Quake2.com logo by Walter |2| Costinak


Tuesday, October 20, 1998 - Submit News!
Lithium Snafu
Whitefang sent along this clip from the Lithium Quake2 site's news:
It appears I was out of it last night. First of all, I accidently included the v1.23-beta1 binary with the Windows x86 v1.23 release distribution. Also (a bit ironic) I forgot to add the ZbotCheck object to the Solaris Sparc and Linux AXP makefiles, so those binaries didn't run. Only the Linux x86 version went unscathed. I've updated the download page with the fixed distributions, labeled as v1.23a (it'll still say v1.23 on the console and in the game).
Head on over to their site for the updated files.

Public Expert CTF Channel
Clan MisH has opened an ExpertCTF IRC channel on the EFNet in #ExpertCTF. I believe most popular IRC clients come with a list of some EFNet servers but in case yours didn't here's a couple: irc.sprynet.com, irc.ais.net, irc.psinet.com, irc-e.primenet.com.

Coincidentally, we made a slight update to our GamesLink IRC page, kind of brought it back up to speed. Check it out and then come check us out on irc.quake2.com too!

Help Wanted
Garett is looking for some people to join his team which is devoted to helping produce models, art, and maps for those who are understaffed with their mods.

Benelux...
Thanks to all of you who mailed me about Benelux, especially thanks to Marcel Erkens who mailed me practically 20 minutes after my update. For those who were wondering, Benelux is short for Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg. Cool huh?

NetGuy

Monday, October 19, 1998 - Submit News!
New Quick Start Released
Version 2.28 revision 2 of Quick Start, the Eraser Bot Wizard, has been released. This patch-only release fixes the launching problem that dealt with the naming of the quake2 executable as well as it's place in directory structure (for good this time).

New Ninja Q2 Released
Ninja Quake2's new Single Player/Coop/Deathmatch version has been released! This release includes the two newest weapons (a flail and a shield), a female ninja model, and the much asked-for "only allow ninjas in this game" cvar. Check their site for more info as well as for the files.

QND Software's SSA Beta-1
QND Software has released version beta-1 of it's Server-Side-Admin tool. SSA was designed specifically for Quake server advertising and messaging. Also available from QND Software is their Q2 fun-name maker, as well as the promise of an animated Q2 fun-name maker coming soon!

Q2FE 3.0 Final
The final version of Q2FE (Quake2 Server Front End) has been released. Drop by their site for more info.

Quake2 BattleGround Upgrade Released
Version 1.26 of Quake2 BattleGround has been released. This fixes a server accounting problem that they discovered right after releasing version 1.25 (doh). Head on over to their site for the files & info.

Benelux Quake2 Contest
The largest Quake2 contest in the Benelux has opened up it's subscriptions to allow any player who lives in the Benelux to play. Gamepoint, the Benelux Q2 Contest's hosting site has made this available. Also available are several thousands of dollars worth of prizes and wide-media coverage. If you live in the Benelux and would like to play, check out this site. (btw, I went to this site to figure out what the "Benelux" are, but it's in German or something. If you know what/where the Benelux is, drop me a note ya? Thanks)

New Dawn of Darkness Screenshot
WardSix has released another teaser screenshot of their upcoming Dawn of Darkness release.

Help Wanted
New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
Miscellany...
Sorry for the (really) late update tonight. In order to try and bring the news a bit earlier (and in order to give LadyICE and myself a much needed loosening of the belt), we have decided to hire one more news person. The only requirement that we have right now is that the person who is applying must live in either the UK or Australia, because of their time difference and native english language ;) Please think hard before applying, if you're a student who goes to school all day, this position probably isn't for you (read: college students and people who sit in front of computers at work all day are heavily preferred). Also, please don't use a fake email address like from a .au or .uk shell that you may have, because if you don't live in the UK or Australia, we'll find out eventually :)

If you meet those requirements and would like to join our team, drop us a note at news@quake2.com with your name/nickname, email address, area of the UK/Au. where you live, what your day schedule is like, and any other kind of comments that you'd like to include. Also, please only email us once (unless your note gets bounced), we will post the name of the person we've selected AFTER we've contacted them here on the site. Thanks!

NetGuy

Sunday, October 18, 1998 - Submit News!
BotJonny 2.00 / KeyBind 1.00 Release
The full version of BotJohnny 2.00 has been released with a bunch of new features, including KeyBind 1.00. KeyBind is a new keyboard bindings and alias editor which is also available separately from BotJonny. Get the download, plus all the info on both here.

