Posts by Kosmo

  • First thaught? [MID-EASTERN CONFLICT]

    I'm not trying to flame or anything, I respect your opinion, but don't understand your view. (If I were the president of USA I would be bombing you right this moment)

    I just don't understand how you can be so sure that the massmedia feed that you are reading IS actually true and free of propaganda.

  • First thaught? [MID-EASTERN CONFLICT]

    Killertomato: You can't be that blind that you actually believe that retarded jamber about Palestinians being suicide bombing terrorists and Israelis being some valiant heroes in shining armor?

    It is an information war as much as it is an actual war, propaganda goes both ways, but the difference is that Israel seeks help at western countries that actually have economically helped them and feel closer relations to them, especially now that Bush is running around just bombing everythin Islamistic in the world.

    Palestina spits propaganda at it's Muslim neighbours and coulds the mind of them who see their cause against a western opressor valiant. Just as Israel has the support of several western countries, Palestina has the support of several Middle Eastern countries, that see the West as the demon that must be killed.

    Secondly, I believe that lack of help from other countries during the First Arab-Israeli war was because their own economy was fucked up big time due to WW2 and foreign politics was shattered to million pieces, another campaingn to anywhere in the world might awaken the countried that were sleeping during the whole conflict.

    Independence wars are usually fought alone.

    The lack of foreign help to Israel during the Yom Kippur War was because it was a political nightmare, Israel themselfs literally started it with their pre-emptive strike against Egypt six years earlier due to some political tensions with Egypt. I don't think that USA would like Egypt (a fair trade fellow of USA for decades) to think they are actually supporting Israel and it's mad military leaders.

    You should go and check out http://www.boycottisrael.org for some good perspective on how propaganda works against Israel, just like how they are doing against Palestina.

  • Editorial: Did HL1 Ruin HL2?

    One thing I could count as the plus side of other editors (Doom3 editor and UnrealED) is that when you learn to use them , you can use your skills on several other games, Doom3 editor (now I'm taking a leap of faith and going to assume that they use the same editor for Q4, QW and Prey) works for 4 games.

    UED works for god knows how many games (counted 20~ games for UE2/2.5) and if you have worked with UED from the first generation the transition from the first gen Unreal ED for this gen was as smooth as babys bottom (or so my cousin says, don't know much about that myself) AND as a bonus, there are around 10 games announced for UE3 and several companies have pledged allegiance for UE3 so I'm pretty sure that if you become a whiz in UED3 you'll don't have to worry about employment.

    So can you say the same about Source and Hammer? It has even less support than Doom3 engine for crying out loud.

  • Editorial: Did HL1 Ruin HL2?

    But even if there will be less of a modding community in the future, I don't think that all the 3d modellers, and texture artists who are doing things right now but not necessarily implementing their work in to a game are still there, and even if modding becomed harder and harder, the basic skills still apply, modellers do models and texture artists will do textures, we just kinda need the middle man who knows the game tools so he can work the pesky doodads in place, or something.

    I don't like committing fully to a mod team, I see myself as one of those modellers who doed some doodads and if I see them fit for a project I might donate them the modesl for use, without the hustle of NDAs and such n' such.

    But as it turns out, there are very few mod teams that want to tell anything to a freelancer who after the quick job goes to another assignment so it is pretty hard for me and the likes to work. I dont' have the time to commit fully to a mod team, and when I find the time to do something for them, they don't want my help because a) "we are already full"-crap b) they don't want to tell me anything or c) they just don't care.

    So I'll say, burn in hell losers!

  • Editorial: Did HL1 Ruin HL2?

    Untextured weapon models are the worst thing you can do to a mod, I will completely lose respect towards the mod and the mod team when they pimp untextured weapon models on their site.

    Besides, I liked to talk with my cousin back in the early days of DoD about how much it changed over the months and release by release, and after like two years with the mod we still remembered the bad times, just like with Natural-Selection (which sucked major ass balance wise) and we remembered the good times and how the mod had changed, and that was made us be with them so long, we felt that we were part of the mod team even if we just played the game for fun. It felt like a real community, like a MMORPG community or something like that.

