HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

From all of us here at the Jigglyroom to all of you, have a safe and wonderful [X-Mas/Kwanzaa/Chanukah/secular athiest angst/extra overtime shift] day!
Damn, is it hot in SoCal.
-JP

December 20, 2004 - 9:17 am PST

Sorry for the downtime yesterday. The panduck server was down due to heavy maintenance. Basically, I took out the old unbackedup single IDE point of failure drive and moved it over to a hardware RAID-5 solution. Imagine - all the years of forum data, the HL configs.. my beloved panduck page.. all gone! Now we have speed, redundancy, and best of all... /me queues the drumroll... a complete reinstall! What does that mean for you? It means that the NS server (hopefully) won't be lag hell anymore! It means the forum is snappy! it means I can sleep well at night! Yay! We all win!
Actually, my wallet doesn't win... RAID is expensive. :(
-JP

November 16, 2004 - 9:21 am PST

Today's the big day! In case you haven't heard yet, it's HL2 day! Looking at the initial reports, it looks like HL2 lived up to the hype and then some! Here's a few reviews:

Gamespot
IGN
Gamespy
GamesRadar

Torn between ideology and a good game... agh! Must... remove... Steam!
DAMN YOU GABE, DAMN YOUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!
-JP

November 14, 2004 - 8:43 am PST

Gotta love Steam. Apparently, HL2 can be found at certain brick and mortar stores across the country and people are snatching them up. BUT... the "lucky" few that can get their hands on hard copies are bringing them home and coming to the horrifying realization that they can't play! Why? Because HL2 has to authenticate through Valve and has to unlock the game through Steam. In a nutshell, Valve won't give you PERMISSION to play a SINGLE PLAYER GAME. LOL. I hope some of these early adopters are the very same rabid Steam fanboys on the "steampowered" forums. Anyways, STEAM. IS. BAD. The gaming press is making Valve look like the innocent victim here and villifying Vivendi/Universal, the publisher, for not allowing Valve to "unlock" the game. WTH DO YOU NEED TO UNLOCK A SINGLE PLAYER GAME TO BEGIN WITH? This is DRM at its finest, seriously. For those not in the know regarding the earlier drama between Vivendi and Valve, check this out. It basically explains the behind the scenes court battle over Steam in which honestly, I was hoping Vivendi would prevail. Anyways, they came to a settlement and the turd known as Steam was allowed to exist. Yay!
W@r3z HL2. It's the only way you're going to play HL2 without DRM. Of course, you didn't hear this from me.
-JP

November 8, 2004 - 9:47 am PST

November 6, 2004 - 9:56 am PST

Forums finally fixed! I think. Sorry I couldn't really get around to it earlier in the week. Started my new job and it's been insanely busy. I was forced to update it because there was a major security issue in which the box was being used to do really nasty stuff. The source of the exploit was a Ikonboard module with a known security flaw. Luckily, I don't think the box was compromised too heavily (files written to but nothing malicious was able to execute) so it shouldn't require a complete reinstall yet. Well, actually, within the next few weeks, the box is going RAID-5 and I'll probably have to take it down for a day to rebuild and reinstall the entire thing. That will definitely require downtime. Anyways, everything should be good for now and as always, if anything breaks, feel free to let the admins or I know!
Crosses fingers
-JP

November 4, 2004 - 2:12 pm PST

Quick update: Updating the forums. Been having err... security issues with the previous version of Ikonboard. Haven't really had time to restore all the old data yet.. busy here at the new job :P I'll do it for sure later today! I promise!
Doh
-JP

October 19, 2004 - 9:54 am PST

Here's a followup to the previous news post - An official press release:

