Update 3-23-19

Hello to any and all readers! I wanted to break format a little and write up a short post about updates and where things have been. Let me start off with the important stuff first.

If you haven't noticed, I hadn't been regularly updating this blog for the past year. I plan on changing that. I want to get more reviews done on a somewhat consistent basis. I don't have a specific timeframe in mind but I'm going to try to be more productive on the review front. Now, if you are familiar with my earlier review document on Google docs, you would know that my style for that document was, simply put, fairly short summaries in pure text format. The style for my reviews on this blog is that I'm putting down a lot more for each campaign, plus I'm including screenshots of my own games through the custom campaigns. This is something that I enjoy doing but it does take a fair amount more work than the earlier style. Additionally, aside from the few campaigns that have newly released this year, this is mostly a revisit of the campaigns that I've previously played. That's not a bad thing, but I am rewriting the reviews instead of copying and pasting what I've said before. My thoughts will inevitably change and on occasion my overall opinion might be different from what I've written before. Basically what this means is I'm starting more or less from scratch. As such, it does take some time for me to clearly articulate what I'm thinking for each campaign. It's kind of like starting over, so it will take a while before the campaigns are completely reviewed again. Besides, it would be boring for me to just reiterate what I've already said! In any case, I hope to get a little bit better at turning out reviews on a little bit more of a consistent basis. I may also break my previous alphabetical order to get the reviews out.

The second order of business is the campaign listing. Let me say this right here: as of right now, the current campaign list on this site is the only accurate list. I have spent a couple of nights adding in new links and new campaigns, as well as removing dead links that no longer work. This was much more work than you might expect. It doesn't help that the campaign list is done in HTML format, so it actually takes a lot longer than you might think. However, that's really the only way to do it without the table getting screwed up. I have checked Gamemaps and the Steam Workshop, and all the links should work. Additionally, I have added certain maps to my Mediafire account that weren't up there before so they should all be good to go.

One thing that has somewhat put a dent in things is Timelord's Emporium. Don't get me wrong, it's a great repository, but it might actually contain too much. It's difficult for me to discern the best versions of the campaigns, or whether or not campaigns work at all. I have found the Emporium to be best for people who want to clean up these campaigns, which are for the most part unfinished or broken. Realistically, there are almost undoubtedly over a thousand links on the Emporium. I'm sorry, but for what mostly amounts to broken campaigns that you probably can't even finish, I just don't have the time, energy, or resources to go through downloading them all and testing them. For now, I won't be linking to any of those campaigns. If you want to help out and go through those campaigns and let me know which ones definitely work, then you can let me know via email, comment, message on Steam or Discord or wherever. I'm always open to feedback.

Now on to something different. I'm currently working on a couple of mod projects for Left 4 Dead 1 and 2. These are purely aesthetic things, not campaigns or gameplay changes, so don't expect anything mind-blowing. I don't really have anything I can share about them right now, and I also don't want to tease them too much in case anyone's hopes get high and I don't deliver. In any case, if anyone here who reads this has design talent and mod experience and wants to help out, feel free to send me a message.

- Olde