haloman30

Hey everyone! Another announcement so soon? Why, yes. Lots of stuff happening nowadays - isn't it exciting? First off, we've got the basics of the Galactiminer: Evolved website up! You can check it out live at http://galactiminer.com! There currently isn't a whole lot to it as of yet besides some links and a couple pages - but you can expect to see it continue to grow and evolve as time goes on and Galactiminer continues to make progress. Speaking of progress, yesterday we introduced a new member to the Elaztek team - @Verblendet! I'll leave it up to him when/if he wants to reveal any information about himself, but here's what I can tell you - he will be the man behind the music of Galactiminer. We hope to have some juicy tunes to fill your ears here relatively soon - but you must not rush the creative process. Music composition is a long and tedious process. Lastly, we've introduced a cool new feature for those of you who are coming over (or who formerly came over) from Chaotic United - the ability to sign in with your Chaotic United account on Elaztek - and vice versa. You can now sign up, login, and sync information between the two. If you have an account on CU already and want to quickly get signed up here, you can just click 'Sign in with Chaotic United' on the login screen. Alternatively, if you have an account here but not on CU, you can sign into CU with your Elaztek account. That's all for now, folks! Stay tuned for any upcoming progress and development on Galactiminer! And don't forget to spread our Kickstarter campaign around: kck.st/2N6bpPv

Hey, folks! We're throwing a curveball at you - a development progress update! "What? You mean to say that you're actually getting tangible work done?" Yes! Yes we are! It's a Christmas miracle! We've posted this update on our Kickstarter as well, though there's a couple other things we're going to get into here as well, mainly with future plans and such. But enough babble, let's get into what you came here for - to see our progress. Now I know, it doesn't look like much, but do keep in mind that this is all just basic functionality. First up - blocks. Blocks, blocks, and more blocks. What blocks are available? Let's take a look at each of them. First up, let's show a total mess of various blocks that was shown on the Kickstarter (and on the homepage image) to give a brief overview. Now, this gives a good idea of what blocks are in the game, but this doesn't make it entirely clear what these blocks are, does it? Let's remedy that. For those interested, each and every block (as of the time of making this post) can be found in the spoiler below. We plan to setup a wiki for all of Galactiminer's content, sort of like the Minecraft Wiki - except official and not broken as of recently for unknown reasons. (also the images below will probably look like crap because I was lazy and gyazo'd all of them) Next up, the inventory. This was a real fight. See, we decided to (kind of) get lazy and actually purchased a resource on the Unreal Engine Marketplace. That resource contained the core block building functionality you see, but we had to modify it a great deal to not suck. There was no inventory system. The hotbar was very weakly coded - it's the kind of programming nightmare you never want to see, several variables all manually bound to the hotbar. There were about 2-3 variables for the hotbar slots. No easy expandability, even the active slot was done by having 9 textures of the hotbar with the slot overlay appearing in different locations. It was pretty crap. The process for adding a block involved making changes in about 30 locations and was in general just really tacky to deal with. All of this - the hotbar, inventory, and blocks were completely restructured to be easily expandable. Adding a basic block takes no more than a couple minutes (minus the whole texturing stuff, but I'm just talking about getting it into the game and usable). So, what does it look like? Like this: Don't mind some of those broken-seeming textures and other weirdness - those are, as I said, textures. The block building system doesn't do a cool 3D render in the slot like Minecraft would, but instead uses a 2D texture - this includes those ones that look like cubes. So, we just threw on some leftover textures from Project: Infinity that were already in the project temporarily. Also, tooltips! As you can see, they aren't your typical generic tooltip of just the item name. The tooltip shows the block slot texture, the name, and the item classification. That and the blue background color will change depending on what item/block it is. Weapons would be, well, weapons. Stone, Grass, and Dirt (and related) will be Natural Materials, ores and crystals will be Minerals, and so on. Also, notice the additional space that just says Debug Item Details. That would show other stats dependent on the block or item as well. Weapons would show stuff like accuracy, rate of fire, damage, and so on. Blocks would show the minimum tool required to break it as well as the time to break, and anything else noteworthy about it. We will likely add a setting to show the debug details for you nerds out there. Maybe we'll even have an option for more simplistic tooltips, because why not? Anyways, that's about all we've got for now! Just a few clarifications before we go: You may have noticed the Halo-esque HUD, as well as the fact that most of the inventory stuff looks very much like that of Minecraft. Both of these elements will be changing as we get further in. The Halo HUD is stuff that we were testing for Project: Infinity from back when we were going to develop that in Unreal Engine, most of which is pulled from Halo 3. Except that weird motion tracker placeholder, that was a weird thing I made a while back. As for the Minecraft-looking inventory and hotbar, you can expect that to change and evolve as we go on. We are mainly focused on functionality, and I think most of you can get that but some people like to critique early alpha concepts And, remember - Project: Infinity is not cancelled - nor is Blamite. We will be keeping the applications for both of those open so that, if there are people willing and able to develop them (mainly Blamite since Project: Infinity is dependent on Blamite being complete), we can effectively develop both. If we do get enough people for Blamite to be developed alongside Galactiminer, we'll be sure to announce it. As for those looking to join Galactiminer's team, we will have applications open soon - so be on the lookout for that. Well, that's the past week or two of progress since our announcement. We hope to get these going semi-regularly as progress happens and the game continues to grow and evolve. Don't forget, we still are running a Kickstarter campaign and we have 21 more days to go - let's make it count, folks! You can check out the Kickstarter page for Galactiminer here.

