Articles in the archive contain broken links because outdated files are removed.

New Worldcraft
The shareware version 1.5 of Worldcraft (1 MB) has been released.

CTF Expansion Pack
The CTF Expansion Pack has been released, and is available on the CTF Expansion Project Homepage. Thanks Casey

Hexen II Retail Soon
Oatmeal sends along word that Raven's Rick Johnson posted word on the Hexen2.com message board that the retail Hexen II went gold and should be in stores soon:

Hexen 2 Officially went Gold this Friday afternoon. Shouldn't be too long before it hits the shelves, probably mid-september.

Quake II Screenshot of the Day
PC Gamer has posted their Quake II  screenshot of the day (Translucent Windows), and the thumbnail.

Zanshin's Job
Congrats to Zanshin, who has on the GLQuake Dojo that he has accepted a job with Quantum 3D. Thanks 'spackle.

Free Base Skins
Kevin Johnstone, aka Rorshach, has released a new set of 15 base skins on his page, King of Skins, that others are free to use as a basis for their own skins with his permission.

Reaping the Reaper
Though the last version was released quite some time ago, impressively, the Reaper still represents the state of the art in bot AI (reinforcing the impression that Epic made a savvy move hiring Reaper author Steven Polge). Recent days have seen a rush of announced modified versions of the Reaper Bot, as well as the addition of Reaper-esque AI to other bots, and the announcement by someone that he was working on the "next version of the Reaper." It is pretty safe to say that it is not a coincidence that this comes shortly after the source code for the Reaper had been successfully reverse-compiled. Though it is nice to think of the state of the Reaper being advanced, Steven Polge never did want to release the source. I wrote Dr Reaperstein and asked for his reaction to the modified versions of his work, and whether he would now release the Reaper source:

It's unfortunate that many people have little respect for the work and stated position of others. The documentation included with the Reaper bot mod clearly states that it is not to be modified, and I have never authorized anyone to release any modifications. I appreciate the many individuals who have requested to release mods but have not done so in regard to my wishes. The reaper bot code is very much incomplete and unfinished, and as I will soon be releasing the source to a much better AI in Unreal, I still do not intend to release the reaper bot source.

I'm sure that it will eventually become an impossible policy to follow, but I'll try and comply with Steven's wishes and not help publicize projects that have used his work against his wishes.

New WorldCraft Tonight
A reminder that version 1.5 of Worldcraft will be released tonight in conjunction with an IRC release party on 3dnet #worldcraft at 8:00 pm Eastern time

FvF Update
The Future versus Fantasy page has screenshots and descriptions of the ten new monsters that will be in the FvF 4.0, promised soon.

Editorial Follow-Up
Natasha, aka HellKitten has shut down her website due to further harassment. This has been one of the more shameful incidents in the annals of our community.

Movement
The Skin Forge has relocated to http://www.brutality.com/skinforge/. Thanks Divide 0.

Interview
Robin Walker of TeamFortress Software is interviewed by the Team Fortress Newswire.

Tournament
Not really a tournament, as much as a clan invitational, the TeamFortress Open will be Sunday, September 21 from Noon to 10:00 PM Pacific time.

LAN Parties
On the LAN Parties scene: Ribs 'n Gibs (mmmm) in Atlanta, GA;

etc.
Most influential - I keep forgetting to post this, but GameSpot has a feature on the most influential people in computer gaming of 1996 (top five) and all time (top 15) which included: Scott Miller (#14 all-time), John Romero (#7 all time)   John Carmack (#1 1996, and #2 all-time) ... A new Hexen II Ring is underway at Hexen.net, more details are here ... Log parser of the day: beta version 1.30 of Qlog, a QuakeWorld log parser and web page stats generator has been released on the QLog page ... Happy Birthday Moebius.DR (thanks Melanie) ...

Today's Quake II Screenshot
PC Gamer has posted their Quake II  screenshot of the day (Run from the railgun). Here's the thumbnail.

Unreal Screenshots
There are full-sized versions of the four new Unreal screenshots from the ad in the current CGW up at UnrealNation.

StormFront / QuakeCast
Off to QuakeCast / StormFront. The action starts at 8:00 PM Eastern. Guests for the QuakeCast tonight (8:30 PM) are zac from the MacQuakeNexus, Geoff Allan from EpiCenter (Quake editor), Rewolf from the Gunmanship 101 TC, and RadPipe master of the Master Bug list.

Warren Spector Joins Ion
Ion Storm has announced the hiring of game designer Warren Spector, whose last game was The Dark Project, a 3D roleplaying game by Looking Glass Technologies. Spector also previously was at Origin where his projects include Cybermage, Crusader: No Remorse, System Shock, and the Ultima Underworld games. Thanks Jason Bates (PC Gamer).

