Archived News:
The Hive interviews
Ken Levine in a perfectly rational conversation with the head honcho at Irrational Games about their action/RPG hit,
System Shock 2.
Messages from both MacGamer's Ledge and Inside Mac Games clarify that the blurb posted
earlier indicating that the Mac version of Rainbow Six is now available ( story) was erroneous, and the Mac version is still in beta. Sorry for
the confusion, and thanks to both sites for their effort at keeping our facts straight.
There's a new LithTech 2 Engine Interview
on PC.IGN.COM talking with Monolith's Paul Butterfield
and Mike "Pass" Dussault about LithTech 2, and how it stacks up against the
Unreal and Quake family engines, also discussing "The Game Formerly Known as No One
Lives Forever," and even a bit on LithTech 3.
Newly launched in time for the wave of downloads following the recent Half-Life patch is HALFLIFEFILES.COM, the latest entry in the
popular gamenamefiles.com line.
Ryan "Ridah" Feltrin updated his .plan with word on the unofficial release of
the version 1.2 Linux Kingpin client, as well as more on the "bonus" bagman maps
in the 1.20 patch:
The linux Kingpin v1.20 port can be downloaded from the following location:
http://impact.frag.com/ridah/kptest/kingpin-1.20_glibc-i386-linux2.0.tar.gz
This is an unofficial full client build. I will be putting together a server only official
build soon, which will hopefully find it's way onto the official Kingpin page.
Why server only? Because the full client needs a lot more work before it could be
considered official. If there are any linux developement houses out there that would like
to continue the work, they can contact me and I'll put you in touch with the appropriate
Interplay representation.
Also worthy of note, is the v1.20 contains a bonus two maps made specifically for Bagman.
I know the Bagman fans have been wanting more maps, now they have them. You can thank
KungFu (Dave Ward) for his efforts putting together the new maps.
Thanks to Devistator for sending along an log of tonight's chat with Epic Games with just join and rename messages
removed (a slightly more complete log that arrived earlier than the log I posted
originally), hosted by The Adrenaline Vault
discussing progress on Unreal Tournament. The
Burpfish Network has also posted an unedited log, Unreality
sends word they've posted a selection of "the coolest questions" on their front
page, and Cached.Net had posted their favorite
moments as well. Finally, this UT
chat log tries to improve the process by properly connecting all the questions and the
answers, as does this
log on PlanetUnreal.
Interplay Productions sends along word they are looking for play testers for some upcoming
focus groups. Here's the deal:
Interplay is looking for more playtesters to participate in some upcoming focus
groups. Applicants must live in the LA/Orange County, CA area. If interested, please send
a message to betatest@interplay.com with the
words "focus group" as the message subject. Participants will receive a free
Interplay game of their choice.
GamePen previews
FreeSpace 2 looking ahead at Volition's upcoming space epic. Also, Billy at Voodoo Extreme sends word that Freespace2.com has a pair of new ships in the FreeSpace 2 Ship Gallery.
Our monthly friend, the Werewolf
The Apocalypse - Heart of Gaia page has again been updated on the occasion of the full
moon, having posted Part 10 of their
10-part Prequel Series, and all new Glossary section, and
an all new Gameplay
section, as well as a
log of last month's chat. Cheers again Voodoo
Extreme.
Gamecenter's Exclusive
Alice Information is short Q&A with Electronic Arts Game Designer American
"Tokay" McGee discussing the upcoming Quake III-engine wonderland extravaganza
Alice, about which very few details are available. Here's the answer to the question about
the storyline, incase you are intrigued by how the Alice thing might work:
You do play the role of Alice. Your ultimate goal is to destroy the Queen of
Hearts and return Wonderland to normal.
The list of client variable for Q3Test on The
Flagship Engineering Room has now been updated through the current version 1.08.
RainbowSix.Net has word that the Macintosh
version of Rainbow Six is now available, bringing RSE's Tom Clancy-inspired game of
tactical combat to the Mac. Update: This story seems to be erroneous: please see the follow-up.
Frans ( 3D Action Gamers) is on fire,
catching site of the version 1.2 patch for Kingpin on Interplay's site. Here's a local copy and some mirrors of
the 2.12 MB patch. Here's What's new:
Kingpin v1.2 Fixes/Changes:
---------------------------
+ New "g_mapcycle_file" variable, to set the cycle list to something other than
"maps.lst" or "teammaps.lst"
+ Added "kickban" command to server (works same as "kick <id>"
but also adds the ip to the filter list)
+ Download skins option in Player Setup menu
+ added "time" command to consol
+ fixed server exploit
+ alterations to voting system
+ client model server crash with dm_locational_damage enabled
+ Invisible player models for unknown female skins
+ Chasecam observer mode
+ New "Push Download" tech for faster file transfers
+ Make download system backwards compatible with old servers AND old clients
+ Server's send "deposited" to GameSpy via "deaths" field
+ Disable CD check when enabling CD music in options
+ Add debug info to "FS_Read: 0 bytes read" error
+ Fix scoreboard for realmode (show kills and net score)
+ In Gangbang teamplay, frags go to the wrong team
= Dead bodies of client's that haven't respawned yet block doorways
+ Skins not found, try and keep model, change skins back to 001 001 001 (since this is a
safe set for all models)
+ BAN voting system to boot trouble makers
+ Subtract a frag for dying in "real mode". Subtract 2 for suiciding.
