| Saturday June 19, 1999 |
Multiplayer Game Stats [6:25 pm]
I saw this thread pop u on the Quake3
messageboard and came across these stats that were yanked from the CLQ. Check out these #'s which are really
interesting to see. I'm going to include YoGre's commentery because it is excellent:
GAME Minutes Played Total Players Active Servers Quake2 42,789,378 508,870 3,653 TRIBES 29,595,400 171,220 1,149 Quake & QW 16,108,515 151,968 980 Quake3 8,346,299 103,309 634 Half-Life 10,100,763 78,345 1,287
Now there are a few interesting things to pint out. * Q2 totaly blows away everything. * Tribes is about 70% of Q2 in minutes played but only 33% in number of players. * Quake III numbers are simply astonishing considering it is has only 2 maps and no mods. * Not nearly as many players still play Q1+QW (related to Q2) as the amount of noise they make on the various msg boards. * Half-Life numbers are pretty surprising.
AMD Stuff [6:25 pm]
Couple of bits of news passed along by the AMDZone
folks. A CNet article discussing how Coppermine
delays could give AMD the lead with K7 although there are doubts Coppermine will
be faster than K7 since its basically the same core as PIII. Also, PlanetShogo has word that that Monolith's put up a page for the status of a Shogo patch and
the 3D Now! renderer.
Lara Croft Nude! [1:25 pm]
Yeah, figured that headline would get your attention. The GameDaily guys have just found out that the former
(and better) Lara Croft model Nell McAndrew will be featuring in an upcoming Playboy issue
revealing all. Here are a few details, and more importantly here is a
picture of the cover.
The pictorial will run in the August 1999 issue of Playboy, which is due out on newsstands July 5. Playboy has also scheduled a live online chat with the legendary McAndrew for Thursday, July 29, at 9:00 p.m. (Eastern time) on playboy.com.
New Half-Life Uplink Demo [1:25 pm]
Check it out, a new version of the Half-Life Uplink demo from Valve Software. The demo includes a new mission
that is not included in the full retail game so even if you own Half-Life it's worth
checking out. Here is word from Jenni:
The Half-Life Uplink demo (which includes a mini-mission that's not in the original game) can now be downloaded using the mod browser that we integrated with our HL v.1.0.0.9 update. This version of Uplink is only 10.4 MB (versus the 50 MB download for the original "non-mod" version) because it uses files you already have installed with the full game.
To download Uplink:
1) Launch Half-Life.
2) Click on 'Custom Game'.
3) Click on 'Refresh list'.
4) Select the Half-Life Uplink demo from the list.
5) Click on 'Install'.
KingPin Info [1:25 pm]
Ryan "Ridah" Feltrin of Xatrix Entertainment (and the Eraser Bot guys) has posted a new .plan update which
talks about the "Bag Man" feature following up the announcement yesterday that
KingPin had gone gold and is getting ready to hit the streets. Here is a bit of his .plan update.
You can also download the demo
from this link.
Kingpin is done. Phew. It was a long 13 months, but I'm proud of the result.
Server Ops:
A linux port is currently in the works, and if things go according to plan, will be available by the time the game hits the stores.
Gamers:
If you've been looking for something new to play on-line lately, let me introduce you to "Bag Man". It might sound odd, but it's actually very addictive, and intense. Take CTF, mix it with Mobsters. Stir.
The result, is a game revolving around cash. Both teams have a safe. Somewhere in the center of the map exists a Cash spawning location (counterfitting machine outlet, if you must..). The object being, to collect as much cash as possible, then return to your base and lock it in the safe.
Oni Updates [1:25 pm]
Bungie Software has posted some development updates
to their Oni web page which should give you guys a bit more insight into what state
the game is in and also they have included a few nifty new images for you to stare at and
wonder when the heck it's coming out.
IOTD [1:08
pm]
The winner for the IOTD for
yesterday was a tie!. Kulprit with "Australian for doggystyle" and
raYgunn with "Here buddy, you're gonna need some energy to keep that up." Here are the rest of the
entries.
Previous IOTD's: cat.jpg
(captions) paint.jpg (captions) nuts.jpg keyboard.jpg theguys.jpg tattoo2.jpg aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg drunke3.jpg q2chick.jpg
fruit1 fruit2 fruit3 fruit4 and fruit5
Views [1:30 pm]
Tech [1:30 pm]
Gaming [1:30 pm]
werd
More of that family stuff going down today. I'll be around some more in the afternoon. All
of the .plan files have been plugged into the new .plan tracker just have a few html
things to work out.
| Friday June 18, 1999 |
KingPin Goes Gold [6:30 pm]
KingPin from Xatrix Entertainment has gone golden!
Here is a bit of the email that was sent out for you guys to read. You can also download the demo from this
url.
Kingpin is finished and off to manufacturing! You should see it in stores by the end of the month. I'd like to personally thank the entire team for pulling off the incredible feat of getting this title completed in just over 13 months. I think that you'll find a lot of attention to detail has gone into the single player game; we listened closely to the comments regarding the demo and have managed to implement quite a few of the features that people really wanted to see.
The multi-player aspects of Kingpin weren't overlooked either; we worked hard on getting a well-balanced feel in straight death-match. Also, "Bag Man" has turned out to be much cooler than we ever imagined. We've been playing it quite a bit and its very addictive.
