News Archives

2001 - Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun 
       Jly Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

2000 - Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
       Jly Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

1999 - Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
       Jly Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

1998 - Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
       Jly Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

1997 - Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
       Jly Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 

• Squawk
• Hack & Slash
• Free Game Arts
• Open Quartz
• Help

Play testing results (13:50 PST)
Well, our Mano A Mano Squawk: Trydeen Hack and Slash playtesting has been very successful in terms of stabalizing the Hack and Slash Role-Playing sytem. The basic combat rules are getting seriously grilled over and seem to be holding up very well. As far as the GMless factor, it's quite functional, but does not seem to be as addictive as when we first tried it several years ago, so as far as developing that specific method of game play we still have a little work to do.
- BFGalbraith

reading (23:00 PST)
There's an interesting game design article at Gamasutra today.
- BFGalbraith

Hack and Slash Stall (13:45 PST)
Well, I was expeting us to release a stand alone version of Hack and Slash by July 4th, but at our current rate of progress, that seems very unlikely. Right now our problem is, as programers, geting oriented with Linux. However, this hasn't been our top priority either as you can tell from our news.
- BFGalbraith

Besides headbanging? (14:45 PST)
You may have been wondering what we've been up to besides listening to Iron Maiden. Well, a ways back we invented a new type of GMless roleplaying (it's extremely addictive,) and we are now adapting it to be used with the Hack and Slash role-playing sytem (HSRPS), specificly we are using it for a high-powered Trydeen setting (this is clasified as "Mano A Mano Squawk" on the Styles of Play page, which page is not yet up, all though fairly complete.)

Why? Well, before we hard code the HSRPS into our Quake C, we want to make sure these are the rules we want to stay with for a while. Our playtesting so far has been good, but not quite combat intensive enough to really drill all the HSRPS. This Mano A Mano Squawk game will really flush out all the problems with the current HSRPS.
- BFGalbraith

Rockin' weekend (13:35 PST)
Iron Maiden is back. I checked out the new Depeche Mode album and Iron Maiden album this weekend. Iron Maiden is now back up to my 3rd favorite band, replacing Depeche Mode, who is now off my top, well, favorite 1000 bands. No band has plummeted on my favorites list so drasticly since NIN released Downward Spiral.
- BFGalbraith

Furious B's troubled past (13:35 PST)
Apparently my hostile e-mail to game spy didn't make it through (the e-mail address I used wasn't on their "hosted all" list whatever that means.) Since I made it a news post I'm sure they'll hear of my opinion anyhow.

In the past I have also written nasty e-mails over game issues to the CEO's of Paladium (who I still dislike strongly, yes it was mostly hate mail,) and id software (I am now pro-id because of thier contributions to the GPL community and because their corporation is internally owned and getting a corporation to be that productive is very admiriable, unlike with say, Microsoft.)
- BFGalbraith

Furious B vs. File Planet (23:35 PST)
Game Spy sent me a spam that said "people don't want to wait in line for thier files, but this is important for us so we can get in touch with the community." I, recognizing this as a corporate level excuse, responded "My issue is simple: people should not have to fill out a form and/or remember a password just to download a supposedly publicly available file. It makes us, not gamespy, look like complete jerks for using Fileplanet. Furthermore, I find it difficult to believe that you all don't already realize this, and I don't appreciate you pretending like you don't."
- BFGalbraith

FGA Update (12:35 PST)
I've udpdated the Free Game Arts to include Game development tools and Game Platforms.
- BFGalbraith

Wanted Models (08:40 PST)
Brad Shea is looking for a Quake 2 model of The Tick cartoon character. See the Wanted Models Page for more information. Spoon!
- The Serpent Lord

No more lies (13:20 PST)
I have encountered an attitude in the USA computer industry about Linux. Apparently many feel that Linux covers a different market than Windows and that the two aren't competetors because the average person can't use Linux easily.

