A Counter-Strike: Source update is available and will be applied automatically when Steam is restarted. The changes include:

Counter-Strike: Source

• Added Counter-Strike bots. For a more detailed description, click here


• Added new bomb defusal map de_tides


• Updated version of de_cbble to allow bots to navigate ladders


• Updated version of cs_office. Fixes minor issue with projector


• Updated version of de_dust2 to allow 40 players


• Optimization to the way that dynamic props are checked. On higher end CPUs, this can result in more than a 5% total frame rate increase


• Fixed bug where players would get twice the normal money at the start of a round


• Weapon models are now checked at startup to make sure they are within limits for size


• Fixed a bug that would allow a player to throw two flashbangs at once


• Added “motdfile” cvar, which sets the filename for the message of the day on the server


• Fixed logic that will automatically kick players for killing hostage or being idle for a long time

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FEATURES OF THE NEW COUNTER-STRIKE: SOURCE BOT
More Realistic Human Reactions<

The CS Bots now have an enhanced "attention" system that takes into account gunfire, cover, distance, motion, and posture when determining whether a bot "notices" another player. For instance, previous versions of the bots would always notice an enemy if they had a clear line of sight to them and they were in their field of view, even if that enemy was crouched and hidden half behind a crate hundreds of yards away. The CS Bots notice moving players much more often than stationary players, and the chance of noticing players in their field of view drops further the more cover the enemy is behind and the farther away they are, among other factors. This brings yet another level of strategy to the bot game, making stealth and positioning much more valuable.

The CS Bot now has two states of attentiveness: normal and "alert." If the bot has been attacked or has seen an enemy recently, it becomes "alert" which increases its chances of noticing future enemy activity, further enhancing the value of stealth tactics.

If a CS Bot is attacked by an enemy it cannot see and didn’t expect, it will "panic" in a much more humanlike manner than did earlier versions. Panicking bots look around wildly for their attacker and often retreat to cover while doing so.

Improved Tactics

The CS Bots understand the flow and timing of Counter-Strike much better. Not only can they "rush" more effectively, but they also know approximately where to expect the initial encounter with the enemy team allowing them to take up defensive positions appropriately and throw grenades at the right place and time. CS Bots are much more attentive to noises made by the enemy, as well as important events such as friendly casualties. Additionally, the bots use stealth more often, such as sneaking into a bombsite to defuse the planted bomb. They are also smarter about prioritizing enemies when confronted with several possible targets at once. Also, when low on cash, they will now save their money instead of squandering it on extra ammo and grenades.

Improved Navigation

CS Bots are more adept at navigating narrow ledges and other tricky areas. In addition, they will shoot out breakable objects such as windows before they actually reach them, which can save precious seconds when rushing the enemy.

Snipers

Bots are now aware of enemy snipers, and will warn their teammates accordingly. Also, they realize that standing still in a sniper’s line of fire is a bad idea, and will often retreat behind cover while dodging when presented with an enemy sniper. The actual aiming and sniping behavior of the bots has been made more humanlike as well.

Grenades

The CS Bots are far more proficient at grenade throwing than they have been before, and throw their grenades in more tactically intelligent places. The bots attempt to retreat from incoming HE and Flashbang grenades as well. If a bot is blinded by a Flashbang grenade, it behaves in a more believably human manner, typically retreating and sometimes firing blindly while doing so.

Other Features

• In addition to the normal bot_quota system, the host can set bot_quota_mode to "fill." This changes the bot_quota into a minimum number of players required for the server. As human players join, bots will leave. For instance, in fill mode if the bot_quota is 10, the server will have 5 bots on each team. When a human player joins the CT team, a bot will leave. If 10 humans have joined, all the bots will be gone, and yet more humans can still join. Only when the number of players drops below the bot_quota threshold will bots begin to re-join the game.


• Players can turn off the bot’s "auto following" behavior to prevent bots from deciding to follow players on their own.


• Bots no longer fall from ledges and cliffs when in combat


• Bots buy equipment and weapons more quickly (for those who prefer no freeze time)

The Counter-Strike: Source Bots were developed in conjunction with Turtle Rock Studios.

