December 1999
December 31
Today is Millennium Eve, so I'm
updating this earlier than usual. It would look silly for it to say
"1 day until Y2K" when Y2K was already here. I do know that the millennium
really starts in 2001, but the term "Y2.001K just doesn't have the same
ring to it. The news reports say that in eastern Asia, where it's
2000 already, there aren't any problems, so I'm not too worried about computer
bugs. I'll be updating again before midnight (in the Central time
zone) and again when it's 2000.
The pointless bickering in the
Drakan community is still going on, and while some of it used to be sort
of entertaining, now it's all just gotten old. It's like one of those
old Middle Ages battles of honor, except with a lot more name-calling.
People are coming up with lists of honorable and dishonorable players,
and refuting those claims, and taking it all way too seriously. Well,
you won't see much of me in online Drakan anymore, because now I've moved
on to other games, such as...
I've started playing Final Fantasy
VIII, and I don't really have much of an impression of it yet. The
opening cinema was very impressive and well done, with cool CG characters
and environments. When the actual game started, I noticed the people
were a lot more detailed than in FF7, but the battle screens were pretty
much the same. The battle system, however, is completely new.
I think Squaresoft spends 40% of their time devising an even more confusing
magic system for each consecutive FF game. FF6 (3 in the US) had
a simple system where each party member could summon a magical creature
and learn its spells. FF7 employed the use of magic crystals that
could be attached to weapons and armor, and then combined for added effects.
FF8, however, uses about 3 different elements to its magic system, involving
drawing magic out of enemies and something called Guardian Forces.
There are little energy swirls in towns and other places where you can
get spells. The story involves the basic Final Fantasy blend of magic
and machinery, and it's about a soldier-in-training named Squall, who is
in constant rivalry with another student named Seifer. There's also
conflict involving a sorceress and some ominous ancient force, which seems
to be a common theme in FF games.
I'm trying to learn more about
Unreal Tournament, but I don't have a clue about most of it. Fortunately,
I found a page with a ton of UT news and other cool stuff. It's called
Project
2501, and guess what? The person who runs it is a reader of The
Sine Wave! My Dragonmech series seems to be in high demand, especially
since single player levels for that game are few and far between.
Now, Dragonmech may not reach the detail level of Surreal's levels in terms
of confusing icon clutter, but I'm trying my best to create some interesting
challenges.
There are three weapons for the
dragonmech now. The first is the fire-based attack, with mini-missiles
as primary fire and the good old flamethrower as secondary. The second,
which is actually the new one, is not a weapon so much as a tool.
The primary fire is a light shining from the dragonmech which illuminates
dark areas, such as caverns. The secondary fire shoots a bright flare
that stays where it hits, and you can actually do quite a bit of damage
with it if you hit an enemy. The third weapon, which I've already
mentioned, is a powerful energy pulse. Primary fire shoots a beam
that reflects off its targets and can hit multiple objects at once, like
Arokh's lightning attack. The secondary fire is a powerful pulse
bomb that does massive damage but uses most of the dragonmech's energy
charge. There are some new Rynn weapons as well, but they're not
as impressive. The Spear is weak, but it's longer than any sword,
and the Gunbow is a modified goblin gun that can fire arrows more rapidly
than a bow. There are also Spear Darts, a new kind of arrow that
can be used with a normal bow or the Gunbow.
I'm looking into making mutators
for Unreal Tournament, since I made all those hex-edited Drakan mods before
the editor was out and before that I made a lot of new weapons for Quake.
Unfortunately, I haven't picked up on UnrealScript yet, but I know how
to access the mutator list through UnrealEd. I think I'll look into
one of the mutator tutorials listed on Planet Unreal's Mutation
Device page. Thanks to Project 2501 for the link.
I corrected the cave height problem
by making all the ceiling layers 2000 units higher and lowering the ground
connecting vertices to their limit. I wish there was a way to collectively
move vertices a certain distance up or down. Maybe there is, but
I haven't found it yet. I also put a few monsters and doors in the
cave so Rynn can only get in when she's on the dragonmech. The rest
of the level has to be designed so that you can't finish it without having
the dragonmech be at least really close to the end. For that purpose,
I'm making a series of triggered doors to open paths and close others.
I was looking at an UnrealEd
tutorial today when I finally saw how to do some of the basics. So,
now I've made a level! It's not much, but it's a start. I call
it the Little Square Room of Death, and that's basically what it is when
you use it for deathmatch. There's only one player start point, so
that means lots of telefragging. Also, since the room is the default
cube brush size and that's not very big, it's cramped. People often
stand on each others' heads. The key to winning in this level is
to get the double enforcers and stand in the corner shooting away.
My what a small room, let's all
get cozy!
I'm not putting the level on here for download, because you could probably make it yourself in less than 2 minutes. But I might put up the follow-up level: the Two Little Square Rooms of Death with a Hallway in Between. And, of course, after that comes the Little Indoor Room and Big Outdoor Room with Three Hallways in Between, but I won't put that up because it already exists as a Quake 3 level.
Oops! I made a serious
miscalculation as to the necessary height of the ceilings in the Dragonmech
Desert cave. I made it almost too small for the dragonmech to get
through, and now there's a possible situation where you can go through
the wall and into nothingness, sometimes crashing the game. Sorry
about that, everyone. I guess I'm going to have to work on remaking
the caverns and changing the heights of the ceiling vertices. Here's
some good Drakan level designing advice for the future: a high ceiling
for Rynn may not be a high ceiling for Arokh.
I just saw the box for the Unreal
Expansion Pack, Return to Na Pali, and it says it works with Unreal Tournament.
I used to think it needed two formats of levels, or at least two formats
of something, but now it's clear that anything that works with Unreal also
works with UT. I wonder if the expansion pack adds a Single Player
mode to the practice session startup screen. Na Pali probably goes
back to the old weapons even through UT, so it might not be worth getting.
It would be cool, though, to be able to play Unreal with the new weapons
without having to resort to simulating it through no-opponent deathmatch.
So far, I've seen 2 new movies
over winter break. First I saw Bicentennial Man, which was okay but
kind of slow and sappy. Most Robin Williams movies tend to be like
that. It was about a robot who developed a personality and wanted
to become more human. A few days ago I saw Galaxy Quest, and I enjoyed
it a lot more. It was a spoof of the old Star Trek, with Tim Allen
as the Captain Kirk-type character and Sigourney Weaver as the character
who repeats what the computer says. The movie is about the cast of
an old TV show, also called Galaxy Quest, that are mistaken for real space
heroes by a group of visiting aliens. The actors are forced to join
a war and command a working replica of their ship from the old show.
