Archived News:
id's Graeme Devine made a brief .plan
update with a quick tip to help find specific game types in Q3Test using the internal server browser: BTW.
You can search for Q3A Internet Servers using the keywords "ffa",
"tourney", "deathmatch", "team" and "tournament"
in the Internet game
browser screen to only show specific types of maps.
GameCenter
has posted a new preview of Wheel of Time, complete with quotes from Legend's
Glen Dhalgren. There are also some new screenshots, which show off more than
just the gorgeous architecture (let's face it, it's great, but there's only
so many times you can see the same cathedral). There's even an introduction
to the world of Robert Jordan, for those of you who haven't read the novels.
PlanetStarsiege has released
the Xtreme map pack for Starsiege: TRIBES, a collection of maps originally planned
for the Starsiege: TRIBES Extreme version that will be in stores this fall.
These were not, however, made internally by Dynamix: they were created by an
independent group. There are also a few screenshots available that show off
the impressive architechture in the maps. Likewise, those can be found at PS.
A new version (beta 2) of the anti-terrorist mod CounterStrike
for Half-Life has been released. This version contains the following changes:
- Three new guns added : (Sig SG-552 Commando , AK-47 , Desert Eagle)
- Added silencers to the USP .45 Tactical and the Colt M4A1
- Added a round timer which shows how much time is left in the round
- Added team scores which shows how many rounds a team has won
- Added Night Vision Goggles
- Added new entity for mappers to use (info_hostage_rescue)
- Optimized all the models for lower r_speeds!
- Ability to assign keys to all of the commands from the controls menu (courtesy
of cannelbrae of Gunman project)
The Quake 3 Arena Bus Tour page
has been updated with a schedule for the Texas leg of the bus tour, which will bring a
giant LAN on wheels to various stores, campuses, and more across the southwest USA. Also, The Quake 3 Arena
Bus Tour is Coming to CompUSA! announces the CompUSA site, with a schedule of stops at
their stores (thanks theta).
PlanetUnreal has posted a quote
they received from Epic's Tim Sweeney regarding the status of the next Unreal patch.
Here are the details: Yes, there will be another Unreal 1 patch, with
the latest Direct3D code (big improvements), network code and server performance
improvements. I don't have a date though...we're going through a lot of testing/tweaking
on UT now. The Unreal 1 patch might be synch'ed up with the UT demo.
The Burpfish Network (the Burpfish
lives?) has posted two new concept art pieces from American McGee's Alice, one
of which features the title character (which bears little resemblance to the
John Tenniel image so many of us are familiar with) and the other depicts some
demented scenery.
I have no idea how we missed this one, but a big thanks goes out to Redwood, who sends word that id (very!) quietly released
the Linux port of Q3Test version 1.08 (it's not yet up on the official site, however). Here is a local copy of
the tar.gz version, and a local copy
of the RPM installer. Here are some more download links:
Dynamix' Mitch Shaw updated his .plan with
a massive update on the status of his "Freeze" mission type for Starsiege:
TRIBES that he's been working on. Here's an excerpt, as the list of changes
is far to large to fit on this here news page: Wow, I think the Freeze
mission type is almost ready to be released! It looks like my server didn't
crash at all last night.... I'm getting all teary, it's like the first time
your baby sleeps the night through. *sniff* Thanks for the comments and suggestions
people
have given me on how to improve the game.
There are a few more minor points
I want to fix as well as some
gameplay issues I'm still undecided on....I'm a little torn whether or not to
implement a change that a few people have suggested: when a team is all frozen,
both teams respawn instead of just the frozen one. This would prevent people
from camping out at respawn spots and freezing people as soon as they appear,
which can obviously get pretty boring for the frozen people. Thoughts?
Rogue's Won Choi updated his
.plan (well, actually just about everyone at Rogue updated their .plans)
with word that they're looking to hire a new 3D artist/animator to work on their
new project, American McGee's Alice. Full details are available on
their new website in the "employment" section.
