After some pretty significant (and super secretive) web development, we're proud to launch our brand new website layout!

Almost every page on the website has been cleaned up, and the entire layout has been completely redesigned from scratch.

Everything has been designed to be simple, crisp, and direct, all while staying with the signature blue GMod Tower motif.

As always, we welcome comments, questions, and concerns about the new design. So go ahead and drop by our forums and leave us a comment!

Took a bit of effort from both me and Nican (he handled the inventory part), however the profile viewer has gotten to a point where I feel it's safe to publicly release.

What this does is display all the readable information we have on GMT users based on their Steam ID. You'll be able to get their GMC, hours spent, and even graphically view their current inventory items.

I also implemented Steam's XML community feed. Thanks to Valve (and VoiDeD for asking them) for <inGameServerIP>, I was able to make a simple check to see which gamemode the user is in if they are playing GMT.

To view your profile you can either visit http://www.gmodtower.org/index.php?p=profile and we'll try to get your Steam ID from your IP.

If that doesn't seem to work for you - just simply place your Steam ID (or any Steam ID, for that matter) into the "si" field. Example: http://www.gmodtower.org/index.php?p=profile&si=STEAM_0:1:18712009

I'm still developing this feature so let me know if you find any errors. And please feel free to leave suggestions to help improve this.

Example Profile:

I'm changing the way the website news are handled. I've developed a system where the news will now feed from the forums. I'm going to be reposting only the most recent news articles. The rest will remain gone forever (they are old anyways). If you have any links to our news articles, you need to update them to match the forum post now and for future reference.

The BBCode part of the system is still being developed, so expect some odd tags to appear on the forums, but work perfectly on the website.

All comments on the news will now be handled within the forum.

As for the forums themselves, expect to see some changes. I'm going to be hiding forums, moving threads, and generally cleaning up things.

I'll keep you posted on any more progress through our Twitter.

A brand new year, a fresh news post. Hard to believe that the last news post was quite a while ago in '09, but fear not, as work continues on the tower.

We'll start with the hard truth: development has been slow. Excruciatingly slow. Behind the scenes, the remainder of our current development team has become less and less committed to the tower due to other personal commitments.

This realization has left the rest of us caught in a hard spot. With less technical manpower available, our remaining members have been forced to make due with learning skills outside their area of expertise.

Due to this, we are now looking for more team applicants than before. Primarily, we are looking for proficient Lua developers who are skilled at writing clean, efficient, and well documented gamemodes in a team oriented environment. Regular communication is a must. If you're interested, please post in the Job Applications forum.

But despite the setbacks, work continues. We have made promises, and we will come through with them. We have announced multiple gamemodes, and we will complete them.

In our last post, we announced the upcoming Stealth gamemode. But this is where another hard reality comes in. Due to pressing manpower constraints, we have temporarily put the development on hold. This isn't to say it will never be finished, but it just isn't our main priority for the time being.

Our development team has been spread thin, and it would be unrealistic to be able to develop two gamemodes at once.

The other upcoming gamemode, Source Karts, is slowly but steadily progressing forward. This gamemode is currently our top priority at this time. The gamemode base itself is very close to completion, with only a few features left to finish. The content side is also progressing, but has a considerable distance to go before release.

As far as the tower is concerned, updates are far more frequent. While the change log hasn't been updated in quite a while, there are still changes. New features and additions are being added, and even more are being planned.

To end this update on a good note, we're going to be making an effort to update more often. To this end, we'll be making more use of our Twitter feed, and we will update our change log on a regular basis.

As one last note, back in late August, our servers were sponsored by XenonServers. They have been generous enough to pay for them since then, so we invite you to check out their dedicated server packages.

It's been awhile since I've been able to post on our website. Sorry for the delay in getting the site back up in running. We moved the web server to a private server to help with resources. Took a bit longer than expected. I'm still moving things around a bit.

Sunabouzu, one of our core team members, has decided to leave the project. He's busy working on a Source mod of his own and has decided to focus all his effort on that alone.

Unreal has added a few new features to the tower and continues to work on the project. His most recent feature is the voice group talk. If you start a group - anyone in that group can voice chat to each other in-game. This allows for a better handling of voice and can connect many friends together. Of course voice is still enabled across the entire server for gamemodes.

Nican and Unreal got Source Karts to a good standing point. The kart controls are setup and the lap system works just as it should. We've also polished two maps and have been getting the rest to a playable state. I'll update you more on Source Karts later on.

Unreal and I have been working on getting the Stealth gamemode together. We recently decided on the gameplay mechanics. Stealth is based on both team work and cleverness. There's two teams, MERCs and Stealth. MERCs are equipped with plenty of firepower, communication devices, and other types of tracking units. Stealth are equipped with a few gadgets (nothing entirely lethal) and can climb into vents, boxes, and hide in the darkness. Stealth also can snap players' necks from behind to get rid of MERCs without being spotted or heard.

The Stealth's main goal is to complete the mission given to you. However, there's a catch. In order to know what mission you are on, you must complete the sub-mission. The sub-missions are randomly chosen and require you to either get intel, disable security systems, hack computers, etc.. Missions can vary from assassinating a VIP, stealing an item, or even taking pictures of secret MERC equipment.

For MERCs, your main goal is to protect the mission from the Stealth team. You can also complete a sub-mission to get more info on the Stealth's position on their missions.

Within Stealth you can also find all sorts of pickups around such as a radar device (for MERCs), silenced pistols (for Stealth).

We'll have more info as we work on the Stealth gamemode in the up coming weeks.

As for the tower, I have a few updates planned. Modern furniture pack, a few new hats, workable suite items (such as lamps, clocks, etc.), a few suite changes, and of course the outside server (with the pool). I'll be working on those updates along with build003 this month.

We also do have an update planned for this holiday. We'll be redecorating the tower map and be offering a few new hats and items such as presents and trees. We'll keep you posted on the update as we continue to develop them.