What's news?

Ahh, vague omens and mysterious portents. Tangled webs of fate intertwined with the branches of destiny, blown by the capricious winds of happenstance. News, news....uh, actually there is some news!

  Androidsynthetic intelligence?

August 29, 2010, 3:56 PM EDT

Do you have one of them newfangled fancy phones with all those beeps and lights and things? Perhaps you've even got that hip new software they call Android? If you do, I have nothing but contempt for you. Mostly because it is my cultural duty to let you know Finnish phones are superior in every way (except for price, style and possibly usability, but meh), but also because I am a very envious person and I don't like others having neat stuff I don't.

Anyway, if you do happen to have a phone with Android in it, there's some good news of sorts. Right now you can pretty much play UQM on your phone. A fine fellow called pelya over in this thread on UQMF has been a busy bee indeed, and he's even put some information on the Ultronomicon. In pely's own words:

"Well, dunno what to say. It still has many bugs, but you can play through the whole game with it (savegames are reported to work, that's good news Wink however you can't use the same savegame slot twice, I'll fix that). Also addons do not work, however if you've already downloaded an addon it won't be downloaded twice, and maybe it will work in the next update.
If you just want to play Melee it works good enough. (the network games should work, however I've never tried them, and they are kinda non-confortable - you'll have to manually enter another player IP address, you can check it out from your Settings->Wireleless networks->Wifi settings->press Menu and select Advanced)."

So if you've got the hardware and the software, load the port and go adventuring anywhere!

Posted by Lukipela — Sun Aug 29, 2010 7:56 pm — Replies 10 — Views 146

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  TFB Latest News

July 19, 2010, 1:15 PM EDT

Last week TFB updated their news page to confirm that Above and Beyond is not their current project and their game will be awesome, exciting and fun:

Quote:

Latest Project

It's been a while! We're still working on a game that we think is really awesome and fun, but we can't talk about it just yet. We would, however, like to clear-up some rumors that have been circulating about a new Star Control game we're supposedly making called "Above and Beyond": they aren't true! The game we're currently developing has nothing to do with Star Control, but it's still really exciting and we can't wait until we can talk about it officially. Stay tuned!

What are your thoughts about this?

Posted by Anthony — Mon Jul 19, 2010 5:15 pm — Replies 6 — Views 348

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  A topical topic

July 15, 2010, 1:18 PM EDT

Hey guys!

A couple of weeks back there was some discussion on how some of you would like to see more art posted on the front page. So I figured why not. At infrequent intervals I'll post something here that catches my eye, and I'll try to aim for new or seldom seen material. Some of it will be art, some of it will be other stuff.

Followers of decades old games often get accused of being out of touch with the modern day world. But that's just not true, as you can see from the following highly topical and relevant football jokes. Thanks to some guy who didn't give me a name and whom I've never talked to before for emailing me this out of the blue. I hope you enjoy. (Also I hope this goes out on the RSS feed, never tried pictures before).

EDIT: New attempt at picture. Also the maker would like to identify himself as Martin Dawson. Thanks Martin!

Posted by Lukipela — Thu Jul 15, 2010 5:18 pm — Replies 8 — Views 300

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  Coffee with Paul Reiche

July 3, 2010, 12:25 PM EDT

So I’d been a tad curious about the new TFB game for some time now. And I wasn’t the only one, PNF news readers were expressing concerns too. As I had dutifully promised, I decided to take it up with Paul at a squash game. Why there? Who knows, it just sounded good. Sometimes I do things for no good reason. I always pictured Paul as someone who’d enjoy a manly game of squash. But for weeks he stalled. There was always something he had to attend to, some thing that was really important and that had to be done “right now”. So eventually, I got tired of the wait. My loyal PNF readership was anxiously waiting for answers. Like, all eleven of them. So I cornered Paul and demanded an explanation. Did he not want to play with me? Did he not appreciate my slavering loyalty an unerring devotion? Did he not realize that as a representative of the largest Star Control fan site on the internet I could ruin him? The truth, it turns out, was much simpler.

“Playing squash is for me some how unalterably linked with -eating- squash”, he said with a pained grimace.

With a queasy look on his face he continued; “And I am afraid that a horrible childhood experience has put me off the entire gourd family. Imagine the worst combination of 1960's cuisine -- overcooked, no spices and a requirement to 'eat it all'. I believe that encounter may have ended, well... Exorcistian.”

