Archive for August 2016

Poll Question 358 – How many Achievements have you attained?

In What The Headcrab! Episode 19 I talked about a post on Reddit that said that only 1% of people who have played Half-Life 2 had attained all of the statistics. I couldn’t find a page that said only 1% had all achievements but I suspect it was a play on the current 1%/99% theme in today’s world.

Then later that day, I was playing a single player mappack for Black Mesa called Small Lab and I started to get some achievements. The funny thing is that I haven’t even played the game yet and when I do, I might even have most of them attained.

I’ve never been a big fan of achievements but I understand their appeal. Perhaps we could have Attain November, just like we did last year with HARD November?

18th August 2016 26 Comments

Week 33

Darren will be continuing his The Ville Retrospective event and this week it’s the turn of AmbushVille starting at 1pm UK Time on Saturday, which should be 2pm CET time.

This is the reschedule of Week 31‘s stream which had to be cancelled due to Darren’s Internet connectivity issues.

As you probably know, phillip is away on holiday, so there are no other streams scheduled – sorry.

You should double check the Time & Date.Com website for your local time.

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.

17th August 2016 1 Comment

Poll Question 357 – Is it possible for SP mods to release too many Alpha/Beta versions?

Preparing a What The Headcrab! episode, I noticed that Above The Catacombs had 3 Alphas available at the time of writing: Alpha 0.73 – Jul 18 2016 (Called the seventh), Alpha 0.4 – Jun 27 2015 and Alpha 0.3 – Jun 2 2015.

Putting aside the time difference between 0.73 and 0.4 of almost a year, I feel that schedules for public release should be fairly limited.

In general, Alpha are internal milestones and beta are external. Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way with mods but I can’t help feeling that if you need feedback this early in development then you don’t have much confidence in your concept.

11th August 2016 9 Comments

What The Headcrab! – Episode 20

Hello and welcome to What The Headcrab! Episode 20.

A few days earlier than a week, but as you probably know, I am off on holiday tomorrow.

This will be the last episode until Saturday 20th August.

I hope you can live without it for that long. Maybe next year, I’ll get some guest host to fill in for me.

As always, there’s a giveaway courtesy of A A Ron from SteamContests.com and news from RTSL.

Anyway, let’s get headcrabing.

Watch the Video

10th August 2016 1 Comment

Week 32

Don will be continuing his Classic of the Month event on Saturday at 10am Eastern US time, 3pm UK time, 4pm Central European, he will be playing The Xeno Project.

As you probably know, phillip is away on holiday, so there are no other streams scheduled – sorry.

You should double check the Time & Date.Com website for your local time.

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.

10th August 2016 No Comments

BM Small Lab

for Black Mesa

“You woke up in the test chamber by teleportation and you need to activate the teleporter that would get out of Black Mesa, but it needs to include the 3 energy generator, which are somewhere in the lab, your task is to incorporate these generators simultaneously exterminate monsters, and then go through teleport, and what is on the other side will see the teleporter.”

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Total Downloads: 1,3137th August 2016
18 Comments and 6 recommendations, 3 say "Play It Now!"

Week 31

Firstly, Phillip’s The Closure stream will be at 11:00am Central European Time on Saturday.

Secondly, Darren will be continuing his The Ville Retrospective event and this week it’s the turn of AmbushVille starting at 1pm UK Time on Saturday, which should be 2pm CET time.

Thirdly, Phillip will be streaming one his practice mapping sessions, which is part of The Level Design Academy at 11:00am Central European Time on Sunday.

You should double check the Time & Date.Com website for your local time. Please note the UK is not on GMT during the summer, so use 1pm UK or London time to check the stream time in your time zone.

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.

5th August 2016 5 Comments

What The Headcrab! Episode 19

Hello and welcome to What The Headcrab! Episode 19.

Slightly behind schedule but still packed with plenty of news and updates.

As always, there’s a giveaway courtesy of A A Ron from SteamContests.com and news from RTSL.

The Misc section returns but split into reddit and YouTube, at least for this episode. As with last week, no Half-Life Lore Trivia or YouTube channel spotlight – sorry.

Let’s go!

Watch the Video

4th August 2016 2 Comments

Holiday and London Meet Up

New readers may be surprised to hear I have a holiday away from the site. Well, actually, I have a few but mostly just for the odd day or two here and there, but the one in August is longer. I will be away for 12 days!!!

12 days of no updates or new posts. Well, that’s not strictly true. The Week XX and weekly poll question will be schedule, but that’s it.

I do check email and follow the comments, however, I avoid replying or posting if I can. We all need to re-charge our creative batteries.

I will be in the UK, specifically, London and near Portsmouth.

Every year I post details of my holiday and suggest a RTSL meet Up (used to be a PP Meet Up) and in all the years I have been suggesting it, it’s only ever happened once – in New York. Two people came to meet me for dinner and it was a lot of fun.

So, here goes again:
Who would like to meet me in Central London on a either Sunday 14th, Saturday 20th or Sunday 21st for an afternoon coffee?

For those that are really serious, I’ll give you my mobile number and we can Whatsapp to arrange things.

But please, please only say you are interested if you really are and can actually make it. My time is so short there and I have so many things I want to do, London Sky Garden, Royal Opera House: Bolshoi ballet, British Museum, friends, shopping, parks restaurants etc etc, that I don’tr want to waste time sitting waiting for people who won’t come.

3rd August 2016 17 Comments