Articles in the archive contain broken links because outdated files are removed.

3Dfx GL Minidriver Fix
Jack "morbid" Mathews sent along a fixed version of the 3Dfx OpenGL minidriver for Quake II (137 KB) and for GLQuake/QuakeWorld (137 KB) that will no longer create a debug text.

New GameSpy 3D
Beta 2 of GameSpy 3D version 1.5 (487 KB), featuring Quake II support, has been released on the GameSpy 3D Homepage. Again, this release is for registered users only, but Fargo says a shareware version should be available in a week or so.

Quake II Mods

• Loki's Minions CTF for Quake II 1.1a beta is now available on Loki's Minions Capture the Flag for Quake 2, along with info on where to find servers.
• TBallz 1.2 has been released on Mother's Godlike Quake Site featuring a MOTD function that does not required recompiling .dll's or rebooting the server (source included).
• The modified Quake level for Quake II of the day is a DM1 conversion (235 KB) by Curtis Morris.

Christmas Quake
Should've mentioned this already, Christmas Quake: Operation Santa Slay has been released by Black Omega. Here's the lowdown from their page:

Xmas Quake is the first ever production by our newly formed group, Black Omega. Xmas Quake includes new skins, sounds, and two new levels for Quake all with a nice xmas theme. It includes a 12m 45s movie detailing the adventures of two quake heros battling against the evil Shambler Claus. The real Santa Claus has been kidnaped and his workshops and factorys have been invaded. This amazing movie is recorded from a continuously moving floating camera perspective for some stunning views and perspectives :) .

New Future versus Fantasy
FvF 4.01 [Customer Care] has been released, featuring a minor bug fix, with new Quest Tournament rules, monsters tweaked, and fullbright pixels removed by Freeform Interactive.

Prey Screenshots
There are a couple of new Prey screenshots over on PreyStation. On the subject of Prey, Prey.Net has just opened. Also, Prey Project Leader Paul Schuytema updated his .plan with a small state of the Prey address.

MPlayer Quake II & QuakeWorld
MPlayer has announced both Quake II & QuakeWorld support.

New SoundBlaster Drivers
New Windows 95 drivers for the Sound Blaster 16/SB32/AWE32/AWE64 have been released by Creative Labs. Thanks Spider.

Interviews

• There is an interview with Paul Steed on QNewz.
• Part one of an interview with Mike Wilson has been posted on GameCenter, discussing his departure from ION Storm and his new endeavor, g.o.d. (Gathering of Developers). Thanks CiDcO, of the Daikatana Bushido.

Respawn Registration
Registration is underway for Respawn the large LAN event planned for February in Toronto, Ontario Canada.

PReview
There's a first look at Monolith's Blood II on GameCenter.

etc.
LinQuake is a new site designed as a resource for Linux Quake players ... How about an interactive JavaScript id Software trivia quiz? ... Here's a page dedicated to a real Quake II wreath! ...

New 3Dfx OpenGL Minidriver
Jack "morbid" Mathews sent along the new version of the 3Dfx OpenGL minidriver for Quake II (137 KB) and for GLQuake/QuakeWorld (137 KB) that fixes the memory leak when re-loading the driver.

.plans (Updated)

• ION's John Romero updated his .plan with a response to negative feedback he's received about his comments about female gamers.
• id's Brian "No Nickname" Hook made a .plan update responding to complaints from the authors of QNM about the removal of the ability to make animated, scrolling "fun names" in Quake II (which I personally won't miss for a minute).
• Rogue's Steve "Gateway" Tietze updated his .plan with a progress report on the QE4 Manual.

New Vérité Minidriver (Updated)
Beta 3 of the Vérité Q2Test renderer (156 KB) for V1000 and V2000 family chips, has been released on Rendition's FTP site. The read me says it is optimized for the V1000 and may not give increased performance on the V2000. Thanks DeRanger and Prophet (who sent this yesterday, but Rendition's webpage hasn't been updated, which confused me). Thanks to OrulZ for the correction that this is not, in fact, an Open GL driver, and to Mike Thacker of Quake Editing News for clarifying that it will not work for GLQuake.

