Dude, I'm going to try and say this as kindly as possible, but that's not a friendship. That's a hostage situation.
I get that you like the guy and at times he can be kind and caring, but for him to go off on you for taking a few moments to yourself... That's borderline psychotic. And the fact that he has caused LASTING phobias as well?
Relationships and friendships break apart all the time and both sides get over it. Hell, once school is over you will likely lose touch anyway, if not immediately then certainly over the coming years when you're both off doing different things. Telling him that you don't want to hang out any more might cause him some grief in the short term, but drawing this "friendship" out doesn't exactly seem like it's going to do YOU any favours.
Commented 4 years ago2020-07-22 19:58:20 UTC
in journal: My modComment #102802
Rather than posting a journal, you could put this in the Maps and Mods forum, so you can update the thread as you progress with development.
As it stands, it's a little bit generic in terms of the name; "Scientist" is a little bit basic, like calling Blue-Shift "Guard" or Opposing Force "Soldier." Haha.
Also, I'm curious as to why you would call it "Black Mesa Research Center" if it's supposed to be a different place? Everyone who plays it will likely just assume it's the same Black Mesa facility we see in most other mods with an incorrect name... Why not come up with something else?
Commented 4 years ago2020-07-18 21:49:41 UTC
in journal: TragedyComment #102792
Oh man, I'm so sorry to hear that. I even remember the posts from back when you first got him. Much love to you both and remember that in some form or other you will see him again.
Hopefully this will bring on some joyful memories of when he was little and also very big at the same time.
This is a really solid little gruntfest map pack, it has to be said. I loved how it started out with the player largely having the upper hand, with the first handful of grunts being caught unawares. This is the best way to handle gruntfest maps while your loadout is a little light. Too often you see the player taking on large squads with only a crowbar and pistol. As the maps progress you start to take on larger and larger squads in more open areas, with smaller groups appearing in claustrophobic hallways towards the end. I played on hard and for the most part I was sitting around 25 HP and 20 armour. This meant that later engagements had to be approached carefully and executed flawlessly in order to survive. Finally, the map doesn't appear to end. I found barney but from that point was given no sign as to whether I needed to backtrack or the map simply ended there? In the end, I just closed the game. If there is a genuine end point to the map, it needs to be signposted better.
The architecture throughout is basic, but in a classic sense that fits the Half-Life theme really well. There are only a few parts where the brushwork is a little obscure, making it hard to discern what a particular object is supposed to be. There are a few instances of what I assume a prefabs that have been flipped and don't behave correctly.
A vending machine full of cockroaches that appeared to pull me towards it where I assume it was intended to push the roaches out.
A toilet with a flush handle that rotates in the wrong direction, away from the cistern...
Another vending machine where the buttons jump outwards towards the player when pressed.
Texturing as again fairly basic which fits the bill nicely given the simplicity of a lot of the environments. It also has a few of the same pitfalls, with one object in particular that looked like a glass block in the back of a truck which was supposedly made of meat??? No idea what that was meant to be.
Ambience is good throughout with plenty of ambient noise in the background and no area comes to mind that was completely silent. One odd moment concerns a mortally wounded guard near the prison sells who simply and calmly says he had a long night and is going to wait where he is, only to die moments later...
Lighting is probably the lowest scoring factor in the pack for me. The outdoor sections are fine, with the start of the map being dimly lit and brightening up as the sun rises in the later maps, but the interiors lack variety, often using a sickly yellow light and nothing else. This looks terrible in my opinion. For the interior spaces in future, consider putting smaller coloured highlights up towards the ceilings, under grates in the floor or in shadowy corners just to add a little variation in the colours on display.
This comment was made on an article that has been deleted.
Commented 4 years ago2020-04-04 10:05:42 UTC
in journal: I modded my robovacComment #102634
@JeffMOD, my wife is in the same boat. Her job is considered essential so she's got an official letter she needs to carry on her, in case she gets stopped. Meanwhile I'm stuck in the house with the kids.
Commented 4 years ago2020-03-20 18:03:41 UTC
in vault item: UnderlabComment #102598
This might work for a quick 1-on-1, but the fact is that it is simply far too linear for a multiplayer map. It's really just a series of empty hallways that lead to dead ends. This might work for a quick (very quick in this case) singleplayer romp, but not for multiplayer. Take a look at the official maps, or some of the ones uploaded here. Multiplayer maps should contain loops and branching paths. Players need to be unpredictable in deathmatch in order to have the edge, and as such the map needs to give them options. Alternate paths to the same locations, choke points and larger open arenas.
I understand that this is only a practice map, but you should also learn from the criticism that goes with it.
Commented 4 years ago2020-03-20 12:57:18 UTC
in journal: CoronavirusComment #102593
Working from home for the foreseeable future, with the office closed and everyone else doing the same. Jude had his last day at nursery yesterday and Ivory-Rose is at school until 3pm (2 hours from time of writing), then she's out.