But feelings of pain and sadness always pass so quickly on Paul’s face. Almost as soon as he had relieved that painful childhood memory, he continued in a most upbeat voice.

“On a happier note, I do make an exception for pumpkin pie, which I consider the perfect food and always a welcome gift.”

I immediately hatched a cunning plan. If he didn’t want to play squash then I’d feed him pumpkin pie! Sometimes I marvel at my strokes of pure genius. Casually, I mentioned that I’d love to buy him some coffee and pie at some stage. Without suspecting a thing, he walked right into my trap. We agreed on a date the following week.

When he arrived at the lovely little bakery/coffee shop I’d selected, I’d already been there for an hour making preparations. There were biscuits. There were muffins. There were little Italian biscottas and English cupcakes. And coffee of all sorts, of course. Espressos, lattes and that weirdly potent Scandinavian coffee were all lined up.

Paul seemed a little taken aback at the huge amount of bakeries, but his hunger got the best of him. You know what they say, the way to a mans heart goes through his stomach. Actually, I think it’s shorter to just go through the ribcage, but who am I to argue with folk wisdom? Anyway, as he sank his teeth into the first chocolate muffin, I opened with a casual question.

“So your new game has been delayed, or at least the schedule has been redone. Tell me, when can we expect some more news on it? There’s a lot of people waiting for it you know”, I said with just a hint of reproach in my voice. I wanted him to be off guard, but not too worried. If he was feeling guilty, maybe he’d let something slip.

“Well”, he said between bites. “First off, let me say that being secretive or discreet runs counter to my very being. Just ask Fred and he will tell you that I never shut up and that I stick my foot in my mouth at a frequency far above the norm.”

He took a pause to taste one of the lattes before he continued; “So the fact that I am once again under the cone of silence causes me great pain. Weighed against this pain is, however, the real threat of being ejected from my own office and the perhaps imagined threat of being cursed by gypsies.”

He glanced around the coffee shop with a worried look and spoke right into the air. “Apologies to real gypsies out there. I really don't mean to stereotype you. Please don't curse me.”

While I was pondering the significance of this, he continued.

“We were within a couple of weeks of announcing the details of the game when, for the very first time in my life, the tippy top of the company asked what more/better things we could do in the game with a lot of additional time? We responded 'polish like crazy', since that's what we see in the best competitive products. Fast forward a month and we have of course found a mess of fun new features (both within the game and in supporting media) to include, though we still reserve several months just for user testing and polish. As to your original question, I'd say that news will be breaking this year. In fact, we were so close to announcing that word did break accidentally on a few sites. We yanked the news as fast as we could, but then it started to spread (seemingly automatically) like the zombie virus. It took us a number of days to stamp it out and I still have a number of Google Alerts set-up in case we missed its brain admit comes back to life.”

While making his zombie analogy Paul was grinning. Not the best thing to do while eating a muffin. He’d been fairly verbal, so I figured I’d follow up with a quick question before he moved on to the cranberry muffins. I might as well push my luck.

“Is there anything at all you can tell us about the game at this stage”, I enquired, trying to prod him into making just the tiniest of slipups. But he was ready for this one.

“Basically, no”, he said whilst turning a cranberry muffin in his hand, perhaps wondering if a healthy muffin can also be a good tasting one.

“I hate to sound like the guys who make 'Lost'”, he continued, “but I can't say anything concrete and I must mix in some outright lies. While not in any universe we've worked within, the new game is perhaps exactly what one would expect from our studio. If you like Melee or Mayhem, there will definitely be a part of the new game you enjoy.”

At this point he appeared to have zoned out completely. He just kept turning that muffin over and over in his hand. Perhaps I was going to get some real usable quotes now?

“In another sense, we are trying something so new, it blows my mind.” he continued with a distant voice; “We have a magical glowing leprechaun cave that contains all the goodness of the universe, though we leave it unguarded and instead spend decades just weaving. Man, that was stupid. Couldn't they have put in one deadfall trap or a polar bear or maybe just a damn gate?!”

Apparently not. Instead, I coughed in a discreet manner and handed him a tray of biscottas. Paul jerked out of whatever trance had fallen into, and looked at the tray with suspicion in his eyes. In order to distract him, I quickly followed up with my next question.

“Is this new endeavour a cross-platform release, or will it be for only one console?”

