Articles in the archive contain broken links because outdated files are removed.

Hexen II Patch
The patch for Hexen II (2.8 MB) has been released on Activision's Hexen II Page (thanks Phoebus). Rick Johnson points this out in his .plan in addition to this helpful info:

New command line parameter for the GL version:
glh2 -scale2d

The new version defaults to the non-scaled console / interface. To put it back to the original way, use the above command.

Official scripting source code and other utilities will be released very soon.

Half-Life
Some Half-Life goodies to ease the pain of the slipped deadline:

• OGR has posted their new Half-Life Monster of the Week. This week's badass is the BullChicken. The profile features five new screenshots and two new videos.
• Inside3D is conducting an interview with Steve Bond (Wedge) of Half Life, and Drywall is interested in submissions for questions. If you've got a question to ask Wedge (like where to get those cool pellet guns), email Drywall with the subject line 'HL Interview'.
• Two new Half-Life sites, Effective Half-Life (PlanetDNF?) and Unknown Life have opened for business, and both sites have received three brand new screenshots to get them rolling. Thanks Jaspur, of Jaspur's Half-Life.

The S Files
PC Games has posted Volume II of the S Files, Levelord's insider look at Ritual's upcoming Sin. This edition features commentary from programmer Mark Dochtermann. Thanks Prophet.

GameSpy 1.0
Word from TeamQSpy (TeamGameSpy?) is that GameSpy version 1.0 will be released tonight at 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time. All are invited to 3dnet channel #gamespy for that, where party gifts and GameSpy registrations will be given out (no word on Hors D'oeuvres--Sunny Doodles, loony?).

Hexen II Rankings
Telefragged is said to be parsing the output of their Hexen II Server Listings to determine the "best Hexen II player on the 'Net" (my money's on some guy named Cosmos). Thanks Prophet.

Jedi Jumping
Thanks [FYATWYRIO]DS for passing along word that Rocket Jumping lives in Jedi Knight (I have to admit, that unused to the limber Jedi, I didn't know you could jump far enough to reach that ledge until I read this):

"...yes, Rocket Jumping is alive and well in Jedi Knight. The "Rocket Launcher" is found on the very first area you start in. You can get to it by jumping on top of the generator like thing that the first character you see is working on, and jumping across to the ledge on the other side."

OTOH, as TheRage (and MonkeyBoy in the MailBag) points out you can also use the Force Luke (err, Kyle):

This is in responce to (the) post on the site about rocket jumping in Jedi Knight, Rocket jumping is all good and well, but who needs it.. have you tried to use any of the force powers, force jumping is a nice addin that takes the fun of jumping real high and eliminates the pain of it...
:) Try it out.

Solaris Map Fix
Ken Alverson sends along a small utility (under 1 KB)  he wrote to fix a bug that affects Solaris servers when they run certain maps:

There is a bug in Solaris Quake that prevents it from correctly loading maps in which the chunks in the bsp file are not on four byte boundaries. This was brought to my attention when several people were trying to run PainKeep 1.1 servers on Solaris boxes, and were getting core dumps and such. I wrote a utility to fix the maps, and it is included with the PainKeep 1.11 patch, but several people have requested the program separately, so here it is. It is a small c program that should compile without a hitch using gcc or any standard c compiler.

Zer Worldcraft Support
autolycus has updated the Forge (files section) with details on Worldcraft support for the Zerstörer pack, including a Zerstörer texture WAD.

Interview
Ion Storm's Daikatana Team is interviewed on Gamers-Zone. Thanks Prophet.

(P)Reviews

• There is a review of Intergraph's Intense 3d Voodoo Card up on ZENTropy. Speaking of Voodoo Rush (which this card is based-on), 3Dfx portmaster Jack "morbid" Mathews points out that the performance numbers for GLQuake using new (unreleased) drivers and BIOS on the Voodoo Rush have inched very close to the framerates achieved by Voodoo Graphics, according to this GameCenter article noted here yesterday.
• Operation 3Dfx has posted a review of the Jedi Knight demo. Thanks Prophet.
• Gamers-Zone has posted their Hexen II Review. Thanks Prophet.
• Looking forward as well as back, Gamers-Zone has also posted their Quake II Preview. Thanks Prophet.

What's The Word

• Rogue Entertainment President Jim Molinets updated his .plan mentioning that Dissolution of Eternity (Quake Mission Pack #2) had risen to #1 in CGW's most recent reader's poll.
• id Software Director of Biz Development Barrett "Bear" Alexander made another .plan update following up his rare update the other day. Are people really still busting his chops over a typo? Yeesh.
• id Software Artist Paul Steed made a .plan update and another about his CrackWhore contest, as well as an identify SOTK contest that can win you an id mousepad.

