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EG Owns!

Clan EG, Evil Geniuses have won the Genocidal HPB tournament. Defeating Clan Wicked Demise in 2 straight matches. There are a couple of demos available on the homepage. (Although I watched a couple mins of one and I have to say the camera work was less than exciting.)

No Thresh in PGL?

Well, I just showed up this morning and played 2 hours worth on the PGL server to make a feeble attempt at becoming a "pro gamer" and thought this was newsworthy:

I was on the server until the 12pm EST cutoff, and apparently Thresh did not finish up with 250 frags before the deadline. Talk about a nutty turn of events eh? Now considering this is a professional league, they can't go making special exceptions either, bummer. It's anyone's tournament now. :)

I made it btw, w00! I'm now a professional gamer! I gotta call mom!

YPOD

As announced yesterday, the YPOD TC for Quake has been released. Here is the file, (Will be avialable around 4pm pst)it's a bigass 13 or so megs so uh, be prepared to wait a while. To recap, it's Doom, but in Quake. :)

Update: There is also a QuakeWorld fix available for download at the homepage.

2Fort5

I'll be damned, could people actually start playing a map in Team Fortress aside from 2fort4? Could it be 2fort5? Ok.. it's not a big departure, but at least it's an update to the map that everyone knows inside and out already.

AirQuake v1.0

Here ya go, AirQuake has finally hit version 1.0. Check out the homepage and download your copy of what is probably one of the top quality TC's out there.

YPOD Doom TC Release

Show up on IRC 3DNet (irc.3dnet.net) tonight at midnight for the big release party of Your Path of Destruction, a Doom TC for Quake. Here is the email I got from Reid, one of the level designers on the project:

"Hello, I'm a fellow mapper from the TC and CurMo tells me that TONIGHT is the release of the much anticipated YPOD (Your Path of Destruction) DOOM TC!! http://www.planetquake.com/doom There will be a release party on 3dnet #ypod at midnight (CST), thats 1am (EST) for folks like me."

GibStats v1.6

New version of the cool log analyzer / table generator all in one cool util for getting all the stats you could want out of your deathmatches has been released on the homepage, here are the new features, check out the homepage and download it.

- New user interface - CTF scores are more exact - HTML export options enhanced - enhanced searching capabillities for players - easier management of players and clans - many bugs killed

QuAdS v3.5

Another release out for the weekend is QuAdS version 3.5. This program was "kinda inspired by QPlug" here is part of the email I got:

"The major new feature is server information - When you select a server QuAdS will retrieve information about the server and players over the net. Kinda inspired by QPlug, but works with both Quake and QuakeWorld servers! Another fun feature is random level selection. Also, I've put up a bunch of new level images for the level preview feature."

Borg v2.0

Let's keep on rollin with the releases, Guardian emailed me about version 2.0 of the Borg TC having been released. It's a new model and skin etc, pretty good stuff.

3dfx Shadow Warrior Bug

I failed to mention this the other day (along with a lot of stuff actually, too pissed off at the server to even bother with catching up on news the other day) but there is a load game / save game bug in the 3dfx Shadow Warrior patch that was overlooked before release. Oops! Should be fixed shortly.

JediKnight Stuff

All that is Jedi:

• The new JediKnight Specs have been released by www.darkjedi.com. Thanks to www.jediknight.net

Interviews

Few interviews for ya to read up on :

• Aurora emailed me about the new GameGirlz interview with Brian Hook, here is what Brian had to say about it:

I did an interview for GameGirlz, check out http://www.gamegirlz.com . It's probably my favorite interview I've done, since I didn't have to talk techie shit all the time, AND GameGirlz didn't screw it up completely.

• The latest part of the BootNET interviews have been posted with a pair of programmers from id Software. Although as Blue noted there seems to be an absence of Brian Hook material posted in the latest portion, not sure if that is in response to his rants in the ol' .plan file or not though.
• Dario Casali of Valve Software answers some questions about level design with the guys at www.videogamedesign.com
• We also got an interview with Chaos and Toad of the Evil Empire TC over at TC Magazine that is worth a look.

