Archived News:
Apache sends word of two3D RPG
titles previewed over at pc.ign.com. There's
a look at Wheel of Time,
with lots of quotes from the game's designers, and a preview
of Anachronox that features quotes from Tom Hall.
Rex from AVault sends word that they've
posted
a new patch for Accolade's first person shooter Redline. The 9 meg update
has a bunch of fixes and new features, so here's a list:
- 4 new multiplayer deathmatch arenas: Deathdome, Denizone, Octotron, Toxicorp
Outpost
- 1 new multiplayer CTF arena: Slaughterhouse CTF
- Increased multiplayer Client and Server stability
- Fix for compatability issues on newer Gateway machines
- Fixes other minor installer and hardware related issues
In other Accolade news, Billy "giant hulking robot" Wilson has posted a new screenshot from their upcoming robo-fest Slave Zero over on that page of his.
Afflicted.net has some news about
Cavedog's upcoming first person shooter
Amen, including a new screenshot from the game's editor (Eden) as well as word
that the game will only be supporting Direct3D, ending any speculation regarding
OpenGL support (thanks Dyno).
If you can't stand the wait for the Windows Q3Test, and feel like you absolutely
have to take a peek at Paul Steed's models with Kenneth Scott's skins, check
out this Quake
3 Model viewer for Windows. This Win32 program will let you look at the
models from the Win32 server in all their OpenGL glory. The source code is included
under the GNU license, so it's only a matter of time before a Linux port is
made available for those non-Windows people out there.
Apache sends word of some new Half-Life
editing tutorials: swing by Wavelength
for a tutorial on weapon modifications, and the Half-Life
Editing Resource Center has a tutorial
on recreating the "Rustmill Effect," referring to the tricks used
in the Rustmill map.
It's day two of GameSpot
UK's Quake 3: Arena Week, and they've got a bunch of stuff up for your reading
enjoyment. Check out some new
screenshots, an
overview of the weapons, a
talk with John Cash about the AI, and more.
GA-Source has posted nine
new screenshots from the upcoming Blood 2 add-on, Revelations, as well as
a development
update from Tequilla Software.
Here's two id Software .plan updates for you this morning: John Carmack updated
his .plan with his latest work log, for those of you who can actually understand
these things. Also, Christian Antkow updated
his .plan with a small rant that's worth reading if you're currently playing
Q3Test...here's a clip to get you going:
Ok, when someone is facing a wall, isn't moving, and has a talk bubble
over
their head...DON'T SHOOT AT THEM!!!
It means they;
a) Hit T to talk and are typing in something to say
b) Are in the console doing something
...and they can't defend themselves. People who consistently kill peoplewith
talk bubbles (and I don't mean the type of people who hit you once out of reflex,
and politely say "Sorry" either) over their heads (heretofore known
as "Typer Killers") are sub-amoeba lifeforms IMO. It's really frustrating
trying to talk to people on servers soliciting feedback, and having my ass blown
back to Canada (Hi Mom) every time I'm typing something.
Next Generation Online has posted the online version of the
interview they conducted with John Carmack that was published in the February edition
of their print magazine (thanks Hostage). Since it went up (and is dated) yesterday, I
don't know why they say it is "on the eve of the release of Quake 3 Test for
Mac," but either way the piece contains a load of info, both general stuff, as well as some
technically-oriented bits. This question in particular is one I've often pondered
myself:
NG: Do you ever see yourself getting bored of game programming?
John: That was a big issue early on at Id. There was a fear that I would be bored
and go off to do something weird in operating systems research or something. When Mark
Rein was our president, there was actually a discussion about me signing a contract saying
I'd stay for a certain amount of time. But it turned out that I've been able to find so
many interesting things just in the context of games. Things like all the low-level
programming on the consoles, where you're doing everything from the ground up. I
retargeted the C compiler to the Jaguar, I've written new linkers, and all the stuff I've
learned about networking and different communications things. It's been a lot of
fun.