Soldier of Fortune Video [6:30 pm]
The Soldier of Fortune AVI which was banned at E3 has been released at GameSpot You can download ithere
Amen [3:30
pm]
TheHive has a lengthy interview posted with
Greg MacMartin of CaveDog Entertainment. They go over quite a bit of what CaveDog is
up to working on Amen: The Awakening which is impressive as all heck. Here are a bunch of screenshots
that I recommend checking out too.
Without going into a big list of buzz words, some of the key differences are: Extremely controllable dynamic geometry with an amazing key-framing system, fully dynamic radiosity lights in the world, and a kick-ass event system. All of these things will lead to extremely interactive environments...
Stuff [12:30 pm]
Steve here, "back in the saddle" as it were after doing that family breakfast
thing this morning. I'm back on watch for you guys and will have the rest of the stuff
posted along with the IOTD and DD after I get a few more things taken care of. (Scroll
down and I've added a few more stories and fixed a couple of links btw)
Carmack Interview [11:00 am] - Huntsman
Saw over at Voodoo Extreme that Billy "I wish I
were an Oscar Mayer Wiener" Wilson has an interview with John Carmack.
They discuss various Trinity related shenanigans, what's happening after Q3, and how they
plan to exploit Graeme Devine.
IOTD [1:08
pm]
Oh heck, the IOTD has made its way out of "werd" and into its own posting item? Well today's image is very
impressive. It seems kids have a natural gift for walking in at the wrong time as
parents can attest to. Here is a link for the caption contest of
the day.
The winner for the IOTD for yesterday was a no brainer. Rob Walker takes the cake with "After her breast implants, Britney Spears tries hormone injections, with devastating results." Here are the rest of the entries.
Previous IOTD's: paint.jpg
nuts.jpg keyboard.jpg theguys.jpg tattoo2.jpg aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg drunke3.jpg q2chick.jpg
fruit1 fruit2 fruit3 fruit4 and fruit5
Well, possum on a gumbush! [11:00 am] - Huntsman
Oh man, dig this. Straight out of the 80's: The Dukes of Hazzard Racing. 3D Racing has a preview up
of it. Who cares if it's any good, really, or even if it's off topic. I just want to hit
on Daisy. Note that the headline is a quote from the press release.
N64 Quake II [11:00 am] - Huntsman
The Man, Blue, has word of a preview of the Nintendo 64
version of Quake II over at Next-Gen. They've got some nifty screen shots and a trailer.
SoF Interview [11:00 am] - Huntsman
The guy's over at CDMag have a preview
of Raven's upcoming Soldier of Fortune. Here's a clip:
The centerpiece of the modified Quake II engine is the new GHOUL model system. GHOUL models do not look any more impressive than those in, say, Team Fortress 2 but Raven believes that looks are not everything. Hoekstra explains: "GHOUL allows for 26 different "gore zones" that allow us to convey the effects of bullets and explosions on the human body.
This means if you pop a guy in the nads, he's gonna know it.
New Half-Life Server [12:30 pm]
The guys at PlanetHalflife have word on a new
version of the dedicated Half-Life server that has been released by Valve/Sierra for you
server admins.
The new version of the Win32 server is now posted on our FTP site for testing. This new server is backward-compatible with the existing Half-Life client codebase, so players will be able to connect and play on your server immediately after you upgrade.
In this new version: All known cheats/exploits are fixed Running hlds + from the command line will heartbeat to the WON master server.
Views [11:00 am] - Huntsman
Tech [12:30 pm]
werd
I had some family show up today in Dallas and they are only here for one day, sorry about
dissapearing so quickly but... Family > Work. Everyone give a big kiss to Huntsman next
time you see him for scrambling to do a little light coverage for you guys.
[11:00 am] - Huntsman
Wow, who stole the news. Couldn't find anything that remotely interested me other than
what you see up there. Anyway, sTeve's clearly not here, so here I am. Saw something funny
on Slashdot that Einstein's brain was actually larger
than most, which actually explains why he was so smart. So next time you look at some poor
slob and say "Look at that dude's big head" remember he's probably smarter than
you :(
| Thursday June 17, 1999 |
Star Trek: Voyager [6:15 pm]
With the recent .plan updates from Chris Foster and Jake Simpson, what
better time for a quick preview of Raven's Quake3 engine based baby? Have a look at what GA-Source is
saying about Star Trek: Voyager:
Raven also plans to add some new graphical effects in Voyager: Elite Force that will not even be present in Quake III itself. Currently they are already customizing and enhancing the code to suit their own purposes. In order to support Voyager: Elite Forces' new features, Raven will have to tweak parts of the original code, add wrappers around some of their functions, or completely replace them.
3dfx Napalm? [4:15 pm]
The Viper3D guys apparently have talked to
someone "in the know" pushing out some specs on the next-gen 3dfx card that
hopefully is in development. Most of this stuff looks pretty believable and for once isnt
just crazy. Here's a bit of it:
Code-name 'Napalm'.
0.25u die-fab integration.
Banshee 2D core, new 3D core, 3rd-party Geometry engine.
4 to 128 MB SDRAM on-card. (4MB?? OEM product perhaps?)
