Movatterモバイル変換

MeccaWorld has posted a list of what they feel aretheTop 25 Quake Modifications and Programsof all time, with #1 being GameSpy. ThanksProphet.

The proposed merger between MicroProse and GT Interactive will not take place, as detailedin thisNext-Generationarticle that contains the statement released today by MicroProse. According to thestory: "If the merger had gone through, GT Interactive would have become the secondlargest US software company behind Electronic Arts." Ascobi points out that seems to underestimate Microsoft (Ithink they probably meant game software companies).

X-Men Ravages of the Apocalypse, the TC thatmutates Quake into a battle against the X-Men, has started appearing in stores. H2H tellsme there will be a patch available very soon to replace the Quake sounds that some of theX-Men make.

Orchid has releasedVersion3.0 of the drivers for the  Righteous 3D (2.8 MB). Saw that onVoodoo Extreme.

PlanetQuake has fired off a whole bunch ofmailing lists to help pave the way for Quake II. You can subscribe to any of the followinglists onthis page,

• Quake II Web development
• Quake II Servers
• Quake II Coding and DLLs
• Quake II Map Editing
• Quake II Modeling

The SiN Files: VolumeIII, have been posted onGames.Net. This is theLevelord's third monthly installment in an ongoing effort to give a look behind the scenesat the production of Ritual's upcoming Quake-Engine game, this month featuring somethoughts from artist Joel Thomas. Saw that on Voodoo Extreme.

The guys over atStomped have snagged a couple ofcopies of Quake II that they're going to give away to a pair of lucky winners who cananswer three Quake II trivia questions on theirQuake II   Contest page. Deadlinefor entries is now December 7 (a change from the original deadline). Good luck.

Michael B. Klein has released theJK Patch Commander Version 2.0 (230 KB) whichfixes bugs and adds some options. The included read me describes how you can use PatchCommander to easily use custom patches with Jedi Knight. Thanks to that Force-lovin'Aristotle over atJediKnight.Net.

• There's aninterview with Brian Brunning of 3Dfx talking about the Voodoo 2 onVoodoo Extreme.
• ThebootNET interview with John Carmack and Brian Hook has now beenposted in its entirety. The online version now contains the text of the print edition and all that didn't make the magazine, as well as all the photos from the print edition, including one of Brian and John throwing knives at Alex St. John, presumably as revenge for his work as Microsoft's Direct3D evangelist (on that subject, the whole thing caps off with some pretty funny career advice for Alex from Brian).
• There isan interview with the creators of the Quake II soundtrack,Sonic Mayhem, onQnewZ.
• Target Quake authorAvatar, is interviewed onBrutality.
• TheThunderWalker CTF team is interviewed onClan CNN's Homepage.

Though Zoid expected to release no more versions of CTF, a couple of bugs serious enoughto warrant an update popped up, so aThreewaveCTF 4.21 update (354 KB, sorry about the bad zip originally, thanksOrigen =Aster= for the heads up) has beenreleased (required for the server end only). Here's this scoop straight fromThreewave (thanks Dakota):

• id software's Paul Jaquaysupdated his .plan with an update on Quake to Quake II map conversions, and a brief outline of id's continued intent to support the creative end of the user community (with no "evil empire clauses"). He also throws some kind words my way: you're welcome; thank you too, Paul.
• 3D Realms' George Broussardupdated his .plan mentioning that morbid is working on a 3Dfx 1.1 Shadow Warrior patch, and giving a bit of an update on Duke Nukem Forever.
• Ritual's Charlie Wiederhold madea .plan update with more discussion of his 100+ player deathmatch map.
• ION's Tom Hall madea .plan update giving the state of the Anachronox.
• ION's Squirrelalso updated about Anachronox, and his own Quake mod in the works called Demon Quake.

• There is someartwork from the upcoming Descent 3 onOutrage Entertainment. ThanksDarkfwank.
• There's a preview ofLunatik on PCGamer by none other thanVoodoo Extreme's Sharky.
• The newly releasedOmicron Bot isreviewed onInside3D.
• There's a review of theDeltron Flash3D onGarebear & Katarn's Cyber Cafe.

