Archived News:
The Adrenaline Vault
has posted an MDK2 development update giving the latest goings-on in the
development of this upcoming sequel to the quirky third-person action game
straight from BioWare's Dr. Greg Zeschuk. In addition to the new details, the
update also includes five new screenshots. MDK, of course, stands for Moshe
Dayan's Kishkas.
Also on The Adrenaline Vault
is a Picassio update giving some more details about this upcoming stealthy game
where you get to have your own Thomas Crown Affair by visiting the great art
museums of the world, and robbing them.
The Gloom News page
has the recently released version 1.2 of the Gloom teamplay mod for Quake II.
The update, from a couple of days ago, refers to work in progress on a full
installer, but for the moment, the only file available is an update from
previous versions. Thanks Elliot.
There's a new image on Soldier of Fortune Center
showing five different characters in "The December Brigade," one of the
teams in the Team Deathmatch mode in Raven's upcoming gritty shooter. As fits
the team's name, the crew looks more suited to battle in the arctic (or the
frozen tundra of Lambeau field), than the tropics.
There's a new Giants
image on PlanetMoon Central from Giants, PlanetMoon's upcoming third-person
action game, that "depicts the different kinds of Smarties that will be
seen in Giants: Citizen Kabuto. Male, Wife, Timmy and Borjoyzee." I guess
they're smart, what with those opposable thumbs and all, but they look a little
like the happy family from the Ramones' song of the same name to me.
There is a new screenshot of Rogue Spear: Urban Operations on SimHQ.com, showing an indoor scene from Red Storm's upcoming expansion pack to their tactical squad-action game. Thanks SpecForce.
Listed on their screenshots page, oddly enough, the official Planescape: Torment site has a version 1.1
beta patch for Black Isle's isometric role-playing game. The patch is said to "solve the sludge some have experienced while playing as well as some other minor fixes," but being a beta, download at your own risk.
PC.IGN.com has kicked off the first installment of the Summoner Designer Diaries, in which Volition developers will be discussing work on their upcoming 3D role-playing game. This first entry sees assistant producer Anoop Shekar talking about the various camera angles the design went through, and a few screenshots illustrate the results.
Daily Radar has posted a brief preview of Titanium Angels, the upcoming third-person action adventure by Mobius and SCi. While the image links are currently broken (the actual images are familiar from the official site anyway), the article does feature quotes from producer Ben Gunstone.
Also up on PC.IGN.com is the fourth part of the Baldur's Gate II Developer Journal, which has art director Marcia Tofer discussing the process of creating game art for this upcoming sequel to Bioware's acclaimed isometric RPG.
More patch news as well, for Westwood has released version 1.17a patches of Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun for download. There is no word on the changes in this version, but presumably it is also available via the auto-update feature in the game.
Though a formal update is not expected on the Quake 3 Arena
website until Monday morning, the source code for the Quake III Arena game
.dll is now available on id Software's FTP site. Here is a
local copy of the source (1.3 MB), along with the usual list of mirrors of
this code essential to the construction of modifications for the game. A
.plan update by Robert Duffy gives the scoop on what's up: The game
source is out. It should start appearing on mirrors soon. It is in
idstuff\quake3\source and named "Q3AGameSource.exe"
There is a "How to make a mod" text file included which shows the very
basics of building the source for debugging ( Win32, Visual C++ ) and building
the vms for distributing mods. It also shows steps to get your mod to run with
the engine.
PLEASE NOTE: The game source MUST BE INSTALLED in quake3 off of whatever drive
you like. This is so the batch files and the lcc compiler can find all the right
stuff for building vm's.
The tool source and video compressor will be out next week. This will include
source q3data, q3map, q3asm, q3radiant, our version of lcc and the executable
for the video compressor.
Raven's Nathan Albury updated
his .plan with what he modestly describes as a "sad attempt" at
clarifying what he refers to as some of the more controversial issues in Soldier
of Fortune. Here's the poop: It seems like there's still a fair amount of confusion on some of the
more controvertial issues in Soldier of Fortune, so here's my sad attempt to
clear it up a bit.
