Thursday, March 30, 2000

Lord British Deposed -- 6:36 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I still wonder if this is a joke, but I've seen it from too many respectible places. Word on the streets is that Richard Garriot aka Lord British, the founder of the Ultima series of games either was fired or left Origin. Gamespy got confirmation from Origin:

Richard Garriott will be leaving OSI. Richard's contribution to OSI has been great and his legacy as the creator of Ultima is a tremendous responsibility for us to inherit. There are few promoters, if any, that parallel Richard's ability in that area. As Richard and I discussed his vision of what he wanted to do, create new large properties, OSI simply could not pursue those endeavors. Wishing Richard only the best and all life has to offer as he embarks on his new challenges.

Interesting strategy when the driving forces behind your two major franchises are now gone.

Update! The Official Ultima Online page has a news blurb confirming this story. Now I've heard it all. Thanks Evil Avatar.

More UT 413 Patch Woes -- 4:53 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Epic's Steve Polge updated the Unreal Technology Page with their plans on addressing problems in D3D and elsewhere caused by the 413 patch:

Several issues with the 413 patch have been pointed out. We will have an updated patch as soon as possible to address these issues. In the meantime, if you are having D3D video performance problems, see Erik's update below. If you are having problems installing UT, or getting an error after installation that "UnrealTournament.exe is not a valid Win32 application" or "UnrealTournament.exe is too big to fit into system memory", try installing into the default directory for UT (c:UnrealTournament). Our patch installer seems to be occasionally corrupting files when installing into different directory structures. We are still working on the problems of the 413 patch not working with minimum installs, and problems patching the Spanish/Italian version of UT.

Q3A Aimbot -- 10:37 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Well, server admins, if you don't have your Quake III Arena server sv_pure 1, you'd best do it soon. The folks at QuakeHelp got their hands on a bona fide Aimbot that does work online. The EZ-Net server has been set to pure since day one because of things just like this. Unfortunately, it seems that there will always be lamers . . .

More S3 Rumors -- 10:23 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

This Tech-Report article asks the same musical question I posed yesterday (story): Should NVIDIA buy S3's graphic chip division? To me, it sounds like a no-brainer. Tech-Report also points out that NVIDIA moved to sell $400 million in stock today. Coincidence? Stay tuned. Thanks Shugashack.

Wednesday, March 29, 2000

Q3A on Dreamcast -- 12:25 pm CST, Update by The Master

For the console lovers out there: Sega has announce that Q3A will be ported to the Sega Dreamcast. Man, Sega is really taking over the console market. Sony better get their *ahem* stuff together soon.

Thanks Blue.

S3 to Drop Graphic Chip Business? -- 10:41 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Voodoo Extreme linked to this press release stating the following:

Multimedia software maker S3 Inc. (NasdaqNM:SIII - news) said on Wednesday it was in discussions to sell or spin off its graphics chip business.

The company offered no additional comment.

In its fourth quarter earnings report in January, its chief executive Ken Potashner said, "Although we continue to make gains in our graphics business, we believe that our growth businesses focusing on Internet appliances and home networking have significant unrealized value."

Seems to me that NVIDIA would be a logical suitor here. Lord knows they've got the cash.

The Master comments: Man, I remember when you COULDN'T buy a prebuilt PC without an S3 video chipset. They really lost their edge in the last couple of years, even with the Savage chipsets. What I don't understand from the press release is this whole "unrealized value" crap in their other markets. Does anyone else notice the markets they intend to "realize" are the markets that Intel is walking into? I think we'll see S3 bankrupt or bought out in the next 3 years.

AnandTech on Celeron II -- 10:03 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

AnandTech has posted this review of Intel's new Celeron II, which is basically a Pentium III with 1/2 of its L2 cache disabled (128K instead of 256K) with a 66Mhz FSB. While it won't set the world on fire, it will be good for "bargain" PCs and people (like me) looking to upgrade older Celeron systems without selling their firstborn. Thanks Slashdot.

UT 413 Patch for Mac -- 9:14 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

According to Stomped, the 413 patch for Unreal Tournament for the Mac might be a long time coming. Redwood quotes this blurb on the Mac Gaming Ledge.

"I really hate to be the one to tell you, but the first we knew about a 413 patch was when they released it. (sigh) This is not an uncommon problem when working PC to Mac, but it *is* extremely frustrating. In any case, we have requested the code and we can't say what will happen until we receive it."

If they would read The Haus daily, they'd be up on all this :)

More Daikatana Info -- 9:09 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Gone Gold sent email to Brian Kemp, the man with the PR plan for Daikatana. Here's what he had to say about release dates, and probably helps explain why they muzzled Noel.

The game itself is very close to completion. They have looked at a few candidates, but none have been approved so far. It seems a decision has been made however. Once the game does go gold, Eidos has decided to hold it and get all the localized versions gold before release. This way they will have a simultaneous World Wide release, or at least within days of each other.

How much of a delay will that be? Not really sure at this point. Most likely before the summer gets here, but they're hoping to have an "official" announcement with a solid release schedule shortly.

Past Two Days' News

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