News from the Net

              From our reporter, Alex van Kaam

@~As you should have noticed, System Shock 2 is finally coming out
@~in Europe, it's always a riddle why EA release different versions
@~all the time. I do recommend you head over to www.shock2.com and
@~download the patch, it saved my one and only save game, yes very
@~dumb, and thus saved me from restarting the game when I was
@~already halfway through...... anyways, System Shock 2 is on the
@~3rd spot of best games I ever played, right after DM and System
@~Shock 1. Also check out www.sshock2.com for news, info and art
@~based on the game.... my desktop has never looked this cool :-)
                         ---o---
@~Terilem Dragon over at
@~http://www.powerup.com.au/gjdanger/Terilem/faqindex.html has
@~updated his Ultima IX FAQ, and believe me, if there is anything
@~you want to know about Ultima IX, you will find it here, a very
@~good site indeed !!!
                         ---o---
@~As you might have heard, Ultima IX is getting closer and closer to
@~its release date, and the people over at Origin have created a
@~Demo which was only intended to feature on the CD-ROM of the
@~December issue of Computer Gaming World, however you can download
@~it now at:  http://www.3dfiles.com/games/ultimaixascension.shtml,
@~it's 250MB so if you've got a modem then it might be cheaper to
@~get the magazine. What ever you do, it's well worth it, the game
@~looks great, the controls are a bit hard to explain, but they work
@~very well, I even encountered a puzzle which was new!!! Yes, new,
@~it was not hard or anything, it was just new, unseen before by my
@~eyes....cool
                         ---o---
@~CGO has put up another article on Ultima IX, this time more based
@~on how Ultima all began, a list of old titles and what they really
@~were. Head over to
@~http://www.cdmag.com/Home/home.html?article=/articles/023/007
@~/ultimah_featur e.html to check it out, or just read my little
@~extract (almost all of it :-P ):


Part I: Richard Garriott Learns to Make a Game

Ultima 0: Akalabeth (1979) "It really is Ultima 0. Literally, if I
go into a dungeon, the exact same code is used in Ultima I. The
only thing we added was the bitmapped graphics for the outdoor
areas. I created Akalabeth for me, in the summer after my senior
year in high school when I was working at a ComputerLand store.
The owner convinced me to self-publish the game, so I went out and
produced 200 ziplock bags, coversheets and printed manuals. [He
takes a box of the actual original games off the shelf.] None of
these have disks because they were expensive, and I'd only copy
them when I needed them. I created 16 of them, and sold 15 in the
store. I manufactured the 16th, and here it is.  Then a publisher
in California got hold of it and purchased the publishing rights.

Ultima I (1980) "It was written in BASIC. It's like 3000 lines of
code in total. [The entire game] takes less memory than one
texture in the current game."


Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress (1982) "This is the
potpourri of games. It had Earth, multiple time zones, fantasy
past, science-fiction future, travelling to the nine planets, 3D
Star Wars-ian space travel, 2D Star Trek-style docking, 3D
dungeons. way too much."

Ultima III: Exodus (1983) "This was the first game I thought was
really well structured. I finally said, 'I really know how to make
a game now.' It kind of brought to a close the 'Richard Garriott
learns to make a game by himself' trilogy."

Part II: Emerging Ambitions And Personal Introspection

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985) "This introduced the
virtues.  Though a few people did a few things, it mostly felt
like I was doing it by myself. It was an extremely personal game
for me; soul-searching, thinking about why I was making games, and
the content of the game became king-the story, etc.-not just the
mechanics."

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny (1988) "It's extremely difficult to
make the transition from being the sole creator to it being a
collaborative creation. With this game, I had to learn to stop
telling people what to do and how to do it and give them the
vision of what we're trying to create. It was a difficult game."

Ultima VI: The False Prophet (1990) "The end of what I call the
'goody-two-shoes' games. There were no big evil bad guys in
Ultimas IV, V and VI. There was no counterpoint to the Avatar.
They were all games about personal introspection."

Part III: The Final Trilogy and One Misstep

Ultima VII: The Black Gate (1992) "Back to the dark side. I wanted
to explore the negative sides of your personal psyche. I wanted to
put you in a situation where there really was a bad guy. It's also
the first time I planned an entire trilogy from the start."

Ultima VIII: Pagan (1994) "The important lesson of this game is
that every Ultima has been late except for two, and this is one of
them. The reason it wasn't late is because it was the first
project with a public company, and they were screaming 'quarter,
quarter, if we don't make this quarter the stock price is going to
crater,' which it never does. So I sacrificed everything to
appease stockholders, which was a mistake. We probably shipped it
three months unfinished."

Ultima IX: Ascension (1999) "This is really Ultima IX Revision II,
where Revision I died when we dropped the bitmap game and sent the
team to work on Ultima Online."