    That was what made the mods so specia. Games are made by faceless corporate lackeys with making money as their target, mods are being made by guys who made it out of love and not for personal gain, being hired by a developer was a bonus, not necessarily a target. Mods were made by guys just like me and you, for guy like me and you.

  • Map pimpage nightmare

    Well, all it takes is someone to take up the task and go around and make accounts.

    I'd recommend that there are few guys who manage the accounts and the mappers who want to pimp their maps post their work in some thread and the ones who manage the accounts post them to the forums, thisway we could pass the security issues and manage some workflow.

  • Editorial: Did HL1 Ruin HL2?

    Quote from RD

    What are and what can be isnt the same. If you dont wanna build mazes, then you dont build mazes. Its not that complex. Also switching to BF2 wont make you a good mapper if mazes are all you can come up with.

    Cs was without doubt the most mapped for game on the planet, with the best and most beautiful maps on that engine. Lotsa ppl here got their job from mapping for it.

    And Css, well, its gobbummingly fun to play, even if its in a maze (which you cant say about HL2DM imho).

    I can see your point, but I used BF2 as an example because it has totally different approac to a map than CS:S has, you have to have bigger maps, you have to think about vehicles, base defence, the flow is bit different thanks to the non-DM gameplay (tho that can be said about lots of games.)

    But the overall gameplay heavly differs from the CS:S gameplay. So basically you could say that any game that has different gameplay than CS:S could improve your skills, versatility is the key to everything, many of the best heavy metal drummers play jazz because it differs so much.

  • Editorial: Did HL1 Ruin HL2?

    In my opinion, if you want to be a good mapper, CS:S hardly cuts it these day. If I were a mapper and wanted some new challenges, I think I would go BF2.

    I mean, how far do you think you can hone your skills when all you do is straight forward maze maps that all CS:S maps are?

  • Camera Help D:

    Quote from curman

    and lets just say its no longer here.

    Your brother?

    Well, all I can say is that ANYTHING in Canon Eos series, Eos 30 or better is worth a buy, new or used (tho I must warn you that sometimes if the camera is from the very high end, it most definedly has been used by someone who uses it alot, why else buy a couple of thousand dollar camera so the shutter might have gone past some 20 thousand and might get slower) it doesn't matter, they still rock.

    Canon has been making the most powerful cameras for well over 40 years so you can't go wrong with it.

  • Hard times ahead?

    That is pretty clever, I would have NOT made that ASCII thing out if you didn't tell.

    But yeah, some of EA tactics are pretty bully like, they like rattling them cages, even if to see how the competition responds. They own few of the biggest licences, they have bought several smaller companies to make sure they didn't work for the competiton, they are easily the most agressive advertising company in the gaming industry, I can't remember when was the last time I saw a game ad in TV that wasn't EA game, maybe it was HL2.

    It's not a fad that EA is well, not necessarily bad, but they act like any other big company.

  • Editorial: Did HL1 Ruin HL2?

    I'd say that UT2k3 and 2k4 killed the HL mapping and modding community, and more specifically the "Make Something Unreal Contest."

    The long run and prices made many mod teams then making their small mod on HL1 without proper tools provided by the developer as opposite to UT, they just couldn't resist, there was very minimal modding community in UT before the lauch of UT2k3, so it grew in to a huge community, but with a very small amount of new faces, that is to say that most of the modders were HL veterans.

    At the first two tiers of MSUC I worked in couple of mods, modelling props and such, and both of the teams came from HL1 modding community, their mods were in the design stage and ready to start when UT2k3 came so they checked it out, loved it but when they tried to expand their teams they noticed that all their friends, team mates and the whole community had changed to UT modding community and so did they. It was easier to get memebers to your mod team, easier to get some taste on pro maps and the content was fresh.

    So "HL2 came, why didn't the modders return?" Well only thing I can say to this is that when UT2k3 first came, the HL1 community had been running for a very long while, many mods didn't get up from the ground and mappers were tired of making the same thing, so it was starting to slope, so the natural decision was to go to a new hunting ground. By the time HL2 came, UT community had no slope, the community was still going on, and still is today, even if some teams went back to HL.

    This is what I think.