Blue's News artwork by Walter |2| Costinak <2@2design.org>
Articles in the archive contain broken links because outdated files are removed.

Previous Week   News Archive   Current News   Next Week

Please visit our sponsors and buy lots of their products. Also, you should floss. ignlogo.gif (1565 bytes)

Friday, January 8, 1999

Blood2 Add-on News  [6:21 PM EST]
The Adrenaline Vault Gaming News has the announcement of an official Blood2 add-on in the works from Monolith and GT Interactive, and six new screenshots from the pack. Here's a bit on the add-on, which has no official release date at this point:

According to Lead Designer Jay "Shade" Wilson, there is no official title yet, though the story involves each of the four Chosen living out their worst nightmares. The level themes are more tongue-in-chops, with plenty of horror references and maps reminiscent of the original game. Some of the hellish locales are a sorority house, a haunted mansion and a western ghost town. We can almost hear Caleb intoning, "Hang 'em high!"

"In a lot of ways, we want the add-on to recall the feeling of Blood, as opposed to Blood 2," Shade enthused.

Sin Mission Pack Screenshots  [6:21 PM EST]
Ritualistic has posted two more screenshots from 2015's upcoming Sin mission pack, Wages of Sin, one of them showing off a flame-thrower.

Shogo Add-on Screenshot  [6:21 PM EST]
Ingenuity has posted a screenshot from Shugotenshi, an upcoming Shogo mission pack from Instant Access.

Requiem Screenshots  [6:21 PM EST]
Requiem Testament has posted three new screenshots from Cyclone Studios' upcoming Requiem: Avenging Angel. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

Quake II 3.20 3DNow! Driver  [6:21 PM EST]
The 3DNow! NOW Page has a new 3DNow! patch for Quake II 3.20 on K6-2 processors.

Bloodshot LithTech Announcement  [4:19 PM EST]
Monolith's Jason Hall made a .plan update announcing that BloodShot Entertainment, the group that recently left ION Storm, will be using the LithTech engine in their upcoming game.

Turok2 Gets Demented  [4:19 PM EST]
Today's Daily Dementia offers a conversation with Shawn Rosen of Acclaim Entertainment about Turok2: Seeds of Evil in part one of a two part interview. RealPlayer required.

PC PSX Emulator Announced  [4:19 PM EST]
This PC.IGN.COM article announces that the Connectix PSX Emulator, a legal PlayStation emulator for the Macintosh just announced at Macworld will also be available for the PC in a Windows version, but there is no projected release date, and still the possibility of legal problems, so how this will work out remains to be seen.

South Park Interview  [4:19 PM EST]
PC Gamer Online's exclusive interview with South Park Creators has a Trey Parker interview and a Matt Stone interview in separate conversations with each of the show's creators as [part of their coverage of the just release console game (the PC version is due soon).

Lost Sin Ad  [4:19 PM EST]
There's a big Sin image posted on Ritualistic that was produced for a magazine ad, but apparently never used. In addition to the .jpg the link displays, they have a .zip with a .bmp format version for download.

Hercules Dynamite TNT Drivers  [4:19 PM EST]
The Hercules Computer Technology Dynamite 3D/GL Drivers page has new version 0.56 of the Windows 95/98 drivers for the Dynamite TNT which include fixes for Unreal, Descent 3, and Rogue Squadron. Thanks Sharky.

IntelliMouse Drivers  [4:19 PM EST]
The Microsoft Pointing Devices has version 2.2d of the Win95/98/NT drivers for the MS IntelliMouse, offering minor bug fixes. Thanks Beta Bites.

New Quake II CTF  [10:16 AM EST]
Zoid updated his .plan to announce the release of the new Quake II Capture the Flag, which includes three new maps, as well as some small enhancements to gameplay. Here's the lowdown:

A new release of Quake2 CTF is now available. This and is an official release of the previous 1.09 beta that was made available earlier and also includes three new maps.

What this adds is:

- Full timed competition mode
- Voted admins who can change maps/kick players
- Three new maps
- Full VWep support
- More server adminstrative functions such as sv_maplist, IP banning, etc.

The new maps are:

q2ctf6 - Borders Canyon
Original map by Zoid in base style without side canyons. q2ctf7 - Boxed In
Based off a Rogue: Ground Zero dethmatch level of the same name. Original map by Jim Molinets, CTF version by Zoid. Warehouse style map with many paths and twisting cooridors.
q2ctf8 - The Hangar Scenario
Original map by Mike "]BC]Casey" Goodhead. Large open map with large hangar rooms to fight in.

***NOTE: The additional maps come in a pak1.pak that go into your CTF directory. If you already have a third party addon in your Quake2/CTF directory, you will have to rename it to pak2.pak or a higher number since the Quake2 CTF 1.50 installers will overwrite any existing pak1.pak (with confirmation).

Quake2 CTF 1.50 is now available from ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/ (check other major Quake news sites for mirrors later on in the evening):

Q2CTF 1.50 Windows 95/NT Full Client Installer
Q2CTF 1.50 Full Client ZIP manual install
Q2CTF 1.50 Windows 95/NT 1.50 Upgrade Installer
Q2CTF 1.50 Upgrade ZIP manual install

Q2CTF 1.50 Game shared library for Linux Alpha
Q2CTF 1.50 Game shared library for Linux i386 (glibc systems)
Q2CTF 1.50 Game shared library for Linux i386 (libc5 systems)
Q2CTF 1.50 Game shared library for Sun Sparc Solaris 2.5.1

Sin Mission Pack Update  [10:16 AM EST]
Ritualistic has posted some info on the upcoming Sin mission pack being produced by 2015, which is apparently about to enter beta testing. The add-on will feature Blade and JC battling a new villain, and an AVI of gameplay is promised in the next couple of days. Here's some more info they've scored:

TRIBES Server Admin Guide  [10:16 AM EST]
The Starsiege TRIBES Players site has updated their Advanced Server Administration page and added some new items to the Server Core. Thanks Datumplane::StarSiege.

AnachroChat Tonight  [10:16 AM EST]
Tonight at 8:00 PM CST is the monthly chat with the developers of Anachronox, ION's upcoming Quake II-engine RPG. You can use an IRC client to join www.ionstorm.com, or go to ION's site with your browser and hit "Live Chat."

More KingPin Shots  [10:16 AM EST]
Billy has posted two more dark screenshots from Xatrix's upcoming Quake II-engine game, KingPin, on Voodoo Extreme.

