Archived News:
In addition to their development diary, GameSpot has posted five
new screenshots from Diablo II (thanks Ant).
The shots show off some of the new 3D spell effects in the game, in addition
to the usual locations and characters.
GameSpot News has posted a
brief Q&A with Chris Taylor, the creator of Total Annihilation, and
the head designer on Dungeon Siege, his new Diablo-style isometric adventure
game. When asked what separates his game from Diablo, he pointed out that the
game will feature a, "continuous gigantic 3D world, (that is, no loading
screens), large multicharacter parties, and intense over-the-top action."
GameSpot has posted an interview with David Cage of Quantic Dream discussing the sequel to their 3D adventure game Omikron: Nomad Soul. He talks about how the story of Omikron 2 links to the first game, hints at the involvement of "celebrities", and explains some of the planned improvements.
There are some new screenshots of X: Beyond the Frontier on Monolitic Illusions and Adrenaline Vault, showing off galactic scenes from Egosoft's space combat adventure, which is due to appear in US stores on January 19.
After a long hiatus, a new installment of the Diablo II designer diaries is now online at GameSpot. This edition has producer Matt Householder and QA manager Chris Sigaty talking about the state of development of Blizzard's role-playing game, and detailing the QA process the game goes through as it is nearing completion.
Yesterday's release of bTV footage day three ( story) included about two minutes of impressive new Halo footage, which is now available separately as a 4MB clip by JosephAW, or a 15MB movie on halo.bungie.org. Note that this is 160x120 footage taken off a monitor screen, but it's worthwhile viewing nonetheless. Elsewhere, Interplay has released another new Star Trek: Klingon Academy movie clip, showing off 16 seconds of in-game action in their upcoming space-based RTS.
Kahn, a server browsing IRC client
that supports the Descent games, Starcraft and Warcraft in addition to other
titles, is now free. You can download
it at this site, and while it will tell you that you only have 21
days remaining to use it, that number will never decrease.
new reality gaming has posted a brief interview with 10Six producer Al Rivera, talking about SegaSoft's upcoming massively multiplayer action/strategy game. Topics include the currently ongoing beta test, the game's influences, and an interesting bit about the kind of horsepower needed to run the game's persistent online world.
Raven's Brian Raffel updated his
.plan with a clarification on his update earlier in the week regarding the
Soldier of Fortune demo: I just want to let everyone know that when I
said the SOF demo should pass by QA on Friday that DOES NOT mean the demo will
be out then. Sorry if that was the conclusion that was made but we will post
a solid date very soon when we are SURE that it is done. Meanwhile if you would
like you can download an SOF desktop background we just finished if you like.
Thanks!
Download the Desktop
Wallpaper.
GameSpy has posted an
interview with HumanHead lead programmer Chris Rhinehart. Chris talks about
his duties on RUNE, his sword collection, his prior work in the industry (he
started at Raven Software when he was 18), and even a bit regarding the cancelled
Daikatana 2 project that HumanHead was supposed to work on.
As announced just moments ago, the Macintosh beta Point Release patch has been released. Here is a local copy with the usual list of mirrors. As with the Win32 patch released last night ( story), this version has several bug fixes and changes, and the Point Release should go final soon.
IMG Magazine has posted a
preview of the Mac version of Baldur's Gate, complete with technical details
and a whole bunch of new screenshots.
Unreality has posted highlights
from last night's chat with members of Epic Games, as well as a
full transcript and a
separate page with additional questions not publicly posted. Topics that
came up dealt largely with the development of Unreal Tournament, as well as
their plans for the future.
id Software's Graeme Devine made a brief .plan
update with word that the Mac Quake III Arena point release should be released
Real Soon Now: I just finished making the Macintosh point beta release.
It'll be on the usual mirrors soon.
It's time for another edition of the
Blue's News Mail Bag! In this week's extra-long edition are letters about
Quake (1) cheating, low ping whining, a letter from a former Cavedog employee,
and lots (I mean lots) of guesses about that not-so-little number at
the bottom of the page. Hop
over and check it out.
