Articles in the archive contain broken links because outdated files are removed.

New GLQuake Releases
Zoid sent along word that some new GLQuake releases are available: GLQuake 0.97 (393 KB) fixes the sprite bug from the previous version, and adds independent console sizing (such as a 320x200 scaled console when running at 640x480) and support for SGI Multitexture extensions for high-end Voodoo (Obsidian) and other 3D cards. Also newly released is GLQuake for Linux (449 KB) which requires a 3DFX Voodoo Graphics card (not Voodoo RUSH) and Linux 2.0, and finally, GLQuakeWorld for Linux (412 KB), which again requires 3DFX Voodoo Graphics (not Voodoo RUSH) and Linux 2.0. Also available on id's ftp.site.

FRAG Demos
The Cyberathlete page now has a lot of the demos recorded at The FRAG available for download, with the promise of more soon. Thanks Prophet.

Malice is Out
Embrionic Pete sends along word that the Malice for Quake TC is out in stores (he specifically mentioned  Software Etc., Electronic Boutique, and Babbages). He also promises a bunch of MaliceWorld servers within the next couple of days.

New Turok Demo
There is a new version of the Turok Dinosaur Hunter demo for the PC on Acclaim's site that supports a variety of accelerators, including PowerVR PCX2, ATI 3D Rage Pro and Rendition Vérité V1000/V2x00, as opposed to just the 3Dfx support of the original. Thanks Frans P. de Vries of 3D Action Gamers'.

Quake Free?
Seems someone has drawn a line in the web and declared a Quake Free Zone. Thanks SpyCatcher.

CDR Update
Thanks to all who wrote in with suggestions for the balky CDR drive I mentioned earlier. The answer is that it seems to have inexplicably "cured" itself (for the moment at least). I know someone who said when computers did that it was "F.M." The M stands for magic, you can probably work the rest out for yourself.

New Beta Requiem QW Server
Beta 1 of the QuakeWorld Requiem 2.0 Server has been released on the Requiem page.

Trinity System Requirements
Dan "Jago" Naoumov sent along a response he received from John Carmack to his query about minimum system requirements to run Trinity:

Quake 2 requires about 50% more CPU than quake 1 due to increased complexity.

Id is going to do a Q2 mission pack after quake 2 ships, so Trinity is at least eighteen months away. Thats a long time. The game engine will be in use for at least two more years after the first title with it ships, so not targeting the design decisions for PII would be a bad move.

Each game generation has been optimized for a generation of processors:

Wolf3D: 386
DOOM: 486
Quake: pentium
Trinity: Pentium II

It won't be "3dfx" required, but it will require a 3D accelerator of similar power.

It will still work on a pentium, but it will be slower than we will be targeting.

Jedi Knight Licensing?
On the heels of the Hexen II End-User License Agreement controversy, Bryant Luk of Star Wars Gamers points out that a similar clause is in the License Agreement from Jedi Knight (even more intimidating due to its use of words like "hereafter"):

(7) By distributing or permitting the distribution of any New Levels, all creators or owners of any trademark, copyright, or other right, title or interest therein grant to LEC an irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free, sub-licensable right to distribute the New Level by any means (whether now known or hereafter invented), and to create and distribute by any means (whether now known or here-after invented) derivative works thereof, and to charge for the distribution of such New Level or such derivative work, with no obligation to account to any creators or owners of the New Level in any manner.

Heat Gets Quake II... Is That News?
According to an email I received from Scott at MPlayer, the news (reported yesterday) that Quake II would be on Heat.Net does not mean that Heat has an exclusive:

By reading this report, it makes it sound as if Heat got an exclusive for Quake II. That would be news to me and everyone else at Mpath. To the best of my knowledge, there are no Q2 exclusives, and Mplayer plans to have it.

Blue & Scud?
An update that Michael Houston put on the Dank & Scud newspage last night during QuakeCast asks the Question, Blue and Dank, separated at birth?

.plans

• Raven's Rick Johnson mention's my help wanted section in his .plan, wondering if a request for a female design team represents discrimination.
• Disruptor also mentions the habit software stores have of giving out inaccurate release dates for software in his .plan.
• John Cash is still keeping up with his .plan-based worklog.
• Landon Montgomery's .plan file announces that Chris Schoonhen of NJ is the envy of all his friends, as he's the winner of RBR's kick ass Michael Knight doll.
• Brian hook updated his .plan discussing time management and giving his own worklog from yesterday.

