News

Today sees three new Mozilla releases. For the uninitiated, Mozilla is the open source software that rose from the flames of once mighty Netscape Navigator/Communicator, though long-time detractors from the frankly awful Netscape 4 will be pleased to note that it bears very little relation to today's Mozilla products.

Along with the main Mozilla Suite 1.5 release (the suite featuring Navigator for browsing, Mail & Newsgroups, Composer, and various integrated bits, much like the old Netscape Communicator) come new versions of the increasingly popular (and highly recommended by many CoN staff and regulars) standalone applications based on Mozilla code: web browser Mozilla Firebird 0.7 and e-mail client Mozilla Thunderbird 0.3. While these are pre-release software, they have both been shown to be extremely reliable in the past, and this should be especially true of these releases, the first to be built from a release branch of the Mozilla code. Should you require the ultimate in stability, you might prefer Mozilla Suite 1.4.1, released earlier this week.

Not even remotely Final Fantasy or even gaming news, but it falls broadly under the umbrella of site news, since we've recommended Mozilla browsers for the best experience viewing the site (and browsing the Web in general) for some time now. Standards compliant, free and, especially in the case of Firebird and Thunderbird, light, fast, and user-friendly. What more do you want?

Download:

• Mozilla Firebird 0.7
• Mozilla Thunderbird 0.3
• Mozilla 1.5
• Mozilla 1.4.1
• Downloads via BitTorrent and builds optimised for specific CPU types or with varied feature sets can frequently be found at the MozillaZine forums.

Sixteen new fanarts were added to the database today, something I should've done for quite a while. I hate making this news because that means I've put off the update until I need to do a ton in one day. But check out the new art as well as the rest of the database in the
fanart section.

The database features new art from Katy, Narratorway, Zephir, Hikaroo, Kame, Luna Chan, Yuki Usagi, Denisse, Chris Soleto, and SilverMaduin. CoN's fanart gallery continues to grow into one of the biggest and best on the net thanks to everyone who submits, so again, thanks to all submitters.

Although this newest installment to Narratorway's Lights series has actually been around since February, it has only been put on the site just now.

This one is about Relm, called Relm: The Wandering Light . It's a very emotional piece, though written in a style that you would not think would convey that sort of emotion. Definitely worth your time to read, as is the rest of his Lights series, which is viewable in our FF6 fanfiction section.

Although not a game, there is word of a sequel to the popular Final Fantasy 7, to come out in the year 2004.

Not many details are available as of yet, however it looks like it will be a CG movie, and have Sephiroth and Cloud (in some form, at least.)

According to Gameforms, it will be called Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Personally, although I'd love to see this movie, I'm iffy about bringing Sephiroth back to life. He's dead. Cloud killed him what, four times at the end of the game? Unless it's his cells fused in someone elses body. Either way, I'm greatly looking forward to hearing more news about this.

Square Enix revealed much new information on the upcoming North American release of its MMORPG at the Sony Gamers Day conference.

The planned launch date for the Playstation 2 version is March 2004 and the price is going to be a heavy one. The game will cost $99. The cost includes the hard drive that will be bundle with the game. Note that the game will not be available separate from this bundle. Besides this initial cost, players will have to pay $12.95 monthly subscription fee.

The PC version of FFXI will see a release sometime this fall most likely sometime in October. Hard drive does not figure to be a concern here.

Source: RPGamer

Thanks be to Gamers.com for sharing this with us from MTV and the parent company of Gamers.com, Ziff-Davis.

It looks like MTV and EGM might be planning a reality show based on the habits of hardcore gamers. No telling yet if it will be contest-based, or more like a documentary, but given the fact that MTV shows of either genre tend to be vapid and ridiculous, I'm sure it's bound to be a winner!

You can read MTV's casting call here, and more information will probably crop up on Gamers.com or MTV.com soon.

Fantastic.