Archived News:
Tim Gift updated his .plan with word on what he's been contending with on IRC that's
kept him from updating some of Dynamix's TRIBES servers. Here's an excerpt:
Hmm, well I had originally intended to come in this weekend and upgrade the
Combat and Training server and get ready for our next release, but when I got in our IRC
server was under attack again. Using IRC for our chat server has been a major pain in the
butt. We had wanted to use it because of it's open architecture. Wanted to allow people to
connect and chat outside of the game, something people were used to using, etc., seemed a
lot more flexible and friendly than a writing another proprietary chat system.
Unfortunately, there are quite a few bozos who seem to get a kick out of disrupting our
chat server, booting people off, or otherwise being a nuisances. I've already wasted
several days getting up to speed on IRC and the MS server, and here I am over the weekend
doing the same, when I could be working on TRIBES....
There's now an English
version of the Team Fortress 2 preview on Halflife.com.br
mentioned earlier ( story) that was originally posted in Portuguese. By the way, I'm sorry
if I made it sound in my follow-up ( story) like they were the ones that said there were new screenshots in
the preview, I was actually correcting my own mistake, not anything they said.
Sharky Extreme's
Expendable Update adds 15 new screenshots of Rage's upcoming third-person action game,
with the promise of a movie showing off gameplay soon.
A couple more guides for Starsiege TRIBES have emerged, it seems likely these projects
were all started around the same time to provide what had been, until recently, a pretty a
scarce commodity. Regenerated Forces
Starsiege TRIBES guide, promises to teach how to "terrorize" a TRIBES
server, and GriBBsY's Beginner's Guide
to TRIBES is online offering a way to get your feet wet before spilling blood on the
live battlefield.
It turns out there is a common thread behind the few emails I've received asking if there
was a problem with the archive of the Half-Life demo released the other day--all the problems were from one download location. If you've had
problems and you downloaded from ftp1.sierra.com (this was not the copy posted here, so
you should not have had this problems with the local download), that archive is indeed a
few bytes shy of a mouthful. If your FTP supports resume downloads, you might be able to
pick up the remainder of the file from another site, or you may indeed have to re-download
the whole dealie. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers.
Also, I'm told the TF2 shots in the Portuguese TF2 preview posted earlier are not, in
fact, new. Sorry about that, though of course, some always welcome the opportunity to
brush up on their Portuguese.
The smoothies at Orange Smoothie Productions
have released a new Quake II mod called OSP
Rocket Olympics, described as "a virtual play land of rocket jumping feats and
events. Categories included Height, Distance, Accuracy and oh ya.. Quad Height!!!"
It would have been more thematic to release this
during the Olympics, but it's not like I can think of any logical Valentine's Day mods
(not any that I can imagine wanting to play anyway).
This Valentine Interview
on Cali Girl News talks to notable romantics from
the gaming scene like CliffyB (Epic Games), KillCreek (ION Storm), Wicked ( Voodoo Extreme), and of course Wanker ( PlanetWank) giving insights on love and friendship.
Also, In their grand tradition, the Tormented
Souls have posted some new e-cards, these with a Valentine's Day theme, of course,
along with their trademark Quake trappings, so make sure your valentine understands your
concept of romance before you fire one of these off.
The Team Fortress 2 preview
on Halflife.com.br is in Portuguese, and even if
you can't make sense of that, or AltaVista's
Portuguese translator, the new screenshots are worth those proverbial thousands of words.
Thanks SailorScout.
Computer
Games Online interviews Scott Youngblood, talking to Dynamix's own CornBoy! about
Starsiege TRIBES.
Version 0.3 of the unofficial Mortyr
FAQ is up at the Widerstands
updated with the latest intelligence on Interactive Magic's upcoming World War II Shooter
Game.
Word from X-M4N is that to solve some difficulties, the Italian Master Server for both
Quake II and QuakeWorld is now 194.177.113.32.
There's a KillCreek
edited chat log from the recent online conversation with this ION Storm level designer
on The Daikatana Deathmatch page
offering info on their upcoming Daikatana, as well as the even more imminent Daikatana DM
demo.
The Sniper Tips Section on the lonegunmen site has continued to grow, and now
offers seven pages of tips on how to pick folks off with perfection in Starsiege TRIBES.
Realm Technologies has a Half-Life mod that
is a simple replacement skill.cfg file that makes locational damage more pronounced,
increases weapon damage and enemy health, and emphasizes the differences between
difficulty levels.
The palpy.com Quake II tournament is a
one-on-one competition with a "rare Quake II action figure" as the prize.
- So You Want To Be A
Webmaster? is a new article on PlanetQuake
that offers a suitable degree of discouragement and some sage advice for aspiring game
site webmasters...
- Internet Challenges Game
Publishers is a CNN article on trends in the biz. Thanks Mynx (the birthday girl no less -- Happy B'day
Mynx!)...
- S3 Planet has a new version 1.03 of the S3Tweak
program. Word is "No major changes... just a couple of safeguards put in place."
Thanks DemoNews...
- Updates to this Optimizing
The Swapfile guide include confirmation on whether constant rewriting of the same area
of a drive reduces the MTBF as well as a tip on how to move the swapfile to the outer
tracks of the hard disk without paying for a commercial defragger..
