Snarkpits 9th birthday is nigh

Snarkpit has been a home away from home for many of us. A home with all the amenities up to and including the family feel. I'd like to thank everyone involved who keeps things not only running smoothly but also who keep things interesting.

/me bows humbly to all.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

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Aaron's Stuff

Ah, same goes back to you Orph! This is a place of good and highly intellectual people. When is the Pit's birthday?

**Dedi** said:
When is the Pit's birthday?

I would venture a good guess would be......... Leps enrollment date?

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The best things in life, aren't things.

One day, when I have enough money (read: a TON of it), i'll throw a giant Pit B-Day Party, and fly everyone out from around the world to throw a get-to-know everyone bash.

Orpheus said:

**Dedi** said:
When is the Pit's birthday?

I would venture a good guess would be......... Leps enrollment date?

Yea, and that would put us at: August 21st. -Good call Orph, I didn't even think about that.

We don't have birthday snarks, but if we did, they'd be floating on that day.

Either way until then, Happy birthday SnarkPit!

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Haha, I first registered on here as Freeman, that was back when Fraggard still posted. That account got deleted because I got into an argument (Yanks read: fight) and I said 'You guys wouldn't delete my account'. The next day, I couldn't log in or find any traces of my posts How brutal of those people. Then I registered this new account and it's been fine ever since. I don't post often now though because I only play Half-Life and am not a 'gamer' as such like most people on this site are.

Oh yeah and I remember when aaron_da_killa was new he got a lot of grief for being a 'Halo fan boy' and I think he was 14 or something at the time so somewhat immature, but I saw quite a change in him as he grew up. Good times Edit, this is what the site looked like back then!

http://web.archive.org/web/20050514082002/http://www.snarkpit.net/

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

It wasn't because he was a Halo fanboy ... it was because his entire world consisted of Halo ... and Banjo-Kazooie. He's grown since then, pretty cool guy now.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Awwwww

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Aaron's Stuff

Haha, you've gotta be cool to get endorsement from someone like Crono

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

Well, since SnarkPit's birthday is coming up soon, how about we all talk about when and why we joined in the first place?

I'll go first...

I got interested in level design in '03 after playing some custom CS levels. Then I started looking up for resources and tutorials on how they did it. Eventually I made my way to the SnarkPit, and started following threads (never creating an account). In '04, HL2 was released towards the end of the year, and with that an explosion of tutorials after the SDK was released. Eventually in 2005, I felt confident enough to begin showing people my work and in May, I signed up to several forums. There were so many newb maps being released at the time, I didn't get a whole lot of feedback, and in shame I actually deleted some of my map threads on other sites. But I stuck with the Pit and began receiving constructive criticism. I was hooked after that, and never looked back. Eventually I started joining the competitions, and commenting on others' maps, and eventually helping out folks in the forums. It was so much fun, I still do it today!

What about you guys?

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

My turn.

Since I was 8 or 9 years old, I already played HL1.

When I completed the single player I wanted to do some multiplayer. I couldn't play online back then but my brother found a mod that lets you play with bots. It's called Botman's Bots.

That was fun for some time, but playing the same maps over and over again got a little boring. Then I found out that there are actually custom maps for the game!

The first map I downloaded was from a cheap site and the map itself wasn't good either, but I had lots of fun with it to play it with bots.

Later I kept looking for half life 1 mapping sites, and found The Snarkpit.

I loved to download maps from here, and to check every once in a while if there were any cool new maps.

Now, 7 years later I found it again, but found it sad that it looked so different.
Anyways, I thought it was a fun place to become a member of, since I already mapped for a year by then. Haha, I immediately had problems registering, so I checked the Snarkpit steam group to see if perhaps an admin could help me.

I ended up asking Riven (lol!) and it seemed no one has been able to join the Snarkpit for 6 weeks. lol I discovered a major bug

The friendly community kept me mapping and staying here.

May the Snarkpit live forever!