Interviews

• Joe Powell, the founding father of team GameSpy is interviewed on PC Gamer. Thanks Michael 'Prestige' Tan (The Sentinel).
• There are interviews with a half-dozen deathmatch level authors (Copy, Rorshach, Danimal, Escher, FeSter, and Slayer) on PeeJ's Deathmatch Pineapple.

Competition
The successful first season of the University Quake League is drawing to a close: those interested in participating in next season can find details on the website. Also available on their site is a video interview with some of the top UK players.

Movements

• Nuklear Meltdown (Duke Nukem Forever) is now located at www.meltdown.net.
• Artema's NEWS has moved to quake.nkn.net/artema.

etc.
The RogueCam is in action, a peephole into the lives of our pals at Rogue Entertainment. Check it out if you're feeling voyeuristic ... The new Dear Mynx column is up, Thanks Ðê†hŒ|êmên† ... There are blurbs about Marc Saltzman, the author of the Quake II manual on both Gamesmania and PC Gamer ... There is an article in yesterday's Daily Bruin (UCLA's student newspaper) on the PGL. Thanks Matt Waggoner ... According to CyberSleaze(?), Liz Hurley is slated to play the part(s) of Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider movie. Thanks Liger  ... As I mentioned earlier,  I have two patients that I'm working on, Mrs. Blue is home sick, and my CD-ROM is going flaky (again). I hate doing this, but I must ask: if anyone has a solid explanation why a couple (an original and its replacements) of SCSI CD-ROM drives (CD-RW's to be precise), that I've installed seem to just die quiet deaths in my machine, I'd be eager to hear it. Thanks ... Finally, thanks to The Quakemaster's Homepage for sending along the Amazing Quake Site Award ...

StormFront & QuakeCast
On StormFront tonight we have two members of the Dominion team, Associate Producer Chad Barron, and programmer Patrick Deupree. On QuakeCast we will have Ritual's Levelord as our special in-studio guest (one word: beer!) and we will talk to Steve Stringer from Activision about a hot topic of the day: the Hexen II End-User License Agreement. StormFront is at 8:00 PM Eastern Time, and QuakeCast follows at 8:30, Real player required.

Kevin Cloud on Quake II
id's Kevin Cloud made a .plan update addressing the Quake II release date, as well as a bunch of other Quake II stuff including another question raised here earlier, saying he doesn't think id is interested in trying to establish ownership of other people's maps:

I've got a message to Hyper@active regarding their blurb titled "Quake 2 Delayed!" -- Next time don't hold them at gun point, just shoot them. Quake 2 will be released when it is done--which will be before Christmas.

Other issues:
As far as I know, Id will not be interested in trying to establish ownership of other people's maps.

Tim Willits and Paul Steed will be going to Australia for a Quake 2 release party.

Manual for Quake 2 is just about finished.

Multiplayer Quake 2 looks extremely cool. I need to make better looking DM teleport pads. I tried to get them done during Paul's birthday party, but something kept distracting me:)

Tim is finishing up the final boss level and Paul is animating the final boss. Those guys are amazing.

There is still a lot of work to do, but the end is near.

On a personal note:
Having your beautiful baby girl cry for daddy until you rock her to sleep is actually incredibly terrific--even at 4:00 am. Kevin loves being a daddy.

NOTICE:
Rebroadcast of this message is okay as long you don't take the word fuck out of it.

When It's Done (as long as it's done by Christmas)
id's CEO Todd Hollenshead updated his .plan confirming my earlier comments about speculation on Quake II's release date:

I've seen a few posts (e.g., Blue's) containing discussion of Quake II "gold master" and release dates. Before we get tons of email about this:
(1) Quake II will be out in time for Christmas;
(2) There is no set "master" or "shelf" date;
(3) ANYONE who says anything different doesn't know what they are talking about.

Maybe these statements look familiar. They should, since that is what we have said for almost a year now. We'll let you know as soon as we're done :)
Don't worry - id will make sure all the boys and girls out there in gamer land have a very merry Christmas indeed!

Monster 3D Drivers
Version 1.09 of the Monster 3D drivers (1.1 MB) that were first posted in Europe have appeared on Diamond's US website. Thanks Molstad.