32-bit true color, 24-bit Z and W-Buffer, 8-bit Stencil.
32-bit 2K x 2K texture support, Texture compression capable.
SLI Scalable via single or multiple Chips. (Upgrade Sockets?)
400 to 1600 MTexels/sec. (Multiple card models? Sockets?)
4 Million sustained transformed Triangles/sec.
Keep in mind these numbers are not confirmed by 3dfx, and could be completely wrong. I post these because there is a better chance than not that these numbers are accurate and everyone like myself is just dying for that next-gen super crazy 3D stuff. For reference, the V3 3500 has a fill rate of 366 as opposed to the 400-1600 Napalm might be.
More TRIBES2 [3:35 pm]
The U-Games boys have asked Scott
Youngblood of Dynamix a few questions about their sequel to TRIBES currently code
named TRIBES2. Here's a bit of what Scotty had to say over there. Thanks VE
There WILL be new vehicles in TRIBES2. We have already said that at least one of these new vehicles will be a ground based vehicle. Armour restrictions for driving the vehicles will probably stay the same that it is now (light armour required to drive.) We are also planning on keeping the same 3 Tribal armour classes as well as introducing BioDerm equivalents
Max Payne [1:55 pm]
GameSpot UK has posted a great new
article taking a look at Max Payne including 14 new screenshots
for you to check out as well. Make sure and have a look at that video that came
out yesterday over at GameCenter while you're at it. Here's a bit from the article on
3D support:
The game will use dynamic radiosity lighting to ensure that the environments are as believable as possible. This realism and beauty does have a price, of course. Max Payne will be 3D accelerated only it'll support D3D as well as having native support for many 3D cards. There'll be no software rendering.
Biz Stuff [1:15 pm]
Couple of quick articles for you to check out if you are into that whole industry side of
things. Firstly ArsTechnica takes a look at those AOL
guys and why they are buying up stuff like ICQ and the MP3 industry. Then some good
news that a knob passed along to me, Next-Generation is reporting
that the Hyde amendment didnt go through which was an attempt to prevent violent video
games from being sold.
Soldier of Fortune Shots [12:25 pm]
The official Soldier of Fortune website
has posted two new screenshots
of the Raven Software Quake2 engine based game. Also there is word there that the video
with footage from the game will be making an appearance on GameSpot tomorrow. I'll keep you guys posted.
IOTD & DD Topic [12:25 pm]
Here is something that should hopefully improve things here.. What do you want to see here on
the page? Right now I'm in the middle of some major re-working of the back-end (heh)
of the page and Sander will be putting some new functionality into the page with automated
script stuff. Do the massive amounts of TNT2 and V3 reviews interest you guys? Would you
like to see more seperation of topics? Would a "hardware only" news filter
interest you? Is the FileShack actually proving
useful?
Also, I've got the winner of the IOTD caption deal posted at the bottom of todays news for you guys. I goofed and forgot to include a request for email addresses. That all traces back to me being retarded though, so what can ya do? Here is today's IOTD and a link to the caption contest.
SystemShock2 Done [10:25 am]
Well we've all seen enough previews of the game by now to know what the heck it looks
like, it's about time they finished it up then right? Well according to the official System Shock 2 page they have
done just that. Well actually they still have to go through the good old testing phase
etc, but assuming things go well it shouldnt be all that much longer before they can call
it golden. Here's a bit:
System Shock 2 is basically done as far as implementation and content go. The whole team is now working very hard to tweak the game to push it over the "edge" and into the realm of a classic. The play testers are working around the clock to try and catch any last minute bugs (great QA team here BTW). System Shock 2 is on track and should be all set for EA's official release date, so get ready to be shocked... again!
You can also check out the new preview of SS2 over at Gamelinks.
Omikron [10:25 am]
Loric Normand of Quantic Dream was kind enough to send out a couple new screenshots of
their game Omikron in development right
now. Compared to the earlier shots that they sent out it looks like they are making
some improvements to the lighting model and possibly higher texel density on the
characters? Have a look at shot1 and shot2
Creative Labs [10:25 am]
Glide Underground has posted an interesting interview with a few senior
members over at Creative Labs. They talk about the recent driver releases against the
wishes of 3dfx and id Software, and their feelings about the Voodoo3 card which
coincidentally they dont seem very impressed with. Surprise!
Early in development (pre-ComDex), the chip was called the Banshee 2, because it IS a Banshee only with another TMU. We had real problems with the lack of 32bit rendering and RAM. We were looking at the Voodoo3 chipset and didn't know what to do with it because it was only 16-bit, and 16 MB. All the other chip vendors are on 32-bit and 32MB: more color depth, bigger frame buffers. Nvidia, S3, ATI, and Matrox all realized that quality counts, while 3DFX took a Banshee core and renamed it Voodoo3. I am really happy that 3DFX bought STB, because it gave us the opportunity and the chance to compete against the Voodoo3, which is technologically challenged
Voyager Updates [10:25 am]
A couple of .plan updates from different members of Raven Software who are working on the
Quake3 engine based Star Trek universe game over there. Firstly Chris Foster gives a bit
of background on what character you get to play as, and a bit on the
"holomatch" deal.
