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.
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