BobTheFork
Member
What happened to reading more thoroughly?
That extra text doesn't make it better.. 'we will never charge you for the game. However, because Valve said we could, we're going to do it anyways'
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Black Mesa now out in Early Access. $20.
- Thread starter ashecitism
- Start date
That extra text doesn't make it better.. 'we will never charge you for the game. However, because Valve said we could, we're going to do it anyways'
balladofwindfishes
Member
Did they pull the mod? When did they do that?
adamantypants
Member
I would say good on Valve for allowing this; but Valve is still going to be getting a cut of this and had to do literally no work on it.
soulassssns
Banned
What happened to this MOD being free?
balladofwindfishes
Member
The mod is still free. They just are now going to sell an upgraded, more polished retail version which we've known about for 2 years.
Compsiox
Banned
Well...it's Valve's IP and original game design. The graphics are updated and they're apparently only changing 15% of the game.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
Skywind btw is not even close to capture the feel, atmosphere and unique look of the Morrowind in my opinion. It's much more shiny, bright and colorful which is an absolute opposite of what Morrowind was and still is. This alone won't make me buy and try the mod. I love Morrowind more that any other Bethesda game released after it, I love it so much that I even now can tell you where to find all of the artifacts which are scattered all over the island and I can even find them with my eyes closed))))))
It will come out when it's done.
Just like every modder who creates very high quality mods.
Like I said, it's nothing more than excuse to ask money.
Please people, just read some of the thread or use google before chatting shit.
If you don't want to pay to help development the rest of this great mod, then don't. The free mod is still there to download and has been for 2 years now.
If you don't want to pay to help development the rest of this great mod, then don't. The free mod is still there to download and has been for 2 years now.
Daniel Jackson
Member
It's on my wishlist, but I'll wait until they've completed Xen - even if takes a year or longer.
If the devs somehow made every single instance of the (still free) mod disappear from the Internet, I would understand the complaints. But everything that has been offered for free until now is still free. The developers have put behind a paywall absolutely nothing that was previously available for free.
A "demo" of 85% of the game is still available for free. That's far more than enough for me to justify, eventually, purchasing the retail release of Black Mesa.
A "demo" of 85% of the game is still available for free. That's far more than enough for me to justify, eventually, purchasing the retail release of Black Mesa.
The developers have said they will be releasing an updated version of the free mod with bug fixes and stuff.
SMH. Fucking GAF.
REALLY? One of the most ambitious mod projects ever undertaken and $20 for it is too much? One of the greatest games of all time remade by people who spent almost a decade doing a labor of love, not expecting a dime, and $20 seems a bit high?
Nah. You, sir, are high.
ashecitism
Member
Watching the livestream, man, these maps look big! What is the optimal player count for these?
Saiyan-Rox
Member
Well they did it for free until now
But don't get me wrong the work they've done is brilliant and I'll be buying this too I just thought it would have been done by now at least especially since Xen is apparently the last 20% of the game?
Then maybe they should get paid too.
OrlanisWorks
Banned
What happened to reading more thoroughly?
They'll have earned every buck they get, but they're still liars.
Saiyan-Rox
Member
having a look on the steam community for this...
These people are cheap as fuck
These people are cheap as fuck
soulassssns
Banned
What exactly does upgraded and more polished mean since this MOD is by its sole purpose supposed to be an upgraded and polished version of Half Life 1.
How? The free mod is indeed still available for free with the same content as they previously mentioned, and the paid version also exists as was discussed years ago
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
If anything, they should add an option to donate them directly (via PayPal or something) to support their work if people willing to do that and that's all. Making a paywall for a mod is not an option in my opinion.
balladofwindfishes
Member
This isn't a paywall for a mod, ugh. The mod still exists, it's still going to be updated.
This is a paid retail version of a full, proper game, that happened to start its life as a mod. So many PC games had this as their origin, why is Black Mesa some weird exception that makes the devs con men?
jim-jam bongs
Member
Awesome, bought. They deserve my money for giving me the chance to play Half-Life without having to go through the awful Xen levels.
They have rewritten the A.I and rebalanced the weapons and encounters as well as replaced the weapon models and animations and added a number of new environmental models.
What game is this a mod of again? Because I don't remember having to buy a game in order to play it. Or it using any assets of another game or anything.
Daniel Jackson
Member
Have they perhaps fixed (reduced) the annoying jump-crouch moves in this Steam edition?
Yes. There was a big changelog they put out. I will try and go find it.
jim-jam bongs
Member
Man fuck Activision and their Call of Doodies, as if I'm going to pay real cash monies for a MOD of Quake 3.
OrlanisWorks
Banned
Seems like a loophole. The mod is incomplete, but the paid version will be the modification completed. I'm not mad about it or anything though. They put a lot of hard work into this whole shindig so I hope they make enough money to eventually support the possibility of them developing full-time.
cman2k said:
But this is a pretty important statement in relation to the free version. They do plan to still support the free version. So that's a pretty great thing.
ashecitism
Member
I see they put the DL link for the free mod back, for the 3rd party sites like Chip Online, moddb, Game Front and mirrors with their DL manager.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
Let's start paying fo every remake made by moders then.
None of this is justifying asking price so as the 15% of the rest and unfinished game which was promised by the team to be free at the first place. Basically what you are getting now is free version of the mod behind paywall, with a promise of future updates, multiplayer and all. Now, if you really want to buy it.... do it after they will actually finish it and not now based on the promises\ which is not a fact that will be fulfilled at all. It's Early Access btw, so treat it like any other Early Access game.
Based on the Facepunch thread linked in the OP, on top of redoing a lot of the visuals they've heavily changed a lot of the gameplay balance, and have entirely redone parts of the AI and other aspects. Though I can't say how much a difference it makes until I've played it.
