Comments

Why would you vote to get rid of your own power to vote, Oli? I'm in tatters over this.
The debate got muddied with scaremongering and focus on SNP policy rather than the core issue - that we are not even vaguely represented in Westminster.
For one referendum we had a democracy, and we used it to democratically remove our ability to vote on how we're governed. The irony would be hilarious if it didn't make me want to jump off a cliff.
I'm so empty and disappointed in people not understanding what they were losing. Seriously, I feel ill.

I find it difficult to believe he could be anything other than a great man with such a great father.

Scotland supports Scottland

Thanks, dude!
I'm voting yes in under 7 hours. It's happening today.

Check out the Post Your Photos thread for some photos I took of a rally against BBC bias on the matter.

So excited. So anxious. I really hope we get this so that our largely left-wing, liberal and green country can take charge of its affairs rather than have them used as playthings by the London elite and their protection of big business and bankers' interests at the expense of their citizens.

This is a fantastic example of using brushwork and textures in perfect tandem to give the illusion of detail and realism on what is actually quite a simple shape. Perfect design!
I'd maybe show the tracks on the inside as well, and the barrel's brushwork is out of alignment with the muzzle, but overall this is a fantastic bit of prefabbery.

Great work!

Ha, you know you'd always be welcome in Casa Archie, Tet.

Thanks rufee, me too!

Welcome back!

Let's just say I'll make him an offer he can't refuse

This is neat!

Overall it's a very strong map. There are a few issues that are a bit of a shame, but your talent continues to shine through and the progress you make with each map you release is inspiring.

I love bombsite A, it's very reminiscent of Piranesi, one of the most underrated CS:S maps. B has a really nice design feature with the defensively positioned windows as well - a lot of fun emergent gameplay from those.

The biggest flaw with this map is theming. Big contrasts in theme can work SO WELL. It's one of my absolute favourite devices for creating a unique setting, but it feels slightly mis-judged here.

Like Urby posted in the top 5 thread recently - a great philosophy when mapping is that everything from the most important bomb target to the least significant decorative prop should have a story. Almost nothing here seems connected to the world it finds itself in. Even starting with the name - 'Victorian' - nothing in this map seems connected to the connotations that are brought forward with that word. Bustling 19th Century cities, great industry and a fantastic clash of Gothic and modern architecture. I can sort of see where you were trying to achieve a sense of that, but the exterior is most likened to Cobble or the aforementioned Piranesi - both hugely Medieval in tone and central European in architecture.

Then you have the interiors - beautifully mapped in some places, and you've absolutely NAILED lighting when it comes to your loading bays. It doesn't scream industry and progress, though. It simply whimpers shipping and handling or something of that ilk, and therefore the intended clash of themes actually ends up being more confusing than cool. I'm in a medieval castle, why the hell is there a ramp leading down to a loading bay? Either make your theme realistic, or commit fully to the contrast. Make it a supervillain's lair under the castle or something.

Aside from that - a few nitpicks include a fair few props getting in the way, with specific mention to a generator that blocks a good portion of a doorway. It kills the flow of that area.

Also, a lot of your static props seem to be incorrectly lit in the interiors. I don't know if you accidentally moved their lighting origin, but it's pretty blatant. Doors, trims and ceiling pipes shouldn't glow!

The exterior is far too straight-edged. You've gotten good at detailing with props, but your brushwork still feels a little unnatural and that is unfortunately emphasised with the large exterior sections.

Finally, it could use a radar image!

Great work, dude. Another week on this and it'd be an easy 5-star effort.

I call myself Scotch, so you call yourself Scotch.

I add an IE to the end of my name. So you add an IE to the end of your name. You and me are gonna have words.

That is one of the coolest timelapses I've ever seen. Engineering blows me away. I wish they held on the end shot for longer and showed it completed from the other angles.

so fart!

Hahaha! Your definition of 'amazing' is hopelessly flawed!

I had no idea you'd released this 'til I watched your video about the revamped version. If you want me to redo the lines to be less abysmal, do let me know! Importantly I have my own place now, so I can actually project my voice.