PC.IGN.com has posted a massive interview on TRIBES 2, in which Dynamix writer Blake Hutchins talks to no less than five members of the TRIBES 2 development team. In the first part, lead programmer Mark Frohnmayer and technical director Tim Gift go into the programming side of things, such as the new terrain generator, ground vehicles, and AI. In the second half, artists Barry Drew, Gerald Harrison, and Troy McFarland discuss the new models, motion capture, and more. The article is rounded out by a couple of photos of the game and its editors taken off a monitor, and some mugshots.
There's an interview with Mike Dussault up on GameFan, talking to Monolith's lead engineer about the state of development of their LithTech 2.0 engine. The article is illustrated with a pair of engine screenshots, and one (dark) new image of KISS: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child, the first-person shooter by Third Law that is being developed using the LithTech engine.
There's a Soldier of
Fortune Interview on 3DGaming.Net talking with Kenn Hoekstra about Soldier
of Fortune, Raven Software's upcoming game that will use the Quake II engine to
immerse you in the mayhem-for-hire world of a mercenary. In addition to the
Q&A with Raven's project administrator about gameplay and engine details, there are a
pair of new Soldier of Fortune screenshots on 3DGaming.Net showing off the
game's visuals.
- This screenshots
page on the EverQuest
Station has some new shots from the upcoming Ruins of Kunark expansion pack for
EverQuest.
- Act One -- No. 170
is Diablo.Net's mirror of the Diablo II screenshot of the week showing
"a very high level Sorceress and Paladin going head to head."
- There are eight new screenshots of Allods 3: Redemption on Gamer's Alliance Strategy
showing off this upcoming fantasy strategy RTS.
- There are some new Submarine Titans screenshots on Subtitans.net
showing off this upcoming underwater RTS.
Hellhound's UT Weapons
Guide looks to play Q for you and explain which end to point at your
opponent in Unreal Tournament and their new UT Gameplay Guide has simple descriptions of each game type and their objectives with
a strategy guide in the works for the future. Also, Halflife.net's
Counter-Strike Field Guide gives a rundown on how to get ahead in this
popular Half-Life mod.
Reqoning.com, the official support site
for the Requiem modification, has version 0.3 beta 3 of Requiem for Quake II,
the Q2 version of this popular Quake/QuakeWorld modification. In addition to the
Q2 Requiem code, there is also word there on the Q3A version of Requiem, simply
saying, "it's happening."
A thread called 25 Signed Everglides to be
had on The XS Reality Messageboard gives the skinny on how you can win one
of these pads, signed by all the participants in this European all-star
tournament. Also, there's a Quake III Arena skinning contest on 3D Palette
where you can win Razer BoomSlang 1000 gaming mice, Razer mousepads, T-shirts,
etc.
- The Yadex homepage has a
new version 1.3.0 of the Yadex GPL Doom level editor for Unix systems
running X, including Linux. Descended from DEU 5.21, Yadex supports Doom
alpha, Doom beta, Doom, Ultimate Doom, Final Doom, Doom II, and Heretic with
additional limited support for Hexen and Strife. Thanks Jacek Fedoryński...
- RPOV interviews Daniel Jeppsson
talking with the programmer on SouthEnd Interactive's
upcoming Blitz - Disc Arena...
- An update to Kenn Hoekstra's .plan clarifies further Raven's plans for
PlayStation 2 development going forward. Still no details on what sort of
game it will be, except a refutation of a rumor that it would be Heretic II,
which Kenn says it will not be...
- FullOn3D interviews Maxis
talking about their simmy title, The Sims...
- The Team War Quake 3 DM-CTF Maps and Mods
page has posted a new small three Q3A map pack suited to one-on-one or
other small deathmatches. Also, the Abuse
Quake 3 team has released a new Teamplay Map Pak for Q3A that rearranges
items on some maps to make them more conducive to four-on-four matches.
