Archived News:
The Sonic Mayhem website has the
release of a new map for Quake III Arena deathmatch by Zoid and Sonic Mayhem
called Anti-Logic that features a new music track by the Sonic Mayhem folk, who
are of course, responsible for some of the music in Quake III Arena, among other
games. Here's a local
copy of Anti-Logic (12.4 MB) along with a list of mirrors. If you are
wondering, the larger than expected size of the download is indeed increased by
the new music.
There are five new
Starlancer screenshot on the StarLancer Vault showing off a little more of
the final frontier in which this space sim will take place, as well as some of
the ships and planets that populate it.
Well, furn has been hard at work tweaking the messageboards, and things are
rounding into shape quite nicely. One of the things we've done along the way, since the Q3A Road Tour is completed, rather than retire the Q3Tour
messageboard, is to convert it to a Quake III Arena
board to segue to discussions of the game. Likewise, to further cover the
other current game inspiring the most coverage around here lately, is the
corresponding brand-new Unreal Tournament
messageboard, so feel free to head over there with discussion of Epic's
latest -- I mentioned it to GreenMarine, and he broke in the board with a
loopy message that mentions that he will be hanging out on the board on
occasion to answer questions and shoot the breeze, so things are off and running
in fine style there.
While I'm discussing the messageboards, let me address a subject that
inspired so much behind-the-scenes discussion here that I may not have made
enough of a point of it amid the launch of these boards. The reason that email
verified registration is being used is to be able to ultimately remove users who
manage to abuse the boards. We're not into censorship here, and deleting posts
(which has happened all of about twice so far) is not something we want to do,
much less ban users (which has never happened yet), but I think it's fair to say
folks have come to expect a certain level of discussion here, and while I'm
pleased to see that a fairly high standard of posts has been demonstrated so
far, it is probably partly due to this accountability that this has been the
case (in addition to our high-quality of reader, of course). Anyway, the point
behind this lengthy explanation, besides to give a feel for the philosophy here,
is to reassure everyone that their email address will not ever be redistributed,
it is entirely for this sort of internal administrative function, rather than to
sell to some spam list (which will just never happen). Further, those with a
fear of cookies, whether out of concern for calories or security, can turn off
the use of cookies in their preferences if they don't mind not having their
other settings saved for them. There's the deal, just wanted to make sure I
mentioned all that stuff. Hope you enjoy the boards.
This post on the
Shugashack gives a reply from Valve's Gabe Newell to a question a bunch of
folks have been asking since the developers participating in the PowerPlay
project ( story)
have been announced, why there's no mention of participation by id Software.
Here's Gabe's answer to that question: Yahn's been talking with John
quite a bit about this. John told Yahn he wants to take a stab at
rewriting the Linux IP stack and a soft modem driver to see how much latency he
can remove, and use that to pressure Microsoft into cleaning up the Windows
stack. That would be really useful data to have.
Our list of things and John's list of things are pretty much identical, but John
passed this time around on being part of the public announcement. Yahn's take
was that John was just tired of answering questions from the
press...<snip>
Certainly with everything John has done already (e.g. OpenGL) he's paid his dues
into the next century, so if thinks it's other peoples' turn to carry the flag
for a bit, that's totally justified.
ShellShock's Crater has a new release
of Q3Offline, the utility for Quake III Arena players to allow the easy setup of
"offline" games against a wide selection of bots and over any number
of maps. The new version of Q3Offline features an improved wizard-like user
interface, map previewing, the ability to play against different bots on each
map, and server configuration so you can quickly set up a server with bots.
The QStat Downloads
page has a new version 2.3e beta release of QStat for either Windows or
Linux of this command-line program that displays the status of Internet Game
servers "including Quake and many recent shooters." The new release
adds options for Kingpin and Heretic II game servers, and fixes several bugs,
including Quake III Arena master queries, Half-Life master queries, Q3A player
name translation, raw mode output for Unreal, and much more.
Build 1.0.28 beta of Quake 3 Control
is now available, offering an update to this front-end program that will support
Quake II as well as Quake III Arena (additionally, QuakeWorld support is
promised soon). While not designed to assist in setting up a server, the program
does allow you to change server settings, kick players, view status, and
basically do anything you can do from a remote console.
A program that is designed to assist in setting up a Q3A server is the Servarena
dedicated Quake III Arena server launcher, which is designed to smooth out
setting up a server by insulating you from command-line arguments. A new version
1.11 is now available, offering an auto-bots feature that will automatically
add/kick bots as real players join your server, a 'disable bot chat' check box,
support for multiple master servers, and support for the NOP server statistics
utility.
There are nine more Evolva Screenshots
on GA-Source showing off gameplay from this upcoming
action/adventure/tactics game from Computer Artworks.
Lots more info on PowerPlay, the just-announced venture between Valve Software
and Cisco Systems...first of all, the
official site has gone live, and while there isn't much there, you can get
a glimpse of the companies working on PowerPlay-enabled games. Also, PlanetFortress
has posted a Q&A with Valve's Gabe Newell, who discusses some of the features
of the project.
PC.IGN has posted a preview
of BioWare's MDK 2, featuring five new Quicktime movies, and a whole bunch
of shots from this third person action title. MDK, as everyone knows, stands
for Moles Dig KISS.
Daily Radar has posted a
preview of Anachronox, Tom Hall's epic role playing game that utilizes the
Quake II engine, and features a billion or so mini-games, and even an original
language. The preview sports some new screenshots, as well as quotes from the
game's producer Jake Hughes.
GameSpot News has posted seven
screenshots from Blizzard's Diablo II running on a Macintosh. Actually,
to be a little more specific they're photographs taken from the floor of MacWorld,
so they aren't exactly detailed shots (thanks Ant).
- MapFinger,
a repository of original maps for various games, now boasts over 600 original
maps...
- If you want a BeOS port of TRIBES 2, hop over to this
petition on BeGroovy. Dynamix has said that they will consider it if there's
enough demand (thanks Sascha Offe)...
- The source code for MAPZ, a remote
map compiling system, has been released and is available
for download. The author no longer has time to work on it, so others are
encouraged to download the source and build upon it...
- Apparently those nutty scientists have been working overtime, as both Cliff
Bleszinski and Alan
Willard made .plan updates with recent discoveries about the nature of
the brains at Epic...
First off, happy birthday to our resident foreigner, and die-hard news guy
Frans, who turns...well, something between myself and Blue (which, I suppose
could just as well be any number under the sun). That said, how about that new
comments system, huh? If you haven't noticed, there's these little "comments"
links on each post now. Hit it, and yack away. And if you want to impress all
of your friends, go to the
regular message boards page, and then to the
news of the day section. All those threads come from the latest news stories.
Pretty spiffy...Furn outdid himself again.
Link of the Day: idgames.com. I
wonder if those hackers thought they had gotten into id Software? (For the record,
it's not even remotely associated with id, it's a completely different company
in a completely different field).
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