20 years of id Software

Today’s the day where we gamer’s have to bow down and pay some respect to one of the best software studios that we’ve got the last two decades, it’s “id Software”. Today’s the day where “id Software” celebrates its 20th birthday. When it comes to push gaming technology to a bleeding edge limit “id Software” always had the leading role. The game engines John Carmack created and developed are absolute masterpieces and it does not matter if we talk about “Commander Keen”, “Doom” or “Quake”. They set the marks everybody else has to compete with. They have never been great story tellers in games, but what they did and still do, they take the gameplay to a level where everybody can handle it with fun and without any unnecessary complexity. It’s truely like John Carmack said, “Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It’s expected to be there, but it’s not that important.” When you look back in time their games were more like tech-demos put in a tiny game shell. Especially “Quake III Arena” was one of these games, there’s no story, just a few maps, a couple of opponents and that’s it, and this concept survived for years. Now, twelve years later “Quake III Arena” is still alive in the online remake “Quake Live”. The id Tech 3 engine that was used for “Quake III Arena” is one of the most popular game engines so far, if not to say THE most popular. “American McGee’s Alice”, “Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.²”, “Return to Castle Wolfenstein”, “Medal of Honor:Allied Assault” and sequels, are just a few of the famous branches based on id Tech 3.

I personally had millions, no, billions, no, bazillion hours of fun with games by “id Software”, it started for me with “Commander Keen” way back in 1992 (it was actually released in 1991, but 1992 was the years where I switched from the C64 to a PC). Then I played “Wolfenstein 3D” and “Spear of Destiny”, which was actually forbidden for a young kid like me and after these games I had the first LAN experiences with “Doom”, mainly in 1on1 deathmatch. 1,000,000,000 frags later a “Quake” came and me and my friends heard of these crazy people doing the whole aiming with a mouse and we started playing FPS that style. Those people still stuck to cursor keys and pic up and down keys were just the victims of us. I actually skipped “Quake II” right on its release, for one simple reason, I wasn’t gaming (— SHOCK —). I finished “Quake II” sometime in 1999, but I never played the multiplayer, because as you might know, 1999 was the birth year of “Quake III Arena”. Q]|[A also lead to a new era of how to handle your game. Lots of people started to tweak their game to gain highest rate of frames per second, they started overclocking their PCs, modded their PCs, tweaked their internet connection to get the best ping and more and more people played in clans, esports was going to become drastically bigger and more and more important to the whole gaming industry. There sure were tendencies in this direction in the nineties, but it was nothing of importance and just a sideshow.

As you can see, “id Software” not just only influenced the coding and the designing style of games, they also created a new kind of community and a brand new way of how to compete with each other, in another kind of sport, the electronic sport. There’s a reason why the most popular gamer’s communication net on IRC is called the “QuakeNet”. Although they lost I little of their undisputed leading role, with competitors like “Crytek” and “Epic Games”, “id Software” still sets the standards and every new product is a blast and I am very sure that this company, as long as whizz-kid Carmack develops, will be able to survive another 20 years, and I’ll be an grey haired old man and look back on a great chapter in gaming evolution.

Of weather, bugs and gluttony

Just some updates for the end of the week without any particular order or category. First of all the most common and maybe the thing that costs the most boredom; the weather. It’s getting colder and warmer, dry and wet, pale and sunny. There’s no direction to be found and this bothers me, because I wanted to go out these days to take some pictures and gain some experience with my new camera lenses, but nothing. It looks promising right now because the it’s sunny with barely any clouds. Hopefully it’s going to stay this way.

Most of the time this week did I waste with gaming, I finished the single-player campaign in “Battlefield Bad Company 2” and I’m now into the multiplayer part of the game to train for some league appearances, that will hopefully be in the next season. Secondly, I am nearly finished with “DeathSpank”, the game itself got more and more funny in the last couple of hours while I was playing and I still recommend this game, especially if you like “Monkey Island” or “Penny Arcade” like humour. Last but not least, this week was the release of an indie game called “Magicka” which unfortunately lacks of thousands of bugs. Well, okay, it’s not a thousand bugs, but there are lots of errors right now. But I have to admit, the developers take their jobs serious and do a lot to get rid of the bugs and I salute an attitude like this. It’s just a small, independent software company working their asses off to finally create a great product, something that publishers like EA and Ubisoft disregard so many, many times. ~kudos~

Finally, “Straight Edge 3.0” starts on Sunday and this means the time of gluttony is over. There’s not much that changes in particular, it’s mainly that I return to gym and sports and that my whole nutrition is set up much more healthier. Either way was my nutrition really, REALLY bad over the last couple of weeks and it couldn’t have gotten more worth than it is right now. This changes and I will hopefully lose some pounds by the way.

