September 2015 General Chat

1st September 2015

If you are looking for a Flash game to try, here’s a game called Drench. You have to paint a grid so it is all the same colour, but you only have a set number of “paints”. I found it quite fun.

Summer pretty much over, people are going back to work and it’s time to start working more seriously on the site.

I have a couple of new page ideas that should be quite easy to implement and I think I will use the Calendar page to plan some work too. Anyway, let’s get back to gaming!

This Month’s Sci-Fi Movie

In June 2014, I started to use a poster from a classic Sci-Fi move as the background for the post image.

This month it is from The Wasp Woman (1959). An international team embarks on an expedition to the moon in an uncommonly spacious rocketship. There they encounter a faceless alien intelligence who conclude that the human race is too immature and dangerous and must be destroyed.

That’s way too close to the truth for my liking.

35 Comments

  1. Is anyone here interested in the Resident Evil series? I recently got into the games and I love them.

  2. I really miss the whole Phillip streaming thing. How much longer before your injury is healed enough to start that again?

    1. Forgive the late reply. I plan to restart the weekend of the 19/20, but avoiding Don’s stream. To be honest, I didn’t think people wanted to watch me after seeing Don, Darren and Jim. My streams are pretty boring in comparison.

  3. Apologies if this is in the wrong place, but I’ve been trying to find a couple Half-Life I mods that I played a few years back.

    What I most remember about one is that there was an open tarmac with lots of grunts and a tank or two. The most distinctive feature was this mobile command center type vehicle that looked like a big recreational vehicle. This was on one of my favorite battles ever.

    Another mod I’m looking for is a plot-heavy one that involved, at one point, going into a high rise building and watching a movie projected on a screen. I think you were supposed to be meeting the president or something. I enjoyed the mod, I just can’t remember the name!

    After downloading a truckload of mods, I still haven’t found these. I’ll admit that doesn’t give anybody much to go on, but maybe someone here has played ’em lately and would share the names?

    If so, well, that’s happiness for me, and good karma for you!

      1. Thanks to David Will, and to you Philip. Unfortunately, Night At the Office wasn’t one of the mods I’m trying to find.

        I have a terrible memory.

        1. Have you played Sven Coop? If yes, then there is a chance it’s from there.

          1. I’ve never delved into Sven co-op. The more I think of it, the more I remember mods I played years ago but that I can’t find on RTSL. I’m not sure of where I downloaded ’em, as I never ventured onto MODDB much and I don’t think there’s many other outlets for SP HL Mods. I would’ve sworn I got ’em from PP (back when it wasn’t RTSL) so I’m stumped.

            Or maybe I just dreamed them?

  4. Phillip, I think the spoiler option for the text is broken. I tried it on my review on Escape 2 but it didn’t work.

    1. Yes, thanks. I’m looking into it.

    1. This is now finished and released! It’s for Descent 2. Get it here:
      http://jasongimba.com/?p=335

  5. That looks like a really interesting layout.

  6. Phillip, do you think that Blue Shift is underrated? I sure as hell do.

    1. I think it’s underrated, but I understand why. When most people buy expansions, they want to see a lot of new content… even if it’s not that polished. It’s the thrill of the new that excites them. Blue Shift is more of the same, and while it’s pretty well done for what it is, most people dismiss it because it lacks that innovative spark.

      It’s curiously the same reaction I got when I posed the question to the HL Reddit, why do you guys ignore the user-made mods while begging in front of Valve all day long? The answer, quite bluntly, user-made mods offer nothing new and therefore we’ll never be that interested in them.

    2. Hm, only 2 hours of gameplay on hard, boring levels, bad music, etc. Compared to Opposing Force, the game is junk :).

      1. Unq

        Comparing it to Op4 is the problem. As Blue Shift stands it’s a fairly tight experience, if a little mundane. But it’s pretty polished.

        I think if it had been released before Op4 it would have been better received. Everyone wanted another Op4 which is why BS is seen as a kind of letdown. But keep an open mind while playing it and it’s pretty good.

        1. If Blue Shift was a free mod, I would surely view it from a different perspective. It was expensive on release and it is expensive now. The free mod Azure Sheep did the similar story much better and it came out around the same year.

