Blue's Quake News - March 8-14, 1997

Articles in the archive contain broken links because outdated files are removed.

March 14, 1997

Tip of the Day: sCary's back online with his Shuga' Shack

New SGI QSpy
Paul Miller has placed a new SGI Qspy on his homepage that'll work on any machine running IRIX 5.3 all the way up to IRIX 6.4, though the R3K-based machines are not supported.

The story goes on to speculate that this is also likely to inspire competitive price cuts on PowerVR and Rendition boards, especially since they are cheaper to manufacture than 3Dfx boards. There is also an article there about the next generation (get it?) 3Dfx chipset codenamed "Banshee."

Q-Scars
Only a mind that invented the QuakeCast tribute page would invent the Q-Scar Awards (like Oscar, get it?). Go vote for you favorite Quake actress...

Armagon Today
Apparently Scourge of Armagon was a Best Bet in today's print USA Today ("The newspaper that should have a think-and-do page on the back" -- Jay Leno). Thanks hypE.

Plans
John Cash updated his .plan (thank's Shuga' sCary) with instructions on the John Cash diet. Actually, his diet tips are simply common sense (I follow the same principles, and am built similarly to John's self-description). I just still can't figure out why the only thing this man has ever been wrong about, to my knowledge, is the mint Girl Scout cookies.... Also saw on sCary's that Giggler updated:

Speaking of which, I got a note from Evildead, programmer of the Last Man Standing patch, who wants to set the record straight that LMS is not a derivation of QTeam (as I quoted earlier in my QTeam story):

3D Blaster Resource Center
The 3D Blaster Resource Center (or click here for the "premium version") is run by Antony J. Burden (author of DETH and HETH for those of us who were into Doom editing), and is a comprehensive site for all things Vérité.

QuakeNet TV is No More
QuakeNet TV has fallen victim to "the boss found out what was going on with the hardware" syndrome. Look for Al Dzurka to resurface with more Quake video soon, though...

Plan Updates
Here's the plan scene: Jim Dosé (have I correctly interpreted that apostrophe as an accent mark Jim?) updated his .plan to try and weasel an 8 CPU PPro from Intel through Redwood (nope I don't follow either--and unless I'm getting a computer, I guess I don't really need to for those who would explain). Also thanks to elizabeth h. for the word that both Kee Kimbrell:

Quess of the Minute
The Quess of the minute is 1.26 (thanks Glucose). I was late with this today's update and missed 1.25 entirely. From the Quess page. This version includes the new Quess project, one computer Quess.

CTF 4 Update
Zoid has selected maps and is going through (closed) beta testing for upcoming ThreeWave CTF 4.0. Here's looking forward to what sounds like will be the best set of CTF maps yet.

Interview
There's a sCary interview on the New Vore Times. Look for one with a certain Blue webmaster soon (always the bridesmaid...).

QTeam 2.0 Update
Quake Innovations' QTeam 2.0 final is due on March 24, featuring many improvements and a new game mode. The QTeam map design package has been made available allowing authors to design CTF, Advanced CTF, Capture the Shambler, Paintball, King of the Hill, DeathTag, and Scavenger Hunt maps for QTeam. The new client, server, and design packages can be found at the Quake Innovations' site. All have been updated in the last few days.

Also, Mansa has taken down his servers but there's some new ones available running QTeam paintball. These new servers are 139.147.89.250 and 36.182.0.174.

Server Browser Reviews
After a while with little new information to share on this front, recent developments have inspired FRAGaLOT to update his Quake Server Browser Reviews again. This page has become quite the comprehensive resource on the subject.

Screenshots
Here is the home of the soon to be opened Quake Screenshot Archives. Also, There are screenshots of GL Quake at Trigger Happy.

New QFL
There's a revived QFL (unrelated to the original as far I can tell), on the CLP website.

QuakeCast
Fun QuakeCast last night (in the Show Archives). We spoke with Walt Donovan and Stefan Podell, the two geniuses at Rendition who've worked with id to create VQuake. We also got Process, one of the webmasters at Stomped to come on and talked about the latest goings on there, and . We were joined in the studio by loonyboi of QuakeLab Multimedia. BTW, for those who listened, as promised, here's the address of Redwood's Jennifer Anniston Page.

