Articles in the archive contain broken links because outdated files are removed.
| Friday, October 31, 1997 |
Boo!
Hope I didn't scare you. Happy Halloween. I'm getting ready to Jet off to The FRAG. I
believe the net connection to update from there is available, but you never know. Either
way, have a great weekend.
Gamer's Guide
I am very proud to announce that Blue's News is now the home of the Gamer's Guide (formerly the QNG). The guide, consisting of the Quake
Newbie Guide, created by Darren "Dakota" Tabor; QuakEncyclopedia, created by
Andrew "Kolinahr" Wu; and Who's Who in 3D, also created by Andrew
"Kolinahr" Wu represent the finest resource available to try and keep up with
the people places and jargon of this community. This does not represent a foray into the
muddy (and often bloody) waters of site hosting at this time, is is a singular event
representing the addition of a site integral to what Blue's News tries to accomplish. I'd
like to thank Dakota and Kolinahr for their hard work in preparing for this move, and
welcome them aboard.
Future versus Fantasy 3.9
Future versus Fantasy 3.9, called the Monsters Test (perfect for Halloween) is out
on the FvF Page along with screenshots and full
descriptions of what's new. The new release uses 100% custom models and sounds, and seven
new monsters completely replacing the original Quake monsters.
New Open GL Driver For PowerVR
Vik Long sent along the newest Open GL drivers
(82 KB) to use with the Quake II demo on PowerVR cards (such as the Matrox m3D and
VideoLogic Apocalypse 3Dx). Here's the scoop:
For the proper operation of the GL driver, you MUST start the game with q2test.exe +gl_monolightmap 0f (that's "zero f") for color lighting; Or, if you prefer mono lighting effects, start the game with q2test.exe +gl_monolightmap 1f (that's "one f")
Cyberathletes Announce CPL
The Cyberathletes have announced the formation of a new league, the CPL. Here's an except
from the press release:
The Cyberathlete(tm) Organization, the first professional computer gamers
organization in the world, announced today the formation of a new gamers
league called the Cyberathletic Professional League or CPL(tm). The CPL
will introduce a new Cyberathletic ranking system and will oversee all
Cyberathletic tournaments and events. The first CPL tournament will take
place in Dallas, Texas on March 6th, 1998 and will attract approximately
2,000 computer game players from all over the world. This tournament will
have total cash prizes of about $50,000, in addition to other prizes like
computers systems, computer peripherals and game software.The CPL tournaments will be regulated by the newly appointed CPL Board of Directors that will consist of the following industry experts:
John Romero, Founder - ION Storm
Mike Wilson, CEO - ION Storm
Harry Miller, CEO - Ritual Entertainment
Frank Cabanski, Director - Quake ClanRing
Mike Wardwell, Athletic Director - Cyberathlete Organization
Level Designer - Ritual EntertainmentThe Cyberathlete web site at http://www.cyberathlete.com will be completely
revised to include a new CPL section and other new additions..
Ultimate QuakeRally Demo
There is a new variant on Quake Rally in the
works called Ultimate Quake Rally.
Ridah has released an AVI demo (1.1 MB)
showing off some of the features of the new version, described thusly:
Ultimate Rally contains an entirely new set of classy sports, off-road and specialty vehicles, utilizing the advanced vehicle physics engine used in Quake Rally. Each vehicle has been fine tuned to behave exactly as they do in real life, to create the ultimate driving experience. Ultimate Rally also includes a reworked control system, designed to please beginners and experienced QR fans alike.
10 Runes CTF
From the makers of Kill the Llama, comes 10
Runes CTF. As well as providing more runes, this mod allows each player to carry up to
two runes at once.
Clan Arena Fix
There is a file up on the Rocket Arena
page that server operators must download and install in order to implement the Clan
Arena variant of Rocket Arena.
.plans and Censorship
There is an editorial about
.plan file censorship up on the The Quake
Literary Guild.