In regards to enemy spawning and limited saves, these two attributes of the game
are dictated by the difficultly level. HOWEVER, in addition to our 5 preset
difficultly levels, we have a custom difficultly level submenu that will allow
you to adjust the game more to your liking if you aren't pleased with our
defaults. So, for example, if you like smart enemies but can't stand spawning,
you can set up the game to accomodate that. Or, if you are more interested in a
higher intensity, more Doom-style shooter, you can crank up the spawning and
drop the enemy ai down. The game can be played according to your tastes.
With that said, I'm extremely hopeful that once people get a hold of our demo
they'll at least give our vision of the game a chance. We've taken the feedback
we've gotten into account, and honestly we've now had the chance to play the
game a lot more. The amount of tweaks that have occured since our last OEM and
the present demo are quite vast.
In particular, the AI has come a long way since our previous version. It's
finally to the point where playing the game stealthily can be entertaining, if
that's what you're looking for. I'm still of the opinion that maxing out enemy
AI to inhuman levels isn't a good approach to game creation, but I do think that
our guys are reacting in a much more believeable, enjoyable fashion.
As far as the spawning is concerned, we've greatly refined and adjusted the play
mechanics behind it so that it enhances rather than confuses the gameplay.
Probably the most common complaint about spawning is that it invalidates
stealthy play... and I think that's a fair point. In our current system, the
spawning exists in large part to ENHANCE the stealth. There are no more
instances where you can wander around quietly, taking great care to lean around
corners and pick people off, only to get shot in the back by some wandering
punk. If guys are spawning, it's exclusively because you're making a whole lot
of noise and carnage. In fact, our challenging difficultly level (4 out of 5) is
almost impossible if you don't rely on stealth - the enemies are quick enough
and powerful enough that if you draw a crowd, you will fall over. And, once
again, if you really don't like spawning to the point of religiousness, you can
turn it off.
Hopefully (fingers crossed) this will help clear up a few things that seem to be
distressing a lot of you. Well, back to work, I suppose...
GA-RPG interviews Ben Smedstad
of BioWare talking about progress on Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, their
upcoming sequel to Baldur's Gate, the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons RPG in a
lengthy interview that goes into detail about the project.
There are three new Hitman: Codename 47 Screenshots
on GA-Source depicting some of the locations in this upcoming stealthy
strategic shooter from Eidos Interactive that puts you in the lucrative (albeit
dangerous) career path of the hired assassin.
DailyRadar.com
previews Summoner with a look ahead at this upcoming RPG that includes some
Q&A with a few of the folks from Volition to discuss the game. Though the
preview actually primarily focuses on the PlayStation 2 version of the game,
the accompanying screenshots are from the PC version.
An updated version 1.5 of the Hand of Quad
is now available, offering an updated version of this system tray utility that allows
you to join a Quake III Arena server by clicking a link on a webpage. There are
some new features in the new release as well as bug fixes.
The newly-relocated Airquake2
site has a new version 2.0 beta53 of the innovative AirQuake2 flying
modification for Quake II. There are a whole bunch of fixes and new features in
the update, and there is an updater for earlier installations for download in
addition to the full installer.
As yet unviewed here (so I can't offer a thumbs up or down), A
Warriors Life is a new Quake II movie. The film has a very positive review
on Tritin Films, who give
it a 10, and the following description from the filmmaker can serve as a
trailer: "The originality make this movie a
near_revolutionary_masterpiece_of_machinima. You will know Julios, a boy with
determination and hope that fight against his fears and try to win the battle
against a voice inside him that says constantly 'You will fail, you are nothing.'.
In the long and sad quest Julios will try to be free from his demons and find
the answer for the question 'Do I have valor?'."
Version 0.3 of D3DQuake is
now available, offering a version of GLQuake reworked from the publicly
available Quake source code to run on top of Direct3D 7.0, said to use a "fairly
small" (50 function) subset of OpenGL. Thanks Ryan Stotts.
A new version 1.1.0 of the MilkShape 3D
low polygon count modeler, which can import and export file formats for models
in Half-Life, Quake II, Unreal/UT, and Genesis 3D. Thanks Voodoo
Extreme. The new release fixes a few bugs, and word is that Quake III Arena
model support is planned for the future.
