News from November 25, 1997 to December 3, 1997

Wednesday, December 3, 1997 - 6 days til Quake2

.Plan Updates
Hollenshead updated with this on the UK Release of Q2:

12-03-97

More release date info:

Activision anticipates being on the shelves in the UK around December 12. There aren't any other specific dates (apart from North America) at this point other than worldwide distribution should occur by mid-December.

Also, thanks to all those who have sent notes congratulating us on the release and wishing us well. We appreciate the sentiment.

Zoid update his .plan about cheating:

Dec 03/97

As I mentioned in an earlier plan update, cheating is still a problem in
the current Quake community. John Carmack and I want to take a look at what
we can do to curb some of the easier methods people are using to cheat.

I'd like to request that people email me with known ways of cheating in Quake and QuakeWorld. Clever hacks, pak file changes, etc. Tell me how proxies can give you that extra edge. I'd like to collect this information and work out ways with John in preventing or making it extremely hard to do.

Cheating is an unfortunate reality, but if something simple can be done to lessen its impact, we'd like to do it

/// Zoid.

Nigel

Quake 2 pre-orderable
Saw on Scary's that Todd Hollenshead will soon be accepting 1-800-IDGAMES phone call pre-orders for Quake 2, here's a quote:

We'll be selling through 1-800-IDGAMES, as always. We expect to begin taking preorders any day now (as soon as we can get the web banner up). We actually line up just like the retailers for product, so we won't have it any sooner than you can get it in stores, but you will get it mailed directly to you.

Quake 2 level making
Found this e-mail on Scary's by way of Suicide20 by way of Paul Jaquays, id level designer.

If you hold off putting entities (other than lights) in your maps until you have a bonafide Q2 editor in your hands, and use easily replaced textures, you should be able to convert a Q1 map into a Q2 map. If you work with a text editor on the text version of the .map file, you should be able to do search and replaces on most conflicting items.

Even so, I hacked around on it this morning and wasn't able to load a map into QE4 (though QE3 would load the original).

Some notes:
- Teleporters are pad-like entities now (not window frames) and don't easily convert between formats.
- Textures will need to have a wad path attached to them. e.g.; "e1u1/texture_name 0 0 0 1 1"
- The Q2 palette is substantially different from the Q1 palette.
- It's "ammo_bullets" not "item_bullets"
- There is nothing in Q2 out of the box that corresponds to Invisibility.
- Grenade launchers use a grenade ammo.
- DM spawn pads fill a roughly 64 x 64 space.
- Skins are fragmented, more like the Hexen two model than the Q1 model.

Funny site
We don't condone this, but we did laugh at this site, which is the one we couldn't reach before. Thanks Dave Wilmut and Truls Gustavsen for giving me the proper URL. It's a funny page, despite the fact it copies us when it shouldn't :).

Hyper@ctive report
Hyper@ctive put up a report on the Australian party that Tim Willits and Paul Steed attended. The report's author, Rod "Spoonman" Campbell, gave us permission to print it here:

Yes gamers of the world, finally Australia got an event that everyone else wanted, I was there I got to go to the party afterwards and now I am about to tell you what happened.

Well basically when we went in we got lots of free Pepsi, we sat down watching an eye popping preview of GL Quake2 on 20 foot screens in a resolution you wouldn't believe, this is final Quake2 people, I have seen it, I have played it. Quake2 will severely rock you're world. While this was happening Win95 decided to pack it in so we all had a good laugh at Mr. Gates' OS' unfortunate accident and then we went on with the show.

At this time Steed, Tim and Tim from Heavy Gear all got up and said hi and the Heavy Gear dude went through his bit (very cool too I must say) but it wasn't what I was waiting for. Then Steed and Tim got up, and I was in heaven. Quake2 is so brilliant in every facet the mind boggles at the genius of these people. A few facts about Quake2 Commercial version:

1. The intro is the most atmospheric thing you will ever see, plus you will visit actual places you see in the intro in the game itself. Very cool :)
2. Quake2 features 37 huge levels.
3. There are no deathmatch specific levels.
4. The release date in Australia (said by Tim himself) is December 16th.
5. Mines are not part of the game.
6. The bosses are way cool, you will love the super tank, I won't tell you what the final boss is but I will say that the sports a BFG and is a bit like the Heretic final boss where you have to kill his beast and him too.
7. For multiplayer the gestures got in, great for CTF (which is NOT in the final release)
8. Also instead of colors you get Skins, there are 15 for the male player and 12 for the Female.
9. Here is a list of weapons:
Blaster
Assault Shotgun
Super Shotgun
Machine Gun
Chain Gun
Grenade Launcher + Hand grenades
Rocket Launcher
Hyper Blaster
Railgun
BFG (the BFG works almost exactly as in Doom. It causes a hell of a lot of pain at the impact point as well as doing damage to players who can be seen by both the shooter and the exploding green blob If you get out of the way of either you won't get hurt, this is especially good for multiplayer because it is now easier to get away from the BFG and there are several other death dealing weapons. DM is much more even and balanced)
10. The Jail levels are supremely excellent, they contain captured live marines, hehehe that is all I will say at this time :)
11. The explosions ARE polygonal
12. Quake2 IS the best game ever

Tim and Paul were very cool, they took the time to sign what ever people could get their hands on (Including the poster I stole from the wall when no one was looking) and answered everyone's questions. Overall it was a great night and I enjoyed myself a lot and thanks guys for coming down here and making a country full of publicity starved gamers very happy. I have seen the future and it is good..

.plan land
Brian Hook updated his .plan about the situation with BOOT.

Todd Hollenshead updated his .plan confirming Quake 2's shelf date in the US is December 9th. He said he'll fill us in when he finds out later material, but several people are still mailing us that Tim Willits and Paul Steed said in Australia that Quake 2 would be out in Australia on the week of the 16th of December. I guess we'll see.

Disruptor updated his .plan with what he's doing for the next week:

Hmm.. Well, now that Quake II has gone gold, I guess we have some breathing room. Here's what I'm doing in the next week.

