| Saturday June 12, 1999 |
Q3 Strategy Guide [5:15 pm] - Jack
No, not the shack one, but rather, a guide
over at Q3Center telling you how to deatchmatch better at the Q3Test. It's a pretty
long article, and has everything from general deathmatch strategy, to weapon strengths and
weaknesses, to specific map strategies.
Here's my strategy for Q3Test2: Don't play Pat Hook.
Oni News [5:15 pm] - Jack
A lot of people at E3 were really, really impressed by Oni. This game coming from the
genre maker-and-breakers over at Bungie. Anyway, PCGameFan has a preview of
Oni.. Check it out, this game will be big.
UT Intro Shot [5:15 pm] - Jack
Apache at Unreal Universe got a neato Unreal
Tournament screenshot posted up on his front page. It's from the intro flyby, and Apache
even says "hella" in the update. Hella, by the way, is most closely translated
as "quite."
I Shall Call It... Mini-Update [5:15 pm] - Jack
Welp, while Steve's out playing with Pat, I'll make you guys a small update. I'm also hard
at work on the Shack .plan tracker, which should hopefully be done today. Thought
I'd give this web programming shit a try too :) Oh, check out my Ritual bio.
Thanks VE for like, all my news.
More Deus Ex Shots [10:15 am]
To complete the set of Deus Ex screenshots that I scored, here they are straight from Ion Storm & Eidos's press CD kit. The two shots
below as well as shack11
, shack12 , and shack15. The game is
based on the Unreal technology licensed from Epic Games.
MDK2 [8:15
am]
The Next-Generation page has posted a really good interview with the
CEO of BioWare talking about their work and progress on MDK2. Here's a bit of the
article because I'm feeling saucy:
"We developed an engine internally named the BioWare Omen Engine," he continued. "Its unique features, aside from being a solid multi-platform engine, include some excellent static and dynamic lighting features, realistic physics which were used sparingly only for gameplay purposes, and arbitrary polygon environments. Since the world is created with arbitrary polygons we can animate and modify large segments of the world in real time. For a 3D shooter and platform jumping game this leads to some really cool areas that are much more dynamic than BSP derived environments."
Creative Labs Responds [8:15 am]
GA-Source got
in contact with Creative Labs asking a couple of questions on what they thought about
the 3dfx lawsuit being filed against them for releasing a driver which enabled their TNT
line of cards to run 3dfx's proprietary Glide API.
Q: Please tell us how Creative Labs feels about this lawsuit, and do 3dfx even have a case here?
A: It is baseless and they have no case. John added and explained, that the wrapper's code is completly different than 3dfx's and their is no copyright infringement issues involved.
Q: Why do you feel 3dfx has gone through with this lawsuit, even though, by the look of it, they have no chance to actually win?
A: Probably to shore up their marketing campaign (and perhaps stock price) now that they are being faced with more advanced technology from thier competititors.
Views [8:15 am]
Tech [8:15 am]
Gaming [8:15 am]
werd
Work continues on the database for Shack in the secret labs over in Europe... If you
listen really closely you can the clickity clack of Sander hax0ring away through the
night. Isnt he cute? Now all we need is a clever name for the new system. Oh yeah, and I'm
giving in and going to do some major overhaul work on the front page, having the news
contained in a table is a bad idea.
E-mail was flaking out yet again yesterday from like 4-11pm. Hopefully that was the last time.
Image(s) of the day today are quite impressive. There are a few of them so check it
out. fruit1 fruit2 fruit3 fruit4 and fruit5. Hopefully you really
like fruit, because fruit likes fruit.
Previous IOTD's: keyboard.jpg
theguys.jpg tattoo2.jpg aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg drunke3.jpg q2chick.jpg
| Friday June 11, 1999 |
Quake3 Strategies [7:25 pm]
The Q3Center has put together
an extensive strategy guide for those of you looking to enhance those mad skillz in
Q3Test.
More Views [7:25 pm]
New Creative Driver [5:15 pm]
By just pure coincidence I'm sure, the day that 3dfx announces they are going to
file a lawsuit against Creative labs for emulating Glide on their TNT2 cards, Creative has released a new
version of the driver in question for you guys to play with.
More AMD K7 [3:35 pm]
Damn, that AMD K7 is looking hot. Last night Dirk Meyer of AMD gave out a bunch of
details on their upcoming CPU to be in our grubby hands soon to help crank out those
Quake3 framerates. AMDZone has put
together a great summary including links to audio files if you wanna hear the whole
thing. Also check out the EBNS
article.
