Articles in the archive contain broken links because outdated files are removed.
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Today's Headlines |
Half-Life Screenshots
There are two new Half-Life screenshots up on The Underworld. There is also an interview with Valve's
Gabe Newell (in English) on LINK - Das
Online Magazin (in German).
Riot
Story
Parts 6& 7 of the Riot Storyline
have been posted on the Riot: Mobile Armor page.
Thanks Revolt!: Riot Information Center.
Clan
Listings
Two new efforts have simultaneously launched, each in an effort to tackle
the daunting task of listing all of the thousands (literally!) of Quake/Quake II clans out
there in cyberspace:
Holy
Wars 2
The first beta of Holy Wars for Quake II is up on the Holy Wars page.
PGL
Wrap-up
There is a recap of the PGL
Finals on Gamers Extreme.
CyberAthlete Mod
The tournament mod (152 KB) used
in the CyberAthlete competitions has been
released as a public beta. Details on the CA Tournament mod can be found in this Press Release.
Linux Console Sniffer
The Quickspy2 Linux console Q2 sniffer has been released on the Quickspy2 page. Here's the word from
the author:
No need to launch SVGA or 3Dfx Quake 2 from X anymore. Quickspy2 by David Efflandt is now available for browsing servers and launching Q2 from the Linux console.
It is written in Perl using 'dialog' menus and progress gauges for server lists from the web or file menu. Quickspy2 saves the last full list with hostnames resolved and duplicates removed and a low ping list for quicker reload.
Scriptname was used with permission of Rob Tansley author of the original Quickspy for QuakeWorld.
RIVA Benchmarks
The Tweakit Hardware Reference Site
has benchmarks of Quake II using the new RIVA
OpenGL ICD. They do a nice thorough job, testing two resolutions on no less than 22
systems ranging from a humble 6x86L 200 to a Pentium II overclocked to a cozy room warming
416 MHz. Thanks Billy "Booga Booga" Wilson (Voodoo
Extreme).
Game
Demos
A couple of new playable demos have been released: Calling it an
"Alpha Technology release", Sierra has issued a playable demo of Earthsiege 3 (14.5 MB), the
latest in a line of Mech games (thanks Page Fault),
also available on GameCenter.
Also, thanks Prophet for word that GameSpot's BattleZone
Preview features a playable demo of
BattleZone (20.3 MB), Activision's action/strategy game that's a descendant of the old
vector-based arcade game (that grey-beards like myself played). Also, on Activision's Battletech site there's
word on how you can win an original BattleZone stand-up arcade game, Canopus Pure 3D
graphics boards, or Battlezone Strategy Guides and T-shirts.
Out of the Blue
I received an email from a Quake player at Dr. Solomon's who gave specific
instructions opn how to deal with the Anxiety II virus using their product, so I posted it
in the Virus Hotlline.
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Today's Headlines |
QuakeCast
Tonight on QuakeCast we'll talk
with Joe Perez, and maybe Garth from the PGL and we'll
have Tonka as an in-studio guest. QuakeCast begins at 9:00 PM Eastern time, Real player required.
Exclusive MoTS Screenshots
I managed to get my hands on some exclusive screenshots of the soon to be
released Jedi Knight mission pack, Mysteries of the Sith. MoTS is looking good: boy does
colored lighting make a big difference. I switched one of the more redundant ones for the
tree shot, which I forgot to post at first, even though it was one of my favorites:
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| Too bad you can't... | ...Whoa. Never Mind! |
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| *Bzzzt* *Bzzzt* | Nice Tree! |
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| The Saber Throw | Oooo, sniper scope |
AnacroChat
There will be an IRC chat session with Tom Hall, Joey Liaw, Rich Carlson,
and Larry Herring of ION Storm's Anachronox team tomorrow (Friday) evening at 900 PM
Central Time in irc.alpha3d.com #Anachronox. Thanks Anachronews.
Point Release Update
id's Barrett "Bear" Alexander is quoted heavily on the nature of
the Quake II Point Release in this GameSpot Point Release
Update (thanks d-bug). Here's a quote:
The Point Release will be available over the Internet, Alexander said, but once the PR is finished, Quake II will be remastered to include everything on the Point Release. "Subsequent reorders of Quake II will have (the Point Release features and fixes) included on them," he said.
Alexander also insists that the Point Release should not be taken as a sign that id needed to rush the release of Quake II to meet a holiday season release, as has been rumored.
