Articles in the archive contain broken links because outdated files are removed.

New Reactor BIOS
Thanks to Brandon Ording for the news that Intergraph released a BIOS upgrade for the Reactor. There's nothing in the readme or on the site saying so, but as always with this type of stuff, the usual disclaimers apply; proceed at your own risk.

QNN
The Quake News Network, or QNN, maintained by Diablos of Clan Terminus, covers clan battles with stories, and by providing screenshots of scores (how come this makes me smell trouble...).

QuakeWorld in "Two Weeks"
The RevCo/QuakeWorld Page has been updated (thanks to James Mitchell for the word) with Disruptor's prediction about the QuakeWorld release, which is "two weeks." (A few more bugs have surfaced.) My prediction? When it's finished. (So stop bugging Disruptor, and like he says, don't bug id).

Not the Craw, the Craw!
I saw on sCary's that someone wanted to start a Big Ten league, which I took to mean a big league on TEN's multiplayer online service. Then I see that I got an email from the same guy (James Hills) and it turns out he's starting a Big 10 league, as in the NCAA division (college sports)--D'oh. His clan is Clan Nittany (Penn State). Any other representatives of Big 10 schools should email him.

Reactor Contest
I just came across this contest that has PCM&E joining forces with Intergraph to give away three Vérité-powered Intergraph Reactor 3D video cards. It seems like it's been running for a while now (it says it's their November/December giveaway)... oh well, better late than never.

QuakeWorld Central
Thanks to Mike Drechsler who was the first to pass along this news that there's another update on what's going on at QuakeWorld Central (aka the RevCo homepage). There's also an article in Wired about Disruptor's speculation of QuakeWorld this weekend called QuakeWorld to Rattle Online Gaming Realm (thanks to Jason for that).

Now That's an Aircraft Patch
I also notice on Wired that there's this article: For Sale In-Flight Fun and Games that says "You might be playing Quake with fellow passengers at 30,000 feet next year. And yes, there will be ads."

QuakeLab Update
There's a whole bunch of cool stuff over at the QuakeLab. Including how to create the Cthon event_lightnings effect, a Healing Pool (just like E4M4's version), a Subway Train (a clever illusion using func_trains and ambient_drones), a Whirlpool using trigger_pushes, and a Player-controllable-laser-turret-emplacement (in the next few weeks...).

Quake Add-Ons: Yahoo!
Thanks to Puppet Head for sending along word that Yahoo has an article about Activision Inc's deal with id to distribute add on packs for Quake.

Danger, Warning
James Mitchell send along the URL of this CNN BS on violence in arcade games. As if that has any effect on how we lead our everyday lives (it makes me want to KILL these people =). While you're looking at this kind of stuff, he also sent along the URL of The National Institue of Media and the Family Video Game report card... eeek!

QuakeWorld CTF
There's an update on Threewave about the conversion of Zoid's Capture the Flag patch to work in QuakeWorld. There are some differences in how Quake C works in QuakeWorld that lead to some changes in the patch. Unfortunately, QuakeWorld's client-side prediction causes the grappling hook to be unusable, so it will be axed. Also, the flag lags behind the carrier, so there probably going to make a new player model. CTF will be handled in QuakeWorld by one specialized CTF Master Server, and they're still working out what statistics it will track for each player. Zoid says "There's still some work to be done, but the bulk of the port is ready." The whole story is on Threewave, so go take a look.

Screenshots
Thanks to super-sleuth Jason Keddie (XP-Fiend) for the word that ZDNet has some info and new screenshots on the Hypnotic and Rogue Quake level packs.

New WorldCraft
There were some minor problems with version 1.0, so you can get Version 1.0a or the 1.0-1.0a patch from here or the WorldCraft page.

Too Far? We'll Know When We Get There...
Go to Zor's to check out the rumored new designer at id... (thanks to Zor's bro, brafish).

