The first episode of BWL’s Video update is finished. It did, however, end up longer then I had anticipated originally and was thus divided into two parts.
In this episode we take a look at some project news including Cat-Life and our comics. We also visit the steam chat room briefly with our “From the Chat Room” segments. And our main topic of the day is machinima… what we see in other people’s works and what we hope to do with our three planned shows.
I suggest using the “Full Screen” option for watching this video. You’ll get more out of it I think.
Part 1
Part 2
In the end, this episode was delayed for a few extra weeks due to schedule issues mainly. And, given the subject matter’s resolutions, there is a fluctuation in the size of the letter boxing on most of the machinima topic. Also, there are a few errors that I left in simply because it would have been more trouble then necessary to repair.
This episode ran longer then my intended 15 minute time limit with the “From the Chat Room” features cut down to a few short minutes each. We had already realized that From the Chat Room could be a full audio program of its own and planned to release the full discussion separately. So be sure to check out our full “From the Chat Room” mp3 as hosted by ModDB.
The mp3 has been edited to cut out our long dead air pauses and many “uhms” and “ughs” plus a few other less important or classified bits of the discussion. The full session is around 35 minutes in length.
In future episodes, I plan to focus more on the “From the Chat Room” segment and use that more for our main topic and news sections as it really turned into more interesting discussion.
Thanks again to Syrus Rayne, Radu Iceman, and BiGToM for helping with that. As for why we chose to use steam instead of our Ventrilo server… well… the idea behind “From The Chat Room” is that members of our steam group can join in on the discussion at any time. It’s not meant to be a “podcast” as much as it is a chat room segment for the show.
Of course, that does mean there are some buggy moments with the audio in the full mp3 and a somewhat lower quality to the sound as compared to something like skype or a shout-cast service of some sort.
We have had this site online since 2001 and seen marginal activity at best. I’m tired of this lack of interest. If we can’t be recognized as a classy, quality content site… then fine. I’d rather churn out the “popular” content then continue to put so much effort into projects.
My plan is basically to start putting just a little less effort into projects and get then out sooner. Expect a considerable increase in activity over the next few weeks.
Hopefully, this will attract a little more interest.
And yes, This includes our mod projects. As far as I am concerned the original CL is now finished. We’re going to focus on CLS now and get that done quickly so we can start work on CL2 and the other mods I have planed.
Videos will also be ramped up a bit more quickly. Expect one within the next few days… by the end of the day tomorrow if I can edit it that quickly.
As you have likely noticed by now, I have started making changes to the site. Most of them have been minor with the most prominent change being the archiving of the old Friendly Garg site content.
However, I have also added commenting to the individual pages, so you can leave comments in a number of new places. Also, I’ve changed a number of pages to a more uniform look and link structure. And I’ve simplified some of the navigation factors.
Beyond that… I’ve basically extinguished the small changes. So now, it’s time to start tearing down the current site theme in favor of something a little more professional and a little less HL-centric.
I’m also recruiting some team members in a thread in the Resource Depot forum. Welcome Syrus Rayne as he has moved from just a member of the BWL Film Crew to the full Creativity Team as a news poster and Game Reviewer.
Expect some big things from BWL Development in the future.
But with that said, the appearance changes I am about to make on this site will affect some of the content for temporary periods of time. Specifically, you may find the site looking drastically different for a few hours once in a while and you may also find links or features missing for those same periods of time.
Please, bare with us as this has been needed for a while and I want to really step up the site’s appearance.
Originally imagined in 2003 as a mod for Half-Life, Cat-life has spent a great deal of time on hiatus over the years. After a long delay due to missing team leadership, the mod reorganized under current Team Cat-Life leader BiGToM. Yet the greatest missing component, a coder, remains absent. The biggest single set-back has been the cat’s POV code.
However, as has been stipulated before, this mod about a cat trapped and ownerless during the Black Mesa incident has plenty of lives left. Earlier this week, BiGToM announced that an older piece of code from prior efforts had been successfully implemented. The original code had been fraught with bugs such as monsters sinking into the floor. Nevertheless, after a lengthy wait for a new coder [a wait that included a cash reward], the early code was modified and fixed.
Now, with corrected code in hand, Team Cat-Life is able to wrap up other portions of the mod. With this news, the team has also announced a target date for the first stage of Open Beta testing. Expect to be able to download and play the Cat-Life beta in November.
The beta will also include additional bonus content including maps that were cut from the project and some of the original concept.
To help celebrate, I’ve asked BiGToM for some new screen shots for the gallery. We’ve now added four new images. Also, be sure to keep an eye on PHL, TWHL’s Forums, HL2Files, and our FPS Banana Account for this press release. I dispatched two “exclusive” screenshots to each of those sites with our news and those images will not be added to the gallery.
Also, and this is to clarify previous statements, the team does not intend to stop work on Cat-Life and switch over to the Source engine. There is, however, an ongoing discussion regarding the possibility of either converting a finished Cat-Life to Source or… more likely… making a sequel using Source.
No matter the outcome of that discussion, Cat-Life will begin its open beta in November and we do want it finished before moving to the next project.
And if you are interested in working on a sequel in Source, and happen to know how to code… contact me at the_wildcat@bwldevelopment.com I personally would like to have someone writing new source code long before the team is actually ready to work on a second mod and possibly accelerate the development process.
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