"None of this would have gone on the initial release," he says.
X-Men
Patch
A patch (Point Release?) for X-Men Quake has been released on the Zero gravity website. Thanks Sinbad.
Expert
Quake
Version 1.1 of Expert Quake has been released on the Expert Quake page featuring Linux
support and Gibstats 1.2 logging.
Unreal Shareware Registration
The March issue of Computer Gaming World mentions you can register to
receive word on when the Unreal shareware is released on this page on GT Interactive's
website. Thanks L0rdCha0s.
Violent?
There's an article up on the (newly redesigned) Apogee/3D Realms Web Site called Senate Attempting
to Ban Violent Games reprinted
from OGR. The attempt to litigate violence out of games is also mentioned in Gamesmania News.
studioMDx Release
Version 0.8 of the studioMDx model editor, for Quake and Quake II models,
is out on the studioMDx
Page as an unsupported release. Thanks Prophet.
.wal
Editor
A program to view and edit Quake II's .wal format texture files called
Wally has been released by Team BDP. This program
allows you to (among other things), import bitmaps, view them tiled, set flags, and set
animation frames.
The Wages of .cin
Version 0.01
of the Quake II Cinematic Specs (not to be confused with 3D Glasses) have been posted
on BotTim's QW Bot Home Page as a
resource to potential Quake II movie makers. On the .cin front, terraFORMA is working on a project
called the Seven Deadly .cin's, you can find more details about their movie project on
their page. The first Sin .cin has been released, titled Sloth (21 KB), also available on cdrom.com.
Interviews
"In the years since id's masterpiece, a lot companies have tried to top Doom and Doom 2. Many have come close, but none has equaled the thrills of exploring the dark passageways of Doom. Dark Forces, from LucasArts could have usurped the throne, if the "save" worked and it had a multi-player mode. Even Quake and Quake 2, although technically superior, can't match Doom's quality on all levels of play."
Out of the Blue
I'm getting caught up after the recent excitement. I've received some
questions about detecting and removing the virus, so I'll try and do the best I can to
provide a resource on this subject on this
page, and will update it as information comes in if necessary.
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Today's Headlines |
Beta RIVA OpenGL ICD
nVidia has released the Beta RIVA 128
OpenGL ICD for Windows 95 (1.2 MB) providing significantly improved performance and
visual quality in Quake and Quake II on RIVA cards. Thanks RivaZone by way of Voodoo Extreme.
Virus Free Eraser
Beta 0.51 of the Eraser Bot is up on the Impact
Development Page (along with an apology from Ridah) which is simply the 0.5 update
minus any unwelcome parasites. Available as a Win95/NT Installer (713 KB), a zip file (472 KB), and a Linux archive
(which I won't mirror 'cause they always end up corrupted on my end). On the subject of
the virusing, I received an email from the original source of the virus on Ridah's system,
which I was asked to post as a public apology, so it's in the MailBag (having missed it myself, I certainly can't hold this
against him, personally). Thanks to everyone who wrote in with words of understanding
about posting that here (I presume the hate mail is delayed as people get their systems
back on-line).
Hexen II Mission Pack Mania
Phoebus sends word that Activision's Hexen II
site has a few goodies from the upcoming Hexen II mission pack, Portal of Praevus: the
first character
sketch to be released, two brand new
screenshots, and an interview with lead
artist Les Dorscheid.
Loki's Minions Source
The Source code for Loki's Minions CTF has been released on their, not
one, but two homepage(s). Pick a page, any
page.
Ninja
Quake
Version 1.0 of Ninja Quake (for classic Quake) is out on the Ninja Quake Page (actually it has been for nearly
a week, and I meant to try it before posting this, oh well).
Quake Scene Builder
Quake II Scene Builder, or QSB, is a program that allows you compose
scenes made up of models from Quake 2. Available on the Quake Scene Builder home page.
bsp2wrl2
The first version of bsp2wrl2, a Quake II BSP to VRML converter is up on
the bsp2wrl Page. Can a Quake
Map/Website be far behind?
Interviews
"ION Storm released their first title, Daikatana, last year, almost in direct competition with id's Quake II. Although it boasts bigger, better, more numerous and uglier monsters than its counterpart, by a neat twist of irony, Daikatana uses the 3D Quake engine licensed from id Software."
PReviews
The Jedi Knight add-on pack Mysteries of the Sith
is reviewed on Gamesmania. Thanks JediKnight.Net.
