Q3Arena.com - The Ultimate Quake III Site

The CPL has changed the dates of the FRAG 4 event because the Hyatt Regency hotel exercised a contractual option to cancel the event. The new confirmed dates for the event will be Thursday, September 28 through Sunday, October 1 and will still be at the Hyatt Regency in Dallas.

The admission price for FRAG 4 has been reduced to $30 (online pre-purchases only) and the price of hotel rooms has been reduced to $99 from $119 a night.

Now you can be James Bond with the new Golden Eye beta release. The GoldenEye mod is is based on the game GoldenEye to the N64.
This release includes:

2 Maps (Tempel and Stack)
3 Weapons, KF7 Soviet, RC-P90 and Goldengun.
The health-meter.
Non-jumping ability.
Decreased speed.
An updated menu, console and a few more details.

More details about this mod can be found on the GoldenEye mod site.

The crew at Q3Log have just released an out of beta version 1.0 to the public.
The new version changes include:

Split HTML games into multiple pages of 100 games each.
Fixed bug that stopped client side killcharts being displayed.
Fixed bug that caused no memory to be freed on loading a new logfile.
Improved memory usage as much as possible without an entire rewrite!
Added displayed of total players and games to the about screen.
Fixed some bugs with HTML data in certain specific situations.
Made loading of invalid or corrupt custom variables files more robust.

Powerpillz v0.75 public beta 2 has been released to the public. The new version includes more refined gameplay where the teams do not get all the weapons, instead they get a standard set of weapons (the gauntlet, machine gun and shotgun) and a weapon of their choice (anything except from the BFG). The HUD has also been updated with animated icons for the teams and a clearer layout than the previous beta. There is also a timer that indicates how long a team has left in control. A full list of changes can be found on the Powerpillz webpage.

The BackBurner is looking for help for their up and coming Single Player Quake 3 Mod.
Here's what they say on the mod page...

"SPQ3 is a mod that will implement Single-Player in Quake3 Arena. No, not just deathmatch with bots, but good old monster-bashing stuff. The thing about it is that it won't have any maps included. SPQ3 will rely entirely on custom maps! We will make maps while this is in development though, to see what is needed, and to have some stuff to actually play when this gets done.

I want SPQ3 to be a mappers dream. Monsters will probably not be directly coded individually (except for AI), but be stored as files like Q3A's bots that tells what modelskin it uses, what weapons it use, and characteristics like health and aiming skills. For bosses, bot's can be used. It will be pretty easy to pull some real Neil Manke shit here. "

They are in need of programers, modellers, sound people and mappers. You can get more info about how to apply here.

Beta 2 of the popular Jailbreak mod has been released.
Here is what they say about the new release:
"Q3JB Beta 2 Stage 2 contains 5 maps, 3 of which are brand-spanking new (and pretty kick ass as well) Combined with Beta 2 Stage 1 from last week, thats a total of 11 maps so far. The maps in Q3JB Beta 2 Stage 2 are made by fans that aren't actually on Team RXN, but their work certainly is up to par. I'm sure you'll enjoy the gameplay this release has to offer. Still upcomming are new maps from Lifer (beta tested one the other day, absolutely amazing) some more maps from RXN, and code updates from our programmer BinaryC."

Requiem 0.6 for Q3A has been updated to public beta #3. The Requiem site has new screenshots of their new flamethrower effects as well as the download.
The new beta features include:

Totally revamped flamethrower
Bots know about the runes, fairstart, and the weapon names
Improved anticamper
Several minor bugfixes
Debugging messages to aid in the rare server crashes
New look for the fairstart
Reduced size of download by 30%!

Version 2.0 of Q3Post is now available. This version adds a new graphical interface for the server browser and the options menu, and adds a bunch of other features. Q3Post is an Mirc script which lets you automatically post a server's IP address and description whenever you connect to a Quake 3 Arena server while you play and has a host of other features you can check out at the Q3Post site.

A new 1.2 version of the Hulk mod is up on the Reactive Software site.
This is what the authors have to say about the mod... "A rampaging monster of death, wielding a formidable arsenal. He is the Hulk. You are a puny weakling. Kill him and you may become the Hulk. Then they are the puny weaklings."
The new version adds the ability for you to change the size of the Hulk from huge to really small. More details on this mod are on the Hulk site.

