Bump
I actually found 2 games that looked good enough (excluding the obvious one). So, not all were trash. Thanks!
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DAYUM! That was one long train. How long did it take you to create it?
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A couple of hours. ESGST is my friend. ;)
And that's still true, even with the new API limits that make things a lot harder (before, I could have constructed this entire train and had ESGST build it in one fell swoop...now I break it into 20-cart chunks and then hook them together, which is still waaaaayyy faster than doing everything manually).
Other events that I've done (like the Halloween dungeon a couple of years back, and the Trash Tsunami) took a lot, lot longer. Some of those had well over 200 GAs, plus the construction of the event itself (creating the game, tying the GAs to the correct bits, etc.) made working on those into two-to-six-week projects (which is why I haven't done one lately...simply haven't had much free time).
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Wow! That is impressive! It's users like you who make this community great. I asked because I want to create my first train early this month. And although it won't have as many carts as yours it will still contain enough games to make me think twice about making the train (thinking it would take up too much time).
I didn't know about ESGST until you mentioned it. I think it will help me a lot. Thanks for sharing this info!
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You're welcome, and I hope that it helps! FYI...when you first get ESGST, it can be a little overwhelming with the number of options available. Just scan through the big list, and if something doesn't seem like it's addressing a primary concern, just skip it and come back to it later. The features are also searchable, so you can find what it is that you want to tweak. :)
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Congrats! Glad that learning ESGST was helpful. There were a ton of people around here that helped me out after I joined and wanted to start trying stuff like making trains...and one of the first things they told me to do was get ESGST. :)
BTW...love that avatar! Half-Life 1 & 2 are favorite games of all time. Fun fact: I wrote the very first Mapcycle Manager for HL1 back in the late 90s when it came out...was the most popular download on Planet Half-Life (back when that still existed) for quite some time. 😁🤓
And here, have one of these: 💙
🤘😎🤘
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Wow! You had to have felt like a superstar, I know I would have! Unfortunately, I only had the chance to play pirated versions of Half Life back in the day, without any internet. Nobody could afford to by PC games in 90's Romania. But all Half Life games will forever be in my pc game hall of fame. Thanks for the 💙! I added you too yesterday, after your second friendly comment 😁
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Yeah, it was really unexpected. I wrote it in VB6 (I think...could've been 5...lol) mostly in one night, and my entire intent was to make things more convenient for myself, because I was hosting HL deathmatch games for friends (as you know, you had to play LAN back then...no internet multiplayer, unless you had a LAN-over-web service, which some of us did). I got tired of manually modifying the mapcycle.txt file, and there were some bugs in the engine regarding things like not being able to capitalize the first letter of a map name (or it would crash the server), etc. I also wanted to be able to keep track of maps for 2-4 people vs a big group of 10-12, and I hated always playing them in the same order (because that's boring and it gives the regulars an advantage) -- surprises are more fun. So I wrote a little app to manage all of those things. But then I made the mistake of sending it to a friend for feedback, and he loved it, but wanted like 5-6 additional features. So I spent another night in development mode adding those things in, and once he liked it, another night creating proper instruction docs, testing, packaging, etc., and just uploaded it to planethalflife.com. A week later, it was ready to move into the #1 download slot, and people were contacting me with questions and functionality requests. I really hadn't seen that one coming. But it was fun to do because it was a great community, and it was the early days of the concept of a big AAA game like that having some open support for their map engine for user-created content as well as encouraging the community to develop utilities for the game. Good times.
I still have my original HL1 box and discs. Opposing Force and Blue Shift as well. 😎
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You are right! Yes! LAN! The Age of Internet Cafés. When my mom was in a good mood and allowed it, I joined my buddies for a "Long Night" in our favourite internet café, playing from dusk till dawn. Those were the days. (Sadly, Half Life was only once installed on those PCs. People were more interested in Counter Strike and Quake)
Those are some nice memories you have in connection to Half Life. Well. All this talking made me nostalgic. I own all these games on Steam. It's time to install them and play them legally for the first time ever (As soon as I finish Mass Effect Legendary Edition. It's right up there with Half Life)
And do you own a VR set, did you play Alyx?
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I do (Quest 2), but I haven't played Alyx yet. I know, I know. Time to get on that horse, for sure. But I have so many other VR games that I haven't played yet, that I was kind of waiting to see if they'd drop the price another ten bucks, and then nab it when it's discounted a bit more during the next seasonal sale. But I might just break down and pay the cash. Really want to try that one out.
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Cheers Grez! It's always a pleasure sorting through your trash.
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Welp, here ya go...another train from me. I've been wanting to do a big event, but haven't had that kind of free time. First kid headed off to college in a week, new job is going well but keeping me crazy, etc. etc. You get it. Life stuff. I'm hoping to manage to pull off a proper event this Autumn, but we'll see.
In the meantime, you still have this train from me. 100 carts, mostly full of absolute trash. Hey, I had a lot laying around. But some of the trash is pretty good trash, and there are several low-rent non-bundled GAs in here along with a couple of bundle games that I really like. And then there's...well, real trash in there, too. No reason to hide your face -- enter just for the sweet, sweet +1 to your library if you want to...I'm not judging. 😜
Oh, and the train runs through August 10th in the evening Central Time, and you'll need to be at least level 2 to enter. That's a nice, low bar for lots of participation, but it should filter out a lot of leechers and bots.
Also: there are a few keys in here that are reaaaaalllllyy old. Please be cool and agree to delete the GA if something goes pear-shaped. I'll find a consolation prize for you if that happens. 😎
That's it -- have fun riding the trash train!
🚈🚃🚃🚃🚃
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