The WoP news of the year 2003

WoP PadMod Wallpaper by DoomDragon

In the pre-Christmas season of the last year, we had already dealt quite intensively with the early history of World of Padman and put in this context, the old PadFiles (ENTE’s PadMaps, the old Padman player model and related alternative skins) for Quake 3 Arena, Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force and Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast on our website available for download. Unfortunately, we still lack the alternative Padman Skin “Skull Overlord” by Da Reaper, to which we have already launched a so far unsuccessful search request. 🙁

We also keep ourselves busy with the media coverage of World of Padman in the past and we want to present as many of the press articles as possible on our website. While some publishers and editorial staff are very kind to us and did not hesitate to give us permission to publish, others can not or do not want to give us permission. One of the major publishers even demands royalties that would easily be in a four-digit range, which of course is absolutely exaggerated and completely absurd for a non-commercial website like ours. 😯

With video contributions it is sometimes not easy to determine when exactly they were broadcast, so in this context it helps to do some research in the old WoP news. Despite the lack of a backup, thanks to web.archive.org, we succeeded in restoring the WoP news of the year 2003 in German and English, at least in textual form. At that time, most of the news was written in German by ENTE and translated into English by Harmonieman, partly with the support of the English speaking PadMember. Where the translations could no longer be restored, we have now translated and supplemented these later and editorially revised the news partly. Also, the associated image material of many postings, although incomplete, could be found and incorporated. Among those images, however, are also partially thumbnails, which of course have a very poor resolution. But that is better than nothing. 😉

In the following we want to summarize the year 2003 of World of Padman. WoP was in the second year of its development as a modification for Quake 3 Arena and is was announced to be released in December as a beta version.

  • January: WoP got its own IRC channel and Rastaman joined the WoP team. FEzzz registered a new domain for WoP and the PadMember got corresponding email addresses.
  • February: the big news update no. 8 thought the PadMod was in a crisis, but also provided a lot of information and footage on the status of the weapon models, the SyC game type, the maps, the menu, the Punchy and FatPad. An intended port to Elite Force 2 was denied.
  • March: MopAn joined the WoP team, Magnacus server PadHouse got back online, and alternative skins for FatPad and PadGirl were introduced.
  • April: This month started with a bang, as the database of the old website was broken due to changes of the hoster. PadGarden was now adapted for PadMod and Angie Lee became the voice of World of Padman.
  • May: Glowstar presented new screenshots for the Backyard and ENTE explained PadAttic und PadKitchen as finalized. The call for help for an animator became louder and louder.
  • June: ENTE created a skin for a race car in Nascar 2003 and the PadMod became a kind of “sponsor”. The interim report was mainly about code updates and ENTE set up a PadArt section on the website.
  • July: Gogitason presented the first signs of life of PiratPad, an About section has been set up on the website and the new HealtStation, formerly known as LoadingStation, has been introduced. The month also included a big news update no. 9 that featured the powerups, the SPLASHER zoom, weapon effects, unconsciousness stars, alternative skins for PadLilly and MonsterPad, spray rooms with Crytek textures, and first real action screenshots. There was a song by Dieselkopf for download.
  • September: This month there was a status report about code updates, the 3D intro and a possible PadMod release in December have been estimated. DemonPrincess was supposed to reinforce the team in terms of animation and there were first screenshots of MopAn’s Jail.
  • October: There was some first information about the hand-drawn level shots, the 3D intro of doomdragon, to ENTE’s PadShip (formerly named PadRevenge) with its associated spray room and that there will probably be no bot support in a first beta version. GiGA Games expressed its interest to present the PadMod via stream.
  • November: GlowStar presented first screenshots of his cabin, including the spray room, and first screenshots of HUD and weapon effects of the Bubble G. were shown. There was an unfortunately no longer available interview about the PadMod on QuakersNet.com and doomdragon presented six wonderful wallpapers of the PadMod, which you can download now on the current website again. The month closed with first screenshots showing the Killerducks in action for the first time.
  • December: In another interim report , there were no new screenshots besides the current status of the work and it was announced that the maps SLoBTown and GreenShed could not be finished anymore. In the Christmas greetings, a beta release of the PadMod in 2003 was virtually canceled at the last minute, but a WoP calender 2004 from the fan base should make the wait a little more pleasant.

This news item has now been more detailed than originally planned, but it is just exciting to dive into our own development story. We hope that in the future we will be able to supplement missing footage and files. In the following we will deal with the news of the years 2002 and 2004. 😉

Finally a few impressions from the year 2003.