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Happy New Year!

Well, now it's official... Hope that everyone had a Happy New Year and as for Gridiron, we can only hope to be testing Gridiron 2.0 this week and everything comes together by this weekend. This will probably be the last post on the site as all of the Gridiron 1.0 news will be archived and everything will be updated on the site for Gridiron 2.0 as it is released.

Also, we would like to note that with all of the changes we have made and are going to be making for Gridiron 2.0, it's definitely safe to say that uninstalling Gridiron 1.0 entirely from your system is going to be necessary before installing 2.0...

Hope to see everyone this next weekend when we will have the site moved to Planet Quake. If you come to this page on Vanson Studios it will forward you to our new location, so no worries. :)

Happy New Year!?

Well, just a few more days and we can get crackin' on the Q3 Gridiron v2.0 release. Valtrain should be back in the saddle again and I will indeed have 4 new maps ready. I would like to playtest the 4 new maps over this weekend in version 1.0 if anyone is interested--meaning playtesting with more than just 4 people. At this point, between the 1.27 release and just general deadness on the Gridiron servers and the IRC, who knows if anyone is as pumped as we are about the next release?

Whatever the case, these things will be goin' down and as I mentioned in the last post, we should be moving this site over to PlanetQuake once we are ready to put out the v2.0 release. We can only hope that everyone will be pleased with what we have in store and that we can go nuts with the new version of the mod in 2001!

Hope to see you on the Gridiron!

Merry Christmas!

We would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and let everyone know that we are indeed going to release the next Q3 Gridiron as Q3 Gridiron v2.0... As soon as we port the v1.0 code over to Q3A 1.27g and some testing the following features will definitely be included in Gridiron v2.0:

-- New ball look and all new ball physics. (This will be huge to the overall gameplay!)
-- All Gridiron v1.0 maps reworked to accomodate the new ball physics. (Sorry.)
-- Addition of AT LEAST 4 new Gridiron maps, maybe more!
-- Lots of new HUD graphics and tweaks!
-- Cool new HUD and display fonts!

Currently Valtrain is home for the holidays and I am working up some new graphics and the new maps. There may be a few map tests between now and the end of the month and if we get the 1.27g code there may be some tests of Gridiron v2.0 as well! We also received our info for our new home on PlanetQuake and we will move over there just as soon as we get Gridiron v2.0 ready for the public...

Stay tuned!

The Second Week...

Once again, thanks to the testers for more help. We are well aware that we are still more or less in the testing stages with Q3 Gridiron gameplay, but it's our first mod that we've built in less than a month, what can we say! We knew that the 1.27 patch would be out soon as well as the Christmas holidays. Nevertheless, we're moving right along.

We also received notice that we will be hosted on PlanetQuake soon and if we can get the 1.27g code AND most of the servers can get the 1.27g upgrade, we'll be right there. Some of the changes mentioned in yesterday's news (especially how the railgun will work) has been scratched. Valtrain is tweaking the code and we're trying a few things, but mainly getting the code cleaned up for porting over to 1.27g and more maps as well as other bells & whistles.

We did perform a test on a new map! Here's a quick in-game action screenshot:



Yes, a double-decker Gridiron!... :)

Another Q3 Gridiron Server Goes Up!

Thanks to the rycee.cx server page, I see that there's another Gridiron server running out there! Maybe at least some of you will get better ping to this server? Jump into the Servers page and take a look! Also, we would like to get more info from the person who is running that server? We appreciate it, so please, write to us!

Small Tests Create Big Juicy News Posts!

It is so hard to determine how one should decide on the overall fun vs. long-term playability of a mod. It is though easy to see how hard people try to frag their asses off. I am, of course, talking about our little private code test on Saturday night. For those of you who did not get a chance to try it or didn't visit us in the IRC afterward, what follows is a little look into what went down with the test and why, plus a few comments:

SUBJECT: Starting the round.
CHANGE: Everyone picks a team and then the game begins as it normally would.
COMMENT: Players that spawn early would grab the ball and run down to get free points. Of course, almost every team-based game requires you join a team at the beginning of a new map, right?!

