Playback.dem

Another month has passed, and another playback is here. To be unusually frank with all of you, it has been an incredibly busy and deeply challenging year. Despite it all, we are powering through and strive to provide our fraggers with a unique and polished Gaming Epicenter as always.

Frag-Net Status Update

Downtime

We appologize for the recent outage that occured the other day. The problem was a bit tricky, but our clever sys admin jumped on the issue instantly, and was able to track it down. It seems our empire has grown considerable, and instances like our Forgejo needed some additional tweaking to prevent overloading our system and so far everything seems to be running better.

As always we appreciate your patience and want to thank you for using Frag-Net or idtech.space as a provider for your services.

20 Lines About Two Half-Life 2’s

We have been endlessly at work trying to get a public beta build of Rad-Therapy 2 (FreeHL2) out and playable. It’s not an exaggeration to say this is the first, full, free and open-source implementation of Half-Life 2’s physics simulation layer for open-source id Tech, and that has been an immense challenge. eukara no doubt has a lot to say on the matter when he finishes. We were aiming for a release on the big 20th anniversary, but instead Valve Time got in the way again… In the meantime, you can grab a beta build here that we did get out in time but please, READ INSTRUCTIONS FIRST!

Rad-Therapy 2 Tech Demo

1. Grab the latest FTE for your platform.
2. Place the FTE binaries into your Half-Life 2: Deathmatch directory. See Notes for help.
3. Place RT2’s package_hl2.pk3 to Half-Life 2: Deathmatch/hl2/package_hl2.pk3.
4. Place the (temporary) hl2.fmf to Half-Life 2: Deathmatch/hl2.fmf.

You can then launch FTE as-is (it should give you a game selection), or run it with:

fteqw -manifest hl2.fmf

…to have it start into Rad-Therapy 2 right away.

Notes: You can right-click the game entry of Half-Life 2: Deathmatch in your Steam Client to figure out the install location, under Manage >.

Singleplayer is not supported, but feel free to try and see what works! This is a tech demo, but as it’s running a regular release binary of FTEQW you can mix it with other supported content. Try running around Quake levels, by copying them into your hl2/maps directory! Seriously, go nuts and explore to your hearts content. Source code and a dedicated page will be live very soon.

If you’re wondering about the maps above: dm_7hour, dm_pooltime, dm_greenhouse, and the classic milleniumtower map.

Calendars

With the recent big stuff happening to Rad-Therapy, we have been rethinking about our Calendars section. It’s no secret we haven’t been updating it as much as we would like to. Yes, busy schedule has been part of the reason, but we haven’t found a real thoughtful way of integrating it into Frag-Net… until now.

At this moment, we are broadcasting a Message of the Day prompt that is loaded by games with our Frag-Net menu (it can also be implemented for other games). It will give you a cute little notice with an anniversary or two for now, but it will be the way to get a quick update on Frag-Net, Game Events, and more.

We will also be enhancing this system to actually post events, not just here but on our social media. We see it as being a great way to spread awareness for events not just we host but the communities at large do as well. See it in action… perhaps next post?

Game News

RIP Frazer “fraze” Hockley

The Quake community suffered another tragic loss, this time from the Australian e-sports scene.

ESReality reports that long time QuakeLive and Quake Champions player, Frazer “Fraze” Hockley, has passed away. We recommend you read the post, for it’s a touching goodbye that does a better job than we could ever do.

In Diabotical, Fraze was part of some of the game’s most unforgettable moments, whether it was his streams, his tournament matches, or his interviews. His gameplay was a perfect blend of high-level competition and entertainment. Similarly, in Quake Champions, he remained an absolute beast, quickly improving with his grit and grind approach and then consistently defeating top-tier players, and ultimately coming in 1st place in AQL4.

On a personal note, every time I faced Fraze in a match, you could feel his determination in game. Yet, no matter how intense the competition, he always took the time afterward to share some words about what he enjoyed about the game and have a laugh. His grit and relentless pursuit of excellence were qualities I think we all admired.