.plans
Interview
Competitions
Movement
Jagged's Quake Movie Reviews has relocated to www.warzone.com/qmovies/.
Departments
etc.
Couple of follow-ups: I referred to the
translation of Blue's News into an Asian Language on Legacy World the other day, and a few
people were nice enough to inform me that it is Japanese. Also, I mentioned that apparently
a Monster 3D will work in a Macintosh for GLQuake, and the answer is it definitely will,
as I heard from several people who do so (though it is pointed out that this does not
qualify as a "Macintosh sale" for those trying to support their faltering
platform) ... Log Parser of the Day is QLog:
there's a new version on the QLog page.
Thanks Prophet ...
| Thursday, October 30, 1997 |
StormFront & QuakeCast
Tonight we have another edition of StormFront at 8:00 PM, followed by
QuakeCast at 8:30 PM, all times Eastern. As always, RealPlayer,
and probably an odd sense of humor required. Our guest on StormFront tonight is
artist Bryan Pritchard. On QuakeCast we have
Zoid, Shane Rudolph from D3mag.com, and Andrew
Sturgeon to talk about college for video game designers.
New VQuake
Hot on the heels of the lengthy post mentioned earlier about Vérité Quake comes a
release of a new version. Here's beta 1 of VQuake 1.08
(259 KB), as described in this message board post
by author Stefan Podell. Thanks David McKean.
Here's what's new:
This VQuake release is a small upgrade. Everything in whatever previous readme you have is probably still true. This release simply adds one new setting.
r_surfacelookup (default 1, enabled)
Disabling r_surfacelookup will make the CPU perform the 8 to 16 bit conversion step for texture maps instead of the Verite. On faster CPUs this can increase performance. Results also depend on what resolution you choose. In other words, your mileage may vary.
Half-Life Monster of the Week
OGR has posted this week's edition of
the Half-Life monster of the week, taking a loving look at the head crab. No word yet
on the special soap power-up used to defend against them though. Thanks Joel Gabel.
Daikatana Screenshot of the Day
OGR also has today's exclusive Daikantana Screenshot of
the day online.
FRAG Update
Polish passes along word for attendees of The FRAG,
that the event will now take place in The Annex Room, rather than room #7001, as
originally planned.
QuakeFinder Released
Version 1.0 of QuakeFinder Scott
Kevill's server browser program (a la GameSpy), designed for the Macintosh has been
released on Scott's MacQuake Utilities.
Available as a MacBinary (345 KB) or BinHexed (468 KB).
QuakeWorld on MPlayer
MPlayer is now the first of the commercial online
services to offer QuakeWorld.
Vérité Performance Discussion
There is a lengthy, but quite interesting post by Stefan (maybe I should use a .plan file)
Podell on this message board called The VQuakeVHexen2 Engine
performance explained (I hope... ) that goes into detail on how Stefan, Walt Donovan,
and Michael Abrash managed to squeeze the kind of performance they did out of Vérité
accelerated Quake. The post also discusses why VQuake and VHexen II performance on the
Vérité 2200/2100 will not stand out versus performance on the V1000 until a native 2x00
version (in the works) is available. Thanks Weiman.
N64 Quake
There are some first impressions of Quake
for the Nintendo 64 up on N64.com. Thanks The Hound.
Editor Releases
Ooops, need to play catch-up on a couple of recent Quake editor updates:
Competitions
A few competitions, including a couple of those map contests (troubling because the prizes
are usually less than a company would pay a contractor for a map. On the other hand, most
map authors never make a dime, so...):
Interview
The first in Bakshra's series
of interviews with the Hexen II creators is up at HexenWorld,
as he discusses life, games, and claims that the final boss in H2 was a snail with Mike "CHAO" Werckle.
Previews/Reviews
Movement
Medusa's Candid QuakeWorld Camera page has moved to http://www.gibbed.com/medusa/.
Departments
etc.
