Archived News:
Here's a local copy (and a list
of mirrors) of the Starsiege 1.002 patch (537 KB) released earlier ( story), along with word from Apache about what's new.
This patch addresses the following:
- The memory manager has been improved, and it no longer allocates 200mb of virtual memory
up front
- Fixes some texture cache problems on Voodoo based cards and increases performance
slightly
- Some improvements in OpenGL performance
- Many more resolutions available in OpenGL
- Support for additional OpenGL cards (i740, Savage3D, TNT2)
- 32bit support in OpenGL on the TNT2 chipset
- Save game name == planet name crash bug
- Rogue pilot server crash bug
- Frozen join screen bug
- Infinite join screen ping bug
- Misc. bugs
There's a post on the Epic
MegaBoard from Mark Rein giving the latest update on why the latest update about the release of the Unreal 224 patch was incorrect. Thanks PlanetUnreal. Here's part of the post. Ignore the
part about slinking away with his tail between his legs and shutting up now, he goes on
with more, if you want to go over and read the whole post:
Jackal--> Actually I did say that the patch would be out "later this week"
referring to the end of last week. When I made that statement it certainly looked like a
slam dunk it would be out around the weekend. The whole team was planning two days off
from Unreal Tournament to work exclusively on testing the patch thoroughly. But as the
weekend rolled around it still had some problems that needed to be resolved and retested.
So, I apologize for that. You'd think I would have learned my lesson by now in terms of
letting people know our expectations. I think I'll just slink back into my cave in shame
with my tail between my legs and shut up now.
Not one, not two, but three posts of addenda to rules of contests (one of them our own!):
- First, the addendum to out Icon Contest. It turns out that the IE5 icon can be 32x32
under circumstances (blame loony for making me think my original 32x32 posting was wrong),
so it causes a bit of a change in our Icon contest. We'll award a prize for both the best
16x16 and the best 32 by 32 Icon. Also, it turns out the better format is Icon format
(blame me for that one -- I'll be sure to run the next contest through more rigorous
quality assurance before posting it). Thanks Red-Death for the clarification about the
icons, as well as the helpful link to WinFiles.com Windows 95-98 Icon
Editing Tools. Sorry about the messiness. I will convert any .bmps we've already received
to .ico files, and of course, anyone who wants to redo their own and resubmit it is
welcome. Entries go to contest@bluesnews.com.
- Second, The Q2PMP has posted a LoveDoll
contest update with word from Paul Steed clarifying the rules about what kind of models
will qualify to win.
- Finally (quite the day for these), Epic's Mark Rein sent along this announcement about changes to
the Unreal Level Design Contest. Here's the conclusion:
It will probably take us a week or two to haggle with the lawyers over the
updated legal language and get the site changed over. This is going to be an AWESOME
contest. It's hard to keep everyone happy but we're trying our best. I'd like to thanks
those individuals whose feedback helped us to make this a better contest - you know who
you are.
A new version 1.002 patch for Starsiege (not Starsiege: TRIBES) is now available. No word
yet on what the patch does (there's no word as of this writing on The Starsiege Universe), but the patch is up
on this page posted by the
fine file-loving folks over at 3DFiles.com.
The Sierra HomeWorld
site has been updated with three new screenshots, as well as a pair of units
for their unit viewer (that are on magazine CDs this month, so you may already
have them). Also, HomeWorld.org is reporting
that the beta should be available today...stay tuned.
The Interplay Descent 3 page
has been updated with their weapons of the week. This week there's two new weapons:
the Plasma Cannon, and the EMD Cannon, and each has a downloadable MPEG movie
showing off their stuff. Also, if you entered Interplay's In
Your Face Contest, be sure to run by there and verify your entry, as there's
only three weeks left (thanks to The
Descent Chronicles for that one).
Couple of ION bits for you today...SS-Messiah is the winner of Week 4 of the Daikatana DM Tournament, and he'll be joining with R-Gauss, SS-Valdez, and Grindage in their trip down to Dallas, TX for the finals, where they'll deathmatch against The Romero. To celebrate his glorious victory, they've posted an interview with Messiah over at ActionXtreme.