Well, There Goes That Secret...
Kevin "Fragmaster" Bowen* wrote to tell me he's revealed my secret origin (so I guess now, I'll have to kill him, or something). Anyway you can see what beans he spilled on Sujoy's.

*(I'm not the Kevin Bowen that does Quake C, Dammit!) :)

QuakeWorld Update
Thanks to John Machin for passing along the word that RevCo's got another QuakeWorld update regarding the scoring system (the chess model has been ditched, but it's a similar principal). There's also an opportunity to provide feedback before this is a done deal, so check it out, and if you've got any insights to pass along, do it before 6:00 pm EST today (they're looking for improvements to the system--not complaints).

The Llama Update
Chuck Mays (CyberPunk) sent along a little Quake Christmas Carol, but before I even had a chance to post it, it appeared in American's .plan (fast becoming the Llama homepage =):

Rudolph The Llama Quaker
By CyberPunk (cyberpunk@q-net.net)

You know sCary and Disruptor and Sujoy and Swansong
chunkk and of course all 'dem CrackWhores
But do you recall
The most famous Quaker of all

Rudolph the llama Quaker
Had a very high ping game
And if you ever fragged him
You would even say he's lame

All of the other Quakers
Used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any deathmatch games

Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Tokay came to say
Rudolph with your ping so high
Won't you quake with me tonight?

Then how the quakers loathed him
As they lost control of they're pee
Rudolph the llama quaker
He's teamed up with American McGee!

The news that American had posted this comes courtesy of Valeyard, who was inspired to song himself:

To the Tune of American Band

I checked American's Plan
I checked American's Plan
The llammas' winnin now,
He's gonna tell you how,
It's in American's Plan.

There would be more, but, well, I'm at work.

Finally, since we're on the subjects of Christmas, and llamadom, thanks to Ramirez for word on the Naked Dancing Llama Homepage (which I also now see on sCary's--damn, beaten to the llama punch again), and that screwy jcampbll finger dealie has been updated with his plans to get a new holiday declared: Quake-mess.

Quake Command Lives!
I just got off the phone with Wedge, who's doing great out in Seattle (Choryoth is expected tomorrow evening). It turns out it's not really intentional that Quake Command is in the stasis it is, but more those dreaded circumstances beyond their control. Be aware that if you've sent Steve (Wedge) any email lately, he might not have gotten it. The really good news, however, is that they're going to be able to work up a little server space and bandwidth out in their new home, so look for a new and improved Quake Command to pop up soon. It'll probably take on a different form than in the past with little or no more actual original Quake C files posted, but a way of keeping up with the world of Quake through Steve and John's eyes.

Quake v. Duke Redux RahAlex Dimson passes along the news that Next-Generation's one day poll is over and Quake wins 55%-45% and that there's also news on Next-Gen that Quake shareware was first on the SofTrends top selling games list for another month.

RevCo QuakeWorld Update
Another update to the RevCo page describing the tests on the ranking system (which is like the "World Chess Federation...."). Thanks to John Machin.

Love American Style
American updated his plan again today. Thanks to Jeff Hanna for passing the word:

Project: Quake II, llama pr0n
Plan:
Interesting Llama facts:

Llama like to have sex with sheep.
Someone emailed this to me. I will
refrain from posting his address.

I guess this is why Scary walks around
in that sheep costume all the time.

Huh. sCary told me that was a sweater...

By The Way...
I did finally get to see the Rangers movie, and it's really amazingly well done (even given the high standard they've set). Kudos to Wedge and Choryoth for the RangerCam... it's brilliant.

VQuake 1.06 Beta 10
Thank you Randall Mars for the word that beta 10 of Rendition's Vérité-enhanced Quake has been released on Rendition's website.

CTF 3.2 Released, Threewave Moves
Big doings over at Threewave, home of Capture the Flag. First, they've moved to a new home (please update your bookmarks), as a branch off of QuakeX (all part of the PlanetQuake Empire). The QuakeX thing is a natural, since Whaleboy has been doing a lot of work for the CTF projects, and he not only is providing the space for Threewave, he did a beautiful redesign of the site. Second, CTF 3.2 has been released, which is required for servers only. The focus of version 3.2 in the words of Dave 'Zoid' Kirsch is "Expert CTF," with an added emphasis on strategy and bonuses for teamwork.

