Articles in the archive contain broken links because outdated files are removed.

QSpy 3.1 Released | Fast Modems | More Legions of Quake

• Quake 1.05 Beta Released
  John Carmack abruptly released a beta version of Quake 1.05 on their FTP site. The list of what's new is in the readme. WARNING! From his plan:

There is a BETA distribution of 1.05 up on our ftp site.
ftp.idsoftware.com:/idstuff/unsup/q105beta.exe
It includes quake.exe winded.exe progs.dat, and a zip of the latest .qc files.
Back up your current version before messing with this, in case something
is broken.

• QSpy 3.1 Released
  The latest and greatest. This is the version with the long sought after "][ronman feature:" the ability to search for a specific player. Then double click that players name to join their game. It just doesn't get any cooler than that. On the QSpy Homepage.

• QuakeWorld Launch Clarification
  I got an email from id's Mike Wilson with a clarification about the info in the QuakeWorld launch event's festivities. Sadly it sounds like the thrashing at the hands of the Quake development team might not take place as described:

"don't get too excited... that press release was written by tsi... i can't guarantee an actual "id clash" with the clans. sounds silly to me, since all the id guys are in clans anyway. :)"

*sniff*

• QSpy 3.1
  Joe says soon, maybe tomorrow. This is going to be the version that let's you search for a player. Double clicking the players name will select the appropriate server in the list. How cool is that? Let's have a big round of applause for Jack (Spell Check) Mathews!

• Quake 1.05!
  Thanks to Kristopher S Ray for dropping me a line to let me know that John Carmack updated his plan to include info on the next release of Quake!:

  "There is new source code available. ftp.idsoftware.com : /idstuff/source/qutils.zip has win-32 compiled versions and VC++ projects for all of the quake command line utilities. The qbsp/light/vis programs have not been tested all that well here, because we still use a dec alpha running unix for most of our work, but it has been converted from doubles to floats, which should reduce the memory requirements quite a bit (and possibly cause more numeric instabilities...).
  
  I also uploaded the DOOM ipxsetup / sersetup source code, which we haven't had on our ftp site before.
  
  We are going to begin internal testing of a 1.05 Quake release tomorrow. When we upload for general release, we will also upload the current .qc source. The old qcc.tar.gz file is still present on the ftp site for the original .qc files for now. "

• Fast Modems!
  Just saw on Quake Command that Rockwell has announced modems that will do double 28,800 speed! That's right the Quake player's dream come true (well you know short of a T1 or winning the "Be American McGee for a Day" Contest): 56 Kbps modems are on the way! Yahoo!

• More Legions of Quake
  I wrote a bit about this site early in the week when it was first in beta, check out the Legions of Quake, there's a lot to it. Luckily they've been working on making the remarkable possibilities of the site clearer by writing a FAQ. Be warned that they are looking to milk registered users for all of $3.95/month, but most of the site's functions can be accessed without registering. The site can give you a ton of information about yours or somebody else's play on the net. Frag counts, where you played, who you played, these guys are the CIA of Quake. Eeeek!

Survey Results In | Domain Names | ClanRing Tourney | American Replies | Forge Renamed | Intergraph Retraction

• Pretty sCary, Huh Kids?
  Go check out my buddy sCaryname's new location for the Quakeholio... he has, in his own words: "m00ved to a noo ereet syte," working for the Gamesmania people. Actually, you won't notice much of a difference, but that's a good thing. sCary's site is a favorite, and I wouldn't want to see it change.

While you're there, read the press release describing Thursday's QuakeWorld launch event, including this tidbit:

"...id's QUAKE development team will take on QUAKE clan members in the ultimate battle to the death. id will also showcase QUAKE for Rendition/3D Blaster."

Whap! Well hit me in the head with a fish! I thought me and my boys the Brothers Gib were going to have enough on our hands with RevCo and those guys, but wow! Apparently everyone from id will be there: Jay Wilbur and Mike Wilson, John Carmack, Michael Abrash, John Cash, American McGee and yes, even John Romero. They're promising the "best night of bloodshed ever." I Can't wait! It also mean's that I'll be able to give a first hand account of the Rendition enhanced Quake. Spooge. Or as sCary might say: w00p!