Masters of Level Design
There's an article over at Absolute Quake called Masters of Level Design that features an interviews with some of those masters: id Software's American "Tokay" McGee,  Raven's Eric Biessman,  Mike "Giggler" Wardwell & Richard "Levelord" Gray of Ritual, and Rogue's Steve "Gateway" Tietze & Jim Molinets.

Animation Reduction
Paul Steed updated his .plan with the news that he will have eight fewer animations available for the Quake II player character than he originally calculated:

Bad news again. I forgot about the maximum number of frames per character being only raised to 512 for Quake2. This means that with a standing animation at 40 frames for both two-handed and one-handed weapons I had to lose about eight animations. After you add swimming and a swim idle animation, I lost another five. We're still at 42 unique animations so in the end it will still be a larger range of animations than usual. This number may be altered yet again by the god of 512, though. I'll hold out at 40, regardless.

NetQuake versus QuakeWorld
NetQuake versus QuakeWorld is the subject of the new debate on the Quake Literary Guild. Readers are encouraged to contribute their own opinions to the debate.

Quake II Preview
Computer Games Online has posted a Quake II preview. Thanks Ant.

Rendition Hexen Port
Phoebus sends along word that the status of a Rendition Vérité support in Hexen II is the subject of a recent HexenWorld Message Board posting by Steve Stringer, Activision's Hexen II Producer:

Rendition is writing the port. Last I heard, it will be ready sometime shortly after the retail release. Check the Rendition site for details < http://www.rendition.com/index2.html > .

Thanks,
Steve Stringer
Producer - Hexen II
Activision

Defiance Preview
There's a preview of Defiance featuring screenshots over on OGR. Defiance is a new first person shooter by LogicWare, to be distributed  by Visceral Productions (an arm of Avalon Hill, traditionally  more known for their strategy titles than action games). Thanks Prophet.

New Shadow Warrior
Version 1.2 of Shadow Warrior (12.6 MB) has been released. A list of mirrors can be found on 3D Realms site. Thanks Lithium (Preystation).

New Worldcraft Coming
The time for the eagerly awaited release of Worldcraft 1.5 has been scheduled for tomorrow night. There will be an IRC release party on 3dnet #worldcraft at 8:00 pm Eastern time to celebrate the event, which will involve the release of a new shareware version, as well as a patch for registered users of Worldcraft 1.3.

Today's, err, Yesterdays Quake II Screenshot
I was out yesterday evening, and never posted PC Gamer's Quake II  screenshot of the day (WooHoo!). Here's the thumbnail.

Resolution Clarification
Brian Hook updated his .plan again to clarify that while 320x200 resolution was gone from Quake II, 320x240 remains, so players without a 3D card will not be left out in the cold.

Hexen II Server Listing
QuestGate has their automated Hexen II demo server listing up.

UK DoE GL Patch
I forgot to post this a couple of days ago when I got it (even after Page Fault was nice enough to remind me, but the patch (2.1 MB) to add transparent water (GLQuake only) for the UK version of Dissolution of Eternity has been released by Rogue. Here is how to tell which version of the patch to use:

To determine which version you need, press the ~ key. This will pull down the console. If your console has no text on it, use ROGUEGL.ZIP. If your console says "Quake Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity", use ROG_GLUK.EXE.

New Qoole
Qoole version 1.999 (described as the final beta) has been released on the Qoole page. Thanks Prophet.

Linux Quest Port
The Quest Linux page has posted an alpha version of the Linux port of Quest, the now-discontinued Quake Editor. Thanks A.H^Azharam.

GamesNET Upgrade
CoolHandLuke sends along word of expansion at GamesNET:

GamesNET has added an Atlanta, Georgia IRC Server to the GamesNET IRC network and looks forward to adding a few more soon! The server can be accessed at Ga.GamesNET.net port 6667. They will announce the others as they link into the network. Currently, GamesNET is only linking servers in that are on a T-1 or better that are on very reliable Unix-based machines. Look forward to this IRC Network to reach across the World, with new servers to be linked in from Over-Seas.

Editorial
I got word from Leann at the Quake Women's Forum that HellKitten, subject of Doc Holiday's most recent piece of artwork, has been receiving obscene variants on some of the pictures of her that were posted on the web. I would imagine that no one would need me to point out how sorry an act that is, but since it's happening, I guess they do. This is an embarrassing blight to our community, that does nothing more than hinder the ways people feel comfortable expressing themselves. Causing individuals to feel unwilling to publicly post pictures of themselves takes away the opportunity to see the faces behind the names on emails, Quake scoreboards, websites and newsgroup postings, and detracts from the sense of community that a lot of us feel (besides being phenomenally disrespectful). Boo hiss.