The BackBurner has just launched a new section for their up and coming Backburner mod. To celebrate its new launch, the mod leader has released a bunch of new screenshots. He will also be releasing a few new shots of some new maps tomorrow.

A Linux SDK beta for Q3A has been released by Loki Games. There isn't very much information on their site about it but they say "You'll soon be able to create maps and game code modifications under Linux!" You can grab the file here.

Hellchick at PlanetQuake has an interesting article/interview with the Weapons Factory Arena mod team. She chats with the guys about who they are, how the mod came to be, what other mods they like, and what is in the future.

In case anyone missed them, the Coliseum2 1.7 Mod Win32 DLLs are now available at Coliseum2 site. This download is unsupported and contains no support files (i.e. sounds, shaders, graphics, etc) and the authors warn that you should use them at your own risk.

There are 3 more Q3A walpapers up on the GlitterKill site. This time around Gary "GlitterKill" Mullins has added Angel, Slash, and Stripe to his collection bring the total to 23 Q3A walpapers for your enjoyment.

The T.E.C. for Q3A 2.0 client is scheduled to be out on May 31st. The T.E.C. team is looking for server operators for their mod. Anyone interested in running a server for the mod can now sign up on their server operator page.

A new version, 1.12, of Zappy's MOD for Quake3 is now available as a full release. This version brings the mod up to date with the latest version of Q3A, fixed some bugs and added an "Acquired Target" feature. Zappy's MOD for Quake3 is a Q3A mod which makes your rockets "smart rockets" and lets you earn magnetic grenades.

As promised, Coliseum2 1.7 Final has now been released and is up on some servers already. This release is a full download only and is 1.4 MB but includes full HTML documentation. The Coliseum2 team has already found an error in the documentation and has the correction for it in their news section. The unsupported Windows .dll will be posted later tonight.

GameSpy2mIrc, the mirc script which lets your friends know where and what you are playing, has a new version 2.3 adding the ability to only inform players who join the channels on your notify list, and fixes a nasty bug that would give you a different nick when you returned from a game. You can find out more on the GameSpy2mIrc web site.

Black Knight Productions have a new patch update for their Prisoners of War mod. The patch fixes tons of bugs and adds some new features to the mod. You can get the patch (400kb) here.

Public beta 2 of Quake 3 Jailbreak is now available. This new beta is a complete replacement for the previous beta. The authors plan on releasing this beta in several stages. This first stage is Sul's work and contains 2 new maps and 4 updated/fixed maps. The upcoming stages will include further code fixes, maps from Lifer and Jex, and some user maps. More information is available at the Quake 3 Jailbreak site.

Version 0.3-5 of x11Spy, a Quake 3 server ping tool for X Windows, has been released. The new version adds a new toolbar and right click menu and fixes a few problems in the previous version. More information can be found on the x11Spy site.

We have been getting a lot of mail from people who think we are affiliated with id Software and are sending us bug fixes, suggestions, comments and complaints about Q3A.

Just to set the record straight, we are NOT affiliated with id Software, we are a gaming site much like any of the other ones found on the net. If you have questions for id Software, you should send them e-mail instead of using our webform since we are not in a position to answer your questions.

The crew at the Coliseum2 mod site have announced the release of v.1.7 Final on Tuesday the 23rd. The final release will be available as a full download only with a separate unsupported Win.dll.
Here's a list of some of the fixes and features you can expect in the mod:

Properly spawn runes in fog.
Do not spawn runes over lava, slime or voids. No more raining runes!
Slightly increased haste rune.
Better dispersal of rune types.
More efficient client hook code.
Anti-aliasing of hook graphic for a better appearance.
Server can set true infinite ammo for each weapon separately.
Bots know spawn safety.
Full color MOTD support
High scores for all game types except CTF.
Complete html enabled documentation.

Today - Saturday, May 20th - 8 PM CST / 9 PM EDT - Weapons Factory Arena will be released to the public. They will be releasing 99% of the game ahead of time, to allow modem users to start downloading the majority of the files necessary to play WFA. The other portion of the game will be available during the release party this evening on IRC. The game weighs in at a hefty 60 MB.

