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Unreal
Well, you guys should go check your local
software store. Today is the big day, Unreal is actually shipping and appearing on shelves
as of today. Of course I got email from GT telling me that I would have a CD on my
doorstep a couple of days ago. It never happened.
Player movement is predicted client side, and is quite smooth even on laggy connections.
- Steve Polge
Steve didnt mention whether or not Unreal uses UDP or not but I'm assuming so since he says it works well over a lagged connection.
Unfortunately I think Tim forgot that early next week is E3. Because of other things we have to do for the retail release, including French, Italian, German and Spanish versions, and the fact that we're all leaving for E3 early next week, there is no way Unreal Shareware can be released before E3. It's not fair to our publisher to leave these whole countries waiting while we work on the shareware. It will be sometime after E3. When we know the exact date we'll let you guys know. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.
Quake2 v3.15
On last nights QuakeCast Zoid mentioned the fact that the Quake2
Mission Pack #1 that is now shipping includes a new version of the Quake2 .exe that was in
testing for over a month. I was lucky enough to be one of the guys helping Zoid test it
out and many players should be pretty happy with the features. One of the coolest things
is the fact that if you disconnect while downloading models/maps etc and reconnect, the
file actually resumes where it left off, w00.
RBR Log
The RBR chat that went down last night, well,
you miss it? Then there is a log
of the events for you to dig on over at the www.boatrocker.com
website.
Blood2
The official Blood2 site has been updated by the
webmasters who amazingly enough happen to work for Monolith as well. The weekly update of
course includes more details on why we should think the LithTech engine is so damn cool
(lookin forward to seeing it at E3) and a couple more screenshots for you to take a gander
at as well.
Die By The Sword Patch
A new patch from Interplay has been
released for Die By The Sword. Not sure what is fixed or changed in this version but I
imagine if you happen to own the game it would be a good idea to download it eh? I linked
the file on AVault.
sIn Stuff
The Views
werd
A lot of downloading last night, whew. Um, it
was public domain MP3's, yea... I just happened to download 60 different 3meg mp3's last
night. <deleted> thanks for the offers guys, I'm not really *that* much into mp3's
though. :)
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QW 2.21
Looks like most of the concerns have been
addressed with QuakeWorld 2.2 and 2.21 is getting close to shipping. For you kids who just
cant wait though the latest 2.21 servers have moved to a new IP address now using dual
cpu's. (someone forgot to compile their kernel for dual cpus before on the old IP, doh!)
Thanks to demo for running these bad boys:
128.95.25.184 : 27500, 27501, 27502, 27503
Stuff that has been "fixed" since 2.2? Map CRC optional watervis maps will not kick you off, packetloss reduced, Server CPU use reduced, and a few other things as well.
Half-Life
Jaspur sent out word that the cool website
dedicated to Valve's Half-Life project that just popped (Contaminated.net)up has posted an interview with Mike Harrington
discussing um.. i can't remember. My guess is that it would be pretty interesting though.
Commandos owns
That Commandos demo I mentioned
yesterday.. Well like I took a look at the game today and WOW. Very cool. Its got a very
unique feel to the game and I can't really think of what class to fit it in. The features
in it such as the field of view tracker stuff just really impressed me. (Wish I could see
my own players fov though, wtf is up with that?) The mission breifings with the camera
tracking all over the place is really cool too. Check out the homepage.
ICQ is owned
Ugh, looks like its all over. ICQ has been
purchased by AOL. As Redwood said, the apocolypse is upon us. I hate to even think of what
AOL plans on doing to this cool app. Oh well, check out the Daily
News article on the deal sent to me by Tony. The price? $300 million.
Q2 Mission Pack #1
Word has it that the Q2 Mission pack has gone
gold. Todd Hollenshead, CEO over there at id Software has confirmed it and stuff. Hrm...