Kenn Hoekstra Interview Part II  [10:16 AM EST]
Part II of Action Xtreme's interview with Kenn Hoekstra is up, talking some more with Raven's project administrator about their just released Heretic II, the upcoming Soldier of Fortune, and more.

ReMaic Studio Demo Utility  [10:16 AM EST]
The ReMaic News page has the release of ReMaic Studio, a newer more user-friendly version of their utility which, as its full name (Reshoot Existing Movie, Altering Its Camera) describes, will allow you to reposition the camera in a Quake (1) demo after it has been recorded.

STB VELOCITY Win95/98 4400 Drivers  [10:16 AM EST]
New Win95/98 version 1.52 drivers for the TNT-based STB VELOCITY 4400 are up on the VELOCITY 4400 Drivers page. The drivers have been released by STB compatibility, but are not yet WHQL certified, and come in different varieties for cards with or without a TV out feature. The new drivers address issues involving screen overlay, high resolution AVI, DOS box, and DVD playback. In addition, these drivers solve issues involving blue screen errors and lockups in QuakeWorld. Thanks Axiom.

Total3D 128V Drivers  [10:16 AM EST]
The Total3D 128V Software Updates page has new version 2.01.01 drivers for the RIVA 128 based Total3D 128V for Win95/98, and version 3.00.01 WinNT drivers, as well. Thanks Darryl.

Reviews  [10:16 AM EST]

etc.  [10:16 AM EST]

Out of the Blue  [10:16 AM EST]
Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the first time I assembled my ramblings on this page under the heading of Out of the Blue (and no, I won't apologize!). Sorry for the late start today, I wasn't getting an early start on the weekend, I had some techie difficulties that seem to be properly annihilated now. The Webby Award nominees have been announced (saw that in Joe Siegler's .plan), Blue's News won a webby two years ago, and Imagine won one last year (they told us to share it, so I'll claim a sliver), but no nomination this year. Just to make Leonardo DiCaprio look bad, I'm attending the ceremonies anyway (in a Bob Macky gown, no less).

Thursday, January 7, 1999             Quake III Arena AVI

TRIBES on Shooters  [4:04 PM EST]
I'm off to the fabulous Pseudo Studios: This evening on Shooters, we have a return visit of the Starsiege TRIBES team to talk about their just-released shooter, their .plans for TRIBES2, and stuff like that. The action starts live at 7:00 PM Eastern time, RealPlayer, or equivalent, required.

Updated TRIBES FAQ  [4:04 PM EST]
The Unofficial Starsiege TRIBES FAQ has been updated with new info on missing mouse pointers, Master server problems, and how to solve lockups and crashes.

New Weapons Factory  [4:04 PM EST]
A new version 3.4 beta 7b of the client for the Weapons Factory mod for Quake II is now available, offering a bunch of changes including new models and skins.

CPUs: Pentium III Confirmation & OC Celeron 400  [3:53 PM EST]
A Celeron 400 Review @ bxboards.com and a report on OCP both indicate that contrary to previous reports, the new 400 MHz Celeron processors do not seem to be bus-locked to prevent overclocking. Also, Pentium III will be name for Katmai is an article on CNET News.com that says "sources close to" Intel have confirmed a report last month by Advertising Age that Intel's upcoming Katmai processor will be officially named the Pentium III. The story also re-confirms the rumors that the Pentium III would be unveiled in an ad campaign that kicks off during the SuperBowl, later this month, though official confirmation of the name would come sooner, as the new CPUs are slated to ship to manufacturers before then. Thanks Chriz.

New Heretic II Decay  [1:30 PM EST]
Beta 3 of version 1.0 of Decay for Heretic II is now available, offering a bunch of bug-fixes, including more accurate "vampiring" based on damage to opponents, some new sound effects to alert when Decay has begun/ended, and a new addition to the Decay-O-Meter that shows whether you can still pick up health vials and shrines. Decay is a teamplay mod that forces you to damage opponents to bolster your ever-decaying health.

Tom's TNT Round-up  [1:05 PM EST]
There's a huge TNT round-up on Tom's Hardware Guide that includes a comparison of six of the seven different RIVA TNT-based accelerators on the market today, with analysis of heat, 3D performance, four sections on TNT overclocking (the article starts out with some benchmarks showing an overclocked TNT rivaling Voodoo2 SLI for raw speed), and capping off with recommendations on which to buy taking "overclockability" into account. Thanks KingNothing.

TRI Interview  [1:05 PM EST]
There's an interview with Paul Nettle, programmer at Terminal Reality, Inc., talking about 3D, gaming, programming, and more, up on the flipCode Outpost.

MS to Acquire Fasa  [12:36 PM EST]
Let the Microsoft games begin declares the CNET/News.com article on Microsoft's announcement that it is acquiring Fasa Interactive Technologies and its parent company Virtual Worlds Entertainment Group. Thanks Desvon. Here's a quote on how this affects Fasa's most visible property, the MechWarrior franchise:

Fasa Interactive is the creator of the BattleTech universe of stories, games, and characters. As a result of the acquisition, Microsoft gains "exclusive and perpetual electronic rights" to the BattleTech property, including "MechWarrior," and its recent real-time strategy extension, "MechCommander."

RealPlayer Q3A Video  [11:41 AM EST]
If you want to check out the Quake III Arena footage released earlier (story) but are daunted by the 20+ MB download, there are versions on AGN3D in RealPlayer format in sizes ranging from 442 KB to 2.8 MB.

On Duke4Ever Add-ons  [11:41 AM EST]
There's an Addon packs for Duke Nukem Forever thread on the 3D Realms Bulletin Board at 3DPortal that has inspired a post from George Broussard on the subject (thanks Apache):

None of this is set in stone yet, but here's the general thought. There will likley be several add on's for DNF. I doubt 3DR will be doing any directly because we want to immediately jump into a new game. But we will monitor and enforce the quality of the add on's for DNF, and make sure they are better than the ones done for Duke 3D.

We'll know more when we get closer to the release of the game.

George Broussard, 3D Realms

Q3A AVI Drivers  [10:35 AM EST]
If you are experiencing problems running the Quake III Arena AVI released earlier (next story), you may need the latest drivers for your media player on the Indeo® Software Download Area. Thanks Online Gaming with U-NET Internet.

Quake III Arena AVI  [9:03 AM EST]
Redwood has posted an AVI of the Quake III Arena footage from the recent presentation at Macworld. The movie is in AVI format, depicting the game's action much more clearly than the RealPlayer version. To help ease Stomped's FTP, which is being stomped, here's a mirror (22.5 MB) up in the Blue's News suite at Walnut Creek (you will probably need to shift-click the file to save it). Also, there are some screenshots grabbed from the AVI on Online Gaming with U-NET Internet.