SUBJECT: The railgun.
CHANGE: More slugs, faster firing, less damage.
COMMENT: As mentioned in previous news, though not every single player has a problem with the railgun, in larger games (ie. 8v8) getting railed can be a nightmare. More slugs, faster firing and less damage should work in a lot of ways. The faster firing railgun gives to the fast paced action feel. More slugs means you can still save your ammo for use later in the round at close range. And for those that wanted to see a plasma gun, this is like some sort of hitscan plasma gun. Of course, less damage requires more people on your team to rail the ball carrier to take that player out. This puts a little less pressure on the team with the ball so they can do at least SOMETHING with the ball, like, maybe, PASSING the ball... ;)

SUBJECT: The gauntlet.
CHANGE: A tiny bit more range.
COMMENT: Someone, just the other day, said that they thought the gauntlet was really an underrated weapon... We could not agree more... Causing fumbles should not though become annoying either. Some people are better at this than others, but hardly anyone tries to use it. We think it's because it's still very hard to hit someone with the gauntlet, hence the enhancement of the gauntlet's range. Give it a try sometime! :)

SUBJECT: Amount of kick recieved from enemy rocket and rail fire.
CHANGE: Zero enemy kick effects from all weapons other than the super shotgun.
COMMENT: Less flying through the air (one can though still rocket jump) and instead players had to battle it out on the ground. The complaint though was the inability to use the kick of the rocket launcher when battling for a loose ball. We plan on tweaking this kick back up on the rocket launcher but not much more on the railgun. Players will get some kick back, but getting splashed in the face will not send you flying into the endzone which is one of the reasons why it was reduced in this latest test. ie. Hold up your health and armor, wait until your splashed in the face with an enemy rocket and go zooming at ungodly speeds into the endzone. I think we all can agree that is just wrong.

Anyhow, I know that there are really skilled players out there that find some of these things just a way of "dumbing down" the mod, but if it brings the skilled player even more competition, that couldn't be all bad and really, these changes inparticular (after they are tweaked and finalized) are not that crazy... Another private test may very well go down Sunday evening, so, if you want to drop in and help, visit us on the IRC under irc.enterthegame.com in channel #gridiron! Oh yeah, you can erase that zzz*.pk3 we sent you now... :)

Lastly, I just got this Email which has indeed made me think about why our home Gridiron server has been so dead the last couple of days... Has everyone downloaded and changed over to the new 1.27g point release?

JB at quakequakequake.com writes:

The RTD Website has a small program called OldModBugfix which will let you change from playing Quake III: Arena with Point Release 1.27g to Quake III: Arena 1.17 Point Release with a click of 1 little batch file! It's backwards compatible so switching back from 1.17 to 1.27g is just as easy. It's a great answer to mods that are not going to get updated to the new 1.27g Point Release. It will work with EVERY mod too! It will let you play on your favorite 1.17 PR server and seconds later you can be joining a 1.27g server. Cool huh!!!

Thanks JB!... :)

On the seventh day, who rests?

The first week is coming to a close and the Gridiron action has been crazy but VERY helpful! Thanks to everyone who has responded! All of the crazy gameplay in version 1.0 has produced a lot of great ideas along with many complaints and accolades alike. Everything is gonna be laid out on the table this weekend and evaluated. Some of the ideas are being discussed in the Q3 Gridiron Conference and other things via Email are being added into the mix as well.

Patrick (Valtrain, our code Ninja, who totally rules in my book and is extremely frustrated over not getting the 1.27 code yet) has cranked out in short order a few of the minor changes which we may be testing over the weekend! If you would like to get involved (it will only require a small, temporary download of some new code) then please hang out in the #gridiron conference whenever you can over the weekend. There may be a new map to test the new code on as well!

In the meantime, here's funny little things taken from recent Gridiron server logs:

Player Frozen in mid-air:
TIMEOUT! We've got an injury on the field!
--Menthol's note: We are trying sv_floodprotect 0 to combat this...

Player railing a ball carrier to death at the start of a round:
SACKED!!!
--Menthol's note: Now this is the right attitude! Nevertheless, we're thinking of adjusting the rail or something to combat this horror... I say, stay away from the ball, when you get it, rocket jump and PASS IT!!

Player making great plays on map 6 (Satan's Gridiron) another player says:
Come on, use your evil powers to summon a touchdown!
--Menthol's note: hahahahahahaha!!!

