Firstly, let me stress: NOTHING HAS BEEN DECIDED YET.

I am posting this to get feedback on a possible change to the site.

As many of you know, originally the site covered many, many SP FPS games, maybe 20. Over time that got cut down to 15, then 10 and now we have 5. All for Half-Life and that’s perfect. In addition to creating the maps and mods posts, I also started creating lots of other types of posts; now grouped into Phillip’s Blog. These types of posts intersperse the main content – the maps and mods.

I enjoy creating these types of posts and I know that a few people enjoy reading them.

---

The change from PlanetPhillip.com to RunThinkShootLive.com was all about changing the idea that the site is about one person. Yes, I still run it and contribute 95% of the content, but I want that to change.

I would like the site to be seen as the centre or hub for Half-Life SP content and not just maps and mods.

The site could easily host much more content and a perfect example is Jason Gimba’s article The Real World Brands of Half-Life 2.

Original content would be posted on RTSL first and then after a month could be posted to the creator’s own website if he or she has one.

So this post is to encourage readers to submit content in either articles or videos. Article would be posted on the site under a new category and videos would be hosted on the RTSL YouTube channel (not simply linked to). I want the YouTube channel to start to contain much more content created by other people.

While I am talking about readers contributing, please feel free to suggest new live streaming events. In fact, I will be starting a new series soon, but I can’t say any more than that because it’s still at the planning stage.

The same goes for article or video ideas.

PP and RTSL have a history of helping new maps and mods be created via the Mapping Challenges and it’s time for some of the energy to be put into other types of content creation.

---

As a break from how I normally do things, I thought I would try something new:
I want modders/mappers to choose the next mapping challenge.

I give you three choices and you must select via the comments.

ONLY modders/mappers comments will count not players. Sorry, but it needs to be the modders/mappers who choose, since they do the hard work!

Below are the three choices. Please read the details, not just the titles.

---

The Beta Testers Collective is on an extended break.

The simple fact is that there are not enough new maps and mods to test on a regular basis.

Therefore it has been decided that the project will take a break until you know what is released.

Ade and Erik-Silver are both still available for private testing.

They can both be contacted via the site: BetaTestersCollective.com.

I am sure you will join me in wishing them a well-deserved rest.

---

The Combine have been draining the Earth’s oceans.

Control, storage and filtration of water have become increasing valuable comodities.

If the Combine are not defeated soon, there won’t be anything left saving!

---

Station 60 was one of the last Resistance station created. As such it is slightly bigger and better hidden than most other stations.

Its exact location is a very closely guarded secret and even the personnel are taken their blindfolded and with a very circuitous route.

Even its purpose and objective is know to only a few high-ranking resistance leaders.

---

Howdy All.

I will be announcing the next mapping challenge this Wednesday.

The standard rules will apply (17 days etc) but the theme will not be known until them.

Enjoy the bunnies until then.

---

With the last two mapping challenges producing few entries than we hoped for, I think it’s a good time to question the mapping challenges.

I have been running these for over 5 years now and there have been ups and downs throughout that time.

What I would like to do with this post is question almost every aspect of them and see if anything interesting comes up.

---

From today, users of the PLAY archive pages can now view the author of almost each and every map.

Thanks goes to Jan for writing the code to make it happen, which was harder than it might have sounded because we had to extract the details from the post and put them into a custom field.

There are a few maps and mods that don’t have the details, but those are the ones that got truncated when I moved database servers, but at least it makes it easier for me to find them and then slowly update them.

I have tried to make as few changes as possible to the authors spelling but a couple of times I have made changes. For example I have change the Euro sign for an “e” in the hope that it makes it easy to find.

The Author column is sortable and filterable just like all the other columns, so finding maps by your favourite author should be easier than searching the site.

---