1998 Quote of the Year: "Wanna see Half-Life?" - Gabe Newell (Valve, CEO)
Friday, July 24, 1998 (Hell, that's a quote of a lifetime!)

Sunday, November 22, 1998 - Goodbye Blueprints

It was inevitable, I'm not going to get sad this time and I hope no one else does, either. In case you're interested, I've moved back home to my home site / ISP and have a brand new look and layout, I'm quite pleased with it. Just finished it today, just now as a matter of fact, except my LINKS page over there is a bit barren yet. But I'll get to that soon.

I'm thinking Telefragged will want me off their space since I'm done with my work here. If so, I will archive Blueprints at my home site and change all the links as necessary.

I'm moving on to Half-Life editing and leaving Quake1, Mega, and Team Fortress behind. Already, Ambush has changed our Kavorkian server over to Half-Life (quite a few days ago, actually). So I have no server even if I wanted to continue with TF maps - and I don't.

Editing for Half-Life is PURE JOY!!!

Also, I don't see why I should or how I even could carry Blueprints into the Half-Life genre, since I was scouring the Internet all day trying to find out something as simple as making a skybox. I finally gave up and Emailed somebody about it, who had the easy and obvious answer to me in minutes. Here I was thinking making a skybox was going to be compicated! Not! Anyway, since there's sites out there like The HalfLife Editing Resource Center, I don't feel there's a need to fill a hole like there was with Team Fortress MapMaking when I began Blueprints. Now, it seems everybody does it. Which is great!

I've recieved some offers from people who have asked if they can take over this site. Take over Blueprints. I've given it quite a bit of thought and it may seem selfish of me, but I'm going to have to say no. Blueprints has been my heart and soul for too long, it won't be the same with another webmaster and I wouldn't feel the same if someone took it over. I hope everyone understands.

I am going to start a new Real Audio show with a new name, something mappish, geared at level design in Worldcraft for HalfLife. I was thinking of calling it "the Concave Brush" because for a while that's what it's going to feel like - a fluke of nature :} I'm taking site submissions for hosting and when they're all in, I'll decide on which one. I'd like to be the only HalfLife / WorldCraft mapping show on the site - I do so hate competition :} After I thought of the name Concave Brush, I found this in the WorldCraft 2.0 Help File:

Which brings to mind the wonderful help file provided with WorldCraft 2.0. Editing for Half-Life is PURE JOY!!!

Oh, I said that arleady.

Goodbye, Blueprints.

I'll go into more detail later about what exactly "everything" consists of, but really - having Half-Life in my hands changes literally everything. Till then I expect to be playing Half-Life and stuff. Yeah!

I don't know who to credit this to (saw it on a news page somewhere, I believe) but I was playing Half Life Day One and I hopped out the back of the Tram .. or train. While I read that some crouch-jumping was involved, not so for me. I just hopped merrily out, and was surprised how easy it was when I landed outside the Tram.

Now, while I don't consider that a bug, it just so happens that Half-Life loses track of you, and just about where the map *should change* (had you been in the Tram car) the engine sorta belly-flops and you either appear outside the map and nothing happens, or it's completely black but you can still hear everything going on - with one addition: You hear your footsteps even though you can't tell if you're walking anywhere.

And while I don't consider that a bug either, I did find a bug. One I'm a bit worried about. I was actually quite done hopping out of the Tram, and was actually going to go play the game all over again. Thus, I was watching out the front of the Tram until I got to that cool circular space-type Vault Door thing, (you know, the one after the chain-link fence) and I remembered how cool it was to watch it close. So, after The Tram and I went through the door (or possibly during) I ambled on back to the rear of the Tram to watch the door close. I stood there, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The door never closed. I went to the front of the Tram and the Tram didn't move. I tried my USE key on everything. I tried hopping out of the tram to see if I could trigger the map change and then hoped to jump back into the Tram (not that that was likely). Nothing worked. I was trapped in a broken Tram deep in bowels of the Tram Car's tunnels in the heart of the Black Mesa Research Facility.

Spooky.

But I grabbed a few screenshots, especially of the cool Apache helicopter, and here they are. The first shot is a Barney standing in front of the Apache, with the Archway in the background. Barney was in the Archway standing there with a Scientist. I never even noticed them during the Tram ride. The second shot is a better pic of the Apache and landing pad. The third shot shows Barney again, and the heli-pads blue, glowing lights. The Archway can bee seen in greater detail, and the red light there glows ominously at its gaping maw. Can't wait to start MapMaking for Half-Life! The fourth shot is sort of an accident - I didn't mean to jump out of the Tram. I think someone pushed me! Hehe. Anyway, it's a cool shot of the Green Glowing area in Half-Life, with the little yellow four-legged Hazardous-Material handler in the center of the shot. An empty tram continues on without me in the background. :(

The last shot was taken because this is where I got stuck. What happened is the MapMaker put the next-level trigger too far forward, and my little Half-Life body never touched it to trigger a changelevel. Which is bad because the only reason why I went back there was to see the cool doors close. If other people do that, surely it will happen to someone else. That's why I said I was worried about it.

Oh well... I don't work for Gabe, I shouldn't lose any sleep over it. But Half-Life is so cool, I'd hate for the Tram to break during somebody's first run of the game! It'd be such a simple entity-update to fix it. I'd tell them about this bug, but it's out of their hands, now.

Supposed to be in our hands soon.

Which reminds me! I'm supposed to go to the Lagless in Seattle Lan party. If Half-Life does arrive Friday, Ambush and I have already been talking about skipping the Lagless party. So much to do - so little time!