Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by Orpheus on
Sat Aug 26th 2006 at 9:36pm
Orpheus
member
13860 posts
2024 snarkmarks
Registered:
Aug 26th 2001
Occupation: Long Haul Trucking
Location: Long Oklahoma - USA
Today, 5 years ago, a date that will live in infamy.
Happy anniversary to me.... And belatedly,Snarkpit
/me takes a silent moment of reflection.
The best things in life, aren't things.
Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by BlisTer on
Sat Aug 26th 2006 at 10:19pm
Posted
2006-08-26 10:19pm
BlisTer
member
801 posts
1304 snarkmarks
Registered:
Jun 10th 2004
Location: Belgium
ofcourse it will. only, it will be just general banter. the word "mapping" will be a vague memory
These words are my diaries screaming out loud
Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by Orpheus on
Sat Aug 26th 2006 at 10:31pm
Posted
2006-08-26 10:31pm
Orpheus
member
13860 posts
2024 snarkmarks
Registered:
Aug 26th 2001
Occupation: Long Haul Trucking
Location: Long Oklahoma - USA
In the famous words of someone I wish I knew... "I have a dream"
Snarkpit will be here... If I have anything to do with it.
looks toward Duncan and John
Yeah... a good dream.
(I only posted this thread because over the next month or three, many Snarkpit anniversaries will occur.)
The best things in life, aren't things.
Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by fishy on
Sun Aug 27th 2006 at 11:05am
Posted
2006-08-27 11:05am
fishy
member
2623 posts
1476 snarkmarks
Registered:
Sep 7th 2003
Location: glasgow
Rumple, is that the real Barney in your avatar?
i eat paint
Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by reaper47 on
Sun Aug 27th 2006 at 12:46pm
Posted
2006-08-27 12:46pm
2827 posts
1921 snarkmarks
Registered:
Feb 16th 2005
Location: Austria
It's not more than year for me but I like it here.
:beerchug:
Happy anniversary, SnarkPit!
Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by Cassius on
Sun Aug 27th 2006 at 3:43pm
Cassius
member
1989 posts
238 snarkmarks
Registered:
Aug 24th 2001
I meant to announce this on the 22nd but forgot. Happy birthday, old Snarky. Now, if only we could get Lep to show up for the occasion.
Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by Naklajat on
Sun Aug 27th 2006 at 6:59pm
1137 posts
384 snarkmarks
Registered:
Nov 15th 2004
Occupation: Baron
Location: Austin, Texas
FOOOOOOR she's a jolly good website,
for she's a jolly good website,
for she's a jolly good websiiiiiiiiite, that nobody can deny!
o
Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by fishy on
Sun Aug 27th 2006 at 11:53pm
Posted
2006-08-27 11:53pm
fishy
member
2623 posts
1476 snarkmarks
Registered:
Sep 7th 2003
Location: glasgow
piss off the two of you....
i eat paint
Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by FatStrings on
Mon Aug 28th 2006 at 1:52am
1242 posts
144 snarkmarks
Registered:
Aug 11th 2005
Occupation: Architecture Student
Location: USA
<span style="color: white;">it'd better stay
<span style="color: lightblue;">i wouldn't have much else to do with my life if the pit were to died
a year and 20 some days for me
</span></span>
Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by Kampy on
Mon Aug 28th 2006 at 2:35am
Kampy
member
304 posts
716 snarkmarks
Registered:
Dec 30th 2003
Occupation: student
Location: Germany
yahoo!! a big shout out to my old mapping comrades xD
Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by Cassius on
Tue Aug 29th 2006 at 8:31am
Cassius
member
1989 posts
238 snarkmarks
Registered:
Aug 24th 2001
I came here when the site was blue and white, and the forums, I believe, some EZBoard template. OP4 was at the height of its popularity at the time, and the classic style of its maps, their cleaner, more intricate rendering of HL1SP and HL1DM's themes, was the style to emulate, though that we were so impressed by an engine in retrospect so meager seems absurd now. At the time, HL2 was a rumor steeped in skepticism to the point of ridicule - Valve's own Duke Nukem Forever. We still had Worldcraft, r_speeds and three-day compiles. Moulding smooth-lit, flowing terrain on a pre-Q3 engine was an art, and the community - we could still call it the community, then, with its recognizable greats, collective advances in science, technique and stylistic trends - resounded at the sight of convincing natural scenes.
