New Mod team Seeking HL1 designers!

Cassius said:
About CS clones, what amount of CS clones are actually released? Can you show me a CS clone that is a mod for HL? Because that's the main criticism that every mod on earth seems to be rated by, and so far I have seen none.

None, and that's the point. They are started by teams of clueless people who want to make a mod but have no ideas beyond police vs. criminals, one-death-and-your-out rounds, and Arctic Warfare/Magnum sniper rifles. Obviously the big serious teams who are trying to bring something new to the table aren't CS clones, but you must've never seen the bowels of the HL modding community if you think no one tried making one.

i can, think large, very large..

...hmm, Orph, I may be mistaken ... but you don't have to 'imagine' it at all :biggrin:

As for the 'designer hunt': Not many people will join a team if there is nothing to show for their ideas/work besides some text.

Something that would be very encouraging would be all the other team members experience in the tools their usage (A team resume in other words).

Also, this might sound cheesy, but, has anyone on your team, at all, studied the life cycle for software engineering?
If you haven't, take a look. It will be very valuable.

Right now, to me, it looks like you have nothing to show. I mean, thats fine if you don't want to show any of your work in fear that someone will steal it, but come on; get creative, there are ways you can show pre-production stuff to captivate people and not screw your self.

Such as, do you guys have any pre-production art?
If you do, showing some of that would be a great way to get people.

Maybe even talking about some of the techniques you would use to get functionalities to work well. You could talk about minor things such that the "big shabang" isn't given away.

There's a lot that should be done before you even begin thinking about mapping for a mod. In fact, everything should be designed to be engine/platform/language independant at the beginning.

But maybe this is too 'in depth'.

.... And now I slowly realise no one would ever want to work on any sort of programming project with me (not from the pit anyway).

I'm sure Edge would appreciate this sort of thought process though.

Its all entirely true to be honest...though the software development lifecycle makes for the most boring university module I've ever had the displeasure of having. Necessary yes, but certainly not entertaining :biggrin: Its also a pity we got the module tailored for crappy java projects, without so much as a mention towards game development...its nice to have things put in perspective for your own area just to see where things apply.

Seriously cass, what the hell is with you sometimes? Why must you go out on the offensive to just about every single person who comes here?! Is it because you have your precious reputation as the snarkpit's resident "mean guy" to keep up? Or is it just that you have such pride in your stamp of hate that you feel the need to flaunt it whenever possible?

About weapon renders - WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH IT?

Seriously, its become like some unwritten law that posting them will be the downfall of your mod, and it simply isn't true. Cass, would you say creating textures would currently be a big waste of time? I mean even if you make them in the wrong format or the wrong size or whatever, its still helping to refine the look you are aiming for right? Weapon renders are essentially the same - so what if used too many polys?! You now have high poly concepts to work from, you now have examples of the calibre of your modelling staff, and you now have demonstrations of, if using fictional weapons, how they are going to look. That my friend, is not useless. Oh and figure into this that Valve have SAID how many polys their weapon and character models use in HL2, so mod teams can have a pretty good guide on how many to use in order to have useable weapons.

So basically, NOT a waste of time then eh?

I agree that it is definately not a waste of time... I think the problem comes when all we ever see from a mod is unskinned weapon renders, which is a long way off a working skined in-game image. It is a good excercise, but the pointless part is posting endless unskinned weapon renders that don't really show that progress has been made on the mod.

If I were making a mod, I would try to start off concentrating on a decent theme to the game play, making god awful models and weapons myself, together with 'functional' maps. If this turned out to be a good concept for a game, people would like it, and people would come along wanting to make better versions of the weapons/models/etc for the 'cool new mod'. If the game concept doesn't work, then the same concept with amazing visuals isn't going to work either is it...

It's an easy way to direct "mod marketing" at trigger happy gun loving teenagers :razz: That's all.

Guns just "look" cool.

Oh I don't think mods should be sending these unskinned renders off to PHL or anything - its a waste of time. This doesn't mean it is pointless to make them though - they are good motivation for the internal team, and are at least something to show to potential recruits.

Jeff, thats the exact same premise I had for developing ELVA - prototype it in HL1 and then shift it to HL2 - albeit with actual coders and modellers doing there respective bits. Pity I was so damn indecisive with the shifting HL2 release date, just couldn't decide whether it should be HL1 or HL2 :biggrin: Ah well...once HL2 makes an appearance at least there will be a significant amount of design work completed should we decide to bring it back.