Quake II DM Map Conversions
Conversions of popular Quake deathmatch maps are the rage. Here's a fixed version of Clan Wolf's DM4 conversion (223 KB) posted yesterday, here's a conversion of Levelord's famed HipDM1 (314 KB) by Michael Roska.

Interview
There is a rare (unique?) interview with ace artist Walter |2| Costinak on John Callaham's page, that is an interesting read.

Department
Updated the Quake II page, including a page on how to set up a head-to-head game using modems and word on Iikka Keränen's new PCX2WAL texture util for Q2 that Prophet clued me into.

etc.
Quake II is mentioned in a San Francisco Chronicle article yesterday about game sequels called The Name of the Game is the Same. Thanks scott ... Avatar has released the Quake C source for TargetQuake on the TargetQuake page, along with a bug-fixed version of TQ ... Front-End of the Day is CuteLauncher (102 KB) by Paul "Shai`tan" Czarkowski, featuring Quake II support ... Image of the Day is this Quake II "image" piece, sent along by the author, CASi ... Also, here's a cool Quake Christmas card from the Burning Chrome Clan ... Happy Birthday to newshound Hanif who turns (to many's surprise), a mere 13 today! (I've got stuff in my fridge older than that) ...

Worldcraft Quake II Support
Doing this update from the offices of Valve Software gave me a unique opportunity for a scoop. Valve has announced version 1.6 of Worldcraft, featuring full Quake II support. Gabe Newell, Managing Director of Valve says he received hundreds of emails from Worldcraft users eager for Q2 support within a day or two of the game's release. According to this press release (sorry about the bad link, it's fixed now) Worldcraft 1.6 will have support for new Quake II features like transparency modes, radiosity settings, and the ability to export textures into a separate .wal file. The new version is expected to be made available on the Worldcraft website before December 31, and will be a free upgrade for registered users.

New Quake Comic
Death at DM5, the new Quake Comic by CO2 has been released. I have unfortunately not been able to check it out, as Java seems to crash every browser on every machine I try here at Valve.

MS & SGI Present: Fahrenheit
There is a press release on Yahoo describing a new collaboration between Microsoft and Silicon Graphics on a project code-named Fahrenheit, which is "...aimed at increasing graphics capabilities for a wide variety of consumer, business and professional customers....", and will include both Direct3D and OpenGL. Thanks RonSolo.

Newer Quake II FAQ
Version 1.1 of the Quake II FAQ has been released. Apparently FAQ's can have bugfixes too, as I'm told the change here is a fix for broken hyperlinks in version 1.0. Thanks Ken "Wirehead" Wronkiewicz.

Avatar3
Avatar, on a roll with Quake releases has released Avatar3 a five map Rocket Arena pack (Avatar1 and 2 were doom .wads, Avatar1 being an all-time favorite of mine). Available on the Avatar3 section of Avatar's page.

Quake II Patches

• Due to high demand, here is an alternative website to download the Loki's Minions Quake II CTF patch.
• Freeform Interactive has released the v0.9 Beta of Equalizer, a deathmatch modification that tinkers with Quake II's weapon balance.  Available on the Equalizer page.
• LA QuakeII Patch is a deathmatch variant on Ridah's Turret mod.
• ServObit 1.0 is a patch to change the deathmatch obituary messages without any .dll changes. Available on SteQve's No Frills Quake Mods Page.
• I found not one, but two Quake II conversions of DM4 in my mail today. Here's one (195 KB) by Smyken, and here's one (222 KB) by Clan Wolf. Also, here a yet again revised version of that DM6 Q2 conversion (248 KB) by Tattoo from the other day.

