Quake2.com logo by Walter |2| Costinak


Monday, June 22, 1998 - Submit News!
Battle of the Sexes Server Update
A server-side only release for Battle of the Sexes is out. Version 2.9.7 has 2 new maps that use a new method for capturing the flag, several new gameplay enhancements, and a totally new scoring system.

HeadHunters II Released
The Quake2 version of an original Quake mod that I definitely recommend checking out has been released. HeadHunters 2, a classic Quake mod in my mind, combines very simple gameplay, with a unique perspective for a truly fun mod to play. The page has all the info you'd need to know, so do drop by and check it out!

Lithium II v1.06
Lithium II v1.06 has been released, now with a new map voting system, as well as a working admin list.

New Recon Wars Release
Recon Wars v3.07 is now available. This is a bugfix version, which remedies several user-reported bugs like the Infinite Health loop bug, and the Defense Laser bug.

RobMOD Updated
Version 0.38b of RobMOD has hit the mean streets, with several bugfixes as well as an added "accuracy percentage" feature.

New RAMBOT
RAMBOT version 0.46 has been released. This new version has been optimized for smoother gameplay.

Botster v2.1 Released
A new version of the Botster has been released. This one is chock-full of bugfixes, new features, and tweaks.

New PowerCubes Mod Released
A rather original sounding teamplay mod, PowerCubes has hit the mod scene. Focusing around 9 powercubes spread throughout the map, it requires the ultimate in team coordination to win. This one even has a storyline! :)

Tournament Info
PC Wizardry sent us a note informing us of a Quake2 tournament that they're hosting. Details are up on their page.

Quake2 ICQ Chat
aItRuS has opened an ICQ Quake 2 chat room. He already has about 150 members but is welcoming more. Head on over to his site at http://www2.ebtech.net/~tmacor, and join the chat room using the Respond Online panel he has set up there if you're interested.

Help Wanted
A new PC Gaming site that's about to open is looking for some help. If you're interested check the site for more details.

New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
Hosted Sites Update
Quake2.com is proud to welcome it's newest hosted site, The BotLair. We encourage everyone to stop by and check them out!

NetGuy

Saturday, June 20, 1998 - Submit News!
Clan Central 2.0
After two long months of development, the NEW Clan Central is now finally opened to the public. Major improvements have been made to the site. Come join the community and register yourself or your clan in the Ultimate Online Database for Clans and Mercenaries on the Internet. Supported games include Quake, Quake 2, Hexen 2, Jedi Knight, Unreal, Half-Life, Sin, and Daikatana.

XP Con II
It's that time of the year again! The XP Con II is here. For more more information, please visit the CGN site.

Chance to Win a VooDoo2
Try your luck in winning a VooDoo2 in a special competition at GameSpot.

The Reckoning Review
There's a review of the 1st Quake2 Mission Pack, The Reckoning, up at Processed News.

New ST Weapons Factory
A new version of ST Weapons Factory (2.3) was released introduction a new Class Armor System, new Diesases, and other stuff.

New EFE
There's a small update to EFE which brings it to v3.4a. New features include a map refresh button and a couple of bug fixes.

Quake Arena Article
OGR has an article on Quake Arena talking about the decision to make a game which emphasizes on multiplayer.

New SkinED
SkinED Build 036 is out on their homepage. This new version usher's in Unreal (eek) support. :)

LMCTF v4.0 Tournament ScreenShots
There's some screenshots up of the new LMCTF Tournament Edition. They're looking to wet everyone's appetite. :)

GFKiller

As time goes by...
Wow, I just looked at our counter and it seems over the last day or so we broke 4 million hits! It was a year ago (June 5th) that Slipgate and I teamed up to form what is now Quake2.com. The Staff, Slipgate ( I know your out there) and myself would like to thank all our viewers for a wonderful year, we could not have done it without you!

New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
Blitz

Friday, June 19, 1998 - Submit News!
New RobMOD Released
A new version of the RobMOD is out. This version fixes the bug that caused clients to constantly overflow, as well as adds a few new features.

Tectonic 1.8
Version 1.8 of Tectonic is out, with the added ability to load and save files, thus allowing you to create profiles for common setups.

Rhino SkinPack Released
TheCoven has announced the winner of their "Skin A Rhino" contest, and has released a pack of 4 Rhino skins, as well as new deathmatch and CTF skins.

