Articles in the archive contain broken links because outdated files are removed.

Quake II Enemies
There are a bunch of cool images of many of Quake II enemies from Paul Steed over on Redwood's.

Hexen II Patch, Vérité Support
Raven's Rick Johnson updated his .plan describing a patch in the works for Hexen II, and the state of Vérité support:

FYI, the full version does have a very rare network bug that makes some entities disappear in your current area. I've already found and corrected the problem, so this will be fixed once the patch is released.

The patch will also probably include random class selection for DM games.

There hasn't been any discussion on when utilities will be released, but probably not long after the patch and an OEM version is completed.

Work is being done by Stefan at Rendidion for a Verite port. I should be getting an alpha version soon. I don't know when this will be made available to the public.

Yesterday's Quake II Screenshot of the Day
PC Gamer posted their Quake II  screenshot of the day (Eerie Colored Lighting), and the thumbnail after I went off to QuakeCast, so here it is.

CTF Expansion Project Update
Version 1.4 of the CTF Expansion Pack has been released on the CTF Expansion Project page. The new release fixes a number of bugs, and adds a feature (the haste rune now speeds your running as well as your ate of fire). There are instructions there on how to update a version 1.2 client to 1.4 without downloading the whole client side again.

Prey Update
There is an open letter from Paul Schuytema (Prey project leader) up on PreyStation detailing the current state of the game.

Tournaments
The Vallasherra Tournament is a TeamFortress tourney open for all Northern European clans.

The Sniper versus the Grumpy Gamer
PC Games has posted the new editions of The Sniper and the Grumpy Gamer. Thanks Prophet.

Half-Life Wallpaper
ColdSun has whipped up a cool Half-Life Windows wallpaper and posted it on his brand-spanking-new Half-Life site which will rock, because ColdSun is tight with Wedge and Choryoth. You can check it out on the MicroGuy's Half-Life Site.

Skies Preview
Next-Generation has posted a preview of Segasoft's upcoming 3D shooter Skies (not slated for open beta until the end of 1998). Thanks Prophet.

Movement

• The WorldCraft homepage has received an awesome redesign, and can now be found at www.worldcraft.com/.
• Trinity: The Site  has moved to www.planetquake.com/trinity/.
• Operation 3.D.F.X. has moved to o3dfx.allgames.com/news/. Thanks Prophet.

etc.
Quake in the Journal, yes Quake (specifically Internet gaming) made it into the Wall Street Journal again, featured on the front page of yesterday's Marketplace section. Thanks Fargo QuakeCon on TV - a 12 MB AVI clip of the WFAA-TV newscast that features brief interviews with Thresh, Kornelia and Bear has been uploaded by Polish to a few sites (here, here and here). Thanks Prophet ... A Custom Rocket Arena Tab has been written by stepto, available under the QuakeSpy  Tabs library option on the QSpy Community menu (over 80 RA servers are currently up) There is also now a Rocket Arena strategy guide up called the Pit ... The other Green Ribbon campaign (that predates the one recently in the news) is an effort to generate donations for the makers of TeamFortress. More details can be found here ... Sorry about the offbeat update schedule: I've been working through some Internet bugs (couldn't log in all morning-ugh) ...

QuakeCast
Tonight on QuakeCast (8:30 PM Eastern, RealPlayer required), we have id Software's Kevin Cloud (as he mentioned in his .plan "I am sure the guys there will make it interesting for everyone" eeek!), Dakine from Gibbed.com, Mike Scandizzo from Kill the Llama mod, and PlanetQuake's Bastard.

Hexen II Is Out
The Hexen II is out in stores (a day earlier than expected), thanks to all who wrote, first being Fargo.

Kevin Cloud on Quake II Demo & Screenshot Glut
id Software's Kevin Cloud updated his .plan to explain why there has been such an unintentional deluge of screenshots from Quake II (some of them unspectacular) on the web lately, and to quell speculation that the release of the Quake II demo is too imminent:

I've been reading on the net that the Quake 2 demo will be released in four to six weeks. This is pure speculation.

I want to release a Quake 2 demo. It is uncertain whether the demo will be just a Qtest-like tech demo or a full featured demo. We have certain internal expectations for getting it completed. However, it will be done when it is done. I don't want to raise people's expectations for no reason. Please don't expect a demo in four to six weeks.

