• Gothic Rage
• The Plaza
• House by the cemetery

• Pic of the Week -- Gatling gun preview pics 
• Alpha 2 release 
• 2 New Team members (Lixus, General Tso) 
• Lixus's first map -- Bank Robbery "Cobber Canyon"

• Bugfix flag in 1CFTF not spawning
• Ability to swap Nailgun for any other weapon
• Ability to swap Prox Launcher for any other weapon
• Ability to swap Chaingun for any other weapon
• Explosions gives more kickback
• Player model on main menu

Slated for August 9 - 12, this year's event marks the first NVIDIA® QUAKE III Arena Championships at QuakeCon boasting over $50,000 in cash and prizes. This 512-player battle pits the world's top players in the only QUAKE III Arena tournament officially sanctioned by id Software, a leading independent developer of entertainment software. The competition reaches a climax Saturday night when the QUAKE III Arena champion receives a $30,000 cash prize and lays claim to the title of QUAKE III Arena champ.

• Updated the support for Counter-Strike 1.106... The log format had changed quite a bit.
• The HTML output pages finally sport a new set of page and navigation graphics. The great skin and color design was done by Shnookums. Thanx!
• AEstats is now skinnable... Simply edit the AEstats.cfg to set colors and images in the BODY tags for the HTML header files, define the mouseover properties and colors of links, set the background colors of tables or define the font colors to be used throughout.

[Shot #1] | [Shot #2] | [Shot #3]

is a deathmatch variation of Quake 3 Arena v1.27 combining all round weapon skill with basic survival of the fitest! You all start with the Railgun and infinite ammo. After you kill someone with it you change to the Rocket Launcher and then the Lightning Gun and so on, the idea is to get all the way to the Machine Gun then the BFG and then kill someone with it. Who ever does this gets 100 frags!

• BUGFIX: Not technically a bug, but fixed the installer so that it doesn't report incompatibility errors when installing QRec on a PC other than Windows 98.
• BUGFIX: Fixed a problem where QRec sometimes wouldn't exit properly and thus prevented you running it again in the same Windows session.
• BUGFIX: Rewrote the Q3 console handling routine so that there is far less stress imposed on your system.
• OPTIMISATIONS: Rewrote several routines of QRec to improve visual feedback (eg. you'll see the system tray icon immediately, instead of wondering if the program launched) and to improve CPU/RAM usage.
• ADDITIONS: Added lots of error message prompts so that if you do anything wrong with running QRec you'll be told, instead of seeing nothing happen. This was the reason I got so many E-Mails saying that the program didn't work in previous releases.
• MISC: Many changes to QRec's manual to help clarify some things for newbies who have had trouble understanding how to use QRec. Sorry if I didn't make things clearer for you the first time round.

• The sheer size of the data contained within the lists caused switching between two very popular games (Half-Life and Quake 3, for example) to be much slower than desired.
• GameSpy 3D v2.51 brings users a large performance improvement in both sorting and switching server sources, thanks a rewrite of the core list display routines.

Death is inevitable, especially when it comes to multiplayer gaming. After all, killing is the name of the game. But while most players are content with racking up kills kamikaze-style, the ability of a player to actually stay alive is often overlooked. Avoiding frequent deaths has many advantages, and in most cases, the leader of a game will almost always have a low death count relative to his or her frag count. This article will discuss the major causes of death in multiplayer shooters, and hopefully provide some insight into promoting your gaming longevity.

Compared to, for example CS, TC offers extreme realistic and reliable bullet tracing already in its current version. Bullets are able to penetrate arbitrary numbers of layers in any geometry. All physical effects depend on the specific ammunition a weapon fires, the distance, and the projectiles penetrating power, dependent on the impact surface material and angle. In upcoming versions the bullet damage system was further improved to correctly model the projectiles potential to wound independently from the penetrating power. For example, the 7.62x52mm H&k PSG-1 Sniper rifle is able to penetrate up two for layers of tin or wood or thin concrete and 4 Players (not wearing a kevlar vest) in a row. We took also much care to model explosion damage from grenades as much realistic as possible. The complete surrounding geometry is taken into account when explosion damage is computed.

