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Thursday, Feb 24, 2000 Happy Birthday Qtest

  

Soldier of Fortune Diary

GameSpot has posted a new installment of the Soldier of Fortune diary, and this time Raven's Brian Raffel discusses the help they received from consultant John Mullins in developing the weapons, enemies, and more.

Vampire Character

Also on GameSpot tonight is a Vampire Character feature, where they examine one character each week from Nihilistic's upcoming role-playing game, in text, sounds and images. Today's episode looks at Christof, the main protagonist.

Revenant Patch

Cinematix has released a version 1.2e patch for Revenant, available in both US and Korean editions (thanks AVault). There is no information available on what changes the patch brings to this isometric role-playing game.

Summoner Diary

A fresh installment of the Summoner diary is online at PC.IGN.com, and this time composer and sound designer Wally Shaw gives a number of guidelines he employs during the creation of sound and music for Volition's upcoming 3D role-playing game.

Hired Guns Screenshots

There are a bunch of Hired Guns screenshots on CombatWorld, along with some concept art and other images that appear in the game. Hired Guns is the tactical action game that's being developed by VR-1 and Psygnosis using the Unreal engine.

Unreal Tournament Pack Tomorrow

Gamecenter has announced that they will be premiering the Unreal Tournament Bonus Pack (a free add-on for UT that adds 11 new multiplayer levels, the new Relics feature, and 3 new meshes) at an unspecified time tomorrow. Rest assured, we'll let you know when it's released.

Battlezone II Patch

Activision has released the official version 1.1 patch for Battlezone II: Combat Commander to enable worldwide multiplayer gaming, and to fix issues with single-player missions, a range of multiplayer problems, and a couple of joystick problems.

More on GPL Dispute

id Software's John Carmack updated his .plan again today with some harsh words for the people responsible for taking down the QuakeLives site in retaliation for the author's decision not to abide by the GPL license (story). Here's what he had to say:

Some people took it upon themselves to remotely wreck Slade's development system. That is no more defensible than breaking into Id and smashing something.

The idea isn't to punish anyone, it is to have them comply with the license and continue to contribute. QuakeLives has quite a few happy users, and it is in everyone's best interest to have development continue. It just has to be by the rules.

Matrox Windows 2000 Drivers

Matrox has released Windows 2000 drivers for their G400, G200 and G100 based cards (except for the Marvel and MMS lines).

Soldier of Fortune Movie

A new MPEG movie featuring game footage from Soldier of Fortune has been posted at incitegames, featuring that trademark violence it's so well known for, and unlike the movie they posted yesterday, features stuff you can't find in the demo. Update: a second, shorter movie is also available.

Black & White Shots

Also new on incitegames is another batch of their Black & White screenshots. This last batch of shots are particularly pretty, showing different landscapes from the game world in a variety of times of day.

Thief II Update

AVault is reporting that Eidos and Looking Glass Studios are aiming for a March 22nd release date for Thief II: The Metal Age. They quote Michael McHale, the game's producer as saying, "most members of the team are working on bug fixes and polishing," and that the game has reached "feature freeze." There are also five new screenshots from the game, including one shot of the main character looking at himself via the "scouting orb."

Nels Bruckner Interview

GameSpy has posted an interview with Nels Bruckner, the former programmer at Dynamix on Starsiege: TRIBES 2. Nels talks about the reasons for his departure, and says that Pipeworks, the company he left to join, is working on a "top secret" project, which will become somewhat less secret at this year's Game Developer's Conference.

SWAT 3 International Patches

Sierra Studios has released international version 1.2 patches for SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle, their tactical squad-action game. They fix gameplay and AI issues as with the US patch released last week (story), and come in UK, French, German, Italian, and Spanish versions.

New Skout Demo

German developers Soft Enterprises have released an updated demo of their first-person shooter Skout. Besides containing a lot of fixes and improvements, this demo now also comes in English (except for a couple of German voice-overs), which should be a welcome change for those who were put off by the previous demo in the developers' native language (story). A USA-based mirror of the demo is available at 3D Action Gamers.

