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Archived News:
The Sonic Mayhem website has the
release of a new map for Quake III Arena deathmatch by Zoid and Sonic Mayhem
called Anti-Logic that features a new music track by the Sonic Mayhem folk, who
are of course, responsible for some of the music in Quake III Arena, among other
games. Here's a local
copy of Anti-Logic (12.4 MB) along with a list of mirrors. If you are
wondering, the larger than expected size of the download is indeed increased by
the new music.
There are five new
Starlancer screenshot on the StarLancer Vault showing off a little more of
the final frontier in which this space sim will take place, as well as some of
the ships and planets that populate it.
Well, furn has been hard at work tweaking the messageboards, and things are
rounding into shape quite nicely. One of the things we've done along the way, since the Q3A Road Tour is completed, rather than retire the Q3Tour
messageboard, is to convert it to a Quake III Arena
board to segue to discussions of the game. Likewise, to further cover the
other current game inspiring the most coverage around here lately, is the
corresponding brand-new Unreal Tournament
messageboard, so feel free to head over there with discussion of Epic's
latest -- I mentioned it to GreenMarine, and he broke in the board with a
loopy message that mentions that he will be hanging out on the board on
occasion to answer questions and shoot the breeze, so things are off and running
in fine style there.
While I'm discussing the messageboards, let me address a subject that
inspired so much behind-the-scenes discussion here that I may not have made
enough of a point of it amid the launch of these boards. The reason that email
verified registration is being used is to be able to ultimately remove users who
manage to abuse the boards. We're not into censorship here, and deleting posts
(which has happened all of about twice so far) is not something we want to do,
much less ban users (which has never happened yet), but I think it's fair to say
folks have come to expect a certain level of discussion here, and while I'm
pleased to see that a fairly high standard of posts has been demonstrated so
far, it is probably partly due to this accountability that this has been the
case (in addition to our high-quality of reader, of course). Anyway, the point
behind this lengthy explanation, besides to give a feel for the philosophy here,
is to reassure everyone that their email address will not ever be redistributed,
it is entirely for this sort of internal administrative function, rather than to
sell to some spam list (which will just never happen). Further, those with a
fear of cookies, whether out of concern for calories or security, can turn off
the use of cookies in their preferences if they don't mind not having their
other settings saved for them. There's the deal, just wanted to make sure I
mentioned all that stuff. Hope you enjoy the boards.
This post on the
Shugashack gives a reply from Valve's Gabe Newell to a question a bunch of
folks have been asking since the developers participating in the PowerPlay
project ( story)
have been announced, why there's no mention of participation by id Software.
Here's Gabe's answer to that question: Yahn's been talking with John
quite a bit about this. John told Yahn he wants to take a stab at
rewriting the Linux IP stack and a soft modem driver to see how much latency he
can remove, and use that to pressure Microsoft into cleaning up the Windows
stack. That would be really useful data to have.
Our list of things and John's list of things are pretty much identical, but John
passed this time around on being part of the public announcement. Yahn's take
was that John was just tired of answering questions from the
press...<snip>
Certainly with everything John has done already (e.g. OpenGL) he's paid his dues
into the next century, so if thinks it's other peoples' turn to carry the flag
for a bit, that's totally justified.
ShellShock's Crater has a new release
of Q3Offline, the utility for Quake III Arena players to allow the easy setup of
"offline" games against a wide selection of bots and over any number
of maps. The new version of Q3Offline features an improved wizard-like user
interface, map previewing, the ability to play against different bots on each
map, and server configuration so you can quickly set up a server with bots.
The QStat Downloads
page has a new version 2.3e beta release of QStat for either Windows or
Linux of this command-line program that displays the status of Internet Game
servers "including Quake and many recent shooters." The new release
adds options for Kingpin and Heretic II game servers, and fixes several bugs,
including Quake III Arena master queries, Half-Life master queries, Q3A player
name translation, raw mode output for Unreal, and much more.
Build 1.0.28 beta of Quake 3 Control
is now available, offering an update to this front-end program that will support
Quake II as well as Quake III Arena (additionally, QuakeWorld support is
promised soon). While not designed to assist in setting up a server, the program
does allow you to change server settings, kick players, view status, and
basically do anything you can do from a remote console.