  7. I have a problem on the WON version. There are a few times when the map transitions crash. This happened to me in the mappack Freeman and Black Guard. When the “Loading” text comes, the game crashes to the desktop with no message on the console. This is really annoying. Can someone help me?

  8. Zekiran

    I have to say I like the “Recent Comments” feature at the bottom of the RTSL pages. I’ve found new… old maps that people have commented on, that I’d never seen! And given the state of my internet right now, being able to play sp mods I’ve never done before is pretty nice, since any online play is heavily interrupted. Between the craptastic router we have, TW’s horrible service outages constantly happening in this area, and other issues between me and whatever service I’m trying to use… ugh.

  9. This is probably a long shot, but I’ll ask just on the off-chance.

    In my mod (coming soon!) I have the bug where, after getting hit by antlion acid, the screen flashes white every subsequent time you’re damaged. It’s not exactly game-breaking, just really really annoying. The thing is that the bug also exists in Episode 2 itself and apparently has done for a long time. I was hoping there might be a fix in editing the .res files, but I can’t find a value that affects it. Any chance someone here has a suggestion?

    1. I haven’t tested this, but following the code in Valve’s Github for what happens with DMG_ACID, you might want to look in scripts/HudAnimations.txt. Specifically, the entry HudTakeDamageRadiation. You could try changing its contents to something innocuous and see if it changes in-game. Since I think this bug is from broken code, disabling the effect altogether in HudAnimations.txt might be the next best solution.

      1. Yes, it looks like that does the trick! It’s a shame to have the effect removed from the acid attack, but I think this is better than having it all the time.

        Thanks a lot!

        1. You could theoretically play around with the color values to make it less intense. But yeah, I wouldn’t know how to begin fixing it in code… if the problem is actually in-code. I’m just assuming it is.

  10. just found this half life mod on steam … “headcrab frenzy” is a mad game which basically requires you to kill as many headcrabs as possible .. it uses a quake type sound giving you “double kill” and “triple kill” messages … enjoyed it but can become repetetive !
    http://plays.tv/video/55fbcfbaac3d7be2d8/crazy-half-life-mod-headcrab-frenzy-?oreferer=notifications

  11. Philip, is it possible to have a search function in the Installed Games window? I have quite a few in there now and file names are difficult to scan visually.

    Also, a general question – why do some games I’ve recently played not show up at all in either Steam folder of RTSL folder?

    Specifically – Research and Development.

    1. Hello. Do you mean in MapTap? I am assuming you. That’s a good idea and I will add it to the Roadmap of features. We are also hoping to add a feature that allows to manually add “tags” to each map and mod entered but I can’t say when that will be available.

      Also, a general question – why do some games I’ve recently played not show up at all in either Steam folder of RTSL folder?

      I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you mean. What RTSL folder?

  12. Geoff Wales

    I mean the MapTap list of Installed games.

    It’s OK. It wasn’t installed in MapTap. R&D has an install .exe. I reinstalled and dropped the old Save folder into it.

    Steam seems to drop mods out of its games list periodically.

  13. Geoff Wales

    Research and Development has disappeared again from my Steam Games folder again (see above) Does anybody know why or have advice on what I can do about it?

    1. That’s very strange. Have you made any changes to your mods or settings?

      1. Geoff Wales

        Not that I know about. Lots of mods don’t show up in the Steam Games list. I’ve always assumed it’s because of compatibility issues. This disappearing act has happened to other mods before as well. Offshore was one.

        I had to reinstall R&D again tonight. Brilliant mod – definitely a favourite.

        1. Zekiran

          I replay R&D at least once every few months. It’s brilliant. I like it a lot more than, say, Minerva, honestly. Because it’s got that hilarious tongue in cheek…ness to it. And mister whirly. Best. Car. Ever.

          1. Geoff Wales

            It was a stroke of genius to leave out weapons in R&D. I always play the last part on God mode, so I can relax and enjoy the fun. Mr Whirly is a devil to control, though. The name suits it perfectly. R&D is definitely worth a sequel.

            1. Zekiran

              Don’t you mean ‘squeal’ ? 😀

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