Journals

My last goldfish died. I now realized that I simply cannot keep fish alive for longer than two months, no matter what I did.

So I switched to hamsters instead.

I got two Roborovski hamsters this weekend, and they're enjoying their new home in the 30-gallon goldfish aquarium.

I thought I'd talk about a drug experience of my own today.

The drug I took today was coke. Strangely enough it didn't have much of an effect although I did feel slightly hyper and more alert.

Apart from that my teeth were yellow'er than usual and I couldn't stop belching.

P.S. I R funny right?

By popular demand.

So I was playing my favorite game Ragnarok Online the other day and I finally figured out how to stream a live feed of the game to a site where people could watch me and my guildies kill stuff and toss banter around in vent.

I got the idea because my guild leader does this and has a pretty popular stream.

So naturally I was excited when I figured out how to do myself. I called a few of my freinds who also played and go told them to favorite my stream because they knew I had wanted to set this up for a while. I also told my ventrilo buddies to do the same after.

This morning I open my gmail and I had seven alerts from the site and all of them were from my guild buddies, people I've never spoken to outside of ventrilo. None were from the five people I called, people I go to school with.

Are internet friends better than RL friends?

So, I've just quit my job, start my new one in two weeks, after I move house for the last time for a while. But I've got a new job online. I am now a journalist for the upcoming site GAMEployment.

http://www.gameployment.com/

I review new mods, check out upcoming stuff and also the odd interview. I actually just did my first interview the other day.

http://www.gameployment.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=66:interview-with-the-lead-producer-of-bounce&catid=45:hotdogs-mod-blog&Itemid=90

AND DON'T FORGET MY OWN PERSONAL BLOG!!!!

http://hlifehotdog.blogspot.com/

For years now I wanted to make a hand-made digital clock with a PIC microcontroller. I haven't even thought a design for the circuit board, and I only have half the software done (the non-hardware-specific part). I wrote most of that program (should I call it Operating System?) while in math class last year, when I was bored of all that crap. I even took the time to figure out how to compensate for the time offset created by a power of 2 oscillator - which, if left unattended, would add up to 1 second every 14 minutes (with a 4MHz crystal oscillator)... and that would make a pretty shitty clock.

I never even drawn a line representing hardware design yet. I know how I want most of it, but I'm thinking I'm too lazy to actually finish the job.

And I don't even know why I'm posting this. Does anyone care?

Something fishy happened today. And a little macabre too.

Yesterday night I saw some really fucked-up pictures on the ED "Offended" page. If you don't know about it, don't search. My mom saw me and she said "See? I told you, you should be a doctor if you can watch pictures like this!". Well, I didn't feel really bad anyway.

So today I went with my dad at my grandmother, which is 4km far from my village. When I arrived there, she wasn't at home. She went with the sheep on the fields...
When I go in the yard I notice a lot of white feathers. I pass near the objects without seeing them. One moment later(was in the garden at this point), my dad shouts after me to come quick.

This is fucking disturbing, especially because seeing people without heads last night(real photos). We found 2 hens without their head. And 2 more that were stabbed near the heart. A polecat attacked them, I think. Macabre is that it just took off their head and sucked the blood(there was NO BLOOD):

[EDIT] I deleted the pictures, they're not necessarily "watchable".
Moments later the dog barks loudly. "What's wrong Limo?". Then I get scared to death as a big(my first perception was that it was an airplane) crow(or another black type of bird...) passes over me.

Later, when I wanted to refuel the car, I accidentally poured(the canister was at head-level) gasoline on my face, and it went into my right eye. Well, I run at the sink and applied lots of water, but the burning sensation was intense. Fortunately, I have nothing now.

Luckily I'm not a person that believes in superstitions, but it was kind of a fucked-up day. Not all of it, I also enjoyed filming the nature :D.

I've ordered a new computer, or rather the parts of a computer. I've built computers in school but never acutally built one for myself. Gonna be fun!

It won't be top of the line because I can't afford a monster rig, but I'm satisfied with it. I've cut the cost a bit by using the harddrive I'm currently using, as well as the dvd drive and my soundblaster audigy + speakers.

Some quick specs
Intel Core i3 530, 2.93GHz
Corsair 4GB (2x2048MB) 1600MHz XMS3
Gigabyte Radeon HD5770 1GB

Oh, and I'll finally get a flat screen, a 24 inch, happy days!

I haven't made a journal in a long time! Well anyway, I'm currently working on a series of maps named "dissolution". The maps were intentionally intended for sven co-op, but i will also convert each into a hl1 single player map for my fellow twhlers :P. The maps take place in black messa, a couple of years after the "incident". You are a spec-op sent by the government to "clean up" their screw up by blowing the place up.
I hope y'all will like it and enjoy it when i do release it.
Here are some screenshots:

And before you ask, I am using nightwatch textures.

Edit: I was also wondering if the name dissolution is already taken?

More updates in the future!

My Girlfriend told me not to combine Velveeta macaroni and cheese and a whole can of Chili.

Tonight I dine in hell, I SHALL ACCEPT THIS CHALLENGE! brb.