Graeme Devine [3:15 pm]
Our favorite id Software project manager does another interview. This time TheHive grabs Graeme
and asks him about Quake3 and the full version of the game of course:
Hmm. Some people say they look just like Quake 2 levels.... The two levels out there are extremes from the game. One pushes polygons, the other pushes bandwidth. Look for very different level styles in the actual game. If you attended E3 you'll know what I mean.
Hardware Stuff [1:25 pm]
A few bits of news on the hardware front that may interest you guys. First off the obvious lawsuit that 3dfx is
filing against Creative for enabling Glide support on their TNT2 line of cards. Also Seagate has come up with
some crazy new HD technology. Lastly, AMD has updated their 3DNow support list.
Comments on the 3dfx lawsuit? Check out this thread started by Vengeance.
HeavyGear2 Gold [12:15 pm]
From the GameSpot folks: Originally slated
for a Christmas 1998 release, Heavy Gear II's release date has slipped six long months due
to a number of development issues. Thankfully, the wait is over. Late last night it
was confirmed by a source close to the project that the game's latest build
successfully completed its Quality Assurance run and has been sent to manufacturing for
packaging and distribution.
Matrox G400 Ship Date [9:10 am]
Remember those huge 1024x768
32bit benchmark scores the Matrox G400 posted that impressed everyone so much? Well
the G400 is getting closer to being available finally, here is word from the MatroxUsers page:
Matrox say they will be shipping Millennium G400 Series products by the end of the month to their distributors. This should place cards on store shelves by mid- July. However, customers who have pre-ordered their Millennium G400 16MB and 32MB boards through the Matrox On-line Store, will receive their boards 3-4 weeks from the time of their order (as originally indicated). Customers who have pre-ordered their Millennium G400 MAX boards should receive them 4-5 weeks from the time of their original order.
btw, my email server was down yesterday from about noon till 5-6pm range CST yesterday, for some reason all the email never came through once the server went back up. If you sent me something in that time frame please send it again. Sorry about that. I must also give a "shout out" to the wee hours web ninja Matt over at CaveDog. He = cool.
Daily Discussion: Pro Gaming [8:05 am]
Well, we are a couple of years now past the original conception of the CPL and PGL
with both leagues going fairly strong and completing several tournaments. Most recently
PGL giving away $10,000 in cash to their first prize winners in a couple of games, and CPL
announcing they will be handling a $50,000 Descent3 tourney in Vegas. So do you guys think pro gaming is
going to get much bigger? Here is my 2 cents.
Anachronox Diary [8:05 am]
Forgot to mention this one yesterday. The Anachronox.com
website has been updated with another developers diary from Tom Hall with a bit more
information on the progress of Anachronox and some of those always entertaining insights
from Tom Hall. Hit the game information, and then diary buttons. Damn shockwave.
Damage Labs [8:05 am]
In celebration of his new movie's debut today, Dr. Evil has at ArsTechnica thrown out another answer in Damage Labs
regarding PC system building. Here's the core of the question at hand:
Inspecting it upon its arrival I opened it up, checked that I had all the connectors, screws, etc. Happily, I found everything, and gazed at my spectacular, thrifty purchase, when a little bell went off in my mind. This case only has 7 expansion slots. But wait... the motherboard I'm looking to purchase (Abit BX6-2 or BH6) has 8 card slots! Ye gods! Whatever shall become of me?
UnrealTournament Shots [8:05 am]
I went ahead and grabbed the new Unreal Tournament screenshots that came out on
UT.net yesterday and continue to re-work the screenshots section here on the page. Here
are 10 of the screenshots hosted locally for you to look at: utnet1 , utnet2 , utnet3 , utnet4 , utnet5 , utnet6 , utnet7 , utnet8 , utnet9 , utnet10
TRIBES Patch [YESTERDAY]
Ok, this time it's the TRIBES patch and not the Starsiege patch. I'm a goober and goofed
it up yesterday. Well the new TRIBES patch has been released and you can gank it from Planetstarsiege. Here are the download links:
TRIBES 1.0 to 1.5 Patch
TRIBES 1.4 to 1.5 Patch
TRIBES 1.4.1 to 1.5 Patch
TRIBES 1.4.4 to 1.5 Patch
Views [8:10 am]
Tech [8:10 am]
Gaming [8:10 am]
werd
Wee, DSL is finally fixed. They tracked it down after 3 days that my actual DSL
bridge/modem was flakey and they had to replace it. That old one I had looked like it was
from the 1970's or something, huge ass brown box. Got a shiny new Fujistu DSL now.
Checked out AustinPowers2 yesterday. The movie was great at times, and Felicity Shagwell was a total hottie. Only complaint, and it's kinda big, is that they just used way too many of the jokes from the first movie. It was like they were just trying to cram them all in there. The tent scene was a classic though. Up there with the AceVentura2 hippo scene.
