Disempowering earlier rumours, Pete Hines let DaC know the following:

Suffice it to say that we have been adding people to the project over the last few months and will continue to do so going forward. Beyond that, we aren't ready to talk about what we're up to or what stage we're in or when we'll be ready to talk. The game is being worked on, that's for sure.

Chewie send us a kind of press release about a whole new leaf being turned over for the former Fallout: Zero:

Some weeks ago, the zero-project had a short dialog with Interplay via email. The team wanted to clear out the copyright issues about using fallout content in a fan based project. Interplay´s reply reads as follows:

"Well, we are currently developing a sequel to Fallout and feel that additional products based on the franchise could damage it because we won't have sufficient resources to review and approve the concept and design and such. I'll check further and get back to you if management decides otherwise, but you cannot use the Fallout contents or name at this time."

Well, after receiving this mail, the team decided not to let their baby die (again) - and we started a reorganisation. The main target of this reorganisation was to create a standalone cRPG without falloutish background. Therefore we removed Fallout-related content. This task was only a small one - because we didn´t have that much content from Fallout.

So - what´s the news? We are still developing a cRPG with post-nuclear background which takes place in Germany and some parts of Europe. Our engine is still FIFE - and both teams are working hard to achieve their targets.

To condense our work and to harden the network, several actions took place in the last few weeks:

The Zero-Project has now an own website, called zero.fifengine.de. There, we document our knowledge about FIFE from the modders point of view. We are working on an English section too - so be our guest if you want to inform yourself. If you can´t find what you are looking for, feel free to mail us or post your question at the forums.

FIFE, TeamX and Zero-Project are now sharing one IRC network - thanks to spy and v0id.

If some of you want to participate in Zero-Project - just let us now. There are many ways to contribute...

contact:
shadowrunner2003@web.de (Project leader)
chewie@zero.fifengine.de (Co-Leader)

Well, we are currently developing a sequel to Fallout

Hard Truck: Apocalypse keeps getting shot further into the ground. Here's a bit from Strategy Informer Review (4.8/10), one of the most apropos comments out there:

When it comes to gameplay Hard Truck is a lesson in holding down the W key. Then in holding down the W key and switching between that and the map. Back and forth and back and forth like a kid on a swing. The towns are spaced phenomenally far apart, which is faithful to the idea that an apocalypse would space out settlements, but as a video game where little happens in the space between, its booooooooorring. The interactions with the bandits hold potential to be more interesting, but after the first encounter the hard truck combat is pretty much set in stone. Circle the enemy and pound them with your guns. This is a bit of a trick, only in that your view follows where your mouse is pointed, which is at the enemy in this case, but your driving is controlled by the keyboard. If you’re not careful you can drive yourself up a tree or over a cliff while you’re trying to shoot the bad guys. Sometimes you’ll have allies in these little raids, but don’t count on them overly much. They have a tendency to walk into trees and don’t know how to reverse. Which is rather humorous, but annoying.

Our Spanish friends of Lost Vault are working on a Fallout Tactics mod (unbelievable, huh?) called Midnight Punch:

We wanted to make something different from the other mods, we want to laught a lot, so we are making this mod, Midnight Punch.

Fight always with big weapons is a bit boring, so we decided to fight hand to hand and melee. In addition, we have a ruleset to make our own squad (only one leader and 1 pet). There will be some items like the brahmin armour or other weapons which don't do damage, but you can laugh with their effects (like fart bombs).

Furthermore, there will be some new maps created to play this mod. In one of the maps we will have to fight in a ring (each player uses only one char in each combat), a combat in a bar or a combat where brahmins will attack us if we are too near them.

Duck and Cover headlines the following news:

I've been told that this month's PC Gamer had a mini-interview with Bethesda and was told that Fallout 3 has been 2 months in development as of E3 2006. I don't have a transcript of this yet, so if anyone feels like going down to the store and finding this, be my guest.