Departments

• Lan Parties: The next Hawaiian Lan-A-Palooza has been scheduled.
• MailBag: Today's lesson? Latin pronunciation (really!), and MonkeyBoy sent along some Jedi Knight demo feedback, disagreeing with some of the naysayers. Speaking of Jedi letters, Prophet sends along word that PC Gamer is looking for Jedi Knight feedback here.
• The Want Ads has been updated as well.

etc.
Like Sony's Anaconda promotion that featured a custom Quake map, there is a project in the works called Soldier of Fortune Quake, based on the TV series ... There is a new commercial add-on for owners of Registered Doom II (of all things) called HacX, with a shareware version available on the Banjo Software page ... There is a monthly competition where you can vote for your favorite (Quake) model on the Quake Modeling Associations page. This month's topic: Best Corpse ... There is a new #teamfortress irc channel on Australian UnderNET servers (a server is davis.oz.org or you can get servers from www.oz.org) ... Hanif mentioned something that set me poking through the archived news, and a couple of interesting "anniversaries" turn out to be upon us. Today marks one year to the day since the first version of the Reaper Bot appeared, and yesterday marks one year since the first story on Threewave Capture the Flag (as far as I know, mentioned here first I'm proud to say... CTF for sure). Yesterday also marked a year since the release of Quake 1.06 (Redwood's scoop, while we're noting these things. In fact, I see he was ribbing Stomped about scooping them at the time-hehe) ... SlipGate wants to put out a reminder that the Green Ribbon Campaign has moved to grc.quake2.com/.

Half-Life Delayed
Sierra and Valve have announced that the release date for Half-Life has slipped. The following comes from Sierra's Eric Twelker:

First and foremost, Half-Life's release date (originally slated for  mid-November) is slipping. Though I can't offer a new ship date until late next week, it will most likely slide into a 1Q98 ship. Also note that a playable demo (on CD and downloadable) will be available approx. 30 days prior to the release of the final product.

We are all extremely excited about Half-Life and are confident that this small delay will be worth the wait for action game fans!

I'll get back to you within the next 10 days with the revised ship date.

In the meantime, you may want to review........

THE TOP TEN REASONS WHY HALF-LIFE IS DELAYED:
(brought to you by the Half-Life development team)

10. We resisted Ultima Online but got sucked into Oprah's bookclub
9. Wasted 300 development hours catapulting sheep
8. Gabe and Mike learned scheduling at Microsoft
7. We're having problems making it year 2000 compatible
6. El Nino
5. Redoing the models so they all have ponytails
4. Wedge put his eye out with his new pellet machine gun (see www.valvesoftware.com/hocopus)
3. Spending too much time on our .plan files
2. Everything is finished; just waiting on the "Bill Gates Mansion" level

AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON THAT HALF-LIFE IS DELAYED........
1. Forgot to add mandatory Satanic references

ShowTime
Off to the fabulous Pseudo studios for StormFront (8:00 PM Eastern) and QuakeCast (8:30 PM Eastern). Tonight on the QuakeCast our guests are the Evolve team's Chris Bolin, some of Team Zerstörer, and Jamis "Kayin" Eichenauer from HeadHunter Quake. Also of note is the cool makeover that the Pseudo website has undergone, and the fact that the RealVideo is now being archived, so you can see our ugly mugs (and GirlBomb's lovely visage as well, upon her return), during the week as well as live.

Jedi Knight Demo Released
As promised by LucasArts, the playable Demo of Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight (20.2 MB) has been released on the LucasArts Website. DirectX 5.0 is required. Thanks to Bryant Luk of JK NewsNet for the heads-up yesterday to watch out for this. In related news, if you're looking for Jedi Knight related resources, JediKnight.Net is a storehouse of links.

Jedi Knight download sites (thanks Prophet for a lot of them). I'll keep adding them as I find them:

Local (Blue's News)
LucasArts' FTP Site
Walnut Creek (CD-ROM.Com) (thanks Frans P. de Vries)
Download.com
OGR
NAWC
Adrenaline Vault (1)
Adrenaline Vault (2)
3D Action Gamers' Archive (1)
3D Action Gamers' Archive (2)
WarZone
PC Gamer (thanks Ndrew)
Frag.Com (thanks JediKnight.Net)
QuestGate
Ultra Game Players

New QuArK
Version 4.0 of QuArK (684 KB), featuring support for editing Hexen II levels has been released on the The Official QuArK HomePage. The Hexen II support is not complete yet, but it will allow you to open up H2 maps, and change the entities.

Zerstörer Textures
A texture wad containing all the cool original textures from Zerstörer - Testament of the Destroyer has been posted (with the Zer team's permission) on the Quake Workshop. Thanks Prophet.

