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Wow, thanks for that, it should help when I get around to adding RMF compatibility. Just going through the old readmes of the various versions is really interesting. The box art for the commercial version of WC is a nice addition, too!

Ok, got a new release for you all. This release is almost all bug fixes and adding missing VHE features. I have lots more bugs that still need fixing, but this is what I've fixed so far:

Features

• "Text" brush primitive
• Option to disable/change the double-click behaviour in the 3D view
• Hotkeys to rotate selection by 90 degrees (N and M by default)
• Texture browser: when starting to type after opening, erase what's currently in the search box
• Autosave option to do the equivalent of ctrl+s instead of saving a new backup file
• Cancel free-look mode when switching between tools
• Option to not open the object properties window when tying to entity
• Always show the 2D brush dimensions in a visible location
• Hide yellow outline and texture axes when "hide mask" is enabled
• Hotkey for "create new visgroup"
• Easily accessable "new visgroup" button
• "Visible objects only" checkbox in the check for problems dialog

Bugs

• When opening a .map file, entity flags are not loaded
• When saving a .vmf file, some worldspawn properties like "skybox texture" are not saved
• WASD and other hotkeys being recognised when the main window is out of focus
• Browsing for sounds uses this format: "sounds/blah/something.wav" when it should be "blah/something.wav"
• Change the precision of the texture shift/scale values for Goldsource maps to 2 decimal places
• Change the behaviour of texture lock when resizing objects to be more consistent with VHE
• Invalid key/values message appearing in the check for problems dialog when opening files with point entities
• When using older compile tools (e.g. ZHLT), certain entities do not work as expected due to empty values not being trimmed when saving to .map
• Pressing enter in the selection tool with no box drawn causes an error
• "Show 2D Grid" option being ignored in the display list renderer
• Change the drag snap point to use the origin of selected entities, and render the snap point in the 2D views
• When renaming a map or switching between tabs, the title bar is not updated with the new map name
• Align to world/face sometimes applying the texture backwards
• "Paste special" is not retaining texture alignment correctly
• Hidden sidebar not restoring properly when unhidden after resizing/reloading the main window
• When free-looking, opening another dialog or tool window makes the cursor disappear
• General lagginess and slowness when using the VM tool for more complex objects
• RMF: group visibility is not saved across save/load
• RMF: group ID 0 was being created, causing the RMF format to ignore that group
• "Missing" textures cannot be selected for replace and mark
• The sphere brush tool creates invalid solids when "round created vertices" is enabled
• Texture tool can select hidden faces via the texture browser
• VHE4 shading in the 3D view is easier to see
• Shift-cloning objects in a group is moving the grouped object instead of moving the clone
• VMF: limit the length of key/values to 1024 bytes to avoid crashing VHE4 when it tries to open a saved file
• When pasting a group, the selection box behaves strangely
• It's easy to get two instances of the object properties dialog showing
• Hidden visgroup loads incorrectly after saving and re-opening (unable to unhide)
• VM Scaling mode: center of scale should be centered on selected vertices
• VM Scaling mode creating lots of invalid solids
• When box-selecting in the VM tool, midpoint vertices should not be selectable (replicate VHE behaviour)
• No help text on the camera tool explaining that the tab key cycles between cameras
• When grouping, the child colours do not change in 2D/3D views (check what VHE does after ungrouping)

@Rim: Don't use the .map format, it's the worst option out of the three. .map forces the plane intersection algorithm to run every time you open the map, which can create a huge mess. Use RMF or VMF instead, and only export to .map when you need to compile. That said, if you can send me an example .map file that works well in VHE but not in Sledge, I will take a look at it.

Edit: Just realised you might be doing that already, but the exported .map file is no good. If that is the case, can you save an RMF and try exporting from VHE? If the VHE result is the same, you've probably hit a limitation of the engine. If VHE works fine, please send me an example map so I can investigate.

@CapT: doesn't like them how? If you don't provide more information (and example map?), then I can't work on fixing things. If you're just talking about the compile error, I think that would be related to the compile tools, rather than Sledge.

@Dmx6: I think that would help. Can you upload them somewhere?

@Black_Stormy: Thanks for the feedback. I didn't know so many people would dislike the double-click behaviour, a lot of people have mentioned that it's annoying. Whenever I have to use VHE3.5, the lack of double-click really annoys me

I can try and make the dialogs smarter when pressing enter/escape, I'm not sure how far I can stretch WinForms and still keep it working well. I'll take a look when I can.

I know about the issues with free-look mode and opening windows, I've got some fixes in the next version that should help. I haven't tested the properties window (I was testing the texture tool window instead), so I'll double check.

Let me know if you have more comments. Can you explain more about the cubemap problems? I'd be interested to know more about this so I can keep it in mind when adding Source support.

@everyone else: If I don't see massive tacky Comic Sans in every single map from now on, you're all in trouble!

Water cooling is possibly the most pointless (and dangerous) thing you can put in a normal PC. When that new heat sink arrives, install it, toss out your water cooling, and never look back.

I believe that BLACK is the texture used on cordon bounds brushes. Try compiling without cordon enabled.

Are they invalid brushes? Invalid brushes can sometimes become unselectable (this happens due to the fact that they are invalid). If they aren't invalid, can you give me an example map that has the problem so I can test it?

Hmm, it would have to generate the in-between blended textures automatically into a custom wad file and then automatically -wadinclude that when you compile. That's not the kind of thing I want to add because it breaks portability and compatibility with other tools, so I don't see something like that being added as a main feature.

Screenshot as promised:

You can fake lighting and shadows by using geometry of a darker/lighter colour

I had this same thought when I watched your tutorial of the "map evolution" videos, Archie. It's definitely something I'd like to do when everything is nice and stable

In other news, I got a fun suggestion from Alberto to add a "text" brush type - as in, you select your font and type the text you want, and the text is turned into (unavoidably inefficient) brushwork. I've got the basics set up and it was surprisingly easy to add I can provide screenshots when I get home if you're interested in seeing what it looks like.

@Striker: With a bit of customisation you can make foobar2000 look quite nice. For example, here's what mine looks like: http://i.imgur.com/Y9ZfliR.png
I don't know how well it handles streams, though.

I think it does, because WinBspc uses Quake-style .map format rather than the Goldsource format. However, Sledge doesn't currently save .map files in the Quake formats, which I think the Quake compile tools would need to work. I am planning on adding a sort of "engine feature detection" thing when I add Source support that automatically detects how to load/save maps depending on the selected engine. I will try to keep the older Quake engines in mind when I'm doing that so it's easier to add support for those games.

Yes, but as far as I know it also has several major differences when editing. Something about material flags that need to be set on faces, and the .map format is different as well (specifically to do with texture axes). And I'm also not sure how Quake 1/2 games specify entity data, because I think the FGD format is a Hammer thing.

I'm reasonably qualified this time, considering I pretty much exclusively listen to game soundtracks
5 is an unreasonably low limit, though. I'm just going to ignore that restriction...

In approximate order, most favourite first:

Phoenix Wright - Ace Attorney
Did I forget to mention the fantastic music of Masakazu Sugimori and Noriyuki Iwadare when I listed this in the previous topic? One of the things that makes Ace Attorney so great is the music.
Pursuit Cornered (remix)
Scars Carved by Fire
Cross Examination 2004
Pursuit Caught

Umineko no Naku Koro ni (When the Seagulls Cry)
Umineko is a Japanese sound novel created by doujin circle 07th Expansion. It's got a pretty huge soundtrack with lots of different artists, but the ones I'm focusing on are the ones by ZTS. These are fantastic long pieces of music that I absolutely adore.
dreamenddischarger
resurrectedreplayer
liberatedliberator

Metal Slug
Toshikazu Tanaka is one of my favourite composers. The Metal Slug music he has created is some of the best I've ever heard. Even after listening to most of these way too much, I can still enjoy any of these tracks. The Metal Slug 3D soundtrack is absolutely amazing. Shame the rest of the game was terrible!
Windy Day (MS5)
Coal Mine Mark (MS3D)
Desert Town (MS3D)
The South Pole (MS3D)
Out of Control (MS3D)
Start from the Mountain Village (MS3D)

