| Saturday, January 16 |
Half-Life v1.0.0.8 Server [1:15 pm]
The WON Half-Life Primary Server page
has posted the new server program for you to grab if you plan on running HL servers on the
net for the rest of us to play on. It's a 65meg download.
Half-Life Server 65megs
While you are at it, saw on Blue's this Half-Life Server Manager.
IonGate [1:15 pm]
Check out this 3DN article from Sam
which compiles just about every link you could want concerning the Ion Storm fiasco and
all the public information that is available on just what is going on up there.
Q3A Guide [1:15 pm]
There is a new 12 page Quake III Arena Guide over at www.q3arena.net which covers just about everything there
is to know about Q3A. It goes into much more detail than many of the recent previews
id software originally planned to release Trinity, a single player game with a highly advanced 3D engine and networking code, this was stopped due to the expected long development time of Trinity. Quake 3 was born, a combination of the work done on the Trinity engine and the levels done for the official mission pack with the old q2 network code. Later it was announced that they abandoned this in favour of a deathmatch style only game to be called Quake 3: Arena. Reasons for this was that they were getting bored of doing the same style of game all the time, doing this would also enable them to concentrate fully on a deathmatch game not just as an afterthought.
DirectX v6.1 [1:15 pm]
Thanks to Marco for the word that DirectX v6.1
is now showing up on the Microsoft official
download servers. You can grab it from these two locations:
Baldur's Gate Patch [1:15 pm]
Absolutely not 3D Shooter related, but so many of you
guys play this game I figure I should mention it. Interplay has released a 4mb patch for Baldur's Gate which
addresses a few of the problems people have run into.
Gamers Alliance Contest [1:15 pm]
Wanna chance to win $12000 in prize? The Gamers Alliance page has "re-launched" with a
new layout, and a new approach to their gaming articles and news coverage. Check out the
new page, and check
out the contest details.
Screenshots [1:15 pm]
I moved all the recent Quake3 screenshots to the screenshots page of course, I'm also collecting as
many AVI's etc of game footage that I can. If you know a URL of AVI's etc that I should
grab, drop me some mail.
Views [1:15pm]
Tech [1:15pm]
werd
Saw Varisity Blues. I want to commend the
writers on fulfilling the dream of high school boys everywhere. Going to a strip club and
finding out your health teacher is a stripper.
The man Sander has word that hopefully the new improved msgboard which shows 100+ msgs at a time, works with older browsers, and has much faster load times is nearing completion. Pray for a Monday launch eh?
Oh, also I've been talking with a hardware vendor about getting you guys some special "Shack discounts" on gaming hardware from motherboards to monitors.
| Friday, January 15 |
Slow Day? [6:35 pm]
Why yes! yes it is! Oh, that "article I
think you guys will enjoy" I mentioned last weekend, I'll be getting most of the
research done for it tomorrow. Couple days later than expected, but hopefully worth the
wait. :)
CPU Price Chart [6:35 pm]
CPU-Central.com has posted a very detailed CPU price chart, with the numbers
supposedly coming from a source with an NDA with Intel, so it should be accurate...
Windows2000 Slips [2:45 pm]
The man Redwood
pointed the way to this article on PC
Week talking about the slipping of Windows2000 beta releases. Microsoft claims this
will not impact the final shipping date, but uh.. yeah read the article and decide for
yourself.
Speaking of crazy articles, check out this MP4 launch article on News.com. Thanks Maverick
Reasons To Live [2:45 pm]
What, you thought the world sucked and you
thinking about ending it all? I've lost count of how many lives I have saved with this
section, Perhaps you need saving too?
More ION [12:15 pm]
You check out that Dallas Observer article
yesterday? Well they have updated it with even more information
including some actual internal emails that were traded around within ION Storm concerning
sales of a percentage of the company to Eidos. Thanks to an A.Nonymous tipster. :)
PentiumIII 500mhz [10:31 am]
FiringSquad has posted a full review of the new CPU's
from Intel formerly known as Katmai. It looks like the benchmarks at the same clock
speed as a P2 are nearly the same. We'll have to wait for the developers to start using
KNI optimization for some real improvements.
