Tuesday, December 5, 2000

Deus Ex Multiplayer Patch -- 8:41 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

ION Storm has released the much-anticipated multiplayer patch for Deus Ex, their mega-first-person-RPG-thingy game. It's a reasonable 36M. This is version 1104 and it is listed as a beta patch, so caveat emptor.

Quake III Mod Info -- 7:37 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's Robert Duffy updated his .plan with an important message for Quake III mod authors:

I've had a couple of hundred requests for mod team additions to the new mailing list. I'd like to impose a bit on the people that have sent me a request to going ahead and sign up for the NEW and improved mod list :-) Last week after cutting a release candidate for Team Arena, I sat from about 2.30am to about 4.00am and entered all of the names in but our list software apparantly times out if you don't submit the list every 5 minutes. We are setting up a conferencing system at the moment so the mail list is actually going to be a threaded discussion board. We are going to have one devoted to Licensees and one devoted to mod teams.

This is now up and running and you can apply for an account here:

http://underworld.idsoftware.com/enter.html

More M$ and Digital Anvil -- 2:50 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

IGN got an interview with Microsoft's Ed Fries and Digital Anvil's Chris Roberts about M$'s recently announced buyout of Digital Anvil. Apparently Erin Roberts is staying with the company after all. Unfortunately, the author doesn't ask the questions everyone is dying to know: Why did Chris Roberts quit? and Will Freelancer be changed in any way? Thanks again to Blue.

UPDATE! Gamespot got some more information from Chris Roberts, answering those two all-important questions:

Roberts assured us that FreeLancer wouldn't undergo any major design changes whatsoever, as its design, interface, and artwork is finished, and the only thing left to do is to generate content and flesh out its storyline.

and

Roberts made it clear that he is leaving Digital Anvil of his own free will; he stated that he had no desire to be part of a large organization, and cited his similar decision to leave Electronic Arts nearly five years ago.

G.o.D. Acquires Duke Nukem Publishing Rights -- 11:03 am CST, Update by The Master

According to a press release received by Blue, Gathering of Developers has acquired the publishing rights to all the Duke Nukem titles, including the original Duke titles and the new Duke Nukem Forever.

A.T. Hun comments: This is quite the proverbial leap of faith for G.o.D., as it is working under the assumption that DNF will, in fact, someday be published.

Stomped ask for some clarification on this deal, but didn't get much.

The Master comments: Heh-I didn't want to point out that shipping issue, but heck, even Ion Storm managed to ship Daikatana . . .

M$ Buys Out Digital Anvil -- 9:32 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

With all the rumors flying about Microsoft and Digital Anvil lately, this announcement comes as no big surprise. Blue got word that Microsoft is buying out Digital Anvil. Of interest is this information on Digital Anvil founder, Chris Roberts:

In a related announcement, Chris Roberts, founder and CEO of Digital Anvil, said he would be departing the company to pursue other creative endeavors. Roberts will, however, continue to work with Digital Anvil through the completion of "FreeLancer." Serving as creative consultant, he will continue to craft the game's intricate storyline and serve as an adviser to the development team.

"This acquisition is a positive growth opportunity for Digital Anvil," Roberts said. "Under the Microsoft umbrella, 'FreeLancer' and other games will be supported by a strong infrastructure and realized in the spirit in which they were conceived."

This really doesn't clear up the future for Freelancer, other than to say that it will still be produced in some form. I hope it really will come out and be everything that Roberts made it out to be. M$ is trying to paint this as an expansion of their gaming business. I fail to see how it can be such A Good Thing for M$ without the Roberts brothers there.

Monday, December 4, 2000

One Last Thing . . . -- 11:50 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

. . . before I go to bed. I've been playing quite a bit of one-flag CTF in the Quake III: Team Arena demo. For such a simple tweak in gameplay, it really adds an entirely different dynamic to tried-and-true CTF. Highly recommended.

NFL Week #14 Final -- 11:31 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Whelp, it was a dangerous weekend in the NFL and our records show it. I ended up 9-6 and Eeyore ended up 5-10, the first double-digit loss of the year. That brings my record year-to-date to 130-73 (.640) while Eeyore is 103-85 (.547).

