Source: modDB

Each year we see a flurry of 'Game of the Year' awards. We have even seen some 'Mod of the Year' awards, however they inevitably end up as small uneventful features, judged by a few biased reporters and limited to one game. Not anymore; 2004 marks the first year when the public who make and play the mods out there get to decide which are the best going round. Hence the 2004 Golden Spanner Mod of the Year awards. The biggest, best and ONLY real mod awards.

How it works?

Quite simply. You will notice every mod profile now has a 'voting box'. Registered members can vote for 1 mod in each category available. Note. You can change your vote at anytime, just nominate a different mod.

At the end of 2004 voting will be closed and all votes logged will be tallied up and the winners announced.

Categories

When creating these awards we decided to think BIG. There is the usual 'Best mod of the year' and 'Best upcoming mod' however we know thats not enough. Afterall there are alot of mods out there! Hence; two competitions will be run:

Finding the best released mods from each genre (i.e. action, adventure, strategy, etc.)
Finding the best mod designers, the talent within the community (ie. best models, website, animations, etc.)

Full details can be found here. Rest assured we WILL find mods which have that "wow, I nearly shat my pants!" factor.

Prizes / Sponsors

We are presently working hard to secure some competition sponsors so we can sort out some prizes for the mod teams to receive. As this is the Mod Database's first real comp its hard to negoiate much, however we are confident with the encouragement and promotion of it by the mods and visitors of ModDB, the following years will be a HUGE event not to miss!

Oh and of course if you are interested in sponsoring this comp and getting your company infront of millions of the smartest gamers going round, let us know.

Get your mod on TOP!

Want to give your mod the best chance of winning? Well then encourage your mods fan to come here and vote for it! To help you out we've put togethor a few promotional images your free to use and edit at will!

Good luck, get voting and may the best MODS win!

Source: modDB
Related: Babylon City

These month we have to show two concept images of female characters, made from our 2d artist dreck.
He's working on more characters and concepts for models.
I have been working on the documentation, a mod-faq page and the story line.

We now signed up at moddb.com and created a irc channel.
You can visit the profile by clicking here, and the irc chan @ irc://irc.gamesurge.net/.

[url=http://mods.moddb.com/gallery/image/17829/][/url] [url=http://mods.moddb.com/gallery/image/17830/][/url]

Source: Steam

The seventh phase of the Half-Life 2 preload begins to Steam account holders today. This will allow users to download localized Half-Life 2 content and other content in encrypted form. No purchase is required to pre-load Half-Life 2, but is required to activate the game. The moment the game is made available, those who have pre-loaded and purchased the game via Steam will be ready to start playing.

Source: Steam

Source SDK Tools Available Now

Valve has released the Source Software Development Kit (SDK) Tools via Steam. A precursor to the release of the full SDK, which will be released shortly after Half-Life 2 is made available, the Source SDK Tools release offers a comprehensive toolset for starting production on Source-based MODs, including Hammer, XSI EXP for Half-Life 2, compiling tools, the Source Model Viewer, documentation on programming, modeling, building materials, and more. For more information, please visit http://collective.valve-erc.com/

Source: Half-Life Fallout

We know the day that Half-Life 2 will be released, November 16th, but when will the game be unlocked via Steam for all that have bought it via Valve's gaming platform? Well Boomtown has posted some interesting news about that. The times of the release have apparently been released:

It seems that Valve are planning the worldwide release of Half-Life 2 in unprecedented detail. Not only will the game be released on the same day (November 16th) around the World, it will also be released more or less at the same time.

This came to light, when our Danish colleagues tried to arrange a midnight sale of Half-Life 2 meaning that Danish Boomtown users could go to a Boomtown Internet café and buy the game at 23:59 on November 15th. However, Vivendi Denmark objected to that and now the release is scheduled at 09:00 instead, which is actually midnight in Seattle where Valve is situated

So the game will be released on midnight Seattle time (GMT-8). You can read the full article here at Boomtown.

Source: HalfLife-2.nl

HalfLife-2.nl posted the news that some HalfLife2.net Forum visitors noticed that the next update of steam, release date November 5th, would feature:

Full Change History:
[-] November 05, 2004 (current release)

Changes/Additions
------------------------

Hammer
Half-Life Model Viewer
Content compiling tools
Documentation

Check it for your self here. A small error or can we expect to see the release of the Half-Life 2 SDK today? Time will tell.

Source: DODEC

Lately, there has been a LOT of Ungratefullness towards the staff and I, so until I feel satisfied, the downloads are DISABLED. You all need to realise that we all VOLUNTEER to do this in our FREE TIME, so next time you feel like nagging about how you want new skins, or how we dont update enough, just keep your mouth shut. I hope you will all learn your lession this time around, because if this continues, I will disable the downloads for good and then you wont have anything.

Source: FPS Central
Related: Port of Adia

Time to update what we have done so far! As you can see to the right, we have a new Entrail concept for the Port of Adia and I would say it is looking fantastic.

Dauminator is our new modeller, and also a brilliant concept artist! We plan on overhauling the Entrail design and making it more of what the developers wanted it to be: a genetically altered T-Rex! Anyhow, welcome the new modeller aboard! He plans on recreating all of the creature models, and even Joshua and the sexy Adon herself!
Anyhow, I finished creating the initial port in Hammer so we can move it to the Hammer-Source when it becomes available. Check it in the level design section! All special details will be done in Hammer-Source, but the basic brushwork is going to remain!

Source: FPS Central
Related: Highway '80

This mod is set in an alternate 1980, where crime is rampant and a criminal's weapon of choice is a muscle car fully decked out with machine guns, rocket launchers and oil slicks. Highway '80 is being created as a tribute to the Interstate series games, produced by Activision, which are no longer played online. It is our hope, that Half Life 2'ers out there become as hooked on autocombat as we are when we first played Interstate so many years ago.

The Reuther Rampage 94E, this car originates from the hot Australian race tracks and has enough power from its hemi six to out muscle even modern day cars, such as the Stallion V8. Plenty of power for the autovigilante and well built, however, it's long range tank in the boot/trunk is fairly vunerable when fired upon.

Next is the ever reliable, and powerful, Munro RTS. This vehicle features a 351 cubic inch V8 engine with ample torque down low to get vigilantes out of the toughest situations. As a great all-rounder, this vehicle is also popular with autovillians...

We are also looking for any extra staff to help us in this task, so if anyone would like to help us recreate a legend of a game, please apply within our forum.

Source: FPS Central
Releated: Project Evamod

For those who remember or better yet saw the evangelion models for Half-Life which we made, you most likely thought they were great. Well you were right, they are great but now with the release of Half-Life 2 days away, I offer you an example of things to come. Featured here are the two heads on the Evangelion unit-01. The left head is the original HL1 model while the right hand model is the new HL2 model. I've chosen just the heads for now as the HL2 model is not at an appropriate stage to be showing off