IF Quake Takes Fragging To Whole New Level

Thanks to ShackNews for pointing to the impressive technical feats showcased at the unofficial IF Quake page, which bills itself as "...a port of id Software's Quake 1 engine to the Inform programming language." The site includes riveting in-game screenshots, and the FAQ page has important info on bugs with this genuinely playable, downloadable Alpha release, noting: "IF Quake interfaces directly with the Quake engine, which was obviously not designed for [this advanced] output. The errors you see related to audio and OpenGL are due to the fact that the engine is being tricked into thinking it's running normally." Rumors that John Carmack will be switching Doom 3 to this impressive new engine are yet to be substantiated, however.

Comments

IF...

[dhalgren99]

"IF Quake Takes Fragging To Whole New Level"

HuH? If it does, what? What then!? ;)

Re:IF...

[Pointdexter]

No, *IF* Quake Takes Fragging To Whole New Level

On a related note, Who is TV's most famous doctor?

Re:IF...

[Fishstick]

Third base!

*April 1st, and 5 mod points -- going to be a fun day!

lol

[guycouch]

off to a good start : )

FPS!

[tokennrg]

Damn Campers!

I Love It

[powera]

The graphics and reflex skill of Zork with the complexity and storyline of your standard B-movie. This will surely be an enormous success. Wait a second, this would suck even if it weren't an April Fool's Joke. The only thing that is funny is how long the server lasted.

Oh how the months have flown...

[Andy Smith]

Is it really April already?

Re:April 1st

[insecuritiez]

Yeah... While a few are funny here or there I see no need to have the entire day of news completely ruined...

Veeeery Interesting

[poofyhairguy82]

I'm glad to see that the opening of the quake source code has allowed for interesting new ideas. And I thought that pocket quake was as good as it gets.

enough free time?

[AssProphet]

now if only they can make the text 3D.

Re:enough free time?

[JesseL]

Do you mean like this?

Re:enough free time?

[SWTP_OS9]

Any one know when Nvida will release the new Hyper speed 2D drivers to play it at full speed?

Re:enough free time?

[nazh]

maybe you can use this card ATI Radeon 9500 ASC,
the article also meantion the Nvidas GeForce 4900 MX-ASCII

Re:enough free time?

[SWTP_OS9]

Have that card in another computer. Problem is the ATI drives is too easy to install and does not crash correctly. Also its just a cut down 3D card. Since Nvida caugh them flat footed on this next generation of game play.

But the new Nvida drives is a pure ASCII driver that allows for full hyper quick 8bit access while the ATI only allows for 128bit wide slowing down the screen on fast action and sometime produceing very shakey or misspelled text due to the text not fitting as precisely in memory as the text on the Nvida card. Just too much slop with the extra bits said most reviewers.

Re:enough free time?

[smithmc]

now if only they can make the text 3D.

Maybe they could render the 3D text using really tiny ASCII art...

Inform programming language?

[Turing Machine]

The page for the Inform language is already starting to load sluggishly for me.

Anyone want to give us a capsule summary of what this language offers? It sounds interesting.

Re:Inform programming language?

[darc]

The inform language is an object orienated programming language designed for easy implementation of text based adventure games. It uses a well defined object hierarchy structure, that allows you to define parent child relationships easily, as well as move stuff around. The syntax is similar to C, but not quite, and a bit quirky with commas in parts.

Most uses of inform are with the Library, a selection of functions and support thingies written to facilitate IF writing.

It's turing complete, if you were wondering.

Very nifty. Chief competetor is TADS.

Re:Inform programming language?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are several other systems as well. For example Quest would let you make multiplayer version. You'd need to be quite a fast typer to play a deathmatch I suppose.

Re:Inform programming language?

[thrash242]

Inform is a language that makes writing interactive fiction (a subset of which are text adventures, like Zork and Adventure) easy. It's pretty flexible, as well. Tetris has been ported to it, for instance. It compiles to a z-machine file, interpreters for which exist on just about every platform known to man, including handhelds.

There are many other IF languages, TADS being the most popular besides Inform.

There is still a thriving interactive fiction "scene" and some very interesting things are being done with the medium (Photopia, Galatea).

Re:Inform programming language?

[jonadab]

Here's an actual snippet, taken from a game I was working on years ago.
Sorry about the thin-to-nonexistant indentation, but the postercomment
compression filter makes it really hard to post source code segments:

Object fridge "refrigerator" kitchen2
with
name 'fridge' 'refrigerator' 'kenmore' 'freezer',
description "It's a Kenmore combination refrigerator and freezer.
The front is covered with irrelevant notes from days gone by.",
before [;
Take: "Oh, you ", (pbold) "want", " a hernia?";
Open: if (cupboard hasnt general) {
give cupboard general;
"You open the refrigerator, but there's no light inside.
Suddenly, you realise that nothing in the house is running.
In your worry, you had neglected to notice that your music
had stopped playing. The refrigerator isn't even humming.
The power must be out. You reclose the refrigerator to
keep it from loosing its cool. The only sounds are coming
from the storm outside -- storm? There wasn't any storm
earlier.";
}
"You don't want to open the refrigerator with the power out; if
it gets too warm in there everything will spoil.";
],
has openable container scenery;

