Articles in the archive contain broken links
because outdated files are removed.
- Quake CD Crack
It has come to my attention that the inevitable has happened, and that
someone has developed a program to "crack" the encrypted CD allowing
installation of the registered Quake. I just need to express my anger over this. I know
this point will be lost on those who should most learn it, but I've gotta be me:
id Software is one of the coolest and most open companies I have ever heard of. Their
shareware model is remarkable... how many companies do you think would implement Quake's
net code in a shareware game? Not many. How many companies would include the server
software with the shareware? Right again. Not many. They have always gone out of their way
to be as open as practically possible, almost invariable avoiding the "stick it to
the customer" mentality that pervades the world today. I am a huge fan of the product
these guys make, and the way they go about things (which is one of the main reasons I do
what I do with this site...). Please do not support the behavior of those who are doing
wrong by our friends at id.
As Mike Wilson said when I wrote asking how best to proceed with this story, he
replied:
"We think it's wrong, and we would like to ask all those
on the net who consider us to be friends and would like us to keep doing what we do to
hinder it's spreading wherever possible."
Which is the point, really. Supporting this kind of behavior puts id's ability to
continue to try and serve our needs at risk. We shouldn't allow this to happen.
If someone tries to give me some pirate's rationale for this behavior, I'll go medieval
on their ass... if you are going to write defending this "crack," save us both a
step and write yourself a response telling yourself to screw off and sign my name... then
you won't have to bother sending it.
OTOH, if you have any information that can help find the identity of the author of this
program, or are aware of any FTP web sites (I guess that should be sitez, right d00dz?)
that carry it, please pass that information along. I have some friends who would be
interested (id, the SPA, my posse...). Thanks.
- Carmack on QuakeWorld and Lag
Saw this on sCary's Quakeholio
(yes I did call sCary a wise-guy, and no court in the
world would convict me of slander), it's an email response from John Carmack to Richard
Davis "[MeNTaL]" answering his questions about lag:
The modem play will get somewhat better with some of the
QuakeWorld techniques (not as much better as the 'net play will get, though, because one
of the big improvements relies on having a dedicated server).
I am probably also going to add a "fair lag"
feature that will buffer the server's input to make the lag even for both parties.
John Carmack
I'm psyched about the "fair lag" modem mode. When he said he might, I
stressed what a good idea I felt it was.
- Free Skins!
Also from the Quakeholio (okay, so he's a wise-guy with an informative website <g>),
that sCary's received an offer from a graphic artist who'll do Clan Skins for free! If you
think you can raise that kind of capital go to sCary's
and check out the details...
- I Hate When That Happens
I haven't been able to hit Redwood's
site again today. When I wrote to ask what was up, he said that he was looking into it,
and he was obviously frustrated. I've been through the same thing myself (during the Panix
denial of service attacks), so he has my heartfelt sympathies. Hang in there Sean...
- 3D Blaster
I found this on Stomped. I hope it
isn't a sign that we're not going to see the 3D Blaster in stores for a while that Creative's website has this My 3D Blaster
experience first hand account up on their website. It jibes with what I saw of it,
except perhaps for this bit of extreme hyperbole from the end:
"The increased frame rate/resolution with a 3D Blaster
has given me a significant advantage and I have zoomed up the QUAKE rankings. Ha! Now my
opponents can’t keep up with me and I even run rings around them before taking them
out with my trusty axe! QUAKE will never be the same without my 3D Blaster!"
A killing machine thanks to the 3D Blaster. With the axe, no less.
- Up the Walnut Creek?
Eventually raised yesterday was the question of whether Walnut
Creek (cdrom.com) was honoring id's copyrights (or wishes) in issuing a CD containing
3rd party Quake maps (which contain id copyrighted textures, specifically illegal to
distribute for profit). After sending off a pair of emails, I received the following
responses from id. First Mike Wilson reaffirming id's policy:
"All I can say right now, on advice of our attorneys, is
that nobody can legally move our copyrighted material (i.e. textures) in a commercial
environment. Period. Nobody."
Second from Jay Wilbur confirming that Walnut Creek has not acquired permission to do
this:
"I have not had any significant discussions with the
folks at Walnut Creek and really should not comment about any possible legal action we may
or may not take regarding these situations."