Hey, everyone! We've got some exciting news! There is unfortunately some bad news, but it's not that bad. First off: the bad news - Project: Infinity and the Blamite Game Engine have been put on temporary hold - kind of - for a while. I say kind of because there will likely be some limited development on my end here and there, however neither of these will be our main focus for the time being. The reason for this is to introduce a new project. Ladies and gentlemen, Elaztek Studios is proud to announce the initiation of a new project: Some of you just might recognize this name, if you've been around since the Haloman Development days (or more likely, went around our website and found any of the old HMD stuff laying around). The original idea behind Galactiminer wasn't a whole lot beyond a clone of Murder Miners - but different. That was the idea my 13-year-old self had. Just a year later, the project was cancelled because my child self couldn't make games at all (shocking, I know). Long before that though, it was put on hold merely 12 days later. Yet again a week later, it was resumed again. From there, it continued to make no progress until Project: Infinity was announced - and since then, Galactiminer has sat, quietly untouched in the shadow of Project: Infinity. Until now. So what changed? What suddenly caused Project: Infinity and Blamite to be put on a sort-of hold in favor of Galactiminer? Entering the Workforce - A Mixed Bag The answer will likely come as a surprise as it's not something I ever talk about in relation to Elaztek or Chaotic United - income. As those of you on CU know, I recently (on August 23, 2018) started a job at Walmart. The work itself isn't too hard - however it does give me unbearable leg and foot pain by the end of the day every single day. But the pain isn't the main issue here - it's the time. For years, I had the assumption that a full-time job would take up roughly the same amount of time as a typical school day. This simply isn't the case. Combined with actually requiring a full night's sleep, an hour lunch built into the workday, and so on - and as a result, I have next to no time to myself during work days. As such, I'm making a dramatic shift that will prioritize income generation in a way that hasn't been done so before. Our focus will still be on making great games, of course, but we won't be ignoring the element of making money any longer. Crowdfunding We've actually launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund Galactiminer: Evolved's development and help accelerate it into the world. You may be wondering, accelerate it how? What's the benefit? Aren't your team members volunteers? Yes, yes they are. However, a Kickstarter campaign would change that. There would be both paid and volunteer employees - unless funds prove to be insufficient. The most important thing that the funds would do is allow me to quit my job and work on Galactiminer full time. A chance to truly learn more about what I want to do and how to do it better, and a chance to build a game without school or work or anything else interfering. A chance to truly bring Galactiminer to life, and to launch Elaztek for real. So, why the subtitle? Why is it called Galactiminer: Evolved, and not just Galactiminer? Well, there are two main reasons that both go hand in hand. First off, there's stuff from various corners of the Elaztek, Haloman Development, and other websites that describe Galactiminer in the context of the original idea. Which leads into the other main reason - this Galactiminer is drastically different from the Galactiminer idea as it was in 2013. I won't guarantee that the subtitle won't be dropped later, but for the time being - we're going to be sticking with the subtitle (even though you'll still probably see me and others refer to it as just Galactiminer). The Future of Project: Infinity and the Blamite Game Engine So, what of Blamite and Project: Infinity? Will they fall to the shadows, never to be touched again? Will they never see the light of day? Absolutely not - we have no plans to abandon either of these projects. It will take time, but when we make a promise - we keep it. We will be temporarily departing from Blamite and Infinity for a bit, but when the time is right, Blamite will come to life. It will be used to power all games under Elaztek once it's capable of making quality games. However, we want to develop a product that can actually be sold before that point first. What if the Kickstarter doesn't get funded? We've got some ideas, but we're going to wait and see how the Kickstarter goes before we announce any other plans. Wrap-Up If you have any questions regarding all things Galactiminer - be it joining our team, what the gameplay will be like, or even suggestions for anything along the road, or anything else - feel free to ask away on this topic! If you wish to help ensure this project comes to life, support and/or share our Kickstarter campaign: http://kck.st/2N6bpPv To visit the Galactiminer: Evolved website: <TBA> To read the Galactiminer FAQ: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2002163451/galactiminer-evolved/faqs

This is a change that actually happened a while back, but apparently everybody just plain forgot to announce it to the public. Better late than never, though, right? So, we don't have any gameservers anymore. Just Cause 2, Ark, Don't Starve Together, CSGO, and Unturned servers are now offline. All their files have been copied over to Chaotic United's dedicated server, so that should we want they can be reintroduced. Michael wrote a "Closing FAQ" a while back, to attach to the official announcement. That FAQ is at the bottom of this announcement in the spoiler. Most of that pertains to Raven Runner, however, so allow me to go into more details on the non-Raven Runer side of things. First of all, if these servers ever come back, you will find them over on Chaotic United. Here at Elaztek, we make games - and the only reason these servers were ever branded as Elaztek is a result of some of our team being unhappy with the direction of Chaotic United at that point in time. People didn't want to be involved in CU anymore, and thus the servers were kept up under the Elaztek name. As time passed, things changed at CU and the feelings of the people here did as well - hence why the files for these servers are back in CU's hands. Any effort that was formerly put into maintaining these servers is now going to be put towards the primary goal of Elaztek Studios: game and software development. If you do wish for these servers to return, you'll have to ask over on Chaotic United. The server IP's have been removed from the services block on forums page, and all the subforums have been archived. On an unrelated note, incase you didn't see the previous announcement addendum, we updated all the banners of our own screenshots - with the exception of a select few. Despite the joking blurb on that announcement, these screenshots are entirely allowed under the Microsoft Game Content Usage Rules. We hope to have more to share soon! @JTKreates has been making some good progress with the Eon Game Engine - it's not quite ready to show off publicly yet, but it's coming along nicely. That's a wrap on today's announcement, keep an eye out for more down the road! Closing FAQ by Michael:

This update includes changes from 6/29/2018 A small update has been applied to the website. + Added Questions & Answers forum, found at http://elaztek.com/forums/forum/55-questions-answers/ * Upgraded website software to IP.Board 4.3.4 * Disabled Blog grid view due to absolutely broken display, will be re-enabled when a fix is issued by IPS - Removed Killerteddy

Small update: The rest of the site now has banner images! Along with that, we fixed an issue with embed links and replaced the banner image for the Store. Check the full changelog here:

A small update has been applied to the website. + Added banner images to the following site areas: Blogs, Clubs, Leaderboard, Gallery, Downloads, Awards, Calendar, Search * Replaced banner image on Store page with an ingame screenshot * Fixed incorrect theming with IPS internal embeds - Removed Killerteddy

An update has been applied to the Elaztek Website. + Added banner image and title to the following pages: Team Hub, Team Jobs, Media Jobs, Feature Suggestions, Helpcenter, Forums * Improved look of pagination on Midnight 7 * Fixed issue with sidebar displaying incorrectly on forum index while on mobile - Removed Killerteddy

Hey everyone! We've been doing (more) website updates, and we aren't done just yet! Currently, on our own internal team pages, on the Helpcenter, and on the Forums, you'll notice some nifty new additions at the top of the page in the form of new banner images and titles! It's a small addition, but it's one that really helps to liven up the website. We plan to continue extending this change to the rest of the website in the upcoming days. However, as you've noticed, these images aren't exactly original, all of them being taken from various concept art and ingame screenshots of various official Halo titles. We would like to give credit where it's due and make it explicitly clear that we do not claim these as original by any means. We do plan to replace all of these images with our own work - once we have the art talent necessary. A smaller change involves the pagination on the main website theme. Previously, the current page was the same coloring as the others but with a blue glow around it. For those who never paid attention, it looked like this: The new and improved pagination looks like this: As you can see, the background and text color of the active page are changed instead, as opposed to just an ugly glow. The glow effect is still there, but very very subtle - not as in-your-face as before. Along with these polishes, we did manage to squash a few bugs that were lurking away for some time. You can view the full changelog linked below. Now, I know what you're thinking. What is the actual status on the games? What's the status of Project: Infinity, Raven Runner, or Blamite? What the hell is Eon? What is the actual status of the studio and why is there no apparent progress besides scattered website updates and announcements of new projects? These are all excellent questions, and I think transparency is the key here. Project: Infinity and Blamite are both led by myself, Raven Runner is led mainly by Michael (AwakenedRage), and Eon is led by JTKreates. Let's start in order: What is the status of Project: Infinity and Blamite? Project: Infinity is still at baby stages, as is Blamite. Engines take a long time to develop and up until recently I've been stuck in high school. Once I get a job and proper income, my focus will move a lot more towards Elaztek than it has been for a while, and if finances allow, putting money into getting paid people on the team - or if that isn't doable, just spreading the word and getting dedicated Halo fans to participate in the project. In terms of Blamite, a little bit has been going on that I can go ahead and show off real quick - though it isn't a whole lot. The most recent additions include a crash screen and some improvements to the console. The crash screen was implemented shortly after the Halo 2 Alpha leaked to the public and was made playable over system link thanks to modders. Some screenshots of these can be seen in the spoiler below. What is the status of Raven Runner? For those unaware, Raven Runner was on a temporary development hiatus. That hiatus ended a while ago, but a second, much longer hiatus may be about to hit due to some things that Michael is going through (either he or myself will give more details later, if he wishes for the details to be disclosed - no promises). Even so, I must admit that I myself am very distant from most of what happens with Raven Runner, and most of its team operates separately from the core Elaztek team. This is both due to the fact that the Raven Runner team existed many years prior to Elaztek being something that wasn't just an idea floating about in my brain, going back to 2014 and possibly prior with a project called Demoria Online. Additionally, Michael seems to keep a lot of his stuff secret either on purpose or just due to being busy/not thinking to do it. I don't know what his reasoning is, but I do know that Raven Runner is still currently the most developed project we have at the moment. My hope is for that to change soon - not against Raven Runner of course but because we need more stuff to start happening besides a single mobile-focused game in active development. What is the Eon Game Engine? One of the newest members of our team, JTKreates, is a fairly skilled C++ programmer. He went the route of developing a second engine for Elaztek Studios, known as the Eon Game Engine. I created the logo for it and he's been doing all the coding thus far. The difference between Blamite and Eon is their target game type - Blamite is a 3D-focused engine, whereas Eon is a purely 2D game engine, designed for vastly different purposes. As such, it generally makes more sense to keep them just like that - two separate projects. That may change later on down the road, it may not. Time will tell. Chaotic United A while back, I took down the announcement that was made shortly after Elaztek's launch regarding Chaotic United, without giving a whole ton of clarification on the state of the two beyond just "that old statement doesn't apply anymore". I think it's high time I inform you guys of some of the newer developments regarding the relationship between Elaztek and CU. What the folks on CU have seen slowly happening is a slow carrying-over of various ranks, roles, and site features from Elaztek to CU. Additionally, people have critiqued me for some of these changes/additions as well as my general attitude regarding the management of the two, with people saying things like "CU and Elaztek are not the same", or "they are two completely different entities". While, yes, CU and Elaztek are separate groups, their fundamental values and principles are the same. While one is driven by Minecraft servers and the other by game and software development, the interests, ideas, and so on are the same throughout. However, a decision was made internally not too long ago and that decision was to end the synchronization of the staff team between the two. This had nothing to do with any specific incident but rather just the realization that having the same group of people spread across two organizations is inefficient and isn't the best way to run things. The people currently on both and who hold positions on both will retain those positions, but any future applicants who wish to serve on both will need to apply on both. However, despite these changes, the statement still stands. CU and Elaztek will continue to borrow from each other freely as they are both run by the same people for the most part. They will not share a total team, but they will share ideals, values, principles, and just the general way of running things where applicable. They won't be identical, but the "CU isn't Elaztek" argument is simply not valid. It never was, and it never will be. Conclusion This thing has been getting way too long, so let's wrap it up with some recruitment, eh? We are still looking for people to join the Blamite Game Engine and Project: Infinity development teams! We are especially wanting 3D artists and concept artists so we can stop grabbing screenshots off of Google Images for our new website banners! Additionally, we'd love to have some folks skilled in C++ to hop on board and help us build Blamite (experience with Blam is preferred as well, but not required - just be prepared to learn how it works)! You can apply for a position within the Blamite team here, or for a position within the Project: Infinity team here. That's all for now, folks! Make sure to keep an eye on our Discord for all the latest happenings and so on!