• bugfixes:
  - fixed  the corrupt transfer between the server and client part of 
  the code.
  - menu now saves damage adjustments when exiting it with the Escape-key or rightmousebutton 
• added features:
  - player can choose with which weapon to start the game 
• and for the rest:
  - changes to the ingame GUI

I have one more piece of bad news for the Quake 3 community. There are currently some discussions at the CPL to drop Quake 3 from our FRAG 5 event. While nothing is confirmed and the discussions are preliminary, it is obvious that the CPL team members believe that other games and developers should get attention from the CPL and that our league should no longer focus exclusively on id Software products.

Wanna try out the latest beta version of WFA with Id Software's help? Then make sure you load up with the latest files and the Q3A v1.27g (or 1.27h) point release installed. Hop into 192.246.40.159:27960 and help us test out the latest version of Weapons Factory Arena.

We've got word that Robert Duffy is playing right now amongst others.. What are you waiting for? Go go go!

• Perform unlimited condumps with ONE bind.
• Take unlimited screenshots with ONE bind (Q3 only).
• Do all the above with the current map name INCLUDED!
• Special feature for Q3: Auto-typed-backslash whenever the console is   lowered, saving you the embarrassment of "speaking" a console command.   Now the Quake 3 console behaves just like the Quake 2 version.  :)
•  Fully compatible with GameSpy and other game launchers.
• Run QRec instead of your game and it launches the game for you, along   with any command line options that you might use.
• 100% free-of-charge with nothing missing or crippled, with optional   registration for technical support and other benefits.
•  Available right now from www.bowlay.com -- go for it!  :)

• It couldn’t be simpler… 
• Only the King gets a point for a frag.
• This isn’t like real life – you just pick up the crown and you’re the King.
• You’re the King until you get fragged, then you drop the Crown and someone else gets to be King.
• If there are lots of players then the King gets a health bonus.If there are only a few then the King might be weaker than the rest - just to keep y’all honest.
• If you keep the crown for a long time, you become a SuperKing. 
• Superkings are indestructible, fire really fast and have a cool purple effect – 25 seconds of pure Quake Kingness.

What more do you want?

FreakBall Arena is a Future-Sport MOD for Quake III Arena. Your task is to shoot more goals then your opponents. You are allowed to kick, shoot or kill your enemies. There are 2 different game types. In the standard game type it is allowed to use weapons. The second one only allows the Ball-Launcher as a weapon.
You can lose the ball when you are hit by a weapon. When carrying the ball you aren't able to shoot on your enemies, so your Team will have to defend you and make the way to the goal free. You may of course also pass to your Team Mates if they are in better positions

• Hide'n Seek - Both teams start in the same place. One team is given 10-20 seconds to run away and hide (this team is assigned a gun, they can not buy one) The other team buys guns and after the 20 seconds they go out and try to kill those who are hiding. If the hiding team has people alive after a certain time limit they win. The levels should be small, dark and have loads of ambush places.
• Rescue - This on very similar to the regular gameplay mode of cs. One team holds a group of people hostage and the other team have to rescue all hostages and/or kill the other team.
• Assasin - This mode is very simple every hostage who is spawned in the enemy team is an assasin target for the other team. The Team who killed all Assasin bots Wins . 
• Pure Terrorism - This mode is the same like the cs mode BOMB DEFUSE. One team need to plant a bomb the other need to prevent the team from plant it / defuse the bomb.

Its actually quite a fun map, would probably be better if I had some people to play with, but alas, again, my entourage is no where to be seen. Could be that I don't have one. Basically, you have five capture points, that you need to capture and hold. Hence, the concept of capture and hold. You get 1 point for every ten seconds that you hold a capture point. This is going to lead to some hard and fast battles. The textures are a tad bit on the boring side, due to the fact that all the buildings look alike, and are gray.... very gray.

