Episode #48 – ft. The Mortewood Plaza
This week William and Phillip interview Dec of The Mortewood Plaza. They also run through this weeks news: Situation Outbreak, Strider Mountain, Ham & Jam, NMRiH, Exodus, Cat Life, Agglutinaatio and the intriguing In Development.
Transmission Code: 16601 (#48)
We chose not to discuss the Fly Gabe Fund this week as William wasn’t fully up to date with it. We will be discussing it next week.Extended Show Notes
Introduction
- 00:00:40 · William and Phillip are joined (for the interview) by Dec of The Mortewood Plaza.
Podcast17 News
- 00:03:15 · Emanuel and Phillip’s side episode.
- 00:05:00 · Call to Emanuel
- 00:08:10 · ValveCommunity.net news from Phillip.
From the Mouth of Valve
- 00:13:00 · L4D2 Boycott founders flown to Valve.
- 00:19:30 · More Garry’s mod Achievements.
- 00:21:30 · Source 2007 Engine Update Released.
- 00:22:15 · Shacknews:Left 4 Dead 2: PAX Interview with Chet Faliszek Cry
Releases
- 00:23:40 · Situation Outbreak – It’s SUNDAY! SUNDAY!! SUNDAY!!!
- 00:25:00 · Lost In The Subway: Redwell Street
- 00:26:?? · Segway into City 7: Toronto Conflict
- 00:27:50 · Provenance (Phillip has an audio interview this wednesday)
- 00:28:10 · Combine Raid: Get Out Alive
- 00:29:00 · The Plague
- 00:30:00 · Agglutinaatio
- 00:31:00 · It’s Ours Now
- 00:33:00 · Strider Mountain
- 00:34:30 · Winter Mod (Beta 1.0)
- 00:35:?? · Segway into Event in Village
Media Blitz
- 00:36:30 · Ham and Jam – The last 10% is the hardest 10%…
- 00:38:00 · No More Room in Hell – Weekly Update September 9th, 2009
- 00:40:40 · Exodus – A New Start
- 00:41:?? · Segway: Phillip wants to boycott Zombie Mods.
- 00:43:00 · Cat Life – Beta Announcement
- 00:45:00 · In Development Announced
Interview
- 00:48:20 · Interview with Dec from The Mortewood Plaza.
- 00:50:30 · What can’t Dec do? Any plans for team expansion?
- 00:53:00 · Game Modes in Mortewood? Fear of oversaturation.
- 00:55:40 · How does Dec find the time?
- 00:57:20 · Phillip wants to know more about singleplayer!
- 00:58:30 · Details of the addon system.
- 00:59:20 · Details about the human NPC’s.
- 01:00:00 · Story Missions.
- 01:00:50 · Teleport gun details.
- 01:02:40 · More details about achievements.
- 01:04:00 · Weapon management.
- 01:05:40 · Engine limitations.
- 01:07:30 · Beta testing.
- 01:08:10 · Achievement system.
- 01:09:40 · Vehicle code limitations.
- 01:10:00 · Zombie inspiration.
- 01:15:20 · Phillip has some suggestions.
- 01:16:30 · Humour.
- 01:19:00 · How does Dec feel about the number of zombie mods?
- 01:22:00 · Release plans.
- 01:27:00 · Wrap-up.
- 01:28:20 · When is The Mortewood Plaza coming out?
Question/Discussion
- 01:32:40 · PlanetPhillip Poll Question 138 – Should Valve “force” players to use Hammer?
- 01:40:30 · Wrap-up
Download Links
- Full Transmission (96.7 MB)
- Interview Only (41.3 MB)
Podcast17 News
From the Mouth of Valve
- L4D2 Boycott founders flown to Valve
- More Garry’s mod Achievements
- Source 2007 Engine Update Released
- Shacknews:L42:PAX Interview – Chet
Releases
- Situation Outbreak
- Lost In The Subway: Redwell Street
- Provenance
- Combine Raid: Get Out Alive
- The Plague
- Agglutinaatio
- It’s Ours Now
- Strider Mountain
- Winter Mod (Beta 1.0)
- The Event in Village
Media Blitz
- Ham and Jam – The last 10% is the hardest 10%…
- NMRiH Weekly Update
- Exodus – A New Start
- Cat Life – Beta Announcement
- In Development Announced
A bit painful to listen to the interview due to audio issues, but overall once again an enjoyable show.
On the subject of the Valve Community site… a simple listing of all the web addresses would be a nice thing, but I wasn’t able to find such a list. It would make it a lot easier to quickly check which sites on our own bookmarks aren’t yet included.
Zombie girlfriends… if you haven’t seen the movie “Fido” yet, now would be a good time. Just a humorous and somewhat satirical film, not the zombie porno like that Left 4 Head thing you guys were talking about a while back.
Good clarification on the poll question… I also was confused by it before listening to this. I for one really say I’m glad Valve wouldn’t ever force people to create a map to unlock more content. I’ve dinked around with Hammer briefly and it’s quite enjoyable; however, you have to realize that many people who play these games lack the skills and desire to get that deeply involved. Personally I would love to create maps, but the time required to develop any level of skill in this area is prohibitive to those of us who already have very limited gaming time.
William’s idea of unlocking content when you install a 3rd party mod is much more feasible, but likely you’d be looking at one of the Steamworks mods, due to the increased simplicity of installation. Either way, though, I really don’t see this happening.
Once again, interesting show, thanks for your efforts! :)
Nighthawk,
ValveCommunity.Net
I disagree that a simple list would be a nice thing. It would show you what games it covered, what features it had etc. I believe that eventually VC will have over 300 sites listed. Imagine having a list of that many links, that couldn’t be sorted or filtered in some way. Of course, having a text list doesn’t mean it couldn’t be filtered but why go to all that effort and not allow users to see a screenshot or comment on the site.