3D Card Roundup
PCME has posted what looks like a comprehensive roundup of third generation 3D video cards, detailing the performance of new and upcoming products on a variety of applications, including GLQuake and GLHexen II. Thanks Prophet. Also, on the 3D card scene, 3Dfx defends the Voodoo Rush in this GameCenter article. Thanks Digital1, who also sent along the URL of this Gamecenter article on a related topic, announcing Creative Labs planned new Graphics Blaster Extreme, based on 3Dlabs' Permedia 2 chip.

Deathmatch Maker Compiler
The following release is from Virtus, publishers of the Deathmatch Maker level editor:

Today Virtus is releasing VICI (pronounced "vee-chee", latin for "I conquered"), also known as the Virtus Integrated Compiler Interface. VICI is a stand alone application that is a Windows95 implementation of the Quake compilers. You make setting options for the compile by easily clicking check boxes, then minimize it and get it out of your hair, err... desktop.

We're releasing it as a free, unsupported alpha release. However, we are looking for bug reports. If you encounter problems in the interface or application, please send email to deathmatchmaker@virtus.com with a subject of "VICI - Whatever".

Get it at the website: http://www.deathmatchmaker.com under the news items or "Demo + Archive" section. We hope you enjoy this as much as we have!

MacShadow Warrior
A demo of Shadow Warrior for the Macintosh (12.6 MB), PowerMac, or compatible required, has been released. Also available from MacSoft. Thanks Prophet.

What They Say

• id Software Director of Biz Development Barrett "Bear" Alexander made a .plan update to correct a little misinformation published in the print Next-Generation about Quake II's release date:

Wanted to make sure that everyone who reads the latest issue of Next Generation disregards their lack of fact finding. They say in their 'Alpha' section that Quake II is due out in Spring 1988 (which technically could be as late as April or May), which is incorrect. As we've been saying all along, Quake II will be out this year :)

Followed by a slight correction (I didn't notice the typo either):

Hahaha. Someone pointed out my lack of typing ability, obviously I meant '1998' in yesterday's .plan update.

• id Software's Christian "Disruptor" Antkow updated his .plan raising the big warning flag about MSIE 4.0.
• 3D Realms' President George Broussard updated his .plan about the Duke Action figure, the Duke statue, and all manner of other marketing spin-offs for Duke and Shadow Warrior.
• id Software Level Designer/Occasional Artist Paul Jaquays updated his .plan marveling at some of the amazing entries to American's Quake II logo contest.

Interview
New Ritual project manager Joe Selinske is interviewed on The Ultimate SiN, the first in a series of planned monthly profiles of Ritual employees. Saw that on da Shuga' Shack.

Competitions

• The European Quake Contest Page is now holding their 6th Contest, another test of skill against some Reaper bots.
• The University Quake League (Unqle) is back in business. They request teams that were involved in the league to contact them regarding their status.

Movements

• HolyAvenger's Hexen II Theme now has its own homepage at www2.tsixroads.com/~tsewell/h2theme/. Thanks Phoebus.
• The German Quake Lounge is now at quakelounge.pixelhouse.de/.

Departments
Here's a daily dose of stuff that's falling out into regular departments. Yes as promised, work progresses in the background on reviving the Files section (not as quick and easy as it sounds).

• Lan Parties - A date change for the Lan Party listed in Los Lunas, NM, and a semi-regular event was added for (get this) Friendswood, TX.
• MailBag - The bot thread in the Mail Bag ends with a remarkable "I Was Wrong" (I am quite impressed at this constructive argument, as opposed to destructive bickering).
• Want Ads - The Want Ads have made a return. To be honest, I think those that are looking for help to be disappointed (there is definitely a shortage of volunteers), but those offering their services are quite likely to be snapped up. I'll change the format as we go along, but I thought it was time to get that department rolling again.

etc.
The blatant unfairness of DM3 (ironically first choice for many clan matches) as a deathmatch level for team versus team play is detailed in this article from my boys in clan In Praise of Ammo ... Did id steal Quake from Apple? Well, let's see: An old Apple ][ game called, yep, Quake, boasted "The dynamic changes in the high-res graphics combined with accents of sound provide psychological realism never seen before..." sounds like our baby, right? Okay, I guess you know I'm having fun with this by now:  here's an animated GIF (23 KB) showing this action packed game at work. Thanks Rask ... There are more pictures of the Duke Nukem action figure here on Duke4.com. Thanks BuZzGuy ... A new German Quake page has opened at hackfleisch - gewalt in 3d-spielen - nachrichten ...

Playable Jedi Demo Tomorrow?
Thanks Andrew Keen for passing along the following from the LucasArts Express Club (and thanks to Bryant Luk of JK NewsNet, who was the first to send word of this, albeit without the quote):

JEDI KNIGHT: DARK FORCES II DEMO READIED FOR DOWNLOAD

LucasArts has announced that the playable demo of JEDI KNIGHT: DARK FORCES II is expected to be available for download on Thursday, Oct. 2, 1997 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. The demo is approximately 20MB and includes one single and one multiplayer level. This demo requires Windows 95 and a minimum Pentium 90-based computer. It also requires DirectX 5.0 (available on the LucasArts Web site).

