Excellent monologue de Tim Sweeney sur les moteurs 3D d'Unreal, UT et Unreal Technology. Tim avoue que le netcode d'Unreal était une merde sans nom ("the multiplayer code really sucked") et qu'il leur aura fallu 9 mois pour réussir à le rendre correct.

Autre information amusante, Tim explique que le moteur 3D d'Unreal Tournament est exactement le même que celui d'Unreal avec tous ses patchs. Il ajoute que le gros point faible de ce moteur est qu'il a été créé pour tourner sur des systèmes sans carte 3D. Ainsi, une grande partie des calculs est réalisée en software ce qui explique les faibles performances d'UT avec une GF3 (comparé à Quake3).

Ils ne feront pas la même erreur pour le moteur d'Unreal2:

The version of the Unreal engine that powers Unreal 2 is a whole different ballgame. The rendering code has been ripped out and completely replaced with code that really only whole-heartedly runs on a GeForce2, and is really happy with a GeForce3 or equivalent DirectX 8 hardware. The result is a graphics engine that often displays 200,000 polygons on the screen, 100 times what they could do in Unreal Tournament.

CG Online vient de publier une preview complète d'Unreal2. L'article parle un peu trop du background à mon goût mais peut-être que certains joueurs s'interessent à l'histoire dans un FPS...

La preview s'étale sur cinq pages et révéle des informations sur les armes (des détails sur un bidule de corps à corps vampirique) et sur le gameplay en single et multiplayer:

In the new expanded game, class-based player teams will fight for control of planet surfaces and alien artifacts using nanotechnology replicators to build ever more sophisticated weapons and structures. Each of up to 32 players may be a Marine, a Mercenary, or a Skaarj, and can choose among three different classes. Available are the Grunt-soldier type, an all-brawn, all-combat hard hitter who will be able to use all of the heavy weapons in the game; the "Spook," a Light class unit who can move very fast and use all of the more exotic weapons; and a Tech soldier who can control replicator units that build all the weapons, ammunition, and equipment, as well as place force field generators, rocket turrets, health and armor healing stations, sensors, recon and repair robots, and any other items you can build to modify your base.

Joe Waters a updaté son .plan avec quelques infos sur la 2ème démo de Wolfenstein. Ca parle de la sensibilité de la souris et de quelques bugs graphiques:

...just for the record, since I've seen a couple comments on different sites about this, as far as I know the mouse code has *not changed* at all. not a bit. The only thing that might have changed is the sensitivity setting (we shipped a wolfconfig.cfg with the first mptest, this one has different defaults). So if you're unhappy with mouse performance, load mptest1, look at your mouse setting, and make the setting the same in mptest2.

There are some graphic oddities with mptest2: when the video mode auto-adjusty winky runs, it might turn off dynamic lights, which are needed (in mptest2) for dynamite status info, so make sure to turn that back on. Also, it may turn on trilinear mipmapping, which
might be a significant performance hit on some cards; so if it feels slower than mptest1, try setting that back to bilinear filtering. The rendering architecture hasn't changed substantially ('cept for flamethrower stuff) and neither has the map, so the speed difference should really be negligable.

eSports America vient d'écrire un guide sur les pistolets de Counter Strike. Tout ce qui lui manque ce sont des chiffres et des statistiques (dommages moyens, taille de la zone dispertion, etc.). Ceci dit, c'est une bonne lecture et en plus c'est bien écrit.

On y apprend aussi l'existence d'un petit "bug" de CS: la première balle que vous tirez avec votre pistolet risque très fort de partir n'importe où. Il vous est donc conseillé de tirer au tout début du round et de recharger pour bénéficier d'une précision optimale. Plus loin dans l'article, un lecteur précise que ce n'est pas un bug: Gooseman a voulu simuler l'effet d'un canon froid (hu?). Nul doute que nos lecteurs amateurs d'armes sauront nous apporter plus de précision dans les commentaires.

(auto-pub: mon vieux site sur les armes de CS existe encore. Ca fait bien 6 mois qu'il a pas été updaté mais c'est toujours le seul a donner des chiffres)

Return to Castle Wolfenstein est enfin gold. Il sortira le 20/11 (du mois aux états unis). Youpi!

The blitzkrieg has BEGUN -- Return to Castle Wolfenstein has gone gold!

To celebrate, Corky Lehmkuhl of Gray Matter has, once again, created a great image announcing RtCW's gold status. We encourage you to post the image on your site with your news items -- please link to the official site at www.castlewolfenstein.com, where readers can find lots of great information about the game.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein will hit store shelves on November 21st (look for it at select retailers on November 20th).

See you on the battlefield!

Et le .plan de Todd Hollenshead:

WoooHOOOO! Wolf is golden indeed. Congrats to Gray Matter, Activision and Nerve for all of the hard work they have put in over the last 2+ years we've been working on this game.

If you're interested in the sweet collectors' tin boxes (that come with a cool poster and a sew-on Wolf logo patch) I think you can still get those through the various pre-order programs at Best Buy (blue), Gamestop/Babbages (silver) and EB (black) while supplies last (these may go quickly now).

It looks like people will actually be able to pick up copies early next week in many places and after Thanksgiving most everywhere in the U.S. The international versions will follow very shortly behind due to increased manufacturing time and shipping logistics, but I'm guessing there will be world-wide availabilty by the first of December.

I don't know when we will have them for sale direcly from id, but retail will definitely have the initial availability. I'll post direct-sale information as soon as I have it.

No date yet on the Mac version, but it's coming soon (not gold yet, though). We don't have plans to sell Linux in retail, but Timothee has done great work on the downloadable binaries so far, and I expect that to continue.

**Special note to our German fans: buy as soon as they come out and avoid the "rush" ;-) I know you guys know what I mean...

Source: Acthung Wolfenstein!