What the hell is building in there?

My Saint Feed is reporting no signs of Sinter Claes today. Let’s hope for the best.

‘Twas the Night Before Chernobyl

Twenty kilometers southeast of Bykhaw, Belarus sat a very sad man. His family, all have gone. People don’t live in these parts, for good reason. Everything was dying, and there were no prospects in these areas after those fatal days in ’86. Last year, the year before, and possibly this year, his family had slowly died, or worse. He watched his wife and his daughter be taken away from him, to some place he hopes he’ll never go himself.

The fake carnation his wife once held up in her hair sat in his palms, slightly damp from his sweat and his tears. The rose tint of the flower haunted him. His daughter’s coat, from when she was but 4 years old was blue and draped like a dead animal over the mantle place. This home was a mostly underground studio, with a large horizontal window along one wall and a smoke escape on the other (near a door for entrance and exit). Under the mantle brewed the same Kusmi Tea he had every time this part of the year came around.

His eyes were soaked and bloodshot, the near year was moving closer, reminding him of the previous year’s fatal incident, hoping he wouldn’t see those eyes again, but longed for his wife’s. He had spent the year saving for a rifle, and on top of that blue coat, it sat, ready for whatever demons would try and take away what little left he had to love.

He wiped the tears from his eyes, and put his woolen gloves back on his hands. He picked the pot out of the flames and poured himself a mug of the beverage his wife had prepared for his family previously.

He moved the chair, the table, and the rifle towards the window, and locked away the carnation and coat in the footlocker. The rifle looked upon the fields between him and the fog in the distance. For the next two hours he slowly sipped the jasmine-scented potion.

Midnight was soon to strike, and he continued to see nothing. Perhaps this year would be different. What would the beast want from him? Suddenly, a rasp at the door. He scanned the fields, not wanting to give up whatever possible opportunity to end his pain and misery to answer the knock.

Two more rasps followed. He let out a sigh, with more doubt leading towards the possible return of the incarnate. He left his outpost to open the door.

When his hand pulled the door towards him, he burst into tears. There alone sat a small girl, wearing a bright red holiday garment with long, blonde hair. He fell to his knees, wrapped his arms around the child, and rest his face upon hers.

And immediately retracted.

His daughter had returned, but she was cold, stiff, and emotionless. He pushed his head back to stare into her eyes, to ask a question, but the tears and sobbing prevented it. And there she stood, staring back into him without even a smile. She was cold to the touch, and he had started to become worried. He said her name aloud, “Snegurochka…,” wondering if this really was his daughter. She turned around, to face someone behind her.

Except, it wasn’t someone, but something. There stood a tall shadow of a man, wearing the same red colors, but where his limbs and face should be, was nothing but a pitch black, amorphous shade. Where a mouth should have been was a cone instead, which immediately opened up to show silver teeth. They moved individually, mechanically, and started to rotate around each other. Sounds came from this, nearly inaudible, and at a very high tone.

By the time he felt the pain in his ears, he was already back in his house, throwing the door shut. It didn’t close all the way. A small foot had stood in the doorway. A loud crash came from the table as he fell upon it in shock, spilling what little was left from his libation. Why, why are you doing this to me?, he thought to himself.

He stumbled for the rifle, and attempted to point it towards the creature crawling in through his front door. A loud bang followed, with no response from the hellish entity. He knew he didn’t miss, and it continued to lurch towards him.

A long, shadowy arm without fingers wrapped around the barrel, and it was ripped from his hands and thrown out the window. “Snegurochka!,” he yelled, hoping that deep down inside that shell his daughter could hear his scream. He remembered him and his wife, singing holiday songs together, and then he saw black, as he was engulfed in the shadows of the devil.

The last thought he had was a simple jingle of holiday bells, he heard each note slowly, each one longer after the other. The tune had never finished.

Protected: Is Santa Clause Real?

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Apologies; Ode to Santa Clause

I’ve done it. I’ve managed to escape the prison the demons had set out for me. I’m free and finally resting in front of the soft, white light emitted by this lonesome public computer in a large room of the nearby community college. People are giving me strange looks, perhaps because of my dirty demeanor; my hands covered in soot and mud and my hair looking no better. My shirt may be inside out, and this sweater may be torn, but that is the least of my worries.

