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Archived News:
Here's a local copy (and a list
of mirrors) of the Starsiege 1.002 patch (537 KB) released earlier ( story), along with word from Apache about what's new.
This patch addresses the following:
- The memory manager has been improved, and it no longer allocates 200mb of virtual memory
up front
- Fixes some texture cache problems on Voodoo based cards and increases performance
slightly
- Some improvements in OpenGL performance
- Many more resolutions available in OpenGL
- Support for additional OpenGL cards (i740, Savage3D, TNT2)
- 32bit support in OpenGL on the TNT2 chipset
- Save game name == planet name crash bug
- Rogue pilot server crash bug
- Frozen join screen bug
- Infinite join screen ping bug
- Misc. bugs
There's a post on the Epic
MegaBoard from Mark Rein giving the latest update on why the latest update about the release of the Unreal 224 patch was incorrect. Thanks PlanetUnreal. Here's part of the post. Ignore the
part about slinking away with his tail between his legs and shutting up now, he goes on
with more, if you want to go over and read the whole post:
Jackal--> Actually I did say that the patch would be out "later this week"
referring to the end of last week. When I made that statement it certainly looked like a
slam dunk it would be out around the weekend. The whole team was planning two days off
from Unreal Tournament to work exclusively on testing the patch thoroughly. But as the
weekend rolled around it still had some problems that needed to be resolved and retested.
So, I apologize for that. You'd think I would have learned my lesson by now in terms of
letting people know our expectations. I think I'll just slink back into my cave in shame
with my tail between my legs and shut up now.
Not one, not two, but three posts of addenda to rules of contests (one of them our own!):
- First, the addendum to out Icon Contest. It turns out that the IE5 icon can be 32x32
under circumstances (blame loony for making me think my original 32x32 posting was wrong),
so it causes a bit of a change in our Icon contest. We'll award a prize for both the best
16x16 and the best 32 by 32 Icon. Also, it turns out the better format is Icon format
(blame me for that one -- I'll be sure to run the next contest through more rigorous
quality assurance before posting it). Thanks Red-Death for the clarification about the
icons, as well as the helpful link to WinFiles.com Windows 95-98 Icon
Editing Tools. Sorry about the messiness. I will convert any .bmps we've already received
to .ico files, and of course, anyone who wants to redo their own and resubmit it is
welcome. Entries go to contest@bluesnews.com.
- Second, The Q2PMP has posted a LoveDoll
contest update with word from Paul Steed clarifying the rules about what kind of models
will qualify to win.
- Finally (quite the day for these), Epic's Mark Rein sent along this announcement about changes to
the Unreal Level Design Contest. Here's the conclusion:
It will probably take us a week or two to haggle with the lawyers over the
updated legal language and get the site changed over. This is going to be an AWESOME
contest. It's hard to keep everyone happy but we're trying our best. I'd like to thanks
those individuals whose feedback helped us to make this a better contest - you know who
you are.
A new version 1.002 patch for Starsiege (not Starsiege: TRIBES) is now available. No word
yet on what the patch does (there's no word as of this writing on The Starsiege Universe), but the patch is up
on this page posted by the
fine file-loving folks over at 3DFiles.com.
The Sierra HomeWorld
site has been updated with three new screenshots, as well as a pair of units
for their unit viewer (that are on magazine CDs this month, so you may already
have them). Also, HomeWorld.org is reporting
that the beta should be available today...stay tuned.
The Interplay Descent 3 page
has been updated with their weapons of the week. This week there's two new weapons:
the Plasma Cannon, and the EMD Cannon, and each has a downloadable MPEG movie
showing off their stuff. Also, if you entered Interplay's In
Your Face Contest, be sure to run by there and verify your entry, as there's
only three weeks left (thanks to The
Descent Chronicles for that one).
Couple of ION bits for you today...SS-Messiah is the winner of Week 4 of the Daikatana DM Tournament, and he'll be joining with R-Gauss, SS-Valdez, and Grindage in their trip down to Dallas, TX for the finals, where they'll deathmatch against The Romero. To celebrate his glorious victory, they've posted an interview with Messiah over at ActionXtreme.