@~Weird, I kinda liked Ultima VIII, it had it flaws but it was fun
@~to play..... oh well :-), and finally there is this link
@~http://www.cdmag.com/Home/home.html?article=/articles/023/004
@~/garriott_inter view6.html which leads to an interview with Lord
@~British, he sure is popular these days.
                         ---o---
@~Microsoft have been working on Asheron's Call for some time now,
@~it's a multiplayer online RPG, kinda like Ultima Online I guess.
@~Over at BetaBites they have a new review/impression of the 2nd
@~Beta, it all sounds great, I just don't fancy the graphics, they
@~are okay but something is wrong with it... I think, maybe too
@~childish, I dunno, but here is the link:
@~http://www.betabites.com/features/ac/acgame.html. CNET Gamecenter
@~also put up a small update about Asheron's Call at
@~http://www.gamecenter.com/News/Item/0,3,0-3197,00.html?st.gc.
@~gn.prev
                         ---o---
@~Talking about multiplayer games, there is http://www.atriarch.com/
@~which is all about Atriarch. On this page they have released the
@~first screenshots, and I must say they look a LOT better then
@~Asheron, I also like this part they mention: "A unique feature
@~planned for Atriarch is the ability for players to modify the
@~terrain, for example, digging moats". Over at http://www.ga-
@~rpg.com/interviews/atriarch/ they posted an interview with the
@~lead programmer of the game, below is a small section:

     Do you think Atriarch will advance the role-play genre? If
     so, in what ways?

We are calling Atriarch a strategic roleplaying game, because we
want to bring more to roleplaying than just stats. Players should
have choices in how they pursue their goals. However, choices
don't mean anything if they are static. Therefore, my goal in
designing Atriarch is to make the actions a player does in the
game affect the world, economy, and environment to different
degrees. In other words, every decision a player makes will have
the possibility of affecting the world as a whole.

     What will make Atriarch totally unique and original compared
     to other online games such as Everquest and Ultima Online?

I think there are a lot of things that make Atriarch unique. If I
had to narrow it down to two things, then I would choose the fact
that the world is modifiable real-time in game by the player and
the fact that Atriarch is the largest world simulation in
development (that I know about anyway).

Atriarch is similar to EQ in that it is also a first person
perspective and will have movable cameras. Atriarch is similar to
UO in the fact that we are creating a complete universe that will
continue to grow thrive over many, many years.

@~It all sounds and looks cool, hope it all ends up as they planned
@~it.
                         ---o---
@~Drakan has been out for a while, so for those of you who are
@~stuck, I know I was stuck at one spot, but that was a gamebug <g>,
@~head over to
@~http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/game/23954.html and check
@~out the walkthrough of the game.
                         ---o---
@~Talking about games already out, Discworld Noir has been out a
@~while now, but if you are stuck then head over to
@~http://www.nl.lspace.org/games/discworld/noir/index.html of the
@~walkthrough of this, in my eyes, dead funny game.
                         ---o---
@~In a surprise move, well to me anyway, CNN has put up an article
@~on 5 games to watch out for, I guess the world news was slow ?....
@~anyway they mention:

NeverWinter Nights
Developer: Bioware
Publisher: Interplay
Projected release date: Q4, 2000

Ironically, improvements in online networking have created an
opportunity for RPGs to return to their roots -- to the days of
pencil and paper, when interacting with an environment meant
dealing directly with a savvy dungeon master rather than a bunch
of cardboard non-player characters (NPCs) with canned dialog.

In multiplayer mode, NeverWinter Nights will allow you to act as
dungeon master for your friends, building the elements of an
elaborate, personalized environment.

Vampire: The Masquerade
Developer: Nihilistic Software
Publisher: Activision
Projected release date: Q1, 2000

The story of Vampire: The Masquerade is an epic one that moves
from Central Europe in the Middle Ages to contemporary London
and America, and involves the structures, relationships, and
battles of several clandestine vampire clans. You play a newly-
risen vampire, learning the ropes while you try to keep your
corrupted nature from getting out of hand.

Icewind Dale
Developer: Black Isle Studios
Publisher: Interplay
Projected release date: Q1, 2000

Baldur's Gate's success was a result of emphasising the action
elements in the standard RPG formula. Rather than alter that
formula in Icewind Dale, Black Isle Studios is refining it further.

Planescape: Torment
Developer: Black Isle Studios

Publisher: Interplay
Projected release date: Q4, 1999

Planescape: Torment resembles a world dreamed up by a monk
on a Jolt cola binge after reading Dante's Inferno. It's a grimy
medieval necropolis where demons, angels, and everything in
between rub shoulders in bars and on the battlefield.