I’m here to reach out to each and every one of you. I’ve seen some things; terrible things. This man, if you could call it a man, had me locked away in the cellars without light nor hope, where things grow old just so they can die in pain, agony, and suffering. Christmas time is coming around, and the last thoughts on my mind were my friends and family, for perhaps it could read those images of love. I didn’t want him to touch you, see. It’s mouth when it spoke, would spin at such a high frequency that caused his teeth to appear as razors. His words cut deep into the wounds he had already placed, with the bull-hide whip in one hand and a pillow case of many a bar of soaps in the other.

I am to never use Irish Spring again.
My face is perhaps bruised and cracked, I haven’t washed my face in what feels like centuries, despite it only being a year away in inprisonment. The moderator for the library is telling me I must go, so excuse me if things feel rushed. I just need you to know to watch out these holidays, this man thing is loose, and in need of new souls to feast on. He won’t go after me again, I’ve been completely drained of holiday cheer and joy.

So, it is with these last passing thoughts that I request the kind readers of Threefourt of sympathy and understanding, for I have not updated the blog as frequently as I had promised or wished, and I feel the blame is not entirely on my own being, but rather on the well-being that the holiday icon took stole from me.

Merry Christmas, if there’s any merry left to give,

Stephen “zzzdude” Mangum

GabeN Interview

I had a chance to sit down with Gabe Newell for a chat back in ’08, and I just found the old audiolog. I’ve transcribed it for you all to read.

What made you choose to get into game development?

There were three main reasons – I love playing games, the guys at id were encouraging Mike and I to start a company, and if we were going to fail at it, we would fail quickly (which isn’t true of lots of other businesses where you fail slowly).

Why did your team choose to use the idea of which is Half-Life and not go with Prospero?

We figured out how to ship Half-Life, whereas Prospero was too ambitious.

While still in production of half-life, did you really think it was going to be as successful as it is?

No, we had no idea it would be as successful as it would become. Our focus was much more on thinking about what gamers wanted given the current crop of games on the market.

What made you determined to make a sequel?

There’s a bunch of story we want to tell, and we wanted to continue to push harder on the mechanics of story-telling in games.

And then make episodes after that?

The episodic approach is an experiment to see if we can manage project-scale risk more effectively and thereby put risk in other areas (e.g. game design, art design, technology).

So, the giant leap in time between episode 1 and episode 2 was huge, but I think it was worth it, with the HUGE source update. Do you ever get any responses of people complaining about the time period?

Complaining is a recreational tennis match for the gaming community. It’s part of the fun.

Do you still like to play video games, if so, have any to suggest?

I’ve been bitten by the WoW bug pretty hard.

Do you like freeware games, like “Within a deep forest”, “crayon physics”, and “narbacular drop”?

Narbacular Drop was pretty good. I or someone else at Valve plays pretty much every game on every platform at some point.

Do you enjoy independent game developer games, like the recently released “audiosurf”?

Jason Holtman in the office next to mine is a rabid audiosurf fan. He keeps dragging me into his office to watch him play.

Valve is still the best major company out there to produce any game, who deserves the player’s money. Although other major game companies, such as microsoft, and pop-cap, don’t care much about the customers as the money. I hope Valve remains to stay the way it is. What do you wish for Valve, as a company?

Staying that way would be good.

Will Wright’s “Spore” is coming out on sept. 7, are you looking forward to it?

Very much so. I’ve been playing Will’s games since the first SimCity, and even made him sign my SimAnts copy.

Do you play TF2 often?

With people here at the office, yes. Not so much on the Internet.

Any questions you expected to be asked?

” Why is there a real human head in the refrigerator at your offices?”

As Third “Computer” Onehundredpluseleven had pointed out earlier this weekend, there hasn’t been much activity. Now, I’m not pointing any fingers, but our readers really need to be a bit more active in the E-Mail department. What I’m ultimately saying is, we only really write up quality content if it’s requested by at least 200 people. We have barely been getting 150 users begging us to post more content each day, and it just doesn’t live up to the good old days of having nearly 1,000 on a Monday. I’m no Garfield, but I think he had a point.