• Ooops!
  Seen on Redwood's: Seems BootNet Magazine has a received word of a retraction of yesterday's statement:

"Intergraph has signed a deal with this week id Software for the exclusive rights to the accelerated full-version of Quake."

Apparently they're only getting the shareware to bundle just like the 3D Blaster. This makes sense. You rarely see registered versions of current games with hardware.

• Microsoft Wouldn't Do That!
  While I was checking bootNet Magazine for the above story, I came across this:

"Microsoft's new Direct X, version 3.0, will not support force feedback joysticks or VR products despite the fact that third-party developers of such products, such as Immersion and CH Products, were promised support by Microsoft at the Computer Game Developers Conference just last spring."

"An anonymous source told boot that Microsoft's Direct Input group made promises to the companies with no intention of keeping them."

• Not Forging Ahead
  Got a note from Ben Morris, who is changing the name of The Forge to Worldcraft. Apparently there was a little legal tussle with Bungie Software because that's the name of their Marathon editor. It's getting so you need a lawyer to play Quake these days

Ben also promised:

"There will be something new & exciting about the editor in the next week."

Cool!

• American Responds
  I received a response from American McGee, who was obviously amused by my proposed "be him for the day" contest:

Anyway, thought I should point out that the ideas I got from the net WILL be in QuakeWorld... just don't expect them in the first release. You know how it goes... test the simple version first, then release all the good stuff. So fear not.

I would try to help you with your little contest... maybe allow someone to come up here for a day. But Carmack is totally opposed to visitors. So, no dice.

btw: updated my plan for you ;)

---
-American McGee (american@idsoftware.com)
id Software

And here's what he put in his plan:

Plan:
Yes, that is the name I bought for myself just to impress people who did not know you could by yourself a new name.

Ran over some poor people in my fancy car this morning. Think I will go rape and pillage in the village today. After that I will probably come back and make my poor slave who I keep tied in my office do some work for me. Damn! He's dead... well, I guess that is what happens when you don't feed them. Well, I'm getting my solid gold keyboard dirty with all this typing. And my neck always gets sore from trying to stare at my 300" monitor.

Are these radiation burns?

I love you Blue. You're the man.

;P

ROFL

• ClanRing Tourney
  I see on Redwood's that id has updated their Hot News section with info about round 2 of the ClanRing Tournament. He also points out that the Wall Street Journal has an article on the hacker attack on Panix. Because the WSJ online is free to Internet Explorer users through the end of the year, I fired up IE and checked it out. If you're curious and are running IE (and have a little time to kill) check it out.

• Mailbag
  As it starts off "Funny Story for a slow news day," and nothing much seems to be going on, I'll share this letter from a new buddy (get this handle) Bastard whose busy working on his own little corner of the Quake web. Let's call it a letter to the editor (I sense a new section coming...), and it deals with the ups and downs of domain name registration (referring to the Quakeworld fiasco). He's on the ball, and an interesting conclusion he draws is:

"P.S. The bart guys still own quakeworld.com. I'll be *really* surprised if it gets transferred. It only takes an hour or two to have a transfer happen these days."

I received an email from Patrick (the Bart guys) refuting this

"We have mailed id software and asked them NIC-handles for their Tech-C and Admin-C plus the primary and secondary for the domain. They did not respond yet, so I guess they're not in a hurry to transfer the domain."

• Bush's Survey Results
  What do you know! The results of Bush's Abode's Survey are in, and this site came out in the top spot in two of the three categories: Best News Page and Best Looking Page (Quake Command justifiably trounced everyone in the Quake C category). Here's the conclusion drawn by Bush:

"All of the pages in these categories have their own strengths and weaknesses but all in all Blue's Quake Rag is the BEST OVERALL QUAKE PAGE AS VOTED BY YOU THE GENERAL QUAKE FANS."

I want to thank all of you that voted for the Quake Rag in the survey. It's nice to know folks appreciate the hard work that goes into this.

• etc.
  A new server list to use as a source for QSpy is the Quake Meta Server List, updated every 5 minutes. Citing the need for a vacation, Death Angel's Quake Page is down temporarily for a redesign.