If we took your excellent site as an example, and looked at the URL (http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/) it would be easy to assume that you only covered CS, but any reader who visits your site it covers so much more.
I don’t mean to sound too argumentative, and if I do I apologize, it just feel a simple list is what 99% of websites already have and it doesn’t inspire me to visit many of those sites.
Poll Question 138
Let me start off by saying I am not advocating the idea, just putting it forward for discussion.
I do realize that “many people who play these games lack the skills and desire”, but sometimes people just need a little “push” in the right direction. With the Trackmania example, players aren’t missing out on anything amazing if they don’t create tracks, but there will always be players who want to get everything.
I see it as a very similar approach as say Easter Eggs or achievements. Most players won’t be interested but some might and the rest haven’t missed anything because they would have missed the extra content anyway.
I agree that William evolution of my idea is better, but again, I agree that I don’t see either happening.
now its the time William to get garrys mod ;half the price, go go go :)
@Nighthawk: Regarding the audio quality, Dec was having some sound card issues so his sound was peaking – definite problems and I apologize. Also I am going to start working on getting the audio quality back to snuff.. a lot of people are complaining that the levels are messed up.
OMGZ Threaded comments
WOW! thanks Nic, gonna blast my replies directly into the eyeballs of my victims now
William has been sent GM as a gift.
Hilarious Phillip…
Phillip: Having a zombie girlfriend would be kinda cool, she wouldn’t talk back. Ew, I think i’ve come up with something there.
William: There’s probably porn of it…
Phillip: Hahahaha, oh, that is so sick! Oh my god!
Phillip: Oh… Okay… I’ll be right back.
Phillip, allow me to clarify. I didn’t mean that a simple list format would be the ideal main presentation format. I definitely agree that having a screenshot and overview on your site is very helpful, and I like your overal format. Rather, I was meaning that it would be nice to have a separate page that simply lists all of your links, ideally in alphabetical order (rather than date added), as an additional way of viewing this compilation.
Primarily this would be for the sake of getting an overview of what is included, and what still needs added. In its present form it would take me quite some time to go through all my bookmarks and compare them to what is or isn’t included on your site–a process I’m sure you’d like to make as easy as possible so that your readers/listeners can provide valuable feedback.
Either way, thanks for your efforts in bringing the community together!
Nighthawk, yes that’s a great idea. I admit that after I replied I staretd thinking about it a little more. Whilst I am not an expert on Wordpress I think it might be a little hard to creat automatically. I could do it manually, and once the initial work has been done it should be too hard to update.
Do you think a Delicious account would work?
http://delicious.com/ValveCommunity.Net
It only has one website becaue I just set it up.
You are right going through the list would be too tedious. Very good point.
That could be a wonderful way of doing it… Delicious lets you sort by different criteria and view a lot of links at a time, which are the main things needed. I’d only worry about it if you have the time, as I realize your existing content would take a while to plug into that system.
I need to play with WordPress more… I routinely work with a different CMS, and it would be good to expand my knowledge of this one’s abilities/limitations.
Well, who would ahve thunk it!
Here it is: http://www.valvecommunity.net/complete-alphabetical-list
I can’t get rid of that gap at the top but it seems to do what it’s supposed to do.
Now, if only I could get Delicious to import from an XML file I *might* be able to hack something together to save importing manually.
One cool feature about Delicious is that it can automatically Tweet every update, which will save me some time.
Thanks for suggesting this, it make a valuable feature to the site. Just got to work out how best to display it.
I think that’s a great idea Phillip and great way to show a simple list for people that like that sort of thing (it is useful for me) and then showcase them on the front page for people that like to see the website like that (blog-esque). Luckily for me, MediaWiki makes that type of thing for me on my website as shown here: http://halflifelibrary.com/wiki/Special:AllPages
For the delicious thing, this is probably what you are looking for: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bookmark-export/installation/
Yes, that list is useful, but remembver it was NightHawk’s idea. Using a wiki based system has its advantages over a blog based system, and that list is one of them. Original LEvelpedia, the forrunner to PP, was built using a wiki but it just didn’t feel right.
Thanks for the link but I already checekd that one out. The problem is that it would create links to the pages on VC, rather than direct links to the sites themselves.
I considered having it that way but it seem as though I would be making readers jump through hoops just to get to the sites, which is ultimately what they want.
Unfortuinately I don’t have the links stored as bookmarks because I never really got into that.
Hey Everyone.
I SERIOUSLY apologise for the Audio quality. I sincerely hope this did NOT put you off the pod cast.
Thanks. If you cant listen to me then listen to the rest of the podcast. This was a brilliant cast!
one of the best interviews i heard on this site so far, keep up the good work!
We are glad you liked it.
When you say “on this site” does that mean you listen to other gaming podcasts? If so, which ones would you recommend?
MAybe we should start a collection of podcasts. In fact, maybe in the same style as VC. What do readers think. It’s pretty easy to set up and with some help could be up and ruinning in a week or so. Any volunteers?
I think the idea sounds great, however will the proposed list focus on the half life community/mods podcast list breakdown, or more a generic valve gameplay/mod feature podcast list?
The idea is for all podcasts related to gaming, not just HL or even Valve, but everything. Chances are that if you are interested in HL you probably have an interest in general gaming too.
ANyway, I really don’t have the time for this and wish I would stop suggesting these things when I clearly can’t do them. Hopefully somebody else would take the idea and do it.
Am I the only one who thought that Strider Mountain was a dozen times more infuriating then it was enjoyable?
I haven’t finished it yet; Some areas are just so obscure and weird, i.e.: they make no sense in “real life” and the cut scenes break the flow.