Relicnews: the definitive source for all things Relic

Thanks to Geoff@Relic for sending along this great shot of a pumpkin carved by Frank (Relic’s IT Guy) during their pumpkin carving contest.

GG HOMEWORLD2 Logo!

The one game that’s been most consistently compared to HOMEWORLD over the years is O.R.B. It appears that O.R.B. is now gold, and is due on store shelves on November 5th.

Perhaps now that O.R.B. is gold, Relic and Sierra will start to crank out some small PR Tidbits for HOMEWORLD2 (more ship renders, the screenshots from magazines, etc) and capitalize on the interest in 3D Space RTS games… I know I know… but we can hope can we not? Sierra and Relic seem to have a PR schedule that they’re sticking too, and my sources say no more serious info for at least 2 months.

Just so all of you know, the forums have been fixed so that loading the forums page, when you’re not logged in, no longer takes 10-15 minutes. If you run into any more problems while using the forums, please let myself of Dyn know.

[edit]As of Sunday morning, it appears telefragged broke something. As a result, the forums aren’t working - UJ[/edit]

[edit 2]And they’re back! - Pike [/edit 2]

For those of you that missed it on the forums (and those of you reading it for the first time), Relic had a flyer at ECTS that had some art elements from HOMEWORLD2 in it. Focusing on the HW2 portion of the flyer showed an Ion Cannon Frigate, two pieces of smaller art, and a new HOMEWORLD2 logo. Thanks to Dawn Falcon for the original flyer scans.

Here now are the various components (or as close as could be provided) of that flyer:

The first piece of concept art

The second piece of concept art

A Hiigaran Ion Cannon Frigate Render

Enjoy and please post your comments below.

Relic’s job page has been updated with posts asking for resumes for 3 new positions. They are Tools Programmer, AI Programmer, and Graphics Programmer. These are in addition to a Character Designer position that’s been advertised for a while.

The AI Programmer’s job is described as so:

The AI Programmer takes responsibility for the analysis, design and implementation of
software systems and Artificial Intelligence sub-systems for a 3D real-time action game on a
next-generation video game console.

The Graphics Programmer as so:

Relic Entertainment, Inc. is looking for an experienced
graphics programmer with console experience. Applicants
should have shipped at least 2 titles (preferably console-
based), be avid gamers and have experience interfacing with
designers, artists, and other programmers.

Looks like Relic’s exploring the idea of adding staff to a console game development team :-D

If you’re having trouble accessing the forums, you’ll need to switch to another skin that doesn’t have ads on it. The Homeworld one works pretty well.

Hopefully Dynth or Pike can sort the forums out when they get a chance.

Also new (from yesterday) is PC IGN posting an Impossible Creatures trailer. It’s in 3 sizes for your dowloading fun.

Thanks again to The Preacher for the info.

Update: I am now home and have downloaded and watched the High Quality trailer. I am now officially uber-excited about Impossible Creatures. After not seeing the game since last November, this trailer has really really impressed me. GG all the folks that have worked on IC so far.

So I talk to Rupract and Remnant about it, saying how cool it is. Rupract of course bugs me for not pre-ordering Impossible Creatures. So I figure I will go and order 2 copies of IC (one for me, one for UberWife). Problem is, I don’t know of anywhere that takes pre-orders for IC in Canada… can’t order Impossible Creatures on EBGames.com and Amazon.com because they only take orders for the States, gogamer.com and Amazon.ca don’t have it listed (nor any games for that matter on Amazon.ca, it’s got the Strategy Guide though). sigh The one time I’m willing to help bump up retailer interest in a game for a developer and I can’t lay out the cash.

Your missions (and you will accept them) are: First find the community a spot where non-Americans can preorder Impossible Creatures, and second pre-order Impossible Creatures. Now go, then report back on your progress!

Update2: Ok, Mac_Bug reports back that Chips and Bits is taking preorders for Impossible Creatures from folks that live in Canada. Go here to check it out. I’m a bit leery of pre-ordering from them as I’ve not heard much about them. Also, their prices are a bit high for courier rates… might be faster to get it on the first day it’s in stores. Comments?

Avault’s got 6 screenshots from Impossible Creatures, including a couple from the Non-interactive sequences in the game. View them here.

Thanks to Preacher for the heads up.

RealFrenchGuy, from Esprit-STR sends word that the French are getting a view of HOMEWORLD2 in the magazine “PC Jeu” (from the same publishing group that makes PC Gamer). Now now, don’t get angry, it’s the same screenshots from the PC Gamer magazine :-D.

RFG also reminded me that the Hegemonia:Legions of Iron demo has been released. They’ve got a walkthrough of the demo here.

The folks over at Avault have recently launched a new message board system. To kick off their message boards they’ve invited Relic’s Jay Wilson (the lead Designer on IC) to answer any questions that you might throw at him. You’ll need to register in order to ask questions, but can read any of the answers Jay gives here. For more details about this little bit of news, click here. Thanks Targeter for that bit of news.