Articles in the archive contain broken links because outdated files are removed.
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| John Cash on Quake 3 Fun Names | Headlines |
John Cash made a .plan update, among other things indicating the fun will return to fun names in Quake 3 "with a vengeance":
Quake3
------
Working converting everything over for the new fixed virtual reolustion console that John mentioned. The font is now a code page 850 like set so those of you who don't happen to have English as your native language will have all the letters in your alphabet available. As before, some of the extra slots are being used for graphics parts. There characters *are* available for use in your name. The font was bumped up in size from 8x8 to 16x16, although the rendered resolution may be different because of the virtual console size. The font itself is just white now. Colored text is being done a different way now. Some places we will force the text to be draw in a single, fixed color. Others it will start out white, but can be changed mid-string. That includes your name! Yes, the return of the fun name... with a vengeance! If anoyone would start a petition if I disabled animated names, please tell me now. They are a bad waste of bandwidth and right now I plan to stop that with "no name spamming" code.
NVIDIA's Response
NVIDIA has
posted a response to SGI's lawsuit (reported
yesterday). Thanks Voodoo Extreme:
"We believe this action is motivated by the loss of some of the best 3D architects in the world to NVIDIA Corporation," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA.
"These people had no involvement in the design of NVIDIA's current RIVA graphics processors which are the subject of the alleged patent infringement. NVIDIA is prepared to vigorously defend itself."
IRC-O-Rama
A few chat events on the horizon today:
Duke Chat
George Broussard will be participating in TEN's Online Lecture Series at 4:00 PM Pacific (7:00 PM Eastern) today, talking about Duke Nukem Forever. A TEN account is required, more details are on their website.Rocket Arena Release Party
A release party for the Quake II version of Rocket Arena is planned for tonight, starting at 7:00 PM Pacific (10:00 PM Eastern time) on 3dNet IRC in the channel #arena (servers include irc.3dnet.net, irc.planetquake.com, and idcube.idsoftware.com). The 12 MB Rocket Arena client pack, which supports the VWep visible weapons patch, will be available for immediate download, and features 8 maps with 46 total arenas.Mac Util Chat
MacQuake utility author Scott Kevill (QuakeFinder, Quiver), is the guest for a chat interview in the newly re-opened chat area of Quakeintosh (a 3.0, Java-enabled browser is required). The festivities get underway at 9:00 PM Eastern time.
Freeze Tag
Freeze Tag is a cool sounding new Quake II mod described as a cross between JailBreak and CTF. The object is to freeze your opponents, at which point you can drag them back to your base. Frozen teammates can be thawed by standing near them for 3 seconds, and scoring accomplished when all members of one team are frozen (at which point they explode into shards. Cool! Gib-cicles!).Battle of the Sexes
A server-only release, version 2.9.3 of the Battle of the Sexes gender-war is out on Spinoza's Quake 2 Mods Page, mostly offering lag reduction improvements.Atlas Phase 1
The last phase of Phase 1 (?) of the Atlas Quake II Map utility project is out, with Phase 2 expected soon.Bot Front-ends
AutoBot for AceBot 0.06b is out, following-up on the AutoBot team's intention to make a separate version of their Bot launcher for every Quake II bot available. Also, version 1.36 alpha of the Quick Start - Eraser Bot Wizard is out.Recon Wars
A server-only version 1.61 of Recon Wars for Quake II is now available.Requiem Source Code
The source code for Requiem 2.0 for normal Quake is now available for download on the Requiem Homepage.
Quake
III FAQ
The second Unofficial Quake 3
FAQ has has another update, now to version 0.03.
Q2CTFI
The schedule and divisions for Q2CTFi, a Quake II CTF tourney, are up on the website, with competition to get underway April 20.The Coalition
The Coalition is a CTF tourney starting up with separate QuakeWorld and Quake II divisions. Players sign up as individuals, and teams will be formed by having captains select from the pool of players.
New Qoole
Version 2.36 of both WinQoole and GlideQoole are up on the Qoole Test Release page. Thanks Fishman from Rust.
MacQuake 1.09
MacQuake 1.09 is reviewed on MacQuake.com in an article that offers comparisons to previous MacQuake releases.
Righteous 3D II
PsychoNews reviews the Voodoo2, examining the 12MB Righteous 3D II.
Out of the Blue
Woo! I think I'm back on track over here, and feeling much better
(thanks for all the kind words).
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| QuakeCast | Headlines |
QuakeCast high command tells me tonight's show is being replaced by a repeat.
SGI Sues NVIDIA
According to this Yahoo press release,
Silicon Graphics, Inc. is suing NVIDIA seeking an injunction to prevent NVIDIA from
manufacturing their RIVA-family
accelerators. The suit alleges the RIVAs infringe upon SGI's U.S. Patent
No. 5,706,481 for an innovation "that has made high-speed texture mapping
possible in low-priced hardware."