Rules for Straight edge 3.0 project

So here’s to you, in a very short and simple way, the rules for “Straight edge 3.0 project”. I’ll give some details of the goals of the very project in later post.

1. No smoking!

2. There’s no alcohol consumption on training days or the days before training.

3. There’s no consumption of any unnecessary sweets at all.

4. There’s no special nutrition plan, just eat healthy and well-balanced.

5. There are at least three training days at gym per week and one optional training day with a sport of choice.

6. Every fourth week is a so called “hardcore week” with at least four training days at gym and one optional training day with a sport of choice.

7. Find relaxation and rest on days without sport and training to avoid injuries or infections.

8. Improve hand-eye-coordination and reaction time by using modern technologies.

9. Improve your stamina and reach a healthy BMI.

As you can see, the set of rules is not as tough as it was in projects before for one simple reason, it costs too much time and energy in everyday life and finally leads to a lack of luxury and well-being. To keep all this in balance I introduced the hardcore week so that I’m not turning into a gym addict or something like that. I also find it very important to find relaxation, that’s why I set rule number 7. I got a weird infection during the first straight edge project and I don’t want to let this happen again. Even on the first training days it is very important to avoid any kind exaggaration or presumption.

Rule number 8 might be strange to some of you, but I found out during the first two projects that my “gaming skills” also improved, so I want to train on this, too. To get it all straight, this project goes away from a monastary style of living, more to something balanced and capable for everyone out there. I don’t want to waste my whole free time with training and healthy food, I want to keep a little vice in my life, because I think that this is healthy, too. I erased the caffeine rule, for one simple reason, I love coffee – PERIOD.

Straight edge 3.0 announcement

The X-mas season is over, the snow’s disappearing and it’s getting warmer outside and this yellow circle, simply called sun, appears on the sky again. With all these things in mind and due to the fact that I have to get rid of some, let us say, winter energy resources, I decided to announce the cutoff for the “Straight edge 3.0 project”. It’s going to be January 30th where the healthier way of living continues once again, and once the again the rules will be changed in some ways. I’m not going to make such tough restrictions and the gym and sports plan won’t be that time intense. With the new rules I’ll try to find a good balance between the shaping body aspect and the simply have some fun factor on the other side. The last two projects were good in some kind of way, but the intensity was too strong and room for other activities was pretty narrow or barely not existing. One thing that will last for sure is the non-smoking rule, because smoking kills the stamina and every cardio will be blown to dust (anyone, dust? no?), some changes will be made to the alcohol rule. There will be restrictions but it’s no longer completely forbidden. Actually, alcohol is no longer that temptation that it was before the whole project thing, nowadays do I not have a single problem with going to a party and not drink. Alcohol disgusts me in some ways.

Anyhow, keep January 30th in mind and the new set of rules for “Straight edge project 3.0” will be announced here as soon as possible. This whole project will last for six month and June 30th is going to be the last day for the time being. If you want to join me, or if you want to do something similiar, feel free to contact me via this blog, registration is opened again, here on bloodreaver.com

More sports

As you may I am stuck in a vicious circle that makes it nearly impossible for me to go to gym again. Well, a friend of mine noticed this problem too and so she asked me if she should give me some kind of a kick and join her for some company in the gym. I am pretty sure if I just licked some blood in gym again and can fall back to my daily habits everything will be fine again. It’s pretty necessary for me to get a little bit more sporty again because after this relatively long period without sports I feel a kind of rusty (back hurts sometimes, etc. etc.)

We’ll hit the road to gym in nearly two hours and I am much excited about how I’ll make myself in gym again. Hopefully I’ll not completely fail and the muscle ache will not be too horrible.

