Talk:Blood III: The Reckoning/DM-G-PT3

Continued from Talk:Blood III: The Reckoning, Talk:Blood III: The Reckoning/DM-G, and Talk:Blood III: The Reckoning/DM-G-PT2.

A real Blood III?

I've been lurking through The Postmortem, mainly because I heard that one of the members had contacted Jason Hall about Blood. He replied that he thought that Blood III would be a great idea. He also said that it would be the very same as the first Blood, but with superior graphics. In closing, Hall said that he might look into a Blood III if he has time. This was done in June the 6, 2008. I'an not sure what place or site he posted that at, but I'am pretty sure this is big news for us. By the way, I think it was that egotistical poster known as Daedalus that communicated with Hall. If Jason decides to finally make a third Blood, should we just stop end all progress to The Reckoning? Don't get me wrong, I should be overhyped about this, but I am not. I think it has to do with the fact that everytime I heard they were making a new game, it wasn't Blood. Time after time, it kept happening. Don't they remember that Blood was Monolith's first game ever made? They should of went back to their roots like ID Software did with Doom. Even though Jason himself said that he might look into it, that doesn't mean Monolith might create it. Hell, won't they have to revive Blood Team? That alone might take some time. Besides, they are now focusing on Project Origin and by the looks of it, I think Monolith will go with Origin first, then MAYBE Blood III. They would also have to buy the rights from Atari, right? That will also take some time. One of those two games will have to be halted, Blood begin the most likely one. As much as I would love a Blood III, the chances of this happening are 50-50. I've lost trust in Monolith over the years. Sorry if I rained on your parade, my friends, but this is how I feel. Check out the Postmortem if you like, it should have many updates on that thread. Regards. -- By User:Drudge Master

Life, the Universe, and Everything

Now, I have read through the little chats you have had with User: Tchernobog and I also feel skeptical about the future of there EVER being a Lith Blood III, I know that Jason Hall is no longer there and I do not know about Nick Newhard (Mister Blood 1) or James Wilson III (Mister Blood 2) are still there either. Doom3 from id was mostly John Carmack's doing, he wanted to recreate it (in case you did not know they just started building Doom4 and some suggest that it will be Doom II remade on the new id Tech 5 engine). Carmack was after all the original one to suggest a demons/tech theme when the id guys sat down and decided what to do with the engine that Carmack made while the others built Spear of Destiny. With out any original Blood guys or at least none of any real power there is no one there who wants to make a new game. Also noting that if there is no one there from the era the game probably wold not be Blood in any way (I feel the same way about if they ever where to make a new Shogo, actually for the hell of it came up with a design idea for that one). I have been looking at my code library, largely little game test labs. My latest success was mouse drop click movement for objects which also lead to path finding which I built into a simple Squad AI lab (actually inspired a little by the first level of Shogo). All this is important for Free Empires and to a lesser extent Blood III: The Reckoning. Of course I do not have my entire code library on my development laptop (a refurbished Dell Latitude D600 laptop, and a damn fine machine too!) as we have not yet transfered all from our first Linux development machine (which is User: Tchernobog's). That and due to the fact that the refurbishing company lied to us and delivered the computer with only a CD Optical Drive I can not upgrade to Fedora 9 with any convenience yet so I do not have Gambas 2 on here which limits my latest expansions into SDL (for FE) and OpenGL (for B3).

I am in the Spanish language course for these rationalizations: for one thing it is one of the most spoken world languages, if I were ever to travel anywhere (I do not like Tourism) it would be to Latin America, Spanish helps me overcome a speech impediment that I have for pronouncing "R"s, and as Tchernobog said it is the best secondary option that the Argyle course provides. Though I have found that most of the Spanish I have learned over the past two years is from my own research and exploration and not from the curriculum. Though it makes sense when you consider that this is the way I learn programming languages so why not apply it to speech languages? That and I find self study is better than forced study. I am considering creating a website where I will post screen shots of my works with OpenGL to show you my gear warpings and hopefully eventually a 3D world. It would be so sweet to build a Caleb in Gambas! When it comes down to fan fiction, I am Tchernobog's main editor. I have considered penning some stories of my own but I have yet to, though as you can see Tchernobog is the main one writing stories while I am helping you build the B3 plot. Also just to note, the Shogo Sub-Section is now open to editors. Yesterday I incorporated all the Wikipedia texts into it as well as brief out-lines for the on-foot weapons. Ah, more Wiki writing to do! Though the Shogo mods scare me documentation wise as do the Blood mods, ah well it is nice to have a challenge. I am now down to three school courses having completed my Social final today, it was rather easy. Generic geography and characteristic study principles as well as facts on Brazil and Canadian history (got a 91%). Soon it will just be me and my little laptop, we've got worlds to create! Your tact when it comes to post writing is rather different than mine I perceive, yours is fast and furious while when I write a post I work on it sometimes for hours (the largest posts) adding all that I have to say and grammar checking. Also note the Douglas Adams reference in my title! LOL! Gideon 23:16, 9 June 2008 (EDT)