Holomatch will basically be a Holodeck generated combat stage with the ability to fight other players and score as if running a training exercise. When a player is 'killed' he is transported back to the command staging area to reset himself, re-arm and then 're-spawn' (i.e. randomly be transported back within the playing area).
Then we've got another update a couple of hours later by Jake Simpson who probably wont want to read this. It looks like the LOD stuff probably wont make it into ST:V.
So it looks like the LOD stuff I looked into may not be going into Star Trek. The reasoning here involved low poly count models. Traditionally, Raven has been extremely good at producing attractive low poly count models. This has come after years of experience that our modeler have had, plus large amounts of beatings until they get it right :) However, one of the things that LOD is traditionally NOT good at is reducing low poly count models even further and making them look ok.
Views [10:25 am]
Tech [10:25 am]
werd
Just couldnt get my ass outa park this morning, woke up at 7:30am and just stared at the
monitor for a while.. I guess getting stuff up around 10:30am isnt so bad, considering
it's still only 8:30am for you west coasters. Oh well.
IOTD today should please a few of you cat lovers *cough* I'm not going to um, touch this. Got a caption for this pic? Post it here and I'll announce the winner tomorrow. Be sure to include your email address in the response so I can get a link for you.
Yesterday's caption contest for paint.jpg winner was much more difficult to pick than I thought. We'll give it to klammer for this line: "Frogger wasn't just a game for Ralph.. it was a passion, and ultimately, his undoing."
Previous IOTD's: paint.jpg
nuts.jpg keyboard.jpg theguys.jpg tattoo2.jpg aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg drunke3.jpg q2chick.jpg
fruit1 fruit2 fruit3 fruit4 and fruit5
| Wednesday June 16, 1999 |
Max Payne Video [10:05 pm]
GameCenter has posted a new
30meg AVI of footage from the Remedy/3DR Max Payne game.
Creative MiniGL Review [7:55 pm]
Remember that Mini-GL
driver that Creative Labs released a couple of days ago? Well
AGN takes a closer look at the driver and it does look like the image quality is in
fact improved with the higher resolution textures since Creative hacked their way around
the 256x256 limit that Voodoo2 cards generally have.
Unreal Update [3:30 pm]
Another new update has been made to the Unreal
Technology page for those of you intently following the progress of Unreal Tournament
like I am. :) The latest stuff talks about character "mutators" and the like
which is kinda neet.
More Views [3:30 pm]
TF2 [12:45
pm]
Harry Teasley of Valve Software sits down with TheHive
guys to chat a bit about the Half-Life mod community, stuff they have learned from
their products, and what is being worked on for the future with TF2. Here's a bit of it:
Real-time voice communication like we showed at E3 is one of the most exciting new innovations in TF2. With the new voice capabilities, you can talk to your friends within the game and your character's mouth will move as you talk. MRM technology allows very sophisticated level-of-detail rendering for 3D objects, which permits us to have very high polygon characters that really must be seen to be believed. Our goal is to make Team Fortress 2 the most immersive computer game experience ever, and we're making the technology investments that will allow us to do this.
Shackware: Resurrection [1:30 pm] - Huntsman
All you people who put money on it never getting updated better send me all your cash. Shackware has returned with a vengeance, or perhaps
just a nasty cold. Anyway, if you don't know what you want, go and have somebody tell you!
Got some cash? Check out the Boxers. If
you're a tightwad, check out the Briefs. And
if you have some really rich uncle, dig on the Balls
Out.
Q3Test1 & Teamplay? [10:45 am]
As most of you guys know the next version of Q3Test will most likely be featuring teamplay
code as mentioned in previous .plan updates from Zoid and John Carmack. So here is a
hypothetical for you guys. Assuming weapon/item spawns were like Quake2, how would you
place the weapons and powerups throughout the map? I'm still noclipping around and taking
screenshots etc looking at things trying to decide myself. If you've got a good idea though
I'm sure the id guys would love to read about it. Oh yeah, and I posted the new IOTD
at the bottom of the page.
Fileshack.com Lives [10:15 am]
Well check it out kiddies, www.fileshack.com is now
online. My plans for world domination begin to surface.
Paul Jaquays Interview [9:10 am]
The Q3Arena.net guys got
some time with Paul Jaquays of id Software, one of the level designers working on
Quake3: Arena for us all.
One of Carmack's original aims was to develop maps that looked good when they were fully lighted, will there be some dark and gloomy/dirty Quake 1 style maps?
Jaquays: That depends on how you define "fully lighted." All our levels will be mixtures of light and dark areas. That's one of the ways we achieve drama in the appearance of our levels. However, we are creating levels that don't rely on darkness to hide flaws or over-simplification in our geometry. Most of the levels have a gloomy and gritty look.
Unreal Tournament Progress [9:10 am]
The guys from Digital Extremes (Contract art team for Unreal & Unreal Tournament) have
made a couple of postings to the GT Interactive boards stating that game content for
Unreal Tournament is just about complete. Here's a bit of the first
post:
FYI, the content/game is done and we are testing, tweaking and debugging. We will continue to do this until we can find no more bugs. We do not want to rush this process or we could end up like we did on Unreal... with poorly tested multiplayer.