Monolith's Mike Dussault updated
his .plan with a massive update on the status of LithTech 2, the next version
of the engine that powered Shogo and Blood 2, and will be behind Third Law Interactive's
KISS: Psycho Circus title. Here are a few memorable quotes: Support for
32-bit textures and screen surfaces has been in for a while. I'm very happy
with the way it's structured.. all the color conversion code was strewn out
before but now it is cenralized, clean, and simple. It's definitely better to
be using 32-bit textures and a 16-bit screen than 16-bit textures and a 32-bit
screen.
We have a SoftImage terrain exporter now. This is a huge leap over the previous
way we made terrains. It's much faster and easier to texture and manipulate the terrains in Soft.
There are some new tricks the preprocessor does to optimize the terrains. It
can sometimes strip out 65% of the polies on the terrain with no noticeable difference.Detail textures really enhance
the look of our terrain. It really makes the texture on the terrain look larger
and more detailed. The goods...
The model lighting is much more accurate now. Models can be lit accurately
from lights placed in the environment, so you can get nice subtle bits of light all over them.We're playing around with
different blending modes that work well for things like the sun and clouds passing
overhead.
Proving that three years without a new PC title doesn't hurt his ability to
score headlines, here's a bunch of Duke Nukem related news for you on this Tuesday
afternoon. IGN64 hasn't posted any new screenshots,
movies, or sound clips from the upcoming N64 Duke game Zero Hour, but they do
have... the box art. Woo! (Actually,
sarcasm aside, it does look pretty nice...it's nice to see another original
Duke painting after all the times they've reused the original Duke 3D cover art.)
Redchurch has posted an
interview with Lee Jackson, talking to the music and sound guy behind Duke
3D...and swing by the recently launched Gamesplayer.com
for an editorial
on why Duke Nukem is the best first person shooter of all time (although take
it with a grain of salt, considering the author is a Mac user, and admits to
never having played Half-Life).
Aztech New Media Restructures is a
press release from a few days ago that describes reorganizations at this software company,
but buried in the bottom of the release is word of a new commercial add-on for the
upcoming sequel to Rainbow Six. Aztec is also working on add-ons for Starcraft, Urban
Assault, and Shogo: Mobile Armor Division. Here's a quote from the announcement:
"Aztech is honoured to be associated with Red Storm and the Tom Clancy
brand," said Christopher Seepe, Aztech CEO and Chairman. "Tom Clancy is a
worldwide recognizable symbol for quality and accurate detail in adventure novels, and the
sequel will be an exciting addition to our expanding line of licensed add-on and
enhancement products for best-selling computer games."
Seepe said Aztech has been granted a worldwide exclusive license. The title of Red Storm's
Rainbow Six sequel game has not yet been finalized. Aztech's Rainbow Six sequel expansion
pack is expected to be released in the early Fourth Quarter of 1999.
Monolith has released the tools and game source for Blood2 to allow mod authors to get
their hands on some of the inner workings of the game. The files can be downloaded at The LithTech Game Modifications page.
Interplay Announces
FreeSpace 2 is the press release announcing the sequel to Descent FreeSpace: the Great
War. If you missed it, we posted a new screenshot from FreeSpace 2 yesterday ( story). Here's some of the lowdown from the press release on the game,
due in Winter 1999:
IRVINE, Calif., April 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Interplay Entertainment Corp. (Nasdaq: IPLY - news) announced today the plan to release
the sequel to the highly acclaimed Descent FreeSpace: The Great War(TM) entitled FreeSpace
2(TM). Developed by Volition, Inc., FreeSpace 2 will offer players significant new
gameplay advances, including the most engaging dogfighting ever seen in a space combat
simulation, all new single and multiplayer missions, and immersive nebula effects that
will add an all new dimension to the space combat genre.
"Our goal for FreeSpace 2 is to set a new standard in both multiplayer and
single-player space combat-sims, encompassing heart-pounding dogfights and spectacular
visual effects," stated Mike Kulas, President of Volition and one of the creators of
the award winning Descent I and II.
Adding to the excitement, FreeSpace 2 will feature a variety of multiplayer options
appealing to both deathmatch and teamplay crowds. Fans of the original will again relish
the real-time, in-game voice messaging that allows players to taunt their opponents or
strategize with their allies via a simple microphone and multi-play connection. FreeSpace
gamers may also design their own custom missions using the FreeSpace Mission Editor 2
(FRED 2) shipped with the full retail version of the game.