The Q2PMP has posted a Visor toy
reference pic, similar to the shots
and sheet for the Slash model we posted yesterday, giving a comprehensive look at the
Visor model from a whole bunch of angles.
HardOCP has posted an interview with 3DRealms' George
Broussard called "21 questions with..." In answering all 21 queries (less than
10% of them about boobs), George gives some skinny on what's planned for Duke Nukem
Forever.
Computer
Games Online's first look at MacQ3ATest gives their early lowdown on the new release,
declaring "Gosh, it sure is pretty!"
The Game Info page on Deus Ex Incarnate has been updated with
the latest skinny on ION's upcoming game culled from info posted on the ION Storm BB.
Similarly, the Rainbow Six Retreat's
Rogue Spear Sneak Peak offers all the info that they have been able to collect about
this upcoming sequel to Rainbow Six, much of it from the recent PC Gamer preview.
The
Adrenaline Vault's preview of Starlancer is up looking at this upcoming space shooter
from Microsoft/Digital Anvil. Thanks Killjoy.
ThunderWalker CTF's House of Fixins has a new
beta version 5.5 of ThunderWalker CTF (thanks Merlin_[F8S]). The new release is for
QuakeWorld only, and only servers need to install the update.
Frogbot's Modifications page has a new
Frogbot 0.13 test version enhancing the AI in this Quake 1 playmate.
Version 1.3 of the Gateway Mod, that allows
Quake II server operators to link to each other through special teleporters, is now
available.
Kokak's Heretic Page has
GL Heretic beta 0.1 for download. With the port now in beta, according to the page:
"All the features from the original Heretic should be present. The game should be
normally playable. But a lot of bugs may occur..." Thanks Adam Christopher Lawrence
for the reminder on this bit sent in already by Billy
"Kick in the Jimmies" Wilson."
The recently relocated chUmbaLum sOft
has posted a new version 1.1 of their OpenGL model viewer for Half-Life, and a new version
1.3 of their OpenGL model viewer for Quake II offering new features and fixes for both
programs.
- More mainstream press on violence and media is in this week's print issue of Time
Magazine. Thanks Eric McGrane. There's also an Adrenaline Vault
Editorial on the subject, also with extensive follow-up commentary on their news-based messageboard...
- Afflicted.Net has posted an update that
mentions that Jay "Shade" Wilson has departed Monolith to join the team at
Cavedog working on Amen: The Awakening...
- Two sets of beta testers wanted: BarrysWorld Proxy Page is
looking for testers for this Quake II proxy project. Also, the Game Guru Gold Homepage is looking for beta testers
for a "universal game front-end"...
- Red Hat Linux 6.0 is now available...
Today marks my first planned day off from this site in close to three years, as I plan to
devote some time to my two best gals (to get all Jimmy Stewart-ish), spending the day with
MailBag contributor MamaBlue, and the evening with Mrs.Blue as we celebrate our wedding
anniversary. With loony well in the swing of things, I thought the occasion of our
anniversary is an appropriate chance to give the gift of some time to my wife, whose
patience and support are the driving forces behind this site. I hope you will give loony
the same support that you've shown me (on second thought...no, okay, that should work),
and of course, please remember to send news to news@bluesnews.com,
saving my blue@... address for personal feedback, hate mail etc., meant specifically for
me. If you're mailing in, while you're at it you can offer suggestions for Jason to use
for the title of this space tomorrow (he's mentioned "Out of the loon," but the
thought makes me gag, hopefully inspiration will strike). Oh yeah, word is the reloading
bug is better for many, but not completely gone, so the bug hunt continues.
Link of the day: CNN - New blue
hue for ewe (thanks Nathan Phillips). I swear I was nowhere near that flocking flock.
I'll take a blood test!!
SConfig's Q3Test screenshots page
has a Quicktime movie showing off all the various weapons in high, medium, and
low bandwidth versions. If you don't have access to a Mac, this may be the closest
you'll get until it's released for other platforms. The site also mentions a second movie, showing off some Internet gameplay that will be released soon.