Nightline Transcript
A transcript of Todd Hollenshead and John Romero on Nightline has been posted by ABC. Thanks John Waggenspack.

Hexen II Entity Tutorial
Deadmeat's second Hexen II tutorial has been posted on BSP Headquarters discussing spawning entities. Thanks Phoebus.

.plans

• Brian Hook updated his .plan to allay fears of lost performance to the gl_swapinterval bug.
• Paul Jaquays followed up on his criticism of Kuhas's criticism of Quake II with an apology in his latest .plan update.

Competitions
In order to create a balanced playing field, the ClanRing's T3 Tournament finals will now be a live event at the SlamSite in L.A. Also, the ClanRing has announced plans to create a Clan Council as part of the organization for T4, and are seeking nominations for qualified board members. There is also a patch on the ClanRing page that makes the speed of the rockets in Quake II the same as the original Quake.

PReviews
There is a review of the Rendition 2X00 up on Zanshin's GLQuake Dojo.

Movement
OpenQuake can now be found at www.openquake.org/. Thanks HypnoticOne.

Departments

• Updated the Quake II page, among the new items is a tutorial on Quake II .dll programming in Borland C++ and an updated tutorial for the same using LCC. Also, BraFish, the secretmeister has completed Stomped's Quake II Secrets page.
• There's a pretty funny editorial in the MailBag.

etc.
QSpawn, the Quake front-end, now features Quake II support. On the QSpawn page. Thanks Prophet ... Just for fun, the Image of the day is the BlueJet (thanks deathgod):

Off in the BlueJet
Today is a travel day, as I fly off to the wilds of Seattle, WA, to check out what's going on with Valve and Half-Life (also likely to dine on Pork Riblets with Wedge and Choryoth, deathmatch, and probably end up getting my eye shot out by Wedge's automatic pellet gun).

Quake II Resources
A couple more goodies, also added (along with some other tidbits) to the Quake II tips page (which will be updated while I'm in Seattle, but probably won't be redesigned until after I return on Friday):

• An almost complete list of the secrets in the game can be found on Nerdkiller's Quake II Secrets.
• Satanic's unofficial Quake II FAQ has been updated to version 1.0.

Jedi Knight Resources

• An Unofficial Jedi Knight Force FAQ by Dan Thompson has been released, and is up to version 1.0. Thanks Prophet.
• LucasArt's has updated their Jedi Knight Secrets page, which is now complete through level 15. Thanks Frans P. de Vries of 3D Action Gamers'.

New Slide Levels
Four new levels for Slide have been released on the Slide Homepage. Slide, if you havenn't checked it out, is a nutty downhill hoverboard racing conversion for Quake.

Interviews

• id Software's jack-of-all-trades, Christian "Disruptor" Antkow is interviewed on Operation 3Dfx.
• Dakota's Frontline News has posted a long, detailed interview with the team behind the very successful QWHPCL.

Departments
In addition to the updates to the Quake II tips page, there are a couple of responses in the MailBag to yesterday's letter about .DLL security issues.

Quake II Mods

• If you share my disappointment at not being able to hop on that big turret and fire it yourself after killing the guy manning it in the Jail level of  Quake II, you'll want to check out the Controllable Turret patch that Ridah has created. More information is on this page.
• It sounds like there are still a lot of kinks in it, but it is still first, I'm talking about The Famkebot, which is the first bot for Quake II that I've heard of.
• There's a patch to zap the weapon flashes in Quake II on Force 10.

Romero Chat
Here's a reminder about the chat session tonight at 9:00 PM Eastern with ION Storm CEO John Romero on EBWorld. Thanks Hudd of the Daikatana Bushido.

Sin Preview
There's a big ole Sin Preview on Computer Gaming World Online. Thanks Wicked from Voodoo Extreme.