ask michelle @AwakenedRage

Official Update as of 4/25/2018 at 1:09 AM CDT: The ElDewrito team has made an update on the situation. This is what they had to say: Just as was seemingly the case from the post above, it appears that the full game assets are the real issue here. They have been asked to temporarily stop development for the time being, but it is unclear what the future of ElDewrito truly holds as of yet. In either case, this is confirmation that the game will NOT be getting shut down.

So, recently, ElDewrito was given notice from Microsoft, and as of yet there is no official statement from the ElDewrito team regarding the matter. But I suspect that the events that transpired could lead to some potential concern for the future or Project: Infinity and any other fan-made Halo content - made by us or by other teams. Currently, there have been statements made on Halo Waypoint, as well as some words from Frank O'Connor regarding the ordeal, links to which will be posted at the bottom of this topic. From Halo Waypoint Some of this content has been omitted to reduce post length. Please view the full announcement here so that you know all the details. Today we want to let our community know that Microsoft has initiated actions to protect its Halo intellectual property in the wake of the recent “ElDewrito” PC release. Community created content has long been a key pillar in the Halo franchise and something we have continuously sought to support – from the early beginnings of Red vs. Blue to Forge-made maps & modes to the “Halo Custom Edition” to original recent fan creations like “Installation 01.” These projects, and others like them, have one key factor in common – they fit within Microsoft’s established content usage guidelines. ... As this project reverberated across the community, our team took a step back to assess the materials and explore possible avenues, while Microsoft, like any company, has a responsibility to protect its IP, code and trademarks. It’s not optional in other words. ... As Microsoft’s need to protect its IP spun up, we reached out to members of the ElDewrito team to have an open discussion about the project and the admittedly difficult situation we all find ourselves in. The ElDewrito team is understandably upset at this outcome given the time they’ve each invested in this project, but they understand the legal implications and the need to press pause on this work. ... From Frank O'Connor on ResetEra Some of this content has been omitted to reduce post length. Please view the full announcement here so that you know all the details. BTW, we’re not “shutting down the mod” or going after the Eldewrito crew - we’re enacting action to remove the Halo Online code and packages from places it’s being hosted. The distinction may seem like semantics to a lot of folks, and I don’t blame them for assuming that, but to be clear, this is a legally necessary step to protect code, product, IP, trademarks and copyrights, and is not optional. We’re a publicly traded company, and we have a fiduciary and legal responsibility to our shareholders, and further, if we don’t take steps to protect it, then we actually run the legal risk of losing it - and there’s code and content in there that is still very much in use. The general sentiment that can be drawn is that the issue isn't with ElDewrito itself, its servers, or anything of the sort - but rather to the ms23 component used in it - Halo Online. For those unfamiliar with the inner workings of Halo Online, ms23 is the version of the game that the mod runs on. For those also unaware potentially, ElDewrito is, in reality, a mod - a mod for Halo Online. The issue is that on the Reddit page for Halo Online/ElDewrito, full installers - ms23 included - are being distributed. It's entirely possible that the Dewrito team and their ability to continue modding Halo Online will face very minimal pushback from Microsoft - especially as 343 Industries currently has actually liked the work of the ElDewrito team. Granted, none of this is certain. Microsoft may choose to shut down the team's future work and their master server - we will know a lot more when an official statement is made, and we will reply to this post (or, if need be, a separate announcement entirely) when there is one from the Dewrito team. But what does this mean for us? In short, virtually nothing. Fan-projects have continuously been given the green light from 343 and/or ignored entirely. There is no issue with these. They operate on their own engines, use no Microsoft, 343, or Bungie code/assets, and don't charge for access. They all follow the Game Content Usage Rules set by Microsoft. Project: Infinity and even Blamite do not break these rules. Blamite, while it operates similarly to how Halo's engine operates, does not use ANY Microsoft code (with exceptions being DirectX and other such libraries of course). It also isn't inherently a "Halo" game in itself, merely a set of tools used to build them. Project: Infinity, like other fan projects, doesn't use Halo assets and doesn't make profit for Elaztek. It doesn't use any code from the official Halo titles, and follows the Microsoft Game Content Usage Rules. Fear not for the future of us or Project: Infinity, we are safe. For those interested in ElDewrito and it's current situation, you can find all the relevant links below. Keep an eye on them as well as here at Elaztek for any updates on the situation. 343i Announcement: https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/news/eldewrito-community-content ElDewrito Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/HaloOnline/ ElDewrito Download Page/Changelog: https://www.reddit.com/r/HaloOnline/wiki/index/download Comments by Frankie: https://www.resetera.com/threads/microsoft-initiaties-action-to-protect-halo-ip-in-the-wake-of-eldewrito-halo-online-mod.38406/page-3#post-7164086 Direct Download for ElDewrito: http://www.mediafire.com/file/rtmgvh67oy4yzgp/ElDewrito_0.6.exe ElDewrito Website: https://eldewrito.com/

