|
THE YEAR IN HEADLINES (Part II)
Take a trip back to time with the most important Civ and Apolyton headlines over the past year.
JANUARY 00
January 1 Apolyton and others around the globe live through Y2K
"Well, like the rest of world, we survived Y2K.
We've had only one minor problem, as the script that prints the current
date and time on the forums was showing that we live in the year 19100 :) It's
fixed now."
January 2 SMAC Mac port from Westlake Interactive officially goes beta
"According to Westlake Interactive, their port
of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri went beta on December 27th, and is
anticipated to be on store shelves halfway through this month."
January 6 HAC blows out a candle in celebration of its first birthday
"Yes, it's true, gentlemen, you've lived one
year with the menace to society known as Hodadian Award Central. We did a
bunch of things our first year..."
January 7 Alien Crossfire v2.0 patch becomes available
"Tim Train finally announced on our forums the
release of the patch for Alien Crossfire. There are lots of fixes, as
expected..."
January 11 Loki to do Linux port of SMAC
"According to Slasdot.org, Loki is going to porting SMAC to the Linux OS. Loki has already made the Linux port of CTP among many other games."
January 12 Miscellaneous section debuts on ACS
"On behalf of the staff and administration of Apolyton CS, welcome to our new Miscellaneous section. This is where the various features around the site that do not fall into any other category reside."
January 13 CTP for the Mac is release
"On our forums and on the newsgroups, the first happy civers :) report the purchase of CTP for Macintosh."
January 13 BeOS demo for CTP now downloadable
"Some (a bit old) news for BeOS users who are waiting for CTP to arrive in stores: A 33 MB demo is available from Wildcard Design. One notable things is that the BeOS post include the changes, improvements and fixes of the 1.2 PC patch."
January 14 Dino Diary #3 posted on Firaxis' website
"The latest edition of the Dino Dairies has arrived, with some more info on the design process."
January 18 One month, one million hits!
"Five months ago, in our "one year" special feature we were telling you that during our first year we did 6 million hits. Well, at the end of last week, for the first time in the history of Apolyton, our counters recorded something a bit over 1 million hits in a time period of 1 month."
January 21 CTP Linux v1.2 Patches
"LokiSoft released v1.2 patches for the Linux port (Pentium, PowerPC, Alpha) of C:CTP. Multiple language support for these series of patches is available in the English, German, Italian, Spanish, and French dialects."
January 25 CivII for Mac in Top 10 PC Data sales chart
"PC Data relased their top sales listing for the US. In the games for Macintosh category, Civ2 for Mac is 10th."
January 26 ACS chosen among top 100 fan sites
"Atahualpa reported to us that the German "PcAction" magazine in it's latest 02/2000 issue published along with the "PcGames" magazine(also German) a list of the best fan sites for 100 games. Apolyton was chosen as the best fan site for Civilization 2 and Civilization: Call to Power."
January 27 SMAC Planetary Pack Goes Gold
"On the 21st we had posted about something we found on EBWorld, called "Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack". At the time we had no other information about it, but today Firaxis' Lindsay Riehl confirmed to us that it is actually what Jeff Morris had referred to as "SMAC Gold"."
January 31 4th Dino Diary is finished and posted
"Firaxis has unveiled the fourth installment of their Dinosaur Diaries. It's a few days behind schedule (they're dated Jan. 28), but nonetheless worth a look!"
FEBRUARY 00
February 4 SMAC for Mac is here
"SMAC for the macintosh seems to be arriving to stores, finally! At least it is available on Amazon and thus listed in the Apolyton Links&Products Directory, so you can either buy it, review it or both! :)"
February 8 Brian Reynolds leaves Firaxis Games
"In a surprise announcement, Firaxis Games has announced that designer and cofounder Brian Reynolds has left the company."
February 8 CivIII not to be released in 2000
"Finally some more info from Firaxis. Tim Train on the Release Date Pool thread in our Civ3-General forum: "FWIW, (and I apologize if this has already been answered elsewhere) this game will not release in 2000 and has never been slated for that timeframe...""
February 8 Apolyton hires Librarian
"No, we're not geting a new member on the team every day! :) Still, JohnT is our Librarian. What's his job you ask? Well, he will be managing the very soon to come Miscellaneous/Books and Games subcategory of AL&PD."
February 9 Over 500,000 copies of CTP sold to date
"We asked John Heinecke(more known to Apolytoners as "Lt. John") about it and the response came fast as always: over 500,000 copies sold. To be exact: 225,000 in the US, more than 275,000 in Europe."
February 10 Dinos to be released before CivIII!