For the irc party, tune your IRC client to,
irc.enterthegame.com Channel: #wfa
or
pq.gamesnet.net Channel: #wfa
More information can be found on the Weapons Factory Arena site.

UKGamer.net has an 11 page article with an in-depth look at the Weapons Factory Arena mod which will be hitting public beta stage sometime tomorrow. The article covers the history of the mod, its gameplay and content, and contains 30+ never before seen screenshots taken by the article's author.

The BackBurner has 4 more map reviews available today.
Here's a list of the map names:

Colon Cancer
Meatpatty
The House Of The Desolate
Khaooohs

Z-Axis has 3 new reviews for us, one of them is a CTF map.
Here's what they have this time around:

Pit and the Pendulum
Veterans Haunt
Grazer Station (CTF)

GameSpot UK has an article about their experience with Sega showing off Q3A for Dreamcast at E3 last week. They talk about image quality, framerates, playing on the net, using the Dreamcast mouse and keyboard and include 5 screenshots of the game in action.

Q_Check v1.6.0 for mIRC has been released and they have renovated their web site as well. The new version includes user requested features such as the Channel List and Message Preview and comes in both French and English.

Q_Check is a highly configurable Auto Away plugin for mIRC that can detect when a user joins a game server via GameSpy. The plugin will automatically set the user away and announce the name and ip address of the server. To find out more about this utility, head on over to the Q_Check website.

Quake 3: Weapons Factory Arena has posted a professionally developed movie of their mod in anticipation of their public beta release on Saturday May 20th at 8 PM CST. The movie is over 4 minutes in length, featuring "Offensive Strike - WFA Remix" a track by Silent Warrior, and comes in 2 download sizes & formats (Quicktime and Real Player). Also, if anyone is interested in setting up a WFA Beta server, please contact corwin@captured.com.

The final version of Assault Quake3 is scheduled for release on May 21. Some of the maps included in the release are finished and the others are compiling at the moment. The release date gives the team time to playtest the mod. The authors state "the main idea of the mod is rather primitive actually: Extreme Slaughter". Click here to find out more about the features of this mod and be able to check out some screenshots.

The Full Metal Jacket for Q3A site has 5 new screenshots showing off their latest map for their Vietnam era mod. The screenshots show off the map "headshot" and is said to have a Quake2 like sky instead of the unusually fast clouds in Q3A.

The Battle of the Sexes crew is now offering a private beta of their Q3A mod. The mod can only be played on two servers at this time to help get it tweaked out for the public release coming soon.
Battle of the Sexes is a normal CTF modification with a twist. When joining a new game, you would first join a team. The red team consists of the males, the blue team consists of the females. Then there are 9 player classes to choose from each with their own weapon and role on the team. Check out the site for more info on this mod.

Requiem for Q3A has a public beta available on their website. The mod, much like its predecessor Requiem for Quake 1, is offering an abundance of features and bug fixes.
Here's a partial list of them.

Flamethrower
Death-missiles
Bomber-missile
Chaingun
Slow ammo-regen option
Slow health-regen option
True weapons-stay mode
Improved rune sounds
Each weapon has its own max ammo
Faster ammo respawning and other ammo count 'tuning'
Improved anti-camp
Classical requiem hook and slide feeling is back!

Paul Jaquays Updated his .plan today with a big congratulations to Fatality for winning the Q3A portion of Mplayer's E3 triple threat competition.

John Carmac also updated his .plan today with an in-depth review of todays video card market stating that the GeForce is his baseline for current rendering work but also stating that he likes some of the features ATI has to offer and he gave the Voodoo5 a big thumbs down for 3dfx's efforts.

Quake3 Lab has just opened their new site offering over 30 mapping tutorials, coding tutorials, modeling tutorials (currently under construction), scripting tutorials and prefabs. They promise to eventually have everything you need for editing Q3A.

The busy folks at The BackBurner have 6 new Q3A map reviews and downloads for your enjoyment.
Here is a list of them.

Quake3:Addiction
Pit and the Pendulum
The Malevolent Cathedral
PadCenter
Japanese Castles (DM)
Arrakeen Beta

Q3Center is offering a brand new mod they made themselves called Gib Q3. This mod makes every weapon explosion create an explosion of gibs.
Here's what the authors have to say about it.

