Select a article :

• 6/17/2021 - The Comfy Talk Podcast
• 6/16/2021 - Take No Prisoners is a CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED game!
• 6/9/2021 - Is it food poisoning or stomach virus?
• 6/1/2021 - My Livestreaming Origins
• 5/24/2021 - Moved to Razorback95.com
• 2/18/2021 - YouTube Frustrations UPDATE
• 2/9/2021 - YouTube Frustrations
• 2/8/2021 - Blood Multiplayer

6/17/2021 - The Comfy Talk Podcast

Me and OpenRift were featured as guests for Arthur Kannibal's The Comfy Talk podcast.

The podcast premiered at the time of a Freeform Friday event (Friday, 8:00PM CST)

So what is "The Comfy Talk" you might ask, well it is a open platform for bringing recognition to the hobby's most dedicated people, and for enthusiast to voice their own opinions.

In this podcast, you'll get to hear me and OpenRift's stories about how we got into video games, our first exposure on multiplayer, origins of our usernames, the origins of DOSBox Deathmatch Club, and more!

If you are a fan of podcasts, definitely give this a listen!

6/16/2021 - Take No Prisoners is a CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED game!

So I've revisited this game and I feel like there should be more reviews for this game.

For those who don't know what this game is, it is a top-down shooter developed by Raven Software, who are mostly known at the time for developing games like Shadowcaster, Heretic, Hexen Beyond Heretic, etc.

It is powered by Raven's in-house Vampire Engine that was also used for developing Mageslayer and *maybe* Necrodome. This game would also become Raven Software's first game that doesn't use a first-person perspective.

Now the engine is what interests me as well, if you use the cheat that enables first-person view, you'll see right away that it's technically a 3D engine with 2D sprites (similar to Doom Engine games and BUILD Engine) but with the camera-view in top-down perspective. It's a shame that a level-editor wasn't included because I would've loved to potentially make levels for it.

Now I have heard some downsides regarding this game, like the game's progression is one thing, think of it like it's the Hexen of Top-Down Shooters. I haven't done a playthrough enough to give my opinion on it.

The second downside that I also haven't tested was it's multiplayer. I was going through the comments section of a review video (probably the only one I can find as of this writing) and stated that an introduction to this game was attempted in a couple of LAN parties circa 2003, It was said that the view is just too constricted and was easy to get snuck up on and taken out without really being able to know what was going on. Plus it was said that the weapons were unbalanced and had a couple of overpowered weapons (Minigun, Rocket Launcher, etc) and the equipment was not being utilized because of how difficult it was to cycle of deploy effectively. It was also stated that the levels were too big for less than 6 players.

Now I will state that don't judge it's multiplayer by it's comment as it is just someone giving their thoughts on the multiplayer, it's always best to try it yourself and see what you think. I've tried to get the multiplayer working without the hassle of VPNs but fighting DirectPlay under TCP/IP to get a dedicated server nowadays is like trying to win the lottery at this point.

If only IPXWrapper either allows Direct IP connection or atleast support the use of DOSBox's IPXNET servers for Internet Play. There are people who don't want to resort to VPNs, I've tried. The closest I got for this was WIPXEMU by kjliew but while it was communicating with IPXNET servers, hosting and connecting didn't work. I guess that's something to revisit for another time.

If you wish to try it out for yourself, get it on a abandonware site and throw Dgvoodoo2 in for now till out of the blue it gets released on GOG. If you wish to watch a review I got one here by Salokin.

WATCH HERE!

6/1/2021 - My Livestreaming Origins

In today's article I will be reflecting on when I began streaming on Twitch with a Live2D model I made.

It's also been my third month of streaming on my current Twitch channel.

While my test stream from April 2021 was my current Twitch channel's first broadcast, It sure isn't the first-ever. In fact, my first stream was broadcasted on YouTube as far as November 2015. Now this stream is considered private and I don't have any plans on deleting it (I keep these for the sake preservation), but I will explain the context of that stream.

Of course it starts with a logo I made for I was in a phase as a teenager when I wanted to start a dev team making TCs and other shit that never get finished after a few months or less working on it. Looking back at this years later still makes me cringe to this day and I even ask myself why I thought this was a good idea.

As I became less introverted by late-2020, I eventually attempted another test stream under a new format, where I had a background, a facecam and the game's screen. However in that test-stream, only my microphone picked up. This was due to using multiple tracks for my recordings at the time being, it was only a matter of tweaking before I can get it going. But other things were in the way and got me distracted. The thought of doing livestreams returned in March 2021, but instead of streaming on YouTube like last time, I've decided to stream on Twitch instead. The move stemmed from when my friends including Lord Reven and OpenRift were using Twitch and I said to myself, I guess I could jump in on the fun.

However I wasn't feeling comfortable showing my facecam in the recent months, so the facecam idea got scrapped and could've went along without a facecam until I eventually entered a new interest...

I came across clips of a VTuber from the YouTube recommended. The screenshot above is Zentreya who is associated with VShojo. After days of enjoying her content it eventually inspired me to use a VTuber model instead of relying on facecam.

