Here's an article on Unreal Tournament Skins written by Shane Caudle, level designer, 3D modeler & artist for Unreal and Unreal Tournament. The article shows artistic types how to create their own skins for UT, and there are some cool images of the skins, models, and the process for matching them up for those, like me, who just like the purty pictures.

Beyond 3D interviews John Romero, discussing the current state of affairs at ION Storm, and progress on Daikatana, about which John has this to say:

There are no more delays, we are currently working on finishing the game in the next several months and hope to release it sometime during the summer.

I've had the whip out putting loony to work, you can see his first posts below, and he's also edited up the long, long-overdue Mailbag, which will be posted every Sunday from now on. Here's the new and de-uglified April 4 edition of the Mailbag. This week: Complaints about Q2 DM, "Is Sin the most under-rated game of all time?," more on Mech(tm) names, the return of the blank space mystery, still more clarifications, old-school hard-drive talk, Q3A jerseys, and the inevitable more.

True Gamers International has posted the results from their tournament this weekend (the largest international Quake tournament ever, apparently)...check 'em out on their Live Coverage page. They've posted a quick interview with Lakerman, the winner, and you can find another one here (thanks FPS Spectator).

KillQuake sends along word that the Half-Life Game Launcher has reached version 1.0. Here's a quick rundown of the features on this bad boy:

• Allow Cheats
• Allow Console
• Launch the game in "Dev Mode"
• Select what map you want launch
• Type any additional parameter(s)
• Select your game type (Multiplayer or Single player)

The Half-Life Deathmatch Maker and Map Cycle Editor will be part of version 2.0...you can check out some screenshots of these over on their screenshots page.

Hiya! This is my first post here at Blue's News...and what a whopper it is, huh? Just wanted to post here and introduce myself: yep, I'm the new guy here at Blue's News, although I've been working on the site in one way or another since back in the days of Blue's Quake Rag...I'll make sure the site stays exactly the way you like it. If you've got a suggestion for the site or just want to drop me a line, I appreciate the feedback...send it along to jason@loonygames.com. Oh, and until we get a real news@bluesnews.com e-mail setup, I'd appreciate it if you could CC me in on any news sent to the smurf colored guy. Thanks, and I'll return you to your regularly scheduled Blue's News now. :)

Ritualistic has posted news of a Sin arcade game under development by an Arizona-based company called Ferris VR that will offer Sin multiplayer play in a LAN-like setup, as well as single player play versus the Redemption Bot (the update comes courtesy of Riever, author of the Redemption Bot). When I checked the Universe Arcade Software page referenced in Riever's update, I see that they also have arcade games in the works based on Jedi Knight, Heavy Gear, and Heavy Gear II. No word on when these will be appearing in arcades.

Xatrix Programmer Ryan "Ridah" Feltrin updated his .plan with words of encouragement for TNT owners, and prospective TNT2 owners, about Kingpin performance:

For those of you running or expecting to run Kingpin on TNT/TNT2 boards upon release, will be glad to know nVidia are doing a great job of optimizing their drivers for better FOG performance.

You can expect a healthy jump in performance on TNT based chipsets in the final release.

The following announcement on The Official glDoom Homepage is sure to disappoint the many looking forward to future releases of this suped-up re-working of the Doom source code. Thanks Darkstarr. Here's the update:

glDoom project on indefinite hold

Due to circumstances beyond my control, the glDoom project is on hold indefinitely. The news sites will be informed when and if the project is resumed. No source code is available for download at this time. This includes ALL ports of glDoom; Win32, Mac, Linux and BeOS. Please do not ask for the source code or why the project is on hold more information will be forthcoming.

CTF Survival Guide has the rest of their map-specific guides for TRIBES, covering Stonehenge, Scarabrae, Snowblind, Iceridge, and Broadside-Blastside. Word is that with this accomplished, SinCTF guides will be their next project.

Hoping "to revive the Hexen2/HexenWorld scene," beta version 0.90 of the Rival Kingdoms mod for Hexen II is now available. This is a teamplay mod that requires version 1.5 of HexenWorld (in addition to Hexen II), and offers eight player classes to choose from, and three new maps in the beta, with a total of ten maps planned for the final version. Here's the description of the mod from the page: "Two castles sit atop hills opposite of each other. You now become both defender and attacker. Your objective? Find and secure the one key necessary to capture your Rivals crown and unite the Crowns under one unified Kingdom."