The figure floating around is 12 weeks, which didn't seem so bad at first until I checked the calendar and realised that takes us to the middle of June!
Scoffed at all the people panic buying/stockpiling early on, but now of course there is nothing left for sensible people. Wife has had to run out to the supermarket first thing while I setup my desk for work each morning. The only way we can get what we need is to be the first in and head straight for the item in question.
Pretty solid map and quite lengthy for a single map. I played on hard and wasn't particularly struggling for health or ammo, so the challenge was fair. There were some really cool ideas and for the most part I'd say that the maps looked fine. Maybe lacking finer details to help create a sense of a lived in place/work environment, but nothing that looked terrible either!
I've made some notes below on things I spotted throughout, to either watch for in future or to patch in this release if you feel like it.
This glass is FAR too opaque. You want to use texture for the rendermode and a really low renderFX value like 50 or 75.
Missing faces on this armchair. I'm not sure which editor/compile tools you used, but I'm guessing they're not up to date. This can also be avoided by making the item into a func_rot_button and have them rotate as soon as the level loads, rather than rotating them in the editor.
This bin is made of glass...
This just looks a little off. There are better ways of doing this kind of sloped hallway by skewing the textures, rather than trying to rotate the texture to fit. Also, the scientist could do with being tilted ever so slightly, his left leg is floating off the ground here.
Not sure why this appears the way it does. Again, I have to assume you're using outdated compile tools as this should not have any issues compiling these days.
More complex brushwork that has been rotated. Update your tools or use a func_rot_button entity to rotate this. There is also a very obvious invisible wall here. Try to avoid that.
This would be a great oppurtunity for the player to see the valve that would shut off the steam blocking their path, but again, the glass is WAY too opaque to see into the dark room beyond.
Grrr. I know this is only a headcrab, but its waiting right at the bottom of a vent drop, causing unavoidable damage to the player. If a player on hard only had 5 hitpoints here, the map would be unwinnable from this point. Give the player a chance to react, move the crab further away.
Why exactly does this open the door? I could understand blowing the door open, but it's a sliding door... Just a little odd.
Now this I actually REALLY like. The room itself doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but that's common in Valve's own maps. I don't think I've seen this kind of challenge in a map before and it was a really nice addition.
At last but not least, these controllers don't move... at all. They need info_node_air entities in order to move around this space. Without them moving around, there is very little challenge here.
This comment was made on an article that has been deleted.
Commented 4 years ago2020-02-08 20:58:46 UTC
in vault item: TWHL CubiclesComment #102533
@SourceSkyBoxer, the mod has custom coding so that you can switching between maps with a key press. This no longer appears to work. Best thing to do is to remove the DLLs and just launch the maps from the console.
Commented 4 years ago2019-11-28 20:58:38 UTC
in journal: Stream Announcements!Comment #102457
I will likely miss the start of The Whole Map Vault since it starts at 10pm and that's when my missus now gets home from work on Friday. I will likely catch all of the sorting out of the arseholes or whatever.
I originally thought "Hmmm, Red Dead on PC." until I realised: A) It's not coming to Steam until December and B) I'm not likely to even get it until the price comes down
So yeah, nothing I guess. Bit of a bummer really.
This comment was made on an article that has been deleted.
Commented 5 years ago2019-10-07 13:50:58 UTC
in journal: Need to leaveComment #102308
I'm trying to get my head around how you perceive things as that's obviously a huge contributing factor.
What you need to understand is that depending on what you're working on, a lot of the time it's going to be very niche. Something that interests you might not interest a lot of other people.
Goldsource or Source mods on PC are fairly common and much easier for the average player to install and play for example, and as such tend to be popular.
Some of the things I've seen you pitching, such as ports to Nintendo DS or modding for Xbox and such is going to be extremely limiting in terms of audience. Both systems are very outdated, meaning fewer and fewer people are even going to be using them, not to mention people looking to play ported games from 10 or 20 years ago. Hell, this website is dedicated to custom projects of varying scope for a range of Goldsource and Source titles, and in all the many many MANY years that I've been here, I've never seen anybody even consider making mods for consoles besides yourself.
Commented 5 years ago2019-09-09 13:31:55 UTC
in vault item: Open The Door...Comment #102265
Spent about 45 minutes in the map yesterday evening. Got down to 29. I shall attempt to complete this tonight. I get a feeling I will start to lose my temper with it when I start getting down to single digits.
Fun idea though. Really quite a simple concept that I've not seen before.
Commented 5 years ago2019-08-31 18:23:54 UTC
in vault item: dm_eightballComment #102236
This is a really nice looking map. Tricky to say how it would play having only run around it alone, but damn does it look good. Seems to be nicely clipped as well, so as not to have players getting blocked by the small details during the frantic gameplay of HLDM. This could easily work as a small single player experience as well, with a few access restrictions thrown in here and there.
The lighting is nice and varied throughout and the only area where I struggled to see much was the cave area. but given that the lights in this area can be turned off completely I assume this was the point.