Interviews

• There is an interview with Kornelia on the Installation. This conversation, like their first interview with sCary, and subsequent one with Giggler (which I think I missed at the time), is very well focused on deathmatch tactics and strategies.
• There is a "non-serious" interview with Zanshin (the Master Po of the GL Quake Dojo) on Voodoo Extreme. Thanks Prophet.
• This week's Happy Puppy Radio Show is titled Women and Games, and one of the guests is Anna NabeO of the All-Female Tournament. The show is Saturday at 1:00 pm Central time, at which time you can call 1-888-ONRADIO to ask questions and win Prizes. Thanks Prophet.

LAN Parties
On the LAN Parties scene: a new event in Victoria, BC, Canada, a weekly lock-in in Vancouver, BC, Canada; and an event in Antwerp, Belgium;

5,000,000
Thanks to all who wrote in to wish well on the occasion of the counter here ticking of its five millionth visitor. More importantly, thanks to all who participate in this site, as words do not do justice to how much fun it is to have such a lively ongoing interaction with such a diverse group. I've gone through the litany of thank you's in the past, but I do want to again express my gratitude to all, as well as my goal of continuing to refine and improve this site in the future. For the record, there seems to be no dispute over the identity of the 5,000,000th visitor, as only Ragnarok has made that claim, so congrats to him.

etc.
Poll results are in from the GameSpot Poll for "Quake’s Successor", with Quake II nailing down the top spot with 38% beating out Hexen 2; Unreal; Jedi Knight; Duke Nukem Forever. Thanks GFKiller ... More sniping, the Sniper, the weekly column on PC Games that proudly discusses the use of tactics not many are proud of, delves into the joys of sniping in the Hexen II demo (though comparing the Sheep spell to the shrink ray in Duke Nukem makes me think the Sniper needs an introduction to the original Heretic and Hexen, for a taste of the Ovum and Porkolator). Taking issue with the Snipe is PC Games other orifice full of opinions, the Grumpy Gamer. Thanks Prophet ... A repository of reader submitted TC ideas can be found on dReams, which is now taking submissions for games other than Quake. Thanks Prophet ... It's never too early to start planning ahead, the current target machine for Trinity is quoted from a John Carmack email on Jim Lowell's Trinity: The Site ... A new Golgotha Demo is in the works, Dave Taylor says they're shooting for the end of this month in his .plan ... Congrats to the Xenocide Flag Academy on their 50,000th visitor (but honestly that number should be higher -- this is a must visit site for all CTF players) ... Correction: Yesterday I meant demos of CTF Plus were up on the Gunslingers page when I said demos of Expert CTF (sorry) ...

Quake II Plot Summary
Paul Steed updated his .plan with a history and summary of the plot for Quake II. He also gives word on further cool detail that will be added to the player animation:

Also thought you'd be interested in knowing a little about what the player character will do in the game (since its what I've been working on 16 hours a day lately). As in the case of the drumming fingers on the weapons, we want to put some touches like that to the player character's animations which seem small yet have impact. I want to keep a lot of the specifics a surprise but let me just say that the player will do 55 different animations consisting of 500 frames. Let's just say that if during death match you get pissed at someone you'll be able to let them know. If you want to let someone know they're cool then you can do that. If you want to taunt someone you'll be able to do that too. Basically during deathmatch we're aiming to give you guys an even deeper connection to the world and an even wider range and ability to communicate through the animations. I know you'll like it.

320x200 Dead
Brian Hook updated his .plan with the news that 320x200 resolution is out, and that 960x720 is in.

RGB3 Update
There's another update to the news page on the  RangerWeb that sheds further light on the status of Ranger Gone Bad 3 (the background is messed up, but until it's fixed you can read it by highlighting the text):

As far as our movie projects go - I can shed some FACTUAL light on the subject. Unknown Soldier has agreed to help CraZyBiLL to finish RGB3. I cannot guarantee IF and WHEN it will be done. Only that we are trying very hard to make it happen for the community. Unknown Soldier is on something of a time limit - he is leaving for some training very soon. In this regard we have asked several upstanding members of the demo editing portion of the community to lend a hand. ArchV has also stated his desire to finish this project and get on with a new project - better planned with better tools - more on that in the future.

