The official editing resource for all things Valve. The list is pretty much limited to Half-Life at the moment, but will more than probably branch out to Half-Life 2 as well. It's officially supported by Valve and is one of the best resources around with tutorials, active forums, resources and the latest version upgrades for Hammer, FDG files and more.

(Formerly the HL Editing center; now formerly the Valve-ERC).

These guys used to have a lot of tutorials, but now they've moved toward frequent news updates on the world of HL editing. They also have some resources worth checking out, such as information on game's dimension units and some others.

The Wavelength may have long since departed from Planethalflife.com, but the have since resurfaced on their own domain, with new content and all of their old content still intact. They've broadened their horizons to other game engines as well, but all their old tutorials for Half-Life are still intact. One of the best places for a newbie mapper to go. Their step-by-step mapping series is simply a must for anyone just now getting into WorldCraft\Hammer and Half-Life\Counter-Strike\Whatever-under-the-HL-engine editing. These are the very same tutorials that got me (ArchVile) started with Half-Life mapping. Highly recommended.

A quite amazing resource center for Half-Life designers. The site collects links to tutorials on different topics from different Half-Life sites, and by selecting a certain topic, you get a whole listing of tutorials on it. The guy who runs the site is incredibly dedicated, and the site is always neat and up to date. Simply put, if you haven't bookmarked this site, I will beat you! Most often, the answer to the questions you ask, will be answered somewhere on this site. One of the very best on the net.

Half-Life coders are in high demand. Hone your skills with special challenges, articles, and the Q/A section. [site no longer updated]

There's loads of stuff here, including my very own "Clip Tutorial" as seen here on Vlatitude, which I would hope every mapper would read at some point. Their tutorial series entitled "The Project" is a great way to start off if you're a new mapper. It comes highly recommended. Good job Crafty.

This site has a lot of tutorials on basic mapping, which can be useful to beginners. They also have many file downloads, WorldCraft resources, and more. Oh, it also has tons of information about the Firearms mod.

A very detailed and helpful site on programming for Half-Life. This guy has nice, long tutorials for beginning as well as advanced coders, and even articles on things like graphics and modeling. Very highly recommended.

Many thought that this wonderful website was gone forever. In fact, they are currently (as of this writing) working on bringing up a new and improved wadfather. A great and very complete site dealing with textures, environment maps, decals, and pretty much everything needed to make levels detailed and beautiful. They are replete with resources, links to tutorials, and thousands of public-domain downloads.

A web-based utility which allows you to upload your .map file and have a fast remote server compile it for you, then download the result. Give it a try if you have a slower computer and want to speed up your compiling process.

It wasn't gone. It simply moved to the Valve-ERC, so now it's more official. Still up and running though. Check it out if you have better things to do with your PC other than letting it compile maps for hours.

This is the homepage for the Quark (Quake Army-Knife) editor. It's an alternative for Hammer, that some Half-Life mappers will swear by. It definately has its strengths. This website will keep any Quark user up-to-date on any new versions being released as well as bring the Quark users of the world together in unity. Hopefully, you didn't take that the wrong way. They have their own official message boards too.

Another mapping site that focuses more on Counter-Strike mapping. Some basic tutorials here as well, but every Counter-Strike mapper should really keep this link handy.

A great site with great resources, from our friend Andy (lots of very good tutorials). For those of you who keep complaining that our entity barn isn't finished, check out TWHL's entity section.

A masterwork from "They Hunger" map author, Neil Manke. Some consider this to be the best user mod for Half-Life. Even if you prefer "They Hunger" this is still a fantastic mod, that no Half-Life player should die without playing.

H16 is home to one of the best team of SP game reviewers around. Their site is packed with information and links for almost every SP add-on, mod and map pack since HL was released. They're expanded to other games since, but they're still there and still providing the same quality info on the Half-Life experiance.

The largest Half-Life site there is, with loads of hosted sites and projects.