CORRECTION:The Mandrake distribution of Linux is easier to use than Windows. It is free. Allthough it is more powerful because it can do much more, you don't have to know how to do that extra stuff in order to use Linux to do everything most of you allready do in Windows. Every time you buy a computer that uses Windows you pay alot of extra money to Microsoft that you didn't have to for a particularly buggy operating system. The only advantage of Windows is that there is more popular software for it. But even this advantage is rapidly reversing with many games and other powerful user friendly software continually comming out for Linux.
- BFGalbraith

Koreans are cool (1:45 PST)
Due to a reputation of odd behavior during Star Craft confrontations, some unfortunate USA martial arts phenomenon, and other Korean problems, I was starting to become very confused about Korean culture. But now our Asian cyberculture counterparts have proven themselves to be most wonderful: Koreans are putting Linux on Pocket PCs! The Koreans are truly the heroes of this moment in history, right up their next to Alister Jackson. And hey, even Korean Martial Arts is on the up and up again.
- BFGalbraith

Dates Fixed (15:10 PST)
All our news dates were off by 1 day all the way back to June 5. Somebody tell me next time I start making an ass of myself :-)
- The Serpent Lord

Wanted Model (15:05 PST)
Mats Nyman is looking for a modeler for a Quake 1 mod. See the Wanted Models Page for more information.
- The Serpent Lord

Wanted Model (19:30 PST)
Claes Nyman is looking for a pistol model or a modeler for his Quake 1 mod. See the Wanted Models Page for more information.
- The Serpent Lord

Rumors and Ramblings (21:00 PST)
FrikaC at Inside 3D has some unkind things to say about the new Fileplanet download system. (Personally, I think our friends at Gamespy have forgotten Hippocrates advice to first of all do no harm. Their new features may be useful but may not be suitable for some projects.)

Will anyone be surprised if "The Mummy Returns" is released in Korea as "Diablo II: The Motion Picture"?

Sure, the Gameboy Advanced (AGB) has no backlight, but is it any worse than a Gameboy Color? It looks like it might be just a tiny bit darker when viewed from the best angle playing the same game. Staring at a glowing screen in the dark is probably not good for your eyes in the first place, so get over it - or get a pocket PC so you can play games like Quake, Open Quartz and Hack and Slash.
- The Serpent Lord

Texture Design Tip (20:00 PST)
A couple of weeks ago I came accross an article on Gamasutra called The Power of the High Pass Filter, which simply put, helps turn photographs with light and dark areas that look repetitive on a tiled texture map into better textures. Inspired by this article's in-depth explanation of the process, I was easily able to figure out a way to acheive the same effect in Paint Shop Pro which might also be applied to other editors that don't have a High Pass Filter, but have the basic Gaussian Blur feature that this filter is based on.
- The Serpent Lord

All hail Tux Box! (20:45 PST)
I've noticed it's been a little while since they've had news at the Tux Box home page. I hope everything is going well with that project. Definitely check this project out if you haven't already. I know we'll definitely be pushing to get Hack and Slash on the Tux Box as it materializes, to help developers make decent Action RPGs.
- BFGalbraith

Still in the woods (9:55 PST)
Something you may not know about Galbraith Games is that we procrastinated moving from DOS to Windows 95 untill '97 out of nothing less than sheer spite for Microsoft. Now we are having a little problem finding the bugs in our latest HandS Quake C because it crashes Quake, and in such cases Windows is totally useless. So that's when we realized that in order to make a decent Windows game we're going to have to use Linux.

