Archived News:
A new in-depth preview
of Thief 2: The Metal Age is up on GameSpot, featuring a handful of new
screenshots, and a detailed description of a 12 level alpha version of the game.
According to the preview, the title is "just a few weeks away from going
beta."
GameSpot has posted the Starfleet Command: Gorn Bonus Mission Pack, which adds a series of missions involving the Gorn into Interplay's space strategy game.
id Software's Robert Duffy updated his
.plan this evening with a brief status report on the new Quake III Arena point
release. Here's the scoop: The point release is still in progress. We are
addressing several things, among them auto downloading, mod support, cheating,
and a few other things. It is moving into testing now and should be done "soon".
One area that we are working hard to improve on is releasing things for all
three platforms at the same time. As we have still not released the final point
releases for the Macintosh or Linux based systems, the new point release will
be available in all three flavors at the same time.
Epic has added a Known Issues and Bugs page for the retail version (405b) of Unreal Tournament to the Unreal Technology site. It lists various problems with Direct3D, OpenGL, Networking, Audio, Linux Servers and more, and offers some tips to tweak your way around them, or confirms that they are being investigated.
Mike Wilson of Gathering of Developers sent along a new movie of RUNE, the upcoming third-person Viking combat adventure by Human Head. The movie runs for one minute at 640x480 resolution, and offers the first gameplay footage of the game. Here is our local copy of the movie which has been zipped to reduce the download size, along with a few mirrors, and this is the description provided by Mike Wilson:
This is an early pre-alpha look at the gameplay in Rune showing off some of
the creatures and characters from the game and some of the levels. All of
the footage is taken straight from the game with a player in single player
mode as well as some ai on ai combat. We're about 75% complete at this
point, so the final game will be much more polished than the footage seen
here. Some of the footage is slowed down a little to show off the animation
in super cool slow motion.
A new update to Sid
Meier's Dino Diaries has been posted, featuring the latest details on Sid
Meier's Dinosaur (working title) a new strategy game in development at Firaxis.
This update deals with the technology they're using in the game, with vague
hints being dropped as to what gamers can expect to see.
Summoner Homeland has posted an
interview with Volition programmer Dave Baranec, talking to him about his
work on their upcoming 3D RPG title Summoner. Dave comments specifically
on the challenge of simultaneously developing the game for the PC and Playstation
2 platforms, as well as some engine-specific issues.
Nevolution has opened their website, containing the first official information on their 3D cyberpunk RPG under construction, Shadows of Reality, as well as some new screenshots.
Unreal Universe has posted an interview with Ruben Cabrera, skin and texture artist at 3D Realms who is currently working on Duke Nukem Forever (thanks Stomped). Ruben talks about how he got into the game industry and landed a job at 3D Realms, and reveals a bit about his skinning and texturing work on their upcoming Unreal-engine powered title.
Speaking of site openings, Looking Glass has now opened its own official Thief II: the Metal Age site, featuring a host of info about their upcoming sneak-em-up, a slew of screenshots and wallpapers, a brief FAQ and more.
Raven's official Soldier of Fortune Support FAQ has been updated with more help for their recently released demo, particularly offering new tips for audio and video driver issues and multiplayer problems.
3dfxGamers has posted new
NT4 drivers for Voodoo 2 boards. These drivers fix a number of issues, including
some Quake III Arena specific problems, and will not work on boards with Banshee,
Rush, or Voodoo 1 chips.
French site Gamedata.com ( "le nouveau magazine online de jeux videos")
has posted a
preview of Deus Ex. The text is all in French ( stick
a BabelFish in your ear to translate), but there are some
new screenshots at the end of the preview, which of course, are universal.
Also, GameSpy.com has a
new preview of the game up as well, featuring some more screenshots.
Tribes2.dk has posted a
brief Q&A with Dynamix programmer Nels Bruckner, talking to him about
his work on TRIBES 2, including the current state of the game and its engine.
loonygames presents Game Networking 101,
a new article by Jake Simpson where the Raven programmer delves into some of the
mysteries of network gaming, attempting to solve some riddles like why your ping
is better in some games than others.
Just a quick reminder that later today there will be a live chat discussing Star
Trek: Hidden Evil, the Trekkie adventure game from Activision. The chat
starts at 7:00 PM EST (4:00 PM PST/00:00 GMT) on the IRC server omegaproject.net
in the channel #lobby. Tomorrow will be their Star Trek: Armada chat. Same bat
time, same bat channel as the Hidden Evil Chat. Finally, The Collective will be
guests of The Omega Project's chat
next Tuesday (February 8), and will address the just-announced delay to the
release of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine-The Fallen.