A program that is designed to assist in setting up a Q3A server is the Servarena
dedicated Quake III Arena server launcher, which is designed to smooth out
setting up a server by insulating you from command-line arguments. A new version
1.11 is now available, offering an auto-bots feature that will automatically
add/kick bots as real players join your server, a 'disable bot chat' check box,
support for multiple master servers, and support for the NOP server statistics
utility.
There are nine more Evolva Screenshots
on GA-Source showing off gameplay from this upcoming
action/adventure/tactics game from Computer Artworks.
Lots more info on PowerPlay, the just-announced venture between Valve Software
and Cisco Systems...first of all, the
official site has gone live, and while there isn't much there, you can get
a glimpse of the companies working on PowerPlay-enabled games. Also, PlanetFortress
has posted a Q&A with Valve's Gabe Newell, who discusses some of the features
of the project.
PC.IGN has posted a preview
of BioWare's MDK 2, featuring five new Quicktime movies, and a whole bunch
of shots from this third person action title. MDK, as everyone knows, stands
for Moles Dig KISS.
Daily Radar has posted a
preview of Anachronox, Tom Hall's epic role playing game that utilizes the
Quake II engine, and features a billion or so mini-games, and even an original
language. The preview sports some new screenshots, as well as quotes from the
game's producer Jake Hughes.
GameSpot News has posted seven
screenshots from Blizzard's Diablo II running on a Macintosh. Actually,
to be a little more specific they're photographs taken from the floor of MacWorld,
so they aren't exactly detailed shots (thanks Ant).
- MapFinger,
a repository of original maps for various games, now boasts over 600 original
maps...
- If you want a BeOS port of TRIBES 2, hop over to this
petition on BeGroovy. Dynamix has said that they will consider it if there's
enough demand (thanks Sascha Offe)...
- The source code for MAPZ, a remote
map compiling system, has been released and is available
for download. The author no longer has time to work on it, so others are
encouraged to download the source and build upon it...
- Apparently those nutty scientists have been working overtime, as both Cliff
Bleszinski and Alan
Willard made .plan updates with recent discoveries about the nature of
the brains at Epic...
First off, happy birthday to our resident foreigner, and die-hard news guy
Frans, who turns...well, something between myself and Blue (which, I suppose
could just as well be any number under the sun). That said, how about that new
comments system, huh? If you haven't noticed, there's these little "comments"
links on each post now. Hit it, and yack away. And if you want to impress all
of your friends, go to the
regular message boards page, and then to the
news of the day section. All those threads come from the latest news stories.
Pretty spiffy...Furn outdid himself again.
Link of the Day: idgames.com. I
wonder if those hackers thought they had gotten into id Software? (For the record,
it's not even remotely associated with id, it's a completely different company
in a completely different field).
Gamecenter has posted a
brief article on PowerPlay, the new venture started by Valve Software and
Cisco Systems that aims to make multiplayer online gaming better by working
directly with ISPs. The piece has quotes from Valve's Gabe Newell, but also
Epic's Tim Sweeney, who says they will be incorporating PowerPlay features into
the Unreal Tournament engine with future patches. Here's what Tim had to say: "We'll
be supporting the new game-side PowerPlay features in Unreal Tournament,"
Sweeney said, "released as patches since the game is already out. In addition,
all the support we add will become standard features of the Unreal engine, and
thus will make it into the products of our partners who are using the Unreal
engine.
"PowerPlay will do lots of cool things," Sweeney continued. "Rather
than being a spec for a very specific technology, PowerPlay is more of a broad,
end-to-end set of solutions and recommendations, encompassing some new technologies,
some tweaks, and a general awareness campaign to educate ISPs about gamers'
needs."
GameFan has posted three
new shots from BioWare's MDK 2, the sequel to the Shiny game of the same
name (well, except for the number two, of course...oh, nevermind). MDK, as everyone
knows, stands for Melons Don't Keep. Sound advice indeed.
Roll up your sleeves, here comes the Mac news...Sharky Extreme has posted day
two of their MacWorld San Franciso report, featuring details on those Mac
Voodoo 4 and 5 cards that were announced yesterday. Also up is IMG
Magazine's coverage, which features a full list of news from the show floor.