- Sleep
- Play Ultima Online with Brandon, John Cash, and Paul Jaquays (We're still not sure about this game, but I think we're all leaning towards "it sucks". Just takes too damn long to get strong enough to survive a fight, or get enough gold to buy stuff)
- Play G-Police
- Sleep some more
- Play Total Annihilation
- Play Diddy Kong Racing (N64)
- Work on my 100+ player deathmatch map for Quake II
(Man I hope it turns out...)
- Work on rewriting 3DNet's server bots, (Changing data structures to a relational database accessed via SQL) Administrator's webpage and channel registration webpage.
- Set up a Quake II DM server here
- Go to LA for the Q2 release party; drink copious amounts of booze

Peace.

More Quake 2 sites

Scarred is a Quake 2 skin site.

Was e-mailed about this page but can't reach it... e-mailed the author about it.

Last but not least is this page by Joshua Wood.

Sorry for downtime
Yesterday Quake2.com had a considerable amount of downtime. The fault wasn't ours, but DIGEX's routers :). We're back up now and we apologize.

Manual stuff
The "not in the manual" pictures from yesterday were pulled, so sorry folks they are gone.

Copyright stuff
I realize that no copyright symbol is displayed on this site, except I have two defenses to that:

Current copyright law doesn't require a copyright symbol to have a copyright on something.

It's awfully odd and not a good idea to cut & paste a site's material anyways.

But, since it seems necessary, I'll put up copyright notice on the website later today. Hopefully I won't need to bring this up again.

Slipgate

Tuesday, December 2, 1997

Word of advice to other Quake 2 sites
In the past 2 weeks alone we've had to deal with 4 sites doing a simple cut and paste of our news and calling it their own. Please folks, this is not something that makes your website visited and its not really something we appreciate either. Although a copyright symbol isn't displayed on this website currently, we DO hold copyright to this material and it can't be used without crediting us. Just a word of advice for the future.

Official Quake 2 release date set!
Kevin Kraff of Activision passed along word that the shelf date of Quake 2 (US at least) is in fact December 9th.... other places may get it later of course.

He sent out the following 3 banners as well:

Banner, 486x60 version

Banner, 234x60 version

Banner, 120x240 version

We are displaying the first of these three currently.

Saw that on Redwood's.

Thanks to Nigel from Quake2.com for helping expedite this update :).

BOOT back
The BOOT interview is back again, with not one, but two new sections of the interview.

A Quake 2 competition already? :)
Details here, thanks Blue.

Soundtrack, take 2
I didn't realize Sonic Mayhem, the Quake 2 sound track makers, had |2| redesign their website in addition to posting a new soundtrack sample from Quake 2. |2|, if you don't know, did Blue's, Redwood's, and our logo, and the current id Software website, among other things. Also, there are 15 tracks to the Quake 2 sound track, which are said to be like DOOM music a bit but with real instruments this time :).

Manual easter egg
I forgot to mention the online manual has an easter egg on the credits page... no, you find it yourself...

Next Gen story
Thanks Goober for letting us know about Next Gen having a story on Quake 2 going gold... which seems to claim that they went away from polygonal and back to sprite explosions after all, but I can't confirm or refute that.... anyone from id able to say something about this? :)

John Carmack speaks
Zero informed us of Mr. Carmack's update to his .plan as an addendum to yesterday, with yet more news. Includes status of DOOM source release, the editor, the lack of co-op play, and impersonators of him:

A couple things I forgot to mention:

DOOM source. Still planned to be released Real Soon Now, but there is some work that needs to be done on it first to remove the sound engine, which was written by someone else.

Our Quake editor. It will be released with the tools, but it really isn't going to be all that usefull to many people. Most people will be better off with one of the actively supported editors designed for normal machines.

There is no documentation (Steve Tietze at Rogue has talked about writing something, though). It is designed to run at 1280*1024 resolution on a fast, fully-compliant OpenGL driver. It was designed for high-end boards like intergraph realizm, 3DPro, and Glint boards, but it also runs ok on 8 mb consumer boards like the permedia II and rendition V2200. It will NOT work with voodoo or powerVR. It is unlikely to work with voodoo rush, because of framebuffer size limits, but it might work at a low screen resolution. It might be workable on RIVA cards if they do some fancy work disposing buffers between window renderings (they are a 4mb card, but the textures can stay in AGP memory, so it will almost be enough). I'll work with them if they want to give it a try.

Right now, only 3Dlabs has a full opengl driver on win-95 (and it is a little flaky). All the other cards would require you to run NT. Over the next several months, most of the major vendors should be releasing full OpenGL drivers that work in '95, but there are no firm release dates.

A comment to the people complaining about the release not having Their-Favorite-Feature:

A software project is never, ever completely finished. If you wait until EVERYTHING is done, you won't ship at all.

Would it have been the right thing to delay releasing Quake 1 until I had written the glquake code and the QuakeWorld code? Or we had gotten Paul to build us all new models? Or we had made all new maps that hang together thematically?

If we had, we would be releasing Quake right about now. It would be a much better game (it would be Quake 2), but all of the enjoyment that everyone has gotten from Quake would have been lost. It would have been the wrong decision.

Quake 2 is great, and it will get better yet after its release.

A reminder about "John Carmacks":

Anyone claiming to be me on IRC is lying. I have never been on IRC, and if I ever choose to, I will mention it here first.

If you get an unsolicited email from "John Carmack", the odds are high that it was spoofed. Every couple days, I get a mail bounce from someone who messed up on a spoofed mail, and I often get confused responses from people that I have never mailed.

Creative/Voodoo 2 press release
The Voodoo 2 card coming out by Creative Labs has spawned a press release (in Word 6.0 format) sent to us from Creative Labs itself. Right click on this link and pick save to disk, then go read it in Word or WordPad.

Week 5 winners
Thanks WU-GFK for telling us that the Week 5 winners are up in the Quake2/Monster3D contest, check it out here.

Brian Hook .plan update
Thanks Q11 for pointing this Java related Brian Hook .plan update at me:

Java is looking largely "not quite ready for primetime". I don't want to use yet another IDE, so I was hoping that Visual J++ would work the way we'd like it to, unfortunately it's not JDK 1.1.x compliant. This leaves us with the Sun tools, which are primitive at best. I'm going to look at some of the other tools and environments on the market (Symantec, Borland, SuperCede).

Consensus seems to be the JFC is the way to go and that AWT isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

Return of the Sonic Mayhem
(I've been playing Jedi Knight... anyways) Sonic Mayhem, the Quake 2 soundtrack makers, posted another track from the game on their website. Thanks Crusader.

