SOF Center has put up part 18 of their Soldier of Fortune Developer's Diary. Raven programmer Keith Fuller this time discusses how damn hard it is to please us gamers.

Telefragged has two new screenshots from the upcoming Soldier of Fortune Gold edition, the free multiplayer addon for the game [shot 1, shot 2]

SOF Center has a new Soldier of Fortune designer diary by Raven programmer Keith Fuller. This weeks edition is a sort of a .plan update, with Keith talking about working with Rich Whitehouse, who is programming the bot for the SOF Gold edition, and also working on multiplayer for Elite Force.

Soldier-of-Fortune.com interviews Eric Biessman discussing the recently announced SoF Gold project which was announced a little while ago as a free add-on for SoF.

The Vancouver Sun is reporting that for the first time the British Columbia (Canada for those not from North America :) ) attorney-general's ministry has banned a game. The game in question? Raven's Soldier of Fortune. The game is now adult material and can't be displayed in places where minors might come, basically putting it in the same category as porn. The news article offers quotes from attorney-general Andrew Petter and various game shop owners, as well as the guy who started the complaint. Of course the big problem they have with the game is the violent content (even though there's a toned-down version?)

"For example, Soldier of Fortune depicts the agony and suffering of victims burning to death as the result of the protagonists' use of a flame-thrower. The expressions of this agony are manifested in cries of pain, screaming and physical responses to the injuries, including recoiling, flailing, grimacing and grasping at the wound site. In my opinion, therefore, the depictions of violence in Soldier of Fortune are brutal and contain an element of torture," McCausland said in her written decision.

A few more screenshots of Soldier of Fortune Gold are over at GA-Source to check out. Looks peachy.

The AVault has four screenshots of the Soldier of Fortune Gold edition, the team-oriented add on for Soldier of Fortune which will have 15 to 20 new levels, a multiplayer bot and new DM characters. Stomped also has two shots.

There's an interview with the Soldier of Fortune bot programmer on Stomped. Programmer Richard Whitehouse previously worked on the Famkebot for Q2 and the Jumpbot for Half-Life. His SOF bot will be included in the upcoming Gold edition of the game.

Part 16 of the Soldier of Fortune designers diary on SOF Center has been posted, with Raven programmer Keith Fuller talking about stories in games.

If you only recently picked up Raven's FPS Soldier of Fortune, Soldier of Fortune Center has posted a walkthrough for all the missions. They also have a newbie guide, but I'm sure you're too l33t for that.

Stomped has learned about a big update coming for Soldier of Fortune. Raven will be releasing about 15-20 new multiplayer levels with new team modes, new multiplayer character models and also a bot. The AI for the game will be improved as well. This update will be for free, but will also be appearing in stores as Soldier of Fortune Gold. It should be out by the end of August.

Soldier-of-Fortune.com's "Keith's Got Code" article has been updated, with more coding help for people wanting to make mods for the Raven FPS Soldier of Fortune.

A new mod for Soldier of Fortune is out, Hostile Intent. It's a class-based realism mod for SoF, although they don't have the features of the mod listed yet. Right now they have a pre-alpha release meant for feedback to the team

Soldier-of-Fortune.com has the first of their "Keith's Got Code" article, where they take user submitted questions about Soldier of Fortune mod coding to Raven programmer Keith Fuller. Maybe nice to check out if you wanna try and make a mod in SOF.

Soldier-of-Fortune.com sends word that there will be a test release for the multiplayer Soldier of Fortune as mentioned by Rick Johnson on the messageboards. There will also be a new EAX dll.

Tech Extreme has an interview with Mike Crowns, director of product development over at Raven. They talk about what he does as director of product development, who's idea was Soldier of Fortune, anything he'd like to change about SOF, as well as Elite Force, their upcoming Star Trek game.

Rust - Gamedesign has an interview with Raven level designer Greg Barr, who was one of the level designers on Soldier of Fortune.

SOFCenter has posted the 15th edition of the Soldier of Fortune designers diary. This week Raven programmer Keith Fuller discusses the SOF SDK. Interesting for mod makers at least, as it features suggestions for building and running the debug version of the gamex86.dll.

SOFNews.com sends word of the 1.1 SDK for Soldier of Fortune. It now includes the gamex86.dll source code and also has some other changes (sample project file, animation listing, SoFData source code). Get it from the Shack, or 3DAG.

As noted in the .plan update from Rick Johnson, the v1.05 patch for Soldier of Fortune has been released. You can grab it from SoFNews.com or SoldierofFortune.net and its just under 2 megs. If you still havent checked out the demo here it is. I've got a local mirror of the patch here.

SoF V1.05 is being uploaded to various SoF sites now. You MUST upgrade from V1.03 (as 1.04 was a beta and I didn't want to make a history patch to include that version). SoF SDK V1.1 will be released tomorrow. Sorry, I'm exhausted after getting back from my trip (having seen many Johns' in the Texas area...)