In honor of Team Fortress Quake's third birthday, Valve has released some new Team Fortress 2 materials to show off the upcoming descendant of that original Quake mod. I almost though the anniversary would pass before I could eek them through the FTP, but having done so, here are four movies in MPG format: Ammoload (3.3 MB), Combo (6.7 MB), Tank (3.7 MB), and Voicecomm (4.5 MB), as well as three new screenshots. Enjoy!

Sixxo was kind enough to send along an edited log of the MSN Gaming Zone Chat from earlier (story) with Alex Garden (Homeworld); Mark Frohnmayer (TRIBES/TRIBES2); and Tim Znamenacek (Age of Empires). Here's the edited log of the proceedings. Thanks again Sixxo!

Painful Detail interviews Shane Caudle of Epic Games about his work on their Unreal, and the upcoming Unreal Tournament as a Level Designer, Modeler, and Artist.

Bleem Claims Another Victory is a Gamecenter article detailing the latest round of legal hassles between Sony and the makers of the bleem! PlayStation emulator. According to the article, the latest legal hurdle the bleem! folks have cleared is the point at which Sony was able to stop Connectix and their Mac PSX emu software.

Looks like Half-Life Opposing Force, Gearbox' upcoming H-L add-on will be debuting at the beginning of next month on both sides of the Atlantic. Randy Pitchford's .plan file has word that Gearbox Art Director Brian Martel "drew the short straw" so he's going to be at the show in London doing demos of Half-Life: Opposing Force "for all the hungry Euro press." Also, word on the Ground Zero Exhibitors page is that "Gearbox Software will be at Ground ZERO, showing the first public demo of Opposing Force." ECTS is September 5-7 in London, and Ground Zero is September 9-12 in in NYC.

Drakan.Net has posted a Lucy and Ethel scheme to work some rebate magic to score a copy of Drakan: Order of the Flame for $23.00. So if you're a thrifty gamer that longs to ride a dragon, roll up some pennies and head on over to find out the scoop.

The Wheel of Time page has had one of its periodic updates, confirming that the game indeed does now play straight through from beginning to end, "with some notable placeholder material naturally,"talk of a smooth transition to "the new 300 version of the Unreal engine," and shows off some neat WoT swag, a crystal encased clock.

On the heels of the RUNE shots posted earlier (story), The Adrenaline Vault News has posted word that Human Head plans on showing off Ragnar, the main character from their upcoming Unreal-engine Viking game, at next month's ECTS in London.

A Talent For War sends word of a screenshot they've posted of one of the ships from Parsec, an upcoming space sim, along with some new info about the differentiation between ships in the game.

Word from Chris at GLSetup is that they are switching servers over the next couple of days, so if the server is wonky for a while when you try using their utility to update your video drivers, it should settle down soon. Word is they will have a new release by the end of the month (hopefully this server move will have settled in by then).

Another story on the MacUnreal/UT front that's been a bit busy these past couple of days: A post a while back on Inside Mac Games Newsbriefs (scroll down the page) has some QuickTime VR shots from a beta of MacUnreal Tournament that will allow you experience levels in the game to turn your browser into a holodeck! Okay, you're right in not believing me about the holodeck part, but it does use that neat QuickTime VR stuff to let you see panoramic views, and even get a sense for the snazzy lighting effect on the barrel of the weapon. The shots are: Codex1, Galleon, Gothic, and Metaldreams.

The NOP website has version 2.0 of NOP, a Java stats tool for Q3Test. Here is a short list of features from their main page, their Info page has more details:

• win/linux/mac version available
• output is fully customizable
• multiple logfile support
• does not lag q3-servers
• use it to ftp your htmls or run a command
• includes cgi for html-database access

Monolith Programmer Mike Dussault updated his .plan with talk of seeing Ministry, email, and LithTech2 programming, which is, of course, the part quoted below:

The first iteration of the terrain functionality is in now. Wes has been busting out cool terrain levels for a while
and everything is proceeding smoothly. I know I will have to revisit terrain a couple times in the next couple months to get it better and better, but the hardest part is over.

As part of the terrain work, the engine's top-level search structure is a quadtree instead of a BSP tree now. (Changing to an octree is very easy, but we don't need it for NOLF). This comes in handy, is faster for certain operations, and handles non-indoor games better than a BSP as well, so I'm glad this got in.