Daikatana Shot

PlanetDaiktana has posted the last of their daily screenshots from Daikatana. Today's image shows "Stavros the Sorcerer" a mini-boss in the game.

Summoner Interview

A new, somewhat odd, interview with Volition character designer Matt Kresge is up on Summoner Homeland. Matt answers all the questions (which are a bit strange in and of themselves) in the third person, making this a little more bizarre than your average interview.

Terminus Preview

Computer Games Online has posted the second and final part of their Terminus preview, providing more details and new screenshots on this upcoming role-playing space-combat title by Vicarious Visions. The game aims to bring back experiences from the venerable Elite, as space combat takes equal turns with trading, resource management, and interaction with other players, human or AI.

Evolva Screenshots

GameSpot UK has posted one of their notorious screenshot galleries, this one displaying 30 images of Evolva, the colorful first/third-person action game by Computer Artworks. There is a shorter concept art gallery as well.

10Six preview

There is a preview of 10Six online at PC.IGN.com, looking at SegaSoft's action/strategy game where you play with and against 999,999 of your closest friends (sorry, the rest of them will have to wait for their turn). There are some more screenshots from the open beta, which will end on February 28 when the game will be released.

Project IGI Screenshots

Also on GameSpot UK are two brief image galleries of Project IGI, showing off some new scenes and concept art from Innerloop's upcoming first-person action game, which is billed as a "thinker shooter."

Anachronox Screenshots

Third time's a charm, as there are also a couple of new Anachronox screenshots on GameSpot UK, showing off ION Storm's 3D role-playing game that is being built on the Quake II-engine.

Spec Ops M.O.U.T. Details

Spec Ops M.O.U.T. Details on The Adrenaline Vault gives more skinny on this upcoming follow-up from Zombie to Spec Ops, their tactics-oriented first-person shooter. Here's a quote from the story talking about gameplay in Spec Ops M.O.U.T. (BTW, M.O.U.T. stands for Military Operations in Urban Terrain):

Spec Ops: M.O.U.T. will feature a strong single-player adventure, though Long told us the team will be developing just as much multiplayer content, which he calls a combination of Team Fortress' fast action and the careful strategy of Spec Ops. Imagine a futuristic battle in which two groups go head-to-head in a tight urban setting with the sort of death appliances described above. Long said such online battles will be an important part of the game: “We want all the fiction, such as the missions, the equipment, the weapons, and the tactics, to be as realistic as possible, but also be based on what we believe armies will be doing in the future."

Team Fortress 2 Interviews

3DNews.Net's Team Fortress 2 interview is an 11 question Q&A with an unnamed member of Valve Software about Team Fortress 2, going into some detail about some of aspects of gameplay for the upcoming commercial installment in the TeamFortress series. Also, TF Tribune's TF2 Q&A is an even shorter piece that presumably talks with Sarah Walker (who is thanked at the end of the interview) asking specific questions about the game's netcode, as well as about a planned conversion of the Canalzone map.

Soldier of Fortune Screenshots

Careful to begin with the following disclaimer: "Warning, These are really gross, so don't click unless you've got a strong stomach. Seriously." 53 New Soldier of Fortune Shots on PC.IGN.Com offer a deck of cards' (plus a joker) worth of stomach-turning shots from Raven Software's upcoming Quake II-engine mercenary shooter (they should have posted 144 and called it a gross of gross shots). Also, there's a new Soldier of Fortune preview on Alloygaming.com, that in addition to offering a look ahead at Soldier of Fortune, offers three more new high resolutions screenshots showing off gameplay.

