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WeAz writes "John 'JCal' Callaham, the news writer at the HomeLAN Federation has decided to move on to a new gig. 'This news post is the final one that I will be writing for HomeLAN. After over 3 years of working as their full time staff writer I will be leaving the company and the site to move on and work at another gaming journalism assignment.' Ryan Smith, the backup writer for HomeLAN News is moving on as well. He mentions that John's new job will be at Computer Games Magazine. " We wish you best of luck in your new positions, gentlemen. Here's hoping the high quality of the HomeLAN Fed news service is maintained with their absence.

WeAz writes "John 'JCal' Callaham, the news writer at the HomeLAN Federation has decided to move on to a new gig. 'This news post is the final one that I will be writing for HomeLAN. After over 3 years of working as their full time staff writer I will be leaving the company and the site to move on and work at another gaming journalism assignment.' Ryan Smith, the backup writer for HomeLAN News is moving on as well. He mentions that John's new job will be at Computer Games Magazine. " We wish you best of luck in your new positions, gentlemen. Here's hoping the high quality of the HomeLAN Fed news service is maintained with their absence.

HomeLAN has details on newly available demos of two of the most interesting late-2004 releases. The folks over at Valve have released a Half-Life 2 demo, available where you download stuff, and FilePlanet has available a demo version of Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed should you want to try it out for 10 days.

HomeLAN has details on newly available demos of two of the most interesting late-2004 releases. The folks over at Valve have released a Half-Life 2 demo, available where you download stuff, and FilePlanet has available a demo version of Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed should you want to try it out for 10 days.

HomeLAN has a reprint of a letter written by Doom movie script writer Dave Callaham. In it he (wittily) attempts to explain why the Doom movie is going to be so unlike the game, and what his role in the creation of the film has been. From his letter: "The screenplay I wrote DOES differ in a number of ways from the games. I want to be very honest and forthcoming in saying that, and I know that I won't make any friends amongst the fans of the game in doing so. But it should be mentioned that it was never the goal of anyone involved in this film, from myself and the producers to the studio to the guys at id, to make a direct film adaptation of the game(s)."

Holidays are always interesting times in the Massive Gaming market and this weekend is no exception. Spooks, trick or treating, interviews, anniversaries, and conferences are just some of the Halloween weekend news to share. Read on for the details.

City of Heroes is running a Trick or Treat and Zombie invasion event this weekend. Folks in Europe looking to get their cape on can look forward to participating sometime next year.

Anarchy Online is celebrating the season with a holiday ball and costume contest, as well as nanotech transformations and monster sightings.

Final Fantasy Online players and developers have a lot to be happy about this weekend. Today is the one-year anniversary of the North American launch, and they're throwing a party to celebrate. In-game, the annual trick or treating, costuming, and spookery is going on. This year they're also throwing around some glamours to let players take the part of monsters for a while. Square-Enix revised upwards it's earning estimates this week, giving even executives reason to smile.

In non-holiday news, Richard Garriot was interviewed by HomeLAN about the upcoming Tabula Rasa game, and MMORPG.com has some new info on Dungeons and Dragons Online from the lead designer.

Finally, the Second Annual State of Play conference is this weekend, drawing Virtual World academics from all over to celebrate Halloween by lecturing. Nerd on, guys.

Update: 10/28 18:50 GMT by Z : There's a press release going around stating that City of Villians playtesters will be drawn from the ranks of veteran CoH players.

Thanks to HomeLANFed for the news that several new Atari games have been revealed on the official site. These include the action title "Chronos", and the much anticipated Civilization IV.

Thanks to HomeLAN for the news that Activision and Nielsen will be testing in-game adverts starting at the end of the year. Though we've mentioned this previously, the press release would seem to indicate things are moving into their final stages. "The two companies announced that they are launching a groundbreaking test using the newly-released Activision video game, Tony Hawk's Underground 2 to determine how long and how often players interact with brands. The test will feature Nielsen's watermarking technology that uses audio encoding to uniquely identify when players are exposed to product placements within the game."

rsmith-mac writes "The HomeLAN Federation has posted an interview with Dave Callaham, the scriptwriter for the forthcoming Doom movie. The interview goes over id's influences on the movie and willingness to change the mythology to work with the movie, along with the earlier reported studio shift, and some very light details relating to the characters in the story. If all goes as planned, the Doom movie will start principal production this month in order to hit the theaters in August of 2005."

rsmith-mac writes "The HomeLAN Federation has posted an interview with Dave Callaham, the scriptwriter for the forthcoming Doom movie. The interview goes over id's influences on the movie and willingness to change the mythology to work with the movie, along with the earlier reported studio shift, and some very light details relating to the characters in the story. If all goes as planned, the Doom movie will start principal production this month in order to hit the theaters in August of 2005."

