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Ive been playing portal maps and mods for a while. I am

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/577830..

I've been playing portal maps and mods for a while. I am happy to attempt to contribute some of my own puzzles with the release of Portal 2's Perpetual Testing Initiative. I've completed two maps so far and am enjoying the process. It's a unique kind of puzzle itself trying to create these puzzles: making the map intuitive enough, making sure the player can't get stuck, watching for unintended solutions, etc. It's a lot of trial and error, but I'm enjoying it. Please let me know what you think of my first two efforts. Thanks!

"Flying is Easy..." http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=71983192

Description: "This is my first map. It should be relatively... Read All

Totally worth 99 cents. Nice weapons, fun armor, and Ive

Totally worth 99 cents. Nice weapons, fun armor, and I've actually become a little strategic in how I'm swiping/sword-fighting. Excellent graphics, even for my fading mid-40s eyeballs. I'm not a hardcore gamer, so some of the actual advantages and disadvantages of mastering objects and leveling up took a while to figure out, but it was worth it.

Three UFIA and a knuckle (out of five).

Its 12.29am Tuesday May 15th and Battle.net is down for

Its 12.29am Tuesday May 15th and Battle.net is down for maintenance. Error 37, servers are busy abounds and people are mad complaining right now. One of my friends said his pal connected and tried retrieving the character list and it was so slow.

Apparently the amount of traffic is DDoSing the battle.net servers. But its a good kind of DDoS because they are all paying customers. Going to stay up a little longer to see how bad this get? This feels like people won't be playing for another few hours, but I have absolutely no idea how many people are trying to play? A few million? I guess that would cause some issues but doesn't Blizzard have 10 million WoW players?

Oh a tip... Read All

Here we are on the eve of the Diablo 3 launch. I am not

http://hellyeahcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/HellYeah_AtTheGates_en1.jpg

Here we are on the eve of the Diablo 3 launch. I am not sure I have anticipated a launch quite as eagerly as this one. I kept hitting the refresh on my Amazon package track and was really excited it moved 30 miles. Yeah, its like that for me.

If all goes well I may head to 12p line at a Best Buy with a friend that wants to pick it up tonight. Ill take pictures and all that, hopefully there is a nerd rush and someone mistakes the event for a Pretty Petz 2 launch. "Wait, you mean this isn't Catz 4 Back in Mittens launch line? OH MAN!" Or maybe thats what I will say.... Hmmmm.

Anyways, as always here is a few Diablo 3 news bits for your consumption. Don't joy puke early,... Read All

Tungsten wrote on 05/15/2012 at 01:23am

I apparently have a corrupted MPQ... again... It seems to be a common problem though.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/15/2012 at 01:36am

Doh! Totally totally sucks.

Tungsten wrote on 05/15/2012 at 01:47am

I have an operating theory on how to get it to work...

I delete the corrupted file and it tries to re-download it. It inevitably tells me that it is corrupted again, but it gets further in the download. Maybe when it finishes the download...

We'll see. I'm also operating anti-virus free (don't worry, it'll be back on before anyone reads this) and I deleted a my Battle.net folder.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/15/2012 at 02:03am

Heres for hoping.

Tungsten wrote on 05/15/2012 at 02:33am

FIXED IT!!! Still can't slay any demons tonight or tomorrow, but here's hoping this weekend is filled with the blood of my enemies.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/15/2012 at 02:34am

For the Horde! Oh wait....

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Portal 2 Map: Levels Be Three, Let Them Be

I created another Portal 2 map: "Levels be Three Let them Be."

Not entirely sure what the name means, but it sounded good to me.

Its a bit more puzzley than my first map and it requires you to use one cube the entire map, which is kind of neat. Been spending quite a bit of time playing other peoples Portal 2 maps and building my own. This is my second map and as such spent more time decorating it than the first map. Trying to place the observation rooms and lights such that the test chamber doesn't look bare. Also pushing up single blocks and putting a light on top to make things look a bit more natural. I like the way it all turned out.

The map description:

"Run, jump and... Read All

First one I actually felt was worth publishing. Let me know

First one I actually felt was worth publishing. Let me know what you think.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=71723761

Really happy with the editor, but here and there you play one that you know was done in Hammer and it's a major difference. Apparrently there is a way to set up your map in this editor and then export it to Hammer for finishing touches (non-flat surfaces, different texture sets, scripting capabilites). If you want to see what I mean, check out the "Decay" Maps in the workshop.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=68627704&searchtext=

jdodson Admin wrote on 05/13/2012 at 05:04pm

It was fun. Took me a bit to figure out a few steps, but I finished it.

Tungsten Post Author wrote on 05/13/2012 at 10:54pm

I miss the claustrophobic levels of the first Portal. I think my next one will be more like that.

vdogmr25 wrote on 05/14/2012 at 09:26pm

Just went through it. It was a fun level. I love fling/gravity puzzles. It took me a bit to realize the water and repellant gel were more aesthetic than part of the solution. I sat there briefly wondering how I got through the level without using the repellant gel and what it was supposed to be used for.

Tungsten Post Author wrote on 05/14/2012 at 10:35pm

Hmmm... it should have been used. How did you get over the cap at the end?

Oh, I can think of how. I'll fix that... :)

Tungsten Post Author wrote on 05/20/2012 at 11:02pm

Fixed it.

