GameSpot has posted a new installment of their Dark Reign 2 diaries, with Pandemic's Greg Borrud discussing the progress in programming, art, and mission design, as they are heading into the final stretch of the development of their 3D RTS title. He also mentions some of the responses to his previous diary, and includes a few new screenshots to illustrate the final layout of the game's interface.

A new movie of the day is online on the official Nox site, showing off more gameplay from Westwood's soon-to-be-released isometric action-RPG. Past movies are now available on their movie archives page, not just in the originally released 320x240, but also in glorious 640x480 if you have a little more bandwidth to spare. And those curious about next week's movies can already have a sneak peek on their ftp server.

Alternating new characters and areas of Wonderland, the official American McGee's Alice site reveals a new section of the Mushroom Forest map, called Caterpillar Garden.

InciteGames has posted a 35 MB MPEG movie that features gameplay footage from Thief 2: The Metal Age (taken from their alpha build of the game), as well as an interview with Looking Glass director Steve Pearsall.

The newly launched Quakeidge.com has posted an interview with id Software's CEO Todd Hollenshead. The interview covers all kinds of subjects, from what it's like to work at id, to how he feels about putting all that hard work into Quake III Arena only to be beaten at retail by Regis Philbin.

Unreal Universe has posted an interview with Jeff DeWitt, an animator on Rune, Human Head's Unreal engine title of drunken viking glory. Jeff talks about animating, Chris Rhinehart's sword collection (he should challenge Paul Steed to a door killing contest) and even Frisbee golf, which I suppose, if you're drunk on grog all day long (and I can only imagine they all must be over there) is no doubt lots of fun.

IMG Magazine has posted a brief Q&A with Ken Gordon (scroll down their news page to find it), the producer of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Fallen, an Unreal-engine, third person action game from Simon & Schuster Interactive.. As the game was recently delayed, the Q&A focuses on that, with Ken explaining why the game was pushed back from early spring until August. Here's an excerpt:

One of the biggest challenges we see ahead of us in bringing the Fallen to market is the perception about Star Trek games that is out there. Let's say that it is less than stellar. This is outrageous, too, because the franchise, the world of Star Trek, is so wonderfully rich that to put anything less than a great Star Trek game out is so wasteful it's sinful. Simon & Schuster Interactive has published fantastic Star Trek Reference titles, but the Fallen is our first title under our gaming license. We see a gap in the marketplace -- the market needs a great Star Trek title and we will not release the Fallen until it has met its potential and matches the franchise with as rich a game. At this point, we are on track to release such a game with the Fallen (and with Dominion Wars, too, I might add). It took us extra time to get here, but let me tell you it will have been worth it. All great games go through such birthing pains and this one is no different.

Eurogamer has posted an article titled "Inside Insidia" which features conversations with developers at Insidia, who are working on a first person adventure called Malleus. There are also four screenshots posted to give you a first glimpse at the game.

Polycount has posted new Character Studio BIP files from Paul Steed. These files allow owners of 3D Studio Max' Character Studio to apply the animations he created for the various characters in Quake III Arena to their own custom models. Swing by Polycount to download them and get animating.

Stomped has posted a Q&A with Monolith's Jason Hall, talking to him about their recent announcement regarding their plans to start up a separate company to handle their LithTech engine. Here's an excerpt where Jason explains the reasoning behind this decision:

There are many reasons for forming a subsidiary. Without giving a lecture on "Managing and growing a successful business" I will just say that our reasons primarily have to do with following a carefully planned business strategy, increasing team focus, multi-platform and new technology projects, etc. The engine licensing business to us is just that, a real business. In order to service our customers in the best possible way it is important for us to be very organized and keep everything as scaleable as possible.

The industry is maturing and the historically mixed message of "game company selling an engine" also needed to be clarified. There are many advantages to this type of approach. Most of these advantages will amount to strong support, more rapid technological advancement, solid partnerships and extensive and comprehensive tools. There are still many unannounced things with regard to LithTech Inc., but rest assured you will hear about them soon, and get even a better vision of how exciting what we are doing is. LithTech is a strong technology with a solid strategy and plan behind it. Our licensees (the vast majority of which are unannounced) are going to benefit immensely from their decision to build their game team's competency in the LithTech technology. Few things are worse than paying for extremely expensive people to learn a system that is going nowhere. That is just a ton of wasted money. With LithTech, not only can we show you that the technology is growing and moving towards the future, we can prove it.

The Rogue Spear Retreat has posted the latest in their series of "interactive interviews" where they ask their readers to submit questions and which are answered by members of Red Storm's Rogue Spear team. This latest edition focuses on the recently announced add-on pack Urban Operations.

There's a Dave Perry interview on ActionTrip talking with the top dog from Shiny Entertainment about what's going on over there in finishing Messiah, their third-person action game where you play Bob the chubby cherub, who accomplishes his cherubic goals by possessing those around him, and Sacrifice, their upcoming RPG. Word is "Messiah 'should' ship in March," and more info on Sacrifice should be forthcoming "in a big way before E3."