Finally, there are some nice little secrets which give the player access to the more powerful weapons. Every time I thought I had been clever and broken the map I was proven wrong and instead rewarded with a new toy. Very well done.
I'm basing this purely on "the most powerful handgun in the world" according to Dirty Harry, the .44 Magnum. Or at least a six shooter of some description.
Happy belated Birthday
I get that you like the guy and at times he can be kind and caring, but for him to go off on you for taking a few moments to yourself... That's borderline psychotic. And the fact that he has caused LASTING phobias as well?
Relationships and friendships break apart all the time and both sides get over it. Hell, once school is over you will likely lose touch anyway, if not immediately then certainly over the coming years when you're both off doing different things. Telling him that you don't want to hang out any more might cause him some grief in the short term, but drawing this "friendship" out doesn't exactly seem like it's going to do YOU any favours.
Happy Birthday.
As it stands, it's a little bit generic in terms of the name; "Scientist" is a little bit basic, like calling Blue-Shift "Guard" or Opposing Force "Soldier." Haha.
Also, I'm curious as to why you would call it "Black Mesa Research Center" if it's supposed to be a different place? Everyone who plays it will likely just assume it's the same Black Mesa facility we see in most other mods with an incorrect name... Why not come up with something else?
Hopefully this will bring on some joyful memories of when he was little and also very big at the same time.
This twitter account that depicts web browsers as anime girls makes me laugh though.
Texturing — 8
Ambience — 7
Lighting — 6
Gameplay — 8
The architecture throughout is basic, but in a classic sense that fits the Half-Life theme really well. There are only a few parts where the brushwork is a little obscure, making it hard to discern what a particular object is supposed to be. There are a few instances of what I assume a prefabs that have been flipped and don't behave correctly.
- A vending machine full of cockroaches that appeared to pull me towards it where I assume it was intended to push the roaches out.
- A toilet with a flush handle that rotates in the wrong direction, away from the cistern...
- Another vending machine where the buttons jump outwards towards the player when pressed.
Texturing as again fairly basic which fits the bill nicely given the simplicity of a lot of the environments. It also has a few of the same pitfalls, with one object in particular that looked like a glass block in the back of a truck which was supposedly made of meat??? No idea what that was meant to be.Ambience is good throughout with plenty of ambient noise in the background and no area comes to mind that was completely silent. One odd moment concerns a mortally wounded guard near the prison sells who simply and calmly says he had a long night and is going to wait where he is, only to die moments later...
Lighting is probably the lowest scoring factor in the pack for me. The outdoor sections are fine, with the start of the map being dimly lit and brightening up as the sun rises in the later maps, but the interiors lack variety, often using a sickly yellow light and nothing else. This looks terrible in my opinion. For the interior spaces in future, consider putting smaller coloured highlights up towards the ceilings, under grates in the floor or in shadowy corners just to add a little variation in the colours on display.
I understand that this is only a practice map, but you should also learn from the criticism that goes with it.
The figure floating around is 12 weeks, which didn't seem so bad at first until I checked the calendar and realised that takes us to the middle of June!
Scoffed at all the people panic buying/stockpiling early on, but now of course there is nothing left for sensible people. Wife has had to run out to the supermarket first thing while I setup my desk for work each morning. The only way we can get what we need is to be the first in and head straight for the item in question.
I've made some notes below on things I spotted throughout, to either watch for in future or to patch in this release if you feel like it.
A) It's not coming to Steam until December and
B) I'm not likely to even get it until the price comes down
So yeah, nothing I guess. Bit of a bummer really.
What you need to understand is that depending on what you're working on, a lot of the time it's going to be very niche. Something that interests you might not interest a lot of other people.
Goldsource or Source mods on PC are fairly common and much easier for the average player to install and play for example, and as such tend to be popular.
Some of the things I've seen you pitching, such as ports to Nintendo DS or modding for Xbox and such is going to be extremely limiting in terms of audience. Both systems are very outdated, meaning fewer and fewer people are even going to be using them, not to mention people looking to play ported games from 10 or 20 years ago. Hell, this website is dedicated to custom projects of varying scope for a range of Goldsource and Source titles, and in all the many many MANY years that I've been here, I've never seen anybody even consider making mods for consoles besides yourself.
May you have many happy years together and may she appear in all your maps from now on. :3
Working on a HLDM map based on the singleplayer campaign is a great way to do things, but expand on the area, don't remove stuff.
Fun idea though. Really quite a simple concept that I've not seen before.
The lighting is nice and varied throughout and the only area where I struggled to see much was the cave area. but given that the lights in this area can be turned off completely I assume this was the point.
Finally, there are some nice little secrets which give the player access to the more powerful weapons. Every time I thought I had been clever and broken the map I was proven wrong and instead rewarded with a new toy. Very well done.
I'm basing this purely on "the most powerful handgun in the world" according to Dirty Harry, the .44 Magnum. Or at least a six shooter of some description.