This is the Read category

A collection of text posts, including Poll Questions, Text Interviews with moddersand Phillip’s Blog. All posts are written to encourage friendly debate and discussion.

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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

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

August 2016 General Chat

Hello August. FINALLY I have my holidays.

What plans have you got regarding gaming? Tell me about your dreams. Am I in them?

Have you had your holidays yet? Where have you been? Where are you going?

Lastly, I have created a new menu item on the grey (Secondary) menu called FOLLOW. It lists the usual places to follow RTSL.

Happy August.

1st August 2016 23 Comments

5 Concrete Wonders – Real Theme

I have been planning this Real Theme for quite a few years but never got around to actually posting it.

Unlike other Real Theme post that focus on one location, this one is more about the material and its possibilities.

I love concrete, no really. Anything built with concrete, especially large unusual structures fascinate me.

With that in mind, I present to you a variety of buildings and structures for inspiration when building maps.

31st July 2016 7 Comments

Week 30

July this year has 5 weekends, so we don’t have any planned events. However, Phillip will be continuing his playthrough of The Closure and Level Design Academy: including another tutoring session with Don and at least one practice session.

All times below are Phillip’s time, which is displayed in the footer of the site.

The Closure stream will be at 11:00am Central European Time on Saturday 30th.

LDA: Practice Session 10 will be at 3:00pm Central European Time on Saturday 30th

Another The Closure stream will be at 11:00am Central European Time on Sunday 30th.

LDA: Tutoring Session 5 will be at 3:00pm Central European Time on Sunday 30th. This session will include a review of previous work, issues arising from Phillip’s practice sessions, decals and finishing the brush entities from the last tutoring session that was cut short.

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

All streams will be uploaded to the RTSL YouTube channel during the following week.

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

In addition, Phillip will be interviewing Shokunin, creator of Transmissions: Element 120, very early Saturday morning, with the video/podcast hopefully being uploaded later that day.

28th July 2016 4 Comments

Poll Question 355 – What is the worst thing that could happen in HL3?

Sorry to have so many poll questions about HL3 lately, but the modding scene is a little quiet at the moment.

We all have our pet peeves; things that drive us crazy and with the recent leaks of supposedly HL3 stuff in lines of code, the anticipation has reached new heights.

With anticipation comes disappointment and not just from delays but from not getting what we expected, so this week’s poll question tries to address that exact idea.

For you, what’s the worst thing that could happen in HL3?

I could live with no new weapons, enemies, or vehicles – although I don’t think for a moment that Valve would release HL3 without those things.

I could even live with a main character dying if the story needed it. Hell, I could even live with Gordon finally speaking but I would rather he didn’t.

What I couldn’t live with is a big change to the gameplay mechanics and dynamics. I play HL games because of the setting and shooting, if you took the shooting away I wouldn’t be interested.

What about you?

28th July 2016 34 Comments

Identify This Mod 004

The Renegadist is looking for a mod. Can you help?

“So plain and simple I’m looking for an old Half-Life 2 mod, if this is in the wrong section feel free to move it since I usually never post on the forums.

Basically this was an old mod I played over five years ago that I have not been able to track down since which leads me to believe it was removed. I don’t remember much about it because it’s been 5 years since I’ve played it or longer but from what I do remember I’ll write down here.

From what I remember the main plot of the mod was that both the Combine and the Human rebels had formed a piece treaty and now both factions were against the player (Both Combine and Rebels shooting at you.). There were parts of the level that I remember playing, one of which took place in a mine shaft filled with zombies and rainbow colored water (This I distinctly remember), there was a farm or something with hay bales, and finally a chapter devoted to driving on a road in the middle of a forest in the HL2 Ep2 Jalopy. I believe the main crowbar was replaced with an Axe and if I remember correctly a few other weapons were different from the default Half-Life 2 weapons. There was a part on the forest chapter where you walk into a concrete building to press a button that did something, maybe to launch a rocket but I’m not sure. I don’t remember the name of the mod however I do believe a radiation warning logo was in it, or at least on the menu screen which showed sections of the forest road chapter.

I know you are going off of bits and pieces however the fact that the plot is so different might help with finding it, in the case that the mod was removed or deleted if anyone has the mod I’d love a download link for it. Other then that I can’t really say much more since I only remember bits and pieces of it, if anyone has any questions or anything concerning the mod please feel free to ask away. The Moddb community is huge and the amount of Half-Life 2 modders and fans of mods is huge, hopefully one person out there knows what I’m talking about.

Thanks and here’s to hoping someone knows what mod this is!”

The featured image is used for illustration purposes only and is NOT taken from the mod.

24th July 2016 6 Comments

Poll Question 354 – Would you prefer a TC with a play time of 1 hour or a mod set in the HL universe with a play time of 2 hours?

Questions like these are always more of a “depends on…” because there are some many factors. But assuming the quality and fun was more or less the same, which would you prefer to play?

I generally find Total Conversions interesting but ultimately lacking and that’s fully understandable considering we are comparing an amatuer mod to a AAA game developer with huge resources, but sometimes TCs can offer the player something new and that might be enough to please the player.

Is something shorter but new worth more than something known but longer?

If I had asked this questions 5 years ago, I would have chosen the known but longer option, but now I think I’d rather have something new.

Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

If you are curious, I do have some Total Conversions listed on the site.

22nd July 2016 16 Comments