Killing Quake II Zombies
Disruptor made a .plan update with a workaround to allow server operators to clear clients that fail to disconnect properly (zombies):

Bug workaround: Zombies not clearing after a client disconnects (Network play)

Add "+set zombietime -1000" to the command line of a dedicated server. This will clear out zombies after a client disconnects. This will be fixed properly in the point release. Thanks to John Cash for letting me know about this workaround.

Quake II Worldcraft
There's a package assembled by [BC]Casey with everything you need to edit Quake II map using Worldcraft on The Forge.

New TeamFortress Server
Version 2.666 of TeamFortress (a server update only) has been released on the Team Fortress Quake Homepage. Thanks rdwarlock[zzz].

New GameSpy Installer
A new version of the GameSpy 1.1-1.5 patch has been released on the GameSpy page. The new version simply makes sure you are properly set up to retrieve Quake II servers. There's also word there on their "Sound and the Fury" contest, coming to a close soon.

Movements

• The Capture the Gib Q2 mod has moved to ctg.telefragged.com/.
• Flasher 907's Quake 2 Art Vault has moved to easel.quaked.com/flashervault/.

.plans

• id's Paul Jaquays updated his .plan with reactions to one of the few negative reviews Quake II has received.
• id's Brian Hook posted a link to the ELM message boards mentioned here the other day in his .plan.
• Monolith's Jay Shade made a .plan update with his Quake II reactions, and welcoming the newest addition to the Blood 2 team, Mike King who designed some of the maps in Malice (and who actually survived a legendary Brothers Gib private LAN Party, congrats Klink!).
• ION's John Romero, noted lover of game music, mentions in his .plan that the Quake II track names are now available through the CDDB Internet database, and pointing out a few more game anniversaries: December 14 was the seventh birthday of Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons, the first game that id Software created and released into shareware, and yesterday was the 6th birthday of Commander Keen: Goodbye, Galaxy!
• id's Disruptor made a .plan update asking for feedback on problems anyone is having now that he's moved id's FTP and WWW in-house.

etc.
Apparently ION's John Romero, id's Todd Hollenshead, Quake, and Quake II all appeared on last night's edition of ABC's Nightline. Thanks Phlash24 ... Airon made this audio Quake II commercial (462 KB) in .mp3 format as an assignment for a class (I love game-related homework) ... .DM2 is open for business, a repository for Quake II demos if you want to send yours in ... Thanks Dark Wind for the Santa Hat logo, and a related note about the wreath "Q" that I failed to mention yesterday is that the original was made last year by Rocketbait ...

New Omicron
Version 1.01 of the Omicron Bot (952 KB) for Quake has been released on Ramshackle.

RIVA RIVA Redux
Here's an updated version 1.6 of the RIVA 128 Tweak utility, again, in two flavors: RegistryTweak 1.6 for Diamond/STB/Canopus/Alpha2 (143 KB) and ELSA Version RegistryTweak 1.6 (142 KB), snagged again from the RIVA User's Group. The new versions support keys for the Alpha2 OpenGL driver, and fix an error in the 1.5 drivers posted earlier. Thanks Hung Cefu.

New BSP
Version .88b of the BSP Quake/Quake II level editor has been released on the BSP Headquarters. Thanks Mangler.

Mini-Leak in the GL Miniport
Jack "morbid" Mathews updated his .plan with word on a memory leak in the 3Dfx GL minidriver that he's addressing, since it has become a problem for some Quake II users (in the complete update he also discusses GameSpy):

Yeah, there's a bug in the miniport that shipped with Q2. Actually, this bug has always been part of the miniport, it's a memory leak. Sort of. See, we don't deallocate memory when the miniport unloads.   Normally, this is not a problem, because Windows cleans up that memory just fine. However, Windows only does that when an EXE unloads. Since Q2 can dynamically load the DLL, every time a vid_restart happens, bam, big ass leak until you quit. I didn't expect people to run into this very often, but I guess there are people that are vid_restart-happy, so I fixed this. I want to look over some other stuff in the miniport, maybe run it through VTune or something. I'll package it up in a nice pretty installer for everyone and it'll be put on the 3Dfx website, Blue's, Redwood's, and all that good stuff.