CrazyPete´s Toolbox has the English version 0.5 Beta 2 of the Grissly Half-Life front-end for download, supporting Half-Life through version 1.0.0.8 only. The new release features a couple of bug fixes.

The Console Stats Homepage has version 1.1 of the Console Stats Preview. This Quake II file analyzer will let you produce stats from Quake II log files and demo files (multimap demos are supported), including many popular mods, and output them on screen or in HTML format.

Iikka Keränen's Quake-related utilities page has a new version of the IKBASE texture set for Quake and Quake II, adding about 35 new textures to this pack that's a favorite of many level authors.

• Registration for DC-CON 6, planned for July 16, 17, and 18, is now underway.
• Today is the second annual Quake Easter Egg Hunt, By Mortal Funk. Starting at 8:00 PM Eastern, players can hunt for eggs in their Quake II mod competing for a first prize of $75 cash and a copy of Extremities signed by all the people at id Software. Head over to the page for more info and downloads of the client.

• Anandtech.com reviews the 3dfx Voodoo3, looking at all three flavors in a huge write-up.

• Understanding the K7 Hype or Next Generation CPU? is a new analysis on Ace's Hardware. Thanks Billy at Voodoo Extreme...
• Weapons Factory servers are strongly encouraged to get the latest version of this Quake II CTF mod by an update on Captured.Com that says "Looks like some nasty folk have found a way to rename players, send false messages and shut down Weapons Factory servers." Thanks FX ~ Scott...
• The Windows 98 update dealie now has a fix for that Windows will crash after 49.7 days bug mentioned here recently, fixing perhaps the hardest to reproduce bug in computing history...

Announcement time: As of today, Jason "loonyboi" Bergman will be serving as editor here at Blue's News, responsible for helping manage the content on the site, and providing additional coverage on the news desk. Coming after close to four years of continuous operation as a one-man website, this is a pretty dramatic move: The level of infinite control I have doing everything myself is wonderful, and addictive, it's difficult to give up. The upsides to this radical 100% expansion in the staff have finally swayed me, however, and I'm hopeful that this is a move that is as welcomed by all of you as it is by me, it will result in improved attention to the non-news content, a bit more consistent news coverage, and much better coverage while I'm travelling. Jason is extremely well-qualified for the role: He was one of the original folks who dug up news to send in here long ago (and was damn good at it), and the job he does as Editor-in-Chief of loonygames (which will continue on as before, btw), speaks for itself. So I hope you'll join me in welcoming Jason in his new role.

Link of the Day: Kevin Spacey doing Christopher Walken's Han Solo screen-test on SNL in streaming video format. Thanks Evan 'Moltar' Chantland. Now let me drag this dead horse out to that stinky stable.

The Qtracker Homepage has public beta 2 of version 2.3 of the Qtracker server browser program. This release adds subnet-broadcasting, and aid to those with switched networks or multiple subnets. There have also been several bugs squished, mainly relating to autoposting on the JediBoard and XWingboard.

There is now a complete list of cheats for Requiem: Avenging Angel on Requiem-HQ. (Update -- they've since been pulled, but are still posted over at Voodoo Extreme).

Ritual Programmer Mark Dochtermann updated his .plan with an update on the status of Sin 3DNow! support, which is not included in the version 1.04 patch. Here's the deal:

3DNOW update
============

We are currently in the middle of doing optimizations for 3DNOW with AMD, unfortunately they were not ready in time for version 1.04. Version 1.04 includes the same ref_gl_amd.dll that I had released as beta 2 weeks prior. If everything goes as planned, we should have a new beta dll sometime next week.

A list of Starsiege TRIBES Call Back Functions have been posted on the Tribes Players page, the first release of the TRIBES Scripting Documentation, the rest of which is expected within a week, or so. Thanks James at Datumplane::Starsiege.

Ritual Programmer Scott Alden's .plan contains the announcement that Sin 1.04 is available at Ritualistic on this download page. Here's word on the release, which includes SinCTF built in:

Sin 1.04 is out at www.ritualistic.com

This update contains CTF built in. Thanks to all those involved who helped make SinCTF a reality.

Give it a try while you're waiting for that other game. There's a server up at sinctf.ritual.com.

Have Fun!

id Software's John "Hellrot" Cash updated his .plan on the mainstream press, The Matrix, and a mention that Graeme Devine's .plan is the source for Q3A info with a tantalizing Jerry Pournelle quote:

To quote Jerry Pournelle... "Real Soon Now". Graeme's plan is the place to go for the offical Q3A info.

