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Text File | 1995-12-03 | 29KB | 514 lines

066010303050000132002006006010000 11 21 F0110000001 9[....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆....◆...]0110 Ç Ripped-Off visits: ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Delta Force's second International Coding Conference ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Otherwise known as: Bilbo & Stick's big German adventure! Introduction: Some months ago Bilbo received our invite for Delta Force's second International Coding Conference. At that time we weren't sure whether we would be going or not, but we did WANT to go. It was decided that, yes, we would definately go. So I (Stick) being the sort of responsible and organised person that I started making arrangements for the both of us. We originally wanted to drive to Stuttgart, as we presumed that this was the cheapest way to get here. As it turned out we managed to secure some return air tickets for less than the equivalent price of driving there. ( £130 each, return ). Okay, introduction over.... Wednesday 31st July 1991. ( The day before the ICC#2 ). We set off on our merry way from Bilbo's house at about 11am on the M1 motorway towards bright and breezy Birmingham International Airport. Our flight was not due to leave until 4:35pm so we had plenty of time to get there, as it's only about 120 miles ( 200km ) to the airport from Leeds. We'd deliberately set off early as due to the state of Britains crumbling 'road' system there are so many roadworks and delays that a journey which should take 2 hours can often end up being doubled! We arrived at the airport with over 3 hours to spare, so we spent our time eating, drinking and chatting. When we eventually came to board the plane we had to stop all our disks from being X-rayed in customs. ( And trying to explain why we didn't want them X-raying!) Bilbo and myself had never flown before, so it was all a new 'experience' for us. Once on the plane the journey passed rather uneventfully. ( I must say that the plane, a Boeing B111 ( ? ) was more like a well used and abused flying bus. Not built for comfort and definately on the spartan side of uncomfortable! ) After our one and a half hour flight we landed at Stuttgart airport. Bilbo was straight through customs, but as usual, I had to have all my documents checked etc..... There to meet us were Newmode and Slime of Delta Force. They took us by car to Chaos Inc's house, as we were staying there that evening. ( As of course, the conference itself was not to start until the next day ). After a brief introduction we all went out to a local Pizza restaurant for some PIZZA ! ( The pizzas in Germany are even Çcheaper than at home in England ! ). The rest of the evening was spent sat out on the balcony of Chaos Inc's house, while drinking some excellent local beer. Chaos spent some considerable time trying to convince us why we should stop using Degas Elite and use Neochrome Master instead. Thursday 1st August 1991 ( The first day of the ICC#2 ). The first day of the ICC#2 found us getting up early, as we had to get to the hall where the event was to take place before 9am, which was the official time that people could start arriving. The fun part was that Chaos Inc was driving us there and he didn't know exactly where the hall was, except that it was in Leutenbach ! We eventually found it and along with the rest of Delta Force we set about the task of laying out all the tables and chairs around the place. The first arrival of the day was Sammy Joe of TLB at around 11am. Next to arrive were various members of the French group, Mystic at around 1pm. People trickled in throughout the afternoon, but there was a huge influx at around 5pm !! By the late evening there were, according to Slime's rather rough and ready guest arrival list, some 79 people had turned up out of the invited 105. Groups arriving on the first day ( or members from them ): Delta Force (of course!), The Lost Boys, The Overlanders, ULM, ACF, Offbeat, Legacy, Next, TCB, NPG, TEX (and most of Thalion software), Electra, ST-Connexion, TVI, Naos, Masters, BMT, SOTE, Firehawks, Richard Karsmakers and Stefan Postuma. Oh and of course, I nearly forgot, Ripped-Off ! And lots of other individuals, but I cannot figure out all of the groups from Slimes list. So I apologise to any group that attended that is not mentioned above. This first evening was quite chaotic, with lots of noise and music etc.... Some of the stuff to be seen in the first evening: It appeared that nearly all the attending groups were putting forward at least one screen for the ICC#2 demo which is entitled: 'Punish your Machine'. I was told that Electra wanted to enter 5 screens! So it would appear that the demo would have to be extended to two disks or Delta Force would have to be pretty picky at selecting the best screens. Most groups had brought completed screens with them, or were finishing them off while here. And I can tell you there were some really great screens being knocked up. Mad Max was there of course, with large crowds around him whenever he sat in front of his music editor. Eric Simon ( of Tex and Thalion ) was also here, showing off a new 3D filled vector game called: Trex Warrior, which looks superb! He also had some demos of a texture mapping