Unreal, Q2 Mission pack, hrm.... I'll take a N64 and Goldeneye, thanks :)
Unreal
If you cant wait to get your hands on a copy
of Unreal it looks like you'll be able to snag copies of it from the Electronics Boutique
for about 30 bucks as early as this Friday. It should be just about everywhere by the end
of the weekend. Just a note, the internet play does not use UDP from what I remember. No
prediction code, yea.. ice skating.. cant wait :)
PowerVR & Sega
Looks like the news has gone officialy public
concerning the deal that PowerVR has worked out with Sega to use their 3D chipset on the
next console system planned by the boys. Also involved in the new deal
is Microsoft. Apparently a version of Windows CE will be shipping with the console as
well? Wow.. this should be interesting. -Blues
E3 Delights
All kinds of crazy stuff for the E3 rush.
Check out all this crap. Btw, I'll be in attendance most likely to let you guys know whats
cool and who had the booth with the chick with the largest bustulous boobs. (Thanks Gary)
The Releases
The Chats
werd
Yeesh, ok guys talk about a mailbomb on those
QW demos. I'm glad you guys like them so much :) To answer your questions, as far as I
know many NQ clans would be willing to play QW2.2.
I'll approach a few of the Big12 clans to see if they would be up to a bit of 4on4. :)
Hey, if not, we'll settle it at QuakeCon eh?
Here is a demo from last night's R3V practice. 2on2.
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Daikatana
A couple of articles on Ion Storm's Daikatana
for you guys to dig on this morning.
Cool eh?
Commandos:
From PsychoNews:
"Eidos Interactive has
released a demo of Commandos:
Behind Enemy Lines, a real-time strategy tactical combat game. The full version is due
out this summer. In Commandos, 6 commandos choose either a boat, ground, or plane to fight
over 40 different enemy vehicles and troops. With 24 different missions to explore, 25
weapons and explosives to choose from, players using LAN, MPlayer or Internet can use the
Zoomable Isometric camera that allows up to 6 simultaneous active cameras to interact in
combat."
Here is the demo from VRGN.
Incoming
One of the most incredible games I've laid my
eyes upon for actual eye candy and use of 3D hardware is reviewed over at PCFan. If you
own a 3D card and wanna see just what that bad boy can do, you MUST check this game out.
The Reckoning
A few more screenshots of the Quake2 Mission
pack from Xatrix are out on the net. These shots come to us courtesy of GameSpot.
Hardware etc
Done properly, strips and fans can increase the triangle count almost 3x. The CPU is still very busy but you decrease the I/O bottleneck. Some developers who have converted to Glide3 are seeing 2-3x performance on the same machine.
The Images
The Patches
Sites etc
werd
Aye, ok back to updating the weekly sections.
Slapped a couple of new demos up
today. With QW2.2 its so much easier to
record that its just goofy. Btw, thanks for all the compliments on our http://r3v.com website. Yes, I wrote that goofy text. :)
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Unreal Gold
Here it is kids, the press release for Unreal, can
you believe it? -Todd
In anticipation of the retail release of Unreal, nearly 20,000 people have registered on GT Interactive Software's Web site to download a playable demo version of the game while more than 200 Unreal fan-based Web sites on the Internet spread the Unreal "word" with screen shots, game information and chat rooms. In addition, many of the sites are preparing to host Unreal servers for multi-player tournaments and level editing contests.
Unreal will ship with a fully functional beta version of Epic's Unreal Level Editor - an advanced 3D authoring tool which provides a sophisticated, yet easy-to-learn, method of creating 3D environments and objects by which players may create their own Unreal worlds. According to Computer & Net Player magazine, "if this doesn't bring level editing to the masses, nothing will." A feature-enhanced, fully supported and documented version of the Unreal Level Editor with additional 3D content and a tutorial is currently under development and will be released separately later this year.
Unreal will be available at retail outlets nationwide on Memorial Day Weekend at a suggested retail price of $54.95.
g.o.d. & Payne
The Gathering has announced another publishing deal,
Max Payne from 3DR and Remedy. -Blues
Max Payne, a hardboiled, fugitive undercover cop is being framed for the murder of his boss. A mission to revenge his slaughtered family is taking him on a bridge-burning, rock n' rolling rampage through the criminal underworld of New York City. Max Payne, a lone hero, goes up against a horde of stone-cold murdering mobsters, drug-enhanced killers, bad cops, professional assassins, corrupt politicians, and other diabolical masterminds lurking in the city's heart of darkness in this intense 3D action shooter.