DMM2
Blade Runner sent in that Electronics Boutique has listed Quake 2's release date as December 3rd (/me eats a grain of salt) and Death Match Maker 2 as December 8 (/me is interested but eats some more salt in case).

BFG Info
Andrew Mitchell, who saw Quake 2 at the Australian party, tells us that the first part of the game (the one shown in the demo) looks better now, and also some info on how the BFG behaves:

You will suffer from secondary damage only if you are within line of sight with both the "exploding ball" and the shooter. Hence you cannot do what happened in DOOM, ie, shoot the gun and run into a different room and kill those there.

Release date info!
Apparently (and take this with a grain of salt) many people are e-mailing us who attended the Australian party held recently which Tim Willits and Paul Steed attended, and they say Tim and Paul said the release would be December 5th in the US and the week of December 16th in Australia.

Manual goodies!
The Quake 2 Online Manual mentioned yesterday has a good deal of information in it about game monsters, etc. etc. It also has the info that the shelf version of Quake 2 will have no co-operative multiplayer, only deathmatch, and that co-operative MAY be added later. It also tells the story, which includes Texas and Tokay :). The system requirements seem heavy, 50 mb for minimum, run off the CD install and 400 mb for maximum, run off the hard drive install (there is also a run off the hard drive medium install). Several people (too many to note) e-mailed us about these varied and various pieces of info.

Joost Schuur found some images in the Quake 2 manual directory which are not put to use in the manual. Whether easter eggs or stuff that isn't really meant for the game, who knows, but still interesting to check out:

Update: These weren't supposed to be put up, so they've been pulled. Sorry folks.

Computer City Ad, take it again
The Computer City Ad news yesterday has been since supplemented with the original sender of the ad saying his copy claimed it was in stock, which is why he found it humurous and sent it along, and also from a Computer City employee that said it is not in stock. Also someone sent a scan of the ad, and a lot of other people commented on it. I think we can put this particular ad to rest now :).

Gah
Spent twenty minutes writing this update, lost it after saving it (???), spent twenty minutes looking, and twenty more minutes re-writing it.... so I'm not in the best mood right now.... but do read please :).

Slipgate

Paul Jaquays In The House
Mr. Jaquays updated his .plan with a great read on his last work before the "gold." Here is just the beginning:

DESIGNER WORKLOG

Have lost track of individual actions (though I remember documenting changes and map bug fixes that have come in for days now).

Near the end, I made a lot of bug-isolation maps. Caught a bunch. Felt really good to be a part of John C's bug-gooshing team and be appreciated for it.

Well, congrats Paul! And, we are all looking forward to your hard work. Also, folks, read the rest of the .plan, there is quite a bit of nice info about the crunch time.

BloodShot

Monday, December 1, 1997

Models At id
Antony Suter emailed me with some info from Paul Steed at the Australian Quake II demo/launch yesterday. Here is part of the email explaining about modeling for Quake II and Trinity:

At the QuakeII demo/launch here in Melbourne, Australia yesterday Paul Steed said that when displaying a model Quake II uses linear interpolation between frames, but ID are considering Bezier interpolation for Trinity.

Well, looks like a good deal to me!

Quake II Modem Goodies
If you are thinking about trying to get Quake II to work over the modem, and want some really fast speeds, check out the article that the newly-birthed Computers.com wrote with reviews of 35 56K modems and 23 ISDN modems. Thanks Hanif.

BloodShot

BOOT Replies
Here's a letter we received. I'm printing this in its entirity, so take it for what you will.

Hey. I have been reading at your site for the past couple days about this thing with the John Carmack and Brian Hook interview, and about how (supposedly) boot had botched the deal they had signed with id to edit out EXACTLY what they told them, and NOT edit out what they WANTED heard, you know the deal. Anyway, I sent a letter to boot magazine, asking what their problem was, etc., etc. Tonight I got a message back from Brad Dosland, editor in cheif at boot magazine! Just thought I'd send it to you and let you look it over. Thanks

0-NosferatU-0

|---------------------------------------------------------------|
|TIME TO KICK ASS AND GIB DUKES!!|
|---------------------------------------------------------------|

----------
> From: Brad Dosland
> To: 0-NosferatU-0
> Subject: Re:
> Date: Monday, December 01, 1997 12:32 PM
>
> Brian Hook has made claims that boot magazine went back on an agreement
> with himself and John Carmack concerning the interview that appears in
> boot, both online and in print.
>
> Going against standard publishing policy, boot agreed to allow id to
> check the raw copy to ensure accuracy only, no prior right of censorship
> was offered. boot complied with this condition, giving id the edited
> text for the print interview, and id proved very helpful in catching a
> handful of transcription errors.
>
> The original interview was some 38,000 words. Space considerations only
> allowed us to run a fraction of that discussion (around 5,000 words). We
> decided to post some extracted excerpts that could not fit in the print
> magazine. In the rush to get this online before the impending
> Thanksgiving holiday, we did not pass this text by id (which was
> admittedly a bad call). Brain Hook contacted us after the first
> installment ran and asked to check the text. We promptly complied
> (within minutes of the request) and forwarded the text to Hook, to
> ensure accuracy. He returned his marks after 10pm the night before
> Thanksgiving. The marks are minor�hardly sensationalizing--and
> positively no comment was taken out of context.
>
> A few of the edits offered by Hook seek to eliminate personal comments
> made. This censorship was never a prior condition of the interview.
>
> We want to implement any marks regarding the accuracy of the interview
> (a total of five minor changes) and will do so as soon as possible.
> Unfortunately our webmaster automated the postings of the installments
> on a remote server while he was spending the holiday on the east coast,
> and we are working to fix the online interview asap.
>
> boot is deeply disappointed that Brian Hook has chosen to bring boot�s
> credibility into question based on these minor points. We are huge fans
> of id and all their products, going so far as to deem Quake the �best PC
> game to date� in the print magazine intro. The interview can in no way
> be construed as a hatchet job and merely provides a platform for these
> influential players to express their views in the most unbiased manner
> possible.
>
> boot continues to be devoted to the honesty that has established its
> reputation in the industry and stands behind the integrity of this
> interview 100 percent. We only hope people will look at the five minor
> corrections when they are posted before passing judgement.
>
> Brad Dosland
> Editor in chief
> boot
>
>
> 0-NosferatU-0 wrote:
>
> > I've been a loyal reader of boot for many months now, but lately, I've
> > been having mixed feelings about your mag. Until about three days ago,
> > boot was the magazine that I waited for the entire month, and when it finally
> > got here, everything else I had to do was put on hold so I could read through the best computer mag on the market.
> > Then, about three days ago, I read at Quake2.com about this whole
> > ordeal with the John Carmack and Brian Hook interview with Alex St. John. I was pretty much shocked when I saw
> > what Brian Hook said: "OK, boot Magazine is now officially on my SHIT LIST." I HAD to read on to see what the problem was.
> >
> > I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Supposedly, you guys had made a > > deal with Carmack and Hook that you would edit out anything they didn't feel should be heard by the public, and NOT edit out anything they DID
> > want heard. In his .plan file, Hook said you completely botched this
> > deal. You edited out the things he WANTED heard, and didn't edit out the things
> > he DIDN'T WANT heard. After the interview was released with the
> > magazine, you guys released the full version to the rest of the public at your web site
> > in sections. id was pissed after the first, and furious after the second, and you can imagine how mad they must be now that the SIXTH is out.
> > And who knows how many more to come. WHY THE HELL ARE YOU DOING THIS!?!?
> > id makes the best PC games on the market, and they should be shown much
> > more respect than this. I thought you guys knew that.
> >
> > [ PS... If this letter doesn't make it onto your mag, I don't know what else will. ;-)]
> >
> > 0-NosferatU-0 [long time Quaker]
>
>
>