If you are having trouble reaching JediKnight.Net,
you can use the IP address (http://209.3.106.157/),
until your DNS catches up with their server switch ... Better late than never, Mike Thacker points out that he was the six millionth visitor (back in the good old days
when the counter here worked) ... Image of the day
is from last night's South Park. that's right, it's CrackWhore magazine (57 KB)! Thanks Bryan Stephens ...
| Wednesday, October 29, 1997 |
Two Jedi Strategy Sequels
Part Two of PC Games' Jedi Knight Review/Strategy
Guide, covering the Dark Side of the Force is now online. Thanks Prophet. Also, Part Two of Gamesmania's extensive Jedi Knight Strategy
Guide is up. Thanks JediKnight.Net.
Zoid on GL Bug and QW Cheats
Zoid made a lengthy .plan update describing a sprite bug in the new GLQuake that
he should have a fix for within a few days, and goes into detail about some of the
anti-cheating measures in the new QuakeWorld (and their shortcomings) and his feelings
about cheats in general. He also mentions he is almost done with GLQuake and Q2Test for
Linux.
Broken Finger
Paul Steed's latest .plan updates detail a problem he (and Disruptor)
had with the profanity filter on QuestGate's new QuestFinger, which has subsequently been taken
down for a revamp.
Interviews
Daikatana Screenshot
The exclusive
Daikantana Screenshot of the day is up on OGR.
Clan Arena
Clan Arena has been released on the Rocket
Arena page. This is a server-side patch (clients can use the standard Rocket Arena
client pak), that allows Rocket Arena support for three new modes: Normal, Competition,
and Round Robin, with variable number of players and teams - (2v2 or 1v1v1 or 3v3v3v3, or
any other variation).
SlaughteRama
SlaughteRama is a new mod that pits one against many in a simple, but interesting twist
(usually the best kind). More details, including the small client download and locations
of servers are on the SlaughteRama
page.
CGW Does Dallas
There is an article up
on Computer Gaming World describing their roadtrip though Dallas that took them to ION
Storm, id Software, 3D Realms, and Ritual. Thanks Hanif.
MacQuake on a Monster 3D?
According to Webintosh, Diamond is working on
drivers to allow general use of Diamond Monster 3D
cards in PCI based Macintoshes. Apparently, the Monster will work fine for the Mac version
of GLQuake already(?), and what needs to be worked out is support for everything else,
according to this quote from the Monster 3D FAQ
(thanks sCreeD):
"Quickdraw3D Rave and Glide drivers for Voodoo Graphics on PCI-based PowerMACs are under development. Stay tuned for more information on this."
Previews/Reviews
Movement
The MarTim homepage (3D game level builders) has moved to home.pi.net/~roeltiem/.
Departments
etc.
Requiem sent along a Requiem clarification for
people (like myself) confused by whether Requiem 2.0, available on the Requiem page, is a client patch or not (the
site brags it is both a server-only patch, and also that it has new sounds and models).
The answer is you can connect with or without that pak on the client end and still play,
you just miss the sounds, models, etc, if you go without the pak ... MacUnreal
news: There is now a Mac Unreal page
up at the Org. Thanks Prophet
... Happy belated Birthday to ION Storm's
John Romero, who turned the big three-oh yesterday. Thanks Prophet ... Be afraid, Lone^Wolf
is at it again with his new humor site, Shree-D Buckshot, currently featuring an
"interview" with an official of the USMC ... I got a link yesterday that was so off-topic, but so worthy of sharing, that I did
something stupid that I've been considering for a while. If you are so inclined, you can
check out my "make believe .plan file"
(it's just an HTML page), where I'll put stuff like that ... Sound
of the Day is a reprise of Robin
William's Late Show appearance in .mp3 format, which makes it only 89KB. Thanks AIron/Phase^D ... This is the first
I've seen of this: thanks to BlackLight for
somehow digging up the link to an image that lead me to discover Legacy World, apparently a translation of
Blue's News into some Asian language, as demonstrated by this Image du Jour (89 KB) ...
| Tuesday, October 28, 1997 |
New
GLQuake & QuakeWorld
Version 2.1 of QuakeWorld (1.7 MB,
includes GameSpy 1.01) as well as version 0.96 of GLQuake (381 KB), which
includes a new and improved GL miniport, have been released by id Software, as detailed in
this email from Zoid:
QuakeWorld 2.1 (in several client and server versions), GLQuake 0.96 and Regular Quake clients for Sun Solaris Sparc Stations and X11 under Linux have been released tonight.