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

VIVENDI UNIVERSAL GAMES ANNOUNCES PLANS TO LAUNCH THE MOST ANTICIPATED PC ACTION GAME OF 2004

Half-Life® 2 to Ship to Retail Outlets Globally This Holiday Season

LOS ANGELES (October 18, 2004) Vivendi Universal Games (VU Games) today announced that Half-Life® 2, the sequel to one of the most critically acclaimed PC titles in gaming history, will ship to retail outlets around the world in November. The Company confirmed that Half-Life 2, developed by Valve Software, has gone gold with a planned retail street date of November 16, 2004. The countdown to the highly anticipated retail street date has begun around the world, as VU Games completes plans to ship localized versions of Half-Life 2 simultaneously in English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Korean, Thai and Japanese. “Half-Life 2 has surpassed our expectations in every sense – its high-quality graphics, ground-breaking physics and immersive first-person shooter gameplay set a new standard for PC action games,” said Bruce Hack, CEO of VU Games. “Half-Life 2 will go down as one of the best-selling PC titles, and we are thrilled to deliver this ground-breaking title to the worldwide gaming community this fall.”

Hailed as “...the best game ever made” by PC Gamer, Half-Life 2 earned a top-rated review score of 98, the highest score bestowed by the magazine in more than six years. The game has received numerous accolades for its technical excellence, captivating story and addictive game play, including more than 10 awards and nominations at the 2004 Electronic Entertainment Expo. In addition to being named “Best PC Game” by 1up.com (Ziff Davis) and Gamespy.com, the title also received a “Technological Excellence on PC” award from IGN.com. CNNMoney.com stated that “Half-Life 2 will redefine what gamers expect from their games visually – and the gameplay is a lot of fun as well.”

The global anticipation for Half-Life 2 has reached unprecedented heights, as consumers around the world mark their calendars to buy the game at retail on November 16th. The Half-Life 2 product will include Counter-Strike: Source. VU Games will also release a Half Life 2 Collector’s Edition that will include Half-Life 2 in DVD-ROM format, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life: Source, a free limited edition t-shirt, and a Half-Life 2 Prima strategy guide book.

The original Half-Life game was launched in 1998 under VU Games’ Sierra Entertainment publishing label. It earned more than 50 game-of-the-year awards and has been heralded as one of the best PC first-person shooter games of all-time.

About Half-Life® and Half-Life® 2

In 1998, Half-Life revolutionized the game industry with its combination of pounding action and continuous, immersive storytelling. Valve’s debut title was named “Best PC Game Ever” by PC Gamer and launched a franchise with more than eight million retails units sold worldwide. In 2004, Half-Life 2 will take the suspense, challenge and visceral charge of the original to new heights of realism and responsiveness. Half-Life 2 opens the door to a world where the player’s presence affects everything around him, from the physical environments to the behaviors – even the emotions – of both friends and enemies. The player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist, Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted and its population dwindling. Freeman is thrust into the unenviable role of rescuing the world from the wrong he unleashed back at Black Mesa. And a lot of people – people he cares about – are counting on him. The intense, real-time gameplay of Half-Life 2 is made possible only by Source, Valve’s new proprietary engine technology. Source provides major enhancements in the advanced facial animation system, physics, graphics and AI. Half-Life 2 will be available for the PC.

About Vivendi Universal Games

Headquartered in Los Angeles, VU Games is a leading global developer, publisher and distributor of multi-platform interactive entertainment. Its development studios and publishing labels include Blizzard Entertainment, Sierra Entertainment, Fox Interactive and Massive Entertainment. VU Games’ library of over 700 titles features multi-million unit selling properties such as Warcraft®, StarCraft®, Diablo® and World of Warcraft® from Blizzard Entertainment®; Crash Bandicoot®, Spyro The Dragon™, Empire Earth®, Leisure Suit Larry™, Tribes® and Ground Control®.

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October 16, 2004 - 7:55 am PST

Half Life 2 Gold!