Welp, there it is. Make your own conclusions.

Nigel

Quake II in the Arcade
Q11 mailed me with information about an arcade version of Quake II... Here is the full email from him:

I just got January's issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly(EGM;the first video game mag ever) flipped to the news and to add to the mound's of exciting news today I see a picture of a Q2 arcade system!

The article with the title above goe's on to explain that Intel has joined many other companies in making the new company Open Arcade Architecture Forum(OAAF). The mane companies are Intel, Microsoft, and a unnamed graphics company(3DFX I hope). The new arcade console will be sold "as is"(no software except MS's new OS) and will be PC and Win95 compatable. Games that run under Win95 can be automaticly configured to work with the new OS with a program provided free to any perspective buyers. There is also a program to help make DOS to new OS conversions easier. "LBE Systems had an arcadeversionof Quake,which will allow multiplayer deathmatching using its SparkyNet OS arcade network software", said EGM when listing games seen at the AMOA debut. So what of the picture of the Q2 arcade game, well right after completeing this letter I will e-mail JCarmack and ask him, so don't worry as soon as I know more I will let you know. Also In the mags PC vs. Console article(which I haven't read yet) I noticed Q2 under 1st person shooters under in favor of PC's. I'll read it later and let you know if it's interesting.

Well... This is quite interesting! Thanks Q11!

BloodShot

id Software Website Update
Xian made an announcement on 3DNet about a Quake2 On-line manual and an update to the id Software Quake2 Website.

Nigel

Australian Quake 2 VIP Party
The VIP party for Quake 2 in Australia that Tim Willits and Paul Steed were going to is tonight (which means they are in Australia, which further gives the impression the game's done if they don't need to stick around at id to work :) ). Was told that by Hanif, who got it from MultiPlay.

Rebate, take 3
Thanks to Irene Alora for letting us know that the previously mentioned ad doesn't state that the game is in stock now, and in fact says, "coming soon."

Some quick thanks
The recently mentioned rebate news ( click here) is for real according to Prestige of The Sentinel, confirmed by an employee that is a friend of his. Although in actually I wasn't "unsure" about the rebate, but the ad made it sound like the store already HAD the game, which is what I'm unsure about :).

.plan madness
Todd Hollenshead made the following .plan update:

As you've probably read from Carmack's .plan, we are finally "golden", as it were. This on the same day that I get my copy of PC Gamer (UK editition) that proclaims Quake II as "THE BEST GAME EVER!". No emphasis added - none needed. This is legitimately the first full review of the game and the piece is not only flattering, but well written. Statements like: "QUAKE II is far and away [id's] finest hour - everything about it oozes perfection" make me want to run out an pre-order a copy myself.

Before everyone emails us asking when they can get a copy in stores, we're waiting to hear from Activision ouselves as to when they think they can get it out. So send them lots of email begging them to get it out NOW! ;)

To add to the wonderful feeling we're all getting right now, Disruptor made his first "happy" update in a while:

Everyone join in singing that tune from Ren and Stimpy...

"Happy Happy, Joy, Joy,
Happy Happy, Joy, Joy,
Happy Happy, Joy, Joy,
Happy Happy, Joy, Joy,
Happy Happy, Joy, Joy,
Happy Happy, Joy, Joy,
Happy Happy, Joy, Joy, Joy!"

It's Done =)

We believe you, id :).

More on Quake 2's goldness
Barrett "Bear" Alexander sent out an e-mail apparently to some news folks (we didn't receive a copy ourselves though). In it he describes that the game is off to manufacturing and Activision is right now figuring out when we can expect it on store shelves. Here it is quoted:

We (id and Activision) just had our Code Release Meeting about an hour ago, and Quake II is officially off to manufacturing.

Keep a watch out on the Internet for further news about the actual 'in stores' date. Activision is assessing the manufacturing schedule and will be putting something on the Web as soon as they have nailed it all down.

BOOT interview
Apparently the John Carmack/Brian Hook interview on BOOT will not have any more of it posted. Saw that on Blue's by way of Czar.

Updated benchmarks
Tom's Hardware Guide has updated GLQuake/GLQuake2 benchmarks now. Saw that on Blue's.

Reports of release?
Although now that the game is mastered it could very well be out this week, I got an interesting e-mail (and I'm not sure if this is for real) from Shawn Hogan, president of Data Point Solutions. Apparently he was flipping through the newspaper when he saw this ad for Computer City:

QUAKE II

New! and in stock at the city

In your face graphics and sound!

Superior Artifical Intelligence

Larger, mission-based levels

Up to 32 players at once!

You'll get high-level complex missions and in-your-face sound and graphics. Up to 32 players can battle each other simultaneously.

$59.99
-$30.00 mail in rebate
------
$29.99

John Carmack .plan update
I can barely keep up with the number of people e-mailing us about John Carmack's latest .plan update, which states that Quake 2 has gone gold (that's the confirmation I wanted... from id)... and progress reports on other material, including Trinity... here's a full quoting:

Quake 2 has mastered.