However, I do feel guilty about this lack of content. I had promised to provide the utmost quality since day one, and I do plan on continuing to keep it that way. So sure, we don’t have much anymore, but remember, “Quality is greater than Quantity”. Albert Einstein said that back in the 70′s, back when we first started getting flooded with shear resources instead of intrinsic writing.

Forgive my ramblings, there is a lot I could say that in’t worth saying for the general viewer of Threefourt, and I am sorry for that. My point is, expect to see an update at least once a month from hereon. I just got a new tattoo saying “Update Threefourt 8/7/2011″, so I doubt I’ll forget.

I love you all,

-zzzzzzzzdude (who isn’t sleeping, just working)

My message to my friends

Why hello. Long time no see.

It’s been quite a while since my last post. I’ve been pretty busy with my real life and I feel that I have moved away from my online persona.

I was known as fps_3com111 for a good few years, and during that time I felt that I acquired some really good friends in that group. Noobkiller, Pwner, Andy, and Zzz to name a few. Might be a bit daft, but you guys were a pretty big part of my life during those years. I remember vividly being at school stuck in another boring class that I would have to make up again in college anyway, just counting the minutes till I could walk home and talk to my friends online again.

It was only really the past year that I really moved away from you guys, my friends. I just never really have the time to be on the computer anymore. I have a job at an awesome ice rink that keeps me away from you  guys. And I miss all of you.

But yeah, enough of me being a baby.

 

I’ll try to visit more often.

 

xoxo – 3com111

 

ps. my car is doing fine.

Microtransaction Charities

Someone recently asked me what I thought about microtransactions in World of Warcraft. Another asked me about the ones in TF2. Someone else wondered if all of this floating, cosmetic-inducing money should be given to charities. Yet one other person debated with himself about which charity is the best. All this got me thinking of a serious rant that I felt could not be merely expressed in a simple conversation, and would be too volatile in self-thought. This is something I needed to personally write down on a paper, or better yet, in a blog post.

Oh well, I seem to have forgotten what I was going to say, considering this draft was created many months ago. I was basically going to say that Make-a-Wish Foundation was a horrible charity, and you should all feel bad.

Best of ’010

This year has been a great year for the Three-Fourte’s. Many things have happened to the writers, the readers, and the contributors who make this website possible. We appreciate every single one of you who have mentioned the word “Threefourt”. Suffice it to say, we love you all, and I hope you do the same.

Today I’m going to sit down with you, and describe the best things that have happened in the past year. Some of the events are not so great, we have received a lot of hate mail, but it just goes to show the amount of popularity that has come in the times past.

Best Blog Post of ’010

Here on threefourt, we have made over 500 blog posts. Some of them have been lost in translation, server issues, and memory. Of all the new posts made this year, I would have to choose this one

Valveland – Part 1

Stratofarius, one of the new writers in 2010, wrote this amazing post showing off a few key ideas if Valve products became a theme for a park. I felt that this post was the greatest of the year, since it has both innovation, content, new writers, and good reception. Thank you Stratofarius, for this wonderous contribution!

Best Content Stolen by Valve in ’010

There was a lot of sweet ideas, models, and jokes that were stolen this year. The best one, however, would have to be the model concept I had started working on after submitting my Flower hat to their web servers. “What,” might you ask, “is that?” The T-Bone Steak that I had proposed for the soldier. Not only does the model match my sticky-note drawings of the steak, it also has a similar concept to the mechanics I had guessed the soldier should use. The only difference between my steak and Valve’s would have to be the fact that the heavy is munching instead of the soldier, and its a little bit darker of a tint.

Best Content Stolen by Something Awful in ’010

One of the highlights of the Threefourt Career was when we gained notoriety on the Something Awful forums (an infamous blog known for their great sense of humour), or more specifically, their well-known flash animator, Shmorky. He had taken one of my jokes and made it popular. I appreciate him talking about me on the forums and giving us a little bit more traffic. Thanks Shmorky, for stealing my jokes!

Most Viewed Blog Post of ’010

The most viewed page on all of Threefourt this year was our homepage, which netted 10% of the total views to the site. This blog post attracted a lot of views, and received hundreds of comments. Thank you contributors of Threefourt, for making this possible!