Through the Looking Glass has a lengthy discussion of some of the planned features from Looking Glass Studios' upcoming System Shock 2, the sequel to the cult-favorite first-person action/RPG. The article is based on some recent debates on the newsgroups in which the game's developers participated.
Activision Gets Weighty With
Heavy Gear 2 is a Next-Generation Online
piece discussing plans for Activision's sequel to Heavy Gear with the game's director,
Jack Mamais. Thanks Apache. Here's the answer
to one question that defines the distinction between a Gear and a Mech (as in MechWarrior
III), which he feels defines the difference between the two games:
"Personally, I don't consider MechWarrior 3 to be a direct
competitor. They are using mecha that have huge scale. They are capable of
withstanding enormous amounts of damage and still remain walking. Heavy Gear 2, on
the other hand, is much more fast-paced. Your gear is very agile and you'll have to use
those abilities to keep you out of danger. I guess you could say piloting a mech is like
driving a battleship, and a gear is like a PT boat."
GameGirlz interviews Harvey
Smith talking to ION Storm's Witchdoctor about his work on ION's upcoming Deus Ex.
A correction to the warning posted yesterday ( story) about the just-released Expendable demo from Rage ( story), comes from Peter over at Rage, who corrected my interpretation
of the warning:
The problem you report only occurs when using a 3D accelerator card with a 2D
card where the 2D card has no 3D component of its own (such as the S3 trio) this should
only affect older cards.
The demo should be fine when used on a Voodoo 1 or 2 card with most graphics cards, such
as Matrox Mystique etc. which do include some degree of 3D component
As you say, this problem has been fixed on the full version.
QuakeStarter's Official HomePage has a new version 0.69b of the QuakeStarter Quake II front-end. They are poised to quickly put in the features required to support the Q3ATest when released to be the first Q3A front-end.
Eff Pee '99 (Fragapalooza '99) has been
announced, for mid-August in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Details are on their page, and
more LAN events than you can shake an RJ-45 at are listed on our LAN Parties page.
- HardwareCentral's Ultimate
PC Giveaway is giving away a $7,500 PIII system.
- The QuakeCity Network is giving away a pair
of copies of TeamEvolve's Red Odyssey add-on for BattleZone in exchange for filling out
their poll.
- A reminder about our own contest, which is to design a new IE5 favorites icon for Blue's
News. I believe the .bmp format icons are supposed to be 32x32, but the only real
rule will be whatever looks the best when it is installed. Deadline will be Friday April
23, 1999, at 11:59 PM. Send all entries to contest@bluesnews.com.
Good luck to all who enter. (I originally wrote last week as the deadline when I first
posted this yesterday, sorry about that).
- Levelord posted a little explanation in his .plan about our previous
(guess the photo) contest for the many who wanted the real story behind the
shot.
- FPS Spectator's Julios Interview is up, talking to the man they call the Evil Knievel of Quake II...
- Hyperionics has released a new version of the HyperSnap screenshot utility that offers improved visual quality. Thanks DemoNews...
- The Team Fortress Classic Webring is underway...
- 30 new textures have been added to EZStudios' texture collections for level designers...
- GetRight.Com has a new version 3.34 of this utility that takes some of the nightmare out of large downloads by allowing you to resume after problems, even on HTTP downloads. Thanks Von...
- The Dteam 3D Design Guild has posted a new PainKeep (classic Quake 1 mod) map, along with a Reaper bot for PainKeep dealie to play on it. Speaking of mappers, Happy Birthday to Dan "danimal" Proietti, co-author of DaPak (there's a first look at danimal's new Quake II project on Ramshackle)...
No time to ramble (stop cheering!), I got a later than usual start on the news the past
two days as I force my schedule around a bit so that it integrates better with Loony's.
I've gotten a couple of questions about the links page lately, luckily I have good news to
report on that, which is it is in the process of a complete overhaul, to be completed, of
course, when it's done.
Link of the Day: Sandia National
Laboratories. As James, who sent this along, points out, "Two words came
immediately to mind: Black Mesa."
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