November 2003

Max

Oddworld Fan begins

Story 30 reported by Max on
Sunday, 30th November 2003 at 9·00 p.m. GMT

Apologies to Oddys for not reporting this earlier, but I clean forgot about it. A new fan site, Oddworld Fan, has appeared on the Internet, sporting a very well thought out Scrabanian design, with suitable Arabic‐like fonts. A warning, though, for those who like to use Winamp or Windows Media Player, this site does feature background music, so be forewarned.

Meanwhile, the debate about the next game continues having transcended beyond simple observations about the holiday card, and have culminated into a reprise of the original reaction to Oddworld 4. Read the entire of the contemporary version here.

Sources: Oddys

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Max

Ed Fries interview

Story 29 reported by Max on
Sunday, 30th November 2003 at 4·28 p.m. GMT

Al the Vykker has posted the snippet of EGM’s interview with Ed Fries which references the rumour about Oddworld 4 being given the axe. As mention before, Ed denies the rumour, but he also makes it clear he’s not going to actually talk about the next game.

Hopefully tomorrow’s update of Oddworld.com should do that for us.

Sources: Al the Vykker

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Max

Holiday card 2003

Story 28 reported by Max on
Sunday, 30th November 2003 at 11·38 a.m. GMT

Alf has been delivering this year’s holiday card, and it has been scanned in by Paramiteabe and again by Mac the Janitor. See Mac’s scan here, and read the controversy surrounding the fans’ thoughts here. I’ll leave you to make your own opinions, but feel free to post them as comments.

Sources: paramiteabe and Mac the Janitor

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Max

Microsoft drops OW4?

Story 27 reported by Max on
Friday, 28th November 2003 at 7·17 p.m. GMT

My computer has been suffering tremendously, so I’ve not been able to update as regularly as I’d like. I also apologise in advance if I’m late delivering other news stories. Unfortunately for Oddworld fans, OWF seems to be undergoing difficulties all of its own, and in several different forms. Bandwidth and speed is being sucked up by spammers using the server to send mass emails, while Abe Babe’s using the server to host her Final Fantasy–related ephemera seems to be resulting in many images being replaced, including banners, avatars, the page headings and the background, which frequently can be seen as an endless repetition of, say, a Meetle grub or the angry emoticon.

Source: Abe Babe.

Likewise, OWI looks set to be hit by the rumour bug, as reported by soulstorm49 in this topic. It seems EGM asked Ed Fries in an interview to comment on the rumour that Oddworld Inhabitants have scrapped their next game. Ed determinedly denied this was true, which is fortunate for us who frequent the Forums, but all rumours have a source, and it could likely spread.

Sources: Abe Babe and soulstorm4

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Max

General Discussion reignited

Story 26 reported by Max on
Sunday, 23rd November 2003 at 8·39 p.m. GMT

The General Discussion forum at OWF (which is moderated by Xavier and your’struely), thanks to the return of member moodokon man, had undergone a revitalisation, with new and updated threads bringing back the topics of our disappointment with MO and the inaccuracies in it, low expectations for certain aspects of Oddworld 4 and, once again, the Oddworld Map and its inconsistencies with pre‐determined geographical knowledge. Perhaps most interesting is whElk’s contribution to Sal’s mysterious Holiday card thread. Apparently, this year’s card, which is currently in the final stages of production, will feature many new species we’ve never seen before, and maybe something to do with female Mudokons (which I hope means Sam). If this news is related to the info I have about Alf creating a poster featuring all of the Inhabitants, this could be one detailed card, which we should all be looking forward to, despite the current reputation the phrase “new Oddworld species” carries around with it.

Sources: whElk

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Max

Oddlympics 2·0

Story 25 reported by Max on
Friday, 21st November 2003 at 9·28 p.m. GMT

Mac the Janitor is still drip‐feeding us previews of the upcoming Oddlympics 2·0, sequal to the similarly titled interactive game played on the Forums a while ago. While the website has, apparently, been created, the actual Flash game (featuring a ‘technology’ discovered by Mac which, we are told, will be completely new to us users of it) is in production. All release dates have been abandoned due to the ongoing incompletedness of the project. Much like TOE in that sense…

Meanwhile, Oddworld.com has updated with a warning for Mozilla and Netscape 7 users regarding the functionality of their website of late. They provide a recommendation and a promise of resolution.

