After the long summer break (July 2007 - fall 2007), the long XMas break and the time I needed to overcome the disappointment of UT3, I am now back again.
How big were our hopes about UT3! We all thought it would bring the UT99 and UT2k4 Community together. But then...
UT3 wasn't that bad, the game play was awesome imo, the maps were good enough, it really didn't need a top of the notch High-End computer to run smoothly, (well it doesn't run on a 4 year old computer though, but none of the previous UT-Games did when they were released).
But everything else was just awful: the server browser, missing options, and last but not least the Gamespy-crap. The game was just not finished, far from it.
Epic missed a chance to release another top game, which could give us another 4-5 years of real multiplayer fun.
As I write this, it seems competitive UT3 gaming is dead.

But there is also a little hope.
The UT2k4 iMix-Cup  seems to resuscitate some of the old instagib players again. iLL have signed up with about 45 other clans.
iLL haven’t played any official match since about 8 months. Most of our players didn't play at all since then. But it didn't need much work to convince them to play in the cup.
Everyone remembered the fun we had playing competitive instagib, including the flaming, the displeasing servertests, the laming and assrunning and the other awful things that happened, which fortunately never crossed the line to being really ugly but gave the whole thing the extra touch of being some serious fun (fun without any flaws can't be serious fun, can it?)

Well I am looking forward to play again with my team-mates, and you can maybe look forward to some more updates on this blog.



Have fun!

I made til now a few designs and banners for this site. The idea to use a different design came up when I thought about a text for a amsg to advertise my site on IRC. I hadnt a good idea, so I putted a pink fluffy bunny in the header and had an interesting amsg: "Evil pink fluffy bunny took over Joshua's Place!"
Well, I thought then it would be a good idea to make a unique design for every week. I wont do that, because I just havent the time nor the ideas for a new design every week, but from time to time the design will change. In case you miss some of the designs, I added a gallery in the link section.
Or just click here.

In a series of interviews, I want to introduce some of the known (and maybe unknown) pixel artists from the UT2k4 scene.
The first is Chaoskind from the Clan xtremeSexy. His logos graced some of the Clanbase cup pages.
We made the interview in german and I translated it afterwards, so every english spelling or grammar mistakes are mine.

Ok, first the usual stuff, tell us something about yourself (age, hoobies, Job).


I think your nick is really cool, how did you come up with it?


How you came up with designing cup-logos?


What do you think about the new logo format (177x177 pixel) which CB introduced with the move to the new provider?


Which graphic software do you use?


It seems some of your designs are inspired by Ads, where else do you find your ideas?


Do you scribble your drafts first on paper, or do you start direct on the computer?


I noticed the unusual shapes of some of your logos, you dont like rectangles?


Who did the design of your clans website ?
And this one?


At the iCTF OC Spring 2006 were a few logos which were, well, exceptional e.g. the cow on the scooter (by [re°LeKaiM]), or the paint drawing by [EGC-i]4WD. The Supervisor in charge, ArPharazon decided himself about the cup logo.
Do you think, no matter what kind of logos are sended in, the community should decide what logo they want for their cup?
Or should the logo match some level of quality (whoever wants to decide that)?


And finally the question for the female readers: Are you really xtreme sexy?



Thank you for the interview.

And these are my favorites from Chaoskind.

Clanbase iTDM OpenCup Spring 2007 is almost over. And again it was running smooth and without any mayor trouble (at least none visible in public). And again did Twiyah a great job as a supervisor (not to forget her co-supervisor Scapegoat). So it is a honor for me to dedicate this weeks Joshua's Place-Site Design to Twiyah.

For me this cup was fun (most of the time). I hadnt played iTDM for a while and thought it would be a good addition and a good training for the iCTF cup (which is still my favorite gametype). So iLL didnt any praccy nor put too much effort in any tactics. (Yui made usually some ad-hoc tactics 2 minutes before gamestart.) Anyway, we came til the last four, and lost vs OCBC in the bronce final (which did great in their first CB cup). It was a great success for us and maybe we will back in next Cup again.

After I had my new PC, the first thing I did was buying and playing all the games I didnt play on my old PC, because I was afraid there werent running smooth enough there. I kept back for this reason Doom3, Quake4, Prey and F.E.A.R.
Now I am through all of them. You may have played these games a while ago, or not at all. So let me tell you about my impressions of these games. I will make it short and only use a few sentences a game.

Doom3
Looks nice.
Enemies coming from dark corners, you shot them, you have to find a key card for the next closed door. Thats it. Becomes really boring after 2 hours of playing. Always the same. Not scary at all.

Quake4
First impression, omg, crap graphics. The first level is outside and the skybox looks like in HL1! Noobish! But, gameplay is much better and interesting than in Doom3. Inside graphics looks great and is not that dark like Doom3.
I enjoyed it. I may play it again, someday.

Prey
Awesome start. After 10min you totally in that game. Graphics is awesome (again Doom3-engine), much better than both before mentioned games.
Level design is really good, with some nice gravity effects and portals. In some levels you get a really good impression of the huge dimensions that enemy spaceship has. The story is a bit plain and simple, but still more complex than D3 or Q4. I will definitely play it again.

F.E.A.R.
What to tell? Awesome graphics, really good story (the little girl Alma was inspired by The Ring), very good AI. Wicked sound and music. Needs a very fast PC!
Well one little flaw is imo the layout of the ‘inside building’ maps. The game designer should really go in some real buildings, and they will notice that buildings usually not build like labyrinths.

