dodbits

The Bogan Clan Australia. Fun Server	Australian Game Server Hire Search

June 2010

Why the Bogan ad?... My clan started up again, it's winter in Australia and if it gets below 15 C some of us don't go outside. The only snow I ever want to see is on Colmar. Anyway the bogans get confused easy and I thought I better place a link up there.

Mapping.. not much, been remaking a few of those "great little orange maps" that has no author, no spawn protection and is slightly screwed up. Other than that not done much, toying with doing a few quick and nasty orange maps but that's about it.

HUDs... still waiting for CSS to release and see if they do any edits... or to be precise, updates to TF2 and CSS and destroy dod stuff.   I will eventually fix the little bug with the death icon in the speaker bar, not worth a whole release, if it annoys you go here.

Other than that, not much added to the site, and playing dod again.

May 2010

Why no updates... Don't worry, I have not stopped supporting dod, website will still be here for quite a while yet. I have not played dods since December 2009, in fact, no on-line games at all. The reason for this is lack of interest, the game has stagnated for me and quite a few others too. What caused this sudden lack of interest was a moderator who does have close contact with dod devs' in the steam forums did answer a direct question about FGD (mapping tools updates) the answer he gave was it is extremely doubtful dods will get any updates. Also depressing for us dods fans is some fan sites are now gone, DoD Federation for one is closed, player numbers shrinking a bit.

So, we know every TF2 update breaks dods and causes disruption to players and servers, this also drove me to stop supporting a Clan and keep a Clan server operating, it got a bit much and I stopped.

Same with mapping, HUDs, ...everything dods. I have increased the downloads section for hard to find dod and dods downloads, please submit any worthwhile downloads of dod or dods content and I will put them up.

Will dods die? Sure it will eventually, I will keep all I can here and maybe this site will support other games (even considered playing CSS again!). At the moment I am playing the occasional single player BF2 game, especially single player AIX mod.

Ham and Jam seems to be coming along OK and I can't wait to play it. One the the big issues with dods is the lack of other teams, H&J does support this at least. Another is the lack of single player, (BOTS) support. It was a real slap in the face for dods players when TF2 got bots, not only got bots but really good bots.

It is fairly poor treatment by VALVe here, to take a game loved by a lot of people, use it as a test bed, soak up a lot of personal time for its players with beta testing, causing maps to fail, server plug-ins to fail to the point they cannot be fixed... and then offer nothing in return, nothing but a game that breaks every time another game updates. What is worse is the original game had game-play and single player bots to die for, all that was required was to make the same formula with better graphics. What we got was a lot of useless add-ons like "Achievements" and less of what the sucessfull formula was all about.

Have dods "supporters" been hung out to dry? Of course we have. What do we do about it? Make a MOD, make your own bot system. Myself, I am waiting for H&J and looking at how the new CSS beta goes, TF2 makes me sick when I play it, just does not click with me.

The map below dod_schwetz has moved on quite a bit, it is so close to release... it may never be released, just have not got the time, I will give it away to any realistic offer to take over the map from a mapper that will do it credit and release it.

You never know, it could end up a CSS map if I start playing that again!!! It will be very interesting to see how VALVe handle the CSS update to the Orange Box engine. It has begun and of course complaints have already started to surface as expected, I am really pissed off that I missed the opportunity to test this, many others missed out but we will all get a opportunity "soon". "Soon" = when it's ready in VALVe lingo, my guess is 4-7 weeks they will more than likely extend the beta to more players.

December 2009

Mapping Support files... New Downloads are being added, I have started support for mappers, models, prefabs, textures will be added soon, see here for these new sections, not a lot there at the moment but it will grow. If you are into mapping keep an eye on these download sections.

Update on HUDs... have not done much to look further at the file changes, they seem like another VALVe update to TF2 that just alters, (destroys is a better word for dods users) the hudlayout.res and the winpanel files and makes custom HUDs not work.

Keep an eye on this thread, it explains the changes, on the whole it just looks like they fooled around with avatar icons here and there, if your HUD is broken... just reinstall the current HUD again, the changes are buggy anyway and the old files still work fine.

Another Map: dod_schwetz was a favorite of mine, I liked the gameplay of the swap spawns and the layout so I am having a go at remaking it. Making the swap spawns is VERY difficult but I think I have a way. I have a "swap spawns" dev map and I will release it to test soon, it changes the spawns based on who just capped last. If you cap out as the attacking allies your next spawn will be the defending side, fail and you stay on the attacking side of the map.

Anyway, it's not up to a stage that it can be run, it's true to the same size as the old one, huge, but it can be trimmed, I just want to make it "as the old one was" or very close to it and let others make their own.

Pics if interested!

Fly by Video

October 2009

New dodbits site

The tutorials are being updated, downloads are now in place, all of the files that were on the old dodbits site are now in the downloads. Some have moved to a new category called older retired files because they do not work anymore for one reason or another.

A new downloads section is being added C O C K Maps. In this section I will try and address an issue that other sites shy away from...altered abandoned maps. This is a dangerous area because of everyone's opinion on "Copyright". Mappers sometimes make a map that has promise but a few problems, so sometimes these are fixed and placed on a server where you download it via a fast downloads. Sometimes a mapper does not include a author name in the proper place, embedded in the bsp via a mapname.txt file.

I hope the new section addresses this and allows the rest of us to use a abandoned map that has been fixed. Of course I expect problems with a section like this, if you see your work in there contact me... a word of warning, don't go nuts at me for doing this if you did not mark your map in the bsp properly, you are partially to blame for making a map with errors and not completing it correctly with your own name! Allways make a mapname.txt file (maps folder) with your info in there using pakrat to embed it.

Forums are up and ready for you to post again.

New map... dod_koln remake

Waldo made dod_koln for older dod versions, it never got remade for source. If you remember this map you may like to take a spin around this beta release. dod_old_koln_b5 is a remake using the old structure of Waldo's bsp so it will be very familiar to walk around for those that remember the old one. Download the map here.