More Screenshots

There are some Sheep Simulator screenshots on GA-Strategy (yes this is for real, if I imagined something like this, I wouldn't admit it publicly). Also, some new GA-Source Exclusive Side-Scene Screenshots show off this 3D thriller action/adventure game, from Swedish developers The Other Guys (not to be confused with these guys). Finally, the Majesty-Dragon site has been updated with "four brand new never before seen Majesty BETA screen captures."

Tech Bits

Amiga Quake

Quake and QuakeWorld for Amiga have several downloads for both Quake version 1.09 and QuakeWorld version 2.40 for cult-favorite Amiga systems, including versions for the WarpOS, PowerUp, and AmigaOS/68k.

Usk8 for Unreal Tournament

Version Usk822300 of the Usk8 mod for Unreal Tournament is now available. If your 'l33t-to-English translator fails you, Usk8 is "you skate," which is a skateboarding mod, originally coded for Unreal, but now converted to work with UT as well. Word is: "We are looking to make a Realistic game/experience for skateboarding enthusiasts and spectators alike. With a planned hundreds of trick and various terrain to choose from, this add-on will bring a new meaning to the phrase TC."

MouseBall for Unreal Tournament

The debut release of MouseBall for Unreal Tournament is now available (brought to us by none other than Joey "FrogStomper" Fortuna, for old QuakeCast fans). The page doesn't offer much info, so I beat a description of the mod out of FrogStomper, so here goes: "Team play game. Pits mouse against mouse. Several goals scattered throughout the field and several balls. Kick the balls into the goals that correspond to your color. Prevent other mice from scoring by pushing them. Cheese powerups add speed to your mouse, wings to your balls, and punch to your pushes. MouseFans throughout the stadium cheer you on and jeer at your competitors (depending on how you interpret their Shopping-Mall-Elf-Robot movements)."

Q3A Assimilation

A new version 1.01 patch for Assimilation 2 is now available, updating this teamplay mod for Quake III Arena. Assimilation 2 supports up to seven teams (except in CTF, which is still only two teams), the mod features a unique scoring system, and what they modestly describe as "the best looking grappling hook to date."

Quake III Bot Designer

The first release of the Quake III Bot Designer is now available. As can be surmised from the name, this is a program designed to assist modelers in the addition of bot support to their models for Quake III Arena. The program allows you to give a bot weapon preferences and other skills, without having to crack open the Q3A source code.

Q3A Mods Sources

Fragstomp has released the source code for Reload Be Gone! and Bloodlust, their Quake III Arena modifications. All that's asked in return for adopting their code is a credit (and not to break id's EULA, obviously), and while there's no guarantee of support, they point out they are "pretty nice guys and will at least attempt to answer any questions..."

Competition Mods

Cold Storage Online has the version 1.0 release of the K-Stats "Gaming and LAN party Tournament / League Organiser Thingy," adding generation of League Tables and Player Lists on the main form and a new "Export to HTML" option for the league stats among other things. Also ]R[eactive Software has released beta 2 of the Reactive Q3A Competition Mod, which adds stats, Clan Arena, and customizable command listings. Word is the next beta will add "rail only," weapon/powerup banning, and a full GUI.

Competitions

The CyberNexusCafe has announced they are holding a Florida qualifier on March 11, 2000 for the $100,000 Razer CPL tournament. Also, word is that S3’s DMM Underground has signed on as a sponsor of the upcoming PlanetStarsiege TRIBES World Championship, and now the winning team will be taking home over $7,000 in prizes. Finally, there's a Quake III Song Contest on Quake3World looking to reward the best Q3A-related song parody.

Follow-ups

A post yesterday referred to Stars! Supernova as a real-time strategy offering until Myrddin Emrys pointed out this is an error: Stars! Supernova is actually turn-based (suited to play-by-mail). Thanks Myrddin. On the subject, there's new a Stars! Supernova Q&A with screenshots on Gamer's Alliance Strategy. Also, I wrote Picasso again the other day when referring to Picassio. Thanks Mike for the correction. I'll probably confuse the art-theft game's name with the artist's name at least once more before it sneaks past the alarm systems and on to retailer's shelves.