Rogue Hiring
w00, another homecut getting a job in the
industry. Rob Selitto
(aka Robs) has been hired on to Rogue Entertainment
as a level designer. A big ol' congrats to Mr. Selitto for scoring himself a job. I'll see
ya at the next get together here in Dallas man :)
RBR Prax Wars
Well, a couple of bits on Prax Wars from Rebel Boat Rocker for you guys to dig on. First
off I have done an interview
with Billy Zelsnack, the lead programmer on the project and man behind that stellar 3D
engine that is comparable to Carmack's work. Here's a snip of the interview with Billy:
RBR has a *huge* buzz among the developers for having the hottest technology being worked on right now, although the general public is mostly not aware of what you guys are up to. Given a base technology like Quake, what advancements over this does your engine offer?
Billy:
Quake is really damn impressive. I am more impressed with it each day. My stuff is a bit different. Designed around hardware only. Pretty much this means lots of overdraw abuse. The engine is polygon based. Everything is a polygon. The guys in the map are the same as the map itself. The guys and the map can LOD as well as animate. Every polygon and every vertice can move every frame if you wanted. The animation is pure keyframe based animation.
After you are done reading that, check out what GameCenter has to say about the project. (Link found on VE)
RBR is relying heavily on innovative new technology to distinguish PraxWar from the hordes of other first-person shooters on the market. According to Pitchford, PraxWar's proprietary 3D engine will dynamically scale its detail level (depending on your PC configuration) and push the envelope in terms of its lighting. The engine is being developed from the ground up to work specifically with the hottest 3D accelerator boards. Gamers without those boards won't necessarily be out of luck, but they will take a significant speed hit. Also, forget those cramped corridors and tiny rooms. Rebel Boat Rocker boldly claims that PraxWar's indoor and outdoor environments are a dozen times larger than those in current first-person shooters.
QuakeWorld v2.21
No, it's not out yet, but Zoid has smashed
just about every bug / suggestion you guys have come up with. There are a couple of v2.21
test servers online which have fixed that NASTY packetloss problem before. Also in 2.21
map checksum is optional. Here are some west coast 2.21 servers for you to play with:
r3v Clan Arena #1 128.95.25.94 27500
r3v DM HELL 128.95.25.94 27501
This is only a test until the full 2.21 release sometime this week. Servers brought to you courtesy of demo (server slut) at University of Washington and Clan r3v. (w00, check us out, #1 in QIL right now!)
Wheel of Time
Yup, its time for the weekly update on the
progress of Wheel of Time. That Unreal engine
based RPG project that looks oh so peachy. Dig on the homepage and see what the kids are
up to at the development house. This time they pretty much just run down what will be
shown at E3 in a couple of weeks. Btw, currently my status for attending E3...
"maybe" =/
Unreal
Uh, heard all kinds of crazy reports on
whether or not Unreal has gone gold or not. Mark Rein has stated to the guys over at Next-Gen as well as OGR that Unreal has NOT gone gold yet and people
are just wiggin out. Who knows, whatever.. SOON ok?
Speaking of which, check out the Dementia show with a chat with Kevin Stone of Unreal Nation.
QERadiant Build 77
From Redwood:
"QERadiant build 77 has been
released. You must have build 72 full install before you can download the new executable.
Get them both at the QERadiant
Downloads page"
QuakeCon CPL
What looks to be the largest every Tournament
/ LAN party ever assembled is holding signups right now over at their page http://cpl.gamesnet.net You must sign up if you wish to
participate in the tourney. Keep in mind, there is an ASSLOAD of prizes for the tourney so
you may wish to sign up eh?
The Views
So you may be asking yourself, "What's going to make their coverage any different from the others"? Well, how about exciting chat sessions with some of the greatest names in the business, names like Sid Meier (Alpha Centauri), Bill Roper (Diablo 2), Scott Herrington (Messiah), Rick Overman (Starsiege), and more…
So to start E3 off with a bang we'll be holding a pre E3 chat with Andrew Goldman (Director of Battlezone). He will give you the low down on the upcoming Battlezone Voodoo2 Patch, E3 info, and some general strategies this Wednesday (5/20/98) at 5:00pm pacific.