Over the last few weeks I've seen a ton of Quake 2 screen shots on the web. Six screens from here, and ten from there have all add up to complete over saturation. It was not my intention to blanket the web with screen shots.

In order to limit distractions, we scheduled a number of magazine visits during the same week. During this period I did not keep a close enough watch on the content of the screen shots or the amount they took. Besides some of the shots being completely boring, many of them are of unfinished areas, or areas that will never make it in the game. This is not the fault of the magazines. Rather I dropped the ball in not properly controlling the release of new screen shots. I apologize for this mistake. In the future I will try not to let it happen again.

I'll be on Quakecast tonight. I don't know what all will be discussed.
I am sure the guys there will make it interesting for everyone.

Quake II Preview
PC Games has a new Quake II preview up with some new screenshots (on the heels of the above, some of these screenshots are pretty cool). Thanks Todd.

Quake II Character Sheets/Editing
A couple of cool Quake II things on Redwood's. There are two character sheets from id's Paul Steed for Quake II monsters, and id's Tim Willits talks about the differences between the Quake II BSP format and the original Quake format in this conversation.

DOS Qoole
Version 2.0 of Qoole for DOS (852 KB) has been released on the Qoole page. Thanks Vertigo.

QNG
The Quake Newbies Guide has been updated to include two new topics. One is community action within the Quake community ("Screw Actura", the Green Ribbon Campaign) and the other covers Partial Conversions.

Defiance Demo
ZDNet has posted an exclusive demo of Defiance on GameSpot. The upcoming 3D game from Avalon Hill (of all companies), Defiance is described as the "thinking man's Descent" (though there's no flying), and supports Direct3D, DirectX, MMX and 3Dfx, providing a maximum resolution of 1024x768. Also, kamikaze points out there is no mouse support in the demo, but will be in the final release). Here's a screenshot:

New GL+
Version 1.1 of GL+, the front-end to optimize your configuration for GL Quake and Hexen II has been released on the GL+ page.

Rocket Arena Quake C
I mentioned yesterday that I was playing a lot of Rocket Arena (and I then went back and played some more). This simple mod has the potential to be huge, though there is still work to be done, as one or two of the maps need a little speed tweaking (there are apparently a load of new maps on the way), and more programming is required. To find two programmers, they are holding a simple Quake C contest.

Unreal Movie
There is an Unreal movie up on UnrealNation, apparently originally from a German gaming magazine called PC Player. The 12 MB zip file has been edited, just showing examples of gameplay, apparently a lot of German language interview with Mark Reign (Epic VP) has been edited out from what was originally a 40 some-odd MB file.

AFT Stuff

• The demos from the All Female Tournament are on the Clanring Server mod's
  homepage (apparently some of the demos were lost due to errors). Thanks [i22]W0-LanG.
• Video and pictures from the All-Female Tourney are up on the AFT Pix page.

Interviews

• Randy Pitchford, current Rebel Boat Rocker, and former Apogee/3D Realms employee, is interviewed on sCary's Shuga' Shack. Randy, who designed some of the maps for the shareware Shadow Warrior, discusses, among other things, his contention that the controversial racial elements in SW were added to the game intentionally spark controversy and aid sales.
• Paul Schuytema, project leader for Apogee/3D Realms' Prey, is interviewed on PreyWatch.
• Redw00d, was interview on IRC the other night, and the edited transcript has been posted over on http://id.lobosoft.com/ (I believe: I can't access the site right now).

What They Said

• Paul Jaquays has a brief follow-up in his .plan to his previous "contoversial" .plan update. He also mentions adding visual effects to Quake II that are so cool that they're "trade secrets".
• Jack "morbid" Mathews has a suggestion for AOL users in his latest .plan update.

Movements

• The Quake 2 Battle Grounds has moved to quake.altered.com/Quake2/. Thanks Prophet.
• The Quake 2 Press has moved to q2press.3dx.org/. Thanks Prophet.

LAN Parties
On the LAN Parties page, a new event in Bolton, England.

etc.
Looking ahead, there are quotes about Trinity from Michael Abrash's new book up on Trinity: The Site. Thanks Prophet ... Keeping tabs on players by location is the goal of the Regional Quake Directory ... Hexen II strategies are the focus of Strategon, the new section at HexenWorld ... Threshmania continues, as apparently he's featured in an article on on-line gaming in the October print Wired magazine (print). Thanks Pete Ness ... A weird female player model coincidence has Boon releasing a player model replacement here on the heals of yesterday's FPC from "Boom," weird, huh? The model is also part of a QW patch called There is no God ...