The Jedi: Timeline team here with another update for you. And boy is it a big one. We slacked off a bit on the holidays but hey that’s what a vacations for right. But after that was over we got right back to work. I am going to keep this post short and to the point. Below you will find a few new models, a few new skins, and some good press.

The three new models we have on display today are the “AT-ST” modeled by Our Lead modeler Saruman, “Boba Fetts blaster rifle” by the newest member Joe, and the “Slave 1” by the talented Chems.

Next you will find the two new skinned models the “Shuttle “ skinned by the co-lead of JT expjames, and then the Naboo Starfighter by Dimsum.

Next you will find the two big things for JT. First you see a page from PC Gamers “The ultimate Shooter Guide” debut issue. The named us one of Half-Life 2’s “Mods to watch.” That is a great honor to the team. But if that was not enough we have you all to think for this next thing. Moddb.com held a players choice awards called “2004 Golden Spanner Mod of the Year Awards.” It ran for 2 months, 8 thousand votes and 1.4 million mod profile visitors. And we came out on top ranked #1 for Best Non-player Models. It’s great to know that I am not the only one that thinks Jedi: Timeline’s models kick ass.

Another Day another Update.....

This update we have yet more Exclusive Pictures of The Devils Reef’s first levels in action... So go check out the Media Page to view them!

Thank you to all the people who Applied to be part of The Reef team. We are pleased to say we now have 3 new members on the Devils Reef Team now, there profiles can be found on the Team Page.

We are still seeking New Team Members , so If you have any Mapping skills with Hammer, Modeling Skills, 2D art Skills or Coding Skills or Voice Acting Skills I would love to hear from you, just drop me an email to me to Katncraig86@hotmail.com

After 2 months, 1.4 million mod profile visitors and 8 thousand different voters, the 2004 Golden Spanner Mod of the Year Awards http://goldenspanner.moddb.com/ hosted by the Mod Database http://www.moddb.com/ have been decided, by you the visitors and gamers who know best. Whilst we don’t entertain any fantasies that these results will be to the liking of everyone out there, for the first time ever the people who play these mods day-in and day-out have decided the winner and the results certainly are varied.

As expected Half-Life based mods polled well, however mods from over 10 other games also finished up top, testament to the talent out there, that we are exposed to daily. Head to the feature http://features.moddb.com/111/ and read up on the top 3 mods from all gameplay styles (action, adventure, racing etc..) and also the top 3 mods for each design area (best models, textures, maps etc..)

Thanks for your time!

Hey, this is ^Tomala^ the leader of Resident Evil: The Evil Begins and were looking for some more members. The following slots are open/needed:

Needed
Coder
Sound Artist

Open
Modeler
Mapper

For anyone whos interested please email me at tomalajr@hotmail.com or visit the forums at http://reteb.hlgaming.com

Here is the official story:

After the dissaster with the T-Virus, the Umbrella Corp. decided to make a second virus known as the Q4-Virus. But tests shown that when the T-Virus and the Q4-Virus mixed, it caused dangerous mutations. Tempted with their evil minds the Umbrella Corp. decided to inject both the T-Virus and the Q4-Virus into a human host. The effect was beyond what the tests had shown and a new infection has been created. The infection took over Racoon City and then went for SkyLight City. The infection spread through the city within twelve hours leaving but a few survivors.

The Evil Begins...


Resident Evil: The Evil Begins is a modification for Half-Life 2. You can choose from different characters from SkyLight City. There is three modes so far that you can play, Cooperative, Hold Em Back or Survival Horror

Cooperative: You join with your fellow survivors to escape from SkyLight City. You have to work together and beat each level.

Hold Em Back: You are in a building/house and have to try to hold of the waves of zombies trying to attack you. If a zombie gets past a certian spot in the building/house then you lose. Then the next round starts and you have to beat the surviving time of the last round.

Survival Horror: You start off as survivors, in a map that is meant for running around and finding shelter but you dont have to stick together (like everyman for himself). If you get killed by a zombie or die from infection then YOU turn into a zombie. The round ends when every survivor is dead.


Each character will have his/her own advantages and disadvantages. For example:

John Anderson
+10 Speed
+10 Streagth
Can handle all weapons

Some characters cannot handle all the weapons. Like Steven Miller can hold all the weapons but cannot handle them. So he could shoot but because of the kick back he wont always hit the zombie.