Reviews

etc.

Out of the Blue

Thanks a lot to Mindspring for making us their Site o' the Day yesterday (and thanks to zombiestomper for the heads-up about it). If any of you are reading this because they followed that link, please make yourself at home. Today is the fourth anniversary of the release of Qtest (thanks BC-]Victimizer[), the first test release of Quake, an event that spurred the posting of a Quake deathmatch screenshot and the contents of the Qtest read me as the second traces of Quake news on this site (after something like: "Quake is coming, please don't email id Software asking about it"), and basically launching the Quake section ("Rag") here, at the time a subsection of "blue's 3D House of 3D Carnage."

Link of the Day: Japanese Engrish, a collection English phrases found in advertisements and such in Japan. Not as politically incorrect as it seems at first, but terribly funny, featuring ad slogans like: "Bull Coffee, a canned coffee drink that gives you both creaminess and dry coffee taste." Thanks Kyle.
.plan of the Day: Brandon Reinhart (again). First no blow guns, and now this. How can he stand it?
Image of the Day: The VIA-GRA (Viagra) Motherboard. Thanks SlacKerCT.

Wednesday, Feb 23, 2000

Allegiance Diary

PC.IGN has posted a second installment of their ongoing Allegiance designer diary (thanks AllegianceVault). This week's installment has Lead Designer Rob Girling talking about the gameplay of their space sim, which is currently in beta testing.

Imperium Galactica II Preview

A new preview of Imperium Galactica II, the sci-fi strategy game, is up at GameSpot. The preview is fairly detailed, and well illustrated with new screenshots from various different parts of the game.

Soldier of Fortune Shots

New screenshots from Soldier of Fortune have been posted over at GameSpot news. The seven new shots focus on the later levels of the game, so they depict a completely different locale from the demo.

Icewind Dale Interviews

Two Icewind Dale interviews have popped up this evening. First up, is an interview with Feargus Urquhart on incitegames, complete with two new screenshots from the game (one of which shows a previously unseen part of the game). Another Icewind Dale interview is up on GameFan, where they've interviewed Interplay's producer on the title, Chris Parker.

C&C: Firestorm Gold

Westwood has announced that Command & Conquer: Firestorm has gone gold, and will hit store shelves on March 9th. Firestorm is an expansion pack for Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, that adds 18 new single player missions and 15 new multiplayer maps.

Carmack on GPL Dispute

id's John Carmack updated his .plan in response to the author of the QuakeLives Quake 1 project's decision not to release his source code (a direct violation of the GPL license under which the Q1 source was released). Here's what Carmack had to say:

This is a public statement that is also being sent directly to Slade at QuakeLives regarding http://www.quakelives.com/main/ql.cgi?section=dlagreement&file=qwcl-win32/

I see both sides of this. Your goals are positive, and I understand the issues and the difficulties that your project has to work under because of the GPL. I have also seen some GPL zealots acting petty and immature towards you very early on (while it is within everyone's rights to DEMAND code under the GPL, it isn't necessarily the best attitude to take), which probably colors some of your views on the subject.

We discussed several possible legal solutions to the issues.

This isn't one of them.

While I doubt your "give up your rights" click through would hold up in court, I am positive that you are required to give the source to anyone that asks for it that got a binary from someone else. This doesn't provide the obscurity needed for a gaming level of security.

I cut you a lot of slack because I honestly thought you intended to properly follow through with the requirements of the GPL, and you were just trying to get something fun out ASAP. It looks like I was wrong.

If you can't stand to work under the GPL, you should release the code to your last binary and give up your project. I would prefer that you continue your work, but abide by the GPL. If necessary, I will pay whatever lawyer the Free Software Foundation reccomends to pursue this.