V1000 Open GL
Björn's 3D-World has more good news for Vérité owners, as Rendition has released unsupported beta mini-GL drivers for the V1000. The setup consists of the drivers (194 KB), a  v1000gl.uc (91 KB) file, and the minigl-driver (82 KB) released yesterday for Stealth II owners. I have no idea what kind of performance these offer, and it is doubtless slower than native Vérité support, but I assume it is a step up from the useless for GLQuake support offered by some cards. Thanks LeachMan.

Hexen II Worldcraft - License Agreement Controversy?
There is a blurb on the Worldcraft page describing an upcoming version of Worldcraft including the "simple change" that will allow level authors to use WC to create Hexen II maps. Thanks Phoebus (HexenWorld). There is also a caveat on the page to read Activision's end-user license agreement, as any maps created with the newly released Hexen utilities (3.8 MB) become the property of Activision. There are a couple of letters on HexenWorld from Activision's Steve Stringer defending this as a necessary move to protect Activision's legal rights. My two cents (or less) worth: I understand their goal, but this is an unfortunate decision, as it will discourage many authors from creating H2 levels. I know that id is no longer including their copyrighted textures in the Quake II map format, and one can only hope that this kind of restrictive end-user license agreement is not in the works  for Q2 as well (which will also be distributed by Activision). id's original Quake license agreement allows authors to distribute their levels as they see fit, provided they contain no copyrighted id material. loonyboi points out that since Activision owns Raven now, and simply distributes Quake II (and id historically is not uptight about these things), this concern is probably unfounded.

When They're Done!
There is a blurb up on PC Gamer Online describing the new deadline for Half-Life as mid-April. I have also been receiving lots of email from people getting specific Quake II release dates from Software stores. Of course, the firm answer to the question on both deadlines in the headline (though, in spite of being non-committal about committing to a date, id has said before Christmas for a long time now). Also on the subject of delays, Hyper@ctive has posted a blurb titled Quake 2 Delayed! that corrects their own inaccurate report that Quake II would be going "to code" (gold) on November 11th, now saying this will be November 24. There is no real explanation where they got either date. Thanks Prophet. Finally, Wicked over at Voodoo Extreme sends along word of a lengthy article on the AVault discussing the fallout from Epic's announcement that Unreal was delayed.

Quake II on Heat.Net
There is a report on PCGamer Online that Heat.Net has snatched up the rights to offer Quake II on their online service. This has no effect on free servers. Thanks Prophet.

.plans

• id Software's Paul Steed made a pair of updates about LAN parties, the first one calling Cyber-Athletics and LAN Party an oxymoron, and a second retracting his criticism based on a LAN party lesson he's received. He also talks about work stuff, the first update says he's getting ready to work on the final boss and the female player character.
• Rebel Boat Rocker Landon Montgomery's .plan file has an update on the status of the Michael Knight doll giveaway.

Interviews

• There is an interview with Raven Software programmer Gil Gribb, on Angelic-Coders.Com talking about his work on Raven's next generation 3D engine, codenamed Spectre (no word yet on whether Blofeld is involved).
• I missed these from their grand opening, but there are a couple of interviews on the newly opened GameGirlz.Com. There are discussions with Mike Wilson (CEO) and Jeff Wand (artist, though listed as a level designer) of ION Storm titled, Females & Computer Games Do Game Companies See a Market.
• Also on GameGirlz: Ben Morris, author of Worldcraft, talks with Aurora in The Past Present and Future of the Number One Level Editor Worldcraft.
• There is an interview on PC Games with Steve Dauterman of LucasArts discussing Jedi Knight. Thanks Prophet.

Competitions

• The idea of holding a tournament for all the collegiate LPB's out there has been revived on the Collegiate Tournament page.
• There are a couple of competitions on the Belgium clancenter: a Never ending reaper Contest, and an E1M1 Speed Run competition.

Movement
The MedDLe page has moved to meddle.telefragged.com. Thanks Hanif.

Departments

• Want Ads: Added a few more entries. Rebel Boat Rocker is looking for a programmer.
• LAN Parties: Someone trying to gauge interest in a gathering in St. Louis, MO.

etc.
There is an article on Teamfortress Quake on Hyper@ctive 2.0 News. Thanks Prophet ... There are complete instructions on Quake command line parameters in German on Maddes' Quake Homepage ... There is a Voodoo 2 FAQ up at Voodoo Review to clarify any queries about the most eagerly anticipated video chipset ever ...