Quake II Tweak Guide
An updated 3 Fingers' Quake 2 Tweak Guide, version 1.10.01 to be quite
precise, is up on 3 Fingers' &
Heron's Quake and Quake II Ultimate Boundaries.
More Quake/Quake II Releases
Too darn many releases to add to the list of releases from earlier today, so we'll start a new one:
Future versus Fantasy
Version 4.02 of the Future vs Fantasy for QuakeWorld client pack is out, offering a new Chaos mode, improved Teamplay, GLQW support, and Purge mode. Word is the new beta is not officially supported by Freeform Interactive.New Eraser Bot & Bot Johnny
Version 0.92 of the Eraser Bot is up on the Impact Development Team page fixing what are described as "nasty AI bugs (mostly CTF related)". Also, in another new bot front-end release, version 1.1 of Bot Johnny is now available.LM CTF
A server-only version 3.02 patch for Loki's Minions Capture the Flag is out, fixing bugs that caused killer observers, unwanted team scrambling with TEAM_RESET off, non-functioning radio command, and LMCTF05's "gaping hole between the flags."
Raven Departure
Word from Phoebus is that animation wiz Mike "Chaos" Werckle is
departing Raven software. No word on his new plans, but best of luck to Chaos whatever he
ends up doing.
John Carmack's Quake 3 Update
John
Carmack's .plan gives the lowdown on two ends of the id gaming spectrum, giving up the
latest on Quake 3, as well as his impressions on the state of the Doom source
release:
Things are progressing reasonably well on the Quake 3 engine.
Not being limited to supporting a 320*240 256 color screen is very, very nice, and will make everyone's lives a lot easier.
All of our new source artwork is being done in 24 bit TGA files, but the engine will continue to load .wal files and .pcx files for developer's convenience. Each pcx can have its own palette now though, because it is just converted to 24 bit at load time.
Q3 is going to have a fixed virtual screen coordinate system, independant of resolution. I tried that back in the original glquake, but the fixed coordinate system was only 320*200, which was excessively low. Q2 went with a dynamic layout at different resolutions, which was a pain, and won't scale to the high resolutions that very fast cards will be capable of running at next year.
All screen drawing is now done assuming the screen is 640*480, and everything is just scaled as you go higher or lower. This makes laying out status bars and HUDs a ton easier, and will let us do a lot cooler looking screens.
There will be an interface to let game dlls draw whatever they want on the screen, precisely where they want it. You can suck up a lot of network bandwidth doing that though, so some care will be needed.
--
Going to the completely opposite end of the hardware spectrum from quake 3...
I have been very pleased with the fallout from the release of the DOOM source code.
At any given spot in design space, there are different paths you can take to move forward. I have usually chosen to try to make a large step to a completely new area, but the temptation is there to just clean up and improve in the same area, continuously polishing the same program.
I am enjoying seeing several groups pouring over DOOM, fixing it up and enhancing it. Cleaning up long standing bugs. Removing internal limitations. Orthogonalizing feature sets. Etc.
The two that I have been following closest are Team TNT's BOOM engine project, which is a clear headed, well engineered improvement on the basic DOOM technical decisions, and Bruce Lewis' glDoom project.
Any quakers feeling nostalgic should browse around:
Quake/Quake II Releases
Not one, but two releases featuring Airfist-type weapons:
Q2 Bible: Resources
The Gutenbergs (no, not Steve) of the Quake II Bible, Kenn and Thresh, are at it again, adding a Quake 2 Resource Guide to their Quake II Bible.Revenge of Stroggos
Beta version 1.21 of the Revenge of Stroggos Quake II TC was posted on Saturday. Two known servers running this class-based mod are: 165.91.9.182 and 24.0.141.13.Chaos Deathmatch
Version 0.2 of Chaos Deathmatch for Quake II is out, offering a lights off game mode, a flashlight (goes with the lights out, eh?), the airfist, weapon banning, item banning, and more.ServObit
The Win95 version 1.4 of ServObit for Quake II is up on SteQve's No Frills ServObit Page, with a Linux release promised shortly. The new version offers gender-specific obit messages (tired of the CrackWhores being referred to as "he"?), genderless messages (for Snorks, etc.), group messages, and even a test program to ensure you haven't forgotten any possible permutations.Above and Beyond
The first release of the Above and Beyond Quake II Mod is out, the object is described as to shoot your enemies into the abyss below using an airgun-type weapon.Strike Team Quake TC
Beta version 2.10 of the Special Forces Quake - Strike Team TC for Quake is out offering a new multiplayer map, improved multiplayer gaming, fixed crouch code, entities for map building and a GLQuake fix.DEMentED 2 Demo Editor
Version 0.500 of the DEMentED 2 Quake II demo editor is available, along with information on how to register the program.Bot Front-ends
Quick Start - Eraser Bot Wizard version 1.32 Alpha is out fixing a few bugs. Assassin Bot support is a new feature of the AutoBot which now supports no less than nine Quake II bots, however the future plan is to make separate versions of the AutoBot for each supported bot.
