Half-Life Patch [LATE]
Thanks to Contaminated.net for the word that Valve has released a minor patch for Half-Life addressing a few of the things that the users came across after the big release. Here is the list:

1. Disabled the music track check in CD Authentication. One problem that some people faced was that they have CD-ROM drives that either can't play the music tracks or they have disabled CD audio on that device. We've disabled the portion of the CD authentication that checked for the music tracks since it was tripping up legitimate customers. Of course they still won't hear the music until they get their CD audio fixed, but they would have that with any game that uses CD music.

2. Adjusted the default configuration for multiplayer to be more appropriate for people with lower speed modems or with high ping/bad packet loss.

3. The default rate for LAN games is now set to 9999. Previously the LAN rate was being set to the be the same as the Internet rate.

4. Removed the WON authentication attempts for LAN games. LAN games are limited to a single Class B address range.

5. Fixed an uninstall issue that may affect custom locations.

6. Fixed an A3D underwater sound bug.

Sorry, extremely late. I was doing some cleanup on my machine (fresh format etc) and I made the joyous discovery that the backup that I made was corrupt. So here I am a few hours later. Glad there was a 3rd machine around here that I could download drivers with. Had to run around the house with a floppy copying stuff for a while. Suck. 4am? Sleep.

Thief Demo [11:45am]
Thanks to Fozzybear for the word that the Thief: Dark Project demo has just been released over at GameSpot

The demo allows you to play a training mission and an abbreviated version of the game's first mission. The ZIP file includes Guide.Htm and Tips.Htm, which explain the game's controls and give some general gameplay tips.

Also, By clicking here, you can see the newest screenshots of the Looking Glass production, Thief.

Descent 3 Demo [11:45am]
The DESCENT3 demo is out now. The guys over at descentia have an excellent mirror list. It's 28Mb.

GameSpy w/ Half-Life Support [11:45am]
For all you cool guys that actually payed for GameSpy registration, a new version has been released with support for Half-Life. Pretty spanky cool.

We have just released GameSpy 2.06 featuring HalfLife support to our registered users. Grab it here: http://www.gamespy.com/download/. The internal beta test team can't find any bugs with this release, but we'll wait for our registered users to give us feedback before we go into wide release.
We've also added a SmartSpy List for HalfLife so you can retrieve the list and find your server in a matter of seconds.

Q3 FAQ [11:45am]
The Quake3 FAQ over at telefragged has been updated to version 0.2. You can find everything you want to know about Q3 over at http://home.telefragged.com/q3faq/.For all you cool guys

Views [9:15am]

• AMEN
  3DN has posted a new interview with the lead designer on AMEN from CaveDog
  
  

werd
Scored a bad chili dog last night. Ugh. Wallowed around in self pity for a while but I'm ok now. Anyone else annoyed as hell that you have to download decals whenever a guy joins the server in Half-Life? Even when you use the r_decals 0 command? Argh. Oh, try the cl_download_ingame 0 command and it should fix that. Thanks Grant.

Hope everyone is having a fun holiday weekend. I'll have an afternoon update here after I get home from some errands.

Messiah [9:45am]
VE has posted an interview with the lead programmer on the Messiah project that is pretty damn interesting. Here is part of Sax's answer to the question of what makes Messiah's tech different from Quake/Unreal:

...the difference between the Messiah Engine and Quake/Unreal is quite big. We don't operate with one big level in memory. Every section is streamed while you play (and I don't mean like Half-Life where you have to wait every two minutes for it to load next section) so when you open a door it gets the new room including textures etc. Therefore we can have seemingly endless levels with new textures for all sections without the need to stop the gameplay for loading. We use portals extensively. That makes clipping, inclusion so much easier. The collision is based on spheres in time not cylinders...

Views [9:15am]

• Half-Life @ Sharky's
  Sharkyextreme has put up their Halflife Review. They've gone so far as to award it the Game of the Year!
  
  

Tech Etc [9:15am]

• 23 Video Card Roundup
  FastGraphics has a new 3D-card roundup. It covers 23 new cards, includes allmost 600 benchmarks from cards based on Riva ZX, Riva TNT, Voodoo Graphics, Voodoo 2, Voodoo Banshee, Matrox G200, S3 Savage 3D, and more.
  
