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Uber Ritual Departures
Oh my, this looks bad for Ritual Entertainment. Just a day after announcing the
FAKK2 project based on a new 3d engine technology, The 2 guys who were doing Ritual's new
technology have left the company. Actually apparently Gary McTaggart and Charlie Brown had
turned in their resignations last week but Ritual had kept it under wraps. It became
plainly obvious when the new Ritual website debuted last night missing the pair of
programmers.
Here is a snip from a GameSlice article:
This weekend, GameSlice was informed that the two lead developers behind Ritual Entertainment's new uberengine, Gary McTaggart and Charlie Brown, had left the company. Their work on the engine had ceased. GameSlice didn't report the story until now because we have a policy of not reporting rumors, and we wanted to confirm the story with additional sources. Today we spoke to two additional sources who confirmed that the two programmers had parted ways with Ritual. Somewhat ironically, Ritual's new website, launched today, has an employee roster section, yet both McTaggart and Brown's names aren't there, all but serving as official confirmation of their departure.
Interestingly enough though, the UberEngine technology that Gary & Charlie were working on for Ritual has retained a section on their website.
What does this mean for Ritual? We'll have to wait and see what Ritual has to say. The advanced 3D technology can not be just "picked up" by other programmers so easily. There are maybe a half dozen programmers in the world on the same level in the industry. (Carmack, Zelsnack, Silverman, Sweeney, etc.)
What does this mean for Gathering of Developers who were using UberEngine as a big selling point? We'll have to wait and see what they say too.
What is not noted in the article is that Gary and Charlie are not the only names missing from the website. Also missing from the website are a pair of artists as well. Michael Washburn and Brandon Riza. This makes a total of 5 employee departures now from Ritual Entertainment within the past 6 months. No word from any of the ex-Ritual employees on just what has been causing the departures.
sIn has been looking quite exceptional as many people will see while at E3 though. There is no question that Ritual Entertainment is still home to some of the best talent in the industry.
werd
Well, um.. yea. I'm leaving for E3 with the
unemployed homeys in like 45mins. I'm taking some stuff with me that will hopefully mean I
can update while at E3. I just gotta find a puter with a net connection :) If you happen
to be at E3 and see me, and also have access please let me know.
Surprise of E3 this year, I'm not wearing a hat!
Just like last year, I should have the most in depth looks at as many 3D action games as humanly possible when I return Sunday night.
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F.A.K.K. 2
The cat is finally out of the bag. Ritual Entertainments' "other project" which
has been concealed up to this point has been revealed. Gathering of Developers has
announced FAKK2 based on the Heavy Metal universe. Here is a quote from the OGR article:
The Gathering of Developers announced today that they will publish and distribute Ritual Entertainment's upcoming PC game Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 (Federation Assigned Ketogenic Killzone). The game will be based on the upcoming sequel to the animated film Heavy Metal; both should be released during the Summer of 1999.
The license was granted by Kevin Eastman of Heavy Metal Entertainment; Eastman, who co-created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, serves as the creative director on behalf of Heavy Metal Entertainment. The film will feature conceptual character art and style by British artist Simon Bisley and is produced by Cinegroupe Animation. Ritual will have access to all of the film's artwork and soundtrack.
As a few people may recall, there was actually a slip up a few months ago when Charlie Brown, one of the 2 programmers at Ritual working on Uberengine made a .plan update talking about the project. This was in fact an update made after the Gathering Website had posted information on the project on accident. The mess was cleaned up within a couple of hours and we all played nice though :)
Following up on that, Lang over at Ritual sent a small clarification in case anyone is confused to Blue
fakk 2 is not a sequel to a movie, it's original film (the main char is called fakk2). and our game will not be a sequel to an upcoming game, either - same reasons :)
There has been no word on what technology the game will be based on as of yet, but one would suspect that this statement:
Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 will be designed around a new gaming engine and "creates extremely detailed indoor and outdoor surface renderings and settings, resulting in extremely immersive environments."
means that its not another Quake2 tech game. ,
Quake3 Models
A bit of a bummer in my book, it looks like
the Quake3 models poly count will not be much higher than the ones found in Quake2.