Crimson Skies Site

Microsoft sent word that their Crimson Skies site has officially opened for business. Crimson Skies is a fantasy action flight-sim in development by Zipper Interactive, and the site offers information on the game's story and features, as well as some new screenshots and an already familiar movie trailer.

The Rift Screenshots

StrategyPlanet has posted three new action-packed screenshots from The Rift, a 3D space-themed strategy game from ThrushWave Technology.

Flying Heroes Preview

Gamerush has posted a brief preview of Flying Heroes, the upcoming action flyer by Illusion Softworks and Pterodon. Although brief and illustrated with familiar screenshots, the article also includes the intro movie trailer of the game, showing over two minutes of footage in Cinemascope 440x200 format.

MDK2 Screenshots

The official MDK2 site has been updated with seven new screenshots, again all showing off the doggie character Max in BioWare's third-person action sequel. MDK, as everyone knows, stands for My Deadly Knee-caps.

Misc. Releases

  • A new patch for Need for Speed: High Stakes is out, and available at 3DFiles, although nobody seems to know what it does (thanks Magnus "Psycho" Jonasson).
  • Version 1.0 of K-Stats, a LAN party/tournament managing program has been released, complete with full documentation.
  • Q3Comp Beta 2 is out, adding customizable command listings amongst other changes to this competition mod for Quake III Arena.
  • 3DDownloads has posted a Quake III Arena remake of the Stomping Grounds map from the Quake II mission pack The Reckoning. The map was made by Alex Mayberry, the lead level designer on the Q3A engine game The World is Not Enough.
  • The first version of the Q3A deathmatch ranking mod Kings & A--holes (and they say all the good names are taken) is out there, with a server set up running it at 208.236.41.194.

Evolva Preview

Eurogamer.net has posted a hands-on preview of Evolva, Computer Artworks' hybrid first/third person action game, complete with gameplay details galore, and 12 new screenshots.

Mail Bag

It's a Wednesday, which means it's time for a new edition of the Blue's News Mail Bag! In this week's edition: bizarre disclaimers, carpal tunnel advice, some letters on Windows 2000, a driver plea, Outlaws, and lots more. Head over and check it out.

Sacrifice Shots

German games site nonstuff.de has posted two additional screenshots to their Sacrifice image gallery. The shots, like the original ones, are quite impressive looking. Sacrifice is Shiny's upcoming 3D strategy title, which uses some (but not all) of the Messiah technology.

Linux OpFor Clarification

Gearbox Software's Patrick Dupree updated his .plan with a clarification regarding yesterday's announcement that the Linux dedicated server port of Half-Life: Opposing Force was held up while they add WON.net support. Here's the scoop:

One clarification on the WON verification in the dedicated server. Our game will work the same way that Half-Life works. A dedicated server doesn't require a WON ID. The support I have to add for WON is checking to ensure that the people connecting to the dedicated server have been verified through the WON service. So never fear, you can still play and run dedicated server at the same time.

Hired Guns Shots

GA-Source has posted six new screenshots from Hired Guns, VR-1's teamplay-based shooter, that's powered by the Unreal engine.The game uses a multiple viewpoint system, which is well-illustrated by the screenshots.

Battlecruiser 3000 AD Interview

A new interview with Derek Smart, the outspoken Battlecruiser 3000 AD creator is up in The Mushroom's "legit section" dealing with a wide range of topics, including his current feelings about Take Two Interactive (the original BC3K publisher), and the upcoming Battlecruiser Millennium.

Daikatana Shot

Today's Daikatana shot of the day has been posted over at PlanetDaikatana. Today's image shows the Daikatana sword in its "powered up state" from episode 1.

Devil Inside Shots

GASource has posted six screenshots and ten character renders from Devil Inside, the upcoming spooky action/adventure game from the creator of Alone in the Dark (one of the first such spooky action/adventure games).

Deus Ex Preview

Daily Radar continues their Deus Ex week with a preview of ION Storm's upcoming 3D action RPG, covering the story, gameplay and features into some depth. About two dozen screenshots (some of them familiar) show off more of the game's futuristic world, as designed by Warren Spector.