While working on model LOD, I found a way to rework the skeletal animation loop to be MUCH faster. I can't believe I missed this before.. it was so obvious, but it's a relief to have the LT2 models rendering at the speed one would expect.

I'm very pleased with the way the model LOD came out. It's much simpler than the Shogo method (which was similar to Intel MRM) and is a lot more efficient. In the game, we will be using a set LOD offset for each GAME detail level (ultra-high, high, medium, low), and the animators can tweak out what each version will look like. The transitions between LODs are smoothed out so you can only tell it's doing LOD if you really look hard.

The model rendering will get another pass in the not too distant future, and I'm expecting even more performance gains. Sometimes this kind of thing bites me in the ass though.. envision this scenario, "I am specifying 1/3 of the vertices as before, but it renders slower!" Or how about, "I removed 20% of the transforms, but it renders slower!" There are those who say there's a reason for everything, and there are those who use 3D APIs...

Primary things left to address for LT2 (I'm leaving these extremely general because I'm sure I'll end up doing the exact opposite of whatever I say here :)
- Lighting enhancements
- Networking
- Mods
- More model optimizations
- More terrain optimizations
- General renderer optimizations.. I have some ideas that I'm very excited about

RainbowSix.Net has word that Red Storm Entertainment has released the intro movie to Rogue Spear, which can be downloaded directly from Red Storm's FTP site. The movie a 35 MB mpeg file.

Fox Interactive Announces Exclusive Development Deal With Monolith Productions is the press release announcing that Fox will be distributing Sanity and No One Lives Forever (working title), and that Monolith will be developing PC and PlayStation 2 titles for Fox using their proprietary LithTech technology. Here's most of the announcement:

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 24, 1999--Fox Interactive Tuesday announced an exclusive long-term deal with Monolith Productions Inc., a Kirkland, Wash.-based company, to develop interactive games.

As part of the deal, Fox Interactive will publish and distribute two upcoming Monolith titles -- Sanity and No One Lives Forever (working title). Monolith will also develop games based on Fox properties for the PC and PlayStation 2 platforms utilizing their proprietary Lith Tech 3D Engine.

"We are excited to be partnering with Monolith as they are one of the most sought-after companies in the game-development community. They are a group of talented designers who are matched with a leading proprietary technology -- that's a winning combination in this business," said Eric Hammond, vice president of development at Fox Interactive. "We are looking forward to joining our talented teams to create truly unique games."

"Everyone at Monolith is thrilled to be working with Fox Interactive on both our original titles, No One Lives Forever and Sanity, as well as the many potential Fox properties and licenses," commented Monolith CEO Jason Hall. "Monolith brings to Fox a proven track record of critically acclaimed products as well as cutting-edge 3D technology. When combined with Fox's strong original content and marketing muscle, the result is sure to be a wildly successful alliance."

The Aliens Versus Predator on Wireplay page now has a patch to allow users to play Aliens versus Predator on this UK-based gaming service, the end-result of a recent petition by overseas users who could not effectively use Mplayer to play. Thanks FuzzySteve.

Saw on UnrealEngine.com News the Human Head site has been updated with some new screenshots of RUNE, Human Head's upcoming Unreal-engine game of Viking fun, you know, sailing, wearing helmets with horns on them, pillaging, that sort of thing.

Westlake Interactive has posted a beta 7 update for MacUnreal version 224. This version only works with a previous MacUnreal 224 beta already installed. Word is there is no new code since beta 6, this is just a re-compiled version "repackaged to fix problems some people had with B5/B6 crashing immediately on startup." The folks over at WI recently posted an essay on the state of the MacUnreal port and tech support issues that were causing them problems, beta MacUnreal users who missed it might want to give it a read.

Saying the "Ubi Soft-Mirage Media Soap Opera Continues," The Adrenaline Vault News, where they have been keeping close tabs on this story, has more on the ongoing efforts to find a publisher for Mortyr, the World War II first-person shooter that's been sort of a gaming orphan since it was included as part of a package of games acquired by Ubi-Soft in a deal a while back with Interactive Magic.