Apparently all the improvements will be made in other areas of the character code though.
Check out Steed's
update:
Quake3. I've been mainly working on R&D with Mr. Carmack on new animation technology that helps streamline the process and addresses some of the issues we've wanted to address even in Quake2. The range and comprehensiveness of the character animation sets will be a nice surprise to many of you I'm sure. Unfortunately don't count on having too many more faces to work with when you do your models and modifications. I've only added maybe 50 faces max per character since the character data will be more intensive and the file size as well. Not much else to say other than I'm cranking and learning and positive the results will be to your liking.
TeamFortress v2.81
Oops, minor bug in the version 2.8 release of
TeamFotress the other day. Bummer. Check
out the page and download the new version that should make everything coolbeans again.
Keep in mind this is a server side only upgrade so you dont have to worry about it if you
just play the game.
Unreal
More Unreal stuff for you
Server settings:
Set default bytes as high as it can go. This is a server. Duh.
Set max client bytes to about 5000-10000. 5000 if you have mostly modem players, 10000 if you have lots of isdn and cable players. The byte value is not as critical as ticks.
Max Ticks Per Second: THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. The default value is 35. This is WAY too HIGH. Set this down to a range of 10-20 on the server. 15 is ideal. This means a tick every 66ms. All but T1+ players will never notice it, and even then it will be minimal. This reduces the network over head drastically, and cuts packet loss from approx 80% to near ZERO.
Client settings:
Default bytes per sec: Set this equal to your modem speed /10. i.e. 28.8k = 2800, 33.6k = 3300, 56k = 5500, ISDN 128k = 12000. Most good servers will limit you anyway.
Max Ticks Per Second: again, EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. Set this to 1. YES ONE. I've tested settings from 1-100 and this DOES have an influence on the client side. 1 is the optimum value. 0 seems to default back to 35. This can even improve your performance on high tick servers but it works best when coupled with a server ticking at about 10-20.
I think programmers will find the language quite interesting. It's similar to Java in syntax and in its "everything is an object" approach to programming. UnrealScript also adds some new language elements that are useful for game programming: states, state scoping, latent functions, virtual threading, and built-in networking support.
Unreal mods are created by writing new scripts that subclass existing code. This approach is similar to Java, though unlike Quake where mods are made by modifying the original source code. The advantage to Unreal's system is that mods can coexist and interoperate. For example, there is a base "Weapon" class that describes the functionality all weapons should have: firing, using ammo, auto-aiming, doing damage. If a user creates a new kind of weapon using our base functionality, it will automatically work in all levels, it can automatically be picked up and used by bots, and so on. There is really a lot of modularity here, with all game code being easily extendable: weapons, inventory, creature AI, bot AI, complete player controls, projectiles, game rules, and even the HUD rendering.
werd
Me = not on the ball. Parents keeping me
occupied during the days, I know, I know.. talking to people in real life and seeing my
family is evil. I gotta stop. Will be taking off for E3 tomorrow morning.
I did get some good news yesterday though which means good news for the page when I return from E3.
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Zoid on QW2.21
Due to some people being misinforned Zoid updated his .plan to
clarify a few items of interest concerning QuakeWorld v2.21
...First off, one of the central features of the new version was to stop cheating. Map hacks, models hacks, etc. Now, I was a little overgressive and included the vis data in the map check. A lot of people had different map versions (mostly from watervis patches) and it showed. This was addressed in 2.21 which had map checking off by default, and when enabled, checks don't include the vis data.
Some users are complaining that waterhack no longer works, and this is true and by design. GLQWCL users can not enabled transparent water unless the server enables 'watervis 1', which then permits them. This levels the playing field for everyone. I actually got email from a person who complained that he bought GL just so he could see into the water on dm3 and kill the poor guys using software. He stated he should have an advantage because he paid more money to buy hardware to improve his game. I don't agree with this (GL already has an advantage in frame rate and looking damn pretty). But, this is server controlled, so he can just play on servers that enabled 'watervis 1'...
