Junk’s Repositorium

For those of you who haven’t been taking notes, I am now helping Missing Information with their mapping work. In the past couple of months, ScarT and I have gone through the Borealis maps and done numerous changes/updates in terms of level detail and gameplay. I even took the liberty of bringing over to MI some work that I had put into Team GabeN’s Borealis. I will continue to help the team as MI moves forward into Episode 1 following the inevitable *cough* release of the 1.5.2 patch.

But what does my involvement with MI mean for Team GabeN? Not really much, to be honest. Team GabeN isn’t dead. That is to say, it isn’t any more dead now than it was a year ago. There is a certain symbiosis between the teams of MI and TGN which is kind of hard to explain. We are at once two separate entities and a unison. Separate in product and nomenclature, yet cohesive in scope and philosophy. We are two sides of the same coin in the sense that we both have a track record of breaking new ground in the world of the Half Life 2 leak. Team GabeN is the first to develop a v32 model viewer and a comprehensive model converter. MI is the first retail leak mod on the scene with a powerful model decompiler allowing elusive v37 animations to work in the retail HL2. These, among many other accomplishments compose our leaky resumes. Despite our difference in medium (MI being a retail mod and TGN HL2 being a severely modified leaked engine) it is a mutual perspective that allows us to work together, sharing resources as necessary.

Despite the naysayers and the perpetuators of false dichotomies and straw-man fallacies (you may or may not know who you are), we allow nothing to cloud our vision for the leak community. We have found our niche and we are here to stay.

I never thought I’d see the day when Team GabeN map designs are mistaken for something that Valve had actually done. However, it looks like some enterprising young mapper has decided to imitate some of my design decisions for his own fix of the Terminal map.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grSGGA-IP9c

At first glance, several details look familiar. The spotlight on the skylift truss, the red lights on the roof of the factory, and the yellow Combine sign on said factory in the same position as shown in my old screenshots of my Terminal fix (the sign is long gone from my design). These were all changes that I originally made to the map, not found in any of Valve’s leaked files, and can be viewed in older posts on this blog. I can only imagine that if this Turb0 individual wasn’t making a conscious effort to outright copy my ideas, he had merely mistaken a misplaced screenshot of my fix for an actual screenshot of an unleaked version of Terminal by Valve. [EDIT: He has acknowledged on YouTube that he used my screenshots as a basis for his fix, which is kind of surprising considering how these incidents have turned out historically. I appreciate his honesty.]

This is the latest in a series of incidents that illustrate the bizarre conditions of fixing leaked content. The lack of distinction between what was actually leaked and what are in fact new additions to old concepts creates a canonical nightmare, in that by fixing these old concepts, the fixed designs sometimes have a tendency of being mistaken for actual designs or work by Valve. This has happened numerous times with the MI releases. For example, new weapon models and animations – the most prominent example being Romka’s MP5k view model – are often ripped off by other would-be modders under the assumption that these were created by Valve and are thus fair game to be used by anyone else without first seeking permission. The same goes for any and all models that MI has converted over to retail model formats. This has also happened in the case of andy’s fix of TF2 being leaked and having resources created by Team GabeN (maps, code, models, etc) stolen and appropriated by RaynorPat and some others. As a last example, I still find it amusing that the Combine Overwiki cites my old screenshot of the Consul statue in d1_c17_04 as evidence of Valve having a “Consul Satue Plaza,” something that didn’t even exist until I decided arbitrarily to put that model there.

Am I pissed off? No. This seems to be the way people perceive new content created for the purpose of improving Valve’s abandoned concepts and there probably isn’t much we can do about it aside from point out the lines of distinction to those who haven’t taken the time (or simply don’t care enough) to understand the leak and what is and isn’t there originally. As for this turb0 individual, all I can say is that I hope he takes more initiative and comes up with his own ideas for fixing these maps.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate ScarT^ on not having an STD. May all your future symptoms be psychosomatic.

Andy is currently in the process of redesigning GabeNet. One of the awesome new features he’s added is the ability to instantly upload screenshots directly to the GabeNet site within HL2 itself. Go to http://gabenet.slkandy.com/screenshots.php to see for yourself. I took the liberty of adding some sneak previews of my fix of d1_c17_04 and the Manhack Arcade. Take a look, my droogs.

It seems that some people have actually been reading our wiki. We have taken the time out of our busy schedules to actually update the wiki and give it some real content. Many of the Old Concepts pages have been finished along with a bunch of new screenshots, so give the whole site a look. Who knows what you’ve missed?

http://www.teamgaben.com/gaben/index.php?title=Main_Page

It seems that a startling number of people think that this project is dead. I will now provide some choice evidence to the contrary.

Enjoy.

Dear Pawndick,

It’s time again to get things sorted out.
Seeing that you didn’t learn anything doesn’t surprise me.
You sleep with FarT^, tudra_fool, BetamAsster, Romgka and Red_Banana in one single night to get Team GabeN Beta and Private Tub acess and call ME gay? Are you even aware of the fact that all this wouldn’t have happened if you wouldn’t
have startled me? You caused Junk to leave Team GabeN because you startled me, you bastard are the one responsible for
the massive flame-attacks on the teams! You have destroyed so much, what is it exactly that you have created?
Can you name even one thing? I thought not.

You are just another cog in the ass-licker community, your only way to get attention. No one except your mother Inevitab13 is supporting you faggot. How does it feel to be all alone, to have no friends and to act like the biggest piece of shit on the face of the earth?

And yes I am still waiting for a reason why you hacked my account. I didn’t hear any argument, speak louder maggot!

WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU!

I am still waiting for you to hack my account again, so that I and all my Subscribers have more reasons to bitch at you
Look at them, isn’t it beautiful how they play with your nerves? Isn’t it beautiful to see so many people thinking the same about cunts like you?

Sincerley yours,

your biggest nightmare.

For those of you who are uninformed, there has been a great deal of political strife within the ranks of Team GabeN originating from the end of last August and carrying on to this day. Originally we couldn’t agree on a correct amount of portraits of Adolf Hitler to place around the maps. Sadly, the truth gradually emerged that this inane argument was merely a manifestation of other deeper-seated insecurities.

This climax came to a head roughly a week ago when it came to my attention that there are a lot of people who just plain don’t like us very much. This particular jpeg cast a revealing beam of light to the dire reality of our situation.

This is an image of three young gentlemen who have crudely modified an innocuous “no smoking” sign to instead condemn the very logo of our organization. Upon viewing this eloquant diagram of our everlasting shame, down came the very foundation of the deluded reality I had blindly chosen to accept for the past three years. Could our apsirations of attaining true leak nirvana have been our ultimate downfall? Was hubris to blame for this critical backlash? One is reminded of the parable of Icarus, who dared to fly too close to the sun.

And so it is with a heavy heart that I must announce my resignation from Team GabeN. The burden of being associated with such negativity is too heavy for my shoulders. I hereby place the sole and everlasting responsibility of leak fixing onto the far more qualified and vital “Old Times” team. It is through their insight that I have found shelter from the dark nightmare that has been my involvement with Team GabeN.

Forever yours,

-Junk

I updated the official media page with some new screenshots of my terminal fix. The new screenshots show off some of the updated or revised sections of the map as well as our new weather effects. We now have rain that properly impacts and splashes on surfaces and doesn’t simply go through solids. I’d say the map is now 96% complete. All that’s left is to finish the scripted sequences and finalize the level transitions. I’ll let these screenshots speak for themselves.

And here’s a bonus screenshot of a familiar scene.

That’s all for now.