Monolith's Mike Dussault updated
his .plan with a massive update on the status of LithTech 2, the next version
of the engine that powered Shogo and Blood 2, and will be behind Third Law Interactive's
KISS: Psycho Circus title. Here are a few memorable quotes: Support for
32-bit textures and screen surfaces has been in for a while. I'm very happy
with the way it's structured.. all the color conversion code was strewn out
before but now it is cenralized, clean, and simple. It's definitely better to
be using 32-bit textures and a 16-bit screen than 16-bit textures and a 32-bit
screen.
We have a SoftImage terrain exporter now. This is a huge leap over the previous
way we made terrains. It's much faster and easier to texture and manipulate the terrains in Soft.
There are some new tricks the preprocessor does to optimize the terrains. It
can sometimes strip out 65% of the polies on the terrain with no noticeable difference.Detail textures really enhance
the look of our terrain. It really makes the texture on the terrain look larger
and more detailed. The goods...
The model lighting is much more accurate now. Models can be lit accurately
from lights placed in the environment, so you can get nice subtle bits of light all over them.We're playing around with
different blending modes that work well for things like the sun and clouds passing
overhead.
Proving that three years without a new PC title doesn't hurt his ability to
score headlines, here's a bunch of Duke Nukem related news for you on this Tuesday
afternoon. IGN64 hasn't posted any new screenshots,
movies, or sound clips from the upcoming N64 Duke game Zero Hour, but they do
have... the box art. Woo! (Actually,
sarcasm aside, it does look pretty nice...it's nice to see another original
Duke painting after all the times they've reused the original Duke 3D cover art.)
Redchurch has posted an
interview with Lee Jackson, talking to the music and sound guy behind Duke
3D...and swing by the recently launched Gamesplayer.com
for an editorial
on why Duke Nukem is the best first person shooter of all time (although take
it with a grain of salt, considering the author is a Mac user, and admits to
never having played Half-Life).
Aztech New Media Restructures is a
press release from a few days ago that describes reorganizations at this software company,
but buried in the bottom of the release is word of a new commercial add-on for the
upcoming sequel to Rainbow Six. Aztec is also working on add-ons for Starcraft, Urban
Assault, and Shogo: Mobile Armor Division. Here's a quote from the announcement:
"Aztech is honoured to be associated with Red Storm and the Tom Clancy
brand," said Christopher Seepe, Aztech CEO and Chairman. "Tom Clancy is a
worldwide recognizable symbol for quality and accurate detail in adventure novels, and the
sequel will be an exciting addition to our expanding line of licensed add-on and
enhancement products for best-selling computer games."
Seepe said Aztech has been granted a worldwide exclusive license. The title of Red Storm's
Rainbow Six sequel game has not yet been finalized. Aztech's Rainbow Six sequel expansion
pack is expected to be released in the early Fourth Quarter of 1999.
Monolith has released the tools and game source for Blood2 to allow mod authors to get
their hands on some of the inner workings of the game. The files can be downloaded at The LithTech Game Modifications page.
Interplay Announces
FreeSpace 2 is the press release announcing the sequel to Descent FreeSpace: the Great
War. If you missed it, we posted a new screenshot from FreeSpace 2 yesterday ( story). Here's some of the lowdown from the press release on the game,
due in Winter 1999:
IRVINE, Calif., April 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Interplay Entertainment Corp. (Nasdaq: IPLY - news) announced today the plan to release
the sequel to the highly acclaimed Descent FreeSpace: The Great War(TM) entitled FreeSpace
2(TM). Developed by Volition, Inc., FreeSpace 2 will offer players significant new
gameplay advances, including the most engaging dogfighting ever seen in a space combat
simulation, all new single and multiplayer missions, and immersive nebula effects that
will add an all new dimension to the space combat genre.
"Our goal for FreeSpace 2 is to set a new standard in both multiplayer and
single-player space combat-sims, encompassing heart-pounding dogfights and spectacular
visual effects," stated Mike Kulas, President of Volition and one of the creators of
the award winning Descent I and II.
Adding to the excitement, FreeSpace 2 will feature a variety of multiplayer options
appealing to both deathmatch and teamplay crowds. Fans of the original will again relish
the real-time, in-game voice messaging that allows players to taunt their opponents or
strategize with their allies via a simple microphone and multi-play connection. FreeSpace
gamers may also design their own custom missions using the FreeSpace Mission Editor 2
(FRED 2) shipped with the full retail version of the game.