Out of the Blue
First and foremost, I want to apologize to anyone who suffered with the
virus in the Eraser bot installer posted here yesterday. The rule of thumb on the Internet
is to only download files from sources you trust, and I know that many consider Blue's
News as one of those trustworthy sites, and I could not feel worse about failing that
trust. All files posted here are scanned: Unfortunately, my copy of VirusScan from McAfee
did not pick up on the Anxiety.II.1600 virus in the installer (I'm told that others were
protected by McAfee, so it may have been my fault). I feel especially bad for the first
person that wrote asking about the warning he got from Norton Anti-virus (available from Symantec Anti-Virus Downloads,
thanks Redwood for the link and the
recommendation), because I wrote him telling him I believed it to be a false positive. Of
course, I didn't write him back until running the installer myself, which brings me to
where I've been. Roughly 24 (sleepless) hours after infecting my system with the
Anxiety.II.1600, I am back up and running (this was, remarkably, my first infection, and
it took me some time to effectively deal with it). Again, please let me apologize to
anyone who got zapped by this virus: While dealing with my own clean-up, I found myself
quite angry, and I know I wouldn't blame anyone who was going through a virus-induced
system reinstall for feeling the same anger, and focusing it on me: I 'd feel the same way
too.
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Important! - Eraser Bot Problem |
Today's Headlines |
RIVA 128 OpenGL ICD Beta Soon
There's an article
on bootNET that says that nVidia will be releasing a beta of the OpenGL ICD for RIVA
128 cards this week, maybe as early as tomorrow. There are screenshots there (in 960x720
resolution, no less) showing greatly improved visual quality over the first two alpha
drivers, and the word they give on performance sounds like similar improvements have been
made in that area as well:
Remember, these performance scores are far from final, but they show incredible promise---especially in 800x600. nVidia promises even greater performance with the final beta release.
System: Pentium II 300Mhz Card: nVidia Riva 128 AGP w/4MB SGRAM
Quake2 timedemo map demo2.dm2 640x480=38.6fps 800x600=29.4fps 960x720=20.5fps
Other improvements in visual quality have also been taken into account, with the skies showing less banding and rounded, smoother particle effects. nVidia should have this beta driver up 'hopefully' by Wednesday, the 4th of February.
New Testament in the Q2 Bible
The next update to Thresh
and Kenn's Quake II Bible has been posted up on Gamers
Extreme covering console commands and system optimization.
Eraser
Bot Problem
There seems to be a very large problem with the Eraser Bot Beta released
this afternoon (if you consider something that wacks up your Quake II installation a
problem). Though I had no signs from McAfee that there is anything malicious in the file,
I have had reports that there was a virus according to some people's scanners. I will post
more when I know it (including what to do to get your Quake II installation up again).
Forsaken Playable Demo
A playable demo of Forsaken
(14.3 MB - DirectX 5 required), a 3D shooter reminiscent of Descent, has been released by Acclaim (thanks Redwood).
The demo, in which you do battle on hover-bikes, features two single player levels and
support for deathmatch with up to four combatants. Filled with neat eye candy, including
the best missile smoke trails I can recall seeing (even cooler than those in Wing
Commander Prophecy), the demo, according to the read me, has nothing on the final version,
calling it "the difference between a sketch and the finished painting". There is
also an in store CD demo that can be purchased, which adds more sound effects, 4 different
biker voices and 2 music tracks, as well as some other Acclaim stuff.
PGL
Coverage
There are articles in the Houston
Chronicle and Wired News
(thanks Robert E. Waring).
Unreal
Movie
A longer version of the Unreal movie released this Christmas has been
posted on The Village in Real format. Thanks Jeremy Hinton. The Village is in
Australia, and local copies can also be found on Unreal
Nation and Unreal.Org.
Sinful Elexis Shot
There's an image of sultry Sin villainess Elexis Sinclair up on HardCorps SiN News (any sexier and
it would be Hardcore Sin News).
New Total 3D Drivers
Version 2.30.02 of the Win95 Drivers
for the Vérité 1000-based Total3D (1.5 MB) have been released on the newly revamped Canopus Website. Thanks Jamal Qureshi.
Campaign
Version 0.05 of the Campaign mod is up on the Campaign page, along with word about plans
to possibility of future integration of the Cluster
mod. Thanks HoseHead.
jawMD2
Version 1.28 of jawMD2, the OpenGL MD2 Viewer for Windows95/NT and Linux,
has been released on the jawMD2 page, with
some brand new features, including a new skin quick-selection control.