Unreal Tournament Specs  [9:03 AM EST]
At first I thought it was a re-hash of some previous announcements, but this Unreal Tournament Is Revealed article on GameSpot UK contains some new info about Epic's plans for their upcoming game, including a features overview, info on weaponry, and info on deathmatch. Here's a bit on the feature set for the game, which will include Capture the Flag, Assault, Domination, Tournament DeathMatch, and Hardcore Modes:

Mac Unreal Tournament  [9:03 AM EST]
Speaking of UT, on the heels of Macworld 1998 Editors' Choice Awards, which named Unreal the Mac game of the year (edging Diablo and Tomb Raider II), comes word from Epic's Mark Rein that it's possible that Unreal Tournament will be released simultaneously on the Mac and the PC, as was just announced for Quake III Arena, with the following to say on the subject:

Speaking of Mac we expect (not 100% sure yet) that Unreal Tournament for Mac will come out about the same time as the PC version.

KingPin Screenshots  [9:03 AM EST]
PC Games previews Kingpin: Life of Crime, the upcoming Quake II-engine game from Xatrix Entertainment, offering a bunch of new screenshots. There are a couple of Kingpin Screenshots up on Voodoo Extreme, as well.

Heretic II Console Commands  [9:03 AM EST]
The Heretic II Console Commands have been updated to cover the full retail version of the game.

Unreal Demo Recording  [9:03 AM EST]
The Unreal Technology page has an update announcing demo recording has finally arrived in Unreal, and will be available in alpha form in Unreal 221 when it's released. The demo implementation is currently server-side, and supports recording demos of multiplayer games, as well as recording Botmatches. You can watch recorded demos from any player's perspective, or fly about the level just like you were a spectator in a live match.

Starsiege Beta Sign-ups  [9:03 AM EST]
The Starsiege Beta Application is now online. Dynamix is now accepting a limited number of testers for Starsiege, their upcoming Mech game that is set in the period between the Earthsiege and the TRIBES continuities. Thanks The Game Complex.

Daikatana Engine Dealie  [9:03 AM EST]
The ION Storm Daily Informant has posted a clarification for a recent report that appeared on Gamer’s Alliance that the Daikatana team had just completed a conversion to the Quake II engine. Here's the poop:

Designer John Romero reports that the Daikatana team actually finished the Quake II engine integration about 6 months ago. However, he says, they have been "continually improving the engine to match the state-of-the-art as it exists today so when Daikatana is released the technology will be current and in line with the majority of the 3D gaming industry."

Kenn Hoekstra Interview  [9:03 AM EST]
Part one of Action Xtreme's interview with Kenn Hoekstra talks about raven's next upcoming game, Soldier of Fortune, which uses the Quake II-engine.

Cheap Hardware FAQ  [9:03 AM EST]
A How-To Buy Hardware Cheap FAQ is up on FiringSquad following up on their recent article on the subject. The new FAQ includes info on hardware purchasing, and answers questions like "Is it fraud to apply for a resellers' license for personal use?"

Server Watch  [9:03 AM EST]
Version 1.1 of Server Watch is now available. Server Watch is not a server browser, but rather a Windows system tray utility that will automatically ping a selected server and display the number of players. The new version adds many new features including a new interface, new servers, new network code, icon sets, and more.

etc.  [9:03 AM EST]

Out of the Blue  [9:03 AM EST]
Turns out yesterday's Starr Wars poster was from Mad Magazine, showing that Alfred E. Newmann and company haven't lost their fastball, or at least their screwball, to abuse a baseball analogy (What, me worry?). Apparently you do capitalize the TRIBES in Starsiege TRIBES, for those of us that keep track of these things, look for future games to make similar moves, it provides AOL support.

Wednesday, January 6, 1999

Brian Hook on Q3A Accelerators  [9:18 PM EST]
id Software's Brian Hook made a .plan update with more on his experiments with different accelerators running Quake III Arena. Here's the whole deal:

I've had a chance recently to run Q3A on some hardware that hasn't been very well tested such as the NVidia Riva128(ZX) and Intel i740, and it's running quite well on a PII/300, even with a Debug build. We had to work around some issues with the Riva128 due to its lack of an alpha iterator (fog has to be done in two passes now), and there are visual glitches with it (cracks, dither artifacts, general graininess from the 16-bit textures), but it runs smoothly and looks reasonably good.

So lower end hardware (i.e. accelerators that can be had < $100 today) should run Q3A just fine. The driver situation in general still has us a little worried, but we're addressing that in various ways and hope to have a sound solution in time for launch.

Loose Cannon Shots  [5:00 PM EST]
Gamer's Alliance's first look at Loose Cannons has a preview and eight new screenshots from Digital Anvil's upcoming automobile combat game.

New Kali95  [3:38 PM EST]
Though not yet listed on the Kali Website, version 1.61 of Kali95 is up on their FTP site (thanks Hi-Tine). Here's a copy in the li'l blue corner of cdrom.com (2.5 MB) courtesy of our nutty friends at Walnut Creek.

Infinite Machine Announcement  [3:38 PM EST]
The Adrenaline Vault has a post up announcing GT Interactive has entered into a publishing agreement with Infinite Machine, the software development company recently started up by former Jedi Knight game designer Justin Chin and programmer Che-Yuan Wang. The story reports that "GT Interactive plans to publish Infinite Machine's first title, a 3D action game for the PC, which is scheduled for release in the year 2000."

Activision to Publish MacQuake II  [2:56 PM EST]
More Macintosh news from the busy floor of MacWorld comes from Activision who have announced they will be publishing id Software's Quake II on the Mac. The port will be handled by Logicware, also mentioned earlier as the group doing the Heretic II Mac port (story). The release of MacQuake is expected in the first half of 1999.

GT Acquires Legend  [2:56 PM EST]
GT Interactive Acquires Award-Winning Software Developer Legend Entertainment is the headline of a GT press release announcing their purchase Legend, who will be the developers of Unreal II, and are currently developing the Unreal-engine Wheel of Time game. GT Interactive also owns Cavedog Entertainment, Humongous Entertainment, SingleTrac, Oddworld Inhabitants, Bootprint Entertainment, and Reflections.