This is a simple object, a refrigerator. Other objects and code may refer to
it as fridge. "refrigerator" is the hardwired short name, which is what it
will be called when the game is talking to the player, in the absense of a
short_name property. (Giving an object a short_name property allows you to
do more complex things, like change the name in mid-game, determine the name
each time on the fly with a routine, or cetera.) kitchen2 is the parent
object, in this case the "room" where the refrigerator is located at the
start of the game. (This particular object will _stay_ there, because the
scenery attribute prevents the user from carting it around. Normally the
static attribute is used for that, but scenery also prevents it from being
mentioned automatically, which is useful for objects that you want to mention
manually in room descriptions.) The name property contains dictionary words
that the player may use to refer to the object; more complex objects can have
a parse_name routine, but for the refrigerator the name property is good
enough. The description property in this case is a string, though it could
just as well be a routine; anyway, it's used when the user looks at the
object. The before property holds a routine that gets a crack at doing
whatever it wants just before an action happens, whenever the user attempts
something with the object. In this case, if the user attempts to take the
refrigerator the routine prints a snide remark (and, since it uses the
implicit print_ret feature, it returns true, which prevents the action from
taking place). If the user tries to open the refrigerator, an attribute on
another object is tested, and an appropriate message is printed (again, using
the implicit print_ret to return true and prevent the action). (What the
cupboard object has to do with the player knowing the power is an interesting
question; I don't remember, to tell the truth; this code is several years old,
and I have barely looked at it ad interim.)

This is a very typical segment of code. With just a little practice, Inform
code is very easy to read. The really great thing about Inform, though, is
not the language itself, but the Designer's Manual. The DM *rocks*. It's
one of the three or four best computer books I've ever read. Especially the
section on the world model, with the Ruins example code. You can download
it for free, or I suspect you can still get a print copy, though I've
forgotten where. (Go to Google groups and ask on rec.arts.int-fiction
and someone will know for sure.)

Re:Inform programming language?

[John Miles]

I just ordered the Inform designer's manual straight from Amazon, for what it's worth. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/isbn=0971311900

New Game out today

[Neil Blender]

Doom 4 vs Quake 7 meets Daryl McBride in Castlewolfenstein (Only Available for Linux)

And so it begins...

[Valar]

to be on topic though, wouldn't intercal have been a better choice for comedic value?

Re:And so it begins...

[tolan-b]

intercal is for newbs, real men write unlambda

Hows the bump mapping?

[mattyohe]

I would like some benchmarks as well..

Re:Hows the bump mapping?

[Mr. Hankey]

It has excellent bump mapping, but you need a braille tty device to take advantage of it.

w0000000t! Let the games begin!

[teamhasnoi]

Here we go people! It's the big number one! Prepare for stories like "What is that Odor?" and "'Duke Nukem Forever' Officially Renamed to 'Duke Nukem ForgetIt'".

April first is the only day I actually get work done.

You are in a maze of twisty corridors, all alike..

[Buran]

... You might be eaten by a Shambler.

Gotta love april fools day: heres more

[Urgo]

Lol I love april fools day. For a list of other sites pulling april fools jokes check out:

This List

Heres the list so far:

www.urgo.org
mrtwig.net
southparkx.net
www.suprnova.org
www.cowsponge.com
Google
Slashdot

Just imagine playing quake via text interface.

[Cherveny]

You are in a room with many exits. You see a rocket launcher.

>Pick up Rocket Launcher
Rocket launcher picked up.

>Look.
You are in a room with many exits. You see player X leaving via exit number 1.

> Go to exit number 1.
You are in a room with many exits. You see player X.

> Fire Rocket Launcher at Player X.
Player X gibbed. :)

Re:Just imagine playing quake via text interface.

[Altima(BoB)]

>look

You are in a room with two exits, the south exit behind you, and the north exit in front of you, which looks dark. There are two corpses of Player 4 "QuAkEkIlLa" and Player 3 "your mom" on the floor.

>Move North

It is completely dark. You have been eaten by a Grue.

from the page

[Profe55or Booty]

IF Quake was written by jason bergman, and is in no way connected with id Software, Activision, the Justice League, The League of Gentlemen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the Lodge Club's Bowling League or any of the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

cute

Re:Are the downloads real?

[simoniker]

The game is fully playable, and actually pretty good fun, too.

Re:FPS games are just not playable with text

[l810c]

Unless the text is ASCII art style, I contend that it is impractical, and quite possibly impossible to effectively play an FPS game using only text.

Are you kidding me? Did you not see the web site? The Screenshots?? This one is definately going to keep me satiated until Doom3 comes out.

Another good one...

[Cherveny]

http://www.evercrest.com

DON'T BELIEVE IT

[radicalskeptic]

This is obviously an April Fools bit. I mean, it says right here that "all screens were taken on Mac OS X running Zoom."

A ground-breaking new game ported to OS X? Yeah, like anyone's going to believe THAT! Better luck next year, simoniker!

(PS: I own a Mac so I'm allowed to make these jokes)

Re:DON'T BELIEVE IT

[Soko]

I'm no April Fool, bud. Pffft.

No one will believe a Mac user has a sense of humour.

Soko

Re:DON'T BELIEVE IT

[Domini]

Don't worry, it would have been offending if you said: 'for OS 9'. ;)

OS X seems to be brining the games back to Mac.

Re:DON'T BELIEVE IT

[Hits_B]

/obligatory simpsons quote/ "You couldn't fool your mother on the foolingest day of your life even if you had an electrified fooling machine"

Re:DON'T BELIEVE IT

[jonadab]

> A ground-breaking new game ported to OS X? Yeah, like anyone's going to
> believe THAT!

