Archived News:
There's a
David Gaider interview on Baldur's Gate Forge talking with the senior
designer on Throne of Bhaal, the just-released add-on for Baldur's Gate II: The
Shadows of Amn. The conversation discusses how the expansion turned out, getting
into specifics on the implementation of things like the Wild Mages and dragons,
some broader Baldur's Gate topics like the balance of indoor versus outdoor
environments and the inspiration for the series, and some general questions as
well.
The Tribes Shoutcast Network has an
archive online of their audio interview that originally aired last night talking
with Alex "Marweas" Rodberg, Sierra's brand manager for TRIBES 2. The
hour-long interview can either be downloaded in .mp3 format, or streamed via
that Shoutcast dealie. According to their page, the interview offers "discussions
about the 'Demo' feature of Tribes 2, the current patching situation, the future
of games as a 'sport', the rivalry between Sierra/Tribes and
Sierra/Counterstrike, the Publishers perspective on ongoing game support, the
role of the community, the Denial of Service attacks on the Tribes 2
Authentication Servers, and much much more!"
There's an Etherlords
Developer Diary Volume 1 on GameSpy.Com authored by Andrey Emelyanenko who
describes the process by which he and his cohorts at Nival Interactive
came up with the concept behind Etherlords, their upcoming 3D turn-based
strategy game. The diary discusses the influence they found in the PC version of
Magic: The Gathering, narrates through the point that their artists started
creating some of the planned Etherlords creatures, and brings us to the brink of
a game-design conundrum that they hit at that point in development, which he
promises to reveal in his next diary installment. Included are a couple of
screenshots and a rendering of a creature along with the concept art that was
its inspiration. In addition to that, there is also a
short Etherlords preview on Spieleflut, which is a German site, so if you
don't sprechen Sie Deutsch, you can do the Babel Fish
thing (the GameSpy diary is translated from Andrey's native Russian, so this all
takes on the air of a U.N. General Assembly at this point). Either way, the
article also provides some screenshots and concept art of its own, which speak
some sort of universal language.
10 Questions with Warren Spector
on Nextgame.it is an interview talking with the ION Storm designer whose
resume includes titles like Ultima Underworld I-II, System Shock, Thief: The
Dark Project, Thief II: The Metal Age, and Deux Ex discussing the game business.
Topics include the role of technology in creating "credible worlds,"
the future of peripherals, mobile gaming, violence, and more. the conversation
is also available translated
into their native Italian.
There's a Gore Interview
on Silent Games talking with Barry Batchelor, a 3D modeler from Eyecon,
the Australian developer partnering with 4D
Rulers on Gore, their upcoming first-person shooter. The conversation covers
background on the relationship between Eyecon and Gore (as well as Slam
Software, developers of Gore's AMP engine), as well as feedback on the Gore
multiplayer demo, what the full game will include upon release, what happened to
the plans for single-player play in the planned multiplayer game, and more. Also
on tap with the interview are a batch of Gore screenshots.
The Morrowind
Developer Q&A #1 on RPG Vault talks with Ken Rolston, lead designer on
Morrowind, Bethesda Softworks' upcoming Elder Scrolls game. The conversation
introduces us to the Elder Scrolls series, giving some background on its history
before turning its attention to the upcoming installment. Other topics include
the philosophy behind the RPG series, the setting of Morrowind, and details on
the game's back-story.
There's a new Republic: The Revolution preview on
PC.IGN.com looking ahead at the upcoming game where "Elixir Studios
shows us what it's like to be a leader of a small Eastern Bloc country."
The article is based on a meeting with Elixir CEO Demis Hassabis and Republic lead
designer Joe McDonagh who provided a demonstration of a recent build of
Republic, which they refer to as "one of our most-wanted games." In
addition to their impressions from getting some face-time with the game, the
article also provides detailed background on Republic, describing various
aspects of gameplay. Also included are some screenshots, but these have been previously
published elsewhere.
PlanetTribes has posted a
news item explaining why players are unable to connect to TRIBES 2 (thanks
Voodoo Extreme). According to their
news update, the problem was caused by a hack attack that removed all of the
authentication versions from Sierra's update site, so all players are currently
being told that they have an out of date version of the game. Until it's fixed,
you can bypass this by simply start up the game with the "tribes2.exe -online"
command line.
