Archived News:
Cavedog has
announced that their first person shooter Amen: The Awakening has been cancelled.
While no reasons are named in the press release, it does say that the game had
"fallen significantly behind schedule" and that the company plans
to shift its focus towards their Total Annihilation franchise and their Boneyards
online service. This news comes after months of speculation, where several members
of the Amen team had left the company.
More screenshot mania, as GameSpot has also posted a set of new Picassio screenshots (from both PC and Dreamcast). Picassio is the upcoming sneak-'m-up by Promethean Designs, in which the player becomes a hired thief specializing in stealing art.
Coinciding with Bungie's presence on the MacWorld event in San Francisco, incitegames.com has posted a single new high-res screenshot of Halo, depicting a scene from Bungie's upcoming action game (the second image on the page is already known from the official Halo screenshots page). Similarly, GameSpot has posted one new screenshot of Halo and one of Oni too, mixed in with known images from the official sites, as well as the aforementioned Halo image.
There is a new preview of 10Six up on GameSpot, looking at SegaSoft's upcoming action/strategy game which, as the name implies, aims to be the first million-player game. The article examines the interface, gameplay and combat in the game, which recently went into open beta ( story), and is illustrated with several screenshots.
ModScene.com has posted a brief interview with id's Graeme Devine (thanks ShugaShack). The talk reflects the post-release lull that id Software apparently is in now, as this quote shows:
MS: Do you have any future project in consideration at Id you can speak about, and if so, are efforts going to be made to insure end-user modification will continue?
GD: Right now we're working hard on the point release and getting the source out the door for the game. It's a quiet time here really.
Raven's Rick Johnson updated his
.plan with the reasons why the Hexen II source code won't be released just
yet. Here's the scoop: With the release of the Quake 1 source code, it
has been asked about the possibility of Hexen2 / Hexenworld source code being
released. Since a version of Hexen2 was just recently released to some Asian
markets a month ago, at this time we cannot release the source code. This is
not saying that we will never release the source code, but currently, the timing
is not appropriate for us to do so.
Activision has
announced that the Mac version of Quake III Arena will be going into retail
distribution this week. It's a
strange press release, as today is the 6th, and it says, "the week
of January 3rd", but it's a fair assumption that the game should be going
on sale this week (if not already). Mac Quake III Arena will have a suggested retail price of
$49.99.
IMG Magazine
has posted word they received from the floor of the MacWorld San Francisco show,
that 3dfx will be fully supporting the MacOS with their Voodoo 4 and 5 products
(which they say were made with Macs in mind). Full MacOS retail boxes will be
shipping shortly after their PC counterparts.
The Soldier of Fortune WCHQ has
posted 24 new screenshots
from the multiplayer OEM version of Soldier of Fortune, as well as 12
new shots of the different characters in the game. This is a different version
of the OEM than the one available, as that version is single player only.
Hitherto unnoticed, at least up here in the Blue Tower, Digital Anvil made two updates to their official Loose Cannon site last month: in Developer's Journal art director Bruce Lemons talks about the err.. state of the art in this upcoming 3D shooting and driving game, detailing the progress of the creation of textures for the urban cityscapes and open countryside settings, as well as other aspects of the design. Additionally, the screenshots page has four new high-res images of the game.
Adrenaline Vault has posted an interview with Ken Gordon, producer of Dominion Wars, an upcoming 3D real-time strategy game set in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine universe. The game, which is due for a Fall release, emphasizes space tactical combat, and allows you to play on the Federation, Klingon and the Dominion Alliance sides. The article includes a couple of pieces of concept art. Here is a bit more about the context of the game:
I am reluctant to associate the game with something else, though some have drawn comparisons to Homeworld. But one of the
great things about this universe is that even non-fans are so well informed because of the cultural saturation of the shows and
movies, they will go in comprehending the mechanics of space combat. People understand what shields, phasers, photon
torpedoes, tractor beams, and distortion clouds are, so there is a natural accessibility component that we are going to leverage.
