[phago].de

Bachi told me it is your birthday, if thats correct:

Happy birthday! I hope we'll be able to play a match or two during the christmas holidays.. wishing you a nice day, it lasts five more minutes.

Hey guys, wanted to let you know that there's gonna be another Riker Cup quite soon. You can find all the info about it right here!

Happy Birthday!

2008-11-09 15:18:19 Won against [No Skill Attached] (5 - 4)
Win number 1337!

As many of you might have noticed, phago has lost a lot during the last weeks. I've thought a lot about the reasons, yet didnt come to a definite conclusion. Some of us weren't as active as they used to be, but there are still ben and dex who play almost every day, keeping our activity up. So inactivity really cannot be the explanation for our sixth place... my investigation discovered something else: Our nutrition is a clear deficiency! Sure, we love Booster, we love Ahoj-Brause and we love Wasabi-Peas, but from time to time we need something substantial to set against the skill in the league. Therefore, I'm introducing: cereozytose!

cereozytose isnt a new team, it is a custom mix of cereals, developed to give us the power we need to reclaim the first place of the league! Naturally, the ingredients should stay our secret.. but BZ is an open source game, so we'll go open source about this, too! The english people might have to do some research though, as I'm too lazy to do so.

(Actually I was just trying out the German webservice mymuesli.de, but why not link it to phago if there's the possibility. )

Something that I've found extremely useful and interesting, are replays. Not the replays you look at to detect a shot through, but the replays from before ones time. I was never around for the Sunspots-days but was able to get a good idea of what matches were like back then just by checking out a couple of replays. I also think that new players, instead of wasting a gu-playerless day on missile war, should check out some old replays more frequently. Watching an orbit or Red Baron2 at their prime, can be a lot more helpful than any training lesson.
But how? How should I know what replay number to use and how do I even get one to work?
Well, most of our server owners have set up these incredibly handy sites:

longdon.guleague.org
quol.bzflag.bz
destroyer.guleague.org

On these sites, you can see from when the replay was, who played, what the index # is and even download the replay file itself.
What do I do when I want to watch them? Either you download the file and load it into your own replay server (the complex way) or you just launch BZFlag and type in the replay server address (always port 5159 servers) and use the command "/replay load #number on the website" then you use "/replay play" and "/replay pause". For skipping to specific scenes, use "/replay skip + or - amount of seconds". For the replay serves without a website with the replays listed, it's a little more tricky. You can use the command "/replay list -n" for the latest replays or just grab a random one from the list. You can always look up all the commands in detail on the according servers.
I'll be uploading some classic phago replays sometime soon, that you should check out on a rainy day.

Over the past couple of weeks, several newer players in the league have approached phago, requesting some individual training.
And since we haven't been all that active lately, I've agreed to help out some new people. This does not mean however, that every member is going to have the time and energy to train you whenever they're online.
I've also been asked if I could observe certain players and tell them what they did wrong in a match - something I don't see as very useful. Personally, I think watching matches between high ranked teams can be a lot more helpful than the other way around. Everyone makes mistakes.
So, if you have questions or need some advice, feel free to contact me. I might be doing a regular training session with a group of players, need to see how many people would be interested though. The idea would be: instead of opening a new team like [pino], I'd pick some players and work on things with them frequently. Maybe play some 2 vs. 2 funmatches against some other people. That way there's no pressure but you can still learn a lot.

Btw: My behavior can suck, so don't expect to learn anything from me in that area.

First off, I want to apologize for our span of inactivity. Not going to blame it on school or work, just been a little lazy.

Anyway, this evening we had 4 great matches vs BZB. The first one ended in a 4-4 tie, thanks to a very late cap by us. The second went to BZB, 4-3. We were leading 3-1 at half time but just couldn't put the match away. Very nice comeback by BZB. After a small dispute we got to the 3rd and probably best of the 4 matches. We were able to put the match away early and didn't stop playing our game. That one finished 9-2. The last one, also very fun, ended 6-1 for us and put us back in 3rd place. Very hard and enjoyable games.
On a side not, all 4 matches were 3vs3's.
Thanks so much for all the great fun, BZB!

Participants: phago: Saturos, Bachi, dexter, benji - bzb: beanpole, james4, slime, sphere, Davechi04, Quol

Good shootin' you guys.

Last night Saturos decided to release his contest design. View the whole thread here: http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=13061
He's also posted some info over there, about how he made the shirt, and what the ideas were behind it. Go check it out and leave us a comment below on how you liked it!

I personally love it and hope it gets chosen.

Well done Satu.

Dear HiX,

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