Guns just look "cool".

There ya go :smile:

I thought you had given up on that ReN?

Not necessarily for good, see how we feel about it once HL2 comes out. I wouldn't blame anyone for not wanting to do it, though anyone who did want to would be welcome back on board. I don't know for sure, as I say, just see how we feel about it once HL2 is out and we have had some time with it.

Maybe I can help... we are learning 3DS and solidworks in my course next year... in theory I should be able to produce accurate models using 3DS of mechanical objects... or something :smile:

LOL, this thread isn't meant to be for me recruiting for ELVA, its meant for this other team :biggrin:

Seems to me that Cassius is an idiot. I would appreciate it if you kept your stamp of lameness to yourself. But hey, every community has to have the guy with the big yap right?

The rest of you who would agree that working on anything before the engine is relesed = a waste of time, are also idiots. so please stop commenting on this thread. you give me a headache.

We're looking for people to join the team from the beginning stages, not based off how well we are already doing... that doesnt seem hard to understand. your either down with it or your not?

Most of our team do have personal web pages, (in regards to team resumes) which you would find out by chatting with us on our site..But i see no reason in spamming all these web urls in addition to the recruiting post itself. that seems a tad desperate to me.. and im not sure it would be met with encouragement on these forums anyways. hate hate hate! heheh

If it sounds like something that interests you, you would hit our forums, make yourself known, and very quickly afterward would find out the caliber of team we have. again, not too hard.

if you don't like the mod idea.. then simply move on.. no hard feelings here!

i love unbiased people.

shlep!

RTk-Team

I dont feel labelling people who have an opposing view as idiots is that sensible.

True, but labelling idiots as idiots is only fair. :razz:

/apologises for angry little goons

rtk-team said:
The rest of you who would agree that working on anything before the engine is relesed = a waste of time, are also idiots. so please stop commenting on this thread. you give me a headache.

Well now, it sure seems like you'll have a real successful time working in a group where people will have disagreements about the direction of the mod. I hope your headache doesn't get too incapacitating. :rolleyes:

Whoa there Reno, that's not what I was getting at in the least. I agree with Vash's first posts, in that most HL2 mods have only weapon renders to show, C132 (if that's the right number) being the only exception to my knowledge.

RTK, all I have to say is good luck on your mod; speaking for all the loudmouthed idiots in the world, I believe you'll need every last bit of it. In a year - maybe a few months - I'm thinking this mod will be gone. That's my objective, unbiased, speaking-from-experience viewpoint, which I would give any other mod with a lot of text and zero to show for it. Love me now?

I completely agree with Vash.

What vash said was pointless, insulting, and lame. You sir, quite clearly stated you agree with what he said. If you meant that you agree only with the "mods only show weapon renders" part, you shouldn't have said you completely agree with vash.

Anyway, weapon renders > nothing, surely?

Go to moddb and look at every Half-Life2 modification. What exactly do you see? Weapon Renders, Weapon Renders, and oh look, more Weapon Renders.

cough

What's the point of doing model renders when you don't know the number of triangles the models are supposed to use or the texture resolutions supported or the angle they should point at ingame or... oops, nevermind. I don't want to be an idiot!

Yeah, and that justifies your initial response doesn't it. What the hell do you want vash, their design docs printed up for all to see? Or perhaps some maps made and compiled in the leaked HL2 source? For gods sake, they didn't even post bloody weapon renders!

EDIT: Yak - take a look...idiot :razz:

I think Vash is cranky since he hasn't gotten his fill of legs lately

RTK Team, I think you misunderstand how you recruit someone. You will not get anyone on your team if you act this way with the slightest of teasing, since someone will not know how you will act if there's a major disagreement (this usually terminates a mod/project of any kind, unless everyone can be 'professional' and adults about their goals).

Reno, I didn't know they actually taught software engineering with specific languages in mind ... that's really odd. The life cycle (specifically) is suppose to be language independant.

I think the group I'm working with now (in a course I'm taking) is pretty cool. We're all mature enough to listen and accept each others input and criticism; and by no means does anyone in the group think they're 'master programmers' or even close. Its a bit of a paradox if someone says that, it's like saying "I write bug free code", since that's impossible, they're lying or unknowledgable about how vulnerable their code is.

I've also Been learning some cool stuff on how to overrun buffers and mess with the program stack :biggrin: ...