Edit: Oh, and Kampy, I think I told you this before but you were my favorite mapper back then 1337_street ftw ^^

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Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Nibgames

I started playing the game and mapping in 1999. I started off slow like most people. For once, I was smart and waitied until I had a decent playable map to relase. I haven't made many maps.... maybe 12 or so for HL, a few for HL2, and then several for Soldier of Fortune 2 and other Q3 engine games like call of duty, etc. The maps that gained the most popularity for HL1 were dabo ag_crossfire and my castle maps like castle_overload and 5_5castle, etc. For SoF2, my league maps like mp_siege and mp_upperclass were very popular and still get played. I had accounts at snarkpit from the beginnings but after time forgot my logins and did the lazy thing and created a new account. Great place, good knowledge that people share and definetly an original setup here. I have been using snarkpit more and more lately and I hope others do as well. There isn't too many places left for us old school mappers unless we are mapping for newer games. No place has the look and feel of snarkpit Happy Birthday!

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web
Half-Life, Half-Life 2, and Q3 engine mapping

First of all, Happy Birthday Snarkpit!!

Well, for my reasons on joining was originally because KoRnFlakes (my brother) was on here and I quite enjoyed just bantering away on the forums!
Eventually I tried making a map (TS_Terrace) which was good fun to make but by then HL2 was not too far from release and I stopped mapping!!
Then the dreaded time came when I moved onto other things, work / relationshit / other life stuff and wasn't really about on the computer so much.
When I heard that the orig pit URL changed with other stuff I thought I would register, but disappeared yet again! Then here I be now, just a random browse every so often to see how things are!

Seems weird to think about just how long ago I first joined pit, I remember checking the forums at school :S

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My reasons for joining The Pit are clear as daylight. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the Half-Life series, Valve Software, and all their works of art are my absolute favourites. It was much of a 'love at first sight' relationship when I first met Half-Life, having seen my brother play Uplink from a demo CD. I must have been only 8-9 years old. Even today, the nostalgia about those great times hits me so hard that I can't help myself but go and play Half-Life again. The magic of Valve cannot be matched by anyone. I remember after we finished playing the game(my brother and I), we started making maps for fun. We made single player maps, and then we played each other's maps. They were crude, but are some of the fondest memories I have. It was the joy of creation that also added to the experience. I then started making multi-player maps in hope of playing them on a couple of machines, against my brother. I then started looking around for sites to do with Half-Life on the internet, and came across The SnarkPit, which had a collection of great maps, tutorials, and people who were very helpful with editing advice. I always planned to contribute to the site by making many maps for everyone to share. My single biggest map, Boot_Camp_2 never made it, even though it's still lying around, but today, with the pressure of University, who knows when, if ever it will be finished.

All I know is, it's connected to my childhood. Half-Life, Valve, The PIT. One never forgets special memories weaved to one's childhood.

Happy Birthday Snarkpit! The creativity here is palpable.

There's not enough time, nor text available to tell what I've accomplished since I've come here.
But think about it, who'd give up the chance to be on the ground level of a brand new and up and coming website for HL1?

Snarkpit at its peak rivaled many of the top elite websites dedicated to HL... With a much smaller clientele. AND in keeping with a family feel. Sounds nice to me.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I got into WorldCraft 2.1 back in 2004 after reading the page in the Half-Life manual about WorldCraft, the thought of creating my own Half-Life levels was very cool!

I came across Snarkpit when I was browsing the internet for some tuts on Half-Life level design and I came across this place. It was the tutorials and maps that initially attracted me but then I started following the forum threads too and decided I wanted to join in as well so about 6 months after first finding Snarkpit I created an account and it was the first forum I posted in.

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Aaron's Stuff

These dates may be off a bit. It was just to freaking long ago to recall.
Date: Approximately 1996 I discover computers. My first joy "Sim city" The original, and the best IMO. Played it on my friends Tandy 1000. I think it was a 15 mhz powerhouse.
Date: Approximately late 1996 early 1997. Got my first pc. A whopping 486.I discover Doom 1 and 2. Oddly enough, I had no interest in first person shooters for a while and they were already old games before I played them the first time. I cannot remember the dates but my first "most played" game was Civilisation 2. Civ 1 was ok, but civ 2 was "WOWZERS" I literally played it 100's of times. LONG ater HL1 was released I was still playing Civ 2. I also played a shitload of strategy games like "Generals" and their ilk. RTS games superceeded 1st person games for a very long time in the beginning.
Date: Approximately early to mid 1997 I discover "Duke Nukem 3d" and the Build editor. I tried mapping for Doom 1 and 2 but it was way to hard. You gotta understand that my only connection to anything outside my home was through our local BBS and nobody was interested in mapping so of course I had no tutorials to reference. The build editor if I recall, came with a fairly detailed tutorial section on the disc. I made several maps for our BBS group. Mostly uninthusiastic and unadorned, glorified boxes if I recall. About this time that I discovered... "THE INTERNET" None of my Duke maps followed me because....
Date: 1998 I discover Half-Life in a bargain bin at best buy. So I assume it was already old by then.
Date: February 1998 I help form what eventually became one of the biggest HL clans. The Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with 2 other guys, Misery from Indiana, and Lazerus from Germany.
Date: 1998-2001 I haunt several websites. Notably "Global Assault, PHL and Prefabland". I stayed with GA and PFL until GA upgraded to a pay to join website and PFL closed down.

