Some Good & Bad News...
November 19, 2006

Over the past few months theres been both Good and Bad news developing. Here they are in a nutshell starting with the Good News first.

Good News:
Our base and multi-player code for Lethal*Agents is about 98% complete.
A few various models have been completed and textured.
And last, but not least... Omega, myself and a few other dev team members were picked up to produce a retail game which has been an awesome experience for us thus far.

Bad News:
Lethal*Agents has been put on hold indefinitely.

So there it is, but not the end of the world. I had a long talk with Omega and we discussed an option that may still work in getting Lethal*Agents completed. Let me ask you this... how many mods out there have tons of models and maps completed but hit a wall when it comes to having their code done? I'd say lots. Well, what we were thinking was... if those teams wanted to see their hard work actually used and wanted to take over Lethal*Agents and run the rest of the way for a touchdown... by all means! Run with it. The only catch would be that Omega and I still oversee the mod. We wouldn't want to see Lethal*Agents turn into some half-breed space zombie shooter now would we? Being that our code is very close to completion all that we would need are art assets. Omega even said he would finish up the rest of the code. Anyway, its just a thought, but if anyone is actually interested in doing it please feel free to contact me by email. Other than that, we don't have any other way to complete Lethal*Agents in the foreseeable future.

I'd like to thank everyone that helped us along the way. I will keep in touch with you all. Check out our "Media" page for some images we were holding until we had another media release...

Good Bye For Now!
JohnnyQwest & Staff

Shouts-Out!
August 12, 2006

We just wanted to add this to thank our new friends over at the Dark Source HL2 MOD.
A personal shout-out goes to Aaron TKAzA Baker from Dark Source for offering to help us with modeling/texturing in his spare time. Aaron is a great guy and an awesome modeler. Thanks for all your help and continued contributions to Lethal*Agents.

Here's a sample of the beautiful work Aaron has done for us.

Keepin' you posted!
JohnnyQwest

No Place Like Home!
July 13, 2006 (Update)

Great news for all you dedicated Lethal*Agents fans and followers! Around two weeks ago our commitments were fulfilled on other projects and we have started back on Lethal*Agents in full-force. Along the way, we picked up a few new members whom are just as excited as we are about getting this ball dusted off and rolling.

We had lots of time over the past year to refine our mod into something we think the whole community will enjoy. Our code is moving along very well, but we're not going to give you any time frames on its completion just yet. I will only say that we are offering game modes no other HL2 mod is offering. We have both single and multiplayer modes and... well, the rest you will just have to wait and see...

Thanks for following our mod and being patient with us. We will have some eye candy to show you very soon, so I will keep you posted on the updates as they happen. Until then, here is a concept that was done by one of our newest members. Expect to see lots more from him in the very near future. You wont be disappointed.

"Oh, but anyway... Toto, we're home. Home! And this is my room, and you're all here. And I'm not gonna leave here ever, ever again, because I love you all. And...oh, Auntie Em? There's no place like home!" -Dorothy (The Wizard of Oz)

JohnnyQwest

MySpace is YourSpace...
April 29, 2006

While the FrontlineForce Programmers are working hard on putting mass amounts of code together I figured I'd have some time to add us to myspace.com. Currently, the FrontlineForce page is up and running. The Lethal*Agents page is in the works and should be finished soon (I will keep you posted as to when it's complete).

Thanks for following our mods and giving us your thoughts. If your not a member of myspace these are definatly a couple of great reasons to be...

www.myspace.com/frontlineforce

Peace!
JohnnyQwest

Heres The Latest...
February 4, 2006

Last month the FrontlineForce:Classic team was interviewed by BlueWolf72 and the folks at GamersUnited. SunSpot went into some detail describing the close relationship FLF:C has with Lethal Agents and how the two mods differ in game-play. If you would like to hear the interview you can download it here-> Interview.mp3

Work on FLF:C has been non-stop for most of us and we are starting to see the results of it. I recently had a bit of time to get some Lethal Agents models together and would like to show you a few that we're starting to work on. Visit our "Media" page for a sneak-peek of what we have "in the works".

Enjoy!
JohnnyQwest

Gobble It Up...
November 25, 2005

Well, this isn't really an update, but rather a little something to keep you busy while we work on getting thru these holidays. I would have posted this yesterday, but instead I was stuffing myself with turkey and all the fixin's. By the way, Happy Thanksgiving...