+ Weapons reload after firing, if reload is pressed when clip is full
+ Fixed some crashes
+ Downloadable skins/models
+ misc tweaks
+ spectator mode exploit
+ Shooting Flamethrower, switch weapons, flame stays
+ LINUX: crashes during fighting with sewer guy with guns
+ unlimited ammo in single player (DF_INFINITE_AMMO)
+ last player killed when reaching fraglimit gets overflowed (made scoreboard message
unreliable)
+ skin: "male thug/sku sup sup" causes Sewer skin in teamplay
+ Player ID always RED
= old chat style option
+ shotgun doesn't always change when out of ammo
+ real-mode option in start server menu
The AMD Professional Gamers' League page has word that
due to the way the timing of game releases is working out, they're canceling thee Fall
Season to avoid forcing players to try and stay current on older games. Thanks
KRayZieDoGG.
Okay it's sports, but it's free. Frans at 3D
Action Gamers spotted a Madden NFL™ 2000 demo on EASPORTS.COM for your
football (the American kind) enjoyment.
GameSpot UK has posted three new
Slave Zero screenshots showing off action from this upcoming giant robot game. They
actually promise five shots, but #13, is the title screen (also in the demo), and #14 is
also the first shot from when they started their collection (maybe they can trade their
doubles with another site). Frans at 3D Action
Gamers for helping sort through all this properly.
I keep meaning to mention somewhere along the way here that the link to the violence
article that caused a stir yesterday ( story) no longer works, searching the site turns up no trace of it, and
no explanation for the disappearance of the article is evident. Thanks to the very many
who've mailed in about this.
ValveWorld has posted the second of their two
shots showing off another scene from Opposing Force, the add-on for Half-Life currently in the
works over at Gearbox Software.
David "crt" Wright, famed Rocket Arena programmer and Q3Test champion among the
"press" (I'm sure he pressed a shirt once), sends along word that he's started a
pair of mailing lists about Quake III coding, one moderated, and one that isn't, with the
thinking it's never too early to plan ahead. Here's the word:
Q3Coding is a moderated list for discussion of the actual code, including
"how to" questions, the client DLL, porting Quake 2 mods, bugs and fixes, etc.
This list probably won't get much traffic until the actual code is released, but you can
subscribe now on this
page.
A second unmoderated list has been set up for general Quake 3 Coding discussion (e.g. mod
ideas, compiling help, general C/coding questions) and can be joined through this page.
Myself along with some other Quake 2 mod authors will serve as moderators for the q3coding
list to help maintain focus and keep discussions on topic.
Anachronox.com has an updated version of Tom
"Cowboy" Hall's designer diary under "Game Information" ( Shockwave
required), giving the crezzy designer's latest ramblings about the progress on ION's Quake
II-engine RPG in authentic cowboy drawl (as near as I kin reckon).
ION Storm's Daily Informant has news of the
arrival of a Sheldon Pacotti, the new writer for Deus Ex. There is more on Sheldon's
background and his role with the team creating an action/RPG using the unreal engine on
the page.
Thresh's FiringSquad
interviews former Rebel Boat Rocker Landon Montgomery of Gearbox Software about Gearbox' first project,
Opposing Force, the official Half-Life add-on. The interview includes a bunch of
screenshots (and pages).
Stuart Denman from Surreal Software sent along a
follow-up to the beta-testing request posted earlier ( story), saying that because it turns out they will be providing updates
using "alternate methods," applicants are no longer required to be able to
receive large email attachments, so I amended the post to reflect this.
GameSpot's Final Hours of Tiberian
Sun has an account of crunch time on the RTS sequel has finally been released. WomenGamers' Shadow
Company Preview takes a look at this upcoming squad-based 3D real-time strategy game
after a recent foray to Sinister Games to check it out. The preview includes a load of
screenshots (thanks Novice). Finally, for the hardcore RTS fan, the German site GameGuides has posted some Exklusiv: Thandor - Die Invasion
Screenshots, which has some screenshots of this upcoming RTS, which of course work
with in any language, while the text can always be fed to BabelFish if you're curious.
Surreal Software's Stuart Denman sent along an e-mail
with word that they're accepting applications for beta testers on the first Drakan patch.
Here are the details: Surreal is now accepting applications for beta testers for
the Drakan Winsock Patch. The patch improves the multiplayer experience considerably by
replacing DirectPlay with Winsock and reworks the network code to improve bandwidth and
stability. The patch also allows the dedicated server to run under Windows NT.
You must have purchased a full retail CD of Drakan and previous beta-testing experience on
other games is a bonus. The beta testing period will last no more than 1 week starting on
Friday Aug 27. To apply, send the following information to beta@surreal.com:
* Full name
* Player Name (nick name) you will be using while beta-testing the patch
* E-mail address
* ICQ # (if available)
* Telephone number where you will be playing Drakan
* City, State, Country
* Machine specification, including CPU, memory, 3D video card,sound card
* Network connection (Modem speed or Cable/DSL/T1, etc.)
* Number of hours you are willing to spend per day testing.
* Previous games you have beta tested (or none)
* The last word on page 32 of the Drakan manual.
* Tell us about your previous experiences with Drakan multiplayer.
Applicants will be selected starting Saturday, Aug 28, so submissions must be received
before Monday Aug 30. You will only receive a reply if you have been accepted for the
beta.
GameFan interviews Vito
Miliano, the developer of one of the more unusual upcoming Unreal-engine products, a
3D virtual real-estate walkthrough called Unrealty that will enable architects to present
virtual renderings of physical structures using the Unreal engine.
Sorry... server's being wonky again today... we're beating it (as well as anyone who
wanders into range) with bats as we speak (one of the most advanced repair techniques of
our time).
