Electronic Arts has been tracking down many of the fan remakes of classic RPG Ultima IV and requesting their immediate removal, despite a thriving fan modding and remake distribution scene having existed uninterrupted for several years.
DCMA notifications, which call for removal of copyrighted material online, have reportedly been issued to a number of sites hosting remakes of the game.
A posting on Ultima fan blog Ultima Aiera originally alerted press to the issue, although a second article has since been posted to establish clarification of some misreported angles of the story.
Whilst many flash-based versions of the game and more recent remakes have been taken down, not all versions of the game have been affected. EA has always retained the legal distribution rights to the title, but granted limited re-release rights to a fan group known as the 'Ultima Dragons'.
That group has retained the privileges outlined in the agreement, but many other sources have been ordered to cease redistribution.
The change of heart has led some to speculate that Ultima IV could be the basis for a 'secret' project currently underway at Mythic, referred to online by Paul Barnett. Whether that would be a full-scale remake of the title is unclear, but it seems unlikely that EA would be investing in another large MMO concurrently with Star Wars: The Old Republic.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...over-ultima-iv
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Desktops to be replaced by 'room computing'

Microsoft's research and strategy boss expressed doubt on the long term prospects of tablet computers.
Speaking at a an economic development event in Sydney yesterday, Microsoft executive Craig Mundie said that there was an "important distinction" between mobile and portable.
"Mobile is something that you want to use while you're moving, and portable is something that you move and then use," Mundie said according to a Sydney Morning Herald report.
The Microsoft research boss said that the categories were set to "bump into one another" and that the tablet category sat somewhere between the two categories.
"Personally I don't know whether that space will be a persistent one or not," he said.



Mundie also predicted that the desktop computer would be replaced with a "room computer" with users interacting via mechanisms such as motion detection.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/36055...-tablet-future ...

Game Freak director says boxed product presents a more secure model than online games

Pokemon’s creators say the browser games market is not safe enough for younger players.
Game Freak director Junichi Masuda – who produced Nintendo’s new chart-topping DS titles Pokémon Black and White – told MCV that the traditional boxed retail model presents a safer and more secure platform than online games.

When asked whether he is under pressure to change Pokémon’s boxed business model following the rise of social network and mobile gaming, he replied: “I don’t feel pressured.
“What I consider to be most important when releasing a video game is to ensure it reaches everybody and to make sure it can be enjoyed by players safely and securely.
“For example, Facebook and MSN are mainly for adults, but what’s very important is that everyone can enjoy a Pokémon game without feeling any fear. So that’s what I think about whenever I produce a new video game.”



Masuda made the comments as Pokémon Black and White achieved sales of 1m units across Europe last week. The new DS titles became the fastest-selling in the series, and brought Europe’s total install base for Pokémon games up past 35m.
The series continues to be a huge global phenomenon, with new toys, cards and movies on the way.
Game Freak art director Ken Sugimori said: “In Japan we are expecting movies in the summer so I’ve been working on these. Pokémon Black and White are huge in Japan right now so I’ve been drawing up new images for related merchandise and the trading card game.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/43742/Pokm...games-not-safe
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News via AEP

corsix-th is reimplementation of the game engine from Theme Hospital.


Quote:
Changelog
Gameplay
Feature: Staff speed!
Added: All parts of research have been implemented, including machine strength improvements, drug improvements and the "concentrate research" button in the drug casebook.
Added: Overdraft charges for having a negative balance.
Fix: The length of a day was about half as long as it should be.
Fix: A few occurrences of bone-idle patients have been resolved.
Fix: Juniors were not correctly labeled as Doctors after promotion.
Fix: Some crashes regarding receptionists.
Fix: Never charge less than initial cost when reputation is below 500.
Fix: Some repair animations were too short.
Fix: Don´t check winning and losing conditions so often.
Fix: Taking loans can now make the player avoid losing.
Fix: Level 7 had an emergency with an unavailable disease.
Fix: Doctors on their way back to the research room or training room will no longer answer to any calls.
Fix: Don´t crash if a patient in a machine is sent home.
Fix: Various tweaks to the operating theatre logic.
Fix: Don´t crash if the staff window of a leaving staff member is open when he/she leaves the world.
Fix: Persistant data (salary, built rooms etc) are no longer lost after restarting a level.
User Interface
Feature: The drug casebook now shows if you can treat a disease or not, and in the latter case the tooltip tells you what is missing. Actual price is shown after some time, instead of charge %.
Feature: Press and hold on value buttons will now make the value continue to increase until the button is released again.
Feature: The Theme Hospital installation path can be changed from the options menu.
Added: The adviser will help out in a few more situations.
Fix: Mouse position events such as moving staff around didn´t work when scrolling using the arrow keys.
Fix: Tooltips are now updated more frequently, most evidently in the research pane.
Translations
Feature: CorsixTH now supports TrueType fonts via FreeType2!
Feature: To assist translators a new diff file is now created when you choose the debug option "dump strings" (with languages other than English). It contains those strings which are either found in English but not in the given language, or found in the given language but not in English.
New languages: Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Russian. ...