Through the Looking Glass has a lengthy discussion of some of the planned features from Looking Glass Studios' upcoming System Shock 2, the sequel to the cult-favorite first-person action/RPG. The article is based on some recent debates on the newsgroups in which the game's developers participated.
Activision Gets Weighty With
Heavy Gear 2 is a Next-Generation Online
piece discussing plans for Activision's sequel to Heavy Gear with the game's director,
Jack Mamais. Thanks Apache. Here's the answer
to one question that defines the distinction between a Gear and a Mech (as in MechWarrior
III), which he feels defines the difference between the two games:
"Personally, I don't consider MechWarrior 3 to be a direct
competitor. They are using mecha that have huge scale. They are capable of
withstanding enormous amounts of damage and still remain walking. Heavy Gear 2, on
the other hand, is much more fast-paced. Your gear is very agile and you'll have to use
those abilities to keep you out of danger. I guess you could say piloting a mech is like
driving a battleship, and a gear is like a PT boat."
GameGirlz interviews Harvey
Smith talking to ION Storm's Witchdoctor about his work on ION's upcoming Deus Ex.
A correction to the warning posted yesterday ( story) about the just-released Expendable demo from Rage ( story), comes from Peter over at Rage, who corrected my interpretation
of the warning:
The problem you report only occurs when using a 3D accelerator card with a 2D
card where the 2D card has no 3D component of its own (such as the S3 trio) this should
only affect older cards.
The demo should be fine when used on a Voodoo 1 or 2 card with most graphics cards, such
as Matrox Mystique etc. which do include some degree of 3D component
As you say, this problem has been fixed on the full version.
QuakeStarter's Official HomePage has a new version 0.69b of the QuakeStarter Quake II front-end. They are poised to quickly put in the features required to support the Q3ATest when released to be the first Q3A front-end.
Eff Pee '99 (Fragapalooza '99) has been
announced, for mid-August in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Details are on their page, and
more LAN events than you can shake an RJ-45 at are listed on our LAN Parties page.
- HardwareCentral's Ultimate
PC Giveaway is giving away a $7,500 PIII system.
- The QuakeCity Network is giving away a pair
of copies of TeamEvolve's Red Odyssey add-on for BattleZone in exchange for filling out
their poll.
- A reminder about our own contest, which is to design a new IE5 favorites icon for Blue's
News. I believe the .bmp format icons are supposed to be 32x32, but the only real
rule will be whatever looks the best when it is installed. Deadline will be Friday April
23, 1999, at 11:59 PM. Send all entries to contest@bluesnews.com.
Good luck to all who enter. (I originally wrote last week as the deadline when I first
posted this yesterday, sorry about that).
- Levelord posted a little explanation in his .plan about our previous
(guess the photo) contest for the many who wanted the real story behind the
shot.
- FPS Spectator's Julios Interview is up, talking to the man they call the Evil Knievel of Quake II...
- Hyperionics has released a new version of the HyperSnap screenshot utility that offers improved visual quality. Thanks DemoNews...
- The Team Fortress Classic Webring is underway...
- 30 new textures have been added to EZStudios' texture collections for level designers...
- GetRight.Com has a new version 3.34 of this utility that takes some of the nightmare out of large downloads by allowing you to resume after problems, even on HTTP downloads. Thanks Von...
- The Dteam 3D Design Guild has posted a new PainKeep (classic Quake 1 mod) map, along with a Reaper bot for PainKeep dealie to play on it. Speaking of mappers, Happy Birthday to Dan "danimal" Proietti, co-author of DaPak (there's a first look at danimal's new Quake II project on Ramshackle)...
No time to ramble (stop cheering!), I got a later than usual start on the news the past
two days as I force my schedule around a bit so that it integrates better with Loony's.
I've gotten a couple of questions about the links page lately, luckily I have good news to
report on that, which is it is in the process of a complete overhaul, to be completed, of
course, when it's done.
Link of the Day: Sandia National
Laboratories. As James, who sent this along, points out, "Two words came
immediately to mind: Black Mesa."
