<html>

<head>
<title>loonygames presents: The MailBag - loony letters</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<style type="text/css">
a { text-decoration: none; }
a:hover { color:000000;  text-decoration: underline; }


</style>
</head>

<body bgcolor="#FFF4D0" link="#3333FF" vlink="#000000" alink="#000000">
<center>
</center>
<table width="100%" border="0" bgcolor="#3596B3" height="58">
  <tr> 
    <td height="69" width="29%" align="left" valign="top"> 
      <div align="left"> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#FFFFFF"><b><i><img src="../../images/logo_new.jpg" width="182" height="63" border="0" usemap="#logoa"> 
        </i></b></font></div>
    </td>
    <td height="69" width="29%" align="center" valign="top"> <center>
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "ca-pub-2373963192914918";
/* 468x60 */
google_ad_slot = "3417104156";
google_ad_width = 468;
google_ad_height = 60;
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>
</center>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
<table width="100%" border="0" bgcolor="#3596B3" height="29">
  <tr> 
    <td height="20" width="25%" align="center" valign="middle" bgcolor="#86531A"> 
      <a href="../../../about.1"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#FFFFFF"><b><font size="2">about</font></b></font></a></td>
    <td height="20" width="25%" align="center" valign="middle" bgcolor="#86531A"> 
      <a href="../../../feedback.1"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#FFFFFF" size="2"><b>feedback</b></font></a></td>
    <td height="20" width="25%" align="center" valign="middle" bgcolor="#86531A"> 
      <a href="../../../archives/index.html"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#FFFFFF" size="2"><b>archives</b></font></a></td>
    <td height="20" width="25%" align="center" valign="middle" bgcolor="#86531A"> 
      <b><a href="../../../submissions/index.html"><font color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">submissions</font></a></b></td>
  </tr>
</table>
<div align="center"> <br>
</div>
<table width="100%" border="0">
  <tr> 
    <td width="72%"> 
      <h5><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">//<a href="../../../index.html"><font color="#7C420E">loonygames</font></a>://<a href="../index.html"><font color="#7C420E">issue 
        2.2</font></a>://<a href="index.html"><font color="#7C420E">the mailbag</font></a>://<a href="index.php"><font color="#7C420E">1</font></a>, 
        2</font></b></h5>
    </td>
    <td align="right" valign="middle" width="28%"> 
      <div align="right"> 
        <h5><a href="../../cgi/printme.pl?url=%252F2.2%252Fmailbag%252F"><img src="../../images/icons/print01.gif" width="27" height="27" align="baseline" border="0" alt="switch to printer-friendly version"></a></h5>
      </div>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
<br>
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
  <tr> 
    <td align="center" valign="top" width="25%"> 
      <table border="0" width="99%" bgcolor="#D7B582" align="center" bordercolor="#E0E0E0">
        <tr> 
          <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="100%"> <font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> 
             </font> <p><webdog><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" color="#0022A8"><b><font color="#693A0C">What's 
           new today:</font></b></font> 
          
<p><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><a href="../../../index.html" target=""><b><font color="#00025E">New!!!</font></b></a><br></b>
  The archives have been cleaned up, dead links fixed, and the printable versions restored! Also, don't miss the new comments on the main page!</font></p>

 
<p><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><a href="../../2.15/feat/index.html" target=""><b><font color="#00025E">Livin' 
  With The Sims</font></b></a><br></b>
  theAntiELVIS explores the wild and wacky world that is Will Wright's <b>The Sims</b>, 
  asking the inevitable quesiton, &quot;is <b>The Sims</b> the first step toward a virtual 
  life where everyone is Swedish?&quot;</font></p>
<p><font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><a href="../../2.15/pixel/index.html" target=""><b><font color="#00025E">Pixel 
  Obscura </font></b></a></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><br>
  Josh Vasquez on <b>Omikron: The Nomad Soul</b>.</font></p>
<p><font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><a href="../../rl/index.html" target=""><b><font color="#00025E">Real 
  Life </font></b></a></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><br>
  Check out our newest comic strip, <b>Real Life</b>! Updated daily!</font></p>
<p><font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><a href="../../uf.1" target=""><b><font color="#00025E">User 
  Friendly</font></b></a></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><br>
  Updated daily!</font></p>
<p></webdog> </p>
 
