dodbits

January 2012

Busy ... very busy at home remodeling my backyard, I have got a lot done, Queensland (Australia) summer is very hot, never the less I am struggling on, pavers, garden beds, I actually made the plan for it in hammer and run it as a dods map... worked out well, if you are going to do some landscaping ...recommend hammer to see what it will look like first, I will place a movie up and the real deal images when I am done, still have quite a bit to go.

I have added a new section to the CSS HUD tutorials and will update the Ver7 CSS HUD "soon"...hell that work in the backyard is taking all my time, at least I got a tutorial page done.

 

 

December 2011

 

To all readers have a safe and happy Xmas.

It's been an interesting year and quite busy, well for me anyway and the little time I have for this part time interest. Although not much has changed in dod:s, other games I play have, hence dodbits.com is not all about dod anymore. CSS has undergone some changes, the big one for me was the crosshairs, finally the Devs took steps to correct it's obvious failings... you just could not see it on some displays and situations.

The current Mini Map-radar issue for dods and CSS is a bad slip by the Devs, that is one area of the player HUD you never want to have wrong, although no one mentions it much as a tactical tool, if you really look hard enough the "overview" map when set up correctly can help your game.

TF2... the game is obviously a good one, the whole hats thing is over my head, (pardon the pun) I just don't get quite a few parts of TF2, hence why info' on it is very rare around here.

Ham and Jam still continues to be developed, the devs are few and good on them for not releasing, it was the correct call not to release at a time that the game was not ready and other games like Red Orchestra 2 are realising.

Very sad to hear of the passing of a young H&J dev team member Mitchell Curtis Keesee (Engineer).

Jed was hinting to release this year, time is always an issue and we may have to wait some more yet... no problem here, take all you need H&J, relax and enjoy life :) Gotta love what Jed said here. By the way, if you have not done so donate to the site, right side of the main page, these endeavours are not cheap and you can help by dropping in some spare change.

Say safe and relax

INsane

News November 2011

 

Nov 14 : INsanes dods GUI and HUD released today. See here for all info.

 

Nov 4 : New dods maps added

The C.O.C.K maps section has some new downloads. Mostly these are some Orange/small textured maps that someone made and had bad spawn protection, they we remade and various things added, mostly spawn protection. In most cases the author is unknown but the map was good enough to get a fix.

There is another section for some early maps I made, they are 2nd class but they are good enough to throw on for a laugh and a change of pace.

You will not find these maps anywhere else... exclusive to dodbits!

 

dodbits site upgrade complete

The move is now complete and I have been adding more content. The dods downloads are all there now, mappers models, HUD's...the bloody lot mate!

The CSS section has a huge revamp, just like dods it now has a HUD tutorial, this one takes you from the absolute beginning to a basic simple blue HUD that has a font change as well. It is a basic tutorial to start with but don't worry much more will be added, Team Menus, spec' and buy screens, I will eventually cover every part including the GUI.

The upgrade was hard work by the way, for now I am satisfied with dodbits, the downloads, the CSS section. I do have to press on with dods HUDs, that's is next.

 

News October 2011Update:

dodbits site upgrade in progress!

All stuff being moved manually right now. If you see something missing I am moving it. Old site is http://www.dodbits.com/dod/ if you need to view it, I will keep it there for a while but it will be deleted by December 2011.

Webmaster (INsane) dodbits.com

dodbits History

CSS on dodbits

New dods map by Punishment is out now!

 

 

Work, work, work, work, work. Day job is ripping all my time at the moment...however, I still managed to learn a bit more about maintaining a website and some other boring stuff. You will notice the look has changed, sorry about the ads but they are actually helping me pay for this site.

History of dodbits?

dodbits has been around since 2005, the Internet archive has a snapshot of Feb 4 2006, timeline is here just pick a day, some of the old site still works (files are still on my webspace even downloads) and some links even go back to the old dod forums. Nostalgia!

I started it out of desperation from an ISP plan... not love of the game?

I bought some webspace to gain access to extra emails, my long term Australian ISP Telstra were charging AUD$2.00 (per address) if you wanted extra POP3 emails, I wanted 4 that was AUD$8.00 extra per month. My Game name was and still is INsane... despite the meaning of that name, I am not actually crazy so without knowing anything about webspace hosting, websites, HTML I bought a USA hosting package that had 500 emails and webspace.

Cost? $AU4.60 about half the price and 496 spare POP3 emails... plus a crap load of other goodies I did not have a clue how to use.

At the time Telstra were using the excuse that oversees connections were why the whole web surfing, emails and eBusiness were so expensive, that's why monthly access fees were so high in Australia, (they still are) but look at what I did, I went overseas and got a better deal, now my emails were in a USA server and adding to the "problem", truth is they were overcharging for data transferred on the net...and still are, Aussie data prices are artificially high, that's why this server is in central USA, in Australia game server prices are WAY too high... data is internal, why is it $3-4 per slot!!!!!!!