You display your ignorance. Anything written in Inform doesn't *have* to be
ported to OS X, or for that matter to any other platform. Inform compiles to
zcode, which is the second-most-portable format after 7-bit ASCII text. (Or
*possibly* third after HTML3.2, but that's debatable.) The format was
designed by Infocom so that they wouldn't have to create different versions
of their games (starting with zork) for each different platform they wanted
to release on. There are z-machine emulators (known in the interactive
fiction community as "interpreters") available for hundreds of platforms,
platforms you've never heard of. The guy who wrote Inform uses something
called Archimedes which runs on a hardware architecture called Acorn, for
example. Other supported platforms include the TRS-80, tenex, Gameboy, the
BBC Micro, Emacs, Mozilla (yes, there's a Firefox extension), Apple // series,
IBM mainframes, the Java VM (yeah, a vm inside a vm), ... you get the idea.
Runs On Everything. zcode is supported on more platforms than GIF and JPG,
because almost a third of the platforms it runs on don't have graphics.

For OS X you have your choice of several dozen emulators ("interpreters"),
the most popular ones being MaxZip (native to MacOS, been around forever,
way before OS X) and frotz (for either Terminal.app or X11 if you get
Apple's X server, also been around forever but more cross-platform).

The user does have to download an emulator ("interpreter") though. If your
platform is at all common you can get one from ifarchive.org for example.

Re:FPS games are just not playable with text

[starling]

I contend that it is impractical, and quite possibly impossible to effectively play an FPS game using only text.

BANG! You're dead.

Site farked

[Kris_J]

Half a dozen comments and it's dead. If you're going to pull an annoying April Fools prank, at least make sure that your site can cope with the traffic.

Re:Site farked

[Kris_J]

I withdraw that comment. It's a working text adventure. This is more how I'd like April Fools to be. /. story writeup is still annoying though.

wow!

[Twintop]

Now if only we could get the Duke Nukem Forever developers to get on the bandwagon it could be out by summer!

Re:Are the downloads real?

[Kris_J]

The game is fully playable, and actually pretty good fun, too.

At least there's some honour in that. Anyone got a mirror? And do I really have to download the big map files?

Mirror (already Slashdotted)

[teamhasnoi]

Owz0r: Shoot the red guy.
Shoot the red guy with what?
With the BFG.
Do what with the BFG?
Shoot the red guy with the BFG.
The red guy is no longer in the room with you. You see exits to the north and northeast. You hear a buzzing noise to the northeast.
NE
You ran into the red guy's Rocket. Your innards are splattered everywhere.

Hit space to respawn.

Re:Mirror (already Slashdotted)

[citizenc]

Wait... why does that have to be an April Fools Day joke?

Anybody know how hard it would be to develop a text-based FPS-like game? Or know how one would go about doing so?

I think it would be pretty cool, at least from a huge geek's perspective. :)

Re:Mirror (already Slashdotted)

[brendan_orr]

Been done with aalib. I've personally played Text Mode Quake (screenshots), however not aaquake2 (yet) or the Text Mode UT. The Text Mode UT (aaut) page has some useful information one how aaut and ttyquake work.

Re:Mirror (already Slashdotted)

[Sparr0]

You have never played multiplayer networked Hunt The Wumpus have you? It is exactly as described above.

Re:Mirror (already Slashdotted)

[Sparr0]

This was not meant to be funny.
Text Only Hunt the Wumpus

Re:April 1st

[bersl2]

It began a little before this. Check out Google. You can apply for a job on the Moon.

Networking

[athakur999]

Will this new version support RFC 3514? The original one didn't and that's been a major barrier to adoption in the corporate world.

Happy April Fool's Day!

[blackmonday]

Happy April Fool's Day, it started already and its only 10:45 PM pacific time. Gotcha East Coast!

Re:This is lame

[l810c]

not a very good start for April Fools.

I agree, a wee bit too contrived. The best 4/1 jokes slip right past you. I think over the years we have all learned to become hyper critical of stories posted on 4/1 thus making it harder and harder to slip one by.

I can go one better

[complete loony]

Playing quake on an abacus. User Friendly

thinkgeek

[mattyohe]

thinkgeek

Re:April 1st jokes

[falzer]

> I see no need to have the entire day of news completely ruined...

Neither do I. That's never happened on /. before.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:FPS games are just not playable with text

[citizenc]

Check out TTYQuake. :)

works

[Profe55or Booty]

if anyone's waiting for someone to confirm, there is an actual game on that site. obviously not as advertised, but there's a game. haven't found anything too interesting yet, but i'll be damned if i don't beat this thing.

Re:works

[Threni]

My fave April Fool's joke so far is www.eff.org!

Re:Gotta love april fools day: more - fark.com

[SirSlud]

fark.com

Farked?

[hprotagonist0]

We don't do no farkin' around these here parts, buddy. What site d'you say you was from? A good ol' fashioned Slashdottin'll fry ten servers before breakfast and still have time to read the comics. I don't think any fancy-pants farkin' can do that, boy.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Bamboozled

[porp]

Okay, I had just finished telling my friends that, "Hooray, It's April 1st. Believe nothing. If your mom dies, it's just a prank." And then I see this story on Slashdot, and for at least 30 secs, I believe it is real. I was thinking to myself, QUAKE in Inform? The sites were Slashdotted, and then it hit me--YOU COULDN'T DO THAT WITH INFORM!. So thanks, Slashdot, I've been bamboozled already.

porp

btw, I know Inform and you could, in theory, make some serious programs, but I'm curious, what are the limits of such low level languages?