James DeSimas writes "Halflife2.net was able to get an exclusive interview with Chuck Osborn from PCGamer. In the interview he found out that Counter-Strike: Source is indeed the only Multiplayer for Half-Life 2." This comes on the heels of the news that PC Gamer will feature a special HL2 Review in its upcoming issue. Full Steam and Retail packaging details about the game are also available from many sources today as well.

Thanks to HomeLAN Fed for details from today's Doom 3 modding seminar held at QuakeCon, with "id Software programmers Robert Duffy and Jim Dose, animator Fred Nilsson and intern Robert Harris in attendance." On the question of the Doom 3 SDK release date, "Duffy said they were aiming for sometime next week but added, 'Don't quote me on that'." Other interesting tidbits include vehicle modding ("Even though the gameplay doesn't lend itself to vehicles, Doom 3 does support vehicles and when the SDK is released a sample map will be included that will have a six wheeled buggy in it"), as well as level-of-detail issues for modders ("Most of the artwork in the game started as a 3D model and things like character models had over 1 million polygons before they reduced them down to be used in the game. id plans to release exporters for programs like Maya and some sample character models for the game in order to help mod artists with their work.")

Thanks to HomeLAN Fed for its news story revealing StarCraft: Ghost developer Nihilistic is no longer attached to the still-in-development tactical action game. According to an official Blizzard statement: "Nihilistic has completed its contribution on StarCraft: Ghost. They are contracted to begin work on another project in the months ahead. Due to the requirements of that obligation and the delay of StarCraft, it was mutually determined that now would be the best time for them to complete their work." The PS2/Xbox/GameCube title was announced as delayed late last week, at which point Blizzard simply stated: "We plan to build additional time into the schedule to polish the game."

An anonymous reader writes "Public voting has opened for the Computer Museum of America Hall of Fame, which is looking to add 5 more members to the roster via a public vote. Previous inductees include Sid Meier (of Civilization fame), and among this years list of nominees is Linus himself. The full list, along with the voting area itself is over at HomeLAN."

Thanks to HomeLAN Fed for its article discussing the state of the annual 'Best Of E3' game awards, in which the writer suggests that the "E3 awards are a bit of a sham and... a lot of games that get these awards are either not released in the coming year or if they are they are not as good as their E3 presentations make them out to be." He points out that "...out of the 16 categories that the Game Critics E3 awards had last year, 10 of them went to games that have not yet come out and won't be out until after E3 2004." Elsewhere, GameSpot focuses its 'GameSpotting' editorials on the forthcoming E3 trade show itself, suggesting that the show "is becoming a bigger and bigger source of stress and anxiety to the gaming industry as time goes by", even taking into account the excitement of "the biggest video game convention on God's green earth."

Thanks to HomeLan Fed for their interview with Robert Gehorsam of There Inc. regarding their U.S. Army-funded 'virtual world' project, as previously mentioned on Slashdot. This extension of an the existing There Inc. MMO title will apparently "enable a commander of an [Army] unit to say, 'Hey, my unit needs to train for its upcoming peacekeeping duties in Kumar.' He works with a trainer to develop a specific environment and scenario (or better yet, modify an existing one out of a repository), figures out who is going to play the bad guys, the civilians and the 'others' -- like the Red Cross, the UN, etc. -- and then prep his unit for the exercise." However, when asked about the types of features MMOG fans might recognize, Gehorsman suggests: "Guns? I'll admit, however, that the magic system is not particularly robust."

0xBulbizarre writes "The long awaited patch to V2.0 for FPS/RTS hybrid Savage is now here, in both Windows and Linux flavors. It's also worth taking the time to read the amazing 2.0 ChangeLog for a list of all the additions, fixes, etc in the new Savage patch, since they've made new units, new visual effects, and plenty of other changes besides - lets support good Linux game makers." We've previously covered this reasonably well-received 'acquired taste' of a title, and elsewhere, HomeLan Fed is reporting on unconfirmed rumors from "highly placed sources" that Savage publisher iGames may be closing its doors, but that "[Savage developer] S2 Games is still in operation and will continue to support and add onto Savage as planned." Update: 01/22 00:15 GMT by S : A follow-up at HomeLan Fed has the CEO claiming "rumor of [iGames'] closing was started by an innocent miscommunication [with the company's] former COO."

