Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars PC Demo Soon - Details Inside!
Submitted by badman on Thu, 2007-09-06 12:22.
So Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars is done and off to manufacturing! Here at the Splash Damage World Headquarters we started working on the Demo right after the game went gold - we really wanted to get the Demo out there before release to give all of you the chance to see what ETQW is all about. The best part is that the Demo is wrapped up and ready to go; it's set to hit the internet this coming Monday - September 10, 2007 - just a few days from now! Read on to find out the system requirements, what the Demo will contain, and all the cool stuff we've got planned to celebrate the Demo launch.
What You'll Get
The Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars PC Demo comes with the final version of Valley, one of the larger battlegrounds in the game. Set in Yosemite, California, Valley has the Global Defense Force on the attack, as they attempt to foil a Strogg contamination plot centering on a water treatment facility. Valley features a great blend of close quarters infantry action, vehicle battles and aircraft dogfights, and the varied terrain combining mountains, waterways, tunnels and industrial structures allows for many different playing styles. To top it all off, there's a multitude of optional side missions and plenty of opportunities to try out the various defense turrets, artillery and radar deployables - Valley is a prime example of the frantic and diverse action you'll find in Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars.
If you want to learn more about Valley, read our Valley Map Guide for a full run-down of the team objectives, secondary missions and a host of tactical tips for getting the most out of the various GDF and Strogg weapons, items, deployables and vehicles.
For those who already played Valley in the Public Beta, the map has undergone further balance improvements based on your feedback. Most notably, the GDF can now capture the Contaminator Forward Spawn before the Shield Generator is hacked, which really cranks up the action around that objective. On top of that, the Demo contains the final XP and weapon balance, player movement, and vehicle handling.
The Demo also features ETQW's bots, so you can explore the map and gameplay in single player mode with computer-controlled opponents, or use the bots to fill up empty slots on multiplayer servers. We are also including the standalone server as well as the server launcher tool, so you can host your own online and LAN games.
Where You'll Get It
We're working with a large number of file hosting websites in order to make the Demo available to as many people as possible. These include Yahoo, Nvidia, FilePlanet, and Fileshack among many others - we'll be keeping an up-to-date list of mirrors right here on the Community Site, so you can pick the one that's best for you.
What You'll Need
With Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars finished, we've got the system requirements locked down and finalized. Here's what you need in order to run the Demo:
SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP/Vista (Windows 95/98/ME/2000 are unsupported)
Microsoft DirectX(R) 9.0c (included)
HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 2.8 GHz or AMD(R) Athlon(TM) XP 2800+
processor (Pentium 4 3.0GHz or equivalent for Windows Vista)
RAM: 512MB RAM (768MB for Windows Vista)
Video Card: 128MB NVIDIA(R) Geforce(TM) 5700 or ATI(TM) Radeon(TM) 9700 (full list of supported chipsets below)
Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
HDD Space: 750MB of free hard drive space, plus 200MB for Windows swap file
Internet: Broadband connection and service required for full gameplay and downloads. Features may change without notice.
SUPPORTED VIDEO CHIPSETS
NVIDIA GeforceFX Series (5700 or higher, not including 5700LE and 5700VE)
NVIDIA Geforce 6 Series (6200 or higher)
NVIDIA Geforce 7 Series (7300 or higher)
NVIDIA Geforce 8 Series
ATI Radeon 9700 or higher
ATI Radeon X700 or higher
ATI Radeon X1650 or higher
What Else You Can Look Forward To
To celebrate the launch of the ETQW Demo, we've got a number of cool activities planned. On September 10, we'll be having an IRC Demo launch party in the official Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars IRC channel. This is your chance to chat with members of Splash Damage, id Software, and Activision and play a few rounds of the ETQW Demo with them afterwards.
We've also teamed up with a number of partners to bring you several Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars Demo tournaments, so you can try out the game, put your skills to the test and win Cool Stuff. Our partners here include Total Gaming League, Xfire, Eurogamer, and IGUK. Look for more information on these and other Demo events in the coming days!
