Firearms: Source General Progress Report news

Before I mention the main topic of today's update, I'd like to talk a little about the progress of the game. I just got finished playing a three-hour, 14-man testing session through Juarez, Durandal, Asylum, Mine and Rubble. Updated versions of a few of those maps went out over the past week and we expect this to continue as we look at ways of polishing up the final product. Our mappers have been working hard on doing their final lighting passes, adding HDR and color correction. As I've told those who have asked me recently, FAS has come a long way since the beginning of this year. And with recent developments, our rate of progress in many areas is only getting better.

Which brings me to the main topic: new team members. We recently tapped long-time community activist TheUltra4sshole (aka "U4") to serve as both our Public Relations director and military adviser. It's in the PR role, however, that we feel we needed him the most. Many of you know we haven't had a real PR type position on the team and it's been suggested for a long time that we add one. We agreed. His job is going to be all about assisting us in talking with the community and getting the word out about Firearms: Source. I've given him great authority to do this job more or less how he sees fit, which means you can expect more from him than just a talking head. In fact, he's already taken the lead on starting an Alpha Tester's Journal, which allows our talented testing crew to make posts about their experiences playing the game. If you have a question, concerns about the game, want to interview a team member, etc - U4 is your guy.

We also brought on board the supremely talented weapons modeler Schmung. Since accepting our invitation, he's completed three models and is working on several more as we speak. As you'll see from the coming news updates on his work, the guy is extremely talented, and we're very lucky to have someone of his caliber on the team with us. The more detail-oriented among you may recall that some of his work has shown up in places like the Insurgency mod.

In addition to Schmung, we've also hired four new modelers and skinners to serve on our affiliated development crew. They've been hard at work replacing some of our older and less aesthetically pleasing weapons. All of this is being slated for inclusion in future news updates, which I hope you can see by now, we are committed to bringing you on a (more or less) regular basis. It's my firm belief that we should be building our mod around the FA community, and I invite everyone out there from FA past and present to take part in helping us.

Speaking of the community, there's a few interesting community events I'd like to share. First up is FAS's first-ever news website, the FAS Report, run by forum member Grunt. He painstakingly goes through seemingly every post the team and testers make on our forums to scrape up every bit of information he can. In other words, if you're looking for more information on FAS, that's probably a good site to check. (Even the team reads it, and we know what's going on!)

Next up are a few topics on the aforementioned Alpha Tester's Journal forum. From Our Sabbath, Pork Fried Squirrel tells us a little about the game from last Sunday. Here's a preview:

"Juarez came up next, and with a small redesign, things flowed perfectly. The latin flavor came with just enough spice and a nice blend of machineguns and sniper fire to keep things interesting. There was no clear cut winning side in this one. Although it was still nice to have a loud, fully automatic, long-barreled MG to sit on a rooftop with, it was hard to dodge the quicker assault rifles, peppering the nearby shingles with the varmint rounds. Although it was insanely fun to follow 2 steps behind StandingCow, only to have him stop in front of me so I could knife him. Nice fellow."

Those damn lunatics and their knives...

There's also the What do you expect? thread, which is a discussion on what the community expects out of Firearms: Source. Feel free to make a reply and let us know; believe it or not, most of the team reads the forums on a daily basis. In addition, be sure to check out Back in the day, where we reminisce about "the good old days" - like the massive chokepoint wars on ps_sand and ps_dangerzone, the dual-wielding M11s, the pathetically weak silenced MP5K, the laser dot on the MP5A4, the Beta-C mag M4A1, the full-auto M16, the original cti maps, tp_boat, and many others... if you're an old-timer, let us know what you remember and what you hope FAS will bring back for you.

We're still looking for new team members if you happen to be interested. There's still a lot of work to be done before release, and if you happen to be good at modeling, skinning, animating, mapping, 2D skyboxes, sounds, whatever the case may be, don't hesitate to drop us a line. My e-mail is hitman@firearms-source.com.

That's it for today. I leave you with this demented quote from escaped psychopath and FAS enthusiast Naota:

"Remember, enough games of FAS and no longer will you have a conscience. Where once sat an angel, divine and pure to guide you, or a devil, canny and heartless to allow you to deceive yourself, there we will repose in their absence. The vermilion-drenched crucifix upon one shoulder, the psychotic rodent clutching imploringly at the other... The knife or the grenade? His spine or his heart? Whatever should we make of this kindly fellow's body? Should we eat it? If fire is really so friendly, how come nobody wants to meet it? Should we be friends with the inferno? Decisions, DECISIONS.

(And remember, don't feed the squirrels!)

What do you think of our update today? Do you have any ideas on how we can better communicate with the the community? Would you like to see the marriage license between U4 and Teedy? Please post a comment and share your thoughts!