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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Quick question about giveaways

Just a quick question for you…. Would you prefer 10 weekly giveaways, each with one game or one ten-game giveaway? If I did the ten-game thing it might be a competition to make it worthwhile. Please let me have your thoughts.

20th September 2012 16 Comments

September 2012 – General Chat

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

I should have pre-posted this post before my holiday – sorry about that.

Anyway, please use this post to discuss anything on your mind.

This month you are not allowed to talk about Paris Syndrome.

Just in case you were wondering, I will be posting something about Black Mesa Source, even if I won’t have the download link available immediately.

14th September 2012 19 Comments

VerticalVille: The fifth 6×10 Mapping Competition

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

Welcome to the fifth mapping competition in the 6×10 series.

For this competition I want you to create a map with plenty of vertical gameplay.

You can have the player work up, work down, work up, then down, or down, then up – as long as most of the movement is vertical I am happy.

7th September 2012 23 Comments

A clarification of the use of Recommendation Images

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

Just wanted to take a moment to clarify the use of Recommendation Images.

I believe some users haven’t read the guide to using them and maybe don’t fully understand the reasoning behind them.

Let me start by explaining why I created such a unique system.

22nd August 2012 15 Comments

7 Images that inspire map ideas: Part 1 – The 7 Series

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

I’m not a mapper or modder (yet) but that doesn’t stop me from imagining maps when I see certain images or photos.

These 7 photos are ones that when I saw them I thought “Mmm, that might make part of a cool map.”

They are not in a particular order.

I should mention that no consideration has been made for engine limitation. I understand that engines can’t create everything in the images, but that doesn’t mean a clever modder couldn’t use the idea as simple inspiration, hence the title of the post.

All the images enlarge.

If you have images that do the same for you, please add a link in the comments.

20th August 2012 10 Comments

A chat with the developers of “The Core”

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

Pocket tens!! I can’t believe he only had pocket tens!

We are on one of the tables at the Venetian, in Las Vegas. James, Andy, a few rabbits and I have been playing poker for a few hours now and I’ve been losing – mostly, but that’s all part of my plan!

It’s coming up to 2:45am and Andy seems to be coming into his zone, I’ll have to be careful. I need to get them off balance.

“So, what you guys been working on?”, I say as casually as possible.

19th August 2012 5 Comments

TREE: Music Event No.1

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

This competition received two entries. I admit, I was hoping for more, but maybe next time.

Below are the two entries.

You can either save to your computer with a right click, or if you have a compatible browser just left click and they will play.

18th August 2012 13 Comments

I want your Steam Tricks and Tips

With the recent news about the new community features for Steam and the Grid View Icons I got to wonder how effectively I use Steam.

I started to use categories and found they only seem to be visible in List view and then I wondered how many other features I was missing – just like I wonder for users of THIS website.

After all that thinking I decided to write an article about using Steam effectively. So, as well as my own research and investigation, I would like to harness the readers’ experience and knowledge!

Please send me you tricks and tips for getting the most out of Steam and I will post as much as I can. I may even create a video instead, as it’s often easier to see these things in action, rather than just read about them.

I would prefer an email but you could also post a comment. Just know that this is a temporary post and will be deleted once the article/video has been published.

TIA!

16th August 2012 12 Comments

Custom Steam Gridview Icons

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

Back in April of this year, I wrote an article called 7 Things I wish Steam would allow me to do. Well, number 7, or part of number 7 is now available and since I only recently found out about it, I thought you might have missed it too.

It’s a feature called Custom Steam Gridview Icons and it allows you to add or replace the images you see for ANY game or application you have added to your library.

14th August 2012 10 Comments