Wizardry 8
Developer: Sir-Tech Canada
Publisher: Undetermined
Projected release date: Q4, 2000

More than four years in the making, Wizardry 8 picks up the saga
right where Wizardry VII left off. Your party arrives on the
low-tech planet of Dominus, where a Cosmic Lord has placed a pair
of enormously powerful artifacts, the Chaos Moliri (the Ultimate
Artifact of Change) and the Destinae Dominae (the Cosmic Cache of
Knowledge).
                         ---o---
@~I know this link http://www.tolkien.cro.net is not really games
@~orientated, but it leads to a really really great side about
@~Tolkien, all the questions you never knew the answers to, and some
@~very cool art and if you're there anyway why not go to
@~http://www.lordoftherings.net/, the official movie site....just
@~hope they make it into a good movie.....and finally talking about
@~the Lord of the Rings, someone translated all the main characters
@~into the Hero System Game, so if you're into that then this one
@~can save you a lot of time :-)
                         ---o---
@~NeverWinter Nights, the new game by BioWare (Baldur's Gate) and
@~also mentioned on the CNN site above, is getting a lot of positive
@~reviews, and by the looks of it is something new, an easy way to
@~do real RPG with friends, kinda like some of you did in the past
@~late at night, only now it can be done via the PC. The official
@~site is at http://www.neverwinternights.com/ and
@~http://www.nwvault.com/ runs a good fan site. Over at
@~http://www.wizards.com/3e/ you can get all the info you need on
@~the D&D 3rd edition on which NeverWinter Nights is based.
                         ---o---
@~To finish this month's News here is an updated list of release
@~dates, remember these are US based, so it might take some games
@~time to get here:

Recent Releases - Since October 8, 1999 Asheron's Call -
Microsoft Games
Delta Force 2 - NovaLogic
Driver - GT Interactive
Flanker 2.0 - Strategic Simulations, Inc.
Flight Simulator 2000 - Microsoft Games Grand Theft Auto 2 -
Rockstar Entertainment Links LS 2000 - Microsoft Games
Nocturne - Gathering of Developers
Omikron: The Nomad Soul - Eidos Interactive Pharaoh - Sierra
Revenant - Eidos Interactive
Septerra Core - Monolith
Seven Kingdoms II - Interactive Magic Shadow Company -
Interactive Magic
Sim Theme Park - Electronic Arts
Trickstyle - Acclaim
November 1999 Release Dates
09- Battlezone II - Activision
09- Quake III Arena - id Software
10- The Wheel of Time - GT Interactive
15- Age of Wonders - Gathering of Developers
15- Gabriel Knight 3 - Sierra
15- Messiah - Interplay
15- Odium - Monolith
15- Planescape: Torment - Interplay
15- SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle - Sierra 16- Interstate '82 -
Activision
19- Star Trek: Hidden Evil - Activision
22- Half-Life: Opposing Force - Sierra
22- Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation - Eidos Interactive
23- Star Trek: Klingon Academy - Interplay 24- Diablo II - Blizzard
Entertainment
30- Ultima IX: Ascension - Electronic Arts
30- Unreal Tournament - GT Interactive Crusaders of Might and
Magic - The 3DO Company


December 1999 Release Dates
01- Daikatana - Eidos Interactive
Black & White - Electronic Arts
Dark Reign 2 - Activision
MDK2 - Interplay
Star Trek: New Worlds - Interplay
Team Fortress 2 - Sierra
Wizardry VIII - Sir-Tech

January 2000 Release Dates
03- Duke Nukem Forever - GT Interactive
03- Imperium Galactica 2 - GT Interactive Reach for the Stars II -
Microsoft Games Starlancer - Microsoft Games
The Sims - Maxis
Wings of Destiny - Psygnosis

February 2000 Release Dates
01- Oni - Bungie
15- Shogun: Total War - Electronic Arts
15- Star Wars: Force Commander - LucasArts
15- Vampire: The Masquerade - Activision Ananchronox - Eidos
Interactive
Star Trek: Armada - Activision

March 2000 Release Dates
Baldur's Gate 2 - Interplay
Descent 4 - Interplay
Giants: Citizen Kabuto - Interplay
Might and Magic VIII - The 3DO Company Star Trek Voyager:
Elite Force - Activision Tomorrow Never Dies - MGM Interactive

April 2000 Release Dates
Loose Cannon - Microsoft Games

May 2000 Release Dates
Motocross Madness 2 - Microsoft Games Neverwinter Nights -
Interplay

July 2000 Release Dates
Conquest: Frontier Wars - Microsoft Games

September 2000 Release Dates
Harpoon 4 - Strategic Simulations, Inc.

October 2000 Release Dates
Warcraft III - Blizzard Entertainment

January 2001 Release Dates
Fighter Duel 2 - Ocean
Privateer 3 - Electronic Arts

@~Thanks for this list goes to
@~http://gaminghaven.com/ReleaseDates/

@~Till next time

@~Alex, who thinks Hakkinen rules
@~as will the Voodoo 4 :-P

                              - o -