Player who seemed to have been killed near the goalpost more than once:
If I never see another goalpost in my entire life...
--Menthol's note: We'll try to make more maps with floating goalposts! :)

And finally, the new thing to say when you make a touchdown:
Popeye's Chicken is the Shiznit!!
--Menthol's note: All of the Popeye's Chicken joints are closed where I live... :(

Q3 Gridiron Installer goes Gold... ha!

The biggest thorn in our side this week has been the 3-day instead of 30-day trial installer. It caused all of our mirrors to be invalid (unless you got the ZIP or you felt like setting your clock back which was totally stoopid to have to do) and so those that had trouble downloading from our site at Communitech.net (both the Vanson and the X-D sites are on Communitech) we're basically unable to get the mod out as it was meant to be distributed in the first place.

Anyhoo, we have our Mindvision Vise shareware installer license now and the GRIDIRON10.EXE on all our sites are, in fact, the NEW one and all of the mirrors should be updated shortly with MANY new mirrors to come! We hope we can help everyone to finally get the mod installed and working this weekend including server operators. Please drop by the Conference if you have any trouble as we're monitoring it as well as the IRC and our Email all weekend long.

Also, speaking of the new Gridiron conference board, please sound off on the new 1.27g Q3A patch! It looks like we're not getting the code until Monday due to some mixup, but if the 1.27g patch is going to be blown off like the 1.25 patch was, then we really don't have to worry and can stick with 1.17 for a while longer... We are considering putting out a server-side only patch with maybe a new map or two this weekend too, we will, of course, let you know right here as soon as we do!

Oh yeah, check out this site that monitors our current Gridiron servers!

More News Coming Soon...

Q3 Gridiron Day Six...

I'm gonna keep this post short as possible. Here's the new stuff!

*New: Q3 Gridrion Clans! Clan USA (ETG: #usa) and Clan FA (ETG: #gridiron-clan-pickup)

*New: Q3 Gridiron Conference Board on the Main Menu, just click CONFERENCE!

*New: Q3 Gridiron Map Resources ZIP on the Downloads Page!

Now, if you know of any new clans or current clans starting a Q3 Gridiron team or someone setting up a server or if you're working up a new Gridiron map for the next map PAK, please, feel free to write! Also, as you may have already noted, when we place new material on the site, we'll place that cute little football icon next to the menu item on the left here on the Main Page! Everyone say it together now, awwww!! :)

More Gridiron Tips and Strategies!

Well, after reading through last night's log of players on the Houston server (yeah, we're watching you like big brother, hehe!) it would seem that out of all the good times, the only bad times (other than lag which will plague gamers until the end of time) was being on a sucky team or STILL not being able to pass because they have yet to setup or know how to create new binds. I also noted a few comments about some of the maps being too dark too on some systems. So, here's some junk that might help everyone in all of these respects--at least I hope so. :)

-- Open the Windows Explorer and find your Quake3 folder. Then find the gridiron folder and then double-click on the passbinds.cfg. If Windows asks what you want to associate with .CFG files, choose NOTEPAD so you can open .CFG files with Notepad from now on. Now, with the passbinds.cfg in notepad, read through the file as it is thoroughly commented for your convenience. When done editing it, fire up Gridiron, jump on a server and in the console type /exec passbinds.cfg and press enter, this should help tremendously. :)

-- If you cannot get your videocard's gamma nor your monitor bright enough in the darker maps, try using Vertex lighting in Quake while playing Gridiron. You can set vertex lighting via the console by using /r_vertexLight 1 (for on) and /r_vertexLight 0 (to turn it back off) but if you do it via the console you have to also perform a /vid_restart in the console to see the effects of vertex lighting over lightmap lighting. It's ugly, but at least you can see a whole lot better, that's for sure.

-- Also, as far as lag goes, if you have a bad connection or an insane number of hops to the Houston server, there's not a whole lot that can be done. We are trying to get more servers going and hope that if anyone finds one running that they will let us know. Anyhow, if you have any less than a Pentium III level system and anything less than a TNT2 Ultra, the major battles with the maximum number of players is going to be pretty rough--one player in the log said, and I quote "the fireflies of death" haha!! Nevertheless, if you turn down your detail level and turn off gibs (I believe it is /com_blood 0 and cg_gibs 0) and such, things may be a lot more enjoyable all the way around. We have placed a number of these commands inside the passbinds.cfg as you will see if you open it and look them over and maybe even adding more commands to reduce the complexity of the display. Here is a very good site with all kinds of tweaks that may help you as well.