So, this blog post is dedicated to my graphic design teacher, though many teachers are guilty of some of the things I describe. Over the past two years I have had this teacher, she has continued to be further and further disliked by the students. Or, more accurately, her way of teaching has been heavily hated. Nobody really hates her as a person - but the things she does as a teacher are completely insane. Let's start with the most recent event, a student in my class was writing an essay in order to apply for a college scholarship. She was finished with her work for the most part, but the teacher put out a new assignment today. This assignment was not for a grade or worth any points. We'll come back to that. Anyways, the student was working on the scholarship essay in class. The teacher asked what she was doing, she replied that she was working on a scholarship essay, the teacher instantly got a huge attitude and told her she couldn't work on it at all. The student responded with something I didn't entirely pick up on, but the teacher responded with "Well, thats not my problem. You should have thought about that first". Say whatever you want about this kind of stuff, but here's how I see it. You are giving an assignment worth zero points. What is more important? A pointless assignment that's worth absolutely nothing - where the only reward is actually being forced to do MORE work in the form of doing the other 5 banners? Which is more important, the assignment, or the essay that can potentially save her tens of thousands of dollars? It's no contest. Let's go into that more. These assignments that aren't worth anything. If you want students to do work, put a point value to it. You cannot tell students that this assignment is worth no points but then expect them to put their all into it. If you aren't going to give points, don't give the assignment. What about that assignment? What was this assignment that the student was simply not doing right off the bat, but would instead be doing it LATER, be it later that same class or just the next class? That assignment consisted of banners for a school's archery team. The pictures were taken with horrible poses, and on backgrounds that are a huge job to remove. Not a green screen, but a beige brick/tile background that blends with skin and hair and takes around 40 minutes to remove. If it were a green screen, you could use the magic wand tool to select and remove the green and then defringe the edges of what remains - and that'd be it. This was submitted to the school exactly as they requested, exactly according to their mockup, and they turned it down. They said it wasn't "professional". This is where I have a huge problem - not just with that school, but with the structure of this class as a whole. If you want something done professionally, hire a fucking professional. Pardon my language, but seriously, you don't come to a group of students who don't want to do work, who don't get paid, who are there because the law says they have to, students who probably are only at the tech school in order to NOT be in stupid classes like construction, welding, shop class, spanish, or what have you in order to get high quality work done. Sure, some are there because of a genuine desire to learn (like myself, though I am skeptical of how much this class has actually helped me) - but I'm willing to bet a huge chunk signed up for tech school because it was ten times better than the garbage being taught in the regular school. It would at the very least be somewhat relevant to a career that you can actually make good money off of. You don't come to people like that for "professional" work. But that's just the assignment, what about the class? Here lately, a huge focus of the class has become print jobs and client work. Sometimes this manifests in the entire class being required to go out into the warehouse and performing a monotonous task for half the period, but most of the time its just the people with experience doing print work and whatnot. Thing is, it's not just printing. It's also doing the billing, figuring out the price, making the calls, basically doing everything needed for a client. There is one issue with this - we aren't getting paid. Here's the thing, the school makes money off of this. This isn't just a made-up component of the class to simulate a real work environment. This is actual work being done for actual clients who pay actual money. And none of that goes down to the student doing all the work. The teacher instructs the student what to do and passes information from client to student, but the student does everything. They do the designing, they do the printing, they do the invoices, they do the phone calls, they do the packaging. I'm sorry but this is fucking stupid. I don't care if you think the "experience" is plenty enough compensation. No, that's not how this works. I'm not asking for 50% or 60%, I am asking for SOMETHING. Like say 5% to 15% or so. Not a thousand bucks, not the majority of the payment (though that would absolutely be fair in my opinion, since we're doing the majority of the work), just a small portion. But nope, we just get nothing but a pat on the back and a good job, maybe some points in the gradebook. How is this acceptable? How is this okay? If this wasn't a school, this would be cause for riots over slave labor. That's what it is, there's no way around it. This is legitimate slave labor. Just because we're students doesn't mean we shouldn't get some sort of payment. Don't mistake me for one of those fools who think that everyone is entitled to payment no matter what happens, I believe that you have to earn your way in the world. But in this case, we ARE earning - the people going out doing internships are earning, why don't we? The only difference is that the internships are at legally registered businesses. That is it. This school is still taking work from clients, selling a product/service, and it for all intents and purposes is a business. The teacher has even said this to visitors from colleges, how the class is basically a small business. Except it's not - and because it's not a legal business, we aren't entitled to payment apparently. The teacher even jokes about this from time to time. Some of the people here are incredibly talented. This talent is used for school profit on a daily basis. This is absolutely absurd. This should be illegal. But the issues with this class doesn't even end there. Before Christmas break, she gave out two assignments. One of them was a children's book, and the other was something to do with Christmas lights. I'm not entirely sure what it was, because I was absent when it was assigned and I never went back to do it when I got back. I found out this was extra credit as the teacher clarified after we got back. That was of course until the teacher pulled a total dick move and did something absolutely insane. The extra credit assignment was now an actual assignment for a grade, and the assignment that was FOR A GRADE was now NOT for a grade. I'm sorry but..what? That is literal bait and switch right there. How much of an asshole do you have to be to do that? Her logic was because "you guys are slacking too much" or something along those lines. So what? We don't have to be working every single fucking second of the class. And this is where we sort of come back to the beginning. It shouldn't matter if we do other work in a class. What matters is that we get classwork done. We should be able to take a bit of a break if all assigned work is completed. This is apparently not allowed, and I would understand if this was a paying job. A paying job can't afford for you to sit on your ass for a period of time - because then, you're being paid to sit on your ass. But this is school. We've established this. Clearly this isn't an actual job or else we'd be getting paid something. But the teacher instead chooses to get onto people for pausing for even a minute or two. If you complete your work, then you're given more work. You are continuously given more and more work until the end of time. You can't take a break with her approval. Often times, people do take breaks or whatever, when the teacher isn't paying attention. This should not be a problem. If the teacher catches someone pausing for even a minute, she will call them out and tell them they can't take a break. No teacher, listen here. Unless we are getting paid, you cannot tell us we can't pause. If we get all our work done, this shouldn't be a problem. The way most classes work - even at my main school, who has a whole ton of issues on its own, teachers often let you be if you get on your phone after work is complete. Because that's your reward for getting done early, you get to relax