It is such a well-defined universe, and what we found when it comes to space combat is that everything is provided; we do not
feel constrained and it will be simple to educate people since they are coming in with a wealth of understanding.
nV News has posted a
tune-up guide for Quake III Arena. The guide presents a plethora of options
for tweaking the game to run its best on GeForce 256 cards, and features benchmark
numbers using Creative Labs' Annihilator and Annihilator Pro cards.
Vault Network has posted their preview of Final Fantasy VIII, the upcoming 3D role-playing game by SquareSoft that is due for release later this month. The article goes into great detail about the various aspects of the game, including the all-important Guardian Forces, and comes with a bunch of new screenshots.
PC.IGN points the way to four new screenshots of Black & White on the Dutch site Infolder. The images show off B&W: Gathering Area, a demo version of the game that allows your Titan (creature) to communicate and interact with other Titans in the game, which should be out by the middle of this year.
There is a new preview of Legend of the Blademasters up on Computer Games Online, taking a look at Ronin's upcoming 3D action/RPG. The article examines story and gameplay, the game's interface and weapons, and more, though most of the screenshots have already appeared elsewhere.
The Digital Extremes site has word
of problems with the .umod installer with the Unreal Tournament mutators
they released ( story).
Here's the update: Hmmm... it seems that the .umod installer is not
working as expected. I was playing online and the ammo pickups were invisible
which means that the dedicated server is missing a line in it's
UnrealTournament.ini file in the /UT/System directory. This problem will occur
on dedicated servers for the Volatile Ammo and also the Team Beacon mutators.
To fix this, the following entry should go under the [Engine.GameEngine]
heading:
ServerPackages=DE
This change should have been made by the .umod file, but instead it creates a
new UnrealTournament.ini file in the /UT directory. Weird. Anyway, making this
change should fix this problem for dedicated servers, which is the only place it
will occur. In the meantime, Steve is working on making a new .umod file (by
hand... ugh) that will install correctly. I guess it slipped by us here 'cause
we had the line in our .ini already.
The Wheel of Time page has a
gigantic update (thanks Unreal Universe),
including the hysterical tale of their Y2K problems (it still could have been
saved until the brain eating mutants showed up). There is also word in there on
a new addition (baby), an international WoT launch party, several user-made
maps, some community resources, some positive reviews (did I mention it was a
gigantic update?), word of a cool key binding utility called THUMB on Shadar Logoth
that I meant to mention the other day, and also includes a list of planned
changes in the upcoming WoT 310 patch. Here's the list: New
Features:
+ Player ID (point cursor at someone and see their name) with Disguise support.
+ Voting (RestartServer, Kick, KickBan, Open).
+ Added log statements for join team/leave team/restartgame to clear to log info
to console for server admins.
+ NetSpeed menu additions.
+ KickBan.
+ Allow non-English installers (UMasterCommandlet).
Fixes:
+ Fix for "too many seals" bug.
+ Added IsBattlefieldClear() to test citadel game state
+ Fix for "bad server config" bug (check for no players when
!IsBattlefieldClear() in Timer()).
+ Fix for "spectators can affect game play" -- spectators are forced
onto one of the teams one the game has started.
+ Fix color character icons on Scoreboard.
+ Tracer fixes.
+ MachinShin replication fixes.
+ Button input fixes.
+ Remove spaces from names on SetName.
+ Seeker replication optimization.
+ LightGlobe fixes.
+ SwapPlacesEffect - make spirit shield effective.
+ Changed TCHAR_TO_OEM to TCHAR_TO_ANSI to fix problems with localized versions.
+ Include patch to fix copy-protection bug that breaks MP server startup.
+ Include patch with all D3D enhancements
+ ini changes (SetupWoTfrench.ini, SetupWoT2french.ini,SetupWoTgerman.ini,
SetupWoT2german.ini, SetupWoTother.ini, SetupWoT2other.ini).
