|
|
 |
Archived News:
The NovaLogic Website has
word that the promised ( story) and already delayed ( story)
demo for Delta Force: Black Hawk Down has hit another delay (thanks Mitch).
Here's the deal: NovaLogic regrets to announce that the release of the
Multiplayer Demo for Delta Force: Black Hawk Down has been delayed until further
notice. More information on the new release date will be available next
week.
A post to the Infogrames
Forums by Epic's Mark Rein has the skinny on ports for UT2003, the upcoming
Unreal Tournament sequel. Here's the hot word: Linux is now up and running
pretty well. I've been told that we should be able to release the Linux client
and server executables around the same time as the windows version ships.
Official tech support isn't provided for the Linux versions. Currently Linux
will only work well with Nvidia cards - apparently ATI's OpenGL Linux and Mac
drivers don't support texture compression. Hopefully this is something they will
soon fix. Mac development is just underway so it will still be a little while
before it's done.
The Unreal Technology Page has a new
OpenGLDrv.dll that fixes extension detection with very large extension strings.
Also available with the compiled file is the source code for those who tinker
with such things.
GameSpot's
Tron 2.0 Preview offers a look at the upcoming Tron game in the works at
Monolith. They describe how the plot of the new game connects with the original
Disney movie, the role the player will assume of Jet Bradley (son of Bruce
Boxleitner's character in the film), how the action will once again take place
within a computer between folks who've been digitized, how the dark atmosphere
is offset by some lighter humorous touches, design of the levels, weapons, the
"somewhat unique multiplayer component," and more. Accompanying the
article are some new screenshots.
There are previews of No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way on PC.IGN.Com and
Game
Chronicles. Both articles are based on getting to play with some preview
code of the game, with the IGN piece taking a particularly comedic (or
crack-addled) look at what it has to offer. Impressions are offered of the
graphics, gameplay, weapons, the latest version of the LithTech engine, RPG
elements, comparisons to other similar games, and much more. Additionally, IGN's
media page for the game now offers nine different movies showing off various
aspects of gameplay.
GameSpy.com Black
Hawk Down Developer Diary #1 is a two-part effort on the development of the
NovaLogic's upcoming Delta Force game, the first part on the game's art, written
by Russell Brower, and the second part on sound, written by Jason Monroe. Also,
the Horizons
Development Journal Part One on RPGDot is written by Paul Peterson, Artifact
Entertainment designer, discussing development on Horizons, their upcoming
MMORPG. The diary offers a day in his life (just 10 hours? nice work if you can
get it), starting at the sleep-deprived beginning and going on to discuss
aspects of his job like design discussions, adding weapons to the database,
meeting with one of his fellow designers, testing the beta, milestones,
tweaking, laying the groundwork for community, and more. Also, the new Asheron's
Call 2 Beta Journal on massivemultiplayer.org offers a bit more on playing
in the upcoming MMORPG beta between tales of cable modem tech support woes and
bitching about people bitching at beta glitches.
- Prince of Qin
The Prince of Qin
Q&A on Gamer's Hell talks with Object Software's Liu Yubin about
Prince of Qin, their recently released action/RPG set in historical China.
They address the accusation of being a Diablo clone, the game's multiple
endings, multiplayer support, the importance of the five elements in
gameplay, character classes, the game engine, challenges that development
ran up against, what he is proudest of about the final product, and more.
- Prowler Productions
There's a Mike
Snyder Q&A on massivemultiplayer.org talking with the lead developer
at Prowler Productions about their browser-based gaming, discussing the
history of their work, the underlying technology, dealing with lag issues,
the possibility of going wireless with all this, a bit of detail on their
current project StarLock, and more.
- Iritor Online
There's an Iritor Online Q&A on The GameWatchers Network talking with Roman Kremlicka of WootSoft about Iritor Online, their upcoming MMORPG. Topics include
the role of game masters in the game, finding rare and unique items,
deterring twinking, commanding "mechs," the combat system, their
climate system, community involvement, and more.
- Earth & Beyond
RPG Vault's Earth & Beyond Q&A #8 talks with Westwood's Chris Plummer about his job and his role in the
production of Earth & Beyond, their upcoming MMORPG. Topics include how
he broke into the industry, his life as a gamer, which elements of the game
he is focused on, the ongoing development of a game design, balance issues,
and more.
- Age of Mythology
The
Age of Music Q&A on PC.IGN.Com catches up with the folks behind the
music in Age of Mythology, Ensemble Studios' upcoming RPG sequel.
Meestor.co.uk now offers a
new version 1.3 of the Server Surfer utility for Half-Life. The new release
offers: "improved support for advanced server filtering and enhanced
management of password-protected servers. These improvements come in addition to
other minor tweaks to the program’s already extensive list of
easy-to-understand and intuitive features."
A new version 5.01 of the QuakeIT
Quake III Arena launcher is now available. The scant info on this is here:
"I have make some (little) changes on the code so it's (easier) to handle
QuakeIT. And i have put some new cvars on the cvars list."
HomeLan Fed's UT Jailbreak III Interview
is online, talking with the team behind the modification about their decision to
bring the project to Unreal Tournament, avoiding repeating themselves after the
prior version for other games, difficulties encountered during development,
favorite maps, the reaction the project has met with, future plans, and more.
This is priceless: Thanks r0rschach for pointing out Microsoft's
Age of Mythology Contest which offers the prize of a trip to Greece, where,
of course, computer games like Age of Mythology are now illegal ( story).
Following up on my comments of yesterday: Pepsi Blue
formula revealed? Thanks Daniel Rosbrugh.
Though it had a positive effect of bringing the existence of scumware and spyware on
people's system, it turns out that my scumware rant of the other day may have
been misdirected, as the number of reports of a pop-up ad here leave little room
to conclude other than that they are actually being generated by this site. I
don't know for sure that this has been taken care of in time for the weekend,
but I jumped a little ugly with the powers that be, and have been assured that
this is being addressed, so if they are still occurring, they should hopefully
be banished by Monday. On a related note, it turns out the ad generating the
request for the funky sounding plug-in I mentioned here recently was also indeed
being generated here... I have been assured that this has been banished, but
just got another report on it this morning, so that may need to be re-banished
(yeesh!). Getting back to pop-ups, it's not that I am dead set against them, but
as running such ads would represent a basic change in policy here, this is not
something that would ever happen without an explanation. Perhaps the oddest
thing about the pop-up that folks have been getting, is that it announces that
you are the 10 millionth visitor to this website, and clicking allows you to
claim your prize... trouble is the 10 millionth visitor to this site arrived on
February 28, 1998, and if they didn't get a prize at the time, they certainly
aren't getting one now.
|
Twitter 
![=]](/miscimages/smiley4.gif){kind=small}
.