Oh it wasn't language specific, its just the way in which is was taught gave no attempt to relate how it was relevant to game development. I know that it is, but it would have been nice to have them give some examples on how, instead of always saying "if you were developing an ATM machine system, blah blah blah". Since the module had both computing students and games tech students, I suppose I couldn't expect that.

...hmm... I can easily see how the life cycle applies to game development. The thing is the life cycle is also (suppose to be) application independant. Meaning, these processes models should work well for whatever application you develop.

Or: You see how it relates now, but you just wish they gave game examples. :razz:

I can see how most is relevant, but it was so damn boring - its not interesting talking about how best to go about refining the development of a Eiffel Tower ticket distribution system. Even MAKING that system wouldn't be interesting.

But this is highly off topic :razz:

Nothing like a heated debate to get you through the day.. to recap:

I call you an idiot only if your referring to our plan of working before engine release pointless, or a waste of time.

to me that is an idiotic, unexperienced statement. You don't need to take offense if that doesn't include you. It's not as simple as, differs from my view, so your dumb. no, its actually a reference to mental proficiency. If you can't agree that working before an engine is out is a good thing, then you don't need to be comenting on a mod thread. mine in particular..

Cassius, Based off a blurb of our mod description, and a few posts in this thread, you can determine all that huh? unbiased?

might i refer you back to your first comment? seems you were very biased from the start. whatever, your on my ignore list. you get no love.

as to the comment about not excepting ideas on our mod team. please,... defending our mod on a public forum is a far cry from how our team works internally. please don't mislead people into thinking that is how we operate.

anyways, we'll get some model shots up soon for those that are still interested, despite all this drama. Contrary to popular opinion, we actually do have stuff to show, and not just alot of text..

As well, we just recruited a few concept artists, so there's more screenies for ya on the way. Other then that.. not much more we could do to stir interest, at this stage in recruiting.

well, this keeps going back and forth. So, unless someone really pisses me off.. & no thats not an invitation, ill leave ya'll alone till we have some images to show.

thx for your time!

ReNo said:
EDIT: Yak - take a look...idiot :razz:

Screw you Reno! :biggrin:

since i am by definition, strictly on the unbiased side, i can truthfully say, i think this mod is destined to fail.

not because of the lack of initiative, but it has been in the planning stages for almost 24 hours? at least as far as the snarkpit is concerned, and already titles like "idiot" are being used.. whether justified or not, its unacceptable for a brand new member to use words of that magnitude.

cassius has been on the wrong side of almost as many confrontations as i have, but still commands a level of respect from the majority of the pit.. liking him is not a consideration for that respect either, cause i can bet not nearly as many people like him, as respect him.

when ordeals reduce themselves to "idiot" within the first 24 hours.. real ordeals are not that far behind.

this mod may succeed, but i am betting it will be without the snarkpits assistance, or at least not in any noticeable capacity.

good luck, you will definitely need it..

for the record, all of this post is based entirely on the atmosphere this thread generated in its short existence.. how you dealt with vash's and cass's comments are more important to me, than how long you stay here..

Oooh, what a lovely warm flamewar! There are two main conflated points here:

1. The practicality of working on a mod. before the game release


I'm sure it's possible to do some valuable design/conceptual work in advance. I remain cynical of many mods. that do this, simply because I believe their project planning is motivated by dumb thoughts like:

<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
HL2 is gonna be like so awesome and I wanna have it now. But I can't have it now so I'm gonna make something cool for it instead. Like a dragon with lasers coming out of its ass. Yeah!

[/quote]
However, not everyone is like this. Some teams make rational planning decisions and will succeed. After all, if I'd presented my early ideas for Gmdm2 to a mapping audience, people would have laughed me out of the thread - but I still got it to work :smile: Maybe the RTK team will plan their work well and will succeed. Good luck to them!

2. The storyline

Here is where I am inclined to agree with Cassius. The storyline sounds lame - it's just a bunch of incompatible cliches thoughtlessly thrown together. Bits of it sound ripped-off from other sources.

Of course, that criticism is no doubt enough to make me an "idiot". But you might be better off listening to me than dismissing me. I have spent four years studying philosophy and seriously intend to be a professional writer. I think I know my stuff :razz:

But good luck with the project nonetheless!

I think I know my stuff :razz:

Arrogant twat :razz:

Seriously though, I too think the story sounds a bit...odd...but to me that isn't the issue at hand - its the way in which a perfectly justified and polite request on a forum managed to get utterly flamed in the first page. Its not a very good introduction for newcomers, and its not a very good indication of the community we have here.