A new IOTD which anyone who has used a Microsoft based OS can probably sympathize with.
Check out the latest
addition to my keyboard.
Previous IOTD's: theguys.jpg
tattoo2.jpg aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg drunke3.jpg q2chick.jpg
| Thursday June 9, 1999 |
More 3dfx & S3 [4:40 pm]
Lorien from GA-Source sent out this email after
having a chat with the PR manager of S3 asking about the possible buyout from 3dfx:
I just got off the phone with Paul Crossley, the PR Manager at S3, Inc. who said the following: The register has probably better sources than he does, as he is not aware of such an acquisition/takeover. If you have been following the news in the past year, you must have noticed that is has been rumored that S3 was acquired by AMD, Intel and many others. All rumors - nothing more."
Original story: It seems word is circulating that S3, the makers of our favorite Virge chipset and more recently the Savage4 accelerator may be the prospect of a 3dfx buyout. Havent really found out any real details on if this is true or not, just a couple of "reliable" sources according to The Register. Here is the AVault link.
StarWars Games [4:40 pm]
A couple of StarWars games for you to play with this afternoon. Check out the Racer game demo over at GameSpot
which I've heard is pretty cool, as well as the Phantom
Menace game at AVault.
Half-Life: Opposing Force [6:10 am]
The AVault page has posted a couple of items to wet your Half-Life appetite. First off
they have a new preview of
the GearBox created expansion pack, which throws you back in the Half-Life universe
playing against Gordon Freeman. Then you can have a look at the interview with
official interview monkey for GearBox, Randy Pitchford.
There are about 40 actual playing BSPs in the game right now as well as some additional ones for the introduction and outro. Then there is going to be about 12 deathmatch maps. The single-player game, though, is very dense. Valve learned a lot from the original regarding what people liked and didn’t like, and we in turn learned a lot from them. One of the features that was really cool in the original was how things just happened. For example, burning the tentacle with the engine was a great sequence, especially since you had been dealing with that thing for so long. Those sort of circumstances happen in greater density in Opposing Force, though technically, the actually number of BSPs is close to half of the original game.
Deus Ex Shots [6:10 am]
So I was digging around through all the CDs that I picked up at E3 in LA a few weeks back
and I happened upon the Eidos CD. There were of course a ton of screenshots and and other
things from all of their games that everyone has probably seen, but what I did dig up was
a few Deus Ex shots that I didnt recognize. I'm pretty sure these havent really made their
way on to the net, or if they have they at least havent been posted here before. This is
based on the Unreal engine, and being developed by Ion Storm:
Here are a few more for you guys too: shack1 shack2 shack3 shack4 shack5 shack6 shack7 shack8
Daily Discussion [6:10 am]
Couldnt think of anything cool to put here. Not feeling all that chatty today. Probably
having my DSL broken for 2+ days now and being stuck on a proxied modem is contributing to
my lack of enthusiasm. Bah. Just go hang out on the Quake3 messageboard I guess.
TRIBES2 Q&A [6:10 am]
The Datumplane guys have a quick Q&A with one
of the programmers from Dynamix's TRIBES which
should interest more of you technical minded folks. Or those of you just interested in the
network code that runs TRIBES and will be pushing TRIBES2.
There are a number of areas I plan on improving in the network code for T2. I'm rewriting the low-level protocol right now, which is nice, cause it was pretty ugly the first time ;) Also there are several area where we can reduce the amount of data we're sending, so those will be optimized as well.
HeavyGear2 [6:10 am]
Kevin over at PCParadox sends word that the aCtivision HeavyGear2 page has
been updated with some new information on the 3D mech fighter title.
Views [6:10 am]
Tech [6:10 am]
werd
Anyone else totally just sick of all the TNT2 video card articles? Please make the bad man
stop.
Couple of goofups yesterday due to me sniffing too much glue. First off Rogue Spear is a sequel to Rainbow6 and not just an expansion pack. One of the developers actually emailed me with that correction (oops.. teehee) and secondly the so called TRIBES patch yesterday was a Starsiege patch. I fixed up the news though for yesterday and now nobody will ever know!
Hey check it out, a lot of people actually thought Tuesday's IOTD was really me, sorry
to fool you guys like that. Here
is a picture of myself, Jack Mathews, Scott Alden, Rod Hughes, and Pat Hook (Thanks
Richard) Feel free to email me whatever you
guys dig up.
