LINUXGAMES

A beta version of the user-created Enemy Territory: Quake Wars map Comm Link has been released, where the GDF must fight their way into a Strogg fortress to disable their communications equipment.

According to a report mentioned in the Wine Weekly News Issue #345, the ET:QW SDK design tools rating has been changed from Garbage to Gold, thanks to the “Improved support for the .NET framework.” in Wine 0.9.59.

If you’re interested in the Quake Wars competition scene, Splash Damage posted a round-up with a focus on the ClanBase Nations Cup.

Finally, Splash Damage has some info on the next patch:

First off, 1.5 is not an official Activision release like all the previous updates (this is actually the cause of the license troubles from a few weeks back), but instead something that we here at Splash Damage are funding ourselves and working on alongside our new project. As Activision’s QA and localization departments are not available to help us out, we instead opted for an extended public beta phase to iron out any remaining kinks. The result is that things don’t always move as quickly as we’d like them to, but we are committed to getting 1.5 finished and out to you.

I can confirm that 1.5 is on our development schedule for this month and we hope to get it all wrapped up and ready for public consumption. We’ll still have to test it internally, but we hope to release the game update, the updated SDK, and the final version of the Official Competition Mod in the coming weeks so you guys will have plenty of new material to sink your teeth into.

EnemyTerritory.tv, a site dedicated to covering the burgeoning Enemy Territory: Quake Wars competitive scene, has launched with live shoutcast coverage of matches and archived games available to view on-demand with commentary. There’s also a tutorial for watching live matches via ETQW TV in-game.

It’s a really slick setup, and I’m even more disappointed now that I wasn’t around to play with my clan Goons in their match versus ALLCAPS!, as you can watch the match archive at the site :)

Well?

My list:

• Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
• Neverwinter Nights: Tyrants of the Moonsea
• Savage 2
• Quest for Glory I (via DOSBox)

The alpha release of Wheels of War, a modification for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, has been announced, which turns the multiplayer first-person shooter into a action driving game; features planned for future builds include stunts, upgrades, and zombies. The developers were also interviewed about the project at the ET:QW Community Site.

You’ll want to get the 0.1a package and the 0.1b patch.

Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ colsoft.biz ]

PlanetQuake spotlighted a neat 2-level Quake 4 singleplayer add-on this week, Ubilitus:

The action is outstanding in this mission gang and there are some very intense battles where the Strogg ambush you from above, below and across great distances where you’re the fish in the barrel! Whether you’re alone or have the back up of your surviving squad-mates, you’ll need to be reloading often. There’s Strogg around here and they’re not shy!

I usually shoot (or play as) alien cyborgs in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars these days, but it’s fun to go back to traditional run-and-gun action every so often.

Download: [ planetquake.com ]

Thanks to the infamous DomMafia for pointing out a new user-made map for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars that’s in pre-beta testing: Comm Link. There’s layout and balancing suggestions being made in the thread, so feel free to contribute if you give it a once-over.

Random things in the bit bucket today:

• Thanks to TTimo for pointing out that Stronger Than All is preparing to launch an Enemy Territory: Quake Wars infantry league (no vehicles, similar to TGL’s 5v5 infantry rules).
• For the bleeding edge developers in the audience, version 4.3.0 of the GNU Compiler Collection has been released.
• QuakeUnity has a preview of Quake2World, a new Quake 2 source project currently in beta testing.
• iTNews and DailyTech have reports about a research project at the Rensselaer Artificial Intelligence and Reasoning Laboratory which uses POWER-based Linux clusters to run an AI personality in Second Life, which has a Linux client of its own.
• The free first-person shooter World of Padman has a new map available, Phobosroom.

Some mod releases:

• ETQWPro version 0.4, a competition mod for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars; ESReality posted some comments from the developers.
• Q4Run, which adds an emphasis on acrobatics such as trickjumping to Quake 4 by implementing run timers.

Also, Rock, Paper, Shotgun interviewed Splash Damage‘s Paul Wedgwood, Steve Gaffney; and Richard Jolly; among the topics discussed was ET:QW’s future:

Wedgwood: We’re just finishing off another update for Quake Wars. We just did 1.4, which went down really well, particularly because it had loads of accessibility stuff in there. [...] Of course we also broke something in putting out the update, so we’re also putting out an update for the update. [...] A little more tweaking this stuff, and we’re otherwise done with ETQW.

A beta build for version 1.5 of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars has been released by id Software and Splash Damage:

The 1.5 BETA is restricted to Unranked servers, so you will be able to run your own or play on one of the servers provided by our GSP partners. Please note that participation in this beta is completely voluntary and that the 1.5 BETA is not backwards-compatible with ETQW 1.4. In other words, once you’ve installed the 1.5 BETA, you will not be able to play on ETQW 1.4 servers unless you have a second game install. If you don’t feel like testing, you can just skip this release and wait for the final version – 1.4 servers will continue to work normally until then.

