News posts

Penguinboy13 years ago2010-09-18 21:24:09 UTC 26 comments
I logged into TWHL to find a wonderful surprise in my inbox from an anonymous poster. I hope he doesn't mind if I share his comments with you all:

Hey Penguinboy,

I just wanted to say thanks for keeping this site going. It's always been a really great resource for me and definitely got me started in my passion for games technology and software in general. I now help lead a game design group at UT Austin and I feel I owe a lot of that to this site and its leaders past and present. Thanks for the quality work!

-Joe


Dunno about you folks, but this kind of stuff makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. This is why I (and possibly other admins) feel so strongly about keeping TWHL and it's valuable resources and community alive.

Because Joe didn't leave a reply email, I'd just like to say: Thank you, Joe. I'm glad TWHL has helped you, and I hope that we can continue to help people like you for the foreseeable future!

Time for a group hug!

Oh, and the results are up.
AJ13 years ago2010-08-31 22:33:53 UTC 22 comments
Guys.

I broke TWHL.

And I'll do it again!

After a whole day of being worthless, TWHL is now functional again! (Unless you aren't already logged in, at least.)

Penguinboy has been summoned to fix the header/session issues at the top of the page for all those who can't log in. Just be patient and it'll be fixed soonish.

UPDATE: I believe everything should be in order now. Penguinboy will be unleashing a suitable punishment on yours truly for crashing the site.
Strider13 years ago2010-08-29 03:46:29 UTC 21 comments
You've probably noticed we're being randomly attacked by a persistent, if unoriginal, spammer. Penguinboy has just upgraded our antispam measures, they should make short work of him for now, and he's got some more advanced tools in the works.

As an extra measure we've promoted The Mighty Atom to admin, which he definitely deserves!

If you notice anything when we're not around, PM Atom, Grim, Penguinboy or myself, we'll take care of it when we can.

EDIT - The competition is over! -- Grim
TheGrimReafer13 years ago2010-06-25 01:34:29 UTC 13 comments
Map a dream won the Vote-O-Rama and is now an official competition!

(The competition page can be found here, and the thread here.)

You have a little over two months.

Good luck!
TheGrimReafer13 years ago2010-06-11 00:38:43 UTC 5 comments
We're voting on the next theme for the competition right now!

Head over to the voting thread and cast your vote for the new competition theme. The rules are on the first post.
EDIT
The final vote is officially a poll under the shoutbox. (This is the last vote I promise)
Penguinboy13 years ago2010-05-12 22:26:53 UTC 18 comments
Our good friend JeffMOD has finished his new tutorial: Custom Skyboxes for Goldsource.

This is the first tutorial in over a year. Maybe this will get people with drafts in their list to pull their fingers out?

To celebrate JeffMOD's contribution, he gets custom titles enabled! Hooray!
Penguinboy13 years ago2010-03-31 18:54:04 UTC 15 comments
It's now April 1st in about half of the world, and this means that you should not believe anything that you read on the internet today. And I mean EVERYTHING. It's all pure lies. Just a reminder to the more gullible members of the site.

On a related note, TWHL is not going to participate in the shenanigans today, as it is demeaning, immature and predictable. Have a good day!

EDIT: Yeah it's over. But the news will remain until the next notable date! (probably E3)
Penguinboy14 years ago2009-12-24 21:41:51 UTC 38 comments
Merry Christmas from all your friends at TWHL!

Edit!
Several of TWHL's members combined their efforts recently to make "Rooms", a series of unrelated rooms showcasing their various skills and ideas. Captain Terror even went out of his way to connect them all and give them to us in one convenient mod! So what are you waiting for? Get you some!
-Strider
Penguinboy14 years ago2009-10-24 00:46:17 UTC 10 comments
I recently noticed that the old #twhl channel has become available, meaning that we can migrate back to using it over #twhl3, which is what we were using before. With TWHL4 approaching, #twhl3 makes less sense than it did 2 years ago. Anyone who regularly (or irregularly) joins/idles in IRC should note that the channel has changed.

For people who have never used IRC, give it a try! Firefox users can download the ChatZilla add-on, Opera users can use the client built into their browsers, and everyone else can use mIRC or a client of their choice. Drop in every now and then and have a chat! (and hope that you joined at a time when there's a discussion happening :P)

To recap and embiggen: THE IRC CHANNEL HAS CHANGED.
TheGrimReafer14 years ago2009-10-18 02:18:56 UTC 27 comments
"Penguinboy and I will try to get on these as soon as possible."

Hahahahaha, yeah...

Well anyway, the competition results are up!

EDIT:
Sorry for the big wait guys. To apologise for taking so long, everyone who entered the compo now has custom titles enabled. Yay? - Pb
TheGrimReafer14 years ago2009-07-19 20:55:51 UTC 150 comments
The competition is officially over. We got a grand total of 8 entries this time! (The last one had 7)

Penguinboy and I will try to get on these as soon as possible. Good luck!

(It's now 9 entries) -- Grim

I'm looking through/judging/writing up the compo stuffs now. Expect results 'late' later today if not early tomorrow.

Keep watch of your PM boxes should I have any problems -- Grim
Daubster14 years ago2009-06-19 07:24:41 UTC 39 comments
Contrary to popular belief, we have not been sitting flat on our arses doing nothing for all this time and actually have a lot to show you! Due to an overwhelmingly huge number of reviews for us slowpoke MotM folks to post all at once, we'll be following a trend set by the Team Fortress 2 team, releasing reviews for only one Map of the Month winner per day. Also, to add some drama to the mix, we won't be revealing the winner until the day its reviews are posted. Here's our one-week schedule so far; click on a map name to open its reviews (or visit the main MotM page.) Congrats to the winners, a big thanks to the reviewers - stay tuned and enjoy!
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We are sorry to inform that due to unforseen circumstances (for real this time), we are forced to postpone Week 2 until next next week (Jun. 29 - Jul. 3) sometime later. Really sorry it came to this. The remaining review will be posted later today.

There's less than two days left on the competition, and there are only three entries. I hope this changes :o -- Grim
TheGrimReafer14 years ago2009-06-08 01:21:27 UTC 19 comments
Dear TWHLites

We've got a new competition up and running! Jump over to the competition page and find out what needs to happen. The official thread is here.

You have until July 20th, so get started. We would rather not extend the competition this time. :D

May the best man win-

New poll :o - Strider
L4D has been added to the competition game allowance list - Grim

Non-official ZHLT tools update released. Now with improved functionality, new features and more x64 support than you can eat! - Daub
Strider14 years ago2009-05-15 22:27:19 UTC 19 comments
The Left 4 Dead tools have entered beta. We've got an updated Hammer, updated Particle Editor, Faceposer, example maps, models and compiling tools all at our disposal now. You can grab some handy design documents from here.

All that and a double Team Fortress 2 class update. I don't know what happened to Valve, but I like it.
Penguinboy14 years ago2009-04-01 03:56:24 UTC 50 comments
I decided to make forum searching faster, so I used my newly required query optimisation knowledge and made it about 1000 times faster. What used to take 10 seconds (or more) now takes about 0.2 seconds, max. Uni is good for something after all, eh?

Anyway, forum search should work much faster, and give more accurate results. Note that it no longer searches thread titles because that was one of the things slowing it down (which is why it's now called "Forum Posts" search.)

I'd add more search options, but that brings us to the second point of the news: I'm recoding TWHL. Again. It's not going to be done fast, but it'll be done better. I'm not taking suggestions, because functionality will be mostly the same (or, in some cases, exactly how they should have functioned if they were implemented in the first place.) Obviously there'll be improvements, but that's for another time.