There's a lot of humor, especially for those who are familiar with Star
Trek. For example, when the aliens built the ship replica, they put
in a useless crusher area just because it was a plot device in one of the
episodes.
I am having so much fun with
Unreal Tournament. I know I keep saying that, but it's true.
The more I play, the better it gets. First I played more of the original
Unreal through the UT deathmatch trick, right up to the Sunspire.
I didn't want to trudge through the Sunspire again because it's so boring.
But then again, so were Terraniux and ISV-Kran. Maybe I'm just tired
of all that switch flipping and button pressing. It's no matter,
though, because after that, I started a tournament game. That's the
single player game, with AI-controlled unique enemies. There aren't
the wide variety of models that you get in Quake 3, but the characters
have different playing styles. Some may be more reckless than others,
while some have a favorite weapon that they go after all the time.
Unreal Tournament is supposed to have a plot, about after the war with
the Skaarj, people on the mining colony got restless and set up a tournament
with high-powered weapons. It's basically the same kind of story
as a fighting game like Tekken. Before each match, a bio is given
of all the characters describing who they are and why they're fighting
in the tournament. Most of them are criminals and psychos, while
others are bored civilians and soldiers. I played on Average difficulty
(the second easiest). I figured that I would be getting a good challenge,
but if I lost, it would be no big deal because I could just say, "Well,
at least I'm not losing on the lowest difficulty level!" The deathmatch
tutorial doesn't really get into the finer points of combat. For
that, I recommend practice sessions at lower skill levels to see what all
the weapons can do, and higher skill levels to pick up on strategies.
Yesterday, when I went all berzerk
over playing the original Unreal with UT, I really didn't tell you the
best way to do it. I've updated the list in yesterday's entry so
that it describes the new method. Sorry about that if you were reading
this yesterday and decided to try the trick. I still think it's kind
of cool how Unreal Tournament is almost completely compatible with the
original Unreal. I don't know if Quake 3 can run Q2 maps, but I'm
guessing that since it's a whole new game engine, with a different model
format and rendering technique, it won't.
The dragonmech you see in the
screenshots uses the first texture I made for Arokh. That was just
a placeholder graphic, and I knew I could do better. I made a new
one after that, meticulously using Paint Shop Pro 6's vector objects, but
it still didn't have that "metal" look. That's when I decided that
maybe I shouldn't try to do this myself, so I had someone else make a metallic
dragon texture. So far it looks the most like real metal, but it's
a bit too light gray for what I had in my mind. Maybe I'll try making
it darker and see what it looks like then. The new dragon textures
are shown on the dragonmech screenshots page under the Drakan links.
I totally forgot to post the
answer(s) to my Question of the Week yesterday, so here it is today.
The question was:
Question of the Week: Sometimes a game ships with a lot of bugs. This is often the result of a publisher who wants the game out by a certain deadline and limits the amount of time a developer can spend on making it. What do you think about this?
Answers:
Computer games shipped with bugs? Its not ideal but if patches are
forthcoming and the bugs aren't crippling it not a big deal to me. To someone
not hooked to the net it could matter alot though. I never had any problems
with Draken but many folks did. I suspect a reputation for bugginess
hurt sales. Whille I prefer Draken and especially in the early levels see
lots of nice little acts of love details it does feel rushed in some ways
compared to Hereticii, who also admitted they were rushed. It's great when
they give patches or enhancement packs to make up for this rush but to
take a little more time before shipping would be ideal but it's not an
ideal world. I,m more concerned with the hidden cave, monster or idle animation
or little fun detail that got lost. this almost never gets put in. Kudos
to Raven for including a few such things including a new player model in
their hereticiiEP. Ship no game before it's time just may not be always
possible with all the different systems out there but a better effort probably
could be made.
best regards,
Steamteck
Well, here's what I think. Computer games are much harder to get working than console games because they have to make allowances for compatibility issues. There's no telling when a game will be finished and how many more bugs will appear in the programming, but publishers have deadlines anyway. Sometimes developers can get things done without a hitch, but other times the developers have to rush to get the product out the door. This is usually done to have the game released during a busy holiday season, or whatever the marketers think will be the best time for sales. The game suffers for this with technical problems and incomplete features. The promise of patches to fix a broken game shouldn't be standard in the industry, but we see this happening far too much, like with Drakan, Daggerfall, Ultima IX, and the original Unreal.
'Twas the day after Christmas,
and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, because we were
practicing for when the neighbors try to raid our house after Y2K hits.
Yes, in only six days it's going to be the big one. Since all computers
in the world are connected now, any computer that is not Y2K compliant
will spread a nasty bug to all the others, causing them to malfunction.
That will cause many problems all over the world. The nuclear warheads
that have been programmed to defend against chronometric weaponry will
detect a 100-year chronofluctuation and detonate automatically. Computer-controlled
cars will experience negative 100 years in a single moment and increase
their speeds to compensate, making them crash into pedestrians and fly
off cliffs. ATMs will spew out money, and traffic lights will blink
randomly. The moon's eclipse regulator will lose orientation and
either make it fly off into space or crash into the earth. That won't
stop the tides, though, for when the computer that controls the earth's
rotation malfunctions, the planet will quickly spin the other way, causing
the oceans to flood the continents and everything not attached to the surface
to be flung into space. Weather control systems will get the seasons
messed up, and it'll snow in the Sahara and shine in Siberia. Another
cause of this will be the malfunction of the earth axis computer, which
will fail to regulate the spinning of the earth on its axis. The
earth will be without seasons, and all plant life, and subsequently animal
life, will die out in a matter of years. It'll be the great apocalypse
we were all warned about! In case you couldn't tell, that was a complete
exaggeration. There's probably nothing serious that will go wrong
when the clock strikes midnight on January 1, 2000. I haven't really
been preparing for it, I've been playing Unreal Tournament.
I discovered something really
cool about Unreal Tournament while I was trying things out. You know
that mod that lets you play as one of the original Unreal characters?
Well, I found a way to actually play the original Unreal, with the new
updated weapons, in UT! It doesn't work exactly, but all the basic
elements are there. The enemies, the objects, the special effects,
the level transitions - they all work essentially like they're supposed
to. Here's the catch: you have to have the original Unreal in order
to make it work. But, it's still cool to see the new weapons in action
against old enemies.
Fighting a Skaarj in Rrajigar Mine...
with a Pulse Gun! How can this be?