Where we go from here:

Point release.

We should have a Quake 2 point release out shortly after the game gets in your hands. We intend to fix any bugs that turn up, improve the speed somewhat, and optimize for internet play in various ways. We will also be making several deathmatch only maps.

Deathmatch in Q2 has gotten a lot of lan testing (Thresh, Redwood, and Vik Long helped quite a bit the last week with tuning), but not much internet testing. There are probably gaping holes in it, but we will address them soon.

The deathmatch code in the shipping Q2 is also not designed to hold up against malicious users -- there is no protection against clients being obnoxious and constantly changing skins, chat flooding, client-side cheating, or whatever.

Q2 does checksum maps on the client side right now, so cheater maps won't work like they do in Q1, but cheater models and skins are still possible. I have some plans to combat that in the point release, but there are a lot of forms of cheating that can be implemented in proxies that are fundamentally not detectable. I can make it very painfully difficult for people to implement such things, but a very clever person with a dissasembler just can't be stopped completely.

The server code and network protocol should be able to support ultra-large player counts, but I know I need to do some low-level work to get around operating system buffer limits before it will actually work. We will test at least a hundred players in a giant map for the point release, but we won't actually address the issues of making a rational game at that level (chat hierarchies, team spawning, etc). I am very much looking forward to seeing what the user community creates on that foundation.

It is likely that the point release may have incompatable network protocols and savegames. Fair warning.

Q2 Demo.

After the point release, we will be making a new demo release. If you experienced compatability problems with q2test, or were unsatisfied with the quality in some way, you should look at the demo. The final product is much improved.

Q2 Ports.

We are commited to Win32 Alpha, Linux, irix, and rhapsody in that order. It is likely that a bunch of other ports will come later, but no promises. The presence of hardware-accelerated OpenGL on a platform will improve it's odds a lot. Zoid will probably prioritize Q2 CTF over other ports, so hold off on bugging him about ports for a while.

Development tool release.

I will basically be making publicly available a subset of the directory tree that we will deliver to our licensees. All the utility source code, the game dll source code, and probably some example source media -- .map files, artwork, model source, etc.

Q2 mission pack.

Most of the company will be working on a mission pack while Brian and I write tools and technology for trinity.

Trinity.

I am going to rapidly wean myself off of working with quake so I can concentrate fully on new directions. The evolution of the Q2 codebase will be left to John Cash (until the mission pack ships) and Zoid.

Everyone should keep in mind that any next-generation game that we produce is a LONG way off, so don't start getting all worked up over it, ok?

For the curious, it does look like java is going to start playing a significant role in our future projects. All of the lightweight utilities will be java applications (some requiring OpenGL bindings). The heavy duty number crunching utilities will probably stay in C. It is still unclear how much of the game framework and the level editor we can get away with doing in java.

New site

GareBear's Cyber Cafe, which promises coverage of many 3d games including Quake 2.

Installation does Quake 2
The Installation has now got a Quake 2 section. Thanks murdoch.

Slipgate

There be GOLD in them there hills!
Blue's posted an article about a confirmed report from Activision stating that Quake2 has gone gold and will ship later this week. While I'm at it, let me just grab the quote off his site:

"According to inside sources at Activision, Quake 2 has gone Gold. The final product is in production for distribution later this week."

Hell, if it's on Blue's then it must be true. :) Thanks Blue.

MailBag
Er, ok. I admit it. I didn't finish the mailbag last night, but I PROMISE to try to have it done real soon.

Nigel

Sunday, November 30, 1997

Old GameCenter article
sicks on GamesLink let me know about this old GameCenter article dated October 19th which discusses the Quake 2 demo release (from the perspective of back when it happened). I thought it would be an interesting read after all this time, so I decided to post about it despite its age.

New GameGirlz editorial
Aurora of GameGirlz has written up a new editorial about 3d games. Here's a direct link. Thanks Hanif.

Some sections updated
The demo download page has had a much needed update involving the two ports (Alpha and Linux) that came out. The Files page had another submitted wallpaper added to it, and I promise to try and do a better job of keeping the files page up to date then I've been doing now. Of course I'd like to thank our newest staff member Paul "Paubo" Teehan for the excellent "Game Info" section newly added to Quake2.com recently, which provides some real playing-level vital info for the game and will be updated with the full release and as otherwise necessary.

Correction
When mentioning the posting of the fifth part of the BOOT interview with John Carmack and Brian Hook, we made an error... instead of Jamie Dietrich, we were informed by Nate Dietrich, AKA GX2000.

Release speculation
As was reported before, there is a Quake 2 release party planned for Dec. 5th in LA, as reported by PCME. However, this release party doesn't necessarily mean the game will be out by then. It's just a celebration. Whatever is the current version of the game, if it is not done, will be shown. If it is done (which may or may not be at that time) then of course the final version will be released. Just want to clear up some of the speculation going on since that release party was announced.

Slipgate

Quake2 Hats and Shirts
Electronics Boutique is now selling Quake2 t-shirts and hats for $12.99 each. The t-shirt has a large Quake2 symbol on the front, and a small id logo on the back. The hat has a Q2 logo on the front, and "Quake2" is printed on the back. Thanks sharkbait.

Mailbag
Ok, this is going to be my first time doing the mailbag, so it will probably take me about 3 times the length it takes for Slipgate and Satanic to do it, so bear with me. ;) I'll try to have it updated sometime later on tonight.

Site Mentions

Quake2 Forever has some good info on Quake2.

The Darkside is a site dedicated to 3D-Accelerated games. This month's topic is Quake2.

Hook's .Plan Update
Brian Hook updated his .plan with some talk about JAVA:

November 30, 1997
------------------

John and I have started researching Java. Overall, I really like the language,
although I haven't used it just yet. I've read a couple books on Java ("Just
Java") and another book on the AWT, both of which have been really good (and
cover Java 1.1). I'm using the Java 1.1.4 JDK from Sun for Win32.

There is an assertion made in one of the books that for all intents and
purposes Java has supplanted C++ as the premier OO programming language. I'm
not quite sure I buy into this just yet, but I can see a HUGE class of apps
that are more conducive to Java than to C++. C++'s deficiencies are well
documented, and for the longest time the only defense for these shortfalls was
"well, it's the best thing out there." I think in many cases that C++ is NOT
the best thing -- hell, I prefer ANSI C, and I know C++ pretty damn well.