A Hotel Reservations for Razer - CPL Event
press release gives details on how you can reserve one of the limited block
of rooms for this $100,000 tournament in April that was recently relocated back
in Dallas. Also, D16-Makaveli
is interviewed on Quake-Arena.de talking about his participation in the
upcoming XSi-Tournament, and the
tourney's website has an analysis
of Fatality and an analysis
of Kane to continue their preview of the event.
Sorry loonyboi fans, no Saturday Morning Fruit of the loon today, the loonster
is taking a well-deserved weekend out and about in that there world we hear so
much about, and, if he's good to his word, actually doesn't even have a computer
with him (which of course will make it difficult to contact online support
groups for his withdrawal symptoms). Here's a quick pool: how many batteries on
his color gameboy do you think he's going to go through before Monday night? I
think I need to ask wise Mr. Owl.
Link of the Day: The Largest known prime number.
Thanks Cosmo3D.
Story of the Day: Faithful find vision of Virgin of Guadalupe in spilled ice cream.
Thanks Dan Chapman.
Image of the Day: The
Demise Cover Art (that's right, game-related!), by none other than legendary
fantasy artist Boris Vallejo. Thanks
Zawash.
Gamecenter has posted a preview of The Real Neverending Story, the upcoming 3D action adventure in development by German company Discreet Monsters. The screenshots are familiar from the official site, but the article gives a good overview of this game based on Michael Ende's novel, and sports quotes from producer Siggi Kogl.
Also up on Gamecenter is a gallery of new Thief II: the Metal Age screenshots (or game grabs, as they prefer), showing off ten new scenes from Looking Glass' upcoming sneak-m-up sequel.
Hail to the King, baby! Declaring Duke the man of the hour, GameSpot's History of Duke Nukem
is online, offering an extensive biography of the toughest bottle-blond you are
ever likely to run into, with a look at his storied past, as well as his future.
Word on the Tread Marks site is that
this tank racing and combat game from Longbow Digital Arts is now shipping. The
game is not available in stores, but can be ordered online via Digital River,
who have received their copies.
There are some more exclusive
ORB screenshots on incitegames showing off more of the upcoming space sim
that puts you in charge of the game's namesake Off-world Resource Base.
PlanetUnreal has posted a pair of new screenshots from Star Trek: Deep Space 9 - The Fallen, and several more on this page, along with word from developers The Collective that they are hiring level designers. Star Trek: Deep Space 9 - The Fallen is their third-person action game based on the Unreal-engine, and the page lists benefits (including donuts), requirements and contact information, though it's not clear if the jobs apply to their current game.
In what turns out to be "interviews day", SOF Center has posted an interview with Rick Johnson, Raven's lead programmer on Soldier of Fortune. Rick talks about how he got started at Raven, his work on the game, and the customary "more." As Soldier of Fortune is nearing completion, here is a quote about something that didn't make it into the game:
Q: Is there something that didn't make it into the game, that you would have liked to see in there?
A: For me, that would be a skeletal system. Last march, we had to make a decision whether to go with skeletal or a
compression scheme. At that point, we were thinking the game would ship in about 5 months. With that small amount of
time, we concluded it would be too risky to switch our animation system over to skeletal. If we actually knew that we had
11 more months, then we certainly would have switched.
SOF Center has also opened a comprehensive Game Info section and posted a new screenshot of the Slugthrower weapon.
There is an interview on Ground Control up at Federation HQ, talking to Massive Entertainment's president Martin Walfisz on their upcoming 3D action strategy game. The article discusses the factions, units and scenarios developed for the game, which is scheduled for a release in the first half of this year. A couple of new screenshots accompany the discussion.
More demo woes, as PC Gameworld sends along word that the Imperium Galactica II demo they posted this morning ( story) has been removed at the request of publisher GT Interactive, because "it had not passed through the normal Quality Assurance channels, and contains some bugs."
As promised, Daily Radar has posted the Allegiance demo to kick off the open beta of Microsoft's multiplayer space-combat game. The demo is about 55 MB, and to play it you need to register at MSN Gaming Zone. Update: Earlier reports that the demo was corrupted turn out to be unfounded, so feel free to resume your downloading pleasures.