So now every weapon shoots gibs. The good part? Looks kinda funny (but gross) and sometimes you can't see your opponent because there is too many gibs. The bad part? It totals FPS. I practically thirds the FPS you normally get, if there are a lot of gib explosions all over the place. Tips: Try not to use the Machinegun very often, and the shotgun causes gibs even when you hits someone. (looks cool) You also may want to disable gibs, by typing /cg_gibs 0 in the console, but even with the reduced amount of gibs, it is still possible to have an abundance of the stuff all over the place.

Find out more about this mod and also see some screenshots here.

The Toons of Evil mod has a brand new site with new screenshots showing off their mod in progress. The mod will be a total conversion of Q3A.
Here's a list some of the things you can expect from this mod.

26 New weapons (not including alternate fire functions).
13 Characters (Each with unique abilities and attributes).
4 Game Types.
10 New Powerups.
A unique classing system.

Their final goal is "to create a mod that feels like an entirely different game (and if possible, build up a Toons of Evil community."

Generations Arena for Q3A has some new screenshots of their upcoming mod. They have 35 pics of their recent beta test, a few new weapons and you will get to see some of their new map in progress.

With all the Wazzup spoofs surfacing all over the net, Clan LamerKatz has a good version of Wazzup for Q3A on their website. It's in the shockwave format and is worth a look.

The gang at Deep Fried Software have posted a new version, 2.0.5, of Server Watch. Server Watch is a utility that sits in your task tray and automatically pings a game server and displays the number of players currently on that server in the tray. The program currently supports 13 games including Q3A. The new version fixes some problems with Half-Life and Win2000. You can find out more about this nifty utility at the Server Watch website.

The French clan KOB have posted some screenshots of their own maps in progress as well as some downloads of a few of their maps which are available right now. The site is in French but it shouldn't pose a significant problem for most people.

The Oxygen Tank has an informative interview with Streak, the project lead, level designer, and modeler for the Urban Warfare mod for Q3A. It covers just about everything you would want to know about the mod. You can check it out here.

Xtreme CTF, the mod that combines arena type gameplay with the team aspect of CTF, has just released another version to the public. Xtreme CTF Version 1.1a fixes missing flags and weapon/banning not working right, adds total weapon dropping by short name and a few other small character enhancements. If you have downloaded the previous version you will have to delete it and install this one in order for this version to work.

The folks at Bid For Power have just constructed a brand new website.
The new website contains a brand new layout, a screenshot of the day feature, a completely revamped "About" section with four brand new gameplay modes, a new FAQ, a new file section with their Vegeta models, and the image section has been updated with never before seen screenshots of their Pepper City and Central wastelands of earth website as well as new character screenshots.

On Saturday, May 20th - 8 PM CST, Weapons Factory Software, the creators of Quake 2 Weapons Factory will release Weapons Factory Arena for Q3A. This public beta version will include:

8 Unique Classes.
30 Weapons plus alternate-firing modes.
11 Special Abilities.
8 sets of radio voices with a built in user interface for easy communication with teammates.
Sticky sentries, laser defenses, flying recons, loads of custom skins & textures and more!

To find out more about this mod check out the Weapons Factory site. Also, screenshots of the mod are available here.

The AZ Development Team have just released the Powerpillz v0.5 public beta in their projects section. Powerpillz is a Q3A teamplay mod in which the two teams start equal as per ordinary Team DM, but the objective is to collect the "powerpill" which will strip the enemy team of all weapons except from the machinegun and gauntlet. Your control of the powerpill will last a maximum of 60 seconds, or until the enemy team collect another powerpill and turn the tables on you. The result is some very frantic gameplay as the teams attempt to control the powerpill, and kill each other as quickly as possible while they have dominance over the other team.

The EuroCup finals are now over, with Ars Moriendi defeating Eyeballers in the grand final to take the trophy. EuroGamer has the latest poop about the event. Also, they have posted an interview with Italian clan Tulls, who surprised everybody by finishing fourth in the EuroCup and promise to have more interviews ready later today.

Z-Axis has a short Mothers Day special interview with id Software's Donna Jackson. Donna Jackson, dubbed "Mom" by the id software crew, has been with id Software since the the early Doom days.

The entire staff at Q3Arena.com would like to wish every mother a very happy and enjoyable Mother's Day.