Date: August 26 2001. A date most around here probably came to regret, I join Snarkpit. With the assistance of many of the first members we incorperated many new ideas including the "Constructive Critisism" and "Better mapping through better teaching" Snarkpit became one of the first HL websites to NOT concentrate on the mappers feelings. Our goal was to make you a better mapper. You'd feel better after you became confident in yourself as a mapper so our primary concern wasn't if you got upset. Most sites at that time would go out of their way to not be negative with regards to maps or their authors. Most of us came to believe that "Negative Feedback" was much more effective than "Positive" since good mapping almost always speaks for itself without anyone pointing it out.

Snarkpit also incorperated "eventually" pictorial critiques as an effective level editing teaching tool. Many of us believed that critiques before release were as valuable if not more valuable than an after release review system. There were by far, way more critiques done than reviews in any case.

Date: 2007. I move to Oklahoma and my Internet days were cut to zero. The past 3 years or so I have contributed almost nothing to Snarkpit and even though I love where I live, it is my one regret about moving.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Wow, fascinating insight Orph I am surprised Half-Life was in the bargain bin in 1998 because it was only released in November 1998 Even in 1999 I would be surprised if it was in the bargain bin. Hell, I got the Generation Pack for £10 (British equivilent of Dollars) back in 2003. It wouldn't surprise me if your dates were more than a bit off with that one

I can sooo relate to what you said about mapping. It is fairly obscure now, let alone back then! Not sure what a BBS is but I'll take your word for it. I was only six when you discovered computers lol, before 2000 they were largely a mystery to me. You could say the Snarkpit's approach to encouraging better mapping was largely old fashioned in a way, yet effective. I know that approach can be applied to all things in life and normally gets good, if questionable results.

Alright enough of that shit, now it's my turn to post about how I got into the Snarkpit. It starts with me seeing a friend play the game at a terribly low resolution and without the highly detailed HD pack. Before I discovered Half-Life my only experience had been with RTS and racing games. There was another game I liked of particular reference called 'Total Annihilation' which was the main game I played when I was allowed on the computer (gotta remember I was about 12 at the time). I really liked that game a lot and I have many happy memories of it but lusted after something more.

I had a Quake commercial on one of my 'Demo' CDs (they were all the rage back in the 90s!) which I kept playing again and again, in amazement of how such action could be possible in a video game. What I wanted was a detailed, realistic and action packed first person shooter. Half-Life fitted the bill perfectly

I completed Half-Life and was utterly in awe of the things I experienced. inbetween playing Total Annihilation and discovering Half-Life my only other experience of a 'shooting' game was Tomb Raider 2, which did everything interesting through cut scenes, so the player could never have the chance to interfere. As you can imagine, in Half-Life there is only one cut scene and that is because the player is unconscious at the time. It amazed me that Half-Life had a plan for everything, for example if the player interfered with a scripted scene the NPCs or what have you would simply stop naturally and could be directed to their task again by the player's command. Such major things, like the dam exploding infront of you on Surface Tension were just mind blowing to me.

I was exploring the Half-Life CD for a reason that I cannot remember and came across the 'World Craft' world editor as it was called back then. I opened the tutorial PDF and found some basic instructions. I really couldn't believe that this program was the main tool used for building Half-Life. I just couldn't believe it was the program that the level designers at Valve used! And they let the fans have it! It was unpresidented. Tomb Raider 2 never came with a level editor. Total Annihilation never came with a level editor. I think Valve pretty much started the trend of including level editors with games.

The fact that I could build my own levels was amazing, the possibilities endless. Unfortunately this was before I had a home internet connection, so if I encountered a problem it was normally the end of my map I did post here from school though, I remember making threads and Fraggard used to help me out a lot. I came here still when the 'old guard' were going strong. I would also download prefabs, save them onto disk and bring them home to put in my 'maps'.