SWAT
I haven't had a chance to look at it at all, but the SWAT Team teamplay mod sounds pretty cool.

Tree House?
If you have server space and an interest in hosting a quality Quake site, please head on over to my buddy Redwood's to read about his situation. He needs a host, and has made a pretty complete list of what his site would require of potenially interested parties.

Virtus Controversy
There have been some heated opinions expressed since a few of the ease-of-use superiority claims made by Deathmatch Maker, the upcoming id Software-endorsed Quake editor from Virtus (the new editor is claiming it will pioneer some features that already exist in current editors). There's a little rant on the subject on Quake Level Editing News. QLEN's Plucky is also soliciting opinions on the subject, if you've got one to share.

New QHunter Alpha
There is a new unsupported alpha of QHunter, the unique utility that allows you to pick a server from within your Quake Game. Here's QHunter 0.71 Alpha 7 (471 KB), or the patch to upgrade (36 KB) if you have a previous version. Here is the updated read me. All of these are also, of course, available at the QHunter page.

Quess of the Day
As often happens with recent released, Quess (the Quake Chess combo) is in release-a-day mode. Here's a patch to upgrade to version 1.21 of Quess, also available on the Quess page. Thanks Grimley.

American's .plan:
Thanks to RENster[HW] for sending along the word that American McGee updated his .plan. He's not happy about the abuse John Carmack has taken over the rules of the Ferrari giveaway (warning naughty words ahead):

Mark D's Mysterious Powers
Saw on sCary's Shuga' Shack (who would have thought his new home's name would be even less descriptive than Quakeholio?) that Mark Dochtermann updated his .plan, promising not to try and Hipnotize and more 3D Realms employees.

John Romero's .plan
Thanks to Crash (from Pork Riblets) for the word that John Romero updated his .plan:

Quake C Decompilation
Thanks to DarkSky for reminding me I failed to mention Jim Dosé's .plan update from yesterday, which is on the topic of decompiling Quake C modifications. It's quite interesting, and asks the question of whether it's possible for someone to create a utility to prevent the reverse engineering of Quake C modifications

Quake II QC in John Carmack's .plan
John Carmack made another big .plan update (thanks Havoc). There's talk in there about scrapping the current QC format in favor of a .dll to handle game modifications.

Q-Man's CTF Bible
A third nice site devoted to ThreeWave CTF has opened its doors within a short span. Greg "Q-Man" Olson has finally opened his site, a comprehensive CTF Strategy guide called Q-Man's CTF Bible. The time and effort that has gone into the Bible, Capture and Xenocide Academy is stunning.

New QuakeMap
Hot on the heals of the release of 3.0b2 is the release of 3.0b3 on the Official QuakeMap Homepage.

Hipnotic Entity Support for Worldcraft
There is a patch up on The Official Worldcraft Editing Site to cut and paste into Worldcraft's quake.fgd file to enable support the new entities from the Hipnotic mission pack.

3D Site
No, it's not VRML, but a site devoted to the 3D Blaster, with coverage of all Vérité-based cards. Thanks Aragorn (not the Aragorn I know, though...).

Quess 1.2
Things move fast around here. Forget version 1.1 posted earlier, Version 1.2 of Quess (1.2 MB), Quake chess, has been released by the Impact Team on the Quess page. Here's the upgrade patch (135 KB), if you have a previous version. Also (as posted earlier), thanks to Geoff Gibson for sending along his .cfg file for Quess.

Ion Challenge
I saw on the Void that Shadow's E1M5 Challenge is up on Ion Storm's site. E1M5, skill 0, fastest time wins (23 seconds is in the books already if you want to gauge your chances). Winner gets an autographed Ion Storm football jersey.

Dimensionality Moves
The design group Dimensionality has moved to http://www.dimensionality.com/. They are looking for FTP sites to mirror their soon-to-be-released level pack.

Find the Contest Found
Tom Hall's find the Contest is over (thanks REX). The contest is still hidden somewhere on Ion Storm's website (till the next contest, which promises to "...weed out the truly brave from the simply foolhardy..."), but if you're stumped (this one seemed tough enough to me) check here for the solution.

