BZFlag addicts and developers have finally done it. BZFans will soon be able to purchase select merchandise such as various clothing or CDs through the new store section of the BZFlag website. True, the store won’t have aisles and aisles of BZAddict gotta-haves, but it’s fabulous that players can finally proudly wear and advertise one of the best free online games ever created.

Hopefully, through the new promotionals, many will be attracted to the BZFlag community and we will see a significant rise in activity and development. Keep your eyes open for more! In the meantime, go vote on a shirt color at the Official BZFlag Forums under News & Announcements and check out the store.

Blast has been working on a new BZFlag Image Submission site for images and textures in use in maps. Today, he has decided to test it out and find some bugs.The interface is quite simple and makes it really easy to upload images. Any image you upload here can be used in a map of yours and be hosted somewhere without having to change a few lines in the download access config (for those who have no clue what I’m talking about, skip).

BZFlag Image Submission System

Click here for more info.

Edit: Official version released - link updated.

Alright, even though the first edition of the “Hosted Map” wasn’t as popular as we had hoped, we’re giving it another go!
So, we’d like to present you R3laX’s latest map “B&W Tunnel :: HTF“. The interesting thing about this one is the HTF (Hold the flag) play-style.
For anyone who doesn’t know: The goal while playing HTF is to take your flag to the enemy base first. So basically, everyone joins one team and tries to capture their own flag.
This map also has a “labyrinth-theme” to it. The enemy base is hidden and concealed in one of the many tunnels that go through the map. We haven’t seen too many creations built around this game-style so I think everyone will have fun time trying it out.
As always, the map can be found at labs.mybzflag.net:5100!
Have fun ;)

Due to a domain issue, all BZFlag services are down.

This includes, but is not limited to

• Listserver
• Global Auth
• Forum
• Wiki
• Main webpage

In your conf, you can make some changes to access the listserver.

• #set list http://my.BZFlag.org/db/

Change this to

• set list http://my.BZFlag.com/db/

Alright, this has been fixed, for most people. Most DNS has been updated to the correct address, once again.

First of all, here is my apology. I admit, I over looked my schedule and hastily made a decision to re-start BZPod. This was right around the time school started. Unfortunately, it took me quite a bit longer than I expected to get adjusted to my new schedule.

Many mapmakers have seen maps with fog, and most have probably found the server variables for controlling it. However, properly setting up fog is tricky, especially because different modes use different parameters. This article will show how to set up fog, and will include some interesting hacks at the end.

I’m happy to announce the launch of a new project called the Hosted Map!
It’s going to work like this:

Today I’d like to talk about this masterpiece Pillbox. This is possibly, next to HiX, the best and most success CTF-Map BZFlag has ever seen. Pillbox has been around for years and is one of the oldest maps around. It’s all about playability, as all the maps were, back then.

Welcome to the first object of the month!

This time, we’re going release a pack of seamless textures, all of which are public domain. You may use them however you wish.

They are hosted here, for use in BZFlag clients. 

MDG 3.0 launches today, boasting an all new theme, and a few new sections.

The new theme is designed to hopefully make information on the front page more separated, and concise. It looks cleaner, too. The old site didn’t have nearly enough separation between the posts.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the first Tip of the Week!

Now, some of you out there are probably looking for some advice on how to make a good map. Hopefully the next 5 posts in this series will help you do exactly that.

These articles will appear in the following order

• Part 1 - The idea behind your map
• Part 2 - The initial layout
• Part 3 - Finalizing the design
• Part 4 - Does it look and play well?
• Part 5 - Preparing for release.

Now, onto part one…

Winny is a fellow MDG-Member and has been active in the BZFlag-mapping community for a long time. He’s been kind enough to answer these questions here.

Map Development Group: First, tell us how old you are, what your current occupation is and where you’re from?
Winny: Well, I’m 16, and I live in Ottawa, Canada. I don’t really have a constant job, but I usually work during the summer.

Released, finally ( no I diddn’t forget :P ), download now available! 

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be working on a new template for the MDG.

The current one is a mess, CSS and HTML-wise. The design will probably remain somewhat the same, but we’ll see when the time comes.

Admittedly this is a little late due to the start of school…

Featured Map and Author for December!

Featured Map
Featured map for December is “Channel Crossing” by LouMan! He’s produced another very unique and nice map. For more information view THIS post. Good work LouMan!

Featured Author
The featured author for the month is Winny. He’s done some great work on his latest map “Rat’s Nest”, which is based on the new Halo 3 map.
Look at this thread to see some of the latest screenshots. The modeling and texturing are superb. The map should soon be up on one of the bzfx.net servers, so keep an eye out.

Now playing at beyond.infinity.bz:4895   http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?p=119620#119620