Golden Sun
Motoi Sakuraba contributes this fantastic GBA (and DS) soundtrack to an already fantastic game. The combination of the game and the soundtrack is absolutely glorious.
Walking Forward With Determination
Venus Lighthouse
The Elemental Stars
Track 79 (from Dark Dawn)

Fire Emblem - Awakening
Intelligent Systems should get a lot of credit for this amazing game and its extraordinary soundtrack. A bunch of people had a hand in creating this soundtrack: Yuka Tsujiyoko, Hiroki Morishita & Rei Kondoh. I enjoyed this soundtrack so much that I bought a copy from Amazon Japan. It's the only music-related purchase I have made in a very long time.
Destiny
Conquest

Ghost Trick
The second time Masakazu Sugimori (Ace Attorney 1 composer) features on this list. The Ghost Trick theme is a fantastic track, and everything else on the soundtrack is great too.
Main Theme
Intermission
Fate Updated

Final Fantasy XIII
Say what you want about the game, I enjoyed it. But regardless of whether you like or hate the game itself, you can't argue that the music isn't absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of XIII-2 and 3, which have very disappointing soundtracks.
Saber's Edge
Blinded by Light
Desperate Struggle
The Sunleth Waterscape

The World Ends With You
The soundtrack for this game is extremely impressive for a DS game. They had to use a special codec with greater compression, and even then it took up a full 1/4 of the 128mb game cartridge. Unlike most other soundtracks in my list, this one heavily features vocal artists.
Someday
Hybrid
Calling
Bonus Track
Deja Vu
Three Minutes Clapping

Advance Wars
A number of composers have done the music for Advance Wars over the years, but Yoshito Hirano has done my favourite tracks from the games.
Advance Wars 2 Ending Theme
Tag Power!
Flower Power!
Sonja's Theme

Mass Effect 1/2
Jack Wall is an amazing composer (and Jimmy Hinson aka Big Giant Circles is also excellent) and the soundtracks to Mass Effect 1 & 2 reflect that. ME3 had a decent soundtrack with some excellent composers, but mostly lacked the impact that only the Wall of Sound can provide.
Suicide Mission
ArmageddoN7

Bonus Round!
Uplink - Blue Valley
Clannad - Like Stars (ZTS remix)
Ace Combat Assault Horizon - "REBIRTH" From Sand Storm
Atelier Meruru - Astral Blader
Half-Life 2 - That Long Train Ride (DJ Dain remix)
Myst III Exile - Main Theme
Super Smash Bros Brawl - Dialga / Palkia Battle at Spear Pillar!

It doesn't at the moment, but it would be cool if it did. I don't know anything about Tech 1/2 mapping and how different they are to Goldsource, so it's not something I can just add without putting in a lot of research. I am focusing more on Source support, but if anybody has experience with programming and Quake 1/2 mapping, I think adding support for those engines wouldn't be a huge effort and I would be more than happy to help with the coding side of things!

Hmm, I can get the problem if I have the checkbox off, but if it's turned on, it works correctly. I can't break it with the checkbox on, any ideas?

Does it only happen if you have the "use relative values (percentage)" box switched off?

I don't think it would do that. Can you show me the original brush and the steps to replicate that result? It just looks like you forgot to select some vertices...

It has nothing to do with whether you scaled or not, that front face is a concave polygon...

Ok Tet, I've taken a look at the problem and I've fixed it in the next version, but in the meantime, upgrading to the more recent VHLT tools that CapT linked above will also fix the problem. I also fixed the "invalid key/values" error in the "check for problems" window.

That is pretty odd, Tetsuo, which compile tools are you using? I just tested it myself and I can create func_doors and func_walls (both with default properties) and they work in-game correctly. Can you send me the .map file that Sledge generates and the .map file that VHE generates so I can compare them?

Top 5 games? I can contribute this time! I might have played one or two of these so-called "video games" in my time. It's always hard to take five from a longer list and say that you think they're the best of the lot. Let's give it a try...

