The Wheel Weaves As The Wheel Wills - eXoR[Troopers] - 05th Sep 2003
Three weeks ago, me, my sister, little brother and parents set on a journey that would take us to Italy, where we’d have our vacation and relax for two weeks. The good part was sun, water, wind, waves and lots of spare time. The bad part of it was no PC and no Troopers for two weeks. Ouch.
So, I did what everyone does who goes on vacation and has to amuse himself without a PC. I loaded up on books. My trip to the local library resulted in two titles from Tom Clancy’s Net Force series, Tom Clancy’s “The Hunt for Red October”, two detective thrillers from Michael Connely and to top it off, the first episode of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series: “The Eye of the World”.
The first book I read was that from Micheal Connely. It was immediately followed by the Net Force books from Tom Clancy, a book that my sister brought and then Red October. I put the Eye of the World all the way back, somewhat reluctant to start in the 800 pages long English book that I brought (the others were all in Dutch). But then, halfway into our vacation, I ran out of proper books. The time had come to read The Eye of the World. After a somewhat bizarre prologue and casual first set of chapters, the story pulled me in when Trollocs invade the farming village of Two Rivers. It didn’t let me go until I finished it only two days after, leaving me behind with a mix of feelings: a sense of completion that I had finished the book, amazement of the thickly woven plot and finally a deep regret that I didn’t pick up more books from the series when I had been at the library 10 days earlier. The series had me, and there was no going back.
I returned from vacation past Thursday. I picked up parts two and three from the series not long after, and am currently working my way through “The Great Hunt”. I take my hat off to Robert Jordan, who in my opinion has managed to surpass the great Tolkien in the epic fantasy genre. Since there are currently eleven parts to the series, it’ll be a long time until I’ll be able to let go of the thrilling stories of Aes Sedai, Myrddraal and above all Rand al’Thor.
Until so far the praise for the Wheel of Time. In case you’re wondering: no, I wasn’t paid to write up the story above. You’ll no doubt be wondering when the Troopers news is coming. Don’t forget that patience is a virtue. But if you’re still reading, you’ve shown enough.
We’re currently testing Troopers version 6.50 with our beta team. The code has come a long way since the demo version and is more stable and reliable now. Code wise, we’re almost ready to do the public patch.
One of the biggest changes that colored the last beta patch was the addition of a whole new breathing system for use with the A280 scope. As you’ve been able to read in my previous .plan updates, the A280 now fires instant hit beams when in zoomed mode (which I have to say, MadNad has produced absolutely awesome effects for). In previous builds, weapon bob was applied directly to the view of the scope, making it move in a rotated figure 8 like motion. Since that wasn’t perceived to be realistic or believable enough, it was supplemented with a breathing system based on Ghost Enigma’s real world experience with guns. When you enable the scope, you will be able to hear your character breathing. Breathe in, and the view slightly moves up. Breathe out, and it moves down again. It is then still for as long as the character can hold its breath until he has to breathe again. Depending on the actions you’ve just been performing, your character will have a certain breathing frequency. If you engage the scope right after bunny hopping around, you will breathe very fast and it will heavily affect your aim. The longer you stay idle, the slower your breathing will get and the effect on your aiming will lessen. If you crouch, you create a more stable position for yourself to shoot from and your aim will be steadier. This system is currently being tested, but it has been received very well by the team.
Other things I have been doing include: crouch toggle, zoom toggle, improving bot AI, fixing ammo pickup problems, improving spectating, fixing menu’s and improving net efficiency for the target identification system.
Expect more updates next week, when I will hopefully be receiving my new Radeon 9700 Pro. The Light send you like what’s coming.
Info's over at www.wheeloftime.com. Since it was released in 1999 it's EXTREMELY cheap now, and well worth the price (even though the weapon system will take time getting used to)[/end plug] ;)
Asha Man
Yoshiro - - 08th Sep 2003 02:05
Oh yea if you get to book 7 or 8 you get to read about the new male aes sedai, but they are called Asha man ;P
There are no Male Aes Sedia for over 1000 years and the breaking of the world
Yoshiro - - 08th Sep 2003 02:05
hehe I've read all the books 3 times. So if you have any questions about the series pop em to me. I just killed my computer so I"m working of a secondary connection here.
I'm A Male Aei Sedai You know ;)
MythOpus - - 06th Sep 2003 00:42
Man I just finished the Great Hunt and i must say... it was AWESOME !
I hope i like the new sniping tweaks... Light I hope we all like it ;)
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