Epic said the next UT would use Unreal Engine 3 (the FancyPants™ new version) and games running on that wouldn't show up before 2006. But you never know.

UT2004 is probably the best FPS ever in terms of the sheer volume of quality content, both out of the box and due to the Make Something Unreal contest.

Valve has multiple development teams. The people working on Condition Zero are not the same ones working on Half-Life 2.

No need for a question mark in the title, Papyrus is definitely gone -- some of the Papy devs posted in the thread linked in the story. VUG only asked the moderators to not try to explain the closure until they released an "official" announcement on it but said it was okay to confirm it.

Impressions (the studio behind the Caesar games, among others) was also closed.

This just continues VUG's consolidation, basically folding up every shop that doesn't exist outside its Los Angeles offices. The difference between them doing this and, say, EA (closing Westwood) is that EA generates record revenue, VUG generates record losses.

Yes, it's the same trailer.

I agree(tm), it looks™ better(r) than before® but there's™ something™ else(tm) that bugs(r) me...

Blue, good to know the emode thing was unintentional. It seemed a bit odd.

Lately I have had two pop-ups appear simultaneously when I first hit the site. It had only been one before (as I would expect). I'll disable the pop-up stopper and ID the ads for the next time I visit.

I am also getting pop-ups each time I click an internal link (such as to view this discussion) but I am assuming that is intentional.

As I said, I'm not complaining or threatening to "boycott" or some such nonsense. I enjoy the site but the ad overload is getting to be a bit much, hence my finally breaking down and using a pop-up stopper. It's fine now, but blocking the ads really defeats the purpose, doesn't it? If the ads were less intrusive, I might actually look at them instead of instinctively trying to shut them down.

Apropos of nothing, Blue's News is almost un-navigable now thanks to all of the pop-up ads. You often get hit with multiple ads when you bring up the site, get a pop-under when you leave and if you click on any link within the site, more pop-ups still. I even had a pop-up from emode.com telling me to enable cookies so it would work properly.

I'm using a pop-up blocker now and it helps a lot. Without it, I'm not sure I'd even bother visiting anymore.

Not a complaint, just an observation.

I remember when Ubi and FilePlanet had an exclusive demo for Raven Shield's multiplayer demo. When other sites began posting it (before FP even had it up), Ubi's legal department started sending out the following cease and desist order:

This is an official cease and desist notice. You are in direct violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The demo file for Ubi Soft(r) Entertainment's Raven Shield is owned exclusively by Ubi Soft(r) Entertainment, and by distributing the demo file to the public you are jeopardizing an exclusive agreement between Ubi Soft(r) Entertainment and GameSpy Industries.

Ubi Soft(r) Entertainment orders you to immediately remove the file from your site, 3dGamers, as you are in violation of statutory digital copyright laws and liable for fines of up to $100,000, in addition to financial ramifications stemming from breach of contract commitments between Ubi Soft(r) Entertainment and GameSpy Industries.

This file will be exclusive to Ubi Soft(r) Entertainment and GameSpy Industries through November 21st, when you may again post the Raven Shield Demo.

Meanwhile, FilePlanet's demo download page had the following text, to prove what consummate professionals they are:

"FilePlanet's Got The US Exclusive for the RAINBOW SIX Raven Shield Demo! Other Game Sites Can Have it When They Take it From Our Cold Lifeless Fingers..."

After a firestorm of protest, the exclusive demo became non-exclusive just one day later.

It will be interesting to see what Activision does.

Yeah, it's out in all formats. It's not a PS2-exclusive.

My thoughts are on Dave G. as a designer. It has nothing at all to do with any of the bugs that were in T2 at or after launch. He's not a programmer. He didn't put the bugs in T2, the programmers did. However, he guided the team with a series of design decisions that I disagreed with. He oversaw changes to the game post-release that I disagreed with. I do not think he is a good designer based on what I saw in Tribes 2.

And yes, I happen to think T2 is a good game. I spent many hours playing it. Doesn't change my mind about the design, though.

I've not seen any sales numbers for PS, but in those NPD top ten lists, it debuted at #5 and dropped from the top ten after three weeks.

Debut on chart: http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=14647

It's not listed in the top 20 list for June: http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=15811

Planetside is going to be in for some interesting times (much like the ancient curse). It was Dave Georgeson arbitrarily making himself "lead designer" on Tribes 2 that led to the muddled vision for that game (and which nearly drove the dev team nuts in the process).

I don't know what talents he has as a producer, but as a designer, his ideas in T2 were often ill-conceived at best. I feel sorry for the people playing and enjoying PS.

This is early stuff, the ragdoll physics are bound to be tweaked quite a bit. Remember the game is still over a year away.

And hey, they may be bouncy but at least they have backbones, unlike the tangos in Raven Shield (prior to patching, at least).

As I mentioned before, the ad I get is the Telus one (it's the Flash ad that appears in the upper right corner of the page) and the ad in and of itself does not bother me...except for the sound. I absolutely despise ads that play sound.

I will send a letter of complaint to Telus (which is already my ISP, ironically).

If Blue's needs ads to stay afloat, that's fine by me. I don't block them, I just ignore them. But I can't ignore horrible music suddenly blasting from my speakers.

EDIT: If people subjected to the Telus ad's horrible music wish to politely complain, here's a link to do so: http://www.mytelus.com/contact_us/index.do

This comment was edited on Aug 1, 12:40.

That Telus ad plays horrible music every time it comes up, it is not Gator or any other spyware. If I turn off Flash or the ad doesn't come up, nothing. If that specific ad comes on, it plays music. The music is timed to the ad.

Please nuke said ad.

Yes, I am disputing it. The word that should have been used is "hurtling". Hurtle and hurdle have different meanings.

"some hurdling through the air..."

IGN once again proves it only uses the best* writers available on the Interweb.


* worst

specifies a fall release date fro Knights of the Old Republic

And you will get to choose 'fro's as a hairstyle choice, too, it seems.

A small correction to the story. The game is not upcoming, it's already out in stores. I first saw it locally a few days back. I may give the demo a spin. I've heard mixed things about the game, but that seems to apply to virtually everything released these days.

This comment was edited on Apr 11, 22:28.

I think people don't quite understand how the Xbox Live model works. Companies provide Live-enabled games. There are certain requirements for said games -- they must be voice comm-enabled, work with the matchmaking service, etc. MS charges a subscription fee for the service, a service they fund and maintain. Eidos and EA make no more or no less money by making their games Live-enabled, apart from possible additional sales because they support online play.

From what I can see, their beef is that MS is not sharing the subscription fees with them. But then, MS provides and pays for the cost of running the Live service, so it's understandable that they'd want to keep the money for themselves.

Sony, on the other hand, has basically just tossed out a network adapter and let the developers do what they want with it. There's no real online support nor extra money to be had from it. If companies want, they can charge a fee to play their games online (essentially having a bunch of Live-style services instead of a single, centrally-controlled one).

So in summary: MS is not doing anything evil here, EA and Eidos just want a cut of the action. They're not getting it, so they won't support Live. Ulitmately, MS has to decide if losing them is worth changing their policy. Particularly with sports titles, I think they'll be more likely to come up with alternatives.