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Pointers have their place but there's no point using them when you don't have to. They make code messier and generally make things more confusing than they need to be.

The 'char c' would get reused by the compiler during each loop as it is declared locally within the loop (if not, it's a simple matter of declaring it outside the loop). Using a boolean to indicate that the string is not blank instead of reusing a variable for a dual purpose (setting the pointer to NULL) makes the code easier to read and maintain.

Memory usage and performance in this case are non-issues, as well. It's more straight-forward to use strlen to determine string lenth before starting your for-loop, rather than checking the *c != 0 condition. You also would not call 'delete[] pc;' as that is a local-scope variable and was never declared on the heap using new[]. Since my variation of the function allocates no additional memory on the heap, there's no difference between the two.

p[i] compiles down to *(p+i) anyway, so the only result of using the different syntax is that it's easier to understand. Then again, I work with higher levels of abstraction than C, so maybe it's different for people who use C++ all day.

If this were C# you could do something like this instead:

if (!p.Any(c => IsPrint(c) && !IsSpace(c))) return;

if (String.IsNullOrWhitespace(p)) return;

Pointers are a bitch. Why not just use array indexing?

I'm pretty rusty with C++ but you should get the idea:

bool found = false;
int len = strlen(p);

for (int i = 0; i < len; i++) {
    char c = p[i];
    if (isprint(c) && !isspace(c)) {
        found = true;
        break;
    }
}

if (!found) return;

It compiles to the exact same thing, but this is far easier to decipher. Of course, being C++, there's bound to be some reason why this doesn't work the way it logically should.

Sorry Scotch, I was too tired to do the Nintendo one after it happened, and I kinda forgot about it after that. And here I thought nobody cared. Here goes:

The Nintendo keynote opened to an orchestra playing some Zelda music to a video playing clips from various Zelda games, to celebrate the series' 25th anniversary. After this, some Zelda news is discussed by Miyamoto:

• Link's Awakening DX is available as a 3DS downloadable title as of today.
• A 4 Swords game is available as a DSi downloadable title in September.
• Skyward Sword will be out this year for the Wii
• A Zelda Symphony Orchestra will be touring the US, Europe, and Japan this year, a soundtrack CD of this concert will be available this year.

Finally, a bunch of Zelda devs thank the gamers and give them a nice Japanese bow. How nice.

Now that Zelda is out of the way, some 3DS games are shown: Mario Kart, Starfox 64 3D, Super Mario 3D, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Luigi's Mansion 2.

Now for a video of some third party 3DS games: Resident Evil Mercenaries, Sonic and Mario at the 2012 Olympics, Ace Combat, Tetris, Cave Story 3D, Resident Evil Revelations, Driver Renegade, Pac-Man, Tekken, Metal Gear Solid.

Next up, we have the big announcement. The new Nintendo console is called the 'Wii U'. The controller features a 6.2" single-touch screen as well as 2 analog sticks, 4 trigger buttons, a D-pad, rumble, microphone, speakers, headphone port, accelerometers, gyroscope, and a camera. The controller is not meant to be used as a stand-alone console, but the console streams HD video to the controller with no latency issues. The console can be used without a TV, you can just use the controller's screen.

A Super Smash Bros game will be released on both the Wii U and the 3DS, and there will be some sort of interoperability between the two games.

Third party games on the Wii U: Lego: City Stories, Darksiders II, Arkham City, Assassin's Creed, Ghost Recon Online, Dirt, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Metro: Last Night, Tekken, Ninja Gaiden.

The president of EA mentioned the idea of Battlefield 3 on the Wii U, but didn't actually commit to anything.

---

Predictions:

The "Wii 2" will contain Nintendo's gimmicky gimmick ever. Everyone will love it.
You decide - Hard to tell with this one. Obviously the gimmick is the screen in the controller, but I think the 3DS is more gimmicky than that.

No price tag or concrete release date will be given for the Wii 2.
Correct - Saw that one coming.

Online functionality in the Wii 2 will hardly get a mention. Friend codes will return.
Correct - Nothing was said, at all. Not even about friend codes.

Nothing will be said about the following things in the Wii 2: Patches, DLC, achivements, or any service to provide these features.
Correct - Dead on.

The Vitality Sensor will, yet again, be mentioned (at least in passing). No release date (or real games) for it will be announced.
Partially correct - Nothing in the keynote, but the vitality sensor was discussed in the post-keynote Q&A session. It was 'still under development'.