Additional: I would just like to ask whether or not you are reading the entirety of my rants (though this does not require 100% comprehension)? A little test of one's patience aren't they? ;-P Gideon 02:51, 10 June 2008 (EDT)

Re: Life, the Universe, and Everything

Very true, Gideon, it would be hard to pick up the Blood series from where it left off, so many years ago. If you want, you can compare my style of typing to Caleb's way of entering a battle: rush through it and take no prisoners! Of course, my method is far less bloody and doesn't leave my attire rife with the crimson ink that is blood. I never dove too deep into the story about John Carmack and the others at id, but I always loved the games, most of all the Doom series. A lot of people said that Doom III was good but put too much of the game's engine into dark atmosphere and not enough game play. I played Doom III and I can't see too many flaws, mainly that it could of had some sort of tactical moves like peering behind the corners of walls. But I did like shining my flashlight into dark areas, some of the time finding cryptic messages written in blood.

Not many things are coming to mind on sketches and I feel...unused, so to speak. I would be better if one of you guys told me to draw something Blood related, like a cultist, bone leech, or even some sort of building. To comment on your add, yes, I read though your text blocks and they are a refresher from a long day's work. That and a few other things, including listening to Rick Astley, mostly Never Gonna Give You Up. It may be eleven years old but damn if it isn't catchy! Prior to this, I've come up with an idea for Blood III: The Reckoning. How about the Eye of Epiphany, under the leadership of Gideon's son, construct a giant temple built to be the predecessor to the Hall of Epiphany, with the ruined Hall of Epiphany nearby. I have a few ideas on how it would look too! It could be built in the Ancient One's realm, hidden from all forms of hostile lifeforms and guarded by the elite Zealots of the Eye of Epiphany, along with some tamed creatures from said realm. Tchernobog can be arisen in the temple's main chamber to do battle with Caleb one last time. Damian could be chased down to the temple by the gunslinger and his Blood Hand army. You can decide when or where Caleb can battle the cult leader, either before or after the temple. But I would like it if Damian, using the last bit of energy from his fight with Caleb, kills himself as a final offering to the Dark God, thus completing his resurrection, the main goal and purpose of Damian's life. You can add the spirit of Gideon where ever you like into that, as long as we get to splatter his guts toward the nearest wall! Regards, Mark. -- By User Drudge Master

End Drama for Blood III

I have also came up with a little plot twist the make the ending of the game more interesting and dramatic. Okay it begins in the temple where the dark form of the resurrected sixteenth is to be found, the four Chosen enter through the portal and are faced with the beast's horrendous vision. He let's out a harsh laugh and lift's his hulking limbs summoning magics of the dead. He fires! Ishmael reaches for his staff and blocks the blast, Tchernobog does not relent and sends a volley turning the man into ashes. Gabriella takes out her Vulcan Cannon and blasts away, only to meet the same fate as her comrade. Then the god turns his attention to Ophelia who skillfully jump and skits around dodging the fire, in arrogance she lets out a little laugh (already have that sound file) but it proves to her undoing as well. "OPHELIA!" Caleb screams as he stares into the crimson eyes of his former master. "Come to me my son, let us embrace at last!" Tchernobog decrees as Caleb takes out his worn sawed-off shotgun. Now Caleb must destroy the god and search the temple for an artifact called the "knife of the elders" to stop the other Chosen from once again being consumed by the darkness of oblivion. All this happens of course in dark rooms with ominous rooms and a timer counting on until the Chosen's souls perish once more this time into a realm of no return. Then after all is completed and vanquished you see visions of the Blood Hand taking power in this realm. Finally you see in the Chosen's great temple with Caleb sitting in his throne with his Chosen beside him. Then play the end credits.