3D Blaster Rival | Airplane | Jeep | Arrrgh | THRED Review Coming

• c|net Profiles Quake Command
  Seems it was just this morning (actually it was) that I was talking about how cool they are and boom there's an article on the Quake Command guys, and the magic they do, on c|net gamecenter.

• blue's THRED Preview/Review
  That's right. In exchange for my firstborn, Jim Lowell has agreed to let me be among the second wave of reviewers/previewers of Jon Mavor's eagerly awaited map editor THRED. Stomped will be first to review it this Friday, and it's on Friday that I, along with three other sites: c|net, Quake Editors: Index and Info, and Quake Level Editing News will receive review copies. Oh yeah, and I found out the release copy of THRED is going to be hard-coded to not work for anyone that bugs Jim for a beta. You've been warned. And if you bug me, well I'll just have to frag ya.

And don't worry about me being objective (are you worried?), all joking about my firstborn aside, the condition Jim made me agree to was that I be brutally honest. I told him he obviously wasn't reading my page enough

• Zooooooom! Part I - The Airplane!
  That's right a beta of Quake Command's long-awaited airplane patch is out right now! Saw the word on Quakeholio. I knew sCaryname was laying low for a reason... he was poised for his scoop, the rat =D.

• Zooooooom! Part II - The Jeep!
  Quake Command's already working on their next vehicle: a Jeep, for which they've already posted some screenshots and a brief feature list. The features include some awesome stuff, like:

Tires will spew mud on sharp turns, Ramps can be jumped, the Jeep can carry more than one buddy in the back (they hope), beer cans fly out the back on REALLY sharp turns (ROFL), large automatic weapon will be mounted in the back (operated by player in back), driver can squish opponents (they plan on making a player.mdl with tire treads on him!)

What words can I use to describe how cool these guys are? I'm at a loss (can you imagine blue at a loss for words??)! They're the coolest! Beer cans flying out the back. That Bush's Abode Quake Page survey ends today, if you haven't yet, go vote for Quake Command as best Quake C Page.

Oh, and remember:

Always wear your safety belt. Does not include taxes, transport or dealer prep. Your mileage may vary. Jeep is a registered trademark of the Chrysler Corporation.

• 3D Blaster: Watch Out!
  (Got this from Redwood, who managed to squeeze in an update through his technical difficulties):
  All this time we've been assuming that the Creative Labs 3D Blaster would be the Verite-enhanced accelerator of choice for the Quake generation, comes word from bootNet Magazine that:

"Intergraph has signed a deal with this week id Software for the exclusive rights to the accelerated full-version of Quake."

According to the article, the deal was "largely based on Carmack’s desire to own a few of Intergraph’s workstations..."

The $199 Reactor 3D card is slated to ship in October, and in addition to the accelerated version of Quake, it will also be bundled with an accelerated version of Indy Car II.

• If a Tree Falls in the Forest
  I can only apologize for the troubles people are having accessing this page and in contacting me by email. If you follow this space you will know that my host has been the target of a series of sophisticated attacks by hackers. These attacks have resumed. It is difficult for me to express my frustration at this point. OTOH, if you can't read this, I guess it doesn't matter how I express it. How frustrating.

Hacker Update: It's morning and the attacks seem to have subsided again. I am informed that these attacks are also striking The Voters Telecommunications Watch. To quote the Panix MOTD:

"What can the attacker possibly be thinking??? VTW is a friend to *all* net users, and one of the best we'll ever have.."

This kind of stuff really gets me down... 

• etc.
  If you want to try your hand at editing, but are looking for some guidance, take a look at Diragor's Quake Editor Tutorials, which at the moment only covers BSP, but Diragor tells me "many more will follow." I got a message from Patrick at a certain formerly controversial site asking for a link, and as a sign of goodwill, here it is with the site's new (and as far as I know previously untaken) name: Quakewatch, which contains a statement about a certain domain name. They're still kind of high on themselves (they claim to be helping id with their QuakeWorld website), but whatever. Also take a look at the Quake Chronicles, maintained by Toby Herman who wrote warning that the site is still under construction, but it looked pretty nice already. American McGee updated his plan to mention that most of the clan stuff wasn't making it into QuakeWorld (duh, he was asking for suggestions for clan features this week and QuakeWorld is unveiled a week from tomorrow.) He also did some bragging on his new machine:

"Spent the last few days working with my new NT machine. Soon we will all be using machines like this one to program, create maps, etc... Intergraph TDZ410 with 128mb ram, 16mb video ram, 16mb texture cache, OpenGL accelerator card, etc... etc..."