Skyward Sword will not be delayed for release as a Wii 2 launch title.
Correct - They wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

At least one announced title will be a re-release of a classic Nintendo title with a large fan base. (Wait...do they have any left?)
Correct - Had to think about this one, but Link's Awakening DX on the 3DS technically fits the bill.

The announced Wii 2 launch titles (if any) will be mostly rubbish.
Technically correct - No Wii U launch titles were announced. (Third party games don't count!)

New 3DS titles will also be mostly rubbish.
Incorrect - Nothing much was announced in terms of new games, but Super Mario 3D and Luigi's Mansion 2 were among them, and they didn't look rubbish at all.

One unexpected game announcement will trigger an enthusiastic response from the audience.
Correct - Smash Bros! Also, when Batman: Arkham Asylum was shown, it got a big cheer. Mostly because it was completely unexpected for a Nintendo console.

Four people will participate in a co-op game demonstration.
Mostly incorrect - No gameplay demonstrations were in the keynote, but Nintendo released a 5-player demo immediately after they keynote footage. I don't think it counts, though.

Nintendo will show off a bunch of statistics and numbers to show why they have been the most successful game company this year.
Nope - Nintendo continues the trend and doesn't say anything about stats, for the most part.

---

The wraps up all the keynotes, feel free to discuss they keynotes and any other interesting news that comes out of E3 this year.

Uh, I'd think that the Halo 1 remake is being released on the 360, considering Microsoft announced it just a few hours ago. It would be odd indeed to see Halo on a Nintendo console.

Anyway, just finished Sony's conference, and it was the best one yet. Which isn't all that impressive when you remember that everything else so far has been complete shit.

We opened to Jack Tretton from Sony openly discussing the PSN hack, and he even apologised!

Next we move onto a sexy gameplay trailer of Uncharted 3. Game of the year, right there! Or it would be if they didn't start judging game of the year awards in October or something.

Next an Insomniac guy demonstrates a grey FPS known as Resistance 3. It looks grey, and it looks generic.

After that Jack reveals a Playstation branded 24" 3DTV and glasses set for $500.

We then move on to the ...Move. We see some basketball, and a terrible-looking medieval FPS game using the move.

Then it's an Infamous 2 trailer (out tomorrow), followed by an announcement that LittleBigPlanet 2 will be patched to support the Move. Then it's a pre-rendered trailer for a futuristic space western known as 'Starhawk', and another one for a new Sly Cooper game.

The makers of Eve Online are making an FPS for the PS3 that integrates with Eve Online on the PC. No idea how they're going to do that. The FPS gameplay demonstration is pretty much the greyest grey shooter I've ever seen. It's seriously really, really grey.

We see a quick demo of Bioshock Infinite, which will have Move support. So will Saint's Row 3.

Finally they start talking about the NGP, which is officially named the 'Vita', which rhymes with 'Cheetah'. The 3G version of the console will be locked into AT&T, which I hear is rubbish.

Finally we see some games: Uncharted, a Diablo clone, ModNation Racers, Street Fighter vs. Tekken, Wipeout, and a few others.

Retail price for the Vita, which releases this year, is $250. The 3G version will be $300.

---

Predictions:

Nothing will be said about the PSN hack.
WRONG! - Jack Tretton opened the keynote by talking about the PSN downtime.

Sony will brag about how the PSN is such a great and robust service (while still ignoring anything about the hack).
Partially correct - They bragged about the PSN, but they did acknowledge the hack.

Uncharted 3 will get a sexy new trailer.
Yes, yes, and double yes - A new trailer AND a bunch of gameplay!

Resistance and/or Killzone title(s) will be announced. No gameplay will be shown, just a very cool looking cinematic cutscene.
Wrong - Nothing. Got a bunch of Resistance 3 gameplay, but we already knew about that one, and it was gameplay.

The new Sony tablets plus the phone will be talked about for an extremely long time. Nobody will care about them.
Wrong - Nothing at all was said about anything that wasn't PS3 or NGP.

More games for the NGP are announced, but none will look as cool as Uncharted.
Correct - Dead on with this one.

No price tag or concrete release date will be given for the NGP.
Incorrect - Nope, got a price and a release "window" for the end of this year.

The menu screen of the NGP software will look less terrible.
Incorrect - Nope, it still looks like shit.

Somebody makes a "RIIIIIIDDDDGE RACER" joke.
Correct! - Almost missed it, but the Ridge Racer joke made it into the very end of they keynote. Hooray!

Sony will show off a bunch of statistics and numbers to show why they have been the most successful game company this year.
Nope - Pretty light on stats all around this year. Good for you, Sony.

Sony apologises for withholding information during the PSN hack incident.
Partially correct! - They apologised for "any inconvenience", which is part of the way there.

