Daily News Spin — February 14, 2001 (Wednesday)

Quake III: Team Arena map pack

Id Software has released a new map pack for Team Arena. Id's Paul Jaquays described it in his latest .plan file.

id has just released a map pack containing four team-style maps approved for use with id Software�s Quake III: Team Arena� computer game. Their creators are some of the most talented mapmakers in the Quake community. Working together with id designer Paul Jaquays, Quake3World Level Editing forum moderator Astro Creep, Mr. Elusive, the bot A.I. programmer for both Quake III Arena and Quake III: Team Arena, and Drunken Boxer, Quake3World Capture the Flag and Team Arena forum moderator, these artisans have created some truly fine playgrounds for Team Arena.

You can download the map pack here.

Disciples repackaged

According to Gone Gold, Strategy First is coming out with a gold edition of Disciples that includes 25 new scenarios.

We admired Disciples, but we're a bit surprised by this news. Disciples 2 was scheduled to be out in the next month or two. Normally a publisher wouldn't release a gold title and then release a sequel that closely together, as one would tend to depress sales of the other. We can only guess that this means Disciples 2 is slipping and we'll have to wait longer to see it.

3DO files with the SEC

3DO is rumored to have laid off staff yesterday according to Crybabies. Today they filed a 10-Q document with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We found a couple of statements interesting:

We believe that existing sources of liquidity and anticipated funds from operations will satisfy our projected working capital requirements through the fall of 2001, at which time we may need to raise additional capital. Our ability to maintain sufficient liquidity through fall of 2001 is particularly dependent on the Company achieving its projected sales forecasts in the period.

They're good for another half year, but they either need a nice sales goose or will have to borrow more money. Doesn't sound good.

Because we depend on a limited number of brands for the development of sequels and line extensions, if one or more of our brands were to lose their current popularity, our revenues and profits could be seriously harmed. Furthermore, we cannot be certain that a sequel or line extension of a popular brand will be as popular as prior titles in that brand.

3DO has squeezed their "limited number of brands" for all they're worth. Should gamers be a bit tired of the Might and Magic and Army Men brands, 3DO may be in for some very tough times.

Oni looking fine at number nine

Normally we don't bother with this list since it's virtually the same every week, but we were pleased to see for variety's sake that Take 2's Oni has cracked the latest PC Data weekly top ten list, charting in the ninth position.

1 The Sims, Electronic Arts, $43
2 The Sims Livin Large Expansion Pack, Electronic Arts, $29
3 MP Roller Coaster Tycoon, Hasbro Interactive, $28
4 Hoyle Casino 2001, Havas Interactive, $28
5 MS Age Of Empires II: Age of Kings, Microsoft, $44
6 Diablo 2, Havas Interactive, $40
7 MP Roller Coaster Tycoon Loopy Landscapes, Hasbro Interactive, $28
8 Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, Electronic Arts, $43
9 Oni, Gathering of Developers, $40
10 Sim Theme Park, Electronic Arts, $19

We're very close to a joke involving the Beatles Revolution #9, Yoko Ono, and Oni, but imagination fails us, which is probably for the better anyway.

"The Hammer Falls"

GameWeek has an interesting interview with Sega of America's VP of marketing and communications, Charles Bellfield. We found this bit about the Dreamcast particulary interesting.

Charles Bellfield: As far as software sales are concerned, last year we had an 8 to 1 tie ratio with Dreamcast; a better tie ratio than any platform's ever had in its first full year.

GW: It's just that there wasn't enough of that "1."

CB: Exactly. If we had gotten to the hardware numbers we wanted to be at, we wouldn't have this problem and we'd be profitable today. But we didn't, and we can't continue hoping to get there.

That's it. They didn't sell enough console systems. Bellfield also said that to raise new capital, lenders wanted to see the costly hardware line discontinued. Bellfield has plenty of other interesting comments. It's a good interview if you're interested in the console scene.

Origin's loss, Turbine's gain

Origin, which had previously seen the Privateer Online team leave the company when that project was cancelled, has now seen another key employee leave. Jeffrey Anderson has left his position at Origin where he was the executive in charge of production to become Turbine's new president and CEO. Anderson was one of the key members working on Ultima Worlds Online: Origins for Origin.

Turbine is currently working on two unannounced massively multiplayer games, at least one of which is rumored to be a science-fiction game. Our bet is that the other is a sequel to Asheron's Call.

Getting Googly with EIDOS

Google searches can be fun! In honor of this day of love and romance, we'd like to bring you this little nugget we found from searching on "Eidos" with Google. Thinking we'd find something interesting about their games, we instead found something even more interesting -- a listing for a magazine called "EIDOS." And what a magazine.

EIDOS is an acronym for Everyone Is Doing Outrageous Sex. We are an upscale, quarterly independent pansexual erotic lifestyle and entertainment magazine for freethinking consenting adults who value sexual freedom and their first amendment and personal privacy rights.

If only Eidos could put that in a box and sell it.

Crusader: No film deal

We reported on a rumor a few days ago about a possible film deal for Crusader: No Remorse. After we posted the rumor, which we filched from Dark Horizons, we saw an update on the rumor which said there was no deal but that a script was "making the rounds."

For every movie that's made, there must be hundreds of scripts that are never filmed. Don't hold your breath waiting for this one.

3am

Apologies for the late update. We'd like to say it was because we were celebrating Valentine's Day and were too busy negotiating romantic entanglements, but instead we were pierced by arrows fired by editors instead of Cupid. Alas.

Just to show that we do have a romantic impulse still beating, here's a brief poem by Robert Herrick, a 17th century poet English poet.

Upon Julia's Clothes

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
The liquefaction of her clothes!

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free,
�O how that glittering taketh me!

It's not Julia we're attracted to. It's that word, liquefaction. It flows off the tongue and immediately takes residence in the imagination. We like that word. We like it a lot. We can see it being used in the next id or Epic game. "You got the Liquefaction Gun!"

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