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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Poll Question 347 – Do you ever get Gaming Overload?

I’ve been following the comments about Doom by Maki and Crowbar in this month’s general chat post.

It got me thinking about how much I play and the is “Not very much at all”.

Running the site takes most of my “gaming” time but I do remember that in the past I reached a point where I didn’t want to play anymore, either that day or that week.

In fact, I got “Archer” overload a few months back when I watched about 4 seasons in a very short period of time and had to stop. It was just too much.

This is not really a problem for gamers as they don’t get their gaming in episodes but it means that gamers have to control themselves and when a new game is released it can be hard to stop paying when you are having so much fun.

What do you think would be the number of hours per week you feel you could play before you felt it was too much for you?

19th May 2016 10 Comments

Week 20

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

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.

This stream will begin at Saturday at 9am Eastern time / 2pm UK / 3pm 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.

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

This weekend it is Earthquake Test Centre AKA ETC on Saturday at 4pm Eastern Time / 9pm UK / 10pm Central European Time.

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

Don and Phillip will be giving away Bad Rats: the Rats’ Revenge kindly donated by Aaron’s SteamContest.com.

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.

18th May 2016 12 Comments

Week 19

Secondly, Darren will be continuing his The Ville Retrospective event and this week it’s the turn of BeginningVille starting at 1pm Greenwich Mean Time on Saturday

Secondly, Phillip will be streaming his first practice mapping session, which is part of The Level Design Academy which has already posted the first session online. The exact day and time of Phillip’s stream will be tweeted. It’s most likely to be Saturday afternoon but he might also stream on Sunday too.

During Darren’s stream one copy of Bad Rats: the Rats’ Revenge will be given away 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.

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.

13th May 2016 9 Comments

The Hammer Cup 16: Challenge 4: TrapVille

We are getting closer to the end!

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

Theme Details

TrapVille AKA AdmiralAckbarVille

For this challenge we would like you to create a map that contains at least one trap. It could be one huge or complicated trap or multiple smaller simpler ones.

The player could be the one setting the traps or the one avoiding them. Or the one caught in them.

The winning map will be the one that creates the most interesting situation involving traps, that is fun to play and looks polished.

We are big fans of Rube Goldberg machines, and would love to see clever, overelaborate traps – but we realize the short timeframe, so please don’t get so carried away with the trap design that you don’t have time for testing and polishing the rest of your map.

Here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

“After fairly light resistance, the town square feels a little too empty. This was too easy. Not committing too far forward, you investigate further. It’s clearly a trap. You retrace your steps but quickly find the trap was not the town square after all…”

“The Combine attack is just too strong. Time for a retreat into the mines. You are sure there is a way out and the only way to stop them following you is to blow the entrance. Oh dear, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea – it looks like someone may have been waiting for you down here…”

“Between you and the survivors is the abandoned village, but it’s almost as bad as Ravenholm. There’s talk of the ‘residents’ becoming creative to capture more escapees. Could it be true? Only one way to find out…”

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]

12th May 2016 55 Comments

Poll Question 346 – Are you, like Phillip, just as excited about the potential maps and mods made from HL3 content as you are about the game itself?

Putting aside the fact that the actual game itself will feature new enemies, weapons, locations and hopefully, please! plenty of story details, are you as interested as I am about the potential maps and mods from from the game’s content?

In many ways, the actual maps and mods created by the community is a better body of work than some of the games themselves. I even considered asking the question of if I had to have one or the other (the game or the community content), which would you prefer, but of course you can’t have the community content without the game!

I am assuming that most readers here will want both but some among you might only be interested in the games themselves.

Thoughts?

12th May 2016 18 Comments

Poll Question 345 – When it comes to SP mods, do you play betas or wait for the finished mod?

Multiplayer games and mods are always throwing out betas for users to play. I makes sense. Some smart puppy once wrote Release early and release often (I am paraphrasing) but with SP mods and games, it’s a whole different ball game.

I can tell you that if I ever beta test something for somebody I generally don’t want to play the final release. Partly because I know what happening and partly because I would be a little upset if my feedback were actioned.

Some SP game and mods are so different from the standard product that releasing without plenty of testing would be a disaster. Obviously, all SP games and mods should be extensively beta tested but releasing to the general public, especially if it is a game, is a little risky.

5th May 2016 10 Comments

Week 18

OH BOY!

What a weekend we have planned!

Do we sound excited? Because we should because we are!

Firstly, Phillip is doing his PLAYATHON 2016 starting at 12pm Central European Time on Saturday and finishing at 12am Central European Time on Sunday. YES! That’s a full 12 hours of Phillip in your face.

He will be giving away one copy of PAYDAY 2 and 5 copies of Megamagic: Wizards of the Neon Age 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. In addition, he will also be giving away another 6 of his own games, so that’s one game per hour.

Currently, he has planned Research and Development, Aftermath, Deep Down, Mission improbable, Point of View plus plenty of others.

If that wasn’t enough, Phillip and Don will then be starting their Level Design Academy starting at 4pm Central European Time on Sunday

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.

5th May 2016 5 Comments

Playathon 2016

THE EYES! Don’t look into the eyes.

On Saturday 7th May 2016 at 12pm (that’s midday for those that keep forgetting the differences between pm and am) I will be starting a 12 hour livestream playathon on the RTSL Twitch Channel.

Originally, I was planning to play through all the Half-Life games but then I realized that I wouldn’t be able to do that in 12 hours as it took me over 11 hours to play Half-Life in my TREE event, so what shall I play?

I will only accept suggestions for Half-life games and their mods, so please don’t request other games.

If this event is successful, they I may expand the options for future events.

I’ll try to give plenty of games away, some donated by Aaron’s great website Steam Contests.com, in fact I may aim for one game per hour!

I would love plenty of people to join me in the live chat, even if it is only for a little while.

Please make suggestions via the comments and we can begin to create a playlist.

2nd May 2016 23 Comments

May 2016 General Chat

Hello May. Where have you been hiding? Time to change my wardrobe for my Summer clothes – YAY!

So, what have you got planned for this month?

What is this post?

Over the last three months, RTSL has got a lot of new readers, mostly I suspect due to VNN, but maybe from other sources too. Anyway, unlike many other sites that also have a “proper” forum, RTSL does not. We did have but it was never used, so I removed it. People also complained about having to register twice – and I fully agree.

So now, each month I create a “General Chat” post for readers to post whatever they want within the limits of being a family-friendly website.

Please don’t post reviews, questions or comments about maps and mods listed on the site – post them on the respective post – all those comments will be deleted. I do this to ensure that when a reader visits a map or mod page, all the information is in one place.

1st May 2016 89 Comments

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