Shortly after the 15th birthday of the PadMod we want to take a look at the WoP news of the year 2005, the last year of World of Padman’s development as a modification for Quake 3 Arena. The data is good except for two major gaps and extends into October. The months of April to June suggest a large gap, but there were really only 4 news postings at that time. Unfortunately, the months of November and December of the year 2005 are no longer available and it is impossible to investigate how many posts are missing altogether.
As before, most of the news was written in German by ENTE and translated into English with support from other PadMembers and the community. Where the translations could no longer be restored, we added them later and editorially revised the news in a few places. Unfortunately, except for one exception, no picture footage has been preserved. Nevertheless, the year 2005 was trend-setting for the further development of World of Padman as a standalone game.
In the following we want to review the year 2005 of World of Padman again.
- January: ENTE starts the year with a New Year’s greeting and draws a positive balance of the year 2004. He confirms the will to further develop the PadMod and hopes for the release of WoP as a standalone game are expressed. DoomDragon presents its own website and the second music pack by Dieselkopf for the PadMod is released. ENTE gives an overview of previously unreleased WoP maps and it is called again for the Sunday’s PadDay .
- February: The team is still looking for a talented animator to finally get FunnyPad out of his hibernation. ENTE announces the PadPack for the PadMod with the old PadMaps PadGallery deLuxe and the two PadCrash versions. The PadMaps turn 5 years old and to celebrate the day the PadPack for the PadMod is released, which now even includes the PadCastle. The website is being updated and a PadMod DVD cover is in progress. Unfortunately, the PadPack has to be fixed again, because a few mistakes had crept in. It has been revised accordingly and republished.
- March: The PadMod is announced as the Mod of the Month on PlanetQuake.com and appears on the cover DVD of the British PC Zone magazine. The Sunday’s PadDay is again touted and ENTE’s PadLibrary is announced as a new map for the PadMod. The first PadLibrary screenshots are shown. The PadMod including Update 01 becomes an official part of the Linux distribution Gentoo and can now be conveniently installed for the first time via the package management.
- April: The first screenshots of PadLibrary’s spray room created from ENTE’s old JK2 map PadHall are shown. There were two more postings, of which only the headings are preserved. These mention a video DVD of the community and a little down phase in the WoP development.
- May: There was only one post here, of which only the headline has been preserved. This mentions that the PadLibrary is almost finished.
- June: Again, there was only one post, of which only the headline has been preserved. This mentions that Gametot’s first map is almost done.
- July: In July the FAQs were updated on the website and in a statement on the current situation, ENTE comments in detail on his private situation, which of course is directly related to the development of the PadMod. Nevertheless, an update 02 and the PadLibrary are still promised. Unfortunately, the old PadForum went offline at this time.
- August: WoP revs up again this month and first a test version and then later the PadLibrary was released officially. To make PadMod a PadGame, John Carmack’s appearance at the QuakeCon is eagerly awaited. The first PadPlayer tower will be documented on screenshots and the vote option will be presented on the website, allowing you to choose the most popular WoP weapon. The Wiener Fun Clan invites on its server and after the Quake3 source code has been released, the team will have a dream come true. Everything points now to a WoP standalone. The PadDay server is full to bursting and the third music pack by das -boerge- is released. The BUBBLE G. is voted as favorite weapon in WoP.
- September: acid joins the WoP team and three new maps of Kai-Li, oregano4 and Harmonieman are briefly introduced. A new PadForum goes finally online and there is a little progress report on the PadGame.
- October: ENTE was offline for 4 weeks, now presents new screenshots of the revised PadKitchen and first pictures of Kai’s map Trash-Can, the later TrashMap are shown. PadGarden and PadKitchen are voted the most popular WoP maps and Aquarius is revising the PadSecrets section of the website.
As already described, the months of November and December are currently not recoverable. As before, we hope that we will be able to supplement missing articles, images and files in the future. This concludes this news series on the development of the PadMod for Quake 3 Arena. We hope that we could give you a good overview of the first years of World of Padman.