I’ve completed the initial design for VM/Lua’s movement commands. As you’ll see in this video, they will be handy for getting around maps without completing them in a linear fashion (very important if you value your time). Sorry in advance if you can’t play flash movies :C but I think you can download from the title link as an mp4 and play that.

I mention a “co-op Lua map” or something during the video; by this, I actually meant to say that you could be running the VM script in a co-op setting, so you can texture with some friends.

Back in the old days of alt.games.marathon, things could get pretty hairy. There were no moderators, and some of the greatest trolls (jht) and drama llamas (???) in Marathon history were posting messages right next to each other. Flame wars were bound to happen.

Some time ago, Wrk and I started looking for such gems. Here’s my favorite; it puts almost anything in Pfhorums to shame.

With the notion of a Visual Mode done in Aleph One itself (via Lua script) has come some confusion. While both Treellama and I throw control scheme ideas out there every now and then, I have never written them down. Until now! I’ve tried to come up with logical and comfortable controls for using a visual mode inside Aleph One. I’ve linked to the temporary location of these ideas in the title.

Loyal readers (especially experienced mappers), give me feedback so I can see what I’m missing or what won’t work for you. With some luck and help, VM/Lua will be as intuitive as possible.

SURPRISE! A special emergency JUICEcast 3 for all you JFOers. Good luck with this one.

Note (6/11/2008): I dug up the ridiculously huge original recording, which had the voices in one channel and the music in the other. I made the music at the end a little softer, so now you can at least hear what we’re saying. I think this makes JC3 somewhat listenable again—although still I can’t vouch for the actual content.

I couldn’t agree more. Murder simulator? More like murder STIMULATOR.

W’rk and I wanted it to be an anonymous collective of mapmaking; a loch combination of Forge House, JUICE, and Bauhaus. We wanted throngs of people “in on the joke” of JUICEMAN to use his surprisingly mysterious identity as a way to set ourselves free of inhibition. We wanted to create the most revoltingly fun and silly map pack that had ever existed. We wanted to make more than two levels. We wanted all this, and we were too late.

Will the tide ever change?

NEW YORK CITY: Under a lethargically rising Sun, a young man wandered into the playing field known as #alephone@irc.freenode.net, more commonly shortened to #a1. He saw before him a variety of men, surrounded by force fields that denoted their status in #a1. There were regular people, most of them silent by choice, some chattering like monkeys. Then there were the obvious governors of the realm, statuesque upon their golden thrones: those who bore the symbol @ upon their brow. They had the power of God in this small universe, and the will to go along with it.

After a few opening courtesies, the young man realized that the Sun had topped the surrounding landmarks just enough to illuminate a third caste in the playing field, a small group of people with the scarred rank of +v engraved in varying zones on their epidermis. Some seemed to have this mark repeated in more than one place, and some had artificially smooth skin from which the rank had been erased. As he participated in the banter surrounding him, he took advantage of a lull in the conversation to ask what this +v meant.

The immediate reply from all comers was the most obvious: One of +v has the Voice. That made sense to the young man, and he was satisfied for a short while. But after the moments faded away behind him, he once again found his eyes and thoughts resting on that jagged scar of the Voice. Why did they need Voice on this field, when all were free to speak as they wished? Even a newcomer such as the young man could raise his words to the highest of Kings there. Soon enough, a pattern emerged: those with +v nodded and spoke along with the governors, in league with them on more levels than the young man understood. A single mind seemed to control them at times.

He pardoned himself and raised a new question, begging to know about this subtle group. Lower men with neither Voice nor Power quaked and hid their faces in their hands, gnashing their teeth to drown out the inevitable answer: the group he detected was the CLIQUE.

Just then, one of the Voicèd ones released a torrent of offensive laughter. All eyes looked toward him. From the outstretched hand of a CLIQUE Governor came a bolt of fire that struck the most prominent scar of honor in the shape of -v, melting that flesh back together, leaving a gagging odor of cooked meat. The young man winced and withdrew himself from the sight of the CLIQUE.

Suddenly, the CLIQUE addressed him in unison. They told him he had taken a false step; he was the unlucky man whose body would become the scapegoat of the CLIQUE’s anger. YOU WHO ARE WITHOUT VOICE SHALL HAVE THE VOICE RENT FROM YOU, came a mighty wave of thought. No! he screamed, I do not wish that fate, and after all, I have not the Voice to begin with!

YOUR OPPOSITION IS IN VAIN. ACCEPT YOUR PUNISHMENT.

Then there was only pain, and behind his eyes, he saw an image.

As of 21:00 EST, the Pfhorums were experiencing various IPS driver errors. Appleswitch discovered a few problems in the database and soon began hunting for a functional backup. His last words before rebooting the server and going offline were, “Ironically, the one person I need right now is Tux0believer [sic].” JFO is proud to be the unofficial Marathon community while Pfhorums.com remains in this state. Welcome to our new users! You can enjoy some live chat on the Aleph One IRC channel: #alephone at irc.freenode.net. If you’re looking for a temporary messageboard, try Pfhorchan. And if you want to know everything good in the universe, keep reading this blog!