Sony Sues Dave is a GameCenter article announcing that Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. (SCEI), and Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. (SCEA), have filed a lawsuit against ActionWorld, Inc. over copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, and unfair competition. The Sony suit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Northern California, turns out to be the cause of the recent shutdown (story) at emulator site Dave's Classics, ending a lot of wild (and mostly inaccurate) speculation over who was the source of the "recent legal action" that closed the site. Thanks Ant. According to the article, Sony alleges that "ActionWorld willfully copied the proprietary PlayStation BIOS onto the site, and made it available as a download to visitors up until at least March 23." In an interesting note, as this is being written, Dave's Classics is back on line (at least for the moment).

4gamers.net's Unreal Tournament Preview offers some never-before-seen shots from Epic's upcoming Unreal Tournament.

The Coven's Deadlode II page has the new public beta of Deadlode II for Quake II. The new version adds support for visible weapons, a "vastly improved menu system," a new improved HUD, player id, and of course, bug fixes, tweaks and improvements to this goal-based teamplay mod for Quake II.

The Orange Smoothie Productions page has a new Version 1.32 of OSP Tourney DM, their tournament control mod for Quake II that was used at Extreme Annihilation and for portions of K9CON. The new release is available for Windows 95/98/NT, Linux/x86 for libc5/glibc systems, Linux/Alpha, Solaris/Sparc and FreeBSD/x86, and offers the option to allow clients who've disconnected to recover their score upon reconnection, optional auto-pausing of one-on-one matches when one player gets disconnected, and much more. From the page: "This release constitutes a full upgrade from all previous versions. It is a *highly* recommended upgrade for any servers running *ANY* version of OSP Tourney DM."

Version 0.9.2 of Quake II Java, the mod that allows Quake II mods written in Java, is now available. The new release adds support for reading/writing map information in XML format, which allows mappers to define new XML tags. Included are example Java gamelets which let admins easily set CVars and load/unload other gamelets on a map-by-map basis just by editing an XML file.

Clan MaX Homepage for Starsiege Tribes has posted an updated version of their TAWA (Tribes Advanced Weapons Analysis), offering weapons tips, etc., now almost double its original size. Also, the Xtreme Gaming Network has released another pair of TRIBES maps as well as a pair of new maps for Shogo: Mobile Armor Division made by the head mapper for Tow Arena.

Sloshy Software Inc. has released version 2.37 of the Quick Start - Eraser Bot Wizard that fixes a few bugs in this front-end for the Eraser Bot for Quake II. They've also announced their latest project, "The Swapper," a program that will function as a huge database of add-ons such as mods, maps, models, skins, cfg files, etc. for games like Quake II, Half-Life, Starcraft, Q3A, etc.

The Pixel-lab has a new version of Texl, the noisy seamless texture generator written in Java. The latest version supports 256*256 textures in 24-bit color, and is described as "a kind of image synthesizer you can play around with, creating seamless textures that don't look too square-edged or mirrored."

• Teamplay.Net is a newly opened site offering team-oriented competitions. They host four TRIBES servers across the US where they track the histories and statistics of every member and team that plays. Tournaments and leagues are planned soon.
• Registrants in the Professional 3 on 3 Half-Life League who have not received an email regarding teamplay.net, please email ck231@home.com with your team name and number and you will be given a password to enter the tournament.

• Wages of Sin is reviewed on GameSpot UK, snagging an 8/10.
• Tweak3D reviews the Voodoo 3 2000.
• The 4 ATX Case Round Up is up on Hot Hardware.

• ‘Melissa’ virus suspect arrested reports MSNBC. Thanks Kreed. They did not post his email address...
• Another key Mozilla figure departs is a CNN article reporting that John Giannandrea, another key Netscape veteran, has resigned. This hot on the heels of the announcement of Netscape employee No. 20/Mozilla cofounder Jamie Zawinski's surprise resignation (story). Thanks + Raze2k...
• GA-Source's AMD on Class Action Law Suit offers a short comment from AMD on the recently announced Class Action Suit Against AMD, which alleges fraud...

Woo, another dead horse to beat (I have a smelly, but quiet, stable full of them): To follow up on some recent rambles, it turns out Kevin Spacey did a sketch on SNL a few years back playing Christopher Walken auditioning for the part of Han Solo. Matt "Hastur" Dimmic did some digging, and came up with the Spaceyland Listening Booth, where there's a .wav file of this sketch under the heading "Kevin as."