Wednesday, December 15, 1999

Threewave CTF for Q3A: Released! -- 8:00 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I guess this is Quake III Arena CTF day :) As promised, Zoid has released three new maps for Q3A CTF. You can download the Win32 installer here and the zip file for Linux here. Note: if you downloaded the maps before about 7:45 central time, the windows installer was corrupted. A new version that works has been posted in its place. They weigh in at about 8M so pack a lunch.

Zoid on the New CTF Maps -- 6:04 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

David "Zoid" Kirsch, id's CTF expert and author of the soon-to-be-released Threewave CTF for Q3A maps, posted on sCary's comments section (#31) with some information on the new maps:

q3wctf1 - Bloodlust
This map is loosely based on the original map "Spill the Blood" by midiguy. The bases and central area are similiar to that original map, but the inbetween areas are quite different. It's a loose remake of the original. I've never heard of this "Bloody Waste" map until a few days ago and it looked like a basic clone of the original Spill the Blood map. This new maps is Spill the Blood in spirit, but it's definitely a Quake3 map.

q3wctf2 - Courtyard Conundrum
This is an original map that features a large courtyard with the flag in the far corner. The map consists of two levels, where the upper level in the bases are excellent for defensive control. The map is a basic figure eight style and offers plenty of good chases.

q3wctf3 - Finnegan's Revenge
This map is the most complex out of the three. The bases are a central room with connecting cooridors on upper and lower sections. The bases are three levels, where as the routes between bases are two levels. This map has a lot of different ways to escape with the flag, but good players can also figure out where the flag carrier is going and take another route to cut him off. This map really fosters good rocket jumping skills as well.

I'm hoping to get the maps out very soon. I think you're all going to really enjoy playing on them.

We're hoping with you, Zoid. Despite the aweful signal-to-noise ratio, occasionally you get a juicy tidbit from those comments.

Threewave CTF for Q3A Shots -- 5:07 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Stomped has posted some screenshots (three from each level) of Zoid's new Threewave CTF levels for Quake III Arena. 'Scuse me whilst I wipe the drool off my keyboard.

New Q3A Maps! -- 1:15 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Ritual's Tom Mustaine has made a brand-spanking new Quake III Arena map called "Mustaine Madness". Actually, there are two maps. One has a quad and a mega health and is intended for free-for-all servers. The other is the same map without the quad and mega health for 1v1 matches. You can download it from Stomped.

I downloaded and installed the maps and fired up a bot for a little action. The bot navigated the map without any problem. There is deathfog everywhere in the middle of this map, so watch your step. There's lots of twists and turns and pillars to hide behind. It's definitely worth the download. Redwood has a couple of servers running it too if you want to try it out online.

Windows 2000: Gold -- 12:16 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Microsoft has issued a press release stating that their long-awaited follow-up to Windows NT, Windows 2000, has gone off to manufacturing. They plan a world-wide release on February 17, 2000. There is no word on whether or not the pricing scheme announced earlier (story) is correct.

Make any Q3A Model a Bot! -- 11:28 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Evil Avatar snagged these directions off the Q3World messageboards. Follow them to make any of the new models that are coming out into bots! Good stuff, Maynard.

Mac UT: Gold! -- 11:09 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Inside Mac Games is reporting that Unreal Tournament for the Mac has gone gold! Expect it to be in stores next month. I'm sure that both of you Mac gamers are pleased as punch about this (I kid Mac gamers because I know they take it so well). Thanks Blue.

Threewave CTF for Q3A -- 10:52 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Redwood posted the news that he (and others?) have finished making/converting the Threewave CTF maps for Quake III Arena. Here's what he had to say:

The Threewave CTF maps for Quake 3 have been finished. There's no known release date for the maps yet but it should be soon(tm). I've spent a lot of time recently with a bunch of hardcore CTFers testing the maps and they are indeed very excellent maps. While I find the id CTF maps to be fast and furious, they are more for casual/small CTF play. All three of the Threewave maps are well suited for clan/tournament level CTF and also can hold many more players than the included Q3A CTF levels. There are many strategies, escape routes, and good defending points. I'm sure they will be classics and get MANY hours of play for the next couple of years. If you're a CTF fan, you should be drooling with anticipation for these maps! :)

The only thing is--there's no grapple now. I wonder what "modifications" they made to account for this?

Update! sCary is reporting that the maps were made "by a few idSoftware employees including Zoid." Fortunately that means that they were not slapped together by a couple of guys with only basic knowledge of q3map and the original Threewave maps. More details to come, I'm sure.

Update #2: sCary is now reporting that there will be more than three new CTF maps released. There are just three Threewave maps being released. I hope they get these out soon, I'm pretty anxious to try them out.