Rogue's Patrick Magruder updated his
.plan with word that the official Rogue
Entertainment website has undergone a spiffy redesign. The site now features tutorials such as "Designing Textures the N64 Way" by Rich Fleider, and also this official press release for American McGee's Alice that I couldn't help but notice:
It's Friday the 13th, Welcome to Wonderland
Electronic Arts Announces American McGee's Alice
Following weeks of rumors spawned by an Electronic Arts-hosted Web site, http://american.ea.com,
EA today officially announced American McGee's Alice, a dark and twisted 3D-action
adaptation of Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland. In conjunction with the announcement,
EA launched the first phase of the official Alice Web Experience site at http://alice.ea.com.
The site features a sinister Cheshire Cat who will reveal information on the
upcoming game through weekly riddles over the next several months.
Being produced and directed by EA's American McGee, one of the top level designers
at id Software for years, the game will put the player in the role of a tough
and cunning Alice, reborn to handle the challenges of a hostile Wonderland.
Alice will feature both a single-player action/adventure story line, developed
by Dallas-based Rogue Entertainment, and innovative multiplayer functionality
which will be lead by McGee's Redwood City development team. Cutting-edge 3D
technology, strange and familiar characters and intricately crafted environments
will bring the creepy, twisted and organic world of American McGee's Alice to
PCs in late 2000.
LinuxGames has conducted
an interview with Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart of Epic, talking
about his experiences porting Unreal to Linux (thanks PlanetUnreal).
A new beta patch for Kingpin (version 1.19b) is available for download at the
Kingpin beta site (thanks Thomas Guggisberg). This version fixes an "undisclosed
exploit" and is considered a 1.20 release candidate.
As promised yesterday, the official site for
American McGee's Alice has gone live, complete with oddball riddles, one creepy chesire cat, and
flash galore. Also of note is AVault's
Alice story, which has posted the first concept art available from the game.
Alice is a third person action game being developed by Rogue Entertainment and Electronic Arts, utilizing the Quake III: Arena engine, and
based on Lewis Carroll's Alice books.
Game
Theory The Feel of Cinema, but a Game at Heart is a NY Times article (free
subscription required) that discusses the cinematic feel of Psygnosis and Surreal's
upcoming third-person action game. Saw that on Drakan.Net.
id's Graeme Devine sent along an email to follow-up on the recent report that
it was possible that some fix would be released that would allow the viewing
of the demos of the matches recorded at QuakeCon '99. Here's the mail saying
that unfortunately, this is not meant to be, though the good news is, it sounds
like this is partially because such progress is being made towards completing
the project:
No there will not be a special update for playing back the QuakeCon
levels. We're in pretty much the final push now to get this thing out the door
and we've started to make CD images etc. to test out the game, so another test
is looking doubtful. I expect the next update will be the full demo, followed
in very short order by the game itself.
Ritual's Levelord updated his .plan with the
joyous announcement that he's upgrading himself from a humble "I" to a humble
"we," offering news his engagement. No one in this business
holds a warmer place in our hearts than the humble 'lord, and we want to be among the
first to wish him all the best. I just hope this doesn't mean the end of the Dick
stories...
Raven's Kenn Hoekstra sends word that Unpaid
Gamers Online has posted a new interview with him, as well as three new
exclusive screenshots from Soldier of Fortune.
Several places (including GASource
and Gone Gold, where I spotted
it first) are reporting that the Polish version of Mortyr has gone gold and
will be in stores on August 25th. As there still is no US or European distributor,
there is no release date set for those territories as of yet.
3dfx has released new beta drivers for Voodoo2 and Voodoo3 cards
to run under the Mac OS (thanks 3DFiles). Remember that these are beta drivers,
so read their stern warning before downloading. Quantum3D has also released
new drivers for their
Obsidian X -24 SLI Voodoo 2 card. Thanks Sting, who also says, " it's
about freakin' time, too!"
Saw on Voodoo Extreme that Terminal Reality has updated their Nocturne site
with new character animations
showing off the good, the bad, and the ugly from the upcoming oogie horror game, Nocturne.
GameLinks interviews Landon
Montgomery talking to one of the cogs at Gearbox software about Gearbox' upcoming
Half-Life add-on, Opposing Force.
A post on the The
Adrenaline Vault News describes a feature in Psygnosis' imminent dragon-riding action
game, Drakan: Order of the Flame, that will enable parents to restrict the level of
graphic violence with a lockout that's protected by password. The Adrenaline Vault
also has word on a search for the dragon on the web Drakan contest dealie (snappy summary,
eh?).
