Thursday, December 2, 1999

ToddH .plan, Part Deux -- 10:56 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's Todd Hollenshead updated his .plan again with news of the availability of Quake 3 Arena for Linux.

We have just announced with Loki Software (our Linux distributor) that we should be on shelves by December 27th in the limited edition tin box.

Shogo and the New SB Live! Drivers -- 9:52 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I downloaded and installed the new SoundBlaster Live! drivers (see Tuesday's news for the scoop), which theoretically improves 3D sound in Shogo. I reinstalled Shogo to find out if the 3D sound really was improved. It is, by quite a bit. The reverb sounds much better and not so muddy anymore.

Unfortunately, Shogo's 3D sound support still causes sounds to disappear in the distance too quickly. As a result, it's hard to hear people firing at you unless a) they are right behind you, or b) the missile / bullet / whatever is about to hit you in the head. That's really only an issue in multiplayer though. I may just have to play some single player again to test it out some more. Just when I think I get Shogo off my hard drive for good . . .

ToddH .plan Update -- 7:44 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Todd Hollenshead (id's CEO) updated his .plan with news on Quake 3 Arena's availability.

Shelf date update (Windows version only)!

Q3A was shipped today and you should expect Babbages and EB to have it as early as tomorrow (I think they may have paid extra for expedited shipping). Please understand that not all of these stores may actuall stock the game on shelves tomorrow and some of them may already be "sold out" due to the huge pre-order response (in fact, Q3A is #1 for these stores before even hitting the shelves). CompUSA, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, etc. are all getting copies as well, but they probably won't show up on shelves before the "official" US date of December 5th.

Time to start sharpening those credit cards!

Linux install (The Haus/Linux) -- 1:47 pm CST, Update by The Master

I'm pursuing an experimental version of The Haus ported to Linux. Why? Because I like pain :-) Want to watch me flail about in the process? Check out my Linux Setup Log!

Graeme Devine .plan update -- 1:43 pm CST, Update by The Master

Graeme Devine updated his .plan with news on the correct ports to "unfirewall", and info on the upcoming full Demo (cool!):

In preparation for the full release.

The motd/master/auth servers run on ports 27950, 27951, 27952. The default game server is on port 27960. If you’re firewalled against these ports you’ll need to get unfirewalled to play the game. If we work on the servers from now on we’ll notify the community and schedule the maintenance for the slowest period of the day currently around 6am Dallas time).

We have what we consider a “gold” build of the demo. We’re putting it through the final push of QA at Activision before releasing it since this build is going to be more or less prevalent throughout the known universe.

A.T. adds: Gimme, gimme, gimme!

Stomped Q3A Poll -- 12:54 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Stomped is running a poll asking the musical question, "What is your favorite Quake III Arena character model?" At this moment, leading the pack with over 18% of the vote is Doom (the Doom marine). Somewhat surprisingly, Crash (the female Doom marine) is second with over 10% of the vote. Most surprisingly, Klesk hasn't even gotten 4% of the vote!

More on Tribes Extreme -- 12:02 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

PlanetStarSiege interviewed Dynamix' Nels Bruckner on the cancellation of Tribes Extreme, the material that will be released from it, and the future plans for Tribes 2. No word on if it will be called "Tribes 2: Electric Boogaloo".

Broken PIIIs -- 11:15 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

ZDNet is reporting that certain "Coppermine" Pentium III processors have a bug that will cause a PC not to boot every time the power switch is hit. Dell has frozen shipments of its OptiPlex desktops until the problem is solved. First RAMBUS, now this. Thanks Ars Technica.

The Master comments: It amazes me to see Intel sliding down the Microsoft testing system path. Hey, we use our customers as beta testers, and we even get away with it!

Q3A Screenshot Bonanza -- 10:13 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

With Quake 3 Arena hitting shelves in some places today and everywhere in the USA by Sunday, there's been a veritable bevy of screenshots posted. Blue shows off your opponents on the last two tiers. sCary went nuts and posted screenshots of every level in the game. Redwood got into the act with shots from several levels. Finally, Barry's World shows Crash taking a swim.

Wednesday, December 1, 1999

Tribes Extreme Axed -- 8:36 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Billy at VE posted that Tribes Extreme has been cancelled and the group working on it will now be working on Tribes 2. I'm sure that this is sad news to someone.

Daikatana Month -- 8:16 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Daikatana.Com is celebrating "Daikatana Month" (yes, folks, this month it will actually be unleashed on an unsuspecting public) by going through the locales and weapons available in the various episodes in the game. The information looks good, but I know that I'm going to want to play a demo before I decide to shell out my hard-earned money on it.

Webdog Issues -- 10:48 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Webdog is making some sort of changes (I assume they are changing servers). As a result, the Webdog plans and news tracking are a little borked right now. Even if you go to the Webdog site, their plan script is crashing. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

Q3A Officially Gold -- 9:35 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Activision finally got around to issuing a press release that Q3A is now officially gold. Of course, we knew that a long time ago. The press release gives December 5 as the "on shelves" date, which is a little odd since that's a Sunday. At any rate, Q3A is finally here!

Update! loonyboi contacted a source at Activision who said that the reason for the Sunday release date, is that's the day it will be everywhere in the U.S. for sure. So the rumors of it showing up in some stores tomorrow could very likely be true.

Blather -- 8:31 am CST, Update by The Master

Okay, couple points for you all:

• I started working on a new Linux machine last night. Red Hat is a SWEET install. Better than anything I've ever installed on a machine before. I plan on writing a log of the trials and tribulations as I work on this machine. Watch for it :-)
• Saw an AWESOME User Friendly Cartoon today. Check it. A.T. and I understand.

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