• Players now start with 50 green armor when spawned. This will let you survive at least one direct rocket hit. This is to make spawners have a chance at life and make defense more important.

• Weapons are *not* carried between levels. Now I know a lot of people are going to hate this, but it has to be done to make the team start on each level fair. Right now, if one team is kicking the other teams but, chances are on level change the leading team will be all stocked with ammo and weapons but the losing team will not be. This evens it out so every level, people start the same.

Expert CTF mods.

• CTF will now award as assist on a capture. To get an assist frag the guy carrying your flag and return it. If your team captures in a short period of time, you will get an assist.

• Flag defense is now radius based (but not a large radius). It is better to kill a guy _before_ he gets your flag. There is no bonus if he gets it and then you immediately frag him.

• You also get a bonus for defending your flag carrier. If you blow away a guy who has harmed your carrier, you get an extra frag for it. Defend your flag carrier!

Quake v. Duke--Later Rinse Repeat (Lather...)
It must be pretty obvious an easy way to annoy me is to stoke this lameass Duke v. Quake "debate." Thanks to Pete for letting me know about that Next-Gen has pick up this torch with another "poll." I encourage you to ignore it for no other reason than their intro:

"More and more readers have come to us asking that Next Generation Online conduct an opinion poll regarding preferences of the most popular 3D shooters out today. Here's your chance to be heard."

ROFL... I can just see the emails now. Please do a flame-war fuelling Quake v. Duke poll, we need to know if everyone's opinion has changed since CNET did this two weeks ago...

QSoccer II
Jebs dropped a line to let me know how excited the QSoccer team is about RudeBowi's and nuclear's new level's, and has sent along QSoccer beta 3.1 (which only contains nuclear's map).

QuakeWorld, Soon...
The RevCo page has been updated with QuakeWorld status (the status is that it's imminent--Disruptor reccommends leaving your weekend open). Thanks to Larry Sylvestre for that.

I haven't checked out the new client yet, but it'll be a pleasure to be able to move on and off plats with confidence again (the last big bug to die). Team QSpy sent out the release version of the front-end today, so things are falling into place...

Um, Mr. Cash, We're Waiting...
Thanks to Patrick Cupka of The Void for alerting me to the fact that John Carmack and American McGee each also (Tim Willitts was first) updated their plans today. The subjects of the day are the release of the source code to Doom's setup.exe, and llama tongues. Just in case you can't figure it out, the setup source code update is John's:

dec 3:

Not likely of general interest, but...

Javier Heredia from the ID4Doom team requested the source code for the DOOM setup program, so I zipped it up and put it on our web site alongside the sersetup and ipxsetup files.

I just grabbed the entire directory, backups, objs, and all. Happy spelunking.

John Romero wrote idsetup, so don't ask me questions about it...

And the llama tongue update is American's:

Interesting Llama facts:
Copied from http://www.llamaweb.com
(no llama pr0n, but some stupid facts)

Begging for food or treats:
I've had two llamas that would "beg" for treats, in the same way,
who were father and son. Both would beg by sticking out their short
little llama tongues and licking their lips in a clearly anticipatory
way. This is unusual, because due to their short tongues, llamas just
don't do very much with their tongues (outside their mouths).

"short little llama tongues"
Man, talk about getting a woodrow.

Hey Tokay, once you've had goat, you'll never go back...

Windows Tip Part III
Updated this... I originally wrote maximum where it should have said minimum (as someone once said, "God is in the details..."). I pulled the Windows Tip I had previously posted for maximizing conventional memory under Win95 on the advice of Jack Mathews (of Team QSpy), because it apparently increased your risk of crashing without any appreciable performance gain. I asked Jack for a better tip for Windows memory optimization for Quake players, and his recomendation is to set the minimum Swap File size to the amount of RAM on your system plus 8 MB (up to 32 megs). The reason you send the minimum that high is so it doesn't have to constantly grow and shrink the swap file.