As to I think it would be good for you to draw the end bosses and maybe some enemies notably Cabal and some Undead. I am yet to play the retail of Doom III although I hear it is very good and the demo seems alright (though on our computers we have to go into Window Maker the least resource consuming of the Linux desktops available to play it). However I do have one criticism of it's design strategy, as we have all been told it is designed to be a "horror" shooter which is why it was made so dark and ominous. The original Doom however was made to be an action shooter where you blasts horrible machinations from the deepest reaches of hell in a bloody quest for glory. I wonder what Doom 4 is going to be like. Some people got really fed up that in Doom III you had to disarm yourself to use the flash light so they created a "Duct Tape" patch that places it on your shotgun, good old fan creativity eh? As to music, I am EXTREMELY selective to what I listen to and thus my collection lacks variety, but then since my life does throw me quite a few road bumps some consistency is nice. What I have been listening to a lot lately is Warren Zevon a song-writer and singer who never really got much credit when he was alive (died from his child hood contact with Asbestos dust early this decade). He wrote two main categories of songs: dreary romantic stuff and edgy gory actions songs. Guess what I prefer to listen to? ;-D His edgy stuff is good because both the beats and lyrics are invigorating: some of my favorites being of Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner, Mister Bad Example, The Envoy, Werewolves of London, Splendid Isolation and many others. The songs are actually quite appropriate for Bloodites as they contain rather "visceral" lyrics. In fact we are writing a modification of Roland that works just perfectly with the plot of Blood and the background for Blood II that and of course you might have noticed Tchernobog's crossover. The anti-ZBlood crusaders continue this fight, we are still flipping the Wikipedia section back and forth. Than for a little while they stopped all was peace and joy in the land. Then today they started again, I suspect they stopped for a little while under the delusion that I would stop looking. Well I have got a warning to you, I have a daily internet "round" and this includes the Wikipedia articles for Blood, Blood II and Shogo. So no one can attempt to harm these articles without me fighting back! MU HA HA HA HA! I am still trying to find a mod to end this war once and for all. It is really sad that Bloodites can be lowered enough to engage in this petty vandalism. Onward all that have dipped their hands in the blood of Cabal onward! Gideon 18:50, 10 June 2008 (EDT)

Additional: Last night I had the most bizarre sleep schedule. I woke up at 1:00 in the afternoon, which is not all that strange for me. After completing my Math study I enjoyed myself for the rest of the day and coded a bit. Then me, Tchernobog, and Cheogh, went into our dead Micra car to have a meeting. This was at 3:00 in the morning. In the end we stayed up till 6:00 until I finally slept to 4:00 in the afternoon. The strange thing is that I feel better after this, because I actually got more sleep than I did normally. Instead of missing all of the morning I missed all the afternoon. I just finished today's math study which is actually in a subject relevant to the Reckoning: Shape and Space as it covers 3D objects. Though nothing is worse at presenting mathematical truths than the OFFICIAL curriculum. ;-P Gideon 20:37, 14 June 2008 (EDT)

Additional Additional: I am on a roll! I just found some extremely flexible Gambas probability code! Now I can do coin flips, die rolls, and other random stuff. I also got numeric strings and calculations working for Free Empires: Age of War a program I am developing for FreeDOS in QBasic 4.5. It should also be easily ported to Linux command line with the Gambas command line mode (and the DOS version should work in MS Windows). Then I expanded Age of War to have more unit training and building construction. Then I made it so you can upgrade Clubmen to Axemen. I also learned how to mingle variables and text in Gambas all you need is a & rather than a + like in Visual Basic and QBaisc. A lot of this should defiantly be useful for Blood III: The Reckoning. Gideon 04:19, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

Additional, Additional, Additional: Well things are moving fast this week, finished my Math Finals on Wednesday with a 91% and a 94%. The one main area that I had trouble with was Exponents, in part due to as I said "I don't use exponents in my programming". Since then I have been studying my Science and I feel pretty confident in my comprehension for Particle Model, Cells and Life, Light and Optics (had trouble with this one), mechanical systems, and fresh and saltwater/aquatic organisms. I am completing them tomorrow. In other news we are going to be getting our new bull on Sunday, so we are going to have to get it used to our farm and herd and since it comes from a much larger herd: tame it down as much as one can for a bull. As you can tell User:Cerberus has suddenly got interested in The Reckoning, word to the wise: he can be most annoying when he is enthusiastic about your stuff. Particularly when he doesn't completely understand the material or when he gets a bit silly. He also has a habit of getting all enthusiastic about something and contributing to it but then leaving cold and forgetting about it a little later. Though of course he must know a number of MY faults that I do not know about or realize. ;-P I actually know that I can say anything I want about him in here, as he would never read it. Sometimes when he asks questions we try and tell him to just read the chat logs but he says: "You should just fill me in, after all: you where the ones that lived it", so in basics I have total immunity from him knowing what I say. MU HA HA HA! Though of course this is all in part of my rants taking up so much room. :-D Also User:Cheogh has been working on his MIDI composing skills, mostly to accompany a game we are developing (in this case an old Arcade style soundtrack). He is getting much better at multi-tracked songs that flow well together as well as having a good command of the "instruments". Then he coverts the MIDI into more standard audio, in most cases OGG Vorbis as it is free content and patent free and Linux compatible. Now that we use do not really use Game Maker we can dump terrible patent-crazy Windows formats for good.