The Lambda Arena page has a new version
1.09 beta of this deathmatch Half-Life modification that offers the last-man-standing
teamplay of Rocket Arena for both one-on-one, and team matches. The new release offers
heavily altered weapons ("more realistic...the 'beefed-up' stuff didn't really
work)," a "unique weapons system" (you now choose one weapon from each of
four categories--handguns, assault, experimental, explosive), along with fixes for what
are described as "huge" bugs.
Also new on the Half-Life DM mod scene, is version 2.5 of Deathmatch Plus for Half-Life is now
available that in addition to it's original (as the name suggests) enhanced DM, now offers
beta bot support.
Dynamix' Dave Meddish updated his cunning .plan with a bunch of stuff on TRIBES Extreme mission
types, and sticking his head on the chopping block as the new guru of knowledge on TRIBES
Mission Building
Don't worry, m'lord, I have a cunning plan...
Or something like that (can you tell PBS is showing old Blackadder episodes again? Can you
also tell I have nothing better to do on Friday nights? Oh, the pain, the shame...)
Where was I? Oh yeah, TRIBES Extreme. Everyone's favorite mission designer/builder has
been working hard on cranking out muy missions. We have a new category called
"Balanced Online." Meaning, you know those OGL games where you fight over which
side of Snowblind your team gets to play? No more. This particular class is perfectly
balanced in environmental and physical features. Both sides are dead even. So you can't
whine about losing to skiing heavies on Raindance anymore...
But, fear not, we'll still have plenty of the good old "unbalanced" mission type
for those who like'em.
Tinman has got me designing a mission or two for his addictively enjoyable
"Hunters" deathmatch variant. Those howls of anguish you hear through the
offices late at night are from those of us who got disked at the last second while
carrying about a gajillion flags. Hopefully have that done in the next few days. And while
I must say Tinman has done a very nice job converting existing missions to Hunters, his
naming conventions lack that certain je ne se quois, that special "smacks of
Meddish" sense of hyperbole. "TheOtherWhiteMeat"? Perhaps, under my
tutelage, we can help Tinman make that a little more catchy. It might be that Canadian
upbringing or something along those lines.
Speaking of naming conventions, we've been getting a nice steady flow of user-created
missions for the Extreme Open Call. By and large, good stuff. Picking winners isn't going
to be easy. Just remember, the deadline is rapidly approaching, so if you've been waiting
to send it in, 'twould be advised that you not wait much longer.
Being the Mission Building Guru of TRIBES (well, at least since Scott Youngblood left--his
office, curiously enough, has not yet been thoroughly looted of its treasures--it's like a
holy shrine or something), I would normally say that anyone who has any questions
regarding mission building can give me an e-holler at dave.meddish@dynamix.com, however, being as
we're approaching the crunch for TX, I can't promise anyone when I can get back to them.
But feel free to say hi anyway...it gets very lonely over in this part of the building :-(
We now return you to your regularly scheduled broadcast of "The Adventures of Analog
Kid and Ban-Me Boy," same Ban-Me time, same Ban-Me station... 6.24.99 Since everybody
else is going on vacation, I figgered I might as well take a few days off as well.
Celebrate my last pre-millenial birthday (31? How in the name of all that is holy can I be
31? Criminy, I'm gettin' old...check me into the home...). The days drag on but the years
fly by...
Spiffcat/Hexabolic/Whatever He's Calling Himself These Days and I will be pumping out tons
of new TRIBES material for all you would-be writers. Question: who out there would be
interested in seeing a TRIBES RPG made? Starsiege had Rebellion, maybe we can do a
roleplayer version of TRIBES. If enough people make noise, maybe we can make it happen.
Okay, that's the news, and I am outta here. See you on the flip side.
TigerInvestor interviews Greg
Ballard and Jim Hopkins talking with 3dfx' CEO and their senior vice president of
finance and strategic planning about the business side of their business.
id's Todd Hollenshead updated his
.plan with a link to this
Salon article that analyzes retired Army psychologist Dave Grossman's information that
caused all kinds of chaos in yesterday's Ottawa Sun article. Here's the scoop: In the aftermath of the Ottawa
Sun article, I was forwarded the link
below by Bernd Kreimeier:
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/05/06/game_violence/index.html
This is an excellent article that addresses how Grossman misrepresents the scientific
data. It's not a new article, but it's worth a read if the subject interests
you.
A blurb on Next-Generation
Online give what they call a "Good for Street Date" of November 17 for
Quantic Dreams' upcoming action/adventure "genre-buster," Omikron, confirming
that the game is on schedule to be available by then. According to the story, "the
recent shelving of the game's PlayStation version appears to have been a temporary measure
to ensure Eidos is able to release the PC outing at its full potential before the madness
of the holiday season."
GA-RPG interviews Jeff Connelly
talking with the co-owner of WXP, as well as the modeler and animator on WXP's upcoming
first-person shooter/RPG, Experience, which uses their own proprietary 3D engine.
AGN3D
interviews Barry Drew from Dynamix, who is the lead 3D artist on the TRIBES2 project,
asking about his role on the team, his history in the business, and more. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers.
Wewp! Entertainment has posted their remaining pair of
TRIBES Extreme screenshots showing off gameplay from Dynamix' upcoming
single-player-enhanced version of the multiplayer teamplay shooter Starsiege TRIBES.
TheMasquerade.org has posted an interview with Ray Gresko, tossing
reader-submitted questions at Nihilistic about Vampire The Masquerade - Redemption, their
upcoming third-person vampire RPG. They've also posted a pair of new Vampire screenshots
on their main page.
