I know the last poll was only a few days ago but I want to get back to the Thursday schedule.

Please bear with me. I’ve got an idea and before anybody asks, “No, I don’t have any inside information”.

Imagine that half-Life 3 is released but it is also made available with, for an extra cost, themes.

The themes are “overlays” that include sound files (voice and music), textures and maybe some other assets.

The idea is that you buy the game and can play it as Valve imagined it. But you could also “change” it by buying different themes that give the game a different feel.

Think of it as being similar to HTML and CSS. The HTML is the content and the CSS is the look and feel.

The BBC posted a news item about how Blizzard took a fan’s server offline that was running the original WOW game.

Now, you might be thinking that this poll is about what would happen if Steam went offline permanently, but it’s not.

What really got me curious was this quote from Blizzard: “The developers however prefer to see the game continuously evolve and progress, and as such we have no plans to open classic realms or limited expansion content realms.”.

I think it raises some interesting questions.

Should the developers force changes of the game onto players? It happens all the time and as players we don’t really have any say in that process. Maybe it’s technically too difficult for developers to allow multiple versions of each game.

Could each change be made an option? Unless it is security related, why not?

Well, perhaps for MP games that would be a HUGE issue. Playing against players with different settings could ruining the game for many and you obviously can’t have different servers for every combination of options.

But for SP games like the ones we know and love, perhaps it is possible.

In fact, what if it were a paid option? Would that interest you? If you apid, for example, 5 Dollars per game, you could ahve all the changes as options and if you didn’t you just got the changes and had to play the latest version.

What are your thoughts?

BOOM! Out of nowhere comes a new nifty feature. A page with the 10 latest post in each of the main categories.

BOOM! No longer do you have to select each individual timeline page to see what is new.

BOOM! The link can be found from the EXPLORE menu.

BOOM! I just like typing that, sorry.

Okay, so the page currently has a section for each game’s maps and mods and one for READ and LISTEN, although, I will probably sub-divide both of those into separate sections if people want me too.

The site doesn’t want to look like a magazine site but it is always useful to have one page to see what is new.

In fact, the most visited page for me is the 100 Latest Comments.

As always, let me know if you have any comments and suggestions.

BOOM!

UPDATE: Don will be giving away a personal copy of Natural Selection 2 and also a copy of Downwell kindly donated by Aaron’s SteamContest.com.

First off, Don AKA Unq, continues his Classic of the Month event, where he plays a classic GoldSource release.

This weekend it is Radix on Saturday at 10am Eastern time / 3pm UK / 4pm Europe. This is “by request” because Don actually made this mod. We don’t want you to think that he is pushing his own mod. In addition to the playthrough it will include “making of” notes as well as looks at other maps that inspired it.

I will be continuing my Mega Miigga event and it’s possible I will complete in one day. I will be streaming on Saturday morning, starting around 12pm Central European time.

Check the Time & Date.Com website for your local time.

There will be at least one game giveaway this weekend, but no details are known yet.

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.

Just a sill question this time, but after reading a BBC article called Whatever floats your boat – the unstoppable growth of themed cruises and how the band KISS hires a whole cruise ship once a year, I thought Heck, why not Half-Life?

The topic itself isn’t exactly new, in fact I suggested something similar an article called Ten-Year Anniversary Half-Life Convention (2007) and even Poll Question 244 asked If there was a ValveCon within 6 hours travel of you, would you go? (2011).

So besides the basic question, I want you all to suggest fun activities the passengers could all get up to. Keep it clean and family friendly. I’ll post some ideas as comments too.

There are no planned streams this weekend.

Sorry about that.

Maybe one of the streamers might decide to stream something but that’s up to them.

I am away in London, hence the featured image background, so there will not be any streams from me either.

Have a great weekend and remember: PLAY, PLAY PLAY!

CYA

Drip, drip, drop, little April showers….(Video)

What do you have planned for this month?

Play the latest THC16 mapping challenge: Check
Eat Healthily (see below for the exception): Check
Exercise regularly: Check
Use the car less: Check
Do your homework earlier than the day before you have to hand it in: Check
Be nice to people, even rude idiots: Check
Watch all the RTSL streams or VODs: Check
Eat pizza once a week: Check
Play and review plenty of SP maps and mods: Double Check
and finally,
Do something for another person with no thought of getting thanked for it: Check

So, that’s your April organized.

Tell me about your dreams. Am I in them?

And so it continues…

Welcome to the third of five mapping challenges as part of The Hammer cup 2016.

One of the staple events in video games is the backtrack sequence. A part of the game where you retrace your steps in the exact location but this time something has changed.

The change can be due to new enemies, a violent explosion, time travel, new vehicles etc.

We would like you to create a map where the player interacts with an area and then has to backtrack through the same area, but the area must have changed.

The reason for the change and the exact change is entirely up to you.

The theme is apropos considering the discussion on the PsychologyVille – Just A Discussion post, where people have started talking about seeing sections of Half-Life games before or after certain events.

We had already chosen this theme, so that is perfect timing.

We will allow remakes of any Half-Life game map but they shouldn’t just be copies – put a little personal touch into them.

Of course, we would be more than happy if you created your own design and have a reason for its change. Any reason is acceptable.

Even though time travel does not feature in any of the Half-Life games (unless you consider Gordon’s stasis – in which case every game features time travel – forwards!) we will allow it for this theme – either forwards or backwards.

You could create a map where you are attacking a Combine Outpost and get knocked unconscious and when you wake up you find that the resistance has been pushed back and you are now behind Combine lines. You must return to join your resistance comrades.

Or you could have been sent on a suicide mission to destroy a facility and find yourself still alive after destroying it. The Combine have sent reinforcements and your objective now is to either die in a blaze of glory or make it back to the rendezvous point.

The main idea is to play the same area twice but the second time must be significantly different from the first.

As always, if you have any questions either ask in the comments or if you require a private answer send Phillip an email: [email protected]

Back in October 2006, I asked the very first PP (in case you are new here, this site used to be called PlanetPhillip.com and we always abbreviated it to “pp”) Poll Question was Have you Crowbarred Barney for his ammo?

This poll question is interested in asking whether you ever kill NPCs unnecessarily? Not for ammo or weapons but just because they are annoying you.

I don’t think I do, at least I don’t remember doing it.

Maybe you are more heartless than I am, or just plain crazy, who knows.