            <p></p>
            <p> </p>
            <p></p>
             
            </td>
        </tr>
      </table>
      <br>
      <table width="100%" border="0" bgcolor="#D7B582">
        <tr bgcolor="#D7B582"> 
          <td> 
            <div align="center"> 
              <p align="left"><font size="-1"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" color="#0022A8"><b><font color="#00025E">Random 
                Feature:</font></b></font> </font> </p>
              <p><p align="CENTER"><img src="../../images/raven_thum.jpg" width="93" height="93" align="MIDDLE"></p><p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="../../1.36/feat/index.html">Inside Raven Software</a>: Our definitive history of the company behind <B>Hexen</b>, <B>Heretic</b> and other classics.</font></p>

<i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2"> 
                </font> </i></p>
            </div>
          </td>
        </tr>
      </table>
      <br>
      <table width="99%" border="0" bgcolor="#D7B582">
        <tr> 
          <td> 
            <div align="center"> 
              <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" name="">
                <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><b><font color="#339900">Search 
                the Archives!</font></b></font> 
               
                 <INPUT TYPE=text name=q size=12 maxlength=255 value="">
 <INPUT type=submit name=sa VALUE="Google Search">
 <INPUT type=hidden name=cof 
VALUE="LW:216;L:http:/home/loonygames/loony.timedoctor.org/content/images/logo1.jpg;LH:55;AH:center;S:http://www.loonygames.com;AWFID:13a298c7abe84fd0;">
<input type=hidden name=domains value="loonygames.com"> 
<input type=hidden name=sitesearch value="loonygames.com">               
</div>
              </form>

              <p align="left"><i> </i></p>
            </div>
          </td>
        </tr>
      </table>
    </td>
    <td width="75%" align="center" valign="top"> 
      <table width="90%" border="0" cellpadding="0" align="center">
        <tr> 
          <td width="50%" valign="top"> 
            <div align="center"> 
              <table width="98%" border="0">
                <tr> 
                  <td width="55%"> 
                    <div align="left"> 
                      <p><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000FF"><i><font color="#904C10" size="2">The 
                        MailBag: </font><font color="#904C10" size="4"><br>
                        Issue 2.2</font></i></font></b><br>
                      
                      <div align="right"> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">Comments 
                        by Stephanie &quot;<a href="mailto:bobbi@loonygames.com">Bobbi</a>&quot; 