I'M MAD!: Today, I got up. Completed my Spanish final essays and my Science final. Apart from the trouble of that, it doesn't help that QuizZone(the Edmonton Public School Board's non-functional on-line quiz bank) sucks. It did not permanently recored User:Tchernobog's final exam mark, and they wouldn't believe that he actually did it. Even though we have never lied and we are on the HONOUR role! However all is done and fine now, I am free for the summer. I tidied up my computer's MS Windows XP partition and was ready to say "Good bye worthless!" for the summer and use Fedora GNU/Linux. Problem is that now my power cord is busted, so I have only half an hour of battery life left (It is now shutdown and my "Notebook" is with the other books on the shelf ;-P). Apparently it is a common problem for Dell laptops of this ilk, with LOTS of Internet forums with people suffering from the same problem. They offered no solutions however so we found a replacement for sale at Amazon.com and ordered it. The oddest thing is that since the cord is kaputski it makes a small beep tone when it is plugged in, it does not make any sense. So now I am on my OLD Fujitsu MS Windows 98 laptop, that lacks even basic portability and is of course just slow. At New Years when I was desperately trying to get a new machine (which is how I got the new one) I pledged not to be using a 98 machine primary when it turned ten. Guess what, it turns ten on the 25th and I am using a 98 machine. There is a chance I might get it by then but considering that I had to order it from an American supplier rather than a Canadian one it might take longer. This has to happen right when all my major projects were to kick-start! Then again... it is better than having to finish the Academic year on that piece of shit XP workstation (It deserves the vulgarity). In conclusion I AM PISSED OFF! Gideon 19:08, 20 June 2008 (EDT)

Special Character Weapons

I am sorry you had to go through all that trouble Gideon. Let's just hope you won't lose your mind over this. Sorry for my absence, as I was playing through my old copie of Hexen II with cheat codes, trying to find some new material for The Reckoning. What caught my mind most was each classes' melee weapon, they are all unique and different. Perhaps we can do something similar for the Chosen. I remember something like this was posted a while ago, but now I think I can finally start to draw something. But we must first look at the all the characters of the Chosen. First is Caleb, the fearsome gunslinger that isn't afraid of anything. His weapon will be the very first weapon of Blood, the Pitchfork. It's primary function could be a normal, swift stab at the enemy causing damage. Secondary would be a slower, but stronger thrust into the enemy, causing heavy damage. Ishmael is a good old necromancer, a master in the dark arts. I forget who said he should have a magical ring as a first weapon. This sounds like a promising idea, but I do not know how it would like look when attacking.  Please get back to me on that, everyone. I was thinking about some sort of scythe with a magical side effect or attack. Primary could be a quick slash of the scythe inflicting light damage, in fact lighter than the Pitchforks primary. However, the second attack makes up for it. When an enemy is dead on the floor, the scythe can absorb the enemy's remaining life energy by hacking up the enemy in pieces. Thus, giving health to the player, sort of like the life leech, Ishmael's weapon of choice. Next up is the demolition expert Gabriella, who is quite fond of he Vulcan Cannon, if I may add. Once again, either Tchernobog or Gideon said that she should have some sort of gauntlet. I like this idea for the matter, it would be just like a regular battle gauntlet, however it would have three sharp spikes at where the knuckles would be. It would not have fingers either. Primary could be a powerful but medium in speed thrust that is sure to cause heavy damage. Secondary is a much slower, but impressive blow to the enemy with extreme damage. And by extreme, I mean damage equal to two blasts from a sawed-off shotgun. Or we can change that for a powerful punch into the earth, causing a shockwave of energy along the ground. This wave would run along a straight and narrow line that would inflict heavy damage on anyone who happens to be caught in it. Perhaps, a fiery path death? I fear that I am unsure on what the stealthy sniper Ophelia should have. But I do want to incorporate her Chosen knife into it. I was thinking along the lines of a metal bracer with her knife connected on it. It would be like a slashing weapon strapped on your wrist. Primary is a very fast array of slashing that will keep on slashing if you hold down the fire button. Secondary fire is a powerful slice into the body or head of an enemy. Keep in mind that the enemy will lose his or her head if you aim at the head. This is good for executing cultist and fanatics without alerting others to your presence. Prior to these weapons, I was thinking if we can add some sort of point enhancement item for the Chosen. Like one would be for Focus, and one would be for Health. These would be found in the game, but rare. This would make it easier to play as the other Chosen. Give me some feedback on this. -- By User:Drudge Master