- This WickedGL dealie
on Wicked3D's site is described by 3DFiles, who sent
the link along, as an "enhanced mini client driver for Quake3 Test and Quake2
engine-based games for Voodoo Banshee, Voodoo2, and Voodoo3 cards. WickedGL will provide
you with significant performance and quality improvements over standard mini-gl drivers,
especially in Quake3 Test."
- ASUS has posted a new AGP-V3400/V3800
Win9x driver v2.09 beta 1 updating their TNT/TNT2 release of the other day. Thanks AGN3D.
- WinFast
3D S320II Ultra Windows 2000 Driver (direct link) Thanks BetaNews.
- There are supposedly new Voodoo3 drivers on the 3dfx
site, but it's been down steadily since we received the report.
- Corrinne Yu's .plan update make Hulk's brain hurt! Hulk smash!
Quake III Nation has a reply from id Software's
Kevin Cloud to their query about how custom textures will be handled in Quake III Arena,
which is basically the same as in Quake II, in a separate .pak file (*though he points out
the textures are in the standard .tga format rather than Q2's proprietary .wal format).
The post also mentions "shaders files," which are "short scripts that
define the properties of a surface or brush content as it appears and functions in the
game."
There's a Mark
Rein Interview on the Beauty of Madness with the ever extra-vigilant Andrew Smith
posing some questions to Epic's PR guy, asking about illegal beta reviews, patches, and
what's new in Unreal Tournament.
The Neuralbot page has the first
release of what's described as "an automated Quake2 deathmatch opponent(bot) that
uses an artificial neural network to control its actions and a genetic algorithm to train
its neural network." Thanks Ozh. According to the site, "The bot is basically
totally autonomous; that is no pre-programmed behaviours are included in its AI
code." The first version of the code allows anyone who wants to train a bot to do so.
The caveat is: "it learns, but not particularly well. I'm talking about hours of
training for a simple 'turn and shoot at opponent' behaviour - if you're lucky."
Exciting stuff nonetheless.
A "Q & A by Bungie Software Regarding its Distribution and Investment Agreements
with Take 2 Interactive" showed up in the mailbox here at the BlueTower as a
follow-up to yesterday's big Bungie/Take 2 announcement ( story), and the following answer seemed worth passing along in case
there were any Bungie fans concerned about what this all means:
Q: How will the responsibilities for development, publishing and distribution be
divided between the companies?
A: In North America, Bungie will remain developer and publisher for all PC and
Macintosh-based product, and handle all publishing responsibilities, such as sales,
marketing, packaging, and public relations. Bungie will distribute its products through
Take 2's distribution network and Take 2 will handle all logistics related to
distribution. Bungie and Take 2 will together handle all publishing functions in Europe
and Australia, using Take 2's very experienced staff.
Nihilistic's Rob "Innerloop" Huebner updated his .plan with word on how you can join the Nihilists at
Nihilistic* as a "Gameplay Technician" (admitting they just made the term up).
Here's the deal on the gig:
Gameplay Technician (yes, we just made that up..)
Nihilistic is looking for a driven and creative individual to join the Vampire team as a
Gameplay Technician. The role involves working with the game's scripting language and data
resources to create the coolest gameplay possible. This is where the "rubber meets
the road" in terms of gameplay sequencing, scripting, combat and Discipline effects,
etc.Also involves some level design, object placement, and AI tuning work.
We're looking for someone that will go nuts with the dark toy-box of capabilities the Nod
Engine offers and help to bring Vampire to a never-before-seen level of interactivity and
fun. If you are located in the Bay Area, have some basic experience in programming C or
Java, love games, and are enthusiastic about having a key role on a major entertainment
title, then we'd like to talk to you!
Please, Bay Area residents (that can commute to Novato) only should apply. A history of
work experience in the gaming industry is a plus, but not required.
This is currently a full-time, temporary position, but could lead to continued employment
if your work rocks and you don't piss us off too much. :)
Email resumes to jobs@nihilistic.com with subject
line 'Gameplay Tech'.
Or you can snail-mail them to:
Nihilistic Software, Inc.