Visit http://www.lucasarts.com for more information.

-- The LucasArts Express Club

Tokay's Contest Winner
Congrats to OneThumb for winning American McGee's Quake II contest (and using enough T.P. for the Great Cornholio along the way). You can see the winner and all the other amazing and bizarre entries on this page. Saw that on Redwood's.

Quake II Music
There's a note up on the Sonic Mayhem page that they are finished with their portion of the Quake II soundtrack consisting of 15 tracks (they composed 23 tracks, generating over 3 gigabytes of audio data). Thanks Slipgate (Quake2.com).

wQBSP for Linux
Saw over on PlanetQuake that Ken "Transparent Water" Alverson (with aid from Anthony J Martin) has released the Linux Version of wQBSP 1.65 (41 KB) on the Forge. wQBSP is a BSP compiler that boasts a boatload of advanced features like support for Ritual's brush rotation, and of course, transparent water.

(P)Reviews (Updated)
Some previews and reviews to help keep tabs on what's coming and going:

• UGP ONLINE (if you can stand the way the site opens little client windows in your browser) tells me there are a pair of new Quake II screenshots in their Quake II Preview (though Slipgate tells me they are old).
• GamePen has posted their Quake II Preview. Thanks Prophet (and Slipgate tells me this is the preview with new screenshots).
• Sumaleth has reviewed Zerstörer on the QuakeRally page.
• Also, there is a review of all the Zerstörer deathmatch levels on RAMSHACKLE.
• Operation 3dfx has posted a review of the Quake Map Pak Mexx9. Thanks Prophet.
• GameCenter has posted their Shadow Warrior review. Thanks Prophet.
• Also, Shadow Warrior is reviewed on PlanetQuake.
• There is a preview of Unreal at Astrocreep's Unreal Universe (mentioned originally on Shadows). Thanks Prophet.
• ZENtropy has posted their Hexen II review.

Going Daikatana Batty There's nifty example of Daikatana character animation on Ion Storm's site (under the Daikatana link in the Games section (there is now a decaffeinated version of that page for browser compatibility).

Duke Figurine Thanks to Lithium of the PreyStation for passing along this image of the planned Duke Nukem action figure found on Resaurus. Remember, when you need someone to save the world from aliens, it's helpful to call on a hero whose biceps are bigger than his head:

New TreeBSP
Version 1.61 of TreeBSP (71 KB), the "memory-friendly" BSP compiler (that still retains a complete feature set) has been released on The Treehouse.

What's The Word?

• id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead made a .plan updated describing id's latest kudo, being named to Red Herring's 1997 list of  the "Top 100 Technology Companies", as detailed in this article.
• Apogee President Scott Miller, updated his .plan with an interesting observation about the switch in emphasis from review to previews in print gaming magazines.

• Ion Storm conceptual artist James Daly made a .plan update describing the Daikatana team and their duties.

Interviews

• David "crt" Wright, one of the masterminds of Rocket Arena, and the main man behind   KeyGrip is interviewed on PlanetQuake.
• Monolith's Craig Hubbard and Mike Dussault are interviewed on PCGamer Online talking about their upcoming Riot: Mobile Armor. Thanks Prophet.
• HellKitten is interviewed on The Installation.

Movements

• The Q Continuum, the German Quake Newspage, has relocated to www.q-continuum.de/.
• The Demilitarized Zone, an Unreal site is now at unreal.3dx.org/.
• Necronomicon: Necromancer Training Station (class specific Hexen II tips) has moved to www.hexenworld.com/necro/.
• Fahrenheit 176, dedicated to customization of Hexen II's Command, Prompt, and Action Listings is now at www.hexenworld.com/f176/.

etc.
A legal action with some implications about the future of online gaming, as described in this CNN article, has Kesemai Corp. (Air Warrior II) suing AOL, accusing them of  "predatory behavior, fraud, trademark dilution and defamation". Thanks FlyNomadic ... There's a cute "Easter Egg" on the main logo of Xenocide Flag Academy that I never saw before. Thanks RaginCajun ... In today's mailbag, even more follow-up on the co-op starts question, and the death-throes of the bot issue, focusing on the question of infinite possible outcomes ... Thanks to Chuck Miller over at GameBriefs for naming Blue's News a cool site:

Quake II Weapons
Paul Steed made a .plan update, noteworthy in addition to its use of the word "philogynists," in that it details the final Quake II weapons list:

I've been getting a lot of inquiries about the weapons so since I animated them I thought I could add a little illumination to this subject. Forgive the redundancy if someone has already clarified any of the following issues on one of the news sites. I stay away from the browser since Danni's Hard Drive is just above Redwood's (sorry red) so in order to save myself from being lost in mindless surfing, I miss out on all the late breaking, pulse-pounding, orgasm-inducing tidbits about the world according to Quake. These are the following weapons I've animated for the little game we've been working on for the past oh, 354 days or so...
- blaster
- shotgun
- super shotgun
- chain gun
- hyper blaster
- flare gun
- hand grenade
- rail gun
- rocket launcher
- grenade launcher
- BFG
- Disintigrator (ALTHOUGH Kevin says this may be questionable making it into the final cut)

Some other weapons that have been discussed but I have not seen or animated are:
- mines
- sticky bombs
- a low-yield, hand-carried, tactical thermonuclear bomb

Some other weapon factoids you may be unwilling to wade through a FAQ to obtain are:
- weapons can be customized to be on the left or right
- view model weapons are between 250 and 400 faces
- weapons seen in the world are no more than 200 faces
- the shotgun drum doesn't actually do a full rotation. I just move it a little and then move it back
- the rocket launcher will still carry 3 missiles on the rack even when empty (call me a tease)
- the rocket shells and grenades being fed into the chambers of those respective weapons are not really different shells and are tricks ala the pseudo-rotating shotgun drum
- the chain gun and hyper blaster have overspin and one rotates clockwise and the other counter-clockwise
- when creating the weapons I built them as usual and then viewed them through a 90 degree field of view camera viewport in order to account
for any view warp. This occasionally required me to deform the weapons in order to compensate for our wacky FOV (i.e. squash them in a bit)
- the decision to make our weapons look more conventional as opposed to looking like some quisinart(sp) or toaster oven was because we wanted you to be able to realize it was in fact a weapon you were holding in your hands
- no melee weapon was made because we wanted to piss people off, although the mission pack may have such a weapon if we get enough bitching about the lack of that feature
- yes the weapons animation ARE a bitch to do and to make look 'right', that's probably one of the reasons why I'm actually PAID to do what I do
- no people or defenseless animals were harmed in the creation and/or animations of the Quake2 weapon
- finally YEP you guessed it I am tired of questions about the weapons

Back to the grind good friends and fellow philogynists...

TF Bot Beta (Updated)
Replacing  version 0.75 (released earlier today) that had "fatal bugs" Version 0.76 of the TeamFortress Bot Public Beta (748 KB) has been released on The TFBOTS Page (Team Fortress required). Here's the read me. Thanks [darkS].

GL Fake (Updated)
I keep getting mail about the GL Doom screenshot that's floating about, but sCary tells me that it's a fake (thanks sCary), and he should know, since Ritual's Jim Dosé is doing the port. This is a screenshot from the Doom3D TC that was used in a TC Magazine article (neither the TC nor TC Magazine were responsible for the hoax).

Zanshin - Arbitration
Zanshin updated the GLQuake Dojo with the good news that his case is going to arbitration, rather than a jury trial (btw, on the GLQuake scene he has also posted his Riva 128 (STB Velocity 128) Review) Thanks James.

New AirQuake
AirQuake test 21 (2.0 MB) has been released on the AirQuake page (beware, the link there leads to test 20, to get test 21 from CD-ROM.COM click here). The new version fixes the ghost vehicle bug, adds new chopper sounds, and includes a revised AirCity map. Thanks Prophet.

Net Violence
QuakeWorld gets a passing mention in an article in Wired News titled Net Surf: Good, Clean Violence that discusses the future of on-line interactive conflict, compelled by the paradigm presented by the new People's Court. Thanks Reflex.

Quake Women's Focus
The following comes from the Quake Women's Forum:

Quake Women's Forum (www.planetquake.com/QWF) is beginning a new feature called QuakeWoman Focus, where, each month, QWF focuses on the achievements of an active QuakeWoman. The QuakeWoman Focus for October is: Ms. Barrows, creator of: Quake Contaminated Levels.

Malice Movie
Embrionic Pete sent along an exclusive Quicktime Movie of Malice detahmatch action (5.1 MB), edited by loonyboi, that shows off some of the features of this soon to be released TC (nope, no strippers in this one, sorry), like the cool parachutes we saw at QuakeCon, flippers for underwater swimming, new weapons, even the opportunity to hold your pistol sideways "gangsta style," as well as a note that seems to indicate that MaliceMatch will not include armor or the Quad Damage, and another that boasts something called "weapon balance". More info, as always, on the Malice page.