ReNo said:

I think I know my stuff :razz:

[color=red](1) Arrogant twat[/color] :razz:

(2) Seriously though, I too think the story sounds a bit...odd...but to me that isn't the issue at hand - its the way in which a perfectly justified and polite request on a forum managed to get utterly flamed in the first page. Its not a very good introduction for newcomers, and its not a very good indication of the community we have here.

Agreed on both counts, but proud of only one :biggrin:

ROFL

Actually, I thought what Vash said was hilarious. Sure, weapon renders are better than nothing, but it seems thats all people have to show; these kind fellows here don't even have that. You haven't even bothered to tell us what RTK stands for (I went to the website; apparently it means 'Random Team Killers.' By the way, you know you're dealing with a high caliber developer when their tiling background is one of the most common metal textures on the internet. Hooray!)

RTK, if your mod consists of more than a few team members and some half-assed forum posts, show me. If your corporate orcs are truly awe-inspiring, then of course I'll give you the respect that such work would deserve. Neither here, nor on your forums, nor on your website, have you a single picture or a download. So what's this mod made of? Text. So far, half of that text has been used to call me an idiot. Congratulations - you're an ass. Teehee!

I don't think at all that it's pointless to make a mod for HL2, seeing as how we already know how easily the transition is from this engine to the next; however, the idiot clause evidently extends to 'all people who criticize RTK.' It's been a long time since I've had to say so, but feigning honesty is not what I do, especially not when I'm insulted.

ReNo said:
Seriously though, I too think the story sounds a bit...odd...but to me that isn't the issue at hand - its the way in which a perfectly justified and polite request on a forum managed to get utterly flamed in the first page. Its not a very good introduction for newcomers, and its not a very good indication of the community we have here.

i agree whole heartedly.. as i said, i am as unbiased as it can get.. vash was completely OTT, but two wrongs??? it always has been my understanding that its still not right.

vash and cass are 2 of my best friends here, but i would have sided whole heartedly with the newcomer.. why did i wait?? i wanted to see what they were made of first.

my comments till today have completely ignored the rude comments from both cass and vash, deliberately..

retaliatory comments were expected, but the delivery system was what i waited to see.. i didn't like it..

anywhos.. i now have my opinion on how it will go, and posted it in the previous comment..

Yeah come on guys, flaming somebody for their first ever post is hardly ideal now is it. And before you ask, yes I would rather you weren't 100% honest with them and pretended to be nice :smile:

I think part of the problem is this: people believe in their right to say what they think, so they go ahead and say it. They also believe in their right to say it in as direct and potentially inflammatory way as they choose. The justification for this is that "if the newcomer can't cope with brutal honesty, then he shouldn't be here."

We all have a right to state our views, but a little self-censorship in the cause of happier relations can work wonders :smile:

If your corporate orcs are truly awe-inspiring, then of course I'll give you the respect that such work would deserve.

Nonsense. You assume that the mod is crap, having to your own admission, seen nothing of it. Perhaps the more reasonable approach would be to cut the guy some slack, and at least wait until you have seen something before attacking him. Innocent until proven guilty, I say :smile:

If you'll excuse my pessimism, yes, the mod is crap; don't tell me you haven't seen this exact same situation happen before, and don't tell me that it always ends in failure. What you quoted from me is absolutely true; if their work is good, I would have no reason to dislike it. They have no work. What they do have is terrible. That's what I judge it from, and, yes, I do make the conclusion from there that the mod will indeed be substandard if finished.

And yes, I do believe in my right to say what I think in as direct an inflammatory manner as I so choose. I've been getting soft, but this is hardly most 'direct and inflammatory' as I've been.

Gollum said:
I think part of the problem is this: people believe in their right to say what they think, so they go ahead and say it. They also believe in their right to say it in as direct and potentially inflammatory way as they choose. The justification for this is that "if the newcomer can't cope with brutal honesty, then he shouldn't be here."

this was indeed the culprit mike, justifiably so.. but as i said, i was curious to see how it was taken..

my only addition, we know cass and vash, we tend to overlook questionable replies, because we know their history, and its not completely a loss as far as the history is concerned..

perhaps in this one instance, an admin might have suggested that vash rephrase his comment.. i dunno..

still if the trial by fire works... i survived mikee, and he was by far worse than cass and vash combined. lets see how this plays out.. actually i see it as a win/win scenario, if they stay we get quality people, if they leave we lost nothin.