A ofDear Mynx is online. ThanksSkylarP ... ThanksJesse Blacklow for sending along wordthat he was the seven millionth visitor recorded by the counter here. who wrote in with kind words onthe occasion, and everyone who visits this site as well, the support for Blue's News thatcomes from the community is overwhelming. I want to extend a special thanks to all whotake the time to send in news bits, and I'd also like to take a moment to publicly thankPeter Gransee atGlobalCenter for his yeoman effort at providing afast reliable home for Blue's News (this man got out of bed and jumped in his car to go towork and fix the server last night when the techies weren't able to get to it) ...

Mr. Elusive's Omicron Bot has been released onthis page onRamshackle. This highly touted AI opponentis supposed to be the first bot not derived from Reaper source to surpass the Reaper ingame skills. There is no local copy because Ramshackle has arranged to be the exclusivehost of the bot's downloads for a week.

Gamer's Extreme, the extremely game oriented websitehas re-opened after a hiatus and redesign. This site is run by Thresh and his buddies, andon Thresh's Fronline column is more on the Forbes column that appeared in his name.   

TonightQuakeCast we will be talking toAvatar, author ofTarget Quake. QuakeCast can be seenand heard live every Thursday at 8:30 PM Eastern time.RealPlayerrequired.

I just received an email from Thresh, who wants it to be know n that he did not actuallywrite the article attributed to him inForbes ASAP:

Todd Hollensheadupdatedhis .plan announcing that Quake II pre-orders are now being accepted:

Yes it's the return of the patch that lets you take out your opponent limb from limb.Severed II (2.8 MB) from theLone Gunmen, a sequel to Severed, goes a lot furtherthan the original into the realm of gore, adding a chainsaw and a suicide drug dart gun(described as a Top Secret CIA weapon Prototype), as well as more blood, limbs, gibs, andhopping around on one leg ("I can still bite you!") than ever before.

• Focus on Quake focuses on Quantum Axcess' Embrionic Pete inan interview.
• Thefinal segment of bootNET's interview with John Carmack and Brian Hook has been posted.
• Zoid isinterviewed on PlanetQuake talking Quake II and about the past and future of CTF.
• ION'sDr Sleep is interviewed onDaikatana Just In Time. ThanksProphet.
• id'sKevin Cloud is interviewed over atVideogamedesign.Com.

To better support their products and communicate with their customers,Rendition has opened several online forums, which canbe accessedthrough this page. Theforums coverRenditionAnnouncements (read only),Advocacy,Rendition Ready Games,Suggestions,Support, theV1000 chipset, and theV2000 chipset. ThanksProphet.

A new alpha OpenGL ICD for RIVA 128-based video cards has been released (not amini-driver, as I originally wrote, thanksBillLachance). Here's thewhole set-up (1.0 MB) ifyou don't have the previous version, and theOpenGLdll (463 KB) if you do. As before, this is an alpha, and will prevent some specialfeatures of your card (TV in/out, etc.) from functioning properly until you re-installyour manufacturer's drivers. The new drivers will now also work with all OpenGLapplications, not just GLQuake, and offers visual improvements over its predecessor,rather than speed. ThanksZone 128(hotbed of RIVA 128 mania that it is). If you've seen notes about the original versions ofthese drivers being corrupted, the files posted here were the fixed ones from the start,so there's no need to re-download them if you got them here).

Version 1.5 of PingTool, a Quake server browser program, has been released on thePingTool page. The new releasefeatures buddy lists to show if your friends are playing when you ping servers.

Version 1.19 of the drivers the Hercules Stingray 128/3D have been released onHercules' FTP Site.Direct X 5.0 required. ThanksVoodoo Extreme.

Silencer has updated hisJedi Knight Jet Pack (16 KB) to place an actual"Boba Fett" jetpack on Kyle, and now the pack emits fire instead of smoke.ThanksJediKnight.Net.

Word on a weekly IRC session with ION Storm's Anachronox Team comes fromQuestGate:

There are some benchmarks onVoodoo Extreme ofQuantum 3D's screaming Obsidian 100SB 4440. Thereis alsoa blurb onNext-Generation talking about Obsidian 2 using the Voodoo 2 chipset.