Conclusion:
Four hyped FPS games. Only Doom3 was disappointing. The rest was worth buying. I only payed F.E.A.R. (Gold Edition) the full price, the rest were budged versions and about 10€ each.
The multiplayer parts I havent tested yet.

Well, a long time ago I also did some experiments with Flash (really simple ones, though). For my first clan MHC I made a little intro for the website.
The flash itself is really simple and only shows the making of the new MHC logo. The music I mixed from some free loops with the programm MusicMaker. The voices are computer generated and are spelling MHC in different languages.
I dont remember the website where I generated them, it was some voice generation software which you could try out online.

I made another 2 Flash for my domain Weltgewissen.de. The text is in german. You can find them here and here.

Yesterday I played my first serious Moso-Match.
OMG, that was really fun. Its just turning off your brain and try to surrive. In the match I had no clue what my nor what the team score was.
I was totally absorbed from the game. Besides TS, I was listening to Bob Marley, I tell you that is the perfect Soundtrack for that gametype.
Awesome!

This article in the series about my cup logos is about the evolution of a logo.
As I already told you, I missed the spring cup logos contests because my computer was broken. Now with my new High-End PC (Intel Dual Core E6600 @ 2.88 GHz, 2GByte Ram, Raid 0, Geforce 8800 GTS @ 550/900MHz) its even more fun working with graphic programs. (Btw, all programs on my PC are legal, I even bought Photoshop which is quite expensive).
Anyway, so my PC was ready and a new Cup was announced, the Instagib Mix cup. So, a new chance to make a logo. (As I told in another post, I like to work on graphix with a goal in mind)
I fired up Xara (a vector drawing program, like Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator, but smaller, faster, cheaper and imo easier to use). I do my drafts always with Xara or with a pencil and a sheet of paper.

So, Mix-Cup, Instagib, hmm, any ideas…. Nope!
...iBR, iTDM, iCTF, iDDOM, 4 Gametypes, a graphical representation of each gametype just wouldnt fit in the limit of 31329 pixels (177×177 that was the restriction). Well after some playing around with Xara and Photoshop my first draft was done:

Ok, needed some constructive critics, so I posted it on our members channel:

<Yui`> Should have some more summer elements
<nWoiLL^cLe0> a bit more sunflower yellow or something :)

Aha, ok, it was to dark and dull, idd, a bit more summer wouldnt do any harm, on the contrary!
Next try:

<nWoiLL^cLe0> i like this one more
<nWoiLL^cLe0> maybe a bit brighter yellow?

Aha, still not enough summer! Ok, then a bit exaggeration (inspired a bit by the discussion about the Climate Catastrophe)

<nWoiLL^cLe0> ah looks really nice this one Joshua
<Joshua> :D
<Joshua> its sunny
<nWoiLL^cLe0> hahaha idd
<Yui`> way better!
<Yui`> I like it! :)

Yes, I am on the right way. After a few more tips from our beloved CL kHad4FF1 and some fine tuning I came up with my final piece of work.

This was also the one I sended in. Here you have them all: Cup logos
No.5 from oLLipop won. I liked most No.3 from DeV, if he would have choosen an other font, and a more decent text effect it would have been great.

Afterwards I played a bit more arround with some ideas, but none of them seemed worth enough for me to send them in, I show them here anyway.

I reworked the whole design of the site.
As a basic I used the known design Kubrik from Michael Heilemann.
A port to bBlog was already made from Raefer Gabriel.
I just reworked the graphics for the background, the colors and fonts in the css, and made some slight changes on the layout.
I also had to rework some html-code so that the site is Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional.
The php-code for the bBlog plug-in Textile v2 from Dean Allen has to be reworked as well, to add the alt-attribute to the image-tag.

Do you know that feeling? All around you are talking about something, and it seems they are really know what they are talking about, and you are anxious to ask, because they are all acting so… determined, so convincing, as if there is not the slightest doubt that the issue they are talking about really exists?
I have this with the word ‘lame’.
“He is playing lame!” “How lame!”
It seems, some can see ‘lameness’ in a second, and are willing to tell their observation immediatley the whole world.
I dared a few times to ask: What is lame? How do you decide what is lame and what is not?
In the context of iCTF I always get the same answers: Assrunning is lame, ofc! And Massdef! Ow and Midlaming as well, or iTDMing.
After some investigations I found out that they very often silently add: ‘but only when the others do it!’
iCTF is a tactical game, some play defensive, some offensive.
That may change during a game. Some may even assrun, as ‘preventive defense’, or just to piss the attacker off, so they lose their focus. Some do this by tactical consideration others just by instinct, or because they didnt know how else to play.
All this, massdef, assruning, midlaming etc. are tactical instruments for reaching the goal: Get their flag, and keep the own save.
I honestly dont understand what all that whinning about laming is about.
I like iCTF because its a team game, a tactical game. It needs some intelligence, some tactical thinking, flexibilty, courage to try something new, cojones to mass attack vs a really defensive clan.
I think the whining about lameness comes mainly from the unwillingness to change the own style of playing, the inability to adapt the own tactics to the current opponent. Some just have developed a tactic for a certain map, without even taking into consideration the dynamics of the game, or that the opponent not act and react as expected. (and that is lame, ofc)
Some are just to unflexible, and wanna play like they always have played.

Ow, btw, here my definition of lameness:
Playing unfair, bending the rules, lack of sportmanship, cheating. That is lame.