3D Cardorama

• There is a review of 3D video cards up on GameSpot. This review is not really aimed at the GLQuake audience: Though it mentions GLQuake at times, their Benchmark Test Results don't use GLQuake (though they do use WinQuake and Quake, oh well), and they seem mystified at the performance of Voodoo Rush versus Voodoo in GLQuake. Thanks Prophet.
• An article in PC Gamer Online details representatives of 3Dfx and Jazz Multimedia (a Voodoo Rush OEM), making the rounds to game developers apparently demonstrating that criticisms of Voodoo Rush performance have been "overblown" by showing off the card with the latest drivers and BIOS (which are not yet available for end users). Thanks Prophet.

Jedi Q&A
OGR has posted a letters section that answers questions from readers about Jedi Knight. Thanks Bryant Luk of JK NewsNet.

Riot Update
The Riot Mobile Armor website is now receiving weekly updates. Posted there now is a rundown of Craig Hubbard's life as Lead Designer. Okay, it's probably not 100% accurate, but it's funny.

Quake Literature
There are three new stories up on the Quake Literary Guild (yes, in yesterday's bizarre moment of irony, I misspelled Quake in the QLG's name--hehe).

Interviews
The Quake Workshop has posted an interview with Marcus Dromowicz (author of the Mexx levels). Thanks Prophet.

What They Say

• Ion Storm's Daikatana AI guru Nelno the Amoeba updated his .plan with some interesting tidbits about what's up with Daikatana programming (like the ability to have Reaper bots fight Zeus bots without any code mixing). He also gets an award for taking HTML in .plan files to a new extreme by generating a JavaScript error.
• Accolade acolyte Don "onethumb" MacAskill updated his .plan with the Casa del OT update, and word on the location of his Quake II Contest entry.

Movements
The Ultimate SiN (formerly The Elitegames SiN zone) has relocated to www.brutality.com/sin/. To celebrate the occasion, they have released version 1.10 of the "SiN FAQ." (My Sin FAQ - Q: SiN or Sin? A: Sin... at least I thought so, though Levelord writes SiN in his latest .plan). Thanks Prophet.

etc.
John Carmack's Ferrari Testarossa (not   Thresh's-thanks tokay) is profiled in the Street Power Sept.Oct. 1997 Issue. Thanks capsule ... Ultima Online is now in stores by the way (computer powered Sominex for some, video crack for others). Thanks KAFKA ... Demos of the winning matches in the Rocket Arena tourney are available, here's the high-ping winner Orange's demo (1.6 MB) and LPB-winner Kornelia's winning demo (1.6 MB). The demos are in .qwd format, so QuakeWorld and the RocketArena patch are required ... More reactions in the MailBag today, one to the Bot issue, and another about co-op starts ... 

Transparent Zer
The DeathDealer's QuakeDeck has a transparent water patch for GLQuake users of  Zerstörer - Testament of the Destroyer. Thanks Prophet. It also bears noting that there is a program called WaterHack allows transparent water for non-GL users in exchange for a small performance hit. Available on the WaterHack page.

Deathmatch 6
RAzOR Entertainment has worked out a new deathmatch mode, Deathmatch 6 (129 KB), which changes the nature of deathmatch to a "last man standing" contest, with each player given a number of frags equal to the fraglimit, with a frag subtracted for each death. Winner is the last one not at zero. More details are on this page. The rest of the rules are similar to Deathmatch 3. The patch is still in beta, which gives them a chance to work out questions like what to do to players who chose to hide.

Rocket Arena Tourney Results
Congrats to Kornelia (low-ping) and Orange - [CE] (high-ping) for winning the Rocket Arena Tournament this weekend. Kornelia won a match between the two to be crowned overall champion: the latest in a series of strong, if not first place showings in Quake competitions for her. Thanks -Snake - [EvL] who also passes along high compliments to PuffDaddy for his stellar work as organizer (the tourney actually ended ahead of schedule).

Interviews (Updated)

• Tim Sweeney of Epic is interviewed at UnrealNation. Thanks Prophet.
• Craig Hubbard of Monolith (the upcoming Riot: Mobile Armor team) is another Voodoo Extreme interview victim.
• Witzbold, maintainer of the Quake Literary Guild, is interviewed on The Installation.
• The Probe Team of the "Forsaken" project, are interviewed on Voodoo Extreme. Thanks Prophet.

What They Say (Updated)

• id Software level designer American "tokay" McGee updated his .plan to announce that his contest is over.
• id Software programmer Brian Hook updated his .plan clarifying his comments about the Rebel Boat Rocker comments by Scott Miller.
• 3Dfx/QSpy programmer Jack "morbid" Mathews updated his .plan with some gripes about a competitor's product (NEC's PowerVR).
• id Software level designer Brandon "KillMe" James updated his .plan to rave about the Zerstörer PC (a project he was part of at its outset).
• Ritual level designer Richard "Levelord" Gray mentions in his .plan that he's rediscovered the joys of deathmatch (Ritual is adjusting the expected Sin release date accordingly).