                        Bergman</font></div>
                    </div>
                  </td>
                  <td width="45%" align="right" valign="top"> 
                    <h5 align="right"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#00025E">Vol. 
                      2, Issue 2&nbsp; <br>
                      November 19, 1999&nbsp; </font></b></h5>
                  </td>
                </tr>
              </table>
              <h5 align="right">&nbsp;</h5><loonystart>
              <table width="90%" border="0">
                <tr bgcolor="#D7B582"> 
                  <td> 
                    <p align="left"><b><font face="Arial">From:</font></b><font face="Arial"> 
                      scoll<br>
                      <b>Subject:</b> printing articles </font></p>
                    <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Dear 
                      Bobbi, </font></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">After pasting 
                      the URL for your article about &quot;Pro Gamers&quot; to 
                      some buddies in IRC last night, we got into a huge discussion/arguement 
                      about just what exactly in our gnere of Quake FPS type games 
                      defines a &quot;Pro Gamer&quot;. After playing just about 
                      every Quake type game and mod that has come out since Doom, 
                      I have come to the realization that one particular type 
                      of mod is the culmination of skill, Rocket Arena. I've been 
                      playing RA and RA2 for about 3 years now, and the very best 
                      aimers Ive found by far play it. Now here is where the arguement 
                      started, everyone started spamming &quot;Thresh this, Thresh 
                      that&quot;, and it turned pretty ugly at that point. But 
                      after I explained why I thought DM was losing supprt, people 
                      started listening, and I had to give my RA speech, heh.</font></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Rocket Arena 
                      takes more than camping the armor or weapons to win. No 
                      more getting to respawn after dying to find a RL and try 
                      to make a comeback. Ir RA if you die it's all over until 
                      next round. And this very statement is what has brought 
                      me back time and again, RA is kinda like Mad Max. 2 people 
                      enter, 1 leaves. So the only thing seperating you from death 
                      is how quickly you can take down your opponent, and not 
                      die in the process without worrying about being stuck with 
                      a crappy pea-shooter and no armor while the other guy is 
                      fully loaded. 8)</font></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Now I know this 
                      kinda makes me crt's &quot;Fan Boy&quot;, but I think its 
                      alot more than that, his vision of what brings out the best 
                      in a Quaker is something I hope is around for a long time.</font></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">My question to 
                      you is this. I know your clan, PMS, is active in the RA 
                      scene, and would like to know what you think of the idea 
                      of having tournaments for $$$ in the future that will use 
                      it as the official game/mod. I talked to Angel Munoz about 
                      this at the Frag3, and he kinda hinted that they will be 
                      doing something about a RA3 tourney in the future, but he 
                      could not say anything until they have everything finalized. 
                      Deathmatch games just seem to be so old and outdated, maybe 
                      sometime soon we will think of aim and moving/dodging skills 
                      as a true indication of who is truly a great player, instead 
                      of denying someone a decent weapon for 15 minutes. Who knows? 
                      One day we might find the RA concept the norm, instead of 
                      the obscure.</font></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Redd B.{C-M} 
                      </font></p>
                    <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Clan Marauders</font></p>
                    <p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Aah, Rocket 
                      Arena. So many of my clanmates are so heavily addicted to 
                      RA2, I think they need a support group. :) But you bring 
                      up a good point, and one I&#146;m not sure about. On one 
                      hand, RA is very much about raw skill. Can you kill the 
                      other guy before they kill you. But there are strategic 
                      elements to a full 20 minute DM match on a full level that 
                      RA doesn&#146;t offer, such as audio clues on where your 
                      opponent is, pacing yourself, timing weapons/item respawns, 
                      etc. They both test different types of skill. Which one 
                      is &#147;Professional&#148; is the big question, I suppose. 
                      </font> </i> </p>
                  </td>
                </tr>
              </table>
              <p align="left"><b><i><font face="Arial">Remember the community 
                summit? </font></i></b></p>
              <table width="90%" border="0">
                <tr bgcolor="#D7B582"> 
                  <td> 
                    <p align="left"><b><font face="Arial">From:</font></b><font face="Arial"> 
                      Josh Forman<br>
                      <b>Subject: </b>Roundtable</font></p>
                    <p align="left"> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hey, 
                      looni (or whoever's reading this). I read that long-ass 
                      roundtable article and thought I'd throw a few of my thoughts 
                      about it at you. First of all, there definitely is elitism 
                      in the gaming community. But I think the key point hinges 
                      on whether joost is right or not. Joost kept saying that 
                      big sites just can't post crap, and they _ought_ to focus 
                      more on the guys who have proven through time and experience 
                      that they can output content.</font></p>
                    <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 
                      So the question isn't whether the community is elitist, 
                      it is. The question is whether that elitism is appropriate. 
                      But there's definitely a line that needs to be drawn between 
                      extremes. If a webmaster chooses to focus ONLY on the big 
                      sites, then theoretically it's nearly impossible for a new 
                      site to get out there (the exception being BitchX). But 
                      BitchX provided original content. What about the sites that 
                      produce content that's similar to the big news pages (the 
                      50 bazillion out there as there are)? I have a case-in-point 
                      here: </font></p>
                    <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I 
                      started working for Gamer's Alliance waaaaay long ago (Im 
                      out of the whole field now), and I watched the site grow 
                      from jack shit to a moderate sized page/hoster. This is 
                      a perfect example, though, of how a similar-content type 
                      of site actually did work it's way up the asshole of the 
                      industry and was able to get a small audience on its own. 
                      Now, the site has gown downhill since then (mostly because 
                      we employees who held up the site never saw a dime...a true 
                      shame, I love being involved), but the reasons for that 
                      I think are totally self-inflicted. </font></p>
                    <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">So 
                      that proves right there that we haven't reached the "critical 
                      mass" as joost put it of the online gaming industry. There's 
                      definitely still room for growth, since the online gaming 
                      industry is growing at a tremendous pace (actually, I have 
                      a prediction that it's going to explode in the somewhat 
                      near future), so there's still room for new pages. The reason 
                      not too many new pages haven't surfaced has more to do with 
                      the fact that most suck than anything else, in my honest 
                      opinion.</font></p>
                    <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 
                      And then there's the opposite extreme of a site posting 
                      anything from anybody based solely on merit. There are logistic 
                      problems with this, though, since webmasters simply do not 
                      have the time to follow every link in their mailbag, especially 
                      with the few extremely large sites. But I do have counter-examples 
                      to the one above. I remember going to the QuakeCon-turned-CPL-event 
                      thing where Carmack spoke. Now, I was there with Gamer's 
                      Alliance, and I worked my ass off so hard-core that Tim 
                      Schuh at one point was like "dude, you need to like sleep 
                      or eat or something, you're shaking." We didn't even produce 
                      that much content from the weekend, but it was a fair bit 
                      for just one guy. </font></p>
                    <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">What 
                      I remember from that weekend though was that when I listened 
                      to Carmack's speech I took down very copious notes and put 
                      out a really really detailed account of what he said. Way 
                      longer than any other site's account that I found (cept 
                      for Avault that had it in .mp3 format). Now, Blue linked 
                      to me, but small sites didn't, they all linked to Blue. 
                      This is an effect I'm not sure that people talked about 
                      in the roundtable, that elitism isn't so much forced onto 
                      the community by the large sites, but emulated by small 
                      sites who want to think they're cool, they want to look 
                      like they hang with the big boys so they post stuff "from 
                      the man."</font></p>
                    <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 
                      But whatever, this gave me an opportunity to bitch, which 
                      is why I wrote. It's been a while since I did anything related 
                      to gaming (went from GA to Avault, but they were hard as 
                      fuck over there, so that only lasted two months). I miss 
                      the whole thing a ton, but I have a little bit of an inside/outside 
                      perspective after all of this. First of all, it's nearly 
                      impossible to do shit unless you have a LOT of time, money, 
                      and patience. </font></p>
                    <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Second, 
                      I think elitism is perpetuated just as much, if not more, 
                      by the little guys as the big guys. Third...I dunno. There's 
                      a lot of bullshit out there (like this letter, for instance) 
                      that wants to get published (well, I dont give a shit about 
                      that any more). I personally think the big sites do a fine 
                      job of covering it. Except for Red, which is why I stopped 
                      reading him ages ago, but whatever, maybe he changed. </font></p>
                    <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">And 
                      going to a news site regularly is a lot to ask of a person, 
                      if you think about the average laziness of an American. 
                      Whatever, that's my monthly bullshit, you had the luck of 
                      it coming to your mailbox.</font></p>
                    <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 
                      Thanks :-)<br>
                      </font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Josh Forman 
                      </font></p>
                    <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><i>Thanks 
                      Josh, you bring up some good points. I should say as well 
                      that we will be doing another Community Summit this year, 
                      I’m just struggling a little with the format. See, I want 
                      to keep it irc-style as I did last year, but the most common 
                      criticism I got about the summit was that nobody who didn’t 
                      have a website was invited, no ‘Joe Schmoe’ gamers. So I 
                      want Joe Schmoe there this year. But how do I figure out 
                      which Joe to invite, and how many, etc. Any ideas, e-mail 
                      <a href="http://www.loonygames.com/content/2.2/mailbag/”mailto:Bobbi@loonygames.com”">me</a>. </i></font> 
                    </p>
                    </td>
                </tr>
              </table>
              <p align="right"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><i>- 
                Stephanie &quot;Bobbi&quot; Bergman needs to come up with better 
                taglines.</i></font></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></loonystart></font></p>
              </DIV>
            <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="index.php"><font color="#7C420E"><b><font size="+1">&lt;&lt;Prev 
              </font></b></font></a></font></p>
            
