Sorry about not updating for so long, but I was really, really busy over Easter and a week or so after that... then I got Black and White :). Also, afraid that mod-making's generally gone from fun to boring to somewhat unpleasant, for me, so had some trouble bringing myself to resume work on the mod... 

Back now, anyway, and will make sure 2.0 gets released... hopefully the release'll go smoothly for a change, and that'll cheer me up enough to last 'till we get another version finished :). By the way, if anyone's E-mailed me about anything important over the last month, and I haven't replied, please re-send the E-mail.

I've been getting lots of E-mails from people complaining that, when they try to run Half-Life, they get a "Cannot open library c\SIERRA\half-life/sven-coop/cl_dlls/cl.dll" error (or similar). This is caused by incompatible versions of Half-Life - update to the latest version to fix it.

One more thing: If anyone reading this made a map called SpaceViking, please E-mail me... your old E-mail address isn't working.

A new map has just been added to the Files page... it's called Durga, and was made by Seraph, author of the Exhale Saga. In it, the players are workers at a military facility (codenamed Durga), which is attacked by aliens. What marines survived the initial onslaught are on your side.

This map is very, very hard -- monsters everywhere :). If you're looking for a map that'd be good for a large number of players, this is it. It's also good if you don't have so many players and want a really time-consuming map. Map design is good all the way through, if not astounding. Got to admit that some areas look really nice, though (see screenshots).

StANTo sent me this scanned copy of the SvenCo-op review from PC Zone UK. SvenCo-op received five out of five stars, while the other two Half-Life mods reviewed in that issue got three out of five. Pretty nice, imho! 

They list the only "downer" as the lack of friendly-fire (which I'd personally count as a Pro, for Internet play at least :), but each to his own. It can actually be enabled with some console know-how and a bit of guess-work, in any case).  Click here to read the review.

There's some other news to post that I've either forgotten, or don't have time for tonight. Hopefully it should be posted tomorrow, or the day after. 'night all.

- Sven Viking

Don't have much time, so have to make this quick... as you may have noticed, no April Fools joke was posted on the 1st... that's the first time in the history of SvenCo-op that we've missed it... should give you an indication of how busy I am :). Should have some more time after Easter. By the way, we're giving up on SvenCo-op to make a co-op mod for Black & White, in which the players are villagers and have to try to kill Titans by working together. Ha ha. Update: This is a joke.

My E-mail's working again, by the way.

Another1 (Head Coder) reports that he's just acquired time with which to do some serious coding on SvenCo-op, once again. Below is a list of the weapons which are now completely client-side. He also mentions that he may have worked out what causes the invisible-entities bug.

Here's a properly-translated version of the mini-review in GameStar... many thanks to FL3X0R for translating it!

SvenCo-op Version 1.9 proves that there are other good Mods for Half-Life besides Counter-Strike. On excitingly arranged maps you meet all kinds of old acquaintances - among them the Grunts of the original game, which want to kill you with their known doggedness. The special feature of this Mod is that you fight innumerable computer opponents with other human players. Instead of killing each-other, human players have to fight the AI-beasts co-operatively. And if you are not on-line? It doesn't matter, it is also possible to play all multiplayer maps as well as two single-player missions alone.

- Sven Viking

We're back! Reason that the site was down was that the Smidge Network (our host) was changing servers again (hopefully this is the last time :)  ). This server is apparently much, much more stable, so it should work out well in the long run... 

Unfortunately, though, all SvenCoop.com E-mail accounts were wiped in the process. Hopefully Smidge will get them working again, soon... for now, you can contact me at dd2@iname.com if you need to.

Afraid that I'm going to have very little time 'till after Easter, and this'll slow progress on 2.0 a bit. Also, can't guarantee that the Nomad or new Uzi models will be in, at the moment, because we keep losing contact with our modeller for weeks at a time :/. A lot of other features are in and working, though, and there are a few more on their way. Shouldn't be too long before there's just testing and bug fixing left.

Net Games UK has kindly set up two dedicated SvenCo-op servers, so all you people in the UK should be able to play with less than 600 ping, now :)! Still no New Zealand servers, I notice, so unfortunately I'm still stuck to 600 ping when playing on the net :/. Oh well. 

Anyway, here are the UK server IP addresses and ports:

SC server 1:  212.137.72.44:27095    -    SC server 2:  212.137.72.44:27096

Below is a (somewhat All Your Base-ish) loosely-translated copy of the description of SvenCo-op included in the last issue of GameStar. The original German version can be seen here, if you want it -- Actually, if anyone wants to do a proper translation, they're welcome to... wouldn't mind knowing what "used obstinacy to the leather" and "page in page" are supposed to be :).

There was some more text in the magazine, by the way, but it was mostly just explaining how to install and run the mod, so I didn't type it out (not too easy typing out something in a language that you don't understand... especially when you have to get all the letters-with-little-dots-on-top, right :)  ). There were a couple of screenshots, too... pretty nice.

There are, besides Counterstrike, also still different good Mods for Half-Life, proves SvenCo-op in the version 1.9. On excitingly arranged maps you meet all kinds of old acquaintances - among them the Grunts of the original play, which want you with used obstinacy to the leather. The special attraction of the Mod is situated in the fact that you begin together with other players against innumerable computer opponents. Instead of going oneself mutually to the virtual collar, all human users page in page must fight the AI beasts. And if you are not on-line? Power nothing, all Multiplayer maps as well as two special solo missions require the single fighter in you. 