It was the wrong question to ask. He looked at me as if I was a Shofixti warrior caught in the Maidens bathroom and answered in a sing-song voice.

“[Insert official statement here] Activision is committed to having their best titles be multi-platform.” Then he continued in a more thoughtful voice: “There is also this new word that keeps popping up in meetings which I can't say out loud, but as you know, a dime rants.”

I was tempted to tell him I don’t even know what a dime is, but I figured I’d best press onward, offering him and espresso and serving up a new question at the same time.

“How does the TFB team feel about doing original IP instead of spin-offs again? Is there a tangible difference in how you approach it?”

Knocking back the espresso, Paul began to talk in a pretty animated voice. Perhaps it was just the caffeine, but this seemed like an emotional subject to him.

“Speaking for myself, Original IP is much more fun to develop, since it constantly engages my imagination”, he said while beaming off a crazy grin. Apparently he is caffeine sensitive. Oh well, at least he was making sense again.

“I am up in the middle of the night much more often these days.” he continued with the same smile plastered in place.

“In Madagascar there were exactly 4 penguins, no more no less. But now I can have one billion penguins. With shotguns. Now there's what should have been in that cave, guarding the MOST IMPORTANT THING ON EARTH.”

At this stage he seemed really hyped and I was beginning to get worried about the possibility of a cardiac arrest. But he calmed right down, settling into a reflective mood.

“The hard part about original IP is that it has a horrible batting average as projects go. Sadly, almost all of them fail to earn a profit, so if you want to make big money as a publisher, you probably want to include a big percentage of licensed products. Of course, if you rely only on licenses, you never get to own anything, so you DO need to fund original development. Publishers are largely defined by the way they resolve the tension between these two opposing motives. In terms of a tangible difference, I find that with an original IP we need to keep everyone informed much more carefully, since there is no reference 'bible' available which risks making the creative process a bit chaotic. Here's an excellent memetic analogy -- Instead of having a cast of well-trained and well-armed penguins, we have a herd of agitated luminescent sheep all of whom want to run in different directions, so I spend a lot of my time trying to keep the glowing-sheep-memes moving along a coherent mountain trail... of the mind! In case you were wondering, I am not so good at analogies.”

Well, this time I managed to follow his thoughts somewhat better. Feeling that we had established good rapport, I fired off the next question pretty quickly, before he had time for another espresso.

“You've mentioned that there are a lot of people involved, more than a hundred. When you made the SC games there were a lot fewer people involved. Are these additions mainly "grunts" (graphics, sound and so forth) or do you have a larger story team now?”

Paul winced a bit. I could tell he didn’t like my wording. Once again I had broken the spell.

“I would never use the word 'grunts'” he said in a loud voice as he looked around the coffee shop with a nervous twitch; “because they would wait until after work and beat me up. Instead, I would say that the creative, handsome and friendly staff are mostly involved with 3D asset creation - character models, rigs, animation clips, visual effects, 3D level mesh and surfaces. Even the placement and scripting of interactivity is vastly more time consuming in 3D than the good old 2D world of Star Control and Archon. Those are about 70% of our staff, most in our Tiki bar/office and some at other studios around the world. 15% are programmers and the rest are production staff. We also have 4 dogs and a bird. And occasionally a bat, which is unnerving.”

I ignored the animal bit. It was time to spring a bigger question on him. I’d been hearing some rumors that I wanted confirmed. Let’s see him talk his way out of this one.

“Is “Above and Beyond” really a TFB SC sequel?”

Biscottas sprayed everywhere as Paul guffawed heartily.

“No, I’ve seen a lot of excited traffic about that, but I honestly have no idea what that’s about”

Oh well, so much for my scoop. At this stage Paul’s alarm in his phone went off. After glancing at it he made a grimace and got up. The interview was over for now, and we hadn’t even gotten to the cupcakes. I still had questions, but the rest would have to wait for next time. For now, this was all we were going to get.

Posted by Lukipela — Sat Jul 03, 2010 4:25 pm — Replies 22 — Views 659

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  A ship doo da loo da, a ship boom bang!

June 20, 2010, 10:42 AM EDT

And the unprecedented torrent of news from the PNF continues! Have no fear true believers, after this your weary eyes will get a rest. I've got something pretty cool lined up in about two weeks (depending on how well my partner in crime performs) but for now this is the last update for a while. I'm guessing all of this constant action has exhausted many of you, so I'll get straight to the point.