We at No Mutants Allowed have scored an interview with Vince D. Weller, head of the Iron Tower Studios and lead person behind the Age of Decadence, a promising post-apocalyptic RPG scheduled to ship this fall. Mr. Weller, known to the community as an admin of the site RPGCodex, talked at length about his upcoming game and generously showed us some never-before-seen screenshots that we are happy to share with our readers.

Here is a small excerpt from the interview:

Well, the devastation is everywhere. You'll see crumbling towns and dead, ruined cities; dried rivers and buried research facilities; unhealing scars of the war where the physical rules had been bended, etc.

How does it project into gameplay? Well, first of all, you visit and explore those locations, learn and piece together old stories, learn how and why the Empire fell. Second, it *is* a post-apocalyptic game, not a game merely set in some ruins. The society has reversed to the more primal state where the only rules you can rely on are the ones you can enforce yourself (or your faction can). Third, it's integrated into the story, explaining why everyone is so interested in the artefacts of the past.

According to this SSE forum thread and according to this online store, the Polish version of The Fall was released 12/7/2006, completely overlooked and no news announcements heard. Overall first impressions on the forum don't seem too negative, as this release is version 1.10 "fully" patched.

Of course, no word on the English version.

Spotted on RPGDot

Wasteland Ghost let us know at the forum a few days ago:

Fallout1 unofficial 1.3 patch has been updated to version 1.3.1. Thanks to crazy russian testers! Links are still the same.

Ragfox has finished translating Fallout into the Italian language. Thus, the Project TIFONE was brought to an end, as Ragfox had also translated Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics.

Good news for everyone who happens to live a bit south of the Alps, I guess, and it's nice to see dedication to Fallout prevails.

"La Guerra. La Guerra non cambia mai..."

Link: Project TIFONE - Fallout Italian translation

As we valiantly browsed the web in search of stuff that might be of interest to the Fallout community, we came across some rather nifty sites. Besides several solid hentai shrines and a superb furry porn ring, we also found Mr. Pop History, an interesting site about pop culture and history of the second half of the 20th century.

Welcome the hardest working pop history, pop culture, trivia and time machine on the planet. Look back week-by-week and rediscover old friends, wonderful trivia and those things you just forgot. If you weren’t around, you’ll be fascinated by this virtual time travel. Browse the week-by-week sections in each decade. Be sure to come back each week as the site expands, or get entertained in the “Ask Mr. Pop History” section – the Ann Landers of pop culture. New Q&A’s added every week or browse hundreds of past Q&A’s.

...

The content is fun, easy-to-read and is contagious. My promise to you is to make this the greatest-ever pop culture/pop history place in the world. No one looks at the past 5 decades better. Get the news, pop music, pop albums, pop radio, television, and television news. Hi-tech, movies, Hollywood trends, sports, medical and everything else week-by-week. Come back 10 minutes a week, and I’ll make you a pop culture expert. You’ll be the life of the party!

I found this mod-in-progress while scouring the Web, it seems a map was posted some while ago. So, Fallout and its mod community LIVE!

Approx translation:
"Cold day will be a scenarized conversion for Fallout 2, the original fallout ambiance will remain the same as well as liberty. But contrary to most of mods which can be found, weapons, armors and other objets will remain unchanged. In the future, items could be modified, it's only a possibility because doing that is not justified."

From Mark Iradian himself:

Love the Bomb is a free narrative role-playing game (RPG) about surviving the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Players take on the role as one of the few remaining survivors exploring the wastelands in hopes of finding their next meal, or perhaps a new life.

A narrative role-playing system is more focused on storytelling and character development, as opposed to classes and levels. Rules are more simplistic in a narrative system, making it easier for those not familiar with RPGs to jump in. For example, creating a character in Love The Bomb involves words and not dice rolls.

DargH, the author of the Awaken Fallout:Tactics mod and boss of the Vault-Tec Games mod crew annonced their new website.

Long story short, they've got a new domain, high capacity 5GiB server, on which a new Version 1.4 of the Awaken mod awaits.