The Skirmish Arena mod is now available with its second version 1.1. Some features included in the new mod are:

New Q3Amenu included.
Crosshair in 3rd person view.
Victory podium for skirmish game too.
Logging all awards for skirmish game too.
Increased rate of fire and damage for some weapons.

GameIDE 2.6 has been released fixing some bugs in the new compiling system when the output gets directed to the output bar. GameIDE was designed as a alternative to Visual C++ to be used for game coding.

Freeze Tag 1.3 for Q3A is now available. Freeze Tag is a Q3A team play modification where when you kill the enemy they get frozen. If your team can freeze the other team, then you get a point. If you get frozen then you can have a teammate stand by you and you'll unfreeze after three seconds. To find out more about this mod go to the link above.

EuroGamer has kicked off its coverage of EuroCup - a Quake 3 clan tournament featuring some of the top clans in Europe, the finals of which are taking place in a TV studio in Holland this weekend.

Already online is the pre-tourney build-up, which looks at the four clans taking part in the finals, the venue and the rules, as well as a full report on the first match of the day - Italy's Tulls vs Scandinavians Ars Moriendi.

They will be bringing you full live coverage of the event from Hilversum, Netherlands throughout the weekend, so stay tuned for all the latest right here.

A new version of the Fightclub mod for Q3A has been released.
This update adds some much-requested features to the program:

Map list randomizer.
Individual game settings for each map in the list.
You can create your own map folders and drag/drop maps.
Import Quake 3 cfg files.
Fightclub window is now completely resizable.

This release has been available for a few days, but has been patched today to fix a couple of outstanding bugs. If anyone downloaded 3.23 before today, they should go and pick up the patch anyway.

GibStats III has been updated. The new version fixes a nasty bug concerning dedicated Q3A server logs in which scores came out wrong if there where many connects and disconnects during a map. Scores on tables, graphs and HTML export should be correct now.

GibStats III wants to provide stats of HalfLife logs in the future. To do so they need logs of servers running a couple of days. If there are any server ops who could provide such logs, please send an email to gibstats@gmx.net and you will be instructed where to send the logs.

Sloshy Software Inc. has just released 12 brand-spanking new screenshots of their upcoming program called The Swapper and plan to release the program within a month.

The Swapper is a database utility that will list many add-ons for many games. You can browse the database, and pick which files to download, and The Swapper will download the files for you. Which means no more wasting countless hours searching the web to find add-ons for your favorite game. You can find more information about this utility that will support 21 different games including Q3A at the Sloshy Software Inc. site.

Gary "Glitterkill" Mullins has a bunch more wallpapers up for your enjoyment. His goal is to make one of every Q3A model and is willing to do requests as well! He has 18 of them up thus far and is proceeding at around 6 a week or so. You can check out his fine artwork out at GlitterKill.com.

Planet Quake now has an in-depth article of their preview of the Quake III: Team Arena. Included in this are more screenshots, a view of the HUD, new models, some info on the new weapons, items, game modes and their experiences with some if the id crew that stopped by on their way to E3.

We have been getting quite a bit of mail about screenshots of the upcoming mission pack Quake 3: Team Arena. Here's a list of the sites I have so far.

Nightbreed CTF for Q3A, the mod that uses one flag instead of two, has released a new version on the Nightbreed website. This version will bring the mod up to date with new 117 Q3A codebase and they mention a workaround for a dedicated server problem.

id Software's Graeme Devine updated his .plan today with news of a fix for Mac's and their Q3A 1.17 release. This fixes some problems with playing some mods and is available as a small file (383 KB) at FilePlanet.
Here is Graeme's explanation of the fix.

This update addresses QVM interpreter problems on the Macintosh that stopped certain mods from playing correctly. The new update is an executable only addition to the latest point release and needs the point release to be installed before unstuffing this file over the MacQuake3 application.

The Clanbase Eurocup is going to end this weekend with an event such a great tourney deserves, the LAN Finals in Hilversum. The best European teams, Ars Moriendi, Eyeballers, Schroet Kommando and Tulls will battle it out for the first time in what hopefully will be a long line of EuroCups. Uncle Les was so nice to write a preview of this event, interviewing the main organizer Talita and all the clans about their expectations of the event. Check out the preview right here.