Sounds interesting, as I'm curious about the specific changes they've made and how much they match with what I wanted.
Felix Lighter
Member
I will gladly pay $20 for any "mod" with this level of effort put in. I will do it at this stage. If they stopped development right now, I would still feel that their effort justified the money I spent. And, strangely, I feel even better about my purchase now that I know the prospect seems to really upset a group of people who already have free access to the product of what must be some insane number of freely donated man hours.
Robot Pants
Member
Not the same thing at all. What are you doing?
Pathfinder
Member
The reactions from some people are exactly why some people choose to get out of game development. 
jim-jam bongs
Member
What's the difference? Please explain, I'm curious.
PandaPedinte
Member
That launcher trailer was pretty good
afternoon delight
Member
One step closer to a full release
Steam has conditioned people to only pay 5 to 10 bucks for their games. People that won't pay $20 for a game likely wouldn't pay it no matter how good the game is.
I'm more than fine with a standalone overhaul mod like this having a price tag attached to it, especially one that went through the Greenlight process and already has an existing free version.
Whether I'm actually willing to pay for an incomplete mod depends on how much I feel like replaying Half-Life for the millionth time and the nature and extent of the changes made to it since I last played the free version when it first came out.
Whether I'm actually willing to pay for an incomplete mod depends on how much I feel like replaying Half-Life for the millionth time and the nature and extent of the changes made to it since I last played the free version when it first came out.
Well I found this on crouch jumping:
"Not sure about the new free version but retail now has an optional "auto crouch jump" feature. I was actually one of the team members hugely in support of crouch jumping the way it was in our mod, but the auto crouch jump has totally won me over. It's so good."
http://forums.blackmesasource.com/i...iries-about-the-mod/?postID=599432#post599432
I don't think they ever promised never to charge for their work. The free version isn't behind a paywall - you can download it now and there will be an updated version on a newer engine w/bug fixes.
What you are getting now is the last 2.5 years worth of work to update the campaign + multiplayer. As you say it's up to you whether you think that is worthwhile, but the team do have a good track record of releasing stuff eventually
Here is a summary of the changes I found on the forums:
-Some new weapon models, some of the lower res models up-res'd
-Almost entirely reanimated weapon set
-Rewritten soldier AI
-Entirely rerecorded and rewritten soldier voices
-Entirely rebalanced singleplayer (yours truly!)
-Loads of new models/props and textures to replace older, lower fidelity stuff
-Craploads of bugfixes and improvements
-Much higher game stability due to newer Source engine build and access to -engine-level fixes
-Better optimisation in places (particularly Lambda Core)
-New particle effects and sounds for many weapons
http://forums.blackmesasource.com/i...iries-about-the-mod/?postID=599162#post599162
Some information on the new A.I
"The brunt of the work has been done in skill.cfg. I spent a long time on a careful balance pass, comparing mod values to HL1 values, and adjusting to bring them closer together where I thought it would be more fun - based on my own thoughts, the team's thoughts, and community feedback. I also worked with the programmers to add in some variables for things we couldn't previously change, such as the Vortiguant charge speed, or the Marines movement speed, etc.
The most notable change is probably the Marines. Not only did our lead programmer rewrite their AI entirely, their values and behaviour were adjusted a lot too. They're no longer aimbots, but are instead much more like HL1 in that they run around a lot (and move fast), and are very good at finding angles and applying pressure on you with nades and tactics. Testers and the team seem to think they're way more fun and less frustrating to fight now, and I certainly think that too. In particular some of the tougher set pieces like the QE ambush are really fun now because there's a lot of unpredictable, run and gun action. The LAV is also tough now.
The Vorts now behave much more like their HL1 selves - they're tankier, hit much harder, but charge slower so it's much more possible to dodge their shots. They're a bit more of a challenge now. In general, the Xen aliens are tougher than before, with a few exceptions such as the Houndeyes.
Weapons wise, they've been normalised a bit - there were too many weapons which were too good and a few which were too weak. The MP5 in particular is the mainstay weapon now, as it should be. Almost everything about it has been changed and it looks, feels, and plays totally badass now. New model, animation, sound, values, particle effects, bullet casings - the works. Other weapons have been tweaked too but the MP5 is definitely the main one.
We also have a brand new recoil system which replaces the old spread system. Before, bullets would fire within x degrees inside their cone of accuracy. This was frustrating as it meant at longer ranges you could be aiming perfectly on target, but the gun would not fire straight due to spread and would miss because the game randomly decided it should. (Note: this is how spread works in the majority of shooters, Black Mesa was no exception). But now, rather than random "spread" determining where your bullets randomly land (which hurt the MP5 in particular), the guns actually recoil properly and move your aim around with each shot, forcing you to adjust your aim. This is much more realistic and fun as it means you end up actually missing because your aim goes off the target. We've struck a good balance with the recoil - full auto MP5 for example is tough to keep on target at range but it is possible, making player skill more of a factor.
These are all subject to change and we're currently still testing all of these new values and designs - but the tester and team response thus far has been really good. We're excited to get the new balance changes out there and see what the community thinks - and make further adjustments and tweaks post release."
http://forums.blackmesasource.com/i...iries-about-the-mod/?postID=599432#post599432
grandwizard
Member
Black Mesa was so good. After such a long development time the fact it ended up actually coming out and was awesome is one of my biggest gaming surprises. I hope this does well for these guys, they put in a lot of effort and were called vaporware peddlers for many years and then released a great product for free. It was high quality enough for Valve to give it their stamp and allow them to sell it, 20 bucks is a bit steep but there is a lot of game there.
The free version will have bug fixes, but won't have the new assets, the new A.I, Xen and multiplayer.