According to both IGN and Gamespot, HL2 is gold and is undergoing ratings certification procedures. The release date is apparently sometime in November, in time for the X-Mas shopping season. Better preorder now if you want all the preorder goodies!
Wonder if Valve is still yankin our crank... Anyone care to place bets?
-JP

October 4, 2004 - 2:20 pm PST

Not really HL related, but newsworthy nonetheless! Straight from the headlines:

By Gina Keating MOJAVE, Calif. (Reuters) - The world's first privately funded manned spacecraft soared through the blue fringe of Earth's atmosphere to the blackened frontiers of space on Monday for the second time within a week to win a $10 million prize designed to spur commercial space travel. SpaceShipOne, a stubby, three-seat rocket plane about the size of a minivan, hurtled to a height of 368,000 feet traveling at more than three times the speed of sound and surpassing its target altitude without the heart-stopping barrel rolls that vexed the craft's qualifying flight on Wednesday. "We are proud to announce that SpaceShipOne has made two flights to 100 kilometers (62 miles) and has won the Ansari X Prize," Peter Diamandis, founder of the X Prize, announced to reporters at Mojave airport. The craft safely glided back to the Mojave Airport for a textbook landing, greeted by cheers from thousands of spectators gathered beside the runway. Brian Binnie, the 51-year-old former Navy pilot who was at the controls, emerged from the craft's side hatch onto the tarmac where he was met by his wife. Also present were aircraft designer Burt Rutan, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, who financed the venture at a cost of between $20 million and $30 million, and British entrepreneur Richard Branson, who has licensed the SpaceShipOne design for a series of future commercial passenger flights. "It's a fantastic experience. and it culminates when the motor shuts down and you realize you are no longer encumbered," said Binnie, describing the weightless moment in which the spacecraft soared beyond the bounds of Earth's gravity. "There's a freedom there and a sense of wonder that, I tell you what, you all need to experience," he said. The X Prize, aimed at encouraging the development of civilian space travel in a reusable craft that can be turned around quickly, was offered for the first nongovernment team to fly three people, or the equivalent weight, to at least 62 miles in altitude and do it again within two weeks. SpaceShipOne's flight on Monday reached an altitude of 69.7 miles, nearly 8 miles above the internationally recognized boundary between the Earth's upper atmosphere and space. LAUGHING GAS AND RUBBER The carrier aircraft, White Knight, ferried SpaceShipOne to about 50,000 feet and then released it for its roughly 80-second rocket-fueled stab through Earth's atmosphere. SpaceShipOne then arced back toward Earth in a long, spiral glide. SpaceShipOne is powered by a hybrid fuel composed of nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, and tire rubber -- a mix believed to be less volatile, and thus safer, than the propellant used by NASA's space shuttle. Instead of heat shield tiles, the craft is equipped with a feathered wing system that prevents overheating by slowing its re-entry. Binnie became only the second civilian pilot to obtain his astronaut's wings. The first was Mike Melvill, who flew the first successful qualifying flight of SpaceShipOne on Wednesday that was marked by a series of unplanned vertical rolls. The X Prize was founded in 1996 by Diamandis, a space enthusiast, in the hope that it would spur a commercial space travel industry.

Watching the live video and pictures made me dirty my pants, seriously. It's like the ultimate geek pr0n! I'd love to share some of the awesome pictures that they posted earlier like the suborbital shot with the curvature of the earth thing but all of the pics seem to be copyrighted! BAH! So to share my joy with the rest of you readers, I've created an artist's rendition of how it looked like from a camera mounted on the moon:

*This recreation is brought to you by state of the art computer rasterization technology. (AKA MSPaint)

September 4, 2004 - 9:36 am PST

Natural Selection v3.0 Beta 5 Released!

The NS version 3 beta 5 client and server files were released to the public earlier today. A full changelog can be found here. Due to insomnia, the Jigglyroom is now equipped with this release. A full list of file mirrors can be found at the offical NS website. My personal recommendation is fileshack. Don't believe the timer's lies! It's actually a lot shorter than the estimate given. Thanks to our career NS crackhead, Z.O.E. for the heads up :)
This is seriously the best FPS mod of ALL TIME.
-JP