New QuArK
Version 4.06 of QuArK has been released on the QuArK page, featuring limited Quake II support.

New All-Star CTF (Updated)
Version 1.0 of All-Star CTF has been released on the All-Star CTF page. Here is the full client (15.5 MB), the server (4.4 MB), and the client upgrade (3.2 MB) if you already have version 0.91. Also now available is Xeno CTF 1.0 (7.8 MB). Thanks Tungsten[CNN] Supreme Dictator for Life of Clan CNN for sending along word of a mirror on their Files Page (where I got them). I got a lot of responses to my comments about cdrom.com's slowness, none of them disagreeing. I wonder what happened there? Thanks also to Frans P. de Vries, who, wearing his hat as Doom/Quake archive backup maintainer at cdrom.com, points out that mirrors are also available, like this one maintained by Gamers.Org, which is up to date (he also taught me the correct way to write cdrom.com, without the hyphen).

Quake II DM6 (Updated)
Dakota sent along a map made by Tattoo that is (w00w00) a Quake II remake of DM6 (249 KB). This is a twice updated version of the one posted earlier that swaps a hyper-blaster for the rail-gun and fixes the spawn points.

Quake II (QE4) Editing Guide
Zoid has written a Quick HowTo for QuakeEd4, complete with screenshots to help get you started with id's Quake II editor. Rogue's Gateway is still working on the documentation, and, according to his .plan, is looking for a website where users can post their questions (email him if you're interested).

GLQuake/QW Guides
Brett Jacobs sent along an updated HTML Version of his 3 Fingers Ultimate GL QuakeWorld Set-Up Guide to post locally (also available here), which has been nicely converted by Lawrence Staff. On this subject, Wicked from Voodoo Extreme points out that Flying Penguin's GLQuake Voodoo 3D Web Page has been updated. 3 Fingers also sent along an email with the following:

Brian Hook has released information on a bug in Quake 2 with the GL_EXT_SWAPINTERVAL handling. So what this means is, if you have this setting:
"SET FX_GLIDE_SWAPINTERVAL=0" IN YOUR AUTOEXEC.BAT on your "C" Drive, Quake 2 will change it to "1" under certain situations when the game loads. After Quake 2 changes it to "1" you will lose about 20% in FPS...

The way to overcome this is to put the SET FX_GLIDE_SWAPINTERVAL=0 in a Quake2 batch file. And start the game with the quake2 batch file. Doing it this way loads the setting when you start the game.

DLL Compiling Guide
Jason Ritchie, AKA Draugluin, AKA Moogle (a long-time newshound) sent along a tutorial (5 KB) on using LCC to compile DLL's for Quake II. Also available from Moogle's website.

Quake II Flame-Thrower
Word on the Requiem page is that Requiem has whipped up a Flame-thrower patch (which slows the BFG's rate of fire and reduces the chaingun spread as well) for Quake II.

PReviews

• The Permidia2-based FireGL 1000 Pro is reviewed on Voodoo Extreme.
• The FireGL 1000 Pro is also reviewed on Quake2-Ware.

Competitions

• Sweden defeated the USA in an International CTF match this weekend, demos and accounts of the action can be found here (Sweden) and here (USA). Thanks Methabol. This was apparently an epic battle that after four matches and 2000 frags, left the teams separated by a mere four frags at the end!
• The DragonWarz TeamFortress tournament has concluded, results should be posted here soon.