Revamped version is looking neat! Lighting is a bit bland so far, but it's early days and already shows a lot of promise.
Can't wait to play it :3

Thankyou all so much. Really.

Having now played it on a full server, I would suggest getting rid of almost all conventional weapons and making it a much more gauss-centric map. Like, almost every weapon drop should be a Gauss, with possible exceptions being crossbow and RPG

I like this a lot! It reminds me of some of the best Elite Force maps which were a total blast to play.
Great theme, great design, great Scott!

Great.

Right, rolling out the new (and final) version of Altdel to the server now that I've had some big playtests and feel confident about the changes.

I'll let you know when it switches to the new version on the map cycle so you can still play the current version until Multiplay upload the new one. (I wish I just had FTP access so I could do it in like 3 secs )

Anyway, to celebrate it being finished and to thank you for all your feedback, here's the RMF for the final version.
Don't judge the lazy brushwork too harshly, it was such a short timescale for production that I couldn't afford neatness.

DM_Altdel RMF

Tet is spot on. The freelancer in me requires that I make myself contactable at all times. If you're hard to reach, you'll miss out on seriously lucrative deals.

Thanks hugely, lads!

Whatcha mean by the one-way upper level? It has three points of access (not including gauss jumping, which is really what the main arena is designed for) and the best guns. If I added more paths up to it, it'd be too easy to get your hands on some premium ass kit!
The main stairwell is in the middle, so that gives you choice of direction, and both light bridges take you to opposing sides.

Right enough on that first one. That was just me underestimating the light required and if I ever recompile I'll fix it.
The second one was intentional to give the vending machine more impact, however, and I doubt I'd change it. I don't think it's dark enough over a large enough area that gameplay would suffer.

Cheers for taking the time to be specific, it helps a lot! <3

Thanks a billion for your lovely words TJB!
I also love maps with visible areas outside the playable world. I really think it adds depth, and I always use big windows to light my boring areas, as was done repeatedly in Portal with the observation windows. Try to ignore the fact that both examples you screenshotted are almost identical rooms behind the glass ;D

"you can sometimes get caught on the big rotating thing." Do you mean it squishes you? If so that was intentional. If not and you're getting stuck... Well, fuck.
"There are also some lighting errors on the rotating thing, although I'm not sure what you could do about that." Yeah, that was really irritating me. I set its lighting origin outside the machine which helped (it used to be 50% pitch black) but for some reason there are six or seven faces that just didn't light. Compiling this bastard with my full RAD settings was taking 45 minutes, so I just gave up.

Thanks hugely for all the comments, folks!

I'll only respond to the crits and questions, but know that all the positive comments made me grin from ear to ear!

Striker:
"are those sprites set to "glow" or something?" Render FX is 'normal', Render Mode is 'glow' and Amount is 200.
"it is a bit misleading to have so many doors that are false." I appreciate that, although I made sure that all accessible doors are open from the very start. There are no closed doors that can open, except in the secret area. I hope this avoids confusing the player with locked doors.
"what textures are you using?" They're almost all textures I made for The Core, with I think two by Urby and maybe three made specifically for this map.

Moaby:
"a couple of areas are a little dark for deathmatch." That's actually quite surprising to hear! I lit it a lot more than I usually do in my single player maps. Which areas specifically were bothering you?
"Are there light bridges in The Core?" No light bridges in The Core, though it's an interesting thought! :3