To make this cool trick work, here's what you have to do:
1. In the file UnrealTournament.ini, look for the line that says "Paths=../Maps/*.unr"
and add the line "Paths=../../Unreal/Maps/*.unr" after it. Basically,
you're providing a path to your original Unreal map directory.
2. Look for the line that says "Paths=../Music/*.umx" and add the line
"Paths=../../Unreal/Music/*.umx" after it. That's the path to the
original Unreal music.
3. Start up Unreal Tournament. Since you changed the .ini file,
it'll tell you that it's starting up for the first time. Let it detect
the video card again, and change the video options in the game back to
what you want.
4. Start a practice session on tournament deathmatch with 0 bots, no
translocator, no time or frag limit, and classic mode. It doesn't
matter what level you go to.
5. While in the game, open the console and type "open vortex2".
The game will start loading, and...
6. You're in the first level of Unreal! Now you can relive the
original single-player experience, but there are a few differences.
Since you're still technically in deathmatch mode, weapons and items will
respawn, and when you die you go back to the beginning of the level instead
of having to reload. When you collect items, you use them instantly
now, and the translator doesn't work. Also, you can't save the game.
So there you have it: proof that Epic made a really good game without making any radical changes to its engine. They've improved the net code and the 3D stability, but that's about all. They had more time to work on designing good levels and game modes because Unreal Tournament was halfway done when they started. This also means any deathmatch levels made for Unreal will work in Unreal Tournament, so there's already a large supply of levels.
Merry Christmas to all, and to
all a good night! Really, I mean that: good night, because as I write
this, there are only 20 minutes of Christmas left. And what a Christmas
it was for me! I got a new watch, some shirts, a few books, and my
brother and I collectively got 5 new video and computer games! He
got Pac-Man World and Frogger, which I'm not sure about, and Crash Team
Racing, which I've played before and I know it's good. I got Final
Fantasy VII, an excellent role-playing game, but I didn't even open it
today because I also got the full version of Unreal Tournament. When
the demos of it and Quake 3 were out, Unreal Tournament was still better,
but now that I've played the full version of UT, I've found it to be much
better than anything Quake could ever offer. One really cool part
of the game that's not in Quake 3 is Assault, where you take turns attacking
and defending a fortress. The winner is whoever takes the shortest
amount of time while attacking. It's a really cool feature because
it adds a strategy element to the game. You have to learn the map
to be efficient while attacking, and position your team to hold back the
enemy while defending.
Since I did an overview of the
demo, I might as well do one for the full game too. There are about
50 maps total, as opposed to the 6 in the demo, and they're all unique
and have a different theme. Many of the levels are stone castles
and forts, but there are a lot of other kinds of level, like a spaceship
zooming through space and a huge pirate ship. One of my favorite
Assault maps is on a train, and the attackers have to make their way to
the front of it. You really have a feeling of speeding through a
dark canyon. I haven't tried many Domination or Capture the Flag
levels yet, but from what I've seen, those are well implemented.
There are some new weapons in the full version, most of them carried over
from the original Unreal. There's the Ripper, which shoots ricocheting
razor blades and can decapitate opponents. The Flak Cannon fires
shrapnel like a shotgun and is good at close to medium range. The
Chainsaw is only available through a mod, and it's everyone's favorite
Doom melee weapon, with the power to slice heads off. The Sniper
Rifle is a precision weapon that requires good aim, and it can also decapitate
players if aimed just right. The Biosludge Cannon is one of my personal
favorites, and while it has been dismissed as a weak, clumsy weapon, I've
found the green goo to be useful as proximity mines, and a charged shot
can do a lot of damage if it connects. The Redeemer is the most powerful
weapon of all, firing a missile that can be guided, which explodes and
creates a shockwave that destroys everyone within its reach. It only
has one shot per pickup, and you run the greatest risk of killing yourself
with it. The bot AI is still excellent, and they seem to be able
to learn where all the secrets are on a level, especially on higher skill
levels. I've become proficient at using the Sniper Rifle against
opponents for instant kills, but only when they stand still. Higher
skill bots don't stand still too much, and I always get blasted by a rocket
or shock blast whenever I try to aim at them. I haven't checked to
see how many servers are on the list, so I couldn't tell you about online
performance yet, but if it's anything like the demo, it'll be fantastic.
By the way, remember that intense Unreal deathmatch level I was talking
about, with the eightball gun and the big circular room? Well, it's
called Morbias, and it's been revived in its original form as Morbias][
in Unreal Tournament. This time, rocket launchers spawn in the side
tunnels, while a Redeemer spawns in the middle. That was my real
chance to compare Unreal Tournament with the original Unreal using the
same level for both games, and UT does it a lot better.
It's Christmas Eve! Of
course you already knew that. Maybe I should be saying Happy Hanukkah
as well, but that's already over. I don't know when Kwanzaa is, but
if it's later than today I'll say Happy Kwanzaa too. And all the
other cultural winter holidays - well, happy them too. Sorry for
being so Christian-centric, but my family celebrates Christmas with all
the usual themes, like the music, the tree, and the Santa Claus spirit
of giving. But it'll be a Christmas without the Sparrow's Nest, so
I'll have to look for other pages to read in my spare time. I could
always visit message boards, but after a while you start to get bored with
them. If you still want to see my tribute to the Sparrow's Nest on
here, it's under the Computer games section of the link list.
I tried looking for Heretic II
almost everywhere, and I still can't find it. I've heard it's a really
good game, but it didn't sell very well, kind of like Drakan. I can't
believe nobody is carrying it! I guess I'll have to order it off
the Internet, and of course that means I'll have to wait a few days before
I get it. It's probably less time than it would take to find it in
a retail store, though, so I think I'll order it sometime soon.
Now, about my Dragonmech level:
I've decided that the current dragonmech texture isn't good enough.
I made it in about 10 minutes, and all I did was grayscale it, blur the
texture, and add some white lines. Not very metallic-looking at all.
I haven't even finished the desert level yet, but I've been doing a few
things other than working on it.
I tried playing both Unreal and
Unreal Tournament online today, just to see how much it had improved.
I started with Unreal (v. 225f), just to do things in order of production.
I started up the multiplayer list and saw about 100 servers. I chose
the one with the lowest ping, tried to join it, and it had to download
a new level, which was 1.9 megs. After it finished, the game started,
but my player wouldn't spawn. I could walk around the level, and
I saw other players walking in place, but I had no weapon and couldn't
get any items. When I pressed Esc, the game froze up and I had to
disable it from Windows. I tried the whole process again, and it
did the same thing to me, only with another 1.9 meg map. I decided
to try it again, thinking third time's the charm... and it worked!
