That's b*llsh*t. Poor kid.

What a bunch of crap... It would've been nice if they went about this civilly instead of just freaking out like a bunch of babies.

That's insane ... Should I be arrested for building a HL2 map of my office building? Its just fun to run around in a familiar setting, sometimes.

Absolutely, insane ...

Twenty-two years ago?
Sheesh.
How old are you, Fahey?

Wow... We used to do this with the Marathon map editor on the macs at school back in the day. I thought everyone did this.

Better on the SAFE side rather than on the SORRY side.

Ridiculous!! I can't believe what this sad little world is coming to. They might as well arrest every game developer out there, then. I'm sure most of their map architecture is inspired/similar by various buildings.

"OH GOD! THIS KID MADE A WAREHOUSE MAP THAT IS IDENTICAL TO MY WAREHOUSE! I THINK HE WANTS TO KILL ME GUYZ!"

"We want this kid dead or alive! GO! GO! GO!!"

This kind of thing is probably the kind of reaction that constantly linking computer games to murders causes.

I'm sure 90%+ of people who've ever used a map editor have tried to model actual places that they frequent in real life.

This is lame cause sometimes real life would make COOL multiplayer levels!

First, this is absolutely crazy! I'm suprised that the police didn't shoot him the moment they broke in. It seems to be the only thing they didn't do!

Second, it isn't exactly that smart to make a map of a school for a game that everyone thinks is more like Postal 2 than S.W.A.T. 2 when a mass-murder was just comitted in it.

Funny thing would be if he made the map before the incident or if he made it so he could play counter and try to save the hostages (which does sound a bit likely to me).

My high school had a blue-print right on the back of the student handbook (so new students could find their way around) which we used during CAD class to build a map for Doom using WADED for extra credit.

Old school map-making FTW! :)

@ARPRINCE: You have to be kidding? I've spent countless hours planning maps of places I worked at because I was bored. I've never actualyl created them because i'm too lazy.

What they needed to do is check the history of the kid and, as Fahey said, talk to him.

What they did is by the book american paranoia.

Wow what a joke this is. It's probably a great map too!

Think about it...it's the perfect map for a Counter-strike type scenario. I think they may have been a little too jumpy with this one.

Unfortunately, in the wake of the VT shootings, I bet the fact that the kid was Asian had something to do with how harshly they acted against him.

For shame. Racial profiling at its worst.

@ARPRINCE: Lets go with the safe side and just put everyone in America under constant surveillance so we're sure no one's doing anything illegal. You need to sacrifice some security to maintain your freedoms.

JT must be happy, that's what you get when you go on a witch hunt like that..

DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS, YA RICE EATIN' SLANT EYES! YEEEEEEEE-HAW!
*BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!*
GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE GREATEST PRES'NIT EVER! KILL THEM THAR TERRAHISTS! KILL 'EM ALL! NUKE 'EM!

...God damnit, I hate everything Texas stands for..

Counterstrike is all about STOPPING TERRORISTS. Sure, some people have to BE terrorists first...

It's not like the game is running around shooting classmates.

When my brother was in 6th grade, he was assigned to write a scary story for Halloween, which would be read in front of the class. Everyone else did ghosts, murders... Whatever.

My brother, being of a fine literary stock, chose to write a story from the point of view of one of the last men to survive some apocalypse. The character said how he has come to terms with the end of the human race, and how at this point he wasn't afraid of death, and would welcome it to end the nightmare of watching our species circle the cosmic drain.

Keep in mind, my brother has always been a very happy, social, and well adjusted individual. He was a good student, on great terms with the teachers and faculty. My siblings just happen to possess an uncanny ability for writing.

The class applauded his story, but the teacher called the police. No shit, she called the cops. She also made copies of his story, and distributed it to ALL the teachers in the DISTRICT, with an attatched note that said "Watch out for this distrubed young man. I feel that he is a danger to himself and others."

This was a few months after Columbine, so apparently she thought (even though she had him in her class the year before) that he was a psycho that needed to be locked up.

The cops came, took a report, laughed at her, and left. But my brother had to go talk to counselor after counselor, and had to assure them that he was not homicidal or suicidal, and that the only thing in his life making him feel disgruntled is being treated like a criminal for writing a paper that was to good.

Long story short, the teacher is still there, but requested my brother be transfered out of her class. He ended up getting the story published in a national collection of short stories for middle schoolers. And we all lived happily ever after.