I'm pretty sure this is an oversight on Walnut Creek's part. My guess is they assumed
these maps were like Doom wads as far as legality of distribution (but I'm just ignorantly
speculating). I'd also really hate bad blood emerge between these two companies
because of the service cdrom.com provides Quake players. Especially looking forward,
knowing how large Quake map files are, and knowing there's over a gig of Doom stuff on
cdrom.com (and Doom wads are comparatively tiny).
- RockwestHQ Revival
The too-popular for its own good Rockwest QuakeQuarters nightly RealAudio show, Quake-Net Radio, is back
on-line, but we've got an ][ronman situation here (boss doesn't like the bandwidth
busting), so they're looking for a mirror site. Anyone interested in helping should
contact Al Dzurka.
You can't make this stuff up.
I saw the CD in a CompUSA today... they go to great pains to stress that you're not
paying for the levels, but for the effort they went to, and that they are in no way
affiliated with id Software. There is also no trace of their origination. More as it
comes...
- Clarification
Just to be clear, nobody said they didn't like the spinning paper .gif
(well, except for a certain wise-guy webmaster). However, there were many that didn't like
it in the upper left hand corner in place of the globe (where I had it this morning).
Also, I am a HUGE Giant's fan, the punter reference was a joke.
- Michael Abrash's .plan
Stop the presses! Not to be outdone, Michael Abrash also updated his .plan:
Doug McCreary wrote to tell me my .plan file was out of date
and I should update it. Now it's updated :)
Thanks for the heads-up to Shawn "mooD
doG" Crain.
- American's .plan
Thanks to Shawn Lander (wasn't he
the punter for the Giants?) for pointing out that American has updated his .plan:
If I had something interesting to
say I would put it here for you
to see.
KC :)
Oh, I know someone who can make custom
skins for people. If anyone out there is
interested let me know. He charges $10
and hour for this service... and he is
*really* good. (normal skin is about 4~5
hours)
Do you think he wraps his updates at half a screen to make up for the fact that
Carmack's updates contain no carriage returns at all?
- Sorry...
Man were people annoyed by the placement of the spinning paper (which I
really like) in place of the globe... hope it's better now.
- Settle Down, Blue
I received an email from Joost
Schuur pointing out I had gone a little overboard harshing on Walnut Creek,
(cdrom.com). He makes a very valid point (and I always have been a fan of the service
Walnut Creek provides)... I'll try to settle down...
i thought i should clear something up about the walnut creek
quake toolkit cd. i believe you're judging some of the manufacturers of cdrom's too harsh.
consider the size of ftp.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2 (150 megs already) and how long it would
take some people to download everything.
i recently spoke with someone at walnut creek about their
cdrom policy and they assured me that all files are checked by hand for permission by the
author to include them on such cds. the quake toolkit cd is not a mere 'mirror dump' of
/pub/idgames2. i can only urge everyone not to hesitate in uploading your quake related
files to ftp.cdrom.com. you are not being ripped of. think of the huge exposure your works
get. tens of thousands of files are downloaded every single day from /pub/idgames2 alone.
walnut creek doesn't commercially exploit people. they're a
professional and honest company, but also have costs to pay for their huge network
bandwidth and equipment. consider the situation if there was no central idgames2 archive.
they offer practically unlimited bandwidth and huge amounts of drive space, something no
other quake web site can offer (even stomped and canvasnet). i like to think i run a damn
fine archive there and do this so that avid gamers all over can find all the quake files
they've been looking for in one central spot. i neither get paid for this, nor do i work
for walnut creek myself btw.
- Actura Update
Dale J Bertheola (midiguy) wrote id
Software's Mike Wilson asking about id's position on this seedy CD company. Mike's
response was short and sweet:
"we're already going after them... we'll keep you
posted"
- Technical Difficulties
Thanks to Monty Gonzales aka FRAGaLOT for finding
out from the host of the RockwestHQ show
that they will be down for about 48 hours, as the system gets a new upgrade to increase
bandwidth.
Also, Redwood's is down for the moment (as is
Tamu's Quake Server, since they're the same machine). Why do I include hyper-links in a
story about down sites? I don't know, I'm an idiot I figure...
October 9th
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Welcome to Blue's News
|
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- CNET
Thanks to Red October for
pointing out there's a bunch of Quake stuff in CNET,
but they're not seeming too with it (except for their Dank & Scud profile, which earns
taste points to make up for its lack of timeliness)... according to today's article
"The most recent news of interest is the release of version 1.06 of Quake..."
which, of course, was a week ago today.