TRIBES [10:31 am]
Couple of bits for TRIBES, Game
Links have posted their review of Dynamix's
Starsiege Tribes, which you can check out here Having a hard time with TRIBES? Getting reamed by those
mortars? Check out the Venom Clan
FAQ which should help a number of you guys. Got those from MeccaWire & VE
HL Guide [10:31 am]
Gamers.com has released GX Half-life! The guide features an in-depth
multiplayer section with info on just about everything a Half-Lifer needs to know
including game setup, detailed weapons characteristics, and advanced strategies and
tactics from GX-Nemisis.
International HL Patch [10:31 am]
Saw on VE the Half-Life patch that came out a
couple of days ago has now gone international. Here are all the different languaged
versions for ya:
Views [8:15am]
Views [8:15am]
werd
Thought you guys would like this from McTaggart at
3DN:
"Electronic Arts is recalling 100,000 copies of Tiger Woods 99 PGA Tour (Playstation version) after discovering an "obscenity-laced" episode of SOUTH PARK on the unused portion of the disc. Apparently, people found it by reading the Playstation disc in their PC's CD-ROM drive (whatever would they do that for?). Of course, EA's launching an investigation on how the "unauthorized material" got onto the discs."
| Thursday, January 14 |
Babylon5 [5:25 pm]
The Babylon5 website has posted a couple of trailers
from the game for you kids to check out. Thanks to GA for
the word.
Messiah [5:25 pm]
Sharky's got a first glimpse of Messiah,
including some nice new screenshots for you to look at.
Messiah will be powered by Shiny's proprietary RT-DAT, or Real Time Deformation and Tessellation engine. Depending on scene complexity and available processor power, the RT-DAT engine will add or remove polygons from the characters and object models in an attempt to keep the frame rate running at a constant pace. Objects farther away from the Bob will have reduced polygons to save precious processing power while those closer to him will be displayed with a higher amount of detail.
LithTech [12:25 pm]
Wondering why the BloodShot (Ex-Ion employees)
chose to use Monolith's LitTech engine? Was it money? Check out a .plan update
from Jason Hall:
Quoting some of the reasons Bloodshot decided to go with Lithtech would give away a bit of our game design, so Ill leave those out (these are actually some of the strongest reasons because they allows us to take a direction which we feel has been neglected in recent FPS titles).
As a programmer, I was impressed with Lithtechs overall design, extensibility and clean codebase. Lithtech was definitely built with the intention of licensing it to other companies and not just for one game. Monoliths commitment to support is also exceptional and this helps minimize the downtime associated with taking on a new technology.
Feature for feature, Lithtech stands toe-to-toe with all the big boys. Monolith is committed to expanding Lithtechs capabilities and because of the intelligence that went into its structure, Lithtech can continue to improve. With a Monolith team dedicated full-time to improving the engine good things will happen and the standard Lithtech agreement entitles Bloodshot to those improvements until we ship the game.
Demos [12:25 pm]
After suffering through 1k/s uploads, the weekly demos have been posted. 2 outa 3
at least.
Argh, no idea why but I can only upload at like 1k/s to my server. Taking a bit longer than I had hoped. Maybe I should plan ahead next time? AHAHAHAHA Oh man that's funny. PLAN AHEAD?!?! ROFL OMFG.. Oh god I can't stop laughing.
Image Scripts? [11:25 am]
Gotten a couple emails asking why the switch to
cgi scripts by Hoonis for inline images on my website. Well it's to keep guys from loading
images remotely off my server and costing me $ for bandwidth. Here is the fun part. (Make sure and hit
reload) The webmaster is not aware of those huge banners showing up on his page.. heehee.
