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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Announcing a new Event: Critical Jim

Approximately once a month, Jim Partridge will play and deconstruct a mod from a designers point of view.

Each mod will be livestreamed on the RTSL Twitch channel and Jim will be explaining how the mod he is playing has made some questionable design decisions. There is a good chance that for many streams, James will have a Devil’s Advocate to counter his observations.

He will always be polite and try to be as fair as possible with his criticism and he will be focussed more on what we can learn rather than criticising the mapper directly.

Hell he may even use his maps at some point and invite someone else to critique it.

Will you agree with him? Only one way to find out and that’s to watch.

Every few months a podcast will be recorded discussing the mods that have been deconstructed.

The event is called Critical Jim.

This is another opportunity to play something you may have missed or replay something with a new perspective.

22nd March 2015 6 Comments

Poll Question 309 – For the next Half-Life game, what are you more interested in? (choose 2)

I think if I had asked this question immediately after the release of Episode 2 in 2007, the answer people would possible have given would be different.

Then in say 2011, it might be different again.

Now, I think we just want to know what happens. If Valve said they are not going to make a game but a comic instead, a little like Labrat whilst it would crash the Internet at least I would know what happens to the protagonists and Earth.

That’s kinda more important to me than anything at this point.

What about you?

20th March 2015 13 Comments

RaiseTheBarVille – Joint Mapping Challenge with MapCore

As announced last week, here is the moment you have all been waiting for! Run in conjunction with MapCore.org and lasting 4 full weekends, this mapping challenge with stretch your imagination and abilities to the limit. It’s time to fire up hammer and let those creative juices flow. The Theme and Your Objective We’d like… Read More

19th March 2015 60 Comments

Event Reviewers Giveaway

For each main event run and for each year of the event, if a reviewer reviews or re-reviews all of the mods in that event, they will be entered into a prize draw. The prize will be at least one game with a value of around $35 US Dollars.

So, for example, at the end of this year there will be 11 Classic of the Month mods updated and livestreamed. If you have posted a review or re-review for each of them you will be entered into the draw. If you reviewed the mod BEFORE the start of the event then it WILL NOT count towards your total reviews.

No “sign up” is needed, you just need to stay up to date with each of the events and post the reviews of the mods involved.

For your review to count, it must be posted AFTER the start of the event and AFTER each mod has been Livestreamed.

If you have any questions, just ask.

11th March 2015 No Comments

Poll Question 308 – Are you excited about the VR news from Valve?

In case you missed it, and what Headcrab have you been hiding under?, Valve and HTC have announced a Virtual headset (sources: LG1, LG2, VT, Eg1 and EG2) and it seems most people are pretty excited about it.

Me? MEH! Why? Because I am poor. No matter how cool this thing is and I am sure it’s freaking awesome, I am not going to be able to go out and buy it. Therefore, I am doing my best to ignore it.

You, on the other hand, might be wetting you pants in excitement.

Far be it from me to tell the future (although I did predict the Steambox over 8 years ago), I can’t believe that HL3 won’t come with some features or elements that take advantage of the VR headset.

I’m not saying that it will be an exclusive release for VR or that it won’t be fun without it, just that those with it might get an even better experience.

What are your thoughts?

4th March 2015 16 Comments

March 2015 General Chat

DOH! I forgot about the chat post and I am 4 days late. Sorry about that.

So far this month, we have had the Source 2 announcement and even the BBC had coverage of Half-Life on its site – YAY!

I’m off on a long weekend trip this weekend to recharge my batteries, fingers crossed it’s sunny.

What have you seen in the news recently?

4th March 2015 20 Comments

The Ville Retrospective Event

Starting this Saturday, Darren Weekes AKA DaZ/Custom Gamer will be running a monthly event called The Ville Retrospective, where he will be livestreaming his play or replay of a Ville mod.

They will be replayed in chronological order, starting with SniperVille.

Like all the other events, we hope you will participate in the discussions and playthroughs.

There will also be regular podcasts discussing 4 Villes, but the first one will only be for 2 because we started late.

The event has its own page, see above, where all the details will be kept.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please let us know.

4th March 2015 2 Comments

New Regular Podcast – Looking for hosts and guests

Hi All,

I am hoping to start a new monthly podcast, like Podcast 17 and All Things Lambda but with my special twist on it.

I have a very specific content focus that I don’t want to talk about yet, but I believe it will be entertaining enough to keep it fresh.

I might steal All Things Lambda ideas for running it live (sorry guys!) or it might just be a pre-recorded show.

Therefore, I am looking for hosts and regular guests. I want to appear on most of the podcasts but not all, therefore I hope to find another host, who is confident enough to run the show.

If you are interested and have a Skype account, with a fairly good mic and have a bold personality, please contact me for an audition.

1st March 2015 17 Comments

Half-Life 3 Review Writing Competition

I’m sure you’ve seen the recent rumours about Half-Life 3. Some may have even seen my silly prank on Steam, where I changed the name of a mod to something like “HL3 – Dev Test” – sorry about that. You would be surprised at how many people messaged me and asked..”IS THAT F*%KING REAL?!“.

Anyway, I am a fan of Stanisław Lem, a Polish science fiction writer. He wrote some great SF but he has also written fictitious criticism of non-existing books, which is an idea that fascinates me. So much so, that I decided to steal it for a writing competition.

27th February 2015 13 Comments

Poll Question 307 – How long will you play until turning on GOD mode?

As some may have seen from my Video Playthrough of the CityStreetsVille mod, I switched to GOD mode at the end of one of the maps. I mainly did it because I was livestreaming and it seemed unfair to force people to watch my attempts to beat the final Combine Gunship.

That said, at some point I might have switched but it would have been much longer. It’s a fine line between dying a lot of feeling that it is still possible. It got me thinking about how long readers wait until cheating.

I have asked a similar question before: Poll Question 120: How long do you spend on a puzzle before cheating?, but as you can see, it was just about puzzles.

I’m torn between feeling it should never happen, especially on EASY but I also know that some players (me included) just aren’t very good and that’s hard to design for.

What are your thoughts?

26th February 2015 23 Comments