I decided to make a video of some FrontlineForce 1.8b footage I had lying around. It should give you a good idea of the intensity of this game and why we love it so. After you watch it imagine how kick-ass my FrontlineForce:Classic movies will be ;) The high-resolution version came out to around 344mb. To spare you all the downloading time I compressed it with the 3ivX codec. Now, its around 50mb. The codec installer is packed in the same zip file as the movie (for winxp) so make sure you install it beforehand. If you are running a different system than WinXP you can download the correct codec at www.3ivx.com. The movie features music by DJ Z-Trip and DJ P's "Uneasylistening" which you can find at www.djztrip.com.

Download the movie here---> FLF_DustInTheWind.zip

We recently opened our IRC channel on gamesurge.net so come on over if you want to chat. #lethalagents

Enjoy!
JohnnyQwest

Things To Come...
October 19, 2005

Wow, it feels so weird updating this page after all these months working on FrontlineForce:Classic (and yes, that is the finalized name). We have all been working very hard on getting the main functions of the game down and coded. We had a minor fumble with our old FLF:C coder early-on and fortunately it made things a bit easier to manage once we found coders to fill that spot. Our current FLF:C coders have done some amazing things and we all can't wait to show it off.

As most of you may or may not know, Lethal*Agents is sort of a sister-mod to FrontlineForce:Classic in which some of the more basic elements and code will be shared. Almost like working on two mods concurrently. The exception being that Lethal*Agents will be a bit more tactical and will have many additional features that if put into FLF:C would take away from the great game it is. We are planning on having various vehicles, a slew of weapon choices and customizable characters. And if that doesn't set it off, a single player mode is also being storyboarded as I write this. All these features will need to be coded once the FLF:C base is set.

Many new things to come for Lethal*Agents in the next few weeks so I will try my best to keep you all posted. Thanks for all the support from the HL2 community. You are why we press on to make these mods come to life. Also a big thanks to valve, moddb.com, planethalflife.com and hl2mods.co.uk (just to name a few) for giving us the exposure we need to reach the community. I know you will all love the final product ;)

One last thing I would like to mention before my hands start to cramp. We are letting the old L*A site run out (www.lethalagentz.com), the one that had a "z" at the end of Agents. So if you had any bookmarks or links to this site using that, after November it will no longer be valid. Please update them...

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Late!
JohnnyQwest

See It, To Believe It!
May 13, 2005

Everything is really coming together. SunSpot over at FrontlineForce2 had a teaser trailer put together by long time FrontlineForce player "Tykjen". It shows our progress and features new map shots and some teaser video clips of our Source version of FrontlineForce2. Check out the classic maps that were done for the HL1 version of FrontlineForce and those same maps recreated for FrontlineForce2 (Source). It also gives you a peak at the new FrontlineForce2 logo designed by yours truly ;)

You can download the teaser video here-> http://www.frontlineforce.com/

Enjoy!
JohnnyQwest

Time Will Tell:
May 2, 2005

I just thought I would let you know how things are going. First, join me in welcoming our newest member to the Lethal Agents family...

Werebunny - Will create the music score for L.A. (here are some of his samples)

Werebunny will also be helping us with the FrontlineForce HL2 MOD. Speaking of which, we have been making some great progress on FLF2. We got some internal alphas to play with, and numerous other things I cant mention. The new FLF2 website is under-construction and looking awesome. I will let you know when that is online. I'm sworn to secrecy so there isn't much else I can tell you about the FLF2 development at this point, but I was allowed to show you one concept design of the many we have been working on. You can view it here.

I'm going to try and put some LA media updates online soon. I will keep you posted!

JohnnyQwest

Hold it now, Hold it now... Hit it!
April 10, 2005

"If you're going to be thinking, you may as well think big." -Donald Trump

The Lethal Agents development team has recently been given the opportunity to help their favorite Half-Life MOD become a Half-Life2 MOD. The team over at FrontLineForce (FLF) has decided to complete FLF2 for the source engine. The FLF and LA teams are focusing their time and efforts towards its release. I'm not sure what the final name will be, but I know FrontLineForce will be headlining. The LA team will still be updating this site regularly with sketches, game-play ideas and comic-strips. Stick around and enjoy the progress. Lethal Agents MOD will continue development when FLF is complete. By no means is LA dead. Trust me, it's only just begun...