Havn't you ever just simply wanted to check out some of the new and upcoming mods, or were just looking for a new and interesting mod to kill off a few hours of your day? Well, the Mod Database is the place to go. The Mod Database is also not simply limited to Half-Life mods. Find mods from anything in between Quake 3 to Aliens vs. Predator 2. Even Duke Nukem 3D and Quake. Now you no longer have an excuse to be bored on the weekends.

Sierra's offical website for all retail versions of Half-Life, including Blue-Shift, Opposing Force and Counter-Strike. I post it because it's official. Since you probably own most of these games, there's probably not too much point, since they're mostly just asking you to buy the games. But it's there if you need it.

The team that brought you Half-Life and are about to bring you Half-Life 2. Here's their official website, for all to behold.

This is the true and official Counter-Strike website. Go here to download the latest versions of Counter-Strike and get the latest info.

Homepage for the hugely popular multiplayer mod Day of Defeat.

Love it, hate it, whatever. Here is the official Steam page. If you don't know what Steam is, you probably have no business playing Half-Life in the first place, and I suggest you go to the link to educate yourself.

Some people love it, some people hate it. I think some people are just jealous. Whatever they may think, the "They Hunger" trilogy is certianly one of the best user mods on the net for Half-Life. It's what you get when you cross "Night of the Living Dead" with Half-Life, with some amazing results. "They Hunger" is truly a great mod. C'mon, check it out.

A mod project from BB, one of our forum regulars.

Not since "They Hunger" has there been a user mod as wonderful as this. What a fantastic piece of work. In fact, Gearbox was so impressed by mod author, Marc Schröder's, work they offered him a job. What started off as a simple university project turned into one of the most fantastic and georgeous Half-Life mods to date. Do yourself a favor and take a look. You can now download it through Steam as well.

A Spanish HL/CS mapping site.

A well-written mapping site in Russian.

This is my [vlad's] favorite gaming site. It's got the latest news on both PC and console games, fresh demos, a giant patches database, objective (p)reviews, editorials, and more. It's not associated with a giant network like the planet* sites, so it has a nice individualistic aspect to it.

A 3D gaming site so complete and so up-to-date that you'll wet your pants! Excellent site. Go there.

One of the best sites on the Internet. Sardonic humor and documentation of awfulness in the gaming industry and on the Internet.

Used to be a frequently updated gaming/hardware site, but after the collapse of gamers.com it has slowed down alot. Still a pretty good site to visit, sometimes they have just what you're looking for.

One of the best and biggest gaming sites out there. If it's gaming news, you probably heard it here first.

Vlad's personal website.

A comic strip made for geeks, by a geek. Go there and see for yourself just how cute the Dustpuppy is. Unless you don't use Linux, in which case it is very, very stupid.

The most well-rounded site dealing with the best windows mp3 player.

A great web design/development resource. Javascript, Dynamic HTML, ColdFusion, PHP, tutorials, tips, and more. Definitely go there if you want to make your own webpage.

Another good web development resource. This one concentrates more on the server-side aspect, and has a lot of stuff on SQL, PHP, and the hottest new scripting languages.

A site which gives a list of prices for a specific product from different manufacturers. Very organized, and in my opinion the best place to find good prices on computer hardware. I've bought many computer parts by researching them at Pricewatch.

Brian's personal website.

A great tweaking site. Has a massive amount of tweaking options that can improve everything from your framerate in games to how fast Windows loads. A must read for anyone wanting to get more out of their system.

One of the best places to buy hardware on the net. Kabaal has ordered over 1450$ worth of stuff from them and no problems at all, a very professional business. Prices are top notch as well, usually 20-30$ lower then most other places. Highly reccomended for all your hardware needs.

A site with a massive collection of backgrounds, icons, skins, etc. All of them top quality and well worth the look. Modem users beware, because of the amount of graphics involved it might take some time to load.

I only put this on here, because no computer should be without Ad-Aware. If your computer is running slow, SpyWare may be the culprit. Update and scan for SpyWare using Ad-Aware often. As often as you do your laundry (and I hope that's more often than once a month).