downloading it now at 16;00 with no waiting in line. I hope its better than the last map. If enough of ya get we can try it tonight. this is my 1st post hope it works.

From http://community.enemyterritory.com

First thing’s first: The release date. FilePlanet will be launching Beta 2 tomorrow (Friday) morning Pacific Standard Time, at which point participants of the ETQW Public Beta will be able to grab it from there.

I don’t see it on Fileplanet yet, but I will keep looking…

EDIT: I thought that FP had just replaced the old BETA file with the new one, but they haven’t, as I just downloaded it, and it’s the same file as before. So, hopefully, there will be a new file marked BETA2 in the FP directory for ETQW.

EDIT 2: The file is now available (11:30am EST), and I am once again waiting in line for it…

[ LINK ]

Although I believe the nails are already in the coffin, I will probably download this BETA2 to check it out, especially with a new map, just for something different…

Here are the highlights:

The new Valley map

The GDF need to destroy a Strogg Prionite Contaminator that’s poisoning a reservoir (the Strogg are attempting to render the local population defenseless to Stroggification). Our Level Design Team has been polishing Valley like crazy, plus it’s larger than Sewer, and features four additional GDF vehicles (the Anansi Attack ‘Copter, Bumblebee Transport Chopper, the Platypus Assault Boat, and the Mobile Command Post) and improved visuals over Sewer. We’re confident you’re going to have fun on this map!

Balancing, Refinements and Bugs

The whole team has worked on thousands of bug fixes, refinements, and balancing improvements in this build that couldn’t be applied as a simple patch to Beta 1. This covers most weapons, items, tools, vehicles, deployables, and the user interface, including fixes for uncapped frame-rates, improved server administration functions, interaction with objectives, better weapon spread modifiers, vehicle firing rates, better sniper scopes, more consistency between weapons and their UI components, better fire support, improved deployables, and smaller tweaks like time-stamping for messages from friends, and tweaked special effects.

Improved Bots

eehh… whatever.

Improved Prediction and Player Physics

Our Physics Programmer Tristan ‘Fearog’ Williams has developed the new Anti-Lag feature, so we’re finally nearing the point where the goal of ‘what you shoot is what you hit’ will be realized, despite a player perhaps being on a higher latency connection. There are improvements to the collision system, player knock-back, player speed, hitting targets that are jumping, interacting with the world while going prone ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú it’s a big list.

Improved Vehicle Physics and Controls

Tristan has been working hard on this stuff too, with the Husky Quad Bike, Armadillo Truck, and Trojan Amphibious Personnel Carrier in particular feeling much more dynamic (as a test of this, power-sliding now works properly). It’s easier to aim as a Gunner when in vehicles now too.

Improved Interface

ehhhh……

Improved Audio

Lots of attention has been given to the GDF handheld weapons in particular, but improvements across the board have been made based on your feedback.Improved Game Performance

Improved Game Performance

Beta 2 comes with a slew of performance optimisations and tweaks. There are also several new menu options allowing you to tweak the visuals of the game even further. Compared to Beta 1, we’ve seen performance increase as much as 30% – we’re keen to get all the feedback we can in this area, so please keep your performance reports coming.

PunkBuster

?Ǭ†:neutral:?Ǭ†?Ǭ†

You can check the rest of the headlines [ HERE ]

I don’t know about you guys, but for me, QuakeWars has been the biggest let-down in a game title… ever. Never have I heard (and fell for) so much hype about how a game was going to be so much better than what’s currently in play, from the graphics, to the modeling, to the objective based teamplay, only to have it be as bad (or worse) than sh@t we were playing 3-4 years ago.

