- =BC=eat has releated the third beta version of his map Hollow. I've had a clan match or two on this and I like it. The textures look like they've been lifted out of Jedi Knight 2 (or UT with lights) which makes a nice change, and layout itself isn't bad at all. Download and screenshots.
- [MDB] have retired from active competition. The reason given was lack of active members, although the clan are still going to play the occassional friendly.
- The ECTFC competition has been won by Germany. I haven't been following this one particularly closely but apparently there were a few good games to be seen. England were knocked out in the semis, but neither Wales or Scotland reached the quarter finals.
The Battle Fields Network have been fortunate enough to catch up with Erik Johnson from Valve to ask him a few questions about the upcoming Half-Life patch. Steam, TFC and CS are all discussed. Here's a quote:
It has been quite some time since there were any substantial unique additions to TFC (i.e. HLTV excluded etc), why was the decision made to add such content now?The new CTF map to be included, Ravelin, will include a number of "automated base defences" that can be targeted by attackers to help their efforts (the screenshots show spotlights on the top of the bases). There's also some news on the Engineer's teleporter and the Counter-Strike changes (which will include a riot shield and some new weapons). Read the full interview here.Team Fortress Classic is one of the most played games on the Internet, and we haven't been giving it the attention it deserves. This update will be the beginning of a number of changes we have in mind for TFC.
The CPL have opened the online registration for the first TFC tournament to ever offer cash prizes, due to take place at the CPL's upcoming Winter Event. Participants must be 17 or over to attend (or 16 with written parental consent), and will be battling for a top prize of $5,000.
Online registration can be done at http://www.thecpl.com/register/.
Just thought I would mention this. The full version can be downloaded from here, while the upgrade from 1108 can be found here.
A full list of change is below.
v1.1.0.9Enjoy,
--------
[4.24.02]
Changes/Additions:
------------------New CVARS:
- Added Anti-Cheat protection.
- User Interface redone for HLTV.
- Added cheering to HLTV.
- Muting a player in the scoreboard will also mute their text messages.
- Steam beta clients and non-Steam clients can play together on the same server now.
- Voice communication uses DirectSound by default now.
- Added player ID to Half-Life DM.
- Added chat flood protection to HLDM.
- Added logging of fatal Sys_Error server shutdowns.
- Dedicated servers (Win32 + Linux) now default to 32MB heapsize.
- Improved dedicated server FPS (sys_ticrate) accuracy in Windows NT/2K/XP and Linux.
----------Bug Fixes:
- "sv_send_logos" - when "sv_allowdownloads" is set to 1, this cvar will control whether custom logos are propagated to clients. Default: 1
- "sv_send_resources" - when "sv_allowdownloads" is set to 1, this cvar will control whether resources are propagated to clients. Default: 1
----------
- Fixed bogus Save directory being created when you ran Half-Life.
- Fixed filter logic in the launcher.
- Fixed bug where clients couldn't connect to server side only MODs.
- Fixed bug where you could "kill" the HLTV entity in Half-Life DM.
- Fixed AddIP command.
- Fixed crash when a func_breakable triggers a trigger_counter.
- Fixed Egon gun beam problem in Half-Life DM.
- Fixed Tau cannon prediction problem.
- Fixed fog messing Additive sprites.
- Fixed Alien Grunts not making any attack sounds.
- Fixed Egon's beam looking yellow in sofware mode.
- Removed "friends" connectionless packet query.
- Fixed "bad address type" fatal server error (caused by clients with long names).
- Fixed "condump" so the output won't overwrite previous files.
- Fixed "cvarlist" so the output won't overwrite previous files.
- Fixed rcon_port and rcon_address so they can be set manually by the player to rcon a server.
- Fixed server shutdowns related to using bots.
PS: hope you all well.
Source: Planet Fortress
Spotted this on the BY forums:
The European Championship for Team Fortress Classic (ECTFC, much easier) is proud to annouce it's forthcoming third edition. The phenomenal success of our previous events is set to be repeated once more as the best players in Europe (and debatably the world) leave the constrictions of their clan affiliations in the name of one goal: national pride.In completely unrelated news, apologies for this site's downtime over the past few days. The problem has now been fixed.
The third season of this, the undeniably most high-profile and demanding TFC competition in the world, also marks a first - every key match will be covered for our audience by Half-Life TV, as well as IRC and ShoutCast broadcasts wherever possible. The countdown to kick-off has begun, find out more at http://www.digitalt.dk/ectfc/
[SHS]Wildfire - ECTFC Admin
The main site over at Q3F has been updated to show the continued progress of the forthcoming "beta 2" release, in development for several months. The latest build, 23, has been passed to the internal testers but as of now there is no posted release date available. A small snippet:
We are nearing the end of development of Q3F Beta 2’s Extended Entity System, a powerful collection of entities that provide an incredible range of options to Q3F level designers. For example, a designer can implement moving trams with working doors, provide teamplay-oriented bonuses or implement a round-based gameplay system for an Assault map -- without ever leaving the level-editing environment or having a special code function added to Q3F.As always, hop over to Q3F for all of the latest information.