/or did we?
//Buh bum BUMMMM!!!

Wow. People are getting a bit jumpy because of the recent incident..

Though, I have to say, swords aren't too far fetched. A girl in Gary, Indiana (woo, my state) brought a flail (morning star type) to school and attacked another student with it..

Welcome to Post-9/11 panic-attack America. Enjoy your stay, or the terrorists will win.

What ever happened to the First Amendment?

We can all assume what this kid did is similar to to that kid in class that everyone has delt with. That sort of kid that draws machine guns on a bomber plane blowing up the teacher's head and passes it around for laughs.
It's sad to see what the world has come to, but I see this as a reason for concern. If most certainly, the kid has/had no malicious intent in creating the map, I'm quite certain he'll be cleared of charges and life will go back to operating normally.
When it comes to this sort of cause for concern, where DO we draw the line?

Can you say "Thought Crime" boys and girls?

This will hopefully get thrown out if a home made game level is all they had to go on.

@MrFap-Fap
You've obviously never actually been to Texas, have you?

Bring on the new witch hunt. You don't even have to be a witch anymore.

wonder what they'll pick on irrationally after video games are accepted.

I drew a Goldeneye themed "comic" of a FPS view killing some teachers and blowing up the school for an art class in high school. There was no mistaking who the teachers were, either. Honestly, it was pretty gory and violent. I handed it in though and got a very good grade because it was drawn well and how the characters died was creative. After my art class was done for the year Columbine happened. The next year at school, my art teacher from when I drew the comic took me aside in the hall way and asked me about it. My response was "Are you fucking crazy? It was just a drawing." Am I mad she asked me about it? Kind of. Did she go telling everyone or suspend me or anything? No, she just talked to me. This story is insanity. That kid has to be like "WTF is wrong with YOU people." I think I'd be more afraid of a kid who recreates candyland or something in counterstrike and then shoots people all over it.

Geez, at work they actually asked me to TRY and make an unreal level based on the office. I think it was more about playing in a real environment then attempting to simulate anything.

Sheesh, the first Doom map I created was based off my high school. Why? It was architecture and a layout I was familiar with. Rooms, open spaces, stairs, lots of basics to work with.

I didn't have to spend time thinking up some new location and work it out; I could devote my time to learning how to make the map.

Oh, not only did he have swords, he had a hammer in his room. A HAMMER! ...apparently his bed wasn't the most stable...

where does it say it was a Counterstrike Map? I cant find any info anywhere as to what game it was ...source please

JT in 3,2,1...

@ARPRINCE: Better on the SAFE side rather than on the SORRY side.

Personally, I'd rather be on the "sorry" side than the "ridiculous oppressive police state" side.

@ARPRINCE:

Making a "map" of a place you're already intimately familiar with and equating that, even on a superficial level, with intent to commit actual violence, is a tremendous leap of logic.

Mundane acts (making a map of a known space) that "can be" precursors to abnormal behavior are not necessarily so... especially when they are, in most cases, actually just precursors to other mundane acts (playing videogames).

You might as well ban people from getting in cars because someone played chicken once.

I have a better idea... how about we try to spot the actual "abnormal behavior" instead of picking apart details that crazy people SHARE with sane people.

That isn't to say the kid definitely did not intend to do harm... but I hardly think his ability to make a map should be the "tell" that society looks for.

Holy crap. You mean everyone doesn't make CS/Unreal/whatever maps of their schools? I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a regular CS player who hasn't played in a 'real life' setting.

Sure he'll be proven innocent (we hope...) and everything will go back to normal, but that isn't the point. The point is that it happened and will thus happen again, and maybe someday everyone who makes maps of schools or offices will be under suspicion, you know?

welcome in the united states of america. the home of democracy and freedom.... NOT!

@mrdrmuffin:
No, I have.
...and I don't ever intend to return there, with any luck.

I say we all protest by making maps of all of our schools and offices.

@MJDeviant:

"...I'd be more afraid of a kid who recreates candyland or something in counterstrike and then shoots people all over it."

You know, that map exists for Enemy Territory. There is also a Shoots and Ladders map.

I know there is a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Christmas map for CS:S where you can shoot the heads off claymation snowmen to stop them from singing "Have a holly, jolly Christmas."

Making a counter-strike (or whatever) map of your school to play on with your friends is totally awesome.

@PapaBear:

I like that ending.