Previous IOTD's: tattoo2.jpg
aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg drunke3.jpg q2chick.jpg
| Wednesday June 9, 1999 |
Descent3 in Vegas [8:25 pm]
The Cyberathlete organization has
announced that they will be hosting the LAN portion of the $50,000 Descent tournament in
Las Vegas.
The tournament semi-finals will be played online exclusively on HEAT.NET and will utilize the full retail version of Descent 3. Players who did not participate in the preliminary matches are still welcome to register and play in the semi-finals. The top four contestants from the semifinals will automatically be seated in the finals and receive an expense paid trip to Las Vegas, where they will sit in the final 16 seats that will compete for a $50,000 grand prize, the largest tournament cash prize in PC gaming history. Registration began June 1 and will continue through July 17. The semi-final matches will occur August 1 through August 15.
Starsiege Patch [8:25 pm]
A new patch for Starsiege has been released
over at AVault. all kinds of crazy improvements and changes are still being made to
the Dynamix game. Check out the latest list: (Thanks Loony)
The memory manager has been improved, and it no longer allocates 200mb of virtual memory up front
Fixes some texture cache problems on Voodoo based cards and increases performance slightly
Some improvements in OpenGL performance
Support for additional OpenGL cards (i740, Savage3D, TNT2)
32-bit support in OpenGL on the TNT2 chipset
Misc. bugs
Couple Interviews [12:45 pm]
TheHive has a new interview with Brandon
Reinhart of Epic talking about Unreal tournament. Also Q3Center has posted an interview with Christian Antkow
of id Software. Here is my favorite exchange:
Nexus >What is your comment on the EULA agreement and altering content of the q3test?
Disruptor >What do you mean what is my comment? It's a test. The test isn't supposed to be hacked. You're breaking the law if you are creating new content for use with the test.
Rogue Spear [11:55 am]
Got a couple of places you can check out screenshots and information on the
Rainbow6 sequel. AVault has a new preview of the
pack which sprinkles in a few screenshots of the action for ya. Also the guys at Rainbowsix.net have yet another set of shots from
the new game for you to look at.
Rune [9:55
am]
Mike Werckle over at HumanHead continues with the .plan
updates with development updates on their Unreal engine based Rune game. The most
exciting news in my book is MEATSOCK technology. It doesnt get much better than that,
Here's a bit more on what Mike talks about:
--Paul and I tweaked out the dynamic head-look animation for skeletal characters. Added a slight tilt to the head as it turns which helps it look much more nartural. Also, bringing the torso into play sooner helped us avoid the broken neck syndrome, common in some other games.
<snip>
btw, not related at all but I saw this link from ArsTechnica that you guys must check out.
Where is Duke4? [7:05 am]
George Broussard has made another post to their 3DRealms BBS boards answering some
impatient gameplayers who seem to be upset about the lack of press or information about
the next Duke Nukem title. Thanks UnrealUniverse,
Check it:
I think you guys worked yourselves into a frenzy too early for the game and now you are blaming us. The fact is that we're not massively delayed. Going to Unreal did set us back, but mainly because we refused to be a TC and not advance tech. We added LOD, skeletal animation, motion capture, and tons of other little enhancements to the Unreal engine to make it more interactive. That all takes time.
Exactly what is your problem with us being 18 months into a game of this magnitude and not being done? Games like this take upwards of 2 years to make (read Half Life and Duke 3D).
We do not make clones. We do not make 12 month games. Get used to it, or move on. The die hard fans will be rewarded for their patience. The people that have no idea will be pleased when the game magically appears.
Wondering what Duke4 looked like with the Quake2 engine? Here are some screenshots I dug up: duke041b dnf0224 alley hangout bridge explosion
Omikron Screenshots [7:05 am]
Loric Normand, the art director over at Quantic
Dream sent me these 7 screenshots of their new 3D game which will be entering
graphics completion next month. (They will be focusing on gameplay / content from that
point on) I don't know a whole lot about the game but the images were pretty enough that I
figured you guys should have a look:. Check shot1, shot2, shot3, shot4, shot5, shot6, and shot7.
Daily Discussion: Perfect Day [4:55 am]
So I was thinking, given you are a hormone driven male like myself here is the
question I propose: What is your idea of the perfect day, broken down by the hour? I contemplated this long and hard
and came up with what I feel my ideal day would be.
QE4 Shot [4:55 am]
The QERadiant.com page has posted an
interesting screenshot of the editor in action working with the curved surfaces of
Quake3 which should be a new hurdle for all the level designers out there to wrestle with.
