Tuesday, April 11, 2000

Fear and Loathing on the Internet -- 10:12 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Last week Wraith was kind enough to write up a Force Commander review as well as a commentary on game exploits for us. This week, he's become a full-fledged Haus staff member with the official beginning of his column "Fear and Loathing on the Internet" (with the obvious tip of the hat to Hunter S. Thompson). Today's exciting episode is entitled Just 'Cause You're Not Paranoid . . . dealing with encryption and the recent EverQuest fiasco (story). Welcome aboard, Wraith!

BitBoys? Not Until 2001 -- 2:23 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Voodoo Extreme got the news that BitBoys is pushing the release of their graphics chip back to 2001. The reason for the delay? They want to add a transform and lighting engine. OK, who in the world is feeding them the capital to do all this? They've promised the moon and haven't delivered a thing! Ever! I recommend that any future investors take their money and flush it directly down the toilet instead.

Update! Something Awful brings this report from a press conference with the BitBoys CEO! Check it out!

Q3A Jailbreak Beta Review -- 1:58 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Hey kids! More content from your friends at The Haus! I wrote a review of the recently released beta Jailbreak mod for Quake III Arena. The mod is a lot of fun, but some of the maps could use some work. You can find this and all our reviews on our reviews page.

Todd Hollenshead .plan update -- 12:47 pm CST, Update by The Master

Todd Hollenshead of id updated his .plan with a comment on the New York Times article (story):

From April 8, 2000 New York Times article "Rampage Killers: A Statistical Portrait" by Ford Fessenden:

They [the killers] are not racists or Satanists or addicited to violent video games, movies or music.

It's amazing how the tides of media coverage can turn so quickly when they quit focusing on the hype and hysteria and instead scrutinize the facts.

My question is: why should the media care about facts? Heck-they can publish almost anything and be legally protected because of their "reasonable effort to inform the public." Yeah, sure.

Blah -- 8:45 am CST, Update by The Master

Okay, since I'm a history buff, and I think this stuff is interesting, here's some "highlights" for today in history:

• 1814: Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates as emporor of France, and is banished to Elba.
• 1945: American soldiers liberate Buchenwald, one of the most notorious concentration camps in Germany.
• 1970: Apollo 13 blasts off on it's ill-fated mission to the moon.

Help for Aspiring Map Editors -- 8:41 am CST, Update by The Master

Paul Jaquays updated his .plan with some information for aspiring map editors and other game artists playing with the Q3A tools and engine:

...I know there's a lot of people who must be downloading our editing tools and then getting frustrated because they can't get them to work right. Not surprising. A day rarely goes by in which a newcomer to the forum needs to have a basic question or two answered. If you're just getting started in Quake III map making or you're finding that the on-line tutorials aren't providing the specific answers that you need to know, drop in to Editing Forum. Questions get answered and there's usually a lot of great discussion about map making. Sometimes questions are answered by the last mapper who asked the same question. But there are some serious experts in the science and art of mapping, shader programming, texture creation and tool making who hang out on the forum too.
...
Quake3World Level Editing Forum

While I'm at it, I should mention that the Q3Radiant editing tools are also available from Quake3World, as are several versions of the Q3Radiant manual, Eutectic's .def file for Q3Radiant entities, the missing textures files and the clean shaders files for the original id shader scripts and lots of links to level editing resources.

S3 Sells Video to Via -- 8:31 am CST, Update by The Master

According to Yahoo! Finance, S3 sells graphics chip business to Taiwan's Via Tech for approximately $323 million. Wow. Via is trying very hard to become the next Intel. You go :-)

Monday, April 10, 2000

PC Gamer Obi-Wan Article -- 11:28 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The good folks at JediKnight.net have a summary of the recent PC Gamer article on LucasArts' upcoming first/third-person shooter, Episode I: Obi-Wan. Yes, you will be able to kill Jar Jar. That alone should make Obi-Wan sell a million copies :) Having said that, I just purchased and watched The Phantom Menace in widescreen format, making it the third time I've seen the movie. I still don't find Jar Jar to be as terribly distracting as everyone else seems to. Oh well.

Rampage Killers -- 10:05 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

There is an interesting article on the N.Y. Times website about "rampage killers," people who kill a number of people at once. The infamous Columbine killers would fall in this category. Here are some of the results which are rather telling:

While the killings have caused many people to point to the violent aspects of the culture, a closer look shows little evidence that video games, movies or television encouraged many of the attacks. In only 6 of the 100 cases did the killers have a known interest in violent video games. Seven other killers showed an interest in violent movies.
. . .
Society has turned to law enforcement to resolve the rampage killings that have become almost a staple of the nightly news. There has been an increasing call for greater security in schools and in the workplace. But a closer look shows that these cases may have more to do with society's lack of knowledge of mental health issues, rather than a lack of security. In case after case, family members, teachers and mental health professionals missed or dismissed signs of deterioration.

Basically the common thread is that all of these people showed mental illness, about half of which were diagnosed and well-known before the tragedies occurred. I would have thought that by now in an advanced society such as ours (n.b. sarcasm) that we would be better at recognizing and helping people deal with mental illness. It's not so strange then that these attacks are often characterized as "senseless".

This article strongly suggests (and unlike Col. Grossman and others, they actually use facts) that the solution is not banning video games, but recognizing and helping people with mental illnesses rather than shunning and avoiding them. Thanks Blue's News.

Past Two Days' News

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