The Amoeba's Daikatana Coup
Following Kee Kimbrell's recent departure, Jonathan "Nelno the
Amoeba" Wright has taken over the reigns as lead programmer for Daikatana, apparently
slam-dunked into the position by John Romero as noted on the ION Storm site (see how you can twist things around if
you try?). The daily informant also takes a look at the Daikatana team's preparations for
E3.
Ask
the Oracle
Answers to reader-submitted questions about the gaming industry will be
answered on a weekly basis on the Oracle, a
new section on the Gathering of Developers website.
The first Q&A posted there has 3DRealms' Scott Miller answering "How do I get a
Job as a Game Developer?".
New SoundBlaster Drivers
Updated Windows 95 SoundBlaster drivers are up on Creative Labs' FTP site. Thanks Jan Henell.Voodoo2 "Gold" Drivers - Game FAQ
Dylan Rhodes from 3Dfx shot off the "Gold" Windows 95/98 drivers (1.5 MB) and WindowsNT drivers (1.15 MB) for the Voodoo2 to the fine fellows over at 3dfx Mania. Also, a new version of Moody's Voodoo 2 game FAQ (17 KB) is out (thanks Voodoo Extreme).New H3D Quake
H3D Media has an updated Quake II installer for H3D stereo glasses. Thanks 3Dfx Mania.VELOCITY 128 Drivers
New WHQL Certified version 1.6.6 Windows 95 drivers for the VELOCITY 128 are out offering OpenGL Support (though the new OpenGL drivers do not support the VELOCITY's TV-out features). Thanks Randy Perry.The Quake State
An updated version of The Quake State, a look at Quake II performance and visual quality on 3Dgen @ VE, now has info and screenshots for Quake II running on every 3D accelerator except the PowerVR PCX2.Riot Forum
The Riot Forum is back online on the Riot: Mobile Armor website with a focus on technical discussions of DirectEngine technology. Thanks PsychoNews.PowerVR Stuff
An article on eXtreme3D seeks to clear up what they feel are misconceptions about the PVRSG in Next-Generation's recent preview. Also, there's a PowerVR Unreal Feature up on Unreal Nation that looks at Epic's upcoming shooter on the PCX2 and offers five screenshots of the game running on a PVRSG.
Levelord Times Two
There's an interview with Levelord up on Rust, and another on Ritnews.com.Matthias Worch
Matthias Worch also submits to Ritnews.com's third degree.QERadiant
Robert Duffy of QERadiant is interviewed on Twisted Edge Games.
DWANGO Quake II Competition
DWANGO is holding a Quake II competition called the Get Real Shootout featuring Quake II (now that rolls off the tongue). There are single-player and clan competitions, and the whole shebang is to culminate in a face-to-face playoff at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Atlanta. Thanks Prophet.Q2 Elite
Q2 Elite is a small Quake II competition ring, with about 12 openings for interested clans.
Out of the Blue
Thanks again for all the kind words to accompanied my trip to the Dentist
yesterday (with mixed feelings I find the source of my severe pain of the last couple
weeks was avoidable, and was easily fixed. At least I'm optimistic that after today this
will cease to be a big factor (who could tell right now, I'm pretty damn doped up)). I
hope I didn't lose anything in all my catching up today, it's amazing how much you can
miss in one afternoon/evening away. Oh yeah, local file downloads courtesy of GamesNet's
blazing FTP is now working again: local copies of the new Voodoo 2 drivers are posted
above, and we should be up to speed now hosting local files again.
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| MacQuake 1.09 | Headlines |
Owners of the full version of MacQuake can find a patch to update to version 1.09 on the WizWorks support pages. At least they can find word of the files there, I tried for some time to log in and provide local copies (I believe this will work now!), but was unable to get in. Thanks Hans Andersen.
Quake
3 at E3?
sCary has posted an interview with John Carmack extensively covering the
subject of whether Quake 3 will be shown in any form at this year's E3. Here's an excerpt
(head over to the Shuga Shack to read John's whole
reply, which has a period at the end).
sCary: Hey John, quick question. what can we expect to see for Quake3 at E3?
John Carmack: Not sure yet
Quick Start Eraser Bot Wizard
Quick Start - Eraser Bot Wizard alpha 1.22 is out fixing a bunch of bugs (don't get too comfortable, version 1.3 is in the works).Quake2-LaunchPad
Quake2-LaunchPad is a new Quake II front-end offering support for Threewave CTF, Superheroes II and King of the Hill games in addition to single-player DM and co-op.Newer ServerConfigMOD 2
Hot on the heels of Beta 2, Beta 3 of deathmatch 2.1 of ServerConfigMOD 2 is out, fixing a bug that allowed spectators to drop items for players to pick up (ooops).Quake 2 Camera
A test page is up gauging interest in Quake2 Camera, a Quake II update to QCam, a chase cam.