New EFE Released
A new version of EFE (v3.4) is out, with numerous bugfixes and support for the ctf_special_teams and ctf_humanonly_teams commands.

Quick Start v2.16
Version 2.16 of Quick Start, the Eraser Bot Wizard, has been released. This new version has the usual load of new features/fixes, as well as 2 new cvars for the Eraser and a nifty config-backup function.

BotJohnny Config Files
Several small config files for the BotJohnny are now available, enabling the Pro-Rocket Eraser mod to work with the BotJohnny.

GamesLog Editorial
As a reaction to John Carmack's recent announcement about QuakeArena, GamesLog has posted an editorial which discusses the timing of this announcement.

AMD and Quake2
Kenneth Murray sent along word that AMD will be releasing a Quake2 "upgrade" that will optimize Quake2 to work with the AMD K6-2 with 3DNow! technology. Apparently these will be drivers optimized for Quake2 and Voodoo2 drivers. Here's the notice over at AMD.

Help Wanted
The DroneBot team is looking for some coders, artists, and other people to help out with their project.

New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
NetGuy

Thursday, June 18, 1998 - Submit News!
New LMPC
A new version of the Little Movie Processing Centre (LMPC) has been released introduction .DM2 support (Quake2). LMPC is the famous utility that is used universally to edit all kinds of demo's from Doom to Quake. There are also some other useful utilites included with it.

Rumor of Playstation Quake2
PSMONLINE reports that Activision is in negotiations with PSX to make a Quake2 version by the end of the year. Check out the report here.

New EraserBot
Ridah released EraserBot v.992 at the Impact Homepage. Ridah also asks that all crashes be reported to him because this will be the last version before 1.00.

GameSlice Multiplayer Editorial
There's a Multiplayer Editorial over at GameSlice asking the question: Just How Important Is Multiplayer?

Clan GQJ Tournament
Clan GQJ (Great Quake Jihad) would like to announce that they're having a Lithium II mod tournament in which the winner gets a Diamond Monster 3D. Visit their page for further information.

Prophet Interview
There's an interview up at CGN with news hound James "Prophet" Fudge. Check it out and find out the tricks of the trade along with his profile.

New ReconWars
Another version of ReconWars has been released, bringing it to v3.05. I suggest all the Team Fortress fans out there check out this mod because it's trying to quench your thirst for Quake2 TF :)

New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
GFKiller

Wednesday, June 17, 1998 - Submit News!
A Note on Hosting
We're receiving a lot of clan applications... sorry, I guess I didn't point you guys towards it, but please go here and read our hosting rules. We don't accept clans as hosted sites, because really.. if we take one, we'd have to take em all :) So, please keep your requests within the boundries of our regulations! Thanks :)

Nigel

Question on Quake Arena Cheating
Since Quake Arena seems to be the hottest topic out there today, I thought I mention this: Blue at Bluesnews.com (Yea, like you don't know who he is) asked John Carmack 2 questions dealing with possible cheating methods the average Quaker might face with Quake Arena. The responses can be found over there.

New Pure3D Drivers
Speaking of Pure3D, they released a new batch of drivers to fix the problems with yesterday's drivers. I must of missed that since I don't have a 3DFX card :(

Purified3D Contest
Purified3D is holding a contest that involves giving away some T-Shirts, Pure3D's, and a Pure3D II! Check it out!

Quake Arena Editorial
There's an editorial up at PlanetQuake talking about the announcement yesterday about Quake Arena. Check it out here.

Quake3/Arena Single Player Poll
There's a poll up at OGR that asks the question "Do you agree with id Software's decision to abandon single-player gameplay in their recently announced Quake Arena?"

Nightfall TC Screenshots
There are 6 new cool screenshots of the upcomming Nightfall TC for Quake2.

GFKiller

SGI Quake2 Released
SGI has released the IRIX port for Quake2. They also have Quake ports up at the site so if you're an admin interested in running a Quake or Quake2 server, this is worth a look.

Team Energy Quake Released
The first version of Team Energy Quake has been released. The goal in this team version of the original Energy Quake, is to collect more energy than the other team by killing them. Head on over and check it out.

New LAN Server Monitor
5thD has released version 1.4 of their LAN server monitor. This small utility monitors games being played on your local LAN, including support for Quake, Hexen2, StarCraft, and Age of Empires servers. Support for more games is planned for future releases.

New Recon Wars
Version 3.00 of the ReconWars Mod has been released, with many new features and no bugs as of yet.