In the most stirring event of its type since Forrest Gump ran across the USA, comes theLAN Party Tour. Check this out:

• There's areview of Canopus' Pure3D onVoodoo Extreme, as well as updated word on the Pure3D's UK availability.
• There's a review ofCanopus' Total3D 128V onNext Generation.

• Prey Producer Paul Schuytemaupdated his .plan with  a couple of  items including word on their new version of Preditor (the Prey editor).
• Sin Producer Joseph Selinskeupdated his .plan talking about a couple of print pieces: the Sin cover story on the premier issue of OGR Magazine, and an interview with him in the December '97 boot Magazine. He also talks about the stress of hurtling towards their December milestone, but the only evidence he gives is "Tom is whacked, Richard is demented, and Mike is a madman." (Yeah, and?)
• Ritual Level Designer Charlie Wiederhold madea .plan update mentioning his 32 player deathmatch map has become a 100+ player deathmatch map.

MeccaWorld is following up their top 100 Quake levelsarticle with a tobe posted tomorrow, and as a preview, they have postedthe favorite modssubmitted by the game designers and the like ... There's an account of some of the onMultiPlay and more onplayNOW! ...wiseguy-311 analyzes the of theCyberAthletesinthis article ...loonyboi has up onPlanetQuake calledLooking Ahead to Trinity thatdoes just that (and Carmack just said "don't start getting all worked up overit") ...

id CEO Todd Hollensheadupdatedhis .plan to announce that the expected shelf date for Quake II in the UK is December12.

Zoidupdated his .plan with word that he and John Carmack are looking intofighting cheats, and requests any information that can help:

I asked id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead if Quake II would be available directly from id,and if so, would they have it before, after, or simultaneous with the in-store release.Here was his reply:

I also asked Todd Hollenshead if it was okay to post the imagesmentioned yesterday that Joost Schuur (Slipgate Central) found onid's Website, and he said that is was (thanks Todd).Since it turns out these will not be included in the game, for now file them alongside theDragon under Quake/Quake II Items: The Lost Episodes:

The December installment of the monthlyION Storm Newsletter has beenposted on theION Storm webisite. In this (asalways) massive newsletter is an update on all the latest ION Storm news, a look atDaikatana web sites, an update ION Storm’s preparations for moving to the top of theTexas Commerce Tower, the latest installment of Inside Tom’s Brain, a new BrainstormTrivia Question, conversations with Daikatana screenwriter Christian Divine and IONStorm’s newly appointed Director of Advanced Technology, Corrinne Yu, Todd Porter'sopinions on AGP and Cable Modems, Doug "Fresh" Myres discussing his massivevideo archiving project, and in the Writers on the Storm section, new poetry by artistAndrew Collins and creative coordinator Mindy Eickhoff.

• John Carmack's mention of the planned Doom source code release stirred up some activity. Ritual's Jim Dosé, who has been working on GL Doom, sent outthis letter to the GL Doom mailing list that describes what's up with the project and even has a FAQ. ThanksGrave Robber.
• Millennium has opened up anOpen GL Doom site. ThanksProphet.
• Joe Pantuso is gauging interest in whether he should release the source code for his 100% Visual Basic Doom Editor DoomED onhis website.
• Finally, did you know that if Quake II appears in stores on December 9, as Activision is saying, that it will be four years almost to the day since Doom's release (December 10, 1993). Thankskolinahr.

Word onBuzzkill's QuakePage is that the extended driver that enables the Microsoft Intellimouse wheeldoohicky to work in Quake will also allow you to utilize the wheel doohicky on the newLogitech Mouseman+ in Quake as well. Buzzkill has also received an unconfirmed report thatit will also work on a Pilotmouse+, perhaps making it the Universal Doohicky Driver (UDD).

• Version 2.0 of theMacintosh Quake Namer is out with support for those animated names.
• There is a newMacQuake performance page, so you can make Apples to Apples comparisons on how your system performs. ThanksProphet.
• MacQuake Universe has already moved to a new location after an ISP problem. Find them athttp://www2.arkansas.net/~bnapier/.

