Welcome to the Games Modding News Roundups for the week preceeding the 26th October 2009. Everything this week has some development/learning value so there aren’t any normal mod releases or news updates this week.
- Darren

General

• ModDB EU Download Servers
  ModDB have announced they are adding five new EU download servers, to be online in early November.
• ModDB ‘Groups’ Changes
  ModDB have changed their Groups system to make it easier to identify fan pages from developer ones. ‘Groups’ are fan groups while ‘Developers’ or ‘Companies’ are exactly that.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

• No Dedicated Servers or Modding Fiasco
  It was recently revealed that Modern Warfare 2 for PC would be using a matchmaking service instead of the usual server lists and that the game would not support mods. Over 158,000 unhappy people have signed a petition against the lack of dedicated servers though Infinity Ward have expressed that there’s no going back now.

Diablo III

• Leonard Boyarsky Interview
  Hellforge have grabbed an interview with Leonard Boyarsky, Lead World Designer for Diablo III and ‘one of the masterminds of the Fallout world’.

Half-Life 2

• NEOTOKYO° Update Release
  NEOTOKYO° have released some updates in the form of a client patch, server patch and an “SDK Lite” release with props for people to make their own maps for the mod.
• Podcast 17 Transmission C:17441
  In the 20th October episode of Podcast 17 there’s quite a lot of Left 4 Dead 2 discussion with Joe W-A of Shotgun Sunrise and the Fly Gabe Fund plus the usual release and media run-throughs.

Unreal Tournament 3

• The Making of CTF-Pipeline
  Bazzwano (Bryan Sparksman, a mapper with second, third and fifth place maps in the MSUC contest) has updated his ‘The Making of CTF-Pipeline thread at BeyondUnreal‘ which includes quite a few nice screenshots of the steps involved in creating various materials and meshes for the map and explanations about some of them.
• Sound and Music Tutorial Level
  billy.stupid has posted an interactive sound and music tutorial that was recently exhibited at the Audio Engineering Society convention in New York. As you walk around the environment you can watch various videos about Unreal Engine 3 audio/music use and game audio in general.
• Matinee Video Tutorials
  Recently micahpharoh posted on the Epic games forums about some tutorials aimed at machinima makers using Unreal Engine/Tournament 3, the twelve video series is here on YouTube and covers a number of things you can do with Matinee. Though they’re made with machinima in mind you can use Matinee to create cutscenes and to add various things like movement to your levels so they’re worth a watch if you’re not all-up on Matinee yet.

Feedback on GM’s series of news roundups would be greatly appreciated.
If you’ve got news you want to share, post on the forums or email: david@gamesmodding.com

Have you been keeping up-to-date on your BlizzCon 2009 news?
If not, here is a re-cap of Day 1:

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Expansion

Another WoW expansion, adding 2 new races: Goblins and Worgen.
They also plan to add some much requested features: Flying in old places, Heroic Deadmines, Gnome Healers.
Check the WoW: Cataclysm site for more info.

Diablo III: Monk Class

A new class was announced: Monk, holy warrior.
Check the Monk’s page for info on Sanctuary’s newest champion.

And now Day 2:

Starcraft II and Battle.net

Battle.net will be Blizzard’s new social network for gamers. This sounds cool:

“After the launch of StarCraft II, we aim to add the StarCraft II Marketplace to Battle.net, which will create a vibrant ecosystem of user-generated content, including multiplayer maps, single-player scenarios, challenges, themes, and more.”

Read the whole Battle.net page here.

The latest version of Diablo 3 Warcraft is out. Check out the 1.18 vid:

A few days back i came across the mod Diablo III Warcraft, which has a beta out. Since watching the amazing trailer (below) i’ve been looking everywhere for my Warcraft 3 CD…

Blizzcon 2009 was announced for August 21-22, 2009.

Blizzcon is a Blizzard (Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft) convention, and this year they are featuring:

• Hands-On Play with upcoming Blizzard Games (!)
• Discussion Panel with Blizzard devs
• Tournaments (Casual and Competitive)
• Community Contests with Prizes
• Commemorative Merchandise
• Silent Auction
• More….

Source