Eye On the Storm
ION Storm has announced that Todd Porter is now CEO. Tom Hall has assumed
the title of President, with John Romero hanging in there as Chairman. Future plans
include adding the word "executive" in front of each of those titles. Details on
this can be found in yesterday's Daily Informant on
ION's site, where there's also the new April Eye on Storm newsletter.
Disruptor Interview
id's Christian
'Disruptor' Antkow submits to the third degree in an interview on Rust.
Netscape 4.05 Follow-up
The Java Development Kit 1.1 Preview Release for Communicator 4.05 (Windows 95/NT) is up on the Netscape JDK 1.1 Update Support page. Thanks ET (phone home).Big Harddrives
Seagate Announces 10 GB IDE drives. Thanks Tim McCarty. No big deal, DocWilco points out, since Maxtor announced 11.5 GB drives a couple of months ago.Quake II 3D Sound
3D Sound Support for Quake 2 is a project exploring the possibilities of adding 3D sound to Quake II.
Heretic II
There's a Heretic II preview up on AVault.
MotS
GamePen has posted a Mysteries of the Sith review looking at the Jedi Knight mission pack.Outwars
PC Gamer's Outwars preview describes Microsoft's upcoming third-person jetpack game as appealing to those who seek more "depth" than will be provided by upcoming shooters like Half-Life, Sin, Unreal, and the first Quake II mission pack. A playable trial version of Outwars is expected Friday. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.Righteous 3D II Review
There's a a review of the Righteous 3D II, Orchid's Voodoo2 offering, up on GamePen.SpecOps
Another combo SpecOps preview/interview is up, this one on GameStats.
QuakeWorld Invitational
QuakeWorld Invitational League is a tourney looking to pit 12 LPB clans against each other in a struggle for supremacy in QuakeWorld. No word on how the invitees will be selected.Screenshot Contest
PC Fan, seemingly quite proud of their insanity, are holding a Quake II screenshot competition, offering a Jazz Outlaw 3D video card for the winner.
Site Seeing
Would this section be shorter if I just kept a running list of sites that haven't
moved to PlanetQuake?
Out of the Blue
If updates remain spotty through tomorrow, it's because I will be at the
dentist all afternoon. I strongly believe that this is the last visit involving real
trauma, and hope that life will return to what passes for normal here at the old Blue
Tower shortly. The no-win choice between pain and pain-killers lately has robbed me of
much of the time and energy to do as much work on this site as I want (these last few
weeks in particular), and I appreciate everyone's patience with that. I have mixed
feelings about sharing what sounds like self-pity here, please know this is not meant in
that way: When situations arise where the normal operation of this site is affected I just
like to make that known.
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| FAQs | Headlines |
Quake II FAQ
Version 1.76 of The Unofficial Quake II FAQ is now up (apparently finished a while back but not uploaded until now).
Quake III FAQ
An updated version 0.15 of The Unofficial Quake III FAQ is online (as opposed to yesterday's version 0.02 of the Quake 3 FAQ, what a difference a roman numeral makes).
Heretic II FAQ
Version .006 of the Unofficial Heretic II FAQ is online.
Ez Server
Version 1.2 of Ez Server, the Quake II server front-end is now available.ServerConfigMOD 2
Deathmatch version 2.1 beta 3 of ServerConfigMOD 2 (now that's a lot of different numbers) is online, offering a chase cam and a fully configurable MOTD.Lithium II (Updated)
Version 0.98 of Lithium II for Quake II is out capping a brief flurry of releases adding a couple of administrative features while, hopefully squashing a couple of bugs that could crash the server.Bot Front-ends
Version 1.0 of Bot Johnny, the Eraser front-end is out.Linux Eraser
The Linux version of the Eraser Bot beta 0.91 for Quake II is up on the Impact Development Team, along with word of an unprecedented occurrence, Quake helps someone's love-life, as an anecdote called "Eraser can get you laid!" holds hope for all geeks.Weapons Factory
Version 1.07 of The Weapons Factory CTF mod for Quake II is out.HotLaunch
Version 1.6.2b of the Hot Launch bot launcher is out.
Win95 & NT Permedia 2 Drivers
New Windows 95 and new NT drivers for Permedia2-based accelerators are up on the 3Dlabs page. Thanks Mauler.Matrox Specs
The specs on Matrox' upcoming 3D accelerators are up on the Matrox website. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.NT OpenGL ICD
The RivaZone, a veritable hotbed of RIVA 128-related news has posted STB's Open GL ICD for Windows NT. Word there is that this should work on other RIVA 128 based cards. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.PVRSG
Sharky's got an article up on Next-Generation called The full story on PVRSG, examining PowerVR's upcoming 3D chipset.Post-Final Reality
Futuremark Corporation is a new sister company to Remedy Entertainment, creators of the Final Reality benchmark/eye-candy dealie. Futuremark will concentrate on the development of 3D benchmark software. This is all detailed in Remedy' Technical Director Markus Mäki's .plan.
