I don't often post a pure commentary on BeyondUnreal, but I'm sitting here with my brain full of stuff that needs to come out, so what better place than on my own web site? Entering braindump mode...
First off, I lost my mother-in-law, Ruth Pace, this week. Ruth was a rare bird, a kind and gentle spirit that brightened up everyone's life. She was an avid gardner, loved her husband, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren more than life itself, and, until about 15 months ago, was the 'energizer bunny' of the geriatric set.
Around last Memorial Day, she developed what we later found out was something called 'progressive supernuclear palsy', the same diagnosis that Dudley Moore had a few years ago. Over the course of a few months, she went from being a vibrant, energetic 73 year-old woman to a complete invalid, unable to move or speak, bed-ridden with a feeding tube. It was horrible - this 'light of the world' woman became a prisoner in her own body.
Mrs. QAPete and the rest of the family provided her with her care for the next year (no small feat), but her organs finally shut down Saturday a week ago, and she simply stopped breathing. Of all the people close to me who have died over the past several years (and there have been a number of them), I'm most affected by Ruth's passing. I'm so thankful that I got to know her well, and that my kids got to spend the formative parts of their lives knowing her. We're all better people as a result of that.
I'd also like to express my opinion about Unreal II: XMP. As most of you know, I was one of the few people who thought Unreal 2 would be a 'stone cold winner' when it was released. What we got, though, was a game that was way too short, had virtually no replay value, and was missing a crucial element - multiplayer. Well, it may be too late to 'save' Unreal II sales with XMP, but I encourage all of you to try Unreal II: XMP anyway when it comes out. The addition of XMP, even without XMP bot support, successfully deals with all three of the major complaints about the original game. Weapons have been tweaked, along with much more, and I'll bet you find it to be a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I'd also like to encourage people to design levels and static meshes for XMP. Unreal II: XMP has a distinct look and feel to it, and it deserves your attention.
One more thing about Unreal II: XMP - you may not see much in the way of advertising, but don't be fooled by that - the people involved in beta testing are working very hard with Legend Entertainment to make XMP the best online gaming experience they can, and there are some seriously talented people still working on the game.
Finally, I want to put a call out to the BeyondUnreal community concerning bandwidth. With the addition of our third server, we will finally have the flexibility to do full backups and grow the site, from a disk space standpoint. What we lack is bandwidth, and this is where you can help.
BeyondUnreal is looking for a partner who would be willing to give us three 1U spaces in a rack, with a 5 mbit connection and the ability for us to reboot our machines remotely. After initial installation and configuration, the only time we'd need someone on-site is to deal with a physical hardware failure. In return, we could provide advertising, selling of services ala ShackDSL, etc. We're also open to whatever ideas a potential benefactor might have.
If you know of an ISP or colocation facility that might be willing to do help our community-run project grow by donating (not selling) what we require, please direct them to me, or send me the contact information and I'll be happy to initiate the conversation. While we can certainly continue providing BeyondUnreal on our existing 1 mbit pipe, we'd certainly be excited at the opportunity to grow with a bandwidth partner. I realize that donating this kind of bandwidth is a tall order, but as a friend of mine says, one must always 'allow for the possibility of success' in life. So, that's exactly what I'm going to do.
End braindump mode... and thanks for listening!
First off, I lost my mother-in-law, Ruth Pace, this week. Ruth was a rare bird, a kind and gentle spirit that brightened up everyone's life. She was an avid gardner, loved her husband, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren more than life itself, and, until about 15 months ago, was the 'energizer bunny' of the geriatric set.
Around last Memorial Day, she developed what we later found out was something called 'progressive supernuclear palsy', the same diagnosis that Dudley Moore had a few years ago. Over the course of a few months, she went from being a vibrant, energetic 73 year-old woman to a complete invalid, unable to move or speak, bed-ridden with a feeding tube. It was horrible - this 'light of the world' woman became a prisoner in her own body.
Mrs. QAPete and the rest of the family provided her with her care for the next year (no small feat), but her organs finally shut down Saturday a week ago, and she simply stopped breathing. Of all the people close to me who have died over the past several years (and there have been a number of them), I'm most affected by Ruth's passing. I'm so thankful that I got to know her well, and that my kids got to spend the formative parts of their lives knowing her. We're all better people as a result of that.
I'd also like to express my opinion about Unreal II: XMP. As most of you know, I was one of the few people who thought Unreal 2 would be a 'stone cold winner' when it was released. What we got, though, was a game that was way too short, had virtually no replay value, and was missing a crucial element - multiplayer. Well, it may be too late to 'save' Unreal II sales with XMP, but I encourage all of you to try Unreal II: XMP anyway when it comes out. The addition of XMP, even without XMP bot support, successfully deals with all three of the major complaints about the original game. Weapons have been tweaked, along with much more, and I'll bet you find it to be a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I'd also like to encourage people to design levels and static meshes for XMP. Unreal II: XMP has a distinct look and feel to it, and it deserves your attention.
One more thing about Unreal II: XMP - you may not see much in the way of advertising, but don't be fooled by that - the people involved in beta testing are working very hard with Legend Entertainment to make XMP the best online gaming experience they can, and there are some seriously talented people still working on the game.
Finally, I want to put a call out to the BeyondUnreal community concerning bandwidth. With the addition of our third server, we will finally have the flexibility to do full backups and grow the site, from a disk space standpoint. What we lack is bandwidth, and this is where you can help.
BeyondUnreal is looking for a partner who would be willing to give us three 1U spaces in a rack, with a 5 mbit connection and the ability for us to reboot our machines remotely. After initial installation and configuration, the only time we'd need someone on-site is to deal with a physical hardware failure. In return, we could provide advertising, selling of services ala ShackDSL, etc. We're also open to whatever ideas a potential benefactor might have.
If you know of an ISP or colocation facility that might be willing to do help our community-run project grow by donating (not selling) what we require, please direct them to me, or send me the contact information and I'll be happy to initiate the conversation. While we can certainly continue providing BeyondUnreal on our existing 1 mbit pipe, we'd certainly be excited at the opportunity to grow with a bandwidth partner. I realize that donating this kind of bandwidth is a tall order, but as a friend of mine says, one must always 'allow for the possibility of success' in life. So, that's exactly what I'm going to do.
End braindump mode... and thanks for listening!
![|[onion]|](/data/avatars/s/36/36529.jpg?1424422848){kind=avatar}
