Once upon a time there was Team Fortress. No, not the mod for Valve’s half-life engine. It was originally a mod for the quake engine! Oh and fun fact: the half-life engines use the quake engines as a base. Life would be so boring without id software!

Anywho.. the Team Fortress guys were hired by valve, but the quake community was itching for more class-based CTF! So Weapons Factory was born. First as a mod for Quake 2, and later the Quake 3 Arena mod (I played countless hours of the latter.) Both mods were wildly popular, with a very active community and a few different competitive ladders/seasons that lasted for several years.

Then Quake 4 gets released… but the game is not nearly as popular as Quake 3. A Weapons Factory mod is started, which is unique, and has some very interesting features. The Assassin class could walk on walls! The Cyborg’s sentry homing rockets would neatly split into 3 rockets and spiral into their target. You could even swim in water! Okay.. that last one is only impressive if you know that Quake 4 did not have water to begin with. Big props to Infernal, the main programmer, for all that awesome work he put into it. It’s really unfortunate that the mod didn’t get out of beta. Lack of 3D artists for the different character models, and a general lack of interest in Quake 4 for many.

But, wait! There’s more! Recently, some of the developers have decided that they don’t want the series to die on such a sad note. A standalone game is coming, and they have invested in an engine license and a 3D modeler who has already cranked out the Marine’s model. Unfortunately they didn’t have a way to animate the models just yet.

Did you know Western Michigan University has a motion capture studio? Well you do now! I am friends with one of the few people who knows how to use it, and has access to it. I also know the Weapons Factory developers via IRC. So I got us all talking, and set a date, got the animation list, and we’re off!

Recently I noticed that one of the speakers in my headset had gone out, and the other was quite a bit quieter. Since my warranty had ran out already, SteelSeries would not replace it. They offered me 20% off a future purchase, which I may take them up on since I have been eyeballing the SteelSeries 7H Headset for quite some time now. .

I enlisted the help of a friend and together we took apart my headset and managed to get it working once more. If there are others out there looking to do something similar, here is what we did.

We discovered that the padding of the ear cups is glued on, and covers up 3 screws. The first thing we did was remove two obvious screws where the left ear cup meets the neckband. Next we used a small screwdriver to peel up the padding up (managing to not tear it, thank goodness!) After the padding was peeled back, we were able to get at the hidden 3 screws, unscrew them, and then remove the portion of the headset that the padding was glued to, which revealed the housing for the microphone, and the area that the headset wiring came in.

The next step was removing yet another screw that was holding the outside piece of the ear cup on. This piece covers the solder points of the wires. Once it was all taken apart, we pulled some slack into the headset, and snipped off a few inches of the headset cord. Turned out it was enough that we got the broken part of the wire. We put a knot in the cord first, where the old knot had been, that just prevents the slack from tugging on the solder points. We desoldered the bad wire, and then stripped/tinned the good wire, then made sure the remaining wire was good with a multimeter, and finally soldered it all back in place. We added some hot glue over the top of the solder points just to make sure no wires touched each other. After piecing it all back together I just slapped the ear padding back on, and it stuck on pretty well without any additional glue.

Most of the domestic beers on tap we were all quite familiar with: Dogfish Head’s 90 Minute IPA, Bell’s Two Hearted, etc; and some of the imported beers seemed a bit cliche, such as Stella Artois and Hacker-Pschorr. Despite that, it was nice to see some foreign beers on draft instead of in bottles. Opportunities to try foreign beers that are not bottled are quite rare, and I would not recommend trying many bottled beers that have traveled a great distance.

The first beer I had was called Blonde by Aflingen which was a belgian strong pale ale. I’m normally not a fan of belgian/yeasty type beers, but I was quite satisfied with this one. The second beer I had was on special for $5, and is listed on the menu as $9. It was a Maibock beer by Hofbrau, and it was higher in alcohol content and the flavor was quite complex and full with a noticeable honey taste to it, which made it quite delicious.

My friends and I decided to split a margherita pizza, and a bread plate that came with a few different spreads. The bread came out first and we were pleasantly surprised with the pesto and hummus and other spread (of which I have forgotten the name.) Mix that with a few sips of excellent beer, and you’re in heaven. The pizza was also quite delicious. There was some dispute/bribing over the last piece of pizza involving trying to get someone to start smoking again (or quit quitting)… but luckily I was able to get my fill.

The atmosphere was pleasant, the music was European, and the waiter was quite friendly and helpful. I would highly recommend it if you are looking for a great meal downtown.

Update:

Revisited the Tap House once more this weekend, and decided to try their BEER FLOAT! The beer they used was Cocoa Loco from Arcadia Brewing. They also drizzled on some chocolate syrup and put some whipped cream on top. Overall, quite a delicious treat.