All-Star WorldCraft University
Worldcraft University have a class this Sunday at 6:00 PM PST. On the curriculum for this week is an online interview with Levelord, Giggler and Paradox from Hipnotic Software to talk about Scorge of Armagon, what's to come from Hipnotic, and to give out some professional editing tips and tricks.

John Carmack's Ferrari
John Carmack made a large .plan update (thanks Stephen Beddes) that talks of his ire at all the negative responses he's received about the rules to the Ferrari giveaway. Anyone that accuses this man of bad intentions over this doesn't have a clue.

Name Game
Not restricted to Quake, but there is a service at Namezone.com that allows you to register your nickname. Thanks Lea.

More Hipnotic Quake C
The QC Source and .exe's are now up on Hipnotic's Page (Thanks Jeff McCall ). Here are the files that they are issuing as an unsupported release:

Utilsrc.zip (114 KB)	Source code for qbsp and light
Newexes.zip (93 KB)	qbsp and light
Docs.zip (8 KB)	Text files of the QC changes
Qc.zip (170 KB)	all the new .qc files
Maps.zip (222 KB)	3 .map files utilizing the new QC
All.zip (559 KB)	All 5 files in one zip

Tom Hall Contest
Thanks Langsuyar for the word that Ion Storm's Tom Hall is running a "find the contest contest" here. Well not really there, that's where to start, but you see the idea is to find the contest, so...

KillCreek Interview
There's an interview with KillCreek on the New Vore Times. Lot's of exclusive scoop there, so go read and learn about her Quake related job, her Quake related boyfriend, and of course, life after man-beating the Romero.

Hipnotic QC Mods
sCary got the okay from John Carmack to post the Quake C stuff from the Scourge of Armagon on the Hipnotic site. As promised, the site is being worked on heavily, with a few sCary updates to the news section (sCary's Shuga' Shack), and a Scourge Impulse list. (Before you ask--yes sCary knows it's "butt fugly ugly" ... he promises "purtiness" tomorrow).

QHunter
There is an unsupported alpha release of a new server finding utility called QHunter out at QHunter.com. This is a project by one of my favorite Quake mad scientists, SkyLord of The Definitive Quake Server Listing. Check this thing out, you'll be amazed to see that it's allowing you to find your Quake game, not from an external utility or website, but from within the game itself! Here are the remarkable screenshots (click for a full-sized view):

Reminder, this is an unsupported alpha that works on Win95 only (apparently the NT part has been a headache).

Quess
You're not going to believe it. Quess=Quake+Chess. I told you that you wouldn't believe it. See for yourself on the Quess Homepage. Thanks AM_f0RCE. Quess is from the newly formed Impact Team, who are making QuakeRally (which is hosted by frag.com if you follow).

Whaleboy Interview
There's an interview with Ion Storm artist Brian "Whaleboy" Cozzens on The New Vore Times.

Plans
Disruptor updated on arriving at id yesterday (saw that on Redwood's). There are some excerpts from Dr Sleep's notebooks in his .plan (thanks CR-Carnivore). Notice some of the game gurus have started inserting HTML tags in their .plans? Very nice.

32 Player QuakeWorld Project
The project to create quality maps for the upcoming QuakeWorld (which supports up to 32 players) has moved to http://stomped.com/quakeworld32/.

Glais Bottom Boat
There's a cool-looking screenshot of a submarine in the works for the Glais project over at the QCA (Thanks EmBRioNiC P373 of NAWC).

Events
Check here for details on DC-Con II a large, free, upcoming tournament in the Washington DC area. Also, if you're interested in an event in the new Zealand area ($15) look here.

Qoole 1.01
Qoole 1.01 is up at Qoole.com (thanks ). This version only features bug fixes. Thanks CR-Carnivore.

Quake RC Archive Moves
The Quake RC Archive (home to the config.cfg files of the world) has moved to frag.com (thanks DaKoTa of Capture).

Clan Xenocide Flag Academy
The truly impressive Clan Xenocide Flag Academy has opened for business. This is a CTF training academy, as well as file resource, and news center. It is also the home of Clan Xenocide, it slices, it dices, and it's way cool. There's an interview with Zoid there to help kick things off.

sCary Update
There's an update on sCary's Quakeholio promising an update to the Hipnotic page within 24 hours.

