Hello and welcome to the fourth challenge for The Hammer Cup 2017.

Below are the details.

PLEASE READ THEM CAREFULLY.

FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE RULES WILL RESULT IN DISQUALIFICATION!

As always, if you have any questions, you can either post a comment or if you require a private reply, send Phillip an email: [email protected]

“OMG, why is Phillip talking about the mapping challenges of 2018 already?”
Because the better planned they are the better prepared I am.

Anyway, the mapping challenges have proved quite successful for RTSL and it would be downright negligent if I didn’t start planning for next year.

I have been working on a calendar for the 2018 mapping challenges and wanted to share the first DRAFT with you to get feedback.

Please take a moment to read my thought process under the dates.

This post is mainly aimed at modders and mappers. I feel that the players have to fit in with the mappers in this case.

Epistle3Ville is the third 50-hour mapping challenge.

It contains 10 official entries and one bonus map.

The focus of this theme was to create a map inspired in some way by Marc Laidlaw’s Epistle 3 blog post as well as any Ep3 details.

Some readers may have noticed that I have started to tweet a lot more than I used to. It doesn’t take that long and I feel it always helped to promote the site via social media. Different platforms work well for different projects. For example, I spend more time posting on Facebook for my squash persona than Twitter. In the case of RTSL, Twitter seems the best choice.

Now, I know not all of you use Twitter but it is possible to view the tweets (the name of each message posted) even if you don’t have an account – so I don’t feel as though I am limiting access.

The more follows a project can get across various platforms, the more potential visitors to the site and therefore potential usage, including downloads and reviews of maps and mods.

For those interested, there is a screenshot of my analytics page at the bottom of this post, showing the increase in statistics. You will see that at the time of posting the account has achieved 380.3K impressions over this 28 day period and on average earned 13.6K impressions per day (An impression is counted as each time a tweet was viewed).

Of course that trend might not continue but I have certainly picked up quite a few new followers.

In addition to the normal posting of updates, message and general items, I have started 6 daily (although, if I get really busy that may change) tweet series. Each has its own hashtag, meaning it’s easy to find all the tweets related to that series. There is also a weekly series and an occasional one.

Here are the details of each series.

I am very pleased to announce that the prize fund for The Hammer Cup 2017 will be a minimum of $850. Thanks go to my Patreon supporters and everybody who donated at various times including my livestream fund raisers.

I’d like to stress that it is possible that it could increase between now and the end of the year. If or when that happens, I will add extra prizes.

The prize structure is as follows:

• First: $400
• Second: $200
• Third: $100
• Fourth: $50
• Fifth: $25
• Special 1: $50
• Special 2: $25

Details of the Special prizes will be released after the event has finished.

You will notice that the prizes double as you go up.

All prizes will be paid via PayPal and no substitution is possible. All amounts are in US Dollars.

Challenge 4: 20th September to 9th October (19 Days)
Challenge 5: 8th November to 4th December (26 days)

Full details are announced at 11am Central European (Summer) Time of the day the challenge starts.

You can view the current points situatio on the Official Hammer Cup 2017 Points Sheet

• Challenge 1: DefendVilleTwo
• Challenge 2: ToxicVille
• Challenge 3: BridgeVille

As always, if you have any questions, suggestions or comments, please don’t hesitate to ask or post them.

Hello and welcome to the third 50-Hour Mapping Challenge – Epistle3Ville.

Below are the details.

PLEASE READ THEM CAREFULLY.

As always, if you have any questions, you can either post a comment or if you require a private reply, send Phillip an email: [email protected]

For this 50-hour challenge, we would like you to create a map that has been inspired by Marc Laidlaw’s recent Epistle 3 blog post, subsequent fan art based on that piece of writing or any other Episode 3 or Half-Life 3 fan art or concept art. If you use any art as direct inspiration, please link to it in your entry’s readme.txt file.

You only have 50 hours, so what we’re looking for is just a tiny slice of what you think Episode 3 could have included. Maybe there’s a setpiece that you’d love to see in-game, or a specific combat situation you imagined while reading Epistle 3. Did you see some fan art and say “wouldn’t it be cool if…”? This is your chance!

The main point is that what you make must be inspired by the Ep3/HL3 theme AND be recognisable as such. You can’t just say something inspired you but it’s not obvious how it connects to Episode 3.

This theme is perhaps open to interpretation more than other themes, so if you have ANY questions, doubts etc, do not hesitate to ask for clarification.

Firstly, allow me to apologise for the late reminder. The dates were published weeks ago but I know that people don’t always pay attention and mark them in their diary or tell their secretary.

So, anyway, this Friday at 10pm Central European Summer Time, the third 50-Hour Mapping Challenge starts.

Full details will be announced in a post which will have all the details.

The judges and I are really excited about this theme and I would have loved to have a tease countdown but couldn’t think of a good way to do it.

Yes, the image is a clue and either it’s really obvious, in which case I apologise or it’s so obscure to be worthless and again, I apologise.

Here is the countdown timer for the start of the challenge.

As I was laying in bed this morning, trying to go back to sleep but knowing I couldn’t, I had this idea.

At the beginning of each month, I will randomly select one review posted in the previous month and send the author a free Steam game.

The game won’t be AAA and it might not be very good but it’s free!

The winner will NOT be able to select the game and if they have it already or don’t want it then they can pass it on t a friend.

My thinking behind this is NOT to encourage people to write reviews because they think they might win a game but to say thank you for supporting the site.

The community and reviews set this website apart from other websites. Imagine I simply had a list of download links instead of what we have. I don’t think it would be very friendly and inviting website to visit.

The winner will be chosen using the Recommendation Wall page, which is currently partially broken, but will be fixed soon. This means that a review MUST use a Recommendation Image. This also means that this giveaway is only open to registered members of RTSL.

I will announce each winner in the monthly General Chat of the following month. So, the winner for August 2017, will be announced in the September 2017 General Chat and Twitter.

I have plenty of games to giveaway, but if you have spare ones you want to donate, please email me the details and any credit you want.

As always, if you have any questions, comments, suggestions or complaints, just let me know.

OMG, I can’t believe that September is here. I did 20% of the things I had planned for August. Oh Well, there’s always next year. HA!

Anyway, we are getting closer to the server move, so that’s good but I am still pretty nervous about it. It’s the first time the site will be self-hosted. The dev site seems really fast, so that’s one good thing.

Due to circumstances, I have been spending some time posting stuff on Twitter, hopefully you have been following me – if not, why not?

RTSL Twitter feed Only 32 more followers needed to reach 1,000.

Besides that, I’ll try to finish Wolfenstein: The New Order and even start Old Blood. YES! I know I said that last month but I mean it this time.

What about you, what do you have planned?