A reminder that the once-cancelled, and now rescheduled AVault Unreal Tournament Development Team Chat is
slated for this evening at 7:30 PM EDT. Users can connect via their new web-based
IRC interface, located at irc.avault.com
(Java-enabled browser required), and other users can use an IRC client to connect to
irc.avault.com, port: 6667, and join the channel #chatroom. The first portion of the chat
will be moderated.
id Software Lead Programmer John Carmack updated his .plan with word on .plans for another Q3Test
targeted for mid-September, and plenty more. The lengthy portion not quoted here discusses
confusing memory usage with network problems, a change in how .pk3 file management works,
as well as an updated worklog. Without further ado:
8/26/99
-------
The current plan is that we will have another test release around the middle of next
month. This version will be running game/cgame/ui with the virtual machine, and will
include single player play against bots. No new maps.
I will be releasing the source for all the VM modules with it, and setting the executable
up so that it will allow modified modules to be used.
The modified LCC and q3asm will be available both in source form and precompiled, so a
professional development environment will not be requried. Using MSDEV to debug binary
dll's does make exploration a lot easier than adding prints to interpreted code...
Some minor porting work on the tools will be necessary to do development under linux. The
effort would be greater for mac development, because the tools are inherently command line
based.
The map editor and tools will not be released until after the game hits store shelves. To
be completely clear: you are not legally licensed to create or use addon maps with the
test.
I am hoping that this public review will turn up bugs before we complete the game. 50k
lines of code is quite a bit to go over, but people familiar with previous games will have
a good head start in the game module.
The best possible situation would be if exploration of the code evolves into a tier
system, with either moderated or limited access lists that I can follow without being
swamped. I can't afford to be too involved in helping everyone figure out the basics. I
have plenty of confidence in the mod communities ability to work that out. :-)
The Crystal Space page has the official
release of version 0.14 of this free 3D engine, now out of beta. Here's the rundown on
C.S. from the page: "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, Linux, OS/2, Macintosh, BeOS, ... See the extensive list of features for more
details. Crystal Space currently compiles and runs on Linux, general Unix, Windows,
Windows NT, OS/2, BeOS, NextStep, OpenStep, Rhapsody, DOS, Amiga, and Macintosh. It can
optionally use Direct3D (Windows), GGI (Linux), Allegro (DOS), X11 (Unix/Linux) and
SVGALIB (Linux). It can also optionally use assembler routines (GCC/DJGPP, Visual C++ and
Intel only currently) and MMX if the processor supports it." Whew! Thanks Buzzy.
The Action Half-Life site has a version 2.1
update that contains two new .dlls for Action Half-Life. In addition to the patch, they
have a tip for server operators having trouble getting teamplay to work ("You need to
run your server config file BEFORE the map loads"), as well as a request that players
stop using non-Action Half-Life player models when playing AH-L, since they do not have
the right animations, which causes 'funky' stuff like dead bodies that remain standing up.
The DEMISE page has a new version
of the full install of this online RPG, currently in public beta testing. This was literally just posted this minute, so mind the timestamp on this story and this request from the page: "PLEASE only download the test full install if you have a T1 speed or faster line since I need feedback within the next 12-18 hours." Never fear the rest of you, though: "If all goes well, this file will become 'public' tomorrow." Thanks dragor.
Computer
Games Online's Die Hard Trilogy 2 preview looks at this game, licensed, as you can
imagine from the three Bruce Willis as John McClane movies. According to the article,
" Die Hard Trilogy 2 represents a monumental leap of faith by providing a new
and original story… that is split into a third-person action/adventure, a
first-person rail shooter, and a driving game. All right, perhaps the game represents more
of a stumble of faith than a leap, but at least they are trying." Apparently the game
will support every form of digital and analog game controller, light gun, and steering
wheel made. Yipeekaya, motherf...
The grabby gamers over at Gamecenter have snagged
some Game Grabs of
Interstate '82 (also known as screenshots). The shots show off action from
Activision's formerly-funky game of driving and shooting.
While they were grabbing, GC also got a hold of some Game Grabs of Dark Reign 2,
the upcoming prequel to Activision's futuristic real-time strategy game. Also, Thresh's FiringSquad Weekly
Metal Fatigue Screenshots is underway with 17 shots to kick off this weekly deal (the
game better come out soon or this could be some flood).
NGNetwork interviews
Michael Raymond-Judy getting nostalgic with the Raven Software designer over the
Heretic and Hexen series, looking at what went into those games. Along the way, Michael
doesn't rule out the possibility of a Heretic III, or even a Hexen III.
A post on TacticalPlanet inspired by a
conversation with Red Storm Entertainment's Jeff "MadSamoan" Wand indicates that
RSE's Rogue Spear is probably within days of going gold, and it will not be long after
that that a demo will be available.
The Stratos Group's System Shock 2 guide
is online, now over 100 pages long. The guide contains character info, statistics,
skill/upgrade/psi power info, items, weapons, bestiary, a complete walkthrough, cheats,
easter eggs, hints, "and even a spiffy little comic." Available in a
printer-friendly PDF version and an online HTML version. Hey, did they say bestiality?
The GlobalSCAPE page has the
full version 3.0 release of CuteFTP, formerly my favorite FTP client (until they went with
those clunky banners...I know ironic for a webmaster to complain about them: now I use
LeapFTP from LeapWare, which is fast like a little
sports car). Also, AOL
sends a new message with AIM 3.0 announces the latest release of AOL's other
messaging program (besides ICQ). Thanks Eric Rose.
