BaRRaKID

I was kind of wondering what happened to crash bandicoot, it was a strong ip a couple of years ago and it just disappeared. So yeah, a new, proper, crash game would be cool to see.

Excellent job

http://www.interlopers.net/tutorials/

I think the reason why nuke is played so much is because it's the only map with true vertical action since the bomb sites are on top of each other, also you can rotate between each bs really fast (down the vents) which allows teams to create more interesting tactics. Regarding it being ct sided, the problem is that, having that bomb sites laid out like that requires the T team to play better as a team and have greater coordination. For example, since JeanPaul mentioned it, you can easily win ramps as T, in fact I just watched a match last week (k1ck vs n!faculty) where you had a great example of that from k1ck. You can smoke and flash the ramps from the radio room without being seen, or if you have a good sniper he can pick almost any CT trying to defend ramps. About train, it turned into a CT sided map after teams started using the train lockout tactic, which basically means that you can lock the entire map with at least 3 snipers (using 4 or even 5 snipers in this map is also not unheard of) since it has really long routes without much cover. But not all teams have 3 good snipers, so it's still an interesting map to play.

I was under the impression that with Portal 2 Valve was trying to tie both universes (Portal and HL) together, at least there was some expectation that that would happen at some point. Maybe that's one of the reasons why the project was basically restarted.

Looking at the first ss i think the problem is the intensity of the white light, if you made the room just a bit darker and with more shadows the orange light would would probably look better. You could also try to change the overall light from white to a very light colour (if it already has some colour then make it a bit more saturated). For example in the second SS, the right part of the image looks very nice, but the left part not so much, in my opinion, due to the colour of the light. But really great job, waiting for more

I want to spank the monkey

Love the light on the second pic. Good job

To be fair, Valves official version of the map looks much better than this. The version shown on the screenshots is a community made version that, from what I understand, was made to look as close as possible as the version from cs 1.6

Personally i would remove the lights from the stairs in the first pic and add a secondary colour to the map to accentuate certain areas and make the map look less less repetitive. Maybe use a different colour for the lights in the doors/entrances to make them more visible. But i really like this, gj.

The wagons look nice. The way I see it they don't fit the map just because the map is not that good visually.

That looks great

As I said before, I agree that it needs another option for retaking the site, but if I add a path there, the CTs can just rush into the tunnel and mow down a rush. I'm thinking about what I can do about this site. Haven't come up with any ideas I completely like yet. But thank you for pointing it out. Moving the CT spawn more to the left (that is making them take longer to reach each bombsite) would help with that. But basically you need to test the map, get some bots in there and check the timmings and where the chokepoints are.

Again, I'm just focusing on the CT side now, and what you want to have is a kind of circular path from BS A -> CT SPAWN -> BS B -> BSA with a connector in the middle, basically something like this (excuse my amazing paint skills) Those are the only paths the CTs need. Using this suggestion the CT spawn would have to be moved more to the left in order to make the middle connector longer and the timings more even, but that's basically it.

Goldmines: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brrrphotography http://www.flickr.com/photos/odins_raven

It's hard to read the layout from the overview, but, looking just at the CTs, there's no path for them to rotate between bombsites without passing through either the T or the CT bombsites. Don't forget that after the bomb is planted the CTs need to retake the bombsite and they need a safe fast route to both bombsites in order to do that. My suggestion is to create paths in the areas marked with green on this image: You should also check your timings (how long it takes to reach each bombsite from both spawn points, how long it takes to rotate between bombsites for both teams, etc.) it seems like the Ts have longer routes than the CTs.

It helps to play the game a lot to understand it, and in games like CS to try to at least watch some competitive matches since competitive players tend to focus on the most efficient and advantageous parts of the maps. Regarding CS defuse maps this article sums the basic layout http://www.egir.dk/index.php?page=vhe_layout.htm if you understand that you can change it to make yours more unique like for example on de_nuke where the bombsites are on top of each other Besides that you need to take into account the timings of the map, how much time it takes each team to reach the chokepoints and bombsites, if Ts can switch sites fast enough to make a fake, if CTs can get to each bombsite after the bomb plant with enough time to retake and make the defuse, etc. It seems like nowadays smaller maps are preferred due to those timings being smaller making the games faster, that's somethoing that you can play with as well. Finally you need to take into consideration each type of weapon, that is you need to have separate sections that favour long, medium, or short range weapons. You can solve this by looking at the lines of sight in the map, that is how much of the map the player can see in a certain point, long lines of sight help snipers more than rifle players, and tight areas are better for pistols and smgs. So ideally you want two or three areas with long lines of sight for awpers, another two or three that are more cramped like small corridors and stuff like that to help in pistol rounds and have the rest of the map with average lines of sight for rifles action. Hope this helps.

Regarding which card to buy, just look at benchmarks sites. I still use Tom's Hardware lists, here is their July update: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html If you just want to follow their recommendations go to the chart on the last page of the article and see what's the best one on your price range. Rule of thumb though, in the below 150€/$ range ATI cards perform better, above that price range NVIDIA is usually better

That's a lot of dust! I can take a wild guess on why the gfx card broke. You see those black squares around the GPU? That's the card RAM, notice how no part of your GPU cooler touches them, meaning that there's no way for them do dissipate heat besides the air that is flowing inside the case. With that amount of dust restricting the fan and the air flow one of those puppies probably burned. For future reference there are passive coolers that make them less hot: http://www.zalman.co.kr/global/product/Product_Read.php?Idx=136 http://www.swiftech.com/mc800smccoolingkit.aspx They are fairly easy to install, they've an adhesive on the base so you basically just have to glue them to each RAM piece, and what they do is transfer the heat from the component to the metal that they're made of. Simple but effective.