News via AEP

The Zod Engine is an open-source remake of the game Z from the Bitmap Brothers.


Quote:
Welcome to the Zod Engine project. The Zod Engine is an open source remake of the 1996 game Z by the Bitmap Brothers written in C++ using the SDL library for Linux / Windows / Etc.
The Story and Gameplay...
In Z you were a commander under General Zod in his attempt to conquer the universe. Your team, Brad and Allan, went from site to site and planet to planet pushing back the Blue forces while getting bitched at by General Zod. In the Zod Engine the doors are opened up so that you can play all the levels and make new levels the way you´ve always wanted to. The Zod Engine is more then just a remake of Z however, it is a fully commercially supported online game that is perpetually running at all times. Players can connect and disconnect at any time.

The Zod Engine is a MMORTS / RTS style game. In the game you command an army of robots and vehicles to take over neighboring territories in the ultimate goal of destroying all of your enemies. Unlike traditional RTS (Real Time Strategy) games the Zod Engine does not create units from collected resources but instead construction is constant from preset factories scattered throughout the level.

What is New?
The Zod Engine is a multiplayer oriented game where as Z is a single player oriented game. Here you will be able to for the first time do things such as play games against multiple bot players, or play the original levels with friends helping you on the same team. The Zod Engine is cross platform for Linux and Windows and can support any resolution. There are no limits on map size or players per game. The Zod Engine is also in a state of continual development so new features may come at any time with idea´s from the players.

How to Play?
To download and play please click the download link on the left side of the page. For any questions please visit the forums. ...

News via AEP

D2X-XL is an OpenGL-port of Descent II. Supported platforms are Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.


Quote:
updates since last AEP reported release v1.15.153
v1.15.162
- Fixed: Many transparent 2D effects (explosions etc.) weren´t rendered anymore
v1.15.161
- Fixed: D2X-XL didn´t correctly enter netgames when begin executed with direct netgame launch parameters
- Fixed: D2X-XL could hang after leaving a level
- Fixed: Shockwave effect wasn´t render at the proper location in cockpit and widescreen views
- Fixed: Lightning glow was too dark when general glow effect rendering was disabled
- Fixed: The program wasn´t automatically closed after the player had left a game that had been automatically started
v1.15.160
- Fixed: The screen wasn´t updated when shockwave effects were present, but invisible to the player
- Fixed: Many weapons that shouldn´t created shockwaves
v1.15.159
- Fixed: The HUD wasn´t properly displayed when the shockwave effect was rendered
v1.15.158
- Fixed: Depth testing in the shockwave shader often failed
v1.15.157
- Fixed: The effect menu´s explosion shockwave option lacked the qualifiers (none/basic/full)
- Improved: The shockwave shader now does depth testing to avoid distorting geometry or objects in front of an explosion
- Improved: Soft blending should be significantly faster now due to removal of duplicate depth buffer reads
v1.15.156
- Fixed: Helix energy consumption wasn´t doubled in multiplayer games
- Fixed: D2X-XL game clients added themselves to trackers as server and replied to XML game info queries with partially corrupt responses
- Fixed: Player ships and robots couldn´t rotate around any axis when colliding with 3D powerups
- Fixed: 3D powerups stopped rotating when colliding with player ships or robots
- Improved: Lightning effect looks better
- New: Added frame post processing
- New: Added shockwave effect for explosions etc.
v1.15.155
- Fixed: Players trying to join a server after having been a server themselves responded to XML game info requests for a short while
v1.15.154
- Fixed: Collision detection and visibility testing for objects didn´t work right
- Full changelog availble: http://www.descent2.de/d2x-history.html ...

News via AEP

A new version of the Doom, Heretic and Hexen source port Doomsday Engine has been released. You can download the testbuildhere.
You can find some shareware versions of Doom and other ID games at Q-Marines DOOM WADs Dat project page.