1. Phoenix Wright - Ace Attorney (series, NDS)
This is my absolute favourite game series by a very, very long way. I replay through the whole set (currently 5 games + 2 spinoff games) probably 3-4 times a year and I never get bored of them. The games play as a point-and-click adventure, combined with a visual novel, combined with a courtroom drama. On paper it doesn't sound like much, but they're absolutely brilliant games and well worth playing if you have a DS/Wii/3DS/iOS device on hand.

2. Golden Sun / Golden Sun: The Lost Age (GBA)
Golden Sun is simply the greatest RPG I have ever played. I've played quite a lot of JRPGs (including the fantastic Chrono Trigger) and have yet to encounter one that I've enjoyed even half as much as Golden Sun. GS actually had so much content that the developers had to split the game into two halves to fit it on a GBA cartridge. The battle mechanics of GS are quite simple to learn, but they allow for a huge depth of move combinations and abilities. Certainly the greatest game that was ever released on the GBA.

This is where it gets a bit trickier...

3. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Oracle of Seasons (GBC)
I couldn't make a list like this without including the absolute best Zelda games in the entire series. The Oracles are separate games, but they have a link feature which lets you experience a little bit more story if you play both of them. These games were made by Capcom, and are (by a wide margin) my favourite Zelda games on any platform. They have the perfect combination of puzzles, action, and unique locations, and it all adds up to two fantastic games.

4. Ghost Trick - Phantom Detective (NDS)
The game my avatar's character is from. Ghost Trick is from the creator of the Ace Attorney series, and I like it almost equally as much. I've played it once every year since it released in 2011. It's an adventure game with a focus on story, with most of the gameplay being puzzle-based. The story, art, and animation are all top-notch making this a game that is definitely worth playing (available on DS and iOS).

5. Uhhh....

• Advance Wars (GBA/DS)
• The World Ends With You (DS)
• Chrono Trigger (SNES)
• Psychonauts
• Beyond Good & Evil
• Half-Life
• Myst
• System Shock 2

Why can't all bugs be as easy to fix as those two?

Both these problems are fixed in the next version:

• When opening a .map file, entity flags are not loaded
• When saving a .vmf file, some worldspawn properties like "skybox texture" are not saved

Are you using VMF or RMF (or both?) when it forgets the map properties?

Sorry, it's just 'tf.fgd' and it can be found in: steamapps/team fortress 2/bin

Unfortunately Source is not supported yet, so you won't be able to use displacements, instances, or even compile with the Source tools yet.

You should be able to load TF2 textures (this is not recommended, Source is not officially supported yet!) by using these game settings:

Steam install: NO
Game dir: steamapps/common/Team Fortress 2
Base game: hl2
Mod: tf
Entities: add tf2.fgd

It may take a few minutes to load the textures, I haven't worked out how to speed this up yet.

Those are intriguing numbers, I would suspect it has something do with with the fact that Sledge automatically resizes textures to powers of two (e.g. 16, 32, 64, 128) when your graphics card does not support non-power-of-two textures. However I can't find anywhere in the code where the resized size could possibly be used by accident (it's only temporarily used to upload to the GPU and then it is discarded, so there's not a lot that could go wrong).

Can you consistently get it to happen, or can you manage to find some sort of situation where it always happens? It will probably only happen on textures that aren't powers of two (your 96x48 texture is a good example), so hopefully that can help you narrow it down. If you can find a way to consistently replicate the issue, I can then try to do the same on my PC so I can try and fix it.

What model is your graphics card and what renderer are you using in Sledge? Can you post a screenshot of the texture and how it displays with the wrong size? Screenshots of the incorrectly-sized texture in the texture browser and the texture properties dialog might be helpful.

I've started fixing some bugs yesterday after taking a bit of a break, so hopefully I can get some of these bugs fixed soon

The carve tool can be acceptable in some circumstances, considering it's just a shortcut to clip a number of times. Of course you wouldn't do it with cylinders and so on, but it's not something to be deemed "evil" and ignored entirely. It can be misused, but so can pretty much everything else. You wouldn't disown the VM tool simply because it can allow you to easily create invalid brushwork, would you?

Haha. I wish

Hey Rim, have you tested the latest Sledge? I fixed some issues with the OBJ importer and I'm curious to know if it helped at all.