Mac Sin & Sin T-Shirts  [2:35 PM EST]
Ritual's Don "onethumb" MacAskill sends along word that among the announcements yesterday at MacWorld is that there is also a Mac port of Sin in the works, but there is currently no time frame for a release. Also, after a false start yesterday, the Ritual Entertainment site now has black Sin t-shirts available for order on their Products page in short and long-sleeved varieties.

BattleCruiser Tips  [2:35 PM EST]
There's a text-based BattleCruiser 3000AD v2.0 Tips, Tricks, and Techniques page on the BC3000 AD site

Q3A Footage Redux  [7:13 AM EST]
I mentioned this yesterday (story), but it seems it was a little obscured, so if you missed it, you can check out John Carmack's portion of Steve Job's MacWorld keynote address yesterday, which includes footage of Quake III Arena in RealPlayer format. Just fast-forward to about 1:19:00 on this ZDNet TV broadcast of the event.

TRIBES2 Suggestions  [7:13 AM EST]
Datumplane::StarSiege reproduced a post from Dynamix's Scott "CornBoy!" Youngblood to the Tribesplayers messageboard soliciting suggestions for TRIBES2:

Basically it comes down to this... we made Tribes for you. If you are having technical difficulties with the game. Don't like how something works and have an idea for making it better or you have an idea for something new... send them to me. We're making our Tribes2 list of features as well as identifying things that we need to improve for Tribes. With the volume of messages on this board I tend to miss messages at time. All of your feedback is important to us. I can't promise that I'll be able to provide immediate help to your problem or that your feature idea will make the 'final cut' but I can promise you that I'll read your mail. I know that I'm probably going to get flooded with email... so if I don't respond to you personally please understand.

Is it Tribes or TRIBES? I'm confused now...

Monolith Update, Gruntz Demo  [7:13 AM EST]
Monolith's Jason Hall updated his .plan with the latest on what's up over there, including a farewell to programmer Scott Schlegel, mention of a job opening for a level designer, and an intriguing reference to their "supersecret" project. Speaking of Monolith, the Gruntz site is online with the playable Gruntz demo available for download. Gruntz is described as a puzzle powered brain game.

Mac Heretic II, Mac Half-Life?  [7:13 AM EST]
Raven's Rick Johnson updated his .plan to point out that Heretic II is being ported to the Macintosh by an outside company called LogicWare. No word on a release date other than it is "still several months away." Also on the Mac front that's generated so much news these past couple of days comes word of a Bring Half-Life to the Macintosh petition.

Quake II Bass Pak  [7:13 AM EST]
Infinite Planes has posted a Bass Pak for Quake II that boosts the oomph-factor on the sounds in Quake II, especially designed to give subwoofer owners a chest-thumping good time.

TNN Outdoor Hunter Pro Patch  [7:13 AM EST]
There's a TNN Outdoors Pro Hunter patch available that adds a "Multi-player Clay Pidgeon" (sic) shoot and fixes a couple of bugs in this Unreal-engine hunting game.

New TweakIt  [7:13 AM EST]
Version 3.0.8 of TweakIt for Windows 95/98 is out. Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme.

Previews Messiah, I'82   [7:13 AM EST]
FiringSquad previews Messiah in a hands-off preview that summarizes what's known of Shiny's upcoming third-person game. There's also an Interstate '82 preview on GameLinks that has a bunch of screenshots (though I'm not certain that any of them are new).

Celeron or PII?  [7:13 AM EST]
How Fast Is Intel's Celeron Chip? is a GameSpot UK article that claims that Celeron performance is being undersold to avoid harming the Pentium II's position. Here's a quote:

For comparison, we tested a 400MHz Celeron and a 400MHz and 350MHz Pentium II in the Vectra VE. The 400MHz Celeron Vectra VE won't be available until later in the first quarter. At the start of testing, we expected the Pentium II to outperform the Celeron. On paper, it seems probable that the Pentium II's faster external bus (100MHz vs. 66MHz) and larger L2 cache (512KB vs. 128KB) would provide an edge in performance over the Celeron. Guess again: Benchmark results showed otherwise.

Part of the Celeron's great performance comes from the fact that its L2 cache runs at the processor's clock speed. The Pentium II's L2 cache runs at half the processor's clock speed. On both the business application-based Winstone 99 and the high-end application-based Winstone 99 benchmark, the Celeron proved capable of taking the Pentium II head on: No significant performance difference was observed between the two processors. Of the two Celeron-based systems, the Deskpro EN was slightly faster than the Vectra VE.

These benchmark results contradict Intel's claim that the Pentium II is the clear performance leader. Both chips offer equal levels of performance when running common desktop applications.

Editing: Qoole 99 Next Week & Half-Life R_Speeds  [7:13 AM EST]
Framerates And R_Speeds: What Can Today's Machine's Accept In Half Life? is an article on the Half-Life Editing Resource Center discussing making levels that play well on most machines. Also, here's the announcement sent along by WhiteFang that he posted to the Qoole site describing the planned release next week of Qoole 99, the new version of this level editor:

We will be releasing a public beta of Qoole 99 on January 12th, 1999. Gather in EFNet IRC channel #Qoole for discussion at 6pm PST. We need your help to test this new version thoroughly.

Games that will be supported in this beta are Quake, Quake II, Hexen II, and Half-Life. Rendering support includes software (MFC and MGL), Glide, and OpenGL. New major features that you will see over v2.50 include an object tree view, prefab manager, compile output window, and a leak detector. New object editing features include plane clip, mirror and flip, intersection, a new easier scaling mode, and alignment settings.

MailBag  [7:13 AM EST]
In this week's Mailbag a fresh crop o' correspondence, including a pro and a con from the great cookie debate of 1999, some thoughts on the science of your body being cold, and your Rage 128 being hot, more on p1mping, the rant of the week is on software auto-updaters for games, we have a request for more TRIBES news and more Thief news, some thoughts from theAntiELVIS, and a desperate attempt at filling in the blanks.

Competitions  [7:13 AM EST]
The Australian Computer Gamer Professionals is now underway, a new league somewhat in the vein of the CPL and PGL. The new league is based in Australia, and offers TeamFortress competitions. Registration is now getting underway for their first season.

Reviews  [7:13 AM EST]

etc.  [7:13 AM EST]

Out of the Blue  [7:13 AM EST]
Yesterday's quote in the pop culture game was Monty Python and the Holy Grail ("No, you're not... you'll be stone dead in a moment"). Yes, a little easy, but topical, as well. I mentioned American at Maxis yesterday, but Jim at PC Format says he's at EA now. Thanks Chris Johnson for the link du jour for the Starr Wars movie poster, previewing a feature coming soon to a theater near you.