Brian Hook: More Video Card & Port Info
Brian Hook has updated his .plan again further clarifying the state of the art for Quake II video card support and ports to other OSes. He also subsequently made another update (the most recent of a few, actually) to his table of benchmarks adding updated scores and eliminating some of the odd conditions he was testing.

Hexen II Deathmatch Advancement
There is an explanation from Raven's Mike Gummelt (not Rick Johnson, as originally reported) on HexenWorld detailing how character advancement works in Hexen II deathmatch. Thanks Phoebus.

• You lose a level for getting killed.
• You lose experience for killing someone on you team.
• You get more exp. for killing higher level players.
• You get more exp. for killing someone higher than you in level/exp.
• You get more exp. for killing w/o tome.
• You get more exp. for killing with lower weapons.
• You get a bonus for killing as a sheep.
• You get a bonus for killing the King of the Hill.
• King of the Hill is current exp. leader.
• You get frags and level frags. Level frags keep track of the total number of the levels of the players you've killed. Interesting stat.
• Impulse 255 and Impulse 254 will display (on the console, for now) the current King of the Hill and the Frag List (lists player's class, level, name, frags, and level frags).

Game Deluge
There's an article by Stonage on UnrealNation titled The Great Divide that attempts to analyze the impact the flood of upcoming 3D shooter games will have on the marketplace and the community. Thanks Prophet.

BugWatch
A reminder if you are finding bugs in the Hexen II demo, you can view the latest Hexen II Buglist via QuakeFinger, and you can report and read about bugs on RadPipe's Master BugList.

Malice mp3
There is an .mp3 of some music written by LANDO for Malice (Quantum Axcess' upcoming commercial TC), link courtesy of AVault.

QView 4.5 Beta
A new beta of QView, the QSpy alternative (that features Hexen demo support) is out on the Xoanan Industries page fixing a small bug.

Wampey's Censuses
Wampey's Censuses have been updated with a new set of weekly Q&A. On tap this week are questions about the Hexen II demo.

New QStat
QStat 1.6 beta 4 is available on the QStat homepage, ready for abuse as the author puts it. The new version of this program (vital to so many webpage server listings) features:

• Hexen II support
• Improves handling of bogus packets from QuakeWorld servers
• Fixes a strange error on Linux

CTF Expansion Pack Release Party
The client pack for the CTF Expansion Project will be released Friday, September 5. Hanzo, the project coordinator, will be on GamesNET #ctfep to answer questions and generally be helpful.

Site Listings
Two new sites keeping databases of gaming related websites are up (who knows, one could be the next Yahoo, or Slipgate Central):

• Vector is a gaming database run off of Telefragged. Thanks Prophet.
• Add your gaming related site to this site listing on Warzone

RantWatch
Levelord and Dr Sleep are each now ranting about what good level designer the other is.

Interviews

• Kornelia, of clan 311, winner of the All-Female tourney, and CGDC tourney is interviewed by the AVault. Thanks Prophet. Speaking of the AFT, there is an article in the New York Times on the AFT with interviews and photos (you have to register, to read the Times on the web, but it's free). Thanks fido7.
• Crazed Fan, project leader of the upcoming "mission pack" Abyss of Pandemonium is interviewed on Nakedman's TC List.

LAN Parties
On the LAN Parties scene: the South Jersey Quake Fest is on the rocks, and might be cancelled due to power considerations. Demos, screenshots and other post-party debris are up on the Fragapalooza page (they're already warning about the imminence of Fragapalooza '98).

etc.
Happy belated (yesterday?) Birthday Tom Hall (thanks Prophet) ... Why ping is not a good indicator of performance is the subject of a brief essay on the Soapbox ... Demos of CTF Plus, (to show how it differs from Threewave CTF) are available on the Gunslingers page ... Log Parser of the day is QLog, a logger that generates "stats out the wazoo." Version 1.20 is out on the QLog page ...

QSpy Chat
A reminder that tonight at 7:00 PM Pacific time is the QSpy chat event Bastard mentioned last week:

Team QSpy is having a chat event this Tuesday, September 2nd at 7:00 PM PST. This chat is a formal kick-off for the development cycle of QSpy 5.4. All members of the community are invited to hear our plans for QSpy 5.4 and to contribute their own suggestions. Tuesday! 7:00 PM! Channel #qspy!
Snacks provided!

This chat will take place on irc.3dnet.net

Current 3dnet servers:
chat.quakespy.com:6667
id.3dnet.net:6667
best.3dnet.net:6667
lith.3dnet.net:6667

Eye on the Storm
The September edition of the Ion Storm Newsletter is out. Thanks Hudd (Hudd's Daikatana News).