Dominion storm
Ion Storm has acquired Dominion from 7th Level, which will be completed by its originator, Todd Porter (while still at 7th Level) and released in January under the name Dominion Storm. Here's an excerpt from the press release:

ION Storm, Eidos Interactive and 7th Level announced today that ION Storm is acquiring and finishing the development on 7th Level's Dominion, now renamed Dominion Storm, a sci-fi real-time strategy combat game. The Dominion Storm purchase includes the license for 7th Level's TopGun technology for the title and the first mission pack. The game, originally conceived, designed and animated by two of ION Storm's founders, Todd Porter and Jerry O'Flaherty, while at 7th Level, will be co-developed by ION Storm and 7th Level under Todd's direction. Dominion Storm will be released at retail in January and published by Eidos Interactive

Rocket Arena
Disruptor updated his .plan to say he had put up a Rocket Arena server at id. I spent the afternoon playing this mod and it is loads of fun, I highly recommend trying it out. Here's id's Rocket Arena server:

inferno.idsoftware.com:27555

Quake II Screenshots Part II
There was a bit of lag so PC Gamer posted both today's Quake II  screenshot of the day (Alien Technology), and the thumbnail and yesterday's Quake II  screenshot of the day (Bridge Over Troubled Lava), and the thumbnail. There are also 16 Quake II images from the new UK PC Gamer Magazine in the "Scanned" section over at 3Dx.

X-Men Screenshots
The X-Men page has been updated with some nice screenshots. I got to play with an alpha of this TC at the Fray and it is very cool. Thanks Prophet.

Cash in the .plan
John Cash is feeling better now.

morbid Departs QuakeWorld/GLQuake Team
Brian Hook updated his .plan announcing that Jack "morbid" Mathews will no longer be working with Zoid on the ongoing development of QuakeWorld and GLQuake, id's unsupported (or semi-supported) releases. This decision is made by mutual agreement, to avoid any appearances of favoritism or impropriety, since morbid has been hired by 3Dfx. morbid also made a .plan update of his own describing the situation: Jack says the last version he will be a contributor to is the upcoming QuakeWorld 2.10. There is also the good news there that he will not be leaving TeamQSpy (in fact, he's going to have more time for QSpy now).

Cheating in Hexen II Multiplayer
There is a new feature article up on HexenWorld titled The Cosmos Element discussing a method for cheating in deathmatch that's been discovered in the Hexen II Demo (or why you should quit if your playing an opponent named Cosmos). There is also the reassurance from Raven that the cheat will not be included in the final version of the game (still due in some stores Friday).

ECTS Forever
OGR has posted a batch of photos from the European Computer Trade Show '97. Thanks Prophet.

Rocket Arena Quake C
The progs.dat (not the source code, as originally, erroneously reported) for Rocket Arena, the increasingly popular mod (I'm told it's already running on more than 50 servers?) that pits you in one-on-one in RL duels in an arena (taking turns with a group of spectators) has been released on the Rocket Arena page.

Vigilance
There is a preview of Vigilance, SegaSoft's first-person shooter in development up on Next-Generation. Thanks Prophet.

Interview
Brian Bruning (Developer Relations for 3Dfx) conversed with Voodoo Extreme at ECTS (commenting on the new 6 MB  Voodoo cards, among other things). Thanks Prophet.

What They Said
The theory behind the significance or topicality of .plan files comes from a Brian Hook .plan update. In an effort not to contribute to the problem by over-emphasizing updates, I'll try presenting interesting tidbits thus (all .plan information as usual, thanks to the genius of QuakeFinger):

• Brian Hook talks about why id writes portable code and ports to so many platforms, as well as why it's so darn cool to work at id. He also shares some insights in another update on whether he would allow his own children to play Doom or Quake.
• Paul Steed makes an apology to anyone he has truly offended in his .plan in the past, and a specific note about making the peace with Myscha.
• For the Record, Jeff "Mad Samoan" Wand updated saying he's not the "Jeff" Paul Steed was referring to in his .plan.
• John Cash revised his rant so it can be rated PG-13 (I revised where it was posted here yesterday as well).    

etc.
Make those wacky names for Quake/QuakeWorld/Hexen II with mned and Wmned, available on the Qnom page ... Prefabs for making PaintBall maps with the Registered Worldcraft are up on the Clan Carbine page thanks to the work of BabelFish ...  A Hexen II screensaver featuring 16 bit color (no GL card required) has been posted on the Unnofficial Hexen II Screensaver page (rolls off the tongue, huh?) ... Revamped - Inside 3D has been redesigned around their new logo ... 