September 1, 2004 - 12:26 am PST

It was rumored last friday that HL2 would go gold on Monday, August 30th. This came from the fact that Gabe Newell himself apparently posted on the HL2 Fallout forums with the words, "We're going gold Monday..." Being skeptical of even the horse's mouth, (We're talking about Valve here) I held my breath and waited... and waited... only to discover the amusing (and hardly surprising) truth today. Check out this article at Gamespot. Lol. Geebus, I mean, c'mon. You'd think they learned from the break in and theft of the HL2 source code. Spaceballs immediately comes to mind - "That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard! That's the kind of combination an idiot would put on his luggage!"
Has there ever been a bigger bunch of fuckups in the gaming scene? Sheesh. Edit: 3DRealms.
-JP

August 17, 2004 - 7:59 am PST

The wacky wonderful company that brought us the beloved Steam has just added another chapter to their endless saga! Today's debacle brought to you by Gamespot:

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Half-Life 2 dialogue reported leaked
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Unconfirmed reports say a file containing all of the upcoming shooter's script was accidentally released with the Counter-Strike: Source beta.

The day before Valve starts preloading Half-Life 2 assets onto its Steam network, it appears the publisher may have made an embarrassing mistake. Several Web sites--most prominently HL2World.com--have reported that Valve accidentally released a file containing all of the dialogue from Half-Life 2 when it initially distributed the Counter-Strike: Source beta to cyber cafés last week. According to reports, the dialogue is embedded in a .gcf file sent out along with the beta. Apparently, it was included for closed-captioning purposes and was overlooked because .gcf files aren't meant to be opened. Obviously, it was not meant for public eyes and contains numerous spoilers about the game, including its (surprising) ending. However, despite reports, the Half-Life 2 dialogue leak is officially unconfirmed. Valve did not respond to requests for comment as of press time and has not made any announcements regarding the alleged leak. However, some reports say the dialogue-laden .gcf has been identified and will not be included with the CS: Source beta data offered to CS: Condition Zero owners.

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August 12, 2004 - 12:52 pm PST

Getting a "Code 35" on Cheating Death after yesterday's STEAM update? UA has the fix!:

cd-client-4_23_3-en.exe (Local Mirror)

Just download it and install over your existing CD installation.
I just can't get enough of Steam breaking stuff! Yay!
-JP

August 4, 2004 - 8:04 am PST

Quick update today - here's a little Doom 3 humor for those shooting in the dark.
Harr harr! Man, this is TOO FUNNY! HYUK! (actually, man, I need to get out more)
-JP

July 31, 2004 - 12:08 pm PST

July 25, 2004 - 11:52 am PST

Ever wonder why you just can't hit that damned [insert playername/class here]? Well, time to bust out the Raid, because HL has a fun bug!:

Surprise, surprise!
Why is this not surprising?
-JP

July 15, 2004 - 12:49m PST

Adios to the Valve of old and hello to the evil, very corporate, and very greedy Valve of the new... Ripped straight from the headlines of Planet Fortress:

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WON Authentication Ends July 31st
7/15/2004 11:54 PST | Steam | by Pratt
This word just in from VALVe's Doug Lombardi:

Starting July 26th, the shutdown of the WON authentication servers will begin. This process will be completed on July 31st. This means players will no longer be able to access Internet features of Valve games, such as Counter-Strike 1.5, using the WON authentication servers. Users can continue using Valve games on the Steam service by downloading the Steam installer and setting up a Steam account. For more information visit www.steampowered.com. Counter-Strike 1.5 players will be upgraded to Counter-Strike 1.6 free of charge through Steam.

R.I.P. WON ...

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July 14, 2004 - 6:11pm PST

DOOM 3 GOLD!!

WOoooooOo! I'd run a D3 server but it's got some kinda funky 4-way peer to peer networking thing going from what I understand. After "sampling" the D3 Alpha, I can tell you this - Don't turn the lights out when you're playing this one... What are you waiting for? Preorder it NOW while you can get all the preorder goodies!!! Oh yeah, thanks Shack News for the scoop!

tl;dr version: Doom 3 is gold. Release date is August 5th. Official site and countdown timer can be found here.
Where are you HL2? DNF?
-JP

