Messages

1

/dev/random / Re: The last movie you saw....

« on: September 04, 2026, 04:55:51 PM »

Movies I've seen recently:

Obsession - I loved it. It scratched my itches in just the right way. I was super impressed by the acting, the lighting was really good at enhancing the atmosphere, and the sound design and score were really, really good as well. A relatively simple story, but executed extremely well. This movie was made for $750,000 and has grossed over $500 million worldwide. For me personally, maybe 9/10.

Backrooms - Very disappointed with this one. The hype was around the same as Obsession, but I was just not impressed. The ending was very anti-climactic. I feel like giving it a 6/10 is really generous.

The Substance - Quite unique. I liked it a lot more than Backrooms, but not nearly as much as Obsession. Great acting from Demi Moore. Really good practical effects. Very bizarre and weird, but that's what they were going for. Certain parts of the movie were so good, but other parts were more on the cliche or silly side. This one is kinda hard to rate for me. I guess we'll go 8/10 with this one.

Smile - really creepy and legitimately scary (quite a few jump scares, and they're good ones). Maybe 7.5/10 (for a horror/scary movie).

Get Out - I avoided watching this one for a long time. I thought it was getting a lot of hype because a black guy wrote and directed it. I was wrong. It was excellent. Good story, good characters, lots of creepy stuff. 8.5/10.

Ready or Not - I watched it because people were very complimentary about Samara Weaving's performance in it. I had seen pictures of her (she's hot - a kind of a Margot Robbie look-alike), but I hadn't seen her act in anything. The people were right. She's a fantastic actress. Even in the beginning scenes, before things get crazy, she's just really natural and convincing. Overall though, as a movie? It was fun-ish, but nothing groundbreaking or anything. Like 7/10 I guess?

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/dev/random / Re: Whatcha listening to?

« on: July 26, 2026, 10:04:48 AM »

This woman gets my vote for best female vocalist on the planet, or at least would have to be in the conversation:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTYUF4XKlXw

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Quake / Re: DM server needs some admin attention.

« on: June 26, 2026, 08:28:36 PM »

Definitely looks just like a bot to me.

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/dev/random / Re: Whatcha listening to?

« on: April 02, 2026, 07:09:48 AM »

A relative nobody doing covers of rock songs on YT and this one is now #1 on Billboard's Hot Hard Rock tracks:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6L-GUOAhGo

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Quake / Re: tastyspleen.net turns 20!

« on: October 17, 2024, 06:37:31 PM »

Continued thanks to MrsQuadz, and a toast to quadz for giving so much of himself over the years and for providing a reliable Q2 playground for so many. I can't imagine what the Q2 scene would look like without his efforts. Long live tastyspleen!

6

Quake / Has anybody ever heard of a mod that...

« on: September 07, 2024, 05:18:13 PM »

Has anybody ever heard of a mod that randomizes, in the middle of a match (like for FFA), the weapon that spawns at the respective weapon spawn points? Like every 60 seconds or so, the rocket launcher spawn becomes the chaingun, hyper becomes railgun, etc.? It would be totally random, though without multiple copies of each weapon, unless there were already more than 1x spawn of that weapon on the map (like 2x RL on DM1, or 2x MG, etc.). I probably wouldn't like it, but it would be a unique gameplay experience at least. I was just curious if anybody happened to know if something similar had already been done.

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Quake / Re: Quake 2 remastered discussion - news and rumors

« on: September 07, 2023, 09:22:35 PM »

I'm pretty sure I never actually purchased Quake 2 (I've been playing, off and on, since 1999). I decided to purchase Q2 on Steam to right that wrong a bit and to try out the remaster. I like that the railgun (and all hitscan weapons, I presume?) has updated code where you don't need to lead the shot based on ping. It's weird getting used to that though after you've been playing by leading a bit for so long. It was running really herky jerky for me though - not like really low fps, but just didn't look smooth. I presume it's some setting that I don't know how to fiddle with yet. I'm glad it's getting some attention again.

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/dev/random / Re: The Strange and Interesting Thread

« on: July 02, 2021, 08:16:06 AM »

This is 7 years old now, but in case you haven't seen it - skydiver gets accidentally knocked out mid free-fall, then another diver in the group manages to glide towards him and pull his reserve shoot, potentially saving his life (though apparently there's an automatic, altitude-dependent, deployment system in place that theoretically would have worked):


https://www.reddit.com/r/Unexpected/comments/obh4pk/the_ultimate_ko/

Possibly better quality video here (on Facebook - sorry, quadz):


https://www.facebook.com/ben.pigeon/posts/10100602866907010

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dm / Re: Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: March 14, 2021, 12:36:14 PM »

In your case, if someone as good as you or better was playing, you spawning furthest on...dm5 for example, could easily screw you out of winning if there were 5 or less people on.

The only time I'm ever on the DM server and there are 5 or less players, or even less than 10, is occasionally in the middle of the night, or early morning, like at 4-5AM EST. Even then there's often 10+ people playing. To my knowledge, the Tastyspleen DM server is the only continually active DM/FFA server in the US remaining. If people live in the US, if they want to frag on dm1-dm8, if they don't want to ping well over 100, AND they want to actually have players to play against, they have to play on Tastyspleen. Believe it or not, there are often at least 10 Americans, at just about any time of the day, that still want to play Q2 DM.