The Wheel of Time page has undergone
its weekly update (thanks Billy "proud mary"
Wilson) with the status on WoT deathmatch, AI, levels, cut scenes, and more,
as they gear up for E3 (and the release of Star Wars: Episode 1, apparently).
Here you go kids, a new
screenshot from Volition's recently announced upcoming
space shooter, Descent: Freespace 2. Here's a description of the game's complex
plot: Thirty-two years ago, in the Altair system, Vasudan scientists discovered
the remnants of an extinct civilization we now call the Ancients, and here we
found the secret to defeating the Shivans. How close did we come to being a
footnote in the history of a future species that would happen upon our ruins
ten thousand years from now? Would they have indulged in the fiction of their
own immortality until the Shivans came for them? Now, we have uncovered the
map of the Ancients' dominion, the mesh of stars and subspace filaments weaving
the fabric of space and time. Jump nodes we never knew existed. We have launched
our ships through these portals, and all have returned but one…
Got a couple o' TRIBES related bits for your reading enjoyment this evening.
Rifter o' PlanetStarsiege sends
word that the TRIBES
dev-team status page got a brief update, and now shows the 1.4 patch as
being 100% done and 60% in testing. Also, this
thread on the TribesPlayers forum has details on how to import 3D models
into TRIBES.
Granted it has nothing to do with games, but Apple has released Quicktime
4 for download. To give you a decent reason to download the software, there's
a new version of the ever-popular Star
Wars trailer in 640x288 with full 44khz stereo sound that's only 25 meg
(the same size as the old one). The catch? You need Quicktime 4 to play it.
GA
Source has posted a quick Q&A with Mortyr developer Mike Pearson about
the controversy surrounding the game, in particular the game's packaging. Here's an excerpt: Think of the
subject matter and how difficult it was to convey the story with this subject
matter. As it is, you've got a German officer's helmet with a bullet hole going
through it and a pool of blood. To me this thing screams shooter, and guess
what you get to shoot? Nazis. Not demons or aliens, but Nazis, mankind's worst
enemy, a real quantifiable evil.
Microsoft unveiled their latest mouse today, the oddly named IntelliMouse Explorer
(thanks Quiller). It's a wacky looking thing with four buttons and no moving
parts, and will be available in September. Here's a snippet from the press
release: The most significant improvement is the addition of Microsoft
IntelliEye, an innovative new optical tracking technology that makes mouse balls
and pads seem as archaic as the dot matrix printer. An optical sensor captures
images of the work surface at a rate of 1,500 images per second, and a digital
signal processor (DSP) translates changes between the images into on-screen
movements.
This technique, called image correlation processing, results in smooth, precise
pointer movement. The mouse works on any surface - paper, walls, your jeans
- no mouse pad is required. And since the mouse has no moving parts, cleaning
is unnecessary; after years of use, the IntelliMouse Explorer will be as responsive
and accurate as the day it was purchased.
Looking for a laugh to get you out of that Monday rut? Swing by this week's
edition of The Mushroom for such stories
as "Belmonts Are An S&M Cult," "Mavis Beacon Teaches Pimping,"
and my personal favorite, "Hunter S. Thompson To Start Software Line."
Also out there on the fringe of taste today is National
Gamer Review, whose lead stories include, "Playstation 2: Is It Getting
Enough Hype?" and the hilarious "Command and Conquer Found At Root
of Kosovo Crisis." And of course for those of you out there who are really
gullible, swing by Requiem HQ
for "an early technology video from Requiem 2." (Thanks to Billy
"gullible" Wilson for that last one.)
The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences
announced the nominees for their Interactive Achievement Awards this afternoon...here's
some categories of note: Action Game of the Year (pc)
Half-Life, Sierra Studios/Valve
Starsiege Tribes, Sierra Online/Dynamix, Inc.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, Red Storm Entertainment, Inc./Red Storm Entertainment,
Inc.
Unreal, GT Interactive Software/Epic Games and Digital Extremes
Action/Strategy Game of the Year (online)
Airwarrior III, Aries Online Games/Kesmai Studios
CyberStrike 2, Simutronics/Simutronics
Starsiege Tribes, Sierra Online/Dynamix, Inc.
Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Design
DMG Pokemon, Team Pokemon, Nintendo of America/Creatures Inc./Game Freak, Inc.
(Game Boy)
Half-Life, Team Half-Life, Sierra Studios/Valve
Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima, Konami of America, Inc./ KCEJ (PSX)
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Brian Reynolds, Electronic Arts/Firaxis Games
Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Team Zelda, Nintendo of America/Nintendo Co. Ltd. (N64)
Best
of luck to all the nominees! You can take a look at the full list of nominees
at the AIAS page, and the winners
will be announced on May 13th, during E3.
The ever-popular community site 10
Questions with SamHell has relocated to sCary's
Shugashack, and picked up a swanky new logo by illiad of User
Friendly fame. This week's interview is (gulp) me...so head
over there if you want to read me making a fool out of myself.
Sharky Extreme News is reporting that sometime today, Infogrames will announce they are acquiring Accolade Games. According to Sharky's report, the sale, reportedly for some $42 million, will not impact
the release of Slave Zero, which is still planned for this June.
The Creative Files Download
page has new WinNT 4.0 drivers for all Sound Blaster ISA cards (SB16, SB32, AWE32,
AWE64 and AWE64 Gold), and new NT drivers for the Sound Blaster PCI128, as well as new
Windows 95/98 drivers for the Sound Blaster PCI128 (CT4700). Thanks BetaNews.
id's Anna Kang sends word that registration for QuakeCon
99 was a resounding success, reaching the limit of 1000 entrants within 16 hours of
opening up. As a result, registration is now closed, but they are still accepting
registration for a waiting list expecting a "fairly good possibility that spots will
open up" as they validate all the registrations they've received. Registration spots
that become available will be filled from the waiting list in the order the waiting list
registrations were received.
I received an email from EP, who had problems running the new Expendable demo ( story) on his Voodoo card, and the reply he received from Rage to his inquiry about this indicates that the demo will only work on a 2D/3D combo card, not
systems with a 2D card and a 3D card (this will not be a limitation of the full game).
Here's the skinny:
The Expendable Demo will not work on machines which have a proper 2D only card
in conjunction with a 3D card. This is a known bug and has been fixed for the full version
of the game. Sorry, but you will not be able to play this demo.
The first release of the Q2sdb, or Quake II server database (though they point out "it isn't a real database") is now available. This is a "smallish" Java application which queries Quake II servers building an internal database of server information. Client applications can connect to this database and query for servers meeting certain criteria, such as a particular game or
map name, or a server with a particular player. Here's a quote to describe what this can
accomplish:
Since the server refreshing is done by the computer running Q2sdb, it can answer
client queries simply by looking up information in its database. So if you just want to
find out if your buddy (or clan) is playing (and where), why refresh the entire list of
servers locally, when you can just query Q2sdb and have the answer in a second or two?
This code is capable of querying over 2000 Quake II servers per minute on a reasonable
connection (384Kbit ADSL in my case), meaning the internal database is always quite
fresh.
The code is very threaded, making it quite efficient. Each client connecting is handled in
a separate thread so many clients can connect at once.
Also included is a sample client application called 'q2grep' which will display servers
which match a number of given criteria.
I'll post the loony p1mpage this week just so no one gets the impression that it's
something he does when my back is turned. Here's the lowdown on the articles to be posted
all week in the new loonygames, replete with more
exclamation points than you can shake a stick at(!):
loonygames types issue thirty-four! Thirty four issues! I think my hands are
starting to hurt. Writing the great American novel this week:
- Writing the Game!: Jason "loonyboi" Bergman chats with Mark Laidlaw,
novelist, reporter, and game designer about life before (and at) Valve, games in general,
and of course...The Matrix. [Monday]
- Pixel Obscura: Josh Vasquez checks out Myth II: Soulblighter! [Tuesday] Also look for
Jason "loonyboi" Bergman's look at Myth II in The Top Shelf! [Thursday]
- From the Mouth of Madness: Palm Pilot gaming! [Monday]
- PLUS: A pair of Penny Arcades [Wednesday, Friday], Beaker's Bent [Wednesday], Behind the
Curtain [Thursday] and lots more! And then some more, because we can't stop! Dear lord, we
can't stop!