Half-Life v1.0.0.8 Patch [8:15 am]
The long awaited patch for Half-Life can now be
downloaded via the Sierra "auto update" feature that was included with the
installation. You can check out the full press release at PlanetFortress Here are some alternative
download sites:
| Location | 1.0.0.6 Patch | 1.0.0.5 Patch |
| Blues | 10061008.exe | 10051008.exe |
| Redwood | 10061008.exe | 10051008.exe |
| Sierra FTP | 10061008.exe | 10051008.exe |
Sorry I fell asleep yesterday night before posting these mirrors. :(
ION Expose [8:15 am]
You really wondering what has been going on
over at Ion Storm? The Dallas Observer Online has an article on ION Storm
- check out this lead-in:
Hot new computer game maker ION Storm appears to have all it needs for success top talent, plenty of money, and legions of anxious fans. So why is its future so cloudy?
The article goes on to discuss how ION Storm has been "hemorrhaging employees," as well as some financial analysis. Take a look before ION Storm's legal people get it yanked...
New GameSpy [8:15 am]
Up to v2.07 now. Head on over to www.gamespy.com and grab the new version. There is now
added support for a few new games including a couple that arent even out yet. Make sure
and register it!
Valve Ports TF1 [8:15 am]
Carried this over from yesterday since it was
posted to late. Big news from Valve, Check out PlanetFortress for the full scoop. Here is part
of an email from Robin Walker. Thanks SpaceMan Spif
...what better mod to test out the strength of an SDK than the original Team Fortress?
So we made Team Fortress Classic, a port of TF to Half-Life. While we were careful to leave the gameplay intact, we took advantage of the Half-Life engine to do a bunch of new effects and cut down on net traffic. The Press Release I've attached has some more details.
On a side note, there's been a lot of discussion lately about Valve and what we're doing with TF. The bottom line is simply that Valve's focused on creating the best games and figuring out the best way to deliver them. Occasionally,we may change our plans... but only if we think we've come up with a better wayof creating or delivering great games. We're stoked that the Half-Life SDK madeit possible for us to give you Team Fortress Classic so quickly. We're nowmoving into heads down mode on TF2, doing our best to make it live up to your expectations as a worthy successor of TF. We'll be telling you more about that in the months to come.
Next-Gen Q3 Shots [8:15 am]
A big wet one to Amer at SharkyExtreme for scanning these images for me.
The latest issue of Next-Generation has a new
article on Quake3 which along with featuring a nice story on the game and their progress,
features a number of new screenshots. Here are a few of them for you to check out. Make
sure and grab the latest copy of Next-Generation
to see all the shots and read a good article. :)
Views [8:15am]
Team Fortress Classic has exactly the same gameplay as Team Fortress with all new graphics. Chuck Jones is doing the models for the player classes. Steve Theodore is doing new weapon models. We could have kept the existing Quake weapon models, but we had the bandwidth for Steve to do new ones. John and I worked on it over Christmas break. While we've had to help get some SDK issues sorted through, it will have been a couple of weeks of our time when everything is said and done.
Tech [8:15am]
werd
So like I was telling Amer, Late at night after
I eat some spicy food, I make sure to keep this plastic bag and a lighter next to my bed.
The plan being whenever I have some gas I hold the bag over my backside and save it up.
That way in case those Canadians ever invade the US, and they pin me inside my house
demanding that I come outside and surrender, I just hold that bag over the lighter and
blow us all to hell! I'M TAKING THOSE BASTARDS WITH ME!
You have to plan ahead to get ahead.
| Wednesday, January 13 |
MacWorld Q3 Shots [5:05 pm]
It's just crazy Quake3 screenshot day today
huh? The id Software Quake3Arena web page has
just posted some REAL screenshots for you guys to check out. These are images straight
from id so they are about as high quality as you'll get until the game comes out. Thanks
to BigImp for the word. :)
Jim Daly - Ion [3:35 pm]
GAGames has just posted their interview with Jim Daly
of Ion Storm, Daikatana's conceptual artist. In addition to some info and background on
his life, his work, and his opinions, there are some also some bits of new artwork worth
checking out.
More Quake3 [12:05 pm]
Check out the new 3DSpotlight Quake3 preview.
Nice and technical minded. btw fixed the top link in the ass-wack links.