What they don't have is sufficient mappers and graphic artists, whose presence would greatly speed up progress on the mod (so it might actually be released smometime ;))

So go help them out if you feel like it. Webmastering help is also appreciated.

Link: http://www.vault-tec.eu/

Spotted at SHAMO

UPDATE: DargH was nice enough to send us the translation of the news item, here it is:

Welcome! Maybe you know by now that work at Darkfall, modification for Fallout Tactics, is still going at full power. We even have website wich you can find at www.vault-tec.eu.

The site is in testing mode and if everything will go good soon it will have new layout. I hope that you also like current one, if not - I will be happy if you help me in making new one. I'll be really grateful if some webmaster could contact me and help in upgrading that site.

The new domain wich was bought thanks to the help of fallout fans let me to unite sites of Darkfall and Awaken under it.

The good news is that Vault-Tec Games had 5GB sever with high capacity. That means that we don't have to worry about bandwich overload. Also downloading of Awaken and in the future Darkfall will be better. Of course for that we also thank to fans of our legendary game.

That's the end of that introduction. You must see by yourself what this site has to offer for you. Come in! Also we ask you to write some news at your ebsite, that we're still working and mod should be finished by the end of that year. Please, if you can, put also some if that we need graphic designers and mapers who could help us in uor work (so that we won't be needing to change date of final relase).

With all respect

DargH

The www.forlornworld.com website was updated with an anticipated news item a few days ago:

The works on Forlorn World have entered a crucial for us phase. From now on we start a cycle of news that will present the posibilities of the demo version, both graphic and purely fiction. First, couple of words about the state of our work on the engine. At the moment the priority for our programmers is "scene's importer" that will enable to transfer in easy way whole locations without the necessity of adding single objects. We are working also on weather effects which you will soon see on first public screenshots.

Now few words about the plot and the location. Main action will take place around a pre-war farmer's city, that had been transformed during the war into a military station. After the war when the nuclear winter started, the village
desolated and the pre-war eguipment was left untouched. The weapons that could change the fate of the conflict that is now taking place in the country are the reason for a group of soldiers to come and try to establish a camp there. The game starts at the moment of their arrival to the location. They are tired and weaken by the journey through snow, and as misery likes to pair up, they lost contact with their base. They do not know, that besides the pre-war treasure in the village, there is something else...

Demo production is a complicated process and its major element is to plan precisely the location. First there is the view from the top on the whole game teritory with the division on sectors.



Secondly we took care about the map of height, and then we made a complete draft of the location.



When our 3d graphic designers were making the concept map, our 2d graphic designers were working on details of some of the buildings.



Usually only the modeling of the location allows to see mistakes and imperfections. At every stage of game-making changes and corrections are needed. Now our graphic designers are working on objects and items for the location - its outline we present here.



Next report from the battlefield will be about one of the characters from the game - his model and an animation of his moves.

NukeouT, project director of Ashes of Apocalypse, has informed us of a few dramatic changes his team is making. You may remember Ashes as a Morrowind mod, with plans for a future Oblivion mod in the same universe. However, the team has decided to go independent, and to create their own commercial game: Embers Dawn. They have ceased work on the Oblivion and Morrowind mods, and are now focused solely on their new game.

Ashes of Apocalypse: Zero-One which was being developed for Morrowind has been cancelled. All development efforts are now going towards Embers Dawn, a standalone first person shooter/role-playing game set in the Ashes of Apocalypse universe. Expect to see the website for it soon, along with news of Clone Gaming Studios becoming an official company!

So please stick around and stop by our forums to tell us all your ideas and questions. Thanks for supporting Ashes of Apocalypse!

Story is that you will bring about the civil war that happens in the mod we released, through bad actions or good intentions. The game will feature a revolutionary world that will expand through event updates every so often when you log in to play. There will be a complex storyline with many constanly shifting alliances. It will also be a very expansive free roamer through the UBA territory based in Northern California 2067-2070. We will bring in a fresh mix of FPS/RPG/RTS game mechanics for players to enjoy. Other than that were still discussing and planning other aspects of the game, so I cant say much more at the moment.

