Saturday, August 14, 1999

New Old Married Guy [RIP]! -- 5:28 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The Old Married Guys [RIP], my Shogo MAD (aka clan), wish to welcome J into their illustrious, albeit somewhat decrepit, ranks. Join us on the EZ-Net Shogo server some time! The server is running the BloodBath 6 mod and the Shogo Six-Pack levels.

Unreal 2.26 Patch / UT Demo -- 12:45 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I saw this little bit of information at PlanetUnreal from Epic's Tim Sweeney:

Yes, there will be another Unreal 1 patch, with the latest Direct3D code (big improvements), network code and server performance improvements. I don't have a date though...we're going through a lot of testing/tweaking on UT now. The Unreal 1 patch might be synch'ed up with the UT demo.

This means two things: 1) an Unreal Tournament demo is probably not too terribly far away (barring major bugs anyway), and 2) hopefully D3D perfomance will get to the point that Unreal/Unreal Tourney is playable on something other than a dual Athlon system.

The Master comments: Don't you mean a 10-cluster Cray on a fibre backbone AT?!?

Using Q3Test's Game Browser -- 12:39 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's Graeme Devine updated his .plan, telling how to search for Q3Test servers running certain game types (teamplay, free-for-all, etc.):

BTW. You can search for Q3A Internet Servers using the keywords "ffa", "tourney", "deathmatch", "team" and "tournament" in the Internet game browser screen to only show specific types of maps.

Thanks Graeme, now get Q3A out the door!

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!

Past Two Days' News

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