Bezier curves will be used to make realistic curved surfaces, that's a big improvement over the box like rooms we were used to. Volumetric Fog will be also included to make a cool atmosphere and richer enviroments. Skins will have an incredible detail, now 512x512 pixels textures are being used. Specular lightning should make look better metallic and bright surfaces. Dynamic shadows will be used but not on moving objects because the requierements would be way too high. Tesselation also called Level Of Detail (LOD) will help slower computers since it removes polygons on models located far from your position, sure if you've got a monster machine you can turn off this option. It's also important to mention that Quake 3 will use 24 bit textures which should make everything look better.
Quake3 Shots? [9:45 am]
Ok I know where these shots came from now, but I'm a
jerk and wont tell you. They are high resoultion images from what appears to be the same
level that the recent Q3 AVI was made on. Check them out.
I saw on VE however that PlanetUnreal (which I can't get to as I post this) has some higher quality images. Even if they arent legit, they sure are purty. For a comparison here is a shot that Redwood sent from the AVI.
Ass-Wack Links [10:15 am]
Got some real winners posted this week. A big thanks to everyone who keeps
sending these things in. Yup, it's proof every week that there are people out there who
are stranger than Huntsman! Speaking of other pages, check out SinisterFluid.com for a nice little
hardware/gaming page.
QuakeWorld Draft Tonight [10:15 am]
The QuakeWorld
Draft League HPB East draft is tentatively scheduled for tonight on IRC Gamesnet in
the #QDL channel. If you one of the selected team captains your ass better show up!
New Half-Life Map [9:45 am]
PC.IGN has scored
the exclusive on the release of a new Half-Life map from Sierra & Valve.
Looking for a new level to spice up your Half-Life multi-player games? Take a look at this little beauty sent to us earlier today by Sierra. According to the folks over at Valve, this level, titled "Gasworks," is their favorite non-team level (apparently "Crossfire" is their favorite teamplay map). Designed by Randy Lundeen, Gasworks was designed with the sniper and the crossbow in mind.
SIN Mission Pack [9:45 am]
A .plan update
by Tom Kudirka from 2015 gives away a few more details on the SIN mission pack which is
near release.
We believe it’s the most expansive add-on pack ever created. It includes 17 new single player levels, 7 new weapons, 12 new deathmatch levels, 4 new characters, 12 new enemies that include 2 end-level bosses. We have made changes to the AI, vehicle code, particle effects, etc.
We created new music tracks, sounds, dialog, cinematics, effects, traps and a completely new storyline, which of course teams us up with Blade and his side kick JC.
Something else that’s new to the SiN universe is the Hoverbike. We’ve created from scratch new vehicle code, which allows the player to ride around on something similar to a levitating motorcycle. It’s equipped with 3 weapons and a turbo-boost that can really accelerate your speed. We have so much fun playing Hoverbike Deathmatch that we think it will be the next big thing.
Unreal 221 Update [9:45 am]
More postings by Mark Rein
of Epic discussing Unreal 221 on the megaboard. Here's a clip:
So what does this have to do with the 221 patch? Because this new OpenGL driver will need testing by end-users we decided to hold the release of the 221 patch to include it in order to avoid having to release two patches in quick succession or delay testing of the new OpenGL driver until a later patch was ready to go. Yes we know we’re guilty of feature-creep but in this case we feel it’s justified. It may be another few days or even a week or more before 221 is ready to release but we feel that in 221 we’ll now have a really awesome OpenGL solution that’s going to be every bit as good, and maybe even better than our Glide support. Finally Unreal can really push the full potential of the very powerful TNT and Rage 128 cards and hopefully provide acceptable accelerated performance on some of the lower-end cards too
Demo Specs Update [9:45 am]
Blues page has
word on Uwe Girlich updating his Demo
specs page covering Quake, QuakeWorld, and Quake2 demo file specifications for those
of you interested in hax0ring around with that stuff.
Views [9:15am]
Tech [9:15am]
werd
Was at IHOP again last night and I finally spotted
the track marks on the arm of the waitress. She shoots up like a champ!
