First Unreal Tournament 2003 patch

The first patch for Unreal Tournament 2003 is out. It fixes a number of issues I can attest to:

• reduced minigun spin up time slightly - I thought this was a problem from when I first tried the demo...
• made shock beam effect thicker - good, the shock beam in the first Unreal Tournament was so much beefier, the new one is wimpy.
• fixed redeemer point blank shots - I've seen this They just blow up and don't hurt anything
• straightened lightning bolt (purely visual change to make it easier to see where you're shooting) - good
• added mouse acceleration for improved fine aiming control. Can be turned on by adding the following line to the [Engine.PlayerInput] section in user.ini: MouseAccelThreshold=+100.0 - cool, I gotta try this.
• assault grenade faster minimum muzzle velocity - good, if you don't save up first they just sort of fall right in front of you and suck
• rocket launcher max ammo now 30 - that's a big change
• improved instagib beams - see above
• no shooting through people in classic instagib (just like it was in UT), you can still shoot through them in zoom instagib - aww, I killed two people with one shot once
• typed messages stay up on HUD longer - thank you!
• Added 'Server Browser' button in-game so you can view servers/chat without leaving game. - good

But they still haven't added my number one desired feature. They got rid of the Frags Per Hour measurement and I want it back!! FPH is so important... if you get to a server late, but you kick ass, you can have a higher FPH than the winner and still get a little victory for yourself. It's not as good as winning, but it's something. Otherwise, your first round is pretty much wasted because you're probably not going to win. And if you do win, people don't necessarily know how good that is because it doesn't show that your FPH was 400 while the next best person was like 180.

Permalink | Comments? | id 3001

23:34 (utc-5)

 

I feel incomplete if I watch Friends and don't clap during the theme song. You know what I'm talking about! I feel even worse if I don't get a good clap though.

Whoa! Post number 3000!

Permalink | 1 Comment | id 3000

23:04 (utc-5)
edited: 23:04 (utc-5)

 

Perl Topicalizers and naming

Via the Perl.com newsletter, first, an article on topicalizers:

A few concepts in Perl 6 are strange at first sight. They seem hard to understand, but it's only because they're new and different. They aren't deep mystical concepts known only to Tibetan lamas. Anyone can understand them, but it helps to start with a common-sense explanation.

This article looks at the concepts of "topic" and "topicalizer". The words aren't quotes from a particularly nasty bit of Vogon poetry. They're actually common terms from the field of linguistics ... which some might say is even worse. Still, the best way to understand topic in Perl is to understand its source.

Also, a quickie on library and software naming from Simon Cozens.

Permalink | Comments? | Tags: Programming | id 2999

22:25 (utc-5)

 

Backlinking summary

Via dive into mark, The Web's Missing Links. All neat stuff - not much to comment on, just read the (short) article.

Programmers have tinkered with solutions to this problem since the early days of the Web. But interest in solving it has picked up recently with the spread of weblogs, most of which are personal sites full of links and commentary. In the last two to three years, hundreds of thousands of netizens have created weblogs to chronicle their daily lives, discuss the latest news, or share their expertise in their chosen fields. Many webloggers link to each other's entries, creating threads of conversation scattered across multiple sites and, consequently, a new demand for "backlinks" to see who is linking to what.

Permalink | Comments? | id 2998

21:58 (utc-5)

 

Phoenix 0.4

Yay, Phoenix 0.4 has been released.

Permalink | 2 Comments | id 2997

00:43 (utc-5)