Re:Bamboozled

[thrash242]

It is real. You can do it with inform. Not nearly as well as the real thing, but I'm playing it now, so it is real.

Re:Bamboozled

[cubal]

It's real - it pokes a bit of fun, and you *don't* need the PAK file like they tell you, but it's real and it works.

Re:Oooh, funny and mysterious

[cgranade]

Not in my time zone!
I'm in Alaska, you insensitive clod!

Re:April 1st

[Moses Lawn]

Oh, get fucking over it. If you don't like the jokes, go and do something else for the day, like read a book, or watch TV, or play a game, or whatever. Is your life so shallow that you think "news" on Slashdot is the high point of the day?

Do *anything* else, just don't come here and bitch about it.

A somewhat real mirror

[Adam9]

The site is getting pounded. Here's part of it..

Mirror

Re:A somewhat real mirror

[sean1121]

It seems down now, here is a full mirror.

Re:Oooh, funny and mysterious

[Yorrike]

And there's only 5 hours left of April 1st here in New Zealand. It's quite irritating, as you're never quite sure what timezone a website is using, so you effectively end up with 2 solid days of bullshit news stories.

Re:See you in 24 hours.

[Nutt]

Some of them (ok the media ones usually aren't that good) are pretty good. Google's made me laugh a bit (click the link below the search field, "want a job..") and Thinkgeeks nifty products always make me laugh too.

Re:This is lame

[Ziffy]

not a very good start for April Fools.

I agree, a wee bit too contrived. The best 4/1 jokes slip right past you. I think over the years we have all learned to become hyper critical of stories posted on 4/1 thus making it harder and harder to slip one by.

It's funny you two should say that, for two reasons...

First, this isn't the first 4/1 joke. The poll and the Gmail story must have slipped by you.

Second, this isn't a joke. I downloaded it and I'm playing it right now.

Re:FPS games are just not playable with text

[Kyn]

Cheater!

*grumbles about wall-hacks*

Re:FPS games are just not playable with text

[Scarblac]

Genocide MUD (link) was exactly that (well, it still is, but I haven't played it in 10 years). A multi player player killing game, insanely fast, using only text.

There'd be wars, like two teams, play until one team is dead, restart... or all vs all wars, etc. The game is a really nice MUD (text adventure style), with beautiful descriptions, monsters, treasure etc.

You run past the descriptions. The monsters explode on your entering the room, dropping their stuff, which you take immediately, to sell for weapons and healing, in the first half minute of the war.

The team play is quite complex, because of difference classes. I'm not sure if there are things like Mages in online FPS games yet? The mage could 'port' to other players, to help them defeat their opponent - or walk into a death trap. Mages were the most important position in the team, when I played.

Anyway, some of those nerds did 200+ commands per minute, without any sort of client (mostly w e n s of course, and you can make aliases). It was fast, it rocked, and it was exactly what you describe.

one word

[cehbab]

freak :)

In other news...

[wllf]

John Carmack announced today the Doom 3 engine will be ported to Visual Basic. Really performance critical parts will be done in Java (Microsoft JVM and IE 5.0 or higher required). According to Carmack the performance of the new engine wil 'stun everyone'.

Rumors have already been heard that the Duke Nukem Forever team is eagerly waiting for this engine to become available.

Re:In other news...

[varslot]

It would certainly stun every computer...

Re:In other news...

[fdisk3hs]

This is really just a port of my quakeiii.el emacs LISP macro to IF. That's right, IT'S EXTENSIBLE.
System Requirements:
device that offers vt100 terminal emulation by Any Means Necessary
look for the Altair assembler tape and EZTERM add-on board Q4 2004!

Re:Oooh, funny and mysterious

[robbyjo]

No, you must read the title: if quake takes fragging to whole new level. That's an "if" with a capital I and F. :)

Re:Are the downloads real?

[PovRayMan]

Yeah, I'm suprised it's not some april fools joke.

Too bad I suck so bad at all these reading stuff, but for fun I tried to type "carmack" and "romero" and I got some feedback :-)

I wonder what other little easter eggs are in this game.

Re:This is lame

[l810c]

Knock, Knock

I downloaded it and I'm playing it right now.

THAT'S the joke

Re:FPS games are just not playable with text

[Sancho]

I think you want this.

Re:Are the downloads real?

[lxs]

No, you just need the quake.z5 file in the ifquake folder and an infocom interpreter like frotz. Basically, it's a text adventure that pokes some gentle fun at quake 1.

>n

East Slipgate Room
As you walk up the plain wooden stairs, the metal bars retract into holes in the
ceiling, like some sort of medieval supermarket door. To call the area you walk
into next a room would be a deep insult to rooms everywhere (and lord knows
they're an easily offended lot). This closet has two very small bodies writhing
in agony on the walls and an archaic-looking metal slipgate in front of you to
the north. And that's it. Clearly the designers of this room expected you to be
wowed by the aquatic passageway they installed in lieu of a normal door to the
previous room.