Trempler:
"but the red ones should be a darker red, the green ones less green and PLZ remove the purple lights. Purple light really dont fit in hl1." I think this is going to be the only critique I'm gonna properly fight my corner on, because I must say I completely disagree!
I actually love the way Goldsource bounces purple light. I always think it adds a really nice look to an area, and I use it a lot in The Core. Purples and deep oranges are really underused colours in lighting and I really think there's a lot of room to use them. The green and red lights are deliberately stand-outish. I wanted each level of the main arena to be instantly recognisable to aid navigation. Ground floor is green, middle floor is blue and top floor is red.
"R_speeds." I try to stay under 7000, and most parts of this map never peak higher than 2000. If it's still a problem, I apologise, but it may be time to invest in a new computer.
"No Sliding." I don't fully understand this, but it sounds akin to bunnyhopping and surfing which I hate. It's not designed for that sort of player.
"I see you dislike to create intresting ceillings." Ceilings and wall details were all drastically reduced for r_speed and allocblock:full reasons. I wasn't willing to spend the time to optimize this properly, so when errors started cropping up I just axed a lot of details. It annoys me, but it's a trade-off with working in Goldsource. I agree, though, the ceilings are crap. Most are scaled to 2.0 as well.

Overall:
Quite surprised by all the negative comments about the light bridges. I really like the extra manoeuvrability they add and the blue fill light they cast. Oh well!

ITT: Stojke is still a butthead

I always love maps that have a complex layout in a small space, and this is no exception. Couple areas are too dark and I agree with the weird environment light colour comment from Stu. Played really well with four or five people, though! Great work.

Zeeba, change your diet.

Fucking hell. Only beta and already worth five of my shiniest stars.
I love this.

Couple of possible issues from my quick run around:

Replace the Egon with the Gauss gun and consider adding another Gauss elsewhere as well. The Egon is horrible for gameplay in HLDM and the Gauss provides a much more fun way to travel a map this large, particularly in combination with a longjump module, which I also never found.

A few more basic weapon drops on the lower levels would be good as well. Couple more assault rifles and shotties - maybe a couple of 357s and satchel charges, too.

The interactive elements are awesome. Your maps always feel so damn unique and fun to explore. Perhaps make a few custom sign textures to make interactive cause and effects more obvious. Also a lot of elevator buttons are quite vague and are often weirdly high-up.

Oh, also maybe clip the back of the fence near the egon gun. Once you're round the back there the clipping with the cliff is really bad and sticky.

Great work.

Discostu: Urby's answer is pretty spot on, but I went on Yahoo Answers to try to provide you with a more accurate description. Here's what I found:

"It's a really hard flavour to describe but it tastes amazing."
"It tastes like Scottish rust."
"it has a hint of the mild tingle you get, when you try a 9v battery with your tongue"
"made from the finest Scottish water and triple filtered through highlanders underpants to give it body"
"Pure nectar big man."
"It's like liquid heaven....lol..... and it tastes better from a glass bottle"
"Girders"
"The ultimate hangover cure. Tastes best when consumed directly from a 750ml glass bottle."
"Another one of Scotland's many national identities."
"Scotland is the only country in the world that produces a soft drink that outsells Coca Cola."

Rimmy: Don't be sad, bruv. You went to college to study the field you want to work in, right? Do what I did - figure out what industry skill the colleges aren't teaching and self-learn that. The internet provides free education, so if you're worried your portfolio isn't unique enough, learn the edge that will make it shine. In my case, I went to college to study TV production - learning good skills in camera operation, editing, sound recording and lighting. What I didn't learn was VFX. So I went on Youtube and spent a year learning that and now it's my number one calling card.

Yikes that's a lot of dolla. Sounds like your tax thing is the same as mine, but even more which is a frightening concept.

Did you have to pay it all at once, though? Mine is on top of what I've already paid - it's the excess from moving to the higher bracket.

Uni and college education is free in Scotland, so my student loan was only ~£1500 which was an optional allowance I signed up for, thankfully already paid back in full.

Striker, freelancers and self employed folk pay tax manually, whereas it's automatically deducted from pay in a permanent job. I was below a certain earning threshold, so I didn't pay much at all, but in December i went over the threshold line without realising it, so come April (the start of the new financial year because reason) I suddenly had to pay more tax for all my 2013 earnings that were previously on a lower payment tier due to being under the threshold. It's not actually a ludicrous amount for a whole year - it's just because it all came at once because I didn't know I needed to pay it, thinking I was still under the threshold.