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I just made and published my first Portal 2 map called The

I just made and published my first Portal 2 map called "The Joys of the Underground." The new Portal 2 map editor is pure awesome. I haven't had this much fun making maps since Wolf 3D. For the first 45 minutes I was just building things, then I started pushing out walls and built a huge chamber. 3 hours later "The Joys of the Underground" was complete.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=71669237

Let me know what you think. The map isn't hard but it is pretty fun and I LOVED creating it. I will be making more maps for certain. Making a map creator tool that doesn't take a PHD to use is nice.

Tungsten wrote on 05/13/2012 at 01:02am

The editor is amazing. Great product. It was actually kind of sad: I could finally make any level I could dream up, but I realized I'm very bad at dreaming them. All my attempts turned out boring and straight forward. Playing some of the other community maps, you can see that some people are very good at it.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/13/2012 at 02:39am

I was just tinkering around with what I could do and I made something I kind of thought was fun. I kept tinkering and it was OK.

Working on another one now that is just tinkering and a bit more grand. Somehow I like big maps.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/13/2012 at 03:40am

One gripe with the tool this far. I made a huge epic map. 10-20% of the way building it, Portal 2 crashes. Ok, load it back edit the map.... Crash. Again... Crash.

Bummer it was a cool start to a fun map. *sigh*

Tungsten wrote on 05/13/2012 at 04:41am

Just put mine up...

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=71723761

vdogmr25 wrote on 05/14/2012 at 09:07pm

I found it beatable without even having to go underground. There's a way to take the laser reflection cube with you into the next room and you can use it to activate the switch. Thought I'd let you know. Other than that, it was pretty good. It required a little head scratching, but was pretty quick to get through.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/14/2012 at 09:26pm

How do you take the redirection cube to the next room? Isn't it fizzled out?

I'll check it tonight and fix :)

vdogmr25 wrote on 05/15/2012 at 12:01am

In the first room there's the ledge with non-portal-able surfaces that leads into the next room. You can get up there by portaling onto the small box-like protrusion on the opposite wall by the entrance, putting a portal on the ground next to the non-portal-able ledge, putting the other portal on the ground in front of you, and jumping off. If you take the redirect cube with you, you can access the exit. I hope I explained well enough. I can screen shot it out if you would like me to.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/15/2012 at 12:41am

Nope I get it now. Ill remove the ledge or make it non-portalable.

Thanks!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/15/2012 at 02:50am

OK I believe I fixed that bug and a possible other one, thanks for the heads up!

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2K just dropped two gameplay videos for Borderlands 2. They

2K just dropped two gameplay videos for Borderlands 2. They handed out the same gameplay footage to all the big game news sites and then the news sites commented over the footage. The above video is IGN's take on the siren video drop. Some interesting footage of the class.

2K also release some footage of the gunzerker:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46GOWOkHySM

The game looks mad epic. Can't wait for Clap-Trap to bring the wub wub. This is a game I will pre-order and nab on the PS3. What will you play it on? Are you going to pick it up?

One minor gripe from the IGN video commentary: "How many times do you need to mention Borderlands is like Diablo?" Yeah, we got it when... Read All

Timogorgon Member wrote on 05/12/2012 at 07:09pm

I will most certainly pick it up and it'll be on PS3 so I can play split screen with the wifey. :) I usually don't preorder games but I think I will for this one so I can pick up the extra DLC class and just because I loved the first game so much. I actually don't know what class I want to play first. Soldier was my favorite from the first game, but so far the Gunzerker looks really fun and fits my preferred play style.

Yeah they mention the Diablo thing a lot. It's probably just because everyone has Diablo 3 on the brain at the moment.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/12/2012 at 10:29pm

Do you get the new class with a pre-order?

The gunzerker class looks cool, I might try him first too.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/14/2012 at 01:00am

*ahem*... I CANNOT WAIT FOR THIS!

OK, I'm better now. Seriously, this looks amazing. And hang on, WhiteboySlim, you have to preorder to get all the classes? That's kinda lame. I'll probably do it anyway though.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/14/2012 at 01:59am

They talked about another class they wanted to add after launch. The mecromancer. I hadn't heard you needed to pre-order to get all the classes though. Hope not.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 05/15/2012 at 06:37pm

"As a special thank you to our early supporters, the Mechromancer will be available as a free download to members of the Borderlands 2 Premiere Club, which you can gain access to by pre-ordering Borderlands 2 from a participating retailer. The Mechromancer will also be available as premium downloadable content for those who aren't Premiere Club members at the same time."

from this article: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/122/1222572p1.html

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/15/2012 at 07:08pm

Right, I saw that at Besy Buy last night. You going to pre-order?

Timogorgon Member wrote on 05/15/2012 at 10:55pm

Probably just so I can get the DLC for free. I haven't looked into who is offering the pre-orders yet. The only games I've ever pre-ordered before were Ocarina of Time and one of the expansions for FFXI when I was still playing that.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/16/2012 at 03:51am

Ill pre-order Borderlands 2, just have to figure out where :)

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Anyone here making portal maps? Apparently there are

Anyone here making portal maps? Apparently there are already 35,000 of them. I might try to put one together this weekend (or next... who know's when I'll have the time). I'll link it if I get it together.

jdodson Admin wrote on 05/11/2012 at 10:55pm

Its on my list of things to do this weekend. Check out a few maps and see about making a simple one.

Tungsten Post Author wrote on 05/12/2012 at 02:54pm

I've had to reinstall portal (I had to reformat a couple months ago) so that has put a serious delay into my puzzle creating plans.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 05/12/2012 at 06:45pm

I still haven't managed to play any multiplayer, so I'll probably go through those before I attempt making my own. Looks like fun though! I can't wait to see some of the community made maps. :)