DarkJedi.com has released aneditor for Jedi Knight color map files (124KB). ThanksJediKnight.Net.

TheAliens Online site is online, allowing youto go online as a Marine or an Alien. The game is $9.95 a month, but the software is free(but can only be played... online). ThanksMontag.

• Thelatest segment of the bootNET interview with id's John Carmack and Brian Hook has been posted. Also Brian Hookupdated his .plan clarifying thebootNET interview situation.
• TheQuake Women's Forum has posted theirDecember profile, talking to level/game designer: Black Kali.

• Ritual's Charlie Wiederholdupdated his .plan with talk of his 32 player Sin deathmatch map, and talks of 200 player TeamFortress games.
• ION Storm's Rich Carlsonupdated his .plan about a game rumor he's heard.
• id's Disruptorupdated his .plan with with his plans for life after going gold, including working on his 100+ player DM map and setting up a Q2 deathmatch server at id.

• There's alarge Half-Life preview onGames.Net (AKA PC Games). ThanksProphet.
• ZENtropy! has posted theirreview of the Canopus Total3D 128V.
• There is aMalice for Quake Review onTelefragged. ThanksHanif.
• War Council has posted a review of theFlash AT3D 2d/3d card. ThanksProphet.

• TheQWHPCL, the Quake World High-Ping Capture League is heading into the playoffs.All the individual and league statistics available for viewing on their Boxscores, League Leaders, and League Records pages.
• The PGL page has word that qualifiers for round 2 of their debut season will be posted on Friday.
• Clan SIK is hosting a 4-on-4 DM3 QuakeWorld tournament calledTotal Annihalation.
• Winners for week 5 have been posted onActivision's Quake II - 3Dfx Contest. ThanksbIshr.
• TheQuake Modeling Association has another model of the month contest, asking you to vote for "the best male form."
• ThePitStop has opened aQuakeRally Challenge page to help QR drivers find opponents.

After a bit of a Hiatus, theMailBagreturns with a double rant and a conspiracy theory.

There's anarticle by Thresh onForbes ASAP. Thanksfido7  ...Malicious is a new sitededicated to Malice for Quake. ThanksProphet ...TF Station Express is designed as a ...GareBear's Cyber-Cafe is anew ... (QuakeFinger,PlanetQuake) for working on the script for thisnews page to add error handling, so a failed upload of the finger information no longerbombs the page ...

id CEO Todd Hollenshead madea.plan update saying that while December 9 is the projected date for Quake II to hitshelves in North America, there was no estimated date for international availability yet:

An article in PC Gamer detailsLucasArts' plans to release an expansion pack for Jedi Knight calledMysteries of theSith. The pack will feature 14 new single player, and 15 new multi-player levels, newweapons, twenty new monsters, and brand new force powers. According to the article,"Mysteries of the Sith will be available this winter, most likely after Christmas andin January. Full details and screen shots will be unveiled later this week or early nextweek." ThanksValley of the Jedi andJediKnight.Net.

Kevin Kraff from Activision sent along a few banners and a button heralding Quake II's instore date as December 9. Here's one at120x240,one at 234x60, and one at468x60:

Ooops, guess these should't have gone up, sorry, pulled 'em.

On the newly redesignedSonic Mayhem website(you should check out the great job|2| did), is a newQuake II sample music track (873 KB) in .mp3 format.ThanksCrusadeR. Here's what is posted along with the clip:

• ThebootNET interview with John Carmack Brian Hook has been put back online, here'sthe new segment. I spoke with Brad Dosland, the editor-in-chief at boot, about the removal of the interview and the comments by Brian Hook, and he said that boot's stance is outlined inthis letter they've sent in response to questions on the subject.
• Riot: Mobile Armor lead designerMike Dussault is interviewed onRevolt: Riot Information Center.
• There is anInterview with Ridah & Sumaleth of Impact Development Team onFrag.Com, talking about the upcoming Ultimate Rally variant onQuakeRally. ThanksHanif. Speaking of Ultimate Rally, check out this coolQuake Hummer (like there's such a thing as an uncool hummer).