July 12, 2004 - 10:01am PST

Alright, alright... I've been procrastinating about the E3 pics thing. I DO have them up but they're sorta hidden (mwahaha) til I get the doc done right. FIND THEM IF YOU DARE (j/k). I don't know if anyone cares to see em at this point anyways. Anyhow, here's a hilarious CS video that I'm offering as an appeasement offering:

Thanks again to the goons at Something Awful for tracking down this treasure.
"Nigga i'll wipe my dick on your forehead!" HAHAHAHAHA! Sorry, I know it's tasteless :P
-JP

May 16, 2004 - 5:49am PST

I'll try to get some E3 stuff up here either today, tomorrow, or Tuesday. Still tired from all the walkin around, the lights, the noise, the crowds, etc. I didn't take many booth babe pictures this year for some reason... Dunno why. Maybe it's because I'm getting older... or maybe it's because Alizee has made all other women obsolete? I suspect the latter. :)
Touch Alizee and I will CUT YOU!!!
-JP

May 12, 2004 - 7:24am PST

It's E3 day! As usual, I'm headed off to this annual hajj of mine and I'll try to bring you the latest and greatest in gaming news! (Unless IGN, Shacknews, etc brings it to you first) WOOOOO BABY!!! E3!!!!!!!!!!!!

-JP

April 24, 2004 - 12:00pm PST

Put the popluar "Siege" map onto the NS JR. Here are the files you'll need to play:

ns_siege007.bsp - This goes into /maps
ns_siege007.spr - This goes into /sprites/minimaps

Man, what a weird map...
Pandering to the masses
-JP

April 21, 2004 - 9:23am PST

Half Life DRAMA ALERT!

Found this interesting bit on the Awful Forums from Fragmaster, Director of Planet Half Life. It's basically a resignation letter full of oh so nice bridge burning goodness filled with information that comes from the man himself. Figured it's my responsibility to help spread the word. Have a looksie!:

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Now that I'm leaving PlanetHalfLife and resigning as Site Director, I'd like to be a drama queen, burn a bridge or two, and possibly maybe explain a few things. I apologize in advance the incoherence of this babbling, but it's not like you're being forced to read this crap.

I started PHL in 1998, just after Half-Life hit store shelves. Half-Life: Day One absolutely blew me away. It was incredible. The full game was even better. I loved everything about Half-Life and I threw myself into the community. I made maps, I wrote horrible fan fiction (Walter's World), I spent hours playing HLDM (mostly on Gasworks). Half-Life is easily one of the best games of all-time (well, IMHO, at least) and nothing will ever change that.

I reluctantly left PHL in 1999 due to my increasing workload. During my first stint at PHL, I was mildly irked by things like the TFC delay, PowerPlay, and the confusion over TF2 (it's an expansion pack! Oh wait, it's not!), but these were just minor inconveniences and as whole I liked the way Valve did business. Their support of the mod community in those early days is the reason why Half-Life is still so popular today.

I quit GameSpy in 2000 and came back in mid-2002. When I took over PHL again, things had changed. Half-Life was clearly past its prime. Valve clearly wasn't the same company it once was.

In early April 2003, Half-Life 2 rumors started to leak out. Print magazines were given the exclusive on all Half-Life 2 information and online sites weren't allowed to post screenshots or previews until 5/8/03. I felt this was a pretty stupid thing to do -- forcing people to jump through hoops and hunt down low-quality, blurry magazine scans to get a glimpse of the sequel they've been waiting five years for -- but hey, that's just my opinion and I'm obviously biased about the viability of the print medium. Valve's doing essentially the same thing again this year; print mags saw HL2 awhile back and that information will start trickling out shortly.

I sat in on the first demonstration of HL2 at E3 2003 and was pretty damn impressed. When Gabe said that the game was coming out 9/30/03, I totally believed it. My interest in Half-Life had begun to wane, but that demo rekindled my interest in PHL in a huge way.

Two months later, things started to get complicated. In mid-July I heard from multiple reliable sources that Half-Life 2 wasn't going to make 9/30/03. Then I got hold of pretty conclusive evidence that Valve's Doug Lombardi had flat out told print magazines (off the record, of course) to plan on pushing their reviews of Half-Life 2 back to the Holiday issues. Then in late July, Vivendi announced that Half-Life 2 would be delayed to the holidays. Since I knew the delay was coming, I jumped right on this and confidently reported it as fact.