Finally, the game had started up and I was in the middle of a pulse-pounding
deathmatch! Actually, it was really confusing, and there were a few
anomalies. For example, when I pressed the fire button, my shots
went off a fraction of a second later instead of instantly. I found
this incredibly awkward at first - after all, I was used to Drakan deathmatch,
and there's no weapon delay in that game. The map I was on had only
the eightball gun, which is like a rocket launcher, and everyone was being
bombarded from all sides. Then the next map started, and it was another
custom level, which automatically downloaded. This one worked, and
it was a bit better than the eightball gun arena. It had all the
weapons, and I got to see how they worked in deathmatch. Unfortunately,
I found them all to be equally weak and ineffective, possibly due to the
lag. The server cleared out as players started leaving, and I exited
the game and started up the Unreal Tournament demo. I opened its
multiplayer window and saw about 14 servers that were still running the
demo. Once again, I tried the one with the lowest ping, and it worked
with no problems. I was in the middle of the Morpheus map, fighting
against other players and some bots, I think, or maybe they were human
players who chose bot names. It was hard to tell the difference.
All the strategies I had used against bots worked against the other players
as well, and I did pretty well. I did lose the connection once and
have to reconnect, but that must have been my Internet connection stalling.
It does that sometimes when I'm surfing the web, too. The weapon
delay was still there, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it was in the original
Unreal. I didn't find myself dying for apparently no reason as much.
Overall, I'd say it was a much more fun experience, and I'm glad Epic worked
so hard to improve the Unreal engine and net code for Unreal Tournament.
Well, this is it. Today
was the last day for the Sparrow's Nest, and it will be my last day of
this tribute. Tomorrow I'll change this page back to either the original
Sine Wave format, or a special Christmas format. I will, however,
keep the Sparrow's Nest tribute style page as a link on here, so the memory
will be preserved forever, or at least until there's no more Sine Wave.
Don't worry, though - I don't plan on leaving this site anytime soon.
The Sparrow's Nest was updated daily for one year, since December 23, 1998.
Since Sparrowslain didn't have
the time or energy to do a complete retrospect of her page on the last
day, I'll give you the info on what was posted on The Sparrow's Nest, in
chronological order. Forgive me if I messed up some of the details,
but it's hard to remember specific events from earlier on.
-It all started with Heretic II. Sparrowslain used to write a page called Cult Crowd Control for hereticii.com, but that page is no longer available. There were some misunderstandings on the message boards, as well as corporate meddling from a few Ravensoft publishers. The Sparrow's Nest was started as a source of Heretic II maps, skins, and blade match servers. Then the dreaded expansion pack, which added a lot of bugs to the game, was released, and it ripped the H2 community apart. Those who regularly visited the Nest moved on to other games.
-After the Heretic II incidents, Sparrowslain decided to take a stand against the stupidity and hypocrisy of the game industry. This includes sexist remarks and attitudes, false claims of what's in the game, and programmers whose egos could fill the Grand Canyon. Of special note is an article written by Kenn Hoekstra, systems administrator at Ravensoft, that tried to tell why more women weren't playing games. The article missed the point entirely, and Sparrowslain pointed out all its flaws.
-Then, along came the demo for a game called Drakan: Order of the Flame. The demo was excellent, and it really captured the feeling of flying through canyons and mountains on a dragon and exploring caves. Sparrowslain played it a lot, as well as some other games like Shogo: Mobile Armor Division and Quake II. Finally, the complete game of Drakan was released, but unfortunately, the gameplay on many of the later levels didn't have the depth of the first few, and multiplayer was extremely buggy. Some patches, released a few weeks later, made it a little better, but there are still some glaring problems.
-Rogue Spear is the sequel to Rainbow Six, and it's a stealth-based game where you control an elite team of anti-terrorist agents through museums, castles, and airfields to rescue hostages and take out the enemy. Sparrowslain was addicted to this game because it has a real feeling of teamwork and precision tactics. She even made a series of Rogue Spear Funnies, with screenshots from the game and word bubbles showing what the characters might be saying or thinking.
-Finally, the biggest surprise of the year showed itself. Sparrowslain was never a big fan of Unreal. The graphics were flashy and gaudy, and you couldn't really play it online. So when a multiplayer-based sequel to Unreal was announced, Sparrowslain thought she would hate it, and she was ready to rip it apart. However, the demo proved that Unreal had redeemed itself and made up for the horrible multiplayer in the original Unreal, because it was actually a good game. In fact, it turned out to be better than the latest installment of id's dominating franchise, Quake 3 Arena. Q3 deathmatch was basically the same as Quake II, but with built-in bots and new rendering methods. UT added a lot of features to the multiplayer experience, like a teleporter device and a game mode called Domination where you take control of areas in the level and try to hold them for as long as possible. It has been said that id, once the young rebels and leaders of the deathmatch craze, have now fallen back, and now it is time for Epic to take the crown.
So there you have it. Some highlights of the Sparrow's Nest, condensed into one entry. Now it is time to give a fond farewell to that great site, and always remember the motto: "I would rather lose a fight than suffer a beating."
Things couldn't be more peachy
in the Drakan community! That's sarcasm for you. Actually,
there's more pointless bickering going on, especially while playing the
game. The hot topic this time is clan mistrust and impersonation,
and there's a lot of that going around. We all know each other, so
we know who's doing what, and that can lead to much backstabbing between
people in different clans. It's like if you took 20 strangers and
trapped them all in a bomb shelter. Eventually there would start
to be fighting and grudges.
Yes! Today was the last
day of school for 1999, and now it's time to enjoy a big break from the
stress of school. Of course, I still have some assignments hanging
over my head like a cloud of doom, but now it's more like a cirrus cloud.
This means I'll have more time to work on stuff for this site and for computer
games. I'm expecting to get Unreal Tournament for Christmas, and
when I do, I'll tell all about it on here. As for now, I'm just working
on Drakan stuff.
I forgot just how hard it is
to make caverns in Drakan. I have to make 2 layers, change all the
vertex elevations and square divisions, which are a real pain, and then
I have to make sure they connect to everything else with no gaps.
Then I have to filter out the textures I don't need and align all the adjacent
cave layers with the others. There's probably a slant tool, but I
haven't found it yet. The Dragonmech Forest and Mountain are going
to be filled with caves... I may not be done by 2000!