and chill out a bit. That is the reward. You don't get paid to come to school, but you do earn some of your time back by getting done in a timely fashion. Not here at the tech school. Here, your reward for getting done early is to do more work. Wow! What a great motivator to get work done! I really want to get that new archery banner done and do a great job on it, because then I'll get to do the other 5 of them! What kind of logic is this? Who the hell thinks this? The only people thinking this (and maybe not even then) are the people who are passionate about graphic design. I personally enjoy designing things and making things look pretty. It's fun, its relaxing, and is certainly a lot easier than mashing a keyboard while programming (though make no mistake, I love coding to death). But even I hate this. This is absurd and is more instances of slave labor and absolutely broken thinking. Nobody who isn't getting paid is going to do a great job on these banners, because getting a great one made and getting yours picked means you have to do it 5 more times. It doesn't mean you get paid, it does't mean you get famous, it doesn't mean you get a scholarship or something else of genuine value - it doesn't even mean you get points in the gradebook. It means you do more work, for no points. That's it. That's stupid. That is absolutely fucking stupid. Another thing that happened was that the teacher actually lied outright. At the beginning of this week, she assigned Chapter 3 of Muse. She said that that assignment would be the one and only assignment given this week, which made sense because, you know, spring break is next week so we can try and take it easy this week. Nope! By Wednesday, she said she was going to give "one extra assignment per week", for the reasoning that people were getting through Muse too fast. Sound familiar? People were getting done early, so they can relax and take it easy. That should be the reward for being done in a timely fashion, and the time exists for those who WEREN'T done (which was actually most of the people as of Thursday even). But as we've established, she hates people being done with everything and taking it easy. Her other reasoning was that more grades were needed in the gradebook. But here's the thing, Muse was supposed to be put in the gradebook. Each chapter would be listed as its own assignment. She changed her mind later, and said that Muse would all be graded at once at the end. Let's go over that again. Muse was going to be our grades for this last grading period. She then makes Muse one grade. Then, she gives more work because she needed to put in more grades. If you were going to do that, then why not just make Muse MULTIPLE GRADES like it was fucking meant to be? What kind of stupidity is this? What kind of logic is this? On top of that, the new assignment was due today - an assignment that I'm not doing. The assignment is in InDesign, a piece of software which I find to be absolutely pointless and has no reason to even exist. If you know the magic reason, please tell me. I don't see the point in it to this very day. I also refuse to do an assignment that has not one, not two, but THREE PDF files required to complete it. Are you nuts? That's not getting done in 3 days. And again, the other part of the reason is stupid. If people are getting done quickly, why is that even a fucking problem? Let them be done. Let them come to class relaxed as opposed to working nonstop. You don't need students to work the entire fucking time. Let's shift gears from the teacher and school staff, shall we? Let's talk about the bookwork of choice for this class. Any assignment uses either CIB (Classroom In a Book), Revealed, or ATC (Against The Clock). This is true for Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, or Muse. These books all do this thing where they tell you do these steps, sometimes several pages of steps, and then immediately tell you to undo all of it, or to exit without saving. The most atrocious example is probably Muse, Chapter 1, in CIB. After 23 pages of clicking tools, poking around, the last instruction given reads as follows: I have seen my fair share of stupid work, but this tops all of it. The entire assignment is nothing. A wasted 30-45 minutes of time, assuming you didn't do what I did and just scrolled through it, noticing that line BEFORE doing any work. Also, I just want to do a small gripe about the names of these books. CIB, Classroom In a Book - Surely a classroom should be a lot more than just a boring old book. Revealed, as if the whole world of possibility is being revealed to you by doing the pointless garbage in these assignments. ATC, Against The Clock - I think I hate this one the most. The other two are just whatever, but this one actively tries to indirectly place pressure on whoever reads it, as if you're racing against the clock to...what? To finish a dumb assignment? Because kids aren't stressed out enough by school nowadays? This entire school system is flawed, as I made clear in a blog post I made over at Chaotic United. The way school is managed and operated is broken and ultimately does not teach people anything. Sure, History is important - too bad instead of comparing past events to the modern day, showing how history tends to repeat itself - in order to possibly break the cycle of repetition, they teach us dates and names and who fought who in what war. Sure, English is important - too bad instead of teaching how to actually speak the language fluently, they teach Shakespeare and force the reading of old english that makes no sense to 99% of people nowadays, a variant of english no longer used or taught - and force people to hate someone who wrote some genuinely great stuff, who wrote engaging, exciting, and interesting stories. Shakespeare isn't famous and known to this very day for no reason at all. He wrote great stories and tales that would make you laugh, and that would make you cry - sometimes both within the same story. Instead of enjoying his work for what it is, school overanalyzes his work to death and the end result is that far more people grow up hating this man's existence because school ruined Shakespeare for most of these people. Ironic, Shakespeare wrote many tragedies - but this could be one of the biggest tragedies of them all. But that's a whole blog post on its own waiting to happen. There is no end to the retardation of the public school system. Unfortunately, you'll never see me write from experience on the failures of college - because I won't be touching college with a 10 foot pole. I admit, I took a campus visit one day to a college somewhat nearby, and it was pretty neat. Certainly better than High School. But even so, it's not worth investing a mountain of money into. I would rather just be done with school here in less than 2 months from now (thank the Lord) and start living my life - I don't need 4 years of nonsense to be wasted. I want to make the most out of my life, and I don't want to spend it all on education that ultimately isn't that helpful to begin with. Expect more angry ranting on school in the future, because I think I'm just getting started. To my Graphic Design Teacher: I know I've referenced and linked this website multiple times in the past, so I am putting this here in the event that you somehow come across this. I don't hate you, and I don't hold anything against you personally. I personally can't even really complain about the work because I myself have had it pretty easy thus far. Even the other students don't hate you. My hope is that if you do end up seeing this, that you can maybe learn and improve and become a better teacher as a result. You don't need to make phones disallowed in the room period. You don't need to force people to work all the time. You don't need to enforce this weird rule of not having anything from any other class in the main area at all. I know where many other students don't that you aren't really that bad. I know you don't hate the students, I know that all you're trying to do is be a good teacher. But please, try to understand how you're going a bit too overboard with some of this stuff. Don't take any of this stuff personally, because it's not just attacking you. I merely used some of the things you've done recently that either make no sense, or that I just disagree with, as an example of the flaws in the public education system. My hope is that in the future, more and more kids can come to class and be excited to come to class - not dreading it because of the fear of what new useless work is going to be given. My hope is that you can be a great teacher and someone people can talk to, not someone who people often grow to hate because of backwards policies and ideas.