Zephyr over at WON.net sends word that a new
version of WON Swap, their Half-Life
downloading utility has been released. Here's what's new in this version:
- We now support Half-Life maps with multiple files.
- Fixes International install and US install problems
- Fixes the HUGE model bug that made users unable to download half of the
Half-Life models (I wanted to say quarter of them for a second).
- Multiple maps and spray paints can be put into a download
- We now serve ads better, which means no more waiting for the ad to show
before the download starts if the ad server is down.
- Lots more bug fixes!!!
Those crazy kids at Legend have updated the official
Wheel of Time page with the latest on their Unreal-engine title (thanks
"Big bad" Billy Wilson). In this
week's thrilling episode, there's some details on what they'll be showing at
E3 this year, as well as some scans from the WoT ads that are running in this
month's Computer Gaming World.
Just when you thought Macs were only good for Q3Test, MacLedge
is reporting that Interplay has signed a deal with Graphic Simulations Corporation
to port Baldur's Gate, Descent 3, and an undisclosed third title. Descent is
scheduled for a June release, with Baldur's Gate coming in September (thanks
Scandalon).
Chris O'Brian of the A-Team sends
along word that Halflife.org has posted
four screenshots from the upcoming Half-Life mod, Action Half-life This is,
you may recall, the HL version of Action Quake, the popular Quake 2 mod.
John Carmack made yet
another .plan update (makes me all nostalgic. *sniff*) with information
on how to interpret that funky lagometer in Q3Test, as well as some tips for
optimizing your connection.
Buy, today really is heavy on the interviews, here are another pair: The Hive interviews
Rogue's Jim Molinets, kicking off with the non-sequitorial question "Give us a bio of
who you are and what you do at Stomped" (Stomped?). Also, the second BeerF*ck
interview of the day is online, as there's an interview with Levelord on
U-Games with more Q&A with his Lo'ness.
Ritualistic has broken the news that
Ritual's upcoming FAKK2 will be using the Quake III engine, according to a revelation on
page 109 of the June issue of Computer Gaming World
magazine (I received a report of this a couple of days ago, but have been unable to find
an early edition of the mag for a confirmation). According to the blurb, the CGW piece
also includes a small screenshot.
The Unofficial Tribes FAQ
on Planet-Tribes has been updated.
Thanks Planet Starsiege. Also seen on Planet-Tribes, there are four new maps
on Dopplegangers.com
Tribes Archive (only server operators need to run custom maps, clients just connect as
usual) as well as news there on how snipers can use SnipeHud to achieve a 400x zoom (seems
like 20X usually strains the limits of line-of-sight anyway).
Beta Release 0.13r009 of the Crystal Space Free
3D Engine is now available (thanks Billy
"Crystal" Wilson). Here's the lowdown from the site on what this engine
does:
Crystal Space is a free (LGPL) and portable 3D engine written in C++. It
supports true 6DOF, colored lights, mipmapping, portals, mirrors, alpha transparency,
reflecting surfaces, 3D sprites, scripting, 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit display support,
Direct3D hardware acceleration on Windows, Glide and OpenGL hardware acceleration on
Windows and Linux, ... See the extensive list of features for more
details.
The interviews keep rolling in today: QuakeCity Gaming Network interviews Levelord talking to the man also affectionately known as BeerF*ck about life after Sin (not that I have any doubts about his lo'ness failing to sin even after the
game's completion), which includes his work on Ritual's next project, FAKK2 (or
F.A.K.K.2), based on the upcoming Heavy Metal movie of the same name.
Voices From The
Hellmouth is the name of an article on Slashdot.org
that chronicles the backlash against gamers and geeks alike since the shootings
in Colorado (see this week's mailbag for some reader comments on the issue).
