Friday, August 13, 1999

Linux Q3Test 1.08 Released -- 3:08 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

With absolutely no fanfare, id just released the Linux version of Q3Test. They haven't updated yet, but I'm sure the list of mirrors will soon be appearing on id's official Q3A site. In the meantime, you can check the usual suspects (ftp.idsoftware.com, ftp.cdrom.com, etc.).

Q3Demo / Q3 Arena soon? -- 12:10 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I just saw this on Blue's News: id's Graeme Devine sent an email saying the following regarding the possibility of a new Q3Test to view the QuakeCon demos.

No there will not be a special update for playing back the QuakeCon levels. We're in pretty much the final push now to get this thing out the door and we've started to make CD images etc. to test out the game, so another test is looking doubtful. I expect the next update will be the full demo, followed in very short order by the game itself.

It looks like we should have the REAL Q3A in our hands rather quickly. OK, relatively quickly anyway. Hopefully this quarter and not Q1 2000 as some had feared.

As always, when Q3A is officially released EZ-Net will be the first to have a Quake 3 server up and running!

Retail Blues -- 10:47 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Ars Technica's Caesar posted an editorial entitled When Will Retail Die?. If you are like me and have had the displeasure of going into a Mega Computer Store^tm and trying to find the one salesperson who knows what he is talking about, you'll like this article. You pay more, you get less service, and you even get to pay a restocking fee, all for the pleasure of driving to a local superstore. Gee, thanks.

Personal experience: I recently upgraded my system and was looking for a new sound card and video card. I settled on two Creative Labs' products: the Graphics Blaster TNT AGP and SoundBlaster Live! Value. I went to a local superstore (which shall remain nameless other than the fact that their initials are the second letter of the alphabet), only to find that the products cost twice as much as they would from Buy.Com (no affiliation, yadda, yadda). I even screwed up and ordered everything twice from Buy.Com, but I was able to return the stuff and get a refund, no problems at all. The only thing I can't do online is make an "impulse" buy (see it, buy it, take it home now). In all honesty, that's probably just as well.

Mark Rein Interview -- 10:10 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The Beauty of Madness has a rather frank interview with Epic's PR guy, Mark Rein, about gaming sites using stolen or beta versions of Unreal Tournament. They also briefly discuss some changes and improvements since Unreal came out.

The author of that bit also has an interesting editorial, accusing the game developers of spreading just as much disinformation as these bogus "previews" using old code. The difference? The game developer's hype is "good" because it increases interest in the game, regardless of whether or not the features end up in the final product. These previews are "bad" because they could make people dislike the game. Both are falsehoods, but the latter will obviously still make money for the developers. Gee, game developers giving misleading information? Nah . . .

Friday the 13th -- 9:11 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Yes, kids, it's Friday the thirteenth. A big "boo!" to all you triskaidekaphobes out there!

Thursday, August 12, 1999

Unreal Tourney Preview -- 6:22 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The NG Network (Noogie Network?) has a preview of Unreal Tournament online. It's pretty brief and reads like Epic PR material. They have November 1999 as an approximate release date. Take that with the usual caveats.

Shogo News Galore -- 4:49 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

PlanetShogo reports the following:

Satan and Thorin have released a new version of servfixr.rez, the server-side anti-cheater rez. I'm trying to find out if they are going to continue working on both servfixr.rez and validate.rez (the rez for both clients and servers) or if they are going to focus their efforts on one.

Update: He replied that servfixr.rez will detect the "rapid fire" cheating problem, but nothing else. Validate.rez (in conjunction with servfixa.rez) will eliminate any kind of cheating. Some bugs still need to be worked out though. Stay tuned for further developments.

Someone convinced Awol to come out of retirement and run the Shogo Parties. Shogo Party is a weekly get-together on one (or both) of Awol's servers. He chooses the mod, everyone gets together and has a grand time.

DooBall has come up with a new map called Super Station 5, for small deathmatches or 1v1 action. Doo also announced that he is going to start work on some single-player maps too. Rock!

Connection Problems -- 10:02 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

My apologies to anyone who may not have been able to view the site at times recently. EZ-Net's (our most righteous ISP) upstream provider has been playing rousing games of "let's route packets to nowhere" recently. So if you've had trouble accessing this site or connecting to EZ-Net's Q3Test or Shogo servers, now you know why.

Past Two Days' News

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