IMG interviews Westlake Interactive, talking with the folks behind some of the highest profile recent and future ports of PC games to the Macintosh platform (Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Total Annihilation, The Tomb Raider trilogy, etc.). The Q&A discusses the state of Mac gaming, and the payoff on their decision to view the genre as a niche worth pursuing, rather than a dying market.

Ritual's Berenger "Zor" Fish updated his .plan with word that the official site for the Sin anime movie has gone live. The movie is scheduled for a June release (direct to video) and the site features stills as well as a downloadable trailer (in either AVI or real video format).

GameSpy.com has posted an article by id Software's Graeme Devine, where he examines the state of persistant world online gaming, looking at the pros and cons of games like Ultima Online, Everquest, and Asheron's Call.

AGN3D has posted an interview with Westwood Studios' Aaron Cohen, who talks about Nox, their isometric action game. Like the previous interviews posted on the site, it's transcribed from one of their shows, which features live video footage of the game (and is linked from the text interview). Nox has gone gold, and should be shipping on February 15th.

A new service called Mod on Demand has gone live. The service consists of a client side program that downloads and installs mods, maps, skins and player models automatically, and while it's currently only limited to Quake III Arena, support for other games is planned as well.

StormTroopers has posted their unedited chat log from last night's Deus Ex developer's chat. The log is slightly chaotic, but there is some good info in here, including word that the current target date for going gold is March 31st, which "we might actually make" according to Harvey "Witchboy" Smith.

GASource has posted a Q&A with Dave Taylor, who worked at id Software and founded Crack.com before starting his current gig at Transmeta. Dave explains how he wound up at the hardware company, what it's like to finally be able to talk about their Crusoe technology, and and of course, what Linus Torvalds (the creator of Linux) is really like.

You may not have heard of Doug Church, but you've played his games is an interview with the Looking Glass project leader and programmer of the two Ultima Underworld games and System Shock, and contributor to Thief: The Dark Project and Flight Unlimited. The interview talks about the fame and credit, or lack of it, for Looking Glass' innovation in 3D games, the advancement of technology versus game content, and more. Here is a quote on his design philosophy:

We’ve always striven for "immersion" in the gameplay, but as we’ve grown (well, changed, at least) as designers, our sense of that has changed. While the details of this attempt vary from game to game, the core goal has been to provide a range of player capability in the world. With this breadth of capability, the player hopefully feels more involved in their decisions. An Underworld player can open a door with the key, by picking the lock, by breaking it down or by casting a spell. If the player can choose their own goals, and their own approaches to an obstacle, then when they reach the goal it is far more satisfying. Flexible simulation of game elements is a powerful way to enable the player to make their own way in the world.

A fresh installment of the Summoner diaries is online at PC.IGN.com, and this time Volition's lead artist Adam Pletcher examines the creation of real-time 3D visual effects in their upcoming 3D role-playing game. A couple of screenshots and a brief movie illustrate his description of an effect that has "the Stone Golem come up from the ground and form out of molten rock that bubbles up from a crevice in the earth."

PC.IGN.com has updated their preview of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - the Fallen with an interview with executive producer Ken Gordon, as well as 40 new screenshots of this upcoming Unreal-engine powered action game. The article also updates an earlier report of a March release, saying they are now expecting to ship the game in August.

There is a new preview of Nox on GamesMania, looking at Westwood's isometric action RPG offering that recently went gold. The article runs over the gamut of game features, including the single-player campaign and its maps, the interface, and the multiplayer matches.

Garrett keeps stealing previews everywhere, as there is now a Thief II: The Metal Age preview on Daily Radar, offering the usual overview of the game's features, as well as a bunch of (mostly new) high-res screenshots.

Quake Lives, "The QuakeWorld Revitalization Project," has new versions of their front-end proxies for both QuakeWorld servers and clients that attempt to restore fair play in the brave new world created by the release of the Quake source code. Servers that are running the server front-end will not allow access to clients that are not running the client front-end, which will allow for the verification of the client's executable.

An update to Raven Sound and Music Designer Chia Chin Lee's .plan details some of the speedbumps encountered on the road to implementing both A3D and EAX positional audio in Soldier of Fortune. Saying "I would love to talk to other developers to discuss your experience with 3D audio," the update points out that "The future of 3D audio is promising, but like any technology in its infancy, it contains a few quirks. Many of these problems are due to divergence of features and standards found in different soundcards and drivers. This divergence can make the sound designer's job difficult in achieving a good mix balance between all the soundcard chipsets."

