter however: average survival times per spawn are down, and currently, there is no way to drop weapons or equipment for teammates (although the rumours have already started that this little 'anomaly' will be addressed in the first patch). Anyway, I think it'll take a little time for teamplay and the leagues to settle down as we run (crawl?) through the numerous, inevitable and infamous patches that will follow ;)

Here's a question for you: Which one? (Image from PlanetUnreal, Dec29, submitted by Kirk Quimet (Infiniter))

Site
I've done a bit of a revamp for the new year (wasn't actually intended to coincide with that; just happened). Some of the sections were becoming a little on the large side (*hehe* alliteration AND a contradiction in terms -better calm down: where's my beer? >;)  ). News has been archived into monthly sections (I'll sort out December's when the January page has more on it), the demos and results sections have been split into ClanBase and WP areas to ease navigation as well. I've also altered the date format for the news (not sure about that though: it may look 'modern', but I don't know if it 'fits' with the general theme of the site :/   ). If anyone has any problems whilst looking through the site, LET ME KNOW. If I don't know about it, I can't sort it.

This 28th day of December, in the year 1999 Anno Domini - [MKC]Spiritos

General
Unbelievable! Spiritos makes an update! ;) C'mon peeps, let's be fair about this one: the festive season is upon us and therefore plenty to eat and drink (which takes time and doesn't half screw with your co-ordination skills ;)  ) plus the 'small' matter of Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena being released; now the 'battle' is on to see which one will achieve dominance over the other. I could write a whole review on the topic, but I won't (alright, you can all stop cheering now...that goes for you at the back too....put those 'party poppers' away). Suffice to say, I think UT has done a far better job of 'explaining'/training the 'newbie' with regards to FPS online gaming. There are more variations of the standard DM available (Assault, Domination, CTF) in the retail version than in Q3 (just CTF) and some of the gaming 'tweaks', eg message binds, best weapon selects can be configured from UT's front-end; Q3 still requires players to alter or add config files. To me, UT is a great start for people looking to get into FPS online gaming plus it's a lot of fun playing it offline with the bots. Q3 is for the player already accustomed to fragging his/her fellow humans. Having said that, it looks like [MKC] may well be represented in UT and Q3 leagues... (If you think this is an overly simplistic view of things....it is....like I said, this isn't a 'proper' review of each game...I decided to save you from that torture >;)

Oh yeah, before I forget, I finished Half-Life: Opposing Force last weekend (I think it was last weekend :)  ). Anyway, a good add-on for HL, still the best single-player FPS out there in my opinion but (I would expect to be flamed about this if anyone actually read these pages), it still sux0rs as a multiplayer game online :/  I hope that things change there a fair bit: I'm looking forward to Team Fortress 2 when (if?) it eventually gets released.

I've already mentioned it on our messageboard but Q2 seems quite 'happy' to crash my system nowadays :(( I have no idea why it has started doing this but it really makes a nonsense of trying to play Q2 in any competitive games. I crashed out twice whilst watching our 2v2 match against SoloQuaker's Alliance (see below) and only just completed a game against [POTZW] in the UKCCL Free Cup when it crashed again >:(( Every time I have to reboot as well. /me grumbles "..don't have any probs like this with Q3 or UT...'cept the textures in UT goin' funny now-and-again ;)...".

Here's something for the festive season: a couple of piccies :))  (Just click on each of them for the large version). ..and yes, the skeleton in question is my 'alter-ego' in Q3 (it's just a continuation of the blue 'skinned' skeleton skin (the 'kot' skin) I run about in for Q2 :)

League
A little slowdown on the league front owing to the festive season plus UT and Q3 'getting in the way' has seen us play only one 2v2 match since the last update and that was against SoloQuaker's Alliance. Details are up on the Results/Fixtures page as usual with a short report on the Demos/Reports page.

What does the future hold for Dark Prophecy? Right now, I don't know. We have the same problems our respective clans have: what games do we play? Q2 and/or Q3 and/or UT?? Leagues have been set-up for all games (although I'm not aware of any 2v2 Leagues for UT yet). Time, as always, will tell I guess...

This 12th day of December, in the year 1999 Anno Domini - [MKC]Spiritos

General
Been a bit busy this last week. 'Away with work' earlier and then trying to catch up with things (4 days away: 52 emails!! :)

Also, this week saw the release of Unreal Tournament and, I'll admit it, I bought it and I've been having a crack at it this last couple of days. Still a bit too early to say what I think of it but very early impressions were, "...I don't like this at all...", "...a bit jerky there...", and "...these controls are naff...". These 'thoughts' have now altered a little to "...this isn't too bad actually...", "...not jerky anymore..." and "...controls okay now...". Mind you, the part about the 'jerkiness' still irritates me though, I was running in 32-bit colour and had to reduce it to 16-bit to 'smooth' the map movement (didn't think I would have to do that considering I'm running a P3-450 (overclocked to 504 atm), Xentor32 TNT2Ultra, 128Mb RAM :/ Still, it runs well enough now (offline anyway...still to try it online).

Not content with UT, I've got Quake3 Arena on pre-order as well. However, seeing as id (or maybe more accurately, Activision), saw fit not to do a simultaneous worldwide release, we Brits won't see it here till next week (17th Dec is the latest confirmed date for general release) :((

Oh yeah, and I've also got Half-Life: Opposing Force as well (still in its cellophane wrapper atm). Where am I going to find the time for all this? ;)

League
A 'first' for Dark Prophecy this week: we received our very first challenge. The SoloQuaker's Alliance are the responsible party and Blaze has accepted the challenge. Battle will commence this Thursday (the 16th), details are on the Results/Fixtures page.

This 3rd day of December, in the year 1999 Anno Domini - [MKC]Spiritos

General
Watched a few of the UK v France Q2 demos from the LAN Arena 3 event. The words 'M4st4h 0wn4g3' come to mind ;) Some superb railing from the UK team with a good degree of control saw them win the 5-game series with a whitewash of the French, 5-0. It's a great shame however, that our very own CoG>Mist didn't manage to travel to France due to illness. I have no doubt that he would've added even more to the games competetive edge. Here's to next time Mist....

League
A bit disappointing this week. Despite Blaze challenging 3 clans to matches earlier this week, 2 of them didn't even acknowledge the challenge never mind accept it, and the third clan cancelled our challenge to them because, apparently, they "...don't play on Wednesday's". Oh well, that's Ladder competition for you I suppose :/

I've heard a rumour that the organisers in charge of the WP 2v2 League are getting close to sending out a 'questionnaire' on the whole 2v2 League structure, asking the main teams previously involved what they would like to see as regards format, maps, time etc. So, keep an eye out for it...

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