Return of the Hexen II Box Art
I received a copy of the Hexen II box art from Activision that guess I can safely post:

John Cash
John Cash made a .plan update that bespeaks a bit of a bad mood:

WARNING: Bad Mood Plan Update (revised so my kids can read it)

Stupid Rumor
------------
Quake 2's monster AI is in no way a derivative (AKA rip-off) of Steve Polge's work. We'll be releasing our prog source; don't you think it would be pretty [BLEEP] obvious if I'd done that?

PC Gamer (Europe)
-----------------
They did a really nice review for their October issue. Lots of cool pictures and a very favorable article. But it seems that I may not actually work at id. There's one picture that shows I at least hang out here, but according to them the programming is done by John Carmack, assisted by "Bryan" Hook. They mention everyone here but me; yes, even Donna.
[BLEEP].

PC Gamer (US)
-------------
I don't care if these two magazines aren't related. These guys don't mention me either. Their October spread is really huge, like 20+ pages. Nice article and good review. You think they'd have had room for two nice four letter words (John Cash in case any of you absent minded reports see this). Bah! These magazines both mentioned Romero several times and he doesn't even work here anymore.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not an egotistical person. I don't live just to see my name up in lights. But it would be nice to see it somewhere down in the fine print.

Note to sCary: Here's one for your "Stuff that Sucks"...
You work your ass off for months on end and still nobody knows who the [BLEEP] you are.

That really does suck. For the record, besides being the author of the world's greatest diet, John Cash is a talented programmer, a kickass deathmatcher, and a man who appreciates the joys of the RangerTub, which proves he's well rounded (or something). Hell, even onethumb know who he is!

Also, John sent along an email to completely clarify the Reaper bot AI issue:

Actually Disruptor wasn't totally correct, but it was just because of something he didn't know.

I was talking with Steve Polge back when he was still with IBM. He did send me a version of the Reaper bot source at that time. We agreed that it was for research only and that I would not release or use it without his permission. When he changed jobs shortly thereafter I figured it was best for both of us if I didn't even use it as a research base. So, even though I did have the source I never inhaled.. ummm, used it. Nobody else here even had access to it so I can safely state that nobody at id has ever seen the source (I hadn't yet had the time to look at it when he made his job change). I just wanted to make this clear so that Steve doesn't think that there's something fishy going on. He's a good guy doing good work.

TeamFortess BOT
A public beta of the TeamFortess Bot has been released on the TF Bot page. Thanks Bozer.

Wampey's Censuses
The weekly update to Wampey's Census brings a fresh round of questions and answers. No number two pencil required.

Still Yet Even More ECTS

• The Madman's ECTS reports continue on Abaddon's New Zealand Quake News.
• Unreal.Org has their own day one, two and three coverage by DOLey. Thanks Rotwang.
• Next-Generation has extensive coverage of the European Computer Trade Show, as does Games Domain. Thanks Prophet.
• MeccaWorld has also continued its coverage of the ECTS, though I don't believe for a second the rumor in their Day Two coverage saying the Quake II monster AI was "ripped" from the Reaper source (thanks BlindSide.BC). I was going to contact Disruptor to ask him to respond to this, and then I received mail from Oblivius, who had already asked him this very question. Here is Disruptor's reply to the question of whether there was any truth to that rumor:

  ...No. Considering that;

  a) We've never seen the reaper bot source and
  b) Quake II doesn't use QuakeC

PC Games?
Paul Jaquays and Brian Hook (a second, then a third) each updated their .plans with wry commentary on political correctness.

Snail?
There are a pair of screenshots on HexenWorld that are Raven's attempts to prove that Eidolon, Hexen II's final monster, is indeed a giant snail.

Female Player Model
For those who can't wait for Quake II to play using a female player model, Boom has posted ROX(anne) a patch to replace the player model with a female character.

Quake II Screenshots
The Sentinel has posted two more Quake II screenshots here. Thanks Marc Huebner.