• This is the page on the Creative Labs site is where to register Annihilator and Annihilator Pro cards for the Unified drivers, points out a response on the RIVA 3D Forums from Creative's Bill Ball that points out the solutions to problems folks are having with this (story). Thanks Lawgiver.
• A quote on 3DGPU.com from Raven confirming that the "Hardware" option in the Soldier of Fortune Demo makes full use of the GeForce 256's hardware T&L support. They have also posted an article titled: The Present and Future of Texture Compression.
• CES 2000 Part 3 on Thresh's FiringSquad concludes their coverage of this year's Consumer Electronics Show.
• NVIDIA Wins the Microprocessor Report Analyst's Choice Award for Best 3D Accelerator. Thanks Haakon Larsen.
• There's a new Hmonitor Pro V. 3.1.2.4 and Hmonitor Lite V. 3.1.2.4 on the Hardware sensors monitor page. Thanks Tweak Files.
• iXBT NVIDIA GeForce 256 Graphics Cards Comparison. Part 2 is online.
• Game-Guru's guide to Overclocking is online.
• AMD and Overclocking Mods on HardOCP.
• Hercules 3D Prophet DDR-DVI is reviewed on 3DRage.Com.
• Turtle Beach Montego II Quadzilla soundcard is reviewed on Speedy 3D.
• Creative's FPS 2000 four-point speakers are reviewed on 3D Wars.
• Gigabyte GA-71X Athlon motherboard is reviewed on Gamers Depot.
• ASUS P3C 2000 Camino motherboard is reviewed on Hardware One.
• MSI MS-6153 motherboard is reviewed on 3D-Unlimited.
• PC Cooling on Fast Graphics looks at the art of keeping your machine cool like the Fonz. Ayyyyy!
• Maximizer Gold Finger Athlon overclocker is reviewed on HardOCP.
• There's an SECC1 (Athlon/P2) Cooler Comparison on Overclockers Australia.
• 917 ATX Case is reviewed on The Tech Zone.

The first release of Battle Arena 3 for Quake III Arena is now available, unashamedly declaring itself "The Rocket Arena-like mod for those who can't wait!" Word on the page is "Battle Arena was not intended to compete against Rocket Arena or steal their ideas," but "It was made mainly as a backup in case Rocket Arena 3 wasn't made (which is what crt's post on the RA site sounded like), and to feed the craving for Rocket Arena in Quake 3."

There are six Side-Scene screenshots on TeleFragged showing off gameplay from this pre-WWII action/horror RPG. There are six new high resolution movies on Gamers Central showing off action from MicroProse's upcoming helicopter combat game, and also on the chopper (not the Pulp Fiction/Easy Rider variety) front, there are Ka-52 Team Alligator screenshots on Matrox G400 Enhanced Games page (thanks Killjoy) showing off this helicopter sim from GT Interactive/Simis in its bump-mapped glory, with an AVI gameplay movie there as well. Also, 3DGN's Metal Fatigue preview offers new screenshots of this upcoming RTS.

Relic News interviews Erin Olorenshaw Animator/Artist, and Cheerios eater from Relic Entertainment who is currently "working on.. COUGH caogh KHAA! Heh hem... fur ball." The Q&A talks about her work on Homeworld, Relic's galaxy-spanning strategy game.

Speaking of space, there's another A Talent for War Multi Developer Chat scheduled for tomorrow, offering an opportunity to talk online with representatives of the teams behind Deep Space 9, FreeSpace 2, Klingon Academy, Parsec, Silent Space, Starlancer, Terminus, and UFS Vanguard. The session starts at 1:00 PM EST (6:00 PM GMT) on the Gameslink IRC Network (a server list can be found here) in the Channel #space-sim. The majority of the chat will be moderated, but there will be an unmoderated portion as well.

Also on the space chat front, The Omega Project sends word of no less than nine upcoming developer chats with folks involved in the various upcoming Star Trek games. The first chat will focus on Star Trek: Hidden Evil, and is scheduled for this Monday, January 31 at 7:00 PM EST (4:00pm PST/00:00 GMT) on the IRC server omegaproject.net in the channel #lobby. Slated to attend are Eric Dallaire, Laird Malamed, Mike Webster, and/or Jonathan Knight, and plans are to give away a copy of Star Trek: Armada.

SpecForce has posted some news that Zombie is working on a "major" patch to fix bugs in the current release of Spec Ops 2 for both D3D and Voodoo users. D3D users can expect fixes for the shadows, flashlights, crosshairs in scopes, and more, and Voodoo users will be getting higher screen res support. The patch is reportedly "several weeks away," currently expected in early March.

Monolith CEO Jason Hall made another update to his .plan announcing Monolith is hiring:

Last little tidbit -

We are hiring. Categories are: Engineers, Modelers, Texture Artists, Animators, etc.

There are some big time exciting projects going on, and now would be the time to get involved.

We will pay for relocation, competitive salaries, etc., if you kick ass in your field.

e-mail me at Hall@lith.com

The CPL folks send word of a detail they failed to mention in their reminder that registration for the Razer CPL Event begins February 1: To register you will need a valid credit card. Also, if you are planning to walk-on, they will not accept credit cards or checks at the door.

