Old News

A bit of sanity in an otherwise insane world . . . I saw on PlanetShogo that the Shogo Cup is back on and there is a server-side rez being created that will detect and eliminate people using the rapid-fire cheating rez. These stories are actually connected because the Shogo Cup had been cancelled at least partially due to concerns over cheating. Here's the poop from Satan[GT-MaD]:

The good news is we tested a sever side anti-cheat rez with much success tonight. JEX was our first victim, lame ass cheater. Bad news is the server crashed a few times cause of the object.lto file we were using in the rez. Have to still run debug and it's getting too late to fix it tonight, the patch will be made available to wraith and nova as soon as it's stable, hopefully this will get posted on the planetshogo site soon for server admins. The cheat detects rapid fire on all weapons and nullifies damage to all rounds fired that are out of the normal fire rate. It keeps track of the bad shots which are too fast and counts, as soon as the player has fired 100 bad shots he then takes 9999 damage points, blam. If he fires again after that he dies everytime.

There will also be some MAJOR Haus of Shogo news coming soon, stay tuned.

Sorry about the lack of updates. I'm taking a class this week which is severely increasing my workload. I'm pulling about a 70 hour week this week. Bad news for the Hunster. The class is worthwhile, but exhausting.

I've been getting a lot of mail lately about the new cheating rezs going around. It is rather obvious that the most recent ones were created not so much to cheat, but to annoy the people who frequent the public servers. If that's the way you get your jollys, knock yourself out. But if that is your main reason for existence, I feel very sorry for you.

I saw on PlanetShogo that Anarchy Arts has released more stuff, including a couple of MCA models, from their ill-fated Shogo add-on Legacy of the Fallen. The direct link to all the LotF stuff is here. Navigating through their whole website is tiresome, to say the very least.

Padwah, over at the other Shogo fan site (aka Padwah's Shogo Shed), has typed up a multiplayer guide for newbies. Go give it a look.

Rapture! There's a brand spankin' new Quantus' Qorner up! In this issue, Quantus discusses the advantages and disadvantages of cable modem access. Those of us who live in the sticks know not of what he speaks . . .

I got some great news via email from Spectre. The ShogoWorld project is progressing well. Right now they are finishing up Squishie (YES!) and then will be addressing some lag/latency issues. It's nice to know that even though Monolith has dropped Shogo, we've still got enough talented folks in the Shogo community to do the job properly! More information will follow as ShogoWorld progresses.

Just a reminder, send all your questions for Ryan's Room to ryan__greene@hotmail.com. Do it today, do it now!

I've been playing some Q3Test lately. It's a lot more fun that Q2, IMHO. My Shogo skillz have also come in handy in dishing out the pain to some unsuspecting Q2ers. As cool as it is, I still like Shogo. Can't help it. Big MCAs, big booms. Can't beat it.

Hey kids! The newest edition of Ryan's Room is online! Check it out!

UGN 3D has an interview with Monolith's code jockey, Mike Dussault. Of interest to Shogo fans is the following passage:

UGN: Finally, while the networking code in Shogo is good for some people, there are still people who are complaining about the high pings. For example there was this problem which you guys had with users of a specific type of modem. Is this being worked on, and will it be fixed for LithTech 1 and also LithTech 2?

MikeD: This will be fixed in Lithtech2.

Translation: "Shogo fans are out of luck. Thank you for playing our game. We'll fix it next time, honest." So, it appears that the fabled 2.3 patch will be as much garbage as I thought it would be.

Nova reports that there is a new MOD for Shogo in the works called Jam S.H.M.A.V. I have no idea what this means, other than the fact that it is a "mech fighting mod." The author has the mod pretty much done, but needs level designers and someone to make a web page for him. Email bono@hotmail.com if you want to help.

Jason Hall has again updated his .plan. To sell his motorcycle. Seriously. Good thing he didn't say anything about Shogo.

The Shogo Six-Pack levels have been added to the EZ-Net BloodBath 6 server! These levels were supposed to be a part of the Shogo add-on called Shugotenshi. Even though the project was scrapped, they released these deathmatch levels for free. Download them here and get on the server!

More bad craziness from the Haus of Shogo! I just completed my review of BloodBath 6! All the carnage you've come to expect, with less lag to boot!

Sadly, it appears that the Star Wars TC was scrapped before it ever started. I don't know why. The former leader of the project seems to have fallen off the planet (did the LucasFilm goons get him?!?). Anyway, Wraith posted this to the PlanetShogo forums:

Right now, me and some of the Star Wars TC guys are starting work on a mod/add on for Shogo, with the majority of the focus on Single Play, but still fun enough to MP. We're looking for modelers, skinners, and mappers.