Speaking of which check out the Paul Jaquays interview
on that subject. Thanks Blue
Views [4:55 am]
Tech [4:55 am]
Gaming [4:55 am]
werd
Well isnt this cute, my DSL died yesterday around 1pm range and is still down as I
make this update. I'm on a hacked up wingate proxy right now and just finally got all my
new ip permissions up and going. I did spend the time re-working the Quake3 screenshots
section though as well as whining a lot about internet withdraw. Looks like nothing
overly exciting went down that I missed thankfully but dissapearing for 12+ hours without
updates is still a bad idea. I will be better prepared for a situation like this should it
come up again.
So I ordered a Hercules TNT2 Ultra a couple of weeks back and it still hasnt arrived. A couple of people I know who ordered the card after me have gotten theirs though. I would like to give a big kiss my pasty white ass to Hercules this morning. -------------> (_o_) <----------- KISS IT!
Oh yeah, new version of winamp is out.
Image of the day you ask? Check it out, sexual harassment in Quake2.
Previous IOTD's: tattoo2.jpg
aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg drunke3.jpg
| Tuesday, June 8, 1999 |
Graeme Devine [12:20 pm]
GameSpot UK has a new
interview with id Software project manager Graeme Devine. Thanks Blue. Also Ripside.com
has opened back up again featuring a new interview with Graeme.
Dario Casali [12:15 pm]
Barrysworld has a new interview with Valve
Software level designer Dario Casali. Homeboy cranked out quite a few levels before
joining up with Valve, here is a bit on before he moved from overseas to Washington:
Believe it or not, I was really sceptical about the whole thing since I had never heard of Valve and the guy who contacted me (Ted Backman) told me they were using the Quake 2 engine. By that time the Q2 engine was so infant, I thought it was a joke, so the first reply I sent to Ted was a kind of "Are you sure you know what you're talking about" Email
Sherman Project [10:05 am]
The GA-Source guys have an article with
screenshots from the dev team from the Sherman
Project which is aiming to bring Rainbow6 style gameplay to Half-Life.
We will tentatively debut with 5 Rainbow Six missions and a few scenarios of our own. The focus will be on multiplayer game play and have totally new weapons that special forces use. With the release of the mod, gamers will then be able to create their own levels and even create new 3d weapons.
SystemShock2 [9:05 am]
PCZone takes
a look at SystemShock2 which is looking/sounding pretty cool. Here's the basic on what
the game actually is:
In terms of gameplay, the idea behind System Shock 2 is fundamentally the same as in the first game. You're a cybernetically enhanced soldier of the future, trapped inside a vast, deep space-bound vessel overrun by a powerful central computer system with deadly delusions of grandeur.
3D Guide [8:35 am]
FiringSquad is still punching out the articles. This time they have a look at the various types of texture
filtering, as well as shading and lighting that you see in games. Speaking of guides
check out the FPS3D 3D accelerator
recycling guide.
Late Night Hax0ring [3:55 am]
More work going on here late at night as usual. Jack busted out some PHP action and
the finger script here now caches .plan updates every 15minutes. I've also been working on
the screenshots stuff some more. Here are some shots of Amen from CaveDog which look swell. I'm finally
feeling much better again too. Being sick when you only work for yourself stinks.
Wheel of Time [3:55 am]
The development update from the
Legend Entertainment guys is now online featuring this image that some of
you may recognize from the previous post which was apparently labelled wrong. Here's a
bit of what the page says:
Everything else is trucking along, especially on the citadel editor and multi-player NPC AI. The demo that Ryan gave me last week was very cool, and only hints at the potential there. I can't wait to see the maps in action that fully capitalize on this behavior. To support this effort, I've been working on describing the various behaviors of the AWOs (Artifact-Wielding Opponents) with only Sephraem remaining--but she's undoubtedly going to be the toughest.
Also, here are some more screenshots that Legend released earlier: shot2 , shot3 , shot4 , shot5 , shot6
Daily Discussion: Game of 1999 [5:55 am]
There are a ton of 3D games in development right now as everyone knows. Quake3 (of
course) Unreal Tournament, TF2, Messiah, Oni, Deus Ex, KISS, FAKK2, etc etc. Taking a look
at all of these games though, which
one do you guys think will come out on top for sales?
More on Logitech Drivers [5:55 am]
Oops, looks like I shouldnt have posted that link the other day to MouseWare. Oh
well, here is an answer that Cart posted to the General messageboard which should
help out all of you Logitech users:
Run regedit.exe and go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Logitech\ MouseWare\CurrentVersion\Technical There you will find a string called "PS2ReportRate". Change its value to change your sampling rate. (I personally like 200.) I think you have to reboot for the changes to take effect.
Suckage & Links [5:55 am]
I switched up the wack-links and suckage this week as mentioned yesterday. So in
case you're looking for the updated wack-links here you go. As for the suckage of the week
it is now online as well.