The SC2 ship section is pretty cool. But it doesn't really let us know what ships were present in the original game. So I lobbed an idea to Vee-R with the expectation that he'd get back to me within a couple of weeks. Instead he came back within two days with the SC1 ship section pretty much set up. That's what I call effective. The section is built on how the actual ship selection looked in SC1, so many of us will feel right at home there. To make the section even more homely, I decided to integrate Professor Zorg to it as well. That's maximum nostalgia right there.

Anyway, all this got me thinking. I'm responsible for site content. Chad and ScoTt and Eth help out, but they are pretty busy at times. And I'm a lousy coder, designer and whatnot. Also I involve myself in too many projects. If it wasn't for Vee-R, it would've taken a lot longer before the ship sections were back in play. So that begs the question; what else could fans do together? So I'm sending a call out here. Take a look at the site. Is there something you think you could help us with? Something you know your way around and want to improve on? Then let me know.

Just to be clear, we're not trying to muscle in on Ultronomicon territory here. That's the user editable encyclopaedia and will remain the superior resource for detailed information on the SC universe. But this site is dedicated to introducing the SC series, showing and hosting fan stuff and being the source for SC news. If you have a good idea on how to help us build a section, add a special page or whatnot, let me know. I'll be listening.

Posted by Lukipela — Sun Jun 20, 2010 2:42 pm — Replies 10 — Views 406

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  The perfect storm

June 19, 2010, 1:36 PM EDT

Have you ever heard of a perfect storm? You know how sometimes completely unrelated matters come together to create a fierce, unstoppable and exciting event? Well, you're living it right now. This weekend is a perfect storm. Yesterday I showed you our new ship section. That was the beginning. Tomorrow, I have another piece of news for you. That is the end. But now? Well, right now we are at the middle of the storm. And this isn't one of those sissy storms that has a calm in the middle. This is an all out storm, wind, lightning, thunder, you name it. And here we are, enjoying the moment. Living for it.

And what is the moment? Well, it's like this. The comic page has been updated. It no longer features only That Ur-Quan Master and Groombridge Log - Prologue. It now also features Groombridge Log - Chapter 1. That's right. The SC comic world just expanded.

So without further ado, I'll let you get on to reading Groombridge Log - Chapter 1. Hope you enjoy it. And let Tiberian know, because he has invested a lot of time, effort and even money into this.

Posted by Lukipela — Sat Jun 19, 2010 5:36 pm — Replies 16 — Views 513

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  *bang* *boom* crank*

June 18, 2010, 1:53 PM EDT

Oh hey guys. Sorry, I didn't notice you with all the noise. What that is? Well, you remember how we launched the new skeleton site a bit back? Since then we've been busy adding things, moving things and fixing stuff. She's not quite ready, but we've managed to put some tissue on her. Well, sinews at any rate.

Er, anyway. Today we unveil another spanking brand new part of our site. It's not the first and not the last, but it's the spiffiest in quite some time. I would like you to put your hands together for our dear old friend Ringwraith, aka VileRancour, aka Vee-R. Because without him this part of the site wouldn't be as spiffy and lovely as it is right now.

And what part is that? Why it's our Star Control II ship section of course! Vee-R has made some real quality graphics in SC1 style for the new ships and even sat down and written overlays for them.

Hope you enjoy guys.

Posted by Lukipela — Fri Jun 18, 2010 5:53 pm — Replies 11 — Views 417

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  Hear me hunam!

June 8, 2010, 2:28 PM EDT

Hey guys,

Have you ever run into something that just sort of snowballs? You start out tiny and then suddenly more and more things are being added? That's sort of the music page right now. It seems every time I turn around there is more SC fan music out there. And not just new fan music, old fan music seems to be waking up and reinvigorating itself as well. It's like the music train has left the station and is picking up some serious speed. Where it'll stop nobody knows. But it looks like it may be a wild ride.

Recently I was contacted by an old hand who goes by the name of Joseph Collins. Joseph used to have some music featured on PNF back in the day and felt that the new music page should host his music as well. Naturally, we agreed. So there are now 8 songs by Joseph Collins on the music page. We hope you'll enjoy them. Some of these were on the old site, but some are new. Joseph even had some comments to share regarding a few songs.