That said, we won't be writing Trinity in Java anytime soon, but we will look
into using Java for our tools. The idea of writing a program once that runs
on our NT, Win95, and SGI Irix boxes makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Java has been pretty easy to learn, since its syntax is essentially the same
as C++, with some minor differences. Some cool things they did was to specify
the exact size of types (e.g. ints are 32-bit, longs are 64-bit, etc.).
However, currently Java implementations are 32-bit in terms of memory
addressing -- all array indices are 32-bit ints, so you cannot have more than
4GB of addressable bytes. If you do arrays of larger objects you could
theoretically access more than 4GB of memory, but I have a feeling that will
just explode.

ANSI C, on the other hand, under both DEC Alpha and MIPS R10K, supports 64-bit
pointers. And yes, there is a good chance that for our next generation set of
TOOLS that we will need 64-bit addressing.

After I get a little more familiar with the language, and maybe find the OpenGL
bindings for Java, I'll write a toy app to see how it works.

Oh yeah, I'm a level designer now! WOO-HOO! Since I'm going to be working
on the tools for Trinity John felt that I should know how the map editor
works, so I finally caved and started doing a deathmatch map. It looks like
crap, and plays even worse, but that baby is mine, all mine. :-)

You go, Brian. <G>

GamesLink.Net Banner
We are now displaying a GamesLink.Net banner made by our Oper friend Jobe. :) Feel free to to drop by irc.gameslink.net and drop us a line or two <G>

Carmack to the 6th Power
bootNET has posted Part Six of their interview with John Carmack and Brian Hook.

Welcome Aboard!
We'd like to welcome Paubo to the Quake2.com staff. He's now the maintainer of the brand new Game Info section. You can go check out Paubo's awesome job by following the link on the side menu. It's great to have you on board ;)

Nigel

Quake II at Gamehut
The Quake II page at Gamehut is looking for people to work on the site and help out. Here is the full email from Amish:

Topic: The Quake 2 page at Game Hut is needing people to work on the site / Help out.
Homepage: http://www.gamehut.com/quake2/
News: The Quake 2 page at the Game Hut is looking for people who would like to help run the site. If you are interested in helping out with details subscribed on the site as "News updates, Article writers and reviewers" Drop a line to Sleazy@gamehut.com

-----------------------------------------------
News from: Amish
Contact: kerr002@connect.ab.ca

New Site
Alex's Quake and Quake II Homepage has opened. This site has tips on how to frag the Quake II Uglies, and cheat codes too. It also has info about Quake maps, etc...

BloodShot

Saturday, November 29, 1997

Flasher 907's Quake 2 Art Vault
Apparently, there was a problem for Netscape users viewing this site. Flasher mailed us and said it's fixed :) You can get there by clicking here. Thanks for all the nice comments on my piece, BTW <G>

The GamesLink Network Interviews
The GamesLink Network is currently scheduling interviews. If you have a suggestion, connect to the IRC server irc.gameslink.net and join #Staff. /MSG Nigel with suggestions. Thanks.

GibStats 1.6 released
Here's part of an e-mail we got:

Hi, finally! GibStats 1.6 has been released. Besides many little enhancements made, are these the major ones:
- New user interface
- CTF scores are more exact
- HTML export options enhanced
- enhanced searching capabillities for players
- easier management of players and clans
- many bugs killed

fragitz

Thanks, Amish

Nigel

GameGirlz feature
GameGirlz has put up a feature interview with Brian Hook of id Software. This time the interview is on non-technical topics, including:

Women in the industry

Female Quake players

The Quake II character

Other game developers

BOOT magazine

.plan file debates

And of course the ever present, "and more."

Many thanks to Aurora of GameGirlz for letting us know. Brian Hook updated his .plan file mentioning this interview and saying it has been his most fun one, since he didn't have to always talk technical and also GameGirlz didn't butcher it.

Release date speculation
PCME has reported that a Quake 2 release party is scheduled for December 5 in LA. I was going to comment on this but Blue took the words right out of my mouth :) (not literally, but he said basically what I was going to/what I am going to say).

id still have no stated release date besides, "by Christmas." There is no secretly known by us release date we aren't telling people. The fact that there is a release party doesn't mean the game will necessarily be out... QuakeWorld's release party was 3 months before its release. Kevin Kraff of Activision informed Blue that December 5's release party does not mean that is a hard deadline... they may be done by then, but they may not be. If its not done, then the latest "version" of what is done will be what is shown there.

Over the past week alone we've dealt with several letters claiming discovered release dates by stores or by Activision. Until id gives a real date themselves don't believe these dates, or you'll get disappointed when the game isn't out by then.

News about other Quake 2 sites

A site dedicated to focusing on Quake 2 skins has emerged apparently... thanks "Anonymous" (???).

Quake 2 Domain is looking for feedback on what the public thinks about the site... send your opinions to quake2domain@hotmail.com.

Thanks Victor Brockenborough for pointing out OurDimension's Quake 2 pages, covering news and other material.

More BOOT stuff
The fifth part of the aforementioned interview was posted earlier today... despite Brian Hook's .plan update, once again. Bunches of people have e-mailed me about this, so thanks go out to:

Plasma of Quake 2 Domain.

Jamie Dietrich

ANJIN

BOOT stuff
Didn't get around to mentioning earlier "yesterday" that the fourth part of the Brian Hook and John Carmack interview by BOOT was posted here. This despite Brian Hook's recent .plan update...

Later "today" there should be the fifth part posted as BOOT continues.

Slipgate

Friday, November 28, 1997

.plan of Action
Brian Hook updated his .plan with a nice twist. It's just about his adventures with a few friends. Here is the first part, but read the rest, because it's funny:

Just wanted to mention that I had a good time recently hanging out with Vik Long and Dennis "Thresh" Fong and Anna (of AFT fame). It was really weird that in the middle of id there were four Asians sitting around talking about martial arts and stuff. Really stereotypical. If John Tam of Activision (one of the studboy QA jimmies over there) had been around, hell, the rest of id would've been scared. God knows, we'd start spontaneously practicing kung fu on everyone or making rice or something. *shudder*

Thanks Q11 for the notice!

Quake II Honors
Quake II test is featured as the file of the day over at Filez.com. Thanks WU-GFKiller.