Gunman TC Switches Engines
This little blurb was spotted on contaminated.net:
"In an unprecedented move, the Gunman TC had decided to switch over to the Half-Life engine. Previously considered one of the most anticipated TCs for Quake2, this will definitely be a mod to watch. Further details are available on their site."
You can find all the details on Gunman TC's engine switch here.

Gamespot's Pop Quiz For Gamers
Well okay...it's more like a college entrance exam with 160 questions geared to test your knowledge of the history of PC gaming. Don't be fooled into thinking that is gonna be an easy "A", kiddies...it's 32 pages long! Anyway, if you feel up to the challenge, you can take the GSAT (GameSpot Aptitude Test) here. Thanks Hanif, for passing this newsbit onto us...just what I need - more exams!

q2dm1 Tutorial
My DM partner, Blaze, over at 3DScene had posted a tutorial in demo format on how to control q2dm1 in 1-on-1 DM situations. Check it out ;)

QuakeII - 2 on 2 League
There is a new QuakeII league specializing in 2-on-2 DM, located here.

New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
Help Wanted
The Oddyssy Interactive Entertainment group is looking for programmers, mappers, and modelers to help them with their TC project. Please check out their site for all the position descriptions and requirements.

LadyICE

Saturday, October 17, 1998 - Submit News!
UrbanDM Released
UrbanDM v1.02, which seems to be less buggy than its predecessor, v1.01, has been released and contains a new weapon as well. You can find the download of this new version, along with the official UrbanDM doc, at Urban Software .

Mod Central Reviews UrbanDM and ChaosDM
And speaking of UrbanDM, you can find a review of it and ChaosDM over at Mod Central.

Hosted Sites News
Dark Blue Samurai over at the QuakeStation dropped us a line to tell us that he has gotten the first screen shots for the PlayStation version of Quake 2. Mmmm, looks sweet...go check them out ;)

Help Wanted
The Jungle Development team is in the final stages of beta testing Jungle, their new mod, which should be released within a few days. They are currently in need of some mappers for Jungle, so if you are interested in joining them, head on over to their website.

LadyICE

Friday, October 16, 1998 - Submit News!
Lithium II v1.22 Released
Lithium Software has just released Lithium II v1.22 which offers reliable ZBot detection, and a new high scores feature. With the new ZBot detection, server admins have the choice of either kicking the player from the game, or logging their info to a file. Being able to detect and get rid of cheating players helps to keep DM'ing enjoyable for all of us. You can find more info on other changes in v1.22 on the Lithium website, and you can also read the new FAQ by White Fang here. All admins running Lithium servers are encouraged to upgrade to this new version.

LM Tournament Edition 4.5 Wants Your Map Submissions
Loki's Minions developers are currently working on a new LMCTF map pak (yes, the rumor is true!), and are asking for CTF map submissions. If you have a finished CTF map which you feel is good enough to be used in LMCTF 4.5, then please send it to MrWhite.

TRSM Beta Testing On LMCTF Servers
The REAL Stat Machine began testing on 5 lucky LMCTF servers last night. TRSM is a program which parses log files, and generates stat info. Currently, it is being tested for LMCTF, but Beta Testing on other mods should begin soon. For a list of the LMCTF Beta Test servers, as well as full details on the program itself, head over to the TRSM website.

New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
Quake III Nation is a new Quake 3:Arena site which will offer Q3A news, screenshots, files, and other Quake 3:Arena stuff as it becomes available. Stop by and check out this new site today.

LadyICE

Thursday, October 15, 1998 - Submit News!
id's Extremities
Anna Kang sent out a little press notice earlier announcing id's new "Internet Pack" called "Quake2 Internet Pack No.1: Extremities". Here's the note:
Hello everyone!

Just wanted to fill everybody in on the latest id news.

As you all know, the id development team is hard at work on Quake III Arena. We do, however, come up for air and some fun in between all the work. This is where the idea of "Quake II Internet Pack No. 1: Extremities" originated. Many of us at id have enjoyed the great mods created by the community and we recognize the hard work and high production quality that goes into creating them. This convinced us to bundle some of the best Quake II Internet mods as a retail product. Yep, retail. Extremities will make these mods available to fans who might otherwise not be aware of these great works. This is a great way we at id can recognize some of the great work that's being done out there in the community.

As a bonus, we’ve created a special Quake III Arena poster which will be available in stores through the purchase of Extremities. The posters are VERY cool.

I will update you with more information about which mods will be included as well as when you can expect to see Extremities on the retail shelves once these details are finalized.
Interesting idea, and congrats ahead of time to the mods that made the cut.