>examine bodies
The bodies are crucified to the walls on your right and left. They seem to be
emaciated, but also rather small in comparison to your ample girth, suggesting
that these were perhaps some unfortunate Leprechauns who had one too many drinks
on St. Patrick's Day. Interestingly, they appear to be thrashing about in near
unison, making you wonder if they were in fact some sort of synchronized agony
team.

>

and so on.

I am Beta tester for Multiplayer Mode

[a!b!c!]

Multiplayer is still just a puppy, but its coming together nicely. There still is a problem with excessive spawn camping, and its in debate right now whether or not the software should prevent it.

One guy started using voice recognition to play, which was quite a riot to listen to. As we grew more comfortable with the game we came across some other oddities: if you are a good typer and become familiar with the commands, it plays pretty much like the original quake. We even hooked it up so we had a team of IF players versus a team of graphical players, and the IF players won!

We've also receieved a lot of encouragement from a few visually impair folks. They complained about the lack of computer gains accessible to them.

Keep your eyes open for Multiplayer mode, it shoul d be a big hit. Depending on the ultimate success of the project, there are talks about working on Counterstrike next.

Re:I am Beta tester for Multiplayer Mode

[silentbozo]

So how do you determine accuracy? I can see someone with macros dominating the game if his shots hit every time (text-based bots.) Or, someone with a running bot navigating him from room to room, in order to dodge shots.

Cool effort though, and nice descriptions. I'd try it myself, but the site has finally gotten slashdotted...

YESS!!! THE INSANITY HAS BEGUN!

[thetelepath]

And for once i realized it on my own!!!! now if only i could rig the bell system at my school to ring every five minutes...

My hardware shudders at the thought.

[irokitt]

Yeah, and it takes a frickin' Beowulf cluster to run the damn thing.

compiled with success on moscvax

[ovidus naso]

A complete porting HOW-TO is available here.

Humiliation

[Keeper]

I think someone fragged their webserver...

Babel fish at the bottom of the faq

[zoefff]

Great! Now I know how to get on with that game.

Oh... and don't forget to give the dog your sandwich

Why oh why...

[lpangelrob2]

Why, oh why, did /. decide to hand me 5 mod points today? The level of uselessness these points will sink to will break new boundaries today.

Speaking of modding, this one's -1: Offtopic. :-)

Re:You are in a maze of twisty corridors, all alik

[tm2b]

Huh. I first read that as:

You might be eaten by a Shatner.

I think my version is scarier.

Re:April 1st

[mqRakkis]

I'm still waiting for CmdrTaco to wake up...

Re:Another good one... - RIAA's April Fools Joke

[RazorX90]

Now I just want to see RIAA's April Fools joke.

April 1, 2004:
"Ok, we give up! Free songs for every one. Just provide us with your name, address, social security number and how many song you have downloaded. We'll send a free CD for every 100 songs! It's an apology to our loyal fans who we have prosecuted so ruthlessly."

April 2, 2004:
April Fools! HAHAHA! Now we've got you, Mr. Goa Tohel, SS# 666-66-6666

Months?

[0mni]

April sure, but what year is this. I've been coding a form of electronic monkey for many years. The men in black coats just keep bringing me new computers, although each one doesnt work as well as the last. This "Windows" is so far the worst thing yet.

"Complete" list of April Fools Jokes for 2004

[Urgo]

I'm trying to keep a list of all the sites pulling pranks for 2004. Visit the site to see the up to the minute list and to submit new ones.

Current list:

www.urgo.org
mrtwig.net
southparkx.net
www.suprnova.org
www.cowsponge.com
Google
Slashdot
fark.com
www.thinkgeek.com
www.pimpworks.org
www.whirlpool.net.au
planetnintendo.com
Google Job
evercrest.com
www.heise.de (not sure if its a joke.. german)
www.homestarrunner.com
Weekly World News

Re:"Complete" list of April Fools Jokes for 2004

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, IF Quake *is* for real and not a joke. :-/

And I think the Google Job was the joke, not Gmail.

Re:"Complete" list of April Fools Jokes for 2004

[iainl]

Admittedly the firewall stops me actually seeing the page, but how do you tell a Weekly World News April Fool story from anything else they print?

Re:"Complete" list of April Fools Jokes for 2004

[Peyna]

If Gmail is a joke, they've fooled CNN too.

Re:"Complete" list of April Fools Jokes for 2004

[bitchell]

It is for real I am playing it on my Palm Pilot now.
You should actually download it. before you all dismiss it.

Major Kudos to Looniboi it's pretty cool when you play it.

Re:"Complete" list of April Fools Jokes for 2004

[ralphb]

Even How Stuff Works is getting in on the fun:

How Hydro-Ordnance Works

Re:"Complete" list of April Fools Jokes for 2004

[Craig Nagy]

Here's another

Re:"Complete" list of April Fools Jokes for 2004

[hanssprudel]

From The Register:

Capitalizing on the pre-IPO frenzy that accompanies every new Google feature, the company issued a spoof press release today - of all days! - in which co-founder Sergey Brin says, "And while developing Gmail was a bit more complicated than we anticipated, we're pleased to be able to offer it to the user who asked for it."

The service is real, however. The advertisement injection has sparked fierce internal debates, reports The NY Times. "Many people inside the company are worried that users might fear that the content of their e-mail messages could be used to tailor individual advertising messages, much as ad messages are now placed on pages tied to specific responses to search inquiries."