I think it is probably a good thing being American McGee. I'd like to try it sometime. In fact that finally got me going add the often planned rants section. Before you check it out, let me tell you, it's a little different. You've been warned...

• Unreal Deal
  Briefly noted in Next Generation, but there's more detail in PC Gamer online:

"GT Interactive gains the exclusive right to publish Unreal and a sequel for the PC, with options for console versions. They also obtain rights to UnrealEd, the powerful 3D level editor developed by the game's creator, Tim Sweeney. Furthermore, GT can also publish up to five more titles with the Unreal engine."

Thanks for alerting me to David, who humorously points out:

"This gives them Quake-International, Quake 2, all the Dooms, Duke Nukem and other build games, and Prey (if it ever comes out)."

"And everybody thought Microsoft wrote the book on monopolies."

• Legions of Quake
  I got off the phone a while ago after speaking with Jeremie Miller, one of the creators of a new page. It's kind of like QuakeWorld might be, and it's online now. Check out the Legions of Quake page, where you can see information about every frag on the Quake net yesterday (it's only been in beta for a day). They've got a setup where they log the frag count of every server on the net every thirty seconds, with a small margin for error (if you get a frag and exit before the scanner's next 30 second interval, it won't get recorded). There's a registration fee planned, but only to add your email address, URL, and message to your ranking. Everyone who plays Quake will be able to access the data whether they pay or not. There are a lot of pretty smart people out there (blue's deep observation for the day).

• QSpy Problem No Problem
  I just want to clarify what you might have read about a potential problem with QSpy 3.02. There was a warning message sent to us by Joe E. Powell about a problem with QSpy, that turned out to be Joe's mistaken impression that the "Sorry About 42" server names were a bug in QSpy (rather than the real server names, as it turns out). So there's the scoop. Just wanted to clear that up.QSpy's fine. (We needed our daily QSpy story anyway, right?)

• Friction Nightmare Over?
  I received a flood of email this morning pointing out that somewhere in the middle of the night, nearly every Quake Server on the 'Net was mysteriously renamed "Sorry About 42," and, according to all accounts the friction on all servers tested is back to normal. Hmmmmmm. Thanks to all who sent mail about this.

• Mike Wilson on IRC
  Chris Pimlott sent me an email passing along an IRC log of a short visit by id Software's Mike Wilson to #Quake yesterday afternoon. A couple of highlights:

"the rendition port is 99% tested... just making minor tweaks"

"that nt4 direct x port is already underway"

He also points out that the Direct-X port is for Win95 as well. BTW, the guy in the log who claims to be one of the QSpy authors wasn't some llama, it was Jack Mathews, the real McCoy.

• QuakeWorld Update
  The latest on bandwidth savings and skin considerations in QuakeWorld from the .plan file of John Carmack.

Ok, I'm back on QuakeWorld.

While working on the new chat console, I fixed up a few little things with the regular console:
The pgup/pgdn keys now autorepeat.
The display does not pop down to the bottom when a new line is printed.
If you aren't at the bottom, a few ^ ^ ^ are printed on the last line.

There is now a message level you can set to cut down on the number of messages you get from the server (it saves a bit of bandwidth, too).
Level 0 gives everything.
Level 1 does not print item pickup messages.
Level 2 does not print player obituaries.
Level 3 does not print any messages from the server.
Level 4 does not print chat messages.

Player skin support is much nicer in QuakeWorld. There is a qw\skins directory, where you can just put a .pcx files for each skin. This will scale properly to hundreds of skins if you want to download them all.

I am still unsure of how much freedom I want to give with the skins.

One school of thought is that you just set the "skin" value to any name you want. If the other players don't have it, they fall back to the default.

The other school of thought is that skins are the restricted property of a specific clan, and only clan members get custom skins.

