Jean-Marie Messier, the former head of Vivendi Universal, was placed under formal investigation for alleged stock market rigging by the French media and entertainment group. Messier, 47, who had been in police custody since Monday, was freed on bail after the move by French investigating magistrates, which is just one step shy of formal charges. French investigators are probing events during Messier's tumultuous term, which took Vivendi from a simple utilities company to a vast international media empire which is now flirting with bankruptcy.

I would like to welcome 2 new artist to the team and a contributor.

First is Prior he will be contributing a character model to the team and we are all very grateful for it. His work can be seen at www.priororberson.com.

Smabee is the next member he will be doing some concept art for the mod and we look forward to seeing work finished by him.

Last but not least we would like to welcome Teckniel he will doing environment and object modeling for the mod.

You can now download the II Theme from here. Thanks to lillbrorsan for the link.
I made some coding about the music. HL support music but the main problem is HL control the music behaviour so if you start a music HL can stop it in some case. So I implemented the music and I have the full control of everything aswell making easy to put custom playlist. So everything was tested on HL1 engine right now. The only things I need todo is to adapt on HL2 when the SDK will be ready! We will implement a ingame player interface for our mod!

Continental Wars joins the Empire as my 7th hosted site!

Continental Wars is a modern-day, war modification for Half-Life 2. However, unlike most mods of Half-Life 1 and 2, there are three teams all battling each other. There are several classes to choose from such as Sniper, or Stealth along with an arsenal of over 60 weapons from all over the world. There are four types of maps. The first is ub_ maps or urban maps. Theses are small urban environments with close combat. The second are df_ maps or defend maps. In these maps one team must defend a fort from the other two teams, who are also battling each other. The third type are mb_ or mobile maps. These maps have mobile spawn points that can be driven. If you APC spawn points are destroyed your team is finished. The last type of maps are cw_ maps. They are your basic all-out-war-on-large-open-battlefields kind of maps.

Some very interesting concepts in this mod, so I'm sure it will be a great one to keep an eye on. If you want to read up more about these guys, you can visit them on the web at:
continentalwars.com

The lights go out at old-school game company, Sierra, as Vivendi restructures its business.

More depressing news for the industry, Vivendi Universal Games has cut 350 staff and shut down Seattle-based Sierra. The venerable games company created some of the most popular action and adventure games in the 80's. The Sierra brand will live on in name only and projects tied to the Sierra pipeline, Half-Life 2, Ground Control II and Tribes: Vengeance are already being developed by other teams within Vivendi. Also affected by the restructuring, the Hoyle brand of card and board games have been canceled.

The weapon-section is now updated with our latest finished weapon. The Uzi.
Check it out here

And as we speak progress, there's also a new map available.
Check it out here

Comments are welcome as usual in our forums

Yesterday, I was interviewed at Game-Jack. It covers a few topics with the mod's development and my role on the team. The interview is available here.
We are running a Screenshot Contest right now.
Submit the best Sven Co-op screenshots you have, and you could win a prize!

The team is going to pick a select number of screenshots which best represent the mod, and we'll put them on the 'In-game screenshots' page. If your screenshot happens to be one of the five best, you'll get a new donation feature coming in Sven Co-op v3.5. (5 separate winners)

RULES:

Submissions must be from a default installation. Custom huds, crosshairs, or weapon models are frowned upon.
Net graphs must be disabled.
Do not post pointless screenshots. Example: Do not post a screenshot of a dead barney on the floor.
Do not post screenshots which are "funny" yet show nothing about the mod.
The Contest forum thread in which the screenshots are posted, is not for discussion purposes. If you make a post there, it must have a screenshot or you will be banned.
You CAN post screenshots from custom maps.
Screenshots must be in at least 1024x768 resolution.


All submissions are to be posted on the following forum thread:
CLICK HERE


In order to post, you'll need to have a forum account so be sure to sign up right away. You can submit as many screenshots as you want, as long as they abide by the rules. Do not email submissions to team members, you will be banned from the contest.

I talked to the co-leader of the new MOD War on Terror. This sounds like a promising MOD. It takes gamers to the current day conflicts of the war in Iraq. You have the choice of being the Coallition or the Republican Guard. Read the interview!

I would like to start this evening off by giving our two newest team members a warm welcome. Zack has joined up as an application programmer, and will be working on a esf updater for us. Eclipse has also joined the development staff and will be modeling for us.

Patch Update: The windows patch has been packed and is ready to kick out the door. Now we are waiting to get the linux version togther. It is taking a little bit longer to do because of conflicting schedules and real life happenings. So, soon!

A lot of people have been trying to guess who the mystery man behind the POTW is. Tonight you have your answer! Eclipse and Mr. Smo teamed up to create a new krillin model for beta 1.3. As you can see it's a vast improvement over our previous model.

GameJack has just interviewed one of the creators of Sven Co-op, a HL MOD where humans take on monsters. We have got the full, but yet brief interview to share! Be sure to check it out, this MOD has lots of future plans! Sven Co-op Interview