The Case Against Latency
Here's an interesting technical essay called Latency and the Quest for Interactivity on how today's modem manufacturers may be negatively impacting the online gaming experience by sacrificing latency for higher connect speeds. Thanks Xanadu Prime.

Marine Quake
Thanks Griffin for sending along a couple of tidbits from the new print Wired (see next story also). The cover story is on the US Marine Corps use of Doom in training, and refers to the next generation of Marine Software being a Quake mod called Battlesight Zero.

Women In Quake II
Thanks to Digital1 for the word on this article on Women in Quake from Gamecenter, talking to CrackWhores (look for the winner of the Dress up the CrackWhores contest tomorrow) and Psycho Men Slayers (PMS). Apparently PMS are also featured in April's print Wired (thanks again Griffin).

Grendel's Grenade-Free Gorefest
If you've got the guts to go toe-to-toe in a shotgun battle, you might be ready for Grendel's Grenade-Free Gorefest. "Guaranteed to Improve Your Lower Weapon Skills!"

FvF Map Request
Map authors interested in having levels included in the upcoming Future versus Fantasy Quake version 2.0 should email their levels to swift@worldreach.net. If you previously contacted them about this, but have not received a reply in over a month, you might want to write back, as your mail may have been lost.

Congratulations
Quake was awarded Best Online Game by CNET's 1997 Awards for Internet Excellence. Thanks Reflex. Also, Congrats to Disruptor for getting safely across the border. He sends word that he's settling into his new digs at id. No word on if (or how) he was able to get Hecktor the Iguana into the country.

ALQ
ALQ is the Association of Left-Handed Quakers, which covers everything of interest to the lefty Quaker, from configs to controllers. Did you know John Romero is left-handed? A little Quake trivia for you there.

Qtracker & CTF TeleWeapons
Two releases in the last couple of days from the_DM of the GunSlingers Clan. Qtracker 0.5 is a program written to keep track of scores on Quake servers, and CTF/TeleWeapons is a CTF patch (which includes source code, per Zoid's request) that allows projectiles to go through teleports among other things.

QuakeX RIP
Whaleboy sent along word to check QuakeX for his last message there. It was pretty obvious that his Ion hiring would spell the end of this fine site, and now it's official. Also, I forgot to mention an email I got from Wedge a while ago saying that it wasn't up to him and Choryoth how Quake Command got pulled out of the blue by their old ISP... expect something from them on space provided by their employer soon...

Dank & Scud Update
Fans of Dank & Scud take heart. An update on their news page hints that a new issue and other goodies are on the way (eventually).

Hipnotic CFG's
Our buddy loonyboi over at QuakeLab Multimedia was poking around in the pak file of the Scourge of Armagon and discovered that CFG files of all the hipnotic guys (and more) were buried in there somewhere--something to look for if you're seeking an edge.

Speaking of Scourge
I finally got to pick Scourge of Armagon up. Woweee! What a terrific job the guys over at Hipnotic did! ***** Five stars.

Capture the Flag Stuff
The High Ping Capture League is now open for business, so fire up the old 28.8 and your grappling hook and get busy (applicants who have already applied should receive a response soon), and check out their channel on ClanNET, #hpcl. Also, CTF News has become part of the ClanNET site, though you can expect the whole shooting match (pun intended) to move to its own domain soon. Finally, with the retirement for Fargo from the Clan news scene, the Kings of Capture tournament was left without a spokesperson, until DaKoTa stepped up to the plate. Now look for all the KOC results and reporting to appear on Capture.

Film FAQ
ArchV's MOVIE FAQ on the Ranger's Page has been updated. Word is that RGB3 is on the way and "looks bitchin!"

Disc
I really like this mod. Version 1.2 of the Disc has been released, as well as the first beta for QuakeWorld, both also available on the Killer Quake Patch page. The new version provides the ability to lop off people's arms with the disc or any other weapon (ala severed), and the longer you hold onto the fire button before releasing the disc, the faster it goes.

UKCL Moves
The new address of the UK Clan League is http://www.ukcl.org.uk/. Remember that the deadline for entries in the UKCL 4X Tournament is 6pm GMT on Monday 10th March. Clans interested in entering should contact ukcl@minos.co.uk.

Quake Texture Renaming Project
Gregor is on a quest to standardize quake texture names, detailing what that means on the form-over-function Quake Texture Renaming Project page.

