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News
Playback.demWelcome to a new mini-feature on Frag-Net, where we try to have a round up of interesting news on the community along with a status report on our gaming network. Frag-Net AnnouncementsNew on Frag-NetNot much, we were mostly on vacation. Gaming NewsGame Releases
We also got an estimate for the release date of GTA 6 (which is in Autumn 2025). I don’t think we need to mention how anticipated this release is. Valve trademarked Deadlock (not, not that one. We’ve already gotten access to the playtest and are writing down our thoughts for future reference. Stay tuned? The Year Without a E3There was no Gaming Santa this summer. We at Frag-Net are still kind of sadden in a way about how there was no E3 this year. We admit that it was often a subject of ridicule, even amongst ourselves and at times we even wished that E3 would just end already. Well, it’s a tale of be careful what you wish for. Being the first real year without even a sliver of hope of there being an E3 just seems odd. Maybe it will come back some day, but probably not.
So yeah, we are sad in a nostalgic way that E3 is gone, but E3 wasn’t E3 for a very long time, and deep down we all knew it. A tradition has been lost, but a new one begins. Summer Games FestSpeaking of glorified advertisements, the Summer Games Fest kicked off this month trying to fill in the void left by E3. Other Events for the Non-E3In addition to the Summer Games Fest, these other events also happened in what is currently known as “Non-E3”: 06/04 OTK Games Expo @ 12:00 PDT, 2024 Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Will Require Constant Internet ConnectionThe official statement:
The size of these games is a problem waiting to be solved, but streaming of game assets is a future none of us preservationists want to think about. Gaming News: CommunityAnd of course we have to highlight what’s been going on in the community! Errant Signal Releases Children of Doom: 1999Errant Signal reminisces about 1999s hot first-person games. Of course Quake III Arena too. Go play some. PandaMonium Releases New Video! Sega Rally ChampionshipIf you’ve got almost 5 hours free-time to spare, go watch this incredible celebration, documentary, review of SEGA Rally Championship and its SEGA Saturn version. Hardware NewsMiSTer Clone UpdatesIf you’ve read our recent Features then you’d know we’re all-in on FPGA technology for all sorts of hardware replication goodness. Soon you can get your hands on a more affordable clone of the DE-10 Nano and build a more budget friendly MiSTer FPGA system. Sony PlayStation 5 stops advertising 8K capabilityFrom the get go it seemed a bit optimistic, but Sony scrubbed the 8K support claims off their PS5 boxes. I think people are still fine with 1080p anyway… right? All in AllThat’s pretty much it. See you end of July!
Playback.demWelcome to a new mini-feature on Frag-Net, where we try to have a round up of interesting news on the community along with a status report on our gaming network. Frag-Net Status ReportHappy early summer! Hope the heat isn’t too bad where you are. First up let’s address the delay for this month’s entry! Off screen, we are in the midst of a giant move, plus had tickets to a convention. CalendarsThere was a very minor hiccup that lead to a very big mistake. Turns out we had not been properly uploading the 2024 Gaming calendar! This giant oversight has been fixed. We apologize to anyone who was using this calendar to not miss the “non-E3” season. ETCWe always have something cooking behind the scenes, but sadly as mentioned above, life events and other obligations got in the way. We hope to give you an exciting summer of new content however! Our interview article teased a couple months back is nearly finished, so expect that in June! In addition, our staff eukara and Xylemon got to release some articles they penned a while back. Enjoy the features and stay cool! Gaming NewsBlue’s Stories of NoteHere’s what our favorite gaming news site, Blue’s News has listed as the top stories for May 2024 that you should be aware of, list is oldest to newest: The anticipated Hades II goes Early Access, Microsoft extinguishes multiple studios, we learn the same lesson again that copyright laws and digital ownership need massive reform, Sony goes crazy with Helldivers 2 (read below), and GTA 6 gets a release date. Another crazy month in these crazy times. Valve Working On New Game, “DEADLOCK”There has been rumors and leaks of a new Valve game title DEADLOCK, with a US Trademark filing being the latest indication this game is the real deal. It’s supposedly a 6v6 multiplayer third person shooter, but that’s all we know. Let’s just say here at Frag-Net, we can confirm we have heard from people around us there is a semi-private beta test going around, so ask around for an invite but you didn’t hear it from us! Or just watch the 90+ leaked videos… Thanks to Blue’s News RIOT Games’ Kernel Anti-Cheat Causes MayhemIn another sad tale of perverse anti-cheat methods, players of League of Legends were in uproar over the new kernel level rootkit, sorry we meant “anti-cheat”, called Vanguard. A supposedly small but vocal minority made allegations that Riot had bricked their PCs while many more had matchmaking difficulties and so on. Riot went into full damage control mode, posting a Reddit megathread and then a follow-up post:
As Blue’s News stated following these posts:
Perhaps the real cheaters are companies who force rootkits onto our systems. Thanks to Blue’s News Microsoft Closes Multiple Bethesda StudiosMicrosoft in traditional “embrace, extend, extinguish” fashion has closed mutliple studios under Bethesda, who Microsoft purchased a couple years back. Blue shared [the scope from IGN] (https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-closes-redfall-developer-arkane-austin-hifi-rush-developer-tango-gameworks-and-more-in-devastating-cuts-at-bethesda) which had a list of studios affected:
This is the result of a recently annouced plan to cut 1,900 jobs as IGN also notes:
Sure feels like because of those new-fangled language models being on Microsoft’s mind lately, something else had to give. Sure hope that won’t bite them in the ass… We wish for the best for all those who were laid off, it’s been an incredibly rough time in the industry. Thanks to Blue’s News HELLDIVERS 2 Goes to Hell and BackHELLDIVERS 2 released earlier this year earlier this year with the PC port being a huge success. However, it seems everyone but Sony was unhappy about this. If having a service like Steam wasn’t already cumbersome enough, a patch came out at the start of May forcing a PSN account requirement to play the game. This did not go well to say the least. Review bombs occurred (with over 200,000+ negative reviews at one point). And this even resulted in a community manager getting fired for their alleged role in the review bombings. Then the community created a petition to get them rehired. Sony eventually backed down on the PSN requirement, but the game was delisted and remained so in more than 100 territories over this whole fiasco. Near the end of the month, there was even a new CEO at Arrowhead Studios and there was a huge player count drop. Perhaps this will have greater consequences on the industry going forward with requiring accounts and alternative launchers, but we shall see. Thanks to Blue’s News Nightdive Breaks Promise on Ports Despite Reaching Funding GoalsNightdive posted a Kickstarter update that addresses some questions:
This is incredibly disappointing, especially because they made their funding goals. Let’s be clear, incentivizing people to give you cash for a port then not doing it is bad. Sadly it’s not the first time that crowd-funding goals become broken promises. Some of us here at Frag-Net were burned with Killing Floor 2 doing the same exact thing. While you can play the game with Proton (probably) it sends a message of a company that does not value its customers and long-time supporters. We hope Nightdive will reconsider in the future. Thanks to GamingOnLinux Gaming News: CommunityAnd of course we have to highlight what’s been going on in the community! Mod Appreciation Week (May 26th - 31st)For the 9th year in a row, ModDB celebrates the Mod Appreciate Week, where users are encouraged to share their favorite mods while sporting the hashtag, “#modlove2024”. You can also be picked at random chance to receive a free game. While that is great and all, we say you should just share a mod you love for just the sake of it. Go revisit and play an old classic or something new, there’s an almost endless supply of great mods out there! https://media.moddb.com/images/members/1/1/1/profileevents/modlove2024.jpg Thief: The Black Parade an incredible mod by an industry veteran that won MOTY last year. FixTF2 aka SaveTF2 DeluxeThe Team Fortress 2 Community is launching another campagin to get Valve to address the issues that have been plaguing TF2 for the past few years now (which is sad as TF2 player to say). A petition is even hosted on the site with over 200,000 signatures at the time of writing. An event happened on June 3rd bearing the familiar hashtag, #fixtf2. It’s unknown how Valve will react, if they even will. Here’s a blurb from the site:
You can sign the petition here. Thanks to Blue’s News for the story DNF 2001 Mod: Countdown to Destruction ReleasesThe community that has embraced a leaked prototype of Duke Nukem Forever has produced a set of updated levels. Specifically the ‘Lake Mead’ chapter. A total of 3 updated levels are available. Check out the mod here Vogons User Creates Voodoo 4 FGPA for LaptopsUser sdz on the vogons forum has created a homebrew clone of the Voodoo 4 for use in laptops. There never were any official 3dfx Voodoo powered laptops, so this is cool on many different layers. Utilizing FPGA technology, custom PCB and other regular off the shelf components. View the original thread here. SourceWorld for Half-Life 2 Announces Upcomming Demo & Release New MediaThis relatively young HL2 mod has released a lengthy news post announcing that there will be a demo, but no release has been set. The post also highlights screenshots of the “Inter-Dimensional Travel Device”, along with new models, a custom Objectives System, Experience Points, and even a custom “save” system. SourceWorld is a self described “ambitious project” that is centered around procedurally generated levels and “Multiverse and inter-dimensional travel” being developed by the two person Bronco Development team. Read all about it here! Round ’Em UpAnd here’s a bunch more new we couldn’t fit but felt was worth sharing! Was a big one this month! April Leftovers
ReleasesBig or small, we track them all.
Announcements
DelaysCancellationsEventsRumors
Stories
All in AllAnd that’s it! We hope you enjoyed our latest entry in this newish series and have some fun in the sun! Like we said, we’ll make sure June’s Playback.dem won’t be as delayed. If you have any news you think we missed, should share on Frag-Net, suggestions, or even complaints, let us know. You know where to find us! Happy Fragging
A new feature was just posted! This time it’s about the future of x86, or rather the fact that it has none. This is going to be one hot topic for some, as many identify x86 as the de-facto PC Gaming platform. Staff member Marco has some commentary on his own to provide: “I’ve been hoping for over a decade that we’ll finally see some
competition in the laptop space, one that challenges the x86 monopoly. I
always envied the battery-life and performance achieved in handhelds,
tablets and other portable devices (all without the need for a fan). One
of the reasons I started developing FreeCS
is because I wanted to migrate away from it and still be able to play my
favorite tactical shooter. The only reason we stuck with it, is because
quite frankly people were too blinded by compatibility to see the
benefits. People also tend to be a lot like electricity, going the path
of least resistance - until big corporate shoots itself in the foot big
time. You can read the Feature right here.
The new Playback.dem will also be posted shortly. We haven’t forgotten, but it’s been a busy month over here at the site!
Playback.demAnother month, another recap of the news on the Gaming world, community, along with a status report on our gaming network! Frag-Net Status ReportThere was a minor hiccup early in the month, where the master server froze unexpectedly. We made a change to the service so that it peforms a little bit of ‘self-maintenance’ to prevent this from happening. Gaming NewsBlue’s Stories of NoteHere’s what our favorite gaming news site, Blue’s News has listed as the top stories for April 2024 that you should be aware of, list is oldest to newest:
A jam packed month! BlizzCon is canceled, Gearbox is bought after leaving Embracer who are splitting up into three companies! SEGA has layoffs and is parting ways with Relic while Atari brings back Infogrames, and many new releases. Wow! The news of SEGA & Gearbox was last month but was included because the news wasn’t in our last Playback. April FoolsAs is tradition in our region of the world, every April 1st is the day of pranks and all sorts of tomfoolery. Blue’s News compiled a great list of the gags you may have missed this year. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 respectively! Here’s some highlights:
We were sadly too busy this year for our own prank, but you never know what we will be up to next year… ;) Accused Farms launches Stop Killing GamesRoss Scott of Accused Farms fame (Freeman’s Mind, Civil Protection) has launched a campaign about video game preservation called, “Stop Killing Games”. Anyone who has followed Scott knows he has been very vocal about this issue in the past, but this is his biggest effort yet at bringing awareness and a way to tackle the problem. This handy website helps give you clear and easy ways of contacting government organizations, signing petitions, and updates on legal actions regarding preservation efforts such as a lawsuit aimed at Ubisoft regarding “The Crew”. This is an issue we take very much to heart here at Frag-Net. We as archivists ourselves have seen first hand how much has been lost and have been victims of copyright abuse ourselves. Please checkout the site and FAQ for more information and take some time out of your day to help change law. Here’s a snippet from the website:
Thanks to Blue’s News and Gaming On Linux Microsoft Releases MS DOS 4.0 Source CodeSpeaking of preservation, Microsoft has given the public the source code to version 4.0 of MS DOS. They did this a few years back with 1.25 / 2.0 but they were under a restrictive license. This time however, they have release 4.0 under MIT, along with re-licensing the other version to MIT as well! While DOS has been heavily studied, reverse engineered, and even rewritten from scratch, it’s still great to have this for preservation efforts. It’s one of those rare times we can actually say, “Thanks Microsoft!” Grab your copies here. Wine 9.7 and 9.6 Releases Along with Proton 9For those non-Windows gamers, Valve partner in crime CodeWeavers have released two new versions of WINE! In case you don’t know, WINE is a layer for Linux and other systems that allows Windows software to run like a native program. Valve also contributes to the project as Proton is powered by it. Here’s the changelog from the releases this month:
See your local operating system’s package manager for installation or checkout WineHQ if you like it the hard way. For users of Proton
Round ’Em UpAnd here’s a bunch more new we couldn’t fit but felt was worth sharing!
Gaming News: CommunityAnd of course we have to highlight what’s been going on in the community! Fallout London Gets BBC CoverageThe drop of the next-gen update for Fallout 4 has affected the very popular mod “Fallout: London”. It’s an extremely rare occurence that mods are covered by the mainstream press, and to our knowledge there has never been a report on a modification breaking due to software updates. Battlefield 1918 20th Anniversary Edition ReleasedNear the end of March the classic WW1 themed Battlefield 1942 mod “Battlefield 1918” has received major updates. This special update features new maps and a new army, the fearsome Force Publique! Read more here. Grab a full copy here or upgrade your current version here! Thanks ModDB Round ’Em UpAnd here’s a bunch more new we couldn’t fit but felt was worth sharing!
Thanks ModDB All in AllAnd that’s it! We hope you enjoyed our first entry in this new series. Writing these articles will help us document the things that are happening and select info will go right into our game event & anniversary calendars. If you have any news you think we missed, should share on Frag-Net, suggestions, or even complaints, let us know. You know where to find us! Happy Fragging ![]() |
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