Hexen II Modem
There are instructions on HexenWorld and Hexen2.com from Raven's Mike Gummelt on how to play modem to modem games with the Hexen II demo, and step-by-step instructions on setting up a Hexen II dial-up server.

DirectEngine
Monolith has put up a DirectEngine website dedicated to DirectEngine, their upcoming 3D engine (being developed in conjunction with Microsoft) designed to be licensed to third party developers. DirectEngine will be used in Riot: Mobile Armor (slated for a 1998 release), and on that subject, Prophet sends along word that HotGames has a Riot preview up.

Worldcraft 1.5 FAQ / Review
There is a FAQ on the Worldcraft page dealing with questions about the recently released version 1.5. Thanks Mike Kelly. There is also a review of Worldcraft 1.5 up on the Forge (as well as the beginnings of their WC 1.5 mini-tutorial).

Another New Fantasy Quake
Version 0.665 of Fantasy Quake is up on  the Fantasy Quake: Rise of the Phoenix page. Thanks Koma.

Color Palette Editor
Version 1.1 of RGB (Red, Green & Blue, not Ranger Gone Bad), a utility to allow you to easily manipulate Quake's color palette, has been released on the SHTF Development page.

Green Ribbon Campaign
My mail is slowly catching up with me from this weekend's outage. Something that just tricked in is word on the Green Ribbon Campaign, an effort by some concerned members of our community to band together on some of the civics issues we've been seeing lately (e.g., HellKitten), a campaign that I have no problem supporting. More information is on the Green Ribbon Campaign page.

Paul Jaquays Speaks Out
id Software artist Paul Jaquays updated his .plan a couple of times yesterday, the first time welcoming Warren Spector to the Quake community, commenting on the HellKitten situation as it relates to porn/pr0n, and his thoughts on racism and political correctness. On a roll, he updated a second time delving into the issue of copyright protection.

Interviews

• Ben Morris, Valve employee and Worldcraft author, is interviewed on Jaspur's Half-Life.
• KillCreek (elite Cyberathlete) is interviewed on the AVault. Thanks lostsoul.

Movements

• NME, NPHerno's Model Editor (Animator), has moved to www.brutality.com/nme/.
• Team ManyWorlds, a TC team has relocated to manyworlds.telefragged.com/.

LAN Parties
On the LAN Parties page, a planning stages event in Atlanta, GA.

etc.
Partay - Gateway updated his .plan with word on Ensemble Studios' Age of Empires release party ... It's not necessarily funny, but it's topical, there's a Quake II related cartoon on >BYTE ME_. Thanks Mark Krynsky ... Button count - for those keeping score at home, Scarecow's Quake Button page now has 348 Quake-related buttons ... Winners - The winning essays in the "Why I want a Pure3D Card Contest" have been posted here. Thanks SwanSong, who one one himself (he threatened to go postal on Santa if he didn't) ... Log Parser of the Day today is FragZ, which is up to version 0.94 ... Thresh TV - Thresh apparently appeared on the USA Network over the weekend. Thanks Lithium (PreyStation) ... The future of organized deathmatch competitions may be represented by Cyberathlete (sponsors of the Frag), whose site has been updated. Thanks Prophet ... AFT Review - There is a review of the All-Female Tourney up on Gamers Extreme ... Happy Birthday (belated, it was yesterday) to Valve level designer Brett "Thanos" Johnson ... No Mail Bag - nothing in the mail seemed to warrant posting in the Mail Bag today. If you have thoughts you want to share on topics of the day, feel free to sound off (I've gotten a ton of mail on the topics previously posted in the Mail Bag, but they're pretty covered already) ...

New WinQoole
Version 2.0 of WinQoole has been released (1.3 MB) on the Qoole page. DOSQoole 2.0 is promised tomorrow. There is also word up there that the final Qoole CDROM went off to replication today. Thanks Vertigo.

Quake II Screenshot of the Day
PC Gamer has posted their Quake II  screenshot of the day (Infantry), and the thumbnail.

Monthly Sin Update
Saw on sCary's that PC Games is doing a monthly  Sin update, with the first installment a description of Sin and life at Ritual by Richard "Levelord" Gray with a couple of new screenshots.

ECTS Report
There is a report by Madman up on Redwood's on the European Computer Trade Show (ECTS) talking about playing all the latest versions of the upcoming 3D games, etc.

