Blogs - ~X~

Hi everyone!
It's just me, %username%, sending pings so you don't have to.

During this month I got a bit better, almost returned to... previous state. Anyway, I'm here. There. As usual.

Being a good-for-nothing addict as I am, I touched the freakin code again. Not much, but... fixed a few things. And maps. And models. And sprites...

Also great news: I wrote some automated search and recovered about 80 more text descriptions for models from the upcoming HLDM megapack! Authors will be happy. A rare case where little effort brings big results.

Now, regarding maps: there's still a lot to do. I'm almost finished reviewing, but there are a few good-looking maps (made by DockRock) remaining that have VERY bad resources inside them. Like 96KHz sounds and duplicated of standard sprites and models under different names.

I also filmed a lot during testing and review. Enough for a YT channel. Too bad Goolag doesn't let me in. YOU READING THIS, GOOGLE!? YOU SUCK! CHANGING IP ADDRESS IS NOT A CRIME! Fucking fucks.

So, this is it. See you!

PS: Happy New Year (despite WEF plans)!

Despite all my effort, I'm out of modding business for some time. Actually, it's BECAUSE of my efforts. To make games.

Yes, I'm sick agin, I've been down since October, got better for 2-3 weeks, wasted it all on G-man invasion and XDM. Unfortunately, despite all of my hopes, immune system didn't hold up well. Overworking and lack of proper sleep doesn't go along with pev->health. As I was days away from releasing a MAJOR XDM update (yes, even the weaponbox mystery seems to be solved), a new HLDM Map Megapack and a HLDM Player Model Megapack, I regret to announce that it most likely won't happen, at least as planned (this year).

My downtime ratio this year was terrible, I had to relocate to get better, but I just couldn't. And this adds to the insult. If people sometimes find me grumpy, yeah, now you know the f***ing reason for that. When every action brings pain, the reaction is obvious.

For example, when Linux does its usual shit like crashing, lagging, scripting and introducing SNAPs, It's driving me mad. Imagine like when you have a broken arm or two and and to get a drinking water you are offered to climb a slippery rotten wooden ladder and tie together uninsulated wires on a kettle, and people around actually laugh at you saying: "cool, good workout for body! we'll add flickering lights and crocodiles to that in the next update!". The whole post-win7 IT experience. To be fair, win10+ is worse.</rant>

So, I'm pulling together my remaining strength, but not making any promises.

I don't imagine many people would be disappointed anyway, but I still do apologize.

See you in the better future.

PS: GTK is shit. Even selecting an image to upload in Firefarts is a pain.

A few years ago I released the Half-Life DM GOLD multiplayer maps century megapack.

It basically includes all maps created over 20+ years of existence of HLDM that are more than barely playable. Inspired by many (quite useful!) packs and collections for other games (e.g. GoodNES. I love torrents!) it had a warm welcome by the public. Unfortunately, as I have next to none marketing skills, nor do I have the time x power to spend, it didn't gain very much traction.

Anyway, since the release I've got a bit of feedback, and while it was mostly words of gratitude, some questions were received. Some of them were repeating or maybe are interesting to wider audience of HL fans, so I decided to post a bit of info here :)

- Q: Whyyy???

Short answer: Because.
Long version: The thing started because for the whole history of Half-Life I've been collecting and playing maps (you DO know that I'm developing a multiplayer mod, right?). All went more or less well while I've downloaded maps from PHL, GB, TWHL, etc. where I could see before I get. But one occasion changed my peaceful existence ) Once, I had to go through a backup of some active HLDM server where lots and lots of user maps (and other resources) were uploaded by players. Boy, what I've seen there cannot be unseen! But - hey - since I've got maps, I can't leave 'em alone! Not until I play all of them... oh... It's over 2000!!

So I made the only decision I could: "FINISH HIM!" At least I'm somewhat qualified. And an obsessed perfectionist.

- Q: Well, to be honest, it's the job of the players to handpick the maps they would like to get. (actual quote)

Yeah, right. Right after you start vomiting after 20th killbox in a row. Or 10th entpatched crossfire that is carefully renamed to someting like HYpErFirE_by_MAdMAN. Or 200th "this is my first map". Or whatever. (actually there are some really good "first maps", they have their place in the map pack). So, I made my collection and saved players their time handpicking jewels out of... dirt. I hope you get the idea. (for the rest see above).

- Q: How did you do it?