Status Update, Blood III ;-D

Yes, Caleb's secondary melee weapon is obvious. Gabriella's overpowered gauntlet is the right choice. Now Ishmael's magic ring, he would wear it quite obviously on his ring finger. When he was in need to conjure its powers he would outstretch his fingers and a magical glow (green, blue, or whatever) would emanate from the ring, sort of like the magic gauntlet in Heretic only more wide and strong. Ophelia is a damn hard character to add, her personality is quite clear: stealthy, secretive, and cunning (and as hinted in the B2 description, having the ability to get people to do what she wants, especially men. ;-) ). Though this turns out to be hard to put into weapon specifications. :-0 Your idea is in in basics, Knife +? Though it should be very quiet, so that she may sneak up on Cabal and grab their necks and SLICE! I was also thinking of something that all the Chosen could use but is another of Ophelia's specialty. It is a silent, short range, poison dart launcher. PHOOT, and their out! Right up Ophelia's alley. I solved a big coding problem that has plagued me and Tchernobog for the last year, Universal Variables. Gambas technically don't have them in the proper way that Visual Basic has, but it has a work around. You build a class which we call "Global" and then you define all the needed variables in there, which can be accessed like this "Global.VarName". Benoit (the creator of Gambas) says that it is a dirty hack but it is the best Gambas can do. However this is the case for most programs, in our case it actually seems to be clean to me. It is the way games work that makes me think this is good, needing lots of levels and so-forth. My current attentions are on Gambas Genie 0.3, which is going to be my first Real Time Strategy engine on SDL, and fully modular too. With the engine and objects all defined so nicely. Now, putting my attentions on this does not hurt B3 as it turns out that what controls OpenGL in Gambas is SDL! Thus my 3D engine is going to be Gambas Genie with first person OpenGL effects placed on top. Neat eh? Cerberus's ideas for a IM chat would be productive, as it provides more direct communication between project members. I can fill you in more on my plans for Gambas Genie which will go into my attempt at a B3 engine. Playing Hexen II you say, I just played that game today. It is in many ways similar to Blood so some inspiration could come from it. Though it suffers from a common problem in the Heretic-Hexen series that it gets dead boring after the first few levels, Raven's later games don't appear to have that problem (well STV: EF didn't, I haven't played much else). Another interesting thing of note is OpenArena a free-content version of Quake III based on its GPLed source, has some interesting things for Bloodites. One, there are some gargoyle and spider models and more recently there are some guys that look sorta like Cultists. Cerberus suspects they are based on things from some game called Assassins Creed but if we got them shouting "Crudux Cruo" they would seem just like Cultists (we are actually interested in extracting files from the Nightmare Levels and putting them into OA). We created an interesting combo, we got hold of some BloodBath levels remade onto Q3 and patched them into OpenArena. Then we added these appropriate bots alongside a Caleb Q3 model (his graphics suck, but it is worth it to hear his villainous voice) and had a true 3D BloodBath arena! Cheogh wants to someday learn Q3 modeling and make a good Caleb, then the other Chosen, then some Cabal, Gideon, and so forth. I am surviving on my old Fujitsu laptop and I am making the best of the situation, I am working on Donut Quest 1.5 which is an expansion to a game I made with Game Maker on this computer. Tchernobog is also making a story based Role Playing Game that is intended to push my QT engine to its limits. It is set in a post-apocalyptic medieval-like world that is loosely inspired by the Hiero novels, where you take the role of a hunter out for bounties off the mutants creatures, but eventually has to defeat a villainous warlord. We are keeping ourselves busy, I am going to be working on Gambas Genie 0.3 on Tchernobog's computer, sadly lacking my nice Tech Demos. Well, ta-ta for now, man my posts look even bigger on this small old laptop LCD screen! Gideon 19:37, 27 June 2008 (EDT)