Also, not winning is not the primary aggravation, it's the interruptions to movement or gameplay by a randomly spawned player. Like on DM6/Lava Tomb last night, near the single rocket ammo leading towards the BFG - being 10 feet away from a player, in a close duel/fight with them, getting close to finishing them off with the MG, then someone randomly spawns on that pad 5 feet in front of you, with a one-second impenetrable spawn protect on (which I'm in favor of with +sf), gets in between your fight, and causes you to lose, or otherwise not get the frag. It's that kind of stuff that sticks out like a sore thumb to me now and I notice it multiple times on literally every map rotation (more noticeable with more players).

10

Bot Drop / Bot or not?

« on: March 14, 2021, 05:02:55 AM »

Was spectating someone named "Pumpkin Lips" on the DM server yesterday. It seemed they actively avoided picking up hitscan weapons (railgun, machinegun, etc.), but when they did get them, once they focused on someone, the crosshair movement looked sorta bot-like.

Here's a demo of them on DM1. It's kinda boring, and you have to wait a bit to get to what I'm talking about, but check it out if you want to give your two cents.

The first time happens when he has 6 frags, and he respawns in the sewer/mg. He gets MG and his crosshair movement seems really jerky, but still very precise. There's another time when he's got 10 kills where it looks more suspicious (also with MG). He's kinda erratic with movement in general, but it just looked odd to me.

It's not a smoking gun necessarily, but it might be worth putting more pairs of eyes on it to judge. Perhaps it's a bot with a really low fov setting.

11

dm / Re: Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: March 13, 2021, 09:52:03 PM »

I wish you could see a replica of you play simultaneously, one with how spawns are and one with spawn furthest.

Maybe quadz would be willing to test it out for a day or so and see if it's even noticeably different.

I essentially only play FFA (it's my favorite game mode even though it has lots of shortcomings). I 'sweat' it because that's what I play and what I play is significantly less enjoyable because of this one setting.

Imagine if the only TDM server on tasty (which was also essentially the only active TDM server in the US quake 2 scene) had spawn farthest ON. Wouldn't that drastically change the dynamic of the TDM game, particularly 1v1? That might make it less enjoyable for you, when it's predetermined where your single opponent will respawn based on where you are on the map when they die (and vice versa when you die), no? I think you might make it a point to explain to the admin of the server why they might want to switch to random spawning for TDM.

Edit: Oh, and imagine you were still playing quake 2 and actually cared

12

dm / Re: Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: March 13, 2021, 02:04:19 PM »

Yeah, which is relevant for maybe 5% of any given day on the DM server, if that. The other 95%, not so much.

Oh, and when you do finally kill him with that way it is now, and you survive with like 4 health, and he instantly respawns 3 inches from your face and kills you with a single blaster shot, see how you like that.

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dm / Re: Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: March 13, 2021, 10:29:52 AM »

This may be a dumb question because I do not understand how the spawn farthest works.
Question -  where were you when you died before the RL spawn?

A RL spawn would be a good spawn in most cases.

Spawn farthest chooses the spawn pad that is "farthest" away from other players currently spawned on the map, as I understand it. I think it's supposed to give the 'safest' respawn point, where you're most likely to have a chance at not being caught in the crossfire of an ongoing battle, etc.

RL spawn is great if there's not already 2 people practically standing on said RL, each with RL's in hand, actively spamming at each other, when you spawn with your blaster, not knowing where you're going to respawn, taking a moment to process where you respawned, etc., all while being expected to somehow have a chance at surviving such a situation.

14

dm / Re: Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: March 12, 2021, 11:17:15 PM »

Here's a demo where it kinda shows what I'm talking about (but not the worst instances, imo). I'm sorry it's not in video format, or snipped, I don't know how to do any conversions.

This is on DM3/Frag Pipe. Check out when I have 7 frags. I respawn at RL. When I respawn, there are already TWO people right there in that tiny little area going at it with RLs. I of course get caught in the crossfire and have no chance of doing anything with that respawn. That kind of thing doesn't happen with spawn farthest. This happens again later in the map, when I have like 18, 19, or 20 frags.

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dm / Re: Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: March 12, 2021, 10:58:34 PM »

quadz, is the only reason for the current spawn setting to minimize telefrags? I still get telefragged at least once on most every map, and fairly frequently I get telefragged twice at the beginning of each map rotation. Sometimes I get a telefrag myself, but that seems to be rarer than me dying once or twice to that. Was being telefragged during a match a big problem with spawn farthest on?

I keep constantly encountering in-game scenarios that are only taking place because of the current spawn mechanic. Like I think I already mentioned, running around the map, with momentum, heading to the armor, a weapon, trying to escape someone, etc., and then someone will literally spawn on a pad you're maybe one character's size away from, blocking your path, taking way your momentum, making you miss that jump, get killed from that person that was chasing you, making you miss the mega, or whatever. I don't think that happens with spawn farthest on.

I think I'm noticing things more, if they've been this way for 15+ years, because the server limit was increased over the years (wasn't it?). That or the average server population has increased. I wish I made a demo for every game I played, then I could reference specific examples of how the way things are takes away from the fun of the game. It's honestly one of the most rage-inducing things I encounter lately. It's not like there's really much other choice these days on where to play either (not in the US), so it's not like I can play elsewhere.