Archive for the '*LAME* Clan' Category

dear Lamers and new readers,

we have a hell of a week behind us. Monsterserver gets down, SG site gets down, SG as a name has to change. And to make it complete:
My registred .tk name for the blog is taken away by dot TK, the provider of this awesome URL shortener.

Why? First I believed I was to late to renew the domain, you have to renew it for free once a year. But I checked and I did so.
Probably we’re just making to much traffic after one year, and in this case – or just after one year of registration- they drop your URL.
This is the message I got:

‘You are registering a SPECIAL domain.

What is a special domain?

Seems like we are going to experiment 2 new types of gameplay tonight, in our weekly clan deathmatch (Terra Nova 20:30 CET).

First proposal, by Slowly John, is called “Minesweeper”, that means you can use only dyna to kill your opponents, but without lightning it … to make it explode you have to shoot at it with your gun.

Second proposal, by Biondo, two teams using only knives in Station. Each team should occupy a distinct side of the map, using the middle rail as a delimiter. So, no knife shaving will be possible, just knife throwing. It’s not allowed to kill who respawns in the wrong zone, and similarly who respawns in the wrong zone can’t kill anybody until he reaches his team. Team composition has still to be decided.

[Inspiration: The physics of knife throwing, On the job, Il coltello Bowie].

Here’ a post to stop worry about the masterserver and the smokinguns mainsite going down.

Who else loves ‘low-poly’ (it’s a bit what you get in SG; a scene made out of some hard shapes, representing a tree, a house,…made with the bare minimum of ‘frames’). I think it’s great,
and I just spotted an illustrator who uses the ‘style’ of low-poly in his works. I love it, it realy reminds me of SG…but in art this time 🙂

Look at this, remember the drawing Biondo did for the ‘Lake-massacre’? It really reminds me of lake.

There is more:

Incredible how he draws water. Also the color sheme reminds me of SG.
Time for some resources; find out more here: http://dribbble.com/turnislefthome
And for all designers, this Dribbble is a nice site. Give it a try

Hehe, found this introduction to Smokin’ Guns gameplay in YouTube. The fun thing is that it was recorded during a *LAME* Thursday in Terra Nova. Video by meldrian aka holarse of Holarse — Spielen unter Linux.
The second part is recorded in Circus Maximus.

Howdy clan,
I know I’m not the main blog-contributor, and I often feel sorry about it. I’m not digging deep as Biondo or Jippie do in the config, or in the West history as SAPE and Grey do… But from time to time there is a small fact I think that might be interesting to share. So here’s a post with facts between my 2 loves; Reggae music and Western movies.

These two worlds seems to be totally different, right? Yet there is a nice connection to tell (well, I believe it’s interesting). The story goes like this:

Reggae music is a blend of different music-influences in Jamaica. Rythm and Blues was big in the ’50 so local musicians tried to make music like that. Only with the independence of JA, the music started to sound like the Reggae sound we know today. So typically about Reggae is that it’s the music of the people, for the people. Own produced and played for the ‘real’ people in the streets. In first instance, Reggae didn’t get ant airplay on the radios, so local producers started playing their music loud on their own ‘sound system’. This kept the music always very close with every day live; and also the producers and singers weren’t hollywood stars but real people that sang about everyday live: poverty, misery, violence but also about love, hope, education or even religion.

Of course, like any nation, also the Jamaican people dreamed of a different live. When Reggae was big on the isle, in the early and mid ’70, big hollywood productions started to infiltrate the local cinemas  and so, every day live.
Producers were very creative and competitive to create their own sound, their own inventions and thus being the champion sound. First, they invented the ‘Dub’ or ‘Dubplate’. This is a reggae single but without the vocal-line and and effects like reverb added on the track. This created a familiar sound of the original single but gave the producers the chance to show off their engineer skills. (their are and were no copyright laws in Jamaica so producers just copied and changed the songs a bit 😉 But now second invention: lyrics could be changed so they were more based on the actual happenings of that week or even day; but how do you make a dub (without the vocals) something ‘actual’, something ‘brand new’. The solution was simple for the Jamaicans. Just call the song or the album to something ‘cool’ and ‘brand new’. So producers started adopting film titles and changed them, or they just referred to their favourite themes, actors, storylines and so on. First westerns, later Kung Fu and Sci-fi.

Enough chat, time for some examples.
Classic title is a Lee Perry album: ‘Kung Fu meets the dragon’, a reference to kung fu movies hitting the island:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec7K1sUkqLI

You might notice some albums used some samples (very new then!) but not always. Some tracks were just a reference to a title, nothing more.
Another example?  A dub by Scientist is funny called ‘Beam me up Dubby’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3jbjfBhwc4 a reference to Star Trek’s ‘Beam me up Scotty’
Or more Scientist: ‘http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heftJDSFjuk‘ the album ‘Prince Jammy and Scientist strikes back’. All titles are references to Star Wars movies:. My favourite title: track 10: “C-3PO + R2-D2 = The Force ” (notice also the cool artwork of all Scientist albums)
Even more:  A Sly and Robbie album ‘ Raiders of the lost dub’. Of course album title, song titles and artwork of the cover are all references to Indiana Jones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qpPaErLxNE

Of course, the Italian Western movies were influential too. Recently some vinyl labels reissued some older work, and I noticed they got some references to Western movies! Guess my surprise:
Here they are:
http://www.pressure.co.uk/store/PSCD73/lee-perry-the-upsetters-high-plains-drifter/
High Plains drifter by Lee Perry & The upsetters, with titles like ‘The Man with no Name’ and High Plains drifter, a reference to a ’73 movie with Clint Eastwood! (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068699)
Second release is a new one. Theses references are still used today:
Prince Fatty and Mutant HiFi, ‘Return of the Gringo’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csIJtlLkIMc, with titles like ‘the good, the vlad and the ugly’) :
“Put simply, it is a surf/ska/spaghetti western soundtrack album for a film that is yet to be made. Think Dick Dale jamming with the Skatalites with Morricone at the helm, including appearances from Alessandro Alessandroni (the original spaghetti western whistler) and you’re in the right section at the record store, although it is possibly a very small section. “

Short: great music! Will be in my next shopping list.
You might have noticed, my examples are most of the time just references, but in some rare case, like ‘the return of the gringo’, reggae music gets blended with western soundtracks. And then, it gets exciting.’  Old example; early rocksteady: Jesse James rides again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojUPS6o1C9k (song starts after 14seconds, mark the sound of bullets!)

But lets get up to date: This one is the last example, one of my favourites. Mark how great the Western soundtrack blends in with the heavy bass and strong rhythm.Vibronics ‘Fistful of Dub’ (of course, another reference.)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVJnXJKjYvM

That’s all folks, hope you enjoyed it, and have fun exploring my universe!

Cheers, Zap