HexMatch Source Released
The source code for HexMatch, the teamplay mod for Hexen II that helps
reduce lag while inhibiting cheating, has been released on the HexDev page.
Jedi
Skins
There is a new skinpack for Jedi Knight up on JediKnight.Net that goes a step beyond with 32
professional-quality skins with new sounds. Here's a page where you
can check them out.
Out of the Blue
Okay, I'll post the winning banner from the banner submissions later, but
first, here is the new Blue's News button. Thanks bUkE
and every person that took the trouble to send in artwork, it is greatly appreciated:
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Today's Headlines |
Hexen2World
Word in Rick Johnson's .plan is that he's gearing up to add QuakeWorld
lag-reduction technology to Hexen II (thanks HexenWorld):
Well, after months of doing work which I still can't get into, I've finally been given official time to work on H2World. I'll be starting full time on it later this afternoon. Next week, a few other programmers will be joining me to clean up the scripting code, to make it more net friendly (i.e. do stuff on the client side).
I'll also include any minor bug fixes that have been done in the mission pack so far. This will also include new .PAK files which will contain models that are about 1/3 less in size (so you should have less caching problems with machines that have 16 megs of memory).
Of course, learning from past mistakes, no predicitions on when it will be available, but know that it is being worked on full time by myself, and with other programmers next week.
Sorry for the delays, but you have to remember, that not everything is always under my control, atleast not yet :)
Monster
3D II
Diamond has announced a release date (currently listed as March 2) for
their Voodoo 2-based Monster 3D II and a suggested price of $249.98 (US). Information on
some of the pre-ordering options can be found here. Thanks Michael Clinton.
Quake II Mods:
A few Quake II updates:
UnrealEd
Epic Megagames' Tim Sweeney sent some information on Unreal scripting and
editing, along with a screenshot of UnrealEd (213 KB),
over to Game Design Central. Thanks Unreal News - Australia.
Jay Wilson Interview
Jay Wilson, Blood 2 Project Leader is interviewed on Blood2.com.
.plan
Apogee/3D Realms' George Broussard updated
his .plan with an interesting question on whether .plan files are private or public
statements.
Out of the Blue
Okay, one more bout
of entries in the call for buttons and banners
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Today's Headlines |
Thresh Survives Scare to Win PGL
Thresh emerged as the winner of the PGL action division after
suffering a defeat at the hands of Reptile that pushed him to the brink in the double
elimination PGL finals. Thresh defeated Unholy to nail down the losers bracket and then
beat Reptile twice in a row, 5 to -1 on DM2 and 5 to 2 on DM6 to take the crown. Complete
on-the-scene coverage can be found on Gamers
Extreme's PGL Coverage, the All Games Network,
and PlanetQuake's PGL Coverage. Here
are demos of the final matches from Gamers Extreme (where there are a bunch more):
Finals Game 1
Thresh's POV (779 KB) Reptile's POV (787 KB)
Finals Game 2
Thresh's POV (806 KB) Reptile's POV (788 KB)
Hexen II Mission Pack Screenshots
AVault has posted five screenshots, three of them new, from the upcoming
Hexen II mission pack, Portal of Praevus, along with a brief preview.
JailBreak
Version 1.3 of JailBreak for Quake II is out on the Jailbreak page. Thanks -=[GaToR]=-.
DamageMatch
Version 1.2 of DamageMatch for Quake II is up on Destroy's QuakeD Site.
DamageMatch is a deathmatch mod that scores points for the amount of damage you deal out
to your opponents, rather than number of frags racked up.
Omicron
Review
There's a review
of the Omicron Bot up on PeeJ's Deathmatch
Pineapple.
Interviews
Departments
Made another large update to the LAN
Parties page, including a firm date for Fragapalooza
98 and links to the House of LAN, that covers
the scene, and Q2 Lan, which focuses solely on
Quake II LAN parties. Also, on the subject, Devon
"Goddess" Henderson Webmaster of The LAN
Scene is compiling a LAN Party FAQ, and asks those with experiences hosting that would
be helpful to share to email her.
etc.
They're kind of old, but there are some cool screenshots
of a 3D game in progress on the Starbreeze
Homepage. Thanks David Vest ... A new Quake comic called Life With Portax is up here. Not much develops
in the first issue, but the art is pretty good, so it may turn out to be pretty cool once
more plot is revealed ... A tale of a Quake road trip that
culminates in visit to a llama farm is told in LuNcH & Siren's Awesome Adventure.