Hardware etc
Sites
werd
Oh my, I just cant believe I've been able to
update the page for more than 24hours without having a connection interruption. The weekly
section just slipped my mind yesterday. My apologies. I'll just let today go by as well. I
did however get 3 more interviews sent out yesterday, hopefully I can keep this flow of
stuff coming in for E3. :)
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Quake2 MissionPack #2
PsychoNews
of VRGN has gotten a hold of the press release for
Quake Mission Pack #2 being worked on by Rogue. Here is a small part of it to wet your
whistle. Also check out the OGR
article sent to me by Redwood.
QUAKE II Mission Pack: Ground Zero is published by id Software, distributed by Activision, Inc. and designed by Rogue Entertainment. This same creative team created QUAKE Mission Pack No. 2: Dissolution of Eternity that earned critical acclaim in Computer Gaming World and PC Gamer. QUAKE II Mission Pack: Ground Zero, designed for Windows 95/98 and NT machines, offers gamers a chance to blast new QUAKE II monsters in 15 thrilling new levels with new weaponry, new units and new power-ups.
3dfx OpenGL Driver
Yup, as promised by 3dfx they have released
the new GL driver over on the website. Congrats to Billy over at VooDoo Extreme for some fine detective work on digging up this URL for
download.
The Patches -updated
- The Predator sound addon pack is now available! I've found 22 samples from the movie and cleaned them up. I need links to more samples!
- The Red Dwarf sound addon pack is also now available! This will probably be only of interest to us crazy Red Dwarf fans out there. :) Much like the Predator sounds, I'm still looking for more samples from the show.
- As well as enhancing the older sounds, I've added 30 new Simpsons sounds, and 10 new South Park sounds to the compilations!
LMCTF Radio Sounds Addons Page: http://a1a87214.sympatico.bconnected.net/quake2/ctf/
QuakeWorld 2.21 Soon
As many people have discovered, there were a
couple of problems with the 2.2 QuakeWorld
release (as to be expected I guess) and Zoid the man has updated the .plan to give the low
down on what the haps: (check out Zoid's GamesCon speech btw)
I've been working all day on some of the problems in the 2.20 release.
As with any major release, there is bound to be problems. I made some incorrect assumptions this time around, namely how many people had watervised their maps. This has certainly been causing problems for a lot of people.
I'm working on 2.21. I hope to release it soon since there are some ugly bugs in 2.20 (such as random overflows on servers sometimes). There will be a server upgrade and a client one, but 2.20 clients and servers will be able to talk to 2.21, though I strongly recommend that everyone upgrade to 2.21 when it comes out.
For watervised maps, vis data is no longer included in the map checksum. The 2.21 server turns off checksums BY DEFAULT. Server admins can enable map checksumming by typing 'sv_mapcheck 1'. This map checksum is almost the same as before, except that vis data is not included in
the check. This means that maps that just has the vis/portal information changed (for watervis) will pass the checksum test. Maps with hacked textures, removed walls, or waterhack will not.
Note, people believes this gives an advantage to GL users, and normally it would. But the server can control whether the GL user can turn on r_wateralpha (by setting it less than 1) or not using the watervis server variable. watervis 0 means that GL users can not enable transparent water, which levels the playing field. Quake was never really designed for transparent water and neither were the maps originally.
So for admins that are using servers for strict competition should enable sv_mapcheck and leave watervis to 0 so that no one gets transparent water.
Ugh, didnt realize that such a huge number of people had watervis'd their Quake maps. Talk about a pisser. A number of poeple joined some QW2.2 servers that were having the CPU problem and gave QW an unfair judgement without knowing that they were dropping nearly 50% of the packets. (Players warp, etc etc) Hopefully people will understand that these things happen and give it another shot with the new client.