CTF Demos
Ron Mercer sends along the news that Threewave has been updated with three Capture the Flag demos from their latest Ohio Quake LAN DeathFest. (Ron asks that you judge his perfomance on the last two demos rather than the first one.)

GameSlice Rogue Interviews
Thanks Brian McCarty (Strider of Clan Rage) for the word that GameSlice has got an interview (and screenshots) with the Rogue guys about their upcoming Quake add-on.

New WorldCraft
The new (non-beta) WorldCraft 1.0 has been released. Go check out the WorldCraft page. Thanks Alex Dimson.

Tim Willits .plan Update
Thanks to Jason Keddie (XP-Fiend) for letting me know that Tim Willits updated his .plan:

Only a quick note...

I just got done watching the latest Rangers movie and I have to tell you that it is the coolest thing I have seen for Quake. I am extremely impressed.

I have to confess, that I uploaded it and crashed last night, so I haven't even gotten to see it yet (but if it's good enough for Timmy...).

ToeTag Beta
There is a beta of the ToeTag level editor available at ToeTag Headquarters. Thank you to Nigel Bovey for letting me know.

Give Him the Finger
That nutty jcampbll finger has been updated with the winner of his "pull my finger" contest (somebody light a match).

Safe and Sound
Well I'm back in one piece. Due to technical difficulties with the blue-jet (damn flux capacitor again), I ended up going commercial. Then to top it off I had to give up my first class seat on the Concorde to a little girl so she could get a kidney transplant, and damn if I didn't end up in the coach section on a domestic Continental flight. Anyhoo, weather dealys ended me up with about three hours sleep last night, so I'm gonna run through the skinny and crash (yes I do sleep). Zzzzzzzzzz.

John Carmack on QuakeWorld Ports
Maurice Van Emburgh wrote John Carmack asking about QuakeWorld ports, specifically whether we'll have to choose either QuakeWorld or OpenGlQuake/D3DQuake, and thus spake thus Carmack:

"Unfortunately, yes. After both are released and tested, perhaps there will be a merging, but I just can't guarantee prompt ports to every combination. (linux quakeworld? irix quakeworld? glquake on mac?, etc)"

RevCo QuakeWorld Info
Thanks to John Machin, who sends along word that there's more QuakeWorld news on the RevCo page, which refers to a QW blurb on the Dark Requiem news page (like a chain letter) which announces the first QW bout between them and Unholy Alliance.

QSports
Thanks to Don Peterson for word that the QFootball guys have teamed up with the QSoccer team to form QSports, promising to turn their group attention to other sports upon completion of their current projects. I can think of a couple of sports that I feel would be enhanced the addition of guns: gymnastics, synchronized swimming, polo....

The QSoccer page also has been updated. News there is that they've implemented dribbling, a ChaseCam, a kicking model, and improved control. Also, there's a demo of four-player QSoccer Beta2 at Demoneater's Quake page, for those who haven't gotten to see it in action. Since Beta 2 has been pulled, there is also a zip available there to give you the sounds and map to replay the demo.

Just One Question... Who's Johnny Depp?
American updated his plan. Thanks to James Spencer for letting me know.

Back from Thanksgiving in LA.
Spent turkey day with the fiance's
parents. Bumped into Johnny Depp in
a bookstore. For some reason he did
not know who I was. What's up with him?
He was probably just a little afraid
to be standing so close to the best
Deathmatcher in the world. I dunno. :)

Uh, it would seem that many of you
feel that the above statements are
a true reflection of my feelings
about myself.

I have one thing to say to you:
Llamas are better than sheep.

Ranger Gone Bad II
ColdSun sends along the latest film from the Rangers, Ranger Gone Bad 2. Kudos for the editing should be directed towards ArchV.