The Server

I'm sure you all have noticed the um, deadness of the page. Well they have finally fixed it for good (crossing fingers) It was a pleasant holiday surprise to show up at work on Thanksgiving, spend a while doing email and editing away, only to find out for some reason I couldn't post the days news. (I went on a frenzy deleting stuff on my hd clearing stuff out to ease my pain, cleaned out 400 megs! wee!)

Uh.. anyways. The server is back, sorry I missed you guys on Thanksgiving etc.

GLQuake Guide

If you happen to play GLQuake, you will really want to check out the new updated GLQuake help section here at the Shack. It's um, big.

Wolf3D TC Release "Soon"

Thanks to Faustus for this quote from www.brutality.com/wolf3d/

"A lot of people have emailed asking what happened to the release of ou conversion. Well here is the whole story; We were about done when we decided to add 2 more monsters and some new weapon effects. These things are about finished now and we are merging the different code from our qc people. The extra time we are taking will make the conversion more enjoyable, and you'll be challenged a tad more too. I can't give a firm day, but I really would be surprised if we don't get it out by the end of the month. A few more days is all I think it will take. -Rumble--"

The BootNET Articles

Well, Boot has officially made Brian Hook's shit list after posting the latest installment of the interview they conducted with him and John Carmack over at id Software. Here is an excerpt of Mr. Hook's rant:

BOOT Magazine is officially on my shit list. The interview that they posted on their Web site is just crap. They edited it enough to screw up the context of what we were saying or, in some cases, they managed to make us say something that we weren't, but they didn't edit out the pieces we wanted removed to avoid confusion.

Click here to read the entire thing where he gives pretty detailed story of just what transpired to get Boot on the wonderful list of shit.

Update: Well, since the server has been not wanting me to upload updates, another article has come out, part4. Um.. I guess BootNET and id don't get along now days. heh.

VooDoo2

The boys at VooDoo Extreme are working right on through the holidays with an update to the VooDoo2 FAQ as well as talk about Quake2 running at 1024x768 resolution on a VooDoo2 card at over 35 frames per second.

Arena Final

I've spent a good amount of time playing the Clan Arena over at 204.71.187.140:27501 [DrSmooth] protocol recently, and NiOXiN over at the Rocket Arena homepage is looking for map submissions for the final installment of what I guess could be called the 3rd most popular patch for Quake ever.

Skillz Contest

Doh! dunno why hs!'s emails were getting filtered into the wrong email box, but he mailed me about the 1on1 HPB tournament going on over there with like $1,500 worth of prizes, so if you didnt sign up, too late! Check out http://skillz.stomped.com though. :)

Hexen2 Level

Got email from the guys of MarTim that they have released what looks to be the first public Hexen2 DM level on the net. It's a medieval map which uses all of the neet new features that the Raven guys added to the engine.

Blue's

Well, Blue got his page fixed before mine did, but we made a deal that I would post this anyways.. so um.. his page was broken earlier, but now it's not. You missed it.

Rant

Wiseguy of Clan 311 has posted this really good rant talking about the CPL (Cyberathlete Pro League) and PGL (Pro Gamers League) He pretty much says CPL is the way to go with some changes.

btw, my 2 cents. Online = Lag = not fair = not professional.

Quake2 + 3D Cards

Tom's Hardware page has a great in depth list of benchmarks performed on most every popular 3D card on the market that is capable of running GLQuake and GLQuake2. Snoop-EMB

Yea, it's actually like uh.. 1.41am.. but uh. I don't wanna update on a holiday or something. Actually, there is a lot of catching up to do that I'll be working on tomorrow evening. (New and much improved GLQuake manual is finally ready) All the weekly sections have to be updated, gotta organize my files on the server worth a damn.. etc etc..