Re:"Complete" list of April Fools Jokes for 2004

[Ben Urban]

Is it encoded in UTF-8? Is it big endian or little endian? CR, LF or CR/LF?

Yes yes I know...all that is irrelevant. It's a joke. Laugh.

That's Easy

[superultra]

Quake into Infocom is impressive, but easy enough. I'll be really impressed when I see Infocom on the Quake engine.

So is the joke on me

[mrondello]

for simply clicking a link. HAHAHA LOL I made you click!!!!!

Pretty weak attempt this year.

Re:FPS games are just not playable with text

[Disevidence]

He obviously takes after your examples, Sir Haxalot.

Greatest Prank Yet

[Broadband]

http://www.obsidianshard.com You guys have to see the crazy thing the server admins of this UO Emulated Server pulled. Wow i wonder what would happen if EQ did that.

april 1

[Nate Fox]

editors want to play jokes? time to start modding the "First Post!"s up to +5 Informative

Re:april 1

[eddy]

It also looks like they turned off anonymous postings on a 2001 april fools day.

Yes, that was the best day in slashdot history, ever.

Re:april 1

[Ilgaz]

"editors want to play jokes? time to start modding the "First Post!"s up to +5 Informative"

I did, it was ruined by morons marking it offtopic etc.

You really expect some impressive IQ from Slashdot users right? Let me tell, DON'T.

Re:april 1

[drinkypoo]

It would be better to just reverse the moderation totals such that negative mods were positive and vice versa :)

Site is fragged...

[gxv]

...and hasn't respawn yet.

Re:Sorta offtopic

[filtur]

PC Habicase? PC EZ bake oven?
Disclaimer: Without proper cooling, PC Habicase will turn into PC Ez bake oven for your little hamster pals.

ThinkGeek

Re:FPS games are just not playable with text

[paganizer]

No doubt! I was thinking this might just be more vaporware until I saw those screenshots; Very crisp graphics!
And of course, the imaging engine rivals that of some of the most advanced systems ever created.

right

[tekunokurato]

April fools!! We fucked your server!

Re:right

[paroneayea]

Not only that, but we've hit you so hard your broke college ass will be scrambling to pay this off for the next two years! Maybe more! APRIL FOOLS! Ahahahahaha..... god damn we're funny.

This is nothing

[Zog The Undeniable]

I ported Quake II to INTERCAL years ago. I claim the first use, in a FPS, of "COME FROM" and colored lighting ;-)

Re:FPS games are just not playable with text

[prockcore]

BANG! You're dead.

What the..? WallHack!

Re:You are in a maze of twisty corridors, all alik

[freakmn]

I got you both beat, I thought it said eaten by a Slashdotter...

Re:April 1st

[some guy I know]

Is your life so shallow that you think "news" on Slashdot is the high point of the day?

Yes.
Yes, it is.

No no no, you've got it all wrong.

[AvantLegion]

> Fire Rocket Launcher at Player X.
Player X gibbed. :)

Actually, it's:

> Fire Rocket Launcher at Player X.
Rocket misses.

> Fire Rocket Launcher at Player X.
Rocket appears to hit Player X, but Player X reappears a few meters away, unscathed.

Player X kills you.

"OMG FUCKING LAGGG!!!!"

Re:I Love It (Totally off topic...sorta)

[devnul73]

April 1st.....damn thanks for reminding me...time to go put the knoppix cd in my roomates computer and tell its was acting wierd so i decided to install linux. (wouldnt be such a bad idea if he wasnt such a final fantasy 11* addict)

*maybe it works under linux (winex), don't know, dont care, just avoiding the possible flames. (spelling and grammer notwithstanding)

Re:You are in a maze of twisty corridors...

[Kompressor]

Trying to describe Slashdot, eh?

IF Slashdot

[MartyJG]

Room: Slashdot Main Page

Directly in front of you are several stories. You notice a story about Quake with the notice 'Read More' beneath it.

>click notice

Room: Weekly Obfuscated Quake Story

You are now in an area that seems vaguely familiar. You immediately notice several trolls that are already attacking both the Quake story and a purple dinosaur.

Your score is currently +5 moderator points.

>attack trolls with mod points

You use all of your moderator ammo on the trolls, taking out a handful. There are still a few trolls left, but they leave you alone. The Quake story is now being protected by sensible readers, but the purple dinosaur is a hill of beans.

You see an opportunity for a karma kit. You see a notice marked 'Reply'.

>hit reply

You now see a Quake story with your post listed near the bottom, but in front of the trolls who are now attacking each other. Two moderators enter the room, closely followed by an Anonymous Coward and two morons who don't know how to read.

>hit submit story

Your post has drawn the attention of the others in the room. The faint smell of flamebait seems to be coming from just below your post. Five trolls have suddenly come back to life!

>attack flamebait with witty reply

Your witty attack has shot down one of the non-reading morons. One of the moderators takes care of the Anonymous Coward - he runs off to foul up some other room. The other moderator leaves behind a karma point.

Victory is yours!

April

[alex_tibbles]

What I want to know is if we are going to have to put up with repeats every hour, on the hour, like last year...

Not enough WPM

[Aqua_Geek]

Imagining that is painful. I type too slow, so I would just become canon fodder.

I prefer network lag, not the typing kind.

Re:April 1st

[packeteer]

Yah seriously... if you cant do without slashdot for one day you need help. Slashdot shouldn't even be taken seriously as your source of news anyway.