We have the ability to delegate specific information setting abilities to clan leaders. To join a clan, you have to get the leader to add the clan field to your user account. It is in the protected masterdata, so you can't edit it yourself.

 

• Quake Wars
  Is it a ladder? Is it a challenge board? Well, I don't know but they've got a lot of, y'know, rules and stuff. Clan Wars is another attempt to organize the chaos of Quake warfare. Hmmm. There was another Clan Wars page but I think it's dead (no controversy, please).

• etc.
  The Thred page has a note in the What's New section clarifying some things about the upcoming unsupported beta (I think they just really want to make it clear that they really mean unsupported).

• Airplane This Week?
  According to Quake Command (and they should know):

"things are looking MIGHTY good for a rough-edged, but fully functional Aircraft (it WILL be named) Public Beta type deal within 3 days"

Have I mentioned how much I love their site, BTW? (I guess I just did).

• London Calling
  I almost forgot: Joost Schuur (ring a bell?) wanted me to remind everyone that he's still putting his server to the second best (after Aftershock) possible use: playing Quake! It's in London, so it should provide good play for players around the UK. The server is named quake.onlinemagic.com.

• Another "Quake Killer"
  I'm sure I'm not the only one tired of the phrase Quake Killer already. PCME has an article on Flesh. (And what's with these names?)

• QSpy 3.02 Out
  On the QSpy Homepage. More minor bug fixes. Among other things, it would still try ][ronman's list if you used the first user defined source. And as we know, ][ronman's gone.

Or is he...

• ][ronman's back!
  Well there's your story, boys! Yep the guy who redefined the server page is back. Even if you use QSpy to find net games (and if you don't, you should), until they build a search function into QSpy (Joe tells me they're working on it), ][ronman's is the only way to search for a player on the net.

• New Cool Server Page
  Remember I mentioned yesterday that another comprehensive site was opening up. Check out The Definitive Quake Server List, which will also be adding player search capability and other new features. The pages maintainer, SkyLord says "I expect to have them solid by the end of the week." And just so you know, I was talking about this site yesterday before I saw the big link to my page.

• And One More
  Just to prove it, here's another (without the big link). Check out the QUAKE Heaven! - Online Server Listing. It's another large list, which show each servers location.

• QuakeWorld Launch Bi-Coastal?
  I and just about every other Clan leader received an announcement on Friday inviting Clans to attend the L.A. end of the QuakeWorld launch on September 19. Since it was from outside of id Software, I (and several readers who wrote me) were curious as to its legitimacy. I wrote to Mike Wilson at id, and here's what he sent out:

"Just to avoid confusion... I wanted to address the messages that are flying around the net regarding our "NY vs. LA" event."

"First of all, as far as we're concerned, it's still just a New York event. We will not have anything to do with the simultaneous event in LA, unless something changes. The event in LA is at a place called "SlamSite" that wants to have a quake party at the same time we do. We told them that it might be cool to do this if they can figure out and implement a way for our press in NY to be able to see their event live-via-satellite or something. If that doesn't happen, then our NY event will not be tied into that other event in any way. (Why would the press care that a bunch of guys from LA with crappy ping times want to log in if they couldn't see the event happening)"

"Actually, the Slamsite guys are investigating setting up a frame relay straight to NY to avoid potential ping time probs."

"Regardless, make no mistake... we have nothing to do with that event in any official way yet, and the only "real" id event is in New York City on September 19 from 6-9 pm."

• Time to Change those Bookmarks
  Make sure you've updated to the new URL or Redwood's Quake Page. The old one still works, but change it anyway, 'cause Redwood asked. It's the least you can do (he's done an awful lot for you...). He seems to be the one with downtime now. He's having PC problems. Good luck--I hate when that happens. One more thing... did you see the story on his page about Quake Spy being the Ziff Davis Anchordesk pick of the day, only if you downloaded it, it was version 1.0. ROFL! Don't worry, RW sent 'em a current version.

• Downtime Update
  Sorry for the delayed update. It will come as no surprise to many of you that this site was down for a good part of the day. I'm sorry to report that Panix is continuing to suffer a "denial-of-service" attack. The most current attack has gone beyond the other day's attack on our mailhosts, and has progressed to the telnet ports, the routers, even the DNS (and, of course, the web servers).