Think I am over reacting? What about this, Google were looking for new data centres in my region, Australasia, and where did they pick... Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong. But wait, this will mean a lot of Aussie's cloud data is not in Australia, and we are still heading overseas and making data charges higher that is a bad thing is it not ??? That's because Google are not crazy either, dealing with anyone in Australia IT business will triple your costs... *sigh* banging my head on the wall right now. Wake up Australia, the world just passed by again.

Well I was impressed with my new webspace, 500 emails and my own dotcom. So I played around with HTML and also have a few files to share... dodbits pages started to go up.

So thank you Australian Web Hosts in general particularly Telstra for being such a crap ISP... dodbits was started and continues to exist because, well basically... you are crap value. As for Web Hosting in Australia? Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha ... are you nuts! It is normally 5 times the cost I pay now.

I have gone down a path I may not have gone down because of crap ISP's value and the fact I wanted to share what I learned about stuff I make for myself in a insignificant "video game".

Funny what triggers change in your life, every cloud has a silver lining, in this case the cloud was the "web". An old saying and in my case something good came from something bad. Live by that... it is very true, always look for the positive in a negative and try and turn it around.

CSS on this website is about to get more articles, I am fielding a few questions from this sites readers about CSS GUI/HUD issues, normal stuff like "how do I change this color" or "where do I find this font". So you now see a CSS section. This will have CSS HUD DYI articles over the coming months to support CSS, here is the start of that a CSS crosshair cvar page. Not much but it is a start :)

CSS VGUI items are related to dods/TF2 stuff now so some items work the same. I will also try and place in each section the limits that you can change, like the chat colors in orangebox games, there are limited things you can do to change parts of it, if you know the limits you can change and why it may save you valuable time searching, some things are locked out to "res", "cfg" and "txt" files and will not change! Team color in dods, kill/death icons in CSS, that sort of thing.

dods Maps. I did not think I would see a significant new map released for dods ever again, but one has popped up.Punishment has relesed a new "remake" dods map of the dod_switch, dod_arch series made by Jeremy "Izuno" Miller.

dod_switchback_b1 is the name, you know it's good already ... Punishment made it, go get it and place it on your servers! It is a very close port to the old layout, I know how hard you have to work to do this, this one is very well done... nice one Punishment!

 

September 2011

HUD's and more HUD's...

CSS got an update, weapon fixes, crosshair changes mostly. For those of us that play CSS and dods we know how much complaining that will bring.

One of the stand outs in this release is the crosshair, CSS now has a configurable crosshair, you can even have a DOT!!!! About time, CSS players have put up with all the mystery on how to see the damn thing for a long time, can't miss it now. Gone is the heap of console commands, VALVe put in a set of sliders with more options.

So... I have a release of two items for CSS, a Special Team menu that has commands, you can see that at Gamebanana. Also while you are there, I have a "fix" for the budget background, they did not do that area when they placed a background behind HUD numbers, (the problem was you could not see the numbers on maps like dust) I made a fix for that. Both of them will be adjusted in a new CSS HUD/GUI package, let the dust settle a little first, there maybe some small updates yet.

Boy are some of the CSS community going off, I cannot see how you would complain about an update that adds a crosshair that is actually better, it's just a different way to enable it. CSS and DoD:s players have always had a wine at major updates, I am sure they will eventually find out how to adjust :)

DoD:s, well what can I say, no such luck with updating that old thing... but DoD:s did rate a mention from VALVes Gabe Newell in a recent YouTube interview. About the 7 Minute mark of the 11 min video, not sure what he means in the video but it was related to what he is doing with TF2 and community added features, DoD:s maybe on a upgrade list? We will see.

I have to put this in...got to, here is an old post about dods and a new feature, well just look at the second post picture.

However, the DoD:s HUD Ver 9, I was not happy that I could not deliver a couple of options for the scoreboard, so I got off my butt and did a few. Keep and eye on this thread there are screenshots of a couple of them, Ver 10 will be made after I finish some other stuff.

Ham and Jam, well it is still delayed. Good news is they have made progress, can't wait? Me too! Make sure you read the two interviews from Jed, gives a better insight on what to expect, don't expect a dods knock off, be prepared for what some dod players thought dods should have been like, evolved into, is the feeling I get reading what they are doing. I like the fact that weapons, scoring and the whole thing is built around teamplay, it seems you just cannot complete a map if you do not work with your team members. I see making maps for this will be complex, read what Jed says about teamplay... I like what they are doing, this really does look like a game for the competitive community. Not sure how it will go for the Pub players.

This game is well worth waiting for, hang in there.

 

 

July 2011

Ham And Jam still not released

Ham and Jam is not quite there yet, the guys have been keeping news fairly quiet, that does not mean they are not working... they are "polishing it up" so we get a better game, I don't mind that at all.