BTW: FireFox 3 is released, you should go and check it out. Also are you out of school yet? Also Tchernobog is going through Shogo no-cheat, and the on-foot maps are way HARD! Though there was one funny part where you: Sanjuro have to escort Kura out of a detention centre against Fallen assassins after her. They kill you, and then they and Kura just stare blankly at each other and in other times she shoots you in the back, once she even shot the little girl (then her mother, it was quite horrific. :-0). Nineties AI eh? For some reason Shogo is more fun to mess with than Blood II not that we haven't done some nice things in that department. We are intending to make a video for all our humorous hacks. Actually the best game ever to mess with was Raveneric strings and manipul Software's Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force. Our list for our hacks is to long too even summarize. We can even crack up our mother with those. ;-D Doom3 is the best id game to mess with, being the only real one that had characters and dialog. I also bumped up the Shogo sub-section characters page, wiki writing is fun, infinitely better with-out deletionists or notability guidelines! It brings chaos to order, now both Blood and Shogo are being brought to order. This wiki has gone farther then we ever envisioned it when we started it in January, I remember when I first created the Gideon article. The fan fiction turned out to be our biggest racket, and was the most fun to write about (I can proudly say that I have read EVERY single one listed, and I was the head editor for the Tome of Blood, yea I didn't do that great a job at it. :-) Why is self depreciation so fun? I have the ego the size of a grain of sand, or is it the size of a planet?). What I am trying to say is that one should always play gory games with guys in black hats and trench coats, and defiantly write about them later! Blood has a good community, and is 100% worth contributing too! Two mega-posts in one day (brain-time, according to the clock it is tomorrow), my bad-deed for the day is done. See you next week when I elaborate why the universe is a hell-hound's flea. ;-P Pay attention to the first two sentences of this BTW! Gideon 04:36, 28 June 2008 (EDT)

Additional: well this seems like a nice place for continued frustration venting. As you know we are now also having trouble with Tchernobog's machine. He did manage to win Shogo though, we found a little trick to defeat Ryo (the final boss) in the second ending, he is in this big robotic MCA and you are just on-foot. He walked into a crevice and blasted him with TOW-Missiles he couldn't fire back, Tchernobog actually ended up at 0% health though as he fired it a little bit close when Ryo was out of the MCA, didn't matter though, Kathryn and Kura sill did their end-game communications and the end screen played. Monolith is very bad at final bosses, there is a always a trick that makes it too easy! The computer problems means that I can not really implement any ideas I think up. Today I have just sat around, watched a little of a Red Dwarf DVD (if you don't know of it you should, it is an excellent British sci-fi sit-com. We now have it all on DVD), and meditated on coding concepts. I really miss my Gambas coding machine, I probably would have gotten somewhere with SDL by now. Last night I thought of something I would LOVE to implement, I was building a computer Artificial Intelligence based on Red Dwarf's Holly, User Friendly's (one of the earliest web-comics, check it out!) Erwin, and to a lesser extent 2001's Hal 9000 on my laptop. My problem was that to make it react to a large base of stimuli it takes lot of code. It was getting too messy to handle. Last night I decided that I would break it up into modules, one for knowledge, one for reactions, etc. I also came up with a way so that it knows what emotion you are trying to get through to it, add a mark to the end of the line such as if you are happy ") I am Happy!", and it could react based on that (I wish I could do voice-recognition but I am not a Japaneses robotics lab, its own text-to-speech is seeming more likely though). Do you think that it reflects badly on me that I made it tetchy and snappy if insulted? It is actually going to have the ability to change it's face sprite, mostly based on the classic sci-fi ones that inspired it, and have gender modes, it will be sexist in both occasions (it is a joke, MU HA HA HA HA!). Maybe I should add an Ishmael mode? ;-P I also thought up a concept of a holographic intelligence (like Rimmer in Red Dwarf or the doctor in ST: Voyager), it is a room with a lot of light generators (probably Halogen as they are the most powerful) and a lot of mirrors and prisums to generate a light spectre that is controlled by a computer AI. Someone give me a research grant! The sad thing is that I have nothing better to do then spin up theories and posts expansions to an already too long post. Well.. at least I do not have anything worse I have to do (like School, it terribly stifles the brain and creativity). Logging off now.. bzzt... um... how do you turn this off then? ;-P Gideon 18:25, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

Status Update, Blood III ;-D Part II

Note: for navigational and readability's sake I have separated this into two parts. Gideon 03:17, 12 August 2008 (EDT)