  
• New G200 Drivers
  Check out the email from Matrox. Note: Not recommended for Socket7 AGP systems.

I just wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know that we have released a new driver - 4.50beta2. This driver is the same as 4.50beta1 except that it fixes the recent problems with Half-Life. Please download the driver from the Matrox public web site:
http://www.matrox.com/mga/drivers/latest_drivers/home.htm
ftp://ftp.matrox.com/pub/mga/mgag200/win95/beta2_450.exe

• High End PC Roundup
  Since we're near Chrismas and people are looking to buy new systems. Check out the GameCenter roundup of these pre-built machines.
  
  

werd
It's the holidays.. go play.

Half-Life SDK & Barney [12:05am]
Check it out, the Software Development Kit for all you mod developers out there (You don't need this unless you plan on programming mods for Also a new DM model, Barney the security guard for everyone to play with.Half-Life).

Howdy.  Gabe mentioned in his letter yesterday that I'm the the Valve contact for folks who wish to do mods... Since that letter was posted, there's been a huge response that I've been sorting through, asking about source code availability and such, so I thought it would be a good idea to send you guys a quick note about what's going on.

We're putting together resources for the Half-Life Software Developer's Kit.  It will have resources for modellers to learn how to build new characters and weapons for Half-Life, for mappers who want to learn how to use the more sophisticated Half-Life entities (that aren't covered in autolycus' excellent WorldCraft tutorial), for texture artists who wish to make new wads for the game, and for coders who wish to create new game DLLs for TCs and mods that require them.

Right now, there's a fair amount to do to get the entire SDK in shape for release.  In the meantime, here are some resources that will allow modellers and mappers to start creating new content as soon as possible (sort of an SDK, Jr.)  I will keep the news sites posted on future updates to the SDK when they become available.

Also attached is the Security Guard Deathmatch Model, in an installable .exe.  Now you can play against your friends as Barney, the helpful Half-Life security guard.

New 3dfx MiniGL [11:05am]
If you are the proud owner of a Voodoo Banshee,Voodooo2, Voodoo Graphics or Voodoo Rush 3D Accelerator and have Glide 2.31 or higher runtime drivers. (Glide 2.45 or higher preferred) this is for you. Here's the link for the page or just download it directly. Thanks Ant.

Weekly Demo (HL) [11:05am]
Been a slow week but what the hell played some FFA HL and recorded it. I started to figure out some weapon switch combos during the demo which is pretty cool. The mouse movement looks all wacked out in demo playback though. If someone from Valve knows wtf is up with that lemme know.

Views [9:15am]

• SIN Mission Pack
  Gamers Alliance posted an interview with one of the comapnies doing a SiN expansion pack - 2015 inc.
  
  

Tech Etc [9:15am]

• PVR2
  SharkyExtreme has posted a new article talking about the next-gen chipset from PowerVR and why it hasnt seen the light of day yet.
  
  
• New A3D Drivers
  The new A3D drivers are dated 11/24 and work well with Half-Life if you have an A3D capable soundcard.
  
  
• New i740 Drivers
  that Intel released some new I740 reference drivers. (dated: 11/25 and 11/23) Updated should provide more stability with various applications and in multimonitor systems.
  
  

Monolith LithTech Tools [12:05am]
From 3DN: Monolith, being the cool dudes that they are, have released their LithTech Editing Tools and Shogo Source Code for your editing pleasure. Not only can you edit Shogo, but you can move models and textures back and forth between Shogo and Blood 2. Heres some more info: The Monolith LithTech engine tools released over the Internet today are:

• DEdit, the LithTech world editor (also contains texture and sprite utilities).
• LITHREZ, a command-line program for packing and unpacking .REZ (Resource) files.
• ModelEdit, the tool to tweak LithTech .ABC models and animations.
• A 3DS to ABC converter that takes a series of .3DS files and turns them into a mesh-deformed LithTech .ABC file.
• A 3DSMAX exporter, to export .ABC files from in MAX.
• A 3DSMAX texture plug-in, to allow the use of LithTech .DTX texture files as textures in 3DSMAX.
• A Photoshop plugin that allows you to load/save .DTX files.
• Documentation (list of all placeable Shogo objects and how to use them, LithTech documentation, etc.)

