<NOTE: WORD WRAP IS ADVISED FOR READING THIS>

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Title                   : Christmas Resort
Version                 : 1
Release Date            : Friday December 22nd 2000, before deadline lambda map complex. 
Filename                : xmasresort.bsp

Author                  : Robert 'Larington' Farr (light.star@ntlworld.com)

Web Page                : none yet, but with a little luck you should see this on fileplanet/planethalflife

			  Depending on the success of this map I intend to set up a website on my ISP (NTLWorld) within which 			  I'll put all of my creations. If you really like this map, let me know, it'll be nice to hear from                           people who appreciate my work.                         

Description             : Half-Life Deathmatch Map, Christmas themed.
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NOTE: I intended to have some christmas trees in the map, however due to time restrictions, and the lateness of me asking a chap to make the texture, the trees are unavailable. If demand is high enough, I'll release a second version which includes the trees.
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The maps major weakness is its size... We're not talking a stroll down to the corner shop size here, we're talking about a universe... OK, so thats an overstatement, but theres a lot of room to roam around and whilst I've done my best to keep the level from looking dull, I can't do much about how long it can take to get from A to B.
However, that has its advantages - For a start, players will have a chance to get a decent weapon before they run into that l33t biznatch with his gauss cannon, this is my personal pet hate of deathmatches - the speed it takes to get a decent gun before you run into a hostile.

Onto the map itself, the map is a Christmas Resort, popular enough for it to be a popular tourist venue. A helicopter would drop tourists into the resort and then leave (Admitedly, the map has no chopper, I had to be realistic about the map). That was until one day, when the unstable ice flows into which the resort was built, caved in upon 4 dormatories, crushing 2 couples and 2 loan occupants. The resort was closed until further notice.

One day whilst the construction workers were a little bored, they decided to have a laugh and set up a set of 'simulated weapons' which they could hold, interact with and shoot eachother with. Just a laugh you might think, but when an aggravated construction worker pulled out a REAL GUN, the game got more serious.

The map itself consists of two outdoor areas, a small ice-cave, a small lake and the resort itself. The resort contains one block of dormatories (Trust me, you'll like those), a cinema, a dance hall, a main hall, canteen, reception and storage/loading bay. The more powerful weapons have been made difficult to reach, you'll have to go into the cold water to retrieve the rocket launcher, and to get the gauss cannon, you'll have to find the longjump module first. I thought this was only fair due to the size of the map.

There are 12 spawn points available, and I hope you enjoy fragging people across the world, in XMASRESORT!

Other DM-levels by author: No other maps released to general public to date, I've been a little fussy in that respect, only now putting out something which I'm satisfied enough with it to be confident in releasing it.

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--- Play Information ---
Game                    : Half Life
Level Name              : Christmas Resort
Single Player           : No
Cooperative             : No
Deathmatch              : Yes
Difficulty Settings     : No
New Sounds              : No
New Graphics            : Yes
Known bugs              : None known, amazing considering I'm merely 'aspiring' to have mapping as a career.

--- Construction ---
Editor(s) used          : WorldCraft 3.3
Construction Time       : Roughly 2 weeks



Installation
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Assuming that your unzip program is set to unzip to pre-defined locations (It SHOULD be), you will only need to unzip the file TO the half-life directory (Whatever that is on your computer), your archive program should do the rest for you.

Special Thanx...
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To Chiwawa, a member of the USC Revenant modification for Half-Life, he created the christmas tree texture in the TREE?.wad and at very short notice as well!

To Nick Coombe, for the skies and Cid for the desnow.wad which were obtained from the WadFather (http://wadfather.game-edit.com/) as part of their public domain texture/sky sets.

To the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, theres a reason for this, when you walk into the dance hall, you'll hear a little bit of drum and guitar, 10 seconds of the opening from 'Californication'. How did this come about, well I was listening to the song when all of a sudden my mind clicked and I thought "THATS PERFECT!"... My thanks also go to 'Wavelength' without whom I wouldn't have gotten the music to work. I apologise to the RHCP for ripping off some of their excellent music, so if your reading this, make up for my evil deed by buying some of their stuff, mmmkay?

Valve, for creating Half-Life, and actively sponsoring the community which HAS put the game in any game related history book. And also Planet Half-Life for their devotion to the Half-Life community. 

Valve has supported the HL community, even when a number of people haven't been very happy with them (IE, all the complaints about reducing the power of Concs in TFC etc.) it takes real stubborness to keep going in the face of that. They deserve a mention for that alone, add to that the popularity of the game and its mods, well, need I say more?

Additional/Personal Notes...
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<21st Dec Early morning>
I started mapping back in the days of Doom II (Believe it or not) but my maps were rubbish and so was the level editor. Later, I moved onto Duke Nukem 3D, and made a map that could perhaps have been worthy of a release if I spent an additional week on general improvements.

Then came Half-Life, what a game, and WorldCraft?... What an editor, to date I've been using this for the past year, working towards improving my abilities as a mapper with the aim of making a career out of it. After all, if I enjoy making/planning/designing/building games/levels, I might as well get PAID for it! 

However, because I don't want to destroy my aims before I've even started on them, I made sure to be a bit of a perfectionist in terms of what I deemed worthy of releasing to the general public.

Now, I've spent TWO WEEKS working on Xmas Resort, with aims to submit it in the Lambda Map Complex' christmas competition, Why?, you may ask, not for the prizes (A nice bonus) but assuming that my work is of a high enough standard, it means that I'll be RECOGNISED as a mapper. When that happens, I might be able to convince someone to pay me to do what I enjoy doing anyway, when that happens, all I'll be missing is a successful relationship - I'll have everything else I need.

So, if my map is really good, then excellent, this past two weeks of slogging meticulously over a map will have paid off big time. If it isn't quite so excellent, then the reviewers will spot a few flaws here and there, and I'll have learned a few lessons for my next creation. 

If 'Christmas Resort' is judged to be crap, I'll be surprised, but I'll just have to swallow my pride and work to do a lot better next time.

Personally, I hope this map genuinely IS good, that way all I have to do is start looking for a girlfriend with no violent tendencies and a kind spirit about her, an odd thing to say when your designing levels for a First Person Shooter... 8D

<22nd Dec Early morning, again>
I am staying up way too EARLY far too often, my fault for working so close to the maps deadline. I've put some music in the dance hall, put the weapons in their respective places, the spawn points and so on. One or two other 'little' details to do and I'm finished, aspiring mappers should note that what often makes a map is the little things, like the towels in the dormatories, there you go, thats my bit of wisdom for this millenia -  Towels!

Copyright / Permissions
-----------------------
This level is copyrighted by Robert Farr, 2000.

The new textures and sky textures used in the map are copyrighted by their respective authors

The music used in the level is of course copyright the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and their respective associates... Whoops.

You MAY distribute this level through any electronic network (internet,
FIDO, local BBS etc.), provided you include this file and leave the archive
intact.

<Specific to map, this map is humbly submitted to Planet Half-life which I completely permit them to do with it what they require in the competition rules.>