This week in mapping

Armadillo of Doom

Group Founder, Lover of Pie
aa
Oct 25, 2007
949
1,228
We continue to grow so much, I am also scared to think about the next step. But that's a discussion for another time ;) Lots of contest news for you this week. Real quick, I have uploaded the demo from the Medic Training event. You can find it and all previous demo files (optimizing, details 101, etc.) in Tutorial Resources Downloads. Now the good stuff, lol. First off, according to this contest poll, it seems the majority of you would prefer to have an extension. I am therefore officially extending the deadline by 7 & 1/2 days. Bare in mind that the purpose of this extra time is for all you mappers to work on polish and fine-tuning the details. An extra week is not enough time to fix major bugs or design issues, so get crackin :p

Second, an anonymous member of our ranks has posted a highly classified exchange between a certain 4-star general and the head of Valve development :D In layman's terms, there is a very good chance that we will receive a custom HUD for our Attack/Defend CTF mode. Full details here; http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=8149 Lastly, we have been given the support of our largest sponsor to date. The good folks over at Novint have donated one of their Falcon game controllers :wow: I have also made some updates to the other prizes. You can check out all of this in the official thread.

Mad props to everyone who showed for Gameday Saturday. I didn't have to post a second announcement asking for players :) But we're still coming up a little short for the rest of the week. Obviously you're not expected to play map testing 20+ hours every week. But with a community of 1,000+ active members, we really shouldn't have to be calling for extras so often. That's all for now Privates. CinC Pig Humper, signing off.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
Mm, Novint have formed a partnership with Valve. Might be something to do with that? :confused: Valve really seem to appreciate what we have going on here in this community.
 

Ida

deer
aa
Jan 6, 2008
2,289
1,372
Wait, are you telling me The Soldier's post wasn't a hoax? wut?

I'm so confused...
 

A Boojum Snark

Toraipoddodezain Mazahabado
aa
Nov 2, 2007
4,775
7,669
Wait, are you telling me The Soldier's post wasn't a hoax? wut?

I'm so confused...

...no, no it wasn't. Wasn't all the stuff in the thread, the quotes of me saying it wasn't, the fact it was posted in a mod-only forum, and the custom user group for the account enough evidence it was legit? :|
 

Caliostro

L6: Sharp Member
Jul 6, 2009
261
110
Mm, Novint have formed a partnership with Valve. Might be something to do with that? :confused: Valve really seem to appreciate what we have going on here in this community.

Valve appreciates the community in general and any "communities" within the "Valve community", specially prolific and constructive ones.

It's not a hard thing to conceive either. Valve is big on user content. Hell, L4D, CS, TF2... All of these were born out of modding, from "fans". TF2 was born from Quake and ported to HL. CS was born from HL. L4D was born from CS. Not to mention that, excluding maybe the HL series, which is mostly a single player experience (and still heavily modded), all other Valve games are very heavy on user-made content. From Custom skins to maps, to entire campaigns and game modes.

In the end, it's sort of an eco-system of it's own. Valve has a very unique relationship with it's user base which is beneficial to both. Valve provides the base game, tools and support, and in turn we provide something unique, we provide something other games don't have.

At the end of the day, all your MMOs full of "customization" sliders and 50 million different items can never ever stand close to the level of customization Valve allows.

"Differently colored eye-brows? A different shirt?

Sure, you do that pall. I'll be over here designing and tailor-making my entire character... And level... And weapons...and maybe even game..."


That said, call Tom Novint what you will, but he's no fool. Dude has given the Falcon a very fast and VERY impressive coverage. Ask anyone in the steam forums what a "Novint Falcon" is... 2 Months ago nobody knew. Nowadays everyone will tell you what it is.
 
Jan 31, 2008
555
1,482
I regret that I didn't join this contest.
With Valve being really interested in this contest it seems like they might just make the winning plr map and the winning A/D ctf map into community maps, without considering all of the non-contest maps out there.
Too late to join now anyway.
 

A Noobcake

L1: Registered
Jun 9, 2009
41
5
Aawww, I should have entered the contest... But now it's to late... I hope I'll get my chance later.

I WANT A GODDAMN NOVINT FALCON!
 

Ida

deer
aa
Jan 6, 2008
2,289
1,372
...no, no it wasn't. Wasn't all the stuff in the thread, the quotes of me saying it wasn't, the fact it was posted in a mod-only forum, and the custom user group for the account enough evidence it was legit? :|

The way you talked about it, I assumed you were admitting to have made it all up. I guess I misunderstood.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
Yea, they've released a pistol grip for the controller now. :D

The first thing i thought when i saw the bugger was that it would probably benefit from a joystick like attatchment or pistol grip rather than that tiny ball thing (that was presumably outfitted for the tiny chinese people and oomperloompa's).
 

SiniStarR

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Mar 31, 2009
585
116
eh, would have joined but was already working on maps. Didn't want to start a third project :p Also the Falcon controllers seem rather gimmicky : \