.plans

• Tim Cook of TeamGamespy updated his .plan with a couple of simple things you should know if you are having trouble getting Quake II support working properly in GameSpy 1.5.
• Brian Hook made a pair of .plan updates (both can be found there) following up on his huge benchmark posting by elaborating on a few of the cards tested, giving a definition of SLI, which he follows up with an explanation (excerpted below) of why it's possible SLI will not be changing anyone's life when it comes to Quake II performance:

- currently there is a throughput problem with the Voodoo2. Well, it's not really a "problem", it's more like a bottleneck at around 67fps, which is very hard to classify as a "problem". This means that having a Voodoo2 in an SLI configuration doesn't make much sense unless you want to run fast high resolution modes like 800x600. Currently there is no significant difference in performance between an SLI and non-SLI Voodoo2 configuration when runnning at 640x480 or lower. HOWEVER, if it turns out that they're artificially limited in throughput (poor drivers, early silicon, low-speed parts, whatever) then there is a chance that the SLI will make a difference -- although I have no idea why you'd need to run > 60fps.

Competition
The QuakeWorld High-Ping Capture League (QWHPCL), one of the most successful leagues going,  is changing its name to "Ender's Game" for next season, and  has announced the Great Eight in the playoffs.

Departments

• Quake II Tips, updated with more (with more coming today).
• In the MailBag, some commentary on DLL security issues.
• Lan Parties and HelpWanted's will be updated at some point today, as well.

etc.
To my knowledge there has been no official determination about Quake II's status in Germany (and word is it can be purchased there), but the Voodoo Extreme boys have gotten worked up into one of those campaigns ... There's an article from the New York Daily News on Quake and Quake II, mentioning Tonka, Thresh, the CyberAthletes, and a screenshot from GL Quakeworld Candid Camera (whose maintainer, Andy sent this in) ... The new editorial on GameGirlz asks: Why Do Girlz Stay Genderless? Thanks Hanif  ... In case you are worried there is no Quake II version of TeamFortress in the works, SirLiam sent along word of this reassuring image ...

Quake II 3D Benchmarks
Brian Hook made a massive .plan update giving detailed benchmarks and descriptions of Quake II's performance on the gamut of available 3D accelerators. All the top performers are, probably unsurprisingly, different flavors of 3Dfx's upcoming Voodoo 2. Here's what Brian had to say about that:

Every now and then a beast walks the landscape and devours all within its path, knowing no natural enemy. These are the things of legend: Michael Jordan, Walter Payton, the great white shark, early Mike Tyson, and...

3DFX, ca. 1997

He forgot Lawrence Taylor, but the point is well taken.

QView 5.0 Beta (Quake II Support)
Version 5.0 of QView (132 KB), a free alternative to GameSpy, includes Quake II support, and is now in public beta, available on the QHost/QView Homepage. QHost, which allows remote configuration of game servers for Quake, QuakeWorld and Hexen II does not yet work with Quake II.

Quake II Proxy Updated
The Quake II Proxy on Crystal Services QuakeQuakeWorld Servers page has been updated with some enhancements: support for multiple clients using same proxy; the ability to specify proxy port independently of the server port; the ability to specify the proxy IP on the command line (this will now let the proxy work for a lot more people); and connection/disconnection info on clients.

Quake II Mod Security
On the subject of Quake II DLL security, mentioned here yesterday, comes a reminder of the core focus of OpenQuake (who are also offering web space to host modification pages), to provide a verification service for Mod authors. Here's a summary of the process:

Essentially, mod authors would release their source to OpenQuake (after signing an electronic nondisclosure agreement preventing OQ from distributing the source) and then the highly qualified OpenQuake board would review the source for "malicious content." Mods that passed the verification process would be given a "Stamp of Approval" indicating their status as a safe mod, as well as a CRC checksum to verify the originality of approved mods. (To prevent post verification meddling.) Finally, mods that passed the verification process would also be actively promoted on the OpenQuake web site and on OpenQuake affiliated sites.

Many mod authors are coming to OpenQuake with questions about the process, and so far the reactions are very positive. OpenQuake also is undertaking a Quake2 documentation project, the goal of which is to provide the highly comprehensive information the game*.dll code structure.

