- You remember when Worldcraft 2.0 was released
- You want to change the number of radiosity bounces in your house
- You believe that an object's center of gravity is an ORIGIN brush
- You de-compile every last VALVe map to count the number of every entity
- You start to realize that all politicians use the same scripted_sentences
- You wish your old teachers had a "Gag" flag
- You're surprised to learn that "quark" is a type of particle
- You introduce your spouse as monster_spouse
- You curse the fact that your life has no "Check for Problems" feature
- You're re-arranging furniture and desperately search for an UNDO option when the room looks bad
menu.jpgHow many times can you answer "yes?"
1) Have you ever mapped for longer than 1 hour straight?
2) ... 2 hours?
3) ... 4 hours?
4) ... 16 hours?
5) ... 32 hours?
6) Ever changed prefab data?
7) ... On purpose?
8) ... In an editor other than Hammer?
9) Do you know what CSG means?
10) ... BSP?
11) ... VIS?
12) ... RAD?
13) ... QuArK?
14) ... USNRC?
15) ... ZHLT?
16) ... VERC?
16) Do you know who Zoner is?
17) ... Merl?
18) Ever gotten a map larger than 4096 x -4096?
19) ... On purpose?
20) ... Did it compile?
21) ... Was it playable?
22) ... Ever compiled with a proverbial SkyBox?
23) ... Was it playable?
24) Ever show a newbie the "Any" key?
25) ... Was it the power button?
26) Ever group an object with itself?
27) ... More than 50 times over?
28) Ever write a mapping tutorial?
29) ... In a third-world language?
30) ... Did anyone understand it?
31) Ever modify an entity list? [FGD for Hammer]
32) ... Did the editor crash?
33) Do you know how to map with BSP?
34) ... QuArK?
35) ... QeRadiant?
36) ... Notepad?
37) Ever mapped for Quake3?
38) ... Return to Castle Wolfenstein?
39) ... Quake2?
40) ... Quake?
41) ... Doom?
42) ... Wolfenstein 3D?
43) ... Pac-Man?
44) Ever released a map?
45) ... Was it good?
46) ... Did people like it?
47) ... Is it still good?
48) ... Do people still like it?
49) Ever get paid for mapping?
- I am thy Hammer. Thou shalt have no other editor beside me, unless VALVe gets a portion of the credit thereof.
- Thy Hammer is a Quake-editor-based single-user editor. Thou shalt not attempt to force Hammer to generate random maps, multitask, or do intelligent things on its own.
- Thou shalt never have more than 10 WADs at one time loaded in Hammer. Thou doth not needeth these extra textures.
- Thou shalt give Hammer its regular RAM sacrifice. Keep holy this RAM, and clutter it not with memory managers, extra RAM sticks, or other things that might make Hammer useful.
- Thou shalt keep thy Hammer on the same drive as Half-Life. Thou shall not try to save disk space by keeping Hammer on C:/ and Half-Life on E:/.
- Thou shalt edit and shuffle the sacred lines of thy FGD until Hammer functions adequately for thee. Thou shalt not give up in vain, for if thou doth so, thou shalt be blaspheming thy name of thy Lord and Master, Hammer.
- Know in thy heart that Hammer has no backwards-compatibility with certain other versions.
- Improve thy patience. Thou wilt be required to wade through millions of "Invalid Solid Structure" and "Texture Axis Perpendicular to Face" errors during the simplest of editing maneuvers.
- Thou shall not, under even the most extreme circumstances, use the evil "Carve" feature mistakenly left in the latest versions of Hammer, lest you be annoyed by many evil emoticons.
- Learn well thy emergency Undo option (ctrl-z) and thy Vulcan Nerve Pinch (ctrl-alt-delete), for they shall be thy saviour on many an occasion. Believe in thy heart that EVERYONE reboots their Hammer and OS to solve problems that shouldn't happen in the first place.
El Explicito:
"I tried the thing, ya know, and it worked, ya know, but now it doesn't, ya know?"
Advantages: Provides interesting communication challenges.
Disadvantages: So do chimps.
Symptoms: Complete inability to use proper nouns
Mad Bomber:
"Well, I hit Ctrl-Z, Alt-Q, Shift-S, 'Apply Texture,' and F2, and now it looks all weird."
Advantages: Will try to find own solution to problems.
Disadvantages: User might have made every brush into an empty entity without meaning to.
Symptoms: Help files in Navajo as opposed to English; players come out upside-down in the map
Frying Pan/Fire Tactician:
"It didn't work with the data set we had, so I fed in my aunt's recipe for key lime pie."
Advantages: Will usually fix error.