The Adrenaline Vault Downloads has an updated version 1.51 patch for Bullfrog's game that gives creating a finished basement a whole new meaning. The update is available as a 1.1 MB patch for version 1.5, or as a full 11-some MB jobbie to update the original retail version that includes the "bonus packs." Version 1.51 is said to fix some bugs introduced with the recent 1.5 patch.

Word from the MSN Gaming Zone is that they will be hosting a developer chat this evening with not one, not two, but (yup) three noted developers, working on completely separate titles, rounding up Alex Garden (Homeworld); Mark Frohnmayer (TRIBES/TRIBES2); and Tim Znamenacek (Age of Empires). Here's the poop on the chat, scheduled for 9:00 PM EDT tonight:

Microsoft today announced that at 6:00pm PDT tonight, Tuesday August 24, the MSN Gaming Zone (http://www.zone.com) will host a Super Chat with some of the hottest game developers: Alex Garden, co-creator of Homeworld; Mark Frohnmayer, programming lead for Tribes and Tribes 2; and Tim Znamenacek, program manager of Age of Empires.

Have you always wanted a job creating computer games? What does it take to be a professional gamer? Microsoft has gathered a high-power panel of gamers who will tell you what it takes to do what they do. With representatives from Relic Entertainment, Dynamix and Microsoft, the Super Chat is an event that those interested in the gaming industry will not want to miss.

To take part in the Zone's Super Chat, participants must be registered Zone members. To sign up for a free Zone membership, go to:

http://www.zone.com/

Next-Generation Online Take Two Confirms Hidden & Dangerous Sequel says: "Take Two has entered into a publishing agreement with Illusions Softworks and has confirmed Hidden & Dangerous 2 and a Dreamcast version of the original."

On August 24, 1996, Team Fortress Quake 1.0 was released. Planetfortress is planning a special event every day this week to celebrate the third birthday of one of the most enduring Quake mods. Here's the scoop:

Today's Event: The History and Versions of Team Fortress
Come on a journey through time and indulge yourself in a history of TF, Planet Fortress style.

Tomorrow's Event: Valve Interview

Noticed funny things on servers? That is because the servers are running birthday mode! You will often hear special birthday sounds, and see special messages. Grenades will also come out as packages.

• Nvidia up, 3dfx down in graphics fight declares CNET. Thanks CiKoTiC.
• The Ars Technica Celeron Overclocking FAQ has been updated on how to overclock the most fiber out of your celery-powered system.
• On the subject of Celerons, Hard OCP has posted an "explanation of the "Flip Chip" Celeron and if it will in fact make your Socket 370 board useless," as well as some photos "out of the UK showing the unreleased ABIT CX6 Camino chipset board for sale soon in the UK."
• Xatrix' Ryan "Ridah" Feltrin updated his .plan with a warning about the shortcomings of "bargain" TNT2 cards.
• Geoff Stafford points out that an RC3 of DirectX 7 is up on MS' premium site, so it sounds like that's getting closer, as Geoff points out, "Most products don't get past rc3 before going gold."
• There are newer Voodoo3 Windows 2000 INF files on NT Game Palace.
• To hell with other accelerators, I want the Bitchin' Fast 3D 2000! Livin' la Video Loca, baby! Thanks |6iX|Dire Wolf and [DP]Yoda.

The BattleCruiser Online site has a new BCK version 2.08 release candidate posted in their open beta program. Word on that is: "Have you joined the open Beta program for v2.08 yet? If not, visit the New Version discussion forum. v2.08 RC2 is out. Get it, especially if you have a 3Dfx Voodoo card."

SIGGRAPH '99 From a Game Development Perspective is another recent Gamasutra article of interest giving a look back at the the world's biggest computer graphics show that took place last week in Los Angeles. This year's show offered "many special activities [that] reminded attendants of the relevance of computer graphics throughout the last three decades," on the 30th anniversary of the SIGGRAPH organization. Thanks again devilbunny.

There are some new Earth 2150 Screenshots on this German site showing action from a recent beta of this futuristic military RTS. Also, there are some New Age of Empires II Screenshots on GA-Source.