For the past few weeks, I've
been talking a lot about my Dragonmech Desert level and I haven't even
shown what it looks like! Now, in my Drakan
links section, I have a page of screenshots
from that level. It's mostly out in the dunes, but there's an oasis
and a cave there, as well as some ruined fortresses that are now used by
Wartoks, orcs, and goblins. The finished level will have a new music
sample and a cave leading into the next level.
There wasn't much time to do
anything but study today. I've got a Japanese test tomorrow, as well
as a personal response to the population issue discussion and a physics
test, which is the worst of all. Physics problems are such a pain.
I never know what variables go with what numbers, or what formula to use,
or how to convert all the units. I had a calculus test today, which
is just as bad as physics. Suffice it to say I didn't have much Dragonmech
work time today, or time for more of this update. Sorry there's nothing
of value here today, but I'll make up for it tomorrow, I promise!
I'm almost done making sure everything
looks and feels right on the surface of the Dragonmech Desert. The
objects are set so that Rynn can't get stuck anywhere, and the weapons
and enemies are more balanced. The goblins are still to powerful,
so I'm going to make them have fewer hit points and slower projectiles.
There's a new way to open a gate, where you fire a missile at the control
crystal. Also, I made a movie sequence that points the camera toward
the devastation bomb that comes out of nowhere in the middle of the level.
The health potions are now in barrels and crates, and there's a new Ice
Blade that's an improvement on the original Ice Sword.
Egad! I forgot to tell
you about two days ago when I saw what might be the best movie of the year:
Toy Story 2! This is the movie that has no bad reviews, according
to the collection on the Rotten
Tomatoes site. It's the sequel to the computer-animated 1995
movie about toys that came to life when there were no people around.
Sounds like a corny concept, but it's actually done well. Toy Story
2 goes into more philosophical issues, like is it better for the toys to
be played with and loved by a child who will eventually grow up and abandon
them, or to be preserved in a museum and be admired by all, but loved by
none? There's also plenty of humor, like when the toys try to cross
a busy street, or a scene in an elevator shaft that parodies Star Wars.
The animation is, of course, excellent, which you've probably already guessed
if you've seen the original Toy Story or A Bug's Life.
It finally snowed yesterday.
Before that, it was the longest period of time here in Minnesota without
snow that actually stuck to the ground. The grass and trees were
completely brown. The ski team had to practice using roller blades
on the street. Now everyone is going to have to learn to drive in
the snow again, and that means more fender benders! I was kind of
hoping for a winter with no snow, just for a change, but it'll be good
for the plants, who need the cover of snow to protect them. Of course,
it's really cold too, especially with the wind chill. You may be
wondering why I'm always going to warm climates on my field studies for
school. Well, it's because if I wanted to go somewhere cold, I'd
stay in Minnesota.
Remember that in honor of Sparrowslain,
I'm reformatting my page to look like the Sparrow's Nest for the next 4
days. That page hasn't gotten the readership that it used to, so
if you're reading this, go ahead and click on the Sparrow's Nest link to
the left. Find out why Unreal Tournament is so great, how to beat
the terrorists in Rogue Spear, and why Drakan wasn't as good as it could
have been. It'll only be around for a few days, so you should get
the chance to see it while you can.
Like I said yesterday, I got
an answer to my Question of the Week, and rather than put them all on a
separate page (I might do that later, like I did with Ethereal Light),
I'll post it right here, on The Sine Wave's front page!
Question of the Week: How come nobody ever answers my Questions of the Week? Is it a plot to keep me from having to think, or is it just because few people read this page?
Answers:
Laziness, really causes me to not answer I guess, but i check in on
your site quite often, mainly to see how your Draken stuff is coming along.
Your crossroads level really blew me away. Anyway, Your updates are ussually
interesting but I.ve just let laziness keep me from commenting. Your school
stuff seems pretty far away from me now { I,m 41) but I,ll try to answer
some of your questions of the week to let you know folks are listening.
regards,
Steamteck
Well, this is the first answer to any of my questions, and I've already pointed out the irony of the first question that gets an answer being the one that asks why no one answers my questions. I can totally relate to the laziness thing, because I suffer from it too sometimes. For example, I could be working a lot more on my Dragonmech levels, but there are times when I just want to play a game instead. But don't worry, I'll have Dragonmech finished, even if it takes a while.
Okay, here's what I've gotten
done on my level set so far. I've finished object placement on the
desert level's outside area, and now I just have to make a cave connecting
it to the next level. I've created and textures the entrance to the
cave, and made it so there's a walkway down into it. The laser isn't
in place yet, but I should try to make one so that I know it's possible.
Finally, someone answered my
Question of the Week! Isn't it ironic that the first one that gets
answered is the one asking why nobody answers them? In case I get
any other responses over the next 24 hours, I'll post it on here tomorrow.
I could make it a separate section, a sort of Question and Answer page.
There's a new twist to my Dragonmech
trilogy in Drakan. Now, the final enemy will be a crystal on top
of a tower, but this one will be really powerful. It fires shots
which explode into rings of fire and devastate the land. I already
have one mysteriously appear in the desert, and there will be one in the
forest, too. When you get to the mountain, you will see where the
shots are coming from. There's going to be a new dragon weapon as
well: the Laser. Now the dragonmech will be able to fire a continuous
energy stream, but you won't get it until the mountain. As for my
progress so far... I'm about halfway done with object placement in the
desert, and then I have to make the cave connecting to the forest level.
I don't know what special effect I'll use when the dragonmech gains flight
powers, but it doesn't really matter.
Since the Sparrow's Nest will
be closing down on the 23rd, I thought I might do something as a tribute
to such a great effort. I've decided that, from today to the 23rd,
I'll temporarily change the look of this page so it looks more like the
Sparrow's Nest. I've always enjoyed reading that page every day.
Sparrowslain, you will be missed.
I got some much-needed rest today,
but not before working a little on my Dragonmech Desert level for Drakan.
Mostly I'm just placing enemies and walls now, and making sure Rynn can't
get stuck anywhere. I've recorded the third music track used in the
trilogy, this time off Deep Forest III: Comparsa, which has fewer ambient
tracks than the other two CDs. My level is turning out okay.
It's still a lot like my other single player one, but there's a lot more
atmosphere this time, as well as some cool new extras. I think the
metallic dragon will be the main draw of this level set.
Well, this is it. The final
weekend before the Great Mock UN Summit Thing. I've got to get psyched
for it, and dress up in proper attire, but all the psyching in the world
won't make up for the fact that our group doesn't really have a finished
speech yet. At least from what I've heard, it doesn't, but we haven't
gotten to meet for enough time to tell. The most I can do now is
do the best I can with my position and role in the roundtable.