• Asheron's Call on SystemLogic.
• Dirt Track Racing on GameSpy.com.
• Flight Unlimited III on Gamezilla.
• FreeSpace 2 on loonygames.
• Grand Prix Legends (second opinion) on Games Domain Review.
• Jane's F/A-18 on Gamecenter.
• Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer on HipHardware.com.
• Mortyr on Gone Gold.
• NASCAR Legends on Games Domain Review and Electric Playground.
• Planescape: Torment on GamingChronicle.com.
• Pong 3D on Gamecenter.
• Razer Boomslang 2000 Mouse on The Labyrinth. Also, 3D-Unlimited interviews Robert Krakoff, of Karna LL, manufacturers of these rodents.
• Soldier of Fortune Demo on SkittleBox.
• Test Drive 6 on Gamecenter.
• Urban Chaos on GamePower and (second opinion) on Games Domain Review.

• Kudos to Ensemble Studios, id Software, Gathering Of Developers, Gearbox Software, Reel FX, Rogue Entertainment, Terminal Reality, US Web, and The Levelord™ (as the Beaver), all mentioned in Gearbox' Randy Pitchford's .plan as participants in the Dallas Toys For Tots campaign...
• The Ravenhurst Mission Pack for Hexen II Portal of Praveus Page has version 1.0 of RavenHurst: Resurgence of Evil, offering "two maps, music from the original Hexen, and a whole lot of Hexen II goodness"...
• Microsoft sends word that their RTS sequel Age of Empire II: Age of Kings has now shipped over two million units, which is a considerable milestone for game sales. While they were sending out press releases, they also sent word that the Titans upset the Rams 17-12 in their NFL Fever 2000 simulation of the Super Bowl, highlights are here...
• Though not yet available, the MotionWare Infopages offer information about this upcoming motion simulation device they say represents the future of virtual reality. It is expected to be available in 12-18 months at a retail price of less than $100. Thanks Capt_Beefheart...
• A new version 2.0 of the SETI@home client software is now available. Thanks CiKoTiC...

Recent anniversaries: It's been a bit over three years since disruptor was plucked from the community and hired to work at id Software (it surprised me it was that long ago... a couple more years and we'll have to stop thinking of him as the new guy). It also must be right around the 9th birthday for John Cash's oldest son, noteworthy for being able to beat older players at the age of six (we don't mention esses in connection with this anymore with hopes he will live it down). He's probably now a contender for one of these upcoming $100,000 tournaments.

The double-click opt-out link I posted here yesterday was incorrect for a while, it just lead to the static page claiming to confirm your action (thanks Teq). If you are looking to protect yourself from the marketing tracking thingie mentioned yesterday, this is the correct link to opt out. Want an even wilder story from the world of computer privacy and the Internet? Texas company accuses Yahoo of privacy violations is a CNET story reporting: "Yahoo has been accused by closely held Universal Image of violating Texas' anti-stalking law by allegedly tracking computer users' every movement on the Internet without their consent." Thanks Chris McCue. Stalking! If all this big brother stuff alarms you, Tony Fabris sends word of Window Washer, a cookie monster to eat all the cookies on your machine. It can also eliminate other insecure bits from your system. To finish the cookies discussion, here's a link to the Keebler Homepage and another to the Nabisco Homepage... I'm an Oreo man myself.

Link of the Day: The Punk Rock Dating Page! Fun nicknames and photos here. Thanks Bill MacEachern.
Story of the Day: Oregon company makes top bid for Microsoft check. Thanks Jeff Magill.
Bonus Story: Linus Sucks At Quake; Geeks Horrified on Be Dope. Thanks Will Pesky.
Bonus Story II: Robbery suspect writes stick up note on personal check. Thanks Grendel.

Adrenaline Vault has given their one, lonely screenshot of Aliens Versus Predator Gold a little company, by adding 10 more high-res images to the same page. As reported earlier today (story), AvP Gold is an expanded and updated version of Rebellion and Fox Interactive's first-person shooter.

The now smoke-free Kenn Hoekstra (congrats, welcome to the club) updated his .plan with word that the Soldier of Fortune demo has been downloaded enough to put it in the big leagues with the Quake III Arena demo, as well as details on a major sound problem people have been experiencing. Here's the scoop:

I'm continuing to lead the tech support charge on our message boards and we seem to have most problems nailed down. The biggest one that I'm aware of is the fact that the demo hangs on a blue/gray screen for users who have a YAMAHA DX-SG sound card or similar YAMAHA model. The problem is with the demo's auto-detect features looking for A3D support. These YAMAHA cards have limited A3D support (1.0) and Soldier's auto-detect code is looking for 2.0 or 3.0. This is what's causing the hang. Adding "+set snd_dll defsnd.dll" to your command line shortcut has fixed the problem for some users, but most YAMAHA owners are pretty much out of luck at this point. Jake "The Gent" Simpson is talking to his sources now to see about fixing the problem. As soon as we know something, you'll know something. According to Rick, future Soldier of Fortune releases are going to start up with default sound to avoid these sound support issues. Amen to that... =)

The sad thing? I have one of those DX-SG cards in my machine and it works. Probably because the drivers are the 1998 factory installed variety... *shrugs*

Gamecenter has posted their Fast Track Guide™ to Ultima IX: Ascension. The guide is essentially an excerpt from the book published by Prima, but it does feature detailed tips for virtually every area of the game (it just doesn't have the maps, the Avatar's Journal, or other extras included in the full book).