The changelog can be found here; it’s also been requested that you post bug reports in the new 1.5 beta issues forum.

Download: [ enemyterritory.com ]

Splash Damage and id Software have released a build of an official Enemy Territory: Quake Wars competition mod for beta testing:

The Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars Competition Mod allows tournament organizers to easily implement and enforce specific rule-sets and enhances other competition related features of the game, such as ETQW:TV. It does this by providing additional Cvars and commands to both the players and server admins.

There’s also a server admin’s guide to the mod at the Splash Damage wiki.

Download: [ enemyterritory.com ]

Kotaku is reporting on an advertising partnership announcement for id Software’s Quake Live (announced at QuakeCon 2007 as Quake Zero), the browser-based project derived from Quake 3: Arena:

IGA Worldwide Inc., the leading independent in-game advertising network announced today from the 2008 Game Developer Conference that it has partnered with id Software to manage all advertising, sponsorship and creative branding opportunities within the forthcoming QUAKE LIVE web site and free-to-play version of the popular action series.

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. Integrated with IGA’s proprietary SDK, QUAKE LIVE will offer companies and agencies fresh opportunities to dynamically-target brands to audiences within a broadly accessible version of one of the world’s premiere game franchises, while also offering gamers a totally free premium game, fun events and a vibrant, active community of other players.

While Linux users missed out on Enemy Territory: Quake Wars‘ in-game advertising (as there was no Linux port of the ad middleware), that probably won’t be the case here. What do y’all think of in-game ads? Are the community features compelling enough to make you want to play Quake Live over something like, say, Warsow?

Edit: in case you were wondering, the beta signup at www.quakelive.com is just for the Windows version at present.

Some more Enemy Territory: Quake Wars miscellany:

• Pigmod is a competition mod that enforces the game rule variations that online leagues have implemented, such as limited deployables for games with smaller player counts (6v6 and below).
• Sevenfats provides detailed statistics generated from the Official Stats Site’s XML feeds; as a reminder, this data is only collected on ranked servers (i.e., the ones with a little ribbon in the server browser).

Although I’ve been playing Enemy Territory: Quake Wars rather avidly, it’s been difficult finding organized play, as most online leagues seem to require third-party Windows-based anti-cheat programs. Consequently, I was excited to find the Starter’s Tournament being run by Project Malice:

The Starter’s Tournament is comprised of teams that want to make a mark, but are just starting out with the competition aspect of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. This tournament provides something that others have not been able to provide, all teams being on or around the same skill level, so every team has a chance to win. The tournament is limited to North American teams only.

Registration will be closed for teams February 2nd at 12 AM EST; registration for players will be closed February 4th at 12 AM EST. If interested, you can read how to sign up for the tournament here.

Linux Journal has posted their annual Reader’s Choice Survey; among the myriad categories is “What is your favorite Linux game?”:

• Doom (I’m assuming they mean the original, although it could also mean Doom 3)
• Frozen Bubble
• Tux Racer (Planet Penguin Racer/Extreme Tux Racer)
• Super Tux
• Battle for Wesnoth
• Freeciv
• Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
• Maelstrom
• Nexuiz

There’s also a write-in vote option.

A reader, A08, pointed out the statistics for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars at splatterladder.com:

Often enough companies are claiming, that the amount of people considering Linux for gaming is rather low. If you check the splatterladder for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars you will see in the live statistics, that the number of Linux players is just as high or higher as the number of Windows players. In this very moment the percentage of Linux players is 54%!

I don’t know how splatterladder derives their client OS data, but as of this writing the breakdown is still split in favor of Linux (57% to 43% Windows). This is rather surprising, as, if memory serves, id Software games usually have around 5% of players using the Linux clients. I wonder if this is an artifact of the server breakdown, which is a more understandable 60% Linux to 40% Windows.

At any rate, there certainly are many Linux ET:QW players, which is gratifying to see. Besides splatterladder and the official stats site, there’s the ET:QW Stat Reader, which will generate a table of performance data from your player name.

Edit: Thanks to Timbo for providing additional data that makes this look very unlikely: the open source first-person shooter Tremulous, which is included in some Linux distributions, has Linux clients making up around 16% of their total playerbase.

Edit #2: Thanks to r00b for pointing out this comment by Splash Damage‘s Gordon Biggans which explains the stats:

It’s players on linux servers.

Hot on the heels of the version 1.4 update, here are a few more new downloads for Splash Damage and id Software’s sci-fi multiplayer first-person shooter, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars:

• A new demo with the features/functionality/bugfixes in the current retail version.
• A hotfix for the 1.4 retail build to address a server crash issue – admins, you’ll want to grab this.
• The final ET:QW Software Development Kit; Mxyzptlk has helpfully posted a guide to compiling the game logic code in Linux on the community forums; you’ll need to use Wine to install the SDK though. There’s also lots of resources available at the official editing wiki.