"Tim Train posted in our forums about civ3 today(see more about it in our civ3 section), but he also game some news about Dino. Explaining the lack of info from Firaxis' side about Civ3, he said that's simply because Dino will be released first."
February 10 Firaxis posts first version of CivIII FAQ
"What are your burning questions about Civilization III at this very moment? Firaxis unveiled the first incarnation of its CivIII FAQ today..."
February 13 New layout choice for ACS homepage
"As of today, we have one more choice for the layout of the front page and the display of news headlines. Beyond the existing options for headlines, separated into sections(which is also the default display) and for no headlines, there is now an option to display headlines, not separate into sections."
February 13 Mac CTP sub-section incorporated
"On behalf of the Apolyton Civilization Site administration, I am happy to announce the latest addition to our lineup, and our team. Effective today, Mark and his website have joined the Apolyton crew in its continuing committment to deliver the most comprehensive, up-to-date information on the games that we cover."
February 14 New Manifest Destiny Demo is out
"Ron Hiler, Lead Programmer for Manifest Destiny (MD), contacted us today announcing that a new version of the game's demo had been released, v0.3.5."
February 15 CTP sequel, CTPII, announced
""Call to Power II Prepares to Conquer the PC Landscape" is the captivating subtitle to Activision Inc.'s announcement that Call To Power II, the sequel to last year's Civilization: Call To Power, is under development."
February 15 Apolyton CTPII section launched
"Two hours after the official announcement here is our new section for Call to Power II. I think we broke our previous record :)"
February 19 Mac CTP patch finally released
"The patch has definitely been released. See http://www.wizworks.com/macsoft/mactech/CivIICall_ftp.html"
February 22 Manifest Destiny patched; new demo
"The Manifest Destiny team has released a new demo version (1MB) of the game, bringing the current version to 0.3.6 from 0.3.5; those who are currently running v0.3.5 can download an update (968K)."
February 24 Planetary Pack released
"It seems like the March 16th date that Amazon was giving for Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack was wrong as it is now availiable for ordering. Therefore, you can now find it in the Alpha Centauri/Games and Books category of our Apolyton Links&Products Directory(long titles, no? :)) at the price of $35.99."
February 24 100,000 downloads in CivII file database and counting
"Today our Civ2 database passed another milestone as the 100,000th download was recorded. Right now we have 100,439 downloads of 378 files which were rated by civers with an average of 6.2 points."
February 25 v1.2b patch for Mac CTP posted
"Westlake has posted the 1.2b patch Update on their site. It has yet to be posted on Macsoft's site. It is available here at Apolyton."
February 28 And the name is "Big Huge Games"!
"We wondered what Brian was going to do after Firaxis. We thought Tim Train had become head of the Civ3 production. And we were watching the flow of news slowing down."
February 29 Forums upgraded
" Markos completed the upgrade of the forum script this morning. Our Forums are now running the latest version of UBB, v5.44a."
MARCH 00
March 4 SMAC-X: The Lost Episode
"Replying to questions on the never posted 9th episode of the SMACX story, as well as the complete disappearence of the both the smac and smacx stories from the official site, Firaxis webmaster Dan Magaha announced that the 9th episode has just been posted."
March 7 SMAC v1.41 update
"This one slipped through our "civ news sensors" :) On March 2, Westlake posted the latest 1.4.1 update for SMAC for Macintosh."
March 8 Apolyton interviews Tim Train on move to BHG
"In one of his first interviews since becoming a founding member of Big Huge Games, Tim tackles some of the big questions about why he left Firaxis, why now, and what he sees his role as being at BHG both in terms of contributions to the company and the gaming community."
March 8 New hosted site comes on board: CTPMaps
"Effective today, CTPMaps, owned and maintained by Don Blevens, is the newest member of ACS' prestigious Hosted Sites."
March 12 224,939 SMAC Units Sold
"In their April 2000 issue, PCGamer includes a listing of their Editor's Choice Award recipients of the past year and the number of units that they sold."
March 14 Kaufman Joins BHG
"It seems like BHG will be the future home of yet another Firaxian! Award-winning game designer and industry veteran Douglas Kaufman has joined Big Huge Games to help create the next generation of real-time strategy games."
March 17 BHG Official website launch
"Big Huge Games has given birth to its official website at bighugegames.com."
March 18 ACS special feature: "Civ Invades Apple OS"
"Gaming on the Macintosh platform, until recently, has been somewhat of an enigma. With more titles being ported to appease the growing numbers of Mac gamers, we were given the opportunity to two prominent figures responsible for bringing Civ to the Mac, Phil Sulak (VP & CTP Port Developer, Westlake Interactive) and Brad Oliver (SMAC Port Project Leader)."
