Wednesday, November 22, 2000

Quake III: Team Arena Demo -- 9:47 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id has released the 120M Win32 demo of Quake III: Team Arena on IGN. IGN has a half-hour "exclusive" on the demo. Soon after that other (no doubt faster) mirrors will pop up.

OK, here are some mirrors: Blue's News, Shugashack, id, Stomped, and, of course, the mirrors that are FilePlanet.

Freelancer Movie -- 9:23 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Gamespot got their hands on a movie showing gamplay from Freelancer, the upcoming space combat simulator (How do you simulate something that is currently impossible? Sorry, I'm pondering imponderables again.) from Digital Anvil. I'm really looking forward to this game. It sounds an awful lot like Elite for a new generation. Thanks Blue.

Quake III: Team Arena Demo Tonight! -- 8:45 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Boy, is The Master going to be p.o.'d about this one--he's already gone for the holidays. At any rate id CEO, Todd Hollenshead, updated his .plan that the demo for Quake III: Team Arena will be available for download tonight (at least the Win32 version anyway). Here's the full update, since it's an otherwise slow news day:

Big news: An early Christmas present from id. The Team Arena Demo is going up tonight! We don't have an exact time yet, but I'm expecting it to be uploaded and go live in the next 3 hours or so (12 PM on the East Coast/9 PM on West). IGN.com is providing the initial bandwidth for us, so I'm guessing their servers are going to have a hangover tomorrow ;-) We'll have all the specific information available about exactly where to download over the next couple of hours.

This is the Windows version. We *expect* to release the Mac and Linux versions next week.

I have a few notes to share with everyone at this time. First, the Demo is stand alone. You don't need Quake III installed to try it out. The file size is around 120 meg (big, yes, but keep reading). We are including one level that plays all of the new game types (Harvester, Overload, One-Flag) and CTF. We are also including 2 models and 2 model heads. The map contains 3 of the 4 new powerups, one of the new weapons and one new holdable item. All of this is explained within the Demo, of course.

Also contained are all of the brand new UI items. On this, you'll just have to trust me that it's cool because I'd have to write a book to tell you about everything included. Mod authors will love what they're going to be able to do with it (I think Duffy is going to make an update about that over the weekend or early next week). You should definitely play around with this stuff and check out everything we've added. Menus, orders, team commands, setup options, etc. are all worth checking out because you'll want to save these in new config files for TA.

We realize 120 meg is a large download, so for those of you who have limited bandwidth, we are going to release an avi file at a later date (also through IGN) containing some of the new maps and features from Team Arena so that you can still check out what it will look like without overloading your modems. We'll have more details on this next week.

If you have problems, please check the readme first for answers. If you don't see the solution there, you can email feedback on bugs to bugs@idsoftware.com. Please don't email employees directly.

In the meantime enjoy the holiday weekend (if you're in the US) and have fun with Team Arena. I hope to see lots of people on our servers over the weekend.

Super sweet!

Mike Wilson .plan Update -- 1:16 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The Gathering of Developers' CEO, Mike Wilson, updated his .plan with a rather sarcastic response to some of the rumors flying around that Max Payne had been cancelled. It seems that those rumors are a bit, um, premature.

NFL Picks Week #13 -- 11:11 am CST, Update by The Master

Eeyore's picks for this week: Lions, Vikings, Steelers, Rams, Jets, Bucs, Redskins, Ravens, Raiders, Dolphins, Chiefs, Broncos, Titans, Giants, Packers.

A.T. Hun comments: And my picks: Lions, Vikings, Jets, Rams, Ravens, Redskins, Bucs, Steelers, Raiders, Broncos, Colts, Chargers, Titans, Giants, Panthers.

I underlined my picks where we differed. Those three games are, IMO, too close to call. I chose the Colts because of home field advantage, the Chargers because of fact that they had a good game last week and have to come off the schneid sometime, and the Panthers because of a gut feeling and little more.