I put maps in quotes because they were very rudimentary. Yes I had the typical box map as my first map with a drinks machine, troopers and a zombie with a leak in it (too excited to put a roof on). but in my defense I quickly grew out of that and made maps with corridors and different rooms. These were normally textured weirdly, I could never work out how Valve used textures (until I was a lot older) and everything in my maps was completely out of scale. For example a door would be twice as big as a normal door. Ceilings were too high, textures were upscaled rather than matched to right sized brushes and there were a few light entities around the map, I didn't understand the importance of proper lighting.

I started a few maps for HL1 but I didn't have at home internet access back then so I always encountered problems were I had to stop. I really found it interesting to try and recreate some of my favourite Half-Life environments through using Hammer. They would always be off scale and lacking important details but I was learning, albeit slowly. I only got serious about mapping for Half-Life 2 mainly because I had internet access, was older and had a lot of advice from people off here among other websites. I only map single player because that is the most enjoyable for me and because of the lack of single player maps out there (a lot of them are simply adapted from a multiplayer map as an afterthough). I made three maps which is a nice number and I'm happy with that.

I can't see myself making another map in the foreseeable future, mapping and gaming itself is just such an obscure part of my life now, I occasionly play Half-Life 2, but mapping is such a big commitment and is so time consuming that it really gets in the way of stuff. As one gets older one gets busier until they retire so I am lucky if I even get to play Half-Life at all! So uh, yeah, that is how I found Snarkpit, the long way found I got carried away, what can I say Loads of happy memories from HL, mapping and Snarkpit though, it was always a good help to me with people who knew what they were doing and enthusiastic about making levels for this great game

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

That's quite the interesting story Flynn!! Brings back quite a few fond memories for me of old time mapping! I actually really feel like making some HL1 map but I don't even have it installed any more (I still prefer the old time non steam version too!)

I used to love trying to make single player maps, just a shame with like many things I get some quite cool ideas but implementing them is another thing entirely! I could possibly try making some kind of map for Half life 2 while I'm still finding it extremely difficult to find permanent work, but given, I doubt my ability to map something so detailed!

[Edit]

I just read through the posts on the map I made a while back. Man I took them far too offensively back then! But I was young, taking criticism wasn't really something I was any good at!

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Heh, thanks. Committing to a map is a big undertaking, no doubt. Normally I find even if I am trying to keep things small they always expand. I always tried to make my ideas come alive in my maps but it never quite worked out in the end product If you come up against a problem then you have to research that for several hours or spend time making a topic to get an answer which can take days! No wonder Valve are taking so long with Episode 3

Also I agree that it's good fun looking back through your old posts, if only I could find some of my posts on my old account, too bad it was deleted. I really can't see myself playing video games that often anymore, hopefully I'm wrong.

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

What was your old account name Flynn? It may still be in the database, just inactive.

I can check for you.

Pegs said:
I just read through the posts on the map I made a while back. Man I took them far too offensively back then! But I was young, taking criticism wasn't really something I was any good at!

I know what ya mean. When you're young like that, everything is personal. You don't have much of a barrier (depending on the personality) at that age to fall back on when getting critical feedback. You know it's not the best map ever, but you also know you haven't overlooked anything, so when they point out something you've missed, you don't usually agree with them. It takes a bit of experience to understand where other people come from I think.

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Hey thanks Riven. I didn't realise you are a superadmin now! It was simply 'Freeman', original I know What can you expect from a 13 year old Pretty sure it was deleted though and there's no way to search the memberlist. It was also on the old website.

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

Is this the account? http://www.snarkpit.net/index.php?p=viewprofile&uid=7799&c=1

It's not deleted, but it sure does look like it's been disconnected from any content you ever posted with that account. Most likely to do with the server change. So I could probably get you access to it again, but it would start you from root one.

Also, you can search for users if you know their name already by using the "send PM" command in the messages tab on your control panel.

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Snarkpit was truly lucky at its beginning. Its core members were for the most part of like mindedness, and dedicated to not only mapping betterment, but to the success of Snarkpit itself.

There were disagreements of course, many of which had yours truly at the center, but by and large we all tended to agree with what, and how mapping should be addressed... Not that we all made the same maps,but how to construct one and bring it to fruition.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

"Orpheus" said:
Snarkpit was truly lucky at its beginning.