Those screens look really nice, btw, but it's hard to get the impression that it's underwater aside from the couple of animals swimming around. Maybe add some effects (e.g. bubbles, floating particles, etc) to make it more obvious?

I think he means that you could move it underneath the entity/prefab box to gain more space in the main work area.

Tiberian Sun is a standalone game, unless you're talking about the Firestorm expansion.

Anyway, I can't add anything this round, I don't really play a lot of games that get noteworthy expansion content. I can't even think of one that is deserving of a place in a list, let alone five.

That's pretty neat. You can increase the size of the grid in the settings, btw. Or just load a Source FGD.

Thanks Tet, that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy
Are you still mapping in Goldsource land? I would have assumed you were fully invested in Source by now. Hopefully Sledge can support both in the near future. (Though I'm taking a break from Source stuff and bugfixing for now so I can look at adding peer-to-peer networked multiplayer editing.)

Architects collect mailboxes. Got it.

I somewhat agree with Archie when it comes to Akira, I've watched it a few times and I don't really think it's the best anime to introduce someone to the medium. Neon Genesis Evangelion is another show that is commonly recommended as a "starter anime", which is quite inappropriate in my opinion. I'd suggest that anyone who has watched a decent amount of anime should watch Akira, but frankly I would not recommend Evangelion to anybody.

Anyway, I really hope Archie and others don't dismiss anime as a medium simply because you didn't like a single show. The shows recommended by long-time anime-watchers are usually not good introductions to anime. Also, anime is not a single "genre", any more than "live action" is a genre, so there's no "genre-defining" anime in that sense.

For anybody looking for an introduction to anime that deals with a good plot in a mature and non-insane way, I very much recommend any of the following:

• Cowboy Bebop: space western, similar to Firefly
• Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood: fantasy, alchemy, steampunk-ish
• Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex: hard sci-fi (2 seasons)

Edit: removed long-winded rant

Like Strider I'm having trouble with a concrete list of top 5 TV shows, there are a couple of shows that I really like, and then a bunch of others that fall into the "pretty good" category after those...

Top 3 is fairly easy:
1. Dragon Ball
2. Avatar
3. Firefly

QI probably makes it in the top 5 as well.

I haven't really seen any of the really big recent shows (Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, etc) as they don't really appeal to my tastes. I tried watching Breaking Bad, but I had to stop after 10 episodes because it was just way too intense and I just couldn't bring myself to watch it.

As for Korra, I think the show is good, but it's reasonably different to Avatar so I can see why some people dislike it. The second season was definitely an improvement, the last episodes especially so. I'm looking forward to book 3.

A lot of western TV shows tend to annoy me in that they don't actually have a story to tell (with an actual ending), because there's the culture of milking shows for as long as possible until they burn horribly. On very rare occasions you get shows that work well with that limitation (like Stargate SG-1), even even they get old and die eventually. Though I couldn't watch it, one thing I like about Breaking Bad is that it actually ended without dragging on forever.

I find myself watching a lot more anime shows than western TV these days. Aside from a few long-running shows, anime shows almost always last 13, 26, or (rarely) 52 episodes, and then they end. They have a story to tell and they tell it, and then they stop. Shows don't get milked to death, sequels are rare, and the material is kept fresh. It's a much more interesting medium to consume for me. Shows are allowed much more creativity because they aren't so limited by viewer statistics. Shows are shorter and more numerous, which means there's a massive amount of variety to choose from (something like 50-100 new anime shows air every quarterly season). I wish western TV was more like that. It would allow some of the crazier (and more interesting) ideas to surface.

In other news, I've just published a new release! I've fixed the lag when selecting textures, and the texture black/white lists and favourite textures now work. I've also made a change that should fix most of Rimrook's errors when importing OBJ files.

The biggest change that I've made is that the sidebar is now more dynamic: only the panels that are valid for the current tool are shown. There are sidebars for the select, entity, brush, texture, and VM tools, and I will add more as they are needed. The texture, visgroup, and a new contextual help panel are the only ones that are always visible. If you don't like any of these panels, just minimise it and it will stay that way.

