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Opinion

Opinion articles

Phillip Marlowe, Creator of RunThinkShootLive.com Lets Off Steam About Valve’s Silence

Valve

Phillip Marlowe is the founder of the Half-Life singleplayer modding website RunThinkShootLive.com, formerly known as PlanetPhillip.com. Phillip has been running his site for 13 years, and within that time he has become a well-known individual in the Half-Life modding community.

Phillip got in touch with us recently to voice his opinion regarding Valve’s customer care in relation to the lack of communication about the future state of the Half-Life series, and we thought we’d share it with you. You can discuss your own thoughts on this in the comments after the article. All views expressed in this article are his own.

A Love Letter to Team Fortress Classic’s Escape Mode

Team Fortress

As far as I know, “Escape” mode never made it to TF2 in any fashion, so whenever I get the urge for it, I crank up Team Fortress Classic and play with its healthy repertoire of Escape maps available. Also (unlike the TFC proper servers in my area) it still has a healthy playerbase today, which I link to at the end of this article and anyone who wants can go play even now.

At its core, the Escape mode is a cooperative game mode with only one team, composed entirely of Civilians. Together, your cadre of umbrella-wielding dudes tries to navigate a hazardous map of puzzles, pitfalls, and other perils to safety.

What Makes a Free-to-Play Game Successful?

Gaming Industry

This is an editorial by Aabicus which analyses the successfulness of free-to-play games in the gaming industry with relation to Team Fortress 2. All views expressed here are his own.

The Free-to-play model is the current trend in multiplayer online games at the moment, most frequently seen in MMOs, MOBAs and shooters. Since several high-profile games (including Team Fortress 2) proved the model worked, the gaming industry have seen a staggering amount of F2P releases, some of whom keep their revenue-enhancing devices subtle and others who make real-world money the most valuable resource a player can have.

What Makes a Good Mod? Simple Answer…Fun!

Source

My name is Jim Partridge and I’m a modder primarily for Half-Life 2. My previous work includes Half-Life 2: Deep Down, Half-Life 2: Daylight and numerous PlanetPhillip competition entries. I decided to join LambdaGeneration this year as a contributor for the site’s Modding & Development section. My primary interest is in level design with a focus on gameplay, I’m a gameplay nerd in fact… Join me in my nerdiness!

‘Mods Going Retail.’ Sounds Fantastic, but at What Cost?

Steam

Many moons ago, you might remember an article we posted about how Valve had given the Black Mesa team (now known as the Crowbar Collective) the opportunity to sell their mod as a full retail product. Despite announcing that a Source SDK 2013 version of Black Mesa would also be available for free, the announcement was met with mixed criticism. There was an overwhelming amount of support for the team, but there were a number of people who were concerned with what ‘ethical’ implications this choice to go retail might have. Should community made content that has always been available for free suddenly be given the chance to be monetized?

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