Finally, I’m hoping to join the Game FAQs forum so I can put right all the misunderstandings on the Oddworld 4 board.

Sources: Mac the Janitor

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Max

Release date debunked

Story 24 reported by Max on
Thursday, 20th November 2003 at 9·06 p.m. GMT

Alf has graced the Oddworld Forums with a post which confirms, or rather deconfirms, the Release Date of Oddworld 4. Forget all of what the games sites, shops and magazines are saying about an April release—​there is no known release date for the much anticipated fourth Oddworld game, not even for OWI themselves. We are assured, however, that when real news comes about it, we will see it on Oddworld.com.

Sources: Alf

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Max

Too bad

Story 23 reported by Max on
Saturday, 15th November 2003 at 10·46 p.m. GMT

Sligslinger turned up just as I was typing here, along with the scanned in image, which is very beautiful and highly interesting. Take a look for yourself.

Sources: sligslinger

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Max

Oddsville Wins!

Story 22 reported by Max on
Saturday, 15th November 2003 at 10·09 p.m. GMT

Oddsville wins! Or at least, is lined up to. While we can expect a scan of the image tomorrow night, we now have a very expressive description of the picture, which features the Stranger, the poacher and a new crocodilian character in the forest environment seen in the X‐Factor video.

However, Sligslinger set out to buy the book earlier today, and could potentially scan the image before Oddsville can get access to a scanner. Why am I so excited about all this? Okay: Oddsville’s been absent from the Forums for a while, and this is how he’s trying to mark his return. Go him!

Sources: Oddsville

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Max

Oddworld art, music, & height

Story 21 reported by Max on
Saturday, 15th November 2003 at 11·11 a.m. GMT

The ongoing debate about the height of Oddworld creatures and characters is continuing on the Forums. While it seems pretty official that Mudokons are around 5′8″ and Glukkons are 7′, there are some inconsistencies that shed doubt over all the figures. Any further complications or—​dare I ask for it?—​clarification would be welcome.

Three Oddworld Forums members, Oddsville, Nath, and Sligslinger, are all potential candidates to be the first person to scan in the unpublished Oddworld 4 image from the Spectrum 10 art book—​stay tuned!

And, possibly most interestingly, SJSAbe has noticed that the music playing in an advert for either Dominos or White Castle sounds eerily similar to the Oddworld intro theme. It’s the advert where the parents are waiting for their kid to come home with food. I doubt the ad will appear on British TV, but if you’ve seen the advert (and hence heard the music), please get in touch or leave a comment. More on this story as it develops!

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Max

Spectrum 10

Story 20 reported by Max on
Thursday, 13th November 2003 at 7·15 p.m. GMT

GameFAQs has put up codes for Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee for the GameBoy Advance.

Also, Atusi has reminded us of the Tenth Annual Spectrum International Competition for Fantastic Art book, published last month, which this year features two images from Oddworld Inhabitants: one from Munch’s Oddysee, and one as‐yet unpublished one from Oddworld 4. If anyone can get a hold of this book, we at the Forums would love a scan of the Oddworld 4 image!

This is the fifth year Oddworld art has made it into a Spectrum, an impressive achievement. See Atusi’s thread for OWI’s history in the Spectrum Competition. Other links:

Sources: GameFAQs and Atusi

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Max

X‐Factor in Australia

Story 19 reported by Max on
Wednesday, 12th November 2003 at 7·51 p.m. GMT

A reminder to Australian readers that they can see the X‐Factor special “Inside Microsoft’s Xbox” on the Discovery Channel on Tuesday 25th November at 7:30 p.m. This will be an excellent opportunity to re‐see what Oddworld Inhabitants is willing to show us about the new game, or indeed see the footage for the first time.

While searching for information about this, I discovered that pcvconsole.com are saying they recieved news about the X‐Factor special for Oddworld Inhabitants themselves. Maybe they just found it on Oddworld.com, but it’s interesting to note the possibility of OWI subtly slipping news and promotion into the media.

Also, Sal the Mudokon has reportedly recieved the Oddworld Inhabitants’ Christmas card. Sal is a respected member, and it’s difficult to claim him wrong, but in the middle of November? Updates as further information is obtained.