Other Linux-specific questions are addressed at the ET:QW GNU/Linux FAQ. Finally, if you’re in the United States, ET:QW is available at Best Buy for $20 this week.

The latest Linux Games Podcast episode is up. Podcast 11 is our “Hey, We Haven’t Done a Podcast In a While” Episode!

Joining myself on this episode is Dustin “Crusader” Reyes.

URL dump from this episode:

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Desktop Tower Defense
Microsoft Sidewinder Mouse
Logitech G9
Hideous New Logitech G5 Mouse
Creative’s Linux Driver Site
Ubuntu Forums Thread for X-Fi Drivers
Abuse
Penumbra Stuff
ET:QW Stats for Crusader
ET:QW Stats for zakk
X3: Reunion
Unreal Tournament 3
Phoronix UT3 Delay Post
Savage 2
Tribes 2
Savage 1
Penny Arcade
…And their game
EVE Online
Vendetta Online
Freeciv
UFO Alien Invasion
NVIDIA Open-Source Rumor
Warsow
Micropolis Source Code Released

iTunes users can click the iTunes Only link below, or drag and drop the feed link to iTunes, or click Advanced – Subscribe to Podcast and copy the feed url there, or just hit update if you’ve already subscribed. The podcast is also in the iTunes Music Store. For any other podcasting programs, you’ll need to insert the feed url into it.

Enjoy, leave feedback here, in the new forum, on iTunes, digg us, and tell your friends!

Linux Games Podcast 11 Download: [ iTunes Only | MP3 RSS Feed | Straight MP3 | Straight Ogg Vorbis ]

Splash Damage and id Software have released the version 1.4 update (changelog) for their sci-fi multiplayer first-person shooter, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. I don’t have a Linux-specific changelog just yet (but when there is, it’ll be up at the ET:QW GNU/Linux FAQ), but here’s a rundown on the many UI and gameplay changes this patch brings.

Edit: Thanks to Logy for posting the Linux details:

• SDL joystick support
  • as for the Windows version there is no GUI to configure, you need to read:
  • http://community.enemyterritory.com/forums/showpost.php?p=55937
  • listController shows the joysticks that are bound
  • you can also set in_showJoy to see joystick buttons and axes printed to the console
  • tested with one xbox 360 controller
  • other joysticks and multiple joysticks should work fine, but is untested (editor’s note: a SIXAXIS controller worked for me)
• support for render threading with a new binary: etqw-rthread.x86
  • this requires a modified libSDL however (1.2.12), which is provided
  • the patch to the source modifications is provided as well
  • in this binary, r_useThreadedRenderer can be modified (still defaults to 0 however)
• r_displayRefresh is not supported on Linux (SDL provides no support for this)
  • updated the cvar to avoid confusion
• cleaned up some input code hacks in SDL that are now covered by better i18n support in game core
• bind more keys through SDL (print/menu/pause/scrollock), distinguish left/right on shift/ctrl/alt
• support the lwin/rwin key binds (official gamecode may not allow binding them yet)
• fix crash if mic failed to init when trying to read sound (Alsa backend)
• support r_swapInterval cvar to control vsync (was not hooked up before)
  • only supported in SDL >= 1.2.10
  • the attribute reporting for it seems broken on most distributions
• add s_alsa_mic to use a different Alsa device for the mic input
• add sys_nohup cvar to ignore SIGHUP signals (if you ever need it)

Download: [ AtomicGamer (client) | AtomicGamer (server only) | idsoftware.com (torrent) | other mirrors ]

Mod DB is conducting voting for their 2007 Mod of the Year awards through January 1st; readers are to whittle down a list of 100 mods to the top 5. Here are the Linux titles on the list this year:

• Released
  • BSG: Beyond the Red Line
  • Tremulous
  • Warsow
  • World of Padman
  • Urban Terror
  • Paintball 2 (Quake 2)
  • Killing Floor (Unreal Tournament 2004)
• Upcoming:
  • The Dark Mod (Doom 3)
  • Wheels of War (Enemy Territory: Quake Wars)

The first mod for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars that I’m aware of has been released: Quake Wars: Tactical Assault:

Quake Wars: Tactical Assault is a revamp of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars’ core gameplay, with the intention of creating a grittier, more realistic environment than the base game, while still telling the story of the Strogg invasion of Earth.

• Strafejumping eliminated.
• Head and neck hit locations’ damage multipliers increased slightly.
• Unscoped/unironsighted weapon spreads increased(accuracy decreased).
• Weapon damages against players increased.
• Weapon damages against vehicles and deployables decreased.
• Player respawn times increased.
• Vehicle respawn times increased.

You’ll want to get the base 0.1 release and the 0.11 Linux patch.

Download: [ servequake.com ]