Also, a little bit later this post went up from James Schmalz: (Thanks VE)
We are getting closer to a release candidate every day. We are preparing a demo even now and our goal is to release the demo right around the time UT hits the store shelves, if not sooner. We are planning on another movie, but I'm not sure when it will get put together since everyone is busting their asses finding bugs.
SoF Video Soon [12:55 am]
According to this
.plan update from Kenn Hoekstra of Raven Software a video with in-game footage of the
Quake2 engine based ultra-violent Soldier of Fortune game they are working on over there
at Raven should be making it's way onto the net soon. Check it:
The Soldier of Fortune AVI trailer that was banned from E3 should be making an appearance on the net soon. We're still working out the details of who is going to post it and exactly when, but it will be coming your way soon. The trailer shows some of the gameplay and some enemies being gunned down by our mercenary hero... It's pretty slick! I'll post more details on the AVI release as they become available. =) Regardless of where it gets posted, I'm sure it will ultimately make its way to The Official Raven Soldier of Fortune Site.
Cliffy on Unreal MP [12:55 am]
Cliff Blesziniski of Epic Games has a .plan update with congrats to the Legend guys for
their recent completion of the Unreal mission pack, as well as including a link to more
information. Check it:
Kudos to the homies over at Legend for completing their most excellent Unreal level pack "Return to Na Pali." I have played this pack several times, and it more than holds up to the orginal Unreal, in many ways exceeding it in ass kicking gameplay and visual splendor.
For more information on "Return," check out the website: http://www.gtinteractive.com/unreal/missionpack/
TeamFortress2 & New Shots [YESTERDAY]
The guys at Sierra have opened up the doors on www.team-fortress2.com
with a bunch of new information on the upcoming title being worked on so hard up there in
Seattle at Valve Software. There are also 4 screenshots on the page which you can check
out. shot1 , shot2 , shot3 , shot4 , shot5 , and shot6. You might recognize a
couple of those shots, but they are awful damn cool looking. (update 7:15pm I fixed the
shot5 link)
HeavyGear2 = Friday [12:55 am]
According to the Activision Game
News page we can expect to see HG2 in the stores this Friday. Thanks Blue
Views [9:10 am]
Tech [1:25 am]
werd
Please keep sending me feedback on Fileshack btw.
Everything you guys suggest is being looked at.
Image of the day reminds us that union workers just dont give a
damn. Can you think of a caption for this pic? Post it here and I'll announce
the winner tomorrow.
Previous IOTD's: nuts.jpg
keyboard.jpg theguys.jpg tattoo2.jpg aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg drunke3.jpg q2chick.jpg
fruit1 fruit2 fruit3 fruit4 and fruit5
Oh yeah, grab the new ICQ from the ftp site. They actually inproved the load time for once!
| Tuesday June 15, 1999 |
Duke4 Q&A [5:15 pm]
AGN3D grabbed George Broussard of 3DRealms for a couple of minutes and asked him a couple
of questions about their upcoming Duke4Ever title based on the Unreal engine which they
are ever-so-diligently modifying. Here's what George had to say:
Q: As far as exploring goes, will you be able to take different paths depending on which way you go or what you do?
A: To some extent. But this isn't an RPG. We aren't going to design the game around "should I talk to this guy, or just blow him away". "should I pick the lock, or blow open the door". That's all fine, but it's not what you want in an action game for the most part.
Q: Considering that Unreal didnt, will DNF feature any engine modifications that allow for bullet marks and other marks created by gunfire?
A: Yes. Duke 3D / Rise of the Triad were the 1st FPS games to feature things like bullet holes and blood splats on walls, so you can be sure they are coming back.
Movies! [2:15 pm]
Got all kinds of video footage for you to check out this early afternoon. I'll just list
em off and maybe one or even two of them will float your boat, yes?
- TiberiumSun.com has some new footage of
C&C2 in action which gives some great footage. 24megs.
- Diabloii.net has some footage of Diablo2 in
action of course. It weighs in at about 11megs.
- GA-Source has
footage of Titamiun Angels which you probably havent heard of yet. It's a 3D action
adventure type. 2.5megs.
$1,000 SuperComputer? [12:45 pm]
Phil Nachreiner sent in this link to a CNN article which talks
about upcoming supercomputers that 60,000 times as fast (!) as a p2-350 is today, and
it's not talking about in the year 3050 either. Pretty interesting stuff.
Voyager Update [12:15 pm]
Chris Foster over at Raven Software, working on the Quake3 engine based Star Trek: Voyager
title has a progress
update for us on just what they are working on over there. The game was looking damn
impressive at E3.
Now, that I'm out from under the shadow of scheduling and planning for a day or so I thought I'd update this thing.
We're currently halfway through production on the Scavenger Base areas. I've nearly completed the exterior portion of my airlock level, where Munro and others will hopefully get the chance to utilize their Starfleet vac suits for a short spacewalk.
Most of the areas of Voyager have been completed in their raw form, just waiting to be realistically roughed up and damaged.
Our design team is doing a terrific job of fitting the extremely complex areas from Voyager into the sometimes restrictive limitations of a game engine. Quake3 is the only engine that I would even want to try this in!
Ass-Wack Links! [12:35 pm]
Took me a little bit of blood and sweat but I fought my way through and came up with some more
wack-ass-links thanks to the e-mails from you guys. It wasnt easy though, let me tell
ya!