GameProWorld has posted a hands-on preview of Soulbringer, which is based on a full build of the game. They describe the game as, "Diablo meets Darkstone with a real strong emphasis on the story" and there are a whole bunch of shots for you to look at if that makes no sense to you.

InciteGames has posted 8 new screenshots from Thief 2: The Metal Age, offering a look at the game's architecture (which like the first Thief game is pretty impressive).

There are four new screenshots of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - the Fallen on GameSpot, showing off scenes from the Unreal-engine powered third-person action game by The Collective and Simon & Schuster, which they say is still slated for a March release.

NWGN has posted a brief interview with Mark Frohnmayer, talking to the lead programmer of TRIBES 2 about their upcoming team-based first-person action game. Here is a bit about the planned gameplay modes:

Tribes 1 actually supported 5 distinct multiplayer game types, CTF, capture and hold, find and retrieve, Defend and destroy, and deathmatch. We're enhancing some of the Tribes 1 modes (D&D and F&R), and adding in 3 new game types.

Although the game didn't get a very positive review on GameSpot, they have now posted a full-fledged game guide for Mortyr, offering general strategies, an enemy guide, weapon and multiplayer strategies, and a complete walkthrough for Mirage Media's first-person shooter.

3dfx keeps churning out the drivers, and has now released these Voodoo2 Windows 9x DirectX 7 Drivers - Version 3.02.02. Thanks Ant. The new version fixes problems with resolution switching and the control panel, as well as bugs on various games.

Skinning 101 has the latest release of the Skinlinker utility for Quake III Arena that creates the .skin files needed to link the skin image files to the models in Quake III Arena. The new version now allows to create bots, mostly with default characteristics, "but you do get to set speed, aggressiveness, accuracy, alertness, sex and a few other things."

Monolith's Jason Hall updated his .plan again with a clarification to his earlier update about the recent formation of a separate company to handle their LithTech engine, particularly about the term "3D Game Operating System" (see earlier story):

Some quick clarification.

LithTech has become extremely elaborate over time, and currently the best method to describe it to a developer in a way that makes sense (given its full capabilities) is to describe it as a 3D Game Operating System.

This helps developers make the mental distinction and understand the different contexts of uses between technologies like Renderware (3D Renderer), Unreal (3D Engine) and LithTech (3DGOS).

Agreed that perhaps it's not a complete OS in every technical sense of the term, but the context in which a developer must look at it and work with it is closer to that than any other easy-to-understand description.

Just wanted to clarify that a little more.

Also, I can only stress that we are just getting started with our announcements. We have been very busy as you will see! It's quite exciting.

Adrenaline Vault has posted the first screenshot of Aliens Versus Predator Gold, the just announced expanded version of the game that is due to be released in the Spring (story). The shot displays a marine opposing a Predator, guns akimbo, with an Alien looking on to jump the survivor :-)

There is an interview with sound programmer Tony Bennett on Aureal's A3D.com, and naturally the topic of discussion is his work on the audio code in Messiah, the hopefully imminent third-person action game by Shiny.

Tonight marks the first Deus Ex developers chat, so hop over to ION's web based chat, or point your IRC browser to www.ionstorm.com at 8:00 CST and join #ion to talk to Warren Spector and others from ION's Deus Ex team.

Monolith's Jason Hall updated his .plan with some comments on the formation of a separate company to handle their LithTech engine (story), saying their intent is to create a 3D gaming OS with the engine (although he doesn't give a real definition of that term). Here's what he had to say:

This announcement is extremely significant. We have been working hard to make sure that LithTech is geared and ready for the future. This announcement shows that we are moving in the right direction.

It is the highest compliment to be able to attract someone of Dr. Whitten's caliber. This guy really knows solid technology when he sees it.

I am looking forward to watching LithTech grow and proliferate as a true 3D gaming operating system (3DGOS). The end result of all of this is an even more robust development toolset that has a clear direction and a solid future - and more importantly, great support!

More cool announcements soon...we are just getting started.

3dfx has posted new drivers for their Voodoo 3 based cards (thanks CiKoTiC). These drivers fix a problem some users were having with the 3dfx Tools program, and say that you should only download these if you were experiencing problems.

Raven's John Scott updated his .plan with some new stuff for fans of the Soldier of Fortune demo. He's posted a TXT file with a list of DMFlags for the game, as well as a JPEG with the character set they used for the fonts for those interested in creating fun names (although he says you'll have to manually hack your CFG file).

incitegames has posted more materials from Star Trek: Klingon Academy, showing off Interplay's space-combat RTS in nine screenshots and four brief movies of Gorn-Klingon battles.

Black Isle and Interplay have now released the official version 1.1 patch for Planescape: Torment (as opposed to the beta patch awhile ago), a 3.3 MB download that fixes a number of issues with the game, most notably the recurring slowdown problems.