Zombie Panic! v 0.92 Changelog
1/15/05

Fixes:

• Fixed and added zombie ambient sounds. In 0.91d there were 10 zombie ambient sounds that played randomly every so often, except that 6 of those were at 44K and Stereo, which meant the HL engine wouldn't play them. It also meant that zombie sounds played about half as often as they should, since the other half of the time, the sounds were chosen, but not played. Additionally, 6 more ambient zombie sounds were added, meaning you'll hear 15, not 4 as in 0.91d.


• Made satchel charges intangible (So you can't block vents with them anymore).


• Fixed satchel duplication bug.


• Fixed "spawn on break" unlimited weapon bug and "spawn on break"

entities not spawning the right thing or sometimes anything. This requires a new .FGD file, which is included with this release. If you have no entities that spawn things upon breaking, you will not need to recompile your maps.

• Joining midgame will actually let you join now, instead of just spectating until the next round.


• Fixed the exploit where you could respawn as a zombie with retry even when no lives were left.


• Fixed the bug where toggling your Zombie Vision would spraypaint also.


• Fixed the starting zombie initially spawning with Zombie Vision off.

Changes:

• Weapons/Ammo/etc no longer make the HL spawning noise upon spawning.


• Zombies no longer make underwater bubbling noises while swimming.


• A survivor will see the death message showing who killed him upon death. Other survivors still see nothing.


• Added zp_ruins. Thanks Watchmaker (Recently ZeroFate)!


• Added zp_waste. This is an old Playtest map we threw in for old time's sake. Thanks Toph!


• Zombie model reverted to 0.91a (pre-skeletal) version.


• Correct version of zp_paranoid added. It was correct in 0.91a, but I goofed in 0.91d and put in a much older, buggier version. This version is the right one, and much better... Sorry about that Jezpuh!


• New version of zp_nation. Thanks hi!


• New version of zp_eastside. Thanks KungFuDiscoMonkey!


• New version of zp_town. Thanks brute_force!

IT IS NOW OFFICIAL!

After speaking with the members of the team the decision has been made and this mod is now going to be created using SDK!

We're all very excited at this new level of potential and detail that we can achieve and everyone is working hard to get their jobs done and make this a great game!

We have some images of new weapons that have been added in the past few weeks. I was waiting for some character concept sketches, but those will just have to wait. I will be showing those in the next update, I promise!

Gauss Pistol - Fairly straightforward in design and function, this bad boy is made for hard hits.

Mancatcher - A modified riot control shotgun with blast shield. It shoots primarily rubber bullets, but can also be outfitted for launching electrified nets.

Stasis mine - Another original, this little fella creates a small translucent field along the floor of a room. When it is touched, the person (around human sized and smaller) instantly gets stuck, suspended there and unable to move until an outside force touches them. Can be a hassle, but can also be a great asset.

Muter Grenade - Lovingingly nicknamed the 'egg-nade', this is indeed the same size and shape as a grenade. it's function simple, you push a button and throw it. It will cause minor splash damage and cancel all noise in a room, for a few seconds. These would have been useful in the original half life against those tentacles

Soon enough we'll get some textures on these weapons, so keep an eye open, and in my next article, we'll get to see some concept artwork!

"The base class code and basic game rules for dm and team dm are working. Well except team scores. I have a rogue hud element I’m trying to figure out, and some localization issues I’m dealing with, once I get that figured out I’m doing the character weapons and movement."

I cant wait when he has something to show and maybe even a video. Thanks Omega and to you the fan reading this!

"I can’t make any screenshots of WW because it won’t run, in debug or otherwise. The main issue I have right now is that, in order to work on hl2 projects I need .net, but in order to do WW/ for hl, I need vc6 or no one would be able to use it, now the problem is, when .net is installed vc6 won’t debug shit. The debugger just doesn’t work. So I’m having a bitch of a time figuring out what’s causing the crash"

I figured you the WW deserves to understand exactly what the deal is with WW since we are taking so long. The code was just not working right. Omega has joined as lead coder and he is good at what he does. He knows Half-Life code like the bible. So the news above doesn't tell the entire picture. Omega has found a way to make the stream in the particle engine look very nice!

Our goal is to update you with code from Omega each weekend going forward!