Lastly, I have updated the Strategy page which may be fun for everyone to look over! It is simply a fact that teams that pass and play well as a team ALWAYS win, sometimes even shutting out a team who do not even begin to try. Next time you're on the field, just throw a pass for the helluvit! It may be a life-altering experience... :)

Another Gridiron Server Goes up at HAL-PC.org!

Well, it would seem another Gridiron server has gone up at HAL-PC.org! Check out the Servers page to jump right in and start playing now! Again, if you are running a public server 24/7, please contact us and let us know about it so we can post it on the site!

We recently did a quick interview about Gridiron for Gameseek.com that you can find here. The response to Gridiron has been tremendous the last few days, but I think some people are put off by what seems to be an issue of good teamplay. So, in an attempt to help remedy this (beyond the passing binds) we are going to post some goodies in the basic strategies section later tonight. Nothing elaborate, but once it's posted, maybe some players would like to share their strategies and their Gridiron config files as well?

Speaking of participating. We are going to post more info on how to build a Gridiron map as well as the source to q3gridiron01. This should be up for everyone to view and start building maps right away! As noted on the screenshots page, we would like to have at LEAST eight more maps. Again, all of this will be posted a little later tonight, for now, those that may get bad ping to the Gridiron home server can give the other servers a try!

More Bringing you up to date

We sincerely apologize for the problem that we have been having with the installer, we incorrectly interperted the liscense agreement. All installers built with Installer VISE have been removed until we obtain a shareware liscense. In the meantime, you can download our new installer. It doesn't look as nice but it works. When it asks you what directory to install do, select your quake3 dir. We have applied for MindVision's generous offer of a shareware liscense, and hope to get one very soon. Due to this problem, please download Gridiron off of the Vanson mirror only. The other mirrors will be working again within a few days. You can also download the mod in zip file format and just unzip it to quake3\gridiron. The new installer we have on the downloads page should work, and we hope to be able to use the MindVision one again if we get a shareware liscense. Once again, we are very sorry for the mixup.

I'd also like to thank Static over at xstatica.com for running a server for us. We added that server to the list of servers on the server page as well. I have to say that so far the response to Gridiron has been overwhelming. Thanks to everyone that has tried to so far, if you haven't tried it yet go download it and try it out. We decided when we release the update for Gridiron to be compatible with the 1.27 point release, that we will also be releasing even more maps to play on! At least 4 of these maps will be in-house ( I don't think Menthol ever runs out of ideas), but we'd also like to feature some user-made maps as well. If you think you might be interested, email either myself or Menthol and we'll give you our basic template (the Q3 Radiant file that contains a very basic map with all custon gridiron entities on it). If you compile the template, you basically get q3gridiron01, the First Gridiron. That file should be up on the downloads page soon as well. Also on the downloads page is a mapentities.txt file, which explains the custom entities and how they are used.

We have also seen that while some people are working well as a team with passing and doing plays, others are having some trouble figuring it out. Therefore, in the near future we will be posting some demos for people to download showing cool plays and strategies. IF you've got a demo that you've done of gridiron, send it to us and we'll use it too!

Several people have also mentioned to me that they would be interested in playing Gridiron on a ladder and having a "season". This sounds like a bunch of fun, email me if you're interested. If enough people want to do it, we'll set up a ladder here on the website.

Wow, that's a big update but I'm pretty sure thats all the latest news. We'll keep you posted.

More Q3 Gridiron insanity!

As some of you already know about the Mindvision Vise installer for Gridiron, even though it says it's good for a 30 day trial, is only good for 3 days. We have created another gridiron10.exe and put it on Vanson Studios and the X-D FTP site. We will have a shareware license for this very soon and all locations will be updated. For now it may be best just to get the ZIP version from the downloads page and unzip it WITH FOLDERS to your Quake3 directory so that it properly creates the /gridiron folder and so forth. It will not, unfortunately, put the nice Play Gridiron Now icon on your desktop and whatnot, but you can grab up the GameSpy tab to try and find new servers as they appear as well as trying to get on a server via our servers page!

More News coming soon, stay tuned!

Q3 Gridiron: As the first day's dust settles...