Why can’t it all explode?

Today’s like one of the most miserable days since a very long time. Actually I’m not pretty sure why, but I should have stood in bed and kept on sleeping the whole day. Last weekend wasn’t as exciting as I expected it to be because  if you’ve just visited a city like Paris a city like Dresden comes by like a small village in the middle of nowhere. Another horrible thing was that I devastated my media center and it wasn’t running the whole weekend. For some reasons the system was not bootable after I switched over to a single boot system and deleted Linux Mint. I had to install Windows 7 from ground on and on the other hand I had to re-initialise the RAID system where the OS was installed and my bunch of HD movies was stored, so the movies are lost.

Terrible thing today too is the fucked up weather outside. Dark, grey, pale and cloudy and no god damn summer in sight. I wanted to start off with gym today but I only made it to the bathroom where I picked up my toothbrush put it back and wandered back to bed. Though I am motivated to go to gym I am able to make it to the gym. I feel like I am stuck in a vicious circle and I can’t the portal which I have to break to get out of it. Seriously, I want to make some sport but I can’t get it done. Once again, tomorrow will be another try because I am pretty, pretty sure that I will not find the willpower in the evening today to grab my bag and go to the gym.

Lazy edging

Seriously, I became pretty lazy within the last days after my vacation. Though I am glad that I can keep my new “low” weight and I am willed to do everything in a sports way to hold it that way I wasn’t able to trick my inner ratfink and make it off to gym for a nice training session or to the park to do a jog. I awoke everyday since Monday at 04:00am to the ring of my alarm clock and I really wanted to go to gym BUT I was actually too tired to do so. Well, I guess I just need one normal session at the gym in the evening, just to lick some sweat and blood and I’ll be able to kick off in the very early morning.

Well, finally I can say at least that everything else in project “Straight edge 2.0” works perfectly fine and there were no rule breaks until now. Okay, okay, okay, okay… there was  this small cupcake this one day but though it was extremely sweet and felt like it holds galleons of calories it wasn’t such a serious sin like the ones in the past. You might remember the two beers right after the start of the first straight edge project. So, this week will pass without sports BUT I promise to do better in the future, next week to be exact.

The first month

There’s exactly one month that has past in the ‘straight edge’ project. A few friends and colleagues of mine followed me more or less successfull on my stone covered path to the ultimate “edginess” and some who tried to follow cancelled the whole project after a few days. Time for a conclusion…

Like I said a few times in the past, I feel much better now and I can’t say that I miss something urgently. I feel more and more comfortable with waking up at 04:00am to get off to gym to practice my every day workout and training. The training itself turns to a more interesting and less boring point by now because the muscle regeneration and buildup process is nearly done and I can focus more on cardio training. I have done a lot of muscle training, especially bulge, back and legs, to get a kind of more body control in the cardio training and to obviate joint problems. I had these problems last time where I started with sport though, mainly in my knees.

Every gym session, including last week, implied the cross trainer and the bicycle as the only cardio gear. From this week on I decreased the amount of muscle training and increased the cardio training, it’s now about 30 percent muscle to 70 percent cardio training instead of 50/50 that it was before. I jog every day on the treadmill and soon will start with rowing, each 30 minutes plus crosstrainer (40 min) and bicycle (10 min). I guess that this will give me an enormous boost to my reduction of weight (hopefully). I have to mention that the bicycle is only warmup gear, because I ride my bike as much as I can in everyday life.

workout by *Geironimo

My weakest point are my passion, or better obsession, for sweets and chocolate. One rule says that I am not allowed to eat chocolate and I almost made it to live without it. Well, I eat ice cream nearly every day but this is for sure going to be stopped with the next milestone of this project. And I bought me a bar of chocolate yesterday BUT it’s got only 528kcal on 100g and it’s a bar of plain chocolate. One piece every third or fourth day won’t really hurt.

One thing that I absolutely don’t miss are cigarettes and alcohol. Two good things about this are #1 it’s better for my health living without alcohol and cigarettes and #2 I save a lot of money because I don’t have to buy this shit. Drugs are taboo, too.

Well, what can I say at last. I feel very well with my new circumstances in life and I am pretty sure that I will continue with it after 15th July.