Voodoo Extreme has posted a pair of screenshots from Raven's upcoming Soldier of Fortune depicting the same background when rendered on a Voodoo versus a TNT to show the difference in the appearance of the sky when rendered using 512x512 textures (on the a TNT) rather than 256x256 on a Voodoo.

Gamasutra's Designer's Notebook Reflections on the Colorado School Massacre is another recent article on attempts to correlate incidents of violence involving young people with gaming and the media. The piece is written by Ernest Adams, currently doing game design at Bullfrog Productions, while on on sabbatical in the UK from his job at Electronic Arts (the opinion reflected in the piece are his alone, however). Thanks devilbunny.

The second day's installment in loonyboi's Quake III Tour bus diary has arrived. The delay in getting the new edition up can probably be attributed the the final update yesterday saying "I'm told that I'll be getting drunk tonight," and then the report continues this morning. It wouldn't take Detective Colombo more than an hour (minus time for commercials) to figure out what happened here. Today's recounting is photo-free, as yesterday was really a travel day for the bus, so they did manage to stop off at the Houston Chronicle to deliver some whoopass, and collect some umbrellas (must be a southern tradition). Here's loonyboi's day two Quake III Tour bus report, which offers the thought of the day: "3D accelerated beer goggles."

PC Zone's Phoenix Preview is online, offering a look at the plans and progress on Team 17's upcoming space trading and combat game that seems to draw inevitable comparisons to the classic Elite. The piece offers their usual heavy dose of screenshots, as well as some conversation with the developers.

Word on the Action Half-Life page is that if you are having problems with the newly released beta of Action Half-Life, and you used the update patch, it is suggested you try installing the full version, rather than the update, which seems to solve the problem for some people.

GameSpot's Preview of SWAT 3 Close-Quarters Battle is up with an extensive look ahead at Sierra's upcoming tactical police operations game. Also, while you are hitting the old G-Spot, GameSpot's TenSpot Ten Games That Should Be Remade is one of those just-for-fun conversation/argument starters.

Saw on the Bot Epidemic that The Jumbot page has a new version of the Jumbot for Half-Life that fixes a "nasty bug" in the previous release, though the new release has been somewhat confusingly been given the same version number, 0.35.

PlanetUnreal has word of a quick and dirty new Fatboy Unreal mod inspired by the amusing sounding Fatboy "mutator" (game type) in the works for Epic's upcoming Unreal Tournament. The object of the mod is: "the more people you kill, the fatter you get, and the more times you die, the skinnier you get." Hey! I'm losing already... and Brian Dennehey is about to win the match!!

The Adrenaline Vault Previews Black & White looking ahead at Lionhead Studios' upcoming RTS god-game* currently in production under the supervision of Peter Molyneux, who calls the game his most ambitious project to date.

• The Matrox user's resource Centre has a new version of G400Tweak, bringing this tweak utility for G400 users up to version .004.
• Power Gamerz interview with Viet-Tam Luu at NVIDIA is up again. They apologize for the relentless downtime at their old webhost, and hope to provide closer to uninterupted service from now on.
• CPU Review's Athlon/Pentium3 Price Comparison has been updated.

There are 15 new Omikron Screenshots on GA-Source giving looks ahead at a bunch of environments and a couple of models from Omikron, an upcoming action/adventure title from Eidos that will offer some unusual plot/gameplay elements, as well as the usually unusual David Bowie.

Stratics has announced the first in a series of ongoing monthly Sovereign House of Commons developer conferences between the players and creators of Sovereign slated for tomorrow, Wednesday August 25, at 6:00 PM PDT (9:00 PM EDT). Sovereign is Verant's planned massive RTS follow-up to EverQuest. The chat will be in the channel #sovhoc on the Stratics IRC network, irc.stratics.com (intworks.stratics.com irc.stratics.dhp.com stratics.sanman.com).

Version 0.2.1 of Hexen32, a new Win32 port of Raven's publicly-available Heretic source, based on id Software's publicly-available Doom source. Thanks Doomworld. The Hexen32 v0.2.1 README has all the info about the debut release.

