I’ve always been a fan of Valve’s games and the Portal series is no exception. When Portal 2 first came out I found myself among many people playing with a makeshift version of the Source SDK specifically for Portal 2 (basically just the Alien Swarm SDK with a custom FGD). Things started getting lively over at the Thinking With Portals website (the biggest Portal mapping site on the net), where I am a staff member.

After the official Portal 2 Authoring Tools beta was released, Valve contacted Thinking With Portals asking if we would be interested in running a mapping competition if they provided some prizes. We jumped on the opportunity.

Even though we were only given two weeks to accept submissions, the response we got from the community was astounding. Our initial projections estimated a total of between seventy and one hundred maps.

When submissions closed, the grand total was two hundred and thirty-seven maps (one hundred and ninety-five singleplayer and forty-two cooperative).

Wow.

We’re now executing the surprisingly arduous task of sorting through those maps and judging them. Given that each map takes about 10-20 minutes to play, it’s going to be a while until we’re done.

SeaTools, if you weren’t already aware, is Seagate’s self-booting hard disk diagnostic software which it provides for its Barracuda and Maxtor drives. After examining the drive for less than a minute, SeaTools declared that the drive was physically damaged and needed to be replaced. A depressing but not entirely unexpected turn of events.

Now, I live out in the sticks, which means that if I’m to attempt an acquisition of computer hardware at a decent price it has to be ordered from out of town and typically takes about a week to get here. Since I planned to reinstall Windows on the replacement drive, I felt it unnecessary to install it anywhere else before it gets here which meant I had to spend the week on Ubuntu.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Linux (or perhaps more accurately, I have a certain degree of respect for Linux), but it’s not something that I have a huge amount of experience with or something that is of particular use to me. Most of my games and software are not Linux compatible, for instance, and while I am perfectly aware of the existence of software packages such as Wine, it seems like a lot of trouble to go to when I’m just going to be back on Windows in a matter of days anyway. Being on a Linux distro for a few days was enough for me to learn a bunch of things though, like the fact that Firefox is complete rubbish. As I’m an IE user that might sound like zealous ignorance, but I’ve always been of the opinion that Firefox was a good alternative until I was actually forced to use it for an extended period of time. It does all sorts of silly things like freezes when trying to view a large SVG file; I thought surely this must be me but after talking to some other people it seems the problems are quite prevalent. A friend encouraged me to try Google Chrome and it’s a much smoother alternative, so I’ll keep that in mind whenever I have to revisit Linux. IE has certainly had a whole spectrum of problems in the past, but at least it has shown gradual improvement from version to version (the latest of which I think is more or less on par with the other browsers) whereas Firefox appears to be getting more bloated. While still on Linux I managed to back up 99% of the important data from damaged drive before it finally failed completely.

During the week I was on Linux I also contracted gastroenteritis which made staying awake and doing more or less anything utterly exhausting and it refused to go away until I got a prescription of antibiotics leading me to believe that it was bacterial rather than viral.

Not that it was easy to get a prescription, mind you. As I’ve established earlier, I live out in the middle of nowhere, and when I got to the hospital there was only one doctor present in A&E which meant I had to wait 5 hours or so on the worlds hardest mattress before being seen. I did get better on the antibiotics though, which is something.

After a few days back at home, my new drive arrived and promptly started showing signs of failure.

It's so shiny!

It was, more or less, at this point that I concluded perhaps jamming forks into my eyes would be a less painful alternative to dealing with this computer. Nevertheless, I spent a significant amount of time diagnosing the issue. The drive would work for a while and then suddenly become unresponsive. It would spin up and then stop with a click sound, over and over again until either the operating system or the SATA controller decided it was not worth talking to anymore, which suggests either a power or mechanical problem (my money being on the latter). I booted up SeaTools once more and ran the long test, which worked for about 44 minutes before stopping abruptly and falling back to the FreeDOS CLI. The drive had cut out again in the middle of the test.

I fiddled with my hardware configurations and made sure all the cables were nice and snug, then ran the SeaTools long test a second time.

Now if you’re particularly thick, you might not immediately realize that the long test takes a long time. SeaTools will examine every single sector on the disk and it can do this at around 250000 sectors per second. The problem lies in the fact that a 1TB drive such as the one being scanned contains roughly 1.96 billion sectors which means the test takes about 2 hours and 20 minutes to complete. After running through the test successfully, I decided to change my hardware configuration back to the way it was before and run the test again. It completed successfully in roughly the same amount of time.