More bugs may still be present. If you find any, please let us know ASAP! Some fixes have been applied to the website. * Fixed numerous permission errors and inconsistencies across all ranks * Premium and up can now edit their own content within 15 minutes of originally posting * Fixed an issue that caused some groups to be unable to vote in polls or react to content * Fixed an issue with some groups being unable to create blogs * Premium and above will not see any CAPTCHA when submitting via the forms system * Users can now create galleries - Removed Killerteddy

Join the Team So what is this thing? The Blamite Game Engine is Elaztek's most ambitious project to date. It is being built from the ground up to operate and behave like Halo's engine (known in the modding community as "Blam"). It will utilize the same basic means of content: you have tags stored in .map files for most data, you have Blamscript files (.hsc) for scripting, you have Megalo for gametypes, and so on. The Epic Preemptive FAQ Why? > Why not? Halo's engine is a joy to explore and play with. Maybe its rose-tinted nostalgia goggles, but many Halo modders do what they do because they enjoy it. Does Lord Zedd (Zeddikins) work to make old Halo betas be playable offline, work to improve tag injection, patch XEX's, or do any other number of things as a charity? Maybe. But I guaruntee he wouldn't be doing it if he didn't enjoy it. This same mentality is why we want to build Blamite. We enjoy programming, and the people we want to work on it are the people who enjoy learning and exploring and tinkering with Halo's engine. It's certainly a big job, but for us, it's a job very much worthwhile. What about Unreal/Unity/[insert name of other game engine here]? > Many engines don't allow for some of the features we want to include. Forge has been proven to be possible with Unity, as Installation 01 has shown a Forge mode in several videos. But what about modding? Not just an object editor, but a REAL modding toolkit - with the ability to add new armors, gametypes, maps, weapons, vehicles, characters, campaign missions, forge objects, props, features, and so on? This kind of thing simply isn't possible with Unity or Unreal. "But wait", I hear you say, "Unreal has free source code if you have an account!". Yes, this is true - and with this we could in theory implement some of these features. But let me ask you this - how long do you think it would take? It would take a significant amount of time for the team to learn an engine, and would almost certainly never reach full understanding of it. If we write our own engine - Blam-based or not - it would be our engine. We would know where absolutely everything is. We would have a much easier time implementing new features, expanding, optimizing, and debugging if we use our own code. On top of that, we wouldn't owe any royalties to Unreal nor would we need to worry about licensing with them, so that's a plus. Hey, I'm a modder! Awesome! If you know the ins and outs of Halo's engine, we'd love to have you on the team. If you happen to be Lord Zedd, Gamecheat13, or another "big-time" modder in the Halo modding community, please reach out to us - we'd love to talk with you! Additionally, if you happen to come over from XboxChaos, welcome aboard! Also, keep in mind that we need people with a basic understanding of how the engine operates - not just someone who can open a .map and change some projectiles and basic tag data. We're talking people who were able to create the thing you used to make those tag edits in the first place. How can I help? If you're a programmer, skilled modder, or otherwise qualified to help on a code-level, we encourage you to sign up by clicking here. If not, then spread the word. Get the world to know that we exist. Go on Halo-focused websites and modding sites, anywhere really - get the word out to make it all the more likely that someone will find us and want to be part of our team, to help make our vision a reality. Useful Links Blamite Team Signup Blamite Website Elaztek Gitlab Blamite Dev Blog Blamite Update Notes