@Volante3192:

Yeah, I was going to make the same point that friends of mine wanted to build a CS map based on our campus. We of course had no malicious intent, it was just that we'd become so intimately familiar with the layout that we knew where and what places might make good set pieces for firefights.

Poor kid, really. But the really sad thing is that there are people in this country will see this as the right thing being done.

My friend and I made an Unreal map of a corner of our campus. It lasted about two rounds before it lost its novelty and we got bored with it. I don't see what could possibly be wrong with that. People seriously need to stop looking for scapegoats and admit that there seriously is something wrong with the way this country raises kids.

I made a DOOM map of my highschool back in the mid 90's when I was in school. I didn't do it to 'train myself'. I did it because it was MY High School...the centerpoint of my life at the time...and I thought it would be cool to bring that experience into my game. And shoot demons in the hallways. And hide shotguns in my locker. I just thought it would be a cool place to run around in...had a good layout for a level.

Nothing to do with real world violence.

@Mr.Fap-Fap

Please tell me you're not completely unaware of the irony of what you're saying. I hope you're not being serious about "hating everything Texas stands for."

FACT: A elementary school councilor once contacted my parents because my teacher had found violent ninja pictures in my desk! Oh noes! Ninjas! Being... violent?! She told my dad that I might grow up to be a serial killer. My dad, who has a background in psychology, proceeded to dismantle everything she did or didn't do to come to this conclusion.

Well, I teach college calculus now. I wonder if my students know what's coming towards them? I mean, drawing ninjas in elementary school = serial killer. I guess I've just taken my time in getting to that second part.

@Jesse7150: Teledildonics. "They're ruining society faster than gay marriage!"

@ninjafetus:

It's always the quiet ones that snap the loudest...

I was about to make a comment about wanting to make a map for a first-person shooter of my school, but I think other people clinched the logic I was going to drive towards: that the overriding rationale isn't one of homicidal mania but merely one of extreme familiarity - you spend enough time being told what to do in the event of various emergencies (fire drill, accidents in the chemistry lab) and you're familiar enough with the area that you subconsciously start planning for the less "predictable" scenarios (gunfight, raptor attack, alien invasion) and those plans happen to translate well into the world of the first-person shooter.

Why is anyone surprised? Forgetting that there are smart individuals, PEOPLE as in the masses, are RETARDED. Look at Columbine. What happened? People went ape shit and blamed KMFDM and Marilyn Manson. Did anyone go after the people who physically and psychologically abused the shooters to the point where they had a psychotic break? No. Did anyone go after the school or the parents for not getting these kids counseling? No. Did anyone try to stop the physical and psychological abuse those kids got before they went on a killing spree? No. Why? Because in the US the news is another form of entertainment, and in our entertainment we need a villain, and we need one right away. And the media always has their usual suspects - music and video games.

People don't want an intelligent discussion about the roots of violence. Its the same with drugs and sex. The "just say no" and sweep it all under the rug and never deal with it head on mentality. Kids are a lot smarter than that. They live their lives as they see fit. They indulge their interests and see no reason not too. They haven't yet been disillusioned by a world full of people that would would rather serve their own interests than the greater good. They haven't had the joy of being unable to live the life they want because they're forced to work unpaid overtime all the time, but has no tolerance for lateness. So when the "too soon" blockheads see some kid making a map of their school for a game they immediately project their own biased viewpoint onto the kid rather than seeing this for what it is - a familiar gameplay environment based on terrain the kid knows by heart. Its not a value judgment on the school. What better map to play on than one you know like the back of your hand?

So now this kid can't go to his own graduation. Meanwhile these keystone cops will probably get a medal and continue to be a drain on taxpayer resources, rather than staffing the fry station at McDonald's where they belong.

BTW, sorry for my crappy spelling & grammar mistakes in there. At least I didn't write "terroristic threat".

My question is, what about the REST of the kids who were earnestly playing with this kid? Were they punished too? I mean, technically, they were accessories to the "crime".

Some of you are getting "idiots" confused with "freedom of thought".

I seriously laughed at this, and I'm usually a very humorless person when it comes to things like this...

Breaking News:
THREAT TO PUBLIC POOLS AVERTED

Creator of Counter Strike map "fy_poolday" was arrested moments ago on the count of suspected plans to shoot up a local public pool facility. They found a knife in his possession at the time of arrest, but he claims he was "peeling a apple". The apple was taken in for questioning. More at 6!