1 Commercial Blvd. Suite 101
Novato, CA 94949
www.nihilistic.com
Version 1.1 of TRIBEStat
is out, updating this tool for TRIBES server administrators. This release adds some new
bug fixes, plus a few improvements "such as better admin to admin talking."
Thanks Datumplane::Starsiege.
Kokak's Heretic Page has
version 0.9 of Kokak's frequently updated beta OpenGL port of Heretic. Also, OpenGL DooM Legacy page
has OpenGL DooM Legacy v1.29 beta 3. Both programs are OpenGL Win32 ports of the publicly
available source code for each game. Thanks Voodoo
Extreme.
Today I spent the afternoon with my mom, the beloved MommaBlue, who made the a new
breakthrough in my family's occasional participation in this here website, as she handed
me the NY Times, asking if I'd seen the article on QuakeCon. I hadn't, and so I called
loony, who looked it up on the website and posted it ( story), definitely the first specific news story ever posted on this
site where the credit could have been thanks mom.
Link of the Day: Thieves Steal
26,417 Gallons Of Brandy. Thanks DNapalm. Round up the usual suspects (they can't have
gotten far!).
* Pop Culture Game (experimental new format) "...his girlfriend
gave up her toe!"
Apache sends word he's posted a message on VE
sent along by EA about their plans to unveil a bit more about their upcoming Quake
III-engine game, Alice, tomorrow, on the occasion of Friday the 13th:
'tis Friday 13th on the date on the wall,
And light's growing dim at the end of the hall.
The clock has expired, the windows are locked.
Now Jack is undead, and he's out of his box.
http://alice.ea.com
You visited once to my world of absurd,
Come visit again if you have half a nerve.
Redwood's QuakeCon 1999 Wrap-up is up
with big Red's write-up on the proceedings, along with a bunch of photos (including one
where I stood on a step and tip-toes where I was sure I'd come out taller than both Red
and loony, but I just barely edged loony, if that). Stomped
also is home to Paul Steed's
QuakeCon 1999 Wrap-up, complete with the id Software 3D artist/modeler's account of
the event, which saw him serve as mac-daddy to a bevy of booth babes. Also now online is GameGirlz - Quake Con '99 Diary as well, also
illustrated with photos.
Sierra just sent along word that they're offering a bounty for TeamFortress Classic levels
that will be included with Gearbox' upcoming Half-Life add-on, Opposing Force. In addition
to being part of a commercial release, the level authors will earn $1,000 (from my Doom
level making days I think that's about .25˘ an hour, but a thousand bucks is a thousand
bucks!). Here's the deal:
Bounty Offered for New Team Fortress Classic™ Levels Three User-made Levels
to be Included in Half-Life: Opposing Force™
Bellevue, WA (August 12, 1999) - Sierra Studios today announced that it is now accepting
new Team Fortress Classic (TFC) levels for inclusion in Half-Life: Opposing Force (Op
For), the official game expansion for Valve's award-winning 3D action thriller.
To enter, users go to WON.net and then follow the directions for submitting their TFC
levels at the following URL: http://www.won.net/lounge/contests/opposingforce/.
Then, a panel of judges from Valve and Gearbox Software will select three winning levels
for inclusion in the official game expansion. In addition to being listed in the game
credits, each of the winning level editors will earn $1,000 for their work.
"The amount of high-quality content being created for Half-Life and TFC by the mod
community and other amateur developers is incredible," says Gabe Newell co-founder
and managing director of Valve. "We hope this effort will help spawn the creation of
even more great content and give exposure to the people creating it."
"Many of the most renowned designers started out by making mods and custom levels for
popular commercial games," says Randy Pitchford, director and chief designer of
Gearbox Software. "We feel it's very important to give the most talented designers
from the community a chance to have their creations showcased. And, we feel this is yet
another great component of Half-Life: Opposing Force."
Sort of the same report of non-news, but if you were wondering about that 1.0.1.3
Half-Life patch that was originally possibly going to be released Sunday, and then around
now, HalfLife Dot Org is reporting that Jenni from
Valve told them "It's looking like it won't be out for a few more days yet." So
that's the story on that.