QuakeWorld 2.1 is mostly just a maintenance release that addresses a few bugs that appeared in 2.0. It also has a full installer for Windows 95/NT that 2.0 did not include.
GLQuake 0.96 features a new GL miniport for 3DFX VooDoo chipsets that improves speed a bit. It also has a new user friendly installer. The new Sun Solaris clients for Quake and QuakeWorld appear with the cooperation of Sun Microsystems.
The new X11 versions of Quake and Quakeworld for Linux offer a new avenue of play under the Linux operating system.
I hope everyone enjoys this new release.
GLQuake 0.96
Regular Quake for Linux ELF 2.0 with X11
Regular Quake for Sun Solaris Sparc Workstations
QuakeWorld 2.1 for Windows 95/NT, with GameSpy
QuakeWorld 2.1 server for Windows 95/NT
QuakeWorld 2.1 Client for Sun Solaris Sparc Workstations
QuakeWorld 2.1 SVGALib (Console) Client for Linux ELF 2.0
QuakeWorld 2.1 X11 Client for Linux ELF 2.0
QuakeWorld 2.1 Server for BSDI BSD/OS 3.0
QuakeWorld 2.1 Server for Linux ELF 2.0
QuakeWorld 2.1 Server for Sun Solaris 2.5.1 on Sparc platforms
X-Men
TC Demo Update
A demo (8.7 MB) of the commercial Quake TC: X-Men
Ravages of the Apocalypse, has been released on the Marvel Interactive page. Thanks _Nuclear_. Here are some other download locations
(thanks Rumble):
Local (Blue's News)
Frag.Com
Zero Gravity
www.access.digex.net/~beetlo/xmendemo.exe
www.bushido-dojo.com
Marvel (Slow)
Canada
Daikatana Shot o' The Day
OGR has posted their exclusive Daikantana Screenshot of
the day.
Playstation Quake Revival
There is an article on
Next-Generation Online revealing that GT Interactive has announced that the once-dead
PlayStation Quake conversion has been revived. Thanks loonyboi.
Unreal Poll
UnrealNation has opened up a weekly automated opinion poll. Thanks Prophet.
Finger Service
QuestGate has started their own web-based finger
tracking service called QuestFinger.
Brown Out
There's an article
on bootNET describing the impact of Quake II Demo downloads as causing an Internet
brown out. I saw that on Redwood's. The article
is actually a bit inaccurate in dramatically describing Blue's News and PlanetQuake as
being inaccessible for days after the demo's release. As you probably know, PlanetQuake
was in the midst of recovering from a hard disk failure at the time. As for this site, and
the odd error messages it has an annoying tendency to display at times, they are are
script errors. This is true even with the http: 1.0 "Server too Busy" messages
(making Redwood's supposition that using HTTP transfers as the root of the problem
innacurate as well): you'll notice when this occurs the server is not to busy to serve the
menu bar and pages other than the script generated news page. This is a problem we are
working on, and I figure this is as good a time as any to explain all this. Finally, on
this subject, the occasional errors like "ASP include file not found", and the
weird occasional request for passwords, are just caused by accessing the site while an
update is being loaded. Just another of the many ways NT can be a headache OS for a
webserver.
Competitions
You guys have been good to me, and I sincerely appreciate it. In the spirit of my immense gratitude, high regards, and great plans for the future, I have some small tokens of appreciation to give back to at least a few of you. These are the cool items I have left over from my visit to Activision last month:
Eight Hexen II posters.
One Chronicle of Deeds book.
Four huge display boxes.
