Once again, it’s time for another site news round-up.

First, I’ve updated the site banner.  That is partly because I finished the version 1.0 BWL Skin Pack.  It is located in the forums.  Future installments will include both charatcers and other forumites.

Unfortunately, because of the file size… I used FileFront and it is buggy as hell.  Follow the link and try to get them.  And if you get some Oblivion mod file… just follow the link again.

Here’s the forum thread… http://www.bwldevelopment.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=726

And if this business continues with FileFront, I’ll try MediaFire.

Second, In addition to our two new stories I wrote about last week… we also have two new wallpapers for BWL.

BWL Development Members

BWL Development 2009

Third, I have created a new forum in the Office Complex section.  The new Studio Offices forum his host to several project oriented sub-forums.  “Job Boards” will be posted there looking for help in specific video projects.

Then, a subforum dedicated to the project but un-readable to the outside world will be created.  I have three such “private” project forums now.  And only members who have agreed to work on the projects will be able to enter and discuss filming dates, scripts, details, etc.

I’m going to end this entry here as I need to get to work on that MediaFire upload.

Captain America is coming back.

Okay, that isn’t really shocking… I’m just glad we finally got past all the teasing the writers were doing over the past year.

The real news is…

Two new game comics.

You read that correctly.  Today I have made available two new short comics.

First up is the first episode of a new comic series called “The Sniper Chronicles” by Radu Iceman.  This first issue is 14 pages of comic goodness that introduces a zombie plot.

Stop by the Game Comics page to read “Episode 1 – Australian Zombie” today.

The second new comic is something different I wanted to make after reading a month old message on the Concerned forums.

As I have been working on a model reskin pack for a little while now… I thought this would be a good time to try out the team concept and play around with the new skins.  I also had two new wire mod / gcombat “props” for future movies that I wanted to show off.

All in all, this inspired me to create a new sub-section for the Game Comics page.  I call it “Web Events Archives”.  Anyone can make a Web Events Archive, but the premise is that they are based on real forum events… no matter how loosely.

To read the first Web Events Archive, “The Signal“, a 10-page comic loosely based on actual forum events, simply stop by the Game Comics page.

Whenever I started the transition of the site, turning it into Bored With Life, I had a few new comics and stories submitted rather unexpectedly.  At the time, I had only started to release new content.  I had actually only posted my first Half-Life 2 story.

I had many plans for the future and began work on a Comic Strips page as one of the additions.

Since this was such a new idea for this site, I was rather surprised when a new comic strip was submitted.  I did a little digging and tracked the author back to TWHL.

The Mesa Times by Daubster

The Mesa Times is the creation of one of TWHL’s staff, Daubster.  It is a Half-Life comic strip that takes place before the Black Mesa incident.  Daubster made it and posted it on TWHL initially with plans for a future website that never materialized.  One of the forum members at TWHL posted our link and suggested that he submit it here.

And so, The Mesa Times by Daubster is today’s featured comic.  Learn how the G-Man developed his speech impediment, learn what happened to the donuts, learn how Gordon got his assignment in the test labs, and learn what the scis do in their spare time.

Okay, the latest featured story is a throw-back to our Half-Life story days.  It’s one of our less talked about tales.

Most visitors that remember the site from those early years think of certain key image stories.  Specifically, the Barney Time Series or, on occasion, one of the other team-made plots.  But some of the best, most creative stories were fan-made.

In this case, I’m thinking of a story by R. Tarrman.  “INVASION”

Invasion by R. Tarrman

The story follows an unnamed scientist from an undisclosed facility that looks a lot like Black Mesa.  When he awakes in the locker room to find blood and death have filled the halls, he becomes concerned.  Then he encounters aliens and knows that his only recourse is to travel into the Black Mesa Research facility and find a way to stop the Xen invasion.

Of course, as with most of our stories, this one is based more around humor and is no where near as dramatic as it sounds.

This story is a 31 page image story on the Half-Life Stories page.  The majority of the jokes appear toward the end of the story when the scientist joins with Barney the security guard to stop the aliens.

When all else fails… turn to the Holy Book of Final Fantasy!

Invasion

We stand on the verge of a new era for BWL Development.  And I wish to welcome all refugees from the FileFront hosted site apocalypse.

Indeed… welcome to bwldevelopment.com

Now, our transition to the new host was a hasty one since we had only a few days notice.  That being the case, I had to foot the full set-up bill here on our new paid host service provided by justhost.com.  Normally, that set-up would have been free… but I had no time to come up with more then a month-by-month payment plan.

I certainly seek your help in covering our expenses with the new site.  My PayPal link in the left column is here to help accept donations for the cost of server expenses.

Moving on… in the coming days we will be voting on our site direction.  You see, I have always expected hl2files to eventually close… though I did expect more warning.  Moving to a paid service provider was always the plan.

And since we are no longer a hosted site for an HL2 website, we don’t need to only focus on HL2 and its derivative games.

So…

I a want to recruit volunteers to cover news and events for other games.  Obviously, members should always feel welcome to post gaming news on the forum.  But I am going to start looking for writers for this blog.

Tonight, I am posting a poll concerning other games/companies we could cover in addition to Valve/ Source Engine Games.  Choose your 5 favorites.  At the end of 1 month’s time, we will decide which are the most popular five other games/developers to cover.

At that time, volunteers can come forward and we can also recruit from sites like Unconcerned.  We will need five “news/op ed” writers for these games… one each.  Their task will be to write articles for the blog when developers make news.  The writers will also be responsible for coming up with any features for the same games such as Op Ed pieces, reviews, suggestions for a new game, tips, or whatever they feel like.

Tonight, I will be recreating the site tree with new pages, but the changes will be relatively minor.  I mainly want to make the point clear that fictions and comics for other non-source games, or not even game related at all, are welcome.

Finally, once again I say welcome.  Welcome to the new website.

UPDATE:

It seems the little WP Widget for my poll isn’t going to work on the new server.  It hangs every time I try to submit.  That being the case, I’ve posted a topic in the forums.  Go there to suggest your favorites…