Quake2 Manual Cover

For all those who just can't get enough of Quake2, Joost emailed me about www.slipgatecentral.com having a scanned image of the Quake2 manual that will be shipping with the game "before christmas"

id on Boot

The December issue of BootNET features an interview with 2 of the 3 main programmers at id Software. John Carmack and Brian Hook. Alex St. John conducts the interview and will be releasing bits and pieces of it for the next 10 days until the entire thing has been posted. The first section is already posted, so uh.. with my detective skills I have deduced that the 2nd section may be posted as early as tomorrow.

How do I use a VooDoo2?

Billy Wilson of VooDoo Extreme was kind enough to forward this email conversation he had with Brian Bruning:

"Many developers are trying new techniques to handle the extra power in the upcoming Voodoo 2. Look at the Messiah engine from Shiny as a g ood example. The character engine will create a model complexity depending on a target frame-rate. Thus if you're running SW, you'd get 500 polys. With Voodoo 2 you'd get 5,000 polys. Scalability in both polygon count and fill-rate is our primary message to the development community right now. Tesselation does bump up the polygon count but really only makes lighting look better. It takes the same model and breaks it into more faces. We'd rather see a higher res model that could morph between poly levels or such." Brian P. Bruning 3Dfx Interactive Developer Relations Manager"

Future vs. Fantasy v4.0

Just got word that the Future vs. Fantasy homepage has been updated with information on the new version of FvF that just hit the net. There is also talk on the page about the rest of the work for the boys being focused on Quake2 now.

QuestFinger

The version4.0 of QuestFinger has opened it's doors to the public. I'm sure everyone vividly remembers how peachy fun the last opening was. :)

TEN Java

There is an announcement on the TEN page that version2.0 of the Java based interface for TEN has been launched. This new Java based interface is much less of a download an apparently better in general. So grab your pak2, head on over to the tournament servers and run those spawns.

Speaking of PGL..

The PGL guys have extended the deadline for signups till this Friday. (Not sure if this is because of lack of signups) I read on Blue's page that apparently our man Jokey Smurf is ranked #1. If you have signed up, you have until the 30th of this month to get 250 frags.

Jedi Knight Stuff

All that is the Jedi way:

• The new force powers keep on coming out, this new one called Freeze is um, like a freeze power and stuff. Thanks to www.jediknight.net

Interviews

What everyone else is saying:

• Nintendo god himself, Shigero Miyamoto did an interview with Next-Generation Online. Wow. (The dude behind Zelda, Mario, etc, ya know?)
• Apogee has hit 10yrs old now, and there is a chronology of their 10yrs of service to the gaming world posted on the web page.

Preview / Review Land

What everyone else is saying about the games you play:

• The VooDoo Extreme boys sent news of a review of the Canopus Total3D card on Zone128.
• While you are reading video card reviews, there is another one of the STB Velocity 128 on AVault.
• Frag.com seems to be alive and kicking, Hanif has posted his impressions of The FRAG. (Largest ever gathering of Quake players to date)

.plan Wagon

• Nick Newhard of Monolith has made a .plan update talking about the status of a Blood 3dfx patch that is in the works as well. (The Shadow Warrior patch just came out yesterday)

Just When You Thought I Was Back..

Well, stayed up um, pretty damn late last night waiting for the server to unbreak, so things are *ahem* supposed to run smoothly for now on. We'll see.

Great...

well, as I work on this update I have noticed that Digex and our webserver ISP no longer get along, so uh.. I'll take my sweet time as I work on it I suppose. Sorry about the delay. =/

SiN

All the news that is SiN:

• Ritual Entertainment has announced the hiring of 2 more level designers. Patrick Hook, and Charlie Wiederhold. Check out the Ritual News page as well as SiN CiTY for the press release.
• The Ultimate SiN has scored themselves some exclusive holiday art courtesy of Ritual Entertainment.