Update 2: The issue of GameStar with SvenCo-op on the cover is the April issue, which is out now(!). Thanks to Alexander for sending this piece of information.

Update: The mention of the review in the PC Gamer UK magazine was a misprint... it was meant to be PC Zone UK.  Sorry about that :/.

3D News has just posted a review of SvenCo-op v1.9! I also noticed this review at Half-Life Expert... in French...

And this review, in Japanese, that seems to focus on the bugs they experienced when playing the Valve single-player maps in SvenCo-op. Hopefully, all of these bugs will be fixed in v2.0... provided that we can decipher exactly what those bugs are, from the review :).

You can use Babelfish to (badly) translate the French and Japanese reviews, by the way.

SvenCo-op is also set to be reviewed in the "next issue" of PC Zone UK, which is nice :)... 

And it's going to be on the cover CD of an upcoming issue of the German magazine, GameStar, known (by me, at least) for all the gameplay movies of unreleased games it procures. 

If you're in England or Germany, you might want to give them a look. I'll post the exact issue numbers as soon as I find them out.

I've given up on the publicity thingy mentioned in the previous news update, BTW. If all goes well, we'll post pics of the new monsters as soon as we get some good screenshots of them. 

Progress update: One new feature that's been added is the ability to use different models and health for different monsters... for example, you could have a group of lots of normal zombies, and a "unique" zombie that's much stronger, and looks different (rather like in Diablo 2). 

That's a pretty basic example, though. Much, much more interesting things could (theoretically) be done. 

OzHalf-Life has just posted a SvenCo-op interview!

Keen has left the team, but says that he'll continue to make maps for the mod. Good luck to him.

Well, guess that's all for now. Sorry about not updating for so long, but again, been busy. Also sorry for not posting the screenshots of the monster/s yet... had been trying to arrange a system of releasing them that would get us some extra publicity, but it looks like it's not going to work out, so I'll probably post them next time I update (hopefully soon).

- Sven Viking

In case you haven't already noticed, Total Reload has posted six exclusive shots from the Grunts 2 and GargHunt3 maps.

A second new monster has been added! It's in very early stages, though... will release screenshots soon-ish, hopefully.

Well, out of time :/. Cya all.

- Sven Viking

Hi all... I again apologise for the lack of updates, been really, really busy. Been so busy that I've been thinking "Give up on SvenCo-op so as to actually have time to play games and/or sleep" thoughts, on fact :/... maybe things'll seem better in the morning, though. Might have Sniper do a few news updates in the future, BTW.

Stuck a new map onto the Files page, it's called "Osp", and was made by MG386. It's actually in three BSPs, and some of them are pretty long, so it should take you a while to complete. There are clever ideas, and some of it's really well designed, but unfortunately it does tend to run slowly... very slowly in some areas :/  (well, did for me). The maps can only be completed by 2 or more players.

Below are some screenshots of the following upcoming maps: Sniper's GargHunt 3, DeathBog's SvenCoopRPG2, and Commando's Grunts 2. GargHunt3 will be included with SvenCo-op v2.0, BTW.

A new version of RandMap has been released, adding various features and fixing/improving stuff. Go and download it :).

A New Poll is online, asking the public a couple of questions, the answers to which could change the course of SvenCo-op's development... and history itself! Maybe. P.S. - Here are the previous poll results.

SC v2.0 Progress Report: 

• Many bugs have been fixed, many small changes have been made, and quite a few features have been added. 

• One new monster is in and working, but needs tweaking. 

• Robin Walker kindly gave us permission to use the TFC medkit model in SvenCo-op, so the medkit weapon will almost definitely be in 2.0 (Note: While it'll look the same, it'll work differently from in TFC).

Expect some screenshots of the new monster in the near future.

- Sven Viking

A new map, entitled "BlastCorpse", is now available from the Files page. In the map, the players are aliens trapped in a governmental alien preserve, and must escape. It's a bit short, and the r_speeds are rather high in places, but it's generally a pretty good map.

The Team page has just been updated! Additions include LiquidGamerX as lead modeller, TOM as assistant coder and Rat as assistant modeller.

- Sven Viking

Update: Forgot to mention, my sven@svencoop.com E-mail address is working again... Anyone who sent E-mails to me around the time that the site was down, and didn't get replies, please re-send them!

Sorry about not updating for so long... started work a week ago and the 7-days stuff is getting to me. Work on 2.0 has been continuing, though... it's looking like we'll probably release it sooner, without some of the features that had been planned, and release those features as 2.5 or something, later on. 2.0 should include quite a few features that we hadn't actually planned, though :). Here's some of the stuff that should be in there:

• Client-side weapon effects for many weapons

• A new monster

• New models for the single and akimbo Uzis

• A built-in vote-to-kick system

• A fix for the tripmines-stopping-doors problem

• And a fancy feature that isn't complete yet, so I'd better not mention it in case it doesn't work out :).

(And several other things). BTW, A new version of RandMap has been released, which supports SvenCo-op's Uzis! Also, the Operation Retribution site's retribution.svencoop.com URL is working again.

- Sven Viking