August 3 - December 31 2000: What, when, who?


THREE YEARS AND FORTY TWO MILLION HITS PASSED

THE YEAR IN HEADLINES (part I)

THE YEAR IN HEADLINES (part II)

BIRTHDAY T-SHIRT

PARTY TIME

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY APOLYTON!"
AUGUST 2000
August 3 Activision Q1 2000 : less losses than expected
"Net revenues were up slightly at $84.5US million, compared to net revenues of $84.1US million reported for the first quarter of the last fiscal year."
August 5 GameLeague moves
"In the summer of 1998 three men had a common idea and over time that idea formed into CivLeague. Since that summer many things have changed. Soon CivLeague became a hosted site of Apolyton...
Now the creators of GameLeague ask your support once again as we make another change..."
August 7 Customizability is voted as the most essential element to be improved in CTP2
"A crowd of CTP fans are calling for an improvement in customizability."
August 7 CTPII Week on Apolyton
"The one most important part of our CTP2 Week is the gathering of the scattered information for our news archives, the forums and the previews. Today we present you the information we found on the AI and the INTERFACE"
August 8 BHG hires Paul Stephanouck
"Today, Big Huge Games announced the addition of Paul Stephanouck to the team as their Information Technology Manager."
August 13 The CTPII Week ends after 13 updates in 7 days
"This concludes our CTPII Week here on Apolyton. We hope you have found it interesting, informative, and welcome you to participate in the discussions on our forums on this feature"
August 18 Sid says PC beats consoles
"'Consoles going online is certainly something that everybody is talking about', Meier tells Kent, 'but to me it feels like PC is probably right now a more interesting platform to be online with than a console. But I guess the future will tell'."
August 22 Firaxis hires Michael Bates
"­FIRAXIS Games today announced that Michael Bates, an eight-year veteran from Microprose Software, has joined the company as Senior Artist. He'll work with an immensely talented team of artists in making Civilization III one of the most visually exciting games ever created"
August 26 Art Of War joins Apolyton
"'Today is indeed a glorious day for the Art of War! DanQ and MarkG have accepted the hosting of the AoW at Apolyton Civilization Site'!"
August 26 Civ2 files database is upgraded
"Beyond the safer for our data enviroment, some new features include:
- Ability to have reviews for each file
- Display of screenshot in category and search results pages
- Ability to search in Title, Author name, Author e-mail, Synopsis, Description and Requirement fields
- Automated "What's New", "Cool" and "Top Rated" pages"
August 29 BHG makes deal with Microsoft
"Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Big Huge Games (Big Huge), a developer of strategy-oriented games, that gives Microsoft the exclusive publishing and distribution rights to Big Huge Games-developed titles. In addition, Microsoft also announced it has made an equity investment in Big Huge."
August 30 Gameleague celebrates it's one year
"October 1st will mark one year since the birth of GameLeague. To celebrate this wonderful day we will be having not just one, but two tourneys..."


SEPTEMBER 2000
September 6 Apolytoners in the Diplomacy Worldmasters
"Yes, Apolyton is being represented by Charles Steinhardt in the Worldmasters Diplomacy Tournament!"
September 9 BHG hires Bill Podurgiel
"Bill joins the Big Huge team with over 6 years experience in computer game graphics... He began work at Microprose Software® in the Fall of 1994"
September 16 WesW releases the Medieval Mod 4.0
"Perhaps the "last big thing" in ctp creation before the release of CTP2 is ready for public release"
September 16 BHG hires Nathan Wright
"Nathan graduated from the Boston University School of Fine Arts with a degree in painting, and went on to study architecture at Wentworth University in Boston... His foray into the industry began at Microprose/Hasbro Interactive® as a quality assurance tech where he worked on such titles as Falcon 4.0, Civilization II Multiplayer Gold..."
September 18 Official CTPII site launched
"Activision Inc. launched the official CTPII website today. The website includes a Flash-intro and the following sections: Features, Screens, Downloads, Links and even an FAQ"
September 30 First Civ2DB Chart
"With our new database system, we can have actual reviews for each file, which means that we can have more accurate ratings(or at least, justified). Therefore, here is our first monthly Civ2 files chart"