Monolith's Shogo source code release today includes:

• Client-side game source (HUD, player input, special effects, etc.).
• Server-side game source (AI, world objects, etc.).
• Game headers shared between client and server (message types, etc.).
• LithTech engine API headers.
• GameSpy communication library binary. (Needed for listen server.)
• Source code to the stand-alone server.

werd
Very Bad Things is a *seriously* twisted movie. Borderline just plain fuggedup. Happy holidays blah blah blah.

Thanksgiving Spirit [1:25pm]
Because Sander just loves us Americans so much, check out all these great Thanksgiving facts for your reading pleasure.

Deus Ex [11:35am]
The Ion Storm Daikatana team may be stripped down pretty heavily, but the Deus Ex team is still going strong only losing a couple of members. Check it out, actual game info! (Chris Norden's .plan update)

There's a lot of neat things like how the skill system is tied to your ability to use different types of weapons and how your accuracy is affected by five or six different factors.  Now, I've stopped working on the weapons so I could get the travel and world maps working.  They look pretty cool...I still can't say much about them, but they will give the player a very unique perspective on the missions and how they all fit together.

GameSpin [11:35am]
GameCenter is just going buckwild making sure to try and hurt some feelings. Check out the latest article in which they show their love for Ion Storm and Ritual, while praising Half-Life of course. Thanks Chris.

One juicy rumor has it that many of the employees left to form a Gathering of Developers' start-up. (Mike Wilson, CEO of g.o.d., was one of the founders of Ion Storm.) After the news of the resignations hit, a shocked John Romero had to be rushed to a nearby salon for emergency hair treatment. Ah, but it's all just fodder for this week's list of...

Check out the Gamers Alliance response to this article by Lorien.

Battlefield Communicator [11:35am]
You monkeys check this thing out yet? Totally cool. Voice communication while playing your favorite game with friends over the net. Someone get id to sign a deal with these guys for integrating this into Quake3 please.

ShadowFactor Software Inc. today announced version 1.1 of Battlefield Communicator, the first real-time voice communications package for multiplayer games. Designed to work with online multiplayer games such as Quake 2, Rainbow Six, StarCraft, flight simulators, and dozens of other games, Battlefield Communicator Version 1.1 adds new features and enhancements that further show why it is the best voice over the Internet solution available for online game players.

Voodoo3 [11:35am]
The guys over at Sharkyextreme were bombarded with questions after they posted their first "hands-on" look at the Voodoo3. Well, they went out and asked 3Dfx a bunch of the commonly asked questions and have put up their Voodoo3 Preview Aftermath. This is a quality read that answers questions about everything from SLI to 16MB vs. 32MB to the target release date.

Linkage [11:35am]
Woah, actually was starving for links this week. Mail me more!

3dfx MiniGL [11:35am]
Word from Giki is that the MiniGL 3dfx driver that ships with Half-Life is nearly 10% faster when you copy it over for Quake2 performance. We can wait for Jack Mathews to update his .plan telling us not to do it but what the hell. Try it at your own risk and if your computer blows up it's your own fault for being dumb enough to take advice from a guy like me. :)

Unreal & TNT [11:35am]
Saw on VE that Mark Rein made a pretty lengthy post to the Megaboard about Unreal performance on the TNT and what nVidia is doing about it. Here's a clip:

Nvidia has been hard at work analyzing their D3D drivers to find out why Unreal's performance on TNT has been less than stellar up until now. The symptoms of Unreal's problems on TNT have been visual "stuttering" as well as serious control lag problems which causes mouse and keyboard inputs to be very sluggish.

Well the good news is that Nvidia believes they've located the reasons for these problems and that they'll have solutions soon in the form of new drivers.

Oh, and check out these shots of the TNT stencil buffering real-time shadow patch, shown at Comdex Fall 98 last week in Las Vegas.