We just recieved this from the Q3A ToA (Tier of Admiration) mod group concerning the ToA servers.

The Beta3 version of the Tier of Admiration for Quake III Arena was released the other day. If anyone is interested in running a Quake III Arena Tier of Admiration server, mail fusion@stomped.com. More info can be found at the Fusion site in the Admiration section. There's a link to the ToA page on the left hand sidebar.

Tribal- The new CTF sensation team is looking for a mapper and a skinner. Tribal is the new 3-team ctf based mod that features completely new visuals, worlds, sounds and gameplay options. You can find more information about the job openings and the mod here.

UI Coding Tutorial #3 is now available at the Q3Center site. This tutorial, the third in a series, is titled "Using Images For Buttons". The author shows you how to change the main menu of Quake3, specifically changing the "EXIT" button into a BFG explosion two-frame animation, and has detailed every step you have to take to do this.

Graeme Devine updated his .plan with news of John Cash's departure from id Software. John, now a former id Software programmer, has left to work at a new position at Blizzard. What he will be working on is still a mystery at this point.
Here's what Graeme had to say.

John Cash departed from id last Friday to a new position at Blizzard. I'll let him fill you in on what he's doing there, but we miss his CTF skills already! We wish John all the best, and id looks forward to the forthcoming Diablo II beta copies.. :)

GameIDE v2.5 R2 has been released sporting a brand new text editor with better color coding, better find, and auto-indent. GameIDE is an alternative program to Visual C++ to be used for game coding.

The new Classic CTF beta v.99 for Q3A is now available. The public beta includes a grappling hook, runes, super nailgun, weapons stay, CTF Optimized Weapons Physics, q2 style armor, lightning gun discharging, match commands, a brand new overtime feature, 16 new crosshairs, new player skins, 2 new maps and lots more.

id Software's Robert Duffy updated his .plan with news of the release of the Q3A v117 game source. He also mentioned that the release of the tool source is pending. You can get the game source at Blues News.

The Shugashack has some modified Quake 3 .dll's for the advanced user that should boost your framerates 10-15% in Win 98 and Win 2K. Read more about it here.

�stats, the server-side parser that will generate statistics and ranking in the form of HTML pages, is now offering version 4.42. This new version includes a new Elo ladder ranking system, support for times/date in Q3A Logs, updated Unreal Tournament (4.05+) support, a buddy list, fixes some bugs, and more. To find out more about this, visit the �stats page.

The new Beta-1c update (4.4mb) of Q3Fortress is now available. The patch includes three new beta dueling maps, lots of new features, new commands, entities and dozens of gameplay adjustments, fixed bugs, improvements to the HUD and scoreboard, plus new rifle and dart gun models/skins and new effects like realistic napalm fire and atmospheric rain. To find out more, check out the Q3F site.

The BackBurner has listed the best of the best of the Q3A custom maps they have reviewed so far. Listed are 11 maps out of the 56 map reviews they have so far and you can download the maps on the site as well.

Version 1.01 of Action Capture and Hold is now available. You can either download the full installation file or just an patch if you have already downloaded version 1.0. This new version is coded on ID's source code version 1.16n and contains one new map (a conversion of The Longest Yard), a new main menu and some bug fixes.

Black Knight Productions has just released the first final (non-beta) version of their Quake III Arena mod, Prisoners of War. Prisoners of War final v1.0 includes 17 polished maps, totally revamped menu system and 2d icons, an InstaGIB mode, new textures/shaders/sounds, working bot support, and innovative gameplay based on the JailBreak concept.

To find out all of the information concerning this mod, including how to set up a server and what servers are running the mod, you can go here.

The first public beta of Classic Quake Arena has been released. Classic Quake Arena is an Quake 3 Arena mod, which aims to take all the best features of Quakeworld, and put them in Q3A. The idea is to end up with a mod which plays as much like quakeworld as possible, but which makes full use of the improved Q3A engine.

GibStats III has been released. GibStats has been around for nearly three years and gives you by far the most detailed statistics and insight of a Quake match. GibStats can receive data from various sources. According to the data, GibStats produces the actual statistics and displays them as tables or graphs. Most of the information displayed can be exported to HTML. You can find out more about this utility at the Gibstats site.