In still more Mac madness, Bungie's
bTV archive now has Thursday's edition of their Macworld video available
for download as either a 50 or 177 (!) meg download. Due to technical difficulties
the others haven't been posted yet, but keep an eye out for them, and look for
another live broadcast tomorrow at 10:30 PST. Lastly, Halo.Bungie.Org
has a bunch of pictures from Bungie's booth, as well as screengrabs from the
Halo footage shown in today's bTV broadcast.
id Software's Christian "Disruptor" Antkow made the briefest of .plan updates to point out that the denial of service attack they faced during the day ( story) has ended, and Quake III Arena connectivity problems should now be over:
Things appear to be back to normal.
The Cyberathlete Professional League has
announced that their upcoming Razer/CPL $100,000 Tournament and LAN Party
Event, which was originally set for this March in Los Angeles, has been moved
back to Dallas, Texas because they were unable to find the space necessary.
Instead, it will be held at a new 25,000 feet conference room at the Hyatt Regency
Dallas on Thursday, April 13 through Sunday, April 14, 2000. Full details are
available on the CPL's
site.
The Soldier of Fortune Nexus has posted an
interview with Chia Chin Lee, the sound designer and musician on Raven's
upcoming Quake II engine title Soldier of Fortune. Amongst the topics discussed
are the authenticity of the weapon sounds in SoF, which were critiqued by John
Mullins, their military expert.
With id still being hosed by a denial of service attack, Graeme Devine sent
along a beta of the Point Release patch for Quake III Arena so that people could
get a chance to check it out over the weekend. Here's a
local copy of the patch (1.1 MB) and a list of mirrors, and here's the word
Graeme passed along: We've decided to make the point release beta, but
public, because there's nothing like a few million beta testers! When running
servers using this release we highly suggest running them as non-pure servers so
that older clients can connect to them without problems. Please read the
enclosed FAQ for a detailed list of which bugs and UI features we've addressed
with this point release. If all goes well we'll go with a final version of the
point release very soon. The Macintosh and Linux builds of the point release
BETA will be out hopefully today as well.
Legowhore has released Q3ServerKit,
a Java-based server administration program for Quake III Arena. As it's Java
based, it's fully cross-platform, assuming you have the right JDK
installed. The program is available as a pre-compiled package, or as a complete
version with the source code included.
GameFan received
a clarification from Epic's Mark Rein regarding the current port of the Unreal
Tournament code to the Playstation 2. Here's what he had to say: "While
we do plan to do a product for Playstation 2, we have not made any decisions
if we will do Unreal Tournament for Playstation 2 or not." Explains Rein,
"For now, we are simply porting Unreal Tournament because it's the most
current Unreal engine code we have, and doing the port will provide us with
a very clear picture of what we and our key licensees need to do to work with
the Unreal engine on Playstation 2." As Mark told GameFan Online: "We
haven't made any decisions about releasing Unreal Tournament on any platforms
except, obviously, PC, Macintosh and Linux..."
It's time to roll out our updated messageboards, which now include the
oft-requested ability to comment on each news story, which as I mentioned some
time ago was being held back waiting for various server kinks we've encountered
to be ironed out. As our new server here is now humming along quite smoothly,
we've worked up the nerve to start the next phase of the testing, and launch
these comments. James "furn" Furness, our programming stud, has worked
out a few nice options for message thread viewing, so if you experiment, I'm
pretty sure you can find one of the many configurations to your liking. Hope you
enjoy, I guess the comments link for this story is as good a place as any to
pass along feedback on the new feature.
GameSpy has posted an
interview with Gabe Newell (the big cheese at Valve), regarding their just
announced joint venture with Cisco Systems, PowerPlay ( story). Here's an excerpt where
Gabe explains their reasons for getting involved: Although developers
have certainly made a lot of progress in addressing things on their end to optimize
for the current internet state-of-the-art, we ( and the people we've talked
to PowerPlay about) strongly believe that the state of internet gaming is far
from optimal. When we get together with other developers, we end up with a wish-list
of things that have traditionally been out of our control that we would like to
see addressed so that we can realistically deliver not just a solid experience,
but a truly compelling experience to gamers. Our fear is that the growth of
realtime interactive entertainment will hit a wall because the actual internet
infrastructure isn't really capable of providing for much more growth in complexity
than where things stand today.