Unfortunately Valve -- for whatever reason -- refused to own up to the fact that Half-Life 2 was going to be delayed. Gabe made that ridiculous "First time I've heard about this" response, and other sites overreacted and assumed that this meant that Vivendi's announcement was a mistake. This situation was further complicated by Vivendi's backtracking: after Valve essentially refused to confirm the delay news, Vivendi was forced to (kind of) retract their original delay announcement. So tons of people incorrectly assumed this meant HL2 was still coming out on time.

At this point, I was stuck: I knew Half-Life 2 was going to be delayed, and instead of backing down and keeping my mouth shut, I kept (loudly) proclaiming that HL2 was going to miss 9/30 while other sites kept reporting the exact opposite, This was very frustrating, and if you were around during this period of time, you'll recall that I was acting like a real jerk. And to be fair to these other sites, they were being fed rather misleading information.

Most of the above stuff I already talked about in this editorial from September, but there's one key piece of information I left out: In August, I made a mistake. I was recruited to work on Prima's Half-Life 2 Behind the Scenes book and signed an NDA. Now I was privy to all sorts of Half-Life 2 information and quickly became 100% sure the game was going to slip, but thanks to the NDA, I couldn't say a damn thing about any of it. This was INCREDIBLY frustrating. I haven't even mentioned I was (emphasis on was) working on the book until now, and even then I only mention it because word leaked out on some other forums recently and there's no point in denying it.

In late August at ECTS, Valve's Doug Lombardi and Greg Coomer were both quoted as saying that the 9/30 release date was still happening. Lombardi told a co-worker of mine, to his face, that the game was still coming out September 30th worldwide. Some would call this marketing, but I'd call it lying.

I visited Valve in early September to conduct interviews for the Behind the Scenes book. It was quite a bit of fun, but I was a little disturbed by a few things. I won't get into the specifics, but information wasn't matching up. Things said during the E3 demo turned out to be either misleading or untrue, for example. I don't want to say exactly what kind of state the game was in when I was there, but you'll recall that when other fan sites visited Valve later that month (BEFORE the source code leak, even), they were unable to see the game. Now, if the game was in a playable state and supposedly ready to go gold within a couple of days, don't you think they would have shown it off?

Then the source code leak happened. I feel sorry for Valve that this happened because there's a possibility this could have a slightly negative on HL2 once it's finally released, but they really should have taken more precautions in the network security department. At first, Valve claimed that only 1/3rd of the source code was stolen, but once people compiled working versions of the game, well...

The Anonymous Leaker, despite being an asshole such as myself, was basically correct. HL2 wasn't nearly as far along as Valve was hinting at, and a lot of the things Valve showed in the E3 demo were misrepresented. Did he really release all the work Valve had done on HL2? To be honest, I don't know for sure. It's a possibility. Valve certainly made little effort to dispute his claims.

Valve didn't announce that Half-Life 2 would be delayed until 9/23. This, to me, was inexcusable. It takes ten minutes to send out an email.

OK, now you may be saying, "so what, why are you still crying about things that happened last year?" I think it's important to reiterate this story because it shows what kind of company Valve is. I don't feel they respect the community. If they did, they would have just confirmed Vivendi's delay announcement in July instead of stringing people along.

Where is Half-Life 2 now? Beats me. I haven't kept up with the past 5-6 months of development and E3 is coming up anyway, so you'll see for yourself. I do know that content has been cut from the game in an attempt to get it to ship sooner. Will it ship this year? I guess there's a 50/50 chance, but keep in mind that this is the same company that took three years to add bots to a mod they didn't even make and slap it in a box.