Today is a day like any other day for me, although a little more special.
I'm now with one year older, I reached 17.
Yay.

[EDIT] I just finished Opforce.
[EDIT2] Forgot link to post it again

Taking a long break from mapping.
HL2 RPG is on hold until i can get either A) A coder, or B) really find time to study up and learn how to code - Either way, the project must start again from scratch because i botched the source code and i forgot what i did so i cant fix it anyway.

Castle Disposed is all well and good, i just need to remember to map for it. This is my final semester at school so i'm really focusing on my schoolwork in the times im not playing AOE: II or BFBC2

Speaking of which, Bad company 2 is FANTASTIC! My player name is "Tetsuo Sho" if anyone wants to add me. My father bought me a new 3.2ghz processor and the game so we both can play online. And his friend has a Ventrillo server he bought so we're always a squad of 4, or 2 squads of 3 (5 others play as well)

AOE:II (Age of empires) Has been taking up most of my game development time as i'm making a 5-person RPG for it. Each person starts as a villager and has a choice to be either Cavalry, Footsoldier, or an Archer. Based on how many kills you get you upgrade classes (5 in total) and if you defeat certain objectives you get gold so you can buy further upgrades (attack bonuses, HP boosts, armor etc etc.. It takes a FUCKTON of time to code, each unit needs to be done one at a time, and there's 75 possible units for 5 players, and THEN i need to do unit respawns if you die.. so it's a huge pain in the ass and the editor is REALLY buggy - anyway

TL;DR :
Havent been doing any Hl related projects at all. I blame School, battlefield, and my friends at school who think i'm a god at coding AOE [Even tho using the map editor triggers is NOTHING like code]

Oh and Trance Techno gives me crazy inspiration while mapping / doing anything. <3

Splinter Cell: Conviction
Yes, I've already played through the main story, yes I did play it on the hardest difficulty.

Excited for it, and not disappointed.

Though it had MANY strong points, including the visuals, the new stealth system, mark & execute, etc. there were a few weak points.
One was the difficulty. Simply put, I played through "realistic" and while definitely presenting a challenge, it wasn't AS challenging as I had expected. Now I don't know about the lower difficulties and what is changed from them, but other than getting killed is easier, most the challenge was in the stealth.

Also, the lack of some of our familiar favorites was a bit disappointing as well. The SC3000 does make an appearance, as does the Five-Seven pistol, but neither of these are available immediately. The SC3000, nor any gun for that matter, can launch attachments, which saddened me. Sticky cameras were available, but since there was no launcher, you threw them. Lolwut?

The goggles are basically a landmark feature in the series and made their appearance, but not as I had expected. They appear with only one mode: sonar. While this is AWESOME, it doesn't really help you see in the dark as they said it would. But other than that, it didn't need another mode.

The new P.E.C. system for both single and multiplayer is pretty awesome, but I feel that it's very infant in design. First, the only thing you can use in singleplayer are weapon upgrades. Each weapon has three upgrades, and each piece of "gear" (grenades and such) have 2(both the same with stacking effects). In multiplayer, you're allowed to "purchase" new outfits, different skins for each outfits, and upgrades (3 of 3, similar to "gear" upgrades, you can unlock each of these 3, 3 times over and they can stack). The catch to gear is, you can only have 3 pieces on at a time, so you could go all out with one upgrade, or balance it out a bit.

Finally, unlocking these pieces come from points you earn through both single and multiplayer gameplay. It's similar to Modern Warfare 2's challenge system where you will do a certain task (I.E. Get x number of kills without being detected). You will be given a variable amount of points that can go toward these upgrades.

All in all, I do highly recommend the game, especially to anyone else who is a fan of the series.

2muchvideogames is back to complain about HL mods and the format of this website (still having to scroll down every new page for some reason. By this I mean that the right side of the page is always located under the left side of the page, and they are not aligned like in the past. I am not going to draw a picture to illustrate this because I'm busy playing video games.)

There is a two-map mod called Meat Blood Gun. Somehow, two maps with nil new content is enough to qualify as a mod. I'll keep that in mind.

This mod consists of you waking up in a dimly lit storage room, and the next few rooms consists of a certain clean-up squad that you've seen so many times in your gaming career.

The highlight of this mod is in the second map, which comprises a huge green field (uh oh.) Across the field is a parked truck convoy and a Marginot Line of grunts, backed by their leader Mr. Hi-R-speeds. Behold you, one man, pitted against the Western Front. Good luck getting through the field. And just to remind you: the reward for getting across the field is nonexistent. In fact, you will be left wondering whether the mod is over or not. It is.

What a great mod. Concise and to the point. However it suffers from a lack of thesis, intro, and conclusion.

Colony 42 may take a while to finish be canceled soon.
There are a few reasons for this.
1) I've moved to source. It's harder to map for GS once you've made maps with shaders and physics. I've already complained about this in a previous journal.
2) I'm getting bored of the setting of the mod. I could change it up a bit, but, see 1).

I've already started and scrapped 2-3 other versions of this mod, and I want to finally release it... but it may take a while.