The Bot Epidemic is reporting that Rich's Project Warehouse has the release
of a new Quake bot called the Sigmund Bot that plays both coop and deathmatch. The source
code is also available. If you are really a fan of bots in first-person shooters, or a
Duke3D fan, for that matter, you may be interested in another post they made yesterday
about how to activate the undocumented bots in the 'Atomic Edition' of Duke3D.
Joel Huenink from 4D Rulers sends word that he's
updated the Gore Images page with a new
24-bit color OpenGL screenshot depicting the medieval past setting from their upcoming
first-person shooter, Gore.
SShock2.com has posted the
chat log from last night's chat with Irrational Games' Ken Levine. Irrational
Games developed System Shock 2, which is now on store shelves, and sucking up
my free time.
Take Two Interactive has purchased a 19.9% (let's just call it 20, okay?) stake
in Bungie Software, as reflected in this
press release. Bungie is best known for their Marathon series of FPS games,
the Myth series of RTS games, and of course their two products currently in
development, Oni and Halo. The press
release goes on to say that Take Two's Jack of All Games subsidiary (a games
distributor) will have exclusive rights to four upcoming games: Oni, Halo, and
two more undisclosed products.
Dynamix' Rick Overman updated his
.plan with a status update on the next update for their giant robot game
Starsiege. Here are the details: Starsiege Patch 1.004 left the building
this afternoon for final approval. If all goes well it could be posted as early as tomorrow, but monday might be more realistic.
This will be a simultaneous US, UK patch release.Win2000 installer patch is
in the final phases of testing and should also be posted sometime next week.
Strategy Planet's Battlezone 2
Center has posted this week's Battlezone 2 shot of the week, as released
by Pandemic Studios. Also of note, is that Pandemic has posted a
new insider report on their site, featuring Jack Davis, the guy who takes
all these screenshots (not the Mad Magazine artist), talking about how he does it.
Registration is now open for Ground Zero,
the CPL event taking place here in sunny NYC (thanks Redwood).
As there is a limited ammount of space, all attendees must register. The event
takes place from Thursday, September 9, 1999 through Sunday, September 12, and
while it isn't taking place in a hotel (as opposed to many other recent LAN
parties), they will be posting a list of hotels with discounted rates at some
point in the next couple of days.
IMG Magazine
has posted an interview with Bungie's co-founder, and code jockey behind Halo's
impressive engine, Jason Jones. The interview's a good one, as Jason answers
several good questions, including ones about the engine's origin (it was supposed
to be the next-generation Myth terrain system), as well as this one that helps
explain why it looks so damn good: One of the reasons it looks so good
is multipass texturing. Every major object in the Halo world has at least two
texture maps, and many have several more. For example, the alien hover vehicle
seen in the keynote trailer has four maps, a base color map, specular map for
lighting effects, a "dirt" map for the scuffs, burns and pitting that
objects in a real battlefield might have, and a per-pixel reflection map for
varying levels of reflectivity from shiny objects.
PlanetShogo has posted a new version
of the server-side cheat protector titled Servfixr. This version corrects a
problem ping reporting, as well as adding a new spectator mode.
3D Action Planet
has posted a preview of Raven's Soldier of Fortune, complete with new screenshots,
background on the game (including info on their mercenary consultant), info
on their GHOUL modelling system, and quotes from Kenn Hoekstra.
Today's edition of the New York Times contains an article titled, "Peace
and Love at the Quake Tournament" ( also
available on line) which talks about last weekend's QuakeCon '99 gathering.
The article is a good reflection of the general feel at the event, which was
full of shiny happy people. It also contains quotes from John Carmack, and mentions
numerous people from the community, including Rix, Kornelia, and more.
SimHQ
has posted an interview with Carl Schnurr, producer on Red Storm Entertainment's
Rogue Spear (thanks Rogue Spear Retreat).
Carl talks largely about the changes they've implemented to the game since it's
predecessor (Rainbow Six), and the piece is illustrated with screenshots galore.