Max Payne
There are screenshots of the Max Payne (3rd person 3D Game) editor and Max himself on PreyStation.

All-Star CTF
There is a huge CTF project underway, coordinated by the Xenocide Flag Academy. The project, called All-Star CTF will bring some of the most popular variations on Threewave Capture the Flag into one all-encompassing package: an integration of Threewave CTF, ThunderWalker CTF, CTF+, the CTF Expansion Project, Expert CTF, Gatherers CTF, Midnight CTF, and the new Xeno CTF. A new start map will allow players to choose from 12 separate episodes and the combined client will support all of the custom features, models, skins, and sounds from all of the CTF variants. "Xeno CTF" is described as the same as Threewave, but with skin support, boasting contributions from professionals in the community, such as Jim Molinets, President of Rogue Entertainment, and Christian "Disruptor" Antkow of id Software, and skins from Chris Bolin, the skinmeister general.

GuildRing
There is now a Hexen II Guildring (guild=clan), hosted by HexenWorld.

Jedi Knight Stuff

• Here is an unedited log (though I did excise about a megabyte of join/part messages) of the Jedi Knight IRC conference Friday night. Thanks Dodee.
• A new site has opened to cover Jedi Knight, the Jedi Knight Network (no connection to the Psychic Friends network; as far as I know, you cannot call to speak to Yoda for $3.00/minute).
• AVault has posted a Jedi Knight preview featuring a boatload of screenshots, and interviews with the development team. Thanks Ant.

New QuMa (with Hexen II Support)
Version 1.5 of QuMa (pronounced Kyoo'-muh) has been released on the Negative Eddy Software - QuMa Home Page. The new release has support for the Hexen II Palette and an extensive Hexen II entities list to allow Hexen II level editing.

Crack Cam
There is a live cam set up at Crack dot Com, so you can see what really goes on behind the scenes at a game development company (parental discretion is advised).

Movements

• The Quake Green Ribbon campaign has moved to grc.quake2.com/.
• The Escape from Quake TC has relocated to www.brutality.com/efq/.

LAN Parties
LAN Party news: an event has been added for Vevey, Switzerland.

etc.
An article discussing the game design titled Game Design 101 (sounds so familiar, but appears fairly recent) is up on GameCenter (who seem to have done  something about the cryptic URL's their site used to generate). Thanks Jason Pollock ... Happy Birthday Bubbah, of Bubbah's News (modeling news), who turns 24 today. Thanks Prophet ... Log Parser of the day (this is the part you've been waiting for, I know) is available here -- this one outputs a Doom-like who fragged who matrix (sounds perfect for LAN parties) ... In the MailBag, more bot stuff, and a plea for co-op levels (or at least co-op starting points on levels) ... Good luck to Zanshin (Master Po of the GLQuake Dojo), as today is his court date (he does not want email about this). Thanks Zero|DPX ...

Zerstörer Review
There is a review of Zerstörer - Testament of the Destroyer the amazing PC that was released yesterday on Operation 3Dfx. Thanks Prophet. They rave about it, as well they should. Ohmygod this is an amazing project: I can't recommend it more highly. You can download the 11 MB Zerstörer file here. I've just played through a bit but I am already flabbergasted. There are some cool weapons: old (a very dangerous chainsaw), and new (the fearsome chain-lightning gun, seeming exactly as was planned for inclusion in the original Quake--yes I did an Impulse 9 to check it out), but the immersiveness of the first couple of levels, enhanced by Darin McNeil's cutscene technique, have me agog (when I realized where I was at the beginning of level two, I got chills). Excuse me, I've got to go and play some more.

New Qooles
Version 2.07 of WinQoole (1.3 MB), and GLQoole (1.3 MB) have been released on the Qoole Page, fixing what are described as "serious bugs" in version 2.05. GLQoole is Glide-based and supports  windowed operation on Voodoo cards (even though the Voodoo is theoreticaly a full-screen-only card), but apparently does not currently work on Voodoo Rush-based cards. Thanks The dark Monkey.

HexChaseCam
There's word on the ChaseCam page of the Hexen version of the ChaseCam (beyond the built-in Hexen II chasecam), currently in the works, with an alpha available to see how it works so far. Thanks Prophet.

Accelerated Mouse for SVGA Linux Quake
Thanks to Mike Chapman for sending along this accelerated mouse driver source (2 KB) for Linux users:

Sets mouse acceleration (threshold, multiplier) for svgalib with environment variables.

I also have it patched to work in high rest with an S3 Virge, I need to complete the patch. This is a source code patch to do mouse acceleration in SVGAlib, which is used by squake and linux qwcl. Instructions included. Something I did but never told anyone but Zoid, for some reason. Note that this is not simply a multiplier like quake's sensitivity, it's based on a threshold. Move the pointing device a little, the crosshair moves a little. Move it a lot, and your actions are multiplied.

