Saturday, September 23, 2000

Q3A 1.25 Bugs -- 11:55 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I sent email to id's Robert Duffy to report that I found two bugs with the 1.25 patch. One is that none of the demos work anymore (not even demo001 or demo002). The other is that when I fired up a 3v3 CTF match with myself and five bots, every so often one of my teammates would report that they were going to get the flag (or defend or whatever) and would repeat the message about 30 times in rapid succession. Very annoying.

I also noticed the new CTF scoring system ends up with much higher scores. I played up to eight caps and had almost 1000 points even though I only got one cap myself.

How Stella got her Groove back... -- 10:15 pm CST, Update by The Master

There's a website over on Geocities called "How Stella Got Her Groove Back, the Atari 2600 VCSp Story", which is basically how some nut managed to cram the guts of an old Atari 2600 game system into a portable case running on battery power. Wow, that's all I can say.

For those who aren't emulation/classic game junkies, Stella is the name of one of the chips in the 2600 system, and was the code name of the original development 2600 system. Your bit o' trivia for the day...

NFL Picks -- 10:01 pm CST, Update by The Master

Eeyore did her football picks earlier this week, and here they are: Falcons, Lions, Cowboys, Dolphins, Eagles, Steelers, Ravens, Cardinals, Broncos, Raiders, Chargers, Bucs, Giants, Colts.

A.T. Hun comments: Here's my prognostication: Rams, Lions, Cowboys, Dolphins, Ravens, Saints, Titans, Cardinals, Broncos, Seahawks, Bucs, Raiders, Giants, Colts. I'm going to get creamed in Fantasy Football this week. Both my QBs are out, my main RB is out, and my main WR has a bye this week. Ouch, ouch, ouch.

EverQuest for $50/Mo? -- 6:30 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

According to Evil Avatar, there is a survey when you log out of EverQuest asking if you would pay $49.95/month (as opposed to the usual $19.95) for "premium servers" to feed your EQ addiction. Basically there would be a lower population so your character could advance more quickly. Man, I cringe at paying $50 for a game, much less $50 per month. Having said that, I would guess that more than a few EQ players would be more than happy to take them up on it.

No Daikatana Source -- 6:17 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Planet Daikatana is reporting that ION Storm will not be releasing source code for the 1.2 version of Daikatana. What does this mean? No mods. Ever. Here's a snip:

...We also talked about Daikatana game source. The unfortunate news is that since the team is working on their next project, they haven't the resources to devote to releasing the source. Sadly, even if the source was released, almost all of the ease-of-modification code was removed while crunching to get the game released, rendering it all but useless. In layman's terms, this means no single-player or multiplayer modifications.

Well, I think that qualifies as the final nail in the proverbial coffin. Thanks Evil Avatar.

The Master comments: Does anyone else get the feeling Romero, ION, and Eidos just wish Diakatana would just go away and never have happened? Just asking.

Bleh-Best Buy does a Good Thing(tm) -- 6:12 pm CST, Update by The Master

Okay, I definitely had a creeping drive failure on my Western Digital WD172AA 16gb drive, which has now been replaced by a WD WD307AA 30gb drive. Eeyore called Best Buy for me while I was panicking over drive cluster failures, and they gave approval over the phone to do a hard drive swap. I gotta say, that's some of the best customer service from a reseller I've seen in a looonnggg time. Kudos to BB, they did right by me, and I really appreciate it.

Now, to get caught up from my 2 day downtime . . .

Fun with HeadModel -- 12:19 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The Quake III Arena 1.25 patch adds the ability to put any models head on any other model. In the interest of trying something silly, I slapped Grunt's head on Crash's body. Here's what I got:


To do this, patch Q3A to 1.25, start up a level, then type (without the quotes) "/model Crash" followed by "/headmodel Grunt". Even more disturbing was the combination of Sarge's head on Mynx's body. It should work with all user-made models too. I was futzing around with the Boba Fett model I usually use. Boba's head on Sorlag's body makes for a unique combo.

Episode II Wraps -- 11:11 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Yahoo News is reporting that the shooting for Star Wars Episode II is done. Now, of course, comes the hard part--adding all the special effects. Almost time to get in line for tickets! Thanks Slashdot.