Lanced.Net's Star in Starlancer Contest gives you the opportunity to land a role for your mug in this upcoming space sim dealie (apparently Malcolm McDowell is holding out). Also, Todd and Dre's Drakan Sign Design Contest is a new giveaway cooked up by a couple of the surreal thinkers at Surreal to celebrate their just-released Drakan: Order of the Flame, that will reward the best signs (you know, like a road sign-type sign) devoted to the game. The winner will snag a copy of Drakan and a Drakan E3 '99 T-Shirt autographed by the Surreal Staff, with prizes for second and third as well.

• Thresh's FiringSquad reviews System Shock 2.
• Insomniax Network reviews System Shock 2.
• Computer Games Online reviews Drakan: Order of the Flame.
• Diversions of Technology reviews Drakan: Order of the Flame.
• The Tech Zone reviews the Creative Labs 3D Blaster Savage 4.
• Sharky Extreme reviews the Gigabyte GA-7IX Athlon Mainboard.

Quite a bunch of things to clear up: Foremost, Drakan.Net has a follow-up to their blurb about CD problems with Drakan (story) saying their initial report that replacement CDs would be issued was erroneous, apparently contacting Psygnosis will get them helping you with a fix, rather than replacing your disk. Also, the original post yesterday about the Quake II All-Star model pack mistakenly called it a pack for the All-Star CTF add-on when in fact it is a collection of premier Q2 models, the all-star reference is a reference to their quality. Also, I accidentally called the new version of Q3Stats Version 2.0 beta 2 yesterday when it should have been beta 2a (thanks Jacek Fedoryñski). Also, the post about Westwood's plans to announce Renegade, their new third-person shooter at ECTS, originally mistakenly referred to it as a first-person shooter (thanks David Kimble). Finally, while it's good news to learn that the report of Evilchild's death (story) was, to use the classic cliché, greatly exaggerated, I'm sorry that this is because someone used the community's willingness to express its sympathies as a joke, as apparently that is what this was, a hoax by a co-worker. Boo hiss.

• Now You Are an Enemy of the State! DOJ Seeks Right to Spy on Your Computer is a Jesse Berst column raising an alarming prospect. Thanks NinjaX9...
• Ten-four has posted a bunch of entertaining single-player speed runs through several Quake II maps...
• The Bloodbath page has the release of Wraithrez v1.1, a GUI front-end for the LithTech lithrez command line tool which "makes it much easier to work with .rez files"...
• BattleLink.com seeks to be the ultimate clan resource for the Unreal scene, including a complete ranking ladder...

One more day after today of flying solo for me, loonyboi flies home tomorrow evening. It's not certain at this point whether the next edition of the trivia contest will go up before the end of this week, or if it will just wait for next week, for those of you who are suffering the loss without a new edition of the tiny print to baffle and amuse you, I feel your pain.

Link of the Day: Roger Walker's Jukebox, a Jukebox refitted with PC guts to be an .mp3 jukebox! Only the Professor on Gilligan's Island could do better (by making the same device out of coconuts). Thanks Mr.Oxymoron.

* "Are you a god?"

Almost the same story as was just reported, with a variation on website: Q3Center's Quake 3 Arena Console Page has been updated, and is now current through Q3Test 1.08. The section includes a complete list of variables, as well as a rundown on what's changed since version 1.05.

BW.wire has a pair of new exclusive screenshots from Lionhead's upcoming god-game, Black & White. Next Monday they promise more Black & White screenshots (which are, of course, actually in color--we've been down this path before).

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Rogue Spear page has been updated with an updated with a full listing of all the weapons to be featured in Rogue Spear and an updated FAQ (dated August 19). "The FAQ mentions that two unnamed maps from Rainbow Six will be converted to Rogue Spear and that the Rogue Spear Demo will be released before the full version" (slated for release September 15, 1999). Thanks Rogue Spear Retreat.

Quake3 Arena Test console commands list on Trendkill.net has been updated to be complete rough version 1.08 of the Q3Test detailing console commands and variables and their uses.

PC.IGN.COM interviews Bungie's Hamilton Chu about ONI, the third-person action/fighting game which they describe as a "highly-anticipated full contact action title." The piece also offers several new screenshots showing off action from Oni.

3DFiles' X Patch page has a new version 1.6 patch for the German version of X: Beyond the Frontier, said to fix a few bugs and add a few new features.