WHY be as direct and inflammatory as possible? Its just as I said really, you really ARE worried about keeping up your reputation for being so, and thats just sad. You could get across all your points without pissing people off, but you choose not to do so, with absolutely no justification other than "its my right".

I agree with ReNo.

But I will change what I said. The more reasonable approach is to cut the guy some slack.

Just because there is a general trend of mods not getting finished, it doesn't mean every mod that starts off with weapon renders is doomed to crash and burn.

Reno, Jeff, come now - you must understand that you have no right to say that; it's far too direct, inflammatory even - and that's just sad.

Great joke Cass... if only it didn't make you look even more pathetic.

Let's all have a group hug now. I will refrain from saying what I truly think of this mod and this poster after having looked at the website and his/her's replies here, and instead again say good luck in your future endeavours Mr. rtk-team. May you make a hit mod and prove many of us wrong.

Jeez, how the hell can people have ANYTHING against the poster in this situation?! He came along to a forum, asked a simple question in a perfectly refined and polite manner, and got pounced on by flamers. His first reply to these didn't even come across in an argumentative fashion, he simply played a low tone retort, thanked the supportive few, and was done with it. Given the posts by cass and vash (in particular), I believe most people would have resorted to much more insulting come backs!

Are you people so closed off to outsiders now that the slightest word against an existing member means the newbie is crucified, regardless of how justified those words are?

/me agrees with reno

... again ...

Hey Reno, if you do start up ELVA again, maybe I could be your 'yes man' :biggrin:

LOL jeff

I believe his first direct reply to what I said was to call me a loud mouthed idiot; it went downhill from there. If you believe my response to that was unjust, or that I was too negative initially, I haven't a chance of convincing you otherwise.

However, I would never expect anyone, much less you two, to call me a pathetic idiot under any circumstance.

Love and peace,

your friendly neighborhood Cassius

ReNo said:
Jeez, how the hell can people have ANYTHING against the poster in this situation?! He came along to a forum, asked a simple question in a perfectly refined and polite manner, and got pounced on by flamers. His first reply to these didn't even come across in an argumentative fashion, he simply played a low tone retort, thanked the supportive few, and was done with it. Given the posts by cass and vash (in particular), I believe most people would have resorted to much more insulting come backs!

Are you people so closed off to outsiders now that the slightest word against an existing member means the newbie is crucified, regardless of how justified those words are?

Ok, I'll analyze the situation and explain my post.

Ignoring his responses to the harsher and probably unnecessary comments from Vash and Cass, he still managed to call anyone who questioned working on the mod before the release idiots instead of offering a different viewpoint. He couldn't manage to tell the difference between discussion and two posts of 'flames'. He tells people to grow up because they innocently questioned the necessity to having a team name instead of an individual name. He even admits to not reading two of the first three pages and continued to make incorrect comments about the community here. Basically the first guy sounds incredibly arrogant (the second guy who posted a little bit in sounded cool, he should probably be the spokesman instead :razz: ) and did a poor job of promoting his mod. Granted he probably wouldn't have gotten far anyways given the people here, but he was doomed from the start.

As for the flames: most people would be able to understand this is the internet and what is said on the internet has no bearing on the real world. To get all worked up and insulted about something someone else typed on a message board is rather sad.

Also, given the attitude of the poster as I have interpreted via his posts, he's (self censored as to not be accused of 'insulting' 'flames'). I don't think anyone here is really defending Cass, he can defend himself. My personal opinion of this poster has nothing to do with his newness or his replies to Cass or Vash. It's everything else. So, there's no animosity towards new posters, just morons.

I've got my box of tissues ready to sop up my tears when I get flamed for my opinion and get so crushed by it that I wonder why I even bother.

I didn't call you a pathetic idiot, I called you pathetic :smile:

To get all worked up and insulted about something someone else typed on a message board is rather sad.

Yes, exactly as sad as getting all abusive at somebody who you will never see in reality, just because they have a mod idea that you don't like.

scary_jeff said:

To get all worked up and insulted about something someone else typed on a message board is rather sad.

Yes, exactly as sad as getting all abusive at somebody who you will never see in reality, just because they have a mod idea that you don't like.

...and if you'll notice I never got all abusive at him or his mod. The point is if you can't take criticism, no matter how harsh, you should probably find a new hobby. I hear fishing is fun. No one complains because the fish can't talk.