+ ini changes (remove unreal.epicgames.com etc.).
+ Localization (WoT.det, WOT.est, Angreal.det, wotbrowser.est,
SetupWoTother.est).
+ Fix for FString::Parse / appStrfind crash.
+ Fix for shift while walking (could leave players floating in air)..
+ Fix for high Illum times -- use Home or Grey "+" to flush caches.
+ Fix for Legion projectiles hunting down respawned targets.
+ Fix for NPCs maintaining targets after they die and respawn.
+ Can no longer freeze corpses (fixes floating corpses and possibly a crash
related to this).
The SWAT 3 Retreat
interviews Rod Fung, talking with the producer for the SWAT series of games
at Sierra On-Line about SWAT 3: Close Quarter Battle about how and why
certain aspects of this tactical police simulation turned out as they did. The
Q&A also discusses future plans for the franchise which at the moment
consists of work on a SWAT 3 multiplayer add-on pack that "should be
available in early Spring 2000."
As always, the first Thursday of the month marks the regularly scheduled
AnachroChat, an online IRC session with the folks at ION Storm hard at work
developing Anachronox, their upcoming Quake II-engine RPG. The chat kicks off tonight at
9:00 PM EST (8:00 PM CST), and you can join using a Java-enabled browser by
visiting the ION Storm site and using the
"Online" link, or with an ordinary IRC client using www.ionstorm.com
as the server, and #ion as the channel.
The folks at Act Labs send word of a Quake II mod on Glitterstream that turns Quake II into a rail shooter (where you travel a predefined
route instead of freely walking), an exciting development for them, since it can
make use of their hand-held gun system, which is not as useful as a controller
if you need to govern your own movement.
In what would seem to be a resurgence in Starsiege TRIBES news comes word of hvMechWarrior,
an homage to the giant robot combat of the MW series using TRIBES. In addition
to downloads of the mod and accompanying skins, is word of one of their servers
running the mod.
A post called Zoid, could you take a look at my CTF map please
on the Quake3World.com Forums inspired a lengthy response from the id
Software contract programmer on the art of making maps for Quake III arena that
includes screenshots and diagrams. Thanks Shugashack.
Nogbad's Black Castle has a new Q3A Windows desktop theme. Also, there is now
an Official Rune Wallpaper
page with some Rune images in various wallpaper-friendly resolutions, and
the Rune fan site Ragnarok
has some new concept art as well as those wallpapers from Human Head Studios'
upcoming Viking game.
- The Vault Network has posted
the announcement of Ultima Online: Renaissance, the upcoming relaunch of
their online RPG where you get to work for a living...
- A Riding the
Rocket Tutorial Section is now open, offering a complete set of
tutorials on all aspects of "trick" jumping in Quake II, from
doublejumps to circlejumps to bunnyhops, including full explanations and
demos...
- Fans of the co-op style of play might want to bookmark The Co-op Certification Laboratory
where they have a listing of mods for Doom II and Quake II that support
co-op play, with plans for the addition of an Unreal section soon...
- There's a Crimson Skies Preview
on GameSpot UK with a look ahead at this game described as "an
all-out action flyer" rather than a flight sim...
- Machinima.com
interviews Joe Goss, founder of Tritin Films, creators of the Quad God
Q3A movie...
- Running Stats on Demos
is a quick explanation on how to get stats from your deathmatches from
recorded demos in Quake III Arena...
- A new version 4.4 of DeuTex,
the old school wad composer for Doom, Heretic, Hexen and Strife, is now
available. Thanks Jacek Fedoryński...
- The 20 top-selling entertainment software titles (by unit sales) are up on
GameDAILY
for the week of December 19-25, 1999 (Who wants to be a Millionaire is
#1, Q3A #6, and the year-old Half-Life, of all things, at #20)...