PlanetDaikatana has posted a
report from the Daikatana launch party and deathmatch tournament that was
held recently, featuring a rundown of all the winners, candid photos of various
ION Storm goons and various other party related stuff.
GameSpy has posted a
strategy guide for Battlezone II, featuring tips from Pandemic Studios designer
Wil Stahl. It covers stuff like the team interface, giving units, and some easily
overlooked features as well.
GameSpot UK has posted another
one of their incredibly large screenshot galleries, this time covering SquareSoft's
PC version of Final Fantasy VIII. There are 44 screenshots to be found, which
cover the pre-rendered CGI, the battle sequences, some general location stuff,
and even the ever-so-exciting menu system.
GASource has posted a
Q&A with Cavedog's PR man Brandon Smith, asking him a few questions
about their just-cancelled title Amen: The Awakening. Brandon confirms that
the game was, "quite a ways from completion" and that they "will
hold onto the existing technology."
Hyperion Software has posted an
update on the status of their Amiga port of Raven's Heretic II (thanks Wipeout).
The rather large update also contains the first screenshots of the game up and
running on an Amiga using OpenGL.
The Adrenaline Vault News
quotes Epic's Mark Rein on the subject of UT development for Sony's upcoming
PlayStation 2 console system, reporting: "Although the developer has not
announced a PlayStation 2 title, Rein told us significant progress has been made
on porting the engine to the platform, and that the goal is to have Unreal
Tournament running on the console near the middle or end of February." The
article quotes Mark as saying: "It is our number one priority right now."
The article discusses that February date a bit further: This is no
hardcoded deadline, Rein stated, reminding us of the other high-tech mantra with
which gamers are all too familiar: "When it's done." Still, Epic is so
intent on meeting this goal, Rein said it would devote all its resources to this
project. Programmer Brandon Reinhart, who ported Unreal Tournament to Linux,
will lead the charge.
Rein said Reinhart was so proficient in porting to Linux that Epic is now able
to compile both Windows and Linux versions of Unreal Tournament from the same
source code--this is no easy feat and a bonus for engine licensees wanting to
have their Unreal Engine titles also run on Linux or other platforms. Epic is
optimistic that the PlayStation 2 version will also compile from the same source
code base.
GameSpot UK has posted the first screenshots of Gunlok, a 3D action RPG set in a robotic future that is being developed by Rebellion, creators of Aliens Vs Predator. There are some initial details about the title, and PC Gamer UK has a brief article on the premise of the game too.
id Software's Christian "Disruptor" Antkow sends word that problems
you may be having connecting to id at the moment are probably due to a denial of
service attack, or the measures being taken to combat it. Here's the email he
sent along, since even .plan updates are not working for them at the moment: Connectivity Problems with Q3A
To be blunt, we are currently the target of a major denial of service attack
which was started at 3pm CST this afternoon.
The perpetrators of this denial of service are saturating two full DS3's coming
into Dallas, and are affecting all Savvis, UUNet, and Sprint connections
locally.
To combat this attack, Savvis, UUNet, and Sprint have implemented access filters
blocking certain traffic to our entire class C, and are blocking our DNS server
entirely.
Savvis will be monitoring the situation throughout the evening, and I'm
expecting a wakeup call at 8am from the morning tech crew at Savvis for an
update. I will be calling the FBI in the morning to proceed legally on this
attack.
I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this is causing you. Believe me, we
are as frustrated as you are.
The Qtracker Homepage has a new
public Version 2.3 Beta 15 of this server browsing utility. The new release puts
the finishing touches on the program's new skin format and is described as very
close to a non-beta release. Here's
a list of what's new in the Beta, which includes Re-Volt support, tons of
new server listings, a skin browser, an Opposing Force filter, a Skin/Filter
auto-installer, bug fixes, and a bunch of enhancements.
Gamer's Playground has posted a
video interview with Epic's Cliff Bleszinski, talking with the lead designer on
Unreal Tournament about the game in a phone interview, while showing off some
in-game footage. The interview runs just over five and a half minutes, and is in
RealPlayer format. Topics include Epic, Cliff
himself, and UT versus Q3A.
