Map tool and Level Builder, Gtk Radiant has released it's latest version 1.5.0. The latest build has some nice cosmetic enhancements, as well as fixes for some minor bugs. You can check out the full list of changes right here in the changelog and you can head over to qeradiant.com to grab the file in both Windows and Linux flavours.

The folks over at Doom3Fortress have posted an update on the status of their mod which has been rumoured lately to halt work and jump ship to bigger and better things. It turns out that the team will be stopping work on the mod due to certain factors for a while and will be turning their attention else where. Here's the update:

Those of you who frequent our forums already know we've been having some problems with D3F. The main culperate being Doom3. It just seems there is no interest in Doom3 anymore, most of the team we had has disappeared without saying anything. When I send emails, I get no replies. On top of losing talent, is the Doom3 netcode issue. We've come to a road block that we were hoping we could overcome, but this hasn't been the case. The Doom3 netcode as it is just can't support the player base we have in mind. So with those things in mind... Doom3 dying out already, loss of talent, and the netcode, here is what will happen with D3F.

Either Doom3 will have to release an update that can support at least a 16 player base, or we wait for Quake4. We'd like to get a release for Doom3, but until a netcode update comes along, I don't see this happening.

I'd like to thank everyone who has been supporting us. This doesn't mark the end of D3F, it simply marks a problem in development where we need to wait for something to happen. This mod WILL be finished, i promise you that. Whether its Doom3 or Quake4, it will happen. I'd also like to thank planetdoom for all their patience, help, hosting, and pimping they have done for us, I could have never asked for a better host.

In the meantime... some of us are working on a HL2 mod. Introducing Rocket Arena: Source! RAS will be our own version of Rocket Arena based on the awesome series of mod's for the Quake series by David 'crt' Wright.

Good luck to the guys in their future endeavours and here's to hoping that D3Fortress makes it to the surface one day.

GameSpy.com has put up their lists of nominations for you, the fans, to vote on the games you thought were the best of this year. Unlike other game "best of"'s that are taking place, GameSpy actually gives you a choice of many games in each category to pick from and not just 4 games, 2 of which haven't even been released, like other game votings. Keep in mind also that this is not for GameSpy's Game of the Year, this is voting for GameSpy's Gamer's Choice, what the gaming population and communities thought were the best games. Out of the 11 categories, DOOM 3 has a nomination in 3 of them. They are, best Overall PC Game, Best Action Game and Best Multiplayer. Head on over to GameSpy's Gamer's Choice and get voting!

Ice Weasel from IDDQD Games dropped us a line to let us know they are hard at work on DOOM 3.1, a total conversion for DOOM 3. As you can tell from the name, they are bringing back the old Doom experience and adopting it to DOOM3 with updated graphics and all that hullabaloo. They have updated their site with screens 'o plenty of levels E1M4 and E1M8 that are in the works. He also mentions that they could use a helping hand with texture creation, modelling, coding (in the SDK), scripting, sound work and GUI creation. If you want to know more about DOOM 3.1 or think you would be able to give them some help, head on over to their site and drop them a line!

VIA Gamers Arena have released the second in their series of DOOM 3 Deathmatch maps, VIAVGA DM2. VIAVGA DM2 is a heavily detailed level that has been built to accomodate large sized deathmatch and team deathmatch games, offering a well-lit free-flowing design. Created by Borg, the same author of the popular VIAVGADM1 map, this map will be a definate keeper and a must in any servers rotation. You can check out the map and more info on it right here.

Trevor's Doom 3 Coding Center is up and open for business. One of the latest sites to be hosted here at planetDOOM, the site is filled with tutorials about the Doom 3 SDK and more are being added all the time. For all you coders out there, this is one site that you will want to keep an eye on! Head on over to the DOOM 3 Coding Center to take a look.

Dark Horizons has the latest bit of info about the DOOM movie posted up from a correspondent that recently attended the set in Prague. The article goes into details about many of the changes the movie has over the games and I'm sure it has the DOOM community shaking their head and asking "WHY?". You can check out the article right here.

Thanks Ant for the heads up!

Calimer from the LMS mod sent over a list of updates that the team has been hard at work on. Among the updates are a "Plasma Thrower" weapon model that is in development, custom music and sounds being developed for the maps and an end game score list that will show everyone's final frag count, time alive, score and list it in order from highest score to lowest. They have also updated their media section on site with images from their latest map, hanger_incursion created by timbobsteve. For the full run down of all the updates they have been working on, be sure to head over to the LMS website now!