So, a lot has changed in the past year. Elaztek made its official launch in 2017 after numerous issues with WindFrontier over at Chaotic United, and it ended up with several people being sick of it all. People needed a new home, and that home ended up being Elaztek. There were topics (that are now hidden) that depicted this, that warned WindFrontier as well as said that Elaztek had absolutely no relation to CU at all. While the official stance hasn't changed, if you ask me that stance certainly isn't shared through the team. Undeniably, those topics simply don't reflect the current vision or way Elaztek operates anymore. Those topics were written still very early on after the events that transpired on CU, when it was still fresh. That early time span led to a lot more hate directed at CU. People were saying things like "yeah, everyone is just waiting to watch CU fall", "we're gonna watch it burn to the ground", etc. All of this was still back when everyone violently hated Alycat - a feeling which, while some may still get annoyed with Aly here and there, is a sentiment no longer felt by the Elaztek or CU team. Sure, there's the joke here and there about Aly - but those exist with everyone on the team. From what I've seen, it doesn't come from a place of hatred the way it did in early 2017. People moved on. Going forward, my hope is that Elaztek and CU can continue to be good with each other. Perhaps one day, the two will officially work together - as opposed to merely sharing core staff teams. But despite this progress that is just awesome to see, there are still some people who like to have a fit whenever any sort of crossover occurs. Why does Elaztek share staff teams with CU? Why does Elaztek offer CU website themes? What's the deal? The deal is that, while these two entities are run under separate flags, their teams and their spirit are the same throughout. Sure, not every team member loves Minecraft. Not everyone loves game development. But chances are, most of the people around here find something enjoyable about what CU or Elaztek are doing. I suppose this is a sort of "new and improved" Elaztek in regards to CU post in a way. Again, there has been no official stance change since the original announcement. The announcement which I hid because, as I said, I simply don't think it's even remotely accurate anymore. For those of you over here from CU, you've probably noticed I tend to do CU for a while then I do a 180 and flip over here for a good while. I admit, I tend to get tired of doing one thing for a bit and then eventually that same thing is the only thing I want to do. Give it a bit and I guarantee that I'll disappear from here and you'll see me doing nothing but Minecraft. Does this mean I'm finally bored of MC? Am I closing CU's doors? Am I going to close down the MC server because I've finally realized that MC isn't profitable and can't be made successful in the modern era? Don't make me laugh. Chaotic United will ALWAYS go forward. Myself (and Aly as well) are just too damn stubborn to let it go. Many seem to think that as soon as I get bored of MC temporarily, that I no longer have any passion for it. I have also heard time and time again that I am an idiot for still doing MC after so much time, and I've been called crazy for continuing to pour more and more money into CU. People have even told me to not even worry about CU at all; to simply let it sit in a state of disrepair - and to focus on Elaztek. I'm sorry but I can't do that. When I work on CU, I don't see it as work. I genuinely enjoy it. When I stop working on it usually means I've gotten tired of it - a feeling that will pass as it always does. When I invest money into it, I don't do it with the intention of trying to making profit, or making that money back. I don't see it as wasting money on something that will never succeed, I see it as spending money on what can either be an expensive hobby - or perhaps one day, something that will make all of that money back and more. I do what I do on Elaztek for fun, because I enjoy it. I do what I do on Chaotic United, out of personal value and enjoyment. Is Elaztek a lot more likely to bring in the bucks? Of course it is! It doesn't take a genius to realize that selling a video game is a lot easier than selling a rank on a Minecraft server. I don't see either of these as a job. And no matter how big Elaztek gets, I will never - EVER - give up on Chaotic United. Chaotic United is the very reason I know any of the people I know today. It is the reason I have a large group of people to talk to, a group of friends I love, and the reason I have any team on Elaztek to begin with. Elaztek exists today because of the people of Chaotic United. If it was just me on my own, I wouldn't have had anyone. Were it not for me opening Chaotic United's doors again, I wouldn't have had people come back in from the old days of Killerteddy - people who then brought in others and continued to build up a brand new community. Like it or not, Elaztek and CU share DNA. They share history. You will forever and always see Elaztek mentioned over on CU, and you'll see CU mentioned on Elaztek. This is something that will always happen, and embracing it is the best way to handle it. Don't fight it, don't try to stop it or silence it, don't try to claim that I need to remove Elaztek mentions from the CU timeline page because "Elaztek isn't part of CU" - because that's the biggest load of shit I've ever heard. Don't tell me that I need to exclude the "- Removed Killerteddy" line from the update notes on Elaztek, because Elaztek isn't related to CU. I hate to break it to you, but it is. They are far more related than you realize. And, one last thing. If you're reading this and about to message me somewhere saying I bitched you out or called you out or otherwise complaining about this, just shut your damn mouth because I won't have it. These are my views. I did not call anyone out by name and I have no intention of doing so. Before you come and yell at me for writing a personal blog post, understand that I am not attacking anyone. I am simply refuting destructive and negative statements with my own views and opinions of excitement, undying motivation, and eternal passion for Elaztek, Chaotic United, Nuclear District, and every other name and brand I've picked up over the years - and the ones yet to come.

+ Added banner images for all old announcements - Removed Killerteddy

+ Added recent news to homepage - now showing all the images (or a placeholder for old topics with no image) + Added latest updates block to homepage, shows some of the more important site updates as of recently * Made new homepage blocks compatible with all themes - Removed Killerteddy