Archie will be happy to know that I also added the two oldest feature requests in the new "Texture Power Tools" sidebar (visible when the texture tool is open):Full change list:

UI change: Dynamic sidebar

• Added dynamic sidebar panels
• Added texture power tools sidebar panel (randomise shift values, tiling fit). Fixes #8, fixes #9.
• Brush selection panel now only appears when the brush tool is open
• Entity selection panel now only appears when the entity tool is open
• The VM tool window has been moved into the sidebar
• Added sidebar panel for the selection tool
• "Tie to Entity" and "Move to World" buttons moved to the selection tool panel
• Added contextual help sidebar panel

Bug fixes

• Fix favourite textures so they work again
• Focus the close button on load in the check for problems dialog
• Fix the blacklist and the whitelist so they save and load correctly
• Select all the text in the numeric controls when tabbing through the texture application form
• Optimisations related to models and textures
• Fix an issue causing a lot of invalid solids when opening OBJ files

RMF is a binary format made from serialised C structures, which means that every time there's a version change, pretty much every structure changes too. It'd be reasonably time consuming to reverse-engineer each different format to figure out the differences in each one, and then add support for them into the application. It's certainly not impossible, but it's difficult and it would take a pretty large chunk of time for each version change (I have encountered at least 3 different RMF version numbers, there's probably more).

What makes it harder is that certain RMF version numbers belong to versions of Worldcraft that don't seem to exist anywhere on the internet, which means I have to guess values instead of doing a proper reverse-engineer. Depending on how much has changed in each version, it might be much easier or harder than I think it is.

Yes, unfortunately it's a reasonable amount of work to get those working, so at the moment I don't plan to support them. You can open and re-save the map in Hammer to convert old RMF formats to RMF 2.2. I might look to support the older formats once the program has Source support and is in a stable state.

Nintendo's stream just aired, they had a few interesting games that looked neat. They showed a bit of Smash Bros, then had features on a new Yoshi Game, a new Zelda (unnamed, but looks to have a more open world), Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire re-releases, Bayonetta 2, Hyrule Warriors, Kirby, a sequel to Xenoblade, Mario Maker (mario level designer), and a paint-spraying multiplayer game called Splatoon.

The most interesting thing was probably the tiny bit of Zelda they revealed, but there was no gameplay and only a short cutscene that didn't have much content. They discussed that they wanted to make it much more open-world than previous games. The small bit they did show looked pretty neat.

Sony's next in 5 minutes.

Predictions:

• VR headset stuff (likely)
• Uncharted (obvious)
• Killzone (maybe)
• Lots of indie titles (obvious)
• Some more poorly-ported western AAA games on the vita (likely)
• Some actually good Japanese games on the vita (likely)
• Something from David Cage (unlikely)

Edit: and we're done.

They showed off a decent number of new and existing games:

• New: LittleBigPlanet 3, Bloodborne (Project Beast), Dead Island 2, Magicka 2, Let it Die, Abzu, Mortal Kombat X (super gory), Uncharted 4
• Existing:Destiny, Far Cry 4, BattleCops, No Man's Sky, Metal Gear Solid V, Batman: Arkham Knight
• Videos for some Digital Devolver games: Broforce, Titan Souls, Not a Hero, Hotline Miami 2, The Talos Principal
• Grim Fandango is getting remastered and re-released on PS4 and Vita.
• They discussed the VR stuff, but nothing concrete.
• PS Vita TV will release in the US this year for $99.
• GTA V will release on PS4.

Ubisoft's presentation just ended. Nothing too amazing - Far Cry 4 (long cutscene, no gameplay), dancing, racing, fitness (all for way too long), more videos for The Division and Assassin's Creed. The surprise ending is Rainbow Six: Siege, which is a 5v5 multiplayer counter-strike type game. Looks somewhat meh if you ask me.

The Mass Effect and unnamed "new Bioware game" that were in EA's keynote were so brief that they didn't deserve a mention
They basically said "we're spending time on making games!" and that was it. In fact the Star Wars and Mirror's Edge videos were little more than that too. EA's main content involved The Sims 4, BattleCops, and loads of sports games.