Views [3:55 am]
Tech [3:55 am]
Gaming [3:55 am]
werd
Spent some more time tonight making the page more broswer / OS friendly. The
tentative schedule for the new database driven stuff is late next week which probably
means in 2 weeks. The categorization and searching functions should really impress you
guys.
Image of the day you ask? Check
out my drunk ass (on the right) with some Ritualistic
webmaster on my lap. We had 7 people in that car I think, laws were being broken and this
is proof!
Previous IOTD's: tattoo2.jpg
aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg
| Tuesday, June 8, 1999 |
Graeme Devine [12:20 pm]
GameSpot UK has a new
interview with id Software project manager Graeme Devine. Thanks Blue. Also Ripside.com
has opened back up again featuring a new interview with Graeme.
Dario Casali [12:15 pm]
Barrysworld has a new interview with Valve
Software level designer Dario Casali. Homeboy cranked out quite a few levels before
joining up with Valve, here is a bit on before he moved from overseas to Washington:
Believe it or not, I was really sceptical about the whole thing since I had never heard of Valve and the guy who contacted me (Ted Backman) told me they were using the Quake 2 engine. By that time the Q2 engine was so infant, I thought it was a joke, so the first reply I sent to Ted was a kind of "Are you sure you know what you're talking about" Email
Sherman Project [10:05 am]
The GA-Source guys have an article with
screenshots from the dev team from the Sherman
Project which is aiming to bring Rainbow6 style gameplay to Half-Life.
We will tentatively debut with 5 Rainbow Six missions and a few scenarios of our own. The focus will be on multiplayer game play and have totally new weapons that special forces use. With the release of the mod, gamers will then be able to create their own levels and even create new 3d weapons.
SystemShock2 [9:05 am]
PCZone takes
a look at SystemShock2 which is looking/sounding pretty cool. Here's the basic on what
the game actually is:
In terms of gameplay, the idea behind System Shock 2 is fundamentally the same as in the first game. You're a cybernetically enhanced soldier of the future, trapped inside a vast, deep space-bound vessel overrun by a powerful central computer system with deadly delusions of grandeur.
3D Guide [8:35 am]
FiringSquad is still punching out the articles. This time they have a look at the various types of texture
filtering, as well as shading and lighting that you see in games. Speaking of guides
check out the FPS3D 3D accelerator
recycling guide.
Late Night Hax0ring [3:55 am]
More work going on here late at night as usual. Jack busted out some PHP action and
the finger script here now caches .plan updates every 15minutes. I've also been working on
the screenshots stuff some more. Here are some shots of Amen from CaveDog which look swell. I'm finally
feeling much better again too. Being sick when you only work for yourself stinks.
Wheel of Time [3:55 am]
The development update from the
Legend Entertainment guys is now online featuring this image that some of
you may recognize from the previous post which was apparently labelled wrong. Here's a
bit of what the page says:
Everything else is trucking along, especially on the citadel editor and multi-player NPC AI. The demo that Ryan gave me last week was very cool, and only hints at the potential there. I can't wait to see the maps in action that fully capitalize on this behavior. To support this effort, I've been working on describing the various behaviors of the AWOs (Artifact-Wielding Opponents) with only Sephraem remaining--but she's undoubtedly going to be the toughest.
Also, here are some more screenshots that Legend released earlier: shot2 , shot3 , shot4 , shot5 , shot6
Daily Discussion: Game of 1999 [5:55 am]
There are a ton of 3D games in development right now as everyone knows. Quake3 (of
course) Unreal Tournament, TF2, Messiah, Oni, Deus Ex, KISS, FAKK2, etc etc. Taking a look
at all of these games though, which
one do you guys think will come out on top for sales?
More on Logitech Drivers [5:55 am]
Oops, looks like I shouldnt have posted that link the other day to MouseWare. Oh
well, here is an answer that Cart posted to the General messageboard which should
help out all of you Logitech users:
Run regedit.exe and go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Logitech\ MouseWare\CurrentVersion\Technical There you will find a string called "PS2ReportRate". Change its value to change your sampling rate. (I personally like 200.) I think you have to reboot for the changes to take effect.
Suckage & Links [5:55 am]
I switched up the wack-links and suckage this week as mentioned yesterday. So in
case you're looking for the updated wack-links here you go. As for the suckage of the week
it is now online as well.
Views [3:55 am]
Tech [3:55 am]
Gaming [3:55 am]
werd
Spent some more time tonight making the page more broswer / OS friendly. The
tentative schedule for the new database driven stuff is late next week which probably
means in 2 weeks. The categorization and searching functions should really impress you
guys.