Wow, it turned out that there are more potential problems and solutions
involving Windows failing to ask for a login upon booting than I ever could have
imagined, I tried about every combination of these suggestions, but so far
nothing. To make me feel better, I've gotten a couple of notes from folks like
myself, who can't seem to cure this no matter what they try (it seems using
Win98 Internet Connection Sharing may be a common culprit). I see I have a few
more new mails on this to try now, if I solve it, I'll pass along what the cause
was here. I'm also developing a healthy collection of traceroutes to the site,
if you are having unusual problems accessing the site, feel free to send along a
trace of your own, and we'll continue to look for the gremlins in the wire.
Link of the Day: Customers
Suck. Thanks Jason.
Story of the Day: Lawsuit: Universal Studios' haunted house too scary, caused emotional distress.
Thanks Maverick.
Bonus Story: Shoppers get $400 break in fine print
(at Microsoft's expense, no less). Thanks HiDDeN.
Image of the Day: Astronomy
Picture of the Day 2000 January 1 - The Millennium that Defines Universe. Thanks
ZDim.
Gamecenter has posted fourteen new screenshots of Starsiege: TRIBES 2, the first such images in a long time of Dynamix' upcoming team-based multiplayer-only shooter. According to the accompanying info, the game is now scheduled for release late this year.
Bungie has given their official Oni site a make-over, and in the process released four new screenshots (the top row) of their anime-inspired third-person action game. In related Oni news, today's MacWorld coverage on Bungie TV featured part 1 of an Oni Special, which should be available from the bTV Archive later tonight, if you missed the live feed.
The initial version of The Glyphs, a multiplayer mod for Heretic II has been released, featuring two maps and modified player models. The Glyphs is a mod that "removes Heretic II's standard weapons and replaces them with a flying disk that the player throws at enemies. The disk can be given special abilities for a limited time by taking them to a 'glyph', which is a special statue. Examples of the different abilities include Multidisk, Homing, and Buzzsaw."
The latest Freak of the Week image is up on PsychoNews, depicting not one but a pair of UniPsychos from Third Law's upcoming action game KISS Psycho Circus: the Nightmare Child.
RPOV has posted an interview
with Vince Farquharson, producer on Evolva at Computer Artworks. Evolva
is a sort of oddball shooter, where you can "customize" your character
by mutating them to suit your needs. The interview focuses mainly on the gameplay,
delving into the game's use of fuzzy logic, the puzzles, and the insane number
of skills available.
Thought Guild, the publisher of New Media Generation's first-person shooter Hired Team, has released a set of new screenshots of Hired Team: Trial, the multiplayer-only version of the game, which is scheduled for a release this Spring.
The unofficial Quake III Arena gameplay FAQ received a big update to version 2.5, adding tips and hints for survival in levels Q3TOURNEY4, Q3DM13 and Q3DM14, expanding the weapons analysis section, and adding and updating bits of info throughout the document.
WONSwap, the utility that helps users
find new maps and custom models, now supports Quake III Arena. The program also
supports Half-Life, SWAT 3, TRIBES, Unreal Tournament, and even Soldier of Fortune
(despite the fact that the game hasn't gone gold yet) amongst other games.
3DGPU.com has posted an interview with Jake Simpson, programmer at Raven Software on Soldier of Fortune and Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force (back and forth between the two of them). The talk mainly focuses on graphics technology and programming, but there's also a run-down of his typical workday, if you're curious about that sort of thing.
Gamasutra has posted an article that originally ran in the April 1999 issue
of Game Developer Magazine, which features Multitude
developer Art Min's postmortem on Fireteam. The piece is particularly interesting
in light of the fact that the game is no longer available for purchase. Fireteam
was an isometric squad based multiplayer-only title, which featured real-time
voice communication.
Steve Jobs has completed his keynote address at MacWorld San Francisco, and while
there weren't any earth shattering revelations of note, id Software's John Carmack,
who is indeed on his honeymoon, did in fact make an appearance on video (it
would appear Anna brought along some video equipment in addition to that workstation)
talking briefly about their new MacOS X platform (and its use of OpenGL, of
course). While there was a planned demonstration of Quake III Arena on OS X,
the computer froze as the level was loading. You can watch
the keynote in streaming QuickTime on ZDTV, and don't forget Bungie's
live BTV at 1:00 PST from the show floor as well.