Thanks Douglas E. Thompson ...
Out of the Blue
Some nifty entries in with today's
banners and buttons. Tomorrow I'll post what comes in today and pick the one that'll
be used. Again, huge thanks to all who have bothered with this. It's appreciated.
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Today's Headlines - tokay IRC Log - New Unreal Scans - Pre-Order Half-Life - Video Card Overclocking - More Thresh & the PGL - Battle of the Sexes - YPOD Doom TC - .plans - Site Seeing - etc. - Out of the Blue - Yesterday |
tokay
IRC Log
Here's a log of
American "tokay" McGee's IRC interview last night (thanks Brian Bergen), here's another copy word-wrapped for easier
web-viewing. Most interesting revelation of the interview: The Point Release
will likely contain seven deathmatch levels
New Unreal Scans
There are a pair of cool Unreal scans on UnrealNation from Computer Gaming World: one an
in-game shot of a dead (busty) player, and a large scan of the two page advertisement.
Pre-Order Half-Life
There's an ordering page up
on Sierra On-Line's Half-Life page
that allows you to pre-order Half-Life. It seems like a communications glitch is in
effect, since the main page says Half-Life will be "available mid-April 1998",
but the ordering page says: "Products will not ship until Monday, February 2nd due to
inventory. Thank you for your patience." I think it's pretty safe to say that since
it is not yet complete, Half-Life will not be shipping this Monday regardless of what that
page says. Expect a clarification or two on this one as we go along. Thanks Ritalin Boy[CoC].
Video Card Overclocking
There's an extensive guide
to Video Card Overclocking on the Fast Graphics
Site that gives tips for eeking maximum performance out of most all current video
cards (and probably voiding your warranty along the way). Thanks to Wicked at Voodoo Extreme (who never, as far as I've heard, suffers
performance anxiety).
More on Thresh & the PGL
There's an article
on PCGamer about the Thresh-Gamers Extreme-PGL connection that presents a lot of
quotes from those involved from Gamers Extreme and TEN. Thanks PorkBelly.
Battle of the Sexes
Version 2.3 of the Battle of the Sexes teamplay mod for Quake II is out on
Spinoza's Quake 2 Mods Page.
YPOD
Doom TC
I couldn't figure out why I was getting so much email asking about the
YPOD: Doom TC for Quake, until someone mentioned that Blues' News is listed as a source of
information on the conversion in a recent PC Format magazine. If you are here looking for
the Doom TC, the homepage is Moxill Interactive
Quake TC Headquarters.
etc.
Check out GameFan Quake2
Server Stats, an interesting web output of GameFan's
Quake II server based on a modified version of Dave
Mongoose Feldman's Quake
2 frag logging program ... Speaking of log parsing: Log
Parser of the Day is GibStats
1.2, which supports version 1.2 of their logging standard (which will allow mod authors to
easily integrate log parsing into their mods) ... There is a little info about the status of the RIVA 128 Open GL drivers that Brian
Hook raved about recently in
his .plan up on Dimension 128.
Thanks Voodoo Extreme ... Version 2.10 of the Wmned, the funny name maker for Quake, Hexen II, and Quake II
is up on the
Wmned page ... SubRats' photos from the T3 finals
in Los Angeles can be found on this page
(an AVI format movie promised to come) ... Word is the Star Wars Doom TC has been
revived with the release of the Linux Doom source code ... More Doom port news is that Doom for the BeOS is being worked on according to
a report on Be Leading Edge.
Thanks Daniel Switkin ... Funeral
for a beloved Quake server: zeta.res.cms.dmu.ac.uk 1996-1998 R.I.P. Thanks
SPG.bobby-2 ... I understand they are trying to promote
some new online-only games, but the comments about online
Quake and other games in the article Test Drive Awesome New Online
Games -- Free (thanks Ragnarok) on ZDNet AnchorDesk shows an interesting
perspective on deathmatch over at the ZDNet braintrust:
"...Even when everything works perfectly, many players have been surprised to find that the most popular online titles - such as Diablo, Quake II and Red Alert -- are the same games they've been playing alone for ages, and thus offer little (if anything) new in terms of the gaming experience...."
Out of the Blue
Lots of banners to go through: I'll post them a bit later.
| Quake and the
stylized "Q" are trademarks of id Software, used with
their kind permission All rights reserved. Copyright © 1998 by Stephen Heaslip |
