PlanetJailbreak

Joining in the Lockdown tonight? Make sure you download ZedMaestro's newly-released map Relic before you connect to the Mothership Server.

You might remember that I mentioned this remake of a classic UTJB map not very long ago when Zed released a beta version. In the past month, the forum thread for it has been very busy. There have been plenty of comments and suggestions. Thank you everyone who helped with the testing process, and have a great time on lockdown tonight with the finished product!

Sexmachine reports that the various problems that have afflicted our Mothership server are no more. "After some problems with the redirect server everything is back to normal again. There is no reason to miss the next Sunday Lockdown", he writes.

You know the time, you know the place... but just in case you don't, it's tonight, at 8pm UK time, on the Jailbreak 2004 Mothership hosted by DefConServers. Here's a shot of ZedMaestro's map Furia, one of several that you'll need to download in addition to the Jailbreak base install to play.

In March we put out a call to coders who might want to get involved in Jailbreak.

_Lynx has been working on the Overtime Add-on. This aims to prevent a tied match from dragging on for too long. When the match time is up, the release switches are blocked (as in the screenshot), and it's the first team to round up the enemy in jail and score a capture who wins the game.

You'll find a Release Candidate version in the forum thread. You might also like to check out _Lynx's work on the Release Switch Flip Add-on.

If you're interested in working on Jailbreak, there are still plenty of ideas that need people to implement them. And if you have new ideas for Jailbreak features, we want to hear about them!

If you like playing new Jailbreak maps, then it's a good week. No fewer than four, yes four, maps have been released for beta testing in the last few days.

Firstly, there are two maps by Sludge. These have been around for some time, but were still in need of work. Sludge has let us know that he is no longer mapping for Unreal at all, but has given CoolDude permission to finish both maps off. The maps are Sewers and a remake of a firm UT Jailbreak favourite, LostCanyon (here's a screenshot).

The third new map is DoomedHeaven by newcomer INIQUITOUS. It's dark and scary, and judging from the screenshots, has a little touch of Quake III Arena to it.

And the fourth map, RimeValley, is by the prolific ZedMaestro. This is a vehicle map, set in a frosty valley, with two jails and two switches per team. It introduces the new Freeze Execution that I previewed a few weeks ago.

So there you are: four maps that require your beta testing attention. Get them, play them, report back in the threads, and let's see which one gets to a full release first!