There are four new screenshots of Project IGI on the Innerloop Studios website Projects page, offering a glimpse of their upcoming third-person action game that is scheduled to be released next Summer through Eidos Interactive. The page also shows off some screenshots of a hybrid sports game for the Dreamcast console.
PC.IGN.com has posted a hands-on preview of Hidden & Dangerous: Devil's Bridge, the upcoming expansion pack to Illusion Softworks' squad-based tactical shooter, which is already out in Europe under the subtitle of Fight for Freedom. The article goes into fair detail about all aspects of the nine new missions, and comes with a slew of new screenshots.
A few updates from the wonderful world of FAQs and walkthroughs: the unofficial Unreal Tournament FAQ has been updated with a few more bits about Epic's acclaimed action game. The Wheel of Time Walkthrough was expanded with more guidance into the world of Robert Jordan, as depicted in Legend's action/strategy game. And finally, the Nocturne FAQ/Walkthrough has more help on Terminal Reality's spooky adventure.
There are three new "official" mutators (game modifications) for
Unreal Tournament on the Digital Extremes
website. Here's word from GameFan
on what they do:
- Volatile Ammunition: This mutator makes any ammunition pick-up in the game
explode when shot. Punish the ammo-hog with a devastating Flak-ammo chain
reaction!
- Volatile Weapons: When you kill your enemies, their weapons explode! Think
twice before using the Impact Hammer on those rocket-launching newbies!
- Team Beacon: Places a yellow icon above teammates in team games. A
must-have for the CTF junkies!
The QuakeWorld Revitalization Project
has the first release of their client proxy and secure server for QuakeWorld
that are intended to put an end to the rampant cheating that has sprung up in
QuakeWorld matches since the recent public release of the full Quake source code
( story).
The story contains a warning that there are bound to be errors in this beta
release, and backing up your original installation is advised before checking
this out. Thanks Ryan Stotts.
Raven's Eric Biessman updated
his .plan with an update about progress on Soldier of Fortune, Raven's
upcoming Quake II-powered mercenary shooter: Soldier of Fortune:
Things are going very well for SoF and we are crunching to finalize all of the
levels and make sure that they are tested, balanced, and fun.
CTF, realistic, and the other mods are also coming along quite well and we are
just starting to sit down and really playtest the heck out of them. With the
huge amount of deathmatch characters that you can play in the game (thanks to
the wonderful world of GHOUL), it is always fun to change your player look.
Over the last week, when 90% of Raven had time off, Dan Kramer and Keith Fuller
sat down and got realistic up and running. I must admit that while I am not
usually a fan of this style of play, I actually had fun. A lot of fun. For those
of you who know me, this is not small feat. ;)
Other than that, another day, another level...
Voodoo Extreme
interviews Tim Sweeney hitting the Epic lead programmer with several
questions about Unreal and Unreal Tournament, as well as upcoming games and
technologies.
The second part of Computer Games Online's
RUNE preview is online with more of a look ahead at this upcoming
third-person Norse action game from Human Head Studios, declaring "A
healthy Viking is a happy Viking" in describing the new health system
devised for the game.
A post by Epic's Tim Sweeney on SourceForge
opens the possibility that Epic would be willing to cooperate with someone
willing to do a port of Unreal Tournament to the BeOS (thanks BeBits).
Here's the scoop: The parts of the engine you'd need access to for a full
port aren't open-source right now, but if an experienced team or individual came
to us wanting to do a BeOS port, we'd seriously consider giving them access to
the complete source for that purpose. Know anyone? :-)
I get several emails each week from Be users wanting a port...