OCTOBER 2000
October 5 BHG hires Rob Cloutier
"Big Huge Games says hello to Rob Cloutier, the company's new Senior Technical Artist... Most recently, he had been a member of MicroPROSE's Art Department"
October 7 Alpha HQ shut down
"In somewhat dated news, Electronic Arts has shutdown AlphaHQ which had been the official online matchmaker for Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri"
October 15 OrangeSfwr makes theApolyton YearBook
"It's always really great seeing someone give lots of his free time to do something nice for the whole community. Thanks to OrangeSfwr, here is the first Apolyton Yearbook! It's in Flash format and 765Kb big"
October 26 GGS forum opens
"As per request, a seperate forum for Guns, Germs & Steel has been created, but the Alt. Civs discussion board lives on at this location."
October 29 Apolytoners House effort succeeds
"Lancer delivered the good news to us in the Apolyton forum early this morning:
...Today we achieved our goal of $1530 to build 'The Apolytoners' House'"


NOVEMBER 2000
November 1 PBEM cut from CTP2
"Last Friday a soon-to-be-heated discussion concerning PBEM's cut from CTPII has received a response from Activision"
November 3 7000 Forum logins
"In a somewhat delayed announcement, membership in our forums has exceeded the 7,000 mark! At the time of the posting of this news item, that number is steadily approaching 7200"
November 4 The first "celebrity" column is posted
"Our first "celebrity" column comes from Activision's very own Winnie Lee, aka St. Swithin, who talks about -- what else? -- CTPII in an article entitled "Your Cities And You"."
November 7 Our (never concluded) preview of CTP2 begins
"And it has begun. Our preview of CTP2 just started, and here are our first-day impressions. Keep in mind that these are just impressions, and part of the actual preview. Along with this, our screenshots and art have been updated. "
November 9 CTP2 goes gold
"Activision informed GamePen today that CTPII has gone gold and should be in stores November 19, 2000."
November 10 We hold the "CTP2 Gold Party"
"It was fun.... And it was long, so dont expect much from today's "impressions". Do expect a chat transcript during the weekend though.... "
November 27 Microprose.com hacked
"It would seem that someone would prefer to see poetry and not PC games on Microprose's website"
November 30 Firaxis announces SMAC novels
"FIRAXIS Games today announced that Pocket Books will publish a series of three novels based on the world of the best-selling computer game, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri."


DECEMBER 2000
December 6 BMP to CTP2 map utility released
"That's right, we now have a utilty to convert a BMP file to readable by CTP2 format!"
December 6 Microprose sold to Infogrames
"A year-and-a-half after MicroPROSE departed from the hands Spectrum Holobyte, MPS and all its holdings are once again on the move. Hasbro Interactive announced today that they are selling the "Hasbro Interactive" division and Games.com to Infogrames"
December 15 CTP2 Patch 1.1 released
"Doug Pearson, now known as "PingEnvy" in our forums, announced the release and availability of Patch v1.1 for CTPII"
December 19 9000 Forum logins
"Today saw the creation of the 8000th login in our forums"
December 19 Civ2 simultaneous multiplayer discovered
"I got tinkering about in the .EXE file, and figured out that if you add "Simultaneous=1" to the CIV.INI in your \WINDOWS directory, it allows you to choose the humans move simultaneously option. It seems it was removed from the game officially, but it so far has worked fine"
December 20 CTP2 Designer Diary posted
"Who better than to dispense advice on CTPII end game strategies than Activision's Dan Hagerty, one of the game's designers. An Apolyton *exclusive*: the "End Game" Designer Diary"
December 20 Firaxis and Apolyton show the first civ3 unit images to the world
"Apolyton is proud to be a carrier of the world premiere of the first Civilization III units to be released to the public. They are the Panzer Tank, Phalanx and the Rifleman"
December 22 CTP2 World War II scenario
"Apolyton proudly presents yet another "Christmas 2000 Exclusive", the World War II scenario for Call to Power 2, made by the CTP2 Development Team"
December 25 Gamestats site overhaul
"The GameStats News Network proudly unveiled the third incarnation of its website yesterday evening."
December 28 Apolyton welcomes WesW
"Apolyton is happy to announce that the latest in the series of it's hosted sites is Wes Whitacker's CTP1/2 Modification Site"
December 28 Official CTP2 Strategy guide released
"BradyGames has released the official CTPII strategy guide, written by Johnny Lee Wilson and Terry Lee Coleman. Fans may recognize Coleman as being the author of the company's official guide to its predecessor, C:CTP."




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