Transparent Senseless Violence
There version of the Random Acts of Senseless Violence pack on MultiPlayer Quake (MPQ) that has been re-vised to allow transparent water with GL Quake.

New Fantasy Quake
Another new version of Fantasy Quake (version 0.664) has been posted on  the Fantasy Quake: Rise of the Phoenix page (also, check out the RealLife error message dialog box -- too cool). Thanks Prophet.

More Quake II Screenshots
There are a half-dozen screenshots from Quake II on the Sentinel (Stomped's Quake II site). Apparently three of them are authentic shots that are extensions of the page where the Quake II sound prank played a while back. Saw that on Redwood's.

Earthquake TC
A preliminary version of the Earthquake TC has been released on the Earthquake page.

Madman's Guide
The Madman's Guide to Game Design has a review of the After the Fall TC, as well as a new topic of the week: Realism, how real can it get?

Qoole 2.0 Release Party
Version 2.0 of Qoole, the Quake Object-Oriented Level Editor, is slated to be released tonight, in conjunction with one of those IRC release parties. The gathering will be tonight at 6:00 PM Pacific Time on EFnet IRC #qoole, and all are invited. Thanks Matt Lee.

Paul Steed's Long Animation Tutorial
Paul Steed updated his .plan with what he describes as a long animation tutorial and another chapter of the 'Steed Way To Model And Animate'. He also reveals that he's managed to economize enough that the number of Quake II player animations is back up to 50 (save a frame here, and a frame there...). he also does a little chest-beating.

Shadow Warrior Debate
id's Brian Hook updated his .plan with his feelings about racism, partially inspired by the controversy over the portrayals of Asians in Shadow Warrior. 3D Realms/Apogee's George Broussard updated his .plan to respond, and 3DR/A's Scott Miller updated as well, choosing to gloat that the game's controversy is helping boost its sales. Finally (for the moment), Brian Hook updated again, following up his original post, and responding to some of George Broussard's statements..

HellKitten Editorial
There is an editorial about the recent harrasment of HellKitten written by loonyboi up on PlanetQuake. Thanks [R2]Armadon.

PowerVR Update
There is word on PCME that they've been playing with a PowerVR with some pre-release Open GL drivers, and are pleased with the results. there are also a few screenshots of the OpenGL version of the Hexen II Demo. Thanks DaFragsta. 

Interviews

• Jim Norwood - has recovered from missing the potential winning field goal against the Giants in the Super Bowl (actually, he's one of the creators of Shadow Warrior) to give an interview on UnrealNation. Thanks Prophet.
• Stratedge - There's an interview of Stratedge, winner of Fragapalooza '97, over on Installation.

Competition
The League of Capture has opened its doors, planning on holding non-stop tournaments and ranking participating clans.

Mail Bag
No big controversies for the MailBag today (yet), but I posted an impassioned plea for MacQuakeWorld.

LAN Parties
On the LAN Parties page, a planning stages event in Chicago, IL.

etc.
Technical Quake II specs are being collected at the Quake 2 Technical page on Quake2.com ... Quake Front-end - QStarter is a front-end for Quake that allows you to select a patch, etc. Thanks Prophet   ... Happy Birthday Stevie "KillCreek" Case (belated, she was 21 yesterday. Thanks ParadoX ... Sorry that the site was down most of yesterday (I'm concerned that I lost some mail along the way, too), the server went kaboom. In case you were wondering, the hardware is still being worked out around here (performance is still an issue) ...

CTF EP Update
An updated version 1.2 of the CTF Expansion pack (9.6 MB) has been released by the CTF Expansion Project fixing the bugs in ctf1bsp6 (telefragging server crashes) and ctf1bsp9 (various entity bugs). You can also download the two maps separately if you have already downloaded the whole pack.ctf1bsp6.zip (955 KB) and ctf1bsp9.zip (655 KB). also, on the Mortal Delerium page is a demo showing all the secrets on the CTF Expansion pack.

Hexen II Article
HexenWorld has posted their third featured article, The Mystery of Eidolon, that draws on clues from Heretic, Hexen, and the Hexen II Demo to explore the question of whether or not Hexen II's final boss is actually a giant snail (as Raven says).

Unreal versus Quake II
Tim Sweeny made three posts to the Unreal message board (one, two, and three) on his understandings of the differences between Quake II and Unreal. The posts are summarized on Unreal.org.