March 23 Message from Sid himself!
"This is a really rare moment. Sid has spoken and we are bringing his message to you :) With all the latest events it seems something like this was the best thing to do. Actually, the only thing that should be done. Sid is making clear that he and Jeff Briggs are leading the development of Civ3."
March 23 Firaxis promotes and hires in a single day
"Firaxis announced today three promotions and four hirings. Specifically, Dave Evans is now the Director of Software Development, Greg Cunningham has taken over as Lead Artist on the Dinosaur project and Jeff Morris is now the Quality Assurance Manager. Also the following were hired: Mark Cromer, a veteran sound designer, two artists - Ryan Murray and Alex Kim, and Michael Fetterman as a Production Assistant."
March 26 SMAC-X for Mac soon
"Apsyr Media, published of Alpha Centarui for the Macintosh, announced the porting to the mac platform of the Alien Crossfire expansion pack. The port will be again be made by Westlake Interactive, while a release date is not known at the moment."
March 26 SMAC for Mac 8th hottest selling game
"Mac Civer's will want to take note of the game in the #8 position this week. :D"
March 26 Change of hands at CSC
"Effectively immediately, the Civilization Scenario Collection, the collaboration of the former "Allard & Andrew's CivII Page" and the Spanish Civilization Site, is now under the able direction of Keven Chulski, aka DarthVeda. In the past nine months, the CSC has accumulated almost 44,500 hits and is presently home to more than 130 CivII scenarios ranging in theme from the Middle Ages to Fantasy."
March 26 New forum: AC-Macintosh
"A bit delayed announcement. If you visited the forums the last couple of days, you have probably noticed a new forum. It is the AC-Macintosh forum, for discussions related to (what else) the port of Alpha Centauri to the Mac."
March 28 Dino Diary #6: Firaxis
"Firaxis posted the 6th Dinosaurs Diary. There is a mention on the genetics system, but the main part deals with the connection between the player and its dino's."
March 31 Steve Mariotti interviewed by Apolyton
"It has been one year since Activision's Civilization: Call To Power rocked the community, for better or for worse depending upon your point of view. Steve Mariotti, Lead Programmer for the game, is taking on the position again in the recently announced sequel. In this exclusive expose, Mariotti discusses his thoughts on the successes of CTP and what gamers can expect in CTP2."
APRIL 00
April 8 John Possidente leaves Microprose
"In a general announcement in our forums, John Possidente of the ToT team announced that he is leaving MicroProse as of April 15th."
April 15 German and French 2.0 smacx patches
"It took a long time, and it came out in an bit complex way. On February 7, the v2.0 German and French patches for SMACX had only to pass the EA Q&A tests... 2 Months later, on April 5, the German patch appears at least on a german site"
April 17
"GameLeague is a free online service that provides ladder, tournament and tribe games for numerous titles that comprise Apolyton's lineup. Owned and operated by gamers, for gamers, its small but dedicated staff oversee one of the largest multiplayer gaming outfits in the Civilization community"
April 18 SMAC for Mac scenario contest
"Aspyr is organizing a scenario contest."
April 26 Civ3 section redesigned
"Our Civilization 3 Section has been redesigned to the "Apolyton v2" layout, following the About, Miscellaneous, Dino and CTP II sections. The new layout allows more space for the actual content and faster loading."
April 23 ICQ messages on Apolyton
"A new(or more accurately a returning one) feature in our forums, the ICQ icon. If someone has his icq listed, you can send him a message by clicking on this icon which will appear on his/hers posts"
April 24 Dino siary 7
"The next installment of Sid's Dino Diaries has arrived. In Chapter 7 Greg Cunningham, the lead artist on the dinosaur project, discusses the artistic process and how Firaxis is giving the dinosaurs distinct personalities plus some new dinosaur animations to boot"
April 24 New Program Converts MGE Scenarios to FW
"Have Fantastic Worlds and are tired of Multi-player Gold Scenarios failing to load for you? Well, we have good news: Programmer Angelo Scotto has written a small (22K) utility that can convert MGE scenarios to Fantastic Worlds format for you to play."
MAY 00
May 4 3 New forums open
"That's right, three new forums in one day! Alternative Civilizations for all the small civ games, Free Civ for the greatest civ clone of all, Big Huge Games for the most civish real-time strategy game making company :)"
May 4 Essential Civ3 List sent
"After a long delay, an "official" mail (with a nice introduction by korn469) was sent to Firaxis yesterday. A reply came today with thanks ("for all of your hard work!!" was the exact wording :)), and a note that it has been forwarded to the Civ3 development team."