By hand. This is a long process to describe. I tried recording it, but, unfortunately, I've lost access to my youtube channel (joined the population of gmail victims). Let's say it required time, patience and lots of tools, not just HL.

- Q: Did you discover anything interesting in the process?

I did, yes. For example, I've seen such amount of leak-proofing skyboxes that could cause serious brain damage to unprepared people. I've seen mappers (I'm staring at you, DocRock_HL !) putting megabytes of 44+KHz 16-bit looping WAVs with their maps (which still get downsampled to 11025 8-bit mono in ugliest possible way by HL)... Lots of ugly stuff. But, on the other side, I've discovered a lot of maps not featured on any major HL-related sites I know of. And some of them were pretty good and made it into the pack.

The scale of the work also helped a big deal discovering bugs in both the Half-Life engine and my mod, XDM, which I used for testing. For example, did you know HL actually transmits mapcycle.txt over the net and prone to crashes? Who would've guessed! No one, until their file gets over 8K in size.

- Q: Did you stop?

Almost. I stopped collecting maps (btw, drop me links if you have something you want to be included!), but I didnt stop searching for missing resources and fixing things. ALSO! I finished making 900 screenshots of all these maps (believe me, it's not fast or easy). And to make this even more useful, I contacted mittorn from the FWGS Xash3D team and asked to implement map preview during selection in the main menu.

- Q: When is the next update coming out?

Unfortunately, all the review work is kept on a computer, which is a bit unreachable for me to turn on. So, the waiting.

PS: why "gold"? Because I had that picture of the golden Gordon figure! :D

Post written thanks to @napoleon2 ) it took 3 hours to write. Also, you can take the Doge if you want. No Doges were harmed during production of this article. Doges must doge.

This post is gonna be a bit personal, but, heck, things need to be explained.

Shit keeps getting more and more serious.
Most of you know where I am (others may just look at the profile, lol). And, as if things weren't hard enough already, we've got WW3 on our hands. People are scared, men getting dragged to front-line, g-men are doing their evil things. And, even if I could, I don't know where to go. You're free to suggest though.

So, I decided to gather remaining resources to finish my current projects (XDM , for the most part), and release them ASAP. The main problem is me being in the middle of treatment and in far from ideal condition. In two words, the only way I can use my sword now is as a walking stick. At most.

The main progress is as follows: CTF_Bridge is 90% complete, the map with the beautiful canal and a nice boat(tm) is about 70%, mostly untouched. I've got some code fixes too, but some bugs are still there.

I also wanted to do a director's commentary on one of youtuber's videos on G-man Invasion, but that's... unlikely to happen now.

I think I'd rather had a bunch of good kids instead of tens of projects...

Hi everyone! Xawari is here.
Long time no see! I'm in a bit of hurry, just dropping a few lines. Don't know really what to say now. I've been through so much lately - hardly describable. Almost knocked on the skies a few times.
Computer-related and gamedev stuff, among other things, took a big toll on my health, but still... Anyway, I'm alive, sort of. And spent some of remaining power on by main project - XDM. News will follow shortly.

Mapping is one of a few joys left in my life. Ok, the only thing. Creation of worlds is so damn addictive! I remember I was mapping and programming from a hospital once or twice (and heavily regretted it later, lol).
Thanks for waiting, for so many years.

HNY every1!

In this year I couldn't do much modding and right now there isn't much worth to be uploaded as a release. Nevertheless, I've gained much expirience in modelling and mapping, so there'll be definitely some interesting content soon!

Moddb.com

Also, we've been collaborating a lot this autumn. Together with Ghoull[bb], Ku2zoff and XF-Alien we are aiming to make unprecedented CoOperative game in Half-Life world. Also I've posted my first video tutorial on YouTube. 8)

Sorry, don't have time to format this message!
Happy holidays everyone!

To be honest, I tried to stop modding once and for all, but I couldn't.
I've made many major changes to the XHL code base, did lots of mapping and modeling work.
Recently, the HL: Weapon Edition mod author, MishGUN, saw an opportunity to use XHL as a platform for his new multiplayer project: the Tyrian mod. We've been working on code stability together, and by far, XDM proves to give more pleasant surprises than undesired ones.
Also, Thunar once again promised to do some mapping help, so I'm delaying the release a little bit.

Well, we'll see what will come out of all of this work... Hope players will enjoy it! :)