StormTroopers has posted an interview with Deus Ex programmer Scott Martin, talking to him about his work on the AI in the game. It's interesting stuff, as he talks about how the NPCs in the game will function, but also about his "process" for developing the AI for each class of character. Here's an excerpt where he discusses how the NPCs will function:

I wanted NPCs to react to the world in roughly the same way that real people do. The key to this was to make the AI recognize things based on sight and sound. The Unreal engine has a decent pathfinding system built into it (written by Epic's Steve Polge), so thankfully I didn't have to build one from scratch. But because the original Unreal was a single-player shooter, its A/V event handling didn't consist of much more than "I see the player, so I attack" and "I hear the player, so I attack." I built an audio/visual event manager into the Unreal engine so NPCs could detect things like footsteps, gunshots, smashed windows, objects hitting the ground, drawn weapons, screams, distress, etc. -- and more importantly, it could distinguish between them. I also wrote behaviors for the NPCs so they could react appropriately to these events.

Monolith sends news of the formation of LithTech Inc., "a subsidiary dedicated to creating the standard in real time 3D development and networked multimedia operating systems." Here's the full release, which also announces the hiring of Dr. Gregory Whitten as Chief Software Architect:

Kirkland, WA (January 27, 2000) Monolith Productions today announced the formation of LithTech Inc., a subsidiary dedicated to creating the standard in real time 3D development and networked multimedia operating systems. As its first official action, LithTech has named Dr. Gregory Whitten-19 year veteran of Microsoft, as Chief Software Architect.

"LithTech Inc.'s ability to attract someone of Dr. Whitten's caliber confirms our belief that our technology implementation is state of the art," comments Jason Hall, CEO for Monolith Productions and LithTech Inc. "Our vision is to combine strong leadership with experienced professionals to create the first company dedicated to serving the maturing real time 3D market."

Dr. Whitten is currently Co-Chairman of NumeriX Corporation. He retired from Microsoft in 1998. His research interests revolve around large-scale, concurrent object oriented systems and software architectures. During his impressive 19 year career with Microsoft, Dr. Whitten designed and implemented many pieces of the BASIC, Quick BASIC and Visual BASIC interpreters and compilers and the common cross-language compiler and runtime technologies. In addition, Dr. Whitten started the Windows project, architected the GDI graphics and device model as well as the memory and programming models for Windows and OS/2. He was also responsible for initiating Microsoft's company-wide object oriented software strategy including leading the design groups for OLE 1.0, 2.0, COM and OLE controls which became DCOM and ActiveX. Additionally, he worked on software strategies for the Office, Back Office and Windows product lines. Dr. Whitten has a Ph.D. from Harvard University where he did original research in numerical analysis, analysis of algorithms and econometrics.

"LithTech is a perfect complement to my technical interests, and I look forward to joining the team," says Dr. Whitten. "Together we can move gaming to a new level of sophistication and capabilities."

The LithTech 3D Engine is a licensable technology for multiple platforms that functions as a complete 3D game operating system, which allows developers to easily design, develop and focus on content without reinventing technology for each project.

A new version of the Jumbot for Half-Life has been released. This version fixes a slew of bugs that showed up in the previous release, and will be the last for the immediate future (unless still more bugs pop up, of course).

According to this story on PSXNation (which apparently is based on a quote from this interview on Unreal Universe, although no credit is given), Epic will be showing Unreal Tournament running on the Playstation 2 at this year's Game Developer's Conference. I asked Epic's Brandon "greenmarine" Reinhart, who is working on the port about this, who confirmed that, "the plan is to bring our dev kit and show off what we have."

Aliens Versus Predator is Back and It's Pure Gold is a press release from Fox Interactive, announcing their plans to release a Gold Edition of Aliens Versus Predator this Spring. The update will feature nine new levels, new weapons, and other enhancements, and will also include the official strategy guide.

There are more new screenshots of Evolva on GA-Source, as well as a little info on the AI system in this colorful action/strategy title currently under construction at Computer Artworks.

WAGZ (short for West Australian Gaming Zone) has posted an interview with Jeff DeWitt, animator on Human Head's upcoming Viking slashfest RUNE. The talk covers his work on modelling and animating the game's protagonist Ragnar, applying the Unreal engine to a third-person title, and more.

There are three new screenshots of Metal Fatigue on 3D-Unlimited, showing off scenes from Zono and Psygnosis' upcoming 3D real-time strategy title.

GameSpot UK has posted a brief but hands-on preview of Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force, the Q3A-engine based action game in development at Raven. Unusual for a hands-on preview, most if not all of the screenshots in the short gallery are already familiar, though.

• The unofficial Unreal Tournament FAQ by Droogie has been updated with new info and tips on Epic's acclaimed first-person shooter.
• Raven's official Soldier of Fortune support FAQ was updated with more tips on their recently released demo.
• There is a detailed walkthrough of Half-Life: Opposing Force on Daily Radar.
• Commander Keen's Console page has updated lists of the commands and variables in Quake III Arena's point release (thanks VE).