I downloaded Live2D Cubism and just messed around for a bit. Before make the parts needed using screencaps I've archived of So Dakki from Senkaiden Houshin Engi (She is one of my favorite anime antagonists).

Now getting the model created was a lot of work, and it even involved watching tutorial videos to get the job done. Once it was done I decided to test it out. I've downloaded various programs that can let me using the model in webcam form. Before settling with PrprLive.

That was when the test stream would begin. Now I am aware that some people will get me the wrong way. I mean sure, I used a Live2D of a female character while using my own male voice which is weird.

But the thing is, and this is in my Twitch channel's about section that this was done for the fun of it and not to be a full-fledged VTuber.

And because I wanted my friends to have a laugh because in DOSBox Deathmatch Club + other personal Discords, Me and the bois are known to bust each others balls!

I hope this article explains why I used this Live2D model in my streams. Till then, stay tuned for more content.

"Bryan's final form... He turns into an anime girl, but he still has his patrick voice." ~ OpenRift

5/24/2021 - Moved to Razorback95.com

Hello Everyone! This is the first news article I am posting since the move to Razorback95.com

Before we go off with this, I want to give huge thanks to Kugee for letting me move both this site and DOSBox Deathmatch Club's website to Razorback. If it wasn't for him, you wouldn't be able to read this on the older browsers like Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer.

Now let's talk about what I planned for both my website and channels.

Months prior to the move and other things, I have recently started livestreaming on Twitch, and for those who viewed my channel, the uploads section were flooded with Twitch VODs. Since it was starting to bother me, I've decided to unlist the Twitch VODs but you can still watch them via the Twitch VODs playlist.

[This is future THEBaratusII Here]

Only the streams up to June 6, 2021 are planned to be unlisted but only visible to a playlist due to feedback regarding the "flashy" background in the Starting Soon/AFK/End of Stream scenes.

Now as for making videos, I will continue making highlight videos of Twitch streams alongside making other side video projects. I even setup PCem with Windows 95D installed so expect videos out of that. I also plan on further improving my website for now plus I might eventually run a Q&A at some point so expect a article coming. I will keep you updated as time moves on.

2/8/2021 - Blood Multiplayer

Oh boy! things have changed for Blood Multiplayer. I do like to bring up my history of playing Blood online!

This was back in late 2011 when I discovered Blood's multiplayer scene via YouTube. Those multiplayer gameplay videos usually coming from players like ToxicBarrel (Gargoyle) and Aichmorhabdophobia (Maligned). I had originally tried YANG (Yet Another Network Guider) but had no success in finding a Blood game. Either that or I was just impatient at the time. That's when I discovered Meltdown, It is somewhat like YANG but felt more easier to find players. I would register on Meltdown somewhere in December 2011 under a cringe-worthy nickname that I don't even bother mentioning much anymore.

Not only I've played Bloodbaths in there but also sometimes for Duke Nukem 3D (Dukematch) and Shadow Warrior (Wangbang) but most of the time I played Blood multiplayer there. However as time went on (Somewhere in 2012 I think?) I ended up a bit burnt out originally due to my childish drama (Because I was young and didn't know any better at the time). Sometime in 2015, I started doing multiplayer for Blood again and even joined a group on Facebook dedicated to Blood at the time. This was where I became friends with Nyyss0nen, Bernaise King, and a few others.

As 2016 went by, after my Bloodbath match with a Meltdown user and a LAN session with a friend from school. I eventually got burnt out and considered myself retired after the initial five years of Blood Multiplayer. But in 2017, The source port trend would start when BloodGDX was released. However I wasn't completely out of retirement as I've only played a few multiplayer games via BloodGDX when the multiplayer support came out. I didn't enjoy the mouse input in BloodGDX at the time.

As 2020 hit, I was getting closer to coming out of retirement once I joined DOSBox Deathmatch Club (established by OpenRift) and participated in the Blood event from February 15, 2020. This was also around the time when Meltdown was called out as a malware and a 'undeniable evidence' video was uploaded. Not many people went to Meltdown sometime afterwards and the people from the Blood Discord would implement a NBlood dedicated server system for picking up Bloodbath games (also includes a dummy player so it's pretending to be dedicated server) while a few others would still use Meltdown via a version of NBlood that has the "-broadcast" argument.

Now on October 2020 is when I would come out of retirement. As I started playing NBlood multiplayer with RDR.EXE and his friends. It was also around the time when I participated in the BIGEYE events run by Kugee of Razorback95.com that involves playing QuakeWorld deathmatches in celebration in each episode being uploaded. The last BIGEYE event took place in October 30, 2020 and not gonna lie, I almost teared up in celebration of the finale and I even got credited along with the fun I had with the people at Razorback. This also got me out of introvert hell.

Back to the topic of my return in Blood Multiplayer, I was taught about the uses the Voodoo Doll and Tesla Cannon has. I also learned about how the Deathmask powerup (Invulnerability) could break a good match. I give huge thanks to those who helped me break out of introvert hell and for the fun I had with Blood multiplayer.

Time for me to logoff, Thanks for reading!