Messiah & PSX [12:15 pm]
Recently GA-Source asked Shiny
Entertainment's Scott Herrington a couple questions pertaining to the technical
problems with porting Messiah over to the PSX.
Unreal Mission Pack Gold [8:15 am]
The guys at Legend Entertainment have announced the
official Unreal Mission Pack has gone gold. It's actually on the Wheel of Time news
page which the Legend guys are also working on. Now that the MP team has completed the
project, next on tap is Unreal2 once they finish WoT, which they obtained the rights from
Epic. Here's the blurb:
First, even though this isn't strictly WoT-related, I must congratulate the Unreal level pack team on a job well done. They went gold over the weekend. While the pack may appear to dwell in WoT's shadow a little, there's no question that it represents a significant milestone in Legend's history. Heck, our last release (and most of the titles that preceded it) was a strict adventure game. The Upak represents our first shipped product in the FPS genre. My hat is off to everyone who worked on it; the end product shows a lot of time, effort, and long nights filled with superheroic tales of hostess advertising.
Daily Discussion: Afterlife? [8:15 am]
We've had way too many topics that actually relate to gaming in a row. So now I pose a new
question for you that was emailed in. Say you have a guy, and halfway through his life he
decides to get a sex change and become what he/she felt was his/her natural calling, being
a female. After that person dies, is he/she a guy or girl in the
afterlife? This is important. (Yes I'm running very low on topics...)
Generations Mod Canned [8:15 am]
I spotted this big discussion on the Quake3
Messageboard talking about id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead trading e-mail with the Generations mod team. It looks like
the work the Generations mod guys were doing is getting in trouble with a lot of
copyright/legal stuff for id. Although id Software did not "fox" the Generations
mod, they gave them a set of
guidelines that pretty much made continuation of the mod incredibly difficult. Sounds
99% like a "foxing" to me personally. Here's a bit from the page:
id Software has specifically stated that they are NOT asking us to shut down Generations. Therefore, we are not technically "foxed," as the term goes. But id has set guidelines as to what restrictions we are expected to place on ourselves. Generations, as far as v.98 goes, is in broad, direct, and clear violation of nearly all of these guidelines, in virtually every aspect. In fact, so is every version of Generations that has ever been publicly released. In case you haven't guessed, the Files page is down, and the mirrored downloads will soon be unavailable. In volunteering to remove the files, we hope to avoid any further legal complications with id Software.
New Intel Processors [8:15 am]
Intel just announced
two new microprocessors - one built on .18 micron process technology (that's a first!)
They're mobile PII and Celeron 400's, and will cost (in 1000 unit quantities) $530
and $187 respectively. Go check out the release in the pressroom for some more info, and
some lovely quotes from the Intel guy...
Half-Life Stuff [8:15 am]
The Sierra Studios guys sent out a press release yesterday announcing that Richard
"Levelord" Gray of Ritual Entertainment will
be taking some time out of his FAKK2 schedule to complete a DM
level for the GearBox Half-Life mission
pack. The map will be included in the commercial release of the product several months
from now. Also on the Half-Life tip the PCGamer guys have posted the USS
DarkStar for Half-Life which is an impressive set of new levels you should check out.
Views [8:15 am]
Tech [8:15 am]
Gaming [8:15 am]
werd
Looks like Fileshack is going over pretty
well with you guys. Only bug that has come up is some goofyness with table widths and
800x600. Should get that hammered out today. Work on Fingershack will continue today,
There are just way too many .plan files out there. Jeeze.
The latest IOTD is actually something I've seen floating around for a while, but I felt it needed to be posted here for even more exposure. Something I think I'm gonna start doing is include captions or have a "caption contest" each day.
Previous IOTD's: keyboard.jpg
theguys.jpg tattoo2.jpg aussie.jpg spears.jpg ms.jpg clint2.jpg drunke3.jpg q2chick.jpg
fruit1 fruit2 fruit3 fruit4 and fruit5
| Monday June 14, 1999 |
FileShack Opens! [5:15 pm]
Well, we just couldnt quite wait for that fileshack.com domain to propogate, so I've opened up the doors on the brand spanking
new files section here at my humble little Shack of 'shuga. Check it out and tell me what you guys think. There are currently
sections for Quake, QuakeWorld, Quake2, and Quake3. The Half-Life section will be online
shortly (couple of days), and a few other games I'm sure you can think of are still
in the works. A huge thanks to the guys at Gamekey.com
the creators of QuakeFiles.com for all their hard
work. The database and html files are currently being hosted remotely, load times should
speed up a bit once we have everything moved over to my server with the new domain later
this week. So head on over to FileShack and
check it out!
Speaking of stuff like this, the new Fingershack (hehe) is about ready to go, I just have to manually input all the damn .plan addresses that I want to track and slap some templates around it.
AMD's K7 [2:20 pm]
Got a couple of articles for you guys to check out on the AMD K7 CPU which everyone seems
to be dying to get their hands on. First off check out the ArsTechnica article which talks about the hype, and
the benchmarks that AMD is producing to approximately back it up. Then you can head
over to AMDZone and have a look at their comprehensive FAQ which
should cover everything you want to know about the CPU. Also AMD has recently updated their tech docs.