PC.IGN.com has updated their preview of Thief II: the Metal Age with some 40 new screenshots taken from a recent build of the game (with these numbers, thumbnails would have been welcome).

Epic Programmer Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart updated his .plan with a lengthy essay focusing primarily on the user-made mod community, and how vitally important it is to the success of games in the shooter area. Brandon points out that "Minh Le, the author of Counterstrike, has effectively more people playing his game online at any one point in time than either Quake3 or UT. Consider this very closely if you work in the 3D industry. This is important." He goes on to repeat his belief we are in the midst of "a 'renaissance' in garage game development," and points out that some of Half-Life's longevity on the sales charts and online are due "to Valve brilliant and unrelenting support of the mod community," saying "This is NOTHING NEW to Valve, but quite new to the rest of the industry." Some of GreenMarine's update serves as a warning to mod authors to make sure they are not taken advantage of. Here's a bit on that:

Here's what I want to say to the mod authors: Remember what I said about companies taking what they can get? They do and they will. If a company offers you some money or a contract, get a lawyer. Do it right. Don't be afraid to ask what you think you are worth. You damn well know that if a company is seeking you out, you are worth something to them.

The garage mod authoring scene is driven both by groups and individuals. Individuals are more likely to find jobs at game companies through their work on notable mods. I think that what Valve has done with Team Fortress is probably an exception. I don't know any of the TF team, what their positions are at Valve, or even if all of them are actually working there. I do know, however, multiple individual mod authors who have found jobs in the industry because of their skill and initiative. Mods prove to game companies that a person has talent and the ability to complete a project.

The lengthy update goes on about the impact mods will have on the future of UT, and gives plenty of good advice to authors on planning and publicity, while warning against over-hyping, making note of our policy here of not honoring any of the dozens of requests we get each day to post screenshots and such of yet-to-be-released mods (so many fall by the wayside, as he admits one of his own past projects did). It's an insightful and informative read throughout, in spite of its massiveness.

Working the printscreen key like concert pianists, the folks at GameFan have posted another 32 MDK2 screenshots showing off action from BioWare's imminent sequel to MDK, hot on the heels of the half-dozen shots they posted the other day. The shots are from a beta build of the upcoming third- and first-person action title. MDK, of course, stands for "Men Don't Knit."

The Gallery over at Majesty - Dragon has been updated a few times recently, offering a bunch of screenshots of a beta version of Majesty, an upcoming RTS. The Majesty preview at PC.IGN.Com was recently updated based on playing a new build as well. Also, there's a new Theocracy preview on Eurogamer.net with a look ahead at this RTS from UbiSoft and Hungarian developers Philo Laboratories, with nine new screenshots of gameplay. Finally, screenshots on Dr.TwisTer's Shadowbane Alert show off some of the frontal nudity that will be featured in this upcoming RPG, purely to advance the plot, no doubt.

• The 3DSL Home Page has word of some new version 2041 Aureal drivers, as well as word from Aureal on the deal with the long-planned EAX support, which criticizes the inconsistent way that EAX is implemented in different games.
• There's new Microsoft IntelliType Pro 1.1 software if you have one of those new keyboards with all the extra buttons. Thanks Sigurdur G. Gunnarsson. The new version offers Win2K support.
• Sharky Extreme's Weekly CPU Prices have been updated, as have GamesXTREME's UK CPU Prices and CPU Review's Athlon/Pentium3 Price Comparison.
• The RIVA 3D Forums are hosting a petition they will forward to Creative Labs to get the Unified Database to accept Annihilator Serial Numbers.
• Tech-Junkie's interview with VIA Technologies offers VIA's stand on the Joshua and RAMBUS.
• What's Behind the Coppermine on tech-Review tries to shed some light on the guts of the most recent PIIIs.
• Guillemot 3D Prophet-SDR is reviewed on Gamers Depot.
• Voodoo3 3500 TV is reviewed on Ars Technica.
• ATI Rage Fury Maxx is reviewed on Thresh's FiringSquad.
• S3 Monster Sound MX400 is reviewed on GameSpot.
• Maxi Gamer Sound Fortissimo soundcard on Tac-Sim.com.
• Soyo 6VBA 133 versus Tyan S1854 motherboard comparison on Ars Technica.
• Coolermaster ATC-200 Thermal Case is reviewed on GamePC.

The finalists for the GDC 2000 Independent Games Festival have been announced. Congrats to Blix by StationBlix.com, Hardwood Hearts by Silver Creek Entertainment, King of Dragon Pass by A-Sharp, Moonshine Runners by K-D LAB, Quaternion by Spin Studios, The Rift by Thrushwave, Rogue Wars by ReAllis, Seed by HS Games Hungary/Humansoft, and Tread Marks by Longbow Digital Arts, who will all compete for the grand prize at the Game Developers Conference this March in San Jose, CA.