More information to follow as soon as I find anything out. Interested in helping Wraith and company? Email him!

In our continuing efforts to be your full-service Shogo website, the Haus of Shogo is proud to announce the first installment of Quantus' Qorner! In this inaugural column, Quantus discusses the Shogo community and the interaction between MADs. Check it out!

Jason Hall, Monolith's CEO, updated his .plan in which he said absolutely nothing about Shogo. Just thought you'd like to know. :)

Thanks go out to Nova for promoting the Haus on PlanetShogo. If you can't find what you're looking for regarding Shogo here, you can bet you'll find it at PlanetShogo.

Anarchy Arts, the company which was to make the now-cancelled Legacy of the Fallen add-on for Shogo, is releasing levels, models, and textures that were to have been in LoF. They will be releasing new stuff every two weeks for two months. You can check out what they have here. They also wrote a postmortem for LoF, telling what went right and what went wrong. After reading it, I'm amazed that they got done what they did. It shows just how true the old saying is: if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Thanks to PlanetShogo for the heads-up.

Hey kids! The first installment of "Ryan's Room" is now online! Ryan's Room is Ryan "Joltox" Greene's personal corner of the Haus of Shogo. There he answers all your most burning questions using patented GRINK technology. Got a question for Joltox? Send it here!

According to Nova, that new co-op mod was not really a mod at all. Somebody just unrezed the single-player levels out of Shogo and ZIPped them all together so you could put them in your Shogo\Custom subdirectory. So a) it's not a mod because no coding was involved, and b) it's illegal because it would allow you to download Shogo levels without actually buying the game.

Our roving reporter, Quantus, just let me know that there will be a new co-op mod released soon. Check back here and at PlanetShogo for further details! Get those modems warmed up though, it's supposed to be about a 20 meg download. Oof!

The Macross TC Homepage has been updated quite a bit recently. This ambitious total conversion project seeks to bring the Macross anime universe to Shogo. Check them out!

Thankfully, PlanetShogo's file system is back to normal so all the links work once again. Thanks to DooBall and Nova for tracking that one down.

I got a reply back from Paul Butterfield, Monolith's P.R. guru, regarding PC Gamer's Shogo 2 comments. Here's the last paragraph of his email, which pretty much sums the situation up:

So to be perfectly clear Monolith is NOT currently working on or even has a game design document for Shogo2. However we would love to continue the Shogo universe and would consider the development of the project after Sanity or No One Lives Forever (working title) are complete.

There you have it. Currently there is no Shogo 2 in the works. I thought the PC Gamer comments didn't seem to make sense. Thanks to Paul Butterfield for so quickly responding to my questions.

Someone sent a blurb to PlanetShogo from a recent (no date given) issue of PC Gamer which stated that, "Monolith has confirmed, however, that the series will continue with a full sequel."

While I would certainly welcome and look forward to Shogo 2, I'm in "I'll believe it when I see it" mode right now. Let's review the facts. Shogo sold "disappointingly" which led to the two planned add-on packs being axed. So then Lith decides to do a sequel? While I hope this news is right, it doesn't make much sense. I want some confirmation directly from Monolith. As a matter of fact, I'll zing out some email to the folks at Lith. Stay tuned . . .

DooBall returned my email saying that something is indeed messed up on PlanetShogo's end with their files system. He emailed the Gamespy network's tech support so hopefully this can be straightened out soon. I thought about changing all my links to point at FilePlanet (Gamespy's new file repository site), but they only have BloodBath and Squishie there right now. To access FilePlanet's Shogo section directly, click here.

Check out this sweet screenshot I took of Ghost, test, and myself recreating the climactic light-saber battle in The Phantom Menace (using the katana in BloodBath 6, naturally). Click to see a larger (640x480) version.


I finally updated my Best Maps page, adding Interstate82's excellent Maniac Challange single-player levels. If you are yearning for some single-player action, these three levels are definitely worth a download!

By the way, no, my links aren't wrong. There's something messed up at PlanetShogo. All the links to maps and mods housed on PS no longer work. I emailed DooBall about it. If I need to update all my links I'll do so as soon as I find out what the right links are. If it's PS's problem, I'll let you know when it gets fixed.

Look for the first installment of Joltox' and Quantus' columns soon!

I finally finished my Defending the Monolith v2.0 review. Read my review, then get on the servers and play the mod!

Happy birthday tomorrow to the U.S. of A.! 223 years young!