Highest Contributing Author of ’010

Well, I was going to just see who posted the most content on the blog, but wordpress is being dumb and won’t show me anymore (they changed how some things look). So instead, I’m going to give this one to 3com111. He saved the day back in October, when I had asked him to write a new blog post about his recent tragedy, to spark up the blog while I was busy and occupied with other things. Had he not been there to help Threefout, we would be in ruins. The viewcount dropped dramatically just before that post, but thank god for 3com111, who had brought the average count back up to par.

Best Video Game of ‘o11

Sorry, I mean’t ’010. I would have to say that all the games released this year were crap (hence the lack of posts), so I’m going to have to give it to last year’s winner -oh wait, no good games in 2009 either. Oh well.

Best Blog That Had Content Posted in ’010

Threefourt, duh.

Best Valve Content Release This Year

Well I was waiting for them to include my custom hat in their microtransactions, but you know how Valve time works. We’ll save that hat for next year’s awards. This year, the best thing Valve has done would have to be Alien Swarm (Possible Future Review?).

Best Referral Advertising Threefourt (in ’010)

I would have to give props to Facepunch Studios for this, since they’ve helped out the blog immensely by being the most common viewer of the blog. Although most members periodically hate the content published, deep down, I’m sure they appreciate that someone has the balls to state the truths that I present. Thanks Facepunch, and thank you Garry Newman.

Best “Best of ’010″ Blog Post Since ’008

In the past two years, there haven’t been many reviews of the year 2010, and I think that our review wins, as it covers all the events pretty well, and anything we have missed can be found in our podcast. If you want to check it out, go click the “previous entry” link at the bottom of this post, or keep reading this blog post.

Worst Blog Post of ’010

There are some issues that even Threefourt encounters. We aren’t the greatest group when it comes to technical difficulties, and this blog post would have to be considered the worst.

Happy Holidays From Threefourt! 2010 Edition

This post never was written. We put time and effort into a desktop image, and delicately wrote a small editorial regarding the photo. We nominated this as the worst post, because we were unable to bring the content to you due to technical difficulties with WordPress. Maybe someday we can get a better blogging client.

Best Podcast of Twenty-Oh-Ten

If you haven’t figured out that we’re giving ourselves all the awards yet, I would like to let you know that we’re giving ourselves all the rewards. We are an outstanding company, and have been for many years, we’ve painstakingly written over 180 blog posts for your heart’s desire, we traveled across the United States each morning to go to our office to review the fan mail we get, we have personally replied to every hate-mail we’ve received, and declined many applications to our writing staff, we’ve had half of the country of Greenland visit our website and be very cold at the same time, we’ve told Valve to fuck off (and that’s a pretty big Company) and they replied apologetically, and we’ve satisfied our customers; You. We’ve done the impossible, and we’re prepared to do it again.

The question is,
Are you ready for the next year?

Oh, and the best podcast of ’010 is ours, since I haven’t told you yet. check out the link!

Threefourt Podcast: Episode 1: The First Part: New

After over a year of effort, time, and dedication, we have finally released the first episode of the Threefourt Podcast, and we hope to bring you more.
Just head on over to either the Official Threefourt Official Podcast Blog to subscribe for the latest Podcast news, or go to our Podcast webpage hosted on Threefourt!
But, for those who don’t want to do any more link-hopping than what you have to, just download the first episode now!

What’s in this episode?

• Discussing the new podcast
• A Musical Intro written by 1/4 Life, famous Mod Developer of City 17: Episode 1.
• Discussing our president, Barack Obama
• Pokemon
• What are Black People? An analysis.
• Valve Surprises announced!? Threefourt Exclusive Content!
• Why Blizzard has done nothing good for the community.
• What we’ve been playing: Salt, Shaman (er, druid), and Roleplaying Anime Fantasies.
• Dolphins save the day!
• Reminiscing the Good Ol’ Years
• Evolution of Team Fortress 2

Duration: 28 minutes (WORTH EVERY SECOND)

01 – December 31st - The First Podcast

R.I.P. Leslie Neilsen