Source: Born of War

Okay, so it's been a slow progression period. Half-Life 2 is showing no signs of being released anytime soon, so I've begun work programming Born of War on the original Half-Life SDK. I'm going to be implementing the weapons, grenades, and game modes. Hopefully this will tide me over until the release of Half-Life 2 (or atleast, the release of the Half-Life 2 SDK). This is really a pain in the ass that we're still awaiting the game to be released nearly a year and a half later.

The rest of the team is currently in limbo, most of us our graduating this year so we're tied up in doing that. As soon as the summer rolls around though, we're going to be getting into full gear. Andrew and myself have been documenting weapon statistics for the programming end, so that we get everything correct. Stay tuned, we're still here.

Source: Nightwatch

Due to some technical issues, the e-mail addresses used to contact us about job applications and for general enquiries (i.e. the Contact option in the navigation bar) have been changed. While the old addresses (nwjobs and info) will continue to work as normal for some time, please take note as they will eventually be discontinued in favor of the new ones. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Also, please note that the site was briefly down earlier today in order to resolve certain remaining issues that were related to the earlier unavailability. This is a hosting issue and we do not expect any further downtime for the forseeable future.

Source: Firearms

There seems to be a lot of confusion over the patch re released last month. If you try to join a server and get an error about your client dll differing from the server's, it means one of two things. Either you have not installed the patch correctly, or the server hasn't. If it's the server, there's nothing you can do except try a different one. If you seem to be getting this error on every server, it's more than likely that you haven't installed the patch properly.

You'll need to download it again, and get WinZip if you haven't already. Then you can right-click on the patch, choose 'Extract to...', then browse to you Firearms folder. This should be at C:\\Program Files\\Steam\\SteamApps\\your_username\\half-life\\firearms. You also need to make sure the 'Use folder names' and 'Overwrite existing files' boxes are ticked. Then you press the 'Extract' button and it's done.

The next patch is very near completion. We're just waiting for a couple of maps to be updated, and then we'll be able to get an installer done. Creating the installer will cause a slight delay, but with so many people having problems with a simple zipped patch, I think it's worth it. Hopefully we'll be able to get it released before next weekend.

Source: Sven Co-Op

In the next update, which we are working very hard toward finishing, mappers will have even more control over gameplay options. In addition to our new game types being implemented, custom player classes can also be defined.
Through a simple text file, mappers can provide up to 10 player classes on their map. Options like choosing the player model, health, armor, specific abilities, weapon load out, etc. will be available. We're still working on what sort of abilities will be defined in the abilities 'pool' (that mappers can choose from), but expect them to be very useful.

The weapon load out in the class configuration file will also have support for '.custom' files. Files in the format of weapon_name.custom will be used for weapon configuration. Weapon features (scopes, melee attacks, etc.), model, ammo usage, ammo types, etc. will be defined in these files. This way, you can take player classes to the next level. For instance, with this you could have a Scout class and Infantry class have varying firing accuracies, while using the same weapon.

Please keep in mind, player classes will be on a per-map basis, it's completely up to the mapper if they do or do not want to use them. This is not a forced feature, original maps will still play the same.

If you have any suggestions or requests on this feature, feel free to post in the forums.

Source: Project Hull Breach

I'm extremely proud and excited to announce our official partnership with www.hl2fallout.com

Offering us an exclusive and jaw dropping hosting deal, even keeping our url - we have agreed to move to their network within a few months time. Apologies and thanks to all the other hosting offers we have recieved, but HL2Fallout have offered us the essential requirements we need to make our mammoth project succeed. Naturally this means a faster, smoother experience with cutting edge Halflife 2 news and articles just a click next door.
A big thanks to HL2fallout and the great guys behind the scene, we look forward to an exciting future together.

Source: Mechmod

Low and behold, Jason has some awesome eye candy for us.
Instead of working on his particle systems, Jason decided to experiment with CG shaders and came up with with this.


Download Video Clip Here

Don't forget to drop by on our forums and irc channel and tell us what you think :)

Source: CS-Nation
Counterpoint is back and kicking over at CS-Nation. So go check it out.

Valve is flawed like every other developer, but I don't think the community should give up on them or get fed up with "their bullshit."

Even while writing this, I realize no heads are being turned and no minds are being changed. If you don't like Valve, my arguments were weak. If you're happy with the company, then I'm just going to reinforce your opinions. On the flipside, Kevin's article didn't turn a Valve fanboy into a hater. He said nothing so revealing as to change anyone's mind. So, what, we're just fighting a battle over first impressions and opinions from long ago?

How useless. The fact is that a lot of these Valve criticisms will go away once HL2 is released. We're gamers. We're going to support the companies that make good games. I seriously doubt anyone will be leveling charges of lying and deception against Valve when Half-Life 2 is on the shelves.

Source: United Admins

We have released a new client version of Cheating-Death to fix the problems with the latest Steam Update. There are also some minor bug fixes with floating players in this version.

Source: CS Banana
Related: E-Sports

One has to remember that at this time the game version was still 1.3 which is the crucial factor here. The end of 1.3 is in my opinion where the evolution of CS ended and devolution took over. If memory serves me correctly 1.4 was released around the time of the DoP-rs CAL-i season 4 semi-final replay so it only affected two CAL-i games that season. The rest of that season is what I would call the most evolved maxrounds season of all time.

Source: Resident Evil: To Serve and Protect

As you can see already, we're no longer being hosted by Freewebs. On that note I'd like to thank HLGaming for hosting us.

On the coding front we've hired m0rra7h who has already got to work and finished the code for the ability to board up windows and doorways.

I've also hired a new Weapons Modeller by the name of FisKedusen. He's already produced 2 excellent models for us. Here's a taste of his work.


On the character modelling front, MaXeR has gotten to work with props requested by our mappers. Also he just finished our first zombie!