17 Responses to “Episode #30”

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Freeman’s mind is AMAZING!!

My favorite part was when he got attacked by headcrabs and started screaming “SIT DOWN!! CLASS IS IN SESSION!!”

You’ve GOT to get him on the Podcast! That would be the best episode ever!

Search Civil Protection on Google. He has a blog, as well as links to both of his video series (FM and Civil Protection).

Get him on the show! And bring Philip, too.

@Stratofarius: hey no prob… Not sure about the live chat, it is has been hard for me to get in on those being in my timezone, family stuff, etc.
@Surfa: Great now we’re going to see a mod about zombies in their underpants! How about zombies in pixellated trousers?

For all: Relating to the fact that ZMS had an unusual amount of programmers on a team, what do most mod teams lack? Programmers? Modelers? Sound Designers? Or in other words, what does the mod community need more of in terms of creative talent? I have a friend who wants to do sound design for games and wants to look into the mod community to maybe learn and help some teams out. Would interlopers still be a good place to check out?

Also has everyone seen the TF2 Sniper (aka Spy) update? Pretty funny stuff…

@Surfa and axphin: Thanks for debating on my question! I hope you guys join the live chat on Saturday morning and talk about that with the hosts < That would really help!

@axphin:Yes I agree with those points but the source sdk it-self is however not limiting at all it is just most mod teams lack a good programmer. Which is why alot of the mods are the same, they may not start of with the same ideas but a basic similar concept say zombies in underpants. The problem is the teams normally don’t have a programmer good enough to make the code changes needed to allow different and original game play/features and so the mods end up just being zombies in underpants with different maps and models. Although with the template creation in the beta sdk it seems valve understand this and are trying to allows mods to add original feature without alot of coding.

@ Surfa: Good points. So modders WANT to kill zombies and nazis and nazi zombies? I guess those are always good fodder for fps games. Why then do you think that zombies, ww2, and other recurring themes keep recurring? Do those themes just lend themselves to the gametype? Has it just snowballed and saturated people’s minds? I agree that modders and indie devs aren’t bound by the limitations of big devs, but it seems like there are lot of the same fps mods out there. Maybe that is because the toolset makes it easier for certain gametypes? For example in Hammer it probably takes less effort to make a zombie survival clone than a Sonic the Hedgehog clone. Also, if you’re a modder and you really like zombies or the concept and you’ve played a few other zombie mods but have been disappointed, aren’t you going to have some motivation to one up the competition and make a zombie mod the way YOU think it should be done? As far as portfolio pieces and school projects I totally agree that you are going to see some original stuff there (assuming they are doing something they enjoy and WANT to do and not something they HAVE to do… nod to Emanuel). But I think portfolio pieces and school projects are going to be smaller experiments with a very focused concentration on a goal, to show off a particular concept or ability.

I still think that the SDK and Hammer toolset need to be expanded upon to make it easier and more fun to experiment with new ideas and concepts. Hey maybe we could have DLC for the game editor (as long as it doesn’t turn into The Sims I guess… haha).

“@ Stratofarius: I think modders get stuck on trends and or they create what is popular hoping more people will play the trend. The most fun I have in Hammer is trying to think of DIFFERENT ideas or just experimenting with what else I could do.”

I believe that you aren’t quite right. From my experience modders tend to create what they want to play because they aren’t bound by limitations that affect professional game studios like turning a profit. Although it seems that most modders are avid fps fans and that is mostly why you have so many mods involving zombies, ww2 and Swat situations. Although if you look at mods create for portfolio pieces / school projects you can see that they try to be original and different in order to get some solid work for them to show off. I personally like to create mods that add to the story of the game I am modding.

Kitty Strike: Source, Team Feline 2, Half of 9 Lives 2, Kitty Mod: Source, Age of Sheba, The Orange Cat Box…

Something like that?

@ Stratofarius: I think modders get stuck on trends and or they create what is popular hoping more people will play the trend. The most fun I have in Hammer is trying to think of DIFFERENT ideas or just experimenting with what else I could do.

Has anyone tried the “worst_map.zip” from Da Fat Cat? I downloaded it but haven’t had a chance to play. Last night I finally got to try out survival mode and found out that my friends and I totally sucked… only got 4:01 on the lighthouse. Of course we were missing our 4th friend since he couldn’t make it and had just a bot… ugh.

[riffly_audio]9428608040BF11DE916091A29338EE5B[/riffly_audio]
(needs moar cat)
Oh, and I forgot to get on Mogulus last week. D:

Great Episode. BTW, I just gave the show 5 stars on iTunes and wrote a review.

@ Da Fat Cat: Yeah very interesting interview… most verbal of all interviews so far I think… It was fun.

a lot of sounds in dystopia have changed and there are now only a few left from cs. I don’t like every mod on steamworks either but valve obviously thinks they all have merit and that is good enough for me even if I don’t like them all. maybe one day we might see zombiemod source on there too.

the interview was very interesting. it’s very rare especially for a source mod to have lots of coders and no modelers. the zombiemod source guys may develop a bit differently but they did actually release which is a big achievement in itself since lots of mods never even that get far. I saw the profile on moddb a couple weeks back when it was first released but didn’t really take too much notice of it since there has been really no pr for it.now that people are playing it and it seems to be not half bad i have finally downloaded it and will be giving it a try.hopefully you guys can get some modelers in to give the mod a better look which will hopefully get even more people to play the mod

I though I might give you guys a quick over view of the uses of duct-tape. Apart from basic compiling of .smd->.mdl and image files to .vtf you have acess to a build all changes function. The build changes function is what sets duct tape from the basic valve tools and other community tools to compile your models and textures. Basically it allows you to make changes to a number of .smd and images files and with a touch of a button duct-tape will go through and build all edited files into the final products you see in-game. This is very useful when working on a large mod with lots of models and textures. Also the fact that the model compiler is completely handle through the gui is very useful it is similar to the popular tool ‘studio compiler’ by Cannonfodder but duct-tape allows you to compile for orange box based mods and games.

Also I love the podcast, keep up the good work. I gave you a mention on the duct tape homepage as well.

I am serious, guys.
If you get Ross Scott to be on the show, I’m going to have a fucking or***m.
Please. I will be the ultimate fan of Podcast 17 if that happens.