| ECTS
Awards Announced Black & White, Gran Turismo Win Most Accolades, Denki Blocks is Best Game of the Show The award winners of the European interactive entertainment industry were announced in London at ECTS - Europe's premier trade show for the interactive entertainment industry. 
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| World
of Warcraft - The Newest MMPOG Contender Just as growth of the two-and-a-half-year-old, 4000,000-player EverQuest is likely nearing its peak, Blizzard is entering the scene with Worlds of Warcraft, a massive multiplayer game based on the Warcraft series. The company says sales of the original game, Warcraft, which debuted in 1994, totalled almost 5 million copies.
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| Product
Profile: Seascape Seascape from Digimation is a flexible and powerful tool that enables the animator to create realistic ocean scenes that can interact with the environment in 3ds max. The effects are based on real world physical representations of wave systems and ocean models.
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| In
My Opinion Sierra Online: Nobody's Done it Better by Denise Harrison Back, oh, roughly 10 years ago, the story goes, Sierra founder Ken Williams wanted a place for his mother to play Bridge with her friends. So he set out to develop an online method for doing this. Sometime later, The Sierra Network had become a full featured proprietary multiplayer online game system.
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| NetImmerse
Game Engine Powers The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Bethesda Softworks went with the NetImmerse game engine and toolkit when creating The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the third chapter in the Elder Scrolls series of roleplaying games. NetImmerse 3D Game Engine is an object-oriented C++ software toolkit for creating real-time games and other interactive 3D content for Windows, Windows NT, PlayStation 2, and GAMECUBE.
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| Empires
and Kings Ensemble Studios Brings Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings to Life With 3ds max r3 by Gordon Davies Empire building is nothing new to Ensemble Studios. The award winning Microsoft Age of Empire's computer game, developed by Ensemble Studios, has created innumerable desktop kingdoms and fired the imagination of would-be despots and merchant moguls worldwide. Recently, Ensemble created Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, with expanded features and even more stunning visual effects, developed with the advanced modeling and animation capabilities of 3ds max™ 3 from Discreet.
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| SIGGRAPH
2001 -- Making Your Job Easier by Denise Harrison There was so much news at SIGGRAPH 2001 for game developers that we're going to devote the entire issue of Levels to news this time.I don't know that there was anything so new that you'd have fallen to your knees in gratitude, but most companies had either new versions, new plug-ins and, significantly, new interoperability to other apps just means your job is easier and your capabilities are expanded.
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There's Gold
in Them Thar Cellulars |
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| In
My Opinion: A Home of Their Own by Denise Harrison To nest is human, from your locker in high school, your studio apartment in college and a home of your own later on. It only makes sense that gamers prefer personal space in games, too, such as the houses in Ultima and The Realm, and guildhalls in other games.
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| A
Slightly Closer Look at gmax by Denise Harrison While we've been reporting news about Discreet's gmax, we haven't yet said exactly what it is! So we figured it's time for a slightly closer look at this new way of developing and publishing games.
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| In
My Opinion: Death of the The Player Killer by Denise Harrison One of the questions developers have to ask anymore is whether or a new game should include player killing. PKing is why co-workers who used to bolt from the office toward happy hours instead began to stick around the office for a friendly game of Doom over the company network. Gunning down co-workers, or buddies on your home network, was a successful formula that has been carried out on other games as well. And on others, player killing was the very demise of the game.
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| Next
Generation Servers Can Support Tens of Thousands of Users by Chris Mann It's expensive, and it's a pain, to buy and maintain rooms full of servers if you're one of the highly popular massive multiplayer game companies. Zana, an MMOG server solution provider, might have an answer.
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| Better
Ramp Up the Console Biz -- 2001 Promises to be Lucrative by Denise Harrison If the poll-takers have their way, 2001 can line the pockets of console makers, and associated game makers. The new Digital Gaming in America Survey shows a whopping 42 percent of video gamers planning to buy at least one of the next generation game consoles due out by Christmas.
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| NPD
Reports U.S. Video Game Industry Continues to Show Substantial Growth
in the First Half of 2001 Retail sales of U.S. video game hardware, software and accessories increased 28% during the first half of 2001 (JanuaryJune), compared to the same time last year, according to marketing information provider, The NPD Group, Inc. Unit sales of video game hardware, software and accessories also rose 11% during the first half of 2001 vs. first half 2000.
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| Maya
Drives Development on Gran Turismo 3 With sales in Japan having exceeded 1,000,000 in its first two days on the market, GT3 is possibly the most anticipated game in PS2 history. For Polyphony Digital, GT3 has been a game of firsts: it was their first title for the PS2 and their first game developed start-to-finish in Alias|Wavefront's Maya 3D animation and effects software.
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| Product
Spotlight: Phoenix 1.5 Digimation's Phoenix 1.5, the latest revision to Phoenix for 3ds max, creates realistic looking fire within your scene. It's literally as easy as picking your emitter object and adding fire.
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| SIGGRAPH
to Feature a Full Day of DirectX 8 Courses by Chris Mann A full day of courses for DirectX 8 will be available at SIGGRAPH 2001 in Los Angeles, CA. The courses, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday, August 14th, will teach both the legacy, fixed-function pipeline and the new, programmable pipeline, with special attention focused on the vertex and pixel-level programmable shading languages, higher-order surface support, and modeling tool plug-ins for enabling content creation.
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| Vivendi
Scores DAoC Manufacturing, Distribution Deal
by Denise Harrison One of the most awaited massively multiplayer online RPGs, Dark Age of Camelot, has a new distributor. Vivendi Universal Publishing got the deal from game developer Mythic Entertainment. The deal includes exclusive distribution deal for the North American release which is scheduled to debut in Fall 2001.
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| Bringing
SOFTIMAGE|XSI to the Web, Print by Sky Daniels In these days when repurposing content is crucial in getting the most out of a software investment, another piece of good news: Softimage and Electric Rain teamed up to create Swift 3D XSI plug-in that allows SOFTIMAGE|XSI users access to key vector-based 2D formats, including Macromedia Flash (SWF).
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| Launch
Causes Anarchy Online by Denise Harrison A few weeks after the official launch of Anarchy Online, it's still a bit chaotic with servers bouncing on and offline, game exploits and registration problems. And for some reason, it's huge news.
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| Gran
Turismo 3 - The Sound Rocks! by Denise Harrison The sound that accompanies Sony Computer Entertainment's Gran Turismo 3 A-spec is the most elaborate effort to date by the company. |
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| EA's
Majestic: Gaming That Plays the Fourth Wall by Denise Harrison Within weeks, though, it's going to be the talk of the office, the subject of hundreds of Websites and no doubt, the interruption of a number of business meetings. Majestic, from Electronic Arts and developer Anim-X, is about to be released and if it's all that is promised, it really will change lives.
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| Developers
Can See Competition in Action on PlayStation 2 U.S. Tour Beginning July 14, the "PlayStation 2 Hot Summer Games Tour" takes off around the U.S. for an 11-city tour to demo more than 20 new titles. The tour, which runs through August 5th, is sponsored by Electronics Boutique and run by iGame. |
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| Get
Ready For a Frenetic Fall by Guy Wright Most game developers are gearing up for what looks like one of the most frenetic fall seasons ever. |
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| Tools
and the Games They Play by Wanda Meloni The annual Game Developers Conference was just a few weeks ago, so it is fitting that we look at the trends in the gaming industry and the tools that are pushing the envelope for the new game platforms and technology advancements. |
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| The
Dream Maker Holodecks, Matrix, or Something in Between? by Andy Grossberg Posed with the question "how do we develop games for the holodeck?" I wondered if perhaps there might be other solutions that accomplish the same goals. |
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| Developing
Games For The Holodeck by Guy Wright The ultimate game platform would be like the holodeck on Star Trek. The problem is they don't exist...yet. But why not start working on holo-games today? |
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| Game
Developers Conference 2001 (San Francisco, CA, March 14, 2001)--The 15th annual Game Developers Conference (GDC) will bring together top game industry and development community experts from around the world to exchange ideas and map the future of the interactive entertainment industry. |
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| Game
Discovery.com An Interview With One of the Founders - Vegard Aure by Michael Carney |
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| "Power
to the Upstarts!" -- The RJ Mical Interview For those of you who might not remember, Mical is recognized as one of the innovators in today's home entertainment systems beginning with his time spent at Amiga where he played an instrumental role. by Michael Carney |
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| Makin'
Waves -- GameBeat's Game Plan A Digital Game Developer Interview Video game audio has come a long way from beepers and MIDI. One of the leaders of the pack these days is Chicago-based GameBeat by Michael Carney |
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| PS
2 FRENZY A Digital Game Developer Special Report Ok, you've seen the news reports, you've read the stories, heck, you might even be one of the 2% of Americans that have been able to get their hands on one. Maybe you're a game developer or game exec who's sitting back and wondering if the hype is justified or just, well . . . hype. by Michael Carney |
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| The
Forge's PoseAmation . . . ONLINE Forge Studios Ltd.'s Online Shop for the PoseAmation Royalty-Free Animation Series The Forge Studios Ltd. has announced that the highly acclaimed PoseAmation CD-ROM series is now available as individual components on the new on-line shop, open for business at http://www.the-forge.ie. by Michael Carney |
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| Blister
Brings Audio to Blix Attention game addicts! You know who you are. You're the one who tries just once more to avoid the plinking sound of the ball dropping below the LCD screen. You're the talented but troubled obsessive-compulsive whose nom de game is listed on the top 20 scores of every game you ever played. Well I have good news and bad news, and both news are that Blix is coming to shockwave.com. By Denise Harrison |
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| The
Guys Who Set Phasers to Frag A Digital Game Developer Interview with Brian Pelletier and Mike Gummelt First Person Shooters are nothing new, and neither are Star Trek-franchise video games. However, First Person Shooter Star Trek-franchise Video Games . . . well, let's just say there was an obvious market. Activision has now released "Star Trek Voyager - Elite Force" to critical acclaim and good gamer reception. This type of game begs a few questions, however . . . how do you successfully recreate a world that's so firmly created in Science Fiction fandom? by Michael Carney |
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(Go To Archived Features)
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