NetGuy

Calling All Configs
indian18 over at The Bind has put together his "Config of the Week" crew, and is looking for your mod configs, or your whole config system. Each week, the crew will review a config in which they will dissect it section by section. In doing so, you can see whether or not it fits your needs so you can download it, and you will also gain some important knowledge about config building for your own personal scripting endeavors. So...send in those configs to indian18, and go visit his site for more info.

New Quick Start v2.28 Revision1 Release
v2.28 Revision1 of the Quick Start "Eraser Bot Wizard" was released last night. This release comes on the heels of the v2.28 release because of a bug in QS that would crash if your quake2 executable wasn't named "quake2.exe". A big thanks goes out to EsKiMo :)

CTC2 Released
Hey...Catch the Chicken 2.0 has been released and now has the capability of team play. Go check out the CTC website for download info, and stay tuned for the Linux and Solaris versions which should be out soon.

Q3 Minimum System Requirements According To Carmack
SamHell over at the Divide and Conquer website wrote to John Carmack about the minimum system requirements for Quake3, and got this response:
"You can trade off quality for speed in many cases in Q3, so almost any system capable of playing Q2 in OpenGL mode will be able to play Q3 at reasonable speeds, but not necessarily at the highest quality level."
- John Carmack
Thanks SamHell, for sending that in to us :)

LadyICE

Wednesday, October 14, 1998 - Submit News!
John Carmack Gets Technical
John Carmack updated his plan file with quite a bit of technical commentary on Doom, Quake2, Quake3Arena and even harkens back to the days of Commander Keen. If you're into that sort of thing you might want to take a couple minutes and read it.

New Quick Start Released
Version 2.28 of Quick Start, the Eraser Bot Wizard, has been released. This is a patch only release and thus requires the v2.26 installer. New features include the addition of "Delete" and "Convert" functions to the screenshot viewer, a couple bugfixes, and more.

GBPaker Released
GPPaker, a pak update utility for the Quake series of games has been released. GBPaker lets mod authers dynamically change the contents of files that are already inside pakfiles. The author only has to release an "update.pak" file which gets patched into the previous releases by GBPaker. Pretty neat eh?

Quake2 Battleground Version 1.20
Version 1.20 of Quake2 Battleground has been released. New features include ClanRing-style ghosts, auto-disabling of warmup mode when more than half of the players are ready, full admin control over which items are allowed in the game, team captains, a revamped scoreboard, and a whole host of other stuff.

Adopt-A-Mod
A new program called Adopt-A-Mod has started up, aiming to help out mods that are in need of servers. They currently have a list of 11 mods that are in need, and ask that server operators check it out. They also welcome new additions to the list, so if your mod is in need you might want to check this one out!

Dawn of Darkness Wallpaper
WardSix has released a Dawn of Darkness wallpaper as a bit of a teaser for their upcoming release. Both the BMP and JPG versions are in 1024x768, 24bit color.

New BotS Maps Released
Five new maps for the Battle of the Sexes mod have been released. Check their site for map info and the downloads.

Help Wanted
The Urban Team (makers of UrbanDM and UrbanCTF) is looking for someone who can port both their dm and ctf mods to the Linux platform. Check their site for more info.

New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
NetGuy

Tuesday, October 13, 1998 - Submit News!
Gibfest2 Announced
Canadian Quakers rejoice, as Gibfest 2 will be heading your way in January of '99, in Winnipeg. While details remai n a bit sketchy still, they promise bigger and better prizes, Gibfest2 merchand ise (t-shirts, sweaters, etc), and more!

New Quake2 Scene Builder
Version 1.8 of the Quake2 Scene Builder has been released. New features include support for Sin, sup port for "classic" Quake models, and many other enhancements.

Urban DM Solaris Port
A solaris port for the Urba n DM mod is now available. Check the Eclipse site for the files.

New "Discussion Radio" Show
Nothing beats a direct quote:
3ddr (3D Disscusion Radio) is a brand spanking new Talk Show via RealPlayer. 3ddr is a live talk show with news, reviews, previews, interviews with famous people. prizes and whatever else we can think of go check out the 3ddr site at http://www.the-mob.com/3ddr/ . The first show we will be talking to Zoid, Bastard, and White Fang, all great people in the FPS community, we will be giving away Modern Warfare. Qoole, and Def-Con CD's.
Help Wanted
The Urban CTF team is looking for a very professional and qualified skinner. I f you'd like to submit an application you can mail it to urban@captured.com.