John Carmack's Worklog
John Carmack updated his .plan with his worklog.

Prey Screenshot
There is a new Prey Screenshot up on the PreyStation.

New Vérité Releases (Updated)
Rendition has released a few new goodies today:

• Here is beta 5 of VHexen II (338 KB) and beta 2 of the Q2Test driver (154 KB) both for V1000 based cards. Thanks TheRage.
• From earlier, an unsupported beta of the GL miniport for Vérité 2100 based cards (82 KB) has been released on Björn's 3D-World. Thanks LeachMan. Here are the instructions from the page:

To install this driver:

* copy the v2000gl.uc file to your windows\system directory

* copy the minigl.dll to your OpenGL game directory and rename it as "opengl32.dll". It is not recommended that you put this file in your windows\system directory, because it does not support the entire OpenGL API. Applications that require calls unsupported functions may crash if you copy this file to windows\system.

Again, this driver is unsupported by either Rendition or Diamond. End-users are recommended to use drivers provided by their board manufacturer to ensure that they can obtain full support.

PGL Orientation
The AMD Professional Gamer's League is holding its first orientation today:

The Professional Gamers' League will hold the first of a series of online orientations tomorrow, Weds. 11/12 from 6 - 8 p.m. (Pacific Time) in the PGL arenas (Quake-PGL and Red Alert-PGL) on the TEN service.

Many of the top players, including Thresh and CnC_God, will be in attendance, to chat and qualify for the official league play which begins Dec. 9. (If you've ever wondered how good Thresh really is, here's your chance to take him on!...or simply watch him play, via the new "ChaseCam" observe-only mode designed specifically for the PGL)

PGL officials will also be on hand to issue late-breaking news announcements, provide info on the the league qualification process, and answer commonly-asked questions such as "will there be separate divisions in Quake for low- and high-latency players?" (yes). In addition, trivia contests and random pick-up games will result in the giveaway of TEN, PGL, and other league sponsor merchandise at the orientation.

Just the FAQ's

• Version 0.1 of the Unofficial Daikatana FAQ has been released on the newly opened Razor Edge. Thanks Hanif.
• The Unofficial Quake II FAQ has received another update, and is now at version 0.45. Thanks WU-GFKiller.

More Quake Tools
The team programming DaBomb (on Heat.Net) have released more of the tools they developed to aid in creating their mod:

• The source code for NetVis (89 KB), the first utility they released.
• A 3DStudioMax MDL (14 KB) exporter to directly write Quake MDL files.
• And  a traditional vis tool (35 KB), based on rvis, that is approximately 20% faster.

Omen II Demo
Version one of the Omen II Demo has been released on the Omen & Omen II page. This is a sequel to, not a replacement for, the Omen TC.

Quake 64 Preview
Next Generation Online has their own preview of Quake for the N64 based on the newly released screenshots. Thanks Prophet.

More "Official" Editors from Virtus
There's a blurb on OGR describing Macmillan and Virtus' plans for more id authorized level editors, for Hexen II (Hexmaker) and Quake II (Deathmatch Maker II), in the same vein as Deathmatch Maker, their authorized editor for Quake (thanks Prophet):

Macmillan Digital Publishing and Virtus Corporation today announced their second co-publishing agreement, that will bring id-authorized level editors for Hexen II and Quake II to the retail market. Hexmaker for Hexen II is targeted for released in late November. Deathmatch Maker II, the first authorized level editor for Quake II, will follow the release of the eagerly awaited first-person shooter, Quake II.

QstatList
QStatList, a complete set of Perl scripts like QStat to create webpages tracking Quake, QuakeWorld, QuakeWorld masters, and Hexen II servers has been released on the QStatList page..

Interview
ION Storm's William Haskins is interviewed on 3D Alpha Eighty-Two Stop Anachronox Shop. Thanks Prophet.

Competitions

• The Top 3 Reaper League has been revived, home of an ongoing Reaper Bot competition.
• Black Sun Jedi Dawn is holding their second Jedi Knight tournament. Thanks JediKnight.Net.
• You can win an Apocolypse 5D card by winning Reality-X's Skin competition which requires the Apolcalypse logo appear on the skin.

Movement
3D Gaming Spooge has moved to www.brutality.com/spooge/.

Review
There is a review of Malice up on PlanetQuake.