First: The server seemed to suddenly start generating a lot of SQL errors late yesterday,
I'm not sure what's up with that (being a monkey, and all), but am hopeful someone less
simian than me can shed some light on this later today. Sorry for problems this may be
causing in the meantime with messageboards, .plan files, etc. (I feel your pain, it makes
it hard to update the site as well, it took me well over an hour of trying on this first
update of the day today).
Second, as Charlie Wiederhold's .plan says: "I encourage and look forward to
articles that discuss the violence issue with solid information and a good understanding
of both sides of the issue. However..." So anyway, Book Reviews - On Killing, looks
at a previous work by Lt. Col. David Grossman (thanks GameTraveler), who was quoted in the
Ottawa Sun article yesterday (story). While Lt. Col. Grossman currently seems to be laying ground for
his upcoming book, Teaching Kids to Kill : A Call to Action Against TV, Movie and
Video Game Violence, this is not new territory for him. Here's an excerpt from the
review of On Killing: "Sure, soldiers are trained and ordered to shoot and
kill, but only on orders, and punishments for firing without orders are harsh and
immediate. Which brings us to Grossman's punch line: When kids play video games like Doom
or Mortal Kombat, they are learning the same hair-trigger behaviors and us/them attitudes
with none of the context of obedience to command and none of the special circumstances
that war creates." I think I'll have to side with the reviewer Caitlin Burke, who says in her conclusion:
"But while Grossman has made a fascinating contribution to military psychology and an
interesting suggestion about society in general, his comments about America's children are
not nearly as pointed or careful as his theses about soldiers..." But of course
that's just my (and her) opinion... I could be wrong.
Link of the Day: Crime Awareness Activist
Gets Mugged. Thanks DNapalm. It's okay, it's not like a man bit a dog, no one was
hurt...
Next-Generation Online
Classic Gaming Expo 1999 Report looks back at the show that looked back at all those
games of yore from the early days of computer gaming. If reading reports that use phrases
like "the newest Atari 2600 cartridges," and "complete Intellivision I and
II systems on display," and wax nostalgic when hearing of games like Tron, Space
Invaders, BattleZone, and Missile Command, then this article is for you (as was the show).
Q3Center's Q3Tweak has what's described as
a "newish" version of this Q3Test front-end tweaking program. This release is
made with an updated installer so it won't expire, and will now properly add Start Menu
items. A version with actual new features is promised "soon."
KodiaK was nice enough to send along an
edited log from the chat session earlier with Scott Miller of 3D Realms (our second of
these in two nights!). Subjects discussed include Max Payne, DNF, and Prey.
Todd Hollenshead updated his .plan with his reaction to the Ottawa Sun
article mentioned earlier ( story) that's the subject of much hot conversation on sCary's messageboard, as well as our
own (ours a little tamer of course, not allowing anonymous posts). Here's the scoop,
which includes an email address for more feedback:
Well we've all seen the brilliant journalism of the Ottowa Sun (or whatever it
is). If you'd like to email them your thoughts on fairness and accuracy in reporting, the
address (from their page) is oped@sunpub.com. After
taking a look at the pounding they were getting from many of you over on sCary's
messageboard, I sent the editor the following:
Mr. Oliver:
I'm sure you're getting a mountain of email from people angry about the number of factual
inaccuracies in the story, so I'll just trust that you'll fix that tomorrow. I wanted to
let you know that you can email me directly if you would like to fact check articles that
discuss our games in the future.
And if this hasn't been made painfully clear to you already, Grossman's contention that
Quake III Arena has been pulled from the market is no more accurate than any of his other
assertions about id Software or our games. We're looking forward to an enormously
successful launch of Quake III Arena later this year. You can see what we're working
on for yourself at http://www.quake3arena.com.
Regards,
Todd Hollenshead
CEO
id Software, Inc.
Now if only someone could get Grossman's email address!
The Ęstats Page has a new version 4.13 of
the Ęstats log parser that offers statistical output for a variety of shooters. The new
release is a quick bug fix for version 4.12. Thanks Jacek Fedoryński. Binaries are
available for Win32 & Linux x86 (glibc5 & glibc6).
FAKK YOU!'s Interview with
Kevin Eastman has been posted to compensate for the news that the interview they had
posted earlier with Ritual's Robert Atkins ( story) had been pulled due to some FAKK up or another. Kevin is co-creator the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, publisher of and editor-in-chief of Heavy Metal magazine, and co-creator of Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2, upon which
Ritual's upcoming game is based.
Continuing the space show theme, GameSpot's First Look
at Deep Space 9 shows off 10 shots from Deep Space 9: The Fallen, an upcoming game
from The Collective which will use the Unreal engine to recreate the Star Trek universe of
Worf, Kira, and Sisko. The game is planned for a simultaneous PC and Mac release in
spring, 2000.
The Docking
Bay of the official Babylon
5 site has a pair of new gunships from Sierra's upcoming Babylon 5 space sim dealie.
Thanks A Talent For War. On the subject, that Talkspot Game Dive on Babylon 5 ( story) starts in about an hour.
So many reviews to catch up on, I better not wait until morning. Special thanks to Frans
at 3D Action Gamers for helping sort
through these, which emphasize System Shock 2 and Shadow Man:
Datumplane::Starsiege has posted a short
interview with Dynamix programmer Zed Tinman (you mean his name really is
Tinman?), learning a bit about his job as a programmer on Tribes: Extreme developing AI
code (among other things), as well as TribesCon, and progress on his Tribes Hunters mission
type (based on the classic HeadHunters Quake).