routine which looked quite amazing and also fast considering what he was making the ST do! Ç Also we saw a preview of the new Lost Boys demo which is entitled: Cor What a Scorcher! The main menu is rather innovative and very nice, I won't say much 'cos it'll spoil the surprise. All I can say is that it looks as if this is going to be the demo to beat all demos! ( Until the next amazing megademo comes along that is ! ) Manikin reckons it should be released bfore the end of August... Being worked upon also was the Transbeaunce 2 ( disk 1 ), all the screens being ready, but with quite a few bugs in the main menu to be ironed out. This testing for bugs was being done by Krazy Rex of St Connexion, ( who also did the (very nice) graphics for the demo ). The screens from this demo that we saw were also of a VERY high standard and it was hoped that all the bugs would be ironed out before the end of the conferenece. Richard Karsmakers was doing what he called 'A real time article on the ICC#2'. Meaning that he left his ST on all the time and anybody who wanted to could type some text, so that by the end of the conference he would have a very large ( and unusual ! ) record of the preceedings. By about 8pm Bilbo & myself were feeling quite hungry and decided that we would take a wander into Winnenden to check out the availablity of food. ( It must be pointed out that there were crates of Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite and mineral water, along with stacks of crisps and pretzels which had all been laid on by Delta Force. But I suppose that everybody had to get something for their 40dM ( about £13 ) enterance fee ). The hall itself was about 2000 dM to hire, I beleive ! We found a pizza place in Winnenden and promptly ordered what we wanted.( Along with some lovely German beer,of course! ). While we were there Tex ( Mad Max, Eric Simon, Udo etc ) sat at the table accross from us. Gradually the place filled with other people from the convention, it seemed that everybody was homing in on this particular pizza parlour. ( Probably because it was the first one you came to in the town! ) While we were in there Questlord of Delta Force joined us and during the course of eating we talked about all the things that people do when neither of the parties concerned can speak the language of the other. ( If only they spoke French in Germany! ) Mind you, everybody here had to speak in English because of course it's the language that just about all Europeans can speak besides their native tongue.... Meeting Questlord in the pizza parlour proved to a bit of a shit as he decided to walk back to the conference with us, but insisted on showing us another way back........ What should have been a fifteen minute walk turned into an hour of 'I think this is the wrong way, let's go this way'.... It wouldn't have been so bad but it was raining...... Eventually we decided it would be a good idea to use the local map which Slime had issued to us and as a result we soon arrived back at base. ( The map was definately one of Slime's better ideas for the conference! ) It was around midnight when we arrived back and the place was REALLY heaving. All types of music blasting out, keys clicking, Mad Max and Chris of ULM playing some stuff on a midi- Çcd-amp-mixer-mini-studio setup and all the general clowning around that you would expect at this type of meeting. Eventually I decided I had to get some sleep, I was SO tired and guess what? I still had to blow up my bloody airbed! Just what I needed! Eventually, the bed was inflated, I was snuggled up in my sleeping bag, Bliss! Well it would have been if it hadn't have been for the pissing row of the forty or so ST's all belching out their own form of ear torturing noise. 'Please make them stop, I want to sleep!' is all I could think....... I awoke at around 3:30am, busting for a slash, I went down through the hall where at least half of the attending crowd were still at it! ( oooer! ). After my quick visit to the toilet I decided to type some more text into Richard's ST. Some of the shit and drivel that had been typed in during the day was unbelievable, but made for fun reading! Crawling back into my bed ( !!? ) I slowly fell asleep again, with the sound of Bilbo's snoring almost drowned out by the noise of the congregation below. ( It's also a bit of a bastard when some T**t keeps walking on you so he can get past ). They were French guys and I eventually shouted some French insults at them and I think they got the message..... Friday 2nd August 1991. ( The second day of the ICC#2 ). Groups (or members of) arriving on this day: Respect, Light. 7:30am.... I was awoken by the rather loud music eminating from somebodies ST. Shit! I didn't want to sleep anyway! So I decided to go and wash my face & brush my teeth. ( I REALLY would have liked to have a shower, but the hall only had 4 ( stinking! ) toilets and two wash basins ). On my way to the toilets I came accross Sammy Joe was asleep in the middle of the floor of the hall, blood streaming from his mouth and broken teeth were scattered around him....... Pinned to his sleeping bag was a sign, which read: 'Please kick me. Preferably with both feet or a bat!' Bilbo was still fast asleep so I decided to take a stroll down to the local bakers shop where I bought some bread etc... The morning passed in a rather un-eventful way. In fact I can safely say that we were quite bored. Nothing much seemed to be happening...... Around 2pm Bilbo, myself, Richard Karsmakers and Spaz of TLB went to the local pub where we managed to successfully order some food. We all had a rather nice mushroom omlette with salad. Spaz was bored. 