Phew, that was quite a lot of stuff. We hope to see you on the Demo servers next week!
Enemy Territory QUAKE Wars is GOLD!
Submitted by Locki on Thu, 2007-08-30 16:12.
Back in 2003, we started exchanging design ideas with id Software for what started out as a fairly modest attempt to evolve the team-play in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Now, four years later, Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars has officially gone GOLD! For those of you not familiar with the development term, going gold means that the retail game is complete, and that master DVDs have gone to manufacturing, and will then head to stores. This makes us especially proud, not just because of the incredible passion and effort that the development teams have invested these past four years, but especially because of the amazing support the community has given us.
We could never have dreamed that before we had even released the game, we would have had over 100,000 posts on the game's forums, over 80,000 registrants for the Betas, or that we would meet thousands of you in person in London, Los Angeles, Dallas, New York, and Germany on the many ETQW tours and events we've attended.
It is a direct result of your support and the buzz that you've all generated both here, and on more than fifty fan-sites in so many different countries and languages that Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars has won so many awards, but most importantly, has been the subject of more great community feedback on the Betas than I've ever seen at any time with any other game.
Of course this is just the beginning of the next phase – that of the ongoing support for Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars. Our first goal after completing the game's demo (planned for release in mid-September - we're working on that right now) will be to watch closely and address any issues that come up in the first few weeks after the game's release. Next, we'll be putting the polish on the Software Developers Kit, including the Source Code, Level Design Tools and documentation to make sure mod-makers get what they need.
So it is with our deepest gratitude that we'd like to thank all of the community members that have contributed so much to helping us get the game to gold.
The game's retail release is on September the 28th for Europe and Australia, and October the 2nd in North America. We can't wait to see you all on the servers!
badman's Beta Blog: Accounts and Statistics to be Reset
Submitted by badman on Sat, 2007-08-18 17:34.
A multiplayer combat game like Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars requires a significant amount of backend infrastructure that has to be running at all times, including account registration and verification, user management, statistics collection, server registration and listings, and many more. One of the goals of the Public Beta is to test as many of these systems as possible and with the beta client update out of the way, we’re now ready to conduct a few stress-tests. We’ll be running two major tests in the coming days that will affect your account, so please take the time and read this blog update in its entirety.
The most important of these tests concerns the registration system. In order to tax it as much as possible and make sure it’s up to the task of handling the retail product, we are going to wipe the entire accounts database and have all of our beta testers re-create their in-game account. The process isn’t really all that complicated – let me walk you through it:
The accounts database is reset. Your in-game account will no longer work.
Start the Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars beta client. On the login screen, select your account and click "Remove user". On the next screen, select "Remove local user" and click "Next". Confirm the action.
Retrieve your beta license key from FilePlanet. It can be found both in the email you were sent after signing up or the beta and under My Account -> Beta Keys Archive on the FilePlanet website.
Back in the beta client, go to “Create User” and select “Create new online account”. Put in your account name along with your beta license key and click “Finish”.
That’s it! You’re all set and ready to dive back into the Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars beta.
The wipe is currently scheduled for this coming Wednesday (August 22, 2007), at which point you will no longer be able to play unless you re-create your account in the manner described above. The statistics are also going to be reset that day.
The other test we’re running is currently taking place on a much smaller scale and concerns the statistics roll-back and restoration functionality. In the final game, we’ll be able to use this to combat statistics exploits, padding, and other unwanted activity. To make sure that rolling back and restoring statistics on a large scale is as seamless and robust a process as it can be, 5000 beta accounts have been randomly selected for this test and their owners have already been notified. Essentially, we’re be rolling back the statistics for those accounts by several hours, followed by returning them to their original, pre-rollback state. We’re taking great care during this process, but since this is still a beta, there is a chance that the statistics may be corrupted during the test.
We’d like to thank all of our beta testers for their contributions so far. I know we say this in every beta blog update, but it can’t be stressed enough. You guys have definitely had a positive impact on Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars and we hope you’ll continue to help us during these final few weeks of the ETQW Public Beta.
