Archived News:
An update to the AnachroLith
thread on PlanetCrap mentioned earlier ( story) adds a response
from Tom Hall, the game's lead designer, who comments on programmer Andrew
Megowan's departure, as well as the departure for some other members of the
AnachroTeam, and word on the current state of the game: We've now heard
back from Tom Hall. He explained that Andrew Megowan left ION Storm "a
couple months ago", and wished him the best of luck. He didn't comment on
the reason for Andrew's departure.
Tom also confirmed one of the other recent rumuours, saying that some other
members of the Anachronox team are leaving, having received "great
offers" from other companies. He declined to reveal who they were, saying
"I'd like that to be their news, really (you know, once they get
settled)" A number of new developers have been hired at ION Storm.
Finally, Tom commented on the current state of Anachronox: "There is a
chart on the wall of every last thing left to do in the game (and a more
detailed one in Project, of course). We're checking it off, meeting or beating
our internal schedule. Once that chart's full, and the game is well-tested and
tweaked, we're gonna ship it."
The folks at Cached send word they've
posted the results of the QuakeCon 2000 tournament finals, which were won by
Zero4, who apparently went through the tournament undefeated. In addition to a
wrap-up, they already have all manner of demos from the tourney for download.
Jaakko Keränen was set free from Finland's army long enough to do some coding on his JDoom port of the public DOOM source code, and has released an "Aug6 Patch" that adds a couple of new features related to MD2 models, including frame interpolation to improve animation, and new model flags.
There's a Slashdot
post by John Carmack to a thread called New Doom Details
(thanks Thomas Kindler) based on the revelations about the upcoming new Doom
game mentioned earlier ( story) responding to several questions
raised by the announcement. Here's a bit: > Carmack basically said,
that single-player games suck from a money/replayability point of view
This was a balancing act in company morale and politics. My first choice for
future projects would be to pursue the snowcrash-like extensible virtual worlds,
but most of the company wants to work on a game with a story. We have three new
hires coming on soon, so we are growing somewhat to support it.
The other
two questions concern integrated editors, and the support of C++ style
programming, on which Carmack says: "if anything, I think we are behind the
curve on making the transition."
Stomped
interviews Robert Duffy of id Software, another one of their Q&As with
attendees of QuakeCon 2000. the conversation discusses what Robert has been up
to on Quake III: Team Arena, talking a little about the user interface in the
mission pack, and probes a bit about the new Doom game.
GameSpy.com's 20
Questions with Peter Molyneux talks with the head of the pride at Lionhead
Studios about "fast-food, girlfriends, and cars" in our their '20
Questions NOT about your game,' feature, though Black & White, Lionhead's
upcoming god-game, does manage to creep into the conversation a couple of times.
FiringSquad
interviews Se Jung Kim and Sang Youn Lee of Phantagram. The conversation
took place in Dallas during a recent visit from Korea by the pair to see their
publisher, Gathering of Developers. The conversation centers around Kingdom Under Fire,
their upcoming RTS game, and covers the game's development and direction,
and is illustrated with screenshots from their
previous KuF preview.
The Adrenaline Vault
previews Wizards & Warriors (no relation to the Nintendo game of the
same name) in a look ahead at this upcoming RPG from Heuristic Park. The preview discusses what will help differentiate it from other games in the genre, saying the all-new
engine "provides a refreshing break from the mundane 2D characters and
poorly rendered 3D environments brought about by the last generation of PC
RPGs," and goes on to discuss a bit of detail about its plot and how
gameplay is handled, including keyword driven conversation with NPCs that
harkens back to earlier Ultima games.
A new thread on PlanetCrap
offers at least a partial confirmation of a rumor originally posted on the Fatbabies
website, getting corroboration from Monolith that former Anachronox-programmer Andrew
Megowan has been hired by Monolith to work on future games (as opposed
to LithTech engine development). Here is the main portion of the post: Monolith
has now confirmed that Megowan is working for them. He will work on the
company's own games, not LithTech development.
It has not been confirmed if Megowan was fired from ION Storm, or if he
chose to leave.
Tom Hall, project lead on Anachronox, was not immediately available for comment.
A post to a thread called New Owner of Thief License
on the TTLG Forums by Marc LeBlanc, Siege Engine programmer, and ex-LGS
programmer/game-guru (thanks to ex-LGSer Zdim for giving Marc's pedigree) gives
a follow up to the recent post about a rumor that the Thief license, in limbo
since the closing of Looking Glass Studios ( story and
story), has been acquired ( story). According to this
new, as yet unconfirmed post, Eidos Interactive is now owner of the Thief
franchise and the engine that was being developed for its next iteration, and that a new
Thief game will be developed by ION Austin. Here is the post: Here's
what's going on, to my knowledge: EIDOS now owns both the Thief franchise and
the code to the new engine (as well as the code to the Dark engine, which is
mostly considered a subset of the new engine code).