May 8 First CTP2 screenshots
"E3 is almost here, and it looks like we'll have a flood of ctp2 information! It has actually already started, as Adrenaline Vault posted the first in-game screenshots"
May 13 First preview of CTP2
"IGN also published the first preview of CTP2"
May 18 SMAC-X for Mac released
"iMac722 is probably the first Apolytoner who got SMAC-X for Mac. At least he was the first to post about it"
May 19 6000th forum user
"Today the 6,000th user registered in our forums, a collection of message boards on various topics from the games that we cover to the operation of Apolyton itself"
May 19 3rd SDC
"We are pleased to announce that the Scenario Design Contest staff has decided to extend the deadline for submissions to the Third Scenario Design Contest."
May 22 Firaxis hires programmers
"FIRAXIS Games today announced the addition of three programmers to the company, as they continue to ramp up their development teams and further the growth of the organization. Michael Breitkreutz, Soren Johnson and Jacob Solomon bring a wide array of programming knowledge to the deeply talented and experienced teams at FIRAXIS."
May 23 Firaxis opens SMAC site
"Firaxis webmaster Dan Magaha has been busy putting the finishing touches on the company's Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri website, and his work was unveiled this morning on firaxis.com"
May 25 New option in ctp2's diplomacy
"Wonderfull information on diplomacy from St Swithin. Stuff you can demand/offer/give/swap: cities, maps, gold, advances"
JUNE 00
June 5 SMAC-X Guide v3!!
"Velociryx did it again. The SMAX Guide v3.0 is here!"
June 5 Firaxis hires artists
"For immediate release: Hunt Valley, Maryland, June 5, 2000 – Following last week's announcement of the hiring of three programmers, FIRAXIS Games today announced the addition of three more artists to the company, as they continue to expand the organization and ramp up their production teams. With the addition of Marc Hudgins, Dorian Newcomb and Kevin Margo, FIRAXIS now has one of the most diversely talented and experienced art teams in the industry."
June 10 Flat map support for CTP1!
"Wonderfull news for scenario makers! Flat map support is now possible, yes in CTP1, with SLIC. No wait for CTP2! Read all about it and download the file on the forums"
June 13 Firaxis hires Mike Gibson
"For immediate release: Hunt Valley, Maryland, June 13, 2000 -- FIRAXIS Games, continuing its aggressive expansion, today announced the appointment of Mike Gibson as Director of Development. He'll be responsible for directing the audio and visual development of all FIRAXIS products"
June 15 SMAC-X fo mac demo released
"As first reported by GameCenter [here], Aspyr Media has released the 28MB demo of Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire for the Mac."
June 27 New preview of CTP2
"It's been six weeks since the first installment, but today IGN updated their preview of Call To Power II, and it is paying for itself in dividends."
JULY 00
July 3 Dino diary 8
"Long time no diary. Today, Firaxis posted the long awaited Dino Diary #8."
July 6 July Civ series in top 5 of all time
"According to Daily Radar's 100 Greatest Games Of All Time feature, Civilization II and Alpha Centauri are equals and together make up the fifth best game series of all time."
July 8 July CTP2 will have a M.A.D. model
"That's right! CTP2 is going to model Mutually Assured Destruction! Here's what Mr. Ogre announced on our forums"
July 8 Call to Power Mania on GameLeague
"In just the last five days there have been 32 Call to Power games reported on the Call to Power ladder. Since so much interest has been shown in the game during the last five days we will have our first Call to Power tourney starting Wednesday July 19th."
July 10 July BHG hires Jason Bestmit
"Surprise, surprise! Someone working for Firaxis left the company to join Big Huge Games! This time it was Jason Bestimt who joined BHG as Senior Programmer. Jason had be working on both Dinosaurs and Civilization 3 up to now"
July 10 July FreeCiv for Windows
"The first in a string of reports coming from the official FreeCiv website today: its port to the Windows platform is finally complete."
July 18 July Firaxis "4 years of fun" contest
"A cool announcement form Firaxis: We're celebrating our fourth birthday here at FIRAXIS and as a special "thanks" to the fans who've been with us through four years of fun and four great games, we're having a fun photo contest."
July 24 July Apolyton Pack works on Linux
"That's right! With very little effort, the Apolyton Pack can be used in the Linux version of CTP as well."
Previous: THE YEAR IN HEADLINES (Part I)
INDEX
Next: APOLYTON INTERVIEWS ACTIVISION
|