Busily updating his pet monster since the release of the new bot-friendly version of
Half-Life, TheFatal sends word he has now updated The Jumbot to version 0.4.
This is described as "a fairly major release," which adds a waypoint option for
bots to jump at certain locations, fixes a delay which made execbots.cfg not work
properly, adds "item-getting troubleshooting methods," fixes a waypoint bug,
bots now try to strategically place tripmines, bots no longer shoot their own tripmines or
tripmines that belong to teammates in teamplay mode, bots will now gauss-jump to get to
items they cannot normally reach(!), and more.
There have been many articles lately about youth violence and possible connections to
video games and other media, but this article, Kid killers linked to video
games, sent along by our old pal ColdSun has had me scratching my head all day. I don't
know what else to do but post it, and point out that I'm speechless that an article so
filled with obvious inaccuracies could be published anywhere, irrespective of beliefs
about the impact of media on violence.
Saw on IPlayGames that videogames.com's MDK2 Preview
is up, looking ahead at the sequel to MDK, which of course stands for Mulder Digs Kolchak.
The BattleCruiser Online site has the
BattleCruiser3000AD v2.08 release candidate 2 rev. B patch that fixes some Voodoo1
problems with yesterday's rev. A patch ( story).
There's a Robert Atkins
Interview talking with the Ritual artist on the newly opened FAKK YOU! (same to you fella), dedicated, as you would
hope, to Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2, the upcoming Quake III-engine game from Ritual.
Datumplane::Starsiege asked a couple of questions
of TRIBES/TRIBES2 lead programmer Mark Frohnmayer and learned that TRIBES2 will make use
of the GLSetup utility for OpenGL configuration.
They also asked whether Dynamix is considering adding Direct3D support to TRIBES2 (the
original TRIBES was Glide-only, and though OpenGL support has been added since, it has
mixed results depending on what accelerator is used). Here was Mark's reply:
Only if we can't get the performance we need out of OpenGL. If we did support
D3D it would be as an D3D->OpenGL wrapper.
Gameguides' System Shock 2 guide is
online for those stuck making their way through Looking Glass' new sci-fi RPG. Thanks
Billy at Voodoo Extreme.
After a glitch yesterday where they had exclusive shots from Half-Life: Opposing Force
that turned out to have been printed already in a magazine, ValveWorld is ready to give it another go, having
posted another shot from Gearbox' upcoming add-on that we are assured is really, really,
new this time, with another shot in cold storage to post soon.
Since when does a game-industry interview have anything to do with Sanity? When it is
about Sanity, Monolith's upcoming action/RPG, as is NGNetwork's interview with
Monolith's Kevin Lambert.
Though it isn't yet noted on the Winamp home, the new version of 2.5 of Winamp is
now available on their FTP site. Thanks Frans and BetaNews.
Bagpuss points out that one big change with the new version is that Winamp is now once
again freeware.
Todd 'Tungsten' Northcutt from Captured.Com sent
along a streaming link to the
interview referenced earlier ( story),
and Greg Ballard was indeed talking about the product after the next (Voodoo4/Napalm)
product, saying it is due in "first half of 2000."
In addition to the Descent 3 version 1.1 patch ( story) and the Linux patch ( story), it turns out that Outrage also released the new version 1.1 of
the the Descent 3 SDK on the Outrage Technology
page, where word is: "Note: Mods compiled with the earlier release of the SDK
will not work with Descent 3 1.1, and Mods compiled with the D3-SDK 1.0 will not work with
Descent 3 1.0." For more on D3 editing, visit the D3sdk Support Site. Thanks The Descent Chronicles. Finally, Frans at 3D Action Gamers also points out the read me for the patch is now
available ( he's
mirrored it if it's being slammed).
- Rumor of the day is This article on The
Shugashack, which takes some paraphrased comments on CNBC
attributed to Greg Ballard, the CEO of 3dfx to speculate that a Voodoo5 product might be
available first quarter 2000. At E3, someone from 3dfx specifically pointed out that the
time spans demonstrated in the changes from Voodoo to Voodoo2 to Voodoo3 represented their
roadmap of upgrades, so expecting the V5 generation product ("Rampage" or whatever it eventually
becomes) within six months, when the V4 generation product ("Napalm" or
whatever it eventually becomes), has not even been officially announced yet, seems
unlikely (I wouldn't be surprised if the product Greg was talking about turns out to be
the Napalm/Voodoo4). That's just my opinion... I could be wrong (see follow-up).
- Richard Turnbull sends word that he's repackaged the source code for version 1.2 of his
Blitz 3D engine, and posted it on ACID REIGN.
Here's the poop on the re-release:
I have re-released the source code to an earlier version of the Blitz Engine
(V1.2) due to demand for the entire project files and assembly object code. This release
therefore contains the entire project and is ready to compile along with a sample scene to
test. This source code distribution is not an example of my programming skills. In fact it
contains some quite poor code and unoptimised routines. The aim of this release is to
provide people with some help and a starting block to build their own kick-ass engines. It
contains code on BSP Tree's, S-Buffering, Portal rendering, Z-Buffering, Translucency,
Particles, Direct Draw programming, Direct Input Programming, Surface Cacheing, Collision
Detection and most importantly, my completely hand crafted 32-bit MMX optimised realtime
span level RGB interpolative rasterizer (Surface cacheing at run time) with span level
mip-mapping.
Wewp! Entertainment has posted a pair of new
screenshots from TRIBES Extreme, Dynamix' upcoming follow-up to Starsiege TRIBES that will
offer enhanced single-player play. They have a couple of other shots they plan on posting
tomorrow.