John Carmack madeanotherhefty .plan update covering a few bases: the still imminent release of the Doom source(which looks like it will be soundless), the planned release of id's unsupported, andprobably undocumented Quake editor, complaints about the Quake II release not havingpeople's favorite features, and John Carmack impersonators:

Avatar has released his new Quake patch calledTarget Quake (2.8 MB). This has me blown away, it'sanother conversion of quake into a 2D format, this time as a side-scrolling shoot-em up(like Mario meets Defender). It's all done with a cinematic style and a strong sense ofhumor (I laughed from the start as my comrades shouted encouraging remarks to me by nameas I began my mission). I highly recommend checking this one out. Here's a summary ofTarget Quake's features from theTargetQuake page (where there's a FAQ if you've still got questions):

Another extremely cool (albeit more conventional) Quake project that's come my wayrecently is The Cassandra Calamity, orMexx 10 (3.3MB). This pak contains a pair of professional military base maps byMarcus Dromowicz thatprovide a tremendous single player experience: again, highly recommended. If you wantcorroboration from an SPQ expert, check outthe rave review onSPQ Level Heaven.

Buckley Hopper has created aJet Pack for Jedi Knight (17 KB). ThanksJediKnight.Net.

There is an interesting tale in theweekly updateon theRiot: Mobile Armor website, talking about APIwars describing their negotiations with Microsoft to allow them to show Riot on the Voodoo2 at Comdex using Glide, since Direct3D does not yet support dual TMU's.

TheQuake Women's Forum has releasedtheir third skin pack (I'm depressed because I used my Hannibal Lecktor joke too recentlyto haul it out again).

I am not big on petitions, but theJedi Knight DedicatedServer Petition seems like an awfully worthy cause. Only you can help prevent listenservers. ThanksDOOManiac.

Version 1.6 of QStat,SteveJankowski's command-line program to display the status of Internet Quake servers hasemerged from beta (this version has been in Alpha/Beta nearly a year), and is available ontheQStat page. Word fromSteve is that version 2.0 will feature Quake II support.

A few happy updates at id after finishing off the Quake II master:

• Todd Hollenshead's.plan update on the occasion of Quake II going gold mentions that the new PC Gamer (UK) declares Quake II "THE BEST GAME EVER!"
• Disruptor's.plan update is brought to you by Log®
• Paul Jaquays made a lengthy.plan update describing the final days of the project.

• TheYPOD Doom TC is reviewed (and a rave review at that) onQuestGate's Unreal Exchange. Also, aGameSpy tab for YPOD has been created bysNaKe (DS).
• ThePreview of the Omicron Bot onRamshakle has been updated.
• There is areview of Blade Runner over onVoodoo Extreme.
• There's a review (it actually says it's an editorial) of MicroSoft's Force Feedback Pro Joystick onAVault with the classic title:May thr Force Feedback be with You. ThanksProphet.

Never too early to sign up for a Quake II tournament. Details are on theeXtreme development page.

Two sites have received :  The Quake II music team,Sonic Mayhem's sitehas been redone, andProphet sends along word theSkinForge has also been overhauled. Bothlook amazing ... Speaking the Sonic Mayhem makeover, it was done by |2|, who also designedtheonline Quake II manual, which has(I'm finally getting to the point here) a funny in it (I won't spoil it by posting it here) ... A newpoll is up atUnrealNation. ThanksProphet (on this topic,Bastard tells me the PQ polls will return soon) ... There are more on theTeam Epochalypse website (as well as a sadpersonal note for the webmaster). ThanksProphet... There is a sneak peak at the soon-to-be-released on theRequiempage ... toRedwood who hits the big 25 today ... Finally toRonSolofor hooking me up with SoloSpam^TM, my mailbox will never be the same ...

id Software has posted theOnline version of the Quake II manual.There is a lot of interesting info confirmed or revealed in there, including:

• Quake II will include an oft-requested centered weapon mode (not offset to the left or right) that doesn't draw the weapon model at all.
• Quake II will not support multiplayer co-op out of the box (it may be added later).
• While the music is bySonic Mayhem, the Quake II Theme Song is indeed by Rob Zombie.
• The story, including that you take of from Dallas when you leave Earth (hehe), culminating with your arrival: "You leap out the crushed pod door, alone, with blaster in hand, and tear off into the room with the bittersweet stench of vengeance coursing through your veins…"

id Software's Barrett "Bear" Alexander sent along an email with word that theQuake II in-store date is being assessed as the disks go off to production, and word willbe posted as soon as its available:

The interview with John Carmack and Brian Hook that had been appearing in segments onbootNET that Brian Hook raised a public objection toseems to have been pulled in its entirety. ThanksCzar.