One small counter display stand.
I even have one huge Scourge of Armagon display box.All of which I want to give away to you guys on a first-respond, first-served basis, free of charge. Just be the first however many to email me with one paragraph telling me briefly about yourself, how you came upon the Hexen cycle of games, perhaps what you'd like to see in the future, and be sure to include your postal address. While they last I will send you one of the prizes in the order I just listed them, ASAP. Better hurry though, because as you can see, supplies are definitely limited, and that's all I have, folks. :-)
Interviews
Previews
Movement
Jawed Karim's homepage, home to all his projects (like his jaw3d model viewer and jawFrag
LOG parser) has moved to http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~jawed/.
Please note this, as there is no forwarding info at the old location.
.plans
implemented input fields using Kevin's newer, prettier box characters
- finished up multitexture support today
- got new drivers from NEC/PowerVR/Videologic that I still need to test, after I test them I'll point interested parties to a URL where it can be downloaded
- started sifting through the bug database...joy
- worked with James Barnes solving some DirectInput issues. We now support the other 23 AUX buttons that DirectInput specs, cleaned out some cruft, and added support for a vertical (up/down) axis that can be controlled by an input device.Over the weekend Michael Gold from SGI was here helping us bring Quake2 up on our shiny new R10K O2. We managed to get it up and running TIMEDEMOs pretty reliably, but there is still a lot of tweaking that needs to be done. All in all not bad for about 14 hours of work (Michael worked only worked on it on Saturday).
And through all this I've been fighting back problems and the plague. I know, wah wah wah, quit yer whining....
Departments
etc.
GameCenter Underground has opened up, interestingly it looks like the first
effort for one of the big gaming sites to follow the gaming scene in a style that we are
familiar with around here. They're still working out the bugs (like the names with the
.plan files--Paul Cook?), and it should be interesting to see how the site develops.
Surprisingly, they are actually giving credit to other websites when they are the sources
of info (the major sites never do that). Interesting development ... Monster Mash: The fiend made #2
on GameCenter's
list of the 13 vilest gaming villians of all time (two on my list that didn't make
theirs are the Doom Archvile, and those acid spitting dogs from Diablo). Thanks Norton ... Thanks Ryan "BabelFish" Freebern of team terraFORMA for the Halloween
variant on |2|'s Blue's News logo ... Image
of the Day is one of those award dealies from The BlueBook (cool name), which is based in Brazil,
which makes their Blue's News
description come out like this: "Uma revista superincrementada sobre jogos, seus
autores, seus detalhes e upgrades. Entrevistas, um visual interessante e muitas novidades
que não se acha por aí, publicados por gente de peso. E esta semana, o Quake é o prato
cheio. Ótima para gamemaníacos." I see that the GameSpy
boys are also so honored (at least I think that translates to an honor) ...
| Monday, October 27, 1997 | Happy Labour Day New Zealand (thanks Hellrot) |
New Hexen
II Patch
A version 1.11 patch for Hexen II (6.2 MB)
described as superseding all previous patches has been released on Activision's Hexen II Page. For
installation instructions and more information, see the read me.
Daikatana Screenshot of the Day
OGR's exclusive Daikantana
Screenshot of the day is up.
Two New 3D Engines
There is an
article on the Adrenaline Vault with early word of a pair of 3D engines (does that
equal 6D?) in development by Terminal Reality,
one for first person games, and the other for third person games.
Half-Life Preliminary Findings CD
Out?
Today is the day the free CD's with Half-Life demos and screenshots and stuff are supposed
to be appearing in Electronics Boutique stores. Thanks "Wiggly" Billy Wilson, Voodoo Extreme for the reminder. Here's the scoop
straight from Sierra's Half-Life
page:
> Preliminary Findings
Want to see demonstrations of the coolest Half-Life features by members of the Valve team? Want to see the latest and greatest Half-Life screen shots? Then the Half-Life Preliminary Findings CD is just what you need. Check in at participating Electronics Boutiques and Best Buy locations Halloween Week (Oct 27-31) and ask for your FREE Half-Life Preview CD. Limited to supplies on hand. If you miss getting your hands on one, keep your eyes peeled here for portions of the demo available for download.