The TeamFortress2 movies released yesterday ( story) were not especially big by current standards, ranging between
3.7 and 6.7 MB each, but if bandwidth is a consideration, AGN3D
has popped up a copy of each movie squeezed down into streaming RealPlayer format.
OpenGL DooM Legacy News
has the release of beta 7 of this OpenGL port of id software's Doom. The new beta is
described as "probably the latest public release before the final version. All the
necessary files to run Legacy are available." The new version fixes a lot of
remaining bugs and improves the OpenGL renderer, and word is "Like the beta 6
version, it includes the new network code from boris (including "joiningame")
and two mouse support" (referring to portions of the "original" Doom Legacy
code, though the update from the 21st with beta 6 never actually appeared on the site
before today--I'm not sure they are aware of that). Thanks again Frans at 3D Action Gamers.
Frans at 3D Action Gamers points out that
in addition to the quiet release of the version 1.1 client patch for Descent 3 earlier ( story), Outrage has also released the version 1.1 Descent 3 Linux servers and
the patch on this page. In addition, there are also two new multiplayer map packs
(each with three maps) there for download. The patch is now also available on 3DGamers. It is noted
that: "This is only the patch for the US version. Patches for other versions will be
out soon."
Mark Kinkead sent along the latest version of
his Dungeon Keeper 2 editor, and since it's not posted elsewhere yet, I popped up a local copy on our rather
busy FTP server in case you're interested. This is an ASCII based map editor that
allows you to create dungeons, place creatures/doors/traps, and Hero Gates (the gates are
the new feature). It is not supported by Bullfrog (but has their blessings), and is
described as "not for the faint at heart, for it is a console program. It does work
with at least the German and French versions as well." Several maps mad with earlier
version of the program are available at DarkSword,
along with some support for the editor.
Descent3.net
News has word the "long-awaited" version 1.1 patch for Descent 3 is now
available. They have posted a link to download it that is broken (the poster notes he was
rushing for a plane), but I dug up the proper link, which is here (the link had a .zip
extension instead of an .exe). Here's a local copy on Blue's News FTP (897 KB), and word is you can also use
the in-game updater to install it over the Internet (according to the Outrage site, that's preferred, saying: "It's better to use the auto updater in the D3 launcher"). Thanks saiyajin.
On the heels of yesterday's release, a new version 2.01 of NOP is now available. NOP is the
Java-based Q3Test stats tool that can provide real-time webpage updates with info from a
game server. The rapid patch is to address the missing help.html problem in version 2.0. Additionally, NOP will now overwrite any existing old version nop2.dat (v1.1 -
v2.0 beta), which was obsolete anyway.
A new version 1.75 of The Cold Ice Mod
for Half-Life is now available. Fixes in the new release include the return of the
Off-Hand Grapple, an optimized SmartHud system, the long jump pack will be replace with a
jet pack, four new weapon models, nine new ammo models, more weapon slots (10), a new
version of the iceman model, and word that the voice command no longer works since the
1.0.1.3 patch.
The Codename Eagle interview
on GA-Source talks with Amir Haleem, designer for Swedish-based Refraction Games about this upcoming
military action extravaganza. The piece includes a half-dozen new screenshots showing off
action from the game, which uses a proprietary 3D engine.
- S3 Obtains Early Termination of
HSR Waiting Period for Proposed Merger with Diamond Multimedia is the press release
announcing that S3 and Diamond have cleared a legal hurdle, and: "As a result,
special meetings of the shareholders of S3 and Diamond Multimedia to consider and vote
upon the merger are scheduled to be held on September 20, 1999."
- Jim Decker sends word that the ATI drivers mentioned earlier (story) look like they were released a couple of weeks ago, sorry for
causing any confusion.
- Ace's Hardware has added some new info on
overclocking Athlon processors.
- The three simultaneous new reviews earlier on CGO (story) turn out to be no coincidence (or late-night Vivarin bingeing),
but rather the kick off of Computer
Games Online's Fall '99 video card roundup, which offers a plethora of new reviewage,
examining, or re-examining the 3D Blaster TNT2
Ultra, Maxi
Gamer Xentor, Maxi Gamer Xentor
32, Millennium
G400, Millennium
G400 Max, Stealth
III S540, Viper
V770, Viper
V770 Ultra, Voodoo3
2000, Voodoo3
3000, Voodoo3
3500TV, and the Winfast 3D S320
II (you may need to print some of these out for bathroom reading to get to them all).
- Ars Technica's Book review of
Expert C Programming Deep C Secrets gives it "5 out of 5 woo-hoos!"
- Beyond 3D previews Guillemot's
Upcoming Product Line.
- As a follow-up to his .plan yesterday, (story) Xatrix' Ryan "Ridah" Feltrin updated his .plan again with more on those under-performing
"value" TNT2 cards that he says it turns out are not just being offered by
"no name" manufacturers.
The Adrenaline
Vault Downloads Page offers the patch of the day for the German version of Egosoft's X
- Beyond the Frontier. The note says simply that the "patch fixes a few bugs and also
adds a few new features."
The Heavy Gear II
Downloads page has been updated with the third bonus map for Activision's game of both
on and off-planet giant gear combat. Thanks Frans at 3D Action Gamers, who points out that it
looks like we failed to note the second bonus map upon its release. To make up for the
oversight, here's a bonus, bonus map, as they have a map on their FTP site that Frans noticed that isn't listed on
the page. Here's the direct link
to the file, described in the read me like this: "Location: Veril Hills, AST,
Terra Nova. Background: The Veril Hills are along the border of the Mekong Dominion and
the Southern Republic. Conflict between these two political powers has arisen again and
the Veril Hills have once again become a battle ground."