Ass-Wack Linkage will go up in about an hour.
| Tuesday, January 12 |
More Q3 & ATI [9:25 pm]
Blue has gotten a
response from Brian Hook concerning Quake3 & ATI's 128 card that was posted on 3DGaming.com earlier. Here is part of it:
Quake3 supports various OpenGL extensions, however there are no ATI specific extensions within Q3 at this time. The only IHV specific extension in place is support for S3's texture compression (hopefully to be replaced with a more general compressed texture extension). We strongly believe in open standards, and as such would not be interested in supporting any extensions unique to an IHV _for the sole purpose of locking out other manufacturers_. We will, however, support IHV specific extensions that allow for greater performance on that platform, even if other IHVs do not have the capability to support that extension.
SWBell & DSL [7:15 pm]
Wanna be LPB? Redwood
spotted this article on
InfoWorld stating that SWBell will be rolling out DSL service in 5 states.
The planned launch of ADSL to SBC's Southwestern Bell customers in Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kansas would provide ADSL access to 3.2 million residential customers and 440,000 businesses. It is the second stage of SBC's broader ADSL plan, the telecommunications company said.
Voodoo3 Shots [7:15 pm]
SharkyExtreme has posted some shots of a few games running on Voodoo3
hardware. It looks incredibly like Voodoo2 shots, except they say Voodoo3 next to
them.
MacKiDo [2:55 pm]
A Mac fan page article which has gotten
a lot of response due to being linked on SlashDot
might interest some of you guys. Have a look at a guy who can't refute any of Carmack's
statements, but tries to anyway. One of the comments I like best:
Carmack: Apple doesn't have good 3D support
MacKiDo: Ya, but look how good QuickDraw 3D is!
MacKiDo: But then again, it suck for games...
MacKiDo: So Carmack is right after all.
Havas Buys Cendant Consumer Software [1:15 pm]
I don't normally cover stuff like this but this one
is espcially interesting. Big thanks to Marc for forwarding it.
Cendant Corporation (NYSE: CD) today announced it has completed the sale of the Company's consumer software division, Cendant Software and its subsidiaries, to Paris-based Havas SA, a subsidiary of Vivendi, SA for $800 million in cash plus future potential cash payments. As previously announced, the sale of Cendant Software, which includes Knowledge Adventure, Blizzard Entertainment, Davidson & Associates and Sierra On-Line, is part of a program by Cendant Corporation to sell non-core assets in order to focus on the Company's strategic business model, repay debt and repurchase stock. On October 13, the Company announced a $1 billion share repurchase program.
The Company stated that over the past 30 days, Cendant has received more than $1.3 billion in proceeds from asset sales, which the Company has used to repurchase stock and reduce indebtedness. Since commencement of its previously reported stock repurchase program, the Company has reduced primary shares outstanding by about 25 million shares.
Statements about future results made in this release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on current expectations and the current economic environment. The Company cautions that these statements are not guarantees of future performance. They involve a number of risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Important assumptions and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-look statements are specified in the Company's Prospectus Supplement dated November 24, 1998
The full press release should be on Yahoo soon. Here is a link to the headline. Here is news of the closing of consumer software division as well. Thanks Amer.
Rage128GL & Quake3? [9:15 am]
3DGaming.com has posted some info for those of you
thinking about that new video card you might need for Quake3. The #1 recommendation from
id's Brian Hook has been the TNT (Yes, over a voodoo2) but have a look at what 3DGaming.com has to say:
Rumor has it that ATI is closely working with ID on Quake Arena, as shown with the new G3 Macintoshes at Macworld, and under NDA at Comdex. What's new, and most enticing is a new rumor that ATI's Rage128, thanks to its hardware feature set, will have support for some special Quake Arena OpenGL extensions that buy additional performance. Hardware support for these extensions are apparently difficult such that "most competing cards" will not have support for them. If this is true, the Rage128 would be the ideal platform for Quake Arena with its multi-texturing capability, high-performance 32-bit color rendering, and now, special OpenGL extensions.
Also, dont forget to check out what Tom's Hardware had to say about the chip, along with heat issues. Thanks Brian Wilson
Wisdom [12:45 pm]
As I have proven time and time again, I am wise
beyond my years. Having that special gift I feel obligated to share my wisdom with the world in HTML
format. Don't let the fact that I spend my days talking about meat farts fool you, I
am smaht!
