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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The Hammer Cup 16: Challenge 5: AnyVilleVille

Hello and welcome to the fifth and final mapping challenge of The Hammer Cup 2016.

The judges and I have tried to ensure that each challenge was interesting for both the modders AND players. We feel that we have had thought-provoking challenges so far.

Theme Details

For the final challenge, we wanted something as open as possible but still quite defined. We have considered many previous challenges as potential options for this one but no particular one seemed right.

Therefore, we have decided that entrants can select ANY previous mapping competition/challenge from the past EXCEPT the previous 4 used in The Hammer Cup 2016.

Entrants may only select ONE theme for their map.

For those that are new to the site and think the challenges are a new thing, you might be surprised to learn that I have been running them since 2010.

23rd June 2016 78 Comments

Poll Question 350 – How would you feel if Half-Life 3 were released and it didn’t support modding?

Have to admit I was struggling for a good question and I really wanted to avoid another Half-Life 3 one, but this idea just popped into my head.

Obviously, we want the story to either be finished or explained at least to some degree, but personally, it’s all the new mods that we hope to get that really excites me.

Of course, the chances of Half-Life 3 being released WITHOUT mod support is probably as close to nil as it can be, but Valve might decide to move in a new direction.

Plenty of single player games do well without a modding community or do you think that once a company starts down that road it would be commercial suicide not to continue with it.

Are times changing?

23rd June 2016 21 Comments

Week 25

First off, Dan Jordan AKA The Rabbit, continues his Source of Fame event, where he plays a Half of Fame Source release.

This weekend he is playing The Citizen Returns on Saturday at 12pm Pacific Daylight Time (Also known as: PDST – Pacific Daylight Saving Time, NAPDT – North American Pacific Daylight Time). You should double check the Time & Date.Com website for your local time.

Secondly, Phillip MIGHT be continuing his Level Design Academy: Practice Sessions. But he won’t know until the last minute, so keep an eye on the RTSL Twitter or FB pages.

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.

22nd June 2016 1 Comment

Week 24

First off, Don AKA Unq, continues his Classic of the Month event, where he plays a classic GoldSource release. This month it’s the short but pretty sweet Nuclear Power Plant. Don will start the stream on Saturday at 10am Eastern US time / 3pm UK / 4pm Central European time.

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

Following Don’s and Phillip recent Tutoring session 3 (soon to be on the RTSL YouTube channel), which is part of the Level Design Academy, Phillip will be streaming at least one practice session. Day and time will be announced on the RTSL Twitter feed and FB page.

The previous tutoring session, along with Phillip’s practice sessions can be found on the RTSL YouTube channel and this livestream will also be uploaded there too.

Everybody is welcome, even those who currently don’t make maps and mods!

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

The screenshot used in the featured image is taken from a website I will be mentioning in this weekend’s What The Headcrab!

15th June 2016 2 Comments

Week 23

Howdy all,wondering what we have planned for this weekend’s livestream? Well, read on to find out.

The second weekend of each month is currently allocated to Critical Jim but he is a busy bunny, I suspect he is working on a new single player campaign, based on some of his tweets, so there’s no stream from him.

But Don AKA Unq and Phillip, continue their Level Design Academy streams, where Don teaches Phillip how to map for a GoldSource release.

This one will cover texturing, so the fact that Phillip hasn’t practised since the last tutoring session won’t really matter as he can combine all the new things he learnt into the next few practice sessions.

It’s a little later than usual so we hope that will fit into your schedule.

This stream will begin at Saturday at 10am Eastern time / 3pm UK / 4pm Central European Time.

Everybody is welcome, even those who currently don’t make maps and mods!

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.

Eagle eyed readers will have noticed that the textures featured in the featured image are from Nightwatch

9th June 2016 7 Comments

Poll Question 349 – Does your playing style represent your personality?

I am generally very open on this site about my personality and character traits. I like to think it is one of the reasons for my modest success.

Today, I am going to share another personal story. Many years ago I had a girlfriend and she noticed that when i was avoiding doing something important or difficult, I would begin to organise my personal spaces; desk, wardrobe etc. She said I would start to “make boxes” to rearrange things. From that point forward, any time I was procrastinating I was said to be “making boxes”.

I still find myself doing it today and a few days ago, I was playing a map and noticed myself “stacking crates”. Regular readers will know I have a (terrible/interesting/stupid/intelligent/useless/useful) habit of trying to get out of ALL the games, maps and mods I play.

So was this “stacking crates” just a video game version of “making boxes”? Was I avoiding playing the map by doing this? I’m not sure of the answer but it did lead me to wonder whether how you play videos games is the same as how you approach life.

Do you change personalities because generally in-game there are no serious or important consequences of your actions? In life, do you take chances or are you more careful.

Life obviously, doesn’t have save points, either manual or auto, that you can start again from, but life is also an experience and simply avoiding interesting situations or risks because you can’t try again could make our lives boring.

Clearly, it’s not for me to tell you how to play OR live your life, but as Plato would have probably said if he lived today, “A video game life unexamined is not worth living”.

9th June 2016 9 Comments

Week 22

Firstly, Darren will be continuing his The Ville Retrospective event and this week it’s the turn of MiddleVille starting at 1pm UK Time on Saturday (GMT+1).

Secondly, Phillip will be streaming one his practice mapping sessions, which is part of The Level Design Academy. It’s most likely to be Saturday morning.

Thirdly, there is a small chance that Phillip and Don will be streaming the 3rd Tutoring session on Sunday, but this is unlikely – mostly because Phillip hasn’t practised enough since the last one. Naughty boy!

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.

Very Important change to the game giveaways

From this month, nearly ALL game giveaways will be done on the RTSL YouTube channel. Most of them will be given away in the What The Headcrab! Episodes, with Phillip asking a asking and selecting a random answer from the YouTube comments.

The games mostly come courtesy of Aaron’s SteamContests.com, so a huge thanks to him and his site – go check it out to have a chance to win more games.

2nd June 2016 1 Comment

June 2016 General Chat

Hello June, you Son Of A Headcrab!

It’s still not warm enough for me to wear my bikini around the house yet. I was expecting it to be hot enough to do that. I even got a bikini wax last week in expectation. Oh well, looks like the neighbourhood will have to wait a little longer to gaze upon my golden svelte super body.

Back to gaming, if you can, after I probably burned that image into your eyes for the rest of today.

As you can see, I haven’t really updated the site much. Partly because there doesn’t seem to have been anything released and partly because I have been working on other things. Got a few things I wish I could tell you about, but it’s better to wait until they are ready.

I’m thinking of starting a new YouTube channel playing really old FPS games. Thoughts?

So, what have you got planned for this month?

2nd June 2016 54 Comments

Poll Question 348 – Are you buying older games on Steam?

I have a pretty good collection of FPS in boxes and every year I say “I’m gonna install some of those and play them”. Of course, I never do as something shiny comes along, but this year I might actually do it.

In the past it could be quite difficult to get really old games to work on modern PCs but now you can buy a lot of them directly from Steam which means no set up (YAY).

But since i hate spending money, I don’t see why I should buy them on Steam since I already own them. It might be possible to input the code into Steam and get the game but all my games are in the basement and just getting upstairs will be effort enough.

So, onto this week’s poll question…Are you buying older games on Steam?

Who can tell me the name of the game in the featured image?

2nd June 2016 28 Comments