PC, video game sales skyrocket reports the USA Today, while also noting "Sales of video and computer games with 'Mature' ratings for violence, language or sexual content fell from 2.6 million units in 1998 to 1.2 million in 1999, according to figures compiled by the NPD Group and released Wednesday by the Interactive Digital Software Association," though their take on this is "...analysts said that may have more to do with the phenomenal popularity of Pokemon than concern over tragedies such as the Columbine High School massacre." Thanks Toughguy. Also, the latest GameDAILY Top 20 Selling Entertainment Titles for January 9 - 15, 2000 is online, with Q3A holding at #6, UT up to #8, Rogue Spear up to #10, and Half-Life dropping to #19 (it looks like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, in the #1 spot, is going to be as hard to move as Regis' hair). Also of note is the GameDAILY Top 10 Selling Mac Titles for January 9 - 15, 2000, where the top two spots are held by Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament, in that order. Till next time, I'm Casey Kasem, saying, "keep your hands in your pockets, and your feet in the air."

The startlingly barebones Challenge website has a new Quake III Arena modification called Challenge. The author doesn't have time to maintain the page, and didn't really send along a lot of info about the mod, so I guess part of the challenge is to figure out what it does. Described as a "battleground like mod for quake 3," word is: "It has some cool features like playing sound to your teammates..."

It's good news and bad news here, the bad news first: "It is with a sad and heavy heart that I announce that GamesCon in the Bay Area is cancelled and that GamesCon has decided close it's doors," is the way the letter from GamesCon founder Mark "Rick" Chandler kicks off, with the unfortunate news that this event/trade show that aimed to be the E3 for gamers has been cancelled, and the organization is now defunct. The site has the full press release detailing the reasons for this unfortunate turn of events. On a happier note, word from the Razer CPL Event is that admission prices for this upcoming $100,000 tournament have been lowered to $30.00 in advance, and $40.00 at the door. Online registration is scheduled to begin Tuesday, February 1 at 5:00 PM EST (4:00 PM Central Time). Finally, Eurogamer.net's xsi coverage is complete, with a wrap-up of the event.

• Battlezone II: Combat Commander on Sniper's Alley.
• Carnivores II on PC.IGN.com.
• Demise Demo on new reality gaming.
• Descent 3: Mercenary on Adrenaline Vault.
• Final Fantasy VIII on Daily Radar.
• Flight Simulator 2000 Professional Edition on GameProWorld.
• Hangsim on Electric Games.
• Jane's F/A-18 on Happy Puppy.
• Logitech Wingman Mousepad on Teamplay.Net.
• Microsoft's Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro 3.0 on HardNews.org.
• Mortyr on Gamers Central and GameSpot.
• Panzer Elite on Electric Playground.
• Planescape: Torment on GamesMania.
• Quake III Arena on GameCritics.
• Quake III Arena versus Pokémon (the Battle for America) on Gamecenter.
• Razer Boomslang 2000 on Teamplay.Net.
• Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear on Electric Playground.
• Soldier of Fortune Demo on Damage Gaming.
• Supreme Snowboarding on Game-Forge.
• SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle on Electric Playground.
• The Wheel of Time on Wewp! Entertainment.
• Tread Marks on Gamelinks.net.
• Ultima IX: Ascension on MPOG.
• Unreal Tournament on GameCritics.

• The History of Computer Games - Part I is by gaming historian Rich "Zdim" Carlson of Looking Glass Studios, and Chasing Technology looks at the current art of the RTS (that one's fun to read aloud) from Greg Borrud of Pandemic Studios, both part of GameSpy.Com's Developer's Week...
• ValveWorld interviews Cliffe of the Counter-Strike mod including word of "how to get a weapon in the game that costs more than any amount of cash you can get in the mod"...
• AGN3D's The Sims interview is a transcript of a recent GameTime appearance by Patrick Buechner of Maxis talking about their latest, the Sims, which sounds even simmier than ever...

Here's an issue I imagine will be of interest to many who read this site, as I recall many of the passionate discussions in the past of cookies, security and privacy issues. Activists charge DoubleClick double cross is a USA Today story detailing how DoubleClick's recent acquisition of Abacus Direct Corp. has provided them with the opportunity to turn cookies left in your browser into breadcrumbs (as in Hansel and Gretel) to track your movements and purchases across the World Wide Web. Thanks Jamie Wood. This is likely not the last we'll hear of this, as word in the article is a complaint will be filed next month with the Federal Trade Commission by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. In the meantime, DoubleClick assures users unhappy with this that they can opt out from their tracking program, which you can apparently do by clicking this DoubleClick Privacy link. Interesting stuff. As always, if you opt to use cookies for our messageboards, we promise not to do anything with them but help you save your settings.

Link of the Day: Treasury of Geriatric Erotica. Thanks ChiQ.
Story of the Day: DeCSS Author Arrested, on Slashdot (one of many /. threads on the subject). Suggested by Jimmy Sieben as a follow-up to yesterday's link to a news article on the subject, pointing it is of "great importance in the coming digital age," and suggested the Slashdot forums provided word from all sides of the issue, which is more complex than the simple "cracking" story suggests.