Quake II Fraglogs
A mod that allows you to log the frags on a Quake II server, including source, has been released on the Quake 2 frag logging page.

Midi in Quake II
Brandon Reinhart, of the aforementioned OpenQuake Organization, has created a mod that allows you to play midi tunes inside of Quake II, available on the Q2MidiMod page.

Quake II Worldcraft?
Multiplayer Quake (MPQ), has word that Taskmaster has figured out how to edit Quake II maps using Worldcraft, and has posted some files and instructions to help.

RIVA Tweaks
RIVA, RIVA! Want to get more performance out of your RIVA 128-based video card? The RIVA Users Group have posted a couple of new programs that tweak the registry settings for the RIVA. Thanks Wicked (Voodoo Extreme). On that subject, Diamond has put up a page discussing OpenGL on the (RIVA-based) Viper V330. Thanks Jim Gaynor.

Interviews

• id Software's Brian Hook is interviewed on Videogamedesign.Com.
• A somewhat revised version of the Thresh article on Forbes ASAP has been posted, re-titled: Dennis Fong tells writer
  Gary Andrew Poole about his life as a champion gamer. Thanks Chris Sandvick.
• Brad Mallet of the Hunted TC is interviewed on TC Magazine. Thanks Wicked (Voodoo Extreme).

etc.
Wow, not one but two emails (thanks /<abuKi and FRAGaLOT) on the same day reminding me it was time to put up Sujoy's Christmas wreath (update: thanks to Medic who sent along an animated one to replace the one I lost, and to Snoopy who sent one as well) ...

Quake II Model Info
Disruptor has uploaded a  file (145 KB) with the information required to create new models for Quake II to id's FTP site. Here is the note from his .plan update:

I uploaded some files to help you all get started with creating player models. You can view them in TexPaint (which John released the source for yesterday), and if you have a 24bit GL card, you can even use TexPaint to paint on the models.

They are located at;

ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quake2/pmodels_12_12.zip

I've included the base.tri from each the male and player model along with one LBM to get you started with, as well as one of their crouching and standing frames.

I was also going to upload the conversion utility I hacked together that we used to convert maps from Quake I to Quake II format, but after giving it futher thought, it was really a moot point. QE4 can read in Quake I maps, and you are going to need to retexutre all your maps anyway (My program didn't handle that as all our QI format maps already contained Q2 texture names). The program didn't handle converting entities from one type to another because we didn't need that functionality (again, everything in the QI format maps were already using the new Q2 entities.)

Also, thanks Radar for sending along a relevant quote from the read me about TexPaint and player models:

You can use TexPaint as a model viewer, but if you wish to use TexPaint to paint on a model, you will need a GL card which supports 24 bit textures, and a 24 bit framebuffer. Otherwise if you click to paint on a model, the pixels will show up in random places.

Quake II Forums

• ELM (originators of Cenotaph of the Magi & Desparity) have started a series of moderated Quake II forums devoted to editing and modification discussions.
• GameSpy has added a Quake II board to their support message board section. Thanks Prophet.

Quake II Mods Already
A couple of Quake II modifications are out already: Capture the Gib is described as a cross between CTF and HeadHunters. Here's the homepage of a simple mod to change the obituary messages in Quake II. I've also been sent a few, but since their effect on the game is trivial, and there are risks associated with DLL's, I am not posting them. I'm not sure what to say about security issues with DLL's at this early stage in the game, other than for now, use them at your own risk. jaw3D creator Jawed Karim sent along a DLL that make your PC speaker beep upon each kill, a simple demonstration that a DLL can contain code that can extend beyond the game and harm your computer, and an example of why you should proceed with caution. On this subject, Inside3D has posted their first Quake II programming tutorial, on creating missiles that split in two after being fired, and there are four basic programming tutorials on this page by SumFuka.