This week's Halo
update from Bungie's Matt Soell is up at Rampancy.net (thanks Halo.Bungie.org).
Like all the previous updates, it contains little nuggets of info about the
latest developments of the game. Here's an excerpt: - The team is finally
getting enough Xboxes to go around. No more sharing.
- The Artist Formerly Known As The Mighty Chris Butcher And Now Known Simply
As Chris Butcher delegated his title to Chucky. He also did a bunch of stuff
for the Sin-O-MatiXXX team, making sure the communication system for AIs is
in proper working order and working on the scripting tools.
- Eric Arroyo is working on a mission I'm not allowed to discuss. One of the
visual highlights of this level is known around the office as The Money Shot.
Heavy machinery, great heights, and you. I can say no more, but as Eric put
it, "the wet-your-pants factor will be high."
A new edition of the
Master of Orion III Diary at GameSpy.com is online today. This ninth installment
deals with the development of the game's user interface, and Quicksilver's Rantz
Hoseley explains the long process that has gone into its design.
Because Anarchy Online is initially only going to be available for purchase
in North America and the Nordic region, Funcom has made a surprising move and
are allowing people outside of those two areas to
purchase and download the game online. This offer will only be available
until the game is released elsewhere, and like the retail version it comes with
a month of free time. The CD key will become available on June 27th, which is
of course the game's official release date.
3D Realms has updated their official
Max Payne site with eight new screenshots from the game. They're still only
saying it will be out "when it's done," but considering that they
are now taking pre-orders ( story) that should be pretty soon. Update: It turns out the shots previously appeared on the official site
After being available only as part of a large download of all three episodes ( story),
Neil Manke's They Hunger 3 is
now available for download separately (registration required). You'll still need the first two episodes
to play this one, but this file is 30 MB smaller, and no doubt will be make
those with slow connections quite happy.
Back in May Interplay confirmed that they were in discussions to be purchased
by an unnamed suitor ( story). It looks like the deal has been
called off, as this
story at MCV reports that Titus has announced that they are not going to
be selling their stake in the company, making a sale impossible. MCV's news
report speculates that this may simply be a way of saving face after both THQ
and PCCW withdrew their offers.
The game has hit the shelves, and so BioWare has updated their
official support page with known issues for Baldur's Gate II: Throne of
Bhaal. On a similar note, a
support FAQ for Independence War II: Edge of Chaos is now available, just
in time for its European release next week. This must be the day for tech support,
as a support FAQ for
Operation Flashpoint is online as well (thanks SpecForce).
Finally some games that aren't out already: Cryonetworks has updated the
Dune Generations FAQ at the
game's official site, and the
official Star Wars Galaxies FAQ has been given its weekly update.
The International
House of Mojo is throwing a contest where you can win copies of the Playstation
2 version of Escape From Monkey Island along with a press pack containing all
manner of piratey goodness (but no monkeys). Also, you can win copies of World
War II Online and Giants: Citizen Kabuto in XGR.com's Name
the Show Contest.
The official Deus Fortress
site has been updated with a new shot showing off one of the weapons from
this mod for Deus Ex (thanks Mike Cervantes). PC Shooter.com has conducted an
interview with Myskin, an animator and 3D artist on the Global Warfare mod
for Half-Life. Also, Silent Games has an
interview up with members of the Uncrossable Parallel mod for Half-Life,
and ELiTeD has an interview up with
Sam "Wulfie3D" Anthony, the author of the Codename O.N.Y.X. mod for Unreal
Tournament.
Well, the news forums have been back for a week, and they seem to be working
out pretty well. For those of you that are curious about the red asterisks that
are next to some of the news stories, that's to indicate that a new message
has been posted since your last visit. Although there are still a few kinks
to be worked out in the system, so it's not terribly reliable at the moment.
One last note: those of you that have pre-ordered
Blue's News T-shirts will be pleased to know that they should be shipping
late next week. We'll keep you posted. And don't forget, there's less than a
month to go in our
T-shirt contest. As my tendency to accumulate crap hasn't slowed any recently,
the giant pile of stuff we're giving away has actually gotten bigger
since we first announced it.
Link of the Day: 10k4awife.com
(thanks EvilToast).
Weird Science: CD-eating
fungus discovered (Ananova). Thanks Andrew Arace.
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