Now, I could go on and on, talking about Steam, all the screw-ups with Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (I mean, JESUS, how do you declare a game GOLD, say it's FINISHED, and then not ship it until NEARLY SIX MONTHS LATER?), how Valve has messed up their relationships with Ritual, Gearbox, Vivendi (do you think Vivendi is a big fan of Steam?), and ATI... I could point out all the things Valve said they'd do but didn't, like releasing the HL2 benchmark or the SDK. I could whine on and on about how maddening it is to get flooded by mails from people complaining about how people can't play Half-Life anymore thanks to Steam or how Valve's customer support is non-existent. But the bottom line is this: I am not a fan of Valve anymore. I don't believe a damn thing they say and I'm sick of their bullshit.

Valve needs to learn how to properly communicate with their online fan base and treat their fans with respect. That means not telling your fans 7 days before the ship date that HL2 is delayed. That means not giving out vague "oh HL2 will be released this summer and by the way we didn't say summer of what year and it's always summer somewhere in the world so who knows LOL we'll see!" answers to direct questions. That means not streaming a couple hundred megs of cache files to Steam user's hard drives without their permission or knowledge.

I feel most of the problems at Valve are due to the ineptitude of one individual in particular. I'm not going to name names, but you can probably guess who I'm talking about. This person is easily the worst person I've ever met during my time within the "video game industry," and that's saying a lot, considering that this business is filled with superstar jerkwads like... well... me. I don't feel that he does his job properly, and he isn't what I'd consider to be a decent, trustworthy, or moral human being.

Plus, Valve has gone over my head a couple of times and interfered (or attempted to interfere) with the content of this site, which I think is pretty sad. Forum posts of mine have been deleted on their orders and I've been forced to edit news posts because Valve didn't care for the information or opinions I was sharing. I'm sure they'll complain about this post and attempt to get it yanked, but I don't care.

Don't get me wrong, Valve has some of the most talented developers in the industry. Some really great people who I respect immensely work there. It's a shame that most of these guys have been working hard for years on projects that have yet to see the light of day. There are just a few bad apples spoiling the soup. Or something.

Oh man, this is possibly the most scary, convoluted thing I've ever written. ANYWAYS, it's obvious that I have no business running a site like PlanetHalfLife when it's obvious this crap has made me CRAZY INSANE, so it's time to give up my silly little crusade of constantly telling people that they're wrong and turn the site over to more professional management with a better attitude and perspective than myself. Jabberwocky will be taking over PHL and I'm sure you'll see plenty of other new faces on the site as well.

A few more things: First, I'd like to publicly apologize to Pratt for a comment I made in the forums which seemed to imply that he wasn't reporting news properly. I was wrong, and he has the right idea. Secondly, I'd like to thank the HL2.net forums for their... enthusiasm... and some of the most hilarious things I've ever read. I'll never forget that thread where somebody compared me to Hitler for saying that Half-Life 2 would be delayed last year. Lastly, I'd like to thank all the PHL readers who have put up with the peculiar brand of garbage I've been dishing out the past couple years and for suffering through those "funny" flash movies of mine.

Half-Life 2 will almost certainly be a great game once it's released and I can't wait to play it. Be patient, don't believe everything you read, think for yourself, and remember that history has a habit of repeating itself. Repeating itself. Repeating itself. THE END.

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April 19, 2004 - 4:22am PST

The TFC server's been pretty unstable lately and the engineers here at the Jigglyroom Labs are working around the clock to get these issues resolved! Please be patient while we figure out a solution. Thanks!
Jigglyroom Labs = me
-JP

April 13, 2004 - 9:13am PST

No news is good news, eh? EH? Anyways, here's a pink dinosaur to keep you guys busy:

BONUS QUIZ: Know where this dinosaur is located?
That'll keep you bastards busy for a while ;)
-JP

March 31, 2004 - 5:57pm PST

Friendly reminder: Tomorrow is April 1st! You know what that means! Hurr hurr.. WATCH YOUR BACK! See, Jiggly looks out for his homies.
Man, I'm seriously running out of update material
-JP

March 24, 2004 - 8:12am PST

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since the last update because well, nothing's been going on in the HL/TFC scene but to keep y'all entertained til the next real update, I've thrown up a few random videos!