QWare Software News has
a new version 0.85 of QBind Free Edition, the key binding program that supports
the Quake family of games. The new release fixes some bugs, and adds support for
the latest versions of Quake III Arena and the Q3A Demo.
Rungy's Metropolis is a new site
looking to introduce beginners to the art of making mods for Quake III Arena.
Also, the Official Shaded Website has
a new release of this utility to help make those tricky shaders for Quake III
Arena models that fixes a few bugs. Thanks Jacek Fedoryński for both of those.
The first release of the Renegades Elite Match MOD
for Starsiege TRIBES is now available, originally intended "as a bug free
version of the popular renegades mod," the project has grown and now offers
several new features, including "beefed up and toned down weapons"
(presumably not simultaneously).
More TRIBES: Described as "at a very rough stage at the moment" Star Wars Battlegrounds
is now available for Starsiege TRIBES. There is actually an updated version from
the very first version posted yesterday (before it was reported here), so if you managed to find an early
version, you should probably re-download the new one. Thanks Killjoys.
The first release of IRCQW, a
modified version of the GL QuakeWorld client that allows the user to IRC while
playing Quake, is now available. While described as "not really a serious
mod," it is still said to work pretty well, so the author is interested in
whether other Quake programmers have interest in incorporating it into other
Quake revival projects.
Player registration is now underway for the Arena Duel Liga
(ADL), a Quake III Arena league with low and high ping categories competing
using both the demo and the full versions of Q3A. Also, There's more information
on Wireplay about Fragfest
2000 ( story)
which has attracted a number of entrants from outside the UK. Applicants are
still welcome but registrations must be in by January 9. The "Best
Deathmatch Level/Map" portion of the $150,000 Make Something Unreal Contest
is underway, offering $7,000 in prizes for the best submissions in the category.
Finally, Quake III CTF is a Q3A league
for individuals, DM clans, and CTF clans, with over 200 players already signed
up.
- The Counter-Strike page has
word of an experimental server patch on the admin forum
if you want to help track down that nasty lag bug. Thanks [NWH]NemesiS...
- RIVA Station has
posted an endless timedemo loop for Quake III Arena to stress test your
system (or tie it up so you can regain control of your ship--no wait, that
was asking the computer to calculate pi on Star Trek)...
- 3D Gamer's Edge has a
review up of single-player Quake II map titled Small Pile of Gibs (by
SmallPileofGibs) that they call "simply the best spq2 (including those
maps within the Q2 game and it's related mission packs)" they have ever
played, receiving their highest ever rating...
- Stealth Systems,
devoted to Quake III Arena bot development and support, have posted a few
Q3A bots, custom models for bots, word of their Bot Development Server (Bots
are on 24/7 playing CTF), and a custom .pk3 file to make the bot .cfg more
flexible and easy to edit...
- The Diablo II
screenshot of the week mirrored on The Labyrinth is the 44th shot of the
week, presumably the 52nd will be shot of the year. There is also a new Cinematic
screenshot of the week...
Still looking into the site routing, feel free to continue to send traceroutes
if you are so inclined (thanks). In troubleshooting something in my dial-up
networking (it's always something--for some reason nothing I can do gets windows
to ask me to log-in on booting--I must log out first), I discovered a
performance tip that I was unaware of: In Win9x Dial-up networking there's a
checkbox in the properties called "Log onto network," which just seems
so obviously something you would want under these circumstances. It turns out
checking this box makes your machine look for a Windows network to log into, so
if your ISP is Unix-based, like so many, unchecking this box cuts a huge chunk
of time off of how long it takes your machine to log on to the net (since your
machine will time out looking for this other network to log onto). I'm sure
there are a lot of you who knew this already, but it was news to me, as well as
some others I pointed it out to, so I imagine it will help some of you as well.
Link of the Day: The Smoking Gun
lives! Issue four is online.
Image of the Day: Sin's
John Blade redone by former Ritual Artist John "Butcher" Mueller,
looking just a bit grittier than the original.
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