Some Quake 3 reviews are out
now. Gamespot gave it a 9.2, knocking it mostly for the sound and
lack of innovation, but seeing it as a good instance of what it is: a pure
deathmatch game. While simple deathmatch may be fine for some people,
most are ready for new experiences. The Gamecenter review, which
gave it 7 out of 10, recognizes this, and it also addresses some issues
with high system requirements and multiplayer problems. Let me give
you my take on this. Quake 3 doesn't really offer the variety expected
of a multiplayer-based game, and it fails to incorporate user-made mods
from Quake 1 and 2, of which there are plenty. Even the Capture the
Flag game is minimal and missing some elements. I promised myself
I wouldn't get myself sucked into the big argument over whether Quake 3
or Unreal Tournament is better, but I find myself going back to the UT
demo more often.
There wasn't any time for me
to do any computer game-related stuff today. I had to write my position
letter for the roundtable and get all the Web stuff ready for that big
project. I'm just glad it's done now. I met with the other
environmental activists today, and we don't really have a comprehensive
speech put together yet. Hopefully it will get done by tomorrow,
or else we'll miss out on a big part of our grade. We're all stressed
out over this, and we've been getting edgy again. I got the death
statistics for my population project in AP Environmental Science, and now
I just have to graph those over the weekend. Other than that, I'll
have more time to work on this page, my Drakan levels, and maybe something
for Unreal Tournament.
I haven't been playing Drakan
online lately, but today I went to the server list to see how many people
were playing. There were only 4 servers with 5 people total who were
playing. Compare that to Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena, which
have about 500 servers average, many of them full. I hardly ever
see anyone I don't recognize playing Drakan, so it's not drawing in new
people. The real fun of Drakan is in the single player, but I haven't
seen too many levels for that. I remember that when Doom was popular,
there were hundreds of single player levels being made for it. You
know, I may just have to accept the fact that Drakan is fading away and
there's nothing I can do about it. I just hope the new mods people
say they're making come through in the end.
Today, I looked up some statistics
of the country of Guatemala. The average number of children per woman
that are born there is 4.5. That's a lot of kids, and it's causing
the population to rise rapidly, and of course that means land wil need
to be cleared to make room. The problem is that the land is part
of the rainforest, which has the most diverse plant and animal species
on Earth. A few of those species may be the key to finding new cures
for diseases like AIDS, but if the rainforest keeps being cleared, those
species might go extinct. As a Guatemalan environmental activist
(which is my position in the roundtable), that will be my main topic.
I'm just having too much fun
with the Unreal Tournament demo. I'm getting the full game for christmas,
but until then, I think the demo can hold my attention. The Gamespot
review was up today: 9.4 out of 10. And Gamespot is a tough reviewer.
They haven't rated Quake 3 Arena yet, but I think it'll score somewhere
around 8.5 because it's a good multiplayer game but there's not as much
potential for mods and it's similar to Quake 2 multiplayer. Unreal
Tournament has two new features: Domination, where your team tries to control
three points on a map for longer than the other team; and Assault, where
you take turns attacking and defending targets and see who does it better.
There's no Assault map in the demo, but it sounds kind of cool. Then,
of course, there are the old staples of multiplayer shooters: Deathmatch,
Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag.
We're still doing the preparation
for the population growth mock UN summit, which they have called a roundtable.
I had never heard of that term before, but there are a lot of weird terms
I had never known before I went to the School of Environmental Studies.
Whenever we have a group discussion it's called a jigsaw. A discussion
in which we take turns is called a Socratic seminar. There are also
two areas of the school called the forum and the centrum. I'd heard
of forums before, but this one was actually the lunchroom. The centrum
was really the main teaching area of the big group, but I guess "centrum"
sounds fancier or more academic or something.
There's a little trick you can
pull with the translocator in Unreal Tournament, and it goes back to the
old days of Doom. While it's not really as useful as others, it's
kind of fun. You can fire the translocator in the direction of opponents,
and when they step onto the same area as the disc, teleport into them and
they will be telefragged! It's hard to pull off, but if you can dominate
a match using only the translocator against the highest difficulty AI players,
then you have real skill. It's a nice challenge.
I'm really sorry about not having
yesterday's update ready. I won't fall behind, though, and I'll always
have something new for every day I'm here at home. That brings me
to my next topic: the Ethereal Light story. I'm going to put that
on hold for a while because I really need to think of some new ideas for
it. It needs fine tuning and inspiration to make it seem more captivating
and draw in the readers. Also, if you can believe this - the main
element of the story, and quite possibly the reason I started writing it
in the first place, has not been explored at all! That's right, the
idea of multiple paths that converge on a few key points was not even a
part of Ethereal Light. I guess that would have been even more confusing,
though.
Ever since I listened to the
first Deep Forest CD and watched a video about them and how they mixed
their own techno style with the music of an African tribe, I've been thinking
about how little people know about other cultures, and how people don't
really seem to care. And then I think about TV, and all the lame
copycat shows out there, the 100 apartment sitcoms that are all the same,
and how the few good shows that break any sort of standard are shot down
after one season. I've already mentioned Roar, the fresh, daring
show about the Irish rebellion against Roman conquest during the fifth
and sixth centuries. Maybe it was too expensive to make or something.
I'm thinking about starting a project called Zero Visibility, which would
focus on social and ethnic groups that have very little, if any, representation
in mainstream American culture. My goal is not to thrust these groups
into the spotlight or exploit them. That has been tried before, and
it has failed miserably since people think that everything they haven't
seen before is just a fad, or it scares them and they try to silence it.
I only want to find out more about the diversity of planet Earth, and create
a resource for others who would like to do the same. My only problem
is finding out where to begin. Perhaps, after my Costa Rica trip,
I'll start with some examples of the culture I see there, and I'll add
to that as I find out more.
I finished my Yellow Raft/Ceremony
paper today, late at night, after working on a top secret web page project
for school. It's a site about my position as a Guatemalan environmental
activist, and it'll be up here as soon as it's finished. I've always
made my assignments into web features to make up for lack of other useful
content. I completed the Abstracts 1 and 2, and I need to have 2
other things done by tomorrow.
Today, I saw the movie The Green
Mile, which was based on the Stephen King series of the same name.
It was such a good movie. I haven't read the books, so I couldn't
really give a comparison, but they did a good job with the movie.