The US Creative Technical Support Download Files page has the new a 3D Blaster Banshee BIOS & Windows 95/98 and Windows NT driver update that were released the other day on their European site (story). Thanks 3D Files.

The Sun-worshippers at SolarEclipse have posted a pair of ports of the world-famous Eraser Bot for Quake II, for both Solaris platforms. In addition to downloads of the updated Eraser, they have something there for all your Solaris Quake II needs.

Voodoo Extreme has posted word that the unofficial Experience FAQ has been updated with some minor changes to this Q&A about WXP's upcoming shooter.

In spite of loony currently being on the road, I have a dinner engagement that cannot be skipped this evening, so unless his looniness is able to check in and make updates from his hotel (at this time it is uncertain if he is or isn't going to be able to), the news desk may be quiet for the next couple of hours (sorry about that).

3DShooter.com, a German-language first-person shooter site, sends word that they've head from Michael Kolkau, a level designer on Skout, the German FPS, that the game is gold, and off to manufacture. They are planning a chat with Michael at 10:00 PM German time tomorrow, details are on their site (in German). For the heck of it, here's that BabelFish link we always provide to translate in times like this, though it's probably less helpful than usual in this circumstance, since it seems the chat itself will also be in German.

NVIDIA to release powerful new chip is a Forbes Digital Tool (yowza!) article looking ahead at the upcoming announcement of NVIDIA's next-generation chipset, which already has a lot of people hot with anticipation. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

The version of the day for Q3Stats is Version 2 beta 2a, now available from the downloads section at Q3 Center. The new version fixes a fatal error when parsing server logs with less than an hour of game play, and significantly adjusts the score formula to generate "much more accurate scores for player rankings."

There is a Sneak Peek at Unreal Tournament on Inside Mac Games giving the first preview I've seen of the Macintosh version of Unreal Tournament, Epic's upcoming deathmatch-centric Unreal follow-up. The piece goes into specifics about each supported Macintosh video option, and concludes with a whole load of screenshots with the promise of more, along with a VR movie, tomorrow.

Drakan.Net is reporting that some users may be experiencing problems where the game asks them to insert the CD, even though it is already in the drive. If this is happening to you, they say to contact Psygnosis for a replacement CD.

Talkspot's Game Dive Archive now has the recent broadcast that featured Dynamix Programmer Mark Frohnmayer and former TRIBES Designer Scott "CornBoy!" Youngblood. The 2 hour Q&A discusses TRIBES, TRIBES2, Tribes Extreme, TRIBESCon, and Scott's recent departure from Dynamix (just to list an item without that jarring all-caps TRIBES in the middle). RealPlayer (or SurrealPlayer), required.

A couple of posts of interest I snagged from The Descent Chronicles. Camelot Systems has posted a new version 1.1 of their D3Stats program, which now includes support for all of D3's multiplayer modes (except coop and robo-anarchy), and the ability to see a list of every player you've played against, and how you've done against them. Also of interest to Descent 3 fans into level editing is DXF-ORF Written By Cougar and BadBoy, a new tool that will convert DXF files to ORF (Outrage Room File) files, which means that you can use any DXF compatible 3D editor (such as 3DSMax) to make rooms for your Descent 3 levels. Thanks again The Descent Chronicles.

This Adrenaline Vault Demo Downloads page has the playable demo from Septerra Core, a nearly 88 MB beast that offers a look at this upcoming third-person adventure game from Valkyrie Studios and Monolith. Thanks Mark Allman.

As promised on the Action Half-Life page, the Action Half-Life FTP directory has a new beta 2 of Action Half-Life, the H-L version of one of the most popular mods for Quake II. Thanks MoRtIs. The new releases are fully uploaded 9there was a note here previously saying they might not be), and here's a list of the new features:

• Spin Kicks, Jump Kicks
• Pain sounds
• Staying alive DM, Action Style Teamplay. (More than 2 teams supported!)
• Falling damage and weapon accuracy is fixed.
• New improved Wall Penetration Code!
• POV Chasecam implemented!
• Gestures and Radio Commands Implemented!

No, not some online cheat, but the AvP Network has posted a small utility that can give you "god mode, unlimited spears, discs and energy for the Predator, cloaking for both Predator and Marine, and more" in single player mode, if you are bored (or too challenged, I suppose) with straight solo play. Thanks AVPNEWS.