Today's Quake II Screenshot
PC Gamer is back in the swing. They've posted their Quake II  screenshot of the day (Sniping Position). Here's the thumbnail.

3Dfx Sues Sega, NEC
For those who follow the business side of things: According to this Yahoo article, 3Dfx has announced that  they have filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Sega Enterprises Ltd, Sega of America (for breach of contract) and NEC Corp. (for interfering with their Sega dealings). Thanks CyniC.More details are available in this CNET article. Thanks norton.

Malice Movie
A Quicktime Malice preview (1.8 MB) has been released to whet your appetite for Quantum Axcess' upcoming commercial TC, Malice. Thanks Prophet.

Hexen II Demo Stuff
If you're stuck, there is a recorded demo that walks through the Hexen II Demo showing its completion on Hexen2.com. Also, Hexen.net is up, designed to be the ultimate source of Hexen II links (useless Java warning). A couple of Hexen II Demo reviews are out (Disruptor mentioned in his .plan that the full version blows the demo away):

• Fargo, who was obviously that kid in class who liked essay tests, has written up his impressions of the Hexen II Demo for PlanetQuake. Thanks Bakshra of The Unholy Cathedral.
• The Hexen II Demo is also reviewed on HotGames. Thanks Prophet.

Ranger Gone. Bad?
The word of a couple of recent roster changes have been posted on the RangerWeb, one of which is the resignation of UnknownSoldier. There is no word yet on how this will ultimately impact the post-production schedule of Ranger Gone Bad 3, since Uns was integral to that effort. Thanks Devonx.

More 3D Card Benchmarks
Brian Hook made a couple of additions to 3d video card benchmarks and commentary in his .plan, and (reluctantly) followed them up with a summary of his recomendations.

New Fantasy Quake
Version 0.66 of Fantasy Quake: Rise of the Phoenix has been released on the Fantasy Quake page. Thanks Prophet.

First Quake II Bot Announced
The Oak II page is now online, representative of the project to create the Quake II sequel to the Oak bot, Oak II.

DoE GL Patch Problem
There's apparently a problem with the GL patch for Rogue's Mission Pack #2, Dissolution of Eternity resulting from two different versions of DoE. Thanks Cameron Lamprecht for passing along the following from Rogue's Jim Molinets:

We've received tons of e-mail letting us know that there's a problem with the GL patch for DOE. We forgot that there are actually two different versions of DOE, one for the States, and one for Europe. (Last minute change due to the UK ratings board.) The patch that is available is for the US version ONLY. We are working on the patch for the European version right now and hope to have that up for everyone tonight or early tomorrow. For all of our fans across the pond, please accept our apologies for any inconveniences that this may have caused.

New Female Skin Pack
The second pack of all-female Quake skins is available on the Quake Women's Forum.

New Visage
A new version of Visage, the all-purpose Quake editing tool for the Macintosh is out on the Visage page.

RantWatch
Disruptor is not happy: apparently people have been using the graphics that pop up in his .plan on websites without credit or permission.

Interviews

• David Cash creator of the graphics on the Ion Storm page is interviewed on the Daikatana Shrine.
• Shane Caudle, a level designer for Unreal, is interviewed on UnrealNation.
• Redwood will be interviewed on UnderNET #idsoftware on September 9 at 8:00 PM Eastern time. Questions can be submitted in advance here.

LAN Parties
On the LAN Parties page, A planning stages event returns for Lexington, KY.

etc.
A new Voodoo accelerator with the same 4MB of texture RAM and TV out capabilities as the Pure3d (discussed yesterday) has been announced here. Thanks Mangler_LPD ... TeamFortress Engineers can find info to help them play their class effectively on this page ... Quake ASCAP? BludStain's page is now a repository for all those Quake-related song parodies that have been written ... Shutter-glasses info? To be honest, I can't quite figure this page out, it's about getting stereoscopic shutter-glasses to work with Quake and Hexen II (which in itself is cool enough to pass the info along, in case it's worthwhile) ...