Mail Bag
Today's mailbag is a couple of letters from the creators of the Wolfenstien 3D Mini-Conversion raking me over the coals for criticizing their website. A brief follow up to yesterdays barrage of electronic opinions on the Reaper de-compiling issue: Drywall of Inside3D.wrote Reaper author Steven Polge and determined that there was no problem with his site's Improving the Reaper series because:

"I don't have any problem with people modifying the reaper bots for their own personal use"

Interview
Dave Perry of Shiny is interviewed on Video Game Design. Although the interviewer starts by saying there is no intent on starting a flame war between developers, a majority of their talk centers on id Software and the issue of patenting the technology in Shiny's upcoming Messiah. Thanks Prophet.

LAN Parties
On the LAN Parties page, a planning stages event in Portland, OR.

etc.
Ethics of Electronic Gaming Journalism is the subject of this interesting essay. Thanks Prophet ... PC and TC authors can get publicity for their projects by submitting screensjhots to the Shot of the Day ... The log parser of the day is Seismograph v1.0, a QuakeWorld log parser that supports unlimited players, multiple configurations, two ranking methods, and can output to text or HTML (fast) ... Prey release date? This is kind of funny, Lithium (with the help of Fragmaster) dug up an old USENET post I made to George Broussard about the released date of Prey and posted it on Preystation ...

We Get Letters - Part II
The letter I posted on the Reaper bot story inspired some lively follow up, so I added to today's Mail Bag section.

Rocket Arena
The client pack for Rocket Arena (1.2 MB) was released yesterday on the Rocket Arena homepage. This new deathmatch modification pits you against an opponent in a one-on-one rocket launcher duel in an arena. The loser becomes an observer, and one of the observers becomes the next contestant. There are four servers currently running the mod, including one earmarked for high-ping connections and one for LPB's.

Hexen II Strategy Guide
PC Gamer Online has posted a strategy guide for the Hexen II Demo. Thanks Prophet.

Revivals

• Scripts - The Quake Script Site the place for no-frills, one-stop shopping when you are in the need of aliases and scripts for your .cfg files is back in business under new management.
• QEN Returns - Quake Editing News is back in action covering the Quake editor and editing scene after a brief hiatus.

Registered Worldcraft Patch
The patch to update the Registered Worldcraft 1.3 to version 1.5 (524 KB) has been released on the Worldcraft page (where they warn to pay attention to what directory the patch says it will upgrade). Once again here's the shareware version 1.5 of Worldcraft (1 MB).

New Fantasy Quake
Fantasy Quake version 0.663 has been released on  the Fantasy Quake: Rise of the Phoenix page fixing a few bugs and making slight tweaks to the character classes. Thanks Prophet.

Rush News
There is a statement on Zanshin's GLQuake Dojo (please remove your shoes before entering) from 3Dfx describing the current state of GLQuake on Voodoo Rush based boards, and giving a release date for new drivers that improve Rush performance, as well as address the extra texture RAM on 6MB Voodoo cards as Friday, September 12. Thanks James.

ArchMage Feature
The new feature article is up on TC Magazine, all about the Arch-Mage TC.

Hercules 3D 128
A new TSR has been released by Hercules to enable VESA 2.0 modes on the Hercules Stingray 128 3D. Sorry, I skipped this at first because I thought it was a TSR for the Stingray 128 (which already supports VESA 2.0, so I just got confused). Thanks DaFragsta.

Rings Rings Rings

• ClanRing - The ClanRing has been started up from scratch (again), so clans that wish to be included must re-submit their information. Thanks sNaKe
• Quake News pages can join the Quake News Ring.
• Low Ping Bastards Unite! and join the LPB Ring.

Interview
Skin Artiste Dan Bickell is interviewed over on the Chop Shop (formerly the Quake Place). This is Dan's first interview, and includes some previously unpublished screenshots from the Apocalypse project.

LAN Parties
On the LAN Parties scene, the LAN Party Connection Page is at a new address.

etc.
56K okay? There is an extensive article on the current crop of 56K modems and what you should know about them before you consider buying one on CNET. Thanks ColdSun ... Facelift: The Wolfenstein 3D mini-conversion page has been redone (I've expressed my bewilderment at the incredible number of swastikas on the site, but they say they like it like that) ... Quake News in Singapore can be followed in the Quake NewsPepper ...