PowerPlay
announcement on Voodoo Extreme gives word of work on a new "set of
standards and protocols for improving games and entertainment on the Internet"
to be developed by Valve and other developers in conjunction with Cisco systems. The plan is for a two-part
testing phase and then "PowerPlay will initially be deployed in the US as
dial-up service for PCs. It is expected that there will be announcements of
PowerPlay delivery for markets outside of the US, for higher-speed connections
(DSL and cable modems), and for non-PC clients."
Exxtreme3D.Com's Ask the Devs
section offers the opportunity to submit questions directly to game developers.
The newest wrinkle over there is the addition of Raven's Kenn Hoekstra,
currently at work on Soldier of Fortune and Star Trek Voyager--Elite Force. Can
you figure out a question for Kenn that he hasn't already been asked in his
numerous online interviews? Take the challenge if you dare. Other developers
available for interrogation are Eric Boeing of ABIT, Dan Hewitt of EA, Stuart
Roch of Shiny Entertainment, and Martin Walfisz of Massive Entertainment, with
more on the way.
There's a new strategy guide for Unreal Tournament on the Stratos Group.
Also, there's a
new Quake III Arena combat guide on Planet GeForce. Finally, getting into
detail, D2D Moo's Q3DM5 Tourney Guide
is a one-map guide.
The site is down at the moment, but I assume when this link to the
AnachroChat log on PlanetAnachronox comes back online, it will actually
contain the promised log of last night's chat session with the Anachronox team
at ION Storm, rather than some pr0n, or something.
Quake Done 100% Quicker
is the newest release by the speed freaks over at Quake done Quick. The new
release is another speed run through the original Quake, picking up every kill
and secret in the game, described as with "less short-cuts, but a lot more
blood and gore." Keeping with their goals of doing thing everything better
and faster, the latest run is completed in a remarkable 59:31.
The newly-opened Skillfactor is a
new free web-based service that will provide clan rankings with national and
international tables. If things go according to plan, they will be able to
create a worldwide clan-table based on all matches ever played to create a rank
that realistically reflects skill levels. They ambitiously plan on covering
quite a wide variety of present and future games, including Ages of Empires,
Ages of Empires 2, Action Quake 2, Alien versus Predator, Brood War, Command
& Conquer 2, Command & Conquer 3, Counterstrike, Diablo, Diablo 2, Dune
2000, Delta Force, Delta Force 2, Drakan, EverQuest, Half-Life, Jedi Knight,
Kingpin, Quake, Quake 1 CTF, Quake II, Quake II CTF, Quake II Rocket Arena,
Quake III Arena, Quake III CTF, QuakeWorld, Rainbow 6, Rainbow Six II, QW Rocket
Arena, Rocket Arena 2, StarCraft, Sin, Starsiege TRIBES, TeamFortress,
TeamFortress2, TeamFortress Classic, Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Warcraft, and
Warcraft 2.
Including the first review of the multiplayer OEM version of SoF that comes with
the 3Com gaming modem:
Eureka! Finally got the Windows login problem solved. Several of the tips folks
passed along referred to changing the value of a registry key called
"autologon," and the solution turned out to be related, as it was
actually deleting that entry that solved the problem. It was an email from Jason
that got me onto the fix, though Bagpuss points out that this
troubleshooting page he sent along also has that tip. Thanks to all who
offered assistance, I hope this helps some of the many of you that wrote in
saying you had the same glitch, which, of course, is the payoff for going
through all this in this space.
Link of the Day: cr0bar's parody of the matrix, brought to you by efnet #nerds.
Keep meaning to post that one. Thanks chiQ for the reminder that finally took
hold.
Bonus Link: This Penny Arcade
Cartoon. Hey, it gets like that sometimes (especially around the holidays).
Thanks LoneGunman.
Story(s) of the Day(s): New Data Show No Sign U.S. Economy Slowed
(Reuters-January 5) and Economy Shows Signs of Slowing
(Reuters-January 6). What a difference a day makes. Thanks Mark Krynsky.
Image of the Day: The Pimp
from Reebok. Thanks CausticPuppy.
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