Most of the "problems" people have with QuakeWorld are generally due to stuff they have heard from narrow minded people who havent tried QW since the v1.5x versions etc. QW2.21 has finally leveled the playing field and made QuakeWorld into what it was intended to be.
Quake1 is by far still the most played "competetive style" 3D action game. 4on4 Quake has been going strong for a long time and with all the new league popping up even today there is no sign of that "dying out"
QuakeCon - CPL
The Cyberathlete organization, after being a
bit quiet the past couple of months has resurfaced with the big announcement of QuakeCon and now has gone public with one of the
many deals that CPL has been cutting. Here is the press release and a snippit of it:
The Cyberathlete Organization announced today that Babbages Etc. will offer a unique first prize during the upcoming Cyberathlete Professional League Tournament to take place at the Infomart in Dallas, Texas on July 23 to July 26. The winner of the CPL's official one-on-one QuakeŽ competition will receive a sponsorship deal from Babbage's Etc. that will include: in-store and retail catalog special features, participation in a CPL promotional in-store video, a one year 30% discount for software purchased in any Babbage's, Software, Etc. or Barnes & Noble stores and $2000 cash.
The Cyberathlete Organization also announced that Babbage's Etc. has become the key retail sponsor of all six upcoming CPL tournaments, that will take place between July 1998 and October 1999. And that Babbage's Etc. has obtained the right to renew the sponsorship agreement for an additional year once the initial period has elapsed.
Just a note, the 4on4 Quake1 clan tournament which is also to be held at QuakeCon is where I'll be spending my time watching. Rumor has it DeathRow is afraid of a rematch, teehee.
More Unreal
I'll be damned, more Unreal stuff to post, can
you believe it?
We'll be doing a major end-user patch 7-10 days after E3 (it will be a comprehensive patch covering all known problems, to be tested extensively). However, we will point all A3D owners to the current A3D patch right away.
We're hoping for mid-to-late July. We are still working to include all the game features available on PC.
Team Fortress v2.8
Well, I'm assuming this new version of TeamFortress now works with QuakeWorld
v2.21 although I didnt see any mention of it on the news page. At any rate go snag
TeamFortress. If you still havent tried this mod you are really missing out. There are
literally hundreds upon hundreds of people playing this mod at any given time.
QBS
A new version of the best news tracker you can
get your hands on for free has been released. Check out http://qbs.stomped.com
and stay informed.
FAQ You
Tourneys
All kinds of Quake1 tourneys.
The Views
We'll be showing off Max Payne at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Atlanta on May 28-30 at the big G.O.D. booth (#1453 in the East Hall). There will be a video on the booth and a special invite-only back room demo, where we'll show the game running in real-time. So, if you're attending E3 next week, make sure you check out Max!
I'll be checking this game out along with tons of others with reviews when I return from E3.
The Releases
Mojo Science
Ah, to clarify why I had never heard about the
Shadow Warrior guys leaving 3DR is because well, here I'll let Scott Miller explain it:
Shadow Warrior was not an internal project initially. It was being developed by a team lead by jim Norwood and Frank Maddin, who were simply developers (not employees) with whom we had a typical development contract.
Nine months before the game's release we all realized (the SW team plus 3D Realms) that the game needed a lot of help to get it done, so we moved Frank and Jim internally to finish the game (but not as employees), and we had several internal developers help finish the game. When the game was done, Jim and Frank simply moved back to their respective towns (Austin and Seattle), and began their next projects. There was no split, and since they never were employee developers, they didn't leave us. We simply elected not to pursue another project with them (mostly because with Duke and Prey to do, that's plenty!).
Sites
A few more places for you guys to check out:
werd
Wow, thats just goofy. Every email I got
concerning my review of Unreal (bout 20 or so) told me I pretty much hit it right on the
money. I really didnt expect to get so many emails telling me that. Where were all the
flames? Damn it, you guys arent supposed to all agree with me.
I will be around during the day today to update the page if anything comes up. Running around doing a bit of maintenance on the other sections so if something breaks dont panic unless it stays broken for more than an hour.