Savage3D II [11:35am]
Can't say the original Savage3D is getting much attention, but maybe the sequel will? Looking at these numbers I'd say the TNT2 and then later the Voodoo3 will beat it pretty handily. Here you go though some expected numbers from the guys at Hardware-fr via VE

-Samples: Nov '98, Production: March '99
-Supports AGP 4X (Savage 2+) and 2X (Savage 2)
-Major features:  AGP 4X, 32MB memory, 32/64-bit memory i/f
-Improved 143 MHz SGRAM i/f (up from 125MHz with Savage3D), continues to use block-write feature
-Video capability: unchanged from Savage 3D (i.e. h/w subpicture blending, motion comp, 60Hz VIP port for HDTV)
-270MHz DAC:  1600x1200@100Hz, 1920x1440@72Hz

Views [9:15am]

• This is your Half-Life
  One of the best articles I've seen posted on the Next-Gen website in quite a while. Check this article out and wonder why Valve included pictures of Gordon Freeman. I almost agree with the guy but something tells me Valve did the right thing.
  
  
• Descent3
  Game-Interviews has posted a new interview with Matt Tochlog from the Descent3 development team.
  
  
• EverQuest
  Phase4 of EverQuest beta testing is set to get underway and PC.IGN is updating their EverQuest preview to reflect it. Some new bits of info and nice screenshots.
  
  
• Kornelia
  ActionXtreme has posted a new interview with Quake player superstar Kornelia.
  
  

Tech Etc [9:15am]

• AMD Past, Present, Future
  The third article I'm lifting from VE today, check out this looksee at the AMD CPU lineup for what we've seen so far, and what AMD has planned for the road ahead. Talk about the K6-3 etc in there.
  
  

werd
Running a bit late today. Blah. I actually started late then lost another 20mins from a crash. Talk about a pissing irritation. I havent had a chance to play Zelda64 too much yet but giggler is goin at it and says the game is "the bizomb"

If someone can point me to exact directions on how to get a ramdrive to work under Win98 I'd appreciate it. I'm trying to setup a 192meg drives.

Half-Life Update & New Map [9:35pm]
Here you guy, straight from Valve Software. Check out 3DN for the full post. This is just snips of it:

Additional Content
Doug Wood did a security guard multiplayer model, which we are going to be making available on-line. Dario Casali did a small 1:1 or 2:2 multiplayer map called Frenzy, which I've attached. Feel free to distribute. We've been working with PC Gamer to distribute a multiplayer level called The Hill, which they are going to be distributing with their magazine.

Harry Teasley is working with people who are interested in building maps, models, add-ons, expansion products, etc... Two other resources are the Wavelength site at http://www.contaminated.net/wavelength/ and Chris Bokitch's new page, http://halflife.gamedesign.net/ .

Server Info
Doug Lombardi at Sierra is the best contact for now if you have questions about this.

Zoid is working on the Linux port of the Half-Life dedicated server. Once he's finished with that he'll be addressing some console related features that people have asked for that should make the dedicated server easier to administer.

Yahn and Jay have been working with Tim and Jack at GameSpy to get Half-Life support working.

Pirate stuff
The key generation software that was being sent around on the warez channels is pretty goofy, and never would have passed the WON authentication scrutiny, just the single player game check. We've had some pirates call up Sierra product support and complain about that.

Viruses and Half-Life
To reiterate a point made in another piece of email, Half-Life essentially acts as a virus checker by checking to see if the game files on your machine match those of the current version. If you have a virus on your system and it infects your Half-Life files, you won't be able to be authenticated by the authentication servers. This is much, much, much more likely to be a source of failed authentication than a pirated key.

The reason we put the check in is to make sure that people have the latest version of Half-Life. To a lesser extent it also makes it more difficult for people to play with a hacked version of the game that would give them an unfair advantage (like the bogus player models people used on Quake 2 for a while). As a side effect of the check, it also catches the case where the hl.exe has been modified by a virus. The work around is simple - run a virus checker to detect and remove any viruses, uninstall and then reinstall Half-Life.

Update
We're also putting out an update that should address some of the more frequent support problems.

We're going to make sure that the default rate for LAN games is now hardwired to 9999 so that people won't have to set that themselves, and we're also going to turn off the WON authentication attempts for LAN games.

This update will be available on Wednesday, and will be available through the built-in autoupdate feature of Half-Life (or you can use the Sierra Utilities to install the update as well).

3rd Party Support
We'll be releasing four-speaker support with Creative Labs shortly. It sounds very nice, and will be available as an automatic update.

More Ion Departures? [6:55pm]
A little birdie told me (tm Blue) that yet three more employees have left Ion Storm. It sounds like they will be joining up with the 8 other employees that left Ion Storm a few days ago to work for a yet to be named startup company. I can't really confirm this one but so far most of the other departures have proven to be true.