Elite Force Source -- 7:54 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Raven's James Monroe updated his .plan with word that the source code for the Star Trek: Elite Force Holomatch has been released. Have at it, you crazy modders! Here's what he had to say:

Attention Holomatch Modders! your dreams are answered, I've released the source code for HoloMatch game play:

here's the zip:
http://www.3ddownloads.com/showfile.php3?file_id=112601

and here:
http://www.voyagereliteforce.com/files.asp?dir=/official&file=STEF-gamesource110.zip

if you've worked on quake3 mods, you'll recognize the setup. the batch files work fine in NT but have trouble running in 98. i think you have to edit the individual batch files to make it work in 98.

e.g. game.bat has a line at the top like:
set cc=blah
then later it has
%cc% ../g_main.c

you'll need to replace the %cc% with the blah.

Pondering the Imponderable -- 7:47 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

It's hard to believe, but people have managed to come up with even more annoying web advertising. What could be more annoying than your average UGO banner ad, you might ask? It's the new pop-up ad apparently targeted at people with very small brains. It's the Free Stuff by Email ad. You give them your email address and they send you spam! What more could you want, other than an icepick lobotomy?

GameFan's Dead -- 7:43 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The rumors of GameFan's demise are no longer greatly exaggerated, at least according to Gamers.com. Here's the news:

The entire GameFan staff was greeted with a Christmas bonus in the form of a pink slip on Friday. Since October, it's been a long, sad dance for the GameFan brand. Parent company Express.com danced around money owed after pulling the plug on its affiliate network.

As if we didn't see that one coming down Main Street . . .

MOO3 interview -- 7:43 pm CST, Update by The Master

There's a huge interview with Alan Emrich online over on Quarter to Three discussing the upcoming Master of Orion 3. Interesting read-I'm kind of disturbed at how large and convoluted MOO has gotten over the years. I've got to wonder if this game can possibly deliver everything it's claiming without blowing up from complexity issues. We shall see.

Team Arena Interview -- 1:59 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Quake3World posted an interview of sorts with id Software about Quake III: Team Arena. I say "of sorts" because all the questions were submitted by Q3W readers. There's a few interesting pearls to pluck out of there, particularly this one:

Question: If Team Arena is distributed on separate CDs for each OS, will you still be able to use the Windows CD to install Team Arena like you can with Quake 3 Arena?

Answer: The only SKU that I can say for certain as of this moment that will make it onto CD is the Windows version. Linux players will need to download binaries, and that may be required for Mac users. The data is interchangeable, just like Quake III Arena, so anyone buying the Windows CD version can run the game under Linux and Mac after downloading the appropriate binary.

I thought for sure that I had read that all three binaries would be on the CD. Hmmmmm.

MandrakeUpdate == Slick -- 10:44 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

One of the biggest PITAs (in my opinion) about maintaining a Linux system is keeping up-to-date with all the bug fixes and security updates. One of the blessings and banes of open-source development is that software is almost continually being updated. I tried using MandrakeUpdate on my Mandrake 7.2 installation today since I knew there were several security updates I needed to get. It automatically looked at what I had installed and gave a list of packages that needed to be updated. All I had to do was select the ones I wanted, wait for the them to download from a mirror site, and they were automatically installed. Very nice, very easy. Two big thumbs up.

Itanium: the REAL MAN's processor -- 9:54 am CST, Update by The Master

Sharkyextreme has a review of the soon-to-be-released Intel Itanium processor. This is a very tech-junky oriented article, prepare for major migraine. Oh, and I want at least 4 of these. With fries, and a shake :-) Thanks Blue.

Freelancer DOA? -- 9:27 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Avault got some more information on the goings-on at Digital Anvil. It was reported last week that Chris Roberts, one of the founders of Digital Anvil and the father of the Wing Commander series, had been fired by Microsoft. Now it is being reported that his brother Erin has also left the company and the game Freelancer will either never see the light of day or will be scaled back to the point of being unrecognizable. Bah. If this isn't Monday morning news, I don't know what is. Thanks Blue.

Past Two Days' News

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