GGL received the Steelseries Ikari laser mouse many moons ago, but due to a review backlog, we were only able to open it up recently. Heidi Klum helped me with the review, and pardon the bad lighting, eh?
Kevin “arQon” Bleckinsopp, best known in recent years for heading up the Challenge Promode Arena mod team, has been interviewed on eGames.de about the mod scene.
The blinding truth spit from his mouth caused me to wear sunglasses when writing this. Here’s a lengthy excerpt that explains the dire situation mods find themselves in today:
From CPMA’s ‘Deathmatch Perfected’ gameplay detail-driven mindset, to Freeze Tag, Clan Arena gametype variations, to CS’s, more accurately, ‘Action Quake’s’, total conversion, these are the mods that matter, but they end up starved for assets because the artists are all off doing prettymods, so the newbies look at screenshots of them and go ‘durrr, looks the same, why play it?’ If those two groups could actually work together, the end results would be so much better for both of them, but it seems almost impossible to get that to happen. Every once in a while one does – and is invariably a success, duh – but it’s the exception rather than the norm, so overall there’s just a colossal waste of talent on both sides most of the time. The featureset mods like OSP, Q4MAX, PK++, HL2DMPro, and so on, are simply doing a job that should have been done by the company that sold you the game.
Register for GGL now and you’ll be first in line to get more information about the Digital Games!
I’ve read my fair share of mixed commentary since the Digital Games announcement, much of it devolving to hatred for organizers, game choices, or debate over whether or not gaming is actually a sport.
In my personal opinion, though, all of these things are tertiary to the goal of getting competitive gaming and “e-sports” more mindshare in the general public. I’m not just speaking about the general gaming public, but the huge amount of people who don’t play games and don’t think they’re cool.
If a Welcome Event at the 2008 Summer Olympics catapults competitive gaming even more into the mainstream with games that aren’t necessarily accepted by the traditional e-sports communities, I’d be fine with it anyway. Keep in mind that I grew up on Quake/2/3, on the arcade-style, deathmatch game that doesn’t really exist anymore anywhere in the North American continent. It could come back, but probably won’t. Continued…
Quake Live has opened its gates for a beta test! If you don`t know what Quake Live is, I will make it short, Quake Live is Quake 3 built into your web browser! That means that you will never ever need to buy the original game, because it will wait for you on your favorite website. That website is actually QuakeLive.com.
Even better, id Software opened sign ups for a beta test, so if you want, you can go to QuakeLive.com and add your email there. Than you can only wait and pray that you will be chosen. Good luck!
View a couple of screenshots from the game after the break. Note the new Visor brightskin.
id Software announced to day that IGA Worldwide will serve all ads for the upcoming Quake Live, previously known as Quake Zero.
Quake Live is a fully ad-supported, web-based, free version of Quake 3 that launches out of the web browser. Mod support has not been confirmed, however.
Here’s some more PR info about the upcoming game:
Created by id Software as an all-new way to deliver the excitement and energy of first-person multiplayer action to a broader audience than ever before, QUAKE LIVE offers game players of all skill levels a totally free and easily accessible multiplayer gaming experience and community through a single website at quakelive.com. Every element of the experience, including friends lists and communication, sponsored events and tournaments, matchmaking, stats tracking, and even the game itself is accessed and delivered free of charge through the web browser.
If you are interested in Quake or want to follow up on competitive coverage, you should check out Quakers Week. The picture on top is a Quake-based origami and you like it, you should definitely visit Captin Nod’s homepage.
The fifth issue brings you info about all Quake scenes and most tournaments that are right now played. If you don’t care about playing Quake but you are curious about current state of these lengendary games, you might also like some new movies from Quake 3. If you are lucky enough that you already know Quake, some demos might come in real handy. Continued…
Week 2 of Quake Nations Cup has just started with two Quake 3 Matches. First, Sweden won in three maps against Italy. fojji and sLONKEN played great games for the Scandanavian Quake owners, while Polterizer was one of most important players for team Italy.The second game was between Serbia and Belarus. Even with Cypher in the Belarus lineup, Serbia managed to win in three maps.
You can check all Week 2 matches on the official homepage and on channel #Quakers.ws there will be info about all matches, GTVs and scorebots. Continued…
The E-Sports World Cup has left France.
ESWC boss Mattieu Dallon has made good on his promise to keep at least some semblance of the ESWC in its home country, however, and the organization today announced the ESWC Masters for July 4-6, 2008 in Paris Bercy.
ESWC Masters will be an invite competition for all the official ESWC disciplines, including Defense of the Ancients, Trackmania Nations, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, Counter-Strike 1.6 (mixed and ladies) and (hail to the king, baby!) Quake 3. The winners will all receive berths into the Grand Final.
Prizing, autoberth, and qualification details will be released at a later date.
There are just few days until the Quake Nations Cup signup deadline on Jan. 13. On the same day, seeding for QuakeWorld, Quake 3 and Quake 4 will be published on the QNC website. Quake 2 base groups will be selected by NDML admins and will be announced later. On Monday, Jan. 14, a live draw of basic groups will be presented on PG24 Television. The draw show begins at 20:00 CET.
There are currently 22 national teams with 47 squads. The first nation that completed a “QuadRun” was Sweden; they already have a squad for each Quake TDM. Finland is close behind with almost completed QW squad and other nations compensate for missing Quake 2 squads by two teams in Quake 3. Czech Republic, Germany and Hungary are among those. The most powerful Quake country is Russia, with full 5 squads.
- Every Nation can sign up 2 squads per game. Read more about the rules here. Continued…
The 1on1 series continues with an interview with Paul “czm” Nelson, arguably the best Quake 3 player in history. In the feature Paul talks about life, Quake, switching to other games and how dumb he can be at times, despite graduating from Princeton with a degree in math.
John “ZeRo4″ Hill is one of the most accomplished Quake 3 duelers in history with three QuakeCon titles, a World Cyber Games 2001 gold and the CPL Babbages championship, to name just a few. In an interview, ZeRo4 talks about a possibility of a comeback for the ESWC 2008 and throws down the gauntlet to one of his biggest rivals, Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel.
It was announced today that Quake 3 and Defense of the Ancients are official competition games for the 2008 season of the Electronic Sports World Cup. At the same time, the future of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 in the competition is uncertain.
The full lineup of ESWC games for today is Counter-Strike 1.6 (male and female competitions), Warcraft 3, Trackmania Nations ESWC, Quake 3 and DotA. The selection of Q3 as a game is not that surprising - the game has always been a very significant title for the ESWC. Some of the most memorable matches in the game’s history took place at the French event. The title also has a larger following than Quake 4 and looks like a better long-term platform, considering that QuakeZero will be based on Quake 3.
Considering that well over 90% of Warcraft 3 games played online are DotA matches, the choice of DotA for ESWC is not that surprising either. Competitive DotA has grown rapidly in recent times, with many online competitions for the game.
It may be that Pro Evolution Soccer will not come back to ESWC. At this stage, the game is suspended, as the organizers of the ESWC have not yet received a permission from Konami to use the game in their event.