Having sobered up after the travel day, loonyboi has sent along his Day Three Diary from the
Quake III Bus Tour, detailing all the events along the road to AMD where they ended up
dressing in bunny suits outside the bus (no joke--we've got photos!), and encountered
someone with the nickname "LOW AMMO WARNING" (I have to admit I thought of this
one day a couple of months ago, and it cracked me up for a few minutes, but I got over
it). loony also fired up the Gratuitously Expensive Blue's News Camera™ and took a load of photos
of the proceedings, including a dizzyingly different look at that Orbb model, and the
first shot of the Athena female model. And of course, there's the Quake
III Bus Tour Messageboard, in case you want to read or write more about the subject.
Billy spotted a post on Planet Kingpin in turn taken from Kingpinpost, that sheds a little vague light on
the status of the version 1.2 patch, said to be imminent in Ridah's last post to the Kingpin Beta Testing page on August 20 ( story), Here's the update:
Just wanted to drop a quick note and give everyone an update on the current
status of the patch. As reported on the beta page, the patch has gone final and is
currently going through our QA department and official signoff. Assuming no problems turn
up, and that we do not receive any additional updates from Ridah (Ryan Feltrin), the 1.2
final patch should hopefully be available for download from Interplay support sites within
the next 1-2 days.
Thanks!
Matthew Byrne
Manager
Interplay Customer Service/Technical Support
Saw on The Descent Chronicles that a thread
called Volition beta
testers wanted on the Volition Bulletin
Board gives word Volition is looking for serious beta testers for a
test of the multiplayer FreeSpace 2 Demo to iron out modem and connectivity problems. I
won't reproduce the post here to make to so easy to flood them with applicants (I
hesitated before posting it at all), but suggest if you really are interested in helping
them out, you head over and check it out. Serious beta testing is more of a pain in the
neck than it is just the joy of getting early software, so if you are not into the work
part of it, this probably isn't for you. The good news for the rest of us is that this
makes an updated demo sound fairly close.
It actually seems safe to announce that Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun is now
available in some retail outlets, and may be in stores near you. In keeping with loony's
sentiments, even after getting the official announcement that the game had shipped to
stores, I held off until I had eyewitness accounts (I still know loony will not believe it
until seeing it himself). Thanks to all the eyewitnesses who sent in word (we have your
new identities for the Witness Protection Program all set). Also, The Adrenaline Vault
News has seven new screenshots of Metal Fatigue, an upcoming real-time strategy game
from Psygnosis. Finally, Beta Bites' Submarine
Titans Preview looks ahead at this upcoming underwater RTS (where's Kevin Costner when
you need him?), and likewise offers some screenshots.
The newly-opened Head Trauma (better bandage it
then...), dedicated to 3D Realms/Remedy Entertainment's upcoming third-person action game
Max Payne, is holding an IRC session with 3D Realms' Scott Miller. The session
will be this evening (Wednesday, August 25) at 9:00 PM EDT in irc.inside3d.net (port 6667)
in the channel #max-payne. Scott will be answering questions about Apogee, 3D Realms, game
development and himself, and he may also take questions (limited because of the media
blackout) on "Max Payne and other 3D Realms/Apogee games that
Scott may have or had active participation in (Duke Nukem Forever, Prey, etc.)."
This evening's Talkspot Game Dive
will play host to designers Dan Foy and Marc Hudgins, who are working on the
soon-to-be-released BABYLON
5: Into The Fire, and they will be answering questions about this upcoming space
combat simulator, based, of course, on the science fiction series. The show is today from
10:00 PM to Midnight EDT, RealPlayer, or equivalent,
required.
Inside Mac Games Magazine has posted some more Unreal Tournament
Screenshots & VR Movies from the Mac version of Epic's upcoming shooter, the VR
movies again those nifty QuickTime VR
jobbies that can give you a 360 degree view of a level.
There was no description with those TeamFortress2 movies released yesterday ( story), so after checking them out, and seeing they were the movies
shown at E3, I thought I'd share what little I know about each: Ammoload
shows a soldier firing a mounted machine gun, and when he is joined by a teammate (a
female medic) to feed the ammo belt, the rate of fire increases (showing off teamplay), Combo
shows off a couple of classes, including the spy taking a life James Bond style, Voicecomm
is an example of how a characters lips match their words when using the real-time voice
stuff, and finally, my favorite, Tank
shows off the super animation effects -- the soldier you see climbing up and jumping off
the tank is another player (not an NPC or anything), and that's what the animation of him
climbing and jumping look like... notice how the grenade goes off a little sooner than he
expected, and the animation changes perfectly as he gets caught in the explosion.
In the article about bleem! yesterday ( story), I munged up the link to their page, inadvertently linking to
some perfectly normal homepage, I hope we didn't run up the owner's webhosting bill or
anything, thanks to all who wrote in with a heads-up on the error.
Yesterday saw another run of the new version of the pop culture game, which is now much
easier to spot, hanging out there with an asterisk and all (I think the quotes used should
be more obscure, as a result). Anyway, the quote offered was from Ghostbusters, and it's
the only one I can recall that had an actual "correct" answer (the reply quote I
was thinking of when writing the original, which is: "Ray, the next time someone asks
you if you're a god, you say YES!" which was probably in fact, the most common
response, and the quote offered by the first to offer a quote, CorD'un Xor.
Link of the Day: Old
Man Murray's Asheron's Call Beta Log.
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