The Messiah demo has been released! Here you go guys check out this link for the downloads. I would actually recommend hitting the 'behind a firewall' link since you dont have to deal with all that gigex crap and just fill out a bunk email address. In case you're not sure if you want the demo, since it is 70 megs here are some images of the game: [shot1] [shot2] [shot3] [shot4] [shot5] [shot6] [shot7] [shot8]

The demo includes the first level of the full game.The Messiah demo is available via Gigex download: download it here or, if you're behind a firewall download it here The system requirements are: PII 233 or, 64 MB RAM, sound board, 3-D accelerator.

update 4:15am: So far very few people in the comments has been able to get the demo to work! It's hard locking on nvidia and 3dfx based video cards both. Might wanna hold off on that 70meg download...

update 8:52am by Maarten: Billy has posted what seems to at least have it load on a Glide machine. According to him, after loading you'll hear a beep (without seeing anything), then hit enter and just wait (it may take several minutes). Still kinda stupid, game shouldn't take minutes to load, but that seems to be the case here.

Ok, here's the latest on the fabled Messiah demo, Bryon Feller and DoG spotted this post by Dave Perry:

The demo will be delivered to GAMESPOT who has the exclusive for the Messiah demo at 11 PM PST and they estimate the link will be availble 12:30AM. Please send big thanks to both GameSpot and Gigex for working late sothat all you gamers can have your Messiah demo tonight.

Oh my goodness, a playable demo of Messiah today? Can you believe it? After being in a dead lock with Doppleganger for so long the Shiny guys pull through and bust out a playable demo. It looks to be on schedule for a release today, here's the latest from Dave Perry (thanks JayZee), and of course those shots I posted earlier this week to jog your memory: [shot1] [shot2] [shot3] [shot4] [shot5] [shot6]

<snip> ...Make sure you have DirectX 7.0 and all the newest drivers for your 3D and Sound card. Messiah makes killer use of 3D sound effects using A3D version 3.0 and EAX. So go get the latest drivers now! De-Fragment your hard drive and don't play the demo with a virus killer running.... Virus test the files when you get them, then disable the killer. The atmosphere is electric here... Keep the emails coming... I am sending them to the Messiah team members.... boss@shiny.com

The Q3 Macintosh demo has been released, I included the original story here for you guys to mess with.   Firstly John Carmack talks quite a bit about the demo and performance on what machines you can expect. and then Graeme on the Mac version and drivers you will need.

The game remains very marginal in playability on 266mhz imacs and iBooks. A 333mhz imac should be playable for a casual gamer if the graphics options are turned down to the "fastest" setting. There is still a lot of room for improvement on ATI's side with the RagePro drivers. Almost all the effort so far has been on the Rage128 drivers. The G3 systems run fine, but a little slower than a pc of equal mhz
<snip>
From Graeme: You'll need the newest version of OpenGL for the Macintosh, which came out today. It's available at http://asu.info.apple.com/swupdates.nsf/artnum/n11545" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" class="external. Go download that while we're coordinating on getting the Mac build out there through Sandpiper.

Billy dug up a few tidbits on the upcoming Messiah playable demo that should be released this Friday. Stuart Roch of Shiny made this post to the official forum with the details.

** The demo will be approximately 75 MB.
** The demo is comprised of the first section of the game; The Shipping Sector.
** There will be 10 playable characters.
** There will be 5 primary weapons and 2 secondary weapons available.
** We are still on target for release this Friday on Gamespot. Actual time has not yet been determined.

Back when the game was first announced and screenshots were coming out the game looked to be a technology ass-kicker above anyone else. At this point in the game Messiah only has some neeto character mesh stuff and gameplay to offer as new though. It's still impressive looking though: [shot1] [shot2] [shot3] [shot4] [shot5] [shot6]

The guys at q3a.stomped.com have found a solution to mouse wheel problems in the new demo:

If you alt/tab to another windows application or the desktop and then alt/tab back into the game again the mouse wheel activates. Now it and can be used to scroll through weapons as per usual.