'I want a piss orgy!' he kept shouting. When we arrived back at the hall quite a few people were playing Midi-Maze. I decided to go and have a sleep as I was VERY tired. When I awoke at about 5 pm I saw that Bilbo was also asleep. Downstairs there was a lot of activity, the Midi Maze game was being played on 16 machines! Slime announced that we would have a ÇMidi Maze tournament. We were split into groups of 8 or nine and allowed about five minutes in which to have a practice game. Needless to say I got no further than the preliminary round in which Slime kicked my arse! While the other preliminary rounds were taking place I took the opportunity to go and speak with some people. Also, by now the smell from the toilets ( which could not cope with the continuous stream ( no pun intended! ) of users ) was slowly working it's way out into the hall. A sign was on the main door to them which read 'Keep this door shut. The urin (actual spelling!) stinks so bad!' Need I say more? Later in the evening Bilbo, Vantage, Krazy Rex, myself and a few other guys went into the local town and visited yet another pizzeria. Fortunately for us, Vantage can speak some German so he translated the menu for us. I had an excellent lesagne and Bilbo had eine pizza mit thunfische, krabben und knoblausch. (His third seafood pizza of the conference!) The meal was really nice, but I must say that the beer was crap! So the hero of the evening was good old (young) Vantage, without his help we would have probably starved. Upon our return to the conference the Midi Maze final between Udo, Blagger, Fabian, Mad Max and Leonardo had just ended with Udo winning by a very small margin. He was then presented with some kind of mega-fuck-off joystick as the prize. The time had now arrived for some serious drinking to take place within the Ripped-Off camp. We opened the bottle of Southern Comfort which Bilbo had bought earlier in the day and started drinking.. ( Note: We were drinking outside as one of the (few) rules of the conference was that no alcohol was to be drunk inside the building ). Things started to get very silly from this point onwards....... Saturday 3rd of August 1991 ( The third day of the ICC #2) Groups (or people from them) arriving on this day: Sewer Software, ENS, Galtan Six. We basically spent until 4:30am drinking and chatting to anybody that could understand our ( exceedingly slurred by this time ! ) Yorkshire accents. One of the more noteable conversations being with Manikin of TLB ( Mainly 'cos we were still sober(ish) and he is English! ) I'd been typing bits of text on Richard's (Karmakers) ST for his 'realtime article' at various times of the day, but I must admit to almost kidknapping the keyboard at about 3:30am. Understandably I was running in automatic 'I don't know what the fuck I'm writing' mode at this point. I read later some of the stuff I'd written and it was all garbage! ( But humourous garbage nevertheless ). Not many people were actually awake at this late hour. There were people sleeping under the tables etc... Bilbo had taken over typing and was going at it like a demented zombie speed typist when I decided I ought to stumble up Çto my (air)bed while I was still capable. What did I find when I got there? Well firstly, my bed had been moved some considerable distance by other people who had decided that they wanted to sleep in the same area. Ok, so that's not a big problem for a mild mannered person like myself. But what's this? Yes, there's some bastard in my bed!! No, not on it, but actually inside the sleeping bag!! I gave the guy a swift kick and muttered some swear words at him. He soon moved. Of all the bloody cheek ! I awoke at 9:30am after having slept continuously from the time my head had hit the (pre-warmed) pillow. I turned to Bilbo's bed to see if he was still asleep. Oh fuck! What's this? Only the same guy who had invaded my bed actually fast asleep in Bilbo's bed! I don't know who the guy was,(he was French) but I do know one thing, he's the cheekiest twat I've ever come accross.... So where was my other half Mr O'Blib ? A quick look about discovered him downstairs having a drink, he'd not been to bed at all. Yes, he'd been awake all night having lotsa fun and stuff! When I met him he didn't look as if he'd not had any sleep, in fact he looked quite good for an ugly git! Bilbo told me the tale of what had happened when the members of Galtan six turned up..... It was apparently about 6am when they arrived and of course almost everybody was asleep.