You're always referring to the Pit in past tense. Even though we're not as active as we used to be years ago, I think that the Pit still has all those qualities. Even though many of us are busy as anything, we still make time to check in at least once a week I'd say, and make our contributions to the site.

We still have quite a few disagreements going around these days. Look at the HL1 vs HL2 thread for perfect evidence.

As good as things may be, they are but a tiny shadow of our peak. 100's of posts per day were common. Besides, this is a birthday thread. Reminiscing about the past is why its here. Things could have turned out much differently, without that past methinks.

Begin a "present tense" thread if you want one.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Riven said:
Is this the account? http://www.snarkpit.net/index.php?p=viewprofile&uid=7799&c=1

It's not deleted, but it sure does look like it's been disconnected from any content you ever posted with that account. Most likely to do with the server change. So I could probably get you access to it again, but it would start you from root one.

Also, you can search for users if you know their name already by using the "send PM" command in the messages tab on your control panel.

Riven, right name but wrong Reg date It would have been before this account, how long before I don't know. Maybe just a couple months.

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

Flynn said:
Riven, right name but wrong Reg date It would have been before this account, how long before I don't know. Maybe just a couple months.

How you figure. your account says 2004. The blank account says 2008. 48 months would hardly be enough to get it before 2004, let alone a couple.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Not as far back but still with past tense... whatever happened to Gwil and Larchy?

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Aaron's Stuff

Orpheus said:

Flynn said:
Riven, right name but wrong Reg date It would have been before this account, how long before I don't know. Maybe just a couple months.

How you figure. your account says 2004. The blank account says 2008. 48 months would hardly be enough to get it before 2004, let alone a couple.

Hiya Orph. I think I registered that account in 2004, just a few months earlier than this one. For some reason it says that it was registered in 2008 though which is wrong. I had the microwave avatar on that old account as well.

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

aaron_da_killa said:
Not as far back but still with past tense... whatever happened to Gwil and Larchy?

Gwil still lurks around once a week or so, as far as I know, and larchy is now busy with the police academy and doesn't have time to work with the Pit any more. If we ever have an emergency though, larchy usually responds and helps out on the fly, so he's not completely gone

Oh, and sorry about that Flynn, I mean I guess you already came to that realization a LONG time ago, but yea, the reg date on that older account syncs up with the server move so, It must be gone. -Also, you must not have had many posts on it?

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Ah, so we have two trainee cops on this website now then?

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

Well, one may be considered off-site for now I suppose

Also, in other news, our good friend Niborius won't be joining us for a while simply because of a new condition he was diagnosed with called "RSI" or "mouse arm" more specifically.

The guy won't be able to post in any length for the next 5 months while he has to let his wrist heal. Apparently, extended amounts of time (6 hours at a time) of mapping helped to induce his wrist and indeed his whole arm into this condition.

So, please wish him well as I'm sure he'll find his own chances to perhaps lurk over us during this time and check posts. Also as I understand it, he's currently limiting himself to nothing but 30 minutes a day on the computer in hopes that will decrease the time it takes.

I hope you make a speedy recovery Nib!

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Oh, that's unfortunate. Get well soon Nib! Wish you a speedy recovery.

Holy crap, how does one maintain concerntration for that long!?

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

Oh snap! I remember him telling me he couldn't map because it was hurting his wrist and he was trying to use his other hand to map or something.. but I didn't think it was that serious! Get well soon nib we'll miss ya! Make sure to post occasionally.

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Aaron's Stuff

RAWRR! Long live the pit!

ok I guess that's enough out of the noob

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"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most" -Ozzy Osbourne

happy b-day SP

/me waves at Master Blister. Long time no see ol man.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Hey guys! Funny to think ol' Snarky has been going for 9 whole years now. Just one more until it's been around a full decade! Quite an achievement, that. I can't think of any Half-Life site that's been around as long actually, except perhaps Planet Half-Life, which I had no idea was still going until I checked just now.

So I'm a bit late, but happy birthday to The Snarkpit, and a toast to its many denizens - past, present, and future

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Hey glad to see you stop in Reno! Ya we're still going pretty steadily. Although things tend to get a little bit more quiet during this time of the year though. How have you been? Has your company been working on something due for release soon?