Tuesday, January 5, 1999

How To Start Your Own Game Company  [6:18 PM EST]
GameSpot's How To Start and Grow Your Own Game Development Company is an article that attempts to verse would-be game moguls on all the business of the business, from forming a company all the way through intellectual property issues. This was pointed out yesterday by Apache, but the link wasn't working for me until I tried it now.

Drakan Shots  [5:23 PM EST]
There are some new Screenshots on the Surreal Software site showing off their upcoming third-person action/adventure, Drakan: Order of the Flame. Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme.

Hayes: "We're Not Dead Yet"  [5:02 PM EST]
Hayes official: We're not dead yet is the declaration of a ZDNet follow-up on the reports earlier of Hayes' demise (story). Thanks TheXmaN. Here are quotes ("I'm getting better!") from Hayes' Nigel Croisdale and others:

"The U.S. reports are wrong: We're still here," said Croisdale, adding that he had been in conference calls with American colleagues all day. "What is true is that we have gone through a significant downsizing exercise in the U.S., which has resulted in significant job losses, but we do have our core team."

Still, Alan Adamson, a product manager at Hayes in the U.S., said that Hayes in the U.S. had "ceased operations."

Indeed, despite Croisdale's denials, one analyst said Hayes' end was near.

Matrox K6-2 Optimizer, ASUS TNT Drivers  [5:02 PM EST]
This download page has a K6-2 (XT core version) video memory access optimizer for Matrox/K6-2 users. Thanks Psycho_Clown of The 3DNow! NOW Page. Also, thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme for word of new ASUS TNT Drivers (though I ganked the neatened up links from Sharky Extreme):

Revenant/Defrag Interview & Schlegel to CaveDog  [5:02 PM EST]
A couple of stories about movements in the fast-moving gaming industry: Scott Schlegel, made his last .plan update for Monolith Productions, announcing he is leaving for the "greener pastures" of CaveDog (perhaps the pastures are outside the caves). Also, Gamer's Alliance interviews Ed "Scope" Cope of DeFrag & Stephen C. Chan, the Creative Director of Revenant, getting both sides of the story behind Ed's departure from the Akolyte team at Revenant, and the subsequent formation of his website, DeFrag.

More Mac: OpenGL License, PSX Emulator  [3:36 PM EST]
Apple Licenses OpenGL from Silicon Graphics is the announcement from Apple and Silicon Graphics that Apple has licensed the OpenGL API and software library from Silicon Graphics, and will incorporate OpenGL into future versions of the Macintosh operating system, starting with the next release of Mac OS 8 and the first release of Mac OS X. Thanks Shaun Moore. Also, GameWEEK is reporting that Connectix has announced today it will soon release its Virtual Game Station which allows PlayStation emulation on G3 Macs (including the iMac). Thanks McGarnicle.

Cross-Platform Q3ATest in March  [2:17 PM EST]
The Quake III Arena Test is expected in March as a simultaneous release for both the PC and the Mac. This announcement came as John Carmack previewed Quake III Arena running on a G3 Mac with an ATi Rage 128 chipset during Steve Jobs' keynote address at MacWorld in San Francisco. Jobs Woos Macworld is a ZDNet TV broadcast (John Carmack's appearance is at 1:19:00 of the RealPlayer file - thanks Recluse) of the event (thanks Tony Adams), and further details are on MacNN (thanks Kameron Hoffs). Here's the description of the doings sent by KAL Chaos:

Just a quick note to let you know (in case you didn't hear) that John Carmack was at Macworld in San Francisco and did the first public demo of Q3 Arena during Steve Jobs keynote. They were running it on the new G3 Macs with the ATI Rage 128 chipset that Carmack said was the best available so far. The demo was kind of short and simple but showed off some great mirrored and surfaces and curved objects. It still had the obvious "Quake" look to it but was pretty impressive. Quake 3 will run native on both pc and mac platforms, and qtest3 and the retail version will be available for both platforms simultaneously. The extra code for the MacOS takes only 15k. Carmack also said that anyone who licenses the Q3 engine will get the mac codebase at no additional charge. Jobs stated that it is Apple's goal to make the Mac G3 the best gaming platform in the world. With Carmack on board they may have a chance.

Digital Anvil Previews, WC Movie  [1:37 PM EST]
Let's Get Hammered is a new preview on GameSpot UK of what's up with Digital Anvil including Starlancer,  Loose Cannon, and Freelancer previews, and a Wing Commander Movie Interview talking to Chris Roberts about his efforts to translate his small-screen game/movies to the big screen.

Hayes Going Out of Business  [11:45 AM EST]
Hayes going out of business is the headline of a CNET News.com report that announces modem manufacturer Hayes, whose name was once synonymous with compatibility in the modem world, is going out of business. Hayes, which already emerged from a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in 1996, had filed again for Chapter 11 protection in October 1998, but has not been able to turn operations around, and cannot raise additional funds, so it's been announced they have shut down operations in preparation for liquidation. Thanks Joe at 3D Realms.

Blood3 Confirmed  [11:08 AM EST]
PlanetBlood has posted another of their short Q&A sessions with Monolith's Brian Goble, talking about the state of the Blood2 patch, the upcoming Blood2 mission pack, and a mention of work on Blood3, which seems like the first official confirmation that this sequel to a sequel is being produced.

Unreal Tourney Screenshot  [11:08 AM EST]
Billy has posted an Unreal Tournament screenshot on Voodoo Extreme.

Half-Life Model Viewer & Packaged SDK  [11:08 AM EST]
Wavelength (dedicated to Half-Life editing) has posted a fully functional compiled version of the OpenGL model viewer for Half-Life, and an updated distribution of the recently released new SDK, all rolled into one nifty package. Thanks Apache of Planet Half-Life.

Robin Walker Q&A  [11:08 AM EST]
ozTF has posted a response from Robin Walker of Valve/TeamFortress Software on the subject of Parametric Animation, which, in brief, is "the next step up from Skeletal Animation." Here's a bit more of the quote, the whole thing is on the ozTF main page:

With Parametric animation, the computer looks at everything the player's doing, not just what his/her main action is. If the player's running one way, facing another, firing, and taking a bullet hit in the shoulder, then every one of those parameters are taken into account when the player is drawn. The animation system smoothly blends each of the individual animations needed to convey all those events into one animation.

Experience Interview  [11:08 AM EST]
3DGaming.Net's Experience Interview is up talking to the crew behind the upcoming game The Whole Experience, which, as described, sounds like it could be a breakthrough engine for rendering outdoor areas.

Quake II Stand Off  [11:08 AM EST]
The Mod Shop has an updated version 2.2 of Stand Off, a Quake II mod where two teams compete to capture each other's bases. The changes in the new release do not affect gameplay, but rather performance.

Reviews  [11:08 AM EST]
The newly relocated 3D Sound Surge has posted reviews of two Vortex(1) cards, the IO Magic PCI, and the Skywell Magic PCI Review, as well as a Cambridge SoundWorks 4Pt. Surround Sound review. Also, Electric Games Review of Heretic II is up raving about Raven's latest.

Competitions  [11:08 AM EST]
The Exscape Year End Turtle Awards Contest will award a copy of Half-Life and a Sensaura 3D Positional Audio sound card to the reader whose submission best lives up to their kooky 1998 Year End Turtle Awards.

etc.  [11:08 AM EST]

Out of the Blue  [11:08 AM EST]
Spoke too soon about the weather breaking here (brr) sadistic Muhammad Elnimr pointing out it's a balmy 14°C (57°F) where he is in Egypt (no word on a guest room). Sorry about the slow updates to the Finger insert on the top of the page... there are still a couple of minor wrinkles being worked out on the new server, that should be fixed today or tomorrow. Is this where American McGee made off to? Thanks Allen Derusha for the link. Actually, last I heard from American he was working at Maxis.

Monday, January 4, 1999

TRIBES Mod Message Board  [9:39 PM EST]
There's a new Tribes Scripting/Mods Message Board on Datumplane::StarSiege for the discussion of scripting and mod programming for Starsiege TRIBES.

Vampire Update  [9:39 PM EST]
Nihilistic's Rob "Innerloop" Huebner updated his .plan with a pretty hefty outline of what's up with the scripting system for their upcoming action/RPG, including a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of using a Java Virtual Machine instead of their custom compiler.

New Duality Screenshots  [7:00 PM EST]
There are some new Duality screenshots on the Duality site. Here's the lowdown from Double Aught on Duality, an upcoming shooter for the Mac and PC:

If you haven't heard of Duality, you will be hearing about it much more in the coming months. Duality is the latest game being developed by Double Aught, those cats who brought you Marathon Infinity. Duality is a first person shooter that does it's own thing. This is no BSP engine kids, say goodbye to that box technology you've come to expect from a first person shooter. What you can look forward to is a story driven experience set in a rich world that is unlike anything out there. Engaging story, organic spaces and oh the colors... but don't take my word for it, check out the screenshot attached, and don't forget to go the site. Free keychain for visitor number 6,279. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your friend's families and your family's friends.

New ATi OpenGL ICDs  [5:38 PM EST]
There are a pair of new OpenGL Installable Client Drivers for the ATi Rage Pro on the ATi Products page, one a beta driver, and the other a release candidate. There's a note that they "do not recommend installing beta software in systems used for productivity of any kind." Thanks Evolver.

Bad Unreal 221 Beta  [5:10 PM EST]
After a private Unreal 221 beta was linked by some sites, it was pulled from the spot where it was available, and the following post by Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart appeared on the Unreal Technology page:

Currently there is a bad UnrealBeta221.exe patch being distributed around the net. This is NOT Unreal 221. Please do not download and use this patch. Sorry about the confusion.

Aureal Interview  [5:10 PM EST]
David Gasior of Aureal is interviewed by 3D Gaming World talking "about A3D 2.0, the Vortex 2, the future of Aureal and what we can expect from them in the near future."

New LavaCam  [5:10 PM EST]
A new version 1.14 of the LavaCam for Quake II, the spiffy track cam, is now out, fixing a bug they discovered in their New Year's party.

New L-Fire CTF  [3:05 PM EST]
The L-Fire Development Group has released versions 1.03 of L-Fire CTF and L-Fire DM. The new releases offer optimized player ID that defaults to ON, team chat anti-flood detection has been loosened to reduce inadvertent triggering, and fixes have been applied to the tech spawning bug with "matchsetup" during intermission, the formatting of the help file (LHELP command), and a couple of bugs in id´s say_team chat macro code. Thanks The Q2CTF Flag Ship, and Captured.

TRIBES CTF Ladder  [3:05 PM EST]
The Online Gaming League has begun a CTF ladder for Starsiege TRIBES. The OGL also runs over 20 other ladders covering six different Quake II mods. Finally, on the OGL front, tonight's Lilith & Eve show on the old All Games Network (live at 5:30 PM EST) will speak with "the ladies of the OGL" (sounds like a Playboy pictorial).

Unreal Conquer the Base  [3:05 PM EST]
Version 1.2a of the Conquer The Base mod for Unreal is now available. CTB is a teamplay mod like Capture The Flag, but there is only one base, which must be conquered and defended. You still get a frag for killing an opponent, but the game's major scoring comes from time spent successfully defending the base.

400 MHz Celerons & IBM/AMD?  [3:05 PM EST]
Intel releases faster PC chips is a CNNfn article that announces that Intel has pushed speedier 400 MHz variants on their Celeron processor out the door early to help stave off the competition. Thanks Thomas Jelen. Also on the CPU front, this article on the Register (thanks Pyscho_Clown from The 3DNow! NOW Page) describes a rumor that IBM will be producing K7 processors, though no such announcement has been made by IBM or AMD yet. This other article on the Register is titled "AMD on verge of further K7 desktop wins" which talks of "several other customers interested in its products."

Screenshots  [2:55 PM EST]
There are some Panzer Elite Screens on WarZone giving a look ahead at this upcoming World War II tank sim, and there are some Inertia screenshots on the Pseudo Interactive page showing off some 3D accelerated looking shots of a racing game dealie to be published by Microsoft.

Shogo & Half-Life Maps  [12:00 PM EST]
The Half-Life map center, radium, has a review up of the Gantry, a Half-Life deathmatch map from Radioactive Software designed for one-on-one play. The review calls it the first Half-Life map they've seen worthy of a Top 20% ranking, with the only real quibble being the map's r_speeds (meaning it will require a fairly fast machine to play well). Also on the map front, PlanetShogo has word of a new single player level for Shogo: Mobile Armor Division called the Hangar, which they have not reviewed.

The Year in Mods  [12:00 PM EST]
Mod Central has posted their year-end wrap-up which also offers their mod of the year Reader Poll Results, each with strong showings from Action Quake 2. There is also a My Favorite Mods article that looks at the preferences of over 40 webmasters in the community.