Finally, the LeafNode Level Design Depot
has a final version of "A Very Bad Place," a DM map for Q3A...
I just wanted to post one of the occasional reminders that because we receive so
many bits about in-progress (but yet unreleased) community modifications, that we
can't really practically post them all (not to mention that a certain percentage
of these projects are never completed), so the policy is almost always to hold
off news on such projects until portions of them are released. In the meantime,
if you are tying to find help for a project in progress, or looking to join such
a project to help out, remember that we have a Help Wanted
messageboard devoted to hooking such interested parties up with each other.
Link of the Day: UFO Abduction
Insurance. Thanks Jason DiProperzio. How do you collect?
Image of the Day: This
Quake III Arena wallpaper of old green and pissed, the Doom marine.
Images of the Day II: Two more Q3A
wallpapers on www.q3a.de of Klesk and Crash, both at 1280x1024.
Site Status: (AKA, "If you can read this, it means you don't have the
problem" thanks AntiELVIS.) The server itself seems fine, but that still leaves
a small minority of users complaining of slow load times. We think this may be some oddball
DNS glitch that is currently being investigated.
id Software's Robert Duffy updated his .plan with more details on the just released Point Release beta 2 patch. The update also mentions that the source for this version should be available soon. Here's the scoop:
The 2nd Point Release Beta (version 1.15b) for Quake III Arena is out. It should start appearing on mirrors soon. This
version contains several bug fixes and should go final within a day or so. The source should be available shortly after
that ( within a few days ). Per usual, all dates and time frames are subject to change.
Changes:
-Control menu works properly
-Pure server connection notification
-2D Armor icon appears properly
-.arena files are accumulated properly across pk3 files
-A few other smallish fixes
GameFan has posted an MPEG
movie of BioWare's MDK 2, with 43 seconds of gameplay footage. The movie
is available as a low resolution (for the bandwidth impaired) version, or as
a slightly beefier version for the broadband crowd. MDK, as everyone knows,
stands for Mahogany Door Knobs.
id Software has released a new beta 2 version of the Point Release patch for Quake III Arena on their ftp server (1.1 MB). Here is a local copy of the patch along with a list of mirrors. The Quake III Arena FAQ included with the patch has not changed, so presumably the changes in this version entail only bug fixes to the first beta.
Another quadruple of screenshots is being served at incitegames.com, showing off several scenes from Star Trek: New Worlds, the upcoming 3D real-time strategy title from 14 Degrees East and Interplay.
Telefragged has posted four new screenshots of Picassio, depicting some scenes from Promethean Designs's upcoming stealthy action game, where the object is to steal art without getting violent.
There's a new preview of Metal Fatigue up on GameSpot, looking at this upcoming 3D giant-robot RTS by Zono and Psygnosis. The article is based on an initial alpha build, and includes not only the mandatory set of new screenshots, but also some fairly detailed descriptions of the gameplay and other features in the game.
Gamecenter has posted some information on Red Storm's Rainbow Six franchise which, besides the number crunching, includes the first pair of screenshots of Rogue Spear: Urban Operations, the upcoming expansion pack.
Epic programmer Brandon 'GreenMarine' Reinhart has updated the Unreal Technology page with a rundown of several new features that were added with this morning's version 405B patch. They include a Render Control Interface and an Enhanced Actor Rendering Interface, both created by The Wheel of Time developers Legend Entertainment. The new features will only become available with the next public source release, "which will come in the week or so."
The QStat Downloads page has a new version 2.3f beta release of QStat for both Windows and Linux, fixing support for Unreal Tournament servers that are running the new version 405B which was released this morning ( story).
Artifact Entertainment has announced that their 3D role-playing game Demise: Rise of the Ku'Tan! has gone gold, and more information on its availability should be released shortly (thanks VoodooExtreme). This comes a month after the first release candidate ( story), and word is that the "1.00r2 public version will be coming out any day as well."
