We are pleased to announce the release of IOS Beta 4.0. Download the full IOS Beta 4.0 Installation from the links below. Thanks to everyone who helped make it possible.

Download IOS Beta 4.0 for Windows (106,649,672 bytes) from FilePlanet

Download IOS Beta 4.0 for Linux (107,687,865 bytes) from FilePlanet

Games Media Properties announced today that GameRiot will begin its fourth national tour starting in Spring 2005. The gaming festival will tour eight cities March, April and May, kicking off 2005 for GameRiot, which will host 85 events in 30 markets, with thousands of gamers expected to attend. GameRiot will display many new and not-yet-released titles, including Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory.

# Saturday, March 26 Las Vegas, Nev. - Extreme Thing
# Saturday, April 2 San Mateo, Calif. - Hot Import Nights
# Saturday, April 9 Houston, Texas - Hot Import Nights
# Saturday, April 16 Orlando, Fla. - Hot Import Nights
# Saturday, April 23 Charlotte, NC - Hot Import Nights
# Wednesday, April 27 to Sun., May 1 West Palm Beach, Fla. - Sunfest
# Saturday, April 30 Boston, Mass. - Hot Import Nights
# Saturday, May 21 Atlanta, Ga. - Hot Import Nights

BF2 Hands-On

Vehicle combat is also a blast, and the designers seem to have learned lessons from Battlefield Vietnam. In particular, being the gunner in a helicopter is a lot easier now, since you're no longer at the mercy of the pilot's maneuvering; you now have a gun camera that allows you to lock onto a target. And with the addition of guided weapons, you can steer your missiles onto the target by simply clicking repeatedly for course correction.

GameSpot

Source: PlanetBattlefield

Transformer Mod Update ��
00:58 | by NOoM
The Transformer Mod has several updates on their website. They'd like to let everyone know that they've extended the time alotted to apply for beta tester. All testers must be available to test some time between 9am - 3pm EST. Go to their website for more on this. They also have a bunch of new screenies, check it out:

The first two images show the Autobot Transport Vehicle (ATV) and the Decepticon Transport Vehicle (DTV). This hovercraft can transport up to six players and works great at ramming enemy robots. See the Rest...

Transformer Mod

• Enhanced netcode now defaults off serverside.
• Added \\"Enhanced Netcode=Enabled\\" message to Onjoin Box if Enhanced Netcode is enabled.
• Fixed bug in Enhanced Netcode causing projectiles to not collide with static meshes at very close ranges.
• Fixed GetWeapon binds not working with standard binds when using enhanced netcode.
• Colored names on enemy targetting disabled by default.
• Adrenaline taken stat now reports 2 as it should.
• Red/Blue Team Score in the player list will no longer report a ping.
• Voting failed message is now different if a vote timed out or voted no.
• GUI now grey outs warmup voting when warmup voting is disabled serverside.

A few shafts of sunlight sneak through the curtain into the main room. Civilization is nearing collapse and two major alliances prepare for the ultimate conflict. You hear a knock on the door. They must be recalling you from leave. It must be serious. Early in the morning of 21st September, Chinese troops were seen marching across the Amur River toward Siberia. The E.U. reactionary force arrived in Siberia six days later. They were both marching towards the same target�towards the same fate. In a couple of weeks you will be marching across the same river. It was a war everybody saw coming but nobody suspected would ever come true.

The year is 2020 and the battle for oil has come, whose side are you on?

A few shafts of sunlight sneak through the curtain into the main room. Civilization is nearing collapse and two major alliances prepare for the ultimate conflict. You hear a knock on the door. They must be recalling you from leave. It must be serious. Early in the morning of 21st September, Chinese troops were seen marching across the Amur River toward Siberia. The E.U. reactionary force arrived in Siberia six days later. They were both marching towards the same target�towards the same fate. In a couple of weeks you will be marching across the same river. It was a war everybody saw coming but nobody suspected would ever come true.