Pure 3D
I've been playing around with a hot off the presses Pure 3D video card by Canopus (reviewed by Zanshin on the GLQuake Dojo). This card features the 3Dfx Voodoo chipset, and like other Voodoo accelerators, works in addition to your existing (2D) video card. Though the card I was playing with is one of the very first out of the plant, it installed and worked flawlessly first time out. The two things that set this card apart from its predecessors are the ability to output to an ordinary TV, and 4MB of texture RAM. The TV output feature is very cool: it can display your Windows desktop (limited to 640X480 @ 60 Hz) to your television, but even cooler, can output any GL application (up to 800X600) to a TV as well. The card has both an ordinary video connector, and an S-Video out for sharper video, but on a crappy 12 year old 21" TV (I had to hook my VCR to it to get RCA jacks) looked like a high-resolution monitor just using the regular video cable. Games (I tried everything applicable, and they all worked flawlessly, including, of course, GLQuake, and the Hexen Demo) are perfectly playable, and look great (much nicer than any console games do on a TV): I can only imagine how cool this would be on a 35" stereo set. The other neat feature is that the card features 4MB of texture RAM, double the 2MB found on other Voodoo cards. Brian Hook made a .plan update (link from Stomped, I saw that on Redwood's) giving a new set of benchmarks and further commentary on 3D cards (highly detailed and interesting in its entirety). The Voodoo again came out on top of the numbers game, and one of his comments about it (of which he says):

"The undisputed king for longer than I can remember, the Voodoo is still holding its own against the various contenders to the throne. ..."

And on the subject of texture RAM:

"The main things going against the Voodoo are the typical -- lack of texture memory a maximum texture size of 256x256, and the fact that it's a 3D-only accelerator. It's also a 16-bit board through and through, meaning we can only get a 16-bit framebuffer and 16-bit Z-buffer and 16-bit textures"

The 2MB of texture RAM is considered a shortcoming of the current crop of Voodoo cards, often resulting in hitches in multiplayer GLQuake games. Soon there will be a version of the 3Dfx Open GL minidriver that takes advantage of the extra texture RAM on the Pure 3D, which will likely make this the king of the GLQuake hill. With an MSRP of $179, not much more than ordinary Voodoo cards with half the texture RAM and no TV connectors, the Pure 3D, said to be available in "in September" is the card I'd currently recommend to anyone entering the GLQuake generation.

Malice Feature
Malice (the Malice website just opened, by the way), the upcoming commercial TC from Quantum Axcess, is the featured game of the week on AVault.

Hexen II LAN Report
Witzbold has written up a nice report on his first LAN experience with the new Hexen II demo, and it is up on HexenWorld as their first featured article. Also, on the Hexen II front, you may not have noticed (I didn't, David Shaw pointed it out), but strafe running (where you run faster by holding the forward and left or right strafe key simultaneously, à la Doom) has made a return in the Hexen II demo.

Outlaws Mission Pack
LucasArts has released a mission pack for Outlaws, their western shooter (which received a rave review from John Romero). The pack called the Outlaws Handful of Missions, in addition to, well, a handful of missions (4 new single player, and five new multi-player missions), contains a a minor patch that fixes a keyboard mapping problem, as well as a problem with 3Dfx cards. The patch is 5.6 megs and requires Outlaws 1.1 (you need to update to play with anyone else who has updated). Thanks Frahg.

Jobs Available
There are paying positions available with Teamfortress Software for mappers and texture artists to contribute to an upcoming commercial release.

New Quake Launch Pad
Version 1.06, Build 8, of of Quake Launch Pad, the Quake front-end/Internet interface formerly known as QLaunch, has been released on the Stormtroopers of death (on the news page).

New Name Makers
Version 0.80 of Quake Name Maker [Animator] and version 0.40 of Quake Name Maker [Animator], have been released on the QNM Homepage to help create animated names and high ASCII macros, names, etc. for the times when the quality of your play (good or bad) is not enough to make you annoying.

New BspBuild
Version 0.12 of BspBuild, a front-end that allows level editors to easily QBSP, Light and Vis maps with their desired options is out on the BspBuild page.

Interviews

• Kornelia, winner of the All Female Tournament (as well as the CGDC tourney) is interviewed on Game-Wire (conducted prior to the tourney).
• Hal9000, creator of Urbana CTF is interviewed on the Quake Workshop.Thanks Prophet.

Contest
The 5th Contest, a new Reaper challenge, has been posted on the European Quake Contest page.

LAN Parties
On the LAN Parties page, A gathering every 3-4 weeks in Orange, TX; A planning stages event was added for Toronto, Canada. On the subject of events in the planning stages, most of this section have been deleted, since they were added a while back, and I don't seem to hear from most organizers when they are canceled. If you are the organizer of an event that was pulled from this section that is still actually in the works, let me know, and I will add it back. Also, there are a few demos from Fragapalooza posted here. Thanks Prophet.

etc.
A custom QSpy tab for the Random Acts of Senseless Violence pack released Saturday is available on MPQ (check the QSpy page for custom tabs for lots of other add-ons) ... Log Parser Heaven - Version 1.1 of GibStats, the Quake analysis tool/log parser is up on the GibStats page ... SpaceOrb users can find info on getting their controller to work with the Hexen II demo, on Birdman's QuakeLair, described by Prophet as the "definitive place to look for wisdom on the spaceorb 360 controller." ... A GLQuake server list & 3Dfx A-Z Help File can be found on QuakeUSA ...

