Well, I'm back... going to be pretty busy for the next while, though. Most of the other team members are still pretty busy, too, so I wouldn't expect 2.0 to be ready anytime soon :/. Black & White and Tribes 2 should be released fairly soon, too... doubt that that'll help :(. The world is against us.

In the meantime, be sure to check out the new and improved Message Board... pretty sure that it hasn't crashed once yet, and it's been more than a day (!!), so that's a good sign :).

Update (19/Jan): Just thought I'd better mention that I'll be packing my computer up, soon (moving)... Not sure of exactly how long it'll be before I have it set up and working, again, but probably 3 days at least. Also, FileLeech mirrors have been added/fixed for some Files. Cya all.

 -Sven

Three new maps are now available from the Files page.

In sc_Alley, by Vince, your team investigates a disturbance in a base centered in North America by sneaking onto a cargo truck. 

The map is well made, and includes some pretty cleverly thought out situations... particularly the underwater section.

In Escape, by ShutDa_Mutant, the players are security guards who have to protect a facility from greedy companies and invading aliens who're trying to steal some "teleportational" technology. 

Some areas might get a bit slow on some computers, but it shouldn't be too bad. This is one of the first maps to properly feature friendly monsters.

JailBreak, by DeathBog, is a sort of side-story to the Invasion series (also by DeathBog). The players are imprisoned in a high-security establishment when aliens attack. This is the first map to fully utilize random elements and events... it feels very non-linear, is quite large, and should take you quite a while to complete without a fair number of players.

Be sure to head over to the Files page to download them!

SvenCoop.com E-mail still isn't working, I'm afraid :(. For the moment, you can contact me at dd2@iname.com... will say something as soon as the svencoop addresses are working again.

-Sven Viking

Hi all... if you're reading this, it means that the site's working again! (probably). 

In case any of you have been wondering, we're not shutting down or anything... it's just that our host was moving... Won't bore you with the details (most of which I don't know anyway), but things went horribly wrong. Site's been down for over 2 weeks :(.

Well, we're back now, at least. I'm afraid that any E-mails sent to svencoop.com addresses over the last 16 days have been lost, however (e.g. sven@svencoop.com)... and I don't think the E-mail's working properly, yet. Hopefully it will be working within the next couple of days, so lost E-mails will be able to be re-sent.

By the way, the SvenCo-op site can now be accessed from both svencoop.com and sven-coop.com :). A few things may not be working properly because of the move... if you find anything, tell me about it as soon as my E-mail starts working again, thanks :). 

A couple of new maps should hopefully be online soon... I'm moving in 3 days, though, and going to be working full-time (and 7-days :/  ) towards the end of January, so that might slow things down a bit. 

Work on SvenCo-op v2.0 is progressing slowly... the slowness is because team members are busy with other things, however. Work should accelerate at a later date.

-Sven Viking

Happy New Year all! :). Only time for a short update just now...

A new version of the Exhale map pack is now online! It includes new versions of the three old maps (which now have proper lighting, as well as many other changes), two new maps, each of which have alternate versions, and a secret map. One map even has the players on a moving helicopter fighting grunts who're in another helicopter. 

Get the new map pack from the Files page! Might be a good idea to delete the old Exhale maps (exhale.bsp, exhale2.bsp, and exhale3.bsp) before installing, by the way.

We're the Planet Half-Life Mod of the Week again!! Pretty nice :)!

-Sven Viking

Was intending to post this stuff on Christmas, but the site went down on Christmas Eve or thereabouts, and stayed down for more than three days because the ISP that owns the server has nobody working over Christmas :/. Hopefully we'll be moving to a more stable ISP soon...

Anyway, even if it is late: Merry Christmas, and goodwill to all SvenCo-op fans! (and probably even to the fans of other mods, I suppose...). As always, gifts of gold, jewels, convertible bonds, etc. should be sent to Sven Viking, 123 Faik St., Siam. Had intended to write out an epic poem entitled "How the Gooseman Stole Servers", but didn't get time :(.

A patch for the v1.9 Linux Server has been released!... It adds the Uzi code that it seems was accidentally left out of the last release... so now you'll actually be able to get the Uzi/s on Linux servers :). The file should be extracted to your Linux Half-Life/ directory. Please note that only people actually running SvenCo-op servers under Linux need to download this patch. 

An optional Player Model Pack is now available from the Files page. It includes some really good player models, but I'd better mention that some of them have pretty high poly-counts, so they might reduce framerates for players using low-end systems, slightly. If you have a pretty good computer, though, they're highly recommended :). The extra diversity makes things much more interesting, imho.

A set of updated CFG files for the Operation Retribution maps has been released... apparently the main change is that the Uzi has been added to most/all of the maps . Get it from the Files page!

Here's the fourth and final Secret Weapon hint: The Secret Weapon has something to do with explosives. Previous Secret Weapon hints were:

1. It's available on several maps, even some that were released before v1.9.

2. Some of the maps it's available on, are: osprey, horde, grunts, garghnt2, svencoop1/2, nightmare, helebat3, bunker.

3. You won't see the Secret Weapon lying about in some secret area... more often it's hiding right under your nose.

-Sven Viking

The SvenCo-op v1.9 Linux Server is now available on the Files page... Thanks to Alfred for doing the port (and to cfgn.net for mirroring the file)! Note: You need this only if you're intending to run a dedicated server using Linux. 

