We've seen an increase lately in the number of unscrupulous people acquiring Steam accounts (and access to Steam games) by stealing them from other users. These people accomplish their theft by simply asking legitimate users for their login information. This practice is known as "Phishing," and is found to some extent in nearly all online account-based systems.

By posing as a Steam official in an email message, or sometimes by pretending to be a helpful user who wants to "trade" one account for another, the thieves are often able to convince people to divulge their user name and password.

We know how frustrating it is to have your account stolen. As much as we can, we want to put a stop to this practice. To do that, we need your help -- please keep the following in mind:

Your Steam ID and password are confidential information. A Valve employee will never ask you for your password in an unsolicited phone call or email message. Do not respond to any message that asks for your password. Here is some more information about protecting your account.


In the meantime, happy gaming.

Half-Life 2 expansion Aftermath will be getting a retail release after all, Valve's Doug Lombardi has confirmed, and the developer aims to release the game in September.

Speaking to Eurogamer at E3, Lombardi said: "Aftermath will be coming out at retail, but we're finalising our publishing partner." Valve recently parted ways with Half-Life 2 publisher Vivendi-Universal Games, who will cease distribution of the company's products at the end of August.

Asked when the developer's new publishing partner was likely to be revealed, Lombardi said it would be "soon, in the summer". He also added that the current release date estimate for Aftermath is "September".
Advertisement

Those with long memories will recall Valve signed up with Activision back in Spring 2003 for future content, but so far the only release has been Day Of Defeat. It is not known whether the US publisher will be adding to its expanding roster of FPS developers, with id and Infinity Ward among others already signed up. We shouldn't have long to wait to find out.

Half-Life 2: Aftermath puts players back in the role of Gordon Freeman, with an expanded role for sidekick Alyx, and deals with events immediately following the conclusion of Half-Life 2.

Important news coming from the Iron Grip world!

We have just attracted a major investor for Iron Grip. As all efforts are being made to push Iron Grip to a summer release, this large investment comes as a gift from above, as we now have the ability to increase in size and quality! For people wondering if this is legal, it is… We are not making any money of it, and Iron Grip will still remain a free mod with non-contracted people. After the mod, the Iron Grip universe will most likely serve as a commercial base for future projects.
In order for this mod to meet its deadline, we have allocated part of the budget to hire some extra people. So if there are skilled people out there, willing to make some money, and help finish this project contact us on info@irongrip.net
We are currently looking for:

* 2D Graphics artist, skilled in creating RTS buttons, command bars, unit icons etc.
* 3D modeler, capable of modeling humans, weapons and skin them.
* Half Life 2 model “rigger”. Somebody capable of putting 3D models in the Half Life 2 engine.
* Animator.


Preferably we would like people with combined skills and a productive working speed. Don’t hesitate, mail us as soon as possible and join us in our combined effort.

As a small gift from the developers “diary” we have 2 screens showing you tests of our command view. Keep in mind, this is still a W.I.P.

I am organising a gmod tennis tournament, you must throw explosive barrels over the 'net'
Fact: Garry himself will join !
check the website for more information
2nd map is under construction, screenshots will follow in the next weeks

Greetz, Alex

The WarZone team has been working hard on Concept Art,Modeling,Wallpapers,Coding,Mapping

You can see the media we have released here

http://hlwarzone.hl2files.com/MediaReleases/

Remember to register on our forums (No E-mail Authorization Required)

Thanks,

The WarZone Team

We've released a patch to fix a number of small bugs some folks are having with beta 2. The following changes have been made:

* Fixed crash while connecting to a busy server
* Fixed crash when the round starts that only occurs if you are not using English or French translations
* Skill class display issues
* In-game map rotation issues

You can download the files here. This is a client-only patch; servers do not need to update, and you'll be able to play on all Beta 2 servers without problem.

We've all been pretty busy with life these past few months. After exams are over you can expect some ingame media. Complexz has started working on two new maps, Reservoir and Warehouse. Warehouse is a remake of a map we had back in Chitan Quake3. Also Roland has given us a preview of the menu track you'll be chillin' to while setting up your character.

The latest models are up for viewing as you can see. We need a experienced animator for our mod and another coder. If you have the time and talent please send some email my way!

Version 1.2.7 Has been released for public consumption!

The Wizard Wars team is happy to announce the release of Version 1.2.7 of our little Halflife mod. There are many improvements over 1.2 including many bug fixes and some bots.

Kudos to DeGlove and Thoth for getting on our cases and providing much needed testing and motivation, thanks guys :)

That's right, it's that time of year again! The theme this year is "unrealism": make a surreal, non-realistic HL2DM level using your twisted, sad minds. Whether it be a mind-boggling mass of displacement surfaces, or a Rats!-style map set in your toaster, we're after levels that you'd never encounter in real life, and aren't based on locations past, present or future. It's a chance to get those creative juices going and to try to break out of the warehouse/Combine mapping cycle, and perhaps turn a few e-heads in the process.

Prizes are yet to be announced (there will be some- the winner can expect at least a console/PC game of their choice), and the deadline is the 14th August 2005.

Check out all the details here, and post in our forums in you have any questions or need some ideas. Good luck!