.plans

• John Cash is keeping up with updating his worklog on a daily basis.
• Paul Jaquays updated his .plan on Veterans Day, Virtual Pets, a little ponification on other people's games, and sums up "life in the Quake 2 lane":

Playtest. Tweak, adjust, modify, polish. Wait for the next feature to be implemented. Playtest. Tweak, adjust, modify, polish. Repeat until Kevin Cloud says "Stick a fork in that sucker."

• Scott Miller's .plan update talks about the new Prey designer, an import from Germany.
• Paul Schuytema's .plan talks about game designs and abstraction.

Departments

• Want Ads: Caught up on a little backlog there.
• LAN Parties: Someone in Bolton, England looking to spur a gathering at the end of this month, and someone in Sacramento, CA trying to get a regular LAN party together. A weekly event in Salisbury, MD; The Muppet Clan's party is this weekend in Fort Worth, TX; a big tournament in Auckland, New Zealand, a weekly event in Morton, IL; a semi-regular gathering in Munich, Germany.

etc.
Aspiring 3d programmers might want to check out druid-'s GLJournal for tips and utilities on Open GL programming ... Having trouble keeping track of the latest versions of patches and programs? VersionWatch keeps track for you ... The Quake Literary Guild has been updated with three new stories, plus a humor entry ... Speaking of literature, the literary reference of the day comes from the new Dean Koontz novel, Soul Survivor, in which the villain, described as a "techno-geek with an edge," at one point wears a Quake T-Shirt. Thanks Doug ... Image of the Day, is the sign with the Big Blue smiley that I passed in each of my last two trips to Dallas (weird, huh?). Thanks Old Drunk Bastard Clan (especially Old Pete, who apparently risked traffic for the photo-op) ...

Daikatana Video - AVI and RealVideo
ION Storm has released the cool promotional Daikatana music video shown at The FRAG. There are two clips in .AVI format on the ION website, a short version (2.9 MB) with just the intro, and full 2:20 clip (15 MB) which includes the intro. Thanks Hudd's Daikatana News. Also, JUDGECAL, the Cecil B. DeMille of streaming video, has already encoded the full length version for RealPlayer in both low bandwidth and high bandwidth versions.

New Video Drivers (Updated)

• Version 1.2 of the drivers for the Voodoo Graphics based Flash 3D and the Voodoo Rush based Flash AT3D as well as Build 13 of the Flash AT3D BIOS have all been released on the Flash 3D Support & Drivers page. Thanks Alex 'Sharky' Ross (Voodoo Extreme).
• Version 1.09 of the Monster 3D drivers have been released on Diamond's European website. Thanks Greaser.

Still More Voodoo 2

• Zanshin made an update to the GLQuake Dojo titled Voodoo2 Rumors and Speculation trying to put what's being said about this eagerly anticipated chipset in perspective. Thanks Prophet.
• PC Gamer has another Voodoo 2 article called Inside the Voodoo 2 3Dfx -- ahead of the rest? Thanks Prestige (The Sentinel).

Brian Hook Log
An edited log of Brian Hook's IRC appearance last night has been posted on GameGirlz.Com. Here's a quote:

<bhook> Porting: We would like to port to a lot of different operating systems, including BeOS, but this is not a priority for us right now, and hopefully this is something that Zoid will get around to after he's done CTF, etc.
<bhook> Re: 200 player DM game. We would like to test this the next time a big conference happens in town, but right now we haven't tested the full bandwidth of our networking. John will hopefully make some kind of comment about this in a week or so and let everyone know what he's been up to.

Hexen Tools Released - New Hexen Demo
A couple of new Hexen II releases by Activision. For level authors, the Hexen Utilities (3.8 MB) are now available, featuring Hexen II versions of Light, Vis, BSP, and the Hexen II script compiler (including source). While this is an unsupported release, if you find bugs you can email   h2bugs@activision.com (put "H2_Utils" in the subject line). Also an updated version of the Hexen II Demo (14.6 MB) has been released. The new demo, version 1.11, features all the latest updates to the game, and will now allow you to play as any of the four character classes (as opposed to just two in the original demo). The new demo can also attach to multiplayer Hexen II servers running the registered version (and the appropriate levels).

N64 Quake Screenshots
There are some new Quake 64 screenshots in the Quake 64 preview on N64.com.

New Jedi Mat Editor
A new MAT editor, MatMaster (196 KB) was released on DarkJedi.com  which handles some file types that MatEdit does not. Also, JKGob (216 KB), a GOB packaging tool was updated to version 0.2 beta, also at DarkJedi.Com. Thanks Star Wars Gamers.

Kali Obituary
A Computer Games Online article called Kali is Dead, that theorizes free Internet gaming means the end is near for Kali, Jay Cotten's shareware program for playing IPX games over the Internet. Thanks Prophet.

Review
Jedi Knight - Second Opinion has been posted on Games Domain as a follow-up to their Original Review.

Interview
Ex-id Software and current Ensemble Studios designer Sandy Peterson is interviewed on VideoGameDesign.Com. Thanks Prophet.

Competition
The Clan That Runs page has a friendly competition for the best times down each Slide course.

.plans

• id Software's Paul Steed updated his .plan talking about all the animations he's cranked out in the past few days compensating for his recent fit of bacchanalia (being a party animal). He also has some kind words for the character animations on ION's site.
• id programer Brian Hook made a .plan update talking about his IRC interview and his Wednesday Quake II agenda.
• .plan updates by ION Storm's Joey Liaw and Nelno the Amoeba trade abuse about Joey's camera effect written (originally by a certain unicellular organism?) for Anachronox that will now also be featured in Daikatana. I got to see this float cam in action, and it is a breakthrough third person view. By far the best using the Quake engine I've ever seen.
• Process asked me to be sure to mention his .plan update putting out the call for those interested in being part of a Canadian gaming company.

etc.
PC Gamer is hiring, if you think the gaming journalist's life is for you, check out the listings on this page looking for an Assistant Online Editor and an Assistant Disc Editor. Thanks Prophet ... Creative Labs has announced their own Voodoo 2 board according to this article in Next Generation Online. Thanks Hanif ... In the US today is Veteran's day, and it's Remembrance Day in Canada ...

All-Star CTF
All-Star CTF has been released on the All-Star CTF page. This new, all-encompassing CTF variant allows you to play Threewave CTF 3 and 4, ThunderWalker CTF, CTF+, the CTF Expansion Project, Expert CTF, Gatherers CTF, Midnight CTF, and the brand new Xeno CTF using a combined client and a new start map that allows players to choose from 12 separate episodes. Here's the All-Star CTF Client (11.3 MB), and the All-Star CTF Server (4.4 MB). There are further details on how this all works, as well as new distribution zips of all the CTF projects on Dakota's Frontline News.

MacQuake Update
The MacQuake version 1.08.4 updater has been released on MacSoft's page (though I could not log in to their FTP site, and eventually got them on MacQuake Infinity). Here's the standard version (307 KB), the 3Dfx version (322 KB). and the RAVE version (328 KB). Thanks Prophet.

MacFortress
On the subject of MacQuake, Mac Fortress is a resource on how to get TeamFortress Quake working on a Macintosh. Thanks Spaceman Spif (Team Fortress Newswire).

New QPed
Version 2.0 of QPed, the Quake Pak Editor has been released on the QPed page. Thanks Prophet.

IRC Debuts
Another pair of those IRC parties tonight:

• At 9:00 PM Eastern is the debut of All-Star CTF on GamesNet in the #allstar_ctf channel, which will also mark the premier of version 4.0 of ThunderWalker CTF.
• At 10:00 PM Eastern Time GameGirlz.Com celebrates their grand opening with an IRC party featuring id Software's Brian Hook:

Your host for this event will be GameGirlz' Aurora and Planet Quake staff!

Our Special guest will be Brian Hook of id software!  You can pre-submit questions for Brian to: aurora@gamegirlz.com. Make sure you send in the questions as Brian may not have the time to hold an open Q&A session.

We also have some great prizes to give away from ACD Systems (distributors for Worldcraft) and Quantum Axcess (Malice).

IRC SERVERS: irc.planetquake.com, best.3dnet.net, id.3dnet.net IRC CHANNEL: #GameGirlz

Da Pakathon
Fargo, now settling in as the "M" of TeamGameSpy, sends along word of a Da Pakathon, designed to boost the popularity and awareness of DaPak:

GameSpy and PlanetQuake are sponsoring Da Pakathon all this week. This celebration of fraggin' and toe-taggin' centers around "Da Pak," a fine collection of balanced and action-packed DeathMatch levels. Players can download Da Pak from its homepage on PlanetQuake (www.planetquake.com/dapak). I've started a few servers in the PlanetQuake headquarters which should help people on the U.S. West Coast heap on the carnage--just open up GameSpy, log into the PlanetQuake QuakeWorld Master, and search for servers containing the name "Da Pakathon."   Of course, in order to make this event a success, we can't do it alone. All this week we encourage server admins to be a part of the celebration. Download the mod and start up a Da Pak server. We want to have Da Pak servers operating all around the world for the duration of the event--Be sure to include "Da Pakathon" in the server name so that players can see that you're a part of the party. Let's get out of our DM4 rut, give the world's Quake players a little variety, and deathmatch on some of the finest free levels to have ever hit the net!

Remember it's not a promotion, it's a celebration. Hey... rut? What's wrong with DM4??

Tom's 3D Accelerator Review
There is a 3D Graphic Accelerator Review - AGP and PCI cards on Tom's Hardware Guide. Thanks Brass[BC]. On a similar note, loonyboi's new edition of Tech Talk discusses video cards and 3D accelerators for Quake and beyond.

Direct 3D Wrapper
David Springer's Direct 3D Wrapper for Quake version 1.2 has been released. There is an ongoing, but unresolved, dispute in rec.games.programmer as to the origination of this program, as Microsoft has released a D3D wrapper with similar functionality under NDA recently. Thanks Red Knight.

Jedi Blood
John Basener has created the first Blood Patch (1 KB) for Jedi Knight, which creates a small blood spatter when limbs are severed with a light saber. Interestingly, the author says he just enabled an option that LucasArts programmed but apparently decided against implementing in the final game. Thanks JediKnight.Net.

.plan
Brian Hook made a .plan update describing the things he's prodding and tweaking in Quake II.

LAN Party
LAN Parties: Impulse '97 is an upcoming tournament in West Virginia (they've just secured a Pure 3D as a prize), not to be confused with Impulse '97 billed as Melbourne, Australia's largest LAN event ever. On that subject, the Melbourne edition of I97 is holding a map competition, for which only a week remains.

etc.
Canopus has updated their Pure3D FAQ, which is becoming pretty comprehensive. Thanks Prophet ... In stores now: I was in CompUSA over the weekend and saw that the retail version of qED (includes retail qME and qART ) is now on shelves ... A new site devoted to the gaming scene from a female perspective is GameGirlz.com, just open for business  ... The QRally Designer Team has also just opened up, intent on being a prime resource for QuakeRally maps (their first map has been posted). Remember that the PitStop is your prime source of news on QuakeRally ... There are screenshots on Frag.Com of a new 3D game engine called madcow3d that claims to support portals and colored lighting. Thanks Hanif ...

New AirQuake
Test 25 of AirQuake (3.4 MB) has been released on the AirQuake TC Homepage. Here's a quote:

"This update adds a new defense turret, new models for Dogfighter and AMRAAM, and a lot of little code fixes that should make it work more reliably than test 24. Also the Air2 now has more to do in single player, although it still lacks an exit..."

Quake Done 100% Quick
The Quake Done Quick gang, famed for their filmed 16:35 speed run through Nightmare Single player Quake, are at it again, this time putting together a film going through Quake on Nightmare skill getting 100% kills and all the secrets along the way. The final film is being edited over the next few weeks, but in the meantime you can check it out the normal demo (4.0 MB), which is over an hour long.

Zanshin's GameSpot Corrections
Zanshin made an update to the GLQuake Dojo titled Gamespot on Crack, as usual that corrects some mistakes in GameSpot's recent story: Obsidian 50-4440 Quantum 3D's Voodoo Obsession. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

Free UK Dial-Up Quake
There is an article on News From the Front describing a new UK Online Service that provides free games. According to their website, this service from Telinco, a telecommunications company, allows even modem users to get exceptional pings to their Quake servers (presumably on the local subnet), for the cost of a local phone call from anywhere within the United Kingdom. Thanks RawMeat.

.plan
Paul Steed made a .plan update describing further Birthday debauchery (he includes a barbarian photo of himself to keep with the mood. He also describes his work on the Quake II Menu interface and more animation stuff.

Interviews

• There is an interview with id Software's Paul Steed up at Shree-D Buckshot.
• Lead designer on Hexen II, Raven's Eric Biessman is interviewed on VideoGameDesign.com.

LAN Parties
LAN Parties: Someone looking for interest in an event in the Peterbough area of Ontario, Canada.

etc.
The Gamer's Alliance Poll this week asks "What is your opinion of the 3D first person game genre?" ... Slaine has updated the Hexen II Skins Tutorial on HexenWorld with info on how to use current Quake tools on Hexen II skins ... The Definitive UK & Ireland Clan list now lists 100 local UK clans ... Tormented Souls have updated their art page with a new batch of Quake art ... A new Quake II site is on the scene, with a name like Stroggos.Com, it has to be good ...

Quake II FAQ
The Quake II FAQ on Quake 2.com has been updated to version 0.4. A mirror of the FAQ can also be found on tin's QUAKE2 nutshell. Thanks Hanif.

New Holy Wars
Version 1.4 of Holy Wars for Quake the TC that lets you become a Saint, and kill people. To be saved, make a pilgrimage to the Holy Wars page.

Level Design
Part 2 of the feature article on level design on the AVault has been posted, discussing the subject with Levelord, Dr Sleep, Myscha, and Shade. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

New Thunder
Version 0.95b of the Thunder Quake editor has been released on the Thunder page. The new version repairs some bugs from version 0.94b, and now Thunder also includes a texture mapped 3D view.

Competitions

• The TeamFortress SuperBowl is a TeamFortress tournament looking to assemble teams of 15 players from each US State (the tourney is for US residents only) to compete in inter-state matches. They are also looking for team captains. Thanks Someone's Team Fortress.
• There is a HeadHunters Quake tournament set to begin in about a week, sign-ups are taking place right now on the HeadHunter's page. Thanks Hanif.
• The ClanRing's T3 Tourney continues apace, with a high ping semi-final match scheduled for this evening at 9:00 PM Eastern Time followed by a low ping semi at 10:00. Updates, and details on how you can watch the matches live through QuakeTV as well as news and demos from previous matches can all be found on the T3 Tournament page. Thanks Prophet.
• Siren's Pic Page is having a logo contest to find an image that reflect their expansion to cover other first person games besides Quake.

.plans

• Ritual's Gary McTaggart updated his .plan refuting the notion that programmers are "fleeing 3Dfx".
• Id's John Cash made a .plan update with more of his work log.

Reviews

• There is a short review of X-Men Ravages of the Apocolypse on HotGames.
• I think everyone in Dallas saw Starship Troopers last night, if you want to read about a half dozen reviews, check out last night's .plan updates over at QuakeFinger (Siskel&EbertFinger?).

Interviews

• CyberAthlete organizer Angel Muñoz is interviewed on (his) Avault, discussing The FRAG and the concept of cyber-athletics.
• Da Pak author Dennis "Headshot" Kaltwasser is interviewed on Ramshackle.

Movements

• Prey Pages has moved to preypages.questgate.net.
• The Intended Effects (formerly known as Reign's 3D Gaming Studio) has moved to intended.questgate.net.

Departments

• LAN Parties: A large LAN party next weekend at Penn State University.

• Want Ads: Updated.

etc.
PC Gamer took 3Dfx up on that offer to come out for a hands-off first look at the Voodoo 2, and Inside the Voodoo 2 is their report on what they saw. Thanks Billy "Birthday Boy" Wilson (Voodoo Extreme) ... Oh, yeah, see previous nickname, it's Billy Wilson's Birthday today. His partner Alex "Sharky" Ross says he's 50 ... There is a review of those cooling fans for 3Dfx cards, which are designed for Voodoo overclocking (which of course, 3Dfx recommends against) on PsychoNews. Thanks Prophet ...  The Quake Prefab Park is now home to more than 150 pre-built structures that Quake authors can freely use in their levels ... There's an interesting article in GameCenter called The Real Problem With Online Gaming (thanks Prophet) that is hard to argue with. I have one word for the author: GameSpy (or is that two words?), though that certainly won't help him with Command and Conquer ... Things I keep forgetting to mention Department: Yes, JUDGECAL canceled last Thursday's QuakeCast, I'll let you know when I know what the deal is (I'm sorry I forgot to post that Thursday night). I also keep meaning to mention the Quake rc5 Cracking Team who have taken up the 64 bit encryption cracking challenge (the 56 bit version was recently cracked. Thanks Moebius ... Free enterprise at work Department: RAQS Rent A Quake Server ('nuff said) ...