A new version 0.93 of the Q3Log log
parser for Quake III Arena is now available, addressing what's described as a
show-stopper bug from version 0.92 that popped up with large log files.
There's a new Quake III
Tournament Mode (1v1) Modem Guide on The Technocracy with strategies geared
specifically for the needs of high-ping modem players. Also, S.A.S's Guide to Quake3
has been updated, this too with tournament mode tips, as well as map reviews of
q3dm5, and q3dm15, and a new config creation utility.
Demiurge Studios Presents Headhunters for UT,
the Unreal Tournament version of the popular Quake mod where you collect heads
from victims after you frag them, and cash them in by sacrificing them at an
altar. Scoring increases as you sacrifice more heads in a group, but so does the
risk, since if you are fragged, someone can grab your whole head stash and go for their own altared state. The
current release is version 1.1, and there is a link to a dedicated server
running the mod.
Russian gaming site The Daily Telefrag has posted an interview on Hired Team, talking to Alexey Medvedev of New Media Generation about their upcoming first-person shooter. Included with the interview are four new screenshots, and a major part of the article discusses the various game features illustrated by them. For those mastering the Russian language beyond 'da' and 'njet', the interview is also available in the site's native tongue.
AVault has posted a
Q&A with Jason Manley of Black Isle Studios, talking to the artist about
his work on Icewind Dale, an upcoming RPG based on the Forgotten Realms universe.
There are four new screenshots up as well.
Activision has finally announced
Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the Quake III Arena engine sequel to id Software's
original Wolfenstein 3D (thanks KungFu).
The game is in development by Gray Matter Interactive Studios, "a newly
formed game developer founded by the top designers formerly from Xatrix Entertainment"
according to the press release, and along with the game's announcement Activision
has announced that they have acquired 40% of the new company. Here's a description
of the game, which should be familiar to fans of the original: Like the
original id game, players assume the role of William J. "B.J." Blazkowicz,
the Allies' bad boy of WWII espionage. The fate of the free world hangs in the
balance as B.J. battles against the sadistic machinations of a Nazi war machine
bent on world domination. This latest sequel will reflect the same over-the-top
comic book style of the original Wolfenstein 3D. However, by using the unparalleled
graphics technology of the QUAKE III Arena(TM) engine and a new scripting system,
Return to Castle Wolfenstein will pull the player further into a chilling storyline
filled with frightening tales of bio-engineering and the occult. Devotees of
multiplayer action will be able to jump online and frag-it-out within the unique
Wolfenstein world.
Obi-Wan Network has posted three new screenshots of Star Wars Episode 1: Obi-Wan, an upcoming first- and third-person action game based on the young Obi-Wan character from last year's Star Wars movie. Thanks hoplit.
The official Thief II: the Metal Age site has opened new sections for the storyline and features of the game, some downloadable wallpaper, and a designer diary consisting of a brief interview with the development team. Thanks GA-RPG. Elsewhere, GameArena.net has posted a couple of new high-res screenshots from the game.
Star Trek Armada Producer's Diary is CGO's first entry in a series of developer diaries in which Activision producer Marc Turndorf accounts their efforts, in cooperation with Paramount, to pour the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe into their upcoming 3D real-time strategy game.
There is a new preview of Imperium Galactica II: Alliances online at the Adrenaline Vault, putting a recent beta of the space based RTS by Digital Reality and GTI through its paces.
Terminal
Reality's Den Johnson Discusses (Sort Of) Nocturne 2 and Expansion Packs on
SpookHouse is a Q&A with Den Johnson of Terminal Reality. They attempt
to pry loose some details on upcoming follow-ups to Nocturne, and as the title
implies, they find Den pretty tight-lipped about the planned Blair Witch-based
Nocturne game and other future plans, although he's more forthcoming on subjects
like the influences behind the original Nocturne, and the reaction to its
release.
There's a new Black &
White movie on nonstuff, a German site. The movie was shot from a monitor
with a video camera at a bad angle, so quality is relatively poor. Here is Frans'
translation of the description from the site: "This is the second and, for
now, last Black & White movie. This time you can be live around to seeing a
creature (here a Tiger) changes from good to evil and from thin to fat, in all
possible combinations."
