I made this post on the mutator forums asking if it would be possible to write a mod which changed Domination to require that a team hold all three control points at once in order to score a point. A guy named JohnMcl answered it might be possible, so I asked "any takers?". JohnMcl then said he would put it on his list of things to do. Well, one day later he had early working code. He then asked me what additional improvements and modifications I'd like made!

So I came up with having configurable intervals before scoring occurs, having a new, more reasonable individual scoring scheme, and actually having two gametypes: 3 CP and 2 CP. In 3 CP, the team must hold three control points to score--so if a map has only 3 as the standard maps do, they must hold all, and if the map has 4 or more, they still only must hold 3 to score. In 2 CP, the team only has to hold 2 CPs to score, meaning any 2 on a 3 CP map and meaning on a 4 CP map, the team can hold all 4 and score double, or two teams can score at the same time.

Of course, coherent strategy and team coordination is completely necessary and winning scores must be turned way down. It's simple and absolutely brilliant. The mod will be called Total Domination. So JohnMcl said that he will get to work on those changes and that he really likes the direction the mod is taking. I beta tested a raw version last night and okay the bots don't know what they're doing, but it was damn, damn good!!

Meanwhile, I've been pimping the mod on ProvingGrounds and PuF and on a couple public servers. The reaction has been almost universal approval, some of it quite enthusiastic. There's a sense that this is how DOM should have been from the beginning. It's an even bigger change than Carry the Flag was for CTF and follows all the improvements for CTF (RealCTF, CTF4, A Man With a Flag, etc.) and Assault (Eavy's long-awaited Assault Bonus Pack).

So I'm glad to be a part of that. Gawd, the internet, UT, the UT developer community. I mean, I basically showed up on a message board and asked if anyone would make me a new gametype mod. And somebody said yes. I don't think the answer would have been yes had it not been a great idea, so I at least can claim some responsibility for a good concept and fleshing out the design.

GotY doesn't appear to be out. PS2 is. And Charley Jones was talking about the outrageous amounts of time people have spent in line and the prices they are going for on eBay. I sent an "in-studio email" during yesterday's show in which I said that the PS2 is nice and pretty, but gaming for me has become about playing with friends all over the country and the world and the enormous online community that has grown up around playing online. I mean, there are some people I've known for 6 months now who I met playing this game (most of the readership of this diary, in fact!)--no console game, at least not at this point, is going to capture imaginations the way this one has. None of this is to say I wouldn't really enjoy playing the PS2 or buy one myself someday...

Well, he READ an excerpt of my email on the air! "Kevin in Denton writes, Charley......" Very cool. And then after, he agreed and told a story about watching his son playing an online game (a strategy game, I think) the other day with a kid from Korea and one from Italy and translating this pidgin English to one of them and how amazed he was at the whole proceeding.

The match with Skold and Been_Caught will be on November the 4th, Saturday, at 2. Skold chose Pressure and Liandri!!! We chose Deck, of course. Pressure! Oh man, that's gonna be FUN!! I never would have guessed they'd pick that, but then, that's Skold for ya. Pressure is so underrated. Sure, it has the gimmicky pressure room where you can blow up your enemies, but it's also a really cool place to hunt and set up a territory in. Our strategy is going to be stealth and long-distance hunting. I really like our chances on Pressure. I hope Skold doesn't read this.

Deck is Deck. It's medium size, but there is NOwhere to hide. Countering shock combos will be important. I'm usually balls-out on Deck on pubs, so I need to change my style a bit for this match. I'm confident that duo will play a great game on Deck. I think we're the favorite on Deck as well.

Liandri scares me. First, I hope it doesn't go that far. I hope we can knock em out in two, or else get routed in two. Liandri could be a problem. At least they didn't choose Morbias!

The ProvingGrounds forums are the coolest. Intelligent folk taking their fun seriously and discussing, round-table style, different issues related to the games we love. I want to be a professional gamer!

I have taken to shooting baskets every morning once again, since it appears the cold has been staved off for a while. I do it for the exercise, the relaxation, the way it makes the rest of the day so much brighter, the fat loss, and the fun. I'm actually pretty good once I work the cobwebs out after the first couple days. Sometimes I feel like I can fly. Or glide.

I'm in a REM cycle.

I'm trying to find Twist of the Wrist 2 by Keith Code. It's an essential read for anyone trying to master a motorcycle.

Yankees won.

JPEGs are so ugly, why can't we use .bmp files? Or why can't people have the choice? Gifs are even worse.

I enjoy reading email from any of my 4 accounts, reading ICQ and AIM messages, browsing PuF UT and OT, browsing PG Forums and my favorite ladders, browsing CycleWorld forums, browsing eSportbike forums, browsing the Loud Family, David Foster Wallace, RX-7, and Sportbike newsgroups, reading updates on PlanetUnreal, Modsquad, NaliCity, DailyRadar, ArsTechnica, FiringSquad, CNN, NFL, various Diaryland diaries, various UT and clan related forums and sites, DSLreports forums, SapphireNights, CallforHelp, FreshGear, ScreenSavers, Motorcycle Online, and quite a bit more.

I'm impressed at the way someone can build an alias and a persona and a reputation over a game and the internet. On the net, you are judged solely by the quality of your ideas and the way you present yourself. When I made a note of this, I was thinking of the clan -[BHS]-, so I will use them as the example. There is Redfrost, Wuher, Wimbet, Thrawn, Rhakka, Snowdog, Ahriman, and Firewall (among others); in Real Life they are perhaps normal 20 somethings with jobs or classes and sometimes wives...

Online, though, they are one of the most respected groups of players, elder statesmen, Domination champions, one of the most active clans on a multitude of ladders, the perfect opposition to Rooster's |C| before it went down (|C| has lost Rooster, DragonAsh, and Carnage, and the new players apparently aren't up to the same standards as the old |C|--sad), and the nicest and fairest guys in the world. Red, Rhakka, and Snow especially have this aura of greatness. When Redfrost speaks, people listen. He reminds me of a 185-year old man (who can still fight)--the name itself, his choice of words, the way he carries himself, his skin, his playing style, his attitude in-game and out.

And yet, and my point being, we have no real idea who Redfrost is in Real Life when the monitor goes off. I'm not saying I or we don't know some things about some players in Real Life... I'm generalizing. He could be a palsied 70 year old woman, or an incredibly precocious 14 year old kid, or a podiatrist with 5 kids and a loving wife. He could be a complete jerk or someone who never talks to people or a date rapist or a morbidly obese obsessive. And his name certainly isn't Redfrost. And that's the point. He or she has created a new entity known as Redfrost. Just as I am Nepenthe, not Kevin. And I used to be Entropica. And Nepenthe is a far different entity than Entropica. They are two different online entities, created by me.