New Member Buddy System

I feel I am very approachable. I’m a friendly guy, willing to help whoever I can. But I am also the guy who runs the site and often people apologize for contacting me and “asking stupid” questions etc. That makes me feel bad. Contrary to popular belief, there are actually stupid questions, but it’s better to ask them than stay ignorant.

It seems that new members feel that shouldn’t bother me or interrupt me if I am on Steam Friend and the opposite is true. I love to hear from and chat with RTSL members – at the right time of course, but if I am on Steam Friends then that’s fine.

It occurred to me recently that plenty of other members help other members if they see a question or comment before I do. Often this is due to timezone issues but other times it’s because I am doing other things.

The site has got quite a few new members recently, but unless they make an approved comment with 3 days of joining their membership is deleted. This is to stop spammers and keep the database lean and mean. In addition, there’s no reason to be a member unless you want to sue the recommendation system, so at some point members will HAVE to have a comment approved.

So I would like to propose the following idea for your consideration.

23rd January 2016 9 Comments

Poll Question 337 – What type of mod promotion do you prefer?

Some mods do a great job of keeping potential players interested and curious, others start off well promoting themselves but soon realize that it takes time and effort to do properly and others just work hard behind the scenes and then suddenly release.

Each way has its merits and drawbacks and the key to the first two is doing them properly.

Personally, I think people get more frustrated when mods don’t update for months, even if they ARE working hard behind the scenes.

I have heard modders say that they need the attention to keep working hard and to be honest, if that’s what you need to work hard you have the wrong hobby.

Sure, it’s nice to get encouragement but you should still work hard if you love what you are doing.

Anyway, what are your thoughts?

21st January 2016 7 Comments

Week 03: Livestream Schedule and Giveaways

Hi all, things are starting to get back to normal and this weekend is the first proper weekend of streaming and giving games away of 2016. YAY!

First off, Dan Jordan AKA The Rabbit, starts his new event called Source of Fame (page coming Friday), where he plays Source mods from the Hall of Fame. In many cases he has never played them and it will be interesting to see his point of view. If you don’t know who Dan is, he won the RaiseTheBarVille Mapping Challenge.

This weekend he will be playing Powerstation 17 on Sunday at noon PST, that’s 8pm GMT but you should double check you local time.

On Saturday at 3pm GMT, Don AKA Unq will be playing Under The Black Moon for Opposing Force as part of his Classic of the Month event. It’s a week late because Don wasn’t very well last weekend.

In addition, Don and Phillip MAY be finishing Decay at some point, but that is NOT confirmed.

On the two confirmed streams we will be giving away one copy per stream of The Killing Floor 2, 6-player co-op Zed-slaughtering mayhem. In Early Access so we can get the gameplay balance perfected, to ensure the maximum amount of fun. And blood and guts., courtesy of SteamContests.com AKA Aaron’s Giveaways, so a HUGE thanks to Aaron. There might be some other games to giveaway too, I will see.

All streams will be on the RTSL Twitch Channel and announced on the RTSL Twitter Feed.

If you have any questions about the streams, just ask.

19th January 2016 4 Comments

Awards 2015 Stage Three

Okay, here we are, on the final stretch of the Awards.

This stage sees the two most popular choices from each of the award categories go head-to-head in the final vote-out.

Each reader only gets one vote for each category.

Winners will be announced next Sunday.

Good luck to everybody!

For those that missed the previous stages, they can be found here: Stage One and Stage Two.

17th January 2016 5 Comments

Poll Question 336 – How will you judge Prospekt?

If you missed my tweet and Facebook post, Prospket has announced it is going retail. Last week, this was the BIG news I said would be announced very soon.

I think it is HUGE news because it is the first time a mod set in the Half-Life universe has gone retail. Now, that might not be quite right, because it was never really made as a mod, but many people thought, myself included, it would be.

I’ll be playing it soon and posting my thoughts, and I will also be having an audio interview with Richard Seabrook, the author of the mod.

I believe and hope that most people will be positive about the whole retail idea, but there may be some who are against it.

What is really interesting for me is how we will judge the release. Will be judge it against other Half-Life games or against other mods? Does it matter that only one person has made it? SHould it matter?

With the sudden release of Wilson’s Chronicles, will we compare it to that?

I’m looking forward to hearing your views and seeing the poll results.

15th January 2016 29 Comments

Support me on Patreon

I have made a momentous decision…. I am going to try and turn RTSL into a job.

Patreon is a website service that allows artists and creators to receive regular donations from supporters.

In the past, I never believed it was possible to make a living from my site and I’ll be honest and say I don’t think full time is possible. Not because of the site itself but because of its incredibly niche content. However, I may be able to make running the site a part-time option and that is my realistic objective, with full-time as the ultimate dream.

I will continue to have donation drives, like the one for The Hammer Cup 2016 prizes etc because ALL of that money is used for buying prizes.

By spending more time on the site, I would be able to update the older mods more quickly, spend time creating new content, like Minute Mod videos for each and every mod, more video reviews and special videos like a round up of each category in the RTSL Awards. Not to mention more podcasts with in-development modders.

I have been inspired by Alex from LambdaGeneration who has some great ideas for running his site and reaching his objectives.

If this doesn’t work out, well at least I tried and I may also explore other gaming-related opportunities.

Who doesn’t want to turn their hobby and the thing they love doing into a full-time occupation?

So, please visit my Patreon page and if you decide to support me, thank you.

As always if you have any comments suggestions or feedback, just post a comment.

Here is the introduction video…

10th January 2016 9 Comments

RTSL on Facebook

Just in case you missed the tweet and mention in a post, RTSL is now on Facebook.

Along with Twitter and Tumblr, I will be posting short updates about the site.

Some longer things will be posted to Facebook and Tumblr, with a tweet linking to both of those.

I know that not all of you use Facebook, but it only takes seconds to copy and paste to create a new post, so iit’s not too much effort and I hope it will help readers stay engaged with the site.

I should mention that LiveStreams will for the time being only be announced on Twitter, partly because Twitch automatically tweets and partly because it seems more appropriate.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please let me know.

10th January 2016 1 Comment

Awards 2015 – Stage Two

Okay, it’s time for some actual voting.

Below you will find polls for each category. This will last until next Saturday. Each poll allows a maximum of two or three votes, depending on the category.

The final stage will only allow one vote per category. Think of this stage as an elimination stage. At the end of this stage there will only be two entries left for each category.

9th January 2016 10 Comments