---

Nintendo is in about 14 hours. I'm going to try and get some sleep in the meantime.

Ubisoft just ended, and I'm pretty sure it's the worst keynote I've ever seen. The presenter was a massive douchebag, and kept cracking awful jokes that got ZERO laughs. it was truly terrible.

Highlights? Not much. We saw Far Cry 3, which is set on a jungle island. Some footage of the new Assassin's Creed game, some Trackmania, and that's about it. Sony is in exactly one hour, they'd have to do pretty bad to beat the Ubisoft keynote to last place.

Yeah, I'm double posting. Suck it.

The last video of it that I saw showed that it was Far Cry 2 with zombies. I have zero interest in it now.

Ok, we just finished the EA keynote. Nothing very interesting. Some new Mass Effect 3 footage, new Need for Speed, some info on the bound-to-fail Star Wars MMO, some sort of SSX game.

Then we had AGES on the sports games that NOBODY cares about. Some padded-up beefcake American football player douchebags were on stage, everyone was hoping that they'd leave soon. They didn't.

Then we had something even worse. The Sims. On Facebook. The audience clapped for it too, what the fuck is wrong with them?

Then some sort of generic western fantasy RPG called 'Kingdom of Amular', and a shooter (maybe? only saw a pre-rendered cinematic) called 'Overstrike' - both looked unimpressively average.

We saw a load of Battlefield 3 single-player footage. The guy playing the demo was on a PC. Thank god they're sticking to their guns about the PC being the primary platform for the game. Great work.

And that was it. Next up, we have Ubisoft starting in little under an hour. Let's hope that it's not as awful as last year. We've had enough Kinect dancing to last several lifetimes.

Well, the Microsoft keynote just ended, and it was REALLY awful. Probably equally as bad as last year.

---

Highlights:

Gameplay demo of Modern Warfare 3. Looks even tackier than MW2. Very explosion-y.

Demo of the new Tomb Raider game. Just a cinematic cutscene with some quick time events, but it looks like it could be decent.

Kinect integration for EVERYTHING. Mass Effect 3, EA Sports, Ghost Recon, UFC, Bing search, Fable, Star Wars, etc etc etc.

Ice T is a douche. So is Molyneux.

Halo gets a HD re-release. Halo 4 gets announced (the beginning of a new trilogy, so expect Halo 5, 6, and a boat load of spin-offs).

Minecraft gets an exclusive 360 release.

Way too many kids on stage demonstrating Disneyland and Sesame Street Kinect games. It was painful.

Kinect Star Wars looks appropriately terrible.

Some sort of Kinect mini-game library is made available.

Kinect dancing games still look awful.

---

Predictions:

"Hardcore" games for the Kinect will be demonstrated. The graphics, gameplay, and controls will all look terrible.
Partially correct - To be fair, the graphics on most of them looked pretty good. The gameplay and controls were awful, though.

Somebody will make an idiot out of themselves on stage while demonstrating a Kinect.
Extremely correct - You should have seen the ANNOYING KIDS or the Ubisoft guy trying to play an FPS with Kinect. The worst one was the guys playing Kinect football. Definitely the worst part of the show.

A Halo game will be announced. Possibly two.
Double correct - They didn't just announce one. They announced FOUR. (HD re-release, and a new Halo trilogy)

Two people that nobody cares about will talk for WAY TOO LONG about something that nobody cares about. (Think the ESPN crap from last year)
Partially correct - We had the Disney kids, the UFC guy, the EA sports guy, the voice controlled menus, and much more. Nobody cared about any of them, but they talked for too long, just not WAY too long.

Cliffy B will, yet again, wield a Lancer gun (from Gears of War) on stage.
Partially correct - The Cliffster was on stage, but no plastic gun. He did wield Ice T (the rappper) instead, so I think that counts.

Microsoft will show off a bunch of statistics and numbers to show why they have been the most successful game company this year.
Incorrect - Microsoft actually didn't do this. They said that this was their biggest year yet, but didn't actually do the boring stats.

Tomorrow, in Los Angeles. They don't travel around

@Don Punch: Cool, what event was that? I cant imagine them giving away any of their secrets right before the main E3 event. As for Kinect FPS, it might be cool to physically throw a grenade or lean out a corner for maybe...ten minutes, but that sounds really inefficient. Not only that, who wants to play an FPS with an Xbox controller while standing up? I really don't see the appeal of that. I guess we'll see tomorrow, though.

