Wolfenstein Multiplayer Test 2 Out

Kallahar writes: "Everybody and their pet will report this, but the new Wolf MP test is out! Get it from Blues News (or many mirrors)." This probably would have been a better submission if it had included a download link of some sort.

Comments

Linux?

[Gaccm]

anyone have any news of whether this one will also be ported to linux? if so, then it would be almost 100% chance that the final version would be out for linux too. If not, well, thats one less game which takes me away from Half-life and Alpha Centauri

Re:Better submission...

[ThatComputerGuy]

And how about some info on the linux version?

I've been looking at mirrors, but haven't found it yet. Is the linux test 2 even out yet, or is a date set for it?

"Improved" Netplay

[CheSera]

Something went seriously wrong with their update here I think. In RTCW test v1 I could run it fine at 1024x768 at 32 bit textures, now anytime I push the rez over 640x480 I lag obscenely. My ping times remain decent, but the game is unplayably slow. Especially when I dare to leave the confines of the bunker. I wonder if there are any v1 servers left.

Wolfenstein Trivia

[WalterSobchak]

Maybe some /.ers would be interested, that while of course the "Return to Wolfenstein" storyline is fictional, there is a grain of truth to it.
Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfuehrer SS, was drawn to - if not obsessed with - the mystical and supernatural. While I would have to research this thesis, Himmler may really have believed (Sorry, German) to be an incarnation of Herny the Lion (1133-1189). A fact is, that H. wanted to turn the SS into a quasi religious order, based on germanic mythology.
Maybe the most interesting piece here, is that H. installed the "H-Sonderkommando" (German), which was a well funded research project on witch hunts. Himmler viewed the witch hunts as a kind of early modern holocaust inflicted upon the Germanic race ... At the same time, researchers say, Himmler was hoping to find among the old records "the remains of the heathen, Old Germanic folk culture that one assumed was meant to be wiped out along with the witches." ( Der Spiegel (English)
To find out more about the guys you're shooting in Wolfenstein, read Himmler's Pozen speech.

Apart from this, happy gaming

Alex

Re:Wolfenstein = Q3 + WW2 Patch?

[spyderbyte23]

Quake 3 is fun in its own respect, but slapping a World War 2 mod on top of it and marketing it as something brand new is pushing it a little, methinks.

Well, the retail version of RtCW is going to include extensive single player action, unlike Quake3, which really only allowed mulitplayer and playing against the bots.

Of course my gameplay has been slightly limited - I certainly haven't logged more than a few hours at most

When I had only played Wolfenstein for a few hours, I didn't like it either. It grew on me.

- but I can't help but compare it to the superbly executed (and free) Day of Defeat. I guess it has more to do with realistic damage than anything else; I like the (generally) one shot one kill rules of DoD,

Really? That just frustrated me about Day of Defeat. Especially as most servers have friendly fire turned on; the complete and utter cockmongers who plague most online games tend to blast you before you ever even see an enemy. Even if you don't get tagged by a teammate, though, I still find it frustrating and not fun -- but realistic, I'll grant you that! -- that so much of the action consists of "walk three steps, get fragged by an enemy you never saw."

and it seems silly that in Wolfenstein I have to shoot you with a Thompson or MP40 many times before you go down.

Yes, this is one of the sillier things about Wolfenstein. Example: it takes about nine body shots at close range with the Colt .45 to frag an enemy. The clip holds eight rounds. This makes the weapon less than useless, and not terribly realistic either. I suspect that there will still be some rebalancing coming on the weapons -- I'll probably try the test out later today and see how it goes.

Re:Back in the day...

[PlaysWithMatches]

> I have a feeling the latest versions will fail to capture the awe I felt when seeing what was actually possible with the processing power of a 286.

Heh unfortunately for us, you are almost guaranteed to be right. Why? Consider what Wolf3D was when it came out: it was the (semi-)3D shooter. There were no others, and nobody had expectations for what it should be, since it was unprecedented. Now we've got Unreal, UT, Tribes 1 & 2, Quake 1-3, Deus Ex, Fakk 2, Red Faction, Rainbow Six, and a billion other first person shooters.

And sadly, at their core, they're really all the same. Sure, they have varying levels of strategy and tactics required, but when you get down to it, you're killing people/creatures in first-person. Yeah, you may be grabbing a flag, or destroying an objective, or searching for a key card. But those are all simply extensions of what began with Wolf 3D, DOOM, etc.

So yes, Return to Wolfenstein will almost certainly not be as breathtaking as the original was. But that's because, in the grand scheme of games, it's just another approach to a formula we've been playing with for the last decade.

Don't get me wrong - Tribes 2 and the new Wolf are awesome games, and I love 'em to death. But if you're looking for awe-inspiring innovation similar to what Wolf 3D brought to the gaming industry in the days of yore, it's not likely you'll find it this time around. Doesn't mean it's not a great game though. ;)