ThinkGeek.com

[Dr Cool]

Even better, ThinkGeek.com is now shipping Half Life 2 and Doom 3! Check the left side of the screen. No mention of Duke Nukem Forever.

April Fools...all parody sites beware!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've run two servers that were slashdottted before, and i do have to say that it [b]fucking sucks[/b] to be slashdotted being a supervisor, admin, or even a concerned citizen of said servers. Really...

You put up a site that is either a joke or is a pure "volunteer" effort to donate something back to the OSS world.

Suddenly there's a link to your "joke" on slashdot.

You suddenly have your server die, your bandwidth get sucked away into a black hole if like me you unfortunately host these servers, and have to spend two days trying to figure out not only figuring out how to set aside enough bandwith to check your friggin e-mail but also how to placate your ISP/help desk personnel who are harassing you for days on end about your "illegal" bandwidth usage. It's already killed one OSS project I care about. After dealing with slashdot fallout the project just died.

While I'd love this plea to be for miniscule servers listed in front page stories in general...but [i]especially[/i] on april fool's...

Editors, fucking get wise and just realize teh damage that slashdot causes to any effort, humorous, open source, or otherwise. True volunteer projects are at the mercy of bandwidth and IT overhand constraints like every other site that has an unexpected spike in bandwidth.

So why not post google links or, God Forbid, mirror the content yourselves instead of consciously killing and destroying the OSS development and humor you purport to advocate on this site?

The "slashdot effect" of being a massive DDoS is already well known and documented.

(puts on tinfoil hat) Either make an effort to help people without enough bandwidth or stay silently complacent to those forces funding your ongoing existence and blacking out every "home brew" site that doesn't possess the bandwidth and IT staff OSDN and other commercial entities can provide in order to survive a slashdotting.

Get a fucking life and start supporting open source and OSS humor instead of consciously destroying it you doo-goodie nothing editors.

ed

Where's the Exult port of Doom?

[WWWWolf]

Porting Doom series to Ultima VII engine might bring a whole new level of insight to "You want to quit? Then, thou hast lost an eighth!"... and Electronic Arts might find the game marketable enough to justify the rerelease of the whole series. Who knows!

i dont know whether this is an April Fool but...

[Fross]

...some friends and i did something like this several years ago, but sicker. we used to run a MUD (which is sadly defunct now, but was called Powerstruggle for all those of you who fancy a google), and we had a "virtual mud" system within it. as in, a system you could use, while in the mud, and as though you're immersing yourself in a (textual) virtual reality, you end up within a different system, with different stats, your commands routed to the virtual mud, etc etc.

the first application of this was, in fact, to reimplement doom as a text-based virtual environment within the mud, with its own stats, weapons, maps, and so forth. it worked splendidly.

what started as a bit of fun, we then reimplemented a different mud within this virtual system. it was a simple one, so it wasn't anything huge to do.

then, it was abstracted a bit to allow other muds to run under it. so we gave homes to orphaned muds, which were playable as virtual muds within our mud.

and then even worse, it got extrapolated so other sorts of games could be written under it. last i remember, someone had implemented the Magic:The Gathering card game under this system.

ah, muds. back when we all had time to goof off and spend 16 hours a day coding, but not on our CS degrees. having said that, my mud work got me my first two jobs rather than my degree, so things sometimes work out in the end :>

Believe it

[thrash242]

It's completely real, the only thing is that it doesn't actually need Quake or any of that, it's just an IF rendition of Quake.

But it is fully playable.

Re:Believe it

[thrash242]

...and Z-machine interpreters are ported to pretty much any platform, including Palm, Unix, Mac, DOS, Windows, etc.

Re:You are in a maze of twisty corridors, all alik

[Nerull]

Heh, so did I...it wasn't until I read your post and went back to read it again that I noticed it wasn't :P

Stuck

[JSmooth]

Ok, I'm stuck. I followed the online walkthru and got to the yard with the grunt and the dog. I kill the grunt but by the time I do the dog is on me and has started to eat my testicles. Am I doing something wrong? Can somebody help? Is there a 900 support number I can call?

Well, since we're all here.

[Night0wl]

Some time ago there was either an article posted on it. Or perhaps a blurb in my Blues news slashbox about it.

But there was a team of people porting Quake 1 style pyshics into the Quake 3 engine. Does any one remember where this was at? What it was called?

I imagine one of you quake fans would remember it. There where video's of it in action, And I'd like to find it again to see how it's doing these days.

What the hell?

[walter_kovacs]

What the hell kind of rip off was this thread? I was expecting some hardcore fragging action, not some fairy text adventure shit! I of the MTV generation - read? I don't have time to read anything!

:P

Re:FPS games are just not playable with text

[Walkiry]

That's nothing dude, you should see it in my computer. Last year I bought a Radeon 9500 ASC for enhancing my Nethack games, and it turns out IF Quake also uses the onboard acceleration! When I tell people I'm playing IF Quake at 1,000 FPS I get all sorts of jealous looks. And the "Rottweilers", man they look so realistic and scary.

Oh GREAT!

[night_flyer]

Ill be back tommorow, I dont have time for this crap...

Re:Jeez, now I'll never get offline

[BlueCodeWarrior]

it seems that there are hordes of people who never learned to act above the age of 12

Don't forget, they might not be over the age of 12 yet.
Not that that excuses them...I hate assholes in online games as much as the next person.