On the Androsynth theme:

"I know my AndroSynth theme sounds a little like TheMisterCat's AndroSynth theme, but I assure you, it's purely a coincidence. I guess we were on the same wavelength with the whole "solemn tune building up to a future-tech jam". Mine's a little more blunt about it, though. The reason for that being that in my head, Captain Zelnick finds a strange structure on the surface of a random planet only to be captured. When he wakes up, he finds himself in a dark room, talking to blackness. (Kind of like the Spathi Homeworld.) After a few rudimentary questions, the soundtrack "skips" and pops into the futuristic jam I wrote as you see none other than the synthetic humans themselves in their retro-future lab. The conversation could end either with Zelnick dying and the game ending right there, or the AndroSynth letting him go with a warning of "Stay out of AndroSynth space, human." It would have little to no bearing on the plot of Star Control II other than making an interesting story to tell Commander Hayes, but isn't that one of the charming things about Star Control II? Random side-quests and things that have little impact on anything? "

On the remix of the Androsynth theme:

"A remix of my AndroSynth theme done purely with 8-bit Star Control II samples. And a single retrofitted "record scratch" noise. "

In addition to that, forum member Nuclear has a song that he feels is ready to be presented on site. So naturally we obliged. There are several other musicians currently working on our fan board, and it is our heartfelt hope that once they feel their creations are complete, they'll contact us. There's always room for music on the PNF music page.

I sure hope I linked the music page enough times to make sure you guys find it. anyway, until next time!

Lukipela

Posted by Lukipela — Tue Jun 08, 2010 6:28 pm — Replies 1 — Views 198

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  To sing in the heavens

May 24, 2010, 4:15 AM EDT

Greetings ardent SC fans! Have you ever considered how much you rely on your sight? A large part of your input is streamed right from your optical nerve into your brain, easily overpowering some of you more delicate senses. And thus, how things look is something we often obsess over. Are the graphics good enough? Is it shiny? Is it beautiful? If like me you're born with a face no mother can love, this may feel unfair. You may feel that other qualities ought to be more important than simple looks. Surely what lies within ought to mean somewhat more than the surface? Beauty is not immortal, it fades with age.

In that respect, Star Control does well. While the graphics are still lovely in their own fashion, they bear testament to that the games youth lies far behind it. It is no longer one of the prettiest beaus out there. But even though that beauty has faded, the inner qualities still remain. It's a fun game. It's an interesting game. It's an exciting game. It is a game that still has loyal fans after more years than some of us care to reflect upon.

Those fans see through the alluring illusion of beauty. They see that Star Control is more than skin deep. In a myriad of different fashions, they honour the game for it's inner qualities. One way to honour it is to work on what was there, to create your own tribute to the game. There are many of ways to do this, from fan art to small applications of all sorts. But today, let's talk about music.

Star Control has some pretty nifty music. Even though the songs were not made with the game in mind, the creators did a fine job of lining up different songs with different races. We still carry that music with us today. But some of us do more. Some of us build on that, creating new versions of the music we've come to care for so dearly. That is why we have the music page.

Today I bring you a substantial update to that page. First, let me welcome a new remixer, Serosis. He has created a Yehat, VUX, Arilou and Ilwrath remix. Secondly, an old favourite of us has submitted two songs. Pablo Luna graces our page with a new Star Control Intro remix and a further Yehat remix. The Introduction remix was inspired by our very own Angelfish and his attempt, which is still in the works. We dearly hope he will finish it so that one day we may put it up on this page.

And lately, the internet has spoken to me. In words that cannot be denied, it has told me to reinstate Mango's Yehat remix on the music page. We hope you will enjoy this blast from the past.

Posted by Lukipela — Mon May 24, 2010 8:15 am — Replies 13 — Views 570

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  A cool update

May 13, 2010, 3:12 AM EDT

So I was browsing the Ultronomicon a couple of days ago. If you haven't been there, you should check it out. One of the pretty nifty pages over there is "Recent Changes", which shows you what's recently been going on on the site. It's helpful for people like me who otherwise get hopelessly lost and confused on wikis.

So anyway, there I was, happily checking out Zeracles rather daunting project of indexing the SC fandom when I noticed that someone else has been busy on the Ultronomicon. It seems that Shiver has updated his Balance mod to 1.23. It's mostly small balance tweaks, but this is as good a reason as any to try out one of the more impressive UQM mods around. It's linked from our very own mod page as well of course, with a smattering of other fun UQM mods.

Posted by Lukipela — Thu May 13, 2010 7:12 am — Replies 5 — Views 338

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