HexenWorld 1.11
Version 1.11 of HexenWorld is up on Hexenworld.
The same message from Rick Johnson applies to this go 'round as version 1.10, so here's a
recap:
Includes 3 new deathmatch levels: hwdm3, hwdm4, hwdm5. hwdm3 is not HW friendly (i.e. big huge open areas = bad for networking).
Be sure to go to the key configure menu and bind a key to "Player Names". There is also a console variable, r_teamcolor, that you can set to tint other players who are on your team.
Blade the Vampire Hunter
Excelsior! Zero Gravity Entertainment, who brought us X-Men: Ravages of the Apocalypse, have pulled Marvel Comic's lawyers out of Bankruptcy Court long enough to begin a new project in the Mighty Marvel Manner: Blade the Vampire Hunter (my recollection is this was "the Vampire Slayer" in my youth). No word yet on what engine the whole deal will use.New Glide BC3KAD
A new Glide patch for Derek Smart's Battle Cruiser 3000 A.D. is up on the GNN section of www.bc3000ad.com as an unsupported release (there's no equivalent software version. Word from Derek is that with the arrival of his PowerVR developers kit, there are no plans for Direct3D support, as the final game will support Glide, Rendition, PowerVR, and any cards that don't have their own APIs but have a supporting OpenGL ICD (like the RIVA 128).
Tom Hall Interview
An interview looking into the working's of Tom Hall's brain is up on Warzone. Find out the latest on ION's Anachronox, the game business, and more, from the man unlucky enough to have been shot on each of the last two April Fool's Days(!). Talk about bad luck. Thanks Slipgate.Jay "Shade" Wilson Interview
An interview with Monolith's Jay "Shade" Wilson is up on the The Blood 2 Pit, talking about Blood 2.Gateway Interview
Ex-rogue, and new member of Nihilistic Software, Steve "Gateway" Tietze is interviewed on Computer Games Online. I saw that on Redwood's.Bobby Duncanson
Raven's Bobby Duncanson updated his .plan which is almost always good for a laugh.
Unreal
A new short Unreal Preview on GamePro Online offers a pair of new screenshot. Thanks Unreal.Org.Klingon Honor Guard
A Klingon Honor Guard Preview on GameSpot looks at this upcoming Unreal engine set in the Star Trek Universe.Spec Ops
Combat Simulations has re-printed their Preview of Spec Ops, and a new interview with Sandra of Zombie, talking about this realistic military combat simulator. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.Logitech-o-Rama
Cal's Hardware Shop has posted a review of a few Logitech controllers, including that CyberMan 2 thing with the puck.
Hexen II Mission Pack Utilities
The Hexen II Mission Pack Utilities are available on Hexenworld. The package includes a version of QBSP with an increased max_planes limit, and a Hexen II script compiler.Quake II Sprite Editor
There are only a few sprites in the 3D world of Quake II, but even fewer sprite editors, so hgspr2 is up on the HouseGirl Software page, to assist in all your sprite-editing needs.
CTF Textures
There is an archive of textures converted for CTF and "other" uses up on BadMonkey's PreFabs.
ClanRing CTF League
The ClanRing CTF League has been picked up Loser after the league's maintainer dropped from the scene a few weeks ago, and word is up on the page on how the last remaining matches will be conducted.Blood2Whore?
Monolith's Scott Schlegel updated his .plan with word on his own competition in the vein of Paul Steed's CrackWhore contest, asking for a photo that "best captures the look and feel of the sexy yet ass-kicking Ophelia."
Out of the Blue
Thanks to Focus on Quake
for honoring Blue's News as the best news site in their top ten Quake sites in April. Also
so honored is our own Gamer's Guide, masterful
maintained by Andrew "kolinahr" Wu and Dakota (a double winner, as his work on Captured is also honored). Congrats to all the
deserving winners.
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| New Hexenworld Beta | Headlines |
Phoebus passes along word of a new HexenWorld beta, both client and server available on Hexenworld, along with this note from Rick Johnson:
Includes 3 new deathmatch levels hwdm3, hwdm4, hwdm5. hwdm3 is not HW friendly (i.e. big huge open areas = bad for networking).
Be sure to go to the key configure menu and bind a key to "Player Names". There is also a console variable, r_teamcolor, that you can set to tint other players who are on your team.
FAQs
An updated version 0.02 of the
second Quake 3 FAQ (now that is confusing) is online. Speaking of FAQ's, the Flying Penguin's Quake Coop, home of the
Flying Penguin's Quake / Quake 2 3D FAQ has landed at a new roost.
