Playback.dem

It’s the April of 2025. Who knows how long we’re able to do any of the stuff you see here.

The global economy is at risk!
Powerful people are making really stupid and/or ill-informed decisions at a whim - but don’t fret.

There’s a blip of sanity on this mad earth. It’s called Frag-Net and we’ve already pulled the pin on the grenade! Let’s blow it all up.

Frag-Net Status Report

New Broadcasts

Wowzas!
Check out all those new broadcast features that have found their way onto the game pages.

They’re now also being tacked onto the end of the page dynamically so that whenever we index more of archived television shows it shows up as soon as we update any other part of the site.

Check out some game pages for broadcast appearances! We will try to push up new database updates every weekend.

New Games Indexed

We are joined by Grand Theft Auto and its sequel GTA2 complete with official downloads.

Also joining us are the Red Alert expansion packs Aftermath, Counterstrike and Yuri’s Revenge for its sequel.

Ray Wise’s performance in Red Alert 2 may have tempted us to waste hundreds of hours fragging each other once again, but the staff of this website excercised self-control! Let’s give them a round of applause.

The mission packs for GTA will come. In due time. We spent too much time looking for since deleted audio clips. Sorry.

Worms 2 Backend Updated

The server’s backend for powering Worms 2 was updated on April 22nd ahead of a new patch for Worms 2 Plus by Carlmundo.

The downtime was of about a minute and it shouldn’t have impacted any in-progress games. If you experience any issues with the new multiplayer service, please let us know and we will fix it pronto.

Game News

Patch: Worms 2 Plus 1.7.0.1

Along with our server-side being updated, we now have a new client for everyone to download on GitHub for Worms 2 Plus v1.7.0.1. Users already on v1.7 can download a single DLL file instead.

The main fix is that complex custom maps no longer crash on-line lobbies. Grab it!

Awards: Shenmue - Most Influential Game

The BAFTA people voted Shenmue as the #1 most influential video game of all time.

Proving once again, that the PlayStation 2 has nuthin’ on the SEGA Dreamcast. Church!

Wishlist: Arkane and Dishonored 3

Arkane loves Dishonored, so much that there was a report on Rock Paper Shotgun about multiple proposals on where to take it next despite there being no actual plan to develop it.

Steam: The Rigs Are Big, Sergey

A very bizarre sight on Steam this month: Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing.

Clearly published to cash-in on its notoriety gained thanks to on-line content creators, this is also being rumored to not be a ‘proper’ page after all, meaning that someone put up the page who may not have the full rights to it.

How spicy. Will you care to dig deep and uncover the truth? Now that sounds like fun to someone out there.

Map: Solomon’s Tower (The Pentagonal Seal) for Arcane Dimensions

Anyone in Quake has heard of Arcane Dimensions. It’s known as the mod that forces Quake engine programmers to speed up level rendering quite a bit.

Now creator and level designer Sock released a new level titled Solomon’s Tower!

More Arcane Dimensions! Go play!!!

Teaser: reTHAWed 4.3

This month we were surprised by the team at 10K Rising, who are known for giving the Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland community reTHAWed.

We got one trailer showing some new customization options, and another trailer showcasing enhancements to create-a-park and photo mode.

You can visit the website for reTHAWed for the 4.3 when it goes live soon.

Console News: Sony Raises PlayStation 5 Prices, Microsoft Follows

In the price report on the web portal for PlayStation it lists an increase of about 25% for Europe, UK, Australia and New Zeland (yes, not the United States which is heavily impacted by tarrifs).

The exception is the stand-alone disc drive which sees a price reduction of 30%.

Then right at the start of this very month, Microsoft announced a $100 price hike in the US for its Xbox Series X.

Makes a domestic-US price increase for the PlayStation 5 seem inevitable. Time will tell!