That new BAWLS sposnorship is paying dividends already, as there's more news already from the hopped-up folks at The Adrenaline Vault News, where they've posted an introductory movie trailer for the upcoming game of auto mayhem, Grand Theft Auto 2, as well as word that a playable demo of the game will be available September 22.

A short blurb on The Adrenaline Vault News announces that Westwood Studios, noted for their RTS offerings, will be debuting Renegade, their upcoming third-person shooter at ECTS this September 5-7 in London in some select behind-the-scenes showings.

The BW-Admin page has a new version 1.64 release of the Barrysworld ZBot Detection & Admin Plug-In DLL for Quake II. This is a "transparent" DLL that adds the following to any existing Quake II modification: ZBot detection and kicking (with logging to file), Rate and 'cl_maxfps' capping, player IP and NAME banning, server MOTD, configurable item/weapon spawning, reserving nicks to specific IP's, flood protection and keyword filtering, and more. The new version cleans up the code, and is a recommended update for those running the DLL, as it addresses the following issues: It eliminates "false-positive" RatBot detects, the program failing to kick some players has been fixed, a bug in the flood-protection settings has been fixed, another bot detection routine has been added, and more.

This Unreal Tournament Development Team Chat page on AVault (spotted on Beta Bites) has the updated word on the scheduling of the Unreal Tournament chat that was postponed last week. Word is the chat is re-scheduled for this Thursday, August 26 at 7:30 p.m. EDT. To join, use a standard IRC client, and connect to irc.avault.com, port: 6667, and join the channel #chatroom. The first portion of the session will be moderated by the AVault.

Red Storm Entertainment Shines Light on Shadow Watch and Rainbow Six Sequel At Europe's Largest Gaming Tradeshow is the press release announcing that more on the follow-ups to Rainbow Six will be unveiled at ECTS:

This year the company plans to introduce the expanded franchise of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six along with an exclusive sneak peak at their new PC title, Shadow Watch.

Red Storm will unveil its lineup at the London tradeshow Sept. 5-7 at Stand N375 in the lower level of National Hall, Olympia Exhibition Centre.

In its first public viewing, Red Storm's Shadow Watch is a new strategy/RPG title that leads players through a strange new world of intrigue. Players lead a crack team of operatives to uncover a nefarious plot to stop humanity's advancement to the stars. As chief of the corporation's security team, the player will track and interrogate more than a dozen unique contacts in exotic locales like Rio de Janeiro and Hong Kong. How they question these contacts will change the plot. Once they have the answers they need, players can launch covert missions using their team to rescue hostages, plant surveillance devices, raze buildings, and assault enemy strongholds. Players have to use their wits on and off the battlefield to win. This isn't a battle to save the world; it's a battle to save every world.

Giving the people what they want is what Red Storm is all about. To that end, Red Storm also uncovers the wraps on Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear - the sequel to last year's best selling Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. Team Rainbow is back with a vengeance with more missions, 400 additional captions, improved AI, joystick support, sniper mode, etc.

The PQ All Star Quake 2 Model Pack #1 is online, offering a set of great player models for Quake II (hehe--I originally thought the name meant they were models for the All-Star Quake II mod ).

The Sybergen Networks has a new beta version 3.1 build 528 of their nifty SyGate proxy dealie that allows you to easily share a single Internet connection over a LAN. The new beta offers compatibility with version 1.1 of SyShield, their newly-released accompanying firewall software. Thanks BetaNews.

There's a ten question Q&A with Drew Prairie on AGN3D discussing the reaction to AMD's just-released Athlon processor.

I just posted loony's Quake III Bus Tour Day One Diary, a traditional rambling (but chronological, and that's important) recounting of the days events in hot-as-Texas Houston. The update describes the LAN, the people, the new maps, and even offers up a road version of the pop culture game. Today's experience is a multimedia one as well, since the loonster is outfitted with the Blue's News Gratuitously Expensive Camera™ which will allow him to give some visuals from the event, including the first couple of shots of that Orbb model that's part of the bus version of Q3Test. The shots are photos of the screens (because the computers on the bus have all the features that would allow a normal screenshot turned off as a side-effect of the high security implemented), so they are not nearly as good as real screenshots, but they don't completely suck, and give a feel for the quirky new model. Here are the day one Quake III Tour photos, and again, here is loony's Day One Tour Diary.