TRIBES FAQ Update  [11:22 AM EST]
An update to The Unofficial Starsiege Tribes FAQ adds more info on how to get the most out of Dynamix's new teamplay shooter.

TRIBES & WinGate  [11:22 AM EST]
Setting up WinGate to play TRIBES is an article that outlines how to get TRIBES going on a machine running under a WinGate Proxy Server. Thanks The Game Complex.

On Online Gaming  [11:22 AM EST]
A New Gameplay Dynamic for 3D Gamers: Who Will Capture the Flag? is an editorial on The Adrenaline Vault talking about multiplayer gaming.

New Unreal Manager (UMan)  [11:22 AM EST]
The Unreal Manager page has version 220 of their Unreal Manager program (UMan) that offers the quickest easiest way to set up a multiplayer Unreal server.

New looniness  [5:49 AM EST]
And in a special dedication to Derek from last week's Mailbag comes the lowdown on the latest issue of loonygames, back after a week off for the holidays. Here's the listing of articles that will be posted this week:

Screw those resolutions! It's issue nineteen of loonygames! Bursting your bubble this week:

Unreal Connection Tip  [5:49 AM EST]
The following note from SkySoul may help out those experiencing problems connecting to multiplayer Unreal servers using GameSpy:

I found that GameSpy 2.06 has set the default query port for Unreal to 8777. The default query port for Unreal and GameSpy Lite is 7778. This causes anyone using GameSpy 2.06 to be unable to query Unreal servers unless he had edited the query port to 7778.

Quake II Pay2Play  [5:49 AM EST]
Pay2Play is a new Quake II mod from The Mod Shop where you buy your weaponry with your health and armor, adding a balancing twist, since the easier you make it to kill your opponent by being well armed, the easier it is to be killed yourself due to your increased vulnerability.

Gladiator Bot Utility  [5:49 AM EST]
The Gladiator Bot page has version 0.8 of Winbspc which converts .BSP or .MAP files to .AAS files needed to play the Gladiator bot. The utility supports Quake II, both the Reckoning and the Ground Zero Mission Packs, Extremities, and all custom made Quake II levels.

Dawn of Darkness Preview  [5:49 AM EST]
There's a Dawn of Darkness Beta preview up on Beta Bites offering a look at this upcoming Quake II project with RPG elements with a preview and 18 screenshots.

Departments  [5:49 AM EST]
Both the LAN Parties section and the Want Ads have been updated, so have a party or get a job, or something.

etc.  [5:49 AM EST]

Out of the Blue  [5:49 AM EST]
The weather broke here in New York, my sympathies to those who live in places where it hasn't, or won't (Manitoba?). Funny, I saw sCary make reference to the same problem I have: my office is the coldest room in the Blue Tower (makes for more typos than usual when your hands are shivering). The cookie thing has lead to some interesting mail, I think a couple of pieces will show up in this week's MailBag. Here's the Kooky link of the day (thanks Descentile) and the cool link of the day (thanks loonyboi) who points out "Finally, a practical cell phone. ;)" (sounds like it would be particularly well suited to Manitoba).

Sunday, January 3, 1999

New Wally  [6:43 PM EST]
Wally's Home has version 1.29G of the Wally texture editing program fixing a GPF'ing bug with the 24 bit export function.

Co-op Half-Life  [6:19 PM EST]
Cooperative Half-Life is a simple webpage by PorkinS that outlines the process to play Half-Life cooperatively ("They're waiting for you Gordon, in the cloning chamber").

Reviews: Sin & K6-500  [6:19 PM EST]
Sharky Extreme reviews the Kryotech Cool K6-2 500, an AMD K6-2 400 system that's overclocked with Kryotech's über-cooling system (liquid nitrogen based, or some such thing) that cools the system to -40° C/F, coincidentally the temperature mentioned in the past two Out of the Blue rambles. Also, Gamer's Alliance reviews Sin.

TRIBES Commanders Academy  [6:19 PM EST]
Here's the post from The Game Complex describing the attempts to create a resource to help train leaders for squads of TRIBES players:

Saint is creating a commander's academy for Starsiege Tribes. The idea is to begin training commanders to help run battles (which right now, not many people do effectively). Head over to this link on the Tribes Feedback forum to get an idea what he is talking about doing, and if you are interested in helping Saint out, head here if you would like to give him a hand, to see what he needs.

Terminus Movie  [6:19 PM EST]
Gamer's Alliance has posted a Terminus Trailer in smaller (15 MB) and larger (70 MB) varieties to follow up on their recent preview of Terminus, an upcoming Space Sim from Vicarious Visions.

New EGN2  [1:02 PM EST]
The Enternet Global Network page has a new 539 alpha build of their flagship program EGN2, which  combines ICQ-like chat functionality with online multiplayer game server browsing. You can read all about the new version in the Build News.

Half-Life Walkthrough  [12:46 PM EST]
Part three of CGO/OGR's Half-Life walkthrough is up, offering hints on getting through the game from chapter 11 (Surface Tension) on. Thanks AGN3D.

New Quest  [12:46 PM EST]
Version 2.36 of the Quest level editor is up on The Official new DOS/Win95 Quest homepage. The new release adds support for editing Half-Life levels. Thanks again AGN3D.

Outcast Movie  [10:55 AM EST]
Outcast Central has posted another movie showing off the upcoming Outcast in space-conscious RealPlayer format (around 4MB, as opposed to the 68 MB AVI it from which it was derived).

TRIBES FAQ  [10:55 AM EST]
There is an Unofficial Starsiege Tribes FAQ up at The Game Complex.

TRIBES Editing  [10:55 AM EST]
Kaptain Kickass's Tribes Guide has tips and info on how to get up and running with the Starsiege TRIBES level editor that is included with the game, including a command reference.

TRIBES TK Kicker  [10:55 AM EST]
Also on Kaptain Kickass's Tribes Guide is an updated version of the utility mentioned yesterday (story) to kick players who kill teammates in games where teamdamage is on.

Half-Life Buglist  [10:55 AM EST]
The Unofficial Half-Life bug page has been updated with more info and workarounds. Thanks Voodoo Extreme and Planet Half-Life.

Raven on Project Management  [10:55 AM EST]
How Raven Tackles Projects is an article on 3D Revue by Raven's Eric Biessman talking about Project Management, an appropriate topic for him to opine on given the timely, and relatively bug-free release of Heretic II.