Sign of the Apocalypse -- 10:41 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's John Carmack updated his .plan with news that he is, urp, getting married to Anna Kang (who is now formerly of id)!

It wasn't generally discussed during her time at Id, but we had been going out when she joined the company, and we were engaged earlier this year. We are getting married next month, and honeymooning in Hawaii. At her thoughtful suggestion, we are shipping a workstation out with us, so I don't fall into some programming-deprivation state. How great is that? :-)

Why do I keep singing to myself "Anna Kang and I are getting old, but we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence"? (Can you name that tune?)

Robert Duffy .plan Update -- 10:23 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's tool monkey, Robert Duffy, updated his .plan with a solution for folks having problems getting q3map to work:

A small update. To build a map, q3map requires that 'quake' exists somewhere in the path. It uses this to derive the base path to figure out where to find things. What this means is that if you installed Quake III Arena ( and the tools ) to 'c:q3' then q3map will fail with a < SetQdirFromPath: no 'quake' in C:/Q3/baseq3/maps/unnamed.map > error. I realize this can be somewhat of a pain but it is the way the tools work ( it is also the way the tools have always worked ).

If you installed the game and the tools to the default or the name you chose has quake in it then this will not apply to you. If you installed to a path that does NOT have 'quake' in the name you will need to rename it to get q3map to work properly.

Christian Antkow .plan Update -- 10:19 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's Christian Antkow updated his .plan with news of problems on id's FTP server and the release of the Linux Q3ADemo:

Seems the Q3 Editing tools release hosed our FTP server. I can't fix it from home, but I'll look into it in the morning.

In the meantime, I've updated http://www.quake3arena.com/news with a link to it on our webserver so you can download it via HTTP. The tools should also be available tommorow via Sandpiper as well.

The Official Linux Q3 Demo is also now available. Check http://www.quake3arena.com/demo for the link.

Tuesday, December 14, 1999

The Final Hours of Q3A -- 8:03 pm CST, Update by The Master

GameSpot has posted The Final Hours of Quake III Arena: Behind Closed Doors at id. Awesome article. Go there now.

Creative vs. Aureal verdict -- 4:15 pm CST, Update by The Master

Well, it looks like Creative's corporate greed didn't quite pull it through in the courthouse. Aureal was cleared of all charges, and posted the following to their website:

Fremont, CAâ€"December 13, 1999â€"(OTC Bulletin Board: AURL) Aureal Inc., a leader in digital audio imaging, today announced a clear jury verdict against Creative Technology Inc. and its subsidiary Emu Systems. The federal court jury unanimously rejected Creative's claims that Aureal's Vortex chips infringed the Creative 5,342,990 patent. Creative brought this case against Aureal in February, 1998, one day after Aureal announced that its Vortex chip would be used by Dell Computer in the Dimension product line. The patent claims brought against Aureal by Creative in this case were all rejected by the jury.

"Aureal has said from the start that the Vortex products do not infringe the patent and that the case is motivated by Creative's need to diminish competition in the marketplace at all costs" said Kip Kokinakis, CEO and President of Aureal Inc. "It is a great victory for Aureal, but also a victory for innovation and competition that we did not yield to a company with vast resources and an intent to eliminate our ability to bring new and exciting products to the market. We can now turn our undivided attention to compete in the marketplace where our products and technology speak for themselves, rather than in the courtroom."

Now, personally, I like my SB: Live! Value. And I like Windows NT. But I don't like monopolists. And Creative has been one in the sound market for WAY too long...

Q3A IRC Chat -- 3:13 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Quake3World has put up an edited log of the Q3A Australia chat with Paul Steed and Tim Willits (Australia, Australia, Australia, we love you! Amen.). Included is an answer to my no crosshairHealth issue:

Where is the crosshair health function which was in the test?

<Willits> it was removed to simplify the structure of the game.

I must confess that I don't understand how it "simplifies the structure of the game." I guess I'll just chalk it up to one of life's many mysteries.

After reading the log, I'm rather surprised that they didn't start making Steed's comments go through a moderator too. :)

Christian Antkow .plan update -- 11:41 am CST, Update by The Master

Christian Antkow updated his .plan with information on exactly who did that Q3A music. Here's a nibble:

A frustrating part about reading reviews on Q3A, is how reviewers don't state the correct facts sometimes. 98.2% of the reviews I've read state that Sonic Mayhem did the background music for Q3A. This is only 50% true =) There are 12 background tracks in the game. 6 were indeed done by Sonic Mayhem, and the remaining 6 were done by Bill Leeb and Chris Petersen of Front Line Assembly / Delerium fame.

If you view the PAK file with WinZip under baseq3/music, you'll see 6 sonic*.wav tracks and 6 fla*.wav tracks (Some of the FLA tracks were broken up into two parts for an intro and a repeating loop part)

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