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QuakeWorld v2.21
Doh, man I go out for a few hours and Zoid
done released a new client and server. Here is his .plan update to go along with it. This
new client/server is compatible with the previous version but should prove to have much
smoother movement code. If you had complaints about version 2.2 being slightly jerky give
this client a shot, you should be impressed.
May 23rd/1998
********************************************************************************
QuakeWorld 2.21 has been released that should address some of the problems in the previous release. Players and server operators are STRONGLY urged to upgrade to this version since many of the new features in 2.2 have been updated and bugs have been fixed.
The 2.21 versions will interroprate with 2.20 versions, but with some loss in performance. So, yes you can play on a 2.20 server with 2.21, or play with 2.20 on a 2.21 server, but you'll get the best gameplay and performance using a 2.21 client on a 2.21 server.
Here's the files:
Full QuakeWorld Client including GameSpy 1.53 for Windows95/NT
Upgrade from 2.20 only (must have ameSpy 1.53 or 2.0beta2 installed) for Windows95/NT
QuakeWorld Server for Windows95/NT
QuakeWorld Client for i386 Linux 2.0
QuakeWorld Server for i386 Linux 2.0
QuakeWorld Server for Alpha Linux 2.0
QuakeWorld Server for Solaris x86 2.5.1
QuakeWorld Server for BSDI/i386 3.0
QuakeWorld Server for Solaris 2.5.1 on Sparc
/// Zoid.
My Unreal Review
Well, as I do not consider myself strictly a
"news page" but also quite opinionated, and in response to the number of emails
asking me just how I felt about Unreal, here it is. I thought about spending the time to
do a big review of Unreal but screw it, here you go:
When I first fired up Unreal (I wont lie btw, I've um, seen it before *cough*) I was pretty impressed. The state I saw it in last I had some sincere doubts that the guys could actually finish up the game and have it shipped so soon. Well, user interface is nice, and all the advanced options stuff is pretty cool too. Well done. Then I started to play...
Being fairly familiar with the story behind Unreal I just hopped right in. You of course are on a crash landed space ship and have to find your way out. I really enjoyed the fact that I didnt start out already having a weapon or something. The environment was great, I felt helpless on a crashed ship and was out to explore. The scripted lights breaking and stuff was awesome, I was convinced.
I wander around a bit and run into the partway open door and hear screaming and see lights flashing! I'm wondering wtf is going on back there? An even better job now. Then the door cracks open and i see body parts flying and I only catch a glimpse of a monster. Wow, it's like I'm in a movie. Great great stuff. So I find my way out of the ship and don't even think about the goofy looking huge switch that I had to hit to get out.
Now i'm outside of the ship, and hey cool, of course the other guys who were on board the ship had already set up camp etc but were now all killed by the monsters on the planet. I run across dead bodies and log files kept by the crew members. Really neeto, at this point I'm thinking this game could turn out to be spectacular. I'm intrigued and awe struck.
My first real fight with monsters and the introduction to the Skaarj (or however the hell you spell it) really had me going. This was it, the best 3d shooter I have played on a PC.
Then... well... it ended... All those cool sequenced events, well, they stopped. I had the time of my life through the first 3-4 levels but then it just died on me. No more cool stuff to keep me intersted and bewildered. It turned into a shoot fest. I just run around, find the 4 armed dude named Abu who occasionaly showed me where to find guns & ammo and killed more monsters.
It was driving me nuts! Where had all that cool scripting stuff gone? I played on through the next 10 or so levels and instead of being wowed, all I had was complaints. I didnt get it. I came into the game with an open mind and high hopes and they were met. For the first 4 levels at least.
Things like those damn switches that were absolutely huge. Take a look at the levers in this game, What in the world? I know its supposed to be alien or something but this is just ridiculous. That elevator switch is bigger than me! It looks like it was made without the ability to drop below a 32 grid or something in the level editor. At least they were kept consistently stupid looking throughout the game though. I guess thats good.