More Oni news today, as Gamerush has posted a set of Oni screenshots, all but two of which are new, and two pieces of character art. The lower-right series of shots in particular appear to show off some close-combat sequences frame by frame.
A fresh update to Sid Meier's Dino Diaries has the designer reporting that the resource system for Firaxis' upcoming dinosaurs strategy game is now in place, and explores the various scenario models that could be employed in the game (without reaching a conclusion at this stage of the design).
Inside Mac Games has posted an interview with Oni level designer David Dunn, talking about his work on Bungie's upcoming third-person action title, which will be released simultaneously on Windows and Mac. Here's a bit about the anime influences in the game's design:
This was something we struggled with because of our desire to have realistic
environments. Anime environments don't always translate into realistic looking
backgrounds so we had to find a good compromise between our architectural
designs and our artwork. Many times we chose textures for spaces that had a
more anime feel to them rather than the material it would normally have. Also
the objects that populate our environments definitely help create the feel we
want. You'll see lots of spinning pieces of large machines and various
contraptions that definitely have that techy anime look to them.
More talkative news, as a comprehensive interview on Blitz - Disc Arena is now online at Speedy 3D, where SouthEnd lead programmer Daniel Jeppsson answers a lot of questions about their upcoming 3D action game, illustrated with a couple of new screenshots.
Westwood has released a new movie of Nox on the official site. The 25 MB download shows about a minute and a half of gameplay and cinematic footage from their upcoming isometric action RPG. Thanks Vault Network.
EuroGamer has posted a long interview with Jake Simpson, programmer at Raven Software. The five-page article covers how he got started in game programming, his early days at Midway, the work on Heretic II, Soldier of Fortune, and Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force, insights into working with id Software's engines, and starting up the recently announced "Project 3" on the Playstation 2. Two new screenshots of Soldier of Fortune's Capture the Flag mode accompany the piece.
A new version 3.13 of the Quake III Arena Server Configurator
is now available, and updated version of this Win32 Q3A front-end for server
operators that can store configurations in an Access database and creates config
(.cfg) files directly from the database with a host of user-friendly options
(though it's a Win32 program, the .cfg files can be used on any platform
server).
id software's Graeme Devine updated
his .plan with some tips for those having trouble with their Q3A CD keys,
the cause often apparently due to unsuccessful attempts to use a key generator:
Okay. I see a lot of people with “awaiting CD Key authorization”
questions.
In almost all cases, this is due to the IP address of the authorize server being
wrong because the hosts file on the client has somehow been altered. You can
test to see if this is your problem by going to a DOS prompt and typing the
following:
ping authorize.quake3arena.com
If you get the following, then your system has an invalid entry somewhere
redirecting the authorize requests to the wrong IP address.
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=32
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=32
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=32
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=32
If you’re running Windows 95/98, then in almost every case editing the file
called “hosts” which resides in your c:windows (or wherever you’ve
installedwindows) directory and removing any lines that mention
authorize.quake3arena.com can fix this.
Various cracks and CD key gen utilities (none of which actually work) appear to
be the culprit, adjusting your hosts file without your knowledge or consent.
Two months old, but apparently unnoticed sofar, Buka Entertainment has released an updated multiplayer demo of Storm, their upcoming futuristic combat flight-sim. This version fixes some problems from the initial E3'99 demo, and takes a very reasonable 18 MB to download. In related Storm-y news, Gamers Central has posted a preview of the game, along with several new screenshots.
GA-Source has posted four new screenshots of Hired Team: Trial, the multiplayer-only version of the first-person shooter in development by New Media Generation. Word is a new demo of the game is expected later this month.
Yesterday's release of the bTV day 4 movie ( story) included another 50 seconds of Halo footage, which is now available separately as a 6 MB download on halo.bungie.org, and once again it's recommended viewing.
After a two month hiatus, a new Experience update is online at Voodoo Extreme, with Patrick Moynihan of The Whole Experience talking about the progress in development of their upcoming first-person action game, since the release of their Dagoth Moor Zoological Gardens demo.
Gamers' Crypt has posted an interview on Project Entropia, a 3D massively multi-player RPG in development by Swedish company Mind Ark. More information can also be found on the newly opened official site.