SummerCon Tournament
FragLand has announced it's first Quake2 tournament, Summercon '98. Registrations are now open to all, so if you're interested be sure to go and secure your spot!

Voodoo Contest
Der Kommissar over at LMCTF is holding a poetry contest, with first prize being his Monster3D. This is to promote interest in the new low-lag maps for LMCTF Tournament Edition.

Help Wanted
New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
NetGuy

Quake2.com Hosting
After long, countless nights of no sleep, Blitz and I have decided to open hosting yet again. Yes, I know, but before you start dancing in the streets, people, let me explain a few things:

Okay, so if you guys can deal with all of that, mail Hosting@Quake2.com with links to your current site (please try to provide some sort of example.. and don't mail us the entire website in one zip file, either!) and a description of what you're all about. Don't expect immediate responses, either! We get a lot of mail, and just because you don't hear a reply right away doesn't mean we're not interested! Hope to get a lot of cool applicants ;)


Nigel (Up before noon!? :)

Tuesday, June 16, 1998 - Submit News!
Quake3 Renamed!
John Carmack made a bit of a surprising .plan update today, announcing that the Quake concept as a single player game is out, and a new deathmatch only version is in. The new project will be called Quake Arena. Here's the word:
My last two .plan updates have described efforts that were not in our original plan for quake 3, which was "quake 2 game and network technology with a new graphics engine".

We changed our minds.

The new product is going to be called "Quake Arena", and will consist exclusively of deathmatch style gaming (including CTF and other derivatives). The single player game will just be a progression through a ranking ladder against bot AIs. We think that can still be made an enjoyable game, but it is definately a gamble.

In the past, we have always been designing two games at once, the single player game and the multi player game, and they often had conflicting goals. For instance, the client-server communications channel discouraged massive quantities of moving entities that would have been interesting in single player, while the maps and weapons designed for single player were not ideal for multiplayer. The largest conflict was just raw development time. Time spent on monsters is time not spent on player movement. Time spent on unit goals is time not spent on game rules.

There are many wonderful gaming experiences in single player FPS, but we are choosing to leave them behind to give us a purity of focus that will let us make significant advances in the multiplayer experience.

The emphasis will be on making every aspect as robust and high quality as possible, rather than trying to add every conceivable option anyone could want. We will not be trying to take the place of every mod ever produced, but we hope to satisfy a large part of the network gaming audience with the out of box experience.

There is a definite effect on graphics technology decisions. Much of the positive feedback in a single player FPS is the presentation of rich visual scenes, which are often at the expense of framerate. A multiplayer level still needs to make a good first impression, but after you have seen it a hundred times, the speed of the game is more important. This means that there are many aggressive graphics technologies that I will not pursue because they are not apropriate to the type of game we are creating.

The graphics engine will still be OpenGL only, with significant new features not seen anywhere before, but it will also have fallback modes to render at roughly Quake-2 quality and speed.
NetGuy

Paul Jaquays Interview
There's an interview with Paul Jaquays up at Redwood's where he talks about id and level designing.

DNF Now Using Unreal
Duke Nukem Forever, the game that surprisingly was going to use the Quake2 engine, has now switched over to the Unreal engine. In a surprise .plan by George Broussard, it gives more details about this switch and he mentions that it shouldn't change the release date by too long. In my opinion, I don't think I'm going to get DNF now. Unreal didn't run any good on my computer and the networking sucked. Network was one of the great parts about Duke Nukem, now since that is basically gone (and now there's probably going to be a high requirement), I see no reason to purchase it. Oh well... (/me still hopes it's a joke :)

CW Skin Contest
Forgot to mention yesterday that the results to Paul Steed's CrackWhore Skin Contest are up at Redwood's. These skins look kick ass! (Too bad I lost the model in a format..)

New SkinView
SkinView v3.1 is now available. In this version it is even easier to change to any skin or PPM in your player folder during the game. There are also more viewing options.

Voodoo 1 Card Poetry Contest
An old Monster 3DFX card is being given away as a prize in a wacky poetry contest in order to promote the new low-lag maps in the upcoming LMCTF Tournament Edition. Check out the LMCTF homepage for more details.

GSM Released
LAN Game Server Monitor (GSM for short) version 1.4 was released today on the 5thD homepage. This is the first public release of this small and powerfull Win32 utility which monitors many different game servers on a LAN.