Here's some console related news for you all on this slow news day...several
places are reporting (here's PSX.IGN's
report) that the PlayStation 2 (or whatever it winds up being called) will
ship in Japan on January 23, 2000 (that's 1-23, get it?) and retail for a price
of about $390. Turok: Rage Wars has been getting a great deal of press of late,
with a hands on preview popping
up at IGN64, and the
official site having gone live. Rage Wars, you may recall, is Acclaim's
Turok game that uses a gameplay format similar to that of Quake III: Arena,
or Unreal Tournament. A PC version is not planned. Acclaim also announced recently
that they will in fact be making a Turok 3 for release in 2000. Currently it
is planned for release on the N64, with no word on a PC or Dreamcast version
as of yet. Lastly, Acclaim's Shadow Man (which recently went gold for the N64
and PC) will be ported to the Dreamcast, as reflected in this
Next-Generation Online story.
Following up on the "OSA" character details that were released a
few days back ( story),
EA has sent out a press release
that details the "Navy" character from the game. System Shock 2 has
shipped, and is in store shelves now.
CNET Gamecenter's Drakan Order
of the Flame Game Grabs has some new screenshots from Surreal and Psygnosis' third-person
dragon-riding action game, due in stores next week (the 20th).
Sega Elevates Kezuka to Top Post
of North American Operations is a press release saying that "SegaŽ of America,
Inc. announced this afternoon that Toshiro Kezuka has been named vice-chairman and chief
operating officer of the company, effective immediately. Kezuka succeeds Bernard Stolar.
Effective Aug. 11, 1999, Bernard Stolar is no longer with Sega of America, Inc. It is
Sega's policy not to comment on personnel decisions." Sega, Stolar Split reports
Next-Generation Online in their story on the subject, discussing the shakeup that
removes the architect of the Dreamcast launch (and the launch of the PlayStation) has been
replaced less than one month before the Dreamcast's launch.
Gamecenter's
GenCon '99 Wrap-Up gives their retrospective on this past weekend's gaming festivities
in Milwaukee, WI. Also, the Glide Underground's
GenCon report covers the event on a day-by-day basis. In the intro to the GC piece
they point out that a mere 162 fans attended the first GenCon Game Fair over 30 years ago,
and now it's North America's single largest gaming convention.
To celebrate their grand opening, Head Trauma,
dedicated to hitting you upside the head with news and goodies related to Remedy
Entertainment's upcoming Max Payne, has posted a pair of new screenshots from this
upcoming John Woo-inspired third-person action thriller.
MacGamer's Ledge and World Without Borders are holding an online
chat session this evening with Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski, currently hard at work on
Unreal Tournament. The chat is at 7:00 PM Pacific/10:00 PM Eastern. You must register
beforehand for a free login/password and are warned to try to arrive early, since the
session may completely fill up.
The Hive
interviews John E. Williamson of Zombie Studios, talking with he co-producer/designer
of SpecOps 2: Green Berets about progress on this sequel their seminal tactical shooter.
MGON's QuakeCon '99 coverage is up
with pictures, descriptions, and accounts of the festivities at this year's Texas LAN
extravaganza.
In this week's MailBag we have... last
week's MailBag, which just never got posted until now in the chaos surrounding QuakeCon.
In our old & new collection of epistles we find the real dirt on the fish-eye effect
and HALO; scholarly analyses of an over-used cliche, an over-rated novel, and an
over-hyped movie; folks terribly unimpressed by doves and third-person games, and folks
terribly impressed with The Blue's News Effect and "Large & Realistic
Anuses" (as I think it's safe to say any normal person would be). All that and more,
if you can believe it, await in this week's
MailBag.
3d Wars Diamond Viper 770 Giveaway is
underway, giving away one of these TNT2-Ultra cards. You can enter once a day all week for
the drawing.
The way loony talks about the System Shock 2 demo, I am worried that when the full game
shows up, I might have to send him off to rehab, but as long as he steers clear of that
Everquest (video crack), I guess he'll be okay. Relating to yesterday's OotB, today looks
to be Ritual's third birthday, so happy anniversary to all you ritual killers, glad to see
you're out of your terrible twos.
Link of the Day: Kansas Board Votes To
Bar Evolution From Classroom. Thanks Damion Schubert. That sound you hear is Clarence
Darrow spinning in his grave.
Bonus Link: Drowned man
awakens in Alexandria morgue. More real news of the day. Thanks Drews (first of many
to send this one).
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