CABAL?

[Captain Zion]

I wonder if this version of Quake can be played using CABAL...

Miss the old days of April 1

[dalamarian]

It just seems that the April fools joke articles of the past were far funnier. Guess it is hard to do every year and keep it funny.

Re:April Fools is off topic????

[Ilgaz]

"How is April Fool's off topic on the first reply to the first story on April 1st(Say that 5 times fast) Lighten up people it is April Fool's day afterall."

Maybe people take moderator thing too serious?

Re:This is lame

[Ilgaz]

The ones moderating you "offtopic" are funny at least

Screenshots from Others Quake1 Engines

[Tei]

Here:
http://wiki.quakesrc.org/index.php/Engines

This is a short list of actual Quake engines. You can pick DarkPlaces and ZQuake has the best Linux/Windows engine (QW and NQ), and fuhquake/Darkplaces/Telejano has the better Windows engines (QW,NQ and NQ respectively).

If you want to jump directly to the cool stuf, go here:
http://wiki.quakesrc.org/index.php/The%20be st%20of %202003%20Screenshots%2C%20by%20Tei

If you use linux, copy and paste the url, if you use windows, type it carefully (naa.. j/k)

Anyone know where to get an aimbot?

[Dr. Manhattan]

I keep getting fragged on the third level.

framerates

[budly]

I've never had better Quake framerates before this version.

Hell to pay

[Ragica]

Damn you Slashdot, and damn you Jason Bergman. Damn you, damn you all! i wanted this one to be true!

4/1/2004

[SLASHAttitude]

LET THE GAMES BEGIAN!

Re:April 1st

[gabec]

You're kidding right?

Maybe it was a ... joke?

Re:FPS games are just not playable with text

[Himring]

Friggin "Q" camper....

Pity I so wanted to frag a blind friend of mine...

[mrmeval]

I so wanted to frag a blind friend of mine on a level playing field.
Well as level as it ever gets.
I would consider running AALIB but all it and a braille display do is make a vibrator and nothing would get done.

Quake MUD

[cattail.nu]

That's Multi-User-Dungeon! Play a real text based adventure at: Ancient Anguish

CNN.com BITES!

[aliens]

Cnn.com takes it hook line and sinker!

Obvious Exits are North, South, and... Dennis?

[Otis2222222]

You cannot get ye flask!

You know, on any other day. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

I'd have taken this at face value. I'm the sort of guy who would have gotten a huge kick out of working on that kind of project when I was a kid with lots of spare time.

--The really impressive bit would have been actually linking it to the Quake engine in a workable manner. It'd be much easier to start from the ground up and just use one of the IF authoring systems available. Talk about bloat!

The main problem would be in making the game interesting to play. Not too many IF challenges in your average Quake scenario! --Though, I bet if you flattened everything by removing the up-down co-ordinates, and then provided a bird's eye view via keyboard characters, you could make the game fairly engaging. Rather like a kind of supercharged 'Nethack'.

Anyway, this is a cool April fool's gag!

--The site owners should put up a 'donations' button though, quick, quick to off-set the Slashdot effect!

-FL

Arrrg. You got me. And I actually just thought...

[Qbertino]

...'Gee, Slashdot has some really interessting stuff today.'
LOL!

Interesting

[OverwhelmingAmoeba]

Wow, instead of fragging your opponents into oblivion, you can now bore them to death will the sordid details of your life!

Interactive Fiction

[novakane007]

Cool! This made me flash back to the days of playing ZORK The Zork series were old interactive text based games, much like this "new doom". Granted the action wasn't nearly as rivetting as doom.

Files mirrored

[loonyboi]

Hi everyone...I've moved the actual downloadable files to FileShack, as my server's being hammered relentlessly:

All three versions can be downloaded here:

http://www.fileshack.com/file.x?fid=4807

Thanks!

-jason

PS: YES, this is a real game.

Re:FPS games are just not playable with text

[Dracolytch]

I'm working on a copy/paste hack, if you want in. ;)

~D

Yeah, right

[chefren]

In other news Duke Nukem Forever was just released today.

Except that this is real...

[Xformer]

Apparently you haven't even tried to play it. The only joke is requiring the original Quake files for it to work.

Re:Maybe I'm the only one PLAYING the game...

[loonyboi]

That's a bug, I'm afraid...you have to press the button on the wall, except there's no way of knowing it's actually there!

Just type "press button" and it will work.

Sorry about that. In the rush to get it out last night, I missed that one. :(

(This will be fixed in a release tonight)

Re:Are the downloads real?

[Schnapple]

Yeah, I'm suprised it's not some april fools joke.

It's sorta an April Fool's joke. The joke is that it's a "port" - this joke is supported by the notion that the game pulls some tricks like it's the GLQuake console, and the website implies that you need the PAK files from a shareware or registered Quake. You don't. It's not a port at all - it doesn't use Quake code or use any Quake resources.

What it really is is just damn clever. It would be interesting to see if this provokes a more mainstream interest in interactive fiction.

Wow. Only 8 years from concept to implementation.

[TheKodiak]

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=4kdu15%246h5% 40cloner3.netcom.com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplai n

DOOM Ported to iPod

[blakespot]

DOOM Ported to iPod

Finally.

blakespot

Re:FPS games are just not playable with text

[starling]

I thought that was how we all got to be alive.