What an immensely interesting read this thread is
. I spent quite some time reading everyone's stories, and I must say Stormy, you're story was a damn good read.
For me, I always tinkered with games, config files and the sorts, but never made anything productive or even marginally interesting. I remember the actual mapping modding started at LANs with friends. Pooping out aim style maps for CS:S to play, which after the LAN would always disappear into oblivion.
After that I delved into mapping and found interlopers through a google search for tutorials. Not long after that I joined the community, and man, what a source
(hehe, see what I did there?) of knowledge it was (and is).
I remember when I was about 15/16 I was completely obsessed and 'wanted to do stuff with games'. I went from mod team to mod team. There was a jurrasic park styled mod, some generic horror mods, and even MB's FieldZone. Anyway, most of the mods either died, or I left the teams because school got busy or stuff like partying, booze and girls got more interesting than mapping. After school I joined the air force for a short while (two years) and life got real busy at that stage. I didn't touch hammer or any other mod tool at all in that time, I even rarely had time to visit interlopers.
I still open up Hammer from time to time, fiddling around, making some scenes. But I rarely ever finish anything. Right now I'm so busy with work, my own place and living together with my girlfriend that I wouldn't even know how to free up time to do that stuff anymore.
Anyway, I love the community, the people and everything else here and I've found the general discussion board to be a great place to lurk & live. Keep it up guys!