The Spaniard from whutDuFuk.com had a chance to catch up with the mod team from DOOM 3: Evolution and rifle off a few questions at them. The interview goes well into detail about the mod with talk about the gameplay, the weapons and the gametypes that will be found in it when it is complete. Head on over to WhutDuFuk.com and scope out the interview for yourself to learn more!

The DOOM 3: Hell on Earth mod team have posted up their final image of the Combat Shotgun and what it looks like skinned and ready to go. Now that there is one weapon done and in game, they are that much closer to having this great looking mod available to play! You can hit their media section to take a peeksy at the screen.

In the recent Ask Squishy article, it was brought up that the rotund Helga, from Planetwolfenstein's Dear Helga, would be able to kick the Squish's ass in a deathmatch. With Polly not liking that cracker, the Squish immediately issued a challenge to the butcher of the english language, and the fight was on. The game was Quake3Arena and the prize was nothing more than utter humilition of your opponent and bragging rights. You can check out how the matches transpired right here.

The Recall to Hell team sent over word that they have posted up 6 new screens on their site to show off the environments and maps of the upcoming mod. The mod which is currently looking to hire some mappers, modelers and coders has also just launched discussion forums on their site. Want to know more? Head on over and take a peek at Recall to Hell!

A new total conversion on the horizon for DOOM 3, entitled Hexen: Edge Of Chaos, takes the form of none other than the classic Ravensoft game, Hexen. The TC will feature all of the weapons as featured in Hexen 1 and as a bonus, the gravity gun will be used in the form of a magical spell. There will be 3 episodes with 6 maps initially, then they intend on releasing another 12 maps, for a total of 6 episodes to match the content of Hexen 1. Sounds pretty excellent, although you will be waiting a while to get your hands on it. The intended release date is February or March 2005. They also have a help wanted section up, so if you would like to give them a hand, head over to their site and drop them a line!

Napalm, the creator of the Material File Generator, or MaGen for short, dropped us a line to let everyone know that version 1.0 of his tool is up for download. The MaGen tool is for batch generation of material files for DOOM3 engine textures to save a lot of scripting and cut and pasting. To use the generator properly, you'll need to use id's naming conventions, but all is explained in the readme that comes with the file. Head on over to chainsaw.cz or fileplanet to grab the file.

The team creating the Total Conversion for DOOM 3 entitled, The Evil, have added a few new screens to their media section. The new screens show off some location environments, water effects and a spiffy melee weapon, the cleaver. Head on over to their site to check out the goods.

Our brand spanking new Level of the Week reviewer, Fallen, has handed in her first article for everyone to mull over. The review covers a small but fun deathmatch map entitled, Wrong Turn and was created by the level designer Method. Not to be content with just a review of the map, as an added bonus, Fallen even snagged an interview with the author and fired off some questions at him about the map and mapping in general. You can check out the review here, the interview here and when you are done with the reading, go grab the map right here and frag to your heart's content!

According to TTimo's .plan file update, the new DOOM 3 GNU/Linux Binaries are available. The binaries include a new sound file which includes multichannel sound output as well as some bug squashes from the pevious version. For the full scoop on the update, you can read the .plan file here and grab the binaries here from fileplanet and here from fileshack.

Doom3portal.com has put together an article dealing with what will happen now that DOOM 3 has been out for awhile. The article covers the future expansion pack, Resurrection of Evil, up and coming mods in creation and the post DOOM 3 lull that we seem to be lurking in now. Head on over to Doom3portal and take a gander at the article and feel free to leave your comments!

As mentioned earlier this week, Brendon Chung, the author of the previously released map Barista 3, would be releasing his latest creation today, Friday the 26th. The single player mod, Pathways Redux is based upon the Bungie Studios game "Pathways into Darkness" and is now available for all to enjoy. Head on over to his site for more info and to grab the file.

After putting out a call for a Level of the Week writer, we received quite a number of applications for the position. With the odd e-mail screw ups and bounced e-mails that were and weren't coming through, it made it pretty frustrating but it all eventually worked out. As for the submissions, I thank you all who did submit your work and when it finally came down to the last two choices, it took about a half a day to finally decide on one. After all was said and done, .x.fallen, who some may know from the forums has been hired as the LotW writer and we look forward to the weekly reviews!

We will be hiring more staff in the near future for projects being planned on and we are still currently seeking out an artist to create a weekly DOOM cartoon. As jobs become available, they will be posted on our jobs page. Thanks again to all that applied!