0xBulbizarre writes "The long awaited patch to V2.0 for FPS/RTS hybrid Savage is now here, in both Windows and Linux flavors. It's also worth taking the time to read the amazing 2.0 ChangeLog for a list of all the additions, fixes, etc in the new Savage patch, since they've made new units, new visual effects, and plenty of other changes besides - lets support good Linux game makers." We've previously covered this reasonably well-received 'acquired taste' of a title, and elsewhere, HomeLan Fed is reporting on unconfirmed rumors from "highly placed sources" that Savage publisher iGames may be closing its doors, but that "[Savage developer] S2 Games is still in operation and will continue to support and add onto Savage as planned." Update: 01/22 00:15 GMT by S : A follow-up at HomeLan Fed has the CEO claiming "rumor of [iGames'] closing was started by an innocent miscommunication [with the company's] former COO."

rsmith-mac writes "As an update to last week's story about a proposed California bill to bar minors from buying first-person shooters, HomeLANFed has an interview up with Leland Y. Yee, the assemblyperson responsible for creating the bill. While there are some good intentions with Yee's actions, I can't help but feel that this is a classic case where the road to Hell is being paved with those good intentions."

An anonymous reader writes "MMORPGDot's new game status report details the latest advances in the space-based MMOG EVE Online, discussing the highs and the lows of being the reigning champion of MMO space sims with Hellmar, EVE's lead programmer." The interview shows that the game's 30,000 subscribers, although tiny compared to other MMOGs, is "...more than enough to keep the game running, [as] we are a small company with considerably less overhead than many other MMO operations." It's also revealed that the equivalent of a housing expansion for space is planned: "We have also been working on player owned structures in space for quite some time now and will release them into the game early next year. The structures allow players to build small towns in space, comprised of control towers, sentry guns, power generators, mobile refineries, field assembly arrays, ship hangars, and more." HomeLanFed also has a recent interview with the EVE Online developers.

ViRGE writes "HomeLAN Fed has an interesting article up about the experiences of one of their writers being involved in a gaming violence study. What did they find? 'With the set-up of these games, whether the researchers did it intentionally or not, the violent games that I played anyway were set up to be frustrating to play.' Maybe games aren't as destructive as we once thought, and it's the lab techs that are?" Clearly, an incompetent mouselook technician doesn't mean an unfair rap for all violent games, although the piece does make some good points about creating a fair context for these studies.

Thanks to HomeLan Fed for their interview with Machinima Academy director Paul Marino about the nominees for the 2003 Machinima Awards, honoring "filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment." Those up for awards include the ever-popular Red Vs. Blue, and more than one title from the commercial machinima company Fountainhead Entertainment, and Marino makes the interesting claim that "the holy grail of rendering systems is real-time rendering - and after that point, the creative language shifts and becomes more like filmmaking where shots are recorded in real-time."

Thanks to HomeLanFed for their initial report on the official unveiling of EA/Origin's new PC MMORPG, Ultima X: Odyssey. They say that the previously rumored title is "...a massively multiplayer game that was described as a 'sister' game to Ultima Online. The dev team promised that players will not have to worry about using macros in the game or beating up on tiny rats just to level up at the beginning." It's also confirmed that the game is "powered by Epic's Unreal engine", and "very action oriented", and much new information is expected as the EA-X Event continues on Friday. Update: 08/22 15:26 GMT by S : There's now an official press release, screenshots courtesy GameSpyDaily, and a 21mb trailer downloadable from Gamershell, Worthplaying, and via BitTorrent courtesy GameTab.

Thanks to HomeLanFed for their article reporting highlights from the Doom III keynote panel at QuakeCon, which featured id CEO Todd Hollenshead, lead designer Tim Willits, programmer Robert Duffy and lead animator Fred Nilsson. They discussed how "making a map for Doom III is a lot more of a collaborative effort than in previous Doom games because of the level of detail", and mentioned that "both Linux and Mac OS X versions of Doom III are moving in close development with the PC version... they will have Mac and Linux files available for download when Doom III is released for the PC... An actual Mac retail box for Doom III is a possibility but a Linux retail release is unlikely." They also confirm Doom III for Xbox is being converted by Vicarious Visions and "will be basically the complete experience that PC gamers will get."

Thanks to EuroGamer for their new preview of id's Doom III from an Activision press event in the UK, where id lead designer Tim Willits and CEO Todd Hollenshead were demonstrating the latest build of the long-awaited FPS sequel. Hollenshead confirmed of the game: "We have no plans to release it this year", a new "physics patch" was shown (the writer suggests "the physics implementation seems to be quite young, suggesting it was 'bolted on' after the capabilities of the Source engine became apparent"), and the writer argues that "...for all Valve's fancy physics and cunning AI, the eye candy in Doom III is still a cut above." Update: 08/14 15:39 GMT by S : In a related story, HomeLanFed have initial impressions of the multiplayer Doom III modes, currently being demonstrated at QuakeCon in Dallas.