New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
NetGuy

Monday, October 12, 1998 - Submit News!
IE Security Problem
A very serious security problem was discovered in IE 4 which can allow someone to steal any file they like from your PC. This can be triggered by visiting a web site or someone sending you html email and you opening it in Outlook Express. Since the exploit involves JavaScript, you might want to disable it until Microsoft comes up with a fix. You could also use Netscape instead (although as one reader pointed out, it has problems of its own with JavaScript :) ).

Blitz

Sunday, October 11, 1998 - Submit News!
Assimilation Servers Needed
The Assimilation 2.0 mod realease is imminent, and they are in desperate need of a dedicated server for about a week or so for testing purposes. If you have a server which you are willing to open up to Assimilation 2.0 players...please email smeltzer.

Eraser Bot Wizard Release
A new version of Quick Start - "Eraser Bot Wizard" has been released. There are a whole lot of new features included in Ver. 2.26, and you can find out the details of this new release here.

Frag2 King of the Hill Contest
For all of you KOTH fans who are planning to attend this year's Frag2 event in Dallas, you might be interested to know that there will be a KOTH contest taking place! There will be a grand prize of $100, 100% Orange Smoothie T-Shirts for the 1st thru 6th place contestants, a copy of KOTH to all who enter, and a bunch more cool prizes. You can find more info on the contest and prizes on the the King of the Hill webpage.

QuakeI Map Conversions
Three of the original QuakeI maps have now been converted to QuakeII. The e1m1, e1m2, and e1m3 map conversions are available for download here.

French "Quake Railed Quick" Contest
Okay...check this out - but only if you speak French: There is a Quake 2 contest being held called "Quake Railed Quick". It is only for french-speaking people and the full details are here.

GibStats Bug Fix
The 2.3c release of GibStats II has been released and is availabe here. The version fixes the following bugs:
  • skill display bug
  • HTML sorting
  • some other HTML bugs
    Fragitz is also looking for people who want to take care of adapting the GibStats client logging abilities to new patches. Visit the site and contact him if you are interested in doing the job.

    New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
    The Gaia Project has been updated with 60 new textures, a map and another prefab set for Deathmatchmaker2. Worth a look see.

    Help Wanted
    The 3D Scene is looking for some experienced help: 2 news updaters, 1 programmer, 1 artist, and other miscellaneous positions. Previous experience is needed. Contact Blaze at the 3D Scene website if you are interested and qualified.

    Some thoughts...
    Hmmm...well after a fun-filled weekend of feeling helpless and angry (not nearly as angry as Blitz, I'm sure!), we seem to be back up and back on track. Yeah, we lost some time and I'm pretty confident that if you were anxious to find the latest news, you could have at any of the other great news sites. Again, we apologize for this inconvenience (although it was NOT our fault), and as always, thank you for your patience and patronage. You are the reason we are still alive and kicking!
    Frag on....

    LadyICE

    Saturday, October 10, 1998 - Submit News!
    Bell Atlantic Bites!
    I would like to apologize for our recent downtime but it was due to circumstances beyond our control, namely Bell Atlantic. Although we have redundant lines, they are pretty worthless when all of them go down and Bell Atlantic's response to the problem is slower then molasses. I would like to thank the @HOME network for their help in hounding the incompetent people at Bell Atlantic. This experience makes me want to move to another state where the local telco is more competent.

    Blitz

    Thursday, October 8, 1998 - Submit News!
    Rohan's Fog Tutorials
    Rohan has just completed the first in what is hopefully going to be a series of fog tutorials for QuakeII. You can find the tutorial, along with the code examples, at www.planetquake.com/ros.

    NetGamer Review of Q2 Ground Zero
    NetGamer has posted a review on the QuakeII: Ground Zero mission pack. Overall they gave it a rating of 85%...pretty good, eh. You can check out the review here.

    UK Gamers Needed!
    OpsMan of www.quake2.co.uk is looking for UK gamers to help test the Heat.net games service in the UK. He needs as many helpers and testers as possible to test and load the system to its max. The games to be tested include:
  • Quake2
  • Quake
  • Age of Empires
  • Red Alert
  • Duke Nukem 3D
  • Forsaken
  • Net Fighter
  • Total Annihilation
  • Warcraft 2
    To apply, either visit the website for more details, or email OpsMan, and you will recieve a free Heat account on the GamesZone service upon completion of successful testing. Oh yeah...this is only available to UK residents :(

    LadyDeath Contest Extended
    For all you skinners out there...if you think you can come up the most kick ass LadyDeath skin around, then there is still time to enter the Quake3D Rage "Lady Death Skin Contest". The only rule for this contest, is that you cannot use the colour pink!. So get on over to their website for more details on deadline and prizes.