There is a Mutator Q&A With Jack Porter From Epic on Mod Central Unreal talking with Epic's own Mek about Mutators, which are described as "mini-mods" which can be used to add and remove items from the map or change item or level properties. The IRC Q&A goes into the various planned Mutator types, and offers a pair of new screenshots, one of the Fat-Boy Mutator, and the other of the Chainsaw Mutator (which notes that chainsaw headshots will be possible).

Billy at Voodoo Extreme points out the Decay page has the first update in a while on the status of this upcoming shooter that has looked so impressive in early screenshots. Word is they will be announcing their publisher soon, and there is also a mention there about how they're looking for "talented programmers and artists to join [them] in creating the ultimate action game."

As was noted a while back, Red Orb's Prince of Persia 3D page has some release dates for the game (story), saying "The wait is nearly over" and "The Demo will be released on August 27. The Full product will ship September 19" (actually that's a slight change from the original post that said the demo was due today). Now this mail just came along from designer Carson Utz saying the game is now gold, giving a feel for its content:

Our game, Prince of Persia 3D, has just gone gold!

You never know this stuff until the very end, but just for the record we managed to get 17 levels into the game over the 12 listed on the box, and we're shipping with 2 CDs of tasty goodness. Expect many hours of gameplay in our sequel to the famous classic.

Phineas Bot version 0.21 is now available as both a Linux and a Windows version of this AI deathmatch opponent for Half-Life. The new release fixes the previously identified bug, but has uncovered a new problem they fear may be an engine bug. Thanks Planet Half-Life. The Phineas bot author has also written an article on compiling the standard Half-Life SDK under Linux.

• Tom's Hardware Guide's Showdown between Athlon and Pentium III talks of running the Athlon at 500, 550, 700 and even 750 MHz.
• The Matrox User's Resource Centre has a post up describing an "especially overclockable" breed of G400 that's been appearing (notable buy its use of 5 ns RAM, rather that 6 ns RAM) that they suspect were originally intended as G400 Maxs that may have failed some form of QA.
• NV10.net's Elsa NV10 Interview is a translation of an interview between an Elsa sales manager and Voodoo Gaming, originally in Chinese.
• NGNetwork interviews Patrick D. Day, a Software QA Engineer at 3dfx Interactive.

RainbowSix.Net has posted some maps for Rainbow Six and Eagle Watch "fixed" by [MIN]FatMyke "eliminating unfair advantages and disliked sections of maps."

Game Domain is a Washington DC area gaming facility where they are holding a Q3Test tournament on Saturday August 28 at 7:00 PM EDT, with the winner to be sponsored by Game Domain to participate in the Ground Zero CPL tournament in NYC on September 9-12.

• Well Rounded Entertainment reviews Shadow Man.
• Future Games Network reviews Descent 3.
• Wicked PC reviews the ACT LABS Gun System.
• BetaBites reviews the Applica Multimedia Card, which can allow a head-to-head deathmatch on a single PC.
• Sharky Extreme reviews the Guillemot Maxi Gamer Xentor 32.
• Wired News reviews the Xentor MaxiGamer 32.
• AnandTech reviews the A-Trend ATC-6254M BX Slot 1 motherboard.
• Bxboards reviews the Abit BE6 motherboard.

• Gates and wife donate another $5 billion to foundation is a CNET News.com article announcing the Gates' have donated $5 Billion to charities for the third consecutive quarter this year. Thanks Ben at 3DFiles...
• Inside 3D's Teamplay interview talks with Kerbuffel and Tungsten of Captured.com and Dolomite, high tyrant of the 10th plane of Hell (and noted mapper) about teamplay modifications...
• The International House of Mojo has chat logs with Monkey Island madman Ron Gilbert in both edited and unedited varieties...

Sorry don't really have anything to ramble about this morning (and as you have no doubt seen, it's something you can't fake), so I'm just going to make with the news. Mondays are like that sometimes.

Link of the Day: Trailervision Video presents: The Jar-Jar Binks project. Thanks Mike.