I entirely understand that this is a BETA, and have tried to judge it as that, but the things that need fixing would require a total rework, and aren’t just surface blemishes. From the goofy, tonka-toy-ish models, to the underlying lagged out netcode, to the strafing “shoot from the hip” madness that has become the game, it’s totally reminiscent of the original Quake or UT2004 or original Half-Life. (except those were actually fun to play for a while)

Attention was paid to some details of the game, such as the cool effects of the orange shields when you shoot them or the distortion in the zoom lenses when looking through them, but then they left the major things lacking. Sarge made a good point the other night in that when you are prone, you can only turn left/right so far – a great ‘realism’ feature – but then some guy comes up strafing circles around you, and in the time it takes you to get up, your aced. They seriously should limit the sprint and strafe – it ruins the game.

To me, this is nothing more than unReal Tournament or the original Quake with some different weapons and the addition of vehicles. From the first time I launched it, the biggest disappointment were the graphics and the models. They just feel goofy… clunky… and that’s not even considering when you’re using them. The buildings and structures just seem… unfinished… no detail… even though I understand they are mostly concrete block.

Looking back on Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, the building/structural models haven’t changed much in QuakeWars, which ok, fine, it reduces the detail that your graphics card has to render, but I was expecting the graphics to get better with new games… not stay the same. It’s like they didn’t care at that point.

Yes, we desperately need something with some new flavor to get players active again and have some good squad/team based fun, but this sadly is not anywhere close, in my opinion. Buying a new game with the S.O.S. is something we fell for from EA, and I for one won’t fall victim again.

The fact we have fallen back to playing BF2 is just sad, really, but I am really glad that we have something TO fall back on as a group, and can still have some fun together, rather than the alernative.

Launch your QW Beta, and the in-game updater does the rest…

Get the full story [ HERE ]!!!

Sounds like they are trying to accommodate some of the changes for bugs/errors that have made it a disappointing game so far:

The Public Beta client build was made several weeks ago and since then, there have been over 1000 changes made to the game in source code and art assets, with significant improvements to game mechanics, maps, user interface, hit prediction and detection, and audio, just to name a few areas. Some of these aren?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t quite ready for prime time yet, but we?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re hoping to bring you a major update later in the Public Beta process.

In the meantime, we?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re getting ready to roll out a smaller update to test a feature of Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars that we haven?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t really talked about much: the in-game auto updater. When the update is released, you will be able to simply start up the game and it will automatically query the update server and grab the necessary files. This update is scheduled to go out next week and there?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll be an announcement on this site as soon as it hits the tubes of the internet, so keep an eye out for that.

Coming in this new release:

Bots, Bots, Bots

The most significant addition is that the bots are now activated.

Improved Prediction

One of the most talked about items on the beta forums is that aiming is quite difficult at times due to the way player and latency prediction are handled in this particular revision of the beta. You?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re seeing this because our antilag features haven?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t been added to the public beta yet…

Server Browser Fixes

We?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve got two pretty significant server browser fixes in this update…

Server Memory Leaks

We?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve plugged a number of memory leaks in the server code

Hopefully this will mean that the game might develop into something that can hold us over until we get something with more realism to it. That’s been one of my biggest dissappointments – the ‘clunkiness’ of the vehicles and overall structural models within the game. It’s too ‘Unreal Tournament’ in many ways.

Check out the full article [ HERE ]

[UPDATED] WooooHoooo! I actually WON! Can you believe it!??!?!! I was totally floored when I saw my name on the winners list for this. I still am. Can’t wait to see that shiny new Nvidia 8800GTS at my door! Many many thanks to everyone who took the time to go vote for me! I’ll definitely have some stuff for sale once I get this card, so I’ll post that soon… Going to upgrade to better suit the 8800 architecture…

[ CONTEST RESULTS ]

They’re running a contest to win one of three Nvidia 8800 cards, asking for people to come up with desktop images for Quakewars… Here was an idea I had, put together from numerous screenshots, etc. that I found, plus the ETQW fan pack. This compiled image doesn’t exist… I made it from different images, and the background image of the scorched road/valley scene.

Here’s the contest site: SITE

Go throw some votes my way if you can… I’d love to snag an 8800…