Wednesday, March 15, 2000

Duffy on Q3A Cheating -- 2:30 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

In his aforementioned .plan update, id's Robert Duffy also went off on cheaters and potential ways to combat them (beyond sv_pure 1):

Cheating is obviously a big issue. It seems that some people just cannot get over the fact that they suck at the game and have to cheat to try and make up for it :-) This along with abusive players has caused quite a few requests for the ability to generate a unique user ID based on the end users CD Key. This would allow servers to ban troublesome players or habitual cheaters. This method would not compromise the CD Key in any way but would provide a unique string that would identify a particular user irrespective of their user name, ip address and so on. Our current thought process is to implement a system very similar to caller ID. This would allow a server to be setup to accept only clients that provide their ID or accept all ( anonymous ) clients. Clients would be able to specify whether or not to provide their ID or be anonymous. Any feedback on this is welcome ( This is NOT in the game at this time but is under consideration )

I think the obvious answer is to beat cheaters silly, but that is not always practical and, in some cases, illegal. Thoughts?

The Master comments: Well, I wish for the ability to switch their phone line onto a 50k power line, but like you said-that's illegal . . .

Final Q3A 116 Point Release -- 2:14 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's Robert Duffy updated his .plan with news that the final (that is, non-beta) 116 patch is available for Quake III Arena. Here's a sniff:

The 1.16 point release is done. It should start appearing on mirrors soon, in all three flavors. The release also contains the original player models done way back when for Xian, Carmack, Hellrot, Paul Jaquays, Willits, and Brandon James ( now at Rogue ). These are included in the PK3 file. Available separately are the Max files for each as well.

There were only a few changes between 1.16m and 1.16n, the readme details what was changed. I should get the code bundled up and out within a few days as well.

Any problems with the release ( or the game in general ) need to be e-mailed to livehumanfeedback@idsoftware.com, this will ensure the issues get added to our bug database and looked at.

Mirrors:

• Blue's News (and 3D Action Gamers) Win32, Mac, Linux
• Shugashack Win32, Mac, Linux
• Stomped All versions

Mods for The Master -- 10:18 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I think it's really nice that someone went out and tailor made a mod for The Master. Thanks PlanetQuake for the link.

The Master comments: So what if I'm a QuadWhore. You'll thank me the next time we're 'bot-hunting in CTF and Xaero has it instead of me.

RealPlayer Licenses FakePlayer -- 10:10 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

This News.com article reports that RealNetworks has licensed Windows Media Format. RealNetworks has not decided what products they will use the technology in. This could be a Good Thing because it would allow me to keep Windows Media Player off my computer forever, and Real might bring WMF streaming to Linux under this license. This could also be a Bad Thing in that it is a sign that Microsoft has used its bulk to run another company's products off the market. Thanks Slashdot.

The Master comments: Amazingly, Microsoft will now use this license in some kind of spin-control press release showing how wonderful and pure they are. Bah. Microsoft is a monopolistic crusher of all competition in the computer world.

Beware -- 9:42 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

If your name is Caesar (or Julius for that matter), I'd advise using some extra caution today. That and avoiding anyone named Brutus.

J.t.Qbe comments: Hey A.T., how's about we fire up the Aldis lamps?

Tuesday, March 14, 2000

CliffyB on Level Design -- 9:01 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Epic's Cliff "CliffyB" Bleszinski updated his .plan with news that he has posted his written materials from his GDC lecture entitled The Art and Science of Level Design. It's a good read for all you budding level designers out there. Just don't try to follow the link on Cliffy's front page. Use the one above. It actually works :)

Q3A in All Its Glory -- 4:29 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Just wanted to pass along that I got to see Quake III Arena running on my friend's Athlon 650 with a Elsa DDR GeForce at 1024x768 with all the graphics options on max. One word: WOW! Unfortunately, now it's going to look ugly on my system . . .

Daikatana Chat Log -- 4:18 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Daikatana Headquarters has posted a transcript of last night's chat with the Daikatana developers. Included are a couple juicy morsels of information. First, regarding weapon switch times, The Romero spake:

You can have INSTANT SWITCH weapons if you like in multiplayer.

The QuakeWorld folks will love that. On the subject of going gold and when, KillCreek and her amazing, um, coding skillz said:

Let me just say, we have plane tix to go to Hawaii on this coming Sunday, and we are not looking to reschedule.

I'll believe it at the point at which I see it. Thanks Shugashack.

SOF Officially Gold -- 12:31 pm CST, Update by The Master

According to Gone Gold, Activision has approved Soldier of Fortune for Gold master.

A.T. Hun comments: Which, of course, means that SoF is the first single-player-oriented game to ship with Capture-the-Flag in of the box. Sorry, John, Daikatana didn't make it in time . . .

Carmack on 3D Linux -- 12:25 pm CST, Update by The Master

John Carmack posted some comments on the Linux Sourceforge site on Linux drivers for S3 and MGA cards. Excellent read for the uber-geeks in the crowd.

There is a HECK of a lot of interesting reading in this thread on the utah-glx archive. Carmack seems to be meshing into the Open Source driver community really well-which I'm sure is a FASCINATING experience for someone who is such a hard-core programmer.

Past Two Days' News

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