Tot has been rather scarce over here on The Fort, and remiss in his duties here and elsewhere. I’m lucky to make a coupla posts in the PF forums on occasion, as is. Although I prefer to NOT talk about my personal life here, I think that I owe you folks an explanation as to why I’m not holding up my end, and making Teatime do all the work.
As I’ve mentioned to only a few people in the community, mostly the other PF staffers and my comrades in BTEG - my health has taken a dive into the shitter since about early last summer. I’m having some as-yet unknown pain and difficulties in my abdominal area - which when it flares up, sends me to the Emergency Room to get a hit of Demerol to kill the pain. And sometimes results in my staying there for a day or two. I’ve gone thru just about every possible test the doctors can think of - CTscan, X-rays, Colonoscopy (which I do NOT recommend for anyone to have done - trust me on this, folks) - and the doctors and specialists can’t come up with a reason WHY this is happening. I’m on the diet from hell, and what I can eat is VERY limited, and anything "fun" - like alcohol, sodas, spicy foods, fried foods, etc - is completely out of the question. I’ve lost over 30 pounds in two months, cause some days I just can’t eat - basically giving me a really low energy level. My schedule is usually work, sleep - with the occasional visit to the doctor or hospital mixed in. Work has become a madhouse - we’re at half the staff we were 6 months ago, so I can’t work on reviews and web stuff while at work anymore. I try to make the time to pop online and frag it up a bit - if I’m not too damned tired to do so.
I’m NOT looking for sympathy, mind you - I just wanted all the readers to know why my backlog of projects - which include working on the TFC Reform page, finishing up my UnF review, and a coupla good rants I told Teatime I’d write - have all fallen to the wayside. 
I’ve seriously considered just hanging up my rocket launcher and leaving my position in the community - as I’ve been unable to devote the time required to do so. It’s depressing, frankly.
Add to this my growing dissatisfaction with the state of TFC (I refuse to call it TF1.5 - the REAL TF stayed behind with QuakeWorld), and it’s so-called "community". I remember when being -TPF- meant something, and if you encountered a member on a server, you knew they weren’t going to be an arsehole. As it is, these days the only TPF people I "trust" - are the old guard - those I remember being around when we first started it off - and those newer individuals I recognize by name and reputation. The others - you have to prove yourselves to me, by your behavior.
So, I’ve come to a decision. This upcoming patch Valve has promised us - the one with the new models - will be the deciding point for Tot. I’ll be taking a long, hard look at ALL facets of TFC then - I’ve made my opinion of the netcode crystal-clear on several occasions.. I’ll evaluate the state of the community, the general attitude of the players - and then I’ll decide if it’s worth expending the time and energy to stay with this mod. If I rule against it - I’ll be deleting Half-Life from my system, pulling out of the TFC Reform project completely, and devoting myself to other games I enjoy MUCH more these days.
Moving on to the next subject - TF mods I have MUCH more fun playing - I’ve been having some difficulties with them, and I’ve posted some questions about it in their respective forums to see if I can get some help - but I’d do it here as well. I prefer to play either Q3F or UnF these days - both engines have superior netcode, and the people aren’t complete jerks when you get on a server. My problems with Quake3Fortress as as follows: I get dropped from the server over 50% of the time I try playing these days, with either the "Lost Reliable Commands" errors, the "CL_ParseServerMessage: illegible server message", or the "CL_FlushPackets" one. Some conjecture on the Q3F forums seems to think it’s connected with the LinkSys router I use for my home network. I never had the problem until I udpated the firmware to support IpSec, so I can VPN to work from home. As for Unreal Fortress - I just have a devil of a time trying to connect to servers, and only about 5% of the time, when the map changes at the end of a level, do I successfully load the next map. Needless to say, this is not making me happy, and I end up playing TFC, cause I can usually stay connected there, at least. If anyone can help me solve these issues, I would be VERY happy. I’m presently running firmware revision 1.36 on my LinkSys Ethernet Cable/DSL Router, because when I loaded 1.37, I could connect outside my LAN with my Unix box, but not with my Win98SE box.
Anyhow, that’s enough babbling from me for one day. I don’t know when I’ll post again, or if it’ll be before the fateful day when I decide whether to purge TFC from my system or not. Until then, I hope all you folks are having better luck, both on and off the battlefields - than I’ve been having as of late...
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