Feel free to come and check us out on IRC for either LA or FLF.
Network: irc.us.gamesurge.net
LA MOD Channel: #lethalagents
FLF2 MOD Channel: #flf2

You can visit the "Half-Life1 version" of the FrontLineForce website here untill the new HL2 site is completed: www.frontline2.com

~KewlChic~
JohnnyQwest

Mo' Media, Mo' Media...
March 28, 2005

Has it been a month already? I guess time does fly when you're having fun. This past month was awesome. The snowball has finally started to roll.

If you haven't noticed, we changed our MODs name from Lethal Agentz to Lethal Agents. Our domain name has also been changed though we are keeping the previous domain to forward old links to this site. The name change wasn't an easy one either. I didn't realize how many things had the mark of Zorro on it. ;)

We added a splash screen to our site that will randomly choose between an image of our elite secret army "Lethal Agents" or their nemesis the terrorist group "The Red Hand". It should also choose a sample sound clip to play from our game.

Our coders are really starting to get the hang of things and are making good progress. Ren and Condor are already making sure the rest of us keep that content coming.

Speaking of content, our Media page has had its share of updates lately. I removed any images that were from our old development of .Lethal.Agentz. for the FarCry engine so no one would confuse the two. I've added some of our first concepts for the LA HL2 player uniform and weapons. Each of our teams (Lethal Agents and The Red Hand) have multiple player classes so expect to see many more uniform concepts. I'm hoping to have a wide range of weaponry to choose from also, both real-world and custom so expect those as well.

We should have some models and map concepts posted soon. Our modelers are working on that at the moment.

Our comic-strip is coming along nicely and we should have the first installment shortly.

Our Downloads page will be going under some changes forthwith. We got all the latest tools and plug-ins to help make your modding experience go a bit smoother. If any of you have or know of any useful tools that aren't on our list, please let us know so we can get them on there pronto.

Last, but not least, please welcome our 2 newest dev team members from Reno and Las Vegas Nevada. I'm honored to have you aboard gentlemen!

S!ckboy - Will be modeling weapons (from Bally's Gaming Reno).
Gonzobrains - Will be our weapons coder.

As always, you're all welcome to join us on our IRC channel. We decided to keep #lethalagents as our channel name since its mostly used for communication and file transfer between the dev team.

Whew!
JohnnyQwest

Welcome Aboard:
February 26, 2005

Please welcome our 3 newest members from Las Vegas! Its a pleasure to have you on the team and I look forward to working with you all.

Snood - Will create the L.A. comic-strip series.
Jasper - Will model using his expertise in 3ds max (from 3DO).
Eyebeam - Will write the finalized Lethal Agents story (from Westwood Studios).

(If any C++ coders are interested in programming for L.A. make sure to contact KewlChic
or myself before the last two positions fill.)

Don't forget, you're all welcome to join us on our IRC channel.

JohnnyQwest

Introduction: Making a HL2 mod can be a fun and exciting experience. You have the tools and a game engine from a major game company at the tips of your fingers. You have the power to create endless possibilities as far as you and your team's skills can achieve. With all this fun comes responsibility. You are the leader of a team of developers that need guidance and a plan to do what they need to do. You must take charge and present a proper idea that explains many things about the game so people that want to join know what they're getting into.

Firstly, if you have no experience what-so-ever, don't say you want to start a team. As much as you want to get into it and as impatient as you are, this requires EXTENSIVE ammounts of time. You must be able to set aside so much time for you project. You need to learn the basics of the engine yourself to know what you can actually put into your game. You have to have an idea of the limitations your engine presents. Not to mention a cleanly documented and designed plan for it.

Coding: Coding for your mod is a HUGE deal if you plan to make a TC (total conversion) or even a partly redesigned game. You need a talented person who has experience with the C and/or C++ programming languages. If you wish to learn it yourself, I recommend from personal experience this is not the way to go. Either take time yourself (about a year) to learn the language and work with it. I don't recommend people in high school because many schools don't teach programming languages, although you may find someone talented enough. I recommend someone who has taken some professional training at a college or vocational school, or at least who is currently enrolled and learning for a bit.

Programming is a major part of your mod that will have to work 100% properly to allow people to play the game the way you intended. The programming aspect of modding is usually best left to a single individual who can work with their own code and styles efficiently then multiple ones trying to understand and work with each other. Most programmers in the community of modding aren't professionals who work on design teams, they don't have experience doing such.