@Huntey: Thanks for the ego stroking - Feel free to check on the blog every now and then (or use the RSS) if you feel like reading some of my brain dumps. I don't really advertise that I have it all that much, but I try to keep the posts ticking across when I find the time to do a write-up. As for Sega hardware....let's see a GameGear 2.0! I don't think they'd do very well in the home console market, but maybe portables?

@Striker: You may be pleased (or more likely, mortified) to hear that they recently announced a comeback of Sim City.

...As a Facebook game.

Keep 'em coming! I'll try to provide some commentary on the conferences after I watch each one live.

Oh yes. It's that time of the year again!We've seen a lot of pre-conference trailers this year, including interesting titles such as: Darksiders II, Prototype 2, Prey 2, Uncharted 3, Batman: Arkham City, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Gears of War 3, Serious Sam 3, and many more!

...But everyone knows that the real meat and potatoes of the show will not be until the big 3 have their keynotes. In almost exactly 24 hours from the time of this post, Microsoft will step up on stage to make fools of themselves playing so-called "hardcore" Kinect games in front of the entire hardcore gaming community.

Several hours later, we will see Sony step up to show off their new portable console, codenamed 'NGP'. Everyone is expecting that a number of launch games to be announced, and possibly even a launch date and retail cost announcement. All while dodging the PSN hack in its entirety.

Finally, around this time in two more days, Nintendo will unveil their successor to the Wii, codenamed 'Project Cafe'. Everyone is waiting to see what the gimmick will be. The rumours on this one are flying around the Internet like a truck full of viral videos (I even noticed one that claimed that Half-Life 2: Episode 3 will be a launch title on it, but let's not go there...)

So! Let's discuss E3 in it's entirety. What are you hoping to see, and what are you expecting to see? Which keynote speech will be the best? How many times will somebody say "innovation"? Speculation is accepted! The person who gets the wildest speculation correct will win a prize of unimaginable value!

(PS: Before you start, Valve has announced they have nothing to present at E3, and they are not even attending E3 this year. Don't expect anything interesting from them.)

(PSS: I've posted a list of my own predictions on my blog. To avoid doubling up of content, go there if you want to know what I think will go down.)

AVG was great 3 years ago, but after that it turned to shit. I currently use ESET NOD32, but I don't think it has ever detected a genuine virus. Not because the application is crap, but because as elof said, it is almost impossible to get a virus if you apply simple common sense. For dubious executables that you may want to run, check out an awesome little app called "sandboxie".

Nobody cares.

Same old wallpaper, shiny new monitors:I've got one monitor turned on it's side.

Isn't that how Hammer always looks?

Twister will convert displacements from a Source VMF file into a bunch of triangles for a HL1-compatible MAP file. Be warned, though: That'll create a LOT of triangles! You will get a performance hit if you're not careful.

Also, can you please name your threads more appropriately?

A title like "Displacements in Goldsource" would be better than "Another dumb question".

Correct, CapT.

Unfortunately, there's no way to do this without custom code. I think there's a few tutorials out on the web on how to add a sniper rifle to HL1, but it involves getting down and dirty with some C++ programming.

You could try to use CapT's model-switching trick, but it's a bit dodgy and you won't get the expected behaviour of a sniper rifle.

Stickies will not lock in future versions of TWHL.

It already is live. I'm just constantly annoyed.

Ok. Here it is:

|***-----------------------------------|
0% --------------- 50% -------------- 100%

0% = Annoyed
50% = Neutral
100% = Willing to work on TWHL3 code

It just depends on the mood that I am in when you ask.

That's how you'd do it ten years ago, but not now.

Everything that goes on facebook becomes property of facebook. This includes photos, personal details, friends lists, and the like. They make profits by selling this information to any company willing to pay for it.

Furthermore, it's almost impossible to remove anything from facebook. Employers are starting to use facebook to judge the worthiness of possible employees, so if something undesirable makes its way onto facebook, it's very difficult to get rid of, and you may find yourself missing out on a job.

If you don't have fb, make one. You won't regret it in any way shape or form.

If you have any interest in your own privacy at all, you will disregard this advice.

I don't like the way this thread is headed. Topics like this quickly degrade into trolling, flaming and bullshit. I'm sure nobody will miss it.

If you really want to participate in said discussion, I hear there's some really good ones happening in most Youtube video comment threads.

AFAIK, Imageshack doesn't delete images if you have an account. For non-account images, I think it deletes them if nobody accesses them after a year or so.

@Stu: Your loss, then. Just register one with a throwaway email account and it might solve your issue. I don't think anybody is going to stop using Imageshack, so you really have nothing to lose.

Have you tried creating an account?