Terminus Preview

Part 1 of a preview on Terminus is up at Computer Games Online, subtitled Thinking outside the box (didn't Paul Steed copyright that phrase?). Terminus is a role-playing space-combat title in development at Vicarious Visions, and the article has info on the story and gameplay, as well as some new screenshots.

Kingdom Under Fire Preview

PC.IGN.com has posted a preview of Kingdom Under Fire, a recently surfaced RTS by Korean developers Phantagram that aims to throw a bit of role-playing in with the strategic fray. A slew of screenshots illustrate the 2D looks they chose for the game.

SoF Interview

Doing It For The Money With Rick Johnson is an interview with Raven Programmer Rick "You can call me Ray" Johnson. The conversation starts with Rick's gaming roots on the C64 and Amiga, covers his post-college work career (entirely at Raven), and talks about progress on his current project, Soldier of Fortune.

Gearbox Interview

There's a Randy Pitchford interview on GameLinks.Net talking with the Gearbox software director/designer about the success of Half-Life: Opposing Force and discussing a bit of the future, including plans for their Dreamcast Half-Life game, Barney's Adventures in Securityland.

Screenshots

This Evolva Preview by 3D Rage has a bunch of screenshots taken from a beta build of this upcoming shooter from Computer Artworks. GA-RPG Exclusive Anarchy Online Screenshots give a pair of looks at Anarchy Online, an upcoming science-fiction MMORPG "set nearly 30,000 years into the future." A new Screen Shot of the Week is up on the official Star Trek Armada website. This Stars! Supernova preview on SpieleCity is in German, but there are also a bunch of shots of this upcoming space turn-based strategy game. New Beasts Details and Screenshots on GA-Source give looks at this upcoming bigfoot based game (you know what they say, big feet... big shoes). Finally, even though you can do your own free preview with the open beta, here's a GameSpot UK Allegiance Preview with a four shot screenshot gallery. There's also an Allegiance wallpaper on the Allegiance Vault.

Interviews

Thresh's FiringSquad's Shogun: Total War preview offers a set of interview questions with Creative Assembly on Shogun: Total War. There's a Dark Age of Camelot Interview on the newly opened Camelot Vault discussing Dark Age of Camelot, an upcoming massive online multiplayer dealie where chivalry is encouraged, and hygiene is not.

Tech Bits

On Game Movies

Outside The Garage - 3D Games World, on Machinima.com is the first in a regular series to find out what the "outside world" thinks of Machinima (game cinema), talking with Andrew Brazier of Headfirst Productions, Tom Hall and Jake Hughes of ION Storm, Paul Steed of id Software, and Joshua Vasquez of loonygames. Also, in Engine Coding for Machinima - Part 1 Anthony Bailey of the Quake done Quick team gets under the hood of the Quake source code with some sound tutorials.

10Six Two28

A post on GA-Strategy quotes Al Rivera, producer on 10Six, saying "SegaSoft's million player strategy title will be released next week, Feb. 28, 2000." 10Six is the strategy game that will theoretically support up to 1,000,000 players online, breaking the current online game record by 990-something thousand.

UT Slave Master

Version 0.9 of Slave Master is now available, the first beta release of this mutator for Unreal Tournament. In Slave Master fragged players respawn as slaves to the player that fragged them, and can regain their freedom by collecting weapons and power-ups for their master (or they can laze around and wait for the slave-driving old bastard to croak).

Q3A Bloodwolf Matchmod

The first release of the Quake III Arena Bloodwolf Matchmod is available on the Team Bloodwolf site. This is described as mainly a mod to setup matches, though it also offers some client-side enhancements including a new scoreboard and HUD, extra info from the id function, and a time remaining display. Server-side features include match setup, countdown, linger state at the end of a match (to allow time to note scores, etc.), lock and unlock teams, force a player to a team, make everyone a spectator, a kick command that supports partial names, control of timelimit, fraglimit, capturelimit, dmflags, gametype, map, etc., deferred spawning, and more. The manual has a complete list of features.