The busy crew working on GameIDE has just released version 2.5. The new release adds features that allow more customizable properties and ui, many bug fixes, and improved support for other compilers. For those who don't know, GameIDE is an alternative to Visual C++ to be used for game coding supporting a whole slew of games including Q3A.

An early beta of the Nightbreed Multi-Rockets Mod is now available. The mod lets you upgrade your weapons to adjust your damage to all weapons (except for the gauntlet) and lets you fire up to three rockets or plasma at a time. At the same time, it makes adjustments to a players defense to balance things out. Since this is an early beta, there will probably be plenty of things to iron out but it does look promising.

Q3A Autoexec Creator is a nifty online program which will allow you to customize your autoexec.cfg in order to optimize performance, visual quality, internet play, sound, and more. Included are some good explanations and recommendations on how each feature will affect your game performance. You can find this cool program at Tweak3D.net.

QuakeCon opened up their registration for their colossal lan party today. This year, on August 3rd, they are letting over 2,000 people sign up making this the biggest Quakecon ever.
Here's an excerpt of what they said in their press release.

QuakeCon 2000 weighs in as the largest to date, providing three days of round-the-clock networked mayhem for over 2,000 pre-registered gamers. This year's battle will feature a 512-player QUAKE III Arena tournament and a horde of other team, clan and celebrity competitions. It will also offer more than 1,250 slots for bring-your-own-computer (BYOC) fanatics -- double the size of last year's area.

The event will include four days of workshops and discussions on everything from gaming technology and design to programming, art and mod creation. Sessions will be led by members of the id Software development team and other prominent figures in the games industry.

Gamers can register online at http://www.quakecon.org beginning today, May 5. Attendance is free. Walk-ins will be allowed as space permits, but the only way to guarantee a spot is to register online. QuakeCon 2000 will be held at the Mesquite Convention Center and Exhibition Hall in Mesquite, Texas.

In an usually short message, id Software's Graeme Devine updated his .plan with news about the new mission pack, Quake III: Team Arena. Here's what he has to say about it.

The mission pack CD will actually have builds for Mac, Linux and Win32. We'll see if we can stick some OS/X action in there as well..

GameRecon.com is a new hardcore games site that will be launching early May. They have large scale plans for this web site. But to accomplish their goals, they will need staff. People that love games and are willing to sacrifice time and help GameRecon to be one of the greatest sites out there, are wanted at GameRecon.com.

If you are devoted to games and are interested in web developing etc, please fill out this form . They will contact you A.S.A.P.

Version .05 of the Q3A Shader Editor is now available with a lot of new features and bug fixes added and even includes a tutorial. This editing this tool will parse a Q3A texture entity script and present it in a Windows GUI. You can get the program and read more about it here.

Wiretap has joined Team Evolve to help speed up the release of the PainKeep Arena mod. Here's more from the Team Evolve site.

Wiretap development team has joined forces with Team Evolve to speed up PainKeep Arena's release date! PKA is now considering an incorporation of the wiretap gamplay option into a hybrid, to please even the most die hard PK fan! Dolomite is the coordinator of WireTap, and he had this to say: "I think this is a great thing for gamers! PainKeep has always been my fav q1 mod and I really dig the idea of working with a pro team like Team Evolve. I will be doing maps, gfx and music for PKA. Currently, I'm reworking pk11, pk13 and Team Evolve's flagship map, PainKeep.bsp. It's really quite an honor! This is a good move for WireTap's team, as we say goodbye to WireTap and hello to PainKeep Arena!" Robert E. Waring, Biz Dude and Level Designer of Team Evolve welcomes the Wiretap team into the project, and with the addition, we can definitely speed up the process of getting PainKee Arena complete and onto a hard drive near you soon! PainKeep Arena is gonna rock your Deathmatch World!

id's Robert Duffy Updated his .plan with news of an updated Q3A 1.17 release for Mac's. Here's what he has to say.

1. The installer seemed to expire between when I started it ( about a week ago, been running since ) and when I built the Mac install. Some people had issues running it getting an unregistered installation. I'm not sure why everyone did not see the problem ( it worked fine on several Mac's here ;-) In any event, we re-registered it and anyone who had those problems should not see them anymore.