Last Man Standing
I don't know, it may get dull waiting for games to restart, but I'm intrigued by the sound of Last Man Standing, a patch from the Gothenburg Quake Center (a site, which, for some reason, I had trouble understanding). LMS gives you one life to live per round, last man standing (get it?) gets a point. This could be a pretty interesting mode. This server-side patch isn't available yet, but there is a server running it (in Sweden) if you want to beta test it:

CTF Update
Zoid made an update to Threewave detailing the status of new maps (the deadline for submissions has passed, btw) and other changes for the upcoming Threewave Capture the Flag Version 4. Thanks FatalSync.

Kill the Llama
It was bound to happen. Kill the Llama (thanks Doug McCreary) is a teamplay variant, that aspires to be the next CTF. Hunt the opposing team's llama while protecting your own. You can't make this stuff up. On the same subject, there's also a Quake patch in the works dedicated to They Might Be Giants (a quirky alternative/pop band).

FvF
Future versus Fantasy Quake 1.92 is out. When you're done with your download, you might want to hit reload on their page to check for a new version.

Never Too Early
filth is asking authors of Quake utilities and editors who are planning on incorporating Hexen 2 support to drop him a line so he can get a handle on the situation for his Hexen 2 Editing Depot.

Clan Llama Contest
The prizes for the Clan Llama logo contest on frag.com are now a SpaceOrb 360, and a copy of Scourge of Armagon.

Scourge QSpy, AVI
Thanks to loonyboi for putting together this Custom Tab (208 bytes) for Scourge of Armagon. To install it, unzip the tab, launch QuakeSpy, go to the "View" menu and hit "Custom Tabs." Click the "Import" button, and select the custom tab. Now you're set to use Scourge servers with QSpy. Also, thanks to Joost Schuur (Slipgate Central) for pointing out this AVI (3.7 MB) from Activision's Mission Pak site that shows highlights from Scourge and Rogue's upcoming Mission Pak 2.

BSP Expansion Fix
There are a couple of bugs in the PAK released the other day by the .bsp eXpansion Project, where the fourth level was mysteriously (apparently John Carmack is looking into this one) crashing the server, and the ninth level level had some QuakeWorld problems. Here is a fix for the map pak (970 KB), for now the fix for level three is to change the exit to point to level five. Here is the full ten level pak (4.15 MB) with the fixed files in place (I made this, I don't think the one on their page has been fixed yet). They are also eager to have new servers run the maps. The two servers currently running them are on the PlanetQuake Master:

QCA
The Quake C Archives has undergone a nifty reconstruction, with new graphics and departments and scripts and coolness and stuff. Soon to add a search engine.

GibStats 0.7
Here's GibStats 0.7 (1 MB) by Fritz (here's the text file), a log file parser that outputs statistics for any Quake or CTF game. The data is separated into the different games and maps which were played. Totals of a games, maps and of all games ever played can be displayed. You can export any table to Netscape to be printed. It runs on the client end, and is not a Quake-C patch you can run with any patch or even analyze an Internet game. GibStats also works with ReaperBots and the CTFBots.

Fancy Name Utility
It's not my thing, but some people go nuts for Quake names that embed colors and stuff. The Quake Name Editor is a Win95 utility from tookycat to help you jazz up your handle (certainly beats the invisible names). Download qnameed1.zip (206 KB) if you already have the Visual Basic run-time libraries installed, and ezqnameed1.zip (1.5 MB) if you don't.

QuakeMap Contest
Since the name QuakeMap is, well... anyway, they're having a contest on the Official QuakeMap Page (formerly Derrick's QuakeMap Page) to come up with a new name for the program. I guess they'll have to rename Derrick's page again...

BSP 0.72
I think it was Yogi Berra that once said "it's like deja vu all over again." The newer new version of the popular editor BSP has been released. Here's the 16 bit version (352 KB) and the 32 bit version (430 KB) of BSP 0.72. There are new run-time libraries (482 KB) for the 16 bit version. All this is also available, of course, at the Elite Quake Editors Corner, the official home of BSP.

Deathmatchers Wanted
Check here for details if you are interested in helping to beta test levels for a new map pack.

Shrak Attack
There is a patch to update the Skrak TC to a newer version. On the Shrak page (thanks gladi8r).


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