Display Doctor v6.0

If you play Quake, you absolutely positively should get this vesa driver for video cards. (Unless you play GL or Verite, this won't affect you) Go to www.scitechsoft.com and download Display Doctor v6.0. Here is a quote from the page:

This new version adds support for many new cards, including Number Nine Revolution 3D; ATI's Xpert@Play and Xpert@Work cards; Diamond's Stealth 3D 2000 Pro, Stealth Viper 330, Fire GL 1000 Pro, and Stealth II s220 cards; Matrox's Millennium 2 and Mystique 220 cards; Hercules' Stingray 128/3D, Dynamite 3D/GL, and Terminator 3D/DX cards; and STB's Velocity 128/3D and Nitro 3D cards. Furthermore, Display Doctor 6.0 offers support for VESA VBE 3.0 and VBE/AF 2.0 on over 250 different graphics chips. There is also a new user interface and support for 3D stereo LCD glasses, Toshiba laptops, and fixed frequency monitors. Also look for full centering and refresh rates control for non-VGA chipsets, as well as a SDDSpeed enhancement for Pentium Pro and Pentium II processors.

Quake2 Stuff

All the news that is Quake2 over the past few days:

• PowerVR + Quake2 = colored lighting?
  Zanshin has updated his GLQuake Dojo page with just that news, apparently with a combination of some crazy hacks, it just may happen:

I have information that indicates there WILL be full colored lighting in Quake 2 with PCX2. Using a lot of blending mode hacks, NEC/Videologic managed to pull it off. The performance does take a hit, though. I hope they offer a choice to disable it, if speed is hit that much.

btw, when I stopped by at id last week, Vik Long himself was there talking with the id guys about PCX2 and Q2. (I saw a machine running it, but the framerate wasnt up to snuff quite yet)

• This month's issue of PC Gamer has a review of Quake2, in which it is given a 96% rating, and also a quote from the review sounds something like "The best PC Game ever, even after the 13 months of hype" -rhys@klf.dircon.co.uk

Jedi Knight Stuff

All the news that is Jedi Knight:

• Version 1.1 of Morpy's grappling hook patch for Jedi Knight has been released. It replaces the pistol with a coolbeans hook.

Shadow Warrior 3dfx Patch

*Finally* hitting the net, the Shadow Warrior patch for all you 3dfx owners has been released. I haven't gotten to check this thing out yet but from the screenshots I saw they take pretty good advantage of all the cool hardware effects that are possible.

Gibbed.com

A favorite Clan page hosting grounds, www.gibbed.com done got borked earlier, here is a quote fron NaS though for the future:

GIBBED.COM has experienced a severe server crash. Backups are being discarded, and we are starting fresh. We will be accepting applications for webspace in the relatively near future. Please stay tuned. Thanks, and we apologize. -- NaS, Founder/Owner

QuakeWorld

All the news that is QuakeWorld:

• The boys at Inside Mac Games have news that MacSoft plans on releasing a shareware version of QuakeWorld for the Mac (so you have to register both QW and Quake to play the full version online I assume) This is just a "probably" though, which means uh.. just bet on 1st quarter hopefully.
• The install program for Malice on QuakeWorld is now here. Grab the patch and install it. You of course have to have the Malice TC though first. :)

.plan Wagon

So many damn .plan updates going on over the weekend that it's just nutty, here ya go:

• I guess we'll start of with Brian Hook, programmer at id Software making a clean half dozen updates while I was gone for the weekend, you go Brian. He talks about frustration, his opinion on opinions, and anything else you can think of. Oh, don't forget he also updates talking about the alt-tab fuction in Quake2.
• Disruptor updated his .plan with some cool pictures of Paul Steed taking out his aggressions on a defenseless door. (Bigass sword, large holes in a door, very cool)
• Levelord himself of Ritual Entertainment made a nice .plan update telling the world just how well he and I get along as well as some other interesting tales talking about life here at Ritual. I think it's true love.
• Charlie Wieder, one of the two new level designers here at Ritual talks about his new deathmatch level which is near completion (very cool btw) and uh, he doesnt think driving with me is safe or something.
• Rich over at Ion Storm is also talking about the new levels that he is working on. (Bluffs, Hillocks, and Boulders)
• Don't forget Dr. Sleep over at Ion Storm also talking about his buddy taking the #1 spot on Meccaworld's recent list of the top 100 Quake levels ever.