The year is 2020 and the battle for oil has come, whose side are you on?

Maps:

Added ctf_gunshot

Updated ctf_defrost

Updated ctf_2fort_lite

Updated ctf_curved

Updated ctf_trainingday

Updated ctf_lambda_bunker

Features/Tweaks:

Added ctf_respawndelay to allow servers to set how long players wait before respawn

Added ctf_warmup to allow warmup mode (set to # seconds of warmup)

Re-enabled sprint and added walk/run speed difference

Added extra scoreboard stats for captures, returns, and flag carrier kills

Added cl_autoweaponswitch cvar to not switch weapon on pickup

Added auto-team balance

Added second default key (M) to open team selection menu

Added text to spectator hud reminding users how to open team selection menu

Tweaked SMG and pulse rifle damage

Restored falling damage to Alpha level

Made rockets dumb fire only

Changed default spawn weapon to smg from gravity gun

Improved HUD

Once you drop the flag, you can't pick it up for 3 seconds

Bug Fixes:

Fixed bug that could cause crash immediately on joining a server

Fixed bug where players killed at just the right time could respawn during intermission

Changed default sk_healthkit value to 25

Fixed ctf_return_flag entity

Fixed bounding box on flag being too big

Fixed incorrect RPG weight

CLEARED FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Modern Warfare: Black Hawk Down Progress Update
Maytridy (Maytridy@mwbhd.com)
MSpencer (mspencer@mwbhd.com)
Target Practice (targetpractice@mwbhd.com)
-------------------------------------------------------

Hey Everyone,

We've got a decent update for you all today. First off, I would like to welcome new members; Kazjak, Kilroy, and Chris_P to the team! Kazjak will be mapping, Kilroy will be doing 2d work ranging from textures to skins, and Chris_P wil be coding. So, a warm welcome to all!

I would like to draw your attention to the Developer's Showcase, located in our forums. This is a new addition to the MW:BHD community that gives our fans more insight on how the mod is progressing. Finished, or work in progress material is posted in the Developer's Showcase long before it makes its way to the front page, so be sure to check it out!

Currently, we are seeking a few more members to fill our staff slots. We are accepting applications (Please mail to the emails specified above with examples of past work) for the following positions (Positions which are in dire need of filling are indicated by a *):

-Sound Artists*
-Importers\exporters*
-Weapon animators *
-Mappers*
-UVW Unwrappers
-2D Map Texture artist\graphic artist

We have also split the vehicles and weapons pages into two sections for your convenience. One section will be the weapons and vehicles used in the 1993 Somalia conflict (1993) and the other section with be the weapons and vehicles used in modern conflicts such as Iraq. (The new pages will be in effect within the next few hours)

That's all for today, enjoy!

...With Onslaught, the problem is that once one team has a significant advantage, it's often difficult for the other team to mount a comeback. This is particularly the case on node layouts with only a single node connection to the powercore (which is a good layout for small player counts, but not for larger player counts). We tried to address this by providing multiple node layouts, but unfortunately people tend to play with the default layout.

We're working on some new game play mechanics to address this issue for the next Unreal Tournament.

Activision announces agreement with Gray Matter and Treyarch for new WWII shooter for "the consoles"; publisher dismisses Xbox mention as a "typo."

This morning, Atari announced that it had struck a deal with Call of Duty: Finest Hour developer Spark Unlimited to develop a next-generation console game. In a case of not-so-coincidental timing, Activision announced that it is also planning a new Call of Duty console game, due "this fall." Previously, the only Call of Duty console game was Finest Hour for the Xbox, GameCube, and PlayStation 2.

But while Activision was forthcoming about the developers behind the new game--Spider-Man 2 shop Treyarch and internal studio Gray Matter, maker of the United Offensive PC expansion pack--it was less forthcoming about which platform it would be released for. The release said only that "Activision will be enlisting gamers in an all-new tour of duty this fall with its latest Call of Duty game for the consoles." (Emphasis added.)

