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Crusader from LinuxGames noticed that Timothee Besset has updated his .plan about the upcoming 1.3 patch for Doom 3, which will include support for the Resurrection of Evil expansion under Linux. Also, regarding the next Doom 3 patch ( version 1.3 ): - Resurection of Evil will be supported on Linux - release 1.3 has EAX HD support, PunkBuster and bunch of other goodies - we will release an updated SDK shortly after the patch release - it's not done yet Note that EAX HD will only actually be supported under Windows.

Various people have sent word today that Computer Games Magazine has noticed that Universal has quietly updated their website changing the release date of the long-awaited Doom movie from August 5th to October 21st.

Starting at midnight last night, the expansion pack for Doom 3, titled Resurrection of Evil, and the Xbox version of Doom 3 were officially put onto store shelves and available for purchase. This of course does not affect those of you whose stores were either foolish or foolhardy enough to have put the games up for sale before the predetermined time. Xbox Doom 3 comes in two flavors: a Doom 3-only package, and a Limited Edition package that also includes the original Doom games that (unlike Doom 3) can be played in splitscreen multiplayer. As with last year, id employees were on hand to sign copies of Doom 3 and give out other promotional items (such as t-shirts and posters) in a store (Game Rush, in this case) in Dallas. According to Gamespot, Todd Hollenshead confirmed that Quake IV multiplayer will be revealed at Quakecon this year, and that id's next project will still be what they do best, a first-person shooter. Since the expansion pack is now available in stores, we're lifting our restriction on posting of RoE spoiler-ish material in our forums. Make sure, however, that when posting threads with spoiler content, to indicate them as such, thanks.

Carnevil has released a new version of Skulltag, 0.96c, over on the Skulltag page. This release features mostly bugfixes but does include new optimizations in the build process which should increase the speed at which the game runs somewhat, along with new options for creating campaigns.

There's good news for those interested in such things and suffering withdrawal because John Carmack hasn't done a new .plan update in over a year. John Carmack has put up a blog on his personal Armadillo Aerospace site and the very first update deals with various topics such as why id Software is not quite yet releasing the Q3A code under the GPL (in short: somebody licensed the code recently, so it would be impolite at best to put it out there already), as well as some "random graphics thoughts." Slashdot also just found the blog, so expect it to be intermittently available for about a day.

Calimer of the Last Man Standing team sends word that they have released the first beta of the LMS mod. Last Man Standing is a co-op mod where the goal is to kill all the demons and be the last player standing at the end. Co-op isn't actually in this beta release, which makes it more like deathmatch with monsters I suppose, but the basic outlines of the mod are in there, including Brand New Menu with new graphics, sound, etc Shoulder Flashlight four different difficulty levels for players of varying skill Score system End of game Score Display "Kicking" soundtrack to every map Walkspeed changed to equal runspeed Pistol is 3 shot Double Barrel shotgun - single shot autoreload version Chaingun with 300 round belt and a lower rate of fire Plasmathrower - Turned the plasmagun into a flamethrower using plasma Six maps were included in this release. They feature adrenaline pumping action where the monsters come after you instead of you having to go after the monsters. The mod is available in an installer version for Windows and a rar version for both Windows and Linux. Screenshots and demonstration videos are available on the Last Man Standing site.

Gazz from the Classic Doom for Doom 3 team has sent word that they are close to an alpha release of the mod-in-progress. The alpha is expected to clock in at around 30 megs and will contain all or parts of E1M1, E1M3, and E1M4, some new power-up items, replacement textures, replacement music, and certain gameplay changes to bring the feel of the mod closer to the original Doom. The alpha release is expected to take place on Christmas eve, December 24th.

The Doom 3 Closed Caption (or Doom3[CC]) project team has made the first full release of the closed caption mod for Doom 3 today. To quote the site: Doom3[CC] is a mod that aims to close caption Doom3 so that hard of hearing and deaf gamers can enjoy Doom3 without missing the important plot details, enemy sound clues and intense atmosphere created audibly. This mod is also helpful for those who wish to learn the English language by reading what the spoken dialog says. This first initial release is an early version and while not 100% complete does provide captions for dialog, monsters and environmental ambience. Future versions will support color coding based on who is speaking and additional languages for the captions. Downloads can be found on FilePlanet and FileShack.

After an aborted release a few weeks back, the Community Chest #2 project has finally been released. Not much more to say about this, so I'll paste out of the text file: Following the success of the original Community Chest, Community Chest 2 is a 32 map megawad including levels made by 26 different authors from the Doom Community. Originally announced almost one year ago in December 2003, it is now complete and ready for your enjoyment.

Timothee Besset has updated his .plan with the release announcement of a new build of Doom 3 for linux. This build, 1.1.1286, is compatible with the original Linux release and the Win32 v1.1 release. This build fixes some bugs and adds support for ALSA and multichannel sound output.

LinuxGames is reporting that the Doom 3 Linux binaries are out. Currently, id Software has put up a page for the files as well as a FAQ, which can be found here. Highlights: Compatible with the win32 Doom 3 version 1.1, released earlier this week. Only supported by NVidia graphics hardware/drivers as of now, ATI will at some point, eventually, release drivers that support Doom 3. No amd64 builds at this time, though the statically linked binary ought to work on amd64 systems (Ed.: because NVidia provides a 32-bit compatibility interface in their drivers). Localization not tested, probably best to avoid copying over the zpak000.pk4 file for now. OSS API required for stereo sound, ALSA and 5.1 sound not supported yet. (Ed.: ouch) If you happen to go outside, the oxygen meter gauge will remain displayed even after you get back inside. Doom III would hang during starting if you redirect the output. Pass +set in_tty 0 on the command line to fix: $ doom3 +set in_tty 0 > output.txt Of course, if you already have the win32 Doom 3, you could just copy over the pak files like the FAQ specifies and run the full game with the binaries, instead of downloading the demo. The biggest thing for all of us to know out of all this is that Linux dedicated servers will be coming out of the woodwork.

The first official patch for Doom 3 has been released. This is the finalized version of the beta 1.05 patch that was released on fileshack a few weeks back, so if you have that installed already, don't expect too many changes from it, but do expect most of the servers to update to this release instead of some wacky combination of a lot of 1.0 servers and a handful of 1.05 beta servers. We can hope that the SDK is really not far behind now, I guess. Fileshack 3D Gamers 3D Downloads

The latest fad in Doom modding is making mini-games using ZDoom's ACS engine. Ever wanted to play classics like Pong, Pac-Man, Tetris, and Arkanoid in Doom? Here's your chance! It all began when Linguica announced his version of Tetris in our forums and on the ZDoom forums. Crazy limey Jonathan Rimmer quickly countered with Pac-Man. Everyone's favorite poster child of Tourette's Syndrome, Isle, has created an excellent ACS script of Pong (link not available), and Grubber on the ZDoom forums today released Arkanoid. So what's next in our brave new wacky world of ACS minigames? Alien Invaders? Pinball? Casino games? Or is someone even now preparing the ultimate in game recreations? (You know who you are!)