Not content with his
own Developers Week contribution ( story),
Looking Glass' Rich "Zdim" Carlson wrote an
interesting messageboard follow-up to Marc
Laidlaw's Developers Week article, mentioned yesterday ( story)
on characters in games. On a coincidentally semi-related note, the new GA-RPG-RPG Mythology with BioWare Corp.
offers a detailed look at the steps required to design settings for characters
in RPGs from BioWare's David Gaider.
UTJB v0.5 Public Beta Out
on the Team Reaction Forums announces a beta release of this Unreal
Tournament version of the popular Quake II teamplay mod that puts fragged
players in jail to either be freed by a heroic teammate, or executed when the
whole team is caught. Word with the post is the mod is "an auto-installer,
no brainer."
A new version 1.1b of the Challenge
mod for Quake III Arena is now available on their
newly-revamped website that makes it much less of a challenge to understand
the mod, as it now offers a complete description. Challenge offers various
gameplay options for Q3A matches, many of which can be decided by a group vote.
The new version features auto-selection of team captains "required to
finish the teamanegement," and some other tweaks and fixes.
The TeamWar website has the
debut release of their WarCTF mod for Quake III Arena, which they describe as
similar in function to the popular L-Fire
CTF for Quake II. The mod is server-side only, and adds several variables to
assist in running organized matches.
The El Niño Quake Extensions page
has the debut release of the Viz mod for Quake III Arena, the first Q3A project
by Hentai, the author of VWep for Quake II. Viz is a highly configurable mod
that offers variations on gameplay ranging from minor visual differences in the
mod's minimal state, all the way through full-blown player classes based on the
player model selected.
The debut release of Advanced UI for Quake III Arena is now available on Spine Design Projects.
As the name implies, this is not a gameplay mod, but rather an enhanced user
interface (completely client-side) for Quake III Arena offering improved skin
and model management.
Cold Storage Online
has version 0.8 of K-stats, described as a pre-alpha "Gaming and Lan party
Tournament / League Organiser Thingy." The program creates a database of
gamers, allowing them to be assigned to different tournaments, keeping track of
wins, losses, and other statistics. The program is part of an ongoing school
project, so feedback is especially appreciated, and an unusually firm deadline
of March 31, 2000 for version 1.0 has been set.
The Quake3mods.Net Developer's FAQ
attempts to answer the most frequently asked questions about making your own
maps, skins, and modifications for Quake III Arena. There are now 20 Quake III
Arena programming tutorials on Quake Style.
Also, there is an AVI tutorial on making models with MilkShape 3D
on Darkstar.
Finally, the source code for the Q3A Rho-Bot
is now available.
NPD
Top 20 Best Selling Entertainment Software Titles (Units) January 16 -22, 2000
on GameDAILY are online (seems the "Last Week's Rank" column is
pretty out of whack, btw). Q3A is #5, UT is #8, and Half-Life is back in the Top
10 at #10. The corresponding
Mac listing is also online with UT claiming the #1 spot from Q3A, which
drops to #3. Till next week, this is Casey Kasem saying, keep your feet in the
stirrups, and your teeth in a glass.
Just a thought on the subject of those much-hyped Super Bowl advertisements
touched on yesterday. After watching the broadcast I'm left wondering who sold
all the advertisers of the world on the idea that products could be sold with
poorly-sung amateur renditions of old pop songs? I couldn't believe how many of
these high-budget ads featured just that (though the happy puppet pet thing
rules).
There's been something wonky lately with the LAN Party List
that made adding a new party problematic... furn whipped out his coding stick
and has beaten the problem into submission, and he promises the new-and-improved
listing (version 2.0), is faster, sexier, and most of all, actually works again,
so if you have an event to add, go nuts.
Link of the Day: How loony are you?
Self-explanatory. Thanks Fingas.
Story of the Day: Family under psychiatric watch after talking about leaving Earth.
And you thought your relatives were odd. Thanks Ron Johnson.
Edited chat logs of yesterday's multi-developer space sim chat are now online in HTML
format and in plain
text, with the HTML version color-coded to make for easier reading. Games
covered in the chat are Deep Space Nine, Klingon Academy, Millennium 3, Parsec,
Silent Space, Starlancer, and Terminus.
Strength of Character
on GameSpy.com is an essay by Valve Designer Marc Laidlaw to wrap-up their
Developer Week. The article talks about character creation in games, going into some of what's behind Half-Life's Gordon Freeman, at one point paraphrasing F. Scott
Fitzgerald on the difficulty in creating a character (I'm
guessing game designers usually just use Fitzgerald as an inspiration at the
bar): F. Scott Fitzgerald
said something to the effect that if you try to create a "real"
person, you'll be lucky to end up with a character. But if you try only to
create a character, you'll end up with a caricature…something two-dimensional
at best. We must aim high. It's a challenge that many of us take seriously.