Next Gen has an editorial about great studios that have been dissolved or otherwise tumbled. One bit is about Black Isle Studios, proudly displaying a Fallout Boy as the BIS logo for some inexplicable reason:

In the late '80s, Interplay came out from under EA's wing and began publishing for itself; soon after, it started to publish for other developers. Then in 1997, Interplay released a pseudo-sequel to its 1988 post-apocalyptic RPG Wasteland; since EA retained the rights to Wasteland, the follow-up was set in an alternate world and renamed "Fallout". Fallout proved such an enormous success for Interplay – so great was its effect that it spurred a whole new generation of computer RPGs, just as it seemed the genre had petered out – that Interplay chose to spin off the internal division – led by Feargus Urquhart – responsible for the game.

The resulting studio, Black Isle, became soon renowned as the leading force in computer RPG design – both internally and as a host for the young BioWare. The two studios began to build on each other's achievements: Baldur's Gate essentially infused Fallout with the 2nd Edition AD&D rule set, while Planescape: Torment – often cited alongside Fallout as one of the best computer games of all time – built on the Baldur's Gate rules and technology, to produce a sort of anti-RPG.

Gamespot seems to be the first major gaming site to review Hard Truck: Apocalypse now that it's been out about half a month. Here's what they have to say:

Hard Truck Apocalypse proves that a fantastic name can only take a game so far, and without compelling content a game just isn't worth playing. It's an appealing concept: a role-playing game set in a postapocalyptic future where you have to drive heavily armored (and armed) trucks across a vast wasteland, delivering supplies, scavenging loot, and blasting gangs of bandits off the road. In execution though, Hard Truck: Apocalypse is about as exciting as counting the grains of sand in a postapocalyptic desert.

(...)

Hard Truck: Apocalypse is a lifeless and boring game that lacks any sort of depth or excitement. If you're expecting an action-packed, Road Warrior-esque romp through a lawless desert wasteland, you won't find it here. Instead, you'll find yourself taking a trip down a long road that will have you asleep at the wheel.

RPGVault has reached the second half of its interview with Iron Tower's Vince D. Weller:

Jonric: Since you mentioned quests, how significant is this element in The Age of Decadence? Will there be multiple ways to complete them?

Vince D. Weller: Well, considering that it's not a hack and slash game, dealing with quests is what the gameplay is all about. There are more than 200 well crafted and integrated into the main storyline quests. Each has three to six different ways of handling it, so you will be able to play a very different game even on your third replay. That's one of the strengths of the game.

Nuclear weapons testing in Nevada used to create a spectacle for early morning Los Angeles. Recently, a series of photos of the sight, from 1951 to 1955, were found by a Boing Boing reader in the Los Angeles Public Library photo collection. One of the photo descriptions describes the display as a 'momentary aurora borealis.'

Glutton Creeper announced the creators' of the future official Fallout d20 game Player's Handbook names. They're Gregory Ocetek (RPG site Poltergeist staff member), Jason Mical (fan-made Fallout PnP author), CJ Hurtt and Cary Martin. The editor John Wyatt writes: "If you know them, show them a Fallout welcome with a critical hit to groin".

Beware, E$, I know you, and the words of the Editor are holy! :D

Link: Glutton Creeper Games

Spotted at: Poltergeist

Thanks to Kilroy!

We haven't heard from these guys, doing a total conversion mod for Fallout 2, in at least a year, but, as Ratman says apparently they're still alive and truckin':

Maybe, after so much time, it will sound like nothing but a mere worn-out phrase, but our project is still alive and we are honestly working on it. To beguile your waiting time, we have added four new screenshots. Finally I would like to announce changes in our team, as graphic artist Mad_Eye has left and vice-versa a new scripter DJ Popelnik has joined us.