Ronn Harbin - Animator on Daikatana
Andy Chang - Texture Artist on Daikatana
Adam Hayek - Programmer on Daikatana

AOL Owns Netscape [4:15pm]
Oh my, the assimilation has begun. Just a few months after buying out ICQ, The AOL guys have moved on to the big Netscape and bought them up too! Check out the news.com article. Thanks Mike

Heretic II Available [4:15pm]
I've gotten word from a couple of people now that Heretic II is now showing up in stores around the nation. 3 out of 4 message have been from guys grabbing a copy from Babbages, so that would be the safest bet as far as I know.

RegKey Stuff [4:15pm]
Well, a couple more hours of trying to find a virus that never showed up on my machine and suddenly my HL reg key is working again. Can't say I'm very comfortable with it just "suddenly working" but what the hell. Sounds like a lot of pirates are trying to score a free key out of this situation too. Losers. Go buy the game.

Half-Life Key Problems? [9:45am]
Well, this happened to me last night. All of a sudden my reg key does not work and I can't play Half-Life online. According to Sierra and the poll on 3DNews.net it looks like over 50% of the computers out there have a virus. Here is the statement form Gabe Newell:

We've had a couple of reports that Half-Life wouldn't authenticate on people's systems because they had an out of date or corrupt version of the game that have turned out to be viruses (see below). It didn't occur to us that Half-Life would be a virus checker (we did the hash to make sure people had the latest version of the game, not detect viruses), but it's a nice side effect. This isn't the only reason people might get this error, but it's happening often enough that we thought it would help to spread the word.

Oh, to be clear, the virus isn't on the CD, it's on users systems already, and hl.exe gets infected the way any other binary would.

I'm grabbing a couple new anti-virus progs to scan my machine. I havent downloaded or run any new programs on my machine in a couple of days, but we'll see.

Zelda64 [9:45am]
Ok, sorry to get you guys excited a bit too early yesterday. Word is that you can find copies of Zelda64 at some locations today including EB and BestBuy.

Ion Storm [9:45am]
With what is bordering on 20 employees leaving Ion Storm in the past 2 months, GameCenter has picked up on the story and posted some speculation on the causes behind the recent mass employee departures. After you check that out you might as well check out the Ion Storm website and read the new announcements of programmers changing positions and a couple of new guys hired on.

Half-Life & 3DNow! [9:45am]
Had this email forwarded to me thanks to ruiner. A tip from AMD on how to get a nice speed improvement for you K6 owners. Also Billy Wilson over a VE posted to use the gl_flipmatrix 1 command to fix your crosshair.

Copy the 3dfxglam.dll (from the AMD Quake2 patch files) to the \Half-Life\gldrv directory. Then add the following line to the bottom of drvmap.txt (without quotes) "3dfxglam.dll 3DNow!/Voodoo2 MiniGL".

This will add the "3DNow!/Voodoo2 MiniGL" line to the video option menu and add 10-15% performance on AMD-K6-2 systems (based on the 'cheat' timedemo). It's not great but it's a start.

Unreal [9:45am]
Tim Sweeney has posted a new update to the Unreal tech page. Here is part of it:

I'm now down in Raleigh, North Carolina with the rest of the Unreal team. Things are really coming together for the top-secret project we're working on, and Unreal 220 is starting to solidify. We don't have a release date yet, but it could be as early as next week.

The Internet play improvements in 220 are quite noticeable. Steve and I are using a new physics prediction scheme based on motion compensation. This improves the smoothness of other players' movement in deathmatch games, especially in large, open levels like DmDeck16, where lots of players are visible.

Speaking of Unreal, saw on Blue's that the WestLake page has been updated with MacUnreal v219

New Cheapo QW Proxy [9:45am]
A new version of Cheapo has been released making the changes that were promised a while ago due to American QW players feeling location reporting via a proxy is cheating. There are also a couple of new features in there to help find other players cheating with model hacks etc.

f_modified can be used in official matches to report any models that have been changed. This works exactly as in Qizmo (the code is actually the same,

DM3 Jump [9:45am]
Catscratch has figured out how to consistently make the DM3 jump from the high bridge to RL box. He's made a demo which should change the face of Quake teamplay a bit.