Fightclub is a configuration utility for Quake 3: Arena. It allows to you to:

• Launch a dedicated or listen server
• Connect to another server
• Store your favorite server addresses
• Configure all in-game settings (100 different cvars)
• Configure Player model and characteristics
• Set up colored names, and preview them.
• Configure all player control bindings
• Set up aliases (scripts) and bind them to whatever key you want
• Setup automatic rotation of maps
• Add custom maps to rotation
• Extract description from map files, even for maps stored in pak files!
• Setup exact bot lists, or a number of random bots
• Configure the server to populate itself with bots until sufficient humans are present

• Offhand grapple returns
• Explosion gives more kickback
• Server admins can choose to allow hook or not
• Server admins can set pullspeed and firespeed of the hook
• Ability to set all weapon/items/armor respawn times
• Ability to swap the flamethrower for any other weapon
• Scoreplums show same as score earned in PainFactor
• If no miniscoreboard then draw scores lower down
• HUD design returned to the original Q3A

But I think as we see technology get this advanced, we're going to have to keep in mind that one of the legs we stand on in the fight against blaming games on violent behavior is that it's obvious that a game is just a game. A game will always obviously be just a game, of course, because anyone who thinks a game is reality needs some serious counseling, but we may reach a point at which we can no longer deny that a game so realistic in its depictions has a psychological effect on the player.

The game was to be built off the now antiquated Quake engine and feature “non-violent” gaming. I immediately assumed that the game wouldn’t be worth my time........The basic premise behind the game is that of Laser Tag. For those of you that haven’t played the fine game of Laser Tag, it is a competitive game that is played at special arenas. The combatants wear plastic armor that contains special sensors, which react to specific laser frequencies. Each play also has a gun, which shoots a laser at that specific frequency. When hit with the laser the armor proceeds to vibrate and a death is registered to you. There are several variations on this basic theme with different gameplay modes such as death match and capture the flag.

• Add: Mod support for: BFG10K, Eternal Arena, Pure CTF, Excessive, NIQ3, InstaGib, OSP.
• Add: Recognize as vanilla q3 logs: Akimbo, OhShit.
• Add: "Skip single games" option.
• Add: Support for "One Flag CTF" (Team Arena).
• Add: Shell commands with long name options.
• Add: More checking routine to prevent freeze caused by logs corrupted.
• Add: Weapon actions graph in "Specific Frags/Deaths" (Single Games).
• Mod: Layout on main page changed.
• Mod: High & Low scores from top 20 players global rank.
• Mod: A game played by players using same nicknames is automatically discarded.
• Mod: WTW installation is now ultraeasy under Windows.

Pimpage

The Creech. Even if you're not familiar with Greg Capullo's comic book character (which I'm not), this is an awesome must-have player model for your Quake III Arena and Quake III: Team Arena play action. Mike and Bill Jukes a.k.a. "The Brothers Grimm", working in conjunction with a talented skinning team, have created a model that makes the game even more fun to play. The Team Arena version of the model is a tour de force: 700 frames of model animation, 10 different team skins (it replaces the James model in Team Arena) and a gargantuan sound pak. If you're a Team Arena player with a broadband connection (or a high tolerance level for large downloads) get this 50+ meg model pak. If not, get the Q3A version which weighs in a a significantly less chewy 5.7 megs. To read more about The Creech model, check out the extensive write-up (with screenies) on polycount's Creech page.

Anniversaries: Yesterday marked my fourth year at id. Thanks Sandy!

Paul

Reaction Quake 3 (or simply known as "Reaction") is essentially a direct-as-possible port of Action Quake 2 (AQ2) to Quake 3: Arena. Because the A-Team decided to continue work on Action Half-Life and Action Unreal Tournament, there will be no official port of AQ2 to Quake 3. Reaction Quake 3 is a community-based effort to implement the gameplay from the hit modification with Quake 3's superior rendering engine and networking code.