BloodShot

Trinity
Quake2.com would like to introduce a sister site into the world:
http://Trinity.cc/
The site is being headed up by Nite and will be maintained by ZyberGoat, Tin, Satanic, Snoopy and myself. We are planning on making this the definitive site on id's upcoming Trinity Engine. If any of you are wondering, where did Blitz come up with this funky .cc domain name from? It is from the domain registry of the Cocos Islands. It is a small territory of Australia with a population of 568 people as of 1994.

Blitz

More mags
Thank you Sam Shammas for letting us know that the UK version of PC Gamer has printed a review of the full game in its christmas issue (on the shelves). Apparently they gave Quake 2 a rating of 96% and called it "the best PC game ever". Sam goes on saying that the review points out that a lot of things have changed since the first demo.

UAC Gateway
The Gateway has been given a layout change. Plus there's now daily updates by me. If you submited your site and it still isn't there that's just because I'm adding it to the database this weekend. Keep your submissions coming, and remember provide a description.

Attachments
This is a quick note for anyone thinking of mailing us an image. Firstly, make sure it's Quake 2 related. We don't do Quake or any of the rest. Secondly, zip it! It makes our life so much easier... <g>

Quake 2 Blueprint
If you're in Europe, like myself, you may want to get a copy of the xmas issue of PC Zone. It's a UK magazine. Quake 2 is sported on their blueprint section. Here is the quote from their website along with this pic (I don't know if this is an old screenshot though):

The Quake II Test went up on the Net to a mixed reception. David McCandless gives his reaction to the game we've all been dying to play.

Satanic

Thursday, November 27, 1997 - Thanksgiving

Hook's Response to BOOT
Ok, here's his first update:

November 27, 1997
------------------

Okay, Michael Hutchence's death really shocked me. I'm not one of those people
that cried because Cobain offed himself or because Di died, but I am definitely
alarmed/shocked/disturbed when someone I've known (through music or the press
or whatever) dies unexpectedly, because it reminds me of my own mortality. If
I'm gonna cry over someone dying, it'll be over the millions of Tibetans that
have been the target of genocide by the Chinese government; or the thousands
and hundreds of thousands of people that die every year in Somalia, Ethiopia,
Rwanda, and the Balkans.

Point being that I'm a big INXS fan -- earlier stuff, of course -- but a few
weeks ago I did a plan update that said "Remember, in ninety-eight we all
rotate". I said that because I was busy listening to "Kick" and heard those
lyrics. And gee, two months before 98, Michael rotated on out.

Man, that's just weird.

Okay, enough of that kind of melancholy crap.

The second update is really long, so here's a small part of it:

November 27, 1997 (part 2)
------------------

BOOT Magazine is officially on my shit list. The interview that they posted on
their Web site is just crap. They edited it enough to screw up the context of
what we were saying or, in some cases, they managed to make us say something
that we weren't, but they didn't edit out the pieces we wanted removed to
avoid confusion.

See, part of the agreement John and I had with BOOT was that we would talk
freely about stuff over the course of several hours, with the full knowledge
that we had the right to remove the stuff that we were uncomfortable seeing
in print. We also reserved the right to correct the article factually --
I've seen them butcher enough interviews (e.g. the one with Scott Sellers)
that I know they don't have the technical background to properly transcribe
an interview with technical people. Christ, they put "de-buffering" instead
of "Z-buffering" through all of Scott's interview!

So after our interview they DID send us a copy of the PRINT version of the
article that we were to review, which we did (and we did make some edits),
but we were happy. But they posted the "rest" of the interview (edited by
them without any fact checking or revisions on our part) WITHOUT TELLING
US BEFORE THEY DID IT. This wasn't part of the deal. Fine, honest mistake,
that's cool, right? So I call Brad Dosland, their editor-in-chief, back
when they had only pasted part one. He said they would refrain from posting
later parts until we had a chance to correct and edit the logs they were
going to post. He even sent me those logs after I asked for them. Then
before I'd even had a chance to look at them I notice that part two is posted.
Hmmm...didn't he just say that he WOULDN'T? Great, so I send mail to him
and the others at BOOT reminding them about their promise to us, and then
they post PART THREE. AFTER I sent in the new logs. I haven't heard from
them since.

That is only the first three paragraphs of the .plan, so I suggest reading the rest of it to understand the situation better. <G>

Nigel

Quake 2 Websites

Although it has a familiar layout, QNewZ looks to be a good site.

Carmack/Hook, take 3
The third part of the Carmack/Hook interview's been posted. Thanks Hanif and Sloth.

Articles
ZDNet has an article on interactivity in upcoming games including Quake 2 that is worth a read. Also, the latest issue of the Swedish edition of PC Gamer mentions Quake 2. Thanks Blue.

Benchmarks
Tom's Hardware Guide has benchmarks for GLQuake and GLQuake2 up here. Thanks Blue.

Quake 2 impressions
Frag.com's Comdex report includes DaK's perceptions of Quake 2 when he saw it there, which I didn't realize originally... he's also spooging some on the Voodoo 2 :).

Slipgate

.Plan Update
Brian Hook posted some pictures of his dog in his latest .plan:

November 26, 1997
------------------

Some pictures of my dog, Akira, an Anatolian shepherd:

http://www.wksoftware.com/pics

Quake2 Level Contest
VRGames is holding a Quake2 level contest in which the winner gets $1000 and a featured section on their network. Thanks Hanif.

Holdiday Shopping Guide
GameSpot has a Holiday Buyers Guide on their site. Go check it out to find all the cool stuff for your loved one/sibling/stalking victim. <G>

Nigel

Wednesday, November 26, 1997

Games Violence Poll Link Fixed
Er, sorry to those of you who tried to take part in the poll on GAGames for the violence survey. We have fixed the link below, and you can also get there by clicking here.

Nigel

John Carmack/Brian Hook interview update
Saw on PlanetQuake and Blue's that the second part of the interview has been posted. That means the first part was posted yesterday :). It'll be posting yet another of the 10 parts each day... so keep checking BOOT for the new part each day... we'll update about them as they appear.

Clan name poll!
With Quake 2 it is entirely possible that the term "Clan" won't be the favorite term or suitable term for clans. For example, with Hexen 2 it was decided to have them called Guilds. Well, what should they be called in Quake 2? Our hosted site The Mirror is now doing a survey on just that, click here and tell us what you think. The poll will be run for the next week, and next Friday the poll will end... when the results are done being calculated after that we'll print them up here.