Quake II Playtest Report
There is an update on The Tech Zone that has
a first hand report of some playtesting of Quake II at id. I like this description of the
altered philosophy of the game:
"Instead of the usual kill them all and let God sort them out, there was more "find really big and expensive things and break them"."
Redwood was part of this excursion as well, and we can probably expect an update from him about the experience.
Quake II Cinematics
Paul Steed and American McGee each updated their .plans talking about Paul's work on the
Quake II cinematics. Here's an except of what
Paul has to say:
...Kevin's idea to tell the story through a series of news broadcast during the title intro was brilliant and Adrian's insistence that we base our theme music on Conan rather than Star Trek is dead-on what id's about: kickin' some ass....
...No words can express how cool the intro and end game animation turned out. Each and everyone of you all will dig it. Short, to the point and in your face, these animations tell a story while jogging along with you during the game experience and in no way block your view or stop the flow.
As far as the rest of the game goes...I can only say as I shake my head in disbelief looking over at Adrian's monitor: Wow. To say that the multi-player experience will be taken to the next step just based on the textures done by a single artist may sound bizarre, but trust me. The work Adrian's doing will have more impact than any of you can imagine....
And American's update:
As you may have noticed id games have never included cinematics. Our philosophy regarding this has been that if something didn't directly add to game play it didn't need to be in the product. Sure, movies are nice to watch, but we've never found a need to illustrate the plot of our games with anything more than a few lines of text.
Then here comes Paul Steed with the grand idea that id games should include cinematics. That we should give our audience something to drool over the first time they play the game. There should be something to look forward to when you finish the game. Crazy. But sure, go ahead Paul. Toss something together and maybe it'll make it into the game.
Well, today we got to see what a guy like Paul can do in his limited spare time with "antiquated" rendering packages and a lot of hard work. From first to last frame this movie has the hairs on the back of your neck raised. It's that fucking cool.
Quake II is going to be the best product id has ever shipped. And now we have the best intro I've ever seen to start the whole thing up.
Editorial and Op-Ed
Also in Paul's .plan is a reaction to an editorial by Andrew Smith posted simultaneously on PlanetQuake and on Unreal.Org that expresses
Andrews contention: "...as a consumer, that I no longer have any right to make
demands on games companies, especially the ones with the largest number of fans....".
RGB3 RIP?
It kind of goes against the whole low-key nature of the update, but a lot
of people are mailing me about it: there is an update on the newly-redesigned Ranger page detailing some philosophical changes
in the clan. Right up front in the clan's new approach: "Don’t expect any
movies..." reveals that while RGB3, the most ambitious Quake movie of all time, may
yet be completed, but is no longer a Ranger project:
RGB3 is a subject of woe to us all. We lost a member who was a large part of its production. He still promises to finish this project but since we are not part of its completion we cannot consider it a “Ranger” movie. This is not to say that we will never make a movie again - but at this time we are not heading in that direction. We want to play and play we will.
RBR Profile
There is a featured article profiling Rebel
Boat Rocker, the Dallas start-up concentrating on 3D action game development, on the Adrenaline Vault.
Preview
There is a preview of Monolith's Riot:
Mobile Armor on the Adrenaline Vault.
Competition
Wild West Duel! is the home of
competitions for Quake players on the west coast. They are currently running 1-on-1 and
2-on-2 tournaments, with a 4-on-4 planned.
.plans
Departments
etc.
There is an article in
yesterday's New York Times on the Professional Gamers'
League describing the newly formed league.