Mapping: Mapping for your mod is another large task. You will be defining the world your player experiences your game in. You must set the atmosphere, logic, layout, and maybe even a storyline if you do SP (single player)/Co-Op. You want someone who can layout architecture with appropriate textures the way your mod's details envision it. They need to follow the 'path' of the mod. You would want someone who has experience with Hammer editor or a similar BSP-based mapping tool. They should be proficient with the limits and design styles that the HL2 engine uses, being able to create textures is always a plus when it comes to mappers. You usually only want a single person designing the map at a time, sometimes people like to create prefabs (prefabricated designed objects with brushwork like soda machines or couches in HL2), and also a texture artist may be needed if the mapper needs further textures and cannot do it themselves.

Modeling: Modeling is a very vast area of modding. This requires someone talented in a professional 3D design program such as Soft|Image XSI/Maya/3D Studio Max. They should be able to at least design the model (polygons and shapes) for you, a plus is being able to skin/texture the model and even create their own skins for the models. Another thing to consider is animating and compiling the object into the proper format for the engine. Further details suggest someone who can do the acting pieces through such software as faceposer. As you can see, there are many fields to modeling, sometimes it may require other individuals for this category alone. Modeling is a field that you can have multiple people easily work together on seperate models to increase productivity.

Texturing: Texturing is a very escential part of the modding process. A person like this must be able to create appropriate textures for your moddification, which usually needs to be close to photo-realistic for most mods. This person should be able to create patternistic artwork and designs for pieces of brushwork in maps. As well, another field of texturing can be a skin artist. They would design textures that get graphed onto the models the modelers would create. This person would be an escential part of the team as well, this type of task is usually best done with as many numbers of people as you want/need. Texturing doesn't usually require a team effort, if there are multiple ones, then usually each sticks to a set or suite of textures/skins.

Sound: Sound engineering has become extremely important in the new source engine as it ties together that feel of realism with the world you are in. A few categories exist in this field, someone can do ambience and sound effects for parts of the game or weapons and such, others can do background music to set the mood of a map, and finally, you need someone who can do voice acting/recording to bring your characters to life (if you have any).

Project Management: Project Management is the key tie to all the pieces of modding. A director/supervisor must be able to keep his team on task and motivated. They must design the layout and overview of the game. This person is what brings the mod together and should be able to make sure the team stays on task properly and keeps the team together. It is up to you as the leader to bring your mod to the pinacle point of excellence. Usually this person handles PR (public relations), creating the actual mod package to distribute, keeping the news and information up to date, and if you can't handle it yourself, find someone that can help with web design and create a site to publicize your modification.

Software: If you want to design a mod, you need the tools to accomplish this, some tools are not free and cost money, sometimes a great deal of money. The tools you can use to create large portions of your mod for free (with purchase of HL2) would be:

Valve HL2 SDK:
Hammer Editor - Level Design
Face Poser - Character facial details, animating, and scene creation.
SDK Documentation - Comes with the SDK as a manual to help you to use the tools and how to create with them.
XSI for HL2 - Modeling tools and utilities
HLMV - Half-Life model viewer for looking at finished HL models

Other software:
Borland C++, Dev-C++ - Free C++ compiler

Some other software that may be used but isn't free:
Photoshop - Texturing and image work
MSVC++ .NET - Amazing IDE (Integrated Developement Environment) for C++ programming.

Cool Edit Pro 2, Quicktime - Good sound editing/recording programs

*Thanks to chbrules for his content in this article...

Half-Life 2 Multiplayer & Steam Update!
December 1, 2004

A Half-Life 2 update has been released via Steam. Please restart Steam to apply the update.

Included in this update:

Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
- New multiplayer game featuring physics simulation system

Half-Life 2/Source SDK
- Includes game code needed to create Half-Life 2/Source MODs
- New Half-Life 2 sample character model
- Ability to edit Half-Life 2 maps
- Maya model exporter
- 3d Studio Max model exporter source code
- Sample MOD with vehicles

Source Updates
- HTTP and non-HTTP map auto downloading functionality
- Enhanced dedicated server logging capabilities
- Various tweaks and fixes

*Also: A Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Map Making Contest has been announced. The winning entry will receive a cash prize of $5,000. Two runner up entries will receive a cash prize of $3,000. Visit www.steampowered.com for more information.