Quote:
updates since last AEP reported release build66
- Win32: Fixed the two remaining build warnings
- More coherent distribution package naming
All distribution packages are now named doomsday_(version)_(build).
- Win32: Fixed most compiler warnings
- Client: Fixing mobj/clmobj flags
Trying to make sense of when flags are set and unset. Added assertions for the solid and remote flags. The - client is now able to move after respawning.
The logic is still that the real mobj is solid and not remote, and handled by the client´s game logic, - while the clmobj is not solid and remote, and updated by the server when necessary.
- Fixing player respawning in a netgame
Previously the server completely failed to respawn a dead player. Now the respawning occurs successfully, and the client reappears and telefrags at the correct place. However, the client currently is unable to move after respawning, probably due to some mixup with the player mobj/clmobj.
- Docs: Updated for revised Amethyst filters
- Docs: Small tweak to readme.ame
- Fixed more compiler warnings
- Win32: Fixed warnings about deprecated string functions
- Removing use of deprecated libpng APIs
- Fixing compiler warnings
- Client: Fixed status bar (was not being drawn)
- Client: Fixed sending of coordinate updates
The server needs to be informed of the client´s momentum as well.
- Client: Weapons changed via a request to the server
Instead of letting the client change weapons on its own, it will now send a request to the server, who will actually carry out the weapon change.
- Server: Fixed handling of NULL mobj states in deltas
The server was trying to generate deltas out of mobjs with a NULL pointer for state, causing the delta to be invalid.
Next big question: why aren´t the mobjs visible on clientside?
- Docs: Some tweaks in the old .ame files
The old .ame files should be quite a useful starting point for the new readme/manual page.
- Removed some obsolete documentation
- More up-to-date versions exist in the wiki.
- Copyright update
- Use DMU in client world sim to move planes
Plane movement is now occurring again on clientside. Tic smoothing is not working properly yet, though.
- Split DMU from the monolithic doomsday.h
The public DMU API is also needed internally in the engine. There is a conflict in map data structure declarations if the entire doomsday.h is included.
- Investigating frame deltas
It seems that some deltas (especially mobjs) become malformed... At least the client successfully attempts to move planes, and manages to change some sector lights (even though it shouldn´t be bypassing DMU to make the changes).
- Client´s updatecount is useless
The updatecount was intended to detect if a client misbehaves by not sending any ticcmds, but there are better ways to detect when a client goes zombie.
- Clients are only allowed to spawn playerstarts
- RSS: Fixed error counting
- CMake: Fixed jDoom64 build configuration
- RSS: Remove single periods from the commit subject
- Work progresses in fixing network client behavior
The client is now using the same logic for player behavior as single-player. The clmobj is affixed to the real player mobj, and the two are to be kept in sync.
- Removing obsolete things from the exports
- Removed the "Host Game" menu item
The ability to run non-dedicated servers will be dropped. It is currently still possible to start the host via console commands.
- Discarded ticcmds altogether
The actions and movement of players is not intended to be shared via ticcmds any more. Thus they are completely obsolete.
- Improved 64-bit assertion macro
- "class" is a C++ keyword, so renamed all to "class_"
- Fixing warnings
- memcpy() was used with libc headers
- CMake: jDoom64 is built by default. Also included more headers
- Tweaked the version ID a bit more
Moved time of build to the end.
- Fixes that allow a client to join a network game
Started work on debugging the network client. This commit fixes the most glaring problems with client connect: data message sending and player spawning. Work continues on clientside player controls, which need to be integrated to the binding/control system.
- Saner 64-bit compile-time checks
__64BIT__ is now defined if the build is a 64-bit one. The 32/64-bitness is included in the executable description (version ID).
- Fixed a number of compiler warnings
Mostly about type conversions, discarding const.
- RSS: Added a summary for each entry ...

...

News from the ScummVM Team:

We're pleased to announce that the next release of ScummVM will have support for several "Living Books" games! It's time to relive your childhood memories (or memories of your children!) and dust off the old discs. The (sadly) now grown-up ScummVM team no longer has all of these games lying around, so we need your help in testing the games to weed out any remaining bugs.
The first batch of supported Living Books games consists of Just Grandma and Me (v1), Arthur's Teacher Trouble, Aesop's Fables: The Tortoise and the Hare, Ruff's Bone, The New Kid on the Block, Arthur's Birthday (v1), Little Monster at School, Harry and the Haunted House, The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight, Dr. Seuss's ABC, Sheila Rae, the Brave, The Berenstain Bears in the Dark, Stellaluna, and most of Green Eggs and Ham. We hope to support the rest of the games in the future, but in the meantime, we hope that these are enough to keep our loyal users occupied.
Be sure to grab a daily build when testing. If you spot any bugs while enjoying these classic interactive stories or even just complete one, we'd really like to know over on the forums. Be sure to drink your ovaltine post them to the bug tracker; and keep those bug submission guidelines in mind. And if anyone happens to take a few screenshots before nap time and wishes to submit them, we would be eternally grateful.

http://www.scummvm.org/news/20110328/ ...