          </td>
        </tr>
      </table>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
<br>
<table width="100%" border="0" bgcolor="#3596B3" height="29">
  <tr> 
    <td height="20" width="25%" align="center" valign="middle" bgcolor="#86531A"> 
      <a href="../../../about.1"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#FFFFFF" size="2"><b>about</b></font></a></td>
    <td height="20" width="25%" align="center" valign="middle" bgcolor="#86531A"> 
      <a href="../../../feedback.1"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#FFFFFF" size="2"><b>feedback</b></font></a></td>
    <td height="20" width="25%" align="center" valign="middle" bgcolor="#86531A"> 
      <a href="../../../archives/index.html"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#FFFFFF" size="2"><b>archives</b></font></a></td>
    <td height="20" width="25%" align="center" valign="middle" bgcolor="#86531A"> 
      <b><a href="../../../submissions/index.html"><font color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">submissions</font></a></b></td>
  </tr>
</table>
<table width="100%" border="0" bgcolor="#3596B3" height="29">
  <tr> 
    <td height="20" width="35%"><a href="../../../index.html"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#FFFFFF"><b><i>loonygames</i></b></font></a></td>
    <td height="20" width="65%"> 
      <div align="right"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#FFFFFF">  </font></div>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
<p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2">Credits: Illustration 
  &copy; 1999 Dan Zalkus. All other content is &copy; 1999 loonyboi productions. 
  Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited, biznitch.</font></i></p>
 <map name="logoa">
  <area shape="rect" coords="52,47,112,59" href="http://www.bluesnews.com">
  <area shape="rect" coords="3,3,179,46" href="../../../index.html">
</map>
</body>
</html>
