Jaguar Mod Pack Download Even Faster
Although there've been problems with the "faster" link when downloading the Jaguar Q3 mod, Acrid has reformatted the server's hard drive and while he was at it, has increased the throttle to go 50KB/sec!! So now when using the "faster" link the download takes less than two hours if using a cable/DSL modem!!! Thanks again Acrid.

Anybody Having This Problem With Q3 Patch v1.29f?
Although Disruptor and Mr. Buns have mentioned problems with the mouse scroll wheel not working sometimes when switching weapons. And I noticed a lot of times last Thursday night that I’d shoot the hook, and it wouldn’t "finish" hooking. I’ve attributed these to "lag" from the new 1.29f patch. However, the following problem from Shredder sounds unusual. Here's the email I received from him describing it. Please let me know if you're experiencing anything similar or have any suggestions to a solution. Thanks!

Hey JAG,

I was just curious if you had any problems with key mappings on Thurs? There were a couple times that I lost my mappings for my mouse buttons including the hook, zoom toggle, weapons previous and weapons next. I also lost at least one of my keyboard commands (h was bound to drop rune). 

The first time it happened, I dropped out of the game and double checked my settings. I thought maybe the zoom toggle fried things. But, next time I came back in I verified that my zoom toggle was working properly.

The next time I lost my mappings, I just kept playing and they started working after about 5 or 6 seconds.

Since that was the first time I used the new version of Quake3 and the first time I used the Coliseum mod, I don't know if one of them was the culprit. Anyway, I just thought I'd check in with you in case someone else mentioned a similar problem.

Talk to you later,

- Shredder

Online Game Night #04
Well, the Coliseum mod was a hit! But the 1.29f Quake patch still doesn't "save the day" for me. At least for those DSLers in the group that I talked with, it seemed that there was a noticeable lag increase even though the ping time stayed about the same. However, Mr. Buns' ping was divided by 10 on the local 10Mbit LAN with the server! So maybe LAN play at the July 28th party will fly! Anyway, I'm not sure what to think about the 1.29f patch yet...

And unfortunately, the Jackal was once again unable to connect to the server!! Bummer dude! After a bit of diagnosing with him the only thing we could determine that made him unique was that he was using Windows 98 ICS and Citizen's DSL. I think it's the ICS, but further investigating will hopefully get us to the bottom of it all. If anyone has any ideas we'd love to hear from you.

In addition to the Half-Life mod Counterstike, there is an similar counterpart for Quake III Arena called Annihilation. This is a Nazi vs. Allies theme with strong team fighting emphasis. Is one better than the other? Check them out and let me know what you think we should play sometime. I'll let everyone know what we end up with. See you next Thursday, July 5th at 8:00 PM!

Netscape Viewing Problems Corrected
I finally got around to cleaning up the pesky display "problems" when viewing this web site from within Netscape browsers (although some still have minor problems). Only around 10% of the folks viewing this site have been using Netscape (based on WebStats), so I've been putting this off for a while. It seems that the only problem that I'm having difficulty correcting is the party "Countdown Timer", most everything else now appears to be at least similar to Internet Explorer. However, I would certainly appreciate it if someone happens to catch anything else that looks graphically unusual that they notify me. Thanks!

Online Game Night #03
This week's event worked out smoother than last weeks for sure! The in-game play was steady and the server got up on time. Woohoo! Thanks to Mr. Buns for hosting the server once again. Here's who played:

There has been a request made to play the Coliseum mod for Quake III as well as the Half-Life mod called Counterstike. In response, I'd like to schedule next week to use the Coliseum mod (in addition to the Jaguar Mod) and then later schedule a Counterstike night if that sounds good to everyone else. So the next online event should be held Thursday, June 28th at 8:00 PM. See you there!

Quake III Arena 1.29f Point Release
The "latest and greatest" update patch is now available for download! It includes:

• New pro maps
• New network code
• New auto-update system
• New rail, rocket, plasma, and lightning gun effects
• New cheating counter measures

Although there are promises made of 5 to 1 network transmission improvement, a little online test of our own proved to be pretty disappointing. Nevertheless, to download it, check out Quake III's home page at: http://www.quake3arena.com/

Online Game Night #02
Although we had a late start (around 8:40PM) due to technical difficulties with the hook mod, we had the most players online (seven) at once and with not too much lag! I'm hoping there's still room in that 128k bandwidth for more players! This was also the first time the Grappling Hook was used. Hope everyone was able to figure out how to use it and liked it. Next week's event should hopefully be more prompt since the server is pretty much ready to go now. Thanks to everyone for being patient on getting in the game. Here's who played:

Unless otherwise noted, the next online event should be held Thursday, June 21st at 8:00 PM. I'll keep everyone posted about the next online event via email.