Now, if a disk is under heavy load for nearly 5 hours straight and every single sector of that disk is accessed, you can conclude with a reasonable level of certainty that a problem such as the one previously described is no longer present.

When discussing this issue I was told that the likely source of the problem was a small mechanical defect caused during manufacture, which was simply worn down after heavy use of the drive; not unlike loosening a rusty hinge by working it hard. This makes sense given my conclusions in the previous paragraph and the fact that I have not had any problems with the drive since.

The scrollwheel on my mouse has started playing up and I think I might be getting sick yet again. All in all, these past few weeks have not been particularly pleasant ones. Having said that I do hope to get back into updating this site once more.

In an effort to “make some f$*&ing money already”, Valve has introduced the Mann Co. Store, making a large quantity of items in TF2 available for purchase using the recently introduced Steam Wallet. However, all items can still be found using the old methods of random drops and achievements. “Segregating players into groups that can’t play together, based on who bought what, is something we’d like to avoid.”, says Valve. “Any items affecting gameplay, and even most purely cosmetic items, will still be obtainable simply by playing the game.”

Thank god for that; not that I would personally expect anything less from Valve, but anyone who has played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 online can testify as to how easily paid updates can split a community.

If you’re greeted with a “The Mann Co. Store is currently closed” message when you fire up the game, this can usually be fixed with a Steam restart. The main page of the Mann Co. store shows a featured item, special offers, and an introduction written by none other than Saxton Hale.

You can start browsing through the store by clicking one of the categorized tabs at the top of the screen. Valve hasn’t disclosed what method they are using to determine item prices, but at a cursory glance it appears to be related with how common a certain item is in the community. Older and more common items such as the Axtinguisher are as low as 49 US cents at the time of writing, whereas most new items are up around the $5 mark.

Valve is planning to allow community contributors to make some coin via the Mann Co. store, but details are pretty sketchy on this at the moment.

 While browsing the store, items are displayed with a description and a 3d preview. Details such as customization support are also shown (certain items can now be painted different colours and given custom names).

The update includes the winning entries of the Polycount contest as part of the 65 new items that have been added. Valve have kept the names chosen by the authors, but have of course selected their own attributes for the purposes of balanced gameplay. I won’t go into heavy detail because there are too many items for the scope of this post, but you can read all about them on the TF2 website.

An interesting addition as part of the Polycount pack is set bonuses. Players receive a bonus such as increased movement speed if all items from a set are equipped at once. To keep things balanced, the positive bonus is paired with a negative bonus as well.

The loadout screen has been updated to accommodate the Mann Co. catalogue (which essentially shows the same information as the Mann Co. store, just without the purchasing component), and the new trading interface, a long-desired feature amongst the community.

When opening the trade interface, you are prompted to select a player from your steam friends list, the current server you are connected to (if applicable), or you can send a request to someone’s steam profile page. The trading screen is more or less what you would expect based on similar trading systems in other games such as World of Warcraft. The screen shows your inventory, along with 4 slots to send items and 4 slots to receive, and “ready to trade” checkboxes for both players which must be checked before a trade can be executed. Items that can’t be traded, such as the cheater’s lament, are dimmed out. Under the inventory is a chat interface allowing you to properly seal the deal.

Items that were found or crafted prior to the update are prefixed with the word “Vintage” and have a blue name. This doesn’t seem to apply to headgear and misc items.

By far the biggest update to TF2 since its release in late 2007, this adds a lot to the game. To be honest, I’m not sure that the prices are worth it for the vast majority of players but there’s no reason they won’t change in the future, and all items with significant gameplay effect are still obtainable for free, so it’s not a big deal. I think the opportunity for community member to not only contribute to the game but make some cash doing it is also a good thing, and not something you see in a lot of games.

In other news, E3 just passed and unfortunately, there wasn’t much to look at this year. The centrepiece of the expo, Microsoft Kinect (formerly known by its working name, Project Natal), was revealed via interpretive dance performed by Cirque du Soleil (I wish I was joking). The Sony EyeToy Microsoft Kinect promises to revolutionize the console gaming experience. Personally, I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

On the other hand, Valve showed off Portal 2 at E3 and my god, it is beautiful. Pushing aside the new features they’ve added to Portal’s already innovative gameplay, there appear to have been some drastic changes to Source’s lighting engine. The videos show off some complex and rather beautiful dynamic lighting which look completely unlike what the current release of the source engine is capable of. Portal 2 is due for release in 2011. I’ll leave you with IGN’s Portal 2 walkthrough videos from E3.