Oops
Our finger links to Kevin Cloud and Adrian Carmack were broken, our fault... thanks Q11.

Slipgate

Gaming Violence Poll
GAGames has put up a Gaming Violence Poll on their website. Go cast your vote.

Our Thanksgiving Logo
Yes, that's right. Quake2.com: The Ultimate Quake2 Turkey (or, as he's known around here, NetGuy) Happy Thanksgiving :)

Nigel

Brian Hook correspondence
We were sent a question on framerate from Fritz Schober that we passed along to Brian Hook. After Brian replied we requested permission to print it, and he assented, so here you go, the original letter from Fritz delimited with >s, and Brian's reply following it.

> The framerate in Quake1 was always calculated as an AVERAGE number
> So if it was 100 fps near a wall and 1 fps in an open enviroments it
> told you that you run Quake at 50 fps. This is not very helpful if you
> want to check if Quake (and soon Quake2) runs jerky in any area.
> Would you (id) be able to extend the framerate display with 2 informations?
>
> 1. The lowest framerate counted (great to check if the game runs ALWAYS >= 30 fps)
> 2. The hightest framerate counted (great to check how much more details could be added without any drop in speed)
> 3. The average framerate (same thing we now get)
>
> This would help many ppl to get more exact benchmark results and helps
> much more than the single average number.

The performance numbers really don't tell you that much, since even on the fastest cards there is probably going to be at least one really slow frame (due to loading) and at least one really fast frame (due to a pathologically simple rendering case).

We're looking at getting better performance metrics, but we'll probably have something like you requested, but hopefully in a more useful format.

Brian

Thanks to Brian for the permission to print this, and thanks to Fritz for his inquisitive mind.

Quake 2 Manual Cover!
Kevin Kraff of Activision has given Slipgate Central an exclusive scanned version of the Quake 2 manual's cover. Check it out in all its glory! :) Thanks to Joost Schuur for the news.

Win Quake 2 competition delayed
Alan Hunter wanted to pass along word that the "Win Quake 2" competition at stalz.com/quake2/ is delayed since the server is down, and that you should stay tuned here since he will inform us once the competition is up and going.

Quake 2 review news
Grommond informs me GameAddict has posted news that Europe's PC Gamer has gotten an exclusive review of Quake 2 and calls it the best PC game ever. I don't quite understand the use of the term "exclusive" here since there's plenty of review/preview material on Quake 2 now, both online and off.

Special offer?
Well, at least Onethumb says so, mentioning a website with cool gift ideas and apparently an offer upcoming of particular interest to id/Quake2 Onethumb says so, mentioning a website with cool gift ideas and apparently an offer upcoming of particular interest to id/Quake2 fans.

FVF, CTF, and TF
It looks like people won't have to worry about vanilla Quake 2 deathmatch for very long, as both TeamFortress, Capture the Flag, and Future Vs. Fantasy will be hitting Quake 2, once their respective developers finish the Quake 2 versions upon the game's release.

Colored lighting on PowerVR2
Zanshin's GLDojo printed news recently that the PowerVR PCX2 upcoming chipset will support colored lighting in Quake 2, unlike the current PowerVR chipset.

BOOT interview
The interview with Brian Hook and John Carmack from BOOT, which was displayed heavily edited in the magazine, is going to be displayed in all its glory online, but only in sections. Section 1 is available through that link, and this page will notify as other sections are posted. Thanks to a Blue guy :).

New Quake 2 websites

Here's a page calling itself "The Best Source For Quake 2 Stuff On The Net."

Farzad's Quake 2 Home page

Quake 2 Team Fortress

Slipgate

Thanksgiving Times
Well, I decided that Quake2.com needed to get into the Thanksgiving spirit, and with a bit of inspiration from stonage of UnrealNation I think I have achieved it. If you don't know what I am referring too, take a look at the logo!

Quake II Press
The Quake II Press has a new poll up on what you think Quake II multiplayer will be like. Thanks to lag and Hanif.

BloodShot

Tuesday, November 25, 1997

Quake2 Art Website
Yes! A site that even I can enjoy! <G> Ok, here's the info. There's a new page called Flasher 907's Quake 2 Art Vault and it is soley for the purpose of exhibiting Quake2 or Quake2 inspired artwork. Neato, eh? If you're into that kinda thing (like me), go there and submit some work. Maybe you can be the next Dhabi Eng... well, maybe not. But check it out anyway. <G>

Nigel

ST5 Tourney
HS! over at Skillz has launched an HPB 1 on 1 DM contest with over $1500 in prizes from a wide variety of sponsors. Anyone with a ping of 200 or more is free to sign up.

Blitz

Hook worklog
Here's Brian Hook's worklog for the day (he also updated his .plan to dispell a rumor about id's opinion of the Pure 3D).

* exec default.cfg wasn't updating the menu properly, so I had to restructure that portion of the menu code to do the right thing
* sifted through more bugs from Activision
* more menu tweaks
* changed some Com_Printfs to Com_DPrintfs to reduce the amount of spew on the console
* tracked down gladiator null model problem
* statistics logging so that we can keep track of various stats and log them to a file while running. We can then load this comma delimited file in Excel and generate a graph showing performance characteristics as it runs.
* software mode change crash, tracked it down
* yet more credit tweaks
* changed more stuff in the multiplayer setup menu
* merged our code again, this time had to manually deal with a conflict
* did deathmatch testing

Disruptor does Wood duty
Disruptor updated his .plan with a funny image and he also updated Redwood's with the news that Redwood has been playing Quake 2 the past 3 days.

Anniversary
I just feel really awed right now.... I first started the Fault Line (the news page that eventually merged with the then-not-existant Quake2.com) March 23, 1997. So this is a sort of (belated) 8 month anniversary to me. No e-mail necessary... I just feel really surprised that I have so far lasted this long :).

Slipgate

Quake2 CTF
No Quake2 site can be complete without a section on CTF and Quake2.com is no different. To head up our CTF section we now have Fox of the Invite Capture Ring. He is running a contest so check the site out.

Story contest ends Friday
Figin at the Quake Literary Guild wants to remind everyone that the contest of coming up with a story for the Quake2 demo ends this friday. Winner gets a copy of Quake2!

Blitz

Archives

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