Here's a site that has been well worth the wait. TODave's definitive guide to Dustbowl has gone live and it's a superb manual for fans of the classic Assault style map. Aimed at newbies (to improve the standard of play on his beloved Dustbowl only server) the site has plenty to offer veteran players as well. MeTa's excellent site design deserves a mention as well.
Check out www.dustbowl.co.uk, or read more on the BlueYonder forum thread.
UncleBRUCE, CL of TFC clan SHS has created a TFC video in his own unique style. It's quite interesting in places, but a word of warning to dial-up users: it weighs in at 46MB so if you don't have a broadband connection you may want to read War and Peace or redecorate your kitchen while it downloads.
You will need the DivX codec to be able to view the video, which you can download from TeamSHS.
TFC news. Posted by Ironheart at 09:02, 14/1/2002. Comment on this news item.
There is some information circling that the anti-cheat software Valve has been working on recently may be about to see light of day. A couple of quotes from Counter-Strike.net:
The news is that Valve is currently working on a new cheating solution that should prove more effective than current delayed fix in next patch system. Word from Doug Lombardi at Valve is that they will release some information on this in the coming week or two and that they are shooting for a rollout of this solution around the holidays.and
Macman and Ido have a new map coming and we're currently testing a way to thwart bunnyhoppers. No date is set for 1.4, but one of the more exciting aspects of it will be Valve's new anti-cheating initiative -- which is scheduled to come out around the same time.It seems likely that the anti-cheat software will apply to all Half-Life mods, and not just Counter-Strike. As you can see from the comments, bunnyhopping is also in Valve's sights (again).
Thanks to Counter-Strike for the information.
Battle-Fields have an interview with Preston Glenn, creator of popular map Openfire, up on their site. Here's an extract:
Where did the original idea for the map come from and how did the name come about?For the full interview, including how Openfire was made and the ideas behind it, check out Battle-Fields.
In the beginning the overall plan was a mirrored bases CTF map. I didn't have much time considering my starting point so I decided to keep it simple. I also knew I wanted an open courtyard in the middle with bases facing each other. I've always enjoyed sniping battles in TF so that was important to me in the beginning. These basic ideas are what the map grew out of. On the name, I tried to think of something that reflected characteristics of the level, such as the open courtyard, the opening of the laser fences, and the offensive nature of the gameplay.
Kiwi has posted news on FurryBadgers that Wireplay, the online gaming service formerly owned by Gameplay and then sold to ArenaTek, after extensive work has now been at least partially brought back online. Several game servers are up, as well as the main website and forums but these are currently password-protected. If all goes well it is hoped that Wireplay will be fully brought back online within a week or so, provided no problems present themselves.
For full details of the beta Wireplay servers including IPs and port numbers, check out FurryBadgers. Hopefully the long wait for Wireplay's return is almost over.
Sad news today - London's Playing Fields LAN gaming center has announced it is to close on the 29th of January. The full story can be found on their website - it seems that the liquidators were called in today at 1pm.
I for one am deeply upset to see them go - my first ever LAN party experience was at TPF (photos of which are still available here) and they have been a solid fixture in the online gaming scene for as long as I can remember. I'm sure they will be greatly missed by all.
PlanetFortress have posted an interesting article regarding the status of TF2, in development by Valve for several years now with no release date in sight. The article discusses the facts that are known about the game, the new engine that Valve are building specifically for it and possible reasons why there has been no recent news regarding TF2.
Here is a small extract from the article:
Many people are surprised to find out that TF2 itself has been created and started over from scratch more than twice. Starting from scratch also happened at Valve when developing Half-Life. Valve is very picky, and long developments with no release dates are the result. Half-Life turned out ok (and it did take a long time as well, years beyond original release dates).You can read the full article over at PlanetFortress, and we thank them for the story.
All the staff at TFC-Central would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a very fragworthy New Year. It's been an interesting (declining?) year for TFC, but we've had some interesting developments with UnF and Q3F, so maybe it hasn't been so bad after all.
What will we see in the New Year? Well, there's the UnF Gold release to look forward to, plus more things from the Q3F team, and maybe, just maybe...TF 2. We will just have to wait and see what the future holds, but thanks for supporting and reading TFC-Central; I know Skunk has further things in development for the site, so be sure to stop by regularly. Merry Christmas to all.
The development team over at FoxBot have announced that the TFC bot is now out of beta and has an official release available for download. The official version number is now 0.69 and here is a brief snippet of some new features:
Code Optimized - uses alot less CPU & memory.For the full list of features as well as to download the bot and give it a try on your own machine, jump on over to FoxBot for all that and more.
Detpacks added!
bots go to where the flag was dropped.
Bot Christmas mode - "bot_xmas 1/0" in configs or "bot_xmas on/off" at the console.
bots jump over crouched teammates in their way.
Scripting system enhancements
Zoning system implemented. (if one exists for map, they tell where they dropped the flag)
Moved ALL foxbot related files to the foxbot folder under halflife
Enhanced scripting system - script sounds & more message types.
Bot settings show in console a few seconds after map start. (same as bot_info command)
Snipers - Snipe more & autorifle less.
A new league, the GGTFCL has just finished it's test Season. Signups will be starting shortly for Season 2. For more information visit the GGTFCL website or register on their forums. The final version of the website will be uploaded soon so check back regularely for updates.