Unreal: Hands on Report & New Monster Profile

• Stonage has posted a report on UnrealNation talking about his experiences of playing Unreal, using UnrealEd, and other miscellaneous stuff during his two day visit to Digital Extremes in early November. Thanks Prophet.
• Unreal.Com has posted a cool looking profile of The Mercenary, one of the foes that will be found in the Unreal world. There is also an accompanying animated gif "surveillance video" (that runs at 100 FPS on my machine, suggesting the mercenary should lay off the caffeine). Thanks Prophet.

Prey Development Journal
Paul Schuytema and the Prey team have posted the first edtion of the Prey Developers Journal on GameCenter. Thanks Prophet.

Quake Art
49 new pieces of art have been added to Braindead's Quake Art. Thanks Prophet. Also, [CO2], dedicated to Quake art as well, has relocated, and can now be found at www.planetquake.com/co2/. The word on Braindead's page is that [CO2]'s upcoming Quake cartoon may be released before the scheduled date of next Friday.

New CTF+
CTF Plus Version 2.0 has been released on the CTF Plus page. This new version allows you see which weapon a player is carrying, and adds a menu-driven competition mode, tossed powerups, and more.

Mac X-Men
Word on the Maverick Software News page is that Westlake Interactive will be doing a Macintosh port of X-Men: Ravages of the Apocalypse. Thanks Prophet.

New Qoole with Quake II Support
Version 2.3 beta 4 of WinQoole and GLQoole, each featuring preliminary support for editing Quake II maps, have been released on the Qoole site. Thanks TAiNiUM.

Interview
Ex-id biz guy, and now ex-ION Storm CEO, Mike Wilson, talks to GameSpot in an interview about his new endeavor g.o.d. (Gathering of Developers). Thanks CiDcO of the new Daikatana Bushido.

.plans

• Paul Steed made a .plan update indicating that a true color hi-rez version of the into will come eventually (no time frame yet), and also pointing out that the intro should not be watched in GL, you should switch to software for the intro and back to GL to play the game.
• Prey Producer Paul Schuytema posted his Quake II reactions in his .plan (sounds like he need to update his Glide drivers).
• Monolith's Craig Hubbard also mentions Quake II in his .plan, saying it is "Definitely the culmination of the genre."
• The story of Ritual's Charlie Wiederhold's go at a 100+ player deathmatch map seems to have ended, as his latest .plan update indicates he's relented and split it into two smaller maps.
• Brian Hook updated his .plan about the new machine he got so he can get back down to benchmarks.

Competition
The winner of the Quake Literary Guild's story contest is Murphy, and his winning entry, which earned him a copy of Quake II, has been posted.

PReviews

• AVault has a review of X-Men: Ravages of the Apocholypse.
• GameCenter has posted a sneek peek at Blood 2. Thanks Prophet.

Departments

• Added some new goodies to the Quake II Bugs, Hints, Tips, etc, I marked them with a little whatchamacallit. I also fixed the broken link for the BFG jumping demo, sorry about that.

etc.
Apparently mistaking a web page for email, GameSpot has posted ten questions about Quake II for John Carmack (but no answers) ...Version 0.95 of Quake Name Maker (with Quake II support) has been released on the QNM page ... The weekly update to the Riot: Mobile Armor site is by Mike Dussault talking about DirectEngine. Thanks Voodoo Extreme ... GameCenter has posted an article called What You Should Know About Quake II, talking about Quake II's bugs. Thanks Prophet ... There is an article on OGR called The Online Gaming Invasion: Pay-To-Play Networks Under Siege that discusses the pros and cons of the various online gaming services (TEN, MPlayer, Heat.Net, etc.). Thanks Prophet ... The results of Tolwyn's music poll to seek a descriptive name for the music that accompanies a first-person shooter and a write up are posted here ... Log Parser of the Day is GibStats II, which now features Quake II support ... Happy Birthday to American McGee (thanks Pelsdyret), here's a Birthday Card for tokay from Quake and The Danish Vikings ...