Kornelia Wins AFT
Kornelia (clan 311) is the winner of the All-Female Tournament. Thanks Hanif.

Previews
ZD NEt's UK games site has several previews on their website derived from the next issue of PC Gaming World (formerly CGW UK), due out the 28th, which covers challengers to Quake, covering Hexen II, Sin, Daikatana, Jedi Knight, and, of course Quake II. Also, there is a brief Half-Life preview on Electric Playground. Thanks Prophet.

Deathmatch Level Stuff

• Reviews of Deathmatch levels can be found at Ramshackle. There are also plans for a top ten listing based on reader feedback.
• Demos of strategies for all of the id Deathmatch levels have been posted on Frag-o-Matic Tactics.

More CTF Variants

• The CTF Expansion Server pack has been released on the CTF EP Page. Thanks LazyBastard[SFD].
• Version 1.0 of Destroy the Flag (DTF), the final planned version of this CTF variant is now up on [Inferno]'s Mods. This new release is Threewave CTF 4.2 compatible.
• RoadKill CTF is another highly modified CTF (claims to be the original mod to add the colored glow in GL).
• Gatherers CTF is another enhanced CTF with its own feature set.

BSP HeadQuarters
A merger between BSP.COM, and DeadMeat's BSP Tutorials has resulted in BSP HeadQuarters, a new site devoted to being the ultimate resource for this level editor.

Dank & Scud News
There is a large update on the Dank & Scud newspage describing an upcoming bout of RealLife^TM for author Michael Houston. But there is the good news that issue #5 is still due mid-October(ish), and that other interesting projects were in the future for D&S, including a confirmed cameo by the dynamic duo in the upcoming Sega Saturn version of Quake, a D&S CTF server (with a Dank rune and a Scud rune), and a promise of an even more interactive D&S project after issue #5.

Interview
Rumble, the biz guy behind a ton of Quake TC's is interviewed on TC Magazine.

Movements

• Pyro's Hexen II site has moved to hexen2.warzone.com/.
• The Shrine (Daikatana) has relocated to http://daikatana.warzone.com/.

LAN Parties
Newsapaooza - news from Fragapalooza has been posted on the Fragapalooza website, including the address of their QuakeWorld server at 24.108.17.29:27500 (thanks Prophet); also, another Fray recap is up on the Klan Karnage page.

etc.
Still another log parser is Version 2.7 of Htmllog, available here (here's a preview of the program's output) ... More browser-friendly name maker - The Quake Name Maker has been re-done, and no longer uses radio buttons to select your name ... Feel like talking about total or partial conversions? A new IRC channel devoted to TC's and PC's is UnderNET #QuakeTC ...  

Quake II Bosses
Kevin Cloud updated his .plan, among other things, discussing his current thinking on the type of boss monsters Quake II would have:

I'm finishing up the boss for American's big gun level. Right now, I'm considering different options for his combat strategy. In Quake, killing the bosses wasn't satisfying to me because it required pushing a button or some other one step removed process. I prefer heavy fire fights mixed with a little arcade style strategy. For example, I liked fighting the Cyber demon or Spider demon of DOOM over the final boss of Quake. Anyway, that is currently the way I'm thinking.

New QHost with Hexen II Support and New QView
Steve Otteson sends along word on the new versions of QView and QHost available at the Xoanan Industries page:

QView 4.2 was finally released a couple days ago on xoanan.com. It has some great new features and fixes that allow QView to  continue to be a very viable (and free!) alternative to QSpy. The changes are spelled out in qvreadme.txt included in qview42.zip.

Also, a new beta version of QView 4.5 with Hexen II support can be found at xoanan.com. Current QView users will unfortunately have to re-enter some of their preferences (like player profiles and directories). Changes were made to make room for new Quake-based games like Hexen II, and this was one side effect.

MacQuake Updates
There is already an update available for the retail MacQuake to address several bugs. Here they are (thanks Lowkey for the news and Mac Gamer's Ledge for the files):

Quake RAVE 1.08.2 updater (871 KB)
Quake 3Dfx 1.08.2 updater (690 KB)
Quake non-3D 1.08.2 updater (548 KB)

The Frag
Not to be confused with the Fray, the Frag (The Foremost Roundup of Advanced Gamers) is a Quake event by the organizers of QuakeCon and CyberAthlete that will take place over the Halloween weekend (Oct. 31-Nov. 2) in beautiful Dallas, TX (Denny's, Denny's!). The event, which will feature tome fab prizes will be absolutely free.