Review-Rant: AI Generated Version Of Quake II

A server-side version of Quake II released that keeps generating new frames out of previous ones, in respect to user input. As you’d expect with anything related to present day ‘AI generated’ responses, it has barely any concept of state and you can, when shoving your face into a corner, teleport into random locations in the starting level.

Meaning progress and score doesn’t matter - in a medium where it does.

They put out pieces also, talking about how this is totally the future of gaming, despite it simply generating existing stuff.

Previously we thought of it as just a harmless technical experiment to see what we can get away with using primitive 2025 technology, it was also being proclaimed as a showcase of AIs ‘incredible ability to preserve games’ in the same article.

Okay, your got our attention. Tell us: How could this live web-service help preserve games?

No examples were given. But the idea that this husk of a game would replace anything, or be used to represent games is horrifying. It couldn’t.

As with any hype-driven technology, they expect the reader to just make up an uneducated wish and hope for the best. And that’s exactly is why they didn’t say anything.

But okay, we’ll bite. Let’s give some honest, constructive feedback. Here’s an idea that’ll be fun and is probably impossible despite its simple premise:

Create a multiplayer version of “AI” Quake II. Maybe it can hallucinate away the embarassing fixed rate netcode, too! Or, at the very least - (try to at-least hook up a scoreboard. As it currently stands, there’s no game.

Now if you make that work Microsoft, give us a call.

Released: THPSPro 9.3

Yes, the really cool Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 modification THPSPro has seen another release, announced with this 7 minute video of gameplay.

Quick overview of the new things being shown off:

• Level: New Orleans
• Revert Cooldowns
• Manual Spins

You can find the latest up to date information, mirrors on the Nexus page for THPSPro.

It is currently the de-facto way to play 1+2, as it contains more of everything.

We are eager to see how the upcoming release of Pro Skater 3+4 affects THSPro.

Trailer: In Mute Witness Stand

Over on ModDatabase its page for In Mute Witness Stand we have a trailer now available.

But that’s not all, also revealed is a new enemy: The Chatterer.

You will be able to hear him from a distance by his distinctive chatter of teeth.

Also shown off is quite a bit of cartoon violence, complete with blood spewing everywhere. Although low poly, still quite disturbing. What can we say?
War is hell.

Check this WW1-themed co-operative mod out!

Cancelled: Respawn Layoffs Killed New Titanfall

GameSpot reported at the end of the month that an unannounced Titanfall game had been cancelled due to layoff at Respawn affecting roughly 100 developers.

This extraction shooter game would have run on the same modified Source Engine that powered Apex Legends.

Once a money maker for Electronic Arts, Apex Legends was seen as underperforming - along with EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA). Yes - the franchise formerly known as FIFA is underperforming also.

Tech News

Release: DEFACTORY

The first release of DEFACTORY is here!

This is a new piece of software by CYBERDEViL, who’s already blessed us with REWise and REShie.

Much like the above, this tool also lets you rip files from installer software - but this time for the Setup Factory family by Indigo Rose Corporation.

We’ve needed this tool ourselves for our mod archiving and indexing purposes. So obviously we were very excited when it was shown off.

And if you haven’t heard of REWise or REShie, check out their pages. If you’re a serious visitor of Frag-Net you will have one of the listed installers/games yourself, as it was an insanely popular format - and now you can rest confidently knowing that breaking their archives open is of no problem to you.

Many thanks for CYBERDEViL for making this happen! Cheer them on in our Chat or let us know what installer format you want to see pried open next.

Release: AmigaOS 3.2.3

Right at the beginning of the month Hyperion Entertainment released AmigaOS 3.2.2.

If you haven’t upgraded your ROMs yet, now is your reminder. Last release was 2 years ago.

Release: Chroma - Color Blindness Accessibility Tool from UbiSoft

UbiSoft released Chroma, which is a tool that simulates most types of color blindness.

GamesIndustry.biz had some more blurbs from a spokesperson for this neat little tool.

News-Rant: Discord’s Jason Citron Exits Amidst IPO Uncertainty & Legal Turmoil

Jason Citron has done a lot.