Off-Topic Downloads  [10:55 AM EST]
Version 3.3.1 of GetRight for Windows95/98NT is out, offering resumable downloads from websites and cool stuff like that. Also, hot on the heels of 2.07 (which I didn't even get a chance to report), version 2.08 of Winamp is out. Here's my favorite feature of the new release: "New in 2.08: Justin stops smoking crack to fix the high CPU consumption in 2.07." Thanks Tanj.

Reviews  [10:55 AM EST]
PlanetHardware Reviews Montego II OEM looking at the Vortex2-based sound card. Also, FiringSquad's sneak peak at the Celeron 366 PPGA CPU is up.

etc.  [10:55 AM EST]

Out of the Blue  [10:55 AM EST]
When I was asked to run cookies on the site for a while to try and track traffic patterns, I knew I would hear from some unhappy folks (there are some so suspicious of the cookie process they would shoot the Keebler Elf on sight). If there are actually huge hoards of you up in arms about this, I will probably just make them go away, but I'm hoping to just let it run a couple of weeks and pull it. Either way, rest assured it is not permanent.

Came home to a broken Internet connection last night (a rare event here, *knock wood*), perhaps bytes frozen in the wires (I'm told it actually was weather related). I've heard from a couple of folks who also live in places where 40 below zero in winter is achievable. Wray Sparling of Treherne, Manitoba, Canada (Manitoba is apparently a hotbed of coldness, I got a couple of mails from there) points out that exposed skin can freeze in around 15 seconds at that temperature, a fact that comes with the weather forecast there on appropriate occasions. I have one word for you folks (to quote the late Sam Kinneson) MOVE! You know I'm kidding, I'm sure you love your homes, but man...

Have you ever noticed that there's hidden text at the bottom of most updates on the Action Quake2 page (http://action.telefragged.com/)? What a great way to ramble while allowing the disinterested to ignore it. I wish I'd thought of that! Thanks RetLaw for pointing that out.

Saturday, January 2, 1999

Unreal Tech Update  [5:26 AM EST]
The Unreal Technology page has a gigantic update from Tim Sweeney to ring in the new year, covering a lot of techie bases, including his experimentation with OpenGL and discussions of curved surfaces. He mentions that Unreal Tournament will not contain curved surfaces, saying "While curves are cool and we'd love to have them, we've been totally focused on core game play, networking, and user-interface enhancements for UT." Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme.

TRIBES TeamKiller Kicker  [5:26 AM EST]
Kaptain Kickass's Tribes Guide has a utility for TRIBES server admins who run servers with teamdamage set on that auto-kicks anyone who kills more than a configurable number of teammates. You can set kick messages, a "stealth mode" where offenders don't get a warning, and the length of time they are banned from the server. Thanks Spiff from PlanetFortress.

New Half-Life Models  [4:00 AM EST]
The Wavelength Models page has the two new deathmatch player models from the new Half-Life mini-SDK (next story) as a separate download. The new models are a Robot Grunt and the Zombie from the single player game. Thanks Apache.

Updated Half-Life Mini-SDK  [3:30 AM EST]
The Wavelength editing site on Planet Half-Life has posted an updated version of the Half-Life mini-SDK. Here's the lowdown:

Valve's Ken Birdwell released an updated Models SDK. Here's what's included:

(From readme) These ZIP files are part of the developer release for the Half-Life Tools and Multiplayer models. They are fairly large, and it's doubtful that you'll need all of them. They also don't come with any documentation, so you're probably better off going to a Half-Life editing site and letting them set you up with exactly what you need.

hlmplayer.zip: the intermediate files and textures needed to rebuild the Half-Life multiplayer models, along with the raw 3DStudio Max 2.x model sources. You'll need the model exporter found in hltools.zip if you want to export your own.

hlmplayermax.zip: the 3DStudio Max 2.x source files to the multiplayer animations. By themselves, these are pretty useless and I can't think of any reason why you'd need them, but there also wasn't any good reason to not include them so here they are.

hlsprites.zip: a small example of a Half-Life sprite QC file.

hltools.zip: latest build of Half-Life tools used with Worldcraft, as well as a model exporter for 3DStudio Max 2.x and Character Studio 2.x.

hltoolsrc.zip: source code to the tools found in hltools.zip. Also includes a sample OpenGL based model viewing app. These files are only needed if you intend to edit existing tools or build new ones.

Half-Life Decal Dealie  [3:30 AM EST]
The Decal and Models section of the Files section at Planet Half-Life has a small utility that saves other player's decals into bitmaps that you can then place in your /logos directory to use yourself (they're not normally saved).

On BattleZone 2  [3:30 AM EST]
What We Know and What We Want is an article on Pandemic Times discussing what's known about the upcoming sequel to BattleZone, covering what the author hopes to see in the game as well.

Sin Message Boards  [3:30 AM EST]
The Ritualistic Forums are online at Ritualistic as they settle in at their new home (they just celebrated their first anniversary as well). There are forums available on Sin, Sin editing and a Sin Corps (clan) forum, as well as a FAKK2 forum and 2 forums for hosted sites.

Half-Life Web Guide  [3:30 AM EST]
There 's a Half-Life Web Guide up at Computer Action Games from The Mining Co. with a guide to Half-Life sources on the Internet.

Reviews  [3:30 AM EST]
3DHardware.Net's Elsa Victory II Review looks at this Voodoo Banshee-based accelerator that uses 8ns. SGRAM instead of the SDRAM that most Banshees use.

etc.  [3:30 AM EST]

Out of the Blue  [3:30 AM EST]
Grandma Blue and assorted other kin will be taking my attention today as I attend a family gathering out in the wilds to celebrate the New Year: I will return this evening with the updating gleam in my eye. I am already glad that I solicited suggestions to keep in mind when considering changes to this site, as a couple of you that have written in really struck chords with some of your thoughts. Of course suggestions are still more than welcome (as always).

Also, a couple wrote in expressing amusement at my New York City dweller's perspective on cold, commenting that the conditions I described were t-shirt weather where they live. After almost freezing my can off last night, I am stupefied that people survive such climates (and me with my luxurious molecule-thick layer of blubber for insulation). Winner of the frigid frosties award as far as I can determine is Derrick "Ice Cap" McKay (one-time QuArK webmaster) whose Christmas in the Yukon was minus 40 Celsius, with no wind chill. That's so cold that the temperature is the same in Fahrenheit (I'm pretty sure because the mercury in the thermometer freezes).

Previous Week   News Archive   Current News   Next Week
All trademarks used are properties of their respective owners
Copyright © 1998, Stephen Heaslip. All rights reserved.