Image of the day you ask? Check
out my drunk ass (on the right) with some Ritualistic
webmaster on my lap. We had 7 people in that car I think, laws were being broken and this
is proof!
Previous IOTD's: tattoo2.jpg
aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg
| Monday, June 7, 1999 |
Ugh [8:25
pm]
Well, I slept all day. Not feeling a whole lot better either. Gonna work on some
more stuff for you guys anyways since I can't sleep anymore. If I turn up dead or
something gimme a proper ceremony and all that "in the line of duty" stuff
though ok?
GearBox w/ SamHell [4:55 am]
My man SamHell cornered Randy
Pitchford, president of GearBox into answering some questions about the Half-Life
mission pack that GearBox is currently working on. Get this, you don't play as Gordon
Freeman.
Opposing Force will span about six chapters that work out to be about half as long as the original Half-Life. Gearbox, however, is focusing on content density so that the heavy action and memorable events fans of the original are familiar with take place in Opposing Force very often.
Daily Discussion: Quake3 Team Functions [4:55 am]
Currently Zoid is hard at work on the Teamplay and CTF stuff for Quake3 and he of
course is considering extra functionality to facilitate better teamwork. So what do you
guys think should be included?
Voice cues? (ala TRIBES) One key location binds? Weapon/health/ammo binds? Calling enemies in vicinity binds?
Make sure and post your 2 cents and I'll chase Zoid around with some Canadian bacon to be sure he reads it too, and answers a few of you guys.
Ass-Wack Links [4:55 am]
Due to the fact that I'm feeling like absolute crap, I'm juggling the Suckage with wack-links this week so I can
get some more sleep. Check out the latest updated list of wack-links
and wonder how the hell people come up with some of this stuff.
QuakeCon99 [4:55 am]
It's coming, QuakeCon 99. Word has gone out
from the organizers that if you registered for the event you should be getting an email by
now asking for a confirmation. Be sure you confirm or else you will lose your slot. Also
check out the QuakeCon99
Messageboard if you have questions and CarPool board if you need
a ride.
Views [4:55 am]
Tech [4:55 am]
Gaming [4:55 am]
werd
Late night hax0ring going went on here as usual. I finally got around to fixing the
Netscape border bug. Gonna attack the loading priorities next. Also Jack got around to
fixing the counter. Not really sure why I still have that thing, guess it's still amazing
to me sometimes how quickly that 6 member family in Mississippi that I pay can hit reload
so quickly.
Another neeto treat today, If you're in IE5 and bookmark this page (CTRL-D) I've got a spanky new icon that shows up thanks to MajestY. You may have to clear your cache or un-bookmark the page first. IE is cool like that.
Image of the day you ask? Have a look at the latest Microsoft product. Be sure and send more in. :)
p.s. Sorry if some of this stuff is repeated from earlier updates. A lot of these postings are just from email, I will have another batch of news up in a couple of hours once I swallow down some more pepto.
| Sunday, June 6, 1999 |
Home! [9:55 pm]
Well, I came down with some nasty stomach virus
action this morning and just got home from a very painful plane ride. This lady with some
crazy accent kept rubbing her leg on me and saying how cool computers were. She was like
50 something I think, too bad there arent more teenage girls like that. Sorry about the
slow weekend, but hey that's what weekends are for damn it.
Decent 3D In Notebooks, Huzzah! [7:20 pm] - Jack
Thanks Jeff at Hardware Central. Seems S3's putting
versions of its Savage3D chips into notebooks according to this news.com
article. They're called the Savage/MX and Savage/IX. What's the difference between the
two? The MX is about 80-85% the price of the IX. That's about all that it says.
I looked on S3's site and could find no mention of these products, but I did find some wicked Japanese press releases.
Duke Nukem Forever News [4:55 pm] - Jack
Thanks VE.
Unreal Universe (whose Apache informs me
that I suck, and that he wants Steve back) quoted George B of 3DRealms answering seven
questions about DNF on 3DR's
Messageboard, so I went there and noticed that both Chris Hargrove (coder) and George
B (if you don't know...) answered them. Check 'em out.
First, the questions:
1. Will DNF use larger than 256x256 textures? Yes, I know Unreal can do this - my question is "will DNF _use_ it"?
2. How about stencil-buffer shadows? If so, are you planning to emulate it on cards without this feature, like Voodoo3?
3. Which LOD is better - Unreal's (v224+) or MRG? What is the difference beetwen them?
4. Is UnrealEd written in Visual Basic? Will DukeEd? Isn't too slow language for 3D editor?
5. Is DNF up-to-date with Unreal's engine updates?
6. Will music be in UMX-like format or pure CD audio?
7. What happened to your Quake2 src copy? It's useless now?Chris Hargrove's Answers:
1. If we use larger textures, it's only when necessary. Rest assured we don't sacrifice image quality by keeping textures small; we just try and make very efficient use of the texture space available.