Q3Offline

ShellShock's Crater has a new version 00.02.22.00 of the Q3Offline front-end specifically designed for setting up offline games against bots in Quake III Arena. The new version fixes problems with the Play & Exit button and with maps/bots not randomizing.

Quake FrikBot

Version 0.09 of the FrikBot for Quake is now available offering a "client simulator" for classic Quake, a bot that can play on almost any level or modification with no adjustments whatsoever.

MapViewerPro

A new version 1.3 of MapViewerPro is now available. As its name implies, this is a tool for checking out maps in Quake, Quake III Arena, or Unreal Tournament (with support for more games to come). "Simply enter the name of the map like E3M5 or other information and you get small pictures in the program of the level as well as the name of the level."

Editing Stuff - Q3A Modeling Tutorial

Paul Steed's Thinking Outside the Box on loonygames offers 3DS Tutorial #1: CyberGuy, demonstrating how to create a Quake III Arena character model in 3DStudio Max, as well as some reflections on the consequences of expressing the type of strong opinions he did in his column last week.

New Crystal Space Engine

The Crystal Space page has the second 0.15 beta release of the Crystal Space free 3D engine. Here is the note on the release: "A LOT has changed compared to 0.14 and also to 0.15r001. Note that 0.15 is only a beta release. There are no guarantees of anything. It may not even compile. But I'm confident that it should work on most platforms. This beta (0.15r002) corresponds to a CVS snapshot of 23 February 2000."

Competitions

The HEATCIGL, HEAT's Collegiate Internet Gaming League, has announced a $5,000 all-star tournament in April playing Quake II, Quake III Arena, and Unreal Tournament. Also, there are interviews with the participants in the Razer-CPL Qualifier on Eurogamer.net.

Reviews

etc.

  • Word from the Game Developers Conference is that Bill Gates will be giving the keynote address. In what is not a coincidence, Gates may take wraps off X-box plans soon is a Cnet story (thanks Jeff Magill) speculating "Microsoft chairman Bill Gates may unveil a video-game console system to compete with Sony in opening remarks at the annual Game Developers Conference in March."...
  • Gender Bending in Games on WomenGamers.Com. "Consulting psychologist Doctor Kathryn Wright investigates the phenomenon of males who play as female characters (or who use female models, skins, or avatars) in games."
  • There's a Tower of the Ancient Demo on DemoNews.com offering "a fast-paced puzzle game, featuring spectacular graphics and sound as you attempt to avoid the wrath of God." Also, a beta version of a strategy game called Malos that supports both Glide and OpenGL is now available...
  • This Netscape FTP directory has Netscape version 4.72 for Windows, Mac, and Unix. Thanks Ant...

Out of the Blue

I have been trying to resist the temptation to be an early adopter of Win2K, because my new work machine has a fresh install of Win98 that is running like clockwork, as is basically the whole network here at the Blue Tower, a rare enough situation that I'm hesitant to mess with it. However, since loonyboi is raving about how well his Win2K experience has worked out, in particular the elimination of the dreaded system resource limitations that Windows users have been battling since the year 1 A.D. (After DOS), I think I will cobble up a non-mission critical machine and check it out. It's been long enough since my episode trying to install NT that resulted in at least 1000 BSODs that I believe most of the lumps have gone away from banging my head against the wall (and if the wall can take some more, I don't see why I can't).

Link of the Day: SMOW. Thanks Phane. "The gift for someone who has (almost) everything."
Story of the Day: IRCer Gets Laid on IRCNews.com. Thanks Fabien Delpierre. Another milestone after mIRC's 10th registration. I think the illustration in this one has to be the Image of the Day as well.
.plan of the Day: Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart. Re: "New office rule."



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