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Howdy Riven! Aye it's not been prime level design season has it. Hard to feel motivated to sit in front of a computer working away when the sun is burning your back through the window. Then again, that's why they invented curtains

I've been well ta Been a rather busy year filled with plenty of changes - starting a new company, moving flat twice, new girlfriend which has just become a long-distance relationship, and so on - but on the whole life is pretty grand.

At my company we recently released a pilotwings-esque game called AvaGlide, and I'm currently working on a sequel (well...standalone expansion) to that. It's Xbox 360 only for the full game but there IS a PC demo that sadly doesn't feature the titular Avatars as they are Xbox only. It's just a little $1 game so not gonna set the world on fire, but we got a lot of positive press on it so we were pretty stoked http://www.avaglide.com/

Perhaps more relevant to Snarkpitter's is the game we worked on at Outerlight before I left has FINALLY been announced! It's being published as a Steam/XBLA game by Ubisoft, and it's called Bloody Good Time. It's similar to the previous Outerlight game "The Ship" in that it's a multiplayer FPS, and it's a source engine based game too (no SDK though, sorry!). I built a couple of the levels and did a load of other design duties on this one, so I'm super pleased it's finally getting released. http://www.ubi.com/UK/Games/Info.aspx?pId=9098

That said, it's also killed any and all motivation I ever had to work with the Source engine ever again, which is probably a big part of the reason I'm not around these forums much these days! Always get nostalgic for a visit once in a while though. SP will always hold a special place in my heart I think

How are things with you? How you enjoying holding the reigns on the Snarkpit?

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Hey ReNo nice to see you've stopped by.

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Aaron's Stuff

Hey ReNo! Good to see a lot of the old-timers still around, visiting every now and again.

Whatever happened to Lep though? He hasn't been around for years has he?

Hey guys, good to see you both still active here too!

I've no idea where Lep's at these days I'm afraid. Myrk - his brother - was around more recently from what I recall, and would be the man to ask, but that was probably some time ago as well.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

It certainly has been a while...

That's awesome to hear you started your own games company! Pretty exciting I imagine. Although, I always hear the programmer should be in charge of development.
Is that true with your games?

Oh, and yes, the SnarkPit's future is safely secured at least for a while now. Recently this summer, Gwil turned over the hosting and domain to me to keep going, as he was getting less and less time to even visit on a once-a-week basis. Which I don't blame, so many things to do during your 20s; it's hard devoting time to any hobby that doesn't earn you a living!

Not many changes ahead soon, as Larchy our web coder has also moved on, at least in occupation... so we don't get an "on-demand" fix on everything that might pop-up, unless it's an emergency, he's usually good about responding to that. There's no way he'd want to walk out on his "creation"

So, all-in-all we're pretty stable, we have users posting every day if not every other day, and others responding. Not many reviews abound though (I'm guilty as well), but nonetheless, download counts still rise, and we have a healthy traffic rate day to day. Also, most users ever online simultaneously since the new site launched reached a new height in August. So I can safely say, we're still an asset to the mapping community, and am glad to help keep it going.

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

I'm glad it's all in good hands Riven I think it's fairly standard across the wider mapping community that activity has slowed down a bit. The golden era of games modding is probably past us now, with new games really requiring whole teams of people to create levels rather than doing it solo. Plus there's so many games to choose from now, coming out so often, that most don't have a long enough lifespan to support a lively mod scene. Think how many years after HL came out we were still churning away at it - hard to think that people would do the same for many releases these days.

Still, it's never gonna go away completely, as if nothing else the people who want to go into the industry as a career are gonna keep at it, and some will still look to it as an interesting and increasingly challenging hobby.

Things with the new company are indeed exciting! It's tough, but we're optimistic about the future We're a 3 man team, with 2 programmers and myself as designer/artist/programmer. We'll probably take on a dedicated artist at some point but for the time being we've made do by outsourcing a bit, by me doing a bit, and by picking our projects carefully to avoid large art requirements! In terms of who's in charge? Well I guess Alex, one of the programmers, tends to take the reigns and act as our producer, having had experience in that area before. We all make the decisions together though. I think having a producer with programming know how is definitely useful, but producers can equally come from a design background as long as they pay attention to what their programmers tell them is feasible within the time and budget!

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Well you could always just make a StarCraft 2 section. It's fairly easy to edit.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.