He created a platform that gamified social relationships, and normalized people to broadcasting their entire personal lives over unencrypted, insecure channels while allegedly failing to protect children at scale.

But enough of the damn kids - sacrifices will have to be made I guess. The users demand it! Discord needs to succeed. But most users aren’t exactly willing to pay. Can that feat even be accomplished?

As we enter our next phase, I’ve been reflecting on how I can best contribute to Discord’s long-term success […]

Now it’s time for him to step away - at least for the time being. You know - in case Discord suddenly loses a lot of value or something. Which it might, given what they’re about to attempt, which is taking the company public!

Citron said that Discord didn’t have plans to announce about potentially going public, but noted that “as you can imagine, hiring someone like Humam is a step in that direction.”

Who is the new CEO to replace Citron? This time it’s an ex-King (ActiBlizz) guy, who are no doubt used to bad publicity.

It’s always good for the founder to step away first - can always bring him back later and pin the upcoming failures on the last guy. Hu-yuck!

Despite all that uncertainty, we expect to be able to claim Discord will be Skype within the next few years.

Why? Well, why would you go public to begin with? They’ve been failing to monetize their service since the beginning. Game store front? Failed and closed.
Sponsored cryptocurrency integration? Abandoned for now, while users complained the creator Jason Citron was eager. Clearly, they saw themselves as more than a game chat platform.

Like many risky startups, they used venture capital (someone elses money) to grow an unsustainable free service. The bet is that it goes public and certain shareholders will keep it alive with their gambling habit. Even then, they need to continue to innovate, rise and fall - and they ain’t keeping the expenses down with Nitro subscriptions alone - no matter what.

While the frogs have been boiling for a while, they still haven’t fled en-masse or shown much signs of protest. Maybe the Video Quests that roll out in June will divert enough attention away from people and make them realize they’re being gamed for not much in return.

Now, to be absolutely serious for a moment. In this age people are expecting a lot of free stuff, but some of you need to get a reality check.

• This service is not making anyone any money. For years there were talks of being desired to be acquired and still nothing has happened. Maybe certain parties backed out for good reasons.
  
• Close to $1 billion in funding was raised from 2015 to 2023. None of that money is lost. It will be extracted from somewhere. Investors expect a return on their investment. Revenue won’t get them that, only profit (revenue minus expenses).
• The previous hope was that they can increase metrics like user count and revenue to such a degree that a big entity that owned datacenters (such as Microsoft or Amazon) could buy them, and said data center bill (the most expensive bit about their business) would vanish as a result.
  Cool, but you’d still end up realizing that the corporation owning it, while it would cost them little to run this service, is not a charity.

Yet, we hear a lot of complaining. People desperately want things to continue like they have been. It’s like some people fundamentally do not understand how these industries work. Nothing lasts forever.

“This is when enshittification begins.” - some comment on The Verge

As if it already hadn’t… cough. Anyway -

Let’s be responsible adults and suggest something else. This is not new, or unheard of: If you want your communications to be private, and owned by you and your group of friends, use something like Matrix or XMPP. As for clients, start by grabbing Cinny, which would suit you visually.

We don’t think people are willing to put up with intrusive ads in Discord for long, and at some point they’ll end up having to tap user data instead to avoid pissing people off directly. You can see where this goes. Even when we bridge our messaging services, all our data is at risk. Both past and present. Don’t even need a bad actor for that - just a data breach. Remember, nothing is encrypted or encoded on Discord. It’s just another website.
It’s not a protocol, it’s not a standard and it’s not secured or backed by anything unlike the things we proposed above. If you want our advice: Leave.

There just aren’t a lot of appealing options for a commercially run chat service that serves trillions of messages. Sorry, but that’s the truth.

Everyone else is trying to sell you something. Snap!

It’s Over

This Playback.dem is over… thank MasterControlProgram. My head is still spinning from all this news. We need to lay down.