A follow up to the previous story, John Carmackupdatedhis .plan to confirm that the gold code for Quake II is done and being manufactured(thanksProcess):

This story turned out to be a rumor, thanks toKitChung for forwarding a message from id CEO Todd Hollenshead:

According to theEBWorld.com website,inside sources at Activision reported that Quake II went gold (gold code goes tomanufacturing) this morning. ThanksGarbage andMalec:

• The latest word on MacUnreal is that it should follow a month after Unreal's release, for final code tweeks, as the Mac and PC versions of Unreal are currently in synch. Saw that onMac.Unreal.Org by way ofUnreal.Org.
• Also onUnreal.orgis a quote from three moreUnreal messageboard posts by Mark Reign concerning comparisons to Quake II, blood ("Life is violent. Blood happens."), and the possibility iof an N64 port.
• A recent post by Epic's Mark Rein on theUnreal messageboard describes how they are reworking the Unreal software renderer so that state-of-the-art hardware (like 3D acceleration and/or MMX) is not a requirement. Found this onUnreal.org by way ofVoodoo Extreme. Here's a couple of excerpts:

Wow, time flies. Congrats to Joost Schuur on the occasion ofSlipgate Central's first anniversary. Fornostalgia, here'sthe press releasethat accompanied the site's launch, one year ago today.

• One of Ritual's new employee's, level designerCharlie Wiederhold is interviewed onThe Ultimate SiN.
• Thenext part of the bootNET Interview with John Carmack and Brian Hook (this segment includes a couple of comments from Brian, no word on whether there's a settlement between him and boot), is online. On today's agenda is game marketing and 3D programmers.
• Creator of the Quake Women's Forum,Leann is interviewed onFocus on Quake.

There are screenshots up onEpochalypseNews of a Malice for Quake DM pack in the works. ThanksProphet.

Version 4.05 of QuArK, theQuake Army Knife (712 KB), has been released on the QuArK Page, as well asqrk3dfx2.zip (23 KB), a 3Dfxmodule to allow the 3D editing view in QuArK. Also available on theQuArK page, along with details about what'snew.

Beta 4 of a Quake teamplay modification called QBall has been released on theQuadulem Entertainment page. Most interestingsounding new feature in this release? The "vicious referee". ThanksHanif.

There are a couple of articles of interest up onTom'sHardware Guide, areviewof Socket 7 Motherboards, and an update to theirGLQuake/Quake II benchmarks. Problemis, you can't seem to read them with Netscape 3.x (I wrote Tom about this), in themeantime, Netscape 4.x and Explorer seem to work fine. Thanks Wicked (Voodoo Extreme).

The first round of qualification's for thePGL have beencompleted, and I see onsCary's that he hasdiscovered that the PGL rules allow an unspecified number of bye's, so it's possible thatunranked players (like Thresh), will be able to qualify anyway.

Quaked.com is hoting aSmall Site Developer's Quake Ring for smallerQuake-oriented sites to generate more exposure. ThanksHanif.

• Theschedule forSkillz' high-ping QuakeWorld one-on-one tournament has been posted, and Round 1 has begun.. If you signed up but are not one of the 448 people in the tourney, you may want to keep tabs on the schedule, as some alternates are bound to find themselves playing.
• Tournament Registration is now underway for the competition atSwissCon '97. ThanksCynical.
• Focus on Quake is holding aQuake screenshot contest looking for the "...most bizarre/hysterical Quake related screen shot."

• There's a review ofDiamond's Monster Sound card onVoodoo Extreme.
• There'sa preview of Twisted Metal 2, a sequel to the console car combat game that will be available on the PC onGameSource.  Saw that onVoodoo Extreme.
• TheYPOD Doom TC isalready reviewed onOperation 3Dfx.
• The Voodoo RUSH-based3D Emotion is reviewed onVoodoo Extreme.