There's a 16 page Quake
III Arena strategy guide on GNN offering separate sections on general
deathmatch strategies, one-on-one strategies, and weapon strategies. Also, GameSurge's
Quake III Arena weapons guide is up, just concentrating on the work of Q
Branch. Finally, One
Sick Team's TimeDemo Tutorial shows how to benchmark your system using
Unreal Tournament.
Much to the consternation of some U9 fans, a post to the Ultima IX Ascension Discussion Forums
announces Origin "will be closing the Official Ultima Ascension Boards,
leaving the Technical Solutions forum, the Technical Issues forum, and the
Spoilers and Hints forum open as read-only for those who can benefit from the
information there." This move came just two days after the release of the
most recent patch for the game, though they say they "will be providing
solutions in (their) Technical Solutions forum" for software and driver
incompatibilities.
The Digital Paint
page has a new version 1.6 client update for Digital Paint's Paintball mod
for Quake II. The new release doesn't really alter gameplay, but rather adds
several new maps, one of which, Psychosity, has its own disclaimer warning about
side-effects.
ShellShock's Crater has a new
version of the Q3Offline utility that enables offline games of Quake III Arena
to be quickly set up with fully configurable map rotation and bots. The new
release adds a "bot editor" for creating new bots from existing models
and skins.
A new version 0.96B of Beryllium
for Quake III Arena is now available. This is a highly configurable server-side
modification that is described as "basically lots of mods rolled into one."
The new version includes an off-hand grappling hook, and various options allow
the flexibility to make it "an Instagib mod, a LowAmmo mod, or just plain
old Q3 without the campers."
Enough stuff to require a Stuff Accelerator™:
- Part II Of the FvF World
Q3A Programming Tutorial teaches how to modify the Plasma Gun to return
the planned FlameThrower to Quake III Arena.
- Calrathan's Quake3 Ladder Code
shows how to add a ladder to any Quake III Arena mod.
- A new version 1.31 of the AntiElvis' Half-Life Compilation Controller is
available on GracelessLand
and the Half-Life Editing Resource Center.
"The HLCC is of course that baby-butt smooth, but grandmotherly wise
map compiling front-end for Half-Life."
- Also on GracelessLand is
Mission Control Panel v0.1b, offering an update to this
Half-Life/Quake III Arena Development IDE that offers 24 different file
types for each game, allows mappers to use their favorite tools, and
provides drag-and-drop version control.
- A new version 0.7 of Nightrunner's Quake3 Animation Helper is now
available on the NightRunner for Quake3 Downloads
page. This is a plug-in for 3D Studio Max to speed up the process of Quake
III Arena character animation by switching between the animation sequences
in a model's animation.cfg file.
- TABUN SoftWare has some new
tutorials on Quake III Arena skinning.
The Man Or Mouse Tournaments has expanded to
most of Europe with ladders in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, UK, Netherlands,
Germany, France, with plans to introduce a Clanwar section later this week with
ladders, leagues and tournaments.
Today is Super Bowl Sunday, the Sabbath of marketing here in the US, a day when
fans and non-fans of American football subject themselves to what seems like a
12-hour broadcast. Amid star-studded song-and-dance routines and
multi-million-dollar ad campaign launches, they will manage to squeeze in the
NFL championship game. It's an interesting occasion: loonyboi is not a football
fan, and he tells me he will be attending a Super Bowl party that will be
completely populated by others likewise indifferent to the game, a fairly common
occurrence. And while TV viewers usually complain about commercials, the
broadcast of the big game is considered to be a showcase to debut new ad
campaigns, and in keeping with the bizarre nature of the whole event, newspaper reviews of
those ads are an
expected part of the annual event's recap. It was during the 1984 Super Bowl
that the famous "Big Brother" Macintosh ad aired, a one time showing,
that I won't say actually overshadowed the game, but I do wonder how many folks
who remember seeing that famed single commercial actually remember what teams played in the
game surrounding it.
Link of the Day: Live
Forever: Uploading the Human Brain, on Psychology Today Online. Thanks Ant.
Story of the Day: Ignorant
or lazy? You make the call. Related to yesterday's bank robber who wrote his
stick-up note on his personal check. Thanks willde.
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