Readers of the announcement debated whether the awkward vagueness of the release was by design or accident. One leading theory said that an earlier draft of the announcement had listed the current-generation consoles the game was being released for, but the mention was deleted, hence the awkwardly placed "the." This assertion seemed backed up by a footnote in the initial PR Newswire release that listed a Microsoft disclaimer for the Xbox. No other mention was made of any other system, either current or next-generation.

When asked to clarify exactly which consoles the Treyarch/Gray Matter Call of Duty would be released for, an Activision rep would say only that "it will be released for 'the consoles.' That's all we're saying at this time." The same rep dismissed the Xbox mention as a "typo." "That's just boilerplate that we put on every press release. It doesn't mean anything," said the spokesperson. Mention of the Xbox was not present in a later e-mail announcement sent out by Activison.

Presumably, the question of which console the Treyarch/Gray Matter Call of Duty is set to hit will be answered in the coming months.

Beta 1.2 is very close to ready now, we're working on a few last updates to maps and then it will be ready to go. Here's a short list of some of the new things you'll find in Beta 1.2.

Re-enabled sprint and added walk/run speed difference

Added ctf_respawndelay to allow servers to set how long players wait before respawn

Added extra scoreboard stats for captures and returns

Added auto-team balance

Added cl_autoweaponswitch cvar to not switch weapon on pickup

New and imporved HUD

There's plenty more coming up in Beta 1.2, so stay tuned. Release is not far away!

• Scripter
• Skinner
• Modder

Contact this e-mail address if interested.

AnandTech: Programming multiple threads can be complex. Wasn't it very hard to deal with the typical problems of programming multithreaded such as deadlocks, racing and synchronization?

Tim Sweeney: Yes! These are hard problems, certainly not the kind of problems every game industry programmer is going to want to tackle. This is also why it's especially important to focus multithreading efforts on the self-contained and performance-critical subsystems in an engine that offer the most potential performance gain. You definitely don't want to execute your 150,000 lines of object-oriented gameplay logic across multiple threads - the combinatorical complexity of all of the interactions is beyond what a team can economically manage. But if you're looking at handing off physics calculations or animation updates to threads, that becomes a more tractable problem.

Dear Mr. Gates:
Nearly two years ago I wrote you to alert you that the Microsoft XBox game Halo helped train D.C. Beltway Sniper Lee Boyd Malvo to kill. I received no response from anyone at Microsoft in that regard. Last Tuesday I testified before the House Judiciary Committee of the Maryland General Assembly and noted your company�s aforementioned role in terrorizing the residents of Maryland.

Last Sunday I appeared on CBS�s 60 Minutes to explain a wrongful death lawsuit we have filed in Alabama on behalf of the families of three law enforcement officials slain by a teen who trained on Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City to kill. As you know, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is even more violent. Already there have been killing incidents linked to this latest GTA game. However, despite this public safety hazard posed by the GTA games, it is reported that your Microsoft Corporation is set to release GTA: San Andreas for play on Microsoft�s XBox on June 7, 2005. I intend to make sure that does not happen.

Maps -E1M2 by Kazahana -E1M5 by Blaster -Deathmatch by Gazz

Yes, that's right, we are hoping to have deathmatch and/or Co-op built into the next release for play on all of the maps that are currently available in Classic Doom 3.

Menu System At present SnoopJedi is working hard at creating a whole new user interface for the project. Initial design work is over and coding is well underway. All of the menu's graphical assets will be created by our new artist, Blasowicz

Weapon Models The new weapon model that is currently well on the way to completion is a replacement chaingun. Please see the images below by SlogBog.

General Information Now, what most of you are probably asking. What is the release date for the next alpha release? Unfortunately we can only give a rough estimation due to many factors but mainly due to real life commitments. The next release will be around June, so it is a little way off, however we all hope, with all the added features, it will be well worth the wait.

News
Screenshots

Source: PlanetDOOM