There's onGameGirlz calledThere's More to Life than 3D Shooters!that talks about other game genres. ThanksHanif ... : here's aToys for Tots drive that is supported by (amongothers)ION Storm andRebel Boat Rocker ... isGibStats,where version 1.6 has given way to version 1.6c. ThanksAmish  ...

Brian Hook madea .plan update that elaborates on id's current plans for exploring Java(also mentioned intoday's bootNET segmentwith John Carmack). He also mentions his foray into level design. Here are a couple ofexcerpts from his update relating to both:

• Update: DownloadAirQuake 1.00a (161 KB) if you downloaded AirQuake 1.0 earlier today (not required if you're first getting it now), which fixes the now traditional teamplay bug.
• Original story:Version 1.0 of AirQuake (3.1 MB) has been released on theAirQuake page. AirQuake is a remarkable Quake TC that turns Quake into an air war, putting you behind the controls of fighter planes and bombers. If this is your first AirQuake download, you must also downloadAirLv1 (1.2 MB), which contains the levels.

• Update II:Another YPOD fix (178 KB) has been released, fixing the memory leak bug (mostly). Also, on the occasion of the release of YPOD, the project's main manCurMo is interviewed onProfile. ThanksHanif.
• Update I: On the heels of the YPOD Doom TC release comes anupdated QuakeWorld YPOD (80 KB) that fixes a few bugs (to play in QuakeWorld you still need to download the whole TC as well), and aBase Skin (15 KB) for use in QuakeWorld to make players into the Doom marine. There is also a list of known YPOD bugs on theMoxill Interactive QuakeTC Headquarters that will be addressed in a future release.
• Original story: I've commented in the past that I always thought a Doom TC would be one of the first Quake TC's, but it is only now in the wee hours before the dawn of Quake II that theYour Path of Destruction Doom TC (13.3 MB) has been released by theMoxill Interactive QuakeTC Headquarters. I've just gotten to check this out briefly, but it seems awfully cool: a lot of work has gone into this project, and yes, it is quite "Doomy" (I immediately started groping for my "use" key).

Thenextsegment of bootNET's interview with John Carmack (again with no comments included fromBrian Hook), has been released onbootNET. ThanksJustin Hall. Today's topics include working in Java,and network computers, with some interesting comments about performance versus robustness.

TeamFortress Software has released a new map:2Fort5(394 KB), a follow-up to the venerable 2Fort4 (thanksBundy).There was a problem with the version first uploaded on theTeamFotress page, so make sure youhave the right one if you were first on your block to download it. On a related note,remember that today kicks offPlanetQuake'sFortressFest, a week-longcelebration of all that is TeamFortress.

There is atutorial on Jedi Knight enemyAI onInside3D. There is also aB.I.P. on giving Quake C 'bots realisticvision (instead of the eyes in the back of their heads that most of them have). Thisis a B.I.P. (Bot Improvement Protocol) as opposed to a R.I.P., as it works on any QuakeCbot, not just Reapers.

The talented artists atCO2 Design are working ontheir own comic strip called "Death at DM5" with a "promised" releasedate of December 19 (thanksAmish). Also,another new repository of Quake II art has opened,Flasher's Quake 2Art Vault is just getting underway: you can download some of the art they haveavailable, and they'll gladly accept submissions.

There is areview of the RIVA 128-basedCanopus Total3D 128V onOperation 3Dfx.

• The QuakeWorld Genocide Tournament 2 has come to a close, you can check out the results onthe T2 Genocide news page.
• There's a large tournament at a cybercafe in Vancouver, B.C., called theUltimate Quake Challenge.

Upon Gibbed.Com's crash, the GL QuakeWorld Candid Camera has moved towww.akula.com/~medusa/3dfx/glqw/.

Updated theLan Parties page with a fewcorrections, as well as theWant-Ads.

Quake II may not be out yet, but here's another newTrinity page ...The Fallen is an ... Thank you to the NYT Syndicate, who listedBlue's News (and my pals atStomped) as inComputer News Daily (click on "The Must-seeWeb Sites, for Now"). Sorry about the bad link earlier, I can't seem to link the pagedirectly. ThanksNorton ...