Transparent Water in DoE
Rogue has released the patch (2.0 MB) to update Dissolution of Eternity (Quake Mission Pack #2) to allow transparent water in GL Quake (GLQuake 0.95 required). I saw that on Redwood's. There are also simple instructions on the Rogue page to run the mission pack with MacQuake.

Winning Pak Posted
Taskmaster's Random Acts of Senseless Violence level design contest has been completed, and the pak of the nine winning maps has been posted on Multi-Player Quake (MPQ).

New Qonfig
Version 0.44 of Qonfig, a configuration file creator/editor, is up on the Qonfig page.

Brian Hook Interview
As planned, id Software's Brian Hook was interviewed on Undernet #idsoftware yesterday, and from the looks of the log it was a great success: well-organized, providing lots of information. Thanks to Slipgate of Quake2.com for the editied log of the proceedings. Here are some significant quotes, but you should read the whole thing for the full scoop:

• "right now ALL of us at id are doing nothing but getting Quake2 ready to ship. Trinity work will probably begin in earnest early next year."
• ""lights shining through walls". I can not BELIEVE the number of people who simply think we're lazy or too stupid to get this happening. *fume* ... The problem is this -- yes, we can backface cull the lights and not show them on opposite sides of a wall, however backface culling will NOT prevent lights from splashing across a floor. ... In those instances the lights wouldn't poke through the wall, but it would flood under the wall and show up on the floor, which actually looks WORSE."
• "We're still looking into the effects of a use button and how well  it will work within the Quake2 universe."
• "A map view like Descent's simply isn't going to be feasible because of the complexity of the geometry we're dealing with."
• "we're aware of the weapon balance issues people had with Quake, and those are being addressed. We're going to have more weapons, and we're also going to be modifying the characteristics of some of the weapons (DB shotgun will be more powerful, RL may be a little weaker or slower)."
• "the software renderer supports transparent particles, water, windows, etc. ... It doesn't support colored lighting. ... We don't have the time to implement it, and it would be a LOT of work. We assume if people want colored lighting that they will be using hardware acceleration. Software rendered colored lighting simply isn't going to be that fast, and the vast majority of our users will want performance instead of eye-candy."
• "It's our opinion that the Voodoo is likely going to be the best board for Quake2 when we release. As for "Voodoo 2" and other non-existent accelerators - we'll support anything with a working OpenGL driver."
• "re: PowerVR PCX2 ... This is a good chipset, and for the price it's hard to beat. IT's lacking some features, like good quality colored lighting (we have a hack workaround for colored lighting for the PCX2 and Permedia2), but overall for the price it's tough to beat. It's close to 3Dfx performance, but not quite there."
• "We don't care what kind of CPU you want to use, however we don't like it when we're blamed for AMD or Cyrix' inability to come up with a fast FPU. We'll support any CPU that's fast and doesn't require us to bend over backwards to support."
• "The internet play will be much the same. Unfortunately we won't have client-side prediction in Quake2 out of the box."
• "There will be a BFG type weapon, but I don't know if the specifics have been worked out yet re: weapon balance and exact effects and power."

MacQuake Demo
It took forever to download, but I finally got the playable MacQuake demo (7.2 MB) and posted it for download.

QuakeCast Highlights Page
Wanker, Quakecast's #1 fan, has set up the Semi-Official QuakeCast Highlights page, with links to specific clips that may, or may not, be of interest, including links to the commercials for those who just tune in for those ("do you smell that private?").

New Thunderwalker
ThunderWalker CTF for QuakeWorld version p (3.14159...) is available for download on the ThunderWalker Page.

EpiCenter Test Release
A test release of a new Quake editor, titled EpiCenter, has been released on the EpiCenter page. Though the test release is just a map editor, the ultimate planned version of this program will incorporate a model editor, a bitmap editor, and a Quake C development module.

RantWatch
The most recent edition of GameCenter's weekly mailing included this response to morbid's recent rant about their reporting of 3Dfx news. Thanks SnoopBorgyborg.

Tournament
The Clans of QuakeWorld Tournament is now underway.

LAN Parties
On the LAN Parties page, a date change for SwissCon; added a party in Los Lunas, NM.

etc.
A guide to making custom Hexen II demo skins can be found here ... I added a couple more of those website awards to the credits page, having received the frightening looking Paisley's cool site award, and having been rated a Top 5 site by our old pal Dan Finkelstein (remember Dan's Quake Page? on Suite 101 where he's the Computer Gaming Editor (thanks Dan) ...