I did ask the devs' about mapping and got some good answers, gameplay is clearly very important to them and they are open to ideas to support mappers. That kind of contact with a game dev is a rare thing.

If you do map for dod or dods, consider this game too. I have stopped 3 maps at an advanced stage, never going to be released for dods, H&J is my main target. Maps in dods get a bit ho hum and all end up versions of Anzio with the standard double cap in the middle and such... so boring I could scream.

Not so with H& J, they are fooling around with configurable capture point entities, (flags to non mappers) something dods mappers have waited for an never got.

What this will do is open up the options in capping flags and the mapper can fine tune, balance the map for a fairer, more interesting game for both sides. This should be very important for competitive players.

Or for the pubbers you could introduce all kinds of stuff, if you can set off a capture point with other entities.... lots of things are possible, that is if you can control them that way, I am not sure yet.

The other notable items are the main thrust of the game, unlike dods and the "No Brits Army", H&J does not have a US army side, Norway, British battles, the desert are now locations for those mappers that map for "realism".

They also have a "no sniper" policy, Quote from a recent FirsttFrag Q&A interview... "HaJ will never have sniper rifles. Case closed.", damn fine idea... the only thing I hate more than a noob sniper is a player who is good at sniper class and plays for a personal best "Kill Rate" and not the team. It is not only me, just look at on-line servers for dods or other games like CSS "No AWP" servers, how many servers have the sniper class reduced to one or not at all. Have a read here at FirstFrag, a nice series of questions put to H&J devs' will give you a better insight of where it is all heading and why this may be popular with most long time fans of dods and dod players.

It is what dods should have been? Possibly for some, but if you insist "USA team must be in H&J" think again about repeating that in their forums.

All in all H&J will not suit everyone, but there is a good amount of pro and pub dods players that may migrate to this mod because of the gameplay and team choice differences it provides that other games don't, can't or will not, we will see.

I think this will be a hit with pro players especially.

Other work on CSS and dods? Well to be honest dods is dead for me, GUI/HUD work is done for good and no maps planned, just see no future in dods if the VALVe people will not update it. Just so you know... don't ask for DoD:S custom content to be made... I deleted Day of Defeat Source on my hard drive as I don't play it at all anymore, it's been like that since February 2010 and has not changed.

CSS I am still interested in.... for now. What to do about dodbits.com? The name will stay, the content for dod will stay, stagnate maybe, but it will stay. The mapping section will surely expand to cope with new map models for use in H&J, after all, most of what is in there already were made by people already involved with H&J development!

Just think of a future dodbits as the ... "department of defence custom bits " not "custom bits and pieces for day of defeat source"

 

June 2011

Late Update: Ham And Jam delayed !

Ham and Jam has been delayed, look for it in mid to late July 2011. It is only a little way to go now for what may be a very good WW2 game.

Make sure you read the extened news and preview the pictures, and maybe drop in to the forums to give some moral support.

Also.... you can donate, these guys deserve it, to get this far and have it look this good...well done.

 

INsanes HUDS and GUI for Dod:S and CSS...

Updates to two HUD and GUI sets. The old version 8 dods hud is now updated to version 9, lots of new stuff, check it out here.

The CSS GUI and HUD has also been updated to version 7, the installer was reworked and the game menu fixed, head over to game banana and check it out.

Don't forget about Ham and Jam !!!!!

Ham and Jam is a WW2 game and a release date has been set at 6 June 2011

News on that... the release has been delayed, read here.

 

May 2011

INsanes CSS GUI+HUD V6...

Finished a set of files that change the GUI for Counter-Strike Source. The files are rearranged in this set, especially the HUD files.

CSS was always a pain in the bum to edit colors, my set is different, have a look here. Oh... what about DoD:s? I have a set planned for that too.

 

April 2011

Mark this day, 6 June 2011...

Why? It is the anniversary for D-Day. There are always events to mark D-Day but this year, for gamers that play WW2 games, we have a event that is important.

Ham and Jam is a WW2 game and a release date has been set at 6 June 2011...

Ham and Jam is a teamplay orientated, first person WW2 multiplayer game centred around the British and Commonwealth campaigns from 1939-45.

 

Historically accurate missions coupled with careful balance between realistic and enjoyable gameplay makes Ham and Jam a unique experience.

For those of us that have been waiting for a WW2 mod, with commonweatlth forces.... since mid 2006, it is good news. Stop by their site and have a look!

"Gingerlord" has some nice "H&J" Vs "DoD:s" videos here.

Below is a map haJ Archery, it will give a fair idea of the gameplay, note this is a year old.

 

 

... I feel the urge to do some maps for this!!!! Can't wait! This is a free mod... they need donations, please support them, this was a awesome effort and I for one will donate, you should too.

 

 

Older news from 2007 and 2005