LAN Parties
LAN Party update: new events added for Neuss, Germany and Sydney, Australia.

etc.
The Quake Movie Library is offering free space to advertise your Quake-related page ... San Diego residents interested in working on Future versus Fantasy 4.0 contact Hap ... Another good resource to find out if Cable Modems are available in your area is Cable Datacom News. Thanks payback ... Also more bot stuff in the MailBag, including word from the MikeBot author himself ...

Zerstörer Release
Zerstörer - Testament of the Destroyer (11 MB) has been released on the Zerstörer - Testament of the Destroyer page. It's been a hard day (the server here was sown when I tried to update remotely, and I've just returned from traveling), so I borrowed sCary's time machine to tack this on the end (top?) of Saturday's news.

HexMatch
Phayyde of the Strategon, and author of the NoCreate patch, has released another patch called HexMatch (401 KB) to address cheating and lag problems in Hexen II deathmatch until Raven's patch is released. Here's the skinny:

HexMatch includes an improved NoCreate to discourage all the Gummelt-impersonators naming themselves Cosmos on the servers. Of course, it also fixes the create cheat. The barrel spawning is fixed. Gone are the annoying patch announcements. :)

HexMatch attempts to reduce lag by controlling the number of models created by normal weapon use. Some weapons have been tweaked to slow down the firing rate. To compensate for this handicap, I have increased the damage dealt by these weapons. In doing so, the weapon balance may need further attention. That's why this is a test release. My tests have shown that it effectively reduces lag. We know it fixes the cheats. I encourage feedback from DMers so I can work on improvements.

I know Raven will address all of these issues in their patch, which will be released soon. I expect that to obsolete HexMatch. However, until "soon" arrives, I am releasing this to give us Hexen II DMers a cheat-free and less laggy server upon which to rock.

Zer PC IRC
Members of the Zerstörer - Testament of the Destroyer team will be hanging around in irc.3dnet.net channel #Zer after their monster TC is released (which should happen sometime today), so you can stop by and chat while you download..

Open GL Port Update
The GL Underground has been updated with word on their Open GL port, which has been released to a select group of testers. There's also the usual compliment of glib patter which I find terribly entertaining even when I don't understand it (I may be slow, but I am easily amused, which counts for something). Thanks to "Weary"^H^H^H^H^H^H Wicked Billy Wilson of the boffo Voodoo Extreme for that.

Modified Quake News
A strong new contender in the once empty field of TC reporting,  Modified Quake News (MQN) is already a valuable resource. Thanks Prophet.

Can You Get A Cable Modem?
This CNET Feature has a map to show you if Cable Modems (and their accompanying minuscule pings) are available in your area. Thanks Faustus.

What They're Saying

• Brian Hook made an update to his .plan questioning some recent statements from Apogee Software President Scott Miller in his Voodoo Extreme interview about the contributions to Duke Nukem made by an ex-member of the Duke Team now at startup Rebel Boat Rocker.
• Burning with curiosity over all the possible anagrams for Tom Hall (or, in this case, Thomas Andrew Hall)? Burn no more, as his .plan update provides more anagrams than you can shake a stick at (if stick shaking is your thing).
• Paul Steed sounds psyched about the work of the id level design team in his .plan.

Reviews

• OGR has posted their Hexen II  review.
• As has Games Domain, whose Hexen II review is here. Thanks Prophet.
• In a startling turn of events, PCME has posted their own review of Hexen II. Thanks Prophet.

Interviews

• Today's Happy Puppy Radio Show features Mike "Chaos" Werckle of Raven's Hexen II team. The show airs at 1:00 PM Central time. You might want to clear some time afterwards to deathmatch after all the happy little puppy muppets on that site have driven you into a killing rage. Real player required. Thanks Prophet.
• ActionWorld has an interview with Scott Miller of Apogee, curiously titled Taking the High Road with Shareware. Thanks Prophet.
• There's an interview with Mark Adams of Maverick Software, the team responsible for the Mac Port of
  Shadow Warrior, and Duke 3D) here. Thanks Prophet.
• There is an edited log of the IRC interview with Slipgate of Quake2.com up on Quake2.com.

etc.
Stumped on Stomped? Though some have said it's back up, Stomped (and thus Redwood's) are still down for me. If you are curious why, they are upgrading their bandwidth to something like a JigaBit, so once they're back up and cranking, they should be cranking ... An updated Quake II screensaver is available on Flying Penguin's Quake Coop. Thanks Hanif ... Log parser of the day is GibStats: a new deathdata.cfg file released on the GibStats page allows Future versus Fantasy support ... The unabated Bot debate continues on the mikeBot Project page, and since a piece of MikeBot editorial mail came this way, I added it to the MailBag just to keep things stirred up ...