By having some of the best people in the industry working on the game. We've redone the whole underlying display technology of the game to ensure we get the maximum performance out of the PS2. By working "next to the metal" you can get some stunning results from the PS2. We've really had to sacrifice very little.

In Annihilation, we welcome you back to the 1940's...back to World War 2. You choose between Allied Nations and Nazis, and are then able to select a player class according to your skills. Below is a list of classes that are supported so far.

At Fountainhead Entertainment, Anna Kang is creating "Sidrial," the first commercial animated title using the Quake III engine. Inspired by Vernor Vinge's scince-fiction novel, "Deepness in the Sky" and the television series "Babylon 5," "Sidrial" has a familiar "rebels fight aliens invaders" storyline underlying the action. Kand recently revealed the story to CGW.

• Added new "Game Toolbar". This gives a quick way of opening Q3Offline documents and launching Quake III Arena - please see the Toolbar help in the manual. Thanks to Ken Hudson for this suggestion.
• The Command Line field on the Game page now allows you to remove existing entries by right clicking on it and selecting Remove from the popup menu. Thanks to Ed Massuda for the suggestion.
• Changing from the default game folder (e.g., baseq3) on the Game page to another folder (e.g., for a mod) no longer loses information about imported bots and maps. Thanks to Ed Massuda for the suggestion.

• 5 new Multi-Arena maps (see them on the screenshots page)
• Mac support for RA3 client
• New "enemy_model" cvar to allow you to set the enemy team to a different model
• Improved player spawning code
• Callvote support for "map"
• IP addresses/names of players logged for server admins
• Vote spam protection
• New stats commands for weapon accuracy
• Major cheat-protection/bot prevention improvements
• Integrated IRC chat client
• MP3 player fixed under Q3 1.27
• Demo recording fixed under Q3 1.27

We're working on getting Beta 2.0 packaged up. The Maps for Beta 2.0 are done, including the hub. The code will be incomplete, but functional for 1.27g

It will be imperfect and incomplete - BUT it will have many advantages:

1) it will be compatible with quake 1.27g
2) feature the autosentry
3) GOLD versions of the beta maps and new HUB (Yippee)
4) greater code testing via the internet

TO DO BEFORE BETA 2.0 WILL BE RELEASED
A small amount of tweaks
Autosentry Movement
New Gravity Well Animations
Character maps need a small amount of tweaks
In game server finder REFRESH function
New ChainLightning Gun model

The other stuff (Like the Can of Beans - Now with Fart Power!) we've done since Beta 1.0 are too numerous to list here, but you'll notice the changes as soon as you start fragging.

id Software and Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) are teaming up this spring to release Commander Keen, an action-packed, comedic quest to save the cosmos for the Game Boy Color. Commander Keen is rated “E,” for “Everyone,” by the ESRB. Commander Keen marks a return to id Software's roots -- developing over-the-top, comic book-style adventure games for kids. Based on id's original Commander Keen series on the PC, Commander Keen finds precocious 8-year-old superhero Billy Blaze on an all-new quest to save the world from his alien adversaries, the Droidiccus, Shikadia and Bloogs of Fribbulus Xax. “Commander Keen shows a kinder, gentler side of id Software,” Todd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software said. “Like the original Commander Keen adventures, this is a game that appeals to the spunky 8-year-old hero in all of us ­ putting the 'id' back in 'kid.'”

It's a large group of Q3A mappers working together in an atmosphere of friendly competition to produce multi-arenas for the red-hot Q3A mod - Rocket Arena 3! The idea is that each team member produces an RA3 arena, after which these sections are joined together to form an RA3 level.

Akimbo is a Q3:Arena mod with a pretty simple concept: holding two weapons, one in each hand. These two guns are fully independent, meaning a player is able to hold two different guns and to fire these separately.