Additional Additional: I'M HAPPY! It seems that this week is the time they put the clocks forward! Not only did a big download of User: Cheogh's happen in a night rather than a month but my power cord is here and it is good to be back on Linux! It was supposed to take three weeks minimum,instead it took a week and a half, kudos to Amazon.com. We also have another spare just in case this one blows. Now I can finish all the things I had cued up! Yes, User: Tchernobog has a new Blood story for you that we can upload now, he is also writing another one (and that old cross-over is also accessible now so he can finish it). Another thing of note, we have acquired a full copy of Return to Castle Wolfenstein and it is a top notch game! We now have the full versions of every id related Wolf game (not counting the two originals by Muse Software, before id's time). Strangely it seems to give more familiarity to Wolfenstein 3D than Doom3 gives toDoom even though in the latter case the engine differences are less (I should know about this, having seen both RTCW and Wolf3D today), but then their is not much you can change about Nazis without seeming silly, with Doom3 the demons looked too different from their original counterparts. The story was in basics a merging of Wolfenstein 3D's and Spear of Destiny's (the same-engine sequel to 3D): mutated super-soldiers and the occult, with the latter taking centre stage (the Heinrich I storyline was quite well done). The adaption of true-3D technology was done well, with familiar objects abound (such as armour-suits and turkey dinners). The weapons where excellent and the levels where creative without being out of theme, though it is funny that the Axis weapons where more useful than the Allied weapons. It also seemed a rather accurate depiction of the Second World War, though they might of messed up some of the dates. Though one thing that makes it different from the original is the low amount of German spoken throughout the game, I know that it was made so that English speakers could comprehend the German's storyline input but at least the foot-soldiers could have shouted the familiar “Schuzstaffel” and “Mein Lebin!” (I have probably misspelled at least one of them) or maybe at least the female civilians that appear throughout the game (judging by the chosen picture from a RTCW site I saw I thought they where going to be less period accurate, however it turned out that they were in 40's dress and not all in their underwear ;-P), though apparently the German in Wolf3D was horribly pronounced. Overall I can not wait for the sequel to come out sometime this year, on id-tech-4! We also noticed similarities to Blood abound, much of the levels seem like Gothic zones from Blood and Deathshead's Super Soldier laboratory seemed a lot like CabalCo Disease Management. Also RTCW's Tesla Gun looks extremely similar to Blood's Tesla Cannon and RTCW also has TNT and a Thomson Gun (although more military styled). Does it also reveal something that Heinrich I shouts “I Live Again!” as he escapes his millennium long imprisonment? Though a lot of the similarities could have come from RTCW only being set 15 years after Blood and the shared “occult” themes. All in all, Bloodites should love RTCW! In other news I have started a new writing project myself, it is an attempt to use my own characters rather then what me and Tchernobog have been doing for the past few months. We have also been playing a lot of Quake III: Arena network games, now that I have my good laptop back I can join one sometime. Signing off now. Gideon 23:37, 2 July 2008 (EDT)

BTW, BTW: We also just got our final report cards today. LA: 87%, Math: 91%, Science: 87%, Social: 88%, Health: 92%, Spanish: 95%. I am working under the assumption that the American courses are the same as the Canadian ones, if not then tell me the American ones and I can cross-translate. The only one that I would have liked to have been a little better was Science, four more points at least would not have hurt but the Light and Optics unit sucked! Well 87% is more than fine. Also of course Spanish is our best course, if you mispronounced an English word for the teacher he would give you credit for effort, not that he is a bad teacher, also I did put a lot of work into my Spanish final essays. I am very happy with my Math mark and I do think that I deserve it pretty much, the only real thing that I had trouble in was fractions, made a mental note to work hard on that one next year. Though all my acquired knowledge I have to attribute to my mother, the school's tools could not teach anyone. Language Arts is my worst course, and that fills my soul with great pride. That LA teacher we had was a total artsie moron, she once ticked off our marks because we didn't put our feelings or relate to poems that had nothing to do with anything we have ever thought, experienced, or encountered or ever would. Total illogic, once to try and shift blame she claimed that there was a difference between "required" and "mandatory", this apart from mispronouncing so many words in a class that was made to teach English! Social Studies was another course she "taught" but she couldn't go so hog wild on that one, though I did get rather sick of doing Canadian History again! Also noting that most of it was biased towards the French Canadians, sure you had it tough from the English but it is silly that they got more of a spot light than the First Nations who had their land stolen and beaten out of them and then were much more genuinely oppressed. Look, the king of Briton just wanted the French in the colony of Canada not to revolt, he didn't care that they spoke French, he didn't care that they where Catholic, he didn't care that they used the Seigneurial land system, he just didn't want any smegging revolts! Also as a final note, Louis Reil was Metis, not from Quebec so why do they make him out to be their savour? He was struggling so the Metis could continue Bison hunting at Red River, not so the French could continue what they did. Then there was the Canada and USA unit, all that was of any value I already knew and the rest was nothing of any worth. Then there was the Brazil unit which made you think: "Man, what a horrible place!". There was this one video they sent that seemed totally biased towards tourism, it seemed to make out that all the Brazilians did was hang around on the beaches in swimsuits playing soccer and then cut down the rain forest. Forgive me if I don't think that is totally accurate. :-0 Then there was the Health course, nothing to do with real health but "emotional and spiritual health", it is there so that if a student where to commit suicide or something the school could say they where doing something about it. The coursework made me want to commit the divine act! Also if they do not want people to commit suicide then why do they make us read novels about crappy things happening to young people: Romero and Juliet and The Outsiders for example! Another thing, I could not relate to any of the examples, I may be a total eccentric but I will assure you that I am an emotionally balanced one so I do not need this damn course! Physically I am healthier than I have ever been in my entire life, three walks/runs around 40 acre plots everyday have increased my endurance, cattle and yard work have built up my upper body as well, and my skulliosis is being managed by exercises and massage. So currently I do not really need to hear this "eat right, put down that knife" talk. Then there was the complementary Sex Education course, nothing I didn't really know but I will give them points for being frank about it apart from making opinion claims like saying that we live in a more "Sexualized Society" then in previous times, there have aways been dirty people, if we seem more willing to talk about it then all the better, less lying. ;-P My response to school: "All in all, I would rather be killing stuff" - Caleb. I think it also bears in that User: Cerberus is now graduated from High School, and is currently well employed at a system maintenance firm (which will pay for his post-secondary education). Was he hired from skills he learned at school? Hell no! He was hired from skills he learned from using computers since he could crawl. Personal education beats formal education, my talents that are building now also evidence this point. Sorry for posting to long posts in the same cycle (eg: not in between sleeps) but my report cards got me thinking, though I think all the time. I guess I mean that it pointed it in this direction. Adios, amigo. Gideon 03:53, 3 July 2008 (EDT)

