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A long overdue, and long update!
The reason behind this is that I'm very busy with tests at college. Our University Exams will begin very soon. I have tests almost every day of the week, with just some time in between. So I have been busy, and will be busy for a while, so I won't be able to update regularly for some time. I will still however try to squeeze in updates, either here, or on my personal page.
I have made a number of changes since last time. The last two Saturdays, I took part in Doomworld's weekly Speedmapping Exercise. In case you haven't heard, in this exercise, anyone can participate, and you will be given 100 minutes to build a level on a theme that is announced every Saturday, 8 PM GMT. For me, in India, 8 PM GMT is almost 1 AM, so I've been staying up till 3 AM to make these speedmaps! But it's a lot of fun. I've added screenshots and download links of my speedmaps on the Levels Page. I also added a couple of links on my Links Page.
Since NewDoom.com is still rewriting their Files System, some of my download links will not work. However, all the files should be available at the Mindless Games Files Section, so you can still get them from there. Uploads are still not enabled, so I couldn't upload the new stuff I made. That includes all the great new Winamp Skins I made - there are many, and I'm sure you will like them. I'm still waiting for the Files System to be back.
Well, I promised a review of Damian Lee's The Following last time, and I did write it. It is a cool WAD and my review is on my Reviews Page.
Tobias Münch redesigned his Phobos Wad Lab site. I played more of his levels, and I will have reviews for them when I find the time. He also mentioned the Episode 4 Project that himself, Pablo Dictter, my brother Varun and myself are working on. Some of the maps have already been completed. I recently finished my E4M1. I am having fun working with these guys!
Well, that's about it for now, I will update whenever I find the time. It's only a few weeks that I will be busy - after that, "I'll be back!"
William Mull, NewDoom.com's webmaster celebrated his birthday on June 12! Happy Birthday!
The last time, I had uploaded some of the files to the site, but everything wasn't working properly - you might have noticed that most of the images weren't appearing. Anyway, the site is now back, though the NewDoom Files Section is still not up (they are rewriting the entire thing - quite difficult, which is why it is taking time). To see what I added to the site recently, you'll have to read the last two updates I made - Sat 09/06 and Mon 04/06. That technical article I wrote is properly up now.
Varun redesigned his Doom Inferno site a couple of days back - what a great new look! I have been busy with college so I haven't done much of reviewing recently. I've been working on a map of mine. Also, yesterday, I made another Doom Winamp Skin, and I'll put that up when the Files Section is back.
In the next update, I'll have a review of a WAD called The Following - it is a ZDoom level created by Damian Lee. It is his first released level (a good one!), and should be appearing at CDROM.COM soon. You can get the level at his site.
A few days ago, NewDoom.com moved their server from the old Windows NT one to a new, better Linux server. Because of the changes they were making, I didn't have FTP access, so I didn't actually make that last update on the site. Anyway, it's back up now. I also had to re-upload the site, and it is now at the new address - http://www.newdoom.com/hosted/karthik - please note the change, and update your bookmarks. My email address is now karthik@www.newdoom.com. The Files section at NewDoom is being rewritten (PHP/MySQL) so it will take some time for them to be back online. Until then, you may not be able to download some files from here.
On 6 June Pablo Dictter was profiled at Doomcenter - cool interview, Pablo! Well, you might have heard on the site that Pablo, Tobias Münch, my brother Varun and myself are working on an Episode 4 replacement for Ultimate Doom. We have started work on it, and it's really nice to work with them.
I'm having tests at college so I haven't been doing a lot on the site lately. The latest addition to the site is the Technical Article I wrote - the one on WAD files - which is on the Doom Info Page (see the updates written on Monday 4 June).
It took me quite a while, but I finally finished it - in the course of two days, I wrote a technical article describing in detail something we have all been familiar with since 1993 - the WAD file! It's based on information found in Matt Fell's Doom Specifications. In the article I have tried to explain what a WAD file contains, and how it stores data, in as simple terms as I can. It's detailed and pretty much covers everything you'd want to know about a WAD. I am also planning to add some C++ programs I wrote to tamper with WADs in the future.
The article has been added to the reorganised Doom Info Page.
My college reopened after summer vacations on 28th and now it's back to the regular routine of mine. My college timings are 9:40 AM - 4:20 PM, but I generally get home only by 6 PM. We are also having some tests now. That's why I haven't updated the site in a week. A lot of important things happened in the last few days, most of which I wrote about on my personal site. One important thing is that this site crossed 1000 hits on the morning of June 1 - after a little more than a month online. I don't know who was the 1000th visitor since no one has sent me a screenshot. Another news I'm happy to write about is my brother Varun's site being hosted by Doomcenter! Yes, you can visit his site at http://varun.doomcenter.com. I updated my links.
Yesterday, June 3, 2001 was the first birthday of NewDoom.com! Happy Birthday NewDoom! I've been a regular visitor of the site for a long time now, and in the past year they have made a great contribution to the Doom community. (Recently, did you see that excellent article by Rellik - on his visit to id - which was featured on the main NewDoom site!) I look forward to all the cool things that will happen on the site in the future!
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