Sorry toPCME for the phrasing inthe earlier story about the Quake II release date. While I stand by mystatement that the December 5 party has no bearing on the game's availability, using theword "silliness" was disrespectful, and I apologize.

• id Software'sBrian Hook is interviewed onGameGirlz.Com. The unedited interview, as Aurora describes it, covers any non-technical topics you can think of, including: women in the industry, female Quake players, the female Quake II character, other game developers, boot Magazine, .plan file debates and more.
• There isan interview with ChAoS and Toad of theEvil Empire TC onTC Magazine.

YPOD (Your Path of Destruction), the Doom Quake TC that has been in the works for sometime now, is gearing up for their release, to take place in conjunction with an IRC eventon 3DNet in channel #ypod, tonight at Midnight Central time. Though this came straightfrom CurMo, this information has not yet appeared on theMoxill Interactive QuakeTC Headquarters, butyou should still probably stay tuned there for possible updates.

Version 3.5 of QuAdS (Quake Add-on Starter), the Quake frontend, has been released on theQuAdS page. Here's the skinny:

Version 0.2 of the unofficialJedi Knightspecs (66 KB) have been released, compiled byDarkJedi.com.ThanksJediKnight.Net.

Version 2.0 of the Borg (485 KB), a new monstercreated byJustin Cheng (Guardian),Kenneth Scott (The Dire Protofiend), andDylan Brooks (Draco) has been released on theBorg page. The patch is a single simplelevel with a single Borg in it, so he's pretty easy to take out (even with just asingle-barrel). He is pretty damn neat though, well modeled and textured, so here's hopinghe pops up in a bigger project in the future (the authors' permission is required beforeusing this monster in outside projects, though). BTW, for everyone getting pumped todownload their own seven of nine, as far as I can tell this is unrelated to the Star Trektype of Borg: just so you know.

• There is aGerman language review of Malice onThe QUAKERY.
• The War Council (formerly the NAWC) has posted areview of the RIVA 128 based STB Velocity 128. ThanksProphet. A raveVelocity 128 Review is also up on PsychoNews.

I've been receiving more and more mail every day with "evidence" that Quake II'srelease is imminent (with less than a month before id's oft-stated goal of Christmas, thatshould be obvious). NowPCME has joined the sillinesswith a report that the Quake II party scheduled in LA on December 5 is proof that the gamewill be available before then, which is the wrong assumption to make. I was just speakingwith Kevin from Activision about this party and he said it would offer the opportunity toplay whatever the current build of Quake II is at that time (see the September 22, 1996QuakeWorld launch party followed by the QW client release two months later on December 17,1996). This does not mean that they willnotbe done by then (I'm sure they'dlike to be), it just means that the December 5 party doesnot represent a harddeadline. If there was a firm date, they would announce it and get everyone off theirbacks, but with computer programming, where Murphy's Law rules, this is not the case (Ipoint this out to try and dispell the notion that there is some sort of elite secretrelease date that's being covered-up).

Thenextportion of the bootNET interview with John Carmack and Brian Hook thatBrian Hook complained about has been posted. There'sno hint that id and boot have come to peace on this subject, though this snippet isshorter than its predecessors (again with no Hook). In this segment, John Carmackdiscusses shareware distribution.

With the release of Quake II drawing nearer,Darin McNeil, of nihilism Unlimited, famed for theZerstörer PC, sent along an unfinished (looks pretty done to me) patch, since work on itwill not continue. The patch, a variation on the arcade game Araknoid (a breakoutvariant), is calledQnoid (541 KB), and isanother remarkable example of adapting the Quake engine to create a game that has almostno recognizable Quake features.

Rebel Boat Rocker Lead Level Designer Randy Pitchfordupdatedhis .plan with a massive missive on what is going on with RBR's 3D shooter inprogress. Read it with the door locked, as Randy warns, he may have spilled too manybeans:

Heh, now even my mentioned yesterdayon this page, created byHappyEvil's House Of Fun ... (week?) isGibStats, now up to versionn 1.6 ...