Here's one eye-opening comment from a fellow-gamer: "It was horrible,
definitely," e-mailed Bandy from New York City. "I'm a Quake freak,
I play it day and night. I'm really into it. I play Doom a lot too, though not
so much anymore. I'm up till 3 a.m. every night. I really love it. But after
Colorado, things got horrible. People were actually talking to me like I could
come in and kill them. It wasn't like they were really afraid of me - they just
seemed to think it was okay to hate me even more? People asked me if I had guns
at home. This is a whole new level of exclusion, another excuse for the preppies
of the universe to put down and isolate people like me."
Here's a pair of updates regarding Eidos
Interactive's Omikron: The Nomad Soul for you this afternoon: first up are
three screenshots we've posted, and next comes word by way of GASource
that none other than David Bowie may be writing the soundtrack to this third-person title. Even cooler is the rumor that he may show up at Eidos' party at E3...now there's a place to be.
Yep...it's a Monday, so I'm breaking my neck getting you a new issue of loonygames.
Here's the dirt on what to expect this week: Hey! Get offa that! That's
an issue of loonygames you're sleeping on!
Startling you this week:
- Waking Graeme Devine: Jason "loonyboi" Bergman chats with Graeme
Devine,
the "new guy" over at id Software, about Quake 3: Arena, 7th Guest...and
Pole Position? [Monday]
- Pixel Obscura: Josh Vasquez checks out Blade Runner! [Tuesday]
- Penny Arcade: The kids vent their Mac-fuled anger. [Wednesday]
- Painting on Polygons: Rick Grossenbacher delivers part two of his "Making
a Space Scene" tutorial! [Wednesday]
- PLUS: Another Penny Arcade [Friday], a new edition of Thinking Outside
the
Box [Tuesday], Dark Vengence reviewed [Thursday] and lots more! And then
some more, because we don't sleep...we rock.
GamePen interviews Kenn
Hoekstra, Brian Raffel, and Brian Pelletier in a Q&A where Geoff Keighley talks to
the trio of Ravens about their upcoming projects, focusing specifically on Soldier of
Fortune.
GameSpot UK has kicked off their Quake
3: Arena week with a quick overview of the expected Q3 single player game,
and a new interview with John Carmack. The interview focuses on the single player
gameplay, rather than more technology type questions, making it actually readable
for those of us who can't program our way out of a cardboard box (a rare thing
in a Carmack interview). Thanks Apache.
id Designer Graeme Devine updated his .plan with word on known bugs in the MacQ3ATest release and the Win32 server (that have been reported more than once). If you're having difficulties you can see if your problem is on the list, and there are instructions on reporting unlisted bugs.
ATI Technologies Beta Drivers
page has a new version 6.11.1 CD15 of their OpenGL Installable Client Driver for the
Rage 128 for Windows 95/98 systems. The pre-release beta drivers are offered "without
warranty of any kind," for testing purposes, and ATI does "not recommend
installing beta software in systems used for productivity of any kind." Thanks
Michael Pappas.
There's a Blood 2
Revelations Update on GA-Source with word from
Tequila Software about the status of their upcoming Blood mission pack: Revelations. Word
is the levels are about 75% complete, and the update offers a screenshot of the
Revelations launcher front-end they've cooked up for the add-on.
The QuakeFinder page home of the Mac server browsers QuakeFinder and UnrealFinder has launched Q3Finder, their Quake III Arena server browser which allows Mac users to find servers playing the Q3ATest. The release is
described as "freeware and unsupported."
Ooops, this almost fell between the cracks here, the Blade Screenshots page has some
new shots of this upcoming game from Rebel Act Studios that they say they'll be showing
off at this year's E3. Thanks Sharky for the
news, and WiseFox for the reminder.
No, these are not MacQ3ATest shots, but rather a brand new pair of exclusive shots and a character sheet sent along by Paul Steed showing off an external view of a new female character he's just finished up. The shots are from the
third-person (as Paul put it "Note the pimped out 3rd person view John threw in,"), and the accompanying toy character sheet give a great view of what the model looks like from many
angles (I do believe those are ice-skates on her feet).