It didn't rely on special effects like Titanic, but the special effects
in The Green Mile weren't bad. The atmosphere, the characters, and
the story were all incredible. Another movie I want to see is Toy
Story 2, which also has Tom Hanks in it. Everyone seemed to like
that movie.
I played more of the Unreal Tournament
demo today. That is such a great game. The AI is good, and
it even has a few human imperfections at lower difficulties. I noticed
that sometimes it used the strategy of firing several slower-moving shots
to the side of the opponents so they might run into one of them.
I use that strategy all the time against players who like to dodge, even
though it hardly ever works. One of my favorite weapons is the Pulse
Rifle, because of the beam attack. It's a lot like Quake 3's lightning
gun, which is cool too. The shock rifle is another good weapon because
it is so versatile. It's a railgun, it's a plasma cannon, and it's
a BFG 9000, all rolled into one! But if you want a Quake 3 style
railgun, go with the InstaGib Deathmatch game. It'll keep you watching
your back.
I've been playing some more Drakan
multiplayer now that everything's cooled down, and it's still fun.
There aren't as many levels being made as there used to be, but some people
say they are working on some really good ones. There's one called
Days of Glory that I've seen being tested for a few weeks now, and it looks
like they're working hard on it. I'm still working on my Dragonmech
Trilogy, which is a series of single player levels with a metallic dragon
who gains flying abilities on the second level. Also of note is Catalyst's
new mod, which still remains under wraps.
A pox on me! In all my
forgetfulness, I didn't think to change the line at the very bottom of
this page for this week. It's just a detail, but every little thing
counts, sort of like in poetry. I've been really out of it for the
past few days, but it gets better on the weekends. However, today
I took a look at that book A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, and I kind
of know now why my school assigned it to the juniors. It's a story
about an inexperienced, rude guy who walks the Appalachian trail, and supposedly
it's very insightful, but it didn't really seem that way to me.
I finally downloaded the Quake
3 demo. Not the demo test, not the tech pre-alpha release, but the
actual demo. Overall, I'd have to say it's an okay game, but it's
not really cutting edge. It's just Quake 1 and 2 deathmatch with
better graphics. And about those so-called "curved surfaces" - they're
not so much. The surfaces are replaced with polygons in the renderer,
so it's really nothing you couldn't do with any other game. It's
actually just a form of texture compression in the BSP files. You
see, no video card on the market today, at least none used for games, can
render actual splines in real time. As for the gameplay, it seemed
like there was less variety than other games, like UT. There were
only 4 levels with predetermined scenarios, and none of the weapons have
any kind of secondary fire mode, so that aspect is limited as well.
The Quake 3 demo had more models than the UT demo, and they even said the
name of the character model as it entered the game, but that's not such
a big deal in my opinion. Q3 delivers on good old-fashioned deathmatch,
but it's nothing you haven't seen before.
It's the holiday rush, for both
my house and everywhere else. My parents are running around trying
to find gifts for everyone, and then there's the whole ordeal of wrapping
them up and sending them off. I, however, have a huge load of school
stuff to worry about over the course of the next week. We have to
do another big, ambitious project for AP Environmental Science involving
statistics about death rates. I'm supposed to go visit cemetaries
and look at obituary pages. What a big pile of fun that'll be!
Then there's that mock UN summit hanging over my head. I'm supposed
to have the menu page of the Guatemala Environmental Activist web page
done by tomorrow, so it's a good thing I know how to make web pages.
As you might know if you've been
reading this page, the topic of alienation has come up a lot in my school
assignments for literature. Well, it's also come up in my life, whether
I want it to or not. Like, at lunch yesterday I said "You know, I
think smoking is just a dumb habit", and they all laughed at me and told
me I say the most stupid things they've ever heard. And they don't
even smoke, either. All right, the actual words I used may have been
slightly different from what I put on here, but the effect was the same:
smoking is stupid. I think no matter how you say that, it sounds
like a good truth, and if you think otherwise then you obviously haven't
done research. Smoking has no good effects, only bad, on your health
and also on your money. You become a slave to the tobacco companies,
and it's never fun to be a slave.
While surfing the web, looking
around some game-related sites, my Internet connection stopped and wouldn't
work again. This is not the first time this has happened, but the
other time was when I accidentally left it on all night and it used up
my time for that day. I don't think that's what happened today, though,
and it may not connect even past midnight. You might not even see
this page today, but you're not missing much. It's just the same
old school stuff.
We're doing a mock UN summit
later this month, about the issue of population growth. It is estimated
that by the year 2040, the world population will double. The highest
growth is in Africa and Asia, where large families are common and more
people live in poverty. I play the part of an environmental activist
from Guatemala, and my position is that the high population growth rate
will be harmful to the environment and deplete resources. I'm thinking
of using the rainforest as an example of a resource which is being destroyed
to grow crops and mine metals.
If you still remember that I'm
making a trilogy of single player Drakan levels, you may want to know that
I worked on my Dragonmech Desert level. I still can't get the walls
to lower when I defeat the crimson knight, but I think I'll do something
else besides that. There's also a knight that throws fireballs, but
since the size is scaled up, it has the tendency to hop up the mountain.
The level is turning out just like my Crossroads project, but I'll make
the Forest different from that style. It'll have more dragon flight
and cavern exploration. As for the Mountain, only time will tell.
I finally finished Yellow Raft
today, and now all I have to do is type up a rough draft of my literary
analysis essay about it. Piece of cake: I'll just write stuff tonight
and brainstorm until my brain gives out. That's the thing about rough
drafts - you don't have to think much about what you're writing, and if
one of your ideas is good, more power to you. I did pay the price
for staying up so late yesterday, though. This morning, I couldn't
get out of bed, despite having both a buzzer and radio alarm thundering
at an unbearable level. Sometimes I think... sigh... sleep
might be the answer. Like every human being, and every animal, I
require some time to rejuvenate.
I've had it with the entire online
community atmosphere. It's too full of people hating each other and
doing everything out of spite. Also, the chat is nearly incomprehensible
if you don't know what to look for. The whole thing operates on a
time warp system anyway. I realize I can't do anything about that,
but it's all so pointless. From now on, all my Drakan attention will
be focused on my single player level rather than anything in multiplayer,
so you will not see me on the servers as much as before.
Absolutely nothing happened today.
I went to school and did some useless stuff, like listen to talks and finish
up the last of the derivatives. But I didn't even have math! However...
it seems that my procrastination has finally caught up with me. I've
put off my Yellow Raft assignment, and now I'm not even done with the book.