It's a full install, by the way... you don't need a previous version of SvenCo-op or anything. What you do need to do, however, is to copy the valve\pak0.pak file from a Windows, retail version of Half-Life, to your Linux svencoop/ directory. This is because Valve's Linux server software doesn't contain a lot of single-player-related files that SvenCo-op uses.

Here's the third Secret Weapon hint:

You won't see the Secret Weapon lying about somewhere in a secret area... more often it's hiding right under your nose, so to speak.

The fourth hint should be posted on Total Reload in the near future.

Hecks, it's nearly Christmas... doesn't seem like it to me, for some reason... not sure of why :/. Oh well, will try to post the model pack (which includes the Santa model :)  ) and such, within the next couple of days.

To anyone looking for the new version of SvenCo-op: Be sure to check the news post below, after this one. 

Just a small news update, today... I've updated a lot of information on the site that was rendered obsolete or incomplete by the release of v1.9. The main pages updated are: The FAQ page, the Info for Map Makers page, and the Single-Player Maps page.

The second hint to the finding of the Secret Weapon has been posted on the Total Reload news... so if you haven't found the weapon yet, head over there!!

The SvenCo-op Poll has been updated, asking what people think of version 1.9 (If you haven't tried 1.9 yet, don't vote until you have, thanks).

Aarghh again! So many people tried to download SvenCo-op at once (we had around three thousand hits within about three hours) that the whole server crashed... only a few hours after the file had been uploaded.... and it stayed down for approximately thirty (30) hours. Just started working again, now. Messed up the release considerably :((.

I just hope that the news sites will post the link again... a lot of people will have tried and failed to get to the site, then given up :/. Anyway...

In case you didn't know already, SvenCo-op v1.9 has been released!! (Click Here for a list of features). Download it from one of the following mirrors:

OzPlanet mirror - or - FileLeech mirror

A Linux port and an optional player-model pack are on the way. Also, the entity guide has been updated with something that we forgot to mention earlier (mappers can now increase Ospreys' health if they so wish).

The Secret Weapon contest is over! Several people sent in correct answers, but the prize was taken by [DOOM]Superdj, whose E-mail arrived first :).

Here's a hint for those who haven't found the weapon yet: It's available on quite a few different maps, including maps that were released before v1.9. Check back in a couple of days for another hint.

Part 7 of the Operation Retribution map series has been released! (The squad travels to Xen in this episode)... We've also released a map that Mad Jonesy made to test the Friendly Grunts. It features a skirmish between friendly and normal human grunts and, though it's very small, it's well made and can be quite enjoyable :). 

Download one or both of these maps from the Files page!

Aarghh :(. Umm, due to rather of a misunderstanding, v1.9's been released early. I'm currently so tired that I can't even see properly, so I'm afraid that I won't be able to write a proper news post and such as I'd intended... in general though:

SvenCo-op v1.9 can be downloaded HERE, from 3D Shooters, HERE from FileLeech, and/or HERE, from OzPlanet.

It's a full install, you don't need anything else (except the latest version of Half-Life and such, of course).

Regarding the Secret Weapon contest mentioned in the last post: You'll have to send details of how to get and use the secret weapon, not just "The secret weapon is a Yogurt Cannon!" or such.

Will make up a proper news post and update the site properly in the morning (well, "later today", that is... it's 4:50am at the moment, and didn't get much sleep yesterday night). Wish things'd go properly right, for once... all the "That was lucky, we didn't quite die horribly that time!" sort of luck is very nice and all, but it'd be better if it wasn't necessary in the first place, all things considered :/. Ah well.

Oh yeah, P.S., we'll see about a Linux port in the near future. Sven sleep now.

Update: It's been a heck of a job, but it looks like 1.9'll be released on time after all (!!!)... I'd estimate 9pm Saturday night, US time. Well, I'm going to go and sleep for a week, or curl up and die, or something, now... (Oops, still got to arrange more mirrors, and got to update the site tomorrow so people know where to download 1.9 from, and such. Bother :(   ).

Hmm, got some bad news... we've never really been making SvenCo-op v1.9 at all, it was all a hoax, we created the screenshots in Photoshop! Muhuhahahaha!!!

Joking :). There is bad news however... we thought we had the code completely finished, and I was just collecting all the maps together and getting ready to stick everything into an installer, when we found a bug... the Glock (pistol) is all messed up :(. 

No idea why, 'cos we weren't intending to change the Glock in any way, and it had been working in earlier builds... Anyway, we'll need to get it fixed, and so we'll probably have to delay the release by a day :/. Possible that we'll still manage to get it released on Saturday night, but probably not :(. Sorry all.

Competition!: We're running a small competition here at SvenCoop.com. In case you hadn't heard, version 1.9 of SvenCo-op will include a Secret Weapon (not the akimbo Uzis, something else). 

Well, the first person who works out how to get and/or use this weapon, and sends details of it to me at sven@svencoop.com, will get a code which will print the message "<Whoever> was the first to find the Secret Weapon!" on everyone's screens in multiplayer games, as well as getting a mention here on the news. If nobody's found it within a short time, we'll start posting hints... doubt that that'll be necessary, though.

Team members, testers, and people with inside information are not eligible to enter (e.g. if you already know what the weapon is, it wouldn't really be fair to have you win... also, make sure that you don't tell anyone else, thanks... that'd make things unfair, too).

A new map is now available Here. It's named Warhouse, and is King_Cobra's first map, so if it's not as fancy or professional as some of the other maps, that's why. It can be fun, though... By the way, if a door keeps closing and blocking your path, or such, try looking for something to block it with.