"this is a character I just finished up. Skin is courtesy Kenneth
Scott. The level is Q3Test2 by Brandon James with art by those wacky owner artists, Kevin
and Adrian. Note the pimped out 3rd person view John threw in. The reference sheet is
something I did up for all the characters for the toy company to use as a model
sheet."
Also, The Q2PMP has posted a bunch of
shots of the Visor model that is included in the test release shot with an OpenGL
compatible model viewer they will release when the PC Q3ATest is available, and there are
a load of MacQ3ATest shots on
Screenshots.net.
Old-timers will recall the original .plan file (well, after help@idsoftware.com) was John
Carmack's .plan-based worklog, which detailed his todo list for Quake programming. Now, Mr. C's
latest .plan update offers the return of his work log, giving the lowdown on what he's
working on for Quake III Arena. Here's the update (I took the liberty of replacing the
asterisks with bullets for ease of reading):
- converted cvar allocation to indexes to allow range checking
- cgame converted over to use vmCvar_t instead of cvar_t needed for interpreted cgame
- fixed server crashing string bug
- adjusted scoreboard for 8 players
- show hostname on connection screen
- fixed null model warning on startup
- more space for hostname on local servers screen
- fixed mac Open Transport memory buffer bug
this was causing most of the mac crashes
- made Info_ValueForKey() case insensitive
- sv_privateClients, sv_privatePassword
this allows you to reserve slots on a
public server for password access while
allowing most to be freely available
- "server is full" message on connect screen
- archive handicap in config file
- cheat protect r_nocurves
- byte order independent zip checksum
- removed cl_stereo, use glConfig.stereoEnabled
The House of Payne is reporting that Max Payne, one of my favorite games from last year's E3, will not be demonstrated at this year's show (contrary to a recent report that it would be one of the games shown off there by the Gathering of Developers). Remedy's decision is similar to the one that 3DRealms recently announced about not showing Duke Nukem Forever and Prey at E3, talking of concentrating on the game's development instead. Word is that there will still be some Payne to check out
at the show, in the form of a movie showing off gameplay.
10 Questions With SamHell interviews Ryan
"Ridah" Feltrin about his work as a programmer at Xatrix on Kingpin: Life of
Crime, his Eraser bot for Quake II, as well as issues of the day.
Computer
Games Online previews Shadow Man looking ahead at Acclaim's planned third-person
action game based on the Voodoo-powered comic hero, which they say "offers up
psychosexual pathology with a Cajun twist."
A new version 6.06 of the Weapons of
Destruction for Quake II mod is now available offering mostly gameplay tweaks and
changes, as well as improved ZBot detection. Thanks Old man from scene 24.
The Clan World League has announced new leagues for Jedi Knight Sabers, Star Craft, Rainbow 6, Quake 2, Half Life, and Starsiege:
TRIBES consisting of 12 week seasons plus play-offs.
- Lots of folks have been writing in concerned that Frag.Com
has gone the way of the dodo, but never fear, the shutdown message they're displaying is
in error (it's the note posted when Processed.Net shutdown), and once the problems they're
having clear up, normal operations should resume. In the meantime, while their hosted
domains are accessible, their hosted sites without their own domains remain temporarily
unavailable...
- Dawn of Darkness The Demo, a Hint
Guide is online...
- Yesterday's
User Friendly Comic plays with the possible torture that could occur from the
convergence of a certain game test release with the opening day of a certain movie...
Mail about the Colorado shootings continues to pour in, yesterday's MailBag
even had my mom check in on the subject. I'm told last night's 60 Minutes focused
on violence in games and movies and their effects on children (apparently one segment even
featured Quake, thanks kill-9). I'm curious enough that I want to order the transcript of
the show to see how that was handled.
I think I found the odd glitch that was causing the page to reload for some.
Since it wasn't occurring on my system, I'd appreciate hearing from folks who experienced
the problem in the past to find out if it's fixed now.
Link of the Day: Almost-live images to
drive any geek wild! That's right, geek-porn. Thanks Ant.
Just make sure you wear your pocket protector!
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