SiN
Files
Beware the wages of sin, as Volume VI of the
Levelord's Sin Files is up on Games.Net with
onethumb giving us the lowdown on his history in gaming, just how spiffy it is to be him,
and some stuff about some game or another called Sin. (Just kidding Don, even the part
about your Boy Scout years was interesting. =) There's some cool SiNfo there
including this on action based outcome:
SiN manages to be quite nonlinear without creating a lot of back-and-forth gameplay. The buzzword here at the offices is "ABO," or Action-Based Outcome. What that means, basically, is that various actions taken by the gamer can cause gameplay twists and changes, resulting in a different experience with each outcome. For example, if you were to shoot and destroy some vats of mutagen which spill out into a water source, you may have to fight different adversaries in a later underwater level. The creatures may have mutated, creating much more vicious creatures. However, if you leave the vats alone, chances are there'll just be some normal scuba guards thirsting for your blood.
Half-Life Release Date Clarification
The release date listed on Sierra's Half-Life Web site has bounced
around a bit from April, to June, to Summer over the past few days, so Sierra's Eric
Twelker sends along an explanation of what's up with that:
Sierra has received numerous inquiries in the past day regarding the official Half-Life Web site's listing of an early June ship date. This listing is inaccurate and, since no specific release date has been announced, the site has been updated to 'Summer 1998.' Half-Life is still on target for a late Spring - early Summer release and the Valve team is working towards hitting in the E3 timeframe. Half-Life is coming along nicely; it's looking great and we're all very excited about it.
Thanks for your patience and continued support!
The Dallas Gaming Scene
A TechWeb article titled Duking It Out In Dallas is
the first part of a two-part story describing the gaming scene in Dallas (the hotbed of
the first person shooter), from its beginning through the present day. The next
installment promises to "Delve into the different way these companies are doing
business, and how they have made themselves so popular among Internet denizens."
Denizen? I resemble that remark! Thanks stone.
New TeamFortress 1 Maintainer
An announcement on the Team
Fortress Homepage reveals that TeamFortress Software will no longer be maintaining
TeamFortress for Quake, as they continue to concentrate on TeamFortress2. From now on, bug
fixes, cheat-removal and other forms of maintenance will be the responsibility of Gudlyf. Thanks Spaceman Spif of the Team Fortress Newswire
Descent Freespace Demo Plans
Word on the Volition Inc.
page is that they plan to release a Descent: Freespace demo by the end of this month, that
will weigh in at about 20 MB. Here's what to expect (thanks Voodoo Extreme): 3 missions in a mini-campaign
with branching, 4 Terran ship classes, 3 enemy fighter classes, 3 weapons, Glide and
software-based renderers, Action-driven digital music, Full briefings and debriefings with
voice, In-game voice messages and more.
New Eraser Bot - Eraser Source
Version 0.91 of the Eraser Bot for Quake II is up on the Impact Development Team page, fixing bugs and adding enhancements, particularly to CTF play, and many will be relieved to hear the Eraser's RailGun aim described as "more human-like". Also available on the Impact page is the source code for the Eraser, though Ridah noted he has reservations about releasing the source prior to version 1.0 of the Eraser, and suggests that only experienced programmers download it. Thanks FNC.
Eraser Front-end
Right in sync with the new Eraser, version 1.9a of the Eraser Front-end is up on Industry News.FamkeBot
Version 5.0 of the Quake II FamkeBot is now available, offering a "ton of bugfixes" as well as new features.
Battle of the Sexes
Version 2.9.2 of Battle of the Sexes teamplay mod for Quake II is out on Spinoza's Quake 2 Mods Page adding the ability for snipers to "cloak" (ack!), and fixing the server crashing bug.Quake II Timer
A Quake II Timer program is out on the Quake done Quick page giving everyone the ability to participate in their mania for Quake II speed runs.War Zone CTF2
Version 1.42 of War Zone CTF2, the CTF variant that bears too close a resemblance to TeamFortress for some tastes, is out on its new homepage.Rocket Arena 2 News
Word from Team Rocket Arena is that barring unforeseen occurrences, Rocket Arena 2 will be released this Friday in an IRC party, with more details to be released during the week. There are some screenshots up here to get you worked up. RA2 features Multi-Arena maps, two different teamplay modes, a menu based voting system, four custom viewing modes (a real spectator sport), new skins, VWep support, Internet-wide stat collection, and the proverbial whole nine yards.
Quake Easter Egg Hunt
Team Innovations have innovated again, cooking up a competition called the Quake Easter Egg Hunt. The hunt is scheduled for Easter Sunday (when else?), which is Sunday, April 12, for the secular crowd (the client can be downloaded the night before). The hunt offers a $100 prize for the winner.USA vs. Finland
Results of an international CTF match between the US and Finland are up on the USA! QWCTF Homepage.
Brian Hook
Brian Hook made another CTF-related .plan update suggesting a "right-hand rule" for right-of-way situations between teammates in CTF. Learn it, live it, love it.Jay Wilson
Monolith's Jay Wilson posted word in his .plan about the imminent Blood 2 website, mentioning that the project's title is officially "Blood 2: The Chosen", though pointing out that it's not yet even an announced product.morbid
TeamGameSpy's Jack "morbid" Mathews made a .plan update with information for users of the GameSpy 2.0 beta.Scott Alden Interview
There's a Scott Alden Interview on RitNews.
Duke Nukem Time2Kill Preview
GameSlice has a preview of Duke Nukem Time2Kill, a third person perspective PlayStation title starring everybody's blond (only his hairdresser knows for sure) action hero. Thanks sCary.BlackOps Preview
A BlackOps (working title) preview on AVault takes a look at this upcoming DirectEngine game categorized as an online RPG, though there's also a description that says "similar to: Unique", which is intriguing, as how many unique games do you see? Thanks Voodoo Extreme.
Praevus Review
AVault reviews Portal of Praevus, the Hexen II mission pack.glDoom Screenshots
There are some really nice glDoom screenshots up on the The Official WinDoom / glDoom Homepage.
Out of the Blue
Many comments about "The Elements of Style" reference
yesterday (including a correction right from the book on my use of Daylight Savings [sic]
Time, which should be Daylight Saving Time, thanks squidboy
you wise ass--I said I read it, I didn't say it helped). In other coolness, the Elements of Style is actually
online as a website (thanks Jason Spears), so you
can be literate without touching a book(!). Most surprising notes from yesterday were
complaints that there was no Sunday "Out of the Blue" ... who knew it would be
missed?
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| GameSpy 2.0 Beta | Headlines |
Beta 1 of GameSpy 3D version 2.0 is up on the GameSpy 3D page for registered users only. Saw that on Redwood's.
MacQuake/GLMacQuake Update
Word on the WestLake
Interactive Page is that a new patch is on the way to bring MacQuake and GL MacQuake
almost completely in line with the current PC versions (thanks BossMonkey):
The GLQuake .97 patch is nearly finished, we're just doing some extra testing to make sure it all works. Nearly all the .97 changes from the PC are in, and several minor bug fixes to both normal Quake Mac and GLQuake Mac are also in the new 1.09 update. Keep checking back for updates!
CRBot
Version 1.1 of the CRBot is out, featuring preliminary CTF support.Weapons of Destruction
Version 5.2 of Weapons of Destruction for Quake II is out with some new weapons and a swinging grappling hook replacing the old one.Q2Ring
Version .35 of Q2Ring, a mod to allow for Quake II Clan matches a la the clanring mod, is available.Pure CTF
Version 1.35 of Pure CTF for QuakeWorld is out, mostly offering bug-fixes.Tangential 1.6
Version 1.6 of the Tangential Quake II Mod is out.Action Quake2
Version 0.85 of Action Quake2 is out fixing "a plethora of bugs" from the first release.
TombRaider Gold PowerVR Patch
A patch to allow native PowerVR support for TombRaider Gold is out, here's
the AVault's PC Release List link. Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme.
John Romero Interview
There's a John Romero Interview up on Methos QuakeHook on CTF
With a name like Hook, he'd have to be into CTF, right? Brian Hook outlines a some basic CTF strategy in his .plan. In a later update, Brian recommends a couple of books I dig myself, Soul of a New Machine, and The Elements of Style (Strunk & White). Elements of Style is a book that you can easily read cover-to-cover in a single sitting, and anyone who does any writing at all should read it, often.
Modeling FAQ
The Quake II Modeling Mailing list FAQ is online.
Voodoo2
Twisted Edge Games is holding a contest and giving away a Voodoo2 card as the top prize with a Voodoo for the runner-up.ThunderWalker CTF Tourney
Sign-ups for both the low-ping and high-ping divisions of a two-on-two ThunderWalker CTF King of Capture tournament are now being accepted.Quake for Charity
The Northern Ireland Quake Tournament is a Quake competitions slated for next month with all proceeds to go to charity.
Polls & Opinions
A few of these: The results of that recent
mile-long clan survey (okay, 35 questions) are online, in the form of quotes from the
responses (they were basically essay questions). There's a poll on Capture the Flag News to try and determine the most
popular of all the CTF variants available for Quake II. BlueTooth's Quake II Polls Page seem to
offer as much opinion in the way their questions are phrased as they are asking for, so
it's kind of a give-and-take poll. Also, there's "a petition for a bug free
Quake" on Maddes'
Quake Homepage (standard Blue disclaimer: I don't like petitions myself). Finally,
there is a request on the JailBreak
page for feedback on features to include in version 2.0.
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| Praevus Walkthrough | Headlines |
A walkthrough of the Hexen II mission pack, Portal of Praevus, on the Easter egg Nightmare skill mode is up on this temporary webpage.
Heretic II / HexenWorld
Raven's Dan Freed offers a Heretic II update
in his .plan, and Rick
Johnson's .plan says a Monday release is in the cards for the next version of
HexenWorld.
Linux Voodoo 2
Here's a page with a patch to allow Glide apps to run under Linux using a Voodoo2. Scotty! I need more power!Hook on Lack of PVRNG Speculation
Brian Hook updated his .plan to clarify that a non-disclosure agreement is why he is not speculating about PVRNG (or whatever it is called) Quake 3 performance based on the released specs.Celeron
Sharky from VE has whipped up an article on Next-Generation Online titled Intel Talks Celeron that looks at the big I's Celeron processor, an Enhanced FPU Pentium II variant, said to be aimed at the gamer market in spite of poor performance due to its lack of a cache.Netscape 4.05 Caveat
Remember, If you live on the cutting edge, bring band-aids. A small warning about the new version of Netscape Communicator mentioned here the other day comes way of bob (I have not noticed any problems with it myself):The version linked from your site, although v4.05, doesn't yet appear to be fully supported by Netscape. In addition, the JDK 1.1 support available for 4.03 and 4.04 does not yet exist for 4.05.
In short, installing this version makes it unable to use java applets developed in accordance with the current release of the JDK.
PureDM for Quake II
Version 4.0 of the PureDM Quake2 Mod is out, offering IP banning, Level time remaining on the HUD, Flood protection, IP logging, VWep support, GibStats standard frag logging, and more.Action Quake2
Version 0.82 of the Action Quake2 patch is out, a mod for Quake II based on action movies (most would not know this, but Quake II is originally based on "Driving Miss Daisy")."Strike Team for Quake
Version 2.03 of the Strike Team multiplayer TC for classic Quake is out.Quake II JailBreak Model Fix & Big News
There's a weapons.pcx on the JailBreak Page that fixes problems with the Zumlin model in JailBreak version 1.7. Also, word on the JB page confirms that Rogue wants to include Jailbreak in their Quake II mission pack #2, provided the permissions with id can be worked out, so no matter how that plays out I think congrats are in order to all the Wardens and guards over at JailBreak high-command for all their successes with this mod.Star Troopers for Quake II
Version 0.25 of the Star Troopers TC for Quake II is out, featuring class based teamplay (familiar classes like engineer & medic), on any current CTF map you can find, VWep support, and stuff like that there.Quake Scene Builder
Version 1.5 of the Quake Scene Builder is out. QSB is a Quake II model viewer that offers flexible viewing features to create fairly complex scenes.ServerConfigMOD 2
Beta 2.1 of the deathmatch version of ServerConfigMOD 2 for Quake II is out, as well as an updated version 2.02 of the Linux variant. Thanks Prophet.GibStats
Version 1.6a of the GibStats II Quake II analysis tool is out, fixing a bug in the start-up sequence in version 1.6.
The Wide World of Games
Spanning the Globe with items of general gaming interest. Cover more?
Cover less? This is another subject on which I welcome feedback.
Beta Tests
I saw on PsychoNews that Kesmai is taking sign-ups for a closed beta of Starship troopers, and GameStorm is holding an open beta of Rolemaster Magestorm, a team-based 3D role-playing battle. Finally, the age restriction on eligibility for the limited FireTeam beta (sign-ups end at Midnight tonight with 1000 testers to be selected randomly) has been lifted.Real Time Strategy Chats
Here's a transcript of the recent IRC chat with the Total Annihilation team. Thanks Prophet. Also, Games.Net is holding a chat session with Bill Roper of Blizzard to give him the third degree on StarCraft on April 8.TombRaider 3... 4?
I saw on Voodoo Extreme a Q&A With Eidos Chairman Ian Livingstone on GameCenter talks about where the TombRaider series is going: TR3 in November, and TR4 in 1999. Did you know spell-checking TombRaider brings up bombardier as the suggested correction?
Paradox
Paradox made a rare .plan update making up for lost time by rambling on about Doom and Quake and Sin and Quake II and movies and.......kolinahr
Turnabout is fair play, as kolinahr, maintainer of the interview-oriented Profile, is interviewed on SA Quake news.Bobby Duncanson
I just have to point out that while it rarely has to do with gaming, Raven's Bobby Duncanson's .plan is a good resource for laughs. His current update banters with Lone^Wolf (of all people), and some past updates like this one are classics, at least for the George Carlin generation.
Loki's Minions CTF
Version 3.0 of Loki's Minions CTF receives a rave review on OGR (thanks doug). I also noticed Dakota raving about it on Captured.com, so I think it's safe to call it the "critically acclaimed" Loki's Minions CTF.
Site
Seeing
Your web-based change of address labels:
Out of the Blue
The lessons we unlearn and re-learn. Let me right off un-promise any
timeframes for future events here at the old Blue Tower. As I learned (long ago, and
obviously have since forgotten), Murphy's Law has a special prejudice against those that
make promises, so for my two outstanding predictions: The Half-Life preview will be up
"when it's done", and local file downloads will resume "when they're
ready" (one of the factors I failed to take into account on predictions about both of
those are delays caused by influences out of my hands). My temptation is to already wreck
my newfound resolve not to predict and give a general timeframe, but that's what got me
into this mess. Let me make on huge apology for making promises I have not kept... I just
hate doing that. Sorry. Off for most of the day.
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stylized "Q" are trademarks of id Software, used with
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