New Overdrive Details and Screenshots is a story on GA-Source which provides just that on the first-person auto-combat game in development by Russian company Buka Entertainment. The game looks to combine elements from Carmageddon, Quake and GTA into a new mix.
As promised, PC Gameworld has posted the demo of Imperium Galactica II - Alliances, the upcoming space-combat strategy game by Digital Reality and GT Interactive. The demo has three scenarios, weighs in at a whopping 132 MB, and comes in your choice of English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. If you need another preview to decide whether or not to download it, try this one at Daily Radar.
Epic Designer Alan Willard updated
his .plan with a clarification that the "B" in the bonnet of the
405B patch for Unreal Tournament released Tuesday ( story)
is just a version number, and does not stand for beta, pointing out that:
This patch is as finalized as the 402 patch was. While the patches
haven't gone through the same extremely intensive testing as the release version
of the game, we do extensively test them both internally and with an external
group of beta testers before releasing them.
And no, don't email me asking how to be a beta tester!!!!!!!!
A post on the Shugashack
has word from Zoid explaining why a packet loss indicator was not included in
the final Quake III Arena point release ( story),
which was expected since a Graeme
Devine .plan update mentioned "Packetloss on the scoreboard" as
one of the bugs they were "looking at." Zoid's explanation points out
the impact of packet loss is harder to gauge in Q3A (and lesser) than it was in
QuakeWorld, and also notes that packet loss is also reflected to some extent in your
ping.
Daily Radar's
Preview look at DroneZ gives a thumbs up to what they've seen of this
unusual-sounding upcoming action title in the workZ over at Zetha GameZ, which
in spite of not yet having a publisher, they feel has a shot at being one of the
sleeper hits of 2000. The preview includes some Q&A with the project's
development leader Giovanni Caturano.
GA-Source Previews Allegiance
with a look at this upcoming space combat game from Microsoft. The hands-on
preview is timely, since the game is slated to accept registrants for open beta testing later
today
on
this page ( story).
- Hellhound's
UT gameplay strategies are online, the third in their three planned UT
guides...
- There's a shot of the Soldier of Fortune level editor in action on ClanWorld
looking like a hall-of-fame spider web...
- Scripts...The
death of gameplay in Tribes is a column bemoaning the impact of
automation in TRIBES...
- Aussie Gamers List
looks to be a list of Aussie gamers (not a bad summary, eh?)...
- @Home threatened with discussion-group blackballing
is a CNN article with details on a proposed UDP (Usenet Death Penalty) based
on @Home's refusal (at least prior to threats of the UDP) to close holes
allowing the relay of spam. Thanks Phil "Cain" Hall...
After yesterday's update I've heard from loads of fans of William Shatner's singing, in spite of his
terribly sporadic history of album releases (though no explanations have emerged, logical or
otherwise, of how one names one's own price for groceries). Turns
out The Captain James T. Kirk Singalong Site
(thanks ORB-Martyr) offers RealPlayer
versions of the tunes from Bill's classic LP, The Transformed Man, as
well as a
page devoted to Spock Sings, the classic (and nearly as bizarre, if not more so)
Leonard Nimoy album, and a few other examples of Trek cast members boldly going
where few sci-fi stars have gone before. Taking that a step further is The UberPage of the First Church of
Shatnerology (thanks Chris) with musical offerings, as well as other brilliant Shatner
related links, including the aforementioned singalong page, the Shatner 2000 campaign,
former LoD The William Shatner
Simulator, the inevitable Second National Church of Shatnerology,
and for religious equal time of course, the Temple of Shatner.
Link of the Day: MY
HOEMPAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!! This brought tears of laughter to my eyes. Thanks HardNews.org.
Story of the Day: 'Spiderman' Mugger Flees From Cops.
Wow. Thanks Ivan "PurpleCajun" Bickler.
Bonus Story: Researchers clone monkey by splitting embryo.
Paging Doctor Mephisto. Thanks Uncle Duke.
Bonus Story II: Mothers Busted in Bus Stop Pokemon Brawl.
More gaming violence. Thanks LeX.
Site Status: More reports of connectivity problems clearing up. This
will probably be the last of these updates.
|
Twitter 