Stu: Try and see what happens when you request a URL from imageshack using a tool like Fiddler. It is almost certainly a configuration issue with your network.

But why would somebody steal PSN data to rob somebody physically? Surely they would just rob whichever house is convenient.

The selling point for every console is the games. To argue hardware is completely pointless when the games are what actually differentiates between platforms. If a platform has lots of exclusive games that you want, then it is obviously a desirable purchase. Some example games to inspire you:

The PS3 has games such as Uncharted, Infamous, God of War, Gran Turismo, and Heavy Rain.

The 360 has titles like Gears of War, Shadow Complex, Limbo, Geometry Wars, and Alan Wake.

Combined, the 360 and PS3 also offer games like Final Fantasy XIII, Castle Crashers, and Enslaved.

The Wii has all the big Nintendo titles, as well as....all the small Nintendo titles, and, uh... Well, anyway. Nintendo.

The PC offers better FPS controls as well as pretty much every RTS game ever. You also get a lot of indie games such as Minecraft.

The DS has Ace Attorney, Hotel Dusk, Advance Wars, Zelda, Trauma Center, Mario & Luigi, and Professor Layton.

The PSP? It's got nothing.

I've cancelled my debit card just to be safe - I'll definitely not be storing the details of the new one in the PSN.

Also, Skals, Huntey, Crollo, etc.: Nobody wants to hear you guys bitch about what your favourite console is.

Everything that comes out of Eurovision! That's an accurate representation of European music, right? Of course it is.

Who cares about camera quality! I would totally post pictures taken from my HTC phone if I ever actually went anywhere. Mostly I stay inside and fear the sunlight. It burns!

Wow, Muzz. He got banned for Portal 2 spoilers and he still hasn't learned his lesson? Feel free to extend his ban by another two weeks if you want.

You can start the dev commentary from any chapter, so you only have to play one chapter in one sitting. It is a bit strange that you can't save during commentary, though.

Yeah, cstriker is on the right track. Just don't post anything that you wouldn't want spoiled if you hadn't played the game yet.

Spoilers posted in plain text are very difficult to avoid even if they are marked as spoilers. It's far better to keep TWHL completely spoiler-free so people do not have to avoid the site before they finish the game.

Obviously you are able to discuss the game, and gameplay that had already previously been revealed in trailers is fine to discuss. And if it's not a spoiler, of course you can talk about it. I don't understand how "anyone's better judgement" comes into it. Just don't post spoilers.

The ban on spoilers will be lifted after, say, two weeks. That's enough time to ensure that most people who care will have finished the game.

"DO NOT POST SPOILERS OF ANY KIND, EVEN IF YOU MARK IT AS A SPOILER"

Seriously, how difficult is this to understand?

I got about 3 hours in last night. It's goddamn awesome.

If you can't manage to recover it, send it my way. When I get some time I'll run it through my RMF reader and see if there's a way to repair it.

Impressions are fine as long as they don't contain spoilers of any sort. Stuff like (previously unknown) gameplay elements and maps are off-limits, and obviously you cannot talk about story elements.

Remember to keep TWHL spoiler-free. This means that you cannot talk about the plot elements of Portal 2 AT ALL. This also includes gameplay screenshots, links to youtube videos (without a big spoiler notice), and so on. This is a bannable offense, you will not get any warnings besides this one.

@Crollo: Then DON'T pay $2. It's not like you have to. If anything it'd be worse to offer better weapons for cash, then people who didn't want to pay would be at a disadvantage.

Well played, Urby. Bravo.

Clearly I'm lazier than you think I am.

Or I could just be too lazy to fix it. The stats haven't been tracking shout counts for 3 years now.

I could create a command-line tool to add into my compile batch file. Said tool could convert any map into a totally different one that uses, say, 500 brushes. Using my custom tool, I could compile an empty skybox (0 brushes) into the 500-brush map.

It's no different to using HLFix, which converts one concave brush into many convex ones. The number of brushes in the entry should be the one that gets input into the first official compile tool (CSG, I think).

The way I see it, is that you're using a custom tool to bypass the 30-brush limit. The real number of brushes in your map is the number in the RMF that HLFix outputs, since that is the map that is actually being compiled.

Don't double-post. If you're the last person to post, you can edit a post by clicking the edit link (it's next to your username).

Hold on. I don't like the idea of using exploits to bypass the competition rules. The '30-brush' limit was imposed using the standard definition of a brush - which is a convex solid constructed from intersections of planes.

I think the only reason your map compiles is because you're using HLFix, which splits concave solids into convex solids. I'll ask the other admins, but I think that disqualifies your entry.