Well, it's been a great night and tons of Gridiron action, no doubt! Some of those 8v8 games were approaching serious levels of pure insanity! We truly appreciate all the people who logged on to the server to give the mod a whirl tonight too! We got a few Emails concerning new mirrors, so I would like to list them since they have been so nice as to post the mod so quickly! Many thanks go out to these sites as well!

Quake3files.com Mirror of Gridiron10.exe

3DDownloads.com Mirror of Gridiron10.exe

Lastly, as the first night comes to a close, the only difficulties with the mod (other than finding a place to download the thing) were players not having the passing binds setup. Those who were passing and making fieldgoals were the ones who were always ahead. Otherwise, the scores were always very close, at least in most cases. It has come to my attention that on The Hangar there was a shutout, something to the degree of 110 to 0... I really must say that it was unsettling to me personally, but after reading the games log, there were frequent comments where players asked, "How do you pass the ball?" and so I will post the passing binds table from both the ABOUT and SETUP page here on the front page which may help:

*yards are approximate and based on 50 Units = 1 Yard

It should also be noted that if you drop the ball you cannot pick it back up for two seconds, if you try, the ball will drop again. There is though no limit to the number of passes you can attempt in any round throughout the game.

Also, some wondered why they couldn't make a fieldgoal... You must fire the ball through the uprights using the fieldgoal bind. If you use throwball or hailmary, it will not count even if the ball does pass through the uprights.

And lastly, the scoring is as follows:

6 POINTS for carrying the ball into the endzone
7 POINTS for carrying the ball through the uprights (rocket jumping)
3 POINTS for tossing the ball through the uprights (Using the FIELDGOAL bind)

Hope this helps!... Some of the teams we saw on the server tonight were making touchdowns by passing the ball as many as 4 times in a single round!... Admittedly it does take some time to learn the distances of the different passes, but after a while people were hitting their targets perfectly! Really nice plays for being so new to the mod! Also, there were a few comments about how the throwbullet wasn't useful to them. All I can say is for you to load up the mod on your machine, jump into a map and see what can be done. The best use for the throwbullet pass is to hand off at close range. Nevertheless, when you jump or rocket jump, it has just the right amont of distance for some situations. It's all a matter of experimentation. :)

Requests for a ZIP version of Q3 Gridiron

The request for a ZIP version of Gridiron over the self-installer has been fulfilled! The installer can also now be downloaded from Quake3Files.com as well!... So, if you have had any difficulty getting the file, jump on over to the the Downloads page and snag it down!

So far, So Good along with Minor Adjustments

Well, seems like 124 people tried to jump on and give Gridiron a try today! Hope everyone enjoyed it for just getting introduced to the mod. We are going to have a forum setup soon to discuss issues, but for now, try to hit the IRC (irc.enterthegame.com port 6667 channel #gridiron) and ask questions.

Now for the adjustments. It would seem that most teams aren't getting up to 150 points in 30 minutes, so the home Gridiron server is being set for 20 minutes instead of 30. Also, even though the server.cfg very plainly reads FRIENDLY FIRE OFF (ie. g_friendlyFire 0) there is still friendly fire... It isn't the worst thing, more like competition mode, but for people just starting out with the mod, it may be a little (if not totally) irritating. So, for those running a server, you may want to log on and RCON g_friendlyfire 0 if you have the same problem.

Lastly, some are saying that when they try to get the installer from our Vanson Studios website via HTTP that they (some of them) are only getting like 370k of it and it ends. I have moved it to our FTP site to see if that helps. We are going to get the v1.0 installer up on some other places later tonight. If you mirror the file or are running a server, please let us know!

Website Completed!

Well, after burning the midnight oil, the site has content for every section now. The downloads section is completed and therefore Q3 Gridiron v1.0 is available and ready to go public! I would personally like to thank every single person that helped in getting us this far, all of the playtesting and suggestions for the game have helped out tremendously!

Now it's time to get the mod out there and start playing!

Q3 Gridiron Website Launched!

Welcome to the first launch and look at the Q3 Gridiron website! In a matter of hours (at this point) we should have all of the latest news and information about the new Q3 Gridiron modification for Quake III Arena.

We can only hope that we assist you, in at least some way, to absorb some of that extra time you have on your hands. For now, here is a quick couple screenshots of some in-game action!





Stay Tuned for More!