Also, you don't need to reinstall Quake 1.01 from the CD "In order to get the full
benefit of the patch..." as the article asserts. They've misinterpreted the
instruction that since there is no patch to upgrade from version 1.05 (because it was an
unsupported beta), you need to reinstall 1.01 to upgrade to 1.06 only if you've installed
version 1.05.
They also have proof of Quake II's progress. As they point out: "In fact,
gamecenter even has a screen shot of one of the game's levels for proof." I just dug
through the archives (woke up the newsroom librarian
and everything) to see that it was September 29th when that screenshot was first
released... *sigh*
Anybody who buys one of these things, please contact me about paying for your Blue's
News subscription...
- Quest's Level Contest
Quest is having a level contest (and you don't even have to use
Quest) with cash prizes ($500 for 1st, $200 for 2nd, and $100 for 3rd). The whole thing is
"in conjunction with a national CD ROM publisher," which is obviously geared
towards ultimately selling, guess what? A CD-ROM with the levels on it... but they're
obviously also being quite a bit more up front about it than those Actura Software
weasels.
- Actura Weasels
Oh yeah, speaking of these dirtballs, their distributor seems to be Digital
Entertainment as you can see from this lookup, but it is about
all you can see, as evidenced by all the blanks. Following another link to the game leads to a phone
number in Minnesota. I called the number, but the name of the company on the answering
machine is already different... can you say fly by night? Thanks to Foo Bar for those
links, and Charon for pointing out the one I messed up (now fixed).
Rest assured there are a lot of people trying to dig up an address for all you eager
would-be mailbombers to target...
Joost Schuur of the late lamented Aftershock, and maintainer of the id archives at
cdrom.com (which makes him savvy to Copyright issues) points out that what these guys are
doing is completely illegal on another front:
something neither you nor the stomped article mentioned is
that it's actually illegal to publish any levels using id's textures, since they do not
come with a license to redistribute them. the license texts that come with the game
clearly state that you cannot commercially exploit id's graphics (and each level comes
with it's own set of textures, unlike doom levels did). the only levels you could
redistribute are those that use none of id's textures whatsoever.
- We've Moved
But I guess you knew that already. Yep, bluesnews.com (I'm gonna just start calling the
site Blue's News). You may recall a while back I was worrying aloud on these pages about
the dangers of a personal home page growing too large and collapsing. Well, thanks to the
efforts of Mike and Brian at Fluxx
Designs who worked out a deal to use the hosting services of the fine folks at Digiweb, our new home is born. The guys at Fluxx are
going to help this site move forward and continue to grow and improve (Brian programmed my
CGI finger scripts, for instance) and their assistance already is greatly appreciated.
Things should be familiar for now, but changes are coming. For instance, I finally have
room for large files locally, so look for the files area, formerly neglected, to come to
life. Also, please make use of the following new email address: blue@bluesnews.com.
In case you haven't seen it yet, Quake made this week's Time
magazine. In the technology section was a two page article entitled "Fun and Games in
Cyberspace." All the pictures are from Quake and the beginning is a description of
Quake. There's not much real info though, and it mistates things like "last month's
roll-out of Quake World" (I wish) and "Up to eight people can play at
once." Oh well, the article looks nice anyway.
- QHQ's Screenshot Contest
QHQ has narrowed the screenshot
submissions for their contest down to ten, now it's up to the voting public to pick the
winner. The screenshot page is set up
so you can easily for your favorite.
BTW, that RealAudio broadcast on RockwestHQ
starts at 10 PM EDT.
- QuMa
Okay, I guess I was the last guy to hear about QuMa (even the MSN
Games forum knew--see my new mailbag, if you care).
But I'm doing my homework at Quake
Level Editing News, reading the detailed QuMa review there (as well as an in-depth
Thred review, but that I've heard of already...). Sorry about my bad link to the site
earlier, BTW, it's fixed now, if you went there before and got an FTP directory...
- New Winded Released
Large thanks to Sean
"Redwood" Martin for forwarding along the word as he received it from
Michael Abrash about the new Windows Dedicated Server:
"I just uploaded a new winded (still version 1.06,
but a new exe) to our ftp site. The only change is that it does a Sleep(1) instead of
sleeping half the remaining time until the next server slot, which causes the new winded
to suck up a lot less CPU time than the old one on NT 3.51. It shouldn't make any
difference on any other platform."