Stumbled upon this rather interesting site today-

Q: What is the Purpose of This FAQ?
A: Hi, my name is Shane Connor and the author of the Potassium Iodide Anti-Radiation Pill FAQ at ki4u.com and the Civil Defense Radiation Detection Survey Meters, Geiger Counters & Dosimeters FAQ at RadMeters4U.com. (History of KI4U, Inc. here.)

Since the launching of the KI4U FAQ in 1999 and now also with the RadMeters4U FAQ site launched early in 2001, we've had a steady stream of inquiries and requests for info on nuclear blast and fallout shelters. We've always linked to numerous shelter resources, amongst them Bruce Beach's extensive Ark II site, and also host at our sites the entire 280 page Nuclear War Survival Skills book and some FEMA books free on-line here, too.

The next logical step, with this growing public interest, is this FAQ web site where we've brought together under one roof all of these resources, and many more, while answering the most Frequently Asked Questions about nuclear sheltering.

As with researching potassium iodide and its use in nuclear emergencies for the ki4u.com FAQ and then later the radiation meters for the RadMeters4U.com FAQ site, we found much fiction, misinformation, and critical omissions overwhelming the few solid facts. What we've discovered, and share below, from the pioneers, engineers and todays leaders of nuclear shelter building, will both dispell the myths and show the practical steps you can take to protect your family.

It is not an overstatement that what has been distilled down and presented here will actually save the lives of many families who study the realities of nuclear explosions, accidents and radiation and then take from it the appropriate measures readily available to protect themselves from it. Nuclear war, accidents, terrorism and radioactive fallout are all much more survivable when you know exactly what you are up against and how to properly defend yourself and your family from its effects. It not only can be done, but even with very limited resources you can raise your families odds of surviving 100 fold simply by reading, learning and applying what's presented here below. And, for most, that's all the edge they'll need!

Who Needs a Nuclear Shelter Strategy?
What are the Nuclear Blast and Thermal Pulse Effects?
What are the Nuclear Radiation and Fallout Effects?
What's the Difference Between Alpha, Beta and Gamma Radiation?
What's the Difference Between Roentgen, Rad and Rem Radiation Measurements?
How Much Radiation Is Too Much?
What Areas are Likely Targets?
What's Required for Nuclear Sheltering?
What Plans or Ready-Made Shelters are Available?
NEW NukAlert™ 24/7 Key-Chain Radiation Monitor, Detector and Meter
Potassium Iodide Anti-Radiation Pill FAQ
Civil Defense Radiation Detection Survey Meters, Geiger Counters & Dosimeters FAQ!
Using CD Meters in Fallout Shelters (FEMA - 120 pg book)
'Nuclear War Survival Skills' (280 pg book) FREE On-Line Here!
Nuclear War Unthinkable? (Russian & Chinese Update!)
FEMA Nuclear Weapon Target Maps For Each State!
Trans-Pacific Fallout (Don't be caught off-guard by these ill winds!)
'You Will Survive Doomsday' (A myth-busting eye-opener!)
'11 Steps to Nuclear War Survival' (Canada Emergency Measures Organization)
Sabotage and Terrorism of Nuclear Power Plants
Lost and Stolen Nuclear Materials in the United States
Who Is KI4U, Inc. & What's Their History?
WHAT TO DO WITH LESS THAN 3 DAYS TO A NUCLEAR DISASTER!

The webcomic Gone with the Blastwave is as of today one year and 19 strips old.

Happy Birthday!

Link: Gone with the Blastwave

Thanks to Vault_13 for the heads up.

The post-environmental disaster comic Wasteland is set for a July 12th release by Oni Press.

Wasteland takes place one hundred years after the Big Wet, a disaster that destroyed most of the world as we know it. Half the world is now covered by poisonous, rising oceans. What dry land remains is a broken, infertile world of hard ground and harder living.

Into this world steps Michael, a scavenger who roams the wasteland, trading what he can salvage. But Michael's latest find will change his life for ever - a machine that talks in a forgotten language, supposedly giving directions to the fabled land of A-Ree-Yass-I, where mankind's downfall began