( For the first time in this event! ) They wanted to know were somebody ( I've forgotten who ) was. When Bilbo pointed the guy out and remarked that they should be quiet because he was sleeping, they went over and woke the poor guy up ! They wanted to know why he wasn't awake and ready to greet them on their arrival..... Lots of people had been mentioning to me how drunk I was on the previous night, apparently I was laughing a lot and like a hyena... Bilbo and I had some breakfast and then went out into the glorious sunshine and played some table tennis, well we tried to! The playground outside the hall had been comandeered early in the morning by some German firemen, it appeared that they were going to hold a childrens fete. At around 11:30am we went to the local outside swimming pool complex with Furyo and Mr Bee of the Overlanders. It was a really nice place. There was an indoor childrens pool. All the other pools were outside. A diving pool with a high board which Furyo took great delight in doing 'bombs' from. An full sized olympic type proper swimming pool, but best of all was the 'fun' pool. It had all sorts of great stuff in it. It had a water slide, some sort of built in chair thingies which you sat in and they were a bit like a jacuzzi. Some fountains, a waterfall thingy, some jobbies which bubbled the water up in the middle of the pool. Best of all there was a section which ran around the edge of the (circular) pool and had underwater nozzles which blew the water out. The result being you couldn't stand up and got blown down the length of the pool. Fabbo or what! The main reason for going to this lovely outdoor aquatic centre was primarily so we could have that luxury of luxuries, a shower. But we thought that we may as well get our 2dM's Ç(65pence!) worth and act like a set of kids that we are..... With Furyo driving and Mr Bee as the map reader we did get quite lost on the way back to the hall...... A little while after returning, Bilbo decided to get some sleep as he had been nodding off in the car on the way back from the pool. It was great to be clean again !! By the middle of the afternoon some people had already left the conferenece to go home. ( Ha! Bloody wimps! ) Til Breubeck had just finished coding the follow up to Rings of Medusa that day. ( Entitled 'Return to Medusa' I think! ) We spent some considerable time chatting about the game with him showing me all of it's features etc... I didn't play the game but it has the look and feel of a great game. It has the original games music in it, only remixed. (Very effectively I must add.. ) This game deserves to do well ! Good luck Til ! I wasted the rest of the afternoon away by sitting outside in the glorious sunshine, just drinking and drinking. At 7pm Ripped-Off Demo CD's took their daily visit to the pizzeria ! I had lasagne again (my secound time during the conference) and Bilbo had....... his fourth pizza mit Thunfische, krabben unt knoblouch (seafood). Washed down with the obligatory couple of Sanwald beers. Delta Force had asked us to take part in the voting for the best demo entered in the competition at the conference, so we had to get back to the hall for 10 pm. It was chaos when we arrived back, all of us judges were huddled around an ST on which we would view the screens. It was made very difficult by the fact that everyone else at the conference wanted to see all the screens. I must say there were some amazingly good screens, some very good screens, some good screens and a few crappy ones.... The results of the trial by ICC #2 jury were: 1> The Overlanders- A sort of plama rasters jobbie 2> Legacy- Rotating 3D vector cube with animations inside 3> The Respectables- Star bubbles & a strange exploding scroll I think that these are the order that I placed the screens in, but also the other screen of note was by TLB ( Which was a VERY well done sort of chaos screen with acid type soundtrack ). But alas somebody had to win..... The Overlanders were then presented with a rather nice trophy by Delta Force. This was the beginning of the noisiest night of all while at the conference...... Sunday 4th August 1991 ( The last day of the ICC #2 ) At 8:30 am I was awoken by the assorted beeps, belps and clicks of all the ST's down in the hall. Mind you, Bilbo was also doing a good impression of a chainsaw with his snoring! I think that I'd had about 6 hours sleep on the prevoius night so I was feeling quite shagged. I spent most of the morning typing some of this article and Çthe rest just thinking about how tired I was..... Bilbo rose from his pit at about 11am ( I think ) and if he felt as rough as he looked then he would have been feeling pretty crap indeed. All the Coca Cola was gone by this time, but there was plenty of dried bread for breakfast. ( Oh, how nice, bread for breakfast again! ) We de-flated our airbeds etc and checked that everything was packed up safely in our suitcases. Okay, so it was now 1:30pm, we were really hungry again. It was a Sunday and all the shops ( All? That should that be THE shop ! ) were closed. But the pub around the corner would be open for sure. Should we got to this pub which we knew served food until 2 o'clock and try to order some food in the hope that we may get something that was edible? Erm, Remembering of course that we cannot read or speak German and the staff there don't speak English..... Taaraa! Our saviour Questlord to the recue ! He went to pub with us, although he said he was not going to eat anything himself as he was not hungry. I had chicken and chips with salad. Bilbo had to have a mushroom omlete because they didn't have any pizza mit thunfische, krabben und knoblauch. Questlord managed to force down some vinersnitchel, with some croquettes. ( Or as we told him they were called in