- Site stuff: The MarTim site has moved,
and PlanetCrap 2.0 is online...
Happy Valentine's Day! Welcome to the beta test of ProjectX, otherwise known as the Blue's News version of Blammo, the game news system being created
by my friends RonSolo and Bagpuss, the mad geniuses behind the BlueTracker .plan
Summaries and Webdog, and Blammo's main
programmer, furn (who showed amazing patience as we conferred on this yesterday in what
amounted to an all-day transatlantic phone call). As I mentioned when I tempted fate by
predicting we might be ready for a beta today, the change is hopefully almost completely
transparent at the moment, but the difference behind the scenes is significant, as the
stories on this page now are database generated. While things seem under control, there
are a couple of glitches I know about already (if you use the headlines in the left frame,
the finger insert disappears, the target links on the archive at the bottom are whacked
out, as is the archive page, and the yesterday links in the headlines), and, of course, there's the possibility something unforeseen
will pop up, so if everything blows up at some point, that may be what has happened. Going
forward, for those that don't want change, not much will be different (this was a top priority), but the database
will allow a bunch of neat functionality to be added that will be quite helpful, and I'm
really excited about what we should be able to do with this. More on that as we go
forward. Excelsior!
The Wavelength
Models page has details on the four deathmatch models included in Half-Life, including
the information necessary for aspiring modelers and skinners to get started customizing
their own stuff.
Gameplay Issues for
Map Design is an article on editing issues for Half-Life map designers on Half-Life Analysis. Thanks Planet Half-Life.
A new version 0.9 of the Gladiator
Bot for Quake II is now available. The update adds support for Quake II: The
Reckoning, Quake II Ground Zero, Rocket Arena 2, and Capture The Flag. The release also
offers a new version 1.1 of the WinBSPC utility to add gladiator routes to existing maps,
since routes converted with the previous version will not work with the new Gladiator.
A new version of the Tirtanium
OpenGL/Direct3D benchmark is now available, offering "big texture Tirtanium," a
hardcore benchmark they say requires a 400 MHz CPU. Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme.
Regenerated Forces has
posted their own guide to getting started playing Starsiege TRIBES.
Been tied up all day messing around with ProjectX. We may possibly go beta
tomorrow, but no promises (to help take the edge off the build-up, I have to confess, that
if the project goes really well, you'll hardly notice a difference around here,
at least on the surface).
Version 1.0 of the Official
Duke Nukem forever FAQ is online at DukeWorld,
answering all your queries about 3D Realms' upcoming installment in the Duke franchise.
Gabe from Valve sent along an interesting essay written up by Valve's Yahn
Bernier talking about Internet connectivity in Half-Life (and games in general) called Latency versus Ping (it is too
large to post in the news, so I put it on its own page).
The Action Quake2 has a new
version 1.5 of the Action Quake 2 server. The new release is called a complete code
re-write which fixes all known bugs and adds new features as well, including IR goggles
and a new spectator mode. The files are for servers only, with both Windows and Linux
binaries available. If you are interested in what's changed, you can check out the changes and readme files.
This CPL press
release announces that the first demonstration of multiplayer play on 3DO's upcoming
Requiem: Avenging Angel, will take place at the CPL's Extreme Annihilation even next month
in Dallas.
CaveNews has posted samples of the
music from CaveDog's upcoming shooter, AMEN: The Awakening, along with word of a AMEN Developer Journal by
Jeremy Soule, the game's music composer. The music sample is available in .mp3 and
RealPlayer formats.
PlanetStarSiege
Beginner's Guide to TRIBES offers a jetpack to get those new to TRIBES over the
learning curve.
The Turok Cave has posted the cheats for the just-released PC version of Turok2: Seeds of Evil.
Doh!
declares the former Aliens versus Predator mod page, with the announcement that Fox
Interactive has shut down their project, which is not too surprising (the page itself say
"I'm just surprised this didn't happen sooner"), considering Fox's history of
shutting down such unlicensed projects that have come to their attention.
Version 2.7a of the GibStats
II logging program is now available. The new version of this Quake analysis tool
mainly fixes bugs, though there is a new side-by-side feature to compare the performance
of two players.
This page
has a new version of one of those use-at-your-own-risk type of programs, a utility to
change L2 cache latency to allow easier overclocking. This page also has other programs
for gutsy power-users, like a program to overclock the front-side bus. Thanks Tweak3D
Version 1.0 of the Quake
2 Console Parser is out. This program allows analysis of Quake II logs and demos
(.dm2), and supports DM, Team DM, Threewave Quake II CTF and the Xatrix and Rogue Mission
packs, and can output results in HTML format.
This weekend GameSpot TV
offers up a Starsiege
TRIBES review with RealPlayer
footage on Dynamix's new multiplayer teamplay game. Also, GA-Source
reviews BattleCruiser 3000AD v2.0.
Word from the Online Gaming League is
they need all league TRIBES servers to update to version 1.2 or matches played on older
servers will not be considered valid.
Seems the Combat[fillintheblank] TRIBES servers are run by Dynamix on some
level or another, and it sounds like they'll be updated pretty soon. "Disco Stu
doesn't advertise" is from the Simpsons if you were playing along at home when that
came up yesterday. Proof that the Internet is home to more than you ever imagined, here's Disco Stu's biography.
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