A couple of sites recently posted an illegal playable demo of Rage's upcoming 3D action game, Expendable, which was then quickly pulled at Rage's request. Tim at 3DFiles managed to get to the bottom of the problem Rage had with the demo, which, among other things, was that it needed to be burned onto a CD to work. Now, with Rage's approval, the 72 MB
Expendable demo is available here from 3D Files.com, offering a fix that no longer requires the CD burning dealie. The demo is still unsupported, but you can possibly find, or offer, help on the
3DFiles message boards.
The Unreal Technology page has an update about
network cross-compatibility that Tim warns is "nitty-gritty technical info,"
describing a new technique he's devised to incrementally update Unreal's .u files to allow
mixed versions of the game to operate together in the future, though he points out that
"Really major updates will always break code assumptions and require downloading an
update."
The Adrenaline
Vault News has posted an interview with 3D Realms' George Broussard, following up on
the recent announcement that there would be no E3 showing of Duke Nukem Forever. Here's a
quote talking, and not talking, about the state of technology in DNF:
Broussard also said the technology is 90 percent complete. “The remaining
technology falls into two classes. Technical things to fix in the way the engine operates
and implementing new technologies. We recently completed our bones-based animation system,
and it's in the game using our motion captured data. We do have one more piece of
significant technology we have created to implement in the game, and no, I'm not
discussing it,” Broussard finished with a grin.
There is an interview
with Tony Zurovec of Digital Anvil (in English) on the Italian-language GoL - Games on Line talking about D.A's upcoming Loose
Cannon.
The Perfect One's Online Magazine
interviews Jason McIntosh of the Ward Six
development team about their Quake II project Dawn of Darkness, as well as the progress on
their "Renaissance Engine."
A new version 0.92 of the Gladiator Bot is now available. The new version of this Quake II playmate offers new CTF and teamplay AI, the ability to give teammate bots instructions, and more. Word is "For the best bot performance you will have to re-aas your maps."
Gloom's Official Homepage has a new
version 1.1d release of Gloom, adding flood protection, fixing balance issues, and
providing what should be a more stable server for this class-based mod for Quake II that
follows a space marines versus aliens (small "a" ) theme.
A pair of front-ends: A beta of version 2 of the Half-Life Game Launcher is now available. The new release includes full TFC support and a "Deathmatch Maker," to configure
a server, and the full version 2 is expected to include a Map Organizer and a Bind Editor. Also, The Quakelaunch website has what's described as the latest and probably last version of Quakelaunch, the Quake front-end that made its debut way back in 1996. Quakelaunch includes its own server browser and also stores all
maps and patches as zips.
The results of the name the two guys in this photo contest are in, the two in the shot were Robin Williams and Ritual's Levelord, congrats to Leif Schweiss, winner of the tiebreaker, who earned an autographed copy of Sin for his efforts (as I said, revealing the prize at the outset of the contest would have been too much of a giveaway). There were a bunch of funny comments that rolled in along with folk's guesses, so I compiled a bunch of them on this contest results page.
Okay, here's the deal on this week's contest: for those with artistic skills (or spirit): design a new IE5 favorites icon for Blue's News. I believe the .bmp format icons are supposed to be 16x16, but the only real rule will be whatever looks the best when it
is installed. Deadline will be Friday April 23, 1999, at 11:59 PM. Send all entries to contest@bluesnews.com. Good luck to all who enter.
Thanks to those who offered suggestions for the random freezing problem, but as I
mentioned yesterday, it seemed to abate as soon as Disk Doctor pronounced my hard drive
healthy (perhaps all it needed was reassurance). I'm assuming it had to do with corruption
in something in Virtual memory, but that's just uneducated guessing based on the outcome.
As I also mentioned yesterday, the true explanation is clearly that F.M., or as someone
(sorry, can't find the mail for the name) wrote in recalling as P.F.M. Same old F.M., the
"P" is for "Pure." ![=]](/miscimages/smiley4.gif)
Link of the Day: Scientific
American: Taking Ballistics by Storm describes an electronic gun with no mechanical
parts that fires a million rounds per minute. As Nick Altmann, who sent this along points
out, "I bet quakers would still bitch about the slow firing rate."
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