TALES OF DISINTEREST!: This post is getting WAY to long (please post something so I can start a new one!) which is the reason I have not posted in a few weeks, but some events of note have forced my hand. First, something on the Reckoning tech. I have said earlier that my attempts at a B3 engine is going to be dependent on the success of my real time strategy engine: Gambas Genie (GG), so on this front I have some news. With this we are working on release 0.3 (to be showcased in Free Empires: Chiefs and Warriors Source Release 3.0), now I have not been able to do any uniform development on it as I have for the last two feature oriented releases. I have however done some good work by doing it in partitions. I call them the GG Tech Demos. I finished the first one yesterday, it showcases RTS style mouse and button movement as well as a therioum to make objects track one another. This may not seem like much on the outside but this is something I was having trouble with (finally nailed it with the help of a coder from the Extreme Tux Racer project). The other two Tech Demos are going to be on Resource Gathering (AoE style) and Technological Research. These projects do have their purpose towards the Reckoning but the most direct thing is going to be what is the main heart of GG 0.3: true object rendering. Currently I have made an example that claims to draw objects of its own, but they do not seem totally “finite” and I have not yet tried the all important “cloning” process, in the end it is going to have a solid back bone on SDL and from this 3D objects drawn with OpenGL shall be born. Also SDL and so forth is going to give my game engines much needed modularity which should also play a key role in any 3D engine I could spit out. I can not promise anything as in a lot of ways I am flying in the dark on 3D (similarly to as I started with GG but I turned that around, 3D I will conquer or die trying!). Speaking on the Reckoning also, I should really get around to reading the story annals you and User:Cerberus have been writing. Also how are the sketches coming? Have you got anything you think looks good? If so then we can work out a transfers system. Now for the worthless talk which makes these posts too long and uninteresting ;-P. User:Cheogh has done something quite remarkable: raising the dead. Before the Cabal come after us because they think we are competition I will clarify that it was not animal! You see my father was once in possession of a noble machine known as the “Towercase” (named obviously of its large case), it duel booted Windows 3.11 and Windows 95 and was my first real interaction with computers. Then disaster struck! A power surge zoomed through the system frying a good deal of it, it was deemed dead. * Cue Dramatic Funeral Music *. Now ten years later or something Cheogh has taken it and found that its power supply and motherboard are still operational. He put in a spare hard drive and booted MSDOS of it. Now it may be said that what really makes a computer a computer is the files on its hard drive but it still an accomplishment. There are also two old hard drives that are unattached and stuck in its case. May they be fried? We will find out. However in all retrospect the long term thing is that we get to use that freaking sweet large case again! WHOOOO! We intend to make it our new FreeDOS testing machine. It “Lives... Again!” to quote that old wise dead guy with the sawed off shotgun. Well this is enough for now I guess... post again later. Gideon 04:25, 16 July 2008 (EDT)