See that cat above? That’s how I have been feeling the last 6 months. I just haven’t been able to get the energy to do any work on the site.

However, I have almost reached a decision to continue with the site BUT before I make that final commitment, I want to be sure.

In a few days, I am going away for the Christmas holidays and then on 4th January I am going for a holiday in the sun. I will relax, looking at the ocean and ponder life’s unanswerable questions: “Can Gordon talk?“, “Should I stop pretending to be a bad player?“, “should I extract all the modding knowledge from Don’s brain and become a mapping giant?“, and of course “Should I continue running the site?“.

I suspect the answer to them all will be “YES!“. So, let’s just assume that for the rest of this article.

The Hammer Cup 2017

I’m guessing then, that you are curious about The Hammer Cup 2017. Well, the good news is that I will run another Hammer Cup. I have finalised the changes but won’t publish them until the official announcement. However, I can tell you that the number of challenges will be the same; 5, but instead of over 6 months The Hammer Cup 2017 will be over 11 months. That doesn’t mean the length of challenge time has increased, it’s just that there will be more time between each one.

The scoring and prizes are the other two main changes.

The RTSL Mod Awards 2016

Unlike ModDB, bless their hearts, I run my awards after the year has finished. Ideally, I would like to post something on the 1st January but with my two trips, it’s going to be a little difficult. And for those wondering why I don’t prepare them before I go away, it’s because I am really busy at work at the moment.

The awards will be pretty much the same as last year, but instead of three stages, I will just run two. If you are interested, here are the links for last year:

Other Plans

I won’t go into the details of any other changes, but suffice to say I will try to stay focused on mods and doing things I enjoy.

I will be putting more effort into Livestreaming and the YouTube channel as I see that as a way of generating income for the site and it’s something I really enjoy doing. Talking of income, I will be reinstating the Patreon system from January too.

I hope to continue with The Level Design academy but I also have a plan for an Ep2 mod. Yes, I know that sounds crazy but it’s not that much work. I’ll announce more as soon as I can.

With regard to getting people to help, I will accept help but would prefer not to. As I have said many times, I would rather walk way from RTSL and let somebody else run it than turn into a manager.

Well, I think that’s it for now. As always, if you have any questions, suggestions or comments just post a comment here.

Finally, completely off topic, I have been working a little harder on my Squash Coaching YouTube Channel, so if you want to see another side of me or if you play squash, then head over there and check it out.