The Thief franchise will continue to be developed at the Ion Storm Austin
office, where it is in Warren Spector's capable hands.
It's unlikely at this point that the new engine will ever get finished.
A few recaps of John Carmack's talk at QuakeCon are online, where id's upcoming
Doom game was touched on a few times. You can check out summaries on 3DActionPlanet,
Shugashack, and Stomped.
A couple of points of interest:
- The game will be more focused on single-player than multiplayer play.
- An XBox port will be a "no-brainer" due to the similarity
between the Xbox and a PC, but PS2 and Dreamcast ports are more in doubt.
- The game will ship with all the traditional map authoring and mod
development tools, and that the game will be more like the original Quake in
ease of modification than subsequent games.
- The use of bots is yet to be determined.
- There will be a test version released, like Qtest, etc.
- Giants
There are some new Giants Screenshots
on GA-Source showing a half-dozen new views of PlanetMoon Studios'
upcoming quirky action game where you can play one of three races violently
vying for control off a small island.
- Atriarch
Actually not a screenshot, but the Atriarch Vault
Screenshots page has posted another movie showing Atriarch character
animation, showing off a walking, talking Cavolon Guide
from the game.
The Infoceptor
interviews Mike O'Brian, talking with former Blizzard employee and
Battle.Net guru about plans for their newly-announced project, Arena.net.
The Q&A discusses Mike's former work at Blizzard, plans for the new company,
and even touches on the difficulties that persist on Battle.Net running Diablo
II, saying "...although if I were still at Blizzard I would have argued for
a little more testing before release!"
3DActionPlanet's
Return to Castle Wolfenstein First Look is online, after spending some time
at QuakeCon with the folks from Grey Matter Studios talking about progress on
Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Grey Matter's upcoming Quake III-engine game, that
is actually a sequel to/remake of Wolfenstein-3D, rather than the original
Castle Wolfenstein.
- H.Oda!'s NrkLvHomePage has a new
version of his WCPUID dealie that rats on your processor and all, revealing
all sorts of intimate details.
- GeForce2 MX Meets Quake 3
on nV News looks to see if cards based on NVIDIA's new mid-range
graphics accelerator are up to the challenge of producing acceptable
framerates in Quake III Arena.
- DemoNews.com
has posted another 3D demo from NVIDIA, this one designed to show off
per-pixel lighting effects in OpenGL.
A post called Java Security Hole Makes Netscape Into Web Server
on Slashdot describes a potential exploit for NS owners they say "makes
Napster look positively tame by comparison." Thanks Conan Ford.
House Vagoroth has a demo version of
their hvMechWarrior modification for Starsiege TRIBES, an upcoming project that
attempts to add more of a traditional giant robot combat feel to the generally
faster-paced world of Starsiege TRIBES.
RadioActiveSoftware sends word
of a minor, but important glitch in the recent release of the version 1.101
update for their Chronicles Half-Life mod ( story). The problem is
the self-extracting .exe defaults to installing to C:\sierra\Half-Life, instead
of C:\Sierra\Half-Life\Chronicles. If you are having problems, you can just
manually add the \chronicles during installation. A new version 1.101a of Chronicles
will be posted soon to address this.
This Quake3Files.com page
has the first demo from QuakeCon 2000 that has been uploaded. Also, the
newly-opened RocketArena.Org plays
host to online ladders for Rocket Arena players, with separate ladders for the
Q3A and the UT versions of the mod.
This Heavy Metal FAKK2 Walkthrough
is not complete yet, but is being updated as the game is being played through,
so if you've already got your hands on Ritual's third-person action game, this
is a place to keep an eye on in case you find yourself stuck.
The Battle Grounds has posted a
couple of shots of the American player skin/model for this upcoming Half-Life
mod set during the American Revolution.
For a time, the report posted yesterday about a delay in the release of Arcanum,
the upcoming RPG from Troika ( story) incorrectly said a public
beta of the game is expected in February, when the beta is actually currently
predicted for a September release. We regret the error, and apologize for any
confusion we caused. Thanks Jonathan C. Forster for the heads-up.
Okay, so this deep into QuakeCon I'm really starting to feel the pangs of regret
for not attending. In a brainstorm, I just looked up their website and found
that there are no less than four Denny's here in Brooklyn. I take this on faith,
as I have never actually seen a local Denny's in a lifetime of living here and in
Manhattan, but I may just venture out this afternoon to find one. Either eating
there will make me feel more like an attendee, or possibly the potential
after-effects will make me more thankful for having missed the whole thing.
Link of the Day: DOH!!! Page Not Found.
Best 404 error page I can recall. Thanks Steven 'sidey' Munro.
Story of the Day: After Decade of Waiting, Penis Plant Blooms.
Hey, this is real news folks! We'll have to see if Frans can put this one in
perspective for us. Thanks theAntiELVIS.
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