English: 'Can I have a gobble please?' ). Even better still he paid the bill. Many thanks to you, Questlord of Delta Force for being such a nice guy. Everybody was packing up when we returned and we saw off most of those leaving. We should have some really good photos of the event when we get them back from the developers. By 4pm there was hardly anybody left. The Delta Force team were busy clearing up all the associated shite that had been left behind by all the attending masses. The only other people left were some of the Exceptions, most of Electra and of course us. Bilbo and I had to leave for the airport at 5pm, so we decided that we'd better re-check that all our belongings were safely packed up. Looking through my suitcase I realised I could not find my passport...... After half an hour of looking through all my baggage I realised that it was indeed gone.... My stomach turned. 'Hell, what the shit do I do now?' I thought to myself. Without a passport I may have been stuck in Germany forever. As the news spread around the remaining visitors I started getting lots of 'advice' on what 'nice' things would probaly happen to me when I tried to leave the country without a passport.... Slime was taking us to the airport and so I asked him if he could take us staight away as there would obviously be some hassle with the authorities. ( At the very least! ). We climbed into Slimes tiny 2CV ( if you saw Slime you would never guess that he owned such a car! ) and set off to Stuttgart. We all stayed pretty silent as we travelled, Newmode was asleep as he'd been awake all night coding the reset screen for the conventions 'Punish your Machine' demo. Slime said, ' Ha! I feel excited for what is going to happen at the airport!' Thanks Slime..... Ç We arrived there at about 5:15 pm. The airline said that officially I could not travel on one of their planes without them seeing my passport. All I had was a Visa card and a medical insurance certificate. The woman behind the counter checked my Visa card details on the computer. 'Okay, We'll let you travel' she said. First hurdle completed..... I checked in my baggage and was told to go straight to the customs/immegration booths and see if they would let me go through, if not, then I wouldn't be able to travel. ( She told me that if they were not checking passports then I should not say anything and just go through...) Before going through we thanked Newmode & Slime for all their help and stuff. They said they'd wait in case I couldn't get through. ( I'm sure Slime just wanted to see me get wisked away to prison by the German Police! ). When we got there the guard was checking all passports..... I blurted to him that I'd lost my passport. He asked me lots of questions and then went off after telling me to wait. Another, more official looking guy came over and asked me all the same questions. He asked to see Bilbos passport and asked where we'd been etc and how well we knew each other. 'Okay, go' he said as he waved us through to the departure lounge. Phew! We had a couple of hours to kill, so we went to the bar and had a few coffees. After that we both called our wives and then visited all the duty free shops where Bilbo bought quite a lot of stuff. I didn't see any thing that I really fancied (except a Gameboy, but they didn't have any in stock... ) and I didn't think that the prices were particularly cheap. The customs/immegration guard who had let me go through approached us. 'Shit!' I thought, 'He's changed his mind.' He handed Bilbo a handful of documents. Yes, Bilbo had left his passport, boarding pass and ticket on top of the telephone when he phoned his wife. I bet he thought that we were a right pair of English Pillocks...... At 7:45pm we boarded the plane and had a rather uneventful journey to Birmingham. One of the stewardesses gave me some advice about what to say to the English immegation people who would be waiting for me. I had to answer loads of questions about myself as the guy behind the counter tried to out-pysch me. Eventually he let me through...... Bilbo gave his little Renault 5 Turbo some hammer on the homeward journey to good old Yorkshire. He made a comment: ' Good old England. I've got a car, I can go where I like. I can buy food and know what I'm eating. I can ask somebody for directions and understand what he's saying. I can sleep in my own bed tonight. It's great to be home!' My sentiments exactly..... So, to sum up: We had a great time in Germany at the second Delta Force International Coding Conference. We'd met some great people. We'd mixed with the famous people of the demo/games world. We'd been Çbeaten at Midi Maze by those same people. We'd had some cheeky git sleeping in our beds. We'd had little or no sleep. We'd been pestered by flys and wasps. We'd been made welcome by our hosts, Delta Force. But it really was good to be home in good old England. Finally, Bilbo and myself would like to extend our thanks to all the members of Delta Force who made us so welcome. (Slime, Newmode, Chaos Inc and Questlord ). Also, to all of the people we met there, we look forward to seeing you all again in the near future. Stick. PS See you at next years bash! PPS If you'd like to read more about the ICC #2, I suggest you get hold of the next edition of St News, as the real time article is to be in it.