New Q2Comp
A new Q2Comp has been released in all flavors (Win32, Linux, and Solaris. This mod's job is to regulate match flow like ClanRing and QWRing did for Quake. It is very useful for Clan/Team play with many options.

NIQBOTS Released
NIQBOTS v1.6 Beta has been released on the NIQ site. There are a few known problems with this build that are documented, but overall it appears to be working fine.

OpenQuake Q3Suggest Voting Results
The guys over at OpenQuake released this piece of news today:
On the 18th of June, OpenQuake is ending the Q3Suggest Vote. Carmack has looked over all the suggestions, and we would like to be able to provide a measure of community support for each suggestion that has made it's way through the Q3Suggest process.
Until voting closes, the esitmated results are up here.

Quake II Royal Rumble
Here's some interesting news on an upcoming contest for those that live in Midland, TX. (Doesn't Hank Hill live there?)
For all interested there will be a Quake II contest on June 24 in Midland Tx. It will be held at the Computer City store located at 4511 N. Midkiff(Midland Park Mall). Any souls brave enough to enter need to sign up before June 23 at 9:00pm. This will be a team Death Match. There will be prizes for the winning team and a Death Match aginst the Computer City Team(which will be no easy win). E-mail questions to VEYLIN@prodigy.com.
Quake Palace Reviews
Two more level reviews are up on the Quake Palace. This brings the total to 9.

.plans
New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
GFKiller

Monday, June 15, 1998 - Submit News!
Voo2Quake Level Reviews
Here's some news on Voo2Quake's level reviews:
Voo2Quake has two new level reviews. The first one is a DM level and called "Recycler" (ztn2dm4.zip) and is done by Sten "ZTN" Uusvali. The next one is a CTF level called "Wargrounds" (ctffive.zip). Recycler jumped straight to the 4th place of teh TOP 7 DM levels.
Urban CTF Referendum
Urban CTF has done a referendum to see the preferences of Quakers'.

GFKiller

Lithium II v1.03
Version 1.03 of Lithium II has been released. This new version fixes some bugs, adds some new server variables, as well as adding an admin-list feature.

AllStar CTF Update
The release date for All Star CTF 2 has been announced: June 22. Screenshots and more information can be found on the AllStar webpage; keep an eye out there for more info, including an IRC release party, as the date draws nearer.

FreeForm Acquires the KQP
Freeform Interactive announced that they have acquired the Killer Quake Pack coder. Solo has joined as the lead programmer and any KQP updates will be handled by FreeForm. This is pretty cool info, especially since the KQP was one of my favorite mods :)

Fragapalooza Info
The Fragapalooza Team has released a new press release full of information on the upcoming bash. Early registrants (before June 30) will be given their own t-shirt with their name embroidered right on it. They've also picked up some more sponsors, including Intel who will be providing some of their flashy new i740 video cards as prizes! The event will take place from July 16th to the 19th, directions and details are up on the site.

New PPM from Impact
Sumaleth over at Team Impact has released another Player Plugin Model, called "Brawn". Drop by and check it out!

Help Wanted
New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
NetGuy

Sunday, June 14, 1998 - Submit News!
New BotJohnny
BotJohnny version 1.61 has now been released. This is a vast improvement over version 1.5x and has, amongst many others, the following new features: QOOLE Wishlist
Now there is a QOOLE Wishlist that can be found. This wishlist is provided to let the people voice their opinion on new options in the upcomming QOOLE. The site can be found here.

Songs of DeathMatch Review
There is a "Songs of Deathmatch" CD Review by Jody 'Cali Girl' Robinson of CGN Cali Girl News. Check it out here.

Highlander LMCTF Radio Sound Addon
Over 55 sounds in 7 different schemes have been released for the popular LMCTF mod. Go check out the Highlander LMCTF Sound Addon page.

Clan CTF
A small .DLL addition can be a big help to all CTF Clan's out there. That is the purpose of this new modification called Clan CTF. It adds features that make starting a clan CTF game a lot easier. Check out the page for more details and the download.

BotGen Released
BotGen, a program to edit Eraser Bot's BOTS.CFG files, has been released. This program's purpose is to minimize the user's frustration with making separate BOTS.CFG's.

New Erased
Erased v1.4, the Eraser Bot launcher, was released introducing options to add, remove, and customize your own bots and teams.

New Sites/Movements/Makeovers
Help Wanted
GFKiller

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