Of course, even with the problems the people who did get a chance to play on a good server seemed very happy. The next version with the bug fixes should be even more peachy :) Lastly, You puds who hex-edited the new client, Minor security oversight. You'll have a nice surprise when you try to connect to the 2.21 servers.
Quake3
John Carmack was nice enough to update his .plan to let
us know just what he's up to working on Quake3 right now. No, it's not some crazy curved
surface bump mapping work, But the really hard part. Text interface.. ouch!
Quake 3 will finally have full support for international keyboards and character sets. This turned out to be a bit more trouble than expected because of the way Quake treated keys and characters, and it led to a rewrite of a lot of the keyboard handling, including the full cleanup and improvement of text fields.
A similar cleanup of the text printing hapened when Cash implemented general colored text: we had at least a half dozen different little loops to print strings with slightly different attributes, but now we have a generalized one that handles embedded color commands or force-to-color printing.
Amidst all the high end graphics work, sometimes it is nice to just fix up something elementary.
Also, Brian Hook updated his .plan a couple of days ago talking about bug hunting with his work on Quake3 as well.
3dfx MiniGL Driver
Well, it's pretty early in the morning as I
write this but sometime today there should be a new miniGL driver for the 3dfx cards over
at www.3dfx.com for you guys to download. Just check
back on the website during the day and I'll try to do so myself and post it when its
ready.
QuakeWorld 2.2 Server Filter
Since making a filter just seems to be beyond
the comprehension of a number of people. I took the time to make this GameSpy filter which
will seperate out the new Version 2.2 servers for you to play with.
If you can't figure out how to import a GameSpy filter, first read the documentaion, then, if you still can't figure it out. Feel free to email me so I can add a filter of my own to send it to the trash.
Half-Life
www.contaminated.net
has just opened up their doors as a new Half-Life page for all the kids to enjoy. Along
with hopefully being your one stop Half-Life info page the Contaminated has just posted an
interview with Harry Teasley
of Valve Software. Valve of course being the development house working on Half-Life which
will be published by Sierra.
Quake1 Movie
w00! Another cool Quake1 movie for the kids to
watch. The Ill Clan guys have put together this
materpiece of american cinema for Quake players. Check out Apartment Hunt. Saw this mofo on Blue's.
Blood2
AVault has posted yet more nifty info on the Blood2 project.
There is some pretty in depth talk about the LithTech engine technology that is being used
in the game as well which is fairly interesting. Here be a slice of it:
The environments, characters, and other in-game features are being made possible by a powerful in-house engine known as LithTech. In the battle for King of the Hill of 3D game engines, LithTech is a serious contender. You name it, it is in the game. In terms of world construction, the true-3D engine supports colored lighting, dynamic lighting, light mapping, terrain mapping, large scale particle systems, translucency and transparency for water and glass effects, scripting with C++ WIN32 DLLs, and full 3D accelerator hardware support, all of which are being used to brilliant effect in the game. If this sounds processor intensive, rest assured the engine has been optimized to ensure good performance.
HexenWorld
Of course, along with the new versions of
QuakeWorld, HexenWorld will be coming out with new versions as well. Here is what Rick Johnson
of Raven had to say:
With the new QW released, Zoid will be sending me those changes to be incorporated into HW. We'll then put out a new version of HW to test compatibility and stability. After that, we'll release probably what will be the final version of HW. Zoid also said he'll compile a few unix ports of the server (only those flavors which run on Intel), and so unix versions will be released along with that.
The Views
Sites etc
werd
Ah, well I hope you kids had a good weekend
and checked out the new QuakeWorld. If you havent just go ahead and wait for the 2.21
release though. Should be much less hassle. Tomorrow is Tuesday, and I have yet another
interview for posting, this week is with the lead programmer of Rebel Boat Rocker, Billy
Zelsnack.
Rant of the day, did I post a link somewhere next to my email recently saying "email all stupid questions to Steve Gibson" or something? I'm not you personal web guide to the internet kids. Do a little research.
Have you guys seen that dude who markets that "TINY LITTLE ADS, RIGHT ON THE INTERNET" scheme? He's my hero. I have a lifesize poster of him on the wall next to me.
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