I won't waste my words condemning the hackers responsible. I will say however, that I have nothing but compliments for the way the Panix staff has handled the situation, as usual, with diligence and professionalism.

That having been said, I'll also slip in here that I am starting to move on trying to find another way to host this site. This really has nothing to do with this hacking stuff (which could just as easily affect another host), as with the fact that I'm paying for a PPP account, and the popularity of this site has gone way beyond that of a personal homepage. If Panix starts charging me for how much I go over my allowed throughput (something like 500 MB--eeek!) I'll want to make a move fast. If anyone has any ideas or resources to share, I'm interested in hearing from you. I'm most interested in talking to a host who will be able to alias a Domain Name.

I'll put this note down here to start and we'll see what happens. The last thing I want to do is pull a quick shutdown, as many before me have (not that it's come to that by any stretch). I just want to prepare.
Get it? Got it? Good!

• Glimpse at Rendition Accelerated Quake
  I received the following quickie review from Byron Hinson:

"Just thought id mail you and tell you that at the European Computer Trade Show here in the Uk Creative Labs had a stand showing off the new Blaster Card---It was running Quake on a p133 at 17 fps in 640x480 close to full screen this was up against another p133 but without any acceleration that ran at 11 fps The Graphics were much clearer than on unaccelerated version with Hardly any block graphics when close to a wall or Enemies. All in all i was Quite impressed by it..."

Thanks Byron.

The 3D Blaster is scheduled to ship bundled with the accelerated Quake on October 4.

• The Return of ][ronman?
  Well actually, I haven't received an answer about whether they're using ][ronman's programs, but I received an announcement today from Sky Golightly about a "The Definitive Server List" which he says:

"will be on-line by Sunday evening at the latest."

Those who miss the features if ][ronman's list should be happy. The list will be updated every 10 minutes, display Hostname *and* geographical location (if available), and will include the basics: Map, Rules (e.g., teamplay, gravity, et.), Number of players, Max. number of players, Average uptime.

Plus: Player search - find your friends (or enemies)!, Server Operator comments, and Current players.

Sounds great! I'll post the URL as soon as it's announced.

• Quake Spy 3.01 Released
  On the QSpy Homepage. Bugs fixed:

9/7/96
Fixed the qlist alias corruption problem (JP).
Fixed the first user defined http slot (it was still trying to connect to IronMan's list) (JP).
Fixed threads not terminating properly (JM).
Fixed case where refresh was attempted with no anchor (JM).
Fixed problem where QSpy was referring to wrong sound clip (JP).

• American Solicits Clan Input
  American McGee updated his .plan to include a message requesting input for the clan rules for QuakeWorld:

ATTN Clan People:
John and I are working on Clan Rules for Quakeworld.
Please email me a list of rules that need to be in QuakeWorld when it goes online.
Maybe you should all get together and decide on some official rules and then send those to me...
If any of you come up with some basic ideas that would make clan play more interesting etc... send those to me also.
This only pertains to Clan play. Please do not send me anything not relating to this.

---
-American McGee (american@idsoftware.com)
id Software

• Merry Christmas, War is Over
  According to The Site Formerly Known as Quakeworld (TSFKAQ), The Site That Named Itself Quakeworld (TSTNIQ) is about to also become (TSFKAQ) also. Jason Springer received the following email from id Software's Jay Wilbur which is a copy of a message to Jay from TSTNIQ (Quoted from TSFKAQ):

"One of the other guys who designed the site was on a holdiday this week, so we could not discuss it with him."

"The transfer of the domain WILL take place though."

"We will mail you the details monday."

As long as this is the case, I have no problem with these guys and promise to stop the derision. If you've been hate mailing them (which I never suggested), it's just as up to you to decide to stop as it was to start. I will point out, however, that Christopher Dickens did write in to warn that those guys might end up selling the names of all who write in as a mailing list.

Now that the petty stuff has been overcome, I'm interested to see how their site shapes up, cause they've talked of how great it will be, and content is obviously the key to that, not the name. Except for here of course, I kinda suspect no on reads this stuff, they just come here to be on the rag.