According to this
post on GASource, Headfirst's first person RPG Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners
of the Earth, will be based on the NDI Netimmerse
engine. If that doesn't ring any bells, it's the same engine used to power
such games as Prince of Persia 3D, Panzer General 3D Assault, Simon the Sorcerer
3D (also by Headfirst) and um...FLW Tournament Bass Fishing. They've also posted
a quote from the developer with more on the game's physics system.
Version 2.19 of GameSpy has been released
exclusively to registered users. This new version adds full support for Quake
III Arena (including a player profile to select skins and models), as well as
improved support for Unreal Tournament and Battlezone II. If you're a registered
user, you can download it at FilePlanet
(we're told that they are having server difficulties, so the download may be
a little slow).
DeadAlfs 2000 has posted an
interview with Simon Woodroffe & Andrew Brazier from Headfirst, the
developers of the first person RPG Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.
Amongst the topics discussed are the game's weapons, which apparently are quite diverse, as they explained,
"the game contains a complete realtime physics system that will allow the
player to hit monsters or anything else with ANYTHING. Limbs, heads, bottles,
books, chairs... Anything you can pick up you will be able to use, throw and
manipulate."
According to a
news item on Slashdot (which comes by way of a
Linux reseller), Loki Software has
announced that they are working on Linux ports of Alpha Centauri, SimCity 3000,
Soldier of Fortune, Interstate '82, and Heavy Gear II. Loki, you may recall,
recently published the Linux version of Quake III Arena.
Nocturne fan-site The Spookhouse has posted an
interview with Mike Porter, one of the artists at Terminal Reality. Mike
talks about his background, the research involved in creating the various locales
for the game, as well as some hints about their upcoming Blair Witch Project
title. They've also posted a new version of the game's editor on
this FTP site (while FilePlanet is undergoing server upgrades) which makes
it easier to create POD files to distribute to other Nocturne users in addition
to other changes. Lastly, they've also posted a
humorous "alternate ending" to the game (which presumably contains
spoilers).
The Quake Engine Resources page
has the release of a new QER QuakeWorld beta, now offering TeamFortress support
that they say makes the original TeamFortress look a lot sexier. Separate
downloads of the server, client, and client source code are available, and this
version is incompatible with other QuakeWorld servers, which they say
will (temporarily) help stop cheating. Included with this release is qer_2fort5,
they say thanks to John Cook and Valve Software. Next in the works for this
project is enhanced CTF support.
Games Weekly Magazine has posted an
interview with Dynamix' Nels Bruckner, talking to the programmer about his
work on TRIBES 2, including the differences between the sequel and the original,
and some other gameplay issues.
This The Adrenaline Vault
news story describes plans to split the upcoming tactical shooter Private
Wars into two independent products, the original Private Wars (which
according to the AVault's June 1998 Private Wars
preview was expected December 1998), and one called Private Wars: Countdown,
which will come much sooner, cheaper, and should offer more mass-appeal: Countdown
is being described as a slimmed down version of the full Private Wars concept
that will attract more casual--i.e. non-hardcore tactical simulation--users and
highlight the Private War brand with a twisting plot full of intricate human
drama. The game will contain between 8 and ten missions, lots of cut scenes and
be priced to move. Closed beta of the product begins Jan. 20.
The whole
story also discusses the addition of new features to Private Wars including
a radiosity solution to the indoor renderer, and says to expect screenshots
soon.
Bungie's bTV archives page
has been updated and now features the download links for their day three coverage
from the San Francisco MacWorld Expo. Day three featured the first of their
two-part Halo preview, as well as "Bungie Culture 101," an ATI interview,
and lots more. The download is available as both small (32 MB) and large (211
MB) Quicktime movies.
The Matrox Graphics Latest Drivers
page has a new beta version 5.50.005 Matrox Driver for Windows 95/98 for
Millennium G400-series cards. Figures that just when a couple of driver releases
are combined in a nice efficient post, that a straggler would pop up ![=]](/miscimages/smiley4.gif) . This
driver requires DX7 and it fixes the corruption issue some users were
experiencing with 3DWinbench 2000 and 3DMark 2000.
Anatomy of a Video Game
on loonygames is a new article over in loony's nest by Raven's Jake Simpson,
that starts out stating it is "NOT about games design, neither is it a
forum to discuss what's good and what's not in video game design," but
rather is about how a video game is implemented that draws mostly on Jake's
PC experience, specifically with the Quake engines. Also now available on
loonygames for your perusal is Pixel Obscura's
look at the Quake III Arena cinematics, Birth of a Gamer
has a newbie's impressions of Unreal Tournament, and an
article by the loonster himself questioning the viability of using DTS in games.
There is an interview on Die Hard Trilogy 2 up on GA-Source, which has developers n-Space talking about their upcoming hybrid third-person action adventure. The game has you playing as John "yippie-ki-yay!" McClane in third-person action, driving and shooting modes, and the article has a lot more info on how the various aspects of the game work out, including the new story mode that provides adventure elements. Both the game and a demo are nearly finished.
GameSpot has posted four short movies of Picassio, the sneaky action game in development by Promethean Designs that puts you into the shoes of an art thief. The movie clips, ranging from 25 to 45 seconds in length, appear to be from the Dreamcast version, but naturally the gameplay depicted there won't differ all that much from the PC version.
Computer Games Online has posted a brief preview of Hitman: Codename 47, the third-person action game of contracts and assassinations, in development by Danish company IO Interactive. The article comes with two new screenshots and looks at the gameplay in this "thinker-shooter," which will also include a first-person sniping mode.
A new version 405B patch for Unreal Tournament has been released by Epic. The Unreal Technology
page has a complete list of what's new, as does our
local copy of the patch (4.5 MB), which, of course, includes a list of
mirrors. In addition to bug fixes and new features, the patch also provides what
are described as performance improvements, including: "Improved bit packing
for network packets (server performance improvement)." Here's the word on compatibility
from Alan Willard's
.plan: The new UT patch (405b) was released today,
pick it up at your favorite UT website. It is COMPLETELY network compatible with
previous versions of UT, so never fear, if you don't download it and your
favorite server does (or vice versa) you will still be able to connect and play!
This S3 drivers page has
posted a supplemental Diamond Viper II driver for use with Unreal Tournament only.
This is a MeTaL driver and allows for the use of S3TC texture compression in
Unreal Tournament. According to their press release, "this custom software
performs at over 60 frames-per-second with remarkable photo-realistic
imagery."
There are three new
Daikatana screenshots on GameFan showing off the N64 version of ION Storm's
upcoming era-spanning Quake II engine shooter. Also, there are photos of the
recent Daikatana Deathmatch dealie up at ION's office on DaikatanaNews.com.
A little feedback from the messageboards made me decide to try and be less
tedious about server status reports in this space... see the little blurb below
for what's up... I'll start hitting the crack pipe to inspire something
completely unrelated to server woes for Out of the Blue tomorrow, but in the
meanwhile, I'm running a little late, so best to get on with the show. Oh,
yeah... happy birthday Ant, the human
Link of the Day machine.
Link of the Day: Hotel California - The Show
"Watch in Horror and Amazement as a man sings Hotel California with a
French accent, accompanied by a Mime!" Thanks Andy Harrelson.
Story of the Day: PC World News Have You Surfed a Ford Lately
reporting "Voice-activated Internet access will arrive in some 2001
Lincolns." Thanks WarPig[doh].
Server Status: Some tweaks seemed to make things better, another tweak
should be in by tomorrow, and I'm hopeful things are performing better for most
users (they certainly are for me). Feel free to offer feedback is you feel this
is not the case for you.
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