AMEN [9:15
am]
The Gamers Alliance Guys have gotten a hold of a couple new screenshots of
the CaveDog AMEN project which is looking pretty darn cool. Here is a feature list:
*17 acts (too large to be called levels) Many acts are ten times larger than a typical level found in most first-person action games.
*Compelling gameplay: Sure, you're a highly trained commando, but sometimes frag-festing is the wrong way to go. You've got to use your skills, wits and brains to get out alive.
*Challenging puzzles: Locked-door puzzles are boring. Amen: The Awakening features a huge variety of adventure-game style puzzles that are realistic and intuitive.
*Realistic Environments: Explore subway systems, airports, military complexes (and a few surprises we can't mention yet) that are built to scale.
Heretic & Hexen Source [9:15 am]
The code has been released by Raven Software, here is
part of the .plan update
from Kenn Hoekstra:
Madison, WI - January 11, 1999 - Raven Software announced today that the source code for the blockbuster classic games Heretic and Hexen is now available for download on the World Wide Web from Raven Software's network at http://www2.ravensoft.com/source. The downloadable file is approximately one meg in size and comes complete with an installer and readme files.
Views [9:15am]
Tech [9:15am]
werd
Those chocolate pancakes over at IHOP are absolutely
nasty. I'll have the weekly section posted as always after I get some breakfast and pick
my nose. (In no particular order)
For those of you emailing me about loading speed, yea things have slowed down a bit. Server = getting hammered. Will be looking into solutions next week.
| Monday, January 11 |
SIN Pack AVI [4:15pm]
The Ritualistic
website has gotten a hold of a new little AVI that is pretty
nifty. This is footage from the 2015 SIN mission pack which we should see on the shelves
fairly soon.
Wedge & Chory [11:55am]
Check it out, Steve Bond and John Guthrie of Valve
Software busting out with a
Q&A at the Divide and Conquer website.
Pentium III [11:55am]
Intel has put out the official press release
for their Pentium3 CPU's. Thanks Mark
The new Pentium III name builds upon one of the world's most recognized brands to convey the most powerful personal computing experience for the next generation of the Internet. Scheduled to be introduced later in the first quarter of 1999, the new Pentium III processor offers enhanced multimedia realism and is a sound investment for all of today's and tomorrow's applications.
Suck [11:55am]
The weekly
suck has been posted. If you dont like it, or you feel that I have offended you in any
way, then you suck. Yup, I'm handing out the first suck absolutely free!
Quake3 Player Models [9:15am]
Anna Kang of id Software resolved the debate on my Quake3 mesageboard concerning the player
models in Quake3.
Q3A models:
- hierarchically connected deformed meshes
- player models up to 5 pieces
That answers that eh? Also in case you were wondering you were looking at the medium player model in the recent Quake3 AVI that showed up last week. Pete's Hardware Domain has posted a couple more formats of the video for ya.
Quake3 & Linux [9:15am]
Saw on Blue's that Slashdot.org has a post made
by Zoid concerning his Quake3 Linux work.
My current platform support for is clients on Linux x86 and SGI IRIX. For servers I'm supporting Linux Alpha, Solaris x86 and Solaris Sparc. LinuxPPC may be considered, but I couldn't get LinuxPPC to install on my Mac G3 machine.
Quake3 is a hardware _ONLY_ game for visuals. You must have OpenGL hardware support. Currently, that means MesaGL with VooDoo, but I have also got stuff working with XiGraphics Accelerated X11 as well. I have hardware Quake2 up and running with a Number Nine Revolution III card using OpenGL on it. I'll be testing Quake3 with it shortly. :)
<snip>
Decay [9:15am]
Jim Malmros or Insomnia Software dropped us a line explaining
a bit more exactly what is up with those screenshots that myself and a few other pages
posted.