Comdex

What's come outa Comdex you ask?

• Frag.com has posted their review of what they saw over at Comdex. It includes Quake2, the VooDoo2, as well as Unreal.
• Tom's Hardware Guide has a report from Comdex, and can you guess what Tom focuses on? Well, the AMD K6 for one thing, and he says it's up to 30% faster than a p2/300 with a special version of DirectX.

Preview / Review Land

What everyone is saying about the games you play:

• Online Gaming Review has a review of the Pure3D from Canopus.
• Focus on Quake has a review of Hexen2 posted.
• PsychoNews has a review of the QA Malice TC for Quake.
• There is also a review of the Intergraph Intense3D Card.
• Jedi Knight gets a pair of reviews, first over at EnterMedia, then also at GameZilla.

Releases

All the new versions of popular patches for Quake to have been released:

• QuArK has hit version 4.04 and now has Hexen2 support built in. Head over to the QuArK Page.
• A new map for Fantasy Quake has been released on the FQ Homepage.
• R.I.P. which helps people do homemade mods of the very popular Reaper Bot patch for Quake is updated, from Inside3D.
• Version 0.9 of QStat view has hit the net on the homepage.
•  

Interviews

Surprisingly there weren't that many interviews to happen over the weekend:

• Mattias Wellander, of Force Builder fame is interviewed over at Jedi Link.

Miss Me?

Hi, I'm Steve. I do believe I'm back in the office now and will be here through the holidays. (Took my 4 day vacation a bit early) Gonna catch up on some email (w00) and then go get some food. Then, on tap for this evening is probably one of the largest news updates here in a long long time! Can you feel the excitement?

I'm thinking around 10pm tonight.

I'm Still Not Here

Just wanted to drop in on you guys while I'm out on vacation to tell you all how much I love ya. Gona go through a few of the more important things that have gone down over the past couple of days so you don't feel completely outa the loop. :) Oh, I'm not reading through the email over here so thanks to VooDoo, and Blue's page or wherever the hell else I rip this stuff off of.

Q2Test Demo Info

Apparently American McGee made an appearance on IRC to confirm the bit of rumors floating around that the next Quake2 demo will not be appearing on the net anytime soon. The next demo that you run into wont be out there until Quake2 is also on the shelves. Here is a quote from American when asked if his statements on IRC were true:

"yes i did. we are going to finish the game, get it out the door, then it will hit the stores... the demo won't come out until after the game is in the stores..."

Cyber Gaming League #3

MPlayer, not wanting to be left out after Cyberathletes announcing the 1st Cyberathletic league, and then TEN following up being the 2nd league shortly after, has decided to jump on the wagon themselves. Check out the Next-Generation article that talks about a "series of collaberations, and new sections."

QStat / Qview Updates

New versions of probably the most popular Quake server hosting software have been released on the QStat pages. The new version includes some server parsing options to help you find a QuakeWorld game.

New ClanRing Mod

Beta 2 of the ClanRing mod is posted on the ClanRing pages of course. (If you are running a Quake server, and it isnt CTF, Arena, or TF, then you better be using this mod or I will come to your house, beat you up, shoot your dog and pee in your yard.

I may even enjoy it. In fact, now that I think about it.. what's your address?

.plan Wagon

What all the homecuts are talking about:

• Brian Hook is sharing his opinion on opinions as well as making several work log updates as well, a busy busy man..

Hm.. now that I think about it, just about everyone over at id Software is updating their .plan files (lots of time spent at the office, crunch time baby, gotta love it) Just check out http://finger.planetquake.com and read all those mofos.