- New Capture the Flag
Dave 'Zoid' Kirsch has released version 2.2 of his insanely popular
teamplay patch on his server's page. Read what's new. Dave has also opened another server
running the Capture the Flag patch at quake2.threewave.com (204.191.124.67) because his
original CTF server, quake.threewave.com (204.191.124.66) is always full.
- They Come Crawling Out of
the Woodwork
Y'know god forbid the internet community can do right by each other before
some bastard in a suit comes by and starts trying to exploit a few dollars out of it. I
just received mail from the guys over at Stomped.
Check out their What's New page, for
details about this, but basically some jerks at a company Actura Software have issued a
disk called "Eternal Darkness: 100 New Levels For Quake," which contains, yep,
100 new levels for Quake. The problem is, these are just readily available maps from the
Internet which have been compiled without the authors' permission! In fact,
according to Stomped, the text files that originally accompanied the maps have been edited
or deleted to remove any mention of the map's authorship at all!!
Normally I would allow anyone dumb enough to pay $30 for a disk of levels they could
download for free, the freedom to be so stupid. But considering the devious nature of the
way these guys are doing business, I really urge everyone to avoid this product (and this
company, for that matter) like the plague. Besides, it's been a while since we've had a
good boycott around here...
- What is QuakeWorld
I have wanted to write a little explanation of QuakeWorld for a while,
because I get a lot of questions about it, and I realize it's kind of spread throughout
the musty archives of these pages. I've been putting it off because I keep thinking the
client will be released and make an explanation moot, but so far, no good.
So in an effort to get QuakeWorld released (in the same way lighting a cigarette makes
the bus arrive), here's blue's QuakeWorld in a
nutshell.
- CNET Editor Profile
As part of their "Dirty Dozen" something or other, there's a CNET spot on Thred and
QuMa (please tell me I'm not the only one who's never heard of QuMa before). The blurb
is basically devoid of content (unless you call "a very nice Quake editor, with all
the major functions" a review). I think it's just a ploy to get mentioned on this
page 
- PC Magazine MultiPlayer Game Reviews
When I got to back to the office today (last week's stay in the south is a
fading memory) I found the most recent PC Magazine's After Hours section contains reviews
of all the main commercial MultiPlayer networks. Here from PC
Magazine Online are their reviews of multiplayer games: Two or More is War, and the
individual networks: DWANGO, Kali, MPath, and TEN.
- SpaceOrb on GameSpot
GameSpot has an article on the Spacetec SpaceOrb 360 (the controller that American
raved about a while back), which points out that the product's Quake driver has been
released.
- New RealAudio Quake Show
I just received word that they're planning a nightly RealAudio broadcast
on RockwestHQ. Apparently this one is going
to attempt a radical departure into the world of content(!), so it might be worth checking
out. They "hope" to get it on the air by 10 PM EDT.
Additionally I was cc'ed on an email from Prince Mystery to Oatmeal, addressing whether
his report on Hexen 2
represented misinformation, or misunderstandings. I have to say I agree with Myst, that
discrepancies between what they both were told are reconcilable, and additionally,
Oatmeal's tone and approach to this is unnecessarily adversarial (and to some degree, a
bit nasty).
- Beware the 'Bots
Thanks to ace unpaid informant gorilla
for pointing out that there's a new QuakeBot page working towards
creating client side 'bots. They plan on keeping the source code freely available to
further development.
- TIE Fighter
Jim Lowell of the Thred Homepage has posted a few screenshots
of a cool yet-to-be-released map (made by Micah Bird
using Thred) that contains a Star Wars TIE Fighter! Check these out (re-posted with Jim's
permission):
Click an image to see it full size
Now that's a map I want to see. Now we've gotta talk to the Quake Command boys about getting it off the ground.
- etc.
Tim Willits finally updated his .plan file,
saying he'd update his .plan file soon. Uh, thanks Tim (and thanks Havoc for the tip) ... There's
an add-your-own-message Quake Forum on Seismic Spew (thanks to Brian A. Thomas of Brian's Quake Page for the word).
- Capture The Flag 2.1
Newly released Capture
The Flag 2.1 is Quake 1.06 compatible and contains a few tweaks (e.g.,
grappling teammmates) and minor bug fixes.
Also if you are running a public server with Capture the Flag on it, or know of one,
please send the server's address to patch author Dave
'Zoid' Kirsch, so he can put a list of CTF servers up on the home page.
