I think that I’ll be crushed if ModDB doesn’t vote this the Most Consistently Unreleased Mod of All Time. But, there may be a light at the end of the pitifully dark tunnel. Apparently, Black Mesa will be released from development hell at the end of 2010. Still, it’s not hard to be a little bit cynical about the whole thing. They did say something similar back in 2009, didn’t they?
The previous release promise didn’t have anything related to sleeping pill-infused Spaghettios, however. And it’s nice to see that the developers have some sort of humor about the whole situation, by giving it titles that are criminally all capitalized, much like the one at the beginning of this article.
However, it seems like they really mean it this time. There are some development copies floating around, and some Half-Life fansites have gotten their hands on some of these. From what I’ve read, it seems polished but buggy, and could probably use the extra few months before the supposed release date to iron out the niggling issues. I’m not getting my hopes up for this just yet though. Unless the development team is kind enough to send me a preview copy, of course.
Anything less and I may need to eat some Spaghettios.
The Black Mesa site is right here. Not much in the way of news, though, since the “soon” announcement was in a forum post. The pictures are still worth a look-over, though.
I thought this story needed some clarifying.
This is a post on the official forums from developer Raminator:
“So I’ve read through all nine pages of this clusterfuck of a thread and most people still don’t really know what exactly happened here. To be fair, half of the guys on the team probably don’t really, either. Given the nature of what’s happened, I think it’s best to be as transparent and open as possible about it.
Basically, it mostly boils down to miscommunication, but I don’t know whether it was deliberate or whether it was unintentional.
Orcone asked Carlos if he could take a build of the mod to Atomic, to see if they’d be interested in writing an article about it and hosting a LAN event for it when it was released. He told Carlos that he’d be taking his own computer, that they’d only play the beginning, that the build would be secure and they wouldn’t be taking any screenshots or videos, and that I’d be accompanying him.
I can’t say for certain what he told the guys at Atomic, but for whatever reason, it obviously wasn’t the same as what he told us. I don’t think any of the criteria he outlined were met. They were obviously under the impression that Orcone was acting with the team’s authority, but to their credit they took down the screenshots as soon as I emailed them. They’ve been really understanding and we don’t bear them any ill will.
The reason we asked them to take everything down isn’t anything sinister. We’ve always kept the game’s development close to our chests in the interests of ensuring the bulk of a game is still a surprise even for those who have already played Half-Life. To have screenshots of our unfinished work splashed around the internet with careless abandon flies in the face of everything we’ve ever tried to do, particularly when we’re looking at what amounts to a screenshot every few feet. You could stitch them together and make a movie.
You can argue that this might help placate any naysayers or that any publicity is good publicity, but it’s not when it’s unwanted. We don’t care what anyone thinks, and we don’t want anyone looking over our shoulders. We just want to finish the damn game and get on with our lives, and this hasn’t helped. A lot of us on the team feel personally offended by this breach of confidence, and morale’s at an all-time low.
But, you know, this is pretty mild in comparison to some of the other stuff we’ve dealt with in the past. Sure, we’re all really pissed off right about now, but we’ve still got a mod to finish. Even if you’ve already seen half of it.”
Can I ask something? When will that hype about BM:S go away, again?
I just hope the team doesn’t get demoralized by the whole affair too much and takes the time needed to finish BM:S.
Working on a singleplayer modification of this scale makes it hard to keep any release predictions … the members of the development team are doing it on a non-paid basis and I can imagine the “real” teamsize of active people highly depends on the personal sitation of each of its developers.
Many people complain about BM:S missing its original goal to bring HL to a “modern” engine, since they regard the source engine as outdated.
Even if I’d share their opinion I don’t think it would belittle the achievement of the mod team or popularity of BM:S if they get it released some day. Take “The Nameless Mod” for example, the Deus Ex engine can’t be really called cutting-edge and still they got ModDB Editor’s Choice Best SP mod for 2009 and were pretty high up in the player’s choice as well.
Creating high-quality SP Mods you can’t play through in less than say 4 hours with a team of volunteers surely is no piece of cake…
Keep it up, BM:S team! :)
DrGonzo: Thanks for clearing that up. I figured that the screenshots weren’t legitimately obtained, so for the purposes of this article I used ones from the actual Black Mesa website. It seems that I made the right decision on that one. The pictures themselves are still out there, albeit not hosted on Atomic’s website, which makes it a little callous on the hoster’s part to have the images still up.
Still, I empathize with the developers, and hope that they continue with their project.
bekey: The hype will continue until it’s either canceled or released. And, if Duke Nukem Forever is any indication, the former probably doesn’t count.
s87: I disagree so much on the opinion that Source is outdated. So, so much.
Tyler Jinks: I think you misunderstood me. What I was saying was that even “if I WOULD” think the Source engine is outdated … ;)
I know, I was just mentioning it in general. You cannot count the number of times I’ve seen something similar to “Source! Ha, get a real engine for real people to do real stuff with!”. Doesn’t stop stunning mods coming out for it.
A lot of the larger scale source mods seem to die before nearing completion. Will be good to see one finally released, don’t care how long it takes.
If it’s worth doing it’s worth doing right. I wouldn’t even mind waiting another year (or two) as long as I can rest easy knowing that it will be released eventually. The only negative outcome possible in this scenario is a cancellation.
@ Tyler
I completely agree about Source. I seem to be in the minority that’s think Left4Dead 2 looks far better than Gears of War. The detail on the characters and environments are gorgeous, and seem to give a realistic look that other engine’s lack. Unreal Engine is quite plasticy imo.
Hi!
Very interesting name by the forum usercreated.org
Here there’s nothing to be done.