QuMa 1.5
Stephen Mitchell of JoinInAndDie passes along word that QuMa1.5 is out (and supports Capture The Flag).

Redwoods Logos
Redwoods' got all the submissions for his logo contest up. Go on over and check 'em out.

Viewer Mail
Bill Mull has added a new page devoted to reader submissions called Friends of Phoebus to his site CRAZED & QUAKIN. Send your comments, reviews, and reactions to comments on first-person 3d action games/ideas/news/etc.

Gone Fishin'
Taking the Bluejet out for a spin. I'm pretty sure I'll be back tomorrow night.

Quake BSP Expansion Project
The Quake BSP Expansion Project is a team of map authors dedicated to creating a pak file with a collection of deathmatch maps with the goal of getting servers to run something other than id's (fine) maps.

Careful Where You Stick Your Finger
If you find yourself wondering what kind of fertile (fill in your own fertilizer joke here) mind comes up with the unique interview questions of Jo Nat Han, the offbeat reporting of Lone Wolf, and the timely news tips of "someone named jcampbll," then finger, him, or, them, for the not-so-startling revelation that they are all one in the same (as well as every thought that's popped into their heads in the past few days). He wanted me to let you know he's having an email contest, where some lucky emailer will receive an interview (though no promises anyone will publish it).

QFL
The Quake Fragging League site has been revamped, providing a bit more information about their plans to bring "Structure To A World of Chaos." Looks like they're still shooting for a mid-January launch.

Slipgate Central Launches
Joost Schuur's new website Slipgate Central is now open. A full description of the site and more details are in this press release. Thanks to all who wrote to try and help me figure out when midday UK time is here on the East Coast of the US (from my earlier post). Ratings and descriptions for a lot of sites will be added over the course of the next week, a lot of clans are yet to be added, and many other refinements are planned, but Joost wanted to get the basic site rolling. He's even got a segment called the site of the week, where you can read another interview (actually I did this one before Sujoy's) with your very own primary colored webmaster (if you're not sick of me already).

QSoccer Beta 2
It took an email from Redwood to get me to notice that the link he had up to the QSoocer Beta 2 was of the Qsoccer Beta 2 (as in newer than the one I had posted...). I just need someone to sit here and read stuff and explain it to me--duh. Thanks Red. I'm told now that the reason these things have not been reflected on the QSoccer Page is that their HTML guy is out of town.

Change of Address
Sandeep's Quake Editors has moved (something about his Univeristy not appreciating his Jennifer Anniston page--good thing Redwood goes to Texas A&M ;-). Please update your links, bookmarks, and holiday card lists.

WorldCraft Due Monday
Thanks to Sigil for lettting me know that the WorldCraft page was updated with word that the new (non-beta) version of WorldCraft is due on Monday.

Quake Exchange
From the man who brought you the Quake Club, Reb is starting a Quake Exchange, like the Internet Link Exchange for Quake sites. Check the Quake Underground (formerly the Quake Club) for more details.

New Weapon Idea: The Umbrella
I was just checking out QuakeX, and there's a bunch of neat stuff there. Whaleboy has cooked up a patch to put rain in Quake! There's also news of a Win95 Quake Proxy-server and a beta bsp to map converter, as well as word of a new sport in the works... QFootball!

QSoccer Beta
Speaking of sports (hey, that was Howard Cosell's radio show when I was a kid), Don Petersen passes along word that the QSoccer beta has been released (here's the readme). Word on that hasn't seemed to trickled to the QSoccer Webpage, but it was on Kwiart's Korner.

TeamFortress Update
Version 1.35 of the TeamFortress QuakeC patch, as well as a special net server version and a coop-version have been released. On the TeamFortress Page. The authors are also looking for some net servers to run the patch.

Sujoy Roy Lowers His Standards
I dunno. sCary and American are interesting guys, but now Sujoy's Quake Pages has got an interview by Jo Nat Han with some guy named Blue. But at least Sujoy makes up for it by having an interview with Bob, id's Janitor...