SHOD Returns! [3:20 pm]
The infamous Stayne's House of Demos page has resurfaced
finally! If you are looking for demos of some of the best Quake and Quake2 players in
the world, check out his page. Speaking of demos, I've hax0red my way into Quake3 enough
to figure out how to get some good demos going. Expect the Shack demos section to come
alive again this week. Maybe I can even sucker Sabian (aka Pat Hook) to record a couple :)
Zoid on Quake3 [12:15 pm]
SamHell here at the Shack is at it again. This
week Zoid from id Software takes part in an interview with SamHell talking about
Quake3 of course and more specifically Zoid's work on the CTF and teamplay aspects to be
included in Quake3. Here's a bit of the interview: (link is fixed now, sorry about it
being broken earlier)
I'm not going the full step and adding real time voice communication since I'm not convinced that's ready at this stage.
Also, something like real time voice communication would be great for clan based play (organized teams). But it would be extremely lame for public free-for-all team game servers. I think one of the nice features about CTF was it extended from organized matches to generic public games. Deathmatch teamplay never worked that well as public games (you usually spent half an hour just figuring out the teams), but CTF you could just dive in and support your team.
You can also check out this interview with SamHell if you're interested in the guy behind the guy.
New Loonygames [1:55 pm]
The new issue of Loonygames is now on the stands.
This week features include: - Game Programming in the 21st Century: James Hague, a
professional game programmer himself, looks ahead to the future of games in the next
century. [Monday] and Community Profile: An interview with Mur Lafferty, Red Storm's
webmistress! [Friday]. Along with the weekly features from Paul Steed of id Software.
Descent 3 [1:55 pm]
Descent 3 is ready to descend on computer gaming stores shelves this week, and The Hive has an
interview with Descent 3's producer, Craig Derrick of Outrage Entertainment
New Creative MiniGL [12:15 pm]
Our favorite guys at Creative Labs not wavered by the fact that 3dfx is filing a lawsuit
against them for releasing Glide drivers, and pissing off the guys at id Software by
releasing Quake3 specific mini-drivers are still at it. They have just released
some new Voodoo2 and Banshee drivers for you to play with. Also here is a quote from Blue talking about a possible workaround for the 256x256
texture limit: . "I've been told these drivers allow support for textures greater
than 256x256 (traditionally a Voodoo limitation) by breaking them up into smaller
textures, and while the site doesn't mention that specifically, but does discuss texture
management improvements as part of the new release. " Here
is a MaximumPC article with some actual statements from Creative Labs.
Suckage [11:55 am]
It's the weekly suckage, and as with every week it pretty much sucks. Check it out if you have a
thing for listening to skinny white webmasters bitch about anything that comes to mind.
Vampire: Masquerade [10:15 am]
Gamelinks.net takes a
look at Vampire: Masquerade from Nihilistic
which is easily one of the hottest looking games of the year. If you havent taken the time
to read up on a preview or at least check out some sceenshots you're missing out. Here are
some shots for ya: shot1
, shot2 , shot3 , shot4.
" The Multiplayer option of the game is an old RPG idea that has never been properly adapted into a Computer Role Playing game. The multiplayer mode is a type of story teller mode that will allow the person hosting the server to become the game master.... as the game master, you can use the tools that should ship with the game to create new levels, and new storyline scripts. The game master will also be able to control Non Player characters as well as adjusting combat mechanics and more! The game will be shipping with the QERadiant editor. "
Daily Discussion: Cheating? [7:15 am]
Thanks Izno: Cheating has put a sour taste in the mouth of gamers for years. One of the
best examples is Diablo from Blizzard which was hugely popular, (and still is) but went to
hell when all the cheats started coming out. How much time do you think developers should
spend on preventing cheating? Is it economically wise? A developer can a huge amount of
time working on code that only impacts a small percentage of the gamers, or does it? How many people actually cheat?
Out of 100 Quake2 players, what is your guess?
More Duke4 From Broussard [7:15 am]
George Broussard is just going goofy on the 3DRealms Messageboard
answering questions people have about their Unreal engine based Duke3D sequel. Here's a
bit of his latest posting talking about engine technology:
We thought the engines were more flexible than they were. But it turns out that both Quake 2 AND Unreal needed HEAVY modifications to do a Duke game. That was unexpected. Every time we tried to do some Duke thing we hit a wall and the engine had to be modified.
We originally didn't even intend on switching from Q1 to Q2. That's what the PC Gamer article was based on and that's what we gave the estimates on. Had we not switched we would have saved several months. But Q2 had enough new stuff in it that we were forced to switch (or re-engineer Quake 1 - and we hadn't been working with it that long to make that an option as Valve had with Half-Life).
Also bear in mind that release estimates given nearly 2 years ago was when we were still learning and working out the best way to deal with release estimates.
New Drakan Demo [7:15 am]
A new version of the Drakan demo from Surreal Software
was released yesterday which includes all the bug fixes for problems that people have dug
up with the original and second release. There is also a new feature in the demo where you
can pick up arrows. Here is some clarification from the Drakan.net
guys: Grab the Gigex for
Modem Users or Gigex
for LAN Users behind a firewall. Thanks Redwood.
