Timbo, Thursday 8th of September 2005 17:45:01 GMT - 1.0.1 release
1.0.1 is out. This is primarily a balance tweak release, but it also contains a few bug fixes. Check the included ChangeLog for details. The data gleamed from 210 hours of play was invaluable in making the decisions for 1.0.1. In a short time we should be able to tell in what direction things have moved balance wise, and by how much. With a bit of luck it should be a significant improvement.
Barring any major show stoppers, this will probably be the last release of Tremulous that requires Quake 3. After a short break I'll dive into knocking out a preliminary standalone version, so that we can determine the amount of work involved.
Have fun!
Timbo, Sunday 28th of August 2005 02:13:04 GMT - Post-release and the future
Hello! So the release all went smoothly and without incident. The number of people having trouble getting Tremulous going has been relatively small, which I think justifies the time I spent putting the installers together. To date there have been in excess of 3000 downloads from Sourceforge alone, from which we seem to be getting approximately 100 new downloads every day; long may it continue!
In the two and a bit weeks since we released 1.0, there have been about 400 games on server.tremulous.net, comprised of 240 unique player names. During testing we peaked at around 10 games a week, so it was difficult to accumulate balancing data. Now on the other hand, we have plenty of data, so getting the balance tuned should prove significantly easier. It should be obvious to any one who has played in the last couple of weeks that the balance is a little skewed towards the aliens at the moment. Pleasingly however, this doesn't seem to be putting too many people off, so I must have done something right.
We plan to release a patch (1.0.1) in the coming weeks to address the balance issues. The important changes include the addition of a "Medkit" upgrade to replace the "Anti-tox". This allows the user to heal themselves in the field, with a view to increasing the sustainability of human attacks. To the same end, maximum ammo quantities on all of the guns have been increased. On the alien side, the Tyrant damage values have been toned down somewhat, and the Advanced Marauder lightning attack has been reworked such that it actually requires a modicum of skill to use. I've made numerous other tweaks here any there, the details of which I'll include with the patch. I don't have an exact timescale for this update, suffice to say it shouldn't be too long. We might need a few testers closer to the time, keep an eye on the Feedback forum if you're interested in helping out.
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past wee while, you'll be aware that id has released the full Quake 3 source code under the GPL license. The impact for us is that it opens the door to developing a stand alone version of Tremulous that doesn't require Quake 3 to be installed. Such a version of Tremulous has the potential to attract a whole new cross-section of players that never bought or no longer have Quake 3. We are still evaluating the precise amount of work involved in such a project, but I am reasonably confident that it is relatively small. The biggest problem is having to replace every single piece of media that we inherit from Quake 3. This includes things such as textures, brass models and the odd sound. After the aforementioned patch is released I'll concentrate on building a preliminary version so we can see exactly how much work is involved. Right now then, I can say that we will probably attempt to make Tremulous stand alone. Watch this space.
Timbo, Thursday 11th of August 2005 21:00:26 GMT - Tremulous released!
It's out!
Timbo, Thursday 11th of August 2005 16:05:15 GMT - Tremulous release tonight
After a long time in development, Tremulous for Q3 is to be released tonight (Thursday August 11th) at 2100GMT. Installers for Windows and Linux will be available, each about 90Mb in size. Please join #tremulous on irc.quakenet.org in order to get the download as soon as it is available.
Tremulous is a total conversion for Quake III: Arena that blends real-time strategy elements with first-person combat in a futuristic setting. Players may fight as either aliens or humans, choosing between dozens of unique abilities or helping their team by constructing bases out of a multitude of buildable structures.
Tremulous also makes several enhancements to the the Quake 3 engine including a powerful particle system, an enhanced head-up display, and a flexible map system including animated mapobjects and light flares. These changes and the rest of the Tremulous source code are made available to the public under the Open Source Mod License.
Further information is available in the manual.
Timbo, Sunday 7th of August 2005 14:21:09 GMT - Tremulous release announcement
Stop the presses! The pigs are flying! Hell has frozen over! After an embarrassingly long time, we're finally releasing Tremulous 1.0 on Thursday the 11th of August at 21:00 GMT. Installers for Windows and for Linux will be available, each being approximately 100Mb in size. In the run up to the release, we now have a manual that explains Tremulous in detail. As is seemingly customary on these occasions, there will be an IRC release party in the channel #tremulous on irc.quakenet.org. If you are able to provide a server on Thursday it would be much appreciated, please get in touch.
Timbo, Thursday 23rd of June 2005 23:25:14 GMT - Mailing list for testing
No news is good news? I'm not sure. Anyway, this is just a quick note to say I've set up a mailing list used to organise testing of Tremulous. Asking people to get on IRC or the forums wasn't working. So if you're interested in participating in the final push before the big 1.0, details are here.
Timbo, Thursday 18th of November 2004 19:42:48 GMT - Scheduled testing games
We're planning on having games on Friday (19th), Saturday (20th) and Sunday (21st) starting at 2200GMT (which is 1400PST, 1700EST). If you're thinking about playing please connect to the IRC channel (#tremulous irc.quakenet.org) too, as it really makes things easier from an organisational point of view. Make sure you hang around too, it's useless joining for a minute or two, not getting a response and quitting.
See the below news post for more details regarding how to get Tremulous. I hope to see you there!
Timbo, Sunday 14th of November 2004 15:05:23 GMT - Tremulous beta testing
Tremulous is nearing completion (no really), and as such needs testing in order to balance it. Over the past few months we've conducted relatively low volume testing on a weekly basis by enlisting people closely involved with Tremulous. It would be nice to get some higher volume games together though, in order to make sure that Tremulous scales well. As you can see by viewing our balance data it is still not perfect (the aliens win slightly more often than the humans), but it is getting closer. Given a significantly large number of higher volume games, correcting the balance quickly should not be excessively difficult.
Tremulous can be downloaded from the files section. The beta is currently stored and updated off site as sourceforge's download system is inadequate for something updated so frequently. The test server is acheron.r1gameservers.com:27960. Our IRC channel is #tremulous on irc.quakenet.org. Joining this is very useful for organising games. Have fun!
Timbo, Friday 12th of December 2003 03:00:00 GMT - Particle System
Not content with two news updates in a week, I decided I should add a third. Besides fixing bugs and dealing with media integration, one of the things I have been up to lately has been to develop a particle system for Tremulous. Essentially this is an evolution of the earlier "spriter" system that was used to create simple particle effects in maps.
The new particle system is fully generalised and used for all of Tremulous' in game particle effects. Particle systems may be attached to any model or point in space such as a gun muzzle or a projectile impact on a wall. A map entity named misc_particle_system has also been created to allow for particle effects in maps. The particle systems themselves are defined textually using a relatively simple but versatile description language. This is explained in the development forum. Screenshots don't really do the particle system justice, so instead we have created a short (xvid codec) video demonstrating some of its features. Many thanks go to Jex for putting in the time to make the demo map and particle systems seen in the video.
Development is going steadily at the moment, and with the holidays coming up there is likely to be a boost in activity for a while. With a bit of luck we can get a significant amount done over the coming weeks, bringing a public release ever closer.