Ant writes "According to an article at Blue's News: 'Though id Software basically invented the idea of using "when it's done" as a release date, and thus did not specify a release date when DOOM 3 was announced, many have been assuming that the game would be available for this year's holiday season. Now a report on HomeLAN Fed cites Activision's 2003 release calendar and quarterly financial conference call... [saying that] Activision admits that this matter is entirely in id's hands, but that they are not expecting the game this year, and have it "penciled" on their calendars for fiscal Q4 (Jan-March) 2004.' Additionally, Quake IV is now due in Fiscal 2005 (which begins April 2004)."

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to HomeLan Fed's story indicating Epic have announced a free multiplayer add-on for Unreal 2 is in development. This announcement comes in an official Unreal 2 messageboard thread posting from Epic's Mark Rein, and briefly states: "Lack of multiplayer is a temporary issue with Unreal 2. Legend are currently reviving their XMP design for multiplayer and it will be released as a FREE downloadable add-on for people who own Unreal 2." Might this partly be because developers Legend are doing multiplayer work for the alleged Xbox conversion of Unreal 2, after the so-so reception of the PC version?

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a HomeLan Fed article interviewing the creators of Robotron-inspired PC arcade-action title Crimsonland. This retro-styled shooter started out as a freeware game from the small Finnish developer 10 Tons Entertainment, and was picked up by Reflexive Entertainment after the unofficial help of fellow Finns and Max Payne developers Remedy. As for Crimsonland itself, according to developer Tero Alatalo, "..the game uses features of modern 3D accelerators to draw good old 2D graphics. So you'll need to have a 3D card to run a 2D game, but basically you couldn't get the same smoothness, effects and frame rate with traditional 2D drawing methods."

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a HomeLan Fed interview with Jason Busby of 3D Buzz, talking about the Mastering Unreal project, an Epic-backed service which releases free, downloadable videos teaching users how to create levels, vehicles, AI, and whole mods for Unreal Tournament 2K3. According to Busby, "Currently, we have 64 videos available for download.. the videos themselves range anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours, depending on what is being covered and the amount of information that we must get across to the student." This project is running in conjunction with the Make Something Unreal mod competition we covered a few days ago, and seems like a very positive step to help people get creative and make cool new game mods/assets.

Thanks to HomeLanFed for pointing to a Gamers.com/GameNOW interview with legendary comic book creator Stan Lee about his superhero videogames. The talk touches on the fact he's working on a new, as yet unannounced original game, and Stan co(s)mically rambles as he discusses gaming - "I wish I were younger, and I had more time, because I know I would love to play them, because you can really enmesh yourself in the activity and in the little world that you enter on that screen."

John Callaham writes "HomeLAN chats with Digital Illusions producer Mikael Rudberg as he talks about Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons, the upcoming second expansion pack to their hit multiplayer shooter for publisher Electronic Arts." Seems like Battlefield 1942 has been one of the out-of-left-field smash hits of recent, and from the guys who honed their skills on Pinball Dreams for the Amiga, too.

John Callaham writes "HomeLAN gives its brief but hands-on impressions of Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, based on playing a build of the upcoming Interplay PS2/XBox console action game at last week's VUGames press event." There are also further impressions and screenshots of this title at Gamespot. While this new Fallout title has been vilified on Fallout fan sites for ignoring the more in-depth RPG leanings of its classic predecessors, those people who love the original PC series can at least now download the Fallout 2 editor from the Black Isle site.

An anonymous submitter wrote in about this interview with the director of the Guildhall game development program. Slashdot mentioned it earlier.

jasoncart writes "In a bold move newly formed US technology company Infinium Labs Corporation have announced the release of a new gaming console. They promise that it will be faster than any other console on the market, and have a huge games catalog (32k+ games apparently) available over broadband. Can they take on the big boys? Is broadband pentration high enough? Only time will tell - prototypes are promised in March." There's also an interview with their PR spokesdrone. *cough*Indrema.*cough*

JustinMette writes "Are you an independent game developer trying to make it in the industry? If so, you will probably be extremely interested to read about the upcoming IndieGamesCon 2002 hosted by GarageGames. You can read all about the conference in an interview with Jay Moore, GarageGames Marketing Manager. And yes, the conference is sponsored by a Brewery with the official "indie" beer, Spank Dog Ale! "World Domination through Collaboration" (official conference motto), Justin Mette 21-6 Productions Inc."