Wondering wtf Drakan is still? Here are some screenshots: docks screen6 bridge lowbridge fireball dragon burning
The most frequently asked question seems to be, "Does it contain bug fixes, or does it just add a new weapon?" Well, it contains both! There are a TON of bugs which were squished in the v2a demo. Far too many to mention here, but I will name a few of the bigger ones. The voice-drop bug a lot of people with 3d sound cards experienced, there was the DirectX install issue, the Winsock 2 issue, some Voodoo3 and Banshee problems. There was that nasty 16 bit desktop bug that got a LOT of people. Many collision issues were improved upon, as well. The AI was pretty much broken in the first demo, expecially the spiders. Of course, there is Arokh's new lightning attack in the new demo, as well.
Views [7:15 am]
Tech [7:15 am]
Gaming [7:15 am]
werd
Well, I got the fingershack.com and fileshack.com domains registered yesterday. Jack
wanted to call it "shackfinger" but I felt that the phrase fingershack was just
too damn cool to pass up, ya know? Who wouldnt go to a fingershack? I mean really..
Image(s) of the day today are quite impressive from this weekend when there was a
black-out of sorts on the net. 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
| Sunday June 13, 1999 |
Progress! [5:15 pm]
Got all kinds of stuff done here today behind the scenes. Shack database stuff, .plan
tracker page, and files section are all going well. I'm confident that the
"fingershack" and "fileshack" will be ready to go this week. It's
strange how the most work always seems to get done on the wekends around here. Here are a
bunch of those preview/review things listed below to keep you guys occupied for a Saturday
afternoon before you go out and get drunk and get arrested.
More Views [5:25 pm]
Daily Discussion: What's Next? [11:45 am]
So, generally speaking it all started with Wolf3D, then Doom/2, and Quake/2/3. Each one of
the new games progressed to a new level of gaming. Moving from Wolf3D to Doom we
experienced multiplayer for the first time, and of course levels with sector technology
which introduced elevation changes and in turn impacted gameplay. Moving from Doom to
Quake we began playing over the internet, the world became "true" 3D introducing
polygon characters and actual 3D geometry for the world. This also impacted gameplay
dramatically. So.. anyone
have any guesses for what the next step for 3D gaming is? Is it just improving image
quality from this point forward?
note: I carried this one over from yesterday since the page wasnt available to a lot of people, and also I find it really damn interesting. :)
Tim Sweeney on OpenGL / Unreal [11:45 am]
Check it out, VE fired some email
over to Tim Sweeney asking about the performance of Unreal using OpenGL acceleration. He
has a few theories about the performance issues, here are a couple of them:
Theory 3 (general purpose equals slow theory):
OpenGL has a ton more options for texture formats, memory layouts, etc than OpenGL and Glide, so hardware vendors don't have time to optimize for all of those cases, whereas they can for Glide and Direct3D.Theory 4 (Sweeney sucks theory):
Tim's OpenGL code sucks (judge for yourself, it's available on http://unreal.epicgames.com).
Duke4Ever [11:45 am]
George Broussard of 3DRealms is posting once
in a while to the 3DR
BBS. Most recently he made a post talking about the Unreal engine they are using for
Duke4 and a reader questioning the level of interactivity that was possible with the
technology. Here's what George had to say: (Thanks Blue)
We've done so. DNF is the most interactive FPS game I've ever seen as it stands right now. Some is done with meshes. Some with world brushes. But we have god-like control over both and it leads to "emergent" gameplay the likes of which you've never seen
That's a large part of what we spent our first 6 months doing with Unreal. Making it more flexible dealing with interaction. The last 6 months have dealt with character systems and interaction
Mech3 Page [11:45 am]
The Zipper folks have just updated their official
MechWarrior3 page with a bunch of extra cool info/images of... MechWarrior3! I'm
probably gonna pick up a copy today actually, the demo was great. They've got FAQ's, a
messageboard, and all kinds of useful stuff.
Prince of Persia Beta Testing [11:45 am]
Captain 3rd hand news here. Via VE: DemoNews sends
word that SSI's Beta Test Central has
posted word of a beta test for Prince of Persia 3D.
Prince of Persia is the much-anticipated sequel to the original series which has sold over 2 million copies worldwide. PC Review called the original "A genuine contender for the greatest action game of all time".
Remaining true to its heritage, Prince of Persia 3D seamlessly combines the fast paced combat of a fighting game with the depth and challenge of a timeless adventure. Its stunning animation and advanced 3D technology returns the Prince to his rightful place amongst the legendary characters of gaming history.
Views [11:45 am]
Tech [11:45 am]
werd
So it seems hafl the country couldnt access the page yesterday (Myself included) I
actually had to email my updates to a friend and have him post them for me amazingly
enough. That's what makes the internet just so damn exciting right there. Well, that and
all the naked pictures everywhere.
The new .plan tracker Jack put together yesterday has a lot more functionality than I expected. It's basically everything QuakeFinger does and it only took him two days to do it. Now if I could convince him to put that "right click, add to unbound" function in GameSpy I might actually buy the guy lunch! We'd go to one of those classy joints like Sizzler or something.
| 3DNews.net | News Archives | copyright Steve Gibson 1998 |