IT jobs tend to care more about qualifications than skill, which i dislike. One of the reasons I like TV work so much is that they tend to employ you based on experience and a good showreel rather than ability to pass an exam at school. I left school at 16 which is really early in the UK, and I'd probably be stuck doing menial labour or serving people in McDonalds because of it, were it not for the creative industries' ability to look beyond qualifications.

I don't know how the immigration part would come into it, though. There's certainly an air of the old-fashioned 'COMING OVER HERE TAKING OUR JOBS' crap amongst the lower classes who are too lazy to actually go out and get jobs anyway (then blame their unemployment on immigrants) but I think in a professional environment it wouldn't be held against you at all. If you can prove you've got the talent, I think you'd get the job, but getting an interview without a recognisable uni or past experience on your resume could be difficult.

TJB, it used to be 20p. How times have changed ;_;

Oh sheit, I've not been around. Happy late bday!

Just being snarky, sorry dude!

It hurt me bad, so I get a certain level of satisfaction from talking it down as much as possible.

Why'd you bring that up? That was first impressions from hour 1 of using it, as stated. You should really just read Ant's post near the end, particularly in response to you saying 'those who adapt survive". It really hits the nail on the head.

"The history of the PC, particularly from Microsoft's point of view, was allowing people to use the machine the way they wanted to use it. Add all that tablet rubbish if you want, but why should you completely remove the way it used to work? Why isn't their an official option to revert to a more traditional Windows experience? Why should I have to pay to have a third-party company's software on my machine to replicate a workflow that is still far quicker than what it's been replaced with? I've never had to do that with OS X, even when Apple rewrote the entire thing after OS 9!

People tend to whinge that Apple shoehorn their customers into doing things their way or not at all. Shouldn't Microsoft also be held accountable for doing the exact same thing, particularly when they've traditionally offered their customers choice?"

guide to revert back to 7 in the comments here

This does not surprise me. The state you were in last September did not bode well for future drunken times.

It's great. I reviewed it right after I finished it:

"What an amazing little game. I have never been so immediately drawn in by characters and the intertwining plots are truly touching. The somewhat half-baked 'puzzles' could have been better, but really this is in a category of game more akin to Dear Esther. They're to be experienced, not played.
Excellent humour as well, and I can't wait for the next episode.
The fact that all this emotion and feeling was achieved with such primitive graphics is incredible.

Buy it."

The joke in the song was made back in 1982
Click

Happiest of birthdations to you, sir.

Hahaha, your 'bitch entity' caught me off guard and I snorted my coffee. Ass!

Dudes, stop putting downers on him by telling him what he could have bought.
That new PC feeling is one of the best, and it looks like one sexy beast. Congrats, my amigo.

Because it's difficult to make a joke about that.

Stojke, it's more like:

< We have a massive audience as a highly respected brewery.

Use that audience & our sense of humour to raise awareness and money for those who are being discriminated against.

Well 50% of sales go to charities that represent oppressed minorities around the world and it wouldn't sell if it was swill
Brewdog are a really respected Scottish brewery.

It's interesting. Definitely the most dense IPA I've ever tried, and it's ridiculously strong at 8.2% per Vol. but it's not unpleasant.

"This case is unique for me."
Really? It's an incredibly common procedure.
As always, Ben, you have the full support of the Scottish Front. x

Oh I saw I got the beta key in an email and totally forgot to redeem it! To the internets!

Mega huge congrats for the greelight, man. Will us backers get a Steam key eventually?

I have no idea why you'd set yourself such a low ceiling for wpolies - it's such a cool design and I really feel you've done yourself a disservice by imposing such a limit. With a bit more detailing and more creative cover than crates this'd easily be a five star design.

Really nice work, but remember it's 2014 and even a budget PC can comfortably handle upwards of 4000 wpolies.

Prefabs packs are often tangled messes of off-grid geometry and extremely inefficient brushwork, so I applaud you for creating a set of perfectly clean and nicely optimised props.

4 stars (would have been 5 if you'd included a couple of bowl designs) +1 star for helping to promote Vluzacn's tools.

Very nicely done.