There's even a photo of Thresh. Thanks fido7 ... Jagged's Quake Movie Reviews has reviews of almost 50 Quake movies (I didn't know
there were that many), and even gives them ratings (G, PG, R. etc.) ... Mantis's War2 Hangout has a copy
of a new PUD for WarCraft II created by none other than Ritual's Levelord (not something
normally reported around here, but the opportunity to use the
words Levelord and pud in the same story were too much to resist). Thanks Walt ... Sound of
the Day(?) is a repeat of the
.wav of Robin William's Late Show appearance (641 KB) that many have missed both times
it aired, where he discusses being a victim in Quake. Thanks DaFragsta of 3D Gaming Spooge ...
| Sunday, October 26, 1997 | Daylight Savings Time Ends (Fall Back) |
Carmack on Client Prediction &
Rhapsody
Two pieces of correspondence with John Carmack forwarded along shed light on a couple of
items of interest. The first is sure to please many who were disappointed with the news
that Quake II would not support client-side prediction out of the box. Thanks to chris for passing along this response from John
Carmack:
Well, after all of that, I have some good news for you: I was working on the frame accurate movement for Q2 yesterday, and I found that after all of the architectural changes that were made for Q2, client side prediction is going to slide right in.
Its going to be in the shipping product. It was only a question of when, and it turns out that it fits nicer than I thought it would.
The net game in the retail box is still going to be fairly raw, but we should have the free expansion pak available on the net within a month of shipping.
Thanks Jim McQuillan for passing along the following response from John Carmack about the status of a Quake II Rhapsody port:
I'm going to work on it after we master the win version. A rhapsody executable may be available around the same time the win version hits stores.
I wrote John about these, and he confirmed that he was working on client prediction right now (fun Sunday afternoon!) though his response changes the time frame for when to expect a Rhapsody port to well after Quake II hits the shelves:
I actually did some work day before yesterday on getting stuff compiling for rhapsody.
Right after we hand off the master, we will all be working on a free deathmatch expansion for Quake 2 that should take about a month. I'm not sure if the rhapsody work will be done during that or after.
Our current port priority is probably: linux, SGI, rhapsody, everything else.
Jedi Super Weapons Patch
The first super weapons patch (7 KB) for Jedi
Knight has been released on The Valley of the Jedi.
Kinda the same progression as we saw with the first Quake patches: first the gore (in
Jedi's case, amuptations), then the jazzed up weapons. Thanks Prophet.
Jedi Knight .3Do Converter
3DoConverter (126 KB), a new program that
supports ASC<->3Do conversion, has been released on DarkJedi.Com. To be useful you will
need to also find a program like WCVT2POV to convert more common file types like AutoCad
and 3D Studio formats to ASC (not to be confused with Altered States of Consciousness)
format, and you'll be set to create your own skins for Jedi Knight. Thanks to my buds over
at JediKnight.Net.
New Requiem (Really)
After a false Requiem sighting here this week, Beta
2A of Requiem Quake 2.0 (1.0 MB), AKA Requiem: Ode to the Dead, has been
released on the Requiem page. The new
version, like previous Requiems is a server-side patch (nothing is needed on the client
end to play), and features new weapons, new Teamplay and DM modes, new server and map
management options, better bots, new models and sounds (on a client patch?) and the
proverbial more. A QuakeWorld port of Requiem 2.0 is promised soon.
New HeadHunters
Version 3.0 of HeadHunters has been released on the HeadHunters page. HeadHunters
(originally capture the head) is a clever mod where you collect the heads of your (or
anyone's) victims, and only score the frags for them when you return the heads to an
alter. Here is the HeadHunters Client Pak (5.3
MB), the Net Quake Server Pak (2 KB), and the QuakeWorld server Pak (96 KB).
Q2Profiler
Build 7 of version 1.01 of Q2Profiler (201
KB) is available on the Stormtroopers Of Death page.
Q2Profiler, still in beta, is a front-end for the Q2Test that lets you set up a game
without knowing the new config commands. It will be updated with new releases to be a
comprehensive Quake II front-end.