I'm supposed to have written a rough draft of a paper comparing it to Ceremony.
It's 1:15 in the morning now on a school night, and I've given up on that
homework. It's just too much for my brain to handle now that it's
turning into jelly from lack of sleep.
Even though I stupidly put off
the book reading, I still played a little Drakan online. I got the
chance to test out a level with weapons based on Final Fantasy VII.
There was a collection of various swords, staffs, and blades from the game,
and they all used new models made from existing Drakan objects. Now,
if only the multiplayer game weren't so buggy all the time, it would be
so cool.
Whew! I just did four pages
of calculus problems and now my brain is about to explode! I had
two weeks to do them, and the teacher said "Whatever you do, don't put
them off to do all at once," but here I go and disregard that advice.
Ah, the fine art of procrastination. Someday it's going to catch
up to me and I'll pay dearly for my lethargy. But now, that's one
more assignment nearly done... but tomorrow, I have to write a big paper
on the book A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, remember that? I haven't
even finished the book yet! I'd like to say that's because I've had
too much stuff to do for school, and that's partly right, but I also play
Drakan multiplayer a lot. It's an addiction, but I'm just about to
get over it.
When I visited Surreal-News.com
to ask a question about the modeler, it crashed my browser. I use
Netscape 4.6, which I find to be better than Internet Explorer, especially
because if I switched to Frontpage to write this page, it would be incompatible
with the Composer format. Anyway, it's really annoying how Surreal-News.com
does that. I think it may have something to do with the advertising,
because I've noticed other pages that do that. It doesn't really
crash per se, it just goes into a state of limbo where links don't work
and when you close all the browser windows, the browser itself doesn't
close.
Success! My Shock Arena
level is now available from my Drakan links page, and I got Rynn to run
faster. Since I couldn't figure out how to change Rynn's running
speed from the database, I found another solution. I made it so that
Rynn automatically uses a speed potion when she respawns, and it lasts
forever. And yes, I can say Rynn's name here because it's December
and the other word is in the November section, so nobody will accidentally
come here looking for a certain texture replacement. In Drakan MP
today, which still has very few people, I let some other people try Shock
Arena because they were bored with the other level, and they all said it
was a good, fun level. But it still can't hold a candle to the great
Ice Arena. That level is one of the best, even better than the levels
that come with the game!
As you can see, it's not 7:00
to 8:00 that I'm writing this. It's 2:00 in the morning... again!
I just can't break this cycle of destruction. And tomorrow I have
so much to do, and I put it off yet again. But this page isn't for
whining, so I'll just try to be more diligent and get things done without
the fanfare.
I'm not talking professional
help, although that is something to consider. I'm talking about help
with writing this page. Maybe I should send the Ethereal Light writings
to someone else so they can give me some advice on where to take the story.
Right now, I'm sorry to say this, but I may be running out of ideas for
it! There's only so much you can do with a journey through the desert...
unless I keep adding new stuff. But like I said, it's 2:00 in the
morning, and new stuff isn't coming to me very fast.
Well, I've hit kind of a snag
while making my InstaGib level (now called the Shock Arena). It seems
I don't know how to make Rynn run faster in multiplayer - even though it
works on other user-made levels, it doesn't work on mine. So I've
been asking people how to do it, and if they don't know, I'll ask someone
at Surreal. Then, it's time to work on the Dragonmech trilogy once
more.
Drakan's multiplayer was never
very popular, and now it may have reached its twilight. There are
usually around 12 to 15 people on the servers, mostly the same people,
playing the ground combat game, but tonight I saw nobody at the usual hangouts.
And by "usual" I mean the Surreal and Psygnosis servers. There's
also one run by an absentee player, and another one run by fans of Final
Fantasy, but those weren't there tonight. I'll always have fond memories
of playing that game. Even if it crashed a lot and there was a ton
of lag, it was never about domination anyway. We are such a small
community that we come to know each other. That's why the forums
are still going strong. There are very few new people posting messages
there, but we've found it a good place to talk about things. We'll
probably move on sometime now. When I get Unreal Tournament, most
of my time will be spent playing and making levels and mutators for it
rather than doing more Drakan stuff. So, I'd better get finished
with my current projects quickly if I want them to be seen at all.
I always wait until the final
hours of the night to write this page and add to my story. Now it's
gotten to where I'm too tired to write anything meaningful, or make it
sound coherent. Also, I haven't been keeping up with my email, and
I should try to do that. So tomorrow, I'll see what it's like to
update this thing at 8:00 or 9:00 in the evening instead of 2:30 in the
morning. Sorry, that's about it for now. I'll try to make up
something fresh tomorrow.
There's an idea for Drakan that
I've always wanted to try. It's a version of Unreal Tournament's
InstaGib mutator, where each player is equipped with a superpowered shock
rifle that explodes enemies in one shot. I've taken that idea and
made a Drakan level that uses the same weapon. Of course, it's a
ground multiplayer level, like most of the others, but this is more of
a different idea. I'll have the level ready by tomorrow, because
it was so simple to make, so check it out if you're interested.
I'm done with my Agroecology
unit now. It was only seven days, but I think I learned a lot about
sustainable farming. Now I have a hundred math problems to do for
calculus. It's a sheet of derivatives I have to find. What
fun! I'm going to miss that Agroecology class. I never thought
I could have any interest in farming, because that always seemed like something
for other people who weren't familiar with computers or technology.
But technology is a big part of the agricultural world now. I guess
all things progress in that way.
I don't really have an update
today. I spent most of my time working on my final project for Agroecology.
Our class has to bring in some stuff for a potluck lunch tomorrow, but
I didn't have time to make anything special for that. Hopefully,
my classmates won't mind having crackers and sesame sticks. I got
them from an organic foods co-op, so at least I have that going for me.
Since there's no real news, here's the first paragraph of my report:
In the business of agriculture,
many new sciences have been implemented to aid in the process of farming
and harvesting crops. One of those sciences is genetic engineering,
and it is one of the most controversial topics in agriculture today.
New crops, such as ones that create their own pesticides and ones that
can resist certain herbicides, are the product of genetic engineering.
These new crops have many benefits, but there are also risks, some less
obvious than others, lurking below the surface.
Please accept my humble apology
for that useless non-content filler. Tomorrow night is not a school
night, so I'll have more time to get things done for this site. As
for now, it's time to get some sleep. I stopped waking up in the
morning when my normal alarm went off, so now I have a buzzer alarm go
off at the same time. It is annoying to no end.