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 . This driver requires DX7 and it fixes the corruption issue some users were experiencing with 3DWinbench 2000 and 3DMark 2000.

• Though it's not yet noted on the RazerZone drivers page, there are new version 1.3.00 drivers (direct link) for the Razer BoomSlang gaming mouse on ftp.razerzone.com. According to the read me the drivers, spotted by sharp-eyed stx-gerbilcannon, have been there since January 7, and address PS/2 driver stability, a minor issue with the tray program, and more.
• The ASUS Beta Testing Enthusiast Graphics Card Driver page has new beta 2 version 3.66 ASUS AGP-V6600/3800/3400 Windows 9x drivers that: "Now support V3400 and V3800, but D3D VR does not work on V3400." Thanks Planet GeForce.

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."

• AMD gaining ground with Athlon summarizes some of the recent good news over at AMD. Thanks Haakon Larsen.
• There's a 3dfx Voodoo4/Voodoo5 Q&A on Extreme Hardware talking with 3dfx Director of Product Marketing, Peter Wicher.
• Tech-review.com's weekly CPU Prices have been updated.
• Voodoo3 3500TV is reviewed on 3D-Unlimited.
• There's a GeForce driver comparison on the Deafening Silence.
• SYS Technology Cold-Fusion 1000 1GHz Athlon System is reviewed on Sharky Extreme, AKA TechBits Extreme.
• AMD Athlon 800 is reviewed on Thresh's FiringSquad.
• ASUS P3C-E motherboard is reviewed on RIVA 3D.
• ABIT BE6-II motherboard is reviewed on t-break.
• Tennmax Detonator Cooler is reviewed on The Tech Zone.

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.

• Age of Wonders on Lobby Gods.
• Asheron's Call on Adrenaline Vault.
• Fighter Ace II on MPOG.
• Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine on GamesFirst.
• IntelliMouse Explorer on Glide Underground.
• Interstate '82 on Gaming Age and GameSpot AU.
• Nocturne on ActiveWindows.
• Planescape: Torment on Gamers Central and GameSpot UK.
• Quake III Arena on GamesMania.
• Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear on Fatal Gaming Network.
• Revenant on GameLinks.net.
• South Park: Chef's Luv Shack on Computer Games Online and GamePower.
• Star Trek: Hidden Evil on Adventure Gamer.
• The Operational Art of War: Game of the Year Edition on GamesFirst.
• TrickStyle on Gamezilla.

• GameDAILY's Top 20 Bestselling Software Titles list has been updated through the end of the year, with Q3A storming up to number three with Rainbow Six Gold, Rogue Spear, and Half-Life all also entering the top 10, and the until now mysteriously absent UT entering at #11....
• The 'Depths of Homeworld' MOD Center has new information on editing HomeWorld, and some new "hidden" HomeWorld maps, now that the file format has been cracked. Thanks Relic News where they have more info on this...
• Painful Detail has posted a new .int generation utility that automatically makes the UT .int file required to make skins...
• New Storm Details and Screenshots on GA-Source show off shots of this upcoming space fighter game...
• A new version 4.1.2 of the GetRight resumable download client is now available...

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.