    New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
    There is a new Spanish QuakeII page, which offers skins, maps, mods, etc. You can find it here.

    Help Wanted
    LadyICE

    Wednesday, October 7, 1998 - Submit News!
    John Cash's Plan Update
    John Cash updated his plan file today with a little bit of info for all you h4x0rZ that are trying to break into id's machines, as well as an explaination about why they were down for a while yesterday (ouch).

    Quake3 Soundtrack
    Thanks to Extream for the notice that Delerium.com has announced their involvement with the Quake3: Arena soundtrack:
    Official Confirmation: Quake III (24.8.98) It's official: We at delerium.com have received confirmation from Bill that he is indeed working on the new Quake III soundtrack. We think he's perfect for the job and can't wait to hear it!
    New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
    Hosted Sites Update
    NetGuy

    Linux and Apache Rock!
    Quake2.com has now been up and running continuously for over 100 days now! In that time we have sustained millions of file hits and sent out over 300 gigs of data without a glitch or need to reboot. We would like to thank the thousands of maintainers of Linux who work for free around the world and the Apache Project for making this possible.

    Blitz

    Tuesday, October 6, 1998 - Submit News!
    WarMod 2.1
    WarMod version 2.1 has been released. Mainly a bugfix, this update addresses bugs including overflow and disconnection, as well as balancing player classes even more. Only WarMod servers are affected by this update.

    New QuakeStarter Released
    Version 0.64b of Quake Starter has been released. New features include choosing the 3D mode to use, support for the QS compression manager, and support for Rail Arena and HyperQuake has been added. There are a couple bugfixes too, so check the QS page for the list and the files.

    Frag2 Updates
    A couple of notices came in the mail about upcoming events at the Frag2 "Halloween Fragfest":
    id Software's John Carmack, will be holding a workshop on Quake III Arena, at the FRAG 2. This workshop is scheduled for Saturday, October 31st at 4PM and will be followed by another workshop by Paul Steed.

    Flag @ The FRAG will be an unofficial Quake2 Capture the Flag competition, that will take place at FRAG 2. It will consist of 16 4-player teams, and it will be ran by Paul "Idoru" Magyar. Flag @ The Frag Website (details and signup): http://www.alterverse.com/flag@thefrag/.
    WeaponsFactory v3.21 for Unix
    Version 3.21 of the Weapons Factory mod for both Linux and Solaris has been released. This patch is only for server administrators though, so only they need apply. This patch fixes the problem where a server would crash if frag logging was turned off.

    Action Quake2 Map Pack
    The second official Action Quake2 map pack has been released. This one, called "The Sequel," is (surprise surprise) the sequel to the original one ("Director's Cut"). Check Mapdepot.com for the list of maps that are included.

    New QPong Maps
    Three new maps for the QPong mod have been released. Check their page for downloads and other info.

    New Texture Pack Released
    The DogPound has released a new pack of textures, including 96 various 16 bit textures! The size is approximately 3.1 megs, and is available for anyone to use with their mod.

    Help Wanted
    PredatorDM is looking for a good weapons skinner to join their team. Drop by their website and email Undertow if you're interested.

    New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
    NetGuy

    Monday, October 5, 1998 - Submit News!
    Community RoundTable IRC Log
    Last Tuesday, Myself and Blitz were priviledged to attend a roundtable discussion as representatives of Quake2.com, which was basically about the state of the gaming community. Moderated by Bobbi and the folks over at Loonygames, we talked about several issues, including the effects/existence of eliteism, cliques, and ethics with hosted sites. It was a pretty informative conversation, and I would encourage all of you to take a look at the edited log of the conversation. Those of you who are being hosted by some of the major sites in and around the Quakemunity might be interested as well.

    Lethargy Software
    Lethargy Software's new site has opened up, and with it, info about the upcoming release of their Q2 mission pack "OBLIVION." Lethargy Software are the people that also created "Death's Dominion" so drop by their site and check it out!

    Def-Con Quake2 Tournament
    There's news on an upcoming Quake2 tournament from the Def-Con site. It will be held on Sunday October 18th from 2:30 Pacific 4:30 CST onwards, and prizes such as a Voodoo2 card, and others will be awarded, if there are 30 players present!

    John Romero Interview
    Pels Interactive has an interview with John Romero up on their site. Much of the interview covers his work with Doom, and is similar to the interview that Pels had with Paul Steed a while back.

    Disposable Heroes Review
    7 3/4 Reviews has done a REview for the new Disposable Heroes 2.0 PREview. Check their site for the skinny.

    Help Wanted
    New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
    NetGuy

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