Miscellaneous Ramblings

A whole lot of not much has been happening over the past few weeks here (as usual), so I thought I'd mention a few things that have been going on in the outside world that have affected me in some way. Well actually that's a bit of a lie because I did have an operation on Wednesday, but it was just to remove an ingrown toenail and has proven to be nothing but an embuggerance, preventing me from going airsofting and generally making upright movement uncomfortable.

On the gaming side of things there's been an event comparable to Duke Nukem Forever's recent media release, and that is that the NeoTokyo mod team have recently released a new video showcasing some of DJ Bourgeoisie's enviable level design (the talented bastard). There's also word that they're planning a huge media update soon, with new screens and trailers, so if you're a massive NT freak (please tell me I'm not alone) this will no doubt be welcome news and should be making your undergarments moist right around now. There's also a few samples of the completed soundtrack on composer Ed Harrison's MySpace page which should send tingles of ambient-styled delight down your spine.

In the industry there's been lots of hubbub over EA's recent bid to buy Take-Two (and with it Rockstar Games), and I'm happy to report that so far, even though EA have taken it straight to the stockholders, T2 aren't budging. This has been labeled as the first 'hostile' takeover in the history of the games industry, and hopefully it will be the last. I would also like to mention that although psychotic crackpot 'lawyer' (and I use the word loosely) Jack Thompson offered EA his full cooperation and well-wishing, they essentially told him to go and sodomise a tree because of his 'colourful' history. He has also been sanctioned by the Florida Supreme Court in an event in gaming history on par with the parting of the red sea in the Bible. Hopefully old Jack will one day realise his God-given task of freeing the world of games is in actual fact filling a gap that some milk he forgot to buy at the store fifteen years ago left and he will promptly resume his normal life. In the mean time, the best we can do is try to keep him off the streets at night and all do our part to try and comfort his embarassed wife whose sexual satisfaction has been fulfilled only because of generous gamers - poor woman.
Get well soon Jack.

Finally, although this may not even ring a tiny little dinnerbell for 99.7% of you, Itlit Software, as I have been recently informed, has been purchased by a larger corporate entity (£5 says it's EA) to boost funding for their flagship RelentENGINE title Relent: The Fallen. Similar to Crytek in their fascination with a single word, but in that only. Yes, the RelentENGINE showed signs of being a fair competitor to Crytek's frame-per-minute graphical throne, and indeed even the Unreal Engine's stranglehold on the console gaming and mod communities, but at a playable framerate and with some colours other than pale grey, respectively. It not only promised this, but has also made claims to provide 'massive destroyable city environments' along with many other impressive features (full specs here).
So why, you ask, am I talking about it in the past tense? Well, following Itlit's purchase by the as yet unknown (can anybody clarify?) company, all previous non-profit projects, agreements and policies have been bombed, along with any hope I had of securing a copy of the engine for myself. Why, you ask? You do ask a lot of bloody questions. Thing is, I have been drawing up plans and calculating feasibilities to create a game of my own, free to download. I won't say any more than that as it may still happen one day and I don't want some sneaky bastard stealing my plans, but the RelentENGINE was the only hope I had of ever getting it rolling. I wanted a next-gen engine, capable of various degrees of shader rape, typical physics stuff, typical AI stuff and large, detailed city environments without loss of framerate. The RelentENGINE's specs hit my needs and kept going until they hit the horizon, and, even though I haven't actually seen any screens or videos, it seemed perfect and I just had really good feeling about it. I was half-way through the paperwork of a Confidential Disclosure Agreement (am I allowed to disclose that?) before I was informed of the takeover and new policies, and my teenage hopes of bitch whipping a team of trained monkeys into helping me make my perfect game were cruelly dashed.
It's not over yet, as I may be able to get my hands on the engine yet. In the mean time, however, I shall despair.
I bid you good day.

Let's have a go at this 'blogging' stuff

Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Laurence 'Imbrium' Trevennor.
Full time internet geek, gamer, proud Airsofter, full-time cat owner and Level Designer. I currently reside in the piss soaked, toothless yokel-infested backwaters of Wiltshire, England and created this blog mostly as a means of venting my anger at various game/publishing companies, inform the general public as to the depressing state of their grammatical skills and perhaps even post a few map WIPs. But first, a little about myself.

Freakishly lanky (6"5-ish), worryingly pale and heavily armed, I am, in reality a bit of a shy bloke (due in part to the long imprisonment on this metaphorical desert island) with a love of firearms and collection of airsoft replicas. While this may sound a little worrying to some readers, I do happen to have a soft side. This is where my cat, Ruby comes in, and my two rabbits Amber and Sapphire. I'm 16, slowly working my way through college, and for those of you who play computer or console games on a regular basis, I welcome you to my blog and wish you long life and good health. You will need your gaming skills to understand the majority of terminology I will be using throughout the life of this blog. To Daily Mail reading parents who have been brainwashed into thinking games are evil, Jack Thompson and anybody who takes anything they read on Gamespot without a 5lb bag of salt, I wish you two weeks holiday at the business end of a firing range, you bunch of stuck up hypocrites.

Well, we're 19 lines and one rant in and I haven't even touched on Level Design yet, so let's get on with it. I am currently a Source Engine man (Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike Source, Garry's Mod etc.), mainly due to the complete absence of any other games with a grotesquely huge fan base, (mostly) bollocks-free toolkit, radiosity lighting and framerate in excess of 3 per minute. I am currently working on one map, GM_Mudstorm for Garry's Mod, which I will post some images of next time I compile it, and have two or three other projects in the pipeline. Hopefully there will be a game engine along with real-time radiosity (none of this compiling malarkey, to quote Interlopers.net's Athlete UK), a decent SDK and all of the next-gen bells and whistles before I stop giving a shit and join the marines.

Anyway, I hope that's given you a little insight into who I am and what I'm about. As my whiteboard has just reminded me, I have an airsoft game at Ground Zero on the 13th which I must now prepare for. I'll post a few pictures if I remember.
Tally ho.