Fraze’s legacy goes beyond his accolades and achievements. I think I speak for all of the community when I say he was a beacon of inspiration, a mentor, and a friend to many. His contributions have left an ever-lasting mark on our community, and his absence will be deeply felt.

Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family and loved ones during this difficult time. Rest in peace, Fraze. Thank you for the memories, you will be missed, but never forgotten.

20 Years Of Half-Life 2

Wow, it’s been two decades since Half-Life 2 launched on Steam. Not only did we at Frag-Net celebrate, but so did Valve! A lot of us (even in the know) were just expecting a nice Quality of Life patch for Half-Life 2 and possibly Deathmatch (sadly the multiplayer part of the update did not happen… yet). Yet, Valve finally gave the fans a true gift, they gave us another documentary and revealed not publicly seen development footage that will inspire the community for quite some time!

Uploaded on YouTube the day before the anniversary, Valve kicked off the weekend with a feature length documentary featuring many of the original developers who crafted this great game. But that’s not all, Valve also showed off the famous 2000 version of the game only shown to press and developers.

That’s not all, the engine update is not only optimized, it brings in the Workshop support, along with commentary tracks by many of the original developers.

Fortress Frever v3.0 Alpha Patches

Fortress Forever has seen some updates in the 2013 branch! Here are the highlights of said branch:

• Based on 2013’s Source SDK
• Native Linux Port!
• Ambient Occlusion and HDR Lighting
• New viewmodel animations by Raptor Dan

Uberfest happened, TF2Maps.net JAM UPCOMING!

Uberfest happened in Germany this November, as well as finals for AsiaFortress.

If you’d like to participate in something smaller and upcoming, we’ll use this space to make you aware of TF2Maps.net 72 Hour Jam which begins on December 13:

As the year winds down, TF2Maps.net is proud to announce the return of their beloved 72 Hour Jam!

They’re supporting their friends over at Gamers Outreach once again. Anyone who donates $5 or more to the drive before December 31 is eligible to receive this year’s in-game charity medal.

Additionally, you’re able to earn a medal for sharing your creativity! Starting Friday, December 13, at 5:00pm UTC, you have 72 hours to make whatever Team Fortress 2 creation you can think of! Whether it be a map, asset, cosmetic, artwork — or even another game entirely — anything goes as long as it’s Team Fortress 2 related!

For more information, check out the thread on TF2Maps.net.

Rogue Point announced

Rogue Point has been announced. This game is being developed by the creators of Black Mesa, the famous remake of Half-Life on Valve’s Source Engine. It is to be published by Team 17 of Worms fame, which has in recent years become a publishing titan of its own. We wish them the best of luck, and we will report more as the game is going to be released sometime in 2025!

Stalker 2

The long awaited Stalker 2 finally released later last month. Everyones has been waiting years for this moment and we hope it’s everything you and the developers wished for and more. People seem to be enjoying it a lot!

BioWare unleashes a new Dragon Age

Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been released last month! Is a new era of role-playing games heading our way? Let us know what you think in the Chat. As you can see, we had 0 time to play any of them. Arf! Arf!

Hell Freezes Over: Red Dead Redemption on PC

Nuff said.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 released

Treyarch and Raven have released the new entry in the spy slash action thriller series called Black Ops. We like these games and bet you do too. It is on Steam and you can watch the PC Trailer on YouTube.

Tech News

AMD releases AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D to rave reviews

If you’re looking to buy a GPU, you may wanna check out this mighty fine card, the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Blue has a line-up for reviews for you to chew through. Buy one for you and your loved ones this christmas, so you can finally play Quake II with colored lig- err… I mean ray-tracing.

Arch Linux now provides a license for package sources

Arch Linux will now put a license on package sources. This is something other distributions have previously also done. It’s under a permissive license as well, so good on Arch!

Wayland support enabled in Wine 9.22

Wine 9.22 will be built with the Wayland driver included. Slow and steady, the migration is ongoing.

Over & out

This is the last Playback to be written in the year of 2024. We will return next year, with a new entry. We will try this experiment for at least a year and see what else we can improve about it. It may still end up becoming something else, so stay tuned.

Allow us some time to play the new game by MachineGames, of which we will no doubt have a lot to say next Playback…