Views [9:15am]

• nVidia
  Tweak3D has posted a new interview with David Kirk of nVidia asking some pretty interesting questions about what the boys are doing after the TNT etc.
  
  

Tech Etc [9:15am]

• Matrox Drivers
  The Matrox website has posted some new drivers for the G200 line of cards. Grab the Millenium and Mystique drivers.
  
  
• Hardware Therapy, Voodoo3!
  From email: "The long awaited Special Voodoo 3 Edition of Hardware Therapy is finally here. If you're up with the USENET feed, you already know there was a severe backlash against 3Dfx when the Voodoo 3 was announced."
  
  
• SBLive! & MX300
  Thresh's Frontline has posted a new article taking a look at the two soundcards and how they apply to you the gamer. Check it out.
  
  

werd
Gotta go out for a bit and pick up a copy of Zelda64. I'll post about if this Half-Life reg key thing gets resolved as well. I got an email from a WON.net representative telling me the chances of a key conflict are 1 in 100,000. I'll finish up the weekly section when I get home as well.

Half-Life [8:45am]
Fatman over at WON has posted a nifty little FAQ for running Half-Life servers. There is also a CD-Key FAQ that may help a few people. Mostly those of you who ran an authenticated server previously and are having problems getting out there to play on your own now.

Oh, also I saw on Redwood's that there is a cheat list now for you guys.

More Ion Departures [8:45am]
From Redwood: Gamespot has an article that says there is another Ion Storm employee that has announced leaving the company. Chris DeSimone worked on Daikatana and Dominion. He's going to work on Terminal Reality's Nocturn, which is due October 1999.

Half-Life Reg Keys [8:45am]
You one of the many honest guys out there that payed for Half-Life, brought home your CD and tried to play multiplayer but your key was returned as invalid? Did you call Sierra and listen to them accuse you of being a software pirate? Check out the new poll on 3DN and post your 2 cents. Sierra's suggestion of "go trade your CD in for another" is horrible.

Zelda64 [8:45am]
As I am one of the many dying to play Zelda64, I noticed that www.zelda64.com lists today as the big day. Check with your retailers and mail order companies. I've been told that today is the shipping day, so most stores wont have a copy until tomorrow or the following day.

Suck [8:45am]
The weekly suck is up.

SIN Patch Download [8:45am]
The patch is 19Mb, and here's a list of mirrors. 3DFiles Bluesnews Tennessee Ritnews Stomped Frag Dot Com

Long load times are improved.
Long reloads after dying are fixed.
Sound compatibility issues fixed.
Save game from a compact install now works properly.
Multiplayer skin showing up in red is fixed.
Autoplay from the CD splash screen is fixed.
Manumit, the subway mutant now works correctly.
Monster AI has been adjusted.
Area 57 crash bug has been fixed.
An animation issue with Assault Rifle and HV Chain Gun in Multiplayer has been fixed.
Fixed Quantum Destabilizer bug where you could vaporize a character that had an idcard.
Case sensitivity for Missile Silo password entry is fixed.
A few "wait for player" issues which could effect vehicles and some cinematics have been fixed.
A memory leak has been fixed.

Views [9:15am]

• Turok2
  From VoodooExtreme: Acclaim has updated their Turok2: Seeds of Evil page with a look-see at Level 4.  They have also included some new quicktime movies and screenshots from their soon to be released sequel
  
  
• Sharky's COMDEX Vid Card Wrap Up
  Sharky Extreme has posted a great wrap up of all the 3D accelerators they got a chance to play with during the recent COMDEX trade show.
  
  
• Sharky's COMDEX CPU Wrap Up
  Sharky Extreme has posted a great wrap up of all the CPU's they got a chacne to play with as well.
  
  

werd
Um, the Raiders game was close till the 4th quarter at least. That stunk.

Lucy I'm Home [3:45pm]
Aye, back from college station. Looks like the power company didnt pay attention when I asked for the billing to be passed over to me from my old roomate. (Wieder over at 3DR now) Just got the power turned back on here after coming home last night to a freezing apt.

Also, my dumbass didnt upload the updated .htm file for the demo section before I left Saturday morning. About a hundred of you found it anyways though.. It's in the HTML now. Oops.

Lastly, the SIN patch has been released. Grab it over at Ritualistic.com