Then we have thse lense flares, which in moderation are cool, but uh.. yea. Did I mention they were cool in moderation?
So.. well.. I guess I'll be giving deathmatch a shot now. The bots were very very good, Steve Polge is indeed a stud. I enjoy the cum gun a lot. (That green glob shooting thing) but just like Quake2, I can't stand the pee shooter. Um, at this point I would just start rambling so I'll cut it short.
Unreal in short is just great for the first few levels, then it turns into Quake but with purtier graphics. I suspect a few of these "raving reviews" that Unreal has gotten were done by people who played just the first few levels and assumed it maintained that quality throughout the game, in an effort to be the first ones out with a "FULL UNREAL REVIEW, FIRST EVER ONLINE" kinda deal.
All that being said, I would choose Unreal over most any other FPS out there including Quake2. It looks just plain incredible, The engine although a bit of a resource hog is worth it. Unfreakingreal.
For the curious, I do enjoy single player games and was a huge fan of the single player aspects of Jedi Knight and Goldeneye. (Goldeneye on the N64 btw is the greatest FPS game I've ever seen, bar none)
Unreal
Yup, all kinds of Unreal stuff for you guys to
read and check out.
Unreal v1.01 update patch is now available! This update allows players to join multiplayer games by clicking on links to "*.unreal" files from their web browser.
".unreal" files are simple ini files which tell the player's machine the location and port the server is running on. Links work in both MS Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator (v2.0 and above).
".unreal" files are simple 2 line INI files. They should look like this:
[UnreaLaunch]
Server=address.of.server.com:portnumber
You can specify a server using either its hostname or an IP address. The port number is optional. Examples shown
below:
[UnreaLaunch]
Server=server.unreal.com:7777
or
[UnreaLaunch]
Server=208.212.53.37
will both launch to the same server.
I've set up a web page with some Unreal technical information, a list of known bugs, and experimental (not widely tested) patches for enthusiasts who want to be on the bleeding edge of Unreal.
I'll be adding new information on an hourly or daily basis. Check it out: http://unreal.epicgames.com/
Some topics I cover:
- How to report bugs.
- Tips for running an UnrealServer on the Net
- Console commands and command-line parameters
- Known bug list (updated as I receive new reports)
- The Voodoo Rush problem
- The Cyrix problem
- The "UnrealEd won't run on some machines" problem and fix.
- The A3D problem and fix
We're seeing very unpredictable and sporadic performance on the public Internet Unreal servers. I'm looking into what's causing this now. I'm suspecting either higher than expected packet loss, or something in my UDP code is breaking under Internet conditions.
We'll be putting out several server-side updates over the next two weeks to address this problem, improve GameSpy and master server support, and any other server problems that come up.
This is the team's first Internet game, so we're learning a lot as we go. It will probably take another few updates before Internet performance is really good across a wide range of machines. Everyone's feedback and patience is much appreciated. You can send bug reports and things to unreal@epicgames.com and we'll see them.
Cyberathletes
Looks like the CPL has landed themselves another big sponsor.
This time Babbages has signed on with the CPL guys. Babbages is fully funding the next
several Cyberathlete tournies and is putting up some real cash for the winners. The first
event is of course the ever popular QuakeCon.
Mojo Science!
Well, I really dont recall hearing anything
about the Shadow Warrior team leaving 3DR but apparently they did because I just got this
email from Frank Maddin, the president of newly formed Mojo Science. (cool name btw)
Mojo Science is a new game company based in Austin Texas. Mojo Science was founded by Frank Maddin, the lead programmer for Shadow Warrior. Their flagship product is a 3D shooter/adventure game called MAXX UNIVERSE. Mojo Science is currently looking for level designers, programmers, and artists. For more information you can visit the website at http://www.mojosci.com/
The Releases
werd
Apologies for not being on top of things as of
late. I'll be mentioning a few things on the page in the near future that should clear
things up a bit though as to what I've been up to.
My parents are in town today so I'll be picking them up at the airport etc and chillin with them. I'll squeeze in an update though tonight as I suspect there will be a bit more news by then.
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