Be Polite. Be Efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

The Sniper vs. Spy update is upon us. A free weekend has been announced, so all you cheapskates who still haven't bought the game (seriously, The Orange Box was $10 and you still missed out?) can have fun with Jarate. Hell, Meet the Spy got leaked, re-rendered to poke fun at the leak, and officially released.

Unfortunately I can't say much as unlike the TF2 blog posts, I might actually get fired if I talk about details. On that subject, I was surprised that despite the absurdity of the posts, some people still took it way too seriously.

Anyway, I'll leave you with a little game. You get to guess which of the Sniper achievements from this update was my idea (no, the banner is not intended as a clue). The full list is on the Sniper vs. Spy update page (Day 7)

EDIT: Heh, the Orange Box $10 deal is a past sale that I was just chiding you for missing - some people seem to think it's the upcoming sale. Sorry but unfortunately announcing upcoming sales would probably get me in just as much trouble as discussing unreleased gameplay features :(

So I'm browsing around on my computer after a stupidly long bicycle repair job. Somebody else is watching Heroes in the living room...and I hear a song I recognize. Not just any song, but something I didn't really ever expect to hear in anything popular.

I'd embed it, but a link will just have to do: Zircon - Warhead

I don't really know much about Zircon other than I think he started in video game music remixing, but I definitely like Antigravity. Hearing it in a TV show like Heroes was a funny double-take moment.

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I had trouble deciding between this title or The End of the World as We Know it.

Anyway, Tabula Rasa has been shut down as of 10 minutes ago. We could mourn or celebrate the loss, depending on our point of view, but I think I'll just do the neutral observer thing and post a few screenshots (perhaps I'll get some video up, but somehow my FRAPS set itself back to multichannel audio recording, which means YouTube will cut out the sound after 3 seconds if I don't change it to stereo)

An appropriately named character created specially for the end. (It's "Ragnar Rok" if you can't see it)
A dev closes in for the kill just as the server lags due to extreme player load. At 8PM CST the admins/GMs unleashed an unending horde of high-level enemies.
All that's left after the slaughter, since maps that lost all their CPs were then inaccessible (there was no way to lose the CELLAR Arena map)

I never really got into the Counter-Strike skinning and model-swapping thing, mainly because I never really played any version of Counter-Strike seriously. However, with Left 4 Dead, I have all sorts of reasons to make my stuff sound more like I want it. Personally I want to swap out a couple of weapons but first I have to wait for the SDK to come out so I can properly import weapon meshes and animations.

Anyway I decided that I didn't really care for the original minigun sound, so I spent some time yesterday changing the sound from this:


to this:


The actual goods can be found at http://www.fpsbanana.com/sounds/6947

Here's a real one for comparison:


Some people I talk to like it, others hate it, but this is the reason content modding exists in the first place.
  

 

Ok, ok. So it's not quite as awesome as it sounds. I won't be making Half-Life 2 Episode 3 (I probaly won't even know anything about it until they want random playtesters). But even then, I just got the call today that I am hired for a position in Steam support! I originally met with Steve McClure, the CFO of Valve, due to a strange coincidence - my mom is in a book club, and it just so happens that Steve's wife is also part of it. I talked about what it takes to get into Valve (they don't hire anybody to the actual development team without prior experience) but that support is open to knowledgable people and that another head would be useful due to the holiday rush. He also gave me other fun facts...like how the Tank in the Left 4 Dead cutscene was animated by a number of people who had animated the recent King Kong movie. And that there's a special bonus feature supposedly coming in the L4D SDK that I can't tell you anything more about.

I interviewed for the position last Tuesday, but the main support boss, Doug Valente, was out, so I had to come back yesterday and interview again. I've been a pile of anxiety for the past week and a half, waiting for confirmation. Finally got the call at about 4PM today. I'm hired, and they want me to start Monday! Woo, enough time to reset my sleep schedule.

 Perhaps if you have an issue with Steam and have to send in a support ticket, I might be the one answering it. Oh, and I might finally be able to tell you how PayPal payments work, Karmum.

Of course by announcing this, I've also painted a target on myself. Please, if you have a legitimate Steam support issue, don't try to ask me straight up - send in a ticket. Unless you're a buddy, it'll be ignored and thrown away.

I also have a very applicable video link for this (contains profanity)... Welcome to the Internet Helpdesk