2. Cannot comment at this time.
3. "Better" is in the eye of the beholder, so I can't comment with any degree of objectivity. You'll have to make the judgment for yourself when we ship. Regardless, we have no intention of switching away from MRG.
4. The front-end of the editor is written in Visual Basic, yes. Much of the work however gets passed back to the same core DLLs which are used when running the game, and those are written in C++.
5. We branched after v220, as we could no longer afford the time overhead waiting for further updates from Epic. We might integrate bits and pieces of v224 and beyond, but by and large we will continue doing what we've been doing, making the engine changes we want on our own.
6. Cannot comment at this time.
7. The Q2 license was canceled, therefore that code no longer exists.George Broussard's Answers:
1. Maybe. Right now we're very happy with the texture sizes/look of the game.
2. Maybe, but only on cards that support it. Doubt we'd emulate it for other cards.
3. MRG is perfect. We've had it in for several months before anyone else out there announced LOD for their games. We're very happy with it. I doubt either MRG or Unreal's LOD is significantly better than the other, but we haven't evaluated them.
4. UnrealEd is fine. It is written in Visual Basis which makes it a pain to deal with but for the end users, it will be fine.
5. Nope. We broke off after v220 due to delays in getting be code drops. We just couldn't wait any longer. but considering we've added skeletal/bones based animation, infinitely (and I mean infinitely) more control of moving brushes and tons and tons of other interactive thigns, I think you should ask wether Unreal is up-to-date with DNF :)
6. Neither. We'll likely go with some sort of streaming wav files for the music.
7. All gone.
3D Basics [4:55 pm] - Jack
Thanks VE.
Normally, the old shack doesn't encourage you to learn very much. Hell, Steve keeps
telling to start spelling "lose" as "loose" more often just to dumb it
down some. Anyway, this article that FiringSquad has put up to help teach 3D Basics is
actually pretty decent. I went into it expecting to punch all sorts of holes in it, but
for the layman, it's pretty simple and accurate. Well, I only got about four pages
into it, but I doubt it'll fall apart or anything. Check it out!
Draken for Dummies [4:55 pm] - Jack
Thanks VE.
There's some Draken demo cheats out there now for those of you wusses who can't play
the normal game :) Here's how to use them (ganked from VE):
Press talk button (by default it's binded to "\") then enter cheat and press enter
sanctuary = godmode
smeghead = fullhealth
debug on = display debug information
debug off = remove debug information.
Views n' Shots n' Hardware [4:55 pm] - Jack
Thanks Blue
and Stomped and VE for all this. Steve better still be sick
when I pick him up at the airport.
Jack's Word
Jack here. Seems little Stevie-Weevie feels a little
sicky-wicky in his tummy-wummy, so I'm doing yet another boring update.
Here's the phone conversation from his girlfriend to me telling me about it, just to liven things up:
| <Phone> | Ring! |
| <Jack> | Hello? |
| <Crystal> | Hey asshole, how are you? |
| <Jack> | Oh, I'm doi- |
| <Crystal> | Great. Hey, Steve's sick, update his page. |
| <Jack> | What's wrong with him? |
| <Crystal> | Shut the hell up, all you need to know is that his fucking.. uhh... stomach hurts. Yeah, that sounds good. His stomach hurts. |
| <Jack> | But I- |
| <Crystal> | But but but but but NO BUTS! What part of "update his page" don't you understand you piece of shit?! |
| <Jack> | Fine, talk to y- |
| <Phone> | Click! |
I also forgot to link 3DGaming.net's poll of what's yer favorite news site yesterday, but it's not really the policy of The Shack to do that anymore anyway.
Which got me to thinking, why would these sites put up such a poll anyway? A poll to find out other sites are more popular than their own? Then I figured it out - to get traffic. And what better way to get it than by having all the biggest websites send all their readers there just to say they're the best.
Genius. I love the web :)
(by the way, I'm not ragging on 3DGaming at all here, they're actually good friends of the Shack. I really do admire that way of thinking. See, I just linked them again, I do love them :) )
[update - Jack]
Ok, so 3DGaming.Net aren't a bunch of whores. [I wouldn't go that far - Steve] Jeez. Turns out they were doing a Deathmatch challenge or something. And I spelled Drakan wrong to dumb down the page like Steve said, so bite my ass.
We at the Shack love 3DGaming, still. Here's proof: Link, link, link, link, link. There, see?
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