Just finished the MS conference. They showed a bunch of games like: Call of Duty, Forza, Evolve, Assassin's Creed, Dragon Age, Sunset Overdrive, Fable Legends, Halo, The Witcher 3, Tomb Raider, The Division, and Crackdown.

The "biggest" news, I guess, was the re-release of Halo 1-4 on the Xbone. But that news is fairly boring. There wasn't really a lot of groundbreaking stuff.

There were a few new games with nice graphics but extremely uninventive and boring gameplay (Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed). There wasn't anything overly inventive there.

The only one of my predictions that came to pass was the Call of Duty one. Not a good start for me!

EA's conference starts in 50 minutes.

EDIT: okay, EA coming up in 3 minutes. EA isn't ever very inventive with their presentations.

Predictions:

• Mirror's Edge 2 (too much focus on combat)
• BattleCops
• Star Wars
• Sports players will be on stage

Edit 2: Well, that's over. There was a bit on Mirror's Edge, but no gameplay. BattleCops got some gameplay footage, looks the same as BF3/4. The beta starts today. Star Wars Battlefront 3 got a bit of a video, but again, no gameplay. The rest was sports. So much sports.

The Microsoft keynote is only 10 minutes away, time for some hastily-made-up predictions:

Obvious predictions:

• Halo 5 gameplay footage. They'll probably try and use some elements from Halo 1-3 to try and convince people that they don't need Bungie to make the same type of Halo. (There were a number of vocal fans who didn't like Halo 4 because it lacked something or other)
• They'll try to convince people that Kinect is a thing that everyone wants and how it makes everything better
• They'll spend a lot of time talking about TV stuff: Netflix, ESPN, etc.

Likely predictions:

• Call of Duty. Activision don't attend E3, so I think that Microsoft will get the trailer this time. Possible gameplay too. (It will look the same as every other COD game)
• Remedy's project (Quantum Break) might get some airtime. It was announced last E3
• Something with mobile Windows devices and gaming. Possibly remote play or online streaming

Unlikely predictions:

• One of the old (and well-known) IPs that Microsoft is holding onto gets a sequel (that actually looks good)
• The fact that PC games actually exist is acknowledged

Very unlikely predictions:

• New Xbox hardware accessory (VR headset or something like that)

I don't know if you're a console gamer rufee but you may be disappointed to hear that Destiny will not be released on PC. I know when I heard that news, I lost interest in it. Maybe they'll port it later, but probably not...

As far as I know, Valve won't be at E3. They usually just announce their stuff whenever they want to, rather than waiting for E3. They might be there to promote the DOTA2 tournament though.

You thought I'd forgotten about posting here? Well I did! Thanks to Urby for reminding me...E3 starts tomorrow! I always take this week off work as a tradition to watch the live streams of the keynote conferences.

What is E3?
The Electronic Entertainment Expo, known as E3, is an event that happens every year in Los Angeles. It's usually where the big companies announce new stuff (i.e. Microsoft, Sony, and to a lesser extent, Nintendo) like games, hardware, consoles, and really pretty much everything to do with games. Ubisoft and EA also make appearances, but interestingly enough, Activision do not (though they usually manage to get a Call of Duty trailer in there anyway).

Why is it cool?
If you're interested in gaming at all, E3 is the biggest dump of new information that happens every year. The keynotes almost always feature brand new trailers, gameplay, hardware, services, and of course, new games! It's always fun to hear new stuff to look forward to. E3 is focused on western gaming (Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA), but Nintendo and Sony usually inject some Japanese gaming influence in there as well, so there's always something interesting no matter what your gaming tastes are!

I'll post updates after each keynote with all the interesting stuff, but if you want to watch the conferences live, just visit any big gaming website (GameSpot, IGN, GameTrailers, etc) and find their E3 coverage.

Is anyone else excited about E3? Any predictions you would like to share? I'll be posting my own predictions before each keynote starts. Microsoft is first up, starting about 26 hours from now.

PS: Before anyone suggests it: Half-Life 3 will NOT be announced this year. In fact, it will NEVER be announced at any E3, ever! (Though I would not mind if I was wrong about this)