Sources: Abe Babe

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Max

Stranger given article

Story 18 reported by Max on
Saturday, 8th November 2003 at 11·44 p.m. GMT

Mac the Janitor has made a highly interesting discovery, and if he’s not the only one to have made it, he’s the only one to have said anything about it, so he alone gets credit for it. In the topic I told you about in my last update, Mac has reported that he is expecting the Steef to be refered to as ‘The Stranger’ during Oddworld 4. I had to ask him where he got that idea from, and he took a quote from Dear Alf, as you can see in the thread. (Then I found my own quote from Dear Alf and got a bit overexcited)

Also, I’ve been talking to Xav, and I’ve decided not to use OddBlog to post my rambling thoughts and observations about Oddworld, but keep it solely for news. You’ll still be seeing my rants, but I’ll be uploading them in the Features region of TOE, and using OddBlog merely to point towards them. I should also mention that those last paragraphs in the mega‐update are not confirmed or anything, but simply what I’ve made from the material we’ve seen so far—​it’s certainly not official.

Sources: Mac the Janitor

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Max

GIGNews interview with Lorne & Sherry

Story 17 reported by Max on
Tuesday, 4th November 2003 at 8·09 p.m. GMT

Fabled Forum member Atusiya has discovered a new interview with Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna, the first in a long, long time, at GIGnews, a gaming news site I have to admit to never hearing of before. However, the interview is welcome, fresh, interesting and well‐researched. In fact, I really have to commend Melanie Cambron, a high‐ranking member of the video game industry known as The Game Recruiting Goddess, for her remarkable use of quotes from previous interviews, ranging from early ones I can barely remember to Sherry’s recent interview with GirlTech) and using them to analyse Lorne’s and Sherry’s policies and create new and interesting questions. Being part of it, I’m also excited to see the term ‘original fan base’, although Lorne unfortunately makes no reference to his personal retrospective feelings on the subject, instead once again valiantly defending Microsoft, which is fine in itself, but it would be nice to see him facing some of the things we fans are truely concerned about. Then again, that’s probably asking too much, but it’s still something that would be nice to see.

Melanie Cambron mostly questions the pair on their values when it comes to companies and corporations, their target audience, and Hollywood production. It seems to me as if Ms Cambron is a fan of the Oddworld series, which is wonderful—​it’s highly gratifying to read of people of (at least) semi‐celebraty status being Oddfans. That reminds me, the voice of Misty in the Pokemon TV series has seemingly left the show. I’m not interested enough to investigate, but with her being a fan of Oddworld, I though it vaguely appropriate to mention.

Sources: Atusiya’s father

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Max

Gabbit years

Story 16 reported by Max on
Saturday, 1st November 2003 at 11·39 a.m. GMT

I work out the following:

If Munch is 2 dog years old, that puts his RL age as being 2‐and‐a‐quarter months—​barely a quarter of what you’d immediately expect considering the given figures. Bah, I don’t know—​Online Conversion only seems to confuse the issue by saying if I’m 16, my age in dog years would be 1·52 when simple mathematics would dictate that I’d be 77. It’s a silly system, but if anyone can shed some light (read: explain it so that a person with an IQ below 216 can vaguely grasp the idea) I’d much appreciate it. Email me or leave a comment.

Of course, what it could be is that there are two Gabbit years (dog years being simply being an example of differences in aging between species) in 9 RL months.

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Max

Official site updates, November 2003

Story 15 reported by Max on
Saturday, 1st November 2003 at 11·10 a.m. GMT

Despite October’s updates being headed by an ‘October–November’ banner, Oddworld.com has been updated, albeit barely. What’s New contains a single paragraph, thanking the fans, Lorne and Sherry, and the Odds for being in the Inhabitants’ favour. The gratitute is accompanied by a promise of a new Inhabitant Interview, Dear Alf and—​yes—​the return of the Daily Deception, which should conceal hints and tidbits of Oddworld 4 information.

The only other update—​and this is going to set your mind alight—​is the Jobs page—​Oddworld Inhabitants, Inc. are now on the look out for a game tester, presumably to test the one and only Oddworld 4. More than likely the position would entail signing a certificate of confidentiality to prevent information leakages, but if there is anyone out there who has the ability, attitude, availability and desire to persue this opportunity, I wish you the best of luck.

By the way, if anyone can explain away this anomoly, I’d be much impressed: Munch seems to have aged from 9 months to 2 years, according to the official site. Of course, in Earth dog years, 9 months could be equal to two years, but like the majority of Oddworld fans, I’m more of a cat person and wouldn’t know.

Sources: Oddworld.com

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