2. There was a frame rate drop on Macintoshes, again only on a percentage of them which has been addressed.

In other news, new game source for 1.17 should be out sometime this weekend, and I am hoping to get the tool source out at the same time.

You can get this Mac patch at Blues News.

Build 1.05 of the Q3A+ mod, which has enhanced stats & logging for Q3A, is now available on the Quake[3]->League.Arena site. Here is a list of things included with this release.

Killed all known bugs.
New HTML documentation.
Tuned up oneGun mode.
New oneHit mode (InstaGib) .
New noItems mode - health, armor & powerups not spawned in maps.
Pre-defined teams named 'Red' & 'Blue' will be loaded into the bot selection screen in the Start Server menu by default.

id software has released a point release patch fixing a very serious security flaw in their code. Here is what they said about it from their readme text file.

This patch fixes a fairly serious security flaw in Quake 3 Arena. Internet Security Systems identified the flaw and notified us with reproduction details as well as an overview of the exploit. The basic nature of the exploit is that malicious server operators could overwrite any file on a client system. This type of thing is always possible with DLL based mods (which is why we strongly recommend VM based mods ) but with this exploit, it was possible within the VM system. To help facilitate a rapid transition to the new codebase we have also bumped the network protocol version. This means 1.17 is not network compatible with any prior version. The install also includes all 3 PK3 files, because the original "pak1.pk3" was not included in the final 1.16 release for Mac and Win32 builds. This will address some pure server connection issues. You will have to have all 3 pak files present to connect to a pure server.

In addition to this security fix, we have also fixed the following:
- Callvote to single player game type causes the server to crash.
- Crash in bot initialization on some systems.

You can get the version of your choice from the following locations:
Blues News
Shugashack.com
File Planet
Stomped
3D Gamer's Archives

The Tier of Admiration Beta 3 mod for Q3A has been released at the Fusion site. This new release includes 7 new maps, 2 new items, one new weapon, 5 new bots and a whole boatload of other goodies.

Have you ever wanted to benchmark your own system and then compare it to other machines? You can do exactly that now by using the Quake 3 Real-World Benchmark List. On the site are instructions on exactly how to benchmark your machine and then you can add your machine to an ever growing list in which you can compare your statistics.

The first public beta of 1 Flag CTF for Q3 is available at the King of the Server site. This mod is a twist of the regular CTF where the teams only have one flag to carry. Here's a description from the site.

I've made a little spin on normal ctf. Now there is only 1 flag and anyone can grab it, most of the time. The flag always starts at the red teams base, when it's at the red base, only the red team can pick it up and same goes for blue, at the blue base only the blue team can pick it up. Once the flag is picked up, it's anyone's flag. To score you must bring the flag from your base to the other teams base. You have 30 seconds to retrieve the flag from your base, otherwise it will spawn at the other teams base. The flag icons on your status screen will let you know the remaining time to get the flag and also where the flag is located currently.

The GlitterKill.com site has added a couple of new wallpapers for Q3A bringing the total to 12 Q3A characters and 4 miscellaneous in game shots. This time around, Gary "GlitterKill" Mullins has added Grunt and Major to his ever growing collection.

The first public beta of XtremeCTF, the Q3A mod that combines arena type gameplay with the team aspect of CTF, is now available in Linux, Win32, and Mac versions.

Demo Show Creator, a utility that easily lets you manage your demos for Q3A and has a nice GUI with sound & graphics and full drag&drop support, has a new version update available bringing it to v1.1. The site is in German but the program and readme file is in english.

The Full Metal Jacket Q3A Mod team has updated their site with some fresh new pictures, one of them showing a soldier crouching in tall grass. For those of you who don't know, this mod is based on the Warner Brothers movie "Full Metal Jacket"© and has a Vietnam war theme.

The Navy Seals: Quake³ team have updated their site with some tantalizing new screenshots. It is also Democritus's birthday. We wish him a very happy one and hope he isn't so hung over that he can't finish this cool looking mod!

Kommissar at Alliance Games has a well written level design tutorial that breaks down four different styles of maps. Here are some of the ideas the author brings to the table.

What decisions go into different styles of maps?
How do they differ from other multiplayer levels?
Why do they work or not work?

The article is for beginners as well as advanced mappers. You can find it here.