Brendon Chung, who some of you may recall as the author of the DOOM 3 map Barista 3, dropped us a line to let people know that his latest creation, Pathways Redux, will be available this Friday, November 26. The Single Player mod is based upon the original game by Bungie studios called "Pathways Into Darkness". You can check out his site to peek at a screen or two and to learn more about it.

According to theage.com, The National Institute on Media and the Family, a non-profit organization examining the electronic media's impact on families, released its ninth annual MediaWise Video Game Report Card, which places Doom 3 on top of its list of games children and teens should avoid. Other games that were recommended to be avoided were Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Half Life 2 and Halo 2. You can read the "Report Card" right here.

A thread over on Doom3world.org shows off a few screens of a partial map that was created for DOOM 3 using the textures from HalfLife 2. At the risk of setting off a global interent riot about the two games, the screenshots do look pretty impressive, if only for comparisons sake, without the hair pulling and name calling. Feel free to take a look at the images right here.

The mod team currently working on the DOOM 3 mod, Recall to Hell is looking for a bit of help. The positions they are looking to fill are for mappers, modelers, animators, texture artists, coders, scripters and sound and vocal artists. As you can see they need just a little bit of help with their mod and could use the communities help. The mod is described as "aiming at the creation of a complex and deep single-player-campaign which is going to improve upon the strong points of the original doom.3 as well as eliminate all shortcomings and weaknesses." If you would like to know more about the mod, you can hit up their site and if you would like to give them a hand, be sure to drop them a line!

Well apparently our e-mail is getting gobbled up again by the internet goblins and it took awhile for Argo to get this news through to us. The D3: HoE Mod team have uploaded a render of their Pain Elemental model to be used in their upcoming single player sequel for DOOM 3. You can check it out here as well as previous model renders for some of the other monsters at the their site.

HandD, from Doom3maps.de, dropped us line to let us know that they have created a spin off site to id Software's resource and development site with a little German flair. Iddevnet.de is a german language development and resource site answering questions regarding DOOM 3's editing issues and an SDK infobase as well. If you are of zee German speaking population and would prefer a development site in the german language, then this is the place for you!

Calimer from the Last Man Standing mod, made a quick video to prove to all the nay sayers out there that the Fortcomp map they created is actually beatable as many have been complaining and saying that it was not. The video is in hi-res but there is also a low res version for those of you with lesser bandwidth to spare. You can grab the video here from the LMS site.

Thanks to Crimsonhead on our forums, he had a chance to pick up the Holiay issue of Computer Gaming World, which has a good look at the upcoming DOOM 3 expansion pack. Here are some tidbits of info gathered from it:

Characters:
• Vulgars - The same as Imps only faster and they do a lot more wall crawling.
• Bruisers - Half mecahnical monsters with computer monitors for there mouth, they have a tendency to hide as wall monitors and then bust through the walls after you.
• The Forgotten - Same as the Lost Souls in Classic Doom
• Hell Hunters - Like Floating legless HellKnights, these monsters have the ability to warp time.
  
  New Weapons/Items:
• The Double Barrel Shotgun - Goes Boom.
• The Grabber - Gravity Gun.
• The Artifact - Allows the player to manipulate time by slowing the world down, also increases damage and makes you invincible.
• Environment suits - They will have flashlights mounted on them.
  
  New MultiPlayer Features:
• Four new MP maps - Two are in Hell, one in the ancient civilization, then another base type map. It was also mentioned that the Maps will be considerably larger than DOOM 3's.
• 8 Player limit

Vorrik from the total conversion, DOOM 3 Jedi, dropped us a line to let everyone know they have redesigned their website away from the red and black that it was previously. The new look is clean and crisp and all around spankerific if I do say so myself. Head on over to D3 Jedi to scope out the new environment and if you unfamiliar with it,check out the mod itself while your there!

The last poll we had up was to deal with the DOOM 3 expansion pack announced a few weeks ago. We asked what you would rather see in it out of four choices; new location, enemies, weapons, or an improved multiplayer. Suprisingly enough it was almost dead even between the 4 choices but the location pulled out in front by a couple of percentages. If this poll is an idicator of anything for the new Xpac, it's that id Software should include all of the choices listed to make everyone happy! Here are the final results.

On to the new poll which pits PlanetDOOM's drunken cacodemon, Squishy, against PlanetWolfenstein's sausage loving, Helga. In the latest Squishy article, Squishy called out Helga in a deathmatch challenge and Helga has replied to this challenge in her column here. So the poll on both PlanetWolf and on PlanetDOOM is, "Who will win the deathmatch?" Vote and let us know what you think!