I was inspired by de_dust2 to create a map plastered with advertisements for my then-website. At the time, I thought maps were created with lines of code. I came here and got the tools. Save for the stumbling blocks of having to change WADs between maps and extremely slow compiles, Worldcraft was extremely intuitive and accessible. I still relish how mapping was then, without reliance on bump maps or model props - it put real pressure on the mapper, and in HL1's later years the texture artist, to choke detail out of a wheezing engine with a playerbase that, though we didn't like to admit it, was waning. Before HL2's announcement, the art of custom mapping - and I mean the art of it, not the process of knocking brushes together into a killbox or an iceworld and releasing it - had long ceased to be appreciated by the community at large (cue woes over the popularity of simplistic over intricate pieces). The complex map, with legitimate aesthetic quality and well-thought out layouts, and the fun map, with its stripped focus on unmitigated shoot-em-up gameplay, offering even little cover, briefly saw the promise of union towards HL1's zenith - notably in ts_dojo, RD's politically blasphemous funmaps, my own zevink_stoucs, and countless others.
Snarkpit itself was a recognized number one over the sparse, patently newbish havens for first timers and fun mappers that occasionally surfaced. Mapcore, along with the official mapping forums of Natural Selection, Firearms, and The Specialists, are all that comes to mind when I consider any genuine rivals to our reputation, activity, and closeness as a community. Our contests routinely saw our dingy engine render pieces that for five straight years after HL1's release continued to surpass the visuals of newer games. We saw the genesis of legends - ReNo, KFS, CJ, and DocRock, among others, became the best-known of those in the community. Orpheus, Leperous, Gollum, Brasso, Myrk, Monqui, myself, and plenty of others, though we had quieter reputations, all proactively contributed to the site long after many of us had put down the Hammer ourselves, and we created an incomparably involved and dedicated community.
We remained small even at the height of our popularity, I've heard, because many mappers were afraid to submit their work to our blunt style of criticism - which, in a community full of obsequiousness to mediocre artists, was invariably the most honest, extensive, and thought-out style of criticism to be found. Absolutely no other mapping community could boast a rotation of regulars who would download any map posted, run through it, screenshot dozens of rough patches, even playtest it with others, and then thoroughly summarize their experiences with the piece on the boards - all out of no real obligation and for absolutely no compensation outside of the satisfaction that comes with helping in another's artistic process.
Outside of mapping, we remain to this day a strong community of individuals - and, with Lep's absence and the disappointments of the HL2 engine, the site is beginning to become more about the individuals than the art that brought them together. We invite political and interpersonal drama where others, even online, would shy away from honest discussion and it's brutality. I'll be honest: I first came to this site when I was in the sixth grade, and I wouldn't hesitate to point to our well-implemented principles of bluntness as having had some influence on the development of my character. Few other people I meet value heartfelt exchange, with the possibility of brutality and melodrama it carries.
This post is ridiculously long. The chase: Snarkpit, may we never grow apart.
Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by BlisTer on
Tue Aug 29th 2006 at 11:49am
Posted
2006-08-29 11:49am
BlisTer
member
801 posts
1304 snarkmarks
Registered:
Jun 10th 2004
Location: Belgium
throughout the 2+ years i come here, i never saw you write like this. It was always a kind of enfant-terrible or witty remark. /me adjusts opinion. that was really well put, with the kind of emotion i feel too.
These words are my diaries screaming out loud
Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by Tracer Bullet on
Tue Aug 29th 2006 at 4:21pm
2271 posts
445 snarkmarks
Registered:
May 22nd 2003
Occupation: Graduate Student (Ph.D)
Location: Seattle WA, USA
Indeed.
Some people are like slinkys...
They aren?t really good for anything, but you can't help but laugh when one tumbles down the stairs.
Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by M_Gargantua on
Tue Aug 29th 2006 at 7:59pm
50 posts
5 snarkmarks
Registered:
Dec 12th 2004
Location: Someplace else
I remember snarkpit in the begginning, I was here in one form or another, in a long lost time.
and I do belive that I had some major impact on SP over the years. even if it is only noticeable now by the actions of her members. many of whom I grew up with/ mentored/ assisted/ debated with/ reviews/ etc.
I hope this creation loses its change to stagnation and grows once again, maybe then lep will see that it needs him and he will return for good.
maybe
Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by Gorbachev on
Wed Aug 30th 2006 at 2:21am
1569 posts
264 snarkmarks
Registered:
Dec 1st 2002
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
I forgot if the joined date for me was changed when that first membership wipe happened. Even according to that it's been almost 4 years.
I got scolded when I said I was finishing my classic HL based maps before going to source, but I want to see those last bits of art to fruition. Every generation has its "noob-tools" (I'm looking at you, prefabs.) Haha.
Re: 5 years, where has all that time gone? (Snarkpit is FIVE YEARS OLD)
Posted by French Toast on
Fri Sep 1st 2006 at 11:26pm
Posted
2006-09-01 11:26pm
3043 posts
304 snarkmarks
Registered:
Jan 16th 2005
Occupation: Kicking Ass
Location: Canada
Hah, the thought of someone PMing you and saying you're a douche somehow amuses me :biggrin: