Though I always thought I'd never give out this news (and have always claimed that Starlabs would be completed), now I know that I was wrong in thinking this wouldn't happen as well as claiming it. Regardless, I'm afraid I have to announce that Starlabs has been cancelled.

Why, will probably be on the minds of a lot of people who regularly visit this website.

The simple reason is that due to problems in real life, I no longer have the time but more importantly, the lust or motivation to work on Starlabs. Asides this, various members of the team have been very busy with real life events as well and while these developments are for the better for most of the team members, cancelling this mod is still a sad event for all of us.

I must admit that I've tinkered with the thought of putting Starlabs on hold, I reckon it would simply be unfair to both the team and the people awaiting the mod as I really don't have a clue when my time, lust and motivation will return and the real life events responsible for these problems, will dissipate. Therefor, I've decided to cancel Starlabs instead of putting it on hold.

But what does this mean for the contents that have already been created for Starlabs? Well, I'm planning on putting all Starlabs maps made so far (whether they're completed or not) in a sort of demo reel. Completing the mod would be far too time consuming (especially when you don't have the lust or motivation), but showing off what has been made so far should be relatively easy to do. I don't know when I'll have such a demo reel completed (as I'm not rushing it), but I hope that such a demo reel will at least satisfy the tastes of some people who've been waiting for Starlabs material.

A second release that I'm planning should be part of the mod Reissues. I'm planning on including a part of the most completed Starlabs chapter as a playable contribution so that all people who want to get a taste of some Starlabs action, should get it in the form of one (partial) chapter. (Six chapters were planned.) The chapter in question is Chapter 4: "Satellite Trouble".

And what about any other Starlabs material? In regards of mapping, no RMF files shall be released. The same counts for any voice acting or documentation; none shall be released. Asides these materials, it's up to individual team members to decide what they will do with the materials they've created.

Lastly, it's understandable that a lot of people will want to make their voice heard and they're free to do so on the Starlabs boards. Everybody's free to express their opinion as long as, of course, these opinions are made clear in a constructive manner.

Ending this newspost I'd like to thank everybody who's expressed their interest in Starlabs and to everyone who's contributed to it. Both in regards of thoughts and services, as well as constructive feedback. I've learned a lot in these three (and a half) years of development - more than I could ever learn at college - and that's more then enough to have made this worth my effort, even if it never got finished!

Regards,
- SEThorian

Very minor update: Within two weeks there shall be a news post explaining the long "January break". In the meanwhile, rest assured that the extended break involved an epic quest with giant troll statues, a trusty friend called Glamdring, a company of fifteen and the eventual slaying of a dragon.

Actually it didn't, but at least that made this newspost a wee bit more interesting...

As you may notice there has been no October / November media update nor has there been any news posts lately, for that matter.

Real Life (T/M) has snuck up on most of the Starlabs team, giving us very little if none time to work on the project. Therefor all progress on the mod has been halted until at least January 2006. This should allow to give most of the team a bit of a breather and a break which will, eventually and hopefully, be for the best.

As may be obvious, Starlabs is currently on a "it's done when it's done" status and we won't be rushing to beat whatever Half-Life 2 mod that comes around.

However, to keep the Half-Life 1 folks out there eager for something new to play happy, I'll hand out two links below.

First give link is to a Half-Life 1 Single-Player mod called Black Ops. It's a high-quality release reminicent of Poke646. It can be found at Planet Phillip.

The second link is to another Half-Life 1 Single-Player mod which is called Times of Troubles. Though in a very different style as BlackOps I did find it to be very enjoyable. Just like BlackOps it received very little media attention, hence why I'm linking to it. Times of Troubles can be found at the official Times of Troubles website.

I hope this'll keep some of you folks busy.. ;)

'Tis a sad day today. Shall we remember the one's who've fallen in the heat of battle, those who, after years of trusty service, have felt the need to abandon me. Shall we mourn for the curved 14" replacements whose resolution does not surpass 800x600. The monitor shall also give us eyeache, as the refreshrates and curvitures drive me insane.

Bah, my monitor's given up after a couragous two-week battle! I don't care what it costs, I'm getting a replacement, as soon as possible.. (Edit: Heh, easier said than done.)

Progress? Figure yourself.. Ugh.. The computergods do not favor me, lately.

Finally, here's another news post!

To be frank, development has been tragically slow last few weeks due to various reasons and a few Starlabs team members will be leaving the team due to time constraints.

It appears that this time of the year puts a lot of a stress on everyone which is in great contradiction with the great progress that we've seen during the summer. (Which, I should add, you people still haven't seen any screenshots from. Sorry about that, I'll make it up next month.)

I won't be announcing the losses just yet as one or two are still rather unsure. I'll also be trying to find replacements as soon as possible but I won't be making any garuantees.

Lastly, in previous newsposts I reported the dying of my harddrive. Thankfully, the dying harddrive has by now been replaced by the earlier mentioned new Maxtor 200GB disk which works like a charm so far. (Let's keep it that way!) Of course, now my monitor has felt the need to start dying on me, so that won't be a cheap replacement either. It's still functioning properly enough to use it (with the condition that the user doesn't suffer from epilepsia) though if it'll break down before Christmas, then I'll be doomed with a 14" replacement. (Quite a shock, especially if you're used to 17"!) I can only hope that not all of the older components in my machine start dying, as I really don't have any money to replace a motherboard or CPU.

With that last joyious message I'll leave you for now, hoping that my next update (expected in the first two weeks of November) will contain something more promising...