Regarding air flow inside the case it's easier and mos effective to have one fan at the front (or more, some cases have brackets for two fans at the front in order to blow fresh air directly into the hard drives) pushing air into the case and one at the back pushing air out. This works well on most computers, there's usually no need for more than that. It can be a bit tricky to mount the front fans since this usually requires removing the front panel, but it's not that hard. You should have this setup regardless of what the power supply fan is doing (some push air into the case, some push air out, it depends), look at the PSU as a separate system. Like mentioned before it's also important to have air filters on the fans to avoid pushing dust inside the computer. It's usually enough to put the filters only on the fans that are pushing air into the case, in this case that would be the front fan. Even more important is to clean the dust regularly, but DON'T use a vacuum cleaner since they can generate static electricity and brake some of the components. If you've an air compressor use that, if not most computer stores will also sell compressed air cans, they're just spray cans that throw air instead of paint or whatever, you only have to be careful and not press on the cap for too long since the can starts to freeze if you do. If you can't find any of that just use a brush to clean the dust. Finally you should change the thermal paste as well. If you remove the heat sink there is usually a grey paste (it can also be white or an adhesive instead of a paste) between the heat sink and the component, that's thermal paste. It's used to create perfect contact between the heat sink and the component, since the metals used are not perfectly smooth (this is also a good way to check the quality of your heat sink, look at it's base and check how reflective it is, the smoother the surface of the metal the more reflective it will be meaning that the heat sink is of higher quality) there will be some small (microscopic) spots in which the heat sink doesn't touch the component making those spots hotter than the rest. The thermal paste will fill those spots so that the component heat is dissipated evenly along the component. To change the thermal paste first remove the old thermal paste using cotton swabs with alcohol (some of it may have turned solid by now, just try to take it out with your fingernail without scratching the metal), then apply the new thermal paste in a very thin layer on the surface of the component, not on the heat sink. It's easier to apply and to measure the quantity it if you buy the ones that use a brush (like the ones from Zalman http://www.zalman.co.kr/global/product/Product_Read.php?Idx=221) instead of a syringe or a squirt. After changing the thermal paste and assembling everything turn on the computer and let it on for a few minutes (around half an hour) to let the thermal paste "cook", this means that it will take a couple of minutes for the paste to start acting and for the temperatures to drop. And that's it, it might sound hard but it's actually something fairly easy to do. Hope this helps

Worldcraft and hammer 3.4 demotivated you from the beginning because it was insanely complicated to set everything up, specially after steam came out and all the options names became meaningless. You also needed a modified FDG, the VHE update, Zones Tools, Nems Batch compiler, GCFScape, Wad files (from the wadfather) and Wad compiler, and even after getting all that you would compile the map and ge a file not found error because hammer didn't copied the bsp to the game maps folder and you had to create expert compile configurations or use nems batch compiler and learn what all those options meant. And finally after all that you could play your fully lit oversized box filled with leaks.

I guess that it's no surprise that you can play the card game online http://ttadvance.ca/ And if you've a android phone you can download FourFront TCG, it's the same game except that the cards are not from the FF universe. You can also play it against friends over bluetooth. The Card Queen/Car Club side quest was actually challenging, meaning that it was really frustrating specially when you got weird trading rules and lost all your good cards. I also lke FFVIII more than FFVII simply because the characters are more belivable, even the GFs (summons) had some depth and personality traits that made you care about them. The story in VIII was also good, but like I said here before it's a shame that most of it was spoiled in the intro cinematics.

Daft Punk

Looks like shit, basically. But it will probably still have a huge user base, so who cares? It's crap, but it sells, good for apple. (and to think that MS got so much crap just because they removed the start button from Windows 8, to the point that they had to make a new OS version whose major feature is the comeback of the start button, and then apple does crap like this and is praised by everyone) That's one of the best articles I've read about this entire flat design thingy

Information overload is the biggest problem with this kind of systems. You shouldn't profile every part of your game/system just for the sake of it, you need to plan it properly and look at profiling as a complement to real testing. If your testers (or you) complain about a certain part of the game or detect a problem you should profile that part, and only that part, during a certain period of time (this is another common mistake, usually these type of systems are on all the time, you don't need that, one week of data is as good as two weeks if you haven't made any changes in between). If there is a problem with map balance for example you don't need two months worth of data on how many kills per weapon you've on all maps, you just need to know for that specific map, where most of the battles occur and which team/player won the battle, basically who killed who and where. You can add weapon stats if there's a problem with a certain weapon being too advantageous at a certain location, but only if that's the problem you're trying to solve. About database overload, for multiplayer games there is usually a server/computer that hosts each match, that host should be the only machine responsible for gathering the data, you don't really need to measure players (unless you want to have leaderboads and stuff like that off course) what you want to do is measure matches and that's the host job. Also you usually won't need real time data, what you want is to gather data during a certain period of time and analyze it later, so database updates should be done after the match ends, or once an hour or once a day if the host keeps running after each match is over. You can also invert it and keep the data saved on each host filesystem (or whatever) and then have your profiling sever ask the hosts for it when you need it. Basically instead of each host saying "Hey Profiler, I just finished a match here is what happened" have the profile say to each host "So, what have you been up to in the last few days?". If you really need a system that does lots of queries just use a scalable cloud solution like Amazon or Rackspace.