The DVA-engine has been developed with the capacity to render photorealistic environments in realtime as the primary goal. We have taken a huge step forward by developing technology capable of handling arbitrary geometry straight out of any 3D-modelling package and currently we use 3DSMax. The lighting system does not use lightmaps, but instead calculates all light interaction dynamically, resulting in a very high lighting/shadeing quality since the light is calculated at every pixel and not interpolated in any way. The systems responsible for these computations are written entirely in hand-optimized machinecode and tested and tweaked beyond belief to be able to deliver this at realtime framerates. This also means that all lights and shadows are completely dynamic; any light can be moved or altered in realtime and will cast the appropriate shadow(s). This approach to lighting is also important to the quality of bumpmapping which needs pixel-perfect incoming light angles/intensity to look good
Want more? There is an interview with Jim posted over at 3DN.net talking about what type of system will be required to run it etc.
Carmack Speaks [9:15am]
John Carmack over at id Software made a .plan
update yesterday afternoon going pretty in depth on his thoughts of the new Mac
machines hitting the market and why he has chosen to support them with a simultaneous
release of Q3Test this March.
Ok, many of you have probably heard that I spoke at the macworld keynote on tuesday. Some information is probably going to get distorted in the spinning and retelling, so here is an info dump straight from me:
Q3test, and later the full commercial Quake3: Arena, will be simultaniously released on windows, mac, and linux platforms.
<snip>
Views [9:15am]
Tech [9:15am]
werd
I know you are but what am I?
Check out this Q3A background that Redwood posted.
| Sunday, January 10 |
Hardware! [4:50 pm] - Huntsman
Heh, you didn't think it would get updated. Well me
either! But it's updated. So go
check it out. No actual hardware changes, but some price changes. Some of you guys are
going to write me asking "What about the Celeron 366 or the Celeron 400?!?!"
Well I have no idea. Nobody felt it was necessary to send one to us here at the shack, and
I'm too poor to go out and buy one. So if you wanna hook me up (cough, anybody work at Intel?
Harpax?) I'll get up a review and tell you guys whats up.
Quake3 [9:15 am]
How about we just sit around with our thumbs up our
butts for a couple of months and contemplate Quake3? I've been seriously considering it.
The thumb isnt so bad once you get used to it. Here is another preview for
you to dig on:
Player models have also been improved over previous Quake games. The character will be divided into 2 parts and the head will indicate where the player is looking. The upper body will rotate about the lower and provide a more realistic appearance. Deformable mesh animation has been replaced with a faster segmented system which will provide adequate pieces for flying gibs. The animations are all being done on a standard Windows NT box using 3D Studio Max and motion capture data for reference. With the model being divided, upper and lower body animations can be meshed more realistic. You will now be able to run by another player while giving him the finger instead of "skating" by them (as in QuakeII). When shipped, the game will include approximately 12 models.
Once you are done with that preview, check out this one at the incredibly annoying GameStream. Ever heard of too much scripting on a website? Also, last thing. In case you are *still* confused about the release date of Q3Test. It's in MARCH. Here's another quote from a John Carmack email thanks to BigImp:
BigImp:..Which is going to be released in March? If it's the retail, does that mean we're getting the test Real Soon Now (tm)? :)
Carmack:The test should be in march, with the game a good bit later.
New PingTool [9:15 am]
Saw on AGN that a new PingTool has been released. All kinds of goodies for
you to play with including "integrated ICQ support"
PingTool 2.5 Beta 2 is available on from the downloads page. This version includes improvements to the ICQ Integration (the cool new feature that lets helps you coordinate your kill'in with your friends). This release also includes improved ping sharing, a new busy-server redial feature, and the ability to set your own custom background image (see screen shots below). See PingTool 2.5 Beta 2 Release Notes for complete details.
Q3Arena Movie Mirrors [9:15 am]
Our man Redwood
posted a mirror list for those of you who *still* havent checked out that Q3A movie. I'll
start carrying links to impressive AVI's in the screenshots
section. Here's Sean: PC
Game Review has a mirror of the Q3A movies I posted earlier this week. JVOX's Boomstick has posted the MPEG version. Also, here are
some European mirrors of the files:
quake.quipo.it/ quake.flashnet.it/ www.g-o-l.com/quake/ www.ngitalia.net/ ftp.barrysworld.com/other/movies/
Views [9:15am]
Tech [9:15am]
werd
Paint chips dont even taste half as good as they did
when I was 7. Bummer.
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