Disadvantages: 'Fix' is defined VERY loosely here.
Symptoms: A tendency to delete lines that get errors instead of fixing them.
X-user:
"Will you look at those...um, that resolution, quite impressive, really."
Advantages: Using the cutting-edge in mapping technology.
Disadvantages: Has little or no idea how to use the cutting-edge in mapping technology.
Symptoms: Frequent "I remember now..." replies when questions are answered
Miracle Worker:
"But it read compiled yesterday!" 'Sir, at a guess, this map's code has been maliciously malformed.' "But I did that a month ago, and it compiled yesterday!"
Advantages: Apparently has remarkable luck when you aren't around.
Disadvantages: People complain when experienced mappers actually use the word "horse-puckey".
Symptoms: Loses all ability to do impossible when you're around. Must be the kryptonite in your pocket.
Maestro:
"Well, first I sat down, like this. Then I logged on, like this, and after that, I typed in my password, like this, and after that I edited my file, like this, and after that I went to this line here, like this, and after that I picked my nose, like this..."
Advantages: Willing to show you exactly what they did to get an error.
Disadvantages: For as long as five or six hours.
Symptoms: Selective deafness to the phrases, "Right, right, okay, but what was the ERROR?", and a strong fondness for the phrase, "Well, I'm getting to that."
Wolfenstein 3D
All of the passengers push a little biplane until it flies. Then they hop in until the plane falls to the ground. They get out and push the plane until it flies, then they hop in again, etc.
Doom
Many competent engineers gather at midnight, while the moon is full and the clouds are thick, and argue over what they want. Finally they build a small commercial plane, along with several smaller versions. All of the stewards, stewardesses, engineers, and persona look the same and act the same. If you ask a question, they tell you that you don't want to know, don't need to know, and would you please sit down and watch the movie. Later, the plane's bluprints are burned and cast into the ocean.
Quake
More engineers rebuild the Doom planes from scratch. The planes take off while the passengers are loading. Some make it to their destinations. All think they got there.
Quake II
The first commercial jet plane. Takeoff is turbulence-free. In fact, the whole ride is perfect as long as the passengers are heavily sedated.
Half-Life
The engineers have 5 different faces, the stewards all look thin and white, and the pilot is some geek with a goatee. For some reason, the passengers are all pleased though Half-Life Air has no variation whatsoever. There are only two women in the flight crew: the copilot and the terrorists. No one minds the antifeminism, either.
Quake III
Basically, the Q2 plane with the Q1 concept and the Half-Life crew. Except this crew is full of strangely proportioned people with explosive weapons.
This test will determine which game is ideal for YOU.
1) Which graphics do you prefer?
(a) What are graphics?
(b) 2D
(c) 2D
(d) Sort of maybe 2.5D
(e) 3D
(f) False.
2) Which do you most detest?
(a) Nazis
(b) Everything
(c) Realistic weaponry
(d) Quake I
(e) Bad graphics
(f) Aliens, the government, and your colleagues
3) Your favorite genre of video games?
(a) What's a video game?
(b) What's a genre?
(c) Shooter
(d) Anything that comes from Quake's makers
(e) QUAKE QUAKE QUAKE QUAKE QUAKE
(f) Science fiction
4) Your favorite weapon?
(a) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ...
(b) Chainsaw
(c) Grenade launcher
(d) Pseudo-3D grenade launcher
(e) What do you mean, the grenade launcher isn't real?
(f) Things that are experimental, alien, or just plain cool
5) Which is your favorite OS?
(a) DOS
(b) DOS with more RAM
(c) Microsoft! Does that count?
(d) OS? I thought Windows was the only one...
(e) One with a mouse, keyboard, and 1 gig of RAM
(f) That penguin is soooooo cuuuuuuuuute!!!
6) When was the last time you bathed?
(a) I'm classified as a biological weapon in 4 countries
(b) Months ago
(c) Weeks ago
(d) A few days ago
(e) Still dripping
(f) That day I dropped the soap
7) What would you wear at a formal dinner?
(a) I don't get invited to formal dinners.
(b) T-shirt, blue jeans
(c) T-shirt, dress pants
(d) Shirt with a collar, dress pants
(e) Black tie, tails
(f) Disturbingly unattractive trench coat, collar shirt, dress pants
Count the number of each answer choice.
A = Wolfenstein 3D
B = Doom
C = Quake
D = Quake II
E = Quake III
F = Half-Life
garg.jpg
This is probably why I don't work for VALVe.
This article was originally published on the
Valve Editing Resource Collective (VERC).
TWHL only archives articles from defunct websites. For more information on TWHL's archiving efforts, please visit the
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