- Gibs and Jizz
sCaryname's back from Tampa, and he's
brought back some new demos (Gibs 18-22 and Jizz 4 & 5). Pop some popcorn, curl up
with a loved one, and view some carnage. On the Quakeholio.
- TermQuake Feedback
Since QuakeX's TermQuake
Weapons pack is now being tested by a couple of servers, Whaleboy is hoping for some feedback on how well
they're working so far. Read about the TermQuake weapons, and where you
can play them, and if you have played with them, please drop him a line...
- Tom Hall Interview
Gamespot has an interview with Tom Hall
late of Apogee and id, talking about reuniting with Romero and lots of other stuff. His
take on Prey versus Quake doesn't make it sound like much of a contest at this point:
"The Prey engine wasn't done when I left, but it was
turning out pretty cool. Quake is a little prettier. Our editor was a lot faster. Their
engine was a lot faster. Our paradigm allowed a much more dynamic environment. We'll see
what happens. We're looking at all possibilities for licensing engines, not just
Quake."
Okay, Quake is faster and prettier, but Prey's editor is faster, and you can shoot the
toilets. (I'm just playing... it's not fair to compare with an unfinished game.)
- The Adventures of Dank and Scud
I fired off an email to Michael Houston, the
author of the coolest comic going, The
Adventures of Dank and Scud, to find out when we should expect issue #2. He tells me a
couple of panels are done, and that he's shooting for mid-October, but can't guarantee it.
The emphasis is on quality rather than quantity, so just like the three page issue one,
future issues will be small for a shorter interval between episodes.
- Impulse 1
Impulse 1 is code in quake
for the axe and it's also the name of a new site run by Toby Goldstone (author of the Unofficial
Quake FAQ). Toby's knowledge of the game and attention to detail are evident to anyone who
has read his FAQ, so it's no surprise that his site has already come together nicely.
- WorldCraft Last Night(ish)?
When I was looking over Impulse
1 I noticed that Toby had word from Ben Morris that the next release of WorldCraft
would be released tonightish (which would have been last night). I guess that means it
will be soon(ish).
- QHQ Screenshots Contest Ending
QHQ's screenshot contest submission deadline is
today.Check their What's Shakin' page
for the latest. The top two screenshots will win id merchandise.
- etc.
Automatically upload your own Quake reviews and articles
to Quake Central via the Quake
Exchange Java app (maybe someone can help with that giant graphic while they're there).
- MacQuake
Next Generation has
a spot on MacQuake which
says "A Mac version of Quake could be available as early as
March next year." Though they also say "...Lion,
which is converting Id's PC hit, won't be drawn on a specific launch date..." Thanks
Jason Bergman, though I now see Redwood had
this last night (even though it's dated today--weird).
- BSP Alpha 0.44
Released this morning. Find it on their Homepage. Thanks to Havoc for the tip.
- QuakeWorld Delay in Carmack's .plan
John Carmack refers to the reasons for QuakeWorld's delay in his latest
.plan. Thanks to Nick Rigby for the word:
Oct 5:
Developing for windows is not fun. We are having a lot of
trouble getting good solid compatability across all the systems we are testing on.
When it works right, it just pops right into full screen mode
with sound and network just like the dos version, but we are still chasing problems on
several systems. Sigh.
- QuakeLab
The QuakeLab is back
on track. Expect several updates this weekend.
- QuakeBBS
Donovan C. Young aka Conqueror
has released a beta of his eagerly (by me at least) QuakeBBS software:
In case you don't know (*sigh*) QuakeBBS is a Quake server
front end for linux (working on a port to NT, but not available yet). It allows server
admins to control who connects to their servers and it provides a server front-end for
users where they can meet before playing and chat or set up teams or whatever. If the
server is full, they are automatically added to the waiting queue and notified when a spot
comes available.
You can get more information from the QuakeBBS homepage.
- Seismic Spew
What else but Quake could a site with the name (yes I forgot the URL the
first time, sorry...) Seismic Spew be
about? (Rhetorical question, please don't email responses--yech!) And a cool one it is;
the site's maintainer has been working hard to
make everything top notch.. The graphics on the main page are pretty hefty, but worth the
load time, they're beautifully done. With files and news to start with, and the promise of
more to come.
-
Quake and the
stylized "Q" are trademarks of id Software, used with
their kind permission
All rights reserved. Copyright © 1996 by Stephen Heaslip |