A number of people have been saying the new Q3DemoTEST, although impressive and all that is actually a bit slower running than the previous 1.08. This is mostly due to the new VM code, Here are some benchmarks from Fabian Huester. I dont have access to my P3 machine (not at home) and the Athlon system I have has a nasty habit of locking right now (Bum motherboard, gonna replace that soon) So it's gonna be a little while before I can get some comparison benchmarks up of my own.

I moved this post to the top of the page since it's um, kinda important. The Quake3 Arena demo has been released. You can grab it here.  Let me say now that you guys will just be freaking amazed how the bots can interact with you in teams. If the mirrors below arent enough for ya more of them are in the comments.. Also, the ever-busy Quake3 messageboard or Chatshack will help you with any questions I would hope.

- id Software
- FilePlanet
- AVault
- Stayne's House of Demos
- MnGamers.com
- Meccaworld
- BluesNews
- Gaminggroup.com
- German Mirror at GXP.de
- Stomped FTP2

Ok guys, for all you modem guys out there waiting an eternity for the download I have a few things for you to check out. First off you should take a look at all the nifty bot commands you can use in teamplay. Next you probably want to see what is new in this build of Quake3 right? Here are some images:

Three shots of the new map: [shot1] [shot2] [shot3]
A shot of the new reward icons you see: [shot1]
A shot of the new ammo box effect: [shot1]
Three shots of the slightly new Q3tourney: [shot1] [shot2] [shot3]
A shot of the new teamplay HUD (top right) [shot1]
A shot of the new +scores which includes time [shot1]
Oh, and the nifty new id logo. :) [shot1]

If you are extra bored and want to see the config I use in Quake3, just hit 'exec scary' at the console once you get the thing on your machine. Ok also just spotted this .plan update from Disruptor talking about some issues that have come up:

- Server browser is fux0red. Will look into that tommorow
- Problems binding and using the mousewheel
- Can't resolve authorize.quake3arena.com. God only knows why. I've been losing my mind over this. Some people can resolve it fine, others can't. If someone can e-mail me with a definitive reason why this isn't resolving for some people, I'll be ever so greatfull. I've done digs off of various nameservers and most can resolve this just fine. *sigh*

I accidentally went to Stomped and noticed that id's Todd Hollenshead updated his .plan about the distribution of the demo test demo thing that should be released tonight, probably at midnight CST or so (1.16 hours from now).

Demo Test notes:

As Graeme indicated, this is a preliminary release. We are retaining the prohibition on physical media distribution until we release the final or "gold" demo. That means that magazines will NOT be allowed to distribute this version of the demo on coverdisks. This is marked all over the test, however I would appreciate it if all of the Quake 3 and game site webmasters that are mirroring or covering the release would lend me a hand and make sure our friendly neighborhood game and computer magazines understand this.

Rest assured, we will allow physical media distribution of the final demo, once it is released, but not yet.

Second, although the 1-800-idgames number is on the screen, we (id) aren't accepting orders yet. Also, please remember that number is not for technical support for Quake III Arena, the demo test, or any other id game. Feedback, bugs, etc., in the demo test should still be sent to feedback@quake3arena.com

Finally, before the crazy speculation starts, we aren't done with the game yet. We will be finished "when it's done!" Again, anyone besides id claiming to have the official release date is just pulling your chain.

Enjoy!

Looking at the ol' .plan files revealed another update from John Carmack with the news that the demo release is imminent. He also has a worklog in there, but nothing earth-shattering in it...

The demo test is built. It should go up in a couple hours if nothing explodes.

Mac and linux builds won't be out tonight.

The ever present Blue noticed that Graeme made a similar update. Good thing Steve's gone for four hours, guess I'll do the mirrors if it comes out.

Quake 3 Arena demo test should be out tonight. Watch the skies!

update Jack - I'll just update this story to keep all the comments in one place :-) Graeme made another update clarifying the term "demo test"

Just so we’re all sure. This isn’t the general demo. If all goes well we’ll upload the general demo in a few days.

The demo contains four maps (q3dm1, q3dm7 (q3test1), q3dm17 (q3test2) & q3tourney2 (q3tourney) and six characters (Sarge, Visor, Major, Grunt, Daemia, & Stripe). Bots are in there on five difficulty settings (from “I can win!” to “nightmare!”).

This seems to mean that this demo is a pre-demo demo :) Actually, it's probably more along the lines of a test just to shack out any really big bugs that might be in the game. Christian Antkow also made an update saying that the update will be about 52.1 megs.

Here's a list of mirrors for you who didn't pick up the Wheel of Time demo yet:

FilePlanet

WON

Italian mirror

3DFiles.com

Wheel of Time.com

Unreal Universe

So, anyone who played it care to share their comments on the demo with modem users who aren't to sure on getting this 74mb thing? Oh yeah don't forget to get the Direct 3D patch to fix D3D performance.

Well here it is guys, the playable demo of Wheel of Time from Legened Entertainment. The FilePlanet guys scored the download but I'm sure it will be bogged shortly, feel free to share any mirrors you guys get. The demo is a big nasty 73.5 megs so go take a trip to the bahamas or something and come back. Havent really heard any opinions of the game from players just yet aside from D3D problems which should be fixed later today.

Some clarification on the Messiah demo date, it's scheduled for release on the 19th, not the 15th as originally thought. Thanks VE

A quick folllow-up to that WoT patch a couple of hours ago, Matt over at Legend posted a couple of comments that should interest you guys. Firstly the patch only applies to running dedicated servers from the in game menus (not the console) and secondly, the WoT demo is scheduled for release this friday! You can check out the WoT news page for details, and they also posted this image of the demo endscreen.

A playable demo of Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine has been released by Lucas. The graphics are not mind blowing or anything but neither was Jedi Knight and I loved that game. You can grab the demo here. It's about 36megs. If someone on a fast connect gets a chance to play it tell the rest of us if it's worth the download eh? :)

I see on Blues that Computer and Video Games News has word from an Activision production manager that the demo will be out in a few days, and that it will be over a 100mb in download size, which is a big increase over the previous tests that have come out. I have heard other things though, so dont get your hopes up too much for a release this week. Meanwhile, FGNOnline has some more news on that Sandpiper which is indeed similar to Gigex, as in that it should provide a fast download mirror (we all know how *cough*fast*cough* Gigex is though).

To enhance the release of the demo, id is committed to providing speedier content delivery due to the expected surge in traffic. Instead of adding more servers to handle the increased traffic, id has teamed with Sandpiper for an immediate solution for additional capacity and improved website performance.

"id wants to ensure that when the demo is released, gamers all over the world will be able to download it quickly and easily," said Todd Hollenshead, id Software's CEO. "As one of the top content delivery services, Sandpiper's server capacity can accommodate users, guaranteeing that Quake fans will get what they came for, regardless of heavy traffic."

update: Well, the rumor has already been squashed as Redwood asked Todd Hollenshead about the demo release and his answer was "That person has no idea what they're talking about and that's really all there is to say about it." Never trust them publishers boys and girls :)

Man, havent heard about this game in a while. It looks like Messiah is finally going to see the light of day. Actually they are planning to release the demo next Monday! Amazing! Check out this post by the Messiah producer. They havent figured out how big the download is gonna be, but looking at the screenshots I do know I'll be grabbing it and checking it out. Dig on these: [shot1] [shot2] [shot3] [shot4] [shot5] [shot6] [shot7] [shot8]

The everpresent Swedish Chef sent word of this post by Sam Brown of Legend stating that we should be getting our grubby hands on the Wheel of Time demo any day now. Something to keep us occupied until the big double release of Q3/UT at least eh? :)

The demo is about done, we're just trying to cull some more textures and sounds to get the download size down.

The AVault folks have posted the final demo of Slave Zero. The screenshots failed to ever really impress me but perhaps the game itself is still worth checking out.