More Q3A 1.25 and Mods -- 10:41 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Gamespy asked id's Robert Duffy for further comment on the 1.25 patch and mods. It also includes some comments from a couple of mod teams. Here's an interesting bit from Duffy on some of the changes:

As far as the physics code goes, we will make the physics code work the way the public opinion pushes it. I was in favor of fixing the "bug" that causes the inprecision in the code but if it changes things that much then we need to put it back the way it was. We can essentially allow the physics code to behave the way it did (in both DLL's and vm's) and correct the problem elsewhere in the code that needs the better precision.

Splash damage through floors was a bug. It is fixed, live with it.

I downloaded a couple of demos from recent competitions and noticed that "splash damage through floors" is a technique that a lot of winning players used. I'm sure the message boards will be flooded with tears over that one.

In case anyone doesn't know, there is a very easy way to go back to 1.17 if you've already upgraded. Here's how:

1. Delete the pak4.pk3 file located in your /baseq3 folder
2. Reinstall the Quake 3 Arena Point Release version 1.17.

I haven't tried this yet, but if you back up the quake3.exe file before you upgrade, you should be able to just delete pak4.pk3 and copy the old quake3.exe over the new one to go back to 1.17.

Q3A 1.25 and Mods -- 12:09 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's Robert Duffy updated his .plan with a bit of a caveat for people considering the upgrade to Quake III Arena 1.25:

Mods for Quake 3 Arena will require a recompile for use with 1.25 and above as we have added in a lot of mod requested features which added trap calls and changed the event system a bit. I'll get the source posted asap so all the teams can get their new cuts up. Look for it in a day or two. This executable is essentially the same executable as Team Arena so once mods are up under 1.25 they will run fine under Team Arena as well.

In other words, the 1.25 patch will break all mods until they are recompiled once the new SDK comes out. If you like playing mods, you might want to wait until your favorite one releases a patch.

Q3A 1.25 Patch Released -- 12:06 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Of course, the night when I take my wife out for her birthday and The Master's computer freaks out something like this happens. id's Graeme Devine updated his .plan with word that the 1.25 patch for Quake III Arena has been released. Here's a partial list of changes from his .plan:

- global rankings support from www.globalrankings.com
- new awards
- new pure server support
- new protocol 45
- score plumes (these are cool)
- headmodel/model/team_model/team_headmodel support (orbbs head on sarge is funny)
- banning of weapons on servers
- dropped sound fixes
- new announcer sounds
- new smoothed client support for modem users
- MD4 skeletal model support
- new encryption
- new botlib version and area files
- and much much more (hint: read the readme this time)

From checking the readme, this patch also removed the CD check (thank heavens). You will need to have Q3A patched to 1.17 before patching to 1.25. You can download this new patch (17.3M--only Win32 right now) from id's FTP site, Blue's News (he also lists several other mirror sites), FilePlanet, Shugashack, and no doubt many other places.

UPDATE! The "dropped sound fixes" is a big one IMO. Now I hear the proper sound when I pick up a plasma gun as well as all the possible death sounds for a model. I've been using the Boba Fett model for the better part of six months and this is the first time I heard one particular death sound. Now to get those mods updated . . .

Friday, September 22, 2000

Return to Wolfenstein Screenshots -- 3:10 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Telefragged posted some new screenshots from Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Gray Matter's follow-up to id's Wolfenstein 3D. The shot show of some new models we haven't seen before. Thanks Blue.

Deus Ex SDK released -- 9:08 am CST, Update by The Master

ION Storm has released the Deus Ex SDK for download. This package contains the DX versions of UnrealScript/compiler, UnrealEd, documentation, utilities and all the other goodies you'll need to make mods for Deus Ex. Get nuts you modders, I wanna see some new DX missions!

Bleh -- 9:07 am CST, Update by The Master

I can't promise I'll be around this weekend since it appears my home PC's hard drive is going down for the count. I'm going to be playing the diagnostic game all weekend, so hopefully A.T. will be able to keep up with things on his own (he usually does :-) until I can get my machine back in battery. Blech.

It's Official: Creative Buys Aureal -- 9:05 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

It's been rumored for a long time, now the official word is here. Creative Labs has purchased the remnants of Aureal, their chief soundcard competitor for many years. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, Creative does with Aureal's A3D technology. It cost them US$28 million, but I'm sure it saved them at least that much by getting all the pending litigation between the companies settled. Thanks Blue's News.

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