Hexen II Skin Tutorial
A new site has opened up at HexenWorld called the
Hexen 2 Skins Tutorial which, as the name
implies, is a guide to making custom skins for Hexen II, guided by the tutelage of Slaine,
already renowned for his Quake
Skins Tutorial.
Quantum 3D, For the Record
Zanshin corrected my inaccuracy yesterday when I referred to the Obsidian SB100-4400 as a
3Dfx board, when in fact it is a Quantum3D board that diverges from the 3Dfx reference
design.
Competitions
etc.
There's an article on TechWeb
discussing the impact on the Quake web of some 350,000
downloads of the Quake II Test over a couple of days ... There is a
further explanation of higher pings in GameSpy
on QSBN (thanks Prophet) ... The Log
Parser of the Day is version 2.6 of WitStats, which fixes a couple of bugs and
adds support for high ASCII characters ... PC corner:
I inquired yesterday if I was perhaps using a slur when saying "aussie," and I
am told that it's more a term of endearment than anything (except by sCary, who found it
offensive, hehe) ...
| Saturday, October 25, 1997 |
Ritual's New Engine
There is a short
article on GameSpot talking a bit about Ritual's next generation engine, Thanks Billy
"Wombat" Wilson (Voodoo Extreme).
The new engine, according to Ritual Programmer Mark Dochtermann, will be a departure:
"we're taking a right turn from what Quake does."
No word yet on any intents on obtaining patents 
Q2Test Items
This is the first I've seen of this, Brent Phillips
points out that in the Quake II Demo:
"...if you use the cheat code "give all" and then cycle through your inventory with the "[" and "]" keys, you can see many of the items that have not yet been implemented in the demo. But, some of them are just "?'s". No problem. Just press the "'" (quotes) key and you throw them down. Then walk over and pick it up and you will be told what it is! Some of the graphics on these items are not finished. There are some interesting items such as the Air Strike Marker, Commander's Heart, etc."
I tried this, and it does work, you can spit out these items and see their names. I then used the quotes trick to fill a room with Rocket Launchers: now that's my idea of a deathmatch level.
PingTool
No, not a new derisive nickname for an LPB ("I'd kill you on a LAN, PingTool"),
PingTool is described as a no nonsense QuakeWorld server browser for Win95 / NT 4.0 that
has some handy features. Version 1.0 has been released on the PingTool page.
Kill Bill?
Sgt.CoolGuy has posted his new TeamFortress map on his page, Sgt.CoolGuy's Detail Duty, which is a variation
on the TF assassinate the President scenario. The objective here for the assassins (team
3) is to kill Bill Gates at a keynote speech. Team 1 is Bill himself, Team 2 are Bill's
bodyguards, and team 4 are the Convention Geeks.
Obsidian Heaven
Preview
The X-Men The Ravages of Apocalypse TC is previewed on PC Games. Thanks Prophet.
.plans
only going to license to companies who are doing games significantly different to other licensees. We're not interested in seeing a bunch of Prey clones.
Competitions
Departments
etc.
If you're experiencing the choppy sound
problem in Q2Test and are using a SoundBlaster, check out the new drivers
released the other day on the Creative Labs site. I
formerly had to set full-screen "off" to avoid sound lag, and now the sound is
right either way. Thanks Jeffrey A. Reitman
for pointing that out ... The Quake House
of Resourses is devoted to being a resource for users of
the Virtus Deathmatch Maker level editor ... Lean and mean: the main news
page starts to get clunky late in the week, so I'm going to start keeping only a couple of days worth of news on the front page.
Anything you've missed, as always, can be found in the News
Archive ... Image of the Day is another
Easter Egg from the Quake II Test. I'm still not sure if the last was real, but this one
is quite based in reality: A screenshot (13 KB) taken
with the FoV set to 110 (which displays more of the weapon model), showing the initials of
id's gunsmith Paul Steed near the non-business end of the grenade launcher. Thanks Thermo ...
| Quake and the
stylized "Q" are trademarks of id Software, used with
their kind permission All rights reserved. Copyright © 1997 by Stephen Heaslip |