So we downloaded an ISO for Mandrake. We were able to install it in less than a few hours, which is certainly more than we can say for our first experiences with Windows. To our pleasant suprise, we instantly had GUI, web access, multi-tasking, most everything we already use Windows for (all of this software is of a much higher quality than the Windows equivalents that we are used to, for example the text editor has a spell checker.) With things like Mandrake Linux around that are easily and legaly available for free, I don't see why anyone wastes thier time or money on Windows.
- BFGalbraith

Pocket PC Hack and Slash (10:55 PST)
A certain individual e-mailed me to let me know that they've got Hack and Slash running on a pocket PC. That is sooo cool! We have talked about trying to do that before, being the Nintendo fans that we are. I think this makes GPL Quake the most powerful game engine on a portable, no? If you want to know more about Pocket PC Quake, check out www.pocketmatrix.com/pocketquake and www.devastation3.com
- BFGalbraith

Good news and bad news (15:35 PST)
Because the Open Quartz project is dedicated to traditional Quake style gaming, and because Hack and Slash is not, (Hack and Slash is Action RPG oriented,) we've started a new project at Source Forge for Hack and Slash. We definitely don't want Hack and Slash being mistaken for a variation of Open Quartz.

This means that everyone who signed up on the original Hack and Slash mailing list needs to sign up on the New Hack and Slash Mailing List. Sorry for the inconvenience. Unfortunatly we can't just transfer the list over to the new project. It's better that we do this now instead of waiting until after the 1st stand alone release.
- BFGalbraith

S-O-S S-O-S S-O-S! (11:45 PST)
We are stumped and need help. Here's the scoop: We got our Hack and Slash (HandS) Quake C to compile with normal Quake (NQ) and Quake World (QW), but when we try to run HandS with any version of Quake (and we've tried about 4 variations, including Quake out of the box,) the game crashes when starting a map (ie "starting a new game") with a "page fault" or "seg fault." We've never even heard of the possibility that Quake C could even cause this kind of error!

You can download our GPL HandS Quake C source code or already compiled GPL HandS Quake C. If you have any ideas or advice, please tell the Hack and Slash Mailing List or The Serpent Lord. Thanks!
- BFGalbraith

More Progress (10:45 PST)
To quote (off of the Hack and Slash Mailing List) the Serpent Lord: ' Yesterday we got the "NQ" (normal Quake single/multiplayer engine - as opposed to "QW" the QuakeWorld multiplayer-only engine) version of Hack and Slash to compile without errors. We need to test that and also get the QW version to compile.

So hopefully it is just a matter of days (I'm not going to guess how many :-) before we are ready to upload the code to CVS and release a new version for general experimentation, testing and further development. '
- BFGalbraith

Progress (22:55 PST)
This morning we finished merging the Hack and Slash (HandS) code with the GPL Quake and Quake World Quake C. Hopefully this will give HandS more powerful multi-player potential. Right now we are getting HandS to compile as a stand alone game. Once we are done with that, we'll finish updateing the HandS RPS found in the Quake C, and implement an additional more general purpose style of play control. Then once those things are done, we'll be ready for our first stand alone HandS release.
- BFGalbraith

HandS vs. NWN (18:00 PST)
Never Winter Nights (NWN) has brought up some ideas on the Hack and Slash (HandS) mailing list. For example, questions like "What about a tile based level editor that would work with the Quake engine?" and "What about saving and transfering character data?" have been asked.

What's interesting about this is that NWN already has some strong similarities to HandS. 1st, NWN's levels are suposedly "open source." Obviously HandS's levels are "open source" as well. Second of all, the RPG system (3rd addition D&D) behind NWN is also "open source." The HandS RPG system has been "open source" since at least a month before the D&D guys made any announcements about their decision to make the D&D rules "open source". Interestingly enough, there are books on the shelf at the local game stores that are indeed for use with the open source D&D system, that are not by the same guys who publish the D&D books, so evidently they are serious about thier open sourceness (just not as serious as us :) .)
- BFGalbraith

No Gnus is Bad Gnus (20:20 PST)
Your freindly neighborhood Serpent Lord here. Sorry about the lack of news yesterday, but I can at least promise that the lack of news Thursday was 100% BFG's fault! ;-)

In all seriousness, I'm catching up with all your old e-mails and we've been having a fascinating discussion about tile-based levels, portals between servers, and saving character data on the Open Quartz Mailing List. Read the archives if you missed it!
- The Serpent Lord