Some significant events have occurred over the last two months regarding Australia’s IT industry. AFACT lost their lawsuit against iiNet. AFACT appealed the decision despite the fact that judge Cowdroy explicitly stated that “… it is impossible to conclude that iiNet has authorised copyright infringement…”

Meanwhile, Michael Atkinson stepped back from the front bench, giving up his position as South Australia Attorney-General for personal reasons right after he was re-elected. The move was significant because Atkinson has been the main opponent against the introduction of an R18+ rating for video games. Australia remains the only western country without an adult’s only classification which has prevented more intense games from being sold here. A move to amend the current classification system has to be unanimously accepted by all Australia’s attorneys-general which essentially gives any one of them the power to veto such a move. Now that Atkinson has stepped back there’s much higher chance of an adults only rating being introduced.

Speaking of games, Splinter Cell Conviction is finally being released next week after being delayed countless times since its original release date of late 2007. Being a huge fan of the Splinter Cell series, I will be sure to pick up a copy either on steam, Xbox, or both. There is a demo available on Xbox Live Marketplace, which I have of course played repeatedly.

Portal 2 will also be coming out later this year which will be great fun. Valve has apparently found a way to implement cooperative multiplayer in a way that’s fun and challenging, which is fantastic. The news on the Portal sequel has sparked a renewed level of activity in the portal mapping community. I might write a Portal related Hammer tutorial soon, so stay tuned.

Speaking of unfulfilled promises, that carve tool article still hasn’t been published. It is of course, my prerogative, to blame the aforementioned delay on preparing my machine for Windows 7. It should be on the site later today, so stay tuned if you’re waiting for that.

The board originally refused classification for Left 4 Dead 2 last month, which forced Valve to appeal the decision and quickly throw together a less graphic version of the game in order to meet the November release date. The three-person panel, which voted unanimously to refuse classification to Left 4 Dead 2, explained their reasoning in a press release made available today on the board’s website.

The computer game [Left 4 Dead 2] contains a level of violence which is high in impact, prolonged, repeated frequently and realistic within the context of the game.

In addition, it was the Review Board’s opinion that there was insufficient delineation between the depiction of general zombie figures and the human figures, as opposed to the clearly fictional ‘infected’ characters. This was a major consideration of the Review Board in determining the impact of this game on minors.

The decision has reignited the debate concerning Australia’s lack of an R 18+ rating for video games. Video game classification in Australia remains the strictest of all classified media due to its lack of an R 18+ rating. Valve plans to submit a modified version of the game to the board for review.

Okay so it’s been just under three months since I last posted and that has been for a variety of reasons, which I will now outline.

I was briefly sucked back into the world of MMOs, first by playing EVE Online and then World of Warcraft soon after. I managed to get a Hyperion in EVE (a battleship roughly 1.7 kilometres in length) and a level 80 Death Knight in World of Warcraft. Having achieved these goals and essentially selling two months of my life to CCP and Blizzard, I decided I was done with these games for now.

I’ve also had some web hosting and development work for various people that I’ve been dealing with and I’ve been writing a DirectAdmin skin for the guys over at Honest Networks.

On that note, I’d like to say that writing skins for DirectAdmin is a bitch. The fact that there appears to be a relatively high demand for DirectAdmin skins with very few people making them seems to reflect this. The skinning system works, but it’s unnecessarily complicated. You can read more about it over at http://www.directadmin.com/skins.html.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time on IRC as I’ve been writing an IRC bot in C#. I may or may not cover some of that in the coming weeks but who knows.

I also received a whole a bunch of messages and emails in regards to the SketchUp video I made, there seems to be a substantial amount of people who can’t find the plug-ins that are ostensibly now included with the regular SDK. Not to worry, you can still download them right here by clicking this link:

http://files.nacimota.com/sketchup_plugins.zip

Speaking of Hammer, I’ve got an article I’m planning to write covering the use of the carve tool, probably the most controversial tool in Hammer. It won’t be particularly long so that should pop up on this page soon.

Speaking of games, I’ve heard whispers of a rumour that Blizzard is planning to roll out the Starcraft 2 beta within the next month or two, but I take that with a grain of salt. Should we be selected to participate, I’ll chronicle the experience in its own post. You can opt-in for the beta by creating an account at Battle.net and changing your profile settings.

Stick around, more stuff coming soon.

http://www.vitocassisi.com/archives/58