Tuesday, November 21, 2000

Quake III: Team Arena Info -- 10:47 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Stomped spotted this post from Todd Hollenshead, id CEO, on the Quake III World messageboards about the status of Quake III: Team Arena:

Topic: We're getting close now!

To being done with Team Arena that is. We should hopefully have a bunch of new info available real soon and even a demo (!). Just a little pre-Thanksgiving (US) FYI for everyone.

And then also a bit on the Quake III Arena patch:

Yes, the final Q3 patch (probably 1.26 or sequential) should follow soon after the demo. The final patch won't be this week, but hopefully soon thereafter.

Excellent . . .

Master .plan: XBox -- 8:33 pm CST, Update by The Master

I've finally put up a new Master .plan today, with my feelings on Microsoft and the X-Box. I may need to go lie down now.

J.t.Qbe comments: With this and its other antics (e.g. subscription Office), Micro$oft is pushing more and more people to get off the merry-go-round. I bought my last Microsoft OS 3 years ago. Join us in peaceful Unixland. . .

Qbe Root: Be Thankful -- 6:19 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

This Thursday, Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving Day, a time to give thanks for all the blessings we enjoy. Our own J.t.Qbe gives a list of some people in computing that he is thankful for, and whose work both shaped today's world of computers and also helped him land the job that he has now. Check out his newest Qbe Root column: Be Thankful.

The Master comments: On the compiler vein-when I began my foray into programming back in '89 I typed in my first assembler for the Apple II. When I got to college I blew the $200+ on Merlin 8/16 and used that. Even bought a 65802 to allow 16-bit programming on my //c. Then I plonked down for Borland Pascal 6, and 7, and C++ 4, and 4.5, then Delphi 1 and 2. I've spent well over a $1,000 on compilers and interpreters over time, and now all of it is nearly free in Linux Land. Sniff.

No Obi-Wan for Me -- 4:00 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

GameSpot received word that LucasArts has cancelled Episode I: Obi-Wan on the PC. It will carry on as a game for some future console. Here's the PR:

Following an extensive review of the project and a great deal of deliberation, LucasArts Entertainment Company has ceased development of Star Wars: Obi-Wan for the PC. The expected breadth and scope of the Obi-Wan project could not be met given limitations of technology and the company's recently heightened quality standards. LucasArts is now planning to bring the game and its assets to a next-generation console platform. Further announcements will be made in this regard next year.

LucasArts remains fully committed to developing games for the PC platform, as evidenced by its current development alliances with Verant Interactive, BioWare Corporation, and other soon to be announced projects.

We wish to thank our fans for their continued support through this process and assure them that our number one goal is to provide them with high quality, fun games.

OK, this completely sucks. The most recent games to come out of LucasArts have been utter crap and now this. I guess I'd rather see it cancelled than have it come out and be another flop. They've fallen a long ways since the days of X-Wing and Dark Forces. Thanks Blue.

SiN Linux Demo -- 12:07 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Hyperion Software has released a demo of their Linux port of SiN. The demo weighs in at 40M. Check out Hyperion's SiN features page for system requirements and information on the game itself. Thanks Blue.

More AvantGo -- 10:10 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I just sent email to AvantGo to find out what the status is of our channel. We were told that we had been accepted about five weeks ago. I gave them the information they requested, but I still haven't heard back. Hopefully we'll have some news soon.

UPDATE! I did hear back from our AvantGo rep. today (at last). The Master and I are working on the changes necessary to get us going on AvantGo.

UPDATE #2! We made the necessary changes, and our AvantGo rep. gave us the thumbs up. It looks like The Haus will be an official AvantGo channel when the new channels are added after the Thanksgiving holiday!

NFL Week #12 Final -- 12:03 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Eeyore can take justifiable pride in her magnificent 11-4 record this week. I was 8-7, my worst all year. As a matter of fact I've gone 9-6, 9-6, and 8-7 the past three weeks. Year-to-date I am 110-63 (.635), Eeyore is 88-70 (.556). I just realized that I never did a final tally last week. Oh well. Better things are coming this week.

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