One year and a half later... blog - joure

I still remember when starting on the mod. I had some ideas about how a citizen would run around recording stuff with a cam corder during the seven hour war. I was quite influenced after watching cloverfield. After that I started to work on a map, and edited with some video editing tool.

It was fun, and I kind of set the bar pretty high when it came to atmosphere. Because I edited in all the sounds afterwards I didn't know if I could do something like that. And I still don't know if I can now. Things changed for a great deal after that. I worked on the map a whole lot and out of that 1187 was born.

Right now I'm busy fine tuning the maps and I keep thinking to myself, what if people will hate it. How much feedback am I going to get, and what kind will it be. I started off with no real knowledge about the source engine and learned a great deal this one and a half year. Now I look at the maps and am thinking I should've done "this" here and "that" there. Ohh, I could've taken this approach when I started this map.

One of my biggest annoyance is the fact I screw up with some of the audio bits in the scenes. Sometimes john's audio goes pretty low, and it would take a whole lot of work to get them up to par. The fact is that when I play using my headset, it's fine. And I guess it's not that big of a problem as long as the audio is turned to a good level, but still.

The maps themselves aren't always what I wanted them to be, but I am proud of them anyway. But then I look at the team and realize that it's not even half as bad as I sometimes make it out to be. It's hard to talk about a mod that hasn't been released yet, and I really hope people's expectations will be fulfilled.

I guess my biggest concern is that people might expect too much from it, and that makes me want to do even better. Well, I do know that episode two will go much smoother. I'll avoid tons of mistakes I made in the past. I'll probably will have a much better rig at that time, which will make me be able to create maps at a much faster pace, let alone anything else.

To anyone who's reading this, although I am trying to make this as professional as I, and the team, can there are still small things that I just don't have a way around yet. The maps that I have now have been rid of any major bug, at least the ones we found, but I'm sure some will arise after release, which most likely will be fixed if can be.

One thing I have learned is that after episode one, I will take a big break and start on another project. An indy one at that. This time I'll write a whole new story that has nothing to do with half life. The whole project is going to be something very different from other fps'es. As muc has I love a good shooter, I always wanted to do something that is more laid back in terms of action. I grew up in a time where games didn't have to be about shooting. A time where it was more about adventuring.

Well I'm going ahead of things. First I need to finish 1187 ep1, take a break. and then I'll start sometime after that on